t 
 
 I 4 ^ J 5 i -» 
 
 

 
 
 DICTIONARY 
 
 SCIENCE, LITERATURE, AND ART: 
 
 COMPRISING THE 
 
 HISTORY, DESCRIPTION, AND SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES 
 
 OF EVERT BRANCH OF 
 
 Human 2Liuotole*se; 
 
 TIIE DERIVATION AND DEFINITION OF ALL THE TERMS IN GENERAL USE, 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 W. T. BRANDE, F.R.S.L. & E., 
 
 ©f ?Qcr JftafcstB's JHhxt; 
 
 PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN THE ROYAL INSTITUTION OF GREAT BRITAIN ; 
 PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY AND MATERIA MEDICA TO THE APOTHECARIES' COMPANY ; 
 
 ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 Assisted by * 
 
 JOSEPH CAUVIN, ESQ. 
 
 THE VARIOUS DEPARTMENTS BY EMINENT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC GENTLEMEN. 
 ILLUSTRATED BY NUMEROUS ENGRAVINGS ON WOOD. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 
 PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-STREET. 
 
 18 43.
 
 »»v > 
 
 ♦^ 
 
 ,X*U\ \ * 
 
 List of the principal Authors of the work, with the departments for which they are re- 
 spectively responsible. 
 
 General Editor, 
 
 W. T. BRANDE, F.R.S.L. & R, 
 
 Of Her Majesty's Mint ; Professor of Chemistry in the Royal Institution of Great Britain ; Prof, of Chemistry and Materia 
 Medica to the Apothecaries' Company, &c. 
 
 Assisted by JOSEPH CAUVIN, Esq. 
 
 1. Architecture, Music, and the Fine Arts .... Joseph Gwilt, F.SA. & F.R.A.S. 
 
 C J. Lindley, Ph.D.F.R.S.L.S., &c , 
 
 2. BOTANY S Professor of Botany in University College, and in the 
 
 ( Royal Institution. 
 
 3. Chemistry, Geology, Mineralogy, Medicine, and the \ 
 
 Arts and Sciences depending on Chemical Princi- > W. T. Brande, Esq. (Editor.) 
 ples 1 
 
 4. Gardening and Agriculture J. C. Loudon, F.L S.H.S., &c. 
 
 i= t w \ Herman Merivale, A.M., 
 
 I Late Fellow of Baliol College. 
 
 „ r , T ( J. R. M'Culloch, Esq., and 
 
 8. General Literature < T ' v ' 
 
 \ Joseph Cauvin, L,sq. 
 
 7. Mathematics, and the Arts and Sciences depending ) ^ ~ ,, . „ n „ 
 
 , r „ > lnos. Galloway. M.A.r.K.S. 
 
 on Mathematical Principles I 
 
 3. Nautical Science Lieutenant Raper, R.N., &c. 
 
 9. Political Economy and Statistics J. R. M'Culloch, Esq. 
 
 10. Theology The Rev. Chas. Merivale, MA. 
 
 11. Zoology, Anatomy, and Physiology Richard Owen, F.R.S., &c.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The advantages of Encyclopaedias are now so universally acknowledged, that 
 it would be wholly superfluous to endeavour to recommend the present work 
 by dwelling on their peculiar merits. But though the utility of such works be 
 no longer in dispute, it may, notwithstanding, be reasonably supposed that at a 
 period when so many voluminous Encyclopaedias and special Dictionaries have 
 recently issued, and are still daily issuing from the press, this department of lit- 
 erature must be fully occupied, and that there can be no well-founded call for 
 any farther addition to the number. 
 
 It will be found, however, on a little consideration, that this is by no means 
 the case. By far the greater number, or, rather, perhaps we might say, all the 
 Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries of modern times, are either too voluminous or 
 too special for ready reference and general use. The Encyclopedic Frangaise, 
 Rees's Cyclopaedia, the Encyclopcedia Britannica, the Encyclopcedia Metropol- 
 itana, and the Penny Cyclopcedia, are all works of vast extent, comprising many 
 volumes, and embracing an infinite variety of articles, or rather treatises, w r hich, 
 if published separately, would each make a considerable work. Now it is ob- 
 vious that such voluminous publications, whatever may be their merits in other 
 respects, want that facility of reference and precision of statement which ought 
 to be the distinguishing features of a useful Dictionary. No man can carry 
 about with him any of the great modem Encyclopaedias ; while the extensive 
 plan on which they are compiled renders them at once far too expensive for 
 general circulation, and wholly unsuitable for ready consultation. The supply, 
 indeed, of that concise and authentic information on the various subjects of sci- 
 ence, literature, and art, which a book of reference should furnish with the ut- 
 most facility to all classes of readers, has been but a secondary object with the 
 compilers of our great Encyclopaedias ; and though it had been otherwise, the 
 length, theoretical character, and frequent obscurity of the articles in such works, 
 must have effectually precluded their ever being used for mere purposes of ref- 
 erence. They are valuable as substitutes for libraries, as repositories of the 
 various knowledge connected with the different departments of which they treat ; 
 and being so, they cannot be convenient manuals. 
 
 Special Dictionaries, on the other hand, though they may exhaust some one 
 branch or department of science, literature, or art, and be invaluable to those 
 engaged in its cultivation, and to those who wish to become acquainted with its 
 details, are not intended to supply information on other branches. A work, 
 therefore, like that now r offered to the public, possessing the comprehensive char- 
 acter of a general Encyclopaedia without its amplitude, and affording in a conve- 
 nient form an abstract of the principles of every branch of knowledge, and a 
 definition and explanation of the various terms in science, literature, and art 
 which occur in reading and conversation, appears to be still wanting. 
 
 May we hope that this desideratum, which has been long felt to exist in en- 
 cyclopedical literature, has been at length supplied ? Such, at least, will be the 
 ease, should the present work answer the expectations of its authors and pub- 
 lishers. They have endeavoured to produce a condensed and compendious 
 Dictionary, of a convenient size, and adapted to the wants and means of all 
 classes, that may be advantageously used as a manual or reference-book in ev-
 
 i v PREFACE. 
 
 ery department of science, literature, and art ; and they flatter themselves that, 
 by rejecting all discussion and details not indispensable to the proper elucidation 
 of the different topics, the work will be found, notwithstanding its comparatively 
 narrow limits, to furnish, in the readiest possible manner, precise and accurate 
 information on the all but infinite variety of subjects which it embraces. Great 
 pains have been taken to make the definitions and explanations correct, clear, 
 and concise. The principles of the most popular and important departments 
 of science, literature, and art, are also distinctly, though briefly explained ; and 
 notices are given of their rise, progress, and present state. 
 
 Neither must it be supposed that because these articles are for the most part 
 brief and compendious, they are either flimsy or superficial. On the contrary, 
 they have been compiled throughout with the greatest care. Popularity has 
 not been sought for at the expense of science, nor brevity by the sacrifice of 
 useful facts or appropriate illustrations. The work contains not a few new and 
 original views ; and it is confidently believed that in every department it will 
 be found to imbody the latest information, and to be on a level with the most 
 advanced state to which knowledge has attained, not merely in this, but also in 
 other countries. No statement has been made as to any unusual or doubtful 
 matter, without referring to the authority whence it has been derived ; and when 
 subjects of general interest and importance are noticed, the reader is referred 
 to the works relating to them in which they are handled with the greatest ability. 
 Not only, therefore, will those who may consult this work have a guarantee for 
 the authenticity of it's information, but they will learn the sources to which they 
 may resort with the greatest advantage, should they wish to make farther in- 
 quiries. 
 
 Such, in a few words, is the design of this work ; and unless its publishers 
 be greatly deceived as to its execution, it can hardly fail to be useful to individ- 
 uals of all ranks and conditions : to the man of business and the man of pleasure, 
 the student and the superficial reader, the busy and the idle. Every one who 
 takes any share in conversation, or who dips, how cursorily soever, into any 
 newspaper or other publication, will every now and then find the advantage of 
 having access to the Dictionary op Science, Literature, and Art. 
 
 In finally submitting the work to the judgment of the public, the publishers 
 may, perhaps, be allowed to say that they have left no means untried that ap- 
 peared likely to ensure the accuracy and excellence of the work. It was dis- 
 tributed into divisions or departments, each embracing a single subject, or a class 
 of closely-allied subjects ; and these were respectively assigned to gentlemen 
 distinguished by their attention to, and proficiency in, the topics to be treated of* 
 This seemed to be the most likely means to avoid mere compilation, to ensure 
 accuracy and adequate information, and to make the work not only a compre- 
 hensive and correct, but in some measure also an original, digest and synopsis 
 of human knowledge.
 
 DICTIONARY 
 
 OF 
 
 SCIENCE, LITERATURE, AND ART. 
 
 x\.. The first letter of the Alphabet, in ;ill known lan- 
 guages, with the exception of the Amaric, a dialed of the 
 Ethiopian, in which ii is the 13th, and of the Runic, in 
 which it is the 10th. It was called Alpha b) thi Greeks, 
 and AUph by the Hebrews, 
 
 ABACI'SCOS («e« Abacus). In Architecture, any flat 
 member. The square compartmenl of a mosaic pavement 
 
 ABA'CK, in sea language, d tea the position ol tl 
 
 when flatted against the mast by the force of the wind. Tins 
 in. 1 j b "i ii"' wind, 01 an 
 
 alteration of the ship's course; or the sail- m 
 /mi 1, for the purpose of avoiding some imminent dan 
 
 A'BACOT. A cap of state worn b) the old English 
 
 A'BACUS. {Gr. a6a\, a slab.) In Architecture, thi up 
 jM-r part nr crowning member "i the 1 ipil tl ol a column. 
 This member alone seems to have constituted the primitive 
 capital, li is an essential ami constituent part "i the capi- 
 tal. In the 'in- , pin ic, ami [onic ordi rs it is 
 
 a 1 id in the Corinthian and composite curved inwards on its 
 plane and truncated al the quoins or angles at 15 d 
 with Ha 1 face ol the entablature, The use of the abacus 
 is to give breadth to the top of the column, and present a 
 larger surface of level bed for the reception of the archi- 
 trave. 
 
 Abacus. An ancient instrument used for assisting nu- 
 merical calculations. This term has been variously de- 
 rived; from the Greek word, abax, signifying a table; a 
 Phoenician word, abak, signifying sand (because when co- 
 vere I with sain I ii served for the purposes of writing); but 
 iis derivation is most probably in be referred to the three 
 first letters of the Greek alphabet 
 
 The use "i" tin 1 abacus will be readily understood from 
 the annexed flgure. A parallelogram is divided by parallel 
 
 hi « bich small pebbles or coun- 
 ters an- placed. The counters en the 
 11 denote units, those on the. 
 second lens, these on the third bun- 
 dt eds, ami so on ; one counter on a 
 bar being equal to ten on the 
 bar immediately below it. By means 
 of nine counters for each bar. it is ob- 
 vious that any number may be thus 
 expressed. But the number of coun- 
 ters may be diminished by placing a counter on the inter- 
 mediate space between two bars, giving it the value of five 
 on the bar below. When seven bars are used, any number 
 maybe expressed under ten millions. The number re- 
 presented in the ti.nire is S45,398. It will be observed that 
 the artificial value given to the counters, according to the 
 positions which they occupy, is entirely analogous to our 
 numerical system of digits. The form of the instrument 
 admitted of considerable variety. The Grecian abacus 
 was an oblong frame, having wires stretched across it, 
 strung with perforated beads or little ivory balls. In the 
 Roman abacus the counters were slid along grooves. Its 
 
 -•— • o 
 
 9 
 
 ABA TON. 
 
 use formed an essential part of the education of every no- 
 ble Roman youth : — 
 
 "S, ctscctoin pulvere m ■ 
 . ,, f«r Sal. 1 . 132. 
 
 The Chinese, like the Greeks, employ wires with beads; 
 
 ami with I hem I he abacus or Swan pan is in universal use. 
 
 onveniently ad. 1 pis itself to fheir.jiccimal divisions oi 
 weights and measures. The abacus continued tobi 
 in European countries during the middle ages Instead oi 
 a board, however, with bars or wires, il became theprac- 
 tice to cover a bench or bank v, ni 1 chequered clol 
 which the counters 1 I. Hence our terms ex- 
 
 chequer, bankrupt, 4sc. A chequered board, such as is 
 still somet inn ign at the doors of public houses, 
 
 was formerly used in England as an abacus I'm an excel- 
 lent account of the abacus, and of palpable arithmetii 
 rally, Bee the article on Arithmetic, in the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica, by Sir John Leslie, Dr. D. Ii. Reid, ol Edin- 
 burgh, lias applied the abacus to facilitate the study of the 
 composition of chemical compounds. See Reid's Chem- 
 
 \\\\ 1 T, or \i T. in sea language, signifies towards the 
 stern, or hinder part of the vessel. Thus a thing is abaft 
 
 the foremast when it is between the foremast and the. 
 
 stern. 
 
 \n \'Mx i\ Mr. \T. A term used in insurances, where, 
 before compensation can be demanded, the insurer must 
 u In.- interest in any portion ofthe rescued property. 
 It it also use, 1 m the language of the customs, to signify the 
 onmenl of an article by the importer to avoid pay- 
 ment ofthe duly. 
 
 ABATEMENT, 1'lea of, in I. aw, is pleaded to a decla- 
 ration. I account of some defect in form. {See 
 
 ING.) 
 
 \ s r. In Heraldry, symbols of disgrace intro- 
 
 duced into arms: mentioned for the most part only by 
 English heraldic writers. A </'//'. or quadrant spot, is the 
 si^u of a revoked challenge: an escutcheon reversed, be- 
 longs to an ungallant person or deserter: a point 
 
 . to a boaster: a point in i»>iiit. toacoward: a ,■■ 
 champain, to one who kills a prisoner of war: a gore sinis- 
 ter, to effeminate pi 1 set dexter denotes volup- 
 tuousness, a gusset sinister intoxication. The only abate- 
 ment now used in practice is the boston, which belongs to 
 bastards: it is in the form ofthe bend sinister, contains 
 one fourth of its dimensions, but does not reach quite to 
 the circumference ofthe escutcheon. 
 
 A'BATIS. (Ft. abattre, to knock down.) A military 
 term, signifying trees cutdown,and laid with their branches 
 towards the enemy, so as to form a defence for troops sta- 
 tioned behind them. Abatis, among the writers ofthe bar- 
 barous ages, denotes an officer in the stables, who had the 
 care and distribution ofthe provender. 
 
 A'BATON. (Gr. a6arov, an inaccessible place.) Anedi- 
 B
 
 <v 
 
 ABATTOIR. 
 
 fice at Rhodes so called by Vitruvius, lib. 2., the entrance 
 whereof was forbidden to ail persons, because it contained 
 a trophy and two bronze statues erected by Artemisia in 
 memory of her triumph on surprising the city. 
 
 ABATTOIR. (Fr. abattre, to knock doicn.) A building 
 appropriated to the slaughtering of cattle. In Great Britain 
 there is no example of such a structure, the slaughter- 
 houses not deserving the appellation as applied by the 
 French. Paris possesses some fine specimens of this sort 
 of architecture, constructed in 1809; the most magnificent 
 is that in the neighbourhood of Montmartre. 
 
 ABBE'. The French term for the superior of an abbey. 
 Before the Revolution the title was assumed also by a class 
 of persons who had not in all cases received the tonsure, 
 or undertaken to connect themselves with the church. They 
 held a conspicuous place in society, and generally attached 
 themselves to fashionable or literary patrons. This ano- 
 malous class seems to have taken its rise from the great 
 number of abbeys, the revenues of which were allowed to 
 be bestowed upon laymen, upon condition of their taking 
 orders within a year after their preferment, which latter 
 clause was frequently evaded. 
 
 A'BBESS. (Fr. Abbesse.) The governess or superior 
 of a monastery or abbey for females. By a decree of the 
 Council of Trent she must be of the age of forty years, and 
 have professed eight years at least. 
 
 A'BBEY. (Fr. Abbaie.) In Architecture, properly, the 
 building adjoining or near a convent or monastery, for the 
 residence of the head of the house, abbot or abbess. It is 
 often used for the church attached to the establishment. 
 In ecclesiastical history an Abbey was a monastery under 
 the superintendence of an abbot, maintaining in later times 
 the highest rank among religious houses, and enjoying 
 some superior privileges. 
 
 A'BBOT. The superior of a monastery for men. Mo- 
 nastic societies, being originally composed of laymen, were 
 obliged to have recourse to the assistance of a neighbour- 
 ing priest to administer the sacrament and perform other 
 clerical functions among them. Afterwards the superior 
 of the society in many cases entered into orders, and ex- 
 ercised the ministerial office for the convenience of his 
 community, under the title of abbot. (Heb. abba, father.) 
 From the beginning of the sixth century this practice be- 
 came universal, the abbot having absolute power within his 
 own monastery, but being himself subject to the authority 
 of his diocesan. This subjection, however, the abbots 
 gradually threw off to a great extent, and in many places 
 themselves assumed the titles and authority of bishops. 
 Such were the mitred abbots, and the crosiered abbots ; 
 the former of whom, to the number of 26, sat in the English 
 parliament, with the bishops and two priors in the reign of 
 Henry VIII. 
 
 Abbots are properly superior in rank to Priors ; the latter 
 being often appointed by the abbot to superintend a de- 
 nt foundation. But the distinction does not appear 
 to have been regularly observed, and there are certain or- 
 ders whose superiors are always called priors; — as the 
 monks of Vallombrosa, the Cistercians, Bernardists. Feuil- 
 lants, Trappists. Grandmontanists, and Praemonstratenses. 
 
 ABBREVIATION. (Lat. brevis, short.) hi Arithme- 
 tic. The process by which a fraction is reduced to lower 
 terms; thus the division of the numerator and denomina- 
 tor of L-5. by 3 reduces or abbreviates the fraction to -2. 
 
 Abbreviation*. In Music. A stroke which, placed 
 over or under a note, divides it into quavers if there be only 
 one; if two, into semiquavers; if three, into demisemi- 
 quavers. 
 
 Abbreviation. In Writing. Before the invention of 
 printing, a variety of abbreviations were used, most of 
 which have gradually fallen into disuse: they generally 
 consisted in substituting the initials for the words. Of the 
 abbreviations at present in use, tl\e following are those 
 which most commonly occur: — in Titles. 
 A. ML, Master of Arts. K. C. H., Knight Command- 
 
 A. B., Bachelor of Aits. er of Hanover. 
 
 B. C. L., Bachelor of Civil K. G., Knight of the Garter. 
 
 Law. 
 
 B. D., Bachelor of Divinity. 
 Clk., Clerk or Clergyman. 
 
 C. B., Companion' of the 
 Bath. 
 
 LL. D., Doctor of Laws. 
 M. A., Master of Arts. 
 M. D., Doctor of Medicine. 
 M. P., Member of Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 D. C. L., Doctor of Civil M. R. I. A., Member of the 
 
 Law. 
 D. D., Doctor of Divinity. 
 
 F. R. S., Fellow of the Roy- 
 
 al Society. 
 
 G. C. B., Grand Cross of the 
 
 Bath. 
 
 G. C. II., Grand Cross of 
 Hanover. 
 
 K. B., Knight of the Bath. 
 
 K. C. B., Knight Command- 
 er of the Bath. 
 2 
 
 Royal Irish Academy. 
 
 R. A., Royal Academy. 
 
 R. E., Royal Engineers. 
 
 R. M., Roval Marines. 
 
 R. N., Royal Nan. 
 
 S. T. P., Doctor of Divinity, 
 or Sanctte Theologian 
 Professor. 
 
 E. I. C, East India Com- 
 pany. 
 
 W. S., Writer to the Signet. 
 
 ABERDEVINE. 
 
 Miscellaneous, Diplomatical, &c. 
 
 A. D., the year of our Lord. 
 A. II., the' year of the He- 
 
 ai ra. 
 A. M., the year of the world, 
 i. e., that is to say. 
 ib., in the same place, 
 id., the same. 
 N. B.j observe. 
 viz.. for videlicet, to wit. 
 L. S., (in a deed) the place 
 
 of the seal. 
 R. S. and L. S., right and 
 
 left side. 
 N. S., new style, (since 
 
 1752.) 
 O. S., old style, (before 
 
 1752, and in the Greek 
 
 calendar.) 
 
 A. C. or B. C, the year be- 
 fore Christ. 
 
 A. U. C, the year from the 
 building of Rome. 
 
 Nem. con., no one contra- 
 dicting. , 
 
 Nem. dis., no one dissenting. 
 
 M. S., manuscript. 
 
 A. M.. morning. 
 
 P. M., afternoon. 
 
 II M. S . His Majesty's ship, 
 or service. 
 
 D. G., bv the grace of God. 
 
 F. D., Defender of the Faith. 
 
 H. R. E., Holy Roman Em- 
 pire. 
 
 U. &., United States of Ame- 
 rica. 
 
 ABDICATION. (Lat. abdico. I abdicate.) In Politics, 
 the renunciation of an office or dignity by its holder ; but it 
 is commonly meant to express the voluntary renunciation 
 of supreme power. The most famous examples of this on 
 record, are the abdication of the dictatorship by Sylla, 75 
 years B. C. ; of the imperial throne, by Dioclesian, anno 
 305; of the emperor Charles V., in 1556 ; and of Christina, 
 queen of Sweden, inl654. — Of all the sovereigns who have 
 made voluntary abdications, Dioclesian is, perhaps, the 
 only one who did not regret the step. Examples of forced 
 or involuntary abdication are too numerous to require to 
 be pointed out. The modern history of France and Eng- 
 land furnish some very striking instances with which every 
 one is familiar. The convention parliament of 1688 used 
 the word abdication to express the act of James II. in 
 abandoning the government and kingdom. The word 
 " desertion" was rejected as implying the possibility of a 
 return. The Scottish convention of estates declared that 
 James had " forfeited'-' the kingdom. Abdication is said to 
 differ from resignation, the former being unconditional, 
 the latter done in favour of some other person. 
 
 ABDO'MEN. (Lat. abdo, I conceal.) The great cavity 
 of the animal body, which is liable to temporary changes 
 in its dimensions, independently of respiration. In ento- 
 mology it forms, in insects the third, in arachnidans the 
 second, in both classes the most posterior, of the sections 
 into which the body is externally divided, and contains the 
 principal digestive and respiratory, and the whole of the 
 generative organs. The enlargements of the abdomen, in 
 relation to the activity of the generative functions, is most 
 remarkable in insects ; in some of which, as the white ant, 
 or termite, it constitutes at the full development of the 
 ova an immense proportion of the entire body of the fe- 
 male, hi vertebrates the abdomen is not divided external- 
 ly from the thorax ; and only in one class, the mammalia, 
 by an internal partition, or diaphragm. 
 
 The abdomen is the first-formed cavity in the develop- 
 ment of the animal body, and is the most constant in its 
 existence throughout the animal series. {See Cranium 
 and Thorax.) 
 
 ABDO'MINALS. Abdominales. An order of malacop- 
 terygious fishes, including those which have the ventral 
 fins situated under the abdomen, behind the pectorals. 
 
 ABDl'CTION. (Lat. ah. from, and duco, I lead.) In 
 Law, the forcible carrying away of a woman, for the pur- 
 pose of marriage or defilement. Where the female has 
 property, or is presumptively entitled to it, such abduction 
 is felony : and in all cases the taking of a girl under sixteen 
 from under the protection of her parents is a misdemean- 
 our. The crime of abduction, according to Sir W. Scott 
 (see his Notes and Introduction to Rob Roy), was at one 
 period extremely common on the border of the Scottish 
 Highlands; it is now an ordinary offence in Ireland : the 
 number of convictions in the last 7 years amounts to 61; 
 executions, 5. 
 
 ABDU'CTOR. Abductor muscles are those which pull 
 back or separate the limbs to which they are affixed. 
 
 A'BELITES, or Abelians, in ecclesiastical history, a sect 
 mentioned by St. Augustine, in Africa. They are said to 
 have enjoined marriage and virginity, after the pretended 
 example of Abel. {See Mosheim, Eng. Trans, i. 233.) 
 
 A'BER. A Celtic term, implying the mouth of a river; 
 as Aberdeen, the mouth of the Dee ; Aberystwith, the 
 mouth of the Ystwith, &c. 
 
 ABE'RDEVINE, or European Siskin ; (Cardnelis spinus, 
 Cuv.) A small green and yellow finch, belonging to the 
 same sub-genus as the goldfinch of England. Its song 
 is similar to that of the goldfinch, but is not so sweet, and 
 ends with a harsh jarring note. Its flight is a series of 
 successive undulating courses, accompanied by a chirp, at 
 each propelling motion of the wings, as in other species of 
 Cardnelis. The Aberdevine winters in the south of Eng- 
 land, and flies northward in the month of March, to breed 
 in the pine forests of Scotland. The nest is built among
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 ABERRATION. 
 
 the hiiher branches of the pine : the eggs are four or five 
 in number; of a bluish-white colour, speckled with pur- 
 plish-red. They begin t . > re-appear in i lie south in the 
 month of September. The Aberdevine resembles in the 
 markings oi its plumage the common redpole. (Linaria 
 pueilla, ( !uv. ) but the colours are different. 
 
 AHKBKA'TION. (Lat. ah, from, and eiTo, / m 
 A term used in astronomy, to denote a change in tin- posi- 
 tions of the celestial bodies arising from the combined ef- 
 fects of the motion of ljght and the motion of the earth in 
 its orbit 
 
 To explain the cause of this remarkable phenomenon, 
 conceive a ray of light to proceed from a star B to an oh 
 server al O. If the station of the observerwere 
 at rest, or if the motion of light were instantan- 
 eous, the star would be seen in its true place 
 at S. lint neither of these circumstances has 
 place; the observer is carried rapidly forward 
 by f l j « - motion ofthe earth in its orbit, and light 
 occupies a certain time in coming firom any of boa 
 the heavenly bodies t" the earth. Suppose, then, that 
 while a particle of light advances from 1> toO. th'eol 
 hasbet • the earth's orbital motion from 
 
 A i . . « >. A i o tin' particles oi Light will sink'- the eye with 
 a velocity proportional to DO, ami the eye will impinge 
 jiiriiiLst ihr particle with a velocity proportional to \<>. 
 Thus a double effect v. ill be produced: first, that ofthe 
 motion of light proportional to DO, and, secondly, that 
 arising from the motion of tie- observer proportional to 
 
 A O. Hut it is ODViOUS I hat tie* question will in ii" way be 
 
 affected, if we suppose that, instead of tli«' observer bavin;; 
 been carried forward from A to O, In- had remained at res) 
 in (i. ami i hi- light ha' I advanced t" him in the opposite di- 
 n, ami with a velocity BO=AO. Thus the eye 
 would receive two simultaneous impressions in the direc- 
 tions D O and B O of the paralli ' DO; and by 
 the theory ofthe composition of velocities the effect would 
 be exactly the same as if tin- eye had received a single Im- 
 pression from a particle proceeding in the direction 
 diagonal CO, ami with a velocity proportional t" ( O. 
 Hence the apparent place ofthe star will be at S', in ad- 
 \am i its true place at s. 
 
 i .iif.ii ( OD is the aberration, and its magnitude can 
 easily be determined when we km.". I magni- 
 
 tudes "i lx' and BO, and the inclination "i 
 that is, when we kiniw tiie relative velocitii s oflighl and of 
 the earth, ami tin 1 relative din ction of their motions. It is 
 obvious that tin- aberration will In- greatest when those 
 lines are perpendicular to each other; when they are par- 
 allel, it vanishes altogether. 
 
 Prom the eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, ami other phen- 
 omi ii- '. n hs d that light is transmitted 
 
 through spare with a velocity of 192,000 miles per 
 The mean velocity ofthe earth in its orbil is about 19 miles 
 per sec. mil : we have, therefore, when B O and D O are at 
 right angles, tie' proportion 
 
 192,000 :19 = DO: BO = rad. Man. COD: 
 
 in nre tin' tangent of CO lb or the aberration (or in so small 
 an angle thi pial t" the arc), is found by the 
 
 Trigon Fables = 20" - 5. This being tin' e 
 
 value ofthe angle, is called tie I on. 
 
 Prom Bradley's observations tie' C rration 
 
 vi. tii i it i ii I by Bessel (Fundi: mi iii n AslTonomia > to be 
 20"'25. Dr. Brinkley found n = 20" ::r. Mr. Richardson, 
 from a series of '-'i** 1 observations made with the two mu- 
 ral circles in the Greenwich Observatory, found the value 
 <if this important element = W-yOR. {Memoirs Royal 
 Astr. Society, vol. iv.) 
 
 The effect of aberration on any particular star depends 
 on the position ofthe star with reference to the ecliptic. 
 Let A 11 (' D be theorbit ofthe earth, ami S 
 a star in the plane of the ecliptic. When 
 the earth is at A the star will be thrown 
 forward by the effect "t aberration to t>. 
 \\ hi ii the eat th an h i 9 at the opposite 
 point of its orbit (', the star will be thrown 
 back to s 7 . At li and D the earth is mov- 
 ing in a direction parallel to the raj of Light 
 proceeding from the star, and there is, con- 
 sequently, no aberration. Hence a star 
 situated in the plane ofthe ecliptic appears to oscillate 
 backwards and forwards in a straight Lin turning 
 
 to its former position at tin' end oi a year. 
 
 A ray of light proceeding from a star situated in the pole 
 of the ecliptic, is always at right angles to the direction of 
 the earth's motion; consequently, a star having this posi- 
 tion will appear to describe annually, about the pole ofthe 
 ecliptic, a circle of which the radius = 20" -3. 
 
 In any other position the apparent path of a star, so far 
 as depends on aberration, is an ellipse whose major axis 
 = 40" -6, and its minor axis = 40"0, multiplied by the sine 
 ofthe star's latitude. 
 
 The apparent places of the planets are also affected by 
 
 ABIETIN.E. 
 
 aberration; but in this case, as the body from which the 
 light emanates is also in motion, we must consider that the 
 ray of light which enters the eye has proceeded, not from 
 the place which the planet occupies at the instant of the 
 observation, but from that which it did occupy at as long 
 an interval previously as light requires to traverse the dis- 
 tance between the planet and the earth. To this small va- 
 riation in the place ofthe planet must be added the space 
 described by tic earth in the same interval ; and it is easy 
 to see that the sum is the apparent or relative motion of 
 the planet during the time which light takes to pass from it 
 to the earth. 
 
 The aberration was discovered, and its physical cause 
 first explained, by Dr. Bradley. It is the most direct proof 
 which astronomy furnishes of the motion of the earth 
 round the sun. 
 
 Aberration. In Optics, denotes the deviation of the 
 rays of light from the true focus of a curved lens or specu- 
 lum ; inconsequence of which they do not unite in a 
 single point, but are spread over on a small surface, and 
 form a somewhat confused image of the object. This 
 arises from two causes : 1st. the figures of the lenses or 
 : and, 2dly, from a difference in the physical na- 
 ture ofthe rays of light. 
 
 The surfaces of the lenses or mirrors of optical instru- 
 ments are worked into a spherical form, because there is 
 no practical means ot' accurately obtaining the parabolic 
 curvature which theory shows t" he necessary to collect 
 parallel rays into a single point or n>r\ia Hence the rays 
 N ns at different points, the amount of 
 deviation depending mi the magnitude ami curvature of the 
 lens. This is called the Aberration of Sphericity, The 
 second cause of aberration arises from the different de- 
 grees of refraction which the rays composing a beam of 
 
 Ught undergo in passing from one medium into another. 
 
 (in account of this difference of refrangibility, the raj s of 
 light are serrated, and thi colours "i the spectrum ap- 
 pear. It was long believed, and even by Newton himself, 
 
 that it was impossible to refract, will t decomposing 
 
 light : ami hence the attempts that nave been made to per- 
 fect reflecting telescopes, and adapt them to circular in- 
 struments. Hut it has since been discovered that the refrac- 
 tive and dispersive powi tBof different diaphanous substan 
 
 its are in different proportions, and that the decomposition 
 
 ofthe 1 i tr 1 1 1 may he pr< \ented by combining sul stances of 
 
 different refractive powers ; for example, crown and flint 
 
 me lens, i Bet Ai bro« ltism. > 
 
 \ 1 '. ! 1 I * > I ; (Sax ah. dan. to incite.) tnldtb. Anin- 
 
 r or inciter: a person who promotes or procures 
 
 the commission of an offence or felony, by his advice or 
 
 encouragement If an abettor, or as he is thi o tern ■ 
 
 aider and abettor, be present at the commission ot the 
 he is treated as a principal : if absent, he becomes 
 
 ! i tbre the fact. But in almost all cases of fel- 
 ony the abettor is considered as much a principal as the 
 actual t' ion. especial!) in the case of murder; ami the 
 abettors of offences summarily by justices ot' 
 
 the peace, are subjected to the -a in' penalties as the 
 
 ■ lis. 
 
 m:i, \ \\< i: (Norm Pr. beyer, to expect.) In imr. 
 
 , a-, or inheritance "i lands, is said to be in 
 
 abeyance, when there is no pera n whom it can 
 
 vest and abide, although limited and ready i" vestwhen- 
 
 ■ proper 1 eir appears. Thus, in a grant to A for 
 life, and afterwards to the heirs of B, the inheritance re- 
 mains in abeyance mini the death of is. as there can he no 
 
 \ _■ descending to co-heir- 
 
 esses is said io be in abeyance. 
 
 A'lilii. The tirsi month ofthe Hebrew year, more gen- 
 erally known by the Chaldean name of Nisan. It is first 
 
 ii'd ill the lib verse ofthe bllh chapter of ExodllS. 
 
 A'BIKS. (Lat. abies, afir tree.) The name of all those 
 
 ■ which, like the spruce, the larch, the cedar of Le- 
 banon, have their leaves urowiiiir singly upon the stem, 
 and the scales ot' the cues round and thin. The wood 
 
 called by timber-merchants "white ileal'' is produced by 
 
 Abies exce]s,i. and a resinous, or terebintaceous substance 
 by Others; as Canadian balsam by A. balsan • a. the balm 
 
 ofGilead ; Strasburgh turpentine by A. pectinata, the silver 
 fir: Venetian turpentine by A. larix, the larch. Besides 
 these, the substance called extract of spruce is furnished 
 partly by A. canadensis, and partly by A. nigra. All the 
 
 -are hardy, and. with the exception of larches, are 
 • en, and in cultivation in England. Hie most valu- 
 able for the timber are, A. Douglasii, A. excelsa, and A. 
 larix : the must ornamental are, A. cedrus, the cedar of 
 Lebanon, deodara, and larix. The most worthless in 
 Great Britain are. A. canadensis, picea. balsamea, and pec- 
 tinata; the three latter form, however, fine trees in fa- 
 vourable situations. The wood ofthe fir is in very ex- 
 tensive use, and it is, perhaps, the most serviceable of all 
 trees. 
 
 ABIETI'NiE. A division in the natural order of conife- 
 rous plants, comprehending the true firs, pines, and arau-
 
 ABJURATION. 
 
 carialike pines, all which have cones with many rows of 
 scales in which the seeds are formed. 
 
 ABJURATION. Oath of. (Lat. ab, from, and juro, / 
 swear.) Introduced by slat. 13 W. III., and regulated by 6 
 G. III. An oath asserting the title of the present royal 
 family to the crown of England. By this oath the juror re- 
 cognises the right of the king under the Act of Settlement ; 
 engages to support him to the utmost of his power ; prom- 
 ises to disclose all traitorous conspiracies airainst him ; and 
 expressly disclaims any right to the crown of England in 
 the descendants of the Pretender. 
 
 Abjuration" of the Realm (in law) sismifies a sworn ban- 
 ishment; or the taking of an oath to renounce and depart 
 from the realm for ever. 
 
 Abjuration also signifies a solemn recantation of opin- 
 ion : as. the abjuratiori" of heresy required by the Romish 
 Church. Henry IV. abjured Protestantism at Saint Denis 
 in 1593. Galileo was compelled to abjure his philosophi- 
 cal opinions by the Inquisition at Rome, in 1633. 
 
 A'BLATIVE case. (Lat. ablatus. taken away.) The 
 sixth case of the Latin nouns implied in English by the 
 preposition from. (See Grammar.) 
 
 A'BLU'TION. (Lat. ablutio. washing.') A religious cere- 
 mony, consisting in bathing the body or pail of it. It con- 
 stituted a part of the Mosaic ceremonial, and was after- 
 wards practised among the Jews, both by the priests and 
 people. But ablutions are most rigidly enforced by the 
 Mahometans. The term is also applied to the cup given. 
 without consecration, to the laity in the popish churches. 
 
 ABNO'RMAL. (Lat. s.b,from. and norma, a rule.) Any 
 thing without, or contrary to, system or rale. Thus Horace 
 calls a well-informed sagacious countryman, — 
 
 Rusticus, abnormis sapiens, crassaque Minerva. 
 
 In botany, if a flower has five petals, the rule is that it 
 should have the same number of stamens, or some regular 
 multiple of that number; if it has only four or six stamens, 
 then, in such a case, the flower would be abnormal. 
 
 ABOA'RD, within the ship ; also one vessel is said to 
 gel aboard of another when she gets foul ofher. 
 
 ABORIGINES. The first, or oriirinal (a prima origine) 
 inhabitants of a country, that is, those who occupied it at 
 the period when it began to be known, and who either 
 were indigenous to the soil or had immigrated thither be- 
 fore the dawn of history. Some of the ancints supposed 
 they had always inhabited the same soil, and were created 
 trom it, as the Athenians, who thence called themselves 
 autochthones, coeval with and sprung from the land. But 
 the Romans and modern nations use the word Ab" 
 to designate those inhabitants of a country of whose origin 
 nothing certain is known. Thus the Indians of America 
 are properly called Aborigines, because they were found 
 there at its discovery, and we have no accounts of their 
 having immigrated from any other quarter. 
 
 ABO'RTION. (Lat. abortus, miscarriage.) This term 
 is usually applied to the morbid or unnatural expulsion of 
 the foetus in the human subject after the sixth week, and 
 before the sixth month, of pregnancy. Before the sixth 
 week it is called a miscarriage, and after the sixth month, 
 premature labour. 
 
 ABO'KTIYE. Is said of parts in plants that do not ac- 
 quire their usual state of perfection ; a flower only partially 
 formed, a stamen whose filament has no anther, a seed 
 which contains no embryo, or which consists only of skin, 
 are cases of abortion. The term is also applied to parts 
 which, although perfect in the beginning, cease to grow, 
 and so end in being imperfect : thus ovules, which are not 
 impregnated, and which shrivel up instead of growing into 
 seed, are called abortive. 
 
 ABO'UHAXNES. An African bird, supposed to be the 
 Ibis of the ancients. 
 
 ABRACADA'BRA. A celebrated term of incantation : 
 especially used as a spell against fevers. The manner in 
 which it was written and carried for that purpose may be 
 seen in Defoe's History of the Plague at London. Tin? 
 word seems to be connected with Abrasax or Abraxas ; a 
 name found inscribed on certain stones or amulets, in such 
 characters, together with the figure of a human body, with 
 the head of a cat and feet of a reptile. Various explana- 
 tions have been attempted of the object of these curiosi- 
 ties : some from the cabalistic and an Egyptian derivation. 
 Bellermann (Berlin. 1^17.) and Neander,' have written on 
 ject of the Abraxas stones. 
 
 ABRA'DLNGv In Agr. (Lat. ab, from, and rado, / 
 scrape or rub off.) Applied to the sloping surface of banks 
 of earth, which crumbles down from the effects of frost, or 
 the alternate action of drought and moisture. 
 
 ABRA'MIS. (Abramis, t'uv.) The name of a subgenus 
 of Malacopterygious or soft-finned abdominal fishes, char- 
 acterised by "the absence of spines and barbels ; by the 
 dorsal fin being short and placed behind the ventrals, and 
 the anal fin being long. The common bream is a species 
 of this genus. 
 
 ABRA'NCHIANS. Abranchia, Cuv. (Gr. a. without, 
 4 
 
 ABSCISS. 
 
 Ppayx'a, gills.) An order (the third in Cuvier's arrange- 
 ment) of anellidans, so called because the species compos- 
 inn it have no external organs of respiration ; they are di- 
 vided into the setigerous abranchians, or worms, and the 
 non-setigerous abranchians, or leeches. 
 
 ABRA'SION. (Lat. abrado, I rub off.) In Numismato- 
 logy, implies the waste of coins, or the loss by wear and 
 tear in the pocket. This forms a considerable item in the 
 expense of a metallic currency ; and various means have 
 been employed to lessen it, by alloying the coins so as to 
 render them harder, by raising the borders so as to lessen 
 the surface exposed to be rubbed, &c. 
 
 ABRA'XAS. A genus of Lepidopterous insects, of the 
 family Geometridae ; founded by Dr. Leach for the com- 
 mon magpie moth (Abraxas glossulariata) and other allied 
 species. It is the larva? of the Abr. glossulariata which 
 commit the well-known ravages upon the gooseberry trees 
 of our gardens : consuming the leaves almost as soon as 
 they appear. They feed early in the morning, before the 
 dew is oft" or the sun has much power; and it is at this 
 time that thev should be sought for and removed. 
 
 ABRIDGEMENT. In Literature. (Lat. abbrevio, / 
 shorten.) A compendious arrangement of the matter con- 
 tained in a larger work. Before the invention of printing, 
 when manuscripts were valuable, and the labour of writing 
 them great, the compiling abridgements of considerable 
 works was an important branch of authorship ; and it has 
 been doubted whether we have lost or gained more by the 
 practice : since, on the one hand, the contents of many lost 
 authors are thus partially preserved to us : and, on the other, 
 the abridgement becoming popular may, in some cases, 
 have caused the loss of the original. Among the best 
 known abridgements of antiquity are the History of Justin, 
 being an abridgement of the lost History of Trogus Pom- 
 peius : the Natural History of Solinus, chiefly abridged from 
 that of Pliny, Ac. Few modern abridgements, taking the 
 phrase in its strict sense, merit peculiar notice, or have 
 been compiled with any other view than that of assisting 
 education. This, however, is not the case with some of 
 those works called abridgements, intended to exhibit a 
 summary view of some science or department of litera- 
 ture. Tiie Abrege Chronologique de I'Hisloii 
 by the president Henault. is a work of this kind. It lias, 
 perhaps, been praised beyond its deserts, but still it pos- 
 - uncommon merit. Its success led to the publica- 
 tion of various works of the same kind, of which the 
 Abrege Chronologique de I'Histoire de VAUemagne, by 
 Pfeffel, is probably the best. Dr. Robertson drew from it 
 most of his knowledge of the constitution of the German 
 empire. To abridge well requires a thorough knowledge 
 of the subject, with tact to seize upon the prominent points, 
 and ability to state them clearly and succinctly. Tacitus, 
 says Montesquieu, " abridged all because he knew all," but 
 Tacituses are rare. 
 
 ABROGATION". The annulment of a law by compe- 
 tent authority. (From the Latin ah, from, and rogo, J ash.) 
 A phrase derived from the practice of the Roman popular 
 assemblies, in which the several tribes, curia?, Ac. were 
 said rogare snffragia. to demand the suffrage : whence also 
 the modern word prerogative. (.See Comitia.) 
 
 ABRV'PT. (Lat. abrumpo, I break off.) A term in Bo- 
 tany, applied to any thins which happens suddenly. A leaf 
 which is suddenly terminated without tapering to a point, a 
 stem which is suddenly bent, a pinnated leaf without a ter- 
 minal leaflet, are all abrupt 
 
 Abrupt. In Ichthyology is applied to the lateral line 
 when divided into two or more parts not contiguous. 
 
 A'BRUS. (Gr. aSpos, delicate, or elegant.) A West In- 
 dian tree with papilionaceous flowers, and pods contain- 
 ing bright red seeds with a broad black scar on one side 
 of them. The seeds are often strung into necklaces for 
 children. 
 
 A'BSCESS. (Lat. abscedo, I separate.) Inflammation in 
 the membranous or fleshy parts of the body, attended by 
 the formation of pus, and the consequent separation or dis- 
 tension of the parts affected ; thus the integuments sepa- 
 rate from the parts beneath, and form a tumour. 
 
 A'BSCISS, or ABSCISSA. (Lat. ab scindo, / cut off.) 
 A term used in geometry to denote a segment cut off" from 
 a straight line, by an ordinate to a curve. The position of 
 a point on a plane is perfectly determined when it.- dis- 
 tances, measured in given directions, from two straight 
 lines given by position, are known ; and as curve lines 
 may be regarded as formed by the continuous motion of a 
 joint, their various properties may be investigated by 
 means of the relation common to all points of the same 
 curve between the two distances so measured. Thus, let 
 A B and A C be two straight lines given 
 bv position, and P anv point in a curve 
 X V. Draw P Q_ parallel to A C, and 
 meeting A B in Q. then P Q. is called 
 the ordinate of the point P. and A Q. is 
 5" the absciss. The absciss and ordinate, 
 considered together, are called the co- 
 
 B
 
 AESENTEE. 
 
 ordinates of the curve, and the point A, where they inter- 
 sect, is called the origin of the co-ordinates. For every 
 point of the same curve a certain unavoidable relation ex- 
 ists between A 0, and P U. which ie called the equation of 
 the curve. In order to represent this equation algebraic- 
 ally, the absciss A Q, is represented by x, and the ordinate 
 PQ by y- The co-ordinates may be inclined to each other 
 at any angle, but in general the investigations are much 
 simplified by assuming them at right angles. The origin 
 of the co-ordinates, or the point from which the absciss is 
 reckoned, maybe taken any where in the plane of the 
 curve. When a particular curve, however, is to be inves- 
 tigated, ii is c.rtni convenient to place the origin at some 
 point which is related in the other parts of the curve. 
 Thus, if the curve is a circle, tin- co-ordinates are conve- 
 niently reckoned from the centre. 
 
 ABSENTE'E. In Politics, a word which has received, 
 from usaije, a peculiar signification: a landed proprietor 
 who habitually resides at a distance from the district in 
 which his property is situate: especially applied to Irish 
 landlords and clergy. In 171-3 a tax was imposed on ab- 
 sentees from Ireland, in all cases v. lure their residence 
 
 within it was for less than six months in the year; power 
 
 of dispensation being secure. i to the crown. But it ceased 
 to be levied in 17.".:;. and Ilk nut since been renewed 
 Whether or net th< i landed proprietor lie inju- 
 
 rious to a country, in an ■ is a question 
 
 which has been much debated of late 5 cars. See the evi- 
 dence ni Mr. .1. K. Vt'Cullocb beforethi Coi imitteesofthe 
 I, mils an. i Commons, to inquire into the state ol Ireland, 
 1 325 : and the com i ioned by thai evidence, in 
 
 (he Edinburgh Review, No. B5. and Quarterly Review, 
 Vol. 33. See also Mr. MM before the Commit- 
 
 tee mi tic tate ol Ireland in 1830, and Mr. Senior's Outline 
 of Political Economy, Encj clop edia Metropolitans, 
 
 A'liSls. or APSIS. (Gr. dif/ic, am arch.') In Architec- 
 ture, a word used bj ecclesiastical authors to signify that 
 part el' the church wherein the clergj were seated, or the 
 
 altar was placed Tins put Of the church was BO Called 
 
 from its usually being domed or vaulted, and nut as Isido- 
 res imagines, from us being the lightest part, from apta. 
 The apsis was either circular or polj gonal on the plan, ami 
 domed over at top as a covering. It consisted of two parts, 
 the altar and the presbytery, or sanctuary: at the middle 
 of the semicircle was the throne of the bishop; and at tin' 
 centre of the diameter was placed the altar, towards the 
 nave, from which it was separated by an open balustrade, 
 
 ling On tin altar was placed lie- cihanuni and cup. 
 
 The thro i' tin- bishop having bi mi ancientlj called by 
 
 this name (apsis), seine have thOUghl that them e i 
 
 ol the edifice derived its name, bul the converse is the real 
 truth. 
 
 A'BSOLTJTE. ABSOL1 TISM. In Politics, a government 
 is strictly said to be absolute when the supreme head is above 
 the control of law, and Ins unrestricted power of legisla- 
 tion. •• El rev absolute,' is the common watch-word of the 
 anti-constitutional part} in Spain Fel in that country, as 
 In almost everj ether, the theory of absolute sovereignty 
 has some limit: since we find the same party denying 
 the kin:; the right of altering by his single will the fun- 
 damental laws of succession to the throne. {See Des- 
 potism.) 
 
 ABSOLUTION. (Lat ab,Jrom, solvo, / loose.) A cere- 
 iimiiy practised in various Christian churches. In the 
 ttmi 1.1 11 Catholic, the priesl not only declares absolution to 
 the repentant sinner, bul is believed to have the power of 
 actually releasing him from his sins: and this authority is 
 
 declared liy the council of Trent lo belong to liiui in its full 
 
 extent The church of England, in the order for the Visit- 
 ation of the Sick, has retained nearly the same words; bul 
 her authorities seem not to be exactly agreed as to the 
 
 force and effect of the absolution so conferred. In the 
 daily service, the words of the absolution an merely de- 
 claratory. 
 
 ABSO'RBED. (Lat. absorbeo, T suck up.) In Painting. 
 
 Sucked up, imbibed. A term applied by the French con- 
 noisseurs to a picture in which the oil has sunk into the 
 canvass or ground whereon il is painted, leaving the colour 
 flat, and the touches indistinct Our picture dealer- used 
 the term chilled to express the same thing. It maybere- 
 mediedrby rubbing the picture over with oil, and varnishing, 
 
 alter il has been well cleaned. 
 
 ABSO'RBENT Ground. In Painting. A ground pre- 
 pared for a picture, either on board or canvass, chiefly 
 with distemper or water-colour mixture, by which expe- 
 dient the oil is immediately taken up or sucked in from the 
 colours, expedition gained,' and a brilliancy imparted to the 
 colours. 
 
 Absorbents. In Medicine, substances which remove 
 acid at the stomach, such as magnesia and chalk. 
 
 ABSORPTION. In Physiology, is one of the vital or- 
 ganic functions, the object of which is primarily to convey 
 to the circulating organs the due supply of the materials for 
 the growth and support of the system ; and, secondarily, to 
 5 
 
 ACADEMICS. 
 
 remove and carry to the same organs the decayed and 
 useless parts of the body . Set Lacteals. 
 
 A'BSTRACT (Lat. abstraho, I tale aicay), signifies a ge- 
 neral view or analysis of a w hole work, or part of a work. 
 It differs from abridgement chiefly in this, that while in the 
 latter it is often necessary to enter into somewhat minute 
 details, the termer j s always confined to a notice only of 
 the leading particulars. See Abridgement. 
 
 A'BSTRACT MATHEMATICS, or PURE MATHEMA- 
 TICS. That branch of science which treats of the rela- 
 tions or properties of magnitudes or quantities, considered 
 generally, and without restriction to any individual magni- 
 tude. Thus, the proposition that the three angles of a trian- 
 gle are. together, equal to two riiirtt angles, is an abstract 
 truth, not confined to an individual triangle, or to a particu- 
 lar species of triangles, bul belonging to all triangles w hat- 
 ever. Abstract mathematics is opposed lo mixed mathe- 
 matics, wherein abstract properties or relations are applied 
 to sensible objects. 
 
 ABSTRACT NUMBERS. Numbers considered in them- 
 selves, and without reference to any particular thin;:. The 
 mis of common arithmetic are performed on ab- 
 stra t mi 
 
 ABSTRA'CTION. (Lat abstraho, Idrauioff.) InMeta- 
 and Logic, th< faculty by which, in contemplating 
 any object, we can a end exclusively to some circum- 
 stances or qu to* it, and withhold our at- 
 tention from the rest. It is by the means of ibis faculty 
 that we generalise, and arrive at the common terms or 
 i I'm in m:i ei i w inch belong i" a number 
 
 i els. Thus, in considering a horse, by abstracting 
 
 ly the qualities which belong to thai particular am- 
 
 I: al, we arrive ;il the QOtion of ;i ijll, oiipe, I. thence it that 
 
 of an animal. Ac. Ac. ; which notions constitute, in logical 
 ige, the successive g< nera ami species of the individ- 
 ual horse. 
 
 \it-l i.Dl M. or REDUCTIO Al) ABSURDUM. A 
 term used in Geometry to denote a mode ol den onstra- 
 tion in which the truth oi' a proposition is established, not 
 by a rin ■ by pro\ ing thai the contrary is absurd, 
 
 or impossible. There .ire many exan pies ol this mode ol 
 demonstration in the Elements of Euclid. 
 
 Mil Mi \\T \i MBEB i Vrithmetic) is a number Buch 
 that the sum of its divisors is greater than the nun her it- 
 self. Thus, 12 is an abundant nut ise its divisors 
 being 1, 2,3,4, and 6, their sum, which is 16, is greatet t 1 in 
 \ ■ at number is opposed to a deficit ui nu 
 
 of Which the sum of I he divisors is less I hall the nun her it- 
 
 self; uid lo a perfect number, pf which the sum of the di- 
 \ isms is equal to itself. 
 
 \i;i TMENT. < v, t rem- to some, from the French, 
 aboutir, to abut, among whom the learned Spelman ; but 
 according to others, with more probability, from the Saxon 
 abutan, about.) In Architecture, the solid part of a pier 
 from which the arch immediately springs. Abutments are 
 either artificial or natural. The former .<ff usuallj formed 
 
 ol masonry or brickw irk, and the latter are the reck or 
 
 other solid materials on the banks of a river, intheca i oi 
 
 a bridge, Which receive the fool of the arch. It is oh\ - 
 
 thai they must i f sufficient solidity and strength to resist 
 
 the arch's thrust 
 
 ABUTTALS. The buttings or boundings of land, 
 showing by whal other lands, highways, rivers, &c. they 
 
 are bounded. 
 
 kCA'CIA (Gr. aicaKta.) A genus of spiny leguminous 
 trees, with pinnated leaves, ami small How ers collected in 
 balls or spikes, of a white, red, or yellow colour. They 
 are all inhabitants of the wanner parts of the world ; 
 of them, as A. vera, arabica. Ac yield gum arabic ; others 
 gum Senegal: the bark of \ catechu furnishes the astrin- 
 gent substance called catechu, or terra japonica. The 
 flowers of a. farnesiana are exceedingly fragrant, and form 
 one of the principal ingredients in Italian perfumery. The 
 bark of many species abounds in tanning principles. New 
 Holland, and some other countries, produce great number 
 Ol spec ii'.- in which true leaves are not formed, but in their 
 stead the branches are furnished with broad dilated pe- 
 
 Okmg like loaves. 
 
 ACAPE'.Mlcs. A name given to a series of philoso- 
 phers who taught in the Athenian Academy, the scene 
 of Plato's discourses. They are commonly divided into 
 three sects, which go under the names of the Old, the 
 Middle, and the New Academy. 1. The Old Academy, 
 of which FlatO Was the immediate founder, was repre- 
 sented successively by Speiisippus, Xenocrates, and Po- 
 lemo. These philosophers, as far as the scanty notices 
 remainins of them allow us to form a judgment, seem to 
 have confined themselves to the task of elucidating and 
 defending the doctrines of their <rreat master. {See Pla- 
 tonism.) A list of their works is given us by Diogenes 
 Laertius, b. iv. To them succeeded Arcesilaus, the 
 founder of (2) the Middle Academy. Under his hands, 
 the Platonic method assumes an almost exclusively po- 
 lemical character. Whatever may have been his belief
 
 ACADEMY. 
 
 regarding the positive part of Plato's doctrines, he con- 
 fined himself in public to the support of the negative 
 portion ; that, namely, which relates to the uncertainty 
 of the impressions on the senses, and, consequently, of the 
 judgments founded on them. His main object was to re- 
 fute the Stoics, who maintained a doctrine of perception 
 identical with that promulgated by Dr. Reid in the last 
 century. (See Perception.) Socrates is said to have 
 professed, that all he knew was, that he knew nothing. 
 Arcesilaus denied that he knew even this. Wisdom he 
 made to consist in absolute suspension of assent ; virtue, 
 in the probable estimate of consequences ; in the latter 
 doctrine combating the ethical dogmatism of the stoics, 
 as in the former the intellectual. He was succeeded by 
 Lacydes, Telecles anil Evander, and Hegesi.ms. 3. The 
 New Academy claims Cameades as its founder. It is not 
 easy to define the limits between this and the Middle Aca- 
 demy. Like Arcesilaus, Carneades appears to have taken 
 up a negative and polemical position. His system is a spe- 
 cies of mitigated scepticism. He considers probability to 
 be the sole legitimate object, alike in speculation and in 
 practice. The doctrines of this school were adopted by 
 Cicero, more, probably, in consequence of the advantage 
 which, as an orator, he would derive from the practice of 
 discussing both sides of a question, than from any solid 
 conviction. Carneades was succeeded by his disciple, 
 Clitomachus. Charmides, the third and last of the New 
 Academicians, appears to have been little more than a 
 teacher of rhetoric : an accusation, indeed, to which the 
 whole school is in no small degree liable. To these three 
 academies a fourth and fifth are added, by some writers: 
 of which Philon and Antiochus are produced as the repre- 
 sentatives. The latter was the friend of Cicero and other 
 distinguished Romans. Neither of them can in any jus- 
 tice be named academies, their doctrines being, in fact, in 
 most points, of a diametrically opposite nature. 
 
 ACA'DEMY. (Gr. aKaonfa.) A society of learned 
 men, associated for the advancement of the arts or scien- 
 ces. The name is derived from that of a place near 
 Athens, where there was a famous school for gymnastic 
 exercises (see Gymnasium), at which also philosophy was 
 taught, and the sophists gave their lectures. But the first 
 institution of which we read, at all resembling onr modern 
 academy, was the society of scholars established at Alex- 
 andria by Ptolemy Soter. The Jews in various cities, the 
 Constaniinopolitan emperors, and the Arab caliphs, found- 
 ed societies of the same description. Charlemagne, anion;: 
 his various efforts for the propagation of literature, collected 
 an association of learned men, who read and compared the 
 works of antiquity, and gave themselves, in their academic 
 intercourse, the assumed names of different ancient au- 
 thors. But this institution was dissolved at the death of 
 Alcuin ; nor do we find any memorial of a similar society, 
 except a few among artis'ts. chiefly in France, until after 
 the taking of Constantinople by the Turks, when the Greek 
 scholars driven into Italy held literary meetings, which 
 gradually assumed a more regular form. About 1560 a 
 society, called the Academia Secretorum Naturae., was 
 founded at Naples, in the house of Baptista Porta, but was 
 abolished by a papal interdict. It was, however, succeeded 
 by the Academia Lyncei at Rome, of which Galileo was a 
 member, the objects of which, like those of the former, 
 were chiefly connected with the pursuit of natural history. 
 From the beginning of the 17th century academies multi- 
 plied in Italy. Among the most eminent of those which 
 bore a philosophical character, was the A. del Cimento, at 
 Rome, in that century ; the Academy of Orossano, in the 
 kingdom of Naples, ice. : and, in more recent times, the 
 Academy of Sciences at Bologna deserves to be mentioned 
 with honour. But Italy has been most prolific in acade- 
 mies of literature and philology, which form by far the 
 greatest number in the catalogue of 550 such institutions 
 which have been enumerated as existing or having existed 
 in that country. A general and somewhat ridiculous lash- 
 ion prevailed in the 17th and 18th centuries among lite- 
 rary men of that country, of forming themselves into so- 
 cieties for the promotion of literary objects, to which they 
 gave fanciful symbolic names, every member assuming in 
 his own person some analogous appellation. Some of these 
 societies have done real service to literature, but by far the 
 greatest number have contented themselves with multi- 
 plying insipid addresses and sonnets. Among the most 
 celebrated was the A. degli Arc ad j, at Rome, of which 
 the meetings Were held in a meadow, and the members 
 enacted shepherds and shepherdesses: it was founded 
 about 1690, and still subsists, having various affiliated soci- 
 eties in other places. The A. degli Uinidi, one of the oldest 
 ofthese associations, became afterwards the Florentine Aca- 
 demy. The A. degli Intronati (of the Deaf), degli Umoristi 
 (of the Humourists), and many others with similar quaint 
 appellations, have acquired celebrity in Italy. Of her phi- 
 lological academies, the most illustrious is that della Crus- 
 ca (of the Sieve), at Florence, winch, by the publication of 
 its dictionary, established the Tuscan dialect as the stand- 
 '6 
 
 ACADEMY. 
 
 ard of the national language ; it is now incorporated with 
 the A. Florentina. In France, the Academie Francaise 
 was founded in 1635 by cardinal Richelieu. It was an as- 
 sociation formed for the purpose of refining the French 
 language and style ; and, although in its first period it was 
 chiefly remarkable for the adulation which it bestowed on 
 its vain though able founder, it became, in process of time, 
 by far the most celebrated and influential of all European 
 literary societies. It consisted of 40 members, and a place 
 among them was eagerly sought after, for a long period, as 
 one of the highest honours which could be attained by an 
 author. Like that of Crusca. it published a dictionary of 
 the French Language, in 1694. The Royal Academy of 
 Sciences was founded by Louis XIV., in 1666, and pub- 
 lished 130 volumes of memoirs, up to the year 1793, when 
 it was abolished by the Convention. The Academies of 
 Painting and Sculpture, and that of inscriptions and Belles 
 Lettres, were the other two principal academies of Paris. 
 The latter was founded by Colbert in 1663, and remodelled 
 in 1701. At the Revolution all four were abolished' and, 
 in 1795, at the suggestion of Condorcet, the National Insti- 
 tute of France was established in their stead. It consisted 
 of four classes, arising out of the four academies of which 
 it was composed. According to its re-organisation by Na- 
 poleon, in 1806, these classes were remodelled, and each 
 of them consisted of a certain number of sections, each 
 furnished with a specified number of acting and corres- 
 ponding members. The first class, or that of sciences, 
 hail sixty-three members, and 100 correspondents ; that of 
 languages, forty, and 60 correspondents ; that of history 
 and antiquities, forty, and 60 correspondents ; that of the 
 arts, twenty-eight, and 36 correspondents. The first, third, 
 and fourth, named each eight foreign associates. In 1816, 
 the Institute was again remodelled by Louis XVIII. The 
 four classes again took the name of academies, and be- 
 came more independent of each other, their joint property 
 being managed by a commission of eight members, two 
 from each, under the superintendence of the minister of 
 the interior. The first academy (that of science) retained 
 the same number of members. The second and third 
 were reduced to thirty-eight and thirty-seven respectively ; 
 the fourth, increased to forty. The Academy of Inscrip- 
 tions and Belles Lettres, and that of Sciences, had added 
 to them a class of free academicians, of the number of ten, 
 with no privilege except that of attendance ; the Academy 
 of Arts had the right to choose its own number of free 
 members. 
 
 Of similar institutions in Germany, the oldest was the 
 Academia Naturae Curiosorum, a scientific association, 
 founded in 1652, in Franconia; afterwards taken under 
 imperial protection, when it received the name of the A. 
 Caesareo Leopoldina. The Royal A. of Sciences, at Ber- 
 lin, was founded in 1700. by Frederick I. of Prussia : Leib- 
 nitz was its first director. The Imperial Academy of Sci- 
 ences at St. Petersburgh was founded by Catharine I., 
 and endowed by Catharine II. with great munificence, but 
 established on the French model: she separated from it 
 the Academy of Arts. 
 
 In England, the name academy has been chiefly confined 
 to associations for promoting the arts. The Royal Acade- 
 my of Arts was founded in 1768. and consists of forty mem- 
 bers : it has separate professors of painting, architecture, 
 anatomy, and perspective : and a council of nine is elected 
 annually. The Academy of Ancient Music was founded 
 by private association, in 1710: the Royal Academy of 
 Music, under the patronage of George III., but dissolved 
 shortly after. The principal literary and philosophical so- 
 cieties, answering in character to the branches of the 
 French Institute, are, 1. The Royal Society of London, 
 which is confined to objects of a scientific character. It 
 had its origin as early as 1645, but was established b> royal 
 charter in 1662. Its acts have been published, under the 
 name of Philosophical Transactions, from 1665 to the pre- 
 sent day. 2. Those of the Antiquarian Society, which was 
 established in 1751, are published under the title of Archa?- 
 olotria. 3. The Royal Society of Arts originated in 1718. 
 4. That of Literature, in 1823. Besides these, there are 
 numerous societies which bear the name of the peculiar 
 branch of science to which their exertions are confined. 
 The Royal Society of Edinburgh obtained a charter in 
 1783, and another, with more liberal provisions, in 1811. 
 Among the most valuable published transactions of acade- 
 mies and similar societies, besides those already men- 
 tioned, are those of Colbert's A. des Inscriptions et Belles 
 Lettres (50 vols. 4to. from 1701 to 1793) : those of the Insti- 
 tute, beins continuations of the memoirs of the former aca- 
 demies of which it was composed: those of the A. Royale 
 des Sciences and Belles Lettres at Berlin : at first in Latin, 
 then in French (from its remodelling in 1744 by Frederick 
 the Great), now in German. The ''Acta" of the Imperial 
 Academy of St. Petersburgh. The '• Commentarii" of the 
 A. of Bologna. The Antichita d'Ercolano, published by 
 the Hercnlnnean Academy of Naples. 
 
 Academy. In the sense of a place of instruction, is now
 
 ACADEMY FIGURE. 
 
 in England a term chiefly appropriated to schools for stu- 
 dents in the tine arts. The fourth division of the Insti- 
 tute at Paris consists of the Academie des Beaux Arts. In 
 London, an Academy of Painting seems to have been es- 
 tablished in 1712, under the presidency of r?ir G. Kneller, 
 but to have shortly after fallen into decay. The present 
 Royal Academy of Arts, founded in 1768, has been already 
 mentioned. In France the old universities were suppressed 
 at the Revolution ; but most of them, with some recent ones, 
 have since been restored under the title of Academit s LHi- 
 versitaires. Their collective body represented by the re- 
 union of their rectors, inspectors, deans, dec, constitutes 
 the University of France, at He- head of which is the Minis- 
 ter of Public Instruction. Colleges in France are equivalent 
 to high schools in England, 
 
 \< ADE.MY FIGURE. In Painting. A drawing usually 
 made with black and white chalk, on tinted paper, after 
 the living model. 
 
 ACALE'PHANS, AcalephS. (Gr. aKa\rj(f,r], a nettle.) A 
 class of radiate invertebrate animals, so called on account 
 of the singular property possessed by most of the species 
 therein comprehended, of irritating and inflaming the skin 
 when touched. The class includes the animals called 
 1 medusas,' ' sea-nettleBj' 'jelly-fish,' 'Portuguese men-of- 
 war,' 'V-' : thi 31 are divided by Cuvier dichotomously in- 
 to those which have air-bladders tor swimming, or the 'hy- 
 ilephans,' and those winch have not, or the 
 'simple acalephans,' and which swim by means of exter- 
 nal Cilia, or by the contractions and dilatations of their 
 \'l tbe species are aquatic and marine. 
 
 ACA'MPTOSO'MES. (Gr. d, without, Kap-n-Ta), / bend, 
 
 the body.') An ord< c ol cirripeds including all those 
 
 in which the body is entirely enveloped in a calcareous 
 
 compound shell, and so attached that it cannot be unfold- 
 
 protruded. 
 
 \t \NTIIA'CE;E. (See Acanthus.) A natural order 
 of monopetalous exogenous plants, in which the gepus acan- 
 thus is stationed Thej have irregular didynamous flow- 
 ers, andare particularly known by their calyx being im- 
 bricated in two broken whorls, and by their seed growing 
 from bonks on tin- placenta. Many of this specii • 
 beautiful flowers, others are mere weeds. They are found 
 
 wild only m hot or temperate ' hmates. 
 
 \< V'NTIIIA. (Sic Acanthi's.) The name of a genus 
 of hemipterous insects of tin- tribe Geoeorisa, character- 
 I ,i long and Btraighl rostrum, sheathed al its base, or 
 through its entire length ; labrumvery prominent; eyesof 
 ize : and the head presenting, at its junction with the 
 thorax, neither a neck nor a sudden constriction. In some 
 of the species (subgenus Syrtis) the anterior pair of legs 
 terminate in a monodactyle chela, or forceps claw, like that 
 of i he crustacea, adapted for seizing a living prey. 
 
 ACA'NTHOCE'PHALANS, Acanthoi ■ dicar- 
 
 Bos, a thorn, and KsfaXi), a iii ml. spiny-headed.) An order of 
 intestinal worms, or entozoons, which attach themselves to 
 the mucous coal of the intestines by means ofa pro 
 surrounded with minute recurved spines. 
 
 a.CA'NTHOPHIS. (Gr. dxavOos, spine, and oq)is, serpent,) 
 A genus of venomous serpents, allied to the viper, pecu- 
 liar to Australia, and characterised by a horny spine, sim- 
 ulating a sting, al the end of the tail. 
 
 \( \'\ THOPODS, icanthopoda. (Gr. aieavdos, and 
 wovs, afoot, spim -footed.) This name is applied to a tribe of 
 clavicorn coleopterous insects, including those species 
 
 which have sjenv |i 
 
 Al ' V'NTIIOi'tEIU 'CIANS. Acinthopterygii. <Gr. clkolv- 
 80s. and nT(pv£, a uring or Jin, spiny-finned. > Cuvier's first or- 
 der of fishes, characterised by the bony spines which form 
 the first rays of tle-ir dorsal and anal tins, and generally, 
 also, the first ray of the two ventral tins. 
 
 ACA'N Till 'III S. (Gr. anavQos. a spine, and ovoa, 
 a tail.) A genus of spiny-finned fishes, characterised by 
 trenchant and serrate teeth, and by having a strong mo 
 spine, sharp as a lancet, on each side of the tail, by means 
 of which these fishes have the power of inflicting very se- 
 vere wounds. 
 
 A< A 'NT I ITS (Gr. aKavdos.fispine.) A spiny herbaceous 
 plant with pinnatifid leaves, and large whitish dowers envel- 
 oped in spiny bracts, found in various parts ofthe Levant. 
 Its leaf is said by Vitruvius to have been the model on 
 which the architects of Greece formed the haves ofthe 
 Corinthian capital, and that the idea of so applying it was 
 derived from the following circumstance : — The leaves of 
 acanthus grow in a tuft close to the ground, and sprout 
 annually. It happened that a basket covered with a tile 
 was left upon the crown of the root of an acanthus plant, 
 which, when it began to grow in the spring, finding itself 
 unable to arrange its leaves in the usual manner, fumed 
 them up round the sides ofthe basket, till encountering the 
 edges ofthe tile, they gradually curved back in a kind of 
 volute. Other leaves, besides" those of the acanthus, are 
 employed in the decoration of capitals: those, for instance, 
 in the composite order of the arches of Titus and Septimius 
 Severus, at Rome, have, from their strong indentations, 
 
 ACCELERATION. 
 
 more resemblance to parsley than to acanthus leaves, 
 whilst those to the Temple of Vesta, at Rome, have a re- 
 semblance to laurel leaves. In Egyptian architecture, the 
 palm leaf fin quentl] occurs. 
 
 A'A'KDIA. (Gr. ii, Without, and Lat. cardo, hinge.) A 
 term applied to a genus of fossil ostracean bivalves, in 
 which the hinge is wauling, and the flat valve is applied to 
 the convex valve, like a lid to a vessel; the two having 
 been connected only by the adductor muscle. 
 
 A'CARI. (Gr. axapi. a ■mite.) In Entomology the term 
 is restricted to the tracheary arachnidans which have, ei- 
 ther a single-jointed chelicer, or pincer representing an an- 
 tenna, or a suctorious mouth. All the species are extreme- 
 ly minute, or even microscopic, as the cheese-mite (Acarus 
 ■ a-), nd many of them parasitic : of the latter, the 
 itoh-insi scabiei) is a remarkable example. 
 
 The mites are active insects, and possess great powers of 
 life, resisting for a time the application of boiling water, and 
 living long in alcohol. 
 
 A< ('ET)AS Al) ( T'RIAM. In Law. the title of a writ 
 which removes a plaint from an inferior court, generally 
 the county court, as the issuing of which is a preliminary 
 to trying a question of right upon a distress of goods by the 
 proceeding called Ufi-levin (which see). 
 
 ACCELERATION. (Lat acceleratio, hastening.) In 
 Mechanics, an increase in the velocity oi bodies 111 motion. 
 
 Acceleration is uniform <>r variable, according as the force 
 by which the motion is produced acts regularly or irregu- 
 larly. The mosl familiar instances of uniformly accelerated 
 motion, are those which are occasioned by the earth's at- 
 a, and are exhibited in the falling of heavy bodies, or 
 
 .scent along inclined planes. In both these in- 
 
 , the observer cannot fall to perceive thai the veloci- 
 tj 1 1. com< s greater as the body falls imr. a grt ater height, 
 or continues a longer time in motion. In order to 1 
 
 the theory of acceleration from t he action of gravity, it isne- 
 
 io recoiled that, in virtue of the inertia of matter, a 
 body always perseveres in its stale .,1 rest, or ol uniform mo- 
 tion in a atraighl line, till, by some external influi nee. it is 
 made to change its state. This is Newton's fust law of motion, 
 which is admitted as a principle or axiom in mechanics, 
 
 and Iron 1 which it follows, that as a body cannot accelerate 
 its own motion, any change in the rate of velocity Of a 
 
 moving body must arise from the action of an extraneous 
 force. Now, suppose a body to be carried to a considera- 
 ble height above the ' arth. ami abandoned to the action of 
 gravity ; and hi us ei inline the circdmstanci a which take 
 In this supposition, gravity nay be regarded as a 
 cting uniformly ; for, though its intensity diminishes 
 as the distance from the centre of the earth increases, vet 
 
 any height tO Which we can reach is so small, compared 
 
 with the radius ofthe c arth, that the variation in the inten- 
 sity of gravity depending on il may be disregarded. Let 
 the timi ' ikes to fall to the earth be divi- 
 
 ded into equal and small intervals. During the first interval 
 an impulse is gi\en to the body, and a certain motion ia 
 1 If gravity now ceased to act, the body 
 would continue to descend uniformly with the velocity it 
 cquired; but the impulse is renewed with exactly 
 . igour during tbe second interval, and. consequently, 
 the velocity of the body is exactly doubled. The same 
 thing is repeated in the third interval, and, consequently, 
 1. ity of the body is then tripled. In the fourth in- 
 terval it is quadrupled, and so on; the body continually 
 receiving, during equal and successive intervals of time, 
 equal increments of velocity from the action of the accel- 
 erating force, and preserving its acquired velocity in consi - 
 quenceofits inertia. Hence we inter (he first great law- of 
 uniformly accelerated motion, nana ly, the velocity at any 
 given moment is proportional to the number of impulses 
 that have been received, "l- to the number ol intervals that 
 lapsed since (he commencement of the motion; in 
 other words, the velocity is proportional to the time. 
 
 Let us now consider the spaces passed over by the falling 
 body. Suppose the space through which the body falls 
 during the first interval, or second of time, to be one pole. 
 As the velocity is supposed, at the commencement ofthe 
 motion, to be nothing, and to increase uniformly during the 
 interval, it is evident that the space passed over will be the 
 same as if the body had continued during the interval 
 to move uniformly with the mean velocity, or the velocity 
 it had at the middle of the interval. Rut the velocity has 
 been shown to be proportional to the time. Hence, at the 
 end of the first second the velocity is the double of what it 
 was at the middle of the second ; and, therefore, ifgravity 
 ceased to act, the body, during the second interval or se- 
 cond, would descend through two poles. Inconsequence, 
 however, of the renewed action of gravity, the body re- 
 ceives a fresh impulse during the second interval equal to 
 that which it received during the first, and is, consequently, 
 carried through a space equal to one pole, in addition to 
 that through which it is carried by its previously acquired 
 velocity. Hence, during the second interval the body falls 
 through three poles. At the end of this time the velocity
 
 ACCELERATION. 
 
 is the double of what it was at the end of the first interval, 
 and, consequently, during the next second would carry the 
 body through four poles. Add, again, the effect of the re- 
 newed impulse, and the space passed over by the body in 
 the third second is five poles, hi the same manner, we 
 find the space passed over in the fourth second to be seven 
 poles; in the fifth, nine poles, and so on; the spaces de- 
 scribed in the successive seconds being proportional to the 
 series of odd numbers, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9,' 11, &c. Adding, there- 
 fore, these numbers successively, we shall have the spaces 
 passed over, since the commencement of the motion, re- 
 presented by the series of square numbers, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 
 36, <fcc. Whence the second great law of uniform accel- 
 eration, namely, the spaces described are proportional to the 
 squares of the times. 
 
 Galileo was the first who discovered the laws of acceler- 
 ation of falling bodie's. He supposed the acceleration to 
 take place by equal degrees, or to be uniform ; and exper- 
 iment has confirmed his hypothesis. {See Gravity, Gra- 
 vitation.) 
 
 What has now been said, with respect to motion uni- 
 formly accelerated, applies equally (mutatis mutandis) to 
 motion uniformly retarded. It will also be perceived that 
 the effect of the resistance of the air lias been neglected. 
 
 ACCELERA'TION OF THE FIXED STARS denotes 
 the apparent greater diurnal motion of the fixed stars than 
 of the sun; inconsequence of which they daily come to 
 the meridian of any place at an earlier hour of the solar 
 day than they didon the day preceding. Thus, a star 
 which to-day passes the meridian at six o'clock, mean 
 time, will pass the meridian to-morrow three minutes and 
 fifty-six seconds before six o'clock. The reason of this is, 
 that the sun, which appears to make a complete re- 
 volution of the heavens, from west to east, in the course of 
 a year, advances daily nearly a degree eastward among the 
 stars ; and the apparent diurnal motion being from east to 
 west, t lie sun's passage over the meridian is retarded daily 
 about three minutes and fifty seconds of time, in respect of 
 the stars. But our clocks are regulated by the sun; conse- 
 quently, in reference to them, the daily transit of the stars 
 over the meridian is accelerated. (See Sidereal Time.) 
 
 ACCELERA'TION OF THE MOON. An .ncrease of 
 the mean angular velocity of the moon about the earth ; in 
 consequence of which, the time of her mean periodic re- 
 volution is somewhat shorter than it was many centuries 
 ago. This acceleration is exceedingly small, amounting 
 only to about ten or eleven seconds of a degree in a century. 
 It was discovered by Dr. Halley. from a comparison of very 
 ancient with modern observations, and was confirmed by 
 an examination of the observations of the Arabians in the 
 9th and 10th centuries. Its physical cause long occasioned 
 great perplexity to mathematicians, and was at length de- 
 tected by the gpnius of Laplace. It depends on a very slow 
 secular diminution of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. 
 One of the greatest discoveries in physical astronomy is, 
 U variations in the elements of the planetary system 
 are periodic. Some centuries after the present time, the 
 eccentricity of the earth's orbit will arrive at its minimum 
 value, and then begin to increase. When this period ar- 
 rives, the mean motion of the moon, which for many cen- 
 turies has been accelerated, will begin to be retarded. (See 
 Planetary System, and Perturbation.) 
 
 ACCELERATION OF THE PLANETS. The motion 
 of a planet in its orbit is variable, being quicker or slower, 
 according as the planet is at a less or a greater distance 
 from the sun. Hence, in moving from the apogee to the 
 perigee of the orbit, the motion of a planet is accelerated; 
 and, on the contrary, in moving from the perigee to the 
 apogee, the motion is retarded. 
 
 A'CCENT. (Lat. ad, to, and cano, Ising.) In ordinary 
 language, the greater or less stress laid in pronouncing on 
 each syllabi" of a word is termed the accent of that syl- 
 lable. Put the accent of a Greek syllable is a species of 
 tone, respecting which very contradictory notions prevail 
 among modern commentators, and of which it is indeed 
 difficult to form any accurate conception. The history of 
 the employment of accentual marks in writing the Greek 
 language, is extremely obscure They are found in manu- 
 scripts of considerable antiquity. In'our pronunciation of 
 Greek, they are wholly neglected, quantity being our only 
 guide in the stress which we lay on the syllable of each 
 word. But the modern Greeks pronounce'their language, 
 in general, laying the stress on the accented syllables, and 
 neglecting the quantity. The mark of the acute accent is ' ; 
 of the grave ' ; of the circumflex, which is a compound of 
 the other two, ", or ~. But every syllable which has no 
 accentual mark is said to have the grave accent; the grave 
 being only marked on final syllables of words which have 
 no acute accent on any syllable. These three accentual 
 marks are also employed in the French language ; but in 
 it they are only employed, for convenience, to mark a dif- 
 ference in the pronunciation, not in the accent ; the modi- 
 fications of the vowel sounds not being all of them express- 
 ed by distinct letters. 
 
 ACCIDENTALS. 
 
 Accent. In Music, a certain stress or forced expression 
 laid on certain parts of a bar or measure. 
 
 ACCE'NTOR. A genus of seed and insect-eating pas- 
 serine birds, of which the hedge-chanter, or, as it is com- 
 monly called, the hedge-sparrow (Accentor nodularis), is a 
 well known example. 
 
 ACCEPTANCE. See Bill of Exchange. 
 
 ACCE'PTOR. (Law.) See Bill of Exchange. 
 
 A'CCESSARY. (Lat. accedo, / approach.) In Law, an 
 accessary to an offence is one who is not the chief actor, or 
 present at its performance, but is concerned therein, either 
 before or after the fact. An accessary before the fact, is one 
 "who. being absent at the time of the crime committed, 
 doth yet procure, counsel, or command another to commit 
 a crime." An accessary after the fact, is one who, know- 
 ing that a felony has been committed by another, receives, 
 relieves, comforts, or assists the felon. (See Law, Crimi- 
 nal.) 
 
 Accessary, or Accessory. (Ft. accessoire). In Paint- 
 ing, and the fine arts, is a term which extends to everything 
 introduced into a work that is not absolutely necessary. In 
 an historical picture, for instance, the figures which are in 
 action are the principal objects ; by them the story is told, 
 all the rest are accessories. Especial care is to be taken, 
 that they be so selected and disposed, as not to interfere 
 with the principal group ; hence the ancient painters and 
 sculptors were very shy of using them, lest the eye should 
 be drawn away from the principal group, and its interest be 
 thus lessened or destroyed. 
 
 ACCESSION. In international law, the act by which 
 one power enters into engagements originally contracted 
 between other powers. The accession of a sovereign is the 
 period at winch he assumes the sovereignty, and in heredi- 
 tary monarchies takes place immediately on the decease of 
 his predecessor. 
 
 ACCLv'CCATU'RA. (It. acciaccare, /os^Meezfi.) In Mu- 
 sic, a grace note, one semitone below that to which it is pre- 
 fixed, or, as it were, squeezed in. 
 
 A'Cf 'IDENS. per acddens. A term used by the older 
 philosophers to denote an effect not following from the 
 nature or essence of the thing, but from some accidental 
 quality. It is opposed to per se. Thus, fire burns per se ; 
 heated iron burns per accidens. 
 
 A'CCIDENT. In Logic, one of the predicables : in its 
 strictest logical sense, it is that which may be absent from 
 orpresentinthe subject, the i ssence of the species to which 
 the subject belongs remaining the same. Thus, it may be 
 predicated of a man, that he is "walking," or that he is "a 
 native of Paris ;" the first of which examples expresses 
 what is termed a separable accident; the latter, an insepa- 
 rable; i. e. the individual may cease to walk, but cannot 
 cease to be a native of Paris ; but neither of these alter the 
 species, man. to which the individual belongs. But it is to be 
 observed, with regard to the accident, as well as the other 
 predicables, that they exist only relatively to each other; 
 so that the same quality may be accidental when predicated 
 of the species, which is a property when predicated of the 
 individual. Thus, " malleability " is an accident of the sub- 
 ject " metal.'' because many metals are not malleable. But 
 it is one of the properties of gold, iron, &c, as distinguishing 
 these from the non-malleable metal. (See Predicable.) 
 
 ACCIDENTAL COLOURS. Colours depending on 
 some affection of the eye, and not belonging to light itself, 
 or any quality of the luminous object. If we look for a 
 short time steadily with one eye upon any bright-coloured 
 spot, as a wafer on a sheet of paper, and immediately after 
 turn the same eye to another part of the paper, a similar 
 spot will be seen, but of a different colour. If the wafer be 
 red, the imaginary spot will be green ; if black, it will be 
 changed into white ; the colour thus appearing being always 
 what is termed the complementary colour of that on which 
 the eye was fixed. 
 
 ACCIDENTAL POINT. Perspective. The point in 
 which a straight fine drawn from the eye, parallel to an- 
 other straight line, cuts the perspective plane. It is the 
 point in which the representations of all straight lines pa- 
 rallel to the original straight line concur when produced. It 
 is called the accidental point, to distinguish it from the prin- 
 cipal point, or point of view 
 
 ACCIDE'NTALS. (Lat. accidentalis. happening by 
 chance.) hi Painting, are those fortuitous or chance 
 effects, occurring from luminous rays falling on certain 
 objects, by which they are brought into stronger light 
 than they otherwise would be, and their shadows are 
 consequently of greater intensity. This sort of effect is 
 to be seen in almost every picture by Rembrandt, who 
 used them to a very great extent. There are some fine 
 instances of accidentals in Raphael's Transfiguration, 
 and particularly jn the celebrated picture, the Notte of 
 Coreggio, in which the light emanates from the infant 
 Christ. With these effects may be classed such acci- 
 dental lights as those from a forge or a candle, or some 
 such object, of which the use is extremely important to the 
 painter of still life.
 
 ACCIPITRES. 
 
 Accidentals. In Music, are those flats and sharps 
 which are prefixed to the notes in a movement, and which 
 would not be considered so by the llats and sharps in the 
 signature. 
 
 ICCI'PITRES. (Lat. accipiter, a hawk.) The name of 
 the L mast rder, including the birds of prey. 
 
 ACCLIMATISE. (Lat. ad, to, and china, a ciimate.) 
 The art of cultivating exotic planl i so as to inure them to a 
 climate different to that which is natural to them. An ac- 
 climatised plant or animal differs from a naturalised one, 
 in alwavs requiring the assistance of art for its continuance 
 in the adopted climate; the naturalised plant or animal 
 continuing its kind without any care from man. The ca- 
 pacities of different plants and animals for being acclima- 
 tised, or naturalised, vary, but not to the extent that at first 
 may be imagined; what passes under these terms 
 being frequently nothing more than the fortunate dis- 
 covery that some plant or animal, Which had hitherto 
 been found in a warm climate, would thrive equally well 
 in a coM one. 
 
 A< '( :OLA'DE. (Lat. ad, to, and collnm. the neck.) The 
 slight blow given to the neck or shoulder, on dubbing a 
 knight. 
 
 \> cO'MPANTMENT. In Music. The instrumental 
 
 part of a composition which moves with the voice, to 
 
 which it is to be kepi te. AlsOjthe pans which 
 
 mcerted pie tment, 
 
 whose powers il is tn< object of the composition to exhibit. 
 
 a vompaniment. In Painting. Any object aci 
 to the principal subject, and serving to its ornament or 
 illustration. 
 
 ACCO'MPLICE. In Law, is d one of many 
 
 i ; M (See Accessary, Approver.) 
 
 ACCO'RD. {See Concord ) 
 
 mi 01 'NTANT-GENERAL. The principal or respon- 
 sible accountant in the offi I ns, In- 
 dia House, Ba The untant-gi 
 
 ofChancerj is an il ["appointed by act of parliament to 
 receive all the mo n court lie I i 
 
 count with the Bank of England, which is responsible for 
 nil the sui s lodged there bj him. 
 
 ACCRE'SCIME'NTI > I 
 
 Music, the increase, by one half of its original duration, 
 which a note gains by having a dot appended to the 
 of it. 
 
 ACCU'MBENT. (Lat. accumbere, to lie down.) 1= a 
 term applied, in botany, to cases when 
 gan is applied to another by its edge ; il is chief!) used in 
 contradistinction to incumbent, where one part is applied 
 [other by its back or face. These I Incipal- 
 
 |y e nployed am mg brassicai us (era ■ plants. 
 
 \C( 1 'S \Ti\i; CASK. 'I'll- mi 
 
 which expi es tea tl e pat sin im one 
 
 substance to anotln r: tl consequently follows verbs active 
 in ,iii languages. In English il survives only in pronouns; 
 and is us 'il after all prepositions without distinction, < Si i 
 Gram i 
 
 ACETHALANS, axephala. (Gr. dicsQdXot, headless.) 
 A term applied to a clasi of 
 
 hendins the withoul a head. The class is 
 
 subdivided, iccording to the modifications of the respirato- 
 ry organs, into the 'Lamelli-branchiate,' ' Palb'o-branchi- 
 ate,' and 'Hetero-branchiate,' or tunii 
 those words. ) Tin' oyster, Ian 
 
 ascidia, are their several representatives. Inthesysrcm 
 of Cuvierii includes only the famelli-branchiate and h 
 branchiate orders, or the acephala testacea, and the ace- 
 phala nuda. 
 
 ACE'PHALOPHO'RES, Acephalophora. (Or. diec>pa\os, 
 and (pcou), I bear.) The nami givenh) I 
 of nolluscous animals corresponding to la and 
 
 brachioooda of I lot ier. 
 
 ACE'PHALOUS. \ botanical term, occasionally ra- 
 ployed in designate ovaries I ! i st) le of v. hich springs from 
 their base, in -lead of their apex, as in lami 
 
 Acephalous, in Anatomy, to those mal- 
 
 for tied foetuses w bich are r il noul a fiead. 
 
 A'CER. (Celt, a-, a point; Lat. acer, sharp. Pikes 
 Were made from the wood:.) A- . com- 
 
 prehendini the common maple, the sycamore, and various 
 kinds of American maples. Their wood is not of much 
 value, being usually light and perishable ; bul the knotti d 
 par's of Acer campestre furnish tin- pretty b 
 maple of cahinet makers. The sap of Acer saccharinum 
 is so sweet that sugar, of gi I from it 
 
 in North America. Acer pla anoid is, the Norwa) i 
 is one of the best trees for planting in places exposed to the 
 sea air. 
 
 ACERA'CE^ (see Acer), or ACERINE E. A small 
 natural order of polypetalous exogenous plants, compre- 
 hending the genus acer, and three others. It consists of 
 trees, or at least of woody plants, inhabiting the temperate 
 parts of the world ; their most essential character consists 
 in their samaroid dicarpellary fruit, connected with a bro- 
 
 ACHROMATISM. 
 
 ken whorled calyx, and unsymmetrical flowers without 
 scales at the base of the petals. The uses of the order arc 
 the same as those of acer. 
 
 A'CERANS. Accra. (Gr. d, without, and xepas, alwrv.) 
 A name applied to a family of apterous insects, character- 
 ised by the absence of antenna? : and to a family of gastro- 
 podous mollusks, including those species which have no 
 tentacles. 
 
 A'CERIC ACID. (Lat. acer, the maple.) An acid ob- 
 tained from tin' sap ol lint tree. 
 
 ACERO'SE. Tins word literally means chaffy (Lat 
 panis acerosus, chaffy or brown bread). Botanists apply 
 tie' term i<> leaves of a narrow, stiff, and pungent nature, 
 like those offir-tn es. 
 
 ACETA'BUH M. (Lat. a Hale cup. or disk.) A term 
 applied in the suckers on the arms of the cuttle-fish, and 
 other dibrancl iate cephalopoda, which have been, hence, 
 recently termed acetaoulifi I suckers were called 
 
 by An . which Taylor has erroneously ren- 
 
 in n d 'joints,' in the English translation of the History of 
 Animals. In adato i it»i signifies the cavity of 
 
 _\ it is the socket on the trunk; 
 in which the leg is planted. 
 
 A'T.TA'KIOl s PLANTS. (Lat acetaria, a salad.) 
 P i mi salading; such as lettuce, mustard and 
 
 A , 
 
 \( lE'TATES. Sails containing acetic acid. {See Vixe- 
 
 VI E'TIC ACID. The pure acid contained in vinegar. 
 It is a | ourless acrid liq iur, when di- 
 
 luted, i en perfumed, ii is 
 
 It is ii.i ri ed 
 
 during the germination of semis, and ii e tists in the juices 
 
 i y plants, bul it is mosl abundan I during 
 
 natural or artificial, of nearly au 
 
 9. \\ hen perfectly free from water, it 
 
 consists of 
 
 Carton - - - 4 atoms = 24 47*06 
 
 Hydrogen • - 3 " s= 3 6 38 
 
 Oxygen - - - 3 " =24 4706 
 
 1 51 10000 
 
 ACHJE'AN LEAGUE. A. confederacy which existed 
 from very earl) times among thi of the pro- 
 
 vince of Aden i, in the north of the Peloponnesus. It was 
 broken up after the di o \ ander the Great, but was 
 Bet on I tie of the original cities, B. C. 280, 
 
 the epoch of its rise into great ii iportance; for 
 
 from this time it gained strength, and finally spread over 
 the w h not withoul much opposi- 
 
 tion, principally on the pact ofL ci in on. It was finally 
 fed by the Romans, on the event of the capture of 
 i , I ennui, ins, n. o. 1 1~. The two n 0£ 
 
 leaders of this league were, Aral icipal in.-.tru- 
 
 menl of its early aggrandisement; and Philopa?men, the 
 contemporary and rival, in military reputation, ol Scipioand 
 
 ; ii. P lusanias, 1 \ii * 
 Beris Universal History. Clit i I isti Hellenici.) 
 
 \i HJE Ml M, or ACHENIUM. (Gr. d, without, and 
 %aivoi. I gapt i A small bony fruit, containing a 
 
 which does not adhere to the shell or pericarp, nor 
 open when ripe. 
 
 ACHA TMA. a genus of terrestrial gastropods, known 
 by the trivial name of agate-snails : characterised by an 
 oval oblong ventricose shell, striated longitudinally; with 
 i kened or reflected, and a 
 smooth, straight columella, truncated at the base. All the 
 species are ovipafo the ichatma zebra, pro- 
 
 duces eggs with a hard, white, calcareous shell, and as 
 I crew. 
 
 vCHERON. (Gr. a%os, gn'e/0 The river of sorrow 
 which flew- i realms of Hades, accord- 
 
 ing to I I i ancients. There was a river 
 
 of the san e nan e, and also one 
 in Italy, Llexander, king of the Molossi was 
 
 slain ; both of which, from the unwholesome and foul na- 
 ture of their raters, were supposed to communicate with 
 the infernal sb 
 
 ACHTE'VEMENT. <Tr. achever, to accomplish.) In 
 Heraldry, denotes generally a shiel I of arn orial hearings; 
 but is more particularly applied to the funeral shieid, com- 
 ii only called hatchment, affixed to the dwelling-house of a 
 recently-deceased person. The achievement is various, 
 according not only to the ranK of the deceased party, but 
 tation as sinsle, married, or widower. 
 
 ACIII.AMY'DEOl S. (Gr. d. without, and chlamys, a 
 tunic.) Plants which have neither calyx nor corolla, and 
 Whose flowers are consequently destitute of a covering, or 
 naked. 
 
 ACHROMATIC. (Gr. d, without, and xpuiia, colour,} 
 Free from col 
 
 ACHRO'MATISM. The destruction of the primary 
 colours, which accompany the image of an object seen 
 through a prism or lens. Light is not homogeneous, but
 
 ACHROMATISM. 
 
 compounded of rays unequally refrangible, and differing 
 from one another in other physical properties. In passing 
 into a refracting medium, some of the rays are more re- 
 fracted, or bent out of their course, than "others; whence 
 the image of an object, seen through a lens, is rendered 
 confused and indistinct, and appears encircled by a coloured 
 ring. This circumstance presented a formidable obstacle 
 to the use of the telescope ; and, accordingly, soon after the 
 invention of that admirable instrument, the utmost efforts 
 of mathematicians and artists were exerted to remove the 
 imperfection. The compound nature of light, and, conse- 
 quently, the theory of unequal refrangibility, were, how- 
 ever, not known till the time of Newton ; and after the 
 true source of the difficulty had been made known, it con- 
 tinued for a long time to be believed that achromatism was 
 impossible, or that light could not be deflected without be- 
 ing decomposed. Newton himself was conducted to this 
 conclusion by imperfect experiments. Subsequent disco- 
 \ eries have proved that the conclusion was erroneous, and 
 that the rays of light may be bent without being separated ; 
 but. afierall, the progress that has been made in the arts, 
 as well as in the theory of colours and light, the subject of 
 achromatism continues to be one of the most delicate and 
 embarrassing, both in regard to theory and practice. 
 
 The principles on which achromatism is effected, may- 
 be briefly explained, as follows. On observing the spectra 
 formed by prisms of different substances, it is soon per- 
 ceived that the different colours, though always ranged in 
 the same order, do not occupy the same relative lengths. 
 A prism of flint glass, for example, exhibits proportionally 
 less red, and more violet, than a prism of crown glass ; and, 
 in some other substances, the difference is still more re- 
 markable. Hence it follows, that the primary coloured 
 rays, in passing through different substances, do not under- 
 go the same relative refractions; that is to say, the angle 
 formed by two rays, the red and the violet, for example, 
 is greater when the light is refracted by some substances 
 lii in when it is refracted by others, though in all substances 
 the violet is more refracted than the blur, tin- ! i] i 
 than the green, and so on. The angle formed between the 
 extreme rays of the spectrum measures the dispersion of 
 the rays ; and i! is found by experiment that the dispersive 
 power of common flint glass is to that of crown glass in 
 the ratio of about 3 to 2 ; so that if a prism of flint glass give 
 a spectrum tlrree inches long, a similar prism of crown 
 glass will give a spectrum of only two inches. 
 
 Now, suppose a prism of crown glass, C, the faces of 
 which make an angle of 25°, and a prism of flint glass, F, 
 of 20° 21' 43", to be placed be- 
 hind it, and that a ray of direct 
 or white light, L I, falling on the 
 first prism at 1, emerges from 
 the second between the points 
 E and E'. It is known by ex- 
 perience, that when the angles of the two prisms are as 
 above stated, the violet ray E V, on emerging from the 
 second prism, is parallel to' the incident ray LI; and that 
 Die red ray E' R must fall below E V, because the red ray 
 only emerges parallel to the incident rav when the angle of 
 the prism of flint glass is 20° 56' 28". But if the prism of 
 flint glass were removed, or, which would be the same 
 thing, if its sides became parallel, and consequently its an- 
 gle = 0, the red ray E' R would fall above the violet ray 
 E V. the violet being more refrangible than the red. While 
 the angle F, therefore, increases from 0° to 20° 56' 28". 
 the emerging rays E' R and E V change their relative po- 
 sitions ; whence it follows, that at some intermediate angle 
 of the prism F they will be parallel, and this is the ami].' of 
 achromatism. It is found by experience to be 11° 58' 3" ; 
 varying, however, between narrow limits according to the 
 peculiar constitution of the two refracting substances ; and. 
 therefore, in determining the ratio of the angles of the two 
 prisms, recourse must generally be had to particular ex- 
 periments on the individual substances of which the prisms 
 are composed. 
 
 The achromatism of lenses depends on the same princi- 
 ples, and is determined in the same maimer, as that of 
 prisms; but in the case of lenses, the compensation is at- 
 tended with great practical difficulties, on account of its be- 
 ing necessary to have regard to the spherical aberration. 
 
 If the ratios of the dispersion of the different spectral co- 
 lours were all equal, the achromatism would be perfect 
 when the extreme rays, or, indeed, any two rays, emerge 
 parallel. This, however, is not generally the case ; these 
 ratios are in general variable, and, therefore, the angle 
 which renders the red and violet rays parallel is not that 
 which is required for the intermediate colours. It is possi- 
 ble, however, to remedy this defect, by combining a 
 greater number of prisms or lenses. Theoretically speak- 
 ing, indeed, the number of rays united or rendered paral- 
 lel is the same as the number of prisms. The achromatic 
 object-glasses of telescopes formerly made in England, 
 were generally triple; that is to say, consisted of three 
 lenses, namely, a concave lens of flint glass placed between 
 10 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT-MONEY. 
 
 two lenses of crown glass : but almost all the large object- 
 glasses lately constructed consist of only two lenses ; the 
 achromatism produced by this combination, though not 
 rigorously exact, being sufficient for optical purposes. 
 
 The possibility of refracting light without producing co- 
 lour was discovered and experimentally proved by Mr. 
 Hall, a country gentleman of Worcestershire, under whose 
 directions an achromatic telescope was made by a London 
 artist in 1733. But, from whatever cause, no notice was 
 taken of Hall's discovery ; indeed, it appears to have been 
 entirely forgotten, and contributed nothing whatever to ad- 
 vance subsequent researches. The merit of the discovery 
 of achromatic compensation belongs to John Dollond, who 
 arrived at it through a long course of skilful and systematic 
 experiments undertaken for the express purpose. Its pos- 
 sibility had, indeed, been previously asserted by the cele- 
 brated Euler, who, reasoning from the construction of the 
 eye, which, indeed, is a perfect achromatic instrument, 
 proposed various hypotheses for destroying the coloured 
 images. After Dollond's discover} - , the subject was ex- 
 amined theoretically by Euler, Clairaut, and DAlembert, 
 but their profound mathematical investigations led to no 
 practical improvement. The object-glasses made by Peter 
 Dollond (a son of the inventor) were long celebrated 
 throughout Europe as the best that were manufactured. 
 Of late years, however, the science of light has been vast- 
 ly extended ; and the discoveries of Fraunhofer, in particu- 
 lar, have opened up an entirely new view of the com- 
 position of the spectrum. The largest and best achro- 
 matic glasses have recently been made in Bavaria and 
 Switzerland: (See Chromatics, Refraction.) 
 
 ACI'CULAR. (Lat. acictda, a needle.) Any thing that 
 is slender, sharp-pointed, and rather stiff; as many kinds 
 of prickles on the leaves of plants, <fcc. 
 
 A'CID. In common language, any soar substance: in 
 chemistry the term is less restricted, and often applied to 
 all substances which saturate and neutralise the alkalis 
 and other salifiable bases, without other obvious acid pro- 
 perties. 
 
 ACIDIFI'ABLE. Convertible into an acid 
 
 ACI'DULODS. Dim. of acid. Subacid; a term fre- 
 quently applied to mineral waters containing carbonic acid. 
 
 ACKNACIFORM. (Lat. acinaces, a scimitar, and forma, 
 shape.) A name applied to certain succulent leaves and 
 fruits, which resemble the blade of a curved sword or 
 Turkish scimitar. 
 
 A'CINUS. (Gr. axivos, the stone of a grape.) The se- 
 parate carpels of a succulent fruit consisting of many car- 
 pels ; as the raspberry. This term is also applied in anato- 
 my to a cluster of the ultimate secerning follicles of certain 
 conglomerate glands : as the liver. 
 
 ACIPE'NSER. (Lat. acipenser, a sturgeon.) The 
 name of a Linnfean genus of the amphibia nantes, charac- 
 terised by solitary, lateral, linear gill-openings; the mouth, 
 situated beneath "the head, retractile and edentulous ; feel- 
 ers under the snout, in front of the mouth. The sturgeon 
 (acipenser sturio), and most of the other amphibia nantes 
 of Linnaeus, form the order chrondropterygii, or cartilagin- 
 ous fishes of Cuvier. The genus acipenser is separated by 
 Agassiz from the other cartilaginous fishes. It forms a 
 link between the osseous and cartilaginous fishes, having 
 its gills protected by an operculum, and only a single issue, 
 or gill-opening, on each side, for the respiratory currents; 
 but at the same time having no rays to the branchiostegal 
 membrane, and having the whole of its true internal skele- 
 ton in a cartilaginous state. By Cuvier, therefore, the ge- 
 nus acipenser is placed in the cartilaginous division of 
 fishes, but separated from the rays, sharks, and lampreys, 
 which have five or more gill-openings on each side, to 
 form, along with the genera spatularia and chimaera, the 
 order eleuthero-branchiata, or those which have the 
 branchiae free at their outer circumference. In the system 
 of Agassiz the sturgeons are joined with the sauroid fishes, 
 siluri, polypterus, and some other genera, to form the or- 
 der Ganoides. (See that word.) And it is worthy of ob- 
 servation, that the polypterus (a ganoid fish of the Nile) has 
 a spiral valve in the intestine like that of the sturgeon. 
 
 There are several distinct species of acipenser in the 
 Danube, and other great rivers of Europe ; the largest spe- 
 cimen ever caught, in Great Britain is, probably, that which 
 is recorded by Pennant as having been taken in the Esk, 
 and which weighed four hundred and sixty pounds. 
 
 In England, the sturgeon is considered a royal fish, and 
 its use is exclusively as an article of luxury for the table ; 
 its flesh, like that of most cartilaginous fishes, is firmer 
 than is usual among osseous fishes, and having little pecu- 
 liar flavour of its own, affords ample scope for the skill of 
 the cook in imparting to it an extrinsic zest. 
 
 In the northern parts of Europe this fish is much more 
 numerous than in the British rivers, and extensive fishe- 
 ries are established for its capture. The best isinglass is 
 manufactured from the sound, or air bladder ; and caviare 
 is prepared from the roe of the female. 
 
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT-MONEY, in Law, paid ac-
 
 ACME. 
 
 cording to the custom of some manors by copyhold ten- 
 ants, on the death of a lord. 
 
 ACME. (Qr. dicpTj, a point.) In Rhetoric, the extreme 
 height, or farthest point of pathos, or sentiment, to which 
 the mind is judiciously conducted by a series of impres- 
 -itJnailv rising in intensity. (See Climax.) 
 
 ACO'LOGV. or AKOLOGY. (Gr. okoc, a remedy, and 
 Xoyoi. The doctrine of remedies, or of the 
 
 ■ medica. 
 
 A'COLYTE. (Gr. aKo\ov9os, disciple.) The second of 
 the inferior orders of clergy in the primitive church, ac- 
 cording to th The Council 
 
 of Trent declares i fivi — subdea- 
 
 cons, acolytes, exorcists, readers, and doorkeepers; consi 
 dering them all CO be of apostolical institution. By the 
 Protestants i : losed to be mi -nal or 
 
 ifficers, Tie- office of the acolytes, according to the 
 Roman Catholic Catechismus ad Parochos, isto follow and 
 
 serve the superior orders, i ons and deacons, in 
 
 the ministry of the altar. Besides this, they carry 
 when the sacrifice of the mass is celebrated, whence they 
 are called also ceroferarii (wax-bearers). 
 
 ACONI'TA, At i )M ll.NA. A poisonous vegetable prin- 
 ir alkaloid extracted from tl 
 
 A'C'OMTi;. (Acone, a| Crimea famous for 
 
 its poisonous herbs. ) A genus of exogenous plants I 
 ing to the natural 01 showy purple 
 
 or y» 11' i aped flowers, growing in pa 
 
 )y cut leaves, and perennial roots of a highly poisonous na- 
 ture. Those of Aconitum lycoctonum are used for 
 Btruction of wolves, and of A. napellus for certain medici- 
 nal purposes ; the 
 
 lent drastic . which the na- 
 
 of Nepal poisoned their wells, during the advance of 
 the British army into their territory, during the la 
 was furnished by Aconitum '• ro I 
 
 een given to another planl related to the original ge- 
 nus, namely, eran his bye at lis, or winter aeon 
 
 ACO'NTIA. (Gr dicav. L genus of non-veno- 
 
 mous ophidi proper (an- 
 
 guis), bui destitute of the bony rudiments of the scapular 
 and pelvic arches. They are known by the trivial name of 
 " Dart-snakes ;" are numerous in species, and distributed 
 over the warmi r and more arid parts of the ..id wort I. 
 They wen- thi is accounts by the ancient 
 
 naturalists and poets, Who attributed to them the power of 
 
 projecting themselves with bo much force and velo 
 to Iran cl aimed at. like a hurled javelin, or ar- 
 
 row shot from a bow. This is \ a untr sertion 
 
 thai t lej are ven ius. The Dart-snakes are amongst the 
 
 mosl ban heir order: t. ■ I small 
 
 Worms, insects, ind I 
 
 ACORA'CEiB, or \i OROID] 
 of plants which includes the L"-nus acorus It is distin- 
 guished from araceae only by having its i 
 
 ■nl its leave, i ged in .in e [uitant 
 
 manner. 
 
 A'CORN. (Accorn, Sax. of aac, on i ruin.) 
 
 The well-known fruil of the oak. and therefore nol a term 
 of art, though belonging to architecture from its use as an 
 ornament. In the .any ages acorns constituted a principal 
 pari of the food of man'. (Ovid. Metamorph. i. 106; Virgil, 
 
 Georg. i. 3. &c | V.I present I ■ are i nallj 
 
 at parts of the Continent during out in 
 
 I they are never i ling of 
 
 pigs, poultry, &c. 
 
 ACORUS. (Gr. OKOpOi ) A plant with sword-shaped 
 and aromatic stems, found abundantly in the mea- 
 dows ol if England. It bears, but very rarely, 
 its flowers in tich appears 
 at a short distance below the end of a leaflike scape. The 
 leaves, when crushed, exhale a pleasant odour, and are 
 still usi - upon the oc- 
 casion of certain ancient ceres onies. Its stem, or rhizo- 
 ma, is like that of an iris, and is the calamus aromaticus of 
 the drug 
 
 A'COTYLE'DONS. (Gr. d, without, and KorvXriSav, li- 
 terally, a hollow or concave part, but applied I 
 
 to the seed-]-. lie.) Plants whose seeds have no dish 
 
 tyledons. Tl sally applied to what are more 
 
 commonly named cryptogamic plants, such as ferns, moss- 
 i -. la hens, lVc., in which there are no seeds, properly so 
 called, but which are propagated by undivided spherical 
 bodies called spores. The word acotyledon is occasionally 
 used for such plants as cuscuta, cactus. &c., whose seeds, 
 although really of the same nature as these in which coty- 
 ledons are usually present, have no obvious division ; this 
 mode of applying the term is, however, seldom employed. 
 
 ACOU'STICS. (Gr. dicovii), I hear.) The science of 
 hearins, or of sound. (See SorxD.) 
 
 ACQXTTTAL. In Law. (Lat. acquietare. to render 
 tranquil.) Freedom from sendees to a superior lord. 
 Also, deliverance from a criminal charge by the verdict of 
 not guilty. This verdict may always be pleaded in an- 
 
 ACROSTIC. 
 
 swer to a second chanre on the same offence : the plea is 
 termed "autrefois acquit.'' 
 
 ACQUITTANCE, in Law. the discharge in writing of 
 a sum of money due. An acquittance not under seal is 
 admissible only in evidence, and is not pleadable. An ac- 
 quittance in full of all demands, is an answer to all debts, 
 such as are on specialty, which can only be dis- 
 charged by an instrument of equal force. 
 
 A'( i; E. A measure of land, that formerly varied in dif- 
 ferent pails of the United Kingdom. The magnitude of 
 the imperial or statute acre may be referred to that of the 
 square yard, by recollecting that a square, whose side is 
 22 yards long, is the tenth part of an acre ; whence the lat- 
 ter contains 22 X ~- X U>, or 4,s40 square yards. The 
 chain with which land is measured is 22 yards long, so that 
 ;are chains are one acre. The acre is divided into 
 -. and each rood into 40 perches; so that each perch 
 contains 304; square yards. 
 
 of equivalent 
 Acre. Road. Perch. yard*. squares in yard*, 
 
 1 = 4 = 160 = "4^40 = 69-53 
 1 = 40 = 1210 = : M ; 
 
 1 = 30i — -..-, 
 
 121 Irish acres are equivalent to 1% English acres. 
 • < are equal to 61 English 
 
 i i are is a squat i . ■■. is 10 metres: 
 
 and 1000 English acres an- equivalent to 40466 ares. (Xee 
 Companion to British Almanac, 1830.) 
 
 ACRITIANS, \< ItlDlA. (Gr.dicpts, a locust.) A fami- 
 ly of orthopti . having .he genus acridium for 
 
 \'t RITES, ACRITA. (Gr. duping, indiscernible.) The 
 
 ■i of the animal kingdom, in which there is 
 
 .net discernible nervous system ; andin which the 
 
 alimenlary canal is not separated from the parietes of the 
 
 ained in a distinct abdominal cavity. It is 
 
 sedoftheel s, polypi, polygastrica, ate- 
 
 relmintha, acalepha. (See those words.) 
 
 ACRODA'CTYLUM. (Gr. di-cos. hiL-ht^t or extreme, 
 and r,aKT\)\oc, a digit.) In Zoology, the upper surface of 
 
 A'CRODUS. (Gr. dupos, extreme, oSovc, tooth.) The 
 
 name of a genus of shark -. esence 
 
 of large polygonal o a ued at 
 
 I le fi of this -■ ana are 
 
 found exclusively in ti 
 
 A'CROGENfi I.: a s, and ytyvw, I grow.) Plants, 
 
 •..us and acol They 
 
 correspond to ferns, mosses, lichens, a 
 are multiplied ofs I<: and are remark- 
 
 able for incre: additions to their 
 
 end, and not in diameter, by the addition i iter to 
 
 ■as, .le, as in exogens, or to then- inside, as in en- 
 
 \i ROT.ITHOS (Gr ixpoc, and XiBof, sto»e.) In 
 Sculpture.,! si re of stone,the body 
 
 being made of \\ I. According to Vitruvius, then- was a 
 
 temple at Halicarnas to Mars, and built by 
 
 Mausolus. kin-' of ('aria, wherein was an acrolirhau - 
 
 god. And from Trebellius Pollio we learn that Cal- 
 purnia set up an acrolithan statue of Venus, which w i 
 ACRO NYCAI.. or \« IllMiNVCIl M.. (Gr. dxooc. and 
 i't.) A star or planet is said to be acronycal when 
 it is opposite to the Bun, e meridian at mid- 
 
 night It rises acronycally, when it rises as the sun 
 
 acronycally, when it sets as the sun rises. The 
 Greek poets designated thi positions of a star, 
 
 at its risiiiir or setting, with respect to the sun. : 
 
 lii-nl. and heliacal; and thereby indicatei 
 a rude way, the position of the sun in the ecliptic, 01 
 vear. 
 ACROPCDIUM. (Gr. d/coos. and irovs,foot.) In Zoo- 
 
 ■ foot. 
 
 ACRO'PO! tj, and iro\tc. city.) The upper 
 
 town or citadel of a Grecian city. It was usually the site 
 of the o i'- «en by the colonists 
 
 for its natural strength. The most celebrated were those 
 of Athens. Corinth, and Ithome: the two latter of which 
 the horns of the Peloponnesus, as if their 
 to insure the submission of the 
 whole peninsi 
 
 A'CROSPIRE. (Gr. dicaoc, and o-ntipa, a curved line.) 
 When seeds beL'in to grow, the part of the germ w hich af- 
 terwards pro. lu id shoots forth in the form of a 
 delicate curved fibre, and, gradually bursting the outer 
 covering, makes its appearance at the end of the seed. 
 Maltsters, especially, call this the acrospire of barley. 
 
 ACRO'STIC, or ACROSTICH. (Gr. anno;, and 'orixos, 
 rank.) A composition in verse or prose, in which 
 -' or last letter of every line, or of every word, read 
 collectively, form a name or a sentence. Great labour and 
 ingenuity have been exercised in inventing varieties of this 
 and similar curious trifles. Such, for example, is the pen- 
 tacrostic, in which the initial letter of each verse is re-
 
 ACROTARSIUM. 
 
 peated five times in every verse, so as to form five repeti- 
 tions of the same acrostic, as it were, in different columns. 
 
 ACROTA'RSIUM. (Gr. dxpos, and raoaog, tarsus.) In 
 Zoology, the upper surface of the tarsus. (See that word.) 
 
 ACROTE'RIA. (Gr. aKpiarr/piov, the extremity of any 
 thing.) In Architecture, the pedestals, often without base 
 or cornice, which are placed on the centre and sides of 
 pediments,, and which are so placed for the reception of 
 figures. Vitruvius gives the rules for their dimensions. 
 The same word is applicable to the ridge of a building. 
 Bon e have used the word acroterion to signify the statues 
 on the pedestals, but it is strictly t lie pedestals' themselves 
 only to which it is applicable. The word acroteria is also 
 used to denote the small pieces of wall in balustrades be- 
 tween tin" pedestal and the balusters. 
 
 ACRY'DIUM. (Gr. dxois, a locust.') The name applied 
 by Fabricius to a genus of locusts, characterised by a cari- 
 nate thorax; filiform antenna?, shorter than the thorax: 
 nal palps or feelers. 
 
 ACT. In Dramatic literature, a division of a drama, sub- 
 divided into scenes. The Greek dramas of the old model 
 wore naturally divided into separate portions by the stasi- 
 nia. or choric odes, which occur at intervals, during which 
 the stage was left to the sole occupation of the chorus. 
 Nevertheless, the Grecian writers do not notice this divi- 
 sion in express terms ; nor do we know the origin of the 
 famous rule of Horace, that every dramatic piece should 
 be restrained within the limits of five acts, neither more 
 nor less. The division into acts must be in greal measure 
 arbitrary, although rules have been laid down, by vari iu • 
 writers, to define the portion of the story or plot which 
 should be contained in each of them. Thus, Vossius lays 
 it down as a rule, that the first act presents the intrigue, 
 the second develops it, the third is filled with incidents 
 forming its knot or complication, the fourth prepares the 
 means of unravelling it, which is finally accomplished in 
 the fifth. (See Drama.) 
 
 Act. In the Universities, an exercise performed by stu- 
 dents before they are admitted to degrees. The student 
 proposes certain questions to the presiding officer of the 
 schools, who then nominates other students to oppose him. 
 The discussion is syllogistical and in Latin, and terminates 
 by the presiding otlicer questioning the respondent, or per- 
 son who is said to keep the act, and his opponents, and dis- 
 missing them with some remarks upon their respective 
 merits. 
 
 ACT OF PARLIAMENT. (See Statute.) 
 
 A'CTA DIURNA, daily proceedings. Among the various 
 important improvements effected by Julius t'a-sar may be 
 ranked that of his furnishing the Romans with a species of 
 newspaper. He was the first to order that the acta dim na 
 of the senate and the people should be drawn up in a regu- 
 lar form and published. This publication must conse- 
 quently have, in many important respects, closely resem- 
 bled a modern newspaner. — (Sueton. in Ca?s. cap. 20.) 
 
 A'CTA ERUD1TORUM. The title of a celebrated lite- 
 rary and scientific journal, which was commenced at Leip- 
 zig,' in 168'^, by professor Mencke, of that university. The 
 last volume was that for 17/ 1 "■ . 
 
 A'CTIAN GAMES. (Lat. Ludi Actiaci.) Games cele- 
 brated in antiquity at Actium in honour of Apollo, hence 
 surnamed Actius. The temple of the god was repaired, 
 and the games restored and celebrated with increased 
 splendour by Augustus, in memory of his victory over 
 Mark Antony olT Actium. 
 
 ACTI'NIA (Gr. dicrtv, aray.) A genus of polypi with 
 very nu nerous tentacles, which extend, like rays, from the 
 circumference of the mouth. They are amongst the most 
 highly organised of the class, having the alimentary sac dis- 
 tinct from the parietes of the body; feeding on'shellfish 
 and other marine animals, which they draw into their 
 mouth with their tentacula?, and in a short time rejecting, 
 through the same aperture, the shells and indigestible pans. 
 They are of a soft gelatinous texture, and they assume 
 various forms when the tentacles are all expanded, bav- 
 ins the appearance of full-blown many-petalled flowers; 
 whence thev are called "sea anemones," "sea sunflow- 
 ers," &c. (Phil. Trans, Ixiii. p. 361.) 
 
 ACTI'NOCA'MAX (Gr. dtcrw, a ray, Kapa?, a pale.) 
 A name applied by Miller to the t'ossil shells of an extinct 
 genus of Cephalopodous Molluscs, apparently connecting 
 the Belemnites with the existing Sepia. The remains of 
 the Actinocamax appear, as yet, to be peculiar to the chalk 
 formations of Ensbnd and Normandy 
 
 ACTI'NOCRI'NITES. (Gr. dKTiv, a ray. Kpivov, a lily.) 
 The name of a subgenus of extinct Crinoidean radiated ani- 
 mals, or Encrinites, characterized by the numerous rows 
 of angular plates, which, being articulated by their margins, 
 constitute the bodv. 
 
 ACTI'NOLITE." (Gr. dKTiv, a ray, and Aifloj, sto?ie.) 
 A variety of hornblende, which usually occurs in fascicular 
 crystals. 
 
 ACTINO'METER. (Gr. dKTiv, and fitrpov, measure.) 
 An instrument invented by Sir John Herschel for mea- 
 12 
 
 ACTOR. 
 
 suring the intensity of lie sun's rays. (See Photo- 
 meter.) 
 
 A'CTION. (Lat. ago, I act.) In Painting and Sculpture, 
 the state of the subject as imagined in the artist's mind at 
 the moment chosen for representation. It must not be 
 confounded with motion, which relates to the mobility of 
 a single figure. Action must be true, sin pie, natural, and 
 connected ; and-its unity must be preserved, or the action 
 is weakened, 
 
 Action. In the Military Art, an engagement or battle 
 between opposing forces; hence partial actions, general 
 actions, occ. 
 
 Action. In Oratory, the accommodating or suiting of 
 the countenance, voice, and gesture of the speaker to the 
 matter to be spoken or delivered. This seriuo corporis, as 
 Cicero calls it, has always been regarded as a most import- 
 ant part of oratory. The ancient masters laid the greatest 
 stress upon it. Demosthenes said that action was "the 
 beginning, the middle, and the end of the orator's office ," 
 and Cicero admits, that •• u-hat an orator says is not of so 
 much importance as bow he says it." Han let's advice to 
 the players should be kept in mind by those who desire to 
 excel in this art. 
 
 Action. In Poetry, an event either real or imaginary, 
 forming the subject of an epic poem or play, ic. Thus 
 the wrath of Achilles forms the action or subject of the 
 Iliad, the wanderings of iEneas the action or subject of the 
 JEneii, <Scc. 
 
 Action, hi the Stock Market in Paris, and other places 
 in France, action is the name given to a share of the capi- 
 tal stock of a joint stock con pany. 
 
 Action. In Mechanics, denotes sometimes the effort 
 which a body or power exerts against another body, some- 
 times the effect or motion resulting from such effort. Me- 
 chanical action is exerted either by percussion or by pres- 
 sure ; in the former case the effect is instantaneous, in the 
 kuter it is continued. In all cases of mechanical action, 
 the effect of the acting body is resisted in an equal degree 
 by the inertia of the body acted upon, which resistance is 
 termed reaction ; and it is an axiom in mechanics, that ac- 
 tion and reaction are always equal, and exerted in opposite 
 directions. Thus, in driving a nail with a hammer, the 
 stroke act? against the face of the hammer exactly with the 
 same energy as against the head of the nail ; and in press- 
 ing the hand against a stone, the pressure on the hand and 
 on the stone is precisely the san e. 
 
 A'CTIONS, in Law, are real, personal, or mixed. Ac- 
 tions, real or mixed, for the recovery of real property, are 
 vi ry numerous, but so prolix and difficult that they are al- 
 most wholly abandoned as a means of obtaining justice, 
 and questions relating to title to land are now tried by the 
 simple form of ejectment. The only case in which they 
 have been resorted to, of late years, has been when, from 
 the shorter period to which the action of ejectment was 
 limited (see Limitations), a right survh ed for the purpose 
 of the former, which was barred as to the latter. But the 
 recent acts on this subject have much reduced the distinc- 
 tion. Actions in common u>e, i. e. personal actions, are 
 also divided into actions of contract and actions of tort, and 
 into local and transitory, in the former of which the place 
 or county where the cause of the action arose must be ac- 
 curately alleged, for the purpose of the trial taking place 
 there. This allegation is termed the Venue of the action, 
 from the Norman-French tnsne, vicineturo, neighbourhood, 
 because the jury impanelled to try an action came origi- 
 nally from the neighbourhood. In the latter it is immate- 
 rial. Actions of tort to the person, and all actions of con- 
 tract, are generally transitory, but under certain circum- 
 stances the laiter may be local. 
 
 ACTI'VITY. Thevirtueor faculty of acting. The term 
 is used in physics to denote the promptitude of the action 
 of one body on another. Thus we speak of the activity of 
 an acid, of poisons, of the electric fluid. Arc. 
 
 Sphere of activity, the space within which the action of 
 a body (of a magnet, for example) produces any sensible 
 effect. 
 
 A'CTOR, ACTRESS. In the flourishing period of the 
 early Greek drama, so long as a certain remnant of reli- 
 gious solemnity was attached to it, there was no degrada- 
 tion in the character of an actor : in fact, the parts of the 
 chorus were often filled by volunteer performers of birth 
 and station. But when the dramatic performers began to 
 form a profession apart, they appear soon to have been re- 
 garded with disrespect. In Rome, the first actors were 
 buffoons (known by the Tuscan name of histriones), who 
 enacted the grotesque farces imported from Etruria, and 
 the qualification of actor was among the most dishonour- 
 able in the period of the republic; and no circumstance 
 was considered to indicate more decisively the intention of 
 Nero to decrade and subject all classes in the state, than 
 his having persuaded a Roman knight, Laberius, to appear 
 on the stage in the performance of one of his own mimi. 
 Under the dissolute reigns of the first emperors, especially 
 Nero, much favour and countenance was shown to actors. 

 
 ACTS OP SEDERUNT. 
 
 Nero was, however, obliged at last to banish the pantomimi, 
 the must popular species of actors, entirely from Italy, to- 
 gether with their performances, in consequence of the 
 Btrong party spirit which was excited about them. (Sue- 
 ton. Nero. c. 10.) It seems from Tacitus, that they were 
 soon afterwards restored: again banished by Domitian ; 
 restored by Nerva, and finally expelled by Trajan ; but, by 
 the time oi the i •^■i of the last-mentioned emperor, the 
 dramatic stage was nearly abandoned, and its place wholly 
 occupied by gladiatorial shows and other pageants In 
 England, the first actors were the servants of great 
 who I for their diversion; and when I 
 
 theatrical companies ware formed, they were 
 
 tbit of putting themselves under the protection of 
 distinguished personages; the companies of the gi 
 theatres, as is well known, retain the custom of calling 
 then - of ill.-; Majesty. Actresses wi 
 
 known on the Enj 1 some time after the Res- 
 
 toration: all lough lality had frequently, tinder 
 
 James uLd Charles i., perforn ed parts in masqucs&c. 
 K j naston wasthelasl celebrated male performer of female 
 parts. A singular notice of him will be found in Pebys's 
 Memoirs. In Roman Catholic countries, actors, ewn to 
 this time, .ire under the ecclesiastical restriction of excom- 
 munication (Set Drama.) 
 ACTIVE MOLEC1 LES. (See Molecules.) 
 ACTS OF SEDERUNT. (Scotch law.) B 
 by the Lordi ting in judgment, by virtu 
 
 b acl of parliament, passed in 1640, empowering 
 (hem to make such constitutions as they may think expe- 
 dient for ordering the procedure and forms of administer. 
 iiiL' jue 
 
 A'CTUARY. Originally a public officer in the Roman 
 courts of justii • . who - rew up writings, contracts, &c., in 
 the presence of the magistrate; whence his name, from 
 actus, nt. The clerk who registered Lb< 
 
 and constitutions of the convocation, in the assen 
 thai body, was termi I rr. The managing ifficer 
 
 of an insurance company i usually termed in Engisn I an 
 
 ACT 'l.i: \ i i . (Lata >, aprielde.) In Botany, any 
 
 thing cohered with prickles; thai is. with sharp promi- 
 nences which originate in the cellular system an l b i 
 connection with wo 
 
 ACU'LEATES. in Zoology, a tribe of hymenopterous 
 . m which the femali - and m ub i - are pn vided 
 with a Bting, generally concealed within the 
 of the abdomen 
 
 ACU'MINATE. (Lat acumen, the paint of am thing.) 
 When a leaf or any other body is very much 
 point; it is thus distinguished from acute, wind, means! 
 sharp-pointed without any tapering. 
 
 ACtrPU'NCTURATlON. (Lat. acus, a need 
 punctura, a puncture.) Pricking with a needle. In the 
 East this is a con Ij for painful affections oi 
 
 different parts of the body. It has lately been extensively 
 practised for the core of chronic rheumati 
 and sharp needle being thrusl into the affected muicles. 
 
 aci "l'i; The oppos t obtuse. An acute kngle la 
 
 that which is less than a righl angle ; an acute-anglt I trian- 
 gle is one of which each of the angles is acute ; an acute- 
 angled cone is one whose oppoait m an acute an- 
 
 gle at the vertex. 
 
 Acute. (Lat acutus, sharp ) In Music, the htig il or 
 pitch of a sound or tone, in respect of another. 1 
 posed to gra\ e. 
 
 AD LrBITUM. In Music (atpleaaure), a term avplied 
 to an accon panimenl which is nol essential, an.l tijay or 
 may not be performed without interfering with ;he com- 
 position. 
 
 AD QUOD DAMNUM. (Lat to what damage* I writ 
 sued before the grant of certain liberties and franchises, as 
 a fair, market, Ac, which may be prejudicial to thl king 
 who grants, or the public ; by it the sheriff is difeled to 
 inquire what damage may accrue from the gr nt in 
 question. 
 
 ADA'CTYLE. (Gr. 4, priv. and dWruAoc, a dgi .) hi 
 Zoology, signifies a locomotive extremity withoutcfy ts. 
 
 A'DAGE. (Lat. adagium, aproverb.) (See I'io erb.) 
 The proverbs of antiquity are collected by Erasm s in a 
 work entitled Erasmi Adagio. 
 
 ADA'GIO (Ital adagio, leisurely.) In Music, th slow- 
 est of musical time, grave only excepted. (See Am ;gro.) 
 
 ADAMANTINE SPAR. (Gr. d, without, and So au, I 
 break, or conquer.) A variety of crystallised al mina, 
 nearly resembling the sapphire in composition, and of ex- 
 treme hardness. The finest specimens come froi India 
 and China. At Bombay it is called corundum. 
 
 A'DAMITES. (Theology.) A sect in the early ges of 
 the Christian church, who are said to have profes ed an 
 exact imitation of the primitive state of innocence. They 
 re-appeared in the 15th century in Bohemia. (Musi 'im, I. 
 p. 233, Sea.) 
 
 ADANSO'NIA. A remarkable African tree, name I after 
 13 
 
 ADHESION. 
 
 Adanson, a celebrated French botanist and traveller. It is 
 called by the negroes Baobab. 
 
 A'DAPIS. A name originally applied by Gesner to the 
 Hyrax or coney of Scripture, and adopted by Cuvier to 
 .ate another small pachydermatous quadruped, now 
 extinct, but the existence and nature of which that great 
 naturalist detected and deduced from three fragments of 
 the head, which were discovered in that immense deposi- 
 tory of fossil bones, the gypsum quarries of Montmartre. 
 The dentition of the Adapis is as follows : — each jaw has 
 four trenchant incisors; two conical canine teeth, the up- 
 per ones straight, the lower inclined obliquely forwards ; 
 and apparently fourteen molar teeth, of which the first is 
 trenchant, ami the three or tour posterior ones, on each 
 side, like the posterior molars of tin- Anoplotheriam. Cu- 
 vier supposes the animal to have been about the size of a 
 rabbit, and to have closely approximated the Anoplotheria. 
 
 A'DDF.K. (See Viper.) 
 
 ADDITION. In Arithmetic. The operation by which 
 a number is found equal to several others taken together. 
 It is the first of the four fundamental rules. Addition, in 
 algebra, is the uniting or incorporating of several algebraic 
 quantities into a simple or contracted expression. 
 
 \ DDITIVE. Something to be added, in contradistinc- 
 tion to subtractive, which denotes something to be taken 
 away. Tie- terms additive and subtractive are sometimes 
 applied to algebraic quantities, to denote those relations to 
 other quantities which are more commonly, though less 
 coned by positive and negative. 
 
 ADDU'CTOR. (Lat. adduce, / draw towards.) The 
 adductor muscles a pposed to the abductors; they 
 
 diaw the pans to which they are attached, together. 
 
 ADE'LPHIA. (llr. dSctyof, a brother.) A collection of 
 stamens Into a bundle, I.innxus employed this term for 
 those plants in which the stamens, instead of growing 
 singly, combine into one or more parcels, or brotherhoods ; 
 thus, mo ladelphia Signified stamens all connected into Olio 
 
 parcel, diadelphia into two pan-els, and so on. 
 
 IDE'NOSTl 'LE2E. (Gr. dSnv, a gland, and orvXos, a 
 column, or style.) A subdivision of composite plants, com- 
 prehi D o, hatris, eupatorium, and some other 
 
 genera, in which tie- branches of the style are covered 
 with long glandular hairs. 
 
 LDE'PHAGANS. ADEPHAGA. (Gr. d&riQayot, vora- 
 \ family oi carnivorous and very voracious cole- 
 cts. 
 
 A'lH.i'T. (Lat adlpiscor, I obtain.) A distinctive term 
 applied to those alchemists who w< re supposed to have at- 
 tained I ties, or to have dis- 
 covered the (i ~tone. 
 
 ADFF/I i i i>. oi EFFECTED (See the latter term.) 
 
 ADHE'SION, (Lat adhasreo, f adhere,) is a property of 
 
 matter by which contiguous parts grow together ; 
 
 ana is one of the causes of the great diversity of appear- 
 ance In the organs of plants. Two opp< site leaves grow 
 together and form apparently one, through which the stem 
 . several in a w horl adhere, and form an involucre ; 
 
 a number of petals adhere, and thus constitute a monope- 
 talous corolla; several stamens adhere, and an adelphia 
 is the result; some carpels contract an adhesion with one 
 another, and form a compound fruit ; finally, the calyx ad- 
 to the aid) s of the ovary, and tin n seems as if it 
 mew from the apex of it. Irregularity in flowers and fruit 
 ■ - produce, i by the unequal manner in 
 which adhesion takes place between similar parts; of the 
 calyx, two of the sepals adhere into one parcel, and three 
 into another; the result of which is a two-lipped calyx; the 
 same il i in<r occurs in the corolla, and elsew hen-. 
 
 Adhesion. ( Physics.) A term used to denote the force 
 with which different bodies remain attached to each other, 
 when they are broucht into contact. Adhesion has often 
 ided with cohesion; but the two terms are 
 essentially distinct Adhesion is the force with which two 
 bodies of different kinds cling to each other when united ; 
 cohesion is that which unites the particles of a homogene- 
 ous body with each other. Thus, the particles which form 
 a drop of water or quicksilver are united by cohesion ; the 
 particles of water which wet the surface of any body are 
 united to it by adhesion. 
 
 Adhesion may exist between two solid bodies, between 
 a solid and a fluid, or between two Iluid bodies. The ad- 
 hesion of solid bodies is exemplified in the force required 
 to separate two pieces of marble, whose polished surfaces 
 have been brought into contact. The suspension of water 
 above its level in capillary tubes, or between two plates of 
 glass very nearly in contact, shows the adhesion of a fluid 
 to a solid body ; and an instance of the adhesion of two li- 
 quids is obtained by covering a plate of glass with oil, and 
 bringing it into contact with the surface of water; a very 
 sensible force is required to raise it perpendicularly from 
 the water. 
 
 Dr. Brook Taylor appears to have been the first who un- 
 dertook to estimate experimentally the force of adhesion ; 
 and the method which he employed, was to determine the
 
 
 ADIANTUM. 
 
 weight necessary to separate fir-boards from the surface of 
 water. This method, however, unless proper precautions 
 are taken, is apt to give inaccurate results. On separating a 
 fir-board from water, the whole surface of the board may 
 be observed to be wetted ; that is to say, a thin film of wa- 
 ter remains attached to the wood, so that the force by 
 which the separation was effected is not the force neces- 
 sary to overcome the adhesion of the water to the board, 
 but the cohesion of the particles of water to each other. 
 This is fully established by the experimental fact, that, 
 when discs of different substances are applied to a liquid. 
 by which they are perfectly wetted, their adhesion to it is 
 the same, whatever may be their nature, and exactly equal 
 to the cohesive force of the fluid. Discs of glass and discs 
 of copper of the same diameter adhere to water with pre- 
 cisely the same force. 
 
 The adhesion of discs to the surfaces of liquids is de- 
 monstrated by Laplace to be a capillary phenomenon, ari- 
 sing from the action of attractive forces which are sensible 
 only at very small distances. Supposing the diameter of 
 the disc to be known, and the height to which the same 
 liquid rises in a capillary tube of the same matter, and of 
 a given diameter, Laplace determined from theory the 
 force necessary to detach the disc. The results of his de- 
 termination, applied to different liquids, as water, oil of 
 turpentine, and alcohol, at different densities, agreed ex- 
 actly with the numbers found by M. Gay-Lussac, in a se- 
 ries of very accurate experiments on this subject. The 
 perfect identity of the forces producing adhesion and ca- 
 pillary attraction, is also proved by the following experi- 
 ment:— It is well known that the height to which fluids 
 rise in capillary lubes depends on the angle which the 
 fluid makes with the sides of the tube. But the surface of 
 mercury covered with water in a capillary tube is exactly 
 spherical ; consequently, the angle which the mercury 
 mak< s witli the sides of the tube vanishes, and the force is 
 reduced to zero. If, therefore, adhesion depends on a 
 force of the same nature, it follows that, on applying a disc 
 of glass to the surface of mercury, and covering them both 
 with water, no force should be required to separate the 
 disc, excepting what is necessary to overcome its weight. 
 Now, this was found by Gay-Lussac to be exactly what 
 takes place. When the mercury and disc were covered 
 with water, no resistance was offered to their separation ; 
 without the interposition of the water, a weight of 290 or 
 even 400 grammes was reqniredto overcome the adhesion. 
 (Laplace, Mecanique Celeste, tome iv. Biot. Traile de 
 Physique, tome iv. p. 464 ) 
 
 The adhesion of the polished surfaces of solid bodies is 
 proportional to the extent of the surface, or to the number 
 of points brought into contact. It was formerly believed 
 that the resistance to separation in this case arises solely 
 from the pressure of the atmosphere: but the difference 
 of its amount in different substances proves this opinion to 
 be erroneous ; besides, it is found to be the same in a va- 
 cuum. (See Capillary Attraction.) 
 
 ADIA'NTUM. (Gr. aSiavTos. dry.) A genus of thin- 
 leaved ferns, having their fructification in short marginal 
 lines. The leaflets are usually wedge-shaped and placed 
 upon slender shining petioles. One of the species (A. ca- 
 pillus veneris) was formerly employed in the manufac- 
 ture of syrup of capillaire. 
 
 ADIA'PHORITES. (Gr. dSicubopos. indifferent.) A 
 name given to Melancthon, and 'the party that agreed 
 with him, in submitting, in thimrs indifferent, to an impe- 
 rial edict. The controversy which gave rise to this name 
 had its origin in the imposition by Charles V., in 1548, n( 
 an edict, styled the Interim, because it proposed to ac- 
 commodate for a time the differences of the papists and 
 protestants, until the whole matter could be set at rest 
 by the authority of a council. The opposite side was 
 maintained by Flavins ami the primitive Lutherans; and 
 in the debate which followed there were two principal 
 questions : first, whether it is lawful to yield to the ene- 
 mies of truth, even in matters which are not of themselves 
 essential; and, secondly, whether, granting the affirma- 
 tive, the points in which the Interim required compli- 
 ance, and in which Melancthon yielded it. are properly 
 indifferent. Those points related chiefly to the doctrine 
 of justification by faith, in which Luther and his genuine 
 followers went to a great extreme : while Melancthon. al- 
 though ostensibly the head of the Lutheran church, after 
 the death of the great Reformer, adopted much more 
 moderate views. Out of this controversy a great variety 
 of other debates were engendered, and from these quar- 
 rels many schisms and divisions among protestants de- 
 rived their origin. 
 
 A'DIPOCE'RE. (Lat. adeps and cera, fat and irctx.) 
 A fatty substance produced by the decomposition of the 
 flesh of animals in moist situations, or under water, resem- 
 bling, in some of its properties, a mixture of fat and wax. 
 
 A'DIPOSE. (Lat. adeps,/«?) Unctuous, or containing 
 fat. Adipose membrane is the cellular membrane in 
 which fat is deposited. 
 14 
 
 ADMIRAL. 
 
 A'DIT. (Lat. adeo, I approach.) A horizontal shaft or 
 passage in a mine, either for access, or carrying off' water. 
 
 ADJA'CENT ANGLE In Geometry, an angle im- 
 mediately contiguous to another, so that one side is com- 
 mon to both angles. It is more particularly used when the 
 two angles, besides having a common side, have their 
 other sides in the same straight line. In this case, the ad- 
 jacent angle is the same as the supplemental angle. 
 
 A'DJECTIVE. (Lat. ad, to, and jaceo, Hie.) In Gram- 
 mar, that part of speech which is annexed to substan- 
 tatives, to define more accurately the conceptions intended 
 to be denoted by them. (See Grammar.) 
 
 ADJECTIVE COLOURS. Colours which require to be 
 fixed by some base or mordant, in order to be applied as 
 permanent dye-stuffs. 
 
 ADJOURNMENT, in Parliamentary language, means a 
 postponement of the sittings or proceedings oi either 
 Hotse of Parliament from one time to another specified 
 for its re-assembling. Adjournment differs from proroga- 
 tion in this, that the latter is an act of royal authority, 
 whereas the power of adjournment is vested in each 
 house respectively, no definite limits being prescribed to 
 it b\ the ci institution. (See Prorogation.) 
 
 ADJUDICATION. In Scottish Law. the diligence (i. e. 
 proaess) by which land is attached as security for payment 
 of debt. Adjudication for debt is a species of mortgage, 
 redeemable, except in the cases of what are termed gene- 
 ral adjudications, or adjudications contra ha 5 reditatem 
 jacetilem. 
 
 ALJU'STMENT. In Marine Insurance, the settlement 
 of a loss incurred by the insured. 
 
 A'DJUTANT. A military officer, attached to every re- 
 gimast, who relieves the major of part of his duty, and 
 performs it in his absence. 
 
 A'DJUTANT-GENERAL. A staff officer, who is to the 
 arm! what the adjutant is to a regiment. He assists the 
 ind distributes his orders. 
 
 A'DJUTANT-GENERAL OF THE JESUITS. A title 
 give! to certain fathers who resided with the general of 
 
 ADJUVANT. (Lat, adjuvare, to help.) In Medicine, 
 a su 'Stance which assists and promotes the operation of 
 others. 
 
 ADMINISTRATION. (In Law.) If a person die intes- 
 tate as to his personalty, letters of administration are grant- 
 ed by the ordinary (see Law, tit. Ecclesiastical Courts) 
 to sueh person as is pointed out by the statutes 31 E. 3., 
 and '4 H. 8. These empower the ordinary to grant these 
 letters to the widow, if there be one, or next of kin, at his 
 Ion. Of persons equally near in degree, the ordina- 
 ry mat grant to which he please. If none of the kindred 
 take out administration, a creditor may do it. When the 
 will is made without the nomination of any executor, the 
 ordinary grants administration cum testamento annexo. 
 Where a person dies intestate, his personal property de- 
 scend! (subject to his debts) as directed by the statute of 
 Distribution's. 22 <fc 23 C. 2. c. 10., explained by 29 C. 2. c. 
 30. Qie-third goes to the widow; the residue in equal 
 proportions to the children, or, if they are dead, to their 
 representatives, i. e. their lineal descendants. If there are 
 none of these, then the widow takes a moiety, and the 
 next cf kin in equal degree, and their representatives 
 • ■ other; if there be no widow, they take the whole. 
 But ofrepresentatives none are admitted among collaterals 
 farthel than the children of the intestate's brothers and 
 sisters The order of nearness of kin, with reference to 
 the listr.bution of intestates' estates, is thus arranged ac- 
 cording to the rules of the civil law — children, parents, 
 brqtiera grandfathers, uncles or nephews (and the females 
 of etch (lass respectively), and, lastly, cousins. 
 
 Aimimstration. (Lat, administrate, eare of an affair.) 
 In it; general sense means the conduct or management of 
 any ttfair ; but in this country the term is usually applied 
 to tie flianagement of the public or national affairs by 
 the fovernment, which is thence called the Administration. 
 
 AOMIRAL. A great naval officer, who has the same 
 powlr and authority over t'le maritime forces of a state 
 that i general has over its land forces ; and who also tries 
 himself Jor appoints officers to try, maritime cases. There 
 are ihrde ranks of Admirals, the Admiral (or full Ad- 
 mira), Tice Admiral, and Rear Admiral. Each of these 
 agairhas three gradations, of red, white, and blue, the co- 
 loursofthe flags they bear. The Admiral carries his flag 
 at tin main, the Vice' at the fore, and the Rear at the mizen 
 mast 
 
 Adiiral, Lord High. The ninth great officer of state 
 in Eigland. The office has been usually given, at least 
 sincethe reign of Henry IV., to some of the king's young- 
 est sins, near kinsmen, or of the higher nobility. Since 
 the rign of Charles II. it has been, with occasional excep- 
 tions always in commission, and the commissioners are 
 stylel 'Lords of the Admiralty.' It was held by the late 
 soveieign William IV., when Duke of Clarence, from 1827 
 to th> following vear.
 
 ADMIRALTY. 
 
 A'DMIRALTY. the Board of Commissioners for execu- 
 te office of Lord High Admiral, and having authority 
 over navel affairs generally. 
 
 rrRALTT, Court of. In Law. is a court of record, of 
 which the proceedings are carried on, at least to a certain 
 . according to the course of the civil law : although, 
 may have in some cases the assistance of a 
 jury, it has also "a resemblance to the courts of common 
 law. I: has jurisdiction principally for the determination 
 of private injuries to private rights arising at sea, or inti- 
 mately connected with maritime subjects ; and in most ca- 
 ses, to which its authority extends, it lias concurrent juris- 
 diction, either with the common law courts, or those of 
 Suits may be instituted in this court for assault 
 and battery at sea; for collision of ships; for the restitu- 
 tion "f goods piratically taken not under colour of war. It 
 has also an equitable jurisdiction between part owners of 
 a ship. It adjudicates in suits for mariners' wages, and for 
 pilotage. It has a peculiar jurisdiction in cases of bottomry 
 bonds, and other deeds in the nature of a mortgage of the 
 ship; having an exclusive power to grant warrants to ar- 
 rest the ship itself. It has also jurisdiction in cases of sal- 
 ind incidentally of wreck. 
 
 The prize court, which decides prize causes in time of 
 war, is a separate tribunal, although usually presided over 
 by the same judge as thai of admiralty. To that able and 
 philosophical jurist, Sir W. Scott (Lord Stowell), who sat 
 in ih.sc courts (as well as the ecclesiastical) for many 
 years during the late war, and after its close, the country 
 is indebted, not only for the high character and value of 
 these tribunals, but also for the lighl thrown on the difficult 
 and important questions of national law. by the most pro- 
 found and lucid decisions ever applied to that si 
 
 A'DNATE. (Lai adnascor, J grow to any thins.) Is 
 said when one organ grows to the lace of another, and not 
 to its apex, in which ins,, ii would ho innate. This term 
 is chit f in speaking of anthi 
 
 ADO'NIS. hi Mytholo ttful youth, son of 
 
 . king ol Cyp a \ mis. ami killed by 
 
 a wild boar, to tl e gre it n pri t of th< -. also, 
 
 (he name of a river of Phoenicia the banks of which 
 
 Adonis, orThammuz. as he is called I IS sup- 
 
 posed to have been killed, ai certain Beasons 01 the y< "' 
 this river acquires a high red colour, by the rains washing 
 
 Up panicles of red earth. The 
 
 to a sympathy in the rher for the death •■! Adonis. This 
 ii was obsen cent country. 
 
 ilati, Lexicon : Cahnet, Dictionnaire de In Bible, art. 
 Thammuz.) Milton has beautifully alluded to thfet 
 cumstances : — 
 
 ■ Thammuz came next nr-liinH, 
 I wound in Lebanon allured 
 m his fate 
 
 Til.: -Ill 
 
 mis ilittii's all a lumiDer'a day : 
 
 While I Ill AdonU from lii* native 
 
 Ran purple lo the *ca : lupi 1 with Mood 
 
 Of Thammuz yearly wound, J." 
 
 Pared. Lost, I. t 1 !"> 
 
 ADO'NIC. <(.'r. : A<5ojvtc, Adonis.) A species ol 
 consisting of a dactyle and a spondee ; as in Horace, lib. I. 
 Od. ii. v. .">. '/'< rruxi urbem. were mantes. Ac. It was in- 
 d by Sappho, and derived its name from being prin- 
 cipally sung at the festivals in memory of Adonis. (Fac- 
 ciolati. Lent 
 
 ADO'PTER. A vessel with two necks placed between 
 a retort an.! a receiver, serving to increase the length of 
 the neck of the former. 
 
 ADoTTlov (Lai ) In the Civil Law, 
 
 signifies the admission of a stranger to the rights ami privi- 
 leges of a son. Adoption was a common custom among 
 tin- Romans, by whose law a relation, nearly resembling 
 that of master and slave, was constituted between father 
 and son; so that a child, adopted from one family into 
 another, passed, in effect, from the [lower of his parent to 
 that of his adopter. Adoption is said, in Justinian's insti- 
 tutes, to be of two sorts: the one, also called arrogation, 
 where a person, independent of parental control, is adopt- 
 ed into a family by virtue of an imperial rescript ; the 
 other, where, by the authority of a magistrate, a child 
 passes from one family to another. Hut unless the adopt- 
 er possessed a certain right by blood over the p 
 adopted (as a grandfather), the parental powerof the father 
 was not extinguished. Adoption exists in the jurispru- 
 dence of various countries, where derived from the civil 
 law ; as in the German states and in France : in the latter 
 country, the person adopting must be one having neither 
 children nor other legitimate descendants. 
 
 A'DR.VGANT. Gum Tragacanth. 
 
 ADKI'FT. Not fastened ; as a ship that has parted from 
 her anchor, a boat that has broke from her ship, a aun from 
 the ship's side, <Scc 
 
 A'DVENT. (Lat advenio, I approach.) The holy sea- 
 son, comprising four Sundays before Christmas. It begins 
 on St. Andrew's day, the 30th of November, or on the Sun- 
 15 
 
 ADULTERY. 
 
 day next before or after it, according to the day of the 
 week on which the 25th of December falls. 
 
 ADYEVITTIOIS. (Lat. adventitius, extraordinary.) 
 In Botany, when any thing appears out of the ordinary 
 course of nature: it" a bud appears where buds do not 
 usually appear, it is adventitious. This term must not be 
 confounded with abnormal, which is used when any thing 
 u '"/out of the ordinary course. 
 
 A'DVERLt. A word annexed to an adjective orverb. to 
 define more closely the modifications of the quality or ac- 
 tion denoted. See Grammar. 
 
 ADYE'RSA. A medallic term, applied to two heads 
 facing eacti other. 
 
 \ l)\ ERSE. (Lat. ad. to, and verto, I turn.) hi Bota- 
 ny, haves are so called when they present their under 
 surface to the sun. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. (Lat. adverto. / attend to.) In 
 its general sense, means any information as to any fact or 
 circumstance. But it is more particularly used to d 
 nate notices made by competent authority in the daily pa- 
 
 . •! otherwise, of events of local or general inti 
 as the publication of new books, - iti s and pro- 
 
 duce, meetings of creditors, formation and dissolution of 
 partnerships, &c. Such notices, when inserted in the ga- 
 zette, or m newspapers and literary works published in 
 numbers, in England, pay a duty of Is. 6d. each for each 
 time of insertion. 
 
 Alt! I, ARIA. A resplendent crystallised felspar, of a 
 pearly lustre. The finest specimens came from Adula. at 
 the summit of St Gothard. 
 
 ADTJ'LT. (I. at. adnltus, grown vp.) In its general 
 sense n means any thing grown up. or arrived at maturity. 
 It is that period Of human life that extends from youth to 
 
 M>1 T.TERV. (Lat. adulterium, a word of very un- 
 certain derivation. ) The .sin of incontinence committed 
 by a married person : adultery between two married per- 
 sons is termed doubU by some jurists. By the lav. of Mo- 
 ses, adultery was punished by death, Lev. xx. 10., Dent 
 xxh. 22 js in Proverbs (c. vi.) and E 
 
 - lo (prove nut the law was observed in t : 
 
 pectdown to the overthrow of the Jewish monarchy . as 
 we know it to have been in the time of our Saviour. The 
 mode of punishment was by stoning ; but it is observable 
 that tins mode is not ordained in Deuteronomy, as it is for 
 various other offences. The test or ordeal of adultery is 
 detailed in Numbers v. 11—31. 1 icier the Grecian and 
 Roman republics adultery was variously treated: but the 
 celebrated Lex Julia de Adulterio, under Augustas, pun- 
 ished it witn banishment (deportatio vel relegatio), Tacit 
 lib. ii. Annal. It was not until the reign of ( 
 when some tincture of Judaism had been introduced into 
 the state along with the establishment of Christianity, that 
 the punishment of death was formally enacted for it.' This 
 penalty was again mitigated under Leo and Mareian ; and 
 by the laws of Justinian the adulterer was punishabl. 
 death, the adultress with flagellation, imprisonment. .V c 
 But about the same period, the gradual increase of episco- 
 pal authority in civil - to have drawn cril 
 incontinence almost wholly within the cognizance 
 
 astical courts; and the canons contain avarii 
 directions on the subject of adultery. On the other hand, 
 the jurisprudence of the Northern nations, which visited 
 
 this as well as other crimes of freemen with very hi' 
 verity, as mere offences against individuals, reduci 
 penalty in most of the Western kingdoms to a mere pecu- 
 niary one. sometimes attended with public disgrace or 
 
 corporal punishment The customs of the several French 
 provinces contain a great variety of penalties 
 Castelnaudari, in the fourteenth century, the fine for adul- 
 tery was fixed at ••five sous only !" Such penalties, of 
 
 course, fell rapidly into disuse : and in the sixteenth cen- 
 tury we find it observed by a French civilian (quoted by 
 Thuanus), that •• it was never heard that any body had 
 been punished for adultery in France." This observation 
 ted by the historian when relating an event which 
 d great sensation at the time, namely, the capital 
 punishment at Orleans of two offenders by St I J r. : 
 vernor, a rigid Calvinist The protestants of that sect, in 
 France as well as in Scotland and England, made i* then- 
 endeavour to introduce primitive severity of manners by 
 severity of punishment. De Thou, the father, appears al- 
 so to have made some efforts toward putting in force the 
 laws against adultery : but from the time of the religious 
 wars, penal cognizance of adultery may be said to have 
 nearly ceased in France, although "by various arrets (1637, 
 1701. <kc), besides the civil consequences of an action of 
 adultery' by husband against wife, the latter might be con- 
 demned to seclusion in a house of correction for two 
 years, or more. In Geneva. Strasbourg, and other plat es 
 where the reformed religion prevailed, a temporary 
 strictness of law was introduced about the same period, 
 but with little permanent effect. In England, by the old 
 common law, mutilation was the punishment of tin's as
 
 ADVOCATE. 
 
 well as other offences; but under the Plantagenets it be- 
 came matter of ecclesiastical cognizance (except so far as 
 civil consequences were concerned), and visited only by the 
 spiritual censure of the church. " The rules of the canon 
 law," says a recent writer, "have manifested an indul- 
 gence towards this offence which is chiefly to be accounted 
 for by reference to the constrained celibacy of its early 
 compilers." But in 1650 the puritans, under Cromwell, 
 succeeded in obtaining an ordinance by which adultery, as 
 well as simple fornication, was made felony, without bene- 
 fit of clergy ; an absurd decree, which was soon repealed. 
 In 1694, and again in 1801, the subject of adultery and di- 
 vorce was discussed at length in parliament, but without 
 producing any enactment. (See Tebbs's Essay on the 
 Scriptural Doctrines of Adultery and Divorce, and on the 
 Criminal Character and Punishment of Adultery, 8vo., 
 Lond. 1822.) For the civil consequences of Adultery, see 
 Marriage, law of. 
 
 A'DVOCATE. (Lat. advocatus, he who is called in to 
 plead in a court of law the cause of another.) The original 
 pleaders of causes at Rome were the patricians, who de- 
 fended gratuitously their clients ; but even before the 
 dmvnfal of the republic, the class had degenerated into a 
 profession, its members receiving rewards for their ser- 
 vices, although still among the most honorable of employ- 
 ments. But from the original gratuitous character of ad- 
 vocates, arose the peculiar custom by which, among our- 
 selves, the fees of barristers are still regarded as honorary, 
 and cannot be recovered at law. In the later ages of the 
 empire the advocati appear to have formed a distinct class 
 from the jurisconsulti, or chamber-counsel, and to have 
 much declined in reputation. In France the avocats, or 
 counsel, form a separate order, of which each member is 
 attached to a particular local court. The lord advocate, in 
 Scotland, is a public officer, who prosecutes crimes before 
 the court of justiciary. 
 
 ADVOW'SON. (Lat. advocatio, a calling.) Properly, 
 the relation in which a patron (advocatus) stands towards 
 the living to which he presents, i. e. the patronage of a 
 church. The earliest provision for divine worship, in Eng- 
 land and in other countries, was derived from the offerings 
 of the laity, which were distributed by the bishop of each 
 diocese among his clergv, whom he sent from place to 
 place to preach and administer the sacraments. By de- 
 grees he was enabled, by the bequests of the faithful, and 
 the customary offering of tithes, to subdivide his diocese, 
 or parochia, as it was originally called, into various dis- 
 tricts, and to build churches and establish permanent mi- 
 nisters in each. At the same time it became a common 
 practice among the nobles to build and endow churches 
 for the benefit of themselves and their own dependants ; in 
 which case they were allowed to present to the benefice, 
 subject to the licensing power of the bishop and the canons 
 of the church. Advowsons, in legal phraseology, are ei- 
 ther appendant, where immemorially annexed to a manor; 
 or in gross, where they form separate subjects of property. 
 If the patron of a rectory fails to present within six months 
 after the vacancy happens, the right falls to the bishop ; 
 and by similar neglect on his part, to the archbishop, and 
 thence to the king. The presentation is by letter to the 
 bishop ; institution, by an instrument registered in the 
 bishop's court; and induction, which completes the in- 
 cumbent's title, is performed by the archdeacon. 
 
 A'DYTUM. (Gr. aSvTOV, a recess.) In Architecture, 
 the secret dark chamber in a temple, to which none but 
 the priests had access. It was from this part that the ora- 
 cles were delivered. Seneca, in his tragedy of Thyestes, 
 
 says, 
 
 (( Hinc orantibus 
 Kesponsadantut certa, dam ingeuti sono 
 Laxamur Adyto fata." 
 
 Among the Egyptians, the Secos was the same thing of 
 which Strabo has given a description. The only well pre- 
 served adytum of the ancients is in the little temple at 
 Pompeii. It is raised some steps above the level of the 
 temple itself, and is without light. 
 
 vE'DES. (Lat.) In architecture. A small temple con- 
 secrated to a god which was not afterwards dedicated by 
 the augurs, from which circumstance, according to Varro, 
 it was different from the templum. This distinction among 
 the Romans in the early ages was afterwards lost, and the 
 words were used indiscriminately. 
 
 jEDI'CULA. (Lat.) A diminutive of the preceding. 
 
 iE'DILE. The title of certain Roman magistrates, so 
 called from their care of buildings (a?des). They were 
 divided into two classes, distinguished by the epithets 
 plebeian and curale. The two plebeian rediles were, as 
 their name imports, elected from the commonalty 
 (plebs), and were subordinate to the tribunes of the 
 commons, having jurisdiction over lesser causes, sub- 
 mitted to them by those magistrates. The two curale 
 tcdiles, so called from their privilege of giving judgment 
 on ivory seats (sellee curules), were originally elected 
 from the patricians, but afterwards from both plebeians 
 16 
 
 MRA. 
 
 and patricians promiscuously. The magistracy was one 
 of the most dignified in the state, and was allowed the use 
 of the robe of honour (toga pra?texta), and a certain prece- 
 dence in the senate. The peculiar office of the eediles was 
 the superintendence of public works, markets, &c, in the 
 city. They had also, particularly the curule asdiles, to ex- 
 hibit public games, which they often did at avast expense, 
 in order to court popularity. Julius Ca?sar added two 
 other plebeian a?diles, called cereal, to inspect the public 
 stores of provisions. 
 
 iEGICE'RE-^E. (Fr. di J, goat, Kepa;, horn.) A division 
 of myrsinaceous plants, the type of which is the genus 
 segiceras. Il is distinguished by the absence of albumen ; 
 the species grow in maritime swamps in tropical countries, 
 and have the embryo germinating within the pericarp, 
 after the manner of mannroves. 
 
 iE'GIS. (Gr. ai\,agoat.) The mythological shield of 
 Jupiter, which was covered with the skin of the goat Ama.l- 
 tha°a, and given by him to Minerva, who, by fixing on it the 
 head of Medusa, gave it the power of petrifying all persons 
 who looked at it. The word is also used sometimes for 
 the breast-piece of a god. 
 
 iE'GYLOPS. (Gr. d<f, a goat, and wip, an eye,) A sore 
 in the inner angle of the eye, frequently terminating in fis- 
 tula lachrymalis. Goats were supposed to be very subject 
 to an analogous affection. — Also the name of a kind of 
 grass. 
 
 iE'NEID. The epic poem of Virgil, relating the wan- 
 derings of iEneas after the capture of Troy, and his settle- 
 ment in Italy. 
 
 jE'OLIPl'LE. (Lat. jEoIus, the god of the winds, and pi- 
 la, a hall.) An hydraulic instrument, contrived for the 
 purpose of exhibiting the convertibility of water into steam. 
 It consists of a hollow ball of metal, having a slender neck 
 or pipe, with a very small orifice inserted into it. The 
 ball, having been filled with water, is placed over the fire ; 
 and the heat gradually converts the waler into vapour, 
 which rushes out of the pipe with great violence till the 
 whole is discharged. The experiment is not unattended 
 by danger; for should the small orifice by any accident be 
 stopped, the steam would burst the ball. The reolipile 
 was known to the ancients, being mentioned by Vitruvius. 
 Descartes and others have used it to account for the natu- 
 ral cause and production of the wind ; hence its name 
 jEolipile, that is, pila iEon, the ball of jEolus, the god of 
 the winds. The reolipile is sometimes filled with alcohol, 
 and the jet of its vapour being inflamed, it serves the pur- 
 pose of a blowpipe. 
 
 JE'OLUS. The god of the winds, who was fabled by the 
 early poets to have his seat in the floating island of iEolia ; 
 but the Latin and later Greek poets placed him in the Li- 
 pari isles. Here the winds were pent up in vast caves, it 
 being the duty of iEolus to let them loose, and lo restrain 
 their violence at the pleasure of Jupiter. Virgil has de- 
 scribed the power and functions of iEolus, in one of the 
 finest passages of the iEneid : — 
 
 " Hie vasto rex Mollis antro, 
 
 I.nctantes venios tempestatesque Bonoran 
 Imperio p:*em t, ac v.ncli* et carrere ft'ainat. 
 Illundignantes magijO cum murmure motitis 
 Circum clauslra frem'int Celsa sedet JEo\as arce 
 Sceptra tenens, mollitque animos, et tempera) iras : 
 Ni facial, maria ac terras cclumque prolundtim 
 Quippe t'erant rapidi tecum, verrautque per auras." 
 
 .Encid, I. I.S2; 
 
 JEOLUS' HARP, or ^EOLIAN HARP. A well-known 
 instrument, which produces a pleasing combination of 
 sounds, by the action of the wind. Its construction is very 
 simple, consisting of" merely a number of catgut or wire 
 strings, stretched in parallel lines over a box of thin deal, 
 Willi sounding holes cut in the top. The strings being 
 tuned in unison, the effect is produced by placing the in- 
 strument in a current of air. The invention of the ^olian 
 harp is generally given to Kircher, by whom it was first 
 described. 
 
 iE'ON. See Gnostics. 
 
 iE'RA, or ERA. (A word of doubtful derivation.) In 
 Chronology, the term rera, as now understood, is the peri- 
 od that has elapsed from some fixed point of time, or 
 epoch, called the commencement of the tera. — Thus the 
 Christian sera began at the birth of Christ, the Mohamme- 
 dan a?ra at the flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, 
 the asra of Diocletian at the coronation of that emperor, 
 &c. ; and the period of the occurrence of any event is as- 
 certained by reckoning from one or other of "these epochs. 
 When, for example, it is said that Queen Victoria ascend- 
 ed the throne of Great Britain in 1837, it means that this 
 event took place in the 1837th year of the Christian asra, or 
 of that pera which began with the birth of Christ. It is 
 plain from the above statement that the period of time se- 
 lected for an asra, or point whence to begin the computa- 
 tion of time, is necessarily arbitrary ; and different nations 
 have adopted different periods coincident with some im- 
 portant event in their civil or religious history. Some have
 
 J2RARIAN. 
 
 adopted the year of the creation of the world, ami this, 
 were its date well ascertained, would be one of the best 
 that could be selected. But the sacred writings are not 
 explicit on this point, and there are great discrepancies in 
 the estimates, as to the period of its occurrence. The 
 Greeks used to reckon by the a?ra of the Olympiad (see 
 the word), which began at the summer solstice, anno 776, 
 B.C. The Romans reckoned from the building of the city, 
 generally held to be the 24th of April, B. C. 7.53. The Ju- 
 lian rera dates from the reformation of the calendar by Ju- 
 lius Cssar, B. C. 45. All Christian nations now adopt for 
 their sera the birth of Christ, which took place on-the 1st 
 of January, in the middle of the 4th year of the 194th 
 Olympiad", and the 753d year of the building of Rome. 
 The a?ra of most Mohammedan nations is that of the He- 
 gira, or flight of Mohammed to Medina, corresponding with 
 the 16th July. A. I), 62.>. The rcra of Sulwanah, in com- 
 mon use in a great part of India, corresponds to A. D. 73. 
 The aera of Yezdegird. used in Persia, began 16th June, 
 A. D. 032. 
 
 Subjoined are the names of some of the principal eras, 
 with the year of the Christian rera in which they began, 
 and the abbreviations by which they are commonly dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 jEras. 
 
 Commenced 
 
 Abbreviations 
 
 Year of tin* World (Constant!- 
 
 
 
 icourit) - 
 
 B. C. 5,509 
 
 A. M. Const. 
 
 — (Alexandrian act '1 1 
 
 — E 
 
 AM \ 
 
 — (Jewish account) - 
 
 — 3,760 
 
 A M. 
 
 .Era of Nabonassar 
 
 — 747 
 
 1 Nab. 
 
 • 1 ids ■ 
 
 — 
 
 Olymp. 
 
 Yearn) Rome 
 
 — 753 
 
 A. U. C. 
 
 Era . 
 
 — 45 
 
 Jul.JBr. 
 
 ii iEra 
 
 _ 
 
 A 1) 
 
 JEra ofSulwanah - 
 
 ad. ; 
 
 Baca. 
 
 .i>a of Dioclesiau - 
 
 — 284 
 
 .C.r Dioc. 
 
 The Hegira .... 
 
 — 
 
 \ II 
 
 .ASra of Yezdegird - 
 
 — 632 
 
 A. Pits. 
 
 It is easy to deduce from this the year of the Christian 
 orresponding with thai of any greater aera. ( s 
 titer Chronology of History bj 8 r II Nicholas, p 
 
 JERA'RIAN. The term applied to a Roman citizen who 
 had been degraded to the lowesi rank compatible with per- 
 sonal freedom. Be, however, still paid taxes, bul • 
 no privileges, and could not serve in the army, or, 
 quently, participate in the distribution of land granted to 
 such cl is i - as did. 
 
 JSRA'RIUM. (I. at.) The public treasury of the Ro- 
 man people, the care of which was vested in the qusstors. 
 After the fall of the republic the serarium was kepi distinct 
 from the treasury of the emperor, -Allied was called 
 i erarium sanctins, or more sacred treasury, was ap- 
 pointed to provide for cases of extreme emergency, and 
 might not be opem d on other occ 
 
 AE'KIAL. (Gr. dno, uir > la Painting, a term applied 
 to the diminishing intensity of i eta receding 
 
 from the eye. Aerial perspective is the relative apparent 
 recession of objects from the foreground, owing to the 
 quantity of air interposed bi twi en them and the spectator, 
 and must accompany the recession ofthe perspective lines. 
 
 AERIAL \< ID. Carbomcm id 
 
 A'ERO-DYN V'MK S (Gr. <i»jo, and Swapis, power.) 
 The science which treats of the motion of the air, and of 
 the mechanical effects of air in motion. This is an expe- 
 rimental Science, and there are two ways in which it may 
 be investigated. The first is. by ascertaining the effects 
 which air, moving with a certain velocity, that is. wind. 
 produces on a body against which it strikes: and the 
 second, by ascertaining the resistance which air at rest 
 to a solid body rapidly passing through it. The pro- 
 blem is exactly the same, whethi is considered 
 as moving against the air at rest, or the air is supposed to 
 move against the body with the same velocity. 
 
 Conceive a body to be moved forward in a straight line, 
 displacing successively the particles of air opposed to it: 
 the effect which it produces is proportional to the number 
 of particles against which it strikes, and to the quantify of 
 motion communicated to each. Suppose now the velocity 
 ofthe body to be doubled, the motion communicated to 
 each partiele of air displaced w ill be twice as great as be- 
 fore, and twice as many particles will receive the impul- 
 sion in the same time. Hence we infer that the effect will 
 he four times as great, or that the effect is proportional to 
 the square of the velocity. This result of theory B 
 tolerably well with experiments made to determine the 
 resistance of the air when the velocity is not very great. 
 or not exceeding eight or nine hundred feet in a second. 
 When the velocity is much greater than this, the effect is 
 modified by circumstances which require further expla- 
 nation. 
 
 When a solid body is moved out of its position, the space < 
 
 AEROLITE. 
 
 which it occupied is not filled with air instantaneously, but 
 only after a sensible, though very short time. Theory, 
 confirmed to a certain degree by experience, shows that 
 air, under the ordinary atmospheric pressure, rushes into 
 a vacuum with a velocity of between 1300 and 1400 feet 
 in a second of time. But this velocity is very speedily 
 checked ; for the instant that any portion of air is admit- 
 ted, or the vacuum ceases to be perfect, that portion resists 
 the entrance of more with a force proportional to its den- 
 sity. Suppose, for example, the air in a receiver to be re- 
 duced to one-fourth of its natural density; the effort ofthe 
 exterior air to enter the receiver will be reduced to three- 
 fourths of its amount when the receiver was perfectly ex- 
 hausted ; and consequently the velocity, which is propor- 
 tional to the square root of the effort or the resistance, will 
 be reduced in the proportion of 1 to V| ; or of 100 to 87, 
 very nearly. In this manner, as the air continues to enter, 
 the velocity will rapidly diminish. 
 
 Now, conceive a body, for example a cannon ball, to be 
 moving rapidly through the air, but with a less velocity 
 than 1300 feet per second. The air in front ofthe ball win 
 remain in its natural state, because the condensation pro- 
 duced every instant by the contact of the ball, is propaga- 
 ted more quickly than the ball moves (the velocity of the 
 propagation being equal to that with which air enters a 
 vacuum). But there is a certain space behind the ball in 
 the air has not entirely ■ - equilibrium, 
 
 but remains more or less rarefied, the hall having passed 
 
 h it in less time than is required for the surrounding 
 an- entirely to till it. in addition, therefore, to the resist- 
 ance which arises from the communication of motion to 
 the particles of air. there is a pressure on the front part of 
 the ball, not counterbalanced from behind : in consequence 
 of which, we may infer that the resistance will increase in 
 a quicker ratio than the square of the velociiy. This de- 
 duction is also confirmed by experience ; for ii is found 
 thai the resistance continues to increase with the square 
 
 velocity only while the velocity is less than 900 or 
 1000 fei i per second. Above this velocity the ratio begins 
 to fail; and when tin.' velocity exceeds' thai with which air 
 
 a vacuum, the ratio is entirely alnred. At a veloci- 
 ty of L600 feet per serond. the resistance is found to be 
 more than twice that given by theory. The reason is ob- 
 vious : tie' density of tie' ah' before the body is increased 
 
 by the rapid motion, and, consequently, presses more on 
 
 part ofthe body than air in its natural state. 
 
 The resistance ofthe air on the leotion of projectiles, 
 was Ii, menially by M. Robins (see his 
 
 Principles of Gunnery), and aft' rwardsl Dr. Hutton, of 
 Woolwich (see his Tracts, vol. 3. and Math. Dictionary), 
 whose experiments were i xtent, 
 
 and varied in B greater number of ways. The following 
 are the principal results deduced by Dr. Button, from 
 his experiments on bodies moving very slowly, not more 
 than 20 feet per second: — 
 
 Is;. "That tie- resistance is nearly in the same propor- 
 tion as the surfaces : a small increase only taking place in 
 
 the greater surfaces and for the greater velocities. 
 
 2d. •■ The resistance of the air to the same surface with 
 different velocities, is, in these slow motions, nearly as the 
 square of the velocity, bul gradually increases more and 
 
 more above that proportion a - the velocity inn 
 
 3d. "The round ends anil sharp ends of solids suffer less 
 resistance than the flat or plane ends of the same diame- 
 ter ; but the sharper end has not always the less resist- 
 ance. 
 
 4th. " When the hinder parts of hodies are of different 
 forms, the resistances are different, though the fore parts 
 ■■•My alike and equal; owing, probably, to the differ- 
 ent pressures of the air on the hinder parts. 
 
 Dr. Hutton likewise found, that although in slow motions 
 the experimental resistance is nearly equal to that compu- 
 ted by theory, yet, "as the velocity increases, the experi- 
 mental resistance gradually exceeds the other more and 
 more, till, at the velocity of 1300 feet, the former becomes 
 double the latter; after which, the difference increases a 
 little further, till, at the velocity of 1600 or 1700 feet, when 
 thai excess is the greatest, and is rather less than 2 and 
 l-10thj and. after this the difference decreases gradually, 
 as the velocity increases ; and at the velocity of 2000 the 
 former resistance again becomes just double the latter." 
 For further information on this subject, see Projectiles, 
 Wind. 
 
 ALftO'GRAPHY. (Gr. drip, tlir air. and ypa<i>w. Itcrite.) 
 The description ofthe atmosphere, its naturej properties, 
 limits. Arc. (See Atmosphere.) 
 
 A'EROLI'TE. (Gr. drip. Hie air, and \i6os. a stone, stones 
 of the air.) The origin of these singular substances is in- 
 volved m the greatest mystery. Some philosophers, among 
 \\ iom is Laplace, the illustrious author ofthe " Mecanique 
 Celeste," suppose them to be ejected from volcanos in the 
 moon ; others suppose them to exist ready formed in the 
 J space, circulating about the sun with great velocity, 
 like planets, and falling to the earth when its attraction upon
 
 AEROLOGY. 
 
 hem preponderates ; others regard them as fragments of 
 rocks which have been propelled by terrestrial volcanos 
 to an immense height above the limits of the atmosphere, 
 and again descend after having described several revolu- 
 tions about the earth. 
 
 On examining and comparing the aerolites, the first cir- 
 cumstance that strikes us as remarkable is their perfect 
 resemblance to one another in their composition, what- 
 ever be their form or magnitude. Their exterior surface 
 is black, as if they had been exposed to the heat of a fur- 
 nace. Internally they are of a greyish white. Their spe- 
 cific gravity, which is very nearly the same in all of them, 
 varies between 3-352 and 4-281, that of water being taken 
 as unit. Their chemical analysis gives, in almost every 
 instance, the same substances, combined in very nearly 
 the same proportions. They are composed of silex, mag- 
 nesia, sulphur, iron in the metallic state, nickel, and some 
 traces of chrome. Sometimes they are formed of a spongy 
 or cellular texture, the cavities being filled with a stony 
 substance. They have occasionally been found without 
 nickel. These common and constant characters indicate 
 with the greatest evidence a common origin, and their 
 composition renders it probable that it is to be sought 
 elsewhere than in the earth. Iron is scarcely ever found 
 (if, indeed, it is found at all) in the metallic state in terres- 
 trial substances ; volcanic matter contains it only in the 
 state of an oxide. Nickel is also very rare, and never 
 found on the surface of the earth ; and chrome is still 
 more rare. 
 
 The fall of the aerolites is accompanied by meteors, 
 named bolides, or fire balls. They are, in fact, inflamed 
 globes, which appear instantaneously in the atmosphere, 
 and move through it with extreme velocity, sometimes 
 even equal to that of the earth in its orbit. The direction 
 of their motion is inclined to the horizon. After shining 
 with great splendour for a few instants, they explode with 
 a loud noise, and often at a great height, 30 or 40 miles 
 above the surface of the earth. They do not affect any 
 peculiar direction with respect to the motion of the earth, 
 but seem to come from all points of the heavens indiffer- 
 ently. 
 
 With regard to the hypothesis which explains the origin 
 of the aerolites, by supposing them to be propelled from 
 lunar volcanos, it may be remarked, that no improbable 
 amount of mechanical force would be required. As there 
 is no atmosphere about the moon sufficient to offer a sen- 
 sible resistance to the motion of a solid body, the force re- 
 quired is only that which would be sufficient to overcome 
 the moon's attraction, which is found by calculation to be 
 about four times the force with which a ball is expelled 
 from a cannon with the ordinary charge of gunpowder. A 
 body projected with a velocity of about 7770 feet per se- 
 cond from the lunar surface, would be detached from the 
 moon, and be brought to the earth by terrestrial gravita- 
 tion. But philosophers seem now disposed to assign the 
 aerolites a different origin. From the phenomena of 
 comets there is reason to believe that portions of chaotic 
 matter are dispersed in the planetary regions in detached 
 parcels, or perhaps in considerable masses. The earth 
 in describing its orbit may meet with such masses direct- 
 ly, or pass so near to them as to carry them along with it 
 by virtue of its attraction. On plunging into the atmos- 
 phere with the velocity due to the height from which they 
 have fallen, which is that of their distance from the earth, 
 when they begin to obey its attractive force, an enormous 
 heat is evolved by the rapid and powerful condensation of 
 the air ; the matter becomes inflamed, and the aerolite is 
 the product of the combustion. In the same manner 
 shooting stars, and other igneous meteors of frequent oc- 
 currence, are explained. The chaotic matter may be en- 
 tirely consumed long before it reaches the earth, in which 
 case the appearance of the bolide will not be accompanied 
 with the fall of an aerolite. (See Meteor.) 
 
 Philosophers were long inclined to disbelieve in the fall 
 of stones through the atmosphere. The fact, however, is 
 now placed beyond all doubt by numerous and well au- 
 thenticated instances which have occurred in almost all 
 quarters of the world, even within the present century. 
 A very complete list of the falls of stony or earthy matters, 
 with the times and places of their occurrence, and the ap- 
 pearances they exhibited, is published in the Edinburgh 
 Philosophical Journal, from a work by Chladni, in Ger- 
 man, in which the whole subject of meteoric stones is 
 ably and fully treated. 
 
 AERO'LOGY. (Gr. drip, air, and \oyog, a discourse.) 
 The doctrine of air, generally applied to medical discus- 
 sions respecting its salubrity. 
 
 AERO'METER. (Gr. drip, air, and jierpov, a measure.) 
 An instrument for making the necessary corrections in 
 pneumatic experiments, to ascertain the mean bulk of 
 gases. 
 
 A'ERONAUT. (Gr. drip, air, and vavrr/s, a sailor.) 
 One who travels in a balloon. 
 
 A'ERONAUTICS. (Gr. drip, air, and vavriKos, of or 
 18 
 
 AESTHETICS. 
 
 belonging to ships.) The art of sailing in and navigating 
 the air. From the earliest ages men have been actuated 
 by a wish to be able to participate in the advantages con- 
 ferred on the lower animals, and having succeeded in na- 
 vigating the sea, to be able also to mount, like the eagle, 
 into the air. The story of Daedalus, who is said to have 
 escaped from Crete to Sardinia, by means of wings con- 
 trived to assist him, is known to every classical reader, 
 and proves, at least, the antiquity of attempts of this sort. 
 But the fate of his companion Icarus, seems to have had 
 a greater influence in deterring from similar attempts, than 
 the reported success of the artificial dove, constructed by 
 the geometer Archytas, which is said to have wafted it- 
 self through the air by means of internal springs. During 
 the middle ages, when the nature of the atmosphere and 
 the sound principles of mechanical philosophy were alike 
 unknown, many rude and necessarily unsuccessful at- 
 tempts were made to realize this difficult problem. But it 
 was not till the composition of the atmosphere had begun 
 to be ascertained, and that means had been devised of fill- 
 ing vessels with heated air, or other air lighter than at- 
 mospheric air, and consequently capable of floating on it, 
 that there came to be a rational prospect of succeeding in 
 the " audacious attempt" of riding in the air. At length, in 
 1782, the brothers Montgoltier succeeded in constructing 
 a balloon ; and on the 21st of October, 1783, Pilatre de Ro- 
 zier, a young naturalist, and the Marquis d'Arlandes, as- 
 cended from Paris to an elevation of more than 3000 feet, 
 and alighted safely from their " aerial tour," after describ- 
 ing a circuit of about six miles. Since that time ascents in 
 balloons have become comparatively common. (-S'ee Bal- 
 loon, and the article iEronautics in the Encyclopaedia Bri- 
 tannica, 7th edit.) 
 
 A'EROPHY'TES. (Gr. drip, air, and <pvrov, a plant.) 
 Plants which live exclusively in air ; in distinction to hy- 
 drophytes, which live as constantly under water. 
 
 A'EROSTA'TICS. A term sometimes used to denote 
 the science which treats of the equilibrium of elastic fluids. 
 (.See Pneumatics.) 
 
 A'EROSTA'TION. (Gr. drip, air, and craw, I sta?id.) 
 Means simply the weighing of the air ; but it has been em- 
 ployed, though incorrectly, in the science of feronautics, 
 or as the art of raising substances into the atmosphere by 
 the buoyancy of heated air, or of very light gases enclosed 
 in a bag of a spheroidical form ; hence called a balloon, 
 which see. 
 
 jESCULA'CEJE. A natural order of exogenous plants 
 consisting of the horse-chestnut, jEsculus hippocastanum, 
 and other nearly allied species. They are all either shrubs 
 or trees inhabiting temperate regions, and nearly corres- 
 pond with jEsculus hippocastanum in the structure of the 
 flowers. Their seeds contain starch, and their bark is in 
 some cases bitter and astringent. 
 
 ^ESCULA'PIUS, or ASCLE'PIUS, as he was called by 
 the Greeks, was a mythological deity of the Greeks and 
 Romans, according to whom he was the son of Apollo and 
 the nymph Coronis. He was worshipped as the god 
 of surgery and medicine; but the older poets, as Homer 
 and Pindar, mention him only as a hero well skilled in 
 these arts. The chief seat of his worship was Epidaurus, 
 where he was represented as an old man, with a mantle 
 anil staff, round which a serpent is twined. 
 
 AESTHE'TICS. (Gr. dtcrdririKos, having the power of 
 perception by means of the senses.) In the fine arts, that 
 science which derives the first principles in all the arts 
 from the effect which certain combinations have on the 
 mind, as connected with nature and right reason. It is in- 
 timately related to sentiment, which links together with 
 feeling the different parts of a composition. All art, con- 
 sidered as imitation of nature, is affected by the same re- 
 lations, and subject to the same laws, which govern nature 
 herself; and if it could be satisfactorily proved that those 
 rules of art which are the result of reason were necessari- 
 ly connected with sensation, it might be possible to lay 
 down laws from which the principles of art might be satis- 
 factorily deduced. As an illustration of this, in architec- 
 ture we might take the rule which forbids the position of 
 a heavy mass over a void, when it may appear to have no 
 ostensible and immediate support ; in which case it might 
 almost seem possible to connect the unpleasant sensation 
 produced on the mind with the rules of reason ; but in ar- 
 chitecture it is difficult to conceive how this could be ef- 
 fected without recurring to primitive types, and on them 
 pursuing the reasoning fnto all its details. In the other arts 
 it might not, perhaps, be so difficult to establish a set of 
 rules, inasmuch as the immediate type is nature herself. 
 The Germans have written much on the doctrine of aesthe- 
 tics ; it would, however, seem, that the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of taste in all the arts depend on the laws of gravita- 
 tion, and their balances, equipoise and counterpoise ; the 
 necessary resultants whereof are symmetry and propor- 
 tion. We shall here lay before the reader a synoptical 
 view of this science : to do more would occupy a space 
 much more than would fill this volume ; for, under other
 
 .ffiSTHNA. 
 
 names, it is a subject which has much engaged the 
 attention of writers on the philosophy of the arts. The 
 essence of the polite arts lies in expression, or the 
 power of representation, whether by lines, words, or 
 other media, and that expression arises from an exer- 
 cise of the inventive faculty; their end being the pro- 
 duction of pleasurable sensations : thus being distinguished 
 from the end sought in the sciences, whose object is to pro- 
 duce instruction and utility. And here we are to observe, 
 that though in some of the polite arts, such as eloquence, 
 pin try. and architecture, the end maybe to instruct, or to be 
 applicable to useful objects, yet that the expression on which 
 they depend brings them within the laws which govern the 
 fine arts. The object of the fine arts is beauty, which is 
 the result of all the various perfections whereof an object 
 is susceptible : such perfections arising, first, from the 
 agreeable proportions between the several parts of the 
 same object: and, second, from the proportions between 
 each pari and the object taken as a whole. Genius, or the 
 power to invent, is the faculty of the mind by which it is 
 enabled b> conceive and expri ss its conceptions, and is, 
 consequently, necessary to the production of beauty : while 
 taste, or tin ition of a mind refined by art. is 
 
 uide to genius in discerning, embracing, and produ- 
 cing beamy. Hence a general theory of the polite arts 
 must be founded on a knowledge of all that they contain 
 truly agreeable and beautiful. They are usually said to 
 include eloquence, poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and 
 architecture. By some. < been added to the 
 
 number; but, for reasons too long to be advanced here, 
 we cannot include it. The rules have been reduced to six, 
 for the guidance of the artist, who is to recollect that, in 
 art, whal is low, indecent, or disagreeable, must be 
 banished from his work. First, be must consult his genius, 
 
 Qniil ferre n 
 
 (liliil valeiinl humeri ; 
 
 second, he must constantly labour to Improve his 
 third, nature must be the constant object of his imitation : 
 
 fourth, lie must attain perspicuity, so thai bis end may 
 
 be tree from ambiguity and obscurity : fit'tb, he must 
 
 his sentiments above all common or common-place 
 objects, by which an expansion of the imagination super- 
 venes and stamps his works with an air of sublimity, which, 
 sixthly, re mlts from i concurrent observance ofthe fourth 
 and fifth rules. We close this with the following observa- 
 tion ofMenzel: " \ ■ result of understanding 
 alone; the Inspir tion ol thi artisl has been, and ever must 
 be, the Bource ol thai which gives aesthetic value to bis 
 productions. (Sie< ll gel's \ orli rangi ' 
 tik. Herausgegeben von Dr. H G Hotho. 3 Bande, Ber- 
 lin, 1836. Soiger's Vorlesungen, &c., Leipzig. 1829. lint, 
 and For. Review, Vol. 13, an " Philosophy ol \rt .") 
 JE'STMN A. a name applied by Fabriciusto b genus of 
 D-flies, characterised by having the wings expanded 
 
 when at rest, and the divisions ofthe lip equal. 
 
 AETHEO'GAMOUS. (Gr iij9«, \yafiot, 
 
 marriage.) A name contrived to express n,. 
 nature of what are called cryptogamic plants ; it being the 
 opinion of the author of the name thai the mode of propa- 
 gation among such plants was nol hidden, but onlj 
 unusual nature, it has been confined by De Candolle to 
 such a cellular tissue, in their or- 
 
 ganisation. In this sense, they are the same as ferns, ly- 
 
 OOpodiumS, mosses, and their allies. 
 
 2ETHRIOSCOTE. (Gr. ui0.oio$. r'mr. and cko-cw. 
 Iview.) Aii instrument invented by Sir John Leslie for 
 
 ing the relative degrees of cold 
 pro luced by the pulsations from a clear 
 sky. It consists merely of a differentia] 
 thermometer, adapted to the cavity of a 
 spheroidal cup of metal the interior of 
 which is highly polishe I, in such a man- 
 ner that one ofthe b ills occupies a focus 
 ofthe spheroid ; while the orifice ofthe 
 cup is formed by a plane passing tl, rough 
 the other focus, perpendicular to the 
 axis. A lid ofthe same metal is fitted to 
 the mouth ofthe cup, and only re 
 when an observation is to be made. 
 Suppose the- cup expose. I to a clear sk v : 
 the colli pulses darted from the Q 
 
 regions of tiie atmosphere, which i 
 
 the orifice ofthe cup, are refli cted from polished surface 
 upon the ball A in the focus, while the ball B. lodged at the 
 side of the cup in its widest part, is nearly screened from 
 them, or receives onlv the small number which fall 
 obliquely upon it The two balls are thus exposed to dif- 
 ferent degrees of cold, the effect of which is immediately 
 apparent, by the rise of the liquor in the stem ofthe ther- 
 mometer, in consequence of the contraction of the air in 
 the ball A. The effect may be augmented bv covering the 
 ball B, which is out ofthe focus, with a coat of gold or sil- 
 ver leaf. It is evident that the instrument is equally adapt- 
 
 AFFINITY, CHEMICAL. 
 
 ed to measure the effects of the radiation of heat, which 
 will be manifested by the descent ofthe liquor in the stem. 
 \\ hen applied to this purpose, however, the metallic cup 
 becomes unnecessary ; the hot pulses being mostly thrown 
 back from the bright surface ofthe gilt ball,while they pro- 
 duce their full effect on the naked" or sentient one. The 
 sethrioscope is thus converted into a pvroscope. (See 
 Enr,/r. Brit, art " Climate.") 
 
 ESTIVA 'TIOX. (I.at. a?stivus, of or belonging to sum- 
 mer.) A figurative expression, employed to indicate the 
 manner in which the parts of a flower are arranged before 
 they unfold. Botanists speak of the aestivation ofthe calyx, 
 ofthe corolla, of the stamens. 
 
 jE'STCARY. (I.at. JSstuarium.) In Geography, was 
 anciently understood to be any creek, frith, or arm" of the 
 sea. iii which the tide ebbs and flows (Plin. Epist. lib. 9, ep. 
 33.); but it is now applied to designate those parts of the 
 channels of certain rivers contiguous to the sea in which 
 the water is either salt or brackish, and in which the ebb 
 and flow of the sea is distinctly perceptible, and there is 
 little or no current. 
 
 -ETHER. See Ether. 
 
 A'ETIA'IOI. ((Jr. dtros, an eagle.) In Architecture, 
 the name given by the Greek architects to the slabs form- 
 ing the f.ice of the tympanum of a pediment. This word 
 - in the Athenian inscription now in the British Mu- 
 seum, taken to England by Dr. Chandler, and relating to 
 the survey of some temple at Athens. 
 
 jETIO'LOGY (Gr. ('una. n cause, and Aojoj, discourse.) 
 The doctrine ofthe causes of disease. 
 
 AETO'MA, or A'ETOS. (Gr. dents, an eagle.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, the name given by the Greek architects to the 
 tympanum of a pediment It seems to have derived its 
 name from the custom of decorating the apex or ri 
 the roof with figures of eagles, and thai the name thence 
 first given to the ridge was afterwards transferred to the 
 itself 
 
 an ::< Ts'TIOX. (Lat affectare, to seek for overmuch.) 
 In the Fine \rts. an artificial show arising from the want of 
 simplicity either in colouring, drawing, or action. Also, 
 the overcharging any part ol a composition With an a 
 
 or deceitful appi arance. 
 
 U'l i: ( ti D. or ADFECTED. A term of Algebra. 
 When applied to an equation, it signifies that two or more 
 
 powers of the unknown quantity enter into the 
 
 is. j-3 — 0*8 -(- hx — c = o, in which there are 
 
 thr lifferent powers of x, nami When 
 
 the term is .applied to a quantity, it implies thai the quanti- 
 ty has a coefficient, or a proper sign : thus, in the quantity 
 4- ■.';. ./• Is said to be affected with the coefficient '-'. and 
 with the sign +. Dr. Hulton thinks the term affected was 
 introduce.l nito algel \ 
 
 \i I i: TTO, or AlTF.TTl OSO. (It affetto, affectum.) 
 Pi Mi i-n , a term prefixed It ent, showing that it 
 
 performed in a smooth, tender, and affecting man- 
 ner, and, therefore, rather inclining to slowness than the 
 
 AIFIDA'VIT. (Lat affidio, Iconfirm by oath.) In Law, 
 is an oath in writing, sworn before some person who has 
 aut hority to administer it. 
 
 \\\ III v'TION. (Lat. ad, to, filius, aaon.) In Law, the 
 
 m nt of a child to a parent by legal authority ; as 
 
 where the fath ird child is designated on the tes- 
 
 timony of the woman, and the expenses of maintaining it 
 cast upon him. By the Poor Law Amendment Act, s. 72., 
 this can now only be done, after sufficient notice to the 
 party intended to be charged, by an order ofthe court of 
 quarter sessions, on the testimony of the woman, corrobo- 
 rated as to Borne material fact bv other evidence. (See 
 Bastard.) .1 tea, in Politics, are local socie- 
 
 ties, depending J society with which they cor- 
 
 respond, and from which they receivi Such 
 
 were the provincial jacobin i luba, founded on the model of 
 the jacobin club of Paris. Such, also, were the correspond- 
 ing societies in England, for the suppression of which the 
 
 statute 39 (• '■'■■ c. 79. was chiefly passed. 
 
 AFFl'NiTY. (Lat. affinis, related.) A relation of ani- 
 mals to one another, in the similarity of a greater propor- 
 sation : thus, a porpoise is said to have 
 an affinity to man. because ol its resemblance to him in the 
 respiratory, circulating, and generative systems, in the 
 brain, eye. and ear, Ac. ; while it is said to have an analogy 
 to a fish, because the resemblance is confined to external 
 form. In short, affinity is that degree of relationship by 
 which, in forming a concatenated series of animals, we 
 pass from one to another bv the closest gradations. 
 
 AFFINITY, CHEMICAL. The attractive force by 
 which dissimilar substances combine with each other to 
 produce chemical compounds. All natural and artificial 
 substances are either simple or compound. The metals, 
 for instance, are simple substances, — no one of them hav- 
 ing been as yet decomposed: water is a compound ; it may 
 be~ resolved into oxygen and hydrogen gases, which are 
 therefore called its component parts. To enable substances
 
 AFFINITY, CHEMICAL. 
 
 to exert their mutual affinities, or to act chemically upon 
 each other, the opposing powers of matter must be over- 
 come, and they must be placed under circumstances fa- 
 vourable to the exertion of their mutual chemical attrac- 
 tions. Two solid bodies seldom combine, in consequence 
 of their imperfect contact, and the immobility of their par- 
 ticles ; hence the oldest axiom, corpora non agunt, nisi 
 fiuida. But to this there are exceptions : ice and salt, for 
 instance, run down into liquid brine ; oxalic acid and dry 
 lime unite; and when sulphur and chlorate of potash are 
 rubbed together, they act violently on each other. Even 
 when one or both substances are fluid, heat is often requi- 
 site to diminish cohesion, and promote affinity : thus, mer- 
 cury and iron combine with melted sulphur ; and oxygen 
 and hydrogen, and oxygen and carbon, require heat to ef- 
 fect their union. In some cases the action of the solar 
 rays excites and increases affinity, as in the combination of 
 hydrogen and chlorine. 
 
 "The investigation of the relative proportions in which 
 bodies combine, forms the basis of the atomic theory, or 
 doctrine of chemical equivalents. 
 
 Many substances seem to unite in all proportions; but 
 these are not strict cases of chemical combination : thus, 
 water and sulphuric acid, and alcohol and ether, mix to- 
 gether in any quantities. Others unite indefinitely, up to a 
 certain point : water, for instance, dissolves salt, in varia- 
 ble quantity, till the solution is saturated : we thus find 
 that a given quantity of water is only able to retain a cer- 
 tain weight of salt in permanent solution. In these cases 
 of indefinite combination, the affinities of the combining 
 substances are usually feeble ; but where their affinities or 
 attractive powers are energetic, there is a remarkable ten- 
 dency to combine in certain proportions only. Thus, sul- 
 phuric acid and lime unite in the proportions of -10 of the 
 acid to 28 of the lime, and in no other or intermediate 
 quantity : in such cases the acid and the base are said to 
 neutralise each other; and such compounds are often 
 called neutral salts, that is, salts in which the leading cha- 
 racters of the component parts are no longer perceptible, 
 which are neither acid nor alkaline. When such bodies 
 combine in more than one proportion, which is often the 
 case, the second, third, &c. proportions are simple multi- 
 ples of the first : thus, 16 parts of sulphur combine respec- 
 tively with 8, 16, and 24 of oxygen ; in these compounds 
 the relative proportions being as 1, 2, and 3. Again, 14 
 parts of nitrogen combine with 8, 16, 24, 32, and 40 of oxy- 
 gen, forming five distinct compounds, in which the relative 
 proportions of the oxygen are as 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. 
 
 Where the combining substances are either naturally 
 gaseous, or where they may be hypothetically so consi- 
 dered, it is obvious that, as their weights bear these simple 
 relations to each other, their bulks or volumes will do so 
 likewise : thus, in the case of the compounds just noticed, 
 1 volume of nitrogen will combine respectively with %, 1, 
 1%, 2, and 2% volumes of oxygen ; or, what amounts to the 
 same thing, 2 volumes of nitrogen will combine with 1, 2, 
 3, 4, and 5 volumes of oxygen. 
 
 As bodies thus combine with each other in definite pro- 
 portions, it is obvious, that if we select any one substance 
 as unity, or := 1, all other substances may be represented 
 by numbers equal to the weights in which they respective- 
 ly combine with each other, and with the unit. Upon this 
 principle of numeric representation, hydrogen, which is 
 the lightest known substance, is assumed as unity ; the 
 compound of hydrogen with oxysen is water, in which 1 
 part by weight of hydrogen is combined with 8 of oxygen, 
 to form 9 of water : hence, in a table of atomic numbers, 
 definite proportionals, or chemical equivalents, (for all these 
 terms have been applied to such numbers,) we have — 
 Hydrogen represented by 1 
 Oxysen ... 8 
 Water - - - 9 
 
 And in the above series of nitric compounds we have, in 
 the first of them, 14 of nitrogen combined with 8 of oxy- 
 gen ; and, accordingly, calling 14 the equivalent of nitrogen, 
 and 8 the equivalent of oxygen, we have the following equi- 
 valents of their compounds ; and it may be presumed that 
 these numbers represent the weights of the combining 
 atoms of those bodies : — 
 
 Equivalents, or 
 Atom* combining weights, Equivalents of the 
 
 of nit/u- of oxy- ofn'.lro- ofoxy- compounds. 
 
 gen. gen. gen. gen. 
 
 1 +"1 14 + 8 = 22 nitrous oxide. 
 
 1+2 14 + 16 = 30 nitric oxide. 
 
 1+3 14 + 24 = 33 hyponitrous acid. 
 
 1 + 4 14 + 32 = 46 nitrous acid. 
 
 1 + 5 14 + 40 =: 54 nitric acid. 
 
 This table also shows the nomenclature commonly applied 
 to the compounds ; the termination ous indicating the mi- 
 nimum of oxygen, the termination ic the maximum ; the 
 term oxide implying generally all those combinations of 
 oxygen which are not sour, such being called acids. More 
 frequently the relative proportions of oxygen in the oxides 
 20 
 
 AFTERMATH. 
 
 are designated by the first syDable of the Greek ordinal 
 numerals : thus we have protoxides, deutoxides, tritoxides, 
 <&c. ; and when the base is saturated with oxygen, the 
 compound is termed a peroxide. When the same sub- 
 stance forms three or four acids, the term hypo is con- 
 veniently introduced with the termination ous or ic, as 
 shown in the following table of the acids of sulphur: — 
 
 Atoms of Equivalents of Equivalents of the 
 
 sulphur, oxygen. sulphur, oxygen. acids. 
 
 1 + 1 16 + 8 = 24 hyposulphurous. 
 
 1+2 16 + 16 = 32 sulphurous. 
 
 1+3 16 + 24 = 40 sulphuric. 
 
 There is also an acid of sulphur intermediate between 
 sulphurous and sulphuric, composed of 1 atom of hyposul- 
 phurous acid, and 1 of sulphurous acid; (24 + 32 = 56) 
 or of 2 atoms of sulphur and 3 of oxygen : this is appropri- 
 ately called the hyposulphuric acid. The terms sesqai and 
 hi are sometimes used to designate intermediate and dou- 
 ble compounds of acids, or other bodies with bases : thus, 
 we have three compounds of carbonic acid with ammonia, 
 in which 1 proportional or atom ofammoniais respectively 
 combined with 1, 1>2, and 2 of carbonic acid, and these we 
 call the carbonate, sesquicarbonate, and bicarbonate of am- 
 monia. For a table of the equivalent numbers of the sim- 
 ple substances, see Equivalents. 
 
 Change of form and change of properties are the com- 
 mon consequences of chemical affinity. We observe, 1. 
 Solids forming liquids (ice and salt). 2. Solids forming 
 gases (explosion of gunpowder). 3. A solid and a liquid 
 producing a solid (lime and water). 4. A solid and a liquid 
 producing a liquid (all common cases of solution ; as of 
 salt and sugar in water). 5. Liquids producing solids (so- 
 lution of carbonate of potassa mixed with muriate of lime). 
 
 6. Liquids producing gases (alcohol and nitric acid). 
 
 7. Gases producing solids (ammonia and muriatic acid). 
 
 8. Gases producing liquids (chlorine and olefiant gas). 
 The density of bodies is also materially affected by che- 
 mical combination ; the density of a compound is very 
 rarely the mean of its components, but generally increased: 
 thus, almost all gaseous compounds occupy less bulk than 
 their elementary gases in a separate state ; there are, how- 
 ever, cases in which 1 volume of one gas, combined with 1 
 volume of another, produce exactly 2 volumes of a com- 
 pound gas, the density of which is, of course, the mean of 
 that of its components; and again, in the combinations of 
 some of the metals with each other, and with sulphur, the 
 density of the compound is below the mean of its ele- 
 ments. When certain liquids are mixed, great and imme- 
 diate increase of density ensues, and much heat is evolved 
 (sulphuric acid and water). Change of form and of density 
 are often attended by remarkable changes in other quali- 
 ties : thus, tasteless bodies produce active compounds (oil 
 of vitriol is composed of oxygen, sulphur, and water), and 
 active substances produce inert compounds (sulphuric acid 
 and caustic potash produce the inert salt, sulphate of pot- 
 ash) ; so that it is utterly impossible, by any a priori rea- 
 soning, to determine what will be the consequence of che- 
 mical combination : useless elements produce useful com- 
 pounds, and useless compounds yield useful elements. 
 
 Another important and curious consequence of chemical 
 action is change of colour : the vegetable blues are gene- 
 rally reddened by acids, and rendered green by alcalis ; 
 the alcalis render many of the reds purple ; and of the yel- 
 lows, brown : chlorine destroys most colours ; so does the 
 joint action of light, air, and moisture (bleaching, &c). 
 
 AFFIRMATIVE. In Logic, denotes the quality of a pro- 
 position which asserts the agreement of the predicate with 
 the subject. 
 
 AFFIRMATIVE QUANTITY. In Alsebra, denotes a 
 quantity to be added, in contradistinction to one to betaken 
 away. 
 
 AFFIRMATIVE SIGN, or POSITIVE SIGN. The sign 
 of addition, marked +, meaning plus, or more. Dr. Hut- 
 ton observes, that the early writers on algebra used the 
 word plus in Latin, or piu in Italian, for addition, and after- 
 wards the initial p only as a contraction ; like as they used 
 minus or meno, or the initial m only, for subtraction ; and 
 thus their operations were denoted in Italy by Lucas de 
 Burgo, Tartalea, and Cardan, while the signs + and — 
 were employed much about the same time in Germany by 
 Stifelius, Scheubelius, and others, to denote the same ope- 
 rations. 
 
 A'FFLX. In Grammar, a syllable attached to the end of 
 a class of words, determining their meaning. Thus, a 
 class of adverbs in English are determined by the affix ly ; 
 strongly, weakly, Ax. Prefix is a syllable so attached at 
 the beginning. 
 
 AFRA'NCESADOS. In Modern History, a denomina- 
 tion given in Spain to the party which attached itself to the 
 cause of the French, or of the intrusive King Joseph, du- 
 ring the war of independence, 1S03 — 1814. 
 
 AFT. See Abaft. 
 
 A'FTERMATH. InAsr. Grass which is mown, after the
 
 
 AGA. 
 
 first crop of hay has been taken away, instead of being 
 eaten offbv stock 
 
 A'l.A. A title of dignity amonj the Turks and Persians, 
 given to various officers: as, the aga of the janissaries, 
 while that corps subsisted ; the capi-aga, or chief eunuch 
 of the seraglio, 6cc. It is also a common epithet of respect 
 in addressing a distinguished person. 
 
 AKA'LMATOLl'TE. (Gr. dvaW, wiai-e, and Ai0oj, a 
 i Tiie mineral which the Chinese'carve into im- 
 ages. 
 
 AGA'MA. (Gr. dyaftat. I wonder at.) The name of a 
 lizard, employed by Cuvier to designate the first section of 
 the [guanian sauria. or Agamdda : which section ischarac- 
 i sed by the absence of palatal teeth. The Agamoid li- 
 zards include several genera, which are numerous in spe- 
 cies, and they are distributed over the warmer parts of 
 America, Africa, Asia, and Australia. They have all the 
 power of inflating the body, and of producing, but in a less 
 degree than in the chameleon, changes of colour, whence, 
 .. the origin of the name. 
 
 A'GAMOUS. (Gr. d, without, and ja/iof, nuptials.) A 
 term substituted by sunn- writers for cryptogamic, because 
 such plants have in reality do organs analogous to sexes : 
 it is, however, usually limited to such groups as conferva?. 
 lichens, and fungi, because they have in reality nothing 
 either analogous or similar to the sexes of more pi 
 plants : while, on the contrary, fern-; and mosses, although 
 they have not any real sexes, nevertheless an 
 by some writers to possess parts of an analogous nature. 
 
 A'GAPjE. (Gr. d-ju-n. love.) Love feasts, in 
 among the primitive Christians. Alter the celebration of 
 
 the communion, the oblations which had I a made in 
 
 the temple, consisting of meat and bread which the rich 
 had brought from theii houses, were consumed at a com- 
 mon feast There is some dispute whether in the apos- 
 tolic times this feasl di I nol I ike pi ice before the commu- 
 nion, in mor lance with the circumstances at- 
 tending the institution of tie- sacrament. The agaps or 
 feasts in churches, were prohibited by the Council of 
 Laodicea, A. D. 301. and the third of Carthage, A. 1> 
 
 A'GAPHITE. See TunauoisB. 
 
 A'GARH' \ nin Sarmatia.) A genus 
 
 of fungi comprehending many hundred species, among 
 which are A campestris, the common mushroom, arid 
 some others, which are delicate articles of food; A. mus- 
 carius and others thai are dangerous poisons ; many of the 
 disgusting deliquescent fungi i ols; and nu- 
 
 merous be lutiful little ephemeral species, which appear to 
 be harmless: A. oleariua is remarkable for being phos- 
 phorescent These plants uniformly grow in decaying an- 
 imal or vegetable matter, among which their stem, or 
 sp iu n. as ii is commonly called, ramifies, alter the spawn 
 has arrived at the proper age, it ceases to branch, <•< 
 into parcels, and generates from those parcels the fructifi- 
 cation, which forces iis way into the light under the form 
 of the agaric. The cap is the pari where the spores or 
 seeds for reproducing the species are generated : ihey are 
 formed within the plati a or .jiiis thai Be on the under side 
 of ih.: cap, and are little grey round bodies, which, when 
 they are collected in great quantities upon a sheet of white 
 paper, have the appearance of exceedingly fine dust. 
 '•Fairy rings' 1 an' caused by the underground stems of a- 
 garics which branch from a common centre, and only 
 protrude their fructification at the circumference. 
 
 AGARIC MINERAL. Avery soft mealy variety of car- 
 boo,.!!' of lime. 
 
 AGA'STRICS, AGASTRIA, AGASTRICA. (Gr. d. with- 
 out, yaoriio. a stomach : 8tomachle88.) A term which has 
 been applied to certain animalcules, on the erroneous sup- 
 ion that they were devoid of internal digestive cavities. 
 (See Polygastrics.) The term is still applied to a family 
 of medusae. 
 
 A'GATE. An aggregate of certain siliceous minerals, 
 possessing hardness, and variety id' a mixture, 
 
 and admitting of a good polish. Chalcedony generally ap- 
 to be the base of agate ; cornelian, jasper, amethyst, 
 and other similar minerals, often enter into their composi- 
 tion. 
 
 A'GATIIOD.E'MOX. (fir. dyados, good, and Satftuv.) 
 A good spirit. (<See D.emon.) 
 
 AGA'VE. (Gr. dyavos, admirable.) A genus of plants 
 found in the temperate parts of America, resembling aloes 
 in their mode of growth and general appearance, but differ- 
 ing in having an inferior ovary, and in ilieir sensible proper- 
 ties. The best known species is Agave americana, called 
 the American aloe, which has been naturalised on the 
 coasts of the Mediterranean, where it assists, with Cactus 
 opuntia, the palmetto, and date palms, to sive a tropical air 
 to European scenery. It is many years preparing the ma- 
 terials for its gigantic pyramid of flowers, and is so exhaust- 
 ed by the effort, that it quickly afterwards perishes. A 
 sweet sap flows from its inward stem, and upon fermenta- 
 tion becomes an intoxicating beverage, yielding by distilla- 
 tion a powerful ardent spirit. Hemp of considerable 
 21 
 
 AGE. 
 
 strength is manufactured from its leaves. The genus agave 
 is the type of one of the subdivisions of amaryllidaceuus 
 plants. 
 
 AGE. (Fr. age.) Means, generally, a definite period or 
 length of time. 
 
 Age. As applied to man, age may either mean the 
 whole of his life, or a portion of it. It is usual to divide the 
 whole period of human life into four pans or ages. The 
 first, or infancy, extending to the fourteenth year; the 
 next, or youth, from the lourteenth to about the twenty- 
 fifth ; manhood, from the twenty-fifth to the fiftieth or six- 
 tieth : and the last, or old age, filling up the remainder. 
 Ovid ingeniously compares these four ages to the four dif- 
 ferent seasons of the year. — (Metamorph. xv. ver. £00.) 
 These divisions are, however, in a great degree arbitrary ; 
 and very frequently they have been extended to six. the 
 first being divided into infancy and childhood, and the last 
 into old age and extreme old age. Sometimes, also, the 
 life of man is supposed to be divided into seven ages, the 
 Li ading characteristics of which have been most admirably 
 depicted by ^hakspeare : — 
 
 11 Hi? acts beingseven ages. At first, the infant, 
 Mewling and puking iu the nurse's arms : 
 Ami then, tht: whining schoolboy, wiih his satchel, 
 Ainl ihining morning lace, creeping like snail 
 Unwillingly '" school i And u en il e lover ; 
 Sighing like furnace, with a woeful bahad 
 Made to bifl mietn >s* eyebrow : then a soldier, 
 Full of strange oaths, a nd bearded like the paid, 
 
 I in honour, sudde n and quick in quarrel, 
 Seeking the bubble reputation 
 
 Even in the cannon's ineudi : and then, the justice ; 
 In fair round belly, with goodcapon lin'd, 
 With eyea severe, and beard of formal cut, 
 Full of wise saws and modern Inatanci ?, 
 And so In- p. ays his part : The sixth age shifu 
 lino the lean andalipper'd pantaloon ; 
 With spectaclea on note, and pouch on side : 
 
 His yoLiclili.il 1 B world loo wide 
 
 Fur I'is shrunk ■honk : and DM lag nian'y v. ace, 
 
 Turning again toward childish treble, , 
 
 And whistles in his sound : Last scene of u!!, 
 
 That ends this strange eventful history, 
 
 la second childishness and mereoblivj 
 
 Sans- !Ste,eanfl every thing. " 
 
 For a scientific discussion of this - Mortality. 
 
 Age. In I.aw, is the period at which individuals are 
 qualified to undertake certain duties and offices. By the 
 common law of England, a man at fourteen is at the age of 
 discretion, and may then appoint guardians, ami marry 
 with their consent : a! twenty-one he is of full ace, and 
 may, consequently, exercise any civil privilege to which 
 he may otherwise be entitled, thai is. he may elect or be 
 elected to parliament, be appointed a ju lands, 
 
 eke. Hni no person can be admitted in England lodi ■ 
 orders till he be twenty-three years ol age, nor to priest's 
 till In' be twenty-four. At twelve years a won an may 
 , provided she bavi at of her parents or 
 
 guardians ; and at twenty-one she is her own mistress, and 
 spose ofnerselfand her estates. 
 
 Infants under seven years an- held by the law of England 
 to be incapable of committing felony. If persons above 
 that ase, and under fourteen, commit felony, they are pri- 
 ma facie entitled to an acquittal: but if it appear to the 
 conrl and the jury that the accused was doti capax, or 
 clearly nnderst I the nature of the crime he was com- 
 mitting, they may prot I on the principle that malitia 
 
 eetaiem, and subject the offender, as, in point of fact, 
 has been repeatedly doiie. to the extremest penalty of the 
 law. Persons aboi - fourteen are treated in this respect 
 as if they had arrived at full age.— (Ulackstone, book iv. 
 cap. 2.) 
 
 At Home, the consular age, or the aire at which a pel 
 became capable of holding the consular dignity, was fixed 
 at forty-three, though in extraordinary cases this rule might 
 be set aside. In France, at this moment, a nan is not al 
 lowed to exercise the elective franchise till he be twenty- 
 five yearsof age ; nor be elected a deputy nil he be thirty. In 
 some of the American states judges are obliged to retire 
 
 when they have attained lo a certain age, which is some- 
 times so early as sixty. 
 Age. In Mythology, ace means one or other of the four 
 s described by the ancient poets. The first orgold- 
 en age, aurea ebtas, when there was an eternal spring, and 
 whin the earth spontaneously poured forth her harvests, 
 and man 
 
 " vindice nullo, 
 
 Sponte sui slue lege fidem rectumque colebat," 
 
 was coeval with the reign of Saturn on earth. The next, or 
 silver age, argentea atas, was marked by the change of 
 seasons, and the division and cultivation of lands. The 
 third, or brazen ase, aerna alas, is described as 
 " Saevior ingeniis, et ad horrida promptior arma : 
 Nee sceleiala laiiicn." 
 
 And then came the last, or iron age.ferrea atas, full of all 
 sorts of hardships and wickedness, which still continues. 
 (Otidii Metuvwiph., i. lin. S9., <fcc.)
 
 AGENDA. 
 
 Age. In Literature, age is a period distinguished by 
 great improvements and eminence in arts and sciences, 
 usually bearing the name of some powerful sovereign, or 
 other prominent person, who flourished during that period. 
 Of these ages, the most memorable are the age of Peri- 
 cles, the Augustan age, the age of Leo X., of Louis 
 XIV.. &c. 
 
 Age. In Chronology and History, age is sometimes used 
 as synonymous with a cen'ury, and sometimes also with a 
 generation. Writers differ in respect to the period inclu- 
 ded under what is called the middle ages ; but they are 
 commonly understood to begin with the reign of Constan- 
 tine, and to extend to the fifteenth or the early part of the 
 sixteenth century. The eera of the invention of printing, 
 1450 — 1455, might, we think, be advantageously adopted as 
 the termination of the middle ages. 
 
 AGE'NDA. (Lat. things to be done.) Small books are 
 now published under this title, in which individuals may 
 set down, under their proper heads, the things to be daily 
 attended to. 
 
 Agenda. In Divinity, articles of moral practice, in op- 
 position to credenda, articles of faith. Also, the ritual of a 
 church, and the books containing it. 
 
 A'GEjST. In Law, is a person authorised to do some 
 act or acts in the name of another, who is called his princi- 
 pal. An agent may, in general, be appointed by bare 
 words, or his appointment will be inferred from circum- 
 stances ; but, for some purposes specified by the statute of 
 frauds, his appointment must be in writing. The. agent of 
 a corporation must, in general, be appointed by deed. If 
 an agent has engaged to perform certain duties for a consi- 
 deration, the performance may be enforced in law. But 
 against an unremunerated agent, the principal can only re- 
 cover damages for misconduct in the performance, and 
 cannot compel him to proceed. With respect to the deal- 
 ings of third parties with an agent, some general rules of 
 law are, that the extent of an agent's authority is, as be- 
 tween his principal and third parties, to be measured by 
 the extent of his usual employment ; that the representa- 
 tion of an agent about the subject-matter of a contract 
 which he is negotiating for his principal, will, if made du- 
 ring the course of the negotiation, bind the latter ; that pay- 
 ment to an agent, in the course of his employment, is pay- 
 ment to the principal ; that the principal is, under many 
 circumstances, responsible in civil actions for the negli- 
 gence or fraud of his agent, but not criminally liable for his 
 acts, unless done under an express command. 
 
 Agent. In Diplomacy, a general name, comprising se- 
 veral ranks: — as, 1. Ambassadors. 2. Envoys extraordi- 
 nary and ministers plenipotentiary. 3. Ministers resident. 
 4. Charges d'affaires. 5. Secretaries of legation, &c. In 
 common language, however, the highest officer em- 
 ployed by one power at the court of another, is usually 
 termed the agent of that power at the court in question. 
 {See Diplomacy.) 
 
 A'GGREGATE ANIMALS. This term is applied to 
 those animals which are collected together in a common 
 enveloping organised substance containing numerous com- 
 partments, from each of which a distinct occupant sends 
 forth a circle of organs to collect food, which, after assimi- 
 lation, is carried by a common and continuous system of 
 vessels for the support and enlargement of the common 
 dwelling. Examples of animals so associated or aggregated 
 occur in the class polypi, where they form most of the or- 
 ders; also in the class acalepha?, forming the polytoma ; 
 and in acephalous mollusca, forming the genera botryllus, 
 pyrotoma, and polyclinum. 
 
 AGI'LIA. (Lat. agilis. swift.) A family of rodents in 
 the system of Illiger, including the squirrels and dormice. 
 
 A'GIO. A mercantile term, denoting the percentage 
 difference existing between the values of the current and 
 standard moneys of any place. Also, the rate of premium 
 which is given, when a person having a claim which can 
 only be legally demanded in one metal, chooses to be paid 
 in another. Thus, in countries where silver is the only 
 legal standard, a large payment in silver is so inconvenient, 
 that the receiver will often pay a small premium for the 
 convenience of receiving gold : this premium constitutes 
 the agio on gold. 
 
 A'GIOTAGE. A term employed to designate the sort of 
 manoeuvres by which speculatoVs in the public funds con- 
 trive, by disseminating false rumours, or otherwise, to 
 lower or enhance their price. It is sometimes also, though 
 less commonly, applied to the machinations of those who 
 endeavour, by similar artifices, to raise or depress the 
 prices of commodities. 
 
 AGISTMENT. In Law. From the old French word, 
 agister, which signifies a licence granted for cattle, viz. to 
 be harboured, or, in legal phrase, levant and couchant, on 
 the land. A contract by which A.'s cattle are taken into 
 B.'s ground, to remain there at a stipulated sum, paid peri- 
 odically. Agistment is also used for the profits of such 
 feeding. The "Tithe of Agistment." or o<"eattle and other 
 produce of grass lands, demanded by the Irish clergy, was 
 22 
 
 AGREEMENT. 
 
 resisted in 1720, by the landlords, and in effect abolished 
 by a resolution of the Irish house of commons (1735). By 
 the act of union, this resolution was passed into law : and 
 thus the tithes of Ireland have, in effect, been thrown on 
 the poorest part of the agricultural population, the owners 
 and cultivators of arable land. (See Ld. Her., vol. xxxiv. : 
 Wakefield's Ireland, vol. ii.) 
 
 A'GNATE. (Lat. agnatus.) In Roman Law, agnates 
 are those who descend through males from a common an- 
 cestor; in opposition to cognates, i. e. all the descendants 
 of a common ancestor, whether through males or females. 
 Thus, in France, the hereditary crown passes by right of 
 agnation, females being excluded. 
 
 AGNCMEN. Besides the prfenomen, nomen, and cog- 
 nomen, the Romans sometimes had a fourth name (agno- 
 men), which was derived from some illustrious action or 
 remarkable event. Thus, two Scipios had the name Afri- 
 canus given them on account of their victories over the 
 Carthaginians in Africa. The younger of these celebrated 
 generals had a second agnomen, viz. iEmilianus, because 
 he was the son of L. Paulus iEmilius, and adopted into the 
 family of the Scipios. 
 
 A'GNOX. A name applied by Fabricius to a genus of 
 dragon-flies, having the wings erect when at rest, the eyes 
 distinct, and the outer divisions of the lip bifid. 
 
 AGXO'STTIS. (Gr. ayvoioros, unknown.) A name de- 
 vised to express the obscur? nature of a genus of trilobites 
 (fossil crustaceans), to which it is attached; the genus is 
 characterised by the semicircular or reniform shape of the 
 body, which in all other trilobites is ovate or ellipitical. 
 
 A'GNUS DEI. (Lat. Lamb of God.) 1. A prayer of the 
 Roman Catholic church, which begins with the words, 
 '• Agnus Dei qui tollis peccata mundi." 2. An image of 
 wax, impressed with the figure of the Lamb, consecrated 
 by the pope, and distributed to the faithful. 
 
 AGO'MPHIANS, AGOMPIIIA. (Gr. d, uithont, and 
 }op<J)ios, a tooth.) A term applied by Ehrenberg to those 
 rotifers of which the jaws are deprived of teeth. 
 
 A'GONY. (Gr. dyoivia, contest.) In Divinity, the suf- 
 fering of our Saviour in the garden on the night preceding 
 his crucifixion. Luke, xxii. 24. 
 
 A'GORA. The market place of a Greek town, which 
 was generally used also as the place where the assemblies 
 of the people met. It answers to the Latin term forum. 
 From the verb dyciptiv, to collect, or asse?nble. From agora 
 is derived 
 
 AGORA'NOMUS. The title of an Athenian magistrate, 
 forming one of a body of ten, or, as some say, fifteen, per- 
 sons, whose duty it was to superintend the markets, and 
 collect the customs imposed on certain articles. 
 
 AGOU'TI. The Indian name of some South American 
 herbivorous rodent quadrupeds,_now included in the genus 
 Dasyprocta. 
 
 AGRA'RIAN LAWS. (Lat. ager, field.) Under this 
 term are comprehended the enactments which were car- 
 ried or attempted to be carried at Rome by the plebeians 
 and their partisans, in opposition to the patricians, touching 
 the distribution made of the public lands accruing to the 
 state by conquest. These were leased out to the patricians 
 by the state at a moderate or nominal rent, while the ple- 
 beians gained nothing by them. The object of the agrarian 
 laws, which did not interfere with private freehold proper- 
 ty, was to obtain for the plebeians a share in these lands, to 
 restrict the quantity occupied by individuals, and to cause 
 a real rent to be paid from them for the support of the army. 
 The most celebrated movers of these laws were, Sp. Cas- 
 sius. Licinius, and the two Gracchi, whose reputation has 
 suffered with posterity, from being intrusted to the hands 
 of writers who favoured the party whose unjust encroach- 
 ments were sought to be moderated by these laws. For a 
 more impartial investigation of them than can be found in 
 ancient writers, (for Cicero, from his aristocratic partisan- 
 ship, has much misrepresented the objects of these re- 
 formers, and the character of the laws they sought to in- 
 troduce.) see Niebuhr's Roman History. In consequence 
 of the misrepresentations here alluded to, an " Agrarian 
 law" now generally serves to denote a law for the spolia- 
 tion of individuals, by reducing landed property in private 
 hands to a fixed amount. The law of partibility of real 
 estates, as it obtained in the Roman jurisprudence, and still 
 more in countries where it cannot be controlled by testa- 
 mentary disposition, has, in some measure, the effect of 
 an Agrarian law. although free from its injustice. 
 
 AGREE'MENT. (Fr. agrement, agreeableness.) In the 
 Fine Arts, a certain degree of resemolance between the 
 parts, in style and character, so that they may seem to be- 
 long to each other. 
 
 Agreement. In Law, that which is consented to by two 
 or more parties. Agreements are divided into executed 
 and executory. By the statute of frauds, 29 Car. 2. c. 3. 
 no action can be brought to charge a defendant on any 
 agreement upon consideration of marriage, or on any 
 contract or sale of lands, &c, or any interest therein, or 
 any agreement not to be performed within one year, unless
 
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 such agreement or some memorandum or note of it be in 
 Writing, signed by the party to be charged therewith, or 
 some oilier person by liim thereunto lawfully authorised. 
 
 The remedy which law affords for the breach of an 
 agreement is only by way of damages. But equity will in 
 general compel the specific performance of any contract 
 or agreement for the non-performance or breach of which 
 a court of law could have awarded damages. The princi- 
 pal exception to this rule is, where the agreement is of 
 such a nature that its breach can be or was intended to be 
 compensated by damages. 
 
 A'URK'LLTURE. (Lat ager. afield, and colo, I till} 
 This art may be defined as that of cultivating land in fields, 
 or in large quantities ; as opposed to horticulture, which is 
 the art of cultivating land in gardens, or in small quantities: 
 or, agriculture may be defined as the art of cultivating land 
 with the plough ; and horticulture that of cultivating it with 
 the spade. The restricted meaning of the word agricul- 
 ture, therefore, is simply the art of cultivating fields; but 
 its more extensive and general meaning includes the whole 
 business of the farmer, which comprehends, in addition to 
 raising corn, and other crops, the management of lire 
 stock. As a general term, the word agriculture is also fre- 
 quentl I as including every description of terri- 
 
 torial improvement ; thus, it is made to comprehend em- 
 banking, road-making, draining, planting, and som< 
 even horticulture In this sense the word agriculture is 
 usni by the French writers on the subject. 
 
 We shall here consider the term agriculture in its gene- 
 ral acceptation in Britain, and in other countries where the 
 English language prevails, as only including the culture of 
 field crops, and the rearing and managing of domestic an- 
 
 imals, On a large scale ; and we shall give a very concise 
 outline of iis origin, uce. 
 
 Tlw origin of Igriculture must doubtless have been 
 coeval with that of fixed property. In the primeval state 
 of society, thi of the husbandman consisted of 
 
 flocks and herds, which wi re kept in a state of movement 
 from one point to another, in search of pasturage and wa- 
 ter; but as population increased, mankind adopted a fixed 
 abode; this could only be done by bestowing on the site a 
 certain degree of labour and care, which became, as it were, 
 the price paid for constituting it private property. At this 
 point in the progree on agriculture may bi 
 
 i. Previously, the natural products of 
 the soil were merelj consumed where the] were found; 
 but now man sought to increase them by culture. 
 
 History of Agriculture, -The culture of the landwfD be 
 found to have depended, in every country, principally on 
 
 its climate, and its civilisation ; though partly, ale n its 
 
 government ami population. In the Warmer climates, 
 
 .bund. nice for 
 uui.i where very little 
 
 lothing. agriculture 
 
 imperatively unne- 
 abitants. in climates 
 
 where nature produces fruitsjn 
 the food both of men and 
 care is required to procure j? 
 has made little progress ; I"' ' 
 cessary for the prosperity of 
 of a directly opposite character, agriculture has made 
 equally slight progress, from the natural obstacles op 
 toil, in such countries, for example, as Greenland and 
 Kamschatka, only one or two kinds of corn crops Can be 
 cultivated, and perennial grasses can scarcely exist : be- 
 cause the ground is covered with snow for eight months in 
 the year: and in these countries agriculture is but little 
 practised, as the chief resources of the inhabitants for food 
 are found in the sea and the forest. In intermediate cli- 
 mates, Buch as those of the south of Britain, the middle of 
 Prance, and the aorth of italj . the soil may be laboured by 
 man throughout the whole year; and there is scarcely any 
 limit to the kind of crops that may be raised on it. In such 
 climates, agriculture is calculated to attain the highest de- 
 gree of perfection ; and comparing the different parts of 
 the zone of this description of climate in both hemispheres, 
 perhaps it may be asserted, that the best agriculture in the 
 world is to be found in Britain and in the north of Italy ; 
 viz. in East Lothian and Norfolk, in the vale of Arno, and 
 on the banks of the l'o. The kind of agriculture practised 
 in different countries is also of course adapt) dto the dif- 
 ference of climate. Thus, towards the north, the great art 
 of the cultivator would consist in supplying heat: or, rather 
 in adopting such measures as would best guard plants and 
 animals against cold, rains, and the vicissitudes of the 
 weather. Towards the south, on the other hand, the art of 
 the cultivator would be chiefly directed to moderating ex- 
 treme heat, and supplying moisture. It thus appears that 
 the agriculture of any country necessarily depends on its 
 latitude : and that in high ami low latitudes, where there 
 are greater extremes of temperature and climate to contend 
 with, agriculture must be of a more difficult and hazardous 
 description than in intermediate or temperate climates : 
 such as that of Syria, where the art is supposed to have 
 originated, or in Europe, where it may be considered as 
 having attained ifs highest degree of perfection. 
 
 In tracing the progress of this art in civilised countries, 
 we have only to follow the chronology of general history. 
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 As the Greeks and Romans appear to have arrived at as 
 great a degree of perfection in legislation as the moderns, 
 so they appear to have attained nearly equal excellence in 
 the practice of agriculture. Till within the present centu- 
 ry, very little difference existed between the most approved 
 agriculture of climates analogous to that of Italy, and the 
 agriculture of the Romans as described by Cato, Columel- 
 la, and other ancient writers. The chief superiority of the 
 modems consists in their machinery, aid in their know- 
 ledge of the science of the art ; the last being of very re- 
 cent date, and by no means general among practitioners. 
 By science, improved breeds, both of plants and animals, 
 have been originated ; and by improved machinery, a more 
 perfect tillage has been produced, and also a more com- 
 plete separation of the produce from the soil, from the 
 refuse of the plants which bore it, and from all impurities. 
 
 The history of agriculture in Britain begins with that of 
 the Roman conquest Julius Caesar found the inhabitants 
 in a state of semi-barbarism ; but Agricola left them in pos- 
 session of all the arts of civilisation then known. Agricul- 
 ture declined with the invasion of the Saxons; but was 
 preserved through the dark ages after the establishment of 
 Christianity, by the intelligence of the religious establish- 
 ments, who gradually became possessed of the greater 
 part of the landed property of the country. Agriculture 
 re\ ivid in the reign of Henry VDQL, and in that of Elizabeth, 
 during the long period of peace which then prevailed, and 
 the consequent security of property ; and it afterwards 
 declined during the civil wars : it again revived during the 
 reigns of William and Mary. Queen Anne, and George I., 
 in consequence ofthe introduction of the Flemish husban- 
 dry, which included the culture of turnips and clover. A 
 still greater stimulus to the art was given during the reign 
 
 ' George III. by the introduction of ploughs drawn by 
 two horses, instead of four or six ; ofthe drill system, and 
 its application to the culture of turnips and potatoes; and 
 by the improvement made in the breeding and rearing of 
 live stock by BakeweU and Culley. Early in the present 
 century, the threshing machine was an important addition 
 to agricultural machinery; the reaping machine, the fre- 
 quent drain system, and the subsoil plough, are improve- 
 ments just coming into use ; and the next grand attempt 
 will probably be the general application of steam, instead 
 of borsi s or cattle, iii tillage and other field operations. 
 
 The literature of agriculture commences with the works 
 of tin- Romans, of " Inch Columella's work, " De Re rus- 
 lira." may be considered the most comprehensive, In 
 
 '. n of modern agriculture, tie- principal writers were, 
 
 Cresceniius in Italy. Herrera in Spam, Olivier de Berres in 
 Prance, Hereshbachius in Germany, and Fitzherbert in 
 
 England. At tin- beginning of the present century the 
 • - author on agriculture ill Italy", was 
 Filippo Re; in France, Tessier: in Germany, Thayer; 
 and in England, Marshall. The best work from which a 
 general Idea may be obtained ofthe agriculture of France 
 ami corresponding climates, is •• mason Rustique die 
 iii' si?:cle ; ou. Encyclopedic a Agriculture pratique, com- 
 plete in "in- thick volume, 8vo. ; and the corresponding 
 work in Britain is Loudon's " Encyclopedia of Agriculture." 
 Tht principles 0/ Agriculture are derived from a know- 
 
 I the nature of plants and of animals, of soils and ma- 
 nures; ,uid ofthe climate, the seasons, and tin- weather. 
 Plants ar ganised beings, which take up their food, by 
 
 of roots, from the interior of the soil: animals are 
 1 beings which select their food from vegetables 
 growing "ii tie- surface of the soil, or from other animals, 
 and this food is prepared before being absorbed into the sys- 
 tem, by means of a stomach. The climate of a country de- 
 termines both tip- plants and the animals which can be pro- 
 duced in it : anil the seasons and the weather, the time when 
 the plants and animals ofthe given climate are in particular 
 states of vigour or torpidity ; and when certain operations of 
 culture can be performed on them, or on the soil. 
 
 The nature of these elementary materials being under- 
 stood, even though imperfectly, certain improvements can 
 be effected in them by art, which are greatly conducive to 
 the increase of agricultural produce. The kinds of plants 
 and animals suitable to any given climate, soil, or season, 
 are determined by the lawsofnalure ; but from amongthese 
 kinds it is in the power of man to make a selection; and 
 with the plants and animals so selected to originate others, 
 adapted to his purposes in a superior degree. Hence the 
 importance of selecting certain breeds of animals rather 
 than others ; and of making choice, not merely of one kind 
 of bread-corn rather than another, but of particular varieties 
 of that corn. Thus, in the case of wheat, there are some 
 kinds the grains of which, under no circumstances, weigh 
 more than from 50 to 55 pounds a bushel, while there are 
 others which never weigh less than 60 pounds a bushel. 
 The nourishment of plants has been found to depend chiefly 
 on organised matters contained in the soil, and produced 
 chiefly by the decay of other plants. This is a law of na- 
 ture, which, followed up by man, has led to the use of ma- 
 nures ; as the fact, every where observed, that no plant can
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 live without water, has led to irrigation : and, as the obser- 
 vation that the excess of water is injurious, has led to sur- 
 face and under draining. The influence of temperature 
 and shelter over the growth of plants, and the thriving of 
 animals, is every where observable in wild nature ; and 
 though the temperature of a climate cannot be changed, 
 yet that of most localities may be improved by shelter 
 from cold winds, and by diminishing the evaporation from 
 the surface, by means of surface and under draining, to 
 draw off the superfluous water. The most important prin- 
 ciples in the theory of agriculture are those which relate to 
 the improvement of plants and animals, and of the soil. 
 
 The improvement of the soil may be comprised under 
 two heads — the improvement of its earthy part, and the in- 
 crease of the organized matter added to the earths. The 
 improvement of the soil, considered as a mixture of differ- 
 ent earths, consists in rendering it more or less retentive 
 of water, by diminishing or increasing the size of the parti- 
 cles of which it is composed: for example, by the addition 
 of clay in some cases, and sand in others ; and by improv- 
 ing the earthy composition of the soil by the addition of 
 such earths as may be in too small quantities, or wanting 
 altogether. It has been found, from experience, that those 
 soils which are composed of several primitive earths are 
 naturally more productive than such as consist of only 
 one earth, all other circumstances being the same ; and it 
 has also been foimd that no soil will maintain its fertility 
 for any length of time that does not contain a certain por- 
 tion of calcareous earth in its composition. Hence one of 
 the most common means of improving all soils not calca- 
 reous is, by the addition of lime ; and of all other soils, by 
 mixing them with such as are of an opposite description. 
 
 All soils whatever are rendered more productive by the 
 addition of organised matter, or what are called manures. 
 Manures may either be con.posed of animal or of vegeta- 
 ble matter : and these may either be applied separately 
 or together, and in a fresh state, or in a state of decay. 
 It has been found from experience, and explained by che- 
 mical experiments, that every description of manure is 
 rendered more effective by being made to undergo putre- 
 factive fermentation before it is applied ; and I his process 
 is carried on with solid manure in heaps or dung-hills, and 
 with liquid manure in tanks or wells. In the application 
 of manure to soils, the great object of the cultivator is to 
 apply enough for the ensuing crop, and as little more as 
 possible ; because all that is applied and not immediately 
 used, is liable, to a certain extent, to have its particles car- 
 ried off by evaporation into the atmosphere, or by rains 
 into rivers or the sea. But, even if this were not the case, 
 to apply manure to a soil where it would not be immediate- 
 ly turned into a crop, would be an expenditure of capital 
 without interest. 
 
 The operation of freeing a soil from superfluous water 
 is of equal or perhaps more importance than supplying it 
 with manure ; because, though without manure plants will 
 not grow with great luxuriance and vigour, yet with too 
 much water they will not grow at all, or will become sickly. 
 The excess of water may proceed from three causes : an 
 extremely moist climate, the only alleviation to which is ar- 
 ranging the surface with frequent furrows, and short slopes 
 between them, so as to cany off the rain as soon as it falls; 
 a soil very retentive of moisture, so as to hold it like a 
 sponge, in which frequent under drains, as near together 
 as the surface furrows, are required ; and, lastly, ~a soil 
 lying over a subsoil which abounds in springs, or," in other 
 words, which has the substrata charged with water, which 
 is continually oozing out through the surface soil. The 
 remedy for this last evil is by under drains of considera- 
 ble depth, so directed as to collect the water from the sub- 
 strata, and carry it off before allowing it to reach the sur- 
 face soil. 
 
 A soil, after being drained and rendered of a proper tex- 
 ture and composition by the admixture of such earthy in- 
 gredients as may be wanting, requires, to render it fit for 
 being penetrated by the roots of plants, to be frequently 
 stirred and comminuted. This is done by the mechanical 
 operations of ploughing, harrowing, <fcc. ; which, aided by 
 the alternate action of droughts and rains, frosts and thaws, 
 and summer and winter, have the effect of pulverizing the 
 soil. To maintain a soil in a fertile state, it is not only ne- 
 cessary to supply it with manure in proportion to the crops 
 which have been carried from it, but to vary the crops 
 which it is made to produce. It has been found from ex- 
 perience that crops of plants belonging to the same 
 natural family do not succeed so well after each other, 
 as when crops of a different family are made to inter- 
 vene. Thus, the several grasses alternate better with 
 root or herbage crops than with one another; or, one 
 of those grasses of which the seed is ripened will alter- 
 nate better with another in which the herbage only con- 
 stitutes the crop, than with one of the same kind as itself. 
 Something analogous to the succession of crops takes 
 place also with regard to the pasturage of animals, and 
 it is found advantageous to put cattle in a field that has 
 24 
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 been grazed by horses, rather than to put horses after 
 horses, and cattle after cattle. 
 
 Thus, the principles of agriculture may be comprised 
 under the selection of breeds of plants and animals ; the 
 improvement of the soil and subsoil; the culture or move- 
 ment of the soil ; the improvement of the local climate by 
 shelter and drying: and the succession of crops. All 
 these principles have been derived from experience ; and 
 they are only in part accounted for by chemistry or natural 
 philosophy. They are not, however, on that account, the 
 less true and useful. It is singular that they should all 
 have been known to the Romans, and, to all appearance, as 
 fully so as they are to modern cultivators. (See Johnston's 
 Lectures on Agricultural Chemistry and Geology, 1842.) 
 
 Tlie practice of Agriculture in Britain may be included 
 under the heads of the choice, hiring, and stocking of a 
 farm ; and its general culture and management. In the 
 choice of a farm in any given country, the object of greatest 
 importance is the nature of the soil ; because, though this 
 may be improved by art and expense to such a degree as 
 almost to render a bad soil equal to a good one, yet in prac- 
 tice this would be so expensive as by no means to answer 
 the purpose of the farmer. It may be thought that the vi- 
 cinity of good roads, of a canal, a river, or a market-town, 
 are objects of more importance that the nature of the soil; 
 but this is not the case, because, supposing the roads to be 
 bad, and the market at a distance, it is only necessary to 
 change the system of cultivation and management, and to 
 turn the produce of the farm into some description of live 
 stock which may be driven to any distance, even over a 
 country without roads. If it be alleged that the nature of the 
 climate is of paramount importance to the soil in the choice 
 of a farm, we allow that in an extended sense it is ; for ex- 
 ample, if a cultivator had the choice of any part of Europe, 
 there are doubtless many districts where the climate is far 
 more favourable for all the operations and products of agri- 
 culture than others; and even if he had the choice of every 
 part of Britain, he might find some localities much more fa- 
 vourable than others. In general, however, the actual choice 
 of any cultivator lies within a given locality, where the cli- 
 mate, in a practical point of view, is every where the same. 
 Next to soil and climate in the choice of a farm, the state 
 of the buildings and fences on it, the state of the roads, 
 and the distance from a market-town, a canal, or a sea- 
 port, are of importance. Without buildings of a sufficient 
 extent, properly situated, and of the proper kinds, the bu- 
 siness of a farm cannot be earned on ; and though some 
 farms, and some kinds of farming, may be conducted 
 without fences, yet, in general, fences are as necessary as 
 roads. The last circumstance which we shall mention in 
 this cursory glance is, the nature of the tenure by which 
 the farm is to be held, and the covenants and conditions of 
 the lease. No cultivator, who calculates on the employ- 
 ment of a considerable capital, will risk it on the lands of 
 another without some security for having it returned ; and 
 this security is a lease for a fixed number of years. On 
 the other hand, no proprietor of lands will delegate the 
 possession of them to another for a fixed number of years, 
 without a valuable consideration ; and this he reserves to 
 himself in the lease, under the denomination of rent. As 
 lands in a state of cultivation, and buildings and fences in 
 a state of repair, are liable to be injured and deteriorated 
 in value by bad management or neglect, the proprietor 
 guards against these accidents by certain conditions in the 
 lease. 
 
 T7te kind of culture and management adopted in any 
 farm depends jointly on the soil and climate ; and on the 
 kind of produce most in demand, or reckoned most pro- 
 fitable. In the mountainous districts of Great Britain, 
 where the climate is cold, almost the only kind of farm- 
 ing practised is that of breeding and rearing different kinds 
 of live stock ; such as sheep or cattle, which are sold for 
 being fattened in more favourable districts ; or horses, in 
 order to supply the demand for these animals for the pur- 
 pose of draught, or the saddle. The mountainous districts 
 of Scotland and Wales are chiefly devoted to the breeding 
 and rearing of sheep and black cattle ; which are sold to 
 the farmers of the low country in both kingdoms, in order 
 to be fattened for the shambles. The hilly districts of 
 Yorkshire and Lancashire are chiefly employed in the 
 breeding and rearing of horses. In the low country of the 
 east coast of Great Britain, the climate being dry, is favour- 
 able for the culture of corn : while on the west coast, and 
 in Ireland generally, the climate being moist, is more fa- 
 vourable for pasture. The farm products most universally 
 in demand are, corn and butcher's meat; and these may 
 be produced on every farm the fields of which admit of 
 being kept alternately in tillage and in grass. The butch- 
 er's meat may, however, be produced in much greater 
 abundance, on such soils as admit of the culture of root 
 and herbage crops, such as turnips, potatoes, clover, &c, ; 
 while corn may be produced most abundantly in strong 
 loamy soils, within reach of extensive sources of manure. 
 The most profitable description of crop will frequently be
 
 AGRICULTURE. 
 
 found to be different from that Which is most generally In 
 demand: for example, in the neighbourhood of a large 
 town, the culture of culinary vegetables, on a large scale, in 
 what are called farm gardens, is generally far more profit- 
 able than the raisin; of corn or butcher's meat Even the 
 raisins of food for cattle, in such situations, is found to 
 yield more profit than common farming- There are also 
 particular crops which may be occasionally cultivated 
 which yield extraordinary profits ; such as plants used in 
 dyeing, or in some manufacture not common : plants of 
 new and improved variety of the kinds in general 
 cultivation for their seed, &c. 
 
 A farm being fixed on, all preliminary matters settled, 
 and the farmer in possession, his first business will be to 
 fix on the general system of cultivation that he means to 
 it In this, as already observed, he will be guided by 
 the farm is capable of producing, and what he can 
 dispose of. One of the first points that he will determine 
 after this, will be the quantity of land that he can have un- 
 der each particular kind of crop th.it he intends to grow : 
 ami next, the order in which these crops .ire to succeed one 
 another. No point, indeed, in the whole system of farm 
 management, is of more importance than the succession, 
 or. as it is usually called, the rotation, of crops. The prin- 
 ciple on which the- sue., - ion "i crops is founded has been 
 already hinted at; and in here treating it practically, it 
 may he sufficient to state that all agricultural crops what- 
 ever may be reduced to three kinds— exhausting crops, 
 restoring crops, and cleaning crops ; and that the- perfec- 
 tion of a rotation consists in always having an exhausting 
 crop followed by a restoring or a cleaning crop : or, what is 
 best, by both combined. AH crops which are allowed to 
 ripen their seeds, or which are carried wholly off the 
 ground, are considered exhausting, though in different de- 
 grees. Thus, the most exhausting crops in general culti- 
 vation art those of corn ; but clover, tares, or even hay cut 
 green, are also exhausting, though in a much less degree. 
 Restoring crops are those where the produce is suffered to 
 decay on the ground, or is consumed on it ; as in the case 
 of pasture, crops of tares, turii'i's. tec. Cleaning crops are 
 such as are grown in drills, sufficiently wide to admit of 
 hoeing and other operations of cleaning between. Some 
 of these are at once cleaning and exhausting, as where 
 com is sown in drills ; while others are cleaning and resto- 
 rative, such as where herbage plants, as clover and lucerne, 
 or roots, as turnips, are drilled, and the plants are to be 
 eaten off on the spot, other prinicples which enter into 
 
 consideration in fixing on a rotation of crops are, thai 
 plants which are nearly allied should not BUCCeed each 
 
 oilier; because, whether from exhausting the soil 
 particular kind of nutriment, or by depositing in it one in- 
 jurious kind of secretion, certain it is, thai the same kind of 
 plants cultivated without intermission on the same soil soon 
 become sickly. Thus three or four crops of any kind of 
 corn in succession will not onlj unfit the soil for that 
 variety or species of corn, but in a great measure for 
 everj other. 
 The farmer having determined on the crops which he is 
 w, and the order of their succession, his next busi- 
 ness is to calculate the quantity of stocking which will he 
 required for his form. By stocking is to be understood the 
 number of horses, cattle, and other live stock; and the 
 
 kind and number of machines, implements, and tools that 
 
 will be required. In addition to these, he must take into 
 calculation the numherof male and female servants which 
 it will hi? necessary for him to keep, either permanently by 
 the year, or to hire occasionally by the week. Lastly, he 
 will have to take into consideration the sum of money 
 which he will require to layout for sen-ants' wages, house- 
 keeping, rent, and all other expenses, before he receives 
 any return from his farm produce. The sum total is the 
 
 an t required for what is called stocking a farm; and 
 
 nuts, in different parts of the country, to from 51. to 
 10/. per acre. Poor soil under pasture requires the smallest 
 sum per acre : and rich soil under tillage the largest sum. 
 
 The form being entered on, and the system of culture 
 determined, the future business during tie- lease is one 
 uniform routine of preparing, sowing, reaping, threshing, 
 and marketing: including, where the breeding or fattening 
 of live stock enters into the system, their purchase, fatten- 
 ing, and sale ; or, their rearing, breeding, and sale. 
 
 The agriculture of Britain, and especially of the low 
 country of Scotland, excels that of most other countries 
 having similar climates, from the superior skill, intelli- 
 gence, and capital of the farmer ; the considerable length 
 of lease which is granted by the landlord; the superiority 
 ofthe machines and implements employed; and the im- 
 proved breeds of animals and plants which are reared or 
 cultivated. Perhaps the nearest approach to perfection in 
 the culture of arable land in any part of Britain, is made in 
 some parts of East Lothian ; where, in consequence of 
 deep ploughing, substituting under drains for furrows, re- 
 gularly supplying manure, and alternating, cleaning and re- 
 storing crops with exhausting crops, as great an amount of 
 
 AIR. 
 
 produce is obtained as can stand on the surface at one 
 time. The agriculture of Britain is most defective in the 
 southern districts of the island ; in consequence of the 
 farmers being the very opposite of those in the northern 
 districts, the want or the shortness of leases, and the re- 
 strictive clauses in those leases, by which the tenant is 
 prevented from exercising his own judgment, and is 
 obliged to follow in the routine prescribed in the leases of a 
 former age. {Set Loudon's Encyclo. of Agriculture j Ste= 
 phens's Book of the Farm I low's Practical Agriculture; 
 Library of Useful Knowledge, Farmers' Si 
 
 A'GRIMONY. A wild plant with sawed pinnated leaves, 
 and a long spike of yellow llowers. followed by bur-like 
 fruit. It has had the reputation of keeping old age away 
 from those ladies who persevere in the use of it in deci C- 
 tion. A; hast, it lias the merit of being harmless, and from 
 its slightly tonic qualities it would probably form a good 
 kind of diet drink. 
 
 A<;i:i<> Ml).*:, (fir. aypo$. a field.) The name of a 
 
 of neuropterous insects, including the various 
 
 kite's of dragon-flies (Libellula, I. inn. ; see that word). The 
 
 bl Iragon Hy {A %rum pueUa) frequents the rushy sides of 
 
 ditches, and is one of the commonest of the British species 
 of this family. 
 
 AGRO'NOMY. ((Jr. oj '. .and i'0/ics, n rule.) 
 
 The art of cultivating the ground : son,, times \i>>:\, parti- 
 cularly hy the French, as synonymous with agriculture. 
 
 AGROSTO'LOGY. (Gr. dypaivrts. a grass, and Xoyo?, 
 n speech or writing.') That part of botany which compre- 
 hends what relates to the grasses. 
 
 AGKY'PMA. {Gt. ay ijvttvos, sleepless.) Watchfu 
 or restlessness. 
 
 At; IE. An intermittent fever, which comes on at cer- 
 tain intervals, leaving the person in the intermediate peri- 
 ods in apparent health. The febrile attacks are open re- 
 markably regular, whence the division of agues into quoti- 
 dians, Which are daily attacks ; tertians, w hie h appear every 
 third day. having an intermission of folty-eighl hours: and 
 quartans, the intermission ofwhich is about everj Bevenly- 
 two hours. The period during which the fever continues 
 is called the paroxysm or pyrexial period ; and the inter- 
 mission, the ,-tpyri xial period. The febrile paroxysm con- 
 sists of three stages, which follow each otlnr in regular 
 succession ; namely, the cold, the hot. and tie >ii 
 stage: during the latter, the- febrile Symptoms abate and 
 disapp 
 
 At. I E CAKE. An enlargement of the liver or of the 
 spleen produced bv the agin-. 
 
 A<;Y'KVrr.. (Gr. d, without, ami yvpot, a circle.) A 
 name given to osmundaceous plants by Swart/., in conse- 
 quence of their having no true elastic nniilus. 
 
 A'HRIMAN. or ARIMANTUS (E theology.) One 
 ofthe chief deities of the ancient Persians. Their philoso- 
 phers entertained tie- opinion subsequently held by the. 
 Manicheans, that then- were two principles, one of good 
 and one of evil. To the latter they gave the name of 
 Ahriman. and ascribed t" his agency all the evils exist- 
 ing in the world. The two principles wan- not, howev- 
 er, supposed to he co-eternal or alike powerful. ;■.; 
 such was not the orthodox belief; hut it was sup 
 that in the end, the principle ol i tsdes, would 
 
 finally prevail over and utterly destroy the principle of evil. 
 (ifawte,arts< Auiman. Maniciik'kns, and ZoKOASTEii.") 
 
 AI. A word which is a prett) close imitation ofthe. 
 plaintive cry of the three-toed sloih {Acheus tridactyhis, V. 
 Cuv.), of which it is the trivial name. See BRADYPOD.E, 
 
 All). A pecuniary tribute paid hy feudal vassals to their 
 lords in certain cases of emergency. {See Ieidal Sys- 
 
 TE)1.) 
 
 AIDE-DE-CAMP. An officer appointed to attend 
 neral officer in the field, in winter-quarters, and in garri- 
 son, to receive and carry orders. A field-marshal is enti- 
 tled to four, a lieutenant-general to two. and a major-gi ae 
 ral to one. The king appoints as many as he pleases, and 
 this situation gives the rank of colonel, 
 
 AIGRETTE, in Botany. Set Pappus. 
 
 AIR, Atmospheric. (Gr. drip, air.) The air which sur- 
 rounds our globe to a height of about forty miles, and which 
 idal to all living beings, was one of the elements of 
 the ancient philosophers : its weight and several of its me- 
 chanical properties were discovered by Galileo and Torri- 
 celli about the middle of the seventeenth century ; but its 
 composition was not accurately determined till more than 
 a century afterwards. 
 
 The air is transparent, colourless, inodorous, and taste- 
 less, essential to the respiration of animals and vegetables, 
 and to the support of combustion. It is 816 times lighter 
 than its bulk of water ; 1000 cubic inches, at mean tem- 
 perature and pressure, weighing about 305 grains. 
 
 The air is a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen gases, with a 
 small portion of carbonic acid gas and of the vapour of wa- 
 ter: in particular situations, other substances exist in it^ 
 as, over marshes, miasmata ; over sulphureous springs, 
 sulphuretted hydrogen; over and near the sea, in dry 
 E
 
 AIR. 
 
 weather, muriatic acid, either free- or combined ; and a sub- 
 stance, probably of organic origin, which, aided by light, 
 reddens solution of'silver; peculiar organic combinations, 
 sometimes infectious, where people, especially the sick, 
 are confined ; sulphurous acid and ammonia, in London 
 and other places where large quantities of coal are burned ; 
 and traces of nitric acid during severe thunder-storms. 
 
 The leading constituents of the air are nitrogen and oxy- 
 gen, which are to each other in the relative bulks of about 79 
 and 21, or 80 and '20 ; and these proportions are probably 
 not liable to any appreciable change, either dependent on 
 season, wind, weather, situation, or height from the sur- 
 face. Berthollet found 21 per cent, of oxygen in Cairo and 
 in Paris ; Saussure, the same in Geneva ; De Martyr, in 
 Catalonia, and in all winds, weather, seasons, and states of 
 the barometer ; in wet and dry, and in inhabited and unin- 
 habited places; Davy, in Bristol and other places in Eng- 
 land and upon the coast ; also in air brought from the 
 coast of Guinea ; Brande, in air from Behring's Straits and 
 from Olaheite : Berger, in the Jura, and in the mountains 
 and valleys of Savoy : Configliachi, on the Simplon and 
 Mont Cenis (20-8 of oxygen over rice-fields); Gay Lussac 
 and Humboldt, in Paris, and in all seasons and weathers, 
 and at 6,636 metres above the surface, from 209 to 215. ; 
 Dalton, in England, from 207 to 20-8. : Selden, 21. : on the 
 8th of January, 1835, the barometer being 309 inches and a 
 north-east wind, 21-15. In crowded and confined places, the 
 relative proportion of oxygen may be a little below the pro- 
 per standard, but is soon again restored. Air collected at 
 the back of the upper gallery in Covenl Garden Theatre, 
 on a full night, gave 20 oxygen, and rendered lime-water 
 more than usually turbid. 
 
 The relative proportion of carbonic acid is more varia- 
 ble ; yet this gas is found in air from the most elevated re- 
 gions and purest sources. Saussure and Beauvais found it 
 on the top of Mont Blanc, and in the same proportion in 
 the streets of Paris, and at 650 toises above the city. At 
 sea, carbonic acid has sometimes not been discoverable. 
 Saussure found it vary with the seasons, and no doubt ve- 
 getation may affect it. In August, over a meadow, the air 
 contained 0000,713, in January, 0000,425. Dalton esti- 
 mates the mean proportion of carbonic acid at 1 in 1000; 
 Configliachi, the maximum at 8, and Humboldt at from 5 
 to 18 : this is probably in excess. 
 
 Toe aqueous vapour is the most variable constituent of 
 the atmosphere. It is more abundant with a south and 
 west wind in summer and in warm weather, than with a 
 north and east wind in winter and cold weather. In the 
 climate ofBritain it usually fluctuates between 1 and 1-5 
 per cent. 
 
 Dr. Prout, in his Bridgewater Treatise (p. 350), has sug- 
 gested the possibility of the occasional existence of ex- 
 tremely minute portions of foreign and poisonous matters 
 in the air during the prevalence of epidemic disorders ; 
 and, in reference to this subject, a remarkable observation 
 occurred during the prevalence of the cholera. For more 
 than six weeks previous to the appearance of cholera in 
 London, he had been almost every day engaged in accu- 
 rately determining the weight of a given quantity of air un- 
 der precisely the same circumstances of temperature and 
 pressure. On the 9th of February, 1832, the weight of the 
 air suddenly rose above the usual standard, and it con- 
 tinued so for six weeks. On the 9th of February, the wind, 
 which had been west, veered round to the east, and the 
 first cases of epidemic cholera made their appearance. 
 
 Without reference to the occasional presence of foreign 
 matters, the average ordinary constitution of the atmo- 
 sphere may be stated as follows : — 
 
 By measure. Bii weight. 
 Nitrogen * 77-50 75-55 
 
 Oxygen - • - - 2100 23 32 
 
 Aqueous vapour - - 1-42 1-03 
 
 Carbonic acid - • - 03 0-10 
 
 10300 
 
 10000 
 
 Air. In Music, signifies the melody, or treble part of a 
 musical composition. 
 
 The word is also used for a tune, or song itself, that is, 
 for a series of sounds whose movement is regular and 
 graceful. 
 
 Air. In Painting, the medium in nature through which 
 every object is viewed, and hence to be transferred to the 
 imitation on canvass. The etfects which it produces are 
 an indispensable part of the knowledge of every artist. It 
 affects the sizes and colour of objects according to their 
 distance. 
 
 AIR-BLADDER, called also Air-bag, sound, swim, &c. 
 An organ situated in the abdomen of most osseous fishes, 
 which, by altering its dimensions, and the quantity or den- 
 sity of its contents, regulates their relative position to the 
 surface of the water, and is supposed to represent the ru- 
 dimental condition of the lungs of the higher vertebrates. 
 
 AIR-CELLS. Are cavities in the s<<*-~o •>».'> '- . -<• 
 26 
 
 AIR-PUMP. 
 
 plants, constructed of cellular tissue, and Intended to ren- 
 der the part in which they reside buoyant in water. 
 
 Air-Cells. In birds, are membranous receptacles 
 communicating with the lungs, eight of which, of large size, 
 occupy the interspaces of the thoracic and abdominal vis- 
 cera ; the smaller ones extend around the principal joints 
 of the four extremities, penetrate the substance of the 
 bones, insinuate themselves between the skin and subja- 
 cent muscles, and enter the quills of the feathers, so that 
 the whole body of the bird is permeated by the atmosphere ; 
 whereby its specific gravity is diminished, its respiration 
 extended, its circulation accelerated, and its muscular en- 
 ergies increased, and thus it is finally adapted to wing its 
 way through aerial space. In the flying insects the air-ves- 
 sels are more or less dilated into air-cells at different parts 
 of their course, in order to diminish the specific gravity of 
 the general mass of the body. 
 
 AIR-GUN. An instrument for projecting bullets or other 
 missiles, the moving power being the elastic force of con- 
 densed air. A strong vessel of metal is constructed, into 
 which air is forced by means of a condensing syringe, 
 through a small hole with a valve opening inwards, and the 
 greater the quantity of air thrown into the vessel, the 
 greater will be the effect, the elastic force of air being near- 
 ly in proportion to its condensation. The magazine of 
 condensed air is then detached from the syringe, and 
 screwed to the breech of the barrel ; and a trigger, adapted 
 to the stock of the gun in the usual way, is constructed so 
 as to be capable of opening the valve. The bullet is placed 
 near the breech, and should fit the barrel very exactly, so 
 as to leave no windage. On pulling the trigger the con- 
 densed air escapes through the valve, and rushes with vio 
 lence into the barrel, propelling the bullet before it ; and 
 the instant the finger is withdrawn from the trigger the 
 valve is closed by the pressure of the air in the magazine, 
 which remains in a somewhat less condensed state for the 
 next discharge. Thus the same supply of air in the maga- 
 zine will serve for several successive discharges, but the 
 force becomes weaker and weaker after each. 
 
 The air vessel nrny be of any form, but it is most conve- 
 niently disposed of by placing it within the stock ; and this 
 circumstance usually determines its shape and dimensions. 
 Sometimes, also, a reservoir of bullets is placed in a chan- 
 nel under the barrel ; and by a simple mechanism these 
 are successively transferred into the barrel, whereby the 
 gun is quickly loaded after each discharge. The instru- 
 ment thus constructed is called the magazine air-gun. 
 
 The elastic force of inflamed gunpowder is from 1000 to 
 2000 times greater than that of common air. It would 
 seem, therefore, that air would require to be condensed 
 upwards of 1000 times beyond its natural state, in order to 
 exert the same propulsive force as gunpowder. Now the 
 velocities communicated are as the square roots of the 
 forces ; therefore, if the air in the magazine be condensed 
 only ten times, it consequently exerts a force only equal to 
 1-lOOth of that of inflamed gunpowder, and communicates 
 a velocity of l-10th. There is a circumstance, however, 
 which adds considerably to the effect of the air-gun, name- 
 ly, that as the magazine is large in proportion to the cavity 
 of the barrel, and the valve remains open a sensible por- 
 tion of time, the ball is urged all the way through the barrel 
 with nearly the same force as at the first instant ; whereas, 
 in the case of gunpowder, the gas produced by the inflam- 
 mation occupies a small space in proportion to the capaci- 
 ty of the barrel, and the force ceases to act before the ball 
 has quitted the barrel. On this account it happens that air 
 condensed only ten times in a magazine of considerable 
 size, projects a ball with a velocity not greatly inferior to 
 that given by gunpowder. The time and labour necessary 
 for effecting the condensation of the air prevents the instru- 
 ment from being employed as an engine of war; but, as it 
 produces its effect with less noise than the ordinary gun, it 
 has sometimes been made subservient to the purpose of 
 the assassin. 
 
 AIR-PLANTS. A name given to plants of any kind 
 which grow without their roots penetrating the earth. 
 They have been so called, from its being supposed that 
 they derive their nourishment exclusively from the atmo- 
 sphere ; but as they are usually found in places where they 
 are in contact with at least minute quantities of vegetable 
 matter, or even with the juices of the plants upon which 
 they grow, it is probable that their existence is in part main- 
 tained much in the same way as that of other plants. The 
 most extensive natural order in which air-plants are found 
 is orchidaceae, thousands of species of which literally 
 crowd the forests of some of the damp and hot parts of the 
 world. Next to these range bromeliaceous plants, some of 
 which will live for months suspended freely in the air, or 
 tied to iron or stone balconies. Various species of ficus, and 
 some Gesneracepe, have similar habits. The only real air- 
 plant that grows wild in Great Britain is cuscuta. 
 
 AIR-PUMP. A pneumatic machine for removing the 
 air out of a vessel. The principle of this important phi- 
 i., ..,.o.-„„ 1 instrument is very simple, and may be easily
 
 AIR-PUMP. 
 
 comprehended from a brief explanation. The essential 
 part of the machine consists of an ,i 
 exhausting syringe (a), formed of a 
 tube or barrel of brass, closed at one ^N 
 end with the exception of a small ori- 
 fice, to which a valve <b), opening in- 
 wards, is attached. An air-tiirtit pis- 
 ton is worked up and down in the 
 barrel by a rack and pinion turned by 
 a winch. The piston has also an ori- 
 fice with a valve (c), which opens upwards, or in the same 
 direction as the valve of the tube. The syringe communi- 
 eati B, by means of a small pipe (</) fitted into the opening 
 at its lower extremity, with a vessel (c) called the receiver, 
 from which the air is to be extracted. 
 
 The receiver is placed on a brass plate (/, g.) over a 
 small hole, into which the other end of the pipe is inserted ; 
 and in order that the contact may be air-tight, the edge of 
 the glass is previously rubbed with lard or some unctuous 
 matter. 
 
 Suppose the piston at the bottom of the tube. As it be- 
 gins to he drawn up. the valve C of the piston is immediate- 
 ly shut by the pressure of the exterior atmosphere, so that 
 no air can enter the barrel, and a perfect vacuum would 
 be left under it, were it not that the valve at the botto 
 the barrel is forced open by the pressure of the air in the 
 receiver, which rushes into the barrel till its density be- 
 comes the same both in the receiver and barrel. Winn 
 the piston has been drawn to the top of the barrel, the 
 whole of the air which occupied the barrel has in 
 moved, and the receiver and barrel are now both filled 
 with the air which was previously contained in the re- 
 alone. 
 
 - ipose the capacity of the receiver to be six times thai 
 of the barrel, the air which at first occupied six measures 
 now occupies seven, and is consequently reduced to 6-7ths 
 of its former density. Lei the piston now be returned to 
 its first position. The instant it begins to descend, the 
 valve 6 shuts, so that no air can enter the receiver. As 
 soon as the piston has descended throu enth of 
 
 the barrel, the air In the b are - restored to the den 
 the exterior atmosphere; and as it descends further, the 
 air in the interior of the barrel is condensed, till it acquires 
 an elasticity sufficient to open the valve c in the piston, 
 
 When it rushes out, and continues to do so till the piston 
 
 has quite returned to the bottom of the barrel. Thus by 
 one stroke of the piston the density of the air in the inte- 
 rior of the receiver is reduced to 6-7ths of its previous den- 
 sity ; and it Is evident thai each succeeding stroke will 
 
 produce the same effect, or remove 1.7th p 
 maining air. Consequently, after the Becond stroke, the 
 density of the air In the vessel will be reduced to 6-7ths of 
 6-7ths = 36-49ths of the exterior air; after the third stroke 
 it will be reduced to 6-7ths of36-49ths =216-343ds, and so 
 on. After twenty one strokes, it will be reduced to 
 1.25th of its firs! density; after one hundred strol 
 l-5,000,000th part. But' so high a degree of rarefaction 
 cannot in practice be obtained; for as soon as the elasticity 
 of the air in the receiver is reduced so far that it has not 
 sufficient force to lift the valves, no more air can , 
 from the receiver into the tube, and the exhaustion cannot 
 be carried further. 
 
 Whal his now been said applies to all air-pumps, fh 
 the form of construction admits of great variety. T 
 ter sorts have two exhausting barrels, and the pistons are 
 
 worked by a rack and pinion, so thai when tl ne piston 
 
 is ascending in the barrel, the other is descending, by 
 which means an uninterrupted discharge of the air is kept 
 up. The receiver is placed on a smooth plate of brass, 
 having a small hole in the middle to receive the end of a 
 ommunicating with the syringe. Various contrivan- 
 ces have hem employed to continue ' ! 
 the air has been rarefied to thai degree thai it 
 tain sufficient elasticity to lift the valves, lu order to deter- 
 mine the degree to which the rarefaction is carried, a ba- 
 rometric tube is adapted to the machine, the upper end of 
 which communicates with the receiver, while the lower 
 end is plunged into an open basin of quicksilver. I 
 receiver is exhausted, the air is withdrawn from the tube 
 at the same time, and the external air presses up the mer- 
 cury in the tube to a height proportional to the degree of 
 raretartion. 
 
 This is called a gauge ; but the following form is more 
 frequently employed A tube six or eight inches in length, 
 sealed at one end and filled with mercury, is inserted in a 
 basin of the same liquid. The mercury is of course sup- 
 ported by the pressure of the atmosphere, and continues 
 to fill the tube. This apparatus is placed beneath a second 
 receiver, communicating with the pipe d. During the first 
 stages of the exhaustion, the mercury still remains sup- 
 ported ; but so soon as the tension of the contained air be- 
 comes less than is sufficient to support the column of mer- 
 cury, the liquid begins to fall, and the height at which it 
 stands above the level of that in the basin is the measure 
 27 
 
 ALANTIXE. 
 
 of the tension of the remaining air. This is called the 
 short Barometer Gauge. 
 
 Otto Guericke, a magistrate of Magdeburgh, was the first 
 who conceived the idea of rarefying the air in a vessel by 
 means of a pump, about the year 1654. The machine 
 which he constructed was of a very rude kind, but it ena- 
 bled him to exhibit experiments which at that time were 
 regarded as astonishing. The air-pump was afterwards 
 greatly improved by Hooke and Boyle ; and has attained 
 its present state of perfection through the successive inven- 
 tions of Hauksbee, Smeaton, Cuthbertson, and others. 
 
 AIR-VESSELS. Are minute tubes composed of an ex- 
 ceedingly fine transparent membrane, closed at each end, 
 and furnished internally with a delicate elastic thread 
 twisted spirally, whence they are now commonly called 
 spiral vessels. ' They occur in the medullary sheath, the 
 veins of leaves and of flowers, in the stamens, the ovary, 
 and the seed : their office is to convey oxygenated air. 
 
 Aik-vessels. In insects, the atmospheric air is con- 
 veyed through all parts of the body, for the purposes of 
 respiration, chiefly by means of air-vessels, or trachea:. 
 (S>- that word.) 
 
 AISLE, or ALA. (I.at. ala, a win?.') In Architecture, 
 a term used by the English, more especially, to signify the 
 side subdivisions in a church, usually separated fri m the 
 nave, or centre division, by pillars | but ai one 
 
 different nations it bears different is as applied 
 
 to architecture. Strain informs us. thai an ong the 1 
 tians. the alffi of the temple were the two walls that in- 
 closed the two sides ,,f the nronaos, andwhich were of the 
 eight as the ten pie itself. The walls, he observes, 
 from above ground, were a little farther apart than the 
 foundations of the temple, but. as they rose were built with 
 
 an inclination towards each other. The right understand- 
 ing, however, of this pas ded with difficulty, 
 and seems to hai 1 puzzled Pocock no li ss than ourselves. 
 
 • ek a';", railed ptera. were the colonnades Which 
 
 surrounded the cell of the temple, the monopteros temple 
 being the only species which bad columns without an in- 
 terior (to them) wall. Th ■■ tier of co- 
 lumns round the cell, the dipteral two, and the pseudo or 
 false dipteral, which Hermogenes invented, was thai in 
 which the ala was single, but occupied the same spa :e on 
 the sides of the cell as the dipteral, though one of the tiers 
 of columns was left out : thus, by metaphor, the columns 
 were called the alas, or wings, of the ten pie. This term is 
 also applied to the sides of a building winch are subordin- 
 ate!. .the principal, and central division, and are vulgarly 
 bogs 
 \ll-s 1 lets, or little islands, commonly planted with 
 osiers, and which are then called willow aits. 
 
 AKE'NIUM. Set Achsctuh. 
 
 A I. A MIRE. In Music, the name ofone of the notes in 
 the modern scale ofGuido. ) 
 
 a'I.v (Lat ala, a wing.) In Ornithology, the pi 
 
 i of which support broad folds o! 
 covered with feathers, and are modified for flight. The 
 
 under part of the base of the wing, where it joins the 
 
 is termed the axilla; the joint between the antibrachium 
 and carpus is termed the flexure or , 1 wing is 
 
 said to be armed (ala calcarata) when the car]': 
 or two horny Bp ira : to be impennate (ala impi 1 
 
 led with equal, lax plumes, unfit for flighl : to be 
 
 elongate taia elongate) when, in the folded state, it equals or 
 
 Is in length the body from the base of the bill to the 
 
 il; to be middle-sized ^ala mediums) when, 
 
 in the folded State, the extremity covers the base of the 
 
 tail; to be short (ala brevis) when, in the folded state, the 
 
 the sides of the coccyx 
 
 In Entomology, the wings, or organs of aerial progres- 
 sion, an irj productii ns simply, and consist ol a 
 brane ofatender and generally transparent 
 tence, inclosing numerous nervures, or branched 
 tubes of a firmer sub 
 
 These organs present considerable differences of form 
 and structure in the different orders of insects, and also 
 varv in number from two to four. 
 
 A'LABASTER. A white semitransparent variety of 
 gypsum or sulphate of lime. It is a mineral of common 
 occurrence, and is manufactured into ornamental vases, 
 and occasionally into small statues. The ancients used it 
 for ointment and perfume boxes. Perhaps the term is de- 
 rived from a, privative, and Aa§oi\ a handle, as opposed to 
 vessels with handles. This stone is not slippery, and 
 therefore the derivation is incorrectly referred to a and 
 \au6avw. as if it were difficult to grasp. 
 
 ALANGIA'CE.E. (Alangi. the Malabar name of one 
 species.) A natural order of plants closely akin to rnyr- 
 taceae. It consists of Indian species, with aromat c roots 
 and eatable fruit. Their long strap-shaped petals afford 
 one of the principal distinctions between them and myr- 
 tacese. 
 
 ALA'XTINE. An amylaceous substance extracted from 
 the root of the Angelica archangelica.
 
 ALARMISTS. 
 
 ALA'RMISTS. In a general point of view, means all 
 those individuals who are particularly prone to take alarm 
 at, and to circulate and exaggerate, any sort of bad news ; 
 but the designation is more peculiarly applied to those who 
 lake alarm at political innovations or changes. 
 
 ALA'TE. (Lat. ala, a icing.) When any solid body is 
 bordered bv a membranous or leafy expansion. 
 
 ALAU'DA. (Lat. alauda, a lark.) The name of a Lin- 
 na?an genus of passerine birds, characterised by the claw of 
 their hinder toe, which is straight, strong, and longer than 
 the others. The birds of this genus are granivorous, and 
 nidificate on the ground. The field-lark, Alauda arvensis, 
 L., is a well-known example : they appertain to the coni- 
 rostral division of the passerine order of Cuvier. 
 
 ALB. (Lat. albus, ichite.) A vestment worn by priests 
 in the Roman Catholic church, which differs from the sur- 
 plice in fitting more closely to the body, and being tied with 
 a girdle : it is also commonly embroidered on the breast 
 with crosses. 
 
 ALBA'RIUM OPUS. (Lat.) In ancient Roman archi- 
 tecture, a term imagined by some to have been nothing 
 more than a species of whitewash applied to walls, but not, 
 as we think, correctly. In the passage of the tenth chapter 
 of the fifth book of Vitruvius, where he recommends the 
 use of the albarium opus, for the ceilings of baths, he al- 
 lows tectorium opus as a substitute, so that it was clearly a 
 species of stucco. Its employment at the baths of Agrippa, 
 blowing, as we do, the extent to which luxury was carried 
 in the baths of the ancients, seems to prove that it was a 
 superior sort of stucco, and it is by no means improbable 
 that it was susceptible of taking a polish. 
 
 A'LBATROSS. (<S'ee Diomedea.) 
 
 A'LBIGENSES. A sect which arose in the south of 
 France in thelatterhalf of the twelfth century. They have 
 been confounded with the Waldenses, with whom, how- 
 ever, they do not appear to have had any real connection. 
 Their tenets have been very differently described, and pro- 
 bably misrepresented, by their opponents ; and great ob- 
 scurity is thrown upon the subject, by the fact of the ap- 
 pearance of various dissenters from the church of Rome in 
 England and elsewhere, about the same time, whose re- 
 spective views have not been very accurately discrimi- 
 nated. It is probable that the reformers of the south of 
 France opposed themselves originally to the corruptions in 
 discipline, which began first at that period to draw general 
 attention and animadversion upon the clerical order. 
 Hence a very easy step would lead them to think slighting- 
 ly of many ecclesiastical ordinances, and the ceremonial 
 observances of religion would seduce them into the adop- 
 tion of mystical notions about an internal light and assu- 
 rance, and finally betray them into the wildest extravagan- 
 cies. Thus they are charged with perpetuating the Mani- 
 chean doctrines: but Bossuet, who accuses them of in- 
 clining to that system on certain points, acquits them of 
 holding what is, after all, the distinguishing tenet of the 
 Oriental heresy — the monstrous doctrine of the two prin- 
 ciples. 
 
 The origin of the name is doubtful. The Latin name by 
 which Narbonnese Gaul was known in the twelfth century, 
 was Albigesium, which seems to put forth abetter claim to 
 the derivation than the town of Albi in Languedoc. In the 
 year 1163, Alexander III. published a decree against these 
 sectarians in a council held at Tours, and another in 1179. 
 On neither occasion, however, did he invoke the assistance 
 of the secular arm. At the close of the century, when the 
 sect was still nourishing, and seemed to be more particu- 
 larly under the protection of Raymond, count of Thoulouse, 
 Innocent III. commen - I the work of its extirpation. He 
 appointed two legates to ;,o through the country and excite 
 the zeal of the clergy and laity against the innovators : he 
 instituted the Dominican order of friars, purposely to preach 
 them down ; and finally, in 1207, he addressed himself to 
 Philip Augustus, king of France, exhorting him to eradicate 
 the heresy with the sword. The chief leader of the expe- 
 dition, which soon assumed the character and name of a 
 crusade, was Simon de Montfort, earl of Leicester, to whom 
 the earldom of Thoulouse was promised by the pope as a 
 stimulus to his exertions, hi the siege of that city, how- 
 ever, he was killed. The contest, which was carried on 
 with more or less vigour for many years, and which fur- 
 nishes the first evidence of the disposition of the church of 
 Rome to employ the extreme of violence against those who 
 dissent from its doctrines, ended in the entire destruction 
 of the Albigenses, about the middle of the thirteenth centu- 
 ry. (See Mpra'a%_Sismondi, Hist, des Frangais, torn, vi.) 
 ALBI'NISM. Astate in which the skin is white, the hair 
 flaxen, and the iris pink. (Se; Albino.) 
 
 ALBI'NO. A term originally applied by the Portuguese 
 to negroes who were born mottled or discoloured with white 
 spots. It is now generally applied to persons of a preter- 
 natural whiteness of the skin and hair, and a peculiar red- 
 n iss of the pupil of the eye, which is so weak as to be of 
 little use in broad daylight, so that albinos sleep in the day- 
 tl.ne. and are only capable of seeing distinctly in the twi- 
 23 
 
 ALCABALA. 
 
 light or by moonlight. The disease appears to depend upon 
 a deficiency or morbid state of the rele mucosurn over the 
 whole body. 
 
 A'LBUM. Literally means any thing white. The term 
 is now generally applied to a book in which persons collect 
 autographs, literary essays, <fcc. The prastor's album was 
 a white board, on which "the edicts of that functionary were 
 inscribed. 
 
 ALBUM GRiECUM. When dogs are fed upon bones, 
 they digest the animal portion, and the earthy parts (chiefly 
 phosphate of lime) are voided in the form of white excre- 
 ment. This inert matter was formerly used in medicine 
 under the above title. 
 
 ALBU'MEN. A peculiar animal matter entering largely 
 into the composition of animal bodies, such as the blood, 
 muscles, bones, &c. ; also the chief component of white of 
 egg, to which the term albumen was originally applied, and 
 which well and familiarly illustrates its leading peculiarity, 
 namely, that at a certain temperature it coagulates into a 
 soft white solid, no longer soluble in water. It may be ob- 
 tained pure by coagulating the white of egg by alcohol, 
 washing it thoroughly with that fluid, and then carefully dry- 
 ing it at 120°. It then appears as a yellow, shining, transpu 
 rent and brittle substance, composed of — 
 
 Nitrogen .... 1 atom = 14 15-05 
 Carbon .... 8 =48 51 61 
 
 Hydrogen .... 7 =7 753 
 
 Oxygen .... 3 =24 2581 
 
 1 93 100-00 
 
 The albumen of birds' eggs coagulates at a temperature of 
 145° to 165° ; and when dried, shrinks and becomes brittle 
 and semitransparent, in all respects resembling horn. One 
 hundred parts of the albumen of the hen's egg lose, upon 
 careful drying, about SO of water, and leave 34of solid resi- 
 due. Alcohol, most of the acids, and several metallic 
 salts, also coagulate albumen, and some of the latter are 
 very delicate tests of its presence in animal fluids : subace- 
 tate of lead, for instance, renders a solution of one part of 
 fresh white of egg in 2000 of water turbid, so that it detects 
 1 part of dry albumen in 10,000 of water. Corrosive subli- 
 mate is also an excellent test of albumen, forming with it a 
 white insoluble compound; hence white of egg has been 
 proposed as an antidote in cases of poisoning by corrosive 
 sublimate. 
 
 Albumen. A solid fleshy, bony, or horny substance, 
 secreted in some seeds between the embryo and the seed- 
 skin. It is supposed to be intended for the nutriment of 
 the young embryo when it first springs into life. The part 
 that furnishes the flour of com, the flesh of the cocoa-nut, 
 tie- great mass of the seeds of coffee, are albumen. Bota- 
 nists have remarked that this substance is never delete- 
 rious, however poisonous the plant may be by which it is 
 borne. 
 
 ALBUMEN OF VEGETABLES. Is a proximate princi- 
 ple, having some of the leading chemical characters of ani- 
 mal albumen. 
 
 ALBU'RNUM. (Lat. alburnum, sap-wood.) The newly 
 formed and soft part of the wood of exogenous trees, con- 
 sisting of empty or nearly empty tubes and cells, the sides 
 of which are thin, and not indurated ; however durable the 
 timber of a plant may be, this part of it is in all casesperish- 
 able, the vegetable matter of which it consists having but 
 little power of adhesion, and readily yielding up its carbon 
 to the oxygen of the atmosphere, the consequence of which 
 is speedy decomposition. It is only when the tissue of this 
 pari becomes consolidated by the addition of resins, tannin, 
 and various other products, which change its colour from a 
 pale yellow to various other deeper colours, that timber 
 really becomes valuable, hi some species this is effected 
 rapidly, as in oak. teak, lignum vitae, Ax. ; in others very 
 slowly, or not at all, as in the poplar and willow. Hence 
 the wood of the latter class of trees never acquires any du- 
 rability. By some writers the alburnum is defined to be 
 '■wood only one year old;" this is, however, erroneous. 
 It is through the alburnum principally that the ascending 
 sap of a plant moves; the course of the sap is not, however, 
 confined to the alburnum, but is effected wherever the 
 woody tubes are sufficiently open for it to pass. 
 
 A'LCA. The name ofa Linna;an genus of anserine birds, 
 characterised by a short, compressed, vertically extended, 
 convex beak, edged along the upper surface, *nd generally 
 transversely furrowed ; feet toti-palmate, anJ wanting the 
 hinder toe. Recent ornithologists have divided the Lin- 
 nsean awks or penguins into the subgenera fratercula and 
 alca. 
 
 ALCABA'LA, or ALCAVA'LA. A tax formerly imposed 
 in Spain and her colonies, consisting originally of 10, and 
 subsequently of 14 per cent, ad valorem, on all property 
 sold, and payable as often as it changed hands. This mon- 
 strous impost, by preventing the sale and transfer of pro- 
 perty, necessarily proved in the highest degree injurious. 
 (See Ulloa, Iietablissement des Manufactures d'Espagyie, 
 cap. 3.)
 
 ALCALDE. 
 
 ALCA'LDE. A Spanish officer of justice; from the Ara- 
 bic kadi, fudge. In Portugal, Alcayde. 
 
 ALCAKI'METER. A graduated glass tube employed in 
 determining the quantity of real alkali in com mercial potash 
 ;ni d soi la, by the quantity of dilute sulphuric acid of a known 
 Strength which a certain weight of these saturates. 
 
 ALCA'MPIIORA. A Brazilian herb, the crolon pcrdi- 
 cipes, whose leaves are used in decoction against syphilis, 
 and as a diuretic. 
 
 ALCANTA'RA, Order of: otherwise railed of Saint 
 Julian, or of the Pear-tree. An order of knighthood, insti- 
 tuted in 1156 at Alcantara, a town of Estramadura, by Hay 
 drian II. king of Leon. Tlie king of Spain is sovereign of 
 this order. 
 
 ALCARA'ZZA. A porous vessel used in Spain for cool- 
 ing water by its transudation and consequent superficial 
 evaporation. 
 
 ALCE'DO. (Lat. alcedo, supposed to be the king-fisher.} 
 The name of a Linnsan genua of pics, characterised by a 
 long, straight, angular and pointed beak ; the tongue and 
 tail very short. The feel have the structure which is the 
 basis "i Temminck's order Syndactyly viz. the external 
 toe is nearly as long as the middle one, and is united there- 
 to as far as the penultimate articulation. The kingfisher, 
 Alcedo ispida, is a familiar example of that genus The 
 Alcedo (ridactyla, and some others, are remarkable for the 
 absence of the inner toe; these have accordingly been 
 ■ iied from the Linnsangenus under the subgeneric 
 term ceyx. A third subgenus, dacelo, receivei the great 
 laughing kingfisher of New Holland. 
 
 A'LCHEmx". An imaginary art, once much practised 
 among modern nations, and even now perhaps not wholly 
 exploded, The name is a mixture of Greek and Arabic ; 
 the List syllables being from the same root with chemistry, 
 chemist, fY. chimie; probably the verb cheein, to pour, al- 
 though the intermediate Btages of its derivation are dis- 
 puted: the prefix being the Arabic article al, the. Whether 
 alchemy was followed as an art among the classical an- 
 cients, seems questionable : some suppose it to have origi- 
 nated among the Arabs of the Califate. Its object was the 
 production of gold and silver. The principle of the alche- 
 mists was, that the baser metals were all convertible into 
 these two precious substances by a long series of processes. 
 To this fundamental notion the' common followers of the 
 art added an infinity of fantastic imaginations respecting the 
 Influence of the plaints, Ac. in hastening or retarding the 
 work. The instrument hy which it was supposed lhat this 
 mighty change was to be effected, was a certain mineral to 
 be produced by these processei , which, being mixed with 
 
 the base metal, would transmute it ; and this was called the 
 
 lapis philosopnorum or philosopher's stone. Hence the 
 term adept, adeptus, for him w ho was supposed to have at- 
 tained the secret iif alchemy : Who had. lit the I. aim force 
 
 of the word, gained or discovered the philosopher's stone. 
 Innumerable instances an- on record of persons who prac- 
 tised on the credulity of former limes by professing to pos- 
 sess this stone, and who actually wrought the transmuta- 
 tion required; and: it is supposed that the philosopher's 
 stone employed by these personages was nothing more 
 than an amalgam of gold, which, if projected into tin and 
 cupellated, would leave a portion of the precious metal. 
 Dr Price, of Guildford, is said to have been the last person 
 in England who professed himself able to turn mercury 
 into gold; he destroyed himself in 1788, to avoid, it was 
 supposed, the detection of his deci plums. The alche- 
 misis. in the course of their endless experiments, are said 
 to have served the cause of true science in many ways. To 
 various adepls is ascribed the discovery of the Ci inci ntrated 
 acids and of phosphorus. Another object of the adepts. 
 often pursued by them, together with ther research after 
 trans m uiation, was the discovery of the elixir vita-, or sup- 
 posed universal medicine. Alchemy is also denominated 
 the Hermetic Art, from the imaginary sage, Hermes Tris- 
 megistus. (See Thomson's Ilisiory <if Chemistry, Vol. I.) 
 
 A'LCOHOL. A term of Arabic origin, implying the 
 spirit, or essence, and originally applied to several chemi- 
 cal preparations. It is retained in modern chemistry to 
 signify pure spirit of wine. 
 
 Fermented liquors were known in the earliest ages. 
 The northern nations were probably acquainted with the 
 art of obtaining spirits before the Greeks or Romans. Al- 
 bucasis, in the twelfth century, taught the method of pro- 
 curing spirit from wine ; and" Raymond I.ully, in the thir- 
 teenth century, concentrated spirit of wine by carbonate of 
 potash. The composition of alcohol was first accurately 
 demonstrated by Lavoisier, and its analysis was perfected 
 by Saussure. 
 
 Alcohol is exclusively produced by the process if fer- 
 mentation : it is obtained in combination with water by 
 distilling fermented liquors, such as wine, beer, wash, Arc. ; 
 the liquor thus obtained (brandy, for instance, if from 
 wine,) is redistilled, and the spirituous portion, being most 
 volatile, first passes over ; in this state it is called ardent or 
 rectified spirit, and often contains acetic acid and a pecu- 
 29 
 
 ALDERMAN. 
 
 liar flavouring principle, probably of an oily nature : these 
 are got rid of by redistillation wiili alkaline substances, 
 charcoal, chloride of lime, Ac. 
 
 Pure or absolute alcohol is obtained by distilling the pu- 
 rest rectified spirit oil' dry and warm carbonate of potash, 
 or dry quicklime. The specific gravity of rectified spirit 
 is 320 to 828; that of alcohol, 792,81 the "temperature of on 
 
 Pure alcohol has an agreeable odour, a strong pungent 
 taste, and is eminently intoxicating. It consists of 
 
 Carbon - - - 2 atoms = 12 52-18 
 Hydrogen - - * 3 " = 3 1304 
 Oxygen - - - 1 " = 8 3478 
 
 1 23 10000 
 
 Alcohol burns with a pale flame, and produces carbonic 
 acid and water; the weight of the water thus formed to 
 that of the alcohol consumed, is as 27 to 23. It produces 
 no smoke or soot, and hence forms a cleanly lamp, giving 
 much heat with little light. Mixed with water ami certain 
 vegetable substances, especially <rluten, and exposed to air 
 and a due temperature, alcohol hecon.es \ inegar. It is the 
 intoxicating principle of wine and of fermented and spirit- 
 uous liquors, and of important use in medicine and in some 
 of the arts, being the solvent ol various resins for varnishes, 
 Ac Whin alcohol aid water are mixed, heat is evolved, 
 
 and condensation ensues, and it is some hours before the 
 two liquids perfectly unite, So that the bulk of a pint of 
 alcohol and a pint of water falls far short of two pints, a 
 series of tables by Mr. Gilpin will be found in the Philos. 
 Trans, for 17!»7, exhibiting much information upon the 
 subject of the specific gravities and composition of various 
 mixtures of alcohi I md water, — a subject of great impor- 
 tance, as bearing upon the levying of duties upon spirituous 
 liquors. 
 
 Alcohol has never been frozen ; hence as ■ in the con- 
 struction of thermometers for measure low tempera- 
 tures. It boils at the temperature of 17d J , and is converted 
 into a vapour, the specific gravity of which is to that of air 
 as 16 to 10. 
 
 AI/COHOLATES. Salts in which alcohol appears to 
 replace the water of crystallisation. 
 
 AT.COlt AN, or ALKORAN. (Al Koran, or the Hook, 
 Arabic.) The sacred book of the Mohammedans; which, 
 according to their belief, was dictated to their prophet bj 
 the angel Gabriel. The Koran consists of 111 chapters; 
 which are distinguished, not by i heir numerical order, but 
 by certain titles, under which they are respectivelj known. 
 Every chapter is divided into smaller portions, analogous 
 to the verses of our Scriptures. There are, however, seven 
 
 principal andenl copies of the Koran ; and in all of these 
 the number Of verses is not the same. The Koran is writ- 
 
 ten in what may be termed a species of chiming or gingling 
 prose. Ii is regarded among the Mohammedans as in itseM 
 
 a Btanding miracle, and a proof of the truth of their reli- 
 gion ; and hence the division between those who believe the 
 Koran to he eternal and uncreated (.the Sonnilcs or ortho- 
 dox), and various sects of heretics. 
 
 AI.co'Yl". (Alcoba, Bp., I, leant. Arab., a sleeping 
 rln i ml iir.) In Architecture, thai part of a sleeping cham- 
 ber where the bed is placed The use of alcoves, though 
 not by that name, is ancient. They were frequently de- 
 signed in the form ofa niche ; such, for instance, as those 
 that Winckelman notices at Hadrian's villa at Tivoli, of 
 which species some are also to he seen at Pompeii. They 
 were often formed by an enclosure or balustrade, some- 
 times high and sometimes low. through which, by m 
 of draperies, this part was separated from the large cham- 
 ber, win too i :■ was a pari. A i in lica i oi n may he obtained 
 
 from many of the ancient has-, rilievi, especially from the 
 
 celebrated one known by the name of the Nozze Aldobran- 
 dine. In modern architecture, this part ofa room differs 
 according to the rank and taste of the proprietor; in Eng- 
 land it is ranly used, bin in France and Italy it forms fre- 
 quently a beautiful feature in the apartments of their pal- 
 aces. 
 
 A'LCVONTTES. A collective term for the fruit-like 
 spongiform flint fossils common in chalk formations. 
 
 ALCTO'NIUM, A I.inniean term for an aggregate genus 
 of marine polypes, having a fleshy, coriaceous, spicular 
 axis, beset with stellate cells, containing each a polype 
 with eight radiate denticulate arms. The axis is fixed to 
 foreign bodies, and in some species rises in short branches 
 or lobes, as in that commonly known by the name of 
 " Dead Man's Hand." (Alcyonium digitatum, Linn. ; Lo- 
 bularia diizitata, Lorn.) 
 
 A'LCVONS. (Gr. dXxvcov, a kingfisher.) The name 
 given by Temminck to an order of birds of which the king- 
 fisher (alcedo) is the type. 
 
 A'LDLil (Ellarn in Anglo-Saxon.) A native tree be- 
 longing to the natural order Betulacese. It is chiefly found 
 in damp situations, and is of little value except for hurdle 
 wood, ami for the manufacture of charcoal. 
 
 A'LDERMAN. Originally written ealdor-man, meaning 
 elder-man, which was used in the earlier parts of the Sax-
 
 on period as a name of dignity unconnected with office ; it 
 was also the original title of the officer who was subse- 
 quently styled earl, whence counties were sometimes 
 called alderman-shires. It seems also to have been the 
 designation of the chief magistrate or judicial functionary 
 of minor districts, in which sense it first appears in con- 
 nection with boroughs. Its application is now confined to 
 the class of municipal officers in a borough next in order 
 to the mayor. By 5 & 6 W. 4. c. 76., the aldermen are to 
 be in number one-third of the councillors in every borough 
 (London alone being excepted from the provisions of the 
 act), one part to be elected biennially, on the 9th of No- 
 vember, from among councillors or persons qualified to be 
 such ; and to form, with the mayor and councillors, the 
 council of the borough. 
 
 A'LDINE EDITIONS. In Bibliography, those which 
 proceeded from the press of the family of Aldus Manutius. 
 The first of that name established his press at Venice, not 
 1 o.ag after the year 1490 ; and to his industry and zeal we 
 owe several of the first editions of Greek authors, and 
 many other valuable works. The Italic characters used in 
 Roman printing by Aldus and his family, first appear in 
 his Virgil of 1501 ; and from that period a series of works, 
 chiefly classical, both Greek and Latin, proceeded from 
 his press in a duodecimo form : these are the best known 
 and most common Aldine editions. The family press is 
 said to have been broken up in 1597, after producing 908 
 editions. There are, however, Venetian publications of 
 the beginning of the 17th century which bear the impress 
 of the Aldine family (an anchor and dolphin engraved on 
 the last page). A' branch of the Aldine press was for a 
 short period established in Rome. (See Raynouard, An- 
 nates de I' Im priii i trie des Aides.) 
 
 ALE. See Beer. 
 
 ALEATO'RIUM. (Lat.) In ancient Roman architec- 
 ture, an apartment appropriated to the use oi players with 
 dice or alea?. 
 
 ALECTO'RIDES. (Gr. d^tKrup, a cock.) A tribe of 
 rasorial or gallinaceous birds, including the curassow, and 
 the species which, like it, resemble the common fowl in the 
 form of the beak. 
 
 ALE'MBIO. (From the Arabic particle al, the, and 
 ambeeq, corrupted from the Greek word dfiSt^, a cup or 
 vessel.) An obsolete form of still. Constructed upon a 
 small scale in glass, it is sometimes used in the laboratory. 
 
 ALE'JYIBROTH, or Salt of Wisdom. A term applied by 
 the old chemists to a salt composed of ammonia, muriatic 
 acid, and oxide of mercury. It is poisonous. 
 
 ALEXA'NDRIAN SCHOOL. An academy for litera- 
 ture and learning of all kinds, instituted at Alexandria by 
 Ptolemy, son of Lagus, and supported by his successors. 
 The grammarians and mathematicians of this school were 
 particularly celebrated. In the former class occur the 
 noted names of Aristarchus, Harpocration, and Aristo- 
 phanes ; and among the latter were numbered the astro- 
 nomer Ptolemy, and geometer Euclid. The grammarians 
 of Alexandria exercised a universal literary jurisdiction, 
 publishing canons of those who were to be considered 
 standard authors, and revised editions of ancient writers. 
 For some account of the famous collection of books at 
 Alexandria, see Library. 
 
 ALEXA'NDRINE. The French heroic verse of twelve 
 syllables or six Iambic feet. In English poetry it is occa- 
 sionally used : by Dryden, sometimes as a second line in 
 a heroic couplet, more frequently as a third line in a trip- 
 let ; and the Spenserian stanza necessarily concludes with 
 an Alexandrine. The lines of Pope, defining the Alexan- 
 drine by an example, are well known : 
 " A needless Alexandrine ends the song, 
 Which, like a wounded snake, diags its slow length along." 
 
 ALEXIPII Y'RMIC. (Gr. aA^w, I avert, and fapjuciKOv, 
 apoison.) Antidotes to poisons. 
 
 ALEXITE'RICS. (Gr. aXsfto, Invert.) Preservatives 
 against contagious and infectious diseases and the effects 
 of poison in general. 
 
 A'LGiE. (Lat. alga, sea-weed.) Plants which are desti- 
 tute of all signs of sexual organs, and which vegetate exclu- 
 sively under water. When they grow in salt water they 
 are called sea-weeds, when in fresh water they are named 
 conferva 3 . They comprehend in the division Zoospermeae 
 some of the lowest known forms of vegetable life, plants 
 consisting of simple cells adhering in different degrees, 
 and emitting at maturity spores or seeds having a distinct 
 animal motion. In the case of Oscillatorias, the whole 
 mass of the plant writhes and twists spontaneously; and 
 Zysmenas actually copulate. It is in this part of the vege- 
 table kingdom that plants approximate to animals in the 
 most striking degree. An excellent account of the salt- 
 water species is given in Greville's Alga? Britannicae ; the 
 fresh-water kinds may be studied in the third volume of 
 the English Flora. See Harvey's Manual of the Brit- 
 ish Algje, Svo. 1841. 
 
 ALGARO'BA. (Arab, al, the, and garoba, a bean-tree.) 
 A tree found in the southern parts of Europe, and in Pales- 
 30 
 
 iii-,«^. 
 
 , it ii. 
 
 tine, having pods filled with a sweetish nutritious powder: 
 they are supposed to have been the locusts on which St. 
 John fed in the wilderness. It is the ceratonia siliqua of 
 botanists. 
 
 A'LGAROTH, POWDER OF. The white powder 
 which falls when chloride of antimony is dropped into wa- 
 ter : it is a submuriate of antimony, virulently purgative 
 and emetic. 
 
 A'LGEBRA. An important branch of the mathematical 
 sciences, and may be defined to be the method of calcula- 
 ting indeterminate quantities. It is a sort of universal 
 arithmetic, founded on the same principles as common 
 arithmetic, and proceeding by rules and operations pre- 
 cisely similar. But it is not confined merely to questions 
 relating to numbers, being applied generally to investigate 
 the relations that subsist among quantities of all kinds, 
 whether arithmetical or geometrical. The reasoning is 
 carried on by general symbols ; and it is to the complete 
 system of notation, which has been introduced by its suc- 
 cessive cultivators and improvers, that it owes its immense 
 superiority over the ancient analysis. 
 
 The symbols employed in algebra are of two kinds : 
 those which denote quantities; and those which denote 
 the affections or relations, or properties of quantities, and 
 operations to be performed on them. For representing 
 quantities or magnitudes, the letters of the alphabet are 
 employed. Thus, in the solution of an arithmetical pro- 
 blem, a number may be represented by the letter a ; in 
 geometry, a may represent a line or an angle ; in mechan- 
 ics, a force. The relations of quantities are expressed by 
 other conventional symbols. The relation of equality is ex- 
 pressed by the sign = ; thus, to express that the quantity 
 represented by a is equal to the quantity represented by b, 
 we write a = b. The symbol > or < coming between 
 two quantities denoles inequality ; thus, a > b signifies 
 that a. is greater than b, and a < b denotes that a is less 
 than b. The two primary operations of which quantities 
 are susceptible, are addition and subtraction, and these 
 are respectively indicated by the symbols + plus, and — 
 minus. For example, a-\- b denotes the sum of the two 
 quantities a and b, or that a is to be increased by b ; and 
 a — b denotes the difference between a and b, or that a is 
 to be diminished by b. Multiplication is indicated by the 
 symbol Xi or by simply placing the letters beside each 
 other without an intervening symbol. Thus, in numbers, 
 a X b or a b denote the same thing, namely, the product 
 arising from the multiplication of the number a into /). In 
 geometry, two letters joined together, as a b, denote a rec- 
 tangular parallelogram, one of the sides of which is re- 
 presented by a, and the other by b. Division is indicated 
 by -r ! or more frequently by placing one of the numbers 
 above the other in the form of a fraction ; thus : 
 
 30 -i- 10, or S£. 
 
 In 'addition and subtraction, the quantities connected by 
 the appropriate symbols must be homogeneous, or of the 
 same kind ; for it is only such quantities that admit of ad- 
 dition or subtraction. Of two quantities connected by the 
 symbol of multiplication, one must necessarily be an ab- 
 stract number, for a quantity can only be multiplied by a 
 number, or, which is the same thing, added to itself once 
 or twice, or some other number of times. When division 
 is to be performed, the divisor may either be a quantity of 
 the same kind as the dividend, or it may be an abstract 
 number ; in the former case, the quotient is an abstract 
 number ; in the latter, it is a quantity of the same kind as 
 the dividend. 
 
 In the multiplication of quantities, the frequent repeti- 
 tion of the same symbol would become inconvenient ; it is 
 usual, therefore, to write the root only once, and to place 
 over it, on the right, the exponent or number indicating 
 the power: thus, o a denotes the same thing as a a, or the 
 square of a; a3 is the same as a a a, or the cube of a, and 
 on denotes the nth power of a, or a multiplied by n times 
 
 into itself. By analogy, a* denotes the square root of 
 
 a ; a 3 the cube root of a, and so on. (See Notation, 
 Symbol.) 
 
 Algebra is in its nature essentially distinct from arith- 
 metic. In arithmetic absolute numbers are given, from 
 which other absolute numbers are required to be deter- 
 mined. But in algebra the symbols that are employed are 
 perfectly general, and may represent any numbers what- 
 ever; and the expressions which result from combining 
 them according to the conditions of the problem, indicate 
 the solution not of a particular question, but of all questions 
 whatever, in which numbers are subjected to the same 
 series of operations. In this manner the general proper- 
 ties of numbers are discovered. For example, the expres- 
 sion (a-\-b)(a — b), which signifies that the sum of the 
 two numbers a and b is to be multiplied by their difference, 
 becomes, on performing the multiplication, tfi — 62; 
 whence we infer this general or universal truth, namely, 
 that the product of the sum and the difference of any two
 
 ALGEBRA. 
 
 numbers, is equal to the difference of the squares of those 
 numbers. Arithmetic could only prove the property to be 
 true in respect of particular numbers. The systematic 
 Dotation, to which algebra owes nearly the whole of its 
 power as an instrument of research, is only of recent in- 
 troduction. Indeed, the science itself, if known at all to 
 the ancient Greek mathematicians, was known only as a 
 higher species of arithmetic. The first writer on the sub- 
 ject, with whose works we are acquainted, is Diophantus, 
 who lived about the middle of the fourtli century of our 
 era, and his work relates only to a peculiar class of arith- 
 metical (juestions, in the solution of which he displayed 
 considerable address, but the symbols which he used were 
 only abbreviations (such as the initial or terminating letters) 
 of the ordinary words. The treatise of Diophantus passed 
 into the hands of the Arabians ; but algebra received from 
 them no improvement or extension. From the Arabians, 
 it was transplanted into Italy, in the beginning of the 13th 
 century, by Leonardo Bonacci, a merchant of Pisa, who 
 had travelled frequently in the East, and become acquaint- 
 ed with the science of those countries. A treatise on arith- 
 metic, comprehending algebra as it was then known, was 
 written by him in the year 1202, and from that time the 
 science appears to have been cultivated with some assidui- 
 ty in Italy. The earliest printed book on the subject was 
 composed by Lucas Paciolus, or Lucas de Burgo, a mino- 
 rite friar, and appeared in 1494. It contains a pretty com- 
 plete treatise on algebra for the time ; but exhibits the sci- 
 ence in nearly the same state in which it was left by Dio- 
 phantus. Its application was confined to questions relating 
 in numbers of no great interest, and its power extern I e.i . >u 
 ly to the solution of equations of the first and second de- 
 grees. I!ni ;ifier this epoch it began to be cultivated exten- 
 sively, and in undergo rapid improvement. Scipio Fer- 
 reus, a professor of mathematics at liononia, about the year 
 1605, tirst broke through the boundary within which it had 
 si i long been run fined, and accomplished the solution of a 
 problem of the thud degree, a general method of solving 
 cubic equations was sunn alter discovered by Taitalea, who 
 communicated it, under an oath of strict secrecy, to the 
 celebrated Cardan, Presuming on some improvements he 
 had made m the rules given to him by Taitalea, ami on the 
 demonstrations which he certalnlj had the merit of invent- 
 ing, Cardan, with a remarkable (though, unfortunately, in 
 the history of science not singular) instance of bad faith, 
 published the whole as a supplement to a treatise which he 
 
 had Composed several Vears before. Cardan, hoWBVOr, 
 
 considerably extended the methods given to him by Taita- 
 lea, ami in sides, contributed to improve the notation, by 
 
 lrei|iieully employing the letters of the alphabet. Lewis 
 
 Ferrari, a disciple of Cardan, had the honour of making the 
 next important improvement in the science, by the discov- 
 ery ofa method of solving biquadratic equations, or equa- 
 tions of the fourth degree; and it is remarkable that all 
 the efforts of modern mathematicians have nut yel been 
 able to pass this barrier, or effect the general solution of 
 
 (equations ofa higher order than the fourth, 
 The firsl great step to the Improvement of algebra, bj the 
 
 introduction Of a Concise and systematic notation, was made 
 
 in Germany, by Btifel, or Btifelius, a protestant minister, 
 whose work, " Arithmetics Integra," was published in 1544. 
 Stifel adopted the symbols + and — for plus and minus, to 
 represent addition and subtraction, and also y/ (the con- 
 traction of r) for radix, or root : he likewise introduced the 
 numeral exponents of the powers, — 3, — 2, — 1, 0, + 1, 
 -j- 2, + 3> &c - Tne symbol =, denoting equality, was first 
 used by Robert Recorde. 
 
 In following the chain of the principal discoveries, our 
 attention is next arrested by Vieta, a native of France, w ho 
 first applied algebra to the improvement of geometry, and 
 thereby laid the foundation of the modern analysis. He 
 was also the first who employed general symbols to repre- 
 sent known, as well as unknown, quantities, and thus intro- 
 duced what has been called the specious algebra, in contra- 
 distinction to the literal, where known quantities are repre- 
 sented by numbers. This improvement, simple as it may 
 appear, was attended by important consequences, as it ren- 
 dered the methods quite general, and enabled the algebraist 
 to comprehend whole classes of problems in a single for- 
 mula. Vieta likewise gave a method of solving algebraic 
 equations by approximation: and from his doctrine of an- 
 gular sections have been derived the arithmetic of sines, and 
 some of the most valuable processes of trigonometry. 
 
 Vieta was followed by Albert Girard, who first showed 
 the use of the negative sign in the solution of equations ; 
 and by Harriot, to whom the science is indebted for the 
 very important discovery, that every algebraic equation 
 may be regarded as the product of as many simple equa- 
 tions as there are units in the number expressing its order. 
 An equation, for instance, of the fifth degree may be re- 
 garded as the product offive simple equations. Descartes 
 followed soon after, and opened up vast fields of discovery, 
 by the application of the algebraic analysis to define the na- 
 ture and investigate the properties of curve lines. By re- 
 
 ALIMENTARY CANAL. 
 
 ferring every point ofa curve to co-ordinate or perpendicu- 
 lar axes, he expressed the relation between its different 
 points by means of an equation, which served as a charac- 
 teristic to distinguish the curve, and from which its differ- 
 ent properties could be investigated by Hip ordinary opera- 
 tions of algebra. Descartes also pointed out the method of 
 constructing or representing geometrically, equations of the 
 higher orders ; gave a rule for solving a biquadratic equa- 
 tion by means ofa cubic and two quadratics ; and improved 
 the methods of reducing and treating equations which had 
 been adopted by Cardan, Girard, Harriot, and others who 
 had preceded him. 
 
 Algebra, as a science, has undergone no revolution since 
 the time of Harriot and Descartes; but it has been im- 
 proved in all its details, and greatly varied and extended in 
 its applications. During the last century, and the latter 
 part of the preceding, the method of infinite series, so use- 
 ful in many applications of mathematics, particularly in the 
 calculation of probabilities, was successfully cultivated by 
 Wallis, Newton, the Bernoulli*. Euler, De Moivre, Stirling, 
 Simpson, and others. The nature and composition of al- 
 gebraic equations has been fully investigated, and the 
 methods of approximating to their roots reduced to order 
 and system. The investigation of the relations of angular 
 sections, begun by Vieta, conducted Euler to the arithmetic 
 of sines and a complete theory of plane and spherical trigo- 
 nometry. Applied to problems concerning the motion of 
 bodies or points, algebra has given rise to the doctrine of 
 lluxions, and the refined methods of the differential and in- 
 tegral calculus. It has completely superseded the use of 
 the elegant, but comparatively feeble, ancient analysis, and 
 may be now regarded as forming the basis of the whole 
 edifice of mathematical science. (.See Binomial Theo- 
 rem, Equation, Notation.) 
 
 ALGEBKA'M ' ( URVE. A curve of which the relation 
 bei ween the abscissa and the ord males is expressed In an 
 equation which contains only algebraic quantities. The 
 term algebraic is here used in contradistinction to transcen- 
 dental, under which is comprehended infinite series and 
 quantities of the following kind: log. x, a", sin. x, cos. x, 
 
 tan. X. \r 
 
 LLGEBH \H [.hi \'l Hi\ An equation of which the 
 terms contain only algebraic quantities. {See Equation.) 
 
 A'LGOIUTII.M. signifies the art of computing in refer- 
 ence to some particular subject, or in some particular way ; 
 dgorithm of numbers ; the algorithm of the differen- 
 tial calculus. 
 
 A'l.ci \/.ll,. A Spanish officer corresponding with the 
 English bailiff, having power to place persons in custody, 
 
 and apprehend criminals. 
 
 a'I.ias. (Let. otherwise.) In Law, when a defendant 
 sued on a specialty, or a prisoner, had more than one com- 
 mon appellation, he was designated in 1 1 if Latin forms of 
 instruments, as •• A. alias diet us B." When it is necessary 
 
 for a second writ of the same description with a former 
 
 one to issue, it is headed "alias,'' as, an alias capias, &c. 
 
 A'LIBI. {hat. elsewhere.) A cant law phrase, used to 
 
 - the species of defence set up by one charged with 
 a criminal offence, who oilers evidence to prove that he 
 
 was elsewhere at the time of the act committed. 
 
 A'LIDADE. An Arabic name given to the index or ruler 
 
 which moves about the centre of an astrolabe or quadrant, 
 carrying the sights or telescope, and showing on the limb of 
 me instrument the number of degrees and minutes the ob- 
 ject observed is elevated above the horizon. 
 
 A'LIEN. generally speaking, is one born in a country out 
 of the allegiance of the sovereign, unless his father were a 
 natural born subject, in which case he will himself be. 
 deemed a natural born subject, to all intents and purposes. 
 An alien in England cannot hold landed property, but he 
 may hold and dispose of, by will or otherwise, goods, mo- 
 ney, or other personal estate, and 'nay take a lease ofa 
 house for habitation or trade. An alien may, by letters pa- 
 lent, become a denizen, and take lands by purchase ; or he 
 may be naturalised by act of parliament, and so take by in- 
 heritance. In either case he becomes an English subject, 
 but. nevertheless, cannot be a member of the privy council 
 orparliament. (See Denizen.) 
 
 ALIEN WATERS. Any stream of water carried across 
 an irrigated field or meadow, but which is not employed in 
 the process of irrigation. 
 
 ALIENA'TK >\ In Law, the act of parting with proper- 
 ty : more especially real property. The alienation of real 
 property takes place by deed, or in pais. (See Real Pro- 
 perty.) 
 
 ALIME'NTARY CANAL. A cavity in the interior of an 
 animal body in which the nutriment is taken to be digested, 
 before it is conveyed by the nutritive vessels to the system ; 
 it affords the best organical characteristic of an animal, but 
 presents various modifications of structure. Sometimes it 
 is a simple cavity with one opening ; sometimes a true ca- 
 nal, with an outlet or anus, distinct from the inlet or mouth ; 
 this canal may be divided into stomach and intestine, as in 
 the oyster ; or a mouth, pharynx, and oesophagus may pre-
 
 ALIMONY. 
 
 cede the stomach; the (Esophagus, again, may have one or 
 two sacculi appended to it, called crops. The stomach may 
 be subdivided into four bags, as in the ruminants, or 
 into seven, as in the bottle-nose whale ; and the intes- 
 tines into small, blind, and large, forming, with their 
 subdivisions, what are termed duodenum, jejunum, ileum, 
 caecum, colon, and rectum. The caecum, again, may be 
 single, or double as in most birds : or a single caecum may 
 exist in addition to a double one, as in the hyrax, a small 
 pachydermatous quadruped. Lastly, the various glandular 
 organs which communicate with the alimentary canal are 
 to be regarded as caecal processes of that lube, since these 
 are developed from it, and in this condition they are per- 
 manently retained by one or other of the lower animals ; 
 thus, in the sea-mouse, the liver is represented by long, 
 branched, lateral processes of the intestine ; in the cod 
 fish, <kc. the pancreas is similarly represented by nume- 
 rous cecal processes of the duodenum. 
 
 A'LIMONY. In Law. The allowance for which a 
 married woman is entitled to sue on separation from her 
 husband. (See Marriage.) 
 
 A'LIQUOT PART of a number. A number which di- 
 vides the given number without leaving a remainder. 
 Thus 2, 3, 4, and 6, are aliquot parts of 12. " To find the ali- 
 quot parts of any number, divide the given number by its 
 least divisor ; divide the quotient also by its least divisor, 
 and so on, always dividing the last quotient by its least di- 
 visor till the quotient is 1. The divisors thus used are the 
 prime aliquot parts of the given number ; and the pro lucts 
 of every two, every three, every four, <tc. of the prime ali- 
 quot parts, give the compound aliquot parts of the given 
 number. Suppose the given number 30; divide 30 by its 
 least divisor, which is 2, and the quotient is 15 ; divide 15 
 by its least divisor 3, and the quotient is 5 ; divide 5 by it- 
 self (it has no smaller divisor) and the quotient is 1. 
 Therefore, 2, 3, and 5, are the prime aliquot parts of 30. 
 The compound aliquot parts are, 2X3 = 6, 2X5=10) 
 3 X 5 = 15. 
 
 ALLSMA'CE.E. (Alisma, from alis, trater, in Celtic.) 
 A small natural order of endogenous plants, marked by the 
 presence of numerous distinct carpels in a tripetaloideous 
 flower. They form a near approach to ranunculaceae 
 anions exogens. Alisma and sagittaria are common genera. 
 ALI-TRUNCK, ALITRUNCUS. In Entomology, the 
 posterior segment of the thorax of an insect to which the 
 abdomen is affixed, and which bears the legs, properly so 
 called, or the two posterior pairs, and the. wings. 
 
 ALIZARINE. From Ali-zari, the commercial name of 
 madder in the Levant; a peculiar colouring principle ob- 
 tained from madder. 
 
 A'LKAIIEST. A term of obscure Arabic origin, applied 
 by the alchemists to asuppos'ed universal solvent. 
 
 A'LKALI, or ALCALI, derived from the Arabic article 
 al, and kali, the name of a plant in the same lansuage. A 
 term originally applied to the ashes of plants ; now- gene- 
 rally used to designate potash, soda, and ammonia, which 
 are also termed vegetable, mineral, and volatile alcali. 
 These substances have certain properties in common, such 
 as neutralising and forming salts with the acids, reddening 
 several vegetable yellows, and changing some blues to 
 green, and ready solubility in water. Lime, baryta, stron- 
 tia. and magnesia, have been called alcaline earths, from 
 their analogous action on vegetable colours. Lithia is also 
 one of the alcalis. A singular class of bodies have been 
 discovered in vegetables which have been termed alcalis, or 
 alkaloids, chiefly in consequence of their power of saturat- 
 ing and forming definite salts with the acids. Morphia, 
 quinia. Ac. are substances of this description. 
 ALKALI. FOSSIL or MINERAL. Soda. 
 ALKALI, PHLOGISTICATED. Ferrocyanuret of po- 
 tassium. 
 ALKALI. VEGETABLE. Potash. 
 ALKALI, VOLATILE. Ammonia. 
 A'LKALOI'DS. Substances analogous to alcaline bases 
 of vegetable origin, and generally possessed of great medi- 
 cinal activity. Their ultimate elements are carbon, hydro- 
 gen, oxygen, and nitrogen. The principal substances of 
 this class, together with the plants from which they are ob- 
 tained, are the following : 
 
 Aconita . . . Aconitum napellus. 
 
 Aricina . . .A bark from Arica. 
 
 Atropia . . . Atropa belladonna. 
 
 Brucia .... Strychnos nux vomica. 
 
 Cinchonia . . Cinchona lancifolia. 
 
 Codeia . . Opium. 
 
 Conia .... Conium maculatum. 
 
 Corydalia . . . Corydalis tuberosa. 
 
 Cynapia . . . ^Ethusa cynapium. 
 
 Daturia . . . Datura stramonium. 
 
 Delphia . . . Delphinium staphisagria. 
 
 Digitalia . . . Digitalis purpurea. 
 
 Emetina . . . Cephaelis ipecacuanha. 
 
 Hyoscyamia . . Hyoscyamus niger. 
 
 Meconia . . . Opium. 
 32 
 
 ALLEGORY. 
 
 Morphia 
 
 Narcotina 
 
 Nicotina 
 
 Picrotoxia . 
 
 Quinia . 
 
 Sanguinaria . 
 
 Solania . 
 
 Thebaia and Narceia 
 
 Veretria 
 
 Opium. 
 
 Opium. 
 
 Nicotiana tabacum. 
 
 Menispermum cocculus. 
 
 Cinchona cordifolia. 
 
 Sanguinaria canadensis. 
 
 Solanum nigrum. 
 
 Opium. 
 
 Veratrum sabadilla. 
 
 A'LKANET. (A corruption of the French orcanette ; 
 orca, a rouge pot.) A kind of reddish purple dye, ob- 
 tained from the roots of Anchusa tinctoria : it was former- 
 ly used for staining the face. 
 
 Alkanet. The Anchusa tinctoria. The root of this 
 plant, which is a native of the warmer parts of Europe, 
 contains a red resinous colouring matter which it imparts 
 to alcohol and oils : it is used to tinge some ointments, es- 
 pecially lip-salves, of a red colour. 
 
 ALKOO'L. A preparation of antimony used by the wo- 
 men of eastern nations, to tinge the eyelids and lashes of a 
 black colour. Dr. Shaw, speaking of the women in Barba- 
 ry, says, "None of these consider themselves dressed, till 
 they have tinged the edges of their eyelids with alkoohl." 
 
 A'LLA BREVE. (Ital. according to the breve.) In 
 Music, the name of a movement whose bars or measures 
 consist of the note called a breve, equal therefore to two 
 semibreves or four minims. It is denoted at the begin- 
 ning of a statF by a C w r ith a bar drawn through it ver- 
 tically. 
 
 A'LLA CAPELLA. (Ital. according to the chapel.) In 
 Music, the same as alia breve. The name originates in the 
 circumstance of this time being principally employed for 
 movements used in the church or chapel. 
 
 A'LLAH. The Arabic name of the Supreme Being. 
 It signifies the True God, as opposed to the deities of 
 idolaters. 
 
 A'LLANrTE. A silico ferriferous oxide of cerium from 
 Greenland : named after the late Mr. Allan of Edinburgh. 
 
 ALLA'NTOIC ACID. A white crystallisable acid, ob- 
 tained by evaporating the allantoic liquid of the foetal calf. 
 
 ALLA'NTOIS. (Gr. aXXaj, a sausage, and ciSo;. form.) 
 A thin membranous sac developed from the termination 
 of the alimentary canal of the embryo, situated between 
 the amnion and chorion, and organised by the hypogastric 
 arteries and umbilical vein. Its function, as a respiratory 
 organ, is of most importance in those oviparous verte- 
 brates where the embryo has no branchiae : in the mamma- 
 lia, its use is more or less superseded by the chorion and 
 placenta. In some quadrupeds the allantois has the form 
 of a sausage ; whence its name. 
 
 ALLE'GIANCE. (Ft. ligence, from the Latin ligare and 
 allegare, to bind. The obedience which a citizen owes to 
 his prince or country.) The allegiance of a bom subject of 
 the English Crown is inseparable, and follows him every 
 where : nor can he by any act of his own free himself from 
 it. There is also a temporary allegiance which foreigners 
 incur so long as they reside within the king's dominions. 
 By common law, all persons above the age of twelve years 
 were required to take the oath of allegiance at the court 
 leet ; and the oaths of alleg ; ance and supremacy have since 
 been imposed by many statutes. The present form of the 
 oath of alleaiance was introduced by the Convention Par- 
 liament of 16^S. In the United States, it appeai-s to be re- 
 garded as a doubtful point, whether the allegiance of the 
 citizen is necessarily perpetual, as in Great Britain. The 
 American laws also require a foreigner to have renounced 
 (as far as possible by his own act) allegiance to his former 
 government, two years before he takes the oath of allegi- 
 ance to that of his acquired country. 
 
 A'LLEGORY. In Rhetoric and Literature (from the 
 Greek words dWo, another thing, and riyopeoi, I declare,) 
 has been defined, "a figurative representation, in which 
 the signs (words or forms) signify something beyond their 
 literal or direct meaning. In this sense allegory may be 
 addressed to the eye, in painting and sculpture, by means 
 of forms, intended to convey, besides the notion of those 
 sensible objects which they represent, certain abstract 
 ideas to which these objects are supposed to bear analogy. 
 Allegory differs, 1. from symbolical writing or representa- 
 tion ; because in the first, the type and antitype, or thing 
 exhibited and thing intended, have some real or natural re- 
 semblance, relation, or analogy : in the latter, the resem- 
 blance is merely conventional. Thus, to take an instance 
 from modern literature : if it be true, as is now alleied, that 
 the earlier Italian poets of the middle ages, and Dante in 
 particular, attached a conventional meaning to certain ideas 
 frequently recurring in their poems ; as, for example, that 
 Satan signified the papalpower, — the three beasts mentioned 
 in the commencement of Dante's poem three States, — love, 
 loyalty to the emperor, &c. &c. ; then their poems, consi- 
 dered in reference to this occult sense, must be regarded 
 as specimens not of allegory but of symbolical writing. 
 But if, as in the more ordinary interpretation of Dante's 
 poem, Satan represents the abstract idea of eternal misery, 

 
 ALLEGRETTO. 
 
 the beasts particular vices, &c, which in common accepta- 
 tion are supposed to have some natural analogy with their 
 representatives, the poem is in this respect to be regarded as 
 an allegory. Thus, also, critics have endeavoured to give 
 a symbolical sense to the sixth book of Virgil's JEneid ; 
 while, independently of that sense, if it really exist, there 
 is an obvious allegorical meaning running through the 
 whole. (In ancient criticism, however, the words allegory 
 and symbol were not so accurately distinguished ; and in 
 our translation of the Bible, St. Paul is made to use the 
 word allegory in the clear sense of type. Gal. iv. 24.) Alle- 
 gory differs, 2. from parable, only inasmuch as the latter is 
 a species of the former : a parable being a short, senten- 
 tious, allegorical narration. And, 3. it is different from 
 metaphor, being in effect a chain of metaphors, or a single 
 metaphor continued and wrought out into a lengthened dis- 
 course. 4. Fables may also be mentioned as a species of 
 allegory. {See Fable.) An allegory, or allegorical tale, in 
 the somewhat narrower sense in which the term is used in 
 literature, is generally a tale in which abstract ideas are 
 personified: such (to cite one of the earliest instances of 
 this species of composition) as the Choice of Hercules, or 
 human youth, between virtue and vice, in the shape of two 
 females: an allegory which descends to us from Greek 
 antiquity. Entire poems are sometimes strictly allegoric- 
 al, as that of Spenser; or entire narratives, as Iiunyan's 
 Pilgrim's Progress ; in which case it requires consummate 
 art to keep up the propriety of the allegory, which is in fact 
 a compound of two opposite, and sometimes scarcely com- 
 patible qualities — consistency running through its several in- 
 cidents, when considered merely as a narrative and without 
 reference to the ulterior meaning, and consistency of ana- 
 logy between the thing represented and the tiling answered 
 ALLEGRETTO, and ALLEGRO. (Hal. a little merry, 
 and merry.) In Music. The first term is a diminutive of 
 the second, which, prefixed to a movement, signifies thai 
 it is to be performed in a brisk anil lively manner; not, 
 however, with hurry or precipitation, bill quicker than any- 
 other time in music, except that marked presto. The dif- 
 ferent times used in music are arranged as follows: pro- 
 ceeding from slow to quick, namely 1 grave, adagio, allegret- 
 to, allegro, and presto. The word piu, more, added to any 
 of these, and the word poco, little, strengthen the significa- 
 tions in their various kinds. 
 
 A'LLEMAND. (Fr.) In Music. A species of slow- 
 grave music or movement in common time, andperformi d 
 slow. From its name it would seem to belong to Germa- 
 ny, but it is now altogether disused. 
 
 ALL-HA'LLOWS. The old English name for All Saints' 
 day (the 1st of November). 
 
 ALLIA'CEOUS. (Lat allium, garlic.) Any thing havinir 
 the smell of onions or garlic. 
 
 ALLIACEOUS PLANTS. Plants which partake more 
 or less of the qualities of garlic and onions : such as onions, 
 shallots, rocambole, chives, leeks, garlic, &C, 
 
 ALLl'ANCE. In Polities and International Law, a 
 league between two or more friendly powers ; which may 
 be either offensive and defensive, or defensive only. Of 
 the former species is the alliance of 1813 against Napoleon, 
 subsequently called the Holy Alliance. Of the latter, the 
 Quadruple Alliance, concluded in 1833 between England, 
 France, Spain, and Portugal. Alliances are divided by 
 publicists into three classes. 1. Those in which the allied 
 parties agree to prosecute a war with their whole force. 
 2. Alliances in which auxiliary states pledge themselves to 
 grant to a principal state a fixed contingent of men, money, 
 Arc. 3. Treaties to furnish troops tor stated subsidies, to 
 make advances of money, &C. 
 
 ALLIGA'TION. (Lat! alhgo, T bind, or tie together.) A 
 rule of Arithmetic, for the solution of questions conci 
 the compounding or mixing together of different ingredi- 
 ents, or ingredients of different qualities. Therearetwo 
 cases, one of which is alligation medial, and the other alli- 
 gation alternate. To the first case belongs a question of 
 this sort : Suppose 4 gallons of wine at 12 shillings per gal- 
 lon, to be mixed with t> gallons at 17 shillings per gallon, 
 what is the worth of a gallon of the mixture ? Hut if it 
 were asked, how many gallons of wine at 17 shillings per 
 gallon, must be mixed with 4 gallons at 12 shillings per gal- 
 lon, in order that the worth of a gallon of the mixture may- 
 be 15 shillings, the question would belong to alligation al- 
 ternate. Questions of this kind are, however, most easily 
 resolved by elementary algebra; of which they form an 
 easy class of indeterminate problems, admitting in general 
 of an indefinite number of solutions. 
 
 A'LLIGATOR. (A corruption of the Portuguese word 
 ' lagarto,' which is derived from lacerta, a lizard.) In mo- 
 dern Zoology, the term is limited to those species of croco- 
 dile which have a wide obtuse muzzle, unequal teeth, the 
 fourth pair of which, counting backwards in the lower jaw, 
 pass into corresponding cavities in the upper jaw, where 
 their points are concealed when the mouth is closed. In 
 the time crocodiles, the corresponding teeth pass into open 
 jrrooves in the margin of the upper jaw, and are conse- 
 
 ALLOY. 
 
 quently exposed. In the alligators the head is less oblong, 
 its length being generally as to its breadth as 3 to 2 : the 
 teeth are more numerous than in the crocodiles, some- 
 times amounting to twenty-two in the lower jaw, and to 
 twenty in the upper. The hind legs and feet are rounded, 
 and have neither crests nor dentations ; the interspaces of 
 the toes are only occupied for half their extent by a short 
 membrane. The alligators, so far as is yet known, are 
 peculiar to the New World. 
 
 ALLITERA'TION. In Composition. The frequent re- 
 currence of the same letter, chiefly at the commencement 
 of different words. This is sometimes resorted to, espe- 
 cially in poetry, for the production of effect. In the Celtic 
 languages, alliteration was a recognised ornament in versi- 
 fication : it was so likewise in the early Gothic tongues ; 
 and in old English there are entire poems composed in al- 
 literative metre, of which the celebrated Vision of Piers 
 Ploughman is the most remarkable. 
 
 ALLOCATION. In Law. The allowance of an ac- 
 count in the Exchequer. The writ de allocatiune facienda 
 is for allowing an accountant sums expended by him in his 
 office. The certificate of allowance of costs of taxation 
 granted by the master, prothonotary, or other officer of 
 court is termed in practice an allocatur. 
 
 ALLO'CHROITE. A massive mineral allied to the gar- 
 net. Melted with phosphate of soda before the blowpipe, 
 it exhibits several changes of colour, hence its name, from 
 aAAoj, ano ther , and \ooia. colour. 
 
 ALLO'DILM. In feudal Law. A word of uncertain de- 
 rivation (deduced by some writers from the old Teutonic 
 •• aloud," denoting the antiquity of the tenure). Land held 
 by an individual in his own absolute right, discharged of 
 ail feudal obligation : opposed, therefore, to fee, fief, or 
 feud. No allodial property can exist in England, where 
 the kin<:. in the eve of the law, is lord paramount of all 
 lands and hereditaments. In ancient France the rule was, 
 "nulle terre sans sci«nenr," and the presumption was in 
 some parts of that country always in favour of a fief, un- 
 less the land were shown' to be allodial. In Germany, on 
 tin- contrary, the legal presumption was in favour of the 
 allodium. 
 
 ALLOTMENT OF LANDS. Any piece of land, set 
 apart or allotted for any particular purpose. When more 
 land is laid to a cottage than suffices for a garden, it is com- 
 monly railed a cottage allotment 
 
 ALLOY', or ALLAY. (From the French verb alloyer, 
 to mis i,ni metal uilh another, in order to coinage; derived 
 perhaps from i, lu lot, the proportions of the metals being 
 regulated by law; perhaps from allier, to unite; or allo- 
 care, to put together.") A term applied to compounds of 
 the precious metals with others oi less value, or to the least 
 
 valuable of the metals in such compounds: thus, gold is 
 said to be alloyed With silver, and silver with copper, 
 chemists generally apply the term to all combinations ob- 
 
 tained by fusing metals with each other: thus, brass is an 
 
 aiio\ of copper and zinc; and bronze, of copper and tin ; 
 except when mercury is one of the combining metals, in 
 which ease they call the compound an amalgam. Many 
 oi the alloys are importantly useful in the arts : thus. «iji| 
 and silver, which in their pure state are too soft and flexi- 
 ble for the manufacture of plate, coin, trinkets, <fcc, are 
 hardened by the addition of a certain portion of copper; 
 while their colour and other valuable qualities are not ma- 
 terially impaired. The standard gold m circulation in this 
 country, is an alloy of 11 parts of pure gold, and one of 
 copper. Sometimes the alloy consists partly of silver, 
 especially in the older coins; and it is to the preponde- 
 rance of one or other of these alloys that the different co- 
 lour of gold coin is owing ; the paler containing silver, the 
 deeper coloured, copper. A little palladium is sometimes 
 present, which nives the gold a disagreeable brownish hue, 
 as seen occasionally in some sovereigns. The English 
 standard silver, used for coin, consists in 12 parts, of 
 H_2_ silver, and il copper: in these alloys it is neces- 
 sary to employ copper of the utmost purity ; for a very 
 minute portion of some of the other metals, especially of 
 lead, renders the precious metal brittle. The silver alloy 
 used for plate is the same as that for coin, and the purity 
 is guaranteed by the stamp of the Goldsmiths' Company. 
 The subject of alloy for coin underwent an elaborate in- 
 vestigation at the beginning of the present century by or- 
 der of government; the inquiry was intrusted to Mr. Cav- 
 endish and Mr. Hatched, and the latter gentleman has 
 published a valuable account of his experiments in the 
 "Philosophical Transactions" for 1S03, to which the reader 
 is referred. 
 
 Some curious circumstances ensue in the combination 
 of metals, as affecting their densities ; the specific gravity 
 of an alloy being sometimes greater and sometimes less 
 than the mean of its components,— showing that in some 
 cases expansion has taken place, and in others contraction. 
 
 Alloys generally melt at a lower temperature than that 
 required for the fusion of their component metals sepa-
 
 ALLSPICE. 
 
 rately; and in some cases the most refractory metals 
 form very fusible alloys. There are some alloys which 
 are crystallisable, and probably of definite composition ; 
 but the atomic doctrine applies only in a few cases to the 
 alloys, and it is often difficult to get a mass of alloy of 
 similar composition throughout; thus, gold made standard 
 with copper, and then cast into bars in upright moulds, 
 does not yield an uniform compound except under due 
 precautions ; for the upper end of the bar, containing 
 the metal from the bottom of the crucible, will be the 
 purest. 
 
 A'LLSPICE. The dried immature berry of the Myrtus 
 Pimenta ; called also Jamaica Pepper. It is supposed to 
 possess the mixed flavour of several spices, amongst 
 which that of the clove predominates. 
 
 ALLU'SION, in Rhetoric. (Lat. ad, to, and hido, I play.) 
 Strictly, a covert indication, as by means of a metaphor, a 
 play of" words, <fec. of something not openly mentioned and 
 extrinsic to the principal meaning of the sentence. In 
 common language, to allude to any tiling merely means to 
 mention it indirectly or incidentally. 
 
 ALLU'VIUM. (Lat. alluo, I wash upon.) Gravel, sand, 
 and other transported matter washed down by rivers and 
 floods, upon land not permanently submerged beneath 
 water. 
 
 ALMACA'NTAR. (From the Arabic.) A term used by 
 the old astronomers to denote a small circle of the sphere 
 parallel to the horizon. 
 
 ALMAGE'ST. A name given by the Arabs to the cele- 
 brated work of Ptolemy, the astronomer of Alexandria : it 
 signifies the createst work. The best edition of this work 
 is that of Paris, 1813-15, two vols. 4to., Greek and French, 
 by M. Halma. 
 
 A'LMANACK. (Probably from the Arabic particle al 
 and manach, to commit ; whence Al Manach, The Diary.) 
 An annual publication containing a calendar of the days 
 and months of the year, the ecclesiastical feasts, the time 
 of the sun's rising and setting, the age of the moon, the so- 
 lar and lunar eclipses. To these (the most essential mat- 
 ters) are frequently added information on various subjects 
 of astronomy, chronology, meteorology, the tides, statis- 
 tics, lists of posts, offices, public institutions, &c, according 
 to the views or fancy of their respective authors. Alma- 
 nacks correspond in some respects to the Fasti of the Ro- 
 mans, and are of very ancient date. The first printed al- 
 manack appeared in 1474, and was drawn up by Regiomon- 
 tanus, nearly, at least so far as regards the calendar, in the 
 form now used. Till within a few years, the numerous al- 
 manacks published in England were little creditable to the 
 taste or morals of the country. They had for a long time 
 been monopolised by the Stationers' Company. This mo- 
 nopoly was at length broken through by the publication of 
 a new almanack under the superintendence of the Society 
 for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge ; and since that time 
 the more exceptionable ones have entirely disappeared, 
 and their place been supplied by others, which abound in 
 useful and valuable information. The removal of the 
 heavy stamp duty of fifteen pence per copy, to which they 
 were subjected till 1834, has been attended with all the ad- 
 vantages which usually result from the exercise of free 
 competition. 
 
 The Nautical Almanack is published by order of the 
 board of the admiralty for the use of seamen, and contains 
 a copious list of astronomical phenomena at sea, and of the 
 elements which are used in finding the longitude. This 
 work is also a very complete astronomical ephemeris, 
 showing the instants of time at which the planets and prin- 
 cipal stars daily pass the meridian of Greenwich ; the sun's 
 right ascension, and the logarithms of his distances ; the 
 moon's place at intervals of three hours, &c. &c. For a 
 more particular account of works of this kind, see Calen- 
 dar, Ephemeris. 
 
 A'LMOND. (Gr. d/xvySaXov. Fr. amande.) The seed 
 or kernel of the Amygdalus communis. Sweet almonds 
 afford, in the 100 parts, 54 of fixed oil, 24 of albuminous 
 matter, 9 gum and sugar, 4 woody fibre, 5 husk, and 4 
 water and loss. Bitter almonds contain less fixed oil, and 
 a peculiar principle termed Amygdalin. When bitter alm- 
 onds are cold pressed, the oil which exudes contains no 
 trace of prussic acid ; when hot pressed, its flavour may 
 be perceived: the cake remaining after pressure yields a 
 volatile oil by distillation, the quantity and strength of 
 which in prussic acid is variable. The oil of bitter alm- 
 onds is about the specific gravity of water ; that which pass- 
 es first over is most poisonous. It changes when exposed 
 to air, and forms benzoic acid : in close vessels it may be 
 long kept without deterioration. When used in medicine, 
 great care is requisite on account of its varying strength. 
 Half an ounce of oil of bitter almonds was put into the 
 mouth of a Newfoundland dog (in a diseased state and 
 moaning with pain), with the intention of immediately kill- 
 ing it; but after some slight convulsions the animal be- 
 came tranquil, appeared easi er, and recovered the effect : 
 about a drachm of recently and carefully prepared oil was 
 34 
 
 ALPHABET. 
 
 then administered, when the animal fell upon its side, be- 
 came convulsed, and died in three minutes. The distilled 
 oil of peach leaves and of the cherry laurel also contain 
 prussic acid, and the water distilled from them is poison- 
 ous. By digesting these oils with finely powdered per- 
 oxide of mercury, crystals of cyanuret of mercury are 
 formed. 
 
 A'LMONER. An officer in a religious house, to whom 
 the distribution of alms was committed. The term is still 
 retained by officers in some of our hospitals. 
 
 ALMS. Charitable offerings ; from the Greek tXeij- 
 jioavvrj, pity ; which came in the early ages of the church 
 to be used in the plural number in the peculiar sense which 
 is represented in our language by the word Alms. 
 
 A'LOE. (Arabic, alloch.) A small tree with endoge- 
 nous stems, and stiff, fleshy, hard pointed leaves, abound- 
 ing in a purgative principle which is obtained by simple 
 pressure of the bruised leaves, or by boiling. The juice 
 when inspissated becomes the medicinal drug of the shops. 
 It varies much in quality. {See the following article.) 
 
 A'LOES. The inspissated juice or extract of several 
 species of aloe. This article is largely imported for me- 
 dical use from Bombay. It is of a brown colour, a pecu- 
 liar and somewhat aromatic odour, and a nauseous and 
 intensely bitter flavour : it consists of extractive and resin, 
 and is nearly soluble in boiling water, but the solution as it 
 cools deposits flakes of resin. The best aloes was former- 
 ly brought from the island of Socotorah, in the Indian Sea, 
 and hence all the finer aloes of commerce is frequently 
 termed Socotorine aloes. Another variety of this drug 
 comes from Barbadoes, in large gourd-shells containing 
 upwards of half a hundred weight each ; it is deep cor 
 loured, opaque, and has a nauseous and peculiar odour, 
 especially when breathed upon. Aloes is a warm stimula- 
 ting purgative, operating as such in the dose of four to 
 eight grains. It stimulates the large intestines, and should 
 be administered with caution in habits where there is ten- 
 dency to piles, and in cases in females in which uterine 
 stimulants are improper. 
 
 ALO'NSINE, or ALPHOXSLSE TABLES. An astro- 
 nomical work, which appeared in the year 1252, under the 
 patronage of Alonso X., in the first year of his reign. 
 
 ALO'PECU'RUS. (Gr. dXo)7r/)£, a fox, and oipa, a tail.) 
 A genus of grasses, called by the farmer foxtail ; the flow- 
 ers are arranged in compact tail-like stalks. It is very like 
 Phleum or vatstail, from which it differs in its glumes be- 
 ing acute, not truncate, and its lower pales awned. Alope- 
 curus jnatensis forms a part of all the richest pastures in 
 England. 
 
 ALO'SA. The name of a genus of Clupeoid fishes, in- 
 cluding the alose, or shad ; separated from the herring and 
 pilchard, with which it was classed by Linnaeus. The 
 shad ascends large rivers to the fresh water, where it 
 spawns. The white-bait used to be regarded as the young 
 of the shad, but is now ascertained to be a distinct species 
 of the present genus. 
 
 A'LPHABET. (From the Gr. d\<j>a, Pfjra, the two first 
 Greek letters.) The letters of a written language, disposed 
 in their regular order. An alphabetical language is one 
 possessing an alphabet. 
 
 1. The first and most obvious mode by which thought 
 can be expressed and conveyed to the eye, is by the re- 
 presentation of actual objects. Hence the species of 
 writing which the learned have termed ideographic, i. e. in 
 which knowledge is conveyed, first, by representations of 
 the objects of thought ; secondly, by symbols. The origin 
 of designing is coeval with that of mankind ; and men early 
 availed themselves of this art to make their thoughts visi- 
 ble. To make it be understood, for example, that one 
 man had killed another, they drew the figure of a dead man 
 stretched on the ground, arid of another standing by him 
 upright, with some deadly weapon in liis hand. To 'let it 
 be known that some one had arrived by sea, they drew the 
 figure of a man disembarking from a ship ; and so on. 
 This kind of writing, if we may so employ the word, was 
 very early used in Egypt, and most probably, also, in most 
 of the ancient nations. In Greek, the word ypa<j>eiv signi- 
 fies indifferently either to write or to paint. In Mexico, 
 when the Spaniards landed, the inhabitants of the sea 
 coast conveyed intelligence of the event to Montezuma by 
 sending him a large cloth, on which they carefully painted 
 what they had seen. It is unnecessary to insist on the dif- 
 ficulty and inconvenience of this method of writing; and 
 to lessen these, recourse was had to the symbolic or emble- 
 matic variety of ideographic writing. In this method ab- 
 breviations or characteristic parts were introduced instead 
 of the entire object. Thus, the ancient Egyptians are said 
 to have represented a siege by a scaling-ladder; a battle, 
 by two hands holding a buckler and a bow, &c. Abstract 
 ideas were, also, represented by symbols, or sensible ob- 
 jects, supposed to have a certain analogy to them : as, in- 
 gratitude by a viper, providence by an eye, the head of a 
 hawk, «Scc. 2. From ideographic was derived syllabic 
 writing. It must have been early remarked that the
 
 ALPHABET. 
 
 sounds formed by the voice in speaking are articulate and 
 well-defined ; and the idea occurred of endeavouring to re 
 present such sounds by appropriate signs. Thus the word 
 republic, in the writing of which we use eight letters, would 
 be written with three syllabic characters. The President 
 de Goguet suspects that originally all the Asiatic nations, 
 known to the ancients under the names of Syrians and As- 
 syrians, used the syllabic mode of writing. We may, he 
 thinks, discern the vestiges of this in an ancient tradition 
 which ascribes the invention of writing to the Syrians ; but 
 acknowledges that the Phoenicians improved, made it more 
 simple, and brought the characters to perfection. But this 
 mode of writing, though a vast improvement on what is 
 purely ideographic, is still very imperfect and cumbersome. 
 The vast number of characters required in it overburdens 
 the memory, and occasions the greatest confusion. The 
 existing language of the Chinese, which is partly ideo- 
 graphic and partly syllabic, is an example of this. In it 
 there are a certain number of elementary signs or k-eys (two 
 hundred and fourteen), which are strictly hieroglyphic or 
 symbolical ; that is, they are abridged representations of 
 visible objects. From these 214 elements, all the charac- 
 ters of the language (80,000, it is said) are formed by vary- 
 ing and combining their figures : every compound charac- 
 ter representing one or more syllables having a distinct 
 meaning. 3. The defects incident to ideographic and syl- 
 labic writing being thus obvious, ingenious individuals 
 would early endeavour to find out some more simple and 
 
 Jirecise method of communicating their ideas. And at 
 ength the method of Alphabetic; writing, the greatest of all 
 the inventions made by man, and which has been the great 
 instrument of his civilisation, was introduced and perfect- 
 ed. In this method syllables are decomposed into their 
 elements ; and the few simple sounds emitted by the voice 
 being represented each by its appropriate mark or letter, 
 syllables and words are formed by their combination ; the 
 latter serving Dot only to describe external objeets, but to 
 depict the workings of the mind, and every shade and va- 
 riety of thought. Before entering»into the much disputed 
 
 question respecting th igin of this mode of writing, it is 
 
 necessary to indicate the new light thrown upon die sub- 
 ject by the recent discoveries ol Dr. Voting, and more es- 
 pecially of M. Champollion, as to the phonetic writing of 
 the Egyptians. We have already seen that the hierogly- 
 phical characters of that people denoted, In the first place, 
 objects either of sense or thought; i. e. they were ideo- 
 graphic. But, according to the new theory, they came in 
 the course of time to denote sounds ; and those not sylla- 
 bic merely, but alphabetical, for example, the Egyptian 
 word Alio in signified an eagle ; the figure of an eagle, there- 
 fore, stood for the letter A. with which that word begins. 
 B was represented by a censer (Berbe). K sometimes by 
 a mouth (Ro), sometimes by a tear (Rime"). According to 
 the views of these recent discoverers,a great proportion of 
 the inscriptions on Egyptian monuments and papyri are 
 partly ideographic, partly alphabetical} i. e. some charac- 
 ters represent objects or ideas ; and these are intermingled 
 with others which merely stand for letters. Dr. Young, 
 who first conceived the notion of the phonetic alphabet, 
 imagined that it was only employed when foreign words or 
 names (as those of Greek kinsrs) were introduced. M. 
 Champollion carried the discovery further, and applied it 
 to the deciphering of words and names in the language of 
 the country. The name of the ancient kin:; Sabaco, among 
 others, being found by this mode of interpretation, would 
 appear to show that the phonetic writing was u 
 as 700 years B. C. (See Dr. Young's writings, especially 
 the article Egypt in the Encyclopozdia Britannica; those 
 of Champollion ; M. Klaproth's Examen Critiqut des Tra- 
 vaux de Champollion ; Quarterly Review, vol. liii. p. 110, ; 
 Salt's Essay on Hi'- Phonetic System of Mieroglyphtcs, Svo. 
 London, 1825, &c.) It is not within our present province to 
 discuss the question, upon what ground of probability this 
 theory rests. But if a complete phonetic alphabet should 
 be discovered, in the language of that country in which the 
 earliest germs of knowledge and civilisation seem to have 
 been developed, it is probable that we shall have made a 
 considerable step towards tracing the origin of pure alpha- 
 betical writing in other languages. As it is, although various 
 attempts have been made to show the symbolical origin of 
 the letters in the most ancient alphabets, it cannot be said 
 that any very satisfactory result has been obtained. And, 
 from the total want of all recorded knowledge concerning 
 themvention of alphabetical writing, and the difficulty of 
 ace ounting for it on any known principle of mental associ- 
 ation, the hypothesis of divine revelation has obtained con 
 siderable currency ; but it need hardly be observed, how 
 ill such a doctrine agrees with all that we know by analogy 
 of the dealings of Providence with man. 
 
 It is clear that writing was known to the Hebrews at the 
 period when the Mosaic books were composed, from many 
 allusions contained in them. Exodus, xxxii. 15, 16. Num- 
 bers, xvii. 18., xxxi. 9. 19., xxxiii. 1., &c. And although it 
 
 ALPHABET. 
 
 to mav not have been of the symbolical description in use 
 among the Egyptians, there seems, on the other hand, lit- 
 tle reason for supposing that the Hebrew alphabet was not 
 in use even at that remote period. And the question of su- 
 perior antiquity seems to lie entirely between that alphabet 
 and the Phoenician. The claims of the latter are support- 
 ed by Mr. Astle (Essay on the Origin of Writing, 4to. Lon- 
 don, 1803), whose views are now generally concurred in. 
 The belief was all but universal among the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans, that the Phoenicians were the inventors of letters. 
 According to Lucan, 
 
 (( Phcnices prims (famae si credimus) ausl 
 Mansuram rudibus tocciii signare tiguris." 
 
 And Pliny says (lib. v. cap. 12.), "Ipsa gens Phoenicum in 
 gloria magna est literarum inventionis." But whether the 
 Phoenicians were or were not the inventors of alphabetic 
 writing, there can be little or no doubt that the knowledge 
 of it was brought by Cadmus, from Phoenicia, into Greece, 
 about 1500 years B. C. From the Phoenician, therefore, or 
 the Hebrew, are incontestably derived, 1. The Oriental 
 alphabets used in Asia, West of the Indus ; written, like 
 Hebrew, from right to left ; the principal being the Syriac, 
 Arabic, and Persian. 2. The Pelasgic, or original Greek 
 alphabet. Were there nothing else by which to establish 
 the fact, the eastern origin of the Pelasgic language would 
 be obvious from its being originally written, like the Phoe- 
 nician and other eastern languages, from right to left. It 
 was afterwards written consecutively from right to left, and 
 left to right, in the manner that land is ploughed. This 
 procured for it the name of ffovorpoipriSov, or furrowed 
 writing. This species of writing maintained its ground for 
 a lengthened period. The laws of Solon, promulgated 
 about 594 years B. C, were written in it ; and it was used 
 till the 5th century B. C. But writing from left to right 
 was introduced for a considerable period before the alter- 
 nate or furrowed method was abandoned. Inscriptions 
 dated 742 years B. C. have been found written from left to 
 right, or in the way now practised. (Goguet, Origin of 
 Lous, Eng. trans, ii. n 32 ice i Prom the Pelasgic alpba- 
 bi I were derive, 1 the Etruscan and Oscan. From the Ionic, 
 
 variety of the Greek, came the Arcadian, the Coptic, 
 and ESthiopic, the KaBso-Gothic and Runic; ami. in com- 
 paratively modern times, the Armenian. Illvrian, Sclavonic, 
 Bulgarian, and Russian. With regard to Greek writing, it 
 is to be observed that the most ancient mode was in capi- 
 tals. The small biters now in use seem to have been in- 
 troduced gradually ; for, in our oldest Greek MSB., even as 
 early as floe fifth century, they appear intermixed with 
 capitals. But the latter were principally employed, until 
 the seventh or eighth century. 3. The Latin alphabet is 
 also derived from the Ionic Greek; it is said to have been 
 introduced about the time of Tarquinius Prisons. In the 
 earliest inscriptions which we possess, the forms of the let- 
 
 ireely differ from those in use at the nresent day ; 
 but great varieties have been in subsequent times intro- 
 duced : first, in the ordinary method of writing it; as, the 
 Uncial, Semi-Uncial, Lombard, Italic, &c. (See Charac- 
 ter.) Secondly, in the number and form of the letters 
 contained in the numerous alphabets derived from it. 4. A 
 fourth diss of alphabetical languages consists of the Sans- 
 crit and its derivatives. These are very numerous, and are 
 
 spoken in the continent and islands of India. The great 
 regularity of the Devanagaree, or most elegant form of the 
 i t alphabet, and its copiousness (it contains 100 let- 
 ters), seem to afford strong presumption that it was com- 
 piled by some learned individual, or body, (like the Rus- 
 sian and other modern Western alphabets,) from other 
 forms of writing then in use, and imported into India from 
 the West. The Sanscrit and its derivative languages are 
 written, like European, from left to riidit. These four 
 classes comprehend all the alphabetical languages in exis- 
 tence. The following table exhibits the number of letters 
 in some of the principal 
 
 Class 1. Phoenician (known), 17. Samaritan. Hebrew (or 
 Chaldean), and Syriac, 22 each. Arabic, 28. Per- 
 sian, 32. 
 Class 2. Greek, 24. Armenian, 38. Ethiopic, or Abyssi- 
 nian. 202. Modern Russian, 41. 
 Class 3. (which is otdy a subdivision of Class 2). Latin, 
 22. English, "26. French, 28. Italian, 20. Ger- 
 man, 26. 
 Class 4. Sanscrit (Devanagaree), 100. 
 
 Various learned persons have proposed the adoption of 
 a universal alphabet ; and have shown that the elementary 
 sounds are reducible to a still smaller number than those 
 employed in our western alphabets. Harris (Hermes, book 
 iii. c. 2.) estimates them at twenty. Wachter (Natural et 
 Script ura Concordia) conceives that the number may be 
 diminished to ten. But Bishop Wilkins, in his Essay to- 
 wards a real Character and Philosophical Language, fol., 
 London, 1668, estimates the necessary number at thirty- 
 four. 
 We here present the reader with a table of the principal 
 
 XXXI 
 
 cannot be positively asserted, that the writing there alluded I alphabets of the family to which our own belongs. 
 35
 
 ALPHABET. 
 
 Arabic. 
 
 Syriac. 
 
 Hebrew. 
 
 Samaritan. 
 
 Etruscan. 
 
 Anc Greek. 
 
 Mod. Greek. 
 
 Unman. 
 
 Eng. Script. 
 
 t 
 
 1 
 
 S 
 
 A 
 
 \ 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 a 
 
 l_j 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 
 3 
 
 a_ 
 
 6 
 
 B 
 
 B 
 
 4 
 
 XL 
 
 *\ 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 r 
 
 r 
 
 C G 
 
 Cf 
 
 4> 
 
 9 
 
 i 
 
 T 
 
 < 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 D 
 
 J 
 
 «(*) 
 
 01 
 
 n 
 
 3f 
 
 3 
 
 E 
 
 E 
 
 E 
 
 6 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 i 
 
 * 
 
 1 
 
 F 
 
 
 F 
 
 / 
 
 ; 
 
 1 
 
 T 
 
 ^ 
 
 * 
 
 X 
 
 Z 
 
 Z 
 
 S» 
 
 c 
 
 >-l* 
 
 n 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 H 
 
 4 
 
 jb 
 
 -J 
 
 12 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 <,(*) 
 
 *ft 
 
 1 
 
 m 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I J 
 
 V 
 
 J 
 
 «JS 
 
 5 
 
 % 
 
 a 
 
 K 
 
 K 
 
 K 
 
 / 
 
 J 
 
 \ w 
 
 b 
 
 z 
 
 >4 
 
 A 
 
 A 
 
 L 
 
 / 
 
 r W 
 
 >o(ie) 
 
 » 
 
 *s 
 
 1 
 
 M 
 
 M 
 
 M 
 
 m 
 
 uW 
 
 v( J ) 
 
 5 
 
 > 
 
 1 
 
 N 
 
 N 
 
 N 
 
 n 
 
 
 _tf 
 
 D 
 
 ^ 
 
 -s 
 
 5 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 e 
 
 ^ 
 
 * 
 
 V 
 
 A 
 
 o 
 
 o 
 
 O 
 
 
 
 o 
 
 wS 
 
 & 
 
 i> 
 
 n 
 
 p 
 
 n 
 
 P 
 
 A 
 
 u° 
 
 £ 
 
 22 
 
 ■m 
 
 at 
 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 b-0 
 
 P 
 
 ? 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 f 
 
 ; 
 
 ? 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 S 
 
 p 
 
 p 
 
 R 
 
 f 
 
 U" 
 
 wA. 
 
 
 
 JUU. 
 
 >/ 
 
 ^ 
 
 2 
 
 s 
 
 a 
 
 I^J 
 
 2. 
 
 n 
 
 A 
 
 -r 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 T 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 
 
 y 
 
 Y 
 
 T 
 
 U V Y 
 
 u v y 
 
 
 
 
 
 $ 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 X 
 
 <c
 
 ALPHONSIN. 
 
 Of the Phoenician, properly so-called, the authentic re 
 mains are but few in number and of rude execution ; we 
 have, therefore, employed in lieu of it its immediate de- 
 scendant, the Etruscan, which we have placed in the centre 
 of our table. This alphabet, it will be perceived, was made to 
 be written like the Phoenician, from right to left, which sys- 
 tem lias been retained in the Asiatic alphabets derived from 
 it down to the present day, as will be seen on inspecting the 
 alphabets placed on the left of the Etruscan in thp order of 
 their derivation. To the right of the Etruscan stands the al- 
 phabet of a Greek inscription, which dates about 400 B. C, 
 when the practice of writing from left to right had become 
 fixed and general ; next in order are the Modern Greek al- 
 phabet, tin Roman, and lastly the small letters of our pre- 
 sent character. We have thus given the principal alpha- 
 bets, both Asiatic and European, derived from the Phoeni- 
 cian, in what may be termed thp lineal order of their de- 
 scent; and although the difference between the two ex- 
 tremes of each serii s is certainly very great, the examples 
 given will be sufficient to enable the reader to trace tin ir 
 mutual connection, and to account for the changes that 
 have gradually been produced by a desire to gn e a rounder 
 and more current shape to the letters, and to form them 
 with fewer strokes of the re. d or the pen. 
 
 ALPIIO'Nsin. An instrun enl for extracting balls : so 
 ralieil from the name of its inventor, Alphonso Ferrim, a 
 Neapolitan surgeon. 
 
 A'LPINE PLANTS. Low plants which srrow naturally 
 in hilly or mountainous situations, where thev are covered 
 with snow during ureal pan of the winter ; and for which 
 i. in gardens, they require the protection of frames 
 and glass during winter, in this respect alpine plants dif- 
 fer fro tn rock plants; which, in gardens only requiri 
 grown among rocks or stones, without the protection of a 
 frami and e 
 
 ALPINIA'I I 1 One of the names of the natural or- 
 der of plants called Zingiberaceae. 
 
 ALKi N i G Miami. Alraun-i'ilder.) Small im- 
 
 ages carved oul of the roots of trees, exhibiting rude repre- 
 sentations of the human figure, generally female. The 
 veneration paid to these figures formed a peculiar feature 
 in the superstition of the northern nations. They were 
 looked on as the Penates, or household gods, of fai 
 laid in boxes, and presented with meat and drink. They 
 are supposed by some to represent fei i ians or 
 
 druidi 
 
 \l -I'.t.NO (It To the mark-.) In Music, a D 
 the performer thai he must recommence from thai part of 
 the movement to which the sign or mark $ is prefixed. 
 
 \i.-in \ i 'i:.v. \ i.ui - i extensive ordei ol 
 plants, allied to the much more beautiful Silenaces, from 
 which they are known by their calyx consisting of distinct 
 sepals. The order derives its name from Alsine talons, n 
 sacred gem, in which places it is found.) the common 
 chickweed. 
 
 ALT. (Lat. alius, high.) In Music. A term applied to 
 the high notes of tie 
 
 A'LTAR. (From alta Bra, Lat. : or. according to 
 fn>ni~N. God, and ^N. - . - r appointed.} In Ar- 
 
 chitecture, a suit of pedestal whereon sai nfice was offered. 
 
 Servius tells us that anion;; the ancients there was a diiTor- 
 
 ence between the ara and altare, the tatter being raised on 
 a substruction] and used in tin service only of me celestial 
 and superior divinities, whilst the former was merely on 
 the ground, and appropriated to the service of the terrestrial 
 To the infernal gods the altars were made by exca- 
 vations, which were termed BCrobiCUli. Bome authors have 
 maintained that the ara was the altar before which prayers 
 were uttered, whilst the altare was used for sacrifici I 
 does not. however, appear that ancient authors made these 
 distinctions, hut thai the words were \i^:A bj them indiscri- 
 minately. The earliest altars were square polished stones. 
 on which were placed the offerings 10 the gods. Whilst 
 sacrifices were confined to libations, perfumes, and offerings 
 of ttiat sort, the altar was not of large dimensions, and was 
 even portable ; but as soon as man thought he was doing 
 honour to the Divinity by an offering of blood, the altar ne- 
 cessarily expanded in dimensions. Different forms were 
 contrived, according to the nature of (he sacrifice, on which 
 the throat of the victim was cut anil the flesh burnt. Of 
 this sort is the circular altar of the villa Pamphili at Rome, 
 "in ofthe largest and most elegant of existing remains of 
 that class. Upon it is to be seen the cavity for holding the 
 fire, and the grooves for earning off the blood. The va- 
 rieties of altars follow the service to which they were 
 assigned by difference in their forms, ornaments, and situ- 
 ations. Some, as we have already observed, served for 
 burning incense and receiving libations. Some were for 
 the sacrifices of blood, and others for receiving offerings 
 and sacred vases. Many were erected merely as monu- 
 ments ofthe piety of the devotee, whilst others were con- 
 structed to perpetuate some great event. They served for 
 adjuration, as well as for an asylum to the unfortunate and 
 evil-doer. The forms varied from square to oblong, from 
 37 
 
 ALTERNATE. 
 
 trinntrnlar to circular. Those of metal were usually tripo- 
 dial. When of brick or stone, they were generally square 
 on the plane. According to Pausanias, wood was occasion- 
 ally a material of which they were composed. They do 
 not seem to have been of any standard height, inasn uch 
 as we sometimes see them on bassi relievi reaching little 
 above a man's knee, whilst in others they appear toreach 
 his middle, though it would seem that the circular altar was 
 generally the highest in proportion to its diameter. Vitru- 
 vins says they should be kept down in height, so that they 
 may not intercept the statues of the gods ; and he gives the 
 relative height of those used for the different divinities. 
 Those of Jupiter and the celestial gods the highest ; next, 
 those of Vesta and the terrestrial gods ; then the sea-gods 
 were to have theirs a little lower, and so on. On festivals 
 they were decorated for the occasion with such flowers 
 and' leaves as were sacred to the particular divinity. But 
 besides this casual decoration, the ancient altars furnish us 
 with some of the most elegant bassi relievi and foliage or- 
 naments that are extant, still serving as models of taste, 
 which have escaped the hands of the barbarian destroyer. 
 According to Vitruvius, their fronts were turned towards 
 the east, though often little regard seems to have been paid 
 to their position, as they were occasionally deposited under 
 the peristyle of a temple, and not unfrequentlv in the open 
 air. In tlie lanrer temples there were often three diffi nut 
 altars : the first was in the most sacred part, in front e! the 
 statue of the god; the second was before the door of the 
 temple; and tin third was portable, called anclabris, 
 on which the offerings and sacred vases were placed. 
 Amongst Christians, the altar is a square or oblong table 
 or tablet, placed at the east end ofthe church, for the cele- 
 bration of the mass, or. in Protestant churches, for the 
 celebration of the sacrament. These are varied in their 
 form almost as much as those we have ril i d. 
 
 The word Altar was adopted by the early Christians, to- 
 collier with the corresponding Greek term CDtritiortjoioi/, 
 (hut not. unless, perhaps, in a sincle instance. fio>noi.) to 
 express tin- table of On Lord (1 for. x. 21.). Hut the word 
 altar is stated to have been used by the fathers in four dif- 
 ferent senses (v. Buicer, in VOC. Svctaorripiov) : for, I. 
 Christ himself, from llebr. xiii. 10. 'J. The church of 
 Christ in general 3. Individual men hers of the church. 
 4. The Lord's table, ll is observed that the lathers of the 
 first three centuries universally speak of the altar, ami not 
 of tie table, although constantly admitting the charge 
 which tin- heathens n ade against them of their having no 
 altars, conceiving the term as used by the beathi ns to im- 
 ply the offering of a sacrifice upon the altar, and the pre- 
 sence of the statue of the deit) to whom the offering is 
 made I'nin the fourth renturv the word table is fre- 
 quently ad. pled, a-' by St. Chrysr.'sl. in. St. AugUStin, Arc. 
 
 In Kiiil' Edward L's Hook of Common Prayer, the word 
 altar was retained in the communion service: but treat 
 opposition being raise.) against it. especially by Bishop 
 t of the ambiguity of its meaning and 
 or II might seem to lend to the Romish notions of 
 the encharist it was abandoned, and table substituted 
 throughout. This, however, did not satisfv the B ore vio- 
 
 rty, and on the restoration ofthe reformed worship 
 
 at the accession of Elizabeth, the people proceeded to 
 take the first slop towards a real and not a verbal sub- 
 stitution, by pulling down the altars in many churches. 
 Hereupon the queen issued an injunction, wherein she 
 declares that '-it is no matter of great moment whether 
 thei e be altars or tables, so that the sacrament be duly and 
 reverentially administered:" and directs that where the 
 altars had been pulled down, tables should be erected in 
 tie same place. 
 
 A'LTLHATIYES. (Lat. altero, I change.) Medicines 
 which cure diseases by slow and imperceptible degrees, 
 without producing sensible evacuations. 
 
 M.TE'RNATE. (Lat. alternants, rhcins'd by turns.) 
 In Botany, pans are said to be alternate with each other 
 when one is placed upon the stem a little higher or a little 
 lower than the other : the word is chiefly applied to leaves, 
 and is used in distinction to opposite, in which parts arise 
 the same plant on opposite sides of the stern. 
 
 Alternate. (Geometry.) When two straight lines are 
 
 intersected by a third, the interior angles on the opposite 
 
 sides of the intersecting line are said to be alternate. 
 
 Thus A M N and M N D are alternate 
 
 A \m B angles ; and so also are B M N and 
 
 M N C. If the two straight lines AB 
 _ > and C D be parallel, the alternate an- 
 3 5 g^ s are e q Ua [, i n proportion, the al- 
 ternate terms are the first and third, 
 and also the second and fourth, and the 
 terms of a proportion are said to be taken alternately, or by 
 alternation, when the second and third are made to change 
 places ; and it is a well known theorem, that a proportion 
 subsisting among four quantities of the same kind is not 
 disturbed by this change. Thus, if a : b : : c : d, then, al- 
 ternately, a : c : : b : d.
 
 ALTICA. 
 
 A'LTICA. A name applied by Fabricius to a subdivision 
 of the Linnsean Cnrysomelse, cliaracterised by the oblong 
 body, bifid lip, and thickened hind legs. 
 
 A'LTLTUDE. (Lat. altus, high, altitudo, height.) In 
 Astronomy, denotes the angle of elevation of a celestial ob- 
 iect. or the angle of the visual ray with the horizon. The 
 altitude of a star is apparent or true. The apparent alti- 
 tude is the angle ascertained immediately from observa- 
 tion ; the true "altitude is found by correcting the apparent 
 altitude for refraction, parallax, Ac. Altitude is frequently 
 used in Elementary Geometry instead of height. The al- 
 titude of a triangle is measured by a straight line drawn 
 from the vertex perpendicular to the base ; and the alti- 
 tude of a cone by the straight line drawn from the vertex 
 perpendicular to the plane of the base. 
 
 ALTO. (I.at. altus, high.) hi Music, the counter-tenor 
 part, or that immediately below- the treble or highest. It is 
 a word also used to denote the tenor violin. 
 
 ALTO RELIEVO. (See Rilievo.) 
 
 A'LUDEL. Apiece of chemical apparatus used in the 
 process of sublimation, and much resembling the ancient 
 alembic. 
 
 A'LULA. (Lat. ala, a icing.) In Ornithology, the group 
 of ill-feathers, attached to the joint of the carpus ; as in the 
 snipe. These are also called the 'bastard wings' (ala 
 sj uria). 
 
 A'LUM. A salt composed of alumina, potash, and sul- 
 phuric acid, and in its usual form containing a large quantity 
 of water of crystallisation. Its octohedral crystals consist of 
 Alumina ... 3 atoms = 54 1076 
 Potassa 1 " = 48 9 95 
 
 Sulphuric acid - - 4 " = 160 a374 
 Water - - - 24 t; = 216 45-55 
 
 Crystallised alum - 1 =478 100-00 
 
 Alum dissolves in about five parts of water at 60°. The 
 solution has a sweet and astringent taste, and is a powerful 
 styptic. When crystallised alum is heated, it melts, and. 
 gradually losing water of crystallisation, becomes a white 
 spongy mass, called burned alum. 
 
 Alum is largely manufactured for the uses of the arts, 
 especially dyeing and calico printing. What is termed 
 alum ore, is* an aluminous slate, containing sulphuret of 
 iron ; it is calcined, exposed to air, lixiviated, and the solu- 
 tion so obtained mixed with sulphate of potash, and crys- 
 tallised. The alum-works near Paisley, and at Whitby, in 
 Yorkshire, are the largest in England. 
 
 Milk, curdled by stirring it with a lump of alum, fur- 
 nishes alum whey, which is sometimes taken as a remedy 
 for relaxed bowels. Alum curd is made by beating the 
 white of esrg with a piece of alum till it coagulates. 
 
 ALU'MIXA. Aluminous earth; earth of alum ; argil. 
 When a solution of ammonia is dropped into a solution of 
 alum, a white precipitate falls, which, thoroughly washed, 
 dried, and heated, is pure aluminous earth. There are 
 two properties of this earth which render it of great impor- 
 tance in the arts ; one is, that it forms a plastic mixture 
 with water, and, though it is not the predominant ingredi- 
 ent in, yet it confers the valuable property of plasticity 
 upon, all natural clays, which enables them to be moulded 
 into the various forms of pottery and earthenware ; the 
 other is the remarkable affinity "of alumina for colouring 
 and extractive matter, whence its use in the arts of dyeing 
 and calico printing. 
 
 In the pure and crystalline form, alumina constitutes the 
 sapphire, one of the hardest and most valuable of the 
 gems. In its common state, aluminous earth is a soft 
 white powder, strongly attractive of moisture ; hence, alu- 
 minous fossils are often recognised by adhering to the 
 tongue, and many of them exhale an earthy smell when 
 breathed upon, as we observe in common slate. Alumina 
 consists of 52-94 aluminum, and 47 06 oxygen; like the 
 other earths, as they are usually called, alumina, there- 
 fore, is a metallic oxide. Aluminum is with difficulty ob- 
 tained, and in small quantities, by heating chloride of alu- 
 minum with potassium; it is a grey, difficultly fusible 
 metal, not easily acted on by water, and which, when 
 heated in the air, burns with great brilliancy, and forms 
 alumina by the absorption of oxygen. 
 
 Alumina has but a feeble attraction for acids, and does 
 not fully neutralise them ; and when it has been heated 
 red hot, or is in an indurated state, as it exists in the sap- 
 phire, in corundum, and some other minerals, it is abso- 
 lutely insoluble. 
 
 The aluminous salts are mostly colourless, soluble in 
 water, and .of a sweetish astringent taste. Exclusive of 
 alum, the acetate of alumina is the most important of these 
 salts, being used as a base or mordant by the dyers. (See 
 Dyeing.) It is usually prepared by mixing a solution of 
 190 parts of acetate of lead with one of 487 parts of alum ; a 
 white precipitate of sulphate of lead falls, and acetate of 
 alumina remains in solution. 
 
 ALU'MINITE. Native subsulphate of alumina. 
 
 ALU 'MIX UM. The metallic base of alumina. 
 33 
 
 AMBARVALIA. 
 
 A'LUMSTOXE. A silicious subsulphate of alumina. 
 
 ALU'RXUS. A genus of coleopterous insects, charac- 
 terised by having short filiform antenna? ; palpi four to six, 
 very short : maxillae horny and short. 
 
 ALUTA'CEOUS. (Lat. aluta, tanned leather.) A pale 
 brown colour. 
 
 ALVE'OLAR. (Lat. alveolus, diminutive of alveus, a 
 canty.) Belonging to the alveoli, or sockets of the teeth. 
 
 ALVE'OLATE. In Botany. When the surface" is co- 
 vered with numerous deep hollows, as in the receptacle of 
 some Compositae. 
 
 ALVEO'LITES. A genus of fossil zoophytes, allied to 
 the corallines ; one species of which (Alv. suborbicularis) 
 occurs in the Portland stone. 
 
 A'LVIXE. (Lat. alvus, the belty.) A term generally 
 used as relating to the intestinal excretions. 
 
 A'MADOU. German tinder; a fungus found chiefly in 
 old oaks and ash trees. It is boiled in water, dried, beaten, 
 soaked in a solution of nitre, and again dried for use. 
 
 AM A 'IX. A sea term, signifying to yield, to let go. 
 Thus, to strike amain is to lower or let fall the topsails, in 
 token of surrender. To wave amain is to make a signal to 
 a vessel to strike its topsails. Amain is also a term used 
 in letting down a thing into the hold or elsewhere, or in 
 lowering a yard, or the like, to denote that the sailors are 
 to let go that part of the rope which they held before, and 
 let down the thing easily and by degrees. 
 
 AMA'LGAM. A combination of mercury with other 
 metals. Medallists apply the term to soft alloys generally. 
 
 AMALTHJE'A. In Mythology. The name of a goat in 
 Crete, alleged to have suckled Jupiter : or of the nymph 
 who tended the goat. The cormt Ainalthaa, or horn of 
 the goat in question, was the magic cornu copia, or horn of 
 plenty. 
 
 A'MARAXTH. (Gr. a, priv., napaivoi, I wither, and 
 dvQos, a floicer.) Plants with richly coloured flowers, 
 whose parts are of a thin dry texture, so that they are a 
 long while before they wither. They give their name to 
 the natural order of Amaranthaceee. Amaranthes me- 
 lancholicus, hypochondriacus, caudatus, Ac, are the an- 
 nuals known in gardens by the names of Love lies bleeding, 
 Prince's feather. Ac. The name, in composition with 
 other words, is used to designate plants not belonging to 
 the same genus, but to the same natural order, Globe-ama- 
 ranth is Go mphr ena elobosa. 
 
 AMARAXTIIA'CEjE. The order which comprehends 
 the amaranthus, and other similar dry-flowered genera. 
 Some of the species are objects of ornament, as cocks- 
 combs (Celosia coccinea), globes (Gomphrena globosa). va- 
 rious species of amaranthus. trichinium, Ac. ; but the prin- 
 cipal part consists of tropical kinds. The order partici- 
 pates in the harmless qualities of Chenopodiacea?, from 
 which it is not very different. 
 
 AMARYLLIDA'CE^:. (Amaryllis, one of its genera.) 
 A natural order of beautiful [Endogens, with inferior fruit, 
 six stamens, and six nearly equal segments of the flower. 
 The greater part consists of bulbous species inhabiting the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and the tropical parts of both hemis- 
 pheres. Snowdrops are the most northern form. A few, 
 such as agave and doryanthes, are trees in stature, al- 
 though onlv herbaceous plants in duration. 
 
 A'MATEUR. (Fr.) A person familiar with, and who 
 encourages any particular art or pursuit, without being 
 professionally engaged in it, is said to be an amateur. But 
 the term is usually restricted to those who are skilled in 
 and patronize the fine arts. 
 
 AMAURO'SIS. (Gr. duavoos, dark.) A loss of sight de- 
 pendent upon defective action of the nerve of vision, and 
 independent of visible injury. It is also called gutta Sere- 
 na: drop serene of Milton. 
 
 AMAZO'XTAX STOXE. A beautiful green felspar, 
 found in rolled masses near the Amazon river. 
 
 A'MAZONS. (Gr. d, without, and pa^os. breast.) Fe- 
 male warriors. Tribes, either real or imaginary, belonging 
 to Africa and Asia, among which the custom prevailed fdr 
 the females to go to war ; preparing themselves for that 
 purpose by destroying the right breast, in order to use the 
 bow with "greater ease. According to Greek tradition, an 
 Amazon tribe invaded Africa, and was repulsed by The- 
 seus, who afterwards married their queen. Hence, all fe- 
 male warriors have been called Amazons ; and the river 
 of that name owes its appellation to one of the early Span- 
 ish navigators, who fancied he beheld armed women on its 
 banks. The wars of the Athenians and Amazons formed 
 favourite subjects for Attic art : they were depicted in the 
 Pcecile or painted chamber of the Parthenon. See Justin, 
 Diod. Siculus, Strabo, Ac. 
 
 AMBARYA'LLA (Lat. ambire arva, to go round the 
 Jields.) In Roman Mythology, religious fetes to propitiate 
 Ceres: so called from the victims being carried round the 
 fields (ter circum ibat hostia fruges, Vira. G. i. 345.), 
 These sacred rites were performed by an order of priests, 
 Fratres Ambarvales, twelve in number. They were ce- 
 lebrated in the end of May, when the blessing of the god-
 
 AMBASSADOR, 
 
 dess was invoked on the coming harvest. The victims 
 were accompanied by crowds of country people, having 
 their temples bound with oak leaves, dancing, and singing 
 the praises of Ceres, to whom libations were made of ho- 
 ney and wine. (Facciolati ; Adam's Antiq.) 
 
 AMBA'SSADOR, or EMBASSADOR. In Politics, the 
 name of the highest order of foreign ministers. An am- 
 bassador is not only the agent of the country which sends 
 him, but also represents personally the dignity of its so- 
 vereign. The greater powers of Europe send ambassa- 
 dors to each other, with the exception of Prussia, which 
 never employs ministers of this class. The word ambas- 
 sador is of very uncertain derivation, but is supposed to be 
 derived from the Italian word ambasciare, to solicit. In 
 charters and diplomas of later date than the ninth century, 
 the names of those who had solicited the grants are fre- 
 quently signed at the foot with the designation of "ambas- 
 ciatores," or solicitors ; and it may hence be presumed 
 that the title was originally given to envoys who attended 
 at a court to solicit some favour for another party. As to 
 the rights and privileges of ambassadors in England : if an 
 ambassador commit any art which is a crime against the 
 law of all countries, as treason, felony, &c, he is punisha- 
 a private alien. Bui an ambassador is not criminally 
 liable for such acts as are only mala prohibits again 
 tuii' or custom; as, infringements of the laws of the ex- 
 chequer. By 7 Anne, c. 12., an ambassador or public min- 
 ister, and his domestic servants, bona fid\ registered ac- 
 cording to the act, are privileged from arrest : and the goods 
 of an ambassador cannot be taken in distress. This statute 
 was passed in consequence of the arrest and ill treatment 
 of Count Matuschef, the Russian ambassador, As to the 
 rights and duti isadors in modern intern 
 
 usages, see tin ivork oi'M de Wicquefort, £' I . 
 
 bussiuleur el sps Function*, '.I lonies. Ho, 1741 I' I M 
 
 sham on (Law of Europi ' -. Landshut 1806); 
 
 and the valuable Manuel Diplomatique of Von Martens 
 (Leipzig, I -.'■-'). mat also be consulted:. 
 
 I'MBER. A yellow resin-like substance, found occa- 
 sionally in detache i pi ices on the sea-coast, but most ge- 
 nerally dug up in diluvial sods : it is probably an anteduu- 
 vfal resin, and often contains leaves and I 
 
 rifi.' gravity is about liiro. It is hard, and becomes strong- 
 ly electro-negative by friction, It contains a trace of odo- 
 rous volatile oil, a resin easily soluble in alcohol, a resin 
 difficultly soluble in alcohol, and an insoluble resin, which 
 is its chief constituent (80 to 90 per cenl i When burned, 
 ■ odour. Distilled per se. it yields in- 
 flammable gases, water holding succinic and acetic acids, 
 and empyreumatic oil in solution (the spirit of amber of old 
 Pharmacy), sublimed succinic acid (salt of amber), and an 
 empyreumatic oil (oil of amber). The acid, when puri- 
 fied, a Mounts to fro ii 3 to 5 per cent The i 
 coal amounts to 12 or 13 per cent., and when strongly 
 heated, yields a little volatile matter resembling camphor. 
 
 A suhslanco resembling amber, called fossil copal, 
 times occurs with it ; it is Less soluble in alcohol, and yields 
 no succinic acid. 
 
 The largest known mass of amber wis found near the 
 
 surface of the ground in Lithuania, al twelve miles from 
 
 the Baltic; it weighs eighteen pounds, and is in the royal 
 cabinet al Berlin. 
 
 The chief use of amber is as an article of ornament, cut 
 into beads or necklaces, and in the manufacture of var- 
 nish. 
 
 A'MBERGRIS. (From ambre, and gris, grey amber.) 
 This substance has been found in the intestines oi the sper- 
 maceti whale: it is probably a product of disease; perhaps 
 a kind of gallstone. It has also been found oponlhi 
 
 of various tropical i OUntrieS, in masses of various sizes, of 
 
 a nr ly, speckled appearance, and interspersed thro 
 
 its substance with the beaks of the sepia octopoda, which 
 
 is the co m n ion food of the whale. When genuine, amber- 
 gris has a peculiar odour, not easily described or imitated, 
 and which is exceedingly diffusive, especially in solution, 
 so thai a very minute quantity of ambergris is perceptible 
 in perfumes, and is thought to exalt their odour. A grain 
 or two, when rubbed down with sugar, and added to a 
 hogshead of claret, is very perceptible in the wine and 
 gives it a flavour, by some considered as an improvement. 
 The best ambergris is sottish and somewhat waxy when 
 cut : its specific gravity varies from 780 to 896 : it fuses at 
 140° or 150°,and at a higher temperature fives out a white 
 smoke, which condenses into a crystalline fatty matter. 
 Its chief component (about SO per cent.) is a peculiar fatty 
 matter (ambreine), which may be obtained by boiling it in 
 alcohol: as the solution cools.it deposits crystals, which 
 may be purified by pressure in folds of blotting paper. Am- 
 breine fuses at 100° ; its odour is agreeable, and it rises in 
 vapour at '220°. 
 
 AMBIDE'XTER. (Lat. ambo. both, and dexter, right 
 hand.) One wdio uses both hands alike, the left as well as 
 the right. Numerous theories have been advanced to ex- 
 plain the preference so generally given to the right over the 
 39 
 
 AMENDMENT. 
 
 left hand ; but, generally, they seem to be more specious 
 than solid. 
 
 A'MBlTUH. (Lat. ambio, I encompass, or circumvent.) 
 The circumference or extreme edge of any thing ; the en- 
 compassing border ofa leaf. 
 
 Ambitus. In Politics. A term used by the ancient Ro- 
 mans to designate the soliciting and canvassing for offices 
 and honours. It was of two kinds, the one, ambitus popu- 
 laris, laudable ; as, where a candidate openly avowed his 
 pretensions, publicly stated the grounds on which he so- 
 licited the suffrages "of the electors, and left them to form 
 their opinion upon his claims without privately soliciting 
 their votes. The other, and more common kind of ambi- 
 tus, was either disreputable or unlawful. It consisted in 
 using artful solicitations, cajolery, offers of money and pre- 
 ferment, and all those resources for corrupting the free 
 choice of electors, so well understood, and successfully 
 practised, in our own times. The bribery of electors was 
 forbidden, although to very little purpose," by repeated acts 
 of the Roman legislature. (Facciolati Lexicon, Diction- 
 ary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Tavlor & Walton, 
 1842.&C. > 
 
 A'MBI.E, AMBLING. (In Horsemanship, Terme du 
 Manage.) A peculiar kind of a pace in which a horse's two 
 legs of the sa i e side move at the same time. 
 
 1 d.o 'TIS ((Jr. «ufiA<tj<7i{, abortion.) The generic 
 name, in the system of Illiger, of the Marsupial genus, in- 
 cluding the wombat. 
 
 AMBLYCKPIA. (Or. duSXvs, dull, and <Lxp, the sight.) 
 Imperfect vision. 
 
 SMBLYTTERTJS. (Gr. dft6\vi, obtuse, and irrepov a 
 tin.) The name ofa fossil genus of fishes, with obtuse and 
 rounded pectoral and ventral tins, and characterised by 
 having small and numerous teeth, set close together like a 
 
 brush, which shows the habit of these fishes to have been 
 to feed On d eed and soft animal substances 
 
 at the bottom of the water. 
 
 \ MHO. Hie. dji^ov, a boss, or knob.) In Architecture. 
 The elevated place, or pulpit, in the early christian 
 churches, from whence it was usual to address the con. 
 gregation, and on which certain parts of tl e service were. 
 chanted. 
 
 \ MIJRF.IN. The fatty matter of ambergris ; converti- 
 ble bv nitric arid Into ambreic acid. 
 
 AMBRO'SIA (Gr. signifying, immortal) The food of 
 the gods, as nectar was their drink, the use of which con- 
 ferred itiiinort. dii r. 
 
 AMBROSIAN CHANT In Music. So called from St. 
 Ambrose, archbishop of Milan, who composed it for the 
 church there in the fourth century : itis distinguished from 
 jori in chant by a great monotony and want of beau- 
 ty in its m< 
 
 A M lit H \ I i: \ Syrian or Arabic term, meaning mu- 
 ds from Syria, who prostituted themselves at 
 li 6 ib. i. sat '-.'■ v. 1. and Facciolati 
 
 ,'. 
 
 AMBULA'CRA. (Lat ambulacrum, an alley.) The 
 
 narrow longitudinal portions of the shell of the sea-urchin 
 
 {Echinus), which are perforated with a number of small 
 
 tentacular suckers, and alternate 
 
 witii the broad tuberculate spine-bearing portions. 
 
 AMBULATCRES (Lat ambulo, ticalA.) The name 
 of an order of birds in the system of Illiger, corresponding 
 nearly with the Passeres of Linnsus. 
 
 A'MBl LATORY. Formed for walking. In Ornitholo- 
 gy, the term is applied to the feel of birds where the toes 
 are place I three before and one behind. 
 
 AMBTJ'SC Mill. A military term derived from the Ital- 
 ian imboscata, concealed in a wood. It is also applied to 
 any snare laid for an enemy. 
 
 AMBU'STION. (Lat. amburo, Iburn.) Amedicalterm 
 
 for a burn or scald. 
 
 A'MEN. (Heb. |DM, signifying, let if be, or rather, let it 
 {fixed.) It is understood to express belief and 
 assent at tie' end ota prayer. It is sometimes translated, 
 verily, as when used at the beginning ofa discourse. 
 
 AME'NDE HONORABLE. In French Law, a species 
 of infamous punishment, to which criminals guilty of an of- 
 fence against public decency or morality were conden ned 
 under the ancient system, and are so still in some instances. 
 Such were, sedition, forgery, sacrilege, fraudulent bank- 
 ruptcy, &c. The simp'p or dry amende honorable consist- 
 ed merely of an acknowledgment by the criminal of his of- 
 fence in open court, bare-headed and kneeling. The 
 amende honorable in figuris was made by an offender, 
 kneeling in his shirt, a torch in the hand, a rope round the 
 neck, and conducted by the executioner. It was, and still 
 is, usually conjoined with some other punishment; some- 
 times capital, as in the case of parricides, &c. 
 
 AME'NDMENT. In a general sense, is any change 
 made in any thing for the better. In Parliamentary Pro- 
 ceedings, it is an alteration in the words of any bill or mo- 
 tion, which it is competent for any member to move when 
 the bill or motion has been read. {See Parliament.)
 
 AMENORRHEA. 
 
 Amendment. In Law. The correction of an error com- 
 mitted in any process : as the amendment of a declaration, 
 plea, <fec. The deficiency of means of amendment in 
 pleading at common law, led to the statutes of amendments 
 and jeofails, beginning with that of 14 E. 3. All amend- 
 ments are held to be within the discretion of the court, and 
 allowed in furtherance of justice according to the particu- 
 lar circumstances of each case. 
 
 AME'NORRHCEA. (Gr. d, without, upv, a month, and 
 p'iio, Ifioir.) Morbid irregularity or deficiency of the men- 
 strual discharge. 
 
 AMENTA'CEOUS. Having amenta ; a name formerly 
 applied in Systematic Botany to such plants as have their 
 flowers arranged in amenta. But as very different kinds of 
 structure were combined by this character, the order 
 Amentaceae of Jussieu is broken up in several others, and 
 the term is but little used. 
 
 AME'NTHES, in Eastern Mythology. Is the kingdom 
 of the dead, or Tartarus of the ancient Egyptians. 
 
 AMENTIA. (Lat. aniens, deprived of mind.) Idiotism. 
 
 AME'NTUM. (Lat. amentum, a thong, or loop.) A kind 
 of inflorescence such as is found on willows and poplars ; 
 it differs from a spike only in being deciduous. 
 
 AMERCIAMENT. (From the French merci.) The 
 pecuniary punishment of an offender against the king or 
 other lord in his court, when by his offence he is said to 
 stand at the mercy of the king or lord. 
 
 AMETABO'LIANS, AMETABOLIA. (Gr. d, without, 
 and ptTa6o\ri, change.) A subclass of insects which do 
 not undergo anv metamorphosis. 
 
 A'METHYST. Purple rock crystal. The finer varie- 
 ties are in great request for cutting into seals and brooch 
 stones. Some of the ancient vases and cups are com- 
 
 Posed of this mineral, and it was an opinion among the 
 ersians that wine drank out of an amethystine cup would 
 not intoxicate : hence its name, from the Greek djiedvarog. 
 
 A'MIA. The name of a Linnaean genus of abdominal 
 fishes founded on a single species (Amia calva, Linn.) a 
 native of the freshwater streams of Carolina, North 
 America; and which is still its sole representative. It is 
 an example of the Sauroid fishes of Agassiz, and is re- 
 markable for the cellular structure of its air-bladder, which, 
 as Cuvier remarks, is similar to the lung of a reptile. 
 
 AMIA'NTHUS. (Gr. dynavrog.) A term applied to as- 
 bestus, in consequence of the resistance which it affords 
 to the action of fire. 
 
 A'MIDES. Compounds containing a base apparently 
 composed of 1 atom of nitrogen, and 2 of hydrogen. The 
 term Ammonide, from their resemblance to ammonia, 
 would perhaps be more correct. 
 
 A'MIDINE. The soluble part of starch. 
 
 AMID-SHIPS. A nautical term, denoting the middle of 
 the ship, either with respect to her length or breadth. 
 
 A'MMOCCE'TES. (Gr. dupioj, sand, and koittj, a bed.) 
 The name of a genus of Cyclostomous fishes, of which the 
 ' pride,' or 'stone grig' (Amm. branchialis), is a well-known 
 exa nple. This fish buries itself in the sand or clay of the 
 banks of rivers ; has many of the habits of a worm ; pos- 
 sesses a skeleton reduced to membraneous consistence ; 
 and ranks among the lowest of organised vertebral animals. 
 
 A'MMODYTES. (Gr. dftuos, sand.) The name of a 
 Linnajan genus of apodal fishes, characterised by a com- 
 pressed head, narrower than the body ; and both elong- 
 ated. Gill-openings large, with seven branchiostegal rays ; 
 dorsal fin extending nearly the whole length of the back ; 
 anal fin of considerable length ; dorsal and anal fins sepa- 
 rated from the caudal fin. The sand eel (Anunodytes tobi- 
 anus, Lin.) and the sand-launce (Ammodytes lancea, Cuv.) 
 are examples of this genus. 
 
 A'MMON. In Mythology, apparently a Libyan divinity. 
 adopted by the Greeks, and by them identified with their 
 Jupiter. 
 
 " stat corniger illic 
 
 Jupiter, lit memorant, sed non aut fulmina vibrans, 
 Aui similia nostro, sed tortis cornibns Amman." 
 
 The name appears to be derived from d/</ioj, sand ; and 
 the situation of his celebrated temple in an oasis, sur- 
 rounded by African deserts, indicates his origin. Alexan- 
 der visited the temple, and assumed the title of son of this 
 divinity, in order to impose on oriental imagination. It 
 possessed a celebrated oracle. The lines of Lucan, partly 
 quoted above (Pharsal. lib. ix. lin. 510. <fcc), describing the 
 te nple, and the refusal of Cato to visit it, and consult the 
 Fates respecting an enterprise, of the justice of which he 
 was convinced, are among the finest and best known por- 
 tions of his poem. 
 
 AMMO'NIA. Volatile alcali. This important compound 
 is chiefly produced artificially. It exists, combined with 
 acids, in some of the saline products of volcanos, and, in 
 very small quantities, it is discoverable in sea-water. It is 
 found in putrid urine and in the salts produced by the de- 
 composition of animal matter; it exists occasionally in 
 very minute quantities in the air, especially in large towns, 
 where pit-coal is burned; and the small stellated crystals 
 40 
 
 AMNESTY. 
 
 which are sometimes observed on dirty windows in Lon- 
 don, consist of sulphate of ammonia. 
 
 Ammonia was originally obtained (in the form of muri- 
 ate of ammonia) by burning the dung of camels, which 
 was collected for the purpose in Egypt, especially about 
 the temple of Jupiter Amnion (whence the term sal am- 
 moniac). It was afterwards procured by the distillation of 
 putrid urine : at present, the demand for ammonia in its 
 various states and combinations is in this country chiefly 
 supplied from two sources; the distillation of pit-coal, and 
 that of refuse animal substances, such as bone, clippings 
 and shavings of horn, hoof, &c. 
 
 When coal is distilled (see Gas), a large quantity of am- 
 moniacal liquor, as it is called, is formed, to which sulphu- 
 ric or muriatic acids are added so as to form a sulphate or 
 a muriate of ammonia. When the animal substances just 
 mentioned are distilled, a quantity of impure ammonia 
 passes off with the other products, which is also converted 
 into sulphate or muriate of ammonia. 
 
 Pure ammonia is obtained in the form of a gas, by heat- 
 ing a mixture of quicklime and muriate of ammonia. It 
 is very pungent and acrid; and so- soluble, that one mea- 
 sure of water absorbs nearly 500 of gaseous ammonia : this 
 solution is known under the name of liquid ammonia, and 
 is used in medicine. Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen 
 and hydrogen ; it consists of 
 
 Nitrogen - - 1 atom = 14 8235 
 
 Hydrogen - - 3 " = 3 17 65 
 
 1 17 10000 
 
 It is decomposed when passed through a red-hot tube, and 
 every 100 volumes of ammonia are resolved into 200 vol- 
 umes of a mixture of 3 volumes of hydrogen and 1 of 
 nitrogen. 
 
 Carbonate of ammonia is used in medicine as a stimu- 
 lant, and frequently employed, under the name of smell- 
 ing salt, as a restorative in faintness. It is obtained by sub- 
 limation from a mixture of muriate of ammonia and car- 
 bonate of lime. Muriate of ammonia has been above re- 
 ferred to as the common source of pure ammonia. Sul- 
 phate of ammonia is also manufactured for the same 
 purposes. 
 
 Ammonia is recognised by its pungent smell, by its tran- 
 sient alcaline effect upon vegetable colours, and by produ- 
 cing white fumes when approached by muriatic acid. 
 Thus, if we burn a piece of quill, and hold a glass rod 
 dipped in muriatic acid near the smoke of it, dense white 
 fumes appear, announcing the presence of ammonia, 
 formed by the action of heat upon the animal matter. 
 
 AMMO.M'ACOI. A gum resin used in medicine : it is 
 imported in drops and cakes from Africa and the East 
 Indies, and is said to be the produce of the Dorema ammo- 
 niacum. It is of a pale buff colour, and stands in the ma- 
 teria medica among the mildly stimulating but uncertain 
 expectorants. It is sometimes applied externally in the 
 form of a plaster. 
 
 A'MMONITE, AMMONITES. An extinct genus of mol- 
 luscous animals which inhabited convoluted chambered 
 siphoniferous shells, sometimes called Cornua ammonis, 
 and vulgarly snake-stones. From their affinity to the 
 nautilites, and the known organisation of the animal of the 
 pearly nautilus, fossil shells of this genus are referred to 
 the Tetrabranchiate order of Cephalopods, and constitute 
 the typical aenus of the second family of that order 
 (A/nmonitidtf). They are characterised by their conspi- 
 cuous whorls, and the marginal-external position of the 
 siphon. They abound in the strata of the secondary for- 
 mation, varying from the size of a bean to the dimensions 
 of a coach-wheel. Their name is derived from their re- 
 semblance to the horns upon the statue of Jupiter Amnion. 
 
 AMMONI'TID.E. A family of Cephalopods, with cham- 
 bered syphoniferous shells, characterised by the septa 
 being sinuous, with lobated margins. 
 
 AMMO'NIL'M. A name given by Davy to the hypotheti- 
 cal base (supposed to be metallic) of ammonia. Accord- 
 ing to the hypothesis of Berzelius, ammonium is a com- 
 pound of 1 volume of nitrogen with 4 volumes of hydrogen. 
 
 AMMO'PHILA. (Gr. djxfioi, sand, and fi\toi, I lore.) 
 The name of a genus of hymenopterous insects, called 
 sand-wasps. The generic characters are, proboscis conic, 
 inflected, concealing a bifid, retractile, tubular tongue ; 
 jaws forcipated, 3 toothed at the tip ; antennae filiform in 
 each sex, with about 14 articulations ; eyes oval ; wings 
 plane: sting pungent, concealed within the abdomen. 
 
 AMMUNTTION. In Military Language, signifies all sorts 
 of warlike stores and provisions, but more especially pow- 
 der and ball. 
 
 A'MNESTY. (Gr. d[iV7i<TTia,oblirion.) In Politics, free- 
 dom from penalty, granted by a solemn act to those guilty 
 of some crime. Usually, by an act of amnesty is meant 
 one passed to comprehend a number of individuals guilty 
 of offences of a political nature, as rebellion, <Src. Among 
 remarkable amnesties in modern European history, may 
 be cited, that granted on the restoration of Charles IL, from
 
 AMNION. 
 
 which were excepted those concerned in the death of 
 Charles I. ; that granted on the second restoration of the 
 Bourbons, in January, 1816, from which, besides the regi- 
 cides, several others were excepted by name ; and the law 
 ofamnesty for political offences in France, in 1836. 
 
 A'MNION. (Gr. djivos, a lamb.) The membrane which 
 surrounds the foetus in utero : it includes a thin watery 
 fluid, the liquor amnii. 
 
 A'MNIOS. In Botany, a thin, semitransparent, gelatin- 
 ous substance in which the embryo of a seed is suspended 
 when it first appears, and on which the embryo appears to 
 feed in its early stages. Sometimes it is wholly absorbed; 
 sometimes a portion of it is solidified in the form of albu- 
 men ; occasionally, as in the cocoa-nut, a portion is consoli- 
 dated into albumen, and a portion remains always in a fluid 
 state. 
 
 AMNIOTIC ACID. An acid supposed to be peculiar to 
 the liquor amnii of the cow, but now known to belong to the 
 liquor of the allantois. 
 
 AMO'MEjE. (See Amomtjm.) One of the names of the 
 plants more commonly called Zingiberaceae. 
 
 AMO'Ml'M. (hhamama, Arabic; dutouov, of Ihe Greeks.) 
 A Zingiberaceous plant, with aromatic Beeds, much em- 
 ploy. d under the name of cardamoms, grains of Paradise. 
 &c. The species occur exclusively in the hottest parts of 
 India and Vfrica. 
 
 VMO'KI'JKH S (f.'r. ii, without, and //oc^ij, form.) 
 Bodies devoid of regular forms. 
 
 Wll'l.l ,I'DE i: Botany, air. duircAos, a vine.) One 
 of the names of the natural order Vitaces. 
 
 A'MPELIS. The name of a Linnsean genus ol '' 
 rine birds, characterised by a straight convex beak, of which 
 the upper mandible is the longer, and is Bubincurved, and 
 emarginate on both sides. The Bohemian chatter 
 Wax-wing (An , Linn . is a well known spe- 
 
 ties of this genus ; but is referred in the recent systems of 
 Ornithology to a distinct section or subgenus, retaining the 
 name ofBombycilla, originall) applied to it by Brisson. 
 
 LMPHI'BIANS, AMPHI'BIA (Or. dn<pt, both, and 
 0io(,lij'e ; having the faculty of existing both in water and 
 on laud. ) In modern Zoology . this term i- restricted in its 
 
 application to those animals which | is for 
 
 breathing water, and organs for breathing air, or gills and 
 
 lines conjointl M cold-bl led annuals, from the 
 
 slowness of their circulation and the great capacity of their 
 lungs in proportion to-the . ice which alters the 
 
 chemical state of the contained an-, can remains long 
 under water without being ne< e i ited to Beek the surface 
 for a fresh supply : such are all the Verti brata called Rep- 
 tiha by modern zoologists, and which Linnteus, from the 
 mentioned faculty, included under the term Amphi- 
 bia : yel if these animals were kept sub fer than 
 the period necessary for rem wing the air in then- lungs, 
 owned : th< j ire, not 
 strictly atnphihious. Not so, liowe\ n; with dial Bmall por- 
 tion ,,i the order which retain their branchiffi throughout 
 lite ; these perennibranchiate reptiles Buffer nothing from 
 
 a prolonged aquatic existence, hut. on the contrary, are 
 most affected by a too long continuance on dry laud ; a de- 
 siccation of their external fringed ndls. according to 
 recent experiments on the Siren lacertina, occasioning 
 th sir death Those warm-bloodi I mammalia which 
 their general form and locomotive instruments adapted for 
 aquatic life, as whales, porpoisi s, wain Is, are, 
 
 from tic rapidity of their circulation and the prodigious 
 
 of the vascular and respiratory membrane of the 
 lungs, still more dependent upon a fresh supply of air for 
 
 their existence than the pulmonale! reptiles, and are COn- 
 
 n a true amphibious organ- 
 n, This is. iii ' ',all propor- 
 
 tion of the animal kingdom ; besides the perennibranchiate 
 reptiles, a few species of mollusca, as the \ i pullaria, and 
 ■ cts and cm stai nples. 
 
 AMPHI'BIOLI'TE. (Gr. du<j>i6ia, and"A(0oc. a stone.) 
 The name given by Linnteus to the parts of reptiles, or am- 
 phibia, which were changed to a fossil substance, 
 
 AM'PHIBOLE. air du<pi6o\os, equivocal.) A name 
 which some mineralogists apply to hornblende, because il 
 may be mistaken foraugite. 
 
 kMPHIBO'LI. In Ornithology, the name of a family of 
 Bcansorial birds, in the system of tlliger, including those in 
 which the external posterior toe is versatile. 
 
 AMPHIBO'LOGY. (Gr. du<bt, about, and Aoj og. dis- 
 course.) In Rhetoric, an equivocal phrase or sentence, of 
 which the sense may bear more than one interpretation. 
 
 AMPHI'CTYO'NIC COUNCIL. This was a congress 
 of the deputies of twelve northern Greek tribes, viz. Thes- 
 salians, Boeotians, Dorians, Ionians, Perrhaibians, Mag- 
 netes. Locrians, CEnianians. Achasans of Phthia, Malians, 
 Phocians, and Dolopians, or Delphians. In the Dorians and 
 Ionians were included the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, 
 who each sent one deputy. Each of these tribes had two 
 representatives in the council called die Hieromnemon 
 (itpoavrjuoiv) and Pylagoras (~v\ayooag). The congress 
 41 
 
 AMPHITHEATRE. 
 
 met twice every year ; in the spring at Delphi, and at Ther- 
 mopylae in the autumn. Its functions do not seem to have 
 been of a political nature further than to see that no n em- 
 ber of the union was destroyed ; but were chiefly directed 
 to religious matters, and more especially the protection of 
 the temple of the Delphian Apollo. The principal ancient 
 authorities which we possess respecting the objects and 
 constitution of the amphictyonic council, are to be found 
 in the orations of ^chines and Demosthenes: the loth 
 book of Diodorous Siculus; 9th of Strabo ; and 10th of 
 Pausanias. See also Ant Van Dale's Dissertatiane*, 
 Amst 1702; Paper by Valois, in the Mem. at HAc.des 
 Inscriptions, $c. iii. 191. v. 405. ; St Croix, lies Gouverne- 
 mens Federatifs ; Tittmann's Prize Essay on the Amphic- 
 tyo>is ; and Midler's Hist of the Dorians. 
 
 AMPHIGA'MOUS. (Gr. umpt. in the sense of doubtful, 
 and ; n/ioc. marriage.') The most imperfect of all plants, 
 having no trace whatever of sexual organs. They form 
 one of the classes in De Candolle's Natural System. (See 
 Botany > 
 
 AMPHTPNEl STS. (Gr, du<ptf, on both sides, andwu, 
 I breathe.) Menem so calls a tribe of reptiles con pre- 
 hending those which have both Iuiil's and gills at the same 
 time, as the true amphibia orperennibranchiates. 
 
 AMPIIIPODS. (<;r. a/icjis. on Imth sides, and Trove, a 
 conformed.) The third order ofcrus- 
 - in Latreille's arrangement, and the only one in 
 which subcaudal natatory feel co-exist with sessile eves. 
 
 AMPHI'PROSTYLE. (Gr. du6i, both or double, rr'po, be- 
 m i lu Architecture, a term applied 
 pie 1 a\ ing a portico or porch in the rear as well as 
 the fn u ut coin'! ns at the sides. This species 
 
 of temple n. -. | the nun her ol four a lumns in 
 
 front and four in the rear. Ii differed from the temple in 
 antis, in having columns instead of anta? at the angles of 
 the portico. 
 
 ATUPHISB i: n \. (Gr, Auft, both, {Jaivsiv, to tralk.) 
 
 A genus of serpents or Ophidian reptili s, in which the 
 
 tail and in-ad are equally obtuse, and the scales of the head 
 
 i a to those on the back, as to render it difficult on 
 
 a cursor] inspection, to distinguish one extren itj of the 
 
 oi the other. Hence these reptiles havi 
 suppos' d to have the pmverof creeping backwards or for- 
 wards with equal facility. 
 
 AMPHI s< ||. or \MI'1HS<'I V\.< (Or. du<pi, about, 
 and dKia. shadow.) A term use. i by the ancient geogra- 
 phers, to denote the inhabitants of those climates in which 
 the shadows, at noon-day, fall in opposite directions at 
 
 different Unas of the year; that is to say. towards the 
 north, when the -mi at noon Is to the south of their zenith, 
 and towards the south when the sun is to the north of their 
 
 zenith. The t. rm consequent^ applies to the people who 
 live betwi pn the tropics. 
 
 AMl'HITIIK'ATHi: (Gr. dfifl, about, and Searnov, a 
 theatre.) In Architecture, a double theatre, or one of an 
 elliptical figure ; being, as its name imports, two theatres 
 joined at the line of the proscenium; by which contrivance 
 all the spectators, being ranged round on seats rising the 
 
 one above iln- icier, saw equally well what was passing in 
 
 the an □ i. or space inclosed by the lowest range of seals. 
 The origin of the amphitheatre was an ong the Etruscans, 
 to whom also are attributed the first exhibitions of gladiato- 
 rial fights. From these the Ron ana acquired the taste for 
 such bIkh s, which 'hey communicated to every nation 
 subject to their dot inion. Alhenams says, •■Ilomani, ubi 
 primu n lerunt, huic asciti artifices ab 
 
 Etruscis civitatibus fuerunt, ser autem, Indi omnes qui 
 nunc a Romania cell brari solent, Bunt instituU." (L. iv. 
 cap. 17.) The most extraordinary edifice remaining in 
 
 Rome is the amphitl allj called th n Coliseum. 
 
 \ land finished by his son Ti'us. Words 
 
 are inadequi te lo convey a satisfactory idea of its stupen- 
 dous and gigantic dimensions. 
 
 " Onm'i ( ... - amphitheatco, 
 
 Unum \>ro aniens fama loq lalur .pus," 
 
 says Martial. It covers five English acres and a quarter of 
 ground ; the walls are ol the height ol 166 feel ; it had seats 
 for 87,000 spectators, with standing room for 22,008 others: 
 
 and a vast arena, where thousands of gladiators and wild 
 beasts contended at once — 
 
 "Bulcher'd to make a Roman holiday!" 
 
 This magnificent ruin has Buffered much from earth- 
 quakes, and the destroying influence «f time; and to the 
 disgrace of the Papal government, it was allowed to be 
 used, in comparatively recent times, as a convenient quar- 
 rv, whence the materials of many modern edifices have 
 been derived.^Srill, however, its remains are such as to 
 astonish the spectator : 
 
 A ruin — yet what ruin ! From it? mass, 
 Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reat'd ; 
 
 Tet oft the enormous skeleton ye |»ass, 
 
 And marvel where the spoil couid have apper.r'd. 
 
 Latterly, more attention has been paid to the preserva-
 
 AMPHITRITE. 
 
 tion of this noblest monument of Imperial Rome. The 
 walls have been propped up in some places, and sentinels 
 have been placed for its protection. — Besides this amphi- 
 theatre there were three others in Rome, namely, the Am- 
 phitheatrum Castrense, probably built by Tiberius, on the 
 Esquiline ; that of Statihus Taurus ; and that built by Tra- 
 jan, in the Campus Martius. The other principal amphi- 
 theatres were those of Otricoli, on the Garigliano, of brick, 
 Puzzuoli, Capua, Verona, the foot of Monte Casino, Paes- 
 tum, Syracuse, Agrigentum, Catanea, Argos, Corinth, Pola 
 in Istri'a, Hipella in Spain, Nismes, Aries, Frejus, Saintes, 
 and Autun. This last has four stones, similar in that re- 
 spect to the Coliseum. But that in the most perfect stale 
 is the amphitheatre of Verona, which, with the exception 
 of the exterior wall, is still perfect. The first that were 
 erected, were, as we learn from Pliny, constructed of 
 wood, and usually seated in the Campus Martius, or in 
 some place out of the city. Accidents occurring from 
 their insecurity, they were abandoned for the more sub- 
 stantial species of fabric whereof we have been speaking. 
 The first person who is said to have erected an amphithe- 
 atre in Rome, was Caius Scribonius Curio, in the games 
 he gave to the people on the occasion of his father's fune- 
 ral obsequies. Determined to surpass, in the way of 
 games, all that had hitherto been seen, he constructed two 
 theatres of wood, back to back, which, after the theatrical 
 representations had been finished, were turned round witli 
 the spectators still in them, leaving the stages and scenery 
 behind, and, by their opposite junction, forming a perfect 
 amphitheatre, in which the people were gratified with a 
 show of gladiators. The part in which the gladiators 
 fought was called the arena, from being usually covered 
 with sand to absorb the blood spilt in the contlicts for 
 which it was used. The arena was encompassed by a wall, 
 called the podium, fifteen or sixteen feet in height, imme- 
 diately round which sate the senators and ambassadors. 
 As in the theatres, the seats rose at the back of each other; 
 fourteen rows in the rear of the podium being allotted to 
 the equites, and the remainder for the public generally, 
 who sate on the bare stone, cushions being provided for 
 the senators and equites. Though generally open to the 
 sky, there were contrivances for covering the whole space 
 with a sort of awning. The avenues by which the public 
 entered were many in number, and bore the name of 
 votnitoria. See the work of Maffei, Degli Amjiteatri ; and 
 the section on Amphitheatres in his learned and excellent 
 work, Verona Illustrata. The modern history of the Coli- 
 seum is given at considerable length in Hobhouse's Illus- 
 trations to Childe Harold. 
 
 AMPHITRI'TE. The name of a genus of cephalo- 
 branchiate or tubicular Annelides, characterised by golden- 
 coloured short bristles, arranged like a crown, in one or 
 two rows, on the anterior part of the head. One species 
 inhabits the south coast of England, and forms for its habi- 
 tation a very delicate, straight, conical tube of grains of 
 sand, agglutinated together by the mucus exuded from the 
 skin : this is the Amphitrite auricoma. 
 
 AMPHI'TROPAL. (Gr. du(j>i, round, and rpswo), I turn.) 
 In Botany. This is said of an embryo which is turned 
 round albumen, or curved upon itself in such a manner 
 that both its ends are presented to the same point. 
 
 AMPHIU'ME, AMPHIU'MA. A genus of true amphibi- 
 ous reptiles, with a persistent branchial orifice on each 
 side of the neck ; palatal teeth in two longitudinal rows; a 
 lengthened body, and fourrudimental extremities, each di- 
 vided either into three ortwo toes according to the species. 
 
 AM'PIIORA. (Gr. dpmopeoi, two-handled.') In Sculp- 
 ture and ornamental Architecture, a vase or measure hav- 
 ing two handles, used as a measure for liquids by the 
 Greeks and Romans: they are frequently applied as orna- 
 ments on sarcophagi, <fcc. 
 
 Amphora. A kind of earthenware vase with two han- 
 dles, used by the Romans to hold wine and other liquids. 
 Also a liquid measure, containing probably about nine gal- 
 lons ; but its exact size is not satisfactorily made out. 
 
 AMPLE 'Xir YUL. (Lat. amplecto, Iembrace, aud cau- 
 lis, a stem.) A leaf or bract whose base projects on each 
 side, so as to clasp the stem with its lobes. 
 
 AMPLIFICATION. In Rhetoric, the lengthening a dis- 
 course or a passage by the enumeration of minute circum- 
 stances, the employment of epithets, particularity of de- 
 scription, &c, with a view to produce a deeper impression. 
 Exaggeration is properly a species of amplification, in 
 which circumstances and facts are not merely dwelt upon, 
 but represented beyond their true dimensions. 
 
 AM'PLITUDE. In Astronomy, denotes the angular dis- 
 tance of a celestial body, at the time it rises or sets, from 
 the east or west points of the horizon. The amplitude of a 
 fixed star remains the same all the year round ; that of the 
 sun or moon is constantly changing. At a given latitude, 
 it depends on the declination of the object. Amplitude is 
 sometimes used to denote the horizontal distance to which 
 a projectile is expelled from a gun, or what is more fre- 
 quently termed the range of the gun. 
 42 
 
 ANABAS. 
 
 A'MULET. A substance worn about the person, and 
 supposed to have the effect of protecting the wearer 
 against some real or imaginary evils. Those of the Per- 
 sians and Egyptians are said to have been small cylinders 
 ornamented with figures and hieroglyphics. The Greeks 
 and Romans employed for the same purpose a great va- 
 riety of gems and small figures of deities, heroes, or ani- 
 mals, the bulla, and various other articles. Some of these 
 were hung around the necks of children, to defend them 
 from the evil eye. In more modern times, scraps of paper 
 or parchment inscribed with verses of the Bible, or with 
 magical characters and jargon, have often been used for 
 the same purposes. The celebrated Arabian talismanic 
 medals are called by the Arabs Ain, from the first letter of 
 the inscription always beginning with that character. 
 
 AMYGDA'LEiE. (Gr. d/xvyda'Xoi', an almond.) A di- 
 vision of Rosaceous plants, con prehending the peach, the 
 plum, the apricot, and similar objects. The species have 
 all a lleshy or succulent fruit, gum in their bark, and hy- 
 drocyanic acid in their leaves. They occur principally in 
 cold and temperate latitudes. 
 
 AMY'GDALOl'D. (Gr. duvy&aXov, an almond, and 
 d6o$, a form.) Almond-shaped. The term is applied to 
 certain rocks in which other minerals are occasionally im- 
 bedded like almonds in a cake. 
 
 AMYRI'DA'CEiE. Balsamic exogenous plants, consist- 
 ing of shrubs or trees, found almost exclusively in the Tro- 
 pics. Bdellium, balsam of copaiva, gum elemi, and balsam 
 of Tolu, are all produced by species of this order, the type 
 of which is the genus amyris (myrrha, myrrh.) 
 
 ANA. A termination of the neuter plural form in Latin, 
 used in English and French to denote anecdotes of emi- 
 nent persons, or selections from their works. The first of 
 the French collections termed "Ana," and from which 
 that denomination originated, is the Valesiana ; containing 
 detached observations on passages of classical antiquity by 
 the celebrated scholar Valois, orValesius: it appeared at 
 Paris in 1695. The Menagiana (Paris, 1715) is a more 
 amusing work, consisting of anecdotes, criticisms, and 
 miscellaneous observations on all possible subjects, attri- 
 buted to the academician Menage. The popularity of this 
 work produced a multitude oi'other "Ana:" among which 
 may be mentioned the Huetiana, 1723 ; the Scaligerana, 
 Thuana, Poggiana, and a variety of similar books, consist 
 ing of extracts from the works of distinguished writers, or 
 of thoughts or sayings attributed to them. 
 
 Ana, or AA (contracted from ana). In Medical pre- 
 scriptions, implies "of each." 
 
 ANABA'PTISTS. Properly, all sects are so called, that 
 insist upon the repetition of baptism' upon admission into 
 their communion, from a notion of the invalidity of the re- 
 ligious eeremonies of other denominations. There were 
 several such in the early period of the church, as the Ca- 
 taphrygians and Novatians : but they are to be distinguished 
 from the sects which arose in the 15th and the beginning of 
 the 16th centuries, under the papal dominion, especially in 
 Germany ; and adopted, in their ignorance and fanaticism, 
 preposterous notions of the qualifications requisite for ad- 
 mission into the visible church. Their idea of primitive 
 society consisted in the rejection of all the customs and 
 decencies of life ; in the community of goods and of wo- 
 men ; in uncompromising hostility to all n odes of artificial 
 life, and to government generally, as the foundation and 
 sanction of social distinctions. They had, of course, no in- 
 dulgence for the ordinances of any church but their own, 
 and required baptism for themselves as the essential pre- 
 liminary for admission within their pale. Early in the 
 progress of the Reformation, finding their numbers daily 
 increasing under the licentiousness of opinion which the 
 unrestricted abuse of private judgment produced among a 
 rude and uneducated people, they united in a hostile league 
 against all existing institutions, and declared open war 
 against the government? of Lower Germany. After com- 
 mitting the greatest atrocities, and causing an universal 
 panic throughout Europe, their progress was arrested by a 
 complete defeat in Saxony, in which their leader, Muncer, 
 perished. The remnant, however, escaping, established 
 their opinions with more or less moderation of tone in Hol- 
 land and elsewhere. Some of the party seized, soon after, 
 upon the town of Munster, overthrew the magistracy, and 
 established society upon their own principles: but eventu- 
 ally were put down with great slaughter. (See, as to the 
 Munster Anabaptists, Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, 
 sect. ii. part ii. c. 3, where reference is made to the best 
 works on the subject.) It should be observed, that the 
 anabaptists were not dependent upon religious views only 
 for their support, but that the war soon assumed the cha- 
 racter of a struggle between the lower and upper classes; 
 and the enormities committed by the insurgents must be 
 attributed as much to revenge for oppression as to religi- 
 ous fanaticism. (See Baptists.) 
 
 A'NABAS. A genus of Acanthopterygious fishes, in 
 which the surface of the pharynx is broken into numerous 
 little branched appendages and cells, capable of retaining
 
 ANABLEPS. 
 
 water, and of gradually dropping it into the branchial eavi- 
 tv, so as to moisten the gills: whereby these fishes have 
 the curious faculty of voluntarily quitting the water, 
 creeping about on land, and even, it is said, of climbing 
 trees. The only known species (Anabas testudineus) is 
 the Perca scaiidens, or climbing perch, of the older 
 naturalists. 
 
 A'NABLEPS. (Gr. dvafTKriro), Iraise the eyes.) Aname 
 applied to a genus of malaeopterygian viviparous fishes. 
 characterised by a remarkable projection of the eyes from 
 the sides of the head, and a si ill more singular structure of 
 the cornea and iris, from which there result two pupils. 
 and the eyes appear to be double on each side, although they 
 have but one crystalline lens, one vitreous humour, and one 
 retina. 
 
 ANACLA'STICS. (Gr. dva, up, and x\ao}. F break.) 
 Tliat part of Optics in which the refraction of light is con- 
 sidered, commonly called Dioptrics. The term was ap- 
 plied by Desmairau to the apparent curves formed by the 
 bottom of a vessel when looked at through a bodv of water. 
 
 anai \ KM \ '( I. E A natural order of exogens, 
 founded upon the Anacari tale, or cashew nut. 
 
 ists of tropical trees, often abounding in a fluid resin 
 of extreme acridity, but forming a valuable varnish in some 
 cases. Marking nuts, the fruit of Semicarpas anacardium, 
 black Burmi'ii varnish from Melanorhcea usitati 
 mastich, Bcio turpentine, pistacia nuts, sumach, are all pro- 
 du-i-'i by various species of this extensive natural order. 
 
 AN WIHiKITE. See Anchorite. 
 
 ANA'CHRONISM. (Gr. dva, backward, and \oovos, 
 time.) An inversion or disturbance in the order of time : 
 ■ re, in Shakspeare's King John, cannon are intro- 
 duced, which were not in reality employed until a hundred 
 years afterwards 
 
 ' V'NACOLU'THON. (Gr. dvaico'XovOov, not following .) 
 A Grammatical term, denoting the want of sequence in ;i 
 sentence, one of whose members corresponds not with the 
 remainder. This figure recurs more frequently in the 
 Greek than in any other language. 
 
 \\ \ i i:i;o'NTIC In Poetry.a speciesof ode devoted 
 chielly to the praises of love ami wine; — 
 
 " Quid nisi cnm multo Tenerem eonfundere vino, 
 Prfficiplt lyrici Tela musa Senis r 
 
 The name is derived from Anacreon ofTeos, who flour- 
 ished in the sixth century b. c. The genuineness of tin- 
 Odes which pass under Irs name, bas, however, been ques- 
 tioned by soi critics; but Bomeof them are, at all events, 
 
 very ancient ; and they bave been universally admired for 
 their simplicity and sprightliness ; — 
 
 *' All thy verse is softer f.ir 
 Than the downy feathers are, 
 ■vtngs, or of my arrows. 
 Of my mother's doves and sparrows ; 
 Graceful, cleanly, smooth, and round, 
 All with Venus' girdle bound.' ' 
 
 The poems of Anacreon have been rendered familiar to 
 the English reader by the translations of Cowley and 
 Moore. The best editions of the original are those of l-'is- 
 cher and Brunck. 
 
 WI.stmi SIA. (Gr.d, without. nnddoOavouat. : 
 Diminution or loss of the sense of touch. 
 
 ANAGLY'PHIC. (Gr. dva, upon, and yXv<f>a>, I aire.) 
 In antique Sculpture, chased or embossed work on metal, 
 or any thing worked in relief When raised on stone, the 
 production is a cameo. When sunk or indented, it isadia- 
 glvphic or an intaglio. 
 
 ANAGNO'STA. (Gr. dvayivwaieo), Tread.) A domes- 
 tic servant employed by wealthy Romans to read to them 
 at their meals and on oilier occasions. The ancient monks 
 and clergy preserved the same custom, and name. 
 
 A'NAGRAM. (fir dva,back,a.n&ypa<po>,Iwrite.) The 
 most proper, and most difficult, species of anagram is that 
 which is formed by the reading of die letters of a word or 
 words backwards : as " evil," " live." 
 
 11 Live, vile, aod evil, bave the self-same letters ; 
 
 He lives but V ile, Whom evil holdfl In tellers.'' 
 
 A less perfect anagram is that which is made by trans- 
 position of letters ad libitum : and an anagram in which the 
 transposition is helped out by the admission of letters not 
 in the origin::! word, or the rejection of some of those which 
 it contains, is termed impure. The manufacture of ana- 
 grams, particularly out of proper names, formed a favour- 
 ite exercise of ingenuity in the 16th and 17th centuries ; 
 when a common mode of flattery was by inventing some 
 complimentary transposition of the letters of the name of 
 
 the person addressed. Dm n fthe anagrams of that 
 
 period exceed, in felicity, Dr. Burney's on Lord Nelson : 
 '•Horatio Nelson/' "Honor estaNilo." Of all the extrava- 
 gances occasioned by the anagrammatic fever, when at its 
 height, none probably equals what is recorded of an eccen- 
 tric Frenchman in the 17;h century, Andre* Pujom. He 
 read in his own name the anagram " pendu a Riom" (the 
 seat of criminal justice in the province of Auvergne), felt 
 43 
 
 ANALOGY. 
 
 impelled to fulfil his destiny, committed a capital offence 
 in Auvergne. and was actually hung in the place to which 
 the omen pointed. 
 
 ANAL. In Ichthyology, the fin which is placed between 
 the vent and tail, and expands perpendicularly. 
 
 ANAL GLANDS. Comp. Anat. Organs for secreting 
 substances, sometimes attractive, but generally repulsive in 
 their properties, and applied to purposes of defence ; they 
 present every grade of the glandular structure, from the 
 simple cfecum, or tube, to the conglomerate mass ; devel- 
 oped from, and consequently always opening into, I he ter- 
 mination of the intestine, near the anus. In insects, the 
 sweel fluid eject.-, 1 by the aphides, and of which the ants 
 are fond, is, at least in some species, the product of secern- 
 ing tubules opening near the anus. Odorous substances, — 
 sometimes fragrant, sometimes fetid,— are in different spe- 
 cies of insects respectively emitted from the same part; 
 and the singular defensive acrid vapours discharged explo- 
 sivelv by the insects called "bon bardiers," are the pro- 
 ducts of anal glands. In the mollusks, the most remarka- 
 ble example of the anal glands is presented by the higher 
 organised cephalopoda, where they are represented gene- 
 rally hv a single, sometimes by a bilohed or trilobed, cyst, 
 With pari of its paiietes spongy and glandular, and which 
 
 - the inky fluid which these animals eject to i lacken 
 the water around them for the i urpose of concealment in 
 time of danger. Among fishes, an anal bag opens by a sin- 
 gle narrow duct, as in cephalopoda, into the tern ination of 
 
 urn. in rays and sharks: but it no longer exercises 
 
 the funel ofa Beeerner of colouring matter. In reptiles, 
 
 the anal bags are either single, double, or triple: and in 
 many species, as in frogs and tortoises, are developed to a 
 great size, and serve for aquatic respiration. In crocodiles 
 they are two in number, and emit into the cloaca a n uco- 
 casi ous si cretion, without any strong odour. In birds, the 
 anal follicles have a similar function, bul the] art 
 
 gated into B single cavity, which is called the -bursa l'abri- 
 
 cii." hi quadrupeds, the anal follicles are generally col- 
 lected into two Bacciform groups, each having an opening 
 be verge of the anus. The insupportably disgusting 
 
 Of the secretion Of these glands has n ' 
 
 of the viverrine quadrupeds, as the skunk, Ac., proverbial ; 
 
 in others, tl lour is not stronger than serves to attract 
 
 the individuals of the same species to one another, which 
 is the common function of the anal glands in this class of 
 animate. , , 
 
 \\ \l. VALVES. A mechanical structure fordefendffig 
 the terminal orifice of the Intestii oi the cepha- 
 
 lopods, which swim forward--, from the retrograde entrance 
 of foreign or noxious substances. This mechanism is re- 
 quired from the position and direction of the anal opening, 
 which i< turned forwards towards the base of the funnel or 
 respiratory channel. 
 
 A\ \ I.UME. A variety of zeolite, which by Inchon 
 weakly electric : from dvaXxis, weak. 
 
 W\i i i i \ a servant In great Roman houses, whose 
 
 duty it was to collect the scraps after a meal : whence he 
 
 derived in- ii from the Greek dvaXeyw, 1 j 
 
 a\\m;MM\ (Gr. &va\au6av<a,Itakeup.) In Geom- 
 etry. An orthographic projection of the sphere on the 
 
 plane of the meridian. In this projection the eye is sup- 
 posed to be placed at an infinite distance. Every great cir- 
 cle whose plane is pertiendic ularto the plane of projection, 
 —the horizon, for example,— is represented by the chord 
 which forms its diameter. A small circle parallel to the 
 plane of projection, is represented by a circle. Every cir- 
 cle, great or small, of which the plane when produced does 
 not pass through the eye, or is nol perpendicular to the 
 plane of projection, will be seen obliquely and trader the 
 form of an ellipse. Analemma also denotes an instrument 
 of brass or wood on which the projection is made, (the 
 of projection being the solstitial eolure,) with a 
 Orizon attached to it. by means of which son e of the 
 common astronomical problems may be solved, though not 
 very exactly. Ptolemy wrote a treatise on the Analemma, 
 Of which there is a Latin translation from an Arabic ver- 
 sion, with a commentary by Commanding According to 
 Delambre, it contains onlv some complicated rules for 
 computing the true values of the arcs of the sphere from the 
 straight lines bv which they are represented on the ana- 
 lemma. Since "the invention of trigonometry, contrivances 
 of ibis sort have become useless. 
 
 A'NALE'PSY. (Gr. dva\oaSavay.) A species of epi- 
 leptic attack of sudden and frequent recurrence. 
 
 \N VLE'PTK'. A restorative medicine. 
 
 A'NALOGUE. A bodv that resembles another. A fos- 
 sil shell of the same species as a recent one, is its ana- 
 logue. 
 
 \N \T.OGY. (Gr. dva\oyo£. according to rule or propor- 
 tion ) lu Geometrv, signifies the same thing as proportion, 
 or the equably or s'imilitude of ratios. (.See Proportion, 
 and Ratio.) . , , , 
 
 \\ \i ogy. In modern Zoology, this term is restricted to 
 the relation which animals bear to one another in the
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 Similarity of a smaller proportion of their oreanisation : 
 thus, the Ascalaphus italicus. in the length and knobbed ex- 
 tremities of its antenna?, the colouring of its wings, and its 
 general aspect, exhibits a striking resemblance to a butter- 
 fly ; but in all the essential parts of its organisation it ad- 
 heres to the neuropterous type of structure ; its relation to 
 the Lepidoptera is therefore said to be one of analogy, 
 while it is connected to the ant-lions by the order of affini- 
 ty. As it has been found in some instances, that two se- 
 ries of animals, arranged according to the greater amount 
 of resemblances, or the relation of affinity, are connected 
 to another by analogical resemblances at given points of 
 the series, the relation of analogy has been regarded as dif- 
 fering from that of affinity not only in degree, but in kind. 
 If a zoologist, for example, were led, by a too superficial 
 glance at the external resemblances of two animals, to 
 place them in the same series contiguous to one another, 
 and it were discovered that the resemblance was but skin- 
 deep, or limited to a temporary state of being, as a stage of 
 metamorphosis, but. contradicted by a dissimilarity of a 
 greater proportion of the internal organisation, then it 
 would be said that he had mistaken a relation of analogy 
 for one of affinity ; a phrase which the reader, however, 
 will readily perceive, merely expresses the fact, that a 
 false judgment had been formed, from not taking into 
 consideration the whole of the points of comparison ne- 
 cessary for determining the mutual relation of animals to 
 each other. 
 
 Analogy. In its Rhetorical sense, signifies a similarity 
 of two things in their relation to a third, though there may 
 be the greatest difference in their structure, form, colour, 
 &.c. : tli us, a hat is analogous to a turban, and both are 
 analogous to a bonnet, having a similar relation to the head 
 of the wearer. In this sense, a porpoise is analogous not 
 only to a fish, but to every other animal which habitually 
 moves and seeks its food in the water. It often happens, 
 however, in Zoology, that a similarity of relationship to a 
 medium of locomotion, a kind of food, &c., is accompanied 
 with a certain amount of corporeal and organic resem- I 
 blauce; and this is necessary to constitute an analogy in 
 the zoological sense, though by no means in the strictly 
 logical application of the word. 
 
 Akal03y. In ordinary Language, denotes a relation or I 
 similarity between different things in certain respects. ! 
 The conclusions to which we are led concerning one thing, 
 by reasoning from our experience concerning another si- 
 7'ilar thing, form what i* termed analogical knowledge. ' 
 The word analosy is generally employed to designate an j 
 imperfect degree of similarity. Thus, a physician, argu- \ 
 ing from the effects which he had seen produced by a drug i 
 on one man, to its probable effects on another man, would ! 
 be said to reason from experience : but reasoning from the ■ 
 effects produced on an inferior animal, to the probable j 
 effects on man, would be, more properly, reasoning by : 
 analogy. — In Rhetoric, the word analogy is employed in "a i 
 somewhat stricter sense ; it designates,"not the specific re- ', 
 semblance between two objects, but a resemblance be- 
 tween the relations in which they stand to other objects. I 
 Thus, to term youth " the dawn of life," is said to be a me- ( 
 taphor by analogy ; not because of any actual resemblance | 
 between youth and morning, but because the one is to life, j 
 what the oiher is to the day. — In Mathematics, analogy | 
 signifies the similitude of certain proportions.— In Gram- | 
 mar, it means a conformity in the principles of organisa- i 
 tion of different words or collections of words. 
 
 ANA'LYSIS. (Gr. dva\vu, Idissolve.) A Greek word ! 
 which signifies the resolution of a thing into its component 
 parts. — In Logic, analysis is used in opposition to synthesis, 
 as a method of arriving at adequate definitions. In the 
 synthetical method, we begin by assuming some quality 
 which the subject is known to possess. Finding this to be 
 common to other subjects than the one we wish to define, 
 we add on some further property and so on, until we have 
 adequately distinguished it from all other things. Thus, 
 man is an animal, man is a hot-blooded animal, man is a 
 hot-blooded viviparous animal, <fec. <tc, may be taken 
 as a specimen of a synthetical process. In analysis we 
 should reverse the method ; assuming the most distin- 
 guishing characteristic, and descending, through succes- 
 sive gradations, to that which is least so. Correspondently 
 with this distinction, an analytical proposition is one in 
 which the subject is implied in the predicate ; e. g. " mat- I 
 ter is extended." A synthetical proposition, on the con- 
 trary, is that in which the terms have no necessary con- 
 nection : e. g. "John is tall:" "the world is round." As 
 applied to mental phenomena, analysis is the referring 
 them to the acts or faculties of the mind which they ne- 
 cessarily imply, either as contemporaneously contribut- 
 ing to tlieir production, or as rendering their production 
 possible by their past operation. 
 
 The distinction frequently made between analytic and 
 synthetic reasoning, rests on a somewhat vague use of lan- 
 guage. Strictly speaking, all reasoning can be but of one 
 kind. A process of ratiocination admits, however, of being 
 44 
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 reversed : i. e. we may make certain assumptions, and 
 from them form certain legitimate deductions: and we 
 may then proceed to take the truths thus deduced for 
 granted, and by a counter-process arrive, as inferences, at 
 what, in the former case, were the grounds from which wc 
 started. Here it is evident that the distinction lies not in 
 the reasoning, but in the subject-matter concerning which 
 we reason. 
 
 Analysis. In Chemistry, this term is applied to the re- 
 solution of compound bodies into their elements. It is 
 either qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative analysis con- 
 sists in the determination of the component parts, merely 
 as respects their nature, and without reference to their re- 
 lative proportions: it is an imperfect, and often a very easy 
 operation, as compared with quantitative analysis, by which 
 we determine not merely the components of a compound, 
 but their relative proportions: to effect this, much scien- 
 tific skill and practical dexterity are required, more espe- 
 cially in the identification of new substances. The theory 
 of definite proportionals, or the Atomic Theory, as it is 
 usually called, has materially facilitated many analytical 
 processes, and is especially valuable in furnishing an 
 unerring test or criterion of the general accuracy of the 
 results. 
 
 hi reference to chemical analysis generally, but more 
 especially as regards organic products, we often employ 
 the terms proximate and ultimate analysis : the former 
 referring to the immediate combinations which form the 
 subject of experiment ; the latter, to their final resolutions 
 into elementary principles. Thus, in regard to sulphate of 
 lime, it is resolved by proximate analysis into sulphuric 
 acid and lime, and these are called its proximate elements ; 
 but sulphuric acid is itself a compound of oxygen and sul- 
 phur; and lime, of oxygen and calcium; oxygen, sulphur, 
 and calcium, therefore, are the results of the ultimate 
 analysis of sulphate of lime ; and there are many theoreti- 
 cal points in chemistry dependent upon the views which 
 are taken of the various groupings of these ultimate princi- 
 ples. Wheat flour is a compound of starch and gluten ; 
 starch is compounded of oxygen, hydrogen, and carbon ; 
 and gluten, of the same elements with the addition of ni- 
 trogen ; so that the ultimate components of wheat, are ox- 
 ygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen. See Rose's Practi- 
 cal Treatise on Chemical Analysis ; Griffin's Blowpipe 
 Analysis. Ac. 
 
 Analysis. In Geometry, a method of conducting ge 
 ometrical inquiries, invented by the philosophers of the 
 school of Plato, or, according to Theon of Alexandria, by 
 Plato himself, and one of the most ingenious and beautiful 
 contrivances in the Mathematics. The essence of the ana- 
 lytic method of establishing the truth of a proposition con- 
 sists in assuming the proposition enunciated to be true, 
 and deducing consequences from that supposition till a 
 conclusion is arrived at manifestly true or manifestly false ; 
 or at least known to be true or false by its agreement or 
 disagreement with some proposition which lias already 
 been demonstrated. Analysis is thus the converse of syn- 
 thesis, or composition, — a "form of reasoning by which we 
 ascend, through a series of propositions, from some known 
 truth to the conclusion we are in search of. The distinc- 
 tion between analysis and synthesis, as well as the defini- 
 tion of the two terms in the sense in which they were un- 
 derstood by the ancient geometers, is concisely given by 
 Pappus, in the Preface to the Seventh Book of his Mathe- 
 matical Collections. "Analysis."' says Pappus, "is the 
 course which, setting out from the thing sought, and which 
 for the moment is taken for granted, conducts by a series 
 of consequences to something already known, or placed 
 among the number of principles admitted to be true. By 
 this method, therefore, we ascend from a truth or a proposi- 
 tion to its antecedents ; and we call it analysis, or resolu- 
 tion, as if indicating an inverted solution. In synthesis, on 
 the contrary, we see out from the proposition which is the 
 last in the analysis : and proceed by arranging, according 
 to their nature, the antecedents which present themselves 
 as consequents in the analytic method, and combining 
 them together till we arrive at the conclusion sought. Ana- 
 lysis may be distinguished into two kinds : in the first, 
 which maybe called contemplative analysis, we propose to 
 discover the truth or falsehood of an affirmed proposition : 
 the other belongs to the solution of problems, or the inves- 
 tigation of unknown truths. In the firstwe assume the 
 subject of the proposition advanced to be true, and proceed 
 through the consequences of the hypothesis till we arrive 
 at something known. If this result is true, the proposition 
 is true also, and the direct demonstration is obtained by 
 stating in an inverse order the different parts of the analy- 
 sis. If the ultimate consequence at which we arrive is 
 false, the proposition was also false. In the case of a pro- 
 blem, we first suppose it to be resolved, and deduce the 
 consequences resulting from that proposition till we arrive 
 at something known. If the last consequence involves 
 only something which can be executed, or is comprised 
 among what geometers called data, the proposed problem
 
 ANALYSIS. 
 
 can be solved ; and the demonstration, or rather in this 
 case the construction, ie obtained, as in the former case, by 
 taking the different parts of the analysis in an inverse or- 
 der. If the last result is impossible, the thing demanded is 
 also impossible." 
 
 The names of the ancient writers on the geometrical ana- 
 lysis have been preserved by Pappus in the preface before 
 referred to : they are, Euclid, in his Data and Porismata ; 
 Apollonius, in his treatise De Sectione Rationis, and in his 
 Conic Sections; Aristaus, De Locis Solidis ; and Eratos- 
 thenes, De Mediis Proportionalibus ; but of these only the 
 Data of Euclid and some fragments of Apollonius, have 
 come down to our times. The subject has, however, been 
 fully investigated by the moderns, and a complete system 
 of the ancient geometrical analysis may be found in the 
 works of Dr. Simson of Glasgow. (See also Leslie's Geo- 
 metrical Analysis.) 
 
 By the term analysis the ancient geometers understood a 
 certain mode of reasoning altogether independent of signs 
 or symbols, and which might be carried on by ordinary 
 language. In its modern acceptation, analysis is synony- 
 mous with algebra, or the calculus, and is opposed, not to 
 synthesis, but to geometry. In this sense the original 
 meaning of the word is entirely lost sight of: and, instead 
 of being used to denote a particular mode of reasoning, it 
 rather indicates the instrument by which the reasoning is 
 carried on. Algebra may be employed with advantage, 
 whether the method of demonstration be analytical or syn- 
 thetical. 
 
 One great advantage arising from the use of algebra in the 
 solution of geometrical questions, consists in this, — that the 
 demonstration is reduced to certain rules, and carried on 
 by systematic processes; in consequence of which, the 
 analyst, having reduced his problem to equations, can ge- 
 nerally determine at a glance, whether the solution is pos- 
 sible o'r not. It must be admitted, that the demonstral a 
 
 of many of the propositions of elementary geometry by the 
 ancient methods have a peculiar elegance which the alge- 
 braic methods cannot always reach ; but. in point of power 
 and applicability, the modern analysis is vastly superior to 
 the ancient. "The geometrical synthesis," says I.aplace, 
 "has the advantage of never losing sight of its object and of 
 
 illuminating the whole path which leads from tiie first ax- 
 ioms to their last consequences; whereas the algebraic 
 analysis soon causes us to forget the principal object in or- 
 der to occupy us with abstract combinations. But in thus 
 isolating the objects, after having abstracted from them 
 what is indispensable to arrive at the result he is in search 
 of, in abandoning himself to the operations of analysis, and 
 reserving all his forces to overcome the difficulties which 
 it presents, the analyst is conducted to results inaccessible 
 to synthesis. Such is the fecundity of analysis, that it is 
 sufficient to translate particular truths into this universal 
 language, in order to perceive a series of other new and un- 
 expected truths arise from their mere expressions. No 
 language is equally susceptible of the elegance which re- 
 sults from the development of a long series of expressions 
 intimately connected with one another, and all flowing 
 from the same fundamental idea Analysis also unites 
 with these advantages that of being always capable of lead- 
 ing to the simplest methods ; for tliis purpose it is only re- 
 quired to apply it suitably, by a skilful choice of indeter- 
 minate quantities, and to give the results the form the most 
 convenient for geometrical construction or numerical cal- 
 culation. Modern geometers, convinced of the superiority 
 of analysis, have especially applied themselves to extend 
 its domain, and enlarge its limits." — (Exposition, du Sys- 
 teme du Monde, 4to. p. 423. ) 
 
 Analysis is in general the instrument of invention ; and it 
 Is supposed, not without reason, that tt*e greater part of the 
 discoveries, for which the mathematicians of the 17th cen- 
 tury were distinguished, were made by its means, though 
 they were given to the world in a synthetical form. It is 
 evident, from the posthumous works of Pascal and Rober- 
 val. that they tirst obtained the solution of many of their 
 problems by the method of indivisibles, and afterwards de- 
 monstrated" the truth of their results in the manner of the 
 ancients. Newton himself thought that a mathematical 
 proposition ought not to be made public, or was not fit to be 
 seen, till invested in a synthetic dress. Synthetic demon- 
 stration is now rarely met with in any other than the most 
 elementary works ; the algebraic analysis has become the 
 ordinary instrument of mathematical investigation. " Ne- 
 vertheless," says Laplace, " geometrical considerations 
 ought not to be entirely abandoned ; they are of great utility 
 in the arts. Besides, it is interesting to figure to one's self 
 in space the divers results of analysis ; and reciprocally to 
 read the affections of lines and surfaces, and all the varia- 
 tions of the motion of bodies, in the equations which ex- 
 press them. This connection of geometry and analysis 
 throws a new light over both sciences ; the intellectual ope- 
 rations of the latter, rendered sensible by the former, are 
 more easily apprehended, and more interesting to follow ; 
 and when the imagination realises these images, and trans- 
 45 
 
 ANATHEMA. 
 
 forms geometrical results into laws of nature ; when those 
 laws, while they embrace the universe, unveil to our eyes 
 its past and future conditions; the sight of this sublime 
 spectacle affords the noblest of the pleasures reserved for 
 the human race." — (Exposition du S'yste?ne du Monde, p. 
 424.) 
 
 ANAMORPHO'SIS. (Gr. dva, bachieard, and fiop<pv, 
 form. ) A term employed in Perspective, to denote a draw- 
 ing executed in such a manner that, when viewed in the 
 common way, it presents a confused or distorted image of 
 the thing represented, or an image of something entirely 
 different ; but when viewed from a particular point, or as 
 reflected by a curved mirror, or through a polyhedron, it 
 recovers its proportions, and presents a distinct represen- 
 tation of the object 
 
 Anamorphosis. In Botany, when any part assumes an 
 appearance unusual with it. The calyx of the rose as- 
 suming the appearance of a fruit, the stipule of a prosopis 
 become spiny, the stem of a cactus when succulent and 
 tube-like, are cases ofanamorphosis. 
 
 ANA'NAS (Ananas. Brazilian.') The plant that pro- 
 duces the delicious pineapples of the gardens. It is of 
 South American origin, but has been gradually dispersed 
 through similar climates till it has become apparently wild 
 in Africa and many parts of Asia, especially the Malayan 
 Archipelago, where it arrives at a greater degree of excel- 
 lence than in its native woods. 
 
 ANA'NDROUS. (Gr. d, without, and dvrjp (genitive 
 dvSpos), a male or stamen.) When llowers are destitute of 
 Stamens, they are usually called female flowers. 
 
 A'NAPjEjST. (Gr. dvaTTouorof.) A foot in Greek and 
 Latin metre, consisting of two short syllables followed by a 
 long, being the name of the dactyle. 
 
 ANA'PIIORA. (Gr. dva(pop'a, raising up.) In Rheto- 
 ric^ repetition of words or phrases at the commencement 
 "i >eritences or verses. Thus in Cicero, Verr. iv. c. in., 
 Verres calurnniatores apponebat, Verres adesse jubebat, 
 1"< r/v.N' eognoscebcU, l- rres fudicabat. 
 
 ANAPLoTIIK'Ull M. Set Anopi.otherh-m. 
 
 A'NARCHY. (Gr. d, without, dp\u>, Igovern.) In Poli- 
 tics, the constitution of a country' in which not only lawful 
 government, but regular government de facto, is supersede, I 
 by force. Ifernc Milton metaphorically terms his personi- 
 fied Chaos an " Anarch." 
 
 ANARKHI'CHAS. A name conceived by Gesner and 
 applied by Linnreus to a genus of spiny-finned osseous 
 fishes, characterised by having their mandibular, palatine, 
 and vomerine bones armed with large osseous tubercles, 
 bearing on their summits small enamelled teeth ; anterior- 
 ly the jaws support longer and more conical teeth: by 
 means of this powerful dental apparatus the species ofthis 
 genus, which inhabit*, the northern seas, called the "wolf- 
 fish," is enabled to break and bruise the testaceous defen- 
 sive coverings of shellfish, the soft parts of which form its 
 ordinary food 
 
 fl/NAS, (Lat. anas, a duch.) The name of a Linnajan 
 germs of Anserine birds, characterised by a large, broad, 
 Obtuse bill, furnished at the margin with' numerous thin, 
 transverse, projecting plates; and an obtuse papillose or 
 ciliate tongue. The subdivisions ol this extensive group of 
 web-footed birds, which were indicated by Linna?us. have 
 since been raised to the rank of genera (see Anatid.*:), and 
 the term Anas is now restricted to the species which pre- 
 sent a flattened bill, the base of which is always of greater 
 breadth than depth, as wide (or wider) at the extremity as 
 at the beginning; with nostrils placid nearer the upper 
 margin and base of the bill. The legs are shorter and 
 placed farther hack than in the goose (Anser); they have a 
 shorter neck, and the windpipe is dilated at its lower end 
 into two osseous capsules, of which the left is usually the 
 larger. The ducks, thus characterised, are subdivided in- 
 to those which have the hind toe provided with a mem- 
 brane, and those in which it is naked. Both divisions are 
 again broken up into numerous minor groups, which are 
 distinguished by generic terms. 
 
 AN ASA'RCA. (Gr. dva, through, and aap\, flesh.) A 
 diffusion of water through the cellular membrane of the 
 limbs, as in dropsv. 
 
 ANA'SToMo'SIXO. When two parts, growing in dif- 
 ferent directions, meet and grow together, as the veins in 
 leaves. 
 
 AXA'STOMO'SIS. (Gr. dva, through, and cropa, a 
 mouth.) The communications of the vessels of the body 
 with each other. 
 
 ANA'STROPHE. A name given in Classical Philology 
 to some species of inversion (see Inversion) or departure 
 from the usual order of succession in words. From the 
 Greek dva<TTOC(fioj, I overturn or invert. Such phrases as 
 mecum, vobiscum, &c, in which the preposition follows 
 the word governed by it, or in which it is placed between 
 two words governed bv it. &c, are instances of anastrophe. 
 
 ANATHEMA. (Gr. dvadzua.) Properly, a thing laid 
 by, consecrated, or devoted : hence a person upon whom 
 the ban of the church is laid, is said to be anathematised, 
 H
 
 ANATID^E. 
 
 or In the Jewish phrase, to be "anathema." St. Paul 
 says, " If we or an angel from heaven preach any other 
 gospel to you than that which we have preacherl, let him 
 he anathema:" and upon the authority of this and similar 
 passages, the church assumed from the first the power of 
 anathematising or excommunicating evildoers and heretics. 
 
 AXA'TIDjK. The name of a family of web-footed 
 birds, of the swan, goose, and duck kind, of which the ge- 
 nus Anas is the type. 
 
 ANA'TOMY. (From dva, through, and teuvo), I cut.) 
 This term literally means dissection, but is generally under- 
 stood to signify a knowledge of the internal structure of 
 the human body, in the acquisition of which dissection is 
 essentially necessary. The anatomy of other animals is 
 usually designated Comparative Anatomy ; and that of 
 plants, Vegetable Anatomy ; which see. 
 
 Although some anatomical knowledge must have been 
 accidentally acquired by the earliest inhabitants of the 
 globe, and although there are several allusions in the early 
 books of the Old Testament to the subject, no dissections 
 of the human body were performed with a view to ascer- 
 tain the position and structure of its internal organs, or to 
 elucidate their functions, till a much later period. 
 
 Homer has, it is true, been complimented, and in some 
 respects justly so, for the precision with which he de- 
 scribes the wounds of his heroes ; and the ancient Egyp- 
 tians are said to have acquired great anatomical skill by 
 their practice in the art of embalming ; but these, and simi- 
 lar statements, have no bearing upon the pursuit of anato- 
 my as a science, or in connection with surgery, medicine, 
 and physiology. Thales, Socrates, Xenophon. and Plato, 
 are each quoted by anatomical historians, as having ac- 
 quired no inconsiderable anatomical knowledge ; Plato is 
 even said to have anticipated the celebrated discovery of 
 the circulation of the blood. " The heart," he says, " is 
 the centre of the blood-vessels, the spring of the' blood, 
 whence it flows rapidly round : blood is the pabulum of 
 the llesh, in order to the nutriment of which the body is 
 intersected by canals, like those of gardens, to convey the 
 blood like water from a fountain, to the remote parts." 
 
 The first author who is supposed to have written on hu- 
 man anatomy is Hippocrates ; and the first recorded dis- 
 section was, probably, made by his contemporary Demo- 
 critus of Abdera. This carries us back to about 400 years 
 before the Christian era, from which period, to that of Ga- 
 len, (that is, in the space of 600 years,) little progress 
 seems to have been made in the knowledge even of the 
 structure and position of the viscera of the body, much less 
 in their uses and diseases. 
 
 It would appear from Galen that the most eminent anato- 
 mists of antiquity were Erasistratus and Herophilus, who 
 taught anatomy in the celebrated school of Alexandria, 
 and are said to have been the first who were authorised to 
 dissect human bodies : hence, probablv, the high rank 
 which the school, founded by the Ptol'emies, acquired, 
 and maintained for several hundred years. The works of 
 the above-menticned anatomical professors have been lost, 
 but they are abundantly quoted by their more immediate 
 successors. 
 
 Among the Romans the first anatomist was, probably, 
 Asclepiades, who flourished in the time of Pom pey ; and 
 soon afterwards Rome became a celebrated seat of medi- 
 cal science. Celsus, Aretseus, and Galen, are the orna- 
 ments of this period ; especially the latter, as an anato- 
 mist; though it appears probable that his descriptions 
 were often taken from dissections of inferior animals, and 
 applied to the corresponding organs of the human body : 
 it is, however, said, that he anticipated many subsequent 
 discoveries, and that a great part of his writings were for a 
 long time unintelligible, till cleared up and explained by 
 the labours of his successors. 
 
 During the dark ages anatomy sustained the fate of other 
 branches of knowledge ; and, with few exceptions, little 
 progress was made in it, till the revival of learning in Eu- 
 rope ; the prejudice, too, aeainst the dissection of the hu- 
 man body was not only maintained, but sanctioned by the 
 highest existing authorities. In the year 1315. a System of 
 Anatomy was "drawn up by Mundinus, chiefly, it is said, 
 founded upon such parts of Galen's doctrines as had been 
 preserved by the Arabians. This work deserves notice, 
 as having been the anatomical text-book of the schools of 
 Italy for a period of nearly 200 years. Mundinus is, in- 
 deed, celebrated by his contemporaries as the restorer of 
 anatomy. Early in the fifteenth century, when learning 
 began to revive in Europe, in consequence chiefly of the 
 introduction of the writings of the Greek authors, nume- 
 rous treatises on the Sciences made their appearance, 
 amongst which anatomy formed a prominent subject ; and 
 among its most successful followers, the name of the cele- 
 brated Leonardo da Vinci may be recorded, although lie 
 apparently only pursued it in reference to his own art. 
 (See the sketches annexed to Memoire Storiche di L. da 
 Vinci, by C. Amoretti, Milano, 1804.) In reference to some 
 of the drawings and their descriptions, preserved m the li- 
 46 
 
 ANATOMY. 
 
 brary of George ni., and which he had access to, Dr. Hun- 
 ter observes, that he saw with astonishment that Leonardo 
 had been a deep student, " and was at that time the best 
 anatomist in the world." We must give the fifteenth cen- 
 tury the credit of Leonardo's anatomical studies, as he was 
 fifty -five years of age at its close. At the beginning of the 
 sixteenth century Berengarius and Massa wrote upon hu 
 man anatomy; but such was the authority of Galen even 
 at that time, that few dared publish any statement or opin- 
 ions contradicting those of their infallible master. About 
 the middle, however, of the sixteenth century, this spell 
 was broken by the celebrated Vesalius of Brussels, who 
 taught anatomy at Paris and Lcuvain, and afterwards in 
 Italy. He boldly demonstrated the errors of Galen ; de- 
 scribed accurately the dissections of the body, corrected 
 and improved anatomical nomenclature, and insisted upon 
 the necessity of diligence and actual observation in dissec- 
 tion, as the only solid foundation of successful medical and 
 surgical practice. He had many opponents, and is said to 
 have been detected in the very mischievous error for 
 which he blames Galen ; namely, that of describing the 
 human viscera from dissections made upon quadrupeds. 
 
 Among the most remarkable contemporaries or imme- 
 diate successors of Vesalius, were Fallopius and Eusta- 
 chius, — the former of Padua, the latter of Venice ; whose 
 names, as annexed to their discoveries, have been handed 
 down to posterity. Indeed, the schools of Italy seem to 
 have been the only accessible sources of practical anatomy 
 at that period : in France and England an antipathy to dis- 
 section prevailed, which was fatal to all anatomical im- 
 provement. Cortesius. who wrote at the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century, and who, after having been professor 
 of anatomy at Bologna, filled the chair of medicine at Mas- 
 sana, complains that he was prevented finishing a treatise 
 on Practical Anatomy, in consequence of having only been 
 able twice to dissect a human body in the course of twen- 
 ty-four years, " whereas in the academies of Italy there is 
 that opportunity once every year." 
 
 About this time the name of the renowned Harvey be- 
 comes conspicuous in the annals of anatomy : he, like his 
 most eminent contemporaries, studied medicine in Italy. 
 Fabricius ab Aquapendente, who was his master, had just 
 made the highly important discovery of the valves of the 
 veins ; and it was this which, probably, more especially di- 
 rected Harvey's attention to the use of the heart, and the 
 vascular system : for at that time the liver was considered 
 as its great centre, and the veins were supposed to convey 
 the blood from it to the remote parts of the body. Har- 
 vey's great discovery of the circulation of the blood was 
 taught by him in his lectures as early as 1616, though not 
 published till 1628, in consequence of his desire to demon- 
 strate the subject in detail, and to collect proofs and illus- 
 trations of the correctness of his doctrines. This discovery 
 was not only of vast intrinsic importance, but, as is the 
 case in all similar instances, it led to others; and the route 
 of the blood had no sooner been traced and described, 
 than the manner in which the nutritious part of the food is 
 conveyed into the circulationbecame an object of research : 
 this was successfully developed by Asellius, an Italian phy- 
 sician, in the year 1627. He was so fortunate as to see the 
 lacteals filled with chyle, and to trace them to their com- 
 mon trunk, the thoracic duct, and thence into the blood- 
 vessels. The lymphatic system was also soon afterwards 
 detected, and first described by T. Bartoline, a Danish ana- 
 tomist ; and tins was followed by important details bearing 
 upon the anatomy of the gravid uterus and of the genera- 
 tive system, in which nearly all the celebrated anatomists 
 of Europe had a share ; and among them Harvey was con- 
 spicuous, though Dr. Hunter attributes, with apparent in- 
 justice, his knowledge upon this subject, and even the 
 merit of detecting the use of the arteries, to his master 
 Fabricius. The physiology of generation was more espe- 
 cially followed up by Swammerdam, Malpigbi, and Leuen- 
 hoek, who were enabled greatly to extend the bounds of 
 anatomical knowledge by theif ingenious use of the mi- 
 croscope. 
 
 Although England has produced many celebrated anato- 
 mists, there is no one to whom it is so deeply indebted as 
 Dr. William Hunter, who was born in 1718, at Kilbride, in 
 Lanarkshire, and was contemporary with the celebrated 
 Cullen. Dr. Hunter went to London in 1741, taking with 
 him an introduction to Dr. Douglas, who was then engaged 
 in a work upon the bones, and was in search of a young 
 man who might assist in his dissections. He found in 
 William Hunter a person so exactly suited to his purpose, 
 that he not only engaged him as an assistant, but received 
 him into his family and made him his son's tutor. As our 
 object here is to give a brief historical Outline of Anatomy, 
 rather than the biography of its successful cultivators, we 
 must pass over many interesting points in Dr. Hunter's 
 early history, tiil he came before the public as an anato- 
 mist, which was in the year 1743. when he communicated 
 to the Royal Society an Essay '■ On the Structure and Dis- 
 eases of Articulating Cartilages;'-' and was remarked for
 
 ANATOMY. 
 
 hl9 diligence, Ingenuity, and skill in the arrangement of . 
 anatomical preparations, of which he had accumulated a 
 considerable collection, with aview of pursuing his favour- 
 ite object, namely, that of publicly teaching anatomy. He 
 commenced this arduous bisk in 1746, under the auspices 
 of Mr. Sharpe, of Covent Garden, in whose theatre he 
 made his first appearance as a public lecturer. In 1717 he 
 became a member of the Corporation of Surgeons; and in 
 the spring of the following year, having concluded his 
 course of lectures, he accompanied his pupil, Mr. James 
 Douglas, into Holland and France. He returned in time 
 to begin his winter course, during which he not only ac- 
 quired a high character as an anatomist, but commenced 
 the practice of midwifery, in which he soon attained emi- 
 nence, founded not merely upon his person and address, 
 both of which were agreeable and well suited to that line 
 of the profession, but upon his anatomical skill; so thai, in 
 all cases of danger and difficulty it soon became customary 
 to call in his aid In this respect his celebrity became so 
 extended, that he afterwards acquired great and merited 
 reputation as a general anatomical physician. In 1762 Dr. 
 Hunter entered into a spirited vindication of his claims to 
 certain anatomical discoveries, in a work entitled •' Medi- 
 cal Commentaries :" and in the same year he was ap- 
 pointed physician to the queen of George III. His profes- 
 sional avocations now became so numerous and urgent, 
 that he was obliged to take a partner in his lectures, and for 
 that purpose selected his pupil, William Hewson, who af- 
 terwards joined Mr. Cruickshank, two gentlemen whose 
 names occupy no unimportant place in the history of 
 practical and structural anatomy. 
 
 In 1754 Dr. Hunter began his great and splendid work 
 on the l; Anatomy of the Gravid I'terus," which was not 
 completed till 1775. This gave him a high rank among 
 European anatomists, and foreign and domestic honours 
 were abundantly conferred upon him Inconsequence; but 
 
 it is to the establishment of his Museum, and Bel I, that 
 
 we arc principally to look for the new Impulse which was 
 given to the study of anatomy in London, ami for the cele- 
 brity which that metropolis lias since maintained. The ac- 
 countof the origin and progress of tins Museum.therefore, 
 deserves to be briefly recorded here. When Dr. Hunter 
 had acquired a competent fortune, the result entirely of 
 his high professional merit and unwearied diligence, he 
 found wealth slill pouring in upon him, and became desi- 
 rous of applying this surplus to some great national pur- 
 pose of public utility; anil what more important or useful 
 than a "Metropolitan School of Anatomy |" He accord- 
 ingly, in tin 1 year 1765, during the administration ol Mr 
 Grenville, presented a memorial to that minister, in which 
 he requested the grant of an unemployed piece of ground 
 near the King's Mews, at Charing Cross, for the site of his 
 intended building; upon which he undertook to expend 
 7000/. and to endow a professorship of anatomy in perpe- 
 tuity. After waiting for some time without a reply, 
 he renewed his request, or rather repeated his pro- 
 posal ; and his second application, which was even in 
 more liberal terms than the former, shared the same su- 
 percilious treatment. Although disgusted, as he well 
 might be, at this unaccountable neglect, he determined 
 that the town in which he had acquired his wealth and re- 
 putation should not be without some useful and honorable 
 memorial of his labours : he accordingly purchased apiece 
 of ground in Great Windmill Street, near the I lay market, 
 where he erected a spacious dwelling-house, behind which 
 was a magnificent fire-proof room, fitted up as a museum 
 and library, and communicating with a good anatomical 
 theatre, and an extensive series of apartments for dissec- 
 tion and for the preparation of anatomical specimens. 
 This building was completed in 1770. 
 
 Dr. Hunter expended upon this Museum a sum exceed- 
 ing 20,000/. : it included, besides its unrivalled anatomical 
 treasures, a splendid and valuable collection of books, coins, 
 medals, and antiquities; of minerals, shells, and other ar- 
 ticles of natural history. By his will, the use of this Mu- 
 seum, under the direction of trustees, devolved upon his 
 nephew, Dr. Matthew Baillie ; and in case of his death, to 
 Mr. Cruickshank, for the term of thirty years; at the end 
 of which period the entire collection was bequeathed to 
 the University of Glasgow, together with a sum of 8,000/. 
 for its preservation. Dr. Hunter died on the 20th of March, 
 1783 ; so that his will, in regard to his Museum, has long 
 since been carried into effect, and it is now in Glasgow. 
 To say nothing of the books, antiquities, and objects of 
 natural history, it contained, when sent to its final destina- 
 tion, the finest series of anatomical specimens in Europe. 
 Thus, through the apathy of the administration of that day, 
 was this unrivalled collection lost to the metropolis. Dr. 
 Hunter's munificent intentions must, however, never be 
 forgotten : he furnishes a noble and rare example of a man 
 who, as soon as he had rendered himself independent by 
 his own exertion, in a laborious and difficult profession, ap- 
 plied the whole of his large income to a great public ob- 
 ject; and, though thwarted in his original desire, that it 
 47 
 
 ANATOMY. 
 
 should remain In the metropolis in which the fortune ex- 
 pended upon it had been amassed, as a monument of his 
 gratitude, and an example to his successors, he was, never- 
 theless, sufficiently liberal and patriotic to devote it to the 
 use of the public, by bequeathing it to the university which 
 had granted him his degree. 
 
 Dr. Hunter not only gave a new impulse to anatomical 
 science, the effects of which have been transmitted to the 
 present time, but his zeal in behalf of his favourite pur- 
 suit tended to make many converts. Among these, the 
 celebrated John Hunter stands foremost. Hearing of his 
 brother's reputation, he offered his services as an assist- 
 ant in his inquiries, and his proposal was kindly accepted. 
 Accordingly, in September, 1748, he left Lanarkshire, being 
 then twenty years of age. His disposition to excel in 
 anatomical pursuits soon became evident. In the course 
 of the succeeding year he had rendered himself sufficient- 
 ly master of the subject to instruct his brother's pupils in 
 the dissecting-room ; and in 1755 was admitted to a part- 
 nership in the lectures. His ardour and enthusiasm as an 
 anatomist were most extraordinary, and he became as 
 eminent in surgery as his brother was in physic ; yet his 
 more lucrative professional avocations were never allowed 
 to supersede his scientific zeal ; and the result was, the 
 formation of a Museum of Comparative Anatomy, which 
 is at once a memorial of a scientific mind and a skilful 
 hand. Mr. Hunter died suddenly on the 16th of October, 
 1793, at the age of 65. He directed by his will that his Mu- 
 seum, upon which he had expended nearly the whole of 
 his large professional income, should be offered to the 
 purchase of the Englisl i government; and, fortunately for 
 the credit of the country, the proposal met with a very dif- 
 ferent reception to that which we have above recorded in 
 reference to his brother. It was purchased for the sum of 
 15,000/., and made over, under certain conditions, which 
 have been not only faithfully, but liberally, fulfilled, to the. 
 
 Royal College of Surgeons in I. Ion. It is one of the 
 
 most splendid collections in the world, and in many re- 
 
 spects unrivalled ; it is open. ler proper regulations, to 
 
 public inspection, in the magnificent building erected by 
 the College for its reception, on the south Bide of Lincoln's 
 Inn Fields 
 
 Another convert to anatomical pursuits, educated in the 
 School Of William Hunter, was his nephew, the late Mat- 
 thew Baillie. His virtues and Ins talents placed him high 
 in public estimation; his anatomical knowledge was the 
 foundation of his professional eminence: and the excel- 
 lence of his lectures, both as regards matter ami manner, 
 tended to exalt the reputation of his uncle's school, and to 
 establish the importance of anatomy as the basis of medi- 
 cal, no less than o| surgical practice. 
 
 We have dwelt upon the llunterian School, from the 
 conviction that it gave a character to anatomical pursuits, 
 which has materially and beneficially influenced their snh- 
 aequenl progress, not only in London, but throughout the. 
 kingdom. Their importance and their necessity as the 
 basis of the sciences of medicine and surgery are now 
 publicly felt and acknowledged ; the aversion to the dissec- 
 tion of "the human body is on the wane; and the degrading 
 and disgraceful practice of allowing the schools of anato- 
 my to be supplied with subjects for dissection, by the re- 
 volting process of exhumation, has been superseded. 
 
 Human anatomy is usually subdivided into descriptive, 
 and mm hid, or, more correctly, pathological. 
 
 Descriptive Anatomy embraces a description of the dif- 
 ferent organs of the body, together with their relative situa- 
 tions ami connections; it examines the textures of which 
 they are formed, enumerates the nerves and vessels by 
 which they are supplied, and gives all general and particu- 
 lar details concerning their organisation. Having done 
 this, it proceeds to the analogies that subsist among the 
 materials of which different organs are composed ; and is 
 thus led to specify the proximate constituent parts of the 
 living body. 
 
 Morbid or Pathological Anatomy comprehends all that 
 relates to the effects of disease upon healthy structures ; 
 and carefully traces and describes the changes of texture 
 and of composition which they thus suffer, in reference to 
 the entire organ, as well as to its individual parts. 
 
 We shall now proceed to give a short description of the 
 parts of which the human body is constructed, referring 
 for the account of individual organs to the separate terms 
 under which they are enumerated. 
 
 Anatomical teachers generally first direct the student's 
 attention to that branch of the subject which is termed 
 Osteology ; in other words, to the bones or skeleton, con- 
 stituting' the hardest and most durable part of the whole 
 structure, and that which gives it its stability and general 
 form. At the period of birth, the bones, for obvious rea- 
 sons, could not exist with the degree of induration and 
 firmness which they possess in the adult ; we accordingly 
 find that, at that period, they are mostly soft and flexible, 
 resembling cartilage, with certain specks of osseous matter, 
 which gradually extend and increase, as the process of
 
 ANATOMY. 
 
 ossification advances during the growth of the yonng ani- 
 mal. In contemplating this bony skeleton when it has thus 
 become perfect, we are struck with the admirable adapta- 
 tion and mutual connection of the various parts of which it 
 consists ; the separate bones being extremely numerous, 
 (including the teeth, amounting to about 250,) and attached 
 to each other by unequal surfaces, the cavities and emi- 
 nences of which mutually correspond. These connec- 
 tions, termed articulations, are extremely various ; some 
 admitting of every variety of motion, others of limited mo- 
 tion, and others, as it were, continuously united. In the 
 former case the evils of friction are perfectly provided 
 against by the peculiarity of the articulating surfaces, which 
 are covered with an extremely smooth and elastic sub- 
 stance, called cartilage ; and lubricated, or as it were oiled, 
 by a slippery fluid termed synoviu, which here performs 
 precisely the same office as that of the various anti-atlri- 
 tions which are used in machinery. But as the bones must 
 be more or less restricted in their range of motion, there 
 are peculiar means by which that end is attained : some 
 being prevented from changing their relative situations by 
 certain modes of articulation ; others, where a slight mo- 
 tion is required, being united by cartilage ; and others, 
 where extensive and varied motions are wanted, being con- 
 nected by ligaments, membranes, or flesh. Ligaments are 
 white, fibrous, glistening, and flexible substances, occurring 
 in an infinite variety of forms and situations. They are, for 
 the most part, exterior to the joint, and, by their great 
 strength and trifling elasticity, preserve the relative position 
 or connection of the bones in their various movements. 
 Membranes are thin, whitish webs or textures, more flexi- 
 ble and elastic than ligament. They not only assist in the 
 security and motion of joints, but fulfil a variety of other of- 
 fices. They surround or line the cavities and the organs of 
 the body, and contribute to unite and combine the whole ; 
 and) at the same time, interpose and preserve a distinc- 
 tion, enabling separate parts either to co-operate or to act 
 independently of each other. They vary in strength and 
 texture, and different terms are applied to them in different 
 parts of the body : two within the skull are called matres; 
 those which envelope muscular fibres are called aponeu- 
 roses ; that which covers the lungs and lines the cavity of 
 the chest is termed pleura ; that which lines the cavity of 
 the abdomen and its included viscera is named peritoneum ; 
 those which inclose articular surfaces are termed capsules; 
 that which covers bone, periosteum ; and, in other cases, 
 they are called coats, or tunics. The remaining substance 
 concerned in the connection of the bones is flesh : it is 
 thus, that the upper extremities are connected with the 
 body, and that many of the joints are rendered secure. But 
 flesh performs another and more important office, inasmuch 
 as it constitutes a principal part of the organs termed mus- 
 cles, through the medium of which the various movements 
 of the body are effected. Many of the muscles contain, be- 
 sides flesh, a substance analogous to ligament, through the 
 medium of which they are attached to the bones, and to 
 which the term tendon IB applied : muscles and tendons are 
 composed of bundles of fibres, which maybe unravelled to 
 extreme minuteness; and when what appears to be a sin- 
 gle fibre is viewed under the microscope, it resembles a 
 chain of infinitely small globular particles. But though the 
 muscles are the immediate organs of motion, they are de- 
 pendent for their powers of contraction and relaxation upon 
 the nerves with which they are supplied. These, when 
 separately examined, appear in the form of white cords or 
 threads ; and, when traced to their origin, are found to is- 
 sue as it were from the brain, and from its elongation, 
 termed the spinal marrow. The trunks of the nerves are 
 subdivided into branches, and these again into filaments, 
 which enter into, and are, as it were, lost in the substance 
 of the muscles and other organs of the body. Their func- 
 tions are in some cases obedient to, and in others indepen- 
 dent of, the will : to the former belong the nerves of the lo- 
 comotive muscles ; to the latter, those of the heart, viscera, 
 &c. When they are divided, the peculiar functions of the 
 organs which they supply are impaired or impeded : thus, 
 the muscles may be deprived of the power of contracting, 
 the glands of secretion, the eye of sight, the ear of hearing, 
 and the skin of feeling. The nervous trunks, which issue 
 in pairs from the brain or spinal marrow, amount to about 
 forty ; and in tracing them and their branches, they are 
 found in certain different places to swell into knots, which 
 are termed ganglia., or they are reticularly aggregated into 
 plexuses. 
 
 Having thus shown how the bones are connected and put 
 into motion, and from what sources their motion is derived, 
 it may next be inquired how they and the other organs of 
 the body grow and are nourished. This brings us to con- 
 sider the blood and its vessels. 
 
 The composition and properties of the blood, and the ex- 
 traordinary changes which it suffers in its passage through 
 the pulmonary vessels, are elsewhere defined. (<S'ee 
 Blood, and Respiration.) Without this exposure to the 
 action of the air in the lungs, the blood is unfit for the sup- 
 43 
 
 ANATOMY. 
 
 port of life. We accordingly find that the heart Is so con- 
 structed as to propel the blood which it receives through 
 the structure of the lungs, and after it has there been aerated, 
 to transmit it over the body : in fact, the heart is a hollow 
 muscle : when it relaxes, its two principal cavities, or ven- 
 tricles, are enlarged, and the blood flows in ; when it con- 
 tracts, they are diminished, and the blood is propelled into 
 two large tubes or arteries, one leading to the lungs, and 
 called the pulmonary artery, and the other to the system 
 generally, and called the aorta : these arteries are not only 
 elastic, but also muscular, so that they drive the blood on. 
 wards from the heart, its retrograde motion being effectu- 
 ally prevented by valves placed at their origin. 
 
 The arteries are divided and subdivided into an infinite 
 number of ramifications ; and the branches from the same 
 trunk are frequently observed to unite or anastomose in 
 their course ; so that when, by any accident, some are ob- 
 structed, an adequate supply of blood may be kept tip by 
 the others. As, however, the blood cannot return to the 
 heart by these vessels or arteries, we find that they inoscu- 
 late, or communicate at their extremities with another se- 
 ries of tubes or vessels, which are called veins. These are 
 more numerous than the arteries, and generally accompa- 
 ny them in their course. They have a less muscular pow- 
 er ; and as they are not assisted by the heart in propelling 
 the blood, they open to it larger and larger channels as it 
 advances, and are supplied with valves by which its reflux 
 is prevented. This is, in fact, the circulation of the blood 
 (first made out by Harvey, as before mentioned) ; the veins 
 ultimately terminating in two large trunks which pour the 
 blood into the right auricle of the heart ; whence it is pro- 
 pelled into the right ventricle, from which arises the pul- 
 monary artery, transmitting it through the lungs ; from the 
 lungs the blood (having been aerated) returns by the pul- 
 monary vein into the left auricle of the heart, which con- 
 tracting, propels it into the left ventricle, from which arises 
 the aorta. Such, then, is the extraordinary mechanism by 
 which the circulation of the blood is effected ; but it must 
 not be supposed that the whole of the blood is thus directly 
 returned from the arterial into the venous system : a part 
 of it is transmitted by minute arterial ramifications into the 
 different structures and organs of which the body is com- 
 posed, each of which is gifted with the power of assimila- 
 tion, that is, of converting the blood, or a part of it, into a 
 substance of its own kind. Some of these minute or capil- 
 lary vessels also terminate upon the surface of the body, 
 where they exhale perspirable matter; others, upon the 
 membranes lining the cavities of the body, where they se- 
 crete the fluids which lubricate and moisten the interior sur- 
 faces ; and others again go to the glands, — those peculiar 
 organs or structures, which have not only the power of 
 separating certain parts of the blood, but of converting it 
 into new forms, which are called secretions, some of which 
 are ejected, others retained, for the purposes of the animal 
 economy. 
 
 Tims, then, it appears that the blood nourishes and pre- 
 serves the body and all its parts, and that it is continually 
 tending to the renovation and reproduction of the different 
 organs ; but this very process implies another, and no less 
 extraordinary, function, which is performed by a distinct 
 system ; namely, that of absorption. There are, in short, 
 a series of vessels which are continually carrying away the 
 useless and worn-out materials ; removing them in a state 
 of solution; furnished, like the veins, with valves ; termi- 
 nating in a common trunk, called the thoracic duct ; and 
 pouring its contents into the veins, just before they enter 
 the right auricle of the heart. 
 
 It appears, therefore, that a continual system of deposi- 
 tion and removal is carrying on within the living body ; that 
 the ramifications of the arterial system are constantly reno- 
 vating the different organs, whilst the absorbents are as 
 constantly removing the materials of which they consist. 
 Nothing, therefore, is stationary or permanent ; and as the 
 blood, on the one hand, conveys the materials required, so, 
 on the other, it receives those which are removed : and 
 such as are useless, or would be hurtful if retained, are 
 thrown off either by the intestines, the kidneys, the lungs, 
 or the skin. It now only remains to show how this waste 
 is compensated for, and by what means those materials 
 which are thrown off in one form are replaced in another: 
 this leads us to the functions of another branch of the ani- 
 mal machinery, called the organs of digestion ; those or- 
 gans, namely, by which the food is converted into blood. 
 
 Different animals require different kinds and quantities 
 of food ; some living almost exclusively upon animal, others 
 upon vegetable substances ; hence their division into car- 
 nivorous and graminivorous tribes. Man partakes of both ; 
 and, accordingly, the structure of his digestive organs is in- 
 termediate between the comparative simplicity of the truly 
 carnivorous, and the complexity of the graminivorous 
 classes. In all the higher orders of animals, however, the 
 mechanism of digestion is of a complicated character. 
 
 The first change which the food undergoes is in tha 
 mouth, where it is torn, ground, and moistened by ma-
 
 ANATOMY. 
 
 chlnery expressly adapted to those operations. The teeth 
 are admirably contrived for this purpose; some of them 
 cutting, and as it were mincing, others rubbing and grind- 
 ing, whilst a fluid is supplied by the salivary glands so as 
 to render the mixture of a proper consistency to be swal- 
 lowed : this is effected by the organs of deslutition : the 
 food is propelled from the mouih into the tube which con- 
 veys it to the stomach, and which is called the oesophagus ; 
 and is, at the same time, prevented, by an extraordinary 
 and complicated arrangement of the parts concerned, from 
 passing in any other direction, and, more especially from 
 entering the trachea or air-passage into the limns. In the 
 stomach the food is subjected to the secretions of that or- 
 gan, called gastric juice, which is acid, and by which it is 
 gradually converted into a greyish homogeneous semi-fluid 
 substance, termed chyme; bo that by the time the food 
 has reached the right end of the stomach, or the pylorus, 
 its original characters are entirely changed ; its Beparate 
 materials are no longer discernible, and it has acquired 
 distinct properties; it is. in short, digested. How these 
 changes are effected we know not, though many attempts 
 have been made to explain them upon chemical and me- 
 chanical principles. Dr. Hunter, in his Introductory Lec- 
 ture, has the following apposite remarks, in reference to 
 this and similar phenomena, " I must therefore expect,' 1 
 he Bays, "thai you will not hereafter he surprised, when 
 you find me avowing greal ignorance in many of the most 
 considerable questions relating to animal operations, such 
 as sensation, motion, respiration, digestion, generation, 1 c. 
 In my opinion, all these subjects are much less understood 
 than most people think them. Our vanity deceives us. and 
 
 Eersuades us thai we have gol the whole as soon as we 
 ave acquired a smattering of natural knowledge. Hence 
 it is that the different sects of physiologists have endea- 
 voured i" explain animal functions upon such different 
 principles. Hence, foi example, to account for digestion, 
 some have made the stomach a null ; Borne would have u 
 to be a stewing-pot, and some a wort-trough ; yet, all the 
 
 while would have thought thai it must ha\ e been \ ery 
 
 evident thai the stomach was neither a mill, nor a stewing- 
 pot, nora wort-trough, nor any thing bul a ' rniach." 
 
 When the fond ha> been thus far digested in the sto- 
 mach, it passes into the duodenum, or upper end of the 
 intestinal canal ; a tube, the whole length of which is aboul 
 six times thai of the body, and u bich, therefore, is various- 
 ly and strangely convoluted to enable it to be packed into 
 the abdominal cavity. Into this portion of the intestines, 
 various vessels and glands deliver their secretions, partly 
 for the purpose of lubricating its surface, and parti] to as- 
 sist in the further changes which are to be brought about 
 in the chyme. OLthese fluids, two are especially remark- 
 able, from the importance and size of the glands by which 
 they are secreted, and of the ducts by which tbej are con- 
 veyed; namely, the bile, winch is of a green colour and 
 bitter taste, and is secreted in the liver ; and the pancreatic 
 juice, which appears to resemble saliva, and which i~ se 
 creted by a gland called the pancreas. The influence of 
 these fluids upon the chyme is direct and important; the 
 papcreatic secretion probably acts as a diluent merely ; but 
 the effect of the bile is more complicated; and it appears 
 to be essential to the further change of the chyme into 
 chyle, w huh is a white milk-like fluid, formed in the upper 
 part of the intestine, and absorbed by a distinct set of ves- 
 sels which, from the colour of their contents, have been 
 called lacteals, and which convey the chyle, that is, the 
 portion of the products of digestion fitted lor nutrition, into 
 the above-mentioned trunk of the lymphatics, whence it is 
 transmitted into the veins, which open through the medi- 
 um of the right auricle into the right ventricle of the heart. 
 The hitter principle of the bile, and its colouring n itti r, 
 are obviously not absorbed by the lacteals, but remain with 
 the residue of the food, which is slowly propelled along 
 the whole of the intestinal tube, and, having undergone 
 certain changes in its passage, is ultimately voidi d as ex- 
 crementitions. 
 
 Having now enumerated the various classes of organs in 
 the human body, and adverted to their leading functions ; 
 having seen how the horns are united by articulations, ami 
 connected by ligaments, flesh, and membranes, forming a 
 variety of levers adapted to the motions of the limbs, and 
 supporting and protecting the sofl parts, as in the skull and 
 spine ; how the brain and nerves are concerned in the sen- 
 tient energies, and in presiding over and directing muscu- 
 lar motion, and influencing the functions of the viscera; 
 having likewise seen how each part of the body is nour- 
 ished by the blood, which is sent from the heart by the ar- 
 teries, and conveyed back to it by the veins; how the use- 
 less and decayed parts are removed by the lymphatics; 
 how the nutritious part of the food is earned into the blood 
 by the lacteals ; and how venous is changed into arterial 
 Wood in the course of its passage through the pulmonary 
 vessels ; it only remains to observe, that the whole fabric 
 is as it were protected from external injuries by its integ- 
 uments. Of these the most exterior is a covering, varying 
 49 
 
 ANCHOR. 
 
 in thickness and Induration on different parts of the body, 
 but every where without feeling, and called the epidei mi's ; 
 immediately beneath it is a soil mucous substance termed 
 rete mucasum ; and under it the cults, or true skin. These 
 external coverings of the body are attached to and connect- 
 ed with the parts beneath, by cellular membrane. But 
 though the animal owes much of its general security to 
 these textures, it owes more to the senses, instincts, and 
 appetites, with which it is so miraculously endowed. "By 
 these it is led to pursue what is useful, and to guard against 
 danger, inconvenience, and want. Nor is this all ; there 
 has likewise been conferred, to a certain extent, upon all 
 living bodies, the power of reproduction, by which they 
 are frequently able to repair the slighter injuries to which 
 the different organs are exposed ; and if this power he ex- 
 ceedingly languid in the latter periods of old age, it is be- 
 cause the author of nature never intended that the animal 
 structure should be immortal. He has fixed its bounds, 
 which it cannot pass; and has measured out the time when 
 the fairest fabric must crumble into dust, and its animating 
 
 spirit return unto Him, the great Almighty Incomprehen- 
 sible Being, who first bestowed it" ("-., Dr. Barclay's In- 
 troductory Lectures to a Course of Anatomy, and Dr. Wil- 
 liam Hunter's Two Introductory Lectures.' for details re- 
 specting the history, uses, and importance of the study of 
 Anatomy.) 
 
 A.tATojiv, Comparative. Ho called because the organ- 
 isation of the lower animals was first principally studied 
 
 with immediate reference to thai of the human subject. 
 
 Galen, who visited the schools of Alexandria at ape I 
 
 when the dissection of the human bodj was no longer per- 
 mitted, sought in the anatomy of the ape to acquire a vica- 
 rious know led- the anatomy of man. Yesalius, alter 
 
 the revival of literature, dissect) d Various quadrupeds, and 
 compare. 1 their organisation With thai of man. in order to 
 correct the errors of Galen, and to establish the true know- 
 ledge of the peculiarities of the human structure. 
 Succeeding anatomists have Investigated the structure 
 
 Of the lower animals, to acquire the knowledge necessary 
 
 for experimi nting upon them with Buccess; and still i e 
 
 important discoveries in physiological si ience have result- 
 ed from tracing the modification and disappearance of dif- 
 ferent organs in (he descending series oi animals, as the 
 only means by which we cm obtain iusl notions of the 
 uses and relative importance oi the different organs in the 
 animal economy, and a perception of the laws which regu- 
 late their co existence in tin [dual. 
 
 Aristotle, Harvey, and Hunter combined the investiga- 
 tion ol the mature animals oi different classes with ohser- 
 of the different stages of development of the em- 
 bryo, and their exan pie has been assiduously and success- 
 fully followed by the ablest con paratn e anatomists of the 
 present day. whereby some of tin- general laws of animal 
 organisation, ol development, and of the analogies which 
 apparently different parts bear to one another throughout 
 the great scheme, have been discovered. 
 
 A very imporia.nl application of comparative anatomy is 
 io the determination of the relative degrees of complexity 
 in the organisation of different animals, and of the number 
 and value of the points of resemblance which different 
 species manifest to each other in the totality of their organ- 
 isation. A study id the anatomy of animals, guided by 
 these views, is i issential io the determination ol their natu- 
 ral affinities, which is the highest aim of the philosophic 
 naturalist. 
 
 Lastly, the labours of the comparative anatomists contin- 
 ually tend to bring to light examples of structures, designed 
 wiih reference to t spei ial purposes, of the most striking 
 and forcible description . and thus provide for the moralist 
 and divine a storehouse of facts peculiarly adapted t<> the 
 illustration of the doctrine of final causes. (See Grant's 
 Outlines of Comparative Anatomy ; also, A General Ouiline 
 of the Animal Kingdom, by Thus. Hymer Jones, 1841.) 
 
 ANA'TROPOUS. (Gr. dvarptTzoi, I invert.) Avery 
 common kind of embryo, produced by one side of the 
 ovule growing upon itself, while the other remains im- 
 moveable, till, at last, that part of the ovule which was 
 originally next the apex, is brought down to the hilum, the 
 base of the nucleus in such cases being at the apex of the 
 ovule. The common apple, and the greater part of plants, 
 offer an example of this. 
 
 A'NCHOR. (Gr. dyxvpa.) Con- 
 sists of a straight bar, called the 
 shank, AB, which ends in two 
 arms, B C, B D, on which are 
 placed the triangular plates called 
 flukes, or palms ; the extremity 
 E or F is called the pea (peak) or 
 bill; the point B is called the 
 crown. At the end A is placed 
 the stock G H, which, when ot 
 wood, consists of two pieces of 
 oak, hooped together. When the 
 stock is of iron, it passes through 
 I
 
 ANCHOR. 
 
 a hole in the end of the shank. The stock is at right angles 
 to the plane of the flukes, and is a little longer than the 
 shank. At A is the ring, which is of iron, to which the ca- 
 ble is attached, and by which the anchor is lifted or hung. 
 
 When a hemp cable is used, the ring to which it is bent 
 (fastened in a particular way) is covered first with tarred 
 canvass, and then with piecesof rope secured firmly round 
 it ; this is called a puddening, and protects the hemp from 
 the iron. When a chain cable is used, it is shackled to the 
 ring, which is not then puddened. 
 
 Men of war and large ships carry two large anchors of 
 equal size, at the bows, called, thence, bower anchors ; 
 and two others, of the same size, called the sheet and the 
 spare anchors ; besides two or three others, which are much 
 smaller, for temporary occasions. 
 
 The anchor, after being let go from the ship's bow or 
 side, whether the shank be vertical or horizontal when it 
 enters the water, arrives upright at the bottom, in conse- 
 quence of the resistance of the water on the stock, when it 
 falls over, and rests on the crown, one corner of a tluke, 
 and the end of the stock. From this position of stable 
 equilibrium on three points, forming a long narrow triangle, 
 a small force disturbs it, when the stock, falling flat, one 
 of the bills must pierce the ground, penetrating deeper as 
 the cable pulls, until the arm is partly or entirely buried. 
 
 Since the security of the vessel depends on the hold the 
 anchor has of the ground, it is evident that the direction of 
 the fluke should be such that the reaction of the soil 
 against it, from the pull of the cable, may tend most effect- 
 ually to keep it down. 
 
 The pressure on the fluke being perpendicular to the 
 surface, take A B to represent the pull of the cable, then 
 the resolved portion of this perpendicular to the fluke is 
 B C or A B cos. ABC; 
 and the effect of this in 
 keeping the fluke down is 
 B1) = BC cos. C B D = 
 B C sin. ABC, because 
 
 A B is horizontal, and B ^^^ A 
 
 C B D is 90°— C B A, ver- 
 tical; hence B D = A B 
 
 sin. ABC cos. ABC, which is maximum when A B C = 
 45°. The flukes of anchors in general make the angle 
 with the shank much greater than this ; but Lieut. Rodger, 
 R. N., has, among other improvements, adopted this angle 
 in his patent anchor, having established the above conclu- 
 sion by experiment. 
 
 Anchors are made of broad flat bars forged together. 
 As the greatest strain upon the shank takes place during 
 the act of weighing, the diameters of the shank are made 
 unequal, the longest being placed vertical. This improve- 
 ment is, we believe, due to Mr. Pering, on whose plan an- 
 chors have of late years chiefly been made. 
 
 The weight of an anchor in men of war is estimated 
 roughly at about 1 cwt. to a gun ; in merchantmen, about 
 1 cwt. for each 15 tons. The weight of the anchor is not 
 strictly proportional to the size of the vessel, as large ves- 
 sels are less affected by sudden or violent motions than 
 smaller ones are. Large anchors are thicker in proportion 
 to their length than smaller ones are ; that is, the weight 
 increases faster than the cubes of the dimensions. 
 
 When an anchor is left behind, it is recovered either by 
 lifting it by the buoy rope, or, where that is not possible, by 
 sweeping for it; which is dragging a hawser, hung between 
 two boats, slowly over the bottom till it catches the upper 
 fluke, by which the anchor is then weighed. 
 
 When one anchor is down the ship is said to be at single 
 anchor; when two are down, the ship is generally moored. 
 {See Mooreu ; Cable ; Buov.) Ships rarely ride by 
 more than two anchors : in bad weather a third is often let 
 go under foot, as a precaution in case of one of the cables 
 parting. 
 
 When the anchor is dragged by the pulling of the cable, 
 it is said to come home. When the cable gets twisted 
 round the anchor or stock, the anchor is said to be foul. 
 The anchor is sometimes hove up without one of the 
 flukes, which has either been fixed in a cleft of the rock 
 and wrenched off by the force of weighing, or been snapped 
 off, as some think, by striking against a point of rocks in its 
 rapid descent. 
 
 When the ship is at single anchor, the wind or tide may 
 carry her over the anchor; if the water is deep, she may 
 so drag the cable as to foul the anchor, in which case it 
 may not hold again ; if the water is very shallow, she may 
 get upon the anchor, the fluke entering the ship's bottom, 
 or she may break the shank by striking upon it. Keeping 
 the ship clear of her anchor is, therefore, an important, as 
 it is also a nice point of seamanship. 
 
 When the anchor is lifted out of the ground, it is said to 
 he aweigh ; when hove up to the. surface of the water, it 
 is awash. The anchor being hove up by the cable only to 
 the hause holes, is lifted by the ring to the cathead : this is 
 called catting it. The fluke next the ship's side is then 
 htted up to its resting-place, called the bill board ; it is now 
 50 
 
 ANDALUSITE. 
 
 said to be fished. When the ship is fairly af sea, the ring 
 is lashed close up to the cathead, and the fluke brought 
 close to the ship's side, or inside the bulwark, and the cable 
 and buoy rope unbent ; the anchor is then secured. 
 
 Messrs. Porter <fe Co. of Dunstan, near Newcastle, Eng- 
 land, have recently patented a new anchor, of the greatest 
 practical utility and importance. It is manufactured in 
 two distinct parts ; one forming the arms made of bars, 
 extending from pea to pea, without any crossing or weld- 
 ing, moving as it were on a pivot, and the other the shank. 
 By 1 1 lis arrangement, the fatal risk of an unsound weld at 
 the crown, the part in which the present anchor often 
 fails in the hour of peril, is averted. Among its many advan- 
 tages are, — a strength threefold greater than that of the or- 
 dinary anchor of the same weight, it cants and bites more 
 readily than the common anchor, even in the most stub- 
 born ground ; it is impossible to foul it ; it cannot lodge on 
 its stock end ; it holds on the shortest stay beak ; it may be 
 taken apart at will ; and it cannot injure a vessel's bows, 
 when hanging a cock bill. (.See London United Service 
 Gazette.) 
 
 Anchor. In Architecture, an ornament applied to 
 mouldings somewhat resembling an anchor intermixed 
 with eggs, and by some called a tongue, from the resem- 
 blance it bears to the forked tongue of a serpent. It is 
 found in the mouldings of all the orders, but is only applied 
 to that called the echinus or quarter round. 
 
 A'NCHORAGE. Ground fit to hold a ship's anchor, so 
 that she may ride safely. The ground best suited for this 
 purpose is hard sand or stiff clay ; and the best position is 
 that which is land-locked, or out of the tide. 
 
 AN'CHORITE. (Lat. "anachoreta. Gr. avaxcopcto, I 
 retreat, or withdraw.) More properly, anachoret, a hermit, 
 or person who has retired from the world with the purpose 
 of devoting himself entirely to meditation and prayer. 
 Such was the case with many of the early Christians, be- 
 ginning perhaps with such as fled from the persecutions of 
 Decius and Diocletian, and retired into forests and deserts, 
 at first with a view to security merely, and afterwards con- 
 tinued, from religious motives, the mode of life they had 
 there adopted. The adoption of perfect solitude was es- 
 sential to the character of an anchorite : but they were ne- 
 cessarily bound by vows. The origin of this class of reli- 
 gionists preceded that of the Coenobites, or monks living 
 in societies : but in later times the monks used frequently 
 to leave their monasteries, with the permission of their 
 superior, and devote themselves for a time, or for their 
 whole lives, to the solitude of anchorites. 
 
 ANCHO'VY. (SeeENGRAULis.) 
 
 ANCHYLO'SIS. (Gr. ayKv\oco, I bend.) A stiff, im- 
 moveable, or bent joint. 
 
 A'NCIENT DEMESNE. In Law, all lands which, hav- 
 ing been in possession of Edward the Confessor, and from 
 him having passed to William the Conqueror, are named 
 in Doomsday Book as Terra Regis, are said to be held in 
 ancient demesne. The tenure is peculiar, resembling 
 copyhold in some respects. 
 
 A'NCIENTS. (Fr. anciens.) Li the more general 
 sense of the term, Ancients means those who lived long 
 ago, or before the moderns. But the term is now usually 
 employed to designate the Greeks and Romans ; and if 
 any other people be meant, it is customary to specify them , 
 as the ancient Germans, the ancient Jews, <fec. 
 
 Ancients, Council op. In French History, one of the 
 two assemblies composing the legislative bodies in 1795. 
 It consisted of 250 members; and derived its name from 
 each of them being at least forty years of age. It was put 
 an end to by the Revolution of the 18th Brumaire. 
 
 ANCI'LE. The shield of Mars, which, according to 
 tradition, fell from heaven in the reign of Numa, and was 
 accompanied by an oracle, which declared that, while it 
 remained in Rome, the city could never be taken, Its 
 figure was that of an oval compressed in the middle, so as 
 to be widest near the two extremities. Numa had it pre- 
 served in the temple of Mars, to whose priests, the Salii, 
 its care was committed ; and at the same time had eleven 
 more shields made'to exactly the same pattern, in order to 
 prevent the genuine one from being distinguished and 
 stolen. 
 
 Every year, in the month of March, these ancilia were 
 earned round the city by the Salii, with solemn dances 
 and music, for thirty consecutive days, during which time 
 no business connected with war was allowed to be carried 
 on in the city. 
 
 ANCI'PITAL. Having two opposite edges or angles. 
 
 ANCI'PITOUS. (Lat. anceps, two-edged.) When any 
 thing is compressed, with the two opposite edges thin. It 
 is chiefly applied in Botany to leaves and stems. 
 
 ANCO'NES. (Gr. aynuv, the point of the elbow.) In 
 Architecture, the consoles or ornaments' cut on the key- 
 stones of arches, or on the side of door-cases. They are 
 sometimes used to support busts or other figures. 
 
 ANDALU'SITE. A mineral composed of 52 alumina, 
 58 silica, 8 potass, 2 oxide of iron. It is very hard and in-
 
 ANDANTE. 
 
 fusible, by which characters it is distinguished from fel- 
 spar. It was first observed in Andalusia in Spain. 
 
 ANDA'NTE. (Ital. going.) In Music, signifies that the 
 notes are to be played distinctly. 
 
 ANDRiEA'CE^E. (Andrea, one of the genera.) Little 
 moss like plants, differing from the mosses in the want of 
 an operculum and peristome, and in having a four-valved 
 theca. 
 
 A'NDREASBE'RGOLITE. From Andreasberg, in the 
 Hartz. A mineralogical name of a species of Ilarmo- 
 tome. 
 
 ANDRE'NA. The name of a Fahrician genus of bees, 
 including those which have the tongue 3-cleft, and the 
 labium cylindrical, with two membranous bristles on each 
 side. 
 
 ANDROCjE'UM. (Gr. dvrjp, a male, and oUos, a house.) 
 All that part of a flower to which the male . irgans appertain. 
 The ring of stamens in a plant is an androca?um ; so is the 
 fringe at the mouth of the tube iii die passion flower, taken 
 together with the true stamens. The term may be literal- 
 ly translated the male apparatus. 
 
 ANDRO'GYNOUS. (Gr. dvnp, a man, and yvvrj, a wo- 
 man.) An animal which possesses the organs of both 
 sexes, as the snail. An hermaphrodite. 
 
 In Physiology, l lie possession of the organs of both sexes 
 in the same individual, either naturally, as in the snail ; or 
 preternaturally,as in the free martin and similar monsters. 
 An hermaphrodite. 
 
 In Botany, a union of both males and females, either in 
 the same flower, which is also called hermaphrodite ; or 
 upon the same plant, the sexes being in different flowers, 
 as in the birch and similar trees. The latter is what I.in- 
 na'iis railed rnoiiiecious. 
 
 A'NDRON. (Gr. dvnp, a man.) In Grecian and Roman 
 Architecture, the apartment appropriated to the reception 
 of the male branches of the establishment, and always in 
 the lower part of the house: the gyncecea, or women's 
 apartments, being in the upper part. 
 
 ANDROPE'TALOUS. (Gr. dvnp, a num. and iteralov, 
 apetal.) Is used in Bpeaking of doable flowers which are 
 produced by the conversion of the stations into petals, as 
 the garden ranunculus. Most double flowers are ol 
 nature. 
 
 ANDRO'PHORUM. (Or. dvqp, a man, or, in Botany, a 
 ttamen, and ibepetv. in bear.) A columnar expansion ofthe 
 centre ofthe flower, on which tie- stamens Beem t" grow, 
 as in the passion flower. In reality, il is forme. I partly of 
 the adhering filaments, and partly of an elevation of tie- 
 growing point. 
 
 A'NECDOTE. (Gr. dvcKo'orov, something inedited, or 
 
 unpublished.) In its original sense, some particular rela- 
 tive to a subject to which publicity had not been given in 
 
 previous works on that subject. In its secondary 
 the narrative of a particular action or saying of an individ- 
 ual. 
 
 ANE'LLIDES, ANELLA'TA. (I.at. anellus. a little ring ) 
 Generally, but improperly, written Annelidans or Anne- 
 lides. A class of articulate animals with a long cylindrical 
 body divided into ring-like segments, ha\ :iilt red blood, and 
 respiratory organs, but no jointed extremities. The class 
 is divided, according to modifications of the respiratory 
 system, into Cephalobranchiatos, Dorsibranchiates, and 
 Abranchiates, of which the Serpula, or tube-worm, the 
 Aphrodita, or sea-mouse, and the Lumbricns, or earth- 
 worm, are respectively examples. 
 
 ANELYTROUS. (Gr. <i, priv., and tXvrpov, a sheath.) 
 A name sometimes given to those insects w huh have two 
 or four membranous wings, either naked or covered only 
 with hairs or scales. 
 
 ANEMO'METER. (Gr. dveuos, the wind, and fierpov, 
 measure.) An instrument for measuring the force or velo- 
 city of the wind. An instrument of this sort was first in- 
 vented by Wolfius, and described by him in his Elementa 
 Metheseos. It consists of four sails, like those of a windmill, 
 turning on a horizontal axis. On the axis is a perpetual 
 screw, which turns a cog-wheel, to the axis of which a 
 lever, carrying a weight at its extremity, is attached. When 
 it is calm, the lever and weight assume the vertical posi- 
 tion. When the wind acts on the sails, the lever is raised 
 in a vertical circle, to an elevation at which the weight ex- 
 actly counterbalances the force of the wind. The angle of 
 elevation ofthe weight is measured on a dial, the index of 
 which turns on the axis of the cog-wheel. Several im- 
 provements have been made on this form of the instal- 
 ment. The sails have sometimes been placed horizontal- 
 ly ; and Mr. Benjamin Martin gave the axis the form ofthe 
 fusee of a watch, having a cord winding upon it with two 
 weights at the ends, which answers the same purpose as 
 the lever and weight. 
 
 Dr. Land's anemometer consists of a glass tube, bent in- 
 to the form of the letter IJ, and open af both extremities. 
 One of the extremities. A, is also bent round to the hori- 
 zontal direction, in order that the wind may blow into it. 
 The tube being partially filled with water and exposed to a 
 51 
 
 ANGIOSPOROUS. 
 
 current of air, the water in the branch 
 at wdiich the wind enters is depressed, 
 for example, to B, and consequently 
 rises in the other branch to C, and the 
 difference at C, ofthe levels at which it 
 stands in the two branches, is the height 
 of a column of water, the weight of which 
 forms a counterpoise to the force ofthe 
 wind. The relative velocities of the 
 9| i wind are thus ascertained, the variation 
 ofthe velocity being nearly proportional 
 to the square root of the resistance. 
 The bore of the tube is diminished at 
 the bottom to check the undulations 
 ofthe water caused by a sudden gust of 
 wind. Various other contrivances have been proposed, of 
 Which one ofthe simplest is to expose a flat board of given 
 dimensions to a current of wind, and observe to what ex- 
 tent it will force hack a spring attached to it, and resting 
 against an immoveable obstacle. 
 
 ANEMO'NIN, or ANEMO'NIA. An acrid crystallisable 
 substance obtained from some species of anemone. It 
 burns like camphor. 
 
 \ \I'.M< (SCO'PE. (Gr. di/r/ioj, wind, and okottco), I 
 look.) An instrument for indicating the direction of the 
 wind. A common vane, or weathercock, is an instrument 
 of this kind. Sometimes the vane turns a spindle which 
 .lis, ends through the roof of the building into the chamber 
 where the observation is to be made. An index fixed to 
 the spindle points out the direction of the wind, on a com- 
 pass card fixed to the ceiling. By means of wheel-work, 
 the direction of the spindle, or the axis of the index, may 
 easilv he changed, so that the compass card may be placed 
 on i wall ofthe chamber, or in any convenient position for 
 observation. 
 
 \ NKl'RISM. (Gr. dvevpvvo), I dilate.) A tumour 
 formed by the morbid dilatation of an artery, and which is 
 therefore distinguished by its pulsatory motion: 
 
 Wilt J/CTOOl B. (I.at. aufrartus, uiciridim; backward 
 
 andforuard.) \\ hen the lobes of an anther, of the margin 
 of any thing, is folded hack upon itself, and doubled and 
 bent till all trace of its normal character is lost. The anther 
 lumber is anfractuous. 
 
 A'NGEI.. A coin ofthe value of about ten shillings. It 
 was impress.-. 1 with the figure of an angel, in commemora- 
 tion of a saying of Popi Gregory,that the pagan Angli or 
 English w.ie bo beautiful, that if they were Christians they 
 Would be aug.'ls. ^^ 
 
 Wi.ll. BO] DEN, or ST. GEORGE, or ST. CON- 
 STWTINE. An ancient order o! knighthood, fabulously 
 reported to have been instituted hv < 'unstantine, but proba- 
 bly by the imperial house ofComnenus at Constantinople, 
 and revived by the Emperor Charles V. The grand mas- 
 tership of this order was resigned by the last representa- 
 tion to the house of Comnenusto that of Farnese, dukes of 
 Parma ; and now belongs to the crown of Naples. 
 
 WCEL WATER. A mixture of rose, orange-flower, 
 and myrtle water, perfumed by muskand ambergris. It is 
 made i'u Portugal. . 
 
 AN'GELS. Spiritual beings ministering to God. In the 
 Scriptures they appear as messengers, which the word 
 properly denotes (Gr. dyye\of), by whom God conveys his 
 commands to men. The term seems also to be applied to 
 the highest order of ministers in the Church of Christ, if 
 we mav so interpret the "Angel ofthe Church of Ephesus, 
 of Pergamus," &c, and the passage in the Epistle to the 
 Corinthians, -A woman ought to have, power (a veil, as 
 some interpret) on her head, for fear of the angels." We 
 read also of the devil and his angels. 
 
 ANCI'NA. (Gr. dy%a, I strangle.) A disease attended 
 With a sense of anxiety and suffocation: the term is ap- 
 plied to sorethroat, and to certain symptoms arising from 
 organic disease of the heart ; the latter gives rise to a dis- 
 tressing difficulty of respiration, and is hence termed An- 
 gina Pectoris. 
 
 A'NGIOCA'RPOUS. (Gr. ayyttov, a case, and Kapiros, 
 fruit ) When seed-vessels are inclosed within a covering 
 that does not form a part of themselves ; as the filbert, 
 which is covered bv its husk, the acorn seated m its cap- 
 sule. The word is also applied sometimes to such fungi as 
 have their spores included in a peridium, or hollow-shell, 
 as Lvcoperdon. . ,. 
 
 ANGIO'LOGY. (Gr. dyyeiov, a vessel, and \oyos, a ais- 
 course.) The doctrine of the vessels of the body. 
 
 ANGIOSPE'RMOUS. (Gr. dyyeiov, aressel, and aveppa, 
 seed ) When seeds are inclosed within a pericarp, as in 
 most plants. The word is now chiefly used in opposition 
 to gvmnospermous,when seeds are not included m a peri- 
 carp, as in fir-trees and others. Linnasus intended to apply 
 it in the same sense ; but he contrasted it with small-lobed 
 seed-like fruits, which he mistook for naked seeds 
 
 ANGIO'SPOROFS. (Gr. dyyeiov, a vessel, and oiropa, 
 a seed.) A term applied to such fungi as Lvcoperdon, 
 which have their spores inclosed in a hollow shell or bag.
 
 por- 
 
 ANGIOTOMY. 
 
 ANGIO'TOMY. (Gr. dyysiov, a vessel, and tcjiivu, I cut.) 
 The dissection of vessels. 
 
 A'NGLE. (Lat. angulus, corner.) In Geometry, this 
 term is employed in several senses, and to signify very dif- 
 ferent tilings. Euclid defines a plane angle to be "the in- 
 clination of two lines to one another, which meet together, 
 but are not in the same direction ;" a definition somewhat 
 obscure, and also defective, inasmuch as in strictness it 
 can apply only to acute angles, and gives no idea whatever 
 of angular magnitude. The definition given by Apollonius, 
 namely, "the collection of space about a point," is still 
 more exceptionable. In fact, it is extremely difficult to 
 form a correct idea of its nature from any description that 
 can be given in the terms of a definition. 
 
 The simplest way, perhaps, of obtaining a clear concep- 
 tion of angular magnitude is by means of revolving motion. 
 Suppose a straight line A B to revolve about 
 the point A from right to left, and to occupy 
 successively the different positions A B, A C, 
 A D, A E, and A F. At A C it forms angle 
 B A C with its first position A B, of which A 
 B and A C are the sides, and the point A the 
 summit or vertex. The line A C is then in- 
 clined to its first direction A B. When at A T), it 
 pendicular to its first direction, and the angle formed by A 
 B and A I) is called right. At A E the separation is equal 
 to two right angles, and the line lies in the same direction 
 as at first, or A E and A B are in the same straight line. 
 When it arrives at A F, three right angles have been de- 
 scribed ; and, on returning to A B, a whole circuit or four 
 right angles. The right angle B A D is considered the unit 
 of angular magnitude. B A C, which is less than the right 
 angle, is called acute ; and E A C, which is greater than 
 the right angle, is called obtuse. The angle D A C, or the 
 defect of B A C from the right angle, is called the comple- 
 ment of B A G ; and E A C, or the defect of B A C, from 
 two right angles, is called the supplement of B AC. 
 
 When an angle is considered in this manner as result- 
 ing from revolving motion, it is obvious that two straight 
 lines meeting in a point, form not only one, but an indefi- 
 nite number of angles. Thus, A B may pass into the posi- 
 tion A C after describing merely the angle B A C, or after 
 describing that angle together with one, two, three, or any 
 number of revolutions. If we assume A to represent the 
 measure of the angle B A C, and C that of the whole cir- 
 cuit, then the same angle B A C will be represented not 
 only by A, but also by A + C, A + 2C, A + 3C, and so on. 
 This extension of the signification of an angle is of very 
 great importance in Trigonometry. 
 
 A solid angle is defined by Euclid to be " made by the 
 meeting of two plane angles which are not in the same 
 plane in one point." These magnitudes are of a very pe- 
 culiar kind ; and, unlike all other subjects of geometrical 
 investigation, admit of no accurate comparison one with 
 another. No multiple or submultiple of such angles can 
 be taken, and we have no way of expounding, even in the 
 simplest cases, the ratio which one of them bears to ano- 
 ther. Hence all our reasoning concerning them must be 
 chiefly confined to the plane angles by which they are 
 contained. 
 
 Angle, Facial. In Zoology, signifies the angle made 
 by the intersection of two lines drawn, the one from the 
 most prominent part of the frontal bone over the anterior 
 margin of the upper jaw, the other from the external orifice 
 ofthe ear-passage along the floor of the nasal cavity. 
 
 Angle, Frontal. In Ornithology, signifies the angle 
 which the culmen, or upper line of the beak, makes with 
 the forehead. 
 
 Angle, Spherical. In Trigonometry, signifies the 
 angle made on a sphere by the intersection of two great cir- 
 cles, or the inclination ofthe planes of these circles to each 
 other. A spherical angle is measured by the arc of a great 
 circle intercepted between those two points of its sides 
 which are at the distance of a semi-circle from the point of 
 intersection, or the vertex ofthe angle. 
 
 Angle, Visual. (Optics.) The angle formed by two 
 rays of light, or two straight lines drawn from the extreme 
 points of an object to the centre ofthe eye. The apparent 
 magnitude of objects depends on the magnitude of the 
 angle under which they are seen ; nevertheless, in observ- 
 ing distant objects, our ideas of their magnitude are greatly 
 modified by the judgment which we form of their distances, 
 (<Sse Apparent Magnitude.) 
 
 A'NGULAR MOTION. The motion of a body moving 
 circularly, or oscillating about a fixed point. The angular 
 motion of a planet is measured by the angle described at 
 the centre of the sun, by a straight line drawn from that 
 point to the planet, called the radius vector ; and its amount 
 is reciprocally proportional to the periodic time of the 
 planet. 
 
 A'NGULAR SECTION. The division of an angle into 
 
 any number of equal parts. The bisection of an ansle 
 
 is accomplished by elementary geometry. The bisection 
 
 requires the oid of solid geometry, being equivalent to 
 
 62 
 
 • ANIMAL. 
 
 the solution of a cubic equation. The general division of 
 an angle into any proposed number of equal parts, is a 
 problem which Mathematicians have not yet been able to 
 solve. In modern Mathematics, the term Angular Sections 
 is used to denote that branch of analysis which is employed 
 in the investigation of the properties of circular functions. 
 
 AMMJI'LLIFORM. (Lat. anguilla, an eel, forma, shape.) 
 Eel shaped fishes, or those belonging to the tribe of eels. 
 
 A'NGUIS. The name of a Linna?an genus of Amphibia 
 serpentes, characterised by having subcaudal and abdomi- 
 nal imbricated scales ; which scales consequently form a 
 uniform covering over the whole body. The genus is now 
 subdivided into the subgenera Pseudopus, Ophisaurus, 
 Acontias, and Anguis, properly so called ; the reptiles 
 comprehended under the latter denomination have the 
 tympanum concealed beneath the skin ; the maxillary 
 teeth compressed and hooked, and no teeth on the palate. 
 The Anguis fragilis, or slow-worm, is a well-known ex- 
 ample of this genus, 
 
 ANGUSTU'RA BARK. The bark ofthe Cusparia febri- 
 fuga, originally imported from Angustura in South Ameri- 
 ca; it is occasionally used -in medicine as a tonic, and in 
 the case of diarrhoea. It was first described by Mr. Brande 
 in the year 1791. A poisonous bark is occasionally found 
 in commerce under the name of spurious Angustura, 
 which appears to be the produce of a species of strychnos. 
 
 ANGU'STATE. (Eat. angustus, narrow.) When any 
 part sensibly diminishes in breadth. (See Attenuated.) 
 
 ANHELA'TION. (Lat.) Difficulty of breathing. 
 
 A'NHYDRITE. An anhydrous sulphate of lime. 
 
 A'NHYDROUS, (Gr. a. without, and vSup, tenter) 
 Without water. A term often applied to salts, and to cer- 
 tain acids when deprived of water. 
 
 A'ML. One ofthe plants yielding indigo.' 
 
 Anil. (Sanscr. nili, indigo.) A kind of indigo, said to 
 be a native of America, although now cultivated in the 
 East Indies. It is very like Indigofera tinctoria, the true 
 indigo, from which it chiefly differs in having compressed 
 legumes which are not torulose. 
 
 ANILLE'ROS. In Politics, the name given to the mod- 
 erate party among the principal actors in the Spanish revo- 
 lution from 1820 to 1823. They had the greatest influence, 
 and directed the Cortes. Arguelles and Martinez de la 
 Rosa were at their head. 
 
 A'NIMAL. (Lat. anima, soul, or life.) The name of the 
 higher division or kingdom of organised beings, distin- 
 guished by endowments of sensation and voluntary motion, 
 super-added to the organic functions which animals pos- 
 sess in common with plants. 
 
 Ii has been objected to this definition, that the so-called 
 sensitive plant is susceptible of impressions which cause 
 action and motion of its parts, and that the embryos of Al- 
 gae and Conferva? have locomotion, while many ofthe low- 
 er animals are fixed as imnioveably to the earth as plants. 
 But these objections have no real value ; and could only 
 have arisen from confounding irritability with sensation, 
 which are two very different phenomena. It is the proper- 
 ty of all living organised beings, and essential to their exis- 
 tence as such, to be susceptible of the impressions of cer- 
 tain stimuli, which occasion a reaction of the part stimula- 
 ted ; and the main object of physiology is to determine the 
 precise node in which each organ of a plant or animal re- 
 acts when stimulated. But it is here only necessary to 
 stale, that the muscular fibre in animals reacts when stim- 
 ulated by an angular puckering called contraction, and this 
 property is termed irritability. It is independent of the 
 nerves and of sensation, for a portion of muscle removed 
 from an animal body manifests the same contraction when 
 irritated, whether mechanically, galvanically, or chemical- 
 ly. In the living animal the most common stimulus ofthe 
 muscular contraction is the operation of the nerves, exci- 
 ted by the will, and is commonly the consequence of an 
 act of sensation ; but this is by no means the only stimulus 
 by which the irritable property of the muscle is or can be 
 called into play. In plants, universally, there are also irri- 
 table parts, or parts which react when stimulated by pro- 
 ducing motion of a part or the whole of the body. It is 
 this property which occasions the motion of the cambium 
 or sap ; it is by the same endowment tl at growing plants 
 incline to the light, and extend their roots to the most conge- 
 nial soil; or entwine their tendrils around the bodies which 
 serve as their support ; or move the stamens in regular 
 succession towards the female part or pistil (saxifrage), or 
 incline the pistil successively to each stamen (lily). By a 
 modification of the same irritable property, some plants 
 close their leaflets or flowers at sunset ; while others, like 
 the nocturnal animals, go to sleep, as it were, at the ap- 
 proach of day. By a higher degree of this irritability the 
 leaflets of the fly-trap (Dionaa) approximate each other, 
 and inclose the irritating insect which has alighted upon 
 them ; and the Mimosa pudica withdraws its leaves from 
 the offending touch ; — while the Desmodium exhibits du- 
 ring the day a constant alternate movement of the lesser 
 foholes, analogous to the quicker vibration of the cilia
 
 ANIMAL. 
 
 whlrli beset the respiratory organs of many molluscous 
 animals, and which is equally independent of the nerves 
 and of the will. The conditions of all these vegetable mo- 
 tions, which essentially distinguish them from the volun- 
 tary movements of animals, are, that (hey never proceed 
 from an internal impulse, but are invariably the conse- 
 quences of external stimulus, and take place, as it were, 
 mechanically, and in the self-same manner; while in ani- 
 mals the motions arise out of an internal determination 
 from parts not moving to the moving powers. There isal- 
 so an essentia] difference in the nature of the motion itself, 
 even when we compare the simplest animal with the plant. 
 If we touch the feeler of a polype, it recedes from the irri- 
 tant by a true contraction of the pari within itself; tint in 
 the case of the sensitive plant, there is nothing like this con- 
 traction of the part touched, bul only an articular plication 
 of a contiguous part, without the dimensions of the irritated 
 leaf being altered. Experiment has also shown thai Ihein- 
 tumescent parts of the mimosa, in which the irritable 
 property ia concentrated, move the leal by an extension of 
 cells, and not a contraction of fibres. 
 
 It is true thai many nf the lower aquatic animals are root- 
 ed to the bottom ; and these are often i ed, and 
 grow in a branched or plant-like form, as I 
 and other corallines; but, although voluntary motion of 
 the whole is impossible, yel it is sufficiently conspicuous in 
 the different parts, and the vital endownBhts of the indi- 
 vidual polypus manifest a multiplied animal enjoy i 
 not the conditir.n of a ve^, : tahle. The simplest monad 01 
 infusions exhibits the voluntary characteristics of the ani- 
 mal, by varying its movements to avoid obstacles or seize 
 its foou, while the locomotive embryo of the Conferva 
 dilatata proceeds blindlj onwards in an unvarying & i 
 till its irritability is exhausted, and excites no ideaofani- 
 mality in the mind of an observe, v. h., has had any expe- 
 rience in the observation "i animalcules Bhrenberg has 
 asserted thai be can distinguish a moving embryo of 
 the Ugs from a polygastric mouad as easilj as a tree from 
 a bird. 
 
 The nerves are the organs on which spontaneous motion 
 asation depend, and they chiefly distinguish the ani- 
 mal from the vegetable. Hence the nervous system has 
 been termed the essence of an animal. All the othi 
 terns of organs appear in their plan of arrangement to be 
 subject to the modification of the nervous systi m : and it 
 is upon this system, therefore, that, in the classification of 
 animals, their primary division is founded. Recenl and 
 more accurate n searches have proved the existence of 
 nerves in'many of the lower organised animals, when 
 presence had been denied; and, as in every species in 
 whii ii the nerves have been detected, sensation has been 
 found to depend exclusivi ly upon Ihem, we are hence led 
 in a time thai all animals in wl I 
 
 must have it depending on nervous matter present in some 
 condition or other in their tissue; even where, as in the 
 fresh-water polype, this is appa ogeneous, and 
 
 wh ire, from I divisil Uity of the individual 
 
 without loss of vitality in the detached parts, we mayrea- 
 
 s ibly conclude the nervous u olecules to be dispersed 
 
 throa rhout the corporeal mass. 
 
 The attributes of senaati otion modify, 
 
 as might be expected, all the other functions which ani- 
 mals possess in common with plants. For example, as re- 
 gards nutrition : vegetables which are fixed to the soil ab- 
 sorb immediately b) their roots the nutritive parts of the 
 surrounding fluid. These roots are Indefinitely 
 vided; they penetrate the smallest inter paces, and 
 
 as it were, at a distance, il irishmenl ol the plant to 
 
 which they belong. Their action is tranquil, but uninter- 
 mitling ; being only interrupted when dryness has deprived 
 them of the juices' which are neci ssary for them. 
 
 Animals, on the contrary, which are rarely stationary, 
 bin which have the po'w er of mot ing, nol only pans of the 
 body, but the entire body, from place to place, require the 
 means of transporting the provision necessary for their 
 subsistence; accordingly, thej h < received an internal 
 cavity, appropriated for the reception of the nutriment, 
 and upon the parietes of which open the pores of the 
 absorbent vessels, which have been justly compared to 
 internal reels. 
 
 An internal cavity is requisite for animals on another 
 ground; — their food must firsl be digested. Plants are 
 supported by water containing carbonic aci !. or the a 
 dissolved organised material of the soiL But nutrition in 
 animals does not immediately commence by the absorp- 
 tion of such fluids as the soil or the atmosphere furnishes, 
 hut their food consists of substances already in organic 
 combination, which must be prepared and submitted to in- 
 struments for dividing and comminuting it, and to the ac- 
 tion of solvent lluids. Thus digestion, or the preparatory 
 assimilation of the food, is entirely peculiar to animals. 
 They alone are endowed with organs of sensation, which 
 guide them in the choice of aliment. They alone possess 
 labial and other prehensile organs for seizing the food; 
 53 
 
 ANISOBRYOUS. 
 
 teeth and jaws for comminuting and destroying its vitality 
 if living ; muscular actions, by which it is swallowed, and 
 a reservoir for its reception endowed with chemical and 
 vital powers for dissolving and assimilating such parts as 
 are proper for nourishment, and which are selected and 
 taken into the system through the purely vital sensibilities 
 ol the absorbent internal surface, while such parts as are 
 unfit for nourishment are expelled. 
 
 A still more important difference, in connection with the 
 digestive functions, arises out of the limitation of the 
 powers of assimilation in the animal kingdom. Animals 
 can convert into their own substance only matter which 
 has already been organised; while plants have the power 
 
 milating the inorganic binary compounds, carbonic 
 acid and water. This property of plants is more impor- 
 tant than perhaps at first sight might be suspected; for in 
 the vital operations of animals a great quantity of organised 
 matter is constantly decomposed, and is rendered, at all 
 events, useless as nutriment for other animals ; while, by 
 means of combustion and other decomposing processes, an 
 incalcu] ble quantify of vegetable matter is continually re- 
 solved into binary compounds, or the ultimate elements of 
 hence, If the power of producing new ternary or- 
 ganised compounds oul of carbonic acid and water had not 
 been given to plants, both these and animals must, in pro- 
 cess o| time, inevitably have been annihilated, and succi s 
 sive creations of animals and vegetables would have bei n 
 indispensable to maintain the present system of things. It 
 is a beautiful instance of the harmony which pervades the 
 relations of nature, thai animals contribute as essentially to 
 the support of vegetables, by a process of excretion, as 
 these to the maintenance of animal life, by their powers 
 of assimilation. The product ofthe respiratory interchange 
 which takes pi.ic.. between the circulating nuidgand the at- 
 mosphere in animals, is carbonic acid ; w In. h is the essen- 
 tial aliment of plants ; and which, when in heall h, and ex- 
 posed to the influence of the sun's rays, plants absorb from 
 the atmosphere by their respiratory organs, the leaves, 
 and exhale the superfluous oxygen which is extricated in 
 
 their assimilative processes. Thus the constitution of the 
 
 atmosphere is maintained by the different products which 
 are evolved in the respiratory processes of plants and 
 animals, 
 
 The circulation ofthe nutrient juices Is much more In- 
 dependent of the external influences of hidit and heal in 
 than in plants ; and in most classes of the animal 
 
 on ol the bl I i< principally determini d 
 
 by the contractions of an express muscular organ called 
 
 the hi 
 
 From a general review, therefore, ofthe nature and pro- 
 perties oi living animals, their distinguishing characteris- 
 tics may be summed up as follows : 
 
 Animals an the onlj beings in nature which manifest 
 
 sensation and spontaneous movements. Tiny digest or- 
 i substances alone, and are always provided with a 
 nd an Internal digestive cavity or canal. 
 
 Their nutrient fluids are received by an absorbent inter- 
 nal surface; while in plants they are taken up by an absor- 
 bent external surface. 
 
 Animals at all times, in respiration, exhale carbonic acid 
 orb oxygen (Set Carpenter's Comp. Physiology.) 
 
 ANIM M/I'l LES (.V- Im . SOHES.) 
 
 LNIMAL SUBSTANCES. The principal products of 
 the anin al kingdom are chemically characterised by the 
 
 presence ol nil o as one of their ultimate elements, 
 
 which Is generally in combination with carbon, hydrogen, 
 and oxygen. When, therefore, they are subjected to de- 
 structive distillation, ammonia is a common product; il i.s 
 also often evolved when they are triturated with caustic 
 potash, or quick lime. 
 
 \MM\TION. (Lat. animare, to enKren.) In Painting, 
 
 il xpression given to a figure w hen indicating activity in 
 
 its members. Thus a figure truly and vigorously execu- 
 ted, is said to be animated. 
 
 \ M.MIv A resin which exudes from the Ilymenrra 
 Courbaril. It is brought from South America. It was for- 
 mei'h used in medicine, hut is inert. 
 
 I/NIONS. (Or. dva, upwards, and iiov, going.) Sub- 
 stances which iu electro-chemical decompositions are 
 evolved from their combinations at the surface by which 
 the ■ lectricity enters the electrolyte. (<S'ee Electrode.) 
 
 A'NISE. (Arab, anisun. Gr. dviirov.) The aromatic 
 fruit of an eastern annual umbelliferous plant cal'ed I*im- 
 pinella anisum. It is principally employed in the manu- 
 facture of liqueurs, and against flatulence. Star-anise is a 
 very different thing, the produce of lllicium anisatnm, a 
 tree belonsinuto Winteraceee. 
 
 ANISE'TTE. A French liqueur, made by distilling 
 anise, fennel, and coriander seed with brandy, and sweet- 
 ening the produce. 
 
 ANTSO'HRYOUS. (Gr. dvioos, unequal, and ftpvu, I 
 grow.) A name given by some writers to monocotyledo- 
 nous plants : having only one cotyledon they grow at first 
 with more force on one side of their axis than the other.
 
 ANISODACTYLES. 
 
 XKISODAC'TYI.ES, AMSODACTYL-*:. (Gr. dviooc, 
 unequal, and SoktvXos, a digit.) The name given by Tern- 
 minck to an order of birds, including those Insessorial 
 species the toes of which are of unequal length, as in the 
 nuthatch. 
 
 ANISODY'NAMOUS. (Gr. dvtoos, unequal, and dvva- 
 uis,puwer.) A name given to monocotyledonous plants, 
 for the same reason as anisobrvous. which see. 
 
 ANISOSTE'MONOLS. (Gr. dviaoc, unequal, and ctj] 
 lliov, a stamen.) When the number of stamens in a flower 
 neither corresponds with the calyx nor corolla in number 
 or power ; as, for instance, when a flower having five se- 
 pals has three or seven stamens; in such a case the sta- 
 mens are neither equal to the number of sepals nor any 
 power of their number. 
 
 ANISO'STOMOUS. (Gr. dviaos, unequal, and a-oua, a 
 mouth.) When the divisions of a calyx or a corolla are un- 
 equal. Seldom used ; the term unequal or irregularis usu- 
 ally emploved instead. 
 
 ANISOTO'MID.E. (Gr. dvuros, unequal, and tzuvw, / 
 cut.) A family of Coleopterous insects, having moniliform, 
 or beaded, antennae, subelongate, slender at the base, gradu- 
 ally increasing towards the apex, with a terminal club- 
 shaped multiarticulate joint; palpi various, generally fili- 
 form ; head small and ovate ; body convex, never linear. 
 This family includes eight genera: Tritoma, of which we 
 have one indigenous species, Tr. bipustulatum ; Phalacrus, 
 of which Stephens describes twenty-eight British species, 
 remarkable for their brilliant colours, and faculty of rolling 
 up the body into a ball; Ephistemus, of which only three 
 species are known, which have been detected in the neigh- 
 bourhood of London ; Leiodes, abundant in species, of 
 which twenty-six are British; Agathidium, of which we 
 have twelve species, inhabiting putrid wood and fungi, also 
 found near London ; Clambus, of which various species, all 
 extremely minute are known ; Clypeaster, a term already 
 appropriated to a genus of Echinida: ; lastly, Sericoderus, 
 distinguishable from the rest of the family by its truncate 
 elvtra. 
 
 A'NKER. A measure of wine or spirits equal to 10 of 
 the old gallons, or 8X imperial gallons, = '2310-6 cubic 
 inches. 
 
 A'NNALS. A chronological history : derived from the 
 Roman "Annates Pontificum," or "Annates Maximi," 
 which were annual records of passing events connected 
 with religious observances, kept by the Pontifex Maxi- 
 mus. 
 
 Annals are a species of historical writing ; but they seem, 
 notwithstanding, to differ materially from history, as the 
 latter is now understood. Annals should comprise a suc- 
 cinct account of the events having reference to some pecu- 
 liar subject, as they occur in successive years. Inquiries 
 as to the remote causes and consequences of events seem 
 to be misplaced in them ; though they are the essence of 
 history. Cicero, when speaking of annalists, says, " Unam 
 dicendi laudem putant esse brevitalem, ywn exurnatores re- 
 rum., sedtanlum narratores." Annals are, in fact, rather ma- 
 terials for history, than history. In the one, events only 
 are narrated, in the other they are narrated and reasoned 
 upon. The annalist may, no doubt, reason upon facts as 
 well as the historian ; but such reasonings are not so well 
 or happily placed in a book divided into years, as in one 
 that depicts the continuous stream of events, without 
 breaking it into limited compartments. Hailes's "Annals 
 of Scotland" is, perhaps, the best work of its class in English 
 literature. 
 
 ANNATES, or FIRST FRUITS. A fine paid to the 
 king, as head of the church, by one promoted to an eccle- 
 siastical benefice, and supposed to amount to one year's 
 value of that benefice. This, however, is evaded by as- 
 suming as the basis of the valuation that made in 1535, and 
 contained in what is termed the " Liber Resis." In Eng- 
 land, first fruits go to the augmentation of Queen Anne's 
 bounty. 
 
 ANNEA'LLNG. (Anhelan, Sax.) There are many sub- 
 stances which, when rapidly cooled, after having been 
 heated, become exceedingly brittle ; an inconvenience 
 often prevented by very slow cooling : this is especially the 
 case with glass, which is therefore suffered to cool very 
 gradually in an oven constructed for the purpose, and the 
 process is called annealing. Many of the metals which 
 have become harsh and hard in the process of manufac- 
 ture, are softened in the same way ; thus the blank pieces 
 for coinage, several metallic wires, &c. are annealed. 
 
 ANNE (ST.), Order of. An order of knighthood, origi- 
 nally established in Holstein, and carried with the princes 
 of that country into Russia. It was made a Russian order 
 in 1796 ; and is now widely diffused. 
 
 ANNO'TTA. Is the pulp of the seeds of the Bixa Orel- 
 lana, an exogenous tree common in Cayenne and other 
 parts of America: it is made into a pulp, which, after hav- 
 ing fermented, is rolled into pieces of two or three pounds' 
 weight: it is imported under the names annotto, Roucou, 
 or Orleans, and is used occasionally as an orange dye and 
 54 
 
 ANNUITY. 
 
 for colouring cheese. It imparts little colour to water, but 
 dissolves in alcohol and in alkaline solutions ; its colour is 
 not materially altered by acids or alkalis. 
 
 ANNO'NA. In Roman writers, means, in a general 
 sense, the year's increase, or the fruits of the year; and it 
 also means the contribution or tax payable in corn, imposed 
 on some of the more fertile provinces of the empire, as 
 Sicily. Egypt, &c, for the use of the army and of the capi- 
 tal. The poorer class of citizens were entitled to a share of 
 this tribute ; and their habitual dependence on it was not 
 only a fruitful source of idleness, but of all sorts of disor- 
 der. To grant an increased allowance of corn was one of 
 the surest methods by which to attain popular favour. 
 
 Summn favoris 
 
 Annona momenta trahif. Xaraque assent urbea 
 Sola fames, emittirqne reetus, cum segue potente* 
 Vulgus alunt. Nescit plebes jejuna timere. 
 
 The office of Prasfectus Annonas was of great importance 
 at Rome, and was generally, indeed, exercised by the em- 
 perors. (See, for further particulars, Contarenus, De Re 
 Frumentaria, passim.) 
 
 A'NNUAL. (Lat. annus, a year.) A plant which arrives 
 at perfection, passing from a seed into a perfect plant, yield- 
 ing its fruit, and perishing, within the space of a year. The 
 term also applies to all cases where duration is for one 
 growing season only. Many plants have perennial roots 
 and annual stertlte; that is, stems perishing and being re- 
 newed annually : such plants are usually denominated 
 Herbaceous. 
 
 ANNUAI'RE. A name given by the French to publi' a- 
 tions on continuous or similar subjects, which appear in 
 yearly parts or numbers. Of the existing Annuaires. that 
 published by the Bureau des Longitudes, is the most cele- 
 brated. There are also an Anniiaire Historique. corres- 
 ponding to our Annual Register, an Annuaire de I'Etat 
 Militaire, an Annuaire du Clerge de France, &x. 
 
 ANNUITY. A rentorsum receivable yearly for a term 
 of years. 
 
 An annuity may be receivable during a definite number 
 of years, or during a period of uncertain length ; for exam- 
 ple, during the life of one or more individuals. In the 
 former case it is called an Annuity Certain ; in the latter, 
 a Contingent Annuity. 
 
 An annuity which is not to be entered upon immediate- 
 ly, but after a certain number of years, is called a Deferred 
 Annuity ; if it is not to be entered upon until after the death 
 of some person or persons now living, it is called a Rever- 
 sionary Annuity. When limited by the duration of a given 
 life or lives, it is called a Life Annuity : and when it is to 
 continue only for a term of years, provided an individual 
 or individuals now living shall survive that term, it is called 
 a Temporary Life Annuity. 
 
 The practice of raising or investing money on annuities 
 is attended with many advantages in the ordinary affairs of 
 the world. A merchant or trader thus finds the means of 
 clearing off his engagements gradually by the profits of his 
 trade, and without losing possession of the capital necessa- 
 ry for carrying on his speculations ; and one who possesses 
 unemployed capital is thus enabled to convert it into an 
 equivalent annual income for life, and thereby derive the 
 utmost benefit from it while he lives, without the risk of 
 destitution from its failure. The accurate determination of 
 the value of annuities in present money, is therefore a sub- 
 ject of very considerable importance. We propose to ex- 
 plain the principles on which the calculation is made, and 
 to apply them to a few of the cases of most frequent occur- 
 rence. 
 
 Annuities Certain. — The values of annuities of this kind 
 depend only on the rate of interest of money, and the num- 
 ber of years during which they are payable ; ami are easily 
 calculated. Suppose it were required to determine the 
 value, in present money, of an annuity of j£100per annum, 
 to continue five years, or till five payments have been 
 made, the interest of money being 5 per cent., we should 
 reason as follows: The first payment of j£100 becomes 
 due at the end of a year from the present time ; but since 
 jtlOO in hand is equal to £105 receivable at the end of a 
 year, the present value of the first annual payment is j£100 
 reduced in the proportion of 100 : 105, or of 1 to 105; that 
 
 In like manner, the present value 
 
 is, it is eqvial to £ — . 
 105 
 
 of JEIOO, to be received at the end of two years, is less than 
 if it were receivable at the end of one year, in the propor- 
 tion of . ; consequently, the present value of ,£100, to 
 
 105 lf)0 
 
 be received at the end of two years, is £ Pursu- 
 
 (105)2 
 ing the same reasoning, the present value of £100, to be 
 
 100 
 received at the end of three years, is £ _ ; at the end 
 
 100 (1 ' 05 > 3 
 
 of four years, it is £ . ; and so on till the end of the 
 (1-05)4 
 
 term. But it is evident that the present value of the whole
 
 ANNUITY. 
 
 annuity Is the sum of the values of all the annual payments; 
 hence the required value of the proposed annuity is — 
 100 , 100 , 100 , 100 , 100 
 f05 (1 03)2 (105)3 (1-05)4 (105)5 
 This reasoning may be easily generalised. Let a denote 
 the annual payment, r the rate of interest, n the number of 
 years during which it continues, and S the present value of 
 all the payments, we shall then have — 
 
 S = 
 
 (1 +r)2 + (l + /)3 + 
 
 1+r 
 
 For the sake of abridging, put v 
 mula will become — 
 
 1 + r 
 
 (1 + r)« 
 
 i and the for- 
 
 S = a (v + v2 + r3 + tn) 
 
 orS=oe(l + » +V2 + V3 . . . . + m-i). 
 The sum of the series within the parenthesis is 
 
 1 
 
 1— m 
 
 1 
 
 (1 — t?n) ; therefore, S = 
 
 1— v 
 
 . (1 — r") ; or, writ- 
 
 ing _ for. 
 
 .8 = 1 (1 — r..). 
 
 1 
 
 From this it is easy to see the method of proceeding in 
 all other cases of annuities certain. For instance, let it be 
 required to find the present value of an annuity deferred 
 for three years, that is, not to be entered upon till after the 
 end of three years ; and to continue ten years from that 
 time. It is evident that we have only to find the value of 
 an annuity of the same amount for thirteen years, and also 
 for three years, and to subtract the latter value from the 
 former. The difference lathe value of the deferred annuity. 
 Again, suppose that the annuity, instead of being payable 
 yearly, is to he paid half yearly, or quarterly. It IS obvi- 
 ous that an annuity of JEIOO per annum for ten years, to be 
 paid in half yearly payments, the interest of money being 
 5 per cent., is the same thing as an annuity of Jt50 per an- 
 num for twenty yeara. payable yearly, interest bt -ins 2X 
 per cent. ; or an annuity of £26 per annum, payable yearly 
 for forty years, interest being Ik per cent. The princi- 
 ple of the calculation is the same in all the cases. 
 
 Life Annuities. — When the annuity is to cease with the 
 life of an individual, or any number of individuals, the cal- 
 culation of its value is a little more complicated, as it be- 
 comes necessary not only to find the present value of the 
 payment to be made at the end of any given year, but also 
 to take into account the probability of its being received, 
 that is to say, the probability that the individual or Individu- 
 als, on the duration of whose lives it depends, will be alive 
 at that period. Let the annuity depend on the continuance 
 of a single life, and let us denote the probability that the life 
 will be in existence at the end of 
 
 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Ax. years, 
 
 by pi, 7*2, p3. pi, ps,dcc; 
 
 and, as before, let v = t The present value of jEl, to 
 
 be received certainly at the etui of a > ear. is r ; but the pro- 
 bability of receiving it is pi; therefore, the value of jti at 
 the end of the year, subject to the chance of the given life 
 being then in existence, is /n r. In like manner, the value 
 
 of jEl, to be received certainly at tl ml of two year-. 
 
 and the chance of its being received is p2; therefore, the 
 value subject to the contingency is/<5 p9, and so on. Let A 
 denote the value of jEl to be received yearly during the 
 whole continuance of the given life, and we have evidently 
 
 A = pi v + p2 r2 -+- pz t-3 -J- pi r-t ■+- <tc. 
 continued till p becomes nothing, or till the extremity of 
 human life. 
 
 It is now necessary to consider the nature of the quanti- 
 ties represented by pi, p% ;>3, &c, and to show in what 
 manner they are to be computed. By the doctrine of 
 chances, the probability of the occurrence of any event is 
 measured by the quotient that arises from dividing the num- 
 ber of chances favourable to its occurrence by the whole 
 number of ways in which it can happen. Consequently, if 
 n denote the number of individuals living at a given age, 
 n\ the number of the same individuals alive at the end of 
 one year, ns the number living at the end of two years, 
 n3 the number living at the end of three years, and so on, 
 
 we shall have pi = 7 ii , p2 = VI , p3 = VL, pi = VI , and 
 
 n n n n 
 
 so on. The numbers n, m, n2, &c., are taken from a table 
 of mortality, or a table constructed to show the ratio of the 
 number of individuals who enter upon every given year of 
 life to the number who survive that year, or who die in the 
 course of it. 
 
 There is no other method of finding the value of the se- 
 ries represented by A than that of calculating the value of 
 its different terms separately, and adding the whole into 
 one sum. Nevertheless, as the object in general is not to 
 determine merely the value of an annuity on a life at a par- 
 ticular age, but to construct a table showing its value for all 
 the different ages of life, there is a method of deducing the 
 55 
 
 Hence, p2 = pi 71, or 51 
 
 ANNUITY, 
 
 value at one age from the value at another age, which great- 
 ly abridges the labour of calculation. Thus, suppose the 
 age of the individual on whose life the annuity depends to be 
 40, and the probabilities of a life of 40 continuing 1, 2, 3, &c. 
 years to bepi,p2,p3, Ac, we have, by what is already shown, 
 
 A = pi v -f p2 r'2 +p3V3 + . . . . +p* »«j 
 Now, let At be the annuity on a life of 41, that is, one year 
 older than the former; and let the probabilities of a life of 
 41 living over 1, 2, 3, <fcc. years, be 51, 52, q3, qi, &c, we 
 shall have 
 
 Al =2 ql V + q2V% + rfivi .... + q4 r>x— I. 
 But the quantities gl, g2, g3, &c. are not independent ofpi, 
 p'2,p3, &c. ; the one set are evidently functions of the other. 
 In fact, the probability that a life of 40 will live over2 years, 
 is equal to the probability that a life of 40 will live over 1 
 year, multiplied into the probability that a life of 41 will live 
 over 1 year. This is evident from the manner in which the 
 probabilities are obtained; for, ?i, ni. 712, being the numbers 
 respectively alive at the ages of 40, 41, and 42, the probabili- 
 ty that a life of 40 will live over 1 year, is!L', and that it will 
 
 continue 2 years, — or VI X — • In like manner, the pro- 
 
 n ni n 
 bability of a life of 40 living over 3 years, is equal to the pro- 
 bability of a life of 40 living over 1 year multiplied into the 
 probability that a fife of 41 will live over 2years ; and so on. 
 
 £L,q2=lL, g 3 =H, and so 
 pi pi pi 
 
 on. We have, therefore, 
 
 At =?L(pi v +p3 r2 +p4 733 .... -f p x ri-i); 
 
 and, multiplying both sides by pi r, 
 
 pi v Ai = p2 v 2 -+• p3 r3 -f- pi v* . . . . + px V* . 
 On subtracting this equation from 
 
 A = pi v + P2 i' 2 + p3 t3 -f- pi v* . . . . + px V* , 
 we get 
 
 A — pi r Ai =pi r, whence A = pi v (1 ■+- AI). 
 
 This formula, which was found by the celebrated Euler, 
 gives the following rule for determining the value of an an- 
 nuity on a life at any age from the value of the sameannui- 
 
 iy on a lift ■ year older, and renders the computation of 
 
 the whole table not much more laborious than the direct 
 calculation of the annuity on the youngest life. "To the 
 value ofan annuity on a life one year older, add unit; mul- 
 tiply the sum by the probability that the given life will live 
 over one year, and also by the present value of £1 to be re- 
 ceived at the end of a year. The product is tho value of 
 the annuity on Ihe given life." 
 
 The values of deferred and temporary annuities on single 
 lives, are easily found from the table of the values for the 
 whole of life. For example, let it be required to determine 
 the present value of an annuity on the life of an individual 
 now aged 40, but deferred 10 years, that is to say, not to 
 commence till the expiration of 10 years. After the 10 
 years, if the individual be then alive, the value of the an- 
 nultj on the remainder of his life is the annuity on a life of 
 50: let this be called B. The present value of £1 payable 
 at the end of 10 years is TlO ; and the probability of receiv- 
 ing ii in the event of an individual DOW aged I 11 being then 
 alive, is/Mo; therefore, the present value of B subject to 
 the contingency, is pio rio B. In general, the value of an 
 annuity deferred n years, ispn v> An, where An represents 
 the annuity on a life n years older than that corresponding 
 to A. 
 
 A temporary annuity on a single life for n years, is found 
 by adding together the first » terms of the series 
 
 pi v + p2 r2 + p3 r>3, &c. 
 But it is frequently more easy to find it by means of the 
 deferred annuity on the same life for the same term of 
 years ; for it is obvious that the temporary annuity and de- 
 ferred annuity are, together, equal to the whole annuity. 
 Thus, let A be an annuity for the whole of life, Atn a tem- 
 porary annuity of the sameamount for« years on the same 
 life, and A<I» the same annuity deferred n years, we shall 
 have Am = A — Adn. 
 
 Atumities un Joint Lives. — The method of calculating 
 annuities to be paid so long as two or more individuals 
 shall continue to live together, is equally simple. Let the 
 probabilities that A and B will live over 
 
 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. years 
 
 be pi, pa, p3, pi, &c. 
 gi, g2, g3, qi, &c. 
 respectively, then the probability that both will live over 
 1, 2, 3, 4, &c. years 
 
 will be pi gi, p2 g2, p3 g3, pi qi, &c. 
 and the value ofan annuity on their joint lives, which we 
 may denote by AB, becomes 
 
 AB =pl gl V +p2q2V$+p3q3vi +piqivi -4- &C, 
 continued tillp or q becomes nothing, or to the last age in 
 the table. When more lives than two are involved, the 
 method of proceeding is obvious. 
 
 Another question of this kind frequently occurs, namely, 
 to determine the value ofan annuity on the survivor of two
 
 ANNUITY. 
 
 or more lives. Let us suppose two lives only are concern- 
 ed ; and let A be the value of the annuity on the first life, 
 B that on the second, and AB that on the joint lives (i. e. to 
 be paid till one of the lives shall drop). Let px 3= the pro- 
 bability the first will live over x years, and qx = the 
 probability the second will live over x years. We shall 
 then have 
 
 1 — p K = probability 1st will die before the end of x years, 
 1 — cjx. z= prob. 2d will die before the end of x years, 
 (1 — p x ) (1 — qx) =prob. both will die before end of x years; 
 and hence the probability that both will not die before the 
 end of x years, is 1 — (1 — px) (1 — qx), which is equal to 
 p x -\- qx — px qx. This expression, therefore, is the mea- 
 sure of the probability that a payment will be received at 
 the end of the arth year; and supposing the annuity to be 
 £1, the present value of that payment certain is vx. Mul- 
 tiplying this into the above probability, we get the value in 
 present money of the payment to be made at the xili year, 
 if one or both of the lives survive, viz. 
 
 px vx + qx vx — px qx r>x. 
 Now, if we substitute successively the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 
 &c. for x in this expression, we shall have the value of the 
 1st, 2d, 3d. 4th, &c. payment, and the sum will be the value 
 of the annuity to continue during the life of the survivor. 
 But it has been shown that 
 
 pi Vl + pi V2 + p3 V3 + pi Vi + &c. = A, 
 
 ql vl + q2 v2 + </ 3 v3 + <7 4 vi + &c - = B - 
 pi ql vl + P 2 T 2 v2 +P 3 ? 3 i>' 3 -\-pi 'Ji vl + &c. = AB ; 
 therefore, the value of the annuity is A + B — AB ; that 
 is to say, the value of an annuity on the survivor of tiro lives 
 is equal to the sum of the annuities on each of the single //rev 
 diminished by the annuity on the joint lives. (For applica- 
 tions of the doctrine of annuities, see the terms Assu- 
 rance, Survivorship.) 
 
 Annuity Tables. — In consequence of the numerous and 
 important application of the doctrine of life annuities to 
 commercial purposes, great pains and labour have been 
 bestowed in the formation of tables of their values at all 
 the different ages of human life. These tables differ very 
 considerably, not from any difference in the methods of 
 constructing them, but from the difficulty of estimating 
 with numeral precision the probable duration of human 
 life. The first table of the kind which we possess was 
 given by Dr. Halley, in a paper inserted in the " Philoso- 
 phical Transactions" for 1693, and founded on observations 
 of mortality made at Breslaw. De Molvre, in a tract en- 
 titled " Annuities on Lives," published in 1724, gave a very 
 elegant formula for determining the value of a life annuity 
 at any age, founded on the hypothesis that the annual de- 
 crements of life are equal; or that out of a given number 
 of individuals, equal numbers die every year, till the whole 
 become extinct. In 1742, Thomas Simpson published 
 tables of annuities on single and joint lives, calculated from 
 observations of mortality made in London. These were 
 extended in a supplementary work published in 1752. De- 
 parcieux, in 1746, published his excellent " Essai sur les 
 Probabilites de la Duree de la Vie Humaine," with tables 
 of annuities on single lives, calculated from the probabili- 
 ties deduced from the registers kept in different religious 
 houses, and the lists of the nominees in the French Ton- 
 tines. ' These tables were decidedly the best that had 
 then appeared, and even now, when much more extensive 
 observations have been obtained, are of great value. But 
 the tables which acquired the most extensive reputation 
 were the celebrated Northampton Tables, calculated by 
 Dr. Price from registers kept in the city of Northampton. 
 These, till a late period at least, have formed the guide of 
 the transactions of all the assurance offices. They give the 
 probabilities of life, and consequently the value of the an- 
 nuities, considerably lower than all other good observations 
 have subsequently proved them to be ; but, in proportion 
 as the annuities are too low, the premiums for assurance 
 deduced from them are too high ; and hence they were 
 extremely safe for the offices, though proportionally unjust 
 for the assured. In consequence of the competition re- 
 sulting from the recent great increase in the number of as- 
 surance offices, they now transact their business on more 
 equitable terms. 
 
 An extensive set of annuity tables was given by Mr. 
 Milne in his " Treatise on the Valuation of Annuities and 
 Assurances on Lives and Survivorships," published in 
 1815. One of these tables, founded on observations made 
 at Carlisle, has acquired considerable reputation, and per- 
 haps gives a nearer representation of the value of life at 
 present in England generally than any other which has yet 
 been published. The annuities granted by government 
 are now valued according to a table calculated by Mr. Fin- 
 laison from the mortality experienced among the different 
 classes of annuitants. This table possesses a great advan- 
 tage over most others, inasmuch as it is founded on obser- 
 vations of the actual numbers who entered upon and passed 
 through the several years of age among a class of individu- 
 5C 
 
 : ANODON. 
 
 als none of which could be lost sight of, that no uncertainty 
 remains about the accuracy of the data. The values of the 
 annuities are in general considerably higher than those 
 given by the Northampton Table, at the same rate per 
 cent., and approach to those of the Carlisle Table. The 
 observations also indicate a considerable difference be- 
 tween the values of male and female life at the same ages; 
 a fact which appears to be borne out by all the accurate re- 
 gisters of mortality which have been kept in England and 
 other European countries. (»S'ee Mortality. Also see 
 De Morgan on Probabilities, 8vo.) 
 
 Annuity, hi Law. A sum of money paid yearly, and 
 charged on the personal estate, or on the person, of the in- 
 dividual from whom it is due : thus differing from a rent- 
 charge, which is charged on real estate. Annuities are 
 commonly employed as a system of borrowing and lending ; 
 the borrower of the money being the grantor of the annuity, 
 and the lender the grantee. An annuity is either for a term 
 of years, for a life or lives, or in perpetuity ; and the latter, 
 although charged on personal property, may by the terms 
 of the grant, descend as real estate. A perpetual annuity is 
 redeemable by the grantor, subject, however, to conditions 
 in the grant, by which he may preclude himself from re- 
 deeming for a certain period of years. An annuity for life 
 or years is only redeemable by consent of the parties, unless 
 it has been rendered redeemable on specific conditions in 
 the original grant. Annuities for life, on account of the risk 
 to which the grantee is exposed, are not within the usury 
 laws : they are, therefore, commonly resorted to as a mode 
 of raising money by loan at high interest. By the stat. 53 
 G. 3. c. 141., a memorial of every instrument by which an- 
 nuities for life are granted, must be enrolled in the Court of 
 Chancery, containing the date, names of parties and wit- 
 nesses, and conditions of contract, and the grantor may 
 have the instrument cancelled, if the consideration money 
 is not bona fide paid him. This act is intended to relate 
 only to annuities, granted in return for loans. Annuities 
 created by will are general legacies, and subject to abate- 
 ment, in proportion with other legacies, on a deficiency of 
 the funds ofthe testator. If a person on whose life an an- 
 nuity is charged dies between two days of payment, the 
 grantee has no claim pro rata, for the proportionate amount 
 of the yearly or quarterly sum incurred since his death. 
 This act is further explained by 3 G. 4. c. 92., 7 G. 4. c. 75. 
 
 AN'NULAR ECLIPSE. An eclipse ofthe sun, in which 
 the moon conceals the whole ofthe sun's disk, excepting a 
 bright ring all round the border. (<S'ee Eclipse.) 
 
 AN'NULATE. Formed or divided into distinct rings, or 
 marked with differently coloured annulations. 
 
 AN'NULET. (Lat. annulus, a little ring.) In Architec- 
 ture. A small square moulding which crowns or accom- 
 panies a larger. Also that fillet which separates the (lutings 
 of a column, though improperly used in that sense. It is 
 sometimes called a list or listella ; which see. 
 
 ANNULO'SA. (Lat. annulus, a ring.) A term used to 
 designate, sometimes a part, sometimes the whole, of the 
 Articulate division of Invertebrate animals. 
 
 A'NMILUS. (Lat. annulus, a ring.) This word is used 
 in Botany in several different senses. In the mushroom 
 and some other fungi it is applied to a collar which sur- 
 rounds the stipes just below the hymenium ; in mosses it 
 signifies a rim external with respect to the peristome ; in 
 ferns it is an elastic rib which girds the theca nearly all 
 round, and which by its contraction tears the theca open 
 ami disperses the spores. 
 
 ANNU'NCIA'TION, Order op the. Founded in Sa- 
 voy by Amadeus VI., in 1335, as the order of the Collar: 
 received its present name from Charles III. The reigning 
 king of Sardinia is grand master ofthe order. 
 
 Annunciation, Feast ofthe. A festival of the Christian 
 church, in commemoration of the announcement of the 
 conception of our Saviour to the Blessed Virgin, by the an- 
 gel Gabriel. (St. Luke i. 26. 38.) It is celebrated on the 
 25th of March, commonly called Lady-day. 
 
 ANO'BIUM. The name of aFabrician genus of Coleop- 
 terous insects, characterised by antenna? filiform, the last 
 joints larger ; thorax nearly round, not margined, receiving 
 the head ; palpi clavate ; labium entire. 
 
 A'NODE. (Gr. dva, upwards, and dJos, a icay.) The 
 way by which electricity enters substances through which 
 it passes : opposed to cathode, the road or way by which it 
 goes out. 
 
 A'NODON. (Gr. d, priv., dSov s, a tooth.) The name of 
 a genus of Lamellibranchiate Bivalves, including the com- 
 mon freshwater muscle, the shell of which has no articu- 
 lar processes, or teeth, at the hinge. The name has also 
 been applied to a genus of serpents, which have the teeth 
 in the mouth very minute, or rudimental : the Anodon, 
 Ti/pus (Coluber scaber of Linnaeus), a South African spe- 
 cies of this genus, lives upon the eggs of birds, which, by 
 the structure ofthe mouth above mentioned, it is enabled 
 to swallow entire. The inferior spinous processes of the 
 cervical vertebra? are prolonged into the gullet, and there 
 receive a coating of enamel ; thus serving the office of
 
 ANODYNE. 
 
 teeth where the breaking of the egg may take place with- I 
 out the loss of any of its nutritious contents. 
 
 A'NODYNE. (Gr. d, without, and o&vvri, pain.) A 
 term applied in Physic to medicines which relieve pain. 
 Anodynes are chiefly of vegetable origin, and generally 
 come under the head of sedatives or narcotics. 
 
 ANO'LIS. An >&*, anoalU, is the vernacular name, in the 
 Antilles, of the lizard to which the generic term Anolis is 
 applied. This term is restricted in Zoology to those Igu- 
 anoid species of lizard which have minute scales on the 
 under part of the last joints of the toes, while the next 
 joints are extended into soft pads transversely striated, bat 
 not cm - i as a sucker, as in the Geckos. All the 
 
 species of Anolis. are natives of the warmer parts of the 
 American continent ; all are remarkable for their power 
 of inflating the skin of the throat ; they are light and agile 
 in their movements; and in the beaut] and brilliancy of 
 their colour exceed all others of the Saurian order. 
 
 \M>'M M.I'STIC YEAR. The interval ol time in 
 which the earth completes a revolution with respect to any 
 point in its elliptic orbit. The tropical year is measured 
 by the return of the earth to the same equinox: the side- 
 real year by its return to the same fixed star; the anoma- 
 listic year by us return to the same apsis or extremity of 
 the greater axis of its orbil The major axis of the diame- 
 ter of the earth's orbit is not fixed, but has a prog! 
 motion eastward among the stars. Suppose thai when the 
 earth is at its perihelion, or point oearest the Bun, the other 
 extremity of the major axis points to a given star ; when 
 the earth, after having completed a revolution, returns to 
 it- perihelion, the diamt ter will point \l" < eastward of the 
 same star; consequently the anomalistic year is longer 
 than the sidereal year by the time which thi 
 to describe ' : It is still longer than the tropi- 
 ca] year, for the line of thi b ickwards at 
 the rate of 50""1 In a year: therefore, after the earth has 
 completed a revolution with respect to the line of the equi- 
 noxes, it has still to describe B0r' - 1 + 11""8 = 61"-9, before 
 it overtakes the same point of its ellipse The tun.' occu 
 pied in describing this arc is 26 minutes, and the length of 
 the tropical year is 366d Bh. 1 15s.; therefore the ano- 
 malistic year is 365d. 6h. 13m. !■■ 
 
 \m>'M\I.Y. i<;r. dWiiiaXos, uneouai, or irregular.) A 
 term used in Astronomy to denote the angular distance of 
 a planet from its perihelion, as seen from the sun There 
 are three different anomalies ; the true, the me in, and the 
 eccentric. Lei A /' H be the orbit "i 
 a planet. S the sun. A H the trans- 
 verse diameter, and (' the centre. 
 Through p draw P n perpi 
 i" \ It. meeting the circle circum- 
 scribed at t tie- orbil in I 
 
 count of its unequal distances from 
 the sun. tie' angular motion "i i planet in it- orbit is irregu- 
 lar; co fore, thai while the real planet moves 
 from A to /i. another planet mo* ing in the same orbit, with 
 an equable motion, and performing a revolution in ti - 
 time, has moved from itoP i being supposed, the 
 am.de a s /■ 1- tie' true anomaly : A s 1' i~ i 
 malv ; and \ c ./' the eccentric anomaly. The mean ano- 
 maly is proportioned to the time of description ; to find the 
 true anomaly, is a problem of considerable difficulty, re- 
 quiring the aid of the higher mathematics From the cir- 
 cumstance of its having r n first proposed by Kepler, it is 
 
 usually called Kepler's problem. 
 
 Anomaly. In Qrammar, an exception from a general 
 rule. 
 
 ANO'MIA. (Or. d, without, v&ixo%. a late ; because not 
 easily reduced to Ihe ordinary laws of classification.) The 
 name of a Linnaean genus of the \ ermes Test icea, tie- 
 characters of which as given in the Systema Natural, apply 
 to the organisation of the soft parts and shell of the modern 
 Terebratulse. In the system of Cuvier the term Anomia 
 is limited to a genus of Acephalous Mollusca, having two 
 unequal irregular thin valves, of which the flatter 
 deeply notched at the cardinal margin. The greatest part 
 of the central muscle traverses this opening to be inserted 
 into a third piece, which is sometimes calcareous, and 
 sometimes simply homy, but which is always attached to 
 foreign bodies. The rest of the muscle serves to join one 
 valve to the other. The animal has a small vestige of a 
 foot, and is remarkable for the length of its labial tentacles. 
 
 AN'ONA. (Menona, the Malayan name of the custard 
 apple.) A genus of trees found in hot latitudes, with large 
 roundish pulpy fruit, which in some species is used as food. 
 The custard apple, so named from its seeds laying in a 
 whitish sweet cream-like pulp, is produced by A. squamosa ; 
 the cherimoyer, the most esteemed of all the fruits in Peru, 
 is yielded by another ; and other kinds are known. 
 
 ANONA'CEJE. (.See Anona.) An extensive natural 
 order of Exogenous plants, comprehending evergreen trees 
 or shrubs, whose fruit is sometimes eatable, as in Anona, 
 more generally dry and aromatic, as in the genera Unona, 
 Habzelia, &c, whose ripe carpels furnished the Piper 
 57 
 
 ANTENNA. 
 
 asthiopieum of the old drug shops. The great mark of 
 Anonaceae is their having ternary (trimerous) flowers, and 
 a ruminated albumen. 
 
 ANO'.NYMors. (Gr. dvoiWjioi, nameless, from ai/opa, 
 a name.) In Literature, works published without the name 
 of the author. Those published under a false name are 
 termed Pseudonymous (ipevSos, falsehood). The best cata- 
 logue of anonymous works is tiiat of ltarbier (Dietionnaire 
 . wages Anonymes et Pseudonymes, 3 vols. Paris, 
 1822 1824). There is also the great work of Placcius, 
 Thealrum Anonymorum et Pseudonymorum, t. foL Ham- 
 burg. 1703. 
 
 AM >1'I.( rTHE'RIUM. (Gr. avou-Aoj, unarmed, and Sij- 
 piov, beast.) The name of a genus of extinct animals of 
 the order Pachydermata, characterised by the shortness 
 and feeble size of the canine teeth, which resemble the in- 
 cisors, and are consequently unfitted for being used as 
 weapons of offence. As the canines in this genus do not 
 project below the level of the incisors and molar teeth, no 
 \ leant interspace is required in the dental series of the op- 
 positejawfor the reception of their pointed extremities, 
 and consequently the series of teeth is uninterrupted in 
 both jaws. — a structure observable in no existing animal 
 save man. The Anoplotherium has 6 incisors. 2 canines, 
 and 11 molars in each taw. The best known i Vnoplothe- 
 riiun commune, Cuv.) is about the size of a wild boar, but 
 longer in the body, with the head of an oblong form, and 
 a tail of considerable thickness, and as long as the body. 
 
 Its probable use was to assist the animal in swimming. 
 
 Another species of Anoplotherium < A. medium) is of a size 
 and form more nearly approaching to the light and grace- 
 ful character of the gazelle ; a third Bpecies was about the 
 
 size ol ■ S I thi pecii .from the form ol the 
 
 and Hi or horns, appear to have been 
 
 singularly deficient in defensfc -gans. 
 
 \\iii:i. X 1 ! i (Jr. d, without, and dpe*is, appetite.) 
 I tite. 
 
 ANO'SMIA. (Gr d,ioithout,Bnd dour), smell.) Loss of 
 the sins.- of smelling. 
 
 aJSO'STOMA (Gr. dv<o, upwards, and trroua, mouth.) 
 \ f P r air-breathing Gastropods, the 
 
 adult shell of whteh presents the following peculiarity,— 
 the last whorl turns upwards towards the spire of the shell. 
 
 Will KANS, Will KA (Gr. d. priv., and oipa, 
 
 tail i \ I to a tribe of Batrachian reptiles, 
 
 which lose the tan in arriving at maturity ; as the toad 
 
 \'\-d:i:i:s (Lai anaer, a goose.) In the Linnaean ar- 
 i.-nt, the name of the third order of birds, having 
 the bill broad at thi red with a soft skin ; the 
 
 feel web v Natatores.) 
 
 \\ i See Fo 
 
 \ \T\. .1: plur. (I. at. ante, before.) In Architecture, 
 
 a pilaster or square projection attached to a wall. When 
 
 they are detached from the wall, Vitruvius calls them pa- 
 
 e. They are not usually diminished even when ac- 
 
 iiviiil' columns from whose capitals, in all Greek 
 
 works, they vary. 
 
 \vi\ i ;ii^ Medicines which neutralise the acid of 
 the Btomach. 
 
 \NT\ l.i.K'. (Gr. aim, agamst, and d\yo$, pain I 
 That which relieves pain. 
 
 \\ TAN \< I. A'SIS. (A compound word from the Greek 
 
 fdvri and dva, and the verb K^aoi, I b> 
 n Rhetoric and Composition, a figure in which a word is 
 • I. but in a different sense or different inflection 
 from the tii-st ; which gives a kind of antithetical force to 
 the expression. 
 
 " Labiiur. et labetur in omne volubilis avum." 
 
 The return to the former series of though! and diction af- 
 ter the interruption of a parenthesis, is also termed Anta- 
 naclasis. 
 
 S/NTAPHRODI'SIACS. (Gr. dm, against, and A<ppo- 
 nrn. Venus i Medicines which quell amorous desires. 
 
 ANTARCTIC. (Gr. dvri, against, and dpKros, a bear.) 
 Opposite to Arctic. Antarctic circle, one of the small cir- 
 cles of the sphere, parallel to the equator, and distant 23° 
 27^' from the South pole. Antarctic pole, the South pole, 
 or southern extremity of the axis of the earth. (See 
 Arctic.) 
 
 ANTECE'DENT. In Analysis, the name given to the 
 first of the two terms composing a ratio. Thus in the 
 ratio a : b, a is the antecedent, and b is denominated the 
 consequent. 
 
 Antecedent. In Logic, the first member of an hypo- 
 thetical proposition ; followed by the consequent ; as in the 
 following instance : — 
 
 If we say we have no sin (antecedent), 
 We deceive ourselves (consequent). 
 
 ANTEDILU'YIAN. (Lat. ante, before, and deluvium, 
 deluge.) Something that existed before the deluge. 
 
 ANTELOPE. See Antilope. 
 
 ANTE'NNA. (Lat. a yard arm.) A moveable, tubular, 
 and jointed sensiferous organ situated on the head; and
 
 -< 
 
 ANTENNULyE. 
 
 peculiar to the Condylope Articulata. Certain Annelides 
 cany soft tentacles or filaments upon the head, which 
 have been termed antenna? ; but improperly, according to 
 the above definition, which would restrict the phrase to 
 the jointed antenna? of insects and crustaceans. In the 
 latter class the antenna? are commonly four in number, 
 consisting each of a 'scape,' a 'pedicel,' of two joints, and 
 a ' clavolet' ; the latter is setaceous, and divided into a vast 
 number of minute joints. It is simple in the external an- 
 tenna?, but in the internal pair is always composed of two 
 and sometimes of three setaceous filaments. The internal 
 pair of antenna? are situated before or between the eyes, 
 the external behind, at the outer sides of the eyes, hi in- 
 sects the antenna? are always two in number, and situated 
 in the space between or before the eyes ; they consequent- 
 ly correspond to the internal antenna? of crustaceans. 
 The cavity or socket in which the base of the antenna? is 
 planted is called the ' torulus,' or bed. The first, and in 
 many cases the most conspicuous, joint of the antenna? is 
 termed the scape. The base of the scape, by which it is 
 articulated with the torulus, is the bulb. It often looks like 
 a distinct joint, and is the point upon which the antenna 
 turns. The pedicellus, or second joint of the antenna, in 
 some insects, also acts the part of a pivot in the bed of the 
 scape, in order to give a separate motion to the clavola, or 
 clavolet. This, which includes the remaining joints of the 
 antenna taken together, is occasionally terminated by a 
 capitulum or knob ; a term applied to the last joints of the 
 clavolet when suddenly larger than the rest. (.For the va- 
 rieties of antenna? with respect to situation, approximation, 
 proportion, direction, figure, termination, and appendages, 
 the reader is referred to the 4th vol. of Kirby and Spence's 
 Introduction to Entomology.) 
 
 ANTE'NNULjE. (Dim. of antenna.) A term some- 
 times applied to the articulated filaments attached to the 
 jaws or lower lip of Mandibulate insects, and which seem 
 to be endowed with a sensiferous faculty specially adapted 
 to distinguish kinds of food, and applied by the animal to 
 that use : these organs are more commonly called palps, 
 palpi, or feelers. 
 
 A'NTEPAGME'NTA. (Lat.) In Architecture, the mould- 
 ings or architraves round doors ; also the jambs of a door. 
 
 ANTEPE'CTUS. hi Entomology, signifies the under 
 side or breastplate of the manitrunk, and the bed of the 
 first pair of extremities or arms. 
 
 A'NTEPENU'LT, or ANTEPENULTLMA. In Gram- 
 mar and Prosody, the last syllable of a word but two. 
 
 ANTE'RIOR. (Lat. ante, before.) This is said either 
 when of two lobes of a stigma, one, the anterior, is directed 
 ' towards the front of a flower, and the other, the posterior, 
 towards the back, or in any other similar case. It is also 
 applied to certain stipules, which stand between the petiole 
 and stem of a plant, adhering to the former, as in some 
 Cinchonaceous plants. 
 
 ANTESIGNA'NI. A class of soldiers in the Roman 
 army, who were drawn up in front of the standards (ante 
 signa), whence they derived their name. As their post 
 was one that demanded great courage and firmness, they 
 were picked troops. 
 
 ANTHE'LA. (Gr. di/0ijXioi>, a little flower.) A name 
 given by Mever to the inflorescence of rushes. 
 
 ANTHE'LIX. (Gr. dvri, against, and >;X<£, the helix, or 
 external involute margin of the auricle.) hi Anatomy, the 
 outer or external ridge of the auricle ear, which runs near- 
 ly parallel with the helix. r 
 
 ANTHELMINTICS. (Gr. dvri, against, and t\uivs, 
 a worm.) Medicines which kill intestinal worms, or effect 
 their expulsion. 
 
 A'NTHEM. (Gr. dvTKpwvn, alternate singing.) A 
 piece of music performed in cathedral service by choris- 
 ters who sing alternately. This manner of singing is very 
 ancient in the church ; some suppose it to have descended 
 from the practice of the earliest Christians, who, accord- 
 ing to Pliny, were accustomed to sing their Hymn to Christ 
 in parts or by turns (secum invicem). 
 
 A'NTHER. (Gr. dvdripa, a flowery herb.) A hollow 
 case, usually consisting of two parallel cells, and constitut- 
 ing the apparatus that contains the pollen, or male part of 
 a flower. Theoretically considered, an anther is the blade 
 of a leaf, in a contracted state, with its two sides hollowed 
 out and its parenchyma converted into pollen, while the 
 midrib in a fleshy state divides the two lobes, and is called 
 the connective. This part is sometimes highly developed, 
 when the lobes of the anther are often placed at a distance 
 from each other, as in Nympha?a; or it is altogether ab- 
 sorbed, when the lobes run together, and there is but one 
 cell, as in Epacris. Other modifications produce other 
 striking appearances : one lobe, for instance, disappears, 
 and the connective is expanded into the state of a petal, as 
 in Carina ; or it is simply lengthened and distorted, as in 
 Salvia ; or, the anther remaining in its normal state, it is 
 converted into a fleshy mass, as in Pena?a ; and it under- 
 goes many similar transformations, either from the same 
 or other causes. What is most curious about the anther, 
 53 
 
 ANTHROPOGRAPHY. 
 
 is its property of opening to discharge iis pollen just at the 
 very time when the stigma is ready to receive the influence 
 of the latter. The cause of this sympathy between two 
 really independent parts is supposed to consist in an emp- 
 tying and drying up of the cellules forming the lining of 
 the anther by the absorbent action of the ovary, which is 
 imagined thus by its own efforts to bring about an action 
 which is necessary to its own complete operation. The 
 cellules lining the anther, when thus dried up, contract, 
 and pull against certain fissures or dehiscent hues in the 
 valves of the anther, which give way, and so form openings 
 by which the pollen escapes. 
 
 ANTHERI'FEROUS. (Lat. anthera, an anther, and 
 fero, I bear.) Forming a support to an anther. 
 
 ANTHERO'GENOUS. (Lat. anthera, and Gr. ydvopai, 
 I am produced.) When, in double flowers, the anthers are 
 converted into horn-like petals, as in the double columbine. 
 
 ANTHE'ROID. Resembling an anther. 
 
 ANTHE'SIS. (Gr. dvdnats, t/ie generation of flowers.) 
 The period when flowers expand. It is at that time that 
 all the curious phenomena of fertilisation occur; the parts 
 are all in their most perfect state, and consequently it is 
 often necessary to speak of that period. 
 
 ANTHO'DIUM. (Gr. dvdos, a flower, or dvdca&r)s,full of 
 flowers.) The head of flowers of a thistle or a daisy ; it is 
 the same thing as capitulum, and is applicable to all cases 
 where a number of small flowers or florets are combined 
 in a head, and surrounded by a common involucrum. An 
 anthodium is nothing but a depressed spike. 
 
 ANTHO'LOGY. (Gr. dvdoXoyta.) Signifying "a gar- 
 land of flowers," and metaphorically applied to a collection 
 of short pieces of poetry, on amatory, convivial, moral, fu- 
 nereal, &c. subjects, called epigrams ; not in the English 
 sense of the word, which implies a pointed conceit, but in 
 the more proper signification of "inscription." The first 
 collection of epigrams known by the name of Anthology 
 was made by Meleager, a Syrian Greek poet, who lived 
 about a century before the birth of Christ ; and to this 
 several additions were made by different hands as low 
 down as the times of the Byzantine empire. A selection 
 from the Greek Anthology, translated into English verse 
 by the late Mr. Bland and several friends, has gone through 
 two editions. 
 
 ANTHO'LYSIS. (Gr. dvdos, a flower, and \v<rts, a 
 breaking up.) The changes of flowers from their usual to 
 some other state, as leaves, branches, &c. 
 
 ANTHO'PHORUM. (Gr. dvdos, a flower, and (pcpetv, to 
 bear.) A columnar process arising from the bottom of the 
 calyx, and having at its apex the petals, stamens, and pistil. 
 It is usually very short, and is in reality an internode be- 
 tween the whorls of sepals and petals. 
 
 ANTHOXA'NTHUM. (Gr. dvdos, a flower, and \avdos, 
 yelknc.) A dwarf annual grass, found plentifully in pas- 
 tures, and having sweet-scented leaves. It is thought that 
 the fragrance of hay is owing to its presence. The flowers 
 are in oval heads, which become dull yellow when ripe. 
 Farmers call it the sweet vernal grass. 
 
 ANTHOZA'SIA. (Gr. dvdos, a flower, and ?a&>, I flour- 
 ish.) When the leaves of a plant assume the appearance 
 of petals. 
 
 AN'THRACITE. (Gr. dvdpa%, charcoal.) Mineral car- 
 bon. A difficultly combustible species of coal. 
 
 A'NTHRACOTHE'RIUM. (Gr. dvdpa\, charcoal, and 
 Sirjpiov, a beast.) A name indicative of the stratum in 
 which the fossil genus of Pachyderms, to which it is ap- 
 plied, was found, viz. in the tertiary coal or lignite of Ca- 
 dibona, in Liguria. The genus presents seven species, 
 some of them approximating to the size and character of 
 the hog ; others approaching nearly to the dimensions of a 
 hippopotamus. 
 
 A'NTHRAX. The name of a Fabrician genus of Dip- 
 terous insects, having the mouth provided with a very long 
 straight setaceous sucker, formed of two unequal horizon- 
 tal valves, and containing setaceous stings ; palpi two, 
 hairy ; antenna? distant, the last joint setaceous. The ge- 
 nus is now raised to the rank of a family, Anthracidm, cha- 
 racterised by a short body ; wings spreading widely out ; 
 antenna? distant, two and sometimes three jointed ; the 
 head as high as the thorax. Two of the genera (So?natia, 
 and Anthrax proper) are British. 
 
 ANTHRE'NUS. The name of a Linna?an genus of 
 Coleopterous insects, having the antenna? clavate, the club 
 solid ; palpi unequal, filiform : maxilla? membranaceous, 
 linear, bifid ; labium entire ; head hid under the thorax. 
 
 A'NTHRIBUS. The name of a Fabrician genus of 
 Coleopterous insects, applied to that section of the Linna?an 
 Curculiones, which has the lip bifid, the jaw bifid and short, 
 and the proboscis short. 
 
 ANTHROPO'GRAPHY. (Gr. dvOpomos, man, and 
 ypacpctv, to describe.) A branch of Physical Geography 
 which investigates the physical characteristics, local boun- 
 daries, and actually existing circumstances, of different 
 races or families of men : differing from Ethnography, 
 which examines their origin and affinities.
 
 ANTHROPOLOGY. 
 
 ANTHROPO'I.OGY. (Gr. dvOpamot, man, and Aojoc, 
 discourse.) The science which treats of human nature, 
 both physical and intellectual : any writing on the nature 
 and attributes of man may be said to be anthropological. 
 But the term is frequently used to denote the science of 
 Anatomy in particular. 
 
 \ \ 11 1 1! < )' J'c ».M( )'RPHITES. Persons who conceive the 
 Deity to have naturally the human shape. Such sensuous 
 conceptions of the nature of God have been always com- 
 mon anions heathens. 
 
 ANTHRO'POMO'RPHOUS. (Gr. dv0pomo;,aman, and 
 pop<j>n,furm.) A name applied to the labellum in some 
 Orchidaceous plants, in consequence of the upper lobes 
 having a fancied resemblance to human arms, and the low- 
 er to human lege. 
 
 A NTHROPO I'HAGI. (Gr. dvBpwxos, man, and <payav, 
 to eat.) People who feed upon human flesh. 
 
 Willi 'RD8. ((Jr. dvvos, a flaw r, and ovpa, a tail.) 
 A spike of minute flowers arranged closely on a long axis, 
 as in the genus Piper. 
 
 ATTTHuS. The name ofa subgenus of Passerine birds, 
 Including the pipits. 
 
 A'NTl. (Gr. dvri, against.) This Greek preposition is 
 constantly used as a prefix ; thus, antidote, antibilious, an- 
 tipathy, &.C. 
 
 A'NTIAR. {See Upas.) A Javan se poison. 
 
 A'.VI'I -ATTRl'TloV A compound applied to machine- 
 ry to prevent the effects of friction. It frequently consists 
 ofa mixture of plumbago with some greasy material. 
 
 wtikkv'i mi M (Qr. dvri, against, ft paxtor, arm.) 
 The fore-arm, or third segment of the anterior extremities, 
 which is formed, in the skeleton, by the radius and ulna 
 conjointly; or sometimes by the radius, either alone, or 
 with the ulna partially developed. And the fore-arm articu- 
 lates, aboi s with the arm, below with the hand, 
 
 \'\ in II UMBER, (Fr. antichambre.) In Architec- 
 ture. Any outward chamber adjoining or near a bed- 
 chamber; also an apartment before any principal cham- 
 ber; also a lobbj oi outerwaiting-roominapaJ 
 
 A'NTICHRIST. (Gr ivrtxpicros, opponent of Chriat.) 
 Mentioned bj 8l John, Is) Ep, ii. 18., ana supposed to be 
 the same with the " man of sin'' whose coming is foretold 
 by St. Paul, 2d These, ch. ii The speculations in which 
 ogical writers have indulged respecting this great ad- 
 versary of Christianity have been varic fanci- 
 ful ; but the prevalenl opinion among reformed divh 
 always connected him with the Romish church Al (he 
 council of Gap, in 1603, the reformed miniate: 
 Bembled, inserted an article in their Confession of Faith, in 
 which the pope is pronounced Antichrist. Grotius, and 
 most catholic divines, consider Uitichrist as symbolical ol 
 Pagan Rom is: Leclerc, Lightfi at, and 
 others, of the Jewish Sanhedrim, or particular Jewish im- 
 
 (See Dodsworth lures, London, 
 
 for the opinion entertained by some lliL'h Church divines 
 of the present day | 
 
 ANTICLI'MAX (Gr. dvrt, and K\iua\, gradation.) In 
 Rhetoric, when a sentence oi discourse, instead of ascend- 
 ing from little to great, descends from great to little. Horace 
 has given a famous example, 
 
 11 Parturiunt monU-s, nascetur ridiculua mua." 
 There an' also several Mtiking examples of this figure in 
 Pope, as in the vei . 
 
 " Die, and endow a college or a cat." 
 
 But in this case the effeel is heightened by the alliteration. 
 ANTH'i.i \\i. wis. (Gr. dvri, against, and kXwsiv, 
 to incline.) If a range of hills or a vail. \ be composed of 
 Btrata which, on the two sides, dip in opposite directions, 
 iip imaginary lino thai lies between them, towards which 
 the strata on each side rise, is called the anticlinal axis In 
 a row of houses with steep roofs facing the south, tin 
 represent inclined Btrata dipping north ami south, and the 
 ridge is an east and west anticlinal axis (Lyell.) In the 
 annexed diagram, a a are the anticlinal, b b the synclinal 
 lines. 
 
 ANTTCOUS. (Lat.) In Botany, is applied to an anther 
 whose lobes are placed facing the style ; or to a petal which 
 is stationed on that side of a flower which is next the eye of 
 an observer as it grows upon its stem. 
 
 AMTCl'M. (Lat.) In ancient Architecture. The 
 southern porch of a building ; that which was towards the 
 north being called the posticum. It is also used to signify 
 that part of the temple between the cell and the columns of 
 the portico. 
 
 59 
 
 ANTINOMIANS. 
 
 A'NTTDOTE. (Gr. dvri, against, and 6iZwp.i, I give.) 
 A remedv or preservative against sickness. (,Vee Poison.) 
 
 A'NTIFI'XA, or ANTEF1XA. (Lat. ante, before, and 
 figo, I fix.) In Architecture. The ornaments of lions' and 
 other heads below the eaves of a temple, through perfora- 
 tions in which, usually by the mouth, the water is cast away 
 from the eaves. By some this term is used to denote the 
 upright ornaments above the eaves in ancient Architecture, 
 which concealed the ends of the harmi, or joint tiles. 
 
 ANTILI'THICS. (Gr. dvri. against, and Aifloc, a stone.) 
 Medicines used in the treatment of stone in the bladder and 
 urinary gravel. 
 
 A'NTH.n'GARITHM. In its most common acceptation, 
 denotes the number to a logarithm. Thus, in the common 
 system of logarithms, 100 is the antilogarithm of 2, because 
 2 is the logarithm of 100. Sometimes the term is used to 
 denote the complement of the logarithm, or the difference 
 of the logarithm from the next higher term in the series, 1, 
 10,100. &c 
 
 ANTILOI'MK'. (Gr. dvri, against, and \otpos, conta- 
 gion, or the plague.) Remedies used in the prevention and 
 cure of the plague. 
 
 A'NTILOPE. (Gr. dvdos, ornament, and cut//, eye.) An- 
 telope ; a term which, according to Cuvier, is a corruption 
 of the word "antholops," applied by Eustathius, an ancient 
 naturalist, to the gazelle, in allusion to its beautiful eyes. 
 The name is now given to a division of the hollow-horned 
 Ruminants (see Cavicornia). in which the bony axis of 
 the horn is without cavities or sinus, s. Antilopes are fur- 
 ther distinguished by suborbital or maxillary glandular 
 pouches, and their light and elegant figure. They are the 
 natives, for the most part, of the wildest and least accessi- 
 ble places in the warmer latitudes of the globe ; frequenting 
 the cliffs and ledges of mountain rocks, or the verdure-clad 
 hanks of tropical si iea ins. or the oases of the desert. They 
 traverse the intervening wildernesses in pairs or in troops, 
 with incredible fleetness, clearing obstacles, which would 
 impede the curse ol other quadrupeds, by a succession of 
 niids. 
 
 i ml Mopes are now arranged under a number of sub- 
 generic divisions, according to the form of the horns, which 
 
 are peculiar to the male. 
 
 \\ I 'IMii'sh \( ID. The peroxide of antimony. {See 
 Antimony | 
 
 \VTIMu\Y. \ brittle metal of a silver white colour; 
 specific gravity, 6'7. Fuses at 810°, or just at a red heat, 
 i principal properties of this metal were first described 
 in the "Currus Tnumphalis Smtimonii" of Basil Valentine, 
 published towards the end of the thirteenth century., 
 heated In an open vessel, It gradually combines with " 
 oxygen, and evaporates in a while vapour. There are three 
 ■ 'I antimony. The protoxide consists of 65 antimo- 
 ny + 12 oxygen : it is a greyish white ptfwder, eminently 
 purgative, sudorific, and emetic : and as such, of much im- 
 portance in medicine. Ii is the active base of emetic tartar 
 and of James's powder. The other oxides of antimony, 
 from combining with certain ha.-es. ha\e been called anti- 
 
 moniousand antimonic acid : tney consist respectively of 66 
 
 antimony + 16 oxygen, and 06 + 20. The combination of 
 chlorine and antimony w»s known to the old chemists un- 
 der the name of butter of antimony. The principal ore of 
 antimony is the sulghuret: it is met With in commerce, 
 melted into conical ingots, under the name of crude anti- 
 mony, h is "i a bluish grey colour, metallic lustre, and a 
 striated texture; specific gravity 4-62; it is much more 
 fusible than the pure metal. Antimony forms brittle 
 alloys with some of the most malleable metals : when gold 
 is alloyed with a two-hundredth part of antimony, the com- 
 pound is brittle ; and even the fumes of antimony in the 
 vicinity of melted gold are sullicient to render it brittle. 
 Alloyed With lead in the proportion of 1 to 16, and a small 
 addition of copper, it forms the metal used for printers' 
 types: with lead only, a white and rather brittle compound 
 is formed, used for the plates upon which music is en- 
 graved. With iron it forms a hard whitish alloy, formerly 
 called martial rt fulus: 12 parts of tin and 1 of antimony 
 form hard pewter. The while metal spoons and teapots 
 are formed of an alloy of 100 tin, S antimony, 2 bismuth, 
 and 2 copper. 
 
 A ntimo ny is the stimmi. or stibium, of the old chemists. 
 
 ANTINOMIANS. (Gr. dvri, against, and vopo;, hnc.) 
 Oppugners of the law. In Theology. Antinomians are such 
 as interpret the law, to which St. Paul refers more espe- 
 cially in the Epistle to the Romans, as including all moral 
 ordinances whatsoever ; and push the contrast which the 
 Apostle maintains between faith and the works of the law 
 to an extreme extent, asserting the entire uselessness of 
 good works, in any case, and the sole efficacy of faith. 
 Hence the term Solifidian is applied to the same class of re- 
 ligionists. The name of Antinomian was first given by 
 Luther, as a term of reproach, to the followers of the opin- 
 ions of John Agricola on this subject, who complained, 
 however, that his notions had been unfairly represented. 
 Similar doctrines appear to have been held 'in England by
 
 ANTIPJEDOBAPTISTS. 
 
 an ephemeral sect in the time of the commonwealth: but 
 antinomiantsm may now be taken rather as expressing the 
 extreme to which "the Calvinistic scheme of theology has 
 the tendency to lead men, than as denoting any distinct sect 
 or congregation, either in this country or abroad. 
 
 ANTIPyE'DQBA'PTISTS. In Theology. Those who 
 object to the baptism of infants on the ground that they are 
 not capable of understanding the nature of the rite, and of 
 pledging themselves to such a course of life as is required 
 of all such as come to he baptized. (See Baptists.) 
 
 A'NTIPATHES. A genus of Corticiferous Polypes, or 
 corals, in which the central axis is enveloped by so soft a 
 cortex that it falls off when the specimen is removed from 
 the water. From the colour of the axis, it is commonly 
 called " black coral." 
 
 A'NTIPE'DES. (Lat. ante, before, pes, foot.) In Zoolo- 
 gy, the anterior or pectoral extremities. 
 
 A'NTIPHLOGI'STICS. (Gr. eurrt, against, and ip\oyia- 
 H<is, inflammation.) Medicines which allay inflammatory 
 action. 
 
 A'NTIPHLOGIS'TIC SYSTEM. In Chemistry, the 
 system opposed to that of Phlogiston. (See Phlogistic.) 
 A'NTIPHON. (Gr. dvTKpiovciv, to sing agairtst, ormutu- 
 aUy.) In ancient Church Music, the short verse sung be- 
 fore the psalm and other portions of the Catholic service. 
 (See Anthem.) 
 
 ANTI'PODES. (Gr. dvri, against, and rrovs, the foot.) 
 Denotes, literally, those who stand feet to feet; that is, the 
 inhabitants of opposite parts of the earth. They live under 
 the same parallels of latitude, on opposite sides of the equa- 
 tor, consequently the seasons are reversed, or. when it is 
 summer to the one, it is winter to the other. Their longi- 
 tude differs by ISO , or 12 hours, consequently their days 
 and nights are reversed, that is, when it is mid-day to the 
 one, it is midnight to the other. They have the same cli- 
 mate, in so far, at least, as climate depends on latitude. 
 
 A'NTIPOPE. One that assumes the title and functions 
 of pope without a valid election. The term more particu- 
 larly refers to the popes who maintained themselves in op- 
 position to each other, during part of the fourteenth and fif- 
 teenth centuries. The great western schism was caused by 
 the rival jealousies of the French and Italian parties in the 
 conclave ; the French cardinals having been accustomed by 
 their numbers, and the influence of the kings of France, 
 to carry the election in favour of French candidates, while 
 the popes resided at Avignon, a period of about 70 years, 
 from 1305 to 1376. Accordingly, when the Italian party at 
 last succeeded in the election of Urban VI., in 1389, the 
 French cardinals retired from Rome, and there invested 
 with the functions of pope one of their own body, under the 
 title of Clement VII. They attempted, in the first instance, 
 to maintain themselves in Italy, and war was proclaimed 
 between the two rivals. After a short struggle, Clement 
 retreated to Avignon ; and there he, and his successor, 
 Benedict XIII., held their Court, while Urban, and after 
 him, Boniface IX. and Gregory XII., reigned at Rome. They 
 were supported respectively "by different European states, 
 of which France, Austria, Castile, Aragon, Savoy, Genoa, 
 and Scotland sided with the party of the seceders. The 
 schism, however, caused great scandal throughout Chris- 
 tendom, and measures were repeatedly taken, and baffled 
 only by the artifices of the rival claimants, for an adjust- 
 ment of the difference. There seemed lo be three methods 
 of proceeding to this end, and each liable to great difficul- 
 ties : — 1st. By the simultaneous resignation of both pontiffs, 
 and a fresh election. 2d. By an arbitration between them. 
 And, 3d. By the calling of a general council, to declare the 
 holy see void, and recommend the conclave to fill tbe va- 
 cancy. This last method was finally adopted ; though it has 
 been constantly objected, that such a council could not be 
 lawfully convened except by the summons of a reigning 
 pope ; which condition certainly was not fulfilled in the in- 
 stance of the council of Pisa. However, in 1409, the rival 
 parties were both declared guilty of heresy and schism, and 
 thereby the validity of both claims greatly disproved. Alex- 
 ander V. was then elected in due form ; and the antipopes 
 were unable long to maintain their pretensions against the 
 authority of a general council. 
 
 A'NTIQUARY. Copiers of old books, especially in con- 
 vents, were termed Antiquarii in the Latin of the middle 
 ages. In modern phraseology, antiquary is defined " a per- 
 son who studies and searches after monuments and re- 
 mains of antiquity, as old medals, books, statues, inscrip- 
 tions, &c. ;" to which may be added those who make the 
 manners and customs of ancient times an especial subject 
 of inquiry. Henry VIII. gave Leland the title of his " An- 
 tiquary." The Royal Society of Antiquaries, in London, 
 was founded under the reign of George II. (See Academy.) 
 ANTI'QUE. In a restricted sense, pieces of ancient art, 
 and by artists usually confined to such aswere made by the 
 Greeks and Romans of the classical age. 
 
 ANTI'QUITIES. Under this term, which has not a very 
 definite meaning in modern European languages, we appear 
 generally to comprehend all memorable things respecting 
 60 
 
 ANTISCII. 
 
 Man in his social state in past time, except the political 
 events, which form more properly the subject of History. 
 Thus, manners and customs, language, literature, topo- 
 graphical details, the monuments of architecture, sculpture, 
 &c. of ancient times, all fall under the general cognizance 
 of the antiquary. His science is, as it were, subsidiary to 
 the more general objects of the historian. In a more re- 
 stricted sense, the study of antiquities is confined to the de- 
 scription and interpretation of the existing relics of former 
 times, such as architectural remains, manuscripts, medals, 
 and other objects of curious research. Among classical 
 writers, there is, perhaps, only one who falls exactly within 
 the definition of what in modern times we should term an 
 antiquary ; viz. Pausanias, whose work, written about the 
 period of Marcus Antoninus, is entirely devoted to a de- 
 scription of the monuments of earlier periods then existing 
 in Greece. But about the time of the revival of letters, 
 when the study of classical writers became the main pur- 
 suit of literary men, classical antiquities became also a dis- 
 tinct and important branch of research. Besides the wri- 
 ters who employed their antiquarian knowledge in the 
 shape of commentary on classical authors, a great number 
 devoted their talents to the production of treatises exclu- 
 sively illustrating particular points in ancient customs and 
 usages. To enumerate the chief classical antiquaries of 
 the 16th and 17th centuries would be impossible ; but the 
 following works may be named as among the most com- 
 prehensive and general which we possess, containing an 
 immense repository of facts, which the more refined criti- 
 cism of modem times has sifted and applied with better 
 success ; the treatises of Signonius and Mei/rsius — the lat- 
 ter chiefly on Greek antiquities — are collected in 12 folio 
 volumes, Florence, 1741; the vast Thesaurus Antiquitatum 
 Grcecarum of the Dutch commentator Grwvius (Leyden, 12 
 vols. fol. 1697, &c); and the still more extensive work of 
 Gronovius (Tliesaurus Antiquitatum Romanurvm, Leyden, 
 13 vols. fol. 1697), together with its continuations and sup- 
 plements, by Burmannus, extending in the whole to 45 vol- 
 umes ; the works of Polenus, Pitiscus, and Gruterus, on 
 the same plan with those two vast collections; the Anti- 
 quite Expliquee of Bernard de Montfaucon, extending, with 
 the supplements, to 15 vols, folio, Paris. 1719-24. From 
 these great works our modern Compendia in common use 
 (in English, the Grecian Antiquities of Archbishop Potter, 
 the Roman Antiquities of Kennett, Adam, <kc.)are chiefly 
 compiled. The names of Boeck (Public and Private 
 Economy of Athens), Heeren (History of Ancient Com- 
 merce, fyc), Miiller, Niebuhr, Creuzer. Biittiger, Wachs- 
 ninth, ifcc, attest the equal industry and superior critical 
 skill of the classical antiquaries of modern Germany, the 
 only country in which this branch of knowledge is now suc- 
 cessfully cultivated. In that more restricted branch of 
 classical antiquities, the description of the monuments of 
 ancient art, among many illustrious names we may men- 
 tion those of Caylus (Recueil d'Antiquites Egyptiennes, 
 Grecques, et Romaines, 7 vols. 4to. Paris, 1752. &c.) and the 
 Abbe Winkelmann. In the peculiar study of Egyptian an- 
 tiquities, the names of Young, Hamilton, and Champollion 
 stand pre-eminent. In ecclesiastical antiquities, the huge 
 collections of Ugolinus (IViesaurus Antiquitatum Sacra- 
 rum, 34 t. fol. Antv. 1744) and Canisius (Lectiones Antiqum, 
 edited by Basnage,4t. fol. v. Antv. 1725) maybe mentioned 
 among many others. Lastly, the antiquities of the middle 
 ages have received much and accurate attention, especially 
 in France and England, within the last century. Besides 
 the works of Leland and Camden, the fathers of English an- 
 tiquities, of Dugdale and Hearne, &c, we may name, in 
 modern times, Fosbrooke (British Monachism, 2 vols. 4to. 
 1802, and Encyclopaedia of Antiquities), Strutt (Regal and 
 Ecclesiastical Antiquities of England, 4to. 1773, and many 
 subsequent works), Brand, Lodge, Playfair, &c. &c, be- 
 sides many who have devoted themselves to particular 
 branches of the subject; and. anions living authors. Sir 
 Henry Ellis, Sir F. Palgrave, Sir H. Nicholas, Mr. Petre, 
 &c. In French antiquities, the greatest name is that of Mont- 
 faucon (Monumrns de la Munurchie Frangaise, 5 vols. foL 
 Paris, 1725, &c); while the Italians, among whom the 
 study of national antiquities has been very sedulously culti- 
 vated, are peculiarly indebted to the indefatigable Muratori. 
 His principal works are the Antiquitates Italicai Medii 
 JEvi, and Rerum Italicarum Scrip/ores: the whole are 
 said to amount to 41 vols, in folio, besides 34 in 8vo. A Dic- 
 tionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, 1 vol. 8vo. Taylor 
 <t Walton, London, 1842, possesses great value. 
 
 ANTIRRHI'NEJE. A small division of Scrophularia- 
 ceous plants, consisting of Antirrhinum (the snapdragon of 
 the gardens), Linaria, and a few other genera. 
 
 ANTI'SCII, or ANTISCIANS. (Gr. dvri, against, and 
 ciua, shadoir.) An old term used in Geography to denote 
 those inhabitants of the earth whose shadows fall in oppo- 
 site directions. The inhabitants of the north and south 
 temperate zones are always Antiscians ; those living with- 
 in the tropics may be Antiscians at one season of the year, 
 and not at another.
 
 ANTISCORBUTICS. 
 
 ANTISCORBUTICS. Medicines against the scurvy. 
 ANTISE'PTIC (Gr. dvri, against, and ai)T;tiv, to putre- 
 fy.) Antiputrefactive. Substances which prevent or check 
 the putrefaction and decay of animal and vegetable matter, 
 are called antiseptic. 
 
 ANTISPASMO'DICS. (Gr. dvrt, against, and airacrpoi, 
 a spasm.) Medicines which alleviate or cure cramp and 
 spas n i. 
 ANTIS'TROPHE. Sfc Strophe. 
 
 ANTI'THESIS. (Gr. dvrt, and riOtvai, to set.) In Rhe- 
 toric, a figure in which two thoughts, words, or sentences 
 are set in opposition to each other, in order to be more 
 strikingly brought forward by the contrast ; as in the fol- 
 lowing sentence from Cicero : " Quod scis, nihil prodest: 
 quod nescis, multum obest." " Pour knowledge avails 
 you nothing : your ignorance hurts you much." Ciuintilian 
 translates the Greek word avrideatt by the Latin contra- 
 positum. The following well known passage of Spenser 
 may be cited as an instance of mixed antithesis and accu- 
 mulation. 
 
 " Ah ! little dost thou know, that hast not tried, 
 What hell it is iii suing luiis; to bide : 
 To speed to-day, to be put ojf to-morrow : 
 To feed on hope, (o pine with can and sorrow: 
 To have tJiy prince's grace, yet want tier peer'* : 
 To he I ' many years : 
 
 To fawn, to crouch, to wail, to ride, to run, 
 To guend, to give, to waul, to be undone." 
 
 AXTITRAGUS. (Gr. dvrt, against, rpayos, the mar- 
 ginal process of the external ear which is immediately in 
 front of the meatus.) In Anatomy, the process ol the i in- 
 ternal ear opposite the tragus, and behind the meatus audi- 
 torius, or 
 
 AN'ITTROI'AL. (Gr. riiri, opposite, and rptiruv, to 
 turn.) When in a seed the radicle of the embryo is turned 
 to the end farthest away from the hilum. This, although 
 a comparatively unusual position ol parts, is nevertl 
 the normal position, if the exact nature of the develope- 
 ment of an ovule is rightly understood. 
 
 l/NTLIA. The oral instrument of Lepidopterous in- 
 sects, in whicli the ordinary tropin, or instruments for ob- 
 taining, are replaced by a spiral, bipartite, tubular machine 
 for suction, with its appendages it principally consists ol 
 the solenaria, or two lateral Bubcylindrtcal tubes, and tie- 
 fistula, or intermediate subquadrangular pipe, tonne. i by 
 
 the i i of the two solenaria, which intermediate canal 
 
 conveys the nectar to the pharynx. Theoretically, the 
 solenaria are the maxilla' Inordinately elongated, and they 
 support at their bases two minute p dpi Rudiments of the 
 upper lip or labrum, and mandibles, exist above the max- 
 illa 1 ; and below these is thi tached to the head, 
 and distinguishi ol large palpi. 
 
 \\TI.I\ PNEUMATK \ \ ■ on- tellation of the south- 
 ern hemisphere. 
 
 LNTCE CI. (Gr. uiTi. opposite, and dttxoc, a house.) 
 
 Those who live over against each other: a term used In 
 Geography to denote the inhabitants ol the globe who live 
 underlie same meridian, but on opposite parallels of lati- 
 tude. The hours of the day or night are the -a me to each, 
 
 hut the seasons of the year are opposite : that is, when it is 
 
 summer with the one, it is winter with the other. 
 A'NTONOMA'SIA. (Gr. dvrt. instead of, and tvoua, a 
 
 miinc.) In Rhetoric and Composition, a figure by which a 
 proper name is put for an appellative noun ; as where a 
 tyrant is called a Nero, an usurper a Cromwell, &c. ; or, 
 vice versa, a complimentary periphrasis, or an appellation 
 derived from some attribute, is put for a proper name : as 
 where a king is railed "His Majesty," or Tacitus '• the 
 prince of political historians." 
 
 A'NTRUM. (Lat antrum, a ran.) An old name ap- 
 plied to such hollow fruits as the apple; they are now 
 
 called Pomes. 
 
 ANTRU'STIONS, otherwise styled Fideles (Faithful) 
 
 and Leudes (Leute, Germ, people). A class of people 
 
 among the Franks, who were the personal vassals or de- 
 pendents of the kings and counts. They were not depen- 
 dent on them by reason of holding lands by their grant: 
 but rather, in consequence of being such dependents, were 
 favoured with donations of land, or benefices; which, in 
 process of time, becoming hereditary, assumed the cha- 
 racter of Fiefs. (See Feudal System.) The original 
 word from which Antrustion is derived, was undoubtedly 
 the same with that from which our word trust, confidence, 
 has its descent. 
 
 ANU'BIS. In Mythology, an Egyptian deity. The se- 
 venth, according to the astronomical Theology, of their 
 eight gods of the first class. The Greeks identified him 
 with Mercury. In Egyptian painting and sculpture he is re- 
 presented as a man with the head of a dog: whence the 
 lines in the 6th book of Virgil's ^Eneid, describing the con- 
 flict of Egypt with Rome : — 
 
 Omnieen'imque De'im monstra, et latrator Anubis, 
 Contra Neptuuura et Veuerem, coutraque Miuervam, 
 Tela feruut. 
 
 A'NUS. 
 
 The excrementary orifice of the alimentary ca- 
 61 
 
 APHELION. 
 
 nal, which sometimes opens directly on the exterior sur- 
 face of the animal, as in most Mammals ; sometimes into 
 a cavity common to it with the outlets of the urinary and 
 genital organs, called the cloaca, as in most oviparous Ver- 
 tebrates ; sometimes into the respiratory cavity, as in most 
 Mollusks. In Entomology, it signifies the two last segments 
 of the abdomen, and includes the podex, hypopygium, cu- 
 ius, ovipositor, and appendices. In most of the Acrites 
 there is but one orifice to the alimentary cavity, which thus 
 combines the functions of mouth and anus. 
 
 A'ORIST. (Gr. doptaroc, indefinite^) That inflexion of 
 the verb which leaves the time of the action denoted un- 
 certain. 
 
 AO'RTA. (Gr. drip, air, and rr/otiv, to keep.) The great 
 arterial trunk which issues from the left ventricle of the 
 heart. After death it is found empty ; whence the older 
 anatomists, supposing that it was for the conveyance of air, 
 gave it the above name. It is single in Mammals ami 
 birds ; double in most reptiles, and in the Cephalopods ; 
 triple in the Crustaceans. 
 
 APA'GYNOl'S. (Gr. u7raf, once, and yvvrj, a female.) 
 When a plant fructifies but once, perishing immediately 
 after it flowers. It is the same as monocarpic, and nearly 
 the same as annual ; only that, like the latter term, it in- 
 cludes smh plants as the American agave, which live 
 man] years before they fructify. 
 
 A 'P ALUS. A Linnfean genus of coleopterous insects, 
 having the antenna' filiform ; the palpi equal and filiform; 
 the maxilla- horny and one-toothed ; the labium membra- 
 naceous, truncate, and entire. 
 
 ATANAGE An allowance to younger branches of a 
 Sovereign house out of the revenues of the country ; gene- 
 rally together with a grant of public domains. A district 
 witl'i the right of ruling it. when thus conferred, is termed 
 paragium. An apanage, in ordinary cases, descends to the 
 children of the prince who enjoys it. 
 
 AT \TI IT) Native phosphate of lime (from drrarao}, I 
 hai ing been confounded with other minerals. 
 
 APATU'RIA. An Athenian festival, which came also to 
 be observed by the rest ol the Ioniaiis except those of Co- 
 lophon and Ephesus. Two accounts are given of its ori- 
 gin : one of which derives its name from the Greek word 
 
 (i-iirri. deceit, because it was instituted in memory of a 
 stratagem by which Meianthusthe Athenian king overcame 
 
 Icanthus king of Boeotia ; tl ther from narnp, father, and 
 
 the prefix i, signifying together, because at this festival 
 
 children accompanied then- fathers that their names might 
 
 be entered on the public register. The festival took place 
 
 led three days. 
 
 \it. In the Zoological sense, is restricted to those 
 
 higher organised species ofthe Linnsan Simict which are 
 
 hi Thej are included in the modern sub- 
 
 / and Hylobates, or the 
 
 ourangs, chimpanzees, and gibbons. 
 
 \l'i; I l.i it - (Gr. d, priv. and pellis, skin.) Destitute 
 of skin. 
 
 APF/TALOTS. (Gr. d, priv., wcra\ov, a petal.) When 
 a flower has a calyx only, and no corolla. The term is 
 sometimes extended to those cases in which there is nei- 
 ther calyx nor corolla ; thuSj the apetalous plants of Jus- 
 sieu are either destitute of a corolla only, or of all floral 
 envelopes of whatever kind. 
 
 A'PEX. The summit or highest point of any thing. 
 Thus, the apex ofa cone, ofa pyramid, <fcc. 
 
 APHJE'REUS (Gr dfaipetv, to take away.) In Writ- 
 ing or Pronunciation, the removal of a vowel from the com- 
 mencement of a word ; as. in English, ' it is' is sometimes 
 
 v\ ntteii • 'lis.' abide is changed into • 'bide,' Ac 
 
 U'HAMTTKRiil S. AlTIAM'PTERA. (Gr. dtpavris, 
 obscure, wrtpov, Wing,) The name of an order of Apterous 
 Haustellate insects, having rudimental elytra or wings in 
 the perfect state, and undergoing a metamorphosis, resem- 
 bling that of the Tipulidas, or crane-flies. The common 
 flea i Pule* irritans, Lin.) may be regarded as the type of 
 this order. The female flea ( Pulex irritans, Lin.) deposits 
 a dozen eggs, ofa white colour and rather viscous texture, 
 from which proceed little apodal maggots, which are very 
 acth e in then- motions, winding themselves in a serpentine 
 manner through the substance in which they may be de- 
 posited ; the head of the larva is protected by a firm skin, 
 and bears two small antenna;, but no eyes ; the body con- 
 sists of thirteen segments, bearing little tufts of hair, and 
 the last is armed with a pair of hooklets : the mouth pre- 
 sents some small moveable instruments with which the 
 maggot hauls itself along. After having passed twelve 
 days under this form, the larva spins itself a little silken 
 cocoon, in which it passes into the pupa state, and in about 
 twelve days more emerges a perfect flea; this metamor- 
 phosis distinsruishes the flea and chigoe from other blood- 
 sucking parasitic. Apterous insects : and they are further dis- 
 tinguished bv the number of segments into which their 
 body is divided, and their pentamerous, or five-jointed, 
 tarsi. 
 APHE'LION. (Gr. duo, from, and n\tos the sun.) In
 
 APHELXIA. 
 
 Astronomy, is that point of a planet's orbit which is at the 
 greatest distance from the sun. It is opposed to perihe- 
 lion, which signifies the point of the orbit nearest the sun. 
 The aphelion and perihelion of an orbit are consequently 
 the two extremities of its greater axis. In consequence of 
 the mutual attractions of the planets, the positions and fi- 
 gures of their orbits are constantly undergoing a slow va- 
 riation. The aphelia gradually shift their places on the 
 planes of the orbits ; and it is remarkable that these mo- 
 tions are direct, or eastward, in the case of all the planets 
 excepting Venus, the aphelion of whose orbit, when re- 
 ferred to the fixed stars, moves westward at the rate of 
 about 4 seconds annually. Of the old planets, Saturn is 
 that whose aphelion undergoes the greatest annual varia- 
 tion; it amounts to about 18 seconds of a degree. (See 
 Perihelion, Planet.) 
 
 APHE'LXIA. (Gr. a<pe\KCiv, to abstract.) Absence of 
 mind. 
 
 _ APHE'RESIS or APHE'RESIS. (Gr. dcpaiptaig, from 
 dipaipcb), I take airay.) In Grammar, a figure by which a 
 letter or a syllable is cut off from the beginning of a word ; 
 as in the common abbreviation, " 't is," for " it is." 
 
 A'PHIDES. (Gr. d<pi;, a puceron, or vine-fretter.) A 
 family of Hemipterous insects, commonly called "plant- 
 lice," inhabiting trees and plants, and living on their juices ; 
 remarkable for the anal saccharine secretion referred to 
 in Anal Glands, but more especially for a peculiarity of 
 their generative economy, particularly described by Bon- 
 net, and which consists in the first fecundation of the fe- 
 male influencing not merely the ova immediately devel- 
 oped thereafter, but those of the females resulting from 
 that developement, even to the ninth generation, which 
 are successively impregnated and productive without any 
 intercourse with the male insects. Certain Coleopterous 
 insects, which prey upon and keep in check the Aphides, 
 are termed Aphidiphagi and Aphidivora (ipayot, I eat, voro, 
 / devour'). 
 
 APIILOGI'STIC. (Gr. d(p\oyiaTOS, uninflammable.) 
 Without flame or fire. 
 
 APIILOGI'STIC LAMP. A lamp with a glowing wick, 
 the combustion in which goes on without flame. 
 
 A'PHONY. (Gr. d, priv., and fcovr/, voice.) Loss of 
 voice. 
 
 A'PHORISM. (From the Greek dtpopigetv, to define, or 
 limit.) A term chiefly used in Law and Medicine, but oc- 
 casionally also in Moral Philosophy, <fcc, to denote a com- 
 prehensive maxim or principle expressed in a few words. 
 
 APHRI'TE. (Gr. d<ppos, froth.) A soft, friable carbon- 
 ate of lime. 
 
 APIIRODI'SIAC. (Gr. 'AtppoStrn, Venus.) That which 
 incites to venerv. 
 
 APHRODITE. (Gr. 'AfpoStrri, the name of the Goddess 
 of Love, having reference to her upposed origin from the 
 foam of the sea, dippoi.) This classical name was applied 
 by Linnaeus to a beautiful genus of Annelidans adorned 
 with resplendent silky hairs and bristles, of which the sea- 
 mouse (Aphrodita aculeata, Lin.) of our coasts is an 
 example. 
 
 APHRODI'TID-E. The name of the family of Anne- 
 lides of which the Aphrodita aculeata is the type. 
 
 APHYLLA'NTHEyE. A small division of the Junca- 
 ceous order of Endogens, comprehending the genus Aphyl- 
 lanthus from the South of Europe, with Calectasia and 
 Dasypogon from New Holland. 
 
 APHY'LLOUS. (Gr. a, priv.. and $v\\ov,aleaf) Leaf- 
 less. The term is, however, often applied to plants in 
 which the leaves are present, but so small as not to look so 
 much like leaves as mere scales. Plants are also called 
 leafless, in which, although scales of considerable size are 
 present, there are no true green leave's : of this descrip- 
 tion are Monotropa, Orobanche, Pyrolaaphylla, <&c. 
 
 APIA'CE^E. (Lat. apium, parsley.) A name recently 
 proposed to replace that of Umbeliifera?, it being construct- 
 ed with more resemblance to the plan upon which the 
 names of other natural orders are formed in Botany, than 
 that of Umbelliferae. 
 
 A'PIARY. (Lat. apis, a bee.) A place for keeping bee- 
 hives. Sometimes this is a small house, with openings for 
 the bees in front, and a door behind, which is kept locked 
 for security ; and sometimes it is an area, in which each 
 particular beehive is chained down to a post and padlocked. 
 API'CULATED. (Lat. apex, a sharp point.) When a 
 leaf or any other part is suddenly terminated by a distinct 
 point. 
 
 A'PID/E. (Lat. apis, a bee.) One of the varieties re- 
 sulting from the modern division of the Linnaean genus 
 Apis, including those species which are distinguished by 
 the length of the terminal parts of the inferior organs of the 
 mouth, which constitute a proboscis. 
 
 APIO'CRINITES. (Gr. diriov, a. pear, Kpivov, a lily.) 
 Pear Encrinite. (See Encrinite.) The name of a sub- 
 genus of fossil Encrinites, in which the body is formed of 
 separate pieces articulated with the stem, and supporting 
 the rays by similar articulations, in consequence of which 
 62 
 
 APIS. 
 
 the stem is rounded and dilated into a pyriform figure at 
 its upper part. 
 
 A'PION. A genus of minute Coleopterous insects, of 
 the weevil family (Curculionidai) ; very numerous in spe- 
 cies; distinguishable by their elegant pear-shaped form, 
 protruded snout, and straight antennas. 
 
 A'PIS. In Mythology, a bull, to which divine honours 
 were paid by the Egyptians, especially at Memphis. He 
 was required to be black, with peculiar spots and marks. 
 One of this description was always maintained : but not 
 suffered to live beyond twenty-five years. He was then 
 buried with much solemnity ; and Belzoni was of opinion 
 that the bones discovered in one of the sarcophagi disin- 
 terred by him, belonged to such an animal. The outrage 
 made by the Persian conqueror Cambyses on the bull 
 Apis, and the disasters which were supposed to have be- 
 fallen him in consequence of that act, are detailed in the 
 history of Herodotus, book ii. 
 
 Apis. (Lat. apis, a bee.) The Linnaean genus, now 
 subdivided into different families, is thus characterised : 
 mouth horny ; jaw and lip membranaceous at the tip ; 
 tongue inflected ; feelers four, unequal, filiform ; antennas 
 short, filiform, those of the female subclavate ; wings flat; 
 sting of the females and neuters pungent, and concealed in 
 the abdomen. 
 
 The insects of this extensive genus live, some of them, 
 in large societies, and some are solitary ; their food is the 
 nectar of flowers, honey, and ripe fruit ; the larva is soft 
 and without feet ; the pupa resembles the perfect insect. 
 
 The characters of the Linnasan genus are applicable to 
 a variety of forms, now the types of numerous subgenera, 
 included by Latreille in a family of Aculeate Hymenopte- 
 rous insects, under the term Anthophila, or Mellifera. The 
 habits of each of the subgenera of this family are replete 
 with interest, arising from their social economy, and the 
 separation of the individuals into three sexual modifica- 
 tions, viz., the prolific females, or queens ; the unprolific 
 females, or workers ; and the males, or drones. The pol- 
 icy of the-hive bee (Apis mellifica, Lin.) has been studied 
 with so much diligence and detail, that we penetrate this 
 mystery of nature with astonishment, and often feel in- 
 clined to regard what Huber relates, as fabulous. Never- 
 theless, the highly interesting observations of the writer, 
 and those especially on which his reputation chiefly rests, 
 have been confirmed by subsequent observers, both scien- 
 tific entomologists as well as practical apiarians. 
 
 The hive-bee is distinguished from all other species of 
 the modern genus Apis, by having the femora of the poste- 
 rior pair of legs furnished with a smooth and concave plate 
 on the outer surface, and fringed with hair, forming a bas- 
 ket adapted for the conveyance of pollen ; and in being 
 destitute of spines at the extremity ; by the basal joint of 
 the tarsi, in the workers, being of an oblong form, with its 
 inner surface clothed with hairs disposed in transverse 
 rows ; by the trophi being of an elongated form, and the 
 maxillary palpi being almost obsolete and consisting of a 
 single joint. 
 
 The different individuals of the social Apis mellifica 
 more nearly resemble each other in their grade of devel- 
 opement — as regards their locomotive powers, organs of 
 sense, and instinctive endowments — than the ants. No in- 
 dividual among them is without wings; and the industry 
 of the workers, or imperfect females, is less astonishing, at 
 least their tasks are less arduous, than fall to the lot of the 
 Apterous labourers of the ant tribes. 
 
 As bees, like most other winged insects, are annuals, or 
 go through the whole essential economy of their existence 
 within the year, the history of a year's existence includes 
 the whole, "and we have only to choose the point in the cir- 
 cle at which to commence it. 
 
 As some individuals, however, always survive the winter, 
 and begin to breed early in spring, forming a colony which 
 quits the parent stock, we shall begin with this colony, and 
 trace their operations through the year. 
 
 The first young swarm in England is generally sent 
 off in June. The migration seems to depend on want of 
 space in the mother-hive, not on an instinctive desire of 
 change on the part of the brood ; for if there be space for 
 the operations of the increasing community, bees will not 
 naturally swarm ; and skilful apiarians sometimes take ad- 
 vantage of this circumstance, and, by making successive 
 additions to the hive, retain the whole year's increase in 
 the same building. The swarm consists in general of 
 about six or seven thousand individuals, of which about 
 l-30th part are males, the rest females ; and of these, one 
 only, for the most part, is prolific, and she is called the 
 queen. Her body is longer than that of either the drone 
 or worker ; her colours are brighter and purer, and gener- 
 ally of a darker shade ; the transverse bands across the 
 abdomen are of a deeper and brighter yellow, and are 
 sometimes orange; the head is smaller than that of the 
 unprolific female, and the tongue is shorter and more slen- 
 der; her mandibles are notched, and her sting is curved ; 
 but the most obvious distinctive character is the propor-
 
 APIS. 
 
 tional length of the abdominal segment of the body, which 
 lodges the generative apparatus, and which is of an elon- 
 gate conical form, tapering rather sharply to the anus. The 
 male bee is readily distinguished by the short and thick 
 form of his bodv. which is obtuse at each extremity. He 
 has no sting. The workers, like the queen, are armed 
 with a sting, but it is straight, and proportionally larger and 
 stronger. The workers are essentially females in their in- 
 ternal structure, but theirgrowth is arrested before arriving at 
 the period when the full development of the sexual system 
 takes place, and they consequently are smaller than either 
 the queen or the drones; and their colours are less bright. 
 According to Huber, there are two varieties of labourers, 
 one of a larger size, which he calls ' abeilles drier, s. or 
 makers of wax ; the other, or smaller variety, he terms 
 ' abeilles nourrices,' or nurse-bees, whose crop, or first 
 stomach, is not capable of the distention requisite for col- 
 lecting honey, but whose office is to build the combs and 
 cells after the foundation has been laid by the cirieres, and 
 to feed the larva?. 
 
 It is also stated there are two kinds of drones ; one not 
 larger than the workers, the other as above described. And 
 Huber has described another variety of the inmates of the 
 hive, which he terms ' black bees,' and which are supposed 
 to be the superannuated workers. 
 
 The swarm, thus composed, commonly leaves the hive in 
 the heat of the day, and often immediately after a shower. 
 It is supposed that the queen takes the lead ; and she ever 
 afterwards exercises an inscrutable influence over all their 
 itions. Perhaps a stronger proof thai instincts do no) 
 net essarily depend on physical conformation is not afford- 
 ed by any phenomenon in natural hi 
 fects which the loss or death of the queen produces on the 
 labourers: this event does not deprive them of an; organ, 
 or paralyse any limb ; yet, the moment they an 
 of bet loss, all their labours an' interrupted and forsaken, 
 and, unless another queen be provided, they join an 
 hive, or perish from inanition, 
 
 The flight of the swarm is directed to some neighbouring 
 fixed place, and wherever the stand Is made they all forth- 
 with repair to it. In the wild state, the cavity of an ol 
 is commonly chosen ; and tins, with a Beeming prudence 
 and foresight which cannot be sufficiently admired. The 
 first care of the bees is to cleanse it from dust and rubbish, 
 o gnaw oil' with their mandibles anj asperities ox pro- 
 jections which might interfere with tin' future construction 
 of the comb. Iii the state of domestication In which the 
 
 bee is usually preserved m tins country, the pt 
 of the above instinctive actions is rendered unnecessary, 
 by the reception of the swarm into neat artificial hives. 
 \ . this modification of their habits, and many other inter- 
 ferences to winch they are Bubji d do effect in 
 inducing any varieties in the organisation of thebei 
 
 hange in those instinctive actions which the i 
 man his not rendered indispensable I l( ration 
 
 of this curious exception to the ordinary consequences of 
 domestication, and of the conditions on which the circum- 
 scribed limits of variation in the bee depend, would lead us 
 far beyond the extent allotted to the present subject ; but 
 it is an inquiry full of interest in relation to the recondite 
 laws which govern the variation of animals from their spe- 
 cific standard. 
 
 In the wild state, the young colony at first return occa- 
 sionally to the parent establishment for supplies of provi- 
 sion ; and the domesticate! bees always till their crops 
 with honey before they leave the hive. The wax is a pe- 
 culiar secretion from the working bee ; and having the ma- 
 terials, therefore, within themselves, they immediately be- 
 gin to form the comb. 
 
 Before describing the many-chambered nursery and 
 storehouse which our bees are about to prepare, a few 
 words are necessary regarding the material of which it is 
 constructed. 
 
 The formation of the wax is a very singular and complex 
 operation. Huber says, "The wax-makers, having taken 
 a due portion of honey or sugar, from either of which wax 
 can be elaborated, suspend themselves to each other, the 
 claws of the fore legs of the lowermost being attached to 
 those of the hind pair of the uppermost, and form them- 
 selves into a cluster, the exterior layer of which looks like 
 a kind of curtain. This cluster consists of a series of fes- 
 toons or garlands, which cross each other in all directions, 
 ami in which most of the bees turn their back upon the ob- 
 server : the curtain has no other motion than what it re- 
 ceives from the interior layers, the fluctuations of which 
 are communicated to it. All this time the nurse-bees pre- 
 serve their wonted activity, and pursue their usual employ- 
 ments. The wax-makers remain immoveable for about 
 twenty-four hours, during which period the formation of wax 
 takes place, and thin laminae of this material may be gene- 
 rally perceived under their abdomen. One of these bees 
 is now seen to detach itself from one of the central gar- 
 lands of the cluster, to make a way amongst its companions 
 to the middle of the vault or top of the hive, and by turning 
 63 
 
 APIS. 
 
 itself round to form a kind of void, in which it can move 
 itself freely. It then suspends itself to the centre of the 
 space which it has cleared, the diameter of which is about 
 an inch. It next seizes one of the laminae of wax with a 
 pincer formed by the posterior metatarsus and tibia, and 
 drawing it from beneath the abdominal segment, one of 
 the anterior legs takes it with its claws and carries it to the 
 mouth." 
 
 The wax has, perhaps, the nearest analogy to the seba- 
 ceous secretion of the integument, than to any other ani- 
 mal secretion : it is formed beneath the scales on the un- 
 der side of the abdomen, and when accumulated there 
 seems to irritate the part, for the bee may then be observed 
 wagging her abdomen, and running round, or to and fro, as 
 if endeavouring to shake out the little scales ; and she is 
 generally followed by one or two other bees, which have 
 been attracted by her movements, and are ready to seize 
 upon the plates of wax as they fall. How the bees mould 
 the scales into the walls of the cells is not yet exactly un- 
 derstood. Some have supposed that they bite pieces off and 
 join them together ; but the smooth and uniform surface of 
 the cell shows that some other operation must take place : 
 besides, the wail of the cell is sometimes thicker than a 
 scale of wax. We must, therefore, suppose that the bees 
 have the power of applying some dissolving or softening 
 menstruum to the wax-scales, by winch they are enabled 
 to xnead and blend them into a ductile paste. And when 
 we remember that the secretion of the salivary tubes of in- 
 sects is generally alkaline, and that wax is best dissolved 
 by alkali, it is reasonable to suppose thai it is by this means 
 thai the wax-scales are brought into a workable state. 
 I! niiNiir, indeed, observed a frothy substance exuding 
 from the mouth of a bee while working at a cell, which 
 •plied to the proper place by the nimble tongue, and 
 then kneaded in by the mandibles; and Huber has de- 
 scribed the process very circumstantially : he says that the 
 bee holds the lamina 01 wax with its claws vertically, — the 
 tongue rolled up serving fora support, — and by elevating or 
 jsing it at will, causes the whole of its circumference 
 to be exposed to the action of the mandibles, so that the 
 margin is soon gnawed into pieces, which drop, as they are 
 detached, into the double cavity, bordered with hairs, of 
 the mandibles. These fragments, pressed by others new- 
 orated, fall on one side of the mouth, and issue from 
 II m the f,>rm of a very narrow riband. They are then pre- 
 sented to the tongue, which impregnates them with a frothy 
 liquor. During this operation the tongue assumes all sorts 
 ms: sometimes it is flattened like a spatula; then 
 like a trowel, which applies itself to the riband of wax; at 
 other times || resembles a pencil, terminating in a point, 
 h iving moistened the whole of the riband, the tongue 
 pushes 11 mi as to make it re-enter the mandibles, but in an 
 opposite direction, where it is worked up anew. The h- 
 quot mixed with the wax communicates to it a whiteness 
 •. hie h it had not before, and doubtless gives it 
 thai ductility and tenacity which it possesses in its perfect 
 state 
 
 Bees commonly begin at the top or roof of their cham- 
 ber, and build downwards, at first working irregularly, and 
 as it were pasting over the surface; and then building 
 horizontal cells or a more perfect form. These at length 
 become so numerous, that they extend downwards in the 
 form of a vertical wall ; other congeries of cells are formed 
 in succession, until the whole comb assumes the form of a 
 of perpendicular plates or partitions. Each plate 
 consists of a double set of cells, the bottoms of which are 
 applied to each other, and form the partition between each 
 The plates are not always regular, and the irregulari- 
 ties which may be observed are not always necessary adap- 
 tations to a peculiar form of the cavity in which they are 
 built. The cells are not all of the same size ; but a suffi- 
 cient number of a given depth are reserved for receiving 
 the eggs, and which are necessarily adapted to the size of 
 the future maggot: the smaller or shallower cells are those 
 in which the boney is stored. The breeding and store cells 
 are placed horizontally, but the mouth of the cell is some- 
 times a little raised— the better to retain the honey. The 
 interspace between the vertical combs is generally about 
 half an inch : these streets, as they may be termed, in this 
 city of industry, being just wide enough to allow two bees 
 busied upon the opposite cells to pass without incommod- 
 ing each other. In addition to these interspaces, the combs 
 are perforated in various places, so as to allow a passage 
 for the bees from one street to another, thus saving them 
 much time. 
 
 The shape of each cell is not, as might have been ex- 
 pected, cylindrical, or that which seems best adapted to 
 the form of the maggot, or even of the bee constructor; but 
 it is hexagonal,— the only form which allows the cell to be 
 of the largest size in proportion to the quantity of matter 
 employed, and at the same time to be so disposed as to 
 occupv in the hive the least possible space. The form of 
 the base of each cell, which is in apposition with the one 
 on the opposite side, is also such as to gain greater
 
 APIS. 
 
 strength, and more capacity, with less expenditure of wax; 
 the latter consideration being one of great importance to 
 bees, which do not secrete a very large quantity of this ma- 
 terial : and the most profound mathematicians and most 
 skilful geometers have found the solution of the problem, 
 relating to the attainment of the preceding objects, as de- 
 rived from the infinitesimal calculus, to have a surprising 
 agreement with the actual measure of the different angles 
 formed by the walls of the cell. 
 
 There may generally be observed one or more cells, 
 wider and shallower than the rest, placed either on the 
 edge of a comb, or partition ; or placed against the mouths 
 of the cells, and projecting beyond the general surface of 
 the comb.— These are called the royal cells ; but as they 
 are not adapted to the form of the queen, nor ever lined 
 with the silken covering of the chrysalis, the supposition 
 that the queen is bred in them seems improbable. 
 
 Having now generally described the comb, we return to 
 the consideration of those instinctive operations by which 
 its several compartments are furnished with their destined 
 contents. 
 
 The comb seems at first to be formed entirely for propa- 
 gation, and, indeed, to be essentially related to that func- 
 tion ; for if the workers lose their queen, they make no 
 combs ; and the reception of honey is, therefore, its se- 
 condary use. Wasps and hornets make combs, although 
 they collect no honey. 
 
 As soon as the young colony has prepared a few combs, 
 the female begins to exclude her eggs. The first that she 
 lays produce the imperfect females, or workers ; the sub- 
 sequent ones produce the males, and, perhaps, the fer- 
 tile females, or queens. The eggs are deposited at the 
 bottom of the cells, often before they are half completed ; 
 they adhere generally by one end to the cell. In about five 
 days the little maggot is hatched, and is seen lying at the 
 bottom of the cell, coiled up in a transparent fluid, 
 
 Now begins the additional employment of the labourers, 
 that of feeding and nursing the. young maggots ; for this 
 purpose new materials must be collected abroad, and 
 brought into the hive. 
 
 At first the bees of a young colony fly out singly, and 
 afterwards collectively. They direct their flight generally 
 in a straight line, or the nearest way to the destined object, 
 and often travel to great dislances from the hive. In sum- 
 mer time they may be seen almost everywhere where 
 flowers bloom. In April and May they are abroad the 
 whole day ; but in the hot months they venture out less 
 frequently, generally in the morning and evening, at which 
 times it is more easy for them to form the pellets of the 
 pollen, the grains of which adhere together less strongly 
 during the heat of noon-day. 
 
 Bees do not like wet weather ; yet it is, perhaps, less the 
 presence of rain, than the changes in the degree of light, 
 which deters them from venturing abroad at this time : for 
 they possess large and complex organs of sight, and when 
 clouds collect quickly over the clear sky, they are seen to 
 hurry back in great numbers to the hive ; while, if the sky 
 be uniformly overcast, it is not merely a shower of rain 
 that will drive them back : many of the actions of the bee 
 prove, on the contrary, how essential moisture is for them. 
 The bee does not take honey indiscriminately from every 
 flower ; in the meadows thev may be seen generally upon 
 the Orchidefe, Polygonia, Caryophylacea, but seldom, if 
 ever, upon the Ranunculaceae, perhaps on account of some 
 poisonous quality. The oleander (Nerium oleander, L.), 
 which yields poisonous honey fatal to thousands of flies, is 
 carefully avoided by bees ; and the crown imperial (Fritil- 
 laria imperialis, L.), the white nectaries of which are so 
 conspicuous, tempts in vain the passing bee. They are, 
 however, extraordinarily active in spring at the blossoming 
 of the Amentaceae, Rosacea; (especially the dog-rose), and 
 the balsamic lilies, Primulaceae, <fec. ; and are, above all, 
 allured by the innumerable flowers of the lime (especially 
 Tilia paroifolia). and their hum may be heard among the 
 branches at some distance. The finest flavoured and 
 most delicate honey is collected from aromatic plants ; 
 and it is therefore always advisable to have large beds of 
 borage, mignionette, lemon thyme, and sage in the neigh- 
 bourhood of bee-hives. Those flowers which yield a nectar 
 innocuous to the bees themselves, but possessing poison- 
 ous qualities when taken by man, are sometimes frequent- 
 ed by bees, and the honey derived from them acts like a 
 poison. The description by Xenophon of the intoxicating 
 or maddening honey, which so violently affected a number 
 of the ten thousand Greek soldiers in his celebrated retreat, 
 has been confirmed by the observations of Tournefort. 
 And Dr. Barton, in his account of the poisonous honey col- 
 lected from the Kalmia latifolia by the bees in Pennsylva- 
 nia, justly observes, that there is more of poetry than phi- 
 losophy in the following lines of Pope : — 
 
 11 In the nice bee what sense so subtly true, 
 
 From poisonous herbs extracts the healing dew." 
 
 The honey which is swallowed by the bees passes into 
 the crop, where it is accumulated as in a reservoir, and 
 64 
 
 APIS. 
 
 upon the return of the bee to the hive is regurgitated into a 
 honey cell. If any honey had been previously accumu- 
 lated there, the bee breaks through the firm cream-like 
 crust which always forms upon the exposed surface of the 
 honey ; and it is this crust which maintains the honey in 
 the horizontal cells. 
 
 The collection of the farina, or pollen, of flowers, is a 
 great object of the industry of bees. In large flowers, as 
 the tulip, the bee dives in ; and if the pollen receptacle, or 
 anther, be not burst, she bites it open, and comes out sin- 
 gularly disguised, being covered over entirely with the fer- 
 tilising dust, which adheres readily to the fringed hairs of 
 her body and legs. 
 
 Aristotle, who was well acquainted with much that is in- 
 teresting in the economy of the bee, was the first to ob- 
 serve that a bee, during each single excursion from the 
 hive, limits her visits to one species of flower. Modern 
 naturalists have confirmed the general accuracy of this 
 statement, and have noticed that the pollen with which a 
 bee comes home laden is always of the same colour. The 
 necessity of this instinct arises out of the operation which 
 the pollen first undergoes when collected by the bee. She 
 rakes it out with incredible quickness by means of the first 
 pair of legs : then passes it to the middle pair, which 
 transfer it to the hind legs, by which it is wrought up into 
 little pellets. Now, if the pollen were taken indiscrimi- 
 nately from different flowers, it is probable that the grains, 
 being heterogeneous, would not cohere so effectually. 
 Certain it is, that bees enter the hive, some with yellow 
 pellets, others with orange, pink, white, or even green 
 coloured ones ; but they are never observed to be party- 
 coloured. Through this instinct, another important end is 
 gained, in relation to the impregnation of flowers; the pro- 
 duction of hybrid plants by the application of the pollen of 
 one species to the stigma of another is avoided— while 
 those flowers are more effectually fertilised, which require 
 the aid of insects for that purpose. 
 
 When a pollen-laden bee arrives at the hive, she gene- 
 rally walks or stands upon the comb beating her wings, 
 and three or four of her fellow citizens assist in lightening 
 her of her load ; or the laden bee puts her two hind legs 
 into a cell, and with the intermediate pair, or the extremity 
 of the abdomen, brushes off the pellets. These are then 
 kneaded into a paste at the bottom of the cell; and several 
 cells are thus filled with the packed and softened pollen, 
 which is called bee-bread. 
 
 Besides the honey and farina, bees also collect a pecu- 
 liar substance, like gum-resin, which was called ' propolis' 
 by Pliny ; and this they obtain principally from the bal- 
 samic buds of the horse-chestnut, birch, and poplar, espe- 
 cially the Populus balsamifera, L. The propolis is soft, 
 red, will pull out in a thread, and is aromatic. It is em- 
 ployed in the hive, not only in finishing the combs, but 
 also in stopping up every chink or orifice by which cold, 
 wet, or any enemy can enter. Like the pellets of pollen, 
 it is carried on the posterior tibia?, but the masses are lenti- 
 cular. Having thus traced the operations of the working 
 bees relating to the collection of the substances required in 
 the economy of the hive, we shall now return to the larvae, 
 which are the immediate objects of all this industry. 
 
 The bees may be readily detected feeding the young 
 maggot, which opens its lateral jaws to receive the bee- 
 bread, and swallows it. The well-fed maggot soon grows 
 too large for its tough outer skin, and accordingly casts it ; 
 when its bulk has increased so that it fills its cell, it then 
 requires no more food, and is ready to be inclosed for the 
 chrysalis state. The last care of the foster-parents is to 
 cover over the mouth of the cell with a substance of a light 
 brown colour, apparently a mixture of wax and farina. 
 This takes place generally four days after the larva was 
 excluded from the egg. The inclosed larva now begins to 
 line the cell, and covering of the aperture before mentioned, 
 with a silk, which it spins from glandular tubes, similar to 
 those of the silkworm. When the first three segments of 
 the trunk, to which the locomotive organs of the perfect 
 insect are attached, begin to be enlarged, the last larva-skin 
 splits along the back, and is pushed off from the head 
 backwards, and deposited at the bottom of the cell, and it 
 then becomes a chrysalis. Now the wonderful changes 
 take place, partly by a formation of new organs, partly by 
 a development of pre-existing ones, which end at last in 
 the completion of the perfect bee. 
 
 Mr. Hunter ascertained the duration of the pupa state of 
 the bee to be, in one instance, thirteen days and twelve 
 hours, exactly ; making the period of immature life, from 
 the first deposition of the egg, to be twenty-two days and a 
 half, — a remarkably brief time for the completion of the me- 
 tamorphoses, as compared with that in which the corre- 
 sponding changes are effected in other metabolian insects. 
 When the bee first comes forth it is of a greyish colour, but 
 soon assumes the ordinary brown tints. 
 
 When the season of oviposition and the rearing of the 
 larva? is over, then the business of collecting honey seri- 
 ously begins ; and when the last chrysalis of the season has 

 
 APIS. 
 
 disclosed its imago, the deserted cell is immediately filled 
 with honey, and covered over with wax, to serve as a store 
 for winter. 
 
 In the month of August it is supposed that the prolific fe- 
 male, which is to produce the swarms of the following 
 year, is impregnated. This act taKes place in the air. The 
 queen, being preceded by the drones, traverses the exte- 
 rior of the hive, and suddenly rises aloft in the air, wheel- 
 ing upwards in large circles, until she is oul of sight. The 
 male, unable to extricate the intromitted parts, generally 
 periBhes. The rest of this unhappy sex share a similar 
 fate, and meet a violent death from the jaws of the unpro- 
 lific females. It would seem as if the drones were con- 
 scious of their danger al this 3eason, for they do not loiter 
 as usual at the mouth of the hive, bul hurry in or out How- 
 ever, they are attacked by one, two, or three workers at a 
 time, who do not sting them, as Huber asserts, but pinch 
 them and pull them about, as if to wear them out. From 
 this instinctive and indiscriminate slaughter of the males, 
 we may infer that the impregnation of thequeen has taken 
 place before the setting in of the winter season ; and that 
 the ova, the development of which is retarded during the 
 indolent state in winch bees pass through thecold months, 
 are in a condition to be developed and produce the larvae 
 ai the approach of spring. Vet, although on the setting in 
 of the cold weather the bees remain very quiet, the] are 
 DOl torpid, as is the case with most other insects, They 
 cluster as close together as the comb will permit, and have 
 
 the faculty of generating a degrt f heat superior to that 
 
 of the external atmosphere, 
 
 Mr. Hunter found, during an evening in July, when the 
 temperature of the atmosphere was "I . thatoi the inte- 
 rior of a hive full ol ! ; and in December, the 
 external atmosphere being 35 . the bees preserved a tem- 
 perature of 73 '; and, what is, al this sea on, extremely 
 rare in the lower animals, they maintain their digestive 
 powers, and Bubsist on ihe produce of the summer and 
 autumn, Accordingly, they are ready to lake adi 
 
 of any fine and mild day. and may he seen then flying 
 
 >ad and appearing to enjoy it They void their ex- 
 crements at this time, for tiny are insects of singular 
 cleanliness and propriety; and when purposely confined 
 
 in the hive, with abundance of 1 1. thej have been known 
 
 to fall a sacrifice to this instinctive repugnance i' 
 the hive. 
 
 The continuance of the digi during the win- 
 
 ter Influences the condition of the oviducts in thequeen, 
 and the impregnated ova begin earlj to expand, and are 
 read] for exclusion In the month ol Man 1. 1 
 the bee the earliest bre< the insects ol Eng 
 
 land, The labourers now resume their aci ustomed duties, 
 
 and. as the season is 1 art) foi collecting the provision 
 
 of the maggol abroad, ihe sir, re ,.i bee bri "i. I lid up In Ihe 
 preceding year, ro me- mio u>e, for the sustenanci 
 larvae, which are about to form the first swarm as soon, 
 however, as the Mowers begin to blow, the bees fly forth to 
 gather fresh pollen, propolis, and honey, and the labours of 
 the year recommence. 
 
 Il appears to be the presence of the larva), wWch are des- 
 tined to become perfect females, w nich stinwilates the old 
 queen to leave the hive. Ami repeated exempts to pene- 
 trate their cells, and destroy her royal progeny, she be- 
 comes infuriated, communicates lea- '-.'nation to a portion 
 of her subjects, which, together wen her. rush oul of the 
 hive, and seek a new domicile. * is stated thai in every 
 instance the bid queen leads tie firsl swarm ; the labourers 
 that remain pay particular attention to the royal larvae that 
 remain : and these, as the vare successively excluded, lead 
 away fresh swarms, if tb ■• hive be DOl sufficiently enlarged. 
 Each swarm contains.. mf only the recently hatched young 
 bees. I. ill also a portion of the old inhabit, ints. Some as- 
 sert that the queen, which leads each swarm, is impregnat- 
 ed soon after th* new colony is settled; and, as this may 
 take place ear'y in the summer, she begins to oviposit the 
 same year. , The number of ova which are fertilised by a 
 single coupling is prodigious : Huber calculates that the 
 queen lays bJ.iMhi eggs in two months; while, according to 
 Re.m iiur, she oviposits at the rate of 200 a day. The du- 
 ration of life of the different individuals of the hive varies : 
 that of the male bee is not more than two or three months ; 
 there is more doubt respecting the longevity of the work- 
 ers, but it is probable that it does not extend much beyond 
 a year. The term of the queen's existence has been stated 
 to have been prolonged for five years ; but this is rendered 
 improbable by the fact that all insects of the same species 
 have nearly the same duration of existence allotted to 
 them. 
 
 The true honey-bee (Apis meUifica, L.) was originally 
 limited in its geographical range to tile Old World, whence 
 it has been transported to America, and other countries 
 where European colonies have been established, and where 
 it is now acclimated. The distinguished entomologist La- 
 treille, on whose authority we state this fact (Regne Animal, 
 torn. v. p. 365), is even of opinion that the honey-bee of 
 65 
 
 APOCYNACE^E. 
 
 the south and east of Europe, as well as that of Egypt, dif- 
 fers specifically from the Apis mellifica of western Europe. 
 See (1 uber on Hees ; Bevan on the Honey-Bee, &c. 
 
 API'STES. (Gr. atnoros, treacherous.) A genus of 
 Acanthopterygious fishes, notable for a string suborbital 
 spine, with which they are apt to inflict severe wounds 
 11 autiously handled. 
 
 APEO'ME. (Gr. an-Aooj, simple.) A mineralogical term 
 for a variety of garnet crystallised in rhombic dodecahedra, 
 derived by the simplest laws of decrement from the cube. 
 
 APLY'SlA. (Gr. dirXvaia, undeanness.) A genus of 
 Tectibranchiate Gastropods, well known to the ancients un- 
 der the name of Lepvjs marinus, or sea hare, from a re- 
 semblance which the long tentacles of the Aplysia give it 
 to the head of the hare. By Aristotle, the term Aplysia was 
 applied to certain zoophytes, but was arbitrarily transferred 
 by Linnaeus to the molluscous animals now known under 
 tins denomination. 
 
 APO'CALI PSE. (Gr. dTT0Ka\v7TT0}, I rereal.) The Book 
 of Revelations, the last in the canon of the New Testa- 
 ment. Many conflicting opinions have been entertained as 
 to the authenticity of this book ; but, though rejected by 
 Luther, and neither admitted nor rejected by Michaelis, the 
 
 opinion of the great majority of critics and divines >n mo- 
 dern times has been decidedly in favour of its genuineness. 
 There have, also, been great \arciies of opinion as to the 
 
 person bj wh and the period when, the bo6k waswrit- 
 
 tl 11 : but the prevalent opinion is, thai it is ihe work of St. 
 
 John the Evangelist. Ditferenl commentators have differed 
 widely in then- interpretations of different parts ol this 
 
 book ; and il is looked on by many as being -'ill a " sealed 
 
 book," admitting, in the present state of our knowledge, of 
 no satisfactory explanation, The phrase apocalyptic writ- 
 ings is frequently used to designate those portions of the 
 ires which contain prophetic descriptions, under the 
 
 form of Vis s, of the future State of the church ; such as 
 
 the hook of Daniel; and, among the Apocrypha, the fourth 
 book of E8dt 
 
 \l'<x a'KI'OI S. (Gr. dire, from, and Kapnos, fruit.) 
 
 \\ len the carpels of ;< flower either do not adhere i, 
 
 other ai all. as m ihe strawberry, or only by the ovaries, as 
 
 ill Aigella. W'leii a carpel is altogether single in a flower, 
 
 11 is considered, for systematic purposes, apocarpous; the 
 supposition being, thai if another carpel were present, it 
 would not adhere to the first. 
 
 \lo< RYPHA (Gr. dmupvirrstv, to hide.) Properly, 
 
 thing- 01 put out of sight; applied to certain 
 
 books, in behalf of which a claim to inspiration has been 
 
 apposed to be spurious, and ai e 
 
 re pie- nd from the canon ol scripture. One great 
 
 distinction between the Roman and the Reformed churches 
 
 ■ ii. latter reject certain books, admitted by the form- 
 
 , , hi 'he -,me- looting a., those books ahoiit which there is 
 DO dispute, from the canon of the Old Testament; viz. the 
 :;,| and 1th id' Esdras, the book of Tobias, that of Judith, 
 the rest of the book of Esther, that of Wisdom, of Jesus 
 ihe son of Sirach, Baruch the prophet, the Song of the 
 Tli re.' Children, the story of Susanna, of Bel and the Dra- 
 gon. Ihe Prayer ofManasses, and the 1st and 2d Macca- 
 bees; reading them, as the sixth Article of the English 
 church declares, for example of life and instruction of man- 
 ners, but not applying them to establish any doctrine. The 
 English church receives no books into the canon of the Old 
 Testament which were not BO received by the Jews: and 
 it appears that the writings thus excluded are not quoted 
 by Ihe authors of Ihe New Testament, nor are admitted in- 
 to any of the earlier catalogues set forth by the Christian 
 fathers. They are also found to contain some manifest in- 
 consistencies, some obviously fanciful relations, and, in one 
 or two passages, to countenance tenetsat variance with the 
 ter, or even the express declarations, of revealed re- 
 ligion. There exist at the present day various writings 
 purporting to he the Gospels or Epistles of Joseph, of James 
 the Apostle, of St. Paul, an Epistle of Christ himself to 
 king Abgamus, <kc. ; which are, for the most part, intrinsi- 
 cally absurd ; and, having no external evidence or authority 
 in 1h.11 favour, have never obtained currency in the church. 
 (See art. Canon.) 
 
 APOCYNA'CE^E. An extensive natural order of plants, 
 named after Apocynum, one of the more common of its 
 genera. A few species are found in cold climates, but by 
 far the larger part are natives of warm or tropical latitudes, 
 in the form of shrubs or trees, or twining plants, some of 
 which are remarkable for their beauty, as various species 
 of Echites ; others for their poisonous properties, as Cer- 
 bera, which furnishes the Tanghin poison of Madagascar, 
 and Strychnos, from various species of which the poisons 
 called tiente and woorary are procured in different coun- 
 tries ; while a third set produce bark, having useful bitter 
 and febrifugal properties; the inspissated milk that flows 
 from these plants, when removed, constitutes their poison ; 
 the febrifugal bitter principle is an independent secretion, 
 that becomes useful when it can be separated from the 
 milk. Notwithstanding these dangerous properties, the 
 K
 
 i? 
 
 APODE. 
 
 fruits of some species are eatable, as that of Carissa, the 
 cream fruit of Sierra Leone, and some others. 
 
 A'PODE, APODA. (Gr. d, priv., and kovs, a foot.') 
 Footless. A term applied by Latreille to a section of Sauri- 
 ans or lizards, by Mayer to a family of serpents, and by Op- 
 pel to a family of Batrachians ; by Linnaeus to his first or- 
 der of fishes, which have no ventral fins ; and by Cuvier a 
 suborder of Malacopterygia, or soft-finned fishes, is thus 
 designated, comprehending those which are devoid of the 
 ventral fins, or the homologues of the posterior extremities. 
 It is also indicative of those larvae of insects which have 
 only the soft tubercles or prolegs ; and the skins of the bird 
 of paradise, imported as an article of commerce, being al- 
 ways deprived of the legs, it was for some time believed 
 that the species was naturally without feet, and it was con- 
 sequently termed Paradisea apoda. 
 
 APODO'GYNOUS. (Gr. d, priv., wovs, a foot, and yvvri, 
 a female.) A name given by Richard to disks which do not 
 adhere to the base of an ovary. 
 
 APO'DOSIS. (Gr. dTrocjtrSauti, to give back:) In Rhe- 
 toric, the second part of a period. (See Protasis.) 
 
 APODYTE'RIUM. (Gr. dirodvoOai, to strip one's self.) 
 In ancient Architecture, the apartment in the palffista, or 
 bath, in which a person divested himself of his dress, 
 whether for bathing or for gymnastic exercises. In the 
 baths of Ne.ro, these apartments were small ; but in those 
 of Caracalla, the apodyterium was a magnificent room with 
 columns and other decorations. 
 
 A'POGEE. (Gr. dno,from,sx\il yH, the earth.) Applied, 
 in Astronomy, to the orbit of the moon and the apparent 
 orbits of the sun or planets, to denote the points of those or- 
 bits most remote from the earth. It is opposed to perigee, 
 which denotes the point nearest the earth. The apogee of 
 the lunar orbit advances eastward among the stars, and 
 completes a revolution in about nine years. 
 
 APOLLIN'ARIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, a sect 
 •who denied the humanity of Christ as far as regards the 
 soul, believing its place to be supplied by the Logos, or 
 Word of God. Apollinaris, their founder, was a bishop of 
 Laodicea, in the latter part of the fourth century : his doc- 
 trine was condemned by the council of Constantinople, 
 a. d. 381. (See Mosheim's Eccl. History, English transla- 
 tion, i. 423.) 
 
 APO'LLO, or PH03BUS. A heathen divinitv. son of Ju- 
 piter and Latona, in Homeric times the god of archery, 
 prophecy, music, and medicine. 
 
 Jupiter est genitor. Per me quod eritque, fuitqne, 
 Estque patet. Per me concordant carmina ntrvis > 
 Certaquidem nostra, est nostra tamen una sagitta 
 Certiorin vacuo qua: vulnera pectore fecit ; 
 Tnventum medicina meum est, opifeique per orberr* 
 Dicor, etherbarum estsubjecta potentia nobis. 
 Later poets represent him also as the god of day and the 
 eun. The statues of Apollo represent a young man in the 
 perfection of manly strength and beauty, with unshorn 
 curling locks, and a bow or lyre in his hand. The worship 
 of this god was very general in Greece and Italy, especially 
 in the former, where he uttered prophetic responses from 
 many of his temples, the most celebrated of which were 
 those of Delos and Delphi, in Phocis : in the latter of these 
 his most esteemed oracles were delivered. The mytho- 
 logical tales about Apollo are very numerous. His birth 
 took place in the island of Delos, whither his mother took 
 refuge from the persecutions of the jealous Juno ; and his 
 first exploit was the slaughter of the dragon Python, for 
 which, according to one tradition, he was subjected to ser- 
 vitude under Admetus, king of Phera?, inThessaly. Of his 
 numerous amours, that with the nymph Daphne is most 
 noted. She fled from his embraces, and, when no other 
 means of escape from the arms of her pursuer were left, 
 was turned by her father, the river-god Peneus, into a bay : 
 tree, which in consequence became the peculiar emblem 
 of Apollo. 
 
 APOLLO BELVIDERE. A beautiful statue of Apollo, 
 found, towards the end of the fifteenth century, among the 
 ruins of the ancient Antium. It was purchased by Pope 
 Julius II., who placed it in the Belvidere of the Vatican, 
 whence it takes its name. It is, perhaps, the noblest work 
 of art. The god is standing, about seven feet high, and al- 
 most naked. His quiver hangs over his right shoulder ; his 
 pallium over his left arm, which is extended ; and in his 
 hand are the remains of a bow, out of which he is supposed 
 to have just discharged the arrow that killed the serpent 
 Python. The whole figure has about it an indescribable air 
 of grace, beauty, and majesty. 
 
 " Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, 
 The God of life, and poesy, and light — 
 The sun in human limbs array'd, and brow 
 All radiant from his triumph in the fight ; 
 The shaft has just been shot— the arrow bright 
 With an immortal's vengeance : in his eye 
 And nostril beautiful disdain, and might, 
 And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, 
 Developing in that one glauce the Deity." 
 
 This chef-d'c&ivre of Greek sculpture has been supposed 
 66 
 
 APOSTOLIC FATHERS. 
 
 by some, but on very slight grounds, to be alluded to by 
 Pliny (Hist. Nat. lib. xxxvi. § 4.). The best critics are of 
 opinion that the artist is wholly unknown. This noble 
 statue was conveyed to Paris by Napoleon ; but, on the 
 downfal of the latter, it was again restored to the Vatican. 
 
 A'POLOGUE. (Gr. d-n6\o} os.) In Literature, a fable or 
 fiction, of which the object is moral. According to some 
 definitions of the Apologue, it is a fable of which the inter- 
 locutors or subjects are animals : but this seems an un- 
 founded limitation. (See Fable.) 
 
 APO'LOGY. (Gr. d7roXo^ia.) In Literature, a defence, 
 or answer to an accusation. The two pieces of Xenophon 
 and Plato, each commonly termed Apologia Socratis, differ 
 in character : the first being a defence supposed to be pro- 
 nounced by the philosopher himself ; the last, a narration 
 of his last hours and discourses. Treatises in defence of 
 the Christian religion, in its early period, were denomi- 
 nated Apologies by their writers ; as those of Justin Martyr, 
 Tertullian, and others, both preserved and lost. The title 
 has been retained by some writers in modern times : as by 
 Robert Barclay, in his Apology of Quakerism, and by 
 Bishop Watson, in his Apologies for the Bible and for Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 A'POPHTHEGM. (Gr. diroyBeyua, from tyBtyyopai, 1 
 speak.) A short and sententious speech or saying. The 
 apophthegms of the ancients are generally sentences ex- 
 pressing some truth of universal applicalion in philosophy } 
 the conduct of life, &c. &c. Such are Plutarch's " Apoph- 
 thegmata Laconiea." a collection of the brief and pointed 
 savings for which the Lacedaemonians were famous. 
 
 A'POPHYGE. (Gr., signify ing flight, or refuge.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, that part of a column between the upper fillet 
 which rests on the base and the cylindrical part of the shaft 
 of a column, usually moulded into a hollow or cavetto, out 
 of which the column seems as it were to fly or shoot up- 
 wards. 
 
 APOPHYSIS. (Gr. drcotpvui. I proceed from.) A protu- 
 berance, process, or projection. In Anatomy, restricted to 
 processes of the osseous system. 
 
 A'POPLE'XY. (Gr. dnon'Xriao-eiv, to strike doun.) A 
 sudden suspension or loss of the powers of sense or mo- 
 tion ; the heart continues to act, and respiration is contin- 
 ued, though often with some difficulty. 
 
 APOROBRA'NCHIANS, APOROBRANCHIATA. (Gr. 
 dTTopew, I leant, and (Ipayx'a, g'tls.) A name applied by 
 Latreille to an order of the class Arachnida, characterised 
 by the absence of stigmata or respiratory pores on the sur- 
 face of the bodv. 
 
 APOSE'PEDIN. V3r. drro, from, and crivtSav, product 
 of putrefaction.) A peculiar crystallised substance obtained 
 from putrid cheese. 
 
 A'POSIOPE'SIS. (Gr. dTrooiioiraoj, to leare off speaking 
 suddenly.) A figure in Rhetoric and Composition, by which 
 . a sentence is made to break off abruptly when unfinished 
 either in sense or grammatical construction ; so that the 
 part which was to follow appears to be retained in the mind 
 of the speaker or writer. In writing, the Aposiopesis is 
 now often denoted by an horizontal fine or break at the 
 point where the sense is interrupted. 
 
 APO'STACY. (Gr. dQioTtipi, I desert.) A deserting or 
 abandoning of the true faith ; but the word is now used to 
 designate the rei»jnciation of political as well as religious 
 opinions. 
 
 APOSTASIA'CE A. a very small natural order of plants 
 found in the tropics of lr.dia, closely allied to Orchidaceae, 
 from which they differ in having a three-celled ovary and 
 diandrous flowers, the sext S f which are partly free. 
 Apostasia is the principal genus. 
 APO'STILL. In Literature, a inarginal note to a book. 
 APO'STLE. (Gr. dToo-roXoc.) Aperson sent forth upon 
 any business : hence applied, by way of eminence, to the 
 twelve elect disciples of Christ, who werp sent forth by him 
 to convert and baptize all nations. In the first centurv, the 
 apostles assumed the highest office in the c'nurch ; and the 
 term apostle during that period was equivalent to bishop in 
 after-times. According to Theodoret (v. Bingham, II. Q. 
 1.), the titles of bishop and presbyter were originally ap- 
 plied promiscuously to the same, or second, order in the 
 church. 
 
 APO'STLES' CREED. A confession of faith, supposed 
 anciently to have been drawn up by the apostles them- 
 selves, and deriving the title " Creed" from the word with 
 which it begins in Latin (credo, I believe). With respect to 
 its antiquity, it may be affirmed, that the greater part of its 
 clauses is quoted by the apostolic father Ignatius ; and that 
 the whole, as it now stands in our liturgy, is to be found in 
 the works of St. Ambrose, in the fourth centurv. 
 
 APOSTO'LIC FATHERS. The writers of the Christian 
 Church, who lived in the apostolic age, or were during any 
 part of their lives contemporary with the apostles. They 
 are five : Clement of Rome, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, 
 and Polycarp ; of whom the last suffered martyrdom, a. d. 
 147. Of these the three first are supposed to be mentioned 
 in the Epistles and Acts; the fourth, according to a preva-
 
 APOSTROPHE. 
 
 lent tradition, was the child whom Christ took in his 
 arms, whence ho was called Theophorus ; and the fifth, 
 who suffered at a very advanced age, seems to be the angel 
 or bishop of Smyrna whom St. John addresses in the Rev- 
 elations 
 
 APO'STROPHE. (Gr. d-jocrrpeoeiv, to turn off.) In 
 Rhetoric, a figure of speech by which the orator or writer 
 suddenly breaks off from the previous method of his dis- 
 course, and addresses himself in the second person to 
 some person or thing, absent or present. It is not neces- 
 sarily an address to the absent or dead, although often so 
 led. An orator, who should suddenly direct his speech 
 to one of the audience, would be employing an apostrophe. 
 It is, like other figures of speech, an imitation of one of" the 
 i, natural effects ol strong emotion. In oratory, the 
 Apostrophe of Demosthenes to the gods, at the end of the 
 Oratio pro Corond in narrative writing, that of Tacitus to 
 the shade of Agricola, in his biography of that statesman, 
 may becitedas splendid examples in ancient literature of 
 the use of this i. 
 
 APOTHE'CA. (Gr. d-rroOriKri, a repository.) In ancient 
 Architecture, a Btori il, wine, &c. 
 
 APCTHECARY. (Gr. aVo0ij/t>;, a stop.) Apothecaries 
 were originally the venders and preparers of drugs and 
 compi ' medicine. The Apothecaries' Compa- 
 
 ny, or the Society of Apothecaries for the < !ity of London. 
 was incorporated by James I in 1600. Their last charter 
 ol D cember, 1617. {See Companies.) 
 
 APOTHE'CIUM (.Set Apotheca.) A flat disk, con- 
 sisting of a nucleus surrounded byaborder, inwhii 
 asci of lichi Itisco tiled a Bhield. 
 
 ATOTHEO'SIS. (Gr. dnoOiuaif.) The change from 
 a mortal to a divine nature, whii ats supposed 
 
 some men to ander) i: as the old heroes among 
 
 the Greeks; and the ancient kings of Italy, and Rod 
 wiih the Romans, who also paid divine honours, in later 
 times, to their deceased, and, in some cases, to their living 
 emperors. 
 
 Ar'OTOME. (Gr. diroropos, cutoff.) In Music, the re- 
 maining part of an entire major semitone has 
 been abstracted from it; or ii is the remainder ofa whole 
 tone when diminished by a limma, or smaller seinitone. 
 As Hie tone major canno illy divided into two 
 equal parts, the Greeks divided it into a greater and less 
 
 semil : the greater being the apotome, and the less the 
 
 limma. The propor i of the apotome to ih^ limma is 
 
 2187 to 204a 
 
 Apotome. In Geometry, B term employed by 1 
 and some of the ancienl mathematicians to denote the re- 
 mainder or difference between tw • jfies or quantities com- 
 mensurable only In power. Thud! I) from the diagonal of 
 a square, a part equal to the side of the square is cut off, the 
 rem Under is the apotome, an i is represented numerically 
 
 by i! Epresaion \ "J- 1 In i 1 
 
 ments, Euclid divides apotoraes into sbi i I 
 
 A'POZEM. (Gi diro t and fs«i>, to boil.) An old I'har- 
 maceutical term foi a i <><tion. 
 
 APPA'RENT. A term used in Astronomy to denote 
 things as they appear to the eye, in distinction I" wh.it they 
 
 really are. Thus, the apparent altitude of a star denotes 
 the angle which its line of vision makes with the horizon: 
 but ihe real altitude is found by making a correction for 
 the effects of parallax, which causes (he star to app 
 little higher than il would it there were no 
 The apparent diameter ofa planet is l II the an- 
 gle made by two Btraighl hues drawn from the eye to oppo 
 
 site points of iis disk : the n t line 
 
 joining those points ; while astronomers call the angle un- 
 der which the diameter would be Been from the i • 
 of the earth, the true diameter. The apparent or si n 
 horizon denotes the plane which is a tangenl to the i 
 surface at the place of the observer; the true horizon is a 
 plane parallel to the former, and passing through the cen- 
 tre of the earth. Apparent motion is the velocity and di- 
 rection in which a body appears to move to an observer 
 who is himself in motion. For example : the apparent 
 diurnal motion of the stars from east to Wesl arises from 
 the rotatory motion of the earth, which carries us along 
 with it in an opposite direction. Apparent time is the same 
 as true time, or the hour indicated by the suns pa 
 over a meridian ; while mean time is thai which would be 
 indicated by the sun if its angular velocity in its orbit were 
 uniform. 
 
 APPARI'TION. In a general sense, means the appear- 
 ance or semblance of any thing; but the word is now com- 
 monly used to denote a spectre, or the preternatural ap- 
 pearance of some spirit. A belief in the reality of such 
 preternatural appearances has been entertainedby many 
 eminent men; hut it has chiefly prevailed in times of ig- 
 norance and superstition, and has either wholly disappeared, 
 or had a comparatively limited influence in more enlight- 
 ened times. See Hibbert's Philosophy of Apparitions. 
 
 APPEA'L. In Law, 1. The removal of a cause from an 
 inferior court to a superior. 2. An accusation of a crimi- 
 07 
 
 APPRENTICE. 
 
 nal offence by one subject against another. The bringing 
 decisions of the courts of Scotland and Ireland, or the court 
 of chancery in England, before the house of lords, is pecu- 
 liarly termed an appeal in Ihe first sense. Criminal ap- 
 peals are now obsolete : those on charges not capital have 
 long been so. Appeals of treason and of felony subsisted 
 for a much looser period : the latter had doubtless their 
 origin in the early jurisprudence of the Gothic nations, by 
 which acts of violence or injury were redeemable by a 
 weregild or fine to the party injured or his nearest relative. 
 They' were put an end to by slat. 59 G. 3. c. 40. {See Wa- 
 ger of Battle.) 
 
 APPEA'RANCE. In Law, the act whereby a defendant 
 in an action recognises the process by which that action 
 is commenced against him ; originally by appearing in 
 person, or by attorney, in court : now, by" filing common 
 or special had to a writ of capias, by delivering a memo- 
 randum in writing to an officer of the court, in answer to a 
 wril of summons, <S c 
 
 APPE'LLANT. In Law, the party by whom an appeal 
 
 is made ; as against an order of magistrate to the quarter 
 
 the decision ofa court of equity to the 
 
 house of lords The opposite parry is termed respondent. 
 
 APPE'NDAGE. In Botany, all" parts which are regu- 
 larly arranged round any other pan are called appendages; 
 - ire appendages of the axis : so are all the parts of a 
 flower theoretically ; the supernumerary sepals in a straw- 
 berry are ape the calyx; the abortive stamens 
 that arise from the calyx of a passion-flower are append- 
 . and so on. 
 
 \iTi;\l>'i< i LATE Having appendages. The word 
 is sometimes applied to all those plants which are furnished 
 with leaves (at 'i the axis.) 
 
 APPE'NDIN. In Literature, a supplement added at the 
 end of a work, either to contain portions of the subject 
 which bad been omitted, or separate pieces and extracts 
 from other works bearing on it : such as are termed in 
 French p&a s justificativen. 
 
 APPE'NSI'S. (Lat. appendo, I hang up.) When an 
 ovule is mil exactly pendulous, bul is attached to the pla- 
 centa by Borne poinl intermediate between the apex and 
 
 the middle. 
 
 A'Pl'iw \\ w The moal celebrated of the highways 
 leading from ancjenl Rome li was constructed by the 
 censor Appius Claudius, a. n. c. 442; and commencing at 
 the gate ol < lapena, now St Sebastian, extended to < apua, 
 the then hunt of the empire. It was formed of stones 
 
 squared and jointed, and was wide enough for two chariots 
 to go abreast. On each side' was a ditch for carrying off 
 the wate r. 
 
 A'PPLE. (Gr. drrioc, a wild pear.) The cultivated fruit 
 of Pyrua moiua, the crab apple of our hedges. All the nu- 
 merous varieties thai are now bo common are said to have 
 ited slowly from improvements of this wild sort. At 
 what period its amelioration commenced is unknown ; but, 
 as Pliny was acquainted with several kinds, it is reasonably 
 to be supposed thai its improvement is to be assigned to a 
 high antiquity. If it could be true that pippins," that is, 
 ng improved apples, were introduced only at the end 
 of the ltilh century, we should have to give the southern 
 nations of Europe the credit of having furnished us with 
 the stock from which the valuable varieties we now pos- 
 h ave been derived. But there is no doubt that apples 
 of some kind have been known in England from long be- 
 fore the Conquest, and although they may have been of 
 bad quality, and lit for food only when roasted, yet they 
 hardly have failed to produce seedlings of valuable 
 qualities. The term apple is employed in composition to 
 designate any large fleshy fruit, as love-apple, thorn-apple, 
 
 AITOGIATU'RA. (Ital. appogiare, to lean upon.) In 
 Music, a small note preceding a larger one of greater dura- 
 tion, of which it borrows one naif of its value: sometimes, 
 however, it is only one quarter in duration of the note 
 which ii pre les. 
 
 APPORTIONMENT. In Law, the dividing of a rent, 
 &c. into parts, according to the number and proportion of 
 the parties between whom the land is divided. 
 
 APPRAI'SEMENT. The valuation of goods sold under 
 distress for rent due, by sworn appraisers, under several 
 statutes. 'See Distress.) 
 
 APPREIIE'NSION, SIMPLE. In Logic, is that act or 
 condition of the mind in which it receives a notion of any 
 object, and is said to be either incomplex or complex : the 
 former being the apprehension of one object, or of several 
 without any relation between them, as " a man," " cattle ;" 
 complex, of several, with such a relation, as "a man on 
 horseback," "a herd of cattle." 
 
 APPRENTICE. (Fr. apprendre, to learn.) A person 
 bound by indenture, for a certain term, to perform servi- 
 ces for a master, receiving, in return, instruction in a trade 
 or occupation ; and, in most instances, necessary food and 
 clothing. Apprenticeship seems to have originated, togeth- 
 er with guilds and fraternities, in the middle ages. Seven
 
 APPROACH. 
 
 years is a common term of apprenticeship in Germany, as 
 well as in England ; but other periods, as three and eight, 
 have been customary in different trades, places, and times. 
 The former period was fixed in England by the statute 5 
 Eliz. c. 4., which regulated apprenticeship throughout the 
 realm in general. By 54 G. 3. c. 96., the legal force of 
 apprenticeship was finally destroyed ; that is, persons were 
 allowed to exercise their respective trades without having 
 served ; London, and a few other corporate towns, being 
 excepted. Apprenticeship is, therefore, now only recog- 
 nised by the law as the mode of learning a trade. 
 
 APPROA'CII. In Fortification, a term given to the trench 
 or covered way by which a besieging army may advance 
 from its camp to the wall of a fortress without being ex- 
 posed to the fire of the defenders. Approaches sometimes 
 consist of covering masses only, formed of earth in bags, 
 fascines, stuffed gabions, woolpacks, bales of cotton, or 
 other materials within reach. 
 
 Approach, Curve of. In Geometry, the name given to 
 a curve which possesses this property, — that a heavy body 
 descending along it by the force of gravity, makes equal 
 approaches to the horizon in equal portions of time. It 
 was proposed by Leibnitz, and its properties investigated 
 by Bernoulli and others. 
 
 Approach Road. In Landscape Gardening, is the road 
 which leads from the public or main road, through a park 
 or pleasure ground, to the mansion of a country residence. 
 In the ancient or geometric style of gardening, this road 
 was bounded by lines either straight or regularly curved, 
 and was generally accompanied by one or more rows of 
 trees on each side, at regular distances: but in the modern 
 6tyle, the approach road is led in graceful sweeps, which 
 are made to appear as if they were determined by existing 
 circumstances, either in the surface of the ground, or in 
 the trees or other objects which are placed on it. There 
 ought to be no bend in an approach road for which there 
 is not an obvious and sufficient reason, either naturally 
 existing, or created by art. 
 
 APPROPRIATION. In Landscape Gardening, is the 
 art of so blending the scenery of one estate with that of 
 the others that adjoin it, as to make the one subservient to 
 the other, in a scenic point of view. This is effected by 
 forming appropriate fore-grounds, in the estate at command, 
 to the distant views, in the estates not at command ; or in 
 fields immediately adjoining, by imitating in our own field 
 a part of what is contained in the field of our neighbour : 
 thus, if the park of A. should be chiefly planted with pines 
 and firs, and that of B. chiefly with oaks ; A., in order to 
 appropriate the scenery of B., must substitute oaks for a 
 part of his pines and firs ; more especially in the imme- 
 diate vicinity of the grounds of B. 
 
 APPRO'VER. In Law. a person who being indicted of 
 treason or felony, and not disabled from giving legal evi- 
 dence, upon his arraignment, before any plea pleaded, con- 
 fesses the indictment, and takes an oath to reveal all trea- 
 sons and felonies that he knows of, and therefore prays a 
 coroner to enter his appeal or accusation against those that 
 are his partners in the crime contained in the indictment. 
 
 APPROXIMATE. In Zoology, when the teeth are so 
 arranged in the jaws, that one passes on the side of the 
 next, and there is no intervening vacancy. 
 
 APPROXIMATION. (Lat. proximus, nearest, next to.) 
 A drawing near to. In Mathematics, quantities are said to 
 be approximate which are nearly but not absolutely equal. 
 
 In a general sense, the term approximate may be applied 
 to every result of natural philosophy or experimental 
 science. For example, the magnitude of the earth, the 
 distance of the sun, the masses of the plants, in fact, all 
 the elements of astronomy, are only known nearly, or by 
 approximation. In these cases, however, the want of ab- 
 solute knowledge arises from the imperfections of our 
 senses, or the errors of our instruments. In the language 
 of Analysis, approximation is used to denote those methods 
 of calculation hy which we obtain near values of quantities 
 which cannot be found accurately, either on account of the 
 nature of their composition, or the imperfections of our 
 methods of calculation. 
 
 The problem of finding the length of the circumference 
 of a circle, by means of inscribed polygons, affords an in- 
 stance of approximation to the values of geometrical quan- 
 tities. It is a principle in Geometry, that any arc of a cir- 
 cle, however small, is greater than its chord. Now, sup- 
 pose a regular polygon of 100 sides to be inscribed in a cir- 
 cle, and that we know the exact length of one of the sides ; 
 it is evident that the sum of all these lengths will give an 
 approximation to the length of the circumference, though 
 it would fall short of it by a very sensible quantity. But 
 suppose that, instead of a polygon of 100 sides, one of 
 1000 sides were inscribed in the circle, the aggregate 
 lengths of the sides would now approach much more nearly 
 to the length of the circumference. By continuing to 
 multiply the number of sides, we may obtain an approxi- 
 mation to any degree of nearness we please ; but whatever 
 the number of the sides of the polyeon may be, their sum 
 68 
 
 APRIL. 
 
 will never be exactly equal to the circumference, for they 
 are only the chords of small arcs, which of necessity are 
 smaller than the arcs to which they belong. 
 
 Numbers are formed by successive additions of unity, 
 which is necessarily a finite quantity. In consequence of 
 this finitude, it may be affirmed thai no magnitudes which 
 tlow, or increase, by insensible degrees, can be expressed 
 generally by numbers. For example, let a straight line be 
 taken at random, and suppose that we wish to determine its 
 length, our unit of linear measure being one foot. On ap- 
 plying successively a scale divided into feet to the different 
 parts of the given line, the chances are infinity to one that 
 the last division does not exactly coincide with the extremi- 
 ty of the line. We may diminish our unit by reducing it 
 to an inch, or to the hundredth or the thousandth part of an 
 inch ; the chances of ultimate coincidence will not thereby 
 be increased, though the difference between the last divi- 
 sion of the scale and the extremity of the line n.ay be di- 
 minished till it becomes smaller than any quantity we n.ay 
 be pleased to assign. Precisely similar to this is what takes 
 place when we attempt to express by decimals a vulgar frac- 
 tion whose denominator is not a measure of any power of 
 ten. Thus, the fraction ^', expressed decimally, is .33333, 
 ice. The first figure of the series gives the approximate 
 value 3-tenths ; the first two figures give 33-hundredths : the 
 first three, 333-thousandths, and so on ; the addition of 
 every figure to the series making the difference of its value 
 from 1-third ten times smaller. The difference may, there- 
 fore, be diminished till it becomes smaller than any assign- 
 able quantity, but it can never entirely disappear. 
 
 Another instance of the necessity of having recourse to 
 approximation, is presented in seeking to find the roots of 
 numbers. If a number is not an exact square, its square 
 root cannot be expounded by rational numbers, whether in- 
 tegers or fractions. The same thing occurs with respect to 
 numbers which are not cubes, and so on. In these cases, 
 exact numerical values of the roots cannot be found. In 
 other cases exact values may exist, though our methods of 
 analysis are not sufficiently perfect to enable us to discover 
 them. Notwithstanding 'he successive efforts of the great- 
 est algebraists since the days of Lucas de Borgo, no gene- 
 ral method has yet been discovered of solving equations 
 of a higher degree than the fourth ; consequently, the 
 values of quantities involved in such equations can only be 
 obtained approximately. It is to this subject that the atten- 
 tion of our best writers on analysis has chiefly been direct- 
 ed ; in fact, the discussion of the different methods of ap- 
 proximating to the roots of equations of thehigherdegrees, 
 forms one of the principal subjects of pure Algebra. 
 
 The method of exhaustion, by which the ancient mathe- 
 maticians attempted to find the rectification and quadrature 
 of the circle, was the first instance of a systematic method 
 of approximation. The Indivisibles of Cavalleri effected 
 the same object in a more rapid and general manner, and 
 prepared the way for the differential calculus. The inven- 
 tion of the method of infinite series led immediately to ge- 
 neral methods of approximating to the values of all radical 
 quantities, and subsequently to the roots of all kinds of com- 
 pound equations whatever. Vieta was the first who showed 
 how to find successive values of the roots of equations, each 
 approaching more nearly to the true value than the preced- 
 ing ; but his method was tedious and imperfect. Other 
 methods, more easy and general, have been given by vari- 
 ous mathematicians ; among which, the best known are 
 those of Newton, Halley, and Raphson, and those which 
 have been proposed at a later period by Lagrange, Legen- 
 dre, Budan, and others. These methods are in general 
 drawn from the most abstruse parts of the theory of equa- 
 tions, and could not be explained in this place with the de- 
 tails necessary to render them of any use. For the best 
 information on the subject, we may refer the reader to the 
 excellent work of Lagrange, " Traite de la Resolution des 
 Equations Numeriques ;" the " Nouvelle Methode pour 
 resoudre les Equations Numeriques" of M. Budan ; the 
 " Supplement a 1' Essai sur la Theorie des Non bres," by 
 Legendre ; and the article Equations, in the Encyclopedia 
 Britannica, by Mr. Ivory. (See Eq.uations.) 
 
 A'PRICOT. (Lat. praecox, early, or Arab, berkliach, 
 butter fruit.) The fruit of Armeniaca vulgaris, a native of 
 Cachmere, and probably of the mountains of Caubul, and 
 cultivated from Persia and the Oases of Egypt throughout 
 the temperate parts of the world. In its wild state the 
 apricot is a small round pale waxy yellow fruit, rosy on one 
 side, and agreeably subacid ; in that state it is dried in large 
 quantities under the name of mishmish ; in its most im- 
 proved state it becomes three times as large and sweeter : 
 but it is then apt to become insipid. For the confectioner's 
 purpose, the Brussels and Breda apricots, which are near 
 approaches to the wild fruit, are better adapted than the 
 larger and sweeter kinds. 
 
 A'PRIL. The fourth month of the year. The name is 
 probably derived from Lat. aperire. to open, either from 
 the opening of the buds, or of the bosom of the earth, in 
 producing vegetation.
 
 A PRIORI. 
 
 A PRIO'RI. (The argument a priori.) In Philosophy 
 and Rhetoric, is a phrase somewhat loosely applied to de- 
 Big i iii a class of reasonings. It is generally understood 10 
 apply 10 any argument in which a consequent conclusion 
 is drawn from an antecedent fact, whether the conse- 
 quence be in the order of time, or in the necessary relation 
 of cause and effect; — e.g., "The mercury sinks, there- 
 fore it will rain." This is an argu nenl drawn from an an- 
 tecedent in ti ne, not from a cause to an effect. A murder 
 has been co nmitted ; a party falls under suspicion, as hav- 
 ing h id an interesl in the death of the deceased, or a quar- 
 rel with him; tins suspicion is founded on the argument 
 /. from cause to effect; because the fact of his cn- 
 mtty "i- interesl would afford a cause for his committing 
 the murder. On the other hand, another party falls under 
 suspicion, as having been seen t;> cpiit the house at a par- 
 ticular time, having marks of blood on his clothes: these 
 are argu nents </ posteriori, in which we reason either from 
 consequ ut in the order of time to antecedent, or from ef- 
 fecl to antecedent cause. The famous a priori argument 
 of Clarke and others in favour of the existence of a God, 
 was an argument drawn from certain primary axioms in 
 metaphysics; while the common course of reasoning to 
 prove the same truth from the visible proofs of design in 
 the works of nature, is an instance of the latter or a pos- 
 lorm. 
 
 A'PSIDE-'. or AI'SES. (Gr. dirctf, circle, or curvature.) 
 The two points of the orbit of a plane! or satellite, at which 
 ii is moving al mint angles to the straight line joining it 
 with the primary Tins,- two points of the orbit are the 
 two extremities of the major axis, or the points at which a 
 planet is at its greatest and least distance from the sun. 
 The point at the greatest distance is called the higher apsis; 
 that at the least is called the lowerapsis; consequently, 
 the higher apsis corresponds with the aphelion, and the 
 lower apsis with the perihelion. The line joining these 
 two pomts, which is the transverse axis of 1 the orbit, is 
 called the line of the apsides, it lias a slow angular mo- 
 tion in the plane of the planet's orbit; and the time which 
 tb ■ pi inel employs in completing a revolution with regard 
 to its apsides is called the anomalistic period. (See Aphe- 
 lion A'. OH 
 
 APTENOD1 TES (Gr d. priv., irrnvos, that can fly ,) 
 x genus of diving web-footed birds, peculiar to the antarctic 
 shop's, having wings too short lor Might, covered with 
 short stiff feathers, resembling scales, and used as tins or 
 paddles for swimming underwater. The legs are short, 
 thick, gel far back, with four toes, all turned forwards, 
 hree of them long and webbed, the fourth very short 
 The lull is longer than the head, Btraight, and slightly 
 curved at the tip: nostrils In the upper pan oi the bil 
 cealed in from by feathers The Patagonian penguin Is the 
 representative ol the genus. 
 
 A'PTERaNS. APTERA. (Gr.d, priv., irrcpov, awing'; 
 wingless i \ term including a proportion of the clae 
 insects, the value of which varies in different systems of 
 Entomology. In the Linneean system it is the seventh or- 
 der of Insects, distinguished by their having no wings, 
 lurby makes his Inters the twelfth order of the class of 
 insects, bui acknowledges thai it is not a natural one, and 
 limits the definition of it to those insects which are apterous, 
 or never acquire organs of (light In Latreille's last sys- 
 tem, aptera is no longer applied to designate an order of 
 insects 
 
 A'PTEROUS. In Botany, denotes any part of a plant 
 which is destitute of membranous expansions. The term 
 is usually employed in distinction to alale, or winged. 
 
 A'PTERYX. (Gr. <i. priv., irreov 1 , a wing.) A genus 
 of birds represented by an extremely rue species, a native 
 of New Z 'aland, in which thewings are red iced to a single 
 
 defensive' spur. 
 
 A'PTIIOUS. (Gr. airrav, to inflame.) Resembling 
 Aphth i or Apiha, the disease called the thrush. 
 
 ATI S. \ name applied by Scopolo to a curious genus 
 of Eulomostracans ; characterised by a flattened, semi- 
 transparent, membranous envelope, which protects the 
 body like a shell, having a deep cleft posteriorly; an 1 
 bearing in front two large eyes, placed close together, with 
 a third smaller one behind. The first pair of legs are long, 
 filamentary, and branched, representing antenna?; the re- 
 maining sixty pairs are short, compressed, and modified 
 so as to form a respiratory organ ; according to the struc- 
 ture which characterises the Branchiopodous, or gill-footed 
 order, to which the Apus belongs. The species of Apus 
 appear in immense numbers in our freshwater pools ; they 
 prey chiefly on tadpoles ; and some attain the length of an 
 inch and a half. 
 
 APYRE'XIA. (Gr. o. priv.. and nvperdi, fever.) The 
 intermission of feverish disorders. 
 
 A'PYROUS. (Gr. d. priv., and mp, fire.) A term for- 
 merly applied to substances which resisted a strong heat 
 without change. 
 
 A'QUA. (A Latin word of uncertain derivation, but pro- 
 bably from requa, smooth, or level.) Water. It is often al- 
 69 
 
 AQUEDUCT. 
 
 most Anglicised, as in the words aquavits, aquafortis, 
 aquamarine. 
 
 AQUA FORTIS. Nitric acid. 
 
 A'QUAM IRI'NE. See Beryl. 
 
 AQl'A REGIA. A mixture of nitric and muriatic acids, 
 so called from its power of dissolving gold, the king of the 
 metals. 
 
 AQUA TOFFAXA. See Aqcetta. 
 
 AQDA'RIUM. (Lat. aqua, water.) In Horticulture. A 
 place in gardens, in which only aquatic plants are grown. 
 It is generally a small pond or cistern, containing shelves 
 or benches at different depths from the surface, in which 
 pots are placed containing the plants. 
 
 AQUA'RIl s The WcUerbearer. The eleventh sign of 
 the zodiac, through which the sun moves in part of the 
 months of January and February. Also, one of the twelve 
 zodiacal constellations. 
 
 AULA Ties AQJUATILIA. (Lat. aquaticus.) A name 
 applied by Nit/.ch to an order of birds; by Cuvier, to a 
 family of Mollusks ; by Latreille, to a division of Crustacea : 
 by Lamarck, to a family of bugs (Cimicida) ; each of which 
 groups includes animals which live in, swim on, or fre- 
 quent the margins of waters. 
 
 AQTJA'TIC PLANTS. Plants which grow in water, 
 which may be either running or stagnate. In the former 
 hey are called river plants ; in the latter, pond plants. 
 Such as grow in the sea are called marine plants. 
 
 A'QUATINT (Lat a.pia. water, tinta, dyed.) In En- 
 graving, a species of execution resembling an Indian ink 
 drawing in effect (Set Engraving.) 
 
 A'QUEDl CT. ( Lat aqua, wafer, and ductus, a conduit.) 
 \ aduit or channel for conveying water from one place 
 i" another ; more particularly applied to structures erected 
 for the purpose of conveying the water of distant springs 
 
 across valleys, for the supply of large cities. 
 
 Tin- largest and most magnificent aqueducts, with the 
 existence of which we an- acquainted, were the work of 
 the Romans; and the ruins of several of them, both in 
 Italy and other countries of Europe, remain to the present 
 time monuments of the power and industry of thai enter- 
 prising people. The aqueduct of Appius Claudius was the 
 most ancient, and constructed in the ll-M yearofRome. 
 
 It conveyed the Aqua Appia to the city, from a distance of 
 between 7 and B miles, by a deep subterranean channel of 
 
 than 11 miles in length. The aqueduct of Quintets 
 
 Martins was a more extraordinary structure. It com- 
 menced at a spring 33 miles distant from Rome, made a 
 circuit of three miles, and afterwards, forming a vault of 
 16 feel diameter, it ran 38 miles, along a series of arcades 
 .it an elevation of70 English feet It was formed of three 
 
 distinct channels, placed one above the other, conveying 
 
 water from three different sources. In the uppermost 
 
 flOWl I \ lilia; in the second, the Aqua T.pula ; 
 
 and in the undermost, the Aqua Martia. The Aqua Vir- 
 ginia, constructed by Agrippa. passed through a tunnel of 
 
 ices m length. The Aqua Claudia, begun by Nero 
 and finished by Claudius, conveyed the water from a dis- 
 tance of 38 miles. This aqueduct formed a subterraneous 
 stream ot :m miles in length, and was supported on arcades 
 through the extent of 7 miles ; and such was the solidity 
 
 construction, that it continues to supply the modern 
 City with wafer to the present day The waters of the 
 river Aniowere also conducted to Rome by two different 
 channels; the first was carried through an extent of 43 
 miles, and the latter through upwards of 63 miles, of which 
 b'j miles formed one continued series of arches, many of 
 them upwards of 100 feet in height. Nine great aqueducts 
 
 ■I at Rome at the commencement of the reign of 
 \ i i I iv< others were constructed by that emperor, 
 under the superintendence of Julius Frontinus ; and it ap- 
 
 that at a later period the number amounted to twen- 
 ty. The supply of water furnished by these different 
 works was enormous. " According to the enumeration of 
 Frontinus, the nine earlier aqueducts delivered every day 
 1 1.01S quinaria. This corresponds to 27,743,100 cubic feet. 
 We may therefore extend the supply, when all the aque- 
 ducts were in action, to the enormous quantity of 50,000.000 
 cubic feet of water. Reckoning the population of ancient 
 Rome at a million, which it probably never exceeded, this 
 would furnish no less than 50 cubic feet for the daily con- 
 sumption of each inhabitant." — (Leslie's Elements of Natu- 
 ral Philosophy.) 
 
 The remains of some Roman aqueducts in other parts of 
 Europe give evidence of the existence of works on a still 
 more magnificent scale than those of Rome. Of these the 
 aqueduct of Metz was one of the most remarkable. A 
 number of its arcades still remain. It extended across the 
 Moselle, a river of very considerable breadth at this place, 
 and conveyed the water of the Gorse to the city of Metz. 
 The water was received in a reservoir, whence it xvas con- 
 ducted by subterraneous canals, formed of hewn stone, and 
 so spacious that a man might walk in them upright. The 
 arches appear to have been 50 in number, and 50 feet high 
 at the deepest part. Some of the middle ones have been
 
 AQUEOUS SOIL. 
 
 swept away by the descent of ice down the river; those at 
 the extremities still remain entire. 
 
 The aqueduct of Segovia, in Spain, is in a still more per- 
 fect state than that of Metz. About 15(3 of its arcades re- 
 main, all formed of large stones without cement. There 
 are two rows of arcades, the one above the other, and the 
 height of the edifice is about 100 feet, passing over the 
 greater part of the houses of the city. 
 
 Aqueducts have been constructed in modern times, par- 
 ticularly in France, which rival those of the ancient Ro- 
 mans. One of the most remarkable was constructed by 
 Louis XIV., for conveying the waters of the river Eura to 
 Versailles. It extends about 4400 feet in length, or nearly 
 Beven-eighths of a mile, and is upwards of 200 feet in 
 height. It contains 242 arcades, each divided into three 
 rows, forming in all 726 arches of 50 feet span. The intro- 
 duction of cast-iron pipes, which has only taken place with- 
 in the last century, has superseded the use of such expen- 
 sive structures. 
 
 A'QUEOUS SOIL. Agr. and Hort. Soil naturally 
 abounding in water, the fluid being supplied by springs in 
 the subsoil. 
 
 AQUE'TTA. (Ital. little water.) A celebrated poison 
 used by the Romans under the pontificate of Alexander 
 VII. It was probably a preparation of arsenic, and was also 
 known under the name of aqua Toffana, from a woman of 
 the name of Toffana. who prepared it at Naples. 
 
 AQUIFOLI'ACE.E. (Lat. Aquifolium, the holhj.) A na- 
 tural order of Exogens, connecting the monopetalous with 
 the polypetalous subclasses. The whole of the species are 
 either shrubs or trees, and scattered over most parts of the 
 world. Ilex, Prinos, and Cassia are the commonest genera. 
 
 A'QUILA. (Lat. aquila, an eagle.) The genus of Ac- 
 cipitrine or Raptorial birds, including the eagles proper, or 
 those species of the Linna?an Falco which have no trench- 
 ant tooth and corresponding notch in the beak. 
 
 A'QUILA ALBA. (Lat. the ichite eagle.) An alchemical 
 name of calomel. The old chemists designated sal ammo- 
 niac and other sublimates by the term aquila. 
 
 AQUILARIA'CE^E. (Aquilaria, eagle wood, one of the 
 genera.) A very small order of Indian plants, secreting a 
 fragrant resin, and nearly allied to Thymelacea?. The spe- 
 cies are but little known. The Aquillariaagallochum is the 
 tree that produces the eagle or aggul wood, and which, in 
 all probabilitv, was the aloes wood of Scripture. 
 
 ARABE'SQUE. (French.) Painting and Sculpture, af- 
 ter the Arabian taste. This is a term applied to a species of 
 ornament, capricious, fantastic, and imaginary, consisting 
 of fruits, flowers, and other objects, to the exclusion, in 
 pure Arabesques, of the figures of animals, which religion 
 forbade. That the Arabians originated this sort of orna- 
 ment is not the fact ; it was known to and practised by the 
 ancients at a very early period. Foliage and griffins, with 
 ornaments not very dissimilar to those of the Arabians, 
 were by no means unfrequent in the friezes of temples ; 
 and on many of the ancient Greek vases at Herculaneum, 
 on the walls at the baths of Titus, at Pompeii, and many 
 other places, elegant examples of this species of decoration 
 are to be found. It is, however, to Raphael that we owe 
 the most splendid specimens of the style, which he digni- 
 fied, and left in it nothing to be desired. Since his time it 
 has been practised with varying and inferior degrees of 
 merit, especially by the French in the time of Louis XIV. 
 Arabesques lose their character when applied to large ob- 
 jects, neither are they appropriate where gravity of style is 
 required. 
 
 A'RABLE. (Lat. arare, to plough.) Land fit to be 
 brought into a state of tillage, or of aration. 
 
 A'RABO-TEDE'SCO. (Ital. arabo, and tedescho, Ger- 
 man.) In Painting and Sculpture, a style of art composed 
 of Moorish, Roman, and German-Gothic. 
 
 ARA'CE^E, or AROIDEJE. (Arum, one of the genera.) 
 Acrid Endouens, with the flowers arranged upon a spadix, 
 inclosed within a spathe. In hot countries they some- 
 times become arborescent; in many cold countries they 
 are unknown. Most commonly they arise from a fleshy 
 underground tuber, from which an eatable fa?cula is pro- 
 cured by washing away the acrid matter. Their flowers 
 are almost destitute of floral envelopes ; the sexes are 
 mostly placed in different flowers, and their embryo has a 
 slit on one side. Caladium seguiman, the dumb cane of 
 the West Indies, derives its name from its juice paralysing 
 the muscles of the mouth, if chewed ; nevertheless, the 
 leaves of certain caladiums are eaten by the negroes like 
 spinach, but they are too acrid for an European palate. 
 
 ARA'CHNOlt). (Gr. doaxi'1, a spider, and eiSos.form.) 
 Cobweb-like. It is an Anatomical term, applied to the 
 tunic of the vitreous humour of the eye, and to the thin 
 membrane placed between the dura and pia mater of the 
 brain. 
 
 ARACHNTDANS,ARACHNIDA. (.GT.dpa X vn,aspider.) 
 A class of Apterous, spider-like Condylopes, having the 
 head confluent with the chest, and the body, consequent- 
 ly, consisting of but two segments, with eight legs, smooth 
 70 
 
 ARBORESCENT. 
 
 eyes, and the sexual orifices situated on the thorax, or an- 
 terior part of the abdomen. 
 
 ARiEO'STYLOS. (Gr. doaios, wide, and <7rt>Xoj, a col- 
 umn.) In Architecture, that style of building in which the 
 distance between the columns used is four and sometimes 
 five diameters; the former, however, is the distance to 
 which the term is strictly applied. It is only suited to the 
 Tuscan order. 
 
 AR'^EOSY'STYLOS. (Gr. dpaios, wide, avi>, with, and 
 crruXos,a column.) hi Architecture that style of building in 
 which four columns are placed in a space equal to eight 
 diameters and a half. In this arrangement the central in- 
 tercolumniation is equal to three diameters and a half, and 
 the others on each side only half a diameter, by which 
 coupied columns are introduced. 
 
 ARALIA'CEiE. (Aralia, one of the genera.) An order 
 of Exogens, differing in little from the Apiaceous or umbel- 
 liferous plants, except in having more than two parts in 
 their fruit. They are commoner in hot than in cold lati- 
 tudes, and form an unexpected transition from Apiaceae to 
 VitaceaB. The only state of them in Europe is the diminu- 
 tive Adoxa moschatellina. 
 
 ARANEI'DANS. ARAXE'HXE. (Lat. aranea, a spider.) 
 A tribe of the Pulmonary order of Arachnidans, with a co- 
 riaceous integument ; modified antenna?, or chelicers, con- 
 sisting of a single joint armed with a claw, perforated near 
 the apex for the transmission of venom ; breathing by pul- 
 monary ones, which are either two or four in number, with 
 the abdomen pedicellate, and the arms provided with four 
 or six spinnarets. 
 
 ARANEO'SUS. (Lat. aranea, a spider.) Covered with 
 hairs crossing each other like the rays in a spider's web. 
 
 A'RAR. The Barbary name of "Jliuja articnlata, the 
 tree whose wood is chiefly used by the Mahometans of Af- 
 rica for the construction of their mosques, and whose resin 
 is the sandarach of commerce. 
 
 ARA'TION. Agr. Lands are said to be in a state of 
 aration, when they are under tillage. 
 
 ARA'TOR. Agr. Literally a ploughman, but common- 
 ly applied to an arable farmer. 
 
 ARALCA'RIA. (Araucanous, a tribe of Indians in the 
 southern parts of Chili.) Fir trees with very rigid branches, 
 having leaves like scales, either small and sharp pointed, or 
 stiff, spreading, and lanceolate. The cones consist of leaves 
 something like those of the stem, only longer, and con- 
 taining large seeds. Two species occur in South America, 
 and two in New-Holland. 
 
 A'RBALEST. (Lat. arctibalista, a cross-bow.) This 
 weapon is supposed to have been introduced into European 
 armies by the crusaders, although used long before in the 
 chase (in England as early as the reign of William the 
 Conqueror). The arro%vs used with the cross-bow were 
 short and thick (quarrels, bolts). The weapon was used in 
 the English armies after the reign of Richard I. ; but the 
 Italians, and especially the Genoese, were most expert in 
 the use of it at one time. A large force of Genoese cross- 
 bow men served in the French army at Cressy, where their 
 weapon was found very inadequate to match the English 
 long-bow. Yet so deadly a weapon was it at one time con- 
 sidered, that papal bulls were issued in the twelfth century, 
 condemning and forbidding its use in combats between 
 Christians. It was disused in England, as a weapon of 
 war, in the reign of Henry VIII. Cross-bows were of 
 several sizes : the large or stirrup cross-bow was bent by 
 the foot. 
 
 A'RBITRARY. (Lat. arbitro, I judge.) In a gerferal 
 sense, means that which is not defined by any rule or law, 
 but is left to the sole judgment and discretion of some one 
 individual or body of individuals. It is commonly used in 
 political discussions to designate despotical or irresponsible 
 power. (See Despotism.) 
 
 ARBITRATION. In Law, the investigation before an 
 unofficial person of the matters in difference between con- 
 tending parties. His judgment is called an award. The 
 reference to him may be made, whether legal proceedings 
 concerning the question referred have been instituted or 
 not. The reference is made by wilting under seal or 
 otherwise, and even by parole agreements, but in this latter 
 case the submission cannot, as in the others, be made a 
 rule of court. (Sec Award.) 
 
 A'RBOR. The principal spindle or axis which commu- 
 nicates motion to the other parts of a machine. 
 
 ARBOR DIAN.E. 77ie tree of silver, that metal having 
 been called Diana by old chemists ; it is made by putting 
 quicksilver into a solution of nitrate of silver, which causes 
 the separation of the silver in a beautiful arborescent and 
 crystalline form. 
 
 ARBO'REOUS. Woody, or growing on wood. Herba- 
 ceous plants, the stems of which take a ligneous character, 
 are called suffrutescent, or arboreous, according to the de- 
 gree of woodiness which they exhibit. Plants which grow 
 on trees are also called arboreous, such as the arboreous 
 lichens, arboreous mosses, arboreous fungi, &c. 
 
 ARBORE'SCENT. Stems of plants which are at first
 
 ARBORETUM. 
 
 herbaceous, and afterwards become somewhat woody and ; 
 tree like. 
 
 ARBORE'Tl'M. In Gardening, a place in a park or 
 pleasure ground, or in a large garden or nursery, in which 
 a collection of trees and shrubs, one of each kind, is cul- 
 tivated. In such a scene there ought to be sufficient room 
 for each species and variety to attain something like its 
 natural size and shape; though, from the limited space 
 generally allowed to collections of trees and shrubs in gar- 
 den scenery, this is very seldom the case. The most 
 complete arboretums in Europe, so far as respects the 
 Dumber of species collected together, are tho 
 Loddiges, at Hackney ; and of the London Horticultural 
 Society, at Chiswick. See Loudon's Arboretum Britanni- 
 cum, Loudon's Encyclopaedia of the Trees and Shrubs of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 ARBORICULTURE. (Lat. arbor, a tree, and colere, 
 to cultivate.) The art of cultivating trees and 
 which are chiefly grown for timber or ornamental pur- 
 poses. The culture of trees and shrubs grown for their 
 fruits as food, is included under horticulture, and is some- 
 times called Pomology. The origin of arboriculture may 
 be traced to the progress of agriculture ; because, as popu- 
 lation increased in anj given country, it would become 
 necessary to clear away the natural woods in order I 
 corn, and other products of the field and garden. After 
 this was done i" a certain extent, a scarcity of wood, both 
 for fuel and building purposes, would be found, and then 
 recourse would be had to artificial plantations, or arbori- 
 culture. This art may be considered almost exclusively 
 as one of modern timi b ; because, though the Greeks and 
 Romans planted both timber and ornamental tret 
 they did bo only on a very limited scale-, and near their 
 houses, for the purposes of shade or ornament I 
 also planted the elm and the poplar, for supports to 
 and they cultivated osier beds for the punx 
 basket making ; but there is no instance on record of their 
 having planted trees with a view of cutting them down 
 either for timber or fuel. Wood for these purposes they 
 procured from the native forests, to the management of 
 which tiny paid particular attention. In Britain, the first 
 plantations of barren timber un a large scale, with a view 
 to profit, were made during the reign of Henry Vlll. ; and 
 the kind ol tri e pi int< d w is chieflj tin oak, « inch was 
 . from the acorn where it was finally to remain. 
 Since that period, the formation of artificial plantations has 
 been on the inert ase, more especially during the latter end 
 of the last and the beginning of the present century, when 
 the foreign supply of timber was comparatively limited by 
 the war, and when there was a great demand for timber 
 for ship-bull, linn. The discovery of coal mines, and more 
 especially the increased facility of working them aft' 
 invention of the steam-engine, by providing fuel exclusive- 
 ly of wood, has rendered the necessity of preserving natu- 
 ral woods, and of forming artificial plantations, less in Bri- 
 tain than in any other country in the world. In conse- 
 quence of this, there is no other country In which so small 
 
 B portion of its surface is covered with forests ; the woods 
 being almost everywhere planted and maintained for 
 ornamental purposes. On the continent of Europe, the 
 practice of sowing or planting barren timber was little 
 known before the time of Louis XIV., though the natural 
 woods both of France and Germany were appropriated, 
 and carefully preserved, for many generations before. At 
 the present time, in consequence of the continental na- 
 tionsjdepending almost entirely on wood for their fuel, the 
 care o I the natural forests, and the formation of artificial 
 plantations, form an important part of the duties of go- 
 vernment. In North America, in the oldest cultivated 
 parts of the country, the formation of artificial plantations 
 is barely commencing, while in the back settlements, or 
 newest parts, the felling and clearing of timber is only now 
 taking place. 
 
 The science of Arboriculture depends on a knowledge 
 of the nature of trees, of the different agents in cultivation, 
 and of the purposes to which trees are applied in the arts. 
 The practice includes nursery culture : viz. propagation by 
 seeds, by cuttings, layers, grafting, <fcc. and raising in beds 
 and rows; transplanting, pruning, thinning, and, finally, 
 felling, and the succession of kinds. The nursery culture 
 is carried on in limited spots, called nursery grounds, or 
 nursery gardens, by gardeners or nurserymen; and the 
 other operations in woods, groves, rows, hedgerows, 
 hedges, copses, osier holts, &c, by foresters, woodmen, 
 or hedgers. 
 
 ARBU'STUM. The classical name for an orchard, hop- 
 yard, or vineyard. 
 
 A'RBUTUS. (Arbutus, Lat. ; ar, rough, and boise, bush, 
 in Celtic, according to Dr. Theis.) A genus of evergreen 
 trees, with conical pallid flowers and a bullet-like succulent 
 austere fruit, rough externally, and containing numerous 
 minute seeds. Several species, all hardy, are known in 
 gardens; the most common of which is Arbutus unedo, 
 the most beautiful A. andrachne. 
 71 
 
 ARCH. 
 
 ARC. In Geometry, a portion of a circle or other curve 
 line. The arc of a circle is the measure of the angle form- 
 ed by two straight lines drawn from its extremities to the 
 centre of the circle. 
 
 A'RCA. The name of a Linnsan genus o the Vermes 
 Testacea, characterised by a bivalve and equ valve shell, 
 having numerous sharp alternate teeth at the hinge. In 
 modern systems the genus is placed among the Acephalous 
 Lamellibranchiate mollusca. and is raised to the rank of a 
 family (Arrada), subdivided into the subgenera Area, 
 Cuculkea, Pectunculus, and Nucula. 
 
 ARCA'DE. (Fr.) In Architecture, a series of arches 
 crowned with a roof or ceiling, with a walk or passage 
 thereunder. The piers of arcades may be decorated with 
 columns, pilasters, niches, and apertures of different 
 forms. The arches themselves are turned sometimes 
 with rock-worked and sometimes with plain rustic arch 
 stones or voussoirs, or with a moulded archivolt, springing 
 from an impost or platband, and sometimes,— though that 
 is not to be recommended, — from columns. The key- 
 stones are generally carved in the form of a console, or 
 sculptured with some device. Scamozzi made the size of 
 his piers less, and varied his imposts and archivolls in pro- 
 portion to the delicacy of the orders he employed, but 
 ■ lade his piers always of the same prop> 
 \:;i \'\i M (Lat a secret.) A term often applied to 
 Chemical and Medical preparations by the old philosophers. 
 I ailed red oxide of mercury, obtained by the 
 
 action of nitric acid, Arcanum corallanum ; sulphate of 
 potash. Arcanum duplicatum, &c. 
 
 ARCE'STHTDA. (Gr. dpxtvdos, a jumper berry.) A 
 small cone whose scales become succulent, and grow to- 
 gether into a fleshy ball. 
 
 ARCH. (Lat. arcus. a boic). In Building, a structure of 
 stones or bricks, or distinct blocks of any hard material, 
 disposed in a bow-like form, and supporting one another 
 by their mutual pressure. In describing arches some 
 technical terms are made use of, which it will be conv.ni 
 ent to define. The arch itself is formed by the voussoirs, 
 or stones cut into the shape of a truncated wedge, the upper- 
 most of which at 
 C is called the 
 key-stone. The 
 seams or planes, 
 in w inch two ad- 
 jacent voussoirs 
 are united, are 
 called the joints; 
 the solid mason- 
 ry, A E and li K 
 against which the 
 1 A £ extremitii 
 
 O arch abut or rest, 
 
 are called the abutments ; and the line from which the arch 
 springs at A u B 6, the impost. The lower line of the arch 
 -. A C B, is the intrados or soffit ; the upper line, the 
 extradoa or back. The beginning of the arch is called the 
 spring of the arch ; the middle, the crown; the parts be- 
 tween the spring and the crown, the haunches. The dis- 
 tance A B between the upper extremities of the piers, or 
 the springing lines, is called the span, and C I) is the 
 height of the arch. 
 
 There is considerable difficulty in determining the form 
 which an arch ought to have, in order that its strength may 
 be the greatest possible, when it sustains a load in addition 
 to its own weight; in fact, the determination cannot be 
 accurately made, unless we know not only the weight of 
 the materials the arch has to support, but also the manner 
 in which the pressure is connected ; that is to say, unless 
 we know the amount and direction of the pressure on 
 every point of the arch. Supposing, however, that the 
 arch has to sustain only its own weight, and supposing, 
 further, that the friction of the arch-stones is reduced to 
 nothing, a relation between the curve and the weight of the 
 voussoirs may be found by comparing the pressures which 
 are exerted on the different joints. Thus the pressure on 
 any joint, s q for example, arises from the weight of that 
 portion of the arch which is between 8? and the summit 
 (' II Now, the portion of the arch C qs H is sustained 
 by three forces: the pressure on the joint sq, the pressure 
 on C H. and its own weight. Let s q be prolonged till it 
 meets C D in O, and let n be its intersection with A B. It 
 is a theorem in statics, that when a body is held in equili- 
 brium by three forces balancing each other, these forces 
 are proportional to the three sides of a triangle formed by 
 lines respectively perpendicular to the directions of the 
 forces. The three forces sustaining C q s H are, therefore, 
 proportional to the sides of the triangle O D n ; for the 
 pressure onsj acts in the direction perpendicular to s q 
 or O n; the pressure on C H is perpendicular to D O, and 
 n D is perpendicular to the direction of gravity. The pres- 
 sure on s q is, therefore, to the pressure on C HasnD tc 
 DO. In like manner, the voussoir jo r q s being so shaped 
 that r p, when produced, meets O II in the point O; tL 
 
 
 t V 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 
 A\ i 
 
 
 
 
 / \\ T> 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 \ 1ft vyv ; 
 
 B 
 
 b
 
 ARCHAEOLOGY. 
 
 pressure on the joint rp is to that on C H, as m D to D O. 
 Hence, the pressure, on s q is to the pressure on r p as 
 D n to D 7>i. We are thus led to infer that the voussoirs 
 ought to increase in length, from the key-stone to the 
 piers, proportionally to the lines Dn, Dm, <kc. ; for in this 
 case, the surfaces of the joints being increased in propor- 
 tion to the pressure they sustain, the pressure on every 
 pointof the arch will be equal. It will also be observed that 
 the angle n O D is equal to the angle made by a tangent to 
 the curve at y, and the horizontal line parallel to A B ; the 
 angle m O D equal to that made by the tangent at p and the 
 horizontal line ; and the radius D 6 remaining constant, D n 
 is the tangent of the point of these angles, and Dm of the 
 second; hence the pressures on the successive joints are 
 proportional to the differences of the tangents of the arches 
 reckoned from the crown. From this property, when the 
 intrados is a circle given in position, and the depth of the 
 key-stone is given, the curve of the extrados may be found. 
 When the weights of the voussoirs are all equal, the arch 
 of equilibration is a catenarian curve, or a curve having the 
 form which a flexible chain of uniform thickness would as- 
 sume if hanging freely, the extremities being suspended 
 from fixed points. 
 
 Such is the form which theory shows to be the best adap- 
 ted to give strength to an arch, on the supposition that there 
 is no superincumbent pressure. But it seldom if ever hap- 
 pens that this is the case, and therefore it is entirely unne- 
 cessary, in the actual construction of an arch, to adhere 
 closely to the form determined on the above supposition. 
 Indeed, on account of the friction of the materials and the 
 adhesion of the cement, the form of the arch, wilhin cer- 
 tain limits, is quite immaterial, for the deviation from the 
 form of equilibration must be very considerable before any 
 danger can arise from the slipping of the arch-stones. The 
 Roman arches, which have resisted the attacks of time for 
 so many centuries, are generally in the form of a semicir- 
 cle. For bridges, it is better to employ a smaller segment 
 of a circle ; frequently the elliptic arch is preferred, on ac- 
 count of the beauty of its form. 
 
 It has not been satisfactorily ascertained in what country 
 arches were first erected. They do not occur in any of the 
 buildings of the Egyptians that can unquestionably be re- 
 ferred to an ancient date ; and if they were not altogether 
 unknown to the Greeks before the period of the Roman 
 conquest, their principal uses appear to have been very lit- 
 tle understood. They do not appear ever to have been 
 employed in roofing the temples, or to have formed a part 
 of ornamental architecture. By the Romans, however, 
 the advantages of the arch were well understood at a very 
 remote period. The Cloaca Maxima, which is an arched 
 structure, is referred, with the greatest probability, to the 
 age of the Tarquins ; the arched dome is supposed' to have 
 originated with the Etruscans, and to have been employed 
 for the convenience of the augurs, affording them a shelter 
 from the weather, and permitting them at the same time to 
 have a view of the whole range of the horizon. In the mag- 
 nificent buildings erected under the empire the arch is of 
 frequent occurrence ; and it was by the Romans that it 
 was first applied to its most useful purposes, namely, the 
 construction of bridges and aqueducts. The Romans, 
 however, appear to have given little attention to the graces 
 of form in the erection of their arches, forthey seldom de- 
 viated from the semicircle. It was in the middle ages that 
 the pointed or Gothic arch was introduced, when Christians 
 and Saracens vied with each other in giving beauty to their 
 public buildings, by multiplying and combining arches in 
 all possible manners. The associated architects of those 
 ages, says Dr. Robison (Ency. Brit. art. Arch), having 
 studied this branch of the art of building with so much at- 
 tention, were able to erect the most magnificent buildings 
 with materials which a Greek or Roman architect could 
 have made little or no use of. There is infinitely more sci- 
 entific skill displayed in a Gothic cathedral than in all the 
 buildings of Greece and Rome ; indeed, these last exhibit 
 very little knowledge of the mutual balance of arches, and 
 are full of gross blunders in this respect ; nor could they 
 have resisted the shock of time so long, had they not been 
 almost solid masses of stone, with no more cavity than was 
 indispensably necessary. It is somewhat remarkable that 
 those architects do not appear ever to have studied or paid 
 any regard to the theory of equilibrated arches. The form 
 which they adopted was strong, and capable of resisting 
 considerable inequalities of pressure, and hence the dura- 
 bility of their constructions. For further particulars on 
 this subject, see Bridge. Dome. 
 
 ARCHiEO'LOGY. (Gr. dpx a '°S- ancient, and \oyog, a 
 description.) The science or study of Antiquities, and chief- 
 ly, in ordinary language, of those minor branches of anti- 
 quities which are discarded from the contents of general 
 history; as genealogies, national architecture, manners, cus- 
 toms, heraldic and similar subjects. 
 
 ARCH/E'TJS. (Gr. doxy. principle.) A term used by the 
 old chemists and physicians to imply the occult cause of 
 certain phenomena. Van Helmont and Stahl ascribe certain 
 72 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 vital functions to the influence and superintendence of a 
 spiritus archajus. 
 
 A'KCHAISM. (Gr. dpxaios, ancient.) In Rhetoric and 
 Literature, the use of an obsolete expression or phrase, 
 giving an air of antiquity to the passage in which it occurs. 
 
 ARCHA'NGELS. A superior order of angels. The 
 term occurs once in Scripture, being applied by st. Jude to 
 Michael. 
 
 ARCHBI'SHOP, or METROPOLITAN. The primate of 
 a province containing several dioceses. The term first 
 came into use in the fourth century, and was then consider- 
 ed superior to that of metropolitan, and equivalent to patri- 
 arch, or bishop of an imperial diocese, such as Rome, Con- 
 stantinople, Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage. 
 
 ARCHDE'ACON. An Ecclesiastical otticer, ranking 
 next to the bishop. As deacons were originally attendants 
 upon the bishop, so the archdeacon was one selected ironi 
 among the deacons of several dioceses. Iiis functions were 
 confined to attending upon and assislmg the bishop in the 
 discharge of his spiritual duties and the management of 
 his diocese, and had at first no jurisdiction. There are now 
 more archdeacons than one in each diocese, the whole 
 number in England being sixty ; and they are en ployed by 
 their bishops in visiting the clergy of the diocese, and in 
 the dispatch of other matters relating to the episcopal 
 superintendence. 
 
 ARCH-DUKE. A title originally assumed by various 
 dukes, but in the sequel appropriated to those of the house 
 of Austria by the Emperor Frederic 111. in 1453. It is now 
 strictly confined to the younger sons of an Emperor of 
 Austria. 
 
 A'RCHER. (From the Latin arcus, a bote.) A bow-man; 
 one who uses a bow. The use of the bow in war may be 
 traced to the earliest antiquity, and to the history of almost 
 every people. The exact time when the English long-bow 
 began to be used in war is not exactly ascertained ; the 
 Normans brought with them the arbalest or cross-bow ; but 
 from the reign of Edward II., the long-bow, the favourite na 
 tional weapon, seems to have been lully established. When 
 fire-arms began to come into use, various attempts were 
 unsuccessfully made, by statute and proclamation, to pre- 
 vent this ancient weapon becoming obsolete. In France the 
 officers who attended the lieutenant of police were, before 
 the Revolution, always called archers, although provided 
 with carbines. Artillery is a French term, originally sig- 
 nifying archery, and the London artillery con pany were a 
 fraternity of bow-men. (&ee Hansard's Book of Archery.) 
 
 A'RCHETYPE. (Gr. dpxtrvTzo;, from apx'/, origin, and 
 TViros,type.) The original oi that which is represented in 
 a picture or statue; and, figuratively, the reality which is 
 shadowed out in prophecies or mysteries. Thus, in The- 
 ology, the death of our Saviour is said to be the archetype 
 of the Jewish sacrifices, which were instituted as types of 
 that event. (See Type.) 
 
 A'RCHIL. (A corruption of orseille, French.) A kind 
 of purple dye obtained from the lichens, called Rocelta tine- 
 turia and Juciformis. It is chiefly procured in the Ca- 
 naries. 
 
 ARCHIMANDRITE. A title of the Greek church, equi- 
 valent to abbot ; the word mandia signifying a monastery 
 in the language of the Lower Empire. 
 
 A/RCH1TECTURE (Gr. dpxn, beginning, tcktwv, ar- 
 tificer.) The art of Building, according to certain propor- 
 tions and rules determined and regulated by nature and 
 taste. Architecture becomes an art at that period only in 
 the history of nations when they have reached a ce/tain 
 degree of civilisation, of opulence, and of luxury. In an 
 earlier state, it can only be reckoned among the trades or 
 occupations necessary to the wants of mankind ; its appli- 
 cation is then very limited, its use little more than furnish- 
 ing man with shelter from the waters of the heavens, and 
 protection from the inclement vicissitudes of the seasons. 
 At its birth, however, it assumes a character in all countries 
 which in the sequel stamps it with such remarkable and 
 distinguishing features, that in the summit of its grandeur 
 the traces of its early origin are still discernible. Notwith- 
 standing the interval of so many ages from its origin, we 
 may even trace the general form of architecture to three 
 distinct states of the human race, which necessarily influ- 
 enced the nature of the habitations suitable to each, and 
 which ultimately became standard models of the art. 
 
 People whose dependence for their sustenance was on 
 hunting the beasts of the field, as well as those who lived 
 on the produce of the waters, from the natural indolence 
 induced by those occupations and the little industry called 
 for in such courses of life, would not be at an early period 
 led to the construction of dwellings. They availed them- 
 selves of the natural caverns of the rock, or at most hol- 
 lowed them out, for shelter and protection. 
 
 Nations occupied in a pastoral life, through a large portion 
 of the year, obliged, for the sake of fresh pasturage, fre- 
 quently to change their abode, and thus lead a wandering 
 life, would find the most suitable dwelling one which they 
 could remove with themselves ; hence the use of tents.
 
 *} 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 Agriculture, which requires continued and active indus- 
 try on the same spot, doubtless induced man to exert his 
 >ies in ilie erection of solid and durable dwellings. 
 For his produce no less than for himself were they neces- 
 sary, and the wooden lint with its sloping roof was the off- 
 of his wants. 
 
 It is not, however, to be understood that in every country 
 the art can be traced to a single principle, since among 
 some nations, as will hereafter be seen in relation to Egyp- 
 tian architecture, more than one will be found to enter into 
 the combination. Causes, independent of the habits of the 
 people, may nave had their influence on the formation and 
 taste of different species of architecture; yet will these in 
 their turn be found dependent on the first named. In 
 short, it is to the three states of mankind that we must re- 
 fer to account for those striking peculiarities which prevent 
 us from confounding the art of one people with thai of an- 
 other. In some of its details caprice may have had a 
 sharp ; but in every country the great leading forms spring 
 from principles dependent on the different states of life we 
 have jusl enumerated. 
 
 Those who have Bought for the original types of this art 
 in subterraneous temples an ona exclusively, have 
 
 fallen into error. These are (bund in almost every coun- 
 try. Many of them, such as the famous ear of Dionysius, 
 and the quarries of Syracuse, h quarries that 
 
 furnished stone for their neighbourhoods. By the help of 
 history, and an acquaintance with the I d ition, 
 
 by a knowledge of its origin and earliest mode of life, only, 
 are we able to form a just opinion on its architecture Bj 
 the aid of these we recognise the origin of Egyptian archi- 
 tecture, a taste for subterraneous dwellings has existed 
 among the Egyptians from the remotest period even to the 
 present hour The massive and colossal character of their 
 edifices seems in hear a strong relation to hollow caves of 
 rocks: and though the Egyptians grafted on this at a Liter 
 period tonus and details, whose types may be traced to 
 carpentry, j el ii is quite clear thai the tj pes ol the m 
 must be found in a far different origin. The same p 
 for subterranean works appears in parts of Asia. The cli- 
 mate, and similar physical causes, wou ive led 
 to it. At Elephants none of the parts appear to have been 
 
 derived from imitation of any system ol carpentry ; tile Col- 
 umns cut out of tii hori and massive propor- 
 tions, the shape of the capitals, and their details through- 
 out, point to an entirely 'tut' rent tj pe for their Invent 
 
 In the architecture of • Ihlna we ha* e remarkable indica- 
 tions of timber construction. M. de Pauw justly observes, 
 it is In ts which sei - 
 
 models for the earliest Chinese buildings. In them the 
 tenl is the object ol imitation, and this ts quite in ch 
 with the primitive b I !hinese, who. like all the 
 
 Tartars, wen N ■■■> d or Scenitss, encamping with their 
 flocks ages before they gathered Into cities. Theircities 
 of the present day exhibit the appearance of a vast oncamp- 
 iiienr. ,n ii i the greal extent ol tbi m seems to indicate an in- 
 solidity of construction that will not allow ol a number of 
 stories above each other. 
 
 The wooden hut, then, which lias been universally as- 
 sumed as the model or type of all styles of architecture, 
 and among all people, could nol have been thai ol Chinese 
 or Egyptian, though it unquestionably was thai of Grecian 
 architecture. The Creeks, working upon this, transferred to 
 stone the forms of an assemblage ol carpentry, a construc- 
 tion which gave birth to the members of the orders of ar- 
 chitecture which are to this day the ornaments of our 
 buildings. This style, be it remembered, belongs to a na- 
 tion whose chief occupation is agriculture, In pursuing 
 
 this tl ry, a few observations only will be t led. The 
 
 first trees drh en into the earth for the purposi 
 covering for shelter, were the origin of the insulate* 
 umns of the portico of a temple, and became one of the 
 most splendid features of the art. As the trees were wider 
 in diameter at the bottom than the top, so were the columns 
 diminished in thickness as they rose. Bcamozzi imagines 
 that the mouldings at the bases and capitals of columns bad 
 their origin in cinctures of iron, to prevent the splitting of 
 the timber; others, however, think that the use of the 
 former was to elevate the shafts from the dampness of the 
 earth, and thereby prevent rot. The architrave or chief 
 beam speaks its origin. It was the great beam placed hori- 
 zontally on the tops of the columns, and destined to receive 
 the covering of the entire building The joists of the ceil- 
 ing lay upon the architrave, the space in height which they 
 occupy being called the frieze, the ends of the joists in the 
 Doric order bearing the name of trialyphs.from their being 
 sculptured with two whole and two half glyphs or chan- 
 nels. Sometimes the ends of them are sculptured into 
 consoles, as in the composite order of the Coliseum at 
 Rome. The space between the triglyphs was for a long 
 period left open, as we find from a passage in the Iphigenia 
 of Euripides, where Pylades advises Orestes to slip through 
 the metopes in order to get into the temple. These inter- 
 vals were afterwards filled up solid ; and in the other or- 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 ders, the whole length of the frieze becomes one plain sur 
 face. The inclined rafters of the roof formed a projecture 
 beyond the face of the building, which delivered the rain 
 free of the walls. The ends of these rafters are the origin 
 of mutules and modillions. the former whereof appeared 
 in the cornice with their undersides inclined, as in the Par- 
 thenon at Athens. The form of the pediment followed from 
 the inclined sides of the roof, which were regulated in re- 
 spect of their inclination by the nature of the climate. 
 (See art. Roof.) Here, then, in the skeleton of the hut, 
 may be traced the origin of the different members of ar- 
 chitecture, which will be better understood by reference to 
 the subjoined diagram. Figs. 1 and 2 exhibit the parts of a 
 
 Fig. 2. 
 
 Fig. 1. 
 
 roof in section and elevation : a a are the architraves, or 
 trabes ; 6 6 the ridge piece, or columen ; c the king post, or 
 columns of a roof; ad the tiebeam, or transtrum ; e the 
 strut, or capreolus; ff the rafters, or cantherii; gggg 
 the purlinos. ortempla; hh the common rafters, orasseres, 
 
 It has been suggested, but with less probability, that the 
 main supports being by degrees placed al gri ater distances 
 from each other than the strength of the architnu e would 
 admit, inclined struts were placed from the sides of 
 the columns or supports to the underaid litrave, 
 
 to lessen its bearing, and that these gave the firs! notion of 
 the use of arches in architecture. The subject has been 
 pursued into many more details, on which our limits do not 
 permit us to enter. 
 
 It is difficult, perhaps now impossible, to fix the exact 
 period of the invention of architecture in Greece. Every 
 
 art is perfected by slow degrees, and is the result of the la- 
 hours of many. In the time of Homer, architecture does 
 
 . m to have been in so forward a state as to have been 
 reduced to principles and proportions of a fixed ns 
 
 i the use of the orders of 
 
 architecture. The material seems with him of more im- 
 portance than the form; and well selected and polished 
 
 . more than fine proportions, are enumerated as the 
 
 principal ment of the palace of AJi ii 
 
 The Doric order, doubtless the earliest of the orders, re- 
 mains withe Btisfactorily assure 
 OS of the period of its invention. Its name is not alonesuf- 
 ficienl proof thai it was invented by Doras, the son of 
 Helen, and king of \ i i in i Pi loponnesus. It is possi- 
 ble it might have acquired its name from having been used 
 at the celebrated tempi,- which that prince built at Axgos in 
 
 honour of the goddess Juno; or it might have been. that. 
 from the nse of it by the Dorians, it obtained introduction 
 into the other parts of Greece. Certain, however, it is that 
 in the time of Ues inder the Gri al the three original orders 
 of architecture had been brought to perfection. Moral as 
 well as physical causes had contributed to bring the arts to 
 this state. Liberty, love of country, and ambition, had made 
 Athens the common centre of science and art. The defeat 
 of the Persians at Marathon, with other victories, had re- 
 stored peace to the country. In the period preceding the 
 Peloponnesian war, there was a general burst of talent in 
 Greece. In it the chisel of Phidias was employed ; philoso- 
 phy, eloquence, the military art, the arts and sciences, all 
 conspired to give the epoch lustre. It was in this age that 
 the Greeks commenced the rebuilding of the temples and 
 edifices that had been destroyed in the Persian war, build- 
 ings whose ruins bad been carefully preserved, perhaps, 
 for the express purpose of keeping alive a remembrance of 
 the danger that constantly menaced them as a nation. It 
 was not, indeed, until after the flight of the general of 
 Xerxes, and the victory of Themistocles, that a general 
 restoration of their monuments was commenced, and the 
 city of Athens rebuilt ; a city whose edifices might be con- 
 sidered, as M. Quatrem&re de Quincy has well observed, 
 as so many trophies of the victory at Salamis. This was 
 the epoch of a pure and grand style of architecture, and, 
 indeed, of art generally. The sculpture of that period is 
 marked by the same character of purity, sublimity, and 
 grandeur; and the Elgin marbles, fortunately now pos- 
 i by England, exhibit a perfection which has never 
 been approached by modern art, and which we scarcely 
 conceive can be surpassed. It was in this age that the 
 temple of Minerva, known by the name of the Parthenon 
 (because that goddess preserved her virginity pure and in- 
 violate), was erected ; a building which displays, perhaps, 
 the finest model of the Doric order.
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 The Ionic order seems, at this period, to have likewise 
 received the finishing touches of that grace and elegance 
 whereof it was susceptible. This order, passing from 
 Greece to Asia Minor, seems, in that enervating climate, to 
 have acquired elegance and finish at the expense almost 
 of solidity. Whether we are indebted for its invention to 
 the people whose name it bears, is of little importance. 
 Upon the relation of Vitruvius no dependence can be placed. 
 At the period, however, of the erection of the temple of 
 Minerva Polias at Athens, which was about the time we 
 have alluded to, it seems to have been brought to a state of 
 perfection that leaves us nothing to desire. The capitals 
 of this example are splendid specimens of decorated 
 architecture. 
 
 By a substitution of acanthus leaves for the olive, laurel, 
 and lotus leaves of the Egyptian capital, Callimachus is 
 said to have invented the Corinthian capital, the feature 
 which distinguishes the Corinthian from the Ionic order. 
 The tale seems an idle one ; but though almost threadbare, 
 we cannot omit it, and will give it in the words of the au- 
 thor who has recorded it. " A Corinthian virgin, of mar- 
 riageable years, fell a victim to a violent disorder. After 
 her interment, her nurse, collecting in a basket those arti- 
 cles to which she had shown a partiality when alive, car- 
 ried them to her tomb, and placed a tile on the basket, for 
 the longer preservation of its contents. The basket was 
 accidentally placed on the root of an acanthus plant, which, 
 pressed by the weight, shot forth, towards spring, its stems 
 and large foliage, and in the course of its growth reached 
 the angles of the tile, and thus formed volutes at the ex- 
 tremities. Callimachus, who for his great ingenuity and 
 taste was called Catatechnos by the Athenians, happening 
 at this time to pass by the tomb, observed the basket, and 
 the delicacy of the foliage which surrounded it. Pleased 
 with the form and novelty of the combination, he con- 
 structed, from the hint thus afforded, columns of this spe- 
 cies in the country about Corinth, and arranged its pro- 
 portions, determining their proper measure by perfect 
 rules." 
 
 The annexed diagram gives a repre- 
 sentation of the circumstance, as usual- 
 ly found in architectural works : the 
 reader, however, is at liberty to make 
 his own representation of it, which will 
 most probably be as near the truth as 
 that here given. 
 
 But few ancient examples of the 
 Corinthian order are extant of so ear- 
 ly a date as the age of Alexander. Its 
 delicacy and slenderness render it very susceptible of the 
 ravages of time ; and it has been suggested, that the value 
 of the material of which the columns and capitals of this or- 
 der were made, excited the cupidity of the Romans to re- 
 move them. 
 
 The general opinion runs, that architecture, as well as 
 the other arts, was carried into Etruria by the Pelasgi, at 
 which period Doric was the only order in use in Greece, 
 and was the only one, moreover, as far as can be judged 
 of, adopted by the Pelasgi. But they changed its character, 
 stripping it of triglyphs, and adding to it a base. — The Ro- 
 mans, who borrowed their earliest architecture from the 
 Etruscans, adopted, under the name of Tuscan, this Doric 
 order, thus cheated of its fair proportions, which is in truth 
 but a species of Doric. 
 
 Rome appears to have been indebted to the people of 
 Etruria for its earliest work of any note. It has always 
 been supposed, that to an Etruscan architect was confided 
 the construction of the immense sewer which drained the 
 city, and in which might be discerned a presage of its fu- 
 ture grandeur. The undecorated and simple art of Etru- 
 ria suited the roughness and austerity of a warlike and 
 then needy people. The art of architecture was long ne- 
 glected among them. Their temples and palaces for a 
 long period were protected from the seasons by a covering 
 of nothing more than clay and straw. Marble and slavery 
 entered Rome together, under the reign of Augustus. Ef- 
 feminacy had been induced by the riches of the known 
 world which centered in the city, whose inhabitants did 
 not apprehend that slavery would follow in the train of the 
 arts which were bound to the triumphal chariot. 
 
 Augustus, sensible that the only mode of tranquillising 
 the people, when liberty was no more, would be by intro- 
 ducing the pleasures and luxuries attendant on the arts, 
 exerted himself most zealously for their prosperity : his 
 conduct on this point is sufficiently exemplified in the 
 boast attributed to him, "That he found the city built of 
 brick, and left it constructed with marble." Livy compli- 
 ments him as the founder or restorer of temples, " Tern- 
 plorum omnium conditorem aut restitutorem." His pa- 
 tronage drew the most skilful Grecian artists to Rome, 
 which now became the capital of the arts, and architecture 
 reached all the perfec'ion it could there attain. It was un- 
 der Augustus that Vitruvius wrote his work on architec- 
 ture, the only ancient text-book on the art that has reached 
 74 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 us. It has been of late the fashion to decry the utility of 
 this author. Those that have done so know little of the 
 art. Though in matters relating to the history of architec- 
 ture, our author deals somewhat in fable, the more im- 
 portant parts of his work are invaluable ; and if one of the 
 most profound architects that ever existed could dignify 
 Vitruvius with the title of " our old master," it ill becomes 
 the small fry of the present age to carp at him. Un- 
 der Agrippa, the son-in-law of Augustus, the Pantheon was 
 raised ; one of the most magnificent examples of Roman 
 grandeur. Amongst other superb structures he introduced 
 baths, and constructed a considerable number of fountains, 
 temples, &c. Under the successors of Augustus, the pub- 
 lic buildings of the nation continued to increase ; but the 
 art bpgan to degenerate in the reigns of Tiberius, Caligula, 
 and Claudius. It could not be expected, that it would re- 
 vive under such a personage as Nero, who deprived the 
 finest statues of their heads to substitute his own portrait 
 on their shoulders. He was, however, a great encourager 
 of buildings on a highly decorated and colossal scale; wit- 
 ness the Domus Aurea, built for him by Severus and Celer, 
 in which, from all accounts, richness and luxury them- 
 selves were exhausted. The wisdom and greatness of 
 character of the emperor Trajan were infused into the 
 buildings of his reign. The triumphal arches, but especi- 
 ally his column and forum, incontestably prove the rise of 
 the art under his auspices, at which time his architect, 
 Apollodorus, who raised the column to his memory, was 
 highly patronised. Hadrian and the Antonines were also 
 much devoted to the art, in which the former himself prac- 
 tised. Marcus Aurelius was so attached to the arts, that 
 he became a pupil of Diognetus. Antoninus Pius, at an- 
 cient Lanuvium, built a country house, whose ruins at the 
 present day astonish by their extent : as an index to its 
 magnificence, it may be mentioned that a cock for regula- 
 ting the supply of water, of the weight of forty pounds, and 
 formed of silver, has been extracted from its ruins. The 
 art, however, was then in its decline, and soon after disap- 
 peared under his successors. The arch of Septimus Seve- 
 rus is an extraordinary falling off from what it had been ; 
 and it is difficult, in such a short period, namely, since the 
 reign of Marcus Aurelius, to conceive how the art of sculp- 
 ture, more especially, could have become so debased. 
 The details of what is called the goldsmiths' arch indicate 
 the decay of good taste ; its profiles are bad, and the orna- 
 ments overloaded. 
 
 For a short time architecture was prevented from en- 
 tirely sinking, by the fostering hand of Alexander Severus; 
 but the fall of the western empire completed its ruin : it is, 
 however, from the reign of Gallienus, whose arch proves 
 to what a state it was reduced, that we must reckon the 
 total extinction of the arts. Architecture was indeed most 
 likely to have survived the general wreck, and perhaps 
 was not completely involved in the universal ruin. In an 
 age when no sculptor existed, the baths erected by Dio- 
 cletian exhibited a grandeur manifest even in their stu- 
 pendous remains; it seems, however, that a bad taste 
 must have reigned in the design of them, inasmuch 
 as we learn from history, so overloaded with ornaments 
 was the edifice, that during the public games a great num- 
 ber of spectators lost their lives by the fall of some of the 
 flowers from the ceilings and entablatures. Diocletian's 
 palace at Spalatro is another proof of the enormous efforts 
 made by that emperor, and of what the art could then do. 
 About the same time, or in the time of Aurelian, were 
 erected the extensive buildings in Coelosyria, at Balbec, 
 and Palmyra; vicious as they are in taste, one is astonished 
 at the vastness of the plans, the boldness of the undertak- 
 ing, and the funds lavished on their construction. There 
 is nothing more instructive to a student on the rise, pro- 
 gress, and decline of Roman art, because the eye can al- 
 most cover it at one glance, than an examination of a series 
 of Roman coins ; and it is recommended, as likely to 
 make an impression on the mind much stronger than the 
 most elaborate treatises on the subject. 
 
 Though architecture, from various causes, was destined 
 to survive the other arts, its protracted existence could not 
 extend beyond the period of the removal of the seat of 
 empire to Byzantium. The endeavours of Constantine to 
 erect his city into a metropolis that should rival Rome, 
 which he spoiled of its treasures, were vain; all his efforts 
 to embellish it with the most splendid monuments only 
 proved how ineffectual are the attempts of kings to subject 
 the arts to their power. That which Constantine left be- 
 hind him in the eternal city and the rest of Italy, fell a prey 
 to the unrestrained fury of the Visigoths. The edifices 
 which they afterwards reconstructed were from fragments 
 of those they had destroyed ; but their ignorance or forget- 
 fulness of the stations and proportions in which they had 
 originally been used, induced a sad confusion of the dif- 
 ferent members — entablatures inverted, and other grotes- 
 que arrangements, were to be seen in their buildings. The 
 vast number of columns which the ruins supplied was used 
 as piers for arcades, from which originated, beyond doubt,
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 the plan of the Gothic cathedral, after its passage through 
 various modifications. Quatremere de Quincy attributes 
 (Enc. .Method.) the use of the arch springing from columns 
 to the ignorance of the builders of the period, who knew 
 not, he assumes, the mode of connecting the different 
 lengths of an architrave ; but it seems scarcely probable 
 that they, who so well knew the mode of connecting the 
 voussoirs of an arch, should have been deficient in under- 
 standing the principle in question, which is either that of 
 the arch itself or of the simplest joggling. From this 
 period to the restoration of the arts at a late period, all 
 Bight of the original types seems to have been lost ; and 
 in the end arose a style under the name of Gothic, which 
 Will be separately treated of. Here ocean a considerable 
 gap in the history of the art : all is dark on the subject, 
 though the ancient taste does not seem to have passed 
 away altogether. The first glimmer of returning light ap- 
 pears under Justinian, in the church of St Sophia at Con- 
 stantinople, in the sixth and seventh centuries. It was the 
 chefd'oeuvre of the lower empire, and perhaps, indeed, 
 the oniv specimen it has left us. The church of St. 
 Mark at Venice rose in the tenth or eleventh century; 
 it was the work of Greek architects, and is invaluable in 
 tracing the history of architecture : its plan and its beauti- 
 ful proportions remind the spectator of the magnifii 
 of the ancients. Nearly about the same period other 
 cities of Italy began to exhibit advances in the art. hi 
 1013 the Florentines laid the foundations of the church of 
 s. Miniato; but the most extraordinary movement of the 
 period was the cathedral n Pisa, erected by Buschetto da 
 Dulichio, a Greek architect, in 1016: this building Is lined 
 both inside and outside with marble, and the roof is borne 
 on four ranks of columns ol material Thecom- 
 
 merce of the Pisans enabled tl i to explore the J 
 
 the islands on the . of Asia Minor, Egypt, and Africa. 
 for the most costly and precious marbles which wi n 
 in the work. Painters and sculptors were brought from 
 Greece to embellish their buildings, and these contributed 
 to introduce a better taste in the arts. Had Bus 
 live. 1 to form a school here, there can be little doubt that 
 architecture would have been al tablished; but 
 
 such does not appear to have been the rase, and the suc- 
 cessful cultivation of it was, consequently, deferred for a 
 time. The falling tower, as it is usually called, or cam- 
 panile, at Pisa, was raised close to the cathedral in the 
 twelfth century; its Inclination evidently arises from a 
 failure in the foundation; its style evinces hut little pro- 
 gress as compared with the cathedral 
 
 In the thirteenth century the church of the Virgin of 
 I i was erected in Tuscany, and the castel del Ovo at 
 Naples; the first by Lapo, and the last by Fucio, both 
 Florentines. Nicolo da Pisa, their countryman and co- 
 temporary, was employed on several edifices of consider- 
 ation in Bologna, Padua, ana Venice, n - tesl work 
 was the church a) Padua, dedicated to St Anthony, the 
 sculpture in which is chiefly from his hand. ^ The church, 
 however, at Florence, della sanbssima Trinita. is bis finest 
 work, of which it is no small encomium to say that it was 
 the admiration of so great a man as M. A. da Boonarotti. 
 Arnolfo di Lapo built the church of St. Croce, and design- 
 ed the cathedral also at Florence of Santa .Maria de' Fiori. 
 All the cities of Italy, indeed, at this epoch seemed to be 
 emulous of outvying each other. Paolo Barbetta ■ 
 gaged at Venice on the church of Santa Maria Formosa; 
 many works were in progress al Bologna; the marble 
 chapel of the church of Santa Maria Maggiore at Rome, 
 about the year 1216, was executed byMarchione: every 
 effort indicated tie- speedy restoration of pur.- art. These 
 scintillations, however, of good taste were confined to 
 Italy ; iu the other parts of Europe the Gothic style, — one, 
 indeed, in some of its monuments, of stupendous gran- 
 deur, of which we shall treat in another article. — was pre 
 valent, and soon afterwards in Germany carried to the 
 utmost pitch of perfection. It was in the thirteenth and 
 fourteenth centuries that the cathedral at Strasbourg was 
 erected, under the designs of Irwin Steinbeck. The four- 
 teenth century produced also in France and England some 
 extraordinary Gothic structures. 
 
 In Italy architecture was fast approaching to a perfect re- 
 storation. John of Pisa, son of the Nicholas whom we have 
 iust mentioned, was employed by his townsmen on the 
 Campo Santo. This public cemetery was in the Gothic 
 style, and is remarkable for the elegant simplicity of its 
 plan and the beauty of its details. It is a singular link of 
 the chain of history of this art : there is no difficulty in dis- 
 cerning the straggle in the mind of the architect to free 
 himself from those Gothic shackles which seemed to hang 
 on it as an impediment to an immediate return to the clas 
 sic taste of the land, which became completely restored in 
 Italy in the fifteenth century. The troubles throughout 
 Europe were stilled It the time that Brunetleschi appeared 
 as the restorer of genuine art, to which title he has a just 
 and honourable claim. By a diligent investigation of the 
 remains of ancient Rome, with the scale and compasses in 
 75 
 
 ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 his hand, he succeeded in reviving the ancient rules of art, 
 the just use of the orders, and was himself the first to 
 make a practical application of his discoveries. He well 
 knew how to unite theory with practice, and from a pro- 
 found acquaintance with the monuments of antiquity was 
 led to the principles of sound construction, without which 
 all other knowledge in architecture is useless. 
 
 The cathedral at Florence, begun in the Gothic style by 
 Arnolpho, was reserved for Brunelleschi to finish, which 
 he effected with a boldness worthy his genius. He sur- 
 mounted the church with the tambour dome, which had, 
 though projected by the original designer, been considered 
 by the artists of the age more as a phantom of the imagi- 
 nation than a subject for reality. We have not room here 
 to record the strange schemes that were proposed for car- 
 rying the project into execution ; the facility with winch 
 the architect effected his object marks him as an artist, in 
 that age. of sin prising resources and ability. 
 
 The erection of the dome and cupola of Santa Maria de' 
 Fiori opened the road for some of the grandest examples 
 nan skill applied to the art : it was the subject of eu- 
 logy from Michad Angelo, and is still the astonishment of 
 those who know how to appreciate the difficulties by which 
 it was surrounded. The school formed by Brunelleschi 
 spread by means of his disciples through Italy, and propa- 
 gated the art in that revived state, which acquired liberal 
 and enlightened protectors in the Bfedicis, the dukes of 
 Milan, and many noil, s of Italy, who opened their palaces 
 to its professors, and the learned generally. These latter, 
 who had after the arrival of cardinal Bessarion and other 
 Greeks rendered Italy illustrious by their labours, soon 
 opened the works of Vitruvius to the architect, in which 
 they were consul. rally aided by Leo liattista Alberti, of 
 the noble and ancient family of the Albertis of Florence, 
 who himself did not Hiwfain to practise architecture, as an 
 art. Bold and Ingenious as Brunelleschi his predecessor, 
 his designs have the further charms of a grace and elegance 
 
 which the former did not exhibit j and his work on the ail, 
 the only one at that period which could be put in competi- 
 tion with the ancient master Vitruvius, whose obscurity in 
 many parts left much for experience to dissipate, displayed 
 such vast stores of erudition, such a profound knowdedge 
 of construction, and so accurate an acquaintance with the 
 works of the ancients, that it not only contributed to its 
 firm establishment, bnl left Utde to desire on the theory 
 and practice of architecture. 
 
 About the period that Alberti was thus engaged, an extra- 
 ordinary work in the history of the art appeared from the 
 pen of France* o < lolonna i En 1467 >, under the title of "Po- 
 liphili Hypnerotomachia," and published in folio by Aldus. 
 Tins book is now extremely rare ; it is replete with plates, 
 some of great beauty, from wood blocks, and in it the au- 
 thor, in a supposed dream, promulgates sound precepts, 
 i leas, and principles valuable to the amateur and ar- 
 chitect. Felibien recommends to the artist its perusal, 
 which he considers almost as necessary as that of Vitruvi- 
 us. Indeed the poetic descriptions in it of pyramids, niau- 
 solea, colossal statues, circi, amphitheatres, temples, and 
 palaces, seem to have made more impression at the time 
 than the dry doctrinesof Vitruvius, and Italy soon saw re- 
 alised the poetic dreams of the author. In the period of a 
 century and a half the cities of Italy were embellished 
 with the works of Bramante, M. A. da Buonarotti, Raphael, 
 Julio Romano, San Gallo, Baltazar Peruzzi, Giocondo, San 
 Micheh. Sansovino, Serlio, Pirro Ligorio, Vignola, Palladio, 
 Bcamozzi, and a long list of others whose names are an 
 honour to their country. 
 
 It was late before pure art reached England, hi it 
 Inigo Jones is the father of architecture, and we, fortunate- 
 ly, still possess some of his beautiful designs. He can 
 scarcely be said to have completely emancipated himself 
 from the trammels of the debased Elizabethan style, as it 
 is called, till the beginning of the reign of Charles L, which 
 -plendid epoch of the arts in that country. From 
 many concurrent causes, the French school of architecture 
 has exhibited and still exhibits a very high degree of ex. 
 ice, and may perhaps be fairly considered as hold- 
 ing the highest rank in the present day. 
 
 Architecture, Chinese. As a description of the build- 
 ings of China would be out of place in a work of this na- 
 ture, the subject of the present article is confined to a ge- 
 neral view of the principles, the character, and the taste of 
 Chinese architecture. To describe its general forms, for 
 the purpose of identifying them, is unnecesary ; they are 
 universally known. 
 
 When we reflect on the limits to which in China the arts of 
 imitation have for so long a period been confined, we are led 
 to the conclusion,whatever be the cause,thatthe Chinese are 
 deficient in that activity of mind which conducts other na- 
 tions by degrees to perfection. In China the rise of the arts 
 seems to have been constantly repressed by the state of me- 
 chanical drudgery and servitude in which the people are re- 
 stricted. In their painting, for example, the most exact 
 imitation of plants, fruits, and trees, is thought indispen-
 
 ARCHITECTURE, CHINESE. 
 
 sable. A Chinese painter would think it necessary to count 
 the scales between the head and tail of a carp he was about 
 to represent; in other words, he is more of a naturalist 
 than an artist. In China, every matter relating to building 
 is the subject of regulation by the police, which, rather than 
 theory, governs its architecture. The laws of the empire 
 detail and enforce with the greatest precision the mode of 
 constructing a lou or palace for a prince of the first, second, 
 or third rank, of a grandee, of a mandarin, dec. A man, 
 unless he hold some office, who acquires a fortune by his 
 own exertions, is not allowed to build a house above his 
 rank in society ; his condition has nothing to do with it. 
 According to the ancient law of the kingdom, the number and 
 height of the apartments, the length and height of a build- 
 ing, are all regulated with precision, from the plain citizen 
 to the mandarin, and from the latter up to the emperor him- 
 self. Herein alone we have sufficient to account for the 
 poverty and want of invention in Chinese art. 
 
 In speaking of the principles of Chinese architecture, the 
 word is not applicable in the same way as when we speak 
 of classic architecture, but is meant to apply to those pri- 
 mitive causes which gave birth to it. Character and taste 
 in every species of archiiecture are the necessary results 
 of these elements. M. de Pauw has well desci'ibed it, in 
 respect of its principles and elements. It is impossible, he 
 says, to be mistaken in the objects which were the models 
 of imitation of their first buildings : they are imitations of 
 tents, and that is in consonance with all our knowledge of 
 the primitive state of the Chinese, who were, like all the 
 Tartar tribes, nomadic. This, beyond doubt, is the true 
 origin of their dwellings. However the missionaries of Pe- 
 kin may have refuted M. de Pauw upon some inaccura- 
 cies, there can be little hesitation in agreeing with him on 
 this head. One of its strongest proofs is the form of the 
 Chinese roof. Nothing but the form of a tent or pavilion 
 could have given the idea of it ; and though carpentry was 
 for a long period made subservient to this form, reasoning 
 from the progress of all inventions, it would be impossible 
 to believe, where carpentry supplied the architecture, 
 it should all at once have adopted combinations and cover- 
 ings so light and at the same time so complex. There is 
 another point of analogy with the tent construction, which 
 is, that there is nothing like the appearance of a member 
 of wood, similar to our architrave, destined to lie on the 
 tops of the columns, and receive and support the remain- 
 der of the carpentry. The Chinese roofs, on the contrary, 
 jut out beyond the columns, whose upper extremity is 
 hidden by the eaves : hence the omission of the use of 
 capitals. It is easy to perceive that extreme lightness must 
 result from the imitation whereof we are speaking. The 
 spirit and character of tents earned into the construction 
 of cities might, at least in reality, be lost and altered by a 
 change of materials. The semblance of lightness might 
 be found in union with essential solidity of construction ; 
 the character would have been intellectually the same. 
 Here, however, identity of material has contributed to the 
 identity of the copy with the original. The Greeks, whose 
 model was carpentry, copied in, as it were, a figurative 
 manner, and the change from wood to stone soon removed 
 the appearance of weakness and lightness that was found 
 in the model. In China the material remains the same, 
 and its architecture of wood still copies the model of wood ; 
 hence, the lightness of the original is transferred to the 
 copy. 
 
 Lightness is the essential character of Chinese archi- 
 tecture ; but there is another characteristic quality, both 
 of the model and the copy, that is observable in the edifi- 
 ces of China, which is its gayness of appearance. In this 
 respect scarcely any style presents a more pleasing effect. 
 Its roofs, single and double, brilliantly painted, its gaily 
 diapered porticos, the gloss over the whole surface, the 
 harmony of this species of decoration, with the light and 
 flowing forms of the buildings themselves, produce a sense 
 of pleasure to eyes constantly accustomed to their con- 
 templation, which would doubtless be disgusted with our 
 cold and monotonous mode of decoration. 
 
 It is particularly in ornament and decoration that we are 
 accustomed to investigate taste, which is the result of a 
 combination of all the physical and moral causes that in- 
 fluence art. Yet, as every thing in architecture is connected 
 by a sort of mutual relationship, it is difficult to fix the 
 exact proportion that exists between construction and de- 
 coration, and especially in Chinese architecture. In speak- 
 ing of ornament in architecture, one naturally recurs to 
 sculpture for the purpose; but this is not found in Chinese 
 architecture. With the Chinese, ornament consists in 
 varnishing columns, colouring roofs, coating walls with 
 porcelain, and the like expedients. The figures painted 
 on their buildings are connected with their religion, and 
 the merit of the art is secondary. The art of ornament- 
 ing in China is a sort of patchwork, yet the parts of Chi- 
 nese architecture are in unity with each other. A foreign 
 style could never be made to amalgamate with it ; it has 
 been developed in a mode conformable to the wants of the 
 76 
 
 country, and its duration for such a number of ages leads 
 us to conclude that it will not lightly be abandoned by the 
 people that have adopted it. 
 
 Architecture, Egyptian. The preservation of the 
 Egyptian monuments of architecture, in many instances 
 so perfect as they still appear, is highly calculated to excite 
 our surprise and admiration, inasmuch as ancient Egypt 
 ceased to exist in its splendour long before the period of 
 the earliest histories that have come down to us. Almost, 
 as it were, separated from the rest of the world, by seas 
 of sand as well as water, and bordering on the most savage 
 tribes, it seems indebted to those circumstances for the 
 protection its edifices have received. Had the country 
 received as successors to its early inhabitants a powerful 
 people, if rich and industrious cities had risen on the sites 
 of the old ones, the temples of Egypt would doubtless 
 have been used as quarries admirably suited to the pur- 
 pose. Arabian hordes, and the almost barbarous and 
 wretched inhabitants of the present day, have indeed built 
 their villages on some of the ancient sites. The terraces 
 of some of the temples serve as floors to modern habita- 
 tions ; and at Thebes, a town of two stories, or raiher two 
 stories of towns built on the ceilings of these everlasting 
 ruins, indicate that the means of destruction have not been 
 equal to the natural resistance of works of such solidity. 
 No people ever existed whose whole feelings were so much 
 a passion for ever-enduring monuments. Religion, a genius 
 formed by that religion, government, habits, climate, mate- 
 rials, all united to confer on their buildings a durability as 
 great as the power of man can confer ; and the efforts re- 
 sulting from such causes were successful. 
 
 In a preceding article we have adverted to the three 
 classes of mankind, whose different wants had an influence 
 on their styles of architecture. It is not a forced suppo- 
 sition that the primitive inhabitants of Egypt used the ex- 
 cavations with which nature furnished them for protection 
 against the heat of a sultry climate. As the inhabitants of 
 Tyre, Sidon, and Palestine were indebted to their forests 
 of cedar for becoming great workers in wood, so the 
 Egyptians, from their earliest mode of life, from their 
 quarries and the facility they acquired in hollowing them 
 out, gained that aptitude for working stone, and that high 
 degree of perfection, so manifest in their works. It is true 
 that their country is not the only one in which excavations 
 abound; but in most other places these excavations have 
 been caused by working them as quarries, and no trace of 
 architecture or human abode can be perceived in them. 
 In Egypt, on the contrary, where the caverns still furnish 
 dwellings for the inhabitants, immemorial custom has as- 
 signed them to the use of mankind. The immense sub- 
 terraneous apartments of Egypt must not be placed to the 
 account of luxury in sepulture. Herodotus tells us, that 
 the priests would not allow him to visit the subterranean 
 apartments of the labyrinth in which they dwelt, and which 
 were considered the most beautiful. Now, if this species 
 of dwelling was used in the refined times of Egypt, a 
 fortiori would it have been so in the earlier ages. Through- 
 out Egyptian architecture its origin appears. A simplicity 
 bordering on monotony ; extreme solidity, amounting to 
 heaviness; are its principal characters. There is entire 
 absence of every thing that can be traced to a type of car- 
 pentry, as in the Grecian orders ; hence it appears certain, 
 that at least its type was different, and that type was cavern 
 excavation. The exception that seems to arise from the 
 use of columns does not militate against the theory ; for 
 decoration invariably refers to nature for objects of imita- 
 tion ; and nothing would sooner occur in decorating pillars 
 in every style than the imitation of trees and plants, with- 
 out referring to them as a type. 
 
 The honours of sepulture seem to have been the cause 
 of the most stupendous of the Egyptian monuments. Dio- 
 dorus Siculus tells us, that the kings of Egypt expended 
 sums upon their tombs more immense than other kings 
 did upon their palaces. They were of opinion, he ob- 
 serves, that the frailty of the body during life was not 
 worthy of a substantial and solid abode. They considered 
 a palace like an inn, which is occupied by many in succes- 
 sion, and in which one stops but for a day. Their tombs, 
 however, they considered as the real palace in which the 
 abode was to be perpetual; hence, they spared no expense 
 in rendering them worthy of such an object. Some have 
 supposed that the pyramids were but immense cenotaphs, 
 and that the bodies of the kings were interred in some 
 neighbouring subterranean spot ; in short, that these 
 masses of stone were erected to mislead one from the spot 
 which the body occupied. This, however, would not make 
 them the less monuments of sepulture. Some have at- 
 tributed to the pyramids a mystic, others an astronomical, 
 purpose. 
 
 From Egypt were derived the principal mysteries that 
 passed into other religions, and it was in the darkness of 
 subterranean apartments that those initiations had birth, in 
 which secrecy was the first law. Secrecy was there deified 
 under the figure of Harpocrates. According to Plutarch,
 
 ARCHITECTURE, EGYPTIAN. 
 
 the sphinxes with which the entrances of their temples 
 were decorated, signified that Egyptian Mythology was 
 mysterious and emblematic. The number of vestibules 
 enclosed with a series of doors, prevented the temple itself 
 from being seen. This, which none were allowed to ap- 
 proach, was snail in extent, and in it the sacred animal or 
 its image was preserved. It was in the galleries, porticos, 
 and dwellings of the priests, thai the large area which the 
 temples covered was occupied. 
 
 Excepting some varieties in the plans of their temples, a 
 sameness of character and uniformity is observable in 
 them, which pervade their fronts, their general forms, and 
 the details of their decoration : which latter are mostly of 
 the hieroglyphic species, certainly the most monotonous 
 of all decorations. To give the reader a general idea of the 
 temples of the country, a diagram of that at Esneh is sub- 
 joined. With the Egyptians, heavine - seemed to be sy- 
 
 ■'■MiwnjaF 
 
 
 nonymous with strength. height with grandeur, and size or 
 mass with power. Uniformity of plan is universal. The 
 mlit line and square was never abandoned, and, as M di 
 Caylus observes, there exists no circular monument in this 
 style. In the elevations the uniformity is still more strik- 
 ing, no division of parts, no contrast. DO effect II would 
 seem that the ideas we have for judging of art, were no 
 guide with the architecture of that country. Uniformity of 
 decoration was an almost necessary result of the institu- 
 tions of the country : the edifices were destined to receive 
 a inscriptions in symbolic characters, and were not 
 allowed to be left in that respect to the caprice of the ar- 
 cbitect 
 
 As respects the materials for building which the countrv 
 afforded, we shall speak as concisely as possible. Though 
 palm trees are found about the deserts of Lybia, and near 
 Dendcra, timber of every Borl is scarce i indeed the soil is 
 not suitable to the growth of trees. The most common 
 nexl to the palm tree is the acacia; but. with the exception 
 "i the palm tree, most of the trees of Egypt are unfit for 
 building purposes. The oak does not grow in Egypt, and 
 the modern inhabitants import that from Arabia, as well as 
 
 the fir winch they use m lliejr buildings, thick seems to 
 
 have been a material used from the earliest date ; it was 
 unhurni, being merely dried in the sun Pocock Bays it is 
 made ol the mud deposited by the Nile, which is of a black 
 
 colour, sandy, and mixed With Hints and slell. i i 
 
 pyramids described by Pocock, was constructed with this 
 
 tot brick, and unc tected by any cement Bricks, 
 
 however, were used after undergoing the heat of the fire at 
 a very early period, as we learn from Scripture, Exod. v. 
 6., when- we find the Israelites condemned to the labour of 
 making bricks without straw to bum them, Stone of al- 
 most every description, marbles, and granite, were to he had 
 in prolusion; and these, as we have before observed, the 
 i ins weir verj expert in working. 
 
 In construction there must have been considerable me- 
 chanical knowledge employed, for some of the blocks of 
 stone were of enormous dimensions ; audio form an idea 
 of the quantity used, it is only necessary to mention that 
 the walls of some of their temples extend to the extraordi- 
 nary thickness of twenty-four feet. Indeed, the walls to 
 the principal entrance of the gati I ire no less at 
 
 their base than fifty feet in thickness. The si s 
 
 squared inside as well as on the external face ; no rubble- 
 work is to be seen; another cause of the surprising dura- 
 bility of their monuments. The roofs are all formed of 
 single blocks of stone from pier to pier; no trace of the 
 arch is any where discoverable. In the pyramids (lie pas- 
 sages are covered with stones inclined to each other, ter- 
 minatitt'Mn a point, one stone lapping over the other. 
 
 The Egyptian temple, unlike that of the Greeks, which 
 may be al nost all taken in at one view- both interiorly and 
 exteriorly, consists of an assemblage of porticos, courts, 
 vestibules, galleries, and other apartments communicating 
 with one another, each of which in size had little relation 
 to the rest of the edifice. They were usually in a spot 
 surrounded with walls ; and those which were not so sur- 
 rounded were inclosed in front by a wall engaged to the 
 columns, and extending in height about a half or a third of 
 the shaft. Strabo says that at the entrance of temples was 
 a large paved court three or four times or even more of its 
 width in length, which the Greeks called the dromos. This 
 was ornamented with sphinxes in rows. Through the 
 dromos was the propylum or fore portico ; thence to 
 another, and from that to a third, the number of them not 
 'II 
 
 being fixed. Beyond the propyla was situated the temple 
 itself (or naos), which consisted of two parts, the pronaos 
 or fore temple, and the secos or sanctuary, which in Egyp- 
 tian temples was very small, and contained a figure ol the 
 divinity, usually represented under the form of some ani- 
 mal. Some of these temples were of very large dimen- 
 sions ; that of Jupiter at Thebes was more than 1400 feet 
 long and 300 feet wide, exclusive of the porticos that led to 
 it. The forms of all the plans are either square or rec- 
 tangular. The art of designing a plan in modern architec- 
 ture becomes difficult from the necessity of keeping the 
 apartments within such bounds that they may be covered 
 or roofed, and of arranging the decorations, and of counter- 
 poising thrusts; but the Egyptian architect had no such 
 difficulties to contend with. Columns were brought to the 
 spot and covered at once with masses of stone, all com- 
 bining without much contrivance with the exterior walls : 
 hem e, the abundant use of columns in the interior of their 
 buildings. Great regularity appears in their plans. The 
 temple at Philae, evidently from its being suited to the form 
 of the island on which it was built, is the only exception to 
 the observation. Their intercolumniations are narrow, 
 rarely exceeding twice and a half the width of the column, 
 and usually not more than a diameter and a half. The ele- 
 vation is always uniform and monotonous, always of one 
 Story , and without columns above columns. The pyrami- 
 dal form seems to pervade every edifice, and the result 
 must be great solidity. Their columns may be considered 
 as of two sorts, circular on the plan, and polygonal ; the 
 former differ only among each other by their being sculp- 
 tured or not with hieroglyphics. Those representing as it 
 were bundles of rods or trunks, are generally encircled at 
 different heights With hands like the hoops of a cask, gene- 
 rally in two or three ranges of three, four, or five each. 
 This part of the arrangement seems to have been quite ar- 
 bitrary. The polygonal column frequently occurs, but 
 more generally w here the edifice has been formed out of a 
 rock or quarry, Ml the columns rise from their bases in 
 right lines, diminishing to the top, without any appearance 
 ot entasis or swelling. One can hardly say that any pre- 
 cise proportion is preserved between their height and their 
 thickness. In describing them, we can only say that they 
 were short, thick, and of enormous diameter, the latter in 
 "in. cases extending to as much as eleven feet. What 
 lOd bj pilasters, are not found in Egyptian 
 buildings, though some quadrangular columns might give 
 
 : i. excepting "illy in the small sepulchral chamber 
 
 -real pyramid. Bases are also rarely found; but 
 
 the capitals of their columns exhibit great' variety. In 
 
 general form they are either square, vase formed, or 
 
 swelled ; some ol them are very elegantly shaped and de- 
 
 witli the lotus, the palm branch, and other kinds of 
 
 ilfj v, ith ili' human head. They 
 
 are usually wi i and are connected to the archi- 
 
 a small die or square block out of the same piece 
 
 me as the capital. The entablature rarely, if ever, 
 
 Consisted of more than an architrave surmounted by a huge 
 
 cavelto, which finished upward with a head or fillet. Tins 
 
 o was frequently ornamented with glyphs and other 
 
 indentations of the surface, and the wings of the vulture 
 
 in the centre. The covering of tin- temple was a flat ter- 
 race, though there are no proofs, by the remains of steps 
 to ascend to it, that it was so used. 
 
 Some years ago a question was proposed by the French 
 Academy of Inscriptions and BeUes-Lettres, whether the 
 
 Greeks borrowed their architecture from the Egyptians; 
 that question has been well answered by M. Quatremere 
 de Quincy, in the Encyc Method., to whom we are indebt- 
 ed tor mucb in this article, and the tubstance of his answer 
 
 is as follows: There is no such thing as general human 
 lure, because the wants of mankind must vary in 
 different countries. The only one in which the different 
 species of architecture can approach each other is intel- 
 lectual ; n is that of impressions which the qualities whose 
 effects the building art accomplishes can produce upon the 
 mind of every man, of whatever country he may be. 
 Some of these impressions result from every species of 
 archtecture. Architecture sprung as well from the huts of 
 . as from the subterraneous excavations of Egypt 
 and the tents of Asia, and from several mixed principles 
 to us unknown: thus the use of the word architecture is 
 absurd. We ought to name the species; for between the 
 idea of architecture as a genus and as a species, there is 
 the same difference as between language and tongue ; and 
 to seek for a simple origin of architecture, is as absurd as 
 a search would be after the primitive language. If so, the 
 hut of Vitruvius would not be an ingenious fable, as some 
 have said, but it would be a ridiculous falsehood if he had 
 pretended that it was the type of all architecture. Vitru- 
 vius, however, spoke only of Grecian architecture : and if 
 in Egypt there exists another type, that only proves that 
 the hut was not the type of Egyptian art, but that it was 
 that of Greek art, and that theory would be fabulous which 
 pretended to be universal. We will conclude this article
 
 ARCHITECTURE, GOTHIC. 
 
 by adding that similarity between certain forms of orna- 
 ment, certain details borrowed by the one from another, 
 proves nothing more than that between the people by 
 whom they were used there was some interchange of com- 
 merce or other intercourse, which could not long subsist 
 without some sort of necessary transfusion of the inven- 
 tions and habits of one of those countries into the habits, 
 manners, and customs of the other. 
 
 Architecture, Gothic— To form a correct idea of the 
 Gothic style of architecture, it will be necessary to trace 
 its progress through one very different in its details, though 
 not exactly so in its plan and arrangements. Its type is of 
 a mixed character, and not, as we have seen in the two 
 foregoing articles, founded on the habits of a people. 
 Though a search into the origin of the pointed arch is an 
 idle and useless inquiry, it will be necessary in the end 
 to glance at that as incidental to the style under con- 
 sideration. 
 
 The ancient basilica, which derived its name from ba- 
 sileus, king, and oikos, house, was the part of the king's 
 palace in which justice was administered to the subjects. 
 The building for this purpose retained its name long after 
 the extinction of the kingly office, and was in use with the 
 Romans as well as with the Grecians. Vitruvius does not, 
 however, give us any specific difference between those 
 erected by one or the other of those people. He has (ch. 
 i. 1. 5.) given the details of its form and arrangement, and 
 we refer the reader to his work for the particulars of it. 
 The name was afterwards transferred to the first monu- 
 ments of Christian worship, not because, as some have 
 supposed, the first Christian emperors used the ancient ba- 
 silica} for the celebration of their religion, but more proba- 
 bly with reference to the idea of sovereignty which the re- 
 ligion exercised, though no assertion is here advanced that 
 such a conclusion is necessarily to be drawn. There is no 
 doubt that the most ancient Christian basilica? were con- 
 structed expressly for the purpose of that religion, and their 
 architectural details sufficiently point to the epoch in which 
 they were erected. Nevertheless these new temples of 
 religion, both in the whole and in the details, borrowed so 
 much of those of the ancient basilica?, that even on this 
 account it is not suprising that they should have retained 
 the name. A general notion of one may be formed 
 from the annexed diagram, which will immediately 
 
 show how admirably it was suited to the reception of an 
 extremely numerous congregation. The numberless col- 
 umns which were at hand, the remains and ruins of an- 
 cient edifices, were put in requisition for the construc- 
 tion of these basilica?, of which, adopting the former 
 buildings of that name as the type, they proportioned the 
 elevation to the extent of the plans, and in some cases 
 decorated it with the richest ornaments. Instead of con- 
 necting the columns together by architraves on their top, 
 which were not at hand as were the former, arches were 
 thrown over, not only to connect them, but that thereon 
 walls might be carried up to bear the roofing. On this 
 sort of substruction, vaults could not with safety have been 
 borne. From these the obvious and natural step was to 
 piers, connected by arches and ornamented with pilasters 
 or columns. The piers underwent a change by being made 
 circular on the plan ; these again, for the purpose of giving 
 the interior a lighter appearance, were made polystylic or 
 in ribs, and ultimately received a vaulting and cross vault- 
 ings in character with their plan below. Though the prac- 
 tice of vaulting large areas, and the pointed arch, did not 
 appear till aconsiderable time after the building of the first 
 Christian basilica?, it is to be observed that the Temple of 
 Peace at Rome had previously to that period exhibited a 
 specimen of the profound knowledge of the Romans in the 
 practice of vaulting ; in that example groined vaults of very 
 large dimensions were borne on entablatures and columns. 
 Nor does this knowledge appear to have been lost in al- 
 most the last stage of decline of Roman architecture under 
 the emperor Diocletian. In the baths of this emperor are 
 to be seen not only groined vaults in three divisions, whose 
 span is nearly seventy feet, but at the back of each springera 
 buttress, precisely of the nature of a fiving buttress, is con- 
 78 
 
 trived to counteract the thrusts of the vaulting. If a com- 
 parison be made between this large hall (now used as a 
 church), of the baths of Diocletian, with the nave of a 
 Gothic church, the difference will be found to be more such 
 as must result from the nature and employment of the 
 materials, than from difference of style. From the age of 
 Constantino down to the ninth century, the edifices within 
 the limits of the Roman empire are but degraded speci- 
 mens of Roman architecture ; and there is no evidence 
 from their remains (few indeed they are) that the Goths 
 and other barbarians who devastated Italy had any other 
 influence on the arts than hastening, perhaps, that fall from 
 which it would seem nothing could have saved them. We 
 quite coincide in the opinion of Mbller, who in the text 
 to his Deukmaehler der Deutschen Baukunst says, " lean- 
 not possibly agree to the opinion of those connoisseurs 
 who ascribe an individual and peculiar style of architecture 
 to the Goths and Lombards in Italy and Spain, to the 
 Franks in Gaul, and to the Saxons in England." The Ro- 
 man architecture of the fifth and sixth centuries was the 
 model, and the constant correspondence from every part 
 with Rome kept up an influence from thence over the arts 
 and sciences. Fine proportions were lost, and the art 
 completely degenerated into a servile imitation of earlier 
 forms. The art of construction and the preparation of ma- 
 terials did not, however, fall away from solid building. 
 The basement of the palace built, it is supposed, at Terra- 
 cina, by Theodoric, the Gothic king, who reigned in Italy 
 from a. d. 493 to 525, is in the Roman style. So also is the 
 church of St. Apollinaris at Ravenna; and the circum- 
 stance mentioned by the writer above named, who up to 
 the period at which we are writing, D'Agincourt excepted, 
 is the only writer of any value on the subject, of the em- 
 ployment by Theodoric as architects of one Aloysius, an 
 architect called Daniel, and the well known Boetius, a na- 
 tive and senator of Rome, is a strong corroborative proof 
 that the edifices of the Goths were built by Romans and in 
 the Roman style. Neither does it appear likely that upon 
 the irruption of the Lombards in the year 568, after the 
 sway of the Goths had lasted so long, they should have es- 
 tablished a style of their own. They were a rude people, 
 whereas the Goths, we know, had become quite a civilised 
 nation, whose style was suited to the wants and habits of 
 the country. It is true that D'Agincourt ascribes to the 
 Lombards the church of St. Julian, near Bergamo, and some 
 others ; but it has not been proved that the churches in 
 question were really erected by the Lombards. The ap- 
 pellation of Lombardic to the style of church building 
 which existed in France and Germany stands on too slen- 
 der an assumption to be admitted ; indeed, it has been de- 
 monstrated by Maffei, Muratori, and Tiraboschi, that 
 neither the Goths nor the Lombards introduced any style 
 in particular, but employed the architects whom they found 
 in Italy. 
 
 9th to 12th century. After the lith century. 
 
 The late learned Mr. Dallaway says, in his Discourses 
 upon Architecture in England, that "at the beginning of 
 the eighth century all Europe formed but one Gothic king- 
 dom ;" and it is certain that anterior to a. d. 600, there are 
 very few Gothic remains. From that period to the general 
 introduction and use of the pointed arch in the twelfth cen- 
 tury, the leading form of the churches was a parallelogram, 
 consisting of a nave, side aisles, a transept on each side 
 forming the arms of a cross, and beyond the intersection 
 of the transept with the nave was placed a choir, terminated 
 by a semicircular added building called the apsis. The 
 whole of these buildings were constructed with very thick 
 walls, pierced with comparatively small openings. In the 
 vaulting of the nave and aisles, and over all windows and 
 doors, the covering was semicircular. The nave was lofty, 
 and was mostly constructed with groins. The section A 
 shows the general appearance of the arrangement. The 
 gables were not much inclined, and in the upper part of the 
 building rows of small pillars appear in the walls. The pro- 
 files of the different members are all of Roman origin: 
 many are correctly copied in their forms. In England en- 
 deavours have been made to subdivide this style into Saxon 
 and Norman. The subdivision is useless. Speaking of ar- 
 chitecture as an art, they are of the same school, and the 
 style has been by Miiller called the Christian or Roman 
 style ; by others, the Romanesque style : either of which 
 are appellations suitable, and would sufficiently carry their 
 meaning with them.
 
 ARCHITECTURE, GRECIAN. 
 
 Towards the latter end of the twelfth century, and in the 
 beginning of the thirteenth, very considerable deviations 
 were introduced. For the flat southern gable, says Moller, 
 was substituted the high northern roof, which brought with 
 it the pointed arch in place of the semicircular one, being a 
 consequence necessary for the harmony of the parts among 
 each other. With the elevation of the roof and vaulting 
 came a slender proportion of towers, columns, capitals, 
 &c. ; and at the latter end of the century the flat pilaster 
 spreads outwards, and is converted into a flying buttress. 
 At this period the edifices were in several respects anoma- 
 lous, inasmuch as we have a mixture of circular and pointed 
 arches, pillars, and vaults intersected by horizontal cornices 
 and the like. The duration of this heterogeneous style was 
 very limited, being immediately succeeded by the univer- 
 sal prevalence of the high pitched gable and the pointed 
 arch. The plans of the edifices were not materially 
 changed except in the omission of the apsis, and a general 
 idea may be formed of the whole by an inspection of the 
 section marked B in the preceding cut. It appears incon- 
 trovertible that the Germans were the first to cany this 
 style to its highest perfection. As early as a. d. 1248, the 
 cathedral of Cologne was begun upon its present plan, a 
 building whirl], if finished, would have been the grandest 
 and most beautiful in the world. Erwin von Steinbach, 
 soon after 1276, built the porch of the minster of Strasbourg; 
 a building more, perhaps, esteemed than the last, because 
 nearly brought to a state of completion. The style which 
 we have just been describing wants no other distinctive ap- 
 pellation than the pointed. Imagination seems after its es- 
 tablishment to have been tortured to invent new col 
 lions of ornaments and tracery. It overstepped at length 
 the true bounds of architecture, and was abandoned in the 
 sixteenth century for the introduction and restoration of 
 Koman, or, more properly speaking, Italian architecture. 
 The author above quoted says thai the architects of these 
 tines were adapted to their age, and that their works are 
 the result of the time in winch they lived : and that, how- 
 ever we admire and imitate these works, we are not able to 
 reproduce them, on account of the circumstances under 
 which the style arose not being the same. 
 
 The powers of mechanical construct I In the 
 
 pointed style are such as to excite our admiration and as- 
 tonishment ; the exact calculated proportion between 
 
 strength and burthen, the counteraction of thrusts of vault- 
 ing, and the consequent lightness and boldness resulting 
 from those calculations, evince an intimate acquaintance 
 with the most important and useful qualification which an 
 architect can possess, namely, the production ol thi 
 est possible effect with the most limited means. This 
 qualification was possessed by the architects of the thir- 
 toenth century in the bigni md loan extent quite 
 
 unknown to the Greeks and Ron 
 
 The name Gothic, which baa I i the styles of 
 
 architecture just described, is. from what has been ad- 
 vanced, very inappropriate. It is, however, now no longer 
 used in its application as a term of reproach. That the 
 Goths had no share in its invention or perfection is quite 
 clear, and, as Mr. Dallaway justly observes, "it is not worth 
 the dispute whether the Gothic power was ever annihilated 
 in Europe, or whether they subsisted in the conquered 
 countries as a separate people." We subjoin an enumera- 
 tion of the different hypotheses upon which endeavours 
 have been made to account for the invention of the pointed 
 arch. 1st. Warburton (notes to Pope) asserts that Gothic 
 architecture originated in Spain under Moorish architects ; 
 its type being an avenue of lofty trees, the Intersecting 
 branches at top forming the sharply pointed arch, and the 
 stems of a clump of trees being represented by columns 
 split into distinct shafts. Warburton, however, not only- 
 lost sight of accurate chronology in his hypothesis. Inn [g 
 wanting in originality. Stukely had made a similar re- 
 mark. Spence (Anecdotes of Pope) puts in hi* claim be- 
 fore Warburton, and Sir Christopher Wren had a notion 
 that the invention belonged to the Saracens; so also had 
 Thomas Warton. 2d. The hypothesis of Sir James Hall, 
 ingenious but far from satisfactory. He first assumes that 
 the first English churches were made of wicker work, and 
 then states them to have been the prototypes of those built 
 with stone, furnishing, that is. the Wicker work, from its 
 sprouts, the original examples of every ornament or parti- 
 cle that was introduced. 3d. That it is founded upon the 
 structure of framing in wooden buildings. 4th. That of 
 Mr. Murphy, the editor of the celebrate,) work on the con- 
 vent of Hatalha. in Portugal. His reasoning is as follows: 
 The pyramids of the Egyptians are tombs; the dead are 
 buried in churches, and on their towers are pyramidal 
 forms; consequently, the pyramids of the towers indicate 
 that there are graves in the churches ; and as the pyrami- 
 dal form constitutes the essence of the pointed arch stvle, 
 and the pyramids of the towers are imitations of the Egyp- 
 tian pyramids, the pointed arch is derived from the latter. 
 We cannot suppose the reader can require any refutation 
 of such a set of syllogisms as this. 5th and last is that of 
 79 
 
 the late Dr. Milner, who, whatever may be the opinion on 
 his theory of its origin, was well informed upon and inti- 
 mately conversant with the general subject. Dr. Milner 
 says that it arose from the imitation of pointed arches, gen- 
 
 ~-»r — ~xr — »r erated by the intersection of semicir- 
 
 /\/\/\/\ cles,thus: There are, however, many 
 i Y Y V | reasons why this account is not sat- 
 isfactory, though it must be admitted 
 that in the Romanesque style this combination is frequent- 
 ly to be found. Dr. Milner seems entirely in his hypothe- 
 sis to have lost sight of a circumstance that is quite fami- 
 liar to every artist, namely, that it is a principle in all art 
 that the details of every style are subordinate to and de- 
 pendent on the masses, and not the converse : how then 
 could it have been probable that the leading features of a 
 style so generally used should have had its origin in an ac- 
 cidental and even unessential decoration like that of the 
 learned doctor's theory. In short, none of the hypotheses 
 mentioned ran be considered satisfactory : and. as Moller 
 observes, the solution of the question, whether the pointed 
 style belongs to one nation exclusively, is attended with 
 greater difficulties. After all. the problem for solution is 
 not who invented the pointed arch, but in what way is its 
 prevalence in the thirteenth century to be accounted for. 
 
 Architecture, Grecian. — Grecian architecture, wliich 
 was transplanted after its perfection to an Italian soil, 
 where it assumed almost another form, will not require an 
 extended notice m this place. The particular detail of the 
 changes it underwent will be found in the articles Doric, 
 and Corinthian orders. The architecture of the 
 Greeks, adopted afterwards by the Romans, has. indeed, 
 with certain modifications, long been the architecture of 
 the world. Its origin and types have been considered in 
 the article Architecture, and an explanation of its terms 
 will he found under their several heads in this work. We 
 shall, however, present a cursory sketch of its rise and 
 progress, 
 
 Cadmus, about 1519 n.r.is reported to have introduced 
 into Greece the worship of the Egyptian deities, and also 
 the practice of quarrying -time-; to him also is attributed 
 the instruction ol the Greeks in the art of fusing and work- 
 ing metals, from which period it is said the Greeks rapid- 
 ly advanced in civilisation. According to Pausanias, the 
 Creeks at an early period, had raised some extraordinary 
 Structures, such as the treasury of Minyas. king of Orcho- 
 menus, and the walls of Towns, which that author de- 
 work worthy the admiration of every age. 
 Prom tie Homeric writings we find that the form of go- 
 vernment «as patriarchal, that the chief buildings were the 
 of tie prii t the altar was the only 
 
 Structure for sacred use. and that even this was little more 
 
 than a hearth, on which the victim was prepared for the 
 
 nod: for. until after Hon regular priesthood 
 
 h seems probable that tin- temple was 
 not used until the kingly and sacerdotal offices were sepa- 
 rated. It would he difficult, perhaps now impossible, to 
 trace the degrees from the use of the' simple altar to the es- 
 tablishment of the regular temple, or when the latter be- 
 came a necessary appendage to the religion of the country. 
 Eusebius an. I others have conjectured that the early tem- 
 ples were but stately monuments, raised in honour of the 
 primitive heroes who had conferred benefits on mankind. 
 In respect of the- houses of the Greeks, they appear to have 
 been simple in plan, and at an early age consisted of two 
 stories, as was indeed the case with the dwellings of the 
 East mentioned in the Scriptures. 
 
 Between the period commonly assigned to the siege of 
 Troy to the time of Solon and Pisistratus, we have few 
 i of investigating the progress of Grecian art. Goguet 
 (Origins des Loix) says that Asia Minor was the cradle in 
 which architecture was nursed, and thinks that to this 
 country we are indebted for the invention of the Doric and 
 Ionic orders. All authors seem to admit that the Corin- 
 thian did not appear till some time afterwards, and that it 
 had birth in tie mother country, and not in the colonies. 
 Perhaps the earliest temple recorded is that of Jupiter, at 
 Olympia, which, according to Pausanias, must have been 
 built 630 years before the Christian era. If Livy be right, 
 that of Diana at Ephesue was of a period little less remote, 
 and at this time the science of mechanics was in its infan- 
 cy : for even in the time of Thucydides, though the powers 
 of the crane were known, they were not compendiously 
 applied for the purpose of raising weights. 
 * Admitting that the system of imitation in the Doric order 
 was founded on the elementary forms and parts of the hut, 
 it was in that case guided by the principles that nature her- 
 self adopts in her operations, otherwise no bounds would 
 have limited the caprice and imagination of its improvers. 
 In the copy, no part is precisely similar to the model: but 
 an analogy, and that very strong, is observable. The pro- 
 portions and parts of the Doric order, indifferent examples, 
 plainly indicate that the Grecian artists considered them- 
 selves restricted only by general rules, inasmuch as we 
 find them varying the' height of the Doric column from four
 
 ARCHITECTURE. INDIAN. 
 
 diameters to six and a half in height (see Doric Order), 
 while the height of the entablature varies in terms of the 
 diameter from 172 to 197. Lord Aberdeen, in his Inquiry 
 into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture, has 
 suggested that the height of the capital of this order, in 
 terms of the upper diameter of the shaft, will afford some 
 indication of the comparative antiquity of an example ; but 
 there is no ground for the suggestion, as the author of this 
 article has pointed out in a treatise on Grecian Architec- 
 ture prefixed to his edition of Chambers' Civil Architecture. 
 The intercolumniations used in the Doric order at Peestum, 
 Corinth, and Segesta, and the Parthenon, are equal to 
 about one diameter of the column. They are about a 
 quarter of a diameter more at the Temple of Theseus, 
 whilst in an example at Syracuse they are somewhat less 
 than a diameter. 
 
 The age of Pericles exhibited almost all that art could be 
 imagined to accomplish ; the Peloponnesians and their 
 colonies had erected the temples at Corinth, Nemea, Pees- 
 tum, Syracuse, and other places in Sicily : thus, in a space 
 of little more than three hundred years from its introduc- 
 tion, it appears that the art was raised to the summit of 
 perfection. It is probable that the Ionic order is not far 
 behind the Doric in antiquity. In the former, the different 
 examples exhibit a variety not less to be noticed than that 
 we have observed in the latter order. The height of the 
 Ionic column varies in the three examples of the temples 
 on the Ilyssus, Minerva Polias, and Erectheus, from eight 
 diameters and a quarter to nine and a half in height ; but 
 in the heights of the entablatures there is not so much va- 
 riance. The cornice of the Grecian Ionic may be consid- 
 ered as bearing a constant ratio to the whole height of the 
 entablature, as two to nine ; while the whole height of the 
 latter seems nearly constant at two diameters in height. 
 This order received the addition of a base to its shaft, 
 which was wanting in the Doric order ; but, for the varie- 
 ties, the reader will refer to that article in this work. The 
 volutes, which are its distinguishing features, are found 
 with many varieties. In the temple on the Ilyssus, that of 
 Minerva Polias at Priene, and that of Apollo Didymssus, 
 the volute contains only one channel between the revolu- 
 tions of the spiral ; whereas in those of Erectheus and Min- 
 erva Polias, at Athens, each volute has two distinct spirals 
 with channels between them. In the former of (hese two 
 the column terminates with an astragal and fillet, just be- 
 low the eye of the volute ; in that of Minerva Polias, with a 
 single fillet. In each, the neck of the capital is ornamented 
 with honeysuckles. The shafts are usually cut with flutes 
 of an elliptical form, to the number of twenty-four. These 
 flutes vary from those of the Doric order, in their separa- 
 tion from each other, through the intervention of fillets. 
 
 The distinguishing feature of the Corinthian as of the 
 Ionic order is the capital. In a preceding article the ele- 
 gant story by Vitruvius of its invention has been told, be- 
 cause that has been rendered almost sacred by tradition ; 
 but it must be observed, that lone before the age of Calli- 
 machus, its reputed inventor, perhaps even before capitals 
 or columns themselves were known to the Greeks, the 
 leaves of the palm tree, the flowers of the lotus, and even 
 volutes, were applied as ornaments to the capitals of 
 Egyptian architecture ; and, be it observed, the form of the 
 bell itself in no small degree resembles the contour of the 
 lotus flower. The Greek Corinthian and the Egyptian cap- 
 itals of this class, are more distinguishable by their re- 
 spective heights than by peculiarity of other features. The 
 former, however, has a lightness and elegance which the 
 Egyptian, perhaps from moral and political causes, never 
 attained ; but if even a slight intercourse between the two 
 countries existed, there would appear considerable proof 
 of the identily of the primitive inventors. 
 
 Our knowledge of the Greek Corinthian order is unfor- 
 tunately circumscribed, from the destruction and decay to 
 which from its extreme delicacy it was exposed ; never- 
 theless, under even these circumstances, the few examples 
 that remain induce a supposition that it was not in such 
 high estimation as those we have already named, inasmuch 
 as the only examples that have come down to us are those 
 of what is "called the Tower of the Winds, and the Choragic 
 Monument of Lysicrates, both at Athens. But the former 
 of these is scarcely to be classed anion" examples of Co- 
 rinthian, and the latter (as we now understand the Corin- 
 thian order) is in some respects a little outre in the species. 
 In the Choragic Monument the height of the entablature is 
 somewhat less than a fifth of the total height of the order. 
 The base varies little from that of the Ionic order, except- 
 ing in the non-appearance of the horizontal fluting in the 
 upper torus. 
 
 To the orders enumerated may be added one scarcely to 
 be named here, because apparently under no rules which 
 regulated its proportions, namely, the figures called Carya- 
 tides, which were employed for the support of an entabla- 
 ture. For the supposed account of their origin, the reader 
 is referred to the article Caryatides. 
 
 The only subject remaining for notice, under this head, 
 80' 
 
 is that of the roofs of the Grecian temples. Their roofs con- 
 sisted, of course, of two inclined sides, which at the ends 
 formed a pediment. From experience it was soon found 
 that the angle at which the sides of a roof should be in- 
 clined to the horizon, should be such as effectually to shel- 
 ter the interior of the building from the inclemenciesof tiie 
 seasons. Hence greatly inclined roots are indispensable in 
 northern climates; the reverse as the climate approaches 
 the equator: but this will be more fully explained under 
 the article Roof. Here we shall merely state that, ac- 
 cording to the hypothesis, the inclination of the sides of a 
 roof should, for the latitude of Athens, be lfiX degrees. 
 The actual inclination of the roof of the temple of Erec- 
 theus is )5'i degrees, temple of Theseus 15 degrees, the 
 Parthenon 16 degrees, and that of the Propylea 14/<>. Com- 
 paring the law with the Roman examples, the climate 
 would require an inclination of the sides of the roof with 
 the horizon of 22 degrees, and the variation between the 
 examples remaining is from 22 to 24 degrees. 
 
 The invention of the arch does not at present appear to 
 belong to Greek architecture. It was one of the most im- 
 portant inventions in the history of architecture ; but so 
 disputed a point is not to be touched upon in a work of this 
 nature. We incline to the opinion that its invention does 
 not belong to the Greeks, for this simple reason, that they 
 have left us no examples of it that have come to our know- 
 ledge. 
 
 Architecture, Indian. — It is very properly observed by 
 M. Quatremere de Quincy,that, in spite of all theories, an 
 infallible mode of estimating the stale of the architecture 
 and other arts of any people is by their representations of 
 the human form. Every people, he says, who during a 
 number of ages have persevered in falsely representing the 
 figure void of all proportion, and according to a certain bar- 
 barous and ignorant routine, must be convicted of a want 
 of that sentiment which leads to a knowledge of truth, and 
 of that intelligence which knows how to find in nature rules 
 for the choice of forms and arrangements applicable to the 
 art of building. Every people who do not manifest in their 
 works this conformity to nature must be ignorant of the 
 arts of imitation, and all their productions n ust be the re- 
 sult of an irregular taste. These observations particularly 
 apply to Indian architecture, whose exact antiquity is still 
 a problematical question. In a country abounding with 
 deserted monuments, where are found the traces of an an- 
 cient language now no longer spoken, books no longer un- 
 derstood, the vestiges of a religion whose creed and allego- 
 ries seem to have had some resemblance to those of 
 Greece, one is naturally led to surmise that civilisation ex- 
 isted at a very early period. These opinions would seem 
 corroborated by the extraordinary chronologies which the 
 modern Indians have produced as incontestable authorities 
 for their remote antiquity. The chronology, however, of 
 the Hindoos will not bear the test of strict investigation ; 
 neither has any inscription or historic monument been dis- 
 covered, nor annals found, which give us an idea of the 
 changes, revolutions, or prosperity which the country may 
 have experienced. It is, however, certain, that India has 
 been possessed and successively invaded by several peo- 
 ple, and that its creeds, as well as its religious allegories, 
 indicate such great diversity and mixture of opinions as 
 might lead us into every species of error in matters of his- 
 torical research. 
 
 It is natural to suppose, that the subterraneous or exca- 
 vated monuments of India are prior in date to raised or 
 constructed works ; and yet, in point of fact, there are in the 
 former neither less details, less caprice in form, nor less pro- 
 fusion of fantastic ornament, than in the latter. Hence the 
 monuments themselves afford us no clue to their respec- 
 tive antiquities. M. Meiners contends that none of them 
 are more ancient than the vulgar era, whilst M. Langles, a 
 critic of no ordinary sagacity, is of an opinion rather dif- 
 ferent, namely, that Indian art was brought from Egypt, 
 and that traces of such an importation are very distinctly 
 marked, as well as that Greek art is strongly indicated in 
 them. If, however, those monuments, whose date we have 
 good reason for believing is recent, exhibit the same taste 
 as that manifest in those monuments whose date is un- 
 known, we may fairly assume that the same style of archi- 
 tecture existed in this country at a period preceding the 
 conquest of Alexander and the epoch in which this early 
 civilized country had intercourse with the Grecians. 
 Though we have no historical nor chronological guides to 
 enlighten us on the subject of Indian architecture, it is to 
 be recollected that there is some analogy between the ir- 
 regular taste that prevailed in India, and that of the rest of 
 Asia. Southern India abounds with excavated monuments 
 of art; these are equally found in the centre as well as the 
 sides of the vast peninsula. Throughout the region nature 
 seems to have supplied the first associated inhabitants 
 with excavations, eitherready formed or easily converted to 
 the purposes wanted. It therefore appears probable that 
 the originating principal of the building art in India is found 
 in the subterranean dwelling ; and as we find constructed
 
 ARCHITECTURE, INDIAN. 
 
 edifices so similar in proportion, form, and details to those 
 mature, as it were, quarried out, it is fair to conclude that 
 the former are the type of the latter, which are, conse- 
 quently, of a later date. 
 
 ('instruction scarcely seems a term applicable to the 
 greater number of works of Indian architecture. It means 
 the raising of a work composed of divers materials, or of 
 pieces joined together to form a mass ; hence it cannot be 
 properly applied to an excavated structure. The edifices 
 of India may be divided into two classes, the quarried and 
 constructed ; the last are mostly those towers improperly 
 called pagodas. Of the unconstructed class may be ranked 
 the seven large pagodas of Mavalipouram, which consist "f 
 large masses o! stone more or less engaged to the earth, 
 and contiguous to similar masses. These masses were 
 shaped and sculptured exteriorly in accordance with their 
 general form, partly pyramidally and partly by irregular 
 zones, in the same style as the pyramidal tower of the con- 
 structed pagoda. No order is apparent in the respective 
 dispositions of the masses, neither is regularity in tlie plan 
 and exterior form to be detected. These edifices are ex- 
 tremely small in the interior, being hollowed out of the 
 mass, and remind us of the monolythic temples of Egypt, 
 which were cut out of immense blocks of granite, and as 
 Herodotus tells us, removed to very considerable distances. 
 In other respects, there was clearly some resemblance be- 
 tween the art of India and Egypt ; it is found in the excava- 
 tions of monuments, and in working largi 
 stone in their original situation. Butto Infer from this sim- 
 ilarity of taste that there was communication between the 
 two nations, seems too much; and still more hypotl 
 would it be to infer a resemblance of style' in architecture, 
 from a similarity ofpractice ; for nothing is more unlikethe 
 Egyptian than the Indian style ol architecture; ami in the 
 end it will he seen that, except in the practice ol i 
 tion, there Is no similarity at all. The dimensions of the 
 pagodas, as they ha d, compared with thoseof 
 
 the Egyptian pyramids, no less than th< d tem- 
 
 pleB, nave been much or errated by travellers. Of the latter, 
 the dimensions are generalh but moderate, and the diffi- 
 culty of their execution could nol have been verj consider- 
 able. If the descripi omes to us be correct, the 
 latter are hollowed oul from quarries of calcareou 
 and the dimensions ;ire on so e ile, that even 
 the celebrated temple at Elephants is onlj 130 feel long, i in 
 feii wide, and bul 1 1 feel 6 I ition ol 
 hollowing mil a en ei ii ni this sort can scarcely he dignified 
 
 with the nan fan: bul in th< istruction we 
 
 must .-1(111111 si Hue display ol that which al leasl appro 
 it. The pagodas are, In n I considerable 
 
 height, but to compare them with the pyramids of I 
 Is out of the question : these, the only buildings ol i 
 height, are pyramidal in | Bonnerat, vol. i p. 
 
 ~ 1 7 . , gives ns some idea ol them ; he says, " Around the 
 most celebrated temples the surrounding walls are thick 
 and much raised. On each side is a gate surmounted by 
 a pyramidal tower, with a curved mass of enormous siac. 
 The tower Is loaded with figure . to to If we may 
 trust to the representation of the pagoda of Cliillambaram 
 by M. Durocherde la Perigne, given by Caylus in thi 
 vol. of the Mgmoires de 1'Acaoemie, the pyramidal form 
 is therein strongly marked. In it the height of the whole 
 
 is hut 1'20 fool, and at its base it is but 30 feel wide. The 
 
 termination is not in a point, but is truncated at a height 
 which makes the plan of its summil about 36 feel wide. 
 The pyramid is unequal sided, the flanks being much nar- 
 rowerthan the faces But the largest of these monuments is 
 thai described by Lord Valentia, namely, the pagoda ofTan- 
 jore.whichhe considers the finestspecin vies of 
 
 building. This is 200 feel high, placed on a basement of 10 
 
 feet in height. The pyramidal mass rises by twelve sets oft", 
 or bands, sculptured in various ways. Such samples of ma- 
 sonry, however, required no great display of constructive 
 skill for their execution, either in working or transport of 
 the materials. At Cliillambaram, for instance, (he pyra- 
 midal part is constructed to the height of 30 feet only in 
 masonry, the remainder being of brick. The mass is 
 coated with ornaments of stone and of a species of white 
 cement of the country. As in Egypt, none of the monu- 
 ments of this country exhibit any trace of the arch : the 
 coverings of the apartments are all horizontal, and the di- 
 mensions in all are necessarily limited by the want of that 
 expedient which, in modern architecture, has been the 
 parent of the most stupendous monuments whereof art 
 was capable. The ceilings in Indian architecture are of 
 enormous blocks of stone, laid on the supports wherewith 
 the buildings are constructed, being the simplest and most 
 inartificial mode of contriving a covering to an apartment. 
 It must be apparent to every one, that the art of India was 
 many degrees below that of Egypt. Though, in the last- 
 named country, art was limited by the habits of the people, 
 yet it is equally certain that their knowledge in the use of 
 materials was of a high character, and that their skill in 
 masonry was carried to great perfection. 
 51 
 
 That which is known to the architect by the term ordon- 
 nance, which means, in its most extended sense, the com- 
 position of a building and the due arrangement of its se- 
 veral parts, and which the Greeks and Romans practised 
 in their architecture with so much success, is not percep- 
 tible in Indian architecture, as far as we are acquainted 
 wilh it. It seems easy to account for this, for notwith- 
 standing some of the existing monuments have received 
 the name of palaces, there is little doubt of their being all 
 destined originally for religious purposes. Hence the ar- 
 chitects, confined to certain established routines, were not 
 at liberty to exercise their invention and ingenuity; and 
 e\ en had they been so, the system of castes, in perpetua- 
 ting uniformity of practice, had a tendency to repress them. 
 Again: scarce any system could be conceived less likely 
 to develope talent in ordonnance than the use of subterra- 
 nean edifices, which admit of no variety of plan, no extent 
 of elevation, nor lead to any of those conceptions which 
 the taste of the architect generates when he has length, 
 breadth, and materials at his command, hi the caves at 
 Ellora, a plan of the Indra Subba whereof is here sub- 
 joined, if we examine what may be called the columns, 
 
 rvww 
 
 ,i. 
 
 □ DDJ 
 
 M 
 
 we find some of them hexagonal, without base, capital, or 
 ornament; some square, with a long cap, like carpentry. 
 The greater number are composed ofthree pans ; a square 
 pedestal, running up more than one half ol the total height ; 
 
 a small portion of shall, if we may so term il, crown. id 
 
 with a capital of strange form, whereof words cannot give 
 an) definite idea. The reader who is desirous of acquain 
 tance w ith the tempi I maj advantageously refer 
 
 to Daniel s plates "i these curious objects. Decoration, in 
 architecture, consists of large and small details, which re- 
 ceive the name of ornaments. The larger parts are 
 columns and similar masses. In the system of Indian de- 
 trace of what may be called an order ; 
 bul among the larger masses of decorations for support, 
 sculptured elephants very frequently occur. In one of the 
 temples at Ellora, for instance, there are three masses of 
 
 building, On the same line, whose bases are sculptured 
 
 with elephants, seen in face. Lions are also much used as 
 i decoration. 
 Prom information which Sir C. W. Malct obtained, the 
 u.uksat Ellora were said to he executed about the year 
 900, by Elloo, the rajah of Ellichpour, who at that period is 
 said to have founded the town: and the late Dr. Heber, 
 bishop of Calcutta, observing that no mention was made 
 
 of these excavations, own incidentally, in any Sanscrit. 
 
 manuscript, and thai the idols were tiie same as those si ill 
 
 worshipped in India, dales them in the l.'ilh century. Hut 
 all this is conjecture, unsupported by any historical docu- 
 ment thai entitles il to any weight, and a wide fn -Id is open 
 to the traveller and antiquary, in investigating these curious 
 and fantastic monuments, as illustrative of the early history 
 of the art 
 
 A&cmTBCTTTKB. Moorish or Saracenic. When the vic- 
 tories of the Arabians had extended their empire from 
 Constantinople to the confines of Spain, the magnanimity 
 
 Of their leaders, and the brilliant talents of their caliphs, 
 I the nation to a pitch of glory and power which ex- 
 hibited itself in some very extraordinary productions in 
 the architectural art. In Africa and in Spain, where their 
 empire became firmly established, the edifices they erect- 
 ed sufficiently prove with what success they cultivated the 
 arts and sciences. For the notice here given of some of 
 the most extraordinary edifices for which Spain is indebted 
 lo its ancient conquerors, we are assisted from the cele- 
 brated work by Murphy, published in 1816, to which the 
 reader who seeks further information may refer. 
 
 \\ •■ do not, in the limited space of such an article as 
 this, think it necessary to extend any inquiry into the 
 earliest works of the Saracens, such as the original Mos- 
 que of Omar, built in 640. Neither of that nor other of 
 their works (few indeed in number) have we sufficient 
 historical evidence to compare them with the architecture 
 of the period in other 
 countries ; but we pro- 
 ceed at once to that pe- 
 riod when some of its 
 most distinguishing fea- 
 tures were such arches 
 as are here exhibited. 
 H
 
 ARCHITECTURE, MOORISH— MEXICAN. 
 
 Tho mosque at Cordova was begun by Abdelrahmen, 
 the second king of Cordova, and finished by his son towards 
 the end of the eighth century. Its plan is a parallelogram 
 of 600 feet by 400, formed by an embattled wall with coun- 
 terforts also embattled ; the height of this wall varies from 
 35 to 60 feet, and its thickness is 8 feet. This large quad- 
 rangular space is divided internally into two parts ; viz. a 
 court, 200 feet long by the length of the edifice, and the 
 mosque itself, which is about 400 feet square. The mosque 
 consists of 19 naves, formed by 17 rows of columns, from 
 south to north, and 32 narrower naves, from east to west. 
 Each of these naves is 16 feet wide, from north to south, 
 by 400 feet long ; the width of them in the opposite direc- 
 tion is less. Thus the intersection of the naves with each 
 other produce 850 columns, which, added to the 52 columns 
 of the court, form a total of near a thousand columns. 
 Their diameter is about a foot and a half, and their mean 
 height about 15 feet, and they are crowned by capitals of a 
 Corinthian or composite species. These columns, which 
 have neither socle nor base, are surmounted by arches 
 from column to column. The ceilings are of wood paint- 
 ed, each range forming on the outside a small roof, sepa- 
 rated from those adjoining by a gutter. One of the most 
 striking effects of the edifice is produced by the beautiful 
 marbles whereof the columns are composed. It seems 
 probable that the larger portion of these columns might 
 have been procured from the Roman ruins in the city ; an 
 opinion which is strengthened by their being without bases, 
 or such as ill suited the style of the columns or capitals. 
 In the commencement of the sixteenth century great 
 changes were made in this mosque, for the purpose of 
 converting it into a Christian church ; these, it is said, 
 ruined the original effect, but enough is left to indicate what 
 it anciently must have been. It is always considered as 
 one of the earliest Moorish buildings in Spain. The de- 
 corations throughout are in stucco, painted of different 
 colours, and occasionally gilt, in imitation of the churches 
 of the lower empire. One cannot doubt that its architects 
 were well acquainted with the Byzantine architecture, in 
 which the walls, the arcades, the pavements, in short all 
 the parts, were covered with paintings : and it is clear that 
 the Arabians, who really had invented no architecture of 
 their own, spreading themselves in those countries wherein 
 the arts had been established, were thus led to a trial of 
 imitating the old masters. 
 
 The Alhambra, at Granada, is perhaps the most curious 
 and interesting Moorish edifice in Spain. It served the 
 double purpose of palace and fortress, and is situate on the 
 summit of a rock that commands the town. According to 
 travellers who have visited and described this edifice, you 
 may here fancy yourself in a fairy-built dwelling. After 
 passing the principal entrance, you arrive at two oblong 
 courts, one of which is called the court of the lions, and 
 is celebrated in Arabian history. A portion of the section 
 of this court is given below. Round these two courts, on 
 the ground floor, are disposed all the apartments of the 
 palace : those for state look out towards the country ; the 
 rest, cooler and more retired, have small openings for 
 light under the interior porticos, the whole of which are 
 decorated with painted stucco, porcelain, and the most 
 valuable marbles. 
 
 c^t- r , -p^SL 
 
 There is on a neighbouring hill another palace, called 
 the Generalise, now in a state of ruin ; but its ruins show 
 that it was inferior to the Alhambra neither in size nor 
 splendour. It is precisely in the same taste, and the de- 
 tails are similar, proving that the two edifices are contem- 
 poraneous. 
 
 Surprising as the works we have just named must be 
 considered, we do not discover in them that real grandeur 
 which exists in the works of the Egyptians, the Etrurians, 
 the Grecians, or the Romans. The mode of construction, 
 though sufficiently durable, is not scientific, as respects the 
 working of the materials. Brick was the material most in 
 use ; the masonry, where employed, is covered with a coat- 
 ing of stucco, the painting whereof, in different colours, is 
 a great source of the admiration these buildings excite. In 
 82 
 
 the combinations of the building art in these edifices, there 
 is nothing to surprise, from the supposition of extraordi- 
 nary means used in their erection. The domes which 
 crown their apartments are neither lofty nor large in diame- 
 ter, neither do they exhibit great mechanical skill. The 
 Moorish architects seem to have had no notion of raising 
 vaults from lofty piers. In the mosque at Cordova, the span 
 from pier to pier would have been less than 20 feet, which 
 to vault would not have required very extraordinary skill ; 
 yet herein we find timber ceilings throughout. The use of 
 orders seems to have been unknown to them ; they em- 
 ployed the antique columns which they found ready to 
 their hands, or rude imitations of them, without any appa- 
 rent acquaintance with the types from which they were de- 
 rived, their principles or proportions. Hence their columns 
 may be more appropriately termed posts. In the forms of 
 Moorish architecture one does not discover a character of 
 originality arising out of local causes. The Arabians had 
 wandered far from their country, in which they had never 
 cultivated the arts ; their architecture was, therefore, ne- 
 cessarily formed upon models which were before them, 
 such as the degenerated Roman and Byzantine. Such ele- 
 ments as these, with the materials %vhich the lower empire 
 afforded, formed their taste and monuments. The form of 
 their arcades, whereof we have given some examples above, 
 is confined to this style of architecture. They may be di- 
 vided into two classes, both of them vicious in construction, 
 from not affording the necessary resistance to thrust near 
 the abutments. In masonry, failure would follow such 
 forms, if practised on a large scale ; but where arches are 
 formed of brick, the large surface of cement used, if it be 
 good and the centres not struck until the cement is set hard, 
 allows great caprice in their forms. If the pleasure — we 
 might almost use the word sensuality — of the eye be the 
 sole object, it cannot be denied that success attended the 
 efforts of the Arabian architects of Spain. The details of 
 their decoration, and the fantasticness of their forms, can- 
 not fail to please the eye ; and though they may not satisfy 
 the spectator, they are capable of producing on his mind 
 some of the most seductive charms of which the art is ca- 
 pable. The embroidery and painted draperies of the East 
 appear to have been transposed to their architecture. The 
 variety and profusion with which they used their orna- 
 ments, moreover, give their masses the appearance of a con- 
 geries of painting, incrustation, mosaic, gilding, and foliage : 
 much, perhaps, of this was induced by the law of their re- 
 ligion, which forbade the representation of animals or the 
 human figure. If taste be not required to produce a reason 
 for the admission of ornament, nothing can be more splen- 
 did and brilliant than the effects that resulted from their 
 combinations. It cannot be denied that in this profusion of 
 ornament we find the details beautifully executed, and 
 some of their forms extremely fine ; and the mode of pierc- 
 ing domes for light, which they practised by means of" star- 
 like formed openings, is attended with an almost magical 
 effect. 
 
 Architecture, Mexican. From the historian Robert- 
 son we collect, that the cities of Mexico, large and popu- 
 lous as they are described, were rather the asylums of 
 men just emerged from barbarism, than the peaceable 
 dwellings of a civilised people. Tlascala. according to its 
 description, nearly resembles that of an Indian village. It 
 was but a heap of low straggling huts ; according to the ca- 
 price of each proprietor, bufit of turf and stone, and thatch- 
 ed with reeds, the light being received by a door so low 
 that it could not be entered upright. In Mexico, from its 
 peculiar situation, the disposition of the houses was more 
 orderly, but their structure was equally mean. The Mexi- 
 can temples, and other public edifices, do not appear to 
 have deserved the high praises which Spanish authors 
 have bestowed upon them. The great temple of Mexico, 
 the most celebrated in New Spain, as far as can be gath- 
 ered from the obscure and inadequate description of it, 
 has been represented as a magnificent building, raised to 
 such a height that the ascent to it was by a flight of 114 
 steps, yet it was but a solid square mass of earth, faced 
 partly with stone. Its base on each side extended 90 feet : 
 it decreased gradually as it advanced in height, terminating 
 at top in a quadrangle of about 30 feet, whereon was placed 
 a shrine of the deity, and two altars on which the victims 
 were sacrificed. All the other celebrated temples of New 
 Spain resembled that of Mexico. The temple of Cholula, 
 which was considered the most sacred in the country, was 
 also the most considerable ; yet, according to Torquemada, 
 it was but a solid mound of earth, about a quarter of a 
 league in circuit 
 
 The Spanish historians led us to suppose that the palace 
 of the emperor and the houses of the nobles exhibited 
 some elegance of design and convenient arrangement : we 
 have, however, no vestiges of these remaining, and, from 
 the mode in which Cortes conducted the siege of Mexico, 
 it seems likely that all the monuments of any importance 
 were destroyed. Still, as at the period when Robertson 
 wrote his history only two centuries and a half had elapsed,
 
 ARCHITECTURE, ROMAN. 
 
 it seems impossible that in so short a time edifices of im- 
 portance should have left no trace of their existence. 
 
 The great hillock at Cholula, to which the Spaniards have 
 given the name of temple, is without any steps to ascend 
 it, and without any appearance of stone. Perhaps it has 
 never been more than a natural eminence of the ground. 
 In several accounts, though under different names of 
 places, we find descriptions of monuments pyramidal, as 
 well as in steps, of which the ruins are sufficient to furnish 
 a clue to the whole design. The attempt to restore them 
 in drawing was made in 1S04, and published at Rome by 
 D. Pietro Marquez, entitled " Due Antichi Monumenti di 
 Architettura." His restoration was founded, we believe, 
 on descriptions published in the Literary Gazette of Mex- 
 ico, in 1785 and 1791, by I), Gius. Ant. Abzate. The first 
 monument is at a place called Papantla. Us form is pyra- 
 midal, (that is, in general effect,) being built in steps or 
 stories, of six ranks, one above the other. The lower step 
 is 100 feet long, on the four faces. The other dimensions 
 of the steps are not given, but each had in its height a cer- 
 tain number of square niches, each 3 feet every way ; the 
 Lowest contained 24 on every side, the second 20, the third 
 16, the fourth 12, the fifth 10, and the sixth 8. It is pre- 
 sumed there was a seventh step, which had 6 of these 
 niches on every side. Upon one of the faces of this pyra- 
 mid there were smaller steps, serving as a staircase to 
 mount to the top, whereon, it is supposed, there was a 
 small chapel enclosing the idols to which the sacrifices 
 were made. The author (Marquez) above mentioned 
 gathered from the same documents Borne idea 
 another Mexican monument, it' in architecture may be so 
 called a hill surrounded by five or -iv em losures or stone, 
 
 Whose object was to retain the eartli in its place. This also 
 terminates by a platform at top, which is suppose,! to have 
 been occupied by a small temple, alter the manner of the 
 country. Some writers have thought tins last was merely 
 a fortification, but it seems more probable thai it was a re- 
 ligious edifice, inasmuch as the basement ol u is sculptured 
 with figures supposed to be the hieroglyphics of the coun- 
 try. The name (Xochicalco) of this hill, interpreted by 
 those who possess a knowledge of the Mexican language, 
 bears out the conjecture that it was used for the last named 
 purpose. 
 
 Architecture, Roman. It can scarcely be Baid thai 
 the Romans had an architecture peculiar to themselves 
 That which we understand by the name is a modification, 
 some call it a debasement (we disagree with them), of the 
 architecture of the Grecians. \V >■ are ready to admit that 
 the Romans gave to their arl the lasciviouanesa of the 
 courtesan, whilst the Greeks presi rved in theirs the modest 
 demeanour of the staid matron; but our BenBesmaybe 
 charmed by the one, though the other may make a strong- 
 er appeal in the understanding. In strictness, Roman and 
 Grecian architecture arc identical. Wherever the Greeks 
 penetrated, their genius, not less than their arms, extended 
 and founded their influence. The religion, the language, 
 the habits, and the arts of the Creeks, appear to have been 
 carried into Italy at a period of very high antiquity. Nu- 
 merous colonies of that nation established ti 
 the shores of that country, and even in the interior of the 
 peninsula, where they erected cities long before the exis- 
 tence of Rome. Italy, as far as we can trace, had no origi- 
 nal arts of its own, nor can any thing be found in it whose 
 origin was not Grecian. Hence, as has been observed, 
 there is, strictly, no such thing as Roman architecture. 
 But as every nation which cultivates the arts, impresses 
 them with a character peculiar to itself, so when we speak 
 of Roman architecture, we mean that peculiar character 
 with which Greek art was invested under the Roman em- 
 pire, — that character which was manifest in a greater exu- 
 berance of ornament in all the parts of the orders, and 
 wliich changed the sections of the mouldings of an order 
 from profiles formed by the sections of a cone, to those 
 formed by the horizontal sections of a cylinder. An inter- 
 course of very ancient date existed between Etruria and 
 Greece; in the former of which, at the period in question, 
 the language and mythology of Greece prevailed to a con- 
 siderable extent. From what is known on this subject, we 
 may safely state that Etrurian architecture was identical 
 With that of Greece. History tells that Rome, from its ori- 
 gin, borrowed from Etruria artists to execute their great 
 works, though, afterwards, the city possessed a large num- 
 ber of native architects, which was not the case with the 
 professors of the other arts. That the Romans at this pe- 
 riod were not barbarous and ignorant of the arts, more than 
 one memorial of their skill in architecture still attests. 
 Livy records a circus, traced by Tarquin, between the 
 Aventineand Palatine hills, for the celebration of feasts and 
 games to commemorate the victory over the Latins. Tar- 
 quinius Superbus soon afterwards encompassed this circus 
 with covered porticos. This was at the epoch of the con- 
 struction of the great sewer or cloaca. Perhaps in no age 
 were two more splendid undertakings carried on at the 
 same time. This Tarquin, as DionysiuB Halicarnassensis 
 83 
 
 asserts, ornamented the Forum, and had centred in it all 
 that could tend to its beauty as well as to its utility. The 
 first Tarquin was a native of the city of Tarquinium in 
 Etruria, and brought to Rome that taste for grandeur and 
 solidity which were the distinguishing features of the arts 
 in the country he had left. He constructed the immense 
 walls of the city in regular masonry, and laid the founda- 
 tions of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which, in level- 
 ling the hill on which it stood, was attended with prodi- 
 gious labour and expense. The temple mentioned, ac- 
 cording to Tacitus, was continued by Serving Tullius and 
 Tarquinius Superbus, the latter engaging workmen from 
 Etruria ; but it was not finished till after the expulsion of 
 the kings. Such was its magnificence, says Tacitus, that 
 all the victories of the Romans added to its wealth and de- 
 coration more than to its extent. His words are, " Horatius 
 Pulvillus dedicavit, ea. magnificentia, quam immense pos- 
 tea populi Romani opes ornarent potius, quam augerent." 
 The description of it by Dionysius brings to mind the Gre- 
 cian temple, with its two interior ranks of columns, its pe- 
 ristyle and pediment, eulogised by Cicero. It was twice 
 destroyed, and twice rebuilt, on the same foundations. 
 These notices suffice to show that the Romans at an early 
 period wire inferior to no nation in those matters of archi- 
 tecture which were necessary and useful to a people. 
 Such was the opinion of Strabo, who adds, that in some re- 
 spects, such as paving their great roads, constructing aque- 
 ducts and sewers, the Romans far excelled the Greeks. 
 Usefulness in their enterprises, and solidity in carrying 
 them into execution, were the characteristics of the art 
 among the Romans at a period when magnificence of a 
 high degree was confined to the temple. 
 
 The necessary materials are wanting to enable us to fol- 
 low up historically the taste of the arl during the ages of the 
 republic. There' is scarcely the vestige of arum of the 
 period ; it is, however, easy to form, either from the politi- 
 cal state of the times, or from the encouragement gives to 
 
 the other arts, and especially to literature, some idea ofthe 
 
 extent to which the architecture ofthe Romans flourished. 
 The conquest of Greece by the Romans produced to their 
 City not only an importation of works of art, hut the artists 
 themselves, who, be it observed, can be created only 
 where opulence reigns. In architecture, however, the Ro- 
 mans at this lime had erected monuments of such dimen- 
 sions as were beyond the means of the little and separated 
 Ureece. The new state of things brought to its 
 aid all that it needed. The great use which at this period 
 was made of the Corinthian order, is one of the proofs of 
 
 ■ and private wealth. From the time Of Augustus 
 
 we see the extent to which richness of detail wa 
 A small portion "I" the Baths of Agrippa, known to us un- 
 der the name of the Pantheon, .me of the most splendid ex- 
 
 ■ the art, enables us to appreciate the art of this pe- 
 riod, though now despoiled ofthe bronzes of its pediment, 
 Its gill cais ons, and the profusion of sculptures that 
 adorned it. In the time of Augustus, Rome was not only 
 
 ipital of the world, but the world itself; it possessed 
 within itself all the food 1 1 i.at was necessary for the nourish- 
 ment of the art. Private individuals in the city possessed 
 the wealth of kings, military glory created a necessity for 
 monuments, and the amusements ofthe theatre, the races 
 anl lights ofthe circus and amphitheatre, required accom- 
 modation for such multitudes of spectators, that art ex- 
 panded from the calls to which it was subject. Rome now 
 began to raise monuments of a description unknown to the 
 Grecians — triumphal arches, baths as large as cities, im- 
 mense porticos, amphitheatres, and naumachia. The mar- 
 bles of all the quarries of the then known world were al- 
 most exhausted in supplies, and even Egypt furnished the 
 city with means of adding to the general magnificence. 
 Applied to such new species of edifices, it would have 
 been indeed surprising if architecture had preserved its 
 original Greek purity. It was the medium for satisfying a 
 vanity which knew no bounds, and was ultimately obliged 
 to gain its end more by effect than purity, by richness and 
 exuberance of ornament rather than by harmony, and by 
 grandeur of lines rather than by beauty of forms. Archi- 
 tecture was at all periods a favourite art among the Ro- 
 mans. Not a single name of a Roman sculptor has reached 
 ns, and Pliny mentions only two or three painters. From 
 Vitruvius we learn, that before his time several had writ- 
 ten on the art. The names of Fussitius, Terentius Varro, 
 Publius Septimius, Cossutius, and C. Mutius are men- 
 tioned bv him. 
 
 The Itixurv in art induced by the sculptor, aided the num- 
 ber of different combination's in the Corinthian capital, 
 which we have above stated to have been a favourite with 
 the Romans ; this was earned to an excess which in the 
 end produced a new order, known by the name of the 
 composite. Thus, Roman architecture having, says Qua- 
 tremere de Quincv, exhausted all the resources of rich- 
 ness guided by taste in the use of ornaments, throws aside 
 all sobriety, sacrifices the whole to details and accessaries, 
 covers all" parts ofthe surface without distinction, loads the
 
 ARCHITRAVE. 
 
 different members with ornaments and sculptures, like a 
 person who, to decorate a piece of cloth, covers it entirely 
 with embroidery. 
 
 We close this article with a few observations on the Do- 
 ric order. This, in Greece itself, at the time of her subju- 
 gation, had begun to be affected by change. It had lost 
 much of the primitive simplicity of its character and the 
 severity of its principles. The various wants in edifices 
 less simple in plan, a taste for elegance and richness which 
 was found in the other two orders, contributed to diminish 
 the severity of its forms and profiles. Thus, in the portico 
 of Augustus at Athens it was strangely changed in appear- 
 ance. In Rome it was adopted with proportions still more 
 slender, and an aspect infinitely less severe. (For re- 
 marks on English Architecture, see the word English.) 
 
 A'RCHITRAVE. (Gr. dpxtiv, to govern, and Lat. trabs, 
 a beam.) In Architecture, the lower of the three members 
 of the entablature of an order, being, as its name imports, 
 the chief beam that is employed, and resting immediately 
 on the columns. Its origin is given under the article Ar- 
 chitecture. A French writer has called it the founda- 
 tion of the head of an edifice. The architrave sometimes 
 receives the name Epistylium, from the Greek words, bri, 
 upon, and otuAoj, column. 
 
 A'RCHIVES. The repositories of the public records of 
 a state or community : sometimes the records themselves 
 are so called. The word is supposed to be derived from 
 the Greek dpxcia-, used for public registers by Josephus. 
 
 A'RCHIVOLT. (Lat. arcus volutus, a turned arch.) In 
 Architecture, the ornamented band of mouldings round the 
 voussoirs or arch stones of an arch, which terminates hori- 
 zontally upon the impost. The archivolt is decorated ana- 
 logously with the architrave, which it may in arcades be 
 said to represent. 
 
 A'RCHON. (Gr. dpxoiv, ruler.) The title of the chief 
 magistrate of Athens. The office was originally instituted 
 after the death of Codrus, the last king of Athens, and was 
 vested in one person who enjoyed it for life, and was suc- 
 ceeded by his son. Its duties were those of a limited 
 monarchy, accountable to the assembly of the people ; its 
 duration was afterwards limited to ten, six, and, finally, one 
 year, when its functions were divided among nine persons, 
 taken at first by suffrage, and afterwards by lot, from the 
 nobles. One was chief among them, and was called Epo- 
 nymus, or, naming Archon, because the year was distin- 
 guished by his name. The second, or king Archon, exer- 
 cised the functions of high priest. The third, or Polemarch 
 (polemarchos.) was originally the chief military comman- 
 der. The other six were called Thesmotheta?, or setters 
 forth of the law ; they presided as judges in the courts, and 
 the six formeda tribunal which had a peculiar jurisdiction. 
 The nine together formed the council of state, on which the 
 whole administration rested ; but this was transferred by 
 Solon to the senate. The exclusive right of the nobles to 
 this office was taken away by the measures of Cleisthenes, 
 who threw it open to the people at large. See especially 
 Boeckh's Public Economy of Athens. 
 
 A'RCTIC. (Gr. dpicros, the bear.) An epithet given to 
 that part of the heavens, in which are situated the constel- 
 lations of the Great and the Little Bear. Arctic Pole, the 
 north pole of the heavens, or the northern extremity of the 
 axis of the diurnal motion. Arctic Circle, in geography, 
 denotes a small circle of the sphere parallel to the equator, 
 and 23 X degrees from the north pole. At this latitude, the 
 sun, at the summer solstice, comes exactly to the horizon 
 at midnight, without descending below it. The corres- 
 ponding circle in the southern hemisphere is called the 
 Antarctic. The arctic and antarctic circles separate the 
 frigid from the temperate zones. 
 
 A'RCTOMYS. (Gr. dp/croj, bear, and uvs, mouse.) The 
 name of the subgenus of Rodentia, or gnawers, including 
 the marmot. 
 
 ARCTU'RUS. A star of the first magnitude in the con- 
 stellation of Bootes, designated in the catalogues as a Bootes. 
 It has a sensible proper motion. 
 
 A'RCUATE. (Lat. areus, a bow.) A part of an animal 
 so called which is linear and bent like a bow. 
 
 ARCUA'TION. (Lat. arcus, a bow.) An obsolete term 
 for the mode of propagating trees by layers, the shoots be- 
 ing bent. 
 
 A'RDEA. The name of a Linnaean genus of Grallce, or 
 wading birds, characterised by a straight, sharp, long, sub- 
 compressed bill, with a furrow extending on each side, 
 from the nostrils to the apex of the bill. The genus was 
 subdivided by Linneeus into the Cristatee, corresponding to 
 the modern genus Atithropoides ; the Grues, or cranes; 
 the Ciconiob, or storks ; and the Ardea, or herons ; which 
 latter have been subsequently subdivided into Ardece, or 
 nerons proper; Nycticoraces, or night- herons; and Botauri, 
 or bitterns. 
 
 ARDISIA'CE^E. (Ardisia, one of the genera.) Exogens, 
 
 which might, without much inaccuracy, be termed woody 
 
 primulaceous plants. They form herbs and trees in warm 
 
 countries, and have a succulent fruit ; but they really differ 
 
 54 
 
 ARGONAUT. . 
 
 in scarcely any positive point of structure from primula 
 and its co-ordinates. (SeeMYRSiNACEiE.) 
 
 A'RE. See A la mire. 
 
 A'REiE. In Entomology, the larger longitudinal species 
 into which the wing may be divided : they are termed cre- 
 tal, intermediate, and anal, according to their relative 
 position. 
 
 ARE'CA. (Areec, the Malabar name.) An East Indian 
 palm tree, whose nuts are folded in the leaf of the piper 
 betel, and, mixed with a little lime, are chewed by the na- 
 tives of the country bordering on the Indian Archipelago 
 as a stimulating narcotic. 
 
 ARE'NA. A Latin word signifying, in its original mean- 
 ing, sand, but applied in a secondary sense to that part of 
 the amphitheatre in which the gladiators fought, which was 
 covered with sand. The word is sometimes applied to the 
 whole amphitheatre. 
 
 ARENA'CEOUS. (Lat. arena, sand.) Sandy. 
 
 ARENA 'RIA. (Lat. arena, sand.) A genus of wading 
 birds, wanting the hinder toe : of this genus there is but 
 one British species — the Sanderling. 
 
 ARENA'RIOUS SOIL. (Lat. arena, ,sand.) In Agr. and 
 Hort., soil in which sand is the prevailing ingredient. 
 
 ARENA'TION. (Lat. arena, sand.) The cure of dis- 
 eases by sprinkling hot sand upon the body. 
 
 ARE'OLA. (Dim. of area.) The ring or margin which 
 surrounds the pustule of small and cow pox. 
 
 ARE'OLiE, in Entomology, are smaller spaces into 
 which the wing is divided by the nervures : they are 
 termed vasal, middle, and apical, according to their rela- 
 tive position. 
 
 ARE'OLATE. In Entomology, divided into small spaces, 
 or areolations. 
 
 Areolate. In Botany, in composite plants, when the 
 florets are placed so completely upon the surface of the 
 receptacle, that many a pentagonal area, or space, is left 
 when the ovaries drop off. 
 
 AREOLA'TION (Lat. area) means any small space, 
 distinctly bounded by something different in colour, texture, 
 &c. The spaces of parenchyma, which in leaves are 
 bounded by veins, are areolations. 
 
 AREO'METER. (Gr. dpaiog, rare, and pcrpov, measure.) 
 An instrument for measuring the density or specific gravi- 
 ty of fluids. (See Hydrometer.) 
 
 AREO'PAGUS. The science of measuring the density 
 or specific gravity of fluids. 
 
 AREO'PAGUS. The chief court of judicature at Athens : 
 so called because it met in a hall on an eminence, called 
 the hill of Mars, ('Apaos irayog.) This court, which was 
 of very early origin, was raised to the high character it 
 afterwards enjoyed, by Solon, who appointed that it should 
 consist of the archons who had undergone, with credit, the 
 scrutiny they were subject to at the expiration of their 
 office. The areopagus had cognizance of capital crimes, 
 and from it was no appeal to the people, whose decisions 
 it was sometimes known to annul. It controlled all issues 
 from the public treasury, and exercised a censorship over 
 the citizens. Its powers were much reduced by the mea- 
 sures of Pericles and his partizans. On the subject of this 
 celebrated institution, our best ancient authority is the 
 Oratio Areopagilica of Socrates. See also Meursius, De 
 Areopago ; Du Canaye, Recherches sur I' A., in the Mem. de 
 V Acad, des Jnscr., <Sfc. vol. vii. p. 174. : and Petitus, Ad 
 Leges Atticas. See also Boeckh's excellent work on Athens 
 and her Institutions. 
 
 A'RGEL. The Egyptian name of the leaves of the 
 Cynanchum oleafoliuin, which are mixed with senna 
 leaves. 
 
 A'RGENT, in Heraldry. (Fr., argent, silver.) One of 
 the metals employed in blazonry: it is equivalent to pearl 
 among precious stones, diamond among planets. In en- 
 graving it is represented by a plain surface. 
 
 ARGENTI'NA. A Linnasan genus of abdominal fishes, 
 belonging to the salmon family ; characterised by a small 
 mouth, without maxillary teeth ; the tongue armed with 
 curved teeth ; and a transverse row of small teeth on the 
 vomer ; banchiostegal rays, six. The argentines rank in 
 the order Malacopterygia, or soft-finned fishes of Cuvier. 
 The name is derived from the silvery glistening appearance 
 in the scales of these fishes. 
 
 A'RGENTINE. In Mineralogy, nacreous carbonate of 
 lime, so called from its silvery lustre. 
 
 ARGILLA'CEOUS SOIL. (Lat. argilla, clay.) Soil in 
 which clay is the prevailing earthy ingredient. 
 
 ARGOL. The tartar of wine. 
 
 A'RGONAUT, ARGONAUTA. Applied by Linneeus, in 
 the singular number, to the testaceous cephalopod, desig- 
 nated by Aristotle and the ancients, nautilus, and common- 
 ly called at the present day the paper nautilus, from the 
 fragile nature of the boat-like shell in which the inhabiting 
 cephalopod occasionally floats on the still seas of the warm- 
 er latitudes. Many modern naturalists limit the applica- 
 tion of the term argonauta to the shell, supposing that its 
 true constructor is yet to be discovered, and that the ce-
 
 ARGONAUTS. 
 
 phalopod which has hitherto been exclusively found in it, 
 is a parasite. (See Ocythoe: ) 
 
 A'RGONAUTS. The name given to the chieftains "who 
 accompanied Jason in the ship Argo on his fabled expedi- 
 tion" to Colchis, after the golden tleece of Phryxus. The 
 original facts on which this mythological story is founded 
 cannot now be recalled ; but it is generally supposed to 
 represent the result of some bold commercial expedition 
 that overstepped the previous discoveries of its age, or 
 more probably still, the series of enterprises by which 
 "Greek maritime knowledge was extended to the farthest 
 shores of the Euxine." We have a poem on the subject, 
 which falsely goes under the name of Orpheus, who is said 
 to have been one of the Argonauts himself, and an epic by 
 Apollonius Rhodius, a Greek poet of Alexandria, and like- 
 wise one in Latin, by Valerius Flaccus, who flourished in 
 the age of Vespasian. 
 
 A'RGUMENT. In Astronomy, denotes the angle or 
 quantity on which a series of numbers in a table depends. 
 For example, suppose a table were formed showing the 
 amount of horizontal refraction at every degree, <kc, of 
 altitude; then the altitude would be termed the argument 
 oi the refraction; and the table is said to be entered with 
 the argument. 
 
 Argument. In Logic, an expression in which, from 
 something laid down as granted, (i. e. the premises,) some- 
 thing else (;'. e. the conclusion,) is to be deduced. In or- 
 dinary discourse, argument is very often used for the 
 premises alone, in contradistinction to the conclusion ; e.g. 
 "the conclusion which this argument is intended to estab- 
 lish, is, &c. <fcc." This word is also sometimes employed 
 to denote what is, strictly speaking, a coum or sei 
 
 arguments: il is in this sense that We speak of War- 
 burton's argument to prove the divine legation of Moses." 
 The word argument is frequently used to express what 
 may be properly called a disputation : i. e. two (rains of 
 argument opposed to each other, as when it Is said thai \ 
 and B had a long argument on any subject, and that A 
 had the best of the argument. (Vide Wkiitely's Logic, p. 
 300.) 
 
 A'RIANS. The followers of the theological opinions of 
 Arms, a presbyter of the church of Alexandria in the fourth 
 century, who denied the equality of the Father and Son, 
 and is generally considered as the author of a system 
 which continued, under various modification . 
 the most extensive influence upon the Christian world of 
 any heresy of ancient times. It was in the year 319, thai 
 views were first promulgated al a meeting of the 
 clergy of Alexandria ; and their author, after some 
 hmunicaled by the patriarch Alexander. Thi 
 gress, however, which the opinions continued to ma! 
 cited, after a few years, the notice ol the emperor Constan- 
 tino, who addressed a letter to Alexander and Arius jointly, 
 in which he attempted to 
 other occasions he resorted to more violent methods, that 
 
 of reconciling the conflicting parties upon whatever basis, 
 and securing harmony at all events. At the earnest de- 
 sire, however, of the orthodox party at Alexandria, he O in- 
 vene.i the general council of Nicsea, which assembled in 
 the year 326, and proceeded to institute a full investigation 
 
 into the matter in dispute. On tins occasion the \ 
 creed was drawn up, in which the clause which principally 
 affects this subject is the assertion of the consubstantiality 
 of the Son with the Father, or the Omoousion. This the 
 Arians would not concede. A middle party arose under 
 Eusebius of Nicomedia, who proposed, but without effect, 
 the term Omoiousios, asserting, not the identity, hut the 
 similarity of substance. This, which is generally denomi- 
 nated the Semi-arian scheme, satisfied neither the Catho- 
 lics nor the Arians, who from their rejectionof it acquired 
 
 the title of Am ioi, The Catholics triumphed, ami their 
 
 opponents submitted to the decree of the emperor which 
 required them to acknowledge the creed propounded for 
 their acceptance. From this time, according to some writ- 
 ers, the Eusebians became a mere political parly, who en- 
 deavoured to preserve the favour of the prince, for which 
 they had already made the greatest of sacrifices, by a repe- 
 tition of similar unworthy arts. At this period' another 
 Eusebius, the courtly bishop of Cresarea, and celebrated 
 historian of the Christian church, became one of the lead- 
 ers of this branch of Arianism. His talents and ingenuity 
 are represented as being of singular service to the cause of 
 the heretics, by inducing the emperor, after some delay, to 
 command the restoration of Arius to the church of Alex- 
 andria, and the banishment of Athanasius. A day was ap- 
 pointed, upon which Alexander, the aged bishop, should 
 admit the still suspected heretic to the holy communion: 
 his protestations of orthodoxy were such as to satisfy the 
 prelate that God only could discover his real sentiments, 
 and he solemnly declared that in His hands he left the 
 matter. In the midst of the fears and scruples of the one par- 
 ty, and the anticipated triumph of the other, the proceeding 
 was suddenly terminated by the death of Arius : a deliver- 
 ance of the church, in which the Catholics discovered a 
 85 
 
 ARISTOCRACY". 
 
 signal interposition of God, but which the heretics confi- 
 dentially ascribed to assassination by poison. 
 
 Under Constantius, the successor of Constantine, in the 
 East, the Arian party was taken into favour, and the ortho- 
 dox persecuted and proscribed : and wdien on the death of 
 Constans, the whole empire fell into his single hands, the 
 cause of heresy began to flourish in the West also, and the 
 " whole world," says Si. Jerome, "groaned to find itself Ari- 
 an." It was at this period, also, that many northern na- 
 tions, who were just preparing to pour themselves upon 
 the western empire, were converted to the Christian faith, 
 in which they were instructed, according to the Arian in- 
 terpretation. This circumstance contributed materially to 
 the permanence of these opinions ; for after the orthodox 
 emperor Theodosius had re-established the doctrine of the 
 Nicene creed throughout bis dominions, the West was sub- 
 jected to a second inundation of heresy in the preceding 
 century. The conversion of Clovis to the Catholic faith at 
 the end of the fifth, and of Theodelinda, queen of the Lom- 
 bards, in the sixth century, combined with the successesof 
 rals of Justinian, in Italy and Africa, restored the 
 orthodox opinions throughout the greater part of these re- 
 gions; and from that period Arianism dwindled awav.anc 
 all traces of it seem to have been lost for many centuries. 
 
 In modern times these opinions have been revived. The 
 inferiority of the Son to the Father was proclaimed by 
 Servetus, in 1531 : and in Geneva, the very place in which 
 he suffered death, these opinions took root, and have since 
 become very prevalent among the disciples of the Church 
 which Calvin founded. The immediate followers of Ser- 
 vetus removed, upon his death, to Poland. In England, 
 the principal revivers of Arianism, were Whiston and 
 Samuel Clarke, who flourished at the beginning of the 18th 
 century, Their doctrines were embraced by great num- 
 ue Presbyterian and Independent preachers, and 
 gave rise to a great deal of controversy among the mem- 
 bers of those communities, and of the church also. It is 
 remarkable that the congregations which in modem times 
 have embraced any form of Arianism. whether at Geneva, 
 in Poland, or in England, have in almost all cases degene- 
 rated into Unitarianism. At the present day, there exist 
 few, if any, churches of professed Arians. 
 
 It should be remarked, that the term Arian, which is vul- 
 garly attributed to those who conceive of the second and 
 third persons, thai though inferior to the first, they are ne- 
 vertheless divine, admits of many distinctions and qualifi- 
 cations. Questions arise among sects generally denomi- 
 nated .\rian. 1st. As to the similarity of substance between 
 \ existence of the Son; 
 
 whether hewa fore the world; whether that 
 
 was from eternity: 3d, As to the relation oi the 
 Son and Spirit, concerning whose rank among the Divine 
 personages theri inflicting opinions. Dr. Clarke, 
 
 though generally considered to hold Anan sentiments, pro- 
 fessed himself a believer in the Trinity, and continued a 
 member of the established church. He distinguished the 
 Son from the Father, considering the latter as the primary 
 author of all good, to whom all honour and worship is due : 
 the power which was original in the Father being derivative 
 in the Son, who derives also from him his Divinity and other 
 attributes. The Holy Spirit, lie considered to hold a simi- 
 lar subordination to the Son. When the question, whether 
 the Father can annihilate the Son. was propounded to Dr. 
 Clarke, he confessed that he had not reflected upon this 
 imputed consequence of his scheme, and declined to give 
 any answer. 
 
 ARICTNA. An alkaloid discovered in 1829, by Pclletier 
 and Coriol, in a bark from Arica, resembling a species of 
 chinchona. 
 
 A'KIEL. (Axilla, in low Latin, a piece of red cloth.) A 
 membrane, either fleshy or others ise, originating from the 
 placenta,aud growing on a seed either partially or entirely. 
 Instances id' it occur in the nutmeg, where it constitutes 
 mace ; and in the Euonymus Europaeus, where it is a red 
 succulent membrane. It is remarkable that this part, the 
 use of which is unknown, never appears till after the young 
 seed is fertili 
 
 A'RIES. (Lat. the Ram.) The first constellation of the 
 ancient zodiac. Aries also denotes the first sign or the first 
 30 degrees of the zodiac ; the first point of Aries being the 
 point in which the equator intersects the ecliptic, and from 
 which the longitudes are reckoned. In ancient times the 
 signs and constellations of the zodiac coincided ; but owing 
 to the precession of the equinoxes, the twelve signs go 
 backward among the constellations, at the rate of about 50" 
 annually, and the first point of Aries is now situate in the 
 constellation Pisces. 
 
 Aries. In ancient Military Science, the Latin name of 
 the battering ram, an instrument with an iron head used to 
 batter and beat down the walls of besieged places. 
 
 ARIOSO. See Legato. 
 
 ARISTO'CRACY. (Gr. dptoros, the best, and upartiv, to 
 govern.) According to the acceptation in which the word 
 is used by ancient writers, a government in which all the
 
 ARISTOLOCHIA. 
 
 best citizens of the state, i. e. those excelling either in he- 
 reditary distinction or in wealth, ruled their fellow-citizens. 
 When the power was in the hands of a small class of these, 
 who had acquired it by chance or usurpation, such a 
 government was said to be an oligarchy. Thus aristocracy 
 is enumerated by Aristotle among the distinct forms of 
 government ; oligarchy is only mentioned as a perversion 
 of aristocracy : and the distinction as taken by him is, that 
 in an aristocracy the governors rule for the public good, 
 and in an oligarchy for their own. In modern times, those 
 governments have usually been termed aristocratic in 
 which a small privileged class of noble or wealthy persons 
 either governed absolutely, or shared the government in 
 various proportions with the sovereign or with the people. 
 Thus the Republic of Venice presented the purest example 
 of an aristocracy among the older governments of Europe : 
 while the government of the United Provinces, before the 
 French Revolution, might also be cited as an instance of 
 aristocratic commonwealth ; and Great Britain of a mo- 
 narchy tempered by aristocracy. In a stricter sense, how- 
 ever, the word has been used by modern speculative poli- 
 ticians to signify any government in which " a minority of 
 adult males" constitute the ruling class. In this sense, the 
 government of France, that of England both in respect of 
 the House of Commons and of the House of Lords, and, in 
 short, almost every state in which a census is adopted as 
 the qualification of those who elect representatives in the 
 national assembly, must be cited as aristocratic. The word 
 aristocracy is also frequently used to signify a class of per- 
 sons in the state : the wealthy and noble classes in a body, 
 or the latter class by itself. 
 
 ARISTOLO'CHIA. (Gr. dpurTos, best, and Aoxtia, child- 
 birth.) A genus of exogenous plants, usually having twin- 
 ing stems and one-sided bent, yellow or purple variegated 
 flowers, the odour of which is often very offensive. They 
 are reputed to be powerful stimulants and aromatics. One 
 species, but not a twining one, is occasionally met with wild 
 in England (A. clematitis, common birthwort) : a few are 
 natives of the South of Europe, but the principal part of 
 the genus is tropical. 
 
 ARI'STOLO'CHIA'CEjE. The natural order of which 
 Aristolochia is the type. Asarum (see Asarabacca) is the 
 only other common genus associated with Aristolochia; 
 bat there are several tropical forms. The wood of this 
 order is remarkable for growing without forming concen- 
 tric zones, although undoubtedly exogenous. 
 
 ARISTOTE'LIAN PHILOSOPHY. In attempting to 
 give an account of the doctrines of Aristotle of Stagira, 
 we feel embarrassed by peculiar difficulties. The preju- 
 dices under which, until lately, the name of this philoso- 
 pher has laboured, and still, perhaps, continues in a great 
 measure to labour, would seem to render a more than 
 usually detailed account of his writings necessary, in order 
 to justify what, in the view we shall take of their nature 
 and value, may contradict the ordinary opinion. At the 
 same time, there is perhaps no ancient philosopher, the 
 full comprehension of whose system requires so extensive 
 a knowledge of the works of his predecessors in scientific 
 research, and so careful a collation of detached passages 
 in his own writings, which are composed for the most part 
 in a fragmentary and unmethodical manner, and an ob- 
 scure and concise diction. The latter difficulty will be the 
 more apparent, when we state the now unanimous opinion 
 of the learned, that the works of Aristotle which remain to 
 us are entirely of the esoteric or acromatic class, intended, 
 not for publication, but to serve as notes to the oral lectures 
 which he delivered to the more instructed of his pupils. It 
 requires no more than a cursory glance at the titles and the 
 bulk of Aristotle's writings, to be convinced of the com- 
 prehensiveness of his views, and the daringness of his de- 
 sign. He divides the whole circle of knowledge into three 
 great provinces, Metaphysics, or the Philosophia prima, 
 including, as its instrument, Logic ; Physics, or the Second 
 Philosophy, under which term, in addition to the sciences 
 ordinarily falling under that denomination, he embraces a 
 great portion of the philosophy of the human mind, as the 
 phenomena of sensation, memory, and fancy ; and, thirdly. 
 Ethics, or the science which treats of the conduct and 
 duties of man, regarded both as an individual and as a 
 citizen. His Logic is contained in his Categories, His trea- 
 tise on Interpretation or the Nature of Propositions, his 
 former and latter Analytics, and his eight books of Topics ; 
 to which may be added his work on the exposure of So- 
 phisms. These form together what has been called the 
 Organism of Aristotle ; and seem intended as a prepara- 
 tory discipline to the study of his Metaphysics. (See Arist. 
 Metaph. iv. 3.) The common opinion, which attributes to 
 Aristotle the discovery of the science of Logic, is, we 
 doubt not, substantially correct. The flippant objection of 
 Locke, that this notion would represent God as having 
 made men mere animals, and having left it to Aristotle to 
 make them rational, hardly needs a serious refutation. 
 Natural philosophers might with equal justice be accused 
 of asserting that. Sir Isaac Newton changed the motion of 
 
 ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 the heavenly bodies, or that Locke himself created the 
 human understanding. The logic of Aristotle is, what it 
 professes to be, an enumeration of the leading classes, or 
 genera, to which all our notions may be referred ; an ac- 
 count of the various methods by which we arrive at general 
 propositions, and reason from these when formed ; and a 
 body of rules for the conduct of the understanding in going 
 through these processes. {See Logic, Category, Ax.) 
 Metaphysics is the science of being, as such ; and herein 
 is distinguished from physics, which considers only the 
 modifications of being, and the changes to which they are 
 subject. Each of the physical sciences has its own funda- 
 mental axioms, the truth of which it is compelled to as- 
 sume : it is the province of metaphysics to verify these 
 assumptions, and to discover their unity and connexioa 
 Aristotle's metaphysical system, though it may be said to 
 owe its origin and many of its peculiarities to that of his 
 great predecessor, Plato, yet deviates from it in many im- 
 portant respects. Both the one and the other admit the 
 existence of a faculty, the sphere of which transcends the 
 objects of sense : they differ as to the method by which 
 this faculty is to arrive at its determinations. Plato doubt- 
 less conceived, that in virtue of the necessary connection 
 in which all conceptions stand to each other, we are able, 
 so soon as we have awakened one idea in our conscious- 
 ness, to arrive at the knowledge of all the rest. Aristotle, 
 on the contrary, conceived all deductive science to be illu- 
 sive which does not rest, for the truth of its fundamental 
 principles, on a previous induction from particulars. 
 Agreeably to this conviction, he begins his Ontological 
 speculations with the consideration of the individual, as it 
 presents itself in the world of sense. To the production 
 of each separate exercise, four causes are necessary : the 
 material cause, the formal, the final, and the moving cause. 
 The three latter, he seems to admit, are substantially iden- 
 tical, inasmuch as in Nature the end of a thing is that very 
 thing itself in its completeness : while the moving cause 
 may be conceived as the type pre-existing in the mind of 
 the artificer, which is the same with the form which he 
 communicates to the material. We should greatly mis- 
 conceive Aristotle's meaning, if, as has sometimes been 
 done, we identified his forms of things with their outward 
 figure, or even with the notion of them apprehended by 
 the understanding. The form of a thing may be differently 
 expressed, as the law of its being, the principle of life 
 within it, which animates and gives an individual existence 
 to the matter; which, on the other hand, without its pre- 
 sence, would remain a mere blank potentiality, destitute 
 of all qualities, and therefore unintelligible and impercep- 
 tible. This distinction between matter and form re-appears, 
 under different names, in various portions of the Aristo- 
 telian philosophy, and is with him a solution of most of the 
 difficulties in ontology and physics. He conceives it to be 
 the only mode of explaining the possibility of a thing com- 
 ing into existence, the difficulty of comprehending which 
 had led the electic philosophers to deny any reality to out- 
 ward phenomena. He himself conceives the universe to 
 be eternal. With Plato, however, he strenuously asserts 
 the existence of reason, as something immutable and uni- 
 versal : co-eternal with, but unaffected by, the shifting phe- 
 nomena of the world. He differs from that philosopher, 
 in making the universal reason identical with God, instead 
 of being, with its correlative being, a creation of the Divine 
 energy. 
 
 Of Aristotle's strictly physical researches we shall say 
 little. He does not himself seem to conceive that great 
 certainty can be attained in this department of human 
 science. When, however, we remember, that his History 
 of Animals has received very high praise from no less a 
 naturalist than Cuvier, and when we reflect that this was 
 perhaps the only branch of natural science in which he 
 was furnished with experimental data, we shall be inclined 
 to attribute the errors and deficiencies of his physical theo- 
 ries rather to the deficiencies of the Greeks in the neces- 
 sary mechanical apparatus, than to any disqualification in 
 the philosopher himself. In his treatises on the Soul, on 
 Memory and Recollection, and on the Nature of Dreams, 
 he has earned the perhaps still higher praise of having 
 created the science of Psychology, and of having discover- 
 ed the guiding clue to the explanation of our mental phe- 
 nomena, in the principle of association. 
 
 The third great division of the Aristotelian philosophy, 
 that which regards the relations of man as a " social and 
 political animal," is comprised in the Politics, the QScono- 
 mics, the Nicomachean and Eudemian Ethics, and those 
 books entitled the Magna Moralia. In the true spirit of an 
 ancient Greek, Aristotle regards the science of ethics as 
 most intimately connected with that of politics. He re- 
 peatedly expresses his aversion from all speculations on 
 merely ideal perfection ; and his conviction that the practi- 
 cable, under the existing circumstances of humanity, is 
 the true object of ethical inquiry. Among the most in- 
 fluential of these circumstances on the conduct of an indi- 
 vidual, is the constitution of the state to which he may
 
 ARITHMETIC. 
 
 belong; in the spirit, anil according to the maxims of 
 which he must act, if he would earn the praise of a good 
 citizen. Not indeed that a good citizen and a good man 
 are necessarily identical terms : they can only become so 
 in the case of one who is a dutiful member of a rightly 
 constituted commonwealth. The question necessarily 
 arises, " How is this perfect form of policy to be deter- 
 mined?" The answer is, that form of government is the 
 best, which affords scope for the developementof the best 
 part of our nature ; in other words, which produces the 
 best men. Out of this circle, Arislotle cannot be said to 
 have fairly extricated himself. He has in some measure 
 approximated to a definite rule of morality in the doctrine, 
 that every virtue lies between two opposite excesses. It 
 must however be confessed, that a certain degree of vague- 
 ness prevails in his ethical speculations: a vagueness of 
 which he was himself conscious, and apparently despairt d 
 of satisfactorily removing. Perhaps the most valuable 
 part of his moral writings, is thai in which he disi 
 the much vexed question of the relation of happiness to 
 morality. Pleasure, he determines, can never be taken as 
 a measure of actions, inasmuch as it is the uniform con- 
 comitantof all natural action whatsoever. (Etli. Sir. 1. x.) 
 His politics comprise a most careful review of the most 
 ited (irecian constitutions, and a generalization of 
 the leading possible forms of government, with their va- 
 rious merits and defects, built on a careful induction from 
 the great mass of varied facta and instances with which 
 the history of his country supplied him. They are conse- 
 quently invaluable, alike to the curious m Grecian history, 
 and to the political theorist ; and traces of their effi 
 sufficiently visible in the writings of perhaps all who have 
 arrived at eminence in the latter department 
 
 The besi edition of Aristotli 
 Bekker, 3 vols. 4to. Berlin, L831. Of the Ethics, that of 
 Michelet, with a commentary, 2 vols. 8vo. Berlin, 1835. Of 
 the Treatise de Anima, with copii tl of Trende- 
 
 lenburg. Numerous editions of the Rhetoric have been 
 published in Oxford. Of his Ancient Commentators, the 
 best are Ammonius, Alexander Apbrodisien&iB, Simplicius, 
 and Thomas Aqnimm. (.svt- Hitter's History of Ancient Phi- 
 losophy, vol. 3.) 
 
 ARITHMETIC. (Gr. doifyof, number.) The science 
 of numbers, or that part of mathematics which is con- 
 cerned with the properties of numbers. The elementary 
 operations of arithmetic, being necessary In transactingthe 
 ordinary affairs of life, are perhaps as commonly known as 
 (he art of reading and writing, and therefore require no ex- 
 planation; the principles, however, on which they depend 
 areof a very general and highly refined uaturi . 
 
 Even t m i ing to the definition of Newton, is, 
 
 properly speaking, only a ratio, or relation. In order to 
 explain this, it may be remarked, thai every magnitude 
 which we compare with another magnitude is either equal, 
 or greater, or less, and, consequently, has a certain 
 lion in that with which it is compared; that is to say, il 
 contains it or is contained in it. in a certain manner. This 
 relation, or manner of containing or being contained, is w tial 
 we call number: thus the number 3 expresses thi 
 which one magnitude has to another smaller than Itself, 
 v lih-h is taken for unit, and which the greater contains 
 three times. On the contrary, the fraction '., expresses the 
 ratio of one magnitude to another greater than itself, which 
 is taken as unit, and which contains the smaller three 
 times. 
 
 Having distinguished the numbers or relations of magni- 
 tudes, which we have conceived in our minds by particular 
 signs, arithmetic becomes the art of combining these rela- 
 n -us with one another; employing for this purpose the 
 signs themselves by which lie- numbers are distinguished. 
 Hence, the four operations of addition, subtraction, multi- 
 plication, and division, include the whole science: for all 
 the different combinations that can be formed of ratios are 
 reduced ultimately to an examination of the excess of some 
 above others, or of the way in winch they contain one an- 
 other. For the purpose, indeed, of facilitating commercial 
 accounts, astronomical calculations. Ac, many other very 
 useful rules have been invented, such as the rules of pro- 
 portion, interest, discount, alligation, position, extraction of 
 roots, progression, &c. ; but, on attending to the operations 
 prescribed by these rules, it is easy to see that they are only 
 different applications of the four principal rules. 
 
 The particular operations of arithmetic depend in their 
 details on the system of characters by which numbers are 
 represented. Our arithmetic, which is constructed on the 
 denary system of notation, would be entirely changed if 
 more or fewer characters than ten were employed. The 
 Romans used a different notation, and their rules of arith- 
 metic were entirely different from ours. But all arithmetic, 
 in whatever manner numbers may be represented, is ulti- 
 mately reduced to the four operations or rules already 
 mentioned. Strictly speaking, indeed, the fundamental 
 rules may be reduced to two, addition and subtraction ; for 
 multiplication is only an abridged method of repeatedly 
 87 
 
 ARITHMETIC. 
 
 adding the same number to itself, and division only an 
 abridged method of repeatedly subtracting one number 
 from another. 
 
 The numeral system of the Romans was very ill adapted 
 to the purposes of arithmetical calculation ; and, hence, in 
 keeping their accounts, and in all their commercial trans- 
 actions, they made use of the abacus. The astronomers 
 of Greece contrived an ingenious system, by means of 
 which they were able to perform the most complex arith- 
 metical operations. (See Notation.) The Indian nume- 
 rals, on which the modern system of practical arithmetic is 
 founded, were received from the Saracens of Spain, and 
 appear to have been partially introduced into the other 
 countries of Europe in the fourteenth century ; but there is 
 no evidence of their having come into general use before 
 the invention of printing. The facility afforded by the In- 
 dian numerals in the performance of all numerical calcula- 
 tions has been one of the main causes of the great and rapid 
 advancement of modern mathematical science. 
 
 I ■ lirst complete treatise on practical arithmetic, in 
 which the numerals now in universal use were employed, 
 was written by Tartalea, and published in the year 1556. It 
 consists of two bocks, the first containing the application of 
 arithmetic to the purposes of civil life ; and the second the 
 foundations of the principles of algebra. A less perfect 
 treatise had been published by Tunstall in 1520, and another 
 by Stifel "i- Stifelius, 1544 : since that time works on the 
 science have been almost in! 
 
 Arithmetic acquires several distinctive appellations, from 
 the particular manner in which it is used, or the purpose to 
 Which it is applied : thus, 
 
 ic. The art of expressing and combining 
 numbers by pairs, and by means of two characters only. 
 A system of arithmetic of this sort was invented by Leib- 
 nitz, and also by De Lagni, and traces of it have been found 
 in the early monuments of China. Suppose the two cha- 
 zero multiplying any number af- 
 ter which it is placed by 2, as in the denary scale, it multi- 
 plies the preceding number by 10, the first ten numbers on 
 the binary scale would be represented thus : l=one, 10 = 
 two.U=three, 100= four. 101 = five, 110=six, lll=seven, 
 jht, 1001 = nine, 1010=ten. 
 
 Decimul Arithmetic, which requires a series of ten cha- 
 racters, the progres ding according to the pow- 
 I ten. It is this which is universally employed by 
 modern nations ; the term, however, is generally applied to 
 those operations in which fractions occur, the tractions pro- 
 hug powers of ten ; that 
 unit is considered as divided into tenths, the tenths 
 into hundredths, and so on. It is very remarkable that the 
 Hindoos, who have bo long been acquainted with the dena- 
 ry nol ■ application to fractions. 
 I Moms, from whom it was transplanted into Europe, 
 were < [uainted with this application. The in- 
 \. ution of decimal fractions, which has doubled the effi- 
 ciency of our arithmetical system, is generally ascribed to 
 montanus. 
 
 />■■■' hi Arithmetic, in which the multiples and divi- 
 sors of unity proceed according to the powers of 12. This 
 is adapted to our system of lineal and superficial measures, 
 in which the fool is divided into 12 inches, the inch into 12 
 lines, &c., and is accordingly generally used by artificers. 
 
 Sexagesimal or Si I ithmetic, which descends 
 
 by the powers of 60. The system of subdivision was intro- 
 dn I into the Alexandrian school by Ptolemy, for the pur- 
 poses of astronomical calculation. The partition of the cir- 
 cumference of the circle into 360 degrees, was probably 
 founded on the property that the chord of one-sixth of the 
 circumference is equal to the radius. Having divided the 
 radius int oi primes, the angle of the hexa- 
 
 gon naturally followed the same division ; hence, one part 
 or prime was equivalent to the 360th part of the whole cir- 
 cumference. The degree was by analogy subdivided into 
 60 minutes, the minute into 60 seconds, and so on. Ptole- 
 my ascribes the reason of adopting this method of division 
 to the facility which it affords in calculation; and his com- 
 mentator Th'eon adds that 60 is the most convenient of all 
 numbers, inasmuch as being sufficiently small it has a con- 
 siderable number of divisors. 
 
 Political Arithmetic. The application of arithmetic to 
 researches connected with civil government, such as the 
 number of inhabitants of a country, the quantity of food ne- 
 cessary for their consumption, the labour they can accom- 
 plish, the mean duration of life, the produce of the soil, the 
 frequency of fires or shipwrecks, Ac. In applying arith- 
 metic to inquiries of this sort, we have three principal ob- 
 jects in view; the first is to procure precise facts, the 
 second to deduce from the observed facts the conse- 
 quences to which they lead, and the third to determine the 
 probability both of the facts and the consequences. (See 
 Statistics.) 
 
 Universal Arithmetic. The name given by Newton to 
 algebra, or the calculation of magnitudes in general. The 
 operations of ordinary arithmetic are founded on two dis-
 
 ARITHMETICAL COMPLEMENT. 
 
 tinct classes of principles ; the first are independent of the 
 particular signs by which numbers are expressed, (he 
 second depend on those signs. The general properties of 
 numbers, which are independent of any particular system 
 of notation, form the subject of universal arithmetic. {See 
 Lardner's Treatise on Arithmetic ; De Morgan's Elements 
 of Arithmetic.) 
 
 ARITHMETICAL COMPLEMENT— of a number is 
 what it w.mts of the next higher decimal denomination. 
 Thus 4 is the arithmetical complement of 6, because it is 
 what 6 wants of 10. In like manner 43 is the arithmetical 
 complement of 57, and 432 of 568: the number and its 
 complement, when added together, always producing a sum 
 which is expressed by 1, followed by as many ciphers as 
 there are digits in the number. It is used in logarithmic 
 calculation to avoid the trouble of subtraction : for exam- 
 ple, if two logarithms are given, and a third is to be sub- 
 tracted from their sum, the whole operation may be per- 
 formed at once, by writing the reciprocal of the logarithm 
 to be subtracted, and adding the three together. 
 
 Arithmetical Mean between two numbers is a number 
 such that its excess above the first is equal to its defect 
 from the second, or it is a number equal to half their sum : 
 thus 10 is an arithmetical mean between 7 and 13. An 
 arithmetical mean among any number of quantities is found 
 by adding all the quantities together, and dividing by the 
 number. Thus, let there be six numbers, 1, 3, 4, 6, 7,9; 
 a mean among them is 5, for their sum is equal to 30, and 
 30 divided by 6 gives 5. 
 
 Arithmetical Progression. A series of three or more 
 numbers, such that each differs from that which precedes 
 or follows it by the same number : thus, 3, 5, J, 9, 11, form 
 an arithmetical progression, in which the common differ- 
 ence of the terms is 2. The general expression of this pro- 
 gression is a. a + rf, a-\-2d, a— (-3d, &c. 
 
 A rithmetical Proportion. Four numbers are said to be in 
 arithmetical proportion, when the difference between the 
 first and second is the same as the difference betv^een the 
 third and fourth : for example, 2, 5, 6, 9. 
 
 Arithmetical Ratio. The difference between any two 
 terms of an arithmetical progression. 
 
 ARMA'DA. (Spanish military or naval force.) This 
 name is peculiarly applied in English history to the fleet 
 assembled by Philip II. in 15S8, for the conquest of Eng- 
 land. The Spaniards, with their usual inflation of language, 
 termed it "Invincible." It consisted of 150 ships, carry- 
 in.' 3650 guns, and having on board 20,000 soldiers, besides 
 volunteers, and 3000 seamen. The account of its misad- 
 ventures and dispersion is well known. The reader who 
 is curious to consult a new and careful relation of this cele- 
 brated passage in history, will find it in Southey's Naval 
 History of Great Britain, forming a part of the Cabinet 
 Cyclopaedia. The best Spanish account of the transaction 
 will be found in Herrera. 
 
 ARMADI'LLO. A Spanish epithet, applied to a genus 
 of small South American macronykous or edentate quad- 
 rupeds, characterised by a defensive armourof small poly- 
 gonal bony plates, which covers the head, trunk, and some- 
 times the tail. Linnaeus applied to this genus the term 
 Dasypus, by which the Greeks, with more propriety, de- 
 signated the hare and rabbit. 
 
 AR'MAMENT. (Lat. Armamentum.) A force equip- 
 ped for war, naval or military. In Roman antiquities, ar- 
 mamenta comprehended the rigging and tackling of a ship, 
 its sails, sailyards, oars, ropes, <fec. Hence "Arma" de- 
 notes the sails (Virg. JEn. v. 1. 55.) and the rudder (ib. vi. 
 1.353.) of a vessel. 
 
 ARMI'LLA. (Lat. armilla, a bracelet.) In Ornithology, 
 the coloured circle of the distal naked end of the tibia, 
 above the tarsal joint. 
 
 ARMI'I.LARY SPHERE. (Lat. armilla, a bracelet.) An 
 ancient astronomical -machine, composed of an assemblage 
 of hoops or circles, representing the different circles of the 
 system of the world, as the equator, the ecliptic, the co- 
 lures, >Vc. put together in their natural order, and occupy- 
 ing their proper relative positions. 
 
 ARMI'NTAN CHURCH. The Arminians are Christians 
 of the Euty eh Ian or Monophysile doctrine, which recog- 
 nises only one nature in the Saviour, viz. the Divine; and 
 the procession of the Holy Ghost from the Fathi 
 They hold the seven sacraments of the Romish Church, 
 
 doctrine of transubstantiation : their clergy is also 
 divided into secular and regular. From the wide disper- 
 sion of the Arminians over the commercial regions of the 
 east, their form of Christianity is also considerably diffused, 
 although it appears to be strictly a national church of which 
 tl Irminians are members. Since the last war be- 
 tween Etu sia and Turkey (1829), the place where the prin- 
 cipal of their lone patriarchs resides (Etchmiadzine), has 
 been transferred from the latter to the former govi 
 There is also at Constantinople, and in other parts of the 
 Levant, an Arminian Roman Catholic Church, owning the 
 supremacy of the Pope. There is a well known congre- 
 gation of Arminian monks on the island of San Lazaro, 
 83 
 
 ARMOUR. 
 
 near Venice, who had published a variety of useful works 
 in the language of their country. 
 
 ARMENIANS. Those who hold the tenets of Arminius, 
 a Protestant divine, born in Holland in the year 1560. They 
 are thus summed up : — 
 
 1st. God from all eternity determined to save all who he 
 foresaw would persevere in the faith, and to condemn all 
 who should continue in unbelief. 
 
 2d. Christ atoned for the sins of all mankind, but those 
 only who believe partake of the benefit of that atonement. 
 
 3d. Man is of himself incapable of true faith ; therefore 
 regeneration by the Holy Spirit, given of God through Christ, 
 is necessary. 
 
 4th. All good works are to be attributed to the grace of 
 the Holy Spirit, which, however, does not force a man 
 against his own inclination. 
 
 5th. God gives to the truly faithful the means of con- 
 tinuing such. With respect to the possibility of a defection 
 from this state of grace, Arminius and his immediate fol- 
 lowers expressed themselves undecidedly ; but it came 
 afterwards to be considered a part of the character of Ar- 
 minianism to affirm the possibility. 
 
 The asserters of these opinions in Holland were vehe- 
 mently attacked by the Calvinistic party, which was pre- 
 valent at the time ; and in 1610 the Arminians addressed a 
 petition to the States of Holland for protection, from which 
 they derived the name of Remonstrants. In the year 
 1618, nine years after the death of Arminius, the synod of 
 Dort was convened by the States General, and a hearing 
 given to both parties. The Arminian opinions were defend- 
 ed by Episcopius, divinity professor at Leyden; but his 
 side complained that they were unfairly treated, and the 
 conditions of the discussion violated to their prejudice. 
 They were condemned by the Synod, and treated in con- 
 sequence with great severity, being forbidden to exercise 
 the ministry in public : many of them lied to Antwerp, 
 France, and other quarters. 
 
 From this period their opinions underwent a consider- 
 able change ; and the articles above stated, which seem a 
 little different from the tenets of the Lutherans, began to 
 be so explained as almost to do away entirely with the idea 
 of the necessity of succour from the Holy Spirit. From 
 hence they proceeded to reject many matters of faith, and 
 to simplify materially the articles requisite for salvation. 
 They proposed to draw up such a comprehensive and liberal 
 scheme as should embrace all Christians, with the exclu- 
 sion of the Romanists. They considered it sufficient that 
 a man should receive the Holy Scriptures as the rule of 
 faith, and allowed each individual to interpret them for him- 
 self, only adding thereunto the necessity of moral duties 
 and good works. The Papists were excluded on the score 
 of morality, as admitting the lawfulness of persecution. 
 
 There is' no longer any particular sect to which the name 
 Arminian is exclusively applied ; but the opinions above 
 stated are adopted in England by one branch of the Metho- 
 dists, who follow therein the views of their founder Wes- 
 ley, and by many individuals of the church of England, 
 and other denominations. The articles of the English 
 church have been represented by different parties as in- 
 clining both to Arminianism and Calvinism ; and Whitby, 
 and Taylor, bishop of Norwich, are among the most famous 
 of her friends who have maintained the Arminian tenets. 
 
 A'RMISTICE. (Lat. armistitium.). In National Law, a 
 truce or suspension of hostilities. 
 
 A'RMOUR. (Lat. armatura.) A term applied to those 
 artificial means by which man is wont either to protect 
 himself or to annoy his enemy, hence called defensive and 
 offensive. Defensive armour includes those arms speci- 
 ally used for the defence or protection of the body, as cui- 
 rasses, helmets, <!cc. The materials used in their construc- 
 tion are exceedingly multifarious, varying in many instan- 
 ces according to the products of the country in which they 
 are fabricated, but depending in general on the judgment 
 and experience of the inhabitants. Offensive arms, or those 
 used in attack, are of different kinds : 1. For cutting, such 
 as the sabre ; 2. For thrusting, such as the straight sword, 
 the bayonet, pike, lance, &c. ; 3. For throwing, such as the 
 mortar, rocket, howitzer, &e. ; and lastly, for shooting, 
 such as L'uns, pistols, carabines, rifles, and cannons. Lu- 
 cretius traces the progress of offensive arms very mi- 
 nutely : — 
 
 11 Arma anttquu mantis, ungues deateaque fnpre, 
 
 Ki lapides ft item sylvaruro fragmina, rami 
 
 Ki Bamm0 ) atque ignes poatquam aunt cogaitaprimusB) 
 
 Poateriufl ferri vis eat, bi isque reperta ; 
 
 Ki prior tana erat quam ft rri cogmtus usus." 
 The history of armour is identified with that of every na- 
 tion ; and an elaborate discussion of this subject would 
 
 throw great Light upon questions of mythology, poetry, ju- 
 risprudence and civil polity, and strikingly display the pro- 
 gress of civilisation. Into such details, however, our limits 
 1. 1 preclude us from entering, and we can only re- 
 nin- to Mey rick's work upon this subject (3 vols. 
 4to. London, 1824), which (lie student of the politics, arts,
 
 ARMS. 
 
 manners, and wars of antiquity and the middle ages, may 
 consult with great benefit. 
 
 ARMS, or ARMORIAJ. BEARINGS. In Heraldry, the 
 name given to the devices borne on shields or coat armour. 
 Family coats of arms are divided by heralds into perfect 
 and imperfect. Perfect are, 1. Abstract, or warranted by 
 regular descent. 2. Terminal, belonging to the brethren of 
 the right line. 3. Collateral, borne by brethren of the heir 
 male. 4. Fixal, in third degree by right line of male heirs. 
 Imperfect are, 1. Granted by the king, with a lordship. 2. 
 The gift of a king, derived by a herald. 3. The ensign of 
 a Saracen won in the field. 4. Heir female of close branch. 
 5. Arms of bastardy. 
 
 A'RMV. (Fr.) Lit. men in arms. A body of men or- 
 ganised and disciplined for military service, commanded 
 by a chief or leader, with subordinate officers in regular 
 gradation, and supported both in time of peace and war for 
 the preservation of internal quiet and defence against for- 
 eign aggression. An arm)- is generally divided into a cer- 
 tain number of corps, each consisting of brigades, regi- 
 ments, battalions, and squadrons. When in the field, it is 
 formed into lines : the first is called the vanguard,the second, 
 the main body; the third, the rear-guard or body of reserve. 
 The middle of each line is occupied by the foot ; the cavalry 
 forms the right and left wing of each line, and sometimes 
 squadrons of horse are placed in the intervals between the 
 battalions. In the history of armies we may distinguish 
 those of three different periods : 1. The ancient armies, 
 which, from the time of Sesostris downwards, under- 
 went a series of progressive improvements under the 
 Persians, Greeks, and Carthaginians, till they finally 
 reached a high degree of perfection under the Romans. 
 2. Those of the middle ages, the offspring of the feudal 
 system, which, however well calculated to keep alive a 
 spirit of ferocity, opposed a formidable barrier to the revi- 
 val of the military art, from their contempt of discipline and 
 utter lawlessness. 3. Those that have existed since the 
 invention of gunpowder and the establishment of standing 
 armies. Since the use of gunpowder there have been se- 
 ven principal periods in the history of the military art. 
 The first extends from the early part of the fourteenth to 
 the end of the fifteenth century. The second begins with 
 the campaign of Charles VIII. in Italy, and extends to the 
 commencement of the wars in the Netherlands, compri- 
 sing the wars of the French, Germans, and Spaniards in 
 Italy. The third period comprehends the great war of in- 
 dependence, waged by the Netherlands, in order to shake 
 offthe yoke of Spain, and extends from 1568 to the general 
 suspension of hostilities in 1609. The fourth period com- 
 prises the celebrated Thirty Years' War, and extends from 
 1618 to 1648. The fifth period comprehends the wars of 
 the French in Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands, as well 
 as the Northern and Turkish wars, and embraces the space 
 of 90 years, viz. from 1648 to 1738. The sixth period in- 
 cludes the three Silesian wars, viz. from the beginning of 
 the first Silesian war in 1740, to the breaking out of the 
 French Revolution in 1792. During these several periods 
 many improvements took place in the composition and 
 discipline of armies ; but these were destined to be far 
 surpassed in the seventh and last period, which embraces 
 the military systems and establishments of our own times. 
 In the organisation of the Continental armies great unifor- 
 mity prevails ; but as these are inseparably connected with 
 the political condition of the people, a consideration of their 
 character belongs to the history of these various nations, to 
 which we must refer the reader. The British army, like 
 those of the Continent, is divided into cavalry, infantry, 
 and artillery, and these again into regiments and battalions; 
 but in its composition and organisation an entirely different 
 principle is adopted. While the Continental armies are 
 recruited by conscription, and every officer must have 
 served as a private or a cadet, or have acquired some 
 knowledge of the military art in a preparatory establish- 
 ment, the ranks of the British army are supplied by volun- 
 tary enlistment, and commissions are, with rare excep- 
 tions, only attainable, with or without purchase, as a favour 
 from the commander-in-chief. In addition to the officers 
 attached to each separate regiment, the superintendence 
 of the whole army in its various departments and ramifi- 
 cations is entrusted to a commander-in-chief, a secretary 
 at war, a master-general of the ordnance, a paymaster-gen- 
 eral of the forces, an adjutant-general, and a' quartermas- 
 ter-general. There are, besides, a board of general officers 
 for the clothing of the army, an inspector of army colours, 
 commissioners of the military college, and commissioners 
 of the military asylum. (For an account of armies in gen- 
 eral, vide Enryr. Brit. art. Army; of the British army, 
 M'Culloch's British Statistics; of the Russian, Italian, and 
 French armies, Tanski, Oudinot,and Daniel.) 
 
 A'RNOLDISTS. The followers, or rather partisans, of 
 Arnold of Bresica, who in the twelfth century was the first 
 to raise his voice against the abuses and vices of the papa- 
 cy. He acquired for a time considerable influence among 
 the lower orders, and the tumults which were raised by 
 69 
 
 ARREST. 
 
 his supporters caused great uneasiness in Rome, which 
 was the chief scene of his proceedings. He was finally 
 put down by an armed force, made prisoner, and burnt by 
 Pope Adrian IV. Certain heretical notions on the nature 
 of the Eucharist were charged against him ; but the insur- 
 rection which arose under his auspices was clearly a polit- 
 ical disturbance, and his harangues seem to have been di- 
 rected rather against the morals than the tenets of the 
 church which he attempted to overturn. 
 
 ARNOTTO. See Annotta. 
 
 ARO'MA. The characteristic odour of substances, es- 
 pecially the strong and peculiar odours of certain plants, 
 whence the term aromatic. 
 
 ARPE'GGIO and ARPEGGIA'TO. (It. arpeggiare, to 
 play on the harp.) In Music, the striking or bowing, if on 
 an instrument of the violin species, the notes of a chord in 
 quick and repeated succession, so as to imitate the harp. 
 
 ARQUEUUSA'DE. (From arquebus, a hand gun.) An 
 aromatic spirituous lotion, applied to strains and bruises, 
 but originally invented as an application to wounds inflicted 
 by an arquebus. 
 
 A'RQUEBUSE, or HARQ.UEBUSE. A sort of hand 
 gun, used by infantry before the invention of the musquet. 
 The word is of uncertain derivation : the Italian archibuso 
 is said to come from arco, a bow, and busio, or bugio, but 
 the meaning of this last seems unsettled. The word ia 
 used very loosely in old writers for every sort of fire-arms 
 used by infantry. Gunsmiths are still called arquebusiers 
 in France. In the German, Spanish, and Gascon infantry 
 of the earlier part of the sixteenth century, the pike and 
 arquebuse-men were intermixed in the same ranks. The 
 barbarous English words hackbut, hackbutteer, which we 
 find in military language in the reign of Elizabeth, are de- 
 rived from arquebuse, arquebusier. The arquebuse is said 
 to occur first in the descriptions of the battle of Morat in 
 1476. Arquebusiers on horseback are mentioned in that 
 of the battle of Fornosa, 1194. 
 
 AKKACa'CHA. The South American name for an um- 
 belliferous plant, the arracacia esculenta of botanists; 
 whose fleshy sweet roots are cultivated in Columbia and 
 Jamaica, in the mountainous parts of those countries, in 
 the same way as parsnips and carrots in Europe. The 
 runts are of large size, and in quality are when cooked 
 between a sweet chesnut and a parsnip. Attempts to in- 
 troduce it into common European cultivation have uni- 
 formly failed. 
 
 ARRa'CK. A spirituous liquor, obtained by distilling 
 the fermented produce of rice ; but other spirituous liquors 
 are called by the same name. Arrack has a very strong 
 and somewhat nauseous flavour and odour, derived from 
 a peculiar volatile oil which it contains, and which corres- 
 ponds with that which gives a sickly and disagreeable taste 
 to our corn spirit. 
 
 ARRAIGNMENT. In Law, the arraignment of a pri- 
 soner on a criminal charge consists in calling him to the 
 bar, and (in treason and felony) making him hold up his 
 hand, or otherwise own himself to be the party charged, 
 reading the indictment to him in English, and demanding 
 of him his plea (guilty or not guilty), and entering it ac- 
 cordinslv. 
 
 ARRE'ST. In Law, in execution of the command of 
 some court of record or officer of justice, may take place 
 either in criminal or civil cases. 1. For treason, felony, or 
 breach of the peace, any person may arrest without war- 
 rant or precept. Arrests by public officers may be made 
 either with or without process. Any constable, or even 
 private person, who has a warrant directed to him from a 
 justice of the peace to that effect, may arrest for felony or 
 misdemeanor : and, if the warrant was given without suffi- 
 cient ground, the justice is responsible. Every warrant 
 should be under the hand and seal of a justice of peace, and 
 specify the day on which it was made out : it seems to be 
 rather discretionary than necessary, although it is usual to 
 specify the cause of arrest in the warrant. 2. Arrest in a 
 civil cause is by process, in execution of the command of 
 some court or officer of justice. On affidavit of a cause of 
 action to the amount of .£20 (such cause of action import- 
 ing a contract or liability, express or implied, and a breach 
 of such contract, and a present debt overdue, unless in 
 some rare cases, in which special orders to hold to bail are 
 given for the causes of action), the plaintiff" obtains a writ of 
 capias, which is the proper process for the arrest of one or 
 more defendants who are at large. When a defendant is 
 already in custody in one of the prisons of the superior 
 courts, a writ of detainer to continue such imprisonment at 
 the suit of the new plaintiff is the proper proceeding. The 
 form and effect of the writ of capias (see Capias), on which 
 arrest on mesne process takes place, are now regulated by 
 the Uniformity of Process Act, 2 W. 4. c. 39. The sum 
 specified in the affidavit, the sum bona fide claimed for 
 debt and costs, and various other particularities, must be 
 indorsed on the capias. A writ of capias may, like a writ 
 of summons, be merely served on the defendant; but 
 when it is intended to arrest, a sheriff's warrant is ob- 
 N
 
 ARRIS. 
 
 tained, on which the defendant is arrested, and a copy of 
 the writ then delivered to him. Arrest must be made 
 within the county, and at any time within four months af- 
 ter the date of the capias, except Sundays, Christmas- 
 day, and Good Friday. If the writ or warrant is so de- 
 fective as to be absolutely void, the party arrested might 
 legally resist ; but if the process were only irregular, such 
 resistance would be an indictable offence. On arrest, the 
 defendant and two sureties usually execute what is termed 
 a bail-bond, conditioned for causing special bail to be put 
 in. (See Bail.) But instead of giving bail, he may put 
 into court the sum indorsed on the writ, together with a lur- 
 ther sum for costs. 
 
 Arrest on a writ of execution (see Capias ad Satisfa- 
 ciendum) is an absolute and perfect execution of the high- 
 est nature against the defendant, under which the debtor 
 is imprisoned until satisfaction is made, unless discharged 
 under the Insolvent Act. 
 
 A'RRIS. (Probably abbreviated or corrupted from a ri- 
 sega, Ital. at the projection, or from the Saxon arisan, to 
 arise.) In architecture, the edge of two surfaces meeting 
 each other, or line of concourse of two planes. 
 
 A'RROW ROOT. The commercial name of the starch 
 obtained by washing the grated root of the masanta arundi- 
 nacea, which it yields to the amount of twenty-five to thir- 
 ty per cent. It is sometimes adulterated with potato starch, 
 and the fraud is not easily detected ; it, however, gives a 
 disagreeable flavour and smell, like that of the raw po- 
 tato, and forms a less firm jelly with hot water than when 
 the arrow root is genuine. 
 
 A.'RSENAL. (It. arsenale, from arx, a citadel.) A ma- 
 gazine of military stores, or public establishment where 
 naval and military engines are manufactured or stored. 
 
 A'RSENIC. (Gr. dpoevii<6s, strong.) A very soft, brittle, 
 and eminently poisonous metal, of a steel grey colour: its 
 sp. gr. 57. It volatilizes, exhaling a strong odour of garlic, 
 before it fuses, at a temperature of 365° F., and is easily 
 inflammable. It combines with oxygen in two propor- 
 tions: and as both compounds are sour, and form salts with 
 bases, they have been termed arsenious and arsenic 
 acids : the former is composed of 38 arsenic and 12 oxy- 
 gen, and the latter of 38 arsenic and 20 oxygen. Arsenious 
 acid is more commonly known under the name of u/iite 
 arsenic, and is the usual state in which this poison occurs in 
 commerce ; it is obtained during the extraction of several 
 of the metals from their ores, and is a white brittle semi- 
 transparent substance, having little taste, but is virulently 
 poisonous. Its sp. gr. is 3*7. It forms a dull white powder, 
 and it is in this form that it is usually sold. When heated 
 in the flame of a candle, it rises in the form of a white 
 poisonous vapour, and exhales, in consequence of its par- 
 tial reduction, a strong garlicky smell : 1000 parts of cold 
 water dissolve about 2% of white arsenic ; but when the 
 water is boiled with the arsenic, 1000 parts take up between 
 77 and 78 ; and this solution, after standing a few days, de- 
 posits rather more than half of the white arsenic, in the 
 form of small crystals, retaining about 30 grains in perma- 
 nent solution. White arsenic dissolves in the alkalies, and 
 combines with the metallic oxides, forming a class of salts 
 called arsenites : they are all poisonous. Of these the ar- 
 senate of potash is used in medicine, under the name of 
 Fowler's mineral solution : it is employed in very small 
 doses in the cure of agues, and is an effective remedy, but 
 requires much care in its administration. 
 
 When white arsenic is taken as a poison, that is, in large 
 doses, it produces violent spasmodic pains of the stomach 
 and bowels, attended by a sense of heat, and constriction 
 in the mouth and throat, an increased flow of saliva, tight- 
 ness about the head, itching of the face and neck, and nau- 
 sea. These symptoms are succeeded by vomiting and 
 purging and excruciating pains ; the pulse, at first full, hard, 
 and frequent, sinks andi becomes irregularly feeble, and 
 clamminess of the skin, cold sweats, purple spots, and 
 convulsions, precede death ; or if the patient escape this 
 catastrophe, it often happens that hectic fever, paralysis, 
 and mental and bodily debility, attend him for the remain- 
 der of his days. It is often said that the bodies of persons 
 poisoned by arsenic are very prone to putrefaction; but 
 this does not appear to be always the case. After death 
 the stomach and bowels are usually found inflamed, but 
 often only slightly so ; and it appears from Sir B. Brodie's 
 observations, that this poison kills by some peculiar action 
 upon the heart and nervous system. The treatment of 
 persons thus poisoned consists in promoting the vomiting 
 by an emetic, composed of a solution of 20 grains of sul- 
 phate of zinc in two ounces of water, aided by copious 
 draughts of warm barley-water or gruel ; but the most ef- 
 fective means of getting rid of the arsenic, is by the use of 
 the stomach-pump, which, when immediately resorted to, 
 has often saved the patient The after-treatment requires 
 much circumspection. 
 
 The only ready means of ascertaining the presence of 
 white arsenic is by heating the suspected substance upon a 
 red-hot coal, or in the flame of a candle or spirit lamp, 
 90 
 
 ARTESIAN FOUNTAINS 
 
 when it will exhale the peculiar arsenical odour resembling 
 that of garlic ; but the treatment of persons poisoned by arse- 
 nic, and its detection in doubtful cases, must be left to the 
 medical man and the chemist. It is impossible too strongly 
 to represent the evil which results from the unfettered sale 
 of arsenic, and from the unwarrantable use of it as a poison 
 for rats, and as a veterinary remedy, for it is thus that it 
 finds its way into culinary vessels, gets accidentally mixed 
 with articles of food, and that bottles which have contained 
 it are used for beer, wine, vinegar, or medicine: its sale 
 should be rigidly prohibited. 
 
 Arsenic acid is more soluble and sour, but equally poi- 
 sonous with the arsenious acid. Its salts are called arse- 
 niates, and the arseniate of potash obtained by deflagrating 
 a mixture of white arsenic and nitrate of potash is occa- 
 sionally used in medicine : it is the active ingredient in 
 the tasteless ague drop. 
 
 A'RSIS and THESIS. (Gr. apcts, lifting up, 8£ois, lay- 
 ing down.) In Music, terms used in composition, as when 
 a point is inverted or turned, it is said to move per arsin et 
 thesin, that is, when it rises in one point and falls in another ; 
 properly speaking, it is the rise and fall of the hand in beat- 
 ing time. 
 
 A'RSON. (Lat. ardeo, I burn.) At Common Law, sig- 
 nifies the maliciously and voluntarily burning the house of 
 another. This offence is now defined and regulated in its 
 various degrees by the stat. 7 & 8 G. 4. c. 30. The subjects 
 of arson are defined in two sections of this statute : the 
 first, relating to buildings of every description, the latter 
 to stacks of vegetable productions, (both these classes of 
 offences being capitally punishable,) and to crops of corn, 
 &c. standing or cut down, plantations, heath, &c, the firing 
 of which is punishable with transportation for seven years. 
 
 ART. (Lat. ars.) The application of knowledge or pow- 
 er to effect a desired purpose. The ancients divided the 
 arts into " artes ingenues, bona?," or " liberales," and 
 " artes serviles." tinder the latter were comprehended 
 the mechanical arts, because these were practised only 
 by slaves. The former were summed up in the Latin 
 verse, 
 
 " Lingua, Tropus, Ratio, Numerus, Tonus, Angulus, Astra ;" 
 and the latter in the pentameter, 
 
 " Rus, Nemus, Arma, Faber, Vulnera, I, run, Rales." 
 
 In modern times arts are divided into fine and useful, 
 comprising under the former those which have not utility 
 for their direct or immediate object ; such as music, poetry, 
 sculpture, &c. (For the history and description of the fine 
 and useful arts, see the respective articles.) 
 
 ARTEMl'SIA. (Artemis, one of the names of the goddess 
 Dimia.) A composite genus consisting of bitter or stimu- 
 lating plants, of which wormwood, southernwood, and tar- 
 ragon form a part. 
 
 ARTERIO'TOMY. (Gr. dprripia, an artery, and t£uvo>, 
 J cut.) The opening of an artery : this operation is occa- 
 sionally performed upon the temporal artery, with a view 
 of relieving inflammatory symptoms about the head. 
 
 A'RTERY. (>S'pe Aorta.) These vessels are usually 
 found empty in the dead body, and were supposed by the 
 old anatomists to be air tubes ; they are ramifications of 
 the aorta, and convey the florid blood with a pulsating mo- 
 tion to the different organs and parts of the body. 
 
 ARTE'SIAN FOUNTAINS, or ARTESIAN WELLS. 
 (Fr. Puits Artesiens.) Vertical perforations of the exterior 
 crust of the earth, of small diameter, and frequently of 
 great depth, through which subterraneous water aiises to 
 the surface, often forming abundant and elevated jets. 
 The name Artesian is derived from Artois, a province of 
 France, where especial attention has been given to this 
 means of obtaining water ; but it appears, from sufficient 
 historical evidence, that wells of this kind were perfectly 
 well known to the ancients. Niebuhr cites a passage from 
 Olympiadorus, who flourished at Alexandria about the 
 middle of the sixth century, in which it is stated that when 
 wells are dug in the Oasis to the depth of two hundred, 
 three hundred, or sometimes five hundred yards, rivers of 
 water gush out from their orifices of which the agricultur- 
 ists take advantage to irrigate their fields. The oldest 
 Artesian well known to exist in France is in the ancient 
 convent of the Chartreux, at Lillers in Artois. It is said to 
 have been made in 1126. Others exist at Stuttgard, of 
 great antiquity, though their dates cannot be fixed with 
 precision. The inhabitants of the great desert of Sahara 
 appear also to have been long acquainted with this mode 
 of obtaining water, and the Chinese are said (but the truth 
 of the statement is questionable) to have practised it for 
 thousands of years. 
 
 Various conjectures have been made as to the source of 
 the water which comes from the Artesian wells. It was 
 long believed that the water of the sea must necessarily 
 penetrate by way of infiltration into the interior of the con- 
 tinents, and at "length form large bodies of subterraneous 
 waters, which, excepting for capillary influences, would 
 not rise above the general level of the ocean. Another
 
 ARTESIAN FOUNTAINS. 
 
 opinion, maintained by Aristotle, Seneca, Cardan, and even 
 Descartes, was, that the subterraneous water, from which 
 the sources of rivers and springs are supplied, is the pro- 
 duct of the condensation ot" aqueous vapours ascending 
 from the interior parts of the earth in consequence of the 
 central heat. But these hypotheses are founded on mere 
 conjecture, unsupported by the slightest evidence, and con- 
 sequently merit no attention. The simplest and most na- 
 tural explanation is, that the water of ordinary wells, of 
 Artesian fountains and rivers, is supplied by the rain which 
 falls on the surface at a higher elevation, and which pene- 
 trates through the pores and fissures of the ground till it 
 meets with some impermeable stratum, or is collected in 
 subterranean reservoirs. It has been objected that springs 
 are sometimes situated on or near the summits of moun- 
 tains, which could not be supplied in this way ; but on an 
 attentive examination of all the circumstances, that is to 
 say, on measuring accurately the extent of surface at a 
 greater elevation than the spring, and comparing it with the 
 quantity of rain that falls annually in the same climate, it 
 has hern found, in every instance, that the aqueous depo- 
 sition from the atmosphere greatly exceeds the supply 
 from the spring. It is computed that not more than a 
 third part of the rain which tails in the valley of the Seine 
 is conveyed to the sea by the river ; the remaining two- 
 thirds supi>ort vegetation, supply fountains and springs, or 
 are returned to the atmosphere I on. The im- 
 
 mense bodies of water which some continental rivers roll 
 towards the ocean are but a small part of the rain which 
 falls in the surrounding countries. 
 
 Assuming, then, thai the subterraneous water is supplied 
 from atmospherical deposition, it remains to be exp 
 how it arrives at the situation it occupii riorof 
 
 the earth, and by what forces it is raised from great depths 
 to the surface. 
 
 All persons who have paid the slightest attention to g( sol- 
 ogy are aware that in sh ttified countries (and it is ii 
 only that Artesian wells exist) different beds of rocks 
 are superposed on one another, and ranged in a certain 
 constant order. The strata sometimes follow a horizontal 
 direction for a considerable extent of country; at other 
 places they are inclined, and even placed perpendicularly 
 
 vi the horizon, having the appearance of having i a bent 
 
 and burst through by the action of a powerful force from 
 beneath. In those cases the edges ot the sti 
 exposed, especially on the summits and Hanks of hi 
 the action of the atmosphere. Between the 
 quently found beds of permeable sand, through wine h 
 water, coining in contact with them, must necessarily 
 pass, first, through the inclined part by virtue of its specific 
 gravity, and then in the horizontal branches, by virtue of 
 thi pressure of the water remaining in the elevated portions 
 of the strata. In this manner the water insinuates itself 
 between the different strata; and hen,,' we maj i 
 that In localities where the tertiary stratification prevails. 
 as many distinct sources of subterraneous water w 
 met with in penetrating perpendicularly through the sur- 
 face, as there are distinct layers of a sandy or grai elly na- 
 ture reposing on impermeable strata. This conseqi 
 of the theory is perfectly confirmed by experience. M. 
 Arago mentions, that in digging for coal I rS \ cholas 
 d'Aliermont, a short distance from Dieppe, seven distinct 
 and copious sources of water were found, the respective 
 depths of which wen-: 1st, between 90 and 100 feel 
 328 feet ; 3d, from 570 to 590 feel : 4th, from 690 to 710 feet; 
 5th, 820 feet j 6th, 940 feet; 7th. 1090 feet; and the occa- 
 sional force of each source was very great Similar oc- 
 currences are frequent in the neighbourhood of London, 
 and are familiar to all miners. But it isnotcno 
 structure of the country is such that water can percolate 
 between different strata; the phenomena of Artesian foun- 
 tains could not be explained without supposing it to be col- 
 lected in large quantities, ami forming subterraneous reser- 
 voirs of immense extent. That such reservoirs exist, no 
 doubt can be entertained. The celebrated fountain of 
 Vaucluse sends forth at all times a stream of water suf- 
 ficient to form a considerable river. Even in the driest 
 seasons, when the water is least plentiful, it produces 4780 
 cubic feet per minute. After great rains, its product is 
 thrice as great. The mean quantity emitted is 9360 cubic 
 feet per minute, or about 5030 millions of cubic feet in a 
 year. Many other examples of the same kind might be 
 cited ; showing that water must not only be collected in 
 subterraneous cavities in immense quantities, but that it 
 also passes freely from one place to another. In fact, the 
 disposition of the rocks in strata permits the water to be 
 collected under the surface, and to be conveyed without 
 waste, as if in close pipes. 
 
 According to the view which has now been taken of 
 the manner in which subterraneous water is collected, its 
 elevation to the surface through a natural fissure or arti- 
 ficial perforation is a simple result of hydrostatic pressure. 
 Generally speaking, it is only on the acclivities of hills, or 
 in elevated places, that the edges of the strata are exposed, 
 91 
 
 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 
 
 and where, consequently, the rain water can be received 
 under beds of impermeable materials. Conceive two strata 
 of clay or rocks, as a and 6, having a bed of sand or other 
 
 matter permeable to water interposed, and suppose that d 
 is the place where the edges of the strata crop out, or where 
 a fissure allows a free entrance of the water to the per- 
 mease stratum. The water at first descends through the 
 effect of gravity ; it then passes along towards b in conse- 
 quence of the pressure exercised by the superior part of 
 the column near d. Now suppose a perforation to be made 
 at e, and continued till it reaches through the stralum a, 
 the water will naturally continue to rise till it gains the 
 same altitude as d, or at least till it reaches the surface if 
 l>e|,,w that altitude. The water in fact between the two 
 impermeable strata is in the same circumstances as in an 
 artificial pipe ; and if the surface of the ground at e is con- 
 siderably lower than d. the ascensional force may be suf- 
 ti, m ui to cau -• a considerable jet. 
 
 Some Artesian fountains, for example that at Lillers in 
 Artois, are situated in the middle of immense plains, where 
 not the most insignificant hill is to be seen on any side. In 
 such cases it may he inquired where we are to look for 
 those hydrostatic columns whose pressure causes the rise 
 of the subterraneous water to the level of the lowest points ') 
 The answer is obvious : we must suppose them placed be- 
 yond the limits of view; at the distance of 50, 100, or 200 
 or even at a greater distance. The necessity of sup- 
 the existence of a subterraneous liquid column of 
 
 two or three hundred miles of extent cannot appear a 
 BeriOUS objection, when it is considered that the same geo- 
 logical structure has been found to prevail sometimes over 
 i much greater extent of country. An interesting 
 paper on this subject is given by Arago, in the " Annuaire 
 du Bureau ,l, - Longitudes," for 1835. 
 
 ARTHRITIC. (Gr. apOpirif, the gout, or from upOpov, 
 G ntv pains, chiefly affecting the joints. 
 
 IlRTHRO'DIC. (Gr. dpOpaois, articulation.) A con- 
 Ol bones In W inch the head of one is received into 
 a very superficial cavity in another, so as to admit of mo- 
 tion in almost all directions; as in the joint between the 
 B 
 
 ARTIIIUt'DIK.K. (Gr. upOpov, a joint.) Anamegiven 
 to those algte which, like conferva and oscillatorias, have 
 an artii ure. 
 
 sJRTHRODI NIC. (Gr. UpOpov, a joint, and olvvri.pain.) 
 tic and other painful affections of the joints. 
 
 A'RTH'IIOKK. (Kharciof, the Arabic name of the plant.) 
 A thistle-like plant, called by botanists cynara scolymus, a 
 native of the south of Europe, and now cultivated for its 
 i," thai is. for the sake of the fleshy sweet recep- 
 tacle of its flowers ; the harsh hairy substance that is 
 pulled away consists both of the hairy paleae of the recep- 
 tacle, and of the feathery pappus of the ovaries. The dried 
 artichokes, called by the French "culs d'artichaut," are 
 the receptacles deprived of the choke and the spiny hard 
 hairs of the involucre, blanched by immersion in boiling 
 water and dried in the sun. Jerusalem artichokes are 
 quite different ; they are the tubers of helianthus tubero- 
 sus, and derive their name, not from the Holy City, but 
 irruption of the Italian girasole, a sunflower. 
 
 A'RTK'LE. A part of speech prefixed to substantives 
 in order to render their signification more or less definite. 
 (See Grammar.) 
 
 A'RTICLES OF FAITH are the particular points of doc- 
 trine which together make up the sum of the Christian be- 
 lief. The various churches of Christendom, not being 
 agreed upon all these points, have for the most part set 
 forth their own expositions of the whole ; and it is to these 
 creeds, symbols, or confessions, that the term article is 
 most commonly applied. The articles of the English 
 church are 39 in number: the substance of which was first 
 promulgated in 42 articles by Edward VI., in 1553. Under 
 Henry VIII. a committee had been appointed for the for- 
 mation of ecclesiastical laws, which was renewed under 
 his successor ; and in 1551, according to Style, "the arch- 
 bishop (Cranmer) was directed to draw up a book of arti- 
 cles for preserving and maintaining peace and unity of 
 doctrine in the church, that, being finished, they might be 
 set forth by public authority." From this and the details 
 that follow, it seems that Cranmer composed the articles 
 in their original form, with the assistance of Ridley and 
 others. A'great similarity in thought and expression may 
 be traced between many of the articles and the language
 
 ARTICLES OF WAR. 
 
 of the Augsburg Confession : the Xlth Article (on justifica- 
 tion) corresponds with what Cranmer had previously writ- 
 ten on the subject in private memoranda. There has been 
 considerable question raised as to the authorities from 
 which the XVIIth Article (on predestination) is derived ; 
 for while some persons have interpreted expressions in it 
 according to the Calvinistic system, others have denied 
 the justice of such interpretation, and have undertaken to 
 show that Cranmer must have referred in the composition 
 of the article to the writings and sentiments of Luther and 
 Melancthon. 
 
 On the accession of Elizabeth these artirleswere remod- 
 elled by archbishop Parker, who omitted four of them, in- 
 troducing four new ones, and altering seventeen. These 
 were again revised by convocation in 1563, some alterations 
 made, and the number reduced to thirty-eight. 
 
 The XXXIXth was restored in a final review by Parker 
 in 1.371, and then imposed on the clergy for subscription. 
 It is remarkable that in the manuscripts and earliest edi- 
 tions there is one important variation in the admission or 
 rejection of the first clause of the XXth Article, the author- 
 ity of which may be considered as virtually recognising 
 and establishing it. 
 
 ARTICLES OF WAR, the code of military law embo- 
 died in the Mutiny Act, which is passed each year. 
 
 ARTI'CULATED. (Lat. articulus, a joint.) Literally 
 connected by an articulation or moveable joint ; but in 
 plants applied to cases where parts are so slightly con- 
 nected that they finally fall asunder. Thus a leaf is said to 
 be articulated with its stalk when the two finally fall asun- 
 der. A flower-stalk is articulated in the middle when it is 
 contracted, and finally separates there into two parts. 
 This separation is called disarticulating. It is a curious 
 fact that the articulation of plants uniformly takes effect 
 across the longitudinal or woody tissue, and never parallel 
 with it ; as in the petiole, in a stem at its nodes, in the 
 middle of legumes and other kinds of seed vessels. 
 
 ARTI'CULATES, ARTICULA'TA. A term applied by 
 Cuvier to a primary division of the animal kingdom, cha- 
 racterised by an external skeleton in the form of a series 
 of rings articulated together and surrounding the body ; by 
 an internal gangliated nervous system ; the ganglinus being 
 arranged symmetrically along the middle line of the body 
 (See Homogangliata), and by having distinct respiratory 
 organs. 
 
 ARTICUL A'TION. The connection of the bones of the 
 skeleton by joints. 
 
 Articulation. In Painting and Sculpture, the movea- 
 ble connection of the bones, in the representation of which 
 by the artist the greatest skill and knowledge of anatomy 
 is required. 
 
 ARTI'CULATE, or HOMOOA'NGLIATE. Division of 
 the animal kingdom. See those words. 
 
 ARTIFICER. (Lat. ars, art, and facio, I rnalie.) Lit. 
 one who makes according to art. Among the Romans, ar- 
 tificers had peculiar privileges. They possessed their own 
 temples, and enjoyed an exemption from personal service. 
 An artificer is one" who requires intellectual refinement in 
 the exercise of his profession, in contradistinction to arti- 
 san, who may practise either the fine or useful arts, but 
 whose knowledge is limited to the general rules of his 
 trade. 
 
 ARTI'LLERY. (Fr. artiller, to fortify.) In a general 
 sense, denotes all kinds of missiles used in warfare, with 
 the machines by which they are propelled. Since the in- 
 vention of gunpowder, however, the term has been chiefly 
 confined to large ordnance, namely, cannon, howitzers, 
 mortars, rockets, <fcc, with their carriages, ammunition, 
 and apparatus of all kinds, including also the troops espe- 
 cially appointed for their management. 
 
 The principal military engines of the Romans, which can 
 be properly classed under the term artillery, were the 
 bahsta and catapulta; the former for throwing stones, the 
 latter for propelling darts and arrows. The invention of 
 the balista is ascribed by Pliny to the Phoenicians ; but 
 other authors, among whom are Diodorus and Plutarch, 
 say that both instruments were invented in Sicily. iElian 
 ascribes them to Dionysius the elder. They were very 
 extensively employed in the latter periods of the republic, 
 and under the empire. In the middle ages, engines for 
 assaulting and defending fortified towns or castles were 
 greatly multiplied. Among these inventions are enume- 
 rated the espringal, trebuchet, mangona, mangonel, brieol- 
 la, petrary, metafunda, berfrey, war- wolf, <fcc. It is stated 
 in the chronicle of Peter Langtoft, that Richard I. in his 
 wars against the Saracens, had mills in his barges and gal- 
 leys which were turned by the wind, and threw fire and 
 stones upon the enemy. If the accounts given of the ef- 
 fects of some of these machines may be credited, they 
 must have been of great power, and well adapted to the 
 purpose of battering down walls and fortifications. It is 
 related by Hemingford, that the engines used by Edward I. 
 at the siege of the castle of Stirling, threw stones of 300 
 pounds weight. 
 92 
 
 ARTS. 
 
 Though the explosive force of gunpowder was known to 
 Roger Bacon in the twelfth century, it was at a considera- 
 bly later period that fire-arms began to supersede the an- 
 cient artillery. Barbour, in his "Metrical Life of Robert 
 Bruce," says that cannon were used by Edward HI. in his 
 first campaign against the Scots, a. d. 1327. Du Cange 
 says they were employed by the French at the siege of 
 Puy Guillaume in 133S ; but they must have been at that 
 time very uncommon, for Rapin relates that the four can- 
 non employed by Edward III. at the battle of Cressy, in 
 1346, contributed as much by the surprise they occasioned 
 to the French troops as by their execution, to the suc- 
 cess of the day. A few years later they seem to have 
 been no longer rare. The most ancient cannon were 
 formed of bars or pieces of iron, soldered to each other 
 lengthwise, and bound together by iron hoops ; occasion- 
 ally lead, or even leather, protected in the same manner, 
 appears to have been employed ; and the cannon balls were 
 made of stone. About the middle of the fifteenth century, 
 cannon began to be cast ; and it was about the end of the 
 same century that font metal, or bronze, was first used for 
 this purpose. In 1477, when Louis XI. was about to attack 
 the cities of Flanders and Picardy, he ordered bombards 
 or cannon of prodigious length and weight to be cast at 
 Paris, Tours, Orleans and Amiens. He also ordered iron 
 bullets to be cast at the foundries of Creil, though stone 
 bullets were still in use. Brass cannon appear to have 
 been first cast in England by John Owen, in 1535. A foun- 
 dciy was also established about the same time in Edin- 
 burgh, by Robert Borthwick, an artist in the service of James 
 IV. of Scotland. Mortars were made in England under the 
 n ign of Henry VIII. and cast iron cannon under that of 
 Edward VI. About the beginning of the 15th century, the 
 custom of applying to cannon the name of birds or beasts, 
 from some fanciful analogies respecting their cruelty or 
 swiftness, began to prevail ; thence the names falconet, 
 falcon, sacker, culverin, basilisk, dragon, syren, &c. At 
 present cannon take their names simply from the weight 
 of the ball they carry. Thus a piece which discharges a 
 cast-iron ball of 24 pounds, is called a 24-pounder ; one 
 that carries a ball of 12 pounds, is called a 12-pounder ; and 
 so on. The size of the gun is determined by the service 
 to which it is appropriated ; and frequently by the means 
 of transport, or facility of manoeuvring. Ship guns and 
 garrison guns, not requiring to be moved from place to 
 place, admit of large sizes, and are frequently made to 
 carry balls of 32. 36, or even 42 pounds. The largest can- 
 non known to exist is a brass one at Beejapoor, which was 
 cast in commemoration of the capture of that place, by 
 Alum Geer in 1685. Its extreme length is 14 feet 1 inch, 
 the diameter of its bore 2 feet 4 inches. An iron shot of 
 the proper size to fill this bore would weigh 1600 pounds. 
 
 Mortars are probably as ancient as cannon, and were 
 employed to throw red-hot iron and stones long before the 
 invention of shells. The first account of shells used for 
 military purposes is in 1435, when Naples was besieged by 
 Charles VIB. The howitzer is a species of ordnance of a 
 medium length between the cannon and the mortar, and is 
 used for discharging either shells or large balls at point- 
 blanc, or at a small elevation. It is said to have been in- 
 vented by Belidor, and was used at the siege of Ath in 
 1697. It is chiefly made of brass. The carronade, a very, 
 short howitzer, was first cast at the Carron Iron Works; 
 from which it takes its name. It began to be employed 
 about the year 1779. Iron-rockets, the invention of Sir 
 William Congreve, were first used at the bombardment of 
 Copenhagen. (See Wilkinson's Engines of War ; Greener 
 on Gunnery ; Greener on the Gun, &c.) 
 
 ARTILLERY PARK. The place in a camp, or the rear 
 of an army, where the artillery is placed. The artillery is 
 drawn up in lines, one of which is formed by the guns, 
 the others by the ammunition waggons, pontoons, &c. ; 
 and the whole is surrounded by a rope, which forms the park. 
 
 ARTILLERY TRAIN. A number of pieces of ordnance 
 mounted on carriages, and ready for service. 
 
 ARTISAN. See Artificer. 
 
 ARTOCA'RPE^. (Gr. apros, bread, Kaptrdg, fruit; 
 breadfruit tree.) A considerable division among urti- 
 caceous plants, having the fruit composed of flowers com- 
 bined in fleshy heads, and the stem flowing with an acrid 
 milk. The bread-fruit tree of the South Seas, and the jack- 
 fruit, are among the most conspicuous species. With them 
 are associated the upas tree, and the fig, in different genera. 
 The bread-fruit tree itself (artocarpus incisa) is a small 
 tree with broad lobed leaves and large globular heads of 
 fruit ; the jack (artocarpus integrifolia) has oblong undivided 
 leaves, and a large, coarser, and oblong fruit. In all the 
 species of artocarpeae the flowers are unisexual. 
 
 ARTS, FINE. (Lat. artes.) Works imagined and exe- 
 cuted by the mind and ingenuity of man. They include 
 painting, architecture, sculpture, poetry, music, rhetoric, 
 and, according to some, dancing. Their history, as res- 
 pects the three first, will be found under several heads 
 in this work, and a concise account of the philosophy of
 
 ARUNDINACEOUS. 
 
 them under the article JEathetics. They are distinct from 
 the arts simply so called, commonly called the useful arts 
 from tlieir general utility to mankind, because their end is 
 pleasure. The fine arts are the offspring of genius, their 
 nature, and their master taste. Characterised by 
 simplicity, they should never wander into luxury nor de- 
 generate into extravagance. 
 
 ARUNDINA'CEOUS. (Lat. arundo, aree.d.) Anything 
 having the general appearance of a reed. The term is con- 
 fin. -d to glumaceous plants. 
 
 ARU'SPICES. Roman soothsayers, who foretold future 
 events from the inspection of the entrails of the victims 
 offered at the altars of the g 
 
 Their college was not held in the same respect as that 
 of the augurs, and did nol consist, like the latter, of men 
 of high distinction : bo much bo, that Cicero mentions the 
 admission of one of their order to the senate, as an indig- 
 nity to that hody. Like that of the augurs, their art was 
 from Etruria. 
 
 ARVI'COLA. (Lat nrvum, a field; colere, to inhabit.) 
 A genus .if rodent, or gnawing mammals, i if the numerous 
 family of the rat and listinguished by the 
 
 prismatic form and fangless structure of the molar teeth. 
 and of which the field campagnol (An (is) and 
 
 the bank campagnol I iparia) are indigenous spe- 
 
 cies; these are commonly confounded with oil 
 under the name of field mice. 
 
 AS. A Roman weight marly answering to one pound, 
 being accurately equal to 10 oz. 18 dwt. 13-J grs. troy 
 It was divided into 12 oum 
 
 li was also the name of a brass coin, which originally 
 weighed one pound : bul was subsequently reduced by va- 
 rious degrees al different periods to half an ounce, in con- 
 sequence of the gradual Increase of the value of a 
 compared with thai of pro tries, as 
 
 civili ced. Its value was a little mo 
 
 farthings of English money. 
 
 A'SAPHUa (Gi daaiptis, obscure.) A name devised to 
 express the obscure nature of the genus trilobites, fossil 
 crustaceans, t<> which it is attached | and which Is charac- 
 terised by a tail-like appendage terminating the posterior 
 extremity of the body, sometimes of a semicircular form, 
 som< timi - in the shape of a short triangle, and by tuber- 
 culate eyes, which have a granular Burface arising from the 
 number of compartments (al leas) 400) on the surface of 
 the cornea, containing each helical lens. 
 
 AS,\k\i:\ i irum, a kind of plant, and I 
 
 berry.) A small, round, hard, Bti tnless, hardy European 
 herbaceous plant, with chocolate-coloured three-lobed 
 flowers, belonging to the natural order Aristolochi 
 It is reputed to be i h call it caba- 
 
 ret, the public-house plant, as H is said, because it was 
 formerly used as an emetic to relieve the atom 
 pie who had been drinking !•>" lend 
 
 A'SARIN. A crysiallisni.li' substance, somewhat re- 
 sembling camphor, extracted from the roots of the Asarum 
 rm opseum. 
 
 VSBE'STUS. (Gr itfffsoros,unamaumable.) Afibrous 
 soft mineral, composed ol easily separable filaments of a 
 silky In she. li consists essentiallj of silica, magnesia, and 
 lime. It is sometimes woven into cloth, which is incom- 
 bustible, and may therefore be purified by fire : hence the 
 term amianthus, from ditiavi ilea. This cloth was 
 
 used in antiquity to wrap th i when about 
 
 to be burned, m prevent their ashes being mixed with those 
 ofthe funeral pile. 
 
 \>( A'l. Wilis. A Fabrician genus ..f insects sepa- 
 rated from ile- ant lions : Lit tnd cha- 
 racterised by having nearly equal palpi ; maxilla ciliate ; 
 labium horny, rounded, and entire. 
 
 s.SCA'RIDES (Gr. d<r<capic, a term applied by Hippo- 
 crates i" . ertain intestinal worms.) In modern / lology re- 
 stricted to a genus of round worms, or cselelminthans, with 
 a trilobate or trivalvular head, tnd a double spiculumfor 
 
 the intromittent organ. Two s| ies of this genus infest 
 
 the human body; one large, found in the small intestines, 
 called Ascaris lumbricoides : the other of v iry small size, 
 found in the rectum, ■ ailed Ascaris vermicularis. 
 
 ASI'l'.'MHM; (l.at asceiido, /. '>up.) Is said of 
 
 any part which, being horizontal at its base, gradually 
 curves upwards, as is the case in many stems. Ii a 
 to ovules, it means that they are attached to the placenta 
 by a point intermediate between the lower end and the 
 middle. 
 
 ASCENDING NODE. In Astronomy, is that point of a 
 planet's orbit in which it crosses the ecliptic, proceeding 
 northward (See Node.) 
 
 ASCENDING SIGNS. The signs are said to be ascend- 
 ing when they are eastward from the meridian, and conse- 
 quently approaching the meridian through the effect ofthe 
 diurnal rotation. 
 
 ASCE'NSION. In Astronomy, is either right or ob- 
 lique : the Right Ascension of a star denotes the arc of 
 93 
 
 ASCIDIUM. 
 
 the equator intercepted between the first point of Aries and 
 that point of the equator which comes to the meridian at 
 the same instant with the star. The most convenient way 
 of ccfining the place of a star is to refer it to the equator, 
 and to a certain fixed point in the equator from which the 
 degrees are begun to be reckoned. For this purpose 
 astronomers choose the point of the equator at which the 
 sun's path crosses it when he ascends into the northern 
 hemisphere, which is the first point of Aries, or the vernal 
 equinox, and reckon the. degrees along the equator east- 
 ward, all round the circle. Now, to determine the plane 
 of any star, a great circle is conceived to pass through it, 
 intersecting the equator at right angles. The distance of 
 the star from the equator, measured on the circle, is called 
 iis declination ; and the distance ofthe pointof intersection 
 of the equator and the circle from the vernal equinox, is 
 called the riidit ascension ofthe star. The right ascension 
 and declination are thus the two co-ordinates by means of 
 which the plane of any star is determined. The right as- 
 cension is reckoned in time, because it is found by ob- 
 serving the time on the sidereal clock which elapses be- 
 tween the passage ofthe first point of Aries and that ofthe 
 star over the meridian. When the first point of Aries 
 passes the meridian the astronomical day begins ; astrono- 
 mers then reckon ii hours min. sec. Suppose a star to 
 •n the meridian 5 hours 35 min. 26 sec. after this : 
 then "> hours 35 min. 'Jo sec. is the star's risrht ascension in 
 time, and is equivalent to an arc of the equator of 83° 51' 
 30", because an hour in time corresponds to 15° in space, 
 and a minute or second in time to 15 minutes or seconds in 
 spue. If the clock, therefore, is regulated to keep time 
 with the heavens, the time Indicated by the clock at which 
 any starpasses the meridian is the right ascension of the 
 star in I 
 
 Tin ( in iq,ub Ascension of a staris the arc ofthe equa- 
 tor intercepted between tin- vernal equinox anil that point 
 ..(' the equator which comes to the horizon at the same 
 time with the star. This varies with the latitude ofthe 
 place of observation At the equator it coincides with the 
 righl ascension This term is now seldom used in astro- 
 nomy. 
 
 ONAL Piffeiience is the differenci t..t ween the 
 
 the tighl ascension. This term is chjeflj used 
 
 in respect Of the sun, because when the arc which it de. 
 
 not. - is turned into time it shows tin- time before or after 
 si\ o'clock of sunrise. The sit i the ascensions] differ- 
 ence is equal to the tangent of the latitude multiplied into 
 star's declination; hence, when the 
 declination "I a -fir i- north, its oblique ascension is found 
 by subtracting onal difference from the right as- 
 cension, and when the declination is south, by adding the 
 iional difference to the right ascension. 
 On account of the greatei precision with which observa- 
 tions are made with fixed meridional instruments, all astro- 
 nomical elements are now computed from observations of 
 right ascension and declination ; but iti ancient times the 
 
 positions of the c.les! la I bodies Were Chiefly referred to the 
 horizon, and hence the oblique ascensions and uscertsioncd 
 iti nd constantly into the solutions of astro- 
 I problems. 
 
 Ascension. The reception of our Saviour into glory, 
 after his last appearance on earth : celebrated in theChris- 
 turch, from time immemorial, on the last Thursday 
 but one before Whit-Sunday. Rogation week, that in 
 which the ascension is celebrated, is so termed from the 
 1 1 ions or litanies) which were used in the per- 
 ambulation of the bounds of the parish, which, according 
 to ancient usage, took place in this week. 
 
 ASCE'TICS. (Gr. atnrcoi, I exercise.) Persons who, in 
 the e uly ag.s of Christianity, devoted themselves to a soli- 
 tary and contemplative life, following the system ofthe Es- 
 senes and TherepeutX among the Jews, and practising 
 usterities, with a view to mortify the flesh and ab- 
 stract the mind from worldly objects. They had their origin 
 in Egypt and Syria, and appear to have suggested the first 
 i.l.a ofmonachism. 
 
 A'SCI. (Gr. d<r/co?. a bottle.) Little membranous bags 
 or bladders, in which the seed like reproductive particles 
 or spores of lichens, fungi, <Scc. are enclosed. 
 
 A'SCI ANS. oi' ASCII. (Gr. a. without, and OKia.shadmr.) 
 A term found in the older works on geography, and used to 
 denote those inhabitants of the globe who at certain times 
 of the year have no shadow. This can only happen with 
 t to the inhabitants of the torrid zone, wdio, twice a 
 year, have the sun in the zenith. 
 
 ASCI'DIAN, ASCIDIA. (Gr. dcricd;, a bottle, or pouch.) 
 A genus of heterobranchiate acephalous molluscs, or tuni- 
 caries, characterised by a body having the form and com- 
 monly the consistence of a tousrh leather pouch, attached 
 to some foreign substance, and with two openings, one 
 branchial, and the other anal, from which streams of 
 wai.r are forcibly ejected when the animal is touched or 
 irritated. 
 
 AS'CIDFJM. (Gr. doicds, a bottle.) A hollow pitcher-
 
 ASCITES. 
 
 shaped body found upon the stems of certain plants, as ne- 
 penthes, sarracennia, <fcc. It usually contains water, and is 
 sometimes clothed with reflexed hairs, which prevent the 
 escape of insects which fall into it; its use is unknown. 
 In nepenthes, sarracennia. cephalotus, and dischidia, it is 
 in reality a leaf rolled up till its edges touch, when they 
 grow together ; in marcgraavia, it is a bract in the same 
 
 ASCITES. (Gr. aoKos.) Dropsy of the belly. 
 
 ASCLEPIADA'CE^. (Asclepias, one of the genera.) 
 Monopetalous exogenous plants, with bifollicular fruit, the 
 stamens adhering to the stigma, which is large and penta- 
 gonal, and an acrid milk in their stems. They are exceed- 
 ingly different in appearance, some being trees with showy 
 flowers, others obscure twiners with very inconspicuous 
 herbaceous corollas, others herbaceous plants with clusters 
 of gaily coloured flowers, and others leafless decumbent 
 shrubs with angular stems and brown putrescent flowers. 
 The latter are stapelias. Hoya, with its delicate waxen 
 flowers running with honey, is a genus of the order; and 
 another is the curious climbing water carrier called dischi- 
 dia, which mounts to the tops of lofty trees with its fleshy 
 bags filled with a constant supply of water. Some of the 
 species are valuable for the toughness of the fibre extract- 
 ed from their stems. The milky secretion of these plants 
 contains caoutchouc, or Indian rubber ; it is of an emetic 
 nature, and in some cases it is dangerous. Asclepias tube- 
 rosa, the butterfly weed of North America, is the hand- 
 somest of the hardy species. This order only exists in 
 temperate climates, and is most copious in the tropics. 
 
 ASH. (Celt, ac, a point ; its wood being used for pikes.) 
 The fraxinus of botanists, consists of several species of 
 hardy trees, usually valuable for their timber. The tough 
 ash wood of carpenters is yielded by Fraxinus excelsior, 
 and the sweet substance called manna by Raxinus ornus. 
 They mostly bear flowers without petals ; but the latter 
 species having those organs is called, in distinction, the 
 flowering ash. 
 
 A'SHLAR. (Ital. asciare, to chip.) In Architecture, 
 common freestones, as they are brought rough and chip- 
 ped or detached from the quarry, of different lengths and 
 thicknesses. Their usual thickness is nine inches. 
 
 ASHLERING. (From same as last.) In Architecture, 
 the upright timber or quarters towards the rooms or in- 
 wards in garrets by which the slope of the roof is con- 
 cealed—sometimes it is only two or three feet high, and 
 sometimes the whole height of the room. 
 
 ASH- WEDNESDAY. The first day in Lent, called in 
 the Latin church dies cinerum, the day of ashes ; it being 
 customary on that day for penitents to appear in church 
 clothed in sackcloth, upon which occasion ashes were 
 sprinkled upon them. 
 
 ASI'LUS. A Linneean genus of dipterous insects, in 
 which the mouth is furnished with a horny, projecting, 
 straight, two-valved sucker, and gibbous at the base : an- 
 tennae filiform, approximate, of two articulations ; body, 
 oblong and conical in shape. The insects of this genus 
 prey on other insects, especially those of the dipterous and 
 lepidopterous orders. 
 
 ASP. (Gr. ao-iris, an asp.) A species of poisonous ser- 
 pent frequently mentioned by ancient authors, some of 
 whom describe its bite as being inevitably mortal, and say 
 that the bitten die within three hours, and without pain, 
 being thrown into a deep sleep ; whence it was selected 
 by Cleopatra as the instrument with which at once to ter- 
 minate her existence, and bereave her conqueror of the 
 chief feature of his triumph. There is always much diffi- 
 culty in identifying the precise species mentioned in the 
 classical writings of antiquity, from the vague manner in 
 which they are there alluded to. Some naturalists are of 
 opinion that the species of hooded viper, called by the 
 modern Arabs 'El Haje' [Vipera (Naja) Haje, Cuvier] is 
 the ' Aspis' of the ancients; and as it possesses the power 
 of distending the skin of the neck, like the Indian Cobra 
 di Capello, it agrees with one of the characters assigned by 
 Pliny to the Aspis — " Colla aspidum intumescere," lib. viii. 
 The size, however, of the Haje, which varies from three 
 to five feet, is greater than that which is usually attributed 
 to Cleopatra's asp. 
 
 ASPA'RAGIN. A white crystallisable substance obtain- 
 ed from the expressed juice of asparagus. It has been 
 proposed as a diuretic in medicine. 
 
 ASPA'RAGUS. (Gr. <nrapd<r<ra), / tear.) A genus of 
 spiny plants, many of which are shrubs, and climb upon 
 other plants. They all have minute scale-like leaves, small 
 white or greenish flowers, and berried fruit ; very often 
 they produce short leafless branches, in room of leaves. 
 Asparagus officinalis, one of the few species which neither 
 climb nor bear spines, is found wild occasionally on the 
 seashore near Weymouth. The succulent shoots which it 
 throws up from its underground eyes are the asparagus of 
 the market gardeners. It is not a little singular, that al- 
 though this plant has been an object of careful cultivation 
 for so many vears, it should never yet have produced a 
 94 
 
 ASSASSINS. 
 
 well-marked permanent variety ; the sorts, as they are 
 called in the shops, are produced by casual differences of 
 soil or cultivation, and are not distinct varieties. 
 
 ASPARA'GINOUS PLANTS. In Hort. In a strict sense, 
 this term ought to be applied only to such plants as belong 
 to asparagines ; but in horticulture it is used to signify all 
 those culinary vegetables the points of the tender shoots 
 of which in spring, when they nearly emerge from the 
 soil, are eaten, in the same manner as those of asparagus : 
 such, for example, as the points of the common hop, of 
 the sea-kale, &c. 
 
 ASPA'RTIC ACID. When asparagin is boiled with mag- 
 nesia it is resolved into ammonia and a peculiar acid called 
 as above. 
 
 A'SPECT. In Architecture, the direction towards the 
 point of the compass in which a building is placed. The 
 aspectus is also used by Vitruvius to denote the external 
 distribution of a temple. Thus he describes seven sorts 
 of aspects of temples: that in Antis, the Prostyle, Am 
 phiprostyle, Peripteral, Dipteral, Pseudodipteral, and Hy- 
 psethral ; under which words they are severally described. 
 
 Aspect. In Astrology, the angle formed by the rays of 
 light proceeding from two planets, and meeting at the earth, 
 and which are supposed to possess some natural influence. 
 (-S'ee Astrology.) 
 
 Aspect. In Hort. In speaking of the inclination of 
 the surface of the ground, the word aspect is used with 
 reference to tne sun, as the word exposure is with re- 
 ference to the wind. Hence, a garden, the surface of 
 which slopes to the east, has an eastern aspect, and also 
 an eastern exposure ; but a garden on a flat surface, shel- 
 tered by plantations on the east, west, and north, cannot be 
 said to have any aspect, while it has a southern exposure, 
 being open to the winds of the south, though sheltered 
 from those blowing from the other cardinal points of the 
 compass. 
 
 ASPERGI'LLIFORM. (Lat. aspergillus, the brush with 
 which holy water is scattered about in Roman Catholic places 
 of icorship.) Any thing shaped like that instrument ; it is 
 chiefly used in speaking of the stigmas of grasses. 
 
 ASPERGI'LLUM. A genus of tubicolar Bivalves, charac 
 terised by the soldering of both valves to the inner surface 
 of the calcareous sheath ; which is dilated or club-shaped at 
 the lower end, and perforated there by many small holes, 
 whence it has obtained the trivial name of the "Watering- 
 pot Shell." In the system of Cuvier, this rare and re- 
 markable genus ranks among the Family Clausa, of the 
 Class Acephala testacea. 
 
 ASPERIFO'LI.E. (Lat. asper, rough, folium, a leaf.) 
 The name given by Linnaeus to the plants now called Bo- 
 raginaceous. 
 
 ASPE'RMOUS. (Gr. d, without, ciripaa, seed.) Destitute 
 of seed. 
 
 ASPHA'LTUM. (Gr. a, priv. and c^aWco, I slip, from 
 its use as a cement in ancient building.) A black brittle bitu- 
 men, very fusible and inflammable ; it is soluble in naphtha, 
 and forms a good varnish. It is found upon the surface 
 and banks of the Dead Sea (hence called Asphaltic Lake), 
 and in large quantity in Trinidad and Barbadoes ; the anci- 
 ents employed it in some of their cements, and it was used 
 also in the art of embalming. 
 
 ASPHODE'LEjE. (Asphodelus, the principal genus.) 
 Subdivision of the natural order Liliaceae, comprehending 
 the onion, the squill, the ornithogalum, anthericum. aspa- 
 ragus, and similar genera. They differ from true liliaceae 
 in little beyond their flowers being usually smaller. (See 
 
 LlLIACE.E.) 
 
 ASPHY'XIA. (Gr. d, without, and <7c£i'£i?, pulsation.) A 
 fainting fit : a state of body in which the pulse cannot be 
 felt, and in which the powers of mind and body are sus- 
 pended. 
 
 ASPIDORTRY'NCHUS. (Gr. dams, a shield, pvyxou 
 a beak-.) The name of a fossil extinct genus of sauroid 
 fishes characterised by the length and bony covering of the 
 unper jaw. 
 
 ASSAl-'CE'TIDA. A fetid gum resin obtained from the 
 root of the ferula assafa/ida, whence it exudes by incision 
 in the form of a milky juice, which, when dried by expo- 
 sure to the sun, acquires a mottled appearance and pink 
 colour. It is a native of the south of Persia, and is used in 
 medicine as a stimulant and antispasmodic in hysteric and 
 nervous disorders, and in spasmodic cough, asthma, and 
 flatulent colic. 
 
 ASSA'I. (Ital. enough.) In Music, an adverb of quantity 
 prefixed to such words as allegro, adagio, &c, signifying 
 that the motion of the bars or measures should be kept at 
 a mean rate of quickness or slowness, quick or slow 
 enouiih, but not too much so in one or the other case. 
 
 ASSA'SSINS. Those who attack and kill by treachery 
 and violence persons unprepared for defence. The word 
 is derived from a military and reliaious order, formed 
 in Persia by Hassan Ben Sabah, about the middle of the 
 eleventh century, and called Assassins from their immode- 
 rate use of Haschischah (henbane), which produced an ex-
 
 ASSAULT. 
 
 citement amounting to fury. Hammer, in his History of 
 the Assassins, has opened some new and striking views of 
 the origin, proceedings, and doctrines of this sect. Their 
 principal seat was in the mountains; and they were sub- 
 ject to the control of a prince, or, according to Hamm' r, a 
 grand master, who possessed such an ascendency ovr his 
 fanatical subjects that they paid the most implicit deference 
 to his commands, esteemed assassination meritorious 
 when sanctified by his mandate, and courted danger, and 
 even certain death, in the execution of his orders. Nor 
 did they stoop to humble prey ; for the more lofty the ob- 
 ject of their hatred, the more sure and deadly was their 
 aim. In the time of the crusades, they mustered to the 
 number of 50,000, and presented a formidable obstacle to 
 the arms of the Christians. Among the victims of their 
 swords, at this period, may be mentioned Conrad. Mar- 
 quis of Montferrat, who was murdered in the market-place 
 of Tyre, in the year 1192. Several historians have charged 
 upon Richard I. the instigation to this crime ; but it is a 
 point which none have succeeded in elucidating. Longaf- 
 ter this period the Assassins continued to levy contributions 
 in return for the safety which they afforded to distinguish- 
 ed individuals ; but they were at length, after an obstinate 
 resistance, effectually crushed by the sultan Bibars. Scat- 
 tered abroad, however, hated and despised, the order of 
 the Assassins, like that of the Jesuits, en lured long after 
 its nominal suppression, and the mountainous regions of 
 Kuhistan offered for a time a secure asylum to those who 
 still lingered in their faith. Remnants of the Assassins 
 still exist both in Persia and Syria, but merely as one of the 
 many sects and heresies of ismalism, and otter strangers 
 to the murderous tactics of their predecessors. 
 
 The numerous battles and enterprises of the Assassins, 
 their valorous defence against the armies of the crusaders 
 and the great sultan Bibars, and the adventurous cb 
 of their whole history, opeued a fertile source to the Sj rian 
 romance writers, of which, according to Hammer, they 
 have freely and skilfully availed themselves. 
 
 ASSAU'LT. (Lai assilio. I leap upon.) In Law, I 
 rally speaking, a violent kind of injury offen 
 person. The nature of an assault has never been precisely 
 defined; some lawyers being of opinion i li.it a blow or an 
 attempt to strike alone constitutes the offence, oiher> in- 
 cluding under this category irritating or abusive Ian.' 
 
 Assault. In War, an effort made to carry a fortified 
 post, camp, or fortress, wherein the assailants do not 
 screen themselves by any works. During an assault, to 
 avoid endangering their own parly, the batteries of the as- 
 sailants cease to play. 
 
 Assaclt. In Fencing, a mock engagement with foils, 
 in imitation of a real single combat. 
 
 ASS.v'V. (Fr. essay er, to try.) This term is sometimes 
 employed as synonymous with analysis, bul mon 
 rally restricted to the determination of the composition 
 and consequent value of alloys of gold and silver. From 
 the quantity of com. plate, and trinkets constantly fabri- 
 cated, the art of assaying is of much lm and re- 
 quires considerable practical skill in its perfbrmanct v 
 the mint there are two assay masters is as- 
 sayer and the king's assayer: the business of the former 
 is to receive the gold and silver ingots brought for coinage, 
 to cut one or more pieces from each ingot, and to make win- 
 ten rpports of each assay. The king's assayer examines the 
 melted bars previous to their passing into the moneyers' 
 hands for coinage, and is responsible for their standard 
 
 purity: and when the m ■> is coined it is not allowed to 
 
 go out of the mint until pixed ; that is, until it has been as- 
 certained, by the assay of one piece taken out of each 
 i'ourney weight of coin, that it is of standard purity: the 
 Ling's assayer therefore is a check officer upon the melter 
 and upon tite moneyers, and is responsible for the standard 
 purity of all gold and silver coin issued from the mint. 
 About twelve grains of gold, and twenty grains of silver, 
 are usually employed for the assay. 
 
 ASSE'MBLY. In French history, the four great legisla- 
 tive bodies which succeeded each other during the period 
 of the Revolution, are usually termed, 1. The \ 
 Constituent Assembly ; commenced 17th of June, 1789, by 
 the resolution of the deputies of the communes in the 
 States-General, constituting themselves a national assem- 
 bly, to which the deputies of the nobles and clergy after- 
 wards adhered ; termed Constituent Assembly, from hav- 
 ing framed a constitution : dissolved on the acceptance of 
 the constitution by the King, 30th of September, 1791. 
 2. The Legislative Assembly: it commenced its sittings 
 October 1, 1791 ; suspended the royal authority by its de- 
 cree of the 10th of August, 1792; and was dissolved Sep- 
 tember 21. 1792. 3. The Convention (see Convention): 
 it commenced its sittings September 21, 1792, with a pro- 
 clamation of the Republic : was dissolved 4 Brumaire, 4th 
 year of the Republic (Oct. 26, 1795). 4. Two-thirds of this 
 assembly were then included in the new body of the 
 " Corps Legislatif," which commenced its sittings Oct. 27, 
 1795, forming two councils, 1. of 500 (des Cinq-cens); 2. of 
 95 
 
 ASSOCIATION. 
 
 the Ancients (des Anciens), 250 in number. The latter 
 body named the Directory. This assembly subsisted until 
 the dissolution of the Directory by Bonaparte, 19 Brum. 
 8th year of the Republic (Nov. 10, 1799). (See Direo 
 
 TORY.) 
 
 Assembly, the General, of the Kirk of Scotland, is the 
 highest ecclesiastical court of that establishment. It meets 
 annually in May, and sits for ten successive days, with 
 power to appoint a commission to take cognizance of any 
 cases undecided within ihat period ; the commission being 
 in fact a continuation of the assembly, with one additional 
 minister named by the moderator. The assembly con- 
 sists of representatives from the presbyteries, royal burghs, 
 and universities of Scotland, and from the churches in the 
 East Indies connected with the Kirk: in all about 380 
 members. The meeting of the assembly is attended by a 
 nobleman as representative of the king, with the title of 
 Lord High Commissioner; who, however, takes no part 
 in the proceedings. The moderator, or president, is 
 chosen by the assembly yearly. The General Assembly 
 is a court of appeal from the Presbytery and Synod. 
 
 ASSE'SSMENl OF DAMAGES. Sec Damages. 
 
 a — I SSOR, In Law. a person possessed of knowledge 
 of the law, appointed to advise and direct the decision of 
 the judge In various inferior courts assessors are ap- 
 pointed by statute. Assessors were employed, previously 
 to the Reform Act, to assist the returning officer in deciding 
 on the cases submitted to his cognizance at the period of 
 an election. By the Municipal Corporation Reform Act 
 (5 <v i) \V. -1. c. 76. s. o7.) the burgesses of every borough 
 are directed to elect two assessors, for the purpose ol as- 
 sisting the mayor in his duty of revising the burgess lists 
 and presiding at the elections. And, by sect. 43, the bur- 
 gesses of each ward are to elect two assessors for the pur- 
 pose of assisting the alderman at the ward elections. 
 
 A'ssi.'l'S. In Law, are the fund out of which a de- 
 bts are to be paid. Assets by descent 
 are liable to those debts only which are secured by speci- 
 alty, as bond or covenant binding the party's heirs ; bul as- 
 in the hand of executors or administrators are liable 
 to all dl 
 
 \881E NTO TREATIES. In History, the contracts en- 
 ter.-, i into by Spain with several European nations (first 
 Portugal, then France, and after the peace of Utrecht in 
 171 :. England), to supply her South American colonies 
 with negro slaves from Africa, were so termed. 
 
 \>-l '.N Vis. Paper-money issued by the French go. 
 vemment at various periods during the Revolution, based 
 on the security of the unsold lands of the clergy, emigrated 
 S vhich bad income forfeit to the nation " 
 
 \ — 1 GNMENT. In Law, i.s the total alienation of a 
 • interest : which, by the third section of the Statute 
 of Frauds, must be, if of a term of years in land, by wri- 
 ting mil signature. Assignee is the party to whom an as- 
 signment is made. 
 
 \ — |\ill \ IMS (Lat. assimilatio.) The act by which 
 organised bodies incorporate foreign molecules, and con- 
 vert them into their own proper substance. 
 
 ASSI'ZE. (From the Norman French assise, session.) 
 1. In a sense now obsolete, an ordinance or constitution of 
 the sovereign : thus, the code of feudal law framed for the 
 kingdom of Jerusalem is termed the Assizes de Jerusa- 
 lem. 2. The ordinances regulating the price of bread and 
 other necessaries, were also called Assizes. 3. The pecu- 
 liar jury by which a writ of right was tried, was termed 
 the Grand Assize. 4. In the only sense in which the word 
 is now an existing law term, the assize signifies the peri- 
 odical session held by the judges of the superior courts in 
 the counties of England, for the purpose of trying issues 
 at nisi prius and delivering the gaols. (See Courts, Su- 
 perior.) 
 
 a SS« >'CI A'TION. In Psychology, a name given to that 
 property of our minds, by which any object or state of con- 
 sciousness (whether image, thought, or emotion) has a 
 tendency to recal other states or objects of consciousness 
 with which it has been previously in some way connected. 
 The conditions under which this tendency exists were first 
 staled by Aristotle, in his " Treatise on Memory and Re- 
 collection." According to him they are threefold, consist- 
 ing of Resemblance, Contrast, and Contiguity. If by the 
 last word we understand connexion in space and time, and 
 that of cause and effect, this division is the same with that 
 given by Hume, and adopted by modem philosophers. 
 The principle of association has been applied by Hartley, 
 Sir J. Mackintosh, and other writers on ethics, to explain 
 the origin of our more complex emotions, and in particular 
 of our moral sentiments. 
 
 Association. In Politics, a society formed of a num- 
 ber of individuals acting under common rules and an elec- 
 tive government, for the accomplishment of some definite 
 object. The principle of association is so obvious as to 
 need no comment or explanation. But its practical devel- 
 opement in politics and ethics in modem times, owing in 
 great measure to the facility of communication and diffu-
 
 ASSOCIATION. 
 
 sion of intelligence, is a feature in society of vast and daily 
 increasing importance. The value of a combination of 
 means and wills is plain and undeniable, — Firstly, in cases 
 where the object pursued is pecuniary advantage. Under- 
 takings which it would be impossible for individuals to 
 embark in, either from the great actual outlay required, or 
 the great amount of pecuniary responsibility imposed 
 (such as the establishment of banks, great public works, 
 distant commercial enterprises, &c), are every day carried 
 into effect with success and profit by companies. Second- 
 ly, in cases where the object is to raise and direct the dis- 
 posal of a large amount of funds, with a view to the accom- 
 plishment of certain ends. Such are associations for pur- 
 poses of education, for the distribution of Bibles, charitable 
 institutions, &c. &c. And thirdly, we may mention a class 
 of associations, common in all times, but which have far 
 more frequently failed with actual loss than accomplished 
 their object ; associations, namely, for the purpose of con- 
 trolling the rate of profit or of labour. (See Combination.) 
 But besides these ordinary instances of association, the 
 present times appear more peculiarly favourable to the 
 formation of societies having in view the accomplishment 
 of political or moral objects, by controlling the action of 
 governments or individuals. These are wholly distinct 
 from those which we have before enumerated. Their 
 purposes do not generally require a large outlay, nor (ex- 
 cept in some occasional contingencies) much actual and 
 definite co-operation. Their main object generally is to 
 overrule by a display of associated'numbers ; occasionally 
 also to bring combined energies to bear upon particular 
 points. They serve to concentrate the action of the wills 
 of many separate individuals, by inducing every man to 
 abandon a portion of his own peculiar views, and take up 
 instead of them the views of the majority of his co-asso- 
 ciates. Of this character were, in France, the clubs which 
 exercised so great a power during the Revolution ; and 
 those which, in calm times, are said to have contributed 
 materially towards bringing about the second revolution of 
 1830: the society "Aide toi et le ciel t'aidera" more espe- 
 cially. In England, the history of political unions and as- 
 sociations of late years is abundantly well known. The 
 most powerful that we have hitherto seen was the famous 
 Catholic Association, formed in May, 1823, dissolved in 
 March, 1829, when its great object, the passing of the Ca- 
 tholic Relief Bill, was attained. Of associations having 
 moral instead of political objects, and falling within the 
 category last described, perhaps (if we exclude the Free- 
 masons, from the want of any definite purpose which ap- 
 pears to distinguish them) the Temperance Societies of 
 late years afford the most singular examples ; the more re- 
 markable, because their great end is one which (except in 
 a very few instances, such as the exclusion of spirits from 
 ships, <fec.) cannot be attained by combined action, unless 
 in so far as it may influence the action and will of indi- 
 vidual men. 
 
 It is impossible to deny the power of political associa- 
 tions ; and it cannot be wondered at that they are regarded 
 favourably by the state in such countries as America, 
 where the principle of democratic associations pervades 
 everything ; with distrust by aristocratic governments, in 
 which the power of a ruling class is exposed to danger from 
 their attacks ; and altogether suppressed as far as possible 
 under arbitrary governments. Yet it may be questioned 
 whether the tendency of modern opinion is not greatly to 
 overrate that power. It is essentially of a temporary cha- 
 racter. At the moment of a doubtful crisis in politics, the 
 expression of the will of an associated multitude will often 
 turn the scale through the mere weight of intimidation. 
 But even with the best organisation, they seem to be radi- 
 cally unfit for the accomplishment of objects requiring un- 
 tired zeal and perseverance. In the first place, by fettering 
 the individual will of their members, they destroy a great 
 portion of the collective energy in the attempt to concen- 
 trate what remains. No mind capable of achieving great 
 objects ever voluntarily works in the trammels of an asso- 
 ciation. They become therefore, for the most part, passive 
 bodies, guided solely by the will and management of a few 
 individuals among them, who are flattered by the exercise 
 of a power resembling sovereignty, but who are them- 
 selves, perhaps, rather fettered than aided in their activity, 
 by the necessity of managing the large masses which they 
 drag along with them. Perhaps no history affords so re- 
 markable an example of the apparent splendour and real 
 weakness of political associations on a large scale, as that 
 of the Jesuits. Their company was formed on an admi- 
 rable organisation ; it had one precise object, the spread of 
 the Roman Catholic faith ; one definite principle of union, 
 implicit obedience : the means put within its reach were 
 enormous. It spread and flourished amazingly, exerted 
 the most boundless activity, and excited naturally the most 
 exaggerated fears among its opponents. And yet it would 
 be difficult to say in what it has contributed to the objects 
 it had in view. It has made no conquests over Protestant- 
 ism ; for in Bohemia, France under Louis XIV. &c, where 
 96 
 
 ASSURANCE. 
 
 it made the greatest show of effectiveness, its operations 
 merely followed in the train of military oppression or state 
 persecution. It has effected no permanent conversions 
 among the heathen. It has done little or nothing, notwith- 
 standing great show and immense expense, in the way of 
 national education on Roman Catholic principles. Its 
 learned men, with few exceptions, have done still less to- 
 ward advancing the cause of true knowledge. Nor has a 
 single mind of great originality and power been developed 
 within the boundaries of the institution. 
 
 Nor is it possible to speak without great doubt of the mo- 
 ral good produced by the extension of the spirit of associ- 
 ation. Some valuable remarks on this subject will be found 
 in an article of Dr. Channing, reprinted from the North 
 American Review, with the title " Remarks on Associa- 
 tions." "One of the most remarkable features of our age," 
 he says, " is the energy with which the principle of combi- 
 nation, or of acting by joint forces in associated numbers, 
 is now manifesting itself. Men have learned what wonders 
 can be accomplished in certain cases of union, and seem 
 to think that union is competent to anything. You can 
 scarcely name an object for which some institution has not 
 been formed. Would men spread one set of opinions and 
 crush another 1 they make a society. Would they improve 
 the penal code, or relieve poor debtors 1 they make socie- 
 ties. Would they encourage agriculture, or manufacturers, 
 or science ? they make societies. Would one class encou- 
 rage horse-racing, and another discourage travelling on a 
 Sunday 1 they make societies. We have immense institu- 
 tions spreading over the country, combining hosts for parti- 
 cular objects. We have minute ramifications of those so- 
 cieties, penetrating everywhere, and conveying resources 
 from the domestic, the labourer, and even the child, to the 
 central treasury." — " Associations often injure free action 
 by a very plain and obvious operation. They accumulate 
 power in a few hands, and this takes place just in propor- 
 tion to the surface over which they spread. In a large in- 
 stitution a few men rule, a few do everything : and, if the 
 institution happens to be directed to objects about which 
 controversy exists, a few are able to excite in the mass 
 strong and bitter passions, and by these to obtain an im- 
 mense ascendency. Public opinion may be so combined, 
 and inflamed, and brought to bear on odious individuals or 
 opinions, that it will be as perilous to think or speak with 
 manly freedom as if an inquisition were open before us. It 
 is now discovered that the way to rule in this country is by 
 an array of numbers, which no prudent man will like to 
 face. Of consequence, all associations aiming or tending 
 to establish sway by numbers ought to be opposed. They 
 create tyrants as effectually as standing armies. Let them 
 be withstood from the beginning. No matter whether the 
 opinion they intend to put down be true or false, let no 
 opinion be put down by such means : let not error be sup- 
 pressed by an instrument which will be equally powerful 
 against truth, and which must subvert that freedom of 
 thought on which all truth depends." 
 
 A'SSONANCE. In Rhetoric and Poetical Composition, 
 a jingle or imperfect rhyme, formed by separate words, or 
 members of a sentence. 
 
 ASSU'MPSIT, or trespass on the case on promises, in 
 law, is an action of an anomalous character, having the 
 form of tort and the substance of contract. It is, properly, 
 a claim of damages sustained through the breach of a sim- 
 ple contract (;'. e. a promise not under seal), and alleges 
 that the defendant assumpsit promised or undertook to 
 perform the acts specified. It has become the most ordin- 
 ary remedy, not only where unliquidated damages, but also 
 where debts are sued for ; the law implying a promise to 
 pay or do whatever the defendant is legally liable to pay 
 or do. 
 
 ASSUMPTION. A festival of the Romish church, kept 
 on the 15th of August, in celebration of the alleged miracu- 
 lous ascent of the Virgin into heaven. 
 
 ASSU'MPTIVE ARMS. In Heraldry, such as may be 
 assumed with the approbation of the sovereign, or grant 
 In 'in the proper officers of arms : also, in another sense, 
 armorial bearinas improperly assumed. 
 
 ASSU'RANCE, or INSU'RANCE. A contract for the 
 payment of a certain sum on the occurrence of a certain 
 event. The term assurance is generally confined to those 
 contracts under which a certain sum is to be paid on the 
 death of an individual or individuals now living ; while in- 
 surance is applied to those which provide for the payment 
 of a sum on the occurrence of events not depending on the 
 duration of human life, and which may never happen, such 
 as the loss of ships at sea, the destruction of houses by 
 fire, &c. 
 
 Assurances on Lives, are contracts which stipulate for 
 the payment of a certain sum of money on the death of 
 one or more individuals, in consideration of an immediate 
 payment, or, more frequently, of an annuity or annual con- 
 tribution, to be continued during the existence of the lives 
 assured. Contracts of this kind are of immense impor- 
 tance to society. Every man whose income depends ou
 
 ASSURANCE. 
 
 his own life or exertions, and on whom others are depen- 
 dent for support, must be sensible of the advantages of ar- 
 rangements by means of which, at a small sacrifice of im- 
 mediate comfort, he is enabled effectually to provide 
 against Ihe casualties of life. They are of a totally differ- 
 enf nature from gambling. Though nothing can be more 
 uncertain than Ihe continuance of an individual life, yet 
 nothing is more invariable than the duration of life in the 
 mass; consequently, the exact value of life assurances can 
 be calculated without any uncertainty whatever, and a man, 
 by effecting an assurance, secures to his representatives, 
 against the risk of accident, the advantages they would have 
 from his enjoying his exact proportion of the average du- 
 ration of life. Such transactions provide against destitu- 
 tion, and tend directly to the accumulation of capilal : they 
 will, therefore, be encouraged and protected in all well go- 
 vemed communities. 
 
 Method of computing the Value of Assurances. The value 
 of assurances on lives are computed in nearly the same 
 manner as those of annuities, the principles being the 
 same in both cases. A table of mortality must fust be se- 
 lected, from which we deduce the probabilities of living 
 over the different years of life. Having ol 
 and assumed a rate of interest, we proceed as follows : let 
 the probabilities that an individual of a given age will live 
 over 
 
 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c. years, 
 be pi, jfi, pa, p*, p% &c. respectively ; 
 
 also, let r be the rate of interest, and v = — — , and sup- 
 
 l+r 
 
 pose that the sum assured is to be paid at the end of the 
 year in which the life tails. Now, the value "I" jL 1 to be re- 
 ceii ed at the end of the first year is r, but it will not be re- 
 ceived if the life continues to I and as 
 
 the probability that the individual will ] year is 
 
 pi, the probability that he will not live over it is 1 — pi, I 
 fore the value of jEl to bi year, 
 
 subiei i i" the contingency of the life failing m the first yi ar, 
 is (1 — pi.) v. The probability that (hi tinue i" 
 
 second yeai lap*, and that it will continue one 
 year only, pi, the' re fore pi — pS is the chance it will drop in 
 the second year ; and the value of XI to be rec< ived at the 
 
 end of 'he second year : Dl value 
 
 o{ £] to be received if the in. tails in the Becond j 
 (y,t j, ) i- ■'. In like manner, the probability that U 
 will fail in the third year it , , ofJElto 
 
 be received at the i 
 
 presi m value ol £1 to bi r< i eived at the end of threi 
 it' the given life fails in the third year, is (p2—p3)T3. i 
 
 i it iuued from year to year, oil the proba- 
 bility of living o\ . r ., \, .a \- i 1 
 
 whole value ol' lh< I II 8UD0 
 
 of all its partial values for the different yean 
 
 denoting Ihe value by 1, we get 
 
 I = (l— pl)V + <pi — p2)r2 + (p2— p3)r3 + &C 
 or, separating this into two scries. 
 
 I = r (1 + 7-1 o + ;<:■ r- + ;-3 r3 + ice.) 
 
 — (pi V +p2 «2 + p3 t3 ■+■ &C.) 
 Bui it is shown in the article AlTOUITY that Ihe series pi v 
 4. y... r'i -4-/13 r3 -{- Ac. denotes Ihe value of an annuity of 
 XI on a life, the probabilities of the continuance of which 
 are represented as above ; therefore, calling this annuity A, 
 we have I = V (1 -f A) — A. 
 Since v = i this formula becomes by substitution 
 
 1+r 
 I=_l_(l-r A). 
 
 1 + r 
 
 The sum now found is what ought to be paid down, in or- 
 der to receive XI on the failure of the given life : but by 
 far the most usual practice is to pay for the assurance by 
 means of an annual pr< mium,the firsl payment being imme- 
 diate, and the others at the end of each successive year. 
 Let ?r be the annual premium; then the value of all the 
 premiums after the first is obviously the same thing as the 
 value of an annuity of the same amount, and is. eon-' 
 quently, equal to -n A. Hence, the value of all the pre- 
 miums. is it + ?r A, or7r(l + A), which is necessarily equiv- 
 alent to the assurance. We have therefore the equation 
 
 ir(l + A)=T(l + A) — A,whencew = r — _^ 
 
 1 + A 
 
 This formula is very easily computed when we are in 
 possession of a table of annuities, and it shows at once the 
 annual sum which an individual of any age ought to pay, 
 in order to secure to his representatives XI (and, conse- 
 quently, any other sum) at his death. 
 
 Temporary Assurances. The values of temporary assu- 
 rances, or engagements to pay a certain sum in case a given 
 individual dies within a given number of years, are easily 
 found from those on the whole of life. For example, let it 
 be required to find what sum ought to be paid for £1, to be 
 
 ASTHMA . 
 
 received if an individual now aged 40 shall die within seven 
 years. Let I be the value of £1 to be paid on the death of 
 a person aged 40, and 17 the present value of the same sum, 
 to be paid on the death of a person aged 47. Seven years 
 after this the value of an assurance of XI on the death of the 
 person now aged 40 will be 17; but the present value of XI, 
 to be received certainly at, the end of seven years is r7, and 
 the probability that the life will continue seven years is p7; 
 therefore ihe present value of 17, on the contingency that 
 the life will not fail within seven years, is p7 r7 17 ; subtract- 
 ing this from I, the value of XI to be received certainly at 
 his death, there remains I — p7 r7 17, to denote the value 
 of the temporary assurance. This may be expressed by 
 the following rule. Multiply the assurance on a life seven 
 years older than the given life by the present value of XI, 
 payable seven years hence, and also by the probability that 
 the given life will survive seven years; subtract the pro- 
 duct from the assurance on the given life, and the remain- 
 der is the value of a temporary assurance for seven yeara 
 in a single payment 
 
 In order to find ihe equivalent annual payment, it must 
 be recollected that the first payment is made immediately, 
 and thai seven payments are to be made in all ; conse- 
 quently, all the payments after the first are equal to a tem- 
 porary annuity of the same amount for six years, or one 
 year less than the given term; consequently, if ir repre- 
 -• nl the annual pn mium, and A' a temporary annuity of 
 XI for one year less than the given term, the value of all 
 the premiums to be received \sir-\-7rA' or n (\ + A'), 
 which by hypothesis is equal to the assurance ; consequent- 
 ly, to find tne annual premium, we have to divide the 
 value ol the temporary assurance in a single payment by 
 1 + A'. 
 
 In the same manner, the value of an assurance on 
 any number of joint lives is found ; it is only necessary to 
 substitute for A in the above formulas, the value of an an- 
 nuity on the joint lives. Thus, let M be the value of an an- 
 nuity, to continue while A and B both live, then B (1 + M) 
 — >i is the value of an assurance to be paid at the end of 
 the year in which the first of the two lives shall fail, and the 
 
 equivalent annual pavmenl is r — 
 
 1 + M 
 
 A very important class of assurances comprehends those 
 
 in which the contract is to pay a sum on the death of one 
 
 party, provided thai another ('arty shall be then alive. The 
 
 compntatii n of the values of such contracts is somewhat 
 
 more intricate, and cannot be explained without entering 
 
 ng the manner of combining the proba- 
 
 limits will not permit < Si ■ \ 
 
 Familiar Ex] N iture, Advantages, and Im- 
 
 portani ■• es upon Lives, by Lewis Pocock,8vo. 
 
 :ilies.) 
 
 |. aces on nips and goods, see Insurance. 
 
 U3S1 RG1 NT (Lai - nrgere, to rise up.) Rising in 
 a curve from a decurvi d base. 
 
 \ STAC1 8. (Lat. astacus, a lobster.) The name of a 
 Fabriclan g< . and now the type of a family 
 
 i 1 I, M . utoub, or long-tailed frusta- 
 
 Including the lobsters (Astacus Leach), the craw- 
 fish (Potcunebhu I. each.) and the cray-fish or spiny lob- 
 Palinurius Leach). The distinguishing character is 
 derived from the antenna', the two pairs of which are in- 
 serted in the same horizontal line; the mesial ones hav- 
 ing moderate or long footstalks, terminated by two fila- 
 . the outer ones naked, or furnished wi!h a scale, 
 which never entirely conceals the base. 
 
 \ 8TERISK. In Diplomatics, a sign in the figure of a 
 star, frequently' met with in ancient Latin manuscripts, 
 and seeming to serve various purposes ; sometimes to 
 denote an omission, sometimes an addition, sometimes a 
 which appeared remarkable on any account to the 
 copyist 
 
 A'STERISM, in Astronomy, denotes a collection of stars. 
 
 It was formerly used in the same sense as constellation, 
 
 but is now generally appropriated to any small cluster of 
 
 r forming part of a particular constellation, or 
 
 other wise. 
 
 A STEROI'PS. A fantastical name by which the four 
 small and recently discovered planets, namely, Juno, Vesta, 
 Ceres, and Pallas, have been sometimes designated. 
 
 ASTE'RN. (A. and stern.) A sea term, denoting, in 
 the hinder part of the ship, or behind the ship. 
 
 ASTHE'MC. (Gr. d, without, and <r0sVoc, strength.) 
 Asthenic diseases are those which are prominently marked 
 by great and direct debilitv. 
 
 ' A'STHMA (Gr. dedjxaivo). I breathe hard.) A disease, 
 the leading symptoms of which are difficulty of breathing, 
 coming on at intervals, accompanied with cough, and more 
 or less expectoration. The fit most frequently occurs in 
 the night during the first sleep, suddenly awaking the pa- 
 tient, and lasting for three or four hours or more. It is a 
 terrible, but in itself rarelv a fatal disease, though it often 
 lays the foundation of organic mischief. Its proximate 
 cause has not been very clearly ascertained. 
 O
 
 ASTOMOUS. 
 
 A'STOMOIJS. (Gr. d, without, and ar6\ia, a mouth.') 
 Certain mosses whose theca has no aperture. 
 
 A'STRAGAL. (Gr. dorpdyakos, a die or huckle. bone.) 
 In architecture, a small moulding whose profile is semi- 
 circular. Some have said that the French call it talon, 
 and the Italians tondine ; but this is a mistake, and the 
 word is only properly applied to the ring which separates 
 the capital from the column. The astragal is sometimes 
 cut into representations of beads and berries, and a similar 
 sort of moulding is used to separate the faces of the archi- 
 trave. 
 
 ASTRA'GALUS. (Gr. dvrpdya'Kos, a die.) The ancle 
 bone. The ancients used the corresponding bones of ani- 
 mals as substitutes for dice. 
 
 ASTRiE'A. (Gr. acrrpov, a star.) A genus of lithophy- 
 tous Polypes ; the polypiary or calcareous skeleton of 
 which is characterised by sessile, star-shaped lammellate 
 cells, crowded upon the upper surface. The species are 
 divided into rayed Astreee (Ast. radiata), with the stars 
 separated from the base ; and toothed Astrea:, (Astrece, 
 denticulatcb), with the stars contiguous. 
 
 A'STROLABE. (Gr. aarpov, a star, and Xafiffavo), J 
 take.) A circular instrument used for taking or observing 
 the stars. The ancient astrolabe consisted of two or more 
 circles, having a common centre, and so inclined to each 
 other as to enable the astronomer to observe in the planes 
 of different circles of the sphere at the same time. For ex- 
 ample, if the circles were at right angles, the instrument 
 would give both longitude and latitude, or the right ascen- 
 sion and declination of a star. The equatorial, the altitude 
 and azimuth instrument, and the theodolite, are instru- 
 ments which answer the same purpose as the ancient as- 
 trolabe. Ptolemy changed the form of the ancient instru- 
 ment, and reduced it to a plane surface, to which he gave 
 the name of planisphere ; and, from this circumstance the 
 term astrolabe has been used in modern times to denote a 
 planisphere, or stereographic projection of the sphere on 
 the plane of one of its great circles. 
 
 ASTRO'LOGY. (Gr. aarpov, a star, and Xfyoj, dis- 
 course.') According to its derivation, this term should siir- 
 nify the science or knowledge of the stars. Originally, the 
 terms astrology and astronomy were used indifferently in 
 the same sense ; but for a long time the former has been 
 employed to denote the vain and superstitious study of 
 predictions and horoscopes ; while the latter has been re- 
 served to denote the true science of the celestial motions. 
 According to Lalande, this distinction began to be observed 
 in the time of Clement of Alexandria, that is, in the se- 
 cond century. Astrology is generally coupled with the 
 epithet judicial, from the judgments drawn from it relative 
 to future events. 
 
 Judicial astrology is supposed to have had its orisin in 
 Chaldea, whence it passed into Egypt, Greece, and Italy. 
 The desire of penetrating into futurity is so congenial to the 
 human mind, that this pretended science has found favour 
 in all ages and countries ; and it is a remarkable fact, that 
 astronomy, which demonstrates the frivolity and absurdity 
 of its predictions, was long indebted to it for the principal 
 part of its own progress. Kepler, in the preface to the Ru- 
 dolphine Tables, observes, that astrology, though a fool, 
 was the daughter of a wise mother, to whose support and 
 life the foolish daughter was indispensable. At the present 
 day it is only among the most ignorant vulgar, or the unen- 
 lightened tribes of Asia and Africa, that astrology is held in 
 esteem ; but the triumph of sound science and the spirit 
 of philosophy has been slow and difficult. So late as the 
 year 1705 the conductor of "the Connaissance des Terns" 
 thought it necessary to apologise for the absence of all pre- 
 dictions in that astronomical work, by stating that the 
 Academy had never recognised the solidity of the rules 
 which were given by the ancients for discovering the fu- 
 ture by the configurations of the stars ; and, what is still 
 more surprising, the first lunar tables calculated according 
 to the Newtonian theory were intended to be subservient 
 to the calculation of nativities. 
 
 Astrological predictions are founded on the positions or 
 aspects which the sun, moon, and planets have relatively 
 to each other at the moment of birth, or some other criti- 
 cal period of a person's life, and certain arbitrary influences 
 supposed to belong to each of those bodies. For the pur- 
 pose of facilitating the determination of the aspects, the 
 whole heaven, visible and invisible, is divided into twelve 
 equal parts by the horizon, the meridian, and four other 
 circles passing through the north and south points of the 
 horizon, and the points of the equator (or rather the prime 
 vertical, or sometimes the ecliptic, for the practice was not 
 uniform), which are at the distance of 30 and GO degrees from 
 the meridian. These equal spaces are called the twelve 
 houses of the heavens, and the circles by which they are 
 circumscribed are called circles of position. The circles of 
 position are supposed to remain fixed, so that a celestial 
 body is carried through each of the twelve houses in the 
 course of a day by the diurnal rotation. The first house is 
 contained between the eastern horizon and the next circleof 
 93 
 
 ASTRONOMY. 
 
 position, going to the eastward ; consequently the seventh 
 will commence with the western horizon, and the tenth with 
 the meridian or culminating point of the ecliptic. The be- 
 ginning of the first house, or the point of the ecliptic just 
 rising, is called the horoscope. The first house is the 
 house of life; the second, of riches; the third, of brothers; 
 the fourth, of parents ; the fifth, of children ; the sixth, of 
 health ; the seventh, of marriage ; the eighth, of death ; 
 the ninth, of religion ; the tenth, of dignities; the eleventh, 
 of friends ; and the twelfth, of enemies. Each of the 
 houses has one of the heavenly bodies as its peculiar lord. 
 They have also different powers, the strongest of all being 
 the first, and the next in power the tenth ; so that if two 
 planets are equally powerful, ceteris paribus, that will pre- 
 vail which is in the stronger house. 
 
 Having made the preliminary arrangement of the hea- 
 vens, the next object is to consider the aspects or configu- 
 rations of the influential bodies. Aspect, as defined by 
 Kepler, is the angle formed by the rays proceeding from 
 two planets, and meeting at the earth, and which have the 
 property of producing some natural influence. The an- 
 cients reckoned five aspects, namely, the conjunction de- 
 noted by the character c$ , the opposition by § , the trine by 
 A, the quadrile by □ , and the sextile byK- These names 
 and characters, besides several others added in more re- 
 cent times, are retained in our almanacks to the present 
 day. In the aspect of conjunction the angle made by the 
 two planets is ; in the opposition it is 180°. The trine is 
 the third part of a circle, or 120° ; the quadrile is 90°, and 
 the sextile 60°. With regard to the influences of the as 
 pects, they are benignant, malignant, or indifferent. The 
 quadrile and opposition are considered as malignant or ad- 
 verse ; the trine and the sextile as benignant or propitious ; 
 and the conjunction an indifferent aspect. 
 
 It now remains only to ascribe certain influences to each 
 of the planets, ami to suppose all animals, plants, countries, 
 &c. subject to their control, in order to obtain an idea of 
 the nature of the astrological art. The influences ascribed 
 to Hie planets were of course as arbitrary as those ascribed 
 to the aspects. Saturn being at the greatest distance from 
 the sun, was supposed to be of a cold nature ; Jupiter, 
 Venus, and the Moon, temperate and benignant. Saturn 
 and Mars were the most dangerous. The Sun and Mer- 
 cury participated in the properties of the one and the other, 
 according to circumstances. But these influences were 
 exerted in an infinite number of ways, according to the 
 houses which the planets happened for the time to occupy. 
 
 It would be superfluous at the present day to adduce any 
 serious argument against a system of imaginary influences 
 and arbitrary rules, having no other foundation than the 
 ignorance and superstition of mankind, and contradicted 
 by every result of true science, and every dictate of com- 
 mon sense. The celestial bodies pursue their courses in 
 obedience to unalterable laws; and the legitimate business 
 of the philosopher is to discover those laws, to trace out 
 their consequences, and to apply the results of his dis- 
 coveries to alleviate the wants or multiply the comforts of 
 humanity. 
 
 ASTRONOMY. (Gr. aarpov, a star, and vofio;, a law.) 
 The science which treats of the motions, distances, ar- 
 rangement, and magnitudes of the celestial bodies; of 
 their constitution and physical condition, and, in general, 
 of whatever can be known respecting them. 
 
 There is no branch of human knowledge of which the 
 results appear at first sight more at variance with the im- 
 pressions of our senses. The first aspect of the heavens 
 leads us almost irresistibly to imagine ourselves placed in 
 the centre of a starry sphere ; which, in its diurnal revolu- 
 tion, carries along with it all the heavenly bodies. But the 
 changes of relative position which some of the most re- 
 markable among them continually undergo, soon make it 
 evident that they do not all belong to the same sphere. 
 Further observation and reflection lead us to conclude 
 that the apparent daily revolution of the firmament is 
 merely an illusion occasioned by the diurnal rotation of 
 our own earth, which, instead of remaining fixed at the 
 centre, is carried forward about the sun with a velocity of 
 about 19,000.000 of miles in a second of time, or four times 
 that of a cannon-ball when it leaves the mouth of a cannon. 
 The sun, which appears to be of very moderate dimen- 
 sions, is a body whose volume is 1,364,470 times greater 
 than that of the earth, and placed at a distance of 95,000,000 
 of miles ; and the stars, which even in the best telescopes 
 appear only as luminous points, are bodies of the same 
 nature as tlie sun ; many of them, probably, far surpassing 
 it in magnitude. 
 
 Different Classes of Heavenly Bodies. By far the greater 
 part of the celestial bodies appear to be fixed in the firma- 
 ment, and to preserve invariably the same relative posi- 
 tions. These are the fixed stars. A second class com- 
 prehends a small number which are continually shifting 
 their positions among the stars, and are perceived to ac- 
 complish a complete revolution of the sphere in stated
 
 ASTRONOMY. 
 
 Intervals of lime. Ilence they were called Planets, that 
 is, wandering stars, from a Greek word signifying to wan- 
 der. They describe orbits, very nearly circular, about the 
 sun. Some of them are accompanied by smaller bodies 
 revolving round them, as the moon revolves round the 
 earth, and which are called Satellites, or attendants. A 
 third class comprehends bodies differing greatly from 
 those now mentioned, and which sometimes exhibit very 
 extraordinary appearances. These are the Comets. Like 
 the planets they are obedient to the attractive force of the 
 sun ; but the orbits which they describe are exceedingly 
 elongated, and they are only visible when near the sun. 
 Hence they appear at distant or uncertain intervals, and 
 only for a short time ; and consequently their physical 
 nature is very imperfectly known. The sun. planets, 
 satellites, and' comers form a system of Which all the 
 members are connected with and act upon om- another in 
 obedience to the law of universal gravitation. {See Plan- 
 ets, Satellites, Sew, and the other terms, in their res- 
 pective places.) 
 
 / I I , nomy. Mere curiosity, without reference 
 
 to practical utility, would prompt mankind to study the 
 movements of the vast machine which rolls over our 
 heads; but the applications of astronomy to the affairs of 
 life arc bo numerous and import i curate know- 
 
 ledge of its principles is almost indispensable to society. 
 1st, li Is bj >•■ celestial bodies that we are ena- 
 
 bled to determine the relative positions of points on the 
 surface of the earth ; to fix geographical latitudes and lon- 
 gitudes, and ascertain the form and dimensions of our 
 planet. 2d, It is to astronomj thai we are indebted for all 
 the advantages resulting from navigation. Without an ac- 
 curate Knowledge ol the positions and motions of the 
 heavenly bodies, it would be im; e maimer to 
 
 traverse the ocean, or to venture in safety beyond the Bight 
 of the Bbore, With this knowledge be can dire 
 course with unerring certaint] to any given coast; and i he 
 ocean, which, without this science, would present an in- 
 superable barrier to the intercourse of distant countries, 
 is rendered "the highway of nations." 3d, Astronomy 
 
 also presents us with the means of establishing the divi- 
 sions of time necessary for the regulation of civil affairs, 
 
 and of fixing chronological epochs The diurnal revolu- 
 tion of the sphere gives the smaller dii isions ol timi 
 revolution or the moon gives the month; that of the sun, 
 the year; and the various configurations of the | 
 mark out periods of all magnitudes, from a few months or 
 years to millions of a 
 
 Dim i astro- 
 
 nomer is to ascertain, with all possible precision, the ap- 
 parent places of the stars, or their projections on the 
 sphere, in order to obtain an accurate knowledge of their 
 apparent motions and periods. Bui il is not enough to have 
 ascertained their posil s and motions ; the results of ob- 
 servations made al different places an i distant times must 
 be compared, in order that we maybe enabled to distin- 
 guish the movements which are real from those which are 
 only apparent, and depend on our own position with ri 
 to objects observed. An. I when the real paths described 
 by the d nl'e n- 1,1 bodies have il hi, tie, u , li i ,- 1 in i ne, 1 . we are 
 next led to investigate the causes of the phenomena, and 
 the expressions of the mechanical forces necessary to pro- 
 duce them. Ilence, the science of astronomy may be di- 
 vided into practical, rational, and physical: the lirst em- 
 bracing all that is necessary (or determining the appari m 
 motions; the second being devoted to the real motions ; 
 and the third to the physical causes by which the different 
 motions are regulated and perpetuated. 
 
 Prat l .hi/. In order to determine the positions 
 
 and motions of the celestial bodies, it is necessary to have 
 the means of measuring time and space with the utmost 
 precision. But neither time nor space can be measured 
 without the aid of very refined instruments and contri- 
 vances. Hence, the theory of instruments, the method of 
 using them, and the determination of the different correc- 
 tions that must be applied in order to free the observed po- 
 sitions from the various instrumental and physical errors 
 by which they are affected, belong to this division of the 
 science. A complete knowledge of the sphere and its va- 
 rious circles, as also of the methods of spherical trigonome- 
 try, is requisite to the practical astronomer. Observation 
 gives him the place of a star only with reference to his 
 own zenith, or horizon, or to another star whose place is 
 already determined. But their positions must be reduced ; 
 that is, referred to invariable planes or circles, in order 
 that the observations made in different places may be ca- 
 pable of comparison with one another. Without such re- 
 ductions, the observations are of no use. 
 
 Rational Astronomy. This division includes the deter- 
 mination of the real orbits, and the laws of motion which 
 the different bodies observe, and the construction of hypo- 
 theses by the aid of which we may calculate the positions 
 in advance. In the infancy of astronomy, and before ob- 
 servations became very numerous, or were made with pre- 
 99 
 
 cision, various hypotheses were invented to explain the ap- 
 parent motions. Thus Ptolemy explained the inequalities 
 of the planetary motions, by supposing each of the planets 
 to describe a circle about a centre moving uniformly round 
 the earth in the circumference of another circle. Ty cho Bra- 
 he supposed the planets to revolve in circular orbits about 
 the sun ; and the sun, accompanied by the planets, to re- 
 volve round the earth. Copernicus supposed the earth, as 
 well as all the other planets, to revolve in circular orbits 
 around the sun. All these hypotheses served to explain the 
 phenomena that were known at the time they were respec- 
 tively invented ; and have been successively exploded by 
 more accurate observations, which have proved that the 
 planetary orbits are not circles but ellipses, having the sun 
 in the focus which is common to all of them. 
 
 Physical Astronomy. By this term is generally under- 
 stood the application of mathematical science to the inves- 
 tigation of the laws by which the motions of the celestial 
 bodies are regulated, the nature of the forces by which 
 their motions are maintained, and the effects of their ac- 
 tion on one another. By comparing the momentary de- 
 flection of the moon's orbit from a straight line with the ef- 
 fects of terrestrial gravity, as manifested in the descent of 
 falling bodies near the surface of the earth, Newton found 
 thai both the phenomena were produced by one and the 
 same cause, and that the moon is retained in her orbit by 
 tionoftheearth. Subsequentinvestigauons, found- 
 1 laws of the planetary motions, d 
 ed by Kepler, led him to the conclusion, that a force of the 
 same nature extends through the universe; and that all 
 bodies in the heavens and on the earth gravitate towards 
 each other with forces directly as their quantities of mat- 
 ter and inversely as the squares of their distances. By 
 this single principle he explained the elliptic motions of 
 tnets and satellites; the facts which concern their 
 
 I, and the position of their axis; and the 
 
 oscillations of the fluids with which they are surrounded. 
 
 The quantity of matter in the sun is vastly greater than in 
 
 t of the planets: hence all the planets areprin- 
 
 ci|iallv controlled by the sun, and circulate about him in 
 hits, nearly in the same manner as If thej Were 
 
 ni of the attraci ther. ^nll their 
 
 mutual influences are sufficiently perceptible; though, 
 I are regarded merely 
 as disturbing the sun's action. The calculation of the dis- 
 turbing fori effects produced by the mutual at- 
 
 i all the bodies in the solar system, forms the 
 most difficult and the most important problem ever sub- 
 
 mathematical analysis. Its solution has occupied 
 
 the most eminent mathematicians ol the lasl and the pre- 
 sent century; at Ive advances made towards 
 it by Newton, Clairaut, D'Alembert, Euler, Lagrange, and 
 have surrounded their names with a halo of 
 glory. 
 
 History of Astronomy. The study ol the heavens has 
 occupied the attention of mankind in all ages of the world. 
 At the remotest epochs of historical record, the Chaldean 
 
 shepherds and the Egyptian priests had found a mar ap- 
 proximation to i he length of the solar year, and determined, 
 
 inparisnii ol a long series of recorded or tradi- 
 
 i, me alter which the eclipses of 
 
 tic sun and moon return in nearly the same order,and were 
 
 itl v able to predict these phenomena. The early 
 
 philosophers of Greece exhausted their imagination in idle 
 
 speculations about the formation and nature of the inn 
 it the name of the constellations which they have 
 transmitted to us with then- theogoniea prove that th y had 
 [cud considerable attention to the arrant nenl of the prin- 
 cipal stars. Pythagoras appears to have had a distim I no- 
 tion of the true system of the world; affirming thai the 
 earth was not placed in the centre, but revoh , d aboul the 
 sun. But the first recorded observations which contributed 
 in any way to the real progress of astronomy were made 
 at Alexandria, under the Piolemies, about 300 years before 
 our era, by Aristilus and Timocharis, who determined the 
 positions of some of the principal zodiacal stars, and there- 
 by afforded Hipparchus the means of arriving at his im- 
 portant discovery of the precession of the equinoxes. 
 
 Hipparchus, the founder of Grecian astronomy, observed 
 at Rhodes about 110 vears B. C This illustrious man ap- 
 pears to have paid little regard to the theoretical speculations 
 of his contemporaries, but adopted the only method by which 
 a correct knowledge of nature can be obtained, namely, 
 assiduous and accurate observation. Among his import- 
 ant discoveries are the precession already mentioned ; the 
 length of the solar year ; the eccentricity of the sun's or- 
 bit; the periodic time of the moon's revolution with respect 
 to the stars, to the sun, to her nodes, and her apogee ; the 
 eccentricity and inclination of the lunar orbit. He invented 
 the planisphere, determined the places of 1030 stars, and 
 was the first who introduced into geography the method of 
 fixing the positions of places on the surface of the earth by 
 means of their latitudes and longitudes. 
 
 The name of Ptolemy is still more celebrated than that
 
 ASTRONOMY. 
 
 of Hipparchus ; though, as an astronomer, he occupies a 
 far inferior rank. His principal astronomical discovery is 
 the inequality of the moon's motion, technically called the 
 evection ; but his fame chiefly rests on his great work called 
 Syntax, or Composition ; in which he explains the appa- 
 rent motions of the sun, moon, and planets, according to a 
 hypothesis invented by Apollonius of Perga, some centu- 
 ries before, and which consists in supposing each of these 
 bodies to be carried by a uniform motion round the cir- 
 cumference of a circle called the epicycle, the centre of 
 which is carried uniformly forward in the circumfer- 
 ence of another circle called the deferent. This second 
 circle may be the epicycle of a third, and so on as 
 long as inequalities remain to be explained ; the earth 
 occupying a position near, but not at, the centre of the 
 last circle. This hypothesis is utterly demolished by a 
 few accurate observations of the present day ; but in the 
 time of Ptolemy it served to explain all the deviations 
 from circular motion then known, particularly the pheno- 
 mena of the stations "and retrogradations of the planets; 
 and it was even of service to astronomy, by offering a means 
 of reducing the apparent irregularities of the planetary 
 motions to arithmetical calculation. Ptolemy's share of the 
 merit belonging to the invention of this ingenious hypothe- 
 sis consists in the determination of the proportion between 
 the radius of the epicycle and that of its deferent circle, 
 and between the velocity of the planet and the velocity 
 of the centre of its epicycle. The Ptolemaic system con- 
 tinued in vogue till the revival of astronomy and the other 
 sciences in the fifteenth century, when it gave place to 
 theories founded on more enlarged views and more accu- 
 rate observations. 
 
 Fourteen centuries elapsed between Ptolemy and Co- 
 pernicus ; and during this long interval, astronomy con- 
 tinued nearly in the same state. The elements of the 
 solar and lunar tables had indeed received many correc- 
 tions ; and various improvements in the methods of ob- 
 serving and calculating had been introduced, principally by 
 the Arabs ; but in respect of theory, no change had taken 
 place. But an epoch had now arrived when men's minds 
 could no longer be held in thraldom by reverence for an- 
 cient authority ; and a spirit of investigation and inquiry 
 had arisen, which produced the happiest results in all the 
 departments of natural science. Copernicus, guided 
 perhaps in some measure by the opinions of Pythagoras, 
 but more by his own meditations on the planetary pheno- 
 mena, and the comparison of the numerous observations 
 accumulated by Purbach, Regiomontanus, and Walther, in 
 the latter half of the fifteenth century, had the glory of es- 
 tablishing the system of the world on its true basis. In his 
 great work, " De Revolutionibus Orbium Coilestium," 
 published in 1543, he showed that all the apparent motions 
 are easily explained by simply attributing a double motion 
 to the earth ; a diurnal rotation about its axis, and an 
 annual motion about the sun. The doctrine of the earth's 
 motion was opposed to the religious dogmas of the age, 
 and accordingly the theory of Copernicus met with great 
 resistance ; but as observations now began to be greatly 
 multiplied, and to be performed with greater accuracy, the 
 evidences in favour of it daily acquired strength, and in a 
 short time commanded universal assent among astrono- 
 mers. Tycho Brahe, indeed, an excellent observer, and 
 one to whom astronomy is under the greatest obligations, 
 made an attempt to save the ancient prejudices ; while he 
 explained the phenomena by supposing the sun, accom- 
 panied by the planets, to perform a diurnal revolution about 
 the earth. This system, however, on account of its physi- 
 cal improbability, never obtained many followers. 
 
 The next important step in astronomy was made by 
 Kepler. By means of a laborious comparison and calcu- 
 lation of observations, Kepler discovered that the orbits of 
 the planets are not circles but ellipses, having the sun in 
 one of the foci. He also found that the motion of any 
 planet in its elliptic orbit is so regulated, that the spaces 
 passed over by a straight line drawn from the planet to 
 the sun are equal in equal times ; and that the periodic 
 times of the different planets are in a certain given ratio 
 to their distances from the sun. It is difficult to estimate 
 the importance of these discoveries ; either with reference 
 to the amount of prejudice they overthrow, or their in- 
 fluence on astronomical theory. The circular and uni- 
 form motion of the celestial bodies was an axiom that had 
 never been disputed. It was even admitted by Copernicus ; 
 who was obliged, in order to reconcile it with the observa- 
 tions, to suppose the sun placed at a little distance from 
 the centre of each of the planetary circles. The elliptic 
 motion was a proposition as bold as original ; and, com- 
 bined with the equal description of areas in equal times, led 
 to the discovery of universal gravitation, and all the sub- 
 lime results of physical astronomy. 
 
 About this time, or a little earlier, two discoveries were 
 
 made which gave an immense impulse to astronomy. 
 
 These were the logarithms, invented by Napier, and the 
 
 telescope. Without the aid afforded by the logarithms, it 
 
 1U0 
 
 ASYLUM. 
 
 would have been impossible to accomplish the calcula- 
 tions which Kepler's discoveries rendered necessary ; and 
 to the telescope we are indebted not only for the enlarge- 
 ment of the visible boundaries of the universe, and the 
 knowledge of numerous bodies whose existence would 
 otherwise never have been suspected, but also for all the 
 precision of modern observation. 
 
 From the time of these great discoveries, the progress 
 of astronomy has been uninterrupted. By combining the 
 laws of the planetary motions discovered by Kepler, with 
 the theory of central forces established by Huygens, New- 
 ton completed the theory ; and proved that all" the motions 
 of the universe, from the fall of a body on the surface of 
 the earth, to the oscillations of the celestial sphere, are the 
 necessary consequences of a single, invariable, and simple 
 law. This is the law of universal gravitation ; which not 
 only affords a physical explanation of all the phenomena 
 that have been observed, but which, in the hands of mathe- 
 maticians, has led to the discovery of many important facts 
 which observation subsequently confirmed, though it could 
 not have detected them. The progress of the practical 
 parts of the science has, also, since the same epoch, been 
 commensurate with the improvements of the theory. 
 Observatories were established in different countries, where 
 a continued series of observations has been kept up. Aca- 
 demies and societies were founded for the purpose of 
 effecting, by combined efforts, what surpassed individual 
 exertion ; voyages and expeditions have been undertaken 
 to distant parts of the world for the purpose of measuring 
 the earth, and determining other elements necessary to a 
 complete knowledge of the planetary system. 
 
 The state of perfection to which astronomy is now 
 brought, may be regarded as the greatest triumph of 
 human exertion and reason. The motions of the moon 
 and the planets are know 7 n with the utmost accuracy ; 
 and the tables have all the precision which the navigator 
 or practical astronomer can desire. Our knowledge of 
 the planetary system may be regarded as complete. That 
 of the sidereal heavens must always be limited by the op- 
 tical powers of the human eye and the telescope. In this 
 department of astronomy, a boundless field has of late 
 years been thrown open for future research and specula- 
 tion. Stars are observed revolving about one another in 
 elliptic orbits. Are they then connected with each other 
 by forces of the same nature, and observing the same laws, 
 as solar attraction 1 The periodic times, and consequently 
 the mean distances of one or two comets, are observed to 
 be diminished. Are we then to infer that the regions of 
 space are filled with matter of sufficient density to resist 
 the motions of comets'! Are the comets themselves per- 
 manent bodies ; or are they merely formed by the occa- 
 sional collapse, as it were, of nebulous matter, and again 
 dissipated after a few revolutions'? The resistance of the 
 ether, the nature of comets, the constitution of the nebula?, 
 the laws which regulate the formation and motions of side- 
 real systems : such are the questions (questions remote in- 
 deed from any practical application to the affairs of man- 
 kind) which astronomers now aspire to solve. 
 
 For further information on this extensive and very im- 
 portant science, we must refer the reader to the particular 
 terms which belong to it, and also the general terms, Co- 
 met, Moon, Planet, Satellite, Star, Sun. The physi- 
 cal theory of the planetary motions will be found explained 
 under Gravitation ; and astronomical instruments de- 
 scribed under their respective names. Works on astrono- 
 my are so abundant in every European language, that it 
 could serve no purpose to make any references to them 
 in this place. The best popular treatise is that of Sir John 
 Herschel in Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia. 
 
 ASTA'RTE — the queen of heaven — a Phoenician god- 
 dess, called in the Scripture Ashtaroth. There is some ob- 
 scurity with respect to her worship, and the attributes as- 
 signed to her, which were held by different of the ancients 
 to correspond with those of the Grecian divinities Juno, 
 Diana, or Venus, but most generally the latter. Indeed it 
 is probable that the worship of this latter goddess was bor- 
 rowed by the Greeks from that of Astarte, which prevailed 
 to a great extent in the island of Cyprus, the fabled resi- 
 dence of Venus. 
 
 ASY'LUM. (Gr. d, vot, and cv\aoy, I rob.) A place of 
 refuge to which criminals might fly, and from which it was 
 considered the greatest impiety to move them by force. 
 This privilege was given to many of the temples, altars, 
 and statues of the gods, and its violation subjected the per- 
 petrator, and all his posterity, to the vengeance of the tu- 
 telary deity, and consequently they were driven from their 
 native country as accursed. The sacredness of the asylums 
 was preserved till the reign of Tiberius Cffisar, who, on 
 account of their inconvenience, abolished many, and re- 
 stricted the privileges of the rest. 
 
 Thebes and Athens each claimed the establishment of 
 the first asylum. Romulus set apart a particular spot on 
 the descent from the Capitoline hill for this purpose, and 
 thereby materially augmented the population of his infant
 
 ASYMPTOTE. 
 
 city. Ilence Juvenal satirically refers all the aristocracy 
 ol Rome to this ignoble stock : 
 
 l< Fa larnen ut longe repetas. Inngeqne revolvas 
 Nomen abinfami genteni deduclfl afcylu." 
 
 AsYLrM. The modern signification of this word differs 
 widely from its ancient acceptation, and the purposes for 
 which it is now employed will be best inferred from the 
 epithets with which it is connected. The must prominent 
 of these are asylums for the blind, deaf and dumb, lunatics, 
 and the destitute. There is no feature, perhaps, which 
 distinguishes a civilised from a savage slate of society more 
 than the establishment of institutions which tend to allevi- 
 ate the condition of those whom moral or physical defects 
 incapacitate for the purposes of self-exertion or competi- 
 tion with their fellow-citizens. In this view England has a 
 right to claim a place in the foremost ranks of civilisation, 
 whether we regard the number, the principles, or the in- 
 ternal management of its asylums. It would be out of 
 place here to enter into detail upon so wide and compre- 
 hensive a question as the word asylum involves, but the 
 reader will find in the parliamentary papers both of France 
 and England, and in the reports published from time t<> 
 time by the managers of asylums, a mass of information, 
 on this subject, at (nice amusing and instructive. 
 
 ASY'MPTOTE. The name given to a straight line or 
 curve which continually approaches nearer and nearer to 
 the infinite branch ofa given curve, in such a manner that 
 when they are both indefinitely produced, the distam 
 tween them, though it never entirely vanishes, becomes 
 less than any assignable finite di itance The term, \\ hich 
 was first employed by Apollonius, is derived from the 
 Greek d, priv., civ, with, and irfirrto, J full, and then fore 
 signifies Literally, not coincident, or that which does not meet. 
 Beginners (eel Borne difficulty in assenting to the truth 
 of the proposition that lines may continue in appi 
 each other without meeting. It is, in fact, apropo 
 which cannot be made evidenl to I 
 
 from our inability to effect the division of magnitude be- 
 yond certain limits, a familiar instance of continual ap- 
 proach to equality is afforded by a repeating decimal; (or 
 Instance, -99999, Sat ; the difference of which from unity 
 is made ten times smaller by the addition of evi ry succes- 
 sive digit ; but ii does nol become equal to unity till the 
 number of digits is supposed infinite!] greal The 
 
 and properties Of an 8SJ mp- 
 tote m iv be illustrated ;:'•" 
 metrically by the common 
 
 l:.ni <>!' 
 
 which is t y = a I \ i; 
 be Hie .,ii~- Lss, and \.C thi 
 
 I point I', aiel 
 
 the parallelogram a Pis equal 
 in a constant quantit] e in 
 like manner, the parallelo- 
 grams made by Hi di 
 
 if my other points, p,j> 
 will be each equ il ti I 
 
 is evident, therefore, thai the 
 o B 6 more \ I! Is in- 
 
 creased, ihe more the corresponding ordinate A C is di- 
 minished. If A b is equal to twice A 1!. then/, I, is only 
 
 half of 1* B, and so on. The curve, therefore, continually 
 approaches to the axis of the abscissa, bul qi vet 
 for supposing the poini p to be taken al Buch a distance 
 that A h would be a million of times greater than A It. p i> 
 would be a millionth part of P IS. a small quantity, in- 
 deed, but still not zero. However greal A p may be sup- 
 posed, pb must always have some value, otherwise a 
 straight line would pal to a parallelogram, which 
 
 is impossible, h is obvious that all thai has now been said 
 of the axis A B applies equally to AC; therefore the two 
 lines A B and A C arc asymptotes to the curve. 
 
 The asymptotes of curve lines are most readily deter- 
 mined from the properties of then- algebraic equations. Lef 
 us take, for example, the equation B2r2 — A2</'.' = A2B2, 
 which is that of the common hyperbola referred to ils 
 
 B2j'J / A2\ 
 
 diameters. We easily deduce y2 = — -- — ( 1_ — ) 
 
 A2 v Tl' 
 
 whence the absolute value of y is found, namely, 
 
 B / A? 
 y — -r- x \/ 1 • But the quantity under the ra- 
 dical sinn in this expression is always less than unify 
 while * retains a finite value (for x cannot be less than 
 A); the value of the ordinate y is therefore always less 
 
 B 
 than -jX- Now let a straight line A R be drawn through 
 
 the centre A (the origin of the co-ordinates) making 
 
 with the axis an angle R A Q, whose tangent is equal to 
 
 B 
 
 — ; and let the ordinate P Q be produced to meet it in R, 
 
 101 
 
 c \* 
 
 ATELLAN.E FABUL^E. 
 and let R Q be denoted by Y. We shall then have the 
 
 two equations Y = — x, y = — x\ / 1— -~i whence it 
 
 is easy to see that the more x is increased, the more the 
 difference between Y and y, that is RP. is diminished ; and 
 that it vanishes altogether when x is infinite. 
 
 The trigonometrical value of the cotangent of the angle 
 P T Q, which a tangent at P makes with the axis, is 
 _A2y. 
 — BTr' or ' SUDStitutul g f° r V 't s value in terms of 
 
 
 When the value of x is supposed 
 A 
 infinite, this expression is reduced to tt ; consequently, 
 
 B a 
 the tangent of the same angle is ^r\ But this is the tan- 
 
 genl of the angle made by the asymptote; and hence the 
 ts\ mptole to a curve is frequently defined and considered 
 as a tangent at an infinite distance. 
 
 In order to discover whether a curve has an asvmptote, 
 draw (' B, meeting the tangent in D. In proportion as the 
 poinl P is taken at a greater distance, the point T ap- 
 proaches to A. and D to E. But the asymptote is the 
 limiting position of the tangents; therefore we have only 
 Tu find whether the expressions of C T and C D, relative 
 to the given curve, are susceptible of finite limits, and 
 when this is the case the construction of those limits will 
 I const quently the asymptote. 
 
 An algebraic curve cannot have more asymptotes than 
 there are units in the exponent of its order. Of the curves 
 of the second order, the hyperbola alone has asymptotes, 
 and they are two in number. All curves of the third order, 
 or which are defined by a cubic equation, have some in- 
 finite branches, bul these branches nave nol always asymp- 
 Wiih respecl to carves <>i the fourth order, there 
 are an infinity of them which, so far from having four 
 asyni| ne at all, and which have not even in- 
 
 liiuie brain hes; for instance, the curve of Cassini. The 
 id, cissoid, and logarithmic, though not classed 
 among algebraic curves, base each an asymptote. 
 
 Ii may appear a sort of paradox that t fie areas bounded 
 by curves and their asymptotes, though indefinitely ex- 
 tended, have sometimes finite limits which they cannot 
 
 exc 1 This is the ease with the logarithmic curve, 
 
 and with hyperbolas of all kinds, except the common or 
 Apollonian. 
 
 In wha} precedes we have regarded an asymptote always 
 as a straight line ; bul two curves are sometimes said to be 
 as] m pi i lies of each other when they are such that on being 
 produced they continually approach without ever meeting 
 Thus two parabolas, having the same parameter, and Iheir 
 axes in the same straight line, fulfil the conditions of 
 as\ mpto 
 
 AS\ N AKTE'TA. (Gr. d, priv., and avvaprau), to con- 
 In Grammar, sentences which follow each other 
 immediately, without the intervention of any connecting 
 p utii le : as, " I came, I saw, I conquered." 
 
 ASY'N DETOX. (Gr. d, without, cvvieo), I connect.) 
 A figure by which the conjunctions in a sentence are 
 omitted: as in the famous phrase of Caesar, " Veni, vidi, 
 vici." 
 
 A'TE. (Gr. urij.) In Greek Mythology, the personifi- 
 cation of Revenge, Punishment, or Fatality. See Horn. 11. 
 lib. xi. v. 
 
 A'TELES. (Gr. dre\fii, imperfect.) A genus of South 
 American monkeys, characterized by the absence or rudi- 
 mental condition of the thumb of the anterior hands. The 
 deterioration of these members as prehensile organs is 
 compensated bv a very efficient prehensile tail. 
 
 ATEI.I.A'NVF, FA'BI'LjE. A species of comedy which 
 had ils origin among the Oscan inhabitants of Campania, 
 from a town of which country, Atella, it derived its name. 
 It was much in vogue at Rome, and it was not thought dis- 
 graceful for persons of gentle blood to take parts in its ex- 
 hibitions, as was the case in the other species of drama. 
 The language used in the attellanae fabulae was Oscan, and 
 the plots and style of the dialogue, unrestrained by any 
 fixed rules, partook of the nature of comedy, farce, and 
 burlesque, but was not stained by licentiousness, till the 
 degenerate morals of the empire drew them too into the 
 general vortex of corruption.
 
 A TEMPO GIUSTO. 
 
 A TEMPO GIUSTO. (Ital. in correct time.) In Music, 
 a direction to the performer, generally after a recitative, 
 to keep the measure true and correct, which, during the 
 recitative, was performed to suit the action and passion of 
 the same. 
 
 ATHA'LAMOUS. (Gr. d, without, and SdAa/JOc, a bed.) 
 Lichens whose thallus is not furnished with shields or beds 
 for the spores ; in these the reproductive matter is sup- 
 posed to be dispersed through the substance of Ihe crust, 
 as in lepraria. 
 
 ATHANA/SIAN CREED. A confession of faith, which 
 is described in the rubric of the Common Prayer Book, 
 which appoints it to be read on certain days, as commonly 
 called the Creed of St. Athanasius. That it was really 
 composed by that father is more than doubtful : modern 
 divines seem generally to assent to the judgment of Water- 
 land, who considers it to have been written by Hilary. 
 
 A'THEIST. (Gr. d, without, and 5tds, God; without 
 God.) One who denies the existence of a God, or a Pro- 
 vidence. 
 
 ATIIEN^'UM. (Greek.) In Antiquity, a public place 
 where the professors of the liberal arts held their assem- 
 blies, the rhetoricians declaimed, and the poets rehearsed 
 their performances. There were various places of this 
 kind at Athens. The emperor Adrian established a fa- 
 mous Athenaeum on the Capitoline hill at Rome, and at a 
 later period there was another of nearly equal celebrity at 
 Lyons. In modern times the name has been frequently 
 bestowed upon establishments connected with learning, 
 and upon public clubs or libraries frequented for convivial 
 or literary purposes. 
 
 ATHERl'CERA. (Gr. ddrip, a point, Ktpas, a horn.) 
 The name given by Cuvier and Lalreille to one of the pri- 
 mary divisions of the Dipterous order of insects. It com- 
 prehends the modern families SyrphidcB, Astridct, Cono- 
 pida, and Muscidce, in all of which the antenna? have only 
 two or three joints, the last being furnished with a bristle. 
 
 ATHERI'NA. A Linnaean genus of abdominal fishes, 
 having an elongated body, two widely-separated dorsal fins, 
 and a very protractile mouth armed with very small leeth. 
 All the known species have a broad silvery band along 
 €ach side, six branchiostegal rays. It was to the fishes of 
 this genus that the ancients attributed an origin by equivo- 
 cal generation ; and the inhabitants of the shores of France, 
 which are washed by the Mediterranean, still call them 
 "nonnats." 
 
 ATHEROSPERMA'CE^E. (Atherosperma, one of the 
 genera.) Incomplete aromatic exogenous shrubs found in 
 New Holland and South America, remarkable for having 
 their flowers in a cup-shaped involucre, and the peculiar 
 anthers of lauracea?. 
 
 ATHLE'TES. (Gr. aQ\ov, a prize.) Men who con- 
 tended at (he public games of the Greeks and Romans, in 
 boxing, wrestling, running, leaping, and throwing the quoit. 
 The name was more particularly applied in the two former 
 cases. Their dress consisted merely of a linen bandage 
 round the loins, the rest of the body being left naked, and 
 anointed with an unctuous mixture called ceroma. The 
 boxers used a kind of glove called caestus, which consisted 
 of leather thongs wrapped round the hand with pieces of 
 lead and iron sewed into them, to give greater weight to 
 the blows. 
 
 Among the Greeks these contests were considered highly 
 honourable, and the victors at their national games at 
 Olympia, and elsewhere, were received in their native 
 states with great distinction, and were rewarded with valu- 
 able privileges ; indeed, one of their most popular divini- 
 ties, Pollox, was celebrated for his skill in boxing. Among 
 the Romans they were slaves, or hired persons of lower 
 rank, or foreigners. 
 
 ATLA'NTES. (Gr. tXikj, I hear.) In Architecture, the 
 statues of men used instead of columns to support an en- 
 tablature. The word is used by Vitruvius. 
 
 ATLA'NTIDES. In Astronomy, a name given to the 
 Pleiades, because they were supposed to be daughters of 
 Atlas, or his brother Hesperus, who were translated to 
 heaven. 
 
 ATLA'NTIS. (Greek.) An island mentioned in Plato's 
 Dialogue entitled I.imasus, as having once existed in the 
 Atlantic Ocean opposite to the Pillars of Hercules. It was 
 said to have exceeded Europe and Africa jointly in magni- 
 tude ; and after existing for 0000 years, during which peri- 
 od its inhabitants extended their conquests throughout the 
 known quarters of the globe, to have been uprooted by 
 prodigious earthquakes and inundations, and submerged 
 in the ocean. The question of the reality and site of this 
 island has been frequently discussed by modern geogra- 
 phers, who have displayed much critical perspicacity in 
 its elucidation. M. Bailly supported the Platonic view of 
 the existence and site of the island on the authority of the 
 ancients, and cited Homer and Diodorus Siculus in cor- 
 roboration of his opinion. Rudbeck, Kircher, Beckman, 
 and others, concur in opinion respecting its reality, but 
 each assigns to it a different locality. According to the 
 102 
 
 ATMOSPHERE. 
 
 conjectures of Buffon and Whitehurst, who regarded the 
 Canaries and the Peak of Teneriffe as the summits of 
 mountains belonging to some submerged continent, Atlan- 
 tis was the land which, at a former period, united Ireland 
 to the Azores and the Azores to America. On the other 
 hand, D'Anville and Heeren regard Plato's account of the 
 Atlantis as altogether a fanciful speculation ; while there 
 are not wanting many who discover in it proofs that the 
 American continent was known at some remote period to 
 the people of the Eastern hemisphere, but that the know- 
 ledge was subsequently lost. 
 
 A'TLAS, in Anatomy, is the term applied to the upper- 
 most of the cervical vertebra; ; so named from its sup- 
 porting the head, as Atlas was supposed to support the 
 globe. 
 
 Atlas. In Literature, a name given to collections of 
 geographical maps and charts ; so called from the mytho- 
 logical giant who was said to support the globe. The name 
 was first applied in this sense by Gerard Mercator, the 
 geographer, in the 16th century. It is now used also for 
 works in which other subjects are displayed in a tabular 
 form : as, genealogy, chronology, ethnography, &c. 
 
 Atlas. In Geography and Mythology, the name of an 
 extensive chain of lofty mountains, some of their summits 
 having an elevation of above 13.000 feet, in the N. W. of 
 Africa. The early Phoenician and Greek navigators, who 
 saw this vast chain from a distance, and were unacquainted 
 with the intervening country, naturally formed the most 
 extravagant notions of its height. This gave rise to a num- 
 ber of fables. The summits of the mountains were be- 
 lieved to pierce the skies; and the poets represented Atlas 
 as an old man of gigantic stature who supported the hea- 
 vens on his shoulders. Virgil has described Atlas, con- 
 sistently with the popular belief, in some of the finest lines 
 of the JEneid : — 
 
 ■ Jamque vnlansapicem et bteranrdua cernit 
 
 Atlantusdui-i,cslum qui vertice fulcit ; 
 
 Atlantis, cinctum assidue cui ntihibu? atris 
 
 Pinilerum caput et ventopulsatur et imbri ; 
 
 Nix humeros infusa tegit ; turn tlumina rnento 
 
 Precipitant senis, et giacie riaet horrida barba. — IV. 246 — 252. 
 
 ATMO'METER. (Gr. driids, vapour, and pirpov, mea- 
 sure.) An instrument for determining the rate of evapora- 
 tion from a humid surface. 
 
 A'TMOSPHERE. (Gr. aTjids, vapour, and trdaTpa, a 
 sphere.) The assemblage of aeriform vapours wh'ich form 
 the invisible medium which surrounds the earth. For an 
 account of the different gases which enter into the compo- 
 sition of atmospheric air, see Air. We shall here confine 
 ourselves to an account of the mechanical properties of the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 Weight of the Atmosphere. The first circumstance con- 
 nected with Ihe atmosphere which attracts our attention is 
 its weight, or the pressure which it exerts on solid bodies 
 at the surface of the earth. It is well known that the rise 
 of water in the sucking pump, and the suspension of the col- 
 umn of mercury in the barometric tube, are caused by the 
 pressure of the atmosphere; we have, therefore, in either 
 of these phenomena, the means of exactly measuring its 
 weight. The column of mercury in the tube of a barome- 
 ter is exactly equal in weight to a cylinder of air of equal 
 diameter reaching to the top of the atmosphere. Now, the 
 mean height of the barometer at the level of the sea is 
 about 28 6 inches ; and a cubic inch of mercury weighs 
 342592 grains, or 048956 lbs. avoirdupois. It follows, 
 therefore, that a column of mercury whose base is a square 
 inch, and height the mean height of the barometer, weighs 
 0-489.30X28'6 = 14-6 lbs. avoirdupois nearly, or that the at- 
 mosphere exerts a pressure equal to 146 lbs. on every 
 square inch at the surface of the earth. 
 
 This pressure of the atmosphere plays a very important 
 part in the animal and vegetable economy. Like that of all 
 other fluids, it is exerted equally in all directions ; thus the 
 air in a tube presses not only on the bottom but also on the 
 sides of the tube, with a force equal to 146 lbs. for every 
 square inch. The surface of a man of ordinary stature is 
 about 15 square feet, or 2160 square inches, whence the 
 whole atmospheric pressure which his body sustains 
 amounts to the enormous sum of 31,536 lbs. This great 
 pressure is not sensible, because it is balanced by the re- 
 action of the elastic fluids in the interior of our bodies ; but 
 if the equilibrium were to be suddenly destroyed, the con- 
 sequences might be fatal. Under the exhausted receiver 
 of an air pump, animal life is soon destroyed : on the sum- 
 mit of a very high mountain a man experiences extreme 
 fatigue, respiration becomes difficult, the pulse is accele- 
 rated, and it has happened that the blood has started from 
 the eyes and ears, and other tender parts of the body, in 
 consequence of the diminished pressure. 
 
 Density of the Atmosphere. The density of the atmos- 
 phere is not the same at different distances from the sur- 
 face of the earth, but diminishes in the duplicate ratio of 
 the altitude : that is to say, if at a certain altitude above the 
 earth's surface it be one half what it is at the surface, then
 
 ATMOSPHERE. 
 
 at twice that altitude the density will be only one fourth of 
 what it is at the surface. This may be proved as follows. 
 Conceive a vertical tube filled with air, reaching from the 
 surface of the earth to the limits of the atmosphere ; it is 
 evident that each particle of the inclosed air will sustain 
 the pressure of all those above it ; and as the air, in 
 consequence of its elasticity, is condensed proportional- 
 ly to the pressure, it is easy to see that the density will 
 go on diminishing from below upwards. To discover 
 the law of this diminution, let x be the height of any 
 point of this column above the surface of the earth, ?/ = 
 the density and p = the pressure of the air at x ; and 
 in order to simplify the problem, we shall suppose the 
 temperature to be the same throughout the column, and 
 neglect the difference of pressure arising from the diminu- 
 tion "1 gravity. Supposing the area of the column = 1 the 
 volume of an infinitely thin stratum is the differential of the 
 height, or d .'". and therefore the weight of all the strata or 
 tin' whole column above the point x expressed bj the in- 
 tegral/ — u d x (d x being taken with the negative si'_ r n. be- 
 cause when * increases the weight diminishes), lint it is 
 
 evident that Hie weight <>( the column above x must make 
 .in equilibrium with the pressure at x, therefore we have 
 the equation p =f — udi. But the density is propor- 
 tional to the pressure, therefore, A being a constant quan- 
 tity, p = A u and consequently A u =f — udr. Hence, 
 
 A d u = — ud.r and di = — A 
 
 (I ii 
 
 I nig this c- 
 
 quation we get x = C — A log. u. Let U be the density at 
 the surface, where x = o; the equal inn then becomes o = C 
 — A log. II ; whence eliminating C,x= A log. D— A log. u i 
 U 
 
 orx = Alog. 
 
 It follows therefore that as the altitude x 
 
 increases, the logarithm of the density u diminishes ; 
 whence we dense this important conclusion, that [flhe al- 
 titudes above the surface of the earth be taken in arith- 
 metical progression, the densities of the air at these alti- 
 tudes v. ill he a geometrical progression d< creasing. 
 
 By means of this theorem we can easily find the density 
 of the atmosphere al different altitudes, with the help of a 
 common table of logarithms. Suppose that at the height 
 oi .11, mile above the surface the density is represented 
 by unity, the densities at other altitudes will tie represented 
 as follows : — 
 
 Height in ) , o a r r t 
 
 miles J 1 ' 2 > 3 ' 4 > 5 > C ' 
 
 ii, , 'r'TieM l '',i'i'e's s | i°' 739 . 0-6309, 0-6011, 39S1, 3103, 02511 
 So that in an elevation of seven miles the density is re. 
 duieil to one-fourth, and at II miles to one sixteenth, and 
 soon. Conversely, when the variation of the density or 
 pressure at different points is ascertained, the difference 
 of altitude becomes known ; In iu-i ■ 'i the bar- 
 
 ometer we ire enabled to ascertain the elevations of the 
 different countries or mountains of the earth above the 
 
 level ol the sea 
 
 Height of the Atmosphere. It the air were of the same 
 density throughout, it would he very easj to determine the 
 limits of the atmosphere. It has been found by accurate 
 
 experiments, that at the temperature of 60° and under a 
 pressure measured by 29*62 inches of mercury, a cubic 
 inch of atmospheric air weighs 9-311446 grains. Compar- 
 ing this with the weigh) oi a cubic inch of mercury, it is 
 
 found that ifthe density continued the same, the height of 
 the atmosphere Would be 328,02] inches, or 6 17 miles. 
 Hut on account of the rapid diminution of the density, it is 
 
 very evident thai the heighl of the atmosphere musl great- 
 ly exceed 5 miles, though we have no means of direct!) 
 determining how much. There are. however, various me- 
 thods of obtaining an approximate estimate. Oneof them, 
 proposed by Kepler, is derived from observations on the 
 twilight, which is occasioned by the power the atmosphere 
 possesses of refracting and reflecting light It is generally 
 
 assumed that twilight ceases when the sun lias di 
 
 18° below the horizon. Now it may he considered that 
 
 this takes place when a ray of light proceeding from the 
 
 sun, and passing by the surface of the earth, just reaches 
 the highest stratum of the atmosphere, and is reflected 
 back to the earth in the direction of a tangent to its surface 
 at the place of observation. On this principle it is calcula- 
 ted that reflection cannot take place at a greater altitude 
 than -1") miles. There are other considerations which lead 
 us to infer that the height of the atmosphere cannot be much 
 less than this sum. With a good air pump, air may be rare- 
 fied 300 limes; supposing this to be the utmost limit to 
 which rarefaction can he carried, the atmosphere would 
 still extend to an altitude of about 40 miles. 
 
 Limits of the Atmosphere. Though we are unable to as- 
 sign the precise boundaries of the atmosphere, there are 
 phenomena which prove that it has a limit; that it does 
 not extend indefinitely into the celestial spaces, but belongs 
 exclusively to our earth. If matter, or rather if atmosphe- 
 ric air, were infinitely divisible, the extent of the aUnos- | 
 103 
 
 ATMOSPHERIC TIDES. 
 
 phere would also be infinite ; but in this case the fluid 
 could not be in equilibrio unless the sun and all the planets 
 as well as the earth had respectively portions of it con- 
 densed around them proportional to their respective at- 
 tractions. Hut it is known, from the phenomena of the 
 eclipses of Jupiter's satellites, that the atmosphere of that 
 planet does not by any means exceed that of the earth in 
 proportion to the great superiority of his mass and attrac- 
 tive power; hence there can be no communication be- 
 tween (he atmosphere of the earth and that of Jupiter. It 
 has also been shown by Dr. Wollaston, from phenomena 
 attending the passage of Venus near the sun, that the sun 
 has no sensible atmosphere. We are therefore warranted 
 in concluding that the atoms of air are not infinitely divisi- 
 ble, and consequently thai the atmosphere has a limit; and 
 the limit must be situated at that height above the earth 
 when- the gravitation of the atoms is just equal to the force 
 ol Hi' ir repulsion. 
 
 Effects of the Atmosphere on Zdght. Like all other dia- 
 phanous substances, the atmosphere attracts the molecules 
 of light, and deth cis them from their rectilinear course. 
 This phenomenon is called refraction. It increases the 
 apparent elevation of all the celestial bodies above the 
 horizon; but, fortunately for astronomy, its effects can be 
 rigorously calculated. The atmosphere also, notwith- 
 standing its transparency, intercepts and reflects the rays 
 of light, and multiplies and propagates them by an infinity 
 of repercussions, Ifthe atmosphere did not exist, objects 
 would not be illuminated unless exposed to the direct light, 
 of the sun. As soon as we ceased to look at the sun, or 
 objects illuminate,] by his rays, we should be left in total 
 darkness. The solar rays reflected from the earth would 
 be lost in the regions of space, and an excessive cold con- 
 tinually prevail. The sun would continue to shine with 
 nsity, till it reached the horizon, and the tran- 
 sition from 'he glare of meridian splendour to absolute 
 darkness would be almosl instantaneous. All these effects 
 ion be judged oi bywhat is experienced on the summits 
 oi very nigh mountains, where the air is greatly ran 
 The c,,i,| i^ insupportable. Scarcely any other light is re- 
 ceived bj the eye, than that which comes direct from the 
 sun and the stars. The illuminating power of the atmos- 
 
 is so feeble, thai to an eye placed in the shade the- 
 
 stars are \ isible in broad day. 
 
 i irqftfu 1 phert The general blue colour of 
 the atmosphere, and the brilliant and glowing tints of the 
 
 ig and evening, arise from the different n 
 
 lions which the different rays of light receive in passing 
 
 through the air. When the sun is near the horiz the 
 
 stratum of air through which the light must pass bel 
 
 reaches iis is greatly thicker than when he is at a consider- 
 able altitude. Now the red rays posses- a greater momen- 
 tum than those of the upper portion of the spectrum, 
 
 w hence thej foi ce their way In greater abundance through 
 the resisting mass of air, and penetrate to the earth, while 
 
 the violet and Mo, are collected or absorbed. Hence the- 
 ruddy colour ol the morning ami evening skies. The pre- 
 vailing blue colour of the atmosphere is to be ascribed t» 
 the greater facility with which the blue and violet rays are 
 reflected, or from possessing less power to penetrate 
 through the aerial strata Ma great height in the atmos- 
 phere, the line tinge disappears, and the sky becomes a 
 
 'lack. 
 
 The atmosphere Is a region of clouds and vapours through 
 the agency of which the earth is fertilised ami rendered fit 
 for the support of animal and vegetable life. The various 
 i which h is the theatre, and the effect of 
 the changes Which are continually takiiiL' place in its phy- 
 sical condition, form one of the most important branches 
 of natural philosophy < See Climate, Meteorology, Va- 
 pour, Wind, a 
 
 Atmosphere, in Electricity, denotes a medium eon- 
 ceived to be diffused over the surface of electric bodies, 
 
 and to extend to some distance from them. It is not 
 
 proved that any such thud medium exists, al least of a pe- 
 culiar kind, though it figured greatly in the language of the 
 early writers on electricity. Phenomena that were ex 
 plained by the agency of a peculiar fluid, are now known 
 to depend on the modification which common air receives 
 from electric substances. Sep. Electricity. (See Lard- 
 ner's Meteorology, Electricity, <fec. in Cabinet Cyclopedia, 
 Hutchison's Meteorological < >h, -nations. &c.) 
 
 ATMOSPHE'RIC STONES. See Aerolites. 
 
 ATMOSPHE'IUC TIDES Certain changes in the bar- 
 ometric, pressure of the atmosphere, depending on the at- 
 traction of the sun and moon. Laplace ascribes the lunar 
 influence indicated by the observations on the diurnal var- 
 iations of the barometer to the elevation and depression of 
 the waters of theocpan, instead of the direct effect of the 
 moon's attraction. The solar action he attributes wholly 
 to the expansion caused by the heat of the sun. It is ex 
 tremely doubtful if, in our latitudes, the attraction of the 
 sun and moon produces any perceptible oscillation of the 
 atmosphere.
 
 ATOM. 
 
 A'TOM. (Gr. d, not, and rljivu, I cut.) A part so small 
 bs not to be divisible. 
 
 ATO'MIC THEORY. (In Chemistry.) When sub- 
 stances combine chemically, they are found to unite in 
 certain weights ; thus, water is constituted of one part by 
 weight of hydrogen and eight of oxygen, and the gases only 
 combine in those proportions to form it. It is assumed 
 that water is a compound of an atom of hydrogen and an 
 atom of oxygen, and that the relative weight of the atom 
 of hydrogen to the atom of oxygen is as 1 : 8 ; hence the 
 atomic weight of water is 1 + 8, or = 9. The same theo- 
 retical views are applicable to all other simple and com- 
 pound bodies, and the numbers which represent their 
 combining weights are hence called their atomic or equi- 
 valent numbers. See EauivALENTS and Affinity. {See 
 Daubeny on the Atomic Theory.) 
 
 ATOMOGY'XIA. (Gr. oltouos, uncut, and yvvrj, a fe- 
 male.) A word proposed to be substituted for angiosper- 
 mia, the name of the second order of the sixth class of Lin- 
 naeus, signifying that the ovary is not cleft into distinct 
 parts. 
 
 ATO'NEMEXT. (From the old English verb to atone, 
 or reconcile : the phrase is still used adverbially, as where 
 we say that two persons are " at one,'' i. e. agreed.) In 
 Theology, the reconcilement of God with man by virtue of 
 the death of our Saviour. The sacrifices of Jewish and 
 patriarchal antiquity were types of this great event, and 
 were in themselves offered for the purpose of atoning for 
 sin; and the idea attached to the practice of sacrifice by 
 the numerous heathen nations of antiquity, and of the pre- 
 sent time, has always been the same. (See Sacrifice.) 
 
 A'TRIUM. (According to Scaliger, from the Greek 
 aWptoi, expostd to the air.) In ancient Architecture, the 
 atrium is by some considered the same as the vestibule, 
 and Aulus Gellius intimates that in his time these two 
 words were frequently confounded. There is reason for 
 supposing that the vestibule was not properly a part of the 
 house, but merely a portion of the entrance ; for Cicero, in 
 a letter to Atticus, describing the attack made on him in 
 the via sacra, says, he took refuge to defend himself in the 
 vestibule of Tatiiis. " Secessi in vestibulum Caii Tatii Do- 
 mionis." If, however, in the time of Aulus Gellius these 
 words were used ambiguously, it is not probable that at 
 this period the question will be settled ; and that this was 
 the case is quite certain, for, in describing the spot where 
 the colossal statue of Nero stood, Martial places it in the 
 atrium, and Suetonius in the vestibulum. That the atrium 
 was in an inner part the verse of Virgil, " Apparet domus 
 intus et atria longa patescunt." According to the descrip- 
 tion of Vitruvius, it seems to have been a sort of covered 
 portico, composed of two ranks of columns, forming a cen- 
 tre and two side aisles, and to have been beyond the cavae- 
 dium or court, and before the tablinium or cabinet. The 
 atrium was decorated with the statues of the proprietor's 
 ancestors. Festus derives its name from its first use at 
 Atria in Etruria. " Dictum atrium quia id genus edificii 
 primum Atriae in Etruria sit institutum." 
 
 A'TKOPHY. (Gr. d, priv., and rpi<j>o>, Inourish.) A 
 wasting away of the flesh. 
 
 ATRO'PIA. (Gr. utoottos, one of the Fiites.) A highly 
 poisonous alkaline substance, extracted from the atropa 
 belladonna, or deadly nightshade. 
 
 a'TTA. The name of a Fabrician genus of Hymenop- 
 terous insects belonging to the ant-tribe (Formicida;), cha- 
 racterised by their minute palpi, and the large size of the 
 heads of the neuters. Some of the largest species of ant, 
 as the visiting ant of South America, {Formica cephalotes 
 L.). are included in this genus. 
 
 ATTA'CHMENT. In" Law, a process issuing in a sum- 
 mary manner from a court of record against the person 
 of any one guilty of a contempt of its rules. Attachment is 
 most commonly granted against attorneys for malpractice, 
 against sheriffs for making a false or no return to a writ. 
 and against any parties neglecting to pay costs when ruled 
 to do so. 
 
 Foreign Attachment. Under the custom of the city of 
 London, whenever process for debt from the mayor or 
 sheriffs' court is returned nihil, the plaintiff may, upon its 
 appearing that a third person is indebted to the defendant, 
 obtain satisfaction of his claim by attaching the debt. This 
 is called foreign attachment. 
 
 ATTATNDER, BILL OF. A species of extraordinary 
 proceeding against parties accused of treasons or felonies 
 which cannot be reached by the ordinary course of jus- 
 tice. During the reigns of the Tudors the more constitu- 
 tional process of impeachment was entirely laid aside, and 
 attainders were generally adopted in the case of state crimi- 
 nals. These bills usually commenced in the Lords. They 
 have been very unusual in later times : the last recorded 
 in Mr. Hatsell's Precedents of Parliament was directed 
 against some persons concerned in the Scotch rebellion in 
 1746. Parliament is now bound, in passing these acts, to 
 adhere to the rules of evidence which are followed in or- 
 dinary courts of justice. 
 104 
 
 ATTORNEY. 
 
 Attainder is the supposed stain or corruption of the blood 
 of a criminal legally condemned, which, by the common 
 law of England, immediately follows the pronouncing sen- 
 tence of death. The attainder of a criminal follows upon 
 judgment, and not upon conviction. Attainder is either on 
 appearance (by confession or by verdict) or by process, 
 otherwise termed by default or outlawry, in case of non- 
 appearance. For the effect of attainder on the lands. &c. 
 of the criminal, see Forfeiture. It is enacted by 54 G. 3. 
 c. 143. that no attainder for felony, except in cases of high 
 treason, petty treason, or murder, or abetting and counsel- 
 ling the same, shall extend to the prejudice of the rights 
 of any persons except the offender during his life. 
 
 ATTE'LABUS. The name of a Linnaean genus of Cole- 
 opterous insects, characterised by moniliform antennae, 
 thicker towards the tip, and situated on the rostrum: the 
 head pointed behind, and inclined. The species thus hete- 
 rogeneously grouped together are now divided into the 
 genera Attelabus proper, Apoderus, and Rhynchites. The 
 latter includes some of the most beautiful weevils in this 
 country, amongst which is the rare and splendid Carculio 
 auratus. 
 
 ATTE'XTIOX. (Lat. attentio.) In Metaphysics, a steady 
 exertion or application of the mind to any object of sense 
 or intellect, in order to its being thoroughly understood, and 
 afterwards retained. Attention is regarded by Stewart as 
 a distinct faculty of the mind ; and though this arrange- 
 ment does not coincide with the views of many philoso- 
 phers, his illustrations of the results or effects of atten- 
 tion are universally considered as a masterpiece of meta- 
 physical disquisition. (Vide Inquiry into the Human 
 Mi/id. ch. 2.) 
 
 ATTE'XUAXTS. Remedies which dilute the blood. 
 
 ATTENl'A'TUS. (Lot. made thinner.) When the thick- 
 ness of any part diminishes in some particular direction, it 
 is often used in the sense of narrowed, or anirustate. 
 
 A'TTIC. (Gr. drriKdi, Athenian ; derived, in the seventh 
 edition of" Ency. Brit..'' art. " Architecture," from aretxov, 
 icithout a irall, which, if true, would make everything attic 
 that was detached from a wall.) In Architecture, a low 
 order of architecture, commonly used over a principal or- 
 der, never with columns in it, but always antae, orpilasters. 
 It is employed to decorate the facade of a floor of small 
 height, terminating the upper part of a building, and is 
 doubtless called attic from its resemblance in proportional 
 height and concealed roof to some of the buildings of 
 Greece. Pliny describes it, after speaking of the other 
 orders, thus : " Praeter has sunt qua} vocantur atticae co- 
 lumnar quaternis angulis pari laterum intervallo." We, 
 however, find no examples of square pillars in the remains 
 of ancient art, though almost all the triumphal arches ex- 
 hibit specimens of pilastral attics, having no capitals save 
 the cornice breaking round them. In modern architecture 
 the proportions of the attic order have never been subject 
 to fixed rules, and their good effect is entirely dependent 
 on the taste of the architect. 
 
 ATTIC RASE. See Base. 
 
 A'TTICISM. (Gr.) An elegant or concise form of ex- 
 pression. Milton, in his Apology for Smectymnuus, thus 
 uses it : " They made sport, and I laughed : they mispro- 
 nounced, and I misliked; and, to make up the atticism, 
 they were out, and I hissed." The term Sal Aiticum was 
 employed by the Romans at once to characterise the poign- 
 ancy of wit and brilliancy of style peculiar to the Athe- 
 nian writers, and to desiunate the liveliness, spirituality, 
 and refined taste of the inhabitants of that city, which form- 
 ed the focus and central point of all the eloquence and re- 
 finement of the Greeks. 
 
 A'TTITUDE. (Fr.) In Painting and Sculpture, the ges- 
 ture and position of a figure, in which the action or senti- 
 ment of the person is represented. It should be natural 
 and unconstrained, expressive, varied. Where more than 
 one figure occurs there should be contrast in the limbs, 
 and at the same time a balancing of each other. 
 
 ATTO'RXEY. (From the modem Latin torno, whence 
 attorno, attornatus, signifying one who serves the turn, or 
 is set in the place of another to do his business.) An at- 
 torney is either private or public. A private attorney is a 
 person who acts for another in the conduct of his affairs 
 out of court : for which purpose a verbal authority is in 
 general sufficient ; but for the performance of some acts, 
 as, to deliver seisin of land, to transfer bank stock, or to 
 execute a deed for another, he must be authorised by a 
 formal power of attorney. He is not necessarily of the 
 profession of the law ; and the above, and all other the va- 
 rious matters unconnected with actual litigation in which he 
 may be employed, such as the preparation of legal instru- 
 ments, and the giving of advice and assistance in the trans- 
 fer and management of property, may be undertaken by 
 any other person. A public attorney, or an attorney at 
 law, has been defined to be an officer of a court of record, 
 legally qualified to prosecute and defend actions in courts 
 of law on the retainer of clients. The circumstance of 
 his being an officer of the court in which he may practise
 
 ATTORNEY. 
 
 Is important, as bringing him immediately within its sum- 
 mary jurisdiction, and thereby giving rise to his peculiar 
 privileges and disabilities. A solicitor differs from an at- 
 torney in practising in courts of equity instead of common 
 law. 
 
 Anciently parties were not allowed to appear in court by 
 attorney without the king's special warrant by writ or let- 
 ters patent, and if this could not be obtained were com- 
 pelled every day during the pendency of their suit to be 
 present in their own proper persons. The power of suing 
 and being sued by attorney was first given by statute in the 
 time of Edward i. All persons may now appear in court 
 by an attorney of their own appointment, except infants, 
 who must appear by next friend or guardian ; married wo- 
 men, for whom, unless when proceeding in chancery in 
 respect of their separate estate against their husbands, the 
 attorney must be appointed by their husbands; idiots, and 
 persona charged with any criminal offence, must appear in 
 person ; lunatics, if of full aire, and corporations, cannot 
 appear otherwise than by attorney. 
 
 The admission and practice of attorneys is now chiefly 
 regulated by the 2 G. 2. c. 23., and other statutes made in 
 the same and succeeding reign. The first requisite to be 
 complied with in order to become an attorney is to enter 
 into a contract in writing, called articles of clerkship, on 
 which a heavy stamp duty is payable, with an attorney or 
 solicitor actually practising, or other officer of court speci- 
 fied by statute to serve him iti Che capacity of clerk for 
 five years. No attorney or solicitor can take more than 
 two articled clerks at the same time, but some of the offi- 
 cers above referred to are allowed to take three persons 
 who have taken the degree of u. .\. or B. C. L. at ( Ixford, 
 Cambridge, or Dublin, within a certain fixed period after 
 matriculation at the university, and before execution of 
 their articles maybe admitted as attorneys after a clerk- 
 ship of three years. Clerks also who are bound for five 
 years are allowed to reel t their term a year 
 
 passed as bona fide pupils to a barrister or special pi 
 Alter the expiration oi the service, and notice given of bis 
 intention to apply for admission, the clerk must go I 
 aboard of examiners recently established by the judges 
 under rule of court, and his fitness and capacity having 
 been approved, be sworn in open court to demean himself 
 honestly in his practice. His name Is then entered on one 
 of the records of the court, called the roll of attorney^ and 
 he is duly admitted an attorney of that particular i 
 He may, however, when admitted of any one court al 
 Westminster, practise Inany one of the other courts there, 
 in the name of an attorney ol - OUIt, With Ins 
 
 consent in writing. He may, at a trifling exp 
 mitted a solicitor in any of the courts of equity, as a 
 tor in equity may in like manner be admitted an attorney 
 of any of the courts of common law. After admls 
 must, before the 16th December la every year, paj 
 tain duty, and obtain bis certificate. Should be for one 
 whole year neglect to take out his certificate, he would, 
 besides incurring a penalty for practising without one, be 
 thenceforth Incapable of acting In cowl in any professional 
 
 character; hut upon payment of all arrears of duty since 
 the expiration of his last certificate, and of a further sum 
 by way of penalty, may lie readmitted. 
 
 An attorney actually practising is supposed to be always 
 present in court, and has for that reason many privileges 
 in common with its other officers. He is accordingly ex- 
 empted from serving on juries and inquests, and generally 
 from filling all offices which require personal service; he 
 has the privilege in all personal actions of suing in his own 
 court, and of retaining the venue in Middlesex, and as de- 
 fendant is not liable to be arrested on mesne process. He 
 is in general privileged from giving evidence of any confi- 
 dential communication made to him by his client : this, 
 however, is the privilege not of the profession but of the 
 client, who may waive it if he please. An attorney cannot 
 fill the office of justice of the peace, sheriff, and many 
 other offices, and cannot be bail for another unless in 
 criminal cases. He is not permitted to deal with his clients 
 in the same unrestrained manner in which ordinary men 
 may deal with each other ; and when a purchaser of his 
 client's property, is sometimes required to show affirma- 
 tively in the first instance that he has given for it its full 
 value. To restrain him from extortionate and vexatious 
 conduit, he is required, one month at least before bring- 
 ing an action to recover fees for business done in court, to 
 deliver to his client a bill of costs, which, upon application 
 of the client and his undertaking to pay what shall appear 
 due, will be taxed by an officer of the court, and if exorbi- 
 tant be reduced to a fair and reasonable amount. Where 
 an attorney has been guilty of gross ignorance, neglect, or 
 misbehaviour, in the management of his client's business, 
 the court will frequently interpose in a summary manner, 
 and compel the attorney to pay the costs, or make repara- 
 tion for any loss occasioned by his default ; and in cases 
 of fraudulent malpractice grant an attachment against him, 
 or even strike him off the roll. He is besides liable to an 
 105 
 
 ATTRACTION. 
 
 action for any gross and culpable negligence, by which tho 
 interest of his client may have been' prejudiced. In mat- 
 ters of difficulty, not lying within his own department of 
 the profession, he is protected from responsibility by act- 
 ing on the opinion of counsel; but in matters of simple 
 and ordinary practice, where the law will presume him to 
 have the requisite knowledge himself, he cannol avoid his 
 responsibility bv consulting another. 
 
 ATTORNEY-GENERAL. An officer made bv letters 
 patent. He is the public prosecutor on behalf of the 
 crown, his duty being to exhibit informations in criminal 
 matters which concern the crown, ex officio, or by virtue 
 of his office. (See Information.) He also files bills in 
 the exchequer for any thing concerning the king's inheri- 
 tance and profits, and bills are filed against him by others. 
 The attorney-general has precedence of all other counsel. 
 As chief legal adviser of the crown, in all matters falling 
 within the purview of his office, his place is one of great 
 importance, and is usually entrusted to new hands when- 
 ever an extensive change is made in the cabinet. It is 
 generally understood that the attorney-general for the time 
 being has a priority of claim for preferment to anv of the 
 high law offices which may fall vacant, if he is willing to 
 accept it ; but this rule has by no means been uniformly 
 acted on. 
 
 ATTRA'CTION. (Lat. ad, to, and tralio. Idrair.) Used 
 in physics to denote the tendency which we observe in 
 certain bodies to approach one another, and to resist sepa- 
 ration. The meaning of this term has been greatly ob- 
 scured by metaphysical disputations. When a body A, is 
 connected with another hotly 1!. by a rod, or chain, or in 
 general by the Intervention of any mechanical means, we 
 see, or fancy we see, the reason why B attracts A, or A is 
 compelled to follow the motions of B. But when two dis- 
 tini l bo inected by any visible bond of union are 
 
 ed i i approacl e another, the phenomenon seems 
 
 to assume a greater degree of mystery, from our being no 
 longer able to perceive any mode by which the one body 
 I on the other. On reflecting, however, on the con- 
 stitution of material BUDStai nsidering that they 
 I of distinct particles, which there are many 
 - for believing are not in contact with each other, 
 we may soon Batisfj ours. Ives that there is, in reality, as 
 much difficulty in conceiving how the different particles of 
 a bod] cohere, or act on each other by impulse, as in con- 
 ceiving how one body can be the cause of motion in another 
 placed at a distance. 
 
 It is well remarked by Maupertuis, that the manner in 
 which the different properties reside masubjecl is always 
 The vulgar are not astonished when 
 Ij in n lot n in communicate its motion to other 
 bodies; we are accustomed to the phenomenon, which 
 prevents our perceiving in it any thing marvellous. But 
 philosophers will not readily believe that an impulsive force 
 is more conceivable thin an attractive one. What, in fact, 
 is tins impulsive force? Mow does it reside in bodies? 
 Who could bave predicted its existence before seeing the 
 bodies impinge on each other? The existence of other 
 properties in bodies is not more clear. In what way does 
 impenetrability and the ether properties become joined to 
 ' Ktension ? In these things there will always be mysteries 
 
 Before the time of Sir Isaac Newton, the term attraction 
 was used to denote a species of quality inherent in certain 
 bodies; at the present time, however, philosophers use 
 the word not to express any particular mode or species of 
 action, or any physical cause of such action, but simply 
 the fact, that the different parts of matter tend to approach 
 each other, without any reference to the question whether 
 the power which produces that tendency is inherent in 
 the bodies, or consists in the expulsion of an external 
 agent. They regard it as one of the ultimate phenomena 
 to which the analysis of matter leads. Newton himself 
 particularly cautions his readers against supposing that 
 there is really an attractive force residing in the centre to- 
 wards which bodies tend, the centres being only mathema- 
 tical points. He takes care to mention that he uses the 
 term to denote a fact, and not a cause ; that he used it 
 only for the purpose of avoiding systems and explications; 
 that this tendency might be caused by some subtle matter 
 proceeding from bodies, and be the effect of a real impul- 
 sion ; but whatever its cause might be, it was clearly a 
 primary fact from which we might set out in explaining 
 other facts depending on it. At present, objections of the 
 sort which Newton here attempts to avoid, carry little 
 weight with them, but in the time of Newton they were 
 considered of the greatest importance. Leibnitz called at- 
 traction an occult quality, a term then held in horror ; and 
 the fact is certain, that the physical or metaphysical diffi- 
 culties of explaining the nature of attraction contributed 
 not a little to retard, on the Continent, the adoption of the 
 Newtonian theory of the universe. 
 
 Attraction, with reference to the laws which it observes, 
 may be divided into two kinds ; one, taking place among
 
 ATTRACTION OF MOUNTAINS. 
 
 bodies, placed at measurable distances from each other ; 
 the other among the small particles of matter, where the 
 effect is only sensible at insensible or inappreciable dis- 
 tances. Among the instances of attraction at sensible dis- 
 tances, even at the greatest distances, the most remarkable 
 is that of the attraction of gravitation, which belongs to all 
 matter ; which determines the motions and the figures of 
 the planets and comets, and causes the descent of heavy 
 bodies to the ground. For an account of the law which 
 this species of attraction observes, and the astronomical 
 phenomena which it produces, see Gravitation. The 
 attraction of magnetism, of electricity, <Scc, are also in- 
 stances of the action of bodies on each other, at sensible 
 distances. Slse Magnetism ; Electricity. 
 
 The second species of attraction exists only among the 
 molecules or small particles of matter, and is hence called 
 molecular attraction. The distances to which it extends 
 are extremely small, or insensible. This species of attrac- 
 tion is the cause of the coherence of solids; of crystallisa- 
 tion ; the refraction of light; the ascent of fluids in capilla- 
 ry tubes ; the roundness of a drop of water; and in general, 
 of all chemical actions. (-S'ee Capillarity, Cohesion, 
 Affinity, &c.) It is to Newton that we owe the first dis- 
 tinct announcement of this last species of attraction, as it 
 is to him that we owe the discovery of the law of the at- 
 traction of gravitation, and that it pervades celestial as well 
 as terrestrial matter. The law of molecular attraction is 
 not known ; all that can be positively affirmed of it is, that 
 it decreases in a much quicker ratio than the inverse square 
 of the distance, and in many instances becomes prodi- 
 giously great, when the distance between the panicles is 
 diminished to its utmost limit. 
 
 It would not be possible to explain the constitution of 
 matter, or account for the different forms under which it 
 presents itself, by molecular attraction alone, without call- 
 ing to aid the antagonist principle of repulsion. If the 
 particles of matter only attracted each other, they would 
 continue to advance nearer and nearer to each other, till 
 further approach was rendered impossible by their impen- 
 etrability. But this does not take place ; for all bodies are 
 capable of contraction and dilatation, and in fact do dilate 
 and contract, by the application of heat and cold. Thus, the 
 particles of matter being solicited at the same time by two 
 kinds of opposite forces, naturally assume that state of 
 equilibrium which results from the compensated energies, 
 and approach or recede, according as the attractive or the 
 repulsive force predominates. All terrestrial phenomena 
 depend on forces of this kind, as the celestial phenomena 
 depend on universal gravitation. The repulsive force ap- 
 pears to be produced by the principle of heat : the attrac- 
 tion cannot be referred to any principle with which we are 
 more familiar than we are with itself. Some philosophers 
 have attempted to confound molecular attraction with the 
 general attraction of gravity, or at least to regard the form- 
 er as a modification of the other; but in the laws which 
 they obey they are totally different. 
 
 Most of the disputes which have taken place about the 
 nature of attraction have proceeded from the indistinct 
 ideas which we attach to the term force. By force is 
 meant the cause of motion ; but we know not in general 
 what that cause is ; we only judge of its degree by the ef- 
 fect which we see produced. We have no means of mea- 
 suring or comparing forces directly ; what we do measure 
 and compare are the changes of motion ; and when we see 
 bodies in motion, we immediately conclude that it is occa- 
 sioned by the action of a force. Attraction and repulsion 
 are principles of action ; and if they are more difficult to 
 be conceived than any other causes of action or motion, 
 the obscurity arises merely from their implying action at a 
 distance. 
 
 Of all the different kinds of attraction mentioned above, 
 there is only one of which the laws have been fully inves- 
 tigated, namely, the attraction of gravitation. The electric 
 and magnetic attractions are rather terms employed in 
 physics for the purpose of giving a name to what we im- 
 perfectly understand, than used as principles from which 
 to deduce the phenomena to which they give rise. The 
 laws of capillary attraction have been investigated to a con- 
 siderable extent by Laplace; but molecular attractions in 
 general, which play so important a part in the economy of 
 the world, have seldom been made the subject of mathe- 
 matical invpstisation. 
 
 ATTRACTION OF MOUNTAINS. That power or force 
 by which all the celestial motions are regulated, and to 
 which we give the name of gravitation, does not act merely 
 on the large masses of the universe : the smallest mole- 
 cules of matter equally partake of its influence, and have 
 an inherent and natural tendency to approach one another. 
 This mutual action, in the case of small bodies, is insensi- 
 ble ; because the attraction resulting from the whole mass 
 of the earth absorbs, as it were, altogether, that which they 
 exercise on one another ; and renders their mutual ap- 
 proach infinitely small or imperceptible. But though the 
 attractive force of matter is insensible in regard to small 
 106 
 
 masses, it may become quite appreciable in the caseof large 
 mountains acting on the plummet of a delicate astronomi- 
 cal instrument. Newton himself was the first who de- 
 duced this consequence from his theoryof universal gravita- 
 tion. In his tract u De Mundi Systemate," §22., he com- 
 putes that a plummet, at the foot of a hemispherical moun- 
 tain three miles high, and six broad (at the base), would be 
 drawn about one minute and eighteen seconds out of the 
 perpendicular. Some time elapsed, however, before any 
 attempt was made to investigate the subject experimentally. 
 
 Those who are unaccustomed to consider the intimate 
 relation that subsists among the different parts of physical 
 science, and the light which the accurate solution of one 
 question frequently throws on a multitude of others, will 
 naturally inquire what useful purpose is to be gained by 
 determining the attraction of a mountain, — a determina- 
 tion, moreover, of an extremely nice and delicate kind, 
 and by no means easily executed. Nevertheless, the sub- 
 ject is one of very great importance in astronomy, and its 
 investigation necessary, in order to ascertain the figure of 
 the earth, and determine its interior density. The magni- 
 tude and figure of the earth are found by comparing the 
 lengths of lines measured at different places on its surface 
 with the corresponding celestial arcs, the extremities of 
 which are the zenith points of the extremities of the ter- 
 restrial line. Now if, by the attraction of a mountain, or 
 any other local cause, the plumbline is drawn aside from 
 the perpendicular, or the direction of gravity is not perpen- 
 dicular to the general surface, the position of the apparent 
 zenith will be altered ; and a very small deviation of this 
 kind will produce a great error, for every second of the ce- 
 lestial arc corresponds to about 100 feet on the ground. It 
 is necessary, therefore, to possess the means of making a 
 correct allowance for such causes of local irregularity where 
 they cannot be avoided. Again, the attraction of a moun- 
 tain gives the means of determining the mean density of 
 the earth. For suppose this attraction to be known by its 
 effect on the plumbline, as the dimensions of the moun- 
 tain can be determined by measurement, and the density 
 of its materials can in general be ascertained with tolerable 
 accuracy, the quantity of matter which it contains becomes 
 known. But the dimensions of the earth, and the amount 
 of its attraction, are also known ; therefore we are in pos- 
 session of all the data necessary to enable us to compute 
 its mean density. 
 
 There are various ways by which the quantity of the at- 
 traction of a mountain may be ascertained. One of the 
 must obvious is to take two stations, one on the south and 
 the other on the north side of the mountain, and as nearly 
 as possible in the same meridian. From the zenith dis- 
 tances of the same stars observed at each station, the dif- 
 ference of their apparent latitudes may be accurately de- 
 termined. But the real difference of the latitudes can also 
 be determined by trigonometrical measurement on the 
 ground of the distance between the same stations. The 
 difference of these determinations gives the sum of the de- 
 viations of the plumbline on the opposite sides of the moun- 
 tain ; and when divided in the inverse ratio of the squaies 
 of the distances of the stations from the centre of gravity 
 of the mass, will give the deflection of the plummet at each 
 station. Another method supposes one observer to be 
 placed at the eastern foot of the mountain, and another at 
 the western, having the means of accurately determining 
 astronomically the difference of their meridians. This 
 difference, compared with the measured distance by which 
 the one station is east or west of the other, will show the 
 effect of the attraction of the mountain ; but as there is 
 greater difficulty in determining accurately the difference 
 of longitude than of latitude, this method cannot be so 
 easily applied as the former. But it is not absolutely ne- 
 cessary, indeed it may be impracticable, to make observa- 
 tions on the opposite sides of the mountain. Let the me- 
 ridian altitudes of the same stars be observed first on north 
 or south sides of it, and then at a station on the same 
 parallel of latitude, but at such a distance from the moun- 
 tain as to be out of the reach of its action. The difference 
 of the altitudes in the two cases will show the amount of 
 the attraction of the mountain. 
 
 The first attempt to ascertain the attraction of a moun- 
 tain by actual observation was made by the French acade- 
 micians, Bouguer, Godin, and Condamine, who, about the 
 year 173S, were dispatched to Peru for the purpose of mea- 
 suring the length of an arc of the terrestrial meridian. 
 Theii experiments were made on the mountain Cliimbara- 
 co, the highest of the Cordilleras, and the result seemed to 
 show that the zenith point was altered by the attraction of 
 the mountain to the extent of about 7y 2 seconds of a de- 
 gree. But this quantity was much too small to determine, 
 with certain evidence, whether the mountain had or had 
 not a sensible effect on the plumbline, for their instruments 
 were not so perfect but that inconsistencies, amounting 
 sometimes to upwards of £0 seconds, entered into their ob- 
 servations. From that time no farther attempt was made 
 to determine this interesting fact in physical astronomy to
 
 ATTRACTION, CHEMICAL. 
 
 the year 1774, when Dr. Maskelyne, the astronomer royal 
 at Greenwich, made an experiment of the same kind on 
 the mountain Schehallien in Perthshire, with instruments 
 capable of measuring the minute quantities in question. 
 The difference of latitude of two stations on the north and 
 south side of the mountain, compared with lhat which was 
 inferred from the measurement of the distance on the 
 ground, gave decidedly 5 8 seconds on each side, for the ac- 
 tion of the mountain on the plummet of the zenith sector. 
 The magnitude of the mountain was accurately measured 
 at the same time ; and with the data thus obtained a labori- 
 ous calculation was made by Dr. Hutton, from which it re- 
 sulted that the mean density of the earth is about five times 
 that of water, or twice that of the ordinary rockstone near 
 its surface. A third experiment of the same kind was 
 made in 1810 by Baron Zach on the mountain Mimet, at a 
 little distance from the shore of the Mediterranean near 
 Marseilles. The instrument which he employed for de- 
 termining the latitudes, a repeating circle of 12 inches ra- 
 dius, was much less to be depended on for accurate results 
 than the zenith sector of Dr. Maskelyne; but in other re- 
 spects his operations, particularly those connected with 
 the terrestrial measurements, appear to have been con- 
 ducted with far greater science and practical skill. The 
 result was, that the deviation of the plumbline from the true 
 vertical, caused by the attraction of the mountain, amount- 
 ed to two seconds of a degree. Daron Zach didnotatti mpl 
 the further researches required for comparing the density 
 on the mountain with lhat of the earth ; such comparison, 
 indeed, can only be mad.' with respect to an insu 
 mountain, which Mime) is not 
 
 Though the experiments hitherto made "ii this subject 
 are few and imperfect, they are quite sufficient to 
 
 blisb die fact, that mountains are capable ol i lucing 
 
 sensible deflections of the plumblines of astronomical in 
 struments. It is, therefore, ol very greal importance, in 
 the measurement ol degrees of the terrestrial meridian, 
 to select for the station where the astronomical latitudes 
 are observed, places remote from large mountains, and 
 where the local irregularities of the surface are not very 
 considerable. After every precaution ol this sort has been 
 
 taken, some uncertainty will still remai i account of 
 
 local attraction ; for it is obvious that a sudden and 
 derable variation of density in the strata under the surface 
 will produce the same effect on the plumbline as a 
 of matter elevated above it. To this cause is attributed, 
 with much probability, a great part of the discrepancies 
 among the results ol the operations made to determine 
 the figure of the earth, particularly among those for ascer- 
 taining the vari&l a of density by mi ana of the pen- 
 dulum. See Zach' a Attraction des Montagnes, Avignon, 
 1814; Play fair' a FRwvfcs, voL iii. ; Hutton' $ Tracts, vol. ii. ; 
 Phil. Trans, vol. Lxviii. : also Buuguer's Figure de la 
 Terr, 
 
 ATTRACTION, CHEMICAL. See Affinity. 
 
 ATTRIBUTES. (Lat ad. to, and tribuo, I give.) In 
 the Fine arts, certain symbols which are used to distin- 
 guish and chat rtain figures, i gleand 
 
 thunderbolt are thu attributes of Jupiter; the trident, thai 
 of Neptune; the caduceus. of Mercury; the how and 
 quiver attend Love; the balance and sword accompany 
 Justice, Ac. Ax. 
 
 UJBAINE, DROIT 1)'. In French Jurisprudence, the 
 right of the sovereign to the succession of a foreigner not 
 naturalised, or of a naturalised foreigner dying intestate 
 without heirs resident within the realm. The word is de- 
 rived from the old French n\i\>ain, foreigner : said to come 
 from the Latin alibi oatus, born elsewhere. The droit d'au- 
 baine still exists in various countries; ami, although abol- 
 ished at the Revolution, was restored by the Code Civil of 
 Napoleon. 
 
 AIICHE'NIA (Gr. aix'iv. the neck.) In Mammalogy 
 this term is restricted to the region of the neck below the 
 nucha, or nape. Also, the name of a genus of Camelidae, 
 in which the above region of the neck is remarkably 
 elongated. 
 
 AU'DITOR. One who examines and verifies the accounts 
 of officers and others entrusted with money. The term 
 is derived from the Latin audio, I hear : probably from the 
 ancient practice of delivering accounts viva voce. Re- 
 ceivers-general of fee farm rents, <Src. are termed auditors. 
 Officers with the same title are assisned by courts of law 
 to settle accounts in actions of account, <fec. The auditors 
 of the exchequer were officers appointed to take the ac- 
 counts of receivers of public revenues. The present 
 board of commissioners for auditing the public accounts, 
 exercising the duties formerly divided between various 
 officers of the exchequer, was constituted in the year 1806. 
 In Germany the junior legal functionaries are termed audi- 
 tors. Its most usual sense seems to have been originally 
 given to the word in France, where the members of the 
 Chambres des Comptes were divided into conseillers- 
 maitres. and conseillers-auditeurs. 
 
 AU'GEll. An instrument for boring the soil for the pur- 
 107 
 
 AUGUSTINE AGE. 
 
 pose of ascertaining the nature of the subsoil, the mineral, 
 and, in agriculture more especially, the existence of water. 
 There are various kinds of augers, according to the pur- 
 poses to which they are to be applied ; but they all con- 
 sist of three parts, viz. the bit, mouth, or cutting piece ; 
 the handle ; and the connecting rods. The handle is for 
 the purpose of working the instrument by the means of 
 two or more men : the rods for connecting the handle with 
 the bit. or cutting piece ; and the bit for penetrating the 
 soil. When it is necessary to pass through stony soil or 
 rocks, a chisel is substituted for the bit: and after the rock 
 is broken in small pieces, the chisel is removed, and re- 
 placed by the common auger, by which the loose matters 
 are drawn up. 
 
 AUGMENTATION, ARMS OF. In Heraldry, coats 
 given by sovereigns to subjects as a mark of honour, to be 
 quartered with their own; or charges, such as ordinances 
 charged with some device, to be borne in their family shield. 
 Such coats or devices are in general either significant, i. e. 
 bearing some relation to the nature of the achievement for 
 which the honour is bestowed ; or they are portions of the 
 royal arms. 
 
 AUGMENTATION OF STIPENDS. (Church of Scot- 
 land. ) The stipends of ministers are under the control of 
 the Court of Session. That court has the power to enter- 
 tain applications for augmentation from clergymen, and 
 either to grant or dismiss them. But twenty years must 
 fore such application can be renewed. 
 \l i.SHI RC CONFESSION OF. A formulary drawn 
 up by Luther and Melanclhon, and presented to Charles V. 
 at the diet held at Augsburg in 1530. It is adopted by the 
 i in church, but did not at the time succeed in com- 
 prehending all the reformers, and was the occasion of a 
 separation between the followers of Luther and the party 
 who called themselves the Evangelical Keiormeii church, 
 which has continued ever since. 
 
 \l 1. 1 US. (Lat. augures.) Roman soothsayers, who 
 professed to foretel events by the flying, singing, or feed- 
 ing of birds. Their office was one of great importance in 
 the state, as no enterprises or ceremonies were performed 
 unless they declared the omens favourable. Accordingly 
 the members of their college were always elected from the 
 le citizens. 
 
 Their divinations were called auguries or auspices, be- 
 tween which there is sometimes a distinction made; the 
 latter meaning such as were derived from the inspection 
 ot birds, the former being extended to all omens or pro- 
 digies whatever. 
 
 Romans di rived their knowledge of augury from the 
 Tuscans, who were celebrated for their skill in this and 
 other religious ci remonies, 
 
 \l GUST The eighth month of the year. The an- 
 cient Roman year commenced with March, and the sixth 
 month was called Sextilia. The name was changed to 
 \ i in compliment of Augustus Caesar. In the calen- 
 Julius Caesar, the distribution of the days through 
 the several months was more commodious than the present. 
 arrangement The first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and 
 eleventh months consisted of thirty-one days each, and the 
 other months of thirty, excepting February, which in com- 
 mon years contained twenty-nine days, but in leap years 
 thirty. In order to gratify the frivolous vanity of Augustus, 
 who though! it a disparagement that the month bearing 
 his name should contain fewer days than July, which was 
 named after the first Caesar, a day was taken from February 
 and given to August Such was the origin of the capri- 
 iistrihution of the days among the different months 
 which now prevails over the whole Christian world ; and 
 w inch, being founded on no principle, requires some pains 
 membered. 
 
 \l 01 STA'LES. The epithet given to the priests or 
 flamens of Augustus Caesar. See Flamen. 
 
 AUGUSTA'Lie I'ICKl'K/CTLS The prsefect or gov- 
 ernor of Egypt when it became a Roman province. This 
 officer was a military viceroy appointed immediately by 
 the emperor, and not selected from the senate, but from the 
 order of knights ; and he enjoyed greater power than the 
 proconsuls and propraetors, under whose care the other 
 provinces fell. The epithet Augustalis was derived from 
 the circumstance of Augustus having appointed the first 
 praefect of Egypt. 
 
 AUGUSTA'LlA. A festival instituted in honour of Au- 
 gustus Caesar on the occasion of his pacifying Sicily, Greece, 
 Syria, Asia Minor, and Parthia. 
 
 AUGU'STAN HISTORY. A series of history of the 
 Roman empire from the year 157 a. d. to 285 a. d., written 
 by the following six authors : JE\. Spartianus. J. Capitolinus, 
 JBL Lampridius, Vulcatius Gallianus, Trebellius Pollio, and 
 Flavins Vo pisc ns. 
 
 AUGU'STINE AGE. A term used to designate the 
 reign of Augustus, the most brilliant period in the literary 
 history of Rome. The civil wars that had long distracted 
 the Roman empire had stifled the cultivation of literature 
 and the arts ; and when the battle of Actium had termi-
 
 AUGUSTINE. 
 
 nafed internal commotion, nothing, it was supposed, could 
 eo effectually celebrate and adorn the restoration of peace 
 and the happy reign of Augustus, as the appearance of 
 great national poets, who might supply the chief defect in 
 the literature of their country, and create a body of classi- 
 cal works, in which the ancient Roman traditions might 
 be transmitted to posterity. To accomplish this object, 
 men of genius were flattered, courted, and enriched, in an 
 unexampled manner, by the liberality of Augustus ; and 
 after a brief interval, the verses of Virgil, Horace, Pro- 
 pertius, Ovid, and Tibullus resounded throughout the em- 
 pire in their respective epic, lyric, and elegiac strains. But 
 it was not merely for ornamental literature that the age in 
 question was distinguished. The science of jurisprudence, 
 the only original intellectual possession of great value to 
 which the Romans can lay undisputed claim, then received 
 its full development : the immense and nearly inexplica- 
 ble masses of Roman statutes were perspicuously arrang- 
 ed ; and the boundaries of strict law on the one hand, and 
 equity on the other, were respectively ascertained. In this 
 age, too, Rome became the seat of universal government 
 and wealth ; and so numerous and splendid were the ar- 
 chitectural decorations with which it was embellished, as 
 to justify the saying of Augustus — that he found Rome of 
 brick, and left it of marble. 
 
 AUGU'STINE. In Ecclesiastical History, an order of 
 monks and nuns established in the eleventh century, ap- 
 parently in commemoration of the monastic societies as- 
 sembled by Saint Augustine in the fourth, but which had 
 long ceased to exist. .See Orders, Ecclesiastical. 
 
 AU'LIC COUNCIL, or REICHSHOFRATH. A council 
 of high powers and dignity in the German empire. The 
 Aulic Council and Imperial Chamber (reichskammerge- 
 richt) were the two supreme courts in that empire. The 
 former consisted of a president, vice-president, and eigh- 
 teen councillors, six of whom were Protestants, with the 
 peculiar privilege that, if unanimous, their votes could not 
 be overruled by those of the Catholics. This court had 
 exclusive jurisdiction in various affairs, principally those 
 which concerned the imperial government. 
 
 AULO'STOMA. (Gr. aiAdc, a pipe, o-TO>a, a mouth.) 
 A genus of Acanthopterygians belonging to the family called 
 by Cuvier Bouches en flute ; including the pipe-fishes, or 
 those species which are characterised by a mouth, which 
 is lengthened into a kind of tuhe or pipe. 
 
 AU'RA. (Lat. the air.) The subtle essence which is 
 contained within the grains of pollen, and in which is sup- 
 posed to reside the power of fertilising the ovules. It is 
 now generally considered that this essence is imaginary, 
 and that fertilisation is produced by the descent of minute 
 organic particles through the stigma to the ovules. 
 
 Aura. A sensation resembling a wind, or being breathed 
 upon. Aura epileptica is a sensation often experienced by 
 epileptic patients, resembling the ascent of a blast of cold 
 air from the extremities upwards. 
 
 AURANTIA'CE^I. (Lat. aurantium, an orange.) A 
 considerable natural order of Exogens, with polypetalous 
 flowers, confined to the warmer parts of Asia, or the near- 
 est parts of Africa. They have dotted leaves filled with a 
 fragrant oil, and succulent eatable fruit, covered by an aro- 
 matic skin. The orange, the shaddock, the lime, the 
 lemon, are all species of the genus Citrus, and the best 
 known in Europe. In the woods of India, there are some 
 Bpecies that climb ; and in the Himalaya exists a species, 
 Limonia laureola, which would probably be a hardy ever- 
 green if introduced into this country. 
 
 AURE'LIA. In Entomology, the name given to the 
 nymph, or quiescent stage of transformation of an insect, 
 on account of the metallic golden lustre which is reflected 
 from the case of the nymphs of some diurnal Lepidoptera. 
 AURE'OLA. (Lat. of the colour of gold.) In Painting, 
 the glory with which the ancient painters decorated the 
 heads of the saints, martyrs, and confessors which they 
 executed. 
 
 AU'REUS. A Roman gold coin worth a little more than 
 sixteen shillings, according to the proportion given by Taci- 
 tus. But it varied, as appears from the different values as- 
 signed to it, from It 4s. to 12s. Its weight was about 2)4 oz. 
 avoirdupois. 
 
 AU'RICLE. (Lat. auricula, a little ear.) Signifies, in 
 Mammalogy, the external ears, which are said to be ' mar- 
 ginate' {auricula, marginata) when bordered by a helix, or 
 involute margin ; — to be ' operculate' (auricula, operculata) 
 when provided with a largely developed tragus, which 
 stands out like a subsidiary auricle ; — to be ' concealed' 
 (auricula, abscondita) when covered by the hair. In Orni- 
 thology, the circle of feathers surrounding the entry to the 
 ear-passage are called auriculars. In Anatomy, the venous 
 chambers of the heart are termed auricles. 
 
 AURI'CULAR CONFESSION. Confession of sins to a 
 priest in private, distinguished from the public confession 
 which was enjoined as a duty by the primitive church, but 
 was early allowed to drop into disuse. It was on occasion 
 of the scandal which the original practice produced, that 
 103 
 
 AURORA BOREALIS. 
 
 Leo the Great, in the fifth century, first recommended pri- 
 vate confession to a priest in certain cases. It was not till 
 the fourth council of Lateran in 1215, that the doctrine of the 
 necessity of this practice was formally established. 
 
 AURI'CULATE. (Lat. auricula, a little car.) When the 
 base of a leaf or similar part projects on each side of the 
 axis in the form of a little round lobe. 
 
 AURO'RA. In the ancient Mythology, the goddess of 
 the morning. She was the daughter of Titan and Terra, 
 and was deified as the light which precedes the rising of 
 the sun above our hemisphere. So lovely a being as she 
 was represented to be could not fail to attract a host of ad- 
 mirers ; and, accordingly, we find her engaged in nume- 
 rous amours. But the object of her peculiar favour was 
 Tithonus, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, for whom she 
 cherished so permanent an attachment as to obtain for him 
 the gift of immortality. She unfortunately neglected, how- 
 ever, to combine this privilege with an immunity from 
 age ; and in the course of time Tithonus became so decre- 
 pid that Aurora out of pity transformed him into a grass- 
 hopper, in which shape he still retained the garrulity of old 
 age. She is supposed generally to rise from the couch of 
 Tithonus : — 
 
 Etjam prima novo spargebat lumine terras, 
 Tithoni croceum linquens Aurora cubile. — Virg. 
 
 Milton, in a passage teeming with poetic imagery and truth, 
 thus opens the fifth book of Paradise Lost : — 
 
 Now Morn , tier rosy steps in th' eastern clime 
 Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl ; 
 When Adam waked, so customed, for his sleep 
 Was aery, light, from pure digestion bred 
 And temperate vapours bland, which th' only sound 
 Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora's fan, 
 Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song 
 Of birds on every bough, 
 
 AURO'RA BOREALIS. Northern lights, Polar lights, or 
 Streamers. A luminous meteor, generally appearing in the 
 northern part of the sky, and presenting a light somewhat 
 resembling the dawn or break of day. The appearances 
 which it exhibits and the forms it assumes are so prover- 
 bially unsteady, that it is not possible to comprehend them 
 under any general description. Most frequently the phe- 
 nomenon appears to proceed from a sort of horizontal cloud 
 or haze in the northern part of the sky, rising a few de- 
 grees above the horizon, and stretching from the north to- 
 wards the east and west, so as to form an arc, which in 
 some instances has been observed to extend upwards of 
 100°. The upper edge of the cloud is whitish and lumin- 
 ous, the lower part often dark or thick, and sometimes the 
 clear sky may be seen between it and the horizon. From 
 the upper part of the cloud streams of light shoot up in co- 
 lumnar forms, reaching sometimes only a few degrees, 
 sometimes to the zenith, or even beyond it. Instances oc- 
 cur in which the whole hemisphere is covered with corus- 
 cations ; but the brilliancy is greatest, and the light strong- 
 est, in the north near the main body of the meteor. The 
 streamers have in general a tremulous motion, and, when 
 close together, present the appearance of waves or sheets 
 of light following each other in rapid succession. When 
 several columns, issuing from different points, meet at the 
 zenith, a small meteor is formed of greater brilliancy than 
 the separate columns. The phenomenon sometimes con- 
 tinues a few hours, occasionally the whole night, and even 
 for several nights in succession. It generally commences 
 at most two or three hours after sunset, and very rarely in 
 the morning or much after midnight. Auroras have been 
 observed even before the evening twilight has disappeared. 
 In the Shetland Islands, and other countries in high lati- 
 tudes, the northern lights are the constant attendants of 
 clear and frosty evenings in winter. They are most fre- 
 quent in autumn. 
 
 In Captain Franklin's Narrative, the Auroras observed at 
 Fort Enterprise, in North America, are described by Lieut. 
 Wood as follows : — 
 
 " They rise with their centres sometimes in the mag- 
 netic meridian, and sometimes several degrees to the east- 
 ward or westward of it. The number visible seldom ex- 
 ceeds five, and is seldom limited to one. The altitude of 
 the lowest, when first seen, is never less than 4°. As they ad- 
 vance towards the zenith, their centres (or the parts most ele- 
 vated) preserve a course in the magnetic meridian, or near 
 to it. But the eastern and western extremities vary their 
 respective distances, and the arches become irregularly 
 broad streams in the zenith, each dividing the sky into 
 two unequal parts, but never crossing one another till they 
 separate into parts. Those arches which were bright at the 
 horizon increase their brilliancy in the zenith, and discover 
 the beams of which they are composed, when the interior 
 motion is rapid. This interior motion is a sudden glow, not 
 proceeding from any visible concentration of matter, but 
 bursting out in several parts of the arch, as if an ignition of 
 combustible matter had taken place, and spreading itself 
 rapidly towards each extremity. In this motion the beams 
 are formed. They have two motions ; one at right angles
 
 Aurora borealis. 
 
 to their length, or sideways; and the other a tremulous 
 and short vibration, in winch they do not exactly preserve 
 their parallelism to each other. The wreaths, when in the 
 zenith, present the appearance of corona? boreales. The 
 second motion is always accompanied by colours ; for it 
 must be observed, that beams are often formed without 
 any exhibition of colours, and I have not iu that case per- 
 ceived the vibratory motion." 
 
 The noil hern lights are sometimes seen tinged with the 
 various prismatic colours, among which orange and green, 
 but more frequently the different shades of red, predomi- 
 nate. Maupertius describes one seen by him in Lapland, 
 by which an extensive region of the heavens towards the 
 soutli appeared tinged in so lively a red that the whole con- 
 stellation of Orion seemed as if dyed in blood. Some ob- 
 Bervera of this meteor have affirmed thai they have heard 
 a rustling or crackling sound proceed from it. Doubts 
 have, however, been entertained on this point, from the 
 circumstance that no such noises were heard by Scoresby, 
 Richardson, Franklin, Parry, and Hood, who observed the 
 polar lights with great care, under the most favourable 
 circumstances, in very high latitudes. But the testimony 
 of other observers is of so positive a kind as to leave no 
 reasonable doubt that the phenomenon has, at least in 
 particular instances, been accompanied by sounds. 
 
 From the accounts which have been collected of the po- 
 lar lights, it would seem thai the phenomenon was less fre- 
 epienl iii former ages than it is now ; but it must be kept in 
 mind thai meteoric observations have not always been so 
 much attended to as at present. Aristotle descril" 
 phenomenon with sufficient accuracy in his book of Mete 
 ors. Allusions an- also made to it by Pliny, Cicero, and 
 Seneca; so that it must have been often witnessed by the 
 ancients, even in the climates of Greece and Italy. The 
 descriptions of armies fighting in the air, and similar pro- 
 digiea observed iu the dark agi owed their 
 
 origin to the striking and fantastic of the 
 
 era Lights, It is remarkable, however, that no men- 
 tion is made by any English writer of an Aurora Borealis 
 having been observed in England from the year Ll 
 1707. Celsius says expressly that tin' oldest inhabitants of 
 Upsala considered the phenomenon a greal ranty before 
 1716. In the month of march in that year a verj splendid 
 one appealed in England, and bj reason of its brilliancy 
 attracted universal attention, I' has been described by 
 
 J)r. lialley in the Phil. Trans., No. 347. Since then, the 
 meteor lias been much more common. A complete BC 
 count of all the appearances of Auroras recorded previous 
 to 1754 may be found In the work of Mairan, "Traill* de 
 i'Aurore Boreale." 
 
 The Aurora is not confined to the Northern hemisphere, 
 similar appearances being observed in high southern lati- 
 tudes. An Aurora was witnessed by Don Antonio d I Uoa 
 
 at Cape Horn in 1745 J our appeared al CUZCO in IT II ; and 
 
 another is described by Mr. Porster (who accompanied 
 Captain Cook in Ids last voyage round the world), which 
 
 u >> seen by him in 177:1. in latitude 58 ' south, and resem 
 bled, entirely, those of the northern hemisphere, excepting 
 thai the light exhibited no tints, but was of a clear white. 
 Similar testimony is given by subsequent navigators- 
 There is greal difficulty in determining the exact height 
 of the Aurora Borealis above the earth, and accordingly 
 the opinions given on this subject by different observers 
 are widely discordant Mairan supposed the mean height 
 to be 17.") French leagues. Bergman says 460 miles, and 
 Euler several thousand nines, Prom the comparison of a 
 number of observations of an Aurora (hat appeared in 
 March 1826, made at different places in the north of Eng- 
 land and south of Scotland, Dr. Dalton, in a paper present- 
 ed to the Royal Society, computed its height to be about 
 100 miles. But a calculation of this sort, in which it is of 
 necessity supposed thai the meteor is seen in exactly the 
 same place by the different observers, is subject to very 
 greal uncertainly. The observations of Dr. Richardson, 
 Franklin, Hood,' Parry, and others, seem to prove that the 
 place of the Aurora is far within the limits of the atmos- 
 phere, and scarcely above the region of the clouds; in fact, 
 as the diurnal rotation of the earth produces no change in 
 its apparent position, it must necessarily partake of that 
 motion, and consequently be regarded as an atmospherical 
 phenomenon. 
 
 No satisfactory theory has yet been given of the cause 
 of the polar lights. Mairan ascribed the phenomenon to 
 the sun's atmosphere ; Euler, to particles of the earth's 
 atmosphere driven beyond its limits by the impulse of so- 
 lar light. Beccaria, Canton, Franklin, and others, refer it 
 to electricity, an agent to whose mysterious influence all 
 the inexplicable phenomena of meteorology are conveni- 
 ently ascribed. An absurd theory proposed by M. Libes 
 (Uictionnaire de Physique) formerly met with consider- 
 able favour. He had observed that on passing an electric 
 spark through a compound of oxygen and nitrogen, nitrous 
 vapours of a reddish colour are produced. He therefore 
 supposed that the higher regions of the atmosphere near 
 109 
 
 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. 
 
 the pole contain little or no hydrogen ; and that conse- 
 quently the discharges of electricity, which, by producing 
 a combination of oxygen and hydrogen, form water in the 
 lower strata, in the more elevated strata produce nitrous 
 vapours, which constitute the polar lights. That some 
 connexion subsists between the Aurora and magnetism, or 
 rather electricity, which is now regarded as the primary 
 cause of magnetism, is made certain by the fact that du- 
 ring the continuance of brilliant Auroras the magnetic 
 needle is generally disturbed, sometimes violently agitated. 
 The air at the same time is often observed to behighly 
 charged with electric matter. An experiment contrived 
 by M. Canton also seems to indicate an electric origin. If 
 a glass tube be partially exhausted of air, hermetically 
 sealed, and applied to the conductor of an electric ma- 
 chine, the whole tube is illuminated from end to end, and 
 continues luminous for a considerable time after it has 
 been removed from the conductor. If, after this, the tube 
 be drawn through the hand, the light will be remarkably 
 intense through its whole length; and if it is grasped in boih 
 hands, near the extremities, strong flashes of light will dart 
 from one end to the other, and continue many hours 
 without fresh excitation. The only conclusion which, in 
 the present state of our knowledge, we are warranted in 
 deducing, is, that the Aurora Borealis must be ascribed to 
 the agency of electricity in the upper regions of the atmos- 
 phere : in what way the excitement is produced, it re- 
 mains for future discoveries to make known. 
 
 The most systematic series of observations which we 
 possess on the subject, was made by the Rev. James Far- 
 quharson, of Aberdeenshire, in 1829, with an apparatus 
 furnished by the Royal Society, and of which an account 
 is published in the Transactions for 1830. 
 
 AU'RUM MUSIVDM. An obsolete chemical name of 
 the bisulphuret of tin. 
 
 \i SPK l>. \i SPIt I \ See Augurs. 
 
 \t SCULTA'TION. (Lat. auscultare, in listen.) Ameth- 
 od of distinguishing healthy and diseaseil states of the body 
 by the study of the sounds produced by the movements of 
 the different organs, and which differ more or less when 
 the parts are diseased from those which belong to their 
 healthy functions. Set Stethoscope. 
 
 AUTHE'NTIC, AUTHENTICATED. A word of Greek 
 origin. In Diplomatics, ancient MSS. were formerly 
 I auiheniica when originals, in opposition to copies. 
 In the modem acceptation of the word, it is only applied 
 tn Instruments bearing marks of having been executed by 
 the proper authority. 
 
 AUTHENTIC MELODIES. In Music, such as have 
 then -principal notes cuit. line, | between the key note and 
 its octave. This term is applied by the Italians to four of 
 the church modes or tones in music which rise a fourth 
 above their dominants, which are always tilths above their 
 finals, thai is. rise to complete their octaves, Ihus distin- 
 guished from plagal melodies, which fall a fourth below 
 their finals. 
 
 AUTO-DA-FE, properly AUTO DE FE. (Span, act of 
 faith.) A public solemnity held by the Court of the In- 
 quisition in Spain and Portugal. It was a gaol-delivery, at 
 which extracts from the trials of offenders, and the sen- 
 tences pronounced by the judges, were read ; after which 
 absolution was conferred on those who were penitent, and 
 discharged: after which, those condemned to death (re- 
 lajados) were transferred to the secular authority: and 
 here the auto, properly so called, ended ; the execution 
 of the victims taking place immediately afterwards, under 
 the authority of the civil judge, a secretary fo the inquisi- 
 tion attending. The ceremonial of the autos, processions, 
 horrible executions, <fcc, are amply described by many 
 writers. Bee especially Uorenie's History of lite Inquisi- 
 tion : A Relation if the Inquisition in Portugal, published 
 by Bishop Burnet ; and Ouno's Account of the Senual Auto- 
 da Feat Madrid in 1680, from which the account in the 
 Penny Cyclopaedia is abridged. Autos were of several 
 sorts : the public general act (auto publico general), to 
 which the above descriptions apply; the particular act, at 
 which only the officials of the inquisition were present ; 
 autillo, or little act; and auto singular, the condemnation 
 of a single individual. Sec Inquisition. 
 
 AUTOBIO'GRAPHY. (This word is of Greek origin, 
 and signifies literally the life of a -person written by him- 
 self.) One of the most fascinating, and, if properly under- 
 stood, one of the most instructive, species of composition. 
 But none is more calculated to mislead the incautious 
 reader, or to give more false impressions, both of men 
 and events. These memoirs may be divided into two 
 classes : those in which the chief object of the writer is to 
 illustrate the history of his own mind and heart, and the 
 manner in which these were swayed by the destinies of 
 his life ; and those in which his purpose is merely to give 
 a sketch of the scenes and events which have occurred 
 within his own experience, and of characters with which 
 he has been brought in contact. Of the first class of wri- 
 tings, from the Confession of Saint Augustine down to tho
 
 AUTOCARPIOUS. 
 
 Confessions of Rousseau, and the many works which have 
 since been produced in imitation of the latter, it may be 
 said that the general defect is a morbid spirit of exaggera- 
 tion. The mind dwells with intense recollection on its 
 own pains and pleasures, errors and victories; it magnifies 
 contrasts, paints every thing in extremes, and leaves out 
 of the portrait all neutral and moderate features, because 
 the recollection of ordinary feelings and actions passes 
 away, while that of strong excitement is indelible. Of the 
 more narrative class of memoirs, it is sufficient to say, 
 that where the writer was himself a prominent actor in 
 passing events, they are usually little better than apologies 
 or self-justifications, such as the famous Memoirs of the 
 Cardinal de Retz, and, in our own times, the various frag- 
 ments of autobiography which have been published from 
 the hand of Napoleon. 
 
 AUTOCA'RPIOUS. (Gr. avrds, himself, and xapiros, 
 fruit.) A name given to such fruit as consists of nothing 
 but pericarp, without any additional organ, such as the 
 calvx adhering to the outside. 
 
 AUTO'CHTHONS. (Gr. avros. self, and xQuv, earth.) 
 The Greek term for the aboriginal inhabitants of a country, 
 implying that they were sprung from the soil. The Athe- 
 nians, whose territory had been held by the same race 
 from time immemorial, chiefly on account of its sterility, 
 which offered no incitement to foreign aggression, particu- 
 larly laid claim to this title, in memorial of which they wore 
 the emblematic grasshopper as part of their head-dress. 
 
 AU'TOCRAT. In Politics, a word derived from the 
 Greek avroKparoip, sole, or independent governor. This 
 title of Autocrator was given to Athenian generals invested 
 with full command by the republic ; also to envoys, in 
 which case it corresponded in meaning with the barbarous 
 Latin word plenipotentiaries. In modern political phrase- 
 ology, the term autocrat, signifying a sovereign possessed 
 of absolute power, is usually confined to the emperor of 
 Russia. 
 
 AU'TOGRAPH. (Gr. avrds, self, and ypdQoi, I write.) 
 The autograph of an individual is a piece of writing in his 
 hand. 
 
 AUTO'MATON. (Gr. avrds, self, and uarrjv, easily.) 
 A name applied to pieces of mechanism so constructed as 
 to imitate the actions of living animals. The term Android 
 (from the Gr. dvt]p,man)is sometimes applied to such ma- 
 chines as resemble the figures and imitate the actions of 
 mankind. 
 
 The extent to which these useless but ingenious contri- 
 vances has been sometimes carried is very surprising. Ar- 
 chytas of Tarentum, about 400 years before our era, is said 
 to have made a wooden pigeon that could fly. Friar Ba- 
 con's speaking head is a well-known tradition. Albertus 
 Magnus constructed an automaton to open his door when 
 any one knocked ; the celebrated Regiomontanus, a wood- 
 en eagle that flew forth from the city, saluted the emperor, 
 and returned : and likewise an iron fly which flew out of 
 his hand, and returned after flying about the room. These 
 instances may perhaps have been exaggerated in the des- 
 cription ; but there are some of recent date, and not less 
 remarkable, respecting which the testimony is clear and 
 strong. The following are a few of the best authenticated : — 
 The flute-player of Vaucauson, described by D'Alembert 
 in the Eneyclopcdie Methodique, was exhibited in Paris in 
 1738. It played on the flute exactly in the same manner 
 as a living performer, and commanded three octaves, the 
 fullest scale of the instrument. Its height was nearly six 
 feet. In Hutton's Mathematical Recreations, a description 
 is given of an automaton group, constructed by M. Camus 
 for the amusement of Louis XIV., consisting of a coach 
 and horses, with coachman and page, and lady inside, <fcc, 
 by which the action of driving up, alighting, presenting a 
 petition to the king, and setting oif again, was mimicked 
 with wonderful accuracy. In 1741, Vaucauson, produced 
 a flagelet-player, which played the flagelet with the left 
 hand, while it beat a tambourine with the right. He also 
 produced a duck, which dabbled in the water, swam, 
 drank, and quacked like a real duck ; raised and moved its 
 wings, dressed its feathers with its bill, took barley from 
 the hand and swallowed it, and even digested its food by 
 means of materials for its solution placed in the stomach. 
 (Montucla, Histoiredes Math., tome iii. p. 802.) 
 
 Automaton flute-players have likewise been exhibited in 
 England, of the size of real life, which performed ten or 
 twelve duets. Maelzel, the inventor of the metronome, 
 exhibited an automaton trumpeter at Vienna, of which a 
 description is given in the Journal des Modes for 1809. It 
 was a martial figure, in the uniform of a trumpeter of an 
 Austrian dragoon regiment, which played not only the 
 Austrian and French cavalry marches, and all the signals 
 of those armies, but also a march and an allegro, by Weigl, 
 accompanied by the whole orchestra, &c. {Dictionary of 
 Musicians, London, 1827.) 
 
 Automata have also been constructed which wrote, drew 
 likenesses, played on the pianoforte, Asc. The celebrated 
 chess-playing automaton is now considered as a solved 
 110 
 
 AVERAGE, GENERAL. 
 
 mystery, it being supposed (and not denied) that a boy 
 was concealed inside the figure. The machinery, how- 
 ever, which produced such motions must have been highly 
 ingenious. See Penny Cyclopaedia; Hutton's Math. Dic- 
 tionary ; Encyc. Brit., article " Androides." 
 
 AU'TOPSY. (Gr. avrds, self and o<//ij, sight.') Ocular 
 evidence. 
 
 AU'TUMN. The third of the four seasons of the year. 
 In a popular sense it denotes that period of the year in 
 which the fruits of the earth are gathered in. Astronomi- 
 cally speaking, it is the time during which the sun is pass- 
 ing from the autumnal equinox to the winter solstice. Ow- 
 ing to the elliptic form of the earth's orbit, the seasons are 
 not all of the same length ; and owing to the precession of 
 the equinoxes, their lengths vary a little from age to age. 
 In the present century, the time which elapses between the 
 sun's passage through the autumnal equinox and his reach- 
 ing the winter solstice, or while he passes through the three 
 signs of Libra, Scorpio, and Sagittarius, is 89 days 16 hours 
 and 47 minutes. The autumn of the northern hemisphere 
 corresponds to the spring of the southern. 
 
 AUTU'MNAL EQUINOX. The day on which the sun 
 passes through the equator, going southward, or on which 
 his declination changes from north to south. When the 
 sun is in the equator, the day is equal in length to the night 
 all over the world. See Eciuinox. The autumnal equinox 
 falls generally on the 22d or 23d of September 
 
 AUTU'MNAL POINT. One of the two points in which 
 the ecliptic intersects the equator. It is the same as the 
 first point of the sign Libra. 
 
 AVALA'NCHES. Masses of snow which collect upon 
 the heights of mountains, and gradually sliding down their 
 sides, acquire enormous bulk by fresh accumulations : 
 when they ultimately reach the valleys below, they often 
 cause great destruction. 
 
 AVa'ST. A sea term, signifying, enough ; stop ; cease. 
 The etymology of this word is doubtful. 
 
 AVELLA'NA. (Abella or Avella, a town of Campania, 
 celebrated for its fine filberts. ) One of the names of the com- 
 mon hazel nut. The Spaniards in Chili apply the name to 
 the fruit of Quadria heterophylla, because of its resem- 
 blance to filberts. 
 
 A VENA SATIVA. (Diandria trigynia Lin., Graminese 
 Juss.) The Linnsan name of the common oat. A grami- 
 neous plant characterised by a loose compound equal 
 panicle and two-flowered spikelet. The oat is very exten- 
 sively cultivated in most of the northern countries of Eu- 
 rope as a bread corn. It has long occupied the same place 
 in Scotland that rye occupies in Germany and the potatoe 
 in Ireland. In England it is chiefly used in the feeding of 
 horses ; but there, also, it is used to a considerable extent 
 as food for man, particularly in the northern counties. 
 There are three leading varieties of the common oat culti- 
 vated in England — black : grey, dun-brown, or red ; and 
 white. The first two varieties being comparatively hardy, 
 may be raised on very inferior soils, and in situations un- 
 suitable for the other. The black is now, however, hardly 
 known in England ; but it is still cultivated to a considera- 
 ble extent in some parts of the Highlands of Scotland, and 
 in the Western Islands. The dun or red oat is principally 
 confined to the moors of Cheshire, Derbyshire, and Staf- 
 fordshire. White oats are, speaking generally, less hardy 
 than either of the other varieties, and require a better soil ; 
 but they are also earlier, heavier, and yield a greater quan- 
 tity of meal. There are numberless, and some widely dif- 
 ferent, sub-varieties of the white oat. That which is called 
 the potatoe oat has long enjoyed the highest reputation in 
 England, and is almost the only variety that is at present 
 raised on good land in most parts of England and the south 
 of Scotland. The produce of oats varies very greatly. 
 When the ground is foul or exhausted, not mere than 20 
 bushels an acre are obtained : but in a rich soil well man- 
 aged and in favourable years, 60, 70, and sometimes even 
 SO bushels and upwards, have been reaped, weighing from 
 35 lbs. to 45 lbs. a bushel, and yielding 7 lbs. meal for 14 
 lbs. oats ; but the proportion of meal increases as the oats 
 become heavier. The price ofoats amounted at an average 
 of the 7 years ending with the 31st December, 1835, to 22s. 
 per Imp. quarter. 
 
 A'VENUE. (Lat. ad, to, and venio, I come.) In Land- 
 scape Gardening, is a road leading from some other road, 
 and forming the main approach to a house; but it is also 
 applied to any broad walk or road of grass or gravel, bor- 
 dered on each side by lines of trees. When the modern 
 style of gardening began to take the place of the ancient 
 style, the term avenue gave way to that of approach 
 road, which subsequently became shortened into that of 
 approach. 
 
 A'VERAGE, GENERAL. In Mercantile Law, whatever 
 damageorloss is incurred by any part of the ship or cargo for 
 the preservation of the rest. When such damage accrues, 
 the several persons interested in the ship, freight, and cargo, 
 contribute theirrespective proportions to indemnify the own- 
 ers of the part in question against the damage or necessary ex-
 
 AVERNUS. 
 
 pense which has been incurred for the good of all. Gene- 
 ral average, therefore, cannot be unless the whole adven- 
 ture has been in jeopardy. Every species of loss incurred 
 on any part of the cargo in the course of the voyage, is 
 somewhat loosely denominated average, or particular ave- 
 rage. See Insueancb. 
 
 AVE'RNUS. (Lat.) A lake of Italy 10 miles west of 
 Naples, celebrated in antiquity as the entrance to the in- 
 fernal regions. Strabo's description of this lake was well 
 fitted to impress the minds of the '•jjrofanv.m xulgus" with 
 superstitious awe. "Its steep and perilous banks were 
 studded with mighty oaks that stretched their boughs over 
 the walery abyss and excluded every ray of wholesome 
 light ; mephitic vapours ascending from the hot bowels of 
 the earth floated along the surface of the lake in poisonous 
 mist, while the dark and savage practices of the neighbour- 
 ing people enhanced the horrors of the gloomy scene." 
 A cave adjoining the lake is represented by Virgil as the 
 habitation of the Cumsan sybil : — 
 
 14 Spelnnca alta fnit, raeloque [mmanlj hJatn, 
 Scrupea, luta tarn nigro neinorumque leiiehris ; 
 (iu.iru *uperhaud nlbe poleram impune volaotcs 
 Temlere ilei peimis • lu lis Fete halitus alris 
 
 • ra ad convexa ferebal ; w birds. 
 
 L'nde locum Graii dixerunl nomine Avernum." (aopVOS, without 
 
 This place continued to be the favourite haunt of supersti- 
 tion (ill the time of Augustus, who violated us sanctity, and 
 dispelled the impenetrable darkness in which it had hith- 
 erto been enshrouded, by cutting down the surrounding 
 (rood, and connecting it with the Lucrine lake, then an arm 
 of the sea. Tins lake Still exists under the name Lago 
 d'Averno ; it is about a mile and a half in circumference, 
 and in many places I '.XI feet deep. Averni is a generic 
 name for certain lakes or other places thai infecl the at- 
 mosphere with pestilential vapours, called also nfephites 
 
 AVEBR1 m \"n»it. (Lat ,• 1( ,. /. ... weed.) 
 
 In Arboriculture, is an instrument for cutting off the 
 branches id trees, consisting of two blades fixed i$n the end 
 of a rod ; one of which has a moveable joint, which, by 
 means of a line fixed to it, operates like, a pair of scissors. 
 In the Improved forms of tins instrument, the point on 
 which the moving or cutting blade lurns. instead of being 
 confined to a circular opening, works m a longitudinal one : 
 in consequence of which, instead of a crushing cat, like 
 that produced by common hedge shears, a draw cul is 
 formed, which leaves the section from which He- branch 
 
 or shoot has been amputated as clean as that produt 
 
 a pruning knife 
 
 AVE'Ksiv i i.at. avereus, turned back.) In Ornithology, 
 when the posterior extremities are attached to the trunk 
 
 near the anus, so that Hie body Is supported erect, as m lie 
 
 penguin, Ihi are tei med " pedes a 
 
 A'VES. (Lat. avis, a bird.') Tin- name of a class of 
 warm-blooded vertebrated animals, characterised by a 
 double circulation and respiration, oviparous generation, a 
 covering of feathers, and by their anterior extremities be- 
 ing organised for flight The posterior extremities present 
 five principal modifications, affording characters which dis- 
 tinguish five primary orders, in the first order the foot 
 
 (a fig.) has three toes before and one behind, all armed 
 with long, strong, crooked, and more or less retractile talons, 
 111 
 
 AVOIRDUPOIS. 
 
 adapted to seize and lacerate a living prey ; this structure 
 is associated with a strong, curved, sharp-edged and sharp- 
 pointed beak, often armed with a lateral tooth ; a very 
 muscular body, and capability of rapid and long-continued 
 flight. The order is termed Ri'ptores or Accipitres. The 
 second type of foot presents three toes before and one be- 
 hind, and placed on the same level ; slender, flexible, of 
 moderate length, and provided with long, pointed, and 
 slightly curved claws. The two external toes are united by 
 a very short membrane. A foot so constructed (6 fig.) is 
 especially adapted for the delicate operations of nest build- 
 ing, and lor grasping and perching among the slender 
 branches of trees ; hence the order so characterised has 
 been termed Insessores, and, from including the smaller 
 tribes of birds, Passeies. In the third type of foot (c fig.) 
 the hinder toe is raised above the level of the three anterior 
 ones; this deteriorates the power of perching ; hut the other 
 toes are strong, straight, and terminated by robust obtuse 
 claws, adapted for scratching up the soil, and for running 
 along the ground ; the legs are for this purpose very strong 
 and muscular, and the order so characterised is termed Raso- 
 res, or Gallina?. The modification by which birds are ena- 
 bled to wade and seek their food in water along the mar- 
 gins of rivers, lakes, and estuaries, is gained simply by 
 elongating the bones of the leg (tibia and metatarsus), which 
 are covered with a naked scaly skin. The three anterior 
 toes are sometimes very long and slender, as in the Parraja- 
 cana, by which the bird can support itself upon the broad 
 floating leaves of aquatic plants; sometimes they are of 
 moderate length. The hind toe is elevated, short, and 
 sometimes wanting (d fig ) The order of birds character- 
 ised by tin- form of leg and loot is termed (Jrallatores, 
 from the resemblance of the posterior extremities to stilts. 
 In the last form of foot <. tig.) the toes are united by inter- 
 vening w.lis; the hgs are placed behind the centre of 
 equilibrium ; the body is protected by a dense covering id' 
 i -. and a thick down nevt the skin ; and the whole 
 organisation is .specially adapted for aquatic life. Hence 
 
 th.- order is termed Natatores. 
 
 A'VIAKY. d.ai avis, a bird.) A place for keeping 
 birds, in gardens, aviaries for singing birds are generally 
 limited spaces attached to summer-houses, or hot-houses, 
 in which a temperature is kept up during winter suitable to 
 the kind of turd or buds in the aviary. When an aviary 
 which live In climates analogous to that 
 of Britain, h is formed in the open garden or pleasure 
 
 ground, each kind o| bird having a separate house ; or, in- 
 stead ot a house, a Bmall encl08UTf covered with netting to 
 
 prevent it from flying away. The most common exotic sing- 
 tngbtrds kept in aviaries are canaries; and the most common 
 exotic ornamental birds are turtle doves, and birds oi the 
 parrot tribe. The ornamental ami curious birds « Inch live 
 
 in climates similar In that ol Britain may he divided into 
 two classes, the terrestrial ami the aquatic. Of the former, 
 the most ornamental are the gold and silver pheasants, and 
 the common pigeon, including its numerous varieties ; 
 
 and among the latter, the white and black swans, the Mus- 
 covy duck, <fcc. 'f' Maries in ibe neigh- 
 bour] I of London, exclusive of those ill the Zoological 
 
 Gardens, are those at Woburn Abbey, and at Knowsley. 
 
 AVI'Cl'LA. A name applied to a genus of bivalves, in 
 some of the species of which the shell, when expanded, 
 "Hi- a slight resemblance 10 a bird (lying. The shell is 
 eqnivalve, with a rectilinear hinge, notched at the anterior 
 edge lor the passage of a hyssus : Ihe anterior adductor 
 muscle very small. To this genus belongs the celebrated 
 pearl oyster, Avictda margantifera. 
 
 AVori>\\t i: p Ecclesiastical Law, signifies the con- 
 dition of a benefice when void of an incumbent, and is op- 
 pose, i to plenarty. 
 
 A'YOIKM I'O'lS.orAYERIHPOIS. (Fr. avoirdu pois, 
 to have weight; or perhaps from an old French verb, 
 averer, tu verify.) The name given to the common system 
 of weights in England, by which goods in general, except- 
 ing the precious stones and medicines are weighed. The 
 standard weight of this country is the grain, which is or- 
 dered by art of parliament. 5 Geo. IV. c. 7-4. , to be such 
 that "a cubic inch of distilled water, weighed in air by 
 brass weights, at the temperature of 62 degrees ol Fahren- 
 heit's thermometer, the barometer being at 30 inches, is 
 equal to two hundred and fifty-two grains, and four hundred 
 and fifty eight thousandth parts of a grain. A pound avoir- 
 dupois contains 7000 grains. The pound is subdivided into 
 16 ounces, and the ounce into 10 drams. The higher de- 
 nominations are the quarter-hundred, the hundredweight, 
 and the ton ; 2S pounds making a quarter, 112 pounds a 
 hundredweight, and 20 hundredweights a ton. The pound 
 avoirdupois is greater than the pound troy ; the latter con- 
 taining only 5700 grains. But the troy ounce, which con- 
 tains the twelfth part of 5700, or 480 grains, is greater than 
 the ounce avoirdupois, which contains the sixteenth part of 
 7000, or 437>2 grains. The avoirdupois ounce is considered 
 as being the Roman uncia, which, according to Dr. Ar- 
 buthnot, contains 437^- grains, though other authorities
 
 AVOSET. 
 
 make it several grains less. The term averdupois occurs 
 in some orders of Henry VIII., a. d. 1532 ; and Queen Eliza- 
 beth, in 1588, ordered a pound of this weight to be deposit- 
 ed in the Exchequer as a standard. See Weights. 
 
 AVOSE'T. A native wading bird, characterised by a 
 long recurved bill. See Recurvirostra. 
 
 AVOWRY. In Law, the justification advanced in plead- 
 ing by one who has taken a distress in his own right when 
 sued in replevin. The avowry must contain a sufficient 
 averment of right to have return. One who justifies as 
 having taken in the right of another, is said to make cog- 
 nizance. See Replevin. 
 
 AWA'RD. In Law, the judgment pronounced by one 
 or more arbitrators, at the request of two parties who are 
 at variance, for ending the matter in dispute without the 
 decision of a. public tribunal. The act of reference to an 
 arbitrator is termed a submission. 
 
 By the stat. 9 <fc 10 W. 3. c. 15. it is provided that parties 
 desirous to end a controversy may agree that their submis- 
 sion of the suit to arbitration shall be made a rule of any 
 court of record ; and, after such rule, the party disobeying 
 the award is liable to be punished for a contempt of the 
 court. But the award may be set aside for various causes, 
 as corruption, informality, &c, by motion in court within 
 one term after the award is made. When submission to 
 arbitration has been made a rule of court, it is, by 3 & 4 W. 
 4. c. 42. s. 39., not revocable by either party without leave 
 of the court. The arbitrators have a jurisdiction over the 
 costs of the action as well as over the matter in controver- 
 sy ; and, in case of a reference at nisi prius, they may re- 
 fer the costs to be taxed by the proper officer of the court. 
 An award must be made in writing, signed and sealed by 
 the arbitrators. 
 
 AWN. (Derivation unknown.) A stiff, usually rough, 
 bristle, proceeding from the end or some other part of a 
 leaf, or of a leafy organ ; it is the beard of grasses, and often 
 proceeds in those plants from the base of either glumes or 
 paleae. An awn is in reality either a vein separating from 
 its parenchyma, or a rigid sharp-pointed barren branch of 
 inflorescence. A part is said to be awned, or arislate, 
 when furnished with this organ. 
 
 AWNING. In Hort., a temporary covering for plants, 
 generally consisting of cloth of some kind, stretched by 
 means of ropes, cords, or wooden rods, so as to protect 
 fruit trees against a wall, or flowers in a bed. An awning 
 for a tulip bed is the most complete structure of this de- 
 scription, and is so constructed, by means of lines and 
 pullies, that the sheeting can either be pulled up or let 
 down over a bed of considerable length in two or three 
 minutes. 
 
 A'XESTONE. A tough silico-magnesian stone, some- 
 times shaped into cutting instruments. See Nephrite. 
 
 AXI'FEROUS. (Lat. axis, a centre, &nd fero, I bear.) A 
 name given to those plants which, like lichens, fungi, &c, 
 consist exclusively of an axis, without any leaves or appen- 
 dages of it. 
 
 A'XIL. (Lat. axilla, the armpit.) That part of a plant 
 where a leaf fits on a branch, forming an angle with it : or 
 where two branches diverge from each other. 
 
 A'XILE. (Axis.) Lying in the axis of any thing ; as an 
 embryo, which lies in the axis of a seed, that is, from the 
 base to the end diametrically opposite. 
 
 AXI'LLA. (Lat. axilla, the armpit.) In Anatomy, the 
 hollow below the base of the arm, at its insertion into the 
 chest. An interesting region in topographical anatomy, 
 containing important arteries, veins, nerves, glands, &c. 
 which are termed 'axillary.' 
 
 AXI'LLARY. Growing in an axil. The term is modi- 
 fied by the prefixing different Latin prepositions: thus, 
 infra axillary, signifies growing from below the axil ; 
 extra axillary, on one side of it ; and supra axillary, from 
 above it. 
 
 A'XINITE. (Gr. &%ivri, an axe.) A mineral usually oc- 
 curring in axeshaped crystals ; it is an alumino-silicate of 
 lime and iron. 
 
 A'XIOM. (Gr. df i<5co, / demand.) In Geometry, a pro- 
 position which it is necessary to lake for granted, and 
 which therefore admits of no demonstration. The follow- 
 ing are among the propositions of this kind enunciated by 
 Euclid : " Things that are equal to the same thing are 
 equal to one another." " The whole is greater than its 
 part." "If two figures when placed the one on the other 
 entirely coincide, they are equal in every respect." The 
 formal statement of such propositions is totally useless, or 
 rather tends only to produce obscurity. 
 
 Axiom. In Philosophy, properly that which is demand- 
 ed, or postulate. It is used, in the mathematical and physi- 
 cal sciences, in the sense of a proposition, to which the as- 
 sent of the student is demanded without proof, as a foun- 
 dation for farther argument. 
 
 A'XIS. (Lat. an axletree.) That part in plants about 
 
 which particular organs are arranged. Thus, the stem is 
 
 an axis for the branches ; a branch, an axis for leaves ; the 
 
 rachis, an axis for the divisions of inflorescence ; and the 
 
 112 
 
 AZURE. 
 
 receptacle, gynobase, or columella, is the axis of the fruit. 
 The term is also applied to the imaginary point round 
 which parts of any sort are arranged. 
 
 Axis. (Lat. axis.) In Architecture, a real or imaginary 
 straight line passing through any body on which it may 
 revolve ; the axis of a column, for instance, is a straight 
 line drawn down through its centre ; the axis of the Ionic 
 volute is a line drawn through the two eyes, front and 
 rear. 
 
 Axis. (Lat. axis.) In Mechanics, signifies in general 
 the straight line, real or imaginary, about which a body 
 turns. In this sense it is called the axis of rotation, of os- 
 cillation, &c, according to the motion of the body. In 
 Geometry, the axis of a figure is a straight line about which 
 the parts of the figure are symmetrically disposed. Thus, 
 the axis of a cone is the line drawn from the vertex to the 
 centre of the base ; and the axis of a cylinder, the line 
 drawn through the centre of its two ends. In the ellipse 
 and hyperbola, the transverse axis is the straight line drawn 
 through the two foci ; and the conjugate axis, that drawn 
 through the centre, perpendicular to the transverse. In 
 general, by the axis of a curve line is meant that diameter 
 which has its ordinates at right angles to it. We also 
 speak of the axes of the co-ordinates of a curve, meaning 
 the line on which the abscissa are taken. 
 
 AXIS IN PERITROCHIO. One of the five mechanical 
 powers, consisting of a peritrochium or wheel fixed im- 
 movably to an axle, so that both turn together round the 
 axis of motion. The power is applied at the circumference 
 of the wheel, and the weight raised by a rope wound round 
 the axle. The power gained is the same as that gained by 
 a lever, the longer arm of which is equal to the radius of 
 the wheel, and the shorter equal to the radius of the axle; 
 so that if we suppose the radius of the wheel to be 30 
 inches, and the radius of the axle 6 inches, a weight of one 
 pound suspended by a rope passing round the wheel 
 would raise a weight of five pounds similarly suspended 
 from the axle. 
 
 A'XOLOTL. (Axolotes, is, em, ibus.) A term derived 
 from the Mexican language, and applied to a genus of 
 Perennibranchiate Amphibians, found in the lake of 
 Mexico. 
 
 AYE-AYE. The name of a singular nocturnal quadru- 
 ped of Madagascar, indicative of its peculiar cry ; it is 
 placed by Cuvier in the Rodent order, under the generic 
 name Cheiromys, from the hand-like structure of the 
 hinder feet ; a structure which approximates the genus to 
 the monkey tribe, or Quadrumana, in which other natural- 
 ists have placed it. 
 
 AZA'LEA. (Gr. dla\eos, dry.) A genus of beautiful 
 plants inhabiting North America and China. They have 
 trumpet-shaped or bell-shaped richly coloured flowers, 
 which are in some species fragrant. The name has appa- 
 rently been derived from the dry brittle nature of their 
 branches. They differ from rhododendron chiefly in being 
 deciduous. 
 
 A'ZIMUTH. (From the Arabic.) A term used in as 
 tronomy, to denote the arc of the horizon intercepted be- 
 tween the meridian and the vertical circle passing through 
 a star or other celestial body ; or the angle made at the 
 zenith by the meridian and the vertical circle in which the 
 body is situated. The azimuth may be counted either 
 from the north or the south point of the horizon : modern 
 astronomers seem to prefer beginning at the north point, 
 and counting eastward and westward to 1S0° ; but it is not 
 one of those elements usually observed in astronomy, be- 
 ing easily deduced from the declination, which can be 
 measured much more conveniently and accurately. In 
 trigonometrical surveys, however, on the earth's surface, 
 the accurate determination of the azimuth of an object is 
 an operation of very great importance. It is usually made 
 with the theodolite. 
 
 AZIMUTH CIRCLES, or VERTICAL CIRCLES, are 
 great circles of the sphere passing through the zenith, and 
 intersecting the horizon at right angles. 
 
 AZIMUTH COMPASS. A compass used at sea for find- 
 ing the horizontal distance of the sun or a star from the 
 magnetic meridian. 
 
 AZIMUTH DIAL. A dial of which the stile or gnomon 
 is perpendicular to the plane of the horizon. It is so called 
 because the shadow marks the sun's azimuth. 
 
 A'ZOTANE. Sir H. Davy proposed to designate the 
 compounds of chlorine by the termination ane, and conse- 
 quently distinguished the compound of chlorine and azote, 
 or chloride of azote, by the above name. 
 
 A'ZOTE. (Gr. d, not. and $wr), life.) A simple gase 
 ous body, unfit for respiration ; it forms four-fifths of our 
 atmosphere. See Nitrogen. 
 
 A'ZURE. (Fr. azur.) In Painting, a sky-coloured blue. 
 That made of lapis lazuli, called ultramarine, is of great 
 value to the painter. 
 
 A'zure. (Fr. azur, blue.) In Heraldry, one of the co- 
 lours, or tinctures, employed in blazonry. It is equivalent 
 to sapphire among precious stones, and Jupiter among
 
 AZURITE. 
 
 planets. In engraving, it is represented by horizontal 
 lines. 
 
 A'ZURITE. See Lazulite. 
 
 A'ZYGOS. (Gr. d, without, and $vyov, a yoke, because 
 it has no fellow.) In Anatomy, some single muscles, 
 bones, veins, &c, are so called. 
 
 B. 
 
 B. The second letter in all European alphabets, and in 
 that of most other languages. B is one of those letters 
 which the Eastern grammarians call labial, because the 
 principal organs employed in its pronunciation are the lips. 
 It lias a close affinity to the other labial letters P and V ; 
 and by the Saxons it is confounded with the former, and 
 with the latter by the modern Greeks, Spaniards, una Gas- 
 cons. Hence the sarcastic remark, that in Gascony " vi- 
 vere" and "bibere" are the same thing. Among the 
 Greeks and Hebrews, B signified 2 ; anions the Romans 
 300 (et B tricrntum per se retinere videtur) ; with a dash 
 over it it denoted 3000. and with a kind of accent below it 
 200. The Romans also use. | ii in inscriptions as an abbre- 
 viation for Baccho, Beleno, Benemerenti, <tc. ; B. B. for 
 bene bene (i.e. Optime), II L. for lector 1 . Ii P. 
 
 (affixed to decrees or senatus consulta) for bonum factum. 
 In modern times also it is used as an abbreviation for before, 
 as B. C. (before Christ) ; and for bachelor, as, B. A., B. LL., 
 B. I), (bachelor of arts, of laws, of divinity). In music, B 
 is the note on the second line in the bass, and the third in 
 the trclile : and in the chemical alphabet, according to Ray- 
 mond Luliy, it denotes mercury. 
 
 B Molle. (Lat. taoWe, soft.) In Music, one of the notes 
 in the musical scale, usually called soft or flat [>, to dis- 
 tinguish it from B quadro (square), t). 
 
 BAAL, or BEL. (Heb.) A sod of the Phoenicians and 
 Carthaginians, worshipped chiefly at Tyre. The term 
 Baal, common to all the Eastern languages, Bignifii 
 or master ; and this circumstance has probabl) given rise 
 to the various contradictor; opinions thai prevail i 
 ing this divinity. Senilis (in Am. I.), who is followed by 
 Vossius CJ'ii' >!■ Gh hi. b. xi. c. '1 ). observes thai Baal in the 
 Runic language bad two significations: the one denoting 
 Saturn. Hh other equivalenl to the Greet '/./>■<,. Accord 
 ingly, if Baal and Ztus be words of similar import in dif- 
 ferent languages, we may apply to the former what Varro 
 relates of the latter, that the number of divinities worship- 
 ped under this title amounted to three hundred. This opin- 
 ion, it would appear, was held also by Milton, 
 
 With these came they who, from the bordering flood 
 Of old Euphrates, to the brook thut parts 
 
 from Syrian around, had general oamea 
 Of Utinlim and Aetaroth, ic. &c. 
 
 It is probable that the Baal of the Phoenicians, and the Be- 
 lus of the Babylonians, whose worship was so assiduously 
 cultivated (Herod, i.), were one and the same divinity. 
 The priests of Baal amounted to 450; anil, among other 
 sacrifices offered upon his shrine, the Bible mentions hu- 
 man victims. To the zealous devotion paid by the Eastern 
 nations to this divinity, and the wide circulation of his 
 worship, the adoption of his name in the appellation of 
 distinguished individuals, such as Hannibal, Belshazar, As- 
 drubal, <fcc, bears ample testimony. (Selden, de Dim Sy- 
 ria : ShuckfonPs Connection, b. v.) 
 
 BA'BEL. (Heb.) A tower undertaken to be built shortly 
 after the Hood by the posterity of Noah, and remarkable 
 for the frustration of the attempt by the confusion of lan- 
 guages. About 1700 years after the erection of the tower 
 of Babel, Herodotus saw at Babylon a structure consisting 
 of eight towers, raised one above another, and each 75 feet 
 high (Herod, b. i.); but whether this structure was the 
 famed tower of Babel or not, it is impossible to ascertain. 
 It is generally supposed, however, both by ancient and 
 modern writers, that the city of Babylon afterwards occu- 
 pied the site of Babel, and that the famous temple of Belus 
 was built from its ruins. A great difference of tradition 
 prevails as to the height of the tower of Babel. While the 
 orientalists maintain that it was 10,000 fathoms, or about 12 
 miles high, St. Jerome asserts, on the authority of eye-wit- 
 nesses who had examined the ruins of a tower at Babylon, 
 that it was 4 miles high, and there are other statements 
 still more extravagant. With regard to modem travellers 
 who pretend to identify the ruins found on or near the site 
 of ancient Babylon with the tower of Babel, their accounts 
 are so discrepant and indefinite, as to render it doubtful 
 if any of them have seen the genuine ruins of this cele- 
 brated tower. (Rich's Travels; Buckingham's Travels 
 in Mesopotamia ; Rennet's Remarks on Herodotus.) 
 
 BABIA'NA. A genus of Cape plants belonging to the 
 
 natural order Iridacea. The name is derived from Babi- 
 
 aner, a term given by the Dutch colonists to these plants in 
 
 113 
 
 BACCHANALIA. 
 
 consequence of the avidity with which their roots are de- 
 voured by the baboons. 
 
 BA'BILLARD. The name of a small frugivorous Pas- 
 serine bird, the Curruca gurntia: also called the white- 
 breasted or babbling fauvette, lesser white tliroat, and net 
 tie-creeper. 
 
 BABOO'N. The monkeys, or quadrumana, which have 
 projecting ridges above the" eyes, long and truncate muz- 
 zles, cheek-pouches, ischiatic callosities, and generally 
 short tails. 
 
 BABYROU'SSA, The name of an animal of the hog 
 kind (Sus babirussa, Cuv.) inhabiting the forests of the In- 
 dian Archipelago, with longer legs and longer tusks than 
 the other species of hog ; but the upper and the lower tusks 
 curve upwards and backwards, and serve as a defence to 
 the eyes while the animal forces its passage through the 
 entangled jungles. 
 
 BAX'CA. A berry ; usually a succulent fruit containing 
 several seeds. In its most exact application it is a succu- 
 lent fruit filled with pulp, in which the seeds lie loosely, as 
 in the euoseberrv. 
 
 BACCALAU'REAT. (Lat.) The first or lowest aca- 
 demical degree in the English and French universities. 
 The mode by which this degree is attainable is different in 
 different universities. Oxford and Cambridge have two 
 ways of conferring ii : 1. By examination, to which those 
 students alone are admissible who have pursued the pre- 
 scribed course of study for the space of three years. 2. 
 By extraordinary diploma, granted to individuals wholly 
 unconnected with the university. The former class are 
 styled Baccalaurei Formati, the latter Baccalaurei fur- 
 rentes. In Prance, the degree of Baccalaureat (Baccalau- 
 rcus Literarum) is conferred indiscriminately upon such 
 natives or foreigners as. after a strict examination in the 
 classics, mathematics, and philosophy, are declared to be 
 qualified. In the German universities, the title "Doctor 
 Philosophise," has long been substituted for Baccalaureus 
 Allium or Literatom. In the middle ages, the term Baccalau- 
 reus was applied to an Inferior order of knights, who came in- 
 to the field unattended by vassals: from them it was trans- 
 ferred to tin lowest diss of ecclesiastics; and thence 
 again, by Pope Gregory IX., to the universities. There are 
 few words v. hose origin has been more controverted than 
 that of Baccalaureat ; and both the military and literary 
 I their claims to this honour with equal 
 Zealand ingenuity. While the former maintain that it is 
 either derived from the bat ukta or staff with which knights 
 usually invested, or from baa chevalier (an inferior 
 kind of knight), the latter, perhaps with more plausibility, 
 
 its origin to tl ustom which prevailed universally 
 
 among the Greeks and Romans, and which was followed 
 eve Italy till the thirteenth century, of crowning distin- 
 guished Individuals with laurel: hence the recipient of this 
 honour was styled Baccalaureus (quasi baccis laureis do- 
 natus). 
 
 BACCAULA'RIS. A fruit consisting of several distinct 
 carpels, having a succulent coating, and seated upon a 
 short receptacle. 
 
 BA'Ct'HA. In Entomology, a genus of the order Diptera, 
 and family Syrphida . The two basal joints of the abdomen 
 are long and slender, with the remaining joints depressed 
 and broad ; they are bronze colour marked with yellow, 
 and are found upon flowers in the neighbourhood of London. 
 
 BACCHANA'LIA. (Lat.) Festivals in honour of Bac- 
 chus. In the mythology of the Greeks and Romans, allu- 
 sion is constantly made to the conquest which Bacchus a- 
 chieved over India, and it is generally supposed that these 
 festivals were instituted to commemorate that event. They 
 consisted originally of a grand procession, in which the 
 priests and priestesses of Bacchus bore the principal part, 
 and were accompanied with games, spectacles, and thea- 
 trical representations. But, at a later period of Grecian 
 history, they assumed a totally different character: vice, 
 debauchery, and licentiousness became their distinguish- 
 ed characteristics; and Plato (de Leg. 1. i.) asserts that 
 during the celebration of these festivals he has seen the 
 whole Athenian populace in a state of drunkenness. At 
 Athens, there were two principal Bacchanalia held annu- 
 ally : viz. Bacchanalia Dionysia or Majora, celebrated in the 
 city about spring-time ; and Bacchanalia Lenaea or Minora 
 (so called from Xr/voj, a wine press), celebrated in the coun- 
 try during autumn. On these occasions, the Bacchae or 
 priestesses of the god ran up and down the mountains in a 
 frantic manner (.Stat. Theb. vi. 92.), clad in doe-skins, 
 with spears in their hands, bound at the points with ivy- 
 leaves (thyrsi), and using the wildest gestures and excla- 
 mations. (See the Baccho. of Euripides.) 
 
 These festivals were introduced from Greece into Etru- 
 ria, and thence by an easy transfer into Rome, where they 
 were at first celebrated chiefly by young men on their lay- 
 ing aside the toga praetexta for the toga virilis. But they 
 soon after extended among all classes of the community ; 
 and in the course of time such were the enormities prac- 
 tised at their celebration, that the senate (a. u, c. 566)cama
 
 BACCHUS. 
 
 to the resolution of abolishing them entirely. Virgil, in the 
 7th book of the jEneid, gives a graphic description of these 
 festivals, and says that the priestesses 
 
 tremulis nlulatibus aeihera eomplent, 
 Pampineasque gerunt, incinctee pellibus, haBtas. 
 And Juvenal uses the term Bacchanalia to express a disso- 
 lute and licentious life : 
 
 Q.ui Curios simulant, et Bacchanalia vivunt. 
 BA'CCHUS, or DIONY'SUS (blovvoot). The god of 
 wine, and son of Jupiter and Semele daughter of Cadmus. 
 His mother perished in the burning embraces of the god, 
 whom she persuaded to visit her with his attribute of roy- 
 alty, the thunderbolt ; the embryo child was sewn up in Ju- 
 piter's thigh, whence in due time he was produced to light. 
 Mythology abounds with the adventures of Bacchus, the 
 most noted of which are, the transformation of the Tyr- 
 rhenian pirates, who carried him off to sell for a slave, into 
 dolphins ; his revenge on the scoffing Pentheus ; and his 
 invasion and conquest of India. Bacchus was generally 
 represented as a young man of effeminate appearance, 
 with a garland of ivy binding his long hair ; in his hand he 
 bore a thyrsus or rod wreathed with ivy, and at his feet lay 
 his attendant panther. 
 BaCCI'FEROUS. Bearing berries. 
 BA'CHELOR. In the English Universities, the lowest 
 degree in arts, law, divinity, medicine, and music. It is, 
 like other university honours, of French origin. For the 
 various derivations that have been suggested for this word, 
 see Baccalaureat. 
 
 Bachelor. In Heraldry, the lowest order of knight- 
 hood. See Knight. 
 
 Bachelor. In the Livery Companies of London, is one 
 who is not yet admitted of the livery ; also called yeoman. 
 
 BACILLA'RE^E. A small group of Algaceous plants, 
 having an extremely simple structure, and in part the same 
 as what are called Cymbelleee. They stand on the limits 
 of the animal and vegetable kingdoms, and are said to have 
 a power of spontaneous motion. 
 
 BACI'LLUS. A name given to the cotyledon of the hya- 
 cinth by Link. 
 
 BACK (from the Saxon btec) OF A HIP. In Architec- 
 ture, the upper faces of the hip-rafter between the two 
 sides of a hipped roof, so formed to an angle as to be in the 
 same plane with the rafters on each side of it. 
 
 BACKER. In Architecture, a term used to denote a 
 narrow slate laid on the back of a broad square-headed 
 slate where the slates begin to diminish in width. 
 
 BACKGA'MMON. A game played with dice by two 
 persons on a table divided into two parts, upon which there 
 are 12 black and as many white spaces, called points. 
 Each player has 15 men, black and white, to distinguish 
 them. This game is of Welch origin, and is said to have 
 been invented in the period preceding the Conquest. 
 (Gloss, ad Leges Wallic, cited by Henry, vol. iv. p. 404.) 
 Backgammon can only be learned by observation and prac- 
 tice ; and though much depends on chance, still great skill 
 may be displayed in the course of the game. Hoyle, the 
 received oracle in these matters, has evinced great accura- 
 cy in calculating the odds of backgammon, and has em- 
 bodied a variety of rules and instructions respecting it, 
 which must prove of great service to every player. 
 BACK THE OARS. To row the oars backwards. 
 BACK AND FILL. To keep a ship in the middle of the 
 stream of a narrow river, by alternately advancing ahead 
 from one shore and moving backwards from the opposite 
 shore, while the stream carries her along, the wind being 
 contrary to the direction of the stream. 
 
 BACK STAFF. An instrument used before the inven- 
 tion of the quadrant and sextant, for taking the sun's alti- 
 tude at sea. In using it the observer turned his back to the 
 sun, whence the instrument had its name. It was invented 
 by Cant. John Davis, about the year 1590. 
 
 BACK-STAYS. In Sea language, ropes stretched from 
 the top-mast heads to the starboard and larboard sides of 
 the ship, their use being to support the top-masts, and se- 
 cond the efforts of the shrouds. They are distinguished 
 into bTeasI back-stays and after back-stays, according as the 
 strain on the mast is caused by a side-wind, or a wind fur- 
 ther aft. See Rigging. 
 
 BACO'NIAN PHILOSOPHY. The system propounded 
 by Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam. It is usual to speak of 
 this philosophy as if it were a new invention of its illus- 
 trious founder — as if the method of induction were a mode 
 of philosophising unknown before hi3 time, and in direct 
 opposition to preceding systems, especially that of Aristo- 
 tle : this opinion, we conceive, is entirely erroneous. Aris- 
 totle has in many parts of his works clearly and satisfacto- 
 rily explained the inductive method, and has himself, in 
 his physical writings, given examples of its application. 
 Lord Bacon's distinguishing merit consists, we believe, ra- 
 ther in the attention which, by his splendid eloquence, his 
 wonderful power of illustration, his comprehensive views 
 of the relations of the sciences to each other, and his un- 
 114 
 
 BAGPIPE. 
 
 hesitating faith in the boundless progressiveness of human 
 knowledge, he succeeded in awakening in the minds of 
 his countrymen, than in any philosophical discoveries pro- 
 perly so called. No man, we admit, ever obtained a clear- 
 er insight into the nature and province of inductive re- 
 search ; no man, certainly, has laid down with such rigour 
 and accuracy the rules for its successful prosecution. The 
 various modes of experimenting and observing (in the 
 language of Bacon instances) are classed under twenty-se- 
 ven heads: and the circumstances under which each kind is 
 applicable are stated with great fulness and accuracy. This 
 is done in the second book of his Novum Organon; the 
 former book of which consists of aphorisms on the errors 
 of the human intellect generally, and in particular of prece- 
 ding philosophical systems. These delusions, under the 
 name of idols, he reduces to four classes: the idols of the 
 tribe, or those common to human nature generally ; the 
 idols of the cave, or those generated by individual peculiari- 
 ties ; the idols of the marketplace, produced by the incorrect 
 use of words in ordinary discourse; and lastly, the super- 
 stitions introduced by false and visionary systems of phi- 
 losophy, to which the name is assigned of the idols of the 
 theatre. His own method he designates as holding an inter- 
 mediate place between the merely empirical and the dog- 
 matical schools. "While the one," says he, "like ants, con- 
 tent themselves with heaping up materials for immediate 
 use, the latter, after the manner of spiders, spin webs out 
 of their own train : there is a middle and a better way — 
 that of the bee, which derives, indeed, its material from 
 the flowers of the garden and the field, but converts and 
 digests it by its own proper virtue." These two books of 
 the Organon form the second great division of his project- 
 ed undertaking, the Inslauratio Magna, or Reform of 
 Philosophy, and relate to the interpretation of nature. The 
 treatise De Augmcntis Scientiarum (of the Advancement 
 of Learning) constitutes the first division : the third was 
 to consist of a history of the phenomena of the universe : 
 the fourth (ScaJa Intetlettus) was to comprise an account 
 of the processes of the human understanding, with exam- 
 ples from various sciences : in the fifth was to be contained 
 the introduction to the Philosojihia Secunda, or Active Phi- 
 losophy, which, as the combined result of history and ex- 
 perience, was itself to constitute the sixth and last division. 
 (See his Distributio Operis ; Bacon's Works, 4to ed. vol. 
 iv.) Of this mighty work Bacon only completed the first 
 two divisions. For a comprehensive and impartial esti- 
 mate of the value of the Baconian philosophy, the Ger- 
 man scholar may consult Tennemann's Oeschichte der 
 Philosophic, lOter band. (Leipzig, 1817.) An account of 
 the Novum Organon has been published by the Society 
 for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. (The best and 
 most complete edition of Lord Bacon's Works, is that 
 edited by Basil Montague, Esq., 17 vols. Svo. London, 
 1825. It contains the Latin Works, with Translations, Por- 
 traits,Views, and Fac- similes, and a new Life by the Editor.) 
 BA'CTRIS. (Gr. (HaKrpov, a cane.) A genus of palms 
 with spiny slender stems and pinnated leaves. Their 
 fruit is succulent, and manufactured into a kind of wine ; 
 walking sticks are made from their stems. 
 
 BA'CULITES. (Lat. baculum, a stick.) A genus of 
 fossil Tetrabranchiate Cephalopods, the chambered shells 
 of which are quite straight, but differ from those of the 
 Orthoceratites in having sinuous or undulated partitions 
 with lobated margins : in this structure they are aUied to 
 the Ammonites. 
 BA'DGER. See Meles. 
 
 BA'DISTER. In Entomology, a genus of the order 
 Coleoptera, and family Harpalidce. This genus, with some 
 others, forms a leading group among the carnivorous 
 beetles. 
 
 BA'GGAGE. (Fr. bagage.) In the art Military, the 
 clothes, tents, provisions, and other necessaries belonging 
 to an army. In regard to the conveyance of baggage, a 
 striking contrast is presented between the military systems 
 of ancient and modern times. The Roman soldiers had 
 four kinds of baggage (bucellatum or corn, utensils of 
 various kinds, valli, and arms), termed by a felicity of lan- 
 guage impedimenta ; and were so heavily laden, that they 
 were called by way of jest muli Mariani, and arvmnce. 
 In modern times, the plan is every where adopted of rid- 
 ding the soldier of all unnecessary encumbrance; and 
 with this view waggons attached to each battalion are em- 
 ployed for the conveyance of baggage, and guarded and 
 regulated by a body of men set apart for the purpose, 
 called the waggon-train. 
 
 BA'GGING. A mode of reaping corn or pulse with a 
 hook, in which the operator effects his object by striking 
 the straw or haulm, instead of drawing the hook through 
 it. In other words, it is separating the straw or haulm 
 from the root by chopping, instead of by a drawing cut. 
 
 BA'GPIPE. This instrument appears to be of ancient 
 origin, and is very similar to the tibia utricularis described 
 by Blanchinus. A representation of it is given by Lus- 
 cinius in his Musurgia (1536), whence it appears that at
 
 BAIKALITE. 
 
 that time the instrument was similar to that now In use. 
 It consists of a leather bag, inflated through a valved tube 
 by the mouth (or a bellows), and of three pipes ; two of 
 which give only one note each, and are called the great 
 and little drone ; and the third, somewhat like the oboe, 
 has eight finger holes. The bagpipe is peculiar to the 
 Scotch and Irish nations. 
 
 li A'lK ALITE. A manganesian epidote from lake Baikal 
 in Siberia. 
 
 HAIL (Old Fr. bailler, to deliver or give up), in Law, is 
 the liberation of one in custody, whether for a civil or cri- 
 minal cause, on surety taken for his appearance at a day 
 and place certain. In civil cases bail IS chiefly of two 
 kinds, called bail to the sheriff, and bail to the action ; or, 
 in other terms, bail above and bail below. When a person 
 is arrested upon an affidavit made that he is indebted to 
 the plaintiff in the sum of JK20 or upwards (which, since 
 the recent act for abolishing arrest on mesne process, 1 <t 
 2 Vict. c. 10., must also state that there is probable cause 
 for believing that the defendant is about to quit England), 
 he has then, in order to regain his liberty (unless previous- 
 ly discharged under a judge's order), to execute a bail 
 bond to the sheriff the condition of which is, that he will 
 at the proper period put in special bail, which amounts to 
 an appearance in court : at this period he either puts in 
 special bail, who are two or more persons, who undertake 
 generally that if the defendant lose the verdict be shall 
 pay the amount awarded against him, or render himself to 
 custody, or that they will do it for him. In default of spe- 
 cial bail he returns again into custody. 
 
 Bail, in cases of felony, is taken by two magistrates in 
 cases where the evidence again.>t the prisoner is not such 
 as to raise a strong presumption of his guilt. 
 
 BAIL-BOM), in Law, is a deed executed by a party ar- 
 rested on mesne process (see Arrest), and two persons as 
 his sureties, to the sheriff, conditioned for his causing 
 special bail to be put in. If the defendant neglect 
 wards to pul to and perfeel such bail, the plaintiff usually 
 takes from the sheriff an assignment of the bail-bond, and 
 proceeds against the defendant in a separate action. 
 
 BAl'LIE. The name by which the municipal magistrates 
 ol B Gotland are designated. The term is synonymous with 
 alderman. 
 
 BAI'LIFF. (Fr. bailler, (odelirer.) The term properly 
 meant " lessee :" whence it came to signify more general- 
 ly deputy, and was applied to those officers Who, by virtue 
 of deputation either from the sheriff orthe lords of private 
 jurisdictions, exercised within the hundred, or whatever 
 might be the limits of their bailiwick, certain judicial and 
 ministerial functions. With the disuse of private and local 
 jurisdictions, the meaning of the term became commonly 
 restricted to such persons as were deputed by the sheriff 
 to assist him in the merely ministerial portion of his duty, 
 such as the summoning of juries and the execution of writs. 
 These persons are called bound bailiffs, so termed from the 
 obligation which they enter into to indemnify the sheriff 
 against the consequences of his responsibility for their right 
 conduct in the discharge of their duty. 
 
 BAT LIYV1CK. (Fr. bailli, bailiff. anil Lat. vicus, a village.) 
 The dwelling-place or district of the bailiff: it also signifies 
 a county, which is the bailiwick of the sheriff, or the par- 
 ticular franchise of some lord who has exclusive authority 
 within its limits, 
 
 BAI'LMENT. In Law, is a delivery of goods in trust 
 upon a contract, express or implied, that the trust shall 
 be faithfully executed on the part ol the bailee, or receiver. 
 Transactions with carriers, agents, pawnbrokers, and many 
 Other mercantile proceedings, are affected by the law of bail- 
 ment 
 
 BA'IUAM. A Mohammedan feast, institute, 1 in imita- 
 tion of the Easter of the Christian church, and following 
 the Rhamaan, or month of fasting, which answers to our 
 Lent. In consequence of the Turkish mode of reckoning 
 by lunar months, these periods fall successively in all the 
 seasons during a cycle of thirty-three years. Sixty days 
 after the greater follows a second feast, termed the lesser 
 Bairam. 
 
 BA'JADERES. The name given by the Portuguese to 
 the Indian dancing girls, who, under various appellations, 
 are partly employed as priestesses, and instructed in music 
 and dancing by the priests of Schiva and Vishnu, partly 
 employed by the grandees of India to cheer their festivities 
 and minister to their pleasure. Their dress consists of 
 costly materials, tastefully arranged ; and their movements 
 are most dextrous, graceful, and fascinating, at least if we 
 mav judge of them from the Bajaderes that appeared at the 
 Adelphi theatre in the autumn of 1833. In their whole 
 character and proceedings, they bear a strong resemblance 
 to the Hierodouloi of the Greeks. 
 
 BA JUI.1TS. (Lat. porter.) In the Lower Greek Empire, 
 the tide of the officer to whom the education of a prince 
 was entrusted. The name was borrowed by various West- 
 ern courts which imitated the etiquette of Constantinople, 
 and from it some have erroneously derived that of bailiff. 
 JJALjE'NA. (Gr. <pa\aiva.) The Greenland whale ; also 
 115 
 
 RAUENA. 
 
 a generic term, comprehending the species which agree 
 with it in the presence of whalebone in the mouth and the 
 absence of a dorsal fin. 
 
 It is to this genus that the whale, properly so called, or 
 large- whalebone whale (Balrtna mysticetus, Linn.) belongs, 
 the value of which to man is such that large fleets are an- 
 nually fitted out expressly for its capture. The food of the 
 whale consists exclusively of small molluscous and crus- 
 taceous animals, but chiefly the Clio borealis ; and as these 
 animals abound only in the Arctic seas, the whale cannot 
 be expected to frequent for any length of time those lati- 
 tudes in which its food is scarce or altogether wanting. The 
 long-continued annual destruction of the Balttna mystice- 
 tus has greatly diminished the numbers of this species, 
 and driven those which remain to the extremest limits of 
 the northern seas where their means of subsistence can be 
 obtained. 
 
 The large-whalebone whale is often spoken of as the 
 largest of existing animals, but it is inferior in magnitude 
 to the small-whalebone whale (Bula-iioptera). The latter 
 attains the length of from 90 to 100 feet ; while the ordinary 
 dimensions of the true whale are from 50 to 60 feet in 
 length, and from 30 to 40 feet in circumference. The terms 
 "large-whalebone" and ''small-whalebone" relate to the 
 size of the whalebone or baleen-plates, which is always 
 much greater in the genus Balana than in Balanurptera; 
 and it is this structure, combined with the greater amount 
 of blubber in the true whale, which renders it an object of 
 so much more value to the whale catchers ; while its less 
 courageous habits, and less violent efforts to escape when 
 wounded, make it a more sure and safe prey than the small- 
 whalebone whale. 
 
 The true whale is chiefly remarkable for the immense 
 size of its head, which constitutes a full third of the entire 
 length of the animal : it is narrow above, but very broad 
 below, where it consists chiefly of a large under lip, which 
 rises five or six feet, and completely overlaps the upper 
 lip. The eyes are very small, and are placed just above 
 the angles of the mouth. The external opening of the ears 
 is scarcely perceptible. The pectoral fins are of moderate 
 size, and placed about two feet behind the angles of the 
 mouth. The neck is indicated by some furrowing of the 
 skin, but there is no constriction. ' The greatest circumfer- 
 ence of the cylindrical body is a little behind the pectoral 
 fins. The tail-fin consists of two lobes of great breadth, 
 measuring 20 feet across from tip to tip in a full grown spe- 
 cimen ; and wield.., I by muscles of enormous power. It is 
 this part which constitutes the sole organ of offence and de- 
 fence in the whale, lor it has no teeth wherewith to bite or 
 lacerate ; a single blow of the tail well delivered suffices to 
 cut a stout boat in two, or to send it whirling through the 
 air. 
 
 The plates of whalebone are the substitutes for teeth in 
 the mouth ; they have a similar mode of development from 
 a pulp and external membrane, and differ only in form, and 
 in a less proportion of earthy matter in their composition. 
 They are arranged vertically and transversely, in two se- 
 ries, consisting each of 300 plates, descending from the pa- 
 latal surface of the upper jaw, and terminating in a fringe 
 of coarse hairs on their oblique lower and inner margins, 
 which hairs are in contact with the upper surface of the 
 bulkv tongue when the mouth is closed. It is thus that the 
 mechanism of the sieve is realised on an enormous scale; 
 and while the water gulped at each successive mouthful is 
 drained off through the interstices of the baleen plates, the 
 molluscousandcrustaceous animals are retained, bruised in- 
 to a pulp between the muscular tongue and coarse fibres ot 
 the whalebone, and swallowed. The area of the gullet corres- 
 ponds with the minute character of the food, and is rela- 
 tively smaller in the whale than in any other animal. The 
 stomach is divided into four cavities ; the intestinal canal is 
 long and narrow, and provided with a short and simple 
 coecum. 
 
 The whale has usually but one young at a birth, and 
 brings forth in the early spring. The period of gestation is 
 unknown, that of suckling lasts a year. In this stage of 
 their growth the young are called short heads by the whale- 
 fishers ; at two years old, and until they are able to find 
 their appropriate food in due abundance, these are termed 
 stunts ; when they begin to get fat, and until they have ar- 
 rived at their full size, they are called skull-Jish. 
 
 The interesting details of the profitable but perilous oc- 
 cupation of whale-fishine, will be found most amply and 
 correctly given in Scorcsby's Account of the Arctic Regions, 
 from which many popular narratives have been compiled. 
 The baleen and the blubber are the only parts of the ani. 
 mal of any commercial value, and the quantity of both 
 yielded by these enormous animals is of course consider- 
 able. The length of the largest whalebone plates in a 
 whale of 60 feet is as much as 12 feet ; and the blubber of 
 such a one will yield more than 20 tuns of pure oil, the pro- 
 portion of oil to the blubber from which it is extracted be- 
 ing as three to four. The blubber is principally accumu- 
 lated at the circumference of the body, beneath, and in 
 the extended tissue of the skin ; an immense quantity of
 
 BALANCE. 
 
 fine oil is also lodged in the cellular substance of the 
 tongue ; and the coarse and porous bones, particularly the 
 lower jaw, are full of pure oil. 
 
 BA'LANCE. (Lat. balanx or bilanx, probably a corrup- 
 tion of valentia, denoting, in low Latin, price or value.) A 
 machine for weighing substances. The process of weigh- 
 ing may be performed in various ways, and accordingly 
 there are several kinds of balances : as the common 
 balance or scales, the bent lever balance, the spring 
 balance, the steel-yard, the hydrostatic balance, &c. (for 
 which see the respective words). The term is also applied 
 to any apparatus employed for comparing the intensities of 
 very small forces, as the electric balance, the balance of 
 torsion, <fcc. We shall here confine our remarks to the 
 philosophical balance, the instrument used when great ac- 
 curacy is necessary; for instance in assaying, and in the 
 more delicate investigations of physics and chemistry. 
 
 Neglecting the mere circumstance of construction, and 
 the particular methods of suspension, the balance may be 
 represented thus : — 
 
 A and B are the points from which the scales are sus- 
 pended at the extremities of the beam, C the point of 
 support, G the centre of gravity of the beam, D the point 
 in which the straight line C G intersects the straight line 
 joining A and B. 
 
 The properties required in a good balance are sensibility 
 and stability. The balance must be sensible ; that is to 
 say, when it is properly poised a very small addition of 
 weight to either scale should disturb the equilibrium, and 
 cause the beam to turn ; and it must be stable, that is to 
 say, when the equilibrium has been disturbed it should 
 quickly return, and oscillate about the position of rest. 
 These two properties are in some degree opposed to each 
 other ; in order to attain them both, as far as possible, it is 
 necessary to attend to certain mechanical principles, as 
 well as to the physical circumstances of construction. Let 
 us suppose 
 
 W =the weight of the beam. 
 
 L = the load, j. e. the weight of the scales and whatever 
 is in them when the beam is poised. 
 
 P = the preponderating weight, or that which causes the 
 beam to turn. 
 
 Suppose now the beam to be poised, or that the scales 
 being loaded the position of the line A B is perfectly hori- 
 zontal. The sensibility will evidently be measured by the 
 angular space through which the beam turns when a small 
 weight P is added to either scale ; but the force which acts 
 in turning the beam is proportional to PXD B, that is, 
 proportional to the weight multiplied into the length of the 
 lever at the extremity of which it acts ; therefore for a 
 given weight P, the sensibility of the balance, all other 
 circumstances being equal, is proportional to the length of 
 the beam. Let us next consider the force which tends to 
 restore the beam when the equilibrium is disturbed. This 
 is made up of two parts; the first of which is proportional 
 to W X C G, that is to say. proportional to the weight of the 
 beam (which may be regarded as concentrated at the 
 centre of gravity) multiplied into the length of the lever 
 on which it acts ; and the second proportional to L/CD, 
 that is, to the load also multiplied into its length of lever. 
 The whole restoring force is therefore proportional to 
 WXCG + LXCD. Now this force is precisely that 
 which the preponderating weight P has to overcome in 
 turning the scale ; consequently any circumstance which 
 tends to increase it, increases thie stability and diminishes 
 the sensibility of the balance ; and anything which tends 
 to diminish it. diminishes the stability and increases the 
 sensibility. By bending the arms of the balance, or alter- 
 ing the points of suspension of the scales, the points G 
 and D may acquire different positions relatively to C. Sup- 
 posing G to be above C in the vertical line joining those 
 points; the termW'XCG would become negative, and 
 the restoring force proportional to L X C D — WXC G. In 
 this case, if the load L, or the distance C D, were dimin- 
 ished till LXC D became less than WXC G, the balance 
 would be useless ; because if moved ever so little from 
 the position of rest, it would have no tendency whatever 
 to return. The best construction is to make Cb=0, that 
 is, to place the three points of action A, C, B, in the same 
 straight line, and to construct the beam so that G, the cen- 
 tre of gravity, shall fall a little below the line A B. The 
 sensibilitv is then independent of the load, and is simply 
 in the inverse portion of WXC G ; so that by diminishing 
 the weight of the beam, or the distance C G, it may be in- 
 creased to any required degree. It is supposed that the 
 two arms are precisely of the same length, or that C is 
 placed exactly in the middle between A and B, and also 
 that they are perfectly inflexible. 
 
 ne 
 
 BALANCE OP TORSION. 
 
 The conditions now determined from theory must be 
 the guide of the artist in the construction of a good 
 balance. It is of importance that the beam be as light as 
 possible, consistent with inflexibility ; for not only the in- 
 ertia, but also the friction, is increased in proportion to the 
 weight, and the sensibility consequently diminished. In 
 order to give lightness and strength at the same time, the 
 beam should be formed of two hollow cones of brass, 
 joined together at the broad ends. A cylinder of steel, 
 passing through the middle of the beam at right angles, 
 forms the axis ; and its extremities, ground into sharp 
 edges on the lower side, serve as the points of support. 
 The two edges must be accurately in the same straight 
 line, and turn on smooth planes of agate or polished steel 
 carefully levelled. The scales should likewise be sus- 
 pended from the extremities of the beam on knife edges, 
 crossing each other at right angles ; those in the beam be- 
 ing sharp upwards, and those to which the scales are at- 
 tached sharp downwards. A needle, or tongue, is usually 
 attached to the beam, pointing directly upwards or down- 
 wards when the beam is horizontal, for the purpose of in- 
 dicating the deviations of the beam from the horizontal 
 position on a graduated scale. It is better, however, to 
 bring the arms to terminate in sharp points, and to place a 
 scale behind each ; in this way the slightest flexure of the 
 beam will be rendered evident, if the zeros of the scales 
 are placed exactly in the same level. The scale is indis- 
 pensably necessary, because the balance, if very sensible, 
 would require a long time to come to rest ; but it is known 
 to be poised, when the excursions of the needle on both 
 sides of the zero of the scale are equal. In order to pre- 
 serve the knife edges, the beam, when not in use, is sup- 
 ported on rests. Props should also be placed under the 
 scales while loading or unloading the balance. The whole 
 apparatus must be placed under a glass case, to protect it 
 from the disturbing influence of currents of air. 
 
 The sensibility of a balance constructed with due care, 
 according to the principles now explained, may be carried 
 to an almost inconceivable extent. There is one in the 
 possession of the Royal Society, made by Ramsden, which 
 weighs ten pounds, and is said to turn with the ten-mil- 
 lionth part of that load, or the thousandth part of a grain. 
 Nevertheless, whatever skill may be employed in the con- 
 struction, it is plain that the conditions necessary to math- 
 ematical accuracy can never be entirely fulfilled. It is 
 impossible to make the two arms of the beam exactly sim- 
 ilar, or exactly equal in length. Absolute precision is un- 
 attainable in practice. This difficulty, however, may be 
 overcome by the following simple method, imagined by 
 Borda, by wiiich accurate results are obtained independent- 
 ly of extreme precision in the construction of the balance : 
 it is only necessary that it be very sensible. Let P, the 
 substance be weighed, be placed in the scale A ; instead of 
 placing known weights in the scale B, put into it some other 
 substance, for instance bits of iron, chips of wire, or sand, 
 added in minute quantities till the substance P is exactly 
 counterpoised, or the beam becomes exactly horizontal. 
 This being done, let the substance P be gently removed out 
 of the scale A, and let known weights, as grains, be put into 
 it till the substance in the scale B is again exactly counter- 
 poised. It is now of no consequence whether the balance 
 was accurate or not, or whether the body P was exactly 
 equal in weight to the substance against which it was 
 weighed in B. The weight of P must be precisely equal to 
 that of the grain weights ; because, under exactly the same 
 circumstances, they both formed a counterpoise to the 
 substance placed in B. 
 
 Chinese Bulance. This is formed of a slender tapering 
 rod of wood or ivory, about a foot in length. A silk thread 
 passed through a hole perforated nearer one of its extrem- 
 ities than the other serves as the point of suspension. The 
 balance has thus two unequal arms. From the extremity 
 of the shorter a small scale is suspended to hold the sub- 
 stance to be weighed. A sliding weight passes along the 
 other arm, on which divisions are marked ; and when the 
 counterpoise is made, the distance of the standard weight 
 from the fulcrum indicates the weight of the substance. In 
 order to procure a greater range, the rod has generally four 
 holes or points of support, at different distances from the 
 extremity, and a corresponding set of divisions is marked 
 on each of its four sides. The principle of this machine is 
 exactly the same as that of the common steel-yard. 
 
 The Danish Balance, much used in the north of Europe 
 for weighing coarse commodities, is usually formed of an 
 iron bar or a batten of hard wood, having a lump of lead at 
 one of its extremities. The goods are fixed in a hook in 
 the other end ; and the whole is suspended through a loop 
 of cord, which is passed backwards and forwards under 
 the rod till equilibrium is obtained. The weight of the 
 goods is then to the weight of the lead reciprocally as their 
 respective distances from the loop. 
 Roman Balance or Steelyard. See Steel-yahd. 
 BALANCE OF TORSION. A machine invented by 
 Coulomb for measuring the intensities of electric or mag-
 
 BALANCE OP A WATCH. 
 
 r.etic forces, by establishing an equilibrium between therti 
 and the force of torsion. Conceive a metallic wire sus- 
 pended from a fixed point, and kept stretched by a small 
 Weight attached to its lower extremity ; where also a hori- 
 zontal needle or lever is fixed, which may be rendered 
 magnetic, or is so formed that one of its ends is a conductor 
 and the other a non-conductor of electricity. The force is 
 brought to act on the extremity of this lever, and its inten- 
 sity measured by the length of the arc which the needle 
 passes over, reckoning from the point of repose ; or an 
 index may be attached to the upper extremity of the wire, 
 and the force measured by the number of degrees through 
 which It can be turned before the lower lever begins to 
 move. The force of torsion is inversely proportional to 
 the length of the wire, and directly to the fourth power of 
 its diameter. The wire must therefore be of considerable 
 length (two or three feet for example), and very fine ; and 
 also formed of a substance possessing considerable elasti- 
 city. Brass wire is greatly preferable to iron wire ; and in 
 some instruments recently constructed a fine thread of 
 spun glass has been used instead of metallic wires, at the 
 suggestion of the late Professor Ritchie. One of the most 
 interesting applications of the torsion-balance was that 
 made by Cavendish to measure the force of attraction of 
 two leaden spheres, in his celebrated experiment to deter- 
 mine the mean densitv of the earth. 
 
 BALANCE OF A WATCH. That part of the machine 
 which, by its inertia, regulates the beat and produces 
 equable motion. It is formed of a wheel or rim.', having 
 its weight principally accumulated in its rim, and connected 
 with a spiral spring in such a manner that when drawn 
 aside from the position of rest it acquires an oscillatory 
 motion from the alternate contraction and expansion of the 
 spring. The balance answers the same purpose in watch- 
 work as the pendulum in clock-work, and is affected in a 
 similar manner by variatiotis of temperature. Supposing 
 the length of the spring to remain constant, the time of * i- 
 bration is directly proportional to the distance of the centre 
 of gyration from the axis of the balance ; consequently the 
 duration of the vibration is increased by heat and dimin- 
 ished by cold. To remedy this inconvenience, various 
 contrivances have been applied ; but that which is most 
 generally adopted is the expansion or co mp en s ation balance, 
 the principle of which depends on the unequal expansion 
 of two different metals. It may be constructed in the fol- 
 lowing manner : The rim con- 
 sists of two lamina?, the inner of 
 steel and the outer of brass, united 
 by fusion. After being turned to 
 the proper size, the rim is cut in 
 three places, A, B, and c ; and 
 one end of each of the parts thus 
 formed being fixed to an arm of 
 the balance, the other is left at 
 liberty to move inwards or out- 
 wards according to the variation 
 of the relative lengths of the two 
 metals. I). F,. F. are three equal weights placed near the 
 free ends, and which, when adjusted at the proper dis- 
 tances, are fixed in their places by means of Bcrews, 
 Three heavy-headed screws. (;, H, I, enter the arms of 
 the balance, and serve to adjust its centre of gravity to Ihe 
 axis of vibration, and also to increase or diminish the mean 
 rale of motion. Now, suppose the balance to receive an 
 increase of temperature, this will tend to lengthen the 
 arms, and consequently to throw the centre of gyration 
 further from the axis, and thereby diminish the velocity of 
 vibration ; but as the brass expands more than the steel, 
 the compound bars will at the same time be bent inwards, 
 and the weights D, E, F, thereby thrown nearer the , ■ , 
 by which the velocity will be increased. When Ihe tem- 
 perature is diminished, the arms are shortened; but the 
 weights are now thrown to a greater distance from the axis 
 by reason of the contraction of the brass being greater than 
 that of the steel, and the consequent tendency of the com- 
 pound bars to assume a less curved form. It is easy to see 
 that in so small a machine the adjustment of the parts to 
 procure exact compensation is a matter of great nicety, 
 and requiring much practical skill ; in fact, it is only possi- 
 ble to obtain a tolerable compensation by repeated trials. 
 {See Thomson on Time and Timekeepers; Dent on the 
 Construction and Management of Chronometers, Watches, 
 and (Mocks, <fcc.) 
 
 BALANCE OF POWER. In Politics, a system by 
 which the relative power of different states and alliances is 
 so maintained as to render any extensive derangement im- 
 probable. The idea of preserving a balance of power na- 
 turally suggested itself to statesmen in ancient Greece, 
 where so large a number of independent states with oppo- 
 sing interests existed on a narrow territory. In Europe, 
 this portion of political science scarcely began to be under- 
 stood until the 16th century ; since which time the main- 
 tenance of the balance of power has formed a favourite ob- 
 ject, often pursued with unreasonable avidity, by those 
 117 
 
 BALANITES. 
 
 who have controlled the international relations of Christen> 
 dom. The great aim of neutral politicians during that cen- 
 tury was to establish a balance between the power of 
 France and that of Austria : the latter united with that of 
 Spain became so enormously powerful in the course of it, 
 as to render this an object of great anxiety. But after the 
 commencement of the 17th century the power of France 
 steadily increased, and that of Austria abated. Cromwell's* 
 alliance with Mazarin was the last result of the ancient sys- 
 tem : for the alliances of Charles H. with the French were 
 for personal objects, and strongly reprobated by all Euro- 
 pean statesmen. At the end of the 17th century France 
 stood predominant, and it became the great problem of Eu- 
 ropean politics to find a counterpoise to her influence. This* 
 was the aim of William III., Eugene, and the Whigs under 
 Queen Anne ; and the treaty of Utrecht in 1713, which ac- 
 knowledged the French supremacy in Spain, was con- 
 demned as one of the severest blows ever struck at tlie 
 balance of power. Nevertheless, this fear, like so many 
 others sedulously cherished by speculative statesmen, 
 proved to have little foundation. The power of France re- 
 mained stationary during the 18th centnry, while the forces 
 of Austria, Russia, and Britain increased; and Prussia sud- 
 denly arose from a third-rate power to the lowest, but still 
 a respectable position, among the first-rates. During 
 Ihat century the alliances were formed with no very steady 
 regard to the balance of power: France and Austria 
 were usually, but not uniformly, rivals. In 1756, the three 
 great Continental powers were united in a fruitless endea- 
 vour to crush the new state of Prussia. The wars of the 
 French revolution entirely altered the ancient equilibrium, 
 it was restored by the congress of Vienna, and the long 
 maintenance of that peaceful arrangement certainly speaks 
 in favour of the sagacity of its constructors. At present 
 Europe is divided, singularly enough, by two different sets 
 of causes, producing different alliances, or rather tenden- 
 cies towards alliances, for mutual defence. In the first 
 place, the opposition between constitutional and monarchal 
 principles has ranged on the one side Austria, Russia, and 
 Prussia, with their dependent states: on the other, Britain 
 and Fiance, with the Western kingdoms which have liberal 
 governments. In the next place, the interests engendered 
 by purely external politics cause a different line of division. 
 The enormous increase of Russian dominion, particularly 
 towards the East, coders Austria necessarily distrustful, 
 and hostile to the former power. England may be expected 
 to take part with Austria in this quarrel; Prussia, which 
 has no direct interest in the result, will be ranged by po- 
 sition against Austria; while the ultimate decision of 
 France is doubtful, and will In effect determine the struggle. 
 
 BALANCE OF TRADE. The term commonly used to 
 express the difference between the value of the exports 
 from and the imports into a country. The balance is said 
 to be favourable when the value of the exports exceeds 
 that of the imports, and unfavourable when the value of the 
 imports exceeds that of the exports. The notion was once 
 entertained that the prosperity of a country depended on 
 exporting merchandise exceeding the value of the imports, 
 and receiving the balance in the precious metals. This 
 mode of estimating the balance of trade, which is evidently 
 founded on ihe assumption that the precious metalsconsti- 
 tute the wealth of a country, has been proved to be com- 
 pletely fallacious, and it is now conceded on all hands that 
 gold and silver are nothing but commodities, whose expor- 
 tation or importation it is necessary neither to prevent nor 
 encourage by any legislative enactments. But the theory 
 of the balance of trade is not erroneous merely from the 
 false notions which its advocates entertain with respect to 
 money : it proceeds on radically mistaken views as to the 
 nature of commerce. For it will be found that so far from 
 an excess of exports over imports being any criterion of an 
 advantageous commerce, it is directly the reverse ; since, 
 were the value of the exports greater than the value of the 
 imports, merchants would lose on every transaction with 
 li ireigners, and the trade with them would be speedily aban- 
 doned. For a succinct statement and exposition of the 
 errors which were till lately generally prevalent upon this 
 subject, see M'-Culloch's Commercial Dictionary. 
 
 BALANI'NUS. In Entomology, the name applied by 
 Germar to the subgenus of Weevils (Curculionidcb), of 
 which the nut grub, or nut weevil (Balanimts nucum), is a 
 species. In the perfect insect the rostrum or borer is near- 
 Iv as long as the body. It is by means of this instrument 
 that the parent weevil drills a hole through the soft shell of 
 the immature filbert, into which she introduces a single 
 brown egg : this is hatched in about a fortnight ; and by the 
 time the nut is full ripe, the grub has attained its full 
 growth : it then proceeds to bore a hole with its jaws 
 through the shell, and emerges from the cavity of the nut : 
 falling to the ground it burrows into the earth, and there 
 remains all winter, changing to the proper state, and ap- 
 pearing as a perfect insect in August. 
 
 BA'LANITES. (Lat. balanus, an acorn.) In Botany, 
 acorn-barnacles, an order of Cirripeds, comprehending
 
 BALANOPHORACEiE. 
 
 those which have a shelly tube, adherent by its base to 
 foreign substances, and closed at its apex by four opercular 
 valves. 
 
 BA'LANOPHORA'CE-E. (Balanophora, one of the 
 genera.) A natural order of Rhiganths, consisting of fun- 
 gus-like parasitical plants, with small monoecious flowers 
 collected in dense heads arranged upon fleshy receptacles. 
 
 BA'LAS RUBY. A term applied by lapidaries to the 
 bright red varieties of the spinel. It is much less rare and 
 valuable than the oriental ruby or red sapphire. 
 
 BALAU'ST A. In Botany, a kind of fruit having a leathery 
 rind, a superior calyx, and several cells irregularly dispos- 
 ed, with many drupaceous seeds in each. 
 
 BALCO'NY. (It. balcone.) In Architecture, a projec- 
 tion from the external wall of a house, borne by columns 
 or consoles, usually placed before windows or openings. 
 
 BALDACHI'NO. (It. a canopy.) In Architecture, a 
 species of canopy over the principal altar of a church, si- 
 milar to that at St. Peter's, where it is supported by co- 
 lumns ; or that of St. Sulpice at Paris, where it is suspend- 
 ed from above. It succeeded to the ancient ciborium (see 
 that word), which was a cupola supported on four columns, 
 still to be seen at many of the altars in Rome. Bernini 
 may claim the merit of its invention. The height of that 
 which he erected in St. Peter's is 128 feet, and being en- 
 tirely of bronze weighs near 90 tons. It was built by or- 
 der of the Pope Barberini, from the robbery of the Panthe- 
 on, and occasioned the bitter sarcasm — " Quod non fece- 
 runt Barbari, fecerunt Barberini." 
 
 BA'LDRIC. (Lat. baldrellus.) A girdle used by the 
 warriors of feudal times : it was often splendidly ornament- 
 ed, and marked the rank of the wearer. 
 
 BA'LDWIN'S PHOSPHORUS. Fused nitrate of lime. 
 
 BALEA'RIC CRANE. .See Crane. 
 
 BALL. (Ger. bal.) Literally, any thing made in a glo- 
 bular form. The word signifies also at once a well-known di- 
 vertissement, and a game familiar in Europe and America. 
 Ball playing was a favourite amusement among the ancients, 
 who practised it in various ways. They had their hand- 
 ball (pila trigonalis), their foot-ball (follis or pita paganica, 
 because played by the rustics), and some other kinds not 
 used by the moderns. In country villas a tennis-court or 
 place for playing ball, called Spharisterium, was usually to 
 be found. (Sue. lesp. 20.) In the middle ages, there were 
 houses appropriated to ball-playing ; and in Italy there are 
 still public places where this amusement is practised, and 
 great dexterity displayed. 
 
 Ball. In the art Military, any round substance of lead 
 or iron which is discharged from fire-arms, as musket- 
 balls, cannon-balls, <fec. The word Ball, with a prefix more 
 or less expressive of its purposes, such as fire-balls, chain- 
 balls, denotes a composition of various ingredients gene- 
 rally combustible. (For an account of these terms see se- 
 parate articles.) Cannon-balls are made of iron, balls for 
 pistols and fusees of lead. The experiment has been tried 
 of employing iron balls for pistols or fusees, but without ef- 
 fect ; as their lightness prevents their flying straight, and 
 they are apt to furrow the barrel of the pistol. As was re- 
 marked, cannon-balls are made of cast-iron, and are dis- 
 tinguished as follows by their respective diameters :— Thus 
 the diameter of a 
 
 42 lbs. ball is 6684 inches. 
 32 — 6105 — 
 24 — 5-547 — 
 18 — 5040 
 12 — 4403 
 
 9 lbs. ball is 4-000 inches. 
 6 — 3493 — 
 
 3 — 2-775 — 
 
 2 — 2-423 
 
 1 — 1-923 
 
 BA'LLAD. (It. ballata.) A species of narrative poetry, 
 founded either in history or fiction, displaying the condition 
 and the habits, the tastes and the sentiments of the various 
 nations among whom it is found. The term Ballad is very 
 indefinite in its general acceptation, including classes of 
 composition wholly different in themselves, of which the 
 only common characteristics are brevity of metre and sim- 
 plicity and perspicuity of style. The opinion entertained 
 by Schlegel of the ballad is, that it is not an original species 
 of composition ; but that in general poems of this kind are 
 to be found in the greatest abundance among nations pos- 
 sessed of truly poetical feelings, whose legends, traditions, 
 and national recollections have been interrupted or muti- 
 lated by long-protracted civil wars, or by some universal 
 revolution or concussion of opinions. While some authors 
 have assigned the ballad an Arabian, some an Armorican 
 origin, and others have claimed this distinction for the Nor- 
 mans and Provencials, Percy, Bouterweck, and Schlegel 
 concur in awarding to it a Teutonic descent. Be this as it 
 may, it is agreed that the Scandinavian nations delighted, 
 at a very early period, to celebrate in song the deeds of he- 
 roes, lovers, knights, &c. ; and the three great divisions of 
 the Teutonic poetry of the middle ages — the stories of the 
 Niebelunien, those of Charlemagne (particularly such as 
 relate to his wars against the Arabians, and the battle of 
 Roncesvalles), and the tales of King Arthur's Round Table, 
 consist of what at a later period were called Ballads. 
 Though the name Ballad is Italian, the spirit of chivalry 
 118 
 
 BALLET. 
 
 had at no period during the middle ages much dominion of 
 influence on the other side of the Alps ; a circumstance 
 that sufficiently accounts for the meagreness of the Italians 
 in this department of poetry. The French too never at- 
 tained any perfection in the ballad, as their fabliaux, le- 
 gends, &c. soon degenerated into long prose romances, 
 which were quite destitute of the spirit of the ancient 
 minstrelsy. The Spaniards, on the other hand, are rich in 
 ballads of a highly chivalrous character. These, however 
 along with some Portuguese ballads which bear infallible 
 marks of a Spanish origin, may with more propriety be 
 classified under the denomination of Romantic Poetry. 
 (See an Essay " On the Origin, Antiquity, Character, and In- 
 fluence of the Ancient Ballads of Spain," from the Edin- 
 burgh Review, prefixed to the Amer. edition of Lockhart'a 
 Spanish Ballads.) Among the Welsh, even so early as 
 the 12th century, music and this species of poetry seem to 
 have attained a high degree of excellence ; but the ruthless 
 hand of Edward I., by his massacre of the bards, doomed 
 both the one and the other to an almost total annihilation. 
 Of all the species of ballad, the Irish, among other charac- 
 teristics, appears to be pre-eminently fitted for adaptation 
 to music, as is witnessed in the universally admired "Na- 
 tional Melodies" of Thomas Moore. While a variety of 
 opinion exists among the learned as to the nature and re- 
 quisites of the ballad, it is admitted on all sides that Eng- 
 land and Scotland have the honor of possessing a collection 
 of ballads superior to that of every other nation. There 
 can be little doubt, too, that the home of the English and 
 Scottish ballads is either in the north of England, or in the 
 southern counties of Scotland, as there the influence of the 
 Normans was less than in the south of England. To the 
 proximity, also, of those parts of the two countries where 
 the ballad was cultivated, and the small circle which they 
 embraced, may be attributed the difficulty that exists in 
 assigning to each country its proper share in the collection 
 of ballads. In modern times, if we except the romantic 
 legends of Sir Walter Scott (which can scarcely be de- 
 nominated ballads), the Germans have cultivated this spe- 
 cies of poetry with more success than any other nation ; 
 and they can boast of Schiller, Goethe, and Burger, not 
 only as distinguished poets, but as the revivers of that chi- 
 valrous spirit which formed the grand characteristic of our 
 British ancestors. For remarks on the Ballad, vide 
 Aikin's History of Song ; Warton's History of English 
 Poetry ; Barney's History of Music ; Motherwell's Ancient 
 and Modern Minstrelsy ; Jones's Musical and Poetical 
 Relics; Schlegel' s Kritische Schrifteji (article on Burger) ; 
 Sir W. Scott's Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border ; Bishop 
 of Dromore's Collection of Ballads. (See also the Con- 
 versations Lexicon.) 
 
 BA'LLAST. Is a mass of weighty material placed in 
 the bottom of a ship or vessel to give her stiffness; that 
 is, to increase her tendency to return to the upright posi- 
 tion when inclined or heeled over by the force of the wind 
 or other cause. Ballast consists of shingle (the coarse 
 gravel of the sea-beach), stones, &c. In the royal navy 
 iron ballast alone is used, in pigs of nearly 3 cwt. This 
 has the advantage of lying in small compass ; but iD con- 
 sequence of its great weight it tends to give excess of sta- 
 bility, which renders the vessel uneasy from the sudden- 
 ness of the motion : this defect is remedied by winging 
 up the ballast, whereby its centre of gravity is raised. For 
 the like reason in stowing the ballast it is tapered to a point 
 at the fore and after extremities. Iron ballast, from its 
 greater cleanliness, is more healthy for the crew than that 
 of other materials. When a ship has no other loading she 
 is said to be in ballast. 
 
 The quantity of ballast and the mode of its stowage differ 
 greatly in different vessels ; and the connection between 
 the motions of a ship and her stowage has not yet been 
 analysed sufficiently to lead to the discovery of direct rules 
 on these important points. 
 
 BALL-COCK. A hollow sphere or ball of metal at- 
 tached to the end of a lever, which turns the stopcock of 
 a cistern pipe, and regulates the supply of water. As the 
 surface of the water rises in the cistern, the ball is raised 
 by its buoyancy ; and as the water descends, it falls by its 
 own weight. The cock is thus closed when the water 
 rises to a certain height, and the supply stopped ; but 
 when a part of the water is drawn off from the cistern, 
 the cock is again opened, and the water admitted through 
 the pipe. 
 
 BA'LLET. (Fr.) A theatrical representation of ac- 
 tions, characters, sentiments, and passions, by means of 
 mimic movements and dances, accompanied by music. 
 The ballet is divided into three kinds — historical, mytholo- 
 gical, and allegorical ; and consists of three parts — the 
 entry, the figure, and the retreat. (Noverre, Lettres sur 
 les Arts imitatevrs, el surlaDunse en particulier.) The 
 chief merit of the ballet lies in an ingenious adaptation of 
 music to the sentiments of the mind as developed in the 
 dance, and in its power of representing every variety of 
 human conduct and emotion, whether of a tragic or comio
 
 BALLISTA. 
 
 nature. It has been frequently asserted that the ballet was 
 unknown to the ancients ; and yet if the meaning of the 
 Greek term u opxi("t" and the Latin term ''saltatio" be 
 duly considered, it will be found that both these nations 
 Indulged in pantomimic dances of a peculiar kind ; the 
 province of gesticulation or of dancing being assig 
 one individual, that of declamation to another. (Xen. 
 Symposion and Anab. vi. 1. 3. 8.) Hence it would appear 
 that the only merit which the moderns can claim in re- 
 ference to the ballet consists in the substitution of music 
 and scenery in the room of declamation. Be this as it 
 may, it is generally admitted that the ingenious artist 
 Baltazarini, director of music to the princess Catherine de 
 Medicis, first gave its present form to the regular ballet, 
 and that after a considerable interval it was introduced into 
 France. There it continues to flourish like an indigenous 
 plant: while Germany and England, whither it was after- 
 wards transplanted, have not been remiss in fosti ring its 
 growth. There are many persons who object to the in- 
 corporation of the ballet with the opera; and in a few 
 instances, such as the opera " Der Gott und die Bajadere," 
 their objections may be well founded. lint assuredly 
 ry one who has witnessed the dances introduced into 
 the opera of Guillaume Teh", Robert le Diaole. La I 
 •ton tie St. Antoine, and Masaniello, must be of opinion 
 that in these cases at least the adoption of the ballet pro- 
 duces a peculiar charm, by enhancing the power and 
 beautv of the representation. (' /. on.) 
 
 It W.I.I'STA. (C.r. /?(iAA(j, I Ihrmr.) A military engine. 
 used by the ancients for throwing stones, darts, arrows, 
 &c. The Uallista is sometimes confounded with the 
 Cataptilta ; but a distinction is made by Polybius, who 
 confines the latter term to those machines whirl: throw 
 ■tones only The particular mechanism <>f these engines 
 is tint very certainty understood. According to VKruvius 
 they were tn.ele 111 divers manners; but the principle of 
 all seems to have been the same. A beam "I wen. I or 
 plate of metal is firmly fixed al one extremity ; the other 
 extremity is drawn hack by means of cords and pulleys; 
 and being suddenly Bet tree, the elastic force with which 
 it seeks to recover Itself propels the missiles. 
 
 BALLISTIC PENDULUM. An Instrument, invented 
 by Benjamin Robins, for measuring the force or velocity 
 
 of cannon and musk I halls. To one extremity of an iron 
 bar is fixed B heavy cubical block of wood, lined at the 
 back with iron. A transverse bar of iron at the other ex- 
 tremity of the first bar serves as an a\is of suspension, in 
 which the pendulum swings freely backwards and for- 
 wards. The Instrument being thus fitted, If the weigh! of 
 the pendulum be known, and likewise the reapectivi 
 lances of its centres of gravity and oscillation from the 
 avis of suspension, it is easy to determine the quantity of 
 motion that will be communicated to the pendulum by the 
 percussion of a body of a given weight moving with a 
 
 velocity and Striking it al a given point. Conversely. 
 
 If the pendulum, when al rest, is struck by a body of a 
 known weight, and the vibration which the pendulum 
 makes after the blow is known, the velocity of the striking 
 body may thence be determined. In order to measure 
 the extent of the vibration, a riband is attached to the lower 
 end of the pendulum, passing loosely through an orifice in 
 a horizontal bar in the frame-work; when the pendulum 
 is raised it draws the riband along with if, and the quan- 
 tity which thus passes through the orifice measures the 
 chord of the arc of vibration. (See Pobins's New Prin- 
 ciples of Gunnery, voL i. Prop. 8. ; also Hutton's Mathe- 
 matical Tracts^ vol. ii.) 
 
 BA'LLIUM. In the Architecture of the Middle Ages, 
 the open space or court of a fortified castle. This has 
 acquired in English the appellation Bailey; thus St. Pe- 
 ter's in the Bailey at Oxford, and the Old Bailey in Lon- 
 don, are so named from their connection with the sites of 
 castles 
 
 BALI.OO'X. (Fr. ballon, a little tin!!.) The name of 
 a machine, which, consisting of an envelope containing a 
 gas specifically lighter than common air, rises into the at- 
 mosphere with a greater or less degree of ascensional force. 
 A car, supported by a network which extends over the 
 balloon, supports the aeronaut ; and a valve, usually placed 
 at the top, to which a string is attached reaching to the car, 
 gives him the power of allowing the gas to escape, and of 
 descending at pleasure. 
 
 During the dark ages, and for some time after the re- 
 vival of science, numerous projects were entertained for 
 navigating the air; but it is only in very recent times, 
 since 1783, that any of them have been realized. The first 
 idea was to employ some mechanieal contrivance resem- 
 bling the wings of birds ; but Borelli demonstrated that all 
 attempts on the part of man to fly must necessarily fail, 
 from the utter disproportion of his muscular power to the 
 force that would be necessary to give impulsion to wings 
 of such enormous magnitude as would be required to sus- 
 tain his weight in the air. 
 
 The principle by which a balloon rises in the atmosphere 
 119 
 
 BALLOON. 
 
 i3 exactly the same as that which causes the ascent of a 
 cork irom the bottom of a vessel filled with water. The 
 weight of the volume of air which it displaces must ex- 
 ceed the weight of the balloon and all that it can ies with 
 it. That bodies must rise and remain suspended in a 
 fluid denser than themselves was proved by Archimedes; 
 but the weight of the air is a modern discover] 
 was only in the latter half of the last century that chemis- 
 try detected the nature and differences of specific gravities 
 of aeriform fluids. Mr. Cavendish, in 17b6, by some in- 
 genious experiments, recorded in the Philosophical Trans- 
 actions, vol. Ivi., found hydrogen gas to be from about 
 seven to eleven times lighter than common air, according 
 to the mode of its preparation. In its pure state it is 
 found to be nearly sixteen times lighter than common 
 air. This substance, therefore, if prevented from diffus- 
 ing itself, and allowed to obey the force by which it is im- 
 pelled upwards, will Continue to mount till it arrives at a 
 stratum of the atmosphere sixteen times more auenuated 
 than at the surface of the earth. Accordingly, no sooner 
 had Cavendish announced his discovery, than it occurred 
 to Dr Black that a very thin bag filled with hydrogen gas 
 would mount to the ceiling of a room. Through some im- 
 perfection, the experiment when he attempted to execute 
 it failed ; and it was several years later before an envelope 
 was thought of sufficiently light, and at the same time im- 
 pi rateable to the gas. Cavallo made a series of e\ 
 mints on this subject j n 1782, DUt ( |j ( j not succeed in rais- 
 ing any thing heavier than a soap bubble. The expense 
 attending the preparation of the gas probably prevented 
 the experiment from being made on a great sci 
 
 Knowing thl specific gravities of atmospheric air, of the 
 gas with which the balloon is to be filled, and the weight 
 ,'• in winch it is confined, it is not difficult to 
 compute the size the balloon must have in order to rise 
 from the ground, or carry a given weight to a given height 
 in the atmosphere. A globe of air, one foot in diameter, at 
 
 the level of the sea and under the ordinary pressure, weighs 
 about l-J-'th of a pound avoirdupois. An equal globe of hy- 
 btained in the usual way by dissolving iron fil- 
 ings in dilute sulphuric acid, may be assumed (making eve- 
 ry allowance for imperfect preparation) to be about six 
 tunes lighter than atmospheric air; con 6thsof 
 
 its whole buoyant force will act in impelling it upwards ; 
 that is to say, the force with which a sphere of such gas, 
 one foot in diameter, will tend to rise in the atmosphere 
 will be A X g'j = 3Y of a pound avoirdupois. The as- 
 censional forces of different spheres will be proportional to 
 their magnitudes, that is, to the cubes of their diameters; 
 therefore a sphere 12 feel in diameter would rise with a 
 force of 57 pounds, and one of 24 feet in diameter with a 
 t",,ri e of 8 X 57 = 456 pounds. But these determinations 
 must be diminished by the weight of the envelope. The 
 best material tor the purpose at present known is thin sillt 
 varnished with elastic gum, or Indian rubber. The quanti- 
 ty of this material required to cover a globe one foot in di- 
 ameter weighs about l-20th of a pound. Now, for a globe 
 of a greater size, the quantity required will increase with 
 the square of the diameter; hence the covering of a bal- 
 loon 12 feet in diameter must weigh about 7 pounds, and of 
 one 24 feel in diameter 28 pounds. It follows, therefore, 
 that a balloon of 12 feet diameter will only raise from the 
 ground a weight of 50 pounds, and one of 24 feet 428 pounds. 
 Computing in the same manner, it is found that a balloon 
 60 feet in diameter would raise a weight equal to aboul 
 6950 pounds; and that one of a foot and a half would barely 
 float, the weight of the bag being just equal to that of the 
 imprisoned gas. 
 
 The height to which a balloon will rise is determined 
 from the law according to which the density of the atmos- 
 pheric strata diminishes as the distance from the earth is 
 increased. The buoyant force diminishes with the densi- 
 ty ; and when it is reduced to a quantity only equal to the 
 weight of the balloon and its appendages, no further ascen- 
 sion can take place. Another circumstance also confines 
 the possible elevation within moderate limits. As the pres- 
 sure of the external air is diminished, the expansive force 
 of the confined gas becomes greater, and would ultimately 
 overcome the resistance of any material of which a balloon 
 can be made. A balloon quite filled at the surface of the 
 earth would inevitably be torn to shreds at the height of a 
 few miles in the atmosphere, unless a portion of the gas 
 were allowed to escape. For this purpose the balloon is 
 furnished with a safety valve, which can be opened and 
 shut at pleasure ; but to prevent unnecessary waste of gas, 
 it ought to be made of such a size that it requires only to be 
 partly filled. A balloon half filled at the surface of the earth 
 would become fully distended at the height of 33< miles. 
 
 We have hitherto spoken only of balloons filled with hy. 
 drogen gas ; but it is evident that any other substance spe 
 cifically lighter than air would answer the purpose ; ir 
 fact, the first balloons by which any one was raised into th« 
 atmosphere were not filled with hydrogen, but simply wit!
 
 >s« 
 
 BALLOON. 
 
 rarefied air, the rarefaction being produced by kindling a 
 fire under them ; and as they thus became filled with 
 smoke, they were called smoke-balloons. The ascen- 
 sional force, however, which can be gained in this way is 
 not great ; besides the aeronaut must carry a portion of 
 fuel with him for the purpose of maintaining the fire, which 
 adds sensibly to the weight to be raised. The keeping up 
 of the fire is also attended with inconvenience, and even 
 danger. 
 
 Two brothers, Stephen and Joseph Montgolfier, proprie- 
 tors of a paper manufactory at Annonay in France, have 
 the honour of first preparing and sending up a balloon into 
 the air. After one or two previous trials, they announced 
 a public ascent on the 5th of June, 1783. The balloon was 
 prepared of linen cloth ; a fire was kindled under it, and 
 fed with bundles of chopped straw. This substance was 
 used with a view to produce a large quantity of smoke. It 
 would seem that they attributed the elevation of the balloon 
 to the ascending power of the smoke, instead of its true 
 cause, the rarefaction of the heated air. In the space of 
 five minutes it was completely distended ; and on being 
 let slip, ascended rapidly. It reached an elevation of about 
 a mile, remained suspended ten minutes, and fell at the 
 distance of a mile and a half from the place of its ascen- 
 sion. When the news of this experiment was carried to 
 Paris, the surprise was general, and the virtuosi began im- 
 mediately to consider how it could be repeated. It was 
 determined to apply hydrogen gas on this occasion ; and 
 Charles, a celebrated lecturer on natural philosophy, un- 
 dertook the superintendence of the process. On the 26th 
 of August, 1783, the preparations were complete, and the 
 balloon was transported with much ceremony to the 
 Champ-de-Mars. On the following day, at five o'clock in 
 the afternoon, the report of a cannon announced to the as- 
 sembled multitude that every thing was ready. "The 
 globe, liberated from its stays, shot upwards, to the great 
 surprise of the spectators, with such rapidity that in two 
 minutes it reached the height of 3000 feet. It traversed 
 successively several clouds, by which it was repeatedly 
 obscured. The violent rain which began to fall at the mo- 
 ment of its ascent did not retard its rapid progress, and the 
 experiment was attended with complete success. The 
 satisfaction was so great that even elegantly dressed ladies 
 remained with their eyes intently fixed on the balloon, re- 
 gardless of the rain, which fell on them in torrents." 
 (Libes, Dictionnarie de Physique.) This balloon remained 
 in the atmosphere only three quarters of an hour ; it fell at 
 a distance of about fifteen miles, when it. was discovered 
 that a rent was made in its upper part, through which the 
 gas had escaped. 
 
 The first adventurers who had courage to undertake an 
 aerial ascent in a balloon, were Pilatre de Rosier, a young 
 naturalist, and the Marquis d'Arlandes. On the 21st of No- 
 vember, 1783, they took their seats in the basket of asmoke 
 balloon ; and after rising to an elevation of upwards of 3000 
 feet, descended safely to the earth. The next ascent was 
 made by MM. Charles and Robert in a balloon filled with 
 hydrogen gas, on the 1st of January, 17S4. After a flight 
 of a hour and a half they alighted on the meadow of Nesle, 
 about twenty-five miles from Paris, without the slightest 
 accident. As the balloon still retained a considerable 
 buoyant force, M. Charles resolved on another ascent alone. 
 It rose to the height of near two miles in about ten min- 
 utes; and the aeronaut had the satisfaction of seeing the 
 sun, which had set when he left the earth, again rise above 
 the horizon. After remaining about thirty-five minutes in 
 the air he descended safely, at a distance of about nine 
 miles from the spot from which he had risen. 
 
 So many aerial voyages executed with safety encouraged 
 other attempts ; and no accident occurred till the accom- 
 plished Pilatre de Rosier, with his companion Romain, 
 was killed in an attempt to cross the channel from France 
 to England. On the 13th of June, 1785, they ascended 
 from Boulogne. Under the principal balloon, which was 
 of hydrogen gas, they had suspended, for the purpose of 
 increasing or diminishing the ascensional power at plea- 
 sure, a smoke balloon, which occasioned the disastrous is- 
 sue. Scarcely a quarter of an hour had elapsed when the 
 whole apparatus, at the height of 3000 feet, was perceived 
 to be on fire ; and the unfortunate voyagers were precipi- 
 tated to the ground. This calamitous occurrence, how- 
 ever, did not damp the courage of aeronauts. It was obvi- 
 ous that it had been occasioned by the want of proper pre- 
 cautions; accordingly ascents continued to be multiplied, 
 and have since become so common as to be an ordinary 
 spectacle in the principal cities of Europe. 
 
 When balloons first began to be constructed, it was ex- 
 pected that they would be found applicable to many im- 
 portant purposes. These expectations have been disap- 
 pointed, chiefly because it has been found impossible to 
 guide or controul their course. The only power the aero- 
 naut possesses over his balloon is to regulate its elevation 
 within certain limits. In one or two instances they have 
 been successfully used for military reconnoissance. The 
 120 
 
 BALLOT. 
 
 
 victory 'which Jonrdan obtained over the Austrians at Fieri- 
 rus, in 1794, was ascribed to the knowledge obtained of the 
 enemy's movements by means of a balloon. A very inte- 
 resting ascent was made by Biot and Gay Lussac, in Au- 
 gust 180-1, and by Gay Lussac alone in September of 
 the same year, with a view to make meteorological obser- 
 vations in the upper strata of the atmosphere. In the first 
 voyage, the two philosophers, at an elevation of between 
 9,500 and 13,000 English feet, found the oscillations of the 
 magnetic needle to be performed in the same time as at the 
 surface of the earth. At 12,800 feet the thermometer, 
 which stood at 63>£ at the observatory, had sunk to 51° 
 of Fahrenheit, being only a decrease of 1° for every thou- 
 sand feet. The hygroscope indicated increased dryness in 
 proportion to the elevation. In the second ascent, per- 
 formed by Gay Lussac alone, the variation of the compass, 
 at the height of 12,680, was found to remain unaltered. At 
 14,480 feet a key held in the magnetic direction attracted 
 with one end and repelled witli the other the north pole of 
 the magnetic needle. The same was the case at 20,150 
 feet. At 18,000 feet the thermometer fell to the freezing 
 point, and at 22,912 feet to 14-9° of Fahr. Two flasks, 
 which had been previously emptied of air, were opened 
 and filled at an elevation exceeding 21,400 feet ; and the air 
 brought down from this region was found, on being ana- 
 lysed, to contain exactly the same proportions of the con- 
 stituent elements as at the surface. The utmost elevation 
 which he reached was 23,040 feet, or four miles and a quar- 
 ter above the level of the sea, considerably higher than the 
 loftiest peak of the Andes. 
 
 Excepting in these two remarkable ascents of Gay Lus- 
 sac, nothing has been gained to science by the use of bal- 
 loons. The numerous other ascents undertaken, both be- 
 fore and since, have as yet served no other purpose than to 
 gratify idle curiosity ; and from the total failure of every 
 scheme that has been proposed for directing their course 
 through the air, there is little reason to anticipate any great 
 advantages from them to society. Nevertheless, the 
 comparative cheapness and facility with which they can 
 be filled by coal gas, now so generally used for the pur- 
 poses of illumination, have been the cause of directing pub- 
 lic attention again to the subject; and the recent feat of 
 Mr. Green and two companions, who, with a stupendous 
 balloon, and carrying with them a ton of ballast, ascended 
 from Vauxhall in November, 1836, crossed the channel, 
 and, after a journey through the air of eighteen hours, 
 safely descended in the territory of Nassau in Germany, 
 has contributed to revive the hope of rendering balloons 
 available to useful purposes. 
 
 BA'LLOT. (Fr. balloter.) A method of voting at 
 elections, <&c, by means of little balls, of different colours, 
 which are put secretly into a box, and, when counted, dis- 
 close the result of the poll without any discovery by whom 
 each vote is given. The origin of the ballot may be traced 
 to the commonwealth of the Israelites, from whom it was 
 adopted by many eastern nations. The voting by tablets 
 began with the earliest operations of Athenian polity. But 
 it appears questionable whether the ballot at Athens, at 
 least in its more flourishing times, was anything more than 
 a contrivance for securing rapidity of voting, and whether 
 any secrecy was necessarily attached to it. It was em- 
 ployed in judicial proceedings. Secret voting was, how- 
 ever, the custom of the Areopagus. (Scott on the Athenian 
 Ballot, 1838.) The same system of voting prevailed also at 
 Carthage, and to this is attributed by Ray (Travels through 
 Germany and Italy) the cause of the grandeur and inde- 
 pendence of its inhabitants. In the early periods of Ro- 
 man history, the people voted by word of mouth ; and, in 
 creating magistrates, used the form — Consules, <Scc. nomi- 
 no, or dico ; and it was not until the 614th year of the city, 
 that the Gabinian law, Lex Tabellaria, was introduced, for 
 the purpose, as Cicero alleges (De. Off. 2. 7.), of giving to 
 the people more liberty in voting. But from this period. as 
 is universally admitted, the practice of bribery made rapid 
 strides; and notwithstanding every effort was made for its 
 suppression by the enactment of penal statutes, such was 
 its success that Julius Cffisar saw himself necessitated to 
 deprive the people not only of the ballot, but even of the 
 right of suffrage. Since the Christian era, the ballot was 
 adopted at a very early period by the Maltese and the Ve- 
 netians. At Venice, in particular, a most curious and in- 
 tricate system of voting, consisting of ten previous ballota- 
 tions, prevailed for the space of 1300 years ; and Postellus 
 (in a work De Magislratibvs Atheniensivm) pointedly as- 
 serts that the abolition of this practice, combined with other 
 causes, led to the decline of this once flourishing state. 
 Another author, after an elaborate dissertation on the ad- 
 vantages of the Venetian ballot, sums up his account of an 
 election of which he had been an eyewitness in the follow- 
 ing words : — " All was easily performed in a short time, 
 without tumult without noise, without animosities, and the 
 most deserving always elected." In our own times, as is 
 well known, the system of voting by ballot in the election 
 of representatives, magistrates, &c. is adopted in France
 
 i 
 
 BALSAM OF SULPHUR. 
 
 and America ; and, among ourselves, in cases of applica- 
 tion for admission into private clubs and societies. Of all 
 controvertible subjects, perhaps there is none which has 
 excited the attention of all political parties so vividly, and 
 formed so large an arena for the display of argumentative 
 skill, as the ballot. While its opponents foresee in its in- 
 troduction into the public business of England a tissue 
 of hypocrisy and falsehood, and ultimately danger and ruin 
 to the state, it seems to its supporters to contain the germ 
 of all that is admirable in government and advantageous to 
 the community. Our limits necessarily preclude us from 
 doing more than merely noticing the principal arguments 
 on both sides. The advocates of the ballot, on whom the 
 onus probandi naturally rests, assume as an axiom that the 
 great body of the electors are dependent, and consequent- 
 ly in an unfit condition to give a free and unbiassed vote. 
 On this assumption is hinged not merely the validity, but 
 even the necessity of all their demonstrations in favour of 
 the ballot. The ballot, it is maintained, will not only place 
 tin elector on a footing of independence, but will remove 
 all inducement to bribery, as no candidate will choose to 
 offer a bribe when the elector is at liberty to deceive him 
 by giving a secret vote : in a word, that it will annihilate 
 the two species of corrupt influence by which electors are 
 liable to be swayed. — the influence of threats, and the in- 
 fluence of bribes Nor, as they allege, are their opinions 
 upon this head merely speculative ; for they point with tri- 
 umph ti< tlir example of France and America, where the 
 ballot is practised, and where it has long been regarded as 
 the safeguard of the people's liberty. The opponents of 
 the ballot, "ii ihc other hand, maintain that, even under the 
 ballot, the canvassing of constituents by candidates would 
 still be practised; in which case, the ballot would prove 
 serviceable only to the dishonest elector-, who promises his 
 suffrage to one candidate and votes for another. More- 
 over, that even here secrecy would be impracticable, as the 
 elector would not only be subjected to a process of the 
 must searching cariosity, bul thai the landlord would be in- 
 r lini-. I to visit with more signal marks nf his displeasure 
 that tenant on whom his suspicions of deceit should rest, 
 than him who came boldly forward, and voted in the face 
 of day for the candidate of his choice. Again, that even 
 were secrecy practicable (vide Burke's Reflections, p. 370), 
 it would not be desirable. For, as every elector holds 
 his vote for the benefit of the community at large, he is 
 bound to show by an open vote his opinion of the fit- 
 ness of the candidate for his suffrage: that a secret vote 
 Is eminently calculated to counteract the legitimate Influ- 
 ence of public opinion, and to lower the standard of politi- 
 cal ami moral principle, inasmuch as it removes from a 
 public ad that responsibility from which no public act 
 ought to be exempted. And lastly, that the argumi I 
 rived from the practice of France ami America can have 
 but little weight, unless it can at the same lime be demon- 
 strated that the condition of these countries in other re- 
 spects is precisely analogous to that of our own: that, as 
 far as America is concerned, vote by ballot was not in- 
 grafted upon Its peculiar form of government, but, as in the 
 case of Athens, was coeval with its existence : and that, as 
 regards France, only 200.000 in a population of 33 millions 
 enjoy the elective franchise; and these, from their rank 
 and condition in society, are least likely either to be in- 
 fluenced by intimidation or seduced by bribery. Whether 
 the opponents or the advocates of the ballot nave the best 
 of the argument, it is not for us to determine ; but one 
 tiling is certain, that whether we regard the Athenian or 
 the Roman, the French or the American form of govern- 
 ment, it will be found that the people either stipulated for 
 the adoption of the ballot in the original framing of their 
 several constitutions, or, as soon as they ascertained the 
 nature of their rights, insisted on its introduction, from 
 some fancied security it afforded them in the exercise of 
 their privileges. For some apposite remarks on the bal- 
 lot, see ft 'est. Review for July, 1S30 ; and a Treatise enti- 
 tled Reflections on the Ballot, 1831, Hatchard and Son ; see 
 also Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, ii. cap. 20. ; and Fergu- 
 son's Roman History, p. 81. 
 
 BA'LSAM OF SULPHUR. Solution of sulphur in olive 
 oil. A brown fetid liquid. 
 
 BALSAMA'CE/E. A natural order of imperfect exoge- 
 nous balsamiferous trees, related to the Platanaceae ; a spe- 
 cies of the only genus, Liquidambar, yields the fragrant re- 
 sin called storax. 
 
 BALSAMINA'CE J2. (Balsamina, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of polypetalous Exogens allied to Gerania- 
 ceae. They have irregular flowers, with a spur to one of 
 the sepals, and are chiefly annual stemmed plants, with a 
 succulent foliage and showy flowers. The common Im- 
 patiens nolitangere is a species of this order. 
 BALSAMODE'NDRON. See Myrrh. 
 Ba'LSAMS. Exudations from certain plants, which are 
 liquid or soft solid, and consist of a substance resembling a 
 resin, either combined with benzoic acid or with an essen- 
 tial oil, or both. 
 121 
 
 BANDED. 
 
 BA'LTEUS. (Lat. a girdle.) In Architecture, the wide 
 step in theatres and amphitheatres which afforded a pas- 
 sage round them without disturbing the sitters. Nobody 
 sat on it, hut it served as a landing or resting place. In the 
 Greek and Roman theatres every eighth step was a bal- 
 teus. Vitruvius gives the rules for constructing it in the 
 third chapter of his fifth book. The same term is also 
 used by ttiat author to denote the strap which seems to 
 bind the coussinet or cushion of the Ionic capital. 
 
 BA'LL'STER. (Said to be from balaustrum, or 0a\avc- 
 tiov, the flower of the wild pomegranate, to the form of 
 which a resemblance is pretended.) In Architecture, a 
 species of small short column, used between piers on the 
 upper parts of buildings, under windows, in balconies, 
 <kc. It is quite of modern introduction, that is to say, 
 soon after the revival of architecture. The form of tlie 
 most ancient that are met with in Florence and other ci- 
 ties of Italy is that of a column, a puerility which has even 
 in these days found admission into some of what are called 
 Greek buildings in the metropolis. Blondel gives rules 
 for proportioning the baluster in its use where the orders 
 are employed. 
 
 ISAM si'RA'DE. A parapet or protecting fence formed 
 with balusters. 
 
 BAMHO'O. An Asiatic genus of arborescent grasses, 
 with hollow jointed stems, and a hardy woody texture. 
 They are externally coated with silex, and sometimes 
 secrete the same substance in the hollows of their stems, 
 when it is called tabasheer. Bamboos grow with great 
 rapidity, and their shoots are cut when young, and boiled 
 like asparagus. They vary in size, according to the spe- 
 cies, from 6 feet to 150 feet in length. When small, they 
 form handles to umbrellas and parasols or walking sticks; 
 when sufficiently large, they are used for the frame-work 
 of Indian cottages, bedsteads, floors, and a variety of do- 
 mestic purposes. If split into slips, they form bow strings, 
 and sometimes the arrows discharged from the blow-tubes 
 of the Malays. A few species inhabit the tropical parts of 
 America. 
 
 HAMlsi SA'CEJE. A section of the natural order of 
 grasses, comprehending the bamboo as its type. 
 
 I!\\ a. word bearings variety of significations in the 
 Teutonic jurisprudence and usages, but all apparently con- 
 nected win the original meaning of "to proclaim, or give 
 public notice. " Hence, 1 Ban, the proclamation against 
 an outlaw: e. g. the ban of the German Empire, equiva- 
 lent to ecclesiastical excommunication or declaration of 
 outlawry ; whence the words banish, bandits, banditti, and 
 to •ban'' or curse; in German barmen, verbannen. 2. 
 I an, in the sense of the national army of a Teutonic 
 people levied by proclamation . hence the French "lever 
 le ban et l'arriere ban" (the latter word being a corruption 
 of ht 1 1 i'ii a mi m , from lair, an army). The French ban and 
 arrifere ban was levied for the last time in 1672, and com- 
 manded by Turenne, but behaved so ill that this feudal ar- 
 mament was thenceforth discontinued. 3. The banns of 
 marriage, being notice given by public proclamation to the 
 parish of the intended solemnization. In the Sclavonic 
 tongues ban means master: the lords of some of the fron- 
 tier provinces of Turkey were so styled ; hence the bannat 
 or lordship of Temeswar, now belonging to Austria. 
 
 BANA'NA. A tall herbaceous endogenous plant, the 
 Musa supientum of botanists, having broad convex leaves 
 with fine oblique veins, and growing in a tuft from the top 
 of a stem formed by the union of the broad bases of the 
 leaves. The fruit ripens in succession in large clusters 
 weighing many pounds ; it is of the same nature as the 
 plantain 'quod ride). It is a native of the West Indies, 
 where it contributes essentially to the food of the better 
 classes. 
 
 BA'NCHUS. A Fabrician genus of Hymenopterous in- 
 sects, of the tribe Pupivora. and family Ichneumonida. ; 
 characterised by long threadlike antenna, abdomen com- 
 pressed at the extremity, ovipositor not extended. Of this 
 genus there are five British species, which, like the rest of 
 the family, are parasitic in the larva state, feeding on the 
 bodies of other insects. 
 
 BA'NCO. In commerce, a word of Italian origin, signi- 
 fying a bank, and commonly employed to describe the 
 bank of Venice. Banco is also used to distinguish banco 
 money from current money at Hamburg, &c. See Ex- 
 change. 
 
 Banco. In Law, superior courts of common law are 
 said to sit in banco during term, the judges occupying 
 the bench of their respective courts. See Courts op 
 Law. 
 
 BAND. (Fr. bande.) In Architecture, a term used to 
 denote what is generally called a face or fascia. To speak 
 correctly, it signifies a "flat, low, square, profiled member, 
 without respect to its place. That member in a cornice on 
 which modillions or dentils are cut is called the modiliion 
 band in the former, and the dentil band in the latter case. 
 
 BA'NDED. (Lat. fasciatus.) When any body is striated 
 across with coloured bands. 
 Q
 
 BANDITTI. 
 
 BANDI'TTI. (It.) Persons declared to be banished, ex- 
 iled, or outlawed. (Home Tooke.) At the present time, 
 bandit and robber are nearly synonymous terms. The 
 Italian bandits formed a peculiar class, and were frequently 
 employed by the petty princes and grandees in executing 
 their projects either of love or ambition. As late as the 
 year 1820, they were frequently employed as escorts ; and 
 in their case the proverb ''honour among thieves" was 
 amply verified, for, on the payment of a stipulated sum, 
 travellers might repose in them unlimited confidence. 
 
 BANDOLE'ER. In ancient Military History, a large 
 leathern belt worn over the right shoulder, and hanging un- 
 der the left arm, to carry military weapons. The term is 
 also applied to small leather case's, of which each muske- 
 teer wore twelve, hanging upon a shoulder-belt : each of 
 these contained the charge of powder for a musket. They 
 are disused, but may be seen in the armoury in the Tower. 
 
 BA'NTANS. A peculiar class among the Hindus, whose 
 office or profession is trade and merchandise. In this 
 sense Banians stand contradistinguished from Brahmins. 
 Cuttery (Eschatrya), and Wyse (Vaisya), the three other 
 castes into which the Indians are divided. (See Gemelli 
 Carreri, and Sir W. Jones.) They are scattered over the 
 whole of Asia, and have appropriated to themselves the 
 sole management of traffic in the East. They retain every 
 where their native language and relieion (the doctrine of 
 the Metempsychosis) ; and are distinguished by their 
 honesty, fidelity, and good nature. 
 
 BA'NISHMENT. "Expulsion from any country, pro- 
 vince, or town, by the judgment of some court or compe- 
 tent authority." Banishment as a species of punishment 
 has been practised by all governments, both ancient and 
 modern. Among the Greeks two kinds of banishment 
 were in use : (pvyq, which involved confiscation of property, 
 and was inflicted only upon those convicted of certain 
 crimes; and, at Athens, us! racism, by which persons were 
 banished on mere suspicion that their power or riches 
 might prove subversive of liberty. The Romans made 
 use of three kinds — relegatio, exilium, and deportatio, — 
 which involved various grades of punishment ; (lie last, 
 however, being the most severe, as it subjected the delin- 
 quent to the confiscation of his property, and the loss of 
 his rights as a Roman citizen. The second was introduced 
 by the Emperor Augustus, and formed the kind of banish- 
 ment to which, among others, Ovid was condemned. Du- 
 ring the first French revolution, banishment (deportation) 
 was substituted for the guillotine, and towards the end of 
 Robespierre's administration became very general. It 
 still forms part of the French code, where it is classed in 
 the third degree of infamous punishments, and gives rise 
 to civil death. As a criminal punishment banishment was 
 unknown to the ancient unwritten law of England, although 
 voluntary exile was often adopted in order to evade legal 
 prosecution. It was first towards the end of Queen Eliza- 
 beth's reign that a statute was enacted which condemned 
 persons convicted of certain delinquencies to leave the 
 town or village where they lived ; but it was at a much later 
 period that the punishment of transportation (quod vide) 
 was legalised by parliamentary statute. In Germany, nu- 
 merous instances have recently occurred of persons con- 
 victed of treasonable practices having had their sentence 
 commuted into perpetual banishment ; and in the univer- 
 sities of the same country this punishment (relegatio) is in- 
 flicted upon those who are convicted of a gross infringe- 
 ment of the academical laws, and involves die forfeiture of 
 all right to enter upon a professional career. 
 
 BANISTERIEyE. (Banisteria, one of the genera.) That 
 division of Malpighiaceous plants in which the fruit is sa- 
 maroid, not baccate, and analogous to what is found in 
 Aceraceffi. 
 
 BANK. In Natural History, an elevation of the ground. 
 Banks at sea are indicated by a decrease of the soundings, 
 and sometimes by the elevation of the land above low- 
 water mark. Of these, one of the largest and best known 
 is the great bank of Newfoundland, famous for the resort 
 of cod-fish. 
 
 Bank. In Commerce, an establishment for the custody 
 and issue of money. The individual who manages a bank, 
 or who carries on the business of banking, is called a 
 banker. 
 
 Banks are of various kinds ; some confining themselves 
 entirely to the custody and issue of the money deposited in 
 their hands by their customers, while others issue notes or 
 paper money of their own. They are sometimes conduct- 
 ed by private individuals, and sometimes by companies 
 consisting of an indefinite number of persons. 
 
 Utility of Banks. — Notwithstanding the precious metals 
 are, in many respects, admirably fitted to serve as a medi- 
 um of exchange (see Money), they have two very serious 
 drawbacks, — their cost, and the difficulty and expense of car- 
 rying them from place to place. If the currency of Great 
 Britain consisted only of gold, it would amount to at least 
 sixty millions of sovereisns ; and the expense attending 
 such a currency, allowing only M per cent, for wear and 
 122 
 
 BANK. 
 
 tear and loss of coins, could not be reckoned at less than 
 £3,250,000 a year. The weight of 1000 sovereigns exceeds 
 21 lbs. troy ; so that were there nothing but coins in circu- 
 lation, the conveyance of large sums from place to place 
 to discharge accounts would be a very laborious process, 
 and even small sums could not be conveyed without con- 
 siderable difficulty ; hence it is that most commercial and 
 highly civilised nations have endeavored to fabricate a por- 
 tion of their money of less costly and heavy materials, and 
 have resorted to various devices for economising the use of 
 coin. Of the substitutes for coin hitherto suggested, paper 
 is, in all respects, the most eligible. Instead of discharg- 
 ing their debts by a payment of the precious metals, indi- 
 viduals, on whose solvency the public may rely, pay them 
 by giving a bill or draft for the sum, payable in coin at sight, 
 or at so many days after date ; and as this bill or draft pass- 
 es currently from hand to hand as cash, it performs all the 
 functions of coin, while it saves its expense to the public. 
 A sense of the advantages that might be derived from the 
 circulation of such bills or drafts led to the institution of 
 banks for their regular issue. 
 
 By a bank of this description, or a bank of circulation, is 
 meant an establishment founded by one or more individu- 
 als, known or believed to be possessed of large property, 
 for the accommodation of the public with loans. A banker, 
 on being applied to for a loan, does not make the advance 
 in gold or silver, or other valuable material, but in his own 
 promissory notes or engagements, binding him to pay the 
 sums specified in them at si<:ht, when presented at the 
 bank, or at some specified period. When a bank is in good 
 credit, its notes are deemed by the public equivalent to a 
 corresponding amount of gold or silver ; and, being freely 
 accepted in payment of debts of all sorts, and easily carried 
 about or conveyed by post, they are even more useful to 
 those who originally borrowed them from the bank, 
 and to their subsequent holder, than an equal sum in 
 coin. The borrowers, therefore, do not scruple to pay the 
 same interest for the loan of a promissory note of £100 or 
 £1,000 than they would do for the loan of a hundred or a 
 thousand sovereigns. But the note costs the issuer com- 
 paratively little. He. in fact, deals in credit, or in obliga- 
 tions to pay, and not in real values ; his profits consisting 
 in the excess of interest derived from the notes or obliga- 
 tions he has issued over and above the interest of the cash 
 or unproductive stock he is obliged to keep in his coffers to 
 meet the demands of the public for payment of his notes, 
 and the expenses of his establishment. 
 
 Besides this sort of bank, there are also banks of depo- 
 site, or banks for keeping the money of individuals. A 
 merchant, or other person, using a bank of this sort, makes 
 all his considerable payments by drafts upon his bankers, 
 and sends all the bills due to him to them to be presented, 
 and noted, if not duly paid. By this means he saves the 
 trouble and expense of keeping a quantity of unemployed 
 money at home, of receiving coins or notes that are not 
 genuine, and of making any mistakes with respect to the 
 presentation of due bills ; and in consequence of the saving 
 of money that is thus effected, a much less quantity serves 
 for the demand of the public. 
 
 If a bank of circulation, or an establishment for the issue 
 of notes, fall into discredit, its notes must obviously cease 
 to circulate. Unless when guaranteed by government, or 
 made legal tender, no one ever takes promissory notes, 
 except on the supposition that they will be paid when pre- 
 sented or when due, and that they are substantially equi- 
 valent to cash. The moment any suspicion (whether well 
 or ill founded is so far of little consequence) arises that the 
 issuers of notes are unable to meet their obligations, there 
 is a run upon them for payment, and their notes are re- 
 jected by every one. 
 
 All banks of circulation are necessarily almost at the 
 same time banks of deposit ; but there are in all civilised 
 and commercial countries a good many of the latter class 
 of banks only. Banks of deposit derive their profit either 
 from their paying no interest on the sums deposited in 
 their hands, as is the case with most of the London banks ; 
 or from their paying a less rate of interest on deposits 
 than that for which they lend them to the public, as is the 
 case with the Scotch banks. 
 
 English Banks. — Banking establishments for the issue of 
 notes, and for taking care of other people's money, have 
 existed in that country since the latter part of the seven- 
 teenth century. The Bank of England was founded in 
 1694, and has long been the greatest bank of circulation 
 and deposit in the world. It grew out of a loan of £1,200,- 
 000, for the public service, for which (such was the low 
 state of public credit at the time) the subscribers were 
 to receive 8 per cent, interest, with £4,000 a year as the 
 expense of management, and be incorporated into a bank- 
 ing company, denominated the Governor and Company 
 of the Bank of England. The charter was granted for ten 
 years ; and it has since been prolonged by various renew- 
 als till the 1st of August 1S45. The loans made by the 
 bank to government were gradually increased, till in 1300
 
 BANK. 
 
 they amounted to JE14,03G,000. But at the last renewal of 
 the charter in 1833, a fourth part of the standing dent due 
 to the bank was paid off, making the sum now (1833) due 
 by the public to that establishment, exclusive of advances 
 on account of dead weight and other public securities, 
 £11,647,750. 
 
 From its foundation the bank has enjoyed several pecu- 
 liar privileges. The principal of these was conferred upon 
 it in 1708, by an act which prohibited any company from 
 being established for the issue of notes payable on demand 
 in England and Wales with more than six partners, This 
 restriction continued till l>citi, when it was abolished, in bo 
 far as respects all places more than 66 miles distant from 
 London ; but within that distance it still prevails. 
 
 The Bank of England is, and has always been, tl 
 vernment bank, transacting for it all the banking business 
 of the nation, receiving the produce of the taxes, loans, 
 <fec. ; and paying the interest of the public debt, the drafts 
 of the treasury and other public departments, transferring 
 stock, <fec. Tor this the bank has received since 1834, ex- 
 clusive of the use of the balances of the public money in 
 her hands, about £130,000 a year. 
 
 In consequence of its employment by the government, 
 of the restriction confining the number of partners mother 
 banks to sir, and of its great capital and credit, Bank of 
 England notes have always been held Id the highest esti- 
 mation ; and no hank for the issue of promissory notes 
 payable on demand has been established in or near Lon- 
 don, in the provinces, however, numerous privatt banks 
 (that is, banks with not more than Ha partners) of issue 
 and deposite have always existed. In 1/92, their number 
 is suppose. | in have' exceeded 350. Many were desln yed 
 by the revulsion of that year; but subsequently 
 tiny began rapidly to increase. In 1809, they amounted 
 to 782; and iii 1814, when most numerous, to 940. Since 
 the abolition of the restriction on the number of partners, 
 in 1820, many banks have been established; some with 
 very large bodies of proprietors. Except in the case of 
 the Mink of England, all the holders of stock in the other 
 English banks are liable not merely for the amount of 
 their share in the capital stock of the Company, bin for its 
 whole debts, whatever maybe their amount All notes 
 an- made payable on demand ; and since 1826 no notes for 
 
 less than X7< havo hern allowed to circulate. 
 
 From the first establishment of the Hank of England, 
 
 down to 1797, it had always paid its notes regularly when 
 
 nted. Bui in the course of 1796, and the early part 
 of 1797, there was, owing to the prevalence of rep 
 invasion, a pretty severe run upon the Bank of England, 
 and it was at length apprehended that she might be o 
 to make a temporary Btoppage. To avert a contingency 
 of ilos sort, an order In council was Issued in February, 
 1797, authorising the bank not to pa] hex notes in gold; 
 and this order was subsequently confirmed by parti u 
 and prolonged nil after the conclusion of a definite treaty 
 
 Of peace. 
 
 Contrary to what might have been and was anticipated 
 by many, the order referred to did nol stop the circulation 
 of Hank of England notes, or diminish the confidence of 
 
 the public in that establishment. The report of a commit- 
 tee of the House of Commons, published soon after the 
 suspension, showed thai the bank was not merely pos- 
 sessed of the most ample funds to meet all her i n 
 ments, bul thai she had a surplus stork, after all demands 
 upon her were deducted, oi no less than £15,513,000. This 
 report, and the fart that Hank Ol England Holes became 
 practically legal tender, secured their circulation. 
 
 The obligation on the issuers of paper to pay their notes 
 on demand is necessary, not only to give them circulation, 
 but to prevent their being issued in excess ; for as soon as 
 any considerable overissue takes place, the currency be- 
 comes depreciated as compared with that of other coun- 
 tries, and notes are, in consequence, returned upon the 
 banks for payment, in order to get gold and silver to send 
 abroad, where their value is higher; and the banks, to ob- 
 viate the drain, are obliged to narrow their issues. London 
 being the centre where the exchanges with other countries 
 are adjusted, the value of its currency determines the 
 state of the exchange ; and it ultimately also determines 
 the value of the currency of the provinces, there being a 
 constant demand upon the country banks for gold or bills 
 on London. While the Bank of England was obliged to 
 pay in specie, the value of her notes could not, and in point 
 of fact did not, differ materially from that of gold. But in 
 171*9, or 1800, after the check of cash payments was re- 
 moved, they began to he depreciated, partly in conse- 
 quence of their own over-issue, but far more through the 
 over-issue of the paper of the country banks. The latter 
 were multiplied to an unprecedented extent. It is of im- 
 portance, too, to observe that previously to 1797 neither 
 the Bank of England nor any of the country banks issued 
 notes for less than j£5 ; but both parties having commenced 
 their issue in the course of that year, a new outlet was 
 opened for the emission of paper that was particularly ac- 
 123 
 
 cessible to the country bankers. And such was the eager- 
 ness of the greater number of the latter to get their paper 
 afloat, that individuals who could barely afford to buy stamps 
 for bills frequently succeeded in getting the command of 
 immense sums ; and, as they had nothing of their own to 
 lose, boldly ventured on the most hazardous speculations. 
 During the last half dozen years of the war the deprecia- 
 tion of paper resulting from circumstances now glanced at 
 was such, that the ounce of standard gold, which should be 
 worth only 3/. 17s. I0%d., was, in 1814, actually worth 
 5/. !■?.. being a depreciation ol -ii '._, per cent. 
 
 The difficulties which had been thrown during the latter 
 years ol the war in the way of importation from abroad, 
 combined with deficient crops at home, caused an extraor- 
 dinary rise in the price of corn. But no sooner had the 
 northern ports been opened, in the autumn of 1814, than a 
 importation, accompanied by a heavy fall of prices, 
 began to take place; winch was still further increased 
 after the general pacification in 1815. This fall proved ru- 
 inous to many larmers, who had been large borrowers 
 from the country hanks. In consequence of the losses aris- 
 ing from this and other cauaes thai grew out of the altered 
 situation of the country, a wain of confidence was experi- 
 enced ; and the country banks being generally without the 
 means id' meeting any emergency, no fewer than 240 of 
 these establishments stopped payment. There is, in fact, 
 believed to have been, in 1814, 1815, and 1810, a greater 
 destruction of bank paper in this country, and a wider 
 range of bankruptcy, than had ever previously taken place 
 anj who]-,- else, except perhaps in France at the breaking 
 up of the Mississippi scheme. The contraction of the cur- 
 rency that had ti.rn thus violently brought about, raised its 
 value nearly to par, and paved the way tor the act of 1819, 
 the 596.3. c. 7--, commonly called "Peel's Act," from 
 its being introduced by Sir Robert Peel, which provided for 
 the return to cash payments by the Bank of England at the 
 old standard. These were resumed in 1821. 
 
 The policy of tin- act ol 1819 was much questioned at the 
 time, ami sue-,.; i. m it ha- been successfully vindicated 
 over and ovet again. But admitting thatwhen enacted it 
 might, in some respects, be obji ctionable, that would add 
 nothing to the plea of those who still continue to urge its 
 repeal The restored standard has now (1838) been main- 
 tained for nearly twenty years : and 99 out of every 100 of 
 the existing contracts have bei n entered into with refer- 
 ence to it. To Bet it aside would not hi' to repair former 
 ce, if such were committed, but to commit it afresh 
 —to perpetrate' an abuse in 1838 for no better reason than 
 that ii is alleged that a similar abuse had bi en perpetrated 
 in 18191 Bo long as there is either common sense or com- 
 mon honesty in parliament, we are pretty secure against 
 pi of this aorl succeeding. 
 
 Notwithstanding that the bankruptcy which overspread 
 the country in 1814, 1816, and L816, was mainly ascnbable 
 to the defective constitution of tin- country banks, and to 
 Me' reckless and Improvident manner in which they were 
 managed, no steps were taken when the resumption of 
 cash payments was decided upon in lsl'J to obviate any 
 one or these sources of mischief. The consequences were 
 such as might have been anticipated. A peculiar combi- 
 nation of circumstances having conspired to produce an 
 extraordinary rage for speculative undertakings in 1824 
 and 1826, the country bankers gave in to the infatuation, 
 and made the most sudden and excessive additions to 
 their issues. In consequence the currency became re- 
 dundanl : and this having occasioned a heavy drain for 
 gold on the Bank of England, the latter was, in the end, 
 obliged to contract her issues. The country banks, whose 
 engagements bad in many instances been carried to an ex- 
 tent quite incommensurate with their capital, began to give 
 way the moment they experienced an increased difficulty 
 of obtaining pecuniary accommodation in London : and so 
 rapid and sweeping was the destruction, that in less than 
 six weeks above seventy banking establishments were 
 swept off, and a vacuum created in the currency that ab- 
 sorbed from eight to ten millions of additional issues by the 
 Bank of England ! 
 
 This catastrophe seems at length to have satisfied the 
 parliament and people of England that the private banking 
 system was weak and vicious, and that it was imperatively 
 necessary it should be amended and strengthened. In this 
 view the clause in the act of 1708 already referred to, pro- 
 hibiting any private bank from having more than six part- 
 ners, was repealed ; and the issue of notes for less than JE5 
 was also forbidden. 
 
 The last measure has, no doubt, shut up one of the easi- 
 est channels through which the inferior order of country 
 bankers used to get their paper into circulation, and has 
 been so far advantageous. But abundance of other chan- 
 nels are still open to them ; and the fact that a third part of 
 all the private banks existing in England and Wales in 1792 
 were destroyed during the revulsion of that year, though 
 no notes for less than jE5 were then in circulation, shows 
 how little the suppression of 6mali notes can do to obviate
 
 BANK. 
 
 the mischiefs complained of. Very important advantages 
 were, however, expected to result irom the other measure, 
 or that repealing the act of 1708, and consequently allowing 
 the formation of joint stock banks, or banks with any num- 
 ber of partners. But these anticipations proved to be 
 nearly, if not quite, fallacious. There cannot, in fact, be a 
 greater error than to suppose that because a bank has a 
 considerable number of partners it will necessarily be 
 either rich or well managed. It may be neitiier the one 
 nor the other. A single individual may possess more 
 wealth than a number of individuals associated together ; 
 and the chances are, that if he engage in banking, or any 
 other business, it will be better managed than by a com- 
 pany. Under the present system, and in fact it is impossi- 
 ble to prevent it under any system, the partners in joint 
 stocks, or in other banks, may be men of straw, or persons 
 without property, and unable to fulfil their engagements. 
 It is of the essence of a secure and well established paper 
 currency that the notes of which it consists should be of 
 the exact value of the gold or silver they profess to repre- 
 sent, and that, consequently, they should be paid the mo- 
 ment they are presented. But it is not enough to order that 
 this condition shall be uniformly complied with. Such or- 
 der is obeyed only by the opulent, prudent, and conscien- 
 tious banker, and forms little or no check on the proceed- 
 ings of those of a contrary character. It is the latter class, 
 however, that it is especially necessary to look after; and 
 it is needless to say that any system that permits notes to 
 be issued without let or hindrance by speculative, ignorant, 
 or unprincipled adventurers, must be essentially vicious. 
 
 The progress of the system of joint stock banking, or of 
 banks with more than six partners, since 1826, when it 
 commenced, has been as follows : — 
 
 
 
 Banks. 
 
 
 In 1826 were 
 
 registered 
 
 3 
 
 In 1833 
 
 1827 " 
 
 " 
 
 
 4 
 
 1834 
 
 1828 " 
 
 IC 
 
 
 
 
 1835 
 
 1829 " 
 
 " 
 
 
 7 
 
 1836 
 
 1830 " 
 
 " 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1831 " 
 
 " 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 1832 " 
 
 " 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 104 
 
 In point of fact, however, the joint stock banks have each 
 at an average from five to six branches ; and as these 
 branches transact all sorts of banking business, and enjoy 
 the same credit as the parent establishment, from which 
 they are frequently at a great distance, they are to all in- 
 tents and purposes so many distinct banks. Hence, in- 
 stead of 104, there were really above 500 joint stock banks 
 in England and Wales in 1836, of which no fewer than 200 
 were opened in the course of that year ! Some private 
 banks have latterly been converted into joint stock banks, 
 and others have wound up their affairs and ceased to exist ; 
 still, however, their number amounts to about 550 ; so that, 
 in all, there are at this moment nearly 1,100 joint stock and 
 private banking establishments in England and Wales. 
 From a half to two thirds of these establishments issue 
 notes. 
 
 Previously to 1833, the notes of the country banks were 
 made payable in gold ; but it was then enacted that they 
 might be paid either in gold or Bank of England notes, 
 at the option of the issuers. Bank of England notes are 
 now, in fact, legal tender everywhere except at the bank 
 and her branches. 
 
 The dividends on Bank of England stock from 1767 to 
 the present time have been — from 1767 to 1781, h% per 
 cent, per annum ; from 1781 to 1788, 6 per cent. ; from 1788 
 to 1807, 7 per cent. ; from 1807 to 1823, 10 per cent. ; and 
 from 1823 to 1838, 8 per cent. The dividends are exclu- 
 sive of the sums occasionally advanced as bonuses: the 
 latter amount since 1799, to JK3,783,7S0 over and above an 
 increase in the capital of the bank in 1816, which amounted 
 to .£2,910,600. 
 
 Defects in our present Banking System. — Suggestions for 
 its Improvement.- — The issue of notes is of all businesses 
 that which seems to hold out the greatest prospect of suc- 
 cess to the schemes of those who attempt to get rich by 
 preying on the public. The cost of engraving and issuing 
 notes is but an inconsiderable item compared with the 
 sums for which they are issued ; and provided they get 
 into anything like extensive circulation, they become, at 
 once, considerably productive. They are not issued, ex- 
 cept on the deposit of bills or other securities yielding a 
 considerable rate of interest ; so that if an individual, or set 
 of individuals, with little or no capital, connive, by fair ap- 
 pearances, promises, and similar devices, to insinuate him- 
 self or themselves into the public confidence, and can 
 maintain 20,000, 50,000, or .£100,000, in circulation, he or 
 they secure a good income in the meantime ; and when 
 the bubble bursts, and the imposture is detected, they are 
 no worse off than when they set up their bank. On the 
 contrary, the presumption is that they are a great deal bet- 
 ter off; and that they have taken care to provide, at the 
 cost of the credulous and deceived public, a reserve stock 
 for their future maintenance ; hence, seeing the facilities for 
 124 
 
 committing fraud are so very great, the propriety, or rather 
 necessity, of providing against them. 
 
 It has sometimes been contended, in vindication of our 
 present system, which allows any individual or set of in- 
 dividuals, how bankrupt soever in fortune and character, to 
 issue notes without check or limitation of any kind other 
 than the promise to pay them on demand, that they are 
 essentially pricate paper; that the accepting of them in 
 payment is optional ; and that as they may be rejected by 
 every one who either suspects or dislikes them, there is no 
 room or ground for interfering with their issue ! But 
 every body knows that whatever notes may be in law, they 
 are in most parts of the country practically and in fact legal 
 tender. The bulk of the people are totally without power 
 to refuse them. The currency of many extensive districts 
 consists in great part of country notes ; and such small far- 
 mers or tradesmen as should decline taking them would be 
 exposed to the greatest inconveniences. Every one makes 
 use of or is a dealer in money. It is not employed by men 
 of business only, but by persons living on fixed incomes, — 
 women, labourers, minors ; and in short by every class of 
 individuals, very many of whom are necessarily, from their 
 situation in life, quite unable to form any estimate of the 
 solidity of the different banks whose paper is in circulation. 
 Such parties are uniformly severe sufferers by the failure 
 of banks. The paper that comes into their hands is a part 
 of the currency or money of the country ; and it is quite as 
 much a part of the duty of government to take measures 
 that this paper shall be truly and substantially what it pro- 
 fesses to be, as that it should take measures to prevent the 
 issue of spurious coins or the use of false or deficient 
 weights and measures. 
 
 Now it will be found, should the circulation of provin- 
 cial notes be allowed to continue, that there is but one 
 means of making sure of the solvency of the issuers, and 
 of providing for their being paid when presented ; and that 
 is, by compelling all issuers of such notes to give security 
 for their payment. This, and this only, will hinder the 
 circulation of spurious paper, and afford a sufficient guar- 
 antee that the notes the public are obliged to take are real 
 ly and in fact what they profess to be. The measure, too, 
 is one that might be easily enforced. To carry it into ef- 
 fect, it would merely be necessary to order that all indi- 
 viduals or companies, on applying for stamps, should be 
 obliged, previously to their obtaining them, to lodge in the 
 hands of the commissioners an assignment to government 
 of stock, mortgages, landed or other fixed property, equiva- 
 lent to the amount of the stamps issued to them, to be held 
 in security for their payment. 
 
 It has been objected to this plan, that it would be inju- 
 rious, by locking up a portion of the capital of the banks; 
 but this is plainly an error. Its only effect in this respect 
 would be to force such banks as issued notes to provide a 
 supplemental capital, as a security over and above the cap- 
 ital required for conducting their business. But this sup- 
 plemental capital would not be unproductive. II it consist- 
 ed of lands, the owners would receive the rents; and if it 
 consisted ofgovernment securities, they would receive the 
 dividends or interest due upon them, precisely in the same 
 way that they are received by other persons ; while the 
 fact being known that they possessed this supplemental 
 capital, or that they had lodged security for the payment 
 of their notes, would, by giving the public perfect confi- 
 dence in their stability, enable them to conduct their busi- 
 ness with a less supply of floating or immediately available 
 capital than would otherwise be necessary. 
 
 It is absurd to object to this plan on the ground of its in- 
 terfering with the private pursuits of individuals. It is the 
 duty ofgovernment to interfere to regulate every business 
 or pursuit that might otherwise become publicly injurious. 
 On this principle it interferes to prevent the circulation of 
 spurious coins, and of notes under a certain sum and not 
 payable on demand ; and on the same principle it is called 
 on to interfere to present the act ordering the payment of 
 notes becoming again, as it has very frequently done al- 
 ready, a dead letter, by making sure that it shall be com- 
 plied with. The interference that would take place under 
 the proposed measure is not only highly expedient, but 
 would be of the least vexatious kind imaginable. All that 
 is required of the persons applying for stamps for notes is, 
 that they should deposit in the hands of the commissioners 
 a certain amount of exchequer bills, or available securities, 
 according to their demand for stamps. They are not asked 
 to state how they mean to dispose of these stamps, — to 
 whom or in what way they are to be issued. They are 
 merely required to give a pledge that they shall be paid, or 
 that they shall not be employed, as so many others have 
 been, to deceive or defraud the public. It is little else 
 than an abuse of language to call this an interference with 
 private affairs. 
 
 The taking of security in the way now suggested, from 
 the issuers of notes, would effectually provide for their 
 payment when presented. Adventurers without capital, 
 and sharpers anxious to get themselves indebted to the
 
 BANK. 
 
 Statement of the Affairs of the Bank of England, February 29, 1832. 
 
 Dr. 
 
 To bank notes outstanding 
 
 To public deposits, viz. — ■ 
 
 Drawing accounts .... 2,034,790 
 
 Balance of audit roll - • - 650,550 
 
 Life annuities unpaid - - - 85,030 
 
 Annuities for terms of years 
 
 unpaid 38,360 
 
 Exchequer bills deposited - 490,000 
 
 To private deposits, viz. — 
 Drawing accounts - - ■ 
 Various other debts - - 
 
 5,683/370 
 
 54,560 
 
 £18,051,710 
 
 3,198,730 
 
 5,738,430 
 
 To the Bank of England for the capital 14,553,000 
 To balance of surplus in favour of the 
 Bank of England 2,637,760 
 
 .£44,179,630 
 
 By advances on government securities, 
 viz. — 
 
 Exchequer bills on the growing produce 
 of the consolidated fund in the quar- 
 ter ending 
 
 5th of April. 1S32 3,428.340 
 
 5th of July, 1832 697,0.0 
 
 Exchequer bills on supplies 
 1825 7.600 
 
 Ditto for £10,500,000 for 1825 2,000 
 
 £4,134.940 
 
 By the advances to the trustees ap- 
 pointed by the Act 3. Geo. 4. c. 51. to- 
 wards the purchase of an annuity of 
 £585,740 for 44 years, from 5th of 
 
 April, 1823 10,897,880 
 
 By other creditors, viz. — 
 
 Exchequer bills purchased - 2,700,000 
 
 Stock purchased 764,600 
 
 City bonds 500.000 
 
 Bills and notes discounted - 2,951,970 
 Loans on mortgages - - - 1,452,100 
 London Dock Company • • 227,500 
 Advances on security of vari- 
 ous articles 570,690 
 
 9,166,860 
 
 By cash and bullion 5,293,150 
 
 By the permanent debt due from go- 
 vernment 14,686,800 
 
 £44,179,630 
 
 Rest, or surplus brought down - 
 Bank capital due to proprietors 
 
 - 2.637.760 
 
 - 14,553,000 
 
 £17,190,760 
 
 Average Quarterly Account of the Liabilities. Assets, and Surplus or Rest, of the Bank of England, 
 as ordered by the Act 3 & 4 Will. IV. cap. 98. 
 
 
 Notes la 
 Circulation. 
 
 Deposits. 
 
 Securities. 
 
 Bullion. 
 
 Rett. or Surplus 
 Capital. 
 
 1834. 
 January 1. 
 April 1. - 
 July 1. 
 
 September 23. - 
 December 18. - 
 
 L. 
 
 18.216.000 
 l'.UW.OOO 
 18,89 •• 
 
 l'.U:.'6.000 
 18,304,000 
 
 L. 
 
 13,101,000 
 
 H.nil.OOO 
 15,096.000 
 14,754.000 
 12,256,000 
 
 L. 
 
 23.5%,000 
 25,970,000 
 8,000 
 28,691,000 
 26,362,000 
 
 L 
 9,948.000 
 
 9,4 si.OOO 
 R,695,O00 
 7,695,000 
 
 6,720,000 
 
 L. 
 
 2.-.1 '7.000 
 2,293,000 
 2.261.000 
 2,506,000 
 2,522,000 
 
 1 835. 
 
 January 15. 
 April 7. 
 June 30. 
 
 September 22. - 
 December 15. • 
 
 18.012,000 
 '1,000 
 18,315,000 
 1- .'10,000 
 17,821,000 
 
 12,566,000 
 
 11.289.000 
 10,954.000 
 13£30,000 
 
 17,729,000 
 
 26.390.000 
 16.328,000 
 
 ;>.ooo 
 
 27,881-..' mi 
 31,048,000 
 
 6,741.000 
 6.329,000 
 6.219.000 
 6.261.000 
 6,626,000 
 
 2,534,000 
 2,677.000 
 
 2,628.000 
 2,679.000 
 2,624,000 
 
 1836. 
 January 12. 
 April 5. 
 July 1. 
 
 September 22. - 
 December 15. - 
 
 17,262.000 
 18,063.000 
 17,899.000 
 
 1-. 147.00(1 
 17,361,000 
 
 19.169,000 
 14.751,000 
 lii.MO.OOO 
 14,118,000 
 13,330,000 
 
 31.954,000 
 27,927.000 
 27.153.000 
 29,406,000 
 28,971,000 
 
 7,076,000 
 7,801,000 
 7,362,000 
 5.719,000 
 4,545,000 
 
 2.599,000 
 2,914.000 
 2,806.000 
 0,000 
 2,825,000 
 
 1837. 
 January 10. 
 April 4. - - 
 June 27. 
 
 September 19. - 
 December 14. - 
 
 17.422.000 
 18,432,000 
 18,202,000 
 18, -14.000 
 17,998,000 
 
 14.354.000 
 11.192,000 
 10,424.000 
 11,093,000 
 10,195,000 
 
 30.365.000 
 28,843,000 
 
 26,932,000 
 26,605.000 
 22,727,000 
 
 4.287.000 
 4.071.000 
 4,750,000 
 6,303.000 
 8,172,000 
 
 2.876.000 
 3.263.000 
 3.056,000 
 3.001,000 
 2,706,000 
 
 1838. 
 January 12. - t 
 
 17,900.000 
 
 10,992,000 
 
 22,606,000 
 
 8,895,000 
 
 2.609.000 
 
 N. B.— The rest is foi-od bj adding together the circulation and deposits, and deducting their amount from the amount of the securities and bullion. 
 
 public, would find that banking was no longer a field on 
 Which they could advantageously enter. Notes would be 
 made, in fact as well as in law, equivalent lo the specie 
 they profess to represent ; and the paper currency would 
 acquire a solidity of which it is at present wholly destitute. 
 But though the plan of taking security would completely 
 obviate the risk of loss from the circulation of worthless 
 paper, or of paper issued by parties without the means, 
 and probably also the inclination to pay it on presentation, 
 it would not touch another abuse inherent in the present 
 system ; that is, it would leave the currency exposed as 
 at present, to all those constantly recurring fluctuations in 
 its amount, those alternations of glut and deficiency, by 
 which it has been affected since provincial banks became 
 125 
 
 considerably multipled, and which are in the last degree 
 injurious. A paper currency is not in a sound or whole- 
 some state, unless, 1st, means be taken to insure that each 
 particular note or parcel of such currency be paid imme- 
 diately on demand ; and unless. 2nd, the whole currency 
 rary in amount and value exactly as a metallic currency 
 would do were the paper currency withdrawn and coins sub- 
 stituted in its stead. The last condition is quite as indis- 
 pensable to the existence of a well-established currency as 
 the former ; and it is one that cannot be realised other- 
 wise than by confining the issue of paper to a single 
 source. 
 
 It is supposed by many that there can be no greater fluc- 
 tuations in a paper than' in a metallic currency, provided
 
 BANK. 
 
 Account of the Amount of the Notes of the Bank of England in Circulation, of the Deposits in the Hands of the Bank, of 
 all Securities held by the Bank, of Bullion in her Coffers, and of the Rest or Surplus Capital of the Bank, on the last 
 day of February in each of the following years : — 
 
 
 Notes in 
 
 Deposits. 
 
 Public 
 
 Private 
 
 
 Rest, or Surplus 
 
 Years. 
 
 Circulation. 
 
 Securities. 
 
 Securities. 
 
 u 
 
 { apital. 
 
 1778 
 
 7,440,a30 
 
 4,662,150 
 
 7,898,292 
 
 3,322,228 
 
 2.010,690 
 
 1,128.730 
 
 1779 
 
 9,012,610 
 
 4,358,160 
 
 8,862,242 
 
 2,073,668 
 
 3,711,150 
 
 1 .276.290 
 
 1780 
 
 8,410,790 
 
 4,723.89) 
 
 9,145,659 
 
 1,755,371 
 
 3,581.060 
 
 1,347.410 
 
 1781 
 
 7,092,450 
 
 5,796;S30 
 
 8,640,073 
 
 2,546,067 
 
 3,279.940 
 
 1.576,800 
 
 1782 
 
 8,028,880 
 
 6,130,300 
 
 10,346,055 
 
 3,448,015 
 
 2,157;S60 
 
 1.792,750 
 
 1783 
 
 7,675,090 
 
 4.465.000 
 
 10.016,349 
 
 2,779,431 
 
 1,321.190 
 
 1. '.176,880 
 
 1784 
 
 6,202,760 
 
 3,903,920 
 
 7,789,291 
 
 3,829,929 
 
 655,840 
 
 2,168,380 
 
 1785 
 
 5,923,090 
 
 6,669,160 
 
 7,198,564 
 
 4.973,926 
 
 2,740.820 
 
 2,321,060 
 
 1786 
 
 7,581,960 
 
 6.151,660 
 
 6,836,459 
 
 3,516,781 
 
 5,979.090 
 
 2,598,710 
 
 1787 
 
 8,329,840 
 
 5,902,080 
 
 7,642,587 
 
 3.716,463 
 
 5.626,690 
 
 2,753,820 
 
 1788 
 
 9,561,120 
 
 5,177.050 
 
 7,833,857 
 
 4,030,653 
 
 5j743,440 
 
 2,869,780 
 
 1789 
 
 9,807,210 
 
 5,537,370 
 
 8,249,582 
 
 2.711,108 
 
 7,228.730 
 
 2,844,840 
 
 1790 
 
 10,040,540 
 
 6,223,270 
 
 8.347,387 
 
 1,984,733 
 
 8,633,000 
 
 2,701,310 
 
 1791 
 
 11,439.200 
 
 6,364,550 
 
 10,380,358 
 
 2:222,282 
 
 7,869,410 
 
 2,668,300 
 
 1792 
 
 11,307,380 
 
 5,523,370 
 
 9,938,799 
 
 3,129,761 
 
 6468,060 
 
 2,705,870 
 
 1793 
 
 11,888,910 
 
 5,346.450 
 
 9,549,209 
 
 6.456,041 
 
 4,010,680 
 
 2,780,570 
 
 1794 
 
 10,744.020 
 
 7,89i;810 
 
 9,950,756 
 
 4,573,794 
 
 6,987,110 
 
 2,875.830 
 
 1795 
 
 14,017,510 
 
 5,973,020 
 
 13,164.172 
 
 3,647.168 
 
 6,127,720 
 
 2.948,530 
 
 1796 
 
 10,729,520 
 
 5,702,360 
 
 12,951,812 
 
 4,188,028 
 
 2,539,630 
 
 3i247,590 
 
 1797 
 
 9,674,780 
 
 4,891,530 
 
 11,714,431 
 
 5,123,319 
 
 1,086,170 
 
 3,357,610 
 
 1798 
 
 13,095,830 
 
 6,148,900 
 
 11,241,333 
 
 5,558,167 
 
 5,828,940 
 
 3.383,710 
 
 1799 
 
 12,959,800 
 
 8,131,820 
 
 11,510,677 
 
 5.528.353 
 
 7,563,900 
 
 3,511.310 
 
 1800 
 
 16,844.470 
 
 7,062,680 
 
 13,975,663 
 
 7,448,387 
 
 6,144,250 
 
 3,661,150 
 
 1801 
 
 16,213,280 
 
 10,745,840 
 
 15,958,011 
 
 10,466,719 
 
 4,640,120 
 
 4,105,730 
 
 1802 
 
 15,186,880 
 
 6,858,210 
 
 14,199,094 
 
 7,760,726 
 
 4,152,950 
 
 4.067,680 
 
 1803 
 
 15,319,930 
 
 8,050,240 
 
 9,417,887 
 
 14.497,013 
 
 3,776,750 
 
 4.321,4s) 
 
 1804 
 
 17,077,830 
 
 8.676,830 
 
 14,684,686 
 
 12,314,284 
 
 3,372,140 
 
 4,616,450 
 
 1805 
 
 17,871,170 
 
 12,083,620 
 
 16,889,501 
 
 11,771,889 
 
 5,883,800 
 
 4.590.400 
 
 1806 
 
 17,730,120 
 
 9,980,790 
 
 14,813,599 
 
 11,777,471 
 
 5,987,190 
 
 4.867.350 
 
 1807 
 
 16,950,680 
 
 11,829,320 
 
 13,452,871 
 
 13,955,589 
 
 6,142.840 
 
 4,771,300 
 
 1808 
 
 18,188,860 
 
 11,961,960 
 
 14^149,501 
 
 13,234.579 
 
 7,855,470 
 
 5.088.730 
 
 1 -i i'.i 
 
 18,542,860 
 
 9,982,950 
 
 14,743,425 
 
 14,374;775 
 
 4,488,700 
 
 5.081 ;090 
 
 1810 
 
 21,019,600 
 
 12,457,310 
 
 14,322,634 
 
 21,055,946 
 
 3,501,410 
 
 5,403,080 
 
 1811 
 
 23,360,220 
 
 11. -II 5,650 
 
 17,201,800 
 
 19,920,550 
 
 3,350.940 
 
 5,667,420 
 
 1812 
 
 23,408,320 
 
 11,595,200 
 
 22,127,253 
 
 15,899,037 
 
 2,983,190 
 
 6,005,960 
 
 1813 
 
 23,210,930 
 
 11,268,180 
 
 25,036,626 
 
 12,894,324 
 
 2,884,500 
 
 6.336.340 
 
 1814 
 
 24,801,080 
 
 12,455,460 
 
 23,630,317 
 
 18,359,593 
 
 2.204,430 
 
 6,937,800 
 
 1815 
 
 27,261,650 
 
 11,702,250 
 
 27,512,804 
 
 17,045,696 
 
 2,036,910 
 
 7,631,510 
 
 1816 
 
 27,013,620 
 
 12.388,890 
 
 19,425,780 
 
 23,975,530 
 
 4,640,880 
 
 8,639.680 
 
 1817 
 
 27,397,900 
 
 10,825,610 
 
 25,538,808 
 
 8,739,822 
 
 9,680,970 
 
 5,736,090 
 
 1818 
 
 27,770,970 
 
 7,997,550 
 
 26,913,360 
 
 3,991,970 
 
 10.055.460 
 
 5,192,270 
 
 1819 
 
 25,126.700 
 
 6,413,370 
 
 22,355.115 
 
 9,099,885 
 
 4,184,620 
 
 4.099,550 
 
 1820 
 
 23.484,110 
 
 4,093,550 
 
 21,715,163 
 
 4,472,322 
 
 4,911,050 
 
 3,520,880 
 
 1821 
 
 23;884,920 
 
 5,622,890 
 
 16,010,990 
 
 4,7&5,280 
 
 11,869,900 
 
 3,158,360 
 
 1822 
 
 18,665,350 
 
 4,689,940 
 
 12,478,133 
 
 3,494,947 
 
 11.057,150 
 
 3,674,940 
 
 1823 
 
 18,392.210 
 
 7,181,100 
 
 13,658,829 
 
 4,660,901 
 
 10,384.230 
 
 3,130.620 
 
 1824 
 
 19,736,990 
 
 10,097,a50 
 
 14,341,127 
 
 4,530,873 
 
 13,810,060 
 
 2,847,220 
 
 1825 
 
 20,753,760 
 
 10,168,780 
 
 19,447,588 
 
 5.503,742 
 
 8.779,100 
 
 2,807,820 
 
 1826 
 
 25,467,910 
 
 6,935,940 
 
 20,573,258 
 
 12,345,322 
 
 2,459,510 
 
 2.974,240 
 
 1827 
 
 21,890,610 
 
 8,801,660 
 
 18,685,015 
 
 4,844,515 
 
 10,159,020 
 
 2.996.280 
 
 1828 
 
 21,980,710 
 
 9.198,140 
 
 19,818,777 
 
 3,762.493 
 
 10,347,290 
 
 2,749,710 
 
 1829 
 
 19,870,850 
 
 9,553,960 
 
 19,736,665 
 
 5.648,085 
 
 6,835.020 
 
 2,794,960 
 
 1830 
 
 20,0:50,730 
 
 10,763,150 
 
 20,038,890 
 
 4,165.500 
 
 9.171.000 
 
 2.561.510 
 
 ia3i 
 
 19,600,140 
 
 11.213,530 
 
 19,927,572 
 
 5,281,408 
 
 8.217,050 
 
 2,612,360 
 
 1832 
 
 18,051,710 
 
 8,937,170 
 
 18,497,448 
 
 5,836,042 
 
 5,293.150 
 
 2.637,760 
 
 An Account of the Aggregate Number of Notes circulated in England and Wales by Private Banks, and by Joint Stock Banks 
 and their Branches, distinguishing Private from Joint Stock Banks. From Returns directed by 3 &4 Will IV. c. 83. 
 
 1*33. 
 1834. 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 Quarters ended 
 
 December 28. - 
 March 29. - 
 June 28. - 
 September 27. - 
 December 28. - 
 March 28. - 
 June 27. - 
 September 26. - 
 December 26. • 
 March 26. - 
 June 25. 
 
 September 24. - 
 December 31. - 
 April 1. 
 July 1. 
 
 September 30. . 
 December 30. 
 
 Private Banks 
 
 8,836,803 
 8,733,400 
 8.875.795 
 8,370.423 
 8,537.655 
 8,231,206 
 8,455,114 
 7,912,587 
 8..334.863 
 8,353,894 
 8.614.132 
 7,764,824 
 7,753,500 
 7,275,784 
 7.187,673 
 6^01 ,996 
 7,043,470 
 
 1,315.301 
 1,458,427 
 1,642,887 
 1,783,689 
 2.122,173 
 2,188,954 
 2,484,687 
 2,508,036 
 2,799,551 
 3.094,025 
 3,588,064 
 3.969,121 
 4.258,197 
 3.755.279 
 3,684,764 
 3,440,053 
 3,826,665 
 
 Total. 
 
 10,11 52.1 04 
 10,191,827 
 
 10.518.6^2 
 10,154,112 
 10.659.82S 
 10,420,160 
 10,939,801 
 10,420,623 
 11,134,414 
 11,447,919 
 12.202,196 
 11,733,945 
 12,011.697 
 11.031,063 
 10,872,437 
 10,1 42,049 
 10,870,135 
 
 the paper rest on an undoubted basis, and be regularly paid 
 the moment it is presented. But this is an error. Where- 
 ever there are numerous issuers, there may be, and the 
 chances are fifty to one there will be, perpetually recur- 
 ring fluctuations in the amount and value of the currency. 
 An over-issue of convertible paper is not, of course, indica- 
 126 
 
 ted by any difference between the value of such paper and 
 gold at home ; but it is indicated by a fall of the exchange, 
 and by an efflux of bullion to other countries. If paper 
 were only issued by the Bank of England, or some one 
 source in London, and then only in exchange for bullion, 
 the currency would be in its most perfect state, and would
 
 BANK. 
 
 fluctuate exactly as it would do were it wholly metallic. 
 Bui at present it is quite otherwise. The currency is sup- 
 plied by hundreds of individuals and associations, all actu- 
 ated by different and frequently conflicting views and inte- 
 rests. Tlie issues of the Bank of England, though not al- 
 ways, are generally governed by the state of the exchange, 
 or rather by the influx and efflux of bullion, increasing 
 when it flows into and decreasing when it flows out of the 
 country. But it is quite otherwise with the provincial 
 bankers. Their issues are not regulated by any such 
 standard, but by the state of credit and prices in the dis- 
 tricts in which they happen to be situated. Iftheir mana- 
 gers suppose that these are good or improving, they rarely 
 hesitate about making additional issues. Hence, when the 
 state of the exchange and the demand on the Bank of Eng- 
 land for bullion show that the currency is redundant, and 
 ought to be contracted, the efforts of the bank to effect its 
 diminution are often impeded, and met by a contrary ac- 
 tion on the part of the country banks. This is not owing 
 to the ignorance of the latter. Under the supposed cir- 
 cumstances, the country bankers see, speaking generally, 
 that they ought also to contract ; but being a very numer- 
 ous body, comprising several hundred establishments scat- 
 tered over all parts of the country, each is impressed with 
 the well founded conviction that all that he could do in the 
 way of contraction would be next to imperceptible ; and no 
 one ever thinks of attempting it. so long as he feels satis- 
 fied of the stability of those with whom he deals. On the 
 contrary, every banker knows, were he to withdraw a 
 portion of his notes, that some of his competitors would 
 most likely embrace the opportunity of filling up the va- 
 cuum so creatrd ; and that consequently he should lose a 
 portion of lu< business, without in any degree lessening 
 the amount of paper afloat. Hence, in nineteen oul of 
 twenty instances, the country banks go on increasing their 
 aggregate issues long after the exchange has been notori- 
 ooslj against the country, and the Bank of England has 
 been striving to pull up. 
 
 The circumstances now stated were strikingly exempli- 
 fied in the course of Kit) and the early part of HIT. The 
 excessive multiplication of joint stock banks in 1836, the 
 great additions they made to the number of notes afloat, 
 and the still gre iter additions 'hey made to the numl 
 bills, checks, and oilier substitutes for money, occasion! I 
 a redundancy of the currency, a fall of the exchange, and 
 a drain upon He' Bank of England for gold, lint while the 
 latter was narrowing her issues, by supplying the exporters 
 of bullion with gold in exchange for notes, the country 
 banks went on Increasing their issues ' What the former 
 diil by contracting on the one hand, the latter more than 
 undid by letting out on the other. The vacuum created by 
 the withdrawal of Hank of England paper was immediate- 
 ly filled up. anl made to overflow by 'he issue of a more 
 than equal amount of provincial paper; so that had ;t not 
 
 been for the rise in the rate of interest, and tl ther re. 
 
 pressive measures adopted by the bank, the probability is 
 thai -lie might have gone on paying away bullion for notes 
 till she was drained of her last sixpence, without in any 
 degree affecting the exchange. But this is not all. Not 
 only do the country banks almost universally increase their 
 issues when thej nugbl lo be diminished, but the moment 
 they are compelled to set about their reduction they run 
 headlong into the opposite extreme, and unreasonable sus- 
 picion takes the place of blind unthinking confidence. 
 The cry of smive qui prut then becomes all but universal. 
 It is seldom that a recoil takes place without destroying 
 more or fewer of the provincial banks; and. provide. 1 the 
 others succeed in securing themselves, little attention is 
 usually paid to the interests of those they have taught to 
 look to them for help, 
 
 We have previously noticed the bankruptcy and distress 
 entailed on the country by the overissue and consequent 
 failure of the country banks in 1M4. 1815, and 1816, and 
 again in 1825-26. The influence of the revulsion in 1792 
 was similar, and equally disastrous; and though, owing to 
 the assistance afforded by the Bank of England, the crisis 
 of 1836 was very much mitigated, it seriously affected the 
 Industry and commerce of the empire, and inflicted ablow 
 upon them both from the effects of which they have not as 
 yet (l-m> recovered. 
 
 Although, therefore, the exacting of security for their 
 payment from the issuers of notes would protect the bidd- 
 ers from loss, and be in so far advantageous, it would not 
 hinder that competition among the issuers that is so very 
 iniurious, nor prevent the supply of paper being at one 
 time in excess and at another deficient. If we would pro- 
 vide for that unity of action on the part of the issuers, anil 
 that equality in the value of money, that are so indispensa- | 
 ble, it must all emanate from one source. Were one body- 
 only entrusted with the issue of notes, it would be able im- 
 mediately to narrow the currency when bullion began to 
 be exported, and to expand it when it began to be im- 
 ported; and it would be easy for the legislature to lay 
 down and enforce such regulations as would effectually ' 
 127 
 
 prevent the fluctuations in the amount and value of the 
 currency ever exceeding those that would take place were 
 it wholly metallic. But nothing of the sort need be ex- 
 pected so long as it is supplied by more than one source. 
 Everything must then be left to' the discretion of the par- 
 ties. And it will certainly happen in time to come, as it 
 has invariably happened in time past, that some of them 
 will be increasing their issues when they should be di- 
 minished, and diminishing them when they should be in- 
 creased ; and that the country will continue to be exposed 
 to the incessant recurrence of the most destructive revul- 
 sions. 
 
 Scotch Banks. — The act of 1708, preventing more than 
 six individuals from entering into partnership for carrying 
 on the business of banking, did not extend to Scotland. In 
 consequence of this exemption, several banking companies, 
 with numerous bodies of partners, have always existed in 
 that part of the empire. The Bank of Scotland was es- 
 tablished by act of parliament in 1695. By the terms of 
 its charter it enjoyed, for twenty -one years, the exclusive 
 privilege of issuing notes in Scotland. Its original capital 
 was only £100,000; but it was increased to 200.000 in 
 17 14, and now amounts to 1,500,000, of which 1,000,000 
 has been paid up. 
 
 The Royal Bank of Scotland was established in 1727. 
 Its original capital was £151.000; at present it amounts to 
 2,000.000, which has been all paid up. 
 
 The British Linen Company was incorporated in 1746, 
 for the purpose, as its name implies, of undertaking the 
 manufacture of linen. But the views in which it originated 
 were speedily abandoned, and it became a banking com- 
 pany only. Its paid up capital amounts to £500,000. 
 
 Exclusively of the above, there are two other chartered 
 banks in Scotland: the Commercial Hank, established in 
 1810; and the National Bank of Scotland, established in 
 1825. The former has paid up capital of £600,000, and the 
 latter of 500,000. 
 
 None of the other banking companies established in 
 md are chartered associations ; and the partners are 
 jointly and individually liable to the whole extent of their 
 fortunes for the debts of the firms. Some of them, as the 
 Aberdeen Town and Country Hank, the Dundee Commer- 
 cial Bank, the Perth Banking Company, &C, have very 
 numerous bodies of partners. Generally speaking, they 
 have been eminent]] An original share, £150, 
 
 of the stock ot tie \ Banking Company, estab- 
 
 lished in 1767, is now (1833) worth no less than £2,500. 
 Their affairs are uniformly conducted by a board of direc- 
 isen by the shareholders 
 
 There are very few banks with less than six partners in 
 Scotland. Almost all the great joint stock banks have nu- 
 merous branches ; so that there is hardly a town or village 
 of any consequence without two or more banks. 
 
 The Bank of Scotland began to issue one-pound notes 
 as early as 1704, and their issue has since been continued 
 without interruption. With only one exception, all the 
 Scotch banks issue notes ; and taking their aggregate circu- 
 lation at tr in £3,500.000 to 4.(»m.i««i, it is supposed that 
 from £2,000,000 to 2.5" u»» i consists of notes for £1. In 
 1826 it was proposed to suppress one-pound notes in Scot- 
 land as well as in England ; but the measure having been 
 strongly objected to by the people of Scotland, as being at 
 p pressive and unnecessary, was abandoned. 
 
 There have been very few bankruptcies among the 
 Scotch banks. This superior stability is to be ascribed 
 to a variety of causes; partly to the great wealth of the 
 early established banks, which had a considerable influence 
 in preventing an inferior class of banks acquiring any 
 hold on the public confidence ; partly to the compara- 
 tively little risk attending the business of banking in 
 Scotland : partly to the facilities afforded by the Scotch 
 law for attaching a debtor's property, whether it consist of 
 land or moveables; and partly and principally, perhaps, 
 to the fact of the Scotch banks being but indirectly and 
 slightly affected by a depression of the exchange and an 
 efflux of bullion. 
 
 The circumstances now mentioned render it unneces- 
 sary to enforce that suppression of local issues in Scot- 
 land which is so indispensable in England, where the sys- 
 tem of provincial banking is of a very inferior description, 
 the risk attending the business much greater, and where 
 any excess in the amount of the currency necessarily oc- 
 casions a fall of the exchange and a demand for bullion. 
 The commerce and population of Scotland are too limited, 
 and that country is too remote from the metropolis, or 
 from the centre of the moneyed world, the pivot on which 
 the exchanges turn, to make it of importance that her 
 currency should be identical with that of England. We 
 believe that the Scotch attach much more importance than 
 it deserves to the issue of paper, and especially to the issue 
 of one-pound notes ; still, however, we do not think that 
 the circumstances are at present such as to call for or to 
 warrant any attempt to introduce any material changes in 
 their banking system.
 
 BANK FOR SAVINGS. 
 
 All the Scotch banks receive deposits, even of the low 
 amount of £10, and allow interest on them at from one to 
 two per cent, below the market rate. But should a deposit 
 be unusually large, as from £5,000 lo 10,000, a special 
 agreement is usually made with regard to it. This part of 
 the system has been particularly advantageous. It, in 
 fact, renders the Scotch banks a sort of savings' banks 
 for all classes ; and their readily receiving all sorts of de- 
 posits at a reasonable rate of interest, has tended to dif- 
 fuse a spirit of economy and parsimony among the people 
 that would not otherwise have existed. The total deposits 
 in the hands of the Scotch banks are believed at present 
 (1838) to exceed £25,000,000, of which fully a half is un- 
 derstood to be in sums of from .£10 to 200. 
 
 The Scotch banks make advances in the way of dis- 
 counts and loans, and on what are called cash-credits or 
 cash-accounts. By the latter are meant credits given by 
 the banks for specified sums to individuals, each of whom 
 gives a bond for the sum in his account, with two or more 
 individuals as sureties for its payment. Persons having 
 such accounts draw upon them for whatever sums within 
 their amount they have occasion for, repaying these 
 advances as they find opportunity, but generally within 
 short periods. Interest is charged only on the average 
 balance which may be found due to the bank. The total 
 number of these accounts in Scotland in 1826 was esti- 
 mated at about 12,000 ; and it may now, perhaps, be taken 
 at about 14.000. They are believed to average about 
 .£500 ; few are for less than 100, and fewer still above 
 5,000. 
 
 It has been contended by no less an authority than Adam 
 Smith, that this species of accommodation gives the 
 Scotch merchants and traders a double command of capi- 
 tal. " They may discount their bills of exchange," says 
 he, "as easily as the English merchants, and have, be- 
 sides, the additional conveniency of their cash accounts." 
 But this is an obvious error. The circulation will take off 
 only a certain quantity of paper ; and to whatever ex- 
 tent it may be issued by means of cash accounts, so much 
 the less can be issued in the way of discounts. The ad- 
 vantage of a cash account does not really consist in its 
 enabling a banker to enlarge his advances to his customers, 
 but in the extreme facility it affords of making them. An 
 individual who has obtained such an account may operate 
 upon it at any time he pleases, and by drafts for any 
 amount; an advantage he could not enjoy to any thing like 
 the same extent, without an infinite deal of trouble and 
 expense, were the loans and advances made to him through 
 the discounting of bills. The Scotch banks draw upon 
 London at twenty days' date. This is denominated the 
 par of exchange between London and Edinburgh. 
 
 Irish Batiks. — The Bank of Ireland was established in 
 1783, and the same restriction as to the number of partners 
 in other banks that formerly prevailed in England was 
 enacted in its favour. Owing to that and other causes the 
 bankruptcies of private banks have been more frecpient in 
 Ireland than in England. In 1821 this restriction was re- 
 pealed, as respects all parts of the country more than 50 
 Irish miles from Dublin. Since that period several bank- 
 ing companies, with large bodies of partners, have been 
 set on foot in different parts of the country : of these the 
 Provincial Bank, founded on the Scotch model, is among 
 the most flourishing. The charter of the Bank of Ireland 
 expired in 1838 ; but it will continue to go on till it receive 
 notice to that effect. The Irish as well as the Scotch banks 
 issue notes for £1. 
 
 For accounts as to Foreign Banks, see the art. " Paper 
 Money and Banks," in the new ed. of the Encyclopedia 
 Brittaniciu, and the authorities there referred to. Also, 
 Hardcastle's Banks and Ba?ikers, 8vo., London, 1842. 
 
 BANK FOR SAVINGS. A bank established for the re- 
 ceipt of small sums deposited by the poorer class of per- 
 sons, and for their accumulation at compound interest. 
 
 Though not so well calculated as friendly societies to 
 enable the labouring classes to provide against sickness 
 and old age, savings' banks are very valuable institutions, 
 and are eminently entitled to the' public patronage and 
 support. The want of a safe place of deposit for their 
 savings, where they would yield them a reasonable in- 
 terest, and whence they could withdraw them at plea- 
 sure, has formed one of the most serious obstacles to the 
 formation of a habit of accumulation among labourers. 
 Public banks do not generally receive a less deposit than 
 £10; and there are but very few amongst the labouring 
 classes who find themselves suddenly masters of so large 
 a sum ; while, to accumulate so much by the weekly or 
 monthly saving of a few shillings, appears at first view 
 almost a hopeless task ; and should an individual have 
 the resolution to attempt it, the temptation to break in 
 upon his little stock at every call of necessity might be 
 too strong to resist. At all events, the progressive ad- 
 dition of interest is lost during the period of accumulation; 
 and it even frequently happens that the chest of the 
 servant or labourer is not safe from the depredations of 
 12S 
 
 BANKRUPTCY. 
 
 the dishonest; while the very feeling of insecurity which 
 such a circumstance inspires must operate as a fatal 
 check to habits of saving. A similar effect results from 
 the instances that have often occurred, where those poor 
 persons who had, in despite of every discouragement, 
 accumulated a little capital, have been tempted, by the 
 offer of a high rate of interest, to lend it to persons of 
 doubtful characters and desperate fortunes, whose bank- 
 ruptcy has involved them in irremediable ruin. It is 
 plain, therefore, that nothing could be more advantageous 
 with a view to the formation of those improved habits that 
 must necessarily result from the diffusion of a spirit of 
 frugality and forethought among the poor, than the institu- 
 tion of savings' banks, or places of safe, convenient, and 
 advantageous deposit for their smallest savings. They are 
 no longer tempted, from the want of facility of invest- 
 ment, to waste what little they can save from their expen- 
 diture in frivolous or idle gratifications. They now feel 
 assured that their savings, and the interest accumulated 
 upon them, will be faithfully preserved to meet their future 
 wants ; and as there are very few who are insensible of the 
 blessings of independence, there is no reason to suppose 
 that they will be slow to avail themselves of the means of 
 accumulation now in their power. 
 
 All moneys paid into any savings' bank established ac 
 cording to the provisions of the act 9 Geo. 4. c. 92., are 
 ordered to be paid into the banks of England and Ireland, 
 and vested in bank annuities or exchequer bills. The 
 interest payable to depositors is not to exceed 2%d. per 
 cent, per diem., or 3/. 8s. 5&d. per cent, per annum. No 
 depositor can contribute more than £30, exclusive of com 
 pound interest, to a savings' bank in anyone year; and 
 the total deposits to be received from any one individual 
 are not to exceed £150; and whenever the deposits, and 
 compound interest accruing upon them, standing in the 
 name of any one individual, shall amount to £i.00, no 
 farther interest shall be paid upon such deposit. The 
 number of depositors in savinss' banks, in England. Wales, 
 and Ireland, on the 20th of November, 1834, amounted to 
 499.207, and the deposits to £15,369,844, giving an average 
 deposit of 30/. 16s. to each. As far as we are aware, no 
 return of the Scotch savings' banks has been published. 
 
 BA'NKRUPTCY, in Law, is a peculiar condition, with 
 reference to legal liabilities and disabilities, into which 
 certain classes of persons only are liable to fall. The word 
 is said to be of Italian origin, and derived from the cere- 
 mony usual in some towns in the middle ages of breaking 
 the bench or counter (bancus) occupied in the public ex- 
 change by the merchant. 
 
 The statutes respecting bankruptcy begin at the 34 
 H. 8., and end with those of the 6 G. 4. and 1 W. 4., in 
 which the principles of the law on this head are now con- 
 tained. 
 
 All persons engaged in trade, if in other respects capable 
 of making valid contracts, are liable to be made bank- 
 rupts. The proof of trading is, buying and selling with a 
 view to profit by dealing generally with the public ; and it 
 is a question of fact for the decision of a jury, whether a 
 party be a trader or no. Acts of bankruptcy are of two 
 sorts. 1. Such as tend to defraud or delay creditors. 
 Such as departing from the realm under suspicious cir- 
 cumstances ; keeping house ; making a fraudulent con- 
 veyance, gift, or delivery of goods and chattels (in which 
 all conveyances without a consideration, or voluntary con- 
 veyances, are included, and also conveyances or gifts to 
 creditors with a fraudulent preference). 2. Such as are 
 evidence of insolvency : as, for instance, a declaration of 
 insolvency in the Gazette, a petition of insolvency in the 
 Insolvent Debtors' Court, lying in prison twenty-one days 
 after being arrested for a bond Jide debt, or compounding 
 under certain circumstances with a petitioning creditor. 
 An assignment of the whole of a trader's effects for the 
 benefit of his creditors is also an act of bankruptcy, on 
 which a commission may be supported either imme- 
 diately, or, under certain circumstances, within six months 
 after such assignment has been made. An act of bank- 
 ruptcy, concerted between a trader and his creditor with 
 fraudulent views, is a contempt of court, and also an in- 
 dictable offence. 
 
 When an act of bankruptcy has been committed by a 
 trader, a commission, or, as it is now termed, ajiat in the 
 nature of a commission, may be sued out (with certain 
 exceptions) immediately, by a creditor or creditors to a 
 stated amount : such creditor is then termed a petitioning 
 creditor. The bankruptcy will then be held to have com- 
 menced at the time when the act of bankruptcy on which 
 the petition is supported was committed. The striking 
 what is termed a docket in the bankrupt office gives priori- 
 ty of petitioning to a creditor. The fiat when issued is 
 opened, and the circumstances necessary to constitute a 
 bankruptcy proved before a commissioner of bankrupts. 
 There are six commissioners, nominated according to the 
 act of the 1st year of W. 4. ; and of these three together 
 form a subdivision court for the purpose of acting in con
 
 BANKSIA. 
 
 cert on questions of difficulty. The assignees of the estate 
 and effects of the bankrupt are then chosen by the credi- 
 tor.-' among themselves ; and to these, in conjunction with 
 an official assignee appointed by the court, the whole pro- 
 perty of the bankrupt is assigned by adjudication. From 
 the decision of a commissioner or subdivision court there 
 is an appeal to the court of review in bankruptcy, instituted 
 by the same art ; and from thence to the lord chancellor, 
 and finally to the House of Lords. The jurisdiction in 
 bankruptcy is both legal and equitable. 
 
 By the assignment^ the whole property, real and per- 
 sonal, of the bankrupt, is vested in the assignees from the 
 period of the act of bankruptcy, to the avoidance of all 
 the bankrupt's subsequent transactions, except such as 
 liave been performed bona fide with parties having no 
 notice of such act ; the notice being understood according 
 to ordinary rules in equity. Besides the bankrupt's own 
 properly, such property of third parties as shall have been 
 in his use and disposition, or reputed ownership, by per- 
 mission of the true owner, passes to Ids assignees. Die 
 bankrupt's right of action of contract, andoftort to pro- 
 
 Serty, but not personal torts, pass likewise to his assi. 
 utaci him, except for the recovery of specific 
 
 real property, do not lie against the assignees, the amount 
 claimed being proveable as a debt under the commission ; 
 unless in some c.is.-s. where the right of action lias ac- 
 crued subsequently to the appointment of the assignees. 
 The debts which maybe proved by en 
 bankrupt's estate are either certain or uncertain in their 
 amount : the first class, including such as are either specific 
 sums of money lent or due, or such as are originally un- 
 certain, but capable of being liquidated or reduced to a 
 
 certain amount ; the sec i. such as can only be estim ited 
 
 on general principles of equity. It is the business of the 
 - i the estate '>r the bankrupt, as ascer- 
 nation upon oath and by inspection of 
 his bonks; but mon tnt of the bankrupt's i 
 
 are received by the official assignee alone, and paid by him 
 into the It ink of England in the name of the accountant- 
 general of the Court ol I 
 
 N I oner than four months, nor later than twelve after 
 the issuing of the fiat fun court of re- 
 
 view), a public meeting of creditors is appointed for the 
 purpo t the first dividend of the nel estate after 
 
 certain necessary liabilities have been provided for out of 
 
 it. A second dividend, If i ssary, Is made within 
 
 teen months of the issuing of the nal : after which a third 
 or more may follow, according to circumstances. A bank- 
 rupt refusing to surrend i i fall dis- 
 covery respecting it. is liable to transportation for life. 
 
 While the pro dings are going on, he is entitled to m tin- 
 
 tenance out of his estate. The certificate "f conformity 
 is a testimony given to the bankrupt of his having, 
 his bankruptcy, complied with the requisitions of the law: 
 it cannot, however, be obtained without the consent of a 
 certain proportion of the creditors; and it is open for any 
 creditor certain of misconduct on the part of the bank- 
 rupt, subsequent or even previous to the bankruptcy, to 
 ie the granting of this certificate. The effect of the 
 certificate, besides entitling the bankrupt to an allowance, 
 wlore a dividend of 10s. in the pound or upwards has 
 paid to the creditors (being a per-centage on his estate, 
 
 limited, a irding to circumstances, so as not to exceeuj in 
 
 any case £600 per annum), is to discharge his person and 
 future estate from all claims and debts which might have 
 been proved under the bankruptcy. But in case of a 
 second bankruptcy, or a bankruptcy after discharge under 
 the Insolvent Act or composition with creditors, unless 
 15s. in the pound has been paid, the effect of the certificate 
 is only to discharge the person 
 
 BA'NKSIA. (In honour of Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., 
 the great patron of natural history, and one of the com- 
 panions of Captain Cook in his second voyage.) A genus 
 of Proteaceous plants forming a conspicuous feature in the 
 landscape of Australia, where the species are called by the 
 colonists wild honeysuckle, and reckoned a sign of bad 
 land. They have flowers and fruit growing in close hard 
 downy or woolly cones, and hard broad leaves on branches 
 so close and rigid that the traveller, it is said, may literally 
 walk without inconvenience upon the top of a wood form- 
 ed of these trees. 
 
 BA'M.IEUE. (Fr.) The territory without the walls, 
 but comprised within the legal limits of a city or town. 
 The word is evidently derived from Ban (bannus, <fcc), but 
 the immediate origin is unknown. 
 
 BAXN. A proclamation commanding or forbidding 
 any thing. Hence the public notices of marriage given in 
 church, derived from the civil law, are called Banns of 
 Marriage. According to the law of England, the banns 
 must be published three successive Sundays ; and if the 
 marriage be not performed within three months from the 
 last publication, the same process must be repeated. 
 Bishops have the power of appointing surrogates, who may 
 grant a faculty or licence to parties applying to be mar- 
 129 
 
 BAPHOMET. 
 
 ried without banns. But this licence may only be given 
 under certain conditions, and upon good caution and se- 
 curity taken, such as to supersede the necessity of public 
 proclamation. 
 
 BA'NNER. (Swed. baner; Fr. banniere.) A flag or 
 standard under which men are united or bound for some 
 common purpose. This word, found in all the modern 
 languages of Western Europe, is of very doubtful origin ; 
 it is a word of which our ancient English authors were 
 lingly fond, and to which they invariably attach the 
 same m< ring (Chaucer, the Knight's T4ile,v, 978; i8Sr 
 Thomas to - II r£s, 207; Drayton, Battle of AgincourL; 
 to Sir II MacJcteorth, &c.) Among the ancient 
 Germans, the honour of bearing a banner was conferred 
 by the emperor on that individual who could bring ten 
 vassals into the field. In later times, petty princes assum- 
 ed this privilege ; and in the year 1424 Pope Eugene IV. 
 created Count Sforza banneret (bannerherni) of the Ro- 
 man empire. In the free towns on the Continent, the 
 banner was always carried by the chief magistrate ex offi- 
 cio, in cases of solemnities or of grand processions, In 
 i ; i. a kuiL'ht banneret was created by the ceremony 
 
 of cutting off the four corners of his standard and making 
 it square. Some antiquarians trace the origin of this cus- 
 tom to Conan, the lieutenant of Maximus, who governed 
 Britain in the year. 383 (Gwillim B >nn); 
 
 while Others maintain it took its rise from the Black Prince 
 on the field of Cressy. A wonderful similarity seems to 
 exist between the duties and privileges of the old knights 
 bannerets of England and those of the priminili (the stan- 
 dard bearers) among the Romans. (Toe. fiittor. iii. 22.) 
 Several banners are famous in history : such as the Danish 
 banner, taken from the Danes by Alfred the Great; and 
 the oriflamme of the French, which, after passing through 
 various hands, became eventually the great standard of 
 Prance. (Lanzelot, Memm 1 lions.') 
 
 B.vNNKH. The ordnance flag, fixed on the forepart of 
 the drum-major's kettle-drum carriage, formerly used by 
 the royal artillery. At present, when such a ll ig is carried 
 it is affixed to the carriage of the right hand gun of the 
 park — generally a twelve pounder. 
 
 In the hors [uipage the hum. it of the drums and 
 
 trumpets must be or the colour of the facings of the re- 
 giment : it heirs the royal cypher and crown, and the rank 
 of the regiment. 
 
 BA'NNERET. A knight who in the feudal times pos- 
 sessed a certain amount of fiefs, and had the right of car 
 rying a "banner." This honour was also very generally 
 adopted among European nations, and was awarded on 
 the field oi bal had there distinguished them- 
 
 selves. Knights bannerets were considered, in England, 
 next to barons in precedence. The dignity has not been 
 conferred for a long period. The banner of a banneret 
 was oblong, thai of a baron square. When a knight 
 i was made banneret on the field of battle, the 
 uy was performed by cutting off the ends or tails 
 pennon, and thus converting it into a banner. See 
 Knight. 
 
 BA'NYAN. A kind of Indian fig, the Ficvs indicaof 
 I is, forming a very large tree, which sends down 
 
 roots from its branches, and those roots striking into the 
 ground themselves become trunks, which serve as props 
 to the extending branches ; and as the tree is very long- 
 lived, the quantity of ground an individual will thus cover 
 is incredible. Dr. Roxburgh says, he has seen the tree 
 100 feet high, and full 500 yards in circumference round 
 the extremities of the branches. It is found wild in the 
 skirts of the Circar mountains ; its leaves are used by the 
 Brahmins as plates to eat off; a species of birdlime is 
 obtained from its juice, and the fruit is eaten by birds. 
 
 BAOBAB. The African name of Adansonia digitata^ 
 a tree inhabiting the western side of Africa, and cultivated 
 in Egypt and Abyssinia. It increases more in proportion 
 in diameter than in height; so that it may be seen with a 
 trunk 10 yards in thickness and only 73 feet high, its ap- 
 pearance being lumpish and inelegant. It is supposed 
 that the most remarkable cases of longevity in the vege- 
 table kingdom are afforded by this tree. Adanson is 
 quoted by De Candolle as asserting that he saw individuals 
 which must have been 6000 years old; and other travel- 
 lers declare that however ancient the individuals may be, 
 the bark is always green and shining, and so full of life 
 that an abundant discharge takes place at the least wound. . 
 
 It is probable that the data upon which these calculations 
 are made will not bear strict investigation ; nevertheless, 
 there can be no reasonable doubt of the Baobab trees ar- 
 riving at a most unusual age. The leaves are employed in 
 powder as an ingredient in African cookery ; and the fruit 
 has a subacid juice, which makes it valuable in fevers. 
 
 BA'PHOMET. The imaginary idol, or rather symbol, 
 which the Templars were accused of employing in their 
 mysterious rites. (See Templars.) The distinguished 
 orientalist Hammer has published a dissertation on this 
 subject, in which he endeavours to revive the ancient ac» 
 R
 
 BALSAM OP SULPHUR. 
 
 cusations against that military order. These images, which 
 he calls Baphomet, are to be found in some of the muse- 
 ums of continental cities ; they are small human figures 
 with two heads, and covered with emblems, to which 
 Hammer attaches a very horrible signification. He de- 
 rives the name (very improbably) from the Greek words 
 0a<pri, dipping or baptism, and /xx/rij, counsel or wisdom : 
 as if they represented the admission of the initiated to the 
 secret mysteries of the sect. It is proper to observe, that 
 other writers have treated all this discovery as a mere fan- 
 cy of the learned orientalist, and maintain that the figures 
 which he terms Baphomets are in reality relics of the art 
 magic : while the word itself is supposed to be a corrup- 
 tion (arising from the negligence of some transcriber) of 
 the name Mahomet, occurring in the depositions of wit- 
 nesses against those unfortunate knights. 
 
 BA'PTISM. (Gr. fianroj, I dip.) The rite of initiation 
 into the community of Christians, ordained by Christ him- 
 self, when he commissioned his apostles to go and baptize 
 all nations in the name of the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 It is recorded by the Evangelists, that our Saviour him- 
 self received baptism from John ; and the ceremony which 
 the Baptist performed is allowed generally to have been 
 an imitation of a rite in common practice among the Jews, 
 who appear to have admitted proselytes by circumcision 
 and baptism. Lustration, however, by water, as an initi- 
 atory rite, is of great antiquity and general practice, especi- 
 ally in the East; and Christian baptism maybe considered 
 as an adaptation of a form which was generally understood 
 to have a symbolical meaning. Accordingly, it has been 
 recognised by all Christian communities as a sacrament, 
 although they have differed in their explanation of its na- 
 ture and meaning. It is upon this point that the question 
 of the validity of infant baptism principally depends ; the 
 words of Scripture in that particular not being allowed on 
 all hands to be decisive, nor even the practice of the early 
 church universally admitted. Those, therefore, who con- 
 sider baptism to be a symbol of a covenant thereupon en- 
 tered into between God and the person baptized, require 
 the understanding of the person to accompany the act, and 
 reject the notion of sponsors undertaking to promise on the 
 part of infants : the more common notion, however, con- 
 ceives this sacrament to have in itself a regenerative virtue, 
 by which an infant may be received into participation in the. 
 promises made to the church, and be really and truly from 
 that time forth put into the way of salvation. 
 
 Baptism was originally administered by immersion, 
 which act is thought by some to be necessary to the sacra- 
 ment. It is not clear, however, even in the Scripture his- 
 tory, and this ceremony was always adhered to. At pre- 
 sent sprinkling is generally substituted for dipping, at least 
 in northern climates. See Wall's Hist, on Infant Baptism, &c. 
 BA'PTISTERY. (Gr. (tairrigw, I baptize.) In Archi- 
 tecture, a building destined for the purpose of administer- 
 ing the rite of baptism. Some authors have contended that 
 the baptistery was anciently placed in the interior vesti- 
 bules of the early churches, as are in our days baptismal 
 fonts. But this is not so : the baptistery was entirely sepa- 
 rated from the basilica, and even placed at some distance 
 from it. Up to the end of the sixth century, after which 
 period the interior vestibule of the church received it, the 
 baptistery was distinct from the church ; and excepting in 
 a few churches, such as that at Florence, and those of all 
 the episcopal cities of Tuscany, Ravenna, and San Giovan- 
 ni Laterano, and perhaps of a few other places, the prac- 
 tice was general. The last mentioned is perhaps the most 
 ancient remaining. One at Constantinople was so large 
 that, on one occasion it held a very numerous council. 
 The baptistery of Florence is nearly 90 feet in diameter, 
 octagonal, and covered with a dome. The celebrated 
 bronze gates by Lorenzo Ghiberi, which Buonarroti said 
 were fit to be the gates of Paradise, enclose it. The bap- 
 tistery at Pisa, designed by Diotisalvi, was finished about 
 1160. It is octagonal, about 129 feet in diameter, and 179 
 feet high. We are not aware of any building of this sort 
 having been erected in England. 
 
 BA'PTISTS. A denomination of Christians, who deny 
 the validity of infant baptism, and maintain the necessity 
 of immersion. These were also the principal tenets of the 
 Anabaptists, or Rebaptizers, with whom, however, the 
 modern Baptists ought not to be confounded. They are 
 subdivided into two classes, the Particular (Calvinist) and 
 the General (Arminian) Baptists. The mode of church 
 government is similar with both, acknowledging three or- 
 ders of ministers ; of whom the messengers correspond to 
 bishops, the elders to priests, and ministering brethren to 
 deacons. Their churches are congregational, and in re- 
 spect to the election of their own ministers independent. 
 Each denomination has, however, its general assembly, 
 possessing some kind of authority over the whole commu- 
 nity. The Baptists are numerous in Holland, where they 
 are known by the title of Mennonites ; and in England they 
 form one of the principal Dissenting bodies. 
 130 
 
 BARBER. 
 
 BAR. A shoal often found lying across the mouth of 
 rivers, and also of harbours ; thence called bar harbours. 
 As the sea breaks on these places, in bad weather the pas- 
 sage of a bar is generally dangerous. See Brooks on Rivers. 
 
 Bar, Confederation op. In Politics, was an associa- 
 tion of a few influential Polish nobles, formed at Bar, a 
 small town of Podolia, in the year 1767, for the purpose of 
 freeing their country from foreign influence. Their ef- 
 forts, however, were eminently unsuccessful : the small 
 bands of the patriots were annihilated one by one, and 
 their defeat gave rise to an event almost unprecedented in 
 history,— the partition of Poland by the three neighbouring 
 powers. 
 
 Bar. The bar or place in the courts of law where bar- 
 risters or advocates plead : also where prisoners accused 
 of felony are stationed for arraignment and trial. 
 
 Bar. In Heraldry, a kind of ordinary, resembling the 
 fess, but containing only the fifth part of the field. Where 
 two bars are borne in an escutcheon, they are so arranged 
 that the whole field appears divided into five parts. A 
 field divided by horizontal lines into four, six, eight, ten, or 
 twelve equal parts, with alternate tinctures, is termed har- 
 ry of four, six, eight, <fcc. 
 
 Bar. (Sax. beosgan, to bar.) In Music, a line drawn 
 vertically across the lines of the staff, including a certain 
 quantity or measure of time, varying as the music is either 
 triple or common. 
 
 Bar, Eloquence of the. See Eloquence. 
 
 BA'RBA. (Lat. barba, a beard.) In Mammalogy, sig- 
 nifies the long tuft of hair dependent from the under jaw. 
 In Ornithology, the same term is applied to the setiformor 
 simple feathers, which in some species of birds depend 
 from the skin covering the gullet or crop. In Ichthyology, 
 a kind of spine, with the teeth pointing backwards. 
 
 Barba. A beard ; a term used in Botany to denote any 
 collection of long loose hairs into a tuft or crest, as on the 
 petals of the iris. 
 
 BARBA'DOES LEG. A disease indigenous to Barba- 
 does, in which the limb becomes tumid, hard, and mis- 
 shapen. 
 
 BA'RBARISM. (Gr.) In Rhetoric, an offence against 
 purity of style or language, which consists in employing 
 uncouth or antiquated expressions, or in assigning to terms 
 a different signification from that which usage has con- 
 ferred on them. 
 
 BA'RBASTELLE. A small indigenous bat; Plecotaa 
 barbasteUus, Lisson. 
 
 BA'RBEL. An indigenous fresh- water fish (Cyprinus 
 barbus, Linn.) which takes its name from the processes 
 termed Barbels. 
 
 BA'RBELLATE. (Lat. barba.) When the pappus of 
 composite plants is bearded by short, stiff, straight bristles, 
 as in Centaurea. Barbellulate is used when the rough- 
 ness of the pappus is caused by extremely short points, as 
 in Aster. 
 
 BA'RBELS. Small cylindrical vermiform processes 
 appended to the mouth of certain fishes, and subservient 
 to the sense of touch. 
 
 BA'RBER. (Lat. barba.) A person who makes a trade 
 of shaving and dressing the hair of other people formoney. 
 It would seem that it is only where a state has made con- 
 siderable progress in civilisation that this art begins to 
 flourish. If we believe Varro, for instance (Plin. 7. 56.), it 
 was not until the 454th year of the city that Ticinius Mena 
 first imported barbers into Rome from Sicily. Their shops 
 (Tonstrinee) soon became the resort of fashionable loun- 
 gers and idlers ; and Horace, to indicate the extreme noto- 
 riety of a story, says that it was " omnibus et lippis notum 
 et tonsoribus." Even the poorest citizens, according to 
 the same author, sought refuge from their ennui in making 
 a round of the barbers' shops : — 
 
 That the Romans paid great attention to this department 
 of the toilet, is obvious from the ridicule that was excited 
 against any citizen whose hair bore marks of being cut 
 "inaequali tonsore" (by a bungling barber). 
 
 But besides shaving the beard, to the barbers of the Ro- 
 mans was assigned the delicate task of trimming the nails. 
 Hence Plautus, Aulul. ii. 4. 33.- — " Quin ipsi pridem tonsor 
 ungues dempserat ;" and Tibullus, 1. 9. 11. : — 
 
 Quid ungues 
 Artificis docta subsecuisse manu. 
 
 As early as the time of HippocratPS, some surgical ope- 
 rations were considered as degrading to physicians, and 
 consequently fell to be performed by barbers. In France 
 the council of Tours, in the year 1163, prohibited the cler- 
 gy, who then shared with the Jews the practice of medi- 
 cine in Christian Europe, from performing any bloody ope- 
 ration ; and from that time the barbers remained for some 
 centuries in uninterrupted possession of the practice of 
 surgery. In England also, early in the 16th century, the 
 barbers were incorporated with the surgeons of London
 
 BARBERRY. 
 
 (32 Hen. 8. c. 42.); but at the commencement of last cen- 
 tury, when a new impulse was given to the science of sur- 
 gery by the attainments and ability of many practitioners 
 throughout Europe, the barbers were degraded from their 
 honourable association with surgeons. (IS Geo. 2. c. 15.) 
 In Holland and Germany to this day the barbers are wont 
 to wield 1 1] r- lancet and 'the razor alternately. Nowhere, 
 however, in these countries is the business of haircutling 
 carried on by the barbers, but by a distinct and superior 
 class, the friseurs. The barber's pole has given rise to 
 many speculations and ingenious absurdities. The fact is. 
 that the pole was the distinguishing characteristic of a few 
 only, being a mark of superior skill, and indicated on the 
 part of him who possessed it surgical as well as tonsorial 
 ability. (For some curious remarks on the barbers of 
 Edinburgh, vide Creech's Statistical Account of Edin- 
 burgh) 
 
 BA'RBERRY. See Berberry. 
 
 BA'RBIG'AN. A watch tower for the purpose of descry- 
 ing the enemy : also the outer work or defence of a castle, 
 or the fort at the entrance of a bridge. Apertures in the 
 walls ota fortress for firing through upon the enemy are 
 also called barbicans. Authors have ascribed to this word 
 a French, Italian, Spanish, Saxon, and Arabic origin. 
 
 BA'RBITON. An ancient musical instrument, some- 
 what resembling the lyre. 
 
 BAR'IUTLA. (Lat. barba, a beard.) A finely divided 
 beard-like apex to the peristome of some mosses, as in the 
 genu-; Tortula. 
 
 BA'RCAROLLE. A song sung by the Venetian gondo- 
 liera \ boal song (from t tie Italian barcarola). 
 
 BARDS. The ancienl po els of the Celtic tribes are so 
 termed by the Roman writers. The etymology of the 
 word is uncertain. According to the ancients, they appear j 
 to have been the priests as well as the instructors of these 
 tribes, and regarded with peculiar veneration. Lucan ex- 
 pressly mentions the doctrine of the immortality of the 
 
 soul a • characteristic tenets. After the 
 
 [action of Christianity the importance of the bards In 
 society diminished ; but in Wales, Ireland, and other Cel- 
 tic districts, they continued to be beld in much honour. 
 Tin most ancient compositions of Welsh hards which we 
 pos ) (those of Taliessin, Aneurin, and Lywarch)are 
 supposed to be of the sixth century. 
 
 B IRE POLES. The masts without any sails upon them, 
 the Bhip being al sea. Under ban' poles, In general, implies 
 that the wind La bo high thai no Bail can be exposed to it. 
 
 BA'RGAIN, See Contract. 
 
 BARGE. (Gt. P&pic, a kind of ship.) A general name 
 given to flat-bottomed craft ofa certain size employed on 
 rivers and canals. Also one of the larger boats of a man 
 of war, between 30 and 40 feet long Ba i gene- 
 
 ral term for boats of state or pleasure. 
 
 BARGE BOARDS (Sax wyrgan, to bar.) In Archi- 
 tecture, the inclined projecting I I at the gable 
 of a building, which hide the ends of the horizontal timbers 
 ofarnni, and are frequently carved with trefoils, quatre- 
 foiis. flowers, and other ornaments. 
 
 BARGE COURSE. In Architecture, that part of the 
 tiling of a roof which projects beyond the external face of 
 the gable of a building. 
 
 BARI'LLA. The name given in commerce to the im- 
 pure carbonate of soda, imported from Spain and the Le- 
 vant. It is made by burning certain plants thai grow upon 
 the sea-shore, especially the salsola soda, to ashes, which 
 are fused into grey porous masses. (For an account of 
 the places where it is produced, the quantities shipped 
 from them, and the uses to which it is applied, see M'Cul- 
 loch's Commercial Dictionary.') 
 
 UA'UITONE. (Gr. ffapvs, heavy, and rovos. a tone.) 
 In Music, a high bass, which, in the ancient church music, 
 is written with the F clef on the third line of the staff. By 
 the French it is called basse-taille. 
 
 BA'RIUM. The metallic base of baryta ; it is of a grey 
 colour, more than twice as heavy as water, and is instantly 
 oxidized by air and by water. 
 
 BARK. (Ger. bergen, to corer.) The exterior covering 
 of the trunk of a tree. It is composed of cellular tissue, 
 traversed by woody tissue passing down it longitudinally, 
 and connected with the medullary processes of the wood. 
 It is increased in frees by annual layers formed on its in- 
 ner face, and gradually perishes on the outside as it is dis- 
 tended by the growth of the interior. It seldom, however, 
 shows any very distinct trace of concentric circles, be- 
 cause the latter are continually displaced and disturbed by 
 its distention. Its inner face is named liber. At the com- 
 mencement of the annual growth of a tree, it separates 
 spontaneously from the wood, in order to make room for 
 the new matter forming beneath it. It is the depositary 
 of many of the secretions of plants, and seems to act as a 
 living filler of a curious kind, separating certain secretions 
 from others, and allowing a part only to pass off horizon- 
 tally in the medullary processes on their way to the centre 
 of the tree. Its use is to act as a protector to the wood, 
 131 
 
 BAROMETER. 
 
 and as the channel of the sap in its descent from the 
 leaves. Its fibre is often tenacious, and manufactured into 
 linen or cordage. True bark only exists in Exogens and 
 Gymnosperms ; in Endogens its place is supplied by a 
 cortical integument, which cannot be separated from the 
 subjacent wood without violence. 
 
 Bark, Peruvian. See Cinchona. 
 
 Bark. Originally a general term for a vessel, is now 
 restricted to a particular form of rig ; namely, that of a 
 ship, but having a gaff topsail instead of the square mizen 
 topsail. 
 
 Bark, Use of in Tanning. See Tanning. 
 
 BA'RKING IRONS. Instruments for removing the 
 bark of oak and other trees which is used for tanning. 
 They consist of a blade or knife for cutting the bark, 
 while yet on the trunk, across at regular distances, and 
 of chisels or spatula?, of different lengths and breadths, for 
 separating the bark from the wood. 
 
 BARK STOVE. A glazed structure for tropical plants, 
 in which there is a bed of tanner's bark, or of some other 
 fermentable material, which will produce a moist heat. 
 
 BA'RLEY. (Hordeum, L. ; Triandria monogynia, L. ; 
 Graminese, Juss. : characterised by an imbricated spiked 
 inflorescence, consisting of one-flowered spikelets in twos 
 or threes.) A bread corn of considerable importance. Its 
 native country is unknown, some ascribing it to Tartary, 
 others to Siberia, and a few to Scotland. In Spain and 
 Sicily it produces two crops in the year; but in countries 
 as fir north as Britain it produces only one, and is rather 
 a delicate species of grain. In England it is second in im- 
 portance to wheat. It is a most valuable crop in the rota- 
 tion best adapted to light or turnip soils, which, from that 
 circumstance, are sometimes called barley lands. Where 
 us culture is best understood, as in Norfolk, it is generally 
 preceded by turnips or other green crop. There are two 
 leading species of this grain in cultivation, — the Hordeum 
 m, two rowed or common barley ; and the Hordeum 
 hexastirliun, or six rowed barley. One of the best known 
 varieties of the latter, and the only one in common cultiva- 
 tion in Scotland, is called bear or bigg. It is not now very 
 extensively used as a bread corn; but it is used very ex- 
 tensively in malting, and in the fatting of black cattle, hogs, 
 and poultry. The crops differ widely, according to the 
 land and the season, varying from 28 to 6-1 bushels an 
 acre; but the most usual crop is from 28 to 40 bushels. 
 The common weight of barley is 50 or 51 lbs. per Win- 
 i bushel; but the best Norfolk barley weighs 53 or 
 51 lbs. The price of barley in 1837 was 30s. Ad. a quarter. 
 
 B\'K\ \( l.l'.S. Set ClRBIPEDS. 
 
 BARO'METER (Gr 0apos, uh ight, and pcrpov, mea- 
 sure.) A well-known instrument for measuring the weight 
 
 or pressure of the atmosphere. The invention of the ba- 
 rometer was in some decree owing to an accident. Some 
 workmen employed by the Duke of Florence to prepare a 
 sucking-pump for a deep well, found to their surprise that 
 notwithstanding their utmost care In forming and fitting 
 . es and piston, the water would not rise higher than 
 18 palms, or about 32 English feet. For an explanation of 
 this unexpected difficulty they applied to the illustrious 
 Galileo, then passing the evening of his life at his villa near 
 Arretri ; but the philosopher was not yet prepared with 
 the true answer. In that age the doctrine of a. plenum was 
 an axiom in philosophy; and the ascent of water in the 
 barrel of the pump was universally ascribed to nature's 
 horror of a vacuum, tialileo, either fearing to encounter 
 further persecutions by propounding opinions at variance 
 with the prejudices of the times, or preoccupied by ihe 
 prevailing metaphorical modes of expression, evaded the 
 difficulty by saying that the power of nature to overcome 
 a vacuum was limited, and did not exceed the pressure of 
 a column of water 32 feet in height. That he was himself 
 little satisfied with this explanation, is evident from the 
 circumstance that previously to his death, which happened 
 soon after, in 1642, he earnestly recommended to his pupil 
 Torricelli to undertake the investigation of the subject, 
 which the infirmities of advanced age no longer permitted 
 him to prosecute. Torricelli, suspecting the true cause of 
 the suspension of the water, namely, the weight of the at- 
 mosphere, happily conceived the idea of trying the expe- 
 riment with mercury. He perceived that if the weight of 
 the atmosphere forms a counterpoise to a column of wa- 
 ter of 32 feel, it must also counterpoise a column of mercu- 
 ry of about 28 inches in height, the weight of mercury 
 being about 14 times greater than that of water. Having 
 accordingly procured a glass tube of about 3 feet in length 
 and a quarter of an inch in diameter, hermetically sealed 
 at one end, he filled it with mercury ; and covering the 
 open end with the finger, he immerged it in an open ves- 
 sel containing mercury. On bringing the tube to the ver- 
 tical position, and removing the finger, the mercury in- 
 stantly sunk, leaving a vacuum at the top of the tube, and, 
 after making several oscillations, stood in the tube at the 
 height of about 28 inches above the surface of that in the 
 vessel. On covering the mercury in the vessel with a por-
 
 BAROMETER. 
 
 tion of water, and raising the tube till the lower end came 
 into contact with the water, the mercury all ran out, and 
 the water rushed up to the top of the tube. This experi- 
 ment, called after its author the Torricellian experiment, 
 demonstrated that the mercury was sustained in the tube, 
 and the water in the barrel of the pump, by exactly the 
 same counterpoise, whatever the nature of it might be. 
 Torricelli died shortly after, in the flower of his age, with- 
 out completing his great discovery ; but the fame of his 
 experiment was soon carried into other countries, and the 
 subject engaged the attention of the most eminent philoso- 
 phers ; among others the celebrated Pascal. After a va- 
 riety of ingenious experiments on the subject, all of which 
 tended to establish the pressure of the atmosphere, it at 
 length occurred to Pascal that if the mercurial column was 
 realty supported by atmospheric pressure, it must be 
 affected by the weight of the superincumbent mass of air, 
 and consequently be diminished at considerable elevations. 
 In order to verify this conjecture, he requested his brother- 
 in-law, Perier, to try the experiment on the Puy dc. Dome, 
 a lofty conical mountain in the province of Auvergne, 
 which rises to the height of 500 toises. At the foot of the 
 mountain Perier filled two tubes, and observed the mercu- 
 ry in each to stand at precisely the same height, nearly 28 
 English inches. Leaving one of them under the care of 
 a person to watch its rise or fall, he carried the other to 
 the top of the mountain ; and on repeating the experiment 
 there, the mercury stood at the height of only 247 Eng- 
 lish inches. At two intermediate stations in his descent, 
 the mercury was observed successively to rise, and at the 
 foot of the mountain it stood at exactly the same height in 
 the tube as at first. This experiment was decisive; the 
 result of it was communicated to Pascal at Paris, who, 
 after confirming it by similar observations made succes- 
 sively on the ground, and at the top of a glass-house and 
 the belfry of a church, proposed the barometer as an in- 
 strument for measuring the height of mountains, or the 
 relative altitudes of places above the surface of the earth. 
 The barometer had been but a short time invented be- 
 fore it was observed that the height of the mercurial 
 column is subject to variations connected in some way 
 with the changes of weather. But the variations are con- 
 fined within a limited range, scarcely exceeding 3 inches 
 in all, and often, for many days together, do not exceed a 
 few hundredths of an inch. It therefore was considered 
 desirable to render these minute oscillations more appar- 
 ent by increasing their range ; and accordingly, of the 
 numerous forms which the barometer has received, .or 
 which have been suggested, the greater part have been 
 proposed with a view to this purpose. The most remark- 
 able or useful constructions are the following, the des- 
 criptions of which will be readily understood with the 
 assistance of the diagrams : — 
 
 Fig. 1. is the Cistern Barometer, and is merely the in- 
 verted tube of Torricelli already described. The tube 
 must be about 34 inches long. When placed in the cis- 
 tern, the mercury sinks till the column between the two 
 surfaces m and n just counterbalances the pressure of the 
 air. The space above the mercury, a m, is or ought to be 
 a perfect vacuum, or only filled with the vapour of mer- 
 cury. In this barometer, as the diameter of the cistern is 
 generally very much greater than that of the tube, almost 
 the whole effect of the rise or fall is perceived in the varia- 
 tion of the upper surface at m. For supposing the section 
 of the cistern 20 times greater than that of the tube, and 
 that the height of the column m n surfers a diminution of 
 one inch ; it is evident that, as all the mercury which goes 
 out of the tube passes into the cistern, when it falls at m it 
 must rise at n, but less in proportion as the section of the 
 cistern exceeds that of the tube In the case supposed, 
 therefore, the alteration of the level at m will be 20 times 
 
 greater than at n; that is to say, there willbeafa!lof|-y of an 
 
 inch at m, and a rise of J_ of an inch at n. 
 
 Fig. 2. is the Siphon Barometer, which was also pro- 
 posed by Torricelli, as being more convenient than the 
 former. It is merely a tube hermetically sealed at the 
 132 
 
 upper end, having the lower 1 or open end bent upwards 
 in the form of a siphon. The variations in this are only 
 half asjrreat as in the cistern barometer; for the tube 
 being of the same width throughout, a diminution of the 
 column m n amounting to one inch will be marked by a 
 fall of half an inch at m and a rise of half an inch at n. 
 This inconvenience may, however, be remedied by hav- 
 ing the lower branch blown into a wide bulb ; but as it is 
 very difficult to procure the bulb to be blown into a perfect- 
 ly regular shape, this enlargement of the bulb is found to 
 give rise to inaccuracies. 
 
 Fig. 3. is a barometer suggested by Descartes, and exe- 
 cuted by Huygens, in which the sensibility is greatly in- 
 creased. Two tubes are cemented to the opposite ends of 
 a pretty wide cylinder, b c. The lower tube and a por- 
 tion of the cylinder, c p, are filled with mercury ; above 
 which water or spirit of wine is introduced, reaching to 
 the top of the upper tube, which is hermetically sealed. 
 The vacuum is made, as in the Torricellian barometer, 
 by inverting the compound tube in a basin of mercury. 
 The enlargement of the scale obtained by this construc- 
 tion is found thus : Suppose the horizontal section of the 
 cylinder, b c, to be 10 times that of the tube, and the spe- 
 cific gravity of mercury 14 times that of water. Let x be 
 the fall of the mercury in the cylinder <Ap, corresponding 
 to a fall of one inch of the common Torricellian barome- 
 ter. The descent of the water x inches at p will be mark- 
 ed by a descent of 10 x inches in the tube at m. But the 
 diminution of the height of the column of water must 
 correspond to a diminution of (1— x) inches in the height 
 of the column of mercury of equal weight with the water; 
 therefore, the diminution of the column of water is 14 
 
 (1 — x) inches. Hence 10 x=14 (1 — x), or jr=y\-, and the 
 
 descent of the water at f»=y-§=5^ ; that is to say, when 
 the Torricellian barometer falls one inch, the barometer 
 of Descartes falls 5^- inches. The defect of this construc- 
 tion is, that the air contained in the water escapes into 
 the vacuum above, and destroys the accuracy of the in- 
 strument. 
 
 Fig. 4. is a form proposed by Huygens, to obviate the de- 
 fect of the former. The siphon barometer terminates in 
 two equal cisterns, or enlarged tubes ; that at the open end 
 communicating with a narrow tube containing water. In 
 this case we may neglect the weight of the water between 
 n and p, or consider it as a small addition to the weight of 
 the atmosphere ; the variations at n will be then as much 
 greater than in the common siphon barometer as the hori- 
 zontal section of the cisterns exceeds that of the tube at n. 
 Thus, suppose the section of the cistern 10 times that of 
 the tube ; a variation of atmospheric pressure causing a 
 fall of one inch in the Torricellian barometer will cause 
 the mercury at p in this barometer to rise half an inch, 
 and the water at n to rise 10 times as much, or 5 inches. 
 The defects of this barometer are these : first, as the 
 water descends at n, a portion of it adheres to the sides 
 of the tube, and consequently diminishes the length of the 
 column ; secondly, the volume of the fluid in the reser- 
 voir is considerably affected by the influence of heat and 
 cold ; and, thirdly, the instrument is subject to constant 
 derangement from the evaporation of the water. 
 
 Fig. 5. is the Wheel Barometer, proposed by Hooke. A 
 small weight floats on the surface of the mercury in a 
 siphon barometer, which is very nearly counterpoised by 
 another weight, to, connected with the former by a string 
 passing over a pulley,^. When the mercury rises at n, 
 the weight w descends, and turns the pulley. An index 
 attached to the axle of the pulley shows on a dial the 
 quanlity of revolution. This barometer, though very com- 
 monly met with, is a mere toy; and indicates neither the 
 absolute height of the mercurial column, nor its variations, 
 with sufficient accuracy to be of the slightest use for any 
 philosophical purpose whatever. Even as a weather-glass, 
 it is the worst of all the common forms of the barometer. 
 
 Sir Samuel Moreland proposed to enlarge the scale, by 
 inclining the upper part of the tube so as to form a con- 
 siderable angle with the perpendicular. By this contri- 
 vance the scale is increased in the proportion of radius to 
 the cosine of the angle of inclination ; but the friction on 
 the sides of the tube is greatly increased, and it is very 
 difficult to determine the exact plane of the top of the 
 column which requires to be read off on a vertical scale. 
 This construction is easily conceived without a diagram. 
 
 Fig. 6. is a form proposed by John Bernoulli. The tube 
 terminates in a horizontal branch of considerable length 
 and small diameter : the pressure of air on the column of 
 mercury is exerted horizontally, and by making the vacuum 
 in a cistern at the top. the range becomes very great ; but 
 the mercury moves along the horizontal branch with diffi- 
 culty, and by starts. No reliance can be placed on its in- 
 dications. 
 
 Fig. 7. represents an extremely elegant and ingenious
 
 BAROMETER. 
 
 form of the barometer proposed by Amintons. A conical 
 tube about 4 feet long, closed at the top, is partly filled 
 With mercury, and inverted. The diameter of the tube 
 must be small, scarcely exceeding 3-20ths of an inch at 
 the wide end, and tapering away to about l-10th near the 
 top. The pressure of the atmosphere from beneath pre- 
 vents the mercury from falling out, but it descends in the 
 tube till it comes into such a position that the height of the 
 vertical column forms an exact counterpoise to the atmos- 
 pheric pressure. If the pressure is diminished, the mer- 
 cury sinks a little at n ; but as it there fills a tube of larger 
 diameter, its vertical height undergoes a corresponding 
 diminution. The height of the upper surface at m there- 
 fore marks the absolute height "t the vertical column, sup- 
 posing the tube to taper equally ; but the difficulty, or rather 
 the impossibility, of fulfilling this condition "practically, 
 prevents this kind of barometer from being used. 
 
 We shall notice only one or two other forms of the bar- 
 ometer, proposed With a different view from that of en- 
 larging the scale. Fig. 8. is a modification of the siphon 
 barometer proposed by Gay I.ussac. It differs from the 
 common form in this respect, that, after the tube has been 
 filled, the short branch i- ly closed at the top, 
 
 and the communication with the atmosphere takes place 
 through a small capillary hole drilled laterally throng 
 tube at o, so fine that though it admits the air to pass freely, 
 it prevents the passage of the mercury. The barometer is 
 thus rendered very convenient for carriage; but notwith- 
 standing the promising appears] barometer, it 
 has been found, particularly in travelling, that a portion of 
 air will frequently insinuate itself through the mercury. 
 In order to prevent the possibility of the accident, 
 nioug modification has been made by M Bunten, a Parisian 
 artist. It consists in causing the part ol tin- tube a b to 
 terminate in a very fine point, and to penetrate li 
 depth into the other part');, to which it Is joined at c, in 
 the manner represi nt' 'I 111 fig 9 V W if an air bubble from 
 the end o, which communicates with the atmosphere, 
 should find its way through the bent capillary tube, it will 
 
 long the sides of the bulging part, and instead of pen- 
 etrating to the vacuum at ". will it c, whence it 
 Is easily expelled bj n versing the ban m 
 
 N ol the contrivances which have bei n described for 
 increasing the range of the oscillations have I ei n found to 
 
 succeed well in practice. It is found | ly bet- 
 
 ter to apply minute divisions, than to attempt to enlarge 
 the scale ; accordingly, experimenters now adhen 
 or other of the two ancient forms, the cistern barometer 
 
 and the siphon barometer. The height of the column in 
 the siphon I 
 
 of a moveal ! ' me which su 
 
 the tube : bj i . the si ale is 
 
 or lowered till its zero coincides exactly with the surface 
 ofthe mercury in the lower branch; and with thi 
 lance of a vernier, the height can be read off to the hun- 
 dredth or two-hundredth of an inch with sufficient preci- 
 sion. The scale of the cistern barometer is usually fixed, 
 and the bottom ofthe cistern is raised or lower 
 screw till the surface of the mercury in it coincides with 
 the zero ofthe scale ; but the scale may he mnvi abli 
 its zero brought to coincide with the surface ofthe mercu- 
 ry in the basin, as in the former case. In order to deter- 
 mine when this coincidence takes place, various expe- 
 dients may be had recourse (., The most usual is to place 
 on the surface of the mercury a float carrying a vertical 
 needle, gome point on which answers to a fixed point on 
 the scali . and th< coincidence obtains when the two points 
 are brought into the same level. Another contrii n 
 effect the same purpose wis employed by rerun. 
 
 I French artist An ivory needle is attached to the 
 pointing downwards, and having its point exactly in 
 me level with the zero of the scale. The image of 
 the needle is clearly reflected from the surface ofthe mer- 
 cury in the cistern, and the cistern is raised or lowered till 
 the point ofthe needle and its imag 
 
 In order to construct a good barometer, it is indispensa- 
 bly necessary that the mercury be perfectly free from im- 
 puritii fully purged of air: this is obtained by 
 
 boiling it. The particles of air and moisture which cling 
 obstinately to the sides ofthe tube must also be expelled 
 by heat; the mercury must then be introduced slowly and 
 continuously in a hot state, and while the tube continues 
 hot. Since the time ofDeluc it has been usual to boil the 
 mercury in the tube before inverting it and forming the va- 
 cuum ; but doubts now begin to be entertained among the 
 most skilful makers of the expediency of this very trouble- 
 some process. The mercury is partially oxydated by boil- 
 ing, and a thin crust formed, which keeps the column sus- 
 pended at a greater height, and obstructs the freedom of 
 the motion. It is important that the diameter of the tube 
 be not very small ; for it is found that the mercury moves 
 with more freedom in a tube of considerable width, the os- 
 cillations following the atmospheric changes with more 
 promptitude than in one of smaller dimensions ; besides 
 133 
 
 which, there is less disturbance from capillary attraction. 
 The interior diameter should in every case exceed one 
 fourth of an inch. 
 
 The value of the barometer as a scientific instrument de- 
 pends on the purity ofthe mercury, and the total exclusion 
 of atmospheric air. By proper care in the construction, it 
 is, perhaps, possible to expel every particle of air Irom the 
 mercury and the interior of the tube when the barometer 
 is made ; but it seems doubtful if. by any means whatever, 
 it can be preserved for a considerable length of time in 
 this state. The most carefully constructed barometers are 
 liable to a slow and gradual deterioration by the intrusion 
 of air, which has been supposed to insinuate itself between 
 the metal and the tube, and not through the mercury. To 
 obviate thisi? Professor Daniell conceived the 
 
 ingenious idea of fixing to the open end of the tube of the 
 cistern barometer a substance having a greater affinity than 
 glass for mercury. "I caused,'' says he, "a small thin 
 piece of platinum tube to be made, about the third of an 
 inch in length, and of the diameter of the glass tube ; this 
 was carefully welded to its open end, so that the barometer 
 tube terminated in a ring of platinum. The tube was filled 
 and boiled as usual, and the infiltration of air was complete- 
 ly prevented by the adhesion ofthe mercury both to the 
 interior and exterior surface of the platinum guard. Ihave 
 no doubt that a mere ring of wire welded, or even cement- 
 ed, upon the exterior surface of the glass, which would be 
 a much easier and less expensive operation, would be a 
 sufficient protection, as the slightest line of perfect contact 
 must effectually am e air."— Metei 
 
 / ; Be farther states, that though time 
 
 ■ ,n fully confirm the ifficacy of the platinum guard, 
 I eriments, as far as they have gone, have been com- 
 pletely 
 
 ' ru necessary. — In all barometic observations 
 
 . two essential corrections to be n ade ; 
 
 one for the capillarity or d' ; r< ssii D of the mercory in the 
 
 tube, and the other for temperature. Pure mercury in a 
 
 glass tube always assumes a convex surface. The follow- 
 
 of different diameters, ac- 
 
 • ory of Mr. Ivory. 'Encyc. Brit., art. 
 
 ''(Capillary Ai I 
 
 iam. of Tube, 
 
 De|ireuloD. 
 
 Diam. of Tube. 
 
 Dm • -■■:, 
 Inches. 
 
 
 
 Indus. 
 
 Id 
 
 •14 
 
 ■40 
 
 •0153. 
 
 15 - 
 
 <w;:t. 
 
 ••!.-. 
 
 •0112. 
 
 ■20 - 
 
 581. 
 
 •50 
 
 •0083. 
 
 ■25 
 
 •0-in:. 
 
 •60 
 
 •0044. 
 
 •30 
 
 OS 
 
 
 0023. 
 
 •35 
 
 0211. 
 
 ■80 
 
 
 I s, which must always be applied to cis- 
 tern barometers, show that wide tubes ought to be pre- 
 : . in fact, when the diameter ofthe tube exceeds 
 half an inch, they may be safely omitted. In siphon bar- 
 - having loth branches of the same diameter, the 
 depression is equal at both ends ; const qui ntly the effect 
 I, ind no correction is required. This is a con- 
 siderable advantage; for notwithstanding the most elabo- 
 rate calculations, some uncertainty must always remain 
 with regard • no. t ofthe capillary repulsion. 
 
 The correction for the temperature, which is the most 
 important, depends on the expansion of the mercury, and 
 the expansion of the scale on which the divisions are 
 marked. If we make a = the height ofthe thermometer 
 in dee-. freezing point, x= the fractional part 
 
 lllk which mercury expands tor one degree of heat 
 on Fahrenheit's scale, y= the fractional part of its length 
 by which the scale increases, h = the observed height of 
 the barometer; then the height which would have been 
 observed had the thermometer stood at the freezing point is 
 
 h — ha'x — y). 
 The expansion of mercury in part of its bulk is 0001001. 
 The scale is gi Derail] ol si me mixed metal of which the 
 expansion is not very well ascertained : supposing it to be 
 equal to that of cop] would be 0000096; 
 
 theref sufficiently accurate to neglect the tem- 
 
 perature ofthe scale, and assume that of the mercury to 
 be 0001. Hence the following practical rule for reducing 
 an observed height to the corresponding height at the tem- 
 perature of the freezing point : M Substract the ten-thou- 
 sandth part of the observed altitude for every degree of 
 Fahrenheit above 32." Suppose the thermometer 54° 
 and the barometer 30 inches, the correction will be (54 — 32) 
 X 30 X 0001 = -066, to be subtracted from 30 inches. In 
 order to find the value of this correction a thermometer 
 must be attached to the barometer, and observed at the 
 same time. A table, showing the correction for tempera- 
 ture for everv degree of Fahrenheit from 30° to 90°. and 
 for even- difference of half an inch in the height of the 
 mercury from 28 to 30 5 inches, was constructed by Pro- 
 fessor Schumacher, and is given by Mr. Baily in the Phil. 
 Trans, for 1837, p. 434. 
 
 Cause of the variations of the barometer.— Various the- 
 ories have been proposed to account for those frequent
 
 BAROMETER. 
 
 atmospherical changes which cause the rise and fall of the 
 barometer, but none of them can be regarded as very satis- 
 factory. Whatever tends to increase or diminish the ver- 
 tical pressure will obviously cause the barometer to rise or 
 fall ; but the vertical pressure may be increased either by an 
 influx of winds and the accumulation of air at any place, or 
 by a diminution of the elasticity of the atmosphere. The pre- 
 sence of heat orof moisture augments the elasticity, and con- 
 sequently reduces the weight of the vertical column. During 
 the prevalence of northerly and easterly winds the barome- 
 ter stands high, the elasticity being diminished by the cold. 
 But the real difficulty, Professor Leslie remarks, " consists 
 in explaining why the variations of the barometer should 
 be greater in the high latitudes than between the tropics, 
 and why they should exceed in all cases the quantities 
 which calculation might assign. The only mode, perhaps, 
 of removing the difficulty is to take into consideration the 
 comparative slowness with which any force is propagated 
 through the vast body of the atmosphere. An inequality 
 may continue to accumulate in one spot before the 
 counterbalancing influence of the distant portions of the 
 serial fluid can arrive to modify the result. In the higher 
 latitudes, the narrow circle of air may be considered as in 
 some measure insulated from the expanded ocean of at- 
 mosphere ; and hence, perhaps, the variations of the ba- 
 rometer are concentrated there, and swelled beyond the 
 due proportion." (Encyc. Brit.) 
 
 Uses of the barometer. — The barometer is an instrument 
 of great importance in astronomy, its indications forming 
 an essential element in determining the amount of atmos- 
 pherical refraction. (See Refraction.) It is also, on ac- 
 count of its application to the measurement of altitudes, 
 indispensable in all researches connected with the climate. 
 (See Heights, Measurement of.) The purpose forwhich 
 it is most commonly sought after is to prognosticate the 
 state of the weather. On land this is perhaps the least im- 
 portant of its applications, but the case is widely different 
 at sea. A remarkable instance of its utility to the mariner 
 is given by Dr. Arnott. " The marine barometer has not 
 yet been in general use for many years, and the author was 
 one of a numerous crew who probably owed their preser- 
 vation to its almost miraculous warning. It was in a south- 
 ern latitude; the sun had just set with placid appearance, 
 closing a beautiful afternoon ; and the usual mirth of the 
 evening watch was proceeding, when the captain's order 
 came to prepare with all haste for a storm ; the barometer 
 had begun to fall with appalling rapidity. As yet the oldest 
 sailors had not perceived even a threatening in the sky, 
 and were surprised at the extent and hurry of the prepara- 
 tion ; but the required preparations were not completed, 
 when a more awful hurricane burst upon them than the 
 most experienced had ever braved. Nothing could with- 
 stand it ; the sails, already furled and closely bound to the 
 yards, were riven away in tatters : even the bare yards and 
 masts were in great part disabled, and at one time the whole 
 rigging had nearly fallen by the board. In that awful night, 
 but for the little tube of mercury which had given the 
 warning, neither the strength of the noble ship nor the skill 
 and energies of the commander could have saved one man 
 to tell the tale." {Elements of Nat. Phil. vol. i. p. 353.) 
 
 No certain rules can be laid down for prognosticating the 
 state of the weather from the barometer. The following, 
 taken from the Saturday Magazine, are probably of as ge- 
 neral application as any that can be given. It is always to 
 be remembered that what the barometer actually shows is 
 the present pressure of the atmosphere ; ami that its vari- 
 ations correspond to atmospherical changes which have al- 
 ready taken place, the effects of which may follow their 
 cause at a greater or less interval. 
 
 1. After a continuance of dry weather, if the barometer 
 begins to fall slowly and steadily, rain will certainly ensue ; 
 but if the fine weather has been of long duration, the mer- 
 cury may fall for two or three days before any perceptible 
 change takes place, and the longer time elapses before the 
 rain comes the longer the wet weather is likely to last. 
 
 2. Conversely, if after a great deal of wet weather, with 
 the barometer below its mean height, the mercury begins to 
 rise steadily and slowly, fine weather will come, though two 
 or three wet days may first elapse ; and the fine weather 
 will be more permanent in proportion to the length of time 
 that passes before the perceptible change takes place. 
 
 3. On either of the two foregoing suppositions, if the 
 change immediately ensues on the motion of the. mercury 
 the change will not be permanent. 
 
 4. If the barometer rise slowly and steadily for two days 
 together or more, fine weather will come, though for those 
 two days it may rain incessantly, and the reverse ; but if 
 the barometer rise for two days or more during rain, and 
 then on the appearance of fine weather begins to fall again, 
 that fine weather will be very transient, and vice versa. 
 
 5. A sudden fall of the barometer in the spring or autumn 
 indicates wind ; in the summer, during very hot weather, a 
 thunderstorm may be expected ; in winter, a sudden fall 
 after frost of some continuance indicates a change of wind, 
 
 134 
 
 BARONET. 
 
 with thaw and rain ; but in a continued frost a rise of the 
 mercury indicates approaching snow. 
 
 6. No rapid fluctuations of the barometer are to be inter- 
 preted as indicating either dry or wet weather of any con- 
 tinuance ; it is only the slow, steady, and continued rise 
 or fall that is to be attended to in this respect. 
 
 7. A rise of the mercury late in the autumn, after a long 
 continuance of wet and windy weather, generally indicates 
 a change of wind to the northern quarters, and the approach 
 of frost. 
 
 See also the Phil. Trans., No. 187., for Dr. Halley's Rules. 
 Patrick's Rules, which have long been popularly known, 
 were first published in Harris's Lexicon Technicum, art. 
 " Barometer." 
 
 BA'ROMETZ. The hairy stem of a species of fern or 
 Aspidium, which, from its procumbent position and shaggy 
 surface, looks like a crouching animal ; hence called Scy- 
 thian lamb. 
 
 BA'RON. The lowest but most ancient title of British 
 nobility. The dignity appears to have been originally ter- 
 ritorial. The higher feudatories of England, after the Nor- 
 man conquest, possessed baronies on which a certain num- 
 ber of knights' fees were dependent, and were bound to at- 
 tend the king with a certain retinue of knights. But in pro- 
 cess of time, many of the barons having lost by alienation 
 great part of their lands, the distinction between greater 
 and lesser barons began to arise ; and the former alone con- 
 stituted part of the great council of the sovereign, in their 
 own right, until at some early period (supposed to have 
 been about the reign of Henry III.) the practice of sum- 
 moning individuals to parliament by the king's writ pre- 
 vailed over the former usage. But this subject is involved 
 in great uncertainty. It has, however, been very generally 
 supposed that the dignity of baron, together with the right 
 to sit in parliament, was at an early period annexed in many 
 instances to the possession of certain lands or castles, 
 which have thus been believed to confer baronies by tenure. 
 But Sir Harris Nicolas, in his Introduction to the Peer- 
 age, gives strong reasons to show, in the first place, that it 
 is by no means clear that persons seised of lands per baro- 
 niam were entitled to a summons to parliament in the 
 reign of Edward the First ; and, in the next place, that 
 there is no positive proof of such a tenure having been le- 
 gitimately established at any subsequent period. Baronies 
 by writ were created by the king's writ of summons to par- 
 liament, when addressed to individuals by name. The first 
 thus created were in 49 H. 3.. of which two (Despenserand 
 Roos) exist at the present day. Whether, however, the 
 dignity thus created was originally hereditary, admits of a 
 doubt ; no words to that effect are found in the ancient 
 writs. But, in point of fact, the next heir was summoned 
 by writ, after the decease of his ancestor, in a great ma- 
 jority of instances ; and it has been long settled, that a sum- 
 mons to parliament by the king's writ, addressed to an in- 
 dividual, creates a barony descendible to heirs general. 
 The earliest creation of a barony by letters patent took place 
 in the 11th year of Richard II. (that of Beauchamp of Kid- 
 derminster) ; and therefore when a dignity of earlier cre- 
 ation than that year is claimed, it is presumed to have ori- 
 ginated in a summons by writ, and consequently to be de- 
 scendible to heirs general. On the death of a baron by 
 writ without issue male, but with more daughters than one, 
 the barony falls into abeyance until only one daughter or the 
 sole heir of one daughter survives. The word Baron 
 (baro, or varo, to which some give a Latin and others a 
 German derivation) appears to have simply signified 
 ''man," and in some cases freeman or citizen, in the laws 
 of the Franks and other early nations. In France, the tide 
 of baron originally belonged only to those who were im- 
 mediate vassals of the crown : it afterwards became ap- 
 plied in common usage to those who had the right of exe- 
 cuting justice on their fiefs. The title of baron ranked, as 
 in England, after those of duke, marquis, count, and vis- 
 count ; except in Dauphine and Britanny, where the baron 
 had precedence of the three latter. In Germany the title 
 of Baron (Frayherr) is extremely common ; but a great dis- 
 tinction existed, under the Empire, between the barons who 
 were created by sovereign lords who had no voice in the 
 Diet. 
 
 BA'RONET, KNIGHT BAKONET. The lowest degree, 
 and the barons of the Empire, the former being those imme- 
 diate lords of hereditary dignity in England. This order was 
 instituted by King James I. in 161 1, as a reward forthe services 
 of those who. came forward to quell the insurrection in Ire- 
 land, and especially in the province of IHster ; each person 
 who received it furnishing a supply sufficient to maintain 
 thirty soldiers for three years. The creation isby patent under 
 the great seal, and generally limited to the heirs male of the 
 body of the grantee, although sometimes otherwise entail- 
 ed. Baronets rank amons themselves according to cre- 
 ation, and come next after the younger sons of barons. By 
 a clause in the patent of creation, the heir male apparent to 
 the title can claim the honourof knighthood, on attaining the 
 age of twenty-one, in the life of his father or grandfather.
 
 BARONS OF EXCHEQUER. 
 
 Baronets bear for distinction on their paternal coats the 
 arms of Ulster, in a sinister hand, erect, open, and cooped 
 at the wrist, gules in a field argent. This augmentation is 
 placed sometimes in the middle chief point, sometimes 
 on the fess point, &c. as may be most convenient, but 
 subject to certain rules of heraldry. Baronets of Ireland 
 were instituted by James I. nine years after the creation 
 of baronets in England, with similar privileges and badge. 
 Baronets of Scotland, or Nova Scotia baronets, were 
 created by Charles I. in 1625, in furtherance ofaprojpct 
 of colonization in that part of America. Their badge is 
 the ensign of Nova Scotia. It had long fallen into disuse : 
 but was borne again in 1775, by way of revival of the 
 order. 
 
 BA'RONS OF EXCHEQUER. Certain Judges in Eng 
 land and Scotland, to whom the administration of justice 
 is committed in causes between the sovereign and his sub 
 lating to the revenue. In the former country the; 
 Court of Exchequer takes cognizance of private causes 
 also. See Exchequer. 
 
 BA'RONY. A territorial subdivision in Ireland, which 
 nearly corresponds with the hundred in England. Each 
 barony is supposed to have been originally the district of 
 a native chief. There are in all 252 baronies in Ireland, 
 
 BA'ROSCOPE. (Gr. 0apof. ueight, and oKoxeu). I ob- 
 serve.) A term which has been sometimes given to the 
 barometer. According to its derivation it signifies observer 
 of weight, and is properly applied to instruments which 
 indicate variations in the weight of the atmosphere, with- 
 out giving the means of absolutely measuring it. The 
 wheel barometer of Hooke is properly a baroscope 
 
 BA'RRAS. The resin which exudes from wounds made 
 in the barb of fir trees. 
 
 BA'RRATRY. A name applied by our law an 
 other countries to various offences. In England, a " com- 
 mon barreter" is defined by Lord Coke to be a common 
 mover and maintainer ol suns In disturbance of the pi ace, 
 and in taking and detaining the possession of houses and 
 lands or goods by false inventions. Barratry-in this sense, 
 is an indictable offence at common law. The obtaining 
 benefices at Rome was also an offence of barratry. In 
 maritime insurance, barratry is any act of the Blaster or 
 mariners of a criminal nature, or which is grossly negli- 
 gent, tending to their own benefit, to the prejudice of the 
 owner of the ship, and without bis permission. In Scot- 
 land, the crime ofa judge who receives a bribe for a judg- 
 turn! is called barratry. 
 
 BA'RREL. An English measure of capacity, varying 
 with the nature of the liquid measured. In the old mea- 
 sures, a barrel denoted 31X gallons of wine. 32 gallons of 
 ale, or 36 gallons of beer. By a statute of l W. A; M., the 
 ale and beer barrels were equalized for every part of Eng- 
 land except London, and ordered to contain 34 
 The term Barrel was formerly in use to denote, in a rough 
 
 way, Other sorts of g Is. Tims, a barrel of salmon. 12 
 
 gallons; a barrel Of soap, 256 pounds. In common Ian- 
 oiv hollow cylinder is called a barrel. 
 
 BARREN FLOWERS. Are those which either have 
 stamens and no pistil, or which have neither stamens nor 
 pistil. 
 
 BARRICA/DO. (Fr. barricade.) A defence either by 
 
 oil 1 1 iii i-n t or raised work, made in a hasty manner, by 
 
 barrels filled with earth, heaps of stones piled i 
 
 trunks of trees, or any other materials which would ob- 
 struct the passag ■advance of an opposing force. The 
 
 famous daj of the Barricades at Paris took place on the 
 12tli of May, 1588, when the populace invested the troops 
 of the king, Henry III., in the Louvre, and forced that so- 
 vereign to escape from Paris. The Barricd 
 formed an important feature in the revolution of July, 1830. 
 
 BARRIER. (Fr. barrier.) A piece of wood work 
 erected to defend the entrance of a passage or intrench- 
 ment, with a moveable bar in the centre, which maybe 
 removed at pleasure. It is usually erected between the 
 citadel and town. 
 
 BARRIER TREATY. In 1713, a negotiation concluded 
 between the Dutch and the King of France shortly before 
 the peace of Utrecht, by which the former reserved the 
 right to hold garrisons in "certain fortresses of the Spanish 
 Netherlands 
 
 R.V'KRIS A large baboon of the Guinea coast. 
 
 BARRISTER. An advocate admitted to plead at the 
 bar in the English courts of common law and equity. Bar- 
 risters were anciently styled apprentices at law, until their 
 admission to the degree of sergeant A student intending 
 to be called to the bar must be admitted a member of one 
 of the four Inns of Court (Inner and Middle Temple, Lin- 
 coln's Inn, and Gray's Inn), and reside for a certain time, 
 during three years in some cases and five in others. The 
 disputations or arguments (termed exercises) which were 
 formerly required ofa student have been reduced to mere 
 matters of form. A barrister has no legal mode of reco- 
 vering fees for his services. 
 
 BA'RROWS, or TUMULI, says air. Gough, in his Se- 
 135 
 
 BASE. 
 
 pulchral Monuments, are the most ancient monuments in 
 the world. The sepulchres of the heroes of the war of 
 Troy are still distinguished, if tradition is to be relied upon, 
 by the mounds raised over them. In these ancient bar- 
 rows the base is said to have been generally formed of 
 stones, the upper part consisting of a mound of earth. 
 Barrows are found scattered over the plains of the Ukraine 
 and of Tartary, and in great numbers in the Mississippi 
 valley of North America. The barrows of England are 
 supposed to be almost all of British construction ; although 
 the mounds properly so called are sometimes confounded 
 With those tumuli found in Roman camps, where they 
 serve as land marks, or for some military purpose. Of the 
 antiquaries who have treated of these relics of ancient 
 eras, Dr. Stukely and Sir R. Colt Hoare are the most emi- 
 nent. They have been distinguished, according to pecu- 
 liarities of form and construction, into long barrows, howl, 
 bell, pond, twin, cone, broad, &c. In the most ancient 
 barrows, the bodies found are deposited within a cist or 
 stone receptacle, with the head towards the north : in 
 those of later date, this direction is not observed. The 
 bones which have been discovered within the numerous 
 barrows that have been opened were generally accompa- 
 nied by utensils, weapons. <tc. ; and from the form and 
 finish of these, some conjecture has been made as to the 
 period of the interment. But these barrows, although ge- 
 nerally sepulchral, are not uniformly so : in some, bones 
 of animals only have been found. Barrow burial is said 
 by Sir R. Hoare to have lasted from a period of unknown 
 antiquity down to about the eighth century. Barrows are 
 chiefly found in the chalk districts of Wilts and Dorset- 
 shire. 
 
 BA'RTER. A rule of Arithmetic by which the values 
 of commodities of different kinds are compared. 
 
 BARY'TA. (<ir $apvs, heavy.) The oxide of barium, 
 composed of 70 barium and 8 oxygen. Baryta is common- 
 ly called an alkaline earth. It is of a grey colour, diffi- 
 cultly fusible, and poisonous. It is soluble In about 20 parts 
 of cold water, it forms white salts with the acids, all of 
 which are poisonous except the sulphate. The soluble 
 salts of baryta are excellent tests of the presence of sul- 
 phuric acid, which they indicate in solution by a white 
 precipitate, insoluble in water and in acids, and com 
 of 77 baryta and 10 sulphuric acid; 117 parts, therefore, of 
 pore and dry sulphate of baryta are equivalent to 40 of 
 sulphuric acid. There are only two abundant natural 
 i. rnpounds of baryta : the sulphate, which occurs crystal- 
 line, and the carbonate. Native sulphate of baryta, heavy 
 sjmr, or baroselenite, is found in this country in Cumber- 
 land and Westmoreland; a variety from Derbyshire is 
 provincially called eatek. Nativi '</, or 
 
 barolite, was tir~t discovered at AngleBarh in Lancashire 
 by l'r Withering, and hence called Wifherite. It occurs 
 oel massive. Ii consists of 77 baryta and 22 
 carbonic acid ; us equivalent, therefore, is 99. 
 
 BARYTO-CALCITE. A mineral found at Alston in 
 Cumberland : it occurs both massive and crystallised in 
 oblique rhombic prisms. It contains about 66 per cent, of 
 carbonate of baryta, and 34 of carbonate of lime. 
 
 BA'RYTONE. (Gr. Baouj, grave, and rdvof, tone.) 
 The male voice, the compass of which is between tenor 
 and base. Also a musical instrument similar to the viol di 
 gamba. 
 
 BASA'LT. A common species of trap-rock; it is es- 
 sentially composed of felspar and augite, of a compact 
 texture, and dark green, grey, or black colour. It is often 
 found in regular columns, of which the Giant's Causeway 
 and the bland ol Siarla furnish magnificent examples. 
 
 BASANITE. A variety of silicious slate, sometimes 
 used as a touchstone to determine the purity of gold by the 
 colour of its streak. (From flaoavoi. tit* trier.) 
 
 BA'SCINET. or BA'SINET. A light basin-shaped 
 helmet, worn by the infantry in the reigns of Edward II. 
 and III., and of Richard II. (See Grose on Ancient Ar- 
 mour. ) 
 
 BASE. In Geometry, the lowest side of any figure ; as 
 the base ofa triangle, ofa cone, &c. Any side ofa figure 
 may be taken as its base. 
 
 Base. A chemical term, chiefly applied to metallic 
 oxides, or to the leading constituent of compounds. Thus, 
 soda is called the base of sulphate of soda; and sodium is 
 the metallic base of soda. Hence the distinction into salifi- 
 able and metallic bases. 
 
 Base. In Music (frequently written Bass), the lowest 
 part in a concert, whether vocal or instrumental. By 
 some it is considered the fundamental or most important 
 part ; others regard the melody, or highest part, in that 
 light. 
 
 Base. Plep. See Clef. 
 
 Base, Thorough. See Thorough Bass. 
 
 Base. (Gr. 0ao u, a foundation.) In Architecture, gen- 
 erally a body which bears another. In the orders, it is the 
 lower part of a column, moulded or plain, on which the 
 shaft is placed. In the Grecian Doric the columns are
 
 BASELLA. 
 
 without bases, and stand immediately oa the floor or pave- 
 ment of the portico. The different bases are represented 
 below, including the Attic base. 
 
 Tuscan. Roman Doric. Ionic. Corinthian. Composite. Attic. 
 
 BASE'LLA. (A Malabar word.) A turning succulent- 
 leaved Chenopodiaceous plant, native of the tropical parts 
 of Asia, and commonly cultivated instead of spinach in the 
 East Indies. 
 
 BA'SEMENT. (From Base.) In Architecture, the low- 
 est story of a building. 
 
 BASIGY'MUM. (Gr. 0aois, the base, yvvtj, female.) A 
 stalk rising above the origin of the calyx, and bearinsr an 
 ovary at its apex, as in Capparis. 
 
 BA'SIL. A fragrant aromatic herbaceous plant, the Ocy- 
 mum basiticum, a native of India, whose leaves are much 
 used in cookery for the purpose of giving a savoury flavour 
 to dishes. 
 
 BA'SILIC. (Gr. /3aoi\iK0(, royal.) A pharmaceutical 
 term, formerly applied to certain powders, ointments, &c. 
 of pre-eminent virtues and activity. 
 
 BASI'LICA. (Gr. Paai^evs, king.) In Architecture, 
 properly the palace of a king ; but it afterwards came to 
 signify an apartment which was usually provided in the 
 houses of persons of consequence, where assemblies were 
 held for dispensing justice. The Gordian family in their 
 magnificent country-house in the Via Prenestina had three 
 basilica;, each upwards of a hundred feet long. There was 
 usually a basilica attached to every market for summary 
 settlement of disputes that might arise, and it was sur- 
 rounded by shops and other conveniences for traders. 
 The difference between the Roman and Grecian basilica is 
 described by Vitruvius, to whose work the reader may re- 
 fer. We have in the article Architecture (quod ride) 
 given some account of the rise of the modern basilica for 
 religious uses from the form of the more ancient one. Its 
 form was that of a parallelogram, with a portico at each end, 
 being covered by a roof supported by ranks of columns. 
 Palladio applied the term to those buildings in the cities of 
 Italy somewhat similar in use to our town-halls. 
 
 BASILI'SCUS. A basilisk. The epithet is applied in 
 Zoology to a most harmless genus of saurian reptiles, of the 
 Iguanoid family, having no femoral pores; but with pala- 
 tal teeth ; a covering of small scales ; and an elevated dor- 
 sal crest, supported by the vertebral spines, and extending 
 from the neck to the middle of the tail. One of the species 
 (Basiliscns mitratus) supports a mitre-shaped crest on the 
 head. 
 
 BA'SIN. In Physical Geography, the space of country 
 drained by a particular river; as the Basin of the Thames, 
 Rhine, Rhone, &c. In Geology, depressed portions of 
 strata, forming a hollow surrounded by hills, as the " Lon- 
 don Basin," tlie " Parisian Basin," <fcc. 
 
 BA'SIS. See Base. 
 
 BASI'SOLUTE. (Lat. basis, and solutus,/ree.) A name 
 sometimes applied to those leaves which are prolonged at 
 the base below the point of origin, as in the bracts of Fiona- 
 via. the leaves of Sedum rejlexum, &c. 
 
 BA'SKET. (Lat. bascauda.) In Architecture, part of 
 the Corinthian capital. See Capital. 
 
 I! ASS. ,SW>Base. 
 
 ISASSETTE. (Diminutive of Basso.) In Music, the 
 smallest species of the bass violin. 
 
 BASSOO'N. (Fr. basson.) A musical wind instrument 
 made of wood, serving as the proper bass to the oboe and 
 clarionet. The Italians call it fagotto, because composed 
 of two pieces of wood fagotled as it were together. It is 
 played by means of a bent mouth-piece and reed, and its 
 compass is shown in the synoptical view of the different 
 instruments at the end of the article Music. 
 
 BASSO R1I.IEVO. See Rilievo. 
 
 BASSO'RINE. A modification of gum, originally disco- 
 vered bv Vauquelin in gum bassora. 
 
 BA'STARD. A word of which the etymology is entirely 
 uncertain. By the ancient legal course of precedent in Eng- 
 land, the fact of birth during the marriage of the parents, 
 or within a certain time after the death of the husband (ex- 
 tended in some cases to a great length, as in that of the 
 Countess of Gloucester, temp. E. 2., to one year and seven 
 months), was conclusive in favour of legitimacy. But this 
 fact is now held to amount only to strong presumptive evi- 
 dence, repellable by proof of non-access. The legal inca- 
 pacities of an illegitimate child, by the law of England, re- 
 late wholly to the powers of inheritance and succession, to 
 which he is in no respect entitled either as to real or per- 
 sonal property. In case of a divorce "a vinculo matrimo- 
 nii" in the spiritual court, children born during the mar- 
 riage are bastards by the law of England. The Scottish 
 136 
 
 BATH. 
 
 law 1b less strict in favour of legitimacy than that of Eng- 
 land. Two species of legitimation have been adopted in it 
 from the civil law : one, " per subsequens matrimonium," 
 by the subsequent intermarriage of the parents, (but a child 
 born in Scotland, and legitimated by subsequent intermar- 
 riage in Scotland, is not entitled to succeed to real property 
 in England ; and, if born in England, remains a bastard to 
 all intents and purposes) ; and secondly, " per rescriptum 
 principis," by letters of legitimation from the crown. 
 
 BASTARD STUCCO. In Architecture, plastering of 
 three coats, whereof the first is usually roughing in, or 
 rendering; the second floating, as in trowelled stucco ; and 
 the third or finishing coat contains a small quantity of hair 
 besides the sand. Bastard stucco is not hand-floated, and 
 the trowelling is done with less labour than what is called 
 trowelled stucco. 
 
 BASTARD WING. (Ahda spuria, Linn.) Three or 
 five quill-like feathers, placed at a small joint rising at the 
 middle part of the wing. 
 
 BASTI'LLE. In France, in the middle ages, towers and 
 other outworks erected without the limits of towns were 
 so called. The famous Bastile of Paris was an edifice of 
 the same description, originally erected outside the city, 
 ui'ar the modern Porte Saint Antoine. It was built by 
 Hugues Aubriot, prevot des marchands, in 1369 ; and he is 
 said to have been the first prisoner of state confined in it 
 after it was employed for that purpose. The Bastille was 
 taken by the people of Paris on the 14th of July, 17&9, and 
 demolished. 
 
 BASTINA'DO. (Ital. bastonnala, from bastone, a stick.) 
 An ordinary mode of punishment in oriental countries, es- 
 pecially China, Turkey, and Persia. It is commonly in- 
 flicted upon the soles of the feet. According to the Turk- 
 ish law, slaves and rayalis or tributaries alone are liable to 
 it ; but no such limitation is observed when the temper of 
 a magistrate possessing summary authority is inflamed. 
 This punishment is termed zarb in Turkish. It is ex- 
 tremely severe, although limited by law to the Jewish 
 number of 39 blows, or 75 in some aggravated cases; but 
 this regulation, like the other, is little observed in practice. 
 (See generally, as to this species of infliction in penal law, 
 the essay of Lanjuinais, Sur la Bastomiade et la Flagella- 
 tion penales.) 
 
 BA'STION. A large projecting mass of earth or mason- 
 ry at the angles of a fortified work, anciently called a bul- 
 wark. The modern bastion consists of two flanks, serving 
 for the defence of the adjacent curtains, and two faces, 
 making with each other an angle of 60° or upwards, which 
 command the outworks and the ground before the fortifi- 
 cation. The space between two bastions is called the cur- 
 tain. The use of the bastions is to bring every point at the 
 foot of the rampart as much as possible under the com- 
 mand of the guns, so that on whatever point a besieging 
 army approaches it may be attacked sideways. 
 
 BAT. See Vespertilio, Dermoptera. Cheiroptera. 
 
 BATA'TAS. A species of convolvulaceous plant, Con- 
 volvulus batatas, a native of the East Indies, with fleshy 
 sweet tubers. It is much cultivated for the sake of the lat- 
 ter in all the hotter parts of the world, where they are 
 much esteemed as an article of food. Its name has now 
 been popularly transferred to the potatoe, which has ex- 
 pelled it from cultivation in all temperate climates. 
 
 BATH. (From the Saxon bad.) In Architecture, a 
 place for bathing. Among the ancients, the public baths 
 were of very considerable extent, and consisted of a great 
 number of apartments. These prodigious monuments of 
 Roman magnificence seem to have been borrowed in some 
 respects from the gymnasia of the Greeks, both the one 
 and the other being instituted with a view to the exercise 
 and health of the people. The word thermal, which the 
 Romans called these edifices, signifies a place for the re- 
 ception of hot baths ; hut both hot and cold were generally 
 comprised in the same building. In later times, the Ro- 
 mans used the bath before they took their supper. The 
 rich usually had hot and cold baths in their own houses, 
 and it was not till the time of Augustus that the baths as- 
 sumed an air of grandeur and magnificence. Different 
 authors reckon nearly eight hundred baths in Rome. The 
 most celebrated were those of Agrippa, Antoninus, Cara- 
 calla, Diocletian, Domitian, Nero, and Titus. Those of 
 Diocletian are said to have been capable of accommodating 
 eighteen hundred bathers. The vestiges of these stupen- 
 dous buildings indicate the amazing magnificence of the 
 age in which they were erected. Their pavements were 
 mosaic; the ceilings vaulted, and richly gilt and painted; 
 the walls encrusted with the rarest marbles. Many exam- 
 ples of ancient Greek sculpture have been restored to the 
 world from these edifices. It was from the recesses of 
 these buildings that Raphael took the hint for his decora- 
 tions of the Vatican, and largely from these resources drew 
 the first restorers of the art. 
 
 Bath. In Chemistry, heated sand is often used as a 
 medium for communicating heat, as glass and other ves- 
 sels may be conveniently placed upon or immersed in it:
 
 BATHOS. 
 
 sometimes water is used in the same way ; hence sand 
 bath, water bath, &c. The water bath is called by the old 
 chemists Balneum Maria?, and often abbreviated B. M. 
 
 Bath. Order of the. A British order of knighthood. 
 On the day of his coronation, Henry IV. conferred the 
 dignity of knighthood on forty-six esquires who had watch- 
 ed during the previous night, and bathed themselves, in 
 pursuance of a very ancient custom, derived from the 
 usages of the ancient Franks. It was usual, from this 
 period, to make similar creations of knights on royal coro- 
 nations, espousals, and similar solemnities; but the cus- 
 tom was discontinued after the coronation of Charles II., 
 Until George I., in the eleventh year of his reign, institut- 
 ed the present order of the Bath by letters patent. It con- 
 Bisted, exclusive of the sovereign, of a grandmaster and 
 thirty-six companions ; and was a military order. In 1815, 
 the order was greatly extended (after several intermediate 
 alterations), and is now composed of three classes — mili- 
 tary and civil knights grand crosses, knights commanders, 
 and knights companions,- who do not take the title or pri- 
 vilege of a knight bachelor, but take precedence of es- 
 quires. The badge worn by thi - now a 
 golden cross of eight points, enamelled white, with a lion 
 of England between tie' four principal angles; on the 
 centre a sceptre erect, or. having on the sides a rose, this- 
 tle, and shamrock, engrafted between three imperial crowns 
 proper, encircled with a riband gules; thereon the 
 of the order, "Tria junria in uno." They also wear a 
 silver star. The badge of the knights commanders is the 
 same with that of the knights grand crosses, but smaller ; 
 their cross somewhat different The companions have 
 only the badge without a star. 
 
 BA'THOS. (.Qr.0&6os, depth.) A word invented to sig- 
 nify a ludicrous descent, in rhetoric, from elevated to 
 thoughts ( Sii Climax.) It has been chiefly rendered 
 popular by Pope and arbuthnot'a jeu d'esprit, the " Trea- 
 tise on ilo- Bathos, by IVfartinus Scribli 
 
 It ATI 'III;. K. A small division Of I ill car eons plants con- 
 taining hut ■.in' genus, Batis, after which it is named. It 
 yields soda in great quantity. 
 
 BA'TOLITES. A genus of fossil shells, considered by 
 ( 'ie. o r as hippuj ites, 
 
 BATON, ill i In Music, a term denoting a rcstof four 
 semihi 
 
 Baton is also the start" of a field marshal. 
 
 BA'TONNI'ER. (Mod Lat. bastonarius.) In French, 
 in.' i lected president of an order or fraternity. Tie' baton- 
 trier of the order ol advoi i by the whole body. 
 
 In ancient times be carried in their processions a staff 
 (baton) with the flag "i Saint Nicholas, whence the name. 
 Id i< president of the council of discipline. 
 
 BATRA'CHIANS, BATRACH1A if.'r fiarpaxos, a 
 frog.) An order of Reptilia including the frogs and toads, 
 and all reptiles which, like them, have naked skins and 
 ■ itemal branchiae, in the early stage of existence j those 
 balrachia which retain tie- gills ,,r gill-apertures through- 
 out lib- are called " perennibranchiate," or " amphil 
 
 BA'TRACHOMT'OMA'CHIA. (Gr. 0arpaxopvoiia\ia .) 
 The Battle of the Frogs and Mice, a mock heroic poem 
 Which has come down to ns. and is attributed to Homer; 
 but their is no probability that it was written by the author 
 of tie' Iliad or lyssey. 
 
 BATRACHOSPE R.MA. (Or. (Sdrpaxos, a frn S . and 
 oiripjui. seed ) A name proposed for such ilgaceous genera 
 as are articulated and live in fresh water. 
 
 BATTA'I.ION. A division of the infantry in an army, 
 composed of a variable number of men : at present, in the 
 English service, it is about 750. One battalion generally 
 constitutes a regiment ; hut some, as those of the Guards, 
 consists of two battalions, ami a regiment of artillery of 
 eight. Each battalion is generally divided into ten com- 
 panies ; it is commanded by its own colonel ; and several 
 battalions or regiments are, on service, all united under one 
 general officer, forming a brigade. 
 
 BA'TTARDEAU. (Fr. battre, and eau.) In Architec- 
 ture, the same as Cofferdam, which see. 
 
 BATTEN. (Probably from the French baton, from its 
 slender width.) In Architecture, a name given by workmen 
 , to slips of wood, from two to four inches broad and one 
 ' inch thick ; the length considerable, but undefined. 
 
 BA'TTENED DOWN. Covering the hatchways in very 
 bad weather with strong gratings, and these with painted 
 canvass nailed under long pieces of wood (battens), to keep 
 the water from setting below the decks. 
 
 BA'TTENING. (From batten.) In Architecture, nar- 
 row battens fixed to a wall, to which the laths for the plas- 
 tering are nailed. 
 
 BA'TTER (Probably from battre, Fr.) In Architecture, 
 a term used by artificers to signify that a body does not 
 stand upright, but inclines from you when you stand before 
 it ; when, on the contrary, it leans towards you, they des- 
 cribe its inclination by saying it overhangs. 
 
 BA'TTERING-RAM. An ancient military engine em- 
 ployed for beating down the walls of besieged fortresses. 
 137 
 
 BATTLE. 
 
 It consisted of a long heavy beam of timber, armed with 
 iron at one extremity, and the effect was produced by 
 pushing it violently with successive blows against the wall. 
 The ram was worked in various ways. Sometimes it was 
 simply supported by two files of soldiers, and the impetus 
 given by a simultaneous thrust. More frequently it was 
 slung from a cross beam, supported by two posts, by a rope 
 or cable about its middle ; in which case it had an oscillat- 
 ing motion, like a pendulum. A third sort was moved on 
 rollers or wheels. Generally they were worked under a 
 cover or shed ( tinea or testudines) to protect the assailants. 
 These machines were often of immense size, and exceed- 
 ingly ponderous, requiring 100 men to work them. Justus 
 Lipsius describes a battering ram as 180 feet long, and two 
 feet four inches in diameter, armed with an iron head 
 weighing at least a ton and a half. The momentum of 
 this ram, pushed forward by the united strength of 100 
 men, must have been equal to that of a 36-pound shot dis- 
 charged point-blank from a modern piece of heavy ord- 
 nance, and its efficacy in communicating a sf ock to the 
 whole building very much greater. 
 
 I: \ 'TTERV. A military term, denoting any raised place 
 where cannon or mortars are planted. Batteries haM va- 
 rious names, according to the different kinds of artillery 
 employed, or the purposes they are designed to effect. 
 Breach batteries are used to attack the face of a bastion, in 
 order to make an accessible breach. Batteries en echarpe 
 are those which play obliquely. Ricochet battery, one from 
 which cannon an- discharged with a very small quantity of 
 powder and a little elevation. SO as to carry the ball just 
 over the parapet, where it rolls aloiiir the opposite rampart, 
 and produces a destructive effect They are placed per- 
 pendicular to the line to be enfiladed. In a ricochet battery, 
 small mortars and howitzers are frequently used with ef- 
 fect in enfilading an enemy's ranks. 
 
 BATTLE. (Fr. bataille.) In the art Military, an engage- 
 in. ni between two hostile armies for tin- accomplishment 
 ni some important object A battle is the most important 
 event in war: it is tin- consummation to winch all the pre- 
 i ombinations of a general necessarily tend : it is that 
 
 grand act of war which may decide the fate of kingdoms 
 
 and of nat s as wall as thai of armies ami campaigns. In 
 
 the early ages of the world a battle was merely a fierce and 
 bloody struggle, the issue of which depended more on the 
 physical strength of the combatants than on any scientific 
 combinations which the general could adopt; but as the 
 aits and see n military system was im- 
 
 proved; and the bat bon (the first well authen- 
 
 ticated battle in profane history) demonstrated how far su- 
 periority in physic d sen ngth may he compensated by ge- 
 neralship and discipline. A further illustration of this tact 
 Is afforded in the subsequent battles of Plataea, Mantinea, 
 and Leuctra. am. ne the Greeks; and the banks of the Ti- 
 cinus, the lake of Thrasymenus, aid, above all. the plains 
 of Cannae, are memorable for engagements, winch for in- 
 I I dexterity of i xecution have excited 
 the admiration of soldiers in every age. But to give even 
 a faint sketch of the various exploits which were achieved 
 by the Grecian so-called oblique system, the Macedonian 
 phalanx, and the Roman legion, and of the different mili- 
 tary principles involved in their construction, would be to 
 furnish a history of these different nations; and we must 
 content ourselves with referring the reader to the article 
 " Bataille," in the Encydopedie des Gensdu Munde. where 
 some concise though scientific details upon this subject 
 will he found. Though the weapons employed in battle in 
 modern times are widely different from those in use among 
 the ancients, and though many circumstances have com- 
 bined to give an entirely different aspect to the military 
 systems of the two periods, still it is surprising how strong 
 a resemblance to each other is displayed in their ground- 
 work ; and it will be found on examination that the grand 
 principles which even in the present century were adopted 
 by Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington were practised, 
 though imperfectly, by Epaminondas on the field of Leuc- 
 tra. Indeed, it is a circumstance worthy of note, that the 
 changes which in every age have taken place both in the 
 manners and the weapons of nations have had no perceptible 
 influence on the grand leading principles of military tactics. 
 •■ Les tetrarchies," says a French author, "etlesmanipules 
 sont representees chez les modernes par les compagnies : les 
 xenagies ou syntagmes et les cohortes Romaines, par les ba- 
 taillons ; enfin, les phalanges et les legions, par les regi- 
 mens, les brigades ou les divisions." There are three com- 
 binations of which a battle is susceptible: — I. Defensive, 
 which consists in taking up a position, and defending it 
 against the enemy. 2. Offensive, in which the enemy 
 is sought to be harassed at all points and on all occasions. 
 The third is a medium between these two, and presup- 
 poses on the part of the general sufficient skill to know 
 when to make an attack, and when to act on the defen- 
 sive. It is impossible to state precisely the principles 
 which should guide a general in the adoption of one or 
 otherof these three systems, from the difficulty of provid-
 
 BATTLE-AXE. 
 
 Ing against unexpected events which often occur to perplex 
 or overturn the most matured and ingenious plans ; but 
 making due allowance for casualties of this nature, a refe- 
 rence to history will prove that design and ingenuity have 
 generally triumphed over chance and accident; and that a 
 skilful disposition of the troops, and the seizure of the pro- 
 per moment for assuming the initiative, combined with 
 courage and adroitness in prosecuting success, will ulti- 
 mately be crowned with victory. For a full and elaborate 
 view of the principles involved in a battle, the reader may 
 consult with advantage Jomini's Traite ties Grandes Ope- 
 rations Militaires (Paris, 1824); a system which is founded 
 on the united principle of a concentration of the forces, and 
 the commencement of hostilities. 
 
 BA'TTLE AXE. ' A military weapon, which is purely 
 offensive, and owes its origin to the Celts. It was not em- 
 ployed by the Greeks and Romans, though it was found 
 among contemporary nations. At the siege of the Roman 
 capital by the Gauls under Brennus, the most distinguished 
 warriors were armed with battle-axes ; and Ammianus 
 Marr.ellinus states that this instrument formed part of the 
 offensive armour of the Gauls from time immemorial. In 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland, the battle-axe was much 
 employed: the Lochaber axe, in particular, was long a 
 formidable implement of destruction in the hands of the 
 Scottish Highlanders, and obtained almost a universal re- 
 putation. 
 
 BA'TTLEMENTS. (From battle.) In Architecture, a 
 wall or parapet on the top of a building, with embrasures 
 or open places to look through, or discharge missiles for 
 the annoyance of an enemy. 
 
 BATTUE. (Fr.) In Sporting, a term indicating a prac- 
 tice of huntsmen which consists in encompassing a certain 
 portion of tlie forest, and in endeavouring, by beating the 
 bushes and with loud exclamations, to bring out wolves, 
 foxes, or other animals of the chase. 
 
 BATTU'TA. (It. a beating.) In Music, the motion of 
 beating with the hand or foot" in directing the time 
 
 BAUERA'CEiE (so called from Mr. Bauer, their disco- 
 verer), a small natural order of New Holland shrubs with 
 pretty purple flowers, related to Saxifragacea. There is 
 but one genus. 
 
 BAULK. (From the Dutch.) Sometimes called Dram 
 Timber. In Architecture, a piece of whole fir, being the 
 trunk of a tree of that species of wood usually squared for 
 building purposes. In the metropolis the term is only ap- 
 plied to small lengths from 18 to 25 feet, mostly under 10 
 inches square, tapering considerably, and with the angles 
 so left that the baulk is not an exact square. 
 
 BAXTE'RIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, a name ap- 
 plied to those English theologians who adopted the senti- 
 ments of Richard Baxter on the subject of grace and free 
 will, forming a sort of middle way between Calvinism and 
 Artninianism. They never formed, strictly speaking, a 
 sect, and the name is now disused : nevertheless, similarly 
 modified religious opinions are common among noncon- 
 formists at this day. 
 
 BAY. (From the Dutch baye.) In Architecture, a di- 
 vision of a barn or other building, generally from 15 to 20 
 feet in length or breadth. In plasterers' work it is the 
 space between the screeds prepared for regulating and 
 working the floating rule. See Screeds. 
 
 Bay. (Fr. buie.llal baia, Span, bahia.) In Geography, 
 a portion of the sea, inclosed between two capes or head- 
 lands, so that the opening is the widest part and the inlet 
 gradually narrows within. It is thus dintinguished from 
 gulf, in which the opening is comparatively narrow. The 
 distinction, however, is not always observed in nomencla- 
 ture ; e. g. Baffin's Bay, and Chesapeake Bay in America, 
 are both more properly gulfs. 
 
 BA'YONET. A short triangular sword or dagger fixed 
 upon the muzzle of a musket, which is thus transformed 
 into a thrusting weapon. The original invention and sub- 
 sequent improvement of the bayonet are due to the 
 French, who first used it in the Netherlands in 1647, and 
 the advantages which this weapon gained to that nation 
 60on attracted notice to its merits. In the beginning of 
 the eighteenth century, it was every where substituted for 
 the pike, and in some instances it has decided the issue 
 of an engagement without a single shot being fired. Many 
 plans have been devised at different times to augment the 
 efficiency of the bayonet, by turning it to the purposes of 
 tilting and fencing; but when the cumbrousness of the in- 
 strument to which it is attached is considered, it will not 
 seem surprising that all schemes of this nature have 
 proved abortive. Cavalry are often counted by horses, and 
 infantry by bayonets. (See Guibert's Essai general de 
 Tactique. Mitchell, on the Use of the Bayonet .) 
 
 BAY SALT. (See Salt.) A large grained salt, ob- 
 tained by the spontaneous evaporation of sea water in large 
 shallow pits (bays) exposed to the full influence of sun and 
 air; all coarsegrained salt is frequently known under the 
 name of bay salt. 
 BAZA' AR. (From an Arabic word, signifying traffic or 
 138 
 
 BEASTS. 
 
 merchandise.) A large square or street where merchants 
 in eastern countries have their shops or warehouses. 
 
 BDE'LLIUM. An African gum resin of a bitter nause- 
 ous taste, and a dark-brown colour. It is sometimes mixed 
 with myrrh. 
 
 BDE'LLOSTOMES, BDELLOSTOMA. (Gr. B<5uXXw, 
 and sropa. a mouth adapted for suction.) A genus of Cy- 
 clostomous fishes. 
 
 BEACH. In Geography, a shelving tract of sand or 
 shingle washed by the sea or a freshwater lake, and inter- 
 posed between the water and the land on which vegetation 
 grows. The beach of the ocean is, generally speaking, 
 little more than the space between low and high water 
 mark ; the beach of a lake, that between the water marks 
 of the highest and lowest ordinary level of the lake. An 
 inland sea without tide, such as the Mediterranean, has 
 generally little beach, except on flat coasts, where the wa- 
 ters are apt to rise and fall considerably, according to the 
 prevailing winds. liaised beaches exhibit a curious phe- 
 nomenon in geology : they are tracts of shingle and gravel, 
 indurated for the most part into the consistency of pub- 
 dingstone or breccia, lound on the sides of shelving 
 ground at a level above that of some neighbouring lake or 
 sea, in such a position as to leave no doubt that they had 
 in ancient times been washed by its waters. They are 
 found extending along large tracts in the vicinity of the 
 great American Jakes. 
 
 BE'ACON. (Sax. beacn or beacen, allied to the words 
 beck, beckon, i. e. to point out, in the English language.) A 
 fire lighted by way of signal on a height, or the place 
 where such signals are usually made. Along the southern 
 coast of England, many of the highest hills are provincially 
 termed "beacon," from this circumstance. There is a 
 celebrated poetical description of the transmission of news 
 by the fire signals, from height to height, in the Agamem- 
 non of JEschylus. The English beacons were erected un- 
 der the superintendence generally of the lord high admi- 
 ral ; they were usually pitch boxes, or fire pots, and their 
 maintenance and watching was defrayed by a rate levied 
 on the county. (See ArchanJogia, vols. i. and viii.) 
 
 BEAD. (Sax. beade.) In Architecture, a moulding 
 whose vertical section is semicircular. 
 
 BEAK. In Botany, a hard sharp termination of any part 
 of the fructification. It is Latinized hy rostrum. 
 
 BEAM. (Sax. beam, a tree.) In Architecture, an hori- 
 zontal piece of timber, used to resist a force or weight; as 
 a tie beam, which acts as a string or chain by its tension ; 
 as a straining piece, where it acts by compression ; as a 
 bressummer, where it bears an insisting weight. 
 
 Beam. In sea phrase, the width of a vessel. Thus a 
 wide vessel is said to have more beam than a narrow one : 
 the beams being the strong pieces of timber stretching 
 across the ship from side to side, for the purpose of sup- 
 porting the decks and retaining the sides at their proper 
 distance. When a ship is lying entirely on her side, she 
 is said to be on Iter beam ends. When this is the case in a 
 hurricane or heavy gale, there is often no other resource 
 to right the ship than cutting the masts away. 
 
 A-bearn. In the direction perpendicular to the ship's 
 length, a-midships. Thus an object seen from the middle 
 of a vessel, 90 degrees or 8 points from the head or stern, 
 is said to be a-beim. 
 
 BEA'MFILLING. In Architecture, the filling in mason- 
 ry or brickwork between beams or joists, its height being 
 equal to the depth of the timbers filled in. 
 
 BEAM-TREE. A deciduous British tree of small 
 growth, inhabiting the mountainous parts of the country, 
 and resembling a small apple tree, with berries like those 
 of the mountain ash. Its leaves are strongly veined in a 
 plaited manner, and white underneath ; the wood is hard, 
 compact, and tough, and is used for axletrees, naves of 
 wheels, and cogs of machinery. The Pyrus aria of bo- 
 tanists. 
 
 BEAR. See TJrsus. 
 
 BE'ARBERRY. The Arctostaphylus uva ursi. The 
 leaves of this plant, under the name uva ursi, are used as 
 an astringent and tonic in medicine. 
 
 BEARD. (See Barba.) When applied to corn it is 
 used in the sense of Aim, which also see. 
 
 Beard. The gills or breathing organs of the oyster and 
 other bivalves are vulgarly so called. 
 
 BE'ARER. (Sax. baran, to bear.) In Architecture, any 
 upright piece used to support another. 
 
 BE'ARING. In Geography and Navigation, the direc- 
 tion or point of the compass in which an object is seen ; 
 thus an object bears north, south, &c. when seen in these 
 directions. When the distance of an object or point of land 
 is specified besides the bearing, the place of the ship with 
 respect to such object is obviously fixed ; thus, the Land's 
 End N. 43°, E. 141 miles, determines the ship to be 141 
 miles in the S. 48° W. direction, or nearly south-west 
 from the Land's End. 
 
 BEAR S FOOT. See Hei-leborus. 
 
 BEASTS. As charges in Heraldry, are said to be ram-
 
 BEAT. 
 
 pant, when represented rearing ; sejant, when seated ; sta- 
 tant, when standing ; couchant, when lying; salient, when 
 springing ; passant, when walking (but the words lodged, 
 springing, and tripping, are used of a beast of chase in 
 these positions); gardant, when full-faced; regardant, 
 looking back; dormant, sleepy; nascent, rising out of the 
 middle of an ordinary ; is.su.ant, rising from its top or bot- 
 tom. Two animals represented side by side, but moving 
 in opposite directions, are said to be connterpassant, &c. 
 
 BEAT. (Sax. Beatan, to heat.) In Music, a reversed 
 shake without a turn. 
 
 To In nt. beat up, or beat to windward, in Navigation, 
 making progress against the wind by a zigzag course, and 
 is the same as working to windward. 
 
 BEAU IDEAL. (Fr.) In Painting, that beauty which is 
 freed from the deformity and peculiarity found in nature 
 in all individuals of a species. All the objects which na- 
 ture exhibits to us have their blemishes and defects, though 
 every eye is not capable of perceiving them ; and it is only 
 by long habii of observing what any objects of the same 
 kind have in common ihat it acquires the faculty of dis- 
 cerning what each wants in particular. By such means the 
 artist gains an idea of perfect nature, or what is called the 
 Beau liU ni. See Ideal 
 
 BEAU'TY. (Fr. beaute*.) In the Fine Arts, thi 
 of all the various perfections whereof an object is suscep- 
 which pleases the senses, and more particularly the 
 eye and the ear. Willi the painter ami sculptor, nature, re- 
 fined by selecting from the most perfect of the species, is 
 the index and guide; but with the architect the creative 
 powei ol i) is the model of imitation. Some 
 
 of the sources of beauty have been seriously considered 
 by no less a writer than Burke as consisting in smal 
 smoothness, delicacy, and the like; bul such speculations 
 at e too absurd for notice here. The primary source of all 
 beauty in the three arts is form; on that alone must the 
 artist depend If he would produce a work capable of pleas- 
 ing. There is no doubt that in painting colour is a hand- 
 maid that decks her works with many charms; but they 
 are all subordinate to that great effect which form, un 
 by all accessaries, is capable of producing on the mind. 
 \ form is constituted by lines, it seems probable tl 
 inquiry into their Nature might lead the artist to the inven- 
 tion of beautiful tonus; and it was doubtless this i 
 which led Hogarth, m his Analysis of Beauty, to place so 
 much to the account of the serpentine line, Bui in the arts 
 
 uly the principles are infinitely more extended ; for 
 Inns n hich, from their propriety in one art, are strikingly 
 beautiful, become absolutely absurd as sources of beauty 
 in others Hence we arrive atone general conclusion, that 
 in till of them liniess for the purpose and proportion to ef 
 feet the object are the surest guide to beauty of line, and 
 thence naturally to beauty of form. If this be so. no gene- 
 ral laws save those dependent on fitness and proportion 
 can be laid down ; and perhaps it would not be a difficult 
 task to trace to them all those associations v. bjch set in to 
 
 be connected with the subject in us effect on the mind. 
 
 Alison, in his elegant Essays on the Natu/rt and Principles 
 
 of Taste, appears to be much impressed with the feeling 
 
 ive on this point ; for he observes that "if then 
 
 any original and independent beauty in any pm ' 
 form, the preference of this form would be early and de- 
 cidedly marked both in the language of children and the 
 ons of mankind." We trust it may not be irreverent 
 to close this article with a quotation which is as expressive 
 of our notions of beauty as resulting from form as the in- 
 spired writer who km w it to be true of qualities : • All flesh 
 is not the same flesh; but there is one kind of flesh of 
 men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another 
 of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies ter- 
 restrial ; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory 
 of the terrestrial is another." 
 
 BE'AVER. See Castor. 
 
 1(1. < 'HICUS. (Gr. /?;>£, 0nxot< « cough.) A medicine 
 for the relief of coughs. 
 
 BED. (Sax bed.) In Architecture, the horizontal sur- 
 face on which the stones or bricks of walls lie in courses. 
 
 Bed of a Stone, Brick, or Slate. In Architecture, 
 tllP lower surface. 
 
 BE'DCHA'MBER, LORDS OF THE, or. as they were 
 called before the accession of the House of Hanover, Gen- 
 tlemen of the Ihdchamber, are officers of the royal house- 
 hold, under the groom of the stole ; their number has 
 usually been twelve, and they wait in turn, a week each. 
 This office is performed by ladies during the reign of a 
 queen. 
 
 BED MOULDING. In Architecture, those mouldings 
 in all the orders which are between the corona and frieze. 
 
 BED OF JUSTICE. (Fr. lit de justice.) In French His- 
 tory, a solemn proceeding to which the monarchs of 
 France had recourse on particular occasions. As is well 
 known, the parliament of that country had a right to resist 
 any commands or decrees issued by the sovereign. If, 
 however, the king insisted on the fulfilment of his wishes, 
 139 
 
 BEGHARDS. 
 
 he proceeded to hold a " lit de justice :" i. e. he went in 
 person to parliament, attended by the chief officers of the 
 court, and there, mounting the throne (called in the old 
 French language " lit"), caused those commands or de- 
 crees which the parliament had rejected to be registered 
 in his presence. This had the effect of intimidating the 
 parliament into compliance ; and the means which it usu- 
 ally adopted to intimate its dissatisfaction was to enter a 
 protest against the whole proceeding. 
 
 BF.DS. In Geology, seams of strata, thick or thin. 
 
 BEE. See Apis. 
 
 BEECH. One of the forest trees of the north of Europe, 
 the Fagus sylvatica of botanists, belonging to the natural 
 order Corylaeea. Its fruit, or mast, consists of triangular 
 nuts enclosed in a spiny husk or cupule, of the same na- 
 ture as the cup of the acorn, only of a different shape, and 
 covering the nuts all over. Its wood, which is hard and 
 rather handsome, i.s brittle and perishable, and particularly 
 liable to become wormeaten. It is chiefly used by turners and 
 millwrights. The purple and copper beeches seen in plan- 
 latii us are seedling varieties of Fagus sylvatica, 
 
 BEE-EATJEB See Merops. 
 
 BEEF -EATER. ( By corruption from the French beavf- 
 fetter, an officer appointed to watch the beauffet, buffet, or 
 side-board.) A popular appellation for the yeoman of the 
 king's guard, partially derived from the circumstance that 
 some of them originally were ranged at table on solemn 
 festivals 
 
 BEE'LZEBUB. (Heb.) A god of the Philistines, who 
 had a famous temple at Ekron. His name signifies literal- 
 ly the destroyer of flies; and if we consider the torment 
 which those insignificant insects occasion in the East, it 
 will not seem surprising that the Philistines conferred on 
 him this appellation. Besides, it is quite in conformity 
 with the practice of other idolatrous nations to consider 
 their gods as the destroyers of offensive vermin. Take, 
 for instance, the Apollo Y.ynvQivi (the destroyer of rats) of 
 the Greeks. Milton in his epic poein assigns him the second 
 rank ; and in the second hook, where he is represented as 
 rising to address the fallen angels, there is all air of ma- 
 jesty in his demeanour nowhere surpassed. 
 
 BEER. (From the German bier.) The wine of grain. 
 It is usually made by fermenting an infusion of barley 
 mall and of hops, and bears different names according to 
 its Strength and colour. Il is nutritious from the sugar and 
 mucilage which it contains, exhilarating from the spirit, and 
 Strengthening and narcotic from the hops, Mr. Brande ob- 
 tained the following quantities of alcohol from 100 parts of 
 different beers Burton ale, between •*: and 1) ; Edinburgh 
 ale, 6 to 7 ; Dorchester ale, 5 to C ; the average of strong 
 ales being between 6 and?; brown stout, 6 to 7; London 
 pTter, about 4 (average) ; and London brewers' small beer 
 between 1 and 2. See Fermentation. 
 
 BEET. (Celt, bett, red.) The sweet succulent root of 
 /;. ta vulgaris, a Chenopodiaceous plant of biennial dura- 
 tion. It is used in the winter as a salad, for which purpose 
 the red and yellow beets of Castelnaudari are the best; for 
 the food of cattle, under the name of mangel wur/.el ; and 
 for the extraction of sugar: for the last object a white- 
 rooted variety with a purple crown is the most esteemed. 
 Sea beet. Beta maritima, is a well-known and excellent sub- 
 stitute for spinach. 
 
 BE'ETLE. (Sax. bytel.) In Architecture, a large 
 wooden hammer or mallet, with one, two, or three han- 
 dles, for as many persons, with which piles, stakes, wedg- 
 es, &c. are driven. 
 
 Beetle. A name commonly given to the insects of the 
 1 pterous order, especially to such as are of a dark or 
 
 obscure colour; it i.s also applied, but improperly, to the 
 common pest of our kitchens, the blatta, or cockroach, 
 which is an insect of the Orthopterous order. 
 
 BEGHA'RDS. A German word, signifying one who 
 begs with importunity. In this sense, it was frequently 
 applied to the Franciscan and other mendicant orders, de- 
 noting the practice by which they gained their subsistence. 
 The Beghards formed a sort of intermediate class between 
 the monks and laity, and were known under various de- 
 nominations; as the tertianes or half monks of the mendi- 
 cant orders, the fraternity of the weavers, the brethren of 
 St. Alexius, &c. But the term has also been affixed to a 
 set of persons who, in the thirteenth century, became no- 
 torious for the frequency and ardour of their prayers. 
 
 The Beguins were a class of women throughout Ger- 
 many and the Netherlands, who as early as the eleventh 
 century, without taking vows or following the rules of any 
 order, united themselves for devotional and charitable pur- 
 poses, and were distinguished from the great body of the 
 laity of those times by their industrious, pious, and seclu- 
 ded habits, and by their attention to the education of the 
 young. Their conduct was imitated by men. who formed 
 a union for similar purposes, and were called Beghards 
 (see above). The Beguins continued to exist in Germany 
 up to the Reformation, under the name of "seelen weiber" 
 (spiritual women), from the interest they took in the spi-
 
 BEGONIACE^. 
 
 ritual concerns of their sex; and a society of them was 
 even seen at Louvain, in the Netherlands, towards the 
 close of last century. There are now in some Roman 
 Catholic countries societies or beguinages of females, who 
 live together after the manner of nuns without taking 
 vows ; but, by their mode of life and profession, maintain- 
 ing the same intermediate state between the laity and the 
 clergy which was first remarkable in the Beghards and 
 Beguins of the eleventh century. The most celebrated is 
 at Ghent. 
 
 BEGONIA'CE^. (Begonia, the principal genus.) A 
 natural order of Polypetalous Exogens, with showy pink or 
 white flowers and handsome succulent leaves, which are 
 frequently richly coloured or gaily variegated, and have 
 one side considerably larger than the other. Their leaves 
 have large stipules, and a subacid flavour. Much differ- 
 ence of opinion exists among botanists as to their affinity. 
 They generally inhabit the dampest parts of the tropics, 
 and are favourites with cultivators both for their beauty 
 and the facility with which they are maintained, in health. 
 BEHE'MOTH. (Hebrew.) The name of an animal, of 
 which some of the characters and attributes are described 
 in poetical language in the 40th chapter of the Book of Job. 
 Much pains have been taken to identify the creature here 
 referred to ; but it must be remembered that the discovery 
 and general adoption of a mode of description which com- 
 bines at once exactness with brevity, and is applicable only 
 to the object described, are the results of a recent and 
 highly advanced state of zoological science. Even the 
 prosaic, and, so far as they went, scientific descriptions of 
 animals in the writings of Aristotle, are rarely so copious 
 and precise as to enable a modern naturalist to identify the 
 existing species there referred to. But the aim of Job in 
 the verses in which he sings of Thau, Leviathan, Behe- 
 moth, was to show forth the power and wisdom of the Dei- 
 ty, and lower the pride of man, by appealing to the won- 
 derful powers assigned to some of the most remarkable 
 and formidable objects of animated nature with which he 
 was acquainted ; and it can hardly therefore be expected 
 that curiosity, eager to hunt out the precise species alluded 
 to, should be gratified. Sufficient source of doubt has al- 
 ways been left to shake the most sagacious conjectures ; 
 and some recent inquirers into Biblical zoology, perceiving 
 that the properties of Behemoth were not manifested to 
 the letter in any known existing species, have endeavoured 
 to make the scriptural allusions square with the characters 
 of one of the gigantic extinct animals which the study of 
 fossil remains has brought to light: the Iguanodon, for ex- 
 ample, a supposed herbivorous reptile, with a horn on the 
 nose and a long and flexible tail, has been selected as the 
 species described by Job. The allusion, in verse 17, to a 
 part of the generative organs, which is visible externally 
 only in the class of mammalia, renders it very improbable 
 that Behemoth could be one of the Reptilia. The excla- 
 mation, also, " Behold he drinketh up a river and hasteth 
 not ! He trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his 
 mouth," could not with any appearance of truth be applied 
 to aspeciesof a class of animals of which the organization 
 requires them to drink so little and so seldom. If a mam- 
 miferous quadruped, then Behemoth was a herbivorous 
 and ungulate species : "He eateth grass as an ox" (verse 
 15) ; but, unlike the males of the larger ruminants, he had 
 not a divided scrotum, for "the sinews of his stones were 
 wrapt together" (verse 17.) Thus from the few zoological 
 characters which are brought under our consideration, we 
 come to the conclusion that some huge pachyderm, 
 " whose haunt was in the fens, whose place of retreat was 
 encompassed by the willows of the brook, and overshad- 
 owed by trees, was " the chief of the ways of God," in the 
 language and mind of the sacred poet. 
 
 As there exist, differences of opinion among the best He- 
 brew scholars as to the exact signification of the first part 
 of verse 17, which some have rendered "He sitteth up," 
 and of the second part of verse 19, where allusion is made 
 to some weapon, these become obviously unsafe elements, 
 in the consideration of the zoological problem. 
 
 BELE'MNLTES. (Gr. 0e\euvov, a dart.) A genus of 
 fossil Dibranchiate Cephalopods, the shells of which are 
 chambered and perforated by a siphon, hut internal. 
 They are long, straight, and conical ; and commonly 
 called " thunder stones." These fossil remains are often 
 found in chalk. 
 
 BEL-ESPR1T. (Fr.) A term formerly naturalized in 
 England, applied to those individuals whose conversation 
 or writings display an agreeable sprightliness or vivacity. 
 {Diet. Acad. Franr-.) 
 
 BE'LFRY. (Sax. bell, and Lat. ferre, to carry.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, a tower or other place in which bells are hung. 
 See Campanile. 
 
 BE'LIAL. A Hebrew word, signifying wicked, worth- 
 less, and unprofitable. In Scripture, the sons of Eli are 
 called sons of Belial, for their idolatrous and criminal con- 
 duct (Sam. ii. 12.); and likewise the inhabitants of Gibeah, 
 who abused the prophet's wife. (Judg. xix. 22.) The 
 140 
 
 BELLES-LETTRES. 
 
 apostle Paul (2 Cor. vi. 15.), in order to indicate in the 
 strongest terms the high degree of virtue after which the 
 Christian should strive, places Christ in direct opposition 
 to Belial. Our own epic poet has immortalized the infamy 
 of Belial, by assigning him a prominent place in his Para- 
 dise Lost. 
 
 A fairer person lost not heaven ; he teemed 
 
 For dignity composed, and high exploit. 
 
 But alfwao false and hollow, though his tongue 
 
 Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear 
 
 The better reason, to perplex and dash 
 
 Maturest counsels, for his thoughts were low : 
 
 To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds 
 
 Timorous and slothful, &c. 
 
 In the Paradise Regained, Milton represents even Satan 
 as fired with indignation at the impiety of Belial, and as 
 administering to him a sharp rebuke. ( Vide Addison's 
 Critique on Milton in the Spectator.) To these quotations 
 may be added an allusion to Belial by Wierns. (Pseudo- 
 monarchia Damonum, p. 919.) "Sunt quidam necroman- 
 tici qui asserunt ipsum Salomonem, quodam die astutia 
 cujusdam mulieris sednctum, orando se inclinasse versus 
 simulacrum Belial nomine." 
 
 BELL. A vessel or hollow body of cast metal, formed 
 to emit sound by the act of some instrument striking 
 against it. Bells are probably of very ancient origin ; they 
 are mentioned as worn upon the high priest's robes, in the 
 book of Exodus (ch. xxviii. ver. 3.) They were used 
 among the Greeks in camps and garrisons. Church bells 
 are said to have been invented by Paulinus, bishop of Nola 
 in Campania (whence the term Campana), about the year 
 400. They are first mentioned in England by Bede, to- 
 wards the end of the seventh century. 
 
 BELLA DONNA. (Atropa be/la donna.) The deadly 
 nightshade : it is an acro-narcotic poison. The name bella 
 donna (handsome lady) is said to have been given from its 
 having been used to improve the complexion. It contains 
 the alkaloid atrojiia. 
 
 BELLE'ROPHON. (Gr. PiXXtpo^ovrrn ; called also 
 Hipponous.) In the fabulous history of Argos, the son of 
 Glaucus, and grandson of Sisyphus (Pavs. 2. 4.), who was 
 obliged to flee from Corinth for the murder of Bellerus, 
 and seek refuge at the court of Proetus. There Anlaea, the 
 wife of Proteus, conceived a violent attachment for him, 
 which he requited as Joseph did the advances of Potiphar's 
 wife. Nor does the analogy between the cases end here ; 
 for Antfea forthwith accused him to her husband of at- 
 tempts on her virtue. Proetus, however, unwilling to vio- 
 lale the laws of hospitality, sent him to Tobates, king of 
 Lycia, his wife's father, with a letter desiring him to put 
 Bellerophon to death, and mentioning the cause. (Hence, 
 a letter unfavourable to the bearer was called "Literie Bel- 
 lerophontis.") With this Tiew, Tobates sent him on va- 
 rious perilous expeditions : first, against the Chimaera, a 
 dreadful monster, which continually vomiled flames 
 (Lucre, v. 902. ; Virg. JEn. vi. 288. 785.), and which at that 
 time devastated the country of Lycia, having the head of a 
 lion, the middle of a goat, and the tail of a serpent. ( Ovid. 
 Met. ix. 646.) This monster, however, Bellerophon suc- 
 ceeded in destroying by the aid of a winged horse called 
 Pegasus (see Pegasus), which he had caught while drink- 
 ing at the fountain Pirene in Corinth. In his next expedi- 
 tions against the Solymi and the Amazons, he was equally 
 successful (Horn. II. vi. 155.), and consequently obtained 
 the forgiveness of Tobates. Elated by his success, Bellero- 
 phon tried to fly to heaven on Pegasus ; but Jupiter, en- 
 raged at his presumption, frustrated his attempts by send- 
 ing an insect (restrum) which stung the horse so violently 
 that he became restive and threw his rider. Though 
 maimed and shattered by the fall, Bellerophon was not 
 killed ; but he never perfectly recovered, and continued 
 during the rest of his life to wander up and down in sorrow 
 and dejection. (Horn. II. vi. 201.) Bellerophon, we may 
 add, was celebrated for his skill in horsemanship (Hot. Od. 
 iii. 12. 7.), and is said to have first taught the art of riding. 
 (Plin. iv. 56.) 
 
 Belle'rophon. A fossil shell, the animal of which was 
 probably allied to that of argonauta. The genus belongs 
 to the carboniferous and older strata. 
 
 BELLES-LETTRES. (Fr.) Polite Literature. Almost 
 all authors concur in censuring the vague and indefinite 
 character of this term, as at one time every branch of 
 knowledge has been included under this denomination, 
 at another, excluded from it. Sometimes we are told 
 that by the belles-lettres is meant a knowledge of the 
 arts of orator)' and poetry ; sometimes that the true 
 belles-letlres include natural philosophy, geometry, 
 and other essential parts of learning ; and one author, in 
 treating of the belles-lettres, introduces a discourse on the 
 seven sacraments of the Romish church. In the division 
 of the departments at the Lyceum of Arts, established at 
 Paris in 1792, the belles-lettres comprehended general 
 grammar, languages, rhetoric, geography, history, antiqui- 
 ties, and numismatics; whilst philosophy and the various 
 branches of the mathematics were called, in contracts-
 
 BELLES-LETTRES. 
 
 tinction, sciences. Rollin and Rosenstein, who professedly 
 treat of the belles-lettres, comprehend under the term all 
 those instructive and pleasing branches of knowledge 
 which chiefly occupy the memory and the understanding, 
 and do not form part either of the superior sciences or of 
 the mechanical professions. Belles-lettre3, says Blair 
 (after pointing out the tendencies of logical and ethical dis- 
 quisitions), consider man as a being endowed with those 
 powers of taste and imagination which were intended to 
 embellish his mind, and to supply him with rational and 
 useful entertainment. All that relates to beauty, harnii my, 
 grandeur, and elegance — all that can soothe the mind, gra- 
 tify the fancy, or move the affections, belongs to their pro- 
 vince. In an inquiry of this kind, n'li-reuce must neces- 
 sarily be made to Hume, who, both from the nature of his 
 pursuits and the bent of his mind, was well qualified to 
 give an opinion. Paraphrasing the well-known passage of 
 a classic author, — 
 
 Ingenuafi tliilicisse fi<leliter artes 
 Bmollit morea nw -ink esse feros,— 
 he asserts, that the belles-lettres improve our sensibility 
 for all the tender and agreeable passions, at the same time 
 that they render the mind incapable of the rougher and 
 more boisterous emotions. Still the difficulty is not re- 
 moved; for while all those writers concur in awarding a 
 distinguished place in the category of learning to the "in- 
 genues artes," the " liters humaniores," as tl 
 Ires are called, they have, if nol thrown a veil of obscurity 
 over the precise definition of the term, at least nol Ci 
 scended to remove it. If we have recourse to the Ger- 
 mans, we shall find thai they comprehend under the de- 
 nomination belles-lettres everj bi inch of learning that is 
 not cultivated with an ulterior view to pecuniary emolu- 
 ment ; but their adoption of the term bi ueti iatic, to express 
 all thai re I. ties to works of taste or aesthetics, does nol ap- 
 pear to coincide with the definition above given by their 
 professed lexicographers. 
 
 lint though it would appear difficult to reduce this term 
 within the limits of a precise and accurate definil 
 
 there can he little doubt that there are few terms which 
 
 present so distinct a meaning to each individual mind, 
 The Influence of the belles-lettres has been fell and ac 
 knowledged in all ages. The beautiful tribute paid to them 
 by Cicero in his defence of Archias is famili tr to all. Hut 
 we shall advert to the sentiments of another Roman, with 
 whom we are more hkely to sympathise, as he al 
 
 co i be charged with special pleading, in the beautiful 
 
 letter to Maecenas, who was afflicted with Borne mental 
 distemper, Horace first ui\ Ises his friend to b ive recourse 
 to the study of polite literature in particular, — 
 
 Sm.i 1 1 Inlorem 
 
 Pos^ I 
 
 and then concludes in these general terms, — 
 
 [nvidUB] Ir&cuadui, Inert, vtnoiui, urnutor, 
 Nemo .1.1, n ferufl e-i, iu Don taileacere ponsit, 
 S( i Hint, i iiImi .- paueateni coramodet .un-ciii. 
 
 Rut the high importance with which the same accomplish- 
 ed author has Invested polite literature may be still belter 
 perceived in another of his epistles, — 
 
 Trojani belli senptorem 
 
 Prssnette relegi, 
 
 Qui, quid sit p-itctii urn. q i hIiIl-, quiJnoo 
 
 Piuuiua et melius i ihryalppo et Oi 
 In this passage Horace pronounces Homer to be the 
 most instructive teacher of moral and political philosophy; 
 and indeed the tribute of respect which all the European 
 nations pay to the Greeks in general, and to Homer in par- 
 ticular, us the authors of their refinement, sufficiently cor- 
 roborates the opinion of the poet. 
 
 It would greatly exceed our limits to give even a cursory 
 view of the belles-lettres in the decline and fall of the Ro 
 man empire; but we refer the [leader to Schlegel'a Histo- 
 ry of LiU rnfiii, . and to HaUam'a Introduction, Ace, for full 
 information on this head. It may. however, be remarked, 
 tint during the long period of the middle ages (which has 
 been often, though erroneously, considered as a blank in 
 the history of the human mind) learning was almost whol- 
 ly confined to the church ; and though there was little ori- 
 ginal genius displayed in the province of imagination, yet 
 here was preserved the germ of the future polite literature 
 of Europe. As early as the 14th century, the spirit of po- 
 lite literature, that had long been slumbering, was reani- 
 mated by the genius of Petrarch, and burst forth like a 
 meteor in the Italian republics. Its genial influence was 
 soon felt on this side the Alps ; and in the year 1400, as 
 Mr. Hallam observes, Spain, France, England, and Ger- 
 many were in possession of a national literature. The 
 traces of this spirit, however, were soon obliterated, and 
 its effects gradually swallowed up in the wars that every- 
 where ensued, and in the all-absorbing taste for metaphy- 
 sical and theological disquisitions that subsequently pre- 
 vailed. 
 It is to the Reformation that may properly be ascribed 
 141 
 
 EELOMANCY. 
 
 the origin of polite literature in modern times ; though, to 
 use the words of Schlegel, the authors of that, mighty 
 spiritual revolution probably contemplated no other result 
 from It than the emancipation of Europe from ecclesiasti- 
 cal bondage. Among the first-fruits of its effects upon the 
 interests of the belles-lettres in England, it may suffice to 
 mention the names of Spenser, Shakspeare. Dryden, and 
 Milton, who have embodied in their writings al! the riches 
 of the English language, and whose works are of them- 
 selves sufficient to furnish any nation with a polite litera- 
 ture of which it might justly be proud. In France, too, 
 shortly afterwards, literature assumed a novel and sub- 
 stantial form ; and in the age of Louis XIV. there arose a 
 mighty host of literary stars, which were only equalled in 
 brilliancy by a contemporaneous galaxy of British genius. 
 
 The close of the last and the dawn of the present centu- 
 ry may be regarded as an era in the history of polite lite- 
 rature throughout Europe. Never at any former period 
 were the true nature and object, the wide extent and dig- 
 nity, of the belles-lettres so universally appreciated. 
 While, on the Continent, Gothe and Schiller were scatter- 
 ing from their rich and inexhaustible stores "thougl I 
 breathe, and words thai burn," England could at the same 
 time boast of the brilliant productions of the Great Un- 
 known, whose influence on polite literature has been well 
 compared to that of the bright luminary on the terrestrial 
 globe. The rapid strides, too, thai have been made in the 
 art of criticism, the establishment of reviews in every 
 country on a more comprehensive plan than was ever pre- 
 viousl] adopted, and the general ability with which these 
 are executed, have great!] contributed to the formation 
 and confirmation of a literary taste. In his admirable Es- 
 say on the Rise of the Arts and Sciences, Hume has re- 
 marked, that nothing is more favourable to the rise of po 
 liteness and learning than a number of neighbouring and 
 independent states conni i ted together by commerce and 
 policy. Now. it we apply this observation to the various 
 
 - of society in the sat :ountry. and contrast the 
 
 present state i,t society with thai which existed even in 
 the time of Hume, we may perhaps find another clue to 
 
 the wide spread and cultivation of polite literature among 
 
 \t no very distant period, i broad line ol demarcation 
 was drawn between the literary and commercial classes 
 • ■I the community ; In fact, literature and commerce stood 
 lull rent worlds revolving in different 
 But the scene i< changed; the framework of 
 society has become mon artificial and complicated: and 
 we may now see the learning of the philosopher, the' acute- 
 ind promptitude "i tie man of business, and the 
 earnestness ami enthusiasm ol the solitary artist, all 
 brought into actual contact, and shedding each its influ- 
 ence upon the rest. SchlegePs History of Literature. (See 
 art. Literature in this work, and the authorities there 
 d too 
 BELL METAL, \u alloy of SO parts of copper and 20 
 Ol tin The Indian gong metal is a similar alloy. An 
 
 English bell metal analysed by Dr. Thomson was found to 
 consist ol BOO copper, 101 tin, 50 zinc, and 43 lead. Small 
 shnil bells generally contain zinc. 
 
 BELLO'NA. (I.'at. helium.) In the mythology of the 
 ancients, was the wife or sister or the sister wife of Mar-, 
 and was especially worshipped by the Romans as the god- 
 i war, Shi possessed a temple, built and dedicated 
 to her by Appius Claudius, which stood in the Circus I'la- 
 miniiis, near the Porta Carmentalis Ii was here that the 
 senate granted audiences to foreign ambassadors, and re- 
 ceived generals on their return from abroad. In front of 
 this temple also stood the pillar against which the javelin 
 was hurled, the usual preliminary among lie- Romans to a 
 declaration of war. Hellona is generally depicted as the 
 
 cht I i Mars, with wild dishevelled hair, bloody gar 
 
 ments, and a torch in her hand. Though the Romans 
 were her chief worshippers, there were" many temples 
 de, heated to her service in Cappadocia and Paphlagonia. 
 The priests of this goddess, who were termed BeUonarii, 
 consecrated themselves by incisions in their bodies, and 
 sacrificed to her honour the blood which flowed from their 
 wounds. 
 
 BE'LLOWS. A machine contrived to propel airthrough 
 a tube: or orifice. It is used for blowing fires, supplying 
 the pipes of organs, and other purposes, and is constructed 
 according to various forms, but the principle is the same 
 in all of them. The dimensions of a space in which air is 
 confined are contracted; the air, being permitted to escape 
 only at a small opening, rushes out with a velocity pro- 
 portional to the pressure and to the smallness of the open- 
 ing. 
 
 BE'LLUjE. (Lat bellua, any great beast.) The term by 
 which Linnaeus designated an order of Mammalia, nearly 
 corresponding to the Pachyderms of Cuvier. 
 
 BE'LOMANCY. (Gr. fteXos, javelin, arid [lavreta, pro- 
 phecy.) Divination by the flight of arrows, common to va- 
 rious oriental nations, and especially observed by the Ara- 
 bians. It has been performed in various modes; one of
 
 BELTANE. 
 
 the most common is, to let fly arrows, with inscriptions on 
 labels attached to them, and take for a guide the contents 
 of that belonging to the arrow first found. 
 
 BEL'TANE, or BE'LTIN. (Said to be the "fire of 
 Bel" or Belus.) May-day, and the traditional Celtic cus- 
 toms attached to it. The month of May is thus called in 
 the present Irish language. This day is particularly cele- 
 brated by the herdsmen in the Highlands of Scotland. 
 The Beltane-fire, Beltane-cake, &c, are all observances of 
 this day. 
 
 BELTS. A name given to the zones or bands which ap- 
 pear on the disk of the planet Jupiter. They are situated 
 near and parallel to the equator of the planet, and are sup- 
 posed to be produced by clouds in its atmosphere arranged 
 in parallel strata, by currents of wind, which, by reason of 
 the rapid rotation of the planet, must in the equatorial re- 
 gions blow always in the same direction. 
 
 BELVEDE'RE. Qt. a fine prospect.) In Architecture, 
 a small building at the top" of a house or palace, construct- 
 ed, as the name implies, to obtain a view of the country. 
 
 BELVISl'E^:. (Belvisia, one of the genera.) In Bot- 
 any, a natural order of monopetalous Exogens, inhabiting 
 Africa on the west side. Scarcely anything is known of 
 the species, and its affinities are quite unsettled. One of 
 the species was called Napoleona imperialis by its discover- 
 er, Palisot de Beauvois, after whom the genus typical of 
 the order is now named. 
 
 BE'MBEX. A genus of Hymenopterous aculeate in 
 sects of the tribe Fossores, or burrowing sand-wasps^ rais- 
 ed by Dr. Leech to the rank of a family {Bembecida), and 
 including the genera Bembex proper, Monedula, and Stizus. 
 Head transverse, with the upper lip exposed ; tongue long, 
 legs short ; the brachia of the female furnished at the sides 
 with very strong spines for burrowing in the sand. For the 
 habits of this family, see Fossores. 
 
 BEMBI'DIUM. A name applied by Latreille to a genus 
 of Coleopterous insects, of the tribe Carabidce. Now raised 
 to the rank of a family (Bembidiidm), including the genera 
 Lymneum 1, Cillenum 1, Tachys 8, Philochlhus 6, (Jcys 3, 
 Peryphus 16, Notaphus9, Sopha 11, Tac!iypus9, Bembidium 
 proper 4 : the figures refer to the number of indigenous 
 species in each of the genera. The common characters 
 of the group are, cubits notched, elytra rounded at the ex- 
 tremity, abdomen not pedicellate, external maxillary palpi 
 terminated by a very minute and acute joint, antennae sub- 
 elongate. The Bembidiidoe are generally found in low and 
 damp situations, are of very small size, and glitter with 
 polished metallic colours. 
 
 BEND. In Heraldry, an ordinary bounded by parallel 
 lines, equally distant from the line joining the dexter base 
 to the sinister chief. It contains the fifth part of the es- 
 cutcheon if charged, and the third if not charged. The 
 bend sinister descending from the sinister chief to the dex- 
 ter base, is the well known difference which denotes bas- 
 tardy, being borne on the paternal escutcheon of the bastard. 
 
 To Bend. The general sea term for fastening any thing ; 
 as to bend one rope to another, the cable to the anchor, a 
 sail to a yard or gaff. Certain knots are called bends ; as a 
 carrick bend, a fisherman's bend, <fec. 
 
 BENDS, called also WALES. A certain number of 
 thick planks of the ship's side, from the water upwards. 
 
 EENEDI'CTINE MONKS. An order of monks that 
 followed the rule of St. Benedict, which, as early as the 
 6lh century, had extended itself through Italy, France, 
 Spain, Germany, and England. The rules of Benedict, 
 although founded no doubt on the old monastic institutions 
 of Cassian (Cassiatii Opera, Lips. 1733), were of a much 
 more rational and comprehensive character. Avoiding 
 the extreme rigour of the Eastern systems, he not only 
 exacted a promise from all who entered a convent that 
 they would remain for life, and strictly observe its rules 
 {Marten. Commen. in liegulas Bened. Paris, 1690), but 
 prescribed to them a variety of suitable employments. 
 This system soon made rapid progress, and the monks be- 
 gan to be useful to society in various ways: reclaiming 
 waste lands, promoting zealously the cause of education, 
 preserving the hislory of the times in their chronicles, and 
 multiplying the treasures of antiquity by their copyists. 
 Under Charles the Great this order of monks was prefer- 
 red to every other ; and the spirit of inquiry which they 
 then called into existence was perpetuated by the depth of 
 their enthusiam and the extent of their learning. To give 
 even a cursory history of this order would far exceed our 
 limils, as it embraces perhaps the palmiest days of eccle- 
 siastical domination. (Vide Gieseler' s Kircken-geschichte ; 
 a work of great learning, and, as a book of reference, in- 
 comparable.) As is universally known, it is to the Bene- 
 dictine monks that England (a. d. 596) is indebted for its 
 conversion from idolatry. This order has produced a vast 
 number of ancient writers and men of learning. Among 
 others, Placidius Maurus founded the school of Germany ; 
 Alcuinus the university of Paris ; Guido invented the scale 
 of music ; Dionysius Exiguus completed the collection of 
 papal decrees (a. d. 510) : and the most learned man of his 
 142 
 
 BENZOIN. 
 
 time, the admiration of the whole Western world, the Ve- 
 nerable Bede, belonged to this order. 
 
 BE'NEFICE. (Lat. beneficium.) A word denoting a 
 certain class cf church preferments, viz. rectories, vicar- 
 ages, perpetual curacies, and chaplaincies ; and distinguish- 
 ed from a dignity, under which title are comprehended 
 bishoprics, deaneries, and prebends. Under the Romans, 
 certain grants of lands made to the veteran soldiers were 
 called beneficia ; and the same term was applied at the 
 commencement of the feudal system to estates conferred 
 by the sovereign and held under him : which afterwards 
 assuming a hereditary character became "fiefs" properly 
 so called. In the middle ages the popes assumed the feu- 
 dal right with reference to ecclesiastical "patronage," and 
 the term beneficium was hence applied to livings, &c, on 
 the assumption that they were held under the pope as a 
 superior lord. It was the assertion of this claim by Inno- 
 cent III. and his successors, which roused the jealousy of 
 the European sovereigns, especially those of England and 
 France ; and from the contentions consequent upon this 
 the first opening was made to the cause of Reformation. 
 
 BE'NEFIT OF CLERGY. In law, originated in the im- 
 munities from municipal jurisdiction enjoyed in many 
 states of Europe by the Roman Catholic clergy during the 
 middle ages. When a person indicted for certain offences 
 (most of those subjecting the offender to capital or corpo- 
 real punishment, excepting high treason) pleaded that he 
 was a clerk or clergyman, and claimed privilege, he was 
 demanded by his ordinary : a jury was summoned, and he 
 was tried; and, according lo their verdict, delivered to the 
 ordinary as acquit or convict, to undergo canonical purgation, 
 and to be discharged or punished according to the result of 
 such purgation. The proof of clergy , at first strictly required, 
 was at last so relaxed, that it was only necessary lor the of- 
 fender to show that he was able to read. The bishop's com- 
 missary was present, to decide whether or not he passed the 
 test satisfactorily. This loose mode of acquiring the pri- 
 vilege was first restricted by the stat. 4 H. 7. c. 13., which 
 provided that offenders who had been allowed their clergy 
 should be " burnt in the thumb," and if they claimed it a 
 second time, be required to give proof of being actually in 
 orders. By 18 Eliz. c. 7., the second trial by compurgation 
 before the ordinary (which had become a mere fiction) 
 was abolished, and the judges were empowered lo im- 
 prison the person who had benefit of clergy for a year, if 
 they thought proper. By various subsequent statutes, the 
 burning in the hand was commuted for transportation, 
 whipping, &c, at the discretion of the judges ; and the be- 
 nefit was taken away altogether from a number of statu- 
 table felonies. By 5 Anne, c. 6., the ceremony of reading 
 was abolished, benefit of clergy being granted indiscrimi- 
 nately to all entitled to it ; and finally by one of the enact- 
 ments commonly called Peel's Acts (7 Ac 8G.4. c. 28. s. 6.) 
 benefit of clergy was abolished altogether. 
 
 BENE'VOLENCE. (Lat.) In English History, a species 
 of tax levied by the sovereign. As its name implies, it was 
 nominally a gratuity ; but was, in point of fact, exacted as 
 a forced loan, with or without the condition of repayment, 
 under the reigns of the Plantagenet kings. By a statute of 
 Richard III. benevolences were declared illegal; but they 
 were again exacted by Henry VII., and occasionally, by 
 means of circulars under the privy seal, by his successors. 
 By 13 C. 2. stat. 1. c. 4. no voluntary aid can be raised on be 
 half of the king without the authority of parliament ; and 
 the general illegality of levying money for the use of the 
 crown without such authority was declared in 1688 by the 
 Bill of Rights. 
 
 BEN NUTS. The seeds of an Arabian plant called Mo 
 ringa aptera ; they yield an oil, called oil of ben, and have 
 been employed in syphilitic diseases. 
 
 BEN, OIL OF. The expressed oil of the nut of the Mo- 
 ringa aptera. This oil is remarkable for not becoming 
 rancid by age ; and as it is perfectly insipid and inodorous, 
 it is used for extracting the fragrancy of certain flowers, 
 such as jessamin, orange. <fec. The same tree furnishes 
 the Ligntm nephnticum, supposed to be useful in certain 
 affections of the kidneys. 
 
 BENT GRASS. A species of Agrostis, the bent and 
 creeping stems of which are very difficult to eradicate. 
 
 BENTS. The withered stalks of grass standing in a 
 pasture after the seeds have dropped. 
 
 BE'NZAMIDE. A compound, obtained by exposing 
 chloride of benzule to ammoniacal gas. 
 
 BENZOTC ACID. This acid forms a constituent of 
 many balsams ; it is generally obtained by heating benzoin, 
 and collecting the acid vapours which are evolved and con- 
 dense in brilliant acicular crystals. It is a compound of 
 carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen; its equivalent being 120. 
 Its combinations are called Benzoates. 
 
 BENZOTN. The resinous exudation of the Styraxben- 
 zoe, a tree which is a native of Sumatra. Benzoin is a 
 combination of resin and benzoic acid. It has a mottled or 
 amygdaloid texture, and is composed of a mixture of 
 brown and white parts. It has a fragrant odour.
 
 BENZULE. 
 
 BENZULE. (From benzoin, and 6X>;, principle.) A 
 compound of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, regarded as 
 the base of benzoic acid. 
 
 BERBERA'CE.E.or BERBERIDEjE. A natural order 
 
 of plants, named after the genus Berberis, which is in fact 
 
 the most important genus it contains It is the only one 
 
 e fruit is succulent and eatable ; that of the others is 
 
 dry and hard. 
 
 BE'RBEREN. A yellow bitter principle, contained in 
 the alcoholic extract of the root of the barberry tree. 
 
 BK'RBERRV. (Lat. berberis.) A spiny shrubby plant, 
 bearing yellow flowers, and succulent one celled fruit 
 growing in racemes It is one of a genus in which the fruit 
 is universally fleshy and acid, although often less so than 
 in the commou kind (Berberis vulgaris). Some of the spe- 
 cies have pinnated leaves, many are ever-greens, and seve- 
 ral have a black fruit ; even the common sort has a variety 
 of this description, as well as others with pale yellow and 
 Btoneless fruit. There is an idea among people in the 
 country thai a berberry bush brings blight to a wheat field ; 
 but the parasitical fungus which attacks the berberry is 
 altogether different from that which produces the mildew 
 of wheat, which cannot possibly be communicated by the 
 one io the other. 
 
 BE'RGAMOT, ESSENCE OF. The essential oil of the 
 rind ol'a small pear shaped fruit, the produce of the Citrus 
 limetta bergamium. It is much used as a perfume, and 
 apt to h« adulterated with the oils of orange and lemon 
 peel, and with alcohol. 
 
 BERO'SCS. In Entomology, a genus of Coleopterous 
 insects of the family HydraptutidtB. They inhabit points, 
 in which they may often be seen swimming in an inverted 
 position 
 
 BE KYI.. A mineral allied to the emerald, composed of 
 G3 silica. IS alumina. II glucine, J lime, 1 oxide ol iron. It 
 Is usually transparent, pale green, and in beautiful crystals, 
 much larger than those of the emerald. It is the aqua- 
 marine of the jewellers. The finest comes from Dauria, on 
 the frontiers of China, from Siberia, and from Brazil. 
 
 BESI'MEN. An obsolete term for the spores or seeds 
 of the lowest kinds of plants, especially < 
 
 BE'TEL. The leaf of the betel or Siriboa pepper, 
 
 . is chewed by the inhabitants of many parts of India 
 
 along with a nut of the areca palm iree and lime; which 
 
 ire wrapped in the betel leaf. It is acrid and 
 
 and s'ains die saliva red. 
 
 BETIIV I.I s 1 i Entomology, a genus of Hymenopte- 
 rotis insects of the family Proctotruptda. 
 
 BETRO'THMENT. A mutual compact between two 
 parlies, by which they bind themselves to marry. Be- 
 trothmenl wis a legal contract by the Roman law, as it 
 now is mi that of various continental countries. In (Germa- 
 ny, betrothments are either public, with the consent of re- 
 l aiions and presence of witnesses : or private (clandestine), 
 which in some countries are void.— in others, although 
 valid as contracts, punishable as misdemeanors. Public 
 betrothment induces the obligation to marry. But accord- 
 ing to modern practice an action for damages is almost the 
 only way of enforcing it; a small fine or imprisonment 
 being the utmost criminal penalty for the violation of the 
 engagement. 
 
 BETULA'CE.E. (Betula, one of the genera.) A small 
 natural order of plant;, containing the birch, after which it 
 takes iis name, and the common alder. The order formed 
 part of what were formerly called Amentacere. 
 
 BE'VEL. (I. at. bivium, branching road ) In Architec- 
 ture, an instrument for taking angles. One side of a solid 
 body is said to he bevelled with respect to another when 
 the angle contained between their two sides is greater or 
 less than a right angle. 
 
 BEVEL ANGLE. A term used among artificers to de- 
 note an angle which is nether a right angle nor half a right 
 angle. 
 
 BEVEL GEER. In Mechanics, a species of wheel- 
 work, in which the axles of two wheels working into each 
 other are neither parallel nor perpendicular, but inclined 
 to niie another in a certain angle. Wheels of this kind are 
 also i i rase their teeth may be re- 
 
 garded as cut in the frustrum of a cone. See Wheel. 
 
 BEY. or BEG. A Turkish and Tartar title of dignity, 
 use I with no very accurate application for lord, prince, or 
 chief, and frequently subjoined to the proper names of 
 persons of rank. 
 
 BEZA'NT. A gold coin struck at Byzantium (Constan- 
 tinople) : they varied in weight and in value. Bezants ap- 
 pear to have been current in England from the tenth cen- 
 tury to the time of Edward III. Some of them weighed 
 about twenty grains. According to Camden, a piece of 
 gold which was anciently offered by the king on high fes- 
 tivals was called a bizantine. and valued at j£15. There 
 were also white or silver bezants. 
 
 Bezant. In Heraldry, a circle, or. The name is de- 
 rived from the gold coins of the Greek empire, termed 
 bezants, or bvzajitines, by the people of the West. It 
 143 
 
 BIBLICAL HISTORY. 
 
 was probably introduced into coat armour by the Crusa- 
 ders. 
 
 BE'ZOAR. A Persian word implying destructive of 
 poison, and applied to certain intestinal concretions of ani- 
 mals, called bezoar stones, and supposed to possess such 
 powers. 
 
 BI. (Lat. bis, turice.) Signifies, when attached to other 
 words, two, twice, or double ; as bicarbonate of potash, a 
 compound of potash with two atoms of carbonic acid; bi- 
 locular. two cells ; bivalve, two valves. &c. 
 
 BIARTI'CLLATE. (Lat. bis, articulus.jofn/.) Applied 
 in entomology to the antennae of insects when they consist 
 but of two joints, and also to the abdomen under the same 
 circumstances, as in the Nycteribia biarticulata. 
 
 BIAURI'CULATE. (Lai his. auricula, an auricle.) In 
 Comparative Anatomy, signifies a heart with two auricles, 
 as in most bivalve molluscs, and in all reptiles, birds, and 
 mammals. 
 
 BI'BLE. (Gr. 0i$\os, a book ; from whence the word 
 came to be applied emphatically to the volume of the Old 
 and New Testaments.) 
 
 The sixth article of the English Church enumerates the 
 books of the Old Testament, which it considers of canoni- 
 cal authority : in which it follows the canon received by 
 the Jews in the time of our Saviour. The apocryphal 
 writings, which are accounted authentic by the Roman 
 Catholics, are of undoubted antiquity, being comprised in 
 the Septuagint edition of the Scriptures ; but their authori- 
 ty has never been acknowledged by the Jews, who reckon 
 twenty-four canonical books; nor are tiieir originals found 
 in the Hebrew language. 
 
 The canon of the New Testament is now received with- 
 out variation, we believe, in all Christian communities. 
 In the early period of the church, the authenticity of parti- 
 cular 1 k- was frequently disputed, and heretical sects 
 
 attempted to foist other apocryphal writings into their 
 place. The general consent, however, of ihe orthodox 
 church may be inferred from catalogues extant in tho 
 writings of many of the Fathers throughout the first four 
 centuries, and the express declaration of the council of 
 Laodicea and others. Some latitude of opinion seems, 
 however, to have been allowed in early times respecting 
 the book of Revelation:- : and some of the Fathers confess 
 that the genuineness of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, 
 
 of that of James, of the second of Peter, and two last oi 
 John, was helil by some to be undecided. 
 
 BIBLE SOCIETY. THE BRITISH AND FOREIGN. 
 A society established in England in the year 1804, " with 
 the sole object,'' as it is expressed in its regulations, "of 
 encouraging a wider circulation of the Holy Scriptures 
 without m,ie or comment." The society took its rise from 
 the circumstance of the complaints which had been made in 
 Wales for some years previous, respecting the great defi- 
 ciency of Bibles in the language of the Principality — a want 
 which, it was urged, the Society for Promoting Christian 
 Knowledge had very imperfectly supplied. The earliest 
 promoters of this institution were the Rev. Mr. Charles of 
 liala. Mr Hugh. 8, and Mr. SteinkofF, minister of the Ger- 
 man Lutheran Church. Among iis principal patrons may 
 be mentioned Lords Teignmooth and Gambier, Messrs. 
 W rforce, Granville Sharp, and Charles Grant. This 
 ;. has now auxiliary establishments connected with 
 it not only in all the principal cities of the United Kingdom, 
 but throughout Europe and North America. 
 
 The principle upon which the Bible Society acts has al- 
 ways been regarded with jealousy by the high church 
 party in England. In the first place, it is looked upon not 
 only as a rival to the venerable Society for Promoting 
 Christian Knowdedge. which had been in action since the 
 year 1699 ; but as casting some slur upon the latter as in- 
 efficient in its operation and erroneous in its principles. 
 The younger society also admits as members the adhe- 
 rents of every religious denomination, and in its proceed- 
 ings maintains an absolute neutrality among them — wdiich 
 its opponents consider incompatible with the profession 
 of true churchmanship. Accordingly many controversies 
 have been carried on between the champions of the two 
 institutions ; in the course of which, however, it would 
 seem that the Bible Society has gained ground in the fa- 
 vour of the established church, from whence a large pro- 
 portion of its subscribers are now derived. Among them 
 are the names of several bishops, and many other digni- 
 taries. 
 
 In the report for 15-10. we find the total number of Bibles 
 and Testaments issued by this society since its foundation 
 to be 12,322.471. The number issuer! during the year end- 
 ing March, 1>40, was 776,360. The income of the society 
 for that vear was £111,449. 13s. Id. 
 
 BI'BLICAL HISTORY AND LITERATURE. The ac- 
 counts of the books of the Jewish Scriptures antecedent to 
 the captivitv are few and indistinct; but they are referred 
 to under the titles of " the law." " the books of Moses," 
 and " the books of the law of Moses." by Daniel (ix. 11.), 
 Ezra (vi. 18.), and Nehemiah (viii. 1.): there are also other
 
 BIBLICAL HISTORY. 
 
 passages from which it may be inferred, independent of the 
 internal evidence of the books which we possess, that 
 there existed such from an early period. 
 
 The canon of the Old Testament appears, however, to 
 have been settled, and the limits of inspired Scripture de- 
 termined about 50 years after the return from the captivity, 
 by the authority of Ezra and the prophets of his clay; the 
 books of Nehemiah, Malachi, and Ezra himself being sub- 
 sequently added. The sacred writings which came in 
 later times to be incorporated in the collection of the Jew- 
 ish Scriptures are known by the name of Apocrypha, or 
 secret : they were undoubtedly held in respect by the 
 Jews, and by the Christians afterwards; but Protestants 
 deny that they were ever held to be inspired, or their au- 
 thority placed on the same footing as that of the canonical 
 Scriptures. 
 
 At a later period we find passages in the New Testament, 
 in Philo, and most distinctly in Josephus, to prove the fact 
 of this collection of the Scriptures into a volume. The 
 books themselves are first specified by Origen, who enu- 
 merates twenty-two, in which number he coincides with 
 Josephus. His list embraces all that we consider canoni- 
 cal, and rejects the Apocrypha. 
 
 The early versions which illustrate the question of the 
 antiquity of the Hebrew Scriptures are the Samaritan Pen- 
 tateuch, and the Septuagint or Greek translation. It is not 
 to be supposed that the Samaritans would have adopted 
 and translated the books of the Jews, unless they had 
 been received prior to the separation and enmity of the 
 two peoples, the period at latest of the return from the 
 captivity. The Samaritan Pentateuch now extant is said 
 to be a version from the earlier Hebrew Samaritan into 
 the more modern Samaritan, and was made before the 
 time of Origen. The part of the Septuagint which com- 
 prises the Pentateuch was made about the year b. c. 285; 
 the translation of the other book into Hellenistic Greek ap- 
 pears to be of different and somewhat later dates. 
 
 Next in order to these may be mentioned the versions 
 of the Old Testament in the earliest periods of Christiani- 
 ty, which are important, not as assisting us to ascertain 
 the antiquity of the original, but as contributing to our 
 knowledge of the genuine text. These may be divided 
 into three classes. 
 
 f. The Oriental, comprising — 
 
 The Syriac or Peschito (literal), from the Hebrew, 
 about the end of the first century — embracing both 
 the Old and New Testaments. 
 
 The Coptic, from the Septuagint — between centuries 
 two and five. This embraces also the New Testa- 
 ment. 
 
 The Ethiopic, from the Septuagint — in the fourth cen- 
 tury : embraces the N. T. 
 
 II. The Latin, or Western : — 
 
 The Italic, from the Septuagint, in either the first or 
 second century ; only fragments remain : it em- 
 braced also the New Testament. 
 
 The Vulgate, made from the Hebrew by Jerome, A. d. 
 390. This translation is considered an ultimate au- 
 thority by the church of Rome. 
 
 The Gothic version of Ulphilas, which was made from 
 the Greek of both the Old and New Testaments, in 
 the fourth century, has not come down to us entire. 
 Only a small part is in print. 
 
 in. The Greek, comprising — 
 The version of Aquila. 
 
 of Theodotian. 
 of Symmachus. 
 All translated from the Hebrew; all of or near 
 the second century ; all exist only in the fragments 
 of the Hexaple or combination of six versions by 
 Origen. 
 
 The genuineness of the Hebrew text was preserved after 
 the destruction of Jerusalem by the sedulous care of 
 learned academies which flourished at Tiberias, Babylon, 
 and other places, from the first to the twelfth centuries. 
 The date of the Masora is generally fixed about the fifth 
 century. This work consisted of a most minute enume- 
 ration of the sections, verses, words, and letters of the 
 Scriptures ; which has been so successful in fixing the 
 genuine reading, that although there were discovered up- 
 wards of 800 discrepancies between the Oriental and Oc- 
 cidental Recensions, they all relate, with one single excep- 
 tion, to vowel points, and are of no kind of importance. 
 For an account of the labours of the early Jewish schools 
 of criticism in the interpretation of the Hebrew text, see 
 art Talmud. 
 
 The integrity of the text of the New Testament has been 
 established by the collation, wholly or in part, of 674 manu- 
 scripts, existing either entire or in fragments. These have 
 been classified by modern critics according to recensions 
 or families, the most simple of whose systems and that 
 144 
 
 EIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 most approved, is Scholz's, who considers all the variations 
 that exist in these MSS. to be resolvable into their having 
 been transcribed from Constantinopolitan or Alexandrian ex- 
 emplars. The former he considers to have been from ihe 
 earliest times the most strict and faithful recension. It 
 was that which was principally used in the liturgical offices 
 of the East ; and its fidelity is argued from the exact uni- 
 formity of all the MSS. which can be traced historically to 
 a Constantinopolitan origin. This may be accounted for 
 by the authority inherent in the text received in the centre 
 of the imperial power and of the patriarchal jurisdiction. 
 It is also consistent with the minute care with which the 
 rites of the Constantinopolitan church were enjoined by its 
 missionaries upon their converts; and also with the char- 
 acter of the Greek fathers, who present much greater ex- 
 actness and unifoi-mity in their quotations of the New Tes- 
 tament than the African. On the other hand, the Alexan- 
 drian copies have been written with a considerable degree 
 of carelessness, and do not appear to have been intended, 
 even in their own country, for reading in public service. 
 They are said lo partake in the rash and speculative spirit 
 of the theologians of the Alexandrian church. The former 
 of these recensions has been adopted in the Syriac, Gothic, 
 and Sclavonic versions. It is that also which forms the 
 basis of our modern texts. The latter was followed by 
 several Latin, the Coptic, and Ethiopic translations. Eras- 
 mus conceived the idea of the Greek text having been pur- 
 posely corrupted to suit the Vulgate, and assigns the coun- 
 cil of Florence in 1439 as the authority by which this trans- 
 action was effected. This opinion continued to be held 
 under the title of the Fcedus cum Graecis, with more or less 
 discussion till modern times, by which it seems to be very 
 generally rejected as untenable. It is known, on the con- 
 trary, that in the compilation of his translation, which bears 
 the name of the Vulgate, the existing Latin version was 
 corrected by Jerome from the Greek. See Home's Man- 
 ual of Biblical Literature, 8vo. London, 1839. 
 
 BIBLIO'GRAPHY. (Gr. /?<£X<oi>, a book, and ypwpuy, 
 /describe.) The science of books. The knowledge which 
 is required to classify books, according to the various sub- 
 jects on which they treat, has been termed intellectual bi- 
 bliography ; that of the external peculiarities of books, their 
 editions, &c, material bibliography. The first branch bor- 
 ders closely on the province of criticism; for the most 
 valuable bibliographical works, being what are termed in 
 French " catalogues raisonnees," are those in which the 
 lists of books are accompanied with some remarks on the 
 character of their contents. The second branch of bibli- 
 ography has been of late years cultivated with all the ar- 
 dour attached to a fashionable and somewhat eccentric 
 pursuit. The lovers of rare editions and curious copies of 
 works, from being, to borrow a French term, " bibliophiles," 
 have formed of late a peculiar sect entitled " biblioman- 
 iacs," with whom the fancy for books has become a pas- 
 sion, like those of Dutch speculators for tulips and pic- 
 tures. Many works of novel and curious research in this 
 department of literature have been recently produced to 
 guide their taste, and gratify their appetite. For the pur- 
 poses of the common student, Brunei's Manuel du Li- 
 Irraire, although by no means complete, is still the most 
 useful index to general literature. Many books of a similar 
 character exist in English, but none that can be recom- 
 mended as generally valuable ; although some of those de- 
 voted to particular branches of the subject, especially to 
 the learning of early editions, display much curious re- 
 search. Watt's Bibliotheca Britanniea, although useful, 
 from its double arrangement according to subjects and au- 
 thors, is a very imperfect work. 
 
 The following list contains a selection from among the 
 most valuable works which we possess, in different depart- 
 ments of bibliography. But many of them, from the criti- 
 cal matter which they contain, may be considered to be- 
 long to the history of literature, as well as of books and 
 editions. 
 
 I. Introductory Works on the Science of Bibliography. 
 Peignot, Manuel Bibliographique. 1800. 
 Peignot, Dictionnaire Raisonnee de Bibliologie, 3 vols. 
 
 8vo. 1804. 
 Achard, Cours de Bibliographie, 3 vols. 8vo. Marseilles, 
 
 1807. 
 Home, Tliomas Hartwell, Introduction to the Study of 
 
 Bibliography, 2 vols. 8vo. Lond. 1814. 
 De?ris, Einleitung zur Biicherkunde, 2 vols. 4to. Vienna, 
 
 1796. 
 Boulard, Traite Elementaire de Bibliographie, 1806. 
 Breit/ropf, Ueber Bibliograpliie und Bibliopholie, 4to. 
 
 Leipzig, 1793. 
 Ebert, die Bildung der Bibliothekars, 8vo. Leipzig, 1820. 
 Hoffmann, Handbuch der Biickerkunde, 8vo. Leipzig, 
 
 1838. 
 Molbech, Ueber Bibliothekroissenschaftubers von Ratjen, 
 
 8vo. Leipzig, 1833.
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 II Bibliography of the Oriental and Classical Languages. 
 Clarice, Dr. Adam, Bibliographical Dictionary and Mis- 
 cellany, 8 vols. 12mo. London, 1802-6. 
 Le Long, Bibliotheea Sacra, 2 vols. fol. Paris, 1723. 
 Fabric ins, Bibliotheea Graca, edited by Harles, 12 torn. 
 
 4to. Hamburg, 1700. 1809. 
 Fabricius, Bibliotheea Latina. By Ernesti. 3 vols. 8vo. 
 
 1773-74. 
 Fabricius, Mediae et Infimae iEtatis. By Manso. 3 vols. 
 
 4to. Patav. 1759. 
 Hartoood'a View of the various Editions of the Greek 
 
 and Roman Classics, 1775. 
 Dibdin's Introduction to the Knowledge of rare and valu- 
 able Editions of the Classics, 2 vols. 8vo. 1827 (last ed.) 
 Moss's Manual of Classical Bibliography, 2 vols. 8vo. 
 
 1837. 
 Degli Autori Classici BibliotecaPortabile(Boniand Gam- 
 
 ba), 2 vols. 12mo. Venice, 1793. 
 Bri'n:L" ■inn nn. View of the English Editions, Translations, 
 
 and Commentaries of the ancient Greek and Latin 
 
 Authors, 2 vols. 3vo. Stettin. 1798. 
 Schireigtrer, llandhurh der classischen Bibliographic, 
 
 2 vols. 8vo. Leipzig. 1834. 
 Brehm, Bibliographisches Handbuch der gesammten 
 
 Gr. and Rom. Litteralur, 3 vols. Bvo. Leipzig, 1800 
 Jlnil iiimiii, Bibliogr. Lex. der gesammten Litteratur der 
 
 Griechen, 2 vow. 8vo. Leipzig, 1838. 
 
 , The same, in Latin, 3 vols. 8vo. Leipzig, 1836. 
 
 Hebi nstreit, Dictionarinm editionum Auctorum Classico- 
 
 rum, 8vo. Vien , 1838. 
 
 III. Bibliography of particular Sciences and Branches of 
 
 Lill I lit III r. 
 
 JJpenvus, Bibliolhecs (Theologica,Juridica,PhOosophica 
 Medlca), (i vols. fol. The Juridica by itself has been re- 
 printed, with supplements, <fcc. in 4 vols. Leipzig, 
 1775-89, and Ihree large supplements. The whole col- 
 lection passes under the title of Bibliotheea Itealis. 
 Brestl. 1817-1830. 
 
 Meusel, Bibliotheea Ilistorica, 22 vols. 8vo. Leipzig, 
 17-2-1804. 
 
 LeLong, Bibliotheque Historique do la France, 5 vols. 
 folio, 1768, 1778 
 
 Bndgman's Legal Bibliography, 8vo. Lond 
 
 Murhard, Bibliotheea Mathemalica, 5 rota. Bvo. L80B. 
 
 Dryander, Catologus Bibliothecs Historiae NaturalisJo- 
 si pin Banks (a general account of books on natural 
 history >. I vola Svo. 
 
 Lain mi' , Bibliotheque Astronomique, 4to. Paris, 1803. 
 
 Boucher de In Richarderie, Bibliotheque de Voyages. 6 
 vols. Svo. Pans. UK 
 
 Martin, Bibliographical Catalogue of Books privately 
 printed In England, Bvo. I 
 
 Hit in', Manual of Biblical Bibliography, 8vo. London, 
 
 Miltilz, Bibliotheea Botanica, Svo. Berlin, 1689. 
 
 Ploucquet, I.iteratura Medica Digesta, 4 voi's. 4tc. and 
 Siippt. Tubing. 1808-14. 
 
 Percneron, Bibhographie Entomologique, 2 vrls. 8vo. 
 Paris, 1836. 
 
 Forbes, Manual of Select Medical Bibliography, 8vo. 
 London, 1835. 
 
 Jiay, Catalogue Bibliothccae Medicac, 5 vcls. Svo. Am- 
 sterdam, 1830. 
 
 Atkinson, Medical Bibliography, vol 1. A— B. 8vo. 
 London, 1834. 
 
 Choulant, Handb. der Biicherkonde fur die Aelterc Me- 
 dian, 8vo. Liepzig, 1841. 
 
 IV. Bibliography of Modern Xations. 
 
 Watt's Bibliotheea Britanniea, 4 vols. 4to. Edin., 1819. 
 This very laborious work contains a mere catalogue of 
 works, arranged alphabetically, first under the head of 
 writers, and then of subjects. A more complete, and 
 more critical work on English Bibliography, is among 
 the greatest disiderata of the present day. Dr. Watt's 
 work contains many foreign articles ; but is chiefly de- 
 voted to English literature. 
 
 Querard, La France Litte"raire ; a very valuable catalogue 
 of French works in all departments of literature, 10 
 vols. 8vo. Paris, 1828-1842. 
 
 Mazzuchelli, Autori d'ltalia; a work containing literary 
 history and biography, with bibliographical" science. 
 2 t. fol. Brescia. 1753-63. 
 
 Foppen. Bibliotheea Belgica, 2 vols. 4to. 1739. 
 
 Founder, Nouveau Dictionn. de Bibhographie, 1 vol. 
 Paris, 1809. 
 
 Gamba, delle Novelle Italiane in Prose Bibliographia, 
 8vo. Firen., 1*35. 
 
 Memorias, de Litteratura Portugueza, 6 vols. 4to. Lis- 
 bon, 1792-96. 
 
 Otlo, The History of Russian Literature ; with a Lexi- 
 con of Russian Authors. Translated from the Ger- 
 man, by Geo. Cox, 8vo. Oxford, 1839. 
 145 
 
 Strald, Gelehrtes Russland, Svo. Leipzig, 1898a 
 £rsch, Gelehrtes Frankreich, 5 vols. 8vo. Ilamh., 1S06. 
 Antonio, Bibliotheea Hispana Vetus et Nova, cura Bay- 
 
 erii, -1 vols, folio. Mat., 1788. 
 Warmholtz, Bibliotheea Historica Sue-Gothica, 15 vols. 
 
 8vo. Stockholm, 1782-1817. 
 Brydges, British Bibliographer, 4 vols. 8vo. London, 
 
 1810-14. 
 Lowndes, Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature, 
 
 4 vols. 8vo. London, 1834. 
 • , British Librarian. Parts 1-10. 1S39-1841. In 
 
 course of publication. 
 Cotton, Typographical Gazetteer, Svo. Oxford, 1831. 
 Geysbeck's Bibliog. Diet, of the Poets of the Nether- 
 lands, 6 vols. 8vo. Amst., 1827. 
 Michel, Bibliotheque inglo-Saxonne, 8vo. Paris, 1837. 
 Petheram, An Historical Sketch of the Progress and 
 
 Present State of Anglo-Saxon Literature in England, 
 
 8vo. London, 1840. 
 
 V. Bibliographical Works on rare Books, Typographical 
 Antiquities, early Editions, tec. 
 Vogt Catalogue Librorum Rariorum, Svo. 1732. 
 Gerdeaius, Florilegium Librorum Rariorum, 8vo. 1731. 
 c<"> in- ,it. Bibliotheque Curieuse, ou Catalogue Raisonne" 
 des Livres Rares, 4to. 1750-60. A minutely critical 
 work. 
 Bauer, Bibliotheea Librorum Rariorum Universalis, 7 
 
 vols. Bvo. 1770-91. 
 Mnitiiiin , Annates Typogrannici ab Artis invents On- 
 gine, 6 vols Ito. Hamb., 1719-41. Several supple- 
 ments have been published. 
 Panzer, Annales Typographic! ab Artis invents Origins 
 ad Annum 1500. (Ii Is, however, carried down to 
 1636 ) n vols 4to Nfuremb., 1793. 1803 
 Ames's Typographical Antiquities, first edition, 1749; 
 republished by Mr. Huhetin 3 vols. 4to. 1790 j and again 
 b; Mr. Pih.lin. 
 Di/'/tlin, Bibliotheea Spenceriana (a catalogue of books 
 in theSpi ncer library, pruned before 1500), 4 vols. 8vo. 
 1814 Wei] known, like most of the other works of 
 this distinguished bibliographi r, for the minuteness of 
 its research and extreme beauty of embellishment. 
 
 . Dictionnaire Bibliographique Choi- 
 si du Quinzieme Steele, 3 vols. svo. 1806. 
 
 Bibliographic Instructive, ou Traite de la Con- 
 naissance des Livres rares el singuliers, with supple- 
 ments, in all lOvols. mi, Paris, 1713, 1782. The most 
 i ally useful work on the subject. 
 
 Dictionnaire des Livres rares, 2 vols. Svo. 
 Paris. 176s. 
 
 Renouard, Historic de l'lmprimerie des Aides. See 
 
 Aldine Em i 
 
 sexiana,2 vols. 8vo. 
 Georgi, Allgemeines Furopaisches Bueher-Lexicon. 8 
 
 vols, folio. Leipzig. 171 s !. 
 Audiffredus, Catalogue et Specimen Historiro-Crit. 
 
 Editionum Italicaruin Sacculi xv. 2 vols. 4to. Roma?, 
 
 1783-1794. 
 Uain, Repertorium Bibliographicum in quo libri omnes 
 
 ab arte typographies inventa usqne ad annum M. I). 
 
 lypis expressi online ahphabetico vel simpliciter, enu- 
 iiusrecensentur,4vols. 8vo. Stutt., 
 
 [831. 
 Fischer, Beschreibung einiger typngraphisch»n Selten- 
 
 heifen,6vols Bvo. Niiremb, 1*800-4. (Aworkofdeep 
 
 and curious research. 
 Longman's Bibliotheea Anglo-Poetica; or a descriptive 
 
 Catalogue of a rich and rare Collection of Early Eng- 
 lish Poetry, 8vo. 1815. By Mr. A. F. Griffiths. 
 
 VI. General Bibliographies, and Miscellaneous Works. 
 Dictionnaire Bibliographique, 3 vols. Svo. Paris, 1790. 
 Brunei, Manuel du Libraire, 3rd and enlarged edition. 
 
 4 vols. Svo. JS20. A work of the greatest ntility. 
 
 Three supplementary volumes were published in 1832. 
 Morhof, Polyhistor Literarius, Philosophicus et Practi- 
 
 cus. first edition by Fabricius. 2 vols. 4to. 1747. 
 Saxii Onomasticon Liferarium, 8 vols. Svo. 1759. 1803. 
 Eberts, Allgemeines Bibliogr Lexicon, 2 vols. 4to. ; and 
 
 2 Supplements. Leipzig, 1830. The first part has been 
 
 translated into English, and published at Oxford, in 4 
 
 vols. Svo. 1S37. 
 VTI. American Bibliography. 
 
 Warden, Bibliotheea Americo-Septentrionalis,8vo. Paris, 
 
 1820. 
 
 , Bibliotheea Americana, Svo. Paris, 1831. 
 
 Bibliotheea Americana Primordia, 4to. 1713. 
 Bibliotheea Americana, 4to. London, 1789. 
 Mensel. Bibliotheea Historica. Tom. iii. and x. 
 Rich, Bibliotheea Americana, 2 vols. Svo. ; and Sup. 
 Ternaux, Bibliotheque Americaine, Svo. Paris, 1837. 
 Aspimcail, Catalogue of Books relating to America. 
 T
 
 BICALCARATE. 
 
 BICA'LCARATE. (Lat. bis, twice, and calcar, a spur.) 
 When a limb or part is armed with two spurs. 
 
 BICE. In painting, a light blue colour prepared from 
 smalt. From it, by a mixture with yellow orpiment, another 
 colour is formed of a green hue, bearing the same name. 
 
 Bl'CEPS. (Lat. bis, twice, and caput, head.) An ana- 
 tomical term, applied to muscles having a double insertion, 
 or which arise bv two heads. 
 
 BICO'LLIGaTE. (Lat. bis, twice, coWigo, I bind together ) 
 In Ornithology, a term signifying the connexion of all the 
 anterior toes by a basal web. 
 
 Bl'COLOR. (Lat. bis, color, colour.) When an animal 
 or part is of two colours. 
 
 BICO'RNIS. (Lat. bis, cornu, a horn.) In Zoology, 
 Winn an animal or part has two horns, or two horn-like 
 processes. In Anatomy, when the uterus has two divisions, 
 like horns, as in most quadrupeds. 
 
 BICU'SPIS. (Lat.) A tooth with two points. 
 BIDE'NTATE. (Lat. bis, dens, a tooth.) When an 
 animal has but two teeth, as the Delphinus bide7is ; or when 
 a part has two tooth like processes. 
 
 BIE'NMAI.. (Biennis, of two years' duration.) A term 
 applied to plants which grow one year and (lower the next, 
 after which they perish ; they only differ from annuals in 
 requiring a longer period to fruit in. Most biennials, if 
 sown early in the spring, will flower in the autumn and 
 then perish, thus actually becoming annuals. 
 
 B1ESTINGS. The name given to the first milk yielded 
 bv a cow after calving. 
 'BIFA'RIOUS. (Lat.) Arranged in two rows. 
 BI'FORATE. (Lat. bis, foro, I pierce.) Having two per- 
 forations, as the anthers of a Rhododendron. 
 
 BI'FORINES. Singular bodies lately discovered in the 
 interior of the green pulpy part of the leaves of some Ara- 
 ceous plants. They are minute oval sacs, tapering to each 
 end, where they are perforated ; they are apparently com- 
 posed of two bags one within the other, the space between 
 the bags being filled with a transparent fluid, and the inner 
 hag itself with fine spicula;. When the biforine is placed in 
 water it discharges its spicula; with considerable violence, 
 first from one end, and then from another, recoiling at 
 every discharge, and eventually emptying itself, when it be- 
 comes a flaccid motionless bag. Nothing is known of the 
 nature, use, or origin of these bodies. 
 
 BIFU'RCATE. (Lat. bis, furca, a fork.) When a part 
 has two prongs like a fork. 
 
 BI'GAMY. (Lat. bis, twice, and Gr. yafioi, marriage.) 
 The offence of contracting a second marriage during the 
 life of the husband or wife, which, by the law of England, 
 is felony, punishable by transportation for seven years, or 
 imprisonment for two. Bigamy, by the canon law, signified 
 a second marriage after the death of the first wife, or a 
 marriage with a widow ; and incapacitated the party con- 
 tracting. See Marriage, Law of. 
 
 BIGHT. Part of a rope between the ends ; bight is also 
 a shallow bay or hollow in the line of sea-coast. 
 
 BIGNONIA'CEjE. (So called from Bignon, a French 
 man of letters, and the friend of. Tournefort.) A natural 
 order of Didynamous plants, usually having a twining 
 stem, large trumpet-shaped flowers, and a pod-like capsule 
 with winged seeds. Some of them are trees of consider- 
 able size, and furnish timber valuable in the countries 
 where it is produced ; but the greater part are interesting 
 only for the beauty of their flowers, in which respect this 
 order yields to no other. Bignonia venusta, Pan dora, 
 a-quinoctialis, cherere, and grandifiora, are probably the 
 handsomest twining plants known. 
 
 BI'JUGATE. (Lat. bis, and jugum, a yoke.) Composed 
 of two pairs of any thing ; a term applied to leaves pinna- 
 ted with two pairs of leaflets. 
 
 B1KH. A deleterious plant inhabiting Nepal, and used 
 by the natives of that country to poison their wells when 
 the British troops invaded it. The Aconitum ferox has 
 been ascertained to be this poison, which, like that of all 
 other Ranunculaceous plants, is volatile ; and although 
 highly dangerous when fresh, soon loses its activity when 
 exposed to the air. 
 
 BILA'BIATE. (Lat. bis, and labium, a lip.) When a 
 flower has all or any of its parts collected into two separate 
 parcels or lips. Thus a calyx having two of its sepals col- 
 lected into one parcel, and the others into a second parcel, 
 or a corolla with its five petals adhering two and three to- 
 gether, are bilabiate. 
 
 BILAME'LLATE. (Lat. bis, lamella, aplate.) When a 
 part is divided longitudinally into two lamella;. 
 
 BI'LBERRY. "A small' bush inhabiting the northern 
 parts of Europe in mountainous situations, and bearing 
 small black berries, which are eaten by country people, 
 and are a favourite food of deer. It is the Vacciuium myr- 
 tillus of Botanists. 
 
 BILDSTEIN. (German.) A mineral composed chiefly 
 of silica and alumina, with a little oxide of iron. It is com- 
 monly seen carved into Chinese figures. 
 
 BILE. (Lat. bilis ; said to be derived from bis, twice, 
 146 
 
 BILOBATE. 
 
 and lis, contention, as being the supposed cause of anger 
 and dispute.) A fluid secreted in the liver, of a yellow 
 colour, and a nauseous taste, compounded of sweet and 
 bitter; it sinks in water, and mixes with it in all propor- 
 tions ; it it slightly alkaline, and feels soapy. It contains a 
 peculiar bitter principle, which has been called picromel, 
 and a little free soda and saline matters. According to 
 Berzelius, the solid constituents of bile amount to about 
 one tenth of its weight. 
 
 BILGE. The lower or flat part of the bottom of a ship 
 on which she rests when aground. — Bilge of a cask, the 
 middle part between the ends, in which the bunghole is 
 placed. 
 
 BILGED. Having the bottom stove in. 
 
 BILGE WATER. The water that collects in the bot- 
 tom, by leakage or otherwise. It has usually a peculiar 
 and offensive smell. When a ship is tight the bilge water 
 when pumped up is dark; and in a leaky ship, it comes 
 up quite clear. 
 
 BI'LIARY CALCULI. Are concretions which form in 
 the gall-bladder (gall stones) or bile-ducts. They are gene- 
 rally composed of a peculiar crystalline fatty matter, which 
 has been called cholesterine. 
 
 BILL. A legislative measure introduced into parlia- 
 ment is so called until it has acquired the force of law by 
 receiving the royal assent. Bills are either public or pri- 
 vate ; a distinction founded rather on usage and precedent, 
 than on any exact definition. The immediate parliament- 
 ary consequence of the distinction is the payment of cer- 
 tain fees to the officers of the house, winch are due by 
 custom on private bills. According to Hatsell, this differ- 
 ence between private and public bills was recognised as 
 long ago as 1607. It is a general rule of parliamentary 
 proceeding, that the same bill or question cannot be twice 
 offered in the same session. But at every stage of a bill, 
 the whole of it is supposed to be before the house ; and 
 consequently if words have been inserted by way of 
 amendment, the sense of the house may again be taken 
 respecting them at a subsequent stage. See Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 BILL OF SALE. In Law, a contract under seal, by 
 which a man passes his interest in goods and chattels to 
 another, and which does not require either valuable con- 
 sideration or actual transfer of the goods to support it, as 
 between the vendor and vendee; although as between the 
 vendee and the vendor's creditors the absence of such 
 consideration and transfer would in general be held indi- 
 cative of fraud, and invalidate the contract. 
 
 BILL OF HEALTH. A certificate or instrument, signed 
 by proper authorities, delivered to the masters of ships at 
 the time of their clearing out from all ports or places sus- 
 pected of being infested by particular disorders, certifying 
 the state of health at the lime that such ships sailed. Bill3 
 of health are of three kinds — clean, foul, and suspected, 
 which are self-explanatory terms. 
 
 BILL OF LADING. A memorandum, subscribed by 
 the master of a ship, acknowledging the receipt of goods 
 intrustesj to him for transportation, and binding himself 
 (under certain exceptions) to deliver them to the person 
 to whom they are addressed, in good condition, for a cer- 
 tain remuneration or freightage. Of bills of lading there 
 are usually triplicate copies ; one for the party transmit- 
 ting the goods, another for the person to whom the goods 
 are addressed, and the third for the master. 
 
 BILL OF EXCHANGE. See Exchange. 
 
 BILL OF RIGHTS. In Law, the declaration delivered 
 by the two houses of parliament to the Prince of Orange, 
 February 13, 1688, at the period of his succession to the 
 British throne ; in which, after a full specification of vari- 
 ous acts of James II. which were alleged to be illegal, the 
 rights and privileges of the people were asserted. 
 
 Bl'LLET. In Heraldry, a bearing of which the origin 
 is very uncertain ; represented of an oblong square form, 
 sometimes showing the thickness, and always with a flat 
 surface. Billetty, or semee of billets, signifies that the 
 escutcheon or charge is strewed over with these bearings, 
 without regard to particular number or station. 
 
 BULLION. In Numeration, denotes a million of mil- 
 lions, and is expressed by 1,0000.0000,0000. The French 
 use the same word to denote a thousand millions. The 
 term is probably a contraction of bis and million; whence 
 the English signification, a million of millions, appears more 
 according to analogy. Thus biquadratic means the square 
 of a square, or the product of two quadratics. 
 
 BILLS OF MORTALITY, are accounts of Ihe number 
 of births and burials within a certain district in every week, 
 month, quarter, or year. These were first compiled in 
 London, after the great plague of 1593 ; and ten years after- 
 wards began to he returned weekly. Several of the pa- 
 rishes now included within the metropolis (as Marylebone 
 and Pancras) are not within the bills of mortality. See 
 Mortality. 
 
 BI'LOBATE. (Lat. bis, lobus, a lobe.) When a part is 
 divided into two lobes, or obtuse processes.
 
 BILOCULAR. 
 
 BILO'CTTLAR. (Lat. bis, locula, a cell.) Having two cells. 
 
 BIMA'CULATE. (Lat. bis. macula, a spot.) When an 
 animal, or part, is marked with two spots. 
 
 Itl'MAW (Bimana, two-handed.) The term applied 
 byCuvterto the highest order of mammalia, of which man 
 is the type and sole genus. 
 
 BIME'DIAL. In Geometry, when two lines commen- 
 surable only in power (for example, the diagonal and side 
 of a square) are joined together, the sum is irrational with 
 respect to either of the two lines, and is called by Euclid a 
 
 BI'NARV ARITHMETIC. (Fr. binaire, from binus, 
 dual, or by tteos.) A species of arithmetic, proposed by 
 Leibnitz, and founded on the shortest and simplest pro- 
 gression ; namely, that which terminates with the second 
 cipher. In the binary notation, therefore, only two cha- 
 racters are required, 1 and 0, the zero having the power of 
 multiplying the number it follows by two, as in the com- 
 mon notation it multiplies by ten. The number out 
 presented by 1 ; tico, bv 10; three, by 11; four, by 100: 
 Jive, by 101; six, by 110; seven, by 111; ttght, by 1000; 
 nine, by li'M ; ten, by 1010, &e. This method of o» I 
 though it may be applied with advantage in the investiga- 
 tion of some properties of numbers, would be inconve- 
 nient for common purposes, on account of the great num- 
 ber of characters required even when the numbers 
 to be expressed are smalL We will give an exam- 
 ple from the Encyclopedu method of 
 -ing a number by the binary scale, and of finding 
 the value of a number so expressed. 
 
 It is convenient to begin with forming a table of the 
 powers of 2, namely, 2 . -", '..'-. 2*, &c. They are 1. .'. 1. 
 8, 16, 32, 64, IS 
 
 press the number 230 by the binary scale. Seek in the 
 table the greatest power of 2 contained In 230; it is found 
 to be 128, which is the 8th number in the table : hence the 
 expression will contain B ciphers, and the first on ihe left 
 hand is 1 Subtract 129 from 230, there remains 102 ; the 
 highest power of 2 contained in ibis is 64, which is the 
 nth number in the table. The second cipher will 
 therefore be also l. Subtract 64 from 102, and there re- 
 mains 38. Butthe8ixth number in thi which 
 is contained in 38; therefore the third cipher in I 
 pression is still 1. Subtr remains 6; 
 but the fifth number in the table is 16, which is not con- 
 tained in 6; therefore the fourth cipher of the expression 
 is 0. The fourth number in the table is 8, which is no) 
 contained in I her must also in- 0. 
 The third number in the table is t. which is contained in 
 C; the Subtracting l from 
 6 there remains 2 ; but the second number in 
 2, thei ■ nth is I. The last difference is zero ; 
 therefore the lasl cipher in the expression is • '■ 
 ing all these results, we find the number 230 is expressed 
 
 in lh( binary scab- by lll'iOUO. 
 
 v ... ppose it were required to determine the value 
 
 of the expression 110101 in the binary scale. As there are 
 hi re six ciphers, we look for the sixth number in the 
 
 tabic, and find 32, which is the value of the first 
 
 cipher. The following cipher represents the fifth number, 
 and is consequently equal to in. The third cipher isO, 
 ami its value ii, ill, ing. The fourth cipher corresponds to 
 the third number in the table, and represents 4. The fifth 
 cipher is 0, and us value nothing. The lasi cipher I 
 ponds in the firsl numbi r of the table, which is 1. The 
 whole expression, therefore, 1 10,101, is equivalent to 32 + 
 16 + l + 1 =53. It has been imagined, though on very 
 Slight ground - of the binary notation are d:s- 
 
 cernible among the early monuments of China. 
 
 For in format ion on the subject of arithmetical scales, 
 see Ia tlu 's P 
 
 BINARY MEASURE. (Lat. binarius, belonging to too.) 
 In Music, that in which the raising the hand or fool is 
 equal to that of falling, usu illy called common time. The 
 Italians are accustomed after a recitative to use the phrase 
 a tempo giusto, to indicate that the measure is to be beat 
 true and correct, which is otherwise conducted in the reci- 
 tative in order to express passion, &c 
 
 lil'NAT. (Lat. bis, and natus, born.) When two bodies 
 of the same nature spring from the same point, as often 
 happens in the segments of leaves. 
 
 HIND. (Ger. binden, to fasten togetlter.) In Music, the 
 same as a ligature or tie for the purpose of grouping notes 
 toaether. 
 
 Bind. The indurated clay of coal mines. Binding in 
 agriculture is tving up sheaves of corn. 
 
 BINE'RVATE. (Lat. bis, nerva, a nerve.) In Entomo- 
 logy, when the wing of an insect is supported by only two 
 nerves. 
 
 BINNACLE. The case or stand in which the steering 
 compass is placed ; it is fixed near the tiller or wheel At 
 night the compass is illuminated bv a lamp placed over it. 
 
 BI'NOCLE, or BINOCULAR TELESCOPE. (Lat. bi- 
 nus, double, and oculus, the eye.) A telescope to which 
 147 
 
 BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 both eyes may be applied at once, and in which, conse- 
 quently, an object may be observed with both eyes at the 
 same time. 
 
 BINO'.MIAL. (Lat. bis, ttcice, and Gr. vo/ios, laic.) In 
 Algebra, signifies a quantity composed of two terms, con- 
 nected together by the signs -f- or — ; thus, a-\-b and 
 c — 5 are binomial quantities. 
 
 BINO'MIAL THEOREM. A formula discovered by 
 Newtmi. of singular use in algebra, by which a binomial 
 quantity may be raised to any power in, the exponent m 
 being either a whole number or a fraction, positive or ne- 
 gative. The formula is this : — 
 
 m(m— \) , ,, , 
 
 (a+6)"i =am + '11 am-1 b+ . 
 
 m (m—\) (m—2) 
 
 am— 3 63+ 
 
 m (m— I) (m— 2) (m— 3) 
 1 2 3 4~~ 
 
 1 2 
 am — 1 61+ <tc. 
 
 And the mere inspection of the terms will give a better idea 
 of the manner in which they are successively formed than 
 any explanation. 
 
 When the exponent »i is a whole positive number, it is 
 evident thai the series has a finite number of terms; sup- 
 pose, li ir example. m=3, then m— 3=0; and all the terms 
 into winch m -3 enters as a co-efficient become equal to 
 zero, or vanish. But on looking al the series, we find m — 3 
 mi. and it will continue in all the suc- 
 ceeding : therefore, when m=3 the series can only have 
 four terms ; and. generally, the number of terms of the se- 
 ine exponent by one. When m is a fraction- 
 al number, or is negative, the series does not terminate, 
 and will only express approximately the value of (a+oyn 
 when it is convergent; that is to say, when every individual 
 term of the series is greater than that which succeeds 
 For example, let Ihe expression to be developed be 
 (xr+y)*, which signifies the square root of the binomial 
 (r'--f-i/) Comparing this with the above formula, we have 
 evidently — . . 
 
 (xx+y)$=xxh+lxxi— \y 
 
 +h (!r-l) xx*-* y'+Stc. 
 
 =x+ -L+11+&C. 
 
 a series which goes on for ever; but which, supposing x 
 
 I t!i an unity, approaches nearer and nearer to the 
 
 tlue of the root of x'-r-y, as the number of terms in- 
 
 tea greater. 
 
 In order to determine whether in any given case the se- 
 
 rgent, we ha\ ily to compare two succes- 
 
 ni- "t the development of (o-r-o)*". For example, 
 take the fourth and fifth; rejecting the common factors, 
 
 the fourth is to the fifth as a"*— 3; "'~ qm-i 6; that is, as 
 
 1 to ?!=?•*■ 
 
 4 
 
 fourth, or the series will be convergent if (m — 3)6 is small- 
 er than b'. In general, let n be the order of any term in 
 the development of (a-(-6)">: this term will be to the suc- 
 ceeding in the ratio of 1 : "* "~1— : ; and the terms will 
 
 n a 
 always go on decreasing, or the series will be convergent 
 when (m — n-f-l)6 is smaller than no. 
 
 The principal use of the binomial theorem is to find ap- 
 proximate valms of the roots of quantities by expanding 
 them into series. The demonstrations which have been 
 given of it are very numerous, and one or other of them 
 may be found in any work on algebra. For one of the 
 neatest and most concise we refer to the article "Algebra" 
 in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 7th edition. 
 
 BIO'CEi.LATE. (Lat. bis, ocellus, an eyelet.) In En- 
 tomology, when an insect's wing is marked with two eye- 
 like Spots. 
 
 BIO'GRAPHY. (From the Greek word /?i'oc, life, and 
 ypii(po), I describe.) The history of the life of an individual. 
 Bi igrapby, in the progress of literature, appears to be near- 
 ly coeval with history itself. It has been ingeniously de- 
 scribed as " history teaching by example ;" and this mode 
 of instruction was perhaps peculiarly appropriate to early 
 and simple times, in which the relative importance of indi- 
 vidual men to the society in which they lived was greater 
 1 than it can ordinarily be in periods of more advanced civili- 
 • sation. But, although we have notices of many biographi- 
 cal writers among the classical authors of Greece, none of 
 ! their works have been preserved to us (if we except the 
 short narrative of the exploits of Agesilaus by Xenophon, 
 for his celebrated Memorabilia of Socrates are rather in the 
 form of a collection of sayings and anecdotes than a me- 
 moir) of earlier date than the Roman Empire. It is to a 
 comparativelv late age that we owe all the more interesting 
 works of this' description which antiquity has bequeathed 
 to us, some of which are among the most popular relics of 
 
 ! ; therefore the fifth will be smaller than the
 
 BIPECTINATE. 
 
 the classical ages— the Lives of Illustrious Men, by Plu- 
 tarch, and Cornelius Nepos ; the Lives of the Cctsars, by 
 Suetonius, a work of which the details are strictly biogra- 
 phical ; and the Lives of the Philosophers, by Diogenes 
 Laertius. Biography may be said in strictness to differ 
 from history not merely in the extent of the subject, but 
 also, and perhaps more characteristically, in the mode in 
 which that subject is treated. Thus, in classical literature, 
 the works of Quintus Curtiusand Arrian, although devoted 
 exclusively to the actions of a single individual (Alexander), 
 are not usually termed biographies; not only because the 
 individual in question was the leader and foremost charac- 
 ter in a course of great public events, but also because 
 those public events form the subject matter of their works, 
 and not the more peculiar details of the personal life of 
 their heroes. They are therefore more accuratelv deno- 
 minated histories than biographies. On the other hand, 
 the Lives of the Ticelve Casars by Suetonius form, as has 
 been said, a series of Biographies, although the persons 
 who furnish the subject were, like Alexander, arbiters of 
 the destinies of a great part of mankind ; because the de- 
 tails which they contain are chiefly of a private and per- 
 sonal nature. It is the object of history, among its other 
 lessons, to make us acquainted with the influence which 
 the actions, the characters, and the thoughts of individual 
 men have produced on the course of events affecting soci- 
 ety in general : conversely, it appears to be the province 
 of the biographer to detail the effects which have been 
 produced by external occurrences and circumstances on 
 the character and conduct of individuals. See Memoir. 
 
 BIPE'CTINATE. (Lat. bis, pecten, a comb.) When a 
 part has two margins toothed like a comb. 
 
 BI'PELTATE. (Lat. bis, pelta, a buckler.) When an 
 animal or part has a defence like a double shield. 
 
 BIPU'PILLATE. (Lat. bis, pupilla. a pupil.) In Ento- 
 mology, when an eye-like spot on the wing of a butterfly 
 has two dots or pupils within it of a different colour. 
 
 BIQUADRA'TIC. In Algebra, denotes the power imme- 
 diately succeeding the cube ; that is, the square of the 
 square, or fourth power. 
 
 BIQUADRA'TIC EQUATION. Is an equation in which 
 the unknown quantity rises to the fourth, but not to a high- 
 er power. An equation of this kind, when complete, is of 
 the form I'+A^+B^+Cr+D^, where A, B, C, and D, 
 denote any known quantities whatever. Lewis Ferrari, an 
 Italian geometer, and a pupil of the celebrated Cardan, 
 made the discovery that the resolution of a biquadratic 
 equation can always be reduced to that of a cubic equa- 
 tion. Of the various ways in which this reduction can be 
 effected, the following, proposed by Euler, and explained 
 at length in his Algebra, is perhaps the simplest. The first 
 step of the process is to transform the given equation into 
 another in which the second term is wanting. This can 
 always be done by assuming y — \\.=x, and substituting it 
 for x in the proposed equation ; a new equation will result, 
 having the form 
 
 y*+py"-+qy+r=o, (i> 
 
 and it is only to the solution of this that our attention need 
 be confined. 
 
 Assume yz=\/a-\-\/b-\-\/c, and suppose a, b, c, to be 
 three roots of the cubic equation 2 3 +P; 2 -|-Q2 — R=o. By 
 the theory of equations the co-efficient of the second term 
 is the sum of all the roots with their signs changed ; the 
 co-efficient of the third is the sum of the products of the 
 roots combined by pairs ; and the last term is the product 
 of all the roots with the signs changed. We have there- 
 fore a+6+e=: — P, a6-t-ac+5c=Q, and a6c=R. From the 
 assumed equation y=\/a-\-\/b-\-\/c, we get by squaring 
 5 2 =a+6+c+2 (\/ab+\/ac+-\/bc) ; whence, substituting 
 — P for a-\-b-\-c, and transposing 
 
 3/*+ P=2 (.Val'+Vac+Vbc). 
 Squaring this equation also, we get after reduction y 4 -|-2P 
 
 y % +P-=4(.ab+ac+bc)+8\/abc (.V^+Vb+VO, which, on 
 substituting R and y for their values given above, becomes 
 
 J/ 4 +Py s +P 2 =4Gl+8i/VR» 
 and by transposing 
 
 j/ 4 +2Pi/ 2 — Sy-v/R+P 8 — l<Z=o. (2) 
 
 Now, one of the roots of this biquadratic equation is ?/= 
 ■\/a+\/b+\/c ; and a, b, c, are the three roots of the cubic 
 equation, z 3 +Pz"-\-Q,z — R:=o ; consequently, by resolving 
 the cubic we get the values of a, b, c; and thence y, the 
 root of the biquadratic, becomes known. 
 
 To apply this solution to the proposed equation (I), the 
 co-efficients P, Q, R, of the resolved equation (2), must he 
 determined in terms ofp, q, r. Comparing the two equa- 
 tions, 
 
 y*+rnf+qy+r=°, d) 
 
 BIRD OF PARADISE. 
 
 q_ P 8 -4r r = 7^ j t follows, therefore, that the roots of 
 
 16 B4 
 
 the proposed equation are expressed generally by y=z\/a 
 +\/b -4- V^'i where a, b, c denote the roots of the cubx 
 equation 
 
 «i+P ,»+*»'-*• «-g a ^o (3) 
 
 2 16 64 
 
 All the four roots of the biquadratic are involved in the ex- 
 pression y = \/a -4- \/b -4- -\/c ; in order to discover each 
 of them in particular, it is necessary to consider the 
 changes of sign of which they admit. As the square root 
 of any quantity a may be either ■+■ \/a or — -\/a, each of 
 the three quantities, \/a, \/b, \/c, may have either the 
 sign -4- or — prefixed to it ; whence the formula will give 
 eight different expressions. But as the product of the three 
 roots, \/a, \/b, \/c, is equal to \/R or '° — s?i it > s obvi- 
 ous that when q is positive, their product must be negative, 
 and this can only be the case when either only one or all 
 three of them are negative. When q is negative the pro- 
 duct must be positive, which can only be the case either 
 when all three are positive, or two of them negative. There 
 are consequently only four different expressions for q posi- 
 tive, and four for q negative, which in either case form the 
 four roots of the biquadratic equation. 
 
 The co-efficients of the equation (3) involve fractions; 
 but these may be removed by assuming vzzziz, and sub- 
 stituting for 2 its value in terms of v. It then becomes, 
 more simply, 
 
 v 3 +2pv*+(p*— 4r)v— q* = o, (4) 
 
 the roots of which are $a, \b, \c. 
 
 The rule for the resolution of a biquadratic equation Is 
 therefore as follows : — 
 
 Let y i -\-py' 2 -\-qy-{-r = o be the proposed equation, 
 wanting its second term. Form the cubic equation v a 4- 
 2py 2 +(p a — ir)v — q"=o, and find its roots, which call a, 6, c. 
 Then the roots of the proposed biquadratic are, 
 
 when q is negative, 
 y=i(Va+VHV / cj 
 y=i(Va — Vb — Vc) 
 y=H—\/a + V» — Vc') 
 y = h(—Va — Vb + Vc) 
 
 when q is positive, 
 y = J(— Va — \/b — -v/c) 
 j/=J(— Va + Vb + Ve) 
 y=±(\/a + Vb- Vc) 
 
 y=h (Va + \/b — \/c). 
 
 y*+2Vy*— S\/Ry+~P l -4Q.=o, 
 
 (2) 
 
 '/' 
 
 we find 2P=p, — 8\/R=?, P 8 — lQ=r; whence P="2 
 148 
 
 BIRA'DIATE. (Lat. bis, radius, a ray. When a part 
 has two rays. 
 
 BIRCH. A hardy tree inhabiting the north of Europe, 
 Asia, and America. The common birch (Betula alba) is 
 valuable for its capability of resisting extremes of both 
 heat and cold ; its timber is chiefly employed for firewood 
 Its bark is extremely durable. The American birch (B. 
 lenta) produces a hard heavy timber, much used by cabi- 
 net- makers ; and the bark of B. Papyracea is employed by 
 the NorthAmerican Indians for a variety of useful purposes. 
 
 Bl'RDLlME. A glutinous substance extracted by boil- 
 ing the bark of the holly tree ; a similar substance may be 
 obtained from misletoe, from the young shoots of elder, 
 and some other plants. 
 
 BIRD OF PARADISE. A name originally applied to 
 the sppcies Paradisea apoda, Linn. ; of which the skins, 
 deprived of the wings, the feet, and the tail, have long 
 formed a high-priced article of export from the eastern 
 parts of the world. The value of these mutilated speci- 
 mens of natural history arises chiefly from the extraordi- 
 nary development and light and beautiful structure of the 
 plumes which grow from the scapular and lateral regions 
 of the body ; and these plumes, combined with the velvety 
 texture and brilliant metallic reflections of the ordinary 
 feathers, especially those covering the head, render skins 
 of the Paradisea ornaments highly and justly esteemed 
 by the fair inhabitants of the most civilised countries. The 
 presence of the remarkable plumage just alluded to, and 
 the constant absence of the ordinary organs of locomotion 
 in the imported specimens, easily gave rise to strange spe- 
 culations as to the nature of the rare bird of the east; and 
 the older naturalists delighted to describe it as destitute of 
 feet, dwelling constantly in the air, wafted about in the 
 bright beams of the sun independently of the ordinary 
 mechanism of wings, and nourished with dew, and the 
 nectar and even odour of flowers. To beings thus imagin- 
 ed to be raised above the dull earth, to enjoy etherial food 
 and a perpetual habitation in the air, no name could be 
 more appropriate than Birds of Paradise or Heaven. The 
 march of inquiry has, however, dispelled the fancied attri- 
 butes and false charms of these lovely beings, and has re- 
 stored to them their wings and feel. The latter, indeed, 
 are remarkable for their robustness : they have three toes 
 in front and one behind, as in other Passeres of Cuvier, 
 with the middle toe shorter than the tarsus, the outer toe 
 united to it at its base, and the inner one joined to it for 
 half the length of the first phalanx. The form of the beak 
 corresponds with that which characterises the tribe Coni- 
 rostres of Cuv. ; and their true food, which consists not 
 only of the pulpy and farinaceous parts of fruit, but also
 
 BIRD PEPPER. 
 
 of worms, insects, the egzs and young of smaller birds, 
 and even carrion, causes them to be ranked with the family 
 of Omnirores, Cuv. In fact, they closely resemble iu their 
 habits our magpies and jays. The principal species of the 
 genus Paradisea are the Great or Common Bird of Para- 
 dise (Par. apoda of Linnaeus); the Royal Bird of Paradise 
 (Par. regia): the Red Bird of Paradise (.Par. rubra); the 
 Magnificent Bird of Paradise (Par. magnifica) ; the Six- 
 threaded Bird of Paradise (Par. sexesetacea), which is 
 characterized by three long and threadlike feathers, which 
 grow from each side of the body ; the Superb Bird of Pa- 
 radise (Par. superba), which is smaller than the preceding, 
 but perhaps the most beautiful of the genus ; the Small 
 Bird of Paradise (Par. minor), which measures about nine 
 inches from the point of the bill to the end of the tail ; and, 
 lastlv. the White Bird of Paradise (Par. alba). 
 
 BIRD PEPPER. The small Capsicum, a species of the 
 plant which affords Cayenne pepper. 
 
 BIRDS. In Heraldry, are said to be rising, displayed, 
 close, volant, «fcc. according to the different postures in 
 which they are represented. Birds of prey, and cocks, 
 when beaked and legged of a different tincture from the 
 bodv. are said to be armed of that tincture. 
 
 BIRD'S EYE VIEW. In the Fine Arts, a term used to 
 denote a view arranged according to the laws of perspec- 
 tive, in which the point of sight or situation of the eye is 
 placed at a very considerable height above the objects 
 viewed and delineated. In Architectural representations, it 
 is used chietly for the purpose of exhibiting the disposition 
 of the different courts or quadrangles and roofs of a build- 
 ing. It is a useful method of representing battles, as also 
 of giving a general notion of a small district of a country. 
 As before observed, it is entirely dependent upon the same 
 principle! as those detailed in the article Perspective, 
 which see. 
 
 BIRD'S MOUTH. In Architecture, an interior angle or 
 notch, cut across the grain at the extremity of a piece of 
 timber fur its reception on the edge of another piece : as a 
 rafter, for instance, is received on a pole plate. Bird's 
 month signifies also the Interna] angle of a polygon, its ex- 
 ternal angle beinc called a bull's nose 
 
 BIRTH, EVIDENCE OF. By the French code civil it is 
 required that a declaration shall be made of every birth to 
 the proper officer, within three days, with production of 
 the child. The "act of birth." setting forth the time and 
 place of the event, Bex and name of the child, and descrip- 
 tion of the father, is then immediately drawn up in the 
 presence of two witnesses. It is entered on the register, 
 and a copy kept by the parent. (.Code Civil arl Bo.) In 
 England, by the 70th Canon, and statutes of 6 «.v 7 William 
 3 and 1 G. -1. r. 76.. the minister of every parish is requir- 
 ed to keep a register of births. But now. by the recent act 
 for registering births, deaths, and marriages, 6 .v 7 W 1 c. 
 86., it is enacted thai the parent, or occupier of a house in 
 which a child is born, may, within \i days after the birth, 
 give notice to the district registrar; and shall give such in- 
 formation on being requested by the district registrar with- 
 in the same time. After 42 days, the birth may be regis- 
 tered only in presence of the superinten hint registrar,and 
 on a peculiar declaration. After six months, registration 
 of a birth cannot take place. Certified registers of births, 
 as well as deaths, are to be forwarded after a certain time 
 to the superintendant registrar, and copies of registers to 
 the L'<"ieraL register office. (Sects. 19. 21, 22, 23. 33, 34.) 
 
 BIRTH, or BERTH. OF A SHIP. The ground or space 
 in which she is anchored, and which is said to be a good 
 birth, or a bail birth ; also, an apartment, as the midship- 
 man's birth ; also, the space allotted a seaman to sleep or 
 hang his hammock in. 
 
 HIS ( I. at. twice. ) In Music, a word placed over passages 
 which have do's postfix.'-! to one b;ir. and prefixed to a sub- 
 sequent bar, signifying that the passage between the dots 
 is to be twice plaved. 
 
 BI'SCUIT. (Fr. bis. twice, and cuit, baked.) In Sculp- 
 ture, a species of porcelain, of which groups and figures 
 in miniature are formed, which are twice passed through 
 the furnace or oven. It is executed without "laze upon it. 
 In Pottery, this term is applied to earthenware and porce- 
 lain, after it has been hardened in the fire, and before it re- 
 ceives the glaze : in this state it is permeable to wafer. 
 
 BISE'TOUS. (Eat. bis. seta, a bristle. ) In Zoology, when 
 an animal or pan is furnished with two bristle-like appen- 
 dages 
 
 BISE'XTTAL. (Of two sexes.) Is a term applied to 
 flowers which contain both stamens and pistil within the 
 6ame envelop : it is the same as the word hermaphrodite 
 in botany. 
 
 BI'SHOP. (A word contracted from the Greek i-ioKowos, 
 Lat. episcopus, signifying literally an overseer.) In all de- 
 nominations of Christians which admit the episcopal form 
 of government, the bishop is the superior of the three or- 
 ders, standing in rank and office distinct from the presbyter 
 or priest. (See art. Episcopacv.) This distinct office con- 
 sists in the power of ordination, confirmation and conse- 
 149 
 
 BISSEXTILE. 
 
 cration. none of which ceremonies may be performed by 
 an inferior clergyman. The clergy of a diocese are sub- 
 jected also to the ecclesiastical authority of their bishop, 
 who alone institutes to benefices, licenses curates, and has 
 considerable discretionary power in requiring the resi- 
 dence of his clergy on their cures, and in superintending 
 the discharge of their duties in them. 
 
 The mode of the appointment to bishoprics varies in 
 different establishments. In early times the bishop was 
 generally elected by his clergy. In the middle ages the 
 pope assumed in most cases the absolute nomination, 
 which claim has been given up in later times in many 
 Catholic countries, where the king or clergy recommend, 
 and the holy father only ratifies the appointment. In Eng- 
 land the appointment is virtually in the hands of the sove- 
 reign, who upon the demise of the bishop receives from 
 the dean and chapter intimation of the event, with a re- 
 quest for permission to supply the vacancy. The king ac- 
 cords his permission to that effect, and at the same time 
 recommends a person to their choice — a recommendation 
 which is equivalent to a command, as it cannot be waived 
 without incurring the severe penalties o( a praemunire. 
 
 BI'SMUTH. A brittle, yellowish-white metal, of a crys- 
 talline texture. Its specific gravity is 10- ; it fuses at 476°, 
 and at a red heat it sublimes in close vessels. It conducts 
 heat less perfectly than most of the other metals. When 
 strongly heated it burns with a bluish white flame, and is 
 rapidly oxidized. Its equivalent upon the hydrogen scale 
 is 71 ; and it forms only one salifiable oxide, the equivalent 
 of which is 79. When nitrate of bismuth is dropped info 
 water a white powder is thrown down, formerly called 
 magistery of bismuth or pearl white: it is a subnitrate. A 
 brown j>croxide of bismuth is obtained by fusing the protox- 
 ide with caustic potash. Some of the alloys of bismuth 
 are remarkable for their fusibility : a compound of 8 parts 
 of bismuth, 5 of lead, and 3 of tin, melts in boiling 
 water, and is commonly called /us/Me metal. The ores of 
 bismuth are not common ; but it occurs yutfite, and com- 
 bined with oxygen, sulphur, and arsenic. The Germans 
 call it irixmut/i. 
 
 IM'SON. The trivial name of certain species of the 
 I. mucin genus Bos, which differ from their congeners in 
 having fourteen (Bos bison), or fifteen (Bos Americanus), 
 instead of thirteen pairs of ribs. The common bison of 
 the north of Europe (Bos bison), and the American bison, 
 or bonassus (Bos Americanus), are the only known exist- 
 ing species ol this group. 
 
 BISPINO'SUS (Lat bis, spina, a spine.) When an 
 animal or part is aimed with two spines. 
 
 BISSEXTILE. (Eat. bis, twice, and sextifis, sir/A.) The 
 name given to the year which contains 366 days. The cal- 
 endar used in all European countries is founded on that of 
 the Romans, as reformed by Julius Caesar. In the calen- 
 dar of Caesar, the length of the year was fixed at 365# 
 days : and in order tli.it the year should always begin with 
 the beginning of a day, it was directed that every fourth 
 year should contain 366 days, the other years having each 
 365. The additional day, which thus occurred every fourth 
 year, was given to February, the shortest month, and was 
 inserted in the calendar between the 24th and 25th days. 
 In the peculiar method of reckoning the days of the month 
 adopted by the Romans, namely, of reckoning backwards 
 from the 1st of the succeeding month, it would have been 
 very inconvenient to have interrupted the order of nume- 
 ration ; accordingly the 24th, which was called sexto Calen- 
 das Startii, was reckoned twice, and the supernumerary or 
 repeated day called bis sexto Caleridas. Hence the term 
 bissextile. In English, leap year has the same signification. 
 
 In the Julian calendar every fourth year was bissextile; 
 but this supposes the year to be 36514 days, which errs in 
 excess by 11 minutes 1035 seconds. Accordingly in the 
 course of a few centuries, the error will amount to days, 
 and cause the commencement of the year to change its 
 place with respect to the seasons. When the Julian ca- 
 lendar wis introduced, the equinox fell on the 25th of 
 March : in 1582, when the calendar was reformed by Pope 
 Gregory XIII., it had fallen back to the 11th ; and as it was 
 then supposed that the error of the Julian calendar 
 amounted to three days in 400 years, it was ordered that 
 the intercalary day should be omitted in all the years which 
 terminate centuries, excepting those which are multiples 
 of 400. The Gregorian rule of intercalation is therefore as 
 follows : — Every year of which the number is divisible by 4 
 is a leap year; excepting the centesimal years, which are 
 only leap years when divisible by 4 after suppressing the 
 two zeros. Thus 1600 was a leap year; but 1700, 1800, 
 and 1900, which would be bissextile in the Julian calen- 
 dar, are common years in the Gregorian. 
 
 This regulation, though it would for a long time preserve 
 the commencement of the year at the same place in the 
 seasons, is not yet quite correct. It supposes the length of 
 the year to be 365 days 5 h. 43 m. 12 seconds, which is too 
 great by 2238 seconds ; an error which amounts to a day 
 ia 3866 years. As this number 3866 approaches to 4000, it
 
 BISTORT. 
 
 was proposed by Delambre to correct the Gregorian rule 
 by making the year 4000 and all its multiples common 
 years. Should our present calendar continue to be in 
 use 2000 years hence, posterity may then begin to con- 
 sider whether they will adopt this suggestion. See Cal- 
 endar. 
 
 BI'STORT. The root of the Polygonum bistorta, an 
 indigenous plant ; it is used in medicine as a powerful as- 
 tringent. 
 
 BI'STRE. In Painting, a dark brown colour, made from 
 the soot of dry wood, whereof for this purpose beech is 
 preferable. 
 
 Bl'SULCATE. (Lat. bis, twice, sulcus, a Jissure.) In 
 Mammalogy, a term signifying a foot resting upon two hoof- 
 ed digits. 
 
 BIT. That part of the bridle which goes into the mouth 
 of a horse. 
 
 BITTER PRINCIPLE. This term has been applied to 
 certain products of the action of nitric acid upon animal 
 and vegetable matters of an intensely bitter taste. See 
 Carbazotic Acid. 
 
 BITTERN. See Ardea. 
 
 Bittern. The residue of sea water after the common 
 salt has been separated by evaporation. It contains muri- 
 ate of magnesia, which gives it a hitter taste. 
 
 BITTER SALT. Sulphate of magnesia, or Epsom 
 salt. 
 
 BITTER SPAR. A Mineralogical term, generally ap- 
 plied to certain crystallized varieties of dolomite, or double 
 carbonates of lime and magnesia. It occurs in rhomboidal 
 crystals, consisting of about 55 per cent, of carbonate of 
 lime and 45 of carbonate of magnesia, sometimes with 
 tracps of iron and maganese. 
 
 BITU'MEN. (From mrvs, the pitch tree ; because it re- 
 sembles pitch.) A variety of inflammable mineral sub- 
 stances, which, like pitch, burn with flame in the open air, 
 is included under this term; such as naphtha, pilroleum, 
 and asphalt um. 
 
 Bitumen. Mineral pitch. 
 
 BITU'MINOUS SHALE. An argillaceous shale impreg- 
 nated with bitumen : it commonly accompanies coal. 
 
 BIVA'LVES. (Lat. bis, two, and valva, a valve.) A term 
 commonly applied to the Lamellibranchiate Acephalous 
 Molluscs, on account of the structure of their shell, which 
 consists of two parts or valves, joined together by an elas- 
 tic ligament at the cardo, or hinge. The testaceous cover- 
 ing of the Palliobranchiates is also composed of two valves 
 or shelly pieces ; but these are never joined by elastic lig- 
 ament. 
 
 BI'VOUAC. (Fr.) A term in the Military art, employed 
 to denote the system by which soldiers on a march, or in 
 expectation of an engagement, remain all night in the open 
 air, in contradistinction to the systemsof encampmentand 
 cantonment. This word is derived from the Lat. bis, twice, 
 and the German wache, a guard, and signified originally 
 the guard which was selected from the body of a regiment 
 to keep watch during the night. 
 
 B1XA'CE.E. A small natural order of plants, so called 
 after the genus Bixa, the genus which produces the sub- 
 stance called arnotto, with which English cheeses are dyed 
 of their peculiar reddish ochre colour. The species are 
 all trees or shrubs inhabiting the tropics. 
 
 BLACK. (Sax. blac ) In Painting, the darkest colour 
 of all ; whereof the different sorts are lamp black, ivory 
 black. Frankfort black, Spanish black, and Hart's black. 
 
 BLACK BIRD. See Turdds. 
 
 BLACK CAP. This term is generally applied and un- 
 derstood to signify a species of frugivorous warbler (Cur- 
 ruca atracapilla of Bisson); but it is also occasionally given to 
 the great titmouse (Parus fringillago), the marsh titmouse 
 (Parus palustris), the black-headed bunting (Emberiza 
 schtemilus), the stonechat (Rubetra rubicola), and even to 
 the black-headed gull. 
 
 BLACK COCK. The name of a native species of grouse 
 (Ti'trao.) 
 
 BLACK FLUX. A mixture of carbonate of potash and 
 charcoal, obtained by deflagrating tartar with half its 
 weight of nitre. 
 
 BLACK JACK. A term applied by the miners to cer- 
 tain sulphurets of zinc : the ore is also called blende. 
 
 BLACK LEAD. See Plumbago and Graphite. 
 
 BLACK LETTER. Is the name now applied to the old 
 English or modern Gothic letter, which was introduced in- 
 to England about the middle of the fourteenth century, and 
 became the character generally used in MS. works before 
 the art of printing was publicly practised in Europe. On 
 the application of that art to the multiplying of books, about 
 the middle of the fifteenth century, the block books, and 
 subsequently those written with moveable types, were in 
 this character, to imitate writing, and were disposed of as 
 manuscripts: and so perfect was the imitation, that it re- 
 quired great discrimination to distinguish the printed from 
 the written. The first printed Bible, known as " the Mentz 
 Bible without date," "was an instance of this. Fust, the 
 150 
 
 BLAZONRY. 
 
 printer, sold copies in Paris as manuscripts ; and as the de- 
 mand increased on account of their beauty and correct- 
 ness, he not only promptly supplied that increased de- 
 mand, but even lowered the price : this excited suspicion ; 
 and on comparing the copies they were found to be perfect 
 facsimiles of each other, and being produced with such ra- 
 pidity it was held to be totally impossible for the most ex- 
 pert scriptores to execute them with equal accuracy and 
 despatch ; and Fust was accused of producing them by 
 means of magic. To avoid punishment for this crime, he 
 was obliged to reveal the process by which they were pro- 
 duced. 
 
 Books printed before the year 1500 are generally in this 
 character, and are styled black-letter books. 
 
 BLACK WASH. A lotion composed of calomel and 
 limewater. 
 
 BLA'NCHING. In Gardening, is the whitening of the 
 stems, stalks, or leaves of plants, by tying them together, 
 or earthing them up, so as to exclude the light, and thus 
 to diminish the intensity of their native properties. 
 
 BLA'NK VERSE. In some modern languages, the 
 heroic verse of five feet without rhymes. Blank verse is 
 peculiar to the Italian, English, and German languages ; 
 having been imported into the two latter from the first. 
 In Italian the line is of eleven syllables ; and is used inva- 
 riably in the drama, and frequently in serious poetry, epic 
 or didactic. In English it was also first adopted by the 
 dramatists, and transferred to epic poetry by Mdton. The 
 Miltonic verse is constructed with closer attention to the 
 melody of the cadence and caesura than the dramatic : it 
 admits also less frequently of the eleventh syllable, which 
 in English poetry must be regarded as a sort of license ; 
 while Shakspeare and other dramatists occasionally double 
 the short syllable at the end, and thus extend the number 
 to twelve. 
 
 BLAPS. A Fabrician genus of Coleopterous insects, 
 now the type of a family (Blapsida;), characterized by the 
 absence of wings; maxillary palpi terminated by a large 
 hatchet-shaped joint ; body oblong and oval. All the spe- 
 cies are of a dark or black colour, and have the elytra 
 soldered together, and bent down at the sides of the abdo- 
 men so as to embrace that part. There are three British 
 species of the genus Blaps proper, which are known by 
 the trivial names of " darkling" or " church yard beetles," 
 and are regarded by the vulgar of this and other countries 
 as insects of evil omen. 
 
 BLAS'PHEMY. (Gr. faacrfpriuia, probably from P'Xair- 
 to), I injure ; iprjuri, rumour.) According to its supposed 
 etymology signifies the offence of using injurious language, 
 as calumny, reviling, &c. ; and in this sense it is used in 
 the New Testament; the word "railings," in 1 Tim. vi. 4. 
 being in the original "blasphemies." But in the modern 
 and restricted sense, " blasphemy" signifies the use of in- 
 sulting, or derogatory, or unbelieving language, with re- 
 spect to God and divine things. Under this meaning it has 
 been considered a civil crime in most Christian countries, 
 in imitation of the practice which prevailed among the 
 Jews. (Levit. xxix.) In England, by common law, it was 
 punishable with fine, imprisonment, and other corporal 
 punishment. By 9 W. 3. c. 35. it was first made a statuta- 
 ble offence, and extended so as to comprehend even the 
 mere denial of some fundamental doctrines of Christiani- 
 ty ; and subjected to very severe inflictions. Unitarians 
 w T ere relieved from the penalties of this act by 3 G. 3. c. 
 170. But it is almost obsolete in practice with respect to- 
 other offenders. 
 
 BLASTE'MA. In Botany, the axis of growth of an em- 
 bryo ; that is to say, the plumula, the radicle, and the part 
 which connects them, the cotyledons being removed. 
 
 Blastema. In Anatomy, the homogeneous gelatinous 
 and granular basis of the ovum, in which the organic ele- 
 ments characteristic of the different tissues are deposited 
 in the earlv stages of development. 
 
 BLASTING. See Mining. 
 
 BLASTOCA'RPOUS. (Gr. B\aoros, a germ, and tcapiros, 
 fruit.) That kind of fruit which germinates inside the 
 pericarp, as the mangrove. 
 
 BLASTODE'RM. (Gr. /JXaoroj, germ, Sepua, skin.y 
 In Anatomy, the germinal skin or membrane, or that gran- 
 ular membrane or stratum which lies immediately beneath 
 the membrana vitelli of the ovum, and which is the seat 
 of development of all parts of the body of birds. 
 
 BLA'STUS. (Gr. BAaorai/cj, / germinate.) A name 
 sometimes given to the plumula and radicle of grasses. 
 
 BLATTA. A genus of nocturnal Orthopterous insects, 
 commonly called cock-roaches, or black beetles. In mo- 
 dern Entomology, it forms the type of a family, including 
 many genera. 
 
 BLA'ZONRY. The art of deciphering coats of arms; 
 also, that of expressing or describing a coat of arms in ap- 
 propriate language. The word is supposed to be derived 
 from the German blasen, to blow, and to have originated 
 in the ceremonial of tournaments, from which so many 
 other terms and usages in heraldry are derived ; it having
 
 BLEACHING. 
 
 been customary on these solemn occasions for the herald 
 to blow a trumpet when he called out the arms of a knight 
 on ushering him into the lists. Blazonry requires a know- 
 ledge of, 1. The points of the shield, which are nine in 
 number (see Points) ; 2. The field, that is, the tincture or 
 tinctures forming tiie ground of the coat (see Tincture) : 
 
 3. The charges, or devices borne on the field (see Charge) ; 
 
 4. The ordinaries. 
 
 BLEA'CHING. (Ger. bleichen.) This process consists 
 in a series of operations, by which the natural colours of 
 various substances are discharged, so as to whiten them. 
 It is effected either by the action of various solvents, aided 
 by exposure to light, air, and moisture, upon the bleaching 
 ground ; or by the aid of chlorine. Cotton is more easily 
 bleached than linen, in consequence of its being originally 
 whiter, and having a less powerful attraction for the co- 
 louring matter. In bleaching these goods upon the old 
 principle, warm water is first liberally applied to remove 
 the weaver's paste or dressing; they are then bucked, or 
 boiled in a weak alkaline ley ; and after having been well 
 washed, are spread out upon the grass, so as to be freely 
 exposed to the joint agencies of light, air, and moisture; 
 the bucking and exposure are alternately repeated as often 
 as necessary ; the goods are soured, that is. immersed in 
 water slightly acidulated by sulphuric acid; lastly, they 
 are very thoroughly washed and dried. By these opera- 
 tions the texture of the goods is to a certain extent im- 
 paired, and much time is required to complete the process, 
 which also cannot be carried on in the winter months. 
 But the exposure upon the bleaching ground is now to a 
 great extent discontinued ; and the same effect is obtained, 
 after the process of backlog, by the action of weak solu- 
 tions of chlorine, or of chloride of lime, which, if skilfully 
 used, can scarcely be said to injure the goods more than 
 the long-continued exposure. The theory of bleaching 
 has not been satisfactorily developed ; but, from such ex- 
 periments as have been made in reference to it. it appears 
 to be a process of oxidizemenl, and to depend upon some 
 peculiar inlluence of Tiascent oxygen upon the colouring 
 matter. 
 
 The colour of manufactured wool depends partly upon 
 its own oil, and partly upon the applications made to it in 
 the loom. These are got rid of in the fulling mill by the 
 jolnl action of fullers' earth and soap; the cloth is then 
 well washed and dried, and is tolerably white ; iftheslighl 
 yellow tint which it retains is objectionable, it is prevented 
 by adding a little stone-blue to the washing water, or by 
 exposure to the fumes of burning sulphur ; this latter me- 
 thod, however, L'ives it a harsh feel, and if afterwards 
 soaped its yellowishness returns. 
 
 Tin- colour of raw silk depends upon a natural yellow 
 varnish, which is got nil of by boiling it in white soap and 
 water, and by repeated rincings. Certain articles of wove 
 cotton, such as stockings, are bleached as usual, and fin- 
 ished by the action of sulphurous acid, or the fumes of 
 burning sulphur. Straw Is also whitened by a similar 
 operation ; and hence blear lied straw hats are apt to have 
 a disagreeable sulphurous smell. A good account of bleach- 
 ing will be found in Parkes' chemical Essays. 
 
 BLE' ACHING POWDER. Chloride of lime, made by 
 exposing slaked lime to the action of chlorine. 
 
 BLENDE Native sulphuret of zinc. 
 
 BLE'NNIUS. (Gr. (i\cvva. slime.) In Ichthyology, a 
 genu30fAcanthopterygiousfisb.es, of the family of Gud- 
 geons (QobioidtB), remarkable for the quantity of mucus 
 secreted from the skin, and for the viviparous generation 
 of some of the species, of which the Blennuis phoUs, 
 a species common along the shores of Britain, is an ex- 
 ample. 
 
 BLE'NNORRIKE'A. (Gr. 0\cvva, munis, and pcoi, I 
 Jloir.) An inordinate discharge or secretion of mucus. 
 
 BLE'PHARITES. (Gr. 0\e<papov, the eyelid.) Inflam- 
 mation of the eyelids. 
 
 BLIGHT. A term in common use for supposed atmos- 
 pherical injuries received by plants. Before effects were 
 traced to their causes with the same care that they are at 
 present, the sudden discolouration of the leaves of plants, 
 their death, or their being covered with minute insects or 
 small excrescences, was called by the general name of 
 blight ; and this blight was attributed to some mysterious 
 inlluence in the air, to the east wind, or to thunder, be- 
 cause these states of the atmosphere commonly accom- 
 panied the phenomena alluded to. It is now found that 
 what is called blight is in some cases the effect of insects, 
 to the progress of which the dry state of the atmosphere 
 produced by the east wind is peculiarly favourable ; while 
 in other cases, it is caused by parasitical fungi. The ap- 
 pearance of these fungi on corn crops is frequently desig- 
 nated by farmers as the fire blast ; while on peach and 
 other trees in gardens it is called mildew. The sudden 
 d»ath of plants, and also the withering and drying up of 
 part of their leaves and branches, to which appearance 
 the term blight should perhaps be restricted, are produced 
 by the transpiration of water from the leaves taking place 
 151 
 
 BLOOD. 
 
 | with greater rapidity than it can be supplied by the ab- 
 sorption of the roots. In very hot weather in summer 
 branches of fruit trees trained against walls, or of goose- 
 berry bushes on espaliers, are sometimes withered up in. 
 a few minutes from this cause. What countrymen call 
 the blight on standard apple or other fruit trees in orchards 
 is commonly nothing more than the injuries done the 
 leaves and buds by the caterpillars of certain moths ; that 
 on thorn hedges, by the caterpillar of the saw fly, or of the 
 ermine, or of some other moths ; and that on roses, by the 
 aphides or green fly. 
 
 BLIND WORM. An ophidian or serpent-like reptile, 
 which is the type of the genus Cecilia (see that word) 
 The term is also sometimes applied to the slow-worm. 
 .S'ee Anguis. 
 
 BLI'NKERS. Expansions of the sides of the bridle of 
 a horse, to prevent him from seeing on either side, but at 
 the same time not to obstruct his vision in front. 
 
 BLIS'TERFLY. See Cantharis. 
 
 BLOCK. (Teutonic.) In Architecture, a large un- 
 worked mass of marble or other stone. It is also vulgarly 
 used to denote a modillion in a cornice. 
 
 Block. In Navigation, the case that contains the wheel 
 or sheere of the pulley (which last term is not used at sea). 
 Two or moreblocks, with the rope, constitute a tackle 
 (pronounced tacle). Blocks are also the pieces of wood 
 and iron on which, piled up, the ship's keel is supported 
 when she is in dock. 
 
 HI.OCKA'DE. In International Law, the right to block- 
 ade the ports of an enemy in war, and to exclude neutrals, 
 is limited by the following recognised principles: 1. The 
 blockade must be substantial, by means of a sufficient 
 force to prevent the entry or exit of vessels ; otherwise a 
 neutral is not bound to respect it. 2. It is essential that 
 the neutral should have notice of the blockade: otherwise 
 his ship cannot be justly condemned. A counter notice 
 should also be given by the blockading power when the 
 blockade has ceased. In England, a blockade is properly 
 declared bv the king in council. 
 
 BLO'CKTNG COURSE. In Architecture, a finishing 
 course ol masonry above a cornice. 
 
 BLOCS TIN. Tin cast into blocks or ingots: it is ge- 
 m grain tin. 
 
 BLOOD. The fluid which circulates in the heart and 
 blood-vessels. When viewed under the microscope it ap- 
 pears to consist of very minute red globules or spheroids 
 floating in a colourless fluid. The average quantity in an 
 adult man is estimated at about 28 lbs. : it is of two distinct 
 colours in the arterial and venous systems ; florid red ap- 
 proaching to scarlet in the former, and dark crimson in the 
 latter. Its specific gravity is between 1050 and 1070. 
 When drawn from its vessels it gelatinises or coagulates 
 in the course of a few minutes of common temperature, 
 and soon separates spontaneously into serum and coagu- 
 lum. The serum is a yellowish soapy-feeling fluid, of the 
 specific gravity of about 1030. It exhibits a slight alkaline 
 reaction upon test papers ; when heated it becomes opaque, 
 and at 156° it coagulates. It is also coagulated by alcohol, 
 and by most of the acids; acetic acid and ether do not co- 
 agulate it; solutions of corrosive sublimate, of subacetate 
 of lead, and of chloride platinum occasion precipitates in 
 it, even when considerably diluted with water. These 
 properties of serum are dependent upon 'he presence of a 
 peculiar proximate animal principle called albumen; the 
 same substance, and with very nearly the same properties, 
 constitutes the white of egg, the coagulability of which by 
 heat is well known. Besides the above there is another 
 most delicate test of albumen in solution, which consists 
 in adding to the liquid suspected to contain it a little strong 
 acetic acid, and afterwards a few drops of ferrocyanate of 
 potash. If albumen be present, a white cloud is produced. 
 This is even a more accurate test than corrosive sublimate. 
 White of egg is coagulated by ether, while serum is not 
 According to Marcet 1000 parts of serum of human blood 
 are composed of water 900, albumen 868, muriates of po- 
 tassa and soda 6-6, muco-extractive 4, carbonate of soda 
 165, sulphate of potassa 35, earthy phosphates 060. 
 
 The coagulum of the blood is of a more or less firm tex- 
 ture, and has a greater specific gravity than the serum. It 
 contains the colouring particles of the blood ; and when 
 carefully washed, these are carried out of it, and a tena- 
 cious whitish matter remains, which has been termed 
 fibrine, but which, in all essential points, has the proper- 
 ties of coagulated albumen. 
 
 The colouring matter of the blood, haimatosine, may be 
 obtained by evaporating its aqueous solution at a tempera- 
 ture below 100° ; it then appears almost black, but resumes 
 its red colour when dissolved in water. It is soluble 
 in acids and in alkalies ; these solutions are dark-co- 
 loured ; but when mixed, so as to become neutral, the 
 heematosine falls of a bright red colour. Accordingly, 
 when the clot of blood is put into acids it becomes brown 
 or blackish, and is very similarly discoloured by alkalies ; 
 but roost neutral salts render it florid. Dr. Stevens has
 
 BLOOD ROOT. 
 
 ehown that carbonic acid in venous blood is the probable 
 cause of its dingy hue, and that the saline matter of the 
 serum confers the florid red upon arterial blood ; and that 
 by washing the saline matters out of the bright coagulum 
 of arterial blood it gradually loses its brilliancy and resem- 
 bles venous coagulum. 
 
 The following table shows the results of an analysis of 
 human blood by Lecanu (Annates de Chimie et Physique, 
 vol. xlviii.); considered quantitively, it must only be taken 
 as a mean or approximate result. 
 
 Water 780145 
 
 Fibrine 2100 
 
 Colouring matter - 133 000 
 
 Albumen 65090 
 
 Fat and oily matter 3-740 
 
 Extractive matter ....-- 1 790 
 
 Albumen combined with soda • 1265 
 
 Chloride of sodium \ 
 
 potassium / 
 
 Carbonates )„,-„„,,„,„ V • • 8370 
 
 Phosphates r/P^f C 
 Sulphates S and SOdd ) 
 Carbonates of lime . 
 
 magnesia J 
 Phosphate of lime ' • 2100 
 
 magnesia f" 
 iron \ 
 
 Peroxide of iron ' 
 
 Loss ........ 2-400 
 
 1000000 
 BLOOD ROOT. The root of the Sanguinaria cana- 
 densis, the juice of which is of a red colour. 
 
 BLO'ODSTONE. A dark green silicious mineral, va- 
 riegated hy red spots (heliotrope). 
 
 BLO'WPIPE. An instrument by which a small jet of 
 air is directed laterally into the flame of a lamp or candle, 
 so as to divert it in a long slender cone upon a piece of 
 charcoal or other substance so placed as to receive it. 
 When a flame is thus urged by the blowpipe the extreme 
 heat is just at the tip of the outer white flame, where the 
 combustion is most perfect, and where substances are 
 rapidly burned or oxidized ; whilst the interior blue flame, 
 in consequence of its excess of combustible matter, ab- 
 stracts oxygen from, or reduces, substances. So that seve- 
 ral metals, when thus heated before the blowpipe, are al- 
 ternately oxidized and deoxidized by being placed in the 
 outer and inner flame. The blowpipe is of important ser- 
 vice to the chemist in enabling him to ascertain easily and 
 quickly the effects of inlense heat upon a variety of sub- 
 stances; and he frequently has recourse to it in order to 
 distinguish metallic and earthy minerals from each other, 
 and to ascertain in a general way the nature of their com- 
 ponent parts : it is, in fact, a most important auxiliary in 
 all cases of qualitative analysis. Several treatises have been 
 written on the use and indications of the blowpipe : the 
 reader is especially referred to Faraday's Chemical Mani- 
 pulation, Sect. IV. § 3. Griffin's Chemical Recreations, 
 Part I. Blowpipe Analysis. Glasgow, 1838. 
 
 BLU'BBER. The cellular membrane in which the oil 
 or fat of the whale is included. See Whale. 
 
 BLUE. (Germ, blau.) In Painting, the colour of the 
 sky. It is one of the seven original colours, and is of 
 many sorts, whereof the principal are ultramarine, Prus- 
 sian blue, blue bice, and indigo. 
 
 BLUFFS High banks presenting an abrupt form to- 
 wards the sea or river. 
 
 BO'A. A genus of serpents, with the transverse scutae 
 of the abdomen and tail in a single row, and without a 
 rattle or spur at the end of the tail. Some species attain 
 an immense size ; but the large serpents brought to this 
 country, and called boa constrictors, are generally Pythons, 
 and natives of Asia. The true boas are from South Ame- 
 rica. 
 
 BOARD. (Equivalent to the French bureau.) A word 
 applied usually to certain individuals in a collective capa- 
 city, who are intrusted with the management of some 
 public office or department. Thus the Commissioners of 
 Customs, the Committee of the Privy Council for the Af- 
 fairs of Trade, the Commissioners of Excise, dec, when 
 assembled to transact the business of their respective offi- 
 ces are styled the Board of Customs, the Board of Trade, 
 the Board of Excise, <fcc. But the term Board is used 
 also in a more general sense, being applied to any individ- 
 uals appointed by competent authority to deliberate on or 
 superintend the operations of any private business or spe- 
 culation. 
 
 Board. (Sax. bord.) In Architecture, a piece of timber 
 of undefined length, more than four inches in breadth, and 
 not more than two inches and a half in thickness. The 
 section of a board is, however, sometimes triangular, or 
 rather trapezoidal, one edge being very thin. This is called 
 a feather edged board. 
 BOA'TSWAIN. The second of the three warrant ofll- 
 152 
 
 BOLTHEAD. 
 
 cersof a man of war; he has charge of the boats, rigging', 
 anchors, and cables. It is his duty to turn the hands up, or 
 summon the whole crew, whenever they are required for 
 any duty. He should fiom the nature of his duties be an 
 active man, and a thorough seaman. The boatswain's 
 mates assist the boatswain, summon the watches or other 
 portions of the crew to duty, and inflict punishments. 
 
 BOAT. (Sax. baet.) A term used in a general sense to 
 denote any small ship or vessel, whether open or decked, 
 and which may be propelled by oars, or by sails, or by 
 steam. They are accordingly of very different forms and 
 constructions, according to the different purposes they are 
 intended to serve. Under this term are comprehended 
 barges, cutters, pinnaces, yawls, &c. See Ship; Steam 
 Navigation. 
 
 BO'BSTAYS. Stays or strong ropes to keep down the 
 bowsprit during the plunging of the ship, and against the 
 upward action of the head sails (jibs, fore-staysail, &c), and 
 to sustain the action of the stays or ropes, which keep the 
 foremast, fore-topmast, <fec, and therefore the main-top- 
 mast, from falling aft. They are necessarily very strong ; 
 they are attached to the bowsprit by collars placed about % 
 of its length outside, and to the hull of the ship, by passing 
 through holes in the cutwater or projecting head, and make 
 an angle of about 30° more or less with the axis of the bow- 
 sprit. They are often made of chains. 
 
 BO'DY. In Physics, is a term applied to any portion of 
 matter of which the existence can be perceived by any of, 
 our senses. According to the Peripatetics, body is com- 
 posed of matter, form, and privation. In modern physics, 
 body is regarded as an agglomeration of material particles. 
 According to the different forms in which matter exists, 
 bodies may be solid, liquid, or gaseous. 
 
 In Geometry, body is synonimous with solid. Thus 
 we say the five regular bodies, or five regular solids. See 
 Solid. 
 
 BOG EARTH. A soil consisting chiefly of silicious and 
 vegetable fibre ; it is often accumulated in considerable 
 quantity where waters have deposited the mud of boggy 
 places. Many American shrubs and other plants and 
 flowers will only thrive in such or similar soils, so that bog 
 earth is in great request for such purposes. It may, to a 
 certain extent, be artificially imitated by mixing the cuttings 
 of grass with the mud of ponds and a sufficient quantity of 
 sharp sand. 
 BOHE'A. A species of black tea. See Tea. 
 BOI'LING POINT. The temperature at which liquids 
 are rapidly converted into vapour with the phenomena of 
 ebullition. Thus the boiling point of water is 212° ; of alco- 
 hol, 176° ; of ether, 96° ; of oil of turpentine, 316° ; and of 
 mercury, 662° ; these being the respective temperatures at 
 which these bodies continuously pass into the state of 
 vapour. 
 
 BO'LDNESS. (Sax. bald.) In the Fine Arts, that fear- 
 lessness which an artist exhibits in his designs, arising 
 from, and grounded on, a thorough knowledge of the prin- 
 ciples of his art. Its antagonist is tameness or insipidity. 
 
 BOLE. (Gr. 0co\os, a mass.) An argillaceous earthy 
 mineral, generally reddened by oxide of iron ; as is the 
 case in the Armenian bole, which is used in tooth-powder, 
 and to give colour to the fish sauce called essence of an- 
 chovies. 
 
 BOLE'RO. A peculiar species of dance very popular in 
 Spain, and so called from the name of its inventor. 
 
 BOLE'TIC ACID. An acid contained in the juice of the 
 Boletus pseudo ignarius. 
 
 BOLE'TUS. (Gr. 0oj\os, a mass.) A genus of fungi, 
 numerous large species of which spring from the sides of 
 trees when the rind is decayed, formins firm fleshy masses, 
 which are generally smooth on the upper side, and pierced 
 with holes on the lower. The spawn of such plants often 
 forms what is called dry-rot, insinuating its fine delicate 
 filamentous ramifications between the tubes of the wood, 
 forcing them asunder, and so destroying the cohesion and 
 solidity of timber. Boletus igniarius and foment arius are 
 the fungi which, when cut into thin slices, dried, and pre- 
 pared with saltpetre, form common amadou, or the Ger- 
 man tinder of the shops. B. tuberosus is used in Sweden, 
 as a substitute for cork. B. bovnius is said to be a favour- 
 ite food of oxen, deer, swine, and some other animals ; it 
 is even used for human food. 
 
 BOLOGNE'SE SCHOOL. In Painting, sometimes called 
 the Lombard school of painting. It was founded by the Ca- 
 racci,and its object was to unite the excellencies of the 
 preceding schools (see Painting) ; hence it is occasionally 
 called the Eclectic school. Among the principal painters 
 which it numbered were Domenichino, Lanfranco, Cor- 
 regio, Guido, Schidone, Caravagio, Zampieri, Primaticcio, 
 
 BOLO'GNIAN STONE. A sulphate of baryta, found 
 near Bologna, which, when heated with charcoal, becomes 
 a powerful solar phosphorus. 
 
 BO'LTHEAD. A globular flask with a tubular neok, 
 used in the chemical laboratory.
 
 BOLUS. 
 
 BO'LUS. (Latin, a mass.) A very large pill ; or a med- 
 icine formed into an olive-shaped mass, not too large to be 
 swallowed. 
 
 BOMB. In Artillery, a hollow ball or shell of cast-iron, 
 having an orifice through which it is filled with gunpowder, 
 and into which, when filled, a fusee is inserted, so adjusted 
 that when the bomb falls at the place intended, the fusee 
 ignites the powder in the shell, and blows it to pieces. 
 The havoc which is thus produced in a besieged town or 
 the ranks of an enemy is often very great. Bombs, or 
 shells, as they are more frequently called, are of all sizes, 
 from about IS inches downwards, and are in general thrown 
 from mortars or howitzers ; sometimes from cannon. 
 They appear to have been first used as part of the regular 
 materiel of an army about the year 1634, in the wars of the 
 Netherlands. The principal art in throwing shells is to 
 make them fall at or near a given point. For this purpose 
 the distance is calculated, and the charge of powder and 
 elevation of the mortar regulated accordingly. Theoreti- 
 cal rules are of no great use. They must be derived from 
 experiment and practice. 
 
 BO'MBARDIERS. See Brachinus. 
 BO'MBAX. (f.'r. Bo^</?a£.) A genus containing many 
 species of very large trees, whose capsules are filled with 
 a fine cottony substance enveloping the seeds. It gives its 
 name to the natural order Bomoaceee, allied to Malvaceous 
 plants, where it is associated with the celebrated Baobab, 
 and many more gigantic inhabitants of tropical forests. 
 The bombax trees are remarkable for forming on their 
 sides next the ground huge buttresses, projecting so far 
 from the parent trunk as to be capable o( screening many 
 men. The quantity of cotton yielded by these trees is 
 normous, and often covers the earth around the roots to 
 the depth of several feet ; il is unfortunately of too short a 
 staple to he used for manufacturing purposes. 
 
 BO'MBAZINE. (Gr. Bo/i/?u(, a silk ir„r/7i.) A fabric 
 of which the warp is silk and the weft (or shoot) worsted. 
 It is chiefly made in black, and as an article of mourning 
 for female dress. The capital employed in Norwich, du- 
 ring the most flourishing period of the bombazine trade, 
 amounted to £300,000, but at present it is below £ 100,000. 
 
 BOMB VESSEL. A ship of war, intended for the bom- 
 bardment of a town or place situated on the sea coast. 
 They are of about 350 tons burthen, and carry one 13-inch 
 and one 10-inch mortar, together with two 6 pounder guns, 
 one 1'2-pounder, and eighl J I pounder carronades, having 
 a crew of sixty-seven men, with the usual complement of 
 officers, and a detachment of marine artillerymen for the 
 purpose of working the guns. See Spearman's British 
 Gunner. 
 
 BO'MBIC ACID. The acid contained in the silk-worm, 
 especially in its chrysalis state. It is supposed to resemble 
 formic acid. 
 
 BO'MBYCI'LLA. A genus of omnivorous Passerine 
 birds, of which the Bohemian wax win;' {Bombycitla gar- 
 rula) is an example, and an occasional winter visitor of 
 Britain. 
 
 BOMBY'LIUS. A Linnajan genus of Dipterous insects, 
 and now the type of a family (Bombyliid/t), characterized 
 by the great length of the oral instruments, which forma 
 long and slender proboscis ; body thick, short, hairy ; tho- 
 rax gibbous ; wings extended horizontally ; halteres ex- 
 posed ; antennae short, approximate, composed of three 
 joints, the last the longest, thickened and terminating ob- 
 tusely ; legs long and slender. The insects of this family 
 have a rapid flight, and are very active ; they subsist en- 
 tirely on the nectar of (lowers. They are of small size, 
 and mostly exotic, affording types of many genera, of 
 which only BombyUus proper and Pthiria afford British 
 examples. 
 
 BO'MBYX. A Linnaean genus of Lepidopterons insects, 
 now the type of a family (Bombycidai), including many 
 genera of nocturnal and post-meridian moths. These have 
 been arranged under the following sub-families: — Hepiali- 
 dte, N')>odiTiidm, AretiidtB, and Bombycidm proper. 
 
 BONA DEA. In Roman Mythology, a goddess concern- 
 ing whom a great diversity of opinion prevails, even among 
 the writers of antiquity. On the authority of C. Labeo, she 
 is represented by Macrobius, who treats at length upon her 
 nature and worship, as svnonimous with the Grecian Rhea 
 or Cybele. The Bona Dea had two temples at Rome ; but 
 her rites were generally solemnised in the house of the 
 consul or prretor. In the celebration of these rites only 
 women participated, thereby indicating the peculiar chas- 
 tity of the goddess. But a perusal of the ancient writers 
 will convince the most sceptical that the exclusion of men 
 from the solemnities of the Bona Dea was purely nominal, 
 and that in the course of time the grossest licentiousness 
 was practised during their celebration. (See Cic: pro 
 MOone: Juv. Sat. VI.) 
 BONA'SSUS. See Bison. 
 
 BOND. (Sax. bond.) In Architecture, the connection 
 of one stone or brick with another by lapping them over 
 each other in carrying up work, so that an inseparable 
 
 20KE. 
 
 mass of building may be formed, which could not be the 
 case if every vertical joint was over that below it. 
 
 Bond. In Law, a deed whereby the obligor, or parly 
 binding himself, obliges himself, his heirs, executors, and 
 administrators, to pay a certain sum of money, called the 
 penalty, to another (the obligee) at a day appointed. There 
 is a condition added, that if the obligor does some particu- 
 lar act the obligation shall be void, or else remain in full 
 force. In case this condition is not performed, the bond 
 becomes forfeited or absolute at law, and charges the obli- 
 gor while living; and after his death the obligation de- 
 scends on the heir, who (in default of personal assets in 
 the hands of the executor or administrator) is bound to dis- 
 charge it, provided he have real assets by descent. The 
 condition is usually (although not necessarily) included in 
 the same deed, and at the foot of the obligation. 
 
 A bond without a condition is termed single (or simplex 
 ohligatio) ; and it becomes single by forfeiture, on non-per- 
 formance of the condition. At law, the whole penalty 
 mentioned in the bond was recoverable on such non-per- 
 formance. But by the interposition of equity the obligee 
 was discharged from paving more than the sum to which 
 the obligor was reasonably entitled : viz. his principal, in- 
 terest, and expenses, if the bond was for payment of a 
 debt ; or the damages accruing to him, if it was for the per- 
 formance of a stipulated act. But by 4 & 5 Ann. c. 16. it 
 was enacted that in case of a bond conditioned for pay- 
 ment of money, the payment of the sum due, with inter- 
 est and costs, even though the bond be forfeited, and suit 
 commenced thereon, shall be a full satisfaction and dis- 
 charge ; and on this footing the law now stands. 
 
 A bond on which neither principal nor interest has been 
 demanded for twenty years will be presumed to have been 
 satisfied ; but length of time is not, strictly, a legal bar, but 
 only a ground for the jury to presume satisfaction. 
 
 In a bond where several are bound severally, the obli- 
 gee may, at his election, sue all the obligors together, or all 
 of them apart, and have several judgments and executions : 
 but he shall have satisfaction but once ; for if it be by ono 
 only, that is sufficient to discharge the debt. 
 
 Bond, English. In Architecture, that disposition of 
 bricks in a wall wherein the courses are alternately com- 
 posed of headers, or bricks laid with their heads or ends 
 towards the faces of the wall, and in the superior and in- 
 ferior courses of stretchers or bricks, with 
 
 their lengths parallel to the faces of the — — ' ' ' I ' . 
 
 walls, as in the margin, in which the upper — - ! — 
 
 is called the heading, and the lower the stretching course. 
 Bond, Flemish. In Architecture, that disposition of 
 
 bricks in a wall wherein each course has 
 
 h( aders and stretchers alternately, as in the — !- — — 
 
 margin. '■ — — 
 
 Bond or Lap op a Slate. In Architecture, the distance 
 between the nail of the under slate and the lower edge of 
 the upper slate. 
 
 BOM) STONE. In Architecture, a stone running 
 through the whole thickness of a wall at right angles to its 
 face, for the purpose of binding the wall together in the di- 
 rection of its thickness. 
 
 BOND TIMBER. In Architecture, timber worked in 
 with a wall as it is carried up, for the purpose of tying it 
 together in a longitudinal direction while the work is 
 setting. 
 
 BONE. An important organ in the higher orders of ani- 
 mals (see Anatomy), forming the solid support of their 
 fabric, and protecting the vital organs, such as the brain and 
 the heart and lungs, from external pressure and injury. 
 In the human skelelon there are commonly enumerated 
 260 distinct bones. They, however, admit of classification 
 under three heads ; namely, long or cylindricalboaea, such 
 as those of the extremities ; broad and flat bones, such as 
 those of the skull ; and short, square, irregular, or solid 
 bones, such as the vertebras, and those of the wrist and in- 
 step, and the patella or knee-pan : the first bones are gene- 
 rally filled with marrow, and are admirable specimens of 
 strength of structure with the least possible weight. The 
 bones are covered by a membrane called periosteum, by 
 which the ramifications of blood-vessels and nerves pass 
 into the bone. In the growth of a bone, the gelatinous or 
 cartilaginous portion, as it has sometimes been called, is 
 first formed, and the earthy or indurating part is afterwards 
 deposited. We are indebted to Mr. Hatchett for our prin- 
 cipal information respecting the proximate chemical com- 
 ponents of bone. (Phil. Trans. 1799 and 1S00.) The soft 
 parts consist of gelatine and albumen ; and the hard por- 
 tion is composed of phosphate of lime and carbonate of 
 lime, with small quantities of other salts. The animal 
 matter of bones amounts on an average to about half their 
 weight, or, when dried, to between 30 and 40 per cent. ; so 
 that they contain a large relative proportion of nutritive 
 matter. The bones, including their animal matter, are the 
 most durable parts of the animal fabric ; hence the propo- 
 sal of storing them up, as occasional sources of nutriment ; 
 for not only is the cartilaginous portion unimpaired, hi
 
 BONE DUST. 
 
 bones which have been kept dry for many years, but It has 
 even been found perfect in bones of apparently antedilu- 
 vian origin. The best mode of extracting the nutritious 
 pan of bone lor human food consists in grinding it fine, 
 and subjpclinu it With water lo a heat of about 290 
 gester : or the earthy part may be removed hy dilute run- 
 riatic acid. When dogs and some other animal 
 bones, the nutritive part is abstracted by their gastric juice, 
 and the earthy part is voided in their excrement, forming 
 what was formerly called album greseum. 
 
 When hones are submitted to destructive distillation, the 
 gelatine and albumen which they contain is abundantly 
 productive of ammonia : hence a copious source of that 
 alkali and its compounds ; the residue is a mixture of the 
 earthy part of the bone with charcoal, commonly termed 
 irory or bone black. For an account of the Economical 
 Uses of Bones, see Aikin's Illustrations of Ans and Manu- 
 factures. lvJmo. London, 1841. 
 
 BONE DL'ST. or ground bones, has recenlly been used 
 with the best effect as a manure. It is usually applied to 
 light or turnip soils, which it has rendered in no ordinary 
 degree productive. For further details on this curious and 
 interesting subject, see article "Agriculture" in M ■• 
 Statistics. The importation of bones from distant coun- 
 tries to be used as manure is now carried on lo a great 
 extent. 
 
 HON E EARTH. The residue of bones which have been 
 calcined so as to destroy the animal matter and carbon, 
 and become converted into a white porous and friable sub- 
 stance, composed chielly of phosphate of lime. Accord- 
 ing to Berzelius, 100 parts of human bones are composed 
 of 51 04 phosphate of lime, 11 30 carbonate of lime, 2 flu- 
 oride of calcium, 1-iO soda and chloride of sodium, 110 
 phosphate of magnesia, and 33 - 30 animal matter. Albu- 
 men, gelatine, and fat constitute the animal part of bone, 
 tl.i. greater part of which remains in the form of a tough 
 cartilage when bones are steeped in dilute muriatic acid. 
 
 BOM'TO. The name of a species of Scomberoid fishes 
 (Tliynnu.i pehimis, Cuv ), common in the tropical ocean, 
 and well known to voyagers from its persecution of the 
 living fish (Exocatus volitatis), and flying squid (Lciigo 
 sagillata). 
 
 BO'.NZES. The priests of the religion of Fo are so 
 called by Europeans ; especially in China, the Birman Em- 
 pire. Japan, and other districts of Eastern Asia. 
 
 BO'OBY. The English name of a genus of Pelecanidat ; 
 they are also called gannets. noddies, and soland geese. 
 
 BOOK. (Ger. buch.) "The general name of almost 
 every literary composition, but in a more limited sense ap- 
 plied only to such compositions as are large enough to form 
 a volume." Short and fugitive pieces are denominated 
 pamphlets, in contradistinction to books, which are of 
 greater length, and embrace more general and permanent 
 topics. To the various sizes and forms in which books appear 
 appropriate appellations have been given ; as folio, quarto, 
 octavo, duodecimo, &c. The materials of which books have 
 been composed have been extremely different in different 
 nations, and in different periods of the progress of civili- 
 zation. Plates of lead and copper, bricks, stone, and wood, 
 were anciently employed for this purpose. At a later pe- 
 riod the bark of trees formed the chief material in the 
 composition of books, as is indicated by the original signi- 
 fication of the term liouk itself, and its equivalent in some 
 other languages. The materials of books were afterwards 
 derived from the Egyptian plant papyrus ; but as the de- 
 mand for books increased, more durable materials were 
 sought for, and leather, made chiefly from the skins of 
 goats or sheep, was employed for this purpose. Next fol- 
 lowed the use of parchment, on which the ancient MSS. 
 were chiefly written : but all these systems were swallow- 
 ed up by the invention of paper (quod ride), which took 
 place about the 13th century, and facilitated the circulation 
 of knowledge to an incalculable extent. The first books 
 were in the form of blocks and tablets : but when flexible 
 materials came into use, it was found more convenient to 
 roll them up in scrolls, called by the Greeks k6vto.$, and 
 by the Romans rohtmen. 
 
 BOOKKEEPING. In Commerce, the art of recording, 
 in a regular, concise, and systematic manner, the transac- 
 tions of merchants, traders, or other persons engaged in 
 pursuits connected with money. It has not only the au- 
 thority of experience to recommend it, but that of some of 
 the sagest observers of human affairs : Dr. Johnson re- 
 marks, '■ that the counting-house of an accomplished mer- 
 chant is a school of method, where the great science may 
 be learned of ranging particulars under generals, of bring- 
 ing the different parts of a transaction together, and of 
 showing at one view a lonMeries of dealing and exchange. 
 Let no man (the Doctor adds) venture into large business 
 while he is ignorant of the method of regulating 
 never let him imagine that any degree of natural abilities 
 will enable him to supply this deficiency, or preserve ■ 
 multiplicity of affairs from Inextricable confusion." There 
 are two modes of keeping books of account , the one by 
 101 
 
 BOOK-KEEPING 
 
 what Is termed Singh and the other by Double Er.try. 
 Both arc in very general use. The system of single entry 
 is chiefly confined to the business of retail dealers ; it is 
 much the simples) method of book-keeping, consisting 
 only of a day-hook and a ledger. In the day booh the 
 dealer enters his sales and purchases, and in his ledger he? 
 carries the former to the debit of his customers, and the 
 latter to the credit of the merchants who supply him with 
 goods. By making at any time a list of the sums due lo 
 him by his customers, and of those due by him to wholesale 
 merchants, the retail dealer may, after adding to the debta 
 due to him the value of his stock on hand, arrive at an ap- 
 proximation to the real state of bis d< bts and assets. This, 
 however, is but an imperfect and unsatisfactory mode of 
 hook keeping ; and, therefore, in the ease ot wholesale 
 anl mercantile business, where extensive and multifarious 
 ons have to hi recourse is had to the 
 
 system ofdoubk entry. This By stem possesses all the 
 advantages of single entry, besides being so complete and 
 comprehend e in its principles, and so certain in its re- 
 sults, as to admit of universal application. It m^y with 
 equal advantage be adopted in the most limited as well as 
 in the most extensive, in the most plain and simple as well 
 as the most intricate and complicated concerns. 
 
 No very authentic accounts exist of the origin of book- 
 keeping. The double entry system appears to have been 
 first practised towards the latter part of the fifteenth centu- 
 ry, in Venice and other towns in Italy, then the great em- 
 porium of the mercantile world, and from this circum- 
 stance it actpiired the name of the Italian method of book- 
 The advantages of the system, and the sound- 
 ness ol the principles on which it is based, soon became 
 apparent ; for we find it was adopted in England and 
 France early in the sixteenth century, and has continued 
 to be more and more practised down to the present day. 
 
 The areat objects of a good method of book-keeping are 
 to exhibit transactions as they occur, in the most minute 
 detail, and ultimately in the most condensed form ; ad- 
 vancing from the earliest stage lo the latest by such char 
 and lucid steps as at all times to admit of every fact being 
 traced in its progress, and security being obtained at every 
 step acainst omission or error. For the attainment of such 
 important objects, no mode of book-keeping has hitherto 
 been devised at all approaching to the perfection of the 
 Italian system hy double entry. Every transaction in bu- 
 siness is two-fold ; there can be no receipt without a pay- 
 ment, and no purchase without a sale, and consequently 
 by presenting the same event or fact on both sides of the 
 hooks, whence the name of double entry, the entries being 
 simultaneous, become corroborative of each other. The 
 circumstance of every transaction being entered on both 
 sides of the ledger affords one of the most valuable results 
 derived from the system of double entry, namely, a lest 
 of accuracy : inasmuch as the entries on the credit side 
 must be equal to the entries on the debit side, otherwise 
 the books will not balance. 
 
 The three principal books required under Ihe Italian 
 system of double entry are, a cash book, journal, and 
 ledger. In the first of these every transaction is recorded 
 where money forms one of its elements, and in practice 
 these transactions are by some book-keepers carried di- 
 rect from the cash book to the ledger without being passed 
 through the journal at all. The journal, however, forms a 
 most important part of the system. It exhibits a narrative 
 of every transaction of which an actual transfer of money 
 does not form one of the elements, arranging the facts in 
 as simple and condi nsi d a form as correctness and intel- 
 ligibility will admit of, and the results of those entries in 
 the journal are afterwards introduced into the ledger, 
 which thereby becomes a sort of key to the detail 
 ry of every transaction ; whilst at the same time it furnish- 
 es a luminous compendium of the whole. In like manner 
 when the cash transactions are passed through the journal 
 they are at staled periods classed and arranged in a con- 
 densed form, and thence transferred to the ledger. This 
 plan of introducing the cash transactions into the journal 
 is considered mnrh the best systt m. though attended with 
 a little more trouble to the book-keeper, as it affords great 
 facilities in balancing the books and testing the accuracy 
 of the ledger, more particularly when the recent im- 
 provements upon the form of the journal, which were ori- 
 ginally suggested by the late Mr. Jones, are adopted. By 
 the plan referred to, the journal is advantageously ruled 
 with four cash columns, two upon the left hand side for 
 entries debtor, wad two upon the right (or entries creditor ; 
 and all the transactions being connected either with per- 
 I proper Ixj accounts or nominal accounts, such as 
 charges, profit ana loss, and so forth, they arc classed ac- 
 ; in the columns on the Dr. or Cr side of the 
 journal respectively; and as the debit entries are at all 
 times equal to the credit entries, the aggregate of the two 
 columns on the l>r. side must laUj " ill) the aggi egate of the 
 two on the Cr. aide oi the journal. This too te found in 
 practice to be a most useful check against posting the en-
 
 BOOM. 
 
 tries to wrong accounts in the ledger ; for on balancing the 
 books, by taking the amounts Dr. and Cr. posted to per- 
 sonal and property accounts, and the amounts Dr. and Cr. 
 posted to nominal accounts in the ledger, and comparing 
 them with the total amounts in the corresponding columns 
 of the journal, it will be seen whether they agree : if they 
 do not, it demonstrates that some entries must have been 
 erroneously posted, which can then only be discovered by 
 collating the books; but if the amounts do agree, then it 
 affords at least strong presumptive evidence that the whole 
 of the entries have been carried to the proper accounts. 
 Experience and practice are occasionally suggesting minor 
 improvements upon the forms of the cash book, journal, 
 and ledger, to suit particular cases, as well as upon the 
 subsidiary books required for gathering together the facts 
 preparatory to their being transferred in a condensed form 
 into the journal; and indeed an intelligent book-keeper 
 may accomplish much by a judicious classification of the 
 facts in the auxiliary books ; but the fundamental princi- 
 ples of the Italian system of book-keeping, notwithstand- 
 such occasional facilities and improved arrangements in 
 the working of it, remain perfect and unchanged ; and 
 after the length of time they have successfully withstood 
 all attempts at innovation or change, it may safely be 
 affirmed that the system is the best hitherto discovered, 
 and is deserving of the utmost confidence and general 
 adoption. 
 
 We have already stated that the Italian system of 
 book-keeping admits of universal application ; and we may 
 now observe that it is not confined to merchants' accounts, 
 but is equally applicable to government accounts. In evi- 
 dence of its being so, we may instance the East India 
 Company, where the double entry system is used with the 
 most perfect success in all the branches ol that great and 
 well-conducted establishment, financial as well as com- 
 mercial. One great desideratum in a system of book- 
 keeping for government accounts is centralization, which 
 can alone be attained by a proper and well organized me- 
 thod of condensing the facts or elements of the accounts ; 
 and the Italian system unquestionably affords the most ef- 
 ficacious means of collecting and grouping the widely 
 scattered elements of government accounts in a concise 
 and intelligible shape, and ultimately exhibiting them in 
 the clearest and most perfect state of centralization admit- 
 ted of. Several of the ablest ministers of France from the 
 days of Sully downwards, convinced of the necessity of a 
 good system of book-keeping in the management of the 
 public money, and satisfied of the efficiency and sound- 
 ness of the principles of the Italian method, successively 
 attempted to get the government accounts kept on that 
 system. But it was not till the present century that it was 
 successfully introduced. It has since, however, fully real- 
 ized all that was anticipated of it by those great men ; and 
 has been found to answer so completely that it has been 
 universally adopted in all the different departments of the 
 state. Equally beneficial effects have resulted from the 
 adaptation of the system to the public accounts in Holland, 
 and confirmed the advantage of its application to govern- 
 ment business. Similar laudable attempts have been 
 more recently made in England by some of the ablest 
 practical statesmen (among whom Sir Henry Pamell de- 
 serves particular notice), to introduce the Italian mode of 
 book-keeping in the government offices ; and from the 
 signal success with which the experiment has been 
 crowned, it is to be hoped that in a few years the whole of 
 our public accounts will be placed on one uniform plan of 
 book-keeping by double entry, and be thereby rendered as 
 clear and intelligible as the accounts of any merchant in 
 London, instead of being wrapped up, as formerly, in im- 
 penetrable obscurity and useless mystery. 
 
 BOOM. (Dutch, boom, a tree.) A nautical term, signi- 
 fying a long pole run out from any part of a ship to stretch 
 the bottoms of particular sails : whence jib-boom, main- 
 boom, siuddingsuil-boom, &c. 
 
 Boom. In Marine Fortification, signifies a strong chain 
 or cable stretched across the mouth of a harbour or river, 
 to prevent the enemy's ships from entering, and having 
 a number of poles, bars, &c. fastened to it ; whence the 
 name. 
 
 BOOPS. A genus of fishes of the order Acanthopterygii : 
 most of them occur in the Mediterranean. 
 
 BOO'TES. (Gr. fiovs, a?i ox.) One of the constella- 
 tions. 
 
 BORA'CIC ACID. S«e Boron. 
 
 BORACI'TE. Native borate of magnesia. 
 
 BORA'GINA'CE^E. Plants resembling the genus Bo- 
 rago, after which they are named. They usually have a 
 mucilacinous sap, in which nitre exists in small quantities : 
 wherefore they decrepitate when thrown upon the fire. 
 It is found that liquor into which borago itself is plunsred 
 when fresh becomes cooled, and hence the Borago offici- 
 nalis was the principal ingredient in what was called a 
 " cool tankard." Boraginaceous plants have usually pretty, 
 and sometimes very handsome flowers, arranged in a gy- 
 155 
 
 BOROUGH. 
 
 rate manner. Forget-me-not (Myosotis), Bugloss (Echium), 
 Anchusa, and various species of Lithospermnm are well- 
 known favourites either among wild or cultivated plants. 
 Most of them have their leaves covered with asperities, 
 whence their old name of Asperifotia. ; and some, as An- 
 chusa tincloria, Lithospcrmum linctorium, and several 
 others, yield a deep purple dye from their roots. 
 
 BORA'SSUS. (Gr. Bopaaaos.lhesldnof the date.) A eenus 
 of palm trees, usually called fan palms, because their gi- 
 gantic leaves are formed of plates radiating from the top of 
 the petiole, and folded up after the manner of a lady's fan. 
 Borassus flabiltiformis is an Indian species, with a trunk 
 from thirty to fifty feet high, and leaves with from seventy 
 to eighty rays. The Hindoos consider it the king of trees. 
 A most intoxicating liquor is obtained by fermenting its 
 sap, which is also capable of yielding sugar in considerable 
 quantity under proper management. 
 
 BORA'TES. Salts of the boracic acid. 
 
 BORAX. This salt is found native in some of the lakes 
 of Thibet and Persia, and is imported from India under 
 the name of tincal, which after purification forms the re- 
 fined borax of commerce. Of late years borax has been 
 obtained by combining native boracic acid with soda. Bo- 
 rax forms hexsedral prisms, slightly efflorescent, and re- 
 quiring 20 of cold and 6 of boiling water for solution. 
 When heated, water of crystallization is driven off, and the 
 residuary salt fuses into what is called glass of borax. 
 
 Crystallized borax consists of ti8 boracic acid + 32 soda 
 -(- 90 water. It has upon some tests an alkaline reaction, 
 and has hence been called sub-borate of soda. Borax is 
 chiefly used by workers in metals as a flux : it is also em- 
 ployed in medicine. 
 
 BO'RDER. In Gardening, a marginal space, always 
 connected with a w,alk or some other object, to which it 
 forms an accompaniment. 
 
 Border, or Bordure. In Heraldry, according to French 
 heralds, an honourable ordinary, which should occupy a 
 third part of the shield. In English blazonry, it has gener- 
 ally been considered as a mark of difference to distinguish 
 one branch of a family from another. It surrounds the 
 field, is of equal breadth in every part, and occupies one 
 fifth of the field. When there is a chief on the coat, the 
 bordure is supposed to run under the chief; but it passes 
 over other ordinaries, as a fess, &c. 
 
 BORE. A word used to express the sudden rise of the 
 tide in certain estuaries. 
 
 BO'REAS. In Grecian Mythology, the son of Astraens 
 and Aurora, and usually worshipped as the god of the north 
 wind. There are few of the minor Grecian divinities of 
 whom so strange and multifarious exploits are recorded as 
 of Boreas ; and it is interesting to trace to its source the al- 
 legory of all his adventures aud achievements, and thence 
 to elucidate the causes of his deification. The assiduity, 
 for instance, with which the worship of Boreas was culti- 
 vated at Athens proceeded from gratitude, the north wind 
 having on one occasion destroyed the fleet of the Persians 
 when meditating the invasion of Attica. A similar cause 
 induced the inhabitants of Megalopolis to consider Boreas 
 as their guardian divinity in whose honour they instituted 
 an annual festival. With his usual partiality for mytholo 
 gical allusion, Milton has given Boreas a place in his Para 
 dise Lost. : — 
 
 Now from the north 
 Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shore, 
 Bursting their brazen dungeon, armed wit]] ice, 
 And snow and hail, and stormy gust and flaw, 
 Boreas and Czeclas and Argestea loud, 
 And Thrascias rend the woods and seas upturn. 
 
 Boreas was usually represented with the feet of a serpent, 
 his wings dripping with golden dew-drops, and the train of 
 his garment sweeping along the ground. 
 
 BO'RON. The base of boracic acid, discovered by 
 Davy in 1807. It may be procured by heating dry boracic 
 acid with potassium. It is a dark olive-coloured substance, 
 a nonconductor of electricity, insoluble in water, infusible, 
 and of a specific gravity = 2. Heated to redness it burns 
 into boracic acid, which consists of 20 boron •+- 48 oxygen. 
 
 Boracic acid is found in the hot springs, and amongst the 
 volcanic products of the Lipari islands, and in the waters 
 of Sasso in the Florentine territory ; it also occurs in some 
 minerals. It may be obtained by adding excess of sul- 
 phuric acid to a strong solution of borax. Its specific gra- 
 vity is 1 48. In its usual state of scaly crystals it is a hy- 
 drate, composed of 68 dry acid ■+- 27 water. In this state it 
 requires about 30 parts of cold and 3 of boiling water for its 
 solution. It dissolves in alcohol, and the solution burns 
 with a characteristic green flame. It reddens litmus ; but 
 renders turmeric brown, like an alkali. When its water is 
 driven off by fusing it at a high beat, the anhydrous acid 
 concretes into a glassv substance of the specific gravity of 
 1-8. It is a useful flux, and was formerly used in medicine 
 under the name of Homberg's sedative salt. 
 
 BO'ROUGH. A town possessed of certain municipal 
 institutions, of which the name is derived by some from
 
 BOROUGH. 
 
 the Saxon word burg, meaning an inclosed place ; by 
 others from another word of the same language — borg, 
 meaning pledge, which was applied to some of the associ- 
 ations for mutual liability established by the Saxon law. 
 Boroughs, in the sense of the definition above given, must 
 have, in some shape, existed very early in this as well as 
 in other countries ; but the origin as well in constitution as 
 in name of the existing municipal system in England can 
 be traced no higher than Saxon times, and the general and 
 connected history of English boroughs does not begin be- 
 fore the Conquest. 
 
 According to Doomsday Book there were in England at 
 that time eighty-two boroughs, including cities, differing 
 considerably in the extent of their franchises as well as in 
 their customs and mode of government ; but agreeing in 
 this general character, that they were communities estab- 
 lished chiefly for the purposes of trade, endowed to that 
 effect with certain franchises, such as that of a fair or mar- 
 ket, and possessing as boroughs a special jurisdiction ex- 
 ercised in the borough court-leet, and exclusive of the ju- 
 risdiction of the hundred, with which in the political scale 
 a borough was co-equal. Some of them then held, and all 
 were capable of holding, lands in common ; and in respect 
 of such land they held, as did also each burgess in respect 
 of his own tenement, of some lord, by a species of tenure 
 called burgage tenure, which was in fact only the ancient 
 tenure in common socage, t. e. tenure by rent or service 
 certain, which continued to prevail in boroughs after the 
 general imposition upon other lands of the feudal or milita- 
 ry service. The lordship of the land of the borough, and 
 of the different tenements which it contained, must have 
 belonged in the first instance to the lord of the manor with- 
 in which it was situate ; but all boroughs, in contemplation 
 of law, held their franchises of the king. 
 
 Great obscurity prevails as to what was originally the in- 
 ternal constitution of boroughs, and as to how far it was 
 popular or not, and how far also it was or was not uniform. 
 It is certain that as early as the date of Doomsday Book 
 the proportion between the number of burgesses and that 
 of other inhabitants was very different in different bo- 
 roughs ; though the fact may be reconciled with the notion 
 of a system originally popular (which has all along pre- 
 vailed in some boroughs), upon the supposition that the 
 franchise had either been usurped on the one hand, as has 
 frequently happened in the case of larger communities, or 
 abandoned on the other hand as of little value, on account 
 of the liability that attached to it of contributing to the com- 
 mon charges. Much perplexity also arises on this subject 
 from the intermixture in the same place of the guild and 
 borough franchises (see Guild), which prevailed to that ex- 
 tent that the guild-merchant, which appears to have been 
 an incorporation, or an association by licence of all trades 
 within the borough, is by some considered as identical in 
 its constitution with the borough itself; and it is certain, at 
 any rate, that the guild-merchant, though it did not in the 
 first instance constitute the borough, yet in many places 
 usurped its franchises and government, and finally as- 
 sumed its name ; so that, with the exception of burgage 
 tenure, which still prevailed in some few places, and of 
 birth, which was common to both institutions, the other 
 modes of obtaining the freedom of a borough, — i. e. those 
 of apprenticeship, purchase, or gift, — were introduced into 
 the municipal system from the guild-merchant. Distinct 
 from this in their relations and contests with the community 
 of the borough at large were the guilds of particular trades, 
 which succeeded in London in engrossing and parcelling 
 among themselves, under the name of liveries, the whole 
 of the municipal franchises. 
 
 All borough rights, being exceptive, rested either upon 
 charter, or upon prescription, which supposes a charter. 
 Some few of such charters were granted by Saxon kings: 
 but they became much more frequent after the Conquest, 
 the style and purport of these early documents being sim- 
 ply that of a grant to the wiejiand burgesses of such a place 
 of certain franchises, whether relating to trade, as that of 
 a fair or market, or exemption from toll, or to jurisdiction, 
 such as a commission of the peace and the right of holding 
 sessions, which was first granted to any borough by Rich- 
 ard II. In the reign of Henry VI., a remarkable alteration 
 took place in the style of these royal grants, it being then 
 first that were granted, as it is said, charters of incorpora- 
 tion, strictly so called ; though previous to that time bo- 
 roughs, or the governing bodies that represented them, en- 
 joyed all the privileges of a corporation, and since that 
 time many have continued to enjoy them without any such 
 special grant. From that time forth, however, the history 
 of boroughs becomes identical, except as to the parliamen- 
 tary franchise, with that of municipal corporations. These 
 charters of incorporation did not, any more than did those 
 which preceded them, pretend to regulate the internal con- 
 stitution of boroughs. This very generally assumed the 
 form of a government by a small and in great measure 
 self-elected body, which had in most cases succeeded in 
 engrossing not only the whole administration, and in a 
 156 
 
 BOS. 
 
 great degree the enjoyment also of the borough fran- 
 chises and property, but the right also of granting, accord- 
 ing to rules more or less arbitrary, admission into the sub- 
 ordinate body of burgesses or freemen. And even that 
 body, where it existed, which was not always the case, 
 was small in proportion to the whole number ot inhabitants. 
 It was the great object of the charters granted by the Tu- 
 dor sovereigns to sanction and confirm the usurpations, 
 if such they were, of these municipal oligarchies, with the 
 view apparently of throwing the representation of boroughs 
 (a right which had been conferred in the first instance by 
 Edward I., had since been extended by fresh grants, and 
 was then becoming of considerable importance) into the 
 hands of such as were most likely to be easily guided or 
 controlled, either by the crown itself or by the great lords 
 upon whose support itreckoned, and with whom it became 
 usual about the same lime to connect themselves with the 
 boroughs in the neighbourhood of their possessions, under 
 the honorary title of high stewards. The exclusive system 
 of municipal government, which attained its height during 
 the Stuart dynasty, continued unimpaired till the present 
 time, when it was effectually put an end to by the Act for 
 the Regulation of Municipal Corporations, passed in the 
 year 1335. For an account of which, as well as of the 
 other remarkable incidents in the history of the municipal 
 institutions, which happened from the time of the Tudors 
 to the present period, see title Municipal Corporations ; 
 and for an account of the representation of boroughs, and 
 particularly of the reform in their representation, see tide 
 Parliament. 
 
 The account above given of English boroughs, both as to 
 their origin and constitution, applies in all its general fea- 
 tures to Scotch boroughs ; with this qualification, that the 
 government by close corporations was in the latter country 
 more thoroughly and more generally prevalent until the 
 reform in them, which preceded by a year the Municipal 
 Regulation Bill applicable to England ; and resembled it ia 
 almost every thing but this, that it made the qualification 
 for burgesship identical with that required to give a vote in 
 the election of members, namely, the occupancy of a 
 house of the yearly value of £\0. 
 
 In Ireland the municipal system, as it now exists, is of 
 considerably later origin than in Scotland or in England. 
 It was transplanted, and gradually introduced from the lat- 
 ter country ; and though with the same names and form of 
 constitution as then existed there, had much more in it of 
 a political character, being intended in the first instance as 
 a support to the English against the Irish, and in later times 
 to the Protestant against the Catholic, and was so used to the 
 neglect of functions more properly municipal, which have 
 therefore in many instances been intrusted to other hands 
 by local acts of parliament. These distinctions of religion 
 and birth aggravated also in other respects the vices of a 
 close and exclusive system, which was there, as in Scot- 
 land, more generally and thoroughly established than it 
 ever was in England. A measure fof the reform or aboli- 
 tion of the existing municipal corporations of Ireland is 
 now pending before the legislature. 
 
 BOROUGH ENGLISH. In Law, is a customary mode 
 of descent of lands in some ancient boroughs and manors, 
 by which estates descend to the owner's youngest son ; or 
 if he has no issue, to his younger brother. See Descent. 
 
 BOS. (Lat. bos, an ox.) A genus of ruminating mam- 
 mals, which is one of the most important in relation to the 
 necessities and conveniences of man. To this genus be- 
 longs the domestic ox, in all its various breeds and va- 
 rieties. With respect to the wild original of our numerous 
 herds there is yet some obscurity ; less, however, than 
 hangs over the origin of other domesticated species. The 
 wild cattle which approach nearest to the tame are those 
 which inhabit the forests oft he north-east of Europe; and the 
 white cattle, which are still preserved in a state of purity 
 at Craven, at Chillinaham Park, and in Scotland. These 
 are both referred to the species called Bos taurns, or Bos 
 urus, or Urus Scoticus ; but there is much reason for sup- 
 posing this species to have been the domestic ox reverted 
 to a state of nature. Another well marked variety of this 
 species is the Brahminy bull ; characterised by the hump 
 on the shoulders and the pendent dewlap. 
 
 The other known wild species of ox are the Gayal of In- 
 dia 'Bos gavaus) ; the Yak of the mountains of Central 
 Asia (Bos grunniens); lastly, there are the Buffaloes, 
 which, though anatomically less distinct than the Bisons 
 from the typical Bores, yet differ from the oxen as a group 
 in many points. They have larger horns, which sometimes 
 form a horny covering of great thickness to the whole fron- 
 tal region ; and they approach the Paehydermafa in the 
 thickness of the skin and the thinly scattered coarse hair. 
 They frequent marshy grounds, and feed on a ranker and 
 coarser herbage than the ox. The flesh of buffaloes is 
 rank and coarse, and they are used chiefly as beasts of 
 draught or burden. The two best marked species are the 
 Indian or Amee buffalo (Bosarnee), and the South African 
 buffalo (.Bos coffer).
 
 BOSSAGE. 
 
 BO'SSAGE. (French.) In Architecture, any projection 
 left unwrought on the face of a stone for the purpose of 
 afterwards sculpturing thereon, the sculpture being usually 
 the last thing finished. 
 
 BO'STRICHUS. A genus of Coleopterous, Xylopha- 
 gous, or wood-boring insects, now raised to the rank of a 
 family (Bostrichida,), including amongst its numerous ge- 
 nera three which contain species whose ravages have call- 
 ed forth the attention of the legislature both in England 
 and other countries, in consequence of the extensive des- 
 truction of valuable timber caused thereby. The species 
 in question are the Bostrichus ligniperda, Scolyttus destruc- 
 tor, and Tomicus typographies ; but the two latter are the 
 most mischievous, and astonish by the amount of damage 
 which is produced by insects of so small a size. The elm 
 tree is the object of attack to the -S. destructor ; while the 
 T. typographies restricts its operations to the fir. The fe- 
 males attack the crevices of the bark, and perforate it in 
 diverging lateral channels, in which from sixty to eighty 
 eggs are deposited. At the end of fifteen days the larvae 
 are hatched, and forthwith commence the work of des- 
 truction, each gnawing a serpentine gallery between the 
 bark and the wood, and gradually enlarging its burrow until 
 the period when it is ready to pass into the pupa state ; 
 whpn, having finally become a perfect beetle, it directly 
 bores through the portion of the tree which remains be- 
 tween the wood and the outer bark, and escapes through a 
 small circular aperture in the latter. This emergence of 
 the perfect insect takes place in trie month of May ; and in 
 seasons favourable to their development they appear in 
 swarms, and rise to a height exceeding that of the trees, 
 and may be carried by the wind to another and distant 
 part of the forest. The impregnation of the female takes 
 place in the air ; so that wherever they alight they are ready 
 to recommence the work of destruction. The chief pre- 
 cautions and remedies which experience has suggested are 
 to cut down the trees which are once attacked, immedi- 
 ately to bark them and to burn the bark, and to remove all 
 felled timher without delay. 
 
 HOSWE'LLIA. A genus of Indian trees belonging to 
 the natural order Burscracece, one species of which, B. 
 thurifera, yields the resin called Olibanum, which 
 to be a corruption of Luban, the name given by the Hin- 
 doos to this plant. 
 
 DOT. The name of the larvae of the Dipterous insects 
 of the (;\m\\y (Est ridre (which see). 
 
 BOTANY. (V.r. fioravri, herb or grass.) That branch 
 of natural history which relates to the vegetable kingdom ; 
 not merely including the nomenclature and classification of 
 plants, as some have supposed, but embracing all the phe- 
 nomena of vegetable life in their widest extent. 
 
 Looking only at the first principles of the science, it is 
 generally divided into the following heads : — 
 
 Organography, or the Structure (organization) of Plants. 
 — This is a most important department ; it comprehends 
 whatever relates to the various forms of tissue of which 
 plants are anatomically constructed ; it explains the exact 
 organization of all those parts through which the vital func- 
 tions are performed ; and it also teaches the relation that 
 one part bears to another, with the dependence of the 
 whole upon the common system. Without a perfect know- 
 ledge of Organography no systematical arrangement can 
 be understood ; for, being that part of science in which the 
 laws of the symmetry of parts is comprehended, it must 
 necessarily he the basis of all theory of classifications : and 
 as to l> iscriptive Botany, which may be called the language 
 of the science, it cannot have any logical precision, or be 
 intelligible, unless the mind is distinctly impressed with 
 the fundamental laws of this branch of study. Physiology 
 itself, the highest branch of all natural science, depends so 
 absolutely upon an exact knowledge of the structure of 
 parts, that any attempt to investigate the important laws of 
 vegetable life must necessarily be abortive without a strict 
 acquaintance with the more important details of organiza- 
 tion. And by this is not meant merely a general idea of 
 external form, or a vague notion of internal anatomy, but 
 the most precise knowledge that the nature of the subject 
 will admit. 
 
 Connected with this branch of study is what German 
 botanists call Morphology, but which others think it better 
 to consider a section of Organography. The word Mor- 
 phology signifies literally the "science of changes or trans- 
 formations." As applied to botany, it embraces a very in- 
 teresting subject of inquiry, and one which, to all those 
 who know the importance that attaches to comparative 
 anatomy in the animal kingdom, cannot fail to be peculiarly 
 interesting. Within the last thirty or forty years it has been 
 clearly made out that all those parts which are familiarly 
 known under the name of leaves, flowers, and fruit, are 
 constructed, in all cases whatsoever, upon a simple uni- 
 form plan, out of one single organ in different states of mo- 
 dification and combination ; and that there is no other 
 difference between the flower of a rose and that of a net- 
 tle than what arises from modifications and combinations 
 157 
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 of this organ— which is the leaf. If it be doubted whether, 
 considering the anomalous character of some of the lower 
 orders of plants, all vegetables are without exception form- 
 ed upon one and the same plan, it is impossible not to ad- 
 mit that, at least in all Phaenogamous plants, the flowers 
 are composed of the same elements; that these elements 
 are arranged in conformity to a few simple laws, far less 
 variable than their appearance seems to indicate, and the 
 study of which constitutes the basis of the theory of bot- 
 any. These laws are so evident in a great number of cases, 
 that one scarcely pays attention to them ; but curiosity is 
 at once excited when they seem to be violated. Exact ob- 
 servation, however, shows that in such cases they are only 
 masked ; that is to say, an unusual application of two or 
 three different laws produces an apparent anomaly, which 
 is easily explained by a reference to the numerous cases of 
 degeneracy, abortion, and cohesion with which the vege- 
 table kingdom abounds. In such instances as this the bot- 
 anist may be compared to the mineralogist, who discovers 
 the primitive forms of crystals by means of their second- 
 ary forms. We are so accustomed to talk of plants bearing 
 leaves and flowers and fruit, and it is so evident to our 
 senses that extremely different organs really do exist under 
 such names, that it seems inconceivable that parts so very 
 dissimilar should all be only leaves in different states ; that 
 the pure white petals of the lily, the rich red flowers of the 
 rose, the sweet-smelling blossoms of the jasmine and the 
 orange, or the long trumpet-shaped corollas of the honey- 
 suckle, should all be leaves ; that the stamens in which 
 the fertilizing powder is locked up, the pistils which are 
 destined to receive the influence of the pollen, the ovula 
 that they contain, and, finally, that the fruit which is the re- 
 sult of the action of the two last, are all so many parts 
 formed out of one common organ, which in a particular 
 and very frequent state is what we call a leaf. Botanists 
 do not mean to say that he who eats an apple, or an orange, 
 or a peach, is in a state of mental delusion, and that while 
 he fancies himself to be enjoying the pleasure of gratify- 
 ing his palate by the most delicious flavours, he is really 
 only chewing the leaves of these plants ; but they assert 
 that those appendages of a plant which are commonly 
 called the leaves have a peculiar anatomical structure, and 
 a certain relation to the stem on which they are borne, and 
 being developed according to certain fixed laws, are always 
 arranged upon a certain and uniform plan with respect to 
 each other; and that all the other organs, whether calyx, 
 corolla, stamens, pistils, or fruit, have an anatomical struc- 
 ture essentially the same, bear the same relation to the 
 axis that they grow upon, are developed according to the 
 same laws, are arranged upon the same certain and uni- 
 form plan with respect to each other, and, finally, are con- 
 stantly becoming transformed into leaves of the ordinary 
 appearance, thus losing the condition in which they are 
 usually found, and reverting to their structural type. The 
 admission of such propositions as these does not render 
 our notions of the distinctions between the various organs 
 more obscure than it was before, as some would assert ; 
 but on the contrary it enables us the better to understand 
 the real nature of the organization of any part, and the 
 plan upon which the most complicated arrangements of 
 these organs have been affected. For example, who is to 
 explain how it happens that buds occasionally spring from 
 the axillre of petals or sepals, that anthers are found having 
 ovules, that branches push forth from the centre of pistils, 
 that petals become antheriferous and stamens petaloid, 
 unless the proposition is admitted that all those apparently 
 different parts are formed upon a common plan, the type 
 of which is a leaf, and are all therefore convertible into 
 each other? 
 
 Another branch into which the science separates is Phy- 
 siology, or the department which treats of the vital actions 
 of plants. While organography is applicable to objects 
 whether living or dead, physiology solely refers to them in 
 a state of vitality. There is scarcely any part of natural 
 history more difficult than this, if rigorous demonstration 
 is required, nor, at the same time, one upon which there 
 was in former days a greater degree of mere speculation. 
 Like many other of the higher departments of natural 
 philosophy, hypothesis preceded experiment ; so that in 
 the earlier history of botany we find scarcely a trace of 
 those ideas which modern observation has certainly de- 
 veloped in a verv remarkable manner. 
 
 In vegetable physiology it is not as in animal— we have 
 not our highest order of beings endued with reason which 
 we can studv by aid of our own personal feelings and sen- 
 sations, and "from our knowledge of which we can proceed 
 in a descending series to the determination of the vital 
 functions of all other tribes. On the contrary, we are in 
 the same position with regard to plants as a new and totally 
 distinct race of animated beings would be to mollusca and 
 the lowest orders of existing things, supposing such a race 
 to have no knowledge whatever of animal economy be- 
 vond what could be learned from the study of mollusca 
 themselves, to have a class of sensations and a structurs
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 wholly unlike our own, and finally to deduce its notions of 
 the anatomy and vital system of mollusca. not from a com- 
 parison of them with other beings gradually and perhaps 
 insensibly rising in perfection of organization till the relation 
 of one part to another and the uses of all become more 
 manifest, but wholly from the abstract consideration of the 
 mollusca themselves. In such a case, speculation would 
 most likely precede experimental observation, as was ac- 
 tually the case with plants. 
 
 It was not till after the invention of the microscope that 
 even an imperfect knowledge of vegetable anatomy could 
 be gained ; and only when this great step was taken vege- 
 table physiology began to establish itself upon a sure foun- 
 dation. Consequent upon this discovery has been the 
 accumulation of a considerable amount of positive know- 
 ledge of a world of organized beings having nothing in 
 common with the race of man; with which we cannot 
 communicate in the slightest degree ; that have no voli- 
 tion by which we may occasionally regulate our judgment ; 
 whose texture is so frail that we cannot anatomise them 
 without the destruction of life ; whose functions are per- 
 formed within an opaque dense covering that excludes 
 every thing from our view ; and which finally are so ex- 
 ceedingly simple in their organization, have so few differ- 
 ent organs with which to execute their functions, that we 
 are lost in amazement at effects so complicated and forms 
 so various being brought about by means that were seem- 
 ingly so inadequate. The world has learned from the ve- 
 getable physiologist, not only that plants breathe, feed, 
 and digest, and how the functions of breathing, feeding, 
 and digesting are carried on ; they have ascertained by 
 what means an increase in their dimensions is brought 
 about, how their want of locomotive power is compensated 
 for, and by what, precise means their reproduction and 
 multiplication are so wisely ordained as to be placed be- 
 yond obstruction by any natural impediments. In short, 
 the exact use of every part of every plant, various as their 
 forms and uses doubtless are, has been ascertained ; and 
 we are now entitled to say of plants as of animals, that 
 their kingdom is rendered subject to the power, not only 
 of man's physical energy, but of his mental resources. 
 Perhaps no part of the creation illustrates more forcibly 
 than the vegetable world, the admirable skill and foresight 
 with which all the phenomena of the universe have been 
 adapted by the Great Author of our being to the accom- 
 plishment of the objects for which they have been seve- 
 rally intended. 
 
 Take, for example, vegetable tissue. What can be con- 
 ceived more wisely prepared 1 The cellular, capable of 
 great extensibility, possessing also prodigious compressi- 
 bility, its particles cohering either firmly or loosely ac- 
 cording to circumstances, its sides composed of a most 
 delicate membrane, through which fluid and gaseous mat- 
 ter passes readily in every direction, is destined to form 
 the principal mass of the vegetable, and to execute all 
 those functions with which absorption and respiration are 
 connected ; — the fibrous tissue, composed of myriads of 
 threads compactly combined into bundles, dispersed 
 through the cellular substance, how admirably does it sup- 
 ply the place of bones and nerves in the animal economy, 
 affording strength and solidity and elasticity to the most 
 delicate parts! While the vascular tissue, exclusively in- 
 tended for the reception and rapid transmission of gaseous 
 matter or of highly attenuated fluid from the roots to the 
 extremities, how wisely is it contrived by its greater size 
 and length, and how carefully is it prepared by its spiral 
 structure, for extending and turning, as the cellular sub- 
 stance develops, to those parts where the peculiar matter 
 that it contains is most required ! Here there is no confu- 
 sion of offices to perform ; each has its peculiar part as- 
 signed it, for which it has been especially destined, and 
 for which it is alone adapted. 
 
 Look at the leaves. The leaves are the organs in plants 
 that correspond with the stomach in animals; that is to 
 say, it is in them that the fluid matter taken up by the 
 roots and injected into them from the stem, is digested 
 and inspissated, and separated into the nutritious and ex- 
 cremental portions. To the naked eye the leaves appear 
 to be merely flat plates of cellular substance traversed by 
 veins ; but examined with a microscope they are at once 
 seen to be constructed upon a most simple plan — of any 
 that can be conceived the most perfectly adapted to the 
 end in view. 
 
 Digestion takes place in leaves chiefly by the absorption 
 of carbonic acid and the respiration of oxygen, and by the 
 evaporation of water ; if this process were to be carried on 
 without any provision against the variations which are con- 
 stantly occurring in the state of the atmosphere, it is easy 
 to conceive that in excessively dry weather leaves would 
 lose all their moisture and constantly become parched up, 
 while in wet weather they would be so gorged with mois- 
 ture as to burst from distension. In order to prevent the 
 occurrence of this, nature has enclosed leaves in a cuticle 
 scarcely pervious either to air or moisture ; and in this 
 158 
 
 cuticle ehe has placed numerous mouth?, called stomafa, 
 which have the power of opening and closing, according 
 to the state of either the atmosphere or of the leaf itself, to 
 regulate the absorption or respiration of either water or 
 air. And in order to expose the tissue lying beneath this 
 cuticle to the greatest possible atmospheric influence, the 
 leaf is not a solid mass, as it appears to be, but is traversed 
 in all directions by passages terminating in the mouths, 
 and opening into cavities, where the air both of absorption 
 and exhalation can freely circulate, and pass in or out so 
 long as the mouths permit it. Nor is this all. Many leaves 
 are constantly submerged beneath the surface of water, 
 where they are never exposed to atmospheric vicissitudes, 
 can never evaporate, and being cut off from the air, can 
 neither absorb carbonic acid from the air, nor discharge 
 oxygen back into it in return. It is therefore obvious that 
 the curious provision that has been made for the regula- 
 tion of the action of aerial leaves would be useless in sub- 
 mersed ones ; and accordingly we find that the latter have 
 neither cuticle, nor mouths, nor cavernous parenchyma, 
 but are thin but solid plates, the whole surface of whose 
 cellular substance is in direct contact with the water, from 
 the air contained in which the leaves must exclusively de- 
 rive their nutriment The employment of the same kind 
 of organ, in different forms, for the purpose of effecting 
 the varied objects that are to be provided for in the vege- 
 table economy, is another and a most remarkable instance 
 of the consummate wisdom and wonderful simplicity that 
 are discoverable in all these things. Upon the birth of a 
 plant one or two leaves are developed, which feed the in- 
 fant until it is strong enough to develop one or two more ; 
 these last, not only like the first proceed without exception 
 from opposite sides of the stem or body, but are so placed 
 as to alternate with the first ; and this goes on with unvary- 
 ing uniformity, as long as growth continues; so that view 
 a plant in whatever way you will, whether in its earliest 
 state, or at the most advanced period of its existence, it 
 will always be seen to exhibit the same beautiful symme- 
 try as the most highly developed animals: one side coun- 
 terpoises the other; whatever is discoverable on one side, 
 equally exists upon the other. If it is necessary that a 
 protection should be formed for securing the young and 
 tender buds against cold, the leaves surrounding the buds 
 suddenly contract into hard scales, perhaps exude some 
 resinous or gummy matter, or clothe themselves in a deep 
 covering of wool, and an impenetrable living shield is thus 
 interposed between the bed and danger. A plant is to be 
 rendered more beautiful to the eye — its leaves again con- 
 tract, the spaces that usually separate them are obliterated, 
 new colours are assumed, and petals are created resplen- 
 dent with brilliant hues or exhaling the softest perfumes. 
 Propagation is to be effected — the petals contract into sta- 
 mens, their central substance becomes disintegrated in the 
 form of pollen, and the interior of each grain of the latter 
 is resolved into that living matter of which in a state of co- 
 hesion all nature is composed. A few leaves are rolled 
 together in the form of pistillum, the apex of the midrib 
 becomes denuded, and young buds are developed at the 
 margins. A grain of pollen, the disintegrated tissue of the 
 flowering leaf, falls upon the denuded apex of the fructi- 
 fying leaf, absorbs moisture from it, distends, and finally 
 produces a tube of inconceivable fineness, which abstracts 
 from the pollen its impregnating matter, some of which 
 descends the midrib into the womb of the leaf, and thence 
 entering the young buds that are developed at its margins, 
 is finally hatched, and appears at last in the form of em- 
 bryo plants. 
 
 Such is the simplicity of the arrangements that are ob- 
 servable in the most perfectly formed, the most elaborate- 
 ly constructed plants. In the lower orders, the mode of 
 formation, development, and propagation is still more 
 simple. A vesicle elongates and distends until it becomes 
 a tube ; from the end of this tube more are generated that 
 themselves give birth to others, and thus a simple branch- 
 ing plant is formed. In the inside of each tube by degrees 
 a green matter is deposited ; and after a certain period has 
 elapsed is emitted in the form of little green vesicles, like 
 that from which the plant originally sprang, and them- 
 selves capable of developing as new plants. In certain 
 tubes, this dissolution takes place in a much more aston- 
 ishing manner ; not into inert green matter, but into mov- 
 ing particles having all the properties of spontaneous mo- 
 tion and animal existence. Soon, however, the moving 
 particles elongate ; thus losing their power of motion and 
 becoming plants, to whose laws of life they ever after sub- 
 mit. Turpin has seen the Mnnema comoides resolve it- 
 self into navicular ; Desmazieres has shown the plants 
 called Mycodermata, or what we name the mothery film of 
 fermented liquor, to consist of monads growing end to 
 end {Ann. des Sc. x); and Treviranus (Ann. des Sr. x.) 
 has detailed with exactness the metamorphoses in the life 
 of the compound plant called Batrachospermum glomera- 
 tum. In this the filaments discharge a green matter and 
 become colourless ; the green matter consists of myriads
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 of infusoria, of a round or elliptical figure ; the latter col- 
 lect by fives or sixes into a kind of star, become motion- 
 less, lengthen, and finally are transformed into young in- 
 dividuals of this undoubted plant. 
 
 These are far from being all the divisions into which 
 Botany, or the study of the vegetable kingdom, may be 
 subdivided ; although they are no doubt among the most 
 interesting. Besides these there is Taxonomy, or the 
 principles of classification. It would be of little use that a 
 man should know anatomy, and structure, and compara- 
 tive organization, and have informed himself of all the 
 leading principles of physiology, if he were unacquainted 
 with the names of the objects he had been studying, and 
 were consequently incapable of communicating his know- 
 ledge to others. At least, of whatever use it might be to 
 him ielf, it could not be of advantage to any one else. But 
 If he is acquainted with the names of known objects, and 
 if he understands the rules of classification, he can then 
 render his information available to others as well as to 
 himself. And in like manner he can at all times determine 
 what is known about any particular plant that lie may have 
 been studying; or if it be a kind previously unknown, he 
 can find its place in the system, and by publishing a descrip- 
 tion of it, he can fix it there for the information of others. 
 
 But there is another way of looking at the utility of 
 classification, which shows that what may to some appear 
 but a dry and barren subject, is in reality one of the most 
 important branches of the science. No man can know all 
 things relating to such a science as this,— few men can 
 learn many things; for this reason it is of importance that 
 a means should he discovered of judging of what is un- 
 known by what is known ; and that by judiciously select- 
 ing a moderate number of objects for particular study, the 
 Inquirer may have a ready and by no means burthensome 
 means of forming a. clear knowledge of tin' ivln>lc veneta- 
 ble kingdom. This is not difficult, if attention be paid to 
 the doctrine of affinities. Every one must have seen that 
 Borne species of plants are more like each other than they 
 am like different species ; without considering the matter 
 botanically, every one must, for example, have remarked 
 thai a radish is more like a turnip than it is like a currant 
 bush, that a pea is more like a bean than an apple, and 
 that a cherry blossom is more like an apple blossom than 
 a horse chestnut. These are rude instances of affinity on 
 the one hand, and discrepancy on the other ; but they are 
 nevertheless perfectly explanatory of what is meant. Bo- 
 tanists find that classification may be founded upon a con- 
 sideration of general resemblances and differences; and 
 that by carefully examining the characteristic organs of 
 plants, those species may be classed most nearly together 
 which have the greatest degree of resemblance and the 
 most perfect constitutional agreement. Now this being 
 the case, it follows that a knowledge of one species is to a 
 gnat extent a knowledge of many ; and that a correct idea 
 of a single individual of a group in the classification, pro- 
 vided that individual is well selected, amounts to a know- 
 ledge to a considerable extent of all the other species of 
 the same group. For example, in the Iribe of Orueifem, 
 consisting of about 900 species, the study of the common 
 radish, the mustard, or the cress, will give the student a 
 very accurate general knowledge of the remaining 899, be- 
 cause they are all (lose modifications of the same forms, 
 Again, the common potatoe, rightly understood, n presents 
 tin? greater part of Solanacno\ or at least of some hundred 
 species belonging to that tribe ; while the dead nettle, Lu- 
 minal album or rubrum, stands as the representative of 
 some IS or 1600 species called Labiata. This would be 
 of eminent importance if its advantage stopped here; but 
 when it is considered that the properties of plants also ac- 
 cord in a very remarkable manner with their structure, 
 and that those which are most closely approximated in a 
 classification will most nearly resemble one another in 
 their sensible properties, the advantages to be derived 
 from a study ot the laws of affinity cannot fail to be clearly 
 perceived. For example, to use the same illustration as 
 before, any person acquainted with Cruel/era would know 
 that there is no instance of a poisonous or deleterious 
 plant in the tribe, a point of creat importance to be aware 
 of; on the contrary, he would know that if they had suc- 
 culent roots, they might be employed like the radish, and 
 that their leaves are antiscorbutic ; but if he met with an 
 unknown plant, which, from its resemblance to the pota- 
 toe, he knew belonged to Solanacea?, he would at once re- 
 ject it as poisonous, or at least suspicious, unless it had 
 tubers filled with faecula, when he would except that por- 
 tion, because all fsecula is wholesome, however poisonous 
 the trees or plants may otherwise be that produce it, pro- 
 vided the deleterious matter that lies among it is removed 
 by washing, or volatilized by the action of heat. 
 
 It is not, however, any kind of classification that leads to 
 such ends. All artificial systems, as for instance that of 
 Linnaeus, are unproductive of such results. It is only the 
 natural system of botany from which these importaut ad- 
 vantages are to be derived. 
 159 
 
 A fourth division of the science is the meaning of the 
 terms employed in the science ; or what was formerly 
 called Terminology, anrl now more correctly Glossology. 
 This is the least interesting part of the subject ; but at the 
 same time it is too important to be passed over lightly, be- 
 cause it is impossible either to understand the writings of 
 botanists, or to make oneself intelligible to others, without 
 being correctly informed of the meaning of the terms pe- 
 culiar to the science. The state of Terminology at any 
 given time may indeed be safely taken as indicative of the 
 state of the whole science ; for in proportion as ideas are 
 multiplied and knowledge rendered exact, are the terms 
 required to express those ideas multiplied and their apuli- 
 cation rendered definite. A curious exemplification "of 
 this is to be found in the Historia Plantarum of Fuchs, a 
 learned botanist of the 16th century. In the glossary pre- 
 fixed to that work are comprehended only 132 terms' of all 
 kinds, many of which refer to measures, and are therefore 
 not appertaining to botany ; and of the remainder 29 be- 
 long to modifications of stems, 15 to differences of inflo- 
 rescence, 6 to the fruit, but not one to any other part of 
 the fructification. In the present state of botany, the 
 terms that relate to the seed alone are probably as nume- 
 rous as the whole that are comprehended in Fuchs' Glos- 
 sology. 
 
 Another and very distinct branch of inquiry is into the 
 rules to be observed in describing and naming plants ; or 
 what is called Phytography. The great object of descrip- 
 tions in natural history is to enable any person to recognise 
 a known species, after its station has been discovered by 
 classification, and also to put those who may not have had 
 the opportunity of examining a plant themselves into pos- 
 session of all the facts necessary to acquire a just notion 
 of its structure and affinities. It is therefore important 
 that such descriptions should be drawn up according to 
 certain conventional well-known Piles, and not according 
 to the caprice of individuals; and this not only for the 
 sake of ensuring a uniformity of language, and in' all cases 
 the same order of treating the subject, but also to prevent 
 descriptions being too general, to ensure attention to the 
 most important points of structure, and at the same time 
 to prevent their being more prolix than is really necessary. 
 The rules of description are more especially intended to 
 guard against the latter evil ; for no mistake can be more 
 common than to confound prolixity with precision, 
 
 The last branch into which the study of the science may 
 be divided is the application of the preceding subjects to 
 the art of discriminating species. This may be ca&ed the 
 I'Tiiriin »/' Hn/any,as the former belonged to its theory, 
 and is by far the most difficult part of the subject. There 
 is no difficulty in becoming acquainted with the funda- 
 mental principles of the science, because they naturally 
 arise out of each other, and are dependent upon the just 
 appreciation of a few simple laws ; the various combina- 
 tions of which, upon principles that it is easy to compre- 
 hend, constitute the the differences that exist between or- 
 gans themselves and their numerous modifications. But 
 the practice of botany, although its study is essentially 
 facilitated by an acquaintance with fundamental principles, 
 and indeed cannot be usefully pursued without, yet it lias 
 peculiar difficulties of its own. It is often difficult to recog- 
 nise organs in consequence of the manner in which they 
 are masked by the modifications they have undergone; 
 their combinations are frequently so intricate that great 
 experience is necessary to enable'an observer to judge of 
 them correctly ; their minuteness is often such as to ren- 
 der indispensable a use of the microscope, which requires 
 peculiar dexterity and a good deal of practice ; and finally 
 the number of species is so great, that to bear in mind 
 their distinctions is a heavy tax upon the memory. Diffi- 
 culties of this nature are almost insurmountable by a stu- 
 dent who is unaided by the experience of a teacher. 
 
 At what period of the world botany first began to be stu- 
 died as a science, has not been satisfactorily ascertained. 
 By some it has been referred to the highest ages of anti- 
 quity. We are assured that Moses and Solomon and other 
 Jewish writers, especially the last, were botanists, and 
 that traces of much knowledge of the science are to be 
 found throughout the scriptures; but it seems difficult to 
 assign Botany any such antiquity. That in the most re- 
 mote ages man had his herbs and his roots; that he was 
 acquainted with the properties of one plant, and the uses 
 of another: that he gave them names, and that poets de- 
 rived many of the beauties of their language from them, — 
 was natural enough ; but this had nothing to do with bota- 
 ny. The first dawn of that science broke from out of the 
 deep investigations of the nature of matter and mind by 
 the philosophers of Greece. How much they knew we 
 have no accurate means of judging ; but that they knew a 
 great deal of vegetable physiology is obvious from their 
 famous paradox, that plants are only inverted animals, — 
 a sentiment which, however strangely it may sound, could 
 only have arisen from an extensive knowledge of the vital 
 phenomena of Vegetation, Nor could the doctrine of Aris-
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 tolle, that all organic matter exhibits a series of successive 
 degrees of development, have been conceived or pro- 
 mulgated, unless the philosophers of his day had possessed 
 a practical acquaintance with vegetation much beyond that 
 of the ages that succeeded. 
 
 Happy had it been for those ages if, instead of retro- 
 gading in the path of science, or rather stepping out of it 
 altogether, they had only pursued the course commenced 
 by Theophrastus 350 years before Christ. By that natural- 
 ist the beginning was made of applying particular terms to 
 particular modifications of structure ; he demonstrated the 
 absence of all philosophical distinction between trees, 
 shrubs, and herbs, — a distinction upon which his succes- 
 sors were fond of insisting ; he speaks clearly of the paren- 
 chyma and the woody fibre of wood, the former of which 
 he calls the flesh ; and he described accurately the differ- 
 ence between palm wood and that of trees with concentric 
 layers; so that in point of fact the discovery of the dif- 
 ference between Dicotyledonous and Monocotyledonous 
 wood was made by Theophrastus above 2000 years ago, 
 although it was never applied to the purposes of systematic 
 division till about thirty years since. Subsequently to this 
 period, botanists almost disappeared for a long season. 
 Those who have been dignified by historians with that title 
 were either pharmacologists, like Dioscorides; or com- 
 pilers, who, like Pliny, knew little themselves, and mis- 
 understood those they copied ; or poets, who drew much 
 of the beauty of their language from the charms of nature ; 
 or geoponkal writers, who were acquainted with those 
 parts of husbandry which relate to phvsiological botany. 
 
 With whom the curious arts of budding and grafting, and 
 striking plants by layers, or propagating them by taking 
 advantage of the divisibility which distinguishes the vege- 
 table from the animal kingdoms originated, is now un- 
 known ; but there is reason to believe that the greater part 
 of the modifications of those processes was in the classical 
 ages as well understood as now. That grafting was exclu- 
 sively undertaken, is obvious from these lines of a well- 
 known poet of the Augustan age : — 
 
 Et ssepe altetius ramos impune videmils 
 
 Verlere alterius, mulutaq insita mala 
 
 Ferre pyrum, et pruius lapidosa rubescere coma. 
 
 But, what is much more curious, the delicate process of 
 budding was as scientifically performed at that period as 
 by the most skilful gardener of the present century. 
 Nothing can be more precise than the following elegant 
 description of Roman budding : — 
 
 Nee modus inserere, alqueoculos imponere simplex. 
 Nam qua se medio truriunt de tortice gemmee, 
 Et tenues rumpunt milieus, angusius in ipso 
 Fit nodo sinus ; hue aliena ex arbore germen 
 Ineludiuit, udoque docent inolescei e libro. 
 
 Again of crown grafting : — 
 
 Aut rursuroenodeslrunci resecantur, et alte 
 Finditur in solidnm cuueia via : delude feraces 
 Plants immittuntnr : nee longum lempus et iogens 
 Exiit ad ccelum ramis felicibus arbos, 
 Miralurque novas frondes et noil sua poma. 
 
 A cessation of all philosophical inquiry into the nature of 
 vegetation endured about 1700 years, during the whole of 
 which time scarcely a single addition was made to the 
 stock of knowledge left behind him by Theophrastus. But 
 with the revival of letters, a new direction was given to re- 
 searches in natural history. Men ceased to content them- 
 selves with blindly copying the writers of antiquity, and set 
 themselves in earnest to examine the objects of nature 
 that surrounded them. The woods, the plains, the rivers, 
 the ocean, the valleys, and the mountains, were inves- 
 tigated with an ardour that soon made amends for ancient 
 indifference. The first consequence of this was a dis- 
 covery of the worthlessness of the greater part of those 
 writers to whom the world had so long been bound in ser- 
 vile obedience. The spirit of inquiry once excited, men 
 speedily learned to estimate rightly the greater value of 
 facts than of assertions ; one discovery produced another, 
 and in a few years a new foundation was laid of that im- 
 perfect but beautiful science which constitutes modern 
 botany. In the early part of the sixteenth century, John 
 Manardi, a native of Ferrara, described the real nature of 
 the anther. He was followed by a long train of writers of 
 various merit, who at first indeed applied themselves ex- 
 clusively to the collection of new species, but subsequently 
 to an examination of the physiological characters of plants, 
 and to the laws applied by nature to the government of the 
 vegetable kingdom. 
 
 Up to the middle of the seventeenth century, vegetable 
 physiology had been grounded upon observations entirely 
 independent of anatomical investigation. But about this 
 time the accurate inquiries of two naturalists, one an Eng 
 lishman, and the other an Italian, gave a new feature to the 
 study ; and what was vague or imaginary in the opinions 
 entertained upon the vital functions of vegetables gave 
 way to conclusions precise, and supported upon the firm 
 bas'is of careful observation. The nature of cellular tissue, 
 160 
 
 of spiral vessels, of ducts, of woody tissue ; the composition 
 of the internal parts of plants, and the functions of the 
 whole — excited inquiry, and received reasonable if not ac- 
 curate explanations. Collections of facts and of ideas ac- 
 cumulated on all hands, and the confusion that had once 
 been caused by ignorance threatened again to overwhelm 
 the science, in consequence of the rapid addition of new 
 matter which there was no means of keeping in order. 
 Hence systematists sprung up ; a race of inquirers to whose 
 labours the present advanced state of botany is no doubt 
 much to be ascribed. That the efforts of the earliest of 
 these writers should have proved unsuccessful, will excite 
 no surprise : with little knowledge of vegetable physiology 
 or anatomy, for it must not be forgotten that for a long time, 
 and even now, vegetable physiology and systematic botany 
 were considered as distinct sciences, and with scarcely 
 any notion of the laws of affinity and metamorphosis, they 
 could not be expected to succeed. We should rather 
 wonder at what they did, than at what they omitted to do. 
 Many of them had great merit, especially John Ray, an 
 English deprived clergyman, and Joseph Pitton de Toume- 
 fort, a professor of botany at Paris, who flourished in the 
 end of the seventeenth century, and upon whose systems 
 the modern arrangement according to natural orders is 
 essentially founded. This, however, and all others, was for 
 a time eclipsed by another, better adapted to the circum- 
 stances of the times, and emanating irom a writer who, 
 having the courage and talent to carry reformation into 
 every branch of natural history, imparted a lustre to his 
 peculiar system of classification which has only now, after 
 the lapse of a century, fallen into disuse among men of 
 science. 
 
 Charles Linne, or Linnaeus, as he is usually called, was 
 a person exactly adapted to the science of the time in 
 which he lived. The various departments of natural his- 
 tory had not at that time any thine like their present exten- 
 sive range, and might without difficulty be investigated by 
 a single naturalist. They were all equally in need of re- 
 vision and improvement ; they all wanted a settled code of 
 laws to reconcile the fluctuating and jarring opinions 
 which at that time prevailed, and above all things the 
 nomenclature of natural history required to be reduced to 
 one uniform standard. For this Linnaeus was peculiarly 
 well adapted. Nature had gifted him with a logical accu- 
 racy of reasoning, and a neatness and perspicuity of ex- 
 pression, which carried with them a charm that the world 
 was not slow to appreciate ; and these produced the strong- 
 er impression, because naturalists had previously been hut 
 little accustomed to them. The opinions of Linnaeus 
 were received as if oracular, and their faults were lost in 
 the splendour which they drew over the whole of the or- 
 ganic world. But unfortunately Linnaeus knew nothing 
 ofvegetable physiology. His opinions upon this subject 
 are among the most worthless which are recorded in the 
 history of science ; and consequently his writings lost 
 much of the permanent value which the originality of his 
 ideas and the acuteness of his perception would have 
 otherwise insured them. But notwithstanding this defect, 
 he not only established his famous method of arrangement, 
 which for a long time superseded all others, but laid the 
 foundation, although upon imaginary principles, of the 
 curious laws of morphology, upon which modern botany 
 founds one of its greatest claims to perfection. The notion 
 that all the parts of plants are mere modifications of leaves, 
 faintly shadowed forth by Linnaeus in his Species P/avta- 
 rum, became the subject of a special and most original 
 dissertation by the German poet Gbthe, in 1790. This 
 doctrine was believed by the botanists of that day to be 
 worthy only of the poetical fame of its illustrious author; 
 but he lived to see his opinions received, almost without 
 change, by every botanist of reputation. 
 
 After the artificial system of Linnaeus followed the na- 
 tural system of Jussieu. Vegetable anatomy became an 
 important branch of inquiry in the hands of Kieser; the 
 researches of Knight and others gave a new character to 
 vegetable physiology; and the earlier part of the present 
 century has seen the science by these and other means as- 
 sume an entirely new appearance. Our knowledge of the 
 vital functions of plants reposes upon the sure basis of ex- 
 act observation and careful experiments; the theory of the 
 plan upon which the organs of vegetation and fructifica- 
 tion are severally combined into so many numerous forms 
 is settled upon the clearest evidence ; and classifications, 
 to a great degree freed from the trammels of prejudice or 
 narrow views, have assumed that position in science to 
 which their importance, when rightly studied, entitles 
 them. 
 
 The only two botanical arrangements now in use are tn . 
 Linnaean and the Natural. The former is an attempt at 
 classifying plants according to their agreement in some 
 single characters, without reference to their resemblances 
 or differences in any other respect, just as words are s? 
 ranged in a dictiei wy by t'.,e accordance of their initial 
 letters ; the other is a scheme for placing next each other
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 all those plants which have the greatest resemblance, and 
 at the greatest distance those which are most dissimilar. 
 To effect this, every kind of structure that plants possess 
 ismadeuseof; distinctions derived from great physiolo- 
 gical peculiarities are considered fundamental, and form 
 classes; subordinate to lliem are characters derived from 
 diversities of external structure, and they are valued ac- 
 cording to their permanence or frequency, &c. The final 
 result being the making up of the vegetable Kingdom into 
 associations, called natural orders, which are supposed to 
 consist of genera more closely allied to each other than to 
 any thing else. Koran explanation of the details of these 
 two kinds of classification the reader is referred to the se- 
 parate works that have been published on the subject; 
 space can be given in this place only to a very general ac- 
 count of them. 
 
 The sexual system of Linnaeus depends upon the num- 
 ber and relative position or degree of combination of the 
 stamens and styles. It has been so often explained, and is 
 so rapidly fallina into disuse, that we shall content our- 
 selves with the shortest possible description of the classes 
 and orders. 
 
 Class I. Stamen 1 - • - - Monandria. 
 II. Stamens 2 - - - • Diandria. 
 
 III. Stamens 3 - - - Triandria. 
 
 IV. Stamens 4 - - • Tetrandria. 
 V. Stamens 5 - • - - Pentandria. 
 
 VI. Stamens 6 - - - - Hexandria. 
 VII. Stamens 7 - - - - Heptandria. 
 VIII. Stamens 8 - ... Octandria. 
 IX. Stamens 9 - - - Ennean^ria. 
 
 X. Stamens 10 - - - - Decandria. 
 XI. Stamens 12 — 19 - - - Dodecandria. 
 XII. Stamens 20 or more, inserted 
 
 into the calyx - - - Icosandria. 
 
 XIII. Stamens 20 or more, inserted 
 
 into the receptacle - Polyandria. 
 
 XIV. Stamens 2 long and 2 short Didynamia. 
 XV. Stamens 4 long and 2 short Tetfadynamia. 
 
 XVI. Stamens united by their fila- 
 ments into a tube Monadelphia. 
 XVII. Stamens united by their fila- 
 ments into two parcels - Diadelphia. 
 XVIII. Stamens united by their fila- 
 ments into several parcels Polyadelphia. 
 XIX. Stamens united by their an- 
 thers into a tube - - Syngenesia. 
 XX. Stamens united with the pistil Gynandria. 
 XXI. Stamens and pistils in sepa- 
 rate flowers, but both grow- 
 in; on the same plant - Monoecia. 
 XXII. Stamens and pistils not only in 
 separate flowers, but those 
 flowers situated upon two 
 different plants - - Dioecia. 
 XXin. Stamens and pistils separate in 
 some flowers, united in 
 others, either on the same 
 plant, or two or three differ- 
 ent ones -.- - Polygamia. 
 XXIV. Stamens and pistils either not 
 ascertained, or not to be 
 discovered with any cer- 
 tainty, insomuch that the 
 plants cannot be referred 
 to any of the foregoing 
 classes .... Cryptogamia. 
 The characters of the orders depend upon the number 
 of the styles, or of the stigmas, if there be no style, in the 
 first thirteen classes; such are accordingly named, — 
 
 Mnnogynia style 1 
 
 Disynia 2 
 
 Trigynia 3 
 
 Tetragynia 4 
 
 Pentagynia 5 
 
 Hexagynia 6 
 
 Heptagynia 7 
 
 Octogynia 8 
 
 Enneagynia 9 
 
 Decagynia 10 
 
 Dodecagynia 12 
 
 Polygynia .... more than 12 
 In the 14th class, Didynamia, the orders depend upon 
 the nature of the ovary. In Gymnospermia, the first order, 
 the ovary is divided into four lobes, from the base of 
 which proceeds a single style, and within each of which is 
 contained a single seed. In Angiuspermia, the 2nd order, 
 the ovary is not lobed, and is usually two-celled, and many- 
 seeded. 
 
 In the 15th class, Tetradynamia, the orders are charac- 
 terized by the form of the fruit : SiliquoscB have a long 
 pod ; Siliculosa have a short one. 
 
 The orders of the 16th, 17th, and 18th classes, Monadel- 
 phia, Diadelphia, and Polyadelphia. depend upon the num- 
 161 
 
 ber of the stamens, and have the same nomenclature as the 
 thirteen first classes. 
 
 The orders of Synsenesia are determined by the ar- 
 rangement of their flowers, and by the sex of their florets: 
 thus — 
 
 Polygamia has flowers crowded together in heads. 
 
 1. Polygamia a-'/ualis has each floret hermaphrodite, or 
 furnished with perfect stamens and pistil. 
 
 2. Polygamia superjiua has the florets of the disk her- 
 maphrodite; those of the ray female only. 
 
 3. Polygamia/rustranea has the florets of the disk her- 
 maphrodite ; those of the ray sterile. 
 
 4. Polygamia nccessaria has the florets of the disk male, 
 of the ray female. 
 
 5. Polygamia segregata " has several florets, either sim- 
 ple or compound, but with a proper calyx, included within 
 one common calyx." 
 
 Monogamia has the flowers separate, not crowded in 
 heads. This order is generally abolished by Linnaean bota- 
 nists, but for no good reason. 
 
 The orders of the 20th, 21st, and 22nd classes are distin- 
 guished by the number, <tc. of the stamens. 
 
 The two orders of the 23rd class depend upon whether 
 the genera are monoecious or dioecious. 
 
 The last class, Cryptogamia, is divided into orders ac- 
 cording to the principles of the natural system, namely, 1. 
 Filiies ; 2. Musci ; 3. Hepatica; ; 4. Algae; 5. Fungi. 
 
 With regard to the natural system of botany, that formed 
 by Jussieu out of the views of Hay, Tournefoft, and others, 
 in combination with very numerous observations of his 
 own, is the basis of what is at present understood by that 
 name. It has, however, been much modified by succeed- 
 ing systematists, and will undoubtedly undergo many more 
 changes in its details. The view taken of the subject by 
 De Candolle, the learned professor at Geneva, is thus sta- 
 ted by himself : — "I have established in my Tiieorie Ele- 
 mentaire, that the proof of a classification of plants being 
 natural is furnished when similar results are arrived at, 
 whether from considerations drawn from the reproductive 
 organs or from those of vegetation. Considered with re- 
 ference to the organs of reproduction (or fructification), the 
 vegetable kingdom has been divided by Linnaeus into two 
 erand series, the Phanerogamous and the Cryptogamous. 
 These series are not merely distinguished because in the 
 first the sexual organs are visible to the naked eye, and is 
 the latter are microscopical. Such a difference, which 
 might depend only upon the absolute size of trie organs, 
 could be in itself of little moment ; but it is connected with 
 a real difference of structure. Phanerogamous plants have 
 their organs of fructification arranged upon a more or less 
 symmetrical plan, and surrounded by integuments them- 
 selves also arranged symmetrically. Cryptogamous plants 
 have the sexual organs disposed without order, and sur- 
 rounded by integuments scarcely perceptible, and still 
 more disorderly ; or they have no sexual organs that have 
 been proved to be so." 
 
 Phanerogamous plants have long been divided into Dico- 
 tyledons, or plants whose embryos present cotyledons op- 
 posite or verticillate upon the same plane, and whose mini- 
 mum is consequently 2 ; and into Monocotyledons, whose 
 cotyledons or earliest leaves are alternate, so that the 
 minimum is 1, or that the first, when there are two, is 
 more particularly intended to nourish the young plant. 
 
 Cryptosamous plants should in like manner be divided 
 into two classes, the ^Etheogamous and the Amphigamous. 
 For the first I take ihe name of JEtheogamous, invented by 
 Beauvois, but limiting its application. This term, which 
 signifies plants with unusual fructification, suits well 
 enough the class here indicated, and which is character- 
 ised by having sexual organs distinct and visible under the 
 microscope, but formed upon a plan totally different from 
 that of Phanerogamous plants; such are Equisotaceae, 
 Ferns, Lycopodiaceae, Mosses, and Hepaticae. I give the 
 second class the name of Amphigamx, to indicate the 
 doubtful nature of their fructification; some authors have 
 called them Agamae, but that is, I think, to assert more 
 than is quite certain. The character of Amphigamae is to 
 present to view no sexual organ, even under the micro- 
 scope ; but we cannot affirm that the spores that they pro- 
 duce have not received a sort of impiegnation in the very 
 cells which generated them. It is for thi sake of express- 
 ing this doubt that I employ the word Amphigamae. Thus 
 with respect to their organs of reproduction, plants are 
 clearly divided into four great classes. Let us next exam- 
 ine them with reference to their organs of vezetation. 
 The first division that may be established is deduced from 
 the absence or presence of vessels ; and in this view I se- 
 parate plants into two series — the vascular, which have 
 vessels and stomates manifest during their whole life ; and 
 cellular, or those which consist of nothing but cellules 
 either throughout their life or in their first foliaceous or- 
 gans. Vascular plants are divided into Eiogens, of which 
 the wood increases by the addition of new layers placed 
 on the outside of the older; and Endogens, whose trunk 
 X
 
 BOTANY. 
 
 Increases by the addition of new fibres to the centre of the 
 cylinder already formed. Cellular plants, in like manner, 
 are subdivided into se?}i.i-rascii.lar and cellular. Under the 
 first of these names I comprehend the orders which grow 
 with leafy cotyledons, but composed of cellular tissue only, 
 and destitute of stomates. Eventually they assume or- 
 gans in which vessels and stomates exist : this develop- 
 ment, which gives them some resemblance to Endogens, 
 takes place rapidly in Equisetaceae, Ferns, and Lycopodi- 
 aceae ; and the observations of anatomists have shown that 
 the same thing occurs, but later and less perfectly, in 
 Mosses and Hepatica? ; so that it is a matter of some doubt 
 whether they ought to be referred to the semi-vascu'.ar or 
 succeeding class. Cellular plants have long been known 
 to be destitute of both vessels and stomates, and to present 
 only a homogeneous mass, where the distinction of stem, 
 leaves, and roots can only be established analogically. 
 
 Looking back at. this explanation, it is obvious that the 
 vegetable kingdom may be represented by the following 
 table. 
 
 Divisions formed by the 
 Organs of Nutrition. 
 Vascular. 
 Exogens. 
 Endogens. 
 Cellular. 
 Semi-vascular. 
 Cellular. 
 
 Divisions formed by the 
 Organs of Fructification. 
 I. Phanerogamous, 
 Class I. Dicotyledons, 
 
 2. Monocotyledons, 
 II. Cryptogamous, 
 
 3. ^theogamous, 
 
 4. Amphigamous, 
 Or, if it is preferred, in this other form, which is almost 
 
 equally regular : — 
 
 Having vessels and sto- 
 mates at some period 
 of their existence. 
 
 Etvogens. 
 
 Endogens. 
 
 Spmi-vascular. 
 
 Without either vessels 
 or stomates at any age. 
 
 Cellular. 
 
 I. Sexual, being furnish- ) 
 ed with sexual organs \ or 
 
 Class 1. Dicotyledons, or 
 
 2. Monocotyledons, or 
 
 3. iElheogamous, or 
 
 II. Without distinct sexes, or 
 
 4. Amphigamous, or 
 But notwithstanding the apparent clearness of this sys- 
 tem, and the importance of the arguments upon which it 
 is founded, it is far from being unobjectionable. In the 
 first place, the distinction drawn between the two classes 
 of Cryptogamic plants is unfounded, both as regards the 
 presence or absence of both vessels and sexes. Ferns and 
 I.vcopodiacae, in which the vascular system is most de- 
 veloped, have no more trace of sexes than Fungi ; and 
 on the other hand, in Mosses and Hepaticaa, in which there 
 is the most distinct formation of something analogous to 
 sexes, there is no trace whatever of a vascular system. 
 The difference, then, between Amphiganife and .SiHheoga- 
 mss falls to the ground, and in fact is analogically bad ; for 
 there are vascular and cellular orders in both the great 
 classes of Exogens and Endogens, which ought therefore 
 themselves to be subdivided into vascular and cellular, in 
 order to form a consistent system ; and this difference ap- 
 pears to be connected with a very general tendency, visible 
 in the vegetable kingdom, to produce an impoverished or 
 degraded condition of all great types of structure. Thus, 
 among Exogens, Onagracae are merely cellular in Hippuris 
 and Myriophyllum, Urticaceae in Ceratophylleae, and the or- 
 ders of Callitrichacea? and Podostemaceae are other in- 
 stances of the same fact ; and, in Endogens, Naiadaceae 
 and Pistiaceae, or at least Lemna, are as completely cellu- 
 lar as Algaceae. 
 
 In the next place, circumstances of greater importance 
 are omitted by M. De Candolle from his statement than 
 some of those included in it If Cryptomagic are to be 
 separated from Phanerogamous plants by their vegetation, 
 it is rather by their manner of growth than by any peculi- 
 arity in their vascular system. Phanerogamous plants 
 might be called Pleurogens, from theirgrowing by the sides 
 as well as at the ends, thus increasing symmetrically both 
 in length, density, and thickness. Cryptogamous plants 
 grow either by simple elongation, without increasing ma- 
 terially in density ; or they expand irregularly in all direc- 
 tions, and hence have been termed Acrogens. No circum- 
 stance can well be more important than the manner in 
 which impregnation takes place. In common Exogens 
 there is an ovarian covering, through the tapering apex of 
 which, called style, impregnation takes effect by aid of a 
 part called the siigma ; but in other Exogens impregnation 
 is effected by direct contact between the egg or ovule and 
 the pollen ; and a simple mode of veining in the leaves, 
 together with a very small development of the vascular 
 system, accompany this. Hence such plants, called Gym- 
 nosperms, ought to be regarded as a class of as much im- 
 portance as Exogens themselves. Again, among plants in 
 some respects participating in the organization of Endo- 
 gens are species called Rhizanths, having a fungoid vegeta- 
 tion, a nearly total absence of the vascular svstem, and a 
 most remarkable method of propagation. With the ordi- 
 nary sexes of Endogens they are said to combine the 
 162 
 
 BOTTOMRY. 
 
 spores of Cryptogamic plants, and thus hold a sort of mid- 
 dle station between the two great series of plants recog- 
 nised by Linnaeus. Such a kind of vegetation is far too im- 
 portant to be omitted from consideration in determining 
 the classes, as the fundamental divisions of the vegetable 
 kingdom are termed. 
 
 For these reasons the writer of the present notice has 
 proposed a material modification of De Candolle's state- 
 ment, which may be expressed as follows. 
 Plants. 
 
 According to their 
 Fructification. 
 
 I. Having flowers and sex- 
 es (Phanerogamous), 
 
 a. Minimum of cotyle- 
 dons 2, 
 Class 1. Dicotyledons, 
 U. Gym/uisperms, 
 
 ./' 
 
 6. Minimum of cotyle- } ) 
 
 According to their 
 Vegetation. 
 Their axis increasing 
 symmetrically in dens- 
 ity and breadth as well 
 as length (Pleurogens). 
 
 a. Stem in concentric 
 
 layers (Exogens). 
 Veins of leaves netted 
 Veins of leaves netted 
 
 or forked. 
 
 b. Stem a confused mass 
 of wood and cellular 
 tissue. 
 
 Veins of leaves parallel, 
 and not netted. 
 
 c. A'egetation fungoid. 
 Class 4. Rhizanths. 
 II. Theiraxisincreasingby 
 
 simple elongation or ir- 
 regular expansion. 
 
 dons 1, 
 Class 3. Monocotyledons, 
 
 c. Acotyledons, 
 Class 4. Rldzantlts, 
 
 II. Having neither flowers ) 
 nor sexes, \ 
 
 Class 5. Cryptogamic plants, or Class 5. Acrogens. 
 
 For the details of this system the reader is referred to 
 
 Lindlei/'s Natural System of Botany, 2nd ed. 
 
 BO-Ta'NIC GARDEN. A garden devoted to the culture 
 of a collection of plants, with reference to the science of 
 botany. The legitimate object of gardens of this descrip- 
 tion appears to be to collect and cultivate, at the public ex- 
 pense, all the species and varieties of plants that can be cul- 
 tivated in the given climate, with or without the aid of 
 glass ; and then to distribute these to private individuals 
 throughout the district by which the botanic garden is sup- 
 ported. The most complete system of this kind ever es- 
 tablished appears to have been that of France soon after 
 the revolution. All the botanical articles that could be pro- 
 cured from other countries were sent to the botanic garden 
 at Paris ; and after they had borne seeds or been propa- 
 gated there, the progeny was distributed among the pro- 
 vincial botanic gardens, of which there is one or more ill 
 every department. After being propagated in the provin- 
 cial botanic gardens, the seeds or progeny were given out, 
 free of expense, to whoever in the district to which the 
 garden belonged thought fit to apply for them. As the use- 
 ful species and varieties were as much attended to in these 
 gardens as those which were cultivated only in a scientific 
 point of view, the greatest facilities were thus given to the 
 spread of every useful grain, pulse, culinary vegetable, and 
 fruit, over the whole of France. Something of the same 
 kind may be considered as taking place in Great Britain ; 
 but it is more the effect of accident than the result of de- 
 sign, as the giving out of plants is not considered in Britain 
 as an essential part of the system of management of a 
 royal or government botanic garden. See Loudon's Ency- 
 clopedia of Gardening. 
 
 BO'TANY BAY RESIN. A yellow aromatic resin whicb 
 exudes from the trunk of the Acarois resinifera of New 
 Holland. 
 
 BOTRYLLA'RIANS, BOTRYLARIiE. (Gr. /Jorpvs, 
 a bunch of grapes.) In Zoology, a family of singular com- 
 pound Tunicaries or Ascidians, in which several distinct 
 individuals are arranged in a circle round a central aper- 
 ture common to the rectum of each, while the mouths are 
 distinct and placed at the circumference. 
 
 BOTRYO'lDAL. (Gr. (SoTpvs, a bunch of grapes ; tido;, 
 like.) When a part is clustered like a bunch of grapes. 
 
 BO'TRYOLFTE. (Gr. fiorpv;, a cluster of grapes ; Aiflof, 
 st07ie.) Botryoidal silicious>borate of lime. 
 
 BO'TTOM HEAT. A term applied in Horticulture, to 
 the temperature communicated to certain soils by fer- 
 menting and decomposing substances placed underneath 
 them ; leaves, fresh dung, and the refuse bark of the tan- 
 yard, are often used for this purpose ; and the system is 
 applied to pineapples, melons, cucumbers, and other 
 plants grown in pits or frames. 
 
 BOTTOM RAIL. (Sax. botm.) In Architecture, a 
 term used for denoting the lowest horizontal rail of a 
 framed door. 
 
 BO'TTOMRY. In Commercial Law, is in effect a mort- 
 gage of a ship, being an agreement entered into by an 
 owner or his agent, whereby, in consideration of a sunnof 
 money advanced for the use of the ship, the borrower un- 
 dertakes to repay the same, with interest, if the ship ter- 
 minate her voyage successfully : and binds or hypotho-
 
 BOUDOIR. 
 
 cates the ship for the performance of the contract. The 
 instrument by which this contract is effected is sometimes 
 in the shape of a deed poll, and sometimes in that of a 
 bond. On bottomry contracts the lender runs the risk of 
 the voyage, and in consideration of the risk the interest he 
 may take is unlimited. The master has authority to hy- 
 pothecate a ship or its freight (see Respondentia) at a 
 foreign port, in case of necessity, for the purposes of the 
 voyage. In such case, if the loan be not repaid within the 
 time prescribed, the agent of the lenders applies to the 
 Court of Admiralty, with certain affidavits, and procures 
 authority to arrest the ship, which may be sold, if neces- 
 sary, uiider the authority of the court Where several 
 loans of this description have been made on the same voy- 
 age, the last lender is entitled to priority of payment out 
 of the proceeds of the sale. 
 
 BOU'DOIB. (Fr. bonder, to pout.) In Architecture, a 
 small room or cabinet, usually near the bed-chamber and 
 dressing room, for the private retirement of the master or 
 mistress of the house. 
 
 BOU'GET, WATER BUDGET, or DOSSER. In He- 
 raldry, a bearing supposed to represent a vessel for carry- 
 ing water. 
 
 BOU'LTIN. (Fr.) In Architecture, a name given to 
 a moulding whose section is nearly a quadrant of a circle, 
 whose diameter being horizontal, the contour is convex in 
 respect of a vertical to such diameter. It is more usually 
 called the ejg or cpiarter round. 
 
 BOUN'TY. In Commerce and the Arts, a premium 
 paid by government to the producers, exporters, or im- 
 porters of certain articles, or to those who employ ships 
 in certain trades, when the profits resulting from these re- 
 spective branches of industry are alleged In he insufficient. 
 Bounties on production are usually given in the view of 
 encouraging the establishment of some new branch of in- 
 dustry, or of fostering and extending a branch that is be- 
 lieved to be of paramount importance. Bounties on ex- 
 portation and importation are granted to the exporters of 
 certain British commodities on their taking oath, or in 
 .some cases giving bond, not to reland the same in Eng- 
 land. Public opinion was formerly very divided as to the 
 advantage of granting bounties j but at present the impoli- 
 cy of such a practice appears to be almost universally ad- 
 mitted. For it will be found that in all old Bettled and 
 wealthy countries, numbers of individuals are always ready 
 to embark in every new undertaking, if it promise to be 
 really advantageous, without any stimulus from 
 merit ; and if a branch of industry already established be 
 really important and suitable for the country, it will as- 
 suredly be prosecuted to the necessarj extent without 
 any encouragement beyond the natural' demand for its 
 produce. For further details upon this subject, see the 
 article Tariff. 
 
 BOIJ'NTY, QUEEN ANNE'S. The produce of the first 
 fruits and tenths due to the crown (see art. First : 
 winch were made over by Queen Anne to a corporation 
 established in the year 1704 for the purpose of augmenting 
 poor livings under £50 a vear 
 
 BOUSTROPHB'DON. " (Gr. flovs, an ox ; arpt^oy, I 
 turn.) A word descriptive of a moile of writing common 
 among the early Greeks until nearly the middle of the 
 fifth century before Christ; viz. in alternate lines from 
 right to left and from left to right, as fields are ploughed in 
 furrows having an alternate direction, from whence the 
 derivation. See Alphabet. 
 
 BOUT. In Agriculture, is one turn or course of a plough 
 in ploughing a ridge. 
 
 BO'VEY COAL. A species of bituminous wood found 
 at Bovey Hayfield, near Exeter. 
 
 BOW. An ancient weapon of offence, made of wood, 
 horn, steel, or some other elastic substance, by which ar- 
 rows are thrown. The force with which the arrow is pro- 
 pelled is proportioned to that with which the bow is bent, 
 and to the quickness with which it recovers its former 
 position. See Hansard's Archery. 
 
 BOW or BAY WINDOW. (Sax. boga, afiow.) In Archi- 
 tecture, a window projecting from the general face of a 
 building, of a curved or polygonal form on the plan. 
 
 BOWLDERS. Rounded masses of stone lying upon 
 the surface, or loosely imbedded in the soil. 
 
 BO'WLINE. A i-ope from near the middle of the 
 weather edge or leech of a sail, leading forward. Its use 
 is to keep the leech forward, that the wind may get at the 
 after-side of the sail when very oblique to its direction. 
 
 BOWS. The two sides of the fore extremity of a vessel, 
 as the starboard and larboard bows. 
 
 BO'WSPRIT. In Naval Architecture, is a kind of mast 
 which rests slopewise on the head of the main stern, hav- 
 ing its lower end fastened to the partners of the fore mast. 
 It carries the sprit-sail, sprit topsail, and jack-staff It is 
 exposed to violent action, especially from beinn struck by 
 heavy seas, into which the ship, in plunging, dips it ; and 
 though very firmly secured by the bob-stays and side ropes 
 called shrouds, is very often carried away or sprung. 
 163 
 
 BRACHYSTOCHRONE. 
 
 BOX. (ni'(oy, the Greek name of the plant.) The 
 hard compact wood of Buxus sempervirens, so much used 
 by wood engravers, and for the turner's purposes. This 
 evergreen bush or small tree is found all over Europe, 
 even upon the chalk hills of England ; but it acquires its 
 largest dimensions in the south. It is from Turkey that 
 the principal part of the wood is imported into England, 
 under a duty of £o a ton : whether or not all this is really 
 furnished by Buxus sempervirens is not known. It is not 
 improbable that Buxus bulearica, a larger species, too ten- 
 der to thrive in this country, may furnish a part at least of 
 that which comes from the Mediterranean. It is said that 
 the wood of this species is coarser and of a brighter yellow 
 than that of the common species The box plant is best 
 known for its use in gardens as edging to borders ; the kind 
 so employed is a dwarf variety of Buxus sempervirens. 
 
 BOX DRAIN. An under-ground drain, regularly built 
 with upright sides and a flat stone or brick cover, so that 
 the close section has the appearance of a square box. 
 
 BOX HAULING. In Navigation, is bringing a ship when 
 close-hauled round upon the other tack, when she refuses 
 to tack and there is not room to wear. By throwing the 
 head sails aback she gets sternway ; the helm thereupon 
 being put alee, the ship's head falls rapidly off from the 
 wind, which she soon brings aft ; she is then speedily 
 rounded-to with but little loss of ground. 
 
 BO'XING OFF. Throwing the head sails aback to force 
 the shin's lead rapidly offthe wind. 
 
 BO'XING THE COMPASS. Repeating the points in 
 order. 
 
 BO'XINGS. See Lining. 
 
 BRA'CCATE. (Bracca, breeches.) In Ornithology, 
 when the feet are concealed by long feathers descending 
 from the tibiffl, 
 
 BRACE. In Sea language, a rope fastened to the ex- 
 tremity of the yard, for the purpose of traversing the sails 
 when it is necessary to change their position. 
 
 Brace. (Fr. embrasser, to embrace.) In Architecture, 
 an inclined piece of timber used in trussed partitions and 
 in framed roofs, in order to form a triangle by which the 
 assemblage of pieces composing the framing is stiffened. 
 If a brace is used to support a rafter, it is called a strut. 
 When braces are used in root's and partitions they should 
 be disposed in pairs, and introduced in opposite directions. 
 
 Bracb. (Fr. embrasser, to embrace.) In Music, the 
 line or bracket at the beginning of each set of slaves which 
 ties them together in a vertical direction. 
 
 BRAt IIAI.Y TKA (Gr , 0pax»t, short ; tKvrpov, sheath.) 
 I hi name of an extensive group of Coleopterous insects, 
 including all such as have the elytra so short as not to ex- 
 ceed one third the length of the abdomen. To this section 
 belongs the well-known species called the devil's coach- 
 horse (Staphylinus olios ) 
 
 BRA'CHIAL. (LaL braehium, the arm.) Belonging to 
 the arm ; a-< brachial nerves, vessels, &.C. 
 
 BRACHI'NUS. A aenus of Coleopterous insects, now 
 the type of a family (Brachinida), including those singu- 
 lar beetles which from their defensive anal explosions are 
 termed '"bombardiers." Of these there are five British 
 species, the best known of which is the Brachinus crepi- 
 tans of Linnasus, 
 
 BRA'CIIIOMIS. The name given by Midler to a genus 
 ofRotiferous Infusorial Animalcules, now subdivided into 
 many distinct genera. 
 
 BRA'CIHOPODS, BRACHIOPODA. (Gr. (3pax">v, an 
 arm; jroiif, a foot.) An order of Acephalous or headless 
 bivalve Molluscs, characterised by having the mantle or- 
 ganised so as to be serviceable for respiration, and by hav- 
 ing two long fleshy, ciliated, spiral arms, or labiate pro- 
 cesses ; whence Cuvier conceived the name, which in his 
 system designates a distinct class of Acephala. See Pai,- 
 
 LIOBRANCHIATES. 
 
 BRA'CHIUM. (Lat.) In Mammalogy, is restricted to 
 the second segment of the anterior extremity, which is ar- 
 ticulated proximally with the scapula, and distally with the 
 antibrachium. In Entomology, signifies the first pair of 
 legs of Hexapods, the direction of which is usually towards 
 the head. 
 
 BRA'CHYCATALECTIC. (Gr. /ffpa^uc, short, and 
 Kara\r)KTiKOs, deficient.) A verse wanting two syllables to 
 complete its length (in Greek and Latin poetry). 
 
 BRACHY'GRAPHY. (Gr. 0paxvs, short, and ypoupui, I 
 write.) The art of writing by abbreviations. (See Tachy- 
 graphy ) The nota? Tironianae, among the Romans, were 
 a species of shorthand invented by one Tiro, a freedman 
 of Cicero. 
 
 BRACHY'PTEROUS. (Gr. ffpaxvs, short ; itrtpov, a 
 wing. ) In Ornithology, when the folded wings of a bird do 
 not reach to the base of the tail. 
 
 BRACHY'STOCHRONE. (Gr. 0pa\vs, s)iort, and 
 Xpovos, time.) The name given by John Bernoulli to the 
 curve which possesses this property, that a body setting 
 out from a given point A, and impelled merely by the force 
 of gravity, will arrive at another point B in a shorter time
 
 BRACHYSTOCHRONE. 
 
 by moving in this curve, than if it followed any other di- 
 rection. The problem of the brachystochrone is famous in 
 the history of the new geometry. It was first proposed by 
 John Bernoulli in the Leipsic Acta Eruditorum for June 
 1696. in the following terms :— 
 
 '• Two points, A and B, being given in the same vertical 
 plane ; it is required to assign the path through which a 
 body descending by its own gravity, and beginning to move 
 from the point A, will arrive at Bin the least time possible." 
 According to the fashion of that age, it was proposed as 
 a challenge to other mathematicians, ad cujvs solulioneni 
 mathematici invitantur ; with the declaration that if no one 
 announced the nature of the curve before the end of the 
 year he himself would make it known. The time was subse- 
 quently extended to a year, within which solutions appear- 
 ed by Newton, James Bernoulli (the celebrated brother of 
 the proposer), and the Marquis de l'Hopital. From re- 
 flecting on this problem, James Bernoulli was led to the 
 discovery and solution of a kindred but much more diffi- 
 cult class of questions ; namely, those relating to isoperi- 
 metrical figures, the investigalion of which required a dif- 
 ferent kind of analysis from that with which mathematici- 
 ans were yet acquainted. One of these he proposed in his 
 turn as a challenge to his brother John ; and some mistakes 
 into which the latter fell in the solution of it became the 
 occasion of an angry quarrel between the illustrious broth- 
 ers, which unfortunately was never healed. The prosecu- 
 tion of a similar speculation afterwards led Lagrange to 
 one of the most important theories in the higher mathe- 
 matics — the Calculus of Variations. 
 
 The following is the solution of the problem of the bra- 
 chys'ochrone given by James Bernoulli. (Opera, p. 76S.) 
 Let A be the point from which the body is to move, B that 
 to which it is to go, and A C D B the path it follows, which 
 by hypothesis is wholly situited in 
 the same plane. It is not necessary, 
 however, that the plane be vertical. 
 Take any small portion of the curve 
 C D ; then it is obvious that if A B be 
 the path through which the body will 
 descend from A toB in the least time 
 possible, it must also pass from C to 
 D in a shorter time than if it fol- 
 B lowed any other direction. For, 
 suppose it to pass from C to D by 
 another path, C L N D, in shorter time than by C M G D ; 
 then it must also pass from A to B in shorter time through 
 A C L N D than through ACMGD, which is contrary to 
 the hypothesis. This being premised, let A H be drawn 
 horizontally through A, C H perpendicular and D F parallel 
 to A H through the points C and D ; also let C F be divided 
 into two equal parts in E. and complete the parallelogram 
 E F D I; the object is to find the point G in the straight line 
 E I, or (which comes to the same thing) the inclination of 
 the two elements of the curve C G and G D to each other, 
 so that the time of descent through C G+time of descent 
 through G D (which may be thus denoted, t C G+t G D)may 
 be a minimum. For this purpose assume another point L in 
 E I, so that G L may be regarded as infinitely small in com- 
 parison of E G ; and having drawn C L and D L, let L M 
 and G N be respectively perpendicular to C G and D L. 
 Now, variable quantities, when they are infinitely near their 
 maxima or minima, may be regarded as constant ; there- 
 fore t C L+t L D=t C G+t G D, and consequently t C G— 
 t C L=t L D— t G D. By the theory of the descent of 
 heavy bodies, 
 
 C E : C G=t C E : t C G, 
 and C E : C L=t C E : t C L ; 
 therefore, 
 
 C E : C G— C L ( or M G)=t C E : t C G— t C L. 
 But by similar triansles, 
 
 M G : G L=E G : C G ; 
 therefore, combining the two last proportions, 
 
 (1) C E : G L=E GXt C E : C GX(t C G— t C L) 
 In like manner, 
 
 E F : G D=t E F : t G D 
 
 E F : L D=t E F : t L D . 
 therefore, 
 
 E F : L D— G D (or L N)=t E F : t L D— t G D. 
 But L N : G L=G I : G D ; 
 therefore. 
 
 (2) E F (or C E) : G L=G IXt E F : G DV(t L D— t 
 GD). 
 
 From the two analogies (1) and (2), we have now E GX 
 tC.E : CGX(t C G— t CL)=GIXt E F : GDXttLD 
 — t G D) ; or, E GXt C E : G IXt E F=C GX(t C G-- 1 
 C L) : G DX(t L D— t G D). But it was proved that t C G 
 — t C L=t L D— t G D ; and by the laws of falling bodies, 
 
 t C E is reciprocally proportional to VH C, and t E F re- 
 ciprocally as VH E ; therefore by substitution, 
 
 -2± : _£L = CG:GD, 
 VHC VHE 
 
 164 
 
 BRAHMANS. 
 
 a known property of the common cycloid ; which, there- 
 fore, is the brachystochrone, or curve of quickest descent. 
 In the modern analysis the investigation of the brachysto- 
 chrone is usually proposed as an example of the method 
 of Variations. 
 
 BRA'CHYURES, BRA'CHYU'RA. (Gr. 0pa X vi, short, 
 and ovpa, a tail.) A tribe of Decapodous Crustacea, in 
 which the tail or post-abdomen is short, and folded beneath 
 the trunk ; commonly called "crabs." 
 
 BRA'CKET. (From brachietto, Hal.) In Architecture, 
 a projecting piece for carrying a superincumbent weight. 
 In large cornices executed in plaster the series of project- 
 ing pieces to which the laths arc nailed is called bracketing. 
 
 BRA'CON. A Fabrician genus of Hymenopterous in- 
 sects of the parasitic tribe of Pupivorous Ichneumons : it is 
 now the type of a family (Braconida), distinguished from 
 the true Ichneumons by having the maxillary palps five- 
 jointed, and the labial ones either three or four-jointed, and 
 by wanting the internal discoidal cell of the upper wings. 
 The genera of this family are Bracon proper ; Aphidius, 
 the species of which prey upon the plant-lice ; Sler/ihunus, 
 Ccelinius, Spalhius, Perititus, Hybrizon, Leiophron, Agathis, 
 Microdus, Hormiits, Ichnentes, Microgasler, and Blacus. 
 
 BRACT. An altered leaf, which is placed at the base of 
 a flower on the outside of the calyx. It is the first attempt 
 made by the common leaves to change into the floral or- 
 gans. In general the bract is small and inconspicuous, 
 but it occasionally acquires a considerable size anil a bril- 
 liant colour, as in Saiira comosa and spleridens, and the 
 Brazilian pine-apple, and more especially in the various 
 kinds of Arum, where it constitutes the large enveloping 
 leaf, called spath, in which the spadix of those extraordi- 
 nary plants is enveloped. This word forms the adjectives 
 bractiscent, assuming the appearance of a bract; braclial, 
 furnished with bracts ; bractiolate, having little bracts. A 
 cupule is a collection of bracts united into a cup ; an invo- 
 lucre is the same organs arranged in a whorl. The flowers 
 of grasses and cyperaceous plants consist of nothing but 
 little bracts called paleoz and glumes. 
 
 BRA'DYPODS, BRADY'PODA. (Gr. BpaSvf, slow, 
 rrov;, foot; slow-footed.) A family of Macronyhous or E- 
 dentate Mammals, including the two toed and three-toed 
 sloths. 
 
 BRA'HMANS. (Hpa\uavos among the Greeks, Brahman 
 in the Indian dialects, and Bramin arncnu the Europeans.) 
 The first or highest of the four castes of Hindoos, said to 
 have proceeded from the mouth of Brahm (the seat of 
 wisdom). They form the learned or sacerdotal class ; and 
 its members have maintained a more extensive sway than 
 the priests of any other nation. Their chief privileges 
 consist in reading the Veda or sacred volume, in institut- 
 ing sacrifices, in imparting religious instruction, in asking 
 alms, and in exemption from capital punishment. The 
 whole life of the Brahmans is devoted to the study of the 
 sacred writings, and is divided into four periods. The first 
 begins at the age of seven, when the duty of the young 
 novitiate consists in learning to read and write, in studying 
 the Veda, and in familiarising himself with the privileges 
 of his order. In the second stage of a Brahman's life he 
 is allowed to marry, and to engage in commercial specu- 
 lations. In the third stage, his religious duties become 
 more numerous, and must be rigidly performed. But in 
 the fourth period, the Brahman is admitted to personal 
 communication with the Deity ; and this stage is reckoned 
 so pre-eminently holy, that in a single generation it imparts 
 a greater stock of religious importance than is attainable 
 by any other means in a thousand years. (Menou's Ins'it.) 
 The origin of the Brahmans is merged in obscurity. While 
 some ancient writers regard them as a branch of the old 
 Gymnosophists (Str. Geo. t. ii. p. 1038.), Diodorus Siculus 
 maintains that they are of much earlier origin. According 
 to the accounts of the best Jewish writers, adopted by 
 Shorestani (an Arabian author of great repute), and sanc- 
 tioned by the authority of the learned Dr. Hyde (De Rel. 
 Vet. Persarum, 31, 32), the progenitor of the Brahmans 
 was the patriarch Abraham, who in their language is styled 
 Brachman or Brahman. But whatever may have been the 
 origin of the Brahmans, it is certain that the whole learn- 
 ing of India was for ages in their hands. Many of the Gre- 
 cian sages travelled into India to learn wisdom in that 
 great storehouse of knowledge ; and, among others, Pytha- 
 goras seems to have borrowed from them the sreater part 
 of his mystical philosophy ; nay, it is even doubtful 
 whether Aristotle himself did not derive both the materials 
 and the arrangement of his system of logic from the same 
 source. Of ancient Brahminical science the principal re- 
 mains are their astronomical and trigonometrical methods, 
 both of which have given rise to frequent and learned 
 discussion. Among the modern Brahmans we look in 
 vain for the deep learning that characterized the ancient 
 members of this order; for, with the exception of meta- 
 physical disquisitions, which have always been a favourite 
 study among them, the learning of the present race of 
 I Brahmans is exceedingly meagre, being limited almost
 
 BRAIN. 
 
 entirely to the construction of the almanack. Nor Is it 
 merely in point of learning that the modern Brahmans 
 have degenerated from their ancestors. Their morals too 
 are wofully deteriorated ; and while they are the sole de- 
 positaries and ministers of a religion which in point of 
 purity and sublimity of doctrine yields only to the Chris- 
 lain, their conduct is characterized by the most vile and 
 licentious practices ; a spirit of avarice, falsehood and re- 
 venue is every where visible ; and in many cases super- 
 stition and fanaticism have been exchanged for infidelity 
 and atheism. But in spite of these grievous defects, this 
 system maintains its ground ; and neither the march of 
 time, the inroads of the conqueror, nor any of the causes 
 that operate in modifying or undermining other institu- 
 tions, have been able to weaken or subvert the influence 
 of the Brahmans. Whether Great Britain be destined, by 
 the introduction and dissemination of education and Chris- 
 tianity, ultimately to effect what has hitherto baffled every 
 effort, it is not for us to prognosticate ; but, assuredly, what- 
 ever may be successful in eradicating the Brahminical sys- 
 tem, and in substituting in its room a religion whose min- 
 isters will practise what they teach, will have achieved the 
 brightest moral triumph in the annals of history. (See 
 Mills's British India ; Asiatic Researches, passim ; Cole- 
 mint's Hindoo Mythology; Sir William Jones's History. 
 
 BRAIN. The chemical examination of the brain of ani- 
 mals was first undertaken by Vauquelin, who found in the 
 human brain 80 water, 7 albumen, 453 white fatty matter, 
 070 red fatty matter, 112 osmazome, 15 phosphorus; 
 acids, salts, and sulphur, 515. An elaborate dissertation 
 upon the composition of brain has more lately been pub- 
 lished by M. Couerbe {Annates de Clnm. el Phjs. Ivi. 160). 
 He finds a large proportion of clmlesterine in it ; and asserts, 
 as the result of repeated examinations, that the propor- 
 tions of phosphorous in the brain of persons of sound in- 
 tellect is from 2 to 25 per cent. ; in the brain of maniacs it 
 is from 3 to 45, and in that of idiots only from 1 to 15 per 
 cent. 
 
 Brain, HtTMAN, Anatomy of. The brain, or the gene- 
 ral mass of nervous matter which occupies the cavity of 
 the skull, constitutes about one thirty-fifth of the weight of 
 the body : it is divided by anatomists into the cerebrum, 
 which occupies the whole of the superior part of the r;i\ ily 
 of thecranium ; the cerebellum, which occupies the lower 
 back part ; and the medulla oblongata, which is the smallest 
 portion, lying at the base of the cranium, beneath the 
 cerebrum and cerebellum, and, passing out of the great 
 foramen of the occipital, becomes as it were the origin of 
 the spinal marrow. The brain is covered by three mem- 
 branes, two of which arc termed matres, from the old idea 
 of their giving rise to all the other membranes of the body. 
 The external membrane, more firm than the others, is 
 termed dura maler : it is very dense and fibrous, and ad- 
 heres every where to the inner surface of the cranium, to 
 which it is connected by its vessels; its inner surface is 
 smooth, ami it sends off several folds, or processes, as they 
 are called, which descend between certain portions of the 
 brain. Of these the principal is the superior longitudinal 
 process, or falX cerebri, which descends from the fore to 
 the back part of the skull, between the hemispheres of the 
 brain ; from its posterior termination it sends offa layer or 
 expansion, which extends across the backof the skull, and 
 is called the tentorium, separating the cerebrum from the 
 cerebellum ; from the middle of the tentorium another 
 membranous expansion descends between the lobes of the 
 cerebellum, and terminates at the edge of the great occi- 
 pital hole, or foramen magnum; this is termed the fake 
 cerebeUi. There are certain spaces or sinuses formed in 
 the layers of the dura mater, which perform the office of 
 veins in regard to the blood returning from different parts 
 of the brain, by which any venous pressure upon the sub- 
 stanre of the brain is prevented. 
 
 When the dura mater is removed, a thin transparent 
 membrane investing the surface and convolutions of the 
 brain is brought to view, which from the delicacy of its tex- 
 ture has been called the arachnoid membrane ; it is not 
 apparently vascular, and does not pass into the depressions 
 between the convolutions; and it is difficultly separable 
 from the third membrane, or pia mater, which is also ex- 
 tremely tender and delicate, but is highly vascular, and 
 from it the blood vessels merge into the substance of the 
 brain, ramifying with great minuteness upon its surface : it 
 lines all the convolutions and cavities of the brain. On re- 
 moving the upper part of the cranium, and turning aside 
 the dura mater, the brain is seen, divided longitudinally 
 into ovoid hemispheres, separated, as already stated, by 
 the falx ; upon the under side each hemisphere is seen to 
 be divided into three lobes ; the two anterior lobes rest upon 
 the orbital plates of the frontal bone ; the middle lobes lie 
 upon the fossae, formed by the temporal and sphenoid 
 bones ; and the posterior lobes rest upon the tentorium. 
 The superficial convolutions of the brain are divided by 
 clefts of about an inch in depth. On cutting into its sub- 
 stance, the exterior part of the brain appears of a different 
 165 
 
 BRAMA. 
 
 colour from the interior, and has been termed the cinert- 
 tious or cortical substance ; it is greyish brown, very soft, 
 and exhibits no appearance of a fibrous texture. Some 
 suppose that it is glandular, and constituted almost entirely 
 of vessels and cellular membrane ; it covers the whole of 
 the brain, and is about the tenth of an inch in thickness. 
 The inner substance, termed the white or medullary part 
 of the brain, is of a firmer texture, highly vascular, and 
 when minutely examined appears fibrous, the fibres de 
 cussating with each other, and occasionally combining to 
 form commissures. 
 
 The cerebellum, when viewed from below, is of an ellip 
 tical shape, its longest diameter being from side to side, 
 and is divided into two hemispheres separated by the falx 
 cerebeUi. In the centre of the upper part of the cerebellum 
 there is a prominence, termed the vermiform process ; and 
 the whole surface is fissured or sulcated, the pia mater 
 passing between the fissured and conveying vessels to the 
 substance, whilst the arachnoid tunic is merely extended 
 over them. 
 
 Such is an outline of the anatomy of the human brain ; 
 the details can only be fully understood by reference to 
 illustrative plates upon an adequate scale, which would be 
 incompatible with the plan of this work. 
 
 It has been already stated that in man the brain averages 
 in weight l-35th of the body ; it weighs, in fact, about two 
 pounds and a half : in quadrupeds its relative bulk is remark- 
 ably smaller; in the dog it averages 1120th of the weight 
 of the animal ; in the horse l-450th ; in the sheep 1 -750th ; 
 and in the ox l-800th. This statement has been adduced 
 to show the direct relation between the bulk of the brain 
 and the quantity of mind, the above animals being ranged 
 in the order of their docility and intelligence. 
 
 On making a vertical section of either hemisphere of the 
 cerebellum, a central white substance becomes apparent, 
 which ramifies in an arborescent form, and is called arbor 
 vita ; the exterior covering is grey. In front of the cere- 
 bellum is a protuberance, termed pons Varolii or tuber 
 annulare ; it is divided by a central groove into two halves, 
 and connected with the cerebrum and cerebellum each by 
 two thick while chords called crura : the former or crura 
 cerebri, pass from the tuber forwards and outwards, under 
 the middle part of each hemisphere, in which they are 
 lost ; and the latter, the crura cerebeUi, are continued back- 
 wards and outwards, and terminate in either hemisphere 
 of the cerebellum. The portion of the brain between the 
 tuber annulare and the foramen of the occipital bone is 
 called the medulla oblongata, and is continued into the spinal 
 chord ; on its anterior surface are four contiguous projec- 
 tions ; the two interiorones are called corpora pyramidalia, 
 and the two exterior corpora oliraria. On carefully re- 
 moving the membranes which cover the medulla oblongata, 
 and gently opening its middle groove, several white bands 
 are seen passing obliquely from one side to the other, and 
 mutually interwoven, and are termed the decussating 
 bands. 
 
 The two sides of the brain are mutually connected by 
 commissures or medullary bands, and those of the cere- 
 bellum by the pons varolii. The principle connection of 
 the hemispheres of the cerebrum is by a broad medullary 
 band, called the corpus callosum. The occasional intervals 
 which separate the parts of the brain are termed ventricles, 
 the largest of which are the two Intern/ ventricles in the in- 
 terior of each hemisphere; their figure is irregular, and 
 they are separated by a tender layer of cerebral matter 
 termed the septum 'lucidum ; they are lined by the pia 
 mater. The middle or third ventricle is a fissure between 
 two convex eminences, situated at the rriddle and back of 
 the lateral ventricles, and termed thalami optici. The 
 fourth ventricle, or ventricle of the cerebellum is a cavity 
 between the cerebrum, the tuber annulare, and the me- 
 dulla oblongata. 
 
 BRAIRD. In the agriculture and gardening of Scotland, 
 the term braird is applied to the springing up of seeds 
 which, when they come up well, are said to have a fine 
 braird. 
 
 BRAKE. In Agriculture, a large harrow. 
 
 BRA'MA. (Hin ) The name of a divinity in the Hindu 
 Mythology, the fables concerning whom are so numerous, 
 that an accurate development of his character has been 
 hitherto unattainable. As we learn from the Sanscrit lex- 
 ilogists, the epithets applied to this divinity are very nu- 
 merous: some of the most usual being " Suayambhu, the 
 self-existent, Parameshti, who abides in the most exalted 
 places, Pitamaha, the great father, Prajapati, the lord of 
 creatures, Lokesa, the ruler of the world," Ac. But the 
 most distinct account of his nature and attributes is to be 
 found in Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, where he is 
 represented as the grandfather of the gods, and equivalent 
 to the Saturn of the'Romans. Brnhm, the highest divinity 
 of the Hindus, to whose name so deep reverence is attach- 
 ed that it is considered criminal to pronounce it, is said to 
 have given birth to Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, simultan- 
 eously ; and to have allotted to the first the province of creat-
 
 BRAN. 
 
 tng, to the second that of preserving, and to the third that 
 of destroying. Accordingly, ever since the creation of the 
 world Brahma has had little or nothing to do, and it will 
 not be till the tenth avatar or incarnation that his ser- 
 vices will be put in requisition, when this world is to under- 
 go total annihilation. Meanwhile, however, the other 
 deities, Vishnu and Siva, are constantly engaged in their 
 respective duties of preservation and destruction ; and the 
 Hindoos, with that recklessness of the future which is 
 common to them with more civilized communities, lavish 
 all their adoration upon those divinities from whom they 
 expect to derive immediate advantage. Hence, through- 
 out all India, the worship of Brahma is neglected; his al- 
 tars are overturned, his temples destroyed ; in short, noth- 
 ing has been left but his name, and even that none of the 
 best. Brahma is usually represented with four heads 
 and four hands, either reclining upon a lote tree (the 
 emblem of creation among the Hindoos), or riding upon a 
 swan. 
 
 BRAN. The husk of wheat which immediately covers 
 the grain, and which remains in the bolting machine. It is 
 gently laxative ; an infusion of it, under the name of bran 
 tea. is frequently used as a domestic remedy for coughs 
 and hoarseness. Calico printers employ bran and warm 
 water with great success to remove colouring matter from 
 those parts of their goods which are not mordanted. 
 
 BRA'NCHLE. (Gr. hpayx^i the gills of a fish.) The 
 term applied to all vascular organs of an animal body 
 which are destined to submit the circulating fluid in a state 
 of minute subdivision, for the purpose of respiration, to the 
 influence of air contained in water. 
 
 BRANCHI'Of ODS, BRANCHIO'PODA. (Gr. Ppayx^ 
 gills; and novs, afoot.) An order of Crustaceans, in 
 which the locomotive extremities fulfil the functions of 
 gills. 
 
 BRANCHIO'STEGANS, BRANCHIOSTEGI. (Gr. 
 /?P«)X <a > g'-lt s t vtyoj, I cover.) A tribe of cartilaginous 
 fishes, comprehending those in which the gills are free, 
 and covered by a membrane ; including the sturgeon and 
 chimaera. 
 
 BRA'NDY. The spirituous liquor obtained by the dis- 
 tillation of wine. When pure it is perfectly colourless, and 
 only acquires a pale brown or yellow tint from the cask. 
 The deep colour of common brandy, intended to imitate 
 •hat which it acquires from great age in the cask, is gener- 
 ally given by the addition of burned sugar. The average 
 proportion of alcohol in brandy varies from 48 to 54 per 
 cent. The best brandy is made in France, the preference 
 being generally given to that shipped from Cognac. The 
 imports of brandy for home consumption in England, 
 amount to about 1,400,000 gallons a year ; but there can be 
 no doubt that the quantity would be much larger, were it 
 not for the oppressive duty of 22s. 6d. a gallon, with which 
 it is charged. 
 
 BRASS. An alloy of copper and zinc. The proportions 
 vary according to the required colour : four parts of cop- 
 per and one of zinc form an excellent brass. It is usually 
 made by heating copper plates in a mixture of native oxide 
 of zinc, or calamine and charcoal. 
 
 BRA'SSAGE. A sum formerly levied to defray the ex- 
 pense of coinage, and taken out of the intrinsic value of the 
 coin. The term is supposed to be derived from brachio- 
 rum labor. 
 
 BRA'SSART. In Plate Armour, the piece which pro- 
 tected the upper arm, between the shoulder-piece and the 
 elbow. 
 
 BRASSICA'CE^. (Brassica, one of the genera.) One 
 of the names of Cruciferous plants, which see. 
 
 BRAZI'L NUT. A South American fruit, commonly 
 sold in the markets of London ; it is the seed of a large 
 fruit tree, called Berllwletia excelsa. 
 
 BRAZIL WOOD. A valuable wood, imported from 
 South America and the West Indies, where it is produced 
 by certain species of Casaipinia, especially C. echinata 
 and Braziliensis ; large trees with repeatedly pinnated 
 leaves, showy yellow flowers, and long richly coloured sta- 
 mens. It is used for the preparation of a red dye, but the 
 consumption of it in this country is inconsiderable. It 
 fetches from 60 to j£80 a ton in the London market, exclu- 
 sive of the duty of £2 a ton. 
 
 BREACH. In Fortification, a gap or opening made in 
 any part of the walls of the besieged place by the cannon or 
 mines of the besiegers. 
 
 BREAD. (Ger. brod.) This important article of food 
 is made of the flour of different grains ; but it is only those 
 which contain gluten that admit of conversion into a light 
 or porous and spongy bread, of which u-heaten bread fur- 
 nishes the best example. When flour is made into a 
 lough paste or dough by the addition of a little water, rolled 
 out into thin cakes, and more or less baked, it forms bis- 
 cuit. For the formation of bread a certain degree of fer- 
 mentation, not unlike vinous fermentation, is requisite, care 
 being taken to avoid acetous fermentation, which renders 
 tiie bread sour, and to most persons disagreeable. If dough 
 166 
 
 BREAD. 
 
 be left to itself in a moderately warm place (between 80° 
 and 120°), a degree of fermentation comes on, which, how- 
 ever, is sluggish, or, if rapid, acetous • so that to effect that 
 kind of fermentation requisite for the production of the 
 best bread, a. ferment is added, which is either leurenoe 
 dough which is already in a fermenting state, and which 
 tends to accelerate the process in the mass to which it is 
 added; or yeast, the peculiar matter which collects in the 
 form of scum upon beer in the act of fermentation. Of 
 these ferments leaven is slow and uncertain in its effect, 
 and gives a sour and often slightly putrid flavour. Yeast is 
 more effective ; and when clean and good, it rapidly in- 
 duces panary fermentation; but it is olten bitter, and 
 sometimes has a peculiarly disagreeable smell and taste. 
 
 All, then, that is essential to make a loaf of bread is 
 dough to which a certain quantity of yeast has been added. 
 This mixture is put into any convenient mould or form, or 
 merely shaped into one mass ; and after having been kept 
 for a short time in rather a warm place, so that fermenta- 
 tion may have begun, it is subjected to the process of ba- 
 king in a proper oven. Carbonic acid is generated ; and 
 the viscidity or texture of the dough preventing the imme- 
 diate escape of that gas, the whole mass is puffed up by it, 
 and a light porous bread is the result. Along with the car- 
 bonic acid traces of alcohol are at the same time produced, 
 but so insignificant and impure as not to be worth notice ; 
 hence the attempts which have been made to collect it 
 upon the large scale have entirely failed in an economical 
 point of view. Other flour besides that of wheat will, un- 
 der similar circumstances, undergo panary fermentation ; 
 but the result is a heavy, unpalatable, and olten indigestible 
 bread ; so that the addition of a certain quantity of wheat 
 flour is almost always had recourse to. It is the gluten in 
 wheat which thus peculiarly fits it for the manulacture of 
 bread, chiefly in consequence of the tough and elastic vis- 
 cidity which it confers upon the dough. 
 
 It is well known that home-made bread and baker's bread 
 are two very different things : the former is usually sweet- 
 er, lighter, and more retentive of moisture : the latter, if 
 eaten soon after it has cooled, is pleasant and spongy ; but 
 if kept for more than two or three days, it becomes harsh 
 and unpalatable. The cause of this difference may perhaps 
 be obvious from the following details of the operations of 
 the wholesale baker. 
 
 In making his dough he takes the water, or part of it, 
 which he intends to use, and having slightly warmed it, 
 dissolves in it a certain portion of salt ; then he adds the 
 yeast, and then a certain quantity of flour. This mixture 
 is set aside in a warm place, where it soon begins to fer- 
 ment. This process is called setting the sponge ; and ac- 
 cording to the relation which the water in it bears to the 
 whole quantity to be used in the dough, it is called whole, 
 half, or quartern sponge. The evolution of carbonic, acid 
 causes the sponge to heave and swell ; and when the sur- 
 face bursts it subsides, and then swells again, and so on ; 
 but the baker is careful to use it before this fermentation 
 has communicated sourness to the mass. He then adds 
 to the sponge the remaining quantity of flour, water, and 
 salt which may be required lo form dough of proper quali- 
 ty and consistence, and incorporates the whole by long 
 and laborious kneadings till the entire mass acquires uni- 
 formity, and is so tough and elastic as to bear the pressure 
 of the hand without adhering to it. It is then left for a few 
 hours, during which fermentation goes on ; and the inflated 
 mass is again kneaded, so as to break down any lumps or 
 portions which had accidentally escaped diffusion in the 
 first operation, and to confer perfect uniformity on the 
 whole. The dough is then weighed out into loaves, which 
 are shaped, and put aside in a warm place for an hour or 
 two, during which they swell up to about double their origi- 
 nal size ; they are then put into the oven and baked ; du- 
 ring which operation they again enlarge considerably in 
 bulk, in consequence of the dilatation of the previously 
 generated carbonic acid pent up in the dough ; for, as soon 
 as the mass is exposed to the heat of the oven, the fermen- 
 tation is put an end to. 
 
 If we compare the baked loaf with the flour of which it 
 is composed, we shall find that panary fermentation has 
 produced a considerable change in the latter. The gluten 
 and the starch, which (exclusive of a trace of sugar) were 
 the components of the flour, have mutually acted upon and 
 altered each other ; the toughness and viscidity of the gluten 
 is gone, and the starch no longer forms a gelatinous mixture 
 with hot water ; a little sugar is generally formed, as well as 
 alcohol ; but the principal cause of the change in the char- 
 acters of the flour is the evolution of carbon and of oxygen 
 in the form of carbonic acid, the production of which is in- 
 dependent of the presence of external oxygen (or of air). 
 Small quantities of alum are also, it is said, invariably used 
 by the London bakers, with the view of whitening or 
 bleaching the bread ; for it may be observed, that what- 
 ever may be the quality of the flonr which is used, home- 
 made bread is always of a comparatively dingy hue. Ac- 
 cording to Mr. Accum (On the Adulteration of Food), the
 
 BREAK. 
 
 requisite quantity of alum for this purpose depends upon | 
 the quality of the flour. The mealman, he says, makes dif- 
 ferent sorts of flour from the same kind of grain. The best | 
 flour is chiefly used for biscuits and pastry, and the inferior | 
 kinds of bread. In London no fewer than six kinds of , 
 wheaten flour are brought into the market ; they are call- 
 ed tine flour, seconds, middlings, coarse middlings, and 
 twenty-penny. Beans and peas are also, according to the I 
 same authority, frequently ground up with London flour. 
 The smallest quantity of alum used is from three to four l 
 ounces to the sack of flour of 240 pounds. 
 
 Another article occasionally employed in bread-making 
 is carbonate of ammonia. As it is wholly dissipated by 
 the heat of the oven, none remains in the baked loaf. It 
 renders the bread light, and perhaps neutralizes any acid 
 that may have been formed (exclusive of carbonic acid); 
 but it is too dear to be much employed. To some kind of 
 biscuits it gives a peculiar shortness, and a few of the most 
 celebrated manufacturers use it largely. The French chem- 
 ists have accused the bakers of employing sulphate of cop- 
 per or blue vitriol, for the purpose of improving the colour 
 of the bread ; but so dangerous and easily detected an ad- 
 dition can scarcely be supposed to be common. Accord- 
 ing to Mr. E. Davy, bread, especially that of indifferent 
 tlour, is materially improved by the addition of a little car- 
 bonate of magnesia, in the proportion of twenty to thirty 
 grains to the pound of flour ; it requires to be very inti- 
 mately mixed with the dough. The most nefarious adul- 
 teration of bread consists, however, in the addition of cer- 
 tain insipid and colourless earthy substances, with a view 
 of increasing its weight ; such as pipe-clay, porcelain clay,- 
 chalk, and plaislerof Paris. These, however, are probably 
 very rarely resorted to; though in one instance the writer 
 of this article had occasion to examine a quantity of bis- 
 cuits, which were adulterated with gypsum to the amount 
 of 10 per cent. (See Donovan's Domestic Economy, vol. i. ) 
 
 BREAK. (Teut. brache.) In Architecture, any projec- 
 tion from the general surface of a building. 
 
 BREA'KERS. Waves that break, or fall over, from the 
 shallowness of the water, [n a gale, the tops of the seas 
 generally break in this way more or less, from the pro- 
 gressive motion of the water at the surface before the 
 wind, which is exceedingly dangerous for open boats. This 
 is never confounded with the falling over of the whole 
 wave, as the surf falls over on the beach. 
 
 BREA'KING JOINT. In Architecture, that disposition 
 of stones and bricks in their courses by which vertical 
 joints are not allowed to tall over each other. See Dia- 
 grams to Bond, English and Flemish. 
 
 BREAKWATER. An artificial bank of stones, or the 
 hull of a vessel, sunk to break the sea before its entrance 
 into a roadstead or harbour. The breakwater at Plymouth, 
 (Eng.) is a great work of this kind. It is built across the 
 sound, which it completely defends from a very heavy sea 
 from the channel in south westerly winds, and which 
 formerly caused the loss of many ships. It is composed 
 of large stones dropt from vessels constructed for the pur- 
 pose. The sea, which for a time offers serious obstacles to 
 the construction, works the stones together, and washes up 
 shingle and sand, which, with the growth of sea-weed, 
 consolidate the whole. The outer mole of the harbour of 
 Civita Vecchia, still in good repair, was formed by the Em- 
 peror Trajan exactly in the same way as the breakwaterat 
 Plymouth. (Plinii Epist. lib. vi. ep. 31.) The break- 
 water at Cherbourg, constructed by Napoleon, is one of 
 the greatest modern works of this class. 
 
 BREAM. The name of a sofl-finned fish, common in 
 many of the lakes and rivers of England, and one that 
 breeds freely and thrives in ponds, if there be sufficient 
 depth of water. It is the type of a particular subgenus of 
 the Carp family (Cyprim'da), which Cuvier has character- 
 ized under the name of Ahramis. See Abramis. 
 
 BREA'MING. In Nautical language, signifies cleaning 
 the bottom of a vessel by fire. When the vessel is aground, 
 fire hems applied to the bottom loosens the pitch, or com- 
 position of sulphur and tallow, with which the bottom is 
 sometimes covered to defend it from the worms, and 
 which is then scraped off. together with the barnacles, 
 grass, weeds, <fcc. that adhere to it. 
 
 BRE A STING. Breasting up a hedge is cutting the face 
 of it on one side, so as to lay bare the principal upright 
 stems of the plants. 
 
 BREAST PLOUGH. A kind of spade or shovel, with a 
 cross piece at the extremity of the handle, which is ap- 
 plied to the breast, and by which the operator skims off a 
 thin slice of turf from a grassy surface, as if he were 
 ploughing. Turf thus obtained is chiefly used in thatching. 
 
 BRE A'STSUMMER. (From. Sax. breost, and summer ; 
 quare, trabs summaria?) In Architecture, a beam which 
 supports an exterior wall, the beam itself being carried by 
 wooilen or iron posts. 
 
 BREAST WORK. In Fortification, an elevation of earth 
 thrown up round a fortified place to protect the garrison 
 from the enemy's fire. 
 167 
 
 BRICK. 
 
 BRE'CCIA. (It.) A rock composed of an agglutina- 
 tion of angular fragments. 
 
 BREECH OF A GUN. The solid part behind the bore. 
 
 BRE'ECHING, or BREECH BAND. Part of the har- 
 ness of a carriage horse, by means of which he is enabled 
 to push the carriage to which he is attached backwards, or 
 to support its pressure in going down a hill. 
 
 BREEZE-FLIES. Sec (Estridk. 
 
 BREHON LAWS. The ancient laws of the Irish are so 
 termed, from an Irish word signifying judges. It is sup- 
 posed that some of the numerous written collections of 
 these laws which still exist are of great antiquity ; as old, 
 perhaps, as the earlier ages of the Christian Era. Prior to 
 the Anglo-Norman invasion, Ireland was entirely governed 
 by these laws. For an account of the nature of these laws, 
 see Lord Lyttleton's Henry II. vol. v. p. 28, and the au- 
 thorities there referred to. 
 
 ISItE'NTUS. A Fabrician genus of Coleopterous insects, 
 belonging to the Weevil tribe, or Curcidiunidm ; now the 
 type of a family, called Brenthid/z, including about eight 
 genera and seventy species. These insects are peculiar to 
 hot climates: only one species, the Brenti/s Ilalicus, is 
 found in Europe, and this has been referred by Germar to 
 a particular sub-genus, Arrhenodes. all the other species of 
 which are natives of the new world. 
 
 BRE'TTICES. In coal mines, wooden plankings to pre- 
 vent the falling in of the strata. 
 
 BREVE. (Ital.) In Music, a note formed thus r=l with- 
 out a tail, and equivalent to two semibreves, or four mi- 
 nims. It is also that measure of quantity contained in two 
 beats of the hand up and two down, but this only in com- 
 mon tune with the mark c. 
 
 BRE'VET. In the French, signifies a royal act in writ- 
 ing conferring some privilege or distinction ; as brevet 
 d'invention, a patent. It is applied, in England, to a com- 
 mission giving nominal rank higher than that for which 
 pay i3 received ; thus, a brevet major serves and draws 
 pay as captain, &c. 
 
 BREVIARY. A book containing the offices of daily 
 prayer according to the usage of the R. C. church. The 
 offices are seven ; viz. matins, lauds, first, third, sixth, and 
 ninth vespers, and the compline. Anciently all Catholics 
 were required to recite the breviary daily. The injunction 
 is now confined to the clergy ; of whom it is still' strictly 
 
 exacted 
 
 BRE'VIPENNATES, Brempermes. (Lat. brevis, short ; 
 prima, i/uill ; Bhort-quiUed.) All epithet applied by Cuvier 
 to distinguish the first family of his order Gratia; (Echas- 
 siers) ; the ostrich is the type of this family. See 
 Cursores. 
 
 BREWING. See Fermentation. 
 
 BRl'BERY. In English Law, is a term comprehending 
 the offences of judges, ministerial officers, &c, receiving 
 rewards or considerations to act contrary to their respec- 
 tive duties, which are severally misdemeanors at com mou 
 law, and also punishable under several statutes. But in its 
 most ordinary signification, it is the giving or receiving 
 money to procure votes at parliamentary elections, or elec- 
 tions to public offices of trust. The statutes which at pre- 
 sent chiefly regulate the offence of bribery at parliamen- 
 tary elections are 2 G. 2. c. 24., and 49 G. 3. c. 118. The 
 latter statute imposes a penalty of jEIOOO on any one (if 
 not returned, incapacity to serve in parliament for that 
 place if returned) who " shall give or cause to be given, di- 
 rectly or indirectly, any sum of money, <fec. upon any en- 
 gagement that the person receiving shall procure, or en- 
 deavour to procure, &c, the return of any member," and 
 imposes a fine of j£800 on the person receiving the bribe 
 on such a promise or agreement. The former makes it 
 an offence in any person "to procure or corrupt another to 
 vote ;" and it has been recently held, that the corruption is 
 complete, as far as the corrupter is concerned, by the act 
 of giving the money, whether the voter intended or not to 
 act according to the wish of the briber. 
 
 BRICK. (Dutch, bricke.) In Architecture, amass of clay 
 earth, sometimes mixed with coal ashes, chalk, and other 
 substances, formed in a mould, and burnt in a kiln or 
 clamp. The earth used for this purpose is of two sorts. 
 The one a stiff clay, with little or no extraneous mixture, 
 which produces a hard red brick; the other a yellowish- 
 coloured fat earth, called loam, which produces a grey- 
 coloured brick. The clay is usually tempered in a clay 
 mill. For the sea coal ashes that are mixed with it in 
 London, they substitute in the country a light sandy earth. 
 In making the paste as little water should be introduced as 
 possible. In moulding them, which is done in a wooden 
 mould, a clever workman wilt mould about five thousand 
 in fifteen hours. The kiln in which they are burnt is 
 a large building, about 13 feet long, 10 feet 6 inches 
 wide, and 12 feet high, furnished with a proper furnace. 
 When otherwise burnt, the clamp, as it is called, is formed 
 of the bricks themselves, generally oblong on the plan, 
 and the foundations made with place bricks. Each 
 course of bricks is laid on a layer of breeze or cinders;
 
 BRICK-LAYING. 
 
 and flues are formed, filled with coals, breeze, and wood. 
 The burning continues from twenty to thirty days. The 
 size of bricks, when burnt, is required by the statute to be 
 % l A inches long, 2% inches thick, and 4 inches wide. The 
 different varieties of bricks are, malms, which are of a yel- 
 lowish uniform colour and texture ; seco7id$, not quite so 
 uniform in colour and texture as malms ; red and grey stocks, 
 the former being burnt in kilns, both of a quality rather in- 
 ferior lo seconds; place bricks or peckings, sometimes 
 called sandel orsamel bricks, which are those furthest from 
 the fire, and rarely well burnt, — these should never be 
 used in a building where durability is required ; burrs or 
 clinkers, which are masses of several bricks run together 
 in the clamp or kiln from the violent action of the fire; 
 fire bricks, of a red colour, about 9 inches long, 4% inches 
 broad, and an inch and a half thick, — they are made for 
 use in furnaces to resist the action of the fire, and from 
 having been formerly manufactured in the neighbourhood 
 of Windsor, they are sometimes called Windsor bricks; 
 paving bricks, made for the purpose their name implies; 
 compass bricks, are circular on the plan, chiefly used in 
 walling wells and the like ; Dutch clinkeis or Flemish 
 bricks, chiefly used in stables; the Dutch clinker is 6 
 inches long, 3 inches broad, and 1 inch thick. (See Aikin's 
 Illustrations of Arts and Manufactures, 1841.) 
 
 BRICKLA'YING. In Architecture, the act of building 
 with bricks, which is of very great antiquity. Pausanias 
 mentions many structures in Greece which were built of 
 bricks; and in Rome such buildings were very common. 
 The walls of Babylon, attributed by Herodotus to Semira- 
 mis. were also of brick. 
 
 BRICKNO'GGIXG. In Architecture, brickwork carried 
 up and filled in between timber framing. 
 
 BRICK TRIMMER. (Sax. trimman, to build.) In Arch- 
 itecture, a brick arch abutting against the wooden trim- 
 mer in front of a fireplace, to guard against accidents by 
 fire. 
 
 BRl'DEWELL. A house of correction for offenders is 
 commonly so called in England. The name is derived 
 from the locality of the ancient London house of correc- 
 tion, which was an hospital, founded by Edward VI. on 
 the site of St. Bride's well, in Black-Friars, a well-known 
 object of pilgrimage in Roman Catholic times. The origi- 
 nal Bridewell is under the control of the lord mayor, and 
 used as a receptacle for vagrants, place of punishment for 
 apprentices, ifcc, within the jurisdiction of the city. 
 
 BRIDGE. (Sax. brigge.) In Architecture, a structure 
 for the purpose of connecting the opposite banks of a river, 
 gorge, valley, <fec. &c, by means of certain materials, form- 
 ing a roadway from one side to the other. It may be of 
 stone, brick, iron, timber, suspended chains or ropes; or 
 the roadway may be formed by means of boats. Long 
 previous to the introduction of bridges constructed upno 
 geometrical principles, the modes of crossing rivers by 
 throwing the trunks of trees across them, or by suspension 
 of ropes, or twisting together the branches of trees from 
 bank to bank, were so obvious that they must have been 
 resorted to at an early period. The former method, how- 
 ever, could only have been practised over narrow streams, 
 whilst the latter might have been carried to almost any re- 
 quired extent. Mungo Pirk found this mode employed in 
 Africa ; and in South America rope bridges of bujuco, or 
 thongs made from the hides of oxen, are in use at the pre- 
 sent day. Don Antonio de Ulloa tells us, that over some 
 of the rivers of Peru the bujuco bridges are of such dimen- 
 sions that loaded mules in droves pass over them, and es- 
 pecially on the river Apurimac, forming the high road for 
 the trade carried on between Lima, Cuzco. and other 
 places to the southward. Though such bridges are the 
 contrivance of man in a less civilized state, they are the 
 only means by which many streams whose currents are 
 deep and rapid can be crossed : and the stupendous sus- 
 pension bridges of the present day are but improvements 
 on the simple scheme of the untutored architect of a sav- 
 age tribe. When a stream is neither deep nor rapid, its 
 breadth seems to present no obstacle to forming a roadway 
 over it. Large stones placed across at intervals, on which 
 other stones or beams of timber maybe laid horizontally, 
 would be the first step. Of this species appears to have 
 been the bridge which, according to Herodotus, Nitocris 
 constructed at Babylon over the Euphrates, and which is 
 said by Diodorus Siculus to have been five furlongs in 
 length. Of this sort also are many of the bridges in China. 
 The bridges of the Chinese, however, appear to have been 
 rather too highly extolled in the accounts of Du Halde and 
 the missionaries, as may he gathered from the informa- 
 tion obtained of the Foo chow-foo bridge, during the voy- 
 age of the ship Amherst in 1832. It appears, from the tes- 
 timony of Captain Parish, that the use of the arch with 
 wedge-shaped stones converging towards the centre of the 
 curve must have been known to the Chinese at a very 
 early period. 
 
 In tracing the history of bridges among different nations, 
 we shall see that local causes had great influence on ths 
 163 
 
 BRIDGE. 
 
 species of construction adopted by them. A nation may 
 have reached the highest point of art in its other public 
 monuments, and have nevertheless done nothing worthy 
 of our admiration in the construction of a bridge. In 
 Egypt, for example, intersected as it is by a large and wide 
 river subject to periodic inundations, the construction of 
 bridges would have been as difficult as it would have 
 been useless. All the intercourse which commerce 
 required was easily carried on by the assistance of 
 boats ; and as respects the passage over the canals which 
 abounded in the country, their depth and breadth were 
 so small as to require none but the most simple ex- 
 pedients for connecting their opposite banks, nor any 
 which involved the employment of science. In Greece, 
 no vestige of a bridge occurs whose date is anterior 
 to its occupation by the Romans ; but this, had they 
 even been acquainted with the use of the arch, might be 
 accounted for on reasons directly the reverse of those 
 which operated in Egypt. Greece is intersected by no 
 river of any magnitude ; and even those which seem to 
 have some title to the name, are rather mountain torrents 
 than those immense sheets of water, swelled in their 
 course by innumerable tributary streams, that are to be 
 found in other parts of the world. Here scarcely more 
 could be wanted than a single arch, whose abutments 
 would be found in the solid rocks which the stream sepa- 
 rated. 
 
 Following up the history of bridges into Italy, we find a 
 country much watered by large rivers, where the architec- 
 ture of bridges became a necessary study, not only for the 
 accommodation of the cities with which it abounded, but 
 also for the service of the frequent military expeditions of 
 the restless conquerors who occupied its lands. Rome, 
 from its earliest foundation, must have put in requisition 
 considerable skill in bridge architecture over the Tiber, 
 rapid and subject as it is to sudden floods. The earliest 
 bridges here were of timber ; such was that which joined 
 the Janiculum to the Mons Aventinus, and was called the 
 Pons Sublicius, from the subUcce (stakes) of which it was 
 formed. (Liv i. 33.) Without enumerating the bridges 
 of Rome, some of which are still standing to attest the sci- 
 ence of their architects, we must mention the Pons Narai- 
 ensis, on the Fiaminian way, near Narni, and about sixty 
 miles from Rome. It was built by Augustus ; and vestiges 
 of it remain to the present day, one arch above 150 feet 
 span and 100 feet high being still entire. But of works of 
 art, perhaps the most wonderful ever raised was the 
 bridge built by Trajan over the Danube. It consisted of 
 twenty piers, whose height from their foundation was 150 
 feet, and 170 feet apart : its breadth being sixty feet. This 
 stupendous work was demolished by Hadrian, the succes- 
 sor of Trajan, under the pretence that it might serve as a 
 passage for trie barbarians, if they became masters of it; 
 but some writers have said it was through envy of the fame 
 that attached to its founder. Over the Tagus in Spain an 
 ancient Roman bridge, near Alcantara, is still partly stand- 
 ing. It consisted of six arches of eighty feet span, extend- 
 ing altogether 600 feet in length, and some of the arches 
 200 feet high above the water. Of the temporary bridges 
 of the Romans, the most famous was that of timber thrown 
 by Caesar over the Rhine. 
 
 From the fall of the Roman Empire to the revival of the 
 arts, the history of bridge architecture is, with the excep- 
 tion of the Moorish works in Spain, of no interest. It ap- 
 pears from Gautier, who uses the authority of Mag. Agri- 
 cola of Aix, that when the arts began to revive in Europe 
 an order was founded by St. Benezet, under the title of 
 Brethren of the Bridge ; and that under them was begun, 
 in 1176, the bridge at Avignon, consisting of eighteen 
 arches and about 3000 feet in length. During the conten- 
 tions of the Popes in 1385, some of its arches were destroy- 
 ed, and in 1602 three others fell. In 1670 the ice destroyed 
 all but the third pier, which, with the Chapel of St. Nicholas 
 upon it, still remains. In 1354 a bridge of three arches 
 was constructed at Verona, the roadway sloping from the 
 city : the largest of its arches, which are segmental, is 160 
 feet span ; but a still larger arch was built at Vielle-Brionde 
 in France, over the Allier, in 1454, of nearly 184 feet span, 
 which is the largest stone arch upon record. Among the 
 most celebrated bridges of Italy, is that of the Rialto at 
 Venice, whose span is 9834 feet. It was begun in 158S 
 and finished in 1591, from the designs of Antonio da) Ponte 
 (Sansorino's Venice), though by most authors absurdly at- 
 tributed to M. A. Buonarroti. In this city alone there are no 
 Ipss than 339 bridges ; but they are mostly of small spans. 
 We must not omit in this place the bridge Delia Santissima 
 Trinita at Florence, by Ammanati, which, as Milizia truly 
 observes, has not been surpassed since the revival of ar- 
 chitecture. It is of three arches, the middle one of 96 and 
 the two side ones of 86 feet span, the width of the piers 
 being 26 feet 9 inches ; the breadth of the carriage and foot- 
 ways between the parapets is 33 feet. It has been usual 
 for writers to call the form of the arches of this bridge 
 cycloidal; but from our own measurements and most
 
 BRIDGES. 
 
 particular investigation, we can assert that they are not of 
 that form. They are very slightly pointed, after the fashion 
 Df what is called the Tudor arch of this country ; the point 
 at the summit, which is extremely obtuse, being hidden 
 by the ram's head sculptured on the key-stones. During 
 the two last centuries, the French have advanced their 
 bridge architecture to very great perfection ; but more par- 
 ticularly in the latter part of the last century, in which 
 appeared Perronet, the father of the modem system of the 
 art, whose elegant designs have not since been improved 
 upon either in France or any other country. His is the 
 beautiful bridge of Neuilly over the Seine. It consists of 
 five arches, each about 128 feet span and 32 feet rise : it was 
 finished in 1774, and remains a splendid monument of the 
 powers of its architect. Some of the more modern speci- 
 mens of their bridges do great honour to the French school, 
 La which beauty of form is united with sound engineering. 
 
 In England, the progress of bridge architecture has kept 
 pace with that of the Continent ; and if her bridges can- 
 not boast the elegance in design of her lively neighbours, 
 they are fully equal to them in boldness of conception and 
 execution of the work. Indeed, if the designs of the late 
 Messrs. Telford and Rennie had been equal to their en- 
 gineering skill, no country in the world would have been 
 able to compete with what she would have been able to 
 exhibit. And here must not be forgotten the bridge over 
 the river Taaf, near Llantrissart, in Glamorganshire, cele- 
 brated for its great span ; the work of William Edwards, a 
 country mason, in 1755. The chord line is 140 feet, and 
 the versed sine 35 feet. As we can allow but short space 
 for an account of the bridges which within the last eighty 
 years have been built in that country, we must be content 
 
 with the mention of that over the Thames, called tho 
 Southwark bridge, which is a stupendous exhibition of en- 
 gineering skill, and far better in design than many of the 
 other works of the late Mr. Rennie. This bridge is of cast- 
 iron, and consists of three arches, the chord of the centre 
 arch being 240 feet, and its versed sine 24 feet, or one tenth 
 of its span. The frame-work of the arch at the vertex is 
 6 feet in height. We are not aware of any cast-iron bridge 
 whose dimensions exceed those of this bridge, and do not 
 think it therefore necessary to mention minor ones, of 
 which there are many fine specimens in Great Britain. 
 
 Of timber bridges the boldest and most ingeniously con- 
 structed in Europe was that at Schaffhausen, in Switzer- 
 land, destroyed by the French in 1799. It was designed 
 and executed by Ulric Orubenmann, a common carpenter 
 of Tueffen, in 1758. The total length of this bridge was 
 364 feet, but it was relieved by a pier in the middle of the 
 river. In America are some extraordinary specimens of 
 timber bridges. Such is the Trenton bridge, over the Dela- 
 ware, built in 1804, by Burr : its chord line is 200 feet, and 
 its versed sine 32 feet, the height or thickness of the tim- 
 ber framing at the crown being only 32 inches. The 
 bridge called the Colossus at Philadelphia, over the Schuyl- 
 kill, lately burnt, was 340 feet span, with a versed sine or 
 rise of only 20 feet, and the thickness of the timber at the 
 vertex only 7 feet. It was the work of a person named 
 Wernwag. Besides these two, there are many other tim- 
 ber bridges in America worthy the notice of the reader, 
 which we regret we have not space to notice. 
 
 We here subjoin a table of some of the most celebrated 
 bridges, chiefly in reference to their dimensions, and the 
 relative spans and heights of their arches. 
 
 STONE BRIDGES. 
 
 
 
 
 Vv 
 
 idest Arch. 
 
 
 
 
 Name of Bridge. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Spa 
 
 D. 
 
 Height. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ft. 
 
 In. 
 
 Ft. In. 
 
 
 
 
 Vielle-Brioude 
 
 Mlier 
 
 Brioude 
 
 183 
 
 3 
 
 70 3 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Orrnier & Estone 
 
 1454 
 
 Ulm 
 
 Danube 
 
 Ulm 
 
 181 
 
 o 
 
 22 3 
 
 Segm if circle 
 
 Wiebeking 
 
 1806 
 
 Castle Vecchio 
 
 Adige 
 
 Verona 
 
 159 
 
 l<l 
 
 53 3 
 
 Segm, of circle 
 
 Unknown 
 
 1354 
 
 Lavaur 
 
 Agout 
 
 Lavaur 
 
 159 
 
 10 
 
 64 8 
 
 Ellipse 
 
 Saget 
 
 1775 
 
 Claix 
 
 Drac 
 
 Gn noble 
 
 LS0 
 
 2 
 
 62 3 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Unknown 
 
 1611 
 
 Pont y prydd 
 
 Taafe 
 
 Glamorgan 
 
 140 
 
 
 
 35 Segm. of circle 
 
 Edwards 
 
 1755 
 
 Ni'iiilly 
 
 Seine 
 
 Near Paris 
 
 127 
 
 Id 
 
 31 10 
 
 Ellipse 
 
 Perronet 
 
 1774 
 
 Mantes 
 
 Seine 
 
 Mantes 
 
 127 
 
 10 
 
 
 Ellipse 
 
 Bupean & Perronet 
 
 1/65 
 
 Waterloo 
 
 Thames 
 
 London 
 
 120 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 Ellipse 
 
 Rennie 
 
 1816 
 
 Tongueland 
 
 
 Kirkcudbright 
 
 118 
 
 
 
 38 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Telford 
 
 1806 
 
 St. Esprit 
 
 Rhone 
 
 Languedoc 
 
 108 
 
 7 
 
 26 6 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Unknown 
 
 1305 
 
 Munich 
 
 Isar 
 
 Munich 
 
 102 
 
 3 
 
 17 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Wiebeking 
 
 1814 
 
 Orleans 
 
 Loire 
 
 1 • 
 
 |06 
 
 7 
 
 29 9 
 
 Ellipse 
 
 Hupeau 
 
 1760 
 
 Sarah 
 
 Liffey 
 
 Dublin 
 
 106 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 Ellipse 
 
 Stevens 
 
 1791 
 
 Monition 
 
 Durance 
 
 Montlion 
 
 102 
 
 
 
 25 6 
 
 Ellipse 
 
 Delbergue-Cormont 
 
 1805 
 
 Vicenza 
 
 Bacchiglione 
 
 Vicenza 
 
 101 
 
 2 
 
 29 9 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Unknown 
 
 
 Blackfriars 
 
 Thames 
 
 London 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 41 6 
 
 Ellipse 
 
 Mylne 
 
 1771 
 
 Rialto 
 
 Canal 
 
 Venice 
 
 96 
 
 10 
 
 20 7 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Ant. da Ponte 
 
 1591 
 
 Holy Trinity 
 
 Arno 
 
 Florence 
 
 95 
 
 3 
 
 14 10 
 
 Pointed 
 
 Ammanati 
 
 1569 
 
 Pont de la Concorde 
 
 Seine 
 
 Paris 
 
 93 
 
 9 
 
 9 8 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Peronnet 
 
 1791 
 
 Jena 
 
 Seine 
 
 Paris 
 
 91 
 
 6 
 
 10 9 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 La Maude" 
 
 1815 
 
 Sisto 
 
 Tiber 
 
 Rome 
 
 83 
 
 4 
 
 41 8 
 
 Semicircle 
 
 Unknown 
 
 1474 
 
 Ponte Molle 
 
 Tiber 
 
 Rome 
 
 77 
 
 8 
 
 38 10 
 
 Semicircle 
 
 Unknown 
 
 100B.C 
 
 St. Maxence 
 
 Oise 
 
 St. Maxence 
 
 76 
 
 B 
 
 6 3 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Perronet 
 
 1784 
 
 TIMBER BRIDGES. 
 
 Name of Bridge. 
 
 River. 
 
 Place. 
 
 Widest Arch. 
 
 Curve. 
 
 Architect. 
 
 Date. 
 
 Span. 
 
 Height. 
 
 Colossus 
 
 Piscataqua 
 
 Bamberg 
 
 Trenton 
 
 Writtenghen 
 
 Pont Louis 
 
 Freysingen 
 
 Elsingen 
 
 Pont de la Cite 
 
 Schuylkill 
 Piscataqua 
 Regnitz 
 Delaware 
 
 Isar 
 
 Isar 
 
 Wertach 
 
 Lech 
 
 Seine 
 
 Philadelphia 
 
 N. America 
 
 Germany 
 
 Pennsylvania 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 Freysingen 
 
 Bavaria 
 
 Elsingen 
 
 Near Augsburg 
 
 Paris 
 
 Ft. In. 
 340 
 250 
 208 
 200 
 198 
 154 
 153 
 139 
 114 
 104 5 
 
 Ft. In. 
 20 
 27 4 
 17 4 
 32 
 30 10 
 13 6 
 11 6 
 
 7 8 
 
 8 9 
 6 2 
 
 Segm. of circle 
 Segm. of circle 
 Segm. of circle 
 Segm. of circle 
 Segm. of circle 
 Segm. of circle 
 Segm. of circle 
 Segm. of circle 
 Segm. of circle 
 Segm. of circle 
 
 Wernwag 
 
 Palmer 
 
 Wiebeking 
 
 Burr 
 
 Orubenmann 
 
 Wiebeking 
 
 Wiebeking 
 
 Wiebeking 
 
 Wiebeking 
 
 Dumoutier 
 
 1813 
 
 1794 
 1809 
 1804 
 
 1809 
 1808 
 1809 
 1808 
 1802 
 
 
 
 
 IRON BRIDGES 
 
 
 
 
 Name of Bridge. 
 
 River. 
 
 Place. 
 
 Widest Arch. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Architect. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Span 
 
 Height. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ft. In. 
 
 Ft. In. 
 
 
 
 
 Southwark 
 
 Thames 
 
 London 
 
 240 
 
 24 Segm. of circle 
 
 Rennie 
 
 1818 
 
 Sunderland 
 
 Wear 
 
 Sunderland 
 
 240 
 
 30 (Segm. of circle 
 
 Wilson 
 
 1796 
 
 Buildwas 
 
 Severn 
 
 Buildwas 
 
 130 
 
 27 Segm. of circle 
 
 Telford 
 
 
 
 Austerlitz 
 
 Seine 
 
 Paris 
 
 106 
 
 10 6 Segm. of circle 
 
 Lamande" 
 
 1806 
 
 Bristol 
 
 Avon 
 
 Bristol 
 
 100 
 
 15 Segm. of circle 
 
 Jessop 
 
 — — 
 
 169 
 
 
 
 
 
 Y 
 

 
 BRIDGING JOISTS. 
 
 We will now proceed to give a short account of the 
 celebrated suspension bridge over the Menai Strait, by 
 the late Mr. Telford, as being the giant of its species, and 
 rendering unnecessary any enumeration of others. It con- 
 sists of one opening of 560 feet between the points of sus- 
 pension, the height between high water and the under side 
 of the roadway being 100 feet. The platform is 30 feet in 
 breadth. The whole is suspended from four lines of strong 
 iron cables by perpendicular rods 5 feet apart. On the 
 tops of the pillars the cables pass over iron rollers, and are 
 fixed under ground to iron frames, which are retained in 
 their places by masonry. The weight of the whole bridge 
 between the points of suspension is 489 tons. In suspen- 
 sion bridges it has been found that the most trying circum- 
 stances under which they can be placed, as affecting the 
 stability of their equilibrium, is the heavy and measured 
 tread of a long line of infantry, whose feet drop at the same 
 instant of time. 
 
 In the building of bridges, where piers are required in 
 the stream for the support of the arches, it is important to 
 place them as nearly as possible at right angles to the 
 stream or current ; and the piers should be made convex 
 towards the stream, for their better resistance to floods. 
 The position of a bridge, moreover, should not be in a nar- 
 row part, nor one liable to swell with tides or floods, inas- 
 much as the contraction of the waterway increases the 
 depth and velocity of the current, and may thus endanger 
 the navigation as well as the bridge itself. It is usual to 
 construct bridges with an odd number of arches, and this 
 on several accounts ; among which are, that the stream 
 being usually most powerful in the middle, an egress 
 through that partis best provided for by having a central 
 arch ; and again, if the bridge be not perfectly horizontal, 
 symmetry is gained by rising from the sides to the centre, 
 and the whole roadway may be made one continued 
 curve. When a bridge is equally high throughout, much 
 saving of centering is made.becau.se the arches being all 
 equal two sets of centres will be sufficient. If, however, 
 the bridge be higher in the middle than at the extremities, 
 the arches on each side the centre one must diminish sim- 
 ilarly, so as to be respectively symmetrical ; and by this 
 arrangement beauty is gained, and the centering for one 
 side equally suits the other. It is desirable to construct a 
 bridge with as few arches as circumstances will allow, that 
 there may be a free passage for the water, as well as for 
 the vessels that have to pass up and down, not to mention 
 the saving of materials and labour where there are fewer 
 piers and centres. When a single arch can be compassed, 
 no more should be permitted. (For the mode of estimat- 
 ing the equilibrium of an arch, see the article Arch.) The 
 piers should be of sufficient solidity to resist the thrust or 
 push of the arch, independent of other arches, so that the 
 centering of an arch may be struck without danger of over- 
 turning the pier left naked ; and the piers should also be 
 spread as much as possible on their bases, and diminish 
 gradually upwards from their foundations. The method 
 of laying the foundations in a river is now usually by means 
 of coffer-dams, which are large enclosures, made by piling 
 round the space to be occupied by the pier, so as to render 
 it water-tight, and then pumping out the water, and keep- 
 ing the space dry till the pier is built up to the ordinary 
 level of the water: but if the ground about be loose, this 
 method cannot well be practised, and recourse is had to 
 caissons, which are a species of flat-bottomed boat, in 
 which the pier is built up to a certain height, and then 
 sunk over the place where it is intended to remain, the 
 bed of the river being dredged out to receive it, or piles 
 driven on which it may lodge when the sides of the chest 
 or caisson are knocked away. In constructing the centres 
 great care must be taken to make them incapable of bend- 
 ing or swerving while the arch is being turned, otherwise 
 the form of the arch will be crippled. 
 BRI'DGING JOISTS. See Joists. 
 BRIEF. (Lat. brevis, short.) A word applied originally 
 to a small written scroll ; but it is used at present in sever- 
 al significations. In modern German the word brief signi- 
 fies a letter. 
 
 1. In Ecclesiastical Law, letters addressed from the pope 
 to temporal princes or communities on subjects of disci- 
 pline or public affairs, are termed apostolical briefs. The 
 name appears to have originated either in the concise 
 formula with which they begin (" dilecto filio salutem et 
 apostolicam bonedictionem"), or in the difference that ex- 
 ists between this smaller kind of instrument and the ample 
 bullae (bulls) of the popes. Apostolical briefs are usually 
 written upon paper, though sometimes parchment is used. 
 They are sealed in red wax with the seal of the Fisherman 
 (sub annulo Piscatoris), which is a symbol of St. Peter 
 casting a net into the sea. (Ciampini, Dissertatio de 
 Abbrev. Munere, cap. iii.) 
 
 2. In Law, the term brief is applied to an abridged narra- 
 tion of' the facts of a case prepared for trial, with or without 
 a reference to points of law involved in it drawn up for the 
 preliminary instruction of an advocate. 
 
 170 
 
 BROKERAGE. 
 
 3. The term brief is applied in England to king's letters, 
 issued to the archbishops, bishops, clergy, magistrates, and 
 parochial officers, to authorize collections of money at the 
 doors of the several churches and chapels throughout the 
 country, in individual cases, wherein application has been 
 made for such assistance towards the building or repair of 
 a particular church. This custom is supposed to have 
 commenced after the disuse of papal briefs consequent on 
 the Reformation. Within the last few years this practice 
 has been dropped, and a king's letter is sent round at cer- 
 tain intervals to collect money for the use of the Incorpora- 
 ted Society for the Buildingof Churches generally through- 
 out the country. The last collections were made in 1329, 
 when something more than £40,000 was received ; an i in 
 1834, when the sum collected amounted to rather more 
 than £30,000. 
 
 BRIG. The general term for a vessel having two masts, 
 with a boom mainsail, being otherwise square-rigged : that 
 is, having her sails brought to yards hung horizontally by 
 the middle. 
 
 BRIGA'DE. This term either implies the union of two 
 or more regiments or battalions in one corps, or of a cer- 
 tain number of men or guns in one subdivision. A brigade 
 of infantry may consist ot from one to six battalions, and a 
 brigade of cavalry of two or three regiments. Six pieces 
 of ordnance form a brigade of artillery ; and the horse ar- 
 tillery consists of twelve troops, to each of which is at- 
 tached one such brigade of guns. A brigade of sappers 
 consists of eight men. The commander of a brigade is 
 called a brigadier-general. 
 
 BRl'GANTINE. A name often applied to a small brig 
 of a foreign nation. 
 
 BRIGHT. (Sax. beort.) In Painting, shining with light ; 
 a term applied to a picture in which the lights preponder- 
 ate over the shadows. 
 
 BRILLa'NTE. (Ital.) In Music, prefixed to a move- 
 ment, denotes that it is to be played in a gay and lively 
 manner. 
 BRl'MSTONE. See Sulphur. 
 
 BRI'STOL STONES, BRISTOL DIAMONDS. These 
 are small and brilliant crystals of quartz, found in the 
 vicinity of Bristol, and occasionally used for ornamental 
 purposes. 
 
 BRI'TISH GUM. When starch is exposed to a tempera- 
 ture of about GOO 3 it becomes of a brownish colour, and so 
 far altered in its chemical characters as no longer to form 
 a blue colour with iodine: it is also soluble in cold water. 
 In this state it is used, under the above name, by calico 
 printers. 
 
 BRO'ADCAST. Sowing seeds by casting them or scat- 
 tering them abroad, so as to distribute them evenly over the 
 entire surface of the soil, in opposition to sowing in drills 
 or rows. The operation of sowing broadcast is generally 
 performed by the hand, the operator carrying the seeds in 
 a bag or sowing sheet, or in a basket. There are also ma- 
 chines for sowing broadcast, but they are not much in use. 
 In general, all corns and grasses are sown broadcast ; 
 while pulse and broad-leaved plants, grown for their roots 
 or leaves, are sown in drills or rows. The term is some- 
 times applied to planting, but it is more generally restricted 
 to sowing. 
 
 BRO'ADSIDE. A nautical term, signifying the dis- 
 charge of the whole of the artillery on one side of a ship of 
 war. 
 
 BRO'KEN-BACKED. A ship is said to be broken- 
 backed when, in consequence of being loosened from age 
 or injurv. her frame droops at either end. 
 
 BRO'KEN WINDED. A ruptured state of the air cells, 
 chiefly on the edges of the lungs, in the horse, in conse- 
 quence of which the expiration occupies more time than 
 the inspiration of the air, and is laboriously and generally 
 spasmodically effected. It is a disease which may admit 
 of palliation, but not of cure ; the animal becomes grad- 
 ually less capable of exertion, and if urged on, he drops 
 and dies. 
 
 BRO'KER. In Mercantile Law, a person employed 
 about contracting for the disposal of property without be- 
 ing put in actual possession of it, as is the case with a fac- 
 tor. (See Factor.) But all agents answering to this defi- 
 nition are not brokers, nor has the term any very exact 
 legal signification. Particular classes of brokers are. bill 
 or exchange brokers, stock brokers, insurance brokers, 
 pawnbrokers, and brokers who sell or appraise household 
 furniture for rent. By 8 <k 9 W. 3. c. 20. brokers in the 
 city of London must be licensed by the mayorand alder- 
 men, and grant a bond with a penalty of £300 on their ad- 
 mission. According to mercantile usage, if goods within 
 the city of London are sold by a broker to be paid for by a 
 bill of exchange, the vendor, if not satisfied with the sol- 
 vency of the purchaser, has a right within a reasonable 
 time to annul the contract. 
 
 BRO'KERAGE. The per-centage paid the broker for 
 his trouble in effecting a sale, or in negotiating any particu- 
 lar business.
 
 BROMELIACE^. 
 
 BROME'LIA'CEvE. (Bromelia, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of Endogenous plants inhabiting the tropical 
 parts of the world, where they grow in the rich vegetable 
 soil of forests, or upon the branches of trees, to which 
 they cling by their twisting slender roots. They usually 
 have hard leaves covered with a scurfiness easily rubbed 
 off, and are so arranged as to be able to hold the water that 
 lodges in their centre. Many of them will grow for 
 months, and flower, when suspended in the air, after be- 
 iti lt severed from their roots. Their flowers are usually 
 white, crimson, blue, or purple, and often exceedingly 
 handsome. In the genus Ananassa the bracts and flowers 
 are so fleshy, that they all grow together into a solid mass, 
 and thus form the well-known fruit called the pine apple. 
 TiUandsia itsneoides is a curious species of this order, 
 hanging down in long grey threads from the branches of 
 trees in American forests, and so seldom flowering that it 
 might be taken for some species of lichen ; it is easily 
 dried, and then used for stuffing mattresses, &c. 
 
 BROMINE. (Gr. flpujios, a strong odour.) An unde- 
 enmpounded substance discovered in 1826 by M. Balard of 
 Montpelier. In its general chemical habitudes it much re- 
 sembles chlorine and iodine, and is generally associated 
 with them. It exists, but in very minute quantities, in sea- 
 water, and in the ashes of marine plants. It is usually ex- 
 tracted from bittern by the agency of chlorine. At com- 
 mon temperatures it Is a very dark reddish liquid, of a 
 powerful and suffocating odour, and emitting red vapour. 
 Its specific gravity is about 3. It boils at 116°, and con- 
 geals at 4°. The density of its vapour is 55; 100 cubic 
 inches at mean temperature and pressure weighing 167-25 
 grains. It is an electronegative; it has bleaching powers, 
 and it is very poisonous. Its equivalent number is about 
 73 ; i: combines with hydrogen to form hydrobromic acid 
 gas. 100 cubic inches of which weigh 81 7 grains. With 
 oxygen it forms the bromic acid. Its combinations are 
 termed bromides; they have not hitherto been applied to 
 any use, but some of them are probably possessed of pow- 
 erful medic il qualities, 
 
 BRO'NCHIA. (Ft. Ppoyxos, the throat.) The smaller 
 ramifications ofthe windpipe. 
 
 BR( >v:n lis lull unm ition ofthe bronchia. 
 
 BRONCHOCE'LE. (Gr. ffpoyx^i, thethroat, and Kri\n, 
 a tumour.) A tumour -on the fore part ofthe neck, being 
 a morbid enlargement ofthe thyroid L'land. From its pre- 
 valence in Derbyshire it is sometimes called the Derby- 
 shire neck, and it is a very common disease among the in- 
 habitants of mountainous districts, especially of the Alps. 
 It has been attributed to some peculiarity of the water of 
 tbose districts, but upon no satisfactory evidence. Iodine 
 has lately been administered successfully in the cure of 
 this and other glandular enlargements, but it is a medicine 
 requiring to hi' used with csutiMi. 
 
 BRONCIIO'TOMY. (Gr. Ppoyx»i, and wpa, / cut.) 
 The operation of making an opening into the trachea In or- 
 der to prevent suffocation. 
 
 BRONZE. (It. bronzo.) In Sculpture, a material used 
 for casting statues, groups, &C., in a mould similar in prin- 
 ciple to that wherefrom all plaister casts are produced. 
 From the extraordinary dimensions which involve the 
 chief differences between the operations of casting in br.iss 
 and plaister, much intelligence and care on the part ofthe 
 sculptor is necessary to produce the fac-simile ofthe work 
 on which his labour has been expended. The material 
 employed for the purpose is a compound chiefly consist- 
 ing of copper, tin. and other metals. The process of pro- 
 curing the cast depends on circumstances requiring much 
 nice arrangement ; but the reader will immediately con- 
 ceive that though the difficulty of making such a mixture 
 insinuate itself into every part of the often colossal mould 
 is great, it is no more in reality than many of the large 
 cast-iron foundings which are every day effected; though, 
 from the nature ofthe human and other animal forms, it is 
 difficult to conduct such an operation with any thing like 
 a degree of certain attainment of the object without extra- 
 ordinary means. 
 
 BRO'NZITE. A variety of diallage of a metallic or 
 bronz? colour. 
 
 BROOM. The Spartium seoparium or Cytisus scoparius 
 of botanists, is an evergreen, green-branched shrub, native 
 of sandy soils throughout Europe. It is sown extensively 
 in this country as a shelter for game, and among the other 
 plants in young plantations as a screen from the wind and 
 a protection till the more important species can establish 
 themselves. Its branches, which are tough, are made up 
 into brooms, to which they have given their name. 
 
 BROWN. (Sax. brun.) In Painting, a dark dusky co- 
 lour inclining towards red, of various degrees of depth, of 
 which there are manv sorts. 
 
 BROWN COAL. 'An imperfect kind of coal, which 
 burns with a peculiar bituminous odour resembling that of 
 peat. Its ligneous structure is sometimes so distinct that 
 it has been called bituminous wood. 
 
 BROW'NISTS. The followers of Robert Brown, who 
 171 
 
 BUCCINUM. 
 
 In the year 15-91 seceded from the English church, and es- 
 tablished a sect upon the principle that every congregation 
 should forma church independent (in matters of discipline 
 and doctrine) of all others. In matters of doctrine he did 
 not differ from the church; to which indeed he returned, 
 and took preferment after some years. The Brownists 
 underwent great persecution under Elizabeth, and retired 
 in considerable numbers to Holland. From them, how- 
 ever, have sprung the Congrega'ional Brethren and Inde- 
 pendents, a very powerful sect in England at the present 
 day. See Independents. 
 
 BROWN SPAR. A magnesian carbonate of lime tinged 
 by oxide of iron and manganese. 
 
 BRU'CHUS. A Linnsean genus of Coleopterous insects, 
 of the tribe RJiyncophora, now the type ol a family (Bru- 
 chidce), with the following characters : — upper lip distinct ; 
 head produced anteriorly into a broad flattened snout; 
 palpi filiform ; antenna? filiform or serrate ; eyes notched ; 
 wing-sheaths not covering the extremity ofthe body. The 
 insects of this family deposit their eggs in the young grains 
 or seeds of leguminous plants ; the time of the hatching of 
 the eggs is when the seeds have approached to maturity, 
 and then the larv® begin to feed voraciously upon them. 
 One species, the Bruchus granarius, infests our peas; and 
 the ravages of this insect, and the Bruchus ]>isi, have been 
 so extensive as to call for legislative interference ; in 
 France, for example in the year ITS'), the sale of peas in 
 the market was prohibited, in consequence ofthe damaged 
 and unwholesome condition of those vegetables through 
 the operations of the species of the Bruchida, above cited. 
 
 BRU'CIA. A vegeto-alkaloid, discovered by Pelletier 
 and Caventou in the bark of the Brucea ontidysenlerica; 
 and also associated in small relative proportion with 
 strychnia in the nux vomica and St. Ignatius's bean. It is 
 very bitter and poisonous. 
 
 BRU'NSWICK GREEN. A pigment obtained by ex- 
 posing metallic copper to the action of muriate of am- 
 monia. It is a compound of chloride and oxide of copper. 
 It is also generated by the action of sea water upon copper, 
 as in the green matter which incrusts the copper sheath- 
 iiu of ships. 
 
 BRUSH. (Fr. brousse.) In Painting. See Pencil. 
 
 BRU'TA. The term by which Linnaeus designated an 
 order of Mammals, including the elephant, manatee, ami 
 walrus, with the quadrupeds now forming the order Eden- 
 tata of Cuvier. 
 
 BKYO'NIA. A bitter and somewhat poisonous princi- 
 icted from the root ofthe Bryoniaalba. 
 
 BR'YONY. ((Jr. /ioi",j, I grow rapidly.) A wild climb- 
 ing plant belonging to the Cucurbitaceous order, with a 
 large woody perennial root, and annual stems, which re- 
 semble those »f a gourd, except that they are more slen- 
 der, clinging to bushes by means of their twisting tendrils. 
 The berries are scarlet, with a disagreeable odour when 
 bruised. The leaves have five angular lobes, and are three 
 or four inches broad, with many callous tubercles. The 
 roots are violently purgative : they are now disused. It 
 has been known to produce violent vomiting, tormina, 
 profuse watery evacuations, and fainting. Cases are men- 
 tioned by Orfila and others where over-doses have proved 
 fatal. Bryonine, an active extractive principle, is among 
 the most dangerous of vegetable poisons. 
 
 BU'BO. (Gr. fiov6<i>v, the groin.) A tumour very fre- 
 quently occurring in the glands of the groin, and also in the 
 arm pit. It is often the result of local absorption of irritat- 
 ing matter, as in venereal buboes; or is symptomatic of 
 constitutional disease, as in the plague, scrofula, and some 
 fevers. 
 
 BUBONO'CELE. (Gr. (3ov6wv, the groin, and Kn\n, tu- 
 mour.) A rupture forming a tumour in the groin. 
 
 BU'CC ANEE'RS. (Fr. boucanier, from boucan, a word 
 ofthe Caraib Indians, signifying meat preserved in a par- 
 ticular manner, which was adopted, together with the cus- 
 tom, by the French in the West Indies.) The pirates who 
 infested the coasts of the West Indies and South America 
 during the 17th and 16th centuries were so called. The 
 association of these pirates is said to have commenced as 
 early as the middle of the 16th : but in 1625 they obtained 
 possession of St. Kitt's. and afterwards of Tobago, which 
 thenceforward became for a long time the head-quarters 
 ofthe buccaneers, who formed a sort of seafaring republic, 
 composed chiefly of English and French adventurers. 
 Their chief object was war against the Spaniards, and 
 plunder of their ships and settlements. After the peace 
 of Ryswick, in 1697, they gradually disappeared from the 
 seas. The History of tlie Buccaneers of America, by 
 James Burney, is a well known and entertaining work. 
 By French writers these pirates are commonly called 
 FHibustiers , apparently a corruption of the English word 
 freebooters. 
 
 BUCCINA'TOR. (Lat. buccina, a trumpet.) A mus- 
 cle of the cheek called into action in various motions of 
 the mouth, and especially in blowing a wind instrument. 
 
 BU'CCLNUM. (Buccinum, a trumpet or sheltftsh.) The
 
 BUCCO. 
 
 name of a Linntean genus of Vermes Testacea, character- 
 ised by having a shell with a smooth non-plicated columella, 
 and with a fissure or short respiratory canal inflected to- 
 wards the left. The mollusca with shells corresponding 
 to this character are ranked amongst the Pectinibranchiate 
 Gastropods by Cuvier, and have been subdivided into the 
 following subgenera: — Buccinum proper, Brug., of which 
 the whelk, Buc. undatum, is an example ; Nassa. Lam. ; 
 Eburna, Lam. ; Ancillaria, Lam. ; Dolium, Lam. ; Perdix, 
 Mart. ; Harpa, Lam. ; Purpura, Brug. ; Monoceros, Lam. ; 
 Ricinula, Lam. ; Concholepas, Lam. ; Cassis, Brug. ; Morio, 
 Montf. ; Terebra, Brug. 
 
 BU'CCO. (Lat. bucca, cheek.) The name of a genus 
 of Lygodactyle birds, called barbets. The scientific term 
 relates to the tumefaction of the sides of the base of the 
 bill ; the trivial English name is derived from the bristly 
 feathers which surround the base of the bill, and project 
 beneath the chin like a beard. The genus is now the 
 type of a family, including the barbets proper (Bucco), the 
 Brazilian barbets or tamatias (Tamatid), and the barbicans 
 of Buffon, which are limited to the warmer parts of India 
 and Africa. 
 
 BUCENTAUTl. (Gr. /3ov;, an ox; Ktvravpog, a cen- 
 taur.) A mythological monster, half man and half ox, as 
 the Greek etymology of the word imports. This was also 
 the name of the state galley of the Venetian doges, in 
 which they annually sailed over a portion of the Adriatic 
 on Ascension Day, and, dropping a ring into the sea, es- 
 poused it in the name of the republic, with the words, 
 " Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri perpetuique do- 
 minii." 
 
 BU'CEROS. (Gr. 0ovs, an ox, and ncpas, a horn.) A 
 genus of Syndactylous Insessorial birds, remarkable for 
 the prodigious size of the mandibles, the superior of which 
 in some species supports a large horn-like protuberance. 
 The birds of this genus are commonly called horn-bills ; 
 they are peculiar to the old world, and perform the same 
 offices in wild nature as the toucans of America. 
 
 BU'CKA. A strong-smelling leaf imported from the 
 Cape of Good Hope, and used medicinally as an anti- 
 spasmodic. It is produced by Diosma crenata and some 
 allied species. 
 
 BU'CKWHEAT. (A corruption of beechwheat.) A 
 kind of grain, produced by the Polygonum fagopyrum of 
 botanists. It has a triangular form, and is not unlike beech- 
 mast. In some countries it is cultivated as food for man, 
 and even in this country its flour is said to enter into the 
 composition of the thin cakes called crumpets; but its 
 chief value is as food for pheasants, which are so fond of 
 it that they may be decoyed from their preserves by its 
 employment. It is said that some estates have been 
 rapidly stocked with this description of game, at the ex- 
 pense of the neighbouring coverts, by the aid of a few fields 
 of buckwheat. 
 
 BUCO'LICS. The Greek term for pastoral poems, 
 meaning literally the songs of herdsmen (06vko\oi). We 
 have considerable remains of this species of poetry in the 
 poems of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus, and the Eclogues 
 of Virgil. The metre universally employed is the hex- 
 ameter or heroic ; but in pastoral poetry an easier flow of 
 the lines was studied than in epics, and this was generally 
 accomplished by introducing a larger proportion of the 
 metrical feet called dactyls in the former than in the latter; 
 but no rules were laid down on this point. This species 
 of poetry has been cultivated also by most modern nations, 
 and in England, France, and especially in Germany, with 
 great success. Indeed, the last-mentioned country can 
 boast among others of a Gessner, whose Idyls have been 
 pronounced by some modern critics to be models of pas- 
 toral poetry, combining the most finished harmony of 
 numbers with a simplicity and tenderness of sentiment and 
 expression worthy of Theocritus himself. 
 
 BU'DDHISM. A religion which prevails over a great 
 part of Asia; and, according to the estimates of some 
 geographers, has a much greater number of worshippers 
 than any other form of faith among mankind. China, the 
 peninsula beyond the Ganges, Japan, and various Indian 
 islands, are chiefly peopled by Buddhists. The founder 
 of this relision, according to tradition, was an Indian prince, 
 to whom the title of Buddha, or "The Sage," is assigned 
 by his worshippers. The period to which his life is assign- 
 ed is variously estimated, according to a variety of oriental 
 traditions ; but several of them coincide in referring it 
 nearly to the tenth or eleventh century before Christ. 
 Buddhism was expelled from India by the persecutions 
 of the Brahmans, between the fifth and seventh centuries 
 of our era. The doctrines of the Buddhists seem mainly 
 to rest on the principle, that the world, and sensible objects 
 contained in it, are manifestations of the Deity, but of a 
 transient and delusive character; that the human soul is 
 an emanationjrom Deity ; that after death it will again be 
 bound to mafter, and subjected to the miseries and acci- 
 dents of this life, unless the individual to whom it belongs 
 by the attainment of wisdom through prayer and contem- 
 172 
 
 BULE. 
 
 plation succeeds in liberating it from that necessity, and 
 secures its absorption into that divine essence from which 
 it sprang. 
 
 BU'DGET, in a general sense, means a condensed state- 
 ment of the income and expenditure of a nation, or of any 
 particular public department. In England, however, the 
 term is usually employed to designate the speech made by 
 the chancellor of the exchequer when he gives a general 
 view of the public revenue and expenditure, and intimates 
 whether government intend to propose the imposition or 
 repeal of any taxes, &c. 
 
 BU'FFALO. (Lat. bubalis.) A term originally applied to a 
 species of antelope ; but afterwards transferred, in the age of 
 Martial, to different species of the ox. In modern zoology 
 the Buffaloes, or the " Bubaline group" of the genus Bos, 
 include those species which have the bony core of the horn 
 excavated, with large cells or sinuses communicating with 
 the cavity of the nose ; the horns are flattened, and bend 
 laterally with a backward direction, and are consequently 
 less applicable for goring than in the Bisons, or Taurine 
 group of oxen : the head is large, with a narrow but con- 
 vex forehead, and terminates in a broad muzzle. The 
 Buffaloes are of large size, but low in proportion to their 
 bulk ; they have no hunch on the back, and only a small 
 dewlap on the breast : the hide is generally black ; the tail 
 long and slender. The Buffaloes occupy the warm and 
 tropical regions of the earth ; they avoid hills, and prefer 
 the coarse vegetation of the forest and swampy regions to 
 those of open plains ; they love to wallow and lie for hours 
 sunk deep in water ; they swim well, and cross the broad- 
 est rivers without hesitation ; their gait is heavy, and they 
 run almost always with the nose horizontal, being princi- 
 pally guided by the sense of smelling. In their combats, 
 they usually strike or butt with the forehead, and when 
 their opponent is thrown they endeavor to crush him with 
 their knees; they trample on the body; and their vindic- 
 tive fury is so lasting, that they will return again and again 
 to glut their vengeance upon the same inanimate corpse : 
 they herd together in small flocks, or live in pairs, but are 
 never strictly gregarious in a wild state. The females bear 
 calves two years following, but remain sterile the third; 
 they propagate at four and a half years old, and discontinue 
 after twelve. Their extreme aversion to red colours has 
 been remarked both in India and at the Cape. The Arnee 
 Buffalo (Bos Ami) is the species in which the horns attain 
 the greatest size : there is a pair of horns in the British 
 Museum considered by Col. Smith (from whose excellent 
 description of theRuminautia in the translation of the Ani- 
 mal Kingdom of Cuvier the preceding observations are 
 chiefly derived) to be of the true or Great Arnee : each of 
 these horns measures along the curve from base to tip, six 
 feet three inches; circumference at the base, eighteen 
 inches. 
 
 BUG. See Cimex. 
 
 BU'GLE HORN. (From bucula, a heifer.) A musical 
 wind brass instrument, latterly improved by keys, so as to 
 be capable of all the inflexions of the scale. 
 
 BUHL. Ornamental furniture, in which tortoise-shell 
 and various woods are inlaid with brass. The name is de- 
 rived from its inventor. 
 
 BULB. (Gr. fiovSo;.) A collection of fleshy scales, ar- 
 ranged like those of a bud, of which the bulb is a slight 
 modification, separating spontaneously from the stem to 
 which it belongs, and emitting roots from its base. It is 
 usually found underground, as in the hyacinth ; but some- 
 times upon the surface of the stem in the axils of the 
 leaves, as in thebulbiferous lily. The old botanists used to 
 distinguish two sorts of bulbs, the tunicated and the solid : 
 the former is the only one to which the name is now ap- 
 plied ; the latter is the cormus, as in crocus. 
 
 BULBO'DIUM. A kind of underground stem, resem- 
 bling a rhizoma. 
 
 BU'LBOGE'MMA. A name forthose bulbs which grow 
 on the stems of plants, as in the tiger lily and other species 
 of that genus. 
 
 BU'LBOTU'BER. That kind of stem which the old 
 botanists called a solid bulb, and the moderns more gene- 
 rally a cormus. It is a round solid underground stem, 
 clothed with the withered remains of leaves, and producing 
 buds on its surface, as in crocus. 
 
 BU'LE. (Gr. 0ov\ti, a council.) By this name the 
 Athenian senate was designated, the constitution of which 
 was as follows : — When the people were divided into four 
 tribes, each of these, according to the regulation of Solon, 
 elected 100 representatives, thus making in all a delibera- 
 tive body of 400 members. But when Cleisthenes increas- 
 ed the number of tribes to ten, the complement of the 
 senate was raised to 500, fifty of which were sent by each 
 tribe ; when the tribes were finally increased to twelve, 100 
 more senators were added. All free-born Athenian citi- 
 zens above thirty years of age were eligible to this office, 
 but they were obliged to undergo a strict examination of 
 their characters and morals. The senate was originally in- 
 stituted by Solon to be a cheGk on the assembly of the
 
 BULIMIA. 
 
 whole people (ucxXfcria), before which, according to the 
 Athenian constitution, no measures were allowed to be 
 brought before they had first met with its approbation. 
 See Prytanes. 
 
 BULl'MIA. (Or. ffovj a syllable denoting greatness in 
 compound words, and \ijiot, hunger.) A morbid appe- 
 tite lor food. 
 
 BULKHEAD. The sea term forany partition, as of wood, 
 canvass, or other material. 
 
 BULL, PAPAL. (Lat. bulla.) An instrument, ordinance, 
 or decree of the pope, equivalent to the proclamations, 
 edicts, letters patent, or ukases of secular princes. Bulls 
 are written on parchment, to which a leaden seal is affixed, 
 and are granted for the consecration of bishops, the pro- 
 motion to benefices, and the celebration of jubilees, &c. 
 The publication of papal bulls is termed fulmination ; and it 
 is done by one of three commissioners, to whom they are 
 usually addressed. The bull is thus described by Matthew 
 Paris : — Anno Dom. 1257. In bulla domini Papee stat imago 
 Pauli a dextris crucis in medio bullae figurata, et Petri a 
 sinistris. 
 
 Bull, Golden. In German History, a term applied par- 
 ticularly to a statute or enactment of the emperor Charles 
 IV., published a. d. 1356, in two diets held in succession at 
 Nurimberg and Metz, for the purpose of fixing the laws 
 in the election of the emperor, and of regulating the num- 
 ber and privileges of the electors. (Churfursten.) The 
 original copy of this instrument (which was long regarded 
 as the Magna Charta of the German Empire, and continued 
 in operation till its dissolution in lsoti) is preserved at 
 Frankfort on the Maine, and has a seal of gold appendant ; 
 whence the appellation Golden Bull is derived. 
 
 BU'LLA. (Lat.) A stud or boss, but more particularly 
 an ornament in the shape of a heart, worn round the neck 
 by noble Roman children till they were seventeen years 
 old ; when they assumed the manly dress of the toga, and 
 suspended the bulla as a consecrated offering to the lares 
 or household gods. 
 
 Bu'lla. (Lat. bulla, a bubble.) A genus of Acerous 
 Gastropodous Mollusks, the shell of which is more or less 
 globose, or inflated like a bubble ; having no visible or pro- 
 jecting spire, which is concealed by the large external 
 whorl, which is elevated above the rest. The columella 
 makes a convex prominence, which gives a crescentic form 
 to the aperture of the shell ; the animal breathes by gills, 
 but has no respiratory tube or siphon, and consequently the 
 margin of the aperture of the shell is entire, or without a 
 fissure or canal. All the species of bulla are remarkable 
 for a shelly apparatus of three pieces, which converts the 
 stomach into a gizzard or triturating cavity. These gastric 
 calcareous pieces have been described as a bivalve shell of 
 a Dew L"rnis. 
 
 BU'LLETIN. (Mod. Lat. bulleta.) In Diplomatics, a term 
 equivalent to schedule, and variously applied to different 
 sorts of public acts. In modern times, this name has been 
 applied, especially in France, to reports of a state of facts 
 issued by authority ; as bulletins of health, bulletins of 
 military events, Arc. 
 
 Bd'LLION. Uncoined gold and silver. 
 
 BULL'S EYE. In Architecture, a small circular open- 
 ing or window. 
 
 BULL'S NOSE. In Architecture, the external angle of 
 a polygon, or of two lines which meet at an obtuse angle. 
 
 BU'MBOAT. A boat allowed to altend a ship regularly 
 to supply the sailors with articles of provisions, clothing, 
 &c. 
 
 BUOYS. Vessels formed of wood, cork, or some light 
 substance, moored or anchored so as to float over a certain 
 spot, in order to indicate the situation of a shoal or sand 
 bank, and mark out the course a ship is to follow. When 
 used for this purpose, buoys are usually close vessels in 
 the form of a cone, of large dimensions, in order that they 
 may be seen from a distance ; and generally painted of 
 some particular colour, in order that they may be more 
 readily distinguished from one another. Public buoys in 
 England are placed by warrant of Queen Elizabeth un- 
 der the management of the Corporation of the Trinity 
 House, and the amount of revenue annually collected for 
 their use is between JEU.ODO and £12,000. Private buoys 
 are used for the purpose of indicating the situation of ships' 
 anchors (to which they are fastened by a rope), in order 
 that the ship may be prevented from running foul of the 
 anchor, and that the anchor and cable may be recovered 
 when the latter happens to be broken, or has been cut. 
 
 BU'PHAGA. (Gr. /?ovc, ox; <j>ayo>, I eat.) A genus of 
 Conirostral Passerine birds, of which the African beef- 
 eater (Buphaga Africana) is the sole example. It derives 
 its name from its habit of sedulously extracting from the 
 backs of cattle the larva; of aestri and other Dipterous insects 
 which are deposited therein. The French name of this 
 bird, "pique-boeuf," or " cattle picker," more correctly de- 
 notes the peculiar habits of the bird than the scientific 
 generic term. 
 
 BL'PRE'STIS. (Lat. buprestia, a noxious insect.) The 
 173 
 
 BURGHERS. 
 
 name of a Linnaean genus of Coleopterous Serricorn in- 
 sects, now the type of a family (Buprestida), including the 
 most splendid and brilliant beetles. Of this family up- 
 wards of a thousand species are known : by the French 
 they are termed "Nichards." 
 
 BU'RDEN. (Fr. bourdon, a staff.) In Music, the drone 
 or bass in some musical instruments, and the pipe or 
 string that plays it. The bass pipe in the bagpipe is so 
 called. Hence, that part of a song that is repeated at the 
 end of every stanza is called the burden of it. 
 
 BUREAU'. (Fr.) Originally a writing table ; afterwards 
 applied to the office of any public or private functionary 
 where business is transacted. 
 
 BUREAU'CRATIE, or BUREAUCRACY, is the system 
 by which the business of administration is carried on in 
 departments, each under the control of a chief, in contra- 
 distinction to those systems in which the officers of govern- 
 ment have a co-ordinate authority. 
 
 BURE'TTE. An instrument occasionally used in the 
 chemical laboratory, and in the assay office, for the pur- 
 pose of dividing a given portion of any liquid into 100 or 
 1000 equal parts. (Gay Lussac, Instruction 3ur VEssai des 
 Chlvrures de Chaux.) 
 
 BU'RGAGE TENURE. In Law, an ancient tenure pro- 
 per to boroughs ; under which tenements are held of the 
 king, or other person, at a rent certain. In several 
 boroughs such holdings conferred the electoral franchise 
 previous to the Reform act 
 
 BU'RG GRAVE. (Germ, burg, castle; graf, count.) In 
 the German Empire, a castellan or lord of a castle, having 
 the riaht of private justice, imposing taxes, &c. 
 
 BU'RGHERS and ANTIIU'RGHERS. In Ecclesiastical 
 History. Owing to an undue exercise of patronage, which 
 took place under the authority of the church of Scotland, 
 or to the induction of a clergyman into a parish (Kinross) 
 auainst the declared sentiments of the congregation, a 
 schism took place in the church, which occasioned a se- 
 cession from that establishment, and ultimately led to 
 what is called the Burgher and Antiburgher denomina- 
 tions. Several clergymen, after years of painful discus- 
 sion, having protested against the violent procedure in 
 question, and having thrown off subordination to the ec- 
 clesiastical authorities, were deposed (1740) from the office 
 of the ministry and their parishes declared vacant. (Gil- 
 Ion's Acts of Assembly, sect. Patronage.) These clergy- 
 men, eight in number, though cut off from all connection 
 with the church, enjoyed the unabated confidence of their 
 respective congregations, who almost to a man adhered to 
 them. Previously to their final separation from the estab- 
 lishment, namely, in 1733, four of that number had virtu- 
 ally proclaimed their independence, and had constituted 
 themselves into an ecclesiastical court, called the Associ- 
 ate Synod. To ihe deposed ministers and their adherents 
 the name of Seceders was applied ; and hence the origin 
 of the Secession Church in Scotland. And so rapidly did 
 this body increase, that so early as 1745, they formed them- 
 selves into a synod, which consisted of three different pres- 
 byteries. But while their numbers were thus augmented, 
 and while the sphere of their influence was rapidly extend- 
 ing, a breach took place among themselves which wm 
 characterised by as much agitation and violence as that 
 which had recently caused their ejection from the estab- 
 lished church. The Secession Synod having instituted an 
 inquiry into the lawfulness of certain oaths, not imposed 
 by parliament, but generally practised, a question arose as 
 to the nature of the oath imposed in royal burghs on per- 
 sons when admitted to the privileges of a burgess. The 
 great point of debate was, whether it was lawful for a Se- 
 ceder to swear the following clause : — '' 1 profess and allow 
 with my heart the true religion presently professed within 
 this realm, and authorized by the laws thereof. I shall a- 
 bide thereat, and defend the same to my life's end, re. 
 nouncing the Roman religion called Papistry." The Synod 
 was divided into two parties on this subject. The one con- 
 tended, that though they had condemned the manner in 
 which the established church was at present administered, 
 they had not expressed and did not feel any objection to her 
 standards ; that, in seceding, they had not set up a new 
 religion, but that, on the contrary, they had merely en- 
 deavoured to maintain in their original strictness and purity 
 her constitutional principles both theological and ecclesi- 
 astical. The other party took a totally different view of 
 the question, and insisted that the oath, being administered 
 by members of the established church, must necessarily 
 be taken in the sense in which it was understood by them ; 
 namely, as including all the corruptions and inconsisten- 
 cies that attached to that establishment, and as consequent- 
 ly incompatible with Seceding principles and the solemn 
 testimony they had raised against her errors and back- 
 sliding. This dispute, which commenced at the meeting 
 of the Synod in 1745, continued to be maintained with in- 
 creasing acrimony for two years, or till 1747. The party 
 that were in favour of the oath were called Burghers , the 
 party that opposed it were termed Antiburghers. la vaia
 
 BURGHERS. 
 
 did the Burghers offer to agree to a declaration discharging 
 Seceders from swearing the oath as inexpedient under ex- 
 isting circumstances. The Antiburghers preremptorily re- 
 fused any compromise, and insisted on an act being passed 
 by (he Synod declaring it sinful for a Seceder to adopt the 
 oath. Nay, to such an extent was the controversy carried, 
 and so violent were the opinions entertained on the side of 
 the Antiburghers, that the ministers of this party had mean- 
 while made the oath a test of church communion, and had 
 debarred from the Lord's Table such as maintained its 
 lawfulness. At the spring meeting of the Synod in 1746, 
 the party just named succeeded in carrying a vote to the 
 effect that the oath was subversive of Secession principles. 
 The Burghers protested against this decision. But at a 
 meeting of the Synod in the subsequent year, the Anti- 
 burghers, being in a minority in a division on the same sub- 
 ject, withdrew in a body ; Mr. Mair, one of their number, 
 having previously protested that " hereby the Burghers 
 had forfeited all their sy nodical powers, and that the whole 
 power of the Synod devolved on himself and his party 
 and such as clave to them." Next day, the Antiburghers 
 held a synod composed exclusively of their own adherents, 
 twenty-two in number, including ministers and elders, con- 
 stituted themselves into a distinct and separate sect of 
 Christians, and refused all connection or conference with 
 the opposite party, except on the condition that the latter 
 should appear as penitents at their bar. Nay, they libelled 
 and cited them to this effect ; but as the one party did not 
 recognize themselves as responsible to the other, nothing 
 resulted from the step ; and the two bodies, followed by 
 their respective congregations, constituted themselves into 
 separate and independent churches. (Brown's Hist. Ace. 
 of the Rise and Progress of the Secession.) 
 
 But, while the Secession was thus divided into two con- 
 flicling parlies, the Burghers and Antiburghers, they both 
 continued their separation from, and condemnation of, the 
 established church. They adopted, it is true, her stand- 
 ards, namely, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the 
 Catechism, Larger and Shorter, the Directory for Public 
 Worship, and form of Presbyterian government; but they 
 abrogated patronage unconditionally, and vested the choice 
 of a minister exclusively in the members of each separate 
 congregation. Indeed, the chief practical difference that 
 obtained between the church of Scotland and the Seceding 
 bodies consisted in the one cleaving to patronage, and in the 
 other having abolished that system, and introduced popular 
 election in its stead. Besides, though the church has al- 
 ways been governed by kirk sessions, presbyteries, synods, 
 and a general assembly, the Burghers and Antiburghers, 
 owing to the comparative paucity of their numbers, never 
 adopted a general assembly. With them the synod was 
 the supreme court, whose authority was final in all religi- 
 ous and ecclesiastical matters. The Seceders also were 
 stricter Calvinists, and adopted more rigid discipline as to 
 admission to church-membership, and to sealing ordinan- 
 ces (baptism and the Lord's Supper), than the church party 
 had perhaps ever done. (lb.) 
 
 Both the Burghers and Antiburghers continued each as 
 rapidly to increase after their separation as the Secession 
 had done when it formed one body ; and the animosity 
 which had characterised their disjunction gradually sub- 
 sided. Indeed, by the time that the generation which wit- 
 nessed this unhappy schism had passed away, all traces of 
 hostility or opposition had disappeared. The burgess oath, 
 too, which had been the cause of their disunion, fell into 
 desuetude or had ceased to be imposed. The views of the 
 two parties being otherwise identical, and both coinciding 
 in their opposition to the established church, it is not to be 
 wondered at that a wish became general among the mem- 
 bers of both parties for a re-union. Overtures to that ef- 
 fect were accordingly made by their respective synods; 
 and after having had many conferences and much discus- 
 sion on the subject, this happy result was, without any com- 
 promise on either side, effected in 1820 ; and the two 
 bodies, now united, assumed the denomination of the 
 United Associate Synod of the Secession Church. At that 
 time, the Burgher persuasion comprehended 10 presby- 
 teries, embracing 120 congregations ; and the Antiburghers 
 11 presbyteries, consisting of 141 congregations. Since 
 their union, their conjoint influence and extension have 
 been considerably on the increase ; so that at this date 
 (1841) the Associate Synod comprises no fewer than 360 
 congregations, with an equal number of ministers. They 
 have not hitherto introduced a general assembly ; nor do 
 we hear that they intend to do so. But as they form a nu- 
 merous, so they are a most respectable body of Christians ; 
 and their clergy are eminent not more for professional as- 
 siduity than for learning and talents. They are hostile to 
 the establishment of a national church, and are in favour 
 of what is now denominated voluntaryism. They nomi- 
 nate professors of divinity within their own body for the 
 instruction of young men intended for the ministry ; but 
 these young men pursue their philosophical and literary 
 studies at any of the Scottish Universities. Their curri- 
 174 
 
 BURNING GLASSES. 
 
 culum of study, like that of the established church, ex- 
 tends to eight years. (M'Cutloch's Stat. Ace. of the British 
 Umpire, vol. ii. pp. 425 — 7.) 
 
 BURGH MOTE. (Borough meeting.) A Saxon term 
 for the borough court. Bergh mole is the title of a court 
 of miners, held in Derbyshire. 
 
 BU'RGLARY. (Lat. burgi latrocinium, robbery commit- 
 ted in a burg or fenced place.) In Law, is the breaking and 
 entering the dwelling-house of another in the night time, 
 with intent to commit a felony. If the goods were actually 
 stolen, it is usual to add a count for larceny in an indict- 
 ment for burglary. This offence is punishable by trans- 
 portation or imprisonment. 
 
 BU'RGOMASTER. (Ger. burgermeister, chief of the 
 citizens.) The usual title of the chief municipal officer in 
 German and Dutch towns. In the German free cities, the 
 president of the executive council is styled burgermeister; 
 but in many towns of importance, the title stadt-director 
 (town-governor) has been recently substituted in its stead. 
 
 BURLE'SQUE. (Ital. burlare, to jest.) The Italian poesia 
 burlesca signifies merely comic or sportive poetry ; but 
 the term, in French and English, is more commonly re- 
 stricted to compositions of which the humour consists in a 
 ludicrous mixture of things high and low : as high thoughts 
 clothed in low expressions; or, vice versa, ordinary or 
 base topics invested in the artificial dignity of poetic dic- 
 tion. The humour of parody or travestie (see Parody) 
 arises from the burlesque. Burletta, a slight comic musical 
 drama, is derived from the same origin. 
 
 BU'RNET. A British plant, whose leaves have been 
 used as a food for sheep. It grows on poor calcareous 
 soils, where few other plants will succeed ; and in this its 
 principal value consists, together with its being perennial 
 and remaining green all the winter. It is the Poterium 
 sanguisorba of botanists. 
 
 BURNING GLASSES and BURNING MIRRORS. The 
 name given to glasses or mirrors so formed as to collect 
 the sun's rays which fall on them into a point or small sur- 
 face, and thereby produce an intense heat, and set fire to 
 combustible substances. The point at which the rays 
 meet, and where the greatest heat is produced, is called 
 the focus or burning point. The rays of light or heat may 
 be concentrated either by refraction or reflection : in the 
 former case they must pass through a transparent refract- 
 ing substance, as glass formed into a proper shape ; in the 
 latter they fall on a concave polished surface of silvered 
 glass or bright metal. Reflectors made of glass are usually 
 termed mirrors, those of metal specula. 
 
 In preparing a burning glass, the first thing to be con- 
 sidered is the figure necessary to collect all the rays into 
 the smallest possible space. Descartes, in his Optics, 
 showed that a disk of glass, convex on the one side and 
 concave on the other, the convex side being a portion of 
 an elliptic surface, and the concave a portion of a sphere, 
 would cause parallel rays falling on its convex side to con- 
 verge in a single point; but the practical difficulties of 
 forming a glass accurately into this shape are insuperable ■ 
 both sides are therefore ground into portions of a sphere 
 In a refracting mirror the focal length depends on the cur- 
 vature, or the radius of the sphere, and the refractive 
 power of the substance of which the lens is formed ; the 
 focal length in a double convex lens of glass is exactly 
 equal to the radius of curvature. The true form of the re- 
 flecting mirror is parabolic, and this form is frequently at- 
 tempted in metal, which can be cast or hammered nearly 
 into the proper shape ; but, as in the case of the refractor, 
 it is the spherical form only which is attempted in glass. 
 The focal distance is equal to the radius of the concavity 
 at the centre of the mirror. 
 
 Although the forms given by theory could be obtained in 
 practice with mathematical precision, the solar rays could 
 not even then be collected into a single point ; the focus 
 would still have a sensible magnitude. The reason of this 
 is, that the rays which fall on the lens or mirror are not all 
 parallel. Those which come from different parts of the 
 sun's disk are very sensibly convergent, forming an angle 
 of 32 minutes of a degree, equal to the apparent diameter 
 of the sun. Hence the focal image must be of such a 
 magnitude that lines drawn from its opposite edges to the 
 centre of the lens or mirror must form an angle of 32'. 
 Supposing, therefore, the glass or mirror to have a proper 
 form, the space covered by the focus will be proportional 
 only to the focal distance, and entirely independent of the 
 magnitude of the lens or mirror. Hence it follows, that if 
 a portion of the exterior edge of the lens or mirror were 
 covered, the maanitude of the focal image would remain 
 unaltered. The figure of the image is also always circular, 
 independently of the shape of the lens ; for example, if 
 one half of the lens were covered, the image would be 
 round as before, though the intensity of the light would 
 then be reduced to one half. 
 
 In preparing telescopes or microscopes, where distinct 
 ness of vision is the most essential object, it is indispensa- 
 ble that the figure of the lens or mirror be perfectly true.
 
 BURSARS. 
 
 In burning glasses perfect accuracy of figure is not so much 
 required ; it is only necessary that the rays be concentra- 
 ted, the confusion of the image being of no consequence. 
 The effect, however, depending on the number of rays that 
 are brought within the limits of the focus, will necessarily 
 be diminished by the aberration as well as imperfection of 
 figure. When the lens is accurately constructed, and all 
 the rays fall within the focus, the heating power of the solar 
 rays is increased in the proportion of the square of the di 
 ame'.er of the lens to the square of the diameter of the 
 focus. But it is found that, supposing the concentration 
 the same, a much greater effect is produced by a focus of 
 considerable magnitude than a very small one. A glass, 
 for instance, of two inches diameter, with a concentrating 
 power of 300, will produce a much feebler effect than an- 
 other six inches in diameter of the same power; the latter 
 will inflame paper in two or three seconds, while the 
 former will hardly inflame it at all. The reason is that 
 when the heat is concentrated in a very small space it is 
 rapidly dispersed into the surrounding mass; as the focus 
 is increased the accumulation increases in a greater ratio 
 than the dispersion, and the temperature rises. Hence a 
 bod; in a mass of charcoal, or other substance of very 
 slow conducting power, is fused much more readily than 
 when exposed on all sides to the atmosphere, or imbedded 
 in metal. 
 
 The method of exciting heat or producing fire by the 
 concentration of the sun's rays was known from remote 
 antiquity ; but the most famous recorded achievement of 
 this kind Is that of Archimedes, who is reported to have 
 burned by means of mirrors the Roman fleet in the har- 
 bour of Syracuse. Considerable doubts have prevailed re- 
 specting the truth of the relation, chiefly grounded on the 
 circumstance that although the setting fire to the fleet is 
 positively affirmed by Dion, Diodorus Siculus, Pappus, and 
 Others, no mention is made of it by Livy, Polybius, or Plu- 
 tarch, who are otherwise minute in detailing the mechani- 
 cal contrivances of Archimedes, and who were not likely 
 to pass over so notable an occurrence without notice. 
 Descartes went so far, indeed, as to treat the whole rela- 
 tion as fabulous, affirming the thing to be impracticable. 
 Is practicability was, however, experimentally demonstrat- 
 ed by the celebrated Buffon, who, by a combination of plain 
 reflecting mirrors, produced results which must be regard- 
 ed as of still greater difficulty. With His mirrors, each 
 about 6 inches square, he set fire to planks of beech 150 
 In t distance, and with Ihe faint rays of the sun at Paris in 
 the month of March. It is not necessary to suppose that 
 Archimedes could not place his apparatus within that dis- 
 tance of the fleet of Marcellus; besides, by multiplying 
 the number of classes, the concentration of the rays may 
 be increased almost to any extent. All this, however, does 
 not prove the actual fact related of Archimedes. Buffon, 
 with all the resources afforded by the advanced state of the 
 arts in the middle of the 18th century, and after a number 
 of experiments, succeeded, with considerable difficulty, in 
 constructing an apparatus by means of which he could 
 Inflame combustible substances at a considerable distance. 
 The low state of the arts in the time of Archimedes must 
 have rendered the undertaking considerably more difficult. 
 The silence of those historians who have detailed his 
 other mechanical contrivances can hardly be accounted 
 for, supposing the relation to be true. It seems, therefore, 
 that though something of Ihe kind was contemplated, and 
 to a certain extent practised, the effect has been much ex- 
 aggerated. 
 
 Among those who have amused themselves, in modern 
 times, with the effects of burning glasses or mirrors, are 
 reckoned Baron Napier, the illustrious inventor of the lo- 
 garithms, Kircher, Dr. James Gregory, Sir Isaac Newton, 
 and numerous others. The most powerful solid lens ever 
 constructed was the work of Mr. Parker, an ingenious Lon- 
 don artist. It was made of flint glass, was three feet in di- 
 ameter, 3\ inches thick at the centre, its focal distance 6 
 feet 8 inches, the diameter of the burning focus 1 inch, and 
 its we ; ght 212 pounds. The rays refracted by this lens 
 were received on a second, the diameter of which in the 
 frame was 13 inches, and its focal length 29 inches. The 
 diameter of the focus of the combined lenses was half an 
 inch ; consequently, by the addition of the second lens, 
 the burning power was increased four times. With this 
 lens some of the most refractory substances were fused in 
 a very short space of time : for example, 10 grs. of com- 
 mon slate in 2 seconds; 10 grs. of cast iron in 3 sec. ; 10 
 grs. of lava in 7 sec. ; 10 grs. of jasper in 25 seconds. &c. 
 This glass was afterwards carried to China by one of the 
 officers who accompanied Lord Macartney, and left at Pe- 
 kin. (For detailed information on this subject, the reader 
 may consult the article Burning Glasses in the Ency. 
 Brit. 7th edition.) 
 
 BU'RSARS. (Lat. bursa.) Originally clerks or trea- 
 surers in convents: in more modern times, persons en- 
 abled to prosecute their studies at a university by means 
 of mads derived from endowments. It is a singular cir- 
 175 
 
 cumstance that the latter acceptation of this term originat- 
 ed among the Poles, who, even in the 14th century, were 
 accustomed to supply young men of talent with the means 
 of travelling to Germany, and there studying philosophy 
 under the guidance of ihe monks. This practice was soon 
 adopted by other nations ; and there is now, perhaps, no 
 civilised country in which it does not exist, under the name 
 of bursaries, fellowships, exhibitions, scholarships, &c. 
 These endowments are of two kinds : either furnishing 
 the student with the means of prosecuting his studies du- 
 ring the academical curriculum; or enabling him to de- 
 vote himself, without distraction, to literary pursuits even 
 after the expiration of this period. The Scottish and the 
 Continental universities have adopted the former method ; 
 but at Oxford and Cambridge both kinds prevail. The 
 following statistical observations on this subject, in refer- 
 ence to the principal universities of England and Ireland, 
 are extracted from a paper compiled by the Rev. jl I. 
 Jones. M. A., from the most authentic private as well as 
 public documents, and read at Newcastle in August 1*38, 
 before the British Association for the Advancement of 
 Science : — In Oxford there are 24 heads of colleges with a 
 revenue of .£18,350 ; 557 fellows with £116,560 ; 393 scho- 
 larships with £6,030; 199 college officers with £15,650; 885 
 benefices and incumbents with £136,500. The revenues 
 of Cambridge, containing 17 colleges, are for an equal num- 
 ber of heads £12,650; 431 fellows, whose revenue is 
 £90,330; 793 scholarships with £13,390; 179 college offi- 
 cers with £17,750; 252 prizes of the value of £1,038; 591 
 benefices and incumbents with £93,300. In Dublin the 
 head of Trinity College receives £2,000; 25 fellows, 
 £25,400; 70 scholars. £2,100 ; 10 college officers, £20,000; 
 62 benefices and incumbents. £9,300. These honours, how- 
 ever, are not open to general competition, being restricted 
 in most cases, by the will of the testator, to natives of cer- 
 tain countries, or to the alumni of particular schools. 
 
 At Edinburgh University there are but few bursaries. 
 George Heriot's Hospital (the most wealthy institution in 
 Edinburgh) grants ten bursaries of £20 per annum each, 
 for four years, to individuals not connected with the hos- 
 pital, who, after a comparative trial before a committee of 
 the governors of the institution, are found duly qualified. 
 There are, besides, a few bursaries of £7 and £10 each, 
 given by the city of Edinburgh to students in the first year 
 of their academical course ; two of £10 each to students 
 named Stewart in the second year, and one of £100 to a 
 student selected from those called M'Pherson in the fourth 
 year. To these may be added two ancient bursarii 
 stiluted for the benefit of Poles resident in Scotland, which, 
 after lying dormant upwards of a century, were discovered 
 and brought to light in Ki7. At St. Andrews, there are 
 several bursaries in the gift of the university : and at Aber- 
 deen, besides the interest of £7000 devoted to the main- 
 tenance of certain students at that university, there are a 
 few valuable exhibitions to Cambridge. At Glasgow the 
 most important endowments of this kind are a few exhi- 
 bitions to Oxford ; and those left by Dr. Williamson for 
 Englishmen not connected with the established church. 
 In France and Italy there are no bursaries allowed for the 
 maintenance of students ; but any individual, on the pay- 
 ment of a trifling sum, may frequent all the lecture rooms 
 of the professors, who of course are maintained by govern- 
 ment. 
 
 But it is in Germany that the system of bursaries is in 
 full vigour. There every faculty in the different univer- 
 sities, every academy, every cloister (for cloisters are still 
 maintained even in the Protestant parts of Germany, though 
 not for the education of priests), every noble family of im- 
 portance, have bursaries, or, as they are called, Freytische 
 (free tables), at their disposal. These vary in value from 10 
 to £40 a year, and cease at the expiration of the literary 
 curriculum. As the different bodies or individuals in whom 
 the presentation to these emoluments is vested may select 
 the beneficiary at pleasure, little regard is paid to the real 
 merit or to the necessitous condition of the latter. 
 
 Whether endowments tend to the promotion of science 
 and learning, is a question that is often discussed, but has 
 not hitherto been solved. Those who maintain that endow- 
 ments are prejudicial found their arguments on the well- 
 known axiom of Smith, — that in no employment ought the 
 competition to be increased beyond what it naturally de- 
 mands. Now, as endowments allure into the learned pro- 
 fessions, and particularly into the church, a host of individ- 
 uals who would otherwise have adopted a different occupa- 
 tion, the unavoidable consequence is that the market is 
 glutted, and the supply becomes greater than the demand. 
 Besides, there are, and ever will be, sufficient numbers to 
 work of their own accord in the accumulation of learning, 
 and this spontaneous industry will be sufficient to keep up 
 an adequate supply to be distributed throughout the coun- 
 try ; for supply always equals demand, and iemand is al- 
 ways commensurate with the real wants of the people. On 
 the other hand, the advocates of endowments, while they 
 admit the correctness of the above-mentioned axiom as a
 
 BURSCHE. 
 
 general rule, maintain that there are many exceptions. In 
 every scientific occupation, they allege, the profits should 
 be proportioned to the time and the labour bestowed in its 
 prosecution. Now, from abstruse studies, such as the high- 
 er branches of mathematics, metaphysics, and classical lit- 
 erature, no adequate remuneration results ; so that none 
 but the wealthy can pursue these studies, and a reference 
 to history will prove that this class has not been the fore- 
 most in classical or scientific attainment. Hence external 
 encouragement is necessary at once to compensate for that 
 want of remuneration to which such studies are exposed, 
 and to divert into this channel a mass of applicable talent 
 which would otherwise be turned to pursuits of more im- 
 mediate profit and attraction. 
 
 BU'RSCHE. (Germ.) A youth, especially a student at 
 a university. 
 
 BU'RSCHENSCHAFT. A league or secret association 
 of students, formed in 1815, for the purpose, as was assert- 
 ed, of the political regeneration of Germany, and sup- 
 pressed, at least in name, by the exertions of the govern- 
 ments. (See Howitt's Student Life in Germany.) 
 
 BUR8CHEN COMMENT. The code of laws adopted 
 by the students for the regulation of their demeanour 
 amongst themselves, &c. 
 
 BURSERA/CEA A natural order of fragrant trees and 
 shrubs inhabiting the tropical parts of the world. They 
 all are resinous and fragrant, although related botanically 
 to Rhamnaceous plants which have no such properties. 
 Indian frankincense, olibanum, colophon, the balsams of 
 Acouchi, Gilead, and Mican, gum elim, and other similar 
 substances, are obtained from plants of this order ; besides 
 oil, pitch, and turpentine, resembling the vegetable secre- 
 tions bearing those names in Europe. They all have alter- 
 nate unequally pinnate dotless leaves, and racemes or pani- 
 cles of small green flowers. Their fruit is usually a drupe. 
 
 BURTHEN, or BURDEN. OF A SHIP. The weight of 
 merchandise, &c. she is intended to carry. See Tonnage. 
 
 BU'SHEL. An English measure of capacity, containing 
 8 gallons. By act of parliament, 5 George 4. c. 74., the Im- 
 perial gallon is declared the standard measure of capacity, 
 and is directed to be made such as to contain 10 lbs. avoir- 
 dupois of distilled water, weighed in air at the temperature 
 of 62° of Fahrenheit's thermometer, the barometer stand- 
 ing at 30 inches ; or to contain 377 cubic inches and 274 
 thousandth parts of a cubic inch. Consequently the Im- 
 perial bushel contains 80 lbs. of distilled water, or 2818192 
 cubic inches. 
 
 By the same act the bushel is declared the standard 
 measure of capacity for coals, culm, lime, fish, potatoes, or 
 fruit, and all other goods or things commonly sold by 
 heaped measure, and is prescribed to contain 2815 cubic 
 inches; the goods to be heaped up in the form of a cone to 
 a height above the rim of the measure of at least three 
 fourths of its depth. 
 
 The Winchester bushel, used in England from the 
 time of Henry VII. to 1826, contained 2150 42 cubic inches. 
 The Imperial bushel is therefore to the Winchester bush- 
 el as 2218-192 to 2l5042,or as 1 to -969447. Hi»nce to con- 
 vert Winchester bushels into Imperial, multiply by -969447. 
 See Measures. 
 
 BU'SHMEN. (Dutch, Bosjesmannen, men of the wood.) 
 A name given by the Dutch colonists to some roaming 
 tribes akin to the Hottentots, in the vicinity of the Cape of 
 Good Hope. The description given by Governor Janssens 
 of this people is very interesting. So deep are they sunk 
 in barbarism as to be unacquainted even with the con- 
 struction of huts or tents : " the burning sky being their 
 canopy, and the scorching sand their bed." They are of 
 a dark copper complexion, small in stature, and of a sin- 
 gularly malicious, wild, and intractable disposition. 
 
 BUSI'RIS. In Egyptian Mythology, a fabulons person- 
 age, of whose origin, exploits, and character Apollodorus, 
 Herodotus, Diodorus Siculus, and other ancient writers 
 have given a most discrepant account. His history is so 
 intimately blended with that of Osiris, that we must refer 
 the reader to that article for further particulars. 
 
 BU'SKIN. (Probably bootikin, or littleboot.) A species 
 of covering for the leg, or rather for the ancle and foot : 
 generally used by the English writers as a translation of 
 cothurnus, caliga, and various other Greek and Latin words 
 denoting different kinds of boots, &.c. Hence buskin, in 
 the sense of cothurnus, stands for the tragic drama, that 
 species of dress having been worn in antiquity by tragic 
 actors, in contradistinction to soccus, the boot or sock worn 
 by comedians, and used for the comic drama. 
 
 Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here , 
 
 Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear. — Drydcn. 
 
 BUST or BUSTO. (It. busto.) In Painting and Sculp- 
 ture, the head, breast, and shoulders of the human figure. 
 
 BU'STARD. See Otis. 
 
 BU'TTER. (Gr. (Sovrvpov, from fiovs, a cow, and rupo j, 
 cheese or coagulum.) The oily part of milk : 100 parts of 
 cream contain about 4-5 of butter and 35 curd ; they are 
 176 
 
 BUTTERFLY. 
 
 separated by the process of churning, during which the 
 butter aggregates. Butter soon becomes sour and rancid, 
 unless purified by melting and straining it so as to separate 
 adhering curd ; it is generally preserved by the addition 
 ofsalt. Its elain or oily part has been called butyrine. 
 When converted into soap it is said, in addition to the 
 usual products, to afford three odorous volatile compounds, 
 which have been termed by Chevreul the butyric, capric, 
 and caproic acids. 
 
 BU'TTERFLY. The common English name of an ex- 
 tensive group of insects, as they appear in their last and 
 fully developed state, when they constitute the most beauti- 
 ful and elegant examples of their class. These insects be- 
 long to the order Lepiduptera, and to the section Diurna 
 of Latreille, or the genus Papilio of Linnasus. (See those 
 words. See also Naturalist's Library, vols. 10. 14. 18.) 
 
 The changes of an animal form produced by the pro- 
 gressive expansion of the enclosed organs of the body, and 
 the successive shedding of the outer case or skin, are in no 
 instance so striking or so extraordinary as in the present 
 group of insects. The changes or metamorphoses, as they 
 are commonly but incorrectly termed, have been a favour- 
 ite theme to the divine and the poet, and a most attractive 
 subject of research to the naturalist. The transition of the 
 humble grub to the gorgeous imago is the subject of the 
 following beautiful passage in the classical work (the In- 
 troduction to Entomology) of Kirby and Spence :— " Were 
 a naturalist to announce to the world the discovery of an 
 animal which for the first two years of its life existed in 
 the form of a serpent ; which then, penetrating into the 
 earth, and weaving a shroud of pure silk of the finest tex- 
 ture, contracted itself within this covering into a body with- 
 out external mouth or limbs, and resembling more than 
 any thing else an Egyptian mummy ; and which, lastly, 
 after remaining in this state, without food and without mo- 
 tion, for three years longer, should at the end of that 
 period burst its silken cerements . struggle through its 
 earthy covering, and start into day a winged bird, — what, 
 think you, would be the sensation excited by this piece if 
 intelligence'?" The subterraneous locality of the insect in 
 its passive state, and the silken shroud, are, indeed, less 
 applicable to the butterflies than to other insects ; but the 
 circumstances attending the transformations of these 
 beautiful objects are not less remarkable than those of the 
 beetles and moths. 
 
 The eggs of the butterfly are deposited on such plants as 
 afford the nutriment most appropriate to the caterpillars 
 that are to be excluded from them ; thus the common 
 white butterfly (Pieris brassica, Latr.) and other species 
 oviposit upon cabbages, and hence have been termed Bras- 
 sicaria. : the gaudy peacock-butterfly lays her eggs upon 
 the nettle. The eggs are coated with a glutinous secretion 
 as they are excluded from the parent, and thus provided 
 with the means of adhesion to the leaves or stems of the 
 plants selected. 
 
 The larvae are long and cylindrical, and consist of thir- 
 teen segments, including the head ; they have eight feet, 
 and nine spiracles on each side. Those feet which are 
 attached in pairs to the first three segments of the trunk 
 inclose the parts which are developed into the permanent 
 legs of the future butterfly ; the remaining pairs of feet are 
 membraneous, short and thick, and are finally lost with 
 the moultings of the skin, whence they are called " pro- 
 legs" by Kirby. The sides of the head are studded with 
 twelve simple globular eyes extremely minute, and very 
 unlike the single large compound eye of the perfect insect. 
 The mouth is provided with an apparatus characteristic of 
 the mandibulate class of insects, having a pair of large and 
 strong horny jaws working in a horizontal plane, and re- 
 presenting the " mandibulae ;" beneath these a pair of 
 smaller and softer jaws or " maxillae," and a fleshy lower 
 lip or '• labrum" united to the latter, and which is perfora- 
 ted by the outlets of the ducts of the complicated apparatus 
 for secreting the silk. Such a condition of the " instru- 
 menta cibaria" or mechanism of the mouth is in perfect 
 harmony with the habits of the caterpillar, and with the 
 part assigned to this larva or masked Lepidopterous insect 
 in the great theatre of nature. It is there distined to crop 
 and devour the solid succulent parts of the otherwise too 
 luxuriant vegetation, and must have awns and teeth to per- 
 form its task. In its subsequent and final character the 
 butterfly luxuriates on the exquisitely elaborated juices of 
 the flower, and has the power to raise itself above the dull 
 earth, and to transport itself through aerial space. 
 
 Where he arriving ronnd about doth fly 
 
 ' From bed to bed, from one to other border ; 
 
 And takes s-trvey, with cntious busy eye. 
 
 Of every flower and herb there set in order. 
 Now this,' now that, he tasteth tenderly, 
 
 Yet none of them he rudely does disorder; 
 Ne with his feet their silken leaves deface, 
 But pastuies on the pleasure of each space. — Spenser. 
 
 But to exchange a solid for a fluid diet, the instruments of 
 mastication must be converted into those of suction, and
 
 BUTTER TREE. 
 
 the mandibulate insect be transformed into the haustellate 
 one. This is effected by an excessive elongation of the 
 maxilla;, which are grooved each on that side which is 
 turned towards its fellow ; and, by the union of their op- 
 posed margins, these grooves are converted into a capilla- 
 ry canal, by which the nectar is pumped up into the mouth. 
 When not'in action, this siphon is coiled up in a series of 
 spiral turns, and is protected by the other parts of the 
 mouth, which retain their rudimental condition. The 
 nymphs are almost always naked, and of an angular form : 
 they are generally suspended by the tail, and reflect more 
 or less of a golden lustre, whence they are termed chrysa- 
 lides and aurelicB. Reaumur has given the best account 
 of the singular operations by which the butterflies attach 
 their aurelian cases to the points of suspension, anil after- 
 wards extricate themselves from these cases when their 
 transformation is completed. 
 
 Some butterflies have all their six feet in the imago state 
 ■well developed, and alike in both sexes ; and the chrysa- 
 lis, in addition to the ordinary terminal or posterior attach- 
 ment, is looped up in a horizontal position by a silken band 
 or sling passing round the body. The internal margin of 
 the hinder lower pair of wings is concave or folded, and 
 the tarsal hooks or spurs are well developed. These are 
 the butterflies proper, the Papiliones cquitcs of Linna?us. 
 Those " knights" which bear red spots on the chest are 
 the " Trojans" of Linnreus, and those without red spots on 
 the chest bear the name of the Grecian heroes. Some of 
 these butterfly -knights have the anterior pair of feet re- 
 markably shorter than the others; and this arrest of de- 
 velopment would seem to be compensated by greater 
 powers of flight. The butterflies of the section thus char- 
 acterized, or the Nynvphalida , are also remarkable for the 
 brilliancy of their colouring. Numerous other sections 
 and subdivisions have been founded by modern entomolo- 
 gists upon character* afforded by modifications of the an- 
 tennae, palpi, and other parts. In the " Plebeian" butter- 
 flies of Linnaeus the larva are oval, the chrysalides short, 
 and the tarsal spurs of the imago are extremely small. 
 
 BUTTER TREE. A remarkable plant found by Park 
 in the interior of Africa, especially in Bambarra, yielding 
 from its kernels, by pressure, a white, firm, rich butter, 
 which, even in tli.it climate, will keep well for a yearwith- 
 oiii sill. Another species is the l'lmlwara tree of India 
 (Bassia butyraeeay, whose s Is produce a firm, agreea- 
 ble, buttery substance, of about the consistence and colour 
 of hog's lard ; it is used medicinally in rheumatic affec- 
 tions. The lliupietree of Coromandel(Bossta hmgifoUa), 
 and the Madhuca tree of Bengal (.Bassia latifolta), are 
 other species having similar properties. They are large 
 tropical trees, belonging to tin" natural order Sapotacea, 
 and their timber is sometimes of excellent quality. 
 
 BUTTERS, MINERAL. A name given by the old 
 chemists to some of the cfdoridt s on account of their soft 
 butyraceous texture when recently prepared ; such as Inci- 
 ter of antimony, of arsenic, and qj bismuth. 
 
 BUTTERS, VEGETABLE. "The concrete fixed oils, 
 such as those of the cocoa and chocolate nuts, of the nut- 
 meg, <fcc, which are solid at common temperatures, are 
 often distinguished by the above term. 
 
 BUTTON. The round mass of metal collected at the 
 ' bottom of a crucible after fusion, or which remains in the 
 cupel in the process of assaying, is called by this name. 
 
 BUTTRESS. (Fr. aboutir, to lieout.) In Architecture, 
 a mass of brickwork or masonry, built to resist the hori- 
 zontal thrust of another mass. Buttresses are much used 
 in Gothic architecture, to resist the thrust of the vaulting 
 which covers the naves and aisles of cathedrals. When 
 open they are called flying buttresses. 
 
 BUTTS. Short ridges of different lengths, which neces- 
 sarily occur in the angle of afield when the direction of 
 the ridges is not parallel to one of the sides. 
 
 BUZZARD. See Falco. 
 
 BY'aRD. A piece of leather crossing the breast, used 
 by the men who drag the sledges in coal mines. 
 
 BY-LAWS, or BYE-LAWS. (The first syllable from 
 the Danish By, town or hamlet.) Orders and constitutions 
 of corporations, courts-leet and courts-baron, commoners, 
 or inhabitants of vills, &c, of which the effect is to impose 
 obligations not enforced by common or statute law. The 
 validity of by-laws rests on the authority of the parties 
 making them, established either by immemorial custom, 
 or by their corporate character; for the power of making 
 by-laws is inherent in a corporation. But the superior 
 court of law have the power of annulling a by-law, if it be 
 unreasonable, or in restraint of trade, or imposing a charge 
 without any apparent benefit to the party, Ax. By the 
 Municipal Corporations Amendment Act (5 <fe 6 W. 4. c. 
 76. s. 90.) by-laws are to be made by the town council of 
 the borough, and to be valid unless disallowed by the king 
 in council within forty days. 
 
 BYRE. A word used in Scotland for a cow house. 
 
 BY'RRHUS. A Linnrean genus of minute Clavicom 
 Coleopterous insects, now the type of a family, including 
 177 
 
 CAABA. 
 
 those pests of museums which feed In the larva state on 
 bird-skins, preserved insects, Ax. The genera in this 
 family are Byrrhvs proper, Simplocaria, Oomorphus, Syn- 
 calapta, Nosodendroji, Asjndiphurus, Trinodes, and Anthre- 
 nus. Of the latter genus there are six British species, of 
 which the Anth.renti-s mustBOrum may be regarded as the 
 type. 
 
 BY'SSIFERS, Byssifera. (Lat, Byssus, and fero, T car- 
 ry.) A family of Lamellihranchiate Acephalous Mollusks, 
 comprehending those species which are attached to foreign 
 bodies bv means of a byssus. 
 
 BY'SSOLITE. (Gr. fiverao;, flax, and Xi0oj, a stone.) 
 A soft fibrous mineral from the Alps. 
 
 BY'SSUS. ((Jr. (ivao-os, fine flax.) A fasciculus of 
 shining semitransparent horny or silky filaments, secreted 
 by a gland at the base of the foot in certain Lamellibran- 
 chiate Bivalves, and serving as an organ of adhesion to 
 submarine rocks or other foreign bodies. 
 
 Byssus. A name formerly given to all those filament 
 ous plants which inhabit cellars and other under-ground 
 close places, and on which no fructification is found ; it 
 was also applied to vegetation of a similar kind when found 
 growing In the air. It is now certain that a large number 
 of these supposed plants are merely the young state of 
 certain kinds of fungi, or other plants of a low organization ; 
 and, although a few species are still retained in the genus, 
 as Bi/ssus fioccosa, and others, it is by no means certain 
 that thev a're reallv of a different nature. 
 
 BYZA'NTLNE HISTORIANS. A series of Greek his- 
 torians and authors, who lived under the Eastern Empire 
 between the 6th and the 16th centuries. They may be di- 
 vided into three classes ; 1. Historians whose works form 
 a continuous history of the Byzantine Empire from the 
 fourth century of the Christian era down to the Turkish 
 conquest of Constantinople. They are nearly thirty in 
 number, with various shades of literary merit ; but their 
 works constitute the almost only authentic source of the 
 history of that eventful period. 2. General chroniclers or 
 historians, whose works, embracing a wider range than 
 of the former, treat chiefly of the chronography of 
 the world from the oldest times." :!. Authors who confined 
 their attention to the politics, statistics, antiquities, man- 
 ners, Ac. of the Romans. These two classes combined 
 amount al to aboul thirty, and their writings give an ex- 
 cellent illustration of tile times of which they treat, whether 
 as historians, chroniclers, antiquaries, or politicians. The 
 works of the Byzantine historians. Ax. were collected and 
 published by order of Louis XIV. in 36 vols, folio, Paris, 
 1645-1711. Another and more complete edition was pub- 
 lished at Venice in 1729 and the following years. Besides 
 these many of the Byzantine historians were published 
 separately at different places. But all that had previously 
 been done to evince the importance of these historians, by 
 the publication of their works, was destined to be eclipsed 
 in our own times. The late professor Niebuhr of Bonn, 
 eminently fitted for the task by his attainments both natu- 
 ral and acquired, projected a new edition of the Byzantine 
 Historians ( Corpus Scriptorum ESatoria Byzantines, Ed- 
 itio emendatior et Copinsior, Svo. Bonns, 1828), which he 
 superintended till his death. Upwards of 39 volumes have 
 already appeared, comprising 38 authors ; the work will be 
 completed in 60 vols. An elaborate review of the merits of 
 this edition may be found in the Foreign Quarterly Review, 
 vol. 10. 
 
 c. 
 
 C, the third letter of the English and most other Euro- 
 pean alphabets, is borrowed immediately from the Latin 
 alphabet, in which it first appears ; but is derived originally 
 from the * or y of the Greeks. In English it is pronounced 
 like s before e and i, and like k before a, o, u, and may 
 consequently be considered as superfluous in the alphabet. 
 According to orthographers there are few letters so sus- 
 ceptible of interchanges as this letter, and much ingenuity 
 has been expended in exhibiting its convertibility. As an 
 abbreviation, C is used in ancient MSS. for Caius, Caesar, 
 Consul, Civitas, <fcc. ; and as a numeral for a hundred. It 
 was the symbol of condemnation in the Roman tribunals 
 (being abbreviated for Condemno) ; and was consequently 
 termed litera tristis. in contradistinction to A (used for 
 Absolvo), symbolical of acquittal, and thence called litera 
 salutaris. 
 
 C. In Music, the name of one of the notes in the scale. 
 It is a character also used for the signification of the time. 
 See Music. 
 
 CAA'BA. The famous square stone in the temple of 
 Mecca, the object of the adoration of the entire Moham- 
 medan world. According to the tradition of the Arabs, it 
 is the first spot on earth which was consecrated to the 
 Z
 
 CABAL. 
 
 worship of the Deity, having been presented by the angel 
 Gabriel to the patriarch Abraham on the occasion of the 
 building of the temple. As is well known, Mohammed 
 enjoined all his followers to visit the shrine of Mecca once 
 in their lifetime ; and to preserve continually on their 
 minds a sense of their obligation to perform this duty, he 
 directed that in all the multiplied acts of devotion which 
 his religion prescribes, true believers should always turn 
 their faces towards this holy place, called Kebla. It may 
 be added, that the eastern authors frequently designate the 
 temple in which the square stone is concealed, with all its 
 appendages, as Caaba. 
 
 CABA'L. (Fr.) In History, was applied originally to 
 the five cabinet ministers of Charles II. — Clifford, Ashley, 
 Buckingham, Arlington, and Lauderdale — whose initials 
 happened to form the word ; and it lias since been used 
 for a junto of individuals, who, too insignificant in point of 
 numbers to form a party, endeavour to effect their pur- 
 poses by underhand measures. 
 
 CA'BALa. A Hebrew word signifying the oral tradition 
 which the Rabbins conceive to complete the system of 
 scriptural interpretation. They maintain that it was de- 
 livered in the first instance to Adam, and again to Abraham 
 and Moses, by direct revelation ; but that since the time of 
 Esdras the memories of the priests and elders have suf- 
 ficed to preserve it in all its purity. As the Masora details 
 the literal explanation of the language of scripture, so the 
 Cabala reveals the bidden truths of which it is the symbol. 
 Every sentence, word, and letter of the inspired volume 
 contain, according to these interpreters, a figurative as well 
 as a direct sense. The former is also not uncommonly 
 manifold ; and a word may be interpreted according to the 
 arithmetical power of the letters which compose it, which 
 species of cabala is called gematria ; or according to the 
 meaning of each individual letter, the entire word thus 
 constituting a sentence, which is called notaricon ; or fi- 
 nally according to certain transpositions of the letters, 
 which is denoted by the term themurah. What the mys- 
 terious doctrines of the cabala which were thus discovered 
 actually were, is not very clearly ascertained ; but the sys- 
 tem seems to have been an invention of the philosophising 
 Jews of the latter centuries preceding our era, with the 
 view of accommodating the speculations of the Gnostics to 
 the religion of the Old Testament. 
 
 The Christian cabalists in later times practised a kind 
 of magic under this name, pretending to the power of di- 
 vination by certain combinations of scriptural characters. 
 
 CABA'LLUS. In Mythology. See Pegasus. 
 
 CABIAT. In Zoology, the name under which the Capi- 
 bara or water-hog (Hydro-chorus capibara, Erxl.) is de- 
 scribed by Buffon. See Capibara. 
 
 CA'BINET. In Politics, the governing council of a 
 country : from the cabinet or apartment in which the ruler 
 transacts public business and assembles his privy council. 
 In England a few of the ministers only are ex officio mem- 
 bers of the cabinet. The ministers who are raised to this 
 honour are styled by way of eminence Cabinet ministers, 
 and are more immediately responsible for the acts of the 
 sovereign, as well as for public measures. The distinction 
 between the king's cabinet ministers and the rest of his 
 privy council seems not to have been established in public 
 usage in England before the reign of William III. 
 
 CAB'IRI. In Pagan Mythology, sacred priests or deified 
 heroes, venerated by the Phoenicians originally as the 
 founders of religion. Various opinions have been enter- 
 tained concerning the nature and origin of the Cabin ; but 
 from the multiplicity of names applied to them, together 
 with the profound secrecy observed in the celebration of 
 their rites, an almost impenetrable veil of mystery has 
 been thrown around their history. They seem to have 
 been men who, having communicated the art of melting 
 metals, &c, were deified by a grateful posterity. Their 
 worship was chiefly cultivated in the island of Samothra- 
 cia, whence it was afterwards transferred to Lemnos, Im- 
 bros, and certain towns of Troas. (Strabo, x. 473.) They 
 were styled the offspring of Vulcan, though their name was 
 derived from their mother Cabera, daughter of Proteus. 
 Their number is variously given. Those who were initia- 
 ted in their rites were held to be secured against all dan- 
 ger by sea and land. Their distinguishing badge was a 
 purple girdle. An ingenious account of the Cabiri has been 
 given by Professor Miiller of Gottingen, in a dissertation ap- 
 pended to his work on Orchomenus, wherein he rejects 
 the Phoenician or oriental origin of the Cabiri, and regards 
 their worship as purely Pelasgic, and down to a certain 
 point the principal religion of the Greeks. 
 
 CA'BLE. (Gr. Kaniiov, a rope.) The rope or chain by 
 which the anchor of a ship is held. Cables in Europe, un- 
 til within a recent period, were usually made of hemp, but 
 of late years iron chains have come much into use. A 
 hempen cable of 12 inches girth, and length 120 fathoms, 
 weighs 30751bs. Since the weights of two cables of equal 
 lengths will be as their sections, or squares of the girths, it 
 is easy to deduce the following rule for the weight of any 
 178 
 
 CADDICE-WORMS. 
 
 hempen cable :— Multiply the square of the girth in inches 
 by 213 (or 21 nearly enough), the product is the weight in 
 lbs. Since also as the breaking strain, or resistance against 
 the force to part the cable, will be as the section, it will be 
 as the weight, and will be found nearly by dividing the 
 weight in lbs. by 100 ; the quotient is the breaking strain in 
 tons. This rule is of course liable to great uncertainty from 
 the quality or wear of the cable. Chain ca'bles possess 
 great advantages over hempen cables ; they are not liable 
 to be destroyed by chafing on rocky grounds, nor to be- 
 come rotten and insecure from alternate exposure to the 
 air and water ; and by reason of their greater weight the 
 strain is exerted on the cable rather than on the ship. In 
 order that the ship may be enabled to let slip her cable in 
 case of necessity, chain cables are furnished with bolts at 
 distances from each other of a fathom or two, which can 
 be readily withdrawn. A chain of which the section is . 
 inch in diameter breaks with 16 tons ; such a chain is 
 equivalent to a 10 inch hemp cable nearly. And the di- 
 mensions of the chain cable corresponding to any hemp 
 cable are therefore easily found by merely dividing the 
 circumference of the hemp cable by 10. The strength of 
 every part of the chain is proved before it leaves the man- 
 ufactory. The first patent for a chain cable was taken out 
 in 1808 by Mr. Slater, a surgeon in the Royal Navy. 
 
 CA'BLED. In Architecture, the filling up the lower 
 part of the liute of a column with a cylindrical piece like a 
 cable. 
 
 CABO'MBEjE. (Cabomba, the name of one of the gen- 
 era.) In Botany, the name given by Richard to the natural 
 order now called Eydropeltidea,. 
 
 CA'CHALOT. In Ichthyology, a name for the sperma- 
 ceti or sperm whale (Pliyseter macrocephalus, Linn.) 
 
 CACHE'T, LETTRES DE. In France, under the an- 
 cient government, letters signed with the private seal 
 (cachet) of the king. As warrants for the detention of 
 private citizens, they appear to have been rarely employed 
 before the 17th century. In the reign of Louis XIV. their 
 use became frightfully common. But in other respects 
 they had been not unfrequently made use of, even in ear- 
 lier times, to interfere with the course of justice ; as, by 
 way of injunction to a party not to exercise certain authori- 
 ty, or pursue certain legal steps, &c. Lettres de cachet 
 were never so multiplied as under the administration of 
 Cardinal Fleury : not less than 80,000 are said to have been 
 issued, without any legal judgment, in the proceedings 
 against the Jansenists. Fifty-nine are said to have been is- 
 sued against the family Mirabeauin the reigns of Louis XV. 
 and XVI., of which twenty-two against the famous count 
 himself. So scandalously were they abused, that there is 
 an instance of a countess obtaining one for the imprison- 
 ment of her maid, who had repeated some scandal against 
 her ! They were abolished Jan. 15. 1790. 
 
 CACHE'XIA. (Gr. xaicos, bad, and ?£<?, a habit.) A. 
 bad state or habit of body ; whence the term cachexia., or 
 cachectic disorders. 
 
 CA'CHOLONG. A milk-white chalcedony, originally 
 found on the borders of the river Cach in Bucharia. 
 Cholong, in the language of the Calmucks, is said to signify 
 a stone. 
 
 CACHU'NDE. A celebrated Chinese medicine, com- 
 posed chiefly of aromatic stimulants. 
 
 CA'CODiE'MON. (Gr. KaicoSaifuov, an evil spirit.) 
 See D.«mon. 
 
 CACO'PHONY. (Gr. kokoc, bad, and <pa)VT), a so7i7id.) 
 In Rhetoric, a defect of style, consisting in a harsh or disa- 
 greeable sound produced by the meeting of two or more 
 letters or syllables, or by the too frequent repetition of the 
 same letters or syllables : e. g. 
 
 And oft the ear the open vowels tire. — Pope. 
 
 CACTA'CE^. (Cactus, one of the genera.) A small 
 natural order of Exogens, remarkable for their gay and 
 large flowers, and for the grotesque forms of some of the 
 species. They are found wild in hot dry countries, in arid 
 situations, where they are enabled to exist because of the 
 thickness of their skin, which allows very little moisture 
 to be lost through it. Many of the species are like succu- 
 lent Euphorbias, from which they are however known by 
 their not milking when wounded. All the species are 
 harmless ; some have eatable fruit ; and one, the Opvntia 
 cochinillifera, is the favourite haunt of the cochineal 
 insect. 
 
 CA'CUS. In Fabulous History, the son of Vulcan, a 
 robber of Italy, whose dwelling was in the Aventine wood. 
 His exploits form the subject of a fine episode in the 8th 
 book of the Mneid. He was represented as a frightful 
 monster of enormous strength, who, after a long life of 
 crime, was at length slain by Hercules, from whom he had 
 stolen some oxen. To express his gratitude for his victory. 
 Hercules erected the Ara Maxima ; and Evander, with his 
 infant colony of Arcadians, performed divine honours to 
 Hercules as their benefactor. 
 
 CA'DDICE-WORMS, or CASE-WORMS. The larvfe 
 or grubs of theTrichopterous insects are so called, on ac«
 
 CADENCE. 
 
 count of being inclosed in a sheath or case. This Is al- 
 ways composed of extraneous substances glued together 
 by a cement excreted from the skin of the grub ; and dif- 
 ferent species of the caddis-worm protect themselves by 
 means of ditferent materials thus joined together. Some, 
 which pass their larva state under water and creep along 
 the bottom, combine bits of sticks or rushes with small 
 pebbles or shells, to make their cases heavier than water ; 
 others, which float on the top and gather their food from 
 thence, form a slight and slender tube of a narrow slip of 
 grass, which is rolled round the body in a spiral direction, 
 with the edges so nicely fitting as to seem but one piece. 
 In every case the worm adheres by a pair of hooks at its 
 hinder extremity to the bottom of the sheath, and only 
 protrudes the head and two following segments, the skin 
 of which is harder than that covering the rest of the body. 
 Those which creep at the bottom drag themselves along 
 by means of their mandibles. At the conclusion of their 
 existence as grubs, they moor their case to some large 
 stone or other fixed and submerged body, and close the 
 outlet by a network of silken threads, which prevents the 
 entry of any inimical intruder, but admits the water ne- 
 cessary for respiration. They then cast their outer skin, 
 and for a while remain in the usual passive condition of a 
 pupa ; ;i 1 1 < 1 now the organizing energy is vigorously effect- 
 ing the wonderful changes which lead to the full perfec- 
 tion of the insect. But, as it would be obviously dangerous 
 tn the air-breathing imago to be excluded in its first feeble 
 stale under water, the pupa here exhibits a locomotive 
 power which is without a parallel in other orders of the 
 metamorphotic insects; being provided with a pair of small 
 and sharp hooks at the head, it cuts the threads with which 
 in a previous state it had confined itself, and creeping out 
 nl i lie water casts off its pupa skin, and emerges a May-fly 
 or Ph-ryganea, 
 
 CA'DENCE. (Ital. cadenza, in falling:) In Music, the 
 conclusion of a song, or of some parts thereof, in certain 
 places of the piece, dividing it as it were into so many 
 numbers or periods. The cadence takes place when the 
 parts fall or terminate on a note or chord naturally expect- 
 ed by the car, just as a period closes the sense in the para- 
 graph of a discourse. A cadence is either perfect or im- 
 perfect The former when it consists of two notes sung 
 after each other, or by degrees conjoined in each of the 
 two parts, the harmony of the filth preceding that of the 
 key note; and it is called perfect, because it satisfies the 
 ear more than the latter. The latter imperfect ; that is, 
 when the key note with its harmony precedes that of the 
 fifth without its added seventh. A cadence is said to be 
 broken or interrupted when the bass rises a major or mi- 
 nor second, instead of falling a fifth. 
 
 CADE'T. (Fr.) A pupil in a military academy, whose 
 aim is to qualify himself, by a due course of study, to en- 
 ter the military service or tin 1 service of the English East 
 India Company as an officer of the line, artillery, or engi- 
 neers. In England there are three grand institutions for 
 the education of cadets: Sandhurst lor the British line; 
 Woolwich for the artillery and engineers ; and Addiscombe 
 for the Indian army, both line and artillery. The Academy 
 at Sandhurst was instituted by George III. for the purpose 
 of affording general and professional instruction to the 
 sons of private or military gentlemen, with the view of 
 their obtaining commissions in the British army without 
 purchase. Before the commission is conferred, the cadet 
 must undergo an examination before a comftetent board in 
 the classics, mathematics, military drawing, &c. The 
 expenses of this academy were formerly defrayed by 
 government ; but a change was recently introduced, by 
 which the sons of private gentlemen must pay an annual 
 sum of jE125, and the sons of general or other officers less 
 sums in proportion to their rank. 
 
 The academy at Woolwich was established with the view 
 of qualifying cadets for the artillery or engineers ; and to 
 this institution the master-general of the ordnance has the 
 sole right of granting admission. As the nature of the es- 
 tablishment at Woolwich requires the prosecution of a 
 more strict and professional course of study than at Sand- 
 hurst, the attention of the cadets is specially directed to 
 geography ; general history, ancient and modern ; modern 
 languages ; military drawing and surveying ; mathematics ; 
 engineering and fortification. After the lapse of four years, 
 generally, the cadets undergo an examination in the above 
 mentioned branches of science ; when the most distin- 
 guished are selected for the engineers, the others for the 
 artillery. And here it may be observed, that not merely 
 the cadet academy, but the whole vast establishment at 
 Woolwich, its arsenal, its repository, its laboratory, are com- 
 ponent parts of one and the same great school of military 
 science. 
 
 As the college of Addiscombe is established for the edu- 
 cation of officers of the line, artillery, and engineers for 
 the Indian army, the plan of instruction pursued there 
 combines the two systems adopted at Sandhurst and at 
 Woolwich. In order to become a cadet in this institution, 
 179 
 
 C^SURA. 
 
 it is necessary to have the promise of a commission 
 from a director of the East India Company ; and after a 
 prescribed examination, an appointment is obtained in one 
 of the branches of the Indian army, according to the merit 
 or pleasure of the cadet. We may here incidentally re- 
 mark, that no cadet, even after being thoroughly versed in 
 the theory of military science, is suffered to join the engi- 
 neers either of the Queen's service or that of the E. 1. 
 Company, before he has gone through a regular course of 
 practical instruction in sapping, mining, and the whole pro- 
 cesses of a siege, as well as in other departments of field en- 
 gineering, pontooning, the construction of military bridges, 
 &c, in the admirable establishment for these purposes at 
 Chatham. {United Service Jour.) 
 
 In France the academies for cadets which existed pre- 
 viously to the French Revolution have been merged in the 
 Polytecriic schools. 
 
 The Dutch possess two institutions of this nature ; one 
 at Breda, the other at Delft. 
 
 In the United States there is one at West Point, on near- 
 ly the same principle as that at Addiscombe. 
 
 In Germany every small state has a military school: 
 while those at Berlin, Vienna, and Munich are on so ex- 
 tensive a scale as to challenge a comparison with any simi- 
 lar institutions in Europe. In Germany, too, the word cadet 
 has a wider signification than in England, being applied to 
 those persons who, without having frequented a military 
 school, join the army in the expectation of obtaining a com- 
 mission when they have gained a competent knowledge of 
 the service. 
 
 In Russia there is a famous academy for cadets, which 
 was instituted by Ann at St. Petersburg in 1732 ; and since 
 its foundation has afforded instruction in military science 
 to upwards of 9000 pupils, many of whom have acquired 
 celebrity in the annals of Russian literature. 
 
 CA'DI. (In Arabic, a judge.) Among the Turks the 
 inferior judges are styled Cadi. The Spanish Alcayde or 
 Alcalde is derived from the same root. 
 
 CA'DMIIIM. A white metal, much like tin; it fuses and 
 volatilizes at a temperature a little below that at which tin 
 melts. Specific gravity about 9. Its ores are associated 
 with those of zinc. It was discovered in 1818 by Professor 
 Stromeyer of Gottingen. Its equivalent number is 56. It 
 forma a yellow salifiable oxide, composed of 56 cadmium 
 + 8 oxygen =64 oxide of cadmium. Its scarcity prevents 
 its employment in the arts, but the oxide has been used as 
 a pigment. 
 
 CADU'CEUS. In Antiquity, a rod of laurel or olive with 
 a representation of two snakes twisted round it. It was 
 the symbol of peace, and formed the chief badge of the 
 Grecian heralds, whose persons were held sacred. In My- 
 thology. the Caduceus was the symbol of Mercury, thence 
 called Caducifer, to whom it was said to have been pre- 
 sent. ■. I l>v Apollo in return for his Invention of the lyre. 
 
 CADU'CIBR'ANCHIATBS. (Lat. caducus, fading; 
 branchiae, gillx.) Those Bratrachians which undergo a me- 
 tamorphosis, and lose their branchial apparatus before ar- 
 riving at the period of maturity ; as the frog, toad, sala- 
 mander, and newt. 
 
 CADU'COl S. (Lat cado, //afl.) In Botany, when a 
 part is temporary, and soon disappears or falls off. 
 
 CiE'CA. (Lat. csecus, blind.) In Comparative Anatomy, 
 the blind processes of the alimentary canal are generally 
 so called. Those in fishes occur at the beginning of the 
 intestines, where they are oftennumerous and long, repre- 
 senting the pancreas. In birds they are found near the 
 termination of the intestines, and are generally two in 
 number. In mammals the efficum is commonly single, 
 and situated at the beginning of the large intestines ; it is of 
 enormous size in the herbivorous species with simple 
 stomachs. In the lower animals the intestinal glands which 
 communicate with the intestines generally retain their pri- 
 mitive form of csca. 
 
 CjE'CUM. (Lat. caucus, blind.) In Human Anatomy, 
 the first portion of the large intestines, in which the ileum 
 terminates by a valve. The csecum is a kind of append- 
 age to the intestinal canal, open at one end only, whence 
 the name blind gut ; it has a small process attached to it, 
 called the appendix ccevirermiformis. 
 
 CjE'SAR. This title, originally the name of a branch of 
 the Julian family at Rome, was assumed as a mark of dig- 
 nity by the emperors after Nero. It became subse- 
 quently the title of the presumptive heir to the empire, and 
 the next title of dignity after Augustus ; but was superseded 
 in the Greek empire under Alexis Comnenus by that of 
 Sebastocrator. In the West, it was assumed by the em- 
 perors of Germany ; and, in German, "Kaiser" is now the 
 peculiar title of the emperor of Austria, who has succeeded 
 to several of the dignities of the former. 
 
 CiESA'REAN OPERATION. The extraction of the 
 child from the womb by an operation. Julius Cffisar is said 
 to have been thus brought into the world. 
 
 CflESU'RA. (Lat. ctedo, I cut.) In prosody, a metrical 
 break in the verse, occasioned by the separation of the first
 
 CAFFEIN. 
 
 syllable of a foot, forming the last of a word, from the nest 
 syllable, forming the first of another. In the Latin hex- 
 ameter the principal c;esura. without which the line is un- 
 musical, occurs generally after the fourteenth time (each 
 long syllable containing two times, each short syllable one : 
 see Rhythm) ; thus, 
 
 Arma virumque cano | Trojffi qui primus ab oris 
 Spelunca vivique lacus | at frigida Tempe. 
 
 The slight pause which follows the syllable at which the 
 interruption takes place Is termed the caesural pause. In 
 English verse a line is frequently musical without any cae- 
 sura at all ; i. e. in which the pause takes place always at 
 the end of a foot. But a caesura in the middle of the third, 
 and in the middle of the fourth foot of an heroic verse, are 
 by no means uncommon, and particularly appropriate in 
 blank verse, in which they represent the two common 
 Ccesuras of the Latin hexameter. 
 
 I sing the sofa | I who lately sang 
 
 Of man's first disobedience ) and the fruit. 
 
 In the first of these lines the caesura is in the third, in 
 the latter in the fourth foot. 
 
 CAFFE'LN. A bitter crystallizable substance contained 
 in coffee. A portion of it volatilizes during the roasting of 
 coffee. It has not been applied to any use. 
 
 CAHIE'R. (Fr.) Derived by some from the Lat. codex, 
 by others from quaternio. It signifies in its proper sense 
 a number of sheets of paper loosely tied together. In 
 French history, it denotes the reports and proceedings of 
 certain assemblies; as those of the clergy, states general, 
 the notables, <fcc. The famous cahiers presented" by the 
 states general to the king of France at their convocation 
 on the 24th of June, 1789, contain the best account of the 
 then state of France. They were systematized and con- 
 densed in a book in 3 volumes, called "L'Espritdes Ca- 
 hiers," to which the reader is referred. 
 
 CAI'NCIC ACID. A peculiar acid discovered by 
 Pelletier and Caventou in the bark of the cainca root, a 
 Brazilian shrub employed for the cure of intermittent 
 fever. 
 
 CAI'NTTES. A strange sect of heretics, who appeared 
 about 159 a. d. They probably originated in some of the 
 various schools of Manicheism ; and, if their doctrines are 
 truly reported to us, they are said to have asserted that 
 the power which created heaven and earth was the evil 
 principle ; that Cain, Esau, Korah, the people of Sodom, 
 and others whom the Old Testament represents as vic- 
 tims of peculiar divine judgments, were in fact children 
 of the good principle, and enemies of the evil. Some of 
 them are said to have published a gospel of Judas on the 
 same principle. The Uuintilianists, so called from a lady 
 named Quintilia, of whom Tertullian speaks, were an off- 
 
 CA. IRA. £A IRA. (Literally, it (the Revolution) shall 
 go on.) The burden of a famous revolutionary song, which 
 was composed in the year 1790 in denunciation" of the 
 French aristocracy. The tune and sentiments of this song 
 were much inferior to those of the Marseillaise Hymn 
 (" Allons enfans de la patrie"), the object of which was to 
 rouse the French to defend their country against foreign 
 aggression. 
 
 CAIRN. A word of Celtic origin, used to denote the 
 piles of stones of a conical form so frequently found on 
 the tops of hills, &c. in various districts ; erected probably, 
 as Sir R. C. Hoare observes, in general, for the mere pur- 
 pose of memorials, although some have assigned to them 
 a peculiar character, as receptacles for the bodies of cri- 
 minals burnt in the wicker images of the Druids, <fcc. Ac- 
 cording to some antiquaries, cairn is distinct from carnedd, 
 the Welsh name for heaps of stones on the tops of high 
 mountains (Carnedd David, Carnedd Llewellyn, <kc), 
 which are said to have been sacrificial. Some cairns are 
 undoubtedly sepulchral. In common language, a cairn is 
 distinguished from a barrow, the former being a heap of 
 stones, the latter a mound of earth ; but in all probability 
 they had for the most part the same object, and the dif- 
 ference of materials was merely occasioned by local cir- 
 cumstances. See Barrow. 
 
 CAIRNGO'RM STONE. A yellow or brown variety of 
 rock crystal or crystallized silica, from the mountain 
 Cairngorm in Scotland. 
 
 CAISSON. (Fr.) In Architecture, a sunken panel in 
 a flat or vaulted ceiling, or in the soffit of a cornice. In 
 ceilings they are of various geometrical forms, and often 
 enriched with rosettes or other ornaments. Caisson, in 
 bridge building, is a large chest or vessel in which the 
 piers of a bridge are built. This sinking as the work ad- 
 vances, its bottom at last comes in contact with the bed of 
 the river, when the sides are disengaged, its construction 
 being such as to admit of their being thus detached without 
 injury to the floor or bottom. 
 
 CA'JEPUT OIL. A volatile oil obtained by distilling the 
 leaves of the Melaleuca minor, a shrub abundant in Am- 
 boyna and Borneo, whence the oil is imported. This oil 
 180 
 
 CALCULUS. 
 
 is of various shades of green, highly pungent and aromatic, 
 and powerfully stimulant and diaphoretic. It has been 
 much extolled as a remedy in the Asiatic cholera, but 
 other essential oils are probably as effectual. 
 
 CA/LAMARY. (Calamus, a pen ; theca calamaria, the 
 penjish.) A Cephalopod ; so called because it has a horny 
 substance shaped like a quill in its back, and contains an 
 ink-bag in its visceral sac: it is the Loligo vulgaris of 
 Cuvier. 
 
 CA'LAMINE. A native carbonate of zinc, Lapis cola- 
 minaris. It is a zinc ore used in the manufacture of 
 brass. 
 
 CA'LAMUS. (Gr. xa\afios. a reed.) A name occasion- 
 ally employed in botany for such simple fistular stems, 
 without articulations, as occur in rushes and similar 
 plants. 
 
 CA'LAMTJS AROMA'TICUS. The rhizoma of the Aco- 
 rus calamus, common over the whole of Europe in moist 
 situations ; it is usually known under the name of sweet 
 flag. An infusion of the root is a good aromatic tonic. It 
 yields a very small portion of essential oil when distilled 
 with water (scarcely exceeding a thousandth part of its 
 weight), which is used by perfumers. 
 
 CALA'THIUM, or CALATHID1UM. (Gr. xa\a6os, a 
 cup.) Is a botanical term, employed by some German bo- 
 tanists to denote that kind of depressed contracted inflo- 
 rescence which is found in composite flowers. It is in re- 
 ality an umbel with all the flowers sessile. 
 
 CALATRA'VA, ORDER OF, IN SPAIN, so denomi- 
 nated from a castle taken from the Moors, was instituted 
 by Sancho III. King of Castile, in 1158. The kings of 
 Spain are perpetual grand masters of this order of knight- 
 hood. 
 
 CA'LCAR. (Lat. calcar, a spur.) This term is applied 
 by botanists to all hollow prolongations downwards of 
 leaves or the parts of a flower. The long hollow horns 
 which hang down from one of the sepals of a Tropcelum, 
 or from the labellum of an Orchis, or the curved bodies 
 enclosed within the hood of an Aconite flower, are de- 
 scribed by this name. 
 
 CALCA'REOUS SOIL. (Lat. calx, lime.) Soil of which 
 lime forms a principal component part. Kirwan alleges 
 that no soil will continue long fertile that does not contain 
 some proportion of lime ; and this has been subsequendy 
 proved by what takes place in North America. See Ruf- 
 fin's Essay on Calcareous Manures. Johnston's Agricultu- 
 ral Chemistry. 
 
 CALCEOLA'RIA. (Calceolus, a small slipper.) Agenus 
 of beautiful herbaceous or shrubby plants with yellow, or 
 orange, or purple flowers, the lower half of which is shaped 
 sometimes like an old-fashioned slipper. They naturally 
 inhabit rocks, rich plains, and woods, in Chill, Peru, or 
 New Grenada. In this country many of them are hardy 
 enough to live in the open air in summer ; and some will 
 even endure our winters, if not very severe. They are, 
 however, all cultivated with most success if regarded as 
 greenhouse plants. 
 
 CALCINATION. The reduction of substances to cinder 
 or ash. The term is derived from the Latin word calx, 
 quicklime, which, as is well known, is prepared by the ac- 
 tion of heat upon limestone ; and hence the old chemists 
 employed the word calcination to express any supposed 
 analogous change, metallic substances being apparently 
 converted into earthy matter by calcination. 
 
 CA'LCIDM, The metallic base of lime, discovered in 
 1808 by Davy. This substance has hitherto been obtained 
 in such small quantities, that its properties have not been 
 accurately investigated. It is probably a brilliant white 
 metal, highly inflammable, and more than twice as heavy 
 as water. Combined with oxygen it forms lime, which 
 consists of 20 calcium + 8 oxygen =2S lime. 
 
 CALC-SI'NTER. (German. From kalk, lime, and sin- 
 tern, to drop.) The calcareous deposit of certain springs. 
 
 CALC-SPAR. Calcareous spar, or crystallized carbo- 
 nate of lime. 
 
 CALCULATION, CAT.CULUS. (Lat. calculus, a 
 small pebble, the Romans having made use of pebbles in 
 casting up accounts.) In modern language, the term cal- 
 culus is employed to denote any branch, or any operation 
 of mathematics, which requires or may involve numerical 
 calculation ; and therefore may be applied to the whole of 
 the mathematical sciences, excepting pure geometry. 
 Thus that part of algebra which treats of exponents is 
 called the experimental calcidus. In like manner the 
 phrases calculus of definite integrals, calculus of functions, 
 calculus of variations, $c, are used to denote certain 
 branches of the higher mathematics. See Differential 
 Calculi's. Integral Calculus. Variations. 
 
 CA'LCULUS. (Dimin. of calx, a limestone.) In Phy- 
 siology, the general term for inorganic secretions of various 
 kinds, formed in various parts of the body, and bearing in 
 shape or composition a general resemblance to stones. 
 The term calculus is, however, generally confined to urin- 
 ary concretions. See Urine.
 
 CALDARIUM. 
 
 CALDA'RHTM. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, by 
 some authors used in the same sense as Laconicum, was 
 an apartment in the baths heated for the purpose of causing 
 perspiration. Vitruvius, however, used the word to signify 
 a hot bath. 
 
 CALEA'NTHUM. Pliny's term for copperas. 
 
 CA'LEMBOURG. A French expression for that kind 
 of witticism which in England is denominated a pun. A 
 certain Westphalian Count Calemberg (Kahlenberg), who 
 visited Paris in the reign of Louis XV., and was famous for 
 his blunders in the French language, is said to be the per- 
 son immortalized by the employment of his name to de- 
 signate this species of jeu de mots. 
 
 CA'LENDAR. A distribution or division of time into 
 periods adapted to the purposes of civil life ; also a table 
 or register of such divisions, exhibiting the order in which 
 the seasons, months, festivals, and holidays succeed each 
 other durini the year. The word is derived from the 
 ancient Latin verb calare, to call. In the early ages of 
 Rome, it was the custom for the pontiffs to call the people 
 together on the first day of each month, to apprise them 
 of the days that were to be kept sacred in the course of it. 
 Hence dies calenda, the calends or first days of the differ- 
 ent months. 
 
 The calendars in use throughout Europe are borrowed 
 from that of the Romans. Romulus is supposed to have 
 first undertaken to divide the year in such a manner that 
 certain epochs should return periodically after a revolu- 
 tion of the sun ; but the knowledge of astronomy was not 
 then sufficiently advanced to allow this to be done with 
 much precision. He placed the commencement of the 
 year in spring, and divided it into 10 months — March, April, 
 May, June, Quintilis, Se.xtilis, September, October, Novem- 
 ber, and December. March, May, Quintilis, and October, 
 contained thirty-one days each ; the other six contained 
 only thirty. The names Quintilis and Sextilis remained 
 in the calendar till the end of the republic, when they were 
 changed into July and August ; the former in flattery of 
 
 Julius Csesar, and the latter of Augustus. 
 
 The year of Romulus contained only 304 days. Numa 
 added two months; January to the beginning of the year, 
 and February to the end. About the year 452 b. c. this 
 arrangement was changed by the Decemvirs, who placed 
 February after January ; since that time the order of the 
 months has remained undisturbed. In Numa's year the 
 months consisted of 29 and 30 days alternately, to corres- 
 pond with the synodic revolution of the moon. The year 
 would therefore consist of 354 days; but one day was 
 added to make the number odd, as b^ing more lucky. In 
 order to produce a correspondence with the solar year, 
 Noma ordered an intercalary month to be inserted every 
 second year between the '23rd and '24th of February, con- 
 sisting alternately of '22 and 23 days. Had this regulation 
 been strictly adhered to, the mean length of the year 
 would have been 365JSf days, and the months would have 
 continued for a long time to correspond with the sain 
 sons. But a discretionary power over the intercalary month 
 was exercised by the pontiffs, who frequently abused it for 
 the purpose of hastening or retarding the days of the elec- 
 tion of magistrates : and the Roman calendar continued in 
 a state of uncertainty and confusion till the time of Julius 
 Caesar, when the civil equinox differed from the astrono- 
 mical by three months. 
 
 Under the advice of the astronomer Sosigenes, Caesar 
 abolished the lunar year, and regulated the civil year en- 
 tirely by the sun. He decreed that the common year 
 should consist of 365 days ; but that every fourth year 
 should contain 3110. In distributing the days among the 
 different months, he ordered that the odd months, that is, 
 the first, third, fifth, seventh, ninth, and eleventh, should 
 contain each 31 days, and the other months 30; excepting 
 February, which in common years was to contain only 29 
 days, but every fourth year 30 days. This natural and 
 convenient arrangement was interrupted to gratify the 
 frivolous vanity of Augustus, by giving August, the month 
 named after him, an equal number of days with July, 
 which was named after the first Caesar. The intercalary 
 day, which occurred every fourth year, was inserted be- 
 tween the 24th and 25th of February. According to the 
 peculiar and awkward manner of reckoning adopted by the 
 Romans, the 24th of February was called the sixth before the 
 calends of March, sexto calendas. In' the intercalary year 
 this day was repeated, and called bis sexto calendas; 
 whence the term bissextile. The corresponding English 
 term, leap year, appears less correct, as it seems to imply 
 that a day was leapt over instead of being thrust in. It 
 may be remarked, that in the ecclesiastical calendar the 
 intercalary day is still inserted between the 24th and 25th 
 of February. 
 
 The Julian year consisted of 365!-} days, and conse- 
 quently differed in excess by 11 minutes 10 35 sec. from 
 the true solar year, which consists of 365 d. 5 h. 48 m. 
 49-62 sec. In consequence of this difference the astrono- 
 mical equinox, in the course of a few centuries, sensibly fell 
 131 
 
 CALENDAR. 
 
 back towards the beginning of the year. In the time of 
 Julius Caesar it corresponded to the 25th of March ; in the 
 sixteenth century it had retrograded to the 11th. The 
 correction of this error was one of the purposes sought to 
 be obtained by the reformation of the calendar effected by 
 Pope Gregory XIII. in 1582. By suppressing 10 days in 
 the calendar. Gregory restored the equinox to the 21st of 
 March, the day on which it fell at the time of the Council 
 of Nice in 325 ; the place of Easter and the other moveable 
 church feasts in the ecclesiastical calendar having been 
 prescribed at that council. And in order that the same 
 inconvenience might be prevented in future, he ordered 
 the intercalation which took place every fourth year to be 
 omitted in years ending centuries; that is to say, on the 
 100th, 200th, <kc. ; excepting on the 400th, and the years 
 which are multiples of 400. The Gregorian rule of inter- 
 calation may therefore be expressed as follows : — 
 
 " Every year of which the number is divisible by 4 with- 
 out a remainder is a leap year, excepting the centesimal 
 years, which are only leap years when divisible by 4 after 
 suppressing the two zeros." Thus 1600 was a leap year; 
 1700 and 1800 were common years ; 1900 will be a common 
 year, 2000 a leap year, and so on. 
 
 The Gregorian method of intercalation thus gives 97 in- 
 tercalations in 400 years ; consequently 400 years contain 
 400X365+97=146097 days, and therefore the length of one 
 year is 3652425 days, or 365 d. 5 h. 49 m. 12 sec, which 
 exceeds the true solar year by 22-38 sec, an error which 
 amounts only to one day in 3866 years. 
 
 If an astronomer were required, without any reference 
 to established usages, to give a rule, of intercalation by 
 which the commencement of the civil year, while it al- 
 ways coincided with the commencement of a day, should 
 deviate the least possible from the same instant of the 
 solaryear, be would proceed as follows : — The length of the 
 mean solar year being 365*24224 I days, the excess above a 
 whole number of days is 212241, which converted into a 
 continued fraction becomes 
 
 4+1 
 
 7+1 
 
 4+1 
 
 7 +L_ 
 
 1+, <fcc. 
 Whence the following series of approximative fractions is 
 derived. 
 
 _t_ _7_ _8_ 39 281 320 
 
 4, 29, 33, 161, 1160, 1321, Ax. 
 
 Of these the first gives an intercalation of 1 day in 4 
 
 years, which suppose the year to be 365 X days. The 
 
 second gives 7 intercalations in 29 years, and supposes the 
 
 length of the year to be 365 d. 5 h. 47 m. 35 sec, which is 
 
 somewhat too small. The third fraction, _i $_ j s remarka- 
 
 ' 3 3' 
 hie. as giving a year which differs in excess from the true 
 solar by 153S seconds ; so that by intercalating 8 times in 
 33 years, or 7 times successively at the end of every fourth 
 year, and once at the end of the fifth year, the difference 
 between the civil and solar year would only accumulate to 
 a day in about 5600 years, while in the Gregorian calendar 
 the error amounts to a day in 3S60 years. Nevertheless 
 the Gregorian rule has this advantage, that leap year is al- 
 ways readily distinguished. 
 
 The Gregorian calendar was received immediately or 
 shortly after its promulgation by all the Roman Catholic 
 countries of Europe. The Protestant states of Germany, 
 and the kingdom of Denmark, adhered to the Julian calen- 
 dar till 1700 ; and in England the alteration was success- 
 fully opposed by popular prejudices till 1752. In that year 
 the Julian calendar, or old style, as it was called, was 
 formally abolished by the act of parliament, and the date 
 used in all public transactions rendered coincident with 
 that followed in other European countries, by enacting 
 that the day following the 2nd of September of the year 
 1752 should be called the 14th of that month. When the 
 alteration was made by Gregory it was only necessary to 
 drop 10 days ; the year 1700 having intervened, which was 
 a common year in the Gregorian but a leap year in the 
 Julian calendar, it was now necessary to drop 11 days. 
 The old style is still adhered to in Russia and the coun- 
 tries following the communion of the Greek church ; the 
 difference of date in the present century amounts to twelve 
 days. 
 
 Ecclesiastical Calendar. — The adaptation of the civil to 
 the solar year is attended with no difficulty ; but the church 
 calendar for regulating the moveable feasts imposes con-, 
 ditions less easily satisfied. The early Christians borrowed 
 a portion of their ritual from the Jews. The Jewish year 
 was luni-solar ; that is to say, depended on the moon as
 
 CALENDAR. 
 
 well as on the sun. Easter, the principal Christian festival, 
 in imitation of the Jewish Passover, was celebrated about 
 the time of the full moon. Differences of opinion, and 
 consequently disputations, soon arose as to the proper day 
 on which the celebration should be held. In order to put 
 an end to an unseemly contention, the Council of Nice 
 laid down a specific rule, and ordered that Easter should 
 always be celebrated on the Sunday which immediately 
 follows the full moon that happens upon or next after the 
 day of the vernal equinox. In order to determine Easter 
 according to this rule for any particular year, it is necessa- 
 ry to reconcile three periods ; namely, the week, the lunar 
 month, and the solar year. To find the day of the week 
 on which any given day of the year falls, it is necessary to 
 know on what day of the week the year began. In the Julian 
 calendar this was easily found by means of a short period 
 or cycle of 28 years (see Cycle), after which the year be- 
 gins with the same day of the week. In the Gregorian cal- 
 endar this order is interrupted by the omission of the in- 
 tercalation in the last year of the century. But to render 
 any calculation unnecessary a table is given in the prayer 
 books, showing the correspondence of the days of the 
 year and the week for the current century. (.See also Do- 
 minical Letter.) The connection of the lunar month 
 with the solar year is an ancient problem, for the resolu- 
 tion of which the Greeks invented cycles or periods, which 
 remained in use with some modifications till the time of 
 the Gregorian reformation. (See Metonic Cycle, Gold- 
 en Number.) The author of the Gregorian calendar, Lui- 
 gi Lilio Ghiraldi, or, as he is frequently called, Aloysius 
 Lilius, employed for the same purpose a set of numbers 
 called Epacts (for an explanation of the use of which see 
 Epact). It is to be desired that this complicated system 
 of rules and tables were rendered unnecessary by abolish- 
 ing the use of the lunar month, and causing Easter to fall 
 invariably on the same Sunday of a calendar month; for 
 example, on the first or second Sunday of April. 
 
 New French Calendar. — A new reform of the calendar 
 was attempted to be introduced in France during the pe- 
 riod of the Revolution. The commencement of the year 
 was fixed at the autumnal equinox, which nearly coincided 
 with the epoch of the foundation of the republic. The 
 names of the ancient months were abolished, and others 
 substituted having reference to agricultural labours, or the 
 state of nature in the different seasons of the year. But 
 the alteration was found to be inconvenient and impracti- 
 cable, and after a few years was formally abandoned. 
 (Cycle, Era, Hejira, Year. See Nicolas's Chronology 
 of History.) 
 
 CA'LENDER. A machine for pressing and smoothing 
 cloth and other articles, which when so prepared are said 
 to be calendered. It literally means hot-pressing ; from 
 color, heat. 
 
 CA'LEXDS, in the ancient Roman calendar, were the 
 first days of each month. The Roman month was divided 
 into three periods by the Calends, the Nmxes, and the Ides. 
 The Calends were invariably placed at the beginning of the 
 month; the Ides at the middle of the month, on the 13th or 
 I5tb ; and the Nones (novem, nine) were the ninth day be- 
 fore the Ides, counting inclusively. From these three 
 terms the days were counted backwards, in the following 
 manner : — Those days comprised between the calends and 
 the nones were denominated days before the nones ; those 
 between the nones and the ides, days before the ides ; and 
 those from the ides to the end of the month, days before 
 the calends. Hence the phrases pridie ccdendas, tertio ca- 
 lendas, &c; meaning the second day before the calends, 
 or last day of the month, the third day before the calends, 
 or last but one of the month (the calends or first day of the 
 following month being included in the reckoning), and so 
 on. In the months of March, May, July, and October, the 
 ides fell on the 15th day, and the nones, consequently, on 
 the 7th. In all the other months the ides fell on the 13th, 
 and the nones, consequently, on the 7th. The number of 
 days receiving their denomination from the calends de- 
 pended on the number of days in the month and the day 
 on which the ides fell. For example, if the month had 
 thirty-one days, and the ides fell on the 13th (as happened 
 in January, August, and December), there would remain 
 eighteen days after the ides, which, added to the first of 
 the following month, made nineteen days of calends. 
 Hence the 14th day of January was styled the nineteenth 
 before the calends of February ; the following day, or loth 
 of the month, was the eighteenth before the calends, and so on. 
 
 CALE'NDULIN. A" mucilaginous substance or species 
 of gum obtained from the marigold. 
 
 CA'LENTURE. (Lat. caleo.) A delirious fever, pro- 
 duced by the sun, in which it is common for the patient to 
 imagine the sea to be green fields. 
 
 CA'I.IBER, or CALIPER. (Fr. calibre.) The thickness 
 or diameter of any round or cylindrical body, as of the bore 
 of a gun or of its ball. 
 
 CALICO-PRINTING. The art of producing figured 
 patterns upon calico ; they are transferred to its surface by 
 182 
 
 CALIXTINES. 
 
 blocks, copper plates, or engraved cylinders, by which the 
 colours are directly printed, or by which mordants are so 
 applied that when the calico is immersed in a colouring 
 bath, the colour only adheres or is produced upon the 
 parts to which the mordant had been previously applied. 
 See Dyeing. See also Berthollet on Dyeing and Bleaching, 
 edited by Dr. Ure, new edition, 8vo. 1841. 
 
 CA'LIDUCT. (Lat. calidus, hot, and ductus, a convey- 
 ance.) In Architecture, a pipe or flue for the distribution 
 of heat in an apartment or house. 
 
 CALIGI'D^. A family of parasitic Entomostracous 
 Crustaceans, belonging to the order Siphonostoma, charac- 
 terized by having the mouth organized for piercing and 
 suction. The parasites of this family prey almost exclu- 
 sively upon fish, and are commonly called fish-lice. Gold- 
 fish are sometimes infested to an almost incredible extent 
 with a species, the Monoculus foliaceus of Linnaeus, which 
 is nearly a quarter of an inch long, having the body covered 
 with a broad round transparent shield, notched behind to 
 give free motion to the tail. The first pair of legs are 
 shaped like a cupping-glass, and for the purpose of holding 
 on ; the four last pairs are formed for swimming and ter- 
 minated each by two long and feathered filaments, proba- 
 bly subservient to respiration. 
 
 CA'LIPER COMPASSES, or simply Calipers, are com- 
 passes with curved legs, for measuring the caliber or di- 
 ameter of cylinders, balls, or other round bodies. Calipers 
 of the best sort are made with a scale having different sets 
 of numbers engraved on it, like a sliding rule, for the pur- 
 pose of exhibiting at once various relations depending on 
 the magnitude of the diameter of the body measured. 
 Thus, as the weights of balls of the same metal are in a 
 constant ratio to the cubes of their diameters the scale 
 may be so graduated and numbered that the observer may 
 read off either the diameter in inches, or the weight in 
 pounds. Other numbers having a less immediate applica- 
 tion are also frequently attached : for example, the de- 
 grees of a circle, the proportions of troy and avoirdupois 
 weight, tables of the specific gravities and weights of 
 bodies, &c. It is obvious that these may be varied infi- 
 nitely, according to the purposes proposed to be accom- 
 plished. This word is probably derived from the Greek 
 Ka\Xetiroy. I leave behind. 
 
 CA'LIPH. (Arab, khalifah.) Orisinally a deputy or 
 lieutenant, but afterwards applied chiefly to the successors 
 or representatives of Mohammed, who exercised the high- 
 est spiritual and temporal jurisdiction over the "Faithful.'' 
 At first there was little difficulty in determining the right 
 of succession to the caliphat, as it devolved on the imme- 
 diate descendants or relations of the prophet: but in the 
 course of time violent disputes arose upon this point 
 among several Mohammedan dynasties, and led to the es- 
 tablishment of the caliphats of Africa (Fatimide), and of 
 Spain (Omayzade), which were contemporary with that of 
 the Abassides of Bagdad. The splendour of the empire 
 founded by Mohammed reached its highest pitch towards 
 the beginning of the ninth century, under the famous 
 Haroun al Raschid. The period of its decline may be da- 
 ted from the commencement of the tenth century ; and 
 for the last 200 years the appellation of caliph has been 
 swallowed up in Shah, Sultan, Emir, and other tides pe- 
 culiar to the east. 
 
 CALl'PPIC PERIOD. In Ancient Chronology, is a 
 correction of the Me tonic cycle proposed by Calippus. 
 The Metonic cycle was a period of nineteen solar years, at 
 the end of which time the new moons return again on the 
 same days of the year. The period contained exactly 
 6940 days. Now 6940 days exceeds 235 lunations by only 
 seven hours and a half. At the end of four cycles, or 76 
 years, the accumulated excess of 7% hours amounts to 
 one whole day and six hours. Calippus therefore pro- 
 posed to quadruple the period of Melon, and to deduct a 
 day at the end of it by changing one of the months of 30 
 days into a month of 29 days. (See Metonic Cycle.) 
 The period of Calippus is sometimes referred to as a date 
 by Ptolemy. 
 
 CALI'XTINES. One division of the Bohemian Refor- 
 mers, who in the loth century protested against the errors 
 of the church of Rome, and maintained their indepen- 
 dence by force of arms. After the death of Huss, his fol- 
 lowers split into two principal parties, under the names of 
 Taborites and Calixtines ; of which the latter were the 
 most moderate, and held out chiefly on the ground of the 
 refusal of the cup (calix) to the laity, whence they de- 
 rived their name. Their hostility was at length propitiated 
 by indulgence on this point : the church of Rome declar- 
 ing expressly at the same time that the giving or withhold- 
 ing of the sacramental wine is a matter of ecclesiastical 
 ordinance merely, and neither the one nor the other es- 
 sential to the reception of the benefits of the eucharist. 
 The counsel of Basle (1431) says,— Sive sub una specie 
 sive duplici quis communicat, secundum ordinationem seu 
 observationem ecclesiae, proficit digne communicantibus 
 ad salutem.
 
 CALLIGRAPHY. 
 
 The same name is given to the followers of Calixtus, a 
 German divine of the 17th cenlury, who proposed a recon- 
 ciliation between the Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Re- 
 formed church, on the basis of the Apostles' Creed. 
 
 CALLIGRAPHY. (Gr. kcjXXo?, beauty, and ypd<p(o, I 
 write.') The art of beautiful writing. The scribes who 
 made a profession of copying manuscripts, before the in- 
 vention of printing, have been termed Calligraphers. Their 
 art consisted not merely in writing, but also in embellishing 
 their work with ornamental devices, although illumination 
 (which see) was also practised as a distinct employment. 
 Among the MSS. of the early part of the middle ages which 
 we possess, there are some sumptuous specimens of the 
 art, written in letters of gold, vermilion, &c, and on leaves 
 of different colours, but that fashion went early out of use ; 
 and in general it may be said, that the current writing of 
 calligraphers diminished in beauty and in laborious minute- 
 ness, especially in Italy, during the centuries immediately 
 ig the invention of printing. 
 
 CALLICNYMUS. (Gr. ivaXXoc, beauty, and ovopa, a 
 name.) A genus of beautiful spiny-finned fishes, with very 
 small gill openings ; ventral fins under the throat, and larger 
 than the pectorals; head oblong, llattened; eyes placed 
 near to each other, and directed upwards ; no teeth on the 
 palate ; intermaxillaries capable of considerable protru- 
 sion. They have no air bladder. The gemmeous, or 
 golden dragonet (Callionymus lyra), is a British example of 
 this L'enus. 
 
 CALLI'OPE. (Gr. xaXXoc, beauty, and oxp, the voice.) 
 In Mythology, one of the Muses usually associated with 
 Homer in the statues of antiquity, and thence considered 
 as the patroness of heroic poetry. 
 
 CALLI'TRICHA'CEJE. (Cauitriche. the only genus.) 
 
 A small cluster of imperfectly organized water plants, the 
 
 natural relation of which is unsettled. By some they are 
 
 '■■]■<;[ allies of UrticacetB, by others of A r aiadacem, 
 
 anil cithers Mon ocotyledons. 
 
 CALLORHY'NCHUS. See Chimkra. 
 
 CA'LLUS. In Osteology, the matter which unites the 
 divided ends of broken bones ; it is a secretion of new bony 
 matter. 
 
 CA'LOMEL. The old chemical name of chloride of 
 mercury. The word is perhaps derived from «viiXoc, fair, 
 and /'■>"<;. black. It is prepared by rubbing mercury with 
 corrosive sublimate, which forms a black mixture, which, 
 liv the application of heat, yields a white sublimate of calo- 
 mel. It is much used in medicine, especially as a purga- 
 tive. It consists of 200 mercury ■+- 36 chlorine = 'ZA> chlo- 
 ride of mercury or calomel. 
 
 CALO'RiC. ' vl, at. caleo, I am warm.) A term applied 
 
 by the French chemists to designate the matter of Keat,H 
 
 being tl the phenomena of heat are dependent 
 
 ence of a highly attenuated, mobile, and im- 
 
 ponderable form of matter. See Heat. 
 
 CALORIFIC RAYS. A term applied to the invisible 
 heating rays which emanate from the sun, and from burn- 
 ioir and heated bodies. 
 
 CALORIMETER. (Lat. calor, fteat, and metrum, a 
 measure.) An instrument for measuring the quantity of 
 heat given out by bodies in passing from one temperature 
 to another. 
 
 CALORIMO'TOR. (Lat. calor, heat, and moveo, / put 
 in motion.) This term has occasionally been applied to a 
 peculiar form of the voltaic apparatus composed of one pair 
 of plates of great extent of surface, the electricity of which, 
 when transmitted through good conductors, produces in- 
 tense heat. 
 
 CA'LOSO'MA. (Gr. *aXoc, beautiful ; cu/ia, body.) A 
 conns of most splendid Coleopterous insects, belonging to 
 the family CarabidcB, or ground beetles. In this genusthe 
 jaws are toothless, or rather devoid of notches ; the maxil- 
 lary palpes terminate in a large joint, and the abdomen is 
 broad. There are two British species: Calosoma syco- 
 phanta, so called because its grub insinuates itself into the 
 nests of gregarious caterpillars, and feeds upon them ; and 
 Calosoma inquisitor. In speculating on the exception 
 which the Calosomes present among the Carabida, in the 
 brilliant colours which are developed in them, an explana- 
 tion seems to be afforded by a difference in their habits : 
 they frequent trees, and are more exposed to the light than 
 their hole-and-corner congeners, the ground-beetles. 
 
 CALOTYPE is the name given by Mr. H. Fox Talbot to 
 his improved Photographic method. The method of ob- 
 taining Calotype pictures is as follows : — Take a sheet of 
 the best writing paper. Dissolve 100 grains of crystallized 
 nitrate of silver in 6 ounces of distilled water. Wash the 
 paper with this solution, with a soft brush, on one side, 
 and put a mark on that side, whereby to know it again. 
 Dry the paper cautiously at a distant fire, or else let it dry 
 spontaneously in a dark room. When dry, or nearly so, 
 dip it into a solution of iodide of potassium, of 500 grains to 
 a pint of distilled water, and let it stay two or three minutes 
 in this solution. Then dip it into a vessel of water, dry it 
 lightly with blotting paper, and finish drying it at a fire, or 
 183 
 
 CALVINISTS. 
 
 spontaneously. All this is best done by candlelight. The 
 paper so far prepared the author calls iodized paper. It is 
 scarcely sensitive to light ; nevertheless it ought to be kept 
 protected from the light. Shortly before this paper is 
 wanted for use, wash a sheet of it with this liquid :— Dis- 
 solve 100 grs. of crystallized nitrate of silver in 2 oz. of dis- 
 tilled water; add one sixth of its volume of strong acetic 
 acid : let this mixture be called A. Make a saturated so- 
 lution of crystallized gallic acid in cold distilled water; 
 the quantity dissolved is very small ; call this solution B. 
 When a sheet of paper is wanted for use, mix together the 
 liquids A and B, in equal volumes, but only mix a small 
 quantity of them at a time, because the mixture will not 
 keep long without spoiling : call this mixture the Gullo-ni- 
 trate of silver. With it wash the iodized paper on the 
 marked side, by candlelight. Let the paper rest half a 
 minute, and then dip it into water. Then dry it lightly with 
 blotting paper, and at a distance from the fire. The author 
 has named the paper thus prepared Calotype paper, on ac- 
 count of its great utility in obtaining the pictures of objects 
 with the camera obscura. If this paper be kept in a press, 
 it will often retain its qualities in perfection for three 
 months or more, being ready for use at any moment ; but 
 this is not uniformly the case. It is best used a few hours 
 after it has been prepared. The Calotype paper is sensi- 
 tive to light in an extraordinary degree, which transcends a 
 hundred times or more that of any kind of photogenic pa 
 per; it will take an impression from simple moonlight not 
 concentrated by a lens. 
 
 Use of the Paper. Take a piece of this paper, and hav- 
 ing covered half of it, expose the other half to day-light for 
 the space of one second in dark cloudy weather in winter, 
 when there will be a strong impression upon the paper, but 
 latent and invisible, and its existence not to be suspected 
 by any one. To make it visible, wash the paper once 
 more with the gallo-nitrate of silver, and then warm it 
 gently before the fire. In a few seconds, the part of the 
 paper upon which the light has acted begins to darken, and 
 finally grows entirely black, while the other part of the pa- 
 per retains Us whiteness. This paper is well suited to re- 
 ceive images in the camera obscura. When the aperture 
 of the lens amounts to one third of the focal length, and the 
 object is very white, as a plaster bust, <fcc, one second is 
 sufficient to obtain a pretty good image of it, made visible 
 by washing and warming. 
 
 The Fixine Process. First wash the picture with water, 
 then lightly dry it with blotting-paper, and next wash it 
 with a solution of bromide of potassium, containing 100 
 grains of that salt dissolved in8or lOounces of distilled water. 
 After a minute or two it should be again dipped in water, 
 and then finally dried. The picture is in this manner very 
 strongly fixed : and with this great advantage, that it re- 
 mains transparent; and that, therefore, there is no diffi- 
 culty in obtaining a copy of it. The Calotype picture is a 
 negative one. in which the lights of nature are represented 
 by shades ; but the copies are positive, having the lights 
 conformable to nature. A negative calotype may serve to 
 furnish several positive ones", but after a while it grows 
 faint; but it maybe restored by washing by candlelight 
 with gallo-nitrate of silver, and warming. A second series 
 may now be taken. (See Brewster's London and Edin- 
 burgh Philosophical Journal, vol. 19, 1841.) 
 
 CA'LOYERS. Monks of the Greek church, who follow 
 the rule of St Basil. 
 
 CALP. An argillo-ferruginous limestone. 
 
 CALU'MBA. The root of the Cocadus palmatus. It is 
 dried in slices of a yellowish grey colour, and is generally 
 worm-eaten. It has a bitter and slightly pungent taste, and 
 is very mucilaginous. Calumba root is an excellent tonic 
 medicine, especially in debility of stomach and intestines: 
 about ten grains of the powder may be taken twice or 
 thrice a day. The Mozambique name of this plant is Ka- 
 lumba. 
 
 CA'LUMET. (Lat. calamus, a reed.) In Modem His- 
 tory, a large beautifully adorned pipe, used by the North 
 American Indians as the emblem of peace. (Harris's 
 Voyages, vol. ii. p. 908.) The first notice of the calumet 
 among European writers is to be found in Ferdinand de 
 Soto's account of his expedition through the southern pro- 
 vinces in 1470. See Catlin's North American Indians. 
 
 CA'LVINISTS. The followers of Calvin, the second 
 great reformer of the 16th centnry, and founder of the 
 church of Geneva. The distinguishing tenets of this cele- 
 brated theologian refer to points both of discipline and doc- 
 trine. He was the first to reject tbe episcopal form of 
 church government, originally, it is said, with great reluc- 
 tance, and compelled thereto by the want of regularly or- 
 dained ministers ; but he afterwards maintained the exclu- 
 sive divine appointment of the Presbyterian system, which 
 has since obtained favour in Scotland, and among the 
 Protestants of France, and has had numerous adherents 
 in England and America. The doctrinal opinions of Cal- 
 vin, however, have not been permanently received among 
 those who have adopted his views i especting the ministry.
 
 CALX. 
 
 On the contrary, in England and Geneva, there are many 
 Presbyterians Arminian in sentiment. It was at the Sy- 
 nod of Dort, in 1618, that the points in dispute between the 
 Calvinlsts and Arminians were most accurately distin- 
 guished, and arranged under five heads, upon which the 
 former party asserted the following opinions : — 
 
 1. Of predestination — that all men have sinned in Adam, 
 and are become liable to the curse ; but that God has by 
 an eternal decree chosen some from the beginning, to 
 whom he should impart faith of his free grace, and conse- 
 quently salvation. 
 
 2. Of the death of Christ— that it is a sufficient sacrifice 
 for the sins of the whole world ; and that some only be- 
 lieve and are saved, whereas many perish in unbelief, 
 arises not from any defect in this sacrifice, but from the 
 perversity of the non-elect. 
 
 3. Of man's corruption— that all men are conceived in 
 sin and born the children of wrath, and are neither will- 
 ing nor able to return to God without the aid of the Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 4. Of grace and free will— that the influence of the 
 Spirit upon our fallen natures does not force, but only 
 quickens and corrects them, inducing them gently to turn 
 themselves towards God by an exercise of their free will. 
 
 5. Of perseverance — that God does not wholly take away 
 his Spirit from his own children, even in lamentable falls ; 
 nor does he permit them to fall finally from the grace of 
 adoption and the state of justification. 
 
 These opinions, which were laid down at the Synod of 
 Dort, represent the sentiments of the founder of this school, 
 and of the ancient or strict Calvinists. In modern times 
 another class of Moderate Calvinists has arisen, who differ 
 from these in holding lower notions concerning reproba- 
 tion and the extent of Christ's sacrifice. For other subdi- 
 visions among the Calvinists, see articles Sub-Lapsarians 
 and Supra-Lapsarians. 
 
 CALX. A name applied by the alchemists to all pro- 
 ducts of combustion, especially those obtained from the 
 metals, which were supposed to be converted into a spe- 
 cies of earth. 
 
 CALY'BIO. (Gr. Ka\v6ri, a cottage.) A name adopted 
 by some carpologists, for such a one-celled, inferior, one 
 or few-seeded fruit, enclosed in a cupule, as the acorn of 
 the oak, the mast of beech, &c. 
 
 CA'LYCANTHA'CEvE. (Calycanthus, one of the gen- 
 era.) A small natural order of plants related to Rosacea;. 
 They are all shrubs with fragrant flowers, and inhabit 
 North America or Japan. Some of them resemble the ge- 
 nus lllicium in their flowers. 
 
 CA'LYCERA'CE^. (Calycera, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of plants related to Composites,, from which 
 they differ very little, excepting that their seeds are pendu- 
 lous and albuminous, and their anthers half united. The 
 species are woody herbaceous plants, inhabiting the warm- 
 er parts of South America. 
 
 CALY'CULUS. A diminutive of Calyx, which see. 
 
 CALY'MENE. (Gr. KtKaXvjtyitvrt, concealed.) A name 
 devised to express the obscure nature of a genus. Trilo- 
 bites (fossil crustaceans), to which it is attached, and 
 which is distinguished from all other Trilobites by the fa- 
 culty which the species possesses of rolling the body up 
 into the form of a ball, in the same manner as the recent 
 genera Sphmroma, Armadillo, Glomeris ; viz. by approxi- 
 mating the two extremes of the trunk at the under part. 
 The anterior segment or shield of Calymene is as broad or 
 broader than it is long, and supports two compound promi- 
 nent eyes ; the posterior or terminal segment forms a sort 
 of triangular elongated tail. 
 
 CALY'PSO. (Gr.) In Fabulous History, a daughter of 
 Atlas, according to Homer, but of Oceanus and Thetys, ac- 
 cording to Hesiod, was the queen of the island Ogygia. 
 On this island Ulysses suffered shipwreck ; and Calypso, 
 by the united influence of her love and spells, prevailed 
 on him to remain and share her sceptre. After the lapse 
 of seven years, however, his desire to revisit his native 
 country became irrepressible, and he resolved to forego 
 his honours in Ogygia. Calypso tried every expedient, 
 offering him even the bribe of immortality, to induce him 
 to remain ; but all her efforts proved unavailing, and on 
 his departure she died of grief. The island of Ogygia, 
 placed by Pliny (iii. 10.) off the Lacinian promontory, be- 
 tween the Tarentine and Scyllian bays, has long since 
 been engulfed in the ocean, along with the famous islands 
 of the Sirens. 
 
 CALYPTRjE'A. (Gr. Ka\viTTpa, a covering.) The 
 name of a genus of Gastropods, having a patelliform shell, 
 to the concavity of which adheres either a smaller conical 
 shell, like a cup in a saucer, or a semi-circular testaceous 
 
 Erocess, forming the commencement of a columella. The 
 ranchiae consist of a single row of long and slender fila- 
 ments. The foot is circular, expanded, and furnished with 
 two anterior processes. The genus, originally established 
 by Lamarck, is now divided into the sub-genera Calypeop- 
 eis, Crepipatella, and Calyptrwa. 
 184 
 
 CAMELID.E. 
 
 CA'LYX. (Gr. ko.\v£, a cup.) The name given by bot- 
 anists to the outermost of the enveloping organs of a flow- 
 er. It is usually green, and sometimes bears a great re- 
 semblance to leaves ; but it is also frequently richly co- 
 loured, as in the Mirabilis, Salvia spttndens, &c. This 
 organ appears to have the office of protecting the more 
 tender parts lying within it, and is therefore usually pre- 
 sent in flowers ; when absent, its protecting office is al- 
 ways performed by some modification of bracts, as in the 
 Arum and the Willow. If it is adherent to the sides of the 
 ovary, it is called superior ; if partially adherent, half su- 
 perior ; and if quite free from the sides of the ovary, it is 
 inferior. In systematical botany these differences are of 
 great importance. 
 
 CAMARFLLA. (Span.) The little or private chamber 
 of the sovereign of Spain (equivalent to the petits apparle- 
 ments of the old French regime) ; but the term is generally 
 applied to his immediate confidants, who are usually all- 
 powerful in the government of the country. In England 
 the term is nearly synonymous with clique. 
 
 CA'MBER. (Fr. cambrer, to bend.) In Architecture, 
 the convexity of the upper and concavity of the under side 
 of a beam, by which it is prevented from becoming straight 
 or concave at top either by its own weight, or by the load- 
 ing it may have to carry. 
 
 CA'MBHJM. (A low Latin word for liquid which be- 
 comes glutinous.) A viscid secretion formed between the 
 fiber and alburnum of Exogenous trees in the early spring, 
 when vegetation recommences. It is supposed by some 
 physiologists to be the matter out of which new wood and 
 bark are formed ; by others to be a preparation of organi- 
 zable matter, out of which the horizontal growth of the 
 cellular system, and the vertical growth of the woody sys- 
 tem, may be nourished during their respective develop- 
 ment. It disappears as soon as the new wood and bark 
 have been completely formed. 
 
 CA'MBRIC. A delicate linen fabric, winch was origi- 
 nally manufactured at Cambray. 
 
 CA'MEL. A machine invented by the Dutch for carry- 
 ing vessels into harbours where there is not a sufficient 
 depth of water. It consisted of two large boxes, or half 
 ships, built in such a manner that they could be applied on 
 each side of the hull of a large vessel. On the deck of 
 each part of the camel a number of horizontal windlasses 
 were placed, from which ropes proceeded, on one side, 
 and being carried under the keel of the vessel, were at- 
 tached to the windlasses on the deck of the other part. 
 When about to be used, as much water as necessary was 
 suffered to run into them ; all the ropes were then cast 
 loose, and large beams were placed horizontally through 
 the port-holes of the vessel, the ends resting on the camels 
 alongside. When the ropes were made fast, and the ves- 
 sel properly secured, the water was pumped out, on which 
 the camels rose and bore up the vessel. (Bcckman's His- 
 tory of Inventions, vol. iii. p. 337.) 
 
 CAME'LEON, or CHAM^LION MINERAL. Man- 
 ganesate of potash, obtained by melting a mixture of pot- 
 ash and black oxide of manganese. When put into water 
 the solution is first green, and then passes through a variety 
 of tints of green, purple, and red, till at length it becomes 
 colourless. 
 
 CAME'LID.5:. (Cameras, a camel.) A family of rumi- 
 nant Mammalia, whieh deviates from the rest of the order 
 in the presence of two incisors in the upper jaw, and the 
 absence of cotyledons in the uterus and leetal membranes. 
 The camel and dromedary of the old world, and the llama, 
 guanacho, and vicugna of the new world, are the existing 
 species of this family. 
 
 The old world Camelidee (Camelus) are especially orga- 
 nized for existence in the arid and barren deserts of Asia 
 and Africa. They have a broad, expanded, elastic foot, 
 terminated in front by two comparatively small hoofs, and 
 well defended beneath by a felt of coarse hair. The new 
 world Camelidae (Auchenio) have narrower feet, and the 
 hoofs are bent in the form of claws, adapted to climb the 
 steep passes of the mountain ranges of South America, to 
 which continent they are confined. 
 
 Besides the peculiar characters above mentioned, the 
 camels present a modification in the structure of the sto- 
 mach which is not present in any other family of Rumin- 
 antia. There are developed from the sides of the first ca- 
 vity of the stomach or paunch two series of cells, into 
 which experiment has proved that the water which the an- 
 imal drinks almost exclusively passes, and where it can be 
 kept apart from the solid contents of the paunch in a quan- 
 tity of several quarts. Surely the final relation of such a 
 modification of structure to the peculiar physical charac- 
 teristic of the localities to which the animal possessing it is 
 confined must force itself irresistibly on the mind. Bat 
 besides a reservoir of water to meet the exigencies of long 
 journeys across the desert, the dromedary and camel are 
 provided with a storehouse of solid nutriment on which 
 they can draw for supplies long after every digestible part 
 has been extracted from the contents of the stomach : this
 
 CAMELLIA. 
 
 storehouse consists of one or two large collections of fat 
 Stored up in ligamentous cells supported by the spines of 
 the dorsal vertebrae, and forming what are called the 
 humps. When the camel is in a region of fertility the 
 hump becomes plump and expanded ; but after a protract- 
 ed journey in the wilderness it becomes shrivelled and re- 
 duced to its ligamentous constituent, in consequence of the 
 absorption of the fat. Button carried his teleological rea- 
 soning, or the ascription of design, so far as to assert that 
 the humps on the backs of the camel were badges of slave- 
 ry, and intended to adapt them to the burthens of their 
 task-masters ; and he supported this ingenious idea by the 
 unfounded assertion that the dorsal prominences did not 
 belong to the camels in free nature. But the true uses of 
 the fatty humps, as of the water-cells, relate to the exigen- 
 cies of the Camelidae of the deserts under every condition. 
 The complete adaptation of the camel for the dreary 
 wastes in which it is destined to exist, is further illustrated 
 by some minor modifications in its structure. The nos- 
 trils are narrow oblique slits, defended with hair at their 
 margins, and provided with a sphincter muscle, like the 
 eyelids ; so that the animal can close them at pleasure. 
 This action is of great service in excluding the fine and 
 penetrating sand which is drifted along in clouds by the 
 storms of the desert. The expanded sole of the foot, elas- 
 tic as a cushion, prevents the ieg from sinking in the loose 
 surface ; the long joints and lofty tread of the camel are 
 equally adapted for a rapid progress along loose sandy 
 plains. Thus to the Arab of the scorching desert the ca- 
 mel is as valuable, and indeed as essential, as the reindeer 
 to the Laplander in his region of perpetual snow. The one 
 animal, like the other, serves, while living, for all the pur- 
 I"- ea of draught and burden, and supplies his master's 
 family with milk. When dead the flesh of the camel is 
 eaten, though it is coarser than that of the ordinary Rumi- 
 nants: its hide, which approaches that of the Pachyderms 
 in thickness and strength, is applied to the manufacture of 
 saddles, harness, pitchers, shields, and various other arti- 
 cles. The finer hair is manufactured into articles of cloth- 
 ing, and the coarser hair is woven into a kind of matting 
 for the covering of tents. By day the camels transport 
 their owner and his family, with all their property, from 
 place to place. By night the body of the recumbent beast 
 of burden serves as a pillow for hi* master ; or if the air 
 be agitated, thi c unels are arranged to windward, so as to 
 form a barrier against the ever-shifting sands. 
 
 The camel is the sole medium of communication be- 
 tween those countries which are separated by extensive 
 deserts ; in the beautiful and expressive metaphorof eastern 
 speech, it is "the ship of the desert," and in truth it is the 
 only ship by which the wilderness can be navigated with 
 certainly and safety. A stout Arabian camel can travel 
 with a load of miii pounds at the rate of about three miles 
 in the hour. The swifter varieties, as the tighl dromedary 
 or '' mahairy," are said to carry a single rider over a space 
 of from 70 to 100 miles in 24 hours, and that for several 
 
 CAME'LLIA. (In honour of Kamel, a Spanish Jesuit.) 
 A beautiful genus of evergreen shrubs inhabiting Chinaand 
 Japan. Several speciesare known ; one of which, C. 
 oleifera, furnishes the Chinese with abundance of oil used 
 for various domestic purposes ; others are small-flowered 
 and unimportant; but one, C japonica, is among the most 
 beautiful species in the vegetable kingdom. It is from this 
 that the multitudes of double varieties, now common or- 
 naments of gardens in the spring, have been obtained by 
 sowing seeds. Most of the varieties originated with the Chi- 
 nese and Japanese ; but many very fine ones have been 
 raised in England and Belgium. They are usually culti- 
 vated in pots, but are never seen in perfection unless plant- 
 ed in the open ground beneath a glass roof; under such 
 circumstances they only require to be guarded from severe 
 frost by some kind of heating apparatus. In some parts 
 of England, and even near London, they are occasionally 
 grown in the open air, hut with little success. 
 
 CA'MELOPARD. SVe Giraffe. 
 
 CAME'LOPARDA'LIS. One of the constellations form- 
 ed by Hevelius in the northern hemisphere. It is situated 
 between Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Perseus, Ursa Major, Ursa 
 Minor, and Draco. 
 
 CA'MEO. A word of doubtful origin, applied to gems 
 of various colours sculptured in relief. The art of en- 
 graving on gems boasts of high antiquity, having been prac- 
 tised with various degrees of success by the Egyptians, 
 Greeks, and Romans. It was again revived in Italy in the 
 15th century, and is even at the present day cultivated with 
 great avidity and considerable success. The cameos of the 
 ancients were usually confined to the agate, onyx, and sard, 
 which, on account of the variety of their strata, were bet- 
 ter accommodated to a display of the artist's talents ; but 
 they are also occasionally found executed on opal, beryl, 
 or emerald, and even on a sort of factitious stone, the 
 Vitrum obsidianum of Pliny, distinguished by the moderns 
 as the antique paste. (Encyc. Metr.) One of the most 
 185 
 
 M 
 
 CAMERA OBSCURA. 
 
 famous cameos is the onyx at present in Paris, called the 
 apotheosis of Augustus. It is one foot in height and ten 
 inches in width. 
 
 CA'MERA LU'CIDA. The name given by Dr. Hooke 
 to an instrument contrived by him for making the image 
 of any object appear on a wall in a light room either by 
 day or by night. It is described in the Phil. Trans, vol. 
 xxxviii. p. 741. 
 
 The instrument now known by the name of Camera Lu- 
 cida is a very ingenious invention of the late Dr. Wollas- 
 ton, for the purpose of enabling any one, without a know- 
 ledge of the rules of drawing or perspective, to delineate 
 distant objects, or trace the outlines of landscapes, &c. 
 with perfect accuracy. It con- 
 sists of a quadrangular glass 
 prism, «, b, c, d, by means of 
 which rays of light are bent, 
 by two reflections, into a path 
 at right angles to their previous 
 direction. A ray of light pro- 
 ceeding from O enters the face 
 ^ of the prism at a, and con- 
 — tinues its course in a straight 
 line till it meets the adjacent side of the prism at b, and 
 making with it a very acute angle, is wholly reflected in the 
 direction be. At c it again meets the side of the prism, 
 and is in like manner reflected in the direction c E. The 
 eye being placed at E, sees the image of the object on the 
 surface of the prism at c, and refers it to P, on a plane 
 M N, which may be covered with a sheet of white paper. 
 The point of a pencil can also be seen on the paper, and 
 thus the accurate outline of the object may be traced. It 
 is easy to see from this the proper form which the crystal 
 should have. Suppose the two reflections to be equal, then 
 the ray will be bent 45° from its original path by the first, 
 and also 45° by the second ; and the four angles which it 
 makes with the faces of the prism at b and c are each 
 22k° ; hence the faces a and d being perpendicular, the 
 faces a and b must be inclined in an angle equal to three 
 fourths of a right angle, or 67£° ; b and c must make an 
 angle of 135°, or three fourths of two right angles ; and c 
 and d make an angle of 67J°. By the laws of optics, the 
 size of the picture will bear the same relation to the object 
 delineated, that the distance of the eye from the paper 
 bears to the distance of the object. Hence, in order to in- 
 crease or diminish the size of the picture, the prism is 
 mounted in a brass frame, supported by brass tubes ca- 
 pable of being lengthened or shortened at pleasure. A 
 thin brass plate, affixed to the upper surface of the prism, 
 and having a small hole in it for the observer to look 
 through, keeps the eye in its proper place, and procures 
 steadiness of vision. A convex lens may be placed over 
 the hole in the brass plate, for the purpose of magnifying 
 the image ; or a concave lens placed before the prism at a 
 will adapt it to short-sighted persons. The instrument is 
 extremely convenient, on account of its portability. 
 
 The construction of the camera lucida may be varied in 
 several ways. The following was proposed by professor 
 Amici. A parallel piece of plate 
 glass, efg, is connected with a re- 
 flecting speculum A. The ray of 
 ,flight proceeding from O is reflect- 
 ed from the speculum at a to the 
 plate glass at b, and there reflected 
 again to the eye at E. The frame 
 in which the instrument is placed 
 has a rectangular opening at the 
 top, through which the eye receives 
 the image, and is prevented from 
 receiving the rays coming directly 
 from the metallic mirror. The 
 '* image is referred to a plane below 
 at P, where the pencil is seen through the glass. 
 
 CA'MERA OBSCU'RA, or DARK CHAMBER, is an op- 
 tical apparatus, by which the images of external objects 
 are thrown on a white surface, and represented in a vivid 
 manner in their proper colours, shapes, <fec. Hence the 
 apparatus may be used for the purposes of delineation, as 
 well as the camera lucida ; but as it is from its construc- 
 tion less convenient, it is chiefly used as a source of amuse- 
 ment, or for explaining the nature of vision. 
 The theory of the Camera Obscura is shortly this. 
 Through a convex lens, or 
 
 t y\ / *, small circular hole at C, the 
 
 — (T r~fvi light is admitted into a dark- 
 
 " \'.:.-3^ C'^vp f | ened room or box, so that 
 . — - ~'T"*i -vl ravs proceeding from an ob- 
 
 XI a-t — y* J ject A B, and falling on a 
 white ground within the 
 room, paint an image of the object on it in an invert- 
 ed position, a b. But the image is easily restored to 
 its natural position by causing the rays to pass through 
 two convex lenses inserted in a draw tube placed in 
 the opening C. Sometimes a mirror D is placed ia 
 A A
 
 CAMERALISTICS. 
 
 the interior of the box, making an angle of 45° with its 
 sides, whereby trie image is thrown down on the bottom of 
 the box at a b, and by means of the reflection restored to 
 its natural position. The best ground for receiving the 
 image is plaster of Paris, formed somewhat concave. 
 The image is viewed through an oblong aperture cut in the 
 box. The most perfect camera obscura is formed by 
 placing an inclined mirror in a revolving frame at the top 
 of a building, by which the rays are thrown down on a con- 
 vex lens in the roof, and the images of all the surrounding 
 objects received on a table. The images being accom- 
 panied by the motions belonging to the objects, a very 
 pleasing picture is formed. The invention of the camera 
 obscura is usually ascribed to Baptista Porta ; it was, how- 
 ever, known to Friar Bacon, in the 13th century. 
 
 CAMERALI'STICS. (Lat. camera, a chamber.) A word 
 that has recently been introduced into the English language 
 to signify the science of public finance. It is of German 
 origin (the equivalent term in that language being Kammer- 
 alien), and derives its signification from certain officers 
 (called Kammer-rathe) appointed by most of the petty 
 princes of Germany to superintend their accounts, and dis- 
 burse all payments. 
 
 CA'MERATED. (Lat. camera.) A term applied to the 
 shells of certain Cephalopods which are divided by trans- 
 verse partitions into a series of chambers which are tra- 
 versed hv a siphon. Most of the species are now extinct. 
 
 CAMERO'NIANS. The strictest sect of Scottish Pres- 
 byterians ; so called from the Rev. Richard Cameron, one 
 of the most eminent of their leaders. The origin of this 
 sect is briefly told. Charles II., on his restoration in 1600, 
 found presbytery to be the existing national church ; and 
 though he had, at one time, sworn to maintain that faith, 
 yet thinking it incompatible with monarchical government, 
 he lost no time in superseding it, and establishing episco- 
 pacy in its room. This he did in direct opposition, not 
 merely to his own solemn obligations, but to the principles 
 and predilections of his Scottish subjects. And the result 
 was such as might have been anticipated. The presbyte- 
 rian clergy, though driven from their parishes and deprived 
 of their incomes, continued to preach and hold meetings, 
 or conventicles, as these assemblages were contemptuously 
 called, for the celebration of religious ordinances ; and 
 their influence with the people seemed to increase in pro- 
 portion as means were taken to silence or crush them, 
 under these circumstances, Charles, finding that rigour 
 failed in producing the effect at which he aimed, and the 
 number of episcopalian ministers being insufficient to fill 
 the vacancies that had been occasioned by his violent 
 change of the national religion, had recourse to a plan, os- 
 tensibly liberal and mild, but which did by no means rea. 
 lize the views which he had anticipated from it. In 1669, 
 he granted what he called an indulgence, or permission to 
 such of the ejected ministers as had meanwhile " lived 
 peaceably and orderly," or, in other words, who had not 
 signalized themselves by holding conventicles, to return 
 to their several parishes (if these were vacant), or to accept 
 presentation to such other parishes as were vacant. A 
 similar indulgence was issued in 1672 ; but both of them 
 were marked by restrictions and conditions which were 
 anv thing but agreeable to tender consciences. ( Wodrmt's 
 Church Hist. 8vo ed., vol. ii. p. 130-31.) This indulgence 
 emanated solely from the king, and had not been submit- 
 ted to the consideration of the church, and was, in conse- 
 quence, regarded by many as tantamount to a recognition 
 of the royal authority in matters ecclesiastical as well as 
 civil, and as subversive both of the national covenants 
 (.Acts of Assembly, apud an. 1649), to which they had sworn, 
 and of presbytery itself, which acknowledged no head but 
 Jesus Christ. Some of the more moderate of the clergy, 
 however, did not think it inconsistent either with their 
 vows or principles to accept it; others complied with it, 
 regarding it as an encroachment on their religious rights, 
 but satisfying their conscience by giving an open testimony 
 against it and the ecclesiastical authority assumed by the 
 king ; while there were some who preferred principle to 
 expediency, and peremptorily refused compliance on any 
 terms, and resisted every effort to procure their acquies- 
 cence. These were the persons who were afterwards de- 
 nominated Cameronians. (Wodroic, iii. 202.) 
 
 The Cameronians were influenced in the line of conduct 
 which they pursued solely by conscientious motives. 
 Rather than acknowledge the authority of the king in mat- 
 ters ecclesiastical, or abate one iota of their indefeasible 
 rights and privileges, they were willing to separate from 
 their conforming brethren, and to encounter all the evils 
 and disabilities which such a step had evidently a tenden- 
 cy to produce. They became at once the object not only 
 of the disapprobation of their indulged brethren, but of the 
 vindictive and cruel rage of a tyrannical government. On 
 the principle that " oppression drives a wise man mad," 
 they pushed their views to the utmost extremity ; and, 
 while they vilified the Presbyterians whose opinions, both 
 religious and ecclesiastical, were more moderate than 
 186 
 
 CAMERONIANS. 
 
 their own, they stigmatized the king and government as 
 unscriptural and Erastian. In short, while they arrogated 
 to themselves absolute liberty of conscience and of judg- 
 ment, they exhibited the greatest intolerance towards 
 others who entertained different sentiments. When per- 
 secuted and proscribed, when many of them were impri- 
 soned, and not a few of them suffered martyrdom, they 
 began to consider their king as a tyrant ; and they publicly 
 declared, that " by his perjury in violating his covenanted 
 vows, by his arbitrary government, and his usurpation over 
 their civil and religious liberties, he had dissolved their 
 allegiance and forfeited all right and title to the crown." 
 (Leung's Hist, of Scot. vol. iv. p. iii.) They also protested 
 against the succession of his brother, on account of his 
 popery and his breach of covenant to God and the church. 
 To these sentiments Cameron, their leader, and a party of 
 about twenty others, all armed, gave public utterance in a 
 declaration read at Sanquhar, and affixed to the market- 
 cross of that town. ( Wodrow, iii. 312.) This was the sig- 
 nal for more prompt and decisive measures on the part of 
 government. The party were soon after (20lh July, 1680) 
 surprised at Airsmoss, a morass on the confines of the 
 counties of Ayr and Dumfries. Cameron and his brother 
 fell on the field ; while sixteen were taken prisoners, and 
 soon after perished as traitors on the scaffold ; the remain- 
 der of the party, with some peasants who had joined them, 
 fled. But their spirit was not intimidated, nor was their 
 enthusiasm abated. Cargill, who was now their leader, 
 and who was shortly after apprehended and publicly exe- 
 cuted, pronounced at a public meeting of the party at Tor- 
 wood, near Stirling, a solemn excommunication against 
 their persecutors, including the Duke of York and the 
 king himself. (.Hind Let Loose, passim ; Laing, iv. 112- 
 13.) 
 
 Meanwhile, the Cameronians had formed themselves 
 into a more regular body ; and, in 1631, agreed to hold 
 quarterly or more frequent meetings, and took the name 
 of The Societies United in Correspondence. They thus 
 acted more in concert ; and their fortitude and zeal be- 
 came, if possible, more intense. They were now alto- 
 gether alienated from the indulged ministers and the gene- 
 ral public ; and their meetings for religious worship and 
 for the celebration of ordinances were, for the sake of 
 safety, confined to the mountains, or to sequestered and 
 remote spots. They still continued the objects of the 
 most ruthless persecution. But while proscribed and 
 chased like beasts of prey by the government, no respect 
 being shown to age or sex or condition, and while numbers 
 of them, including their most popular ministers, perished 
 on the scaffold or at the stake, they began to disagree 
 among themselves. Some of them having been dissatis- 
 fied with the language of the Sanquhar Declaration, certain 
 portions of it had been amended or explained. A consid- 
 erable number took offence at the violence of Renwick, 
 now at the head of the party ; and not only separated from 
 them, but published testimonies against some of their pro- 
 ceedings. The one party were averse to unite with such 
 as would not go to the same extreme as themselves ; while 
 the other, more moderate in their principles, were for 
 making common cause with all who held the same gene- 
 ral sentiments, and were exposed to the same persecutions. 
 It was at this period (1687) that Renwick drew up their In- 
 formatory Vindication, which in spirit was the same as 
 the Sanquhar Declaration. But the breach was never 
 healed. It is unnecessary, however, to give a more minute 
 account either of their proceedings or their sufferings. 
 Renwick, who was beheaded in 168S, was the last Scottish 
 martyr. The revolution put an end to the sufferings of the 
 Cameronians, and to persecution for conscience' sake. 
 (Scotch Worthies, § Renwick, Hackston of Rathillet, &c. ; 
 Hind Let Loose.) 
 
 The services of this proscribed party at this crisis were 
 of an important kind. Suffering as they had long done at 
 the hand of a sanguinary government, and alive as they 
 were to the value of civil and religious liberty, they es- 
 poused the cause of the Prince of Orange with an enthusi- 
 asm and bravery worthy of their character. A regiment 
 of 800 Cameronians was speedily raised ; and their hero- 
 ism as displayed at Dunkeld and other places has extorted 
 the praise of history. A regiment bearing the name still 
 exists. (Laing, iv. 194, 208, 232.) 
 
 But the Cameronians, though they occupy a prominent 
 place in the history of the reigns of Charles, and of James 
 II. his successor, never formed a very numerous body. 
 After tho revolution, when they were allowed to worship 
 God according to their conscience without fear or danger, 
 they gradually became an obscure as they were a small 
 sect. Nor did they think of forming themselves into a re- 
 gular church, till 1743, when, under the direction of the 
 Rev. M. M'Millan and other leaders, they " formed and 
 established a presbytery in the name of Christ, the alone 
 king and head of the church, under the title of the Re- 
 formed Presbytery." As they became more numerous, 
 they took the title of the Reformed Presbyterian Synod.
 
 CAMISARDS. 
 
 But at this moment (1841) the synod consists only of six 
 presbyteries, embracing thirty-five congregations, most of 
 them being very small.* 
 
 The nature of the tenets and doctrines of the Camero- 
 nians may account for their never having become a nume- 
 rous sect. They denied the authority of civil rulers, unless 
 these had sworn and subscribed the national covenants ; 
 and of course they refused to include the names of such 
 rulers, even that of the sovereign himself, either in their 
 public or private prayers. They contended that the civil 
 magistrate is bound to suppress emir, and to encourage 
 the true religion ; and that the covenants are binding on all 
 posterity. These opinions, however, they have gradually 
 modified or abandoned. They now pray for the sovereign 
 and civil magistrates, and have virtually renounced the co- 
 venants. They are also in favour of a national church ; 
 and would have no hesitation to unite with the present es- 
 tablished church of Scotland if patronage was abolished, 
 and if the right of electing their own ministers were con- 
 ferred on the people. They adopt the Westminster Con- 
 fession of Faith, and all the standards and formulas of the 
 church of Scotland. Their ministers are strict disciplina- 
 rians, adopt the Calvinistic creed in its most rigid sense, 
 are peculiarly assiduous and faithful, and as a body the 
 Cameraman.? now form a most unobtrusive, respectable, 
 and exemplary sect of Christians. 
 
 CA'MISARDS. In French History, the Protestant insur- 
 gents in the Cevennes, after the revocation of the edict of 
 Nantes, were so called, from having worn their shirts over 
 their dress by way of disguise on the occasion of some 
 nocturnal attacks. Their principal leader, Cavalier, suc- 
 ceeded so far as to effect a capitulation in their favour with 
 the French government. He subsequently entered the Eng- 
 lish service, and at his death was governor of Jersey. 
 
 CA'MLGT. A stuff or cloth, consisting of a mixture of 
 wool ami silk, or of wool and camel's hair. 
 
 i ' \MO'K\.E. (Durivation unknown.) A Roman ap- 
 pellation of the Muses. 
 
 < AMI*. In the art Military, a word of doubtful etymolo- 
 gy, signifying the station of an army, with its artillery, bag- 
 gage, and other appendages, when it has taken the field for 
 the purposes of war. The history of camps involves that 
 of the military art in all ages and in all countries ; and in 
 proportion to the skill displayed by any nation in the sci- 
 ence of castrainetation, may an accurate estimate be 
 formed of its attainments in other departments of military 
 tactics. The Lacedaemonians appear to have been the first 
 people in profane history who directed their attention to 
 this subject. Their camps, whenever it was practicable, 
 were of a circular form, which was said to possess the ad- 
 vantage that from the centre, where the general with the 
 flower of the troops lay, help could soonest be afforded to 
 any point menaced by the enemy. The other states of 
 Greece, Macedonia, and Carthage borrowed the grand prin- 
 ciples of choosing and tracing their camps from the Lace- 
 daemonians ; but accommodated the form, the arrange- 
 ment, and disposition of the same to the nature and 
 strength of the ground which they intended to occupy. It 
 was from the Romans that the art of castrametation first 
 acquired any systematic regularity. The form of the Ro- 
 man camp was invariably quadrangular ; it was surrounded 
 by regular intrenchments, and was so admirably arranged 
 that each cohort, lesion, and individual knew exactly the 
 point which he ought to occupy, and the part to which in- 
 stant attention should he directed in the event of alarm. It 
 would exceed our limits to give an account of the construc- 
 tion of the Roman camps, and of the arrangement of the 
 troops in them. The reader will find ample details and 
 comments upon this subject in the works of Polybius and 
 Vegetius, ami in General Roy's Military Antiquities of the 
 Romans in Britain. The Penny Cyclopazdia contains an 
 able account of the different systems of castrametation. 
 
 Camp. In Agriculture, a heap of turnips, potatoes, or 
 other roots, laid up for preserving through the winter; in 
 some places called a pie, and in others a bury. 
 
 CAMPAI'GN. (Fr.) An uninterrupted series of mili- 
 tary operations in the field. See War. 
 
 CaMPANI'LE. (It. campana, a bell.) In Architecture, 
 properly a tower for containing a bell or bells. Though 
 the word has been adopted in the English language, and 
 applied to the bell towers of churches, it more properly 
 belongs to those towers near churches, but detached from 
 them, to be seen in many of the cities of Italy. The prin- 
 cipal of these are the Campanile of Cremona, which is of 
 the extraordinary height of 396 feet; that of Florence, 26S 
 feet high, built from the design of Giotto ; the Garisendi 
 tower at Bologna, built in 1110, which is 147 feet high, and 
 
 • They are oflen called M- Millanites, in honour of this person. They 
 are also known by the name of Hills People, from the circumstance that, 
 till within the last fifty years, they held public worship almost exclusive- 
 ly in the open air on the side of some hill, in honour of their persecuted 
 forefathers in the time of Charles II. This practice they have now laid 
 aside, and avail themselves of stoue edifices for churches like other sects. 
 See Macmillanitcs. 
 
 197 
 
 CANAL. 
 
 is 8 feet 8 inches out of an upright ; and very near to it in 
 the same city another tower, bearing the name of Asinelli, 
 327 feet in height, and leaning from the perpendicular 3 feet 
 8 inches, but which, seen, as it always is, in company with 
 the first, seems to lean but little. The last we shall name 
 is that which is commonly called the leaning tower of 
 Pisa, and perhaps the most remarkable of all. It is 151 
 feet high, and overhangs 12 feet 9 inches. Its general form 
 possesses elegance, and is that of a cylinder encircled by 
 8 tiers of columns over each other, and each with an en- 
 tablature. The columns are all of marble, and the upper 
 tier is recessed back. 
 
 CAMPA'NULA. (Lat. campana, a bell.) A very large 
 genus of hardy herbaceous plants and annuals, inhabiting 
 the temperate parts of both the eastern and western hem- 
 ispheres, but most abundant in the latter. They have blue 
 or white flowers, often of considerable size, on which ac- 
 count most of the species are favourites in gardens. In 
 M. Alphonsode Candolle's account of the genus, published 
 in 1830, after separating from it several groups, 152 species 
 are enumerated. The only useful plant among (hem is 
 C. rapunculus, the radish-like sort of which is sometimes 
 eaten under the name of Rampion. 
 
 CAMPE'ACHY WOOD. Logwood. Brought from 
 Campeachy, in the bay of Honduras. 
 
 CAMPHE'NE, or CAMPHOGEN. A term applied by 
 chemists to a hydrocarbon, composed often atoms of car- 
 bon = 60, and eight of hydrogen =8; it is therefore re- 
 presented by the equivalent number 68. It is identical with 
 pure oil of turpentine ; and camphor is its protoxide, that 
 substance being composed of 68 camphogen -"- 8 oxygen ; 
 camphor is therefore represented by the equivalent num- 
 ber 76. 
 
 CA'MPIIOR. A concrete volatile and highly odorous 
 substance, obtained by distillation from the Laurus cam- 
 phora, or camphor laurel, which is a native of Japan. It is 
 also found ready formed in the wood of the Dnabalanopa 
 campliora, a tree which flourishes in Borneo and Sumatra. 
 What is called crude or rough camphor is in small grey 
 pieces and crystals ; it is purified by sublimation, and is 
 found in commerce in circular cakes weighing about 8 lbs. 
 each, white, translucent, and somewhat tough and crystal- 
 line in texture. Camphor is chiefly used in medicine : it 
 dissolves very sparingly in water, and the solution is called 
 camphor julep ; it dissolves abundantly in alcohol, forming 
 camphorated spirit of xeine. 
 
 CA'MPHORATElS. Compounds of camphoric acid. 
 
 CAMPHCRIC ACID. An acid obtained by boiling 
 camphor in nitric acid. It consists of 60 carbon, 8 hydro- 
 gen, and 5 oxygen ; or of one atom of camphor and four 
 atoms of oxygen. 
 
 CA'MPLLI'TROPOUS. (Gr. Kafnrroi, I curve, and 
 rpcTTOt), I turn.) In Botany, a name given to such ovules 
 as bend down upon themselves till their apex touches the 
 base. They are extremely common in plants, and are 
 more particularly those in which a raphe exists ; the latter 
 being a bundle of vessels, whose office is to maintain a 
 communication between the base of the nucleus and the 
 base of the seed. 
 
 CANA'L. (Lat.) An artificial channel filled with wa- 
 ter, formed for the purposes of draining, of irrigation, of 
 supplying towns with water, or of inland navigation. Illus- 
 trative of the first, may be cited the canal which extends 
 from the Fucine Lake (now Lake Celano) into the river 
 Liri ; of the second, the canals with which ancient Egypt 
 was intersected ; of the third, the artificial aqueducts of 
 antiquity, or in modern times the New River, by which 
 London is in a great measure supplied with water from 
 Hertfordshire ; but it is to channels for the purpose of in- 
 land navigation that the term canal is usually confined. 
 
 That the importance of canals as a means of inland navi- 
 gation attracted attention even in the earliest ages, is mani- 
 fest from the " fossa? Philistine," large canals (Pliny, iii. 
 16.) at the south of the Eridanus in Liguria, the origin of 
 which is ascribed by Mr. Bryant to the Canaanites, who at 
 an early period migrated from Philistia ; as well as from 
 the grand designs of the Cnidians, a people of Caria in 
 Asia Minor, to dig a channel through the isthmus which 
 joined their territory to the continent. (Her. ii. 78.) The 
 attempt, too, of the Egyptians at a later period to unite the 
 Nile with the Red Sea by a canal has been often recorded, 
 though it is difficult at the present day to discover the least, 
 traces of its existence. The Greeks, who received the 
 first principles of commerce and the arts from the Egyp- 
 tians and Phoenicians, and who, improving upon the mo- 
 dels transmitted to them, afterwards reached an unexam- 
 pled pitch of civilisation, conceived the magnificent design 
 of making a navigable passage from the Ionian Sea into the 
 Archipelago, by cutting a canal across the isthmus of Co- 
 rinth. This undertaking, however, proved abortive : and 
 though the attempt was again renewed by several of the 
 Roman emperors, it still remained without success. In 
 the reign of Augustus, Drusus succeeded in excavating a 
 canal from the Rhine to the Issel, and formed, as we are
 
 CANAL. 
 
 told by Pliny, a new mouth from the Rhine to the sea. A 
 canal between the Rhine and the Maese, supposed to be 
 that now commencing at Leyden was passing Delft to its 
 junction with the Maese at Sluys, and likewise formed by 
 the Romans. But, as has been often observed, it was by 
 bending nations under the same yoke, and not by uniting 
 them in commercial ties, that the Romans sought to extend 
 international communications ; hence their canals were 
 usually formed for the purposes of draining or of warfare. 
 There can be little doubt, however, that it was the Ro- 
 mans who introduced into their provinces the models of 
 internal communication which in modern times have un- 
 dergone such immense improvement, and which have 
 been converted to a purpose nobler than conquest— the in- 
 terchange of the productions of labour. 
 
 There is no country in the world where the advantages 
 of canals are more appreciated than in China. From time 
 immemorial the rivers that intersect that vast empire have 
 been united by innumerable canals ; and the Grand Canal 
 is said to be the most stupendous work of the kind that 
 has ever been executed. (Raynal, Hist. Phil. i. 102.) Rus- 
 sia, too, exhibits a remarkable degree of enterprise in the 
 construction of canals for the purpose of inland naviga- 
 tion ; and though innumerable difficulties peculiar to that 
 country for a long period impeded the progress of works 
 of Ibis description, that empire is now traversed by an un- 
 broken line of water communication from St. Petersburg 
 to the Caspian Sea. 
 
 The canals constructed during the period of the glory 
 of Italy are very numerous ; but though many of these 
 are navigable, their primary object has been to communi- 
 cate to both banks of the Po the various productions of the 
 country. 
 
 In the Netherlands, the construction of canals com- 
 menced in the 12th century, when Flanders became the 
 commercial entrepot of Europe ; and to the large share 
 which canals possess in its economical arrangements is to 
 be ascribed chiefly the prosperity of Holland in the present 
 day. From the structure of that country, canals are form- 
 ed with peculiar facility ; and there is not a town or a vil- 
 lage which is not furnished with a canal of greater or 
 smaller dimensions. France has from a distant period ex- 
 ercised its skill in the construction of canals for inland 
 navigation. The first was the canal of Briare, which opens 
 a communication between the Loire and the Seine, and 
 then between Paris and the western provinces, and is of 
 immense importance in inland commerce. Omitting many 
 works of this kind, completed, in progress, or projected in 
 that country, the canal of Languedoc may be mentioned, 
 which was intended to unite the Mediterranean with the 
 Atlantic, and was considered a stupendous undertaking. 
 It is 150 miles long, is supplied by a number of rivulets, 
 and is provided at proper intervals with 114 locks and 
 sluices. 
 
 A reference to the earlier history of Spain, Sweden, 
 and Denmark, and to the more recent accounts of Austria, 
 Prussia, and above all America, will show to what extent 
 these several states have endeavoured by the construction 
 of canals to develop internal resources, and to distribute 
 universally the productions of labour. 
 
 It is a singular circumstance that Great Britain, general- 
 ly foremost in the race of civilisation, and possessing so 
 many natural means for the formation of canals, from its 
 insular position and its numerous rivers, was the last coun- 
 try in Europe to avail itself of its advantages. It is true 
 that at different periods of her history the import- 
 ance of inland navigation was deeply felt, and various ex- 
 pedients were adopted for removing obstructions in the 
 rivers of that country, with the view of facilitating internal 
 commerce ; but it was not till the middle of the last century 
 that the construction of canals began to enter into the sys- 
 tem of British economy. In the year 1755 an impulse was 
 given to the progress of British industry by the project, 
 which originated with the Duke of Bridgewater, of form- 
 ing a canal between Worsley and Manchester; a project 
 which was altered and extended by three successive acts 
 of parliament to admit of greater comprehensiveness in its 
 execution, and has formed the basis of every succeeding 
 plan of canalisation in England. The example then set by 
 the Duke of Bridgewater was speedily followed : the large 
 amount of capital in England, which is ever ready to be 
 invested in undertakings that are likely to prove profitable, 
 soon found its way into this channel, and in a short time 
 the country became intersected with navigable canals. 
 
 The section of a canal is usually a trapezium, of which 
 two sides are parallel and horizontal, and the other two 
 equally inclined to the horizon. The inclination depends 
 on the nature of the soil. It is least in tenacious earth, 
 and greatest in loose soil ; but no soil will maintain itself, 
 unless the base of the slope exceeds its height at least in 
 the ratio of four to three. In loose soils the base requires 
 to be twice as great as the height. 
 
 A canal is usually confined between a bank on one side, 
 and a towing path on the other, the breadth of whose up- 
 188 
 
 per surface must be sufficient for a road on which the ani- 
 mals employed in draught may easily pass. This requires 
 the breadth of the upper surface to be at least 9 feet. The 
 usual rule for the other bank is to make the breadth at top 
 equal to the height, measured from the bottom of the ca- 
 nal: but in this case there should be a berm of a foot, or 
 a foot and a half, at the level of the water, which increases 
 the thickness of the bank at bottom, and prevents the wash 
 of the banks from falling into the canal. To prevent the 
 entrance of rain-water, a counter-ditch is formed on the 
 outside of each of the banks. The profile of a well-con- 
 structed canal will therefore present the following figure : — 
 
 Towing 
 
 Path Bank 
 
 — V^/ V Canal 
 
 C| 
 
 The dimensions of navigable canals must depend on the 
 size of the vessels intended to navigate them. In order 
 that they may permit two vessels to pass each other with 
 freedom, the breadth at bottom is usually made twice as 
 great as the breadth of the beam of the vessels : the depth 
 requires to be at least one foot more than the vessel's 
 draught of water. 
 
 The bed of a canal must be absolutely level, or have no 
 more slope than is necessary to convey wafer to replace 
 that which has been wasted. Hence, when a canal inter- 
 sects a sloping country in a series of channels at different 
 levels, means must be provided to enable vessels to pass 
 from one level to another. This is commonly effected by 
 means of a lock. 
 
 The invention of locks as a means of carrying a canal 
 through an undulating country has given an entirely new 
 feature to the inland navigation of Europe. Various na- 
 tions have claimed the honour of this invention : but it 
 would appear that the controversy which has arisen on the 
 subject is not yet settled. " A lock is a chamber, formed 
 of masonry, occupying the whole bed of the canal where 
 the difference of level is to be overcome. This chamber 
 is so contrived that the level of the water which it contains 
 may be made to coincide with either the upper or lower 
 level of the canal. This is effected by two pairs of gates, 
 one of which pairs is placed at each end of the chamber 
 of the lock. By this means, while the gates at the lower 
 end of the chamber are opened, and those at the upper 
 end are closed, the water in the chamber will stand at the 
 lower level of the canal ; and, on the contrary, when the 
 lower gates are closed, and the upper gates are opened, the 
 level of the water in the lock will coincide with the level 
 of the water in the upper part of the canal. In the first 
 case, a boat may be floated into the lock from the lower 
 part of the canal ; and if then the gates be closed, and 
 water is admitted into the lock from the upper level until 
 the surface of the lock is in a line with the water above, 
 the boat will be floated up, and on the opening of the up- 
 per gates may be passed onward. By reversing the course 
 of procedure, boats may be as readily conveyed from the 
 upper to the lower level." See Lock. 
 
 The supply of water required for maintaining a canal de- 
 pends on the lockage or quantity wasted in passing a vessel 
 through the locks, on the evaporation from the surface, 
 and on the leakage. It has been found by experiment that 
 the annual quantity of evaporation from the canal of Lan- 
 guedoc is 32 inches ; that is to say, the body of water re- 
 quired to supply this waste is equal to a parallelopiped 
 whose base is the whole surface of water in the canal, and 
 whose altitude is 32 inches: in most calculations it has 
 been customary to take this altitude at 36 inches. With 
 respect to the leakage, when the soil is porous the inner 
 surface of the banks may be lined with an earth reten- 
 tive of water, or a portion of the middle of each bank 
 may be built up with earth of this character. The opera- 
 tion of lining a bank with clay, or earth retentive of moist- 
 ure, is called puddling. 
 
 The advantages derived from canals are now so gene- 
 rally known and acknowledged, as to render it almost su- 
 perfluous to allude to the question. The beneficial effects 
 of canals are felt in a greater or less degree by all classes 
 of society : by their means the manufacturer is enabled to 
 collect his materials and his fuel with less labour and ex- 
 pense ; the farmer obtains a supply of manure at a cheap 
 rate, and a ready conveyance of his produce to the most 
 profitable market ; and the merchant is enabled to extend 
 his commerce by exporting greater quantities and varieties 
 of guods from places remote from the sea, and by more 
 easily supplying a wider extent of inland country wilh ar- 
 ticles of foreign produce. In short, general arguments in 
 favour of canals are superseded by the rapidly improving 
 and thriving state of all the cities, towns, and villages in 
 their neighbourhood ; while the great works of every kind 
 to which they have been conducted, and to which a large
 
 CANALICULATE. 
 
 portion of tliem owe their rise, are their best recommen- 
 dation. Some years ago, when the formation of railroads 
 became a favourite speculation, no small degree of alarm 
 was experienced by those interested in the prosperity of 
 canals, lest they should diminish in importance, or in fact 
 be entirely superseded by the introduction of railroads. 
 Experience has, however, hitherto shown that the fears 
 entertained on this subject were perfectly groundless ; for, 
 as railways are constructed chiefly for the expeditious 
 transport of passengers and goods, and from the expense 
 incurred in their construction and maintenance a higher 
 rate of toll must be levied in order to pay the proprietors, 
 this mode of conveyance is not likely to interfere with that 
 description of goods which form the chief frame of canals, 
 and for which cheapness, not expedition of transport, is re- 
 quired. (For detailed information on the subject of canals, 
 the reader is referred to Phillips's General History of In- 
 land Navigation ; and to Nichols, Priestley, and Walker's 
 Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, fyc. of 
 Great Britain. ) 
 
 CANALI'CULATE. (Lat. canalis, a water pipe.) In 
 Zoology, is said of a surface when it has a longitudinal im- 
 pressed line or channel. 
 
 Canaliculate. (Lat. canalis, a water pipe.) Is said 
 of leaves or other parts when the edges are so much 
 turned upwards as to produce the appearance of a channel 
 or gutter. 
 
 CANALI'FERA. (Lat. canalis, a canal; fero, I bear.) 
 The name of a tribe of Zoophagoua Univalves, or Gastro- 
 pods, of which the shell is characterized by a long straight 
 canal terminating its mouth. 
 
 CANA'RY-BIRI). Two distinct species of finch (Car- 
 duelis) appear to have afforded the different varieties of 
 sinning bird familiarly known by this name. The one 
 which is best known In its wild State is the Carduelis carta- 
 ria of Olivier, and is very abundant in Madeira, where its 
 characters and habits have been observed with much at- 
 tention by Dr. Hi ineken. " It builds," says this natural- 
 ist, "in thick bushy tuirli shrubs and trees, with roots, 
 moss, feathers, hair, <tc. ; pairs in February ; lays from 
 four to six pale blue eggs ; and hatches five, and often six 
 times in the season. It is a delightful songster, with, be- 
 yond doubt, much of the nightingale's and sky-lark's, but 
 none of the wood-lark's song."—" A pure wild song from 
 an island canary, at liberty, in full throat, in a part of the 
 country so distant from the haunts of men that it is quite 
 unsophisticated, is unequalled, in its kind, by any thing I 
 have ever heard in the way of bird-music." The canary- 
 bird was brought into Europe as early as the 16th century, 
 and is supposed to have spread from the coast of Italy, 
 where a vessel, which was bringing to Leghorn a number 
 of these birds besides its merchandise, was wrecked. As, 
 however, they were males chiefly which were thus intro- 
 duced, they were for some time scarce ; and it is only of 
 late years that their education and the proper mode of 
 treating them have been known. See Bechstein on Cage 
 Birds. 
 
 CANA'STER. The rush basket in which tobacco is 
 packed in Spanish America ; whence canaster tobacco. 
 
 CA'NCEI,. (Fr. canceller.) In Printing, is the sup- 
 pression of a leaf or more of a book, owing to some error 
 of importance having escaped detection, or some fact being 
 mis-stated, or some new discovery being made, or some 
 change having taken place in the author's arrangements 
 after that part of a work has been printed, anil substituting 
 for the portion cancelled a corrected leaf, &c. which is 
 usually distinguished by one of the following signs at the 
 bottom ofthe page, ", t,"t, §, as a guide to the book-binder. 
 
 CANCELLA'RIA. (Fr. canceller.) A I.amarckian ge- 
 nus of Trachelipod Testacea, having the shell oval or tur- 
 reted ; base of the aperture sub-canaliculate; canal very 
 short; columella plicate; the plaits usually transverse, 
 varying in number; lip internally furrowed; operculum 
 horny. The reticulated Cancellaria (Cancellaria reticu- 
 lata, Lam.) is a well-known species, from the Atlantic 
 Ocean. 
 
 CA'NCELLATE. (Lat. cancelli, lattices.) Is a term 
 applied to leaves consisting entirely of veins, without con- 
 necting parenchyma ; so that the whole leaf looks like a 
 plate of open network. Instances of this kind occur in Hy- 
 druqeton fenestralis, but are extremely rare. 
 
 CA'NCER. (Lat.) The Crab. The fourth sign of the 
 zodiac, which the sun enters about the 21st of June, when 
 he reaches his greatest northern declination. The par- 
 allel circle through this point is called the Tropic of Cancer. 
 
 Cancer. The Linnsan generic name for the modern 
 Brachyurous family of Crustaceans. 
 
 Cancer. A disease chiefly attacking the glands, consist- 
 ing of a schirrous tumour terminating in an ill-conditioned 
 and deep ulcer, generally attended by excruciating pain. 
 When the cancerous character of a tumour is once ascer- 
 tained, its extirpation, where practicable, is the only 
 chance of effectual relief. The large blue veins which 
 ramify round a cancer of the breast were compared by old 
 189 
 
 CANDIDATI. 
 
 authors to the claws of a crab, whence the name of this 
 disease. 
 
 CANCRO'MA. A genus of Grallatores or wading birds 
 belonging to Cuvier's family of Pressirostres, or com- 
 pressed-billed waders, including only one known species, 
 the Boatbill; so called from the form and structure ofthe 
 bill, which characterizes the genus. The bill is flattened 
 or depressed, not compressed ; and is composed of two 
 boat-shaped or spoon-shaped mandibles, with their conca- 
 vities applied towards each other, the upper one having a 
 strong and sharp tooth near the point. The Boatbill in- 
 habits the banks ofthe Orinooko, and other large rivers of 
 South America which are subject to flooding in the rainy 
 season. 
 
 CAXDELA'BRUM. (Lat. candela, a lamp or candle.) 
 A stand or support on which the ancients placed a lamp. 
 Candelabra varied in form, and were highly decorated with 
 the stems and leaves of plants, parts of animals, flowers, 
 and the like. There was no article of ancient furniture in 
 which more taste and elegance were displayed than in the 
 designs of candelabra. The etymology of the word would 
 seem to assimilate the candelabrum to our candlestick ; it 
 is, however, quite certain that the word candela was noth- 
 ing more than a lamp, and that the candelabrum was but a 
 support more or less heavy in construction upon which the 
 lamp was placed, or whose top was hollowed out for the 
 reception of oil or some other combustible. The great va- 
 riety observable in ancient candelabra was not so depen- 
 dent on the caprice ofthe artist, as on the different uses to 
 which they were first applied. Before the employment of 
 oil the mode of illuminating an apartment was by means 
 of dry wood burnt on braziers (basins for holding fuel) sup- 
 ported by tripods. The Greeks, always delighting to pre- 
 serve some reminiscence of an ancient usage, thence ad- 
 hered to the triangular form in this article of furniture, and 
 their example was imitated by the Romans. Generally 
 speaking, there are two species of candelabra : those which 
 ending upwards in the form of a brazier, so nearly approach 
 the form of a portable altar as to be almost confounded 
 with it. This species must be classed with the tripod, and 
 there seems ground for believing that it was used only in 
 temples or in small chapels. Of this sort was that carried 
 off by Verres; and Cicero informs us that in Sicily every 
 house was supplied with one in silver. Of this species al- 
 so are those most frequently sculptured in friezes, usually 
 accompanied by genii and instruments of sacrifice. The 
 other species of candelabra, whose accessaries and orna- 
 ments are ofthe same character as in those first described, 
 are much higher, and of marble. Of this kind Rome fur- 
 nishes an abundance of examples ; but, as Winkelman ob- 
 serves, not one has been found in bronze. 
 
 The marble candelabra exhibit as much variety in the 
 forms ofthe vase or brazier, which it is their principal end 
 to support, as in the body and base of the support itself. 
 Sometimes they are capricious to excess, the foliage, con- 
 trivance, and design being such as to display more skill 
 than propriety of taste. Others, however, there are which 
 are exquisite models of form, taste, ornament, and execu- 
 tion. The museum at the Vatican contains possibly the 
 finest collection in Europe of this species. There is one 
 to be seen there upwards of seven feet high, resting on 
 griffins' or lions' paws. The general form of its shaft i3 
 that of a baluster, which supports a vase shaped basin ; it 
 is highly decorated with foliage and bassirilievi of bac- 
 chantes. The British museum presents some specimens; 
 beautiful, but not ofthe first class. For full information on 
 this species, the reader should turn to the splendid works 
 of Piranesi. Lachausse thinks that marble candelabra 
 were used in temples more for the purpose of adding 
 splendour to the service than of lighting it; but it seems 
 probable that many with which we are acquainted, such as 
 those that were found in the bathsof Titus, where numbers 
 ofthe apartments did not receive the light of day, actually 
 held artificial light. The most curious specimens of can- 
 delabra, as respects form, use, and workmanship, are those 
 excavated at Herculaneum and Pompeii. These are all of 
 bronze ; and that they were employed for domestic pur- 
 poses is proved from the representation, on an Etruscan 
 vase, of one which serves to give light to the guests assem- 
 bled round a banquet table. They are slender in their pro- 
 portions, and perfectly portable, rarely exceeding five feet 
 in height. It is to be observed, that none of the candelabra 
 hitherto found exhibit any appearance of a socket or of a 
 spike at top, from which an inference of the use of candles 
 could be drawn. 
 
 CANDIDA'TI. (Lat. candidus, white.) In Roman An- 
 tiquities, so called from their being arrayed in white gar- 
 ments, were the aspirants for public offices. In this dress 
 they canvassed the different tribes, harangued the people, 
 extolled their own exploits, and as the case might happen, 
 exhibited the wounds which they had received in the ser- 
 vice of their country. The forms of election among the 
 Romans were remarkably strict. Every candidate for 
 public offices was compelled to pass two years in proba-
 
 CANDLEMAS. 
 
 tionary service ; and even then his appointment, which 
 could only be ratified by numerous and imposing so- 
 lemnities, did not generally take place until he had spent 
 five months as magistrate elect in familiarizing himself 
 with the duties of his office. Notwithstanding the severity 
 of the Roman laws against corruption, the practice of bri- 
 bery was constantly resorted to, and a full purse and fair 
 promises went far to supply the want of ability and in- 
 tegrity. 
 
 CA'NDLEMAS. A church festival, held on the 2nd of 
 February, to commemorate the purification of the Virgin. 
 The name probably arose from the number of lighted 
 candles used in the processions of the day ; or perhaps 
 from a custom of consecrating candles on that day for the 
 rest of the year. This practice was abolished in England 
 in the second year of the reign of Edward VI. 
 
 CA'NDLES. These are an important article of manufac- 
 ture, and may be composed of a variety of materials : the 
 principal are, — 1. Wax candles, which are made by pour- 
 ing melted wax over the wicks, which for the convenience 
 of turning and placing them successively over the caul- 
 dron, are usually attached to the circumference of a hoop ; 
 when of a proper thickness, they are rolled smooth upon a 
 table, and the ends are cut and trimmed. It is in conse- 
 quence of this method of manufacture, that when we cut 
 a wax candle we observe it composed of successive layers 
 or coats. Attempts have been made to cast wax candles 
 in moulds, but those which are thus made never burn so 
 well as those which are poured. 2. Spermaceti candles, or 
 mixtures of wax and spermaceti. This material forms a 
 very good and cleanly candle ; but in consequence of its 
 ready fusibility and hardness when concrete, it does not 
 admit of being earned about without spilling the melted 
 material. The fused portions also, which run down the 
 candle, are apt to curl and fall upon the table. 3. Composi- 
 tion candles. This term was originally conferred by a 
 manufacturer who had a large stock of spermaceti candles 
 on hand which were of a dirty hue, and which therefore 
 were unsaleable ; he advertised them under the above 
 name, and they were soon disposed of, under the notion 
 of their being composed of some new combination of ma- 
 terials. The term has since been applied to various mix- 
 tures ; but what are now sold under the name of composi- 
 tion candles are chiefly mixtures of spermaceti, tallow, and 
 a little resin, and occasionally wax. 4. Tallow candles, 
 which are either cast upon the wick in pewter moulds, or 
 made by dipping the wicks, attached in rows to proper 
 frames, into melted tallow. 5. Stearine candles. Under 
 this term we may include cocoa-nut oil candles, and a few 
 others made of the stearine, or what may be compared to 
 the spermaceti of the vegetable oils. The stearine, or 
 rather the stearic acid of tallow, is also now extensively 
 employed for making candles. 
 
 A candle may be considered as a portable gas apparatus, 
 and its philosophical history involves a number of very 
 curious points, which we can only superficially advert to 
 here. The combustible material, in a state of fusion, is 
 drawn up in successive portions by capillary attraction into 
 the heated part of the wick, the texture, materials, and di- 
 mensions of which are matters of much importance. If 
 the wick be too large, the candle flares and smokes, pro- 
 ducing a peculiar suffocating smell in the room, and often 
 wanting snuffing, as we constantly see in badly made mould 
 candles ; if, on the contrary, the wick be too small, the 
 candle burns dimly and gutters, in the former case, un- 
 burned carbon soon collects in the upper part of the flame, 
 and if not removed is apt to fall into the cup of the candle, 
 where it forms a kind of second wick, rapidly melting 
 away the tallow and disfiguring the candle, and occasion- 
 ally, where candles are inadvertently left burning, falling 
 upon the table and setting fire to any tiling within its reach. 
 This evil may to a great extent be prevented by inclining 
 the candle at an angle of about 45 degrees, so as to keep 
 the upper part of the wick out of the flame. In this way 
 the air has access to it, and the charcoal which otherwise 
 collects into a head is burned as soon as deposited. 
 Where it is required to keep a common tallow candle 
 burning during the night, the necessity for snuffing, and 
 the risk of mischief, may be prevented by so inclining it ; 
 and candlesticks have been contrived for the purpose, 
 which are useful and effective, but very unseemly. 
 With good wax the wick is more easily adjusted to the 
 wants of the flame, and the necessity of snuffing to a great 
 extent prevented ; but adulterated wax is often more 
 troublesome than tallow. Great care is also requisite in 
 selecting the cotton for the wicks of candles, which should 
 be of such a nature as to leave no ash, or scarcely any, 
 when burned. The wick is occasionally impregnated with 
 different substances, and sometimes so platted as to curl 
 out of the flame ; but the details of these contrivances 
 would be foreign to the object of this work. The follow- 
 ing table contains the results of some experiments made 
 by Dr. Ore, with a view of ascertaining the relative inten- 
 sities of fight and the duration of different candles :— 
 190 
 
 CANIS. 
 
 c 
 
 °« 
 
 a 
 
 iMm 
 
 c 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 £ ° 
 1" 
 
 6" 
 
 £ a 
 
 _ - 
 
 ill 
 
 ~ a. si 
 
 o ~ e 
 
 
 si 
 
 = = c 
 
 ? IB 
 
 S-aB 
 
 10 Mould 5h. 9 m. 
 
 682 
 
 132 
 
 12-25 
 
 6S-0 
 
 5-70 
 
 10 Dipped 
 
 4 36 
 
 672 
 
 150 
 
 1300 
 
 65-5 
 
 5-25 
 
 8 Mould 
 
 6 31 
 
 856 
 
 132 
 
 10-50 
 
 59-5 
 
 6-60 
 
 6 Ditto 
 
 7 21 
 
 1160 
 
 163 
 
 14 66 
 
 66 
 
 5 00 
 
 4 Ditto 
 
 9 36 
 
 1787 
 
 186 
 
 20-25 
 
 80-9 
 
 3-50 
 
 Argand oil flame 
 
 - - 512 
 
 69-40 
 
 100 
 
 
 In reference to the above table, it appears from Dr. 
 Ure's experiments that one-eighth of a gallon of good oil, 
 weighing 6010 grains, or 13 and 110th ounces avoirdupois, 
 lasts in a bright argand lamp 11 hours 44 minutes. The 
 weight of oil it consumes per hour is equal to four times 
 the weight of tallow in candles eight to the pound, and 3 
 and l-7th times the weight of tallow in candles six to the 
 pound ; but, its light being equal to that of five of the lat- 
 ter candles, it appears from the above table, that two 
 lbs. weight of oil, value one shilling, (sterling), in an ar- 
 gand lamp, are equivalent in illuminating power to 3 lbs. of 
 tallow candles, which cost about three shillings, sterling. 
 The larger the flame in the above candles, the greater the 
 economy of light. (Ure's Dictionary of Chemistry.) In 
 reference to the comparative cost of coal gas, oil, tallow, 
 and wax, it appears that the cost of a lamp fed by gas, and 
 giving the light of seven candles, will be about one penny 
 sterling per hour ; of an argand lamp fed with spermaceti 
 oil, about threepence, of mould candles about threepence 
 halfpenny, and of wax candles about one shilling. Ninety 
 cubic feet of good coal gas, value about one shilling ster- 
 ling, will produce the light of about 10 wax candles for 
 one hour. 
 
 CANE'LLA. (Dim. of canna, a reed.) The bark of the 
 Canella alba, imported from the West Indies in quilled 
 pieces of a pale buff colour, and a biting aromatic flavour. 
 It is occasionally used in medicine. 
 
 CANE'LLE^E. (Canella, one of the genera.) A small 
 natural order of plants, supposed to be related to Clusi- 
 acea ; but very imperfectly known. They consist of South 
 American shrubs or trees ; one of which, Canella alba, is 
 aromatic, and yields the wild cinnamon of the West In- 
 dies. The bark of that species is used medicinally against 
 scurvy. 
 
 CANE'PHORiE. (Gr. xavntyopos, bearing a basket.) In 
 Architecture, figures of young persons of either sex, bear- 
 ing on their heads baskets containing materials for sacri- 
 fice. They are frequently confounded with caryatides, 
 from their resemblance in respect of attitude and the 
 modern abuse of their application. See Caryatides. 
 
 CA'NES VENA'TICI. The Greyhounds. One of the 
 constellations formed by Hevelius in the northern hemi- 
 sphere. It is represented on the celestial globes and charts 
 by the figures of two dogs, which are also distinguished 
 by the names of Asterion and Chara. 
 
 CANI'CULAR DAYS, or DOG DAYS. The name given 
 to certain days of the year, during which the heat is usu- 
 ally the greatest. They are reckoned about forty, and are 
 set down in the almanacs as beginning on the 3d day of 
 July, and ending on the 11th of August. In the time of the 
 ancient Astronomers, the remarkable star Sirius. called al- 
 so Canicula, or the Dog Star, rose heliacally, that is, just 
 before the sun, about the beginning of July ; and the sultry 
 heat which usually prevails at that season, with all its disa- 
 greeable effects, among which the tendency of dogs to be- 
 come mad is not one of the least disagreeable, were as- 
 cribed to the malignant rage of the star. Owing to the 
 precession of the equinoxes, the heliacal rising of Sirius 
 now takes place later in the year, and in a cooler season; 
 so that the dog days have not now that relation to the par- 
 ticular position of the Dog Star from which they obtained 
 their name. 
 
 CANI'CULAR YEAR. The ancient solar year of the 
 Egyptians ; so called because its commencement was de- 
 termined by the heliacal rising of the Dog Star. The Egyp- 
 tians chose this star for their observations, either on ac- 
 count of its superior brightness, or because its heliacal 
 rising corresponded with the annual overflow of the Nile. 
 At a very early period of history the Egyptians had per- 
 ceived that the solar year contains 365J^ days ; for their 
 common years consisted of 365 days, and every fourth 
 year of 366, as in the Julian Calendar. 
 
 CANI'NES. (Lat. canis, a dog.) The pointed, often long 
 teeth, which succeed the incisors;. called denies canini, or 
 laniarii. 
 
 CA'NIS. (Lat. canis, a dog.) The name of a genus of 
 Digitigrade Mammalia, restricted in the modern systems 
 of Zoology to the species of dog, wolf, and jackal: but by 
 Linnsus applied in a wider sense to include the fox and 
 hyena. With respect to the latter animal its enormously
 
 CANIS. 
 
 developed anal scent-glands, its brief coition, and its mane 
 indicate it to belong to the family of the skunks and genets 
 rather than to that of the dogs, while the prickly tongue 
 and dentition of the hyena approximate it to the cats. The 
 foxes are generically distinguished from the dogs by the 
 pupils of the eye, which during the day have the form of 
 a venical fissure, by their less notched upper incisors, and 
 by their longer and more bushy tail. The true characters 
 of the genus canis are six incisors and two canines in each 
 jaw, six molars on each side of the upper jaw, and seven 
 molars on each side of the lower jaw, making in all forty- 
 two teeth, of which there are twenty in the upper and 
 twenty-two in the lower jaw. The first three molars in the 
 upper, and the first four molars in the under jaw, are 
 trenchant and pointed or lacerating teeth ; the succeeding 
 molar in the upper jaw is very large, with two sharp cut- 
 tinir points towards the outer edge, and a small tubercle on 
 the inner side interiorly ; the others are smaller, and all 
 furnished with tubercles : the first of these tuberculate mo- 
 lars in the upper jaw is very large. In all the wild varie- 
 ties of the species of canis the muzzle is elongated, and the 
 ears are carried erect ; the tongue is unprovided with cuti- 
 cular spines ; the fore feet have five toes, the hind feet four 
 only ; both are armed with non-retractile claws ; the cae- 
 cum is cylindrical, and coiled upon itself; the anal glands 
 are of moderate size ; the coitus is prolonged. The dog 
 (Canis fayniliaris, L.) is distinguished from the wolf and 
 jackal by his recurved tail ; but the varieties, as to size, 
 form, colour, and quality of the hair, are almost infinite. 
 The dog is the most complete, singular, and useful con- 
 quest ever made by man over the brute creation : each in- 
 dividual is devoted to his particular master, assumes his 
 manners, knows and defends his property, and remains 
 attached to him till death ; and all this neither from con- 
 straint nor want, but solely from the purest gratitude and 
 truest friendship. The swiftness, strength, and scent of 
 the doz have rendered him man's powerful ally against all 
 other animals, and have perhaps mainly contributed to the 
 establishment of society. Some naturalists tlnnk the dog is 
 a reclaimed wolf, and others that he is a dome 
 jackal; nevertheless, those dogs that have become wild 
 again revert neither into the one nor the other species. 
 The wild duns, and those that belong to savages, as the 
 dingo, resemble, it is true, the wolf in the shape of the 
 head, their straight pricked ears, rough and thick hair.long 
 bushy tail, and lounging gait; moreover, they never bark, 
 but utter a sharp cry or Long melancholy howl, like the 
 jackal and wolf; yet they are plainly distinct from both. 
 The Esquimaux dogs present the first traces of a deviation 
 from the wild type; the figure of the legs is more deter- 
 mined, and their pace bolder and more rapid : still they 
 manifest their near relationship to the wulf in their sharp 
 nose, pricked ears, and inability to bark. The Esquimaux 
 and the people of Kamtschatka use these dogs as beasts of 
 draught: six or seven dogs will draw a sledge laden with 
 eight or ten hundred weight at the rate of seven or eight 
 miles an hour, and will easily, under these circumstances, 
 perform a journey of fifty or sixty miles a day, when the 
 snow is hard and smooth, and the road level. The dogs 
 thus employed have a simple harness of deer or seal skin 
 going round the neck by one bight, and another for each of 
 the fore-legs, with a single thong leading over the back, 
 and attached to the sledge as a trace. " Though they ap- 
 pear," says Captain Parry, " to be at first sight huddled to- 
 gether without regard to regularity, there is in fact consid- 
 erable attention paid to their arrangement, particularly in 
 the selection of a dog of peculiar spirit and sagacity, who is 
 allowed by a longer trace to precede the rest as leader, and 
 to whom, in turning to the right or left, the driver usually 
 addresses himself." 
 
 The Newfoundland dog may be regarded as the next re- 
 move from the Esquimaux variety. These fine and saga- 
 cious animals are employed in their native island to draw 
 sledges and carts laden with wood and fish, and to render 
 many other useful services performed elsewhere by the 
 horse. The readiness with which the Newfoundland dog 
 takes the water, his aptitude to fetch and carry, and his 
 powerful and active swimming, have been the means of 
 preserving the lives of many human beings. Another va- 
 riety of dog nearly allied to the Newfoundland breed, and 
 belonging to the same subdivision (Avicuiarius, Linn., or 
 spaniel-tribe), has been trained by the benevolent monks 
 of the convent situated near the top of the mountain of 
 Great St. Bernard, to hunt out and extricate such unfortunate 
 travellers as may have been buried under the snowdrifts 
 or avalanches, while attempting the neighbouring dangerous 
 pass between Switzerland and Savoy. One of these noble 
 animals was decorated with a medal in commemoration 
 of his having saved the lives of twenty-two persons, who 
 must otherwise have perished. In the museum at Berne 
 is still preserved the stuffed skin of u Barry," another of 
 these dogs, together with the bottle and collar which he 
 bore in his lifetime ; for the good fathers, with a provident 
 care to afford every chance of escape to the unfortunate 
 191 
 
 CANNIBALS. 
 
 travellers, fasten a flask of spirits about the neck of the dog 
 before he starts on his search. Barry having discovered a 
 boy whose mother had been destroyed by an avalanche, 
 unhurt and asleep in the hollow of a glacier, and almost 
 stiff with cold, delivered to him the bottle suspended from 
 his neck ; and when he had refreshed himself, found 
 means to induce him to mount upon his back, and thus 
 carried him to the gate of the convent. This dog had been 
 the means of rescuing from death upwards of forty persons 
 before he was superannuated; when he was sent to pass 
 the remainder of his days, on a pension, in a more genial 
 climate at Beme. 
 
 In our own country the shepherd's dog offers the exam- 
 ple of one of the purest races of the domesticated animal, 
 and that which, in its straight ears, its hair, and tail, ap- 
 proaches nearest to the original stock. The sagacity of 
 this variety in the peculiar department in which his ser- 
 vices are rendered to man is well known, and has been il- 
 lustrated by a hundred interesting anecdotes. The shep- 
 herd's dog, though outwardly resembling in many points 
 the "dingo," possesses a greater cerebral development, 
 which continues to increase together with intelligence in 
 the spaniel and barbet. Guided by the form of the cra- 
 nium, we should associate the spaniel and its immediate 
 varieties with the shepherd's dog, the wolf dog, the New- 
 foundland and Mount St. Bernard's dog, and the Esqui- 
 maux dogs in one family (Sagaces). 
 
 A comparison of the crania indicates a closer affinity of 
 the "dingo" with the family Pugnaces, including the mas- 
 tiff and Danish dog, than with the Sagaces. After the pug- 
 naceous mastiff and its varieties, as the bulldog, remarka- 
 ble for the shortness and strength of its jaws, come the 
 hound, the pointer, and the terrier in the order of cerebral 
 development. The varieties of this family | I", nantes) dif- 
 fer between themselves chiefly in the size and proportions 
 of the limbs ; the greyhound is longer and more lank, its 
 frontal sinuses are smaller, and its scent weaker. 
 
 The bandy-legged turnspits, and the small pet doss, as 
 the pugs, poodles, Italian greyhounds, king Charles's breed, 
 <fec, are the most degenerated productions of the genus, 
 and exhibit the most striking instances of that power to 
 which man subjects all nature. 
 
 With some exceptions among this latter anomalous group 
 all the domestic varieties of the genus Canis are easily and 
 naturally referable to one or other of the three great tribes 
 above mentioned, of which the mastiff, the hound, and the 
 spaniel may be regarded as the several types, and which 
 we have named Pn umtes, and Sagaces, from 
 
 their prominent aptitude respectively for the combat, the 
 chase, and those more varied and complicated services 
 which seem to demand for their fulfilment a greater 
 amount of intelligence in our canine auxiliaries. 
 
 In all the varieties of the dog the following circumstances 
 in his economy are constant : — He is born with his eyes 
 closed ; he opens them on the tenth or twelfth day ; his 
 teeth commence changing in the fourth month ; and his 
 full growth is attained at the expiration of the second year. 
 The period of gestation is sixty-three days, and from six to 
 twelve pups are produced at a birth. The dog is old at fif- 
 teen years, and seldom lives beyond twenty. His vigi- 
 lance and bark are universally known. (See Naturalist's 
 Library, vols. 25 and 28,— -Dogs, by Lieut Col. Hamilton 
 Smith; Hell's British Quadrupeds, 8vo., 1837.) 
 
 CA'NIS MA'JOR. (Lat.) The Greater Dog. One of 
 the 48 constellations of Ptolemy, in the southern hemi- 
 sphere, and under the feet of Orion. Sirius, the brightest 
 of all the fixed stars, belongs to this constellation. 
 
 CA'NIS MINOR. The Lesser Dog. Is also one of Pto- 
 lemy's 43 constellations. It is in the northern hemisphere, 
 just below Gemini. Its most conspicuous star is Procyon, 
 of the first magnitude. 
 
 CA'NNELL COAL. (Perhaps candle coal, from the 
 flame with which it burns.) A species of coal found in 
 most of the English collieries, especially at Wigan in Lan- 
 cashire. It is difficultly frangible, and does not soil the fin- 
 gers ; when burning it splits and crackles, but does not 
 cake, and leaves 3 or 4 per cent, of ash. It is sometimes 
 worked into ornamental utensils, like jet. 
 
 CA'NNIBALS. or ANTHROPOPHAGI. Persons that 
 devour human flesh. The ancient authors, but especially 
 Herodotus, have recorded instances both of individ- 
 ual and national addiction to this revolting practice, as in 
 the case of Polyphemus, the Massagetee, and the Isse- 
 dones: and though there is unquestionably a large portion 
 of fable grafted on these traditional facts, it would be rash 
 wholly to reject an account which the testimony of subse- 
 quent history so strongly corroborates. In the middle ages 
 it was customary for parties engaged in hostilities to make 
 mutual accusations of cannibalism ; but there is sufficient 
 ground for believing that such allegations originated more 
 in a desire, natural, perhaps, to sworn enemies in those 
 rude times, of fixing upon each other the most barbarous 
 practices, than in any actual perpetration of this deed on 
 either side. At the present day cannibalism is practised
 
 CANNON. 
 
 by some of the Indian tribes of North America, the Battas 
 of Sumatra, and the New Zealanders ; though it must be 
 admitted, to the honour of humanity, that the most violent 
 passions, such as revenge or haired, or the pressure of 
 want, must be in operation before even the wildest savage 
 will indulge in so horrible a banquet. 
 
 CA'NNON. A military engine for projecting balls, 
 shells, <fec. by the force of gun-powder. The principal 
 parts of a cannon are, 1. The breech, which 
 is the solid metal from the bottom of the bore c 
 
 or concave cylinder to the extremity of the 
 cascabel, a. 2. The trunnions, b b, which pro- 
 ject on each side, and serve to support the can- 
 non in equilibrio, their axis being in the vertical 
 plane passing through the centre of gravity, but 
 intersecting it below that point. 3. The bore or 6| 
 cylindrical cavity. This in several sorts of can- 
 non is made of smaller diameter towards the 
 breech, thus assuming the shape of two cylin- 
 ders united by a portion of a spherical surface. 
 The smaller part of the bore is of such a length 
 as to receive the maximum service charge of 
 gun-powder, and is called the chamber. The 
 entrance of the bore, c, is called the mouth or muzzle. 
 
 Cannon are made either of cast iron or brass, the latter 
 being an alloy of copper and tin in the proportion of about 
 10 parts of copper to 1 of tin, and called gun-metal. This 
 has a greater tenacity than iron, but is objectionable on ac- 
 count of its greater density and higher price, besides being 
 liable in rapid service to soften and droop at the muzzle, 
 whereby it is rendered unserviceable. Since the advan- 
 tage of using smaller charges of gun-powder was disco- 
 vered, cast iron, though possessing less tenacity than gun 
 metal, has been substituted for ship, garrison, and batter- 
 ing guns. But the smaller species of cannon (field-pieces) 
 continue to be made generally of brass : for by reason of 
 the rapid cooling of the iron in small masses its strength is 
 considerably impaired, so that it is difficult to be procured 
 of the requisite quality. 
 
 Cannon were formerly cast with a cave or hollow, but 
 they are now always cast solid ; experience having shown 
 that when cast solid they are stronger, and less liable to 
 burst ; that the metal is freer from honeycombs ; and that 
 the bore can be rendered more perfect, and ils axis made 
 to coincide more accurately with that of the piece. In 
 boring cannon, the gun itself is made to revolve about the 
 bit or borer, the size of which is successively increased. 
 
 In service cannon are mounted on carriages, by which 
 they may be removed from place to place. They are sup- 
 ported on the carriage by the trunnions, about which they 
 move as on an axle ; and the form of the carriage is such 
 as to admit of their being elevated or depressed a few de- 
 grees above or below the horizontal plane. See Gun, Gun- 
 nery, Howitzer, Mortar. See Greener on Gunnery ; 
 and Wilkinson's Engines of War. 
 
 CA'NNON BONE. In Farriery, signifies the single 
 metarcarpal or metatarsal bone of the horse. 
 
 CA'NNON METAL. Bronze ; an alloy of copper with 
 eight or tender cent, of tin. 
 
 CANOE'. A boat, made of a single trunk of a tree hol- 
 lowed out. Some are made of pieces of bark fastened 
 together ; these should be properly called boats. They 
 are of various sizes, and are generally propelled by one, or 
 if large by two or more paddles, like wooden shovels. 
 
 CA'NON. (Gr. tcai/iov, a rule.) A word of various sig- 
 nifications, of which we can only enumerate the princi- 
 pal. 
 
 1. In cathedral and collegiate churches there are canons 
 who perform some of the services, and are possessed of 
 certain revenues connected with them. These are, strict- 
 ly speaking, residentiary canons : foreign canons are those 
 to whom collegiate revenues are assigned without the ex- 
 action of any duty. 
 
 2. The laws and ordinances of ecclesiastical councils are 
 called canons. 
 
 3. The canon of scripture signifies the authorized and 
 received catalogue of the sacred books. The canon of the 
 Old Test., as received by the Romanists, differs from that 
 of the Protestant churches in regarding as inspired those 
 books which we reject under the term Apocrypha. The 
 catalogue received by the Jews themselves, which we 
 adopt, was first enlarged by the Council of Carthage to 
 the extent in which it is held by our opponents, and that 
 decision was formally confirmed by the Council of Trent. 
 In the canon of the New Test., however, the agreement of 
 Christian churches may be considered unanimous. There 
 exist a series of enumerations of the sacred books of the 
 latter covenant in the writings of the first four centuries, 
 the general agreement of which, and the satisfactory rea- 
 sons which can be assigned in most cases of omission- 
 there are no additions — distinctly mark the universality of 
 the judgment of the early churches in this matter. 
 
 Ca'non. In Music, a perpetual fugue. This original 
 method of writing this was on one line, with marks there- 
 192 
 
 CANTON. 
 
 on, to show where the parts that imitate were to begin and 
 end. This, however, was what the Italians more particu- 
 larly call cunone chiuso (shut), or canone in corpo. 
 
 CA'NONESS. A description of religious women in 
 France and Germany. Their convents were termed 
 colleges. They did not live in seclusion. The college of 
 Remiremont was the oldest establishment ol this order in 
 France. Similar noble monasteries still exist in Germany, 
 and the revenues and dignities of some belong to .Protestants. 
 
 CANO'NICAL HOURS. Stated times of the day set 
 apart, more especially by the Romish church, for devo- 
 tional purposes. In England the canonical hours are from 
 8 to 12 in the forenoon, before or after which the ceremo- 
 ny of marriage cannot be legally performed in any parish 
 church. 
 
 CA'NONIZA'TION. A ceremony in the Romish church, 
 by which holy men deceased are enrolled in the catalogue 
 of saints. The privilege of canonizing was originally com- 
 mon to all bishops, and was first confined to the Pope by 
 Alexander HI. in 1170. When it is proposed to canonize 
 any person, a formal process is instituted, by which his 
 merits or demerits are investigated. Hereupon the beatifi- 
 cation of the person in question is pronounced by the Pope, 
 and his canonization follows upon the production of testi- 
 mony to miracles performed at his tomb or by his remains. 
 The day of his death is generally selected to be kept in his 
 honour, and is inserted as such in the calendar. The last 
 instance of canonization took tilace in 1803. 
 
 CANO'PUS, or CANOBUS. (Gr. Kavwwos, the name 
 of a place in Egypt.) A bright star of the first magnitude 
 in the rudder of Argo, one of the southern constellations. 
 As its declination is about 52/i° south, it is not visible in 
 in our hemisphere beyond the 40th degree of latitude. 
 
 CA'NOPY. (Gr. Kavontiov.) In Architecture, an orna- 
 mented covering over a seat of state, and in its extended 
 signification any covering which affords protection from 
 above. 
 
 CANT. In sea phrase, to turn over or round ; a cant is 
 also a piece of wood laid on the deck for the support of a 
 bulk-head. 
 
 CANTA'TA. (It. cantare, to sing.) In Music, a song of 
 composition intermixed with recitative, usually for a single 
 voice with a thorough bass. 
 
 CANTHA'RIDES. (Gr. Kovdapos, a beetle.) Spanish 
 flies. The Canlharis vesicatoria, or blistering fly. These 
 insects are chiefly brought from Astracan and Sicily : they 
 should be free from mould and dust, of a peculiar but not 
 very strong or nauseous odour, and of a brilliant golden 
 green colour. These flies furnish us with the only ready 
 and certain means of raising an effective blister upon the 
 skin, for which purpose they are reduced to powder, 
 mixed with ointment or lard, and spread thinly upon a 
 piece of leather, which is then applied to the part affected. 
 Their operation is very different in different habits and 
 constitutions : sometimes they produce much local pain 
 and inconvenience, and great general excitement and irri- 
 tation of the urinary organs ; at others they are compara- 
 tively quiet in their action ; and the blister being applied at 
 bed-time, is found in the morning to have raised the cuti- 
 cle with a large quantity of serous fluid underneath it, and 
 the patient lias scarcely been aware of its agency. The 
 object of applying a blister is generally to transfer internal 
 inflammatory action to the surface ; and in deep-seated in- 
 flammations, and painful affections of the viseera and larg- 
 er joints and muscles, they are often astonishingly effective. 
 But blisters should not be incautiously applied : they some- 
 times produce troublesome sores, and are followed by eri- 
 sipelatous inflammation. Care should also be taken to 
 confine them, by a margin of adhesive plaster or other 
 means, to the part upon which they are intended to operate, 
 as they sometimes are displaced, and give rise to awk- 
 ward accidents. When cantharides are taken internally, 
 they are violently stimulant to the urinary and generative 
 organs. 
 
 CA'NTHUS. (Lat.) The corner of the eye, where the 
 upper and under eyelids meet. 
 
 CANTILE'VER. (Probably from canterii labrum, the 
 lip of a rafter.) In Architecture, apiece of wood framed 
 into the front or side of a house, and projecting from it, to 
 sustain the eaves and mouldings over them. 
 
 CA'NTO. See Soprano. 
 
 CA'NTO-FE'RMO. (Ital. firm song.) In Music, the 
 subject song. Every part that is the subject of counter- 
 point, whether plain or figured, is called by the Italians 
 canto fermo. 
 
 CA'NTON. In Heraldry, an ordinary formed either at 
 the dexter or sinister chief of the escutcheon, by two lines 
 meeting at right angles, proceeding from the top or sides 
 of the shield. By the word canton is always understood a 
 canton dexter, unless otherwise expressed. 
 
 Canton. (Gr. navdos, an angle ; or Lat. centum, a hun- 
 dred.) In Geography, originally a quarter of a city regard- 
 ed as separated or detached from the rest ; but applied 
 chiefly at present to the twenty-two districts of which
 
 CANTONMENT. 
 
 Switzerland is composed, and which, though forming a 
 confederate union like the United States of America, arc 
 governed each bv a separate judicature and particular laws. 
 CAM't ) NMENT. In the art Military, that distinct situ- 
 ation which soldiers occupy when quartered in different 
 parts of a town, for want of barracks or caserns to contain 
 them. 
 
 ( \'\\ kS. (Ital.) A very clear unbleached cloth of 
 hemp or flay, woven regularly in little squares, chiefly 
 used to make sails for shipping. Besides serving for vari- 
 ous domestic purposes, such as for the ground of tapestry 
 work, canvas forms the cloth on which painters usually 
 draw their pictures. 
 
 t \NZO.NE. (Latin, Provencal, and Italian, cantare, to 
 sing.) A kind of lyric poem. Adopted, with some alter- 
 ation, from the poetry of the Troubadours, it found its way 
 into Italy in the thirteenth century. It is divided, like the 
 Greek atrophic ode, into stanzas, in which the number and 
 place of rhymes and metre of verses respectively corres- 
 pond. The last stanza, commonly shorter than the others 
 (the epodus of the ode), is called congedo, or ripressa (in 
 old French Venvoy), and consisted, generally, of a valedic- 
 tory address to the canzon itself. This form of poetry was 
 adapted by Petrarch to the expression of many different 
 veins of thought — sonorous, elevated, and heroic. The 
 Pindaric ode, somewhat more regular than the canzon, 
 was introduced by Chiabrera. The canzonet was a son 
 of canzon in short verses, a favourite form with the poets 
 of the fifteenth century. 
 
 CANZONE'TTA. '(Dimin. of canzone. ) In Music, a 
 short song. The Neap' ! 
 
 each of which is, like the French vaudeville, sung twice 
 over. The Sicilian canzonet is in a species of jig-time, 
 with six <>r twelve quavers in the bar. Sometimes both 
 I ■ at the first Btrain for an ending. 
 
 CAOIl TCHOl C. This curious substance is the inspis- 
 sated juice or sap of several plants : the principal supplies 
 are from South America, ai ed from the Sipho- 
 
 niaela .and probably from other 
 
 .■us plants. It is often termed gumelasl 
 Indian rubber. Its general properties and uses are well 
 known. Among il I applications 
 
 elastic wove fabrics, formed of caoutchouc stretched into 
 threads and covered with cotton; and various water-proof 
 clothing, which is made by interposing a layer of caout- 
 chouc between two folds of the cloth, and then forcibly 
 uniting them by pressure. For this purposi 
 chouc is dissolved by coal naphtha, and in that state 
 brushed over the surfaces which are to be unit 
 
 i loutchouc is a compound of carbon and hydrogen; 
 when heated it fuses, an 
 
 ■ 
 it yields four fifths of its weight of a highly innamn 
 and very light volatile Oily liquid {hydrocarbon); which 
 has bee. i called caoutchoucine, and which is ;t good solvent 
 of the unaltered caoutchouc. Washed sulphuric ethei 
 bc, and it is also Boluble in several es- 
 sential oils; Inn of these latter solutions the greater num- 
 ber leave it in a sticky state on evaporation. 
 
 CAPA'CITV FOR HEAT. Experiment shows that dif- 
 ferent quantities of heat are required to raise different bo- 
 dies to the same temperature, and those substances which 
 require the largest quantity of heat to be raised to a given 
 temperature are said to have the greatest capacity fur h-a:. 
 See Specific Heat. 
 
 CAPE. (Lat. caput, a head.) In Geography, is the term 
 used to indicate the extreme point of a promontory, or of 
 that portion of land which juts out into the sea beyond the 
 general line of the coast ; as Cape Taenams or Matapan, 
 the most southern part of Europe : the Cape ot I 
 Hope, the most southern part of Africa ; Cape Horn, the 
 southern extremity of America, <fcc. On rocky and much 
 indented coasts capes generally terminate in acute angles, 
 whence they are sometimes denominated points ; and if 
 the portion of the land which projects is small or not 
 high, the appellation ness in England, and in Scotland that 
 of mull, is assigned to it, as Sheerness, the Mull of Gallo- 
 way. 
 
 CAPE'I.LA. A star of the first magnitude in the left 
 shoulder of Auriga. 
 
 Ca'PERS. The buds or unexpanded flowers of the 
 Capparis s])inosa, in common use as a pickle. 
 
 CATIAS AD RESPONDENDUM. In Law, a writ for 
 the commencement of personal actions to arrest a party 
 who is at laree or alreadv in custody of a sheriff. 
 
 CA'PIAS AD SA'TISFA'CIE'NDIM. (Shortly called 
 ca. so.) In Law, a judicial writ of execution which issues 
 out on the record of a judgment, where there is a recovery 
 in the courts of Westminster, of debt, damages, &c. By 
 this writ the sheriff is commanded to take the body of the 
 defendant in execution. This is" the highest execution I 
 which can be had against a defendant, and no other can be 
 afterwards had against his lands or goods, unless he die in 
 custody. 
 
 193 
 
 CAPILLARY ACTION. 
 
 CAPI'P>ARA. The largest known Rodent quadruped. 
 It is of aquatic habits, and frequents the rivers of South 
 America. It is the type of the genus Hydro* ha us, signi- 
 fying '• water- bos," by which name it is sometimes known. 
 
 CAI'ILLA'IRE. Simple syrup flavoured with orange 
 flowers, or orange flower water, generally goes under this 
 name, which is derived from the mucilaginous syrup di- 
 rected in old Pharmacopeias to be made of the Adiantum 
 capiUus ot 
 
 CAPI'LLAMENTUM. (Lat. capillus, a hair.) An old 
 name of the filament of a flower. See Filament. 
 
 CAPI'LLARV. Lonsr and slender, like a hair. 
 
 CAITI.I.AKV A'CTION. (Lat capillus, a hair.) When 
 a very narrow glass tube, open at both ends, is inserted in 
 a vessel containing water, the water immediately rises in 
 md remains suspended at some height above its 
 level in the vessel. If the same tube is plunged into mer- 
 cury, the mercury in the tube stands at a lower level than 
 in the vessel. These effects are most conspicuous when 
 the width of the bore of the tube is so small as to resemble 
 a hair; whence the cause of the phenomena has been 
 termed capillary action, from the Latin capillus, which 
 signifies a hair. 
 
 The operation of the same forces which cause the ele- 
 vation of water and depression of mercury in idass tubes, 
 gives rise to a multitude of other phenomena with which 
 everyone is familiar. If a piece of sugar, or sponge, or 
 blotline paper, is brought into contact with water atone 
 extremity, the fluid immediately passes through it and 
 moistens its whole substance. A mass of wetted thread 
 or cloth, banging over the edge of a basin from the water 
 within it, will empty it as a siphon would. The rise of the 
 oil in the, wick of a lamp, of the sap in trees, the functions 
 of the excretory vascular system in plants and animals, 
 depend on the same causes. Capillary action is, in short, 
 only an instance of the operation of that species of attrac- 
 tion which is exerted among the elementary particles of 
 matter within very small or insensible distances, which is 
 called molecular attraction, and which gives rise to 
 of the most important phenomena of the physical w 
 such as the vibrations of solid bodies, the refraction of 
 light, and chemical actions of all kinds- 
 phenomenon of thi i 1" water in narrow 
 tubes began t" attract the attention of experimental philo- 
 sophers about the beginning of the last century : hut nei- 
 ther the method id' calculating the effects of the forces ex- 
 erted amoiii! the elementary molecules of matter, nor 
 their mode of operation, was then understood, and c 
 quenlly no satisfactory theory was proposed. Two facts, 
 considerable importance were established by 
 Hauksbee. The first is, that the ascent of the liquid is 
 quite independent of the thickness of the tube; and the 
 I, that if two rectangular plates of ".lass having their 
 i in a vertical line, and forming a very acute 
 
 angle with each other, are dipped into water, the fluid 
 which rises between them takes the form of the equilate- 
 ral hyperbola. On considering the phenomenon attentive* 
 lively, it was easy to see that as the height of the fluid be- 
 tween the plates at any point in the cone was inversely 
 proportional to the distance of the plates at that point, it 
 must follow that in capillary tubes the ascent would be 
 inversely proportional to the diameter of the tube. The 
 theory of the phenomenon, however, still remained unex- 
 plained. 
 
 Dr. .Turin ascribed the ascent of the liquid to the attrac- 
 tion of the ring of the tube immediately above it. But this 
 was merely a vague explanation, and is now known to be 
 altogether erroneous. Clairaut, in his celebrated work on 
 the Figure of the Earth, was the first who analyzed exactly 
 the different forces which concur in elevating the liquid in 
 a capillary tube, and reduced fhe phenomena to the ordi- 
 nary laws of tin- equilibrium of fluids. Some of his sup- 
 positions respecting the nature of the forces in action were 
 erroneous ; for example, he supposed the attraction of the 
 internal surface of the tube on the liquid to be exerted not 
 only at a sensible distance, but to extend even to the diam- 
 eter. He failed to prove from theory that the ascent must 
 be inversely proportional to the diameter of the tube ; but 
 he showed that several hypotheses might be made with 
 respect to the law of attraction from which that law of as- 
 cent would follow ; and he demonstrated a very remarka- 
 ble result, namely, that if the attraction which the panicles 
 of the tube exercise on the fluid and the attraction which 
 the particles of the fluid exercise on each other follow the 
 same law, and differ from each other only in intensity, 
 the fluid will rise in the tube when the first of these attrac- 
 tions exceeds half the second. The error of Dr. Jurin's 
 hypothesis was first clearly pointed out by Professor Les- 
 lie, in a paper inserted in the Philosophical Magazine, in 
 1802. Mr. Leslie's argument was shortly this : If the ring 
 of the tube immediately above the liquid in a capillary 
 tube attract it upwards, how does it happen that the ring 
 immediately below the surface does not attract it down- 
 wards, in which case the forces would be balanced, and 
 Bb
 
 CAPILLARY ACTION. 
 
 there would be no elevation 1 The fact is, that as the ac- 
 tion of the molecules of the tube is confined within very 
 narrow limits, its direction must be at right angles to the 
 sides of the tube. Nor is it difficult to conceive how a la- 
 teral action may yet cause a perpendicular ascent. It is 
 a fundamental property of fluids, that any force impressed 
 in one direction is propagated equally in every direction ; 
 the tendency of the fluid, therefore, to approach the glass 
 will occasion it to spread over the internal cavity of the 
 tube, and consequently to mount upwards. Mr. Leslie's 
 explanation, though correct in principle, served in no way 
 to advance the theory ; indeed little notice appears to have 
 been taken of it till its importance was pointed out by Mr. 
 Ivory. Another important fact was discovered by Dr. 
 Young, who showed, in a paper on the Cohesion of Fluids, 
 in the Phil. Trans, for 1805, that the angle made by the 
 surface of the fluid with the sides of the tube is invariable, 
 the fluid and the materials of the tube remaining the same, 
 and being supposed homogeneous. 
 
 But a complete exposition of the theory of capillary phe- 
 nomena was reserved for Laplace. In two Supplements 
 to the Mecaniqup Celeste, published in 1806 and 1807, La- 
 place, assuming the force of molecular action to extend 
 only to insensible or imperceptible distances, determin- 
 ed the separate influences of the cohesive attraction of the 
 molecules of the fluid to each other, and the adhesive force 
 with which they cling to the tube. This analysis of the 
 forces by which the capillary phenomena are produced 
 conducted him to an equation in which the whole theory 
 is included. It consisted of two parts : the first belonging 
 to those points of the surface of the fluid whose distance 
 from the sides of the tube is greater than the radius of the 
 sphere of molecular action ; and the other belonging to 
 those points of the surface which are in immediate contact 
 with the sides of the tube, or at least within the sphere of 
 the action of its molecules. The first term is general, and 
 the same for all surfaces ; the other varies with the curva- 
 ture in each particular case. Mr. Ivory afterwards showed 
 that of the two quantities which enter into the formula of 
 Laplace, the one denotes the direct pressure caused by the 
 attraction of a fluid mass bounded by a plane ; and the 
 other the derivative force acting laterally, which is a neces- 
 sary consequence of the direct pressure. (Ency. Brit. art. 
 "Capillary Action.") 
 
 The latest and most important work on capillary action 
 is by Poisson. NouveUe Theorie de V Action Capil/aire, 
 1831. Its object was to correct the theory of Laplace by 
 supplying an important omission in the physical data, 
 namely, the rapid diminution of density which takes place 
 near the free surface of the fluid, and near the sides of the 
 tube. Now this circumstance, though it had been entirely 
 overlooked by all former inquirers, is not only essential to 
 the right investigation of the effects of capillary action, but 
 it is demonstrated by Poisson that if there was no diminu- 
 tion of density near the superficial parts of the liquid, the 
 surface would remain plane and horizontal, and there would 
 neither be elevation nor depression in the capillary tube. 
 The molecular forces, therefore, which produce the ca- 
 pillary phenomena, are modified not only by the curvature 
 of the surface, according to the previous theory, but also 
 by the particular state of liquids at their surfaces. 
 
 The power of supporting the fluid column depends en- 
 tirely on the width of the tube at its upper extremity. If 
 the tube bulge out below, the water will not rise in it spon- 
 taneously ; but if plunged into a basin till the water reach- 
 es the capillary part, and then lifted up, the water will re- 
 main suspended at exactly the same height as in a tube 
 having the same capillary bore throughout. The lower and 
 wide part of the vessel may consist of metal, or any other 
 substance, different from glass. It is sufficient that the 
 cavity terminate above in a capillary glass tube. 
 
 The phenomenon of the depression of mercury in ca- 
 pillary tubes may be considered as the inverse of that of 
 the elevation of water. The molecules of water have a 
 greater attraction for glass than for each other ; those of 
 mercury, on the contrary, attract each other more power- 
 fully than they are attracted by glass. If a drop of mer- 
 cury, adhering to the edge of a plate of glass, is presented 
 to a mass of the same fluid, it immediately leaves the glass 
 and unites with the mass. When a plate of glass is plung- 
 ed into mercury, the mercury is depressed^ and forms a 
 convex surface on both sides of the plate. In a glass tube 
 the surface of mercury is always convex, provided the in- 
 side of the tube be perfectly clean, and the mercury free 
 from impurities. All these phenomena clearly indicate 
 the excess of the mutual attraction of the particles of mer- 
 cury above their adhesion to the sides of the glass. 
 
 From some experiments made by Casbois at Metz, it 
 appeared to result, that mercury purified with great care 
 forms a concave surface in the interior of a glass tube, and 
 consequently rises above the level, like an aqueous fluid. 
 It is now generally admitted, however, that these experi- 
 ments were fallacious, in consequence of the inner surface 
 of the tube having been lined with a slight, and perhaps 
 194 
 
 CAPITULATION. 
 
 imperceptible, oxydation produced by the boiiing of the 
 mercury. In preparing barometers, it has been the cus- 
 tom to boil the mercury in the tube ; when this operation 
 is performed, great caution is requisite to prevent the oxy- 
 dation from taking place. 
 
 The form of the surface of the fluid in the tube indicates 
 the relation of the cohesive force of its particles to their 
 attraction for the tube. The attraction of water to glass is 
 superior to half the cohesion of the aqueous particles to 
 one another ; consequently water within a capillary tube 
 assumes a concave surface, and rises. Mercury, on the 
 other hand, assumes a convex surface, and is depressed : 
 because its molecules attract one another with a force 
 more than double that with which they adhere to glass. 
 The radius of curvature of the bounding surface at the 
 middle point is proportional to the width of the tube. It 
 is stated by Professor Leslie as the result of his experi- 
 ments, that the depression of mercury in capillary tubes 
 may be estimated at unity divided by 68 times the diame- 
 ter expressed in inches. Hence if the width of the bore 
 is one fourth of an inch, the depression of the mercury is 
 one seventeenth of an inch. On this account it is necessary, 
 in accurate barometric observations, to apply a correction 
 for capillary action, which is less in proportion as the di- 
 ameter of the tube is greater. The best treatises on this 
 subject have already been referred to ; viz. that of Laplace, 
 in the Mecanique Celeste, tome iv. ; of Mr. Ivory, in the 
 Encyclopedia Briiannica ; and of Poisson, NouveUe Theorie 
 de V Action Capillaire. 
 
 CAPI'LLARY VESSELS. (Lat. capillus, a hair.} A- 
 natomists give this term to the minutest ramifications of 
 the arteries and other vessels. 
 
 CAPILLI'TUM. (Lat. capillus, a hair.) A kind of 
 purse or net in which the spores of Trichia and similar 
 fungi are retained. 
 
 CA'PITAL. (Lat. caput, a head.) In Architecture, the 
 head or uppermost member of any part of a building ; but 
 it is generally applied in a restricted sense to that of a 
 column or pilaster of the several orders, as in the figures 
 here given, in which it will be seen that the Tuscan capi- 
 tal (No. 1.) consists of an abacus or square shelf at the top, 
 and thereunder an ovolo or quarter round, and under that 
 a neck terminated by an astragal or fillet, which latter is 
 
 always considered as part of the column itself. The Ro- 
 man Doric capital (No. 2.) here given has an abacus, ovolo, 
 and neck like the last ; and also in addition three annulets 
 under the ovolo, and a cyma or ogee with its fillet over the 
 abacus. The Grecian Doric, however, has only a square 
 abacus, ovolo, and small fillets. The Ionic (No. 3.) capital 
 consists of three leading parts : an abacus, composed of an 
 ogee and fillet; a rind, which forms the scrolls; and an 
 ovolo and astragal at the lower part. The Corinthian and 
 Composite capitals (Nos. 4. and 5.) consist of an abacus 
 (see Abacus) of peculiar form, and are decorated with 
 leaves. 
 
 Capital. In Political Economy, that portion of the 
 produce of labour saved from immediate consumption 
 which is employed to maintain productive labourers, or to 
 facilitate production. (See Political Economy.) In Com- 
 merce, and as applied to individuals, capital is understood 
 to mean the sum of money which a merchant embarks 
 in any undertading, or which he contributes to the com- 
 mon stock of a partnership. 
 
 CAPITA'TION. (Lat. caput, head.) A tax imposed on 
 the population by the head ; e. g. on every one, or every 
 male, every one above a certain age, &c. (See Poll- 
 Tax.) In France, the ancient capitation is now replaced 
 by personal and other direct contributions. 
 
 CA'PITE. In Law, tenure in eapile (Ang. in chief) sig- 
 nifies in the language of feudal law a direct holding of the 
 king, the ultimate sovereign, without the intervention of 
 any mesne lord. In England, tenants in capite were either 
 by knight-service or socage ; which were converted into 
 socage bv the act 12 Ch. II. c. 24., abolishing feudal tenures. 
 
 CA'PITE CENSI. In Roman Antiquity, the lowest 
 rank of Roman citizens ; so called because they were 
 rather counted by their heads than by their estates. (Aul. 
 Gcll. lib. vii. cap. 13.) 
 
 CAPI'TULATION. In its original sense, a writing drawn 
 up in several capitula or heads. In the language of Mili- 
 tary Law, the articles of surrender, when a garrison or 
 other force surrenders to an enemy on terms, and not at 
 discretion. In Ecclesiastical History, articles sworn by 
 bishops and other prelates on admission to their dignities 
 were styled capitulations. So also was the oath tendered 
 first to Charles V., and then to the emperors of Germany
 
 CAPNOMANCY. 
 
 who succeeded him. by the electors, termed the election 
 capitulation (wahl capitulation). 
 
 CA'PNOMA'NCY. (Gr. Ka-xvos, smoke ; jiavrcta, pro- 
 pftecy.) Divination by smoke was practised among the 
 ancients, both by throwing on the fire seed of poppy and 
 other herbs, and observing the figures which might be 
 fancied in the smoke ; and by observing the smoke of 
 sacrifices. 
 
 CA'PN'OMOR. (Gr. xairvos, smoke, and noipa.part.) An 
 oily substance of a pungent and rather agreeable odour ob- 
 tained from the tar of wood. 
 
 « IPONNIE'RE. In Fortification, a passage leading 
 from one work to another, protected on each side by a 
 wall or parapet, generally of earth, sloping to the bottom 
 of the ditch. When a passage is thus protected on one 
 side only, it is called a demi-caponniere. 
 
 CAPPA'RIDA'CE/E. (Capparis, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of Exogenous plants, consisting of annuals, 
 perennials, bushes, and trees, inhabiting the warmer parts 
 of the new world. They have .ill a powerful pungent or even 
 acrid taste, and have been in some cases used as substi- 
 tutes for the common mustard ; in others they have proved 
 severe poison?. In general their flowers are very beauti- 
 ful, on account not only of their size, but of their long silk- 
 en stamens, which are often gaily coloured. The common 
 caper-bush, a native of rocky places in the North of Eu- 
 rope, is a species of th( genua Capparis, and yields the 
 flower-buds which, pickled in vinegar, arc sold in the shops 
 as an agreeable sauce for various dishes. 
 
 i Vl'lf E'LLA. A genus of Crustaceous animals belong- 
 ing to the order Lctmodipoda, found commonly on sea- 
 weed. Montague, who describes a species of this genus 
 in the seventh volume of the Linn/nut Transactuma.,Ba.ya 
 the female differs in possessing several plates or valves 
 beneath the body, situated between the two pairs of fins, 
 the use of which is to carry and protect its eggs or young ; 
 at which lino- they extend 'very considerably, and form a 
 kind of pouch distended with ova, fifteen or twenty of 
 which are easily distinguished between the transparent 
 plates. In this put a very Strong pulsation is visible. While 
 
 examining a female under a water microscope, the author 
 was surprised to observe nol less than ten young ones 
 crawl from the abdominal pouch of the parent, all perfectly 
 formed, and moving with considerable agility 01 er the body 
 of the mother, holding fast by their hind claws and erecting 
 their heads and arm-. Tl tracti rs of the genus. ,,r 
 
 rather family ( OaprelUdor) t axe, body of narrow linear form : 
 eyes composite, and placed behind ; legs long and slender, 
 and variable in number, the last joint of the second pair 
 being often toothed on the under side. 
 
 CAPRE'OLUS. (The tendril of a vine.) The old bo- 
 tinic.il name ol the tendril of a plant ; the term cirrltua is 
 now preferred. 
 
 CAPRTCCIO. (ltal. tchim, fancy.) In Music, a term 
 applied to certain pieces, wherein the composer gives way 
 to his fancy, without confining himself to particular mea- 
 sures or kevs : called also Fantasia. 
 
 CA'PRICO'RNS. (Lat. capricornus.) The name of 
 the three divisions of Tetramerous beetles; including 
 those which have the antennas filiform or setaceous, and 
 generally exceeding the length of the body : eyes lunate, 
 and enclosing the base of the antennae ; jaws very robust, 
 with short palpi; thorax often spined at the sides; the 
 three basal joints of the tarsi dilated, and cushioned on 
 the under surface ; the third deeply cleft at the extremity, 
 and receiving the minute ball at the base of the slender 
 and long terminal joint. This division comprehends four 
 great families, — Prionid/B,i it rambyeida, Lamiida . and Lep- 
 turitjrr ; ami corresponds very nearly with the Linnrean 
 geneva Ceramhyx, Necydalis, and Leptura. The offices of 
 the Capricorn beetles in the economy of nature is to re- 
 strain the excessive multiplication of vegetable species in 
 the warmer climates of the globe. The larva; reside with- 
 in the wood or beneath the bark of trees. 
 
 CA'PRICO'RNUS. (Lat.) The Wild Goat. The tenth 
 sign of the Zodiac, which the sun enters about the 21st of 
 December, at the winter solstice. The parallel circle pass- 
 ing through the first point of this sign is called the Tropic 
 of Capricorn. 
 
 Ca'PRIFO'LIA'CE.E. (Caprifolium, one of the nenera.) 
 A rather large natural order of plants, consisting of twining 
 and erect shrubs, and herbaceous or woody plants, and 
 even of trees, with simple or pinnated leaves, and flowers 
 of most dissimilarfonns, but all monopetalous. Themost 
 common plants belonging to this order are the woodbine, 
 the St. Peter's wort, the Tartarian and fly honeysuckle, 
 the numerons species of viburnum, and the elder-tree. 
 These all agree with the natural order Cinchonacem in 
 most respects, except the absence of stipules at the base 
 of the leaves. 
 
 CAPRIFO'LIUM. (Lat. capra, agoat, and folium, a leaf.) 
 Is the genus to which the wild honeysuckle (C. pericly- 
 fnenum) belongs. It consists of twining shrubs inhabiting 
 195 
 
 CAPTAIN. 
 
 the northern hemisphere exclusively, and in most cases 
 having long tubular flowers of singular sweetness. Many 
 species are known to botanists, the most interesting of 
 which are those from the north of India, China, and Ja- 
 pan, the fragrance of which ig superior to that of all others ; 
 of these C. Jlexuosum, now common in gardens, is the 
 best. 
 
 CA'PROIC ACID. (Lat. capra, a goat.) One of the acids 
 formed during the saponification of butter ; it has a rank 
 goat like odour. 
 
 CA'PROMYS. (Gr. tcairoos, a boar, and fivs, a mouse.) 
 The name of a genus of Rodent Mammalia, exclusively 
 confined to the island of Cuba, where they go by the name 
 of Houtias. 
 
 They have four molars on each side of each jaw, in 
 which the enamel is so folded as to form three angles on 
 the outer margin and one on the inner, in the upper teeth ; 
 the reverse in the lower teeth. The liver is remarkably 
 subdivided in the rodents of this genus. 
 
 CA'PROS. (Gr. xaTrfjos, a boar.) A name applied by 
 Lacipede to a subgenus of Acanthopterygious fishes, 
 which he separated from the dories (Zeus), and of which 
 the boar fish (.Zeus aper, Linn.) may be regarded as the 
 type. A specimen of this fish has been taken at Mount's 
 Hay, and another near Bridgewater, but is rare as a British 
 species. 
 
 CA'PSICIjM. (Gr. KawTbi, I bile ; from its pungency.) 
 The berry or seed-vessel of different species of capsicum. 
 The larger pods of the ' 'apsicum annuvm, and the smaller 
 ones of the ( ' baccatum or bird pepper, when powdered, 
 form the Syanpepper of commerce, so well known as a 
 powerful condiment, and often useful as a stimulating me- 
 dicine. Kvan pepper is often grossly adulterated with 
 common salt, and occasionally red lead and earthy pow- 
 ders are said to be added to it : it often has a disagreeable 
 rancid odour, owing to its being sprinkle. I with oil to pre- 
 vent its ibis- affecting those who powder and sift It. 
 
 CA'PSTAN, sometimes called CAPSTERN. (Fr. ca- 
 bestan.) A strong massive piece of limber, in the form of 
 a cylinder or truncaled cone, round 
 - ^ which a rope is coiled ; and being turn- 
 = * ed by means of bars or levers, it affords 
 an advantageous mode of applying pow- 
 er to overcome an obstacle. The cap- 
 stan is chiefly employed in ships, where 
 I for weighing anchors, hoisting 
 sails, <fcc. It is generally place. I verti- 
 cally, the lower end being let down through the deck of 
 nip, and the levers inserted in holes in the head or 
 top; so that the force of the men can be exerted continu- 
 ously, and that there may be no necessity for removing the 
 levers from one hole to another, as is the case when it is 
 placed horizontally. The power of the capstan may be 
 greatly increased by adapting an arrangement of wheel 
 work to it — an improvement which has been adopted for 
 several years past in the English navy. 
 
 CA'PSFLA. (Dim. of capsa, a box.) This word is ge- 
 nerally applied by botanists to all dry fruits which are de- 
 hiscent, whether they are many-seeded or few-seeded, 
 simple or compound ; and in such cases some expletive it 
 is added to indicate the particular nature of the fruit. Thus 
 Capsxla circumscissa is cut round by a circular line divid- 
 ing it into two parts : C. siliauiformis is lung and taper, like 
 the pod of a mustard plant ; C. baccata is when the peri- 
 carp is succulent ; C. Iricoccea, when a dry capsule bursts 
 into three separate closed pieces. Sometimes, for special 
 carpological purposes, the word capsula is limited in its ap- 
 plication to such dry compound fruits as open by valves, 
 and have an indefinite number of seeds ; as in Digitalis, 
 Scrophularia, the common lilac, &c. 
 
 CA'PSULE. In Chemistry, a small shallow evaporating 
 vessel or dish. 
 
 CA'PTAIN. In the Army, the commander of a troop 
 of cavalry or of a company of infantry. The price of a 
 captain's commission is different in different branches of 
 the British service: in the life guards, for instance, it is 
 £3,500; in the dragoons j£3.'225; in the foot guard? with 
 the rank of lieut.-colonel, £4,800; in the infantry j61,800. 
 The full pay of a captain in the life and foot guards is 15s. 
 a dav. in horse regiments 14s. Id., and in the infantry 
 lis. Id. 
 
 Captain. In the Navy, is the title of the officer com 
 manding a ship of a certain size. The title of post captain, 
 which was the proper rank of caplain, and answered to 
 colonel in the army, has been for some time in disuse. 
 The captain is next 'in rank above the commander : he rises 
 by regular succession to the rank of admiral ; under the 
 condition, however, that he must at some time have com- 
 manded a ship of the line. 
 
 The heads of small parties or gangs of men in certain 
 stations of the ship are also called captains ; as of the fore- 
 castle, the tops. &c. The pay of a captain in the navy va- 
 ries with the rate of the ship, from £61 7s. per month for a 
 first-rate, to £26 17s. for a sixth-rate.
 
 CAPTION. 
 
 CA'PTION. (Lat. capio, I take.) In Law, a certificate 
 signed by commissioners, to testify their execution of any 
 commission in law or equity. Also, the act of taking a 
 man into arrest. The caption of an indictment is the de- 
 signation of the style of the court before winch the jurors 
 make their presentment. 
 
 CAPTI'VITY. Li Sacred History, a punishment which 
 God inflicted upon the Jews for their vices and infidelity. 
 The first captivity was that of Egypt, from which the 
 Israelites were delivered by Moses ; then followed six 
 captivities during the government of the judges ; but the 
 greatest and most remarkable were those of Judah and 
 Israel, which happened under the kings of those different 
 kingdoms. 
 
 CA'PUCHINS. In Ecclesiastical History. See Fran- 
 ciscans. 
 
 CA'PUT MO'RTUUM. The inert residue of the distilla- 
 tion and sublimation of different substances. When sul- 
 phate of iron, for instance, or green vitriol, is distilled at a 
 red heat it leaves a residue of red oxide of iron, which the 
 old chemists called caput mortuum vitrioli. These resi- 
 duary products were represented in alchemical writings 
 by the symbol ofa death's head and cross bones. 
 
 CAR. (Lat. caiTus, a cart.) Any rude cart. The Irish 
 car is a one-horse bait, with very low broad wheels, used 
 for carting out manure and carting home grain in the 
 case of soft peaty soils. The Irish jaunting car is a kind 
 of one-horse chaise, commonly without springs, in which 
 the people sit back to back, and with their faces looking 
 sideways. 
 
 CARABI'D^. (LaL carabus.) A family of Pentame- 
 rous beetles, characterized by having a bilobed upper lip, 
 smooth jaws (masilla), an entire tooth in the centre of the 
 notch of the mentum or chin process, and dilated tarsi in 
 the males. The majority of the British species have the 
 elytra soldered together. The Carabida generally defend 
 themselves by discharging from the extremity of the body 
 an acrid fluid, and emit a fetid odour. They are amongst 
 the most ravenous of beetles, and prey on other insects, for 
 which thev lurk beneath stones, the bark of trees, &c. 
 
 CA'RABINE. (It. carabine) Called also Petronel. A 
 fire-arm used by cavalry, smaller in the bore and shorter 
 in the barrel than a musket. The soldiers who use this 
 species of arms are called Carabineers. 
 
 CARAGA'NA. (Carachana, the Mogul name.) A genus 
 of pretty hardy shrubs, inhabiting the^Russian dominions 
 in Asia. C. sibirica, attagana, and chamlagu are common 
 in the shrubberies of this country, where they flower in 
 the months of June and July. C. jubata is a singular 
 scrubby plant, with the branches closely covered by the 
 leafy, spiny, ragged petioles. 
 
 CARA'NXA. A resin brought from South America, of 
 an aromatic odour ; formerly used in plasters. 
 
 CA'RANX. (Derivation unknown.) A genus of spiny- 
 finned fishes, belonging to the Scomberidce or mackerel 
 family ; but differing from the true mackerel in having a 
 series of scales, with ridges or keels in the middle, ranged 
 along the lateral line. From this resemblance they are 
 commouly termed " bastard mackerel." 
 
 CARA'SSJE. The bony vault which protects the upper 
 part of the body of the Chelonians, or tortoises and turtles, 
 and which results from the union by suture of the dilated 
 and flattened parts of the vertebrae and ribs. The analo- 
 gous part of the body of the crab is also called carassae ; 
 but this is not composed of corresponding parts to those of 
 the tortoise, but ofa calcified integument. 
 
 CA'RAT. " The fruit of the tree called Kuara is a red 
 bean, which seems in the earliest times to have been used 
 for a weight of gold. This bean is called carat (Bruct's 
 Travels.) Morin derives the word from the Arab kyrat, 
 a weight ; which he thinks is from the Greek Kcpariov, a 
 small weight." (Todd's Johnson.) A carat is a weight of 4 
 grains, used in weighing diamonds. The term carat is 
 also used in reference to the fineness of gold ; in express- 
 ing which the mass spoken of is supposed to weigh 24 
 carats, of 12 grains each ; and the pure cold is called fine. 
 Thus, if gold be said to be 22 carats fine (or standard), 
 it is implied that 22-24ths are pure gold, and 2-24ths 
 alloy. In the process of assaying gold, the real quantity 
 taken is very small, generally from 6 to 12 grains ; and 
 this is termed the assay pound. It is subdivided into 24 
 carats, and each carat into 4 assay grains, and each grain 
 into quarters ; so that there are 3S4 separate reports for 
 gold. When the gold assay pound is only 6 grains, the 
 quarter assay grain only weighs l-64th of a grain. This 
 will give an idea of the accuracy required in the weights 
 and scales used for such delicate operations. See Alloy 
 and Assay. 
 
 CA'RAYAN. (Pers. carvan. a trader.) A company of 
 merchants, travellers, or pilgrims, who associate together 
 in many parts of Asia and Africa, that they may travel 
 with greater security through deserts and other places in- 
 fested with robbers or exposed to other dangers. The 
 commercial intercourse of Eastern and African nations 
 196 
 
 CARBONIC ACID. 
 
 has from the remotest ages been chiefly carried on by 
 means of caravans, as the governments that have sprung 
 up in those continents have seldom been able, even if they 
 had had the will, to render travelling safe or practicable for 
 individuals. Since the establishment of the Mohammedan 
 faith, religious motives, conspiring with those ofa less ex- 
 alted character, have tended to augment the intercourse 
 between different parts of the Eastern world, and to in- 
 crease the number and magnitude of the caravans. Mo- 
 hammed, as is well known, enjoined all his followers to 
 visit Mecca once in their lifetime ; and in obedience to a 
 command so solemnly enjoined and sedulously inculcated, 
 large caravans assemble for this purpose in every country 
 where the Mohammedan faith is established. There are 
 four regular caravans which proceed annually to Mecca; 
 the first from Damascus, composed of pilgrims, travellers, 
 and merchants, from Europe and Asia ; the second from 
 Cairo, for the Mohammedans of Barbary ; the third from 
 Zibith, near the mouth of the Red Sea, where those of 
 Arabia and India meet ; the fourth from Babylon, where 
 the Persians assemble. Every caravan is under the com- 
 mand of a chief or aga (caravanbachi), who has frequently 
 under him such a number of troops or forces as is deemed 
 sufficient for its defence. When it is practicable they en- 
 camp near wells or rivulets, and observe a regular disci- 
 pline. Camels are almost uniformly used as a means of 
 conveyance, in preference to the horse or any other ani- 
 mal, on account of their wonderful patience of fatigue, and 
 their peculiarity of structure, which so admirably fits them 
 fur travelling through desert wastes. (See Camel.) For 
 further details on the subject of caravans the reader may 
 consult M'Oulloch's Commercial Dictionary, and the au- 
 thorities there referred to. 
 
 CARAYA'XSERA. A large public building, or inn, ap- 
 propriated for the reception and lodgment of caravans in 
 the desert. Though serving in lieu of inns, there is this 
 essential difference between them, that the traveller finds 
 nothing in the caravansera for the use either of himself or 
 his cattle, but must carry all his provisions and necessaries 
 with him. Caravanseras are also numerous in cities, 
 where they serve not only as inns, but as shops, ware- 
 houses, and even exchanges. 
 
 CA'RAWAYS. The fruit or seed of the Cunnn carui, 
 an indigenous umbelliferous plant. English caraways are 
 more plump and aromatic than the Dutch or foreign, 
 which are apt to be mouldy and of little flavour. They 
 yield about 3 per cent, of essential oil when carefully dis- 
 tilled with water. They are a good addition to purgative 
 and other remedies to prevent griping and flatulency": but 
 their chief consumption is among gingerbread bakers, con- 
 fectioners and pastrycooks. 
 
 CARBAZO'TIC ACID. A crystallizable acid and bitter 
 substance, composed of carbon, azote, and oxygen ; ob- 
 tained by the action of nitric acid on indigo and some other 
 vegetable and animal substances. It is the bitter principle 
 of Welter. 
 
 CA'RBON. (Lat. carbo.) This term is used in chem- 
 istry to signify the pure combustible base of the varieties 
 of charcoal and other carbonaceous matters ; the diamond 
 is pure carbon in a crystalline form. Carbon is an ele- 
 mentary substance, which combines with oxygen in two 
 proportions, forming carbonic acid andcarbonic oxide. 
 
 CA'KBOXATES. Salts containing carbonic acid. They 
 are recognised by the effervescence which is excited when 
 they are put into dilute muriatic acid. Carbonate of lime 
 is one of the most important of these compounds, forming 
 the varieties of marble, limestone, calcareous spar, chalk, 
 &c. Carbonate of lime consists of 
 
 Lime - - 1 atom = 28 - - 56 
 
 Carbonic acid - 1 - = 22 - .44 
 
 1 50 100 
 
 Carbonate of potash and carbonate of soda are also impor- 
 tant salts. (See Potash, Soda.) Carbonate of ammonia 
 is used in medicine ; it is a white pungent salt, commonly 
 known under the name of smelling salt. Spirit of harts- 
 horn is a solution of impure carbonate of ammonia, ob- 
 tained by distilling bone or horn. 
 
 CARBO'NIC ACID. This important compound is ob- 
 tained when any form of carbon, such as the diamond or 
 pure charcoal, is burned in oxygen gas. It consists of 6 
 carbon+16 oxygen:=22 carbonic acid ; or of 
 
 Carbon 1 atom - - 6 - - 2727 
 Oxygen 2 16 - . 7273 
 
 1 22 100 00 
 
 100 cubical inches of carbonic acid gas weigh 47 3 grains. 
 Under a pressure of 36 atmospheres, at the temperature 
 of 32°, it becomes liquid; and when the pressure which 
 retains it in the liquid state is removed, the rapidity of the 
 evaporation, and the sudden and enormous expansion of 
 the vapour, are such as to produce a degree of cold under 
 which the acid solidifies, forming a white concrete sub- 
 stance possessed of very extraordinary properties. Mr.
 
 CARBONIC OXIDE. 
 
 Faraday was the first who liquefied carbonic acid, but it 
 was first described as a solid by M. Thilourier. 
 
 At common temperatures and pressures water absorbs 
 its own volume of carbonic acid ; under a pressure of 2 at- 
 mospheres it dissolves twice its volume, and so on. Car- 
 bonic acid imparls briskness and a slightly pungent and 
 sour taste to water thus impregnated with it : it also con- 
 fers the effervescent quality upon many mineral springs. 
 Carbonic acid is recognized by its rendering lime-water 
 turbid. It extinguishes flame and suffocates animals ; 
 hence the miners call it choke damp. Carbonic acid is 
 contained in marble, chalk, and all the varieties of lime- 
 stone, from which it is extracted by strong heat, as in the 
 process of burning lime ; or by the action of stronger 
 acids, in which case the carbonic acid escapes with effer- 
 vescence. Mountains of limestone, therefore, are great na- 
 tural repositories of carbonic acid. This gas is also pro- 
 duced during the respiration of animals, and is evolved in 
 the process of fermentation. 
 
 CARBO'NIC OXIDE. A gas composed of 
 
 Carbon 1 atom ... 6 428 
 
 Oxygen 1 8 57 2 
 
 4 14 1000 
 
 100 cubical inches weigh 302 grains. It is fatal to animals, 
 and extinguishes flame ; but it burns in contact with air, 
 and forms carbonic acid. It is obtained by passing carbo- 
 nic acid over red-hot charcoal, or by beating a mixture of 
 chalk or pounded marble and iron or zinc filings to red- 
 ness. It is not absorbed by water. 
 
 CA'RBONI'FEROUS. (Lat. carbo, coal, and fero, / 
 bear.) A geological term, generally applied to beds or 
 strata containing coal. 
 
 CA'RBOV. A large globular bottle of green glass pro- 
 tected by basket-work. Carboys are seldom used, except 
 for containing certain acids and other highly corrosive li- 
 quids likely to act upon stone-ware. A carboy of oil of 
 vitriol usually contains about 160 lbs. of that acid, or 12 
 gallons hi w iter. 
 
 CARBU'NCLE. The ancient name of a gem, probably 
 corresponding with our precious garnet. 
 
 Carbuncle. V hard circumscribed inflammatory tu- 
 mour, which generally arises on the neck or back, and 
 soon forms a fetid discbarge, and acquires a tendency to 
 gangrene. It is a kind of malignant boil, spreading under 
 the skin, and producing a morbid inflammatory action of 
 the surrounding parts Poultices and free incisions to lei 
 out the matter, and afterwards emollient fomentations, are 
 the must effective remedies, Tins disease is called an- 
 thrax, from the Greek, signifying a burning coal; of which 
 cat bunculus, from carbo, is the Latin diminutive 
 
 CA'KHliKKTS. In Chemistry, the generic term for 
 compounds of carbon with tin- simpli' emnlmstililes. 
 
 Carburet op Sulphur. A liquid compound of carbon 
 and sulphur, obtained by passing the vapour of sulphur 
 over red-hot charcoal. It was formerly termed alcohol of 
 sulphur. It forms compounds, which have been termed 
 carbo-sulphurets. 
 
 CA'RBURETTED HT'DROGEN. Under this term 
 chemists describe two gaseous compounds of carbon and 
 hydrogen ; the one they call light hydrocarbonate, the 
 other olefiant gas. 
 
 Light carburetted hydrogen is evolved abundantly in 
 some coal mines, where it is known under the name of 
 fire damp, and is the cause of those tremendous explo- 
 sions winch wore so frequent before the invention of the 
 safely lamp by Sir H. Davy : il is also evolved by the mud 
 at the bottom of stagnant waters, where it results from the 
 decay of vegetable matter. This gas is much lighter than 
 atmospheric air, 100 cubical inches weighing between 17 
 and 18 grains. It burns with a yellow flame, is inodorous, 
 and not absorbed by water. It consists of 6 carbon + 2 
 hydrogen. When mixed with three volumes of oxygen, 
 or with eight or ten of common air, it explodes with great 
 violence when inflamed, and produces water and carbonic 
 acid. 
 
 Olefiant gas received its name from its property of form- 
 ing, when mixed with chlorine, a liquid of an oily appear- 
 ance. It is obtained by distilling a mixture of alcohol with 
 twice its bulk of sulphuric acid, and may be collected over 
 water; which, however, absorbs about one eighth of its 
 volume of the gas. It has a slightly ethereal odour ; it extin- 
 guishes flame ; is unrespirable ; burns with a dense white 
 light ; and when mixed with three or four volumes of ox- 
 ygen or ten or twelve of air, it detonates on the approach 
 of flame with great violence. It is nearly of the same spe- 
 cific gravity as atmospheric air; and from the quantity of 
 oxygen required to convert its elements into carbonic 
 acid and water, it is shown to consist of two atoms of car- 
 bon and two of hydrogen, its equivalent being 14 ; or of 
 one volume of carbon vapour and two volumes of hy- 
 drogen, so condensed as to form one volume of olefiant, gas. 
 
 CA'RCASS. hi Artillery, a hollow case formed of ribs 
 of iron, covered with cloth, or sometimes iron with holes 
 197 
 
 CARDUELIS. 
 
 in it. The carcass, being filled with combustible materials' 
 is thrown from a mortar into a besieged place with a view 
 to set the buildings on fire. 
 
 CA'RCERES. (Lat. career, a prison.) In Ancient Ar- 
 chitecture, the cells at the end of a circus, in which were 
 stationed the chariots and horses that contended for tho 
 prizes, so that they might be able to start simultaneously 
 at the given signal. 
 
 CARCE'RULUS. (Lat. dim. of career, a little prison.) 
 A name given by botanists to such fruits as those of tho 
 lime tree, the Tropaolum, &c. ; which consist of a small 
 number of dry indehiscent few-seeded cells cohering 
 round a central axis. 
 
 CARCINO'MA. (Gr. Kapnivos, a cancer.) A cancerous 
 tumour. 
 
 CA'RDAMOMS. Seeds of the Alpinia cardamomum. 
 These seeds are imported from Bengal : there are seve- 
 ral varieties ; but those pods which are small, short and 
 thick, and heavy, are preferred. The seeds themselves 
 are very pungent and aromatic ; the containing capsule is 
 quite insipid. Their chief use is in medicine, especially 
 in combination with cathartics and bitters. They yield an 
 essential oil by distillation, to which their virtues are to be 
 ascribed. 
 
 CA'RDIAC. (Gr. xapSia, the heart.) Belonging to or 
 connected with the heart. The superior opening of the 
 stomach is called the cardia, or cardiac end, Irom its prox- 
 imity to the heart. 
 
 CA'RDIA'CEANS, or CARDIACEA. (Lat. cardium, 
 acockle.) A numerous and beautiful family of Lamelli- 
 branchiate Dimiary Bivalve Mollusks, including those spe- 
 cies in which the mantle is open anteriorly for the foot; 
 and also has two distinct orifices, one for respiration, the 
 other for excretion, as in the cockle (Cardium edule). 
 The shell is characterized by having at the hinge irregular 
 primary teeth, both in form and situation, and generally 
 accompanied by one or two lateral teeth. The genera 
 composing this family are Isocardia, Iliatella, Oypricardia, 
 Cardita, Cardium. 
 
 CARDIA'LGI.V (Gr. xaoiia, and a\yo{, pain.) Anxi- 
 ety and pain about the region of the stomach, frequently 
 attended by a sense of gnaw ing and leal, and hence called 
 heartburn. It is a common symptom of indigestion, and 
 accompanied by salt and acid eructations. After excess 
 in eating and drinking, a tit of heartburn may often be pre- 
 vented by a teaspoonni) of carbonate ol magnesia, taken 
 in cinnamon or in soda water, at bed nine ; 20 or 30 grains 
 of bicarbonate of soda in cold chamomile tea is also an ef- 
 fective preventive. Where the disease is symptomatic 
 of organic mischief, these antacid remedies must be cau- 
 ti.Hisiy admini 
 
 CARDINAL. (Lat caxAo, ahingi ) An epithet imply- 
 ing importance ; in which sense it is applied to the princi- 
 pal virtues, the four points of the compass, &c. ; and in 
 theological language originally to parish churches, as dis- 
 tinguished from chapels and oratories; from whence it 
 was transferred to the clergy who ministered in such 
 churches. In later times the epithet was restricted to the 
 seven bishops of Rome, and the sees within its territory, 
 and the clergy of the eight-and-twenty principal churches 
 of that city : from whence the college of cardinals takes 
 its origin. The number of which this college consisted 
 has varied in the course of time. It has for some centu- 
 ries been limited to seventy ; of whom six are bishops, 
 fifty presbyters, and fourteen deacons ; and the election 
 of the pope, which is performed by these personages as- 
 sembled in conclave, is thus concurred in by the three or- 
 ders of clergy through their representatives. The period 
 at which this election was confined to the cardinals is va- 
 riously stated. Some have asserted that such was the 
 case as early as 1058; others not before 1562. It is now 
 understood that the pope must be chosen from among this 
 body. The cardinals are distinguished by a scarlet hat, 
 and a short purple mantle worn over the rochet. Their 
 rank is next to that of the pope, to whom they form a 
 political and ecclesiastical council. For further details on 
 the duties of cardinals, see C'onsistorium and Conclave. 
 
 CA'RDINAL POINTS. (Lat. cardo, a hinge.) In Geo- 
 graphy, the east, west, south, and north.points of the hori- 
 zon. In Astrology, the cardinal points are those of the 
 rising and setting of the sun, and the zenith and nadir. 
 (Compass.) 
 
 CA'RDIOID. (Gr. Kapha, heart, and ttSos, form.) An 
 algebraic curve, so called from its resemblance to a heart. 
 
 CARDITIS. Inflammation of the heart. 
 
 CARDOO'N". A kind of artichoke. The Cynara car- 
 dunculus. 
 
 CARDUE'LIS. (Lat. carduus, a thistle.) A genus of 
 Conirostral Perchers (Insessores) or Passerine birds, of 
 the finch tribe (Fringillidce), including the goldfinch (Car- 
 i duelis elegans), aberdevine (Carduelis spi?ms), and other 
 ' British siskins, the habits of which are less arboreal than 
 in the true finches, and which feed principally on the seeds 
 of the thistle and other composite plants.
 
 CAREENING. 
 
 CAREE'NING. The lay ing of a ship over to get at leak3 
 or injuries in the bottom. This is commonly called heav- 
 ing down. To careen implies also to heel or lie over gen- 
 erally. Heaving down is never practised with a large ship, 
 except where there are no docks, as the great forces 
 which must be applied to the mast heads to get her over 
 are liable to strain the hull. 
 
 CA'RET. (Lat. careo, 1 am wanting ) In Grammar, a 
 character in this form a, denoting that something has been 
 omitted, and is interlined. 
 
 CARIA'MA. See DicHOLOPHtis. 
 
 CA'RICATU'RE. (Lat. caricare, to load or charge.) 
 In Painting, an exaggerated representation of any object, 
 in which any natural defects are overcharged, so as to 
 make it appear ridiculous. 
 
 CARI'CHIUM. (Lat. carex, sedge.) A genus of land- 
 snails, so called from their habitat among sedge, wet 
 leaves, grass, <fcc. Of these sedge-shells, Carichium mini- 
 mum is British, and may be found about Acton. 
 
 CA'RIES. A decayed bone or tooth. 
 
 CARI'LLON. A tune performed upon bells. 
 
 CARI'NA. (Lat. carina, the keel of a boat.) In Botani- 
 cal language, is the sharp thin back of any organ ; the 
 back of a leaf folded up if thin and sharp, the winged rim 
 that occupies the back of certain fruits, the sharp-backed 
 part of a glume or bract, all bear this name. It is also ap- 
 plied to the two anterior petals of a Papilionaceous flower, 
 which adhere by their lower edges into a body something 
 like a boat. 
 
 CARINA'RIA. (Lat. carina, a keel.) A genus of He- 
 teropodous Mollusks, characterized by having the viscera, 
 as the heart, liver, branchiae, generative organs, &c, pro- 
 truded from the body, and encased in an extremely fra- 
 gile, beautiful, sub-transparent, symmetrical, compressed 
 shell. The summit of the shell is slightly involuted, but 
 never enters the aperture ; the convexity of the shell is 
 terminated by a single keel. 
 
 CA'RINATE. (Lat. carina, a keel.) In Zoology, when 
 a surface has a longitudinal elevated line, like the keel of a 
 
 CA'RMELITE. -See Orders, Mendicant. 
 
 CA'RMINE. A brilliant lake, made of the colouring 
 matter of the cochineal insect combined with alumina and 
 a little oxide of tin. 
 
 CA'RMINATIVE. (Lat. carmen, a verse or charm.) 
 Medicines which allay flatulency, and pain of the stomach 
 and bowels arising from it. 
 
 CARNA'TION. (Lat. carneus, flesh-coloured.) A fa- 
 vourite florist's plant, obtained by art from the wild Dian- 
 thus caryophyllus. Its flowers are deliciously fragrant ; and 
 although in the unimproved state they are a uniform deep 
 red, they have been rendered beautifully striped and va- 
 riegated by successive changes in the hands of the garden- 
 er. The most successful cultivators of carnations are the 
 Germans, who possess some hundred varieties, and sup- 
 ply the principal part of the seed used in other parts of 
 Europe. These varieties are arranged in three classes, 
 flakes, bizarres, and piccotees : the first have ten colours in 
 their flowers, and broad stripes ; the second have irregu- 
 lar spots and stripes, and not fewer than three colours ; 
 the last are spotted or dotted with scarlet, red, purple, &c. 
 upon a white or yellow ground. 
 
 CARNA'TION GRASS. (Lat. caro, flesh.) Any coarse 
 species of carex is so named in the north of England and 
 Scotland. 
 
 CARNA'TIONS. (Lat. caro, flesh.) In Painting, the 
 parts of a picture which represent the naked limbs, <kc. 
 
 CARNE'IA. (Gr. Kapvsia.) A festival observed in 
 most of the cities of Greece, and especially at Sparta, in 
 honour of Apollo, surnamed Cameius. The festival last- 
 ed nine days, and was conducted in imitation of the 
 method of living in camps; for nine tents were erected, 
 in each of which nine men of three different tribes lived 
 nine days. 
 
 CARNE'LIAN. A red or flesh-coloured calcedony. The 
 finest specimens come from India, and are in great request 
 for seal-stones, beads, &c. 
 
 CAR'NEONS. (Lat. caro, flesh.) A soft fleshy sub- 
 stance. 
 
 CA'RNIVAL. (Lat. cami vale, farewell to meat.) A 
 festival celebrated with much merriment and revelry in 
 Catholic countries, and especially at Rome and Venice, 
 during the week before the commencement of Lent; de- 
 riving its Italian name from the farewell to flesh or meat 
 which introduces the great fast of the church. 
 
 CARNI'VORA. (Lat. caro, flesh, and voro, I devour.) 
 The second tribe of Cuvier's order Ferce (Carnassiers), 
 including those species of which the teeth are peculiarly 
 adapted for destroying living prey, and for tearing, divi- 
 ding, or bruising flesh. They have incisors in each jaw, 
 two long and pointed canines ; and the molars are never 
 beset with small conical points or tubercles, as in the in- 
 sectivorous tribe of the same order. The carnivorous 
 tribe is divided into those which tread on the sole of the 
 
 CART. 
 
 foot (Plantigrades), and those which ran on the last joint3 
 of the toes (Digitigrades). 
 
 CAROCO'LLA. (Lat. caro, flesh ; and Gr. koWti, glue.) 
 A genus of land- snails, so named from the tenacity with 
 which their fleshy foot adheres to limestone rocks. The 
 variegated carocolla (Car. lapicida, Lam.) is a native 
 species, and has been found on Juniper Hill, Box Hill, 
 Surrey. 
 
 CA'ROMEL. Sugar melted till it acquires a brown co- 
 lour and exhales a peculiar odour. 
 
 CARO'TID. An artery of the neck. There is one on 
 each side of the cervical vertebrae which supply the head 
 with blood. If these vessels are tied, the animal becomes 
 insensible ; hence the term, from Kapow, I put to sleep. 
 
 CARP. See Cyprinds. 
 
 CA'RPADE'LIUM. (Gr. Kapiros, fruit, and <5?iXoc, 
 plain.) A little-used name, applied in botany to all inde- 
 hiscent, many-celled, inferior fruits, with a single seed in 
 each cell ; as in Umbelliferous or Apiaceous plants. 
 
 CA'RPEL. (Gr. Kapiros, fruit.) A name contrived by 
 modern botanists to denote the separate pistils out of 
 which a fruit, consisting of more pistils than one, is com- 
 posed. In its most simple slate a fruit consists of a one- 
 celled ovary, and a style and stigma, united into a pistil, as 
 in the plum ; but in most cases several such pistils are 
 formed within the same flower, and are united in various 
 ways into one compound body, to which the name of pistil 
 is also applied. In the latter case the single pistils are 
 called carpels. The pistil may nevertheless consist of 
 one carpel only. The theory of the structure of the fruit 
 of plants turns upon the relative position which carpels 
 bear to each other in their united state ; and upon their 
 correspondence in this respect with leaves, of which they 
 are undoubtedly modifications. 
 
 CA'RPENTER. The third warrant officer on board 
 a man of war. He has the charge of the boats. It is his 
 duty, with his mates, to attend constantly to the state of 
 the well, in order that a leak may be immediately re- 
 ported. 
 
 CA'RPENTRY. (Lat. carpentum, carved wood.) In 
 Building and Architecture, an assemblage of pieces of tim- 
 ber connected by framing or letting them into each other, 
 as are the pieces of a roof, floor, centre, &c. It is distin- 
 guished from joinery by being put together without the use 
 of other edge tools than the axe, adze, saw, and chisel; 
 whereas joinery requires the use of the plane. The lead- 
 ing points to be attended to in sound carpentry are, 1st, 
 The quality of the timber used ; 2nd, The disposition of 
 the pieces of timber, so that each may be in such direc- 
 tion, considered with reference to the fibres of the wood, 
 as to be most capable of performing its office properly ; 
 3rd, The forms and dimensions of the pieces ; 4th, The 
 manner of framing the pieces into each other, or otherwise 
 uniting them by means of iron or other metal. 
 
 CA'RPET. An ornamental covering for the floor. The 
 manufacture of carpets is carried on in great perfection in 
 this country. The principal varieties are the Brussels, 
 Axminster, Wilton, Kidderminster, and Venetian. They 
 are eenerally composed of linen and worsted. In some 
 the pile is cut so as to give the carpet the character of vel- 
 vet ; as in the Wilton carpets. Kidderminster or Scotch 
 carpets are entirely fabricated of wool. 
 
 CA'RPET WAY. Any strip or border of green sward 
 left round the margin of a ploughed field. 
 
 CA'RPOBA'LSAMUM. (Gr. Kapiros, fruit, and Palca- 
 pov. balsam.) The exudation of the fruit of the Amysis 
 Gileadensis ; a variety of balm of Gilead. 
 
 CA'RPOLITES. (Gr. Kapiros, fruit, and ai0oc, astone.) 
 Fossil fruits and seeds. 
 
 CARPO'PHORTJM. (Gr. Kapiros, fruit, and Qepw, I 
 bear.) The name of the central column, which, in the 
 fruit of the Geranium, the Euphorbia, or Apiaceous plants, 
 bears the ripe carpels, and holds them together when they 
 attempt to separate at maturity. 
 
 CA'RREL, or QUARREL. The arrow used in cross- 
 bows, the head of which was four-sided ; a cross-bow bolt. 
 
 CA'RRONADE. A kind of short iron gun, which is at- 
 tached to its carriage by a joint and bolt underneath the 
 piece, instead of trunnions. It is only in this respect and 
 in its dimensions that it differs from other guns or howit- 
 zers. The name is derived from Carron, a village in Stir- 
 lingshire, where this gun was first made. 
 
 CARSE LAND. Alluvial soil in a state of aration. 
 
 CART. An open box, placed upon two or more wheels, 
 and constructed with shafts, so as to admit of being drawn 
 by one or more horses. In agriculture, carts are used for 
 carting or carrying from one point to another soils, ma- 
 nures, and produce. For this purpose there are the close 
 cart, single or double, that is, for one or for two horses ; 
 the corn cart, single or double, constructed of open work, 
 and used for carrying hay, and for conveying com in the 
 sheaf from the field to the rickyard, &c, and the stone or 
 quarry cart, consisting of a strong bottom and low wheels, 
 for conveying large stones. Besides these, there are the
 
 CARTE BLANCHE. 
 
 three-wheeled cart, with low wheels, for carting soil, 
 stones, <&c, to a short distance ; the timber cart, which is 
 nothing more than two pairs of wheels and axles joined by 
 a pole, and used for conveying large trunks of trees from 
 the place where they have been felled to the place where 
 they are to be manufactured ; and the box cart, or cart 
 with close bottom and sides, which is used for conveying 
 soils, manure, and small articles, commonly constructed 
 so as to admit of discharging the load by elevating one end 
 of the box and lowering the other; and to carts having this 
 contrivance the term coup cart is applied in Scotland, and 
 till cart in England. 
 
 CARTE BLANCHE. (Fr.) A paper containing nothing 
 but the signature of the party who grants it, in order that 
 the party to whom it has been delivered may insert such 
 conditions as he chooses to prescribe. This term is used 
 in a general sense to express an unlimited authority dele- 
 gated by one individual to another: thus a general is said 
 to have a carte blanche, when his sovereign has granted 
 him permission to use his own discretion in conducting the 
 operations of war. 
 
 CA'RTEL. In Military language, an agreement for the 
 exchange of prisoners. Also, a challenge to fight a duel. 
 A cartel ship is one commissioned, in time of war, to carry 
 proposals of any kim I between belligerent powers. 
 
 CAKTK'SIAN PHILOSOPHY. The philosophical sys- 
 tem of Rene des Cartes (born 15%;, a native of France, 
 perhaps the mo..,t original thinker that country has pro- 
 duced. Des Cartes was the contemporary of Bacon, and 
 exercised an equally powerful mlluence, though in a man- 
 ner widely different, on the progress of philosophy in Eu- 
 rope. Both equally undertook the task of demolishing the 
 old scholastic system, and of substituting in its place a 
 more living spirit of philosophy. Bui whal Bacon strove 
 to accomplish by calling men's attention to experiment and 
 observation of nature, Des Cartes proposed to attain by 
 the search for a first and self-evident ground of all know- 
 ledge. This he finds in the art of consciousness, involving 
 a of self or mind. (Cogilo ergo sum ) 
 ( onsciousness is the act of thought, constitutes the essence 
 of the soul, ami is thai which distinguishes it from matter. 
 The ideas or objects of consciousness are of three kinds, 
 — acquired, compounded, and innate. Of the last sort is 
 tin idea of God, or the Absolute Being, which, as being the 
 ground of all reality, is itself its own demonstration. God, 
 the Author of the universe, upholds it in its course by his 
 perpetual co-operation, or, in Cartesian lang 
 ance. All physical phenomena Des Cartes endeavoured 
 to account for by hi motions excited 
 
 bj God, the source of all motion. The singular mixture 
 of philosophical depth and extravagant hypothesis that pre- 
 vails in the writings of tins philosopher obtained for him, 
 as might have been expect* a, a large number of warm ad- 
 herents, and of equally violent opponents. Among the 
 former may be enumerated the celebrated Pascal, Male- 
 branche, hu.i Spinoza, The two latter deviated indeed in 
 many important points from the views of Descartes; but 
 the main features ol ins philosophy are preserved alike in 
 the religious mysticism of the one and the systematic 
 pantheism of the other. 
 
 CA' RTHA MUa Sei Safflower. 
 
 CARTHXJ'SIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, a religious 
 order, instituted by St. Bruno in H.k; : so railed from their 
 
 original seat. Chartreuse. They followed the rule of the 
 Benedictines (quod vide), with the addition of various aus- 
 terities, anil employed themselves in the same literary and 
 mechanical pursuits. Soon after their institution the' Car- 
 thusians were introduced into England, where in the lapse 
 of lime they succeeded in establishing nine houses of their 
 order, among which was the Charter-house in London. 
 (See Within rfes Orrlres .\Itnmstiinits, vol. vii.) 
 
 CA'RTILAGE, CARTILAGO (Lat. caro, Jlesk.) A 
 white elastic substance, intermediate between bone and 
 ligament, and having the chemical properties of condensed 
 albumen. Ii is commonly called gristle. 
 
 CARTILAGI'NEANS, ' CARTILAGINEI. A sub-class 
 of fishes, in which the endo-skeleton never passes beyond 
 the primitive condition of gristle or cartilage. See Chon- 
 
 DliOPTEKYGII. 
 
 CARTOO'N. (It. cartone.) In Painting, a sketch made 
 as a pattern for tapestry. The name is also given to large 
 sketches on coarse or other paper for fresco subjects ; in 
 which case, when the stucco is setting the outlines are 
 pricked through on to it so that a correct outline may be 
 expeditiously obtained. We subjoin the following account 
 of the cartoons of RalTaelle at Hampton Court. — These ce- 
 lebrated works, originally thirteen in number, are a mag- 
 nificent series of coloured designs, representing the ori- 
 gin, sanction, economy, and progress of the Christian re- 
 ligion. They were made originally for the copies in tapes- 
 try, still, we believe, annually exhibited in the colonnade of 
 the Vatican, wrought at Arras by command of Leo X. 
 at an expense of 7000 crowns of gold. These were 
 carried off at the plundering of Rome in 1527 by the Span- 
 199 
 
 CARYATIDES. 
 
 ish army ; but Montmorenci. the French general, found and 
 restored them to their former station. In our own days 
 they were again carried off when the French seized the 
 government of Rome, and were afterwards purchased by 
 that excellent pontiff Pius VII. 
 
 Seven of the original pictures were purchased by 
 Charles the First, and are now preserved at the royal pa- 
 lace at Hampton Court. Richardson (Tlieory of Painting) 
 gives a historical and critical description of them, and con- 
 siders them better calculated to convey a true notion of the 
 genius of Raffaelle than even the loggia of the Vatican. 
 The object that Charles had in view when he purchased 
 the seven cartoons above mentioned, was to supply the 
 manufacture then at Mortlake with subjects of a higher 
 character than Francis Cleyre, its superintendent, could 
 invent ; and there is evidence that some of them were ac- 
 tually copied there, and that they are still preserved, pro- 
 bably at Petworth. 
 
 In whatever light, says Fuseli, we consider their inven- 
 tion — as parts of one uhole relative to each other, or inde- 
 pendent each of the rest and as single subjects, — there can 
 be scarcely named a beauty or a mystery of which the 
 cartoons furnish not an instance or a clue. They are pois- 
 ed between perspicuity and pregnancy of moment : the 
 Death of Ananias, the Sacrifice at Lystra, Paul on the Areo- 
 pagus, will furnish us with conclusions for the remainder. 
 In Paul announcing his God from the height of Areopagus, 
 the same sagacious critic observes that enthusiasm and 
 curiosity make up the subject. Simplicity of attitude in- 
 vests the speaker with sublimity; the parallelism of his 
 action invigorates his energy ; situation gives him com- 
 mand over the whole ; the light in which he is placed at- 
 tracts the first glance ; he appears the organ of a supe- 
 rior [lower. The assembly, though selected with charac- 
 teristic art for the purpose, are the natural offspring of the 
 place and moment. The involved meditation of the Sto- 
 ic, the Cvnic's ironic sneer, the incredulous smile of the 
 elegant Epicurean, the eager disputants of the academy, 
 the elevated attention of Plato's school, the rankling malice 
 of the Rabbi, the magician's mysterious glance, repeat in 
 louder or in lower tones the novel doctrine; but whilst cu- 
 riosity and meditation, loud debate and fixed prejudice, tell, 
 ponder on, repeat, reject, discuss it, the animated gesture 
 of Dionysius and Damaris announce the power of its ten- 
 ets, and — what the artist chiefly aimed at — the established 
 belief of immortality. We have selected the above as a 
 specimen of the critical examination which the reader 
 may apply to ing six of this extraordinary se> 
 
 pictures, in which the power of combining the dra- 
 ma with pure historic fact has never been surpas: ed 
 
 The cartoons have been several times engraved; first 
 by Gribelin in the reign of Queen Anne ; then by Dorigny ; 
 and afterwards by inferior artists, most probably from the 
 engravings themselves of those that preceded them. They 
 were likewise engraved on a small scale by Fitller, and 
 more recently in a superior style by Holloway. The late 
 Prince Hoare, Esq.. secretary for foreign correspondence 
 to the Royal Academy, was possessed of a very fine car- 
 toon by Raffaelle, the subject of which was the Murder of 
 the Innocents. 
 
 CARTOU'CH. (It. rartoccio.) In Architecture, the 
 same as modiliion (which see), except thai this term is used 
 almost exclusively to signify the blocks or modillions ap- 
 plied at the eaves of a house. Some have used the term 
 to denote the ornament of the key-stone of an arch, which 
 seems to represent a scroll of paper partly unrolled. 
 
 CARTOU'CIIE. A Military term, signifying a strong 
 case or box for holding balls. 
 
 CA'RTRIDGE. A case of paper or pasteboard holding 
 the exact charge of a firearm. Those of cannon and mor- 
 tars are sometimes of tin or wood, but most frequently 
 flannel, bags of this material being found the most con- 
 venient. 
 
 CARU'NCLE. (Dim. of caro, flesh.) A naked soft 
 fleshy excrescence, often ornamenting some parts of the 
 head of birds ; as, e. g. the caruncle on the cere of the 
 king vulture ( Vultitr papa, I. in.). 
 
 CARL'NCliLA. (Dim. of caro, flesh ; a little piece of 
 flesh.) A small protuberance found near the hilum upon 
 the seed of Euphorbia UUhyris and other plants. 
 
 CA'RYA. (Gr. xanvov, a nut.) The genus of plants 
 which includes the hickory nut of North America; a tree 
 of the greatest value, for its tough elastic wood, as well as 
 for the nuts, which resemble walnuts, except that their 
 shell is not furrowed, and which are much eaten and press- 
 ed for their oil in their native country. There are several 
 species of Carya ; but C. alba, the white hickory, a hardy 
 ornamental tree in England, is the most valuable. 
 
 CARYA'TIDES. (Gr. icapva, a nut tree.) In Architec- 
 ture, figures used instead of columns to support an emab- 
 lature. The origin of them, according to Vitruvius, is as 
 follows — "Carya, a city of Peloponnesus, took part with 
 the Persians against the Grecian states. When the coun- 
 try was freed from its invaders, the Greeks turned their
 
 CARYOCAR. 
 
 wins against the Caryans, and upon the capture of the city 
 put the males to the sword, and led the women into cap- 
 tivity. The architects of that time, for the purpose of per- 
 petuating the ignominy of this people, instead of columns 
 in the porticos of their buildings, substituted statues of 
 these women, faithfully copying their ornaments, and the 
 drapery with which they were attired ; the mode of which 
 they were not permitted to change." The writer of the 
 articles on art in this work was the first author on archi- 
 tecture who endeavoured to show the want of truth in this 
 account, and that on two grounds : — first, because the cir- 
 cumstance is not mentioned by any of the Greek histori- 
 ans ; and secondly, because long previous to the time as- 
 signed by Vitruvius, figures of men, women, and animals 
 were employed for this purpose. They appear to have 
 acquired their name from their 
 employment in temples to Diana, 
 by whom the Lacedaemonians are 
 supposed to have been made ac- 
 quainted with the story of Carya, 
 turned into a nut tree by Bacchus, 
 who at the same time trans- 
 formed her sisters into stones, 
 and thence worshipped under the 
 name of Caryatis. From their 
 employment in temples dedica- 
 ted to the goddess, they were 
 used in other buildings as repre- 
 sentations of the nymphs who 
 assisted at the mysteries of the 
 patron goddess. The figure No. 
 1. here given is a Caryatid, from 
 the Pandroseum at Athens ; No. 2. is a Canephora (see 
 that word). When figures of the male sex are used they 
 are called Persians. 
 
 CARYO'CAR. (Gr. napvov, a hard-shelled fruit.) A 
 genus of trees inhabiting the forests of tropical America, 
 especially Guayana ; one of them, found in woods near 
 Mariquita, is said to attain the height of 240 feet. The 
 Saouari (vulgarly called Sawarrow) nuts of the shops, a de- 
 licious fruit, with a large soft buttery kernel, are the seeds 
 of Caryocar glahrum and other species. Properly the name 
 Saouari applies to Caryocar butryosum. 
 CA'RYOPHY'LLIA. See Madrepore. 
 CA'RYOPHYLLA'CEOUS. (Lat. caryophyllus, the 
 garde?i pink), is sometimes said of corollas consisting of 
 petals having long claws dilating into abroad limb, as in the 
 garden pink. 
 
 CA'RYO'PSIS. (Gr. napvov, a nut, and oxpis, resem- 
 blance.) The technical name of the grain of corn. It is an 
 indehiscent one-celled fruit, with a membranous pericarp 
 adhering firmly to the seed. 
 
 CASCARl'LLA. (Span. dim. of cascara, bark.) The 
 bark of the Oroton eleutheria, imported for medical use 
 from Jamaica and the Bahama Islands. It is bitter and aro- 
 matic, and when burned it diffuses an odour much resem- 
 bling that of musk. 
 
 CASE. (Lat. casus ; from cado, I fall.) In Grammar, 
 that modification of a noun which designates the relation 
 in which a substance is conceived to exist in regard to 
 some other substance. This end is commonly attained in 
 language by changes in the termination of nouns. In Eng- 
 lish there are but three cases ; the nominative, the genitive 
 or possessive, and the accusative or objective case; the 
 last only in pronouns. All other varieties of relation are 
 expressed by prepositions. See Grammar. 
 
 Case. (Fr. casse.) Is the receptacle for the types, 
 from which the compositor gathers them separately, and 
 arranges them in lines and pages to print from. They are 
 always in pairs ; one of which is styled the upper case, 
 and is divided into ninety-eight boxes or recesses of equal 
 size, in which are deposited the capitals, small capitals, 
 accented letters, figures, &c. ; the other is styled the lower 
 case, and is divided into fifty-four boxes or recesses of 
 unequal size, containing the small letters, spaces, &c, the 
 letters most in use having the largest boxes assigned to 
 them. The cases are two feet nine inches long, one foot 
 four inches and a half broad, and a full inch deep. 
 
 CA'SEIC ACID. A peculiar acid extracted from 
 cheese. 
 
 CA'SEMATE. In Fortification, a vault or arch of stone- 
 work in the flank of a bastion, serving as a battery. 
 
 CA'SEMENT. (It. casamento.) In Architecture, a 
 portion of a window sash hung on hinges. It is used also 
 to denote the moulding called ascotia, which see. 
 
 CASE'RNS, or CAZERNS. Huts erected on the ram- 
 parts, or between the ramparts and the houses, of fortified 
 towns, serving as temporary lodgings for the soldiers on 
 duty. 
 
 CASE-SHOT, or CANISTER-SHOT, signifies musket 
 balls, stones, pieces of iron, <fcc. put into cases or tin can- 
 isters, and discharged from pieces of ordnance. 
 
 CA'SEUM. (Lat.) The basis of cheese. The purified 
 curd of milk 
 
 200 
 
 CASTANEA. 
 
 CASH. In Commerce, the ready money, bills, drafts, 
 bonds, and all immediately negotiable paper in an individ- 
 ual's possession. 
 
 CASSAMU'NAR. A root brought from the East Indies, 
 and formerly used in medicine as a warm bitter. 
 
 CASSATION, COIRT OF. The highest judicial insti- 
 tution in France ; so termed from possessing the power to 
 quash (casser) the decrees of inferior courts. It is a court 
 of appeal in criminal as well as civil cases. The tribunal 
 of cassation was first introduced, as a court wholly inde- 
 pendent of the king and his council, in 1790. This court 
 has a president, and three presidents of sections ; but the 
 minister of justice, as keeper of the seals (garde des 
 sceauz), has the right of presiding in cases where it sits on 
 appeal from the cours royales. The three sections are, — 
 1. Des requites, which decides on the admissibility of peti- 
 tions of appeal in civil cases; 2. De cassation civile; 3. De 
 cassation criminelle. The decision of the court of cassa- 
 tion has the effect of sending back the case to the inferior 
 courts. If, after a decision has been reversed, a second 
 court decides the same case in the same way, on appeal 
 being entered again the court of cassation must either re- 
 peat its reversal by the unanimous consent of all the three 
 sections, or it must request an authentic explanation of the 
 law from the government ; and, after a third conflicting 
 decision, such authentic explanation becomes absolutely 
 necessary. The inferior judges of the three sections of 
 the court of cassation are styled counsellors. 
 
 CASSA'VA. A species of starch obtained from the roots 
 of the Jatropha manihot. 
 
 CA'SSIA. (From the Arabic.) The bark of the Laurus 
 cassia; its flavour somewhat resembles that of cinnamon, 
 and it yields an essential oil, which is pungent and stimu- 
 lant. 
 
 CASSI'DEOUS. (Lat. cassis, a helmet.) When the up- 
 per petal of a flower is dilated into a broad helmet-shaped 
 leaf, as in the genus Aconitum. 
 
 ( ASSI'DIDJE. (Lat. cassis, a helmet.) A family of Te- 
 tramerous Coleopterans, generally known by the name of 
 tortoise-beetles, distinguished by having straight short fili- 
 form antennas, inserted close together in the upper surface 
 of the head ; mouth situated on the under surface of the 
 head, with strong and broad mandibles ; legs short, with 
 the tarsi flattened, the third joint deeply cleft, receiving 
 between its lobes the terminal joint ; margins of the thorax 
 and elytra much dilated, so as to give the insects the ap- 
 pearance of small tortoises. The larva of the Cassidida, is 
 remarkable for an apparatus, or anal fork, by which it col- 
 lects and forms of its excrements a kind of parachute, or 
 defensive covering. 
 
 The genera of Cassidida are, Alurnus, Hispa, Chalepus, 
 Imatidium, and Cassida ; the latter is the only indigenous 
 genus, and of this the most common example is the Cus- 
 sidn ripiestria of Fabricius. 
 
 CA'SSIOPE'IA. One of the constellations of the north- 
 ern hemisphere. 
 
 CA'SSIS. (Lat.) A genus of Gastropodous Mollusks, 
 separated by Lamarck from the Linneean genus Buccinum, 
 and including the species of which the shells are common- 
 ly called "helmets." The nacreous or inner layer of 
 these shells are exquisitely sculptured by Italian artists in 
 imitation of antique cameos ; the different coloured strata 
 resembling the onyx and other precious stones. 
 
 CA'SSIUS, PURPLE OF. So called from its inventor. 
 A beautiful purple used in porcelain painting, and for 
 staining glass. It is formed by immersing tin in a solution 
 of gold. It is probably a mixture of oxide of tin and finely 
 divided gold. 
 
 CA'SSOWARY. (Casuarius, from the Malay word cas- 
 suwaris.) A genus of Coursers or Struthious birds, inhab- 
 iting the island of Java, in which the wings are shorter 
 than in the ostrich, and are armed with strong spines, for 
 the purpose of combat or defence. The head is sur- 
 mounted by a bony protuberance covered with horn. 
 
 CASSYTHA'CE^. (Cassytha, the only genus.) A 
 most singular natural order of plants, having the fructifica- 
 tion of Lauracea, and the manner of growth and general 
 appearance of a Rhipsalis, or rather a Cuscuta. They in- 
 habit the tropical parts of the world. 
 
 CAST. In Sculpture. See Moulding. 
 
 CASTA'NEA. (Castana, a city of Thessaly.) A genus 
 of trees or shrubs, related to the oak, and producing for 
 fruit the seed-like nuts called chesnuts in this country. 
 The common Spanish chesnuts, of which upwards of 20,- 
 000 bushels are annually imported from the south of Eu- 
 rope, are the fruit of C. vesca ; a much smaller nut is ob- 
 tained in North America from the C. puviila, or the 
 Chinquapin chesnut. The timber of the common Spanish 
 chesnut is good and durable, more so than that of the oak, 
 when the latter is young ; but it is a mistake to suppose 
 that the ancient roofs and beams occasionally found in 
 buildings of the Norman era, and which carpenters call 
 chesnut, are the wood of this tree. Such instances all be- 
 long to the kind of oak called Quercus sessiliflora. The
 
 CASTANETS. 
 
 genus Castanea differs from Quercus, among other things, 
 in having the nuts enclosed in a spiny closed up cup, in- 
 stead of a shallow open one ; but in the East Indies, where 
 both oaks and chesnuts assume very remarkable forms, 
 the two approach each other sometimes so nearly in ttiis 
 particular, that it is difficult to distinguish them. 
 
 CA'STANETS. (Fr. castagnettes.) Small wooden or 
 ivory musical instruments, played by being tied to the fin- 
 gers, and thus rattled by dancers to the time of the music 
 Of the dance. They are chiefly used in Spain. 
 
 CASTE. A term borrowed from the Portuguese settlers 
 in India, which is used to denote the hereditary classes in- 
 to which the population of Hindoostan is divided, accord- 
 ing to the religious law of Urama. The origin of these 
 religious classes is detailed in the sacred book which con- 
 tains the ordinances of Menu. According to rhis authority, 
 the Brahmin, the Cshatriya, the Vaisya, and the Sudra 
 sprang respectively from hie mouth, the arm, the thigh, 
 and the foot of Brahma. 1. The class of Brahmins, or 
 priests, whose name signifies scripture, are far exalted 
 above the rest in honour and privilege, and should be de- 
 voted entirely to prayer and meditation, or at least to the 
 most exalted concerns of life. Many Brahmins, however. 
 do in fact engage tn secular pursuits, not only as ministers 
 of sovereign princes (an office for which, according to the 
 ordinances above cited, they are indeed peculiarly fitted), 
 but also, in Guzerat and other parts of Western India, as 
 merchants, or in the lower employment of messengers 
 and porters; while many enter the Company's service as 
 private soldiers. These, however, are Brahmins of the 
 first and second classes (Brachmachari and Grihast'ha), 
 youths or married men who as yet live in the world ; 
 from which two higher classes, Vanaprastha and Sunny- 
 assi, are wholly divorced : from these spring the various 
 orders of fanatics with which India swarms. 2. The Ksha- 
 triya, or soldier caste, whose name indicati 
 To this belong not only tin' high military classes, but in 
 some parts of India whole tribes, as the Seikhs, a 
 The Vaisya, or commercial class (wealth). 4. The Sudra, 
 ir caste "t the soil (/«/«<»/•). These are deeply 
 
 degraded be-low not only the Brahmins, but the Other two 
 castes : and even the readingof the Vedas or sacred books 
 is forbidden to them. Besides these four grand divisions, 
 the Hind. .ms have many subdivisions of caste, and no fewer 
 than thirty-six are reckoned which are all inferior to the 
 Sudra. These descend, according to the mythological his- 
 tory of the Hindoos, from the " Burren Sunker" or mixed 
 class, proceeding from the confusion of castes which 
 place under the reign of a wicked and irreligious monarch. 
 Finally, the Pariahs and some other races are considered 
 as having no caste at all, and mere ou r . unani- 
 
 ty. Traces of the system of caste, which confines em- 
 ployments to hereditary classes, are to be found in the in- 
 stitulions of many countries, and in the history of many 
 more. That the Egyptian nation was thus divided, is well 
 known ; and it is supposed that similar institutions prevail- 
 ed in the ancient Assyrian empires. If Plato can be relied 
 on as an authority, the Athenians in the first ages of their 
 commonwealth were divided into five classes of the same 
 description — priests, handicraftsmen, shepherds and hunt- 
 ers, ploughmen, soldiers. Ami it is said that the Cretans 
 were divided, according to the laws of Minos, in the same 
 manner as the Egyptians. 
 
 CA'STELLATED. (Lat castellum, a castle.") In Ar- 
 chitecture, a building in style of a castle. 
 
 CA'STING. (Dan. kaster, to throw.) In Architecture, 
 a term used to denote the bending of the surfaces of a 
 piece of wood from their original state, caused either by 
 the gravity of the material, or by its being subject to un- 
 equal temperature, moisture, or the uniform texture of the 
 material. Called also Warping. 
 
 Casting. In Foundery, the running of liquid metal into 
 a mould prepared foi thai purpose. Slee Foundery. 
 
 CA'STINC OF DRAPERIES. In Painting, the disposi- 
 tion of the folds of the garments wherewith the figures in 
 a picture are clothed. Carlo Maratti thought that the dis- 
 position of drapery was a more difficult art than even that of 
 drawing the human figure, and that a student might be more 
 easily taught the latter than the former. Inferior painters 
 enter into the minute discriminations of quality in drapery ; 
 but, as Sir Joshua Reynolds has well observed in his Fourth 
 Discourse, with the historical painter "the clothing is 
 neither woollen nor linen, nor silk, satin, nor velvet : it is 
 drapery : it is nothing more." 
 
 CA'STING OFF COPY. In Printing, is to ascertain 
 accurately how many pages in print a "given quantity of 
 manuscript copy will make : or how many pages a given 
 quantity of printed copy will make when the size of the 
 book and the type are changed : also when agiven quantity 
 of manuscript copy is delivered, with directions that it is 
 to make a certain number of pages in print, to determine 
 the size of the page and the size of the type. This is usu- 
 ally done by composing a line or two of the copy, when, 
 supposing a line and a half of it makes a line of print, it 
 201 
 
 CATACHRESIS. 
 
 ] becomes a mere arithmetical question. Supposing there 
 
 ! are 12,000 lines of copy, it will make 8,000 lines in print, 
 
 which, at 24 lines to a page, will be 333 pages, and with the 
 
 title, short pages, &c. equal to 14 sheets in 12mo. ; about 
 
 the general quantity in a volume of modern novels. 
 
 CA'STLE. (Eat. castellum; or Sax. castel.) In Archi- 
 tecture, a building fortified for military defence ; also a 
 house with towers, usually encompassed with walls and 
 moats, and having a donjon or keep in the centre. The 
 principal castles of England at present are, the Tower of 
 London, Windsor, Norwich, Ace. ; but at one time those of 
 Harwood, SpotFord, Kenilworth, Warwick, Arundel, and 
 others might have vied with them in importance. The 
 characteristics of a castle are its valla (embankments) and 
 fossae (ditches) ; from the former of which the walls rise, 
 usually crowned by battlements, and flanked by circular or 
 polygonal bastions at the angles formed by the walls ; these 
 latter were pierced for gates with fixed or draw bridges 
 and towers on each side ; the gates, which were of con- 
 siderable strength, were further guarded by descending 
 gratings, called portcullises ; all the apertures were as 
 small as they could be made, consistently with internal 
 lighting. The component parts of a castle were, the foss 
 of mote, with its bridge ; the barbican, which was in ad- 
 vance of the castle, being a raised mound or tower, the 
 outer walls having terraces towards the castle, with their 
 bastions, as above mentioned ; the gate house, flanked by 
 towers, and crowned with projections, called machicola- 
 tions, through which heavy materials or molten lead 
 were dropt on the assailants entering the gateway ; the 
 outer ballium, or area within the castle, which was sepa- 
 rated from the inner ballium by an embattled wall with a 
 gate-house, and in which the stables and other offices usu- 
 ally stood ; and the inner ballium, for the residence of the 
 owner or governor and his retinue ; this, at one corner, or 
 in the centre, had a donjon or keep tower, which was the 
 strong bold of the place, wherein was a state apartment; 
 a well and a chapel ; the former usually, and the latterfre- 
 quently, are found in ancient cas' 
 
 For further information on the subject the reader is re- 
 ferred to King's Mun. Antiq. fol. 4 vols; the Archaologia 
 in several places : /. ct. vol. ii. ; Woolnoth's An- 
 
 cient Castles of 'England and Wales, &c. &c. 
 
 CA'STOR. The generic name of the beaver. (.Castor 
 Linn.) 
 
 Castor. A peculiar concrete subs- ined in 
 
 oval pouches situated near the anus of the Castor fiber or 
 There are four of these pouches ; two contain a 
 species of fat; while the two larger ones include in their 
 membranous cells a viscid fetid substance, which is the 
 castor of the Materia Medica. It is imported from Russia, 
 Prussia, and Poland, and from Canada ; the latter, known 
 in trade under the name of Neu> England ca-itor, is very 
 inferior. It is said to he an antispasmodic. 
 
 CA'STOR AM) PO'LLUX The name given to a me- 
 teor which sometimes appears at sea, attached to the ex- 
 tremities of the masts of ships under the form of balls of 
 fire. When one ball only is seen, it is called Helena. The 
 meteor is generally supposed to indicate the cessation of 
 a storm, or a future calm ; but Helena, or one ball only, to 
 bad vi eather. 
 
 i \ 'SUA'RINA'CKiE. (Casuarina, one of the genera.) 
 A curious natural order of plants, inhabiting New Holland, 
 some parts of India, and the South Sea Islands, with long 
 slender creeping branches, resembling those of Enuisetwn, 
 and bearing scales only in the place of leaves. The order 
 is nearly allied to Myricancem, and belongs to the most im- 
 perfect forms of Exogenous vegetation. 
 
 CA'SDIST, CA'SUISTRY. In Theology, a casuist is a 
 doctor charged with the decision of cases of conscience. 
 The Jesuits were distinguished for the cultivation of this 
 mixed subject of theology and ethics ; which was admira- 
 bly calculated to promote the crafty policy of that order. 
 The science of casuistry, however, has been cultivated in 
 the Protestant as well as the Papal church ; and until very 
 recently there was a professor of casuistry at Cambridge. 
 (See Mayer's Bibliothecaof Casuists.) 
 
 CAT. See Felis, or Felix.*:. 
 
 Cat. A ship employed in the coal trade. 
 
 Cat. Tackle by which the anchor is raised to the cat- 
 head. See Falconer's Diet. 
 
 CA'TABA'PTISTS. (Gr. Kara, against, and Panrt^o), 
 I baptize.) In Ecclesiastical History, a general term to de- 
 signate all the sects which have denied the necessity of 
 baptism generally, or have opposed infant baptism. See 
 Baptists, Quakers. Socinians. <fec. 
 
 CA'TACA'USTICS. (Gr. KaraKaiu, I burn.) In Optics 
 or Geometry, are the caustic curves formed by the reflec- 
 tion of the favs of light, and so called to distinguish them 
 from the diacaustic, which are formed by refracted rays. 
 See Caustic. 
 
 CA'TACHRE'SIS. (Gr. Kara, in the sense of beside, and 
 xpne'i, use.) In Rhetoric, a figure by which a word is used 
 in a sense analogous to its own. See Metaphor. 
 Cc
 
 CATACLESIUM. 
 
 CA'TACLE'SnJM. (Gr. Kara, against, and kAeiw, I en- 
 close.) A name applied sometimes to such fruit as that of 
 Mirabilis, which consists of a membranous indehiscent pe- 
 ricarp enclosed within a hard pericarp-like tube of the calyx. 
 
 CA'TACLY'SM. (Gr. (cara/tAuo^os, an inundation, a 
 deluge.) Geologists apply the word to signify the various 
 great inundations which they conceive to have occurred at 
 different periods in the history of the globe. 
 
 CATACOMBS. (Gr. Kara, against, and kv^Sos. a hollow 
 place.) In Architecture, subterraneous places used for bu- 
 rying the dead. The hypogaea, crypta, and cimeteria of 
 the ancients were used for the same purpose. In some 
 cities those vast excavations were made use of for other 
 purposes than those of sepulture ; at Syracuse, for instance, 
 the same cavern served for a prison as well as a public 
 cemetery. It has been said that in the early aires of 
 Christianity they also served as places of devotion. The 
 most celebrated for their extent are those of Rome. Naples, 
 Syracuse, &c. : and the more modern ones of Paris, which 
 have been formed by quarrying for the stone with which 
 the citv is built. 
 
 CA'TACOU'STICS, or CATAPHO'NTOS. (Gr. Kara, 
 about; clkovio, I hear ; (jxiivtut. I speak.) The science of 
 reflected sounds ; or that part of acoustics which treats of 
 the properties of echoes, or in general of sounds which do 
 not come to the ear directly, but after having been reflected 
 by some substance. See Echo and Sound. 
 
 CA'TAFA'LCO. (Ital. a scaffold.) In Architecture, a 
 temporary structure of carpentry, decorated with painting 
 and sculpture, representing a tomb or cenotaph, and used 
 in funeral ceremonies. That used at the final interment 
 of Michael Angelo at Florence was of the most magnificent 
 description, and perhaps unequalled as to the art employed 
 on it bv anv used before or since. 
 
 CA'TALE'CTIC. (Gr. KaTa\n K TiK0S, deficient.) In 
 Greek and Latin poetry, a verse wanting one syllable of its 
 proper length : acataJeciic, a verse complete in length ; hy- 
 percatalectic, having one syllable too many ; brachycatalec- 
 tic, wanting two syllables. 
 
 CATALEPSY. (Gr. KardXauPavM, I seize.) A disease 
 in which the functions of the organs of sense and motion 
 are suspended, whilst the heart continues to pulsate. The 
 patients are said to be in a trance ; and in this state they re- 
 main for some hours, or even days. Ammoniacal and 
 etherial stimulants are the most eff»ctin! restoratives. 
 
 CATALOGUE RAISONNE'. In Bibliography, a cata- 
 logue of books, classed under the heads of their several 
 subjects, and with a general abstract of the contents of 
 works where the title does not sufficiently indicate it ; thus 
 serving as a manual, to direct the reader to the sources of 
 information on any particular topic. The want of alpha- 
 betical arrangement is supplied by an index at the end. 
 The catalogue of the French Bibliothcque Royale (10 vols. 
 fol. 1739-53) is said to be the best work of this description, 
 as far as it extends. 
 
 CATAMARAN". A sort of raft used chiefly by the In- 
 dians on the Coromandel coast for the purposes of fishing. 
 It is composed of three pieces of wood lashed together, 
 the middle piece being longer and broader than the others; 
 and it is almost the only kind of boat that can live in the 
 surf that prevails on that coast. Catamaran was also the 
 name given to the floating batteries with which the French 
 at the commencement of the present century meditated 
 the invasion of England. 
 
 CATAME'NTA. (Gr. Kara, according to, and pnv, a 
 month.) The monthly uterine evacuation. 
 
 CA'TAPE'TALOUS. (Gr. Kara, against; irtra'Xov, a 
 petal) When the petals of a flower are held together by 
 stamens which grow to their bases, as in the mallow. 
 
 CA'TAPHRA'CTED. (Gr. Ko.TO.tbpo.KTos.) Covered 
 with a hard callous skin, or with horny or bony plates or 
 scales closely joined together. Among the ancients, 
 cavalry equipped with complete defensive armour were 
 termed equites cataphracti. 
 
 CATAPLASM. (Gr. Karankaotra ) A poultice. 
 
 CATAPULT. (Gr. Kara, against, and ireATJj, a shield.) 
 A military engine used by the ancients for throwing stones, 
 long darts, or javelins. The catapult is often confounded 
 with the balista ; but the latter engine seems to have been 
 chiefly used for the purpose of propelling stones, while the 
 former more frequently was employed with other missiles. 
 Their size and construction were various, but the princi- 
 ple of action was the same in all ; namely, the elastic force 
 with which twisted rope uncoils itself. 
 
 CA'TARACT. (Gr. Karappaicoi, I confound.) An opa- 
 city of the crystalline lens of the eye, producing confused 
 or indistinct vision, or total blindness, according to the less 
 or greater extent of the thickening: it is sometimes rapid, 
 and often very slow in its progress. It is distinguished 
 from gutta serena by the visible opacity of the lens, and by 
 the iris contracting upon exposure of the eye to light. 
 This disease is curable either by depressing or extracting 
 the lens, operations which are performed with wonderful 
 dexterity by some of our oculists. 
 202 
 
 CATEGORY. 
 
 CATA'RRH. (Gr. Karappeio, IJlotc darn.) The com 
 plaint commonly called a cold in the head, generally at- 
 tended by running from the eyes and nose, sneezing, 
 hoarseness, and commonly ending in cough. It is pro- 
 duced by sudden changes of air or temperature, and by 
 exposure to draughts of air. In its usual form domestic 
 remedies relieve it, — diluents, mild aperients, and absti- 
 nence from wine and animal food ; but when attended by 
 fever, headache, tightness about the forehead, and difficult 
 breathing, it often requires more serious attention, for, if 
 neglected, it mav lead to much mischief. 
 
 CA'TARRHINES. Catarrhina. (Gr. Kara, at, and piv, 
 nose.) A tribe of Quadrumanes, including those which 
 have the nostrils approximated, and the intervening sep- 
 tum narrow : as in the apes of the old world. 
 
 CATA'STROPHE. (Gr. KaratrrpicbbJ, I overturn.) In 
 modern literary language, the final event of a drama or ro- 
 mance, to which the other events are subsidiary. The 
 vepiirirzia, or revolution, indicated by Aristotle as one of 
 the parts of the drama, was a change in the fortunes of the 
 principal personages of the play ; as, the fall of CEdipus 
 from sovereignty into extreme misery and banishment, in 
 the CEdipus Tyrannus. Some such change is generally 
 involved in the idea of a catastrophe : thus, marriage is 
 the ordinary catastrophe of a comedy or a novel, as some 
 disastrous change is that of a tragedy. 
 
 CA'TCH DRAINS. Open drains across a declivity to 
 intercept surface water. The term is sometimes also ap- 
 plied to under drains across a declivity. 
 
 CATCIIWORKMEADOWS. Grass land with very 
 regular surfaces, subjected to irrigation, the water as it de- 
 • declivities being intercepted by catchdrains. 
 
 CATECHISM. (Gr. kottixIu, I instruct:) A form of 
 instruction by question and answer, appropriated by gene- 
 ral usage to instruction in religious subjects, and more 
 especially to the set forms which most churches have au- 
 thorised for the instruction of children in the elements of 
 religion. The English church catechism is intended to be 
 an exposition of the vow made at baptism, and till the time 
 of James I. consisted only of the renunciation or repetition 
 of the baptismal vow. the creed, and the Lord's Prayer. 
 The latter portion, explaining the nature of the sacraments, 
 was added after the conference at Hampton Court. The 
 catechism of the Council of Trent, or Catechismus ad Pa- 
 rochos, was set forth by the Roman Catholic divines for the 
 use and direction of the clergy, and contains an ample ac- 
 count of the whole sum of the Romish doctrines. It was 
 approved by Pius V., and published in 1566. (See Bins- 
 hums Antiq. b. x. ch. 1, 2.) 
 
 CATECHU. A Japanese word, signifying the juice of 
 a tree. The extract of the Acacia catechu, an astringent 
 substance, consisting of tan and extractive matter, im- 
 ported chiefly from Bengal and Bombay. Its principal use 
 is in medicine. 
 
 CATECHTJ'MEN. (Gr. Karrixovpzvos) He who learns 
 the elements of any science , one who is undergoing a 
 course of religious instruction with a view to his admission 
 into the church. The Christian society in the early ages 
 was divided into two classes. Fideles and Cateehumeni; 
 the former being those who had been admitted by baptism 
 into the entire privileges of the church, the latter such as 
 were preparing for that admission. 
 
 CA'TEGOREMA'TIC. (Gr. Kartiyopsa, I predicate.) 
 In Logic, when a word is capable of being employed by it- 
 self as a term, or predicate of a proposition. 
 
 CATEGORICAL PROPOSITION. (Gr. Karnyoptw, 
 I declare something of another.) In Logic, a proposition 
 which affirms or denies, absolutely and without any con- 
 dition, that the subject does or does not agree with the 
 predicate. (See Proposition.) Categorical propositions 
 are said to be pure (those which simply assert one thing 
 of another), and modal (those which assert one thing of 
 another under a certain mode or form). . But this is a dis- 
 tinction arising out of the poverty of language only, and no 
 essential difference between the two classes; e.g. "the 
 king reigns" is a pure categorical proposition : " the king 
 reigns justly'' is said to be modal. But it is evident that if 
 our language had a single word to express the whole idea 
 (to reign justly), the latter would be called pure likewise. 
 All cases of modal categoricals may probably be resolved 
 into similar instances of the deficiency of words to express 
 complicated notions. 
 
 CATEGORY. (Gr. Karvyooia.) In Logic and Meta- 
 physics, a Greek word, signifying originally that which 
 may be said or predicated of a thing ; a general term in re- 
 ference to a less general one which is included under it. 
 ! By Aristotle, from whom the word, and its corresponding 
 ; Latin term predicate, was borrowed by the schoolmen, it 
 | was applied to denote the most general of the attributes 
 that may be assigned to a subject. Of these he attempted 
 j an enumeration, under the name of substance, quantity, 
 i quality, relation, place, time, condition, state or habitude, 
 ] action, and passion. The word has been revived in mo- 
 i dern times by Kant, to express the most general of the
 
 CATENARIAN ARCH. 
 
 modes in which a thing can be raised from an object of 
 sense to an object of intellect ; or, in other words, the 
 forms or conditions which must pre-exist in the under- 
 standing, in order that an act of intelligence may take 
 place. For an account of these see art. Kantian Philo- 
 sophy. The difference between the categories of Kant 
 and those of Aristotle is this, that the latter are mere gen- 
 eralizations from experience, which may consequently be 
 multiplied indefinitely ; whereas the former result from a 
 professedly exhaustive analysis of the human understand- 
 ing as it is in itself, or formally, that is, apart from all con- 
 sideration of its object-matter. 
 
 CATENA'RIAN ARCH. (Lat. catena, a chain.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, an arch whose form is that of a chord or chain 
 suspended from two fixed points at its extremities. 
 
 C VTE'XARY. (Lat. catena, a chain.) The curve into 
 which a chord or flexible chain of uniform density and 
 thickmss forms itself when suspended or allowed to hang 
 freely from two points. This curve was first noticed by 
 Galileo, who proposed it as the proper figure for an arch 
 of equilibrium ; but he imagined it to be the same as the 
 parabola. Its true nature was first demonstrated by James 
 Bernoulli, and its various propi rties soon alter pointed out 
 by John Bernoulli, Huygens, and Leibnitz. It is interest- 
 ing on account of the lighl ii throws on the theory of 
 arches, and also by reason of its application to the con- 
 struction of suspension bi i 
 
 The equation of the catenary may be found as follows: 
 lei \ and Ii be the points of suspension, and C the lowest 
 point in the curve. Draw C l> per- 
 pendicular to the horizon, and 
 through any two points P and p ve- 
 ry near eai h other, draw P D and 
 pi ndicular to C 1) ; draw also 
 J' / parallel m C I), and lei PS be 
 the tangent al P Now, tl 
 having assumi d this form, the equi- 
 librium would not bed by supposing the part CP 
 to become rigid. In this <■::>•• it would be kept at rest by 
 three forces; namely, the tension at its two extren 
 and its own weight. The tension al C is exerted in the di- 
 rectionCEor pr, thai at Pin the direction p s or Pp, 
 and the weight in the vertical P r. These three forces are 
 therefore, by the principles ol m i iportionalto 
 pr, p P, and P r: that is, making C D=x, 1) P=y, and < ' P 
 =z, proportional to the differentials of these quantities, or 
 to ■''-. '/'/. '/:. Bui tl 
 
 of the chain CB) is constant; suppose it therefore equal to 
 a, and the chain I ing uniform, the weightofCP is pro- 
 portional to its length, or to t ; therefore we have a : z= 
 ay : dx, or adr=zdy, which is the differ ential equation of 
 the curve. On substituting \ dz* — dx 1 fordy, and inte- 
 grating, then re ults af'+S! n.i=-.-, which is an equation 
 
 i ii the arc and the absciss. The curve cannot be 
 expressed by a simple algebraic equation between the ab- 
 sciss and ordinate, and is consequently of the mechanical 
 
 kind. The constant quantity a is called tin; para'; 
 
 and one of the mosl remarkable properties of the curve is, 
 that the rectangle contained by the parameter and an or- 
 dinate is equal to the natural logarithm of the ratio of the 
 parameter to the sum of the parameter, the absciss, and 
 the arc. 
 
 CATE'NTJLATE. (Lat. catena, a chain.) When a sur- 
 face presents a series of elevated ridges or oblong tuber- 
 esembling a chain. 
 
 CA'TEKPILLAR. The name of the larvae of Lepidop- 
 terous insects. 
 
 CA'THARI. (fir. xaOapo(,pure.) An oriental sect of 
 Christians. See Pailicians. 
 
 CATHAR'TIC. (fir. KaOaipw, I purge.) That which 
 increases the action of the bowels. The term is common- 
 ly applied to medicines which do this with some degree of 
 violence : among the milder cathartics, jalap, senna, calo- 
 mel, and saline purges are the most used; those which 
 are drastic are croton oil ami elaterium. 
 
 CATHA'RTIN. The active or purgative principle of 
 senna. 
 
 CAT HEAD. A Nautical term, signifying a strong in- 
 clined piece of timber projecting from either bow of a 
 ship, to which the ring of the bower anchor is secured. 
 The block or pulley hooked to the ring is called the cat- 
 block, the rope the cat/all. 
 
 CATHE'DRAL. (fir. xaOcSpa, a seat or throne.) The 
 principal church of a diocese, in which is the throne of the 
 bishop. The term cathedra was originally applied to the 
 seats in which the bishop and presbyters sate in their as- 
 semblies, which were held in the rooms in which the 
 worship of the first Christians was also performed before 
 they had liberty to erect temples for that purpose. In 
 after-times the choir of the cathedral church was made to 
 terminate in a semicircular or polygonal apsis ; and in the 
 recess thus formed were placed the throne of the bishop 
 in the centre, and seats of an inferior class for presby- 
 ters. In modern cathedrals the bishop's throne i3 in 
 203 
 
 CATTLE. 
 
 the choir, and generally on the south side. (Bingfiam, 
 viii. 6. 10.) 
 
 CA'THETa, and CATHETUS. (fir. KaOeros, let down.) 
 In Architecture, a vertical line falling from the extremity 
 of the underside of the cymatium of the Ionic capital 
 through the centre of the volute. 
 
 CA'THETER. (Gr. Kaduim, I thrust into.) A tube 
 which may be introduced by the urethra into the bladder 
 for the purpose of drawing off the urine. 
 
 CA'THOLIC. (fir. ko.6o\ikos, universal.) A word 
 which occurs in the New Test, in the titles of certain of 
 the Epistles. — those of James, Peter, and John,— signifying 
 that they are addressed to the whole or universal body of 
 Christians, and not to a particular section of them. Hence 
 the term has been used in later times to distinguish the 
 church of Christ from all heretics and schismatics, and 
 has been assumed by particular churches either to sepa- 
 rate themselves from all others, as the Romish ; or to in- 
 clude themselves as individual members of the univer- 
 sal bodv, represented under different and subordinate 
 local names, as the English episcopal church. The Ro- 
 mish church appeals to the decisions of the Council of 
 Trent for its most complete and definite rule of faith, and 
 allows no one to be a member of the Catholic church 
 who rejects any of the tenets therein enforced. (See art. 
 Roman Catholic.) The English church considers it- 
 si It a member ol the Catholic, but passes no judgment as 
 to whal varii tions from its own formularies incur the guilt 
 of heresy and incapacitate from such incorporation. See 
 
 CATHO'LICON. (In old Pharmacy.) An universal 
 medicine. 
 
 CATKIN. The English name of the inflorescence of 
 the poplar, willow, and similar trees. A calkin is a close 
 spike, com p. overlapping each othi r. and falls 
 
 off the parent plant as soon as its office of flowering or 
 fruitine is accomplished. 
 
 CATO'PTRICS. (Gr. Karoirrpov, a mirror ; compound- 
 ed of Kara and Burrofiai, I see.) Is thai part of the science 
 of optics winch treats ol the laws ofn fleeted light, and the 
 imena of vision produced by reflection. For details 
 connected with thi branch of natural philoso- 
 
 ION. 
 
 principal authors who i i Catoptrics 
 
 are, Euclid; Albazen and Vitellion, in the nil. and 12th 
 centuries; James Gregory, in his Optica Promota; Bar- 
 row, Smith, Tacquet, and' all modern writers on the sub- 
 ject of Lighl or ( i| ti 
 
 CAT'S !.\i; A beautiful siliceous mineral (probably 
 quartz), penetrated by fibres of asbestos, which, when pol- 
 ished, reflects an effulgen | I much resembling 
 reflections from the eye of a cat. Hence the 
 : i m yant. 
 
 i ATS TAIL GRASS. In Botany, valuable meadow 
 grass, usually forming part of all good lowland pastures. 
 It is tie plan! with a soli narrow cylin- 
 
 drical head, resembling that of the meadow foxtail. 
 
 i \ TTLB Dome ticated animals of the cow kind, 
 which are found accompanying man in every civilized 
 country, and in every climate. The native country of the 
 type of British cattle is supposed by some to be Asia, and 
 by others to be Africa ; but in this case, as in all others 
 where an animal or a plant has been long in a state of do- 
 mestication, the origin of the species is involved in obscu- 
 rity. When the tame cattle of any country are allowed to 
 run wild and breed in that country, uncontrolled by man, 
 the habits which belong to the animal in its savage slate 
 become, in the course of three or lour generations, modi- 
 fied according to the natural supplies of food and the char- 
 acter of the climate. Hence, though cattle are not indige- 
 nous to Britain, South America, or the Sandwich Islands, 
 we have in the former country a breed of wild cattle in 
 one or two gentlemen's parks, as at Chillingham in North- 
 umberland, which are quite different from the wild cattle 
 of the fertile soils of South America, as these again are dif- 
 ferent from the wild cattle of the Sandwich Islands, though 
 all undoubtedly the descendants of tame animals. Those 
 in the Sandwich Islands, in particular, are known to be the 
 offspring of the tame cattle that were left there by Vancou- 
 ver, and which can now be only caught alive by entrap- 
 ping them in disguised pits; into one of which the unfor- 
 tunate botanist Douglas fell, and was gored to death by a 
 bull who happened to be in it at the time. The domestic 
 cattle of Britain may be divided into two races: those of 
 large size adapted for the plains, and those of smaller size 
 adapted for the mountains. Of each of these classes there 
 are several breeds ; such as the Highland and the Welch 
 cattle, among the latter; and the Lancashire, the York- 
 shire, and the Herefordshire cattle, among the former. 
 There is also an intermediate breed, adapted for mode- 
 rately hilly countries ; such as the Galloway and Fife 
 breeds in Scotland, and the Alderney and Guernsey cattle 
 in England. The best beef brought to the London market 
 is that of cattle of the Highland breed fed in English pas-
 
 CATULUS. 
 
 tures, or on turnips. The best milk cow for general pur- 
 poses is the Ayrshire ; the best for cream and butter, the 
 Alderney ; and the best for immense quantities of milk, 
 the Lancashire. Hence the latter are generally employed 
 in public dairies, the Ayrshire by farmers and cottagers. 
 and the Alderney by the higher classes. See Lib. Useful 
 Knowledge, Farmer's Series — Cattle. Low's Illustrations of 
 the Breeds of Domestic Animals. 4to. 1842. 
 
 CATULUS. (Lat. catulus, the young of any thing.) 
 The old botanical name of the catkin of a plant, which 
 see. 
 
 CAU'DA. (Lat.) That portion of an animal which is 
 supported by vertebra behind the sacrum ; or which, as in 
 fishes, have inferior spinous processes. In Entomology it 
 signifies that part of the abdomen which becomes suddenly 
 slender, and terminates in a long jointed tail, as in the 
 scorpion. 
 
 CAU'DAT. (Lat. cauda, a tail.) When the apex of 
 any organ in a plant is prolonged into a long slender 
 point ; this is not of rare occurrence, and is more especi- 
 ally common in Araceous and Aristolochiaceous plants. 
 
 CAU'DEX. (Lat. caudex, a trunk.) The Linnaean 
 name of what is now more generally called the axis 
 of vegetation ; the woody centre round which the leafy 
 and leaf-like organs are arranged. The caudex ascendens 
 was the stem, the c. descendens the root of a plant. 
 
 CATJDl'CULA. (Lat. dim. of caudex.) A thin, elastic, 
 semitransparent process of the pollen masses of Orchida- 
 ceous plants, by means of which the pollen is brought in 
 contact with the' stigma or stigmatic gland. Its exact nature, 
 use, and origin are unknown. 
 
 CAUL. The trivial appellation of the amnion when it 
 comes away in child-birth. It is regarded by the super- 
 stitious as a charm against shipwreck. 
 
 CAULI'COLUS. (Lat. caulis, a stall: ) In Architecture, 
 the small stalk under the volutes of the Corinthian capital, 
 which it seems to support. 
 
 CAULI'CULUS. (Dim. of caulis, a stern.) In Botany, 
 the slender part which connects the cotyledon of a seed 
 with the radicle. It is usually considered a part of the ra- 
 dicle, but recent observations seem to show that it is rather 
 an extension of the stem. Its office is to lengthen rapidly 
 when germination takes place, and thus to bring the true 
 radicle into contact with the earth upon which it has to 
 feed. 
 
 CAU'LINE. (Lat. caulis, a stem.) Any thing that grows 
 to, or springs from, the stem of a plant. Cauline leaves 
 are those which grow upon the stem, prickles such as are 
 borne by the same part, and so on. 
 
 CAULK, or CALK. To stuff the seams or openings be- 
 tween the planks of a ship with oakum, which is rope un- 
 twisted into its original state of fibre. The oakum is forc- 
 ed in by a caulking chisel and mallet. It has been found 
 necessary, when a ship has worked the oakum out of the 
 seams, to fill them with rope. Caulking affords fixedness 
 to the whole frame, and is therefore a great support. The 
 quantity of oakum used in a large ship is very great ; in a 
 large three-decker it is near 30 tons, or upwards of four 
 cables. 
 
 When the seams are caulked, melted pitch is poured on 
 the seams of the decks out of a pitch ladle ; in other places 
 it is laid on with a pitch mop : this is called paying the 
 seams. 
 
 CAULOCa'RPOUS. (Gr. kov\os, the stem of a plant, 
 and KapTTos, fruit.) A name applied by De Candolle to 
 such plants as, like trees and shrubs, annually produce 
 flowers and fruit on their branches without perishing. 
 
 CAUSE. Four kinds of causes have been distinguished 
 by logicians : — the material, Vie efficient, the formal, and the 
 final. The material cause of a thing is that out of which 
 that, thing is made ; in other words, that which is the 
 ground of the possibility of a thing's coming into exist- 
 ence : e. g. the marble out of which a statue is made. 
 The efficient cause is that in which resides the moving 
 power requisite in order to render the possible existence 
 actual; as the sculptor. The final cause of the thing is 
 that very tiling in its completeness ; as the statue when 
 made. The formal cause is that which must supervene to 
 the matter, in order to give the thing its precise individual 
 existence as that thing and no other; as the shape which 
 the sculptor communicates to the marble. This distinc- 
 tion is derived originally from Aristotle, with whom, how- 
 ever, it is rather a metaphysical than a logical determina- 
 tion. See Aristotelian Philosophy. 
 
 In popular language, the final cause is synonymous with 
 the purpose to which any object is supposed to contribute, 
 though that purpose be wholly external to the thing caused. 
 
 CAU'STIC CURVE. (Gr. kulw, I bum.) In the Tran- 
 scendental Geometry, is the name given to the curve to 
 which the rays of light, reflected or refracted by another 
 curve, are tangents. Caustics are consequently of two 
 kinds, catacaustics and diacauslics : the former being caus- 
 tics by reflection, and the latter caustics by refraction. Ca- 
 tacaustics are generated thus : Suppose rays, as B M, B M' 
 201 
 
 WML 
 
 CAV^DIUM. 
 
 fig. 1. &c. (fig. 1.) to issue from a luminous 
 
 point* B, and to be reflected by the 
 curve A M D, so that the angle of in- 
 cidence equals the angle of reflec- 
 tion ; the curve line H F F', which 
 touches all the reflected rays (pro- 
 duced, if necessary), is called the 
 catacaustic, or caustic by reflection. 
 Diacaustics are produced in a way 
 entirely similar. Thus: Suppose 
 rays, B M, B M', &c. (Jig. 2), issu- 
 ing from a luminous point B, to be 
 refracted by the curve A M M', so 
 that the sines of incidence are to 
 the sines of refraction in a constant 
 given ratio ; then the curve H F F', 
 which touches all the refracted 
 rays, is called the diacaustic, or 
 caustic by refraction. 
 The term causticYms been applied to these curves because 
 the rays of light being collected along the curve in a greater 
 quantity than elsewhere,heat is produced, particularly if the 
 collection of rays is considerable. In parabolic mirrors, 
 when the luminous rays strike the mirrors in a direction 
 parallel to the axis, the caustic merges in a single point, 
 which is the focus of the mirror. All the conic sections 
 have this property, that luminous rays issuing from one fo- 
 cus are reflected by the curve into the other focus ; but in 
 respect of all other curves, the several reflected pencils 
 are collected, not into a single point, but into a series of 
 brilliant points or foci, the assemblage of which forms a 
 bright curved track, or caustic, which is mathematically 
 defined as above. 
 
 The attention of geometers was first called to this species 
 of curve lines by Tchirnhausen, who demonstrated some 
 of their properties to the Academy of Sciences of Paris in 
 1682. One property, common to all of them, is remark- 
 able ; namely, that when the curves by which they are 
 produced are algebraic, the caustics are rectifiable ; in 
 other words, straight lines can be found to which they are 
 equal. In fact, any portion H F of the catacaustic ( fig. 1) 
 is equal to the difference between the sums of B M and 
 M F, and B A and A H ; or H F=B M+M F— (B A+A H). 
 In the diacaustic (fig. 2), we have for the length of the 
 curve H F=A H— Si F— n (B M— B A), where n is the con- 
 stant ratio of the sine of incidence to refraction. If, there- 
 fore, the lengths of the radii and tangents can be expressed 
 algebraically, the length of the caustic can also be exhibit- 
 ed by an algebraic expression. This circumstance having 
 been noticed before the invention of the infinitesimal cal- 
 culus, excited much interest among mathematicians, be- 
 cause it was then generally imagined that no curve line 
 could be rectified. 
 
 The catacaustic may be experimentally exhibited by ex- 
 posing the inside of a smooth bowl, containing any liquid 
 not diaphanous (milk, for example, or still better, ink) to 
 the sunbeams, or any strong light. The caustic, which in 
 this case is an epicycloid, will appear beautifully delineated 
 on the surface of the fluid. Another experiment, proposed 
 by Sir David Brewster, exhibits the curves still more strik- 
 ingly. Take a plate of polished metal, thin enough to be 
 bent easily into a concave form, and place it perpendicular- 
 ly on a sheet of white paper. If we expose this apparatus 
 to the sun, holding the plane of the paper in such a man- 
 ner that it may pass near the sun, without, however, inter- 
 secting it, the caustic will be exhibited, on the paper as a 
 well-defined curve of light. The interior part will be more 
 brilliant than the exterior, and the light will diminish gra- 
 dually and very rapidly at a little distance from the caus- 
 tic. By varying the size of the plate, and bending it into 
 curves of different shapes, all the different kinds of cata- 
 caustics, with their points of inflexion, &c, will be beauti- 
 fully developed. (Breicster's Optic*. Cabinet Cyclopedia.) 
 This subject being intimately connected with the con- 
 sideration and dispersion of the rays of light by reflecting 
 and refracting surfaces, is of great importance in practic 1 
 optics. (De la Hire. TYaite des Epicycloides ; Smith's Op- 
 tics : J. Bernoulli, Opera Omnia, vol. iii. ; L'Hopital, Ana- 
 lyse des Infiniments Fetits ; Gergonne, Annates des lUathe- 
 matiqttes; De la Rive, Dissertation sur les Caustiques ; 
 Ency. Met, art. li Light.") 
 
 CAU'STIC LUNAR. Fused nitrate of silver. 
 CAU'STICS. Substances which corrode and destroy 
 the texture of the skin and of organized bodies. 
 
 CAUTERY. The ancients divided cauteries into actual 
 and potential. The former term is applied to red-hot iron ; 
 the latter to pure potash. 
 
 CAUTIONARY. In Scottish Law, is the obligation by 
 which a party becomes surety for another ; answering to 
 the English term guarantee. It is defined by Stair, '• the 
 promise or contract of a man not for himself but another." 
 The guarantor is termed "cautioner." 
 
 CAViE'DIUM. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, an open 
 quadrangle or court within a house. The cavaedia describ-
 
 CAVALIER. 
 
 cd by Vifruvius are of five species ; Tuscanicum, Corinthi- 
 urn, Tetrastylon (with four columns), Displuviatum (un- 
 covered), and Testudinatum (vaulted). Though some au- 
 thors make the cavajdium the same as atrium and vestibu- 
 lum, it was essentially different. 
 
 CA'VALIER. In Fortification, a sort of interior bastion, 
 several feet more elevated than the principal bastion of the 
 fortress in which it is formed. The use of the cavalier is 
 twofold : it serves either to defilade the works from the 
 fire of an enemy on an adjacent height, or to command 
 the trenches of the besiegers. Cavaliers are sometimes 
 constructed in the gorges, or on the middle of the curtain, 
 and their form is the semicircular ; but when they are 
 within the bastion they are now built with straight faces 
 and flanks parallel to those of the work in which they are 
 placed. French cavaliers are works raised by the besie- 
 gers on the glacis of a fortress, for the purpose of enabling 
 them to direct a fire of musketry into the covered way. 
 
 Cavalier (derived probably from the Latin word cabal- 
 lus, a pack-horse), was used originally in a general sense 
 for a horse soldier ; but the term has acquired historical 
 importance from its having been applied to the adherents 
 of Charles I. in contradistinction to the Roundheads (quod 
 vide), the supporters of the parliament. 
 
 CA'VALRY. (Kr.) A body of soldiers furnished with 
 horses for war. This arm can boast of high antiquity, and 
 is so peculiarly useful and necessary for a great variety of 
 operations, that it has in all ages been held by the greatest 
 generals in high estimation. The efficacy of cavalry arises 
 principally from its adaptation to speedy movements, 
 which enables a commander to avail himself immediately 
 of a decisive moment when the enemy exposes a weak 
 point, or when disorder appears in his ranks, for complet- 
 ing his defeat by disconcerting him by a sudden attack. 
 It i ingularly useful in protecting the wings and centre of 
 an army, for furnishing detachments, for escorts, for form- 
 ing blockades, for intercepting the supplies of the enemy, 
 for foraging, for procuring intelligence, for covering a re- 
 treat, <&c. The successful services which troops of this 
 description have performed, and the number of di 
 advantages which have been obtained by moans of them 
 in the most important battles of which history ancient and 
 modern furnishes the details, prove incontestably the utili- 
 ty of this arm. The use of cavalry, however, is ni 
 rily limited by the nature of the ground. Open and level 
 countries are favourable to its operations : in forests, in 
 mountainous districts, on a marshy soil, <fcc. it is but of 
 little avail. Among the Greeks and Romans, the cavalry 
 was regarded as the most respectable class of troop 
 its ranks were supplied especially from the elite of the 
 nobility. In the middle ages a similar feeling seems to 
 have prevailed; for, in the early French monarchy, and 
 in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Britain, the men of wealth 
 and noble birth distinguished themselves in the field from 
 those of inferior rank by being well armed and mounted 
 on horses ; and from the mode of warfare then pr 
 as well as from the peculiarities adopted in the <.< _ 
 tion of troops, cavalry constituted almost the only efficient 
 arm of battle down to the introduction of Standing armies. 
 
 The invention of gunpowder, ami the subsequent em- 
 ployment of artillery in the field, deprived the heavy- 
 armed cavalry of those times of all the advantages it pos- 
 sessed over the infantry, and rendered its movements 
 awkward and inefficient. It was reserved, however, for 
 Gustavus Adolphus to show the real utility of this arm by 
 discovering the services on which it should properly be 
 employed, and by Stripping it of all unnecessary encum- 
 brances, to supersede by rapidity of motion the value it 
 formerly possessed in weight. Since that time cavalry 
 has often turned the scale of fortune in war: the battle of 
 Rosshaeh, for instance, in 17j", one of the most brilliant 
 victories either of ancient or modern times, was entirely 
 decided by this arm. 
 
 Modern cavalry consists of two grand classes — heart/ 
 and light horse; which are again susceptible of further 
 subdivisions, according to the purposes to which they are 
 subservient. The British cavalry consists of two regiments 
 of life guards, the royal regiment of horse guards, seven 
 regiments of dragoon guards, and seventeen regiments of 
 light dragoons, of which four are called hussars and four 
 lancers. (For the history, use, accoutrements, and arms 
 of these different branches, see the separate articles.) A 
 regiment of cavalry is divided into four squadrons, and 
 each of these into two troops. A troop consists of SO men ; 
 and to each troop there is attached a captain, a lieutenant, 
 and a cornet. 
 
 CAVATI'NA. at. dimin. of cavata, cutoff.) In Music, 
 a species of air, generally short, and having neither a re- 
 peat nor second strain, often inserted in obligato recita- 
 tives. The sudden changes from recitative to a measured 
 movement and the reverse are useful in producing ex- 
 pression. 
 
 CA'VEA. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, the subter- 
 ranean cells in an amphitheatre wherein the wild beasts 
 205 
 
 CELIBACY. 
 
 were confined in readiness for the fights of the arena. In 
 the end, the amphitheatre itself, by synechdoche, was 
 called cavea; in which sense it is employed byAmmianus 
 Marcellinus: " Alter in amphitheatrali cavea cum adfutu- 
 rus spectaculis introiret." Lib. xxix. cap. 1. 
 
 CA'VEAT. In Law, a notice or caution given by a 
 party interested to a judge or other officer, in order to 
 stay proceedings by him ; as, in the spiritual courts, a ca- 
 veat is put in to stop the granting of probate or administra- 
 tion. 
 
 CAVE'TTO. (Lat. cavus, hollow.) In Architecture, a 
 hollowed moulding, whose profile is a quadrant of a circle : 
 it is principally used in cornices. 
 
 CA'VIA. The Linna?an generic name of a Cuvierian 
 family of Rodents, including the guinea-pig, — Agouti, Paca, 
 and Capibara. 
 
 CAVIA'RE. The salted roe of the sturgeon, much es- 
 teemed by the Russians as an article of food ; it is an oily 
 unwholesome article. 
 
 CA'VICORNS, Caricornia. (Lat. cavus, hollow, and 
 cornu, horn.) The name of the tribe of Ruminants com- 
 prehending those which have the horns hollowed out like 
 a sheath and implanted on bony processes of the os frontis, 
 as in the antelope. 
 
 CA'VITARIES, Entozoa cavitaria. (Lat. cavitas, a hol- 
 low.) Intestinal worms, or Entozoa, which have an intes- 
 tinal canal floating in a distinct abdominal cavity. 
 
 CAY'MAN. or CAIMAN. A name, says Marcgrave, ap- 
 plied to the crocodiles by the negroes of Congo. Accord- 
 ing to Bontias it was originally derived from an eastern 
 dialect (per totam Indiam cayman audit). It appears, 
 however, that Marcgrave is correct; for the negroes in 
 the West Indies have been heard to call the crocodiles 
 which they have seen there for the first time caiman; and 
 the name has been diffused over the new continent by the 
 negroes, and applied to most of the American species in- 
 discriminately. It is restricted by C'uvier to the alligators. 
 See \ i i.ic-.ATOR. 
 
 CE'DKELA'CI'.-E. (Cedrela, one of the genera.) A 
 very important, though small, natural order of plants, al- 
 lied to Meliacem, from which they differ in having winged 
 indefinite seed. Most of the species are trees of large 
 size. Swiett nia mahogani yields mahogany, in the woods 
 of the Spanish main ; Chloroxyhm stoietenia, Indian satin- 
 wood : while the yellow wood and the cedar of New Hol- 
 land are the produce of others. In general I heir bark is 
 powerfully astringent ; that of Soymida/ebrifiiga and ma- 
 hogany itself is a potent febrifuge ; that of Cedrela toona is 
 a most valuable tonic in the Malayan archipelago ; and 
 Khaya yields a similar remedy for the dan- 
 
 gerous levers of the Gold Coast. 
 
 CE'll.INt;. (I'r. ceil, a canopy or covering.) In Archi- 
 tecture, the upper horizontal or curved surface of an apart - 
 ment opposite the floor, usually finished with plastered 
 work. In executing ceiling the best mode is that in which 
 the setting coat is composed of putty and plaster, techni- 
 cally called guusre. Common ceilings are executed with 
 plaster without hair, the same as the finishing coat in walls 
 lefl for paper. 
 
 ( i;i.ASTI;a'('I:.E (Celastrus, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of shrubby Ezogens, formerly confounded 
 with RharrmaceeB, but separated by Brown, chiefly because 
 of the relation that the stamens bear to the petals and the 
 different aestivation of the calyx. Allied, according to 
 Brongniart, ti - s, through HqppocratecB, a small 
 
 orderwhich scarcely differs from this order. Celastraecas 
 are natives of the warmer climates, especially of the tro- 
 pics, and their general characters appear to be of a stimu- 
 lating acrid nature: none of any popular interest. 
 
 CE'LERES. (Lat. celer, sicift.) In Ancient History, 
 the body of cavalry instituted by Romulus when he settled 
 the constitution of Rome. They consisted of those among 
 the citizens who were rich enough to furnish a horse. 
 They are said to have been 300 in number, and to have 
 been subdivided into three centuries, under the name of 
 Ramnes, Titienses, and Luceres ; but this seems to pro- 
 ceed on the false supposition that the three tribes known 
 by these names were among the institutions of Romulus. 
 The number of the centuries of the Celeres was raised to 
 six by Tarquinius Priscus : this was the origin of the 
 Equites or knights, who in after-times formed a separate 
 class of citizens. 
 
 CE'LIBACY. (Lat. cjelebs, unmarried.) The legal 
 condition of unmarried persons. This condition was sub- 
 jected by the laws of the Roman emperors to a variety of 
 penal consequences. The most remarkable of their en- 
 actments, and that on which the subsequent jurisprudence 
 on this subject was in a great measure founded, was the 
 Lpi Julia or Papia-Poppasa, enacted under the authori- 
 zation of Augustus. By these laws unmarried persons 
 could receive nothing by will from strangers, and were 
 subjected to many other legal disabilities (see Law, Ro- 
 man) ; from which, however, they were successively re- 
 lieved by later laws passed in the decline of the empire,
 
 CELL. 
 
 and especially after the mistaken zeal of the Christian di- 
 vines of that age had invested celibacy with attributes of 
 sanctity. It was at an early period in the history of the 
 Christian church that ministers were exhorted to celibacy 
 by those who laid claims to a higher degree of sanctity. 
 At the Council of Nice, in a. d. 325, the proposition to en- 
 force it as a general law was rejected. But at that of 
 Aries, in 340, it was adopted ; married persons being in- 
 deed held admissible into the church, but only on the 
 terms of separating from their wives on ordination. It had 
 become the common practice of the Latin church in the 
 reign of Gregory the Great (end of the 6th century), and 
 was more fully enforced, after a period of relaxation, in 
 the 11th. It was proposed to the Council of Trent by 
 Charles V. (in the interim), that married priests should re- 
 tain their wives ; but this was rejected. In the Greek 
 church, celibacy was ordained for bishops at the council 
 ofTralle, a. D. 695; but clergymen below the degree of 
 episcopacy are allowed to marry. Hence the higher dig- 
 nities of that church are necessarily filled by monks. 
 
 CELL. (Lat. cella.) In Ancient Architecture, the part 
 of a temple within the walls; also called the naos. The 
 part of the temple in front of the cell was called the pronaos, 
 and that in the rear the posticum. 
 
 CE'LLAR. (Fr. cellier.) In Architecture, the lower 
 story of a building, when wholly or partly under the level 
 of the ground. 
 
 CE'LLEPORES, CELLEPORiE. (Lat. cella, a cell; 
 porus, a pore.) A genus of flexible cellular Polyps, inclu- 
 ding those in which each of the cells is pierced with a 
 minute pore. 
 
 CE'LLULAR TISSUE. A substance consisting of little 
 bladders or vesicles of various figures adhering together 
 in masses. It constitutes the principal part of all plants, 
 and may be regarded as an organic basis, into which other 
 kinds of tissue are introduced, or from which they are 
 created. It exists exclusively in the embryo of a plant un- 
 til vitality has been excited, and new forms of tissue devel- 
 oped in consequence. Si-e Botany. 
 
 CEME'NT. (Lat. cementum.) In Architecture, the 
 medium for causing the adherence of stones or bricks to 
 each other, formed of lime, sand, and water. The best 
 cement is obtained from limestone, in preference to chalk ; 
 and the sand best adapted to the formation of it is that of 
 a river, called drift sand. 
 
 Cement. In Anatomy, the substance which joins toge- 
 ther the plates of compound teeth, like those of the ele- 
 phant, and which fills up the folds and cavities in the teeth 
 of Ruminants and Pachyderms ; and which also covers all 
 that part of a simple tooth which is not coated with enam- 
 el. The cement is characterized, like true bone, by the 
 presence of the Purkinjian corpuscles. 
 
 Cem"nt, Parker's. See Septaria. 
 
 CEMENT A'TION. When a solid body is surrounded 
 by the powder of other substances, and the whole heated to 
 redness, the process is termed cementation. Iron is said 
 to be converted into steel by cementation with charcoal. 
 
 CE'METERY. (Gr. Ktipai, I lie dead.) In Architec- 
 ture, an edifice or area where the dead are interred. The 
 most celebrated public cemeteries of Europe are those of 
 Naples, one near Bologna, of Pisa, and the more modern 
 Parisian one of Pere la Chaise. That of Pisa is particu- 
 larly distinguished by the beauty of its form and architec- 
 ture, which is early Italian Gothic. It is 490 feet long, 170 
 feet wide, and 60 feet high, cloistered round the four sides, 
 and contains 50 ship-loads of earth, which the Pisans 
 brought from Jerusalem. It was long matter of complaint 
 and regret that England possessed no public cemeteries ; 
 and in the year 1832 a company was formed in London 
 with the view of supplying this desideratum. The land 
 selected for the first experiment contains in extent about 
 50 acres, and is situated at Kensal Green on the south of 
 the Harrow road. This receptacle for the dead is denom- 
 inated " All Souls Cemetery ;" and whether we regard the 
 good taste or the public spirit displayed by its projectors, 
 it is well entitled to the support of the community. (See 
 the British Cydopadia.) Since that time various cemete- 
 ries have been designed and formed in different parts of 
 the country ; and there is every ground to believe that, in- 
 dependently of other advantages, the benefits which can- 
 not fail to accrue to the health of large towns, particularly, 
 from schemes of this nature, will ultimately lead to their 
 general adoption. In the Companion to the British Alma- 
 nac for 1839, there is an excellent description of the Nor- 
 tcood and High gate cemeteries, and some of the previous 
 numbers of the same publication contain an account of 
 all similar works in England then in progress or com- 
 Dieted. 
 
 CENO'BIO. A term invented by Mirbel to denote a 
 regular fruit, divided from the base into several acephalous 
 pericarpia; that is to say, pericarpia not marked on the 
 summit by the stigmatic scar, the style having been insert- 
 ed at their base, as in Labialce, Boraginaceat. 
 CE'NOTAPH. (Gr. Ktvos, empty, and raipoj, a sepid- 
 206 
 
 CENTRAL FORCE. 
 
 chre.) In Architecture, a monument erected to the mem- 
 ory of a person who lies interred elsewhere. 
 
 CE'NSOR. In Ancient History, the title of two Roman 
 magistrates originally created for the purpose of takingthe 
 census, or register of the number and property of citizens. 
 But their powers were much increased subsequently, 
 when they had the inspection of the morals of the citizens 
 committed to them, with authority to degrade senators 
 and knights from their respective orders, and remove 
 other citizens from their tribes, depriving them of all 
 their privileges except liberty ; which was termed ma- 
 king them iErarians. They had also the power of making 
 contracts for public buildings and the supply of victims for 
 sacrifices. 
 
 The office of censor was not a permanent one, but was 
 renewed from time to time, as its functions were felt to be 
 needed in the state. It was always filled by consulars of 
 the highest merit, and was esteemed an honour even 
 greater than that of the consulate itself; no person might 
 be twice invested with it; and if one of the censors died, 
 another was not substituted in his room, but his surviving 
 colleague was obliged to resign. The office of censor was 
 abolished under the emperors, who, however, exercised 
 the greater part of its functions. It was attempted to be 
 revived in the person of Valerian by Decius, but he was 
 cut off before he could accomplish his purpose. 
 
 CE'NSUS. In Ancient History, a population return of 
 the Roman citizens, including a valuation of each man's 
 property, and a registration of his tribe, family, children, 
 and servants. 
 
 The secondary senses of the word are, a tax levied ac- 
 cording to the above-mentioned valuation ; and the amount 
 of any individual's properly. A senator's census was the 
 amount of property necessary for a member of the senate, 
 which was equal to between .£0000 and £7000 of our mo- 
 ney ; but this was raised by Augustus to about £10,000. A 
 knight's census was something more than £3000. 
 
 The term census, in modern political phraseology, sig- 
 nifies an enumeration of the inhabitants of a country ; such 
 as has taken place in England by an act of parliament in 
 1801, 1811. 1821, 1831,1841. 
 
 CE'NTAURS. In Greek Mythology, a fabulous race of 
 beings, half man and half horse, who are said to have in- 
 habited part of Thessaly, and waged constant war with the 
 hostile tribe of Lapitha?. 
 
 CENTAU'RUS, the CENTAUR. One of the forty eight 
 ancient constellations formed by Ptolemy, situated in the 
 southern hemisphere, and under the tail of Hydra. The 
 Centaur is represented as half man, half horse ; the human 
 part onlv of the figure is visible above our horizon. 
 
 CE'NTERING. (Lat. centrum.) In Architecture, the 
 temporary woodwork or framing on which any vaulted 
 work is constructed ; sometimes called also a centre. 
 
 CE'NTIGRADE DIVISION. The division into grades 
 or degrees by hundredth parts. A unit of any denomina- 
 tion being divided into 100 equal parts, forms a centi- 
 grade scale ; but the term most frequently occurs in sci- 
 entific works, in reference to the French division of the 
 scale of the thermometer. The fixed points of the fher- 
 mometric scale are the points at which water freezes on 
 the one hand, and boils on the other ; the distance be- 
 tween these two points being divided into 100 degrees, 
 the centigrade scale is formed. In Fahrenheit's scale, 
 which is usually applied to the thermometer in this coun- 
 try, the same distance is divided into ISO degrees ; a de- 
 gree of the centigrade scale is therefore greater than a de- 
 gree of Fahrenheit in the proportion of ISO to 100, or of 9 to 
 5. Any number of degrees, therefore, on the centigrade 
 scale, being multiplied by 9 and divided by 5, will give the 
 equivalent number of degrees of Fahrenheit. But in com- 
 paring temperatures expressed by the two scales, it is ne- 
 cessary to recollect that the zero of Fahrenheit's scale is 
 not placed at the freezing point, but 32° below it. An ex- 
 ample will best show how this is to be taken into account. 
 Let it be required to express on Fahrenheit's scale the 
 temperature corresponding to 10° centigrade. Here 10 X 
 9 -;- 5 = 18 ; to this add 32, and we have 18 + 32 = 50 ; so 
 that 10 degrees of the centigrade scale correspond to 50 de- 
 grees of Fahrenheit's. 
 
 CE'NTIPEDE. (Lat. centum, alnmdred,and pes,/oo«.) 
 The name of the Myriapodus insects belonging to the ge- 
 nus Scolopendra of Linnaeus. They are wingless ; and the 
 largest species possess, when full grown, more than fifty 
 and less than two hundred pairs of feet. 
 
 CE'NTO. (Gr. Ktvrptov, a patc/iicork cloak- or garment.) 
 A word employed to designate a collection of separate 
 verses from the works of one or more poets, arranged so 
 as to form a distinct poem. The only classical example 
 of a cento left to us is that of Ausonius, who composed a 
 nuptial idyll out of Virgilian verses ; in which, however, 
 the words are also perverted into a new meaning. In his 
 prologue to this piece Ausonius describes the cento, and 
 gives rules for its composition. 
 
 CE'NTRAL FORCE. The power or energy in virtue
 
 CENTRAL FORCE. 
 
 of which bodies in motion tend to approach, or recede 
 from, a centre. Hence central forces are of two kinds ; 
 centrifugal (Lat. fngere, to avoid), when the moving body 
 tends to recede from the centre ; and centripetal (Lat. 
 petere, to seek), when the body tends to approach it. 
 
 It is a general law of matter, that all bodies tend to move 
 in a straight line ; consequently, when a body moves in 
 a curve, there must necessarily be some force which acts 
 upon it, and deflects it from the rectilinear direction, and 
 constrains it to move in the curve; and if this force were 
 removed, or its action suspended, the body would imme- 
 diately fly off in a straight line, forming a tangent to the curve 
 at the point in which it was moving when the force ceased 
 to act. A stone whirled rapidly round the hand in a sling 
 affords a familiar illustration. The effort with which it 
 tends to tly off is the centrifugal force ; the reaction of the 
 hand, communicated through the string, may be regarded 
 as a centripetal force, which confines the stone to its circu- 
 lar path. When the string is let slip, the centrifugal force 
 is not counteracted, and the stone flies off in the direction 
 of the, tangent. 
 
 The laws of central forces, of the greatest importance in 
 the theory of the planetary revolutions, were first proposed 
 by Huygens, in his celebrated work, entitled Horohgium 
 Oscillatorium. The case which it is most important to ana- 
 lyse is that of a body moving in the circumference of a cir- 
 cle with a uniform velocity. To find an expression for the 
 centrifugal force of a body revolving uniformly in a cir ; 
 cle, let 7' = the radius of the circle, r = the velocity of the 
 body, and let A B be the arc described in the 
 infinitely small time t ; we have then (the 
 space described being as the velocity and the 
 time of description) A B—Vt. liutABbeing 
 by hypothesis a very small arc, may be con- 
 sidered as equal to its chord, which is a mean 
 proportional between the diameter 2r, and 
 the versed sine A C. Hence, AC 2r = A B" 
 ?■'- /-' 
 
 = »' t', and consequently A C = — 5-7. Now A C is the ef- 
 fect produced by the central force, or rather the accelerat- 
 ing force exerted in the direction of the centre (that which 
 prevents the body at A from flying off in the direction of 
 the tangent A D), in the time / ; and the accelerating force 
 being measured by the quotient whir], is obtained by divid- 
 ing twice the space described by the square of the time 
 Dynamics, Force), the accelerating force in the direc- 
 2AC 
 (ion of the centre becomes — 7^—. Calling this central force 
 
 V* 
 /, and substituting for A C its value, we find/= — ; that is 
 
 to say, the central force of a body describing a circle with 
 a uniform velocity is directly proportional to the square of 
 tie velocity, and inversely as the radius of the circle. 
 
 This expression may be put under a different form. Let 
 ( = the time required to describe the whole circumference 
 
 27rr, and we have 2 Trr = vt; whence v = — — ' an u con- 
 
 4 tt 2 r c 
 
 sequently /=— 75 — •; whence the central force is directly 
 
 as the radius of the orbit, and inversely as the square of 
 the periodic time. 
 
 If the law of the force he such that its intensity is reci- 
 procally proportional to the square of the distance from the 
 centre, then the squares of the periodic times of two bodies 
 describing different « it cli ab >ui the same centre are pro- 
 portional In the cubes ol the distances. For let F and /"be 
 the two forces, V and v the velocities of the two bodies, 
 R and r the radii of their circles, and T and t the times re- 
 spectively ; then, by what has been already shown, 
 V s t- 
 
 f =r'/=7; 
 
 but by hypothesis, F : / : 
 therefore, 
 
 r* : R- 
 
 — • — : : r* 
 R r 
 
 : R' 
 
 but 
 
 V 3 : v* 
 
 R 2 
 fa 
 
 therefore, T 2 : ; a : : R= : r 3 ; 
 
 or the squares of the times are as the cubes of the radii. 
 This remarkable property was discovered by Kepler to 
 belong to the planetary orbits. See Kepler's Laws. 
 
 When a point is urged by one accelerating force only, 
 constantly directed towards a fixed point, the path will be 
 a plane curve, and the areas described around this point by 
 the radius vector are proportional to the times employed 
 in describing them. Suppose the time to be divided into 
 equal portions, and that in the first portion of time the 
 body, in virtue of the projectile force impressed on it, 
 describes the line A B. If no otherforce acted upon it, in the 
 second portion of time it would describe B C=AB; there- 
 207 
 
 fore, on drawing the radii A S, B S, C S, to 
 the centre of force, the triangles A S B and 
 BSC would be equal. But suppose the 
 central force acting on the body while it 
 would move from B to C to act instan- 
 taneously at B, so as to cause the body to 
 descend through B V ; draw V D parallel 
 and equal to B C, and join B D, then at 
 the end of the second portion of time 
 the body will be at D. Now as the cen- 
 tral force acts in the direction B V in the 
 plane of A SB, the body must continue 
 to move In that plane ; and on joining C D and SD, the tri- 
 angle BDS, on account of the parallel lines, is equal to 
 B CS, and therefore equal to A B S. In like manner it may 
 be proved that if E be the point at which the body arrives 
 at the end of the third instant, the triangle D E S is equal to 
 A B S. Suppose, therefore, the number of the triangles to 
 become infinitely great, and their areas infinitely small, the 
 path of the body will become a curve line; and the ele- 
 mentary spaces being proportional to the elements of the 
 time, their sums or integrals must continue to have the 
 same proportion. (Newton's Principia, Sect. II.) 
 
 From this proposition it follows, that when a body des- 
 cribes a curve in virtue of a central force, the centrifugal 
 force at every point varies as the cube of the distance from 
 the centre, whatever the nature of the force by which it is 
 attracted to the centre may be. For let A B and a b be the 
 two arcs described at different points of the 
 curve in the infinitely small time /, then by 
 the proposition just demonstrated, ASB = 
 I aSb. But make BC and be respectively 
 /, perpendicular to S A and S a, then A S B = h 
 V A S X B • ', and i;S« = |aSX4c; hence 
 A S X B C = a S X * c and HC' : : b c s : : 
 oS':A S a . Now BC a = 2ASXAC 
 (the square of A C being neglected as infi- 
 nitely small), and 6 c 2 = 2 a S X n c ! therefore, A SX 
 AC : aSX.ac : : a8* : AS 3 , and consequently 
 
 AC:ac: : jgj : ^-gr 
 
 But A C is the measure of the centrifugal force at A, and 
 
 a c is its measure at a; therefore, denoting the distances 
 
 e points by R and r, we have the centrifugal force 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 at A to the centrifugal force at a, as — : 
 
 R J r 3 
 
 Hence we 
 
 may perceive the reason why a body in moving round a 
 centre of force may alternately approach to, and recede 
 from, that centre, as the planets in describing elliptic orbits 
 about the sun. Suppose the attractive force, like gravity, 
 to vary inversely as the square of the distance from the at- 
 tracting point : if the planet approached 10 times nearer to 
 the sun, the attractive force would be augmented 100 times ; 
 but the centrifugal force would become 1000 limes greater, 
 and consequently there must be some point at which this 
 force will overcome the former, and determine the planet 
 again to rei ede. 
 
 The doctrine of centra] forces has its principal applica- 
 tion in astronomy. By the comparison ofa great number 
 of planetary observations, Kepler discovered that each of 
 the planets, while its distance from the sun is variable, 
 moves in such a manner that a straight line drawn from it 
 to the sun describes equal areas in equal limes. But this 
 is the law by which bodies move under the influence ofa 
 central force (as is demonstrated above). It follows, there- 
 fore, that the force by which the planets describe their or- 
 bits is a central force, and directed to a point within the 
 orbit. Newton demonstrated that the velocities of a body 
 at different points of the curve which it describes about 
 a centre of force, are inversely as the perpendiculars drawn 
 from the centre to the tangents at these points. The com- 
 parison of this proposition with the elliptic motion of the 
 planets leads directly to the conclusion that the forces by 
 which the planetary motions are sustained are directed 
 to the centre of the sun, and vary inversely as the squares 
 of the distances of the planets from that body. 
 
 Mathematicians have investigated the orbits which bo- 
 dies must describe under various hypotheses respecting 
 the law of the central force, and they have found that 
 there are only two cases in which a system of bodies like 
 the sun and planets, mutually attracting each other, could 
 permanently exist. One of these is an imaginary case, in 
 which the force varies directly as the distance of the body ; 
 the other is the case presented by nature, in which the 
 force follows the inverse ratio of the square of the distance. 
 In all other cases the mutual action of the bodies would 
 produce permanent derangements, which at length would 
 of necessity subvert the system. 
 
 When the force varies inversely as the square of the dis- 
 tance, the orbit which is described about a fixed centre 
 must necessarily be one of the three conic sections; but 
 it will depend upon the velocity with which it is at first 
 projected whether the orbit be an ellipse, a parabola, or an
 
 CENTRE. 
 
 hyperbola. If the central force were supposed to vary as 
 the inverse cube of the distance, a body would describe a 
 circle in one particular case, namely, when the velocity of 
 projection is equal to that which would be acquired by fall- 
 ing from an infinite distance, and then applied in a direc- 
 tion at right angles to the radius vector. In all other cases 
 it would describe a spiral. If the central force diminishes 
 more rapidly than the inverse cube of the distance, the or- 
 bit would in all cases describe a spiral ; so that if the solar 
 force acted according to a law of this sort, every planet 
 would at length either fall into the sun, or rly off to an infi- 
 nite distance. (Principia, Book I. See also Herschel's 
 Astronomy, Cab. Encyc.) 
 
 CE'NTRE. (Lat. centrum.) This term has numerous 
 applications in Geometry and Mechanics: thus, centre of 
 a circle, or of an ellipse, is the middle point of any diame- 
 ter ; centre of a curve is the point where two diameters in- 
 tersect each other ; and in mechanics we speak of centres 
 of attraction, conversion, equilibrium, gravity, percussion, 
 oscillation, &c. 
 
 Centre of Attraction, also called Centre of Gravita- 
 tion, is the point to which bodies tend in consequence of 
 the action of gravity. 
 
 Centre of Conversion is the point in a body about 
 which it turns when a force is applied to any part of it, or 
 unequal forces to its different parts. For example, sup- 
 pose a rod laid on a table to be struck near one extremity 
 in a direction perpendicular to its length; the rod will turn 
 round, but there will be one point in it which remains at 
 rest, or about which, as a centre, the other points turn. 
 This point is the centre of conversion. 
 
 Centre of Equilibrium of a system of bodies is a point 
 such that if the system were suspended from it, the whole 
 would remain in equilibrium. Thus, the fulcrum or point 
 of support of a lever is its centre of equilibrium. 
 
 Centre of Gravity. A term employed in Mechanics 
 to denote a certain point in the interior of a body, or sys- 
 tem of bodies connected with each other in an invariable 
 manner, so situated that any plane whatever which passes 
 through it divides the body into two segments of which 
 the weights are exactly equal. Hence, if the centre of 
 gravity of any body or system of bodies be sustained, the 
 whole will remain at rest ; for the weights on both sides of 
 a vertical plane passing through the point of support being 
 equal, the body can have no tendency to angular motion. 
 
 Let there be a system of bodies A, B, C. D, E, placed 
 horizontally in the same straight line, 
 
 S A B O C D E 
 
 and connected with each other in an invariable manner; 
 and suppose O to be the centre of gravity of the system : 
 by the definition of the centre of gravity, if the system is 
 supported at O, the weights on both sides of O, or the ef- 
 fort which the bodies make to turn about that point on op- 
 posite sides of O, will exactly counterbalance each other, 
 and the whole will remain at rest. But the effect of A in 
 turning the system about O depends on the quantity of 
 matter in A, and its distance from O, or the length of the 
 arm of the lever at the extremity of which it acts. The 
 whole effect of the body A is therefore proportional to the 
 mass of A multiplied into the length of the line O A. The 
 same reasoning obviously applies to each of the other bo- 
 dies, B, C, D, and E ; consequently, taking these letters to 
 represent the masses of the bodies respectively, we have, 
 by the definition, 
 
 A O A 4- B O B = C O C + DO D + E O E. 
 
 Tsow suppose it were required to determine from this pro- 
 perty the position of the centre of gravity of the united bo- 
 dies, or its distance from a given point S in the same 
 straight line : on making SA = a, SB = J,SC = c, S D 
 = d. S E ■=. e, and the unknown distance SO=i, we shall 
 have OA = i-o,0 B = x — b, O C = c — x, O D = d — x, 
 and O E = e — x. Therefore by substitution, 
 
 A(z — o) + B (x — b) = C(c — x) + T>(d — :r)4-E(e — a); 
 and by transposition, 
 (A + B-(-C- r D- r E)i=aA + 6B + cC+dD + eE; 
 
 oA + SB + cC+riD+eE . 
 whence x = A+B+c+D+E ' 
 
 that is to say, the distance of the centre of gravity of the 
 given system from a given point is equal to the sum of the 
 products of all the masses into their distances from the 
 point divided by the sum of the masses. 
 
 It is obvious, from the equation now given, that the effect 
 of all the bodies to produce motion about the point S, is 
 the same as if they were all united in their common centre 
 of gravity O. It is also obvious that the form of the equa- 
 tion will be exactly the same, whatever may be the num- 
 ber of bodies belonging to the system ; and as every body 
 may be regarded as composed of elementary particles, 
 the reasoning which applies to a system of particles, con- 
 208 
 
 s 
 
 
 P 
 
 \ o 
 
 / 
 V 
 
 Ay 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 ' B^ 
 
 * yf 
 
 
 
 CENTRE OF GRAVITY. 
 
 nected with one another in an invariable manner, also ap- 
 plies to solid bodies of any kind. 
 
 The bodies composing the system have been supposed 
 to be arranged in a straight line ; but the centre of gravity 
 will be found precisely in the same manner, whatever 
 their relative situations may be. Suppose them to be sit- 
 uated all in the same plane, and that their centre of gravity 
 is O, the position of which it is required to find. Let P Q 
 be any straight line, in the same plane 
 with the bodies, passing through O ; 
 then in order that there may be no 
 tendency to motion about the line P 
 Q.. the sum of the products of all the 
 bodies on one side of PQ into their 
 respective distances from that line, 
 must be equal to the sum of the pro- 
 ducts of all the bodies on the other 
 side of P Q. into their respective dis- 
 tances. If, therefore, S T be a straight line parallel to P Q. 
 and if the distances of A, B, C, <fcc7 from ST, be denoted 
 respectively by a, b, c, <&c, and the distance of O from 
 the same line by x, then we shall have as before, 
 a A + 6B + cC-r&c . 
 X ~ A 4- B + C 4- <kc. 
 This does not yet give us the centre of gravity ; but it gives 
 its distance from a given straight line ST, and consequent- 
 ly gives the position of the straight line P Q, in which the 
 centre of gravity is situated. If then we draw another 
 line S' T', and denote its distances from A, B, C, <fec, by 
 a', b', c', <fcc, respectively, and put x' equal to its distance 
 O Q from O, we shall have 
 
 , a' A + b' B 4- c' C + &c. . 
 x — A+B + C + &C. ' 
 and consequently the position of another straight line P'O.' 
 passing through the centre of gravity, and parallel to S'T'. 
 Therefore, the centre of gravity is given by the intersec- 
 tion of the two straight lines P Q and P' Q'. 
 
 Lastly, suppose the bodies composing the system not to 
 be situated all in the same plane. In this case, the situa- 
 tion of each of the given bodies must be referred to three 
 planes given in position ; and it is most convenient to as- 
 sume three planes which intersect each other at right an- 
 gles ; one of them horizontal, and consequently the other 
 two vertical. Let the distances of the given bodies A, B. C, 
 <fcc. from the given horizontal plane be respectively a, b, c, 
 &c. ; their distances from one of the vertical planes a', b', 
 c', <fec. ; and from the other, a", b", c", <kc. ; then, if we 
 take 
 
 a k + b B+cC-f&c. 
 x ~ A + B + C + &C. ' 
 the centre of gravity is in a horizontal plane, at the dis- 
 tance x from the given horizontal plane. 
 
 , a' A + b' B -f c' C + &c. 
 Take also x = * _i_ n -u f ■ + &c > and the cen- 
 tre of gravity is in a plane parallel to the first of the two 
 given vertical planes, and distant from it by the line x' . 
 
 In the intersection of these two planes, take a point 
 distant from the second vertical plane by a quantity x" = 
 a" A + b" B + c" C + <tc. 
 
 A 4- B -4- C 4- &c ' tu ' s P°' nt w '^ be ^e centre 
 
 of gravity of the given bodies. 
 
 In the notation of the differential calculus, these formu- 
 las are expressed as follows :— Letdzn be the element of 
 the mass, the co-ordinates of which, referred to three rec- 
 tangular planes, are x, y, z ; and let the distances of the 
 centre of gravity of the mass from the same planes be re- 
 spectively X, Y, Z ; then the position of that centre is de- 
 termined by the three equations : 
 
 ■£ fx d m y fy d m 7 f z d m 
 
 J m J m J m 
 
 The determination of the centre of gravity of solids in 
 general requires the application of the integral calculus, 
 and is sometimes effected with considerable labour ; there 
 are, however, many particular cases in which it is known 
 immediately, and requires no calculation. Thus, the cen- 
 tre of gravity of a sphere or ellipsoid is evidently at the 
 centre-of the figure ; that of a parallelopiped is at the com- 
 mon intersection of its four diagonals ; that of a cylinder 
 with parallel ends at the middle of its axis. The centre 
 of gravity of a circle or ellipse is also at the centre of the 
 figure; and that of a parallelogram at the intersection of 
 its diagonals. The centre of gravity of a straight line is at 
 the middle of the line, whence we easily find that of the 
 perimeter of any polygon. " When the body can be divi- 
 ded into two parts, their common centre of gravity may 
 be found by dividing the distance between the centres of 
 gravity of the two parts in the reciprocal proportion of their 
 weights. This principle may be extended to bodies which 
 are more complex. Thus the centre of gravity of two por- 
 tions being determined, they may be conceived to be uni-
 
 CENTRE OF GYRATION, AND OF OSCILLATION. 
 
 ted in that point, and connected with a third portion, and 
 the centre of the three portions found. All these again 
 may be supposed collected in this last point, and made to 
 balance against a fourth position, and their common cen- 
 tre of gravity computed. In this way the process may by 
 successive steps be carried to any extent, and whatever 
 order is followed the result will be always the same." 
 (.Leslie's Elements of Nat. Phil.) 
 
 The centre of gravity of a triangle is in the straight line 
 drawn from any one of its angles to bisect the opposite side, 
 and at the distance of two-thirds of the whole line from the 
 vertex. The centre of gravity of a pyramid is in the straight 
 line drawn from the vertex to the centre of gravity of the 
 base, and at three-fourths of the distance of this line from 
 the vertex. The centre of gravity of a hemisphere is in 
 the diameter, and at the distance of five-eighths of the ra- 
 dius from the summit. 
 
 The centre of gravity of irregular bodies may be found 
 mechanically in various ways. If the body be poised in 
 two different positions on a sharp edge, the vertical drawn 
 from the point of intersection will pass through the centre 
 of gravity. Or if a loose thread or string have its ends fast- 
 ened to two distinct points of the body, and the body be 
 thus suspended in two different positions from a fixed 
 point, the verticals let fall from this will cross in the centre 
 of gravity. • 
 
 It is a remarkable property of the centre of gravity, that 
 if a plane figure be generated by the revolution of a given 
 line, or a solid by the revolution of a given plane figure, the 
 area in the first case, or the volume in the second, is equal 
 to the product of the generating quantity into the length of 
 the line described by its centre of gravity. This property, 
 which is frequently of use in determining the quadrature 
 of curves and the cubature of solids, is called Guidin'a 
 theorem ; though it is found In the Collections of Pappus. 
 
 Another elegant geometrical property of the centre of 
 gravity is, that in any given plane the sum of the squares 
 of the distances of any number of physical points from their 
 common centre of gravity, is less than the sum of the squares 
 of their distances from any point in the circumference of 
 a circle described about that centre, by the square of the 
 radius multiplied by the number of those points. Bence 
 it follows that the sum of the squares of the distances of 
 any number of points from their common centre of gravity 
 is always a minimum. 
 
 For a complete explanation of the method of applying 
 the calculus to the determination of the centre of gravity 
 of bodies, we refer to the Traill <b Meeanique of Poisson. 
 torn. i. The subject necessarily occupies a part of every 
 work on statics. 
 
 Centre of Gyration of a body, or system of bodies, is 
 a point in which, if the whole mass were collected, a force 
 applied at any distance from the axis of suspension would 
 Communicate to the mass thus collected the same angular 
 velocity that it would have communicated to the system in 
 its first condition. 
 
 It is evident from the definition that the point in question 
 must have tl lis property, that if the whole mass were united 
 in it, the moment of inertia, or the power of resisting the 
 effort of any force, will be the same as the moment of in- 
 ertia of the body in its first state. Let, therefore, p 
 A, It, and C be a system of bodies, connected in 
 an invariable manner, and turning about an axis P. 
 Let a, b, and c be the respective distances of A, B, 
 and C from P ; and conceive X to be another body 
 placed at a distance x from the axis, such that its _ 
 moment of inertia is equal to the moment of iner- _ ' 
 tia of A. Then, by the principles of mechanics, "^ 
 the moment of inertia of A is Aa ? , and that of X 
 is X\r s ; therefore, by hypothesis, Xi—A'd 1 . 
 In like manner, conceive another body Y to be placed at 
 the distance x from the axis, such that its moment of in- 
 ertia is equal to that of B, or such that Y\r* = Bb' 2 ; and 
 a third body Z be placed at the same point, such that Zi' 
 = C'f'. Taking the sums of these equals we have (X + 
 Y + Z) x 2 = Aa 2 + B.6 8 -f- Cc". Now in this equation 
 we are at liberty to give either to X + Y -(- Z or to x any 
 value we please. Let us then suppose X -)- Y + Z = A 
 + B + C (which is evidently the same as supposing all the 
 matter in the system united at the point whose distance is 
 x), and we shall have 
 
 x= f A-»'+ B-6"+C-c' U 
 V A+B+C / 
 
 to express the distance of the centre of gyration from the 
 axis. 
 
 Centre op Oscillation is that point in a body, oscil- 
 lating about a fixed axis, into which, if the whole mass 
 were collected, the body would vibrate through a given 
 angle by the force of gravity in the same time as in its first 
 condition. 
 
 In order to find the point having this property, conceive 
 the weights A, B, and C fixed to a slender inflexible rod, 
 vibrating about the point S, the centre of oscillation being 
 203 
 
 atO. In every position of the system, the tangents to the 
 arcs which the bodies respectively describe make equal 
 angles with the horizon ; consequently the bodies 
 are all urged by the same proportion of the total 
 force of gravity. But if the bodies had not been 
 connected with each other, their descent through 
 similar arcs, A E, B F, C H, in the same interval 
 of time, would require the accelerating forces to 
 be proportional to those arcs, or to S A, S B, 8 
 C. Let S O, therefore, represent the accelerat- 
 ing force at O ; then A O and B O will denote 
 the excess of the force by which A and B are 
 respectively accelerated, and C O the excess 
 of the force by which C is retarded. But the effects of 
 these forces on the motion of the system must be propor- 
 tional to the weights of the bodies ; and by the principles 
 of the lever, they must also be proportional to the respec- 
 tive distances of the bodies from the point of suspension. 
 They are consequently represented bv A • S A ■ A O, B • S 
 B • B O, and C • S C • C O. But the accelerating action at 
 the centre O must necessarily be equal to that of retarda- 
 tion ; consequently ASAAO + BSBBO = CSC- 
 C O. Now let S A = a, S B = b, S C = c, and S O =/, 
 and the equation becomes by substitution A ■ a if— <*) + 
 B • b (/— b) = C ■ c (c — /), or (A • a + B • b + C • c)/ 
 = A • a s + B • 6" + C ■ c , whence 
 
 J A-a + B b + C c ' 
 
 that is to say, the distance of the centre of oscillation from 
 the point of suspension, or the length of the simple pendu- 
 lum which vibrates in the same time with the compound 
 body, is found by taking the sum of the products of the 
 weights into the squares of their distances from the axis of 
 the "pendulum, and dividing this sum by the sum of the 
 products of the weights into their distances simply. 
 
 Though the system has here been supposed to be formed 
 of separate bodies, the principle is universal, and applies 
 to bodies of any form. Let d m represent an element of 
 the body, and x its distances from the point of suspension, 
 
 fx- '/ "l 
 
 then/= /jc ilm - 
 
 It may be remarked, that the denominator A • a + B • b 
 -f C ■ c is equal to (A + B + C) • S G, the point G being 
 the centre of gravity of the bodies. Now if we denote the 
 distances of A, B, and C from the centre of gravity G by 
 a, /?, y respectively, and make SG = /i, we shall have a 
 z=.h — a,b = h — (S, and c = li + y : whence by involution 
 and substituting in the numerator, and observing that A a. 
 + B /? — C v = 0. we shall find A • «- + B • 6 8 + C. c a 
 = h* (A + B + C)+ A • a" + B • 0' + C • y 2 ; therefore, 
 since OG = SO-SG =/— h, 
 
 OG = A-a* + B-/?«-fcC-r' 
 (A+B + C)SG 
 
 an equation which gives the distance of the centre of oscil- 
 lation from the centre of gravity. 
 
 This last equation indicates a very remarkable property 
 of the centre of oscillation. As the two quantities OG and 
 S G may change places without disturbing the equality, it 
 follows that the centre of oscillation and the point of sus- 
 pension are interchangeable; in otherwords, if the system 
 were suspended from O, it would vibrate exactly in the 
 same time as when suspended from S. This property was 
 noticed by Huygens, and was first practically applied to the 
 purpose of findins the length of the seconds' pendulum by 
 Captain Kater. The application is made as follows :— Let 
 a bar of iron, for example, about four feet long, be sus- 
 pended from a point A, at the distance of four or five inches 
 from one of its extremities, and observe the number of vi- 
 brations it makes in a given time. Then suspend it from 
 another point B, near its other extremity, and let the point 
 of suspension B be moved backwards or forwards till it 
 makes exactly the same number of vibrations in agiven time 
 as when suspended from A. Then the distance between 
 A and B is the length of the isochronous simple pendu- 
 lum. 
 
 On comparing the three expressions for the centre of 
 gravity, the centre of gyration, and the centre of oscillation, 
 it will be seen that the distance of the centre of gyration 
 from the axis is a mean proportional between the distances 
 of the centres of gravity and oscillation. 
 
 The method of'determining the centre of oscillation of 
 compound pendulums was first given by Huygens in hia 
 celebrated work Horologium OsciUatorium. His demon- 
 stration, however, was founded on an indirect principle, 
 which was rather assumed than proved. It consists in 
 this, that if several weights attached in any manner to an 
 inflexible rod or pendulum descend by the action of gravi- 
 ty, and if at any instant they were detached or disengaged 
 from each other, each of them, in virtue of the velocity it 
 had acquired during its descent, would mount to such a 
 height that the common centre of gravity of all of them 
 D d
 
 CENTRIFUGAL. 
 
 would reach exactly the same height as that from which it 
 descended. The first direct demonstration on the princi- 
 ple of the lever was given by James Bernoulli, in the 
 Memoirs of the Academy of Puris for 1703. An interesting 
 history of this problem may be found in the first volume of 
 Lagrange's Mecanique Analylique. 
 
 Centre of Percussion. The point in a solid body, 
 or system of bodies, into which, if the whole matter were 
 supposed to be collected, the effect produced by striking 
 against another body would be the greatest possible ; or 
 it may be defined to be the point in the axis of a moving 
 body at which, if stopped by an immoveable obstacle, the 
 body would rest in equilibrio, without inclining to either 
 side, or acting on the centre of suspension. 
 
 When the percutient body revolves about a fixed axis, 
 the centre of percussion is at the same point with the 
 centre of oscillation ; but when it moves with a parallel 
 motion, the centre of percussion is the same as the centre 
 of gravity. 
 
 Centre op Pressure, of a fluid against, a surface, is 
 that point at which if a force were applied equal to the 
 pressure, and acting in an opposite direction, the surface 
 would remain at rest. 
 
 Centre op Rotation. The point about which a body 
 circulates. It is the same as the centre of motion. 
 
 Centre op Spontaneous Rotation. The name first 
 applied by John Bernoulli to the point about which a body, 
 all whose parts are at liberty to move, and which has been 
 struck in a direction not passing through the centre of 
 gravity, begins to turn. 
 
 CENTRI'FUGAL. (Lat. centrum, and fugio. I retreat.-) 
 A term employed in describing the inflorescence of plants, 
 when, in a head of flowers, the central one opens first, and 
 those of the circumference last. It is also used by car- 
 pologists in describing seeds when the apex of an embryo 
 is turned away from the centre of a fruit. 
 
 CENTRI'FUGAL FORCE. The force by which a body 
 in rotation tends to recede from the centre of motion : 
 Centripetal Force, that by which a body in motion is 
 urged towards a centre, and compelled to describe a 
 curve instead of a straight line. See Central Force. 
 
 CENTRI'FUGAL MACHI'NE. A machine moved by 
 the centrifugal force of water; frequently called, from its 
 inventor, Barker's Mill. It consists of a hollow metal cy- 
 linder or pipe of metal placed upright, and resting on a 
 pointed steel pivot at A. The pipe is widened or extended 
 into a funnel shape at the top B, and is kept in its position 
 by a vertical steel axis C D, passing through a frame at the 
 top. Towards the lower extremity, two or more small 
 pipes A E, A F, with closed external ends, are inserted at 
 right angles to the axis. In the side of each of these an 
 orifice is made as near as possible to the end, and on oppo- 
 site sides, so that water from them may spout horizontally 
 in opposite directions. Water is con- 
 veyed into the funnel at the top, through 
 the pipe G, in such quantities that the 
 tube is kept constantly full, while the 
 discharge is going on at the orifice near 
 the extremities of the horizontal pipes. 
 In this state of things the resistance or 
 reaction generated by the water issuing 
 from the side holes is such as to throw 
 the vertical pipe, with its arms and 
 axis, into rapid rotatory motion ; and 
 this axis may communicate its motion 
 or power to wheelwork or machinery, 
 or to a mill-stone connected with its 
 upper end. (See Library of Useful Knowledge, '' Treatise 
 on Hydraulics ;" also Ferguson's Lectures, by Brewster; 
 or Lar drier's Cabinet Cyclopedia, " Hydrostatics and 
 Pneumatics.") A machine of the same construction, but 
 having the arms at the upper end, and turned rapidly by 
 means of a wheel and pinion, was invented by a Mr. Ers- 
 kine for raising water. Centrifugal Machine is also used 
 synonvmously with Whirling Machine. 
 CENTRI'NG. See Centering. 
 
 CENTRI'PETAL. (Lat. centrum, and peto, Iseek. ) A 
 term employed in describing the inflorescence of plants, 
 when in the unfolding of a head of flowers, those at the 
 circumference open first, and those in the centre last. It 
 is also used by carpologists in describing seeds when the 
 apex of an embryo is directed towards the centre of a 
 fruit. 
 
 CENTRI'SCUS. (Gr. Ktvrpn, aspme.) Agenus of Aean- 
 thoplerygious fishes, having the foremost dorsal placed 
 far backwards, and with its first spine remarkable for its 
 length and strength ; the mouth is slender and elongated, 
 whence they have obtained the name of "sea-snipes." 
 
 CE'NTRUM. (Gr. Ktvrpov, centre.) A term applied 
 by Fries technically to designate the typical division of 
 the groups of species and genera, in his circular arrange- 
 ment of Fungi. Many generic names are compounded, 
 having this word for their root, as Centrogaster, Centroto- 
 phus, Centroprictis, and Centronotus, all genera of spiny- 
 210 
 
 CEPHALO-THORAX. 
 
 finned fishes ; Centropus, a genus of birds, allied to the 
 cuckoos, &c. 
 
 CENTU'MVIRI. In Ancient History, Roman judges 
 chosen three from each of the thirty-five tribes, so that 
 properly there were 105; but they were called centumviri, 
 or the hundred, from the round number. The principal 
 causes that came under them were those concerning tes- 
 taments and inheritances. In the time of Augustus they 
 formed the council of the praetor ; but afterwards their 
 number was increased to ISO, and they were divided into 
 four councils, which, however, were sometimes combined 
 into two courts, or even into one. Ten persons (decemviri) 
 were appointed, five senators and five equites, to assemble 
 these councils and preside in them in the absence of the 
 praetor. 
 
 CE'NTURIES. (Lat. centuriae.) In Ancient History, 
 the divisions in which the Roman people voted at the 
 Comitia Centuriata. They were instituted by Servius 
 Tullius for the purpose of throwing political power into the 
 hands of the plebeians. The patricians were represented 
 by six centuries of knights, and twelve centuries of knights 
 were added to these from the plebeians. The rest of the 
 plebeians and clients were divided into five classes, accord- 
 ing to the amount of their property ; the lower limits of 
 each being respectively 100,000, 75.000, 50,000, 25,0l0, 12,- 
 500 asses. The fi^t of these classes was subdivided into 
 eighty centuries ; the next three into twenty each ; and the 
 last into thirty. The centuries of each class were again 
 separated into two equal numbers of old and young. By 
 this distribution the preponderance was given to property, 
 though the rich classes were of course outnumbered by 
 the poorer. Besides these centuries there were divisions 
 in other bodies that went by the same name, as in the army 
 half a maniple was called a century. 
 
 CENTU'RION. In Ancient History, an officer in the 
 Roman army, who had the command of half a maniple, or 
 one sixtieth part of a legion. The word centurion signifies 
 the commander of 100 men ; but this number was in fact 
 seldom complete, as the legion generally fell far short of 
 its full complement. One of the two centurions of each 
 maniple had a precedence before the other ; and the cen- 
 turion of the first century of the first maniple of the Tria- 
 rians presided over all the others, and had the charge of 
 the eagle or chief standard of the legion, which gave him 
 the privilege of ranking with the knights. The badge of a 
 centurion was a vim' rod. 
 
 CEPHALA'NTHIl M (Gr. K£tj>a\r,, the head, and avdos, 
 a flower.) A term invented by Richard to express the 
 head or capitate inflorescence of a composite plant. 
 
 CEPHA'LIC. (Gr. Kupa\n, the head.) Medicines used 
 for the relief of diseases of the head are frequently termed 
 ■ remedies. 
 CEPHALITIS. Inflammation of the brain, 
 CEPHALO'DIUM. (Gr, Ki<j>a\ji, ahead,) In Botany, a 
 term used by systematic writers or. lichens, and signifying 
 l lie figure of a convex shield without an elevated rim : it is 
 called also a luberculum. 
 
 CE'PIIALOTIIORA. (Gr. Ktfa'Xi/, the head, and <j>tpa), 
 I bear.) A name substituted by De Blainville in his system 
 of Malacolosv for the " Cephalopoda" of Cuvier. 
 
 CEPHA'LOPODS, Cephahrpnda. (Gr. K£<pa\n. the head, 
 and ttovs, the foot.) A class of Molluscous animals having 
 the head situated between the body and the feet; these 
 latter organs consist of a number of fleshy processes, 
 which project forwards from the circumference of the 
 head, and more or less conceal the mouth. The Cepha- 
 lopods are the first class of Mollusca in the system of Cuvier, 
 urn] the most highly organized of invertebrate animals. 
 They alone present indubitable rudiments of an internal 
 skeleton, developed for the purpose of protecting a brain 
 and lodging organs of sight, and, in most of the existing 
 species, organs of hearing. In these also there are dis- 
 tinct hearts, both for the systemic and pulmonary circu- 
 lations ; and highly complicated digestive, secretory, respi- 
 ratory, and generative organs. The sexes are in distinct 
 individuals. All the species are marine. The principal 
 features of the organization of this class of Invertebrata 
 are described by Aristotle, and their habits wer§ better 
 understood by that ancient author than by modern natu- 
 ralists of the present day. The Cephalopoda are described 
 and grouped toaether in the Historia Animalium, under 
 the name of " Malakia." 
 
 CE'PHALOTA'CE^l. (Cephalotus, the only genus.) 
 A small natural order of Exogens, allied, according to 
 Labillardiere, to Rosaceaz, according to Brown to Fran- 
 coaceos. and Crassidacea:.. Its affinity appears, however, to 
 be greater with Dionea than with the previous orders. It 
 consists of a single species, with pitcher-like bodies mixed 
 willi its leaves; it is* a marsh plant inhabiting New Hol- 
 land. 
 
 CE'PHALO THO'RAX. (Gr. KStpa^ri, the head, and 
 ■S-topaJ, the chest.) The first segment of Arachnidans and 
 Crustaceans, which includes the head and thorax of in- 
 sects.
 
 CEPOLA. 
 
 CF/POLA. (Der. unknown.) The name of a genus of 
 Epiny-finned fishes, including the common riband-fish (Ce- 
 jtula rubescens) of the British coasts. 
 
 CERA'CEUS. (Lat. cera, it ax.) In Botany, waxy. 
 Applied to the substance of such bodies as have the texture 
 and colour of new wax, as the pollen masses of particular 
 kinds of Orchis. 
 
 CE'RAMBY'CIDjE. A family of Capricorn beetles, 
 characterized by antennae generally exceeding the length 
 of the body; a large and distinct labium; strong horny 
 mandibles; maxilla; terminated by two distinct hairy lobes; 
 eyes kidney-shaped, with the antenna 1 situated in the con- 
 cavity ; body generally long and narrow. Tim numerous 
 insects of this vegetable-feeding family are arranged in 
 many subgenera, of which the following are indigenous : 
 Acanthocinue, Apfu ( 
 
 Lamia, Molorchus, Monochamus, Obrium, Pogonoeherus, 
 Saperaa, and Stenopterus. One of the most remarkable 
 species of our country is the musk-beetle ( Ct rambyx mos- 
 chalus of Linnaeus, CaUichroma of Latreille), which, when 
 alive, disseminates an odour resembling sometimes that 
 ol the otto of roses. 
 
 • L'rasin* Cherry-tree gum. A generic name given 
 to those kinds of gum which swell and soften, but do not 
 readily dissolve in water. 
 
 CERA'STES. (Qr. xspat, a horn.) Tim name of a ge- 
 nus of poisonous serpents, characterized by f 
 pointed recurved horny process Standing up over each 
 eye: the horned vipers, as they are termed, are peculiar 
 to Africa. 
 
 CE'RATE. (Or. ktjpoc, or Lat. cera, wax.) An oint- 
 ment generally compounded of was and oil or Bpei n 
 
 I IK \ 'III M, (Gr. Kepas, a horn.) A one-celled, ma- 
 ny-seeded, superior linear fruit; dehiscent by two 
 separating from the replum; Hie seeds attached to two 
 spnr>" adhering to the replum, and alternate 
 
 with liie lobes of the stigma. It differs from the Siliqua in 
 the lobes of the stigma being alternate with the placenta, 
 not opposite. 
 
 CE'RATOPHYLLA'CE.E. (Ccratophyllnm. the only 
 genus.) A small natural order ol Exogens, allied, accord 
 ing to Richard, to Conifera, in it to winch it seems to have 
 no kind of affinity. According to De ( 
 placed near Hippuria and atyrio\ hyllum, from which it 
 differs in its superior ovat rig to Agai Ih il be- 
 
 longs to Fhiviates: its affinity, however, ap 
 
 greatest Willi / Y/e , .. 
 
 deration. The order consists but ol which 
 
 is found in the dtp-lies oi" Europe, being ci i 
 merged, and floating with its long green leaves after the 
 manner of a Conferva The embryo appears to be deci- 
 :i. Polycotj ledonous : otherwise the plant would cer- 
 tainly be referred to 
 
 CERATO'PHYTES. Ceratophyta. (Gr. Ktpag, a 
 and fvTov, a plant. | \ name applied by Cuvier to a fami- 
 ly of Corliciferous Polyp riding those in which 
 the Interna] axis resembles horn or wood. 
 
 CE'RATRIN. The bitter principle of Iceland moss. 
 
 CE'RBERl 8. In Mythology, a monster usually repre- 
 sented as the guardian of the entrance to the infernal re- 
 gions, ami described by the ancient authors as possessing 
 fifty, or even a hundred heads. 
 
 CERCA'RLE. (Gr. KcpKtrs, a tail.) A family of Infu- 
 soria, having an enlarged body with a slender tail-like ap- 
 fiendage. The body of the true Cercaria ol 
 nfusiores is rounded, that of the Zoospi 
 rules of the seminal secretion is flattened. See Zoo- 
 SPERMI 
 
 GKIM'O I'ID.F. Sir ClCADEIAANS. 
 
 CE'RCOPfTHE'CUS. (Gr. KtpKOS, a tail, and iridrjicos, 
 an ape.) The name of the genus of Quadrumanes, inclu- 
 ding those which have long tails, bul not prehensile; or 
 the " monkeys" of the old world. 
 
 CERE. (Lat. cera, ira.r.) In Ornithology, the naked 
 and generally coloured skin which covers the b 
 hill in some birds, as in those of the hawk tribe (Falcon- 
 idm.) 
 
 CE'REAL GRASSES. (Lat ceres, corn.) Grasses 
 which produce the bread corns; such as wheat, rye, bar- 
 lev, oats, maize, rice, and millet. 
 
 'CEREBE'LLUM. ' (Lat. dim. of cerebrum, the brain.) 
 The little brain ; the posterior of the medullary masses 
 which compose the brain of vertebrate animal's. It is a 
 single organ. Set Brain. 
 
 CERE'BRUM. (Lat.) The third medullary mass of 
 the brain, counting from behind forwards; il is divided in 
 the mesial line into two lateral lobes or hemispheres, and 
 is the only part, of the cerebral organ whose development 
 bears relation lo the int el licence of the species 
 
 CEREMO'NIAL OF EUROPEAN POWERS, compri- 
 ses — 1. The particular titles due to sovereigns in different 
 slates; the imperial tille being considered as expressing 
 some sort of superiority over the royal, and having been 
 in consequence assumed by various' kings in their public 
 211 
 
 CEROSTROTUM 
 
 acts (as the King of England since the union of the crowns). 
 2. The acknowledgment of sovereign titles, the right to 
 confer which was formerly claimed by the Popes as their 
 own prerogative, but they are now assumed by princes, 
 and confirmed by the acknowledgment of other sover- 
 eigns. 3. The respective prerogatives of different sover- 
 eigns ; which species of precedence is that which has oc- 
 casioned the greatest amount of discussion and dispute 
 when sovereigns, or their representatives, have been 
 brought together. In 1504, Pope Julius II. arranged the 
 rank of European powers in the following order: 1. The 
 Roman Emperor ; 2. The King of Rome ; 3. France ; 4. 
 Castile; 5. Aragon ; 6. Portugal; 7. England; 8. Sicily; 9. 
 Scotland: 10. Hungary: 11. Navarre ; 12. Cyprus; 13. Bo- 
 hemia; 14. Poland ; 15. Denmark : 16. Republic of Venice; 
 17. Duke of Britanny; IS. Burgundy; 19. Elector of Bava- 
 ria; 20. Saxony; 21. Brandenburg; 22. Archduke of Aus- 
 tria ; 23. Dukeol Savoy ; 24. Grand Duke of Florence ; 25. 
 Duke of Milan ; 26. Bavaria; 27. Lorraine. This arrange- 
 ment, however, gave birth to repeated contests. At pre- 
 sent, where precedence is not considered as established 
 between rulers of equal dignity, each concedes to the 
 other precedence at home; and when they meet on the 
 territory of a third party, they lake precedence alternately 
 until some arrangemenl is effected. 
 
 CEREMONIES, MASTER OPTHE. An officer of the 
 king's household instituted by .lames I. for the more hon- 
 ourable reception of ambassadors and strangers of quality . 
 it is his duly io attend and regulate all matters of etiquette 
 in the drawing room and the levee, mid on all occasions 
 where the state ol ;i courl is to he maintained. 
 
 CEREOTSIS The generic name of an Australian 
 goose, characterized by a green cere-like naked membrane 
 covering the upper parts of the base of the bill. Il has bred 
 frequently in England, and there is every probability that 
 it will ultimately become naturalized. 
 
 CE'RES. One of He- four new or telescopic planets 
 
 which revolve between the orbits of Mars ami Jupiter. It 
 
 was discovered by Piazzi on the 1st of January, 1801. Ceres 
 
 ry small planet, iis apparent diameter, according to 
 
 Schroeter, i ch at its mean dista 
 
 corresponds to about 1600 miles; but according to Sir W. 
 
 Herscnel ii jd 35", or 160 miles. 
 
 The difficult) I ing Its real disk, on account of 
 
 ebulosity bj which ii is surrounded, accounts for 
 
 I mean i i m thi an i rather 
 
 more than three times the distance of the sun from the 
 earth. See PLANET. 
 
 i i res. In Mythology, the Latin goddess correspond- 
 ing to the Grecian Demeter (Aij/iijrijp), was the patroness 
 the daughter of Saturn and Rhea, and, 
 
 by Jupiter, mi er\ The most remarkable 
 
 mnected with this goddess was the celebration of 
 in mysteries, over which she presided. 
 CE'RKl s. (Lat cera. wax.) In Botany, a colour, sur- 
 face, or texture which resembles thai of wax. 
 
 (K'RIN. The portion of wax which dissolves in boiling 
 alcohol. Also a peculiar waxy substance obtained by boil- 
 , in alcohol, 
 Cldil'VIIII \NS Followers of Cerinthus, a heretic of 
 the first or second century, who embraced certain gnosti- 
 cal views respecting the natures and relations of God the 
 Father and Son. He concervi I the supreme God to be 
 the father or originator both of the Deitv from whom pro- 
 ceeded the O. Test, ami of Christ; thai the God of the 
 Jews was also the creator of this world ; and that his do- 
 minion over it was superseded by the mission of Christ, 
 who was a son of the supreme Deity residing in a human 
 body. See Gnostics. 
 
 CE'RIO. A term invented by Murleel to denote the 
 fruit called a Caryopsis, which see. 
 
 ( T'.'RITE. A silicious oxide of cerium. 
 CE'RIUM. A metal named after the planet Ceres, and 
 discovered in 1803 by Hisinger ami Berzelius in a Swedish 
 mineral termed cerite, and since found by Dr. Thomson in 
 Allanite, a mineral from Greenland. It is said to be a 
 white brittle metal, very difficult of fusion, and volatile 
 when intensely heated ; but we are scarcely acquainted 
 widi it in iis metallic state. Its equivalent number appears 
 to be 48. on the hydrogen scale. 
 
 CE'RINFS. 'Lat. cera. ira.r. ) In Botany, waxy yel- 
 low ; a term used in describing colour, to denote a dull 
 yellow with a slight mixture of reddish brown. 
 
 CERO'MA. (Gr. Kfipoiixa.) In Ancient Architecture, 
 the apartment in a bath or gymnasium in which persons 
 anointed themselves Willi a composition of oil and wax. 
 
 CEROPI.A'STIC. (Gr. Kr/nos. irax. and 7r>coru-J7 rE^r^, 
 theartoj tn > ; I The art of modelling in 
 
 wax, one of very high antiquity. From the testimony of 
 Pliny we learn that Lysistratus, the brolher of Lysippus, 
 was the first that used wax for modelling the human fi- 
 gure. He lived in the time of Alexander the Great, and 
 was a nativ" of Sicyon. 
 CEROSTRO'TUM, or CESTRO'TUM. (Gr. Kvpos
 
 CERTIIIA. 
 
 wax, and arptoros, spread.) A species of encaustic paint- 
 ing, executed chiefly on horn or ivory with a particular 
 sort of stylum called a cestrum, which was pointed at one 
 end and flat on the other. The cestrum was heated, and 
 with it the lines of the subject were burnt in, and wax in- 
 troduced into the furrows made by the heated instrument. 
 (See Pliny, lib. xi. cap. 37., also lib. xvi. cap. 48. ; also 
 Salinas, ad Solin. p. 231.) Doors were sometimes orna- 
 mented with this species of painting. Ausonius, Epigr. 
 26. v. 10.— 
 
 Ceris inurens januarum limina, 
 Et atriorum pegmata. 
 
 CE'RTHIA. (Gr. KepOeig, part of Keipco, 1 clip or shear.) 
 A genus of Anisodactyle or uneven-toed Tenuirostral or 
 slender-billed Passerine birds, commonly known by the 
 name of Creepers. The common tree-creeper (Certhia 
 familiaris, Linn.) is a well-known native species. 
 
 CE'RTIORA'RI. In Law, is an original writ issuing out 
 of Chancery or the King's Bench, directed to the judges 
 or officers of inferior courts, commanding them to certify 
 or return the records of a cause depending before them. 
 By this writ indictments and many other proceedings may 
 be removed from any inferior court of jurisdiction into the 
 King's Bench. It lies generally in all judicial proceedings 
 in which a writ of error does not lie ; but not, in common 
 cases, to remove a cause out of an inferior court after 
 verdict. 
 
 CE'RULIN. Indigo which has been dissolved in sul- 
 phuric acid. 
 
 CERU'MEN. (Lat. cera, wax.) The secretion which 
 lines the external auditory canal. It consists of albumen, 
 an oily matter, a colouring matter, soda, and phosphate of 
 lime. 
 
 CE'RUSE. (Lat. cerussa.) Carbonate of lead, the basis 
 of white oil-paint. It is commonly called white lead. 
 
 CERVI'NUS. (Lat. cervus, a stag.) In Botany, fawn- 
 coloured. 
 
 CE'RVIX. (Literally the lower part of the neck.) An 
 obsolete botanical term, superseded by that of Rhizoma, 
 which see. 
 
 CE'SSIO BONO'RUM. In the Civil Law (and in the 
 modern jurisprudence of France, Spain, Holland, and 
 Scotland), a yielding up on the part of an insolvent trader 
 of his estate and effects to creditors, under the authority 
 of the competent court ; analogous to the assignment of 
 estate and effects under a fiat in bankruptcy in England. 
 See as to the several regulations respecting the cessio bo- 
 noriun in these different countries, Burge's Commentaries 
 on Colonial and Foreign Laws, iii. 890. <&c. 
 
 CE'STOI'DEANS, Cestoidea. (Gr. wards, embroidered, 
 and etdos, likeness ; riband like.) The name of an order 
 of Sterelmintha, or Parenchymatous Entozoa, including 
 those which are commonly called tape-worms. 
 
 CESTRA'CEiE. (Cestrum, one of the genera.) In 
 Botany, a very small group of plants, most usually com- 
 bined with Solanacea}, but by some botanists separated on 
 account of their straight embryo, foliaceous cotyledons, 
 and valvate corolla. Some of the species have fragrant 
 flowers, especially at night ; others emit an unpleasant 
 odour. Some are astringent, others are said to be poi- 
 sonous. 
 
 CESTRA'CION. (Gr. ncarpaios, the name of a fish.) 
 In Ichthyology, a genus of sharks, characterized by having 
 two kinds of teeth, disposed in oblique subspiral rows; 
 those at the anterior part of the jaws are pointed, and 
 adapted for seizing or grappling shell-fish, <fec. ; those at 
 the middle and back part of the jaws are flattened for 
 crushing the same : the fishes of this genus are also re- 
 markable for the large spine placed in front of the first 
 dorsal fin. Only two existing species of this genus are 
 known, one of which is called "the Port Jackson shark;" 
 the fossil remains of Cestracions are numerous. 
 
 CE'STRUM. (Lat.) In Painting, a tool used by the an- 
 cients in executing the species of pictures called cerostroti. 
 Sec Gerostrotum. 
 
 CETA'CEANS, Cetacea. (Gr. kt\tos, a tchale.) An or- 
 der of Mammals living in the sea or large rivers, and 
 shaped like fishes for moving habitually in the watery ele- 
 ment, having the posterior part of the spine disencumbered 
 of a sacrum and hinder extremities to allow the tail to have 
 a due freedom and extent of motion. They breathe air, 
 have warm blood, and a double circulation, like the rest 
 of the class to which they belong ; they are consequently 
 compelled to resort to the surface for the purpose of res- 
 piration ; and the tail-fin is accordingly horizontal, and not 
 vertical, as in true fishes. 
 
 CE'TE. (Gr. Kinros, a vthale.) The name of the sixth 
 order of Mammalia in the Systemm Natures, of Linnaeus, 
 containing those marine species which are devoid of hind- 
 er extremities. The group corresponds with the carnivo- 
 rous group of the modern Cetacea, the manatee being as- 
 sociated in the Linnrean system with the elephant. 
 
 CE'TIC ACID. The result of the action of alkalis upon 
 tetine. 
 
 212 
 
 CHALLENGE. 
 
 CE'TINE. Pure spermaceti. 
 
 CE'TUS. (Gr. Krjros, the whale.) One of Ptolemy's 
 forty-eight constellations, in the southern hemisphere. 
 
 CEVA'DIC ACID. An acid contained in the seed of 
 the Veratrum sabadilla. 
 
 CEVADI'LLA. See Sabadilla. 
 
 CE'YLANITE. A mineral found in rounded grains or 
 small crystals, nearly opaque, and of a dark blue or black 
 colour : it was first observed in the sand of the rivers of 
 Ceylon. 
 
 CHABA'SIE. A variety of zeolite. (From a Greek 
 word signifying a particular kind of stone.) 
 
 CHACO'NE, or C1ACONE. (Spanish.) In Music, a 
 kind of dance resembling a saraband, of Moorish origin. 
 The bass of it consists of four notes, which proceed in 
 conjoint degrees, whereon the harmonies are made with 
 the same burden. Some have derived this dance from 
 cieco, a blind man, its supposed inventor. 
 
 CHAFF. The husk or withered calyx of grasses, and 
 more especially of the bread corns. The term is also ap- 
 plied to straw or hay cut into very short lengths, and used 
 for mixing with corn, roots, or other food for horses or 
 cattle. This kind of chaff, in greater lengths, is also used 
 for mixing with mortar on some parts of the Continent, 
 more particularly in Germany and Russia; and it is used 
 as a substitute for hair in making plaster for rooms. 
 Both stubble and cut hay were used by the ancient Egyp- 
 tians in making bricks. 
 
 CHAFF OF THE RECEPTACLE. A term used by 
 some botanists to denote the bracts which are stationed 
 upon the receptacle of Composite flowers, between the 
 florets ; they have generally a membranaceous texture, 
 and no colour, and are usually called Paleee. 
 
 CHA'FFY, PALEACEOUS. When a surface is co- 
 vered with small, weak, erect membranous scales, re- 
 sembling the chaff of corn, as the receptacle of many 
 Composite plants. 
 
 CHAI'LLETIA'CEjE. (Chailletia, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of shrubby arborescent Exogens, placed 
 by De Candolle between Homaliacea and Aquilariacece ; 
 agreeing with the former in the presence of glands round 
 the ovary, but differing in its superior ovary, with the pla- 
 centa in the axis, and in many other characters. Its affin- 
 ity, however, appears to be greater with Rhamnacea., with 
 which it agrees in habit. It inhabits the hotter parts of 
 the world, and some species are said to be poisonous. 
 
 CHALA'ZA. (Gr. %aXa£a, in the sense of a £no6.) In 
 Botany, the vascular disk caused by the expansion of the 
 vessels of the raphe, upon reaching the base of the nu- 
 cleus of an ovule, after passing up the side of the latter. 
 
 CHALA'ZA. (Gr. xaXo^a, hail.) A name applied to 
 the two membranous twisted chords attached to near the 
 poles of the yolk of an egg, and serving to maintain it in 
 such a position that the cicatricula shall always be upper- 
 most, and consequently nearest the source of heat during 
 the process of incubation. 
 
 CHALCE'DONY. A semitransparent silicious mineral, 
 apparently formed by the infiltration of silicious matters 
 originally in a state of solution. It is of various colours, 
 and often banded. The finest specimens are said to have 
 been originally found at Chalcedon in Asia. 
 
 CHALCI'DICUM. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, ac- 
 cording to Festus so named from Chalcis, a city in Eubcea. 
 A term used by Vitruvius to denote a large building appro- 
 priated to the purpose of administering justice, or accord- 
 ing to others Ihe tribunal itself. 
 
 CHALCO'GRAPHY. (Gr. \a\Kos, brass, and ypa<j>oj, 
 I write.) The art of engraving on copper or brass. 
 
 CHA'LDRON. (Lat. chaldarium ; Fr. chaudron, whence 
 also cauldron.) A measure containing 36 bushels heaped 
 measure. 
 
 CHALK. (Germ, kalk.) Earthy carbonate of lime. It 
 forms an important geological feature of England, the 
 chalk hills which form the white cliffs of the shores hav- 
 ing conferred the name of Albion upon the island. Geo- 
 logically considered, it is an important feature among the 
 secondary rocks. The cretaceous formation is character- 
 ized by peculiar fossils, and especially by containing flints. 
 The ranges of chalk hills in the south of England are very 
 extensive, and the landscape which they constitute pecu- 
 liar for the smooth and rounded outline of its hills, their 
 monotony of surface, and the singular cup-shaped conca- 
 vities and deep hollows in which their sides abound. Be- 
 tween Dunstable and Shaftesbury the chalk hills attain an 
 elevation of nearly 1000 feet above the level of the sea. 
 Between Lewes in Sussex and Alton in Hampshire there 
 are several similar elevations. 
 
 CHALK STONES. The concretions formed in the 
 joints of persons who have long suffered from gout were 
 once supposed of a chalky nature, and acquired the above 
 name. They are chiefly composed of uric acid in combi- 
 nation with soda. 
 
 CHA'LLENGE. In Law, an exception to jurors who 
 are returned to serve on a trial. See Jury.
 
 CHALYBEATE. 
 
 CHALY'BEATE. (Gr. x^vrp.) The Chalybes were 
 a Scythian people who dug iron. Medicines and mineral 
 waters containing iron are called chulybeates. 
 
 cif.V'MA. (Gr. x a ™, I gape.) The cockle. 
 
 CHAMA'CEANS. (Lat. chamacea.) In Conchotomy, 
 the family of Acephalous Lamellibranchiate Mollusks, of 
 which the genus Chama, or clam-shells, is the type. The 
 group is characterized among bivalves by having the mantle 
 perforated by three apertures; one for the passage of the 
 foot, another for the respiratory currents, and a third for 
 the escape of the excrements. 
 
 CHAME'LEOX, Chameleo. (Gr. Ka^al\cu>v, a lizard.) 
 A genus of Saurian reptiles with small tubercular scales, 
 and the tail and feet organized for clinging to the branches 
 of trees. The chameleons subsist not on air, as poets feign 
 and the uninformed believe, but on flies and other insects, 
 which are caught by means of a remarkably long and ex- 
 tensible tongue, terminated by a finger-shaped process like 
 the elephant's proboscis, and which the chameleon can 
 dart upon its prey with great rapidity. The rete mucosum 
 or coloured layer of the skin contains two kinds of pigment, 
 situated in different layers ; the deeper seated layer is of a 
 deep green or violet red colour, the superficial pigment is 
 of a grayish colour ; the deep-seated pigment is contained 
 in branched cavities, and is moveable, producing by its 
 partial accumulation and varying proportions with the su- 
 perficial layer the changes of colour for which the chame- 
 leon has in all ases been remarkable. 
 
 CHAM.F.'LLON MINERAL. A compound of manga- 
 nesic acid and potash, which presents a variety of tints 
 when dissolved in water. 
 
 CHA'MBER. (Fr. chambre.) In Architecture, proper- 
 ly a room vaulted or arched ; but now generally used in a 
 more restricted sense to mean an apartment appropriated 
 to lodging. With the French the word has a much more 
 extensive meatiinz; but with us the almost only use of it, 
 beyond what is above stated, is as applied in a palace to the 
 room in which the sovereign receives the subject, which 
 is called the Presence Chamber. 
 
 CHA'MBERLAIN. (Fr. chatnbellan ; Germ, kammer- 
 herr ) A hiirh officer in all European courts. On_ r 
 the chamberlain was the keeper of the treasure-chamber 
 (camera, in the 10th century ) ; and (his meaningof the word 
 is still preserved, in tbe usages of the corporations of Lon- 
 don and other places, where the chamberlain is the officer 
 who keeps the money belonging to the municipal body. 
 Bat, in modern times, the court officer styled chamberlain 
 has the charge of the private apartments of the sovereign 
 or noble to whom he is attached. In England, the lord 
 great chamberlain, or kina's chamberlain, is one of the 
 three great officers of the king's household. He has the 
 control of all the officers above stairs, except the precinct 
 of the bedchamber, which is under the government of the 
 groom of the stole. Under him are the vice-chamberlain, 
 lord of the bedchamber, &c. ; the chaplains, officers of the 
 wardrobe, physicians, tradesmen, artizans. and others re- 
 tained in his majesty's service are in his department, and 
 sworn into office by him. He is commonly one of the high- 
 est nobility of the country ; in virtue of his situation he pre- 
 cedes dukes. The emblem of office appropriated to the 
 chamberlain in European courts is a gold key, generally 
 suspended from two gold buttons. 
 
 The Lord Great Chamberlain of England (not of the 
 household) is the sixth great officer of state. This office 
 belonged for many centuries to the noble family of Do V. re, 
 Earls of Oxford ; afterward to that of Bertie, Lords Wil- 
 loughby de Eresby and Dukes of Ancaster. In that line it 
 became vested in coheiresses, by whom the present deputy 
 chamberlain (Lord Gwydir) is appointed. 
 
 CHA'MBRE ARDENTE. In French History, a name 
 given to the tribunal which was instituted by Francis I. for 
 the purpose of trying and burning heretics; and also the 
 extraordinary commissions established under Louis XIV. 
 for the examination of prisoners, and under the regent 
 Duke of Orleans against public officers charged with cer- 
 tain offences against the revenues, and those guilty of fraud 
 in the matter of Law's bank. 
 
 CHA'MBRE DES COMPTES. (Chamber of Accounts.) 
 In French History, a great court established for various 
 purposes; as for the registration of edicts, ordinances, let- 
 ters patent, treaties of peace, &c. The sovereign chambre 
 des comptes was at Paris : there were also inferior courts 
 in ten provincial cilies. 
 
 CHA'MFER. (Fr. chamfrein ) In Architecture, the 
 edge of anything originally right-angled cut aslope or bevel, 
 so that the plane it then form? is inclined less than a right 
 ansle to the other planes with which it intersects. 
 
 CHA'MOMILE FLOWERS. The flower-heads of the 
 An'hemis yiohi'is, or common chamomile. They are used 
 in medicine in consequence of their bitter extract, which 
 is strengthening, and of their essential oil, which is aro- 
 matic and stimulant. 
 
 CHAMP DE MARS. In French History, the public as- 
 semblies of the Franks, which were held in the open air, 
 213 
 
 CHANCELLOR. 
 
 and annually in the month of March ; from whence the 
 name. Under Pepin and some of his successors they were 
 termed Champs de Mai. An extensive open space in Paris, 
 appropriated to various public solemnities, is termed the 
 Champ de Mars ; a name which seems also intended to re- 
 call the ancient Campus Martius, or public field of Rome. 
 
 CHA'MPERTY. In Law, is a species of maintenance, 
 being a bargain with the plaintiff or defendant in a suit for 
 the ' : campi partitio," or division of the land or thing in 
 dispute between the party, if he prevails at law. and the 
 champerter, on the latter's bearing the expense of the suit. 
 It is a punishable offence both by common law and by 
 statute. 
 
 CHA'MPION. (From the Italian campione, derived 
 from campOj^e/d ; or from the ancient German and Gothic 
 kempe, kiempe, a warrior; whence some have derived 
 also the Spanish campeador, a title of the Cid.) One who 
 fights a public combat, or engages to do so, in his own or 
 another man's quarrel. On the issue in a writ of right, trial 
 by battle might formerly be demanded; and in this case 
 (see Wager of Battle), each party appeared in the field 
 by his champion. The judicial combat in criminal cases 
 miiiht in some countries, although not in England, be fought 
 by a champion for either of the parlies, if an ecclesiastic, 
 woman, or child. The office of champion of the crown of 
 Ensland is of great antiquity ; the manor of Scrivelsby in 
 Lincolnshire having been held from time immemorial in 
 erand serjeantcy, on condition that the lord thereof shall 
 be the king's champion. This manor was long held by the 
 family of Marmion ; it passed, in the 20th year of Edward 
 I., to the family of Dymocke, in which it has since con- 
 tinued. The champion appears in Westminster Hall at 
 the coronalion, between the covirses of the royal banquet, 
 incomplete armour; his challenge is proclaimed by the 
 herald, waging battle with any person who shall deny or 
 gainsay the title of the king, three times; and the cham- 
 pion throws down his gauntlet. In 1821. at the coronation 
 of Georee IV., it was decided that this office could be per- 
 formed by deputy ; and W. Dymocke being in orders, his 
 place was supplied by his eldest son. 
 
 i HANCE. A term applied to events that are supposed 
 to happen without any known or necessary cause ; or ra- 
 ther, of winch the cause is such that they may happen in 
 one way as well as another. Thus, when a piece of money 
 is tossed up into the air, as no reason can be given why it 
 should fall on one side rather than on the other, it is said 
 to be an even chance which of the sides shall turn up. For 
 an account of this branch of mathematics, sometimes called 
 thi /' '.rineof Chances, see Probability. (See De Mor- 
 gan's Theory of Probabilities.) 
 
 i l[\'VF.L. (Lat. canceling) In Architecture, the 
 part of die choir of a church between the altar and the lat- 
 tices (cancelli) or balustrades that enclose it. This is the 
 strict meanins ; but in many cases the chancel extends 
 much further into the churcli, the original divisions having 
 been removed for the greater accommodation of the con- 
 gregation. 
 
 CHA'NCELLOR. (Lat. cancellarius .) A high officer in 
 many European states. The cancellarius under the Roman 
 emperors is supposed to have been a notary or scribe, and 
 his title to have been derived from the cancelli or railing 
 behind which he sate. In ecclesiastical matters, every 
 bishop had (and continues to have) his chancellor, the prin- 
 cipal judge of his consistory. The chancellor of France 
 began to be an officer of importance under the Frankish 
 kings, especially after the office of referendary had become 
 merged in his. about the ninth century. In 1223 he was 
 made the first minister of the crown, and rank next after 
 the princes of the blood was assigned to him. The offices 
 of chancellor and keeper of the seals were frequently 
 united. 
 
 Chancellor, Arch, of the Empire. This office, under 
 the elective empire of Germany, belonged to the arch- 
 bishop elector of Mentz. The archbishop of Cologne was 
 titular arch-chancellor of Italy, the archbishop of Treves 
 of Gaul and Aries. 
 
 Chancellor of a Diocese. The keeper of the seals 
 of an archbishop or bishop. This office now includes those 
 of official principal, whose duty is to hear and decide mat- 
 ters of temporal cognizance determinable in the bishop's 
 court; and vicar-general, who exercises the jurisdiction 
 properly spiritual. 
 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer. The highest finance 
 minister of the British government. This office is from its 
 nature necessarily entrusted to a commoner, and is com- 
 monly united to that of first lord of the treasury when the 
 premier happens to be below the peerage. The chancel- 
 lor, as an officer of the Court of Exchequer, has precedence 
 above the barons of that court. 
 
 Chancellor of a University. The head of the cor- 
 porate bodies by whom he is elected. He exercises exclu- 
 sive jurisdiction in all civil actions and suits where a mem- 
 ber of the university or privileged person is one of the par- 
 ties, except in cases where the right to freehold is concerned.
 
 CHANCELLOR, CHANCERY. 
 
 The duties of the respective chancellors of Oxford and 
 Cambridge are in nearly all cases discharged by a vice- 
 chancellor. 
 
 Chancellor, Chancery. The office of chancellor is 
 the most ancient as well as the highest of all judicial offi- 
 ces in England ; for though the superior antiquity of 
 his jurisdiction has been questioned, the establishment of 
 the office itself was certainly prior to the institution of any 
 existing court of justice, the name as well as some of the 
 functions, which were borrowed from the "cancellarii" of 
 the later Roman emperors, having been introduced into 
 the country within the first three centuries that followed 
 the dissolution of the Western Empire. 
 
 In addition to his judicial functions, which are various 
 and extensive, the chancellor is now by virtue of his office 
 
 £rivy councillor, and when a peer, speaker of the House of 
 ords ; over all the members of which, with the excep- 
 tion of the archbishop of Canterbury, he then has prece- 
 dence in rank. As chief conservator of the peace, he has 
 the nomination of all magistrates throughout the kingdom ; 
 and he is the patron of all livings of the crown under the 
 value of twenty marks in the king's books. He has also 
 the right of appointment to almost all the offices in the Court 
 of Chancery, particularly to the office of master; and has 
 very great inriuence over the appointment of any of the 
 other judges both of common law and equity. He still re- 
 tains also the title of keeper of the king's conscience, a duty 
 originally incident to his situation in the king's chapel, over 
 the service of which he presided ; and this office may per- 
 haps have afforded a ground for that part of his jurisdic- 
 tion which professes to remedy what is contrary to equity 
 and good conscience. It is further his duty to issue the 
 writs for the convocation of parliament ; and all acts there 
 passed, as well as many records and documents affecting 
 the rights of individuals, — as to the latter in order to their 
 validity, — are enrolled and kept in chancery, under the im- 
 mediate care and custody of the master of the rolls, him- 
 self an officer of that court. The custody of the great seal 
 is the peculiar and essential mark of the chancellor's dig- 
 nity ; and by delivery of that and the proper oaths taken the 
 office is created, with all such of its rights as can be exer- 
 cised by a chancellor not being a peer. 
 
 The jurisdiction ofthe chancellorisof various sorts. And, 
 first, as to his common law jurisdiction. By this is meant 
 that part ofthe chancellor's jurisdiction which is regulated 
 by the same principles, and exercised according to similar 
 forms, as the jurisdiction of the other courts of common 
 law. This is by far the most ancient branch of the chan- 
 cery judicature, and seems to have been originally incident 
 to the nature of the chancellor's office, whose chief busi- 
 ness it was to advise the sovereign on the subject of grants, 
 charters, and letters patent, and to authenticate them by af- 
 fixing the great seal after the introduction of that symbol. 
 Out of this naturally arose a jurisdiction in all matters be- 
 tween the crown and its grantees, and the right to repeal or 
 cancel all grants, charters, and letters patent, which should 
 afterwards appear to be contrary to law, or in other re- 
 spects improperly obtained. In like manner the chancel- 
 lor had jurisdiction in other matters arising out of commis- 
 sions under the great seal ; such as returns made in pur- 
 suance of inquiries under such commissions as to the right 
 of the crown to goods or lands of the subject either by es- 
 cheat, forfeiture, or any other cause ; these were legally 
 called offices. 
 
 To the same court also belonged originally, in the time 
 of feudal tenures, jurisdiction in the case of wardship, and 
 some other matters arising out of such tenures between 
 the crown and its tenants in capite ; but it should be ob- 
 served, that as this court has not the power of summoning 
 a jury, it can in no case try an issue of fact. It is called 
 the Court of the Petty Bag, literally from the size of the 
 bag in which its writs are deposited. To the common law 
 department of chancery belongs also the issuing of origi- 
 nal writs ; that is to say, precepts addressed to the party 
 complained of, stating the nature of the complaint made 
 against him, requiring him to do justice to it, or show cause 
 to the contrary ; such writs being originally the first and a 
 necessary step in all causes which were tried before either 
 of the great courts, or in the "aula regia," before its divi- 
 sion into separate courts. 
 
 In tins department of his office the chancellor was as- 
 sisted by officers named cursitors, whom he was empow- 
 ered to nominate for that purpose, and upon whom the 
 whole business of devising writs soon devolved. The 
 chancery has hence been called OfficinaBrevium, or work- 
 shop of writs; and it is, or was, in respect of the neces- 
 sity of such writs, the foundation or fountain head of all 
 justice ; but this necessity, which had in practice long been 
 satisfied by a fiction, has "been in terms dispensed with by 
 the 2d W. IV. c. 39. The receptacle in which these writs 
 were kept was called the Hanaper,— literally a basket ; and 
 hence the office from which they issued was called Hana- 
 per Office. 
 
 But by far the most extensive as well as most important 
 214 
 
 branch of the chancellor's jurisdiction is the equitable ; in- 
 deed, it is that branch alone which is commonly meant by 
 the term chancery. In this department of his office the 
 chancellor is assisted by the master ofthe rolls and the 
 vice-chancellor ; the first of which is a very ancient office, 
 and the second was established by act of parliament in the 
 53d year of George III. ; who, though they each sit in sepa- 
 rate courts, and exercise their jurisdiction severally, yet 
 together with the lord chancellor constitute one court of 
 chancery, in which all orders and decrees, though most 
 commonly made either by the master of the rolls or the 
 vice-chancellor, require the signature of the chancellor 
 himself, to whom an appeal also lies from the decisions of 
 either ofthe two inferior judges ; but such appeals are in 
 strictness of speech rehearings, the chancellor being by 
 legal fiction supposed to be present in every department of 
 the Court of Chancery. The hearing of such appeals, and 
 of incidental applications, called motions, in original causes, 
 constitutes the ordinary business of the lord chancellor, 
 it not being the usual practice to bring causes in the first 
 instance before him. 
 
 The general object and character of this equitable juris- 
 diction is to suppiy, in civil matters, the deficiencies ofthe 
 other courts of justice, whether those deficiencies consist 
 in the imperfections of the machinery of those courts, or 
 in their too rigid adherence to peculiar forms, whereby 
 certain classes of rights become excluded from the benefit 
 of their protection. The origin of this equitable jurisdic- 
 tion is generally sought for in that remnant of judicial 
 power which is alleged to have been left in that part of the 
 " aula regia" which is not included in either of its subdi- 
 visions (see King's Bench, Common Pleas), and of which 
 residuary part the chancellor was certainly, since the sup- 
 pression of the office of justiciary, the principal member, 
 and was thus easily enabled to assume whatever judicial 
 power was left undelegated to the other courts. That such 
 remnant of power was adequate to all purposes to which it 
 was moulded, is inferred from the supreme and compre- 
 hensive nature ofthe "aula regia" itself, which must be 
 supposed to have been invested originally with full power 
 to do complete and perfect justice, and of which the rem- 
 nant therefore still retained an undefined measure of au- 
 thority sufficient to supply what should prove, on experi- 
 ence, to be wanting in the other courts. This view of the 
 subject is strengthened by the fact that the Court of Ex- 
 chequer, which was not a part of the aula regia, but a col- 
 lateral and equal court, or rather perhaps the aula regia in 
 a different shape, has also its equitable jurisdiction, as if 
 that were a necessary part of all complete systems of ju- 
 dicature. Possibly also the idea of paramount and univer- 
 sal authority annexed to the right of framing writs in all ac- 
 tions, or, in other words, of devising remedies for every 
 species of wrong, may have laid the foundation in theory 
 for this supplemental code, asit was certainly the discovery 
 of a new writ, or a new application of an old one, which 
 practically enabled the chancellors to carry their equitable 
 views into effect. 
 
 This was the writ of subpoena : a writ returnable in 
 chancery, and calling upon the person to whom it was di- 
 rected to appeal there, and answer upon oath the com- 
 plaint that was made against him. The invention of this 
 writ is attributed to John Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury, 
 who was chancellor in the reign of Richard II. ; and it is 
 upon the power thereby acquired that rests even now the 
 equitable jurisdiction of the chancery. 
 
 Similar in principle to this is the equitable jurisdiction of 
 the Court of Exchequer ; which is concurrent with that of 
 the Court of Chancery in all matters of equitable relief, 
 though it can only be called into action by a fiction stated 
 in the pleadings, and which it is not allowable to deny — that 
 the plaintiff is a debtor of the crown, and will by depriva- 
 tion of the right for which the suit is brought be less able 
 to satisfy such debt. Wherever, therefore, in the course 
 of this or other articles, the words equity or courts of equity 
 occur, they must be taken as applying to the principles and 
 jurisdiction as well of the Exchequer as of the Chancery. 
 
 The usual division of the objects of equitable jurisdic- 
 tion is into Trust, Fraud, Accident, Agreement, and Ac- 
 count. 
 
 As courts of equity take into their consideration a far 
 greater variety of circumstances than do courts of law, and 
 as evidence of no fact not suggested by the pleadings is 
 admissible, the written pleadings are necessarily more 
 copious and important than they are at law ; and there is 
 further this most essential difference, that the pleadings on 
 the part of the defendant, i. e. his answer, are upon oath. 
 With regard to evidence the same general rules prevail in 
 equity as in law, and to the admissibility of proofs, the re- 
 levancy of facts, and the competency of witnesses, and 
 even the propriety of the questions that may be put; but 
 the manner of taking evidence is different, for with few 
 exceptions, and those as to very simple facts, evidence in 
 equity is taken either under a commission to examine, or 
 by the official examiners in London, and is produced be-
 
 CHANCE-MEDLEY. 
 
 fore the court in a written shape. Where special applica- 
 tions are made during a cause for something to be done in 
 that cause, or as may sometimes be done, when applica- 
 tions for an order of the court are made without institu- 
 ting a suit, the evidence adduced is by affidavit. The hear- 
 ing of such applications, which is either upon written pe- 
 tition or by motion upon written notice, constitutes a great 
 part of the business of the court. Evidence of facts not 
 essential in the lirst instance to the interposition of the 
 court, is usually taken in the master's office upon a refer- 
 ence made to him. The Court of Chancery has also ju- 
 risdiction in the guardianship of infants and the manage- 
 ment of charities; and the lord chancellor personally has, 
 by special delegation from the crown, jurisdiction in the 
 case of lunatics, which is exercised according to the forms 
 of the old common law jurisdiction of the court upon 
 commission issued. 
 
 The appellate jurisdiction of the chancellor in bank- 
 ruptcy is stated under that title. 
 
 CHANCE-MEDLEY. (A corruption of the French 
 chaude melee). In Law, signifies originally a casual affray 
 or riot, accompanied with violence, but without delibera- 
 tion or preconceived malice ; but is applied at present to a 
 particular kind of homicide, — viz. the killing of another in 
 self-defence in a sudden encounter, without malice pre- 
 pense. 
 
 CHANGE OF SEED. In Agriculture, the practice of 
 procuring seed produced in a different soil and climate 
 from that in which it ifl I" be grown as a crop : and which 
 is found to be sometimes beneficial and sometimes injuri- 
 ous, according as the new seed may have been matured in 
 a better or worse climate and soil than those in which it is 
 to be grown. 
 
 CHA'NNEI.S OF A SHIP. Strong narrow platforms 
 of thick plank, projecting from the outside of the ship, 
 abreast each mast, to extern! the shrouds, and thereby in- 
 crease tin- support of the rigging. 
 
 CHANT. (Fr. chanter, tuning.) In Music, an ecclesi- 
 astical song usually adapted to the psalms and litanies. 
 There have been several sorts, of which the first was the 
 Ambrosian, invented by St. Ambrose, bishop of Milan 
 The Gregorian chant, which was introduced by Pope 
 Gregory, is still in use in the Unman church, and is the 
 foundation of all that is grand and elevated in music. 
 
 CHA'NTRV. (Lat. cantaria.) A little chapel or altar, 
 commonly in some church endowed (before the Reforma- 
 tion) with revenues lor the maintenance ol a priest to per- 
 form prayers for the soul of the founder and others. 
 Chantries were dissolved in England by 1 Ed. 0, c. 14. 
 
 CHA'PEL. (Lai. capella.) In Architecture, a building 
 for religious worship, erected separately from a church, 
 and served by a chaplain. In Catholic churches and Pro- 
 testant cathedrals, chapels are usually annexed in the re- 
 cesses on the sides of the aisles ; these are also called 
 chantries. 
 
 Chapel. (Fr. chapelle.) In Printing is the junction 
 of the workmen in an office for the purpose of promoting 
 and enforcing order and regularity in the business, the 
 preservation of the materials, the arrangement of the 
 price of any doubtful work, and the care of the lights. 
 These objects an- accomplished hy fines. 
 
 Moxon, who published Ins work on printing in 1683, says, 
 " every Printing house is by the custom of time out of 
 mind, called a cnappeL" It is supposed thai the term ori- 
 ginated from the circumstance of Caxton, on the introduc- 
 tion of Hip art into England, practising it in a chapel at- 
 tached to Westminster Abbey. 
 
 The president is termed " the father of the chapel," and 
 is elected ; the workmen are styled " members of the 
 chapel ;" and this association takes cognizance of all offen- 
 ces, real or imaginary, committed within the office, and 
 punishes the offender by inflicting a fine in proportion to 
 the offence. The process of calling a chapel is by giving 
 the father a halfpenny and desiring him to summon a 
 chapel, stating to him the object; the fattier then directs 
 the younger journeyman to announce to all the members 
 the time when it will be held ; when the subject, is dis- 
 cussed, and the decision taken by vote. 
 
 It is an axiom that the chapel is always right, conse- 
 quently Ihere is no appeal from its decision, and to dispute 
 this would subject the party to its displeasure. It has vari- 
 ous ways of enforcing obedience to its dictates. See Sa- 
 vage's Dictionary of Printing. 8vo. 1341. 
 
 Chapel. A place of divine worship, either connected 
 ■with a private establishment, as a nobleman's house, a 
 college, &c. : or subsidiary to a parish church for the sake 
 of additional accommodation (in which case it is called a 
 chapel of ease) ; or a meeting house belonging to a Dis- 
 senting congregation. 
 
 CHA'PLAIN. (Lat. capellanus.) Properly the minis- 
 ter of a chapel. The privilege which the king and nobility 
 enjoy of appointing private chaplains arises from the an- 
 cient custom of using domestic chapels for family worship. 
 
 The limitations under which this privilege may be exer- 
 215 
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 cised are set forth in certain statutes of Henry VIII. Under 
 the existing law a nobleman's chaplain may hold two bene- 
 fices ; but the chaplain of a judge, <fec. only one : on 
 which, however, he is not obliged to reside. 
 
 CHA'PLET. (Ital. ciappellelto.) A string of beads 
 used by Roman Catholics to count the number of their 
 prayers ; these prayers consist for the most part of Ave 
 Marias, Paternosters, and Credos. Another name for the 
 chaplet is Rosary. The invention of the practice is gener- 
 ally attributed to St. Dominic. 
 
 Chaplet. (Fr. chapelet.) In Architecture, a moulding 
 carved into beads, olives, and the like. 
 
 CHA'PTER. (Lat capitulus : from caput, head.) The 
 society of canons in a cathedral or collegiate church, of 
 which the dean is the head, which forms the council of 
 the bishop, and in which his election rested before Henry 
 VIII. ; since whom the power of the chapter in this par- 
 ticular (in the English church) has become merely nomi- 
 nal. See art. Bishop. 
 
 CHA'PTER-HOUSE. (Lat. capitulum.) In Architec- 
 ture, the apartment (usually attached) of a cathedral or 
 collegiate church in which the heads of the church or the 
 chapter meet to transact business. 
 
 CHARa'CE^E. (Chara, one of the genera.) A natural 
 order of Acrogens entirely destitute of a vascular system, 
 and composed almost exclusively of tubes ; placet! by Lin- 
 naeus near to Lichens and to Pha'nogamous plants; by 
 Jussieu and De Candolle, with Naiadacea ; by Iirown, at 
 the end of Hydrocharacea ; by Leman, to IJalorageas ; by 
 Von Martins, Agardh, and W'allroth. to Conferva : and 
 finally admitted as a distinct order by Richard, Kunth, De 
 Candolle. Adolphe lirogiuart, dreville, Hooker, and others : 
 consists of but two genera, which inhabit the fresh and 
 salt waters of most countries. They are remarkable for 
 the distinctness with which the rotation of their lluids 
 may be seen under the microscope. Iu the opinion of 
 some Italian writers the insalubrity of the neighbourhood 
 of Home is owing to the great quantity of chara which in- 
 habits all the pools, and renders them intolerably offen- 
 sive. 
 
 CHA'RACTER. (C.r. xapaxrrjp.) In the Fine Arts, a 
 distinctive property or mark by which any object is sepa- 
 rated from another. In physics as in morals, and also in 
 the fine arts, there are three species of character : Essen- 
 tial, Distinctive or Accidental, and Relative. Essential 
 character is that type stamped by nature on all her works; 
 that great indication observable in the general divisions of 
 the three kingdoms of nature ; those distinctions of differ- 
 ent classes ol beings, ol sexes and ages ; in short, of all 
 those great external marks which prevent the confusion of 
 one species with another. Distinctive ox accidental char- 
 acter is that dependent on particular circumstances ; on 
 all those varieties of dei elopment which a vast number of 
 visible or invisible causes stamp on the same species, ac- 
 cording to the difference of the elements which modify 
 their forms and the influences which some actions may 
 have upon them. Relative character is a more particular 
 indication of certain faculties relative to the different pro- 
 perties with which nature has endowed certain species or 
 individuals, in which may be recognized the purposes to 
 which they are more especially destined. In morals, es- 
 sential character consists in that uniformity of general hab- 
 its which forms the peculiar instinct of each species of 
 beings, and which indicates uniformly their inclinations, 
 their predominating tastes, and those propensities which 
 can never be changed by accidental causes. Distinctive 
 character is that which peculiar habits of organization, 
 circumstances, social institutions, and all those exceptions 
 which in the very order of nature become suitable to an 
 individual or one of the same species, being in fact but a 
 modification of essential character. Relative character 
 is the impression or development in a particular manner 
 of certain qualities suited to a certain end, or to a certain 
 mode of existence, indicating to what purposes the beings 
 in question are suited, and manifesting a co-relation be- 
 tween what the species appears and that for which it is 
 adapted. 
 
 The arts are and indeed can be but the result of nature 
 in all countries, of the nations that inhabit them, and of 
 the individuals of which a nation is composed. Nature 
 influences nations, nations men, and men the arts. These 
 are governed either mediately or immediately by an influ- 
 ence more or less dependent on the great natural causes 
 of climate, government, and education, which constitute 
 the essential character of every country ; on secondary 
 and political causes, in which nations differ ; and on par- 
 ticular causes, which modify individuals. The arts do but 
 imitate this process : according to the particular spot in 
 which they spring up, their imitation embraces either na- 
 ture in general or parts of nature ; either material forms 
 and the sensible images of things, or the moral affections 
 and intellectual ideas of things'; but of whatever kind the 
 imitation be, to whatever object it may be directed, the 
 arts are but the faithful mirrors which reflect in every
 
 CHARACTERISTIC. 
 
 country the physical and moral qualities of nature, of na- 
 tions, and of the individuals of which the latter are com- 
 posed. Before judging, therefore, of the imitation, it be- 
 comes necessary to judge of the model ; and before we 
 can ascertain in what the character of the arts consists, we 
 must know on what its character depends in nature. We 
 have been thus particular in giving some general notions 
 of character, which must be felt belbre we can be qualified 
 to judge of the character of the arts in any country. The 
 character peculiar to himself which an artist imparts to 
 his work is but a modification of the foregoing principles : 
 more easily, perhaps, may be understood that distinctive 
 character which a work of art requires that it may seem 
 proper and suitable to its end. That character ' which 
 marks species was well understood by the ancients; and 
 if we may trust Martial, Phidias excelled in catching it. Of 
 his fishes the poet says, " Adde aquam, natabunt." 
 
 CHARACTERISTIC OF A LOGARITHM. The same 
 as index or exponent ; meaning the figure prefixed to the 
 logarithm, or preceding the point, and which indicates the 
 integer places or figures in the number to which the loga- 
 rithm corresponds. 
 
 CHA'RACTERS. (Gr. x^P^^IP, a mark.) In Music, 
 the conventional forms in musical writing and printing 
 used for the signs of clefs, notes, rests, &c. 
 
 CHARA'DE. (Fr.) A species of riddle, the subject of 
 which is a name or a word that is proposed for solution 
 from an enigmatical description of its several syllables 
 taken separately as so many individual words, and then 
 from a similar description of the whole name or word. A 
 charade can only be called complete if the different enig- 
 mas which it contains are brought into a proper relation 
 to each other, and as a whole unite in an epigrammatic 
 point. The following charade, which we borrow from the 
 Dictionnaire de VAcademie Prangaise, may be resarded 
 as a good specimen of this species of riddle :— "My first 
 makes use of my second to eat my whole ;" the solution 
 being chien-dent, or dog's grass. The word charade, like 
 the term calembourg (quod vide), has been applied to' this 
 sort of amusement, from the name of its inventor. 
 
 CHARA'DRIUS. (Lat.) A bird mentioned by Pliny. 
 The name of a very interesting genus of wading birds, or 
 GraUatores, including the British plover and allied species. 
 In modern Ornithology, the Linnaean genus which inclu- 
 ded the long-legged plover (Himantopus), the stone cur- 
 lew (CEdicnemus), and olher species, is raised to the rank 
 of a family called Charadriada,. 
 
 CHA'RCOAL. A form of carbon, obtained by burnin" 
 wood with the imperfect access of air, or by heating or 
 distilling it in iron cylinders so constructed as to allow of 
 the collection of the volatile products ; among which are 
 tar, and pyroligneous acid, which is impure vinegar 
 Charcoal, exclusive of its important use as a fuel, is pos- 
 sessed of some curious and valuable properties. It is a 
 very bad conductor of heat; and hence powdered char- 
 coal is used to surround tubes and vessels which are re- 
 quired to retain their heat. It is not injured by air and 
 moisture ; hence stakes and piles are superficially charred 
 to preserve them. It is infusible ; and provided aii be 
 carefully excluded, it undergoes no change in most intense 
 heats. It absorbs air and moisture, and also the colouring 
 and odoriferous parts of many animal and vegetable sub? 
 stances. Tainted flesh and putrid water are "thus sweet- 
 ened by the action of powdered charcoal, especially by 
 what is called animal charcoal, obtained by burnin"- bone 
 or the clippings of hides, leather, .fee. Coloured vegetable 
 solutions filtered through well burned charcoal are"mate- 
 rially decoloured by it : when burned in oxygen or air, it 
 is converted into carbonic acid. 'See Diamond and Car- 
 bon.) Common charcoal intended merely for fuel is pre- 
 pared by cutting pieces of wood from 1 in. to 3 in. in diam- 
 eter into lengths of from 1 ft. to 3 ft., forming them into a 
 conical pile, and covering them with turf or clay ; leaving 
 two or three small holes, close to the ground, for liWitin? 
 the wood, and boring through the turf in the upper part of 
 the cone, a few other small holes for the escape of the 
 smoke. The pile being lighted at the several holes alon<r 
 the bottom, continues burning with a slow smouldering 
 flame for a week or two, and is allowed to cool before the 
 turf is removed. In the case of very high winds, the holes 
 to the windward are stopped, to prevent combustion from 
 going on with too great rapidity. Charcoal obtained by 
 distilling beech-wood, log-wood, willow, and other woods 
 which are free from resin, is called cylinder charcoal. The 
 charcoal employed in the manufacture of gunpowder is 
 now always so prepared. 
 
 CHARDS. The footstalks and midrib of artichokes, 
 cardoons, and the white beet, are so called. In the case 
 of the artichoke and r.ardoon, the leaves are tied up, and 
 the light excluded by straw ropes or by soil, in order to 
 blanch the chard, and deprive it of its natural bitterness ; 
 after which, when dressed, it becomes an agreeable vege- 
 table. The leaves of the white beet, not being naturally 
 bitter, do not require blanching to render them fit for use. 
 216 
 
 CHART. 
 
 CHA'RFRON, or CHAMP- FREIN. In Plate-armour, 
 plates of steel or pieces of leather, to protect the face of a 
 horse. 
 
 CHA'RGE. In Gunnery, is the quantity of powder and 
 weight of ball with which guns are loaded.' For proving 
 cannon, the charge of powder is equal to the weight of the 
 ball ; but for service it is about one half, or more frequent- 
 ly about one third the weight of the ball. Dr. Hutton in 
 his Mathematical Dictionary states that different charges 
 of powder, with the same weight of ball, produce different 
 velocities in the ball, which are in the sub-duplicate ratios 
 of the weight of powder; anil when the weight of powder 
 is the same, and the ball varied, the velocity produced is 
 in the reciprocal sub-duplicate ratio of the weight of the 
 ball ; which is agreeable both to theory and practice. He 
 states also, that from many experiments made by him on 
 this subject, he found the length of the charge producing 
 the greatest velocity in guns of various lengths of bore, 
 from 15 to 40 calibers, to be as follows : — 
 
 Length of bore in Length of charge fox 
 
 calibers. greatest velocity. 
 
 15 3-16ths. 
 
 20 3-12ths. 
 
 30 3-16ths. 
 
 40 3-20ths- 
 
 (See Greener on Gunnery.) 
 
 Charge. In Heraldry, signifies the various bearings, 
 i. e. ordinaries and figures, depicted on the escutcheon. A 
 shield is said to be charged with the bearings depicted on 
 it ; and so is an ordinary or other charge, when it bears 
 another device upon it. 
 
 Crarge and Overcharge. In Painting, a term applied 
 to any exaggeration of character, expression from colour, 
 &c. 
 
 CHARGE' D'AFFAIRES. The third or lowest class of 
 foreign ministers, according to the regulations adopted at 
 the congress of Vienna. 
 
 CHA'RITY, SISTERS OF. The name by which an in- 
 stitution of females is known in France, whose office is to 
 attend the sick, and who form a similar society to that of 
 the Besuins in Flanders. See Beguins. 
 
 CHA'RLES'S WAIN. A name sometimes given by as- 
 tronomical writers to the constellation Ursa Major, o? 
 Great Bear. It has sometimes been applied to the Little 
 Bear. 
 
 CHA'RLOCK. A common name in the north of Eng- 
 land for one of the most common weeds, Raphanus ra- 
 phanistrum. The plants when young are remarkably like 
 those of the common turnip ; but they are easily distin- 
 guished by the taste, which is hot and bitter ; while that of 
 the turnip is mild. Cold wet lands are more subject to 
 the charlock than warm calcareous soils. As sheep are 
 remarkably fond of the plant, they are frequently turned 
 into corn fields where it abounds, in which case it is found 
 that they do not touch the com while any of the charlock 
 remains. That excellent husbandman, Mr. Lisle, having 
 sown charlock seed and turnip seed at the same time, 
 found that the latter came up in three days, while the 
 charlock required ten. The seed, when buried in the soil 
 to a certain depth, will retain its vital properties for an un- 
 known length of time ; grass lands that have not been 
 ploughed within the memory of man, having, when broken 
 up, produced abundance of this plant. 
 
 CHA'RON. (Gr. xd,o<i»>.) 1° Mythology, the ferryman 
 of hell, who conducted the souls of the departed in a boat 
 across the Stygian lake to receive judgment from (Eacus, 
 Rhadamanthus, and Minos, the judges of the infernal re- 
 gions. He received an obolus from every passenger, for 
 which reason the ancients used to put that piece of money 
 in the mouths of the dead. He was said to be the son of 
 Erebus and Night. 
 
 CHA'RRED WOOD. Wood, the outer surface of which 
 has been carbonized by burning, in order to preserve it 
 from decav when it is buried in the soil. 
 
 CHA'RRING OF POSTS. Ttie practice of carbonizing 
 by burning that portion of the surface of wooden posts 
 which is to be inserted in the ground. The object is to 
 prevent the posts from decaying, more especially at the 
 surface of the ground, or, as the common phrase is, be- 
 tween wind and water. The practice is common in most 
 parts of Europe, and even in Russia and Sweden, though 
 timber is there so abundant. 
 
 CHART. A hydrographic map for the nse of naviga- 
 tors, being a projection of some part of a coast on a plane 
 surface. Charts as well as ordinary maps may be con- 
 structed on any of the principles by which a spherical sur- 
 face is represented on a plane ; but they are generally laid 
 down according to Mercator's projection, in which the me- 
 ridians, and consequently also the" parallels of latitude, are 
 represented by parallel straight lines, the degrees of longi- 
 tude on all the parallels being equal to those of the equa- 
 tor, and the degrees of latitude being increased from the 
 equator towards the pole, so as to bear always the same
 
 CHARTACEUS. 
 
 ratio to the degrees of longitude which they do on the 
 Bphere itself. See Map and Projection. 
 
 CHARTA'CEDS. (Lat. charta, paper.) Papery; indi- 
 cafitii; the paper-like texture and surjstance of most leaves. 
 
 CHA'RTA, MA'GNA. in English History. The "Great 
 Charter of the Realm" was signed by King John in 1215, 
 and confirmed by his successor Henry III. It is reported 
 to have been chiefly drawn up by the Earl of Pembroke 
 and Stephen Langton, Archl ishop of (Canterbury. Its most 
 important articles are those which provide that no free- 
 man shall be taken or imprisoned or proceeded against, 
 " except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law 
 of the land/' and that no scutate or aid should be imposed 
 in the kingdom (except certain feudal dues from tenants 
 of the crown) unless by the common council of the king- 
 dom. The remaining and greater part of it is directed 
 against abuses of the king's power as feudal superior. 
 
 CHARTE. (Lat. charta. paper.) In French History, 
 originally used to indicate the rights and privileges granted 
 by th" French kings to various 'owns and communities; 
 but applied at present to the fundamental law of the French 
 monarchy, as established on the restoration of Louis Will, 
 in 1814 The Charte consists of 69 articles, and is founded 
 on principles analogous to those of the British constitu- 
 tion, as embi ma Charta, and sub- 
 sequently '■ . wll known, 
 it was the violation of an article of the Charte bv the -Min- 
 isters of Charles X thai led to the revolution of 1830, the 
 expulsion of that monarch from the throne, and the i 
 Usbmenl of the present dynasty. Since that time the' 
 has un w modifications, the chief of which con- 
 sists in the abolition of the hereditary peerage. (Seethe 
 Aim*/. ablished annually.) 
 
 CHA'RTER-PARTY. i In Mercan- 
 
 tile Law, is defined to be a o mtract, by which the owner or 
 master of a ship hires or lets the whole or a principal part 
 of it to a freighter for the conveyance of goods, under cer- 
 tain specified conditions, on a determined voyage to one or 
 more places. A charter-party is generally under seal ; but 
 a printed or written instrument signed by the p 
 called a memorandum of a charter-party, is binding if no 
 charter-party be executed k. voyage 'may be performed 
 in part under a charter-party, and in part under a parol 
 menl ; but the terms of a charter-party cannot be al- 
 tered by parol evidence, although they may be explained 
 by mercantile usage. Theinstrum i 3 the freight 
 
 tobi'j' rally, but nol necessarily, the burden 
 
 of the ship; together with some usual covenants, and 
 other i i ties. 
 
 CHA'RTDLARY. la Diplomatics, a collection of the 
 charters belonging to a church or religious house. 
 
 CHASE, (Fr. chassis.) In Printing, an iron frame six 
 tenths of an inch in thickne 
 
 up to secure the letters from separating or dropping out in 
 the process of printing. Chases are of different dimen- 
 sion-', according to the number of pages in a sheet, and 
 the size of the paper: in the printing of books there are 
 
 I across at right angles, called cros 
 to divide the chase into quarters for greater security. The 
 is always the same, however large the chase, 
 being lower than the types, lor the purpose of keeping the 
 margin of the paper clean. 
 
 (.'iia.se. A row or rank of plants or trees, and more es- 
 pecially of hedge plants; also an extent of waste or forest 
 land. 
 
 Chase. In Nautical language, pursuit ; also the vessel 
 pursued. 
 
 CHA'SER, The vessel pursuing. • Also guns at the 
 head and stern for firing when in chase. 
 
 CHA'SING, or ENCHASING. In Sculpture, the art of 
 embossing or making bassi nlievi in metals. The work is 
 punched out from the back, and then cut on steel blocks 
 or puncheons, and cleared with small chisels and gravers. 
 CHAT-POTATOES. Small potatoes, only fit for giving 
 to pigs or boiling for poultry. 
 CHAT WOOD. Small sticks and spray, only fit for fuel. 
 CHAIT'XTRY. See Chapel. 
 CHAYA ROOT. The root of the Oldenkmdia u 
 cultivated upon the Coromandel coast as a.red dye stuff. 
 
 CHEESE. The curd of milk compressed into solid 
 masses of different sizes and shapes ; and, when intended 
 for keeping, salted and dried, and sometimes coloured and 
 flavoured. It is almost always made from the milk of 
 cows, but occasionally from that of ewes, and sometimes, 
 though very rarely, from the milk of goats. The following 
 are the principal British cheeses : — Brickbat, formed of 
 new milk and cream, chiefly in Wiltshire, in the autumn, 
 and sold in little square pieces about the size of brickbats. 
 CheMar, round thick cheeses, weighing about 150 or 200 
 pounds, with a spongy appearance, and the eyes or vesicles 
 filled with a rich oil. Cheshire, large round thick cheeses, 
 commonly weighing from 100 to 200 pounds each ; solid, ho- 
 mogeneous, and dry and friable rather than viscid. They 
 are made from the whole of the milk and cream ; the 
 217 
 
 CHEIRONECTES. 
 
 morning's milk being mixed with that of the preceding 
 evening previously warmed. Derbyshire, is a small white 
 rich cheese. Dunlop, originally made in Ayrshire, hut 
 now general throughout Scotland, is large, round, white, 
 buttery, and weighs from 30 to 60 pounds. This and the 
 Derbyshire cheese are very much alike in form, colour, 
 and flavour. Gloucester, large, round, and mild ; buttery 
 rather than friable. There are two kinds, the single and 
 double Gloucester: the single is made of the milk de- 
 nt halt the cream, and the double of the milk 
 with the whole of the cream. Green or Sage cheese may 
 be made of any of the other kinds, by mixing the milk be- 
 fore it has curdled with a decoction of sage leaves, among 
 which some put a few (lowers of marigold and leaves of 
 parsley. In the Highlands of Scotland the leaves or seeds 
 of lovage are added to the sage, which communicate a 
 very strong flavour. Lincolnshire is made of new milk 
 and cream ; it is quite soft, not above 2 inches thick, and 
 will not keep more than two or three months. Norfolk, 
 the weight is generally from 30 to 50 pounds; the curd is 
 dyed yellow with arnotto or saffron ; and though not a rich 
 cheese, it is considered a good keeper. Soft or SKpcoat 
 is a small soft rich ch< ese, which might almost be mis- 
 taken for butter, if it were not while, and which must be 
 eaten in a week or two after making. Stilton, so named 
 from the town in Huntingdonshire where it was first 
 brought into notice, bul which is made principally in Lei- 
 ci stershire. It is solid, rich, buttery, and white ; and, on- 
 like all the other cheeses which have been mentioned, it 
 is twice as high as it is broad. It is much improved by 
 keeping, and is seldom used before it is two years old. It 
 is the dearest of all English cheeses, the price being gene- 
 rally to that of Chester as 2 to 1, or 2 to lj. In order to in- 
 duce premature decay and the consequent appearance of 
 - iid the makers sometimes bury 
 them in masses of fermenting straw, Cottenham, so named 
 from a town in Cambridgeshire ; it differs chiefly from the 
 cream cheese of Stilton in being flat, broader, and supe- 
 riorly flavoured. The flavour is said to be owing to the 
 rich grasses which grow on the fens. Suffolk, or skim- 
 milk, is round and thin, weighing from 25 to 30 pounds 
 each, and is the best keeping cheese made in England. 
 Wiltshire resembles the Cheshire; but is poorer, and of 
 inferior ' II is apt to become scurfy, to prevent 
 
 which it is generally coated over with red paint York- 
 -■' -, is the same as the slip-coat cheese, 
 already mentioned. 
 
 Fori I —The most remarkable of these are 
 
 the following: — Parmesania chiefly made at Parma and 
 other places in Lombardy, of the curd of skimmed milk 
 hardened by heat. Its flavour is said to be owing to the 
 rich pastures of that part of Italy, where all plants, from 
 ater quantity of bright sunshine than in Britain, 
 have dot taticpJ reatly increased. 
 
 is of various kinds ; but the chief sorts are the 
 Gruyere or Jura cheese, and Schabzieger or green cheese; 
 the iast is flavoured with the seeds and leaves of the meli- 
 lot {Melilotis officinalis). German cheeses are of different 
 kinds : but none are celebrated, unless we except that of 
 Westphalia, which is made up into round balls or short 
 cylinders, under a pound weight each. The peculiar fla- 
 vour which this cheese acquires arises from the curd be- 
 ing allowed to become putrid before it is compressed. In 
 Holland very good cheese is made, particularly the Edam 
 and Gouda cheeges; the former is very salt, and keeps 
 well at sea. In many pails of the Continent, and even in 
 the interior of Poland and Russia, there are imitations of 
 English cheese made; but what may be called the indi- 
 genous cheese of the Russian empire is nothing more than 
 salted curd put into a bag and powerfully pressed, and 
 taken to market as soon as it is made, in the same manner 
 as butter is. In some places, instead of a press, the whey 
 is forced out of the curd by putting it into a long cloth mid- 
 way between the two ends, while a person at each end 
 twists the cloth in an opposite direction, and thus wrings 
 out the whey. In some miserable Russian villages the 
 curd is exposed for sale in small lumps, retaining the 
 marks of the fingers, which shows that no other pressure 
 has been employed than what can be given with the hand. 
 In France the Roquefort cheese is the most esteemed, 
 and next that of Neufchatel. The former somewhat re- 
 sembles Stilton, but is much inferior; and the latter is a 
 cream cheese, seldom exceeding a quarter of a pound in 
 weight. (See Johnston's Lectures on Agricultural Chem- 
 istry, Part IV.) 
 CHEESE -MITE. See Piophila. 
 
 CHEE'TAH, or CHEETA A Mahratta vernacular 
 name, applied both to the Felis jubala and the Felis leo- 
 pardus. It is to the former species, or hunting leopard, 
 that the term is confined in England. 
 
 CHEI'RONE'CTES. (Gr. \ti(>, hand, and vrtx^, I 
 
 su-im.) A genus of spine-finned fishes, having the pectoral 
 
 fins supported, like short feet, upon peduncles. By means 
 
 of this organization the cheironects can creep over the 
 
 Ee
 
 CHEIROPTERA. 
 
 mud or sand when left dry by the receding tide ; they also 
 propel themselves along by short leaps, and in this way 
 seize upon insects which may be hovering about ; whence 
 they have obtained the name of frog -fishes. The gill cavi- 
 ty is large, but the outlet very small, and the quantity of 
 water which can thus be retained enables the cheironects 
 to remain out of water longer than fishes in general can 
 do. The term Gheironectea is applied by Illiger to a genus 
 opossum having the hinder hands webbed. Some natu- 
 ralists adopt this application of the term, and apply to the 
 genus of fishes so called by Cuvierthe name Antennariua, 
 originally givpn to the cheironects by Commerson. 
 
 CHEIRO'PTERA. (Gr. \ El Pi « hand, and ttcoov, a 
 wing.) An order of Mammalia, characterized by having 
 the anterior extremities, and especially the hands, so mo- 
 dified as to serve the office of wings, the fingers being ex- 
 tremeij lengthened, and connected together by athin mem- 
 brane. Of this order the common bat ( Vespertilio muri- 
 nus) may be regarded as the type. The order includes 
 very numerous and diversified species, which have been 
 grouped by De Blainville, who has devoted an. especial 
 study to them, into three principal divisions. Of these the 
 first includes the largest species, called ''flying-foxes:" 
 they are, however, vegetable-feeders, and are characterized 
 by having the ears and nose of a simple form ; the two in- 
 nermost fingers of the hand armed with claws, and of the 
 ordinary structure ; the tail, and the web of skin connect- 
 ing the hind-legs, and called the " interfemoral" web, very 
 short, or wanting : and lastly, by having the molar teeth 
 separated by intervals, and of simple structure. These 
 bats are distributed over the warmer latitudes of the old 
 continent, and extend to the islands of the Pacific ocean. 
 The second division has the nose complicated by various- 
 ly shaped and grotesque membranous foliations ; the first 
 or innermost digit alone retains its ordinary structure and 
 armature ; the molar teeth are beset witli sharp tubercles ; 
 and the food of these species consists of insects, or the 
 blood of higher organised and larger animals. The vam- 
 pire-bats of South America belong to this group, which also 
 includes the horse-shoe bats ( Rhinolophi). and other uenera 
 distributed over all parts of the old world. The third di- 
 vision of Cheiroptera has the nose constantly simple; the 
 other characters as in the second. It includes the bats 
 properly so called, which are uniformly insectivorous, and 
 of small size. 
 
 CHE'LA. (Gr. %rfKr], pincers.) The first pair of forci- 
 pated extremities of the crab, lobster, and other crusta- 
 ceans. 
 
 CHE'LICERES. (Gr. %ri\ri, pincers, and nspa;, a horn.) 
 The term applied by Latreiile to two appendages of the head 
 of the Arachnidans, or spiders and scorpions, which ap- 
 pendages he considers as representing the mesial antenna? 
 of the Decapod Crustacea, here converted into manduca- 
 tory organs. 
 
 CHELO'NIANS, Chelonia. (Gr. x^ wvr li a tortoise.) 
 The order of Reptiles, including the tortoises, terrapenes, 
 and turtles; characterized by the body being inclosed be- 
 tween a double shield or shell, out of which extend the 
 head, tail, and four extremities. The land tortoises have 
 the power of retracting all these parts within the shell. 
 
 CHEMISTRY. (The word is probably derived from the 
 Coptic root eheins or hhems, signifying obscure or secret. 
 The German word geheim is apparently of the same 
 origin.) 
 
 Chemistry is a department of science, the objects of 
 which are to investigate the nature and properties of the 
 elements of matter, and their mutual actions and combina- 
 tions ; to ascertain the proportions in which they unite, 
 and the modes of separating them when united ; and to in- 
 quire into the laws and powers which preside over and af- 
 fect these agencies. As an art, chemistry may be traced 
 to a very remote period ; but it can scarcely be said to 
 have existed as a science previous to the commencement 
 of the seventeenth century : and in tracing its early history 
 we shall find the principal materials upon which it is found- 
 ed in the works of Bacon, Boyle, Hooke, Mayow, and 
 Newton. 
 
 As induction from, experiment is the exclusive basis of 
 chemical science, little progress could be made in it till the 
 futility of the ancient philosophical systems had been ex- 
 posed, and their influence annihilated, and till the neces- 
 sity of that form of severe experimental inquiry had been 
 established which " first procures the light, and then shows 
 the way by its means." Upon such foundations, laid by 
 Bacon, the other philosophers whose names have been 
 mentioned proceeded to bring together and arrange the 
 materials winch had been furnished by their predecessors, 
 and were thence led into that train of true philosophical 
 reasoning and research which served as an emulatory ex- 
 ample to their immediate successors, and which has led in 
 our times to the gigantic results of modern discovery. 
 
 It is well known that the alchemists had accumulated a 
 number of valuable but isolated chemical facts, and that 
 they had explored with considerable diligence the abstract 
 218 
 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 properties and mutual agencies and relations of the greater 
 number of natural products; but, with few exceptions, 
 they neglected their useful and obvious applications, and 
 wasted their labours upon unattainable and chimerical ob- 
 jects. Their discoveries and inventions, as Lord Bacon 
 justly and forcibly observes, "are well represented in the 
 fable of the old man who left an estate to his children, 
 buried, as he said, in his vineyard, which therefore they 
 fell to dig and search for with great diligence; whereby, 
 though they found no gold in substance, yet they receiv- 
 ed an abundant vintage for their labour. So assuredly 
 has the search and stir to make gold produced a great 
 number of fruitful experiments." 
 
 Alchemical speculations, including the attempts at the 
 conversion of mercury into gold, and the search after an- 
 tidotes and universal remedies, were vigorously carried on 
 during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ; and many 
 amusing accounts of the professors and adepts of those 
 periods have been handed down to us by the chemical 
 historians of the time. Those who are curious upon these 
 subjects may consult Mangetus, Bibliotheca Chemica, and 
 the Theatrum Chemicum of Elias Ashmole : the latter con- 
 tains " several poeticall pieces of our famous English philo- 
 sophers, who have written the hermetique mysteries in 
 theirowne ancient language," but their perusal is labour lost; 
 not so, however, with Basil Valentine, Paracelsus, Van Hel- 
 mont, and Glauber, in whose writings we not only find the 
 materials so happily worked upon by Hooke and Mayow, 
 but which also abound in announcements of imporlant 
 practical discoveries, and in hints to which many of the 
 improvements of modern times may be plausibly traced. 
 
 Basil Valentine of Erfurt was born about the year 1400; 
 his writings, although tinctured with the follies of alchemy, 
 are full of shrewd and intelligent remarks : he was the 
 discoverer, apparently, of nitric and of sulphuric acid, 
 and of many antimonial preparations, which are fully 
 described in his Triumphal Chariot. Philip Hochener, 
 more commonly known under the name of Paracelsus, 
 and who died in 1511 at Saltzburgh, in the forty-third year 
 of hi* age, is chiefly celebrated for the boldness and ossi- 
 duity with which he introduced chemical preparations into 
 the practice of medicine ; he did little, however, as a dis- 
 coverer. Van Helmont, one of the soundest writers of his 
 period, was the first who seems to have paid attention to 
 the nature of gaseous bodies, and to the distinction between 
 permanent gases and vapours : the word gas first occurs 
 in his works ; and under the term gas siliiestre, he seems 
 to allude to what was afterwards termed_/?,j;ed air. None, 
 however, of these early practical chemists come into com- 
 petition with Glauber. He was an active experimentalist, 
 and an acute reasoner; and in reference to his discoveries 
 we may enumerate among them the distillation of muri- 
 atic acid from a mixture of sulphuric acid and common 
 salt; the purification of the residuary sulphate of soda, 
 which he termed sal rairabVe, and which still bears his 
 name ; the production of ammonia by the distillation of 
 bone, and its conversion into sal ammoniac by the addition 
 of spirit of salt ; the preparation of sulphate of ammonia, 
 which he terms secret sal ammoniac ; the formation of blue 
 vitriol by the action of sulphuric acid upon the green rust 
 of copper; the composition of numerous earthy, alkaline, 
 and metallic salts; and lastly, the evolution of vinegar du- 
 ring the destructive distillation of wood, for which he des- 
 cribes and delineates the distillatory apparatus, under the 
 name of "a press for extracting the juice of wood," and 
 the uses of which, together witii those of the oil of tar and 
 other products, he describes at length, closing his discourse 
 with a statement of his apprehension that he shall be by 
 many disbelieved ; but " it contented me," he says, '-that 
 I have written the truth, and lighted a candle to my neigh- 
 bours." Glauber also published a pamphlet, entitled " 'Hie 
 Consolation of Navigators ; in which is taught how they 
 who travel by sea may preserve themselves from hunger 
 and thirst, and edso from those diseases which are wont to 
 happen in long voyages : written for the health, comfort, 
 ana solace of all those who travel by water fir the good of 
 their country." The sensible plan of employing extract 
 of malt as a portable vegetable, diet, and diluted muriatic 
 acid to quench thirst, is here recommended ; and many of 
 the medicinal uses of that acid are dwelt upon, among 
 which are some that have been claimed as recent discov- 
 eries. On the whole, there is no author, contemporary 
 with Glauber, who has written so much to the purpose, and 
 who, as it were, anticipated so many of our modern scien- 
 tific improvements. 
 
 Reverting to the names of Boyle and his eminent associ- 
 ates, we are reminded of the origin of.the Royal Society of 
 London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, which 
 was incorporated by Charles n. in the year 1602, and of 
 which Boyle and Hooke were active and distinguished 
 members. Boyle died in 1691. His station in life, his mild 
 and prepossessing disposition, his strict honour and integ- 
 rity, and the unaffected earnestness with which he pro- 
 moted experimental inquiry, tended to shed a lustre on
 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 his pursuits, to elevate their character with the world, and 
 to draw into (heir precincts many who without such an ex- 
 ample would have passed their lives in that listless inactivi- 
 ty then too common with those upon whom fortune smiled : 
 among these Mr. Boyle made many converts. 
 
 Boyle's Essays on the successfulness and unsuccessful- 
 tiess of Experiments, and the Preface to his Philosophical 
 Writings, are in the genuine spiritof experimental research ; 
 but the new and important aspect assumed about this time 
 by such pursuits is perhaps chiefly due to Dr. Robert Hooke 
 (born in the Isle of Wight in 1635, and died in London in 
 1702). Among his views and discoveries which bear upon 
 the progress of chemical philosophy, the most important 
 are those relating to the phenomena of combustion, and to 
 the part which the air performs in that process ; his notions 
 upon these subjects are remarkable for their boldness as 
 differing from the prevailing theories of the day, and for 
 their correctness as superseding the objections to which 
 those theories were liable. From the hints contained in 
 the writings of the alchemists, it appears that tin 3 phenome- 
 na of combustion were referred to a subtile and highly vola- 
 tile principle, which, agitated and expanded by heat, pro- 
 duced JUiuik and fire. When metals wore exposed to the 
 action of heat the greater number of them were observed 
 to alter their appearance, and, losing their brilliancy, be- 
 came converted into an earth like powder or ca)x. It was 
 generally admitted thai in this process the panicles of the 
 iU8tible were thrown into violent vibrations, and in 
 that way transformed into heat and light. But it had been 
 also remarked that in certain cases of combustion, an I 
 especially as regal , the phenomenon'.' 
 
 tended by an actual increase of weight in the burning I 
 and that this result was incompatible with the theory which 
 
 assumed (he conversion ol tl ombustible into heat and 
 
 light, or the evolution of thai principle of inflammability 
 which by lieecher and St.ihl and the chemists of that 
 school was tenner! phlogiston. About the year 1630 a re- 
 markable tract appeared in Prance relating to this su 
 by .lean Rey, a physician of Perigord. Le Bran bad melted 
 two pound.- six ounces of lead, and found that in six hours 
 the whole bad been converted into calx; but that instead 
 
 fiston, or any other ponderable m 
 It had actually increased in weight to the extent of many 
 ounces. Puzzled by this result, he consulted R< 
 cause, who immediately undertook an experimental in- 
 quiry, which led him to refer the increase in weight in this 
 and similar cases to R of air. Tins infi 
 
 was amply supported by i a of Boyle an I ol 
 
 Hooke : the former found that no combustible would burn 
 under the exhausted receiver of the air-pump, and conse- 
 quently that the presence of air was t [uisite : an I 1 1 
 finding that however intensely charcoal was heated, it 
 would not burn when air was excluded, infers "thai air is 
 the universal dissolvent of inflammable bodies, and that 
 this dissolution generates heat, which we call fire." But 
 he went a slep beyond this, and attributes the power of 
 supporting combustion to a principle in the atmosphere, 
 '•like unto, or the very same as, that which is fixed in salt- 
 petre:'' for he had observed the power of that salt as a sup- 
 l of combustion. His words are as follow: — "The 
 dissolving parts of the air are but few, and hence the atmo- 
 sphere is like 3 which have much phlegm mixed 
 with them, and become soon glutted; whereas" saltpetre 
 abounds more in those solvent particles, and hence a little 
 will dissolve a great sulphurous body quickly and violent- 
 ly : and as other solvents, though but weak, quickly con- 
 sume the dissoluble bo.lv if the supply be renovated, so air 
 applied to a shining body by a bellows will dissolve it as 
 rapidly as saltpetre." From all which he concludes that 
 there is no element of fire, but that flame results from the 
 mutual chemical action of the combustible noon a part of 
 the atmosphere, i Ho ike's Micrographia.) Hooke also al- 
 ludes to the part performed by oar in the process of respi- 
 ration : and in his Lam/mi. published in 1677, has given a 
 be of in! explanation of the burning of a candle. He attri- 
 butes the light and heat to the action of the air upon the 
 combustible matter of the flame, and shows that the inte- 
 rior of the flame is not luminous, hy the simple exp idient 
 of viewing its section through a thin piece of glass or of 
 mi •&. 
 
 These doctrines of Hooke were further illustrated by 
 John Mayow (born in Cornwall 1615. died in London 1679), 
 who i. mentally corroborated them, but pointed 
 
 out the connection between combustion and respiration, 
 and showed that that part of the air concerned in the sup- 
 port of flame was also essential to the life of animals. He 
 placed a candle under a bell-glass, and when it would no 
 longer burn, he found that on rekindling it it was immedi 
 ately extinguished by the same air; he then placed a mouse 
 in a confined portion of air, and it soon manifested the 
 want of its renewal; he then put the mouse under the same 
 bell-glass with the candle, and found that it only lived half 
 the time that it had survived without the candle ; he then 
 reversed the experiment, and endeavoured to burn a can- 
 219 
 
 die in air which had been breathed, and finding that it went 
 out, he concluded that the " nitro-aerial particles" of the air 
 were as essential to respiration as to combustion, and that 
 they were in both cases absorbed ; and he even refers ant- 
 mo/ heat to the influence of the air upon the blood. 
 
 But Mayow's claim to a distinguished place in the history 
 of chemistry is not merely founded upon the sagacity with 
 which he followed up these views; he was the first who 
 distinctly expounded the nature of chemical affinity, and 
 who taught its independence of those mechanical forms of 
 the particles of matter to which it had been referred, and 
 showed, contrary to the prevailing tenets, that in cases of 
 combination the particles of the acting bodies were not an- 
 nihilated, but that they still existed in the compound, and 
 might again be elicited from it with all their former powers 
 and properties. These notions he illustrates by a series of 
 extremely apposite experiments ; and proceeds to explain 
 decomposition upon the principle of inequality in the respec- 
 tive attractive forces of the acting bodies, a doctrine which 
 was afterwards verified and further explained by Newton, 
 whose masterly sketch of a theory of chemical attraction, 
 given in the queries to the third book of Optics, is nearly 
 in the language and entirely in the spirit of his predecessor. 
 The theory of combustion and of affinity, thus established 
 upon the basis of experiment by ; I Mayow, con- 
 
 stitute the foundation upon which most of the superstruc- 
 ture of modern chemistry rests ; the former was exti 
 and embellished by Lavoisier, and the latter has gradually 
 risen into the atomic and equivalent doctrine. There are 
 three principal points connected with the vast extension 
 and importance of chemical science as we now find it. to 
 which it becomes n refore to allude; namely, 
 
 the investigations relating to the philosophy of heat, those 
 connected with piu umaticchi mistry, and those establishing 
 the connection of electrical w phenomena. 
 
 It was not till towards the middle of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury that such perfection was given to the construction of 
 the thermometer as to enable it to be used as an accurate 
 and comparative measure of temperature. Dr. Halley 
 seems to have been the firsl who applied the uniform tem- 
 perature of boiling w iter to obtain one fixed point for its 
 graduation; the constant temperature of water in the act 
 of freezing seems also to have been noticed about the same 
 time by the ' ademicians, and by Newton : and 
 
 these two points being thus determined and ascertained, 
 ir with the causes of their occasional discrepancies, 
 the graduation of the thermometer became easy, especial 
 Iv when the advanl n pointed out 
 
 by Halley, togi ther with the mo le of sealing it in the ther- 
 mometer tiii umometer.) But the great and 
 important step in the philosophy of heal was the conse- 
 quence of Dr. Black's discovery of the state in which heat 
 i v (pours, and upon which he founded 
 his beautiful I entheat. This theory gave a sa- 
 tisfactory solution of a multitude of natural and artificial 
 phenomena previously unexplained or unobserved, and laid 
 the foundation of those wonderful improvements in the 
 theoretical and practical construction of the steam engine 
 on afterwards carried into effect b\ 
 
 Dr. Black was born in 17'->i on the banks of the Garonne, 
 located at Belfast, and afterwards at Glasgow : in 17*16 
 he was appointed to the chemical chair in the university 
 of Edinburgh, where he died in 1799. He not only made 
 the grand discovery of the latency of heat, but he enriched 
 chemistry with other discoveries ; among which that of 
 the presence of carbonic acid in the mild earths and alka- 
 lies, and the cause of their causticity, was especially per- 
 fect and important. These facts, including also the dis- 
 covery of carbonic acid, or, as it was then caOed,fixed air, 
 were first published in 1756; his ideas respecting the com- 
 binations of heat with ponderable matter were perfected in 
 1764. 
 
 Another and distinct set of inquiries, having important 
 bearings upon the philosophy of heat, had its origin with 
 the Florentine academicians towards the end of the seven- 
 teenth century, and was afterwards sagaciously followed 
 up by Bcheele, Leslie, and others ; it relates to the pheno- 
 mena of radiation, to the manner in which heat is propa- 
 th rough space, and to those of its emanation from 
 luminous and incandescent bodies, and to its connection 
 with light. 
 
 Pneumatic Chemistry had its origin in the experiments 
 of Hooke and Mayow, and was subsequently extended by 
 Hales, and more especially by Priestley. Mayow obtained 
 hydrogen gas by theaction of iron on dilute sulphuric acid, 
 and observed the formation of nitrous gas during the action 
 of aquafortis upon the same 'metal ; but it was not till the 
 commencement of the last century that the distinctive 
 characters of the gases and their importance as chemical 
 agents began to he duly appreciated. Connected also with 
 this subject is the rise and progress of the chemical physi- 
 ology of vegetation. Dr. Stephen Hales was born in Kent 
 in 1677. and died at Teddington in 1761. He began the 
 communication of his researches to the Royal Society in
 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 1717, and in 1727 published his " Statical Essays, containing 
 an essay towards a natural iiistory of vegetation, of use fo 
 those who are curious in the culture and improvement of 
 gardening ; also a specimen of an attempt to analyse the air 
 by a great variety of chemico-statical experiments, which 
 were read at several-meetings before the Royal Society." In 
 1733 a second volume of these Essays was published, con- 
 taining " Haemostatics, and experiments on the stone of the 
 kidney and bladder." In his various experimental re- 
 searches detailed in these essays, Dr. Hales describes 
 many curious facts, and shows much ingenuity in the con- 
 trivance of apparatus ; but he furnishes a striking instance 
 of the facility with which the mind is led away from the 
 true path of discovery by preconceived opinions ; for hav- 
 ing predetermined that the various gaseous products which 
 he obtained were mere modifications and contaminations 
 of common air, he missed much that was fairly within his 
 grasp. He observed, for instance, that air was absorbed 
 during the combustion of phosphorus in close vessels, but 
 he examined none of the products; he collected the air 
 evolved during the destructive distillation of wood, and 
 found it fatal to animals ; from Newcastle coal he obtained 
 one third of its weight of gas ; and from nitre, 180 times its 
 bulk ; but he did not leisurely examine any of these por- 
 ducts. He found that iron filings ami oil of vitriol would 
 not evolve gas unless water was present ; but instead of 
 stopping to examine the properties of the hydrogen gas 
 which he thus obtained, he hastens on to irrelevant obser- 
 vations, being more eager to multiply experiments than to 
 examine their results. In the same way he details with 
 minute accuracy the quantity of the air generated during 
 the distillation of blood, tallow, sal ammoniac, and many 
 other substances, without drawing a single useful infe- 
 rence. In his experiments on respiration too, he obtained 
 results of extreme interest, and is often upon the verge of 
 most important discoveries; but instead of being incited 
 by the novelty of his results, and the extent of the field of 
 investigation opened by his researches, he drops them 
 upon the occurrence of the slightest difficulty. His exam- 
 ination, however, of the motion of the sap in vegetables 
 was pursued upon a more regular and satisfactory plan ; 
 he ascertained the quantity of matter imbibed and per- 
 spired by several plants and trees ; the proportion daily 
 lost by the leaves, and their influence upon the absorptive 
 powers of the root; and the relation of various states of 
 the atmosphere as to temperature and moisture upon these 
 functions. He endeavoured to confer different flavours 
 upon fruits by impregnating the soil with perfumed waters, 
 and he found that the odorous particles were rejected by 
 the living vessels, but that they affected the dead parts of 
 the tree ; he compares the functions of the leaves of ever- 
 green with those of deciduous shrubs and trees ; he no- 
 tices the effect of cutting a ring of bark off the branch of a 
 tree in promoting the growth of its leaves and fruit ; and, 
 lastly, shows that air is sometimes absorbed or inspired by 
 plants, and gives some interesting views relative to the ger- 
 mination of seeds. 
 
 When it is recollected that Hales wrote at the com- 
 mencement of the last century, that few models of good 
 scientific composition were then extant, and that a pom- 
 pous and obscure style was prevalent among most of his 
 contemporaries, we must admire the perspicuous and un- 
 adorned manner in which he details his facts and obser- 
 vations. He has in this respect all the merit which be- 
 longs to Boyle without, his diffusiveness : and a pleasing 
 vein of sound and unaffected morality accompanies his ar- 
 guments, and leads him, whilst endeavouring to unveil the 
 mysteries of nature, to direct our attention with becoming 
 modesty to the extreme penury of man's wisdom, when 
 compared with the admirable adjustments of causes and 
 effects discoverable in the lowliest works of the Creator. 
 
 But although Jlayow, Hooke, and Hales had done much 
 towards establishing the interest and importance of gas- 
 eous chemistry, it is to Dr. Joseph Priestley (born at Field- 
 head, near Leeds, 1733 ; died in Pennsylvania, 1804) that 
 we owe the principal progress in this branch of our science. 
 He directed his attention to it with a degree of activity and 
 skill then peculiarly his own, and in the number of his dis- 
 coveries left his contemporaries far behind, while he cer- 
 tainly rivalled them in their interest and importance, which 
 is the more surprising when we reflect that he generally 
 seems to have considered his philosophical studies as sub- 
 ordinate to his more severe and serious occupations. He 
 first turned his attention to chemistry about the year 17G8. 
 He used to amuse himself with experiments on fixed air 
 and on artificial mineral waters ; and one experiment, as 
 he says, leading to another, he soon collected those mate 
 rials which he laid before the Royal Society in 1772, under 
 the title of Observations on different Kinds of Air. It was 
 on the 1st of August, 1774, that he made the great discove- 
 ry upon which so much of the subsequent progress of 
 chemical science has depended, namely, that of oxygen 
 gas. He obtained it by exposing a quantity of red precipitate 
 of mercury to the action of the sun's rays concentrated 
 
 upon it by a lens ; tho red precipitate was contained in a 
 flask filled up with mercury, and inverted in a basin con- 
 taining the same metal. "I presently found," he says, 
 " that by means of this lens air was expelled from it very 
 readily. Having got several times as much as the bulk of 
 my materials, I admitted water to it, and found that it was 
 not imbibed by it ; but what surprised me more than 1 can 
 well express was that a candle burned in this air with a re- 
 markably vigorous flame, very much like that enlarged 
 flame with which a candle burns in nitrous air exposed to 
 iron or liver of sulphur; but, as 1 got nothing like this re- 
 markable appearance from any kind of air besides this par- 
 ticular modification of nitrous air, and I knew no nitrous 
 acid was used in the preparation of the mercurius calcina- 
 tus, I was utterly at a loss how to account for it." He then 
 goes on to show that red lead and nitre also affords oxygen 
 at a red heat, and calls it, consistently with the theory of 
 combustion which was then prevalent, dephlogisticated air, 
 regarding it as common air deprived of phlogiston, and 
 consequently possessed of a powerful affinity for that im- 
 aginary principle. 
 
 Shortly after the discovery of oxygen, Priestley ascer- 
 tained that plants had the power of purifying air which 
 had been vitiated by the respiration of animals, and that 
 oxygen was evolved by aquatic plants in water containing 
 carbonic acid. Nitrous and nitric oxide, muriatic acid, 
 and ammonia were also amongst his gaseous discoveries. 
 In 1772 Dr. Rutherford had demonstrated that a large por- 
 tion of the atmosphere consisted of a peculiar gas differing 
 from fixed air, yet, like it, extinguishing flame and unfit 
 for respiration ; to this component part of the atmosphere 
 Dr. Priestley gave the name of phlogisticated air, and point- 
 ed out the means of ascertaining its relative proportion to 
 the oxygen of the air by the agency of nitrous gas. 
 
 Another celebrated name connected with the progress 
 of this department of chemical science is that of Caven- 
 dish. In 1776 he presented the Royal Society with a dis- 
 sertation on inflammable, fixed, and nitrous air. The two 
 latter gases had been well described by his contempora- 
 ries ; but nothing very precise was known respecting in- 
 flammable air, till its sources and properties were de- 
 scribed in Cavendish's masterly paper. He found that it 
 was the lightest known substance, and in conjunction with 
 Watt he showed that by combustion with oxygen water 
 was the only result; hence the term hydrogen subsequent- 
 ly applied to this gas. Cavendish also discovered the 
 composition of nitric acid ; and by passing a succession of 
 electric sparks through common air, and through artificial 
 mixtures of oxygen and nitrogen, he succeeded in effect- 
 ing their combination, and in producing that acid. 
 
 Two capital and extremely important steps were thus 
 made in chemical science, chiefly by the joint labours of 
 Priestley and of Cavendish ; namely, the composition of 
 the atmosphere and of water; and about the same time 
 Scheele (born at Stralsund in 1742, and died at Kbping 
 near Stockholm in 1786), in his dissertation on Manganese, 
 made known the existence of chlorine, or, as he then 
 termed it, of dephlogisticated muriatic acid gas. His " Ob- 
 servations and Experiments on Air and Fire," and on 
 "Heat and Light," are also masterly productions, and con- 
 tributed, in conjunction with the "labours of his eminent 
 contemporaries, to invest chemistry with a degree of in- 
 terest and importance which gave it an entirely new 
 and distinct aspect, and an elevated rank in physical 
 science. 
 
 It was at this period that Lavoisier and his associates in 
 Paris undertook that celebrated reform of chemical no- 
 menclature which ended in the banishment of phlogiston, 
 and introduced a logical precision before unknown into 
 the precincts of chemistry. Lavoisier experimented upon 
 a magnificent scale, and with a degree of statical accuracy 
 which stamped his researches with a new and valuable 
 character. By a series of beautiful experiments he de- 
 termined the relative proportions of the elements of the at- 
 mosphere and of those of water; he rejected all support- 
 ers of combustion except oxygen, and regarded it as 11, o 
 sole source of the heat and light evolved during that pro- 
 cess ; he endeavoured to prove that gases were constituted 
 by the union of ponderable bases with caloric, or the matter 
 of heat, and examined, upon a splendid scale and with 
 princely apparatus, the results of the combustion of sul- 
 phur, phosphorus, carbon, and the metals ; he inferred 
 that oxygen was the universal acidifying principle ; and 
 by a series of well conceived researches lie demonstrated 
 the identity of charcoal and the diamond, and showed that 
 when burned in oxygen they yielded carbonic acid gas. 
 Lavoisier was also the first who examined with requisite 
 accuracy the products of the distillation of animal and ve- 
 getable substances ; he also inquired with more success 
 than any of his predecessors into the phenomena of fer- 
 mentation, and, by examining the contents of certain vege- 
 table juices, previous to and after that process, he drew 
 some curious and important conclusions respecting the 
 changes that take place ; he also extended and corrobo-
 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 rated Scheele'sviewsasto the importance of the chemical 
 agencies of light. 
 
 These, and a variety of other details are embodied in 
 Lavoisier's Siemens de Chimie, which appeared at Paris in 
 1789 ; a work which eminently displays the extent and per- 
 spicuity of his views as a theorelical and experimental 
 philosopher, and which contains a masterly refutation of 
 the phlogistic doctrines. The abstract facts, however, upon 
 which this refutation rests may be traced toMayow. Hooke, 
 Priestley, and Scheele. It has been stated that the pro- 
 minent features of the French theory were its explanation 
 of the phenomena of combustion and of acidification, the 
 presence of oxygen being deemed essential in both cases. 
 That air is the food of fire was known at a very remote 
 period ; that it causes the increase of weight sustained by 
 metals during their calcination was shown by Rey early in 
 the seventeenth century ; that a part only of the atmos- 
 phere, identical with a matter contained in saltpetre, is 
 rned in the support of flame, was explained by 
 Hooke in 1667 ; and that the vital, or igneous spirit, as 
 he terms it, contributes to the formation of acids was as- 
 serted by Mayow in 1674 Here therefore, without even 
 infringing upon the eighteenth century, we have, in ex- 
 p licit detail, the principal facts nts requisite 
 
 for the construction of the French theory ; and it'tothese 
 we add the discovery of oxygen by Priestley, and of the 
 composition of water and of nitric acid by Watt and Caven- 
 dish, u ii,ii then becomes ol its title to originality t 
 
 The inihii'iii ■<■.- of the researches connected with the 
 philosophy of heal and of those relating to the production, 
 properties, and constitution of the gases, upon the improve- 
 ment and extension of chemistry, will now he apparent ; 
 but one of the most fertile sourci s ol its recent progress is 
 
 of a distinct and remarkabl igin, namely the discovery 
 
 of the chemical influt nces of electricity. 
 
 In 1790 Galvani of Bologna ascertained that certain spas- 
 modic or convulsive contractions might be produced by 
 tion of electricity upon the nerves of a recently killed 
 animal; and that, if the sciatic re 
 
 and touched with a piece of zinc, whilst at the same time 
 the muscle is touched with gold, similar effects to these of 
 electricity are produced whenever the metals were bi 
 into contact, or connected together by conductors of elec- 
 tricity : if non-conductors were used, no spasms en 
 lie accounted for these and similar effects by assuming 
 that the nerves and must ' ! ■ In 
 
 is were the consequence of their 
 annihilation or discharge. 
 
 Volta, on the other hand, finding that two different me- 
 tals were essential, referred the p 
 
 motive power of the metals; and following up this idea, 
 he soon succeeded in producing that extraordinary form 
 of electro-gent rative apparatus whit h is now known under 
 the name ol the Voii.iie j . 1 1 . ■ or i,,ii;e,-v, consisting of alter- 
 nations of two metals with an intervening fluid : zii 
 per, and diluted acids are the substances now generally 
 resorted to. It has lately bt en shown by Faraday that che- 
 mical action is the exclusive source of the electricity 
 of these Voltaic arrangements; but their history and the 
 theory of theii . here. 
 
 In the year of the Voltaic pile 
 
 were first observed in regard to the decomposition of water 
 and certain saline solutions, by Messrs. Nicholson and 
 Carlisle; these were more accui rated in 1803 
 
 by Hisinger and Berzelius ; and in 1806 Sir II Davy com- 
 municated his celebrated lecture "On some chemical 
 Agencies of Electricity" to the Royal Society. He had 
 previously 118 I] I given a paper to the Society containing an 
 account ot some galvanic combinations formed by thear- 
 nent of single metallic plates and fluids, analogous 
 to the galvanic apparatus of Volta ; but it was not till the 
 publication of the Bakerian Lecture above alluded to that 
 the importance of > nee could be appre- 
 
 ciated. It contains a masterly outline ofthe subject ; and 
 its details present a fine specimen of experimental inquiry, 
 especially in reference to the manner in which he traces 
 out the decomposing powers of an electrical current in ef- 
 fecting the separation of the elements of water, the skill 
 with which the conflicting results of other experimental- 
 ists are examined and explained, the caution with which 
 he proceeds from experiment to theory, and the sagacity 
 with which he employs theoretical views as the source of 
 new experimental inquiries. Following the path which he 
 had thus opened for himself, it led him on to the most im- 
 portant and extraordinary results, among which were the 
 decomposition ofthe alkalis and earths, and the discovery 
 of an entirely new class of metals. 
 
 But the eradication of established errors is perhaps a 
 more difficult task than the promulgation of new theories ; 
 and in this Davy rendered a memorable service to che- 
 mistry by his several papers on " Oxymuriatic Acid." in 
 which he successfully establishes the views of Scheele re- 
 garding its nature, and refutes and subverts those ofthe 
 French school, and which had been sanctioned by the 
 221 
 
 chemist3 of Europe : he demonstrates the existence of 
 acids without oxygen, and lays the foundation ofthe theory 
 of the hydracids. 
 
 To these masterly researches Davy added a third series, 
 of equal if not superior importance ; those relating to the 
 safety lamp. His first paper upon this subjectis printed in 
 the Philosophical Transaction* for 1S15, and was followed 
 by four others. Finding that flame would not recede 
 through tubes of very small diameter, the idea occurred to 
 him of constructing a lamp which should have no connec- 
 tion with the surrounding air except by capillary tubes ; and 
 he inferred from previous experiments that such a lamp 
 might safely be employed in coal mines infested by fire 
 damp. He then endeavoured to ascertain the extent to 
 which the tubes might be s/wrtened without interfering 
 with this principle of safety, and was thus led to cut them 
 down, till their transverse section resembled a series of 
 meshes. This approached so closely to wire-gauze that 
 he was induced to try how far that tissue would prevent 
 the passage of flame; and finding it effectual, he employed 
 it in the construction of his lamp, and ultimately adopted 
 the simple and efficient arrangement now in general and 
 successful use During the experimental investigations 
 upon which the discovery ofthe safety lamp was founded, 
 Davy ascertained a number of curious facts respecting the 
 constitution and temperature of flame, which, with other 
 parts of his general inquiry, are not less ingenious than 
 original. In Novembi i. I 20, Sir U. Davy became presi- 
 dent of the Koyal Society, and continued to contribute pa- 
 pers as heretofore, some of them upon subjects of much 
 interi St, ably and philosophically discussed : among them 
 the essays on the modes of protecting the copper sheath- 
 ing of ships deserve especial notice; they have furnished 
 hints for the preservation of iron and other corrodible me- 
 tals from the influence of air and water, and promised to 
 lead to results of great practical importance. In the course 
 of the year 1827, his health became seriously impaired ; 
 he passed the greater part of the year 1828 in Italy, and 
 terminated his memorable existence at Geneva in" May, 
 1829, in the fifty-second year ol hi 
 
 We have now briefly sketched the principal circum- 
 stances in the history of chemistry bearing upon its origin 
 and progress as a science, without, however, adverting to 
 the labours of contemporaries ; it remains to add a short 
 notice respecting the art of A nalysis and the important 
 consequences of which the prosecution of that branch of 
 the science has been produi 
 
 Analysis was first scientifically pursued by Bergman of 
 i. He was born in 1735, and died in 1784, in conse- 
 quence, as is said, of too intense application to his studies. 
 eats for the discover} of certain substances 
 held in aqueous and other solutions, is first particularly 
 dwelt upon by Boyle. He used vegetable colours for the 
 di tection of acids and alkalis, and noticed the cloudiness 
 produced by nitrate of silver in solution of common sail. 
 
 In 1667 Du Clos undertook an examination of the min- 
 eral waters of France, and in 1686 lie rne published some 
 clever experiments upon the same subject in Sweden. In 
 1726 Boulduc used spirit of wine to precipitate the salts 
 insoluble in that menstruum : in 177.". Venel pointed out 
 the existence of fixed air in the waters of Sellers. Spa, 
 and Pyrmont ; Fane, in 1760, showed the method of imita- 
 ting chalybeate springs ; and in 1772 Priestley published di- 
 i iturating water with fixed air. The above 
 and other tests w ere particularly examined, their accuracy 
 compared, and the best modes of applying them pointed 
 out by Bergman ; his dissertations on the waters ofUpsal, 
 on sea-water, and on the artificial preparation of medicated 
 waters, each exhibit proofs of his skill as an analyst, and 
 accuracy as an experimenter. lie also turned his atten- 
 tion to the analysis of minerals ; his essay, entitled JDe 
 Minerarum, Docimasia Humidft, must be considered as 
 the parent source of that branch of analytic chemistry so 
 successfully followed up. though upon a limited scale, by 
 Scheele, and in the improvement and extension of which 
 Klaproth passed his long and laborious life. Klaproth 
 was born at Wernigerode in Prussia in 1743, and died 
 at Berlin in 1817. He published 207 essays in his 
 " Contributions towards the Chemical Knowledge of Min- 
 eral Substances." Another eminent name among chemi- 
 ical analysts is that of Vauquelin who died at an advanced 
 ase in Paris in 1829. He was originally a peasant boy, in 
 Normandy, and afterwards was employed in Fourcroy's 
 laboratory, where he not only acquired great dexterity in 
 the ordinary duties of his situation, but became an expert 
 and original analyst. He afterwards rose to high eminence 
 in his profession ; and his numerous and important con- 
 tributions and discoveries are lasting monuments of his 
 skill and industry. 
 
 Among the improvers of analytical chemistry in Eng- 
 land, Chenevix, Howard, and Tennant deserve particu- 
 lar mention ; but to none is this part of the science more 
 deeply indebted than to Dr. Wollaston. With him and 
 Davy all that is practically useful in the theory of definite
 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 proportionals, or, as it is often called, the Atomic Theory, 
 may be said to have originated ; though the facts upon 
 which it is founded were chiefly furnished by the German 
 analysts, and by Higgins of Dublin. 
 
 We have in another place given some account of this 
 important subject, and have endeavoured to explain the 
 facts upon which it is founded, and the results to which it 
 leads : its promulgation with us is mainly attributable to 
 Wollaston's suggestions contained in his paper " On a Sy- 
 noptic Scale of Chemical Equivalents," brought before the 
 Royal Society in November, 1813. Many years previously 
 he had established the important doctrine of multiple pro- 
 portions in a paper " On Superacid and Subacid Salts." 
 He now showed the practical applications of which the the- 
 ory was susceptible ; and, by connecting the scale of equiva- 
 lents with Gunter's sliding rule, has put into the hands of 
 the chemist an instrument infinite in its uses, and equally 
 essential to the student, the adept, and the manufacturer. 
 
 There remains to be noticed a distinct branch of chemis- 
 try of extreme interest and importance, but beset with pecu- 
 liar difficulties ; namely, that relating to organic substances. 
 Some progress was made in it by Scheele ; but it has chiefly 
 been enriched by the labours of modern and contemporary 
 philosophers, and in their hands has assumed an entirely 
 new aspect. The composition of organic bodies may be 
 viewed in two ways; either as relates to their ultimate ele- 
 ments, or to their proximate groups. The former are re- 
 markably few in number, and are almost exclusively con- 
 fined to four ; namely, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 
 nitrogen. These, by their varied and extraordinary union, 
 give rise to innumerable secondary products or proximate 
 principles. That the same elementary forms of matter 
 should give rise to such infinitely varied products, merely 
 in consequence of the varying proportions in which they 
 are combined and the circumstances under which they 
 have been presented to each other; that food and poisons, 
 alkalis and acids, sweets and bitters, and, in short, the 
 most opposite and dissimilar qualities, should arise out 
 of such causes— is extremely remarkable ; and although 
 every day is adding to our information, and clearing diffi- 
 culties from this department of chemistry, it is but in its 
 infant state. 
 
 In looking at the present state of chemistry, it must be 
 allowed that it exhibits a most promising aspect; the study 
 of its abstract principles is calculated to keep the curiosity 
 constantly on the alert, and awaken an intense and peculiar 
 interest ; and it is quite impossible to glance at its recent 
 progress, and at the extraordinary discoveries which are 
 daily rewarding the labours of its skilful cultivators, with- 
 out anticipating most important consequences. Should its 
 progress during the ensuing century only equal that of the 
 past", it must lead to results deeply affecting the interests 
 and welfare of mankind ; but as it has hitherto acquired 
 strength with its progress, its wonders may be expected to 
 accumulate in a much higher ratio. We already seem to 
 be on the brink of some great discovery connected witli 
 those- powers and properties of matter which we call elec- 
 trical. Their association with, and convertibility as it 
 were into, heat, light, and magnetism, and their identity 
 with the cause of chemical affinity, have already been 
 turned to great account ; and it is only necessary to assume 
 the possession of a more unlimited command than we at 
 present enjoy over the production or evolution of this ex- 
 traordinary agent, less dependent and scanty means of 
 summoning it into existence or activity, and a more inti- 
 mate acquaintance with its forms and qualities, to confer 
 the highest interest upon our speculations. Its chemical 
 powers would then be perpetually called into action as a 
 substitute for the more sluggish or circuitous and difficult 
 methods of ordinary decomposition. Its single application 
 to the evolution of oxygen and hydrogen from water would 
 alone work wonders ; whilst the facility of its conveyance 
 and transmission, its ubiquity, and its varied attributes in 
 those different states which for want of more explicit 
 knowledge of their cause have been termed quantity and 
 tension, seem to point it out as of unlimited application to 
 human uses. Through its instrumentality telegraphic com- 
 munication has not only been accelerated, but rendered 
 independent of weather, and equally facile by night as by 
 day ; and even in the present state of this invention there 
 seems no reason against such conveyance of our thoughts, 
 wants, and wishes, so as to transmit them over the globe with 
 a rapidity as much beyond all previous experience, as the 
 travelling on a rail-road exceeds that of a common car- 
 riage. 
 
 Connected, therefore, with the progress of the higher 
 departments of chemical science, and indeed intimately 
 interwoven with it, is the advancement of its application to 
 all the arts of life. It is often supposed that the successful 
 applications of chemistry to the arts have been rather the 
 result of accident or chance than the consequence of those 
 apparently abstract studies, and curious rather than useful 
 discoveries, as they are called, in which the truly philoso- i 
 phical chemist is engaged, and in which bis labours tenni- I 
 222 
 
 nate; but experience justifies no such conclusion. There 
 can be no doubt that Black's researches into those effects 
 of heat which are connected with changes in the state and 
 form of bodies, and especially with the constitution of 
 vapour, led Watt into that train of reasoning by which his 
 improvements in the steam engine were ultimately effected. 
 Most of the wonders of modern chemistry must be referred 
 to Galvani's experiments on a dead frog. They led Volta 
 to the construction of the electric pile; and, in the hands 
 of Davy and his successors, what important conquests have 
 been attained, and what extraordinary consequences are 
 daily flowing from a source so apparently unpromising and 
 irrelevant ! Independent of the new agents which have 
 been placed in the hands of the experimentalist, and of 
 the new and important theoretical considerations which 
 arise out of them, the whole aspect and character of a great 
 department of physical science has been wonderfully 
 changed, extended, and improved ; the cause of magnetism 
 has been developed ; and a power no less extraordinary 
 and applicable to human uses than light and heat, perhaps 
 indeed the parent of both, is gradually showing us its mys- 
 terious relations. Of two great practical consequences 
 have these inquiries already been productive ; namely, the 
 electrical telegraph, and the preservation of metals from 
 corrosion. That others are upon the eve of their develop- 
 ment cannot be doubted ; and in proportion as our know- 
 ledge of this agent and consequent power over it is extend- 
 ed, those ends must certainly be attained which we have 
 above ventured to anticipate. 
 
 From other departments of this science we are constant- 
 ly acquiring similar benefits : the progress of gas illumina- 
 tion, the great improvements in metallurgic operations, in 
 the arts of dyeing and calico-printing, in the manufacture of 
 cements, in the preservation of timber from dry-rot, in gild- 
 ing and silvering the metals, are only a few of the cases in 
 point ; even the difficult and apparently isolated researches 
 into the relative proportions of the ultimate elements of 
 the proximate organic products, and the application of the 
 atomic theory to those researches, have not been fruitless, 
 considered in reference to what are termed their practical 
 results and popular and useful applications. The brewer 
 and the distiller are reaping the benefits of such inquiries; 
 the conversion of starch, and even of wood, into sugar, are 
 the practical consequences of theoretical inferences; from 
 the destructive distillation of ligneous matter we are al- 
 ready furnished with our chief supply of vinegar, and with 
 a liquid which, as a combustible and a solvent, has to a 
 great extent superseded the use of alcohol, and may pos- 
 sibly take its place at no very remote period as an intoxi- 
 cating stimulant : the saw-dust of certain woods has been 
 shown susceptible of conversion into nutriment : and the 
 analysis of bone points it out, when properly prepared, as 
 almost equal to its weight of flesh as an article of human 
 food. In short, of the arts of life the greater number are 
 dependent upon chemical principles ; many of them, anc. 
 perhaps the most important, are exclusively so ; others 
 though apparently mechanical, involve chemical princi- 
 ples : hence the great and growing importance of chemical 
 science as a branch of general education bearing upon 
 political economy, and upon the prosperity of the arts and 
 manufactures. 
 
 Having given this outline of the rise, progress, uses, and 
 applications of chemical science, we must refer to other 
 articles for more explicit information upon the different 
 heads that have been alluded to. In reference to further 
 details respecting the history of this department of know- 
 ledge, especially as relates to alchemy and to the history of 
 chemical inventions, we may refer to Dr. Thomson's His- 
 tory of Chemistry, and to the prefatory chapter of Mr. 
 Braniie's Manual. 
 
 The extent necessarily occupied by chemistry in a map 
 of human knowledge will be evident from the brief defini- 
 tion of the science given at the outset of this article ; for it 
 not only leads us to inquire into the composition of every 
 product of nature and of art, but to examine the elements 
 of all the forms of matter, and the laws which govern their 
 mutual actions and reactions. The questions which a 
 chemist propounds to himself, in examining any newly 
 discovered substance, involve therefore a long train of in- 
 quiries, which can only be answered and worked out by 
 multiplied 'experiments; for it is impossible to move on- 
 wards in this science except upon the basis of experimental 
 research. Accordingly, when a body of unknown nature 
 is presented to us, we endeavour first to ascertain whether 
 it be a simple or a compound substance. If simple, to what 
 class of elementary bodies does it belong : is it combustible 
 or incombustible ; is it electro-negative or electro-positive ; 
 how is it affected by heat; what are its relations to other 
 forms of matter ; what its powers of combination ; what 
 are the proportions in which it unites with other substances; 
 what are its characters and those of its combinations as a 
 chemical and physiological agent; what are its uses in the 
 arts and in medicine? If it be a compound substance, we 
 inquire into the nature and number of its component parts :
 
 CHEMISTRY. 
 
 are they new, or are they known elements ; in what pro- 
 portions are they combined ? We also, as before, exam- 
 ine its thermal and electrical relations, and its useful ap- 
 plications. These, and many other questions which arise 
 in (lie course of chemical investigation, involve as it were 
 several distinct branches of inquiry, and lead us to con- 
 template chemistry under two points of view ; namely, as 
 an independent science, which embraces the whole field 
 of chemical knowledge, and investigates the chemical re- 
 lations of bodies without reference to any extraneous con- 
 siderations — this is /we, theoretical, or philosophical chem- 
 istry ; and secondly, as a science having certain objects in 
 common with others, as with mineralogy, medicine, physi- 
 ology, and the arts — this b-iiiL r applied chemistry. 
 
 In a subject then so extensive and complicated as chem- 
 istry, systematic arrangement is of the utmost importance 
 to the teacher and student In the broad principles of ar- 
 iient most writers agree ; but in minor details each 
 generally pursues a path of his own. It would be useless, 
 even if it were possible, to enumerate the detads of these ar- 
 rangements as adopted by the leading didactic writers on 
 chemistry ; but the basis upon which they are founded de- 
 serves a few words of explanation. 
 
 Table of the Simple Substances, with their Symbols and 
 Equivalent or Combining Weights. 
 
 
 Equiva- 
 
 Symbol. 
 
 Symbol. 
 
 Equiva- 
 
 
 tents, Hy. 
 
 Braiide. 
 
 Berze- 
 
 lents, Or- 1 
 
 
 drogea 1 
 
 
 lius- 
 
 ygen I. [ 
 
 1 Aluminum 
 
 10 
 
 al. 
 
 Al. 
 
 1-25 
 
 2 Antimony 
 
 65 
 
 ant. 
 
 Sb. 
 
 8125 
 
 3 Arsenic 
 
 38 
 
 ar. 
 
 As. 
 
 475 
 
 i Barium 
 
 69 
 
 ba. 
 
 Ba. 
 
 8 625 
 
 5 Bismuth 
 
 72 
 
 bi. 
 
 Bi. 
 
 9- 
 
 6 Boron 
 
 20 
 
 bo. 
 
 B. 
 
 25 
 
 7 Bromine 
 
 78 
 
 b. 
 
 Br. 
 
 9-75 
 
 8 Cadmium 
 
 56 
 
 cad. 
 
 I'd. 
 
 7- 
 
 9 Calcium 
 
 20 
 
 cat. 
 
 Ca. 
 
 2 5 
 
 in i 'arbon 
 
 6 
 
 cut. 
 
 C. 
 
 075 
 
 1 1 i ledum 
 
 43 
 
 ce. 
 
 Ce. 
 
 6- 
 
 12 Chlorine 
 
 36 
 
 c. 
 
 CI. 
 
 4-5 
 
 13 < Ihromium 
 
 28 
 
 ill r. 
 
 Cr. 
 
 35 
 
 1 1 Cobalt 
 
 30 
 
 cob. 
 
 Co. 
 
 
 15 Columbium 
 
 185 
 
 col. 
 
 T.i. 
 
 
 16 < 'upper 
 
 32 
 
 CU. 
 
 Cu. 
 
 4' 
 
 1" Fluorine 
 
 18 
 
 /• 
 
 F. 
 
 2-28 
 
 ium 
 
 18 
 
 gl- 
 
 G. 
 
 2-25 
 
 19 Gold 
 
 2,u 
 
 au. 
 
 Au. 
 
 25- 
 
 D) Hydrogen 
 
 1 
 
 h. 
 
 11. 
 
 0125 
 
 21 Iodine 
 
 125 
 
 i. 
 
 I. 
 
 15-625 
 
 22 Iridium 
 
 96 
 
 jr. 
 
 Ir. 
 
 12- 
 
 23 Iron 
 
 28 
 
 fe. 
 
 Fe. 
 
 3-5 
 
 •21 Lead 
 
 104 
 
 t 
 
 Pb. 
 
 13- 
 
 25 Lithium 
 
 10 
 
 L 
 
 1 25 
 
 lesium 
 
 12 
 
 mag. 
 
 He. 
 
 1 :. 
 
 uiese 
 
 
 man. 
 
 Mn. 
 
 3-5 
 
 28 Mercury 
 
 200 
 
 hg- 
 
 Hg. 
 
 25- 
 
 29 Molybdenum 
 
 48 
 
 mol. 
 
 Mo. 
 
 6- 
 
 30 Nickel 
 
 28 
 
 nic. 
 
 Ni. 
 
 3.5 
 
 31 Nitrogen 
 
 14 
 
 n. 
 
 N. 
 
 1-75 
 
 32 < tsmium 
 
 100 
 
 OS. 
 
 Os. 
 
 12-5 
 
 3 Oj jen 
 
 8 
 
 0. 
 
 O. 
 
 I- 
 
 bum 
 
 5-1 
 
 pal. 
 
 Pd. 
 
 6 75 
 
 35 Phosphorus 
 
 16 
 
 P- 
 
 P. 
 
 2- 
 
 38 Pi aluum 
 
 96 
 
 pla. 
 
 PI. 
 
 12- 
 
 (7 Potassium 
 
 40 
 
 po. 
 
 K. 
 
 5- 
 
 IS R lodium 
 
 45 
 
 rh. 
 
 R. 
 
 5-625 
 
 39 Selenium 
 
 40 
 
 se. 
 
 Se. 
 
 5- 
 
 10 Silicium 
 
 8 
 
 si. 
 
 Si. 
 
 1- 
 
 ■11 Silver 
 
 110 
 
 ag. 
 
 Aq. 
 
 1375 
 
 42 Sodium 
 
 24 
 
 so. 
 
 Na. 
 
 3- 
 
 43 Strontium 
 
 44 
 
 str. 
 
 Sr. 
 
 5-5 
 
 44 Sulphur 
 
 10 
 
 s. 
 
 S. 
 
 2* 
 
 15 Tellurium 
 
 32 
 
 tel. 
 
 Te. 
 
 4- 
 
 It) Thorium 
 
 60 
 
 th. 
 
 Th. 
 
 7-5 
 
 47 Tin 
 
 58 
 
 sta. 
 
 Sn. 
 
 7-25 
 
 43 Titanium 
 
 24 
 
 li. 
 
 Ti. 
 
 3- 
 
 49 Tungsten 
 
 100 
 
 tu. 
 
 W. 
 
 12-5 
 
 50 Vanadium 
 
 68 
 
 rn. 
 
 V. 
 
 85 
 
 51 Uranium 
 
 217 
 
 ur. 
 
 u. 
 
 2712 
 
 52 Yttrium 
 
 32 
 
 yt. 
 
 Y. 
 
 • 4- 
 
 53 Zinc 
 
 32 
 
 zn. 
 
 Zn. 
 
 4- 
 
 54 Zirconium 
 
 30 
 
 zir. 
 
 Zr. 
 
 3 75 
 
 The objects of chemistry are all included under one or 
 other of the following heads ; namely, — 
 
 1. The general powers and properties of matter. 
 
 2. The chemistry of elementary substances. 
 
 3. The chemistry of compounds. 
 
 And each of these require several subdivisions. Thus, un- 
 der the first head, we include attraction and affinity, heat, 
 light, and electricity ; under the second head are included 
 223 
 
 the chemical history and properties of the ponderable 
 elementary substances, and their mutual reactions, which of 
 course leads on to the third head ; namely, to the chemi- 
 cal history and properties of compound bodies. To render 
 the systematic arrangements of the elements and their 
 compounds intelligible, it will be necessary to enumerate 
 the former, and point out such of their characters as are 
 connected with their classification. 
 
 Every substance upon our globe contains one or more of 
 the fifty/our elementary orsimple bodies, above enumerat- 
 ed : some of them are of extremely rare occurrence, others 
 abundant and always with and about us. It will be observed 
 that by far the greater number of them come under the de- 
 nomination of metals ; of the others, oxygen, hydrogen, 
 carbon, and nitrogen, are by far of most frequent occur- 
 rence, as will be obvious when it is recollected that air and 
 water and all vegetable and animal products include two 
 or more of the last-mentioned substances. 
 
 The equivalent or combining proportions of these ele- 
 ments, although mentioned under individual substances in 
 this work, are also above enumerated (see the articles Af- 
 finity, Atomic Theory, and EaUTVALBNTS), and also the 
 symbols by which they are represented. 
 
 The examination of the physical and chemical proper- 
 ties of the preceding elements of matter leads us to classify 
 them according to their analogies. The greater number 
 of them possess the characters of metals. Several resem- 
 ble the metals in certain respects, but are in others widely 
 different ; these therefore have been termed metalloids. 
 A few are distinguished by entering into peculiar and dis- 
 tinct saline combinations, of which common salt may be 
 taken as the type; these therefore have been termed 
 And lastly, three of the elements are only 
 known in the gaseous form; they have neither been liqui- 
 fied nor solidified, but whenever they are isolated they 
 present themselves as permanent gases ; hence they have 
 been designated gazolytes. This is the classification of the 
 elementary bodies suggested by Berzelius, and it repre- 
 sents them as follows : — 
 
 I. 
 I 
 
 Oxygen. 
 Hydrogen. 
 
 Nitrogen. 
 
 II. 
 Halogens, 
 
 Chlorine. 
 Iodine. 
 Bromine. 
 Fluorine. 
 
 III. 
 Metalloids. 
 Sulphur. 
 Phosphorus. 
 
 Carbon. 
 Boron. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Melals. 
 
 The metals, by far the most numerous of the elementary 
 -. are themselves the subjects of various classifica- 
 tions, among which the following is perhaps the most con 
 venient ; they are arranged nearly in the order of their 
 respective attractions for oxygen : — 
 
 I 
 
 II. 
 
 III. 
 
 ium. 
 
 Manganese. 
 
 Copper. 
 
 Sodium. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Lead. 
 
 Lithium. 
 
 Zinc. 
 
 Antimony. 
 
 Calcium. 
 
 Tin. 
 
 Bismuth. 
 
 Barium. 
 
 Cadmium. 
 
 Uranium. 
 
 Strontium. 
 
 Cobalt. 
 
 Titanium. 
 
 Magnesium. 
 
 Nickel. 
 
 Cerium. 
 
 Tellurium. 
 
 IV. 
 
 V. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Arsenic. 
 
 Mercury. 
 
 Olucium. 
 
 Molybdenum. 
 
 Silver. 
 
 Zirconium. 
 
 Chromium. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Yttrium. 
 
 Vanadium. 
 
 Platinum. 
 
 Thorium, 
 
 Tungsten. 
 
 Palladium. 
 
 Aluminum. 
 
 Columbium. 
 
 Rhodium. 
 
 Silicium. 
 
 Osmium. 
 Iridium. 
 
 The substances in the last division have been but imper- 
 fectly examined, and silicium should perhaps rather be 
 regarded as a metalloid than a metal. 
 
 In one or other, then, of these classes each elementary 
 body will find a place, but the arrangement only relates to 
 the simple substances; the classification of their combina- 
 tions, which are almost indefinite, is a much more intri- 
 cate and difficult subject, and it would be impossible here 
 to give even an outline of the different plans which have 
 been pursued or suggested. As far, however, as the 
 teacher of chemistry is concerned, none of the systematic 
 arrangements of compounds can be conveniently adopted ; 
 his best plan, therefore, is to develope their history and 
 properties as he proceeds. Having, for instance, discussed 
 the abstract properties of oxygen and hydrogen, he pro- 
 ceeds to the compound which they form, and which is wa- 
 ter; then he proceeds to the third element, nitrogen, and 
 its combinations with those previously described ; thus, 
 nitrogen and oxygen form five distinct compounds, name- 
 ly, protoxide and binoxide of nitrogen, and hyponitrous, ni- 
 trous, and nitric acids. Nitrogen also combines with hy- 
 drogen to form ammonia, and ammonia combines with 
 nitric acid to form the salt called nitrate of ammonia. In 
 a state of mixture, nitrogen and oxygen constitute the great 
 bulk of the atmosphere.
 
 CHENOPODIACE.E. 
 
 From this brief notice of the mode of dealing with the 
 three elementary bodies of the first class, the reader will 
 readily understand the method of applying the same prin- 
 ciple to the entile list ; the student will thus be conducted, 
 step by step, from the simplest to the most complicated 
 chemical combinations. It is always convenient, however, 
 in adopting this plan, to exclude the products of organiza- 
 tion, and to consider them apart, under a separate head, 
 entitled organic chemistry, which is of course subdivided 
 into the chemistry of vegetable, and of animal products. 
 
 If, having studied chemistry upon this plan, we look back 
 upon the path which has been traversed, we shall immedi- 
 ately see that the compounds may be grouped into classes, 
 related to each other by certain analogies both of proper- 
 ties and composition. Thus we have the class of oxides, 
 or combinations of oxygen which are not acid ; of chlo- 
 rides, iodides, &c, and of acids; and these again subdivid- 
 ed into oxyacids, and hydracids ; and lastly, the numerous 
 class of salts, or compounds of the acids with salifiable 
 bases. 
 
 When compound bodies are susceptible of electro-che- 
 mical decomposition (or electrolytes) the elements al- 
 ways tend to 'one or other pole; in other tcords, they are 
 either separated at the point or surface at which the (pre- 
 sumed) electrical current enters, Or at the surface at which 
 it leaves the electrolyte ; hence the arrangement of the 
 elements into electro-negative bodies, or those which 
 tend to the anode, and electro-positive bodies, or those 
 which tend to the cathode (using the lerms anode and ca- 
 thode in reference to the ingress and egress of the electric 
 influence) ; oxygen, the halogens, and sulphur are anions, 
 or electro-negatives ; hydrogen, and probably all the met- 
 als, are cathions, or electro-positives. A good arrangement 
 of the elementary bodies is founded upon such properties ; 
 and although there are several whose electrical relations 
 have not hitherto been accurately determined, the electro- 
 chemical arrangement is that which will probably be most 
 generally adopted. (Among the numerous modern Trea- 
 tises on "Chemistry the following may be considered as the 
 most valuable : Kane's Elements of Chemistry ; Graham's 
 Elements ; Turner's do. ; Thomson's Inorganic Chemis- 
 try ; Thomson's Vegetable Chemistry ; Brande's Manual ; 
 Daniell's Chemical Philosophy ; Hoblyn's Manual ; D. B. 
 Reid's Elements ; and the Works of Berzelius, Dumas, 
 Liebig, Raspail, Thenard, Mitscherlich, lire : and Fara- 
 day's" Chemical Manipulation ; Parnell's Elements of 
 Chemical Analysis. 1842. 
 
 CHE'NOPODIA'CE^E. (Chenopodium, one of the ge- 
 nera.) A natural order of herbaceous Exogens, distin- 
 guished with difficulty from Amuranlaceoz by their herba- 
 ceous calyx ; from Phytolaccacea. by their solitary carpel, 
 and the stamens never exceeding the number of the seg- 
 ments of the calyx, to which they are opposite. They con- 
 sist of weeds inhabiting most parts of the world, abound- 
 ing least within the tropics ; and they possess few sensible 
 properties. Chenopodium anthelminticum produces the 
 wormseed oil of the shops ; but in consequence of their in- 
 sipidity the species are often used for food, as in the case 
 of spinach, &c. Chevalier has remarked the curious fact 
 of Chenopodium vulvaria exhaling pure ammonia during its 
 whole existence. 
 
 CHE'QUY, CHE'CKY, or CHE'QUERED. In Herald- 
 ry, a term used when a field or charge is divided by trans- 
 verse lines, paleways and fessways, into equal parts or 
 squares of different tinctures. 
 
 CHERT. A silicious mineral approaching the charac- 
 ters of flint. 
 
 CHE'RUBIM. See Seraphim. 
 
 CHEVA'L DE FRISE. A large and strong piece of 
 timber, traversed with wooden spikes, pointed with iron. 
 It is laid in abroach to impede the advance of cavalry. 
 
 CHEVALIE'R (Fr. cheval, a horse), is used synony- 
 mously with the Eng. knight, Lat. eques, and Germ, ritter. 
 
 CHEVRE'TTE. In Artillery, an engine used for rais- 
 ing guns or mortars into their carriages. 
 
 CHE'VRON. In Heraldry, one of the nine honourable 
 ordinaries. It may be defined as consisting of the lower 
 half of a saltire (see Saltire), brought to a point on the up- 
 per side ; and the object from which its name is derived 
 accurately resembles it in shape : chevron, in old French, 
 meaning the support of a roof formed by two rafters lean- 
 ing against one another. A chevron standing on one side 
 of the escutcheon is said to be tourny, dexter, or sinister. 
 
 CHE'VRONEL. In Heraldry, an ordinary of the same 
 shape with the chevron, but containing only half its dimen- 
 sions. 
 
 CHI'AN TURPENTINE. A species of turpentine 
 brought originally from the island of Chios : it is the pro- 
 duce of the Pislacia terebinthvs. 
 
 CHIA'RO SCURO. (It. clear obscure.) In Painting, the 
 art of so disposing the lights, both positive and reflected, 
 and the shadows of a picture in such a manner, that the 
 objects may stand out and be naturally relieved from one 
 another. Its name, however, seems more naturally to 
 284 
 
 CHILTERN HUNDREDS. 
 
 point to those parts of represented objects which, though 
 in shadow, have the intensity of such shadow lessened by 
 the reflection of a light body against them. It is a branch 
 of the doctrine of Sciography. 
 
 CHI'CA. A red colouring matter used by some tribes 
 of American Indians to stain the skin : it is extracted from 
 a species of Bignonia. 
 
 CHI'CKEN POX. (.Varicella of medical writers.) An 
 eruptive disease, which, though frequently very mild in its 
 attack, is often also violent and attended by much fever. 
 The eruption consists of smooth vesicles of various sizes, 
 which afterwards become whitish and straw-coloured ; 
 about the fourth day they break and scab off, seldom leav- 
 ing marks, or at least not more than a few, upon the most 
 delicate parts of the face, or where they happen to have 
 been large or accidentally scratched or irritated. In very 
 warm weather the fluid in the vesicles becomes yellow, and 
 apparently purulent, so as closely to resemble small-pox 
 in appearance ; and under some circumstances the erup- 
 tive fever has not only been considerable, but preceded by 
 delirium. The distinctive or diagnostic characters by which 
 we distinguish chicken-pox from small-pox are,— 1st, the 
 comparative mildness of the preliminary fever, which in- 
 deed is often unobserved in strong and merry children, 
 and nothing known of the complaint till the spots are ob- 
 served about the face and breast : 2d, the rapidity with 
 which the eruption attains maturity and proceeds through 
 its stages, the scabs forming crusts about the fourth or tilth 
 day, which does not happen in the small-pox till the tenth 
 or eleventh : 3d, the fluid in the vesicles is usually trans- 
 parent, or only milky, whereas in smallpox it has a puru- 
 lent appearance from the commencement. Like the small- 
 pox, it very rarely attacks the same individual more than 
 once. In the treatment of this disease little else is in most 
 cases requisite than to keep the patient cool, to abstain 
 from meat, to give diluents and mild aperients, and occa- 
 sionally, at the commencement, a dose of calomel and 
 rhubarb. In bad cases, the whole body is covered with 
 eruption, in mild ones there shall only be a very few vesi- 
 cles ; and it not uncommonly happens that where several 
 children have it in succession, one or two will escape with 
 little else than slight restlessness and very trivial febrile 
 symptoms. It is, however, by no means so trifling a dis- 
 ease as many writers have represented it. and if not close- 
 ly watched over, may be mistaken for small-pox. 
 
 CHIEF. (Fr. chef, head.) In Heraldry, the upper part 
 of the escutcheon, divided into three points, dexter, mid- 
 dle, and sinister. A chief, as an ordinary, is a fess remov- 
 ed to the upper part of the escutcheon. Charges, in the 
 situation of the chief, are described as "in chief.'' 
 
 CIII'LBLAIN. An inflammatory swelling, of a purplish 
 colour, produced by exposure of the extremities to cold: 
 it is generally attended with itching, and often with shoot- 
 ing pains. Children, especially those of a scrofulous habit, 
 and old persons, suffer most from chilblains ; but they are 
 not unfrequently produced at all times by holding the 
 hands or feet to the fire after they have been exposed to 
 great cold ; in which case, the difference of temperature is 
 such as actually to burn the part, for few persons are aware 
 of the high temperature excited by the radiant heat of a com- 
 mon fire upon substances held near it. Warm socks and 
 gloves are the best preventives against this affection, and 
 the itching and pain are generally relieved by moderately 
 stimulating applications; such as equal parts of solution 
 of acetate of ammonia or of vinegar and spirit of wine, or 
 of oil of turpentine and soap liniment. If the part should 
 break or ulcerate, stimulating dressings, such as the resin 
 or elemi ointment, are most serviceable, or in some cases 
 mild escharotics. 
 
 CHI'LIAD. (Gr. %iXioj, a thousand) An assemblage 
 of things grouped or ranged by thousands. The word is 
 chiefly used by the early "computers of logarithmic tables, 
 who expressed the extent of the table by saying it con- 
 tained the logarithms of so many chiliads of "absolute 
 numbers. 
 
 CHI'LIASTS. In Ecclesiastical History, believers in the 
 second advent of Christ to reign a thousand years on earth. 
 See Millennium. 
 
 CHILOGNA'THES, Chilognatha. (Gr. \ei\os, alip. and 
 yvaOo;, a jaw.) An order of the class Myriapuda or ' 
 tipedes, in which the two mandibles and the tongue are 
 united together to form a large lower lip. 
 
 CHILO'MA. In Zoology, the upper lip or muzzle of a 
 quadruped is so called when it is tumid, and continued un- 
 interruptedly from the nostril, as in the camel. 
 
 CIII'LOPODS, Chilopuda. (Gr. x^'^os, a lip, and irovs, 
 afoot.) An order of the class Myriapoda or Centipedes, in 
 which die lower lip is formed by a pair of feet. 
 
 CHI'LTERN HUNDREDS. In Politics. The tract an- 
 ciently called the Chiltern Hundreds extends through part 
 of Buckingham and Oxford shires. The steward of these 
 hundreds was an officer appointed by the crown to keep 
 the peace there. As members of parliament, strictly speak- 
 ing, cannot resign their seats, the mode of abandoning them
 
 CHIMERA. 
 
 is by accepting a nominal office (such as this stewardship) 
 under the crown, which vacates the seat of the party tak- 
 ing it. 
 
 <"HIMjE'RA. In Mythology, a fabulous monster, slain 
 bv Bellerophon in Lycia. According to the lines in the 
 Iliad, vi. HI. (which, however, are suspected of spurious- 
 ness), it had the head of a lion, the body of a goat, and tail 
 of a serpent. (See Heyne's observations on this passage.) 
 Many other forms were assigned to the Chimaera, the poets 
 having vied with each other in representing it as the per- 
 sonification of all that is horrible and terrific. It has usu- 
 ally been depicted as vomiting forth flames : — 
 
 Tremendse 
 
 riamrnachimarj;.— line. Od. IV. 2. 13. 
 
 From this fabulous story is probably derived the appli- 
 cation of the term chimera, in nearly all the modern lan- 
 guages of Europe, to any wild or incongruous fancy arising 
 in the mind. 
 
 Ciiimkka. In Ichthyology, the name of a genus of 
 Branchiostegous cartilaginous fishes; the best known spe- 
 cies, which inhabits the northern seas, and has occasionally 
 been taken on the English coast, is sometimes called "king 
 of the herrings." 
 
 CUI'MXEY. (Fr. cheminee.) The place in a room 
 where the fire is burnt, and from which the smoke is car- 
 ried away by means of a conduit called a Hue. Chimneys 
 are usually made by projection from a wall, and recess in 
 the same from the floor, ascending within the limits of the 
 projection and recess. That part of the opening which 
 faces the room is properly the fur place, the stone or mar- 
 ble under which is called Ihe hearth. Thai on a level with, 
 and in front of it, is called the slab, The vertical sides of 
 the opening are called jambs. The head of the foreplate 
 resting on the jambs is called the mantle ; and the cai tty or 
 hollow from the lire-place to the top of the room is called 
 the funnel. The part of the funnel which contracts as il 
 ascends is termed the gathering, or by some the gathering 
 of the tilings. The tube or cavity of a parallelogrammatic 
 form on the plan, from where the gttthi ring ceases up to 
 the top of the chimney, is called the flue. The pari be 
 tween the gathering and the flue is called the throat. The 
 part of the wall facing the room and forming one side of 
 the funnel parallel thereto, on the part of the wall forming 
 the sides of the funnels, where there are more than one, is 
 the breast. In external wills thai side of the funnel oppo- 
 site the breast is called the back. When there is more 
 than one chimney in the same wall, the solid parts that di- 
 vide them are called withe. And when several chimneys 
 are collected into one mass, it is called .1 ttack ofcliimneys. 
 The part which rise3 above the roof for discharging Hie 
 smoke into the air is called a chimney shaft, whose hori 
 zontal upper surface is termed the chimney t»i>. 
 
 The covings we're formerly placed at righl angles to the 
 face of the wall, and the chimney was finished in that 
 manner; but Count Rum ford showed that more heat is 
 obtained from the fire by reflexion when the covings are 
 placed in an oblique position. He likewise directed thai 
 the fire itself should be kept as near to the hearth a 
 sible, and that the throat of the chimney should he eon- 
 structed much narrower than had been practised, with a 
 view to prevent the escape of so much heated air as hap- 
 pened with wide throats. If the throat bo too near the lire, 
 the draught will be too strong, and the fuel will be wasted ; 
 and if it be too high up, the draught will be too languid, 
 and there will be a danger of the smoke being occasionally 
 beat back into the room. Before Count Rumford directed 
 his attention to this subject, smoky chimneys were very 
 common ; but by studying his principles, these at present 
 seldom occur. See Firkplace. Ckatb, Stove. 
 
 CHIMPANZEE, CHIMPAN8E, or QUIMPESE'. \> 
 tive names of the African orang (Simia troglodytes, Blum ). 
 It is of a black colour, and attains the height of between four 
 and five feet, measured in a straight line from the vertex to 
 the heel. This species, which of all the brute creation 
 approaches nearest to man, has been hitherto taken alive 
 to England onty in a young state : and a knowledge of the 
 osteological structure of the adult has been but very recent- 
 ly acquired. 
 
 It differs from the Asiatic or red Orang not only in 
 colour, but in the greater size of the external ears, the 
 more prominent ridge above the eyes, the relative short- 
 ness of the arms, and the greater development of the thumb 
 jbf the hind foot, which has constantly two phalanges and 
 a nail. 
 
 The principal osteological differences are the following: 
 — The cranium is flatter and broader in proportion to the 
 face. The supraciliary ridges are more developed; and 
 the great interparietal and lambdoidal crests, which render 
 so remarkable the skull of the adult orang, are wanting. 
 The interorbital space is broader. The occipital foramen 
 has a more central position. The anterior condyloid fora- 
 men is single on each side, while in the orang it is double. 
 The intermaxillary sutures are -obliterated before the de- 
 ciduous incisors are shed. The incisive and canine teeth 
 225 
 
 CHIVALRY. 
 
 are of smaller proportional size. There are thirteen pairs 
 of ribs instead of twelve pairs, as in the orang ; and conse- 
 quently there are thirteen dorsal vertebras. The sternal 
 bones form a single row. The chimpanzee further dif- 
 fers from the orang utan in the non-division of the pisiform 
 bone of the wrist ; and in the depression at the head of the 
 femur, corresponding to the interarticular ligament of the 
 hip-joint, which is wanting in the orang. 
 
 The habits and deportment of the chimpanzee, as ob- 
 served in those young specimens which have been taken 
 alive to England, are of peculiar interest, from the high de- 
 gree in which inqnisitiveness, perception, memory, and 
 docility are manifested.; and by the gravity and considera- 
 tion with which many even of its ludicrous and playful ac- 
 tions are performed. It is probable, however, that in the 
 adult much of this intelligence gives way to the fiercer 
 traits of the brute nature. The negroes which inhabit the 
 forests in the interior of Africa have a general, and doubt- 
 less well-founded dread of the great black ape. Vague ac- 
 counts are repeated in succeeding systems of natural his- 
 tory of the gregarious habits of the chimpanzee; its policy 
 as shown in the construction of rude huts, and other hut 
 much less probable feats. The truth is, however, that we 
 have much more certain knowledge of the habits of the 
 duck-billed platypus of Australia than cf the adult chim- 
 panzee, which is the most interesting of all the Mammalia, 
 from the close approach which it makes to the human 
 species. Set Martin's Man and Monkeys, 8vo. 1841. 
 
 CHINA ROOT. The root of the Smilax China, so 
 called because imported from China. It was formerly used 
 in the same cases in which sarsaparilla is nowgiven. 
 
 CHINCHl'LLA. The generic appellation founded on 
 the ^outh American or local name >' chinchille," or "little 
 chinelie, ' and applied to a genus of grieving Mammalia 
 or Rodents, peculiar to the South American continent It 
 is from a species of this genus (.Chinchilla lanigera) that 
 Ihe grey fur is obtained, which has been so much prized in 
 le for many yens; but the exact nature of the animal 
 itself has been only very recently ascertained, by the ex- 
 amination of specimens which have been procured for the 
 menagerie of the Zoological Society. 
 
 cili'N COUGH See Whooping Cough. 
 
 t HlM.'r-i: ARCHITECT! RE. See Architecture. 
 
 CHINTZ. A peculiar pattern upon printed calicos, in 
 which Qowers and other devices are printed in five or six 
 different colours, upon white and coloured grounds. A 
 good chintz pattern in fast colours is one of the most sur- 
 p rising and difficult efforts of the art. 
 
 < IIIKA'GKA. (6r. \f';>, tin: hantl, and aypa, a seizure.') 
 (Join in He- hands. 
 
 CHI'ROGRAPH. (Or. \tip, and ypa<bu>, I write.) In 
 Diplomatics, a species of instrument contrived for the pur- 
 pose for which indentures were devised; viz. the enabling 
 different parties to retain authenticated counterparts of the 
 deed Some word (commonly ihe word chirographum, 
 Whence the name) was written between the two copies on 
 Ihe same sheet, and cut through Lengthwise when they 
 were divided. 
 
 CHIRO'LOGY. (Gr x«Pi and \6yoc. discourse.) The 
 language of the fingers; sometimes called dactylology, from 
 (Ju/cruXo?, the finger. 
 
 CIUKOMANCV, or PALMISTRY. (Gr. xty, and 
 pavrtia, divination.) The imaginary art of divination by 
 the lines of the hand. Accordins to the science of Chiro- 
 mancy, the lines on the palm of the hand are divided into 
 principal and inferior: the former are five — the line of life ; 
 the line of the liver, or natural mean ; the line of the brain ; 
 the thoral line, or line of fortune ; the dragon's tail, or dis- 
 criminal line, between the hand and the arm. Various 
 other modes of divination were practised by observation 
 of the hand and its parts ; onychomancy (from onyx, a 
 nail), dactylomancy (from the finsers), &c. The practice 
 of chiromancy, once defended and explained by grave and 
 learned authors, is now chiefly left to be exercised by the 
 gipsies. Sec Borrow's Zincali, 8vo. 1842. 
 
 CIIIRO'iS'OMY. (Gr. xttp, and vdpos, law.) The sci- 
 ence which treats of the rules of gesticulation, or panto- 
 mime, and oratorical action. 
 
 CHI'TON. (Gr. x lTl,)v i a garment.) The name of a 
 genus of Gastropodous Mollusks, which have a series of 
 testaceous symmetrical pieces implanted in the back part 
 of (lie mantle. 
 
 CIII'VALRV. (From the French chevalier, knight.) 
 The usages and customs pertaining to the order of knight- 
 hood. The general system of manners and tone of senti- 
 ments which the institution of knighthood, strictly pursued, 
 was calculated to produce, and did in part produce, during 
 the middle ages in Europe, is comprehended in ordinary 
 languase under the term of chivalry. This imaginary in- 
 stitution of chivalry, sueh as it is represented in the old ro- 
 mances, had assuredly no full existence at any period in 
 the usages of actual life. It was the ideal perfection of a 
 code of morals and pursuits which was in truth only par- 
 tially adopted ; and bore the same relation to the real life 
 O
 
 CHIVALRY. 
 
 of the middle ages, which the philosophical excellence 
 aimed at by the various sects of antiquity bore to the real 
 conduct of their professors. But, in both instances, a sys- 
 tem of abstract perfection was propounded in theory, which, 
 although the defect of human nature prevented it from 
 being reduced into practice, yet exercised a very important 
 influence in modelling the minds, and even controlling the 
 actions, of those who adopted it. The vivifying principle 
 of ancient philosophy was ideal virtue ; that of chivalry, the 
 ideal point of honour. 
 
 The origin of chivalry has often been traced to the Ger- 
 man tribes ; nor has its spirit ever penetrated very deeply 
 into the usages of any country in which these tribes have 
 not either produced the ancestors of the great body of the 
 nation, or at least the conquering and governing class, 
 which transfused its habits and sentiments into that body. 
 Thus Germany and France, and England, whose gentry 
 derive their origin from both, have been the countries most 
 distinguished for the prevalence of this institution. The 
 martial spirit of the Spaniards was indeed partly animated 
 by it; but in their country it always bore something of the 
 character of a foreign importation, modified by the circum- 
 stances of their juxtaposition with the Arab race. In Italy, 
 it existed only among those classes which imitated the 
 manners of France and Germany, and never entered into 
 the general character of the natives, notwithstanding the 
 popularity of the poetical romances of chivalry. Among 
 the Sclavonic nations it has never prevailed extensively ; 
 although the feudal constitution of Polish society derived 
 a certain tincture from it, it never penetratpd into Russia. 
 It has been often remarked, that it is only within the last 
 two or three generations that the nobility of that country, 
 by their intercourse with the nations of Western Europe, 
 have derived something of the spirit of the chivalrous code, 
 so far as it stin subsists among ourselves : the point of 
 honour, and its peculiar concomitant the usage of the duel, 
 were scarcely known in Russia before the present century. 
 
 Chivalry originated in the feudal attachment of warriors 
 to the person of their king or chief, which has been so often 
 described as characteristic of the ancient Germans. Hence 
 the English word knight, which, when the Norman " che- 
 valiers" were first known among us, was spontaneously 
 used as the translation of their title, signifies in its origin 
 our "knit," or attached to another, — a servant or attendant. 
 At what precise time the devotional character was added 
 to the original martial impress of national usages, and the 
 compound system of chivalry were thus produced, it is not 
 easy to ascertain. It has been said that the investiture of 
 the knight was purely military until the reign of Charle- 
 magne ; and it may be supposed that the wars of the Franks 
 against the Saracens first blended the ardour of war and 
 religion together, and that the Crusades completed the 
 union. At the latter period were instituted the two cele- 
 brated military orders of monks, the Templars and Hos- 
 pitallers, (see those articles,) the code of whose govern- 
 ment combined monastic and knightly usages. After 
 valour and devotion, the third characteristic feature of chi- 
 valry was gallantry to the fair sex; and the source of this 
 sentiment also has been traced to the habits and feelings 
 of the Northern tribes, among whom woman was looked 
 on with a much more exalted sense of her dignity than in 
 the most civilized countries of antiquity. It is needless to 
 add, that this romantic feeling, however high its precepts 
 may have sounded in theory, degenerated into licentious- 
 ness in actual life. M. de Sainte Palaye, the learned French 
 historian of the usages of chivalry, has brought instances 
 enough to prove the extreme depravation of manners which 
 prevailed, even at those courts and at those periods in 
 which the spirit of chivalry was most prevalent. If the 
 Crusades communicated to chivalry its devotional charac- 
 ter, it is in the poetry of the Troubadours about the same 
 period, in the 12th and 13th centuries, that we find its pecu- 
 liarity of devotion to the female sex first developed. But 
 in their verses it does not appear clothed with the romantic 
 purity with which it was afterwards invested by the writers 
 of the heroic tales of chivalry ; and still less in those of the 
 contemporary French writers of the Fabliaux, from whose 
 compositions we draw the most authentic monuments 
 which we possess in this curious branch of antiquarian re- 
 search. The knight, or even the esquire, was bound to 
 follow a single lady and dedicate himself to her service ; 
 but little delicacy is either intimated or enjoined in the rela- 
 tions which subsisted between them, and his devotion to her 
 was considered as entitling him to every recompense love 
 could bestow. 
 
 The 14th century was the brilliant period of chivalry; 
 when its usages, originally formpd in the manners of the 
 people, had become fixed and embellished by the fictions 
 of the writers of romances; and when princes and chief- 
 tains, forming their idea of the institution rather from the 
 descriptions contained in them than from real life, sought 
 to bring back their courts and camps to the likeness of those 
 ideal models of perfection. It may be more truly said that 
 the romances of chivalry were the prototypes of that state 
 226 
 
 of courtly society which existed in the reigns of Ed- 
 ward III. and Richard II., and of which Froissart has left 
 us such accurate and lively representations, than that ex- 
 isting manners and sentiments furnished the subject-matter 
 of those romances. These fictions, of which the heroes 
 were taken from among a long list of fanciful personages, 
 in whose history a little tradition of past events was blended 
 with a much larger proportion of fable, represented the 
 knight not only as devoted to the service of his religion, his 
 lord, and his mistress, but also as consecrated to the general 
 service of the oppressed and maintenance of right all over 
 the world. There can be little doubt that the peculiar 
 ceremonies which, in the 14th and 15th centuries, accom- 
 panied the creation of a knight, — the vow of chivalry, the 
 watching, prayer, and fasting, &c, — were borrowed by ro- 
 mantic imaginations from such fabulous recitals, which 
 were read and related in every courtly company. In the 
 reign of Edward III., the romantic part of chivalry, as we 
 have said, was more closely transfused into real manners 
 than at any period either preceding or subsequent. Before 
 that period, the manners of the knights and dames had ex- 
 hibited but. little of that polish and refinement, their senti- 
 ments but little of that generosity, which were the subjects 
 of so much imaginary description ; and, in later times, chi- 
 valry gradually decayed. Its usages were maintained with 
 even more of magnificence than before ; its various rites, 
 titles, and distinctions subsisted for a long period in most 
 European countries, and partly remain to this day; but the 
 spirit of feudal devotedness was quenched by the multipli- 
 cation of mercenary troops; adherence to a feudal lord was 
 superseded by the more general feelings of national patriot- 
 ism (which, singularly enough, was almost wholly omitted 
 in the chivalric code,) and the extravagances into which 
 the imaginary point of honour had led its votaries fell into 
 discredit and ridicule. 
 
 It is, therefore, to the 14th century, and especially to that 
 part of its chronicles preserved by the true annalist of chi- 
 valry, Froissart, that we must look for the period when the 
 line between real society and that represented in romances 
 was most nearly broken down. When the usages of chi- 
 valry were most flourishing, all men of noble birth, (except 
 the highest) were supposed to pass through three orders or 
 gradations. They first lived as pages in the train of nobles 
 and chiefs of high rank ; next, as esquires, they attached 
 themselves to the person of some individual knight, to 
 whom they were bound by a strict law of obedience, and 
 for whom they were bound to incur every danger, and, if 
 necessary, sacrifice their lives ; and, thirdly, they were 
 promoted to the rank of knighthood. (For the different 
 orders of knighthood see Knight.) It is sufficient to ob- 
 serve here, that however great the distinction might be 
 between knights in point of rank and wealth, custom es- 
 tablished a species of equality among all of the same order, 
 which may be said to subsist among gentlemen of the pre- 
 sent day. They formed, all over Europe, a common cor- 
 poration, as it were, possessing certain rights, and owing 
 each other certain mutual duties and forbearances. They 
 were united, not by the ties of country, but by those of 
 feudal obedience, which attached every knight to the ban- 
 ner of his liege lord, from whom he held his fee ; but little 
 or rather no dishonour attached to knights who were under 
 no such feudal tie, if they chose their own chieftain wher- 
 ever they thought fit : they were free adventurers, whose 
 order was a passport in every service ; and in the actual 
 conflict, the hostility of knights was moderated by usage. 
 Thus, it was dishonourable in any knight to take a knight's 
 life if disarmed, and not to set him free when a prisoner on 
 receiving a fitting ransom. Manny and Chandos, the two 
 most celebrated of Edward III. 's knights, were attached 
 wholly to the banner of their sovereign, and not to that of 
 their country ; and although the French constable Duguesc- 
 lin, the third among these mirrors of chivalry, appears to 
 have been devoted to the cause of France as well as that of 
 his master, this double loyalty found few imitators. In 
 peace, also, knights of all countries were welcome visitors 
 at the courts of chivalric sovereigns : and all enjoyed the 
 privilege of presenting themselves at the tournament, and 
 contending there for the prize. 
 
 With regard to the point of honour, which forms the most 
 important feature in the usages of chivalry, see some de- 
 tails under the article Duel. The principal objects to 
 which it related were, religious belief; fealty to the feudal 
 superior; devotion to some one selected lady; and, finally, 
 the general character for honour and courtesy which it was 
 incumbent on a knight to maintain ; for although his imagi- 
 nary duties, as a knight errant, to avenge wrong and suc- 
 cour the oppressed on every occasion, were not of course 
 very strictly put in practice, yet his vow to perform those 
 duties attached to his character a certain degree of sarred- 
 ness which it was necessary to maintain. Chivalrous 
 honour was chiefly supported in two ways ; first, by the 
 single combat or duel, whether on account of serious pro- 
 vocation or by way of trial of strength ; secondly, by the 
 performance of vows, often of the most frivolous and ex-
 
 CHLAMYPHORE. 
 
 travagant nature. These latter were generally undertaken 
 for the honour of the ladies. Many historical instances of 
 these absurd yet daring lollies are preserved by Froissart. 
 They, with other usages of knighthood, were long pre- 
 served among thuse who aimed at the reputation of chi- 
 valry; after these usages had ceased to form a part of the 
 ordinary customs of society. Thus, the instances which 
 Froissart relates of knights riding alone up to the barriers 
 of fenced cities, <fec, were imitated in after-times, and at 
 no less personal hazard, by such romantic personages as 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, whose feats performed in ri- 
 valry with the French champion Balagny are mentioned 
 in his Memoirs. But the vows did not only relate to mar- 
 tial achievements, but to others of a more extravagant and 
 grotesque character. We need only refer to Monstrelet's 
 narrative of the company called " Galois" of knights and 
 ladies, who bound themselves, for love of each other, to 
 follow a particular code of usages; ofwhichapart con- 
 sisted in wearing thick clothes in summer and thin in win- 
 ter, to show that the power of their love rendered them in- 
 sensible to the difference of seasons ; a vow which was 
 maintained with such perseverance, that the greater part 
 of the devoted company actually died of cold. (See also 
 the History of the Vote of the Heron Sainte Palaye, vol. 
 iii.) The commencement of extravagances, however, was 
 rather a sign of the decline of the true spirit of chivalry. 
 Ii decayed with the progress of mercenary armies and the 
 decline of feudal institutions through the 15th century ; in 
 the 10th, it was little more than a lively recollection of past 
 ages, which knights such as Bayard and sovereigns such 
 as Francis I. and Henry VIII. strove to revive ; and finally, 
 it became extinguished amid religious discords, leaving as 
 its only relic the code of honour, which is still considered 
 as governing the conduct of the gentleman. 
 
 CHLA'MYPHORE. ChlamypMorus. (f;r. xXa</rc, a 
 cloak, and <ptpo>, I carry.) A name given to a small spe- 
 cies of Armadillo, which is covered by its coat of mail as 
 by a cloak. The animal is not above 6 inches lonir, and, 
 lik'> the rest of its genus, inhabits exclusively the continent 
 of South America. It is interesting from the analogy of its 
 skeleton and coat of mail to those of the gigantic extinct 
 megatherium. 
 
 CHLENA'CEiE. (Gr. x^iva, a cloak. All the names 
 belonging to this order are compounded of this word, used 
 in a figurative sense for an involucrum.) A natural order 
 of shrubby or arborescent Exogens, allied to Malvaceae, on 
 account of their monadelphous stamens and invohicrated 
 flowers, but referred by .lussieu to the vicinity of Ehen&- 
 ce<B ; it, however, appears, from their imbricated calyx, 
 regular llowers, and albumen, that they have the greatest 
 affinity with Cistaceai. They are all natives of Madagas- 
 car ; beautiful in their llowers, but of no known use ; and 
 are, in fait, but little known even to botanists. 
 
 CHI.O'RAL. (From the first syllables of chlorine and 
 alcohol.) A liquid composed of chlorine, carbon, and oxy- 
 gen, obtained by the action of chlorine upon alcohol. 
 
 CHLORANTHA'CE.£. (Chloranthus, one of the gen- 
 era.) A small natural order of apetalous Exogens. nearly 
 allied to Saururacem, and Piperacem ; from both of which 
 it differs in wanting a sac to the embryo, and in having a 
 pendulous ovule and opposite leaves with intermediate sti- 
 pules. Blume places these plants near to Opercularincm. 
 They are natives of the hotter parts of the world, and ap- 
 pear to possess stimulating properties of great importance. 
 Chloranthus officinalis and brachystachys, although not offi- 
 cinal in Europe, are believed to be among the most power- 
 ful of stimulating agents. 
 
 CHLO'RATES. Combinations of chloric acid with sali- 
 fiable bases. Of these salts the chlorate of potash is best 
 known ; it was formerly called oxymuriate of potash. 
 When mixed with combustibles, such as sulphur or char- 
 coal, and some of the metals, it forms highly explosive 
 compounds, which ignite by a blow or by friction, or upon 
 the contact of sulphuric acid. A mixture of this salt with 
 sugar, or with sulphuret of antimony, is used for tipping 
 the matches which inflame when dipped into sulphuric 
 acid, or when briskly drawn through a piece of emery 
 paper. Chlorate of potash consists of 76 chlorine acid -j- 
 43 potassa = 124 of the chlorate. 
 
 CHLO'RIDES. Combinations of chlorine, correspond- 
 ing with the oxides. Common salt is a chloride of sodium ; 
 that is, a binary compound of chlorine and sodium. Where 
 there are two chlorides of the same base, the relative pro- 
 portions of chlorine in them are almost invariably as 1 to 
 2; hence the terms protochioride and bichloride. Calomel 
 and corrosive sublimate are the protochioride and bichlo- 
 ride of mercury. The latter is frequently termed per- 
 ch'oride. In calomel 200 of mercury are combined with 36 
 of chlorine, and in corrosive sublimate with twice 36 
 or 72. 
 
 CHLO'RINE. (Gr. x* M P°?! green.) This gas was dis- 
 covered in 1774 by Scheele, who called it dephlogisticated 
 muriatic acid ; the French nomenclaturists afterwards 
 termed it oxygenated muriatic acid, conceiving it to be a 
 227 
 
 CHOANITES. 
 
 compound of oxygen and muriatic acid. This erroneous 
 view of its nature was corrected in 1809 by Sir H. Davy, 
 who gave it the present name, indicative of its colour. 
 Chlorine is a simple substance, existing at common tem- 
 peratures and pressures in the gaseous state ; but when 
 subjected to a pressure of about four atmospheres it be- 
 comes condensed into a yellow transparent liquid, which 
 is a non-conductor of electricity. 100 cubical inches of 
 chlorine, at mean temperature and pressure, weigh be- 
 tween 76 and 77 grains : water absorbs twice its volume, 
 and acquires a yellow colour, and the peculiar suffocating 
 odour of the gas. When humid chlorine is exposed to a 
 temperature of 32°, it assumes a crystalline form ; this hy- 
 drate of chlorine consists of 1 equivalent of chlorine = 36 
 + 10 of water = 9 X 10 or 90. Chlorine is not only unre- 
 spirable, but very injurious when breathed, even if largely 
 diluted : a taper burns in it with a red smoky tlame, and is 
 soon extinguished. Some of the metals, when finely divi- 
 ded, spontaneously take fire in chlorine, such as brass 
 leaf, or powdered antimony. A remarkable property of 
 chlorine is its power of destroying almost all vegetable and 
 animal colours; hence the important application of this 
 gas and of some of its combinations to the art of bleaching. 
 It also destroys the putrid odour of decomposing vegetable 
 and animal substances, and infectious ellluvia of all kinds, 
 whence its use in fumigation, and in preventing the spread 
 of infectious and contagious matter, and purifying noxious 
 atmospheres. 
 
 The great natural source of chlorine is common salt, 
 which contains it in the proportion of about 60 per cent. It 
 is procured by decomposing common salt by the joint 
 agency of sulphuric acid and peroxide of manganese. The 
 best proportions are 3 parts of salt and 1 ojpxide of man- 
 ganese ; these are well mixed, and put intoa retort with 2 
 parts of sulphuric acid previously diluted with 2 of water. 
 Chlorine is evolved, and its extrication is quickened by 
 the application of a gentle heat. Chlorine may also be ob- 
 tained from a mixture of muriatic acid with half its weight 
 of black oxide of manganese. The gas may be collected 
 over water, and should be preserved in bottles with glass 
 stoppers; if left in the contact of water, it is soon absorbed. 
 Set Muriatic Acid. 
 
 CHLORI'ODINE, or CHLORIO'DIC ACID. A com- 
 pound of chlorine and iodim-. 
 
 ( III.O'RITE. (6r. xXwpof.) An earthy mineral of a 
 green colour, often found in the cavities and veins of slate 
 rocks. 
 
 CHLO'RO. (Gr. x^wpoj.) A term used in the compo- 
 sition of botanical and other scientific words formed from 
 the Greek, to indicate a clear lively green colour without 
 any mixture. 
 
 CHLO'ROCARBO'MC ACID. A compound formed 
 by exposing a mixture of chlorine and carbonic oxide to 
 the action of light. 
 
 CHI.O'ROCYA'MC ACID. A compound of chlorine 
 and cyanogen. 
 
 CHLORO'METF.R. (Gr. xAwpoy. and uerpov, a mea- 
 sure.) An instrument for the purpose of testing the de- 
 colouring or bleaching powers of chloride of li?ne, by 
 which the relative values of different samples of that im- 
 portant bleaching and disinfecting compound may be as- 
 certained. 
 
 ( HI.O'ROPIIAITE. (Gr. x* u /">?> and <patoc, black.) 
 A mineral, which when recently broken is green, but after- 
 wards becomes black. 
 
 CIILO'ROPHANE. (Gr. x*". 00 ?- a nd <paivw, I shine.) 
 A species of iluor spar, which, when heated, shines with 
 a beautiful pale green light. 
 
 CHLOROPHYLL. (Gr. xW«. and QvWov, a leaf.) 
 The green colouring matter of the leaves of plants. 
 
 < IIl.ORO'SIS, (Gr. xV"<>«), or ETIOLATION. In 
 Botany, is a species of constitutional debility ; the affected 
 individual being pale, and destitute of a healthy green : the 
 stems are weak, long, and slender; no llowers are pro- 
 duced ; and the plant is readily killed. It is believed that 
 this malady is exclusively produced in plants by want of 
 sufficient light. 
 
 Chlorosis. (Gr. x^oipos.) I n Medicine, a disease 
 giving a peculiar sallowness to the countenance, hence 
 called the green sickness. It chiefly affects young females ; 
 its symptoms are extremely various, but generally refera- 
 ble to imperfect or suppressed menstrual evacuation. 
 Tonics, chalybeates, aloetics, sea and cold bathing, and 
 slight electric shocks passed through the pelvis, together 
 with due amusement and exercise, are among the princi- 
 pal remedial agents. 
 
 CHLO'ROXA'LIC ACID. A compound obtained by 
 exposing acetic acid and chlorine to bright sunshine. Its 
 elements are in such proportion, that it may be regarded 
 as a compound of 1 equivalent of hydrochloric acid and 1 
 of oxalic acid. 
 
 CHLO'RURETS. Compounds of chlorine. See Chlo- 
 rides. 
 
 CHO'ANITES. (Gr. x """?! a funnel.) A genus of ex-
 
 CHOCOLATE. 
 
 flnct Zoophytes, so called on account of their fossil skele- 
 ton or polypary presenting in general a funnel-shaped 
 figure, though sometimes they are globular or subcylindri- 
 cal. This genus holds an intermediate place between 
 Alcyonium and Ventriculites: it is distinguished from the 
 former by having a central caviry at the upper part, and 
 from the latter by not having an outer reticulate surface. 
 One species, the Choanites kiinigii, is found in abundance 
 in the loose flints beneath the turf near the race course at 
 Lewes in Sussex, and appears to have been common in the 
 upper beds of the chalk. 
 
 CHO'COLATE. A term said to be compounded of two 
 Indian words, choco, sound, and alta, irater > from the noise 
 made in its preparation. Chocolate is made by triturating 
 the roasted cocoa nut into a paste in a heated mortar, sugar 
 and some aromatics being occasionally added ; the oily 
 matter of the nut gives it whilst hot a due consistence, so 
 that it is cast in tin moulds, in which it concretes, on cool- 
 ing, into cakes. It is a rich article of diet, and apt to dis- 
 agree with weak stomachs. 
 
 CHOIR. (Gr. x°P»s) In Architecture, the part of a church 
 in which the choristers sing divine service. In former 
 times it was raised separate from the altar, with a pulpit 
 on each side, in which the epistles and gospels were sung, 
 as is still the case in several churches on the Continent. It 
 was separated from the nave in the time of Constantine. In 
 nunneries, the choir is a large apartment, separated by a 
 grate from the body of the church, where the nuns chant 
 the service. This term is used also in music to signify a 
 band of singers in different parts. 
 
 CHOKE DAMP. A term applied by well-diggers and 
 miners to carbonic acid gas. 
 
 CHO'LAG«CUE. (Gr. xoX>j, bile, and ayia, I evacuate.) 
 A term applieaby ancient medical writers to certain pur- 
 gative remedies which produce bilious evacuations. 
 
 CHOLE'DOCHUS. (Gr. x°^'l, and Sexofiai, J receive.) 
 One of the ducts of the liver is called the ductus communis 
 choledochus. 
 
 CHO'LERA. (Gr. x ^! and piai, I Jloic.) A disease 
 accompanied by vomiting and purging, with great pain and 
 debility, and apparently arising from excess of acrimony 
 of bile: it is most common at the close of summer and 
 beginning of autumn, and seems to be produced by cold, 
 suppressed perspiration, indigestible fruits, &c. It general- 
 ly commences with a sense of pain about the bowels, fever, 
 thirst, an irregular pulse, and severe vomiting and purging 
 of bilious matter : in favourable cases these symptoms 
 subside in a few days with the aid of opiates, mucilaginous 
 diluents, and mild aperients followed by tonics ; but in se- 
 vere cases great exhaustion ensues, attended by depression 
 of spirits, anxiety, hurried respiration, cold sweats, hiccup. 
 low and fluttering pulse, and the patients rapidly sink, and 
 are sometimes carried off" within twenty-four hours. In 
 such cases warm fomentations sometimes relieve the pain, 
 and effervescent saline draughts check the sickness, and 
 enable the stomach to bear large doses of opium. 
 
 Cho'lera, Asia'tic. The term Asiatic or Spasmodic 
 Cholera has been applied to a new and most appalling form 
 of pestilential disease, which seems to have been but indis- 
 tinctly known prior to the year 1817. It made its appear- 
 ance in August that year at Jessore, after having previously 
 raged to a formidable extent in the south of Bengal, and 
 thence it spread over a great part of Asia, carrying off mil- 
 lions of human beings. In 1823 it broke out at Astracan, 
 but did not at that time extend further into Russia; in 1828, 
 however, it appeared at Orenburg, and during the autumn 
 of that year and the spring of 1829 it spread over a consider- 
 able part of the Russian dominions. It raged at Moscow 
 in September, 1830 ; and having been apparently carried by 
 the Russian army into Poland, it propagated itself through 
 different parts o"f Europe, and reached England. The 
 symptoms of this, as of other disorders, vary considerably 
 at different limes and in different individuals ; but as our 
 object here is briefly to describe the characteristic features 
 of the disease in their unalloyed form, we shall omit all 
 unnecessary details, and place before our readers a short 
 account of its effects in its worst and by no means uncom- 
 mon form. 
 
 The first circumstance that strikes us in regard to the 
 attacks of this disease is their suddenness. A person in 
 apparent health feels slightly giddy, chilly, or sick, and in 
 the course of two or three hours sinks into a state of extra- 
 ordinary and alarming debility ; the countenance assumes 
 a deadly paleness, and the skin feels and looks like that of 
 a corpse ; the pulse falls, flutters, and is almost impercep- 
 tible; a livid circle surrounds the sunken eyes; the tongue 
 is slightly furred, and the breath cold. Under this exces- 
 sive and extraordinary prostration the patients sometimes 
 die in the course of a very few hours ; otherwise it is suc- 
 ceeded by vomiting and purging, the voided matters re- 
 sembling turbid whey, and being in fact a serous fluid with 
 floating shreds or flocculi of coagulated albumen ; and now 
 cramp assails the extremities, and afterwards the abdo- 
 men, producing spasms of varying but sometimes of ex- 
 338 
 
 CHOLERA, ASIATIC. 
 
 treme violence ; great pain and heat about the region of 
 the stomach, and intolerable weight and anguish round the 
 heart, are complained of, with much thirst and anxiety ; the 
 voice falters, and the unfortunate sufferer asks frequent- 
 ly, in plaintive and broken whispers, for cold water ; the 
 secretions of urine, bile, and sali%a appear, in this state of 
 things, as if entirely suspended ; the evacuations have a 
 singular foetor, and the breath and perspiration have that 
 peculiar odour which announces the rapid approach of 
 death. Towards the close of this horrid scene, the respi- 
 ration becomes very slow, the tendons of the extremities 
 quiver, the sufferer is unable to swallow, insensibility suc- 
 ceeds, and after one or two long and convulsive sobs he 
 dies. The mind, even at last, is scarcely ever much dis- 
 turbed ; but towards the close the patient sinks into a state 
 of apathy, and appears desirous of being left to his late. 
 Attacks of this kind generally prove fatal in from four to 
 eight hours. 
 
 If from this exlreme case we turn to what may be term- 
 ed milder forms of the disease, the same general train of 
 symptoms are observed ; but they are less rapid in their 
 succession, and there is more time and opportunity to re- 
 sort to the resources of art. The attack begins with sick- 
 ness or purging, succeeded by uneasiness and heat about 
 the pit of the stomach ; the matters which are thrown off 
 from the stomach and bowels gradually assume the appear- 
 ance of rice water ; the countenance shrinks ; the constric- 
 tion of the thorax and cramps and spasms follow ; and in 
 the course of twenty-four to thirty six hours the patient 
 dies, in many instances delirious or comatose. 
 
 Those who survive seventy-two hours generally recover, 
 as far as the primary symptoms are concerned ; the spasms 
 and difficulty of breathing give way, the natural warmth of 
 the body is restored, and the pulse returns to something 
 like its natural standard. The most favourable symptoms 
 are sleep, perspiration, return of the secretion of urine and 
 of bile, accompanied by proportionate improvement in the 
 pulse and aspect of the features ; but, even under these 
 apparently and really favourable symptoms, fever of a low 
 or continued character may ensue, — it indeed sometimes 
 immediately follows the blue stage or collapse ; and if not 
 relieved by a critical perspiration on the second or third 
 day, the pulse quickens, the. face is flushed, there is drowsi- 
 ness and suffusion of the eyes, stupor, a foul mouth, and 
 other symptoms of mixed or typhus fever, which terminate 
 fatally from the fourth to the eighth day, or even later, in 
 those very individuals who had been saved in the first or 
 cold stage. 
 
 The appearances observed on dissection of those who 
 died within eight or ten hours were, a relaxed and pale 
 state of the stomach and intestines; absence of bile and of 
 faeces in the intestines; an empty and contracted bladder; 
 congestion in the venous circulation of the large vessels ; 
 the gallbladder full of bile, but not passing into the intes- 
 tine. In more protracted cases other appearances occa- 
 sionally occurred, more especially serous effusion upon and 
 in the brain, with congestion of the vessels, and otherusual 
 appearances of febrile disease. In all cases the blood pre- 
 sents a more or less morbid appearance, and is often of a 
 very dark colour and increased consistence, so as to have 
 been compared to tar. 
 
 The pathology of cholera is as yet most imperfectly un- 
 derstood ; nor has it been satisfactorily ascertained whether 
 it is or is not contagious ; the general opinion, however, is 
 in favour of its contagious nature, and there cannot be the 
 least doubt of the propriety of enforcing the most rigid pre- 
 cautionary measures founded upon such an opinion. 
 
 Details respecting the medical treatment of cholera would 
 be out of place in this work ; and the plans to be pursued 
 vary so much with circumstances, as to render it impos- 
 sible to condense into small limits a general view of this 
 important subject. 
 
 Emetics are among the earliest measures which should 
 be put in practice ; they should be such as act certainly and 
 rapidly, and conjoined with stimulants, such as essential 
 oils and capsicum. Blood-letting has been adopted by 
 many practitioners in the early stages of the disease. Its 
 favourable effect is to cause the pulse to rise ; if it produce 
 faintness, it must be immediately put a stop to, and should 
 be followed by the application of warm air, and other dry 
 warmth. Large doses of calomel, with or without opium, 
 are resorted to to remove local congestion, and especially 
 to stimulate the liver; and these means are assisted and 
 the general powers of the system kept up by ether, ammo- 
 nia, brandy, and volatile oils, in such quantities and forms 
 as the particular circumstances of the respective cases 
 may point out. If the irritability of the stomach continues, 
 flannels soaked in very hot water, and then sprinkled with 
 oil of turpentine, should be applied to the region of the 
 stomach and abdomen. 
 
 The great object of all those remedies applicable to the 
 first stage of the disease is to enable the system lo rally 
 from its depressing effects, to bring about reaction, and to 
 stimulate the nervous and vascular systems ; but then the
 
 CHOLESTERINE. 
 
 utmost circumspection is required in reference to the inju- 
 rious effects which this plan will induce, if carried loo far. 
 Here, however, the symptoms are usually those of typhoid 
 or continued fever, and are to be treated accordingly, great 
 attention being always paid to the state of the biliary and 
 urinary secretions, and to the evacuations from the bowels. 
 Besides the treatment founded upon the above outline, 
 other and very dissimilar plans have been adopted, founded 
 upon ihe change which the blood appears to suffer in this 
 disease. It has been by some presumed that in all cases 
 of cholera, the saline matters of the blood, along with a 
 large quantity of its water, are thrown off by the intestines, 
 constituting the characteristic serous discharge above ad- 
 verted to ; "and that the residuary blood becomes thick and 
 black, iu consequence of the deficiency of its salts. Dr. 
 Stevens therefore proposed the administration of large 
 doses of common salt, occasionally mixed with nitre and 
 chlorate of potash; and from this plan the best effects 
 have, according to some, resulted, while in the hands of 
 others it has entirely failed. The truth is, that in the worst 
 attacks of the disease the approach of death is so quick 
 that there is scarcely time for any thing to take etfecl; and 
 where it is less rapid, the symptoms must guide the treat- 
 ment : amongst these it must be confessed that there are 
 seldom any which would justify the prudent practitioner 
 in drenching the bowels with salt and water. 
 
 But the bolder advocates of what has been termed the 
 saline treatment of cholera have gone a step further, and 
 have dared to inject saline solutions into the veins ; how 
 far such extraordinary means are justifiable, will appear 
 from the following statement. (Pereira, Elements of Ma- 
 teria Medico, part i. 313.) ''This plan was, I believe, first 
 practised by Dr. Latta, (Med. Gaz. x. 257.) The quantity 
 of saline solution which has been in some cases injected is 
 enormous, and almost incredible. In one case 120 ounces 
 were injected at once, and repeated to the amount of 330 
 ounces in twelve hours. In another, 370 ounces were 
 thrown into the veins, between Sunday at eleven o'clock 
 a.m. and Tuesday at four P. m. ; that is, in the course of 
 filly-three hours, upwards of 31 pounds. The solution used 
 consisted of two drachms of muriate and two scruples of 
 carbonate of soda to 60 ounces of water. It was at the 
 temperature of 108° or 110° Fahr. In another series of 
 cases 40 pounds were injected in twenty hours ; 132 ounces 
 in the first two hours ; 8 pounds in half an hour ! The tin- 
 mediate effects of these injections, in a large majority of 
 cases, were most astonishing; — restoration of pulse, im- 
 provement in the respiration, voice, and general appear- 
 ance, return of consciousness, and a feeling of comfort 
 In manyinstances, however, these effects wire only tem- 
 porary, and were followed by collapse and death." 
 
 The reports as to the ultimate benefit of this treatment 
 in cholera are so contradictory, that it la difficult to form a 
 correct estimate of it. ''That it failed in a large proportion 
 of cases after an extensive trial, and greatly disappointed 
 some of its stanchest supporters, cannot be doubted. Dr. 
 Griffin states that all the published cases of injection which 
 he can find recorded amount to 2*2, of which 221 died, while 
 61 only recovered ; but he thinks that the average reco- 
 veries from collapse by this method of treatment far ex- 
 ceeded the amount of any other treatment in the same 
 district and under the same circumstances." 'Med. Uaz. 
 xxii. 319.) 
 
 A vast quantity of matter has been published in reference 
 to Ihe history, symptoms, and treatment of pestilential 
 cholera. Among those works upon the subject, the general 
 reader may consult the following with advantage ; namely, 
 the Reports published by order of Government under the 
 superintendence of the Medical Board ; History of tin' Epi- 
 demic Cholera, by B. Hawkins, M. D . $c. : Mr. Rill's Let- 
 ter to Sir H. Half ord; the Report of Ore. Russell and Bar- 
 ry ; Dr. James Copt anil on Pestilential Cholera; and a pa- 
 per in the Ninetv-first Number of the Quarterly Review 
 for November, 1831. 
 
 CHOLE'STERINE. (Gr. x«Xij,and areoeos. solid.) The 
 matter which forms the basis of most irall stones. 
 
 CHONDRO'LOGY. (Gr. x<"'<5,coc, a cartilage, and Xoj/oc, 
 a discourse.) The historv of cartilages. 
 
 CHO'NDROPTERY'GIANS, Chondropterygii. (Gr. 
 XovSoof, a cartilage, and irreov%, a fin ; gristly-finned.) 
 The name of Cuvier's last order of fishes, characterized 
 bv the gristly nature of all the spines which support the fins. 
 The whole internal skeleton in this order is cartilasinous. 
 
 CHORA'GIC MONUMENT. (Gr. xopoc.) In Grecian 
 Architecture, a monument erected in honour of the Cho- 
 ragus who gained the prize by the exhibition of the best 
 musical or theatrical entertainment at the festivals of Bac- 
 chus. The Choragi were the heads of the ten tribes at 
 Athens, who overlooked and arranged the games at their 
 own expense. The prize was usually a tripod, which the 
 victor was bound publicly to exhibit, for which purpose a 
 building or column was usually erected. The remains of 
 two very fine monuments of this sort, viz. those of Lysi- 
 crates and Thrasyllus, are still to be seen at Athens. 
 229 
 
 CHOUAN8. 
 
 CHORD. (Gr. x°P°*li t,ie string of a lyre.) In Music, 
 a combination of two or more sounds heard contempoia- 
 neously, forming a concord or a discord between them. 
 
 Chord. In Geometry, is the straight line which joins 
 the two extremities of the arc of a curve ; so called from 
 the resemblance which the arc and chord together have to 
 a bow and its suing, the chord representing the string. 
 The chord of an arc is equal to the size of half the arc ; 
 hence, to find the length of the chord of any given arc, 
 multiply the diameter by the sine of half the arc. Tables 
 of chords are given in some of the older works on trigo- 
 nometry ; but they have been superseded by the tables of 
 sines, which are much more convenient for trigonometri- 
 cal calculations. 
 
 CHOREA.. (Gr. x°P°Si a chorus ; the ancient accompa- 
 niment to dancing.) The disease commonly called St. 
 Vilas's dance. It shows itself by convulsive motions of 
 the limbs, face, head, and trunk, varying extremely in ex- 
 tent and violence ; the speech is often more or less affected, 
 and frequently the mental energies become grievously im- 
 paired. It is most common in early life, as from the age 
 often or twelve to puberty ; and makes its approach grad- 
 ually in persons chiefly of debilitated constitutions: the 
 appetite is generally ravenous at first, and the bowels cos- 
 tive ; various convulsive motions then ensue, and only 
 cease during sleep, which, however, is seldom sound. 
 This is one of those diseases which require especial atten- 
 tion in its early stages, and which even in its slightest 
 forms, when once habitual, is very difficult to manage. 
 The leading treatment consists in the judicious adminis- 
 tration of aperients and brisk purges, so as to clear the sto- 
 mach and bowels thoroughly of all irritating matters ; the 
 constitution may at the same time be strengthened by ton- 
 ics and chalybeates, with occasional stimulants ; and soma 
 of the more urgent spasmodic symptoms may be some- 
 times cautiously encountered by opium, camphor, hen- 
 bane, and ether. Cold bathing also has its advantages 
 when circumspectly resorted to; and the mind must be 
 diverted by change <>f air and scene. This diet should be 
 very regular, nutritive, and never in excess. In this com- 
 plaint much will depend upon the exertions of the patient 
 himself, who, though relieved of the more urgent symp- 
 toms, will often retain relics of his disorder through a long 
 life. 
 
 CIIO'REPI'SCOPI. (Gr. xuP a i a country place, and 
 cxhtkottos, a liistufft ) Country bishops : persons appointed 
 by the bishops in the early periods of Christianity to super- 
 intend the rural districts which appertained to their dioce- 
 ses, but which were at an inconvenient distance from the 
 city in which they abode themselves. The class of chore- 
 piscopi is represented as holding a middle rank between 
 the bishops and the presbyters. 
 
 CHORION. (Gr. \(>>pa, a receptacle.) The external 
 membrane which envelopes the foztas in utero, between 
 which and the amnion there is a gelatinous fluid. Its in- 
 terior surface is smooth, but exteriorly it is shaggy and 
 vascular. 
 
 CIIOKO'GRAPHY. (Gr. xw/>a, district, and ypa-poy, 
 I describe.) The description of a district, in contradistinc- 
 tion to geography (the description of the earth or of coun- 
 tries) and topography (the description of particular spots.) 
 
 CHO'ROID MEMBRANE OF THE EYE. The second 
 tunic of the eye lying under the sclerotic, with which it 
 has a vascular connection ; it commences at the optic 
 nerve, and passes forward with the sclerotic to the begin- 
 ning of the transparent cornea, where it firmly adheres to 
 the sclerotic by a cellular membrane, forming a white 
 fringe called the ciliary circle ; it then recedes from the 
 sclerotic and cornea, forming a round coloured disc called 
 the iris, and its posterior surface is termed uvea. The 
 choroid membrane is very vascular, and its external stel- 
 lated vessels are called vasaverticosa. Its internal surface 
 is covered by a black pigrru nt. 
 
 CHO'ROID PLEXUS. A plexus of blood-vessels situ- 
 ated in the lateral ventricles of the brain. 
 
 CHO'RUS. (Gr. \6po(.) A band of singers and dan- 
 cers who performed odes in honour of the gods, particu- 
 larly Bacchus. The chorus formed an important part of 
 the Greek tragedies and early comedies, which were in- 
 terspersed with odes. There were likewise several other 
 choruses besides these, as the Dithyrambic ; and the ex- 
 hibition of these was one of the public burthens imposed 
 on the richest private citizens of Athens. It was called 
 the choregia (xopryyia). See Drama, and Choragic Mon- 
 ument. 
 
 Chorus. In Music, the joint performance of music by 
 the whole of the members of the orchestra. 
 
 CHOU'ANS. In French History, the royalist insurgents 
 on the right bank of the Loire during the revolution when 
 the Yendeans rose on the left, were thus popularly named ; 
 according to some, from the cry of the screech-owl (chat- 
 huant). an imitation of which was a signal during their 
 nightly meetings. They were for the most part brigands, 
 and their object rapine rather than civil war. After the
 
 CHREMATISTICS. 
 
 revolution of 1830, they made a transient reappearance in 
 the neighbourhood of Nantes and Le Mans. 
 
 CHREMATI'STICS. (Gr. xprniara, wealth.) The sci- 
 ence of wealth ; a name given by Continental writers to 
 the science of political economy, or rather to what in their 
 view constitutes a portion of the science. They consider 
 political economy as a term more properly applicable to 
 the whole range of subjects which comprise the material 
 welfare of states and citizens, and chrematistics (by which 
 they mean nearly the same science which M'Culloch and 
 most other English writers describe as political economy) 
 as merely a branch of it. See especially M. de Sismondi, 
 Etudes sur VEconomie Politique. See also Chrysology. 
 
 CHRESTO'MATHY. (Gr. xPn°Tos, useful, and pav- 
 6avu>, I learn.) According to the etymology, that which it 
 is useful to learn. The Greeks frequently formed com- 
 monplace books by collecting the various passages to 
 which, in the course of reading, they had affixed the mark 
 X (%P>7otos). Hence books of extracts chosen with a view 
 to utility have received this name. 
 
 CHRISM. (Gr. xpic><a, from XP'™, 1 anoint.) The oil 
 which is used both in the Greek and the Roman churches 
 in the administration of baptism, confirmation, ordination, 
 and extreme unction. 
 
 CHRl'STENDOM. A word sometimes employed in 
 euch a sense as to comprehend all nations in which Chris- 
 tianity prevails : more commonly, all realms governed un- 
 der Christian sovereigns and institutions. Thus European 
 Turkey, although three fourths of its inhabitants are Chris- 
 tians, is not in ordinary language included within the term 
 Christendom. The history of the fortunes of Christianity, 
 in respect of its geographical extension, presents remark- 
 able periods of^dvanee and decline. After the conversion 
 of Constantine, and the gradual decay of Paganism, Chris- 
 tianity continued to spread, but chiefly in the direction of 
 east and south, for more than three centuries, the barbari- 
 an conquerors of the Roman provinces soon adopting it. 
 About the middle of the seventh century, Christendom 
 comprehended Europe south and west of the Rhine and 
 Danube ; Africa north of the Great Desert ; Abyssinia ; 
 parts of Nubia ; Asia to the Euphrates ; Armenia, and part 
 of Arabia ; and that small colony in southern India which 
 subsists to this day. The Saracen power rose by conquest 
 from this extensive empire. In little more than a century, 
 Christendom was deprived of nearly all its Asiatic provin- 
 ces, of which the faithful inhabitants were reduced to a 
 tributary condition : of the whole of northern Africa, in 
 which they were exterminated or converted : and of Spain. 
 Sicily, the latest conquest of the Saracens, was occupied by 
 them about 830. But just at the same epoch, or that of 
 lowest decline, Charlemagne began to extend the limits of 
 Christendom in the north ; and the second period of ad- 
 vance extends through the 9th, lOlli, and 11th centuries, 
 in which "the reign of the gospel and the church was ex- 
 tended over the north : Bulgaria, Hungary, Bohemia, Sax- 
 ony, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Russia." 'Gibbon, 
 chap. 55.) From that time to the 16th century, Christianity 
 gradually reconquered Spain on the one hand ; while, on 
 the other, the newly arisen power of the Turks wrested 
 from it the remainder of its Asiatic territories and the Eu- 
 ropean provinces of the Greek empire. Since that period 
 no important changes have taken place in the relative ex- 
 tent of Christendom and Islamism : but the vast conti- 
 nent of America, as far as it has been colonized, has been 
 added to the former, and the rapid increase of its commu- 
 nities in numbers and civilization has greatly enhanced 
 their comparative importance. The number of Christians 
 inhabiting Europe and America, and scattered in the other 
 parts of the globe, may perhaps be estimated conjecturally 
 as follows :— 
 
 Roman Catholic church - - 144,000,000 
 
 Reformed churches - - - 60,000,000 
 
 Greek and other Oriental churches • 66,000,000 
 
 270,000,000 
 CHRISTIA'NITY. The. religion of Jesus Christ. From 
 the period when the disciples " were called Christians first 
 in Antioch" (Acts, xi. 26.) down to the present day, the 
 main doctrines of the gospel, and the great moral princi- 
 ples which it reveals and confirms, have been preserved 
 without interruption in the church. But notwithstanding 
 this substantial unity, it cannot be denied that the character 
 of the religion has been very materially coloured through- 
 out all its history by the circumstances and genius of dif- 
 ferent nations and ages. The first marked forms of opin- 
 ion which acquired consistency among the general body of 
 Christians tended in two very different directions. The 
 Judaizing Christians clung to the ordinances of the elder 
 religion, and strove to teach the separation from it as slight- 
 ly as possible; under the names of Nazareans, &c, they 
 existed as late as the fourth century, but ceased after the 
 first to exercise any very extensive influence on the church. 
 The speculative Christians placed figurative interpretations 
 both on the external facts and mysteries of the religion, or 
 230 
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 sought to connect it with the philosophical and theurgical 
 systems of the ancient world. Apollos of Alexandria was 
 the first teacher, it is commonly said, who introduced this 
 speculative tendency into Christianity; and St. Paul, while 
 he does not condemn Apollos, dwells on the evils produced 
 by those who from his teaching deduced as it were a sepa- 
 rate body of doctrine (I Cor. hi.). In this way arose, — 1. 
 The early heretics the Nicolaitanes and followers of Ce- 
 rinthus, and the Gnostics, professors of the "knowledge 
 falsely so called" (xpcvdoivv^oi yvcoois) of St. Paul. 2. At 
 a later period, the Manichreans, who imported into Chris- 
 tianity the notion of the rival principles of good and evil, 
 which continued for many ages to possess adherents. 3. 
 Within the church itself, the Alexandrian school of theology, 
 which has exercised a more permanent influence. This 
 school, in the second and third centuries, became partially 
 tinged with the sentiments of Platonic philosophy ; and 
 was characterized by the acute and refining spirit of the 
 East. Like the Gnostics, its chief doctors encouraged the 
 notion of a mystical or second meaning in the revelations 
 of the faith, of which the key was in the possession of the 
 learned only (Clemens, Origen, &c.) In the mean time, 
 the main body of believers, comparatively unaffected by 
 the influence of science and speculation, was gradually ac- 
 quiring new views of a different and more positive charac- 
 ter. During the first three centuries after the apostolical 
 times, the opinions respecting the authority of the priest- 
 hood, attachment to forms and ordinances, the honour paid 
 to individual purity of life (and especially to constancy un- 
 der persecution), gradually and steadily increased and 
 strengthened. In the West, and particularly in Africa, 
 these tendencies became peculiarly strong. The Montan- 
 ists, Donatists, and Novatians separated successively from 
 the church, on the score of its defection from an imaginary 
 standard of personal purity ; and when Africa began to 
 have a school of theology of her own (Tertullian, Cyprian, 
 and others, to Augustine), this was the direction of its la- 
 bours. In that theology all is dogmatical, nothing specula- 
 tive. Every tiling is taken in its most literal and naked 
 sense : God himself is not personal only, but invested al- 
 most with the attributes of a human agent. Both doctrines 
 and ordinances are as definite as possible, and the utmost 
 rigour of practice enjoined. The history of the African 
 church affords a momentous commentary on their strain- 
 ings after imaginary perfection. After two centuries of 
 discord and decay from the time of Augustine, it was not 
 subdued but obliterated by the first assault of the Moham- 
 medans. The early heretics had entertained theoretical 
 notions respecting the inferiority of Christ to the Father; 
 but the Arians, in the last half of the 3d century, were the 
 first to preach it as the doctrine of the church, and seek to 
 confirm it by appeal to antiquity. The council of Nice 
 (A. d. 325) condemned this opinion ; and by the concurring 
 declarations of bishops from all parts of Christendom af- 
 forded the strongest testimony to the fact, that the Catho- 
 lic sentiment of the church had always been opposed to it. 
 But the Arians, and other sects differing from the church 
 by various shades of opinion on the same subject, continu- 
 ed to subsist until the 6th century, during which these con- 
 troversies partly died away in the West, amidst the misery 
 and barbarism of the age, and partly were extinguished by 
 the authority of the church. It was thus that the govern- 
 ors of the church were first driven to protect its funda- 
 mental doctrines by reducing them to formal propositions 
 embodied in creeds and the canons of councils (especially 
 the six (Ecumenical or general, which were held from 
 a. d. 381 to 680). Thus, in the West, speculation was ef- 
 fectually subdued. In the East, it still lingered in vain but 
 refined distinction respecting the nature and relations of 
 the persons of the Trinity (the Nestorian, Monophysite, 
 and Monothelite heresies). Meantime a new and most im- 
 portant feature of Christianity was developing itself. A 
 solitary believer, who left the world and retired into the de- 
 serts of Egypt (Antonius, a. d. 311), set an example which 
 was followed by innumerable Christians with a fervour 
 alike contagious and irresistible. The calamities of the 
 empire, and the wretched state of society, seem to have 
 aided the mistaken tendencies of devotion in producing 
 this carelessness of life and its duties. It is scarcely possi- 
 ble to exaggerate the evils produced by the spirit of mona- 
 chism in the 4th and 5th centuries : the contempt for all the 
 social habits and social virtues ; the ferocious zeal, some- 
 times venting itself against Paganism and sometimes 
 against brethren ; the unregulated, wandering, untameable 
 disposition which it engendered, and which the spirit of the 
 age dignified with the title of celestial piety. Whatever 
 Christianity may owe to the great fathers of the church, 
 Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome, Basil, Chrysostom, we must 
 not forget the encouragement which they all administered 
 to this destructive error, far more mischievous than any of 
 the heresies which they combated. At length, when the 
 evils of this anarchical system had become almost intoler- 
 able, arose the lawgivers of monachism in the West. Be- 
 nedict .(a. d. 529) and still more Cassiodorus, strove to
 
 CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 bring religious persons under a temperate and liberal rule 
 of government : their attention was called to what they had 
 hitherto despised as secular pursuits, especially agriculture 
 and literature, together with a more regulated piety; and thus 
 monachism, which in a time of declining civilization had 
 powerfully accelerated decay, became, in a time of bar- 
 barism, an agent of preservation and improvement. In a. d. 
 716, the separation between the Greek and Western church- 
 es, which had long been provoked by the gradual usurpations 
 of the Roman bishop over the latter, became really complete 
 through the controversy respecting images, although not 
 formally acknowledged until the middle of the 1 1th century. 
 This era is important, as those corruptions of Christianity 
 which, according to Protestants, disfigure both the Greek 
 and Roman Catholic churches, are evidently anterior to it, — 
 those peculiar to the latter posterior. Thus, the honour 
 paid to saints, relics, <&c, the adoration of the Virgin 
 Mary (which seems to have been partly a result of the 
 Nestorian controversy), monachism, &c, are common to 
 both, and therefore ancient: the exclusively Roman tenets, 
 transubstantiation, papal infallibility, purgatory, <kc, are 
 accounted by Protestants comparatively modern doctrines, 
 to which the whole church has never agreed ; while celi- 
 bacy, which the Roman pontiffs with great difficulty suc- 
 ceeded in imposing on the whole clergy in the 11th century, 
 is observed iu the Greek church only by the higher digni- 
 taries. For several centuries after this separation, the ex- 
 ternal history of Christianity in the West presents us with 
 little more than the vicissitudes and disputes of monastic 
 orders, the strife of ecclesiastical dignitaries with each 
 other and with temporal sovereigns, the growth of super- 
 stitious observances among the laity, the union of the re- 
 ligious with the military spirit, and the increasing power 
 of the pope; yet, under all these disadvantages, the impar- 
 tial observer may discern the great principles of religion 
 still preserved, and still working beneath the surface of 
 society for its gradual purification. The 12th century was 
 a period of revival in the West, both in point of learning 
 and religion. The military spirit of devotion found ample 
 employment in the crusades. The rise of the scholastic 
 philosophy (a. d. 1100) gave a new and peculiar character 
 to the study of theology. Among the lower classes a power- 
 ful spirit of religious reform began rapidly to extend itself, 
 especially in Italy and the south of France. A Strictness 
 of life amounting almost to asceticism, a revolt rather 
 against the wealth and temporal supremacy of the clergy 
 than their doctrines, were the first characteristics of the 
 reforming sects ; but to these was soon added an addiction 
 to mystical tenets and observances. The Cathari, Wal- 
 denses, Albigenses, <kc. all partook more or less of these 
 common peculiarities; but how far they had really adopted, 
 if at all, those Manichtcan opinions (derived through the 
 medium of the Paulicians, a sect which long subsisted in 
 the Bast,) with which they were charged by their oppo- 
 nents, will probably never be ascertained. These sectaries, 
 in their hostility to the Catholic priesthood, had to a great 
 extent usurped their province as religious advisers of the 
 poor and uninstructed with prayer, preaching, and even 
 auricular confession. It was this peculiar form of the 
 impending danger which induced the church (after it had 
 openly condemned the new doctrines) to give ample en- 
 couragement to the institution of the Mendicant orders (in 
 the beginning of the 13th century), one of the most import- 
 ant events in the history of Christianity. These bodies 
 met the sectaries on their own ground, by the assumption 
 of asceticism, poverty, and the popular practices which 
 had availed the former. They were also employed by the 
 church in the sterner task of putting down by force hereti- 
 cal opposition, and completed the extirpation of the Albi- 
 genses begun by the sword of the Crusaders. But they 
 extended their hostility to learning and science, and to all 
 the established institutions of the time, and became as 
 much hated by the secular priesthood (or parish clergy, so 
 called in distinction to those who have renounced the world 
 and are bound by monastic rule, called regulars), and by 
 the old and wealthy orders, as by the heretics themselves. 
 Under the influence of persecution the development of the 
 age was checked. From the middle of the 13th century to 
 the end of the 14th the church of Rome met with little 
 opposition from sectaries, and underwent little change in 
 respect of doctrine and discipline ; but during the same 
 period the increasing power of princes, the long removal 
 of the seat of papal power from Rome, and various other 
 causes, sensibly diminished its temporal authority. In the 
 next century, the same causes continued to act, while the 
 revived energy of reforming sects (Lollards, Hussites. <fcc.) 
 and the rapid spread of literature and learning, proved still 
 more hostile to its spiritual power. Thus the way was 
 prepared for the great events of the Reformation. To 
 trace the history of Christianity from that period onwards, 
 would be impossible within our present limits. It may be 
 sufficient to direct the reader to the general outline of 
 the most marked events, omitting those of a nature 
 merely political or ecclesiastical. In the Roman Catholic 
 231 
 
 CHROMATICS. 
 
 church, the definite establishment of her doctrines by the 
 council of Trent, which met a. d. 1546; the foundation of 
 the order of Jesuits, its rapid increase in power and influ- 
 ence, and the gradual decline of the other monastic orders ; 
 the rise, progress, and condemnation of Jansenism in 
 France, in the 17th and 18th centuries ; the suppression of 
 the Jesuits, in 1773, and overthrow of other monastic orders 
 in France at the revolution, — an example since followed in 
 other countries ; the revival of the Jesuits, 1814. In Re- 
 formed countries, the early division of Protestants into Lu- 
 theran and Calvinist, besides many subordinate sects; the 
 foundation of the church of England under Edward VI., 
 partaking in some degree the character of the two ; the 
 rapid advance of Calvinism and kindred opinions in the 
 17th century in England, Holland, and Scotland ; their de- 
 cline in the firstof these countries by the re-establishment 
 of the church in 1660, and the prevalence of Arminian sen- 
 timents within it, and on the Continent of Europe by a 
 gradual tendency to a more liberal system of theology ; the 
 establishment of the three confessions (Roman Catholic, 
 Lutheran, and Reformed or Calvinist) on an equal footing 
 in Germany by the peace of Westphalia, 1648 ; the gradual 
 approach of Protestant, especially Lutheran, divines to- 
 wards what has been called the rationalist system of religion 
 in the last part of the 18th century ; the rise of Methodism 
 in England, and of cognate systems on the Continent; the 
 union effected by the present king of Prussia and other 
 German sovereigns between the Lutheran and Calvinistic 
 bodies in their respective dominions. (See Milman's His- 
 tory of Christianity ; Neanders History of the Planting and 
 Training of the Christian Church ; Neander's History of 
 the Christian Religion and Church during the three first 
 centuries : Archbishop Whately's Kingdom of Christ.) 
 
 CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, SOCIETY FOR PRO- 
 MOTING. This society was founded in the year 1699 for 
 the objects which the name imports. It promotes these 
 objects principally by the diffusion of religious and moral 
 tracts. It has also circulated vast numbers of copies of the 
 Bible and Testament, and of the Book of Common Prayer 
 and Other authorized expositions of faith. It is entirely 
 supported by the established church, and is a powerful 
 engine for the instruction of the people in the principles of 
 It. 
 CHROMA'TIC. (Gr. xpoipa, colour.) In Music, the 
 introduction of semitones between each of the tones in the 
 diatonic scale. 
 
 CHROMA/TICS. (Gr. x.ocjua.) That part of optics 
 which treats of the colours of light and of natural bodies. 
 This is a very important branch of physical science, and 
 one which of late years has been prosecuted with great 
 assiduity. Until Newton undertook his memorable experi- 
 ments on the refraction of light, the cause of the different 
 colours of bodies had never received any satisfactory ex- 
 planation : such, indeed, was the difficulty which the an- 
 cients attached to this subject, that Plato considered it to 
 be an usurpation of the rights of the Deity to attempt the 
 investigation of this mystery of nature. The discovery of 
 the difference of refrangibility in the coloured rays of the 
 solar spectrum afforded a clue to the solution of the prob- 
 lem ; and Newton demonstrated, by a series of decisive 
 experiments, that colour depends not on any modification 
 of light acquired by reflection or refraction, but is inherent 
 in the lichl itself; the solar beam being composed of rays 
 of all the colours contained in the spectrum, which are 
 differently affected in passing through refracting media. 
 This hypothesis of the existence of different species of lu- 
 minous molecules is founded on the other hypothesis, that 
 light is a substance emitted from the sun or luminous body, 
 and is indeed a necessary consequence of that theory ; for 
 if colour depended merely on a difference of the masses, 
 or of the initial velocities of the particles, it would follow 
 that the dispersion of the rays, in passing through a prism, 
 would always be proportional to the refraction, which, as is 
 well known, is contrary to experience. 
 
 Colours of tli " Solar Spectrum. — Let a beam of solar light 
 be admitted through a small aperture in the window shutter 
 of a darkened room, and it 
 will form on the opposite 
 wall, or on a screen, a cir- 
 cular image of the sun. But 
 if a prism, P, be interposed, 
 the refracted beam, instead 
 of forming a bright white 
 spot, will produce an oblong 
 image, A B, called the solar spectrum, the sides of which 
 are terminated by two vertical straight lines, and the ends 
 by semicircles. This lengthened image consists of seven 
 principal colours, which melt into each other by insensible 
 gradations ; namely, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, 
 and violet, arranged in the order now written, the red being 
 at the lower end B. Newton, by whom this experiment 
 was first performed, conceived these to be produced by so 
 many distinct species of homogeneous light co-existing in 
 the solar beam, and that all other shades of colour are
 
 CHROMATICS. 
 
 produced by Mending them together in certain propor- 
 tions. As it is impossible to define the limit at whicli one 
 colour ends and another begins, and as the spectrum is in 
 fact composed of an infinite number of different shades, 
 the above division is entirely arbitrary. Another observer 
 of the phenomenon for the first time would probably have 
 fixed on a greater or smaller number. Newton, it appears, 
 was influenced by a fanciful idea that an analogy, or rather 
 identity of ratios, subsists between the divisions of the 
 spectrum formed by the seven colours which he assigned 
 to it, and those of the musical scale. But the resemblance 
 which suggested this analogy to Newton was purely acci- 
 dental, and depended, as has since been found, on the 
 nature of the substance of which his prism was formed ; 
 for though the colours are invariably arranged in the same 
 order, they expand very differently, according to the na- 
 ture of the refracting substance ; and, consequently, the 
 relative magnitudes of the spaces which they occupy in 
 the spectrum are entirely altered. Tobias Mayer, in an 
 essay, De AJfimtate Cohrum (Opera inedila, 1775), re- 
 gards all colours as arising from three primitive colours, 
 red, yellow, blue. But a mixture of red and green in cer- 
 tain proportions produces a colour which, so far as the eye 
 can judge, is perfectly identical with the yellow of the 
 spectrum ; and a mixture of green and violet also pro- 
 duces a perfect blue : hence it was suggested by Dr. Young 
 that the innumerable shades of the spectrum are all com- 
 pounded of red, green, and violet. Sir David Brewster, 
 however, inferred from experiments on the absorption-of 
 light in passing through coloured media, that green and 
 violet are both compound colours, separable by prisms of 
 coloured glass ; and he adopts the hypothesis of Mayer, 
 that the three simple homogeneous colours are red, yellow, 
 and blue. He supposes the solar spectrum to consist of 
 three spectra of equal lengths ; a red spectrum, a yellow 
 spectrum, and a blue spectrum. The primary red spec- 
 trum has its maximum of intensity about the middle of the 
 red space in the solar spectrum ; the primary yellow, 
 about the middle of the yellow space ; and the primary 
 blue has its maximum between the blue and the indigo 
 space ; the two minima of each of the three spectra coinci- 
 ding at the two extremities of the solar spectrum. From 
 this view of the subject it follows that red, yellow, and blue 
 light exist at every point of the solar spectrum ; and that 
 as a certain portion of red, yellow, and blue constitutes 
 white light, the colour of every point of the spectrum may 
 be considered as consisting of the predominating colour at 
 any point mixed with white light. 
 
 The existence of three primary colours in the spectrum, 
 and the mode in which they produce by their combination 
 the seven secondary or compound colours which are de- 
 veloped by the prism, are illustrated by Sir D. Brewster 
 as follows: — Let MN be the pris- 
 matic spectrum consisting of three 
 primary spectra of the same lengths, 
 M N, viz. a red, a yellow, and a 
 blue spectrum. The red spectrum 
 has its maximum intensity at R; 
 and this intensity may be represented by the distance of 
 the point R from M N. The intensity declines rapidly to 
 M and slowly to N, at both of which points it vanishes. 
 The yellow spectrum lias its maximum intensity at Y, the 
 intensity declining to zero at M and N ; and the blue has 
 its maximum intensity at B, declining to nothing at M and 
 N. The general curve which represents the total illumi- 
 nation at any point will be outside these three curves, and 
 its ordinate at any point will be equal to the sum of the 
 three ordinates at the same point. Thus the ordinate of 
 the general curve at the point Y will be equal to the ordi- 
 nate of the yellow curve, which we may suppose to be 10; 
 added to that of the red curve, which may be 2; and that 
 of the blue, which may be 1. Hence the general ordinate 
 will be 13. Now, if we suppose that 3 parts of yellow, 2 of 
 red, and 1 of blue, make while, we shall have the co- 
 lour at Y equal to 3 + 2 + 1, equal to 6 parts of white 
 mixed with 7 parts of yellow ; that is, the compound tint 
 at Y will be a bright yellow, without any trace of red or 
 blue. As these colours all occupy the same space in the 
 spectrum, they cannot be separated by the prism ; and if 
 we could find a coloured glass which would absorb 7 parts 
 of the yellow, we should obtain at the point Y a white 
 light, which the prism would not decompose. (.Brewster's 
 Optics, in Lard?ier's Cyclopcedia, p. 74.) 
 
 Dark Lines in the Spectrum. — One of the most curious, 
 and, with reference to the theory of light, one of the most 
 important optical discoveries of modern times, is the 
 existence of a great number of dark lines, or fixed rays, 
 in the solar spectrum, parallel to one another, and perpen- 
 dicular to its length. These dark lines were first per- 
 ceived by Dr. V^ollaston ; but it was Fraunhofer, a cele- 
 brated optician of Munich, who first accurately described 
 the phenomenon, and pointed out the uses to which it 
 could be applied. In order to perceive these lines, con- 
 siderable management is necessary. The prism employed 
 232 
 
 most be perfectly free from veins, and the light must en- 
 ter and emerge from it at equal angles; it is necessary 
 also to employ a telescope. They are distributed very une- 
 qually through the spectrum, and the whole number 
 amounts nearly to 600. Seven groups, which are more 
 
 "." ,r .^: ,„ii.r~^ ^..v 
 
 easily perceived than the others, a»d which are distributed 
 over the principal colours of the spectrum, have been dis- 
 tinguished by Fraunhofer by the letters B, C, D, E, F, G, 
 H. Of these B is in the red space, near its outer end. C, 
 which is a single line, and blacker than others contiguous 
 to it, is near the limit of the red next the orange. D is in 
 the orange, and near the yellow ; it is composed of two 
 lines of equal darkness very close to each other, and ia 
 easily distinguished. E is in the green, and consists of 
 seven or eight rays. F is in the blue, G in the indigo, and 
 H in the violet. Besides these there are several other 
 very remarkable groups, particularly one in the green, be- 
 tween E and F, which is composed of three strong lines. 
 The circumstance which renders the discovery of these 
 lines extremely important is, that they always preserve 
 the same relative positions in respect of the boundaries of 
 the coloured spaces; and though their distances vary with 
 the nature of the prism by which they are produced, their 
 number and order remain absolutely invariable, so long as 
 the light proceeds from the same source. For an account 
 of the spectra formed by different lights, see Brewster's 
 Optics, p. 87. 
 
 Colours of Natural Bodies. — The separation of light into 
 different colours by refraction having been established as 
 an optical fact, a different task remained, viz. that of show- 
 ing in what manner refraction could take place so as to 
 produce the permanent colours of natural bodies. Newton 
 proved that the colour of any body is not the result of any 
 quality inherent in that body, or in the particles by which 
 it may be tinged, but is merely a property of the light in 
 which they happen to he placed. The peculiar colours of 
 bodies are only exhibited in a white light. If they are 
 viewed by simple and homogeneous light of any colour, 
 they appear of the colour of that light and no other. Thus-, 
 the leaf of a plant, for example, whicli in the white light of 
 day appears green, if illuminated by homogeneous red 
 light, appears red ; if by homogeneous yellow light, yellviv, 
 and so on. Hence we conclude that one body is red, and 
 another violet, because the one is disposed to reflect the red 
 or least refrangible rays, and the other the violet or most 
 refrangible. But the difficulty consists in explaining the 
 cause of this disjiosition or transient condition of the body, 
 which renders it fit to reflect rays of one colour and absorb 
 those of another. Newton has attempted, in his Treatise 
 of Ojitics, to refer it to the constitution or elementary 
 structure of bodies. The principles or propositions on 
 which his theory are founded are the following:— -1. Bodies 
 that have the greatest refractive powers reflect the greatest 
 quantity of light ; and at the confines of equally refracting 
 media there is no reflexion. 2. The least parts of almost all 
 natural bodies are in some measure transparent. 3. Between 
 the particles of bodies are many pores or spaces, either emp- 
 ty or filled with media of less density than the particles. 4. 
 The particles of bodies, and their pores or spaces between 
 the particles, have some definite size. 
 
 Upon these principles, Newton thus explains the origin 
 of transparency, opacity, and colour. Transparency he 
 considers as arising from the particles and their intervals 
 or pores being too small to cause reflexion at their common 
 surfaces, so that all the light which enters transparent 
 bodies passes through them without any portion of it being 
 turned from its path by reflexion. Opacity in bodies arises, 
 he thinks, from an opposite cause ; viz. when the parts of 
 bodies are of such a size as to be capable of reflecting the 
 light which falls on them, in which case the light is stopped 
 or stifled by the multitude of reflexions. The colours of 
 natural bodies have the same origin as the colours of thin 
 plates or soap bubbles ; their transparent particles, accord- 
 ing to their several sizes, reflecting rays of one colour and 
 transmitting those of another. For if a thinned or plated 
 body, which, being of an uneven thickness, apitears all 
 over of one uniform colour, should be slit into threads, or 
 broken into fragments of the same thickness with the 
 plate or film, every thread or fragment should keep its co- 
 lour; and, consequently, a heap of such threads or frag- 
 ments should constitute a mass or powder of the same 
 colour which the plate exhibited before it was broken ; 
 and the parts of all natural bodies being like so many frag- 
 ments of a plate, must, on the same grounds, exhibit the 
 same colour. (See Neicton's Optics, book ii. ; or Brews' 
 ter's Life of Newton, p. 81.) 
 Such are, the general principles of the Newtonian theory
 
 CHROMIUM. 
 
 of colours ; but there are numerous classes of phenome- 
 na, some of which were known in the lime of Newton, 
 but many "more which have been discovered since, of 
 which they fail to afford any explanation, and to which, 
 indeed, they are wholly inapplicable. The ingenuity of its 
 warmest supporters has not yet been able to explain by this 
 theory the toial absence of all reflected light from the par- 
 ticles of transparent coloured media, such as coloured 
 gems, coloured glasses or fluids. &c. For these reasons, 
 and many others depending on optical phenomena not 
 connected with colours, philosophers have of late years 
 manifested a disposition to abandon the theory of the emis- 
 sion of light, and to return to that of Huygens, who sup- 
 posed light to be produced by the vibrations or undulations 
 of an ethereal fluid of great elasticity, which pervades all 
 space and penetrates all substance. .See Light. 
 
 Without entering into the subject of the propagation of 
 li.dit. it may be sufficient to remark, that the ordinary phe- 
 Domeua of colours may be explained on the principle of 
 absorption. Every substance, how opake soever it may be, 
 transmits light, at least through a very small thickness ; thus 
 gold when reduced into thin leaf is translucent. From this 
 fact it is assumed as a principle, that every particle of pon- 
 derable matter has the facully of absorbing or extinguish- 
 ing a determinate fraction of the luminous rays which fall 
 on it or pass very near it, the remainder being reflected 
 or transmitted. This fraction varies with the colour or 
 species of colour of the incident luminous rays, and with 
 the nature of the particle. For tight of the same colour 
 we may suppose it constant, whatever be the number of in- 
 cident rays : so that the intensity of a homogeneous light, 
 which has traversed a diaphanous plate composed of equi- 
 distant particles of the same nature, will diminish in a ge- 
 ometrical, when the thickness of ihe plate increases in an 
 arithmetical, progression. White tight falling on the sur- 
 face of an opake body is not totally reflected at the surface, 
 for, as has been just remarked, no substance is perfectly 
 opake: a portion of the incident light therefore penetrates 
 the superficies of every body on which it falls, and is re- 
 flected by particles beneath Ihe surface, and, in conse- 
 quenceof this interior reflection, ie again emitted from the 
 medium. But whilst the ray is thus penetrating and escap- 
 ing from the body, the different colours of which it is com- 
 posed suffer unequal absorptions ; and on the totality of 
 these absorptions depends the compound colour of the re- 
 flected ray, or the natural colour of the body. In this 
 manner are explained the effects produced by coloured 
 glasses, the blue colour of the sky, and the various tints of 
 great masses of water. 
 
 The phenomena of t lie colours of thin lamina, as soap 
 bubbles, plates of mica, and of Striated and grooved sur- 
 faces, are among the most difficult of explanation ; and it 
 is here that the undulating theory, which accounts for them 
 by the interferenct of the tight reflected from the second 
 surface of the plate with that reflected from the second, 
 possesses itsgn atesl advantage. For further information on 
 this subject, see the terms Interference, Light, Re- 
 fraction. 
 
 CHROMIUM. (Gr. xpw/ia, cotour.) A metal discovered 
 by Vauquelin in 1797. It exists chiefly in two native com- 
 pounds; the one formerly called red lead of Siberia, which 
 is a chromafe of lead ; the other, a compound of the oxides 
 of ehromiom and iron. Chromium is a whitish, brittle, 
 and very infusible metal; sp. ST. 5*5. When heated With 
 nitre it is converted into chromic acid. Its equivalent num- 
 ber is 28. It forms two compounds with oxygen, — a green 
 oxide, and a red peroxide ; the latter being sour, and com 
 billing with salefiable bases, is called chromic acid. The 
 oxide consists of 2* chromium + 12 oxygen; and chro- 
 mic acid of 28 chromium +24 oxygen. Chromic acid is 
 of a red colour, and forms a variety of coloured compounds, 
 some of which are much used in the arts; such as the 
 chromate and bichromate of potash, largely manufactured 
 for the use of calico printers, and the chromales of lead, 
 employed as yellow and red dyes and paints. The oxide 
 of chroma is green, and furnishes a valuable colour for 
 porcelain and in enamel. Chromic acid gives colour to the 
 ruby, and the green of the emerald is due to oxide of 
 chroma. 
 
 CHRO'NIC. (Gr. x.""""?, (hue.) Diseases of long du- 
 ration are termed chronic, in opposition to those of more 
 rapid progress, which are called acute. 
 
 CHRO'NICLE. In Literature, an historical register of 
 events in the order of time. Most of the historians of the 
 middle ases were chroniclers who set down the events 
 which happened within the range of their information, ac- 
 cording to the succession of years. 
 
 CHRO'NICLES. The name of two books in the canon 
 of scripture. They consist of an abridgment of sacred 
 history from its commencement down to the return of the 
 Jews from the Babylonish captivity, and are called by the 
 Septuagint irapaXcmoixtva (lit. things omitted), because 
 they contain many supplemental relations omitted in the 
 other historical books. It has been generally supposed 
 
 CHRONOLOGY. 
 
 that the Chronicles were compiled by Ezra, though cir- 
 cumstances are not wanting to diminish the probability of 
 this conjecture. Eichhorn (Einleitung, vol. ii.) gives as 
 his reasons for attributing them to Ezra their similarity in 
 point of style, idiom, and orthography to the books of 
 Kings and Ezra; while the opponents of this view base 
 thejr opinion on the discrepancies that occur throughout 
 Chronicles and Kings, in regard to facts, dates, numbers, 
 names, and genealogies. (For a learned exposition of this 
 subject, see the Penny Cyclopedia, and the authorities 
 there referred to.) 
 
 CHRO'NOGRAM. (Gr. xpovos, time, and yda&u, I 
 describe.') An inscription comprehending a date, which 
 may be read by selecting all or some of the numeral let- 
 ters, which are frequently written in these curious trifles in 
 larger characters than the rest ; as, 
 
 "ChrlstVs DVX ergo trIVMphVs." 
 (A medal of Gustavus Adolphus.) Sometimes united with 
 an anagram ; as one in honour of General Monk, 
 
 '■ George IVs MonCe DVx de AumarLe ;" 
 which may be read, 
 
 ; - Ego Regem reduxi. Ano. Sa. MDCLW." 
 
 CIIRONO'LOGY. (Gr. xP 0V °Si *"d ^oyos, discourse.) 
 Literally, the doctrine of time : is the science which treats 
 of the various divisions of time, and of the order and suc- 
 cession of events. 
 
 In order to ascertain and register the intervals of time 
 between different events, two things must necessarily he 
 assumed: — 1st, An epoch or fixed point in time to which 
 all events, whether preceding or succeeding, may be re- 
 ferred : and 2nd. A measure or definite portion of time, 
 by which the intervals between the fixed epoch and other 
 events may be estimated. Of these the first is entirely ar- 
 bitrary, and (he second arbilrary to a certain extent ; lor 
 though certain periods are marked out by the recurrence 
 of natural phenomena, a choice of these phenomena must 
 be made It is on account of the arbitrary nature of these 
 two elements, on which all chronological reckoning de- 
 pends, that so much confusion and uncertainty exist re- 
 spi cting the dates of historical events. 
 
 The diversity of epochs which have been assumed as 
 the origin of Chronological reckoning, is a natural conse- 
 quence of the manner in which science and civilization 
 have spread over the world. In the early ages the differ- 
 ent communities er tribes into which mankind were di- 
 vided began lo date their years each from some event re- 
 markable only in reference to its own individual history, 
 but of which other tribes were either ignorant, or regarded 
 with indifference Hence not only different nations, but 
 almost every individual historian or compiler of annals, 
 adopted an epoch of his own. Events of local or tempo- 
 rary interest were also constantly occurring in every 
 community which would appear of greater importance 
 than those which were long past, and consequently be 
 adopted as new historical dates. The foundation of a 
 monarchy or a city, or the accession of a king, were events 
 of this class; and accordingly are epochs of frequent oc- 
 currence in the ancient annals. Religion also came in to 
 increase the confusion caused by political changes. Soon 
 after the introduction of Christianity, the various sects be- 
 gan to establish eras, commencing with events connected 
 with the appearance of Christ ; but no regard was given to 
 uniformity. In like manner, the Mohammedans employ 
 dates having reference lo the origin of their faith. All 
 these circumstances have conspired to render it a task of 
 extreme difficulty for modern historians to ascertain the 
 order of Ihe political occurrences of ancient times. 
 
 But it is not merely the number of chronological epochs 
 and the various origins of eras that have caused the per- 
 plexity ; the measure by which long intervals were com- 
 pared varied in different countries, and in different ages, 
 and hence arises another source of confusion in arranging 
 the order of time. In the scripture history, the lapse of 
 time is frequently estimated by generations or reigns of 
 kings. Some of the historians of early Greece reckoned 
 by the succession of the priestesses of Juno ; others by 
 that of the ephori of Sparla ; and others again by the ar- 
 chons of Athens. Even when the length of the solar year 
 began lo be used as the measure of time, uniformity was 
 not obfained. The length of the solar year is a fixed ele- 
 ment in nature, and liable to no variation. But neither the 
 commencement or termination of the year is marked by 
 any conspicuous sign. Its precise lenglh can only be as- 
 certained by a long-continued series of astronomical ob- 
 servations. Rude nations were therefore unacquainted 
 with it ; and even when it had become known with con- 
 siderable accuracy, it was still necessary to form a civil 
 year, and adapt it to the seasons, the solar year not being 
 composed of an exact number of days. Most nations had 
 recourse to intercalations (see Calendar) for this purpose. 
 The ancient Egyptians followed a purely solar year, which 
 consisted of exactly 365 days. Its commencement, there- 
 fore, fell one day earlier with respect to the seasons every 
 four years, and in the period of about 1460 years would 
 O*
 
 CHRONOMETER. 
 
 successively fall on every day in the year, and awfiole year 
 be gained in the reckoning. The civil year of the Jews, 
 the Greeks, and many other nations, was regulated partly 
 by the sun and partly by the moon, which rendered its ad- 
 justment still more complicated and difficult. The Moham- 
 medan year is purely lunar; and we can only pass from 
 their calendar to the Gregorian, which is used in Christian 
 countries, by first finding the number of days from the 
 commencement of their era to any given event, and then 
 turning them back into Gregorian years. (-See Hegira.) 
 The Chinese, Hindoos, and some other Asiatic nations, have 
 epochs and methods of reckoning peculiar to themselves. 
 
 For these reasons, and numerous others that might easily 
 be adduced, it is very seldom that the precise interval be- 
 tween the events mentioned in ancient history and modern 
 dates can be determined with any degree of certainty, and 
 great discrepancies exist among the computations of differ- 
 ent chronologers. A remarkable instance of this occurs 
 with regard to the computations made to determine the 
 epoch of the creation of the world from the scripture his- 
 tory. Desvignoles, in the preface to his Chronology of 
 Sacred History, mentions that he had collected upwards 
 of two hundred different calculations, the shortest of which 
 reckons only 3483 years between the creation and com- 
 mencement of the common era, and the longest 6984 ; the 
 difference being no less than thirty-five centuries. The 
 most important works on chronology are, Usher's Annates 
 Veteris et Novi Testamenti ; Newton's Chronology ; Blair s 
 Chronology arid History of the World ; Playfair's Chrono- 
 logy ; Tables Chronologioues de V Histoire Ancienne et Mo- 
 derm, by Thouret ; and above all others, L' Art de Verifier 
 les Dates ; Nicolas's Chronology of History, in Lardner's 
 Cyclopaedia. 
 
 CHRONO'METER. (Gr. xpovoy, time, and perpov, 
 measure.) A watch of peculiar construction, and great per- 
 fection of workmanship, used for determining geographical 
 longitudes, or other purposes where time must be measur- 
 ed with extreme accuracy. The chronometer differs from 
 the ordinary watch in the principle of its escapement, 
 which is so constructed that the balance is entirely free 
 from the wheels during the greater part of its vibration ; 
 and also in having the balance compensated for variations 
 of temperature. Marine chronometers generally beat half 
 seconds, and are hung in gimbals, in boxes about six or 
 eisrht inches square. The pocket chronometer does not 
 differ in appearance from the ordinary watch, excepting 
 that it is generally a little larger. Chronometers are of im- 
 mense utility in navigation ; and ships going on distant 
 voyages are usually furnished with several, for the purpose 
 of checking one another, and also to guard against the 
 effects of accidental derangement in any single one. The 
 accuracy with which some of the better sort of chronome- 
 ters have been found to perform is truly astonishing; the 
 error in a two months' voyage not exceeding two or three 
 seconds. (See Dent on the Construction and Management 
 of Chronometers.) 
 
 CHRY'SALIS. (Gr. xpucros, gold.) The second state of 
 a Metabolian or changeable insect, in which it becomes in- 
 active, takes no food, and is inclosed in a transparent cover- 
 ins, which in many instances reflects a metallic lustre ; 
 whence the name. 
 
 CHRY'SOBA'LANA'CE.E. (Chrysobalanus, one of 
 the genera.) A natural order of shrubby or arborescent 
 Exogens, chiefly inhabiting the hotter parts of the world. 
 They are very nearly related to Rosacea-, from which they 
 differ in having a siyle proceeding from the very base of 
 the ovary, and irregular stamens and petals. The species 
 are of little importance. The fruit of Chrysobalanus icaco 
 is eaten in the West Indies under the name of the cocoa 
 plum, and that of some others is used in other countries in 
 a similar way. 
 
 CHRYSO'BERIL. This mineral occurs in small round- 
 ed misses, and in crystals; it is very hard, transparent or 
 translucent, and of different shades of greenish yellow. It 
 is employed in jewellery. It has been brought from Bra- 
 zil ; and is associated in the sand of the Ceylonese rivers 
 with rubies and sapphires. The cymophane of Hauy, which 
 is a species of chrysoberil, consists of alumina 76 7, glucina 
 17-8, oxide of iron 55. 
 
 CHRYSOCHLORE. (Gr. xpwos, gold, and x\o>pos, 
 green.) A species of mole, Chrysochloris capensis, inhabit- 
 ing the Cape of Good Hope, the fur of which reflects most 
 brilliant metallic hues of green and gold. 
 
 CHRYSOCO'LLA. The Greek name for borax. 
 
 CHRYSO'GRAPHY. (Gr. xpv<">s, gold, and ypa<pu, I 
 write.) The art of writing in letters of gold : a sumptuous 
 fashion, practised by the writers of manuscripts, chiefly in 
 the early part of the middle ages, when the leaves of parch- 
 ment which contained the writing were also dyed with 
 purple and other colours. 
 
 CHRY'SOLITE. (Gr. xpuiroy, and XiQoj, a stone.) A 
 crystallized mineral, often of a golden yellow colour. It is 
 a ferriferous silicate of magnesia, and is sometimes used 
 in jewellery. 
 
 231 
 
 CHYLE. 
 
 CHRYSO'LOGY. (Gr. XP^oos, gold, and \oyos, dis- 
 course.) A name by which some continental writers dis- 
 tinguish that branch of political economy which relates to 
 the production of wealth. 
 
 CIIRYSO'MELA. (Gr. xptxroj. gold, and juXaj. black.) 
 The name of a Linnaean genus of Coleopterous insects, 
 now the type of an extensive group, divisible into three 
 families ; viz. the Chrysomelida^ proper, characterized by 
 having the antennae remote from each other at the base ; 
 Cassidida, having the antennae arising close together, but 
 concealed at the base by the thorax ; and GaJeracidct, 
 having the antennae close together at the base, but not 
 concealed by the thorax. The characters which these 
 three families possess in common are. a small body of an 
 oval or rounded form ; antennae seldom so long as the 
 body; legs of a moderate length, but rather thickened; 
 and tarsi with the three basal joints dilated and spongy 
 benealh, forming a kind of cushion. The insects of the 
 present tribe are of sluggish habits, and feed upon the 
 leaves of various vegetables, both in the larva and imago 
 state, being characterized in the latter period by their 
 brilliant meiallie tints ; whence their name. The larva of 
 one of the British species (Eumolpus ritis, Fabr.) preys 
 upon the young buds and leaves of the vine, and by its 
 attacks upon the footstalk of the grape bunch so injures 
 the nutrient vessels as to cause the destruction or de- 
 terioration of the fruit. In the wine countries of Europe 
 the ravages of this insect are often very serious, and much 
 dreaded. 
 
 CHRY'SOPRASE. (Gr. xP^ooirpaaoi.) A pale green 
 silicious mineral, generally semitransparent. It is tinged 
 by oxide of nickel, and much esteemed for ornamental 
 purposes. 
 
 CHURCH. (Gr, KvpiaKov. from icvpios, Lord.) A build- 
 ing dedicated to the Lord. The word church, however, is 
 not confined to this signification, but answers to all the 
 senses in which £/«A>;<7ia (Fr. eglise) is used in the New 
 Testament, which from its original meaning of a convened 
 assembly, is employed, 1st, to denote the whole body of 
 true believers, or the visible church ; 2nd, in addition to 
 these, the spirits of the just made perfect, or the invisible 
 church ; 3rd, any congregation of Christians met together 
 in a single place, or the body of believers resident in a 
 town or district ; and 4th, the edifice in which they meet 
 for divine worship. To these we may add a fifth sense of 
 the modern term church, when it is applied to a distinct 
 religious community ; as the Romish, the English, the Lu- 
 theran, <fcc. The true definition of the visible church has 
 been a matter of much controversy. The English church, 
 in her 19th article, explains it to be "a congregation of 
 faithful men, in which the pure word of God is preached 
 and the sacraments- duly administered, according to 
 Christ's ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are 
 requisite to the same." What these necessary requisites 
 are is not dogmatically laid down, whence many commu- 
 nities come to be comprehended in the visible church by 
 English divines which the Romish and other authorities 
 exclude. Many sects, however, extend the pale still fur- 
 ther, not considering the reception of the sacraments as 
 any test of churchmanship, but referring it solely to the 
 earnest belief and moral conduct of individuals. 
 
 Church. In Architecture, a building dedicated to the 
 performance of Christian worship. Under the art. Archi- 
 tecture an account is given of the Basilicas which were 
 first used for the assembly of the early Christians, to 
 which the reader is referred. Among the first of the 
 churches was that of St Peters at Rome, about the year 
 326, nearly on the site of the present church ; and it is 
 supposed that the first church of St. Sophia at Constanti- 
 nople was built somewhat on its model. That which was 
 afterwards erected by Justinian seems in its turn to have 
 afforded the model of St. Mark's at Venice, which was 
 the first in Italy constructed with pendentives and a dome, 
 the former affording the means of covering a square 
 plan with an hemispherical vault. The four most celebra- 
 ted churches in Europe erected since the revival of the 
 arts are, St. Peter's at Rome, which stands on an area of 
 227,069 feet superficial ; Sta. Maria del Fiore at Florence, 
 standing on S4,S02 feet ; St. Paul's. London, which stands 
 on B4,025 feet; and St. Genevieve at Paris, 60.287 feet. 
 The churches on the Continent are usually ranged under 
 seven classes : Pontifical, as St. Peter's, where the pope 
 occasionally officiates ; Patriarchal, where the govern- 
 ment is in a patriarch ; Metropolitan, where an archbishop 
 is the head; Cathedral, where a bishop presides ; Colkgi- 
 ate, when attached lo a college ; Parochial, attached to a pa- 
 rish ; and Conventual, when belonging to a convent. 
 
 CIIU'SITE. (Gr. x V(0 > I pour.) A very fusible mineral 
 found near Limbnurg. 
 
 CHYA'ZIC ACID. From the initials of carbon, hydro- 
 gen, and azote. A term applied to the compounds of hy- 
 drocyanic acid. 
 
 CHYLE. (Gr. x^ ? ■) The nutritious fluid prepared 
 from the chyme, and imbibed by the lacteals to be con-
 
 CHYLOPOIETIC. 
 
 veyed to the thoracic duct and venous system. It contains 
 about 10 per cent, of solid matter. In most mammals it is 
 white; in birds transparent, except in some that live on 
 ants and insects, as the woodpecker, which has been ob- 
 served to be opake ; it is white in the crocodile, but colour- 
 Ipss and transparent in other reptiles and in fishes. (See 
 Liebig's Animal Chemistry.") 
 
 CHY'LOPOIE'TIC. (Gr. xvAoc, and ttoucj, I make.) 
 Organs concerned in the formation of chyle ; hence the 
 stomach, duodenum, and liver are termed chylopoietic 
 viscera. 
 
 CHYME. {Gr. xvpos, juice.) The pulpy layer of nu- 
 tritious digested matter which adheres to the inner surface 
 of the intestine, and yields the chyle by admixture with 
 the biliarv secretion. 
 
 CIBO'RIUM. (Gr. KiSoypiov.) In Architecture, an in- 
 sulated erection open on each side, with arches, and hav- 
 ing a dome of ogee form carried or supported by four 
 columns. It is also used to denote the coffer or case which 
 contains the Host. 
 
 CICA'DA. (Lat. a grass hopper.) The name ofaLin- 
 naean genus of insects, celebrated in all ages for their 
 powers of song or shrill chirp. 
 
 Et cautu querulse rumpent arbusta ckadoe, 
 
 Georgics, iii. 
 sings Virgil ; which Dryden renders, 
 
 When creakiug grass-hoppers on shrubs complain : 
 
 although it is evident that Virgil alluded to the insects of 
 the present genus, which habitually frequent shrubs and 
 trees, and feed on their juices, having a peculiar apparatus 
 for piercing the bark and sucking out the juice. They are 
 therefore more accurately described by Lord Byron, as 
 
 The shrill Cicadx, people of the pine. 
 The manna of the shops is the inspissated juice of the 
 Fraxinus ornus, poured out from the wounds iullicted by 
 the Cicada orni. The organ of sound is peculiar to the 
 male, and is situated on each side of the under and ante- 
 rior part of the abdomen. The insects referable to the 
 Linnsan genus Cicadaz are now separated into three fami- 
 lies — CicadidcB, Fulgerida, and Cercopidtr. 
 
 CICA'TKIX. (Lat.) The scar which remains after the 
 skinning over of a wound. 
 
 CICERO'NE. (Ital.) A name originally given by the 
 Italians to those persons who pointed out to travellers the 
 Interesting objects with which Italy abounds; but applied 
 universally at present to any individual who acts as a 
 guide. This application of the term Cicerone has pro- 
 bably its origin in the ironical exclamation, " E un Cice- 
 rone" (he is a Cicero), being elicited from the traveller by 
 the well-known garrulity of the Italian guides. 
 
 CICHORA'CE.E. (Gr. Kix^pn, name of the herb 
 Cichory.) One of the four divisions of Composite^ a very 
 extensive order of herbaceous or shrubby Exogens. The 
 plants belonging to this division have a milky juice, and 
 Form a connecting link between Composita and Campanu- 
 lacem. They inhabit the whole world, and are character- 
 ized by all the florets of the flower heads being alike and 
 ligulate. Lettuce, succory, and endive are familiar exam- 
 ples of CichoracecB, which are generally bitter, with a so- 
 porific quality resembling that of opium. 
 
 CICI'NDELA. (Lat. cicendela, aglow-icorm .) A name 
 applied by Linnaeus to a genus of beetles, which is placed 
 at the head of the order Coleoptera, from the circumstance 
 of the outer lobe of the maxilla; being converted into an 
 additional pair of feelers, called internal maxillary palpi. 
 The mandibles are very strong, and armed with strong 
 teeth; the maxilla? are terminated by a moveable spur; 
 the eyes are large and prominent ; and the wings gener- 
 ally well developed. Endowed with such powers of per- 
 ception, locomotion, and destruction, it may be readily 
 inferred that these insects are a cruel and predatory race. 
 Like the carnivora of a higher class, they are remarkable 
 for the beauty of their colours, and were termed by Lin- 
 naeus the tigers of the insect world. The species referable 
 to the Linnncan Cicindela are extremely numerous, and 
 are divided into twenty sub-genera ; of which one only is 
 British, and to this the term Cicindela is restricted. 
 
 CICISBE'O. (Ital.) A word synonymous with cavalier 
 servente, and applied to a class of persons in Italy who 
 attend on married ladies with all the respect and devotion 
 of lovers. Formerly the establishment of a fashionable 
 lady was not considered complete without a cicisbeo, 
 whose duty it was to accompany her to private parties 
 and public amusements, to escort her in her walks, and in 
 short to be always at her side ready for her commands. 
 This practice is now, however, on the decline. Though 
 the office of a cicisbeo has been the subject of frequent 
 invective, it has not been without its advocates and ad- 
 mirers. Among others, Baretti has taken great pains to 
 vindicate this custom in his Account of the Manners, $e. 
 of Italy, vol. i. c. 8. He ascribes it to a spirit of gallantry 
 derived from the ages of chivalry, and much heightened 
 and refined bv the revival of the Platonic philosophy in 
 235 
 
 CINCHONA. 
 
 Italy about the 13th century, and by the verses of Petrarch 
 and his numerous imitators. 
 
 CICO'NIA. (Lat. astork.) A genus of wading birds of 
 the tribe Cultrirostres of Cuvier ; including the while stork 
 (Ciconia alba), the black stork (Ciconia nigra), and the 
 American stork (Ciconia magnari). 
 
 CID. (Arab, seid, lord.) The name given to an epic 
 poem of the Spaniards which celebrates the exploits of 
 their national hero, Roderigo Diaz, Count of Bivar. It is 
 supposed to have been written in the 13th century, about 
 150 years after the hero's death ; but unfortunately the au- 
 thor's name has not been transmitted to posterity. (See 
 Soulhey's Chronicle of the Cid, and Lockhart's Spanish 
 Ballads. Am. ed., 1842.) 
 
 CI'DER. A fermented liquor made from the juice of 
 apples. Cider is made in all the temperate climates of the 
 world which are not sufficiently warm for maturing the 
 grape, and where the cold is not so great as to reduce the 
 inhabitants to only the beer produced by a fermented de- 
 coction of grain. Cider is formed by grinding or crushing 
 the apples when ripe, either in a circular stone trough by 
 a stone roller turned by a horse (which is the common 
 practice in Worcestershire, Herefordshire, <fec), or be- 
 tween fluted or spiky, and afterwards between smooth 
 rollers of wood or iron, driven by men (as practised in De- 
 vonshire, and in most places where cider is made on a 
 small scale). The apples, including the core and the seeds, 
 being reduced to a pulp by crushing or grinding, the mass 
 is put into a hair cloth and powerfully pressed ; and the 
 liquor which runs from it is put into casks, where it is al- 
 lowed to ferment, the casks being freely exposed to the air 
 in the shade ; the progress of the fermentation is then care- 
 fully watched, and as the sediment has subsided the liquor 
 is racked off; on the proper time being chosen for doing 
 this depends the excellence of the cider. The best cider, 
 other circumstances being the same, is that in which the 
 fermentation has gone on slowly, and where the vinous fer- 
 mentation has not gone so far as to become acetous. The 
 check to fermentation consists in racking off from one cask 
 to another. Before winter the casks arc removed to a cel- 
 lar, and by the following Bpring the liquor is fit for use, or 
 for buttling. The principal cider counties in England are 
 Worcestershire, Herefordshire, and Devonshire. The 
 Worcestershire and Herefordshire cider will keep from 
 twenty to thirty years ; while the best Devonshire cider 
 will rarely keep more than five or six years. 
 
 CI'LIA. (Lat. cilium, an eyelash.) The hairs which 
 grow from the margin of the eyelids ; the term is also ap- 
 plied to microscopic filaments or plates which project from 
 animal membranes and are endowed with quick vibratile 
 motion. In most of the lower animals the respiratory 
 function is effected by means of the viliratile cilia; many 
 animalcules and the gemmules of the Acriles move by a 
 similar mechanism; and it has recently been ascertained 
 that vibratile cilia have a share in the performance of some 
 important functions in the highest classes of the animal 
 kingdom, where they have been detected on the membrane 
 lining the female generative and respiratory passages, and 
 the ventricles of the brain. 
 
 Cilia. In Bolanv. long hairs situated upon the margin 
 of a vegetable body, as on the leaves of the Semperviviun 
 tectorum. 
 
 CI'LIARY. (Lat cilium.) The ciliary ligament of the 
 eye is the circular portion that divides the choroid mem- 
 brane from the iris, and which adheres to the sclerotic 
 coat. The ciliary processes are the white folds at the mar- 
 gin of the uvea in the eye, which proceed from it to the 
 crystalline lens. 
 
 CI'LIATED. (Lat. cilium.) A term used in describing 
 the surface of an organ, to denote the presence at the mar- 
 gin "I fine hairs resembling the eyelash, as in the leavesof 
 Liiztiln pilosa. 
 
 Cl'LIOGRADE, CUiograda. (Lat. cilium and gradior, 1 
 proceed.) The name of atribe of Acalephansorsea nettles, 
 comprehending those which swim by means of cilia. 
 
 CI'MEX. (Lat. cimex, a bug.) A Linnsean genus of 
 Heniipterous insects, now subdivided into the following 
 families, — Pantatomidat, Coroidce, Lygoida, Cyprida, Ci- 
 micidn . Reduviida}, Acanthida, Hydrometrida.. Each of 
 these families includes several genera, and each genus 
 comprises many species; in all the mouth consists of one 
 lengthened and jointed proboscis, including several fine 
 sharp bristle-like processes, which are employed in wound- 
 ing the vegetable or animal substances on the juices of 
 which these insects feed. The bed-bug (Cimex lectula- 
 rius) may be regarded as a type of this extensive tribe of 
 insects. 
 
 CI'MOLITE. A mineral found in the island of Cimola 
 in amorphous earthy masses: it is a hydrated silicate of 
 alumina. 
 
 CINCHO'NA. The generic name of certain trees yield- 
 ing a bitter febrifuge bark, the virtues of which are to be 
 ascribed to the presence of the vegetable alkaloids called 
 ci?ichonia and quinia.
 
 CINCHONACEA. 
 
 Three species of cinchona bark are directed in the Lon- 
 don Pharmacopoeia to be kept for medical use; namely, 
 the pale, yellow, and red barks. The first of these is fur- 
 nished by C. condaminea, and contains cinchonia ; the 
 second, yielded by C lanceolata, produces quinia; and the 
 third, whose origin is not ascertained, possesses a mixture 
 of the two. 
 
 CINCHONA'CEJE. (Cinchona, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of shrubby or arborescent Exogens, almost 
 exclusively inhabiting the tropics and the hotter parts of 
 the world. They are in some respects allied to Composi- 
 te, from which their distinct stamens, bilocular or plurilo- 
 cular ovary, and inflorescence, distinguish them. They are 
 divided from A/iocynaceas by the aestivation of the corolla, 
 the presence of stipules, and the inferior ovary ; although, 
 according to Brown, there exists a genus in equinoctial 
 Africa which has the interpetiolary stipules and seeds of 
 Cinchonaceat, and the superior ovary of Apocynacea, 
 thus connecting the two orders. They are most nearly re- 
 lated 10 Caprifoliacea, being only separated from them by 
 their interpetiolary stipules. Brown describes a tribe called 
 Opercularinea as having hut one seed, and the number 
 ol stamens unequal to the lobes of the corolla ; thus oc- 
 cupying, as it would seem, an intermediate position be- 
 tween Cinchonacea: and Dipsaceat. Powerful febrifugal 
 properties in their bark or emetic in the roots are the great 
 features of this order, the most efficient products of which 
 are cinchona and ipecacuanha. Many of the plants of the 
 order are fragrant and of great beauty ; but, with the ex- 
 ception of the Gardenea, Lucula, and a few others, the 
 handsome kinds are hardly known to cultivators. 
 
 CINCTURE. (Lat. cingo, I surroimd.) In Architecture, 
 the ring, list, or fillet at the top and bottom of a column, 
 which divides the shaft of the column from its capital and 
 base. 
 
 CINE'REOUS. (Lat. cinis, ashes.) Grey ; the colour 
 of wood-ashes. 
 
 CI'NGULUM. (Lat. cingulum, a girdle.) In Zoology, 
 is technically applied to the neck of a tooth, or to that 
 more or less distinct constriction which separates the 
 crown from the fang. The term tingula is also given to 
 the transverse series of bony pieces connected together by 
 tegumenlary flexile joints, as in the middle part of the ar- 
 mour of the armadillo. 
 
 CI'NNABAR. An Indian name, given, according to 
 Pliny, to a mixture of the blood of the dragon and ele- 
 phant, and other substances of similar colour. It is now 
 exclusively applied to the red pigment called vermilion. 
 It is a bisulphuret of mercury, composed of 200 mercury -4- 
 32 sulphur. 
 
 CI'NNAMON. The bark of the Cinnamomum zeylani- 
 cum. This tree is a native of Ceylon, whence the finest 
 cinnamon is obtained ; it is of an as ringent and highly aro- 
 matic and warm flavour, and yields by distillation an ex- 
 tremely fragrant and pungent volatile oil, kept for pharma- 
 ceutical use under the name of oil of cinnamon. An in- 
 ferior kind of cinnamon is often met with in commerce, 
 which is remarkably deficient in flavour. 
 
 CI'NNAMON STONE. (So called from its colour.) A 
 silicate of lime, alumine, and oxide of iron, from Ceylon. 
 It occurs massive and in rounded pieces in the sand of 
 rivers ; some of these are occasionally cut and polished for 
 jewellery. 
 
 CINQUE POUTS, or FIVE PORTS. The seaport towns 
 of Dover, Sandwich, Hastings, Hithe, and Romney ; to 
 which three others were afterwards added, viz. Winchil- 
 sea, Rye, and Seaford. These towns are incorporated, 
 with peculiar privileges ; are under the government of a 
 lord warden, to whom writs for the return of members to 
 parliament from them are directed ; and the members so 
 returned are termed Barons of the Cinque Ports. 
 
 crPUER. (Heb. saphar, to number.) The character 
 in numeral notation, which, standing by itself, signifies 
 nothing, or the privation of value. When combined with 
 other numeral characters, its use is to determine their posi- 
 tion with regard to the unit's place, and consequently the 
 power often, by which their absolute values must be seve- 
 rally multiplied to produce the number they are intended 
 to represent. 
 
 Cipher is sometimes used in common language to signify 
 any arithmetical character ; hence the verb to cipher, which 
 signifies to perform an arithmetical operation. This term, 
 which is found in all European languages, was no doubt in- 
 troduced into Spain by the Saracens, along with the Arabic 
 figures, which appear to have come into use among the 
 astronomers in the thirteenth or early in the fourteenth 
 century (for the time of their first introduction is not cer- 
 tainly known), and to have been gradually circulated over 
 Europe in the almanacs. 
 
 CI'POLIN. A green marble with white zones, some- 
 what like the section of an onion. 
 
 CI'RCINNATE. (Lat. circino, I make a circle.) A term 
 used in describing the aestivation of flowers, and the direc- 
 tion of plants in general, to denote those which are rolled 
 236 
 
 CIRCLE. 
 
 spirally downwards, so that they are bent like the head of 
 a crosier ; as the shoots of young ferns, the inflorescence 
 of Boraginaceous plants, the leaves of the Sundew. 
 
 CI'RCLE. (Lat. circulus.) In Geometry, a plane fi- 
 gure contained by one line, which is called the circumfer- 
 ence, and such that all straight lines drawn from a certain 
 point within the figure to the circumference are equal to 
 one another. The point which possesses this property is 
 called the centre of the circle. The straight line and the 
 circle are the only figures admitted into plane or elemen- 
 tary geometry, all questions in that branch of mathematics 
 depending on the intersections of straight lines with straight 
 lines, of straight lines with circles, or of circles with cir- 
 cles. This distinction was established by the ancient geo- 
 metricians, who regarded the other geometrical figures as 
 formed by the intersections of planes with solids, and 
 thence denominated problems, for the solution of which 
 the properties of other figures than the straight line and 
 the circle were required, — solid problems. The algebraic 
 analysis points to a different distinction. An equation be- 
 tween two indeterminate quantities, neither of which rises 
 above the first degree, represents a straight line. When 
 either or both of the indeterminate quantities rise to the se- 
 cond degree, the equation may represent a circle, an el- 
 lipse, an hyperbola, or a parabola. The circle thus be- 
 longs to the same class of curve lines as those which have 
 been termed conic sections ; and in fact a cone may be 
 cut by a plane so that the section shall be a circle, as well 
 as any one of the other three curves. 
 
 The circle derives its chief importance from its applica- 
 tion to trigonometry, or the measurement of angles. In- 
 stead of directly comparing angles with one another, it is 
 more convenient to compare the arcs (described with the 
 same radius) contained between the sides of the angle. 
 The numerical relations of different angles, or the corres- 
 ponding arcs, are expressed as follows : — The circle is di- 
 vided into four equal parts, and the four portions of the 
 circumference thus formed serve as the measure of four 
 right angles, which comprehend the whole space about 
 the centre. Each of these quarters of the circumference 
 is divided into 90 equal parts, called degrees. The whole 
 circumference, therefore, contains four times 90, or 3G0 de- 
 grees. This division, adopted in the most ancient times, 
 appears sufficiently capricious ; nevertheless it is very 
 convenient, inasmuch as the number 360 contains many 
 primes, and consequently permits many subdivisions into 
 pails expressible by whole numbers. Thus, the half con- 
 tains ISO degrees ; the third, 120; the fourth, 90; the fifth, 
 72; the sixth, GO; the eighth, 45; lhetenth,36 ; the twelfth, 
 30 ; the fifteenth, 24, &c. In order to measure smaller 
 parts of an angle than a degree, the degree is subdivided 
 into GO minutes or primes, and the minute into 60 seconds. 
 Since the decimal arithmetic came into general use, the 
 sexagesimal division is not carried farther than seconds in 
 expressing angular magnitude, the parts of a second being 
 now always represented by decimals. The whole circum- 
 ference of the circle contains 21,600 minutes or 1,296,000 
 seconds. 
 
 The rectification of the circle, or the determination of 
 the ratio of the circumference to the diameter, is a prob- 
 lem which has exercised the ingenuity of mathematicians 
 in all ages. It cannot be expressed in finite numbers ; but 
 numerous series have been invented from which it may 
 be computed to any required degree of precision. Archi- 
 medes, in his treatise De Dimensione Circuli. proved that 
 if the diameter is expressed by 7, the circumference is 
 very nearly 22. A nearer ratio, which is generally used in 
 ordinary measurements, is 113 to 355; and it has the ad- 
 vantage of being easily remembered, the numbers being 
 formed of the three first odd numbers, each repeated. 
 Vieta carried the approximation to 10 places of figures, 
 and Van Ceulen to 36. Mr. Abraham Sharp computed the 
 ratio to 72 places of figures ; and finally De Lagny. in the 
 Memoirs of tlte Academy of Sciences of Paris, extended it 
 to 128; an example of patient industry without a use. 
 Supposing the diameter 1, the first thirty-six figures by 
 which the circumference is expressed (or the ratio found 
 by Van Ceulen) are 
 
 3-14159,26535,89793,23846.26433,83279,50288. 
 
 Of the series by which the circumference is expressed 
 in terms of the diameter, one of the simplest is 
 
 c = 4 x (1 - \+\— \+h- TT+tV-tV+, &c) ; 
 
 but the following is better adapted for calculation, 
 1 1 13 1-3-5 
 
 c = 4Xd-~. 
 23 
 
 " 2-4-5 2-46 7 — 2-4 6-89 
 
 , &c.) 
 
 The areas of circles, as of plane similar figures, are to 
 one another in the ratio of the squares of their diame- 
 ters. If the diameter is unit, the area is X of the circum- 
 ference, and is expressed by the decimal -78539816:339741 s'i, 
 &c. to sixteen places. This is nearly in the proportion 
 of U to 11, which was the approximation given by Archi-
 
 CIRCUITS. 
 
 Archimedes. Some of the series by which the ratio of 
 the area of" a circle to the square of its diameter is ex- 
 pressed are curious. The following was given by Dr. Wal- 
 1U in his Arithmetic of Infinities : — 
 
 2 X 4 X 4 X 6 X 6 X 3 X, &c . 
 3X3X5X5X7X7X,&c. 
 This is the same as fX^IXifXr &c, the denomina- 
 tors being the squares of the odd numbers, and the nume- 
 rators differing from the denominators by unity. Sinee 
 the invention of the infinitesimal calculus the discovery of 
 series for the rectification and quadrature of the circle is 
 a matter of comparative facility. A number of them may 
 be seen in Elder's Introduclio in Analysin Infinitorum. 
 
 CI'RCUITS. (Lat. circumeo, I go round.) In England, 
 Scotland, and Ireland, divisions of the kingdom appointed 
 for the judges of assize ; two of whom go each circuit 
 twice a year, to deliver the gaols and try issue's at nisi pri- 
 us. England is divided into six circuits — Home, Midland, 
 Oxford, Norfolk, Western, Northern ; Wales into the 
 North and South Welsh circuits. A single judge travels 
 each of the Welsh circuits, and these two meet at Chester 
 to transact the business of that county. The judges choose 
 their own circuits ; the three chiefs, and the puisne judges, 
 in order of seniority, making their election. The circuits 
 are after Hilary and Trinity Terms, and vary in their dura- 
 tion from three to seven or eight weeks. (See Cor rts, 
 Superior ; and Assize.) The circuit or assize towns in 
 most counties have been fixed by immemorial usage, but 
 some changes have recently been made by the authority 
 of the privy council. Barristers at the common law bar 
 choose their circuits on first embarking in their profession, 
 and etiquette allows of only one subsequent change. The 
 Insolvent commissioners also make circuits thrice a yeai 
 through the kingdom for the discharge of debtors. 
 
 CIRCULAR INSTRUMENTS. The name given to any 
 astronomical or nautical instrument for measuring angles, 
 in which the graduation extends round the whole circum- 
 ference, or to 360°. Formerly it was thought sufficient to 
 carry the divisions over a portion of a circle only, whence 
 the quadrants, sextants, and octants, once so common ; but 
 experience has shown that entire circles (especially where 
 the instruments are of considerable size) have a meat ad- 
 vantage over graduated segments; and hence, excepting 
 the sea sextant, the latter are now seldom used. The 
 principal circular instruments used in astronomy are alti- 
 tude and azimuth circles, mural circles, reflecting < 
 and repeating circles. The altitude and azimuth circle, as 
 its name implies, is used for measuring the altitudes and 
 azimuths of stars ; it is consequently composed of two 
 graduated circles, one vertical and the other horizontal. 
 This is a sort of universal instrument, being applicable to 
 almost all the purposes of as'ronomy. The mural circle is 
 so called because it is supported by means of a long axis 
 passing into a tcall, the plane of the circle being parallel to 
 the wall. The instrument is placed in the meridian, and 
 is used for determining the polar or zenith distances of ce- 
 lestial objects. (See Mural Circle.) The reflecting cir- 
 cle carries a mirror, by means of which an object is seen 
 by reflected vision ; another object is viewed directly ; the 
 two are brought to coincide, and the angular distance be- 
 tween them is measured by the inclination of the mirror 
 to the axis of the telescope. (See Sextant.) Therepeat- 
 ing circle, or multiplying circle, is so contrived that the ob- 
 server is enabled to repeat or multiply the observation, by 
 reading it off successively on different parts of the gradu- 
 ated limb. A number of values being thus found, the 
 mean of the whole is taken as the correct result. This in- 
 strument is sometimes called Borda : s circle, from the 
 name of its improver. See Repeating Circle. 
 
 CI'RCULAR PARTS. In Trigonometry, the name given 
 to a proposition invented by Lord Napier, and demon- 
 strated in his Mirifici Logarithmorum Carwnis Descriptio, 
 which gives all the relations between the parts of a right- 
 angled spherical triangle, in two formula. It is this : — In 
 any right angled spherical triangle, let 
 a and b denote the sides, c the hypo- 
 thenuse, and A and B the angles oppo- 
 site to a and 6 respectively. Take the 
 two sides, and the complements of the 
 hypothenuseand of the two angles, and 
 write them in order round a circle, as 
 in the annexed diagram; then, if any 
 one part be called the middle part, the 
 two next to it are the adjacent parts, and the other two 
 the opposite parts; and the two following rules will hold 
 good : — 
 
 1. The sine of the middle part is equal to the product 
 of the tangents of the adjacent parts. 2. The sine of the 
 middle part is equal to the product of the cosines of the 
 opposite parts. Thus, 
 
 Sin. a = tan. b. tan. (90 — B). 
 Sin. a = cos. (90°— A) cos. (90°— c) 
 237 
 
 CIRRHOUS. 
 
 CIRCULATING DECIMALS. Are decimals in which 
 two or more figures are constantly repeated in the same 
 order ; thus, 0y,09.09, &c. ; 234,234,234, &c ; UzbbT, 
 '142587, 1, &c. A decimal of this sort is equal to a vulgar 
 fraction of which the numerator is the period or circulating 
 figures, and the denominator as may nines as there are 
 figures in the numerator. 
 
 CIRCUMCl'SION. The initiatory rite of the Jewish cove- 
 nant ; which, as is recorded, was first enjoined to Abraham 
 by God, and after his posterity had neglected it during their 
 wanderings through the desert, was solemnly renewed 
 upon the passage of the Jordan. (Josh. v. 1— 10.) 
 
 This custom of cutling off the foreskin has been long 
 prevalent among Eastern nations. Herodotus refers to it 
 as the practire of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, and as 
 borrowed from them by the Phoenicians ami Syrians. It 
 does not appear, however, to have been considered by 
 these nations in the light of a religious ceremony. It is 
 enforced by the Koran upon all the disciples of Mahomet, 
 whether from an idea of salubrity vulgarly attributed to it 
 in the East, or merelv as a distinguishing rite. 
 
 CIRCU'MFERENTOR. An instrument used by sur- 
 veyors for faking angles. It consists of a graduated brass 
 circle and an index all of one piece, and carrying a mag- 
 netic needle suspended above the centre of the circle. 
 The index being direcled to an object, the angle which it 
 makes with the magnetic meridian is noted. " The index 
 is then directed to the second object, and the angle it 
 makes with the same meridian observed in like manner. 
 The difference (or sum, as the case may be) of the two 
 observed angles gives the angle between the two ob- 
 jects. It is evident that only a very rough approximation 
 can be obtained in this manner. For the purposes of sur- 
 veying, a pocket sextant is a far preferable instrument. 
 
 CI'RCUMFLE'XUS. A muscle of the palale : the term 
 is also applied to arteries which wind round bones or 
 joints 
 
 fTRCUMPO'LAR STARS. Are those stars which at 
 any given place move round the pole, or complete their 
 diurnal circles, without setting. The number of slars so 
 circumstanced increases with the latitude of the place or 
 the elevation of the pole above the horizon. 
 
 ClR't I'MSCI'SSILE. (Lat. circumscindo, I cut round.) 
 A mode of dehiscence observed in the fruit of some plants; 
 it occurs by a transverse circular separation of the sides 
 of the ovary, as in AnagaOia, Hyoacyamua, and is analo- 
 gous to the transverse articulations found in the leaf of the 
 orange or the pod oforairhopua 
 
 (TIUTMSCIUTTION. (Lat. circumscriplio, a bounda- 
 ry) The line representing the two edges of a leaf, I. e. its 
 margin ; it is also used to denote the figure represented by 
 the margin of any other body. 
 
 CI'RCUMVALLA'TION. (Lat. circ urn, about, and val- 
 lum, a rampart.) In Fortification, a trench or bulwark 
 thrown up about a camp or besieged city, composed of (he 
 earth dug up from the ditch and of sharp stakes planted 
 in it. 
 
 CI'RCUS. A straight long narrow building, whose 
 length to its breadth was generally as five to one. It was 
 divided down the centre by an ornamented barrier called 
 the spina, and was used by the Romans for the exhibition 
 of public spectacles and chariot races. There were sev- 
 eral of these at Rome, of which the most celebrated was 
 the Circus Maximus. 
 
 Julius Caesar improved and altered the Circus Maximus; 
 and that it might serve for the purpose of a naumachia, 
 supplied it with water. Augustus added to it the celebra- 
 ted obelisk now standing in the Piazza del Popolo. No 
 vestiges of this circus remain. Besides these were at 
 Rome the Circi of Flaminius, near the Pantheon ; Agona- 
 lis, occupying the site of what is now the Piazza Navona ; 
 of Nero, on a portion whereof St. Peter's stands ; Florus, 
 Antoninus, and Aurelian, no longer even in ruins; and 
 that of Caracalla, which was 738 feet in length, and is suffi- 
 ciently perfect in the present day to exhibit its plan and 
 distribution in (he most satisfactory manner. 
 
 The spectacles exhibited in the circus were called the 
 Circensian Games, and consisted chiefly of chariot and 
 horse races. The Romans were passionately fond of them, 
 and more particularly of the chariot races, which excited 
 so great an interest in the times of the emperors as to di- 
 vide the whole population of the city into factions, known 
 by the names of the colours worn by the different chariot- 
 eers. The disputes of these factions sometimes led to 
 serious disturbances, and even bloodshed. 
 
 Cl'RRHOl'S. (Lat. cirrus, a tendril.) A term nsed in 
 describing the apices of bodies, to indicate those 'hat are 
 terminated by a spiral or flexuose filiform appendage, 
 arising from an elongation of the costa, as in the leaf of 
 Gloriosa lupercha. It is also applied to modifications of 
 branches, inflorescence, the petiole, &c. when such parts 
 assume the state of a twisting body, which enables the 
 plant belonging to it to raise itself upon neighbouring ob- 
 jects.
 
 CIRRIPEDS. 
 
 CI'RRIPEDS, Cirripedia. (Lat. cirrus, and pes, afoot ; 
 curly fooled.) A class of fixed homogangliate animals, 
 characterized by having a number of long, curled, articu- 
 lated, setigerous processes, analogous to the feet of the 
 Crustaceans, which project from the central aperture of 
 the multivalve shell protecting the body. These animals 
 are commonly called barnacles and acorn-shells. See 
 Lepaoites and Balanites. 
 
 CI'RROUS. Furnished with tendril-!ike appendages. 
 
 CI'RSOCE'LE. (Gr. Kipaos, a dilated rein, and xri'Xri, 
 a tumour. ) A morbid enlargement of the spermatic veins 
 in the groin. 
 
 CI'SSOID. In Geometry, a curve line of the second 
 order, invented by Diocles, with a view to the solution of 
 tlie famous problem of the duplication of the cube, or the 
 insertion of two mean proportionals between two given 
 straight lines. Its name is derived from from Ktercros, ivy ; 
 because the curve appears to mount along its asymptote 
 as ivy climbs oh the tall trunk of a tree. The curve is 
 described as follows : — 
 
 From A, one of the extremities of the diameter of a 
 circle, draw a straight line, AC (or a e), 
 to meet the tangent through the other 
 extremity, and make C P equal to the 
 intercepted chord A D; the point P will 
 trace the cissoid. The line A C may be 
 conceived to turn on both sides of the 
 diameter A B till it falls into the position 
 of a tangent to the circle at A. The 
 curve, therefore, consists of two infinite 
 branches, which approach always nearer 
 to the tangent C B c without ever meeting 
 it, whence this"line is an asymptote to the 
 cissoid. The point A being taken for the 
 origin of the co-ordinates, and the diame- 
 ter A B as the axis of the abscissa, the 
 equation of the curve is x* = (a— x) y*, a being the diame- 
 ter of the generating circle. One of the most remarkable 
 properties of the cissoid is, that the whole space lying be- 
 tween the double branches and the asymptote is equal to 
 triple the area of the generating circle. A method of de- 
 scribing the cissoid mechanically by the motion of a rec- 
 tangular rule, is given in Newton's Universal Arithmetic. 
 
 CIST. (Gr. kictt), a chest.) In Architecture and Sculp- 
 ture, a chest or basket. It is a term usually applied to the 
 mystic baskets employed in processions connected with 
 the Eleusinian mysteries. They were originally of wicker 
 work, and when afterwards made of metal the form and 
 texture were preserved in imitation of the original mate- 
 rial. When sculptured on antique monuments it indi- 
 cates some connection with the mysteries of Ceres and 
 Bacchus. 
 
 CISTA'CEjE. (Cistus, one of the genera.) A natural 
 order of shrubby or herbaceous Exogens inhabiting chiefly 
 the countries of the south of Europe and North America. 
 They are distinguished from Violacece by their indefinite 
 stamens and inverted embryo ; from Bixacecb by the last 
 character, by their mealy albumen, habit, and not having 
 the leaves ever dotted ; from Hypericacem by the latter 
 character, and the structure of the fruit. They are allied 
 to Papaveracea, by the genus Dendromecon ; but their true 
 station appears to be in the vicinity of Linacea, to which 
 they approach by the genus Lechea. They are often plants 
 of great beauty, but possess no sensible properties, except- 
 ing the Cistus creticus and a few others, which yield the 
 resinous balsamic substance called gum laudanum. 
 
 CI'STERN. (Lat. cisterna, from Gr. kicti).) In Archi- 
 tecture, a reservoir or receptacle of water for public or 
 domestic use. When made of brick or stone it is com- 
 monly called a tank. 
 
 CI'STVAEN. A species of stone receptacle, often found 
 in barrows (generally at the east end), containing the bones 
 of the persons interred there. Cistvaens are "commonly 
 three stones placed on edge, like the three sides of a box, 
 with a stone cover. Some which are styled cistvaens by 
 Sir R. Hoare and other antiquaries are, however, not se- 
 pulchral. 
 
 CITA'TION. (Lat. cito, I call.) In Ecclesiastical Law, 
 an act whereby the defendant, on the application of the 
 plaintiff, is commanded to appear in court on a certain day 
 in order to enter into a suit. In the Civil Law, reference 
 to an authority or precedent in the course of a pleading is 
 termed a citation ; and hence the common use of the word 
 in the same sense with quotation, allegationof instances, &c. 
 
 CI'TRATES. The salts of citric acid. 
 
 CITRE'NE. A crystalline compound of hydrogen and 
 carbon, obtained from the essential oil of lemons. 
 
 CI'TRIC ACID. (Lat. citrus, the lemon.) The pure 
 acid part of lemon and lime juice ; it is also found in other 
 fruits. Crystallized citric acid is largely prepared for do- 
 mestic use. 
 
 CI'TY. (Lat. civitas.) A borough or town corporate, 
 which is or has been the seat of a bishop, or the capital of 
 his see ; and it differs in no respect but that of superior 
 
 CLASSIC. 
 
 dignity from another borough. Some cities and a few 
 boroughs are counties in themselves. 
 
 Cl'VET. A brown semifluid matter contained in a gland 
 near the anus of the Viverra civelta or civet cat; its odour 
 is offensive unless extremely diluted, and then in combi- 
 nation with other perfumes it adds to their energy. 
 
 CI'VIL ARCHITECTURE. See Architecture. 
 
 CIVI'LIAN. One learned in the Civil or Roman Law; 
 particularly a member of the " College of Doctors of Law 
 exercent in the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts" in 
 England and Wales, in which courts the civil law is recog- 
 nized. (See Law, Civil.) Practice as an advocate in 
 those courts is confined to members of this college, who 
 must have taken the degree of Doctor of Law in the uni- 
 versity of Oxford or Cambridge. 
 
 CI'VIL LIST. The term formerly applied to the list 
 of all the expenses of the government, or " of all the heads 
 of public expenditure, excepting those of the army, the 
 navy, and the other military departments ;" but confined 
 at present by the act 1 W. 4. c. 25. to expenses proper for 
 the maintenance of her majesty's household. In England 
 the civil list is fixed in the first session of parliament after 
 the accession of the sovereign, and is then understood to 
 be granted for the whole period of his reign. 
 
 CLAMP. (From the French.) In Architecture, a piece 
 of wood fixed to another with a mortise and tenon, or a 
 groove and tongue, so that the fibres of the piece thus 
 fixed cross those of the other, and thereby prevent it from 
 casting or warping. 
 
 Clamp. In Brickmaking, a large mass of bricks, gene- 
 rally quadrangular on the plan, and 6, 7, or 8 feet high, ar- 
 ranged in the brick field for burning, which is effected by 
 flues prepared in stacking the clamp, and breeze or cinders 
 layed between each course of bricks. 
 
 CLAN. (Said to be derived from the Gaelic clann, de- 
 scendants or issue.) The clans of the Scottish Highlands 
 are tribes consisting of many families all bearing the same 
 surname, which according to tradition descend from a 
 common ancestor. But it is more probable that most 
 clans were formed of an aggregate of different families, 
 the inferior standing to the superior in the same sort of re- 
 lation as the Roman clients to their patrons, and by de- 
 grees assuming the same name. Some clans, however, 
 are divided into branches, each possessing a distinct sur- 
 name. The chieftainship of every clan descends regularly 
 through heirs male ; but in the earliest times of their his- 
 tory the ruthts of primogeniture were not very distinctly 
 defined. The Gaelic clans occupy the northern and west- 
 ern with part of the central shires of the country. A Gaelic 
 manuscript lately discovered containing genealogies of the 
 Highland clans, and supposed to have been written about 
 the year 1440, should seem to carry back the antiquity of 
 the singular institution of clanship even to a remoter period 
 than was previously believed. 
 
 CLA'RET. This term is applied to several of the Bour- 
 deaux wines ; it is derived from the Latin claretum, from 
 clarere, to he clear. See Wine. 
 
 CLA'RINET. (It. clarino.) A wooden musical wind 
 instrument, whose mouth partakes of the trumpet form, 
 and is played by holes and keys: said to have been in- 
 vented about the year 1600 by John Christopher Denner of 
 Leipsic. Like the oboe it is played with a reed mouth 
 piece, though it is of some what different form. 
 
 CLA'SSES. In Ancient History, this term is particu- 
 larly applied to the division of the Roman people made by 
 Servius Tullins for the purpose of distributing them into 
 centuries. <S"ee Centuries. 
 
 CLA'SSIC. (Lat. classis, a class.) In the Fine Arts, a 
 term denoting such an arrangement of a subject that all 
 the accessories or parts are suitable to the general design, 
 and such that nothing be introduced which does not strictly 
 belong to the particular class under which it is placed. 
 
 Classic. In Antiquity, the Roman people were divided 
 into classes, and the highest order were by pre-eminence 
 termed classici. Hence the name came to signify the 
 highest and purest class of writers in any language ; al- 
 though, down to a comparatively recent period, the term 
 was used merely to denote the most esteemed Greek and 
 Latin authors. Nothing marks more strongly the increased 
 attention to, and appreciation of, modern literature, than 
 the now universal application of the term to modern lan- 
 guages also, and the establishment in this manner of a line 
 between those authors whom we regard as models and au- 
 thorities in point of style, and those who are not so highly 
 esteemed. An author is said to be classical if public opin- 
 ion has placed him in the former order: language, or an 
 expression, to be classical, if it be such as has been used 
 in a similar sense anrl under similar rules of construction 
 by those authors. The epithet classical, as applied to an- 
 cient authors, is determined less by the purity of their style 
 than by the period at which they wrote. Thus we speak 
 of the classical age of Greek or Latin writing. With re- 
 spect to the former, the classical age begins with Homer, 
 the earliest Greek writer with whom we are acquainted.
 
 CLASSIFICATION. 
 
 The purest age of Greek classical literature may be said to 
 em) about the time of the Macedonian conquest, or about 
 300 b. c. ; but, in a wider sense, it extends to the time of 
 the Antonines, and embraces a much larger catalogue of 
 authors; while the centuries subsequent to that time pro- 
 duced a few, who by the purity of their style deserve to be 
 ranked with earlier classics. The Latin classical period is 
 shorter : its earliest writer is Plautus, and the language may 
 i to have lost its classical character about the same time 
 wiih the Greek. i. e. the reigns of the Antonines; although 
 this limit is arbitrary, and some later writers (even down 
 to ClaUilian)are generally included among classics. With- 
 in the Latin classical era there is a more restricted period 
 of the purest Latinity, comprising the age of Cicero and 
 that of Augustus. 
 
 CLASSIFICATION. (Lat. classis, a class.) In the 
 Fine Arts, an arrangement by which objects of the fine 
 arts are distributed in classes; as, for instance, in galleries 
 of paintings, the works should be arranged in schools, each 
 school being subject to a chronological order of the mas- 
 ter-. Iri Numismatology, the coins should be arranged by 
 countries, and these again in chronological order of the 
 is; and the like of other branches of the arts. 
 
 Classification, in Natural History, denotes the ar- 
 rangement or assortment of various objects into those se- 
 veral eU-sses denoted by appellatives which are called ge- 
 ii era and species. For classification in Botany, Zoology, 
 Medicine, Chemistry, <fcc, see the separate articles. 
 
 CLAU'SA (Lat. claosus, shut.') A name given by Cu- 
 vier to a family of Acephalous bivalves, comprehending 
 those which have the mantle open at one end, or ne 
 middle, for the passage of the fool, and prolonged at the 
 oppo :i' 1 cud into a double tube for respiration and ex- 
 cretion. 
 
 CLAUSI'LIA. (Lat claosus.) A genus of land-snails, 
 so named because the aperture of the shell is closed inter- 
 nally by a spiral lid. Many species of this genus are na- 
 tives of Great Britain The rugose or dark close-shell 
 (Clausi/ia rugosu, Drip ) is not uncommon at Charlton, 
 
 it may be found h-r stones. Clausilia biplicala, 
 
 Leach, is round at Battersea. 
 
 CLA'VATE. (Lat. clava, a club.) Club-shaped; as when 
 a bo ly is linear at the base, but towards the apex growing 
 gradually broader. 
 
 CLA'VICLE. (Lat clavicula, from clavis, a key.) The 
 hone situated between the sternum or breast bone and the 
 acromion process of the scapula or blade bone. The 
 megatherium is the largest mammal which possesses this 
 
 CLA'VUS. (Lat clavus. a nail.) In Agriculture, an ex- 
 crescence from the grains of rye, of a brown or blackish 
 colour. It is a parasitical fungus, called Spermoedia clurus, 
 and is a valuable agenl in exciting uterine action during la- 
 bour. A ^r\i-i-r pain in the forehead compared to the driv- 
 ing of a nail into the skull has been called clavus by medi- 
 cal writers. 
 
 CI. AW. or UNGUIS. The narrow part at the base of a 
 petal winch takes iln- place of the footstalk of a leaf, of 
 which it is a modification. 
 
 ( l. VY. In Chemistry, a term generally applied to a vari- 
 ety of plastic earthy compounds of different colours, and 
 having much attraction forwater. They are essential in the 
 manufacture of pottery, and consist of silica, with variable 
 quantities of alumina, and generally some oxide of iron. 
 
 Clay. In Agriculture, one of the most common ingre- 
 dients that enter into the composition of soils. Indeed, it 
 may he asserted that no soil whatever will maintain its fer- 
 tility for any length of time without a due proportion of 
 clay in its composition. The most fertile soils in the world 
 are the alluvial deposits on the banks of rivers ; and these, 
 in an agricultural sense, all belong to clayey soil. In many 
 cases the clays of agriculture are intimately united with 
 calcareous earths, and in others with sand ; but in both 
 cases these earths are in a state of such minute division, 
 that the mixture has all the appearance and the mechani- 
 cal properties of a strong clay, and they are treated by cul- 
 tivitors accordingly. Among the most tenacious clays of 
 Britain are those of Middlesex; and these, when examined, 
 are found in many cases to contain a considerable propor- 
 tion of lime', and in others of sand. The best wheats are 
 everywhere, both in Britain and on the Continent, grown 
 on calcareous clays ; and also the best fruits and flowers 
 of the Rosaceous kind, such as apples, pears, plums, cher- 
 ries, roses, &c. ; but it is remarkable that the grape, when 
 grown on clayey soil, produces neither high-flavoured 
 fruit, nor good wine. (See Morton on Soils. Johnston's 
 Agricultural Chemistry and Geology, Part 2.) 
 
 CLAYEY SOIL. Soil in which clay is the principal 
 earthy ingredient. Soils of this description when first sub- 
 jected to cultivation are expensive to labour, and uncertain 
 in their produce ; but after they have been drained, culti- 
 vated, limed, and manured for two or three generations, 
 they become the most fertile of all soils, producing im- 
 mense crops of wheat, beans, clover, rye-grass, &c. 
 239 
 
 CLIENTS, 
 
 CLEA'RING OF LAND. Removing such objects S3 
 impede the progress of the plough ; such as stones, bushes, 
 hillocks, and other obstructions. 
 
 CLEF. (Fr.) In Music, a mark prefixed to a staff, show- 
 ing the tone or key in which a piece of music begins; or 
 it is a letter or other sign marked on a line, which deter- 
 mines the name of all those of the degree whereon it ia 
 placed. A clef is always placed on a line, never on a 
 space. 
 
 CLE'FT-GRAFTING. A mode of grafting, in which 
 the scion is inserted in a cleft made in the stock. See 
 Grafting. 
 
 CLEPSY'DRA. (Gr. ic\ei[fvSpa, from /cAj7rra>, I conceal, 
 and iSoip, ica'er.) Water clock: an ancient instrument 
 for measuring time by the gradual emptying of a large ves- 
 sel of water through an orifice of a determinate magni- 
 tude. Clepsydras were first brought into use in Egypt un- 
 der the reign of the Ptolemys, and seem to have been 
 common in Rome, though they were employed chiefly in 
 winter; in summer sun-dials were used. Though clep- 
 sydras are attendeti with several inconveniences, the prin- 
 cipal of which is the unequal rapidity of the flow caused 
 either by a variation in the depth of the water in the con- 
 taining vessel, or of temperature, or barometric pressure, 
 they are nevertheless susceptible of considerable accura- 
 cy ; and before the invention of clocks and watches, astro- 
 nomers had no other dependence than on them for mea- 
 suring small portions of time. At present they are aban- 
 doned, because pendulum clocks and watches are much 
 more convenient, as well as infinitely more exact. In one 
 case has the revival of their use been proposed ; namely, 
 for the accurate measurement of very small intervals of 
 time by the flowing of mercury from a small orifice in the 
 bottom of a vessel kept constantly filled to a fixed height. 
 The stream is intercepted at the moment of noting any 
 event, and diverted aside into a receiver, into which it 
 continues to run till the moment of noting any other event, 
 when the intercepting cause is suddenly removed. The 
 Stream then flows in its original course, and ceases to run 
 into the receiver. The weight of mercury received, com- 
 pared with the weight of that which passes through the 
 orifice in a given time, observed by the clock, gives the in- 
 terval between the events. This ingenious application of 
 the principle of the clepsydra is due to the late Captain 
 Eater 
 
 CI.E'RGY. The ecclesiastical body as distinguished 
 from the laity. The word clergy seems to be derived 
 from Gr. itXijooj, a lot or inheritance ; Lat clems, whence 
 clericus, a dirk or clergyman : plur. clerici, whence clerge, 
 and is -opposed to allude to a custom, which, how- 
 e\ er, was never general, of choosing the clergy by lot ; or, 
 as St. Jerome says, to signify that the clergy are the lot 
 and portion of the Lord, or the Lord is their lot. Perhaps 
 the true derivation is rather to be traced from the lots 
 (ifXijpoO by which the apostles chose Matthias to be one 
 <jf their number. (Acts, 11. 26.) 
 
 Clerk (Lat clericus) is still the legal appellation of a cler- 
 gyman. The clergy being exclusively the learned part of 
 the community in the middle ages, the word hence came 
 to signify an educated person ; and thus acquired the 
 sense of a scribe or writer in France and England. 
 
 CLI'ENTS. (Lat. cliens, from the old word cluo. I hear 
 or obey.) In Ancient History, a numerous body of the Ro- 
 man citizens, so termed relatively to their patrons or pro- 
 tectors. This relation was in many respects similar to that 
 of a serf to his feudal lord, but bore a much milder form. 
 It was the duty of the patron to watch over the interests 
 of his clients and protect them from aggression, and ap- 
 pear for them in lawsuits. He also frequently made them 
 grants of land on lease. In return the client was bound to 
 defend his patron, and contribute towards any extraordina- 
 ry expenses he might be subject to ; as the portioning his 
 daughters, the payment of a fine imposed by the state, &c. 
 He might not appear as accuser or witness against him in 
 judicial proceedings, a prohibition which was reciprocal. 
 If he committed any offence against his patron, he was 
 obliged to submit to him as his judge ; and in ancient times 
 it appears that the power of life and death was held by the 
 latter. On the other hand, his security against oppression 
 at the hands of his patron lay in the injunctions and au- 
 thority of religion, which rendered the bond of union invi- 
 olably sacred, as that between father and son. The origin 
 of this relation cannot now be traced ; but it seems to have 
 existed, with various modifications, throughout Italy and 
 Greece. In Rome it appears at the foundation of the city 
 by Romulus, when every family not included among the 
 patricians was obliged to find itself a patron from their 
 number. The body of clients was afterwards increased 
 by the institution by which foreigners, who, as allies of 
 Rome, had a share in its franchise, might choose them- 
 selves patrons on their coming to settle in the city. The 
 obligations of clients were hereditary, and could not be 
 shaken off unless through the decay of the family of the 
 patron. This body alone in earlier times furnished arti-
 
 CLIMAGTERICAL YEAR. 
 
 zms and shopkeepers; they had votes in the Cnmitia 
 Centuriata; and though generally confounded with the 
 plebeians, were undoubtedly perfectly distinct from them, 
 as we continually meet in history with instances of their 
 joining the patricians in opposition to the former; and 
 when some of the plebeian houses became powerful, they 
 themselves attached bodies of clients. 
 
 It has been seen that among the other duties of a Roman 
 patron towards his client was that of maintaining his 
 cause gratuitously in legal proceedings. Hence the term 
 " client" has become appropriated in modern times to 
 one whose cause is prosecuted or defended and his person 
 represented by an advocate. The custom of practising 
 gratuitously as advocates long prevailed among the Roman 
 patricians ; and from it the usage was derived, which still 
 obtains among ourselves, of considering the fee of a coun- 
 sel as " quiddam honorarium," a gratuity, which cannot 
 be legally claimed. At present, the etiquette of the Eng- 
 lish bar appears to be this— that a barrister cannot, refuse, 
 without strong grounds for such refusal, to undertake any 
 cause which is offered him ; that he cannot refuse, with- 
 out reasonable excuse, to plead gratuitously the cause of a 
 client who sues regularly " in forma pauperis ;" or to de- 
 fend a prisoner, if called on to do so by the court ; and 
 that he can receive no instructions with a fee except 
 through the medium of a regularly authorized agent of his 
 client (attorney or solicitor). An application to a barrister, 
 with the customary fee, to undertake a cause in which he 
 is not yet instructed, is called a " retainer," and secures 
 his services for the client. An application to undertake 
 all causes for a particular client is a general retainer. 
 
 CLIMACTE'RICAL YEAR. (Gr. K\ina«Trtp, from 
 KKifial, ladder, scale.) Certain years in the life of man 
 have been from great antiquity supposed to have a peculiar 
 importance, and to be liable to singular vicissitudes in his 
 health and fortunes. This superstitious belief is said to 
 have originated in the doctrines of Pythagoras. The well- 
 known notice of the climacterical year sixty- three, sup- 
 posed to be particularly dangerous to old men, in a letter 
 of Augustus Cwsar preserved by Aulus Gellius, evinces 
 its prevalence among the Romans. This year has been 
 called by some astrological writers "heroicus," as having 
 been peculiarly fatal to great men. The virtue of this year 
 seems to consist in its being a multiple of the two mystical 
 numbers, seven and nine. It is certainly singular that 
 usage should have attached in all countries peculiar dis- 
 tinctions to those years which are denoted by compounds 
 of the number seven. Thus fourteen has been fixed for 
 various purposes as the epoch of puberty, twenty-one of 
 full age ; thirty-five is selected by Aristotle as the period 
 when the body is in its highest physical vigour. The same 
 author supposes the vigour of the mind to be perfected at 
 forty-nine: sixty-three is the grand climacterical year; 
 seventy the limit of the ordinary age of man. Bodinus 
 says that seven is the climacterical number in men and 
 six in women. The term climacteric disease has more 
 lately been applied to that declension of bodily and vital 
 powers which is frequently observed to come on in the 
 latter period of life, and from which many persons again 
 rally so as to attain extreme old age. 
 
 CLI'MATE. (Gr. kXi/io, from kXivco, I incline.) Among 
 the ancient geographers was applied to denote that obli- 
 quity of the sphere with respect to the horizon which gives 
 rise to the inequality of day and night. They divided the 
 space comprehended between the equator and the pole 
 into thirty parts, which they denominated Climates or In- 
 clinations ; viz. twenty-four between the equator and polar 
 circle, and six between the polar circle and the pole. The 
 first are called half-hour climates, because from one to 
 another the longest day receives an augmentation of half 
 an hour ; the second are called month climates, because at 
 the two parallels between which any one of them is com- 
 prehended the difference of the time of perpetual sunshine 
 is one month. The first half-hour climate reaches from 
 the equator to that, parallel of latitude where the length of 
 the longest day is twelve hours and a half; the second 
 ends at the parallel where the longest day is thirteen 
 hours, and so on. If, therefore, from the number of hours 
 in the longest day at any particular place we subtract 
 twelve, the number of half hours remaining will indicate 
 the climate in which that place is situated. Thus, the 
 longest day at London being a little more than sixteen 
 hours and a half, London is situated in the tenth cli- 
 mate. 
 
 The first month climate extends from the polar circle to 
 the parallel under which the sun continues above the hori- 
 zon during a month ; the second reaches from the first to 
 the parallel where the sun continues visible during two 
 months ; and so on to the poles, at which the sun is alter- 
 nately visible and invisible during half the year. 
 
 Listead of the divisions which we have now described, 
 
 Ptolemy adopted climates corresponding to the increase 
 
 of a quarter of an hour in the length of the longest day. 
 
 The space from the equator to the polar circle would thus 
 
 240 
 
 CLIMATE. 
 
 be divided into forty-eight instead of twenty-four zones ; 
 but as these in the higher latitudes became very narrow, 
 he carried the quarter-hour climates only to the twenty- 
 fourth, that is, to the parallel at which the longest day is 
 eighteen hours. From eighteen to twenty hours he pro- 
 ceeds by half hour climates; from twenty to twenty-four 
 hours the breadth of the climate is estimated by the differ- 
 ence of a whole hour in the length of the. day. The de- 
 termination of the parallels at which the different climates 
 begin and end is equivalent to this problem : — Having 
 given the length of the longest day to find the latitude of 
 the place? The tangent of the latitude is equal to the sine 
 of the excess of the semi-diurnal arc above a quadrant 
 multiplied into the cotangent of the obliquity. 
 
 Climate, in its most ordinary and general acceptation, 
 embraces all those modifications of the atmosphere by 
 which our organs are sensibly affected ; such as tempera- 
 ture, humidity, variations of barometric pressure, the tran- 
 quillity of the atmosphere or the effects of winds, the in- 
 tensity of electric pressure, the purity of the air or its mix- 
 ture with gaseous emanations more or less salubrious; 
 and lastly, the habitual diaphaneity of the atmosphere, — 
 that serenity of the sky so important on account of the in- 
 fluence which it exercises not only on the radiation of the 
 ground, on the development of organic tissues in vegeta- 
 bles and the ripening of fruits, but also on the ensemble of 
 moral sensations which mankind experience in the diffrr- 
 ent zones. There are two general causes on which the 
 climate peculiar to any country principally depends— 1st, 
 its distance from the equator; and 2nd, its altitude above 
 the level of the sea; but their effect is generally modified 
 by many circumstances exerting a partial influence. 
 Among these may be enumerated the ronfigurafion and 
 extent of the country ; its inclination and local exposure ; 
 the direction of the chains of mountains by which it is in- 
 tersected or which are in its vicinity ; the nature of the 
 soil as it is more or less favourable to radiation and evap- 
 oration ; the proximity to, or distance from seas ; the ac- 
 tion of winds blending the temperatures of different lati- 
 tudes; and even the changes produced by cultivation. 
 The appreciation of all these causes, which modify the re- 
 sults deduced from the consideration of latitude and eleva- 
 tion alone, and the effect produced by their combined op- 
 eration, constitutes the science of climatology. 
 
 Effect of Geographical Position. — The principal part of 
 the temperature enjoyed by any country depends on the 
 heat which it receives directly from the sun. In estima- 
 ting the amount of solar heat received by any given space 
 on the surface of the earth in the course of a whole year, 
 we may suppose the sun to remain constantly in the equa- 
 tor, because the excess of heat above the mean in summer 
 is exactly balanced by its defect in winter. Now, the ef- 
 fect produced on any given portion of the surface will de- 
 pend on the number of rays that fall on that surface, and 
 on the obliquity of their direction with respect to it. But 
 the number of rays falling on a zone of any given breadth, 
 a degree for example, is proportional to the cosine of its 
 latitude ; and the effect of a single ray in consequence of its 
 oblique impact is diminished also in proportion to the co- 
 sine of the latitude ; the diminution of the mean tempera- 
 ture, therefore, in going from the equator to the poles, 
 must, be proportional to the square of the cosine of the lat- 
 itude. It hence follows that the variations of the mean 
 temperature must be most rapid about the middle latitude 
 of45° ; and this result of theory agrees perfectly with ob- 
 servation. Within the temperate zone the character of 
 the climate changes rapidly. Thus in the south of France, 
 and in Italy, nearly under the 45th parallel the region of 
 the vine is found contiguous to that of the olive and fig-tree. 
 On the other hand, very little increase of heat is observed 
 from the tropic to the equator; and at the other extremity 
 of the arc, from the arctic circle to the highest latitude that 
 has been reached, the intensity of cold is not greatly aug- 
 mented. The law of the square of the cosine gives a var- 
 iation of only about eight degrees of Fahrenheit' s scale 
 from the polar circle to the pole. In the system of cli- 
 mates of western Europe, the mean temperature at the 
 latitude of 45° is about 13° or 135° of the centigrade scale 
 (55° to 56° of Fahrenheit). The mean temperature under 
 the equator ought therefore to be, by the theory, 26° or 27° 
 (centigrade) ; and at any other place it will be found by 
 multiplying the constant number 27 into the square of the 
 cosine of the latitude 
 
 Effect of Altitude. — That a greater degree of cold pre- 
 vails in the upper regions of the atmosphere than at low 
 levels would be manifest by the snowy covering of the 
 summits of very elevated mountains in all latitudes, even 
 if no direct experiments had been made on the tempera- 
 ture that prevails there. These, however, have been 
 made in great number ; and the constant and regular 
 decrease of the temperature in ascending above the sur- 
 face of the earth, to such altitude at least as can be reach- 
 ed, has not only been fully established, but the law accord- 
 ing to which the decrease takes place determined with
 
 CLIMATE. 
 
 considerable certainty. According to theory the decre- 
 ments of heat in ascending the higher regions should follow 
 the same proportion as the decrements of the density ; but 
 this law is greatly disturbed by local peculiarities. The 
 variation of temperature at different altitudes is the simul- 
 taneous effect of three general causes, — 1st, the absorption 
 of rays of light in their passage through the atmosphere, 
 which is much greater in the dense strata near the surface 
 of the earth than in the upper regions ; 2d, the radiation 
 from the surface ; and 3d, the ascending current ; the two 
 last also producing a greater effect on the strata near the 
 surface. Any circumstance, therefore, which modifies 
 these causes, must also modify the law which connects 
 the decrease of heat with the elevation. It will be slower 
 above the surface of the sea or a country covered with 
 snow than above a desert destitute of vegetables, or a sur- 
 face of sand ; and it will be more rapid above the sloping 
 sides of a conical mountain than over a Cordillera which 
 presents plains of great magnitude elevated in stages above 
 one another. Nevertheless at great altitudes the disturb- 
 ing influences of these causes become insensible, and a 
 very considerable degree of uniformity in the temperature 
 constantly prevails. In the torrid zone, Humboldt, from a 
 mean of many observations, found that between the alti- 
 tudes of 3000 and 5800 metres (9840 and 19,000 feet) an in- 
 crease of elevation, amounting to 191 4 metres, produced 
 a diminution of 1° of the centigrade thermometer. This 
 corresponds to 349 English feet for 1° of Fahrenheit. Pro- 
 fessor Leslie {Ency. Slit. art. " Climate") estimates that 
 the diminution of temperature of 1° of Fahrenheit's 
 scale corresponds to an ascent of 300 feet. But this will 
 hold true only of moderate elevations. At the altitudes of 
 1 mile, 2 miles, 3 miles, 4 miles, and 5 miles, the increase 
 of elevation corresponding to 1° Fah. will be respectively 
 295, 277, 252, 223, and 192 feet. The allowance of 1° of 
 Fan. for every 100 yards of ascent is, however, a rule of 
 easy recollection, and in ordinary cases may be taken as a 
 sufficient approximation. 
 
 Configuration. — The form of the limits of any large 
 mass of land as determined by its contact with the ocean, 
 that is to say, the greater or less extent of coast it possess- 
 es in proportion to its area, exercises a considerable influ- 
 ence on the climate. The small amount of variation in 
 the temperature of the ocean tends to equalize the periodic 
 distribution of heat among the different seasons of the 
 year, and the proximity of a great mass of water mode- 
 rates by its action on the winds the heat of summer and 
 the cold of winter. Hence the t,reat contrast between the 
 climate of islands and coasts, and the climate of the inte- 
 rior of vast continents. Europe presents a remarkable ex- 
 ample of this contrast. From Orleans and Paris to Lon- 
 don, Dublin, Edinburgh, and even farther north, the mean 
 temperature of the year decreases very little, notwith- 
 standing the increase of latitude ; while in the eastern 
 part of the Continent each degree of latitude, according to 
 Humboldt, produces a variation of 11° Fah. in the mean 
 temperature. A small island, a tongue of land, or an in- 
 dented coast, in contact with a great mass of water, which 
 preserves in winter a considerable portion of the heat ac- 
 quired during the summer, possesses a more moderate 
 climate, mild winters, and fresher summers, and in the 
 higher latitudes a somewhat higher mean temperature, 
 than the interior of great continuous masses of land under 
 the same latitude. The diminution of the mean annual 
 temperature from the western shores of Europe to beyond 
 the meridian of the Caspian is remarkable. Amsterdam 
 and Warsaw are situated very nearly under the same pa- 
 rallel of latitude, that of the first being 52° 22', and that of 
 the second 52° 14'; but the mean annual temperature of 
 Amsterdam is 534° Fah., while that of Warsaw is only 
 46.43°. The latitude of Copenhagen is 55° 41', and that of 
 Kasan 55° 48' ; but the mean annual temperature of Co- 
 penhagen is 45 7°, that of Kasan 37 0°. The climate of a 
 country is influenced not only by its horizontal configuration, 
 but also by its relief, or vertical configuration. Mountains af- 
 fect the adjacent climate of the plains in various way s — by the 
 reverberation of heat from naked rocks ; by affording shelter 
 from certain predominating winds ; and by giving rise to 
 descending currents of cold air from the higher regions of 
 the almdSphere, in consequence of the disturbance of the 
 equilibrium of heat produced by the radiation from their 
 sides and summits. The local exposure of a country also, 
 or its inclination to or from the equator, which may be in- 
 cluded under the title configuration, has a powerful influ- 
 ence on its mean annual temperature. Generally speak- 
 ing, the local exposure is connected with and depends upon 
 the position of the mountain chains, and both conspire to 
 increase or diminish the mean temperature at the same 
 time. For example, when the general inclination of an 
 extensive tract of country is towards the south, the north- 
 ern side is b/mnded by ranges of mountains ; so that while 
 the sun's rays fall upon it at a less oblique angle, it is 
 sheltered from the cold winds blowing from a higher 
 latitude. 
 
 241 
 
 CLIO. 
 
 Climate of Europe.— In a general view, Europe may be 
 regarded as a peninsular prolongation of the ancient con- 
 tinent, broken and intersected by numerous arms of the 
 ocean, and by inland seas. The predominating winds are 
 from the west ; and these, for the whole of the western 
 portion, are sea winds, greatly softened by blowing over a 
 mass of water, of which the superficial temperature, even 
 in the month of January, at the parallels of 45° and 50°, 
 does not fall below 48° and 51° of Fahrenheit. It is placed 
 directly north of an immense tract of tropical land (Africa 
 and Arabia), which by its diurnal radiation contributes 
 powerfully to elevate the temperature. On the northern 
 side the cold belonging to the latitude is mitigated by nu- 
 merous favourable circumstances. A very small portion 
 of land lies within the polar circle ; and the whole of the 
 northern extremity is separated from the polar ice by a 
 zone of open sea, the temperature of which is maintained. 
 at a considerable elevation in consequence of its commu- 
 nication with the Atlantic ocean, and of the existence of 
 the gulf stream, which conveys a portion of the tempera- 
 ture of the gulf of Mexico into the polar seas. 
 
 Climate of Asia. — The circumstances which contribute 
 to render the climate of Europe mild and temperate are 
 nearly all reversed in respect of Asia. Its northern bound- 
 ary extends beyond the parallel of 70°, and in some places 
 reaches to 75°. In every part it extends to the winter limit 
 of the polar ice, and only a very narrow zone of water is 
 interposed between the ice and the land during the short 
 summer of these high latitudes. The north winds, not ob- 
 structed by any chain of mountains, blow with unmitigated 
 severity over an icy plain, extending northward to the pole, 
 and eastward to the point of maximum cold, which appears 
 to be situated near the meridian of Behring's straits. The 
 refrigerating influence of these winds is not counteracted 
 by arid deserts on the southern side of the continent. 
 From the meridian of the Ourals to that of Cape Tchou- 
 kotski, tlirough 140 degrees of longtitude, there is no land 
 under the equator, excepting the inconsiderable portion 
 formed by the islands of Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes, and 
 Gilolo ; consequently the Asiatic countries situated in the 
 temperate zone are not warmed by ascending currents of 
 heated air, such as those which rise from the deserts of 
 Africa and are so beneficial to Europe. The position of the 
 great mountain chains and the general elevation of the 
 country also powerfully contribute to diminish the tempe- 
 rature. The Himalaya and Kuen-lun, through a great ex- 
 lent of the continent, present an effectual barrier to the 
 warm winds which come from the equator. Elevated 
 plains and groups of lofty mountains accumulate, and pre- 
 serve the snow till late in the summer, and give rise to de- 
 scending currents of air which cool down the temperature 
 of the circumjacent countries. Lastly, Asia being bounded 
 on the western side by Europe, the west or predominating 
 winds are land winds for the greater part of the continent, 
 and their severity is increased by the great enlargement of 
 the land towards the north. (Humboldt, Frngmens Asi- 
 atiqiies ; DanielVs Meteorological Essays ; Murray's Ency. 
 of Geography ; Forrey on the Climate of the United Slates. 
 8vo. 1<342.) 
 
 CLI'MAX. (Or. %X(tia£, gradation.") In Rhetoric, a 
 figure by which several propositions, or several objects, 
 are placed before the mind of the hearer or reader in such 
 an order that the proposition or object calculated to pro- 
 duce the least impression shall strike it first, and that the 
 rest shall follow in regular gradation. Anti-climax is the 
 converse figure, in which the ideas sink in succession. 
 This forms a principal cause of that vice of composition 
 of which so many ludicrous illustrations have been given 
 under the name of Bathos. 
 
 CLINAN'THII'M. (Gr. >c\ii>n, a bed, and avOos, afloucr.) 
 A term used to express the receptacle of a composite 
 plant. It is the dilated apex of a flowering branch covered 
 over by small flowers enclosed within an involucre. 
 
 CLI'NICAL. (Gr. jrX""/-) This term is generally used 
 medically ; aclinicai lecture, for instance, is the instruction 
 which tho teacher gives his pupil at the bedside of the 
 patient. 
 
 CLI'XrcM. (Gr. (tXivr/.) A term occasionally used in 
 botany to denote the summit of a floral branch, of which 
 the carpella are the termination. It is the same as the 
 torus of the modern French school, and one of the parts 
 called receptacle by Linna?us, as in the strawberry. 
 
 CLI'NKERS. See Bricks. 
 
 CLI'XOID. (Gr. k~\ivtj, and £<<5of, likeness.) This term 
 has been improperly applied to certain processes of the 
 sphenoid bone. 
 
 CLINO'METER. (Gr. k\ivco, I bend, and utrpov, a mea- 
 sure.) An instrument for measuring the dip of mineral 
 strata. (Geol. Trans, vol. iii.) 
 
 CLI'O. (Gr. (tXtio), / celebrate.) In Mythology, the 
 muse who was usually supposed to preside over history, 
 thoush she sometimes invaded the province of her sister 
 Calliope, the goddess of epic poetry. In his magnificent 
 ode (Book 1. Ode 12.) addressed to Augustus, Horace in-
 
 CLOACA. 
 
 •vokes Clio as the patroness of the flute or the lyre, or in 
 other words of lyric poetry : — 
 
 Q.uem viruxn aut heroa lyra vel acri 
 
 Tibia sumea ceiebraie, (. lio, &c 
 
 Clio. In Zoology, applied by Linnsus to a genus of 
 Vermes, and by Cuvier to a genus of Pteropodous Mollusks ; 
 one species of which, the Clio borealis, abounds in the 
 northern seas ; and although not exceeding an inch in 
 length, it forms a great proportion of the food of the whale- 
 bone whale, Balaam mysticetus. 
 
 CLOA'CA. (Lat.) The excrementory cavity in which, 
 in birds, reptiles, many fishes, and some mammals, the 
 intestinal canal, urinary ducts, and genital passages ter- 
 minate. 
 
 CLOCK. See Horology'. 
 
 CLOI'STER. (Lat. claustrum.) In Architecture, an 
 arcade or colonnade round an open court. 
 
 CLOSE. In Music. See Cadence. 
 
 Close. A small field, enclosed or hedged about. 
 
 CLO'SE HAULED ; that is, the tacks close down, the 
 sheets aft, the yards braced sharp up, and the bowlines 
 hauled, the ship making her progress as near the direction 
 of the wind as she can. 
 
 CLO'SERS. In Architecture, the pieces (or bats), less 
 or greater than half a brick, that are used to close in the 
 end of a course of brickwork. In English as well as Fle- 
 mish bond (see Bond), the length of a brick being but nine 
 inches and its width four inches and a half, in order that 
 the vertical joint may be broken at the end of the first 
 stretcher, a quarter brick (or bat) must be interposed to 
 preserve the continuity of the bond ; this is called a queen 
 closer. A similar preservation of the bond may be ob- 
 tained by inserting a three-quarter bat at the angle in the 
 stretching course ; this is called a king closer. In both 
 cases a horizontal lap of two inches and a half is left for 
 the next header. 
 
 CLOUD. A visible mass or collection of minute parti- 
 cles of water suspended in the atmosphere. Clouds differ 
 from fogs or mists only in occupying a more elevated posi- 
 tion ; in all cases the origin is the same, namely, the va- 
 pours which rise from collections of water, and indeed from 
 the whole surface of the earth. These aqueous vapours 
 are condensed in the higher and colder regions of the at- 
 mosphere, and thus lose their transparency and become 
 visible. Clouds differ very greatly in respect of form, 
 magnitude, density, &c. These differences depend on the 
 quantity of vapour of which they are composed, and the 
 situations which they take as they unite with one another ; 
 and are determined in a great measure by the direction 
 and velocity of the motion communicated to them by the 
 wind. The height at which they float in the atmosphere is 
 determined by their specific gravity, and consequently 
 varies with their density. Thin light clouds are observed 
 higher than the summits of the loftiest mountains, while 
 those which are dense and thick rise only to a small dis- 
 tance above the surface of the earth. It is very difficult to 
 determine their average elevation : it is supposed to be be- 
 tween two and three miles, but it varies at different times 
 of the year. 
 
 Clouds were distributed by Mr. Luke Howard into three 
 primary formations, — the Cirrus, the Cumulus, and the 
 Stratus. But besides these he admitted four other varie- 
 ties,— the Cirro-cumulus, the Cirro-stratus, the Cumulo- 
 stratus and the Cimiulo-cirrostratus or Nimbus. The Cir- 
 rus consists of fibres or curling streaks, which diverge in 
 all directions. It occupies the highest region, and is fre- 
 quently the first cloud which is seen after a continuance of 
 clear weather. The Cumulus is a convex aggregate of 
 watery particles, increasing upwards from a horizontal 
 base, and assuming more or less of a conical figure. The 
 Stratus consists of horizontal layers, and comprehends 
 fogs and mists. It is the lowest of the clouds, its under 
 surface usually resting on the earth or water. The Cirro- 
 cumulus is intermediate between the cirrus and cumulus, 
 and is composed of small well-defined masses closely ar- 
 ranged. The Cirro-stratus, intermediate between the cir- 
 rus and stratus, consists of horizontal masses separated 
 into groups, with which the sky is sometimes so mottled 
 as to suggest the idea of resemblance to the back of the 
 mackerel. The prevalence of the cirro-stratus is usually 
 followed by bad weather. The Cumulo-stratus, or twain 
 cloud, partakes of the appearance of the cumulus and 
 stratus or cirro-stratus. The Nimbus, or rain cloud, is 
 that into which the others resolve themselves when rain 
 falls. 
 
 The above nomenclature is sufficiently fanciful ; never- 
 theless it enables the meteorologist to convey more pre- 
 cise ideas in describing the diversified forms under which 
 masses of clouds present themselves and their connection 
 with the changes of the weather. These forms are, how- 
 ever, frequently so indefinite and shapeless, that it is diffi- 
 cult, if not impossible, to refer them to any one of the pre- 
 ceding modifications. A tendency, however, to one or 
 other of them may in general be traced, (.Howard's Ar- 
 242 
 
 COAL. 
 
 rangement and Nomenclature of Clouds, in the 16th and 
 17th vols, of the Philosophical Magazine ; Foster on Atmo- 
 spheric Phenomena ; Murray's Encyclopedia of Geography, 
 p. 168; Companion to the British Almanac lor 1830, &c. 
 See also Button's Meteorological Essays, 1703 ) 
 
 CLOU'TED or CLO'TTED CREAM. The cream pro- 
 duced on the surface of milk by setting a pan of new milk 
 on a hot hearth is so named. It is chiefly used as a kind 
 of entremet, and, when mixed with new milk, is eaten 
 along with fmit pies, strawberries, raspberries, &c. : it is 
 also eaten without milk, spread on bread. 
 
 CLOVES. (Lat. clavus, a nail.) The smaller bulbs 
 formed in the axilla? of the scales of a mother bulb, as in 
 garlic. 
 
 Cloves. The unexpanded flower-buds of the Caryo- 
 phyllus aromaticus, a low branching tree cultivated in the 
 Dutch settlements in India. The finest cloves are from 
 Amboyna; they are of a bright brown colour, extremely 
 fragrant, and hot and acrid upon the tongue ; they abound 
 in essential oil, which may be pressed out of their pores 
 by the nail, and which is generally obtained by distillation 
 with water, to the amount of from 15 to 20 per cent. It is 
 sold in commerce under the name of oil of cloves, and 
 chiefly used in medicine, and occasionally in perfumery. 
 The fruit of the clove tree was employed in old pharmacy 
 under the name of anthophylli. 
 
 CLUBS. See Societies. 
 
 CLUB MOSS. (Lycopodium clavatvm.) The seeds of 
 this moss, which are very minute, and resemble an impal- 
 pable yellow powder, are used in theatres to imitate light- 
 ning; when thrown across a flame, they produce a sudden 
 flare : they contain a peculiar nil. 
 
 CLUMP. A mass of trees or shrubs, or both, generally 
 roundish and compact in its outline, and always small as 
 compared with extensive plantations. The word appears 
 to have been first used in planting and gardening in the 
 time of the celebrated landscape gardener Brown, about 
 the middle of the 18th century. Brown distributed bis 
 clumps at irregular distances over the entire surface of 
 any piece of ground that was intended to be made a park ; 
 surrounding the park at the same time with a belt of plan- 
 tation. The intention of Brown in planting these clumps 
 was to nurse up a few trees in each clump, which should 
 remain as groups or single objects after all the other trees 
 of the clump were removed ; bui as thinning and the re- 
 moval of the boundary fence of these clumps very seldom 
 took place, they have grown up in most cases deformities 
 rather than beauties. The term clump as applied to a 
 plantation has long since become one of reproach. 
 
 Clump. The compressed clay of coal strata. 
 
 CLYPEA'STER. (Lat. clypeus, a buckler, and astrum, 
 a star.) A genus of sea-urchins (Echinida) of a flattened, 
 shield-like form, with a submarginal vent. This genus is 
 termed Echinanthus by Klein. 
 
 CLY'PEATE. (Lat. clypeus.) Shield-like : it is the 
 same as scutate. 
 
 CLY'SSUS. An alchemical name for the water obtain- 
 ed by deflagrating nitre with charcoal: the vessels were 
 generally burst in the operation ; but when it succeeded 
 the few drops of water obtained were highly prized for 
 medical use. 
 
 COACE'RVATE. (Lat. con, together, and acervus, a 
 heap.) Accumulated. A term applied by older physiolo- 
 gists to certain secretions or excretions long retained. 
 
 COADJU'TOR. In Ecclesiastical matters, the assistant 
 of a bishop or other prelate (in some instances even of a 
 canon or prebendary, but the latter usage was irregular). 
 These assistants, in France and other countries, were in 
 stituted by the pope. A coadjutor was equal in rank to the 
 dignitary whose functions he might on occasion supply ; 
 hence the coadjutor of a bishop was himself consecrated a 
 bishop in partialis infidelium. The celebrated Cardinal de 
 Retz was known by 'the title of the Coadjutor of Paris dur- 
 ing the most active period of his career, having the adminis- 
 tration of the temporalities of that see, which belonged to 
 his uncle the Archbishop de Retz. Coadjutors usually 
 succeeded their principals in their dignities ; and hence 
 arose an abuse which tended towards making ecclesiasti- 
 cal dignities hereditary, nephews and other relatives of 
 bishops being named their coadjutors. The institution of 
 coadjutors to bishoprics is preserved by the French con- 
 cordat of 1801. 
 
 COA'DUNATE. (Lat. con, ad, and una, together.) Two 
 or more parts joined together. 
 
 COAL. (Germ, kohle.) This highly important substance 
 is found in bedsorstratain thatgroupofthe secondary rocks 
 which includes the red sandstone and mountain lime- 
 stone formations, and which is commonly called the car- 
 boniferous group, or coal measures. From the peculiarities 
 of their deposition they are often spoken of under the 
 names of coal basins, and coal fields. There are two or 
 three points, and those of much theoretical importance, 
 respecting the origin of coal, on which geological authori- 
 ties are nearly unanimous. The one is, that our present
 
 COBALT. 
 
 coal is exclusively of vegetable origin, formed apparently 
 from the destruction of vast forests ; and the prodigious 
 quantities of timber drifted by some of the great rivers of 
 the world into the present ocean render it not improbable 
 that a similar formation may now be carrying on in the 
 depths of certain parts of the sea. Secondly, from the 
 nature of the preserved vegetables it appears probable that 
 the climate of these parts was not merely tropical, but ul- 
 txatropical. It may also be inferred that the coal strata 
 were deposited in the neighbourhood, and often probably 
 upon the verge, of extensive tracts of dry land ; for the 
 trees that are found in coal strata are often like those of 
 our submarine forests, as far as position goes. And, 
 finally, the deposits of coal appear afterwards to have been 
 elevated, and often singularly dislocated and contorted by 
 forces acting from below, and probably of a volcanic na- 
 ture. 
 
 In some coal fields there are appearances which justify 
 the term coal basin : they are of limited extent, frequently 
 dip as it were to a common centre, and consist of various 
 beds of sandstone, shale, and coal, irregularly stratified; 
 and sometimes mixed with conglomerates, showing a me- 
 chanical origin. 
 
 That these deposites have taken place, and that the 
 change of wood into coal has often been effected under 
 great pressure, and often under pressure and heat, seems 
 evident from the appearance of some of the vegetable 
 masses, and also from the manner in which the carburet- 
 ted hydrogen escapes in the form of blowers and eructa- 
 tions from the strata, as if pent up in their cavities under 
 vast condensation, and' evep sometimes, perhaps, in a li- 
 quid form. 
 
 Though there are often many beds and seams of coal 
 in one field, it is seldom that many of them are worked. 
 They are generally of uniform thickness through a great 
 extent, but are sometimes subject to irregularities. When 
 less than two feet thick they are seldom worked to any 
 great extent. The nature of the upper stratum, or stony 
 matter of the roof, is very important : if compact, it is se- 
 cure from falling, and keeps out water; if loose, the ex- 
 pense incurred in supporting it absorbs the profits of the 
 coal. 
 
 The deepest coal mines in England are those of North- 
 umberland and Durham, which are worked nearly 1000 
 feet below the surface. The thickest bed of coal is said 
 to be at Wood Mill Hill colliery in Staffordshire, and to 
 exceed 40 feet. From 6 to 9 feet is the average thickness 
 of the most productive scams. The coal generally most 
 esteemed is that of the northern districts, — Northumber- 
 land, Durham, and Yorkshire. It abounds in bitumen, 
 softens and swells in the fire, and throws out jets of 
 flame ; it coheres, and therefore burns hollow and re- 
 quires poking; it furnishes cinders, and hut little ash. 
 Most of the coal from the west of England blazes and 
 burns briskly, being much more easily kindled than the 
 other; it requires no poking, because it has no tendency 
 to cake ; it affords no cinders, and leaves a dusty white 
 ash. Culm contains scarcely any bitumen ; it abounds in 
 earthy matter, and somewhat resembles had coke. 
 
 Coal is the most valuable of all the mineral substances 
 from which Britain derives her prosperity, and, indeed, 
 may be regarded as the main support of the whole system 
 of British production. It fuses the metals, produces the 
 steam which sets the machinery in motion, and, in short, 
 may be said to render all the resources of that country 
 available for use. The annual consumption of coal, 
 throughout the British Empire, is estimated at 28,575.01 H3 
 tons. The coal trade aives occupation to nearly 200,000 
 persons. In 1835, the total quantity of coal shipped was 
 7.190.433 tons: of which, from the Tyne and Wear, 
 4,6-28,000; South Wales, 1,228,300; Whitehaven, 395,000.' 
 The export was 2,449,417 tons, chiefly to Ireland, France, 
 the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, British America, 
 and the United States. The imports into London in 1839 
 amounted to 2,638,256 tons, carried by 7,500 vessels. (See 
 Holland's History and Description of Fossil Fuel, the Col- 
 lieries, and Coal Trade of Great Britain. 8vo. 2nd edi- 
 tion. 1°41.) 
 
 CO'BALT. (Germ, kobold, aderil.) A term applied to 
 this metal by the German miners, who considered it unfa- 
 vourable to the presence of the more important metals. 
 
 Cobalt is a brittle metal of a reddish grey colour ; its 
 specific gravity is 7 8. It fuses at a temperature a little 
 below that required for the fusion of iron. It is magnetic. 
 When heated red hot, and freely exposed to air, cobalt 
 absorbs oxygen. Its equivalent number is 30 ; and the sa- 
 lifiable, or protoxide of cobalt, consists of 30 cobalt + 8 
 oxygen = 38 oxide of cobalt. The oxide of cobalt is nearly 
 black; but when in the state of hydrate, or when largely 
 diluted by fusion with glass or borax, it produces its char- 
 acteristic blue colour; and as this colour is permanent at 
 very high temperatures, it is an invaluable article in the 
 manufacture of porcelain and pottery, all the blue colours 
 of which are derived from oxide of cobalt. When fused 
 243 
 
 COCHLEAN. 
 
 with glass it communicates a blue tint without Impairing 
 its transparency. A very deep blue glass of this kind 
 when finely powdered acquires a pale and brilliant colour, 
 and is called smalt. Impure oxide of cobalt is known in 
 commerce under the name of zaffre. Cobalt is said by 
 Stromeyer to exist in all meteoric iron, although in very 
 small quantity. In its ores it is always associated with 
 arsenic, and zaffre is prepared by roasting these native ar- 
 seniurets of cobalt. 
 
 CO'BBLES. Lumps of coal from the size of an egg to 
 that of a football. 
 
 COBI'TIS. (Lat. cobio, a gudgeon.) A genus of soft- 
 finned fishes, belonging to the Cyprinidre or carp family ; 
 and characterized by a small head ; an elongated body ; 
 the skin covered with small scales ; ventral tins placed 
 far backwards, with one small dorsal fin above them ; 
 mouth small and toothless ; gill-openings very small, and 
 with three rays. Of this genus the loche (Cobilis Oarbatu- 
 la) inhabits the clear running streams of Britain. The 
 pond loche 'Cobitis fossilis) is a larger species. It is re- 
 markably sensitive to atmospheric changes, and when 
 confined in a glass-globe may be observed to sink to the 
 bottom in a state of quiescence when the weather is cold 
 and gloomy; but in boisterous weather it comes to the 
 surface and swims about with great rapidity. It also swal- 
 lows air, which it discharges from the vent, partly con- 
 verted into carbonic acid gas. 
 
 CO'BLE. A small boat or canoe, used chiefly on the 
 rivers and lakes of Wales, and the borders. 
 
 CO'B-WALLS. Walls formed of mud mixed with 
 straw ; not uncommon in some districts of England. 
 The best cob-walls are in Somersetshire. 
 
 COCCINE'LLA. (Dim. of LaL coccinus, crimson.) A 
 genus of Trimerous Coleopterous insects, including many 
 small species, usually ornamented with scarlet spots, and 
 familiarly known as ladybirds, lady-cows, <Scc. In France 
 these small beetles are dedicated to the Virgin, and called 
 Betes de la Vierge. Tiiey are, in fact, of great service to 
 t lie agriculturist, and especially to the hop-grower; for 
 they destroy the Aphides, or plant-lice, in vast numbers, 
 feeding on them both in the larva and perfect state. 
 
 CO'Ct OL1TE. (Gr. kokkos, a grain, and X1G05, stone.) 
 A mineral of a concretional or granular texture. 
 
 COCCOO'N. The silken case which the larvae of cer- 
 tain insects spin for the purpose of a covering during the 
 period of their metamorphosis, and which some spiders 
 prepare as a protection to their ova during the develope- 
 ment of the young. The cod or coccoon of the silk-worm 
 is a well-known example of the most valuable of these pro- 
 ductions. 
 
 CO'CCULUS INDICUS. The fruit of the Mmupermum 
 cocculus, imported from the East Indies. It contains a 
 nous principle, which has been termed picrotoxia. 
 It is often used to poison fishes: a few handfuls of it 
 ground into coarse powder, and thrown into a pond, bring 
 the fish, in the course of a few hours, to the surface in an 
 intoxicated or poisoned state ; but if quickly removed into 
 fresh water, they recover. It is sometimes added to ale 
 to increase its stupefying quality. 
 
 CO'CCTM. 'Gt.kokkwv, a pomegranate stone.) A'erm 
 invented by Gaertner to denote a pericarp of dry elastic 
 pieces or cocci, as in Diosnia, &c. 
 
 CO'CCTJS. (Lat. coccus, scarlet cloth.) A name given 
 by Linnaeus to a genus of Hemipterous insects, including 
 the Mexican species, the cochineal insect (Coccus carti, 
 L), which feeds on Cactece, and which affords the well- 
 known fine red dye. 
 
 CO'CHINEAL. The Coccus cacti. This valuable in- 
 sect was first introduced into Europe about the year 1523. 
 It is imported from Mexico and New Spain. It feeds on 
 several species of cactus. It is small, rugose, and of a 
 deep mulberry colour. They are scraped from the plants 
 into bags, killed by boiling water, and dried in the sun. 
 Those are preferred which are plump, of a peculiar sil- 
 very appearance, and which yield a brilliant crimson when 
 rubbed to powder. Cochineal is sometimes adulterated 
 by the admixture of a manufactured article composed of 
 coloured dough. This is detected by the action of boiling 
 water, which dissolves and disintegrates the imitation, but 
 has little effect upon the real insect. The principal com- 
 ponent of cochineal is a peculiar colouring matter, which 
 has been called carminium and cochinelia. It is obtained 
 by digesting the powder of cochineal first in ether, which 
 takes up fat, and then in alcohol, which dissolves the co- 
 chinelia. Acids change its colour from crimson to an 
 orange red, and alkalies turn it violet. When mixed with 
 recently precipitated aluminous earth, it forms a beautiful 
 lake. Cochineal yields a brilliant scarlet dye, which is 
 produced by fixing the colouring matter of the insect by a 
 mordant of alumina and oxide of tin, and exalting the co- 
 lour by the action of supertartrate of potash. 
 
 CO'CHLEAN. (Lat. cochlear, a spoon.) A term used 
 in describing the aestivation of a flower, to express one 
 piece being larger than the others, and hollowed like a
 
 COCHLEARE. 
 
 helmet or bowl, covering all the others, as in Aconitum, 
 &c. 
 
 COCHLEARE. A spoon; the bowls of spoons being 
 formerly made of the shape of a cockle- shell, and often 
 fluted. 
 
 CO'CHLEA'TE. (Lat. cochlea, a shell, a cockle.) A term 
 used in describing the general form of bodies, to denote 
 any that are twisted in a short spire, so as to resemble the 
 convolutions of a snail-shell; as the pod of Medicago coch- 
 leata. It also means a concave body like that of one of the 
 valves of a cockle-shell, as in Epidendrwm cochlealum. 
 
 CO'CKET. In Commerce, a scroll of parchment, 
 signed and delivered by the officers of the custom-house 
 to merchants upon entering their goods, to certify that 
 their merchandise is customed and may be discharged. 
 
 CO'CKLE-OAST. That part of a hop-kiln or oast where 
 the fire is made. 
 
 CO'CK-LOFT. The highest loft, or garret, in any 
 building. 
 
 CO'CKNEY. A contemptuous appellation of a citizen 
 of London. Various derivations have been assigned to 
 this word, all of which are more distinguished for ingenuity 
 than probability. But whatever may be the origin of the 
 term, its antiquity cannot be disputed, as it is mentioned 
 in some verses generally attributed to Hugh Bagot, Earl of 
 Norfolk, in the reign of Henry II. : — 
 
 Were I in my castle at Bungey, 
 
 Upon the river of Waverney, 
 
 1 would ne care for the king of Cockeney (i. e. of London,- 
 
 CO'CK-PIT. The after part of the orlop deck, or deck 
 below the lower deck, and altogether below the water. 
 Here, in line-of-battle ships, are the cabins of several of 
 the officers. The cock-pit is appropriated to the use of the 
 wounded in time of action. There is also a fore cock-pit 
 in the fore part of the ship, and sometimes an after cock- 
 pit. 
 
 Cock-Pit is the name given to the place where game 
 cocks fight their battles. The room in Westminster in 
 which her Majesty's privy council hold their sittings is 
 called the cockpit, from its having been the site of what 
 was formerly the cock-pit belonging to the palace at 
 Whitehall. 
 
 COCY'TUS. (Gr. kukvtos, lamentation ; from kcokvoj, 
 I bewail.) In Mythology, the river of Lamentations, which 
 was one of the streams that washed the shores of the my- 
 thological hell, and prevented the imprisoned souls from 
 returning to the earth. Milton alludes to it thus (Par. Lost, 
 bookii.): 
 
 Cocytus named of lamentations loud 
 Heard on the rueful stieam. 
 
 CO'DA. (It. coda, a tail.) In Music, the passage at the 
 end of a movement which follows a lengthened perfect 
 cadence. In some cases it consists of merely one phrase, 
 in others it is carried to a great extent. At the conclusion 
 of a canon or fugue, it often serves to end the piece which 
 might otherwise be carried on to infinity. 
 
 CODE (from the Latin codex, a manuscript), signifies, in 
 the language of jurisprudence, any collection of laws di- 
 gested and reduced into an orderly arrangement, whether 
 by public authority or by the private labour of learned men. 
 But in the ordinary sense, the word Code is only used to 
 signify a compilation of laws by authority. Five collections 
 of Roman laws are designated by the title of codes : — that of 
 Sextus Papirius, which only exists in fragments discovered 
 by various authors, but which contained the laws of the 
 Roman kings ; the Gregorian, the compilation of an un- 
 known author, about the reign of Constantine ; the Hermo- 
 genian, of which the author is also doubtful, and the date 
 nearly the same ; the Theodosian, framed under the order 
 of the emperor Theodosius the younger, and containing the 
 constitutions of the emperors from the time of Constantine 
 to his own (from which, until the greater works of Justinian 
 became publicly known in modern Europe, the juriscon- 
 sults of the dark ages drew the greater part of their know- 
 ledge of Roman law); and, lastly, that of Justinian, a. d. 529. 
 Of the codes of law now recognised in modern states the 
 most remarkable are, in order of time- — the code of Frede- 
 ric the Great of Prussia; that of Catherine of Russia, con- 
 fined to criminal jurisprudence ; that of Joseph II. of Aus- 
 tria; and the Code Napoleon in France. This title, though 
 sometimes given in general language to all the digests of 
 law made under that emperor, is appropriated by French 
 lawyers to the greatest of his works, the Code Civil. The 
 project for this code was drawn up, in 1801, by five com- 
 missioners, by them reported to the Court of Cassation, 
 and thence carried to the Conseil d'Etat; in that body it 
 was fully discussed, clause by clause. Besides the Code 
 Civil, the written French law comprises five other codes ; 
 viz. the Code Penal ; the two Codes of Procedure, civil and 
 criminal ; the Code de Commerce ; and, finally, the Code 
 Forestier, or collection of laws relative to the administra- 
 tion of the woods, published in 1827 under Charles the 
 Tenth. 
 
 244 
 
 COFFER-DAM. 
 
 CODE'INE, or CODEIA. (Gr. KwSta, the poppy head.) 
 An alkaline substance, discovered in 1S32 by Robiquet in 
 opium. It was at first confounded with morphia. 
 
 CODE'TTA. (Dimin. of coda.) In Music, a short pas- 
 sage which connects one section with another, and not 
 composing part of a regular section. 
 
 CO'DEX. A manuscript : in its original sense (Latin) 
 the inner bark of a tree, which was used for the purposes 
 of writing. The word was thence transferred by the Ro- 
 mans to signify a piece of writing, on whatever material ; 
 e. g. with tile stylus on tablets lined with wax, or on a roll 
 of parchment or paper. In modern Latin, a manuscript 
 volume. Codex rescriptus or palimpsestus is a manuscript 
 consisting of leaves, from which some earlier writing has 
 been erased in order to afford room for the insertion of 
 more recent. Many such codices exist ; and from the 
 imperfect nature of the erasing process, the earlier writing 
 has in some instances been restored. Considerable frag- 
 ments of classical works, previously considered as lost, 
 have been thus recovered by the Abate Mai from among 
 the contents of the Ambrosian Library at Milan. 
 
 CO'DICIL. (Lat. codicillus, diminutive of codex, a 
 manuscript.) In Law, an addition or supplement to a will, 
 for the purpose of altering, explaining, or adding to its con- 
 tents. Of codicils, as of wills, the latter prevails where it 
 contains provisions contradictory to those of a former. 
 By the recent Wills Act (1 Vict. c. 26.), every codicil must 
 be executed in the same manner as is thereby made re- 
 quisite in the case of a will ; viz. signed by the testator in 
 the presence of two witnesses at one time. See Will. 
 
 COEFFICIENT. In Algebra, a number or known 
 quantity prefixed as a multiplier to a variable or an un- 
 known quantity. Thus, in the equation a im + 6 b in = o, 
 a is the multiplier or coefficient of pn, and 6 b is the coeffi- 
 cient of xn. When no number or coefficient is prefixed, 
 unity or 1 is understood. jS'ee Equation. 
 
 CCTXACA'NTHIDjE. (Gr. koiaoc, holloip, and aicav6os, 
 a spine.) A family of Ganoid fishes in the system of 
 Agassiz ; so called on account of the species composing 
 it being armed with hollow spines. The following inte- 
 resting fossil genera, Holoptychius and Coelacanthus pro- 
 per, belong to this family. 
 
 CCTl'LELMI'NTHA. (Gr. koiAoc, and tX/zivc, a trorm.) 
 The name of a class of Entozoa including part of the cavi- 
 tary intestinal worms of Cuvier, or those which are char- 
 acterized by having an alimentary canal contained in a 
 distinct abdominal cavity. 
 
 CfELE'STINE. A mineralogical name of sidphate of 
 strontia (from its blue tint). 
 
 CCE'LIAC. (Gr. jcoiXta, the belly.) A painful species 
 of diarrhoea has been by some medical writers called the 
 cozHac passion. The coeliac artery is the first branch of the 
 aorta in the abdomen. 
 
 C03NA'CULUM. (Lat.) In ancient Architecture, the 
 eating or supper room of the Romans. In the early peri- 
 ods of the Roman history, the upper story of their houses, 
 which rarely consisted of more than two, seems to have 
 been called by this name. 
 
 COZNA'TIO. (Lat.) In ancient Architecture, an apart- 
 ment for taking refreshment in the lower part of the Ro- 
 man houses. 
 
 CODNO'BIO. (Gr. koivo(, common, and /3ws, life.) A 
 name invented by the French botanists, to distinguish that 
 class of fruits which consists of two or more carpels 
 separate at the apex and united at the base, from the mid- 
 dle of which a single style arises. It occurs in Lamiacea?, 
 &c. 
 
 COS'NOBITE. (Gr. koivos, and ffios, life.) One who 
 lives under a rule in a religious community, as distinguish- 
 ed from an anchoret or hermit, who lives in solitude. See 
 Anchoret. 
 
 COE'NURE, Canurus. (Gr. koivo;, and ovpa, a tail.) 
 The hydatid which infests the brain of sheep is so called, 
 because the dilated cyst is the common termination or 
 basis of attachment of many heads and bodies. The dis- 
 ease called " staggers" is produced by this parasite. 
 
 CO'FFEE. The berries of the Coffea arabica. These, 
 when roasted, powdered, and infused in boiling water, 
 yield the well-known beverage called coffee. It is exhila- 
 rating, and operates upon many persons as an aperient. 
 See Caffein. 
 
 CO'FFER. (Sax. cofre.) In Architecture, a sunk panel 
 in vaults and domes, and also in the soffit or under side of 
 the Corinthian cornice, usually decorated in the centre 
 with a flower. 
 
 CO'FFER DAM. In Architecture, and Bridge-build- 
 ing, a case of piling, water-tight, fixed in the bed of a 
 river for the purpose of laying the bottom dry for a space 
 large enough to build the pier on. Coffer-dams are formed 
 in various ways, either by a single inclosure or a double 
 one, with clay or chalk rammed in between the two to pre- 
 vent the water from coming through the sides. They are 
 also made either with piles only, driven close together, and 
 sometimes notched or dovetailed into one another; or,
 
 COGNIZANCE. 
 
 if the water is not very deep, by piles driven at a distance 
 of five or six feet from each other, and grooved in the 
 sides with boards let down between them in the grooves. 
 In order to build in coffer-dams a very good natural 
 bottom of solid earth or clay is required ; for though the 
 sides be made water-tight, if the bed of the river be of a 
 loose consistence, the water will ooze up through it in too 
 great a quantity to permit the operations to be carried on. 
 It is almost needless to remark that the sides must be very 
 strong, and well braced in the inside to resist the pressure 
 of the ambient water. (Hutton's Tracts, vol. i.) 
 
 CO'GMZANCE, Conusance. In Law, an acknowledg- 
 ment of a fine, of taking a distress, <tc. It also signifies 
 the power which a court has to hear and determine a par- 
 ticular species of suit. 
 
 COGNO'MEN. In Antiquities, the last of the three 
 names by which all Romans, at least those of good family, 
 were designated. It served to mark the house (see Fami- 
 lia) to which they belonged, as the other two names, viz. 
 the pramomen and nomen, served respectively to denote 
 the individual and the class (see Gens) to which his family 
 belonged. 
 
 COGNO'VIT. (Lat.) In Law, is a confession whereby 
 a defendant admits that the plaintiff's cause of action against 
 him is just (cognovit actionem), and suffers judgment to be 
 entered against him without trial. 
 
 COHESION. (Lat. coh<ereo, I hold together.) In Na- 
 tural Philosophy, is the force or attraction with which the 
 particles of homogeneous bodies are kept attached to each 
 other, or with which they resist separation. Cohesion is 
 thus distinguished from adhesion : the latter term denoting 
 the attractive force existing between two different bodies 
 brought into contact, as a drop of water on a plate ofglaas : 
 or between two bodies of the same matter, as two lumps 
 of lead, when their smooth surfaces have been pressed to- 
 gether. The three different forms which matter assumes, 
 — solid, liquid, and gaseous, — are determined by the degree 
 of cohesive force existing among the elementary particles. 
 In solids this force is great, and, in (act, is that which cau- 
 ses solidity ; in liquids it is less powerful, but still suffici- 
 ently manifest in the drops or globular form assumed by 
 small quantities of water or mercury poured on a table. 
 In the case of aeriform fluids it may be regarded as nega- 
 tive, the particles having a tendency to repel each other. 
 The cohesive force of the elementary particles of matter 
 depends on the distances of the particles from each other; 
 but of the law according to which its intensity increases or 
 diminishes nothing is known, excepting that the force de- 
 creases rapidly as the distance increases, and vanishes al- 
 together when the distance becomes so great as to be ap- 
 preciable to the senses. 
 
 It is a problem of very gTeat importance to determine 
 the cohesive power of the materials employed in mechani- 
 cal structures. Numerous experiments have been made 
 for this purpose ; and their results have not only a practi- 
 cal utility, but throw much light on the constitution of bo- 
 dies. When a bar of metal, a beam of wood, or a rope, is 
 stretched lenethwise, the tension which it bears, or the co- 
 hesive power evolved, is equal to the accumulated attrac- 
 tion of all the particles in any transverse section. The 
 longitudinal distension which lakes place before disrupture 
 is at first proportional to this attraction, but afterwards in- 
 creases in a more rapid progression. " A bar of soft iron 
 will stretch uniformly by continuing to append to it equal 
 weights till it be loaded with half as much as it can bear : 
 beyond that limit, however, its extension will become 
 doubled by each addition of the eighth part of the disrup- 
 tive force. Suppose the bar to be an inch square, and 1000 
 inches in length ; 36,000 lbs. avoirdupois will draw it out 
 one inch, but 45,000 lbs. will stretch it 2 inches, 54,000 lbs. 4 
 inches, 63,000 lbs. 8 inches, and 72,000 lbs. 16 inches, where 
 it would finally break." (Leslie's Xat. Philosophy.') 
 
 The following is a tabular view of the absolute cohesion 
 of the principal kinds of timber employed in building and 
 carpentry, showing the load which would rend a prism of 
 an inch square, and the length of the prism which, if sus- 
 pended, would be torn asunder by its own weight : — 
 
 Teak .... 12,915 lbs. — 36.049 feet 
 
 Oak .... 11,880 — 32.900 
 
 Sycamore - - - 9,630 — 35,800 
 
 Beech .... 12.225 — 38,940 
 
 Ash .... 14.130 — 42,080 
 
 Elm .... 9,720 — 39,050 
 
 Memel fir . - - 9,540 — 40,500 
 
 Christiana deal - - 12,346 — 55,500 
 
 Larch .... 12.240 — 42,160 
 
 The above numbers must be regarded as only approxi- 
 mative, and representing the average cohesive force of the 
 different kinds of wood specified ; for the force differs 
 greatly in different specimens of the same sort, and even 
 in different parts of the same timber. Thus in the tables 
 given by Professor Barlow of experiments on the direct 
 cohesion of different woods, we find the weight required 
 245 
 
 Cast steel 
 
 Swedish malleable iron 
 
 English ditto 
 
 Cast iron 
 
 Cast copper - 
 
 Yellow brass 
 
 Cast tin ... 
 
 Cast lead 
 
 COINAGE. 
 
 to tear asunder a prism of an inch square varying as un- 
 der:— Fir, from 11,000 to 13,448 lbs. : ash, from 15,784 to 
 17,850 lbs. ; oak, from 8,839 to 12,008 lbs. ; teak, from 
 14,662 to 15,405 lbs. ; pear, from 8,834 to 11,537 lbs., <kc. 
 (Barlotc on the Strength of Materials, 1837.) 
 
 The metals differ more widely from each other in their 
 cohesive strength than the several species of wood or ve- 
 getable fibres. According to the experiments of Mr. 
 George Rennie in 1817, the cohesive power of a rod an 
 inch square of different metals, in pounds avoirdupois, 
 with the corresponding length in feet, is as follows :— 
 
 134.256 lbs. — 39,455 feet 
 7<;,064 — 19,740 
 55,872 — 19.740 
 19.(196 — 6.110 
 19.072 — 5.093 
 17,958 — 5JS0 
 4,736 — 1,496 
 
 1,824 — 348 
 It is difficult to measure directly the cohesion of fluids 
 (and it is very considerably affected by the temperature) ; 
 but an approximation may be derived from the magnitude 
 of drops, and the thickness of liquid sheets, heaped upon 
 a horizontal surface. In this view, says Professor Leslie, 
 let us trace the formation of a drop of water as it slowly 
 collects at the end of a capillary siphon. The mutual at- 
 traction of the particles always rounds the under part of 
 the pendant fluid, which continues to lengthen till its accu- 
 mulating weight begins to overcome the cohesion of the 
 particles. But this force being 75 grains for each horizontal 
 square inch, while a cubical inch of water weighs 2521; 
 grains, must correspond to the pull of a cylinder of 18 
 inch high, which will influence also the breadth of the pen- 
 dant liquid. Beyond this limit a separation will ensue, 
 when the cylinder merges into a sphere a little wider, or 
 about 2-10ths of an inch diameter. 
 
 The cohesion among the particles of alcohol and of sul- 
 phuric acid being respectively the fifth part of 215 and 460 
 grains, the weight of a cubic inch of each of these fluids, a 
 drop of them should measure 17 of an inch in diameter. 
 The cohesive force of quicksilver at the ordinary tempera- 
 ture amounts to 312 grains on each horizontal inch, while 
 a cubic inch of it weighs 3424 grains ; the drop must sepa- 
 rate when its mean depth approaches to the 9- 100th part 
 of an inch. (Elements of Kat. Philosophy, p. 369.) 
 
 With respect to the ultimate agent by which the effects 
 of cohesion are produced, it is remarked by Dr. T. Young, 
 that if it is allowable to seek for any other agent than a 
 fundamental property of matter, appearances extremely 
 similar mi;;ht be derived from the pressure of a universal 
 medium of great elasticity. But all suppositions founded 
 on such analogies must be considered as merely conjectu- 
 ral ; and our knowledge of every thing which relates to the 
 intimate constitution of matter, partly from the intricacy 
 of the subject, and partly for want of sufficient experiments, 
 is at present in a state of great uncertainty and imperfec- 
 tion. ( Young's Lectures on Nat. Philosojihy, vol. i. p. 630.) 
 .See Strenoth of Materials. 
 
 COHOBA'TION. The repeated distillation of the same 
 liquid from the same materials. The term was invented 
 by Paracelsus. 
 
 CO'HORT. The tenth part of a Roman legion. (See 
 Legion.) The Prntorian cohort was a body of picked 
 troops who attended the general, and was first instituted 
 by Scipio Africanus. 
 
 COI'NAGE. Vnder this term we shall give a brief out- 
 line of the proceedings in reference to the manufacture of 
 coin, as carried on in the Royal Mint of London. 
 
 When a parcel of gold is brouaht to the mint in ingots, 
 they are deposited with the master's assay-master, who 
 makes an assay of each ingot ; and when he is ready to 
 deliver his reports upon them, the importers are required 
 to attend at the mint, where the weigher and teller reads 
 over the said reports to them. They are then recorded in 
 the journals of the master, comptroller, and master's first 
 clerk and melter; and a mint bill is given to the importer, 
 certifying the weight, fineness, and value of the ingots, and 
 signed by the deputy master, comptroller, and king's (or 
 queen's) clerk, which bill is returned upon the delivery of 
 the bullion to the importers in the state of coin. The bul- 
 lion is then delivered to the melter, who, guided by the as- 
 sayer's report, adds either alloy or fine gold (when either 
 are required), so as to reduce the mass to standard fineness 
 (that is, 22 parts of pure gold and 2 of alloy), and melts and 
 casts the metal into bars of convenient form for rolling ; 
 each bar, when intended for coinage in sovereigns, being 
 an inch and a half by one inch square, and about two feet 
 in length, and weighing about 26 pounds. A piece is then 
 taken from each extremity of each bar and delivered to the 
 king's assay-master, whose duty it is to ascertain that the 
 said bars are of standard fineness before he allows them 
 to be delivered to the moneyers, who next receive them 
 for the purpose of coinage.
 
 COINS. 
 
 These preliminary operations are nearly the same as 
 regards silver bullion. 
 
 When the moneyers, or responsible manufacturers of 
 the coin, receive bars from the melter, they are rolled and 
 drawn into plates of proper thickness, which require to be 
 most nicely adjusted, so that a piece of proper size punch- 
 ed out of any part of the plate may have the exact weight 
 of the intended coin ; the blanks are then cut out of these 
 plates, which are thus reduced to the state of scissel, and 
 remelted (under due checks and precautions), to be again 
 cast into bars. The blanks (amounting to about two thirds, 
 and the scissel to one third of the weight of the original 
 plate of metal) are next annealed, and passed through the 
 marking machine, by which the edge of each piece is made 
 smooth and a little raised ; they are then cleaned or blanched 
 by being put for a few minutes into a hot and very dilute 
 sulphuric acid, after which they are thoroughly washed 
 and dried, and are ready to be stamped or coined. This 
 operation is performed in presses moved by mechanical 
 power, and consists in placing the blanks between two steel 
 dies, upon one of which is engraved the obverse and upon 
 the other the reverse of the coin, so as to give an impres- 
 sion in relief; while the spreading of the piece in a lateral 
 direction is prevented by the rising of a collar at the mo- 
 ment the blow is struck, in which collar is engraved the 
 milling, which is thus transferred to the edge of the piece 
 at the same moment that the impressions of the dies are 
 taken upon its two surfaces. The coining presses at the 
 mint are attended by boys, who only have to fill a tube or 
 species of hopper with the blanks ; the operation of laying 
 the blank upon the dies, and again throwing it off when 
 stamped, being effected by the machinery connected with 
 the press, thus preventing the risk of crushing the fingers 
 of the persons who used to be employed in this depart- 
 ment before these layers on, as they are technically called, 
 were adopted. In the coining room at the mint there are 
 eight presses, each adapted for every species of coin ; 
 each press strikes upon an average 60 pieces per minute, 
 or 3600 per hour ; so that in the day's work of 10 hours 
 each press produces 36,000 pieces ; and the eight presses 
 (supposing, which is rarely the case, that they are all in 
 use) stamp 23S.000 pieces daily. The money when thus 
 completed is weighed up in what are called journey weights 
 for delivery to the importers of the bullion ; the gold in 15 
 lbs. and the silver in 60 lbs. troy. But, before any coin is 
 suffered to pass out of the mint, it is inspected as to its 
 workmanship ; and if any journeys are faulty or imperfect 
 in this respect, they may be cut and returned to the 
 moneyers for recoinage. The weight and fineness of the 
 money are also ultimately examined and insured by the 
 process of piling, which consists in taking promiscuously 
 from every journey weight of coin a pound in tale, which 
 is delivered by the weigher and teller to the king's assay- 
 master, who carefully weighs it, and declares aloud the 
 minus or phcs upon each pound (if it be not standard or ex- 
 act), which is recorded by the king's assayer, by the comp- 
 troller, and by the king's clerk. This determines whether 
 the moneyers have made the money within the remedy al- 
 lowed upon the pound troy ; but, as the remedy upon the 
 pound is divided among the number of pieces in it, the 
 comptroller weighs several of the pieces individually, and 
 if they are not within the allowed limits, can, in conjunc- 
 tion with the other check officers assembled on this duty, 
 return the coin to the moneyers to be remelted and re- 
 coined at their expense. From the same pound weight of 
 gold or silver the comptroller also takes two pieces, one of 
 which is handed to the king's assay-master to assay, in 
 order to prove that the metal has undergone no deteriora- 
 tion in any of the processes of its manufacture ; the other 
 piece is sealed up in a packet and consigned to the pix box, 
 which is locked by the separate keys of the check officers, 
 where it remains until the trial of the pix by jury before 
 the king or certain of his council, which usually takes 
 place once every three or four years in the Court of Ex- 
 chequer at Westminster. 
 
 The term journey weight is applied at the mint to the 
 weight of certain parcels of coin, which were probably 
 considered formerly as a day's work. The journey of 
 gold is 15 troy pounds, which is coined into 701 sovereigns, 
 or 1402 half sovereigns. A. journey of silver weighs 60 lbs. 
 troy, and is coined into 792 crowns, or 15S4 half crowns, or 
 3960 shillings, or 7920 sixpences. 
 
 COINS. See Numismatics. Money. 
 
 COKE. The charcoal obtained by heating coal with the 
 imperfect access of air, or by its distillation. The former 
 is usually called oven coke ; the latter gas coke, being abun- 
 dantly produced in gas-works. The weight of coke usual- 
 ly amounts to between 60 and 70 per cent, of the coal em- 
 ployed. Coke is a valuable fuel for many purposes in the 
 arts 
 
 COL'CHICTJM. (From Colchis in Armenia, where the 
 plant is said to have abounded.) This term is generally ap- 
 plied to the cormus or bulb of the Colchicum autumnale, or 
 meadow saffron, a plant common in England, and largely 
 
 COLEOPTERANS. 
 
 collected for medical use. It was much employed form- 
 erly as a diuretic in dropsy ; then fell into disuse ; and 
 more recently again largely prescribed for the cure of 
 gout, it having been ascertained that the celebrated French 
 remedy for gout called Eau medicinale d'Husson was a 
 tincture of colchicum. Its efficacy may probably be ascrib- 
 ed to the presence of a peculiar alkaloid, which has been 
 termed colchicia. When the cormi are intended for medi- 
 cal use, they should be dug tip in summer (July), and im- 
 mediately cut into thin transverse slices, placed separately 
 upon paper, and dried by a very gentle heat. The best 
 preparation is the wine of colchicum, made by infusing an 
 ounce and a half of the bulb prepared and dried as above, 
 and coarsely powdered, in 12 ounces of sherry, for six or 
 seven days, shaking it daily : then filter it for use. The 
 dose is from 20 drops to 1 drachm, taken at bed-time in a 
 little water. 
 
 COLCO'TIIAR. A red oxide of iron, being the residue 
 of the distillation of green vitriol or sulphate of iron. 
 
 COLD. In Natural Philosophy. -See Heat. 
 
 Cold. In Medicine. See Catarrh. 
 
 CO'LEOPHY'LLUM. (Gr. koAeoj, asheath,Knd <pv\\ov, 
 a leaf} A term introduced into botany, to indicate a mo- 
 nocolyledonous structure, the young leaves being evolved 
 from within a sheath, while those of Dicotyledons are al- 
 ways naked. 
 
 COLEO'PTERANS, Coleoptera. (Gr. ico\eo;, and nnpov, 
 sheath-iringed.) The name of the order of insects com- 
 prehending those in which the first pair of wings have the 
 consistence of horn, and serve as defensive coverings to 
 the second pair, or true wings, which are of large size, and 
 are folded transversely when not in use. 
 
 By means of this mechanism the Coleoptera are enabled 
 to burrow in the soil, or bore the trunks of trees, with- 
 out injury to their delicate organs of flight, which are the 
 true or second pair of wings ; these being of ample size 
 are peculiarly folded, being bent at neariy right angles, 
 so as to pack up in small compass beneath the elytra or 
 wing-covers when the beetle is at rest. In some species 
 the membranous wings are wanting, but the elytra are al- 
 ways present : although in this case, as they are never re- 
 quired to be expanded for flight, they are generally solder- 
 ed together by a straight suture at the middle line. In or- 
 dinary cases the inner straight margins of the wing-covers 
 are simply but accurately applied to each other. 
 
 The Coleopterous are of all the orders of insects the 
 most numerous. and the best known. Their singular forms, 
 the brilliant and agreeable colours which many of them pre- 
 sent, the large size of some of the species, the solid con- 
 sistence of their teguments, which renders their preserva- 
 tion easy, and the regular series of affinities traceable 
 through several of the groups, all combine to render them 
 objects of particular interest and attention. 
 
 The head supports two antennae of various forms, but 
 almost always consisting of eleven joints. They have two 
 t compound eyes, but no ocelli. The mouth is composed of 
 six principal pieces ; of which four, called the mandibular 
 and maxillae, move transversely in pairs, while the remain- 
 ing two are fixed, and close the mouth vertically. The up- 
 permost of the two vertical pieces is called the labrum; 
 the lowermost is termed the labium, and is itself subdivid- 
 ed into the mentum and lingua, and together with the max- 
 illae, or the lowest of the vertical pieces, supports a pair of 
 articulated processes, called palpi or feelers. 
 
 The anterior segment of the thorax, or manitrunk, sup- 
 ports the first pair of feet, and greatly surpasses in extent 
 the two other segments which form the alitrunk. The ab- 
 domen is sessile, and united to the trunk by a great part of 
 its breadth. It is externally composed of six or seven 
 wings. 
 
 The tarsi vary as to the number of their joints, in some 
 Coleoptera having but three, in others four, in others five ; 
 modifications upon which I.atreille founds his primary di- 
 vision of the order. See Pentamera, Tetramera, Tri- 
 mera. 
 
 The Coleoptera undergo a complete metamorphosis. 
 The larva resembles a worm ; the head is encased in a 
 firm horny substance ; the mouth is analogous in the num 
 ber and functions of its parts to that of the perfect insects; 
 it has also generally six feet, but some species have instead 
 only simple tubercles. When perfect the larva generally 
 burrows in the earth, and excavates an oval cell, within 
 which it undergoes its change into an inactive pupa ; this 
 is generally of a whitish colour, with the wings and legs 
 folded upon the breast. The habitation and manner of 
 life of these insects varies much, both in their immature 
 and perfect stages. The affinities of the Coleoptera to the 
 Orthoptera are of a closer and more manifest nature than 
 can be traced between the Coleoptera and any other order 
 of the mandibulate insects. The genas Forficula forms the 
 intervening link. It was formerly placed by Linmeus at the 
 end of the Coleoptera. and was subsequently referred by 
 Latreille to the order Orthoptera ; but now constitutes the 
 type of an order apart and intermediate to these two. The
 
 COLEOPTILUM. 
 
 absence in some ants of the wings, sting, and ocelli, has 
 led Mr. Macleay to suspect that these Hymenupiera make 
 an approach to the Coleoptera. Mr. Kirby would place the 
 Stre/tsiptera in juxlaposilion with the Coleoptera, observing 
 that i he metamorphosis in the former "being different from 
 that of Orthoptera and Hemiptera, and nearer to that of the 
 Coleoptera, this seems its most natural station, considered 
 as an Elytrophorous order." 
 
 COLEO'PTILUM. (Gr. koXsoc, a sheath, and kti\ov. a 
 feather.) A term sometimes applied to the young leaves of 
 Monocotyledons, from the circumstance of their always 
 being developed within a sheath, while those of Dicotyle- 
 dons are always naked. This is, however, a mistake both 
 in fact and theory. 
 
 CO'LEORHI'ZA. (Gr. Ko'Xtos, a sheath, and pi^a, a 
 root.) A term invented by Mirleel to denote the sheath 
 within which the radicle of monocotyledonous plants is 
 enclosed. 
 
 CO'LIC. (Gr. k<o\ov, the colon ; one of the large intes- 
 tines, to the seat of which the principal pain is generally 
 referred.) There are many varieties of this complaint, and 
 it arises from various causes, and exhibits different symp- 
 toms. The general indications of cure are to evacuate the 
 bowels by the least irritating means, and, when the lower 
 intestines are loaded, by the use of glysters; opiates and 
 elherial remedies may be resorted to to allay spasms, and 
 warm bath and fomentations are often necessary. There 
 is a peculiar disease called the painters' colic or dry belly- 
 ache, which appears to arise from the absorption of lead 
 into the system, and which therefore commonly attacks 
 plumbers, painters, and makers of white paint and other 
 colours and preparations in which lead is used ; the per- 
 sons employed also in the lead mines and furnaces are 
 subject, to it. It is often named from certain places in 
 which it is peculiarly prevalent ; as Poictou, Devonshire 
 colic, &c. It begins with restlessness and uneasiness 
 about the stomach, nausea, and obstinate cosliveness. 
 There is a general spasm of the bowels, often accompanied 
 by great pain, which is somewhat relieved by pressure ; 
 and this circumstance enables us to distinguish the com- 
 plaint in question from inflammation of the bowels; into 
 which, however, it runs, if not timely relieved by opiates, 
 emollient glysters, warm bath, and gentle aperients, espe- 
 cially castor oil when it will lie on the stomach, by which 
 the spasm is allayed and the bowels evacuated of their 
 hardened and irritating feces. This is the acute slate of the 
 disease; but it often occurs in a chronic form, in which 
 case pains ami constipation of the bowels are follow 
 occasional delirium, epilepsy, paralysis, especially of the 
 hands, and wasting away of the muscles. This disease 
 terminates fatally if not timely relieved, and above all the 
 patient should be cautiously removed from all contact with 
 lead, and allowed fresh air and a nutritious but not stimu- 
 lating diet. 
 
 COLLA'PSE. (Lat. collabor, / shrink down.) A wast- 
 ing of the body ; or a sudden and extreme depression of 
 its strength and energies. 
 
 CO'I.LAR. (Lat. collte.) In Architecture, an horizon- 
 tal piece of timber connecting two rafters. 
 
 Collar. In Ornithology, the coloured ring round the 
 neck of birds. In Malacology, the thickened secreting 
 margin of the mantle in the testaceous Gastropods. 
 
 Collar, signifies a peculiar badge worn round the neck 
 by knights of different orders. It consists of a gold chain, 
 enamelled, <fcc, to which is attached the badge of the order 
 of knighthood ; and it is worn at court chiefly on state oc- 
 casions, which are thence called collar days. 
 
 COLLARI'NO. (Fr. collarin.) In Architecture, that 
 part of the Tuscan and Roman Doric columns on the upper 
 part of the shaft encircling them like a small collar. The 
 more proper name is an astragal. 
 
 CO'LLECT (Lat. con, together, and lego, / read,) sig- 
 nifies, as the derivation of the word implies, a prayer read 
 together icith other parts of the Church of England service, 
 either usually or on a particular occasion. 
 
 COLLECTA'NEA, is applied, in Literature, to a selec- 
 tion of passages made from various authors, usually for the 
 purpose of instruction. 
 
 COLLE'CTORS. In Botany, dense hairs covering the 
 styles of some species of Composita;, <fcc. : and acting as 
 brushes to clear the pollen out of the cells of the anthers. 
 
 CO'LLEGE. (Lat. collegium.) According to the pri- 
 mary meaning of the word, any society or number of per- 
 sons bound together by the same laws and customs (Col- 
 lesa-., colleagues). Among the Romans not only societies 
 invested with a character resembling that of modern cor- 
 porations, enjoying certain political rights in common (as 
 the colleges of augurs, pontifices, &c), were termed Col- 
 legia ; but bodies of men who appear to have had no bond 
 of union except common employment (as the collegia 
 opificum, or colleges of the different trades) were also thus 
 designated. Hence has originated the erroneous notion 
 that the guilds of modern Europe were derived from simi- 
 lar institutions among the ancients, by attributing to the 
 247 
 
 COLLEGE. 
 
 last mentioned collegia a corporate character, which it is 
 not sufficiently proved that they possessed ; although some 
 of these bodies, as we learn from the fragments of the 
 lawyer Gaius, did in effect hold common property, and had 
 their affairs administered by by-laws of their own. In 
 England many corporate bodies are termed Colleges ; e. g. 
 the colleges of physicians and surgeons, of heralds, <fec. 
 &c. A college, in the academical meaning of the word, 
 signifies an academy established for academic purposes 
 under royal or private foundation, endowed with revenues, 
 and subject to a private code of laws. Where such a so- 
 ciety possesses within itself all the means of instruction 
 and the rights and faculties which are incident to a univer- 
 sity, the terms University and College are in effect con- 
 vertible, and indiscriminately used. Thus, Trinity College, 
 Dublin, affords a specimen of an institution called indis- 
 criminately by either title. On the other hand, the univer- 
 sities of Oxford and Cambridge are composed of a number 
 of colleges united together under the same discipline and 
 government, and in which those powers peculiarly belong- 
 ing to a university are wielded by one class of authorities, 
 the functions of the colleges superintended by another. 
 The Scottish universities, not being in the strict sense of 
 the words endowed societies (i. e. not possessing a regular 
 body of fellows and scholars receiving stipends), cannot be 
 properly termed collegiate bodies. 
 
 The early history of colleges is somewhat obscure ; al- 
 though there can be no doubt that they were originally 
 founded, in the various universities of the middle ages, with 
 similar objects and from the same charitable motives. The 
 first students at these universities assembled together 
 under no common bond of union, except that of academic 
 study and discipline, and lodged as suited their own con- 
 venience. Next, hostels or boarding-houses were estab- 
 lished (in the first instance, it is said, by the religious 
 orders for students of their own fraternities), in which 
 the scholars lodged together under certain superintend- 
 ence. Charitable individuals afterwards endowed these 
 hostels, for the purpose of providing poor scholars with 
 fyc^ lodgings. Finally, to these endowments were added 
 (by gifts or bequests) stipends for all or a certain number 
 of the scholars frequenting these inns or hostels; and 
 thus the foundation of a college was completed. The dis- 
 tinction of language arising from ancient usages is still 
 preserved at Oxford, where societies endowed for the 
 maintenance of fellows and scholars are termed Colleges, 
 —societies unprovidi d with such endowments, Halls. But 
 at Cambridge there is no distinction between Colleges and 
 Halls. At the university of Paris fifteen colleges, or more, 
 are said to have been founded in the 13th century ; and the 
 whole number, In the course of time, amounted to eighteen 
 greab r and aboul eighty lesser. But these institutions 
 assumed a different shape from that which they took in 
 England, The greater colleges became appropriated to 
 particular faculties, or departments of a faculty. Thus, for 
 example, the Sorbonne was the college of the theological 
 faculty ; and, in process of time, the lectures and disputa- 
 tions of most of the faculties became confined to the walls 
 nt those colleges w hieh were exclusively devoted to them. 
 Hence the university became, in fact, a collection of acade- 
 mies for instruction in particular subjects, and its corporate 
 character for purposes of education vanished altogether as 
 early as the 15th century. (See Maiden on the Origin of 
 Universities, and the authorities there cited.) 
 
 The name and institution of colleges were derived by the 
 English universities, together with most of their other pe- 
 culiarities, from Paris; but their history is very different. 
 The colleges now subsisting in both these universities 
 were constituted by royal or private munificence ; either 
 as original foundations, or (more commonly) by the endow- 
 ment of formerly subsisting halls or hostels with stipends 
 for students. They were all formed on the same principle, 
 consisting of a head (variously termed master, principal, 
 provost, (fee); of a body of higher graduates (generally 
 termed fellows); and another of inferior graduates (schol- 
 ars), who, according to the terms of the several founda- 
 tions, were or were not eligible as a matter of right to the 
 fellowships. The colleges were thus founded simply for 
 the purpose of assisting scholars in their progress through 
 the university, not for that of conferring instruction. All 
 those of Catholic foundation, it must be added, were in- 
 tended to supply the church with ministers ; hence the still 
 subsisting regulations prohibiting the marriages of fellows. 
 In the course of time independent members, ;'. e. members 
 not upon the foundation nor sharing in the endowments, 
 were admitted to reside within the walls of the colleges; 
 and the task of superintending, and finally of instructing 
 them, was gradually transferred from the university autho- 
 rities to those appointed by and resident within the col- 
 leges. And, by the present constitution of our national 
 universities, the only powers retained by the university 
 as such are of a general character, as of conferring degrees 
 and other honours, <fec. <fcc. ; while the function of educa- 
 tion for the purpose of qualifying for those degrees has
 
 COLLEGE OF JUSTICE. 
 
 entirely passed into the bands of the colleges of which that 
 university is composed, every member of the university 
 being now, by usage which has acquired the force of law, 
 also member of some college or hall. And, with respect 
 to discipline and government, the power is shared between 
 the university, which through its vice-chancellor and proc- 
 tors exercises a general superintendence ; and the col- 
 leges, which by their own officers maintain order within 
 their own walls. A college, therefore, in the sense in which 
 the term is applied at Oxford and Cambridge, has a double 
 character, — 1. as an endowed society ; 2. as a house of ed- 
 ucation. In the first sense, the college is composed of the 
 head, fellows, and scholars. It is under the government 
 of the original laws framed by its founder, with such varia- 
 tions as in some cases time has introduced ; but alteration 
 is always jealously watched. According to the tenure of 
 these statutes, the head is either chosen by the fellows 
 from among themselves, or in some instances appointed 
 by the crown or other authority. The fellows, again (who 
 are mosUy,but not universally, graduates who have passed 
 the lowest degree, that of Bachelor of Arts), and the scho- 
 lars, who are admitted when under-graduates, are either 
 chosen from particular localities, schools, &c. &c, ac- 
 cording to the will of the founder, or elected according to 
 merit after free competition between members of the col- 
 lege or of the university at large. Every college is finally 
 under the superintendence of a visitor, generally some 
 high ecclesiastical functionary. 2. As a place of education, 
 the college receives within its walls not only fellows and 
 scholars, but also (in the great majority of instances) inde- 
 pendent members, limited in number only by the extent 
 of the lodging which it can afford ; it being usual at Oxford 
 (although not at Cambridge) that every student on entering 
 the university should not only belong to a college or hall, 
 but reside within its walls. The under-graduate members 
 of the college are under the superintendence of the tutors. 
 These are, in general, resident fellows, appointed by the 
 head to perform this office. In some colleges each tutor 
 has under his special control a certain number of under- 
 graduates ; in others the tutors divide among them, not the 
 students, but the different branches of instruction which 
 are to be communicated. Such is a very general outline of 
 the system of English colleges ; but each of these founda- 
 tions is exclusively governed by its own laws and usages, 
 and no comprehensive description will apply without ex- 
 ception to all. Oxford has nineteen colleges and five halls; 
 Cambridge seventeen colleges or halls. In both universi- 
 ties the oldest are supposed to have existed from the mid- 
 dle of the 13th century ; the greater part were founded be- 
 tween that period and the Reformation, but a few are of 
 Protestant foundation. 
 
 CO'LLEGE OF JUSTICE. In Scottish Law, a term 
 applied to the supreme civil courts, composed of the lords 
 of council and session; together with the advocates, clerks 
 of session, clerks of the bills, writers to the signet, &c. 
 See Session. 
 
 CO'LLECT. See Collum. 
 
 COLLUM A'TION. (Lat. collimo, I aim at.) The line 
 of collimation, in a telescope, is the line of sight, or the 
 straight line which passes through the centre of the object 
 glass and the intersection of the wires placed in its" focus. 
 The error of collimation is the difference between the 
 actual line of sight and the position which that line ought to 
 have in reference to the instrument. 
 
 COLLIMA'TOR. Captain Katergave the name of 'float- 
 ing collimator to an instrument invented by him for ascer- 
 taining the horizontal point. It consists of a small telescope, 
 furnished with cross-wires in its focus, and fastened hori- 
 zontally on a flat iron float, which is made to swim on 
 mercury, and which of course, when left to itself, will al- 
 ways assume one and the same invariable inclination to the 
 horizon. If the cross- wires of the collimator be illuminated 
 by a lamp placed in the focus of its object glass, the rays 
 from them will issue parallel, and consequently be in a fit 
 state to be brought to a focus by the object glass of any 
 other telescope, in which they will form an image as if 
 they came from a celestial object in their direction, i. e. at 
 an altitude equal to their inclination. By transferring, then, 
 the collimator still floating on a vessel of mercury from 
 one side of a circular instrument to the other, we are fur- 
 nished with two quasi-celestial objects, at precisely equal 
 altitudes, or opposite sides of the centre ; and if these be 
 observed in succession with the telescope of a circle, 
 bringing its cross to bisect the image of the cross of the 
 collimator, the difference of the two readings on the limb 
 will be twice the zenith distance of either; whence the 
 horizontal or zenith point is immediately determined. 
 Another form of the collimator has the telescope placed 
 vertically, whereby the zenith point is directly ascertained. 
 {Phil Trans. 182S ; Pearson's Practical Astrojioniy, vol. ii.) 
 
 COLLIQUATIVE. (Lat. colliqueo, I melt.) Excessive 
 evacuations are so termed, which appear to melt down the 
 strength and substance of the body. 
 
 COLLUSION. (Lat. collisio, from collido, I strike 
 248 
 
 COLLISION. 
 
 against.) In mechanics, the action of one body impinging 
 against or striking another with a certain degree of force. 
 In order to explain the phenomena which take place when 
 two bodies in motion impinge against each other, we sup- 
 pose the bodies either perfectly non-elastic, or perfectly 
 elastic, and that they move in a medium which offers no 
 resistance. As none of these suppositions have place ex- 
 actly in nature, the results deduced from them must in 
 practice undergo certain modifications. 
 
 In the case of non-elastic bodies, let us suppose, first, that 
 
 the body A strikes against another body B, which is either at 
 
 rest or is moving in thesame direc- 
 
 & 1 £ tion with A toward C, but with a less 
 
 velocity. The body B presents an 
 obstacle to the motion of A ; part of the force of A must 
 therefore be expended in overcoming the obstacle, that is to 
 say, in causing B to move with a velocity equal to its own. 
 But when the quantity of motion necessary for this purpose 
 has been communicated, B no longer opposes the motion of 
 A ; so that both bodies have the same velocity after the 
 shock. Now, since a body cannot impart force to another 
 without losing precisely an equal quantity itself, the sum of 
 the forces, or moments, must remain the same after as before 
 collision ; but it has just been shown that the velocities of 
 both bodies are the same after the shock ; therefore (this 
 momentum being measured by the product of the mass 
 into the velocity) the sum of the moments is distributed 
 betwen the two bodies in the proportion of their masses, 
 and the common velocity is found by dividing the sum 
 of the moments before the impact by the sum of their 
 masses. 
 
 Let us next consider the shock of two bodies moving in 
 opposite directions. If the forces by which they are ani- 
 mated are equal, they will destroy each other at the instant 
 of collision ; if they are not equal, the greater will destroy 
 the smaller, and the two bodies will then move in the di- 
 rection of that whose moment was the greater, and the two 
 moments will be equal to the difference of the moments 
 before the impact. In this case also the velocity after the 
 impact is the same for both bodies, and equal to the differ- 
 ence of the moments divided by the sum of the masses, 
 and the remaining force is distributed between the two 
 bodies in proportion to their respective masses. 
 
 In the case of elastic bodies, the results are modified by 
 a new force being brought into action. Let an ivory ball A 
 strike against another B advancing in the same direction 
 but with a less velocity. The first effect of the collision is 
 to produce a momentary union of the two balls, and to 
 compress or flatten the impinging surfaces ; the next is the 
 effort of the bodies to recover their figure, and when the 
 elasticity is perfect (as it is here supposed to be) the com- 
 pressed surfaces are restored with a force exactly equal to 
 that by which they were displaced. This restoring force 
 produced by the elasticity is called the recoil, and its effect 
 is to double precisely the effect that would be produced if 
 the bodies were non-elastic. When the balls A and B come 
 into closest union, they take a common velocity, A losing 
 exactly as much as B gains. But in recovering their 
 figure, the loss of A's velocity and the gain of B's velocity 
 are each doubled. In order, therefore, to obtain the actual 
 velocities of the impact, we may estimate the velocities 
 that would be gained or lost by each if non-elastic, and add 
 or subtract this to or from the common velocity they would 
 have upon the same hypothesis. 
 
 If the masses of the two bodies are equal, their velocities 
 are interchanged. If only one of the equal bodies be in 
 motion, it will come to rest after the impact, and the other 
 will move forward in the direction in which the first was 
 moving, and with the same velocity : if they move in op- 
 posite directions, each will return in the contrary direction 
 with the velocity the other had. Whether the bodies be 
 equal or unequal, the difference of their velocities, or their 
 relative velocity, will be the same in amount both before 
 and after the impact. 
 
 A result of this theory, which at first sight appears para- 
 doxical, is, that when several elastic bodies increasing in 
 magnitude are arranged in the same straight line, touching 
 each other, and one smaller than the least of them strikes 
 against the least, each will in turn be reflected, and com- 
 municate to the succeeding one a greater quantity of mo- 
 tion than it has itself. This increase of momentum is 
 greatest when the masses of the bodies increase in geome- 
 trical progression. 
 
 In all cases of collision the state of the centre of gravity, 
 whether at rest or in motion, remains the same after the 
 impact as before. If it was at rest, it remains in that 
 state ; and if it was in motion, it continues to move in the 
 same direction and with the same velocity, notwithstand- 
 ing the impact. This is the case both in respect of non- 
 elastic and elastic bodies ; and it is a constant law in what- 
 ever manner the bodies act on each other, and whatever be 
 their respective natures. (For a full and elementary ex- 
 planation of this subject, see MaclaurMs Account of New- 
 ton's Prhicipia.)
 
 COLLUM. 
 
 CO'LLUM. (Lat. collum, the neck.) That part of the 
 axis of a plant whence the stem and root diverge. In the 
 beginning it is a space which there is no difficulty in dis- 
 tinguishing, so long as the embryo or young plant has not 
 undergone any considerable change ; but in the process of 
 time it is externally obliterated, so as to become a mere 
 matter of theory. 
 
 COLLUTOR1UM. (Lat. colluo, / wash, and so, the 
 mouth.) A lotion forrincins the mouth. 
 
 COLLY'RIUM. (Gr. kio\vo>, I cherk, and povs, a de- 
 fluxion.) Lotions intended to check inordinate dis- 
 charges. The term is now exclusively applied to eye- 
 wafers. 
 
 CO'LOBUS. (Gr. koXo/?oj, mutilated.) A genus of 
 long-tailed Quadrumanes, or monkeys ; so called be- 
 cause the fore hands are deficient in, and, as it were, 
 mutilated of, a thumb. In this respect the Colobi, which 
 are exclusively limited to the African continent, resemble 
 the spider-monkeys (Ateles) of South America: but they 
 have not a prehensile tail to compensate for the imper- 
 fection of the hands; their long caudal appendage is, on 
 the contrary, terminated by a tuft of hairs. The Culobi 
 differ also from the Ateles in having five molar teeth in- 
 stead of six on each side of each jaw, and in having cheek- 
 pouches. 
 
 CO'LOCYNTH. (Gr. koi\ov, the colon, and kivioi, 1 
 move.) This term is applied in the Materia Medica to 
 the pith of bitter apple, the fruit of the Cucumti co- 
 locynlhis, which is violently purgative. It is imported 
 dried, and generally peeled, from Turkey: it is rarely 
 used alone ; but one of the most valuable purgatives is 
 the compound extract of colorynth, which is a combina- 
 tion of this drug with aloes, scammony, cardamum seeds, 
 and soap. 
 
 COLOCY'NTIN. The bitter purging principle of the 
 colocynlli . 
 
 CO'LON. (Gr.) This name is given to the greater 
 part of the large intestines : the colon passes upwards to- 
 wards the liver, funning the transverse arch which de- 
 scends upon the left side, forming its sigmoid flexure ; 
 entering the pelvis, it passes into the rectum. 
 
 Colon. In Grammar. See. Punctuation. 
 
 COLONNA'DE. (Lat. columna.) In Architecture, a 
 series of columns placed at certain intervals, called inter- 
 columniations, from each other, varying according to the 
 rules of art and the order employed. 
 
 COLONEL. The commander of a regiment or battal- 
 ion of troops : Vie is the highest in rank of field officers, and 
 immediately subordinate lo a general of division. The 
 word is of uncertain origin. The lieutenant-colonel is im- 
 mediately under the colonel, assisting in his duties, and 
 beins his substitute when required. 
 
 COLONY. (Gr. airoiKia, Laf. colonia.) Colonies are 
 establishments formed in foreign countries by bodies of 
 men who voluntarily emigrate from, or are forcibly sent 
 abroad by, their mother country. Various motives have, 
 at different periods, led to the formation of colonies. 
 Sometimes, as in the case of most of the Greek colonies 
 of antiquity, they were formed by citizens driven from 
 their native country by the violence of political factions ; 
 sometimes, as in the case of the Roman colonies, they 
 were formed for the purpose of bridling subjugated pro- 
 vinces: the latter, indeed, were a species of camps or 
 military stations, forming, as it were, the advanced posts 
 of that mighty army which had its head-quarters at Rome : 
 and sometimes, again, as in the case of the Phoenician 
 colonies, and of most of those established in modern 
 times, they have been formed for commercial purposes, 
 or in the view of enriching the mother country, by open- 
 ing new markets from which she might, if she chose, 
 exclude foreigners. 
 
 The nature of the connection that has existed between 
 colonies and their mother countries has been exceedingly 
 various. Most of the Greek colonies being founded by 
 private adventurers, who received no assistance from the 
 government of the parent state, were really independent ; 
 the duty which they owed to their metropolis being such 
 only as is due to kinsmen and friends, and not that due by 
 subjects to their rulers. The Roman colonies, on the 
 other hand, being founded by the state for an important 
 political purpose, always maintained an intimate connec- 
 tion with, and dependence upon, Rome. They formed 
 the great bulwarks of the empire ; nor was the conquest of 
 any province ever supposed to be completed till colonies 
 had been established in it, and roads had rendered it ac- 
 cessible to the legions. The colonies established for com- 
 mercial purposes have generally been subjected to such 
 regulations as were deemed most for the advantage of the 
 parent state. Their growth has thus in many instances 
 been retarded ; and they have been rendered less service- 
 able to their founders than they would have been had they 
 been treated with greater liberality. 
 
 The very narrow limits within which this article must 
 be compressed make it necessary that we should limit 
 249 
 
 COLONY. 
 
 our statements to a few remarks, having more particular 
 reference to those questions of colonial policy most inter- 
 esting lo the English reader. 
 
 The advantages supposed to result from that monopoly 
 of the colony trade which all modern countries possessed 
 of colonies have endeavoured to enforce, seem to be alto- 
 gether imaginary. The ties of kindred, and the identity of 
 language, customs, and manners, give the merchants of 
 the mother country great advantages, and enable them, 
 provided their goods be about as cheap as those of others, 
 to supply the colonial markets in preference to every one 
 else. But all attempts to establish a monopoly in favour 
 of the mother country, by prohibiting the importation of 
 the produce of other nations into the colony, are necessa- 
 rily either useless or prejudicial, not merely to its inter- 
 ests, but even to those of the mother country . If the latter 
 can produce the articles required by the colony as cheap 
 or cheaper than others, she will command the supply of 
 the colonial markets, without any interference whatever; 
 and if she cannot do this, unless by excluding the cheaper 
 products of others, then it is plain the goods sent to the 
 colony can only be produced by diverting a portion of the 
 capital and industry of the mother country into compara- 
 tively disadvantageous channels, or into businesses in 
 which she is excelled by others : it is plain, too, that no 
 artificial monopolies can be maintained, except in the case 
 of small and easily guarded colonies. The British mer- 
 chants have at present the supply of by far the greater 
 part of the manufactured goods required by her North 
 American possessions ; because the goods they send to 
 them are generally cheaper than those sent thereby other 
 parties. But were competitors capable of underselling 
 her merchants to appear in the field, they would have very 
 little difficulty indeed in depriving them of these markets. 
 Cheap goods are sure to make their way through every 
 barrier ; and the frontier of her North American colonies 
 is so very extensive, and the impossibility of guarding it so 
 obvious, that the smallest saving in point of expense 
 would occasion the clandestine introduction of prohibited 
 goods in unlimited quantities. In such a case custom- 
 house enactments are good for nothing. All the tyran- 
 nical regulations and sanguinary punishments of Spain 
 and Portugal were unable to prevent their transatlantic 
 possessions being deluged with the prohibited commodi- 
 ties of Britain, France, and Germany. The ability to sup- 
 ply it with comparatively cheap goods is the only means 
 by which it is possible to preserve any market. It is this 
 that secures for England at this moment the same superi- 
 ority in the markets of the United States that she possessed 
 in them when they were her dependencies; and the mo- 
 ment we lose this advantage we shall not merely lose their 
 market, but, with it, the markets of all our colonies. 
 Nothing, therefore, can in reality be more futile than lo 
 found colonies, or to retain them in a state of unwilling 
 dependency, in the view of monopolising their trade. If 
 we can undersell others, we shall command their markets 
 without any sort of interference ; and if we cannot do 
 this, the attempt to force upon them comparatively dear 
 goods is sure to be defeated ; or if, unhappily, it should 
 have a partial success, it would be injurious alike to the 
 mother country and the colony. 
 
 A colony might be advantageous, and might contribute 
 to increase the wealth of the mother country, if it yielded 
 a greater revenue than was required for its government 
 and defence : but this is rarely the case. Most colonies 
 require a heavy outlay on Iheir first foundation ; and when 
 they attain to any considerable importance, all attempts to 
 make them contribute directly to increase the income of 
 the mother country are very apt to excite discontent, and 
 probably even rebellion: an unfortunate attempt of this 
 sort led, in fact, to the American war. To obviate all 
 chance of any such disastrous event occurring in future, 
 we have distinctly renounced all pretensions to make our 
 colonies contribute any thing, unless it be towards defray- 
 ing the expense of their local government and militia. All 
 the troops and squadrons required for their protection and 
 security are furnished gratuitously by England ; and, in- 
 stead of deriving any revenue from our colonial posses- 
 sions, they cost us annually, in time of peace, a direct 
 outlay of about 2.500,000/. (Official Account, 16th of Au- 
 gust, 1836.) In time of war, or when dissatisfaction pre- 
 vails in any important colony, the direct outlay may be 
 twice or three times as great. 
 
 A colony may, however, be advantageous in a pecuniary 
 point of view, even when it costs the mother country a 
 considerable direct outlay, provided it afford great facili- 
 ties to individuals for making fortunes, with which to re- 
 turn to the mother country. A large sum is annually 
 brought in this way into England from India ; but our 
 colonial possessions are, in this respect, of little advantage. 
 Few, comparatively, of those individuals who acquire pro- 
 perty in the N. American colonies return to England; and 
 but few situations under the colonial government give the 
 means of acquiring fortunes. 
 P*
 
 COLONY. 
 
 If a colony enjoy a natural monopoly of any product or 
 article in extensive demand, it is supposed that, by laying 
 a heavy duly on its exporiation, a considerable advantage 
 may be made to accrue to the mother country : but this 
 does not really appear to be the case. Ceylon possesses a 
 monopoly of the trade in cinnamon; but the enormously 
 high duty (3s. per lb.) laid on the article when exported has 
 restricted the demand for it to the narrowest limits, and 
 reduced its culture, and the revenue derived from it, to a 
 comparatively trifling amount. Most of our readers have 
 no doubt heard of the immense profits made by the Dutch 
 on spices, of which the possession of the Moluccas gave 
 them the monopoly. But these high profits were wholly a 
 consequence of the limitation of the quantity sold ; and to 
 prevent a fall of price by an increase of the supply brought 
 to market, the Dutch occasionally destroyed a portion of 
 the produce ! There is no longer, however, so much even 
 as the shadow of a doubt that they were heavy losers by 
 this oppressive and shortsighted policy. The sales were 
 confined to an amount hardly sufficient to employ the cap- 
 ital even of a single merchant ; and the total sum realized 
 by the government is not supposed to have amounted to 
 the tenth part of what it would have risen to had the trade 
 been left free, under a moderate duty. 
 
 When a nation derives the whole or any considerable 
 portion of any important article from abroad, it is necessar- 
 ily exposed, especially when the supply comes from one or 
 a few foreign countries, to the risk of more or less incon- 
 venience, from an interruption of the friendly intercourse 
 subsisting with such countries. When such important ar- 
 ticles are furnished by a colony, their supply is compara- 
 tively secure ; and, in such cases, colonial possessions may 
 be very valuable. At this moment any interruption of the 
 trade between England and the United States would most 
 probably, by interfering with the supply of raw cotton, be 
 productive of the most calamitous results ; and there can 
 be no doubt that if the whole, or any considerable part of 
 the supply of cotton, were derived from a colony, it would 
 be an important advantage. This, however, is not the case. 
 It is not improbable but that, at some future period, India 
 may yield abundant, supplies of cotton ; but at present the 
 cotton she sends to Europe is neither considerable in 
 amount nor of good quality. 
 
 It was long supposed that the West Indian colonies were 
 peculiarly valuable from their furnishing Great Britain with 
 a secure and abundant supply of sugar, an article now be- 
 come a necessary of life, and yielding a very large revenue. 
 We doubt, however, whether there was ever any good 
 foundation for such an opinion ; but, whatever may have 
 been the case formerly, there is none now. Sugar is not 
 produced iti one or a few countries only ; but is a staple 
 product of almost all intertropical regions: and it is now 
 largely produced even in the northern parts of Europe. 
 (See Sugar.) So far, indeed, is it from being true that Eng- 
 land is indebted to her West Indian colonies for abundant 
 supplies of sugar, that the fact is nearly the reverse Foreign 
 sugar is, and has long been, excluded from her markets by 
 oppressive discriminating duties ; and were these repealed, 
 and the duties on all sugars placed on the same level, it is 
 exceedingly doubtful whether she would continue to de- 
 rive any considerable portion of her supplies of sugar from 
 her sugar colonies in the west. 
 
 Great stress is frequently laid on the advantage of colo- 
 nies established in unoccupied countries, in affording a 
 field for the ready and beneficial employment of the sur- 
 plus or unemployed population that occasionally abounds 
 in old settled and densely peopled countries; neither can 
 there be a doubt that this is of very material importance. 
 But it is pretty obvious that, having founded a colony, it is 
 unnecessary to retain it in a state of dependence if it wish 
 to become free, to realize the advantage referred to. La- 
 bour, in such colonies, is always in great demand, and a 
 regard for their own interests always disposes the colonists 
 to give every fair facility to the immigration of labourers. 
 Notwithstanding the advantages occasionally held out by 
 the British government to encourage emigration to her 
 North American colonies, the great current of emigration 
 has always been directed to the United Slates; and, even 
 of the emigrants that sail from Great Britain to Canada, 
 scarcely a fourth part remain in the province, but imme- 
 diately leave it for the contiguousstat.es of the Union. It is 
 idle, therefore, to attempt to excuse the policy of attempt- 
 ing to retain colonies in a state of reluctant dependence on 
 the mother country, on pretence of their affording a profit- 
 able outlet for poor or unemployed persons. The interest 
 of the settlers will keep this outlet open, and will secure 
 every real advantage that could, in this respect, be derived 
 from the most complete colonial domination. 
 
 We beg, however, that it may not be supposed, from any 
 thing now stated, that we regard the foundation of colonies 
 as inexpedient; on the contrary, their establishment has 
 been highly advantageous to that as it has been to most old 
 settled countries in all ages. It is not their foundation, pro- 
 vided they be placed in proper situations and judiciously 
 
 managed, but to the needless interference with their 
 government, the trammels imposed on their industry, the 
 prevention of their free intercourse with other people, and 
 the attempt to govern them after they are able and deter- 
 mined to govern themselves, that we object. A nation that 
 founds a colony in an unoccupied country, or in a country 
 occupied only by savages, extends by so doing the empire 
 of civilization to, it may be, an indefinite degree. Such 
 colony not only forms a desirable outlet for the re- 
 dundant or unemployed population of the mother coun- 
 try, but it forms a new and rapidly increasing market 
 for its products and those of other countries. No one 
 can doubt that Europe has been signally benefitted by the 
 discovery and civilization of America ; but the advantages 
 thence arising, how great soever, would have been incom- 
 parably greater, but for the. various impolitic regulations 
 imposed by the mother states on their colonies. The 
 British colonies, though fettered in various ways, enjoyed 
 a much greater degree of freedom than those of any other 
 country ; and, in consequence, their progress, both before 
 and since the a?ra of their independence, has been pro- 
 portionally rapid. The colonies of Spain, on the other 
 hand, though occupying the finest provinces, had their 
 progress thwarted by the blind jealousy and short-sighted 
 rapacity of the mother country, and were kept as much 
 as possible in a slate of pupilage. The government 
 was entirely administered by natives of Old Spain ; the 
 colonists were carefully excluded from every office of 
 power and emolument; one colony was prohibited from 
 trading with another ; ami had foreigners presumed to set- 
 tle amongst them, they would have been liable to capital 
 punishment. In consequence their progress was very slow ; 
 and when at length they succeeded in throwing off the 
 galling yoke of the mother country, they became, from 
 their inexperience in self-government, a prey to all sorts 
 of disorders. It is very questionable whether her South 
 American colonies were of the least service to Spain ; and 
 it is, at all events, certain that they have not conferred 
 either on her or on other countries a tenth part of the be- 
 nefit they would have done had they been treated with 
 greater liberality, and permitted freely to avail themselves 
 of all the advantages of their situation. 
 
 The American war seems to have decided, in so far as 
 experience can decide any thing, the question as to the 
 policy of retaining colonies in a state of dependency that 
 are determined to govern themselves. No colonies were 
 ever reckoned half so valuable as those which now form 
 the republic of the United States ; and it was generally sup- 
 posed that their emancipation would be decisive of the 
 fate of Britain, — that her sun would then set, and forever! 
 But has Great Britain really lost any tiling by that event 1 
 Has her trade, her wealth, or her power, been in any de- 
 gree impaired by the independence of the United Slates? 
 The reverse is distinctly and completely the fact. The no- 
 tion that Great Britain could have continued for any length 
 of time to retain such rapidly growing countries in a state 
 of dependence, or that we could have been advantageously 
 united in a federal union with vast regions situated in 
 another hemisphere, is too wild and extravagant to require 
 examination. But notwithstanding its independence Eng- 
 land has continued, and will necessarily continue in all time 
 to come, to reap all the advantage she can reasonably 
 claim as founder of this mighty empire in the wilderness. 
 Englishmen will necessarily always command a preference 
 in the American markets. And while England is disen- 
 cumbered of the impossible task and enormous expense 
 attending the uovernment and defence of all but boundless 
 countries 3,000 miles distant, her intercourse with them 
 grows with their growth ; and she is as much benefitted and 
 enriched by them as she would have been had they con- 
 tinued in the same state of dependency as Australia or the 
 Cane of Good Hope. 
 
 The previous remarks are not, of course, meant to apply 
 to such dependencies as Malta or Gibraltar. These are 
 not colonies, but naval stations, necessary for the accom- 
 modation of British ships of war and merchantmen, and 
 serving also as secure depots for her produce. Every 
 commercial and maritime nation that takes a just view of 
 its real interests will always take care to possess itself of 
 some such strongholds. 
 
 Neither are the previous remarks meant to apply to the 
 conquest and occupation of foreign countries, in the view 
 of increasing national opulence and power. Such policy 
 may be either good or bad, according to the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances affecting each particular case. Our remarks 
 apply only to colonies strictly so called ; that is, to the case 
 of foreign territories, peopled principally or wholly by emi- 
 grants, or by the descendants of emigrants, from the mother 
 country, and not held as a mere military station. 
 
 Sometimes, in order to carry on a trade with a colony, it 
 is necessary lo give its products peculiar advantages in the 
 markets of the mother country ; and consequently at the 
 expense and to the prejudice of the consumers in the latter. 
 Werather think that no small portion of the trade of England
 
 COLONY. 
 
 with the West Indies is forced in this way ; and that were 
 the discriminating duties on foreign sugar abolished, she 
 would derive a considerable part of her supplies from other 
 quarters. But whatever may be the case with the West 
 India trade, this, at all events, is the case with the Canada 
 trade. It employs a large number of ships and seamen, 
 and seems to a superficial observer highly valuable. In 
 truth and reality, however, it is very much the reverse. 
 Two-thirds and more of this trade is forced and fictitious; 
 originating in the oppressive discriminating duty of 45s. a 
 load imposed on timber from the north of Europe, over 
 and above what is imposed on that brought from a British 
 settlement in North A'merica ! This obliges her to resort to 
 Canada, whence she imports an inferior article at a compa- 
 ratively high price. The disadvantages of this impolitic 
 system are numerous and glaring. To a manufacturing 
 country, having a great mercantile and warlike navy, timber 
 is indispensable ; and yet, instead of supplying herself 
 with it where it may be found best and cheapest, she loads 
 the superior and cheaper article with an exorbitant duty ; and 
 thus does the most she can to make her houses and ships 
 be built and her machinery constructed of what is inferior 
 anil dear! But the mischief does not stop here. By re- 
 fusing to import the timber of the north of Europe, she 
 proportionally limits the power of the Russians, Prussians, 
 (Swedes, and Norwegians to buy her manufaclured goods ; 
 while, by forcing the importation of limber from Canada, 
 she withdraws the attention ol its inhabitants from the most 
 profitable employment they can carry on,— that is, from 
 the cultivation of the soil, — and make them waste their 
 energies in comparatively disadvantageous pursuits ! Such, 
 either in a less or a greater degree, is the uniform result 
 of all attempts to interfere with the natural order of things, 
 and to force a trade, whether with a colony or a foreign 
 country matters not, that would not otherwise be carried on. 
 
 But the existing slate of her relations with Canada affords 
 other matter for serious, and not very pleasant reflection : 
 that colony is not, and never has been, of advantage to 
 England. Were the duties on Canmla limber reduced to 
 the same level as those on Baltic timber, we question whe- 
 ther it would be found to possess a single article that could 
 be advantageously exported to Great Britain or that she 
 might not buy cheaper and better elsewhere. Itnodoubl 
 affords an outlet for emigrants, and is in so far useful ; but 
 in all other respects its occupation has always been, and 
 will nmst probably continue to be, productive of little ex- 
 cept hiss. And even as re ipects emigration, it is, as already 
 explained, by no means clear that tin: field would be at all 
 narrowed by Canada becoming independent, or connei i< d 
 with the United Slates. 
 
 But useless as Canada has been to England in time past, 
 the connection with it will, in all probability, become much 
 more onerous in time lo come. We shall not stop to in- 
 quire whether the Canadians have good grounds for the 
 dissatisfaction that prevails so generally amongst them. It 
 is enough to know that it exists ; and that nothing but the 
 presence of a large British army is able to maintain a 
 nominal ascendency in that province. While this state of 
 things cotitinues, the prosperity of the colony must be at a 
 stand ; emigration to it will cease or be greatly narrowed ; 
 and the distresses in which the settlers will be involved will 
 give additional strength to the parly wishing to break off 
 the connection with the mother country. The people of 
 Britain would do well to reflect dispassionately on the state 
 of the Canadian question. There are not, perhaps, a dozen 
 men of sense in the empire, who are not ready to admit 
 that in some ten or twenty years Canada will be independ- 
 ent, or be incorporated with the United States. But if so, 
 what should be the policy of England in the mean time 1 Is 
 she resolved to maintain an army ol 10,000 or 15,000 men in 
 Canada ?— to expend, directly and indirectly, some three or 
 four millions a year in preserving a mere nominal ascend- 
 ency in a colony her connection with which is really a loss? 
 If such be her determination, it may be doubted whether 
 she has profited much by the dear-bought experience af- 
 forded by the American war. National pride may prevent 
 her relinquishing this costly and barren dominion ; but 
 good sense, and the most obvious views of expediency, 
 would seem to suggest the policy of voluntarily anticipating 
 what there is every reason to think must in the end neces- 
 sarily happen, and of providing for the independence of 
 Canada under a system of friendly and mutually beneficial 
 relations. 
 
 The explanation given by Dr. Smith in the Wealth of 
 Notions (book iv. cap. 7.) of the causes of the rapid growth 
 and prosperity of colonies founded in advantageous situa- 
 tions, though impugned by Sismondi (Etudes sur V Econo 
 mie Politique, ii. cap. " Colonies") and others, seems to be 
 consistent alike with principle and historical evidence. 
 When a colony is founded in an uninhabited or but thinly 
 peopled district, each colonist getsa large extent of the best 
 land ; he has no rent, and but few if any taxes to pay ; and 
 being able to procure supplies of manufactured articles 
 251 
 
 from the mother country, or one equally advanced, lie 
 applies all his energies to agriculture, which under the cir- 
 cumstances is most productive. The demand for labour 
 in such colonies is very great; for the high rate of wages, 
 combined with the cheapness of the land, speedily changes 
 the labourers into landlords, who in their turn become the 
 employers of fresh labourers. In consequence, population 
 and wealth advance with unusual rapidity ; and in some 
 instances, as in that of the United States, they have con- 
 tinued for a lengthened period to go on doubling every 
 twenty or five-and-twenty years ! 
 
 But in stating that the facility of obtaining supplies offer- 
 tile and unoccupied land is the principal cause of the rapid 
 progress of new colonies, it is not meant to affirm that it is 
 the only cause. An advantageous situation for the prose- 
 cution of commercial pursuits, and great superiority in 
 navigation, may enable a colony to advance at its outset, 
 though without any considerable extent of territory, with 
 even more rapidity than if it enjoyed an unlimited com- 
 mand of fertile land. This seems to have been the princi- 
 pal cause of the speedy extension of the Greek colonies in 
 antiquity. The most famous of these, as Syracuse and 
 Agrigentum in Sicily, Tarentum and Locri in Italy, and 
 Ephesusand Miletus in Asia Minor, were amongst the piin- 
 cipal emporia of the ancient world. They were all sea-port 
 towns; were founded in the most advantageous situations 
 for carrying on an extensive commerce, and owed, in fact, 
 their wealth and greatness mainly to trade and navigation. 
 Owing, however, to the limited extent of their territorial 
 acquisitions, a consequence partly of the difficulty of sub- 
 duing the indigenous population, and partly of the neigh- 
 bourhood of other colonies founded by rival states, their 
 power rested on no very broad or solid foundation ; so that 
 the fall of the capital city and the annihilation of the state 
 were all but synonymous. 
 
 The colonies founded in modern times have been placed 
 under very different circumstances. The countries in which 
 they were planted were either so very thinly inhabited as 
 to be almost deserts, or they were occupied by a feeble and 
 inferior race unable to oppose any effectual obstacle to the 
 diffusion of the colonists; so that the latter easily spread 
 themselves over a large extent of country, and have had in 
 general more ot an agricultural than of a commercial cha- 
 racter, lint while this has given them greater strength, it 
 has not, alter the difficulties attendant on their first estab- 
 lishment were got over, in any degree impeded their pro- 
 gress, but the contrary. The most flourishing of the colo- 
 niesof antiquity will not bear to be compared in respect 
 oi rapidity of growth, magnitude and power, with the United 
 Slates; and the slower progress of the Spanish and Portu- 
 guese colonies is not owing to the colonists having distri- 
 buted themselves over a wide extent ol country, but to the 
 oppressive interference of ihe mother country with their 
 domestic arrangements, and Ihe vexatious restrictions laid 
 on their intercourse with foreigners. 
 
 A \erv great degree of equality prevailed among the free 
 settlers in Creek colonies; and in consequence ihe lands 
 acquired by the colonists were distributed amongst them in 
 nearly equal portions. But in modern times it is very dif- 
 ferent. Owing to the vast extent and almost desert slate of 
 the countries in which Ihey have been principally planted, 
 the poorest individuals have generally succeeded in ac- 
 quiring slips of land ; while the superior class of colonists, 
 or those who had influence with the colonial government, 
 or with that of the mother country, frequently succeeded 
 in getting grants of vast tracts of land, not in the view of 
 cultivating, but of holding them till in consequence of the 
 increase of population in the vicinity they had acquired a 
 considerable value. These large reserves, by interrupting 
 the communications between different parts of the colony, 
 and increasing the difficulty and cost of conveyance, have 
 frequently proved not a little injurious to its interests. But 
 there are various ways in which an abuse of this sort might 
 be obviated ; and perhaps the best would be to apportion 
 the land according to the available capital of the settlers, it 
 being stipulated that no individual should receive above a 
 certain number of acres, and that it should revert back to 
 the public unless certain improvements were effected upon 
 it within a specified time alter the grant was made. 
 
 But not satisfied with attempting to put down an abuse of 
 this sort, we are now told that all the difficulties incident to 
 colonization have originated in the too great dispersion of 
 Ihe colonists; and that to obviate them, and to ensure to 
 all new colonies the acme of prosperity, we have merely 
 to compel the colonists to keep close togeiher by exacting 
 a high price for the surrounding waste or unoccupied land; 
 in other words, by making the colony as like an old settled 
 country as possible ! Perhaps such a crude project was 
 hardly worth notice. If, on the one hand, the price set on 
 the waste land were inconsiderable, it would not prevent 
 the purchase of large tracts of land on speculation, and the 
 entailing on the colony all the disadvantages that have re- 
 sulted from the making of injudicious grants ; and if, on 
 1 the other hand, the price demanded for the land were
 
 COLOPHON. 
 
 pretty high, it would go far to oppose an insuperable ob- 
 stacle to the progress of the colony. Rich men do not 
 leave their native country to expose themselves to the in- 
 conveniences and hardships attending the establishment 
 of new settlements in the wilderness. This, if it be done 
 at all, must be done in time to come as in time past, by 
 individuals in straitened circumstances, and anxious to 
 improve their fortunes. But to exact a high or consider- 
 able price lor land from such persons would, by sweeping 
 away the whole or a considerable portion of their capital, 
 deprive them of the means of clearing and cultivating the 
 land, and proportionally retard their progress and that of 
 the colony. The plan of letting lands by fine is admitted 
 by every one who knows any thing of agriculture to be one 
 of the worst that can be devised; and this colonization 
 project is bottomed on the same principle, and will no 
 doubt be as pernicious. 
 
 It is said that in consequence of the exaction of a price 
 for the land, and the concentration of the colonists, their 
 employments, being more combined and divided, will be 
 prosecuted with a great deal more success than at present. 
 All this, however, proceeds on the false and exploded as- 
 sumption that the colonists are not, like other individuals, 
 the best judges of what is for their own advantage. Dr. 
 Smith says truly that it is the highest impertinence for 
 kings and ministers to attempt to direct private people how 
 they should employ their capitals. But it is, if possible, a 
 still greater impertinence to attempt to direct them where 
 they shall employ them. A regard to their own interest 
 will draw people sufficiently together; and to enact regu- 
 lations in the view of concentrating them still more, is in 
 every respect as contradictory and absurd as it would be 
 to set about increasing the public wealth by regulating the 
 sort of employments to be carried on, and the countries 
 with which, and the commodities in which, to deal. 
 
 We have already sufficiently explained the principal 
 cause of the rapid progress made by some of the Greek 
 colonies : it should, however, be borne in mind that these 
 colonies had great numbers of slaves, who carried on most 
 part of the more common employments. Hence, in Sy- 
 racuse or Tarentum, every rich individual might have as 
 many obsequious servants as he pleased, and all sorts of 
 luxurious accommodations were to be had in the greatest 
 profusion. But in those modern colonies where slavery 
 is abolished, the different ranks and orders of men are 
 more nearly assimilated, less by the depression of the rich 
 than by the elevation of the poor. What is wanted in re- 
 finement and attention is far more than compensated by 
 the well-being and comfort of the lower classes. 
 
 It is a part of this new project, on the supposed excel- 
 lence of which much stress' is laid, that the sums got by 
 the sale of lands in the colony are to be expended in de- 
 fraying the expense attending the conveyance thither of 
 labourers. This is a species of bait held out to tempt capi- 
 talists to buy Und, by making them believe that though 
 land be artificially dear, labour will be artificially cheap, 
 and that on the whole they will be very well off! This, 
 however, is merely attempting to repair an injury done 
 the capitalists, by inflicting a still more serious injury on 
 the labourers. In a colony where a large portion of the 
 capital is swallowed up in the purchase of land, the de- 
 mand for labour must be comparatively limited; and this 
 limited market is to be glutted by throwing upon it crowds 
 of paupers transported gratis from England ! We say 
 crowds of paupers; for few labourers, aware of the facts 
 of the case, who can afford to pay for a passage to the 
 United States, will voluntarily go to a colony where land 
 is to be artificially raised to a high price, and labour artifi- 
 cially reduced. The whole scheme seems, in fact, to be 
 little else than a tissue of delusions and contradictions, 
 and it says little for the discernment of the public that it 
 should have attracted any notice. 
 
 It is true that the Americans sell their unoccupied lands ; 
 but they sell the richest and finest lands in the valley of 
 the Mississippi at $•]$■ an acre, whereas Great Britain 
 exacts 5s. an acre for the worst land at the antipodes, or in 
 that terra incognita called Southern Australia ! If these 
 regulations be intended to divert the current of voluntary 
 emigration from her own colonies to the United States, 
 they do honour to the sagacity of those by whom they 
 were contrived, and there is not a word to be said against 
 them ; but. in all other respects they seem to be as impolitic 
 and absurd as can well be imagined. (For further informa- 
 tion on this important subject, see St. Croix, de I'Etat et 
 du Sort des Anciennes Colonies ; the art. "Colony" in the 
 Encyclopaedia Britannica; and M'Cviloch's Commercial 
 Dictionary, and Edition of the Wealth of Nations.) 
 
 CO'LOPHON. In Bibliography, the postscript con- 
 tained in the last sheet of an early printed work (before 
 the introduction of title-pages,) containing the printer's 
 name, date, Alc, is so termed; from a fanciful allusion to 
 a Greek satirical proverb, in which the people of Colo- 
 phon, in Asia Minor, are reproached with being always the 
 hindmost. 
 
 252 
 
 COLUMBA. 
 
 COLO'PHONITE. A variety of garnet of a resinous 
 fracture. 
 
 COLO'PHONY. (Gr. KoAu^wixa, the city whence it 
 was first brought.) The dark-coloured resin which re- 
 mains after the distillation of oil of turpentine. 
 
 COLO'SSAL. (From Colossus, a very large statue at 
 Rhodes.) In the Fine Arts, a term applied to any work 
 of art remarkable for its extraordinary dimensions. It is, 
 however, more applied to works in sculpture than in the 
 other arts. It seems probable that colossal statues had 
 their origin from the attempt to astonish by size at a period 
 when the science of proportion and that of imitation 
 were in their infancy. Colossal statues of the divinities 
 were common both in Asia and Egypt. By the descrip- 
 tion of the palace or temple attributed to Semiramis it 
 abounded with colossal statues, among which was one of 
 Jupiter forty feet in height. In Babylon we learn from 
 Daniel that the palaces were filled with statues of an enor- 
 mous size, and in the present day the ruins of India pre- 
 sent us with statues of extraordinary dimensions. The 
 Egyptians surpassed the Asiatics in these gigantic monu- 
 ments, considering the beautiful finish they gave to such a 
 hard material as granite. Sesostris, according to history, 
 appears to have been the first who raised these colossal 
 masses, the statues of himself and his wife, which he 
 placed before the temple of Vulcan, having been thirty 
 cubits in height. This example was imitated by his suc- 
 cessors, as the ruins of Thebes sufficiently testify. The 
 taste for colossal statues prevailed also among the Greeks. 
 The statue of Apollo at Rhodes, executed by Cnares, a 
 disciple of Lysippus, has indeed given this species of art 
 the name it bears ; and the great Phidias contributed sev- 
 eral works of this order. The colossus at Tarentum by 
 Lysippe was no less than forty cubits in height; and the 
 difficulty of removing it, rather than the moderation of the 
 conqueror, prevented Fabius carrying it oif with the Her- 
 cules from the same city. But the proposition made to 
 Alexander of cutting Mount Athos into a statue, in one of 
 whose hands a city was to be placed capable of holding 
 ten thousand inhabitants, whilst in the other he was to 
 hold a vessel pouring out the torrents from the mountain, 
 exceeds all others in history. Before the time of the 
 Romans colossal statues were frequently executed in Italy. 
 The first monument of this nature set up in Rome was 
 one placed in the capitol by Sp. Carvilius after his victory 
 over the Samnites. This was succeeded in after-times by 
 many others, of which those now on Monte Cavallo, said 
 to be of Castor and Pollux, are well known to most per- 
 sons. In modern times the largest that has been erected 
 is that of S. Carlo Boromeo at Arona near Milan. This 
 gigantic statue is upwards of sixty feet in height. 
 
 COLOSSE'UM. See Amphitheatre. 
 
 COLO'STRUM. The first milk after delivery. A mix- 
 ture of turpentine with the yolk of egg. 
 
 CO'LOUR. (Lat. color.) In Painting, that quality of a 
 body which affects our sensation in regard to its hue. Lo- 
 cal colours are those which are natural to a particular object 
 in a picture, and by which it is distinguished from other 
 objects. Neutral colours are those in which the hue is 
 broken by partaking of the reflected colours of the objects 
 which surround them. Positive colours are those un- 
 broken by such accidents as affect neutral colours. (See 
 Field's Chromatography, 8vo. 1841 ; Goethe's Theory of 
 Colours, translated by Eastlake, 8vo. 1840.) 
 
 CO'LUBER. A Linnaean genus of serpents, including 
 all those in which the subcaudal scale-plates or scut* are 
 arranged in pairs. This extensive group are now subdi- 
 vided into numerous subgenera. 
 
 CO'LUM. A term, now obsolete, denoting that part of 
 the ovarium from which the ovula arise ; commonly called 
 the Placenta. 
 
 COLU'MBA. (Lat. columba, a pigeon.) A genus of 
 birds which form the transition from the Passerine to the 
 Gallinaceous orders. They fly well; live in a state of 
 monogamy ; build their nests in trees or in the crevices 
 and fissures of rocks ; and lay but few eggs ai a time, ge- 
 nerally two ; their tail is composed of twelve quill- feathers; 
 so far the Columboe resemble the Passerine birds. But. 
 their beak is vaulted ; the nostrils perforated in a broad 
 membranous space, and covered with a cartilaginous 
 scale, which even forms a bulge at the base of the bill ; 
 the sternum is deeply and doubly notched ; a dilated crop 
 is developed from both sides of the oesophagus; the sto- 
 mach is a true gizzard ; and the lower larynx has only a 
 single pair of muscles : all these important modifications 
 of structure indicate the close affinity of the Dove tribe to 
 the Gallinaceous birds. And it may be further remarked, 
 that although the pigeons lay but few eggs at each brood, 
 they breed frequently, and at short intervals. The male 
 assists his mate in the business of incubation and rearing 
 of the young, which are at first supported by a milky se- 
 cretion prepared from the slandular coat of the crop, and 
 regurgitated, together with the macerated grain. The Lin- 
 naean genus is subdivided into numerous but unimportant
 
 COLUMBA NOACHI. 
 
 subsenera, characterized by the greater or less length of 
 the Ml, and the proportions of the feet and tail. (See Na- 
 turalist's Library, vol. 9.) 
 
 COLU'MBA NOACHI. (Noah's Dove.) A small con- 
 stellation in the southern hemisphere, near the hinder feet 
 of Canis Major, formed by Halley. 
 
 COLUMBA'RIUM. (Lat.) In Architecture, a pigeon- 
 house or dovecote. From the similarity the arched and 
 square headed recesses in the walls of cemeteries, which 
 were made to receive the cinerary urns, were also called 
 Columbaria. 
 
 COLU'MBIA. A bitter crystalline principle, obtained 
 from colomba root. 
 
 COLU'MBIUM. A metal discovered by Mr. Hatchett in 
 1301, in a mineral from Massachusetts in North America. 
 It has since been found in a Swedish mineral called tanta- 
 lite, but its ores are extremely rare. It is acidifiable, and 
 hence the peroxide has been termed columbic acid. 
 
 COLUMELLIA'CEJE. (Columellia, one of the genera.) 
 An obscure natural order of shrubby or arborescent Exo- 
 gens, inhabiting Mexico and Peru ; distinguished from 
 Jasminaeeez, to which order they have been referred, by 
 having an adherent ovary, a perigynous disk, undivided 
 stigma, and inferior capsule with polyspermous cells. Of 
 its "true affinity little is known. 
 
 CO'LUMN. (Lat. columna.) In Architecture, a mem- 
 ber of an order whose section through the axis is usually a 
 frustum of an elongated parabola. It is circular on every 
 height of its plan, and consists of a base, shaft or body, and 
 a capital. Il differs from a pilaster, which is square on the 
 plan. The use of the column is to support the entablature. 
 See Order. 
 
 CO'LURES. In Astronomy, two imaginary great circles 
 of the celestial sphere intersecting in the poles of the 
 world ; one passing through the equinoctial points of Aries 
 and Libra, and the other through the solstitial points of 
 Cancer and Capricorn. For this reason the first is called 
 the equinoctial, and the second the xnlstitial colure. The 
 name Colure, derived from Gr. ko\ovoo( (cauda truncus, 
 imperfect), is supposed to have been given to those circles 
 because a portion of them is always concealed from new 
 under the horizon. But this is the case with every other 
 meridional circle as well as the colures. 
 
 CO'LZA, OIL OF. The oil expressed from the seed of 
 the Brassica oleracea, a species of cabbage. Colza oil is 
 much used in France and Belgium for burning in lamps 
 and other purposes. 
 
 CO'MA. (Gr. koui, hair.) The assemblage of branches 
 forming the head of a forest tree. Also used to denote 
 bracts that are empty and terminate an inflorescence, as in 
 Salcia horminum. 
 
 Coma. (Gr. xoyua, a stroon.) Lethargy, or unnatural 
 drowsiness ; whence the term comatose. 
 
 CO'MA BERENICES. (Literally Berenice's hair.) A 
 constellation of the northern hemisphere, between the tail 
 of the Lion and Bootes. See Constellation. 
 
 COMB, or COOMB. A measure of corn, commonly 
 four Winchester bushels. 
 
 Comb, or Combe, in the western counties of England, 
 signifies a small valley. The same ancient word of Celtic 
 derivation is used in Wales (cwm), and in the Alps be- 
 tween France and Piedmont (combe), in the same sense. 
 
 COMBINATION. (Lat. con, and binus, double.) In 
 Algebra, signifies the disposition or arrangement of any 
 number of objects or symbols in all possible ways. The 
 two principal problems that occur in the theory of combi- 
 nation are the following : — 1st, Any number of things with 
 the number in each combination being given ; to find the 
 number of combinations. 2d, To find the number of alter- 
 ations which any number of quantities can undergo when 
 combined in every possible variety of ways. In the solu- 
 tion of the first problem we have to consider that in com- 
 bining things by pairs, two things, a, b, admit of one combi- 
 nation only, viz. a b ; three things, a, b, c, admit of three, 
 viz. ab, ac, be ; four admit of six, viz. ab, ac, ad, be, bd, cd ; 
 five admit of ten, viz. ob, ac, ad, ae, be, bd, be, cd, ce, 
 de. Generally, if n denote the number of things, the 
 formula which expresses the number of all their combi- 
 . . n'ji—1) _. .. . . 5-4 
 
 nations by pairs is 
 
 1 • 2 
 
 Thus, if n = 5, then 
 
 = 10 ; if n = 6, then ° = 15 is the number of combina- 
 tions. * ' " 
 
 When the things are combined by threes, the number 
 of combinations that can be made out of a given number n, 
 
 is - X — o— X — o— ■ If combined by fours, the number 
 
 n n — 1 n — 2 n — 3 , 
 of combinations is - X -=- X -s- X -r-« an so on " 
 
 The number of combinations of all sorts that can be 
 
 made of n things (that is. by first taking the things one at a 
 
 time, then taking them by twos, then by threes, and so on) 
 
 is 2a — 1. Thus, all the possible combinations or selections 
 
 253 
 
 COMBINATION. 
 
 that can be made of three things are 2' — 1 = 7, viz. abc, ab, 
 ac, be, a, b, c. 
 
 The second problem requires us to take into account not 
 only the different combinations of the things themselves, 
 but also the order of their arrangement. Admitting this 
 element of variation, 
 
 Two things may be varied by pairs in four ways : thus, 
 aa. ab, ba, bb. 
 
 Three quantities, taken by pairs, may be varied nine 
 ways ; thus, aa, ab, ac, ba, ca, bb, be, cb, cc. 
 
 Generally the number of variations by pairs which can 
 be made of n tilings is equal to ?i s ; when taken by threes, 
 the number of variations is n z ; when by fours, the number 
 of changes is »*, and so on. Hence the whole number 
 of changes in n things, taken by ttcos, by threes, by fours, 
 and so on to n, is the sum of the geometrical series n + 
 1 
 
 n- + n 3 + n* + n»= 
 
 X n. Thus, if »=5, the 
 
 X 5=3905 ; and if n 
 
 n—\ 
 5 ! 
 
 number of possible changes is — 
 
 =24 (the number of letters in the alphabet), the theorem 
 gives 1391724286887252999425128493402200, a number con- 
 sisting of 34 digits. See Permutation. 
 
 Combination. In Law, may take place for the per- 
 formance of any unlawful act, and is punishable before 
 such act is executed. But the word has been commonly 
 used in a particular sense; viz. that of a combination 
 among workmen to demand wages at a particular rate ; 
 which was an unlawful act prior to the 6 G. 4. c. 129. re- 
 pealing former statutes. Workmen are now at perfect 
 liberty to form such combinations ; but penalties are enacted 
 by the statute against such as use threats or violence to- 
 wards those who refuse to join in them. And the offence 
 of administering unlawful oaths (whether preparatory to a 
 combination among workmen, or for any other purpose) 
 remains unaffected by the statute. 
 
 Combinations to raise wages, or " strikes," have formed 
 for the last fifty years the most embarrassing difficulties 
 with which British manufacturers, and the labouring 
 classes themselves, have had to contend ; and it can 
 scarcely be said that the repeal of the combination laws in 
 1824 has produced much effect either to encourage or di- 
 minish them. On this subject we shall make an extract 
 from a note, or rather a dissertation on " wages of labour," 
 in Mr. M'CuUocb's Edition of .Smith's Wealth of Nations, 
 in which the tendency of combinations to fetter commer- 
 cial operations is set lorth with a brevity and perspicuity no 
 where surpassed. 
 
 •■ The repeal of the act against voluntary combinations in 
 1824 was a just and wise measure. If any number of per- 
 sons choose to combine to refuse to work, except for a cer- 
 tain amount of wages, or for certain hours per day, or week, 
 to forbid them would seem to be a most oppressive inter- 
 ference with one of the distinguishing privileges of free 
 labourers. It was found too that practically the laws 
 against such combinations were good for nothing, and that, 
 instead of putting them down, they gave them a secret 
 character, and made them be easily perverted to other and 
 more objectionable objects. But when workmen have 
 power to refuse to employ themselves on terms of which 
 they disapprove, they have got all, in this respect, to which 
 they are entitled. None of them have any right to dictate 
 to their fellows ; or to say that because they object to cer- 
 tain stipulations in the terms offered by such and such em- 
 ployers, no one else shall be allowed to accept them. A 
 pretension of this sort strikes at the very foundations of so- 
 ciety ; and if tolerated might enable juntos of designing 
 individuals to indict irreparable injury, not only on the 
 employers of labour, hut on the manufacturers of the coun- 
 try, and consequently on the lasting interests of the labour- 
 ing class. We need not, however, be surprised to learn 
 that this is what numbers of workmen in various places 
 have attempted to do ; and that combinations have been 
 formed, not for the legitimate purpose of refusing to work 
 except on certain conditions, but for preventing other work- 
 people who may disapprove of, or not choose to insist on, 
 these conditions, accepting the terms offered by their em- 
 ployers. The measures taken to enforce this most unjus- 
 tifiable pretension have in some instances been of a very 
 obnoxious description, and have evinced the existence of 
 a very dangerous spirit. Nothing should be omitted that 
 may serve to root out and suppress combinations for such 
 illegal ends. They are completely subversive of that se- 
 curity essential to the prosecution of all industrious under- 
 takings; and are, at bottom, as hostile to the interests of 
 those that enter into them as they are to the interests of 
 every one else." (For further details on this subject, see 
 A. Smith, Book i. chap. 8. ; the Parliamentary Debates of 
 the Year 1824 ; Torrens on Wages and Combinations, Lon- 
 don, 1334 ; Edinb. Review, vol. 39. 59.) 
 
 CO'MBRETA'CE^:. (Combretum, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of shrubby or arborescent Exogens, all 
 living within the tropics, and placed indifferently in the
 
 COMBUSTION. 
 
 vicinity of Santalacea and Elozagnacem, or of Onagraeeai 
 and MyrtacetB. They all possess an astringency, and some 
 are employed in dyeing. Some are polypetalous, some 
 apetalous. They are especially distinguished by their con- 
 volute embryo. 
 
 COMBU'STION. This term is generally applied to the 
 phenomena exhibited by burning bodies, and which depend 
 upon the rapid union of the combustible with the oxygen 
 of the air. The evolution of heat and light which attends 
 this process announces intense chemical action ; and we 
 consequently find that combustion is always attended by 
 the production of new compounds. See Heat. 
 ^ CO'MEDY. (From the Greek words KMjj.n, village, and 
 diSri, a song ; because the original rude dialogues, intermix- 
 ed with singing and dancing, out of which the early Greek 
 comedy arose, were sung by rustic actors at village festi- 
 vals.) A species of drama, of which the characteristics 
 in modern usage are, that its incidents and language ap- 
 proach nearly to those of ordinary life ; that the termina- 
 tion of its intrigue is happy ; and that it is distinguished by 
 greater length and greater complexity of plot from the 
 lighter theatrical piece entitled a farce. The original Attic 
 comedy was a burlesque tragedy in lorm, in substance a 
 satire on individuals, and founded on political or other mat- 
 ters of public interest. The modern comedy is derived 
 from the new comedy of the Greeks, of which Menander 
 and Philemon were the principal authors, and which has 
 been preserved to us through the Latin imitations of Plau- 
 tus and Terence. See Drama. 
 
 CO'MET. (Gr. KouriTris, from ko/)i), hair.) The name 
 given to a numerous class of celestial bodies belonging to the 
 solar system. The luminous point which shines with great- 
 er or less brilliancy at the centre of a comet is called its nu- 
 cleus. The nucleus is generally surrounded by a nebulosity, 
 or luminous aurora. The train of light, of greater or less 
 extent, with which most comets are accompanied, is called 
 the tail. Formerly this name was only applied to the lu- 
 minous train when it fell behind the comet in its diurnal 
 motion ; if it preceded the comet, it was called the beard; 
 but this distinction has disappeared in modern works on 
 Astronomy. 
 
 The ancients gave the name of comet to every nebulous 
 star or meteor which was observed to pass successively 
 through different constellations. Modern astronomers ap- 
 ply the name, notwithstanding the etymology, to stars 
 which have neither nebulosity nor tail. According to them, 
 the distinctive characters of a comet are, 1st, that it pos- 
 sesses a proper motion ; 2d, that it traverses space in a 
 curve so elongated that in the distant parts of its orbit it 
 ceases to be visible. The proper motion distinguishes 
 comets from those new stars which occasionally appear, 
 and become extinguished without changing their place in 
 the sky. The elongated form of the orbit establishes a 
 distinction equally marked between the comets and the 
 planets. 
 
 Orbits of Comets. — Some of the ancient philosophers 
 regarded comets as simple meteors, engendered in the at- 
 mosphere. In order, however, to be convinced that they 
 occupy a far more remote situation, it is only necessary to 
 compare simultaneous observations at very distant places 
 on the earth. Tycho Brahe was the first who showed that 
 their true place is in the planetary regions : since the time 
 of Tycho, it has been discovered that they revolve about 
 the sun according to regular laws, similar to those which 
 govern the planetary motions ; and that their orbits are 
 very elongated ellipses, having the sun in one of their 
 foci. 
 
 Comets are only visible during the short time they are 
 near the perihelia of their orbits. But an elongated ellipse, 
 and a parabola having the same summit and focus, only 
 begin to diverge sensibly at a considerable distance from 
 the common summit. In order, therefore, to represent 
 the different positions of a comet during the short time it 
 is visible, we may in general without any inconvenience 
 substitute a parabola for an ellipse. If it happens that the 
 orbit cannot be represented by a parabola, we conclude 
 that the ellipse is not very elongated. Now, by means of 
 three positions of a comet seen from the earth," all the ele- 
 ments of its parabolic orbit may be determined. These 
 elements are, 1st, the line of the nodes; 2d, the inclina- 
 tion of the orbit to the plane of the ecliptic ; 3d, the peri- 
 helion distance, or least distance of the comet from the 
 sun, expressed in parts of the earth's semidiameter; 4th, 
 the instant of the passage through the perihelion ; 5th, the 
 longitude of the perihelion. When these elements are 
 known, the path of the comet is completely determined ; 
 and it is only necessary, in addition, to indicate the direc- 
 tion of the motion, that is to say, whether it is in the order 
 of the signs, or the contrary. 
 
 The proper motion of all the planets is performed from 
 west to east in the order of the signs; comets, on the 
 other hand, appear lo traverse the heavens in all directions 
 indifferently. Of 129 comets whose orbits have been de- 
 termined there are 68 whose motion is direct, and 61 whose 
 254 
 
 COMETS. 
 
 motion Is retrograde, and their orbits intersect the ecliptic 
 at all possible angles. Out of the whole number there are 
 only three whose returns to the sun in successive revolu- 
 tions have been verified by observation. These are, 1st, 
 Ilalley's comet, of which the period is about seventy-five 
 and a half years ; 2d, Encke's, whose period is about three 
 and one third years ; and 3d, Biela's, which performs its 
 revolution in six years and about eight months. 
 
 Halley's Comet. —Newton was the first, who submitted 
 the motion of a comet to calculation, and pointed out a 
 method of determining its orbit from three of its observed 
 positions. Halley applied Newton's method to a great 
 number of comets, of which the positions had been ob- 
 served ; and on comparing the resulting elements, per- 
 ceived that the comet which appeared in 1682 moved near- 
 ly in the same orbit as one which had been observed in 
 1607, and another which had been observed by Apian in 
 1531. As the interval between these successive apparitions 
 was nearly the same, namely, about seventy six years, the 
 identity of the three comets appeared to Halley to be es- 
 tablished, and he accordingly predicted its return in 1759. 
 Clairaut, a celebrated French mathematician, computed 
 the time at which it would arrive at its perihelion ; and his 
 results were confirmed by observation, the comet actually 
 passing its perihelion within about a month of the time 
 predicted. 
 
 The computation of the comet's return to its perihelion 
 is a work of great difficulty and labour; for in consequence 
 of the attractions of the larger planets, the path of the 
 comet is considerably changed at each revolution, and all 
 these changes or perturbations, as they are called, must be 
 computed from the theory of gravitation. 
 
 The reappearance of this comet in 1835 was expected 
 with great interest. Its perturbations in the previous revo- 
 lution were calculated by Damoisean and Pontecoulant in 
 France, and by Rosenberger in Germany, and the time of 
 its perihelion passage fixed for the month of November in 
 thai year. Damoisean's calculation gave the 4th, Ponte- 
 coulant's the 7th, and Rosenberger's the 3d of the month. 
 The comet, true to its appointed laws, became visible 
 about the end of August, in the part of the heavens pre- 
 dicted ; and it appears from the comparison of the numer- 
 ous observations that were made of it, to have actually 
 passed its perihelion on the 16th of November. The po- 
 sition of its orbit was such that it could scarcely be seen in 
 Europe after the passage, on account of its proximity to 
 the horizon; but it was then caught by the astronomers of 
 the southern hemisphere, and continued to be observed by 
 Sir John Herschelat the Cape of Good Hope till the end 
 of March, 1836, when its increasing distance from the earth 
 rendered it invisible. For some weeks it continued visible 
 to the naked eye, but its splendour was not very remark- 
 able. 
 
 Encke's Comet. — Two other comets have more recently 
 been identified as having been seen in preceding revolu- 
 tions about the sun. One of these is called Encke's comet, 
 from Professor Encke of Berlin, who first computed its 
 elliptic elements. Its orbit is very elongated, the eccen- 
 tricity being nearly = 845, and inclined to the ecliptic in 
 an angle of about 13° 22£'. The period of its revolution is 
 1207 days, or about 3 and l-3d years. Though this comet 
 was not recognized as periodic till 1819, it had frequently 
 been observed in previous revolutions — in 1785, 1795, 1801, 
 and 1805. From the ellipse calculated by Encke, its return 
 was predicted in 1822. On this occasion it was invisible in 
 Europe, but was observed at Paramatta in New South 
 Wales. In the subsequent returns of 1825, 1828, and 1832, 
 it was observed in the principal observatories both in the 
 northern and southern hemispheres. In comparing the 
 intervals between the successive returns to its peri- 
 helion, it is found that the period of this comet is con- 
 tinually diminishing. This is exactly the effect that would 
 be produced if it moved through a resisting medium; for 
 the resistance, by diminishing the actual velocity, dimin- 
 ishes the centrifugal force, in consequence of which the 
 solar attraction preponderates, and the comet is drawn 
 nearer to the sun, and completes its revolution in a shorter 
 time. Accordingly, as there appears no other way of ac- 
 counting for the observed acceleration, it seems now to be 
 the general opinion of astronomers that an ethereal medium 
 pervades the regions of space, of sufficient density to affect 
 the motions of comets, though so rare as to offer no sensible 
 resistance to the denser masses of the planets, whose pe- 
 riods of revolution have continued exactly the same since 
 the epoch of the first astronomical observations. If this 
 medium really exists, the comet must ultimately fall into 
 the sun, unless it is dissipated altogether; an event which 
 seems not improbable, from the observed fact of its having 
 been less conspicuous at each reappearance. 
 
 Biela's Comet. — The third periodic comet at present 
 known was discovered by Biela, an Austrian officer then 
 residing at Prague, in February, 1826 ; and by M. Gambart 
 of Marseilles in April of the same year. It has been iden- 
 tified with comets observed in 1772, 17S9, 1795, 1846, &c.
 
 COMET. 
 
 It performs its revolution in 2461 days, in an ellipse inclined 
 to the ecliptic, in an angle of 13° 33' 15", having an eccen- 
 tricity of 74701, its greater semi-axis being 3-56705. Us 
 last apparition took place, in accordance with calculation, 
 in 1839 ; and its next return will be in 1846. It is a small 
 cornet, having no tail, and presenting no appearance of a 
 solid nucleus, but only a slight increasing density towards 
 the centre ; and small stars were seen through it. Its orbit, 
 by a singular coincidence, nearly intersects that of the 
 earth ; and had the earth, at the time of the comet's pas- 
 sage in 1832, been a month in advance of its actual place, 
 it would have passed through or very near the comet. 
 
 Effects of the Action of the Planets on the Orbits of Comets. 
 — Comets in passing near the larger planets are drawn aside 
 from their paths, and have their orbits sometimes entirely 
 changed. In June, 1770, a comet was discovered by Mes- 
 sier; and as soon as three observations had been obtained, 
 the elements of its parabolic orbit were determined. The 
 comet continued visible for a long time, and it was found 
 that the parabolic elements could not be made by any com- 
 bination to represent the observations. It followed, there- 
 fore, that the orbit could not be a parabola. Lexell under- 
 took the compulation of an elliptic orbit, and found, in fact, 
 that the comet was describing an ellipse, of which the 
 greater axis was only equal to three times the diameter of 
 the terrestrial orbit, and would consequently complete its 
 revolution in about five years and a half. He accordingly 
 predicted its return al the end of that period ; nevertheless, 
 the comet did not appear at the expected time, and, though 
 very conspicuous in 1770, has never been seen since. On 
 examining the catalogues, no trace was found of a comet 
 describing the same orbit having been seen before. The 
 question, therefore, occurred, in what manner was this 
 mysterious appearance and disappearance to be explained? 
 The solution was found in the disturbing influence of Jupi- 
 ter. On submitting lo calculation the action of this planet 
 on the comet, it was found, in the first place, that in the 
 year 1707, before the comet had approached Jupiter, the 
 ellipitc orbit which it described corresponded to a revolu- 
 tion, not of five, but of fifty years ; and in the second place, 
 it was found that in 1779, when getting beyond the Bphere 
 of attraction of the same planet, the orbit in which u then 
 moved could only be described in twenty years. Previ- 
 ously to 1767 it moved in so wide an orbit that it could not 
 be seen from the earth ; the attraction of Jupiter threw it 
 into the orbit in which it was observed by Messier. On a 
 second approach to Jupiter, it was again deflected from its 
 path, and thrown into an orbit in which it was invisible as 
 at first. 
 
 Physical Nature of Comets. — Notwithstanding the atten- 
 tion which has been given to the observation of comets 
 whenever they make their appearance, nothing whatever 
 is known of their physical constitution ; nor has any ration- 
 al or even plausible explanation been offered of the volu- 
 minous appendage denominated the tail. The following 
 remarks of Sir John Herschel on this subject are extreme- 
 ly interesting. 
 
 "The smaller comets, such as are visible only in tele- 
 scopes, or with difficulty by the naked eye, and which are 
 by far the most numerous, offer very frequently no appear- 
 ance of a tail, and appear only as round or somewhat oval 
 vaporous masses, more dense towards the centre ; where, 
 however, they appear to have no distinct nucleus, or any 
 thing which seems entitled lo be considered as a solid body. 
 Stars of the smallest magnitudes remain distinctly visible, 
 though covered by what appears to be the densest portion 
 of their substance ; although the same stars would be com- 
 pletely obliterated by a moderate fog, extending only a few 
 yards from the surface of the earth. Whenever powerful 
 telescopes have been turned on these bodies, they have not 
 failed to dispel the illusion which attributes solidity to that 
 more condensed part of the head which appears to the 
 naked eye as a nucleus; though it is true that in some a 
 very minute stellar point has been seen, indicating the ex- 
 istence of a solid body. 
 
 " It is in all probability to the feeble coercion of the elastic 
 power of their gaseous parts by the gravilation of so small 
 a central mass, that we must attribute this extraordinary 
 development of the atmosphere of comets. If the earth, 
 retaining its present size, were reduced by any internal 
 change (as by hollowing out its central parts) to one thou- 
 sandth part of i ; s actual mass, its coercive power over the 
 atmosphere would be reduced in the same proportion, and 
 in consequence the latter would expand to a thousand times 
 its actual bulk ; and indeed much more, owing to the still 
 further diminution of gravity by the recess of the upper 
 part from the centre. 
 
 That the luminous part of a comet is something in the 
 nature of a smoke, fog, or cloud, suspended in a transpa- 
 rent atmosphere, is evident from a fact which has been 
 often noticed ; viz. that the portion of the tail, where it 
 comes up to and surrounds the head, is yet separated from 
 it by an interval less luminous, as if sustained and kept off 
 from contact bv a transparent stratum, as we often see one 
 255 
 
 layer of clouds laid over another, with a considerable spaee 
 between. These, and most of the other facts observed in 
 the history of comets, appear to indicate that the structure 
 
 of a comet, as seen in section in the di- 
 
 f rection of its length, must be that of a 
 
 ( -f^V^ hollow envelope, of a parabolic form, 
 
 vA—^" enclosing near its vertex the nucleus 
 
 ^-- and head, something as is represented 
 
 in the annexed figure. This would ac- 
 count for the apparent division of the tail into two lateral 
 branches, the envelope being oblique to the line of sight at 
 its borders, and therefore a greater depth of illuminated 
 matter being there exposed to the eye. In all probability, 
 however, they admit great varieties of structure, and among 
 them may very possibly be bodies of widely different physi- 
 cal constitution." (Astronomy ; Cabinet Cyclopaedia, p. 304.) 
 
 From the same authority we extract the following state- 
 ment respecting the actual dimensions of some of the most 
 conspicuous comets : — " The tail of the great comet of 1680, 
 immediately after its perihelion passage, was found by 
 Newton to have been no less than 20,000,000 of leagues in 
 length, and to have occupied only two days in its emission 
 from the comet's body ! — a decisive proof this of its being 
 darted forth by some active force, the origin of which, to 
 judge from the direction of the tail, must be sought in the 
 sun itself. Its greatest length amounted to 41,000,000 
 leagues, a length much exceeding the whole interval be- 
 tween the sun and the earth. The tail of the comet of 1769 
 extended 16.000,000 leagues, and that of the great comet of 
 1811, 36,000,000. The portion of the head of this last com- 
 prised within the transparent atmospheric envelope which 
 separated it from the tail was 180,000 leagues in diameter. 
 It is hardly conceivable that matter once projected to such 
 enormous distances should ever be collected again by the 
 feeble attraction of such a body as a comet — a considera- 
 tion which accounts for the rapid progressive diminution 
 of the tails of such as have been frequently observed." 
 (Ibid. p. 311.) 
 
 It is extremely probable that the comets are merely col- 
 lections of gaseous matter, of which a part may be dissi- 
 pated in space al every revolution : but further observations 
 are wanted to make this hypothesis certain. In 1682 Hal- 
 ley's comet appeared as round and clear as Jupiter; in 1759 
 it was not visible lo the naked eye; in 1836 it was again 
 sufficiently visible, but it was then in a much more favour- 
 able position than in 1769. 
 
 In former times comets were regarded as preternatural 
 appearances, betokening the displeasure of the superior 
 powers, and accordingly viewed with the terror and appre- 
 hension naturally excited by harbingers of indefinite and 
 unavoidable calamity. Since they have been discovered to 
 be component parts of the solar system, their appearance 
 excites no other interest than thai which astronomers feel 
 to determine their orbits, and to deduce from their physi- 
 cal aspects such conclusions as they are calculated to afford 
 relative to the constitution of the universe. 
 
 COMETA'RIUM. An astronomical toy, intended to re- 
 present the motion of a comet about the sun. Any instru- 
 ment capable of describing an elongated ellipse may be 
 called a cometarium. See Elliptic Compasses. 
 
 COMI'TIA. In Ancient History, the assemblies of the 
 Roman people, which were of three kinds, distinguished 
 by the epithets, Curiata, Centuriata, and Tributa. 
 
 1. The Comitia Curiala were the assemblies of the patri- 
 cian houses or populus ; and in these, before the plebeians 
 attained political importance, was vested the supreme 
 power of the s'ate. The name Curiata was given because 
 the people voted in curim, each curia giving a single vote 
 representing the sentiments of the majority of the members 
 composing it; which was the manner in which the tribes 
 and centuries also gave their suffrages in their respective 
 comitia. After the institution of the Comitia Centuriata, 
 the functions of the curiata were nearly confined lo the 
 election of certain priests, and passing a law to confirm the 
 dignities imposed by the people. 
 
 2. The Comitia Centuriata were the assemblies of the 
 whole Roman people, including patricians, clients, and ple- 
 beians, in which they voted by centuries. By the consti- 
 tution of the centuries, these comitia were chiefly in the 
 hands of the plebeians, and so served originally as a coun- 
 terpoise to the powers of the comitia curiata, for which 
 purpose they were first instituted by the lawgiver king 
 Servius Tullius. These comitia quickly obtained the chief 
 importance, and public matters of the greatest moment 
 were transacted in them ; as the elections of consuls, prae- 
 tors, and censors, and the passing laws and trials for high 
 treason. 
 
 3. The Comitia Tributa were the assemblies of the ple- 
 beian tribes. They were first instituted after the expulsion 
 of the kings; and in them were transacted matters pertain- 
 ing to the plebeians alone, as the election of their tribunes 
 and aidiles. 
 
 CO'MMA. (Gr.) In Music, the smallest of all the sub- 
 divisions, being about the ninth part of a tone.
 
 COMMANDER. 
 
 Comma. In Grammar. See Punctuation. 
 
 COM.MA'NDER. In the Navy, otherwise called mas- 
 ter, an officer next in rank above lieutenant, corresponding 
 with major in the army. 
 
 COMMANDER IN CHIEF. The officer in whom is 
 vested the supreme command of all the land forces of the 
 British Empire. This officer is appointed by the ministry 
 of the day, whose confidence he is supposed to enjoy, and 
 he is assisted in the discharge of his duties by several 
 subordinate officers, such as the adjutant-general, the 
 quartermaster-general, &c. (see these terms), who are 
 each nt the head of a particular department. 
 
 COMMA'NDERY, or PRECEPTORY. According to 
 the usages of some orders of Knights, a district attached 
 to a manor or chief messuage under the control of a mem- 
 ber of the order, who receives the income of that district 
 arising from the estates of the order, taking out of it his 
 own pension, and accounting for the rest. 
 
 COMMELINA'CEjE. (Commelina, cne of the genera.) 
 A natural order of herbaceous Endogens, chiefly inhabit- 
 ing the East and West Indies. Brown remarks that the 
 order greatly differs from Juncacea both in habit and struc- 
 ture, and agrees better with Restiaceca, having but little 
 affinity with Palms ; and Agardh adds, that it agrees with 
 Orchidacea, in the structure of the stamens and seeds, but in 
 what respect he does not state. The species are very often 
 mere weeds, but occasionally are beautiful flowering plants. 
 A common example is the Tradescantiavirginica. 
 
 COMME'NDAM. (Lat.) A term of the Canon Law. 
 A person to whom custody of a void ecclesiastical benefice 
 is committed by the superior, without the profits apper- 
 taining lo if, was said to hold the benefice in commendam, 
 i. e. entrusted to his care ; but by various devices Ihe re- 
 striction on the receipt of profits was evaded, and the hold- 
 ing benefices in commendam became a mode of enjoying 
 pluralities. By the English law, no one can hold in com- 
 mendam without license from the crown. An ordinary 
 case is where clergymen promoted to bishoprics with in- 
 sufficient revenues are allowed in this manner to retain the 
 profits of livinss. 
 
 COMME'NSURABLE. Quantities, in Geometry, are 
 said to be commensurable when they have some common 
 measure or divisor, which divides each of them without 
 leaving a remainder. Thus a yard and a furlong are com- 
 mensurable magnitudes, because a foot is a measure or 
 aliquot part of each of them, being contained in the yard 
 three times, and in the furlong 660 times. Fractional num- 
 bers and surds are also said to be commensurable when 
 they have a common measure of the same kind as them- 
 selves. Thus f and f are commensurable, being each di- 
 visible by }{ ; and so are 2\/2 and 3-V/2, being each mea- 
 sured by \/2 
 
 CO'MMENTARY. (Derived from the Latin verb com- 
 miniscor, Icall to mind.) In Literature, a word used in 
 different significations:—!. In the same sense with me- 
 moirs, as a short narrative of particular events and occur- 
 rences, composed by an actor or spectator of those events 
 with the professed object of calling back the circumstan- 
 ces to his own mind ; e. g. the Commentaries of Caesar. 
 2. Critical observations on the text or contents of a book. 
 These are either in the form of detached notes, containing 
 remarks on particular passages ; or they are embodied in 
 what is termed a running commentary, or series of re- 
 marks written and printed in a connected form. 
 
 CO'MMERCE (from commutatio mercium), is the ex- 
 change of one sort of produce or service for some other 
 sort of produce or service. 
 
 Exchanges of this description have their rise in the na- 
 ture of man and the circumstances under which he is 
 placed, and their origin is coeval with the formation of so- 
 ciety. The varying powers and dispositions of different 
 individuals dispose them to engage in preference in par- 
 ticular occupations ; and in the end every one finds it for 
 his advantage to confine himself wholly or principally to 
 some one employment, and to barter or exchange such 
 portions of his produce as exceed his own demand, for 
 such portions of the peculiar produce of others as he is 
 desirous to obtain and they are disposed to part with. 
 The division and combination of employments is carried 
 to some extent in the rudest societies, and it is carried to 
 a very great extent in those that are most improved ; but 
 to whatever extent it may be carried, commerce must be 
 equally advanced. The division of employments could 
 not exist without commerce, nor commerce without the di- 
 vision of employments : they mutually act and react upon 
 each other. Every new subdivision of employments oc- 
 casions a greater extension of commerce ; and the latter 
 cannot be extended without contributing to the better di- 
 vision and combination of the former. 
 
 In rude societies, the principal business of commerce, or 
 the exchange of one sort of commodities for some other 
 sort, is carried on by those who produce them. Individu- 
 als having more of any article than is required for their 
 own use endeavour to find out others in want of it, and who 
 256 
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 at the same time possess something that they would like 
 to have. But the difficulties and inconveniences insepar- 
 able from a commercial intercourse carried on in this way 
 are so obvious as hardly to require being pointed out. 
 Were there no merchants or dealers, a farmer, for ex- 
 ample, who had a quantity of wheat or wool to dispose of, 
 would be obliged to seek out those who wanted these com- 
 modities, and to sell them in such portions as might suit 
 them ; and having done this, he would next be forced to 
 send to, perhaps, twenty different and distant places, be- 
 fore he succeeded in supplying himself with the various 
 articles he might wish to buy. His attention would thus be 
 perpetually diverted from the business of his farm ; and 
 while the difficulty of exchanging his own produce for that 
 of others would prevent him from acquiring a taste forim- 
 proved accommodations, it would tempt him to endea- 
 vour to supply most things that were essential by his own 
 labour and that of his family ; so that the division of em- 
 ployments would be confined within the narrowest limits. 
 The wish to obviate such inconveniences has given rise to 
 a distinct mercantile class. Without employing themselves 
 in any sort of production, merchants or dealers render the 
 greatest assistance to the producers ; they collect and dis- 
 tribute all sorts of commodities they buy of the farmers 
 and manufacturers the things they have to sell ; and bring- 
 ing together every variety of useful and desirable articles 
 in shops and warehouses, individuals are able, without 
 difficulty or loss of time, to supply themselves with whatever 
 they want. Continuity is in consequence given to all the 
 operations of industry ; for, as every one knows before- 
 hand where he may dispose to the best advantage of all 
 that he has to sell, and obtain all that he wishes to buy, an 
 uninterrupted motion is given to the plough and the loom. 
 Satisfied that they will have no difficulty about finding mer- 
 chants for their produce, agriculturists and manufacturers 
 think only how they may improve and perfect their respec- 
 tive businesses. Theiraltention, no longer dissipated upon 
 a variety of objects, is fixed upon one only. It becomes 
 the object of every individual to find out machines and 
 processes for facilitating the separate task in which he 
 is engaged ; and while the progress of invention is thus im- 
 measurably accelerated, those who carry on particular bu- 
 sinesses acquire that peculiar dexterity and sleight of hand 
 so astonishing to those who live in places where the divi- 
 sion of labour is but imperfectly established. Facility of 
 exchange is, in truth, the vivifying principle, the very soul 
 of industry ; and no interruption is evergiven to it without 
 producing the most ruinous consequences. 
 
 The merchants, or dealers, collect their goods in differ- 
 ent places in the least expensive manner; and by carrying 
 them in large quantities at a time they can afford to sup- 
 ply their customers at a cheaper rate than the latter could 
 supply themselves. Not only, therefore, do they, by en- 
 abling every employment to be carried on without interrup- 
 tion, and the divisions of labour to be perfected, add pro- 
 digiously to the powers of industry, and, by consequence, 
 to the wealth of the community, but they also promote the 
 convenience of every one, and reduce the cost of mer- 
 chandising to the lowest limit. According as commerce 
 is extended, each particular business becomes better un- 
 derstood, better cultivated, and carried on in the best and 
 cheapest melhod : where it is far advanced, the whole soci- 
 ety is firmly linked together ; every man is indebted to every 
 other man for a portion of his necessaries, conveniences, 
 and enjoyments; every 'thing is mutual, and reciprocal ; 
 and a large country becomes in effect, from the intimate 
 correspondence kept up through the medium of the mer- 
 cantile class, like a large city. 
 
 The annihilation of the class of traders would deprive 
 society of all these advantages. The difficulties that would 
 then be experienced in selling and buying would oblige 
 every one to attempl, in so far as possible, directly to sup- 
 ply his own wants ; the division of employments would be 
 contracted on all sides, and Great Britain would gradually 
 relapse into a state little, if at all, superior to its state at the 
 Norman conquest. 
 
 The celebrated Italian economist, the Count di Verri,has 
 defined commerce to be the conveyance of commodities 
 from place to place (transporto delle mercanzie da un luogo 
 a luogo). This definition has been adopted by M. Say, who 
 contends that commerce does not consist in exchanges, but 
 in bringing commodities wilhin reach of the consumers 
 (il consiste essentiellernent a placer un produ.it a laportee de 
 ses consommateurs). But this is plainly to confound the 
 means with the end ; the preparations for an exchange with 
 Ihe exchange itself. The conveyance of commodities 
 from place to place is necessary to enable commerce 
 to be carried on ; but unless they be conveyed in the 
 view of being sold or exchanged for other commodi- 
 ties, and unless that exchange actually take place, there 
 is no room or ground for considering the conveyance 
 in the light of a commercial operation. It is obvious, 
 too, that though the Count di Verri's definition were 
 not erroneous in this respect, it is not sufficiently compre-
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 hensive. Suppose that a hat manufactory is establish- 
 ed in Regent street, and that a shop is attached to it, 
 where the hats are sold ; no one doubts that those employ- 
 ed in this shop are engaged in a commercial undertaking, 
 and yet they have nothing to do with the carriage of com- 
 modities. Whatever, therefore, may be the particular sort 
 of commerce carried on, whether the commodities have 
 been brought from a distance or produced on the spot, its 
 object and end is an exchange ; when this end is not at- 
 tained, no act of commerce can be said to have taken 
 place. 
 
 The erroneous definition of commerce which M. Say 
 has adopted has hindered him from rightly appreciating 
 its influence. " In commerce," says he, "there is a ge- 
 nuine production, because there is a modification produc- 
 tive of utility and value. The merchant, after buying a 
 commodity at its current price, sells it again at its current 
 price ; but the last price is greater than the former, be- 
 cause the merchant has brought the commodity into a sit- 
 uation which has really augmented its price, and the soci- 
 ety is enriched by this augmentation ." (Cours d/ Econo- 
 mic Politique, t. ii. p. 213.) But though this be true, it is 
 not the whole truth, nor even the greater part of it. Sup- 
 pose that a hat maker and a shoe-maker live in contiguous 
 nouses : if the one exchange his hats for the other's shoes 
 society will not certainly gain much by the change in the 
 locality of the commodities, but it will notwithstanding be 
 materially benefitted by the transaction ; for, in conse- 
 quence of the exchange, each tradesman will be able to 
 confine himself to his own business : the hat-maker will 
 not be obliged to waste his time in clumsy attempts to 
 make his own shoes, nor will the shoe-maker be compelled 
 to make his own hat. It is in this that the peculiar advan- 
 tage of commerce consists. What an individual gives for 
 anything is, speaking generally, the fair equivalent of what 
 he gets. But the facility of exchansing allows every one, 
 as has been already seen, to apply his entire time and en- 
 ergies to some one department ; and in this way occasions 
 the production of an incomparably greater quantity of all 
 Borts of wealth than it would otherwise be possible to pro- 
 duce. 
 
 The mercantile class has been divided into two leading 
 classes. — the wholesale dealers and the retail dealers. 
 This division, like the divisions in other employments, has 
 grown out of a sense of its utility. The wholesale mer- 
 chants buv the goods at first hand of the producers ; but 
 instead of disposing of them to the consumers, they gene- 
 rally sell them to the retailers or shopkeepers, by whom 
 they are retailed or distributed to the public in such quan- 
 tities and in such a way as is most suitable for them. The 
 interest of all parties is consulted by this division. Had 
 the wholesale dealers attempted also to retail their goods. 
 they could not have given that undivided attention to any 
 part of their business so necessary to ensure its success. 
 A retailer should be constantly at his shop; not merely 
 that he may attend to the orders daily sent to him. but that 
 he may learn all that transpires with respect to the situa- 
 tion of his customers, their wants, and their circumstances. 
 But wholesale dealers being obliged to attend to what is 
 going on in different and distant quarters, cannot give this 
 minute attention to what happens in their immediate vi- 
 cinity ; and though they could, the capital required to 
 carry on a wholesale business would not be sufficient for 
 that purpose, were the business of retailing joined to it. 
 Were there only one class of merchants, the capital and 
 the number of individuals employed in commercial under- 
 takings would not probably be less than at present; but 
 the merchant, being obliged to apply himself principally to 
 one department, would have to leave the chief share of the 
 other to servants ; a change which, as every one knows, 
 would be productive of the most mischievous conse- 
 quences. 
 
 There can, therefore, be no doubt that the separation in 
 question has been highly advantageous. The classes of 
 merchants, like those of artificers, are mutually service- 
 able to each other and to the public. Without this subdi- 
 vision, commerce would have been impeded in its opera- 
 tions ; particular branches of it would have been compara- 
 tively neglected ; nor would any branch have been carried 
 on with the same economy and attention with which all 
 are now conducted. 
 
 In a highly civilized country like Great Britain, the trade 
 in every commodity in considerable demand, as corn, 
 sugar, tea, timber, <fec, affords employment for a separate 
 class of traders. But for all purposes of general inquiry, 
 it is sufficient to consider commerce under three heads, 
 viz. : — 1. The Home trade, or that carried on between in- 
 dividuals of the same country; 2. Foreign trade, or that 
 carried on between individuals of different countries; and, 
 3. The Colony trade, or that carried on between the in- 
 habitants of any particular country and its colonists. We 
 subjoin a few remarks upon each of these heads. 
 
 I. Home Trade. — It has been already seen that the vary- 
 ing capacities and dispositions of different individuals oc- 
 257 
 
 casion the introduction of a division of employments, and 
 the practice of exchange or barter. But the external cir- 
 cumstances under which different individuals are placed 
 vary still more than their natural powers or tastes. One 
 set inhabit a rich fertile plain, suitable for the growth of 
 corn and other culmiferous crops. Another set inhabit a 
 mountainous district, the soil of which is comparatively 
 sterile, but which is well fitted for rearing cattle ; another 
 set are planted upon the margin of a river, or arm of the 
 sea, abounding in every facil^y for carrying on the busi- 
 ness of fishing; and so on. Now it is so obvious, that 
 though the individuals belonging to any particular district 
 had not established a division of labour amongst themselves, 
 it would be highly for their advantage to establish one with 
 those occupying other districts, the productions of which 
 are materially different. When the inhabitants of New- 
 castle (Eng.)' apply themselves principally to the coal 
 trade, those of Essex to the raising of wheat, and those of 
 the highlands of Scotland to the raising of cattle and wool, 
 each set avail themselves, in carrying on their employ- 
 ments, of the peculiar powers of production conferred by 
 Providence on the districts they occupy ; and by exchang- 
 ing such portions of their produce as exceed their own 
 consumption, for the surplus articles raised by others, their 
 wealth and that of everyone else, is immeasurably increas- 
 ed. It is in this territorial division of labour, as it has been 
 happily designated by Colonel Torrens, that the main ad- 
 vantage of commerce consists. In commercial countries, 
 each individual may not only enter at pleasure, on such 
 pursuits as he deems most advantageous, but the entire 
 population of districts and provinces are enabled to turn 
 their energies into those channels in which they are sure 
 to receive the greatest assistance from natural powers. 
 Suppose England were divided into separate parishes, or 
 even counties, surrounded respectively by Bishop Berke- 
 ley's wall of brass, and having no intercourse with each 
 other, in what a miserable situation would they be ! In- 
 stead of 1,500.000, London could not under such circum- 
 stances contain 15,000 inhabitants ; and these would be 
 exposed to numberless privations of which we have not the 
 slightest idea. Unless the territorial division of labour 
 were carried to some extent, the division of employments 
 amongst individuals occupying the same district, could be 
 but very imperfectly established, and would be of compa- 
 ratively little use. It is only when one is able both to grati- 
 fy his taste and to avail himself of the varying capacities 
 of production given to different districts that the benefits 
 of commerce can be fully appreciated, and that it becomes 
 the most copious source of wealth as well as the most 
 powerful engine of civilisation. 
 
 •• With the benefits of commerce," says an eloquent 
 writer, "or a ready exchange of commodities, every indi- 
 vidual is enabled to avail himself to the utmost of the pe- 
 culiar advantage of his place ; to work on the peculiar ma- 
 terials with which nature has furnished him ; to humour 
 his genius or disposition, and betake himself to the task in 
 which he is peculiarly qualified to succeed. The inhabit- 
 ant of the mountain may betake himself to the culture of 
 his woods, and the manufacture of his timber, the owner 
 of pasture lands may betake himself to the care of his 
 herds; the owner of the clay pit to the manufacture of his 
 pottery ; and the husbandman to the culture of his fields, 
 or the rearing of his cattle ; and any one commodity, 
 however it may form but a small part in the whole accom- 
 modations of human life, may, under the facilities of com- 
 merce, find a market in which it may be exchanged for 
 what will procure any other part, or the whole ; so that the 
 owner of the clay pit, or the industrious potter, without 
 producing any one article immediately fit to supply his 
 own necessities, may obtain the possession of all that he 
 wants. And commerce, in which it appears that com- 
 modities are merely exchanged, and nothing produced, is 
 nevertheless, in its effects, "very productive ; because it 
 ministers an encouragement and facility to every artist in 
 multiplying the productions of his own art, thus adding 
 greatly to the mass of wealth in the world, in being the oc- 
 casion that much is produced. "—(Ferguson's Principles of 
 Moral and Political Science, vol. ii. p. 424.) 
 
 II. Foreign Trade. — The trade carried on between indi- 
 viduals of different countries is founded on precisely the 
 same circumstances — the difference of soil, climate, and 
 productions, on which is founded the trade between differ- 
 ent districts of the same country. One country, like one 
 district, is peculiarly fitted for the growth of corn ; another 
 for the cultivation of the grape ; a third abounds in mine- 
 rals ; a fourth has inexhaustible forests ; and so forth : — 
 
 Hie segetes, ilHc veniual felicius wvs, 
 Arborei felus alibi, atque injussa virescunt 
 Gramma. Nonne rides, croceoa lit Tmotus odores, 
 India mittit ebur, molles Eua Ihura Sabsi ? 
 AtChalyhss nudi ferrum, virosaque Pontus 
 Castorea, E'iadum pnlmas Epiros equarum? 
 Contiuuo has leges aternaqiie federa eerlis 
 Imposuil nal'ira locia. — Geor. lib. i. lin. 54. 
 
 Providence, by thus distributing the various articles suit-
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 able for the accommodation and comfort of man in differ- 
 ent countries, has evidently provided for their mutual in- 
 tercourse. In this respect, indeed, foreign trade is of far 
 more importance than the home trade. There is infinitely 
 less difference between the products of the various districts 
 of the most extensive country, than there is between the 
 products of different and distant countries; and the estab- 
 lishment of a territorial division of labour amongst the 
 latter must therefore be proportionally advantageous. 
 
 " As the same country is rendered richer by the trade of 
 one province with another; as its labour becomes thus 
 infinitely more divided, and more productive than it could 
 otherwise have been ; and as the mutual interchange of all 
 those commodities which one province has and another 
 wants multiplies the comforts and accommodation of the 
 whole, and the country becomes thus, in a wonderful de- 
 gree, more opulent and more happy ; so the same beau- 
 tiful train of consequences is observable in the world at 
 large, — that vast empire, of which the different kingdoms 
 may be regarded as the provinces. In this magnificent 
 empire, one province is favourable to the production of one 
 species of produce, and another province to another. By 
 their mutual intercourse, mankind are enabled to distribute 
 their labour as best fits the genius of each particular coun- 
 try and people. The industry of the whole is thus render- 
 ed incomparably more productive ; and every species of 
 necessary, useful and agreeable accommodation is ob- 
 tained in much greater abundance and with infinitely less 
 expense." — (Mills's Commerce Defended,}). 38.) 
 
 But to enable the advantages of foreign commerce to be 
 rightly appreciated, it will be proper to consider it under 
 the following heads: — viz. 1. Its influence in supplying us 
 with useful and desirable articles, of which we should 
 otherwise be wholly destitute ; 2. Its influence in multiply- 
 ing and cheapening the peculiar productions of our owu 
 country ; 3. Its influence in making us acquainted with 
 foreign discoveries and inventions, and in exciting inven- 
 tion by means of competition and example ; and, 4. Its in- 
 direct influence upon industry, by increasing the sources 
 of enjoyment. 
 
 1. With respect to the first of these influences, or the 
 effect of commerce in furnishing every people with com- 
 modities not otherwise attainable, it is too obvious and 
 striking to require any lengthened illustrations. Great 
 Britain is as abundantly supplied with native products as 
 most countries; and yet any one who reflects for a moment 
 on the nature and variety of the articles we import from 
 abroad, must be satisfied that we are indebted to trade for 
 a very large part of our superior accommodations. Tea, 
 sugar, coffee, wine, and spices ; silk and cotton, the mate- 
 rials of our most extensive manufactures ; gold and silver ; 
 and an endless variety of other highly important articles, 
 are sent to us by foreigners. And were the importation 
 put an end to, what a prodigious deduction would be made, 
 not from our comforts and enjoyments merely, but also 
 from our means of supporting "and employing labourers ! 
 If foreign commerce did nothing more than supply us with 
 so many new products, it would be very difficult to over- 
 rate its value and importance. 
 
 2. But such is the beneficent influence of commerce, 
 that while it supplies an endless variety of new produc- 
 tions, it multiplies and cheapens those that are peculiar to 
 every country. It does this, by enabling each separate 
 people to employ themselves, in preference, in those de- 
 partments in which they enjoy some natural or acquired 
 advantage, and by opening the markets of the world to 
 their productions. When the demand for a commodity is 
 confined to a particular country, as soon as it is supplied 
 improvement is at a stand. The subdivision and combina- 
 tion of employments is, in fact, always dependent upon 
 and regulated by the extent of the market. Dr. Smith has 
 shown, that by making a proper distribution of labour 
 among ten workmen, in a pin manufactory, 48,000 pins 
 might be produced in a day ; and since his time the num- 
 ber has been nearly doubled. But had the demand not been 
 sufficient to take off this quantity of pins, the divisions and 
 improvements in question could not have been made ; and 
 the price of pins would in consequence have been com- 
 paratively high. This principle holds universally. The 
 most important manufacture carried on in Great Britain — 
 that of cotton — is entirely the result of commerce. Sup- 
 posing, however, that cotton wool had been a native pro- 
 duct, we could never have made such astonishing advances 
 in the manufacture had we been denied access to foreign 
 markets. Notwithstanding the splendid discoveries in the 
 machinery, and the perfection to which every department 
 of the trade has been brought, the vast extent of the market 
 has prevented its being glutted, and has stimulated our 
 manufacturers and artizans to persevere with unabated ar- 
 dour in the career of improvement. Our cotton mills have 
 been constructed, not that they might supply the limited 
 demand of Great Britain, but that they might supply the 
 demand of the whole world. And in consequence of the 
 extraordinary subdivision of labour, and the scope given to 
 
 258 
 
 the employment and improvement of machinery by the 
 unlimited extent of the market, the price of cottons has 
 been reduced to less, probably, than a fourth part of what 
 it would have been had they met with no outlet in foreign 
 countries. The hardware, woollen, leather, and other 
 manufactures, exhibit similar results. The access their 
 products have had to other markets has led to important 
 improvements in their production ; so that, as was previ- 
 ously stated, commerce not only supplies us with a vast va- 
 riety of new and desirable articles, but it also cheapens the 
 staple productions of the country, and renders them more 
 easily attainable by the great mass of people. 
 
 3. The influence of commerce in making the people of 
 each country acquainted with foreign inventions and dis- 
 coveries, and in stimulating ingenuity by bringing them into 
 competition with strangers, is obvious and powerful. It 
 distributes the gifts of science and art, as well as those of 
 nature. It is the great engine by which the blessings of 
 civilization are diffused throughout the world, the inter- 
 course to which it gives rise making every one acquainted 
 with the processes carried on and the inventions made in 
 the remotest corners of the globe. Were any consider- 
 able improvement made in any important art either in Chi- 
 na or Peru, it would be very speedily understood and prac- 
 tised in England. It is no longer possible to monopolize 
 an invention. The intimate communication that now ex- 
 ists amongst nations renders any important discovery, 
 wherever it may be made, a common benefit. The inge- 
 nious machine invented by Mr. Eli Whitney, of the United 
 States, for separating cotton wool from the pod, has been 
 quite as advantageous to the English as to the Americans ; 
 and the inventions of Watt and Arkwright have added to 
 the comforts of the inhabitants of Siberia and Brazil, as 
 well as of England. The genuine commercial spirit is 
 destructive of all sorts of monopolies. It enables every 
 separate country to profit by the peculiar natural powers 
 and acquired skill of all the others ; while, on the other 
 hand, it communicates to them whatever advantages it 
 may enjoy. Every nation is thus intimately associated 
 with its neighbours. Their products, their arts, and their 
 sciences, are reciprocally communicated ; and the emula- 
 tion that is thus excited and kept up, forces routine to give 
 place to invention, and inspires every people with zeal to 
 undertake, and perseverance to overcome, the most for- 
 midable tasks. It is not possible to form any accurate no- 
 tions as to what would have been our state at this moment, 
 had we been confined within our own little world, and de- 
 prived of all intercourse with foreigners. We know, how- 
 ever, that the most important arts, such as printing, glass- 
 making, paper-making, &c, have been imported from 
 abroad. No doubt we might have invented some of these 
 ourselves ; but there is not the shadow of a ground for 
 supposing that we should have invented them all ; and 
 without foreign example and competition, we could hardly 
 have carried any of them beyond the merest rudiments. 
 
 4. The influence of commerce upon industry, by its in- 
 creasing the number of desirable articles, though not quite 
 so obvious, perhaps, as the influences already specified, is 
 not less powerful and salutary. Industry is in no respect 
 different from the other virtues, and it were idle to expect 
 it should be strongly manifested where it does not bring 
 along with it a corresponding reward. In the early stages 
 of society, before artificial wants have been introduced, and 
 men are satisfied if they can avert the attacks of hunger, 
 and procure an inadequate defence against the cold, in- 
 dustry is confined within the narrowest limits ; and pro- 
 vided the mildness of the climate renders clothing and 
 lodging of little importance, and the earth spontaneously 
 pours forth an abundant supply of fruits, the inhabitants 
 are immersed in sloth, and seem to place their highest en- 
 joyment in being free from occupation. Sir William 
 Temple, Mr. Hume, and some other sagacious inquirers 
 into the progress of society, have been struck with this 
 circumstance, and have justly remarked that those nations 
 that have laboured under the greatest national disadvan- 
 tages have made the most rapid advances in industry. 
 
 But in civilized and commercial societies, new products 
 and new modes of enjoyment, brought from abroad, or 
 invented at home, stimulate the inhabitants to continued 
 exertions. Their acquired tastes and the wants which 
 civilization introduces, and custom and example render 
 universal, become infinitely more numerous, and as ur- 
 gent as the tastes or wants of those that are less advanced. 
 The passion for luxuries, conveniences, and enjoyments, 
 when once excited, becomes quite illimitable. The grati- 
 fication of one desire leads immediately to the formation 
 of another. "The natural flights of the human mind are 
 not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope." 
 The happiness of a civilized nation is not placed in indo- 
 lence or enjoyment, but in continued exertion ; in devising 
 new contrivances to overcome new difficulties ; in extend- 
 ing still further the boundaries of science, and increasing 
 their command over luxuries and enjoyments. The re- 
 mark of the Abbe Mably is as true as it is forcibly ex-
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 pressed : — " N'est on que richr. ? On veut aire grand. 
 N'est on que grand") On veut ttre riche. Est on et riche 
 et grand! On veut litre plus riche et plus grand encore." 
 (CEiivres, t. iv. p. 76.) 
 
 Without commerce this progress would never be real- 
 ized. The commodilies possessed by particular nations 
 are but few, and may be obtained with comparatively little 
 labour. Generally speaking, a man may easily supply 
 himself with corn, cloth, and beer ; and if the utmost ex- 
 ertions of ingenuity and the most laborious efforts of in- 
 dustry could only furnish additional quantities of those ar- 
 ticles, they would very soon cease to be made. Men do 
 not practise industry and economy for their own sakes, but 
 for the advantages that result from them; and the more, 
 consequently, that these advantages are multiplied, that is, 
 the greater the variety of wants they are made to supply, 
 and of gratifications they are made to command, the greater 
 will be the energy displayed in their prosecution. "Le 
 travail de la /aim," as Raynal has well observed, " et tou- 
 jours borne comme elle ; tnais le travail de V ambition croit 
 avec ce vice (vertu ?) meme." 
 
 And hence the true way to render a people industrious 
 is to endeavour to inspire them with a taste for the luxu- 
 ries and enjoyments of civilized life ; and this will be al- 
 ways most easily done by giving every facility to the culti- 
 vation of foreign commerce. The number of new articles, 
 or, in other words, of new motives to stimulate, and new 
 products with which to reward the patient hand of indus- 
 try, is then prodigiously augmented. The home producers 
 exert themselves to increase their supplies of disposable 
 articles, that they may exchange them for those of other 
 countries and climates ; and the merchant, finding a ready 
 demand for such articles, is stimulated to import a greater 
 variety, to find out cheaper markets, and thus constantly 
 to apply new incentives to the vanity and ambition, and 
 consequently to the industry of his customers. Every 
 power of the mind and body is thus called into action ; 
 and the passion for foreign commodities — a passion which 
 some shallow moralists have ignorantly censured — be- 
 comes one of the most efficient causes of industry, wealth, 
 and civilization. 
 
 IV. Colony Trade. — For some remarks on this head, the 
 reader is referred to the article Colonies. 
 
 Principle and Influence of Restrictions on Commerce. — 
 The commercial intercourse carried on between the inhab- 
 itants of different districts of the same country, and those 
 of different countries, is founded on the principle which 
 prompts each member of the same family, or each inhab- 
 itant of the same village, to apply himself to some one busi- 
 ness. It would therefore seem that thai freedom of com- 
 merce which is universally admitted to be productive of the 
 most beneficial consequences when established between 
 the occupants of different districts of the same country must 
 be equally beneficial when established between those of 
 different countries. It appears to be generally believed, 
 that to occasion a commercial intercourse, nothing more is 
 necessary than to remove such legal or physical obstacles 
 as may interpose to prevent it. But this is not by any 
 means enough. A of Yorkshire does not sell to or buy 
 from B of Kent, merely because there is nothing to hinder 
 him from doing so ; he must further believe that his interest 
 will be promoted by the transaction : unless he do this, the 
 utmost facility of exchanging will be offered to him in vain ; 
 nor will the finest roads or the speediest conveyances oc- 
 casion the least intercourse. We neither buy nor sell for 
 the mere pleasure of the thing. We do so only when we 
 believe it will be a means of promoting some end, of pro- 
 curing some peculiar advantage for ourselves, that we could 
 not so easily procure in any other way. If any one sup- 
 posed he could better attain his object in entering upon a 
 commercial transaction with some particular individual by 
 entering upon a similar transaction with some one else, or 
 by any other means, he would most certainly decline en- 
 gaging in it. We may, and often do, make a false estimate 
 of what is for our advantage ; but its promotion is the main- 
 spring of our actions ; and it is it, and it only, that we have 
 in view when we buy of a particular individual, or resort to 
 a particular market, in preference to others. 
 
 Unless therefore it could be satisfactorily established that 
 princes and rulers have a better understanding of what has 
 a tendency to promote the wealth and industry of their 
 subjects than themselves, it is difficult to see on what ground 
 any restriction on the freedom of commerce is to be vindi- 
 cated. The person who buys French wine or Polish corn, 
 does so only that he may benefit himself; and the fair pre- 
 sumption is that he does what is right. Human reason is, 
 no doubt, limited and fallible ; we are often swayed by pre- 
 judice, and are apt to be deceived by appearances. Still, 
 however, it is certain that the desire to promote our own 
 purposes contributes far more than any thing else to ren- 
 der us clear-sighted and sagacious. " Nid sentiment dans 
 I'homme," says M. Say, " ne tienl son intelligence eveillee 
 autant que Vinteret personnel. 11 donne de V esprit aux plus 
 simples." The principle, that individuals are, speaking 
 259 
 
 generally, the best judges of what is most beneficial fol* 
 themselves, is universally admitted to be the only one that 
 can be safely acted upon. No writer of authority has lat- 
 terly ventured to maintain the exploded and untenable doc- 
 trine, that governments may advantageously interfere to 
 regulate the pursuits of their subjects. It is their duty to 
 preserve order, to prevent one from injuring another; to 
 maintain, in short, the equal rights and privileges of all. 
 But it is not possible for them to go one step further, with- 
 out receding from the principle of non-interference, and 
 laying themselves open to the charge of acting partially by 
 some, and unjustly by others. 
 
 "The statesman," says Dr. Smith, "who should attempt 
 to direct private people in what manner they ought to em- 
 ploy their capitals, would not only load himself with a most 
 unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could 
 safely be trusted not only to no single person, but to no coun- 
 cil or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so 
 dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and 
 presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it." 
 ( Wealth of Nations, p. 200.) 
 
 In every discussion as to any point of public economy, it 
 is essential to bear in mind that the legislature abandons its 
 duty, or rather acts in direct opposition to it, the moment it 
 begins to legislate in the view of promoting the interest of 
 particular classes. The question never ought to be, whether 
 any proposed measure or regulation has a tendency to 
 benefit agriculturists, manufacturers, or merchants ; but 
 whether its tendency be to benefit the public. Certain in- 
 dividuals or classes may be benefitted by what is prejudicial 
 to others ; but it would be a contradiction to contend that 
 a system of policy which enriches A by impoverishing B 
 can be publicly advantageous ; and it is upon this latter 
 consideration that the attention of the legislature should 
 always be fixed. Whatever has any tendency to increase 
 the security of property, to perfect the divisions of labour, 
 to stimulate industry and ingenuity, and to increase the 
 wealth and comforts of ail classes, deserves the encourage- 
 ment of government. But when it goes further, and inter- 
 feres to prohibit individuals from carrying on certain 
 branches of trade that others may be promoted, it arro- 
 gates to itself that authority the assumption of which is so 
 justly censured by Smith. Such prohibition is, in fact, 
 quite subversive of the right of private property ; for that 
 right is violated, not merely when a man is unjustly de- 
 prived of any part of his fortune, but also when he is pre- 
 vented from disposing of it in any way, not hurtful to others, 
 he may think fit. 
 
 It does not therefore appear, considering this question on 
 general grounds, that there is so much as the shadow of a 
 foundation for those commercial restrictions that make so 
 prominent a figure in the policy of all modern nations. If 
 it could be shown that statesmen and ministers were the 
 best judges of the means by which those subject to their 
 authority might improve their condition, the case would be 
 different. But no such pretension is set up, and, if it were, 
 it would be universally scouted. We may safely leave the 
 conduct of individuals to be determined by their own pru- 
 dence and sagacity. They act under the most serious re- 
 sponsibility ; and we have the best attainable security, the 
 plain and obvious interest of the parties, that they will, in 
 the peculiar circumstances under which they are placed, 
 follow that course which is most advantageous for them- 
 selves, or, in other words, for the community. All systems 
 of policy that would regulate the pursuits of private persons 
 according to the views of government must be arbitrary 
 and violent in their nature, and any attempt to act upon 
 them could not fail to be productive of the most mischiev- 
 ous consequences. A wise government will confine its 
 efforts to the maintenance of that order of things which 
 nature has established. It will not mix itself up with the 
 affairs of its subjects, but will leave them to pursue their 
 own interest in their own way ; to bring their industry and 
 capital into the freest competition with those of others ; and 
 will interpose only when they swerve from the rules of jus- 
 tice. Freedom and security are all that is necessary to 
 stimulate industry, and to insure the most rapid advance- 
 ment in the career of improvement. 
 
 We cannot, however, feel any surprise that these prin- 
 ciples should have been so widely departed from, and that 
 commerce, and indeed most sorts of industry, should be 
 everywhere subjected to restrictions and regulations. They 
 originated in a comparatively unenlightened age, before the 
 genuine sources of public wealth and the limits of proper 
 interference on the part of governments had been explored 
 and defined. The fallacies on which most of them are 
 founded, however obvious they may now seem, were not 
 speedily or easily detected ; and, after their hollowness has 
 been exposed, the return to a better system is a work of 
 extreme difficulty. Every regulation affecting the employ- 
 ment of capital and industry, though always injurious to 
 the public, is, for the most part, productive of advantage to 
 a greater or smaller number of individuals. The moment 
 that any change is proposed, these persons lay before gov-
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 rrnment the most exaggerated representations of the in- 
 jury that would result from the abolition or modification of 
 the regulation ; and not satisfied with this, they most com- 
 monly enlist a portion of the press into their service, and 
 availing themselves of all the aid that sophistry and inge- 
 nuity can supply, labour to make the public believe that 
 the regulation complained of is a national benefit, and that 
 they are interested in its support! This device has very 
 often been attended with the most complete success ; and 
 it is to this circumstance, more than any thing else, that 
 the tenacity with which erroneous theories in commerce 
 are supported is to be ascribed, and that sophisms, that 
 have been again ancl again exposed, are put forward anew 
 with as much seeming confidence as if they had never been 
 questioned. 
 
 All the great branches of industry carried on in every 
 country depend on peculiarities of soil or climate, or on the 
 genius of the people, and not on customhouse regulations. 
 What should we have to fear from the abolition of all pro- 
 hibitions? We export the produce of every one of our 
 principal manufactures, as cotton, wool, iron, leather, &c, 
 to every market in the world ; ?o that the possibility of our 
 being injured by the admission of similar articles from 
 abroad is quite out of the question. Admitting, however, 
 that the abandonment of the protective system might force 
 a few thousand workmen to abandon their employments, 
 it is material to observe that equivalent nezc ones would, in 
 consequence, be opened to receive them, and that the 
 aggregate demand for their services would not be in any 
 degree diminished. Suppose that, under a system of free 
 trade, we imported a part of the silks and linens we now 
 manufacture at home ; it is quite clear, inasmuch as neither 
 the French nor Germans would send us their commodities 
 gratis, that we should have to give them an equal amount 
 of Britisli commodities in exchange, so that such of our 
 artificers as had been engaged in the silk and linen manu- 
 factures, and were thrown out of them, would, in future, 
 obtain employment in the production of the articles that 
 must be exported as equivalents to the foreigner. It is idle, 
 therefore, to pretend that the repeal or modification of a 
 restrictive regulation can ever be a means of diminishing 
 the demand for labour. We may, by giving additional free- 
 dom to commerce, change the species of labour in demand, 
 and make it be employed more profitably, but we cannot 
 lessen its quantity. Should our imports this year amount 
 to ten or twenty millions more than they did last year, we 
 shall, it is certain, have to pay them by exporting an equally 
 increased amount of our peculiar products. And there- 
 fore if exportation be desirable, and the most ardent ad- 
 mirers of the restrictive system admit it to be such, impor- 
 tation must also be desirable, for the two are indissolubly 
 connected ; and to separate them, even in imagination, in- 
 fers a total ignorance of the most obvious principles. Com- 
 merce, whether carried on between individuals of the 
 same or of different countries, is founded on a fair princi- 
 ple ot reciprocity ; buying and selling are in it what action 
 and reaction are in physics, equal arid contrary. Those 
 who will not buy from others render it impossible for 
 others to buy from them. Every sale implies an equal 
 purchase, and every purchase an equal sale. Hence to 
 prohibit buying is exactly the same thing, in effect, as to pro- 
 hibit selling, rso merchant would ever export a single bale 
 of goods were he prevented from importing a greater value 
 in its stead. But it is impossible he can do this if foreign 
 commodities be excluded. In whatever degree, therefore, 
 an unrestricted trade might lead us to receive commodities 
 from other countries, in the same degree it would render 
 them customers for our commodities, would promote our 
 manufactures, and extend our trade. To suppose that 
 commerce may be too free, is to suppose that labour may 
 be turned into too productive channels, that the objects of 
 demand may be too much multiplied and their price too 
 much reduced ; it is like supposing that our agriculture 
 may be too much improved, and our crops rendered too 
 luxuriant 
 
 It is often affirmed, though we believe without the least 
 foundation for the statement, that had it not been for re- 
 strictions on importation, several manufactures that now 
 furnish employment for a considerable population would 
 most probably never have existed amongst us. But sup- 
 posing this statement to be admitted, it would not form any 
 valid objection to the principle now laid down. It is quite 
 as much for the advantage of communities as of sinsle fa- 
 milies to respect tha principle of the division of labour. 
 The interests of every people will always be best promoted 
 by addicting themselves, in preference, to those branches 
 of industry in which they have a superiority over others; 
 for it is by this means only they can ever fully avail them- 
 selves of their peculiar facilities of production, or employ 
 themselves and their capital most beneficially. 
 
 When importation from abroad is restricted, that some 
 new or incipient manufacture may be promoted, govern- 
 ment assumes, though perhaps unconsciously, that it 
 knows better than its subjects what is the most profitable 
 260 
 
 line for them to engage in. Never was there an assump- 
 tion more entirely unfounded. Individuals are always on the 
 alert to find out wha" are the most advantageous businesses 
 in which to embark ; and though they sometimes, no 
 doubt, form erroneous conclusions, the chances are ten to 
 one in favour of their being right. Were it otherwise the 
 number of well-advised and prosperous undertakings en- 
 tered upon in all tolerably well governed countries would 
 not, as is the case, infinitely exceed those of a contrary 
 description. But though it were different, the interference 
 of government would not certainly abate the evil. How- 
 ever well intended, all attempts to introduce or extend 
 some particular business cannot fail of being productive of 
 immediate injury to others ; and, should the object ever 
 be realized, it would most probably not be found to be a 
 national benefit, but the reverse. If, instead of directly 
 producing linens, a manufacturer finds it more profitable to 
 produce cottons or hardware, and to exchange these with 
 the Germans for linen, how ridiculous would it be to at- 
 tempt to promote the public interests by shutting out fo- 
 reign linens, and compelling them to be produced at home ! 
 It is not disputed that the linen manufacture might be 
 somewhat promoted by such a measure ; but it admits of 
 demonstration that other and more advantageous businesses 
 would sustain a corresponding depression. Governments 
 may depend upon the fact, that their subjects are incom- 
 parably better informed with respect to these matters than 
 they can ever be. It is not possible for them, do what they 
 will, to interfere to encourage one set of producers, with- 
 out at the same time, and by the same act, proportionally 
 discouraging some other set. Their obvious duty is, there- 
 fore, to abstain from all interference with the legitimate 
 pursuits of individuals. To the clamourers for protection 
 they may always answer, that they would be happy to 
 meet their wishes, provided they could do so without in- 
 juring others, but that being impossible, they feel them- 
 selves bound not to interfere, but to allow every one to reap 
 the profit or abide the loss of the speculations into which 
 he may enter. 
 
 We have not entered in this article into any investigations 
 with respect to that great class of exchanges which consist 
 in the rendering of labour or services for money or com- 
 modities. The laws by which they are governed may be 
 more appropriately stated under the head Labour. It is 
 sufficient here to observe, that prohibitions are to the full 
 as injurious and inconsistent when applied to this 
 description of exchanges as to the exchange of commo- 
 dities. 
 
 Our object in this article has merely been to lay before 
 the reader a brief view of the principles that govern com- 
 mercial transactions, and of the mode in which commerce 
 contributes to increase private and public opulence. To 
 have entered into a detail of the various ways in which 
 commerce may be facilitated, would have engaged us in 
 discussions that would have added too much to the length 
 of this article ; and the reader is, therefore, referred for 
 information on these points to the articles Banks, Colo- 
 nies, Exchange, Money, Roads, Weights and Mea- 
 sures, &c. 
 
 We subjoin some tables, derived from official sources, 
 illustrative of the nature and extent of the commerce of 
 Great Britain during the last few years : — 
 
 I. An Account of the Real or Declared Value of the prin- 
 cipal Articles of British and Irish Produce and Manu- 
 facture exported in 1838. 
 
 Articles. 
 
 Declared Value, 
 1838. 
 
 
 L 
 
 Coals and Culm 
 
 4S4.305 
 
 Cotton Manufactures 
 
 16,700.468 
 
 " Yarn 
 
 7,430,582 
 
 Earthenware - 
 
 670,985 
 
 Glass .... 
 
 376.524 
 
 Hardwares and Cutlery - 
 
 1,507.478 
 
 Linen Manufactures 
 
 2,919;719 
 
 " Yarn 
 
 655.699 
 
 Metals ; viz. Iron and Steel 
 
 2,530,903 
 
 Copper & Brass 
 
 1,226.558 
 
 Lead 
 
 156.150 
 
 Tin in Bars, &c. 
 
 103.530 
 
 Tin Plates - 
 
 434.749 
 
 Salt 
 
 223,372 
 
 Silk Manufactures - 
 
 778.031 
 
 Sugar, Refined 
 
 550.506 
 
 Wool, Sheep's or Lamb's 
 
 432,067 
 
 Woollen Manufactures - 
 
 5,792:i56 
 
 " Yarn - 
 
 Total of the above articles 
 
 365,657 
 
 43,338,839
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 II. Account of the Quantities of the principal Articles of Foreign and Colonial Merchandise imported into, exported 
 from, and retained for Consumption in the United Kingdom, with the Nett Revenue accruing thereon, during the 
 Years ending 5th January, 1837 and 1838. 
 
 Description 
 
 Quantities imported. 
 
 Quantities 
 
 xport. d. 
 
 Quantity retained for 
 t nnsump'.ion. 
 
 Nett Revenue. 
 
 
 of Merchandise. 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 1836 
 
 1837. 
 
 1836. | 
 
 13^7. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 L 
 
 L 
 
 
 Ashes, pearl and pot cwts. 
 
 152,955 
 
 147,329 
 
 19,137 
 
 18,810 
 
 130,176 
 
 12S,09S 
 
 998 
 
 193 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gross rev. Gross rev. | 
 
 
 Barilla and alkali • — 
 
 70,211 
 
 102,135 
 
 1,680 
 
 3,441 
 
 97,202 
 
 91,404 
 
 9,678 
 
 8,995' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Drawbacks* 
 repayments. 
 
 I 5,532 
 
 4,019 
 
 
 4,146s 
 
 4,976 
 
 
 Dark for tanning or dyeing — 
 
 772,119 
 
 736,730 
 
 3,345 
 
 8,003 
 
 784.819 
 
 781,113 
 
 25,855 ! 
 
 26,458 
 
 
 Coffee, viz. : — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 British plantation - lbs. 
 
 18,877,912 
 
 15.154.413 
 
 108.493 
 
 329,017 
 
 17,532.731 
 
 17.135.138 
 
 ) r ' 
 
 
 
 East India & Mauritius — 
 
 9,906,710 
 
 9,950,005 
 
 3,622,895 
 
 1,320,255 
 
 7,412,725 
 
 9,205.634 
 
 > 691,616 
 
 696,645 
 
 
 Foreign plantation — 
 Totals 
 Cocoa - - • lbs. 
 
 5,270,215 
 
 11,278,096 
 
 6.950.370 
 
 6,411,703 
 
 2,234 
 
 3,169 
 
 I 11,165 
 
 13,922 
 
 
 34,054,837 
 
 36,412,514 
 
 10,631.758 
 
 8,060,975 
 
 24,947,690 
 
 26,346.961 
 
 
 2,788,224 
 
 2,a53,000 
 
 332.587 
 
 933,276 1,130,168 
 
 1,416.613 
 
 
 Husks and shells — 
 
 425,648 
 
 511,757 
 
 16,800 
 
 
 364,144 
 
 431,170 
 
 
 
 Cotton wool from foreign 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 countries, viz. : — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 IT. Stales of America lbs. 
 
 289,615,692 
 
 320.651,716 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Brazil ... — 
 
 27,501,272 
 
 20,940.145 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Turkey and Egypt — 
 
 6,426,721 
 
 7,881,540 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Other foreign countries — 
 
 6,734,413 
 
 4,616,829 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cotton wool from British 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 possessions, viz. : — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 E. Indies and Mauritius — 
 
 75,957,887 
 
 51,577,197 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 British West Indies, the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 growth of - - — 
 
 1,312,806 
 
 1,199,162 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 British West Indies, im- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ported from - - — 
 
 401,531 
 
 396.540 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Other British possessions — 
 
 Total quantities 
 
 Indigo - - - lbs. 
 
 835 
 
 23,654 
 
 
 
 
 
 430,006 
 36,356 
 
 450,658 
 29.8S9 
 
 
 406,959,057 
 
 407,2S6,783 
 
 31,739,763 
 
 39,722,031 
 
 363,684,232 
 
 368,445,035 
 
 
 7,710,544 
 
 6,545.873 
 
 3,691.951 
 
 3,587.561 
 
 2,840398 
 
 2226.194 
 
 
 Lac dye ... — 
 
 663.675 
 
 1,011,674 
 
 200.975 
 
 133.959 
 
 620 248 
 
 423,135 
 
 1,717 
 
 1.140 
 
 
 Logwood • • • tons 
 
 12,881 
 
 14.699 
 
 4.385 
 
 3,316 
 
 12,361 
 
 12,023 
 
 2.473 
 
 2,543 
 
 
 Madder - - - cwts. 
 
 108,906 
 
 R4.841 
 
 364 
 
 8-42 
 
 105,445 
 
 78,830 
 
 10,712 
 
 8.037 
 
 
 Madder roots • • — 
 
 85,251 
 
 109,235 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 84,101 
 
 100,503 
 
 2,114 
 
 2,532 
 
 
 Flax and tow, or codilla of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 flax and hemp - — 
 
 1,529,116 
 
 1,000.865 
 
 16,789 
 
 6,970 
 
 1,611,428 
 
 993.654 
 
 6,441 
 
 4.234 
 
 
 Currants ... — 
 
 
 
 
 17,841 
 
 175.774 
 
 174,842 
 
 194,821 
 
 193.893 
 
 
 Lemons and oranges - chests 
 
 265,864 
 
 349,830 
 
 1,456 
 
 1,536 
 
 249.651 
 
 311.490 
 
 52.226 
 
 62.431 
 
 
 Raisins - - - cuts. 
 
 182,286 
 
 169.590 
 
 36.496 
 
 11.526 
 
 156,194 
 
 152,102 
 
 117,095 
 
 114.095 
 
 
 Hats of straw - • No. 
 
 14,042 
 
 26.228 
 
 16.172 
 
 12,714 
 
 3,435 
 
 5.624 
 
 1.009 
 
 1.632 
 
 
 Platting . f straw - lbs. 
 
 42.890 
 
 30;S62 
 
 11,846 
 
 7,546 
 
 29.681 
 
 23,962 
 
 24.558 
 
 20,003 
 
 
 Hemp, undressed - cwts. 
 
 586,032 
 
 773,621 
 
 38,105 
 
 16,574 
 
 567,892 
 
 651,613 
 
 2,482 
 
 2,/66 
 
 
 Hides— buffalo, bull, ox, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 cow. or horse, viz. : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Untanned, - - — 
 
 352.061 
 
 338,652 
 
 37,795 
 
 46,649 
 
 330,214 
 
 290.739 
 
 45,769 
 
 36,485 
 
 
 Tanned, - - lbs. 
 
 70,410 
 
 87.673 
 
 32,305 
 
 19,903 
 
 63.010 
 
 63.895 
 
 794 
 
 814 
 
 
 Leather gloves - - pairs 
 
 1,490.999 
 
 1,255,920 
 
 31,405 
 
 18.894 
 
 1,459,363 
 
 1,218.470 
 
 27.507 
 
 22.9Z 
 
 
 Molasses • - - cwts. 
 
 528,306 
 
 582.283 
 
 1,600 
 
 1.641 
 
 657.082 
 
 592.019 
 
 295.645 
 
 266,324 
 
 
 Oil— Olive - - - galls. 
 
 2,6*2,016 
 
 1.721,914 
 
 150.561 
 
 209,472 
 
 1,844,622 
 
 1,496.656 
 
 46.514 
 
 34.986 
 
 
 Palm - • - cwts. 
 
 277.017 
 
 223,337 
 
 34,379 
 
 16,732 
 
 234,357 
 
 211,919 
 
 14,678 
 
 13,29? 
 
 
 Train, spermaceti, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 and blubber - tuns 
 
 19.489 
 
 21,803 
 
 1.365 
 
 393 
 
 18,722 
 
 20.878 
 
 1,292 
 
 1437( 
 
 
 Saltpetre and cubic nitre cwts. 
 
 279.902 
 
 349,993 
 
 38!444 
 
 36.959 
 
 231.134 
 
 240,222 
 
 6.045 
 
 6.33< 
 
 1 
 
 Flax and linseed bushels 
 
 3.339,215 
 
 3.321.089 
 
 1.371 
 
 6.879 
 
 3.179,097 
 
 3.381.643 
 
 19.905 
 
 21.11! 
 
 ! 
 
 Silk, raw - - - lbs. 
 
 4,453,081 
 
 4,146,481 
 
 113,600 
 
 345.971 
 
 4.239,254 
 
 3,520,105 
 
 13.072 
 
 15.4& 
 
 
 Waste and knubbs — 
 
 1,608,289 
 
 943^281 
 
 87,646 
 
 21.268 
 
 1,524.968 
 
 876.456 
 
 712 
 
 38? 
 
 
 Cassia lignea - • ■ — 
 
 837,413 
 
 984.674 
 
 633,083 
 
 760,141 
 
 89.396 
 
 105 485 
 
 2,242 
 
 2.64- 
 
 1 
 
 Pepper ... — 
 
 7.724.9::2 
 
 5,291,993 
 
 4,151,569 
 
 4.76S.860 
 
 2.794.491 
 
 2,625,075 
 
 99.134 
 
 65,62 
 
 
 Pimento ... — 
 
 3,269,233 
 
 2,113,300 
 
 2,337,9S2 
 
 1,37G,C45 
 
 400,914 
 
 3:j5,40C 
 
 6,359 
 
 4,19. 
 
 >, 
 
 Sugar, viz. : — 
 
 
 
 Raw. 
 
 Raw. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 West India - - cwts. 
 
 3,600,517 
 
 3,305,233 
 
 C 27S.09S 
 
 448,382 
 
 ) 
 
 > 3.488,399 
 
 
 
 
 
 East India & Mauritius — 
 
 720,997 
 
 912,967 
 
 • Refined. 
 
 Refined. 
 
 3,954,8U 
 
 4,184,165 
 
 4,760,56 
 
 
 Foreign — 
 
 327.647 
 
 265.073 
 
 ( 248.644 
 
 227.807 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tallow - — 
 
 1,186.364 
 
 1.314.64? 
 
 18.709 
 
 52.375 
 
 1.314.085 
 
 1,289.514 
 
 207.789 
 
 203.97 
 
 ■ 
 
 Tea .... lbs. 
 
 49,307,701 
 
 36,973,9S1 
 
 4,269,863 
 
 4,716,24c; 
 
 49,142,23t 
 
 30,625,20t 
 
 4,674,535 
 
 3,223,84 
 
 i 
 
 Timber, viz. : — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Battens Ac b. ends, gt. hun. 
 
 17.247 
 
 15,982 
 
 80 
 
 12= 
 
 15,677 
 
 14.451 
 
 | 152,596 
 
 133,80 
 
 
 Deal and deal ends — 
 
 69,315 
 
 72,83'. 
 
 1,022 
 
 946 
 
 68,30C 
 
 66,651 
 
 j 647,531 
 
 580,57 
 
 ) 
 
 Masts, 6 and under 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 inches in diameter No 
 
 8,414 
 
 9,47-1 
 
 345 
 
 19£ 
 
 9,24/ 
 
 9,761 
 
 i 2,7a 
 
 2,86 
 
 ') 
 
 Masts, 8 and under 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 inches in diameter — 
 
 3,381 
 
 3.62c 
 
 26? 
 
 16t 
 
 3.291 
 
 3.44^ 
 
 1 2,11? 
 
 2.31 
 
 I 
 
 Masts. 12 and upwards loads 
 
 2,64? 
 
 4.27-' 
 
 t 35 
 
 If 
 
 3.20C 
 
 4.07 - 
 
 r i 3.44C 
 
 4.57 
 
 
 Oak planks - - — 
 
 3,m( 
 
 1,96! 
 
 ! - 
 
 e 
 
 2.87 
 
 2.19' 
 
 ) H49f 
 
 8,81 
 
 3 
 
 Staves - - gt. hund 
 
 93.69£ 
 
 85.72 
 
 2,124 
 
 1,63- 
 
 90811 
 
 1 84.45* 
 
 I 57.334 
 
 51.69 
 
 1 
 
 Fir, 8 in. sq. & upw : ds. loads 
 
 622,68( 
 
 ) 579.96( 
 
 ) 46C 
 
 84! 
 
 612.86; 
 
 . 531.03 
 
 ) 545.074 
 
 456.38 
 
 1 
 
 Oak, ditto - - — 
 
 25.68- 
 
 31,651 
 
 > If 
 
 S 
 
 26.061 
 
 > 30.94( 
 
 ) 31 31f 
 
 41 20 
 
 
 VJnermmerated, ditto — 
 
 39,42-; 
 
 ! 48.48' 
 
 1 75 
 
 8f 
 
 39.3 1^ 
 
 l! 48.02f 
 
 ; 10.04:: 
 
 12.0731 
 
 Wainscot togs, ditto — 
 
 4,215 
 
 » 5.59, 
 
 1 . 
 
 
 3,98! 
 
 1 4.02( 
 
 ) 10,954 
 
 10 938 
 
 261
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 - 
 
 Description 
 of Merchandise. 
 
 Quantities imported. 
 
 Quantities 
 
 exported. 
 
 Quantity retained for 
 Consumption. 
 
 Nett Revenue 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 Tobacco, viz. : — 
 Unmanufactured - lbs. 
 Manufactured or cigars — 
 Snuff — 
 
 Wool, sheep and lambs' — 
 
 Wine, viz. . — 
 Cape - - imp. galls. 
 French - — 
 Portugal - — 
 Spanish ... — 
 Madeira - — 
 Other sorts - - — 
 
 Totals of Wine 
 
 32,232,907 
 
 168,668 
 
 13,580 
 
 64,239,977 
 
 5S0,275 
 533,241 
 4,089,235 
 3,164,244 
 233,979 
 805,109 
 
 27,144,107 
 
 632,186 
 
 4,153 
 
 48,379,708 
 
 618,105 
 725,140 
 2,693,365 
 2,802,585 
 289,400 
 904,885 
 
 12,319,405 
 
 432,661 
 
 3,496 
 
 613,707 
 
 10,876 
 99,112 
 381,026 
 645,822 
 152,368 
 385,320 
 
 17,341,587 
 
 302,869 
 
 3,472 
 
 2,831,352 
 
 6.766 
 106,935 
 199,518 
 492,345 
 148,107 
 381,122 
 
 22,150,785 
 
 158,182 
 
 508 
 
 60,366,415 
 
 541,511 
 352,063 
 2,878,359 
 2,388,413 
 133,673 
 515,193 
 
 22,321,489 
 
 144,385 
 
 351 
 
 42,515,899 
 
 500,727 
 438,594 
 2,560,252 
 2,278,263 
 111,376 
 502,319 
 
 L. 
 
 ( 3,397,102 
 
 189,524 
 
 74,435 
 96,534 
 
 ( 1,622,994 
 
 L 
 
 3,417,663 
 
 118,168 
 
 68,854 
 120,286 
 
 1,497,957 
 
 9,406,083 
 
 8,033,480 
 
 1,674,524 
 
 1,334,793 
 
 6,809,212 
 
 6,391,531 
 
 1,793,963 
 
 1.687,097 
 
 III Account of the Real or Declared Value of the various Articles of the Manufacture and Produce of the United King- 
 dom exported to Foreign Countries in 1828, and during each of the Eight Years ending with 1837; specifying their 
 Value, the Countries to which exported, and the Value of those annually shipped for each. 
 
 
 
 EXPORTS. 
 
 Countries to which 
 
 
 
 exported. 
 
 1828. 
 
 1530. | 1831. 
 
 1832. 
 
 1833. | 1834. | 1835. | 1836. | 1837. 
 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 1 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. \ L. \ L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 Russia 
 
 1,318,936 
 
 1,489,538 
 
 1,191,565 
 
 1,587,250 
 
 1,531,002 1,382,300| 1,752,775 
 
 1,742,433 
 
 2,046,592 
 
 Sweden 
 
 42,699 
 
 40,488 
 
 57,127 
 
 64,932 
 
 59,549! 
 
 63,094 
 
 105.156 
 
 113,308 
 
 101,121 
 
 Norway 
 
 53,582 
 
 63.926 
 
 58,580 
 
 34.528 
 
 55.038 
 
 61,988 
 
 79,278 
 
 79,469 
 
 72,413 
 
 Denmark • 
 
 111,880 
 
 118,813 
 
 92,294 
 
 93,396 
 
 99,951 
 
 94,595 
 
 107,979 
 
 91,302 
 
 103,448 
 
 Prussia 
 
 179,145 
 
 177,923 
 
 192,816 
 
 258.556 
 
 144,179 
 
 136.423 
 
 188,273 
 
 160,722 
 
 131,536 
 
 Germany - 
 
 4,394,104 
 
 4,463,605 
 
 3,642,952 
 
 5,068,997 
 
 4,355.548 
 
 4,547,166 
 
 4,602,966 
 
 4,463,729 
 
 4,898,016 
 
 Holland - 
 Belgium 
 
 I 2.142,736 
 
 2,022,458 
 
 2,082,536 
 
 2,789,398 
 
 S 2,181,893 
 I 886,429 
 
 2,470,267 
 750,059 
 
 2,648,102 
 
 818.487 
 
 2,509,622 
 839,276 
 
 3,040,029 
 
 804,917 
 
 France 
 
 498,938 
 
 475,884 
 
 602,688 
 
 674.791 
 
 848,333 
 
 1,116,8S5 
 
 1,453.636 
 
 1,591.381 
 
 1,643,204 
 
 Portugal, Proper 
 
 945.016 
 
 1,106,695 
 
 975,991 
 
 540,792 
 
 967,091 
 
 1,600.123 
 
 1,554,326 
 
 1.085,934 
 
 1,079,815 
 
 Azores 
 
 27;940 
 
 23,629 
 
 41,638 
 
 77,920 
 
 54,430 
 
 63i275 
 
 49.717 
 
 ' 53,574 
 
 56.405 
 
 Madeira 
 
 39,802 
 
 38,444 
 
 38.960 
 
 28,038 
 
 33,4)1 
 
 38.455 
 
 40,082 
 
 52,168 
 
 46,044 
 
 Spain & Balearic Islands 
 
 301,153 
 
 607,068 
 
 597,848 
 
 442,926 
 
 442,837 
 
 325.907 
 
 405,065 
 
 437.076 
 
 2S6,636 
 
 Canary Islands • 
 
 38,152 
 
 42,620 
 
 33,282 
 
 21,053 
 
 30,507 
 
 30.686 
 
 24,308 
 
 40,370 
 
 41,904 
 
 Gibraliar - 
 
 1,038,925 
 
 292,760 
 
 367,285 
 
 461,470 
 
 385,460 
 
 460.719 
 
 602,580 
 
 756,411 
 
 906,155 
 
 Italy and Italian Islands 
 
 2,176.149 
 
 3,251,379 
 
 2,490,376 
 
 2,361,772 
 
 2,316,260 
 
 3,282,777 
 
 2,426,171 
 
 2,921,466 
 
 2,406,066 
 
 Malta ■ 
 
 239,458 
 
 189,135 
 
 134,519 
 
 96,994 
 
 135,438 
 
 242,696 
 
 136,925 
 
 143,015 
 
 103,680 
 
 Ionian Islands - 
 
 41,078 
 
 56,963 
 
 50,883 
 
 55,725 
 
 38,915 
 
 94,498 
 
 107,804 
 
 109,123 
 
 124,465 
 
 Turkey and Continen- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tal Greece (exclusive 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 of the Morea) - 
 
 185,842 
 
 1,139,616 
 
 888,654 
 
 915,319 
 
 1,019,604 
 
 1,207,941 
 
 1,331,669 
 
 1,775,034 
 
 1,163,426 
 
 Morea & Greek Islands 
 
 335 
 
 9,694 
 
 10,446 
 
 10,149 
 
 25,914 
 
 37.179 
 
 28,834 
 
 12,003 
 
 15,431 
 
 Egypt (Ports on the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mediterranean) 
 
 35,302 
 
 110,227 
 
 122,832 
 
 113,109 
 
 145,647 
 
 158,877 
 
 269,225 
 
 216,930 
 
 220,0S0 
 
 Tripoli, Barbary, and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Morocco 
 
 13,745 
 
 1,138 
 
 426 
 
 751 
 
 2,350 
 
 14,823 
 
 29,040 
 
 29,322 
 
 54.007 
 
 Western Coast of Africa 
 
 191,452 
 
 252,123 
 
 234,768 
 
 290,061 
 
 329,210 
 
 326,483 
 
 292,540 
 
 467,186 
 
 312.938 
 
 Cape of Good Hope - 
 
 218,049 
 
 330.036 
 
 257,245 
 
 292,405 
 
 346,197 
 
 304,382 
 
 326,921 
 
 482,315 
 
 488.814 
 
 Cape Verd Islands 
 
 5,856 
 
 1,710 
 
 215 
 
 
 146 
 
 530 
 
 575 
 
 413 
 
 751 
 
 St. Helena 
 
 31,362 
 
 38.915 
 
 39,431 
 
 21,236 
 
 30,041 
 
 31,615 
 
 31,187 
 
 11,041 
 
 9,645 
 
 Isle of Bourbon 
 
 35,188 
 
 "10:042 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 7.091 
 
 . 
 
 - 
 
 3,795 
 
 Mauritius - 
 
 185,972 
 
 161,029 
 
 148,475 
 
 163,191 
 
 83,424 
 
 149,319 
 
 196,559 
 
 260.855 
 
 349,488 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 250 
 
 6,049 
 
 16,358 
 
 787 
 
 East India Company's 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Territories & Ceylon 
 
 4,256,582 
 
 3,895,530 
 
 3,377,412 
 
 3,514,779 
 
 3,495,301 
 
 2,578,569 
 
 3,192,692 
 
 4,285,829 
 
 3,612,975 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 842,852 
 
 1,074,708 
 
 1,326,388 
 
 678,375 
 
 Sumatra and Java 
 
 189,200 
 
 162,102 
 
 285,296 
 
 150.606 
 
 471,712 
 
 410,273 
 
 353,892 
 
 234,852 
 
 313,791 
 
 Phillippine Islands • 
 
 300 
 
 71,220 
 
 39,513 
 
 102,284 
 
 185,298 
 
 76,618 
 
 129,743 
 
 51,778 
 
 33,808 
 
 New South Wales, Van- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Diemen's Land, and 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Swan River - 
 
 443,839 
 
 314,677 
 
 398,471 
 
 466,238 
 
 558,372 
 
 716,014 
 
 696,345 
 
 835,637 
 
 921,568 
 
 New Zealand, and South 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sea Islands 
 
 2,487 
 
 1,396 
 
 4,752 
 
 1,576 
 
 936 
 
 . 
 
 2,687 
 
 
 
 Ports of Siam - 
 
 . 
 
 10,467 
 
 
 
 
 19,742 
 
 
 
 
 British North American 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Colonies 
 
 1.691,044 
 
 1,857,133 
 
 2,089.327 
 
 2,075,72r 
 
 2,092.550 
 
 1,671,069 
 
 2,158,158 
 
 2.732.291 
 
 2.141.035 
 
 British West Indies - 
 
 3,289,704 
 
 2,838.446 
 
 2,581,949 
 
 2,439,R0S 
 
 2.597,589 
 
 2,680,024 
 
 3,187,540 
 
 3,786.453 
 
 3,456.745 
 
 Hayti 
 
 248,328 
 
 321.793 376,103 
 
 543,104 
 
 381,528 
 
 357,297 
 
 365,798 
 
 251,663 
 
 171,050 
 
 Cuba and other Foreign 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 West Indies - 
 
 569.728 
 
 618.029 663.531 
 
 633.70C 
 
 577,228 
 
 913,005 
 
 787,043 
 
 987,122 
 
 891.713 
 
 U. States of America - 
 
 5,810,315 
 
 6,132,346 ! 9,053,583 
 
 5,468,27-. 
 
 7,579,699 
 
 6.844,989 
 
 10,568,455 
 
 12,425.605 
 
 4,695.225 
 
 Mexico 
 
 307,029 
 
 978,441 728,858 
 
 199,821 
 
 421,487 
 
 '459.610 
 
 402,820 
 
 254,822 
 
 520,200 
 
 Guatemala 
 
 6,191 
 
 . 
 
 
 3,700 
 
 30.366 
 
 15.244 
 
 764 
 
 78 
 
 Colombia - 
 
 261,113 
 
 216,751, 248.25C 
 
 283,56c" 
 
 121,826 
 
 199.906 
 
 132,242 
 
 185.172 
 
 170,451 
 
 Brazil 
 
 3,518,297 
 
 2,452,103 
 
 1,238,371 
 
 2,144,903 
 
 2,575,680 
 
 2,460,679 
 
 2,630,767 
 
 3,030,532 
 
 1,824,082 
 
 States of the Rio de la 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Plata 
 
 312,38£ 
 
 632,175 
 
 339,870 
 
 660,155 
 
 515.362 
 
 831,564 
 
 658,525 
 
 697,334 
 
 696,104 
 
 Chili .... 
 
 709,371 
 
 540.62( 
 
 651.617 
 
 708,193 
 
 816,817 
 
 896,221 
 
 606.176 
 
 861,903 
 
 625.545 
 
 Peru - - - - 
 
 374,6H 
 
 368,46$ 
 
 409,003 
 
 275,61C 
 
 387,524 
 
 299,235 
 
 441,324 
 
 606,332 
 
 476,374 
 
 Isles of Guernsey, Jer 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 sey, Alderney, & Man 
 Totals - 
 
 329,425 
 
 344,03f 
 
 > 324,634 
 
 317,496 
 
 335,934 
 
 360,665 
 
 351,6121 31S,609 
 
 330,017 
 
 36,812,756 38,271,59' 
 
 37,164.375 
 
 36,450,59- 
 
 [\ 39,667,347 41,^49,191 
 
 47,372,270'53,368,572 
 
 42,070,744 
 
 262
 
 COMMERCE. 
 
 IV. Account specifying the different Articles, and the Real 
 or Declared Value of each, of the Produce and Manufac- 
 ture of the United Kingdom, exported to Foreign Parts 
 during each of the Three Years ending with 1837. 
 
 Species of Exports. 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 Alum • 
 
 Apparel, Slops, and Ne- 
 gro Clothing - - 
 Arms and Ammunition 
 Bacon and Hams 
 Beef and Pork, salted 
 Beer and Ale 
 Books, printed - 
 Brass and Copper Man- 
 ufactures 
 Bread and Biscuit 
 Butter and Cheese - 
 Cabinet and Upholstery 
 
 Wares 
 Coals and Culm 
 Cordage 
 
 Corn,Grain,Meal,&.Flour 
 Cotton Manufactures 
 
 " Yarn 
 Cows and Oxen 
 Earthenware of all sorts 
 Fish of all sorts 
 Glass of all sorts 
 Haberdashery and Milli- 
 nery 
 Hardwares and Cutlery 
 Hats, Beaver and Felt 
 " of all other sorts 
 Hops - - - - 
 Horses 
 Iron and Steel, wrought 
 
 and unwrought 
 Lard - 
 
 Lead and Shot - 
 Leather, wrought and 
 unwrought 
 
 " Saddlery and 
 Harness ' 
 Linen Manufactures - 
 
 " Yarn 
 Machinery & Mill-work 
 Mathematical and Opti- 
 cal Instruments 
 Mules 
 
 Musical Instruments 
 Oil, Train, of Greenland 
 
 Fishery - 
 Painters' Colours 
 Plate, Plate Ware, Jew 
 ellery, and Watches 
 Potatoes 
 Salt - 
 
 Sail petre, British refined 
 Seeds of all sorts 
 Silk Manufactures 
 Soap and Candles 
 Spirits 
 
 Stationary of all sorts 
 Sugar, refined • 
 Tin, unwrought 
 " and Pewter Wares 
 and Tin Plates 
 Tobacco (manufactured) 
 
 and Snuff 
 Tongues 
 
 Umbrellas and Parasols 
 Whalebone 
 Wool Sheep's - 
 
 " of other sorts - 
 Woollen and Worsted 
 
 Yarn 
 Woollen Manufactures 
 All other Articles 
 
 Total real or declared "l 
 Value of the Produce 
 and Manufacture of ! 
 the U. K. exported f 
 from Great Britain to I 
 Foreign Parts J 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 Total Exports from, 
 
 Total from the United 
 Kingdom 
 
 263 
 
 1835. 
 
 1,359 
 
 494,861 
 407,490 
 27,573 
 104,782 
 225,641 
 148,098 
 
 1,093,949 
 
 5.405 
 
 178,657 
 
 51,003 
 
 242,746 
 
 79,541 
 
 25,109 
 
 16,393,170 
 
 5,706,563 
 
 1,445 
 
 539,990 
 
 217,652 
 
 636,928 
 
 516,775 
 1,831,766 
 
 135.048 
 27,437 
 16,616 
 99,465 
 
 1,640,939 
 11,881 
 195,096 
 
 278,978 
 
 73,348 
 2,838,050 
 
 216,635 
 307,316 
 
 25,004 
 
 1,762 
 
 60,810 
 
 39,074 
 169,861 
 
 231,900 
 
 5,954 
 
 142,412 
 
 20,284 
 
 8,549 
 
 973,479 
 
 248,803 
 
 16,866 
 257,877 
 851,745 
 
 32,290 
 
 381,068 
 
 13,594 
 2,422 
 45,46 
 12,960 
 387,834 
 45,080 
 
 309,091 
 6,836,735 
 1,034,142 
 
 1836. 
 
 L. 
 
 3,898 
 
 604,863 
 411,286 
 42.319 
 136,898 
 264,560 
 178,034 
 
 681,980 
 2,270,630 
 147,907 
 41,753 
 11,788 
 98,302 
 
 2,340,207 
 26,585 
 224,931 
 
 316,322 
 
 93,388 
 
 3,249,053 
 
 315,608 
 
 30J,852 
 
 25,030 
 
 5.366 
 
 76; 120 
 
 5,636 
 210,811 
 
 46,926,370 
 
 445,900 
 
 47,372,270 
 
 L. 
 
 2,761 
 
 533,301 
 289,142 
 35,840 
 119,117 
 268.235 
 147,430 
 
 1,072.002 
 
 1,166,082 
 
 8,184 
 
 9,991 
 
 205,858 
 
 179,073 
 
 75,511 
 
 67,357 
 
 329,760 
 
 428,690 
 
 84,475 
 
 73,231 
 
 31,297 
 
 34,781 
 
 18,482,586 
 
 13,632,146 
 
 6,120,326 
 
 6,955,936 
 
 3,072 
 
 6,107 
 
 837,493 
 
 563,082 
 
 185,433 
 
 185,120 
 
 551,599 
 
 475,995 
 
 53,015,431 
 
 353,141 
 
 53,368,572 
 
 414,687 
 1,460,404 
 104,600 
 46,290 
 10.547 
 7^215 
 
 2,003,708 
 
 14,782 
 
 155,210 
 
 250,308 
 
 87,037 
 
 2,109,897 
 
 415,726 
 
 493,298 
 
 27,259 
 5,104 
 
 71,618 
 
 5,700 
 151,307 
 
 338,869 
 
 257,726 
 
 4,915 
 
 7,030 
 
 171,463 
 
 190,444 
 
 14,411 
 
 19,393 
 
 8,920 
 
 7,466 
 
 916.777 
 
 503.653 
 
 276,222 
 
 230.835 
 
 24,297 
 
 10,485 
 
 297,945 
 
 197,489 
 
 697,920 
 
 602,377 
 
 61,847 
 
 74,657 
 
 387,528 
 
 371,518 
 
 13,654 
 
 13,124 
 
 3,599 
 
 3,744 
 
 62.336 
 
 39.464 
 
 10,550 
 
 6,347 
 
 323,549 
 
 185,350 
 
 39,967 
 
 10,076 
 
 359,690 
 
 337,140 
 
 7,636,117 
 
 4,654,397 
 
 1,293,932 
 
 1,113,069 
 
 41,911,898 
 
 363,040 
 
 42,274,938 
 
 COMMON-FIELD LANDS. 
 
 (See McCuUoch's Commercial Diet. ; see also the Treatise 
 on Commerce by the same author, from which part of the 
 above article has been abstracted.) 
 
 CO'MMISSARY (Lat. committo, I entrust), is used in 
 various ways as nearly synonymous with deputy. In mili- 
 tary affairs, the parties who provide clothing, <kc. for the 
 army are styled commissaries ; and the whole body of offi- 
 cers belonging to this department, the commissariat. 
 COMMISSION. In the Army. See Army. 
 Commission. In the Navy, the title of the appointment 
 or warrant of officers of the rank of lieutenant and above, 
 to hold their office. The commission is signed by the 
 lords commissioners of the Admiralty. 
 
 Commission, in Law, an appointment, usually by war- 
 rant or letters patent, to one or more as commissioners, to 
 perform certain duties specified in the instrument. In this 
 mode many of the highest judicial or ministerial function- 
 aries of the realm are appointed ; thus, the judges of the 
 superior courts hold several commissions, as of oyer and 
 terminer, gaol delivery, &c. And high offices of state, 
 when not regularly filled, are often entrusted to commis- 
 sioners for the time being, and said to be put in commis- 
 sion ; thus the custody of the great seal is put in commis- 
 sion in the absence of a lord chancellor and lord keeper. 
 The Treasury and Admiralty have of late times been usu- 
 ally entrusted to commissioners, no lord high treasurer or 
 lord high admiral having been appointed. The Court of 
 High Commission consisted of persons appointed under 
 letters patent to examine into matters of ecclesiastical ju- 
 risdiction, under stat. 1. Eliz. c. 1. (abolished 16 Car. 1.) 
 Magistrates or justices of the peace are appointed by 
 means of a commission occasionally renewed, commonly 
 termed the commission of the peace. 
 
 COMMISSU'RjE. A term applied in Anatomy to certain 
 parts of the brain which cross from one of its sides to the 
 other. (See Brain) In Botany, it signifies the place of 
 junction of two carpels. 
 
 COMMITMENT. In Law, the sending to prison of one 
 charged with any crime. It appears to have been the an- 
 cient usage that whoever could lawfully arrest a person for 
 felony or treason could also send or bring him to the com- 
 mon gaol ; but since the Habeas Corpus Act it is the uni- 
 form practice that offenders are committed by the warrant 
 in writing of a justice of the peace. The privy council and 
 secretary of state can also commit in cases of treason. A 
 commitment in writing must declare the authority of him 
 who makes it, and also the nature of the offence with 
 which the parly is charged. 
 
 COMMITTEE, in the language of Parliament, is either 
 a committee of certain members, or a committee of the 
 whole house. (See Parliament.) Select committees are 
 bodies appointed by open nomination or by a peculiar 
 mode of election for the transaction of business, either ac- 
 cording to the standing orders, or by accustomed usage. 
 All private bills are referred in the first instance to select 
 committees. Joint committeesin former times consisted of 
 bodies deputed by the two houses, and met for the purpose 
 of adjusting differences, sometimes after free conferences 
 had failed. They were free from the forms observed in 
 conferences. As in the latter, the Lords deputed only half 
 the number of members sent by the Commons. They 
 have been Ions disused. 
 
 CO'MMODORE. A naval officer having the temporary 
 rank of rear-admiral ; the senior captain of several ships is 
 called the commodore by courtesy. 
 
 CO'MMON. (Lat. communis.) In Law, is the right 
 which one person has of taking a part of the produce of 
 land, while the whole property in the land is vested in 
 another. Common of pasture is either, 1. Common ap- 
 pendant, which is the right of the tenant of a manor to pas- 
 ture his beasts on the lord's waste ; 2. Common appurtenant, 
 annexed to land by grant of prescription ; 3. Common in 
 gross, a right severed from the land. 
 
 When a common is under pasture all those who have a 
 right of pasturage may turn out on it a certain number of 
 animals, according to the extent of the enclosed grounds 
 which they cultivate. When the common consists wholly 
 or partly of arable land, this arable land is formed into 
 ridges, generally with a narrow riband or balk of turf be- 
 tween each ridge, or between each two or three ridges. 
 The right of cultivating these ridges is distributed among 
 the holders of the enclosed lands of the parish, according 
 to the extent of their possessions; and in order that there 
 may be no partialitv, and that every one may have as much 
 interest in preserving his neighbour's ridge as his own, the 
 ridges which any individual has the right of cultivating do 
 not lie together, but are distributed among the ridges of his 
 neighbours. 
 
 CO'MMONABLE LANDS. A common in which the 
 greater part of the land is arable. 
 
 CO'MMON-FIELD LANDS. When the whole of a 
 common belonging to a parish is not in a ring fence, but 
 lies in different places, these places are called common 
 fields.
 
 COMMON MEASURE. 
 
 CO'MMON MEASURE. In Arithmetic, is a number 
 which divides two or more other numbers without leaving 
 a remainder. 
 
 CO'MMON PLEAS, or COMMON BENCH, COURT OF. 
 In Law, was originally that branch or side of the aula regia 
 in which civil causes" between subjects were tried. It was 
 separated and rendered stationary, while that portion of 
 the court from which the King's Bench is derived followed 
 the person of the king by a provision of Magna Charta. 
 This court has concurrent jurisdiction with the other two 
 superior common law courts (see Courts, Superior) in 
 personal actions and ejectments. But it retains exclusive 
 jurisdiction over all other mixed, and all real actions or 
 pleas of land. These, however, have now nearly fallen 
 into disuse. (See Pleading.) The Court of Common 
 Pleas has one chief and four puisne judges. 
 
 COMMON PRAYER BOOK. The name given to the 
 collection of all the offices of regular and occasional wor- 
 ship according to the forms of the church of England. The 
 basis of this book is to be found in the King's Primer, set 
 forth in 1546 by Henry VIII., which was intended to con- 
 vey instruction to the people in the most important parts 
 of the church service ; but contained little more than the 
 Creed, Lord's Prayer, Commandments, and Litany. This 
 Primer underwent two revisions and republications under 
 Edward VI., whose second Liturgy approaches very near 
 in its contents to that which exists at present. It was at 
 that review that the Sentences, Exhortation, Confession, 
 and Absolution were prefixed to the Daily Service ; the 
 Decalogue was introduced into the Communion Service ; 
 and certain remnants of the Romish customs were finally 
 abolished, as the sign of the cross in confirmation and ma- 
 trimony, the anointing of the sick, and the prayers for the 
 dead. 
 
 On the accession of Elizabeth, another review of the Li- 
 turgy was instituted ; but the alterations effected were little 
 more than in the selection of the lessons. At the review 
 in the reign of James I., after the conference with the 
 Presbyterians at Hampton Court, no change of importance 
 was introduced, except the addition of the explanation of 
 the Sacraments in the Catechism. Again, when on the 
 restoration of Charles II. a conference had been held with 
 the Dissenters at the Savoy, the subject of the Common 
 Prayer Book was reconsidered in convocation. The ser- 
 vices for the 30th of January and 29th of May were then 
 added, as also the Form to be used at Sea. A few trifling 
 alterations were made also in the other services ; but these 
 were the last that have been effected. On the accession 
 of William III. another revision took place, and a consider- 
 able number of alterations were proposed and supported 
 by many of the bishops and clergy ; but they were re- 
 jected by convocation, and have never since been revived 
 by authority. The following is a chronological list of the 
 revision of the Prayer Book in which any alterations have 
 taken place. It is taken from the Rev. T. V. Short's His- 
 tory of the Church of England. 
 154S. The King's Primer. 
 
 1548. The Communion Service. 
 
 1549. First Liturgy of Edward VI. 
 
 1550. First Ordination Service. 
 1552. Second Liturgy of Edward VI. 
 1552. Second Ordination Service. 
 1560. Liturgy of Elizabeth. 
 
 1604. Alterations introduced by James I. 
 1633. Alterations introduced by Charles I. 
 1661. Last Revision ; authorized Liturgy. 
 
 COMMONS, HOUSE OF. See Parliament. 
 
 CO'MMON TIME. In Music, that in which every mea- 
 sure or bar contains one semibreve, two minims, four 
 crotchets, eiaht quavers, and so on. 
 
 CO'MMONWEALTH. See Republic. 
 
 COMMONWEALTH OF ENGLAND. In History the 
 form of government established in England on the death 
 of Charles I. in 1649, and which existed during the protec- 
 torate of Oliver Cromwell and his son Richard, until the 
 abdication of the latter in 1659. The substitution of a de- 
 mocratical for a monarchical form of government was pro- 
 vided for and enjoined by two successive charters. The 
 first charter of the commonwealth was drawn up in De- 
 cember, 1653, by the council of officers, who, on the volun- 
 tary resignation of the parliament in the early part of the 
 same year, had declared Cromwell " Protector ;" it was 
 styled the "Instrument of Government." The second 
 charter, called the " Petition and Advice," was framed in 
 May, 1657, by the parliament which the protector had as- 
 sembled in the previous year. Uuder the first charter, as 
 has been well observed, the English government may be 
 classed among republics with a chief magistrate at its 
 head ; under the second, it became substantially a mon- 
 archy, and Oliver Cromwell from 1657 to the period of his 
 death was de facto King of England. (Hallam's Constit. 
 History, 421.) On the demise of Cromwell, the succession 
 of his son Richard was at first cordially recognized ; but 
 264 
 
 COMPANY. 
 
 soon afterwards discontents and cabals having sprung np 
 in the country, his inability or disinclination to govern in- 
 duced him to abandon the protectorship after~a reign of 
 eight months ; and on the 29th of May, 1659, the restora- 
 tion of the monarchy under the old regime was effected by 
 the triumphal entry into London of Charles II. It would 
 be out of place to give here a detailed view of the slate of 
 England during the commonwealth. Suffice it to observe, 
 all authors have concurred in opinion, that, whatever were 
 the defects of the home government, arising partly from 
 the ambition of the protector, and partly from the stub- 
 bornness and opposition of his councils, the energy and 
 decision which Cromwell maintained in every department 
 of the state not only laid the foundation of England's mari- 
 time greatness, but raised her to a pitch of prosperity that 
 has rarely, if ever, been equalled. 
 
 COMMU'NION, is used in various ways in the general 
 sense of participation : — 1. A person is said to be in com- 
 munion with a church, who declares his acquiescence in 
 its doctrines and participates in its worship ; and hence 
 the term communion is used sometimes for a church. 
 2. Communion is confined emphatically to participation in 
 the Eucharist. (.See Eucharist.) 3. The Communion 
 of Saints, an article of the Apostles' Creed is variously ex- 
 plained. 
 
 COMMUTA'TION. In Astronomy, the angle of com- 
 mutation of a planet is the angle formed at the earth by a 
 straight line drawn from the earth to the sun and the or- 
 thographical projection on the plane of the ecliptic of the 
 straight line which joins the earth with the planet. It is 
 measured by the difference between the sun's longitude 
 and the geocentric longitude of the planet. 
 
 COMMUTATION OF TITHES. See Tithes. 
 
 C< )MO'SE. Ending in a tuft or kind of brush. 
 
 COMPA'NION. The hut or covering over a ladder (or 
 staircase) in a ship. 
 
 COMPANY (Fr. compagnie), in its most general sense, 
 means any two or more individuals associated for any 
 common object, whether of business or pleasure. 
 
 In its more limited sense, however, and that in which it 
 is usually understood in this country, the term company 
 means an association of individuals for the prosecution of 
 some industrious undertaking. Such associations may be 
 of very various descriptions, inasmuch as the terms of the 
 association or partnership may be varied in an infinity of 
 ways. Generally, however, they may be said to be either 
 private or public companies ; that is, according to the law 
 of England, companies with not more than six partners 
 and with more than six ; and public companies may 
 farther be divided inlo joint stock and regulated companies, 
 and these again into incorporated and unincorporated com- 
 panies. 
 
 I. The principle on which associations for industrious 
 purposes are established is too obvious to require much 
 illustration. All great results are brought about by co- 
 operation, and could not be effected otherwise. Isolated 
 man is comparatively feeble and helpless ; the capacity of 
 associating for a common purpose is, in fact, the main 
 source of his power, and the principal distinction between 
 him and the lower animals- — Quo alio fortes sumus quain 
 quod mutuis juvumur offi.ciis 7 One man has capital with- 
 out skill, and another skill without capital : if such persons 
 act independently, they will be able to effect little or no- 
 thing ; but if they combine their efforts, and the capital of 
 the one be applied and directed by the skill of the other, 
 the effect of their exertions will be incomparably greater. 
 But this is not all. Many of the greatest and most import- 
 ant works undertaken in modern times could not have 
 been attempted by one individual, how opulent or skilful 
 soever. Some of them require a vast outlay ; while the 
 returns being frequently remote and contingent, no single 
 individual, and, indeed, no small number of individuals, 
 would be willing to put their fortunes to hazard by en- 
 gaging in them. But such undertakings are readily and 
 advantageously carried on by large associations; for, in 
 that case, individuals being called upon only to subscribe 
 comparatively small sums to the common stock, they can 
 afford to lose them without, in most instances, suffering 
 any material inconvenience ; while the aggregate amount 
 of the subscriptions may, notwithstanding, amount to a 
 very large sum, and be adequate to the greatest under- 
 takings. In fact, some of the most gigantic works ever 
 entered upon either in this or any other country have 
 been accomplished by the joint contributions of the sub- 
 scribers of 100/. shares. It is true that wealthy individuals 
 usually subscribe for a number of such shares; but this 
 does not affect the principle of the system which is to dis- 
 tribute the risk according to the ability of the individuals 
 associated. 
 
 II. In private companies the business is usually con- 
 ducted by one or more of the partners on the principles 
 laid down in the deed of partnership. The rights and 
 obligations of the partners as respects each other are, of 
 course, mainly determined by this deed : as respects the
 
 COMPANY. 
 
 pjblic, the law regards the act of one partner as the act of 
 the company ; and each partner is bound, without any re- 
 gird to the sum he has subscribed to the company's stock, 
 tc the whole extent of his fortune, for the debts and en- 
 gagements of the firm. Certain formalities are necessary 
 at the withdrawal of a partner; such as advertizing in the 
 Gazelle, and the sending of special information of the fact 
 to all individuals in the habit of dealing with the company. 
 See Partnership. 
 
 III. Public companies may, as already stated, be either 
 joint stock or regulated ; and these again may be either 
 incorporated or unincorporated. 
 
 1. By a joint stock company is meant a company the 
 stock of which is subscribed by a certain number of per- 
 sons in shares of a certain amount. Thus, supposing that 
 a joint stock association is to be formed for carrying on the 
 business of banking or insurance, for excavating a dock or 
 a canal, or for constructing a railway, and that its capital is 
 to amount to 1,000,000?. to be subscribed in shares of 100?. 
 each ; any individual (unless exceptions be made in the 
 conditions under which the company is to be formed) who 
 can command 100/. may become a partner of this associa- 
 tion, and will be registered in the company's books as the 
 holder of a share of 100/ of the company's stock. It is 
 customary, too, in the vast majority of instances, to allow 
 individuals to transfer their stock or shares to others, who 
 succeed to all the rights and obligations of their predeces- 
 sors. The price which shares or portions of stock fetch in 
 the market depends, of course, on the real or supposed 
 state of the company's affairs : if it be known or supposed 
 to be in a flourishing and prosperous condition, and pay- 
 ing a high interest or dividend on its stock, the latter may 
 sell for 10, 20, 50, or 100 per cent, or upwards of advance ; 
 whereas if it be known or supposed to be in an unprosper- 
 ous condition, its shares may not bring a third or a tenth 
 part of their original cost. 
 
 The affairs of companies of this description are usually 
 conducted by salaried officers, who are appointed by and 
 act under the orders of a board of directors chosen by the 
 company at large, according to the conditions in their deed 
 of association. The partners in such companies are all in- 
 dividually liable, without regard to the magnitude of their 
 stock or shares, for the entire debts and obligations of the 
 company. 
 
 At common law no action can be raised by or against 
 such companies without making all the shareholders par- 
 ties to the action. But the obvious and insuperable incon- 
 veniences that would result from the enforcement of this 
 rule have made it be enacted, by the 1st Victoria, cap. 73, 
 that the crown may at pleasure grant to joint stock associa- 
 tions letters patent, authorizing them to sue and be sued in 
 the names of particular officers of their own ; without, how- 
 ever, unless government judge proper, incorporating the 
 company, or affecting the liability of the different partners 
 for it« debts. 
 
 2. When joint stock companies are incorporated by royal 
 charter, or by letters patent, the liability of the partners is 
 limited to the amount of their stock, and they cease to be 
 responsible beyond that amount. This is the case with 
 some great joint stock associations ; as the banks of Eng- 
 land, Scotland, and Ireland ; the East India Company, 
 the Royal Exchange Assurance, and a few more. But 
 government has hitherto been, and that for the best reasons, 
 very chary of granting charters of incorporation. It is dif- 
 ficult, in fact, to imagine a case in which they ought to be 
 granted. Individuals are always ready to embark, without 
 stipulating forany restriction of their liability, in any scheme, 
 however hazardous, that holds out any promise of even a 
 moderate return. And this unlimited responsibility of the 
 partners is, in all ordinary cases, the only security worth a 
 pinch of snuff on which the public can ever rely for pro- 
 tection against the fraud or misconduct of the managers of 
 joint stock companies. 
 
 The grand distinction between unincorporated and incor- 
 porated joint stock companies is, that in the case of the 
 former, the law looks only to the individuals forming the 
 association : while, in the latter, it looks only to the corpo- 
 rate body, and pays no attention to the individuals of which 
 it is made up. On judgment against an incorporation, exe- 
 cution can only pass on the corporate property ; and sup- 
 posing it to become insolvent, the partners can only, as 
 already stated, be called upon to make good the amount of 
 the stock of the incorporation standing in their names. But 
 it is quite otherwise with an unincorporated joint stock 
 company : should it become insolvent, the partners, to use 
 the words of Lord Eldon, are severally liable for the whole 
 debts and engagements of the company, even "to their last 
 shilling aiui their last acre." 
 
 We have already sufficiently explained (see art. Banks) 
 the advantages that would result from Ihe periodical publi- 
 cation of the names of the partners in joint stock compa- 
 nies. The public are clearly entitled to know who the 
 parties are that embark in such concerns. Nothing on 
 which it would be prudent to place much reliance can be 
 2C5 
 
 COMPARISON, DEGREES OF. 
 
 learned from prospectuses and professions. Without 
 knowing who the partners really are, the public have no 
 means of forming any fair estimate of the character of any 
 association, or of the credit to which it may be justly en- 
 tilled. But we doubt whether it would be prudent to carry 
 interference with joint stock companies farther than this. 
 It is excessively difficult, and in most cases quite impos- 
 sible, to enforce such regulations in regard to such compa- 
 nies as would serve to disclose the real state of their affairs, 
 provided they had an interest in concealing it ; and it is 
 needless to say, that the leading of the public to depend on 
 regulations that cannot be carried into effect, is one of the 
 most likely means that can be resorted to for the encourage- 
 ment of imposture and fraud. 
 
 3. Regulated companies consist of a number of uncon- 
 nected individuals or associations engaged in the same 
 business or department of trade, under condition of their 
 conforming to regulations laid down for their common 
 guidance. Such companies have been mostly formed for 
 the prosecution of the trade with distant and peculiarly situ- 
 ated countries. Their principle is not to exclude individual 
 competition, but merely to make the different parlies en- 
 gaged in the trade observe the same general rules. Com- 
 panies of this description were at one time common ; but 
 they have now mostly fallen into desuetude, though it be 
 easy to imagine circumstances in which they might be ad- 
 vantageously revived. 
 
 4. Civic companies, of which there are many in the city 
 of London and other large towns, are in reality guilds or 
 fraternities. Originally they consisted of the parlies car- 
 rying on a peculiar trade or profession ; and in most in- 
 stances they gradually acquired the privilege of prescribing 
 the conditions ami limitations under which individuals not 
 belonging to the fraternity might obtain leave to engage in 
 its peculiar trade within the precincts of the city or borough 
 to which it belonged. In more modern times, however, 
 the injurious influence of such restrictions on the free ex- 
 ercise of industry became obvious; and in consequence 
 the powers formerly exercised by civic companies or guilds 
 over individuals not free of their society, who attempted to 
 carry on the same trade, have been either wholly repealed 
 or greatly modified. At present, therefore, the companies 
 in question exist principally as charitable institutions, or as 
 incorporated associations, having, in many instances, the 
 management of large amounts of property appropriated 
 for the use of their poorer brethren, or for some similar 
 purpose. 
 
 Company. In the Army, a body of men, forming one 
 of the chief divisions of a battalion of infantry. In the 
 guards and artillery, a company consists of 120 men, 
 but in all other infantry regiments of 100. A company in 
 the infantry corresponds to troop in cavalry regiments; 
 and is under the inspection of a captain, a lieutenant, and 
 an ensign, besides the non-commissioned officers ; with 
 the exceptions of the artillery, engineers, marines, and the 
 rifle brigade, in which second lieutenants are substituted 
 for ensigns. 
 
 COMPA'RISON, or SIMILE. In Rhetoric, appears to 
 differ from Metaphor (which see) only in form ; the resem- 
 blance being stated in the first case, implied in the second. 
 This is the sense in which the term Comparison is use 1 
 and defined by Aristotle, in his Art of Rhetoric. Frequently 
 the same idea furnishes at the same time fofh comparison 
 and metaphor ; as in the following line, " They melted from 
 the field as snow." The word "melted" is used by trans- 
 ferring the property of the snow to a multitude of individu- 
 als ; so far, therefore, the phrase is a metaphor ; but the 
 additional words, " as snow," transform it into a direct 
 comparison. Perhaps, however, it might be more correct- 
 ly said, in this instance, that the predicate "melted" is 
 transferred by the figure termed Hypallage from the snow 
 to the multitude, both words being used as subjects in the 
 same sentence. The comparison, being as it were a meta- 
 phor resolved and rendered more flowing and less concise, 
 is more appropriate to poetry than to prose composition. 
 In fact, the only figures of this description which are gene- 
 rally admissible in prose writing are illustrations ; i. e. argu- 
 ments drawn from analogy in the form of comparisons. 
 (See Illustration.) It will generally be found that in 
 every language the earliest writers, especially the poets, 
 are the most addicted to the use of comparisons and meta- 
 phors of a highly figurative and bold character, as is espe- 
 cially observable with respect to the sacred poets, and to 
 Homer; while as language advances in cultivation the me- 
 taphor comes more and more into ordinary use, and forms, 
 as it were, the basis of composition, while at the same time 
 it gradually loses the energetic and poetical cast which at 
 first distinguished it. 
 
 COMPARISON. DEGREES OF. Those varieties in the 
 inflexions of adjectives which denote the degree in which 
 a quality is possessed by a substance, either generally or 
 in reference to one or more other substances. In English 
 there are only two degrees of comparison, commonly named 
 the comparative and the superlative. The first compares 
 Q
 
 COMPARTMENTS. 
 
 two conceptions only, as "John is taller than Charles." 
 The second either compares one conception with a definite 
 number of others as '•John is the tallest of all the four;" 
 or expresses general superiority, as "the/cures? of women." 
 
 COMPA'RTMENTS. (Ital. compartimenti.) In Archi- 
 tecture, the subdivisional parts of larger divisions for orna- 
 ment, to which alone this term is properly applicable. 
 
 CO'MPASS. A name given to instruments contrived to 
 indicate the magnetic meridian, or the position of objects 
 with respect to that meridian. According to the purposes 
 to which the instrument is chiefly applied, it becomes the 
 mariner's compass, the azimuth compass, the variation com- 
 pass, each particular application requiring some peculiarity 
 of construction ; but whatever modifications it may re- 
 ceive, the essential parts are the same in all cases. These 
 are a magnetized bar of steel, called the needle, having 
 fitted to it at its centre a cap which is supported on an up- 
 right pivot, made sharp at the point in order to diminish 
 the friction as much as possible and allow the needle to 
 turn with the slightest force. The mariner's compass has 
 a circular card attached to its needle, which turns with it ; 
 and on the circumference of which are marked the de- 
 grees, and also the 32 points or rhumbs, likewise divided into 
 half and quarter points. The pivot rises from the centre 
 of the bottom of a circular box, called the compass box, 
 which contains the needle and its card, and which is cover- 
 ed with a glass top to prevent the needle from being dis- 
 turbed by the. agitation of the air. The compass box is 
 suspended within a large box, by means of two concentric 
 brass circles or gimbals ; the outer one being fixed by hori- 
 zontal pivots, both to the inner circle which carries the 
 compass box, and also the outer box, the two sets of axes 
 being at right angles to each other. By means of this ar- 
 rangement the inner circle, with the compass box, needle, 
 and card, always retain a horizontal position notwithstand- 
 ing the rolling of the ship. 
 
 The notation of the mariner's compass is as follows : — 
 The circumference being divided into the four quadrants 
 by two diameters at right angles, the extremities of these 
 diameters are the four cardinal points (cardo, a hinge), 
 marked N., S., E., W. (north, south, east, west). Bisect- 
 ing each of the quadrants, the several points of bisection 
 are denoted by placing the two letters at the extremities of 
 the quadrant in juxtaposition. Thus, N. E. (north-east) 
 
 
 denotes the point which is halfway between north and east; 
 and so with N. W., S. E., S. W. (north-west, south-east, 
 south-west). Let the octants next be bisected ; the points 
 of division are denoted by prefixing to each of the above 
 combinations first the one, and then the other of the two car- 
 dinal points of which it is formed. Thus N. E. gives N. N. 
 E. and E. N. E. (north north-east, and east north-east) ; and 
 so in respect of the others. Sixteen points have thus been 
 named. Let the distances be again bisected, then each of 
 the points so found is expressed by that one of the preceding 
 points already named to which it is nearest, followed by the 
 name of the cardinal point towards which its departure 
 from the nearest point leads it, the two being separated by 
 the letter b (by). Thus, the point half way between N. 
 and N. N. E. is N. by E. (north by east) ; that which is 
 halfway between N. N. E. and N. E. by N. (north-east by 
 north), &c. The whole of the thirty-two points are thus 
 distinguished in the figure. 
 
 The principal requisites of a compass are intensity of 
 directive force, and susceptibility. The first of these is 
 obtained by constructing the needle of the material and 
 form best suited to receive and retain the magnetic virtue. 
 A number of experiments on this subject were made by 
 Coulomb, and more recently by Captain Kater, an account 
 of which is given in the Phil. Trans, for 1821. Captain 
 Kater found that the kind of steel capable of receiving the 
 greatest magnetic force is shear steel; and that the best 
 form is that of a lozenge or rhomboid (.fig-), cut out in the 
 266 
 
 COMPOSITE NUMBERS. 
 
 middle, so as to diminish the extent of surface in proportion io 
 the mass, it being found that the directive force of the needle, 
 when magnetized to saturation, de- 
 pends not on the extent of surface, 
 but on the mass. Beyond a certain 
 limit (about five inches) no ad- 
 ditional power is gained by increas- 
 ing the length of the needle; and needles exceeding a very 
 moderate length are apt to have several consecutive poles, 
 the effect of which is to produce a great diminution of di- 
 rective force. On this account short needles, made very 
 hard, are to be preferred. 
 
 Like many other of the most valuable arts of life, the origin 
 of the compass is entirely unknown. By some writers it is 
 ascribed to Flavio Gioja, who lived in the 13th century ; yet 
 Guyot de Provence, who lived a century earlier, speaks of 
 the loadstone, to which he gives the name of marinetti, or 
 mariner's stone, as useful to navigation. Others pretend that 
 it was invented in France ; but there seems to be no other rea- 
 son for this supposition than the fact that from time immemo- 
 rial the north point of the compass card has been distin- 
 guished and ornamented with a fieur de lis. For a reason 
 of a different kind, but perhaps of the same degree of 
 weight, Dr. Wallis and others have supposed the invention 
 to belong to England, the name compaes, which is given 
 to the instrument by most European countries, being used 
 in England to signify a circle. The term bussola in Italian, 
 and boussole in French, has also been supposed to be de- 
 rived from our term box, by which the compass is fre- 
 quently designated. Gilbert, in his celebrated work De 
 Magnete, affirms that Marco Polo brought the invention to 
 Europe from China, about the year 1260. It appears very 
 probable that the Chinese were acquainted with the direc- 
 tive property of the loadstone at an early period. Their 
 method is to place it on a small piece of cork and set it to 
 float on water. The art of communicating the magnetic 
 virtue to steel, and suspending the needle on a pivot, is un- 
 doubtedly an European invention. 
 
 The azimuth compass, being intended to show the bear- 
 ing of objects in respect of the magnetic meridian, has iis 
 circle divided merely into degrees, instead of the rhumbs 
 used in navigation, and is provided with sights to allow the 
 angles to be taken more accurately. 
 
 The variation compass, is designed to exhibit the diurnal 
 changes in the deviation of the magnetic from the true me- 
 ridian ; and the needle is generally made of much greater 
 length than the mariner's compass, in order to render mi- 
 nute variations more sensible. See Magnetism. 
 
 COMPITA'LIA. (Lat. compiium, a street.) A Roman 
 feast celebrated in honour of the Lares and Penates. Un- 
 der Tarquinius Superbus, it is said that human victims were 
 sacrificed at this solemnity. The gods invoked at it were 
 termed Compitales, as presiding over the streets. 
 
 CO'MPLEMENT. (Lat. compleo, J fill up.) What is 
 wanted to complete or fill up some quantity or thing. 
 Thus, the complement of an angle is what is wanted to 
 make the angle a quadrant or 90°. Complement of a num- 
 ber is what is necessary to be added in order to make the 
 number 1, or 10, or 100, or, in general, 1 with zeros. In 
 Geometry, the complements of a parallelogram are the 
 two spaces which, with the parallelograms about the diago- 
 nal, make up the whole parallelogram. 
 
 COMPLU'VIUM. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, an 
 area in the centre of the Roman houses, so constructed 
 that it might receive the waters from the roofs. It is also 
 the gutter or eave of a roof. 
 
 COMPO'SIT^E. In Botany, the largest of all known 
 natural groups of plants ; and so called because the old 
 botanists who invented the name regarded the flower-heads 
 as compound flowers. They answered to the Syngentsia 
 polygamia of Linnaeus, and are positively characterized by 
 having capitate flowers, syngenesious anthers, and an in- 
 ferior ovary with a single erect ovule. In the most recent 
 account of this order, by M. De Candolle, nearly 8000 spe- 
 cies are enumerated in about 900 genera, and the subject 
 is not nearly exhausted ; they exist all over the world 
 where vegetation can develope, and are sometimes trees, 
 although more generally herbaceous plants or shrubs. 
 Although medical species, the chamomile, wormwood, 
 southernwood, elacampane, and opium lettuce are con- 
 spicuous ; of esculents, the order contains the artichoke, 
 the Jerusalem artichoke, the lettuce, succory, and endive ; 
 and among ornamental plants, the aster, dahlia, coreopsis, 
 sunflower, &c. But by far the greater part of this large 
 assembly consists of species which are either weeds or of 
 no known use. The readerjppho wishes to become ac- 
 quainted with this order must consult De Candolle's Pro- 
 dromus Reg7ii Vegetabi/is, vols, v., vi., and vii. 
 
 COMPOSITE NUMBERS, in Architecture, are numbers 
 which can be divided by some other number greater than 
 unity. They are consequently opposed to prime numbers, 
 which admit of no divisor. In Music, composite numbers 
 are such as are composed by the multiplication of the 
 prime integers, 2, 3, 5.
 
 
 COMPOSITE ORDER. 
 
 CO'MPOSITE ORDER. In Architecture, one of the 
 five orders of architecture, and, as its name imports, com- 
 posed of two others, the Corinthian and the Ionic. Its 
 capital is a vase wilh two tiers of acanthus leaves, like the 
 Corinthian ; but instead of stalks, the shoots appear small 
 and adhere to the vase, bending round towards the middle of 
 the face of the capital ; 
 the vase is terminated by 
 a fillet, over which is an 
 astragal crowned by an 
 ovolo. The volutes roll 
 themselvesoverthe ovolo 
 to meet the tops of the 
 upper row of leaves, 
 whereon they seem to 
 rest. The corners of the 
 abacus are supported by 
 an acanthus leaf bent up- 
 wards. The abacus re- 
 sembles that of the Co- 
 rinthian capital (see Cap 
 ital.) In detail the Com- 
 posite is richer than the 
 Corinthian, but less light 
 and delicate. Its archi- 
 trave has usually only 
 two fasciae, and the cor- 
 nice varies from the Co- 
 rinthian in having double 
 modillions. The column 
 is ten diameters high. 
 The principal examples of 
 this order are the Tem- 
 ple of Bacchus at Rome, 
 the arch of Septimius 
 Severus, those of the 
 Goldsmiths and of Titus, and that in the baths of Dio- 
 cletian. The example here given is from the arch of 
 Titus, which is considered a fine specimen of the order. 
 See Ohder. 
 
 COMPOSITION. In Law, an agreement made between 
 the owner of lands and the parson, with the consent of the 
 ordinary and the patron, that such lands shall be discharged 
 from the payment of tithes, by reason of some land or 
 other real recompense given to the parson in satisfaction 
 thereof. Such an agreement, since the 13 Ehz. c. 10., is 
 not good for a longer term than three lives or twenty-one 
 years. Composition signifies also the agreement between 
 a bankrupt after his last examination and nine tenths of 
 his creditors for the satisfaction of their claims, and has 
 the effect of superseding the fiat of bankruptcy. 
 
 Composition. In the Fine Arts, that combination of 
 the several parts, whereby a subject is agreeably presented 
 to the mind, each part being subordinate to the whole. 
 See Invention. 
 
 Composition. In Music, the art of disposing and ar- 
 ranging musical sounds into airs, songs, <fec, either in one 
 or more parts, for voices or instruments, or both. Zarlino 
 defines it to be the art of joining and combining concords 
 and discords together, which are the matter of music. 
 
 COMPOSITION OF FORCES or MOTION. In Me- 
 chanics, signifies combining or uniting several forces or 
 motions, and determining the result of the whole. If a 
 body is solicited by two forces which act in the same di- 
 rection, the resulting force, or resultant, is equal to the sum 
 of both ; that is to say, the effect produced is the same as 
 would be produced by a single force acting in the same di- 
 rection, and equal to their sum. If the two forces act in 
 opposite directions, the resultant is equal to their differ- 
 ence, and the body will move in the direction of the 
 greater. If the lines of direction of the two forces make 
 an angle with each other, the resultant will be a mean force 
 in an intermediate direction. Thus, if the two forces be 
 represented in intensity and direction by the two sides of 
 a parallelogram, then the resultant is represented in in- 
 tensity and direction by the diagonal of the parallelogram 
 which passes through the angle formed by those two sides. 
 (See Willis's Principles of Mechanism. 8vo. 1841.) 
 
 COMPOSI'TOR. (Fr. compositeur.) In Printing, the 
 workman who arranges the types in lines and pages, and 
 prepares them for being printed off. 
 
 COMPOSTE'LLA, ST. .JAMES OF, or ST. JAMES OF 
 THE SWORD. An ancient order'of knighthood in Spain, 
 the chief of the four military orders (Compostella, Cala- 
 trava, Alcantara, Manresa) ; probably founded either by 
 Alphonso IX. of Castile (11*1214), or Ferdinand II. of 
 Leon (1157, 1183). It originflp began from the voluntary 
 association of certain gentlemen to defend the great road 
 leading to the celebrated shrine of St. James at Compos- 
 tella. Pope Alexander III. gave the order its rules of 
 government. The order possessed at one period eighty- 
 four commanderies, with two cities and numerous burghs 
 and villages. The knights take the vows of poverty, obe- 
 dience, and conjugal chastity ; to which they add a fourth, 
 267 
 
 CONCETTI. 
 
 "to defend and maintain the immaculate conception of the 
 Holy Mother of Jesus Christ." 
 
 CO'MPOUND INTEREST, is interest charged not only 
 on the principal, but also on the interest forborne. Thus, 
 if money is invested so that the interest is not paid as it be- 
 comes due, but successively added to the capital, the capi- 
 tal is said to accumulate at compound interest. Let r = 
 the amount of j£l for I year ; that is to say, = jEl with its 
 interest added to it ; then the amount of JEl at the end of 2 
 years will be r ! ; at the end of 3 years, r s ; at the end of 4 
 years, r* ; and so on. The law of England does not allow 
 compound interest to be charged on money lent. 
 
 COMPRESSIBILITY. The quality of bodies in virtue 
 of which they can be reduced to small dimensions. All 
 bodies, in consequence of the porosity of matter, are com- 
 pressible, though liquids resist compression with immense 
 force. 
 
 CO'MPTONITE. A mineral found in ejected masses on 
 Vesuvius ; named after Lord Compton, who first brought 
 it to England in 1818. 
 
 COMPURGATION. An ancient mode of trial both in 
 civil and criminal cases. In the latter, by the law of the 
 Saxons (which William the Conqueror confirmed in this 
 respect, at least as to its main features), the accused 
 party was allowed to clear himself by the oath of as 
 many of his neighbours to his innocence as amounted in 
 collective worth, according to the legal arithmetic of the 
 Anglo-Saxons, to one pound (see Weregild), if he could in 
 the first instance (being a villein) obtain the testimony of 
 his lord that he had not been previously convicted. If 
 otherwise, he is bound to undergo ordeal, or wage his law 
 wilh a greater number of compurgators. Compurgation 
 in criminal cases was abolished in general by Henry II. 's 
 assizes, the ordeal being enforced in lieu of it. But it was 
 retained as a special franchise in some boroughs, to which 
 those assizes did not extend ; and the last instances of it 
 on record are to be found in the rolls of the hundred court 
 of Winchilsea, in the reign of Henry VI. (See Sir F 1 . 
 Palgrave on the British Commonwealth. A singular usage 
 of the same description long remained in the ecclesiasti- 
 cal courts, by which convicted clerks, allowed their clergy 
 and delivered up to the ordinary, were admitted to purge 
 themselves by the oaths of compurgators, which was 
 abolished by 18 Eliz. c. 7. Wager of law, in civil cases, 
 lay in some personal actions only, and in incidental tra- 
 verses in real actions (see Blacksto7ie, lib. iii. c. 23); and 
 in these cases, although many technical difficulties prevent 
 defendants from availing themselves of it, it is not yet abo- 
 lished. 
 
 COMB, COOMS, COOMES, or CHIVES. The points of 
 the radicles of malted grain, which after kiln-drying drop 
 off during the process of turning. They are sold by malt- 
 sters under the name of malt dust, and are considered ex- 
 cellent manure. 
 
 CONCE'PTACLES. (Lat. conceptaculum, a receiver.) 
 The cases containing the reproductive organs of such 
 plants as ferns, in which they are produced from the back 
 of the leaves, growing in the form of spots at the anasto- 
 moses, margins, or extremities of the veins, and then col- 
 lectively called Sori. The conceptacles are also termed 
 Capsules, Thecse, and Sporangia. 
 
 CONCEPTA'CULUM. (Lat. a receiver.) A term in 
 Botany, denoting a one valved fruit opening longitudinally 
 on one side, and distinct from the seeds. It is a folliculus 
 without any attachment between the placenta and the ven- 
 tral suture, as in Asclepias. 
 
 CONCE'PTION. (Lat. concipere, to conceive.) In 
 Mental Philosophy, that faculty or act of the mind by 
 which we combine a number of individuals together by 
 means of some mark or character common to them all. 
 We may observe, for instance, that equilateral isosceles 
 and scalene triangles all agree in one respect, that of having 
 three sides : and from this perceived similitude we form 
 the conception triangle. 
 
 CONCERT A'NTE. (It. concentare, toco^n're.) In Music, 
 a term expressive of those parts of a musical composition 
 that sing or play throughout the piece, as distinguished 
 from those that play only occasionally in particular places. 
 
 CONCE'RTO. (It.) In Music, a piece composed for 
 a particular instrument, which bears the greatest part in it, 
 or in which the performance is partly alone and partly ac- 
 companied by other parts. 
 
 CONCE'TTI. (It. ; rendered by English writers on rhe- 
 toric, conceits.) Ingenious thoughts or turns of expression, 
 points, jeux d'esprit, <fcc. in serious composition. In the 
 16th century, the taste for this species of brilliancy, often 
 false and always dangerous, spread rapidly in the poetical 
 composition of European nations, especially in Spain and 
 Italy ; where the name of concetti was applied rather in a 
 good than a bad sense, the critical taste being much per- 
 verted. Tasso is not free from concetti. After his time 
 they became offensively prominent in Italian poetry for a 
 century afterwards ; Marino and Filicaia offer strong ex- 
 amples. In France, the mode of concetti was equally pre-
 
 CONCHIFERS. 
 
 valent in the 17th century, and was peculiarly in vogue with 
 the fair crilics of the Hotel Rambouillet, so well known by 
 Moliere's " Precieuses Ridicules." In England, Donne 
 and Cowley are instances of a style full of concetti. 
 
 CO'NX'HIFERS. (Lat. concha, a shell, and fero, I carry.) 
 A name applied by Lamarck, Schweigger, and Latreille to 
 all mollusks which are protected by a bivalve shell. 
 
 CO'NCHOID. (Gr. Koyxn, a shell, and tiSos, form.) 
 The name given to a curve invented by Nichomedes for 
 the solution of the two famous geometrical problems of 
 antiquity, — the duplication of the cube, and the triplication 
 of an angle. It is constructed as follows : — 
 
 Let Pbe a given point through B 
 
 which any straight line is drawn 
 to cut or meet another straight line 
 CD given in position ; if a segment 
 AB (or AB') of a given length be 
 taken on either side of C D, the 
 point B (or B') will trace the 
 conchoid. The curve has different forms, according to the 
 different relative positions of the point B with respect to 
 the pole P and the given straight line C D. The conchoid 
 is a curve of the fourth order, the equation between the 
 rectangular co-ordinates (the origin being placed at A in the 
 straight line perpendicular to C D) being x 2 y* = (a 2 — y") 
 (6 + y'), in which AB = a, and A P (perpendicular to C D) 
 
 CONCHO'LOGY. (Gr. xoyxn, a shell, and \oyos, a dis- 
 course.) The science of shells : that department of Ma- 
 lacology which treats of the nature, formation, physiologi- 
 cal relations, and classification of the hard parts or skele- 
 tons of the molluscous animals. 
 
 As Osteology, inasmuch as it relates to the nature, devel- 
 opment, and physiological subserviencies of the skeletons 
 of the vertebrate animals, is a science in the strict accept- 
 ation of the term, so also is Conchology under the like 
 applications ; but as no naturalist has yet conceived a clas- 
 sification of vertebrate skeletons independently of the 
 softer organs of the body which they support and protect, 
 and as, notwithstanding that the complex internal skele- 
 tons of the Vertebrates are closely related to their general 
 structure and habits, the classification of these parts would 
 not in all cases tally wiih the natural arrangement of the 
 animals to which they belonged, therefore still less scien- 
 tific must be a classification of shells merely, apart from 
 a consideration of the molluscous animals by which they 
 are secreted. For shells, instead of consisting, like bones, 
 of living organized substance permeated by blood-vessels, 
 absorbents, and nerves, are mere inorganic laminated, con- 
 cretionary, or crystalline deposits of calcareous earth, more 
 or less combined with albuminous matter: they are also 
 formed in the skin, and are appendages to the dermal sys- 
 tem, which in all classes of animals is the principal seat 
 of variety. In many cases, therefore, there exists very 
 little correspondence between the structure or even the 
 presence of a shell and the general character of the organi- 
 zation of a mollusk; and the absence of uniformity be- 
 tween the condition of the shell in closely allied species is 
 exemplified in the highest as well as the lowest classes of 
 the molluscous sub- kingdom. The argonaut, the poulp 
 ( Octopus^, the calamary, the cuttle-fish, and the spirula, 
 all possess the same peculiar and highly developed or- 
 ganization ; and in a classification founded on general 
 structure, a :d expressive of the true affinities of its ob- 
 jects, they must rank in the same order of their class. 
 But the shells of these mollusks present respectively the 
 following conditions : — the first, a simple, external, light, 
 elastic, subtransparent, but calcareous discoidal univalve ; 
 the second, two internal, friable, subtransparent styles ; 
 composed of hardened albumen ; the third, an elongated, 
 feather-shaped, horny plate ; the fourth, an internal, com- 
 pressed, oval, laminated, friable, calcareous mass ; the 
 fifth, an elongated, cylindrical, conical shell, twisted spi- 
 rally in the same plane, divided into chambers by calca- 
 reous partitions, perforated by a siphon, and partly inter- 
 nal, partly external, in its situation. Now, in a system of 
 Conchology, understood as the classification of shells in 
 the abstract, these productions would necessarily be 
 dispersed into five widely different groups ; and in 
 like manner, the small, thin, and flat plate, which is 
 buried in the s'^stanee of the mantle of the slug, would 
 be far removed trom the large external spiral shell of the 
 snail. 
 
 But no conchologist groups together his shells strictly 
 and exclusively, according to their resemblances ; all the 
 testaceous productions of the Cephalopods, now that the 
 real affinities of these molhisks are known, are arranged 
 in the same group, notwithstanding their striking discre- 
 pancies of texture and form, and in their relative size and 
 position to the bodies of their fanricators : so likewise with 
 the shells or their rudiments of the air breathing Gastro- 
 pods, or of the Pteropodous Mollusca. In short, every 
 purely conchological system must undergo modifications 
 correspondins with the progress which is made in the 
 268 
 
 CONCHOLOGY. 
 
 knowledge of the true natural affinities of the molluscous 
 animals ; and the progress of Conchology is therefore es- 
 sentially connected with that of Malacology, under which 
 term an outline of the most approved classification of the 
 Mollusca and their shells will be found. 
 
 Under the present head will be briefly treated those 
 points which relate to Conchology as a science ; viz. the 
 development, structure, configuration, and physiological 
 subserviencies of shells. 
 
 The formation of a shell commences with the exudation 
 of layers of albumen from the outer surface of the mantle 
 or skin of the embryo mollusk, which is generally followed 
 by the admixture of rhombic or prismatic crystalline par- 
 ticles of the carbonate of lime : and this first- formed shell 
 of the embiyo constitutes the nucleus of the shell of the 
 mature mollusk. The nucleus is developed in most cases 
 before the embryo quits the egg-coverings, but it is never 
 " coeval with the first formation of the animal ;" it is pre- 
 ceded by several distinct stages in the development ot the 
 embryo. The subsequent growth of the shell depends 
 upon the deposition of fresh layers to the inner surlace of 
 the circumference of those previously formed ; beyond 
 which the new-formed layers extend in proportions which 
 determine the figure of the future shell. 
 
 Sometimes the calcifying margin of the mantle extends 
 outwards at an obtuse or right angle to the last-formed 
 margin o f the shell ; and after having deposited a calcare- 
 ous plate in this position, is retracted and absorbed, to be 
 again similarly produced and extended after ordinary 
 growth has proceeded to a certain extent. It is to this pe- 
 riodical growth of the mantle and plethoric condition 
 of the calcifying vessels that the ridges on the exterior of 
 the shell in the Venus plicata among Bivalves, and in the 
 ScaUiria pretiosa among Univalves, are due. Should the 
 mantle, instead of being uniformly extended, send out- 
 wards a number of detached tentaculiform calcifying pro- 
 cesses, these will form a row of spines corresponding in 
 length and thickness to the soft parts on which they are 
 moulded ; and as the calcifying processes continue to de- 
 posit shelly material during the progress of their absorp- 
 tion, the spines, which were at first hollow, thus become 
 solidified, and are soldered to the margin of the shell. 
 This development of calcifying processes or filaments of 
 the mantle and spines may likewise alternate with periods 
 of the ordinary formation of the shell; and thus the exte- 
 rior of the shell may become bristled with rows of spines, 
 as in some species of Spondylus, and in the Murex crassi- 
 spina. 
 
 The most simple form of shell is the cone, which may 
 be much depressed, as in the genus Umbrella; or ex- 
 tremely elevated and contracted, as in the Dentalium ; or 
 of more ordinary proportions, as in the limpets (Patella;). 
 The apex of the cone is oblique and excentric ; directed, 
 in the limpets, the argonaut, and the nautilus, towards the 
 head, but in most other mollusks towards the opposite ex- 
 tremity of the body. A shell may consist of one piece, as 
 in the Inoperoi'.ar Univalves ; or of two pieces, as in the 
 Opercular Univalves and most Bivalves ; or of three pieces, 
 as in Terebratula ; or of four or more pieces, as in some 
 of the P/wlades and the Multivalves proper, or Chitons. 
 With respect to the operculum, this part is sometimes cal- 
 careous, but it consists frequently of albuminous mem- 
 brane only, or is horny; thus presenting the condition 
 which the univalve shell itself presents in certain genera, 
 as Aplysia, Loligo, &c. 
 
 The conical univalve shell is generally spirally convolu- 
 ted ; sometimes, as in the Nuutilus (,fig. 3), in the same 
 plane, more usually in an 
 oblique direction, as in fig. 
 1 and 2. As a general rule, 
 the spiral univalve, if 
 viewed in the position in 
 which its inhabitant would 
 carry it if it were moving 
 forwards from the obser- 
 ver, is twisted from the 
 apex downwards, from left 
 to right, the spire being di- 
 rected obliquely towards 
 the right (a, fig. 1, indicates 
 the spiral turns of Pleuroto- 
 ma). In certain genera, as 
 Clausilia, Physo, the shell 
 is twisted in the opposite 
 direction : such shells are 
 called " perverse," or sinis- 
 tral. Some species of Eu- 
 linus, Partula, and Pupa 
 are sinistral ; and a few 
 marine shells, as Fusus sinislrorsus, also exhibit the re- 
 verse of the ordinary disposition of the spire. The part 
 around which the spiral cone is wound is termed the "co- 
 lumella." This is sometimes simple, sometimes plicated, 
 as in the Valuta musica (fig. 2) ; it is also sometimes solid,
 
 CONCHOLOGY. 
 
 sometimes hollow: when the latter, its aperture is termed 
 the umbilicus, (f. fig. 1.) The opening forming the base 
 of the spiral univalve is bounded by an inner lip d, and an 
 outer lip e : the inner lip offers a smooth convex surfiice, 
 over which the foot or locomotive disk of the molltisk 
 glides to reach the ground. 
 
 In many Univalves, the aperture of the shell is entire ; 
 in others, it is broken by a notch, or perforated by one or 
 more holes ; or a portion of it is produced into a canal or 
 siphon (c, fig. 1) ; or it may present a pallia! notch (b, fig. 
 1,) opposite to the siphon. These modifications are im- 
 portant, on account of the constancy of their relation to 
 certain conditions of the respiratory organs : thus the 
 conchologist, in grouping together all the spiral univalve 
 shells of which a part of the margin was either notched or 
 produced into a grooved siphon, would really indicate a 
 very natural tribe of Mollusca, every species of which he 
 might be assured was aquatic and marine, and breathed 
 by means of two gills having a pectinated structure, to 
 which the water is conducted by a fleshy tube. Were a 
 like correlation between the shell and its inhabitant to hold 
 good in other families of Mollusca, the classification of 
 shells would then be a subject of much importance, and 
 worthy the attention of the scientific naturalist: unfortu- 
 nately', the reverse of this is frequently the case. 
 
 The part called the operculum, which is present in cer- 
 tain univalve mollusks, is a plate consisting of layers of 
 sometimes calcified, sometimes uncalcified, albumen, at- 
 tached to a disk at the back part of the foot, and forming, 
 when this is retracted, a more or less perfect defence to 
 the outlet of the shell. 
 
 Some opercula increase by the addition of matter to 
 their entire circumference ; and these are either concen- 
 tric, as in Bithynia and Paludina, or excentric, as in Am- 
 pullaria and most of thePeclinibranchiate mollusks: other 
 opercula grow by the addition of matter to part of their 
 circumference ; and these are cither spiral or imbricated : 
 in the latter, the layers of growth succeed each other in a 
 linear series. No operculum presents an annular form. 
 As the operculum sometimes varies in structure in species 
 of the same genus, as, e. g., of Vermetus ; — since, more- 
 over, this part is inconstant even as to its presence in spe- 
 cies of the same genus, as in the Volutes, Cones, Mitres, 
 and Olives ; and as some genera in a natural family, as 
 Ilarpa and Dolium, among the Buccinoids, are without an 
 operculum, while the other genera of the same family pos- 
 sess that appendage, it obviously affords characters of very 
 secondary importance in a scientific classification of the 
 Univalve Mollusca. Much confusion indeed might have 
 been introduced into the science of Malacology if the opin- 
 ions of those conchologists who have proposed to classify 
 shells from the modifications of the operculum had been 
 much respected by naturalists. 
 
 True bivalve shells are peculiar to the Acephalous Mol- 
 lusca; and their presence is constant, although they are in 
 a few instances too small to cover the whole of the body, 
 and in the ship-borers (Teredo) exist only as small instru- 
 ments, limited to the function of excavating the burrows 
 inhabited by these mollusks. But all the species in which 
 the bivalve shell is inadequate to the protection of the 
 whole of the body derive extrinsic defence by burrowing 
 in sand, or stone, or wood ; and they also commonly line 
 their burrows with a layer of smooth and compact calca- 
 reous matter, forming a tube. This calcareous tube, in 
 some cases, is of considerable size and thickness, as in 
 the Teredo gigantea or Septaria of Lamarck. In the 
 Clavagella one valve, and in the Asjiergillum both valves, 
 are soldered to this tube, which, in the latter, presents a 
 peculiar modification of its exposed extremity, which re- 
 sembles the end of the spout of a watering-pot. No two 
 shells can present a greater contrast than do those of the 
 Placuna and Asper^illum ; yet the organization of their 
 respective constructors is essentially the same. In a clas- 
 sification of shells, the calcareous tubes of the Dentalium, 
 Serpula, Aspergillum, Vermetus, &c, would be associated 
 in the same general group ; but it needs only to observe 
 how these products of animals, belonging not only to dif- 
 ferent classes, but to distinct primary divisions of the ani- 
 mal kingdom, are arranged in the cabinets of collectors, 
 to be convinced that Conchology, as a classificatory 
 science, apart from Malacology, no longer exists. 
 
 With regard to the structure and physiological relations 
 of bivalve shells, it may be observed, first, that in all Ace- 
 phalous Mollusca which breathe by distinctly developed 
 lamellated gills (Lamellibranchiata), one valve corresponds 
 to the left, the other to the right side of the animal ; but in 
 the Brachiopodous Bivalves, one valve is applied to the 
 ventral, and the other to the dorsal aspect of the animal. 
 
 In all the Lamellibranchiate Bivalves which are free, the 
 two valves are symmetrical, and the shell is termed equi- 
 valve ; in all those which adhere by one of their valves to 
 foreign bodies, this valve is deeper and larger than the un- 
 attached valve: such shells are termed inequivalve. Of 
 those Acephalans which are attached to foreign bodies by 
 269 
 
 means of a byssus, some, as Tridacna, Saxicara, and 
 Bysso-arca, are equivalve, and both valves are notched, to 
 form the hole for the passage of the byssus ; while others, 
 as the Pectines, Aviculce, and Peda, are inequivalve, the 
 byssus passing through a groove in the rigU valve. 
 
 Linnaeus, who first introduced precision into the descrip- 
 tion of shells, defined several points requisite to be noticed 
 in the outer and inner surface of a bivalve shell, but the 
 prurient epithets, which his comparison of the bivalve se- 
 lected for illustration induced him lo attach to those parts, 
 have been abandoned and changed. If the shell of the 
 common cockle (Cardium edule) be examined, each valve 
 will be seen to be produced into a conicil prominence, 
 bent towards, and nearly meeting at, that part by which 
 the valves are joined together. These prominences are 
 termed the umbones. The apex, or beak of the umbo, 
 corresponds to the apex of the univalve shell, and is the 
 point at which the development of the bivalve commences. 
 When the apex is directed in the transverse plane of the 
 shell, and so placed that a bisection of the shell in that 
 plane through the apices shall divide the valve into two 
 equal parts, the shell is termed equilateral : of this form 
 the common scallop (Pecte/i) is an example. When, upon 
 a similar division, a slight difference is observed in the 
 two valves, the shell is termed sub-equilateral : but where 
 the difference is well marked, it is an inequilateral bivalve. 
 When the apex is bent, as is commonly the case, out of 
 the transverse plane, it is always directed more or less to- 
 wards the anterior part of the shell ; if such a Bivalve shell 
 as a Cytherea or Isocardia be held before the observer, 
 with the umbones directed forwards and the hinge above, — 
 in the position, in fact, in which the living animal would 
 place itself if it were creeping forwards from the observer, 
 — the right valve will of 
 course correspond with 
 the right hand of the 
 observer, and the left 
 with the left. (Fig. 4 
 is the left valve of a 
 j Cytherea ; a is the up- 
 per or dorsal margin, 
 b the lower or ven- 
 tral margin, c the an- 
 terior, d the posterior 
 margin, e the apex of 
 the umbo, f the hi- 
 nule.) Now, if a Bi- 
 valve in which the 
 apices have a spiral 
 twist, as an Isocardia 
 or Diceras, be placed 
 In the above position, 
 ami compared with the 
 univalve shell of a Con- 
 cholepas or Purpura, 
 it will be seen that the 
 left valve corresponds 
 with the ordinary or 
 dextral spiral Univalve, 
 and the right valve to 
 the perverse or sinis- 
 tral Univalve. Instan- 
 ces, however, have 
 been met with where 
 the characters of the 
 valves of the Bivalve 
 were reversed, like the 
 occasional exceptions 
 in the " perverse" sinistral Univalves before mentioned. 
 
 When the circumference or margin of one valve fits ex- 
 actly at every part to that of its fellow, it is said to be 
 " regular," or entire ; but if it be notched at any part, so 
 as not to come into contact with the corresponding part of 
 the opposite valve, it is " irregular," or emarginate. 
 
 With respect to the outer surface of a Bivalve, the parts 
 called timbones and apices have already been defined, and 
 the upper or dorsal and anterior margins of the valve de- 
 termined ; if we continue our examination of the f xterior 
 surface of the Bivalve, we shall find, in most cases, ante- 
 rior to the apices, a depression of variable extent and 
 depth. This is the " lunule" (/, fig. 5) : it may be cordi- 
 form, or crescentic, lanceolate, oval, oblong, deep, super- 
 ficial, <fec. Behind the apices is another depression, longer 
 and narrower than the lunule, and which is called the " fis- 
 sure" (g, fig. 5), and its margins lips. Behind the fissure 
 there is" sometimes a small depression, called the " suture" 
 (/;, fig. 5). The general more or less convex surface of 
 each valve is called the " venter," or belly, which termi- 
 nates in the limb, circumference, or margin. 
 
 The most important part of the margin is that which is 
 modified to form the joint or hinge upon which the two 
 valves open and shut. This part is called the "cardinal 
 edge," and generally presents certain prominences and 
 depressions, the projections of one valve interlocking with
 
 CONCHOLOGY. 
 
 the depressions of the other. The projections of "teeth," 
 together with the cavities or " cardinal pits," are very regu- 
 lar in their formation in each genus and species of Bivalve. 
 What is of more importance is, that every modification in 
 the structure of the hinge is generally found to coincide 
 with some recognizable and more or less important differ- 
 ence in the organization of the soft parts ; so that concho- 
 logists have justly attached great value to the characters 
 derivable from the hinge, especially for the purpose of ge- 
 neric distinctions. When the teeth are situate beneath the 
 apex or centre of the hinge, they are called cardinal ; when 
 they are removed from the centre of the hinge, they are 
 named lateral teeth (i, fig. 6) ; when two only are present, 
 one is called anterior, the other posterior ; when there are 
 three, they are distinguished respectively as the anterior, 
 median, and posterior teeth ; but when the hinge is com- 
 posed of a great number of teeth, it is said to be " serial," 
 as in Area. The direct medium of union of the two valves 
 is a dense fasciculus of elastic albuminous fibres, generally 
 of a brown colour, called the "ligament," or "elastic liga- 
 ment." The fibres of this part are attached by their ex- 
 tremities to the two valves, which, in most cases, present a 
 particular depression for their reception. The ligament is 
 always so long as to prevent the actual closing of the valves, 
 except when its elasticity is overcome by a certain force, 
 as by that of the contraction of the adductor muscle or 
 muscles ; thus the inorganic power of elasticity is made 
 the direct antagonist of a vital and muscular contraction ; 
 and as the patent condition of the bivalve shell is that which 
 the exigencies of the animal most constantly require, it 
 is assigned to a force which can act without ever causing 
 fatigue, while the occasional or protective action of forci- 
 bly closing the valves is due to an action under the imme- 
 diate control of the will or instinctive sensation. The modi- 
 fications of the internal surface of a bivalve shell are, per- 
 haps, the most interesting and important ; as they relate 
 immediately to the structure of the soft parts, and bespeak 
 the general nature of the organization of the animal. 
 Hence they afford the characters by which the habits and 
 structure of an extinct genus may be to a great extent 
 determined. 
 
 The adductor muscles leave well-marked impressions on 
 the inner surface. If there be but one muscular impres- 
 sion on a valve, then it belongs to a " monomyary" or " uni- 
 muscular" Bivalve ; and if neither valve of a fossil shell 
 presenting this character have been immediately attached 
 to foreign bodies, then the laws of co-existence warrant the 
 inference that the constructor of such a Bivalve possessed 
 a byssus, and the muscular organ called the foot ; but that 
 the foot was developed only to the extent adapted to serve 
 as an instrument fur moulding the soft fibres, and regulat- 
 ing the attachment of the byssus. 
 
 If each valve of a bivalve shell exhibit two muscular im- 
 pressions, it proves the species to be "dimyary" or"bi- 
 muscular" (k is the anterior, and I the posterior muscular 
 impression in the Cytherea, fig. 6) ; if, moreover, there be 
 a thin small muscular depression beneath the cardinal 
 hinge, we have then an indication that the animal possessed 
 a large foot, organized to serve as a locomotive or burrow- 
 ing fleshy organ, the retractive muscle of which was in- 
 serted in the above depression. The line continued be- 
 tween the impressions of the two adductors indicates, by 
 its depth and breadth, the development of the muscular 
 margin of the mantle, and is called the pallial impression 
 (m, fig. 6). If this line be continued uninterruptedly, pa- 
 rallel with the margin of the valve, we may be assured that 
 the animal was either without siphons, or had them of very 
 small size ; but if the pallial line be broken by an angular 
 notch (n, fig. 6) continued inwards before its junction with 
 the posterior muscular impression, then it may be certain- 
 ly inferred that the animal had well developed muscular 
 tubes or siphons for respiration, with all the concomitant 
 powers and habits. Thus the general organization of the 
 soft and perishable fabricator of a bivalve shell may be as 
 certainly determined by the evidence of its fosselized en- 
 during case, as that of a vertebrate species by the structure 
 of its skeleton. The more immediate affinities of the Bi- 
 valve are revealed by the modifications of the hinge. 
 
 It sometimes happens, however, that the whole of the 
 internal or nacreous stratum of a fossil bivalve shell is des- 
 troyed, especially if it have been imbedded in porous 
 chalk ; and as the muscular impressions and the articular 
 structure of the hinge are composed exclusively of the in- 
 ner stratum of the shell, the means of determining the na- 
 ture and affinities of the animal in that case are lost; and, 
 unless the observer were acquainted with the texture and 
 structure of the bivalve shell, he would run the risk of 
 mistaking the part of a decomposed Bivalve for the whole 
 of some nondescript "Arcadian" species, as those Bivalves 
 are termed in which the hinge is naturally wanting. 
 
 Each valve of a bivalve shell consists of two strata, dis- 
 tinct in texture and in their organs of formation: the in- 
 ternal stratum is deposited in nearly parallel layers, by the 
 central and posterior parts of the mantle : it forms the 
 270 
 
 CONCORDANCE. 
 
 smooth iridescent lining of the shell called " mother of 
 pearl ;" the outer stratum is secreted by the thick glandular 
 margin of the mantle, and consists of conical fibres, rest- 
 ing obliquely by their apices, or narrower ends, upon the 
 nacreous laminae. The thickness of the two strata of the 
 shell always preserves an inverse ratio, the outer one being 
 thinnest at the umbo, and thickest at the margin ; the inner 
 one the reverse. 
 One hundred parts of oyster shell give — 
 
 Of carbonate of lime - - 983 
 Phosphate of lime - 12 
 
 Insoluble animal matter 0.5 
 
 1000 
 
 Most univalve shells are composed of three strata, which 
 consist of layers of rhombic or prismatic crystals, different- 
 ly arranged in the adjoining strata. The chief difference 
 of structure depends on the relative quantity of the animal 
 to the earthy constituents of the shell. 
 
 Hunter discovered that the molluscous inhabitants of 
 shells had the power of absorbing a part of the shell previ- 
 ously formed ; a fact which has been confirmed by subse- 
 quent observers, and which gives rise, in several species, 
 to singular modifications in the form and structure of the 
 shell in the progress of growth. Another change of form is 
 due to the physical decomposition or destruction of a part 
 of a shell : this occurs to the apex of certain Univalves, after 
 they have been evacuated by their original occupant, in the 
 widening and lengthening the shell to accommodate it to an 
 increase of bulk. Such shells are said to be "decollated," 
 as in Cerithium decollatvm, Helix decollata, &c. An analo- 
 gous partial decomposition always obtains in many Uniones 
 and Anodonla,, of which the "umbones" are then said to 
 be "decorticated," the external coloured layer or bark of 
 the shell being worn away. There is no general law or 
 uniformity in the mode in which the inhabitants of either 
 univalve or bivalve shells dispose of that part of their cal- 
 careous abode which they evacuate in the progress of their 
 growth. In the decollated shells, the vacated spire is par- 
 titioned off by the formation of a thin nacreous plate ; and 
 its walls being thin and fragile, it is then broken away, as 
 above described. In Vermetus gigas, the vacated portions of 
 the tube are successively partitioned off, and a series of 
 concave plates or septa developed ; but the part of the shell 
 thus divided into chambers, or " camerated," is retained. 
 The Spondylus varius, among Bivalves, offers an analogous 
 structure. In the pearly nautilus, the vacated portion of 
 the shell is converted into a series of chambers by the de- 
 velopment of calcareous septa in greater number and regu- 
 larity than in any Gastropodous Univalves; and the parti- 
 tions are perforated by a membranous tube or siphon, and 
 the deserted chambers are converted, by the superaddition 
 of this part, into a hydraulic machine, perfectly adapted to 
 the habits and exigencies of the animal. The like structure, 
 with various modifications, obtains in the extensive, but 
 mostly extinct, race of " Siphoniferous" Cephalopods. In 
 the argonaut, the vacated spire of the shell is not partitioned 
 off, but is retained in full communication with the inhabited 
 part, and made subservient to the reproductive economy 
 of the species. In the Magilus untiquus, the posterior part 
 of the shell, as it is deserted, is progressively filled up with 
 a dense, solid, subtransparent crystalline deposit of car- 
 bonate of lime. A deposit of similar calcareous material, 
 in a less degree, fills up the deserted spire of the shell in 
 some species of Cassis, Mitra, Triton, &c. ; and in the 
 long " turreted" shells of the Terebra, Cerithice, &c. the 
 deposition of this dense material in the vacated apex is the 
 preventative, instead of the cause, of decollation. (See 
 Sipainson's Treatise on Malacology, in Lardner's Cyclopcb- 
 dia ; Reeves' Conchologia Syste?natica, 4to. 1842.) 
 
 CO'NCLAVE. (Lat. con, together, and Gr. ic'Xtico, lshut 
 up.) The assembly of cardinals for the election of a pope. 
 It begins the day following the funeral of the deceased pon- 
 tiff. The cardinals are locked up in separate apartments, 
 and meet once a day in the chapel of the Vatican (or other 
 pontifical palace), where their votes, given on a slip of 
 paper, are examined. This continues until two-thirds of 
 the votes are found to be in favour of a particular candidate. 
 The ambassadors of France, Austria, and Spain have each 
 the right to put in a veto against the election of one cardi- 
 nal, who may be unacceptable to their respective courts. 
 
 CONCLU'SION. In Logic, that proposition which is in- 
 ferred from certain former propositions, termed the pre- 
 mises of the argument. 
 
 CO'NCORD. (Lat. concordia.) In Music, the relation 
 of two sounds agreeable to the ear either in succession or 
 consonance. 
 
 CONCO'RDANCE. (Lat.) A biblical index, in which 
 all the leading words used in scripture are arranged alpha- 
 betically, and a reference made to the various places in 
 which they occur, for the purpose of enabling the student 
 to collate with facility one passage with another in the view 
 of determining its meaning. The importance of this class 
 of works was early appreciated, and a vast deal of labour
 
 CONCORDAT. 
 
 has been expended in compiling them. Concordances 
 have been made of the Greek Septuagint, the Greek Tes- 
 tament, the Latin Vulgate, and the English Old and New 
 Testaments ; a full list of which will be found in Watt's 
 Bibliotheca Britannica, and in Orme'a Biblio. Biblka. The 
 first Concordance was compiled by Cardinal Hugues de St. 
 Cher, who died in 1262. The best English Concordance is 
 that of Cruden, which appeared in 1737, and still maintains 
 its ground as an authority. 
 
 CONCO'RDAT. An agreement or convention upon 
 ecclesiastical matters made between the Pope and some 
 temporal sovereign, as that between Pius VII. and Bona- 
 parte in 1802, by which the Roman Catholic religion was 
 reestablished in France ; oh which occasion the Pope re- 
 cognized the new division of France into 60 sees, instead 
 of The much greater number which had existed before the 
 revolution, the payment of the clergy from the national 
 revenues, and the appointment of the bishops by the civil 
 authority! Originally the term was aoplied to agreements 
 regulating mutual rights between bishops, abbots, priors, «tc. 
 The liberties of the French church were first established by 
 the pragmatic sanctions of Saint Louis (1268), and Charles 
 VII. (1439). In 1516 a concordat between Francis I. and 
 Pope Leo X. divided the privileges of the church between 
 them, and the king assumed the nomination of bishops. 
 The slates of Orleans restored their election to the chapters 
 in 1560. The pragmatic sanctions were still considered as 
 forming the base of ecclesiastical law in France down to 
 the revolution. 
 
 CO'NCRGTE. (Lat. concrescere, to coalesce inone mass.) 
 In Architecture and Engineerings mass composed of stone 
 chippings or ballast cemented together through the medium 
 of lime and sand, usually employed in making foundations 
 where the soil is of itself too light or boggy, or otherwise 
 insufficient for the reception of the walls. The employment 
 of concrete in this country owes perhaps its introduction to 
 Mr. George Semple, the engineer who erected the Essex 
 bridge at Dublin, and who in 1776 published a Treatise on 
 Building in Water ; but there is no doubt it was well known 
 at least to the Italian architects, if not to those of higher 
 antiquity. The riemputa of Palladio. and the instructions 
 in Alberti's 3d Book, chap, viii., clearly point to what is 
 now called concrete. The essential quality of concrete 
 seems to be that the materials used should be of small di- 
 mensions, so that the cementing medium may act in every 
 direction round them, and that the latter should on no ac- 
 count be more in quantity than is necessary for that pur- 
 pose. Architects ami engineers have much varied the pro- 
 portions of lime and sand used. If the lime, which should 
 he fresh and ground to powder, be good stone lime, such as 
 that from Dorking, used in the neighbourhood of London, 
 it will bear three or four times its measure by bulk of sand. 
 These, and the ballast or gallots, as the stone chippings 
 are called, should be thoroughly turned over and mixed 
 together. If the foundations be wet, the mixture will want 
 very little if any water; indeed sometimes the ballast only 
 is wetted, and then covered over with the lime and sand. 
 It is then filled into the barrows, and run on to be dropped 
 from a stage into the foundations. This latter operation 
 should be performed at as great a height as possible above 
 the level of the trench, in order that the whole of the differ- 
 ent particles of the composition may be compressed toge- 
 ther so as to occupy the least possible space. The stones 
 employed should not exceed the size of a common hen's 
 egg. The mass very quickly sets and becomes extremely 
 hard. On the lop of it, which is kept as level as possible, 
 a tier of what is called Yorkshire stone landings is laid, and 
 very often throughout the lengths a chain of timber is buried 
 in the footings, whose durability is requisite only while the 
 work is settling; over the landings and timber thus laid, 
 the latter, it is to be observed, occupying but a very small 
 portion of the thickness of the footings, and quite buried in 
 them, the walls are carried up. (See Davy on Artificial 
 Foundations, and Totten on Mortars, Cements, Sfc.) 
 
 CONCRETE TERM, in Logic, is so called when the 
 notion derived from the view taken of any object is ex- 
 pressed with a reference to, or in conjunction with, the 
 object that furnished the notion; as " foolish," or " fool." 
 When the notion is expressed without any such reference, 
 it is called an abstract term; as "folly." (See Whately's 
 Logic, p. 124.) 
 
 CONCU'SSION. (Lat. concutio, / shake.) A term 
 generally applied to injuries sustained by the brain, inde- 
 pendent of fracture of the skull, as from blows and falls. 
 More or less insensibility, sickness, impeded respiration, 
 and irregular pulse, are the first symptoms ; but these sub- 
 side, and the sufferer often becomes more easy and collect- 
 ed ; yet, although the symptoms apparently abate, danger- 
 ous inflammation may be going on, and a fatal termination 
 ensue. In all accidents of this kind, where, as is commonly 
 said, persons are stunned, the most cautious treatment 
 should he adopted, and no time lost in obtaining skilful 
 professional aid. 
 
 CONDENSATION. The rendering a body more dense, 
 271 
 
 CONE. 
 
 compact, or of greater specific gravity, by bringing its par- 
 ticles into closer union. The term is commonly applied to 
 the conversion of vapour into fluid by distillation or other- 
 wise. See Gas. 
 
 CONDE'NSER. An instrument for reducing an elastic 
 fluid of a given mass into a smaller volume. The pneu- 
 matic condenser is a syringe by which a large quantity of 
 air may be forced into a given space. It is constructed on 
 the same principle as the air-pump ; only the valves are dis- 
 posed in the contrary order, that is, to open inward instead 
 of outward. 
 
 CONDITION. In Law, has been defined in the most 
 general sense, "A restraint annexed to a thing, so that by 
 the non-performance the party shall receive loss, and by 
 the performance advantage." It is most commonly used 
 to signify a term whereon a grant is made : e. g. grant of an 
 estate to A., on condition that the grantee shall pay such a 
 sum on such a day, or else his estate shall cease. Condi- 
 tions of this description may be implied by law: as, where 
 tenant for life enfeoffs a stranger in fee simple, he forfeits 
 his estate for the breach, as it is said, of the implied condi- 
 tion not to grant a greater estate than his own. Conditions 
 are precedent, when an estate is gained on the performance 
 of them ; subsequent, when the condition is to be perform- 
 ed after the acquisition of the estate which is lost by its 
 non-performance. But the distinctions between these two 
 classes are numerous and minute. In general, where a con- 
 dition is of such a nature that compensation can be made 
 for its non-performance, equity will relieve the party break- 
 ing it from the consequences of the breach on making such 
 compensation. 
 
 CONDITIONAL PROPOSITION, in Logic, is one which 
 asserts the dependence of one categorical proposition on 
 another : e. g. " If the wind changes, it will rain." The pro- 
 position from which the other results is termed the Antece- 
 dent; the resulting proposition the Consequent. A condi- 
 tional syllogism is one in which the reasoning depends on 
 a conditional proposition. It is of two sorts, constructive 
 and destructive; as, 1. If A=B, then C=D ; but A=B, 
 therefore C=D. 2. If A=B, then C=D ; but C is not equal 
 to D, therefore A is not equal to B. The connection between 
 the antecedent and consequent of a conditional proposition 
 is termed the Consequence. 
 
 CONDOTTIE'RI. (It. leatlers.) In Italian History, a 
 class of mercenary adventurers in the 14th and 15th centu- 
 ries, who commanded military bands, amounting to armies, 
 on their own account, and sold their services for temporary 
 engagements to sovereign princes and states. One of the 
 earliest and most famous among those leaders was the 
 Englishman Sir John Hawkwood, who commanded in va- 
 rious Italian wars about the time of Edward III. The 
 bands under command of the Condottieri were well armed 
 and equipped. Their leaders had in many instances con- 
 siderable military skill ; but as they took no interest in na- 
 tional contests, except to receive pecuniary advantages, the 
 wars between them became a sort of bloodless contests, in 
 which the only object of each party was to take as many 
 prisoners as possible for the 3ake of the ransom. This 
 singular system of warfare was only put an end to by the 
 more serious military operations of the French, who in- 
 vaded Italy under Charles VIII. Although many Condot- 
 tieri acquired much honour as well as emolument, one only 
 attained to high rank and independent power ; this was 
 Francesco Sforza, originally a peasant, who in 1451 made 
 himself duke of Milan, and transmitted that sovereignty to 
 his descendants. 
 
 CONDU'CTOR. In Electricity. See Electricity. 
 CO'NDUIT. (Fr.) In Architecture, a passage of very 
 narrow dimensions, usually subterranean, for the purpose 
 of secret communication between apartments, many of 
 which exist in ancient buildings. Also a pipe for the sup- 
 ply of water to any place. 
 
 CO'NDYLE. (Gr. kovSv\os, a knuckle.) The rounded 
 head of a bone. 
 
 CONDY'LOPEDS, Condylopoda. (Gr. kovSv\o;, and 
 irovs, afoot.) A name applied by Latreille to that subdivi- 
 sion of Encephalous articulate animals which have jointed 
 feet : the Acephalous Cirripeds are excluded from this 
 group, which consequently includes the My riapods, Insects, 
 Arachnidans, and Crustaceans. 
 
 CONE. In Geometry, a solid body, having a circle for 
 its base, and terminating in a point, which is called its ver- 
 tex. The cone may be described as fol- 
 lows : — Suppose a fixed point A without 
 the plane of the circle BCD, and through 
 the point A let a straight line A B indefi- 
 nitely produced on both sides be drawn, 
 and carried round the circumference of 
 the circle BCD; the two surfaces ABC 
 D and Abed generated by this motion 
 are the surfaces of two opposite or verti- 
 cal cones. The circle B C D is called the 
 base of the cone, and the straight line A O 
 drawn from its, vertex to the centre of the
 
 CONE OF RAYS. 
 
 base is called its axis. If the axis is perpendicular to the 
 plane of the base, the cone is said to be right ; if the axis 
 is inclined to the plane of the base, the cone is oblique. 
 Some of the principal properties of the cone are the follow- 
 ing : — The area or surface of a right cone, exclusive of its 
 base, is equal to a triangle of which the base is equal to the 
 periphery of the base of the cone, and altitude equal to the 
 slant side of the cone ; or equal to the sector of a circle 
 whose radius is the side of the cone, and its arc equal to 
 the circumference of the base of that solid. It is much 
 more difficult to determine the surface of an oblique cone, 
 which cannot be reduced to the measure of the sector of 
 a circle. The solid contents of a cone, whether right or 
 oblique, are equal to one-third of a cylinder having the 
 same base and altitude. The centre of gravity of a right 
 cone is distant from the vertex f of the axis. Sometimes 
 the name cone is given to other solids than those whose 
 surfaces are produced by the motion of a straight line about 
 the circumference of a circle. It is applied generally to 
 all bodies which can be formed in the same manner, as- 
 suming any curve whatever for the circumference of the 
 base. The beautiful relation which connects the cone, 
 the sphere, and the cylinder, namely, that they are to each 
 other in the proportion of 1, 2, and 3, was discovered by 
 Archimedes. 
 
 CONE OF RAYS. In Optics, includes all the rays which 
 fall from a luminous point, or from a single point of a lu- 
 minous object, upon a given surface; for example, the ob- 
 ject glass of a telescope. 
 
 CONFEDERACY. (Lat. con, together, fcedus, a league.) 
 In Politics, an alliance of independent states for a common 
 object : sometimes also, but less properly, of individuals. 
 
 CONFEDERATION, THE GERMANIC, was formed 
 at the congress of Vienna : the instrument by which it is 
 constituted bears date June 8, 1815. This union was 
 framed to supply the want of the ancient imperial govern- 
 ment, dissolved in 1S06. The constituent members are 
 thirty-four monarchical states and four free cities, which 
 enter the confederation as equal and independent. The 
 diet of plenipotentiaries, which forms the representative 
 body of the league, is permanent, and sits at Frankfort-on- 
 the-Maine. When this diet meets as a general assembly 
 (plenum) six states, viz. Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, 
 Hanover, Wurtemberg, have four votes each ; five other 
 states three each ; four two ; the rest one ; making seventy 
 in all. But in the making of fundamental laws, admission 
 of new members into the confederacy, and on religious 
 questions, unanimity is required. In the ordinary assem- 
 bly of the diet, the votes are so apportioned as to make 
 only seventeen in all : this is the assembly in which pro- 
 positions are discussed, which are decided without discus- 
 sion in the plenum. This ordinary diet manages the ge- 
 neral affairs of the confederation. Austria presides in both 
 diets. The principal objects of the confederation are, the 
 examination of disputes between its members ; mutual 
 protection ; reciprocal assistance towards securing internal 
 tranquillity ; the establishment of constitutions of estates in 
 all the states ; the establishment of certain central courts 
 of appeal ; legal equality of Christian sects; an interna- 
 tional community of civil rights in some points ; and finally, 
 the regulation of the condition of mediatized princes and 
 states. See Mediatization. 
 
 CO'NFERENCE. In English Parliamentary usage, a 
 meeting of certain delegated members of the two houses 
 to discuss the provisions of a bill respecting which there 
 is a disagreement between them ; usually on the subject 
 of amendments introduced by one and rejected by the 
 other. The principal rules relating to conferences are, 
 1. That a conference must be demanded by that house 
 which is in possession of the bill. 2. It is the privilege of 
 the House of Lords to name the time and place at which 
 the conference shall be holden. 3. The house which asks 
 the conference must in its message clearly express the 
 subject matter respecting which it is to be holden. 4. It is 
 usual for the house desiring the conference to appoint a 
 committee to draw up reasons to be offered in support of 
 the measure which the house has adopted. These rea- 
 sons are communicated by its managers (i. e. delegates) 
 to those of the other house ; and it is irregular for any 
 member to go beyond these reasons, or to speak anything 
 except by way of introduction to their delivery. 5. If the 
 reasons alleged on both sides fail in producing agreement 
 between the houses, what is termed a free conference is 
 demanded ; usually after two conferences have been hold- 
 en without effect. In a free conference the managers are 
 not tied down to follow a particular line of instructions 
 (although they may have received such instructions from 
 their house), but may discuss the provisions of the mea- 
 sure in a more liberal manner. 
 
 Conference has also been the frequent denomination of 
 meetings of divines for ecclesiastical purposes. The con- 
 ferences of Hampton Court (1604) and the Savoy (1660), 
 between the clergy of the church of England and Puritans 
 and Presbyterians, are well known in English history. 
 272 
 
 CONFIRMATION. 
 
 The annual meetings of Wesleyan preachers are styled 
 conferences. 
 
 CONFE'SSION, AURI'CULAR, (Lat. auricula, ear), 
 is accounted by the church of Rome part of the sacrament 
 of penance. It must be made to a priest, who is under 
 solemn obligation not to reveal it ; and must be of every 
 mortal sin. The Roman Catholics cite several passage's 
 of scripture, particularly Matt. iii. 6, Acts xix. 18, and 
 James v. 16, as indirectly establishing this usage; which, 
 however, as an authorized practice of the church, does not 
 appear to be older than about a. d. 1215. Confession is 
 also prescribed by the Greek church. Among Protestants, 
 the Lutherans for some time retained it ; but confession 
 to God alone is recognized in our church as preparatory 
 to absolution. (See especially Bingham, Orig. £ccl.,book 
 xviii. c. 4 ) 
 
 CONFESSION OF FAITH. A formulary setting 
 forth the opinions held by a religious community. The 
 most important documents of this nature published prior 
 to the Reformation are the Apostles', the Nicene, and the 
 Athanasian creeds. (See these articles.) Since that period 
 the Romanists refer, 1. To the decrees and catechism of 
 the council of Trent, as containing a complete exposition, 
 accompanied by an elaborate defence, of their opinions ; 
 2. To the Creed of Pius IV., published in 1564, which 
 begins with a statement of the Nicene creed, and proceeds 
 to declare briefly and explicitly the additional tenets of the 
 Romish church ; 3. The exposition of the Catholic faith 
 by Bossuet, as having been sanctioned by the Pope, is 
 considered of secondary authority. 
 
 The most authentic symbol of the Greek church is that 
 which was drawn up in 1642 by Mogila, the metropolitan 
 of Kiow. It was approved with great solemnity by the pa- 
 triarchs and principal clergy of that communion. 
 
 The reformed churches have in almost all cases drawn 
 up summaries of their peculiar tenets, and require their 
 ministers to express their assent to them. The church of 
 England requires subscription upon ordination to the 
 Thirty-nine Articles, and the three articles of the 36th 
 Canon which relate to the supremacy of the King, &c. 
 The Book of Common Prayer and the Homilies are also 
 authorized statements of the doctrine of this community. 
 
 The symbolic books of the Lutheran church are numer- 
 ous: the principal are, the Confession of Augsburgh, drawn 
 up by Melancthon in 1530 ; the articles of Smalcald by 
 Luther (1538); the Great and Little Catechisms of Luther 
 (1529); and the Form of Concord (1579). The original 
 symbol of the Scotch church is called the General Con- 
 fession of the true Christian Faith, which was adopted by 
 the King and nation, together with the Solemn League and 
 Covenant, in 1581. A second was drawn up in 1660 by 
 some of the principal ministers, in consequence of an order 
 in parliament for that purpose. The Confession of the 
 Westminster Assembly (in 1643) was declared in 1690 by 
 an act of parliament to be the national standard of faith in 
 Scotland. 
 
 In this country the imposition of formularies for sub- 
 scription which are conceived in other than the words of 
 scripture has frequently been made a ground of dissent 
 and separation from the English church. The Presby- 
 terians also and Independents have suffered many seces- 
 sions upon this ground, which is maintained as a clear 
 deduction from the Protestant principle of the right of 
 private interpretation. It may be answered, that a church, 
 like the Romish, which forbids private interpretation, 
 might reasonably enough express its belief in the words 
 of scripture, the meaning of which in its mouth would be 
 sufficiently intelligible ; but that a Protestant church, on 
 the contrary, must paraphrase the language of the Bible 
 to make itself understood, and that its alternative must be 
 between a confession of this nature and none at all ; and 
 the impracticability of the latter course has been shown 
 by the experience of several minor sects in this country 
 and elsewhere. 
 
 CO'NFESSOR. (In Greek, bpoXoyrirris.) In Ecclesi- 
 astical History, the title given to those who have under- 
 gone persecution for Christianity short of death. They 
 were peculiarly honoured in the primitive church, to- 
 gether wish the memory of those who had actually suf- 
 fered (martyrs). Cyprian, Epist. 37. (See Gieseler's 
 Eccl. Hist. 1st Period, 2nd Division, ch. 3.) 
 
 CONFIGURATION. In Astronomy, denotes the posi- 
 tion which the planets occupy relatively to each other. 
 
 CONFIRMATION. The laying on of hands by the 
 bishop, for the conferring of the grace of the Holy Spirit; 
 a rite by which a person arrived at years of discretion 
 takes upon himself the performance of the baptismal vow 
 made for him by his sponsors. This ceremony is derived 
 from the practice of the Apostles, of whom we read (Acts, 
 viil 16. xix. 16.) that after certain disciples at Samaria 
 and Ephesus had been baptized, they laid their hands 
 upon them, and the Holy Ghost came upon them. The 
 descent of the Holy Ghost upon the Apostles themselves 
 on the day of Pentecost is considered also as an example
 
 CONFLICT OF LAWS. 
 
 of confirmation succeeding baptism. In the early ages 
 this ceremony seems to have been accompanied very 
 generally with the unction of the forehead. This cere- 
 mony is retained by the Roman Catholics, who consider 
 confirmation a sacrament. 
 
 CO'NFLICT OF LAWS. The opposition between 
 the municipal laws of different countries, in the case of an 
 individual who may have acquired rights or become sub- 
 ject to duties within the limit of more than one state. In 
 the language of Mr. Burge (Colonial and Foreign Law, 
 1. 5.), "the right or claim which is in contestation before 
 a judicial tribunal may present a conflict between the 
 laws of the country in which he was born, or had a domi- 
 cile, or had taken up a temporary residence, or in which 
 his property, the subject of the claim, was situated, or in 
 which the act, instrument, or testament on which the 
 claim is founded was executed, or in which the contesta- 
 tion tikes place. In this conflict of laws it becomes an 
 important branch of jurisprudence to ascertain which 
 should be selected, and the principles on which the se- 
 lection is to be made." The following are among the 
 principal works on this subject: — Rodenburg on the Con- 
 flict of Statutes, an Essay appended to his treatise De 
 Jure Conjugum ; Hortius, De Collisione Legum ; Bout- 
 lenois, De la Pcrsonnalite et de la Realite des Lois ; the 
 American judge Story's treatise on the Crmflict of Laics ; 
 and the above cited work of Mr. Burge, Commentaries on 
 Colonial and Foreign Laics generally, in their Conflict 
 with each other and with the Law of England, 4 vols. Svo. 
 Lond. 1837. 
 
 CO'iNFI.UENT. (Lat. confluens, flowing together.) 
 Running together. Applied to eruptive diseases in which 
 the pimples or pustules are not detached, but so numerous 
 as to form confluent patches, or even to cover the whole 
 surface of the body ; hence the term confluent small pox. 
 
 CONFO'RMITY, OCCASIONAL. The participation of 
 one in any of the observances (more particularly sacra- 
 ments) of a church from which he dissents. Much con- 
 troversy existed among the English Dissenters, especially 
 in the reign of Queen Anne, with respect to the lawfulness 
 of occasional conformity. 
 
 CONGE'. (Fr.) In Architecture the same sort of 
 moulding as the echinus or quarter-round ; also a term 
 used for the cavetto ; the former being called the swelling 
 conge. the,latter the hollow conge. 
 
 CONGE D'ELIRE. (Fr. leave to choose.) The kind's 
 writ or license to the dean and chapter to choose a bishop 
 in the time of vacancy of the see ; a mere formal pro- 
 ceeding. 
 CO'NGENERS. Species belonging to the same genus. 
 CONGE'STION. When there is an unnatural accu- 
 mulation of blood in the capillary vessels of any part of 
 the sanguiferous system, the organ in which it takes place, 
 and the functions of which are disturbed, is said to suffer 
 under congeslioji : it induces a morbid condition of the 
 vessels of the part affected, which when once established 
 is difficult of removal. Congestion of the brain, liver, or 
 lungs, is a frequent effect of fevers, though generally con- 
 sequent upon a previous morbid condition of the organs. 
 
 CONGLO'MERATE. (Lat. conglomero, / keep togeth- 
 er.) In Anatomy, glands which are made up of many 
 small glands, the ducts of which unite into one, as the 
 salivary glands, are so called. In Botany, the term is ap- 
 plied to flowers closely compacted upon one footstalk. 
 
 Conglomerate. In Geology, a rock composed of peb- 
 bles cemented together by another mineral substance, 
 either calcareous, silirious, or argillaceous. 
 
 CONGREGA'TION. (Lat. congrego, from con, togeth- 
 er, and grex, a flock.) At Oxford and Cambridge the as- 
 sembly of masters and doctors is so called, in which the 
 ordinary business of giving degrees. <fcc. is transacted. 
 
 Congregation. In Ecclesiastical language, properly an 
 assembly of the people for the purpose of divine worship. 
 Companies of religious persons, forming sub-divisions of 
 monastic orders, are styled in the church of Rome congre- 
 gations. For an account of the congregations of cardinals 
 at Rome, a species of committees for the transaction of 
 business of the see of Rome, see Enc. Metropol., art. 
 "Congregation." The "Congregation of the Lord" was 
 an appellation assumed by the first Scotch Presbyterian 
 Dissenters, in contradistinction to the Church of England, 
 which they styled the "Congregation of Satan." They 
 first came into notice in 1557, under the Duke of Argyle, 
 and were at a later period led by John Knox. 
 
 CO'NGREGA'TIONALI'STS. A sect of Protestant 
 Dissenters, who arose in this country as early as the reign 
 of Queen Elizabeth, when Robert Brown maintained that 
 every society of Christians meeting in one place for reli- 
 gious worship under its own laws and ministers formed a 
 legitimate and independent congregation. The Congrega- 
 tionalists have been called from their founder Brownists, 
 and in later times Independents. They form a powerful 
 body in England, and are very numerous in America. 
 Each congregation appoints its own ministers by vote, 
 273 
 
 CONIC SECTIONS. 
 
 and can remove them at pleasure, and reduce them to the 
 rank of laymen. They believe in the Trinity, predestina- 
 tion, total depravity, particular redemption, effectual 
 grace and final perseverance ; and maintain that every 
 congregation of visible saints furnished with a pastor is 
 under no other ecclesiastical jurisdiction whatever. (See 
 Neale's Hist. Puritans.) The number of Independent 
 congregations in England and Wales was stated in 1836 to 
 be about 1840. 'M-Culloch's Statistical Account of the Br. 
 Empire. ) 
 
 CO'NGRESS. (Lat. congredior, I go together.) In Poli- 
 tics, a meeting of the sovereigns of states, or their repre- 
 sentatives, for the purpose of arranging international 
 matters. The first general European congress was after 
 the conclusion of the thirty years' war in Germany, at 
 Monster and Osnabriick, 1648, which was followed by the 
 peace of Westphalia. Remarkable general congresses 
 have been — 1. of the Pyrenees, 1659 ; 2. of AixlaCha- 
 pelle, 1668; 3. Nimeguen, 1676; 4. Ryswick, 1697; 5. 
 Utrecht, 1713 ; 6. Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748; 7. Teschen, 1779; 
 8. Paris, 1782; 9. Versailles, 1785; 10. the Hague, 1790; 
 11. Rastadt, 1797 ; 12. Erfurt, 1808 : 13. Vienna, 1814, con- 
 cluded at Paris, 1815; 14. Aix-la-Chapelle, 1818; 15. Trop- 
 pau, 1820; 16. Laybach, 1821; 17. Verona, 1S22. 
 
 Congress is also the title of the national legislature of 
 the United States of America. It consists of a house of 
 representatives, and of a senate. The former is composed 
 of members chosen every second year. The qualification 
 of electors is the same with that required in their respec- 
 tive states for electors to the lower house in trie state legis- 
 lature. The number of representatives is apportioned 
 according to the population of each state, and is altered 
 every ten years, when the census is taken by authority. 
 In making this estimate, the slave population is reckoned 
 only at three-fifths of its amount. There cannot be more 
 than one representative for 60,000 free persons. The 
 senate is composed of two members from each state : the 
 senators are chosen for six years by the legislature of the 
 state. The house of representatives chooses its own 
 speaker: the vice-president of the United States is, ex 
 officio, president of the senate. Bills for revenue purposes 
 must originate in the house of representatives ; but are 
 liable to the proposal of amendments by the senate. The 
 senate has the sole power of trying impeachments ; but 
 can only convict by a majority of two-thirds of the mem- 
 bers present, and its sentence extends only to removal 
 from office and incapacitation for holding it. The regular 
 meeting of congress is on the first Monday in December 
 annually. Every bill which passes the two houses is sent 
 to the president for approval or disapproval ; in the latter 
 case, he returns it, with his reasons, to the house in which 
 it originated : if, on reconsideration, it is passed again by 
 a majority of two thirds in each house, it becomes law. 
 The powers of congress are strictly limited, and separated 
 from those of the various state legislatures, by the constitu- 
 tion. 
 
 CO'NIC SE'CTIONS. In Geometry, lines formed by 
 the intersections of a plane with the surface of a cone, 
 which assume different forms, and acquire different pro- 
 perties, according to the different positions of the plane in 
 respect of the axis of the cone. There are five species : — 
 
 1. If the cone be cut by a plane passing through its ver- 
 tex, the common intersection of the conical superficies 
 and the plane will be two straight lines meeting in the 
 vertex. 
 
 2. If the intersecting plane be parallel to the base, or, in 
 the case of the oblique or scalene cone, if it be so situated 
 as to cut off from the vertex a cone similar to the original 
 cone, the section will be a circle. 
 
 3. If the intersecting plane be parallel to a plane which 
 touches the cone, the section will be a parabola. 
 
 4. If the intersecting plane pass through both sides of 
 the cone, and is neither parallel to the base nor to the 
 plane of a subcontrary section, the section will be an 
 ellipse. 
 
 5. If the intersecting plane have such a position that, 
 when produced, it meets the opposite cone, the section is 
 a hyperbola. 
 
 These five are the only lines which can be formed by 
 the common intersection of a plane and the surface of a 
 cone, and they all equally arise from that intersection ; but 
 as the straight line and the circle form the peculiar subject 
 of elementary geometry, their properties are usually 
 treated apart; and the three last, namely, the parabola, the 
 ellipse, and the hyperbola, considered as the curves espe- 
 cially designated by the term Conic Sections. 
 
 Some of the principal and distinctive properties of the 
 curves are easily deduced from this mode of generation. 
 Let V A C B be the cone, and C D E the sec'ioh made by 
 a plane parallel to the plane which touches the cone in the 
 line VA; then, by the definition, C E D is a parabola. 
 Now let PQ be the intersection of the plane which touches 
 the cone in VA with the plane of the base A C B ; then 
 P Q, being a tangent to the circle A C B D, is perpendicu- 
 R
 
 CONIC SECTIONS. 
 
 lar to A B, the diameter of that circle, and consequently 
 C D, which is parallel to P Q, is also perpendicular to 
 A B ; therefore C F is 
 equal to F D. In F E 
 take any point G, through 
 which let there pass a 
 plane H L K, parallel to 
 the base A C B, intersect- 
 ing the plane C E D in 
 the straight line L G M ; 
 then L M will be parallel 
 to C D, and perpendicu- 
 lar to H K, and L G equal 
 to G M. We have there- 
 fore, from the property 
 of the circle, C F2 = 
 A F • F B, and L G2 = H G • G K ; therefore since by rea- 
 son of the parallels VA and EF the line A F is equal H G, 
 C F^ : L G2 : : F B : G K. But F B : G K : : E F : E G ; 
 therefore C F2:LG2::EF:EG; consequently, since 
 C F and E F are constant quantities, the ratio of L G* to 
 E G (or of L Mi to E G) is constant ; whence we infer that 
 in the parabola the square of any ordinate L G is equal to 
 the rectangle of the corresponding absciss E G into a con- 
 stant quantity. From this all the other properties of the 
 curve may be deduced. It is in fact the common equation 
 of the parabola. See Parabola. 
 
 For the ellipse and hyperbola, let E M F L be the sec- 
 tion ; through V draw a plane parallel to E M F L, and let 
 P Q be its intersection with the plane of the base. Through 
 
 C, the centre of the base, draw 
 
 C S perpendicular to P Q, 
 
 meeting the base in A and B. 
 
 Let E F be the intersection of 
 
 the plane ELM with the plane 
 
 A V B, which passes through 
 
 the axis of the cone ; and in 
 
 E F take any point G, through 
 
 which let a plane HMKLbe 
 
 drawn parallel to the plane of 
 
 the base, the line L M being its 
 
 intersection with the plane E L 
 
 M. Lastly, through the points 
 
 E and F let E N and F O be 
 
 drawn, meeting the opposite 
 
 sides of the cone in N and O. 
 
 Because of the similar triangles, 
 
 we have EG:GK::EF:FO, 
 
 and F G : G H : : F E : E N, 
 
 therefore EGGF:GKGH::EF2:FOEN. 
 
 Now E F2 and the rectangle F O • E N are constant 
 quantities, independent of the position of the point G ; and 
 GKGII = GL'i(LM being parallel to P Q, and there- 
 fore perpendicular to H K) ; consequently the rectangle 
 E G • G F is to the square of G L in a constant ratio. This 
 property furnishes an equation to the ellipse and hyper- 
 bola, from which all the properties of those curves may be 
 deduced. See Ellipse and Hyperbola. 
 
 The mutual relations of all the curves to each other may 
 be rendered sensible by supposing the plane V P Q to re- 
 volve about an axis passing through V parallel to P Q, and 
 the intersecting plane E M L to accompany it in its revolu- 
 tion, always maintaining its parallelism. Suppose the re- 
 volution to commence when the plane V P Q is parallel to 
 the base ; in this position the intersection of the cone with 
 E M L is a circle. When VPQ changes its position, and 
 becomes inclined to the plane of the base, the section E M 
 F L (Jig. 2) becomes an ellipse. As the plane VPQ con- 
 tinues to revolve, the ellipse becomes more and more 
 elongated, till at length P Q touches the plane of the base 
 ( Jig. 1), when the curve, instead of returning into itself, 
 exhibits two infinite branches, and passes into the parabola. 
 The revolution continuing, the line P Q falls within the 
 base of the cone (Jig- 3); the section E M L still presents 
 infinite branches, but its axis E G now meets the opposite 
 cone in F, the vertex of another section entirely similar 
 and equal to E M L ; whence the hyperbola has two pairs 
 of branches, which, from the opposite cones, are called 
 opposite hyperbolas. Suppose that in this position (while 
 P Q falls within the base) the distance between the two 
 planes VPQ and E M L is diminished ; as the distance 
 274 
 
 diminishes the curvature of the hyperbolic branches will 
 also diminish ; and when the distance vanishes the curva- 
 ture vanishes, and the two branches pass into a system of 
 two straight lines intersecting each other in the apex of 
 the cone. 
 
 The sections of the cone were first studied by the geo- 
 metricians of the school of Plato. They admitted, how- 
 ever, only the right cone into their geometry ; and they 
 supposed the section to be formed by a plane perpendicu- 
 lar to its side. Consequently the three sections were 
 formed from three different cones, the angles at the vertex 
 being right, acute, or obtuse. The parabola was produced 
 from a right-angled cone, the ellipse from an acute-angled 
 cone, and the hyperbola from an obtuse cone. Apollonius 
 of Perga, according to Eutocius, was the first who showed 
 that the three sections may be obtained from every cone, 
 whether right or oblique, and whatever the angle of its 
 apex, the species of the curve depending on the different 
 inclinations of the plane of the section to the cone itself. 
 It has, however, been established that Archimedes, who 
 flourished about forty years prior to Apollonius, was ac- 
 quainted with the fact that the three sections may be de- 
 rived from the same cone. Pappus, in his Mathematical 
 Collections, ascribes to Apollonius the names by which 
 the three sections are designated : the term Parabola, 
 however, occurs in the writings of Archimedes 
 
 Although the three curves were first noticed as resulting 
 from the sections of the cone, they still decidedly belong 
 to plane geometry; and their genesis may be defined, and 
 all their properties investigated, without having any refe- 
 rence whatever to the solid. Accordingly many geometers, 
 in modern times, have treated the curves as generated by 
 the motion of points on a plane ; and this method has un- 
 doubtedly the advantage of" relieving the student from the 
 difficulty of conceiving the positions and intersections of 
 different planes, and following out the relations of the lines 
 drawn on them, which become so complicated when re- 
 presented on the same surface. Dr. Wallis of Oxford, and 
 the celebrated De Witt, seem to have been the first who 
 adopted this method, which has been followed by Decha- 
 les, De La Hire, Boscovich, Dr. Simson, and many others. 
 The ancient mode of defining them from the sections of 
 the cone is seldom adopted in the recent treatises. 
 
 Various definitions of the curves in piano have been pro- 
 posed. The parabola is usually defined from this proper- 
 ty, that the distance of any point in the curve from the 
 focus is the same as its distance from the directrix. For 
 the ellipse and hyperbola the property which has been 
 most generally assumed as the definition is, that if any 
 point be taken in the curve, and straight lines be drawn 
 from it to the two foci, the sum of those lines in the case 
 of the ellipse, and their difference in the case of the hy- 
 perbola, is a constant quantity. This property seems to 
 have been chosen rather from considerations respecting 
 the facility of the description of the curves by mechanical 
 means, than from any peculiar advantage which it affords 
 for the investigation of their other properties. It does not 
 indicate the relationship of the three curves, and is in fact 
 not applicable to the parabola, which has only one focus. 
 On this account Boscovich selected a property which gives 
 a definition applicable alike to all the three sections, and 
 from which the general properties common to all of them 
 are established by the same demonstration. It is this — a 
 point and a straight line being given by position on a plane, 
 another point which moves in such a manner in the same 
 plane that its distance from the given point has to its dis- 
 tance from the given straight line a constant ratio, describes 
 a conic section. When the constant ratio is a ratio of 
 equality, the curve traced out by the moving point is a pa- 
 rabola ; when a ratio of minority the curve is an ellipse, 
 and when a ratio of majority an hyperbola. This general 
 definition of the conic sections has also been adopted by 
 Thomas Newton, Walker of Nottingham, and Professor 
 Leslie, in their respective treatises. 
 
 The different properties of the conic sections may also 
 be investigated by the modern algebraic analysis ; and as 
 all the curves are derived from the same cone, so all their 
 equations are included in one general equation, of the se- 
 cond degree, between two variables. The equation of the 
 second degree between the two variables x and y, in its 
 most general form, is 
 
 ' Ay2 + Bxy + Csfi + Dy + Ear + F = 0, 
 
 which, by assigning certain values to the constant coeffi- 
 cients A, B, C, D, E, F, or assuming certain relations to 
 exist among them, becomes the equation of an ellipse, an 
 hyperbola, a parabola, a circle, or that of a system of two 
 straight lines ; and it may be demonstrated that whatever 
 be the values of the coefficients, it can only express one 
 or other of those curves. (See Biot's Essai de Geometrie 
 Analytique ; Hamilton's Analytical System of the Conic 
 Sections ; or the Traile Analytique des Sections Coniques, 
 fyc. by the Marquis de l'Hopital.) 
 The conic sections have acquired a remarkable interest
 
 C0NID1A. 
 
 in modern times on account of their use in natural philoso- 
 
 Shy and astronomy. A body projected in space, and urged 
 y a central force which varies inversely as the square of 
 the distance, must describe a conic section ; and all the 
 planets move in ellipses about the sun. The knowledge 
 of the properties of the ellipse doubtlessly facilitated the 
 discovery of the true nature of the planetary orbits ; and 
 hence it has been said, with some appearance of truth, 
 that to the seemingly barren speculations of the Greeks 
 relative to the sections of the cone we are indebted for the 
 sublime theories of Kepler and Newton. A considerable 
 number of the most interesting properties of the curves 
 are demonstrated in the first Book of the Principia, where 
 Newton has considered the method of solving this problem 
 — Straight lines and points being given by position on a 
 plane, to describe a conic section which shall pass through 
 the given points and touch the given straight lines. 
 
 Treatises on the conic sections are exceedingly numer- 
 ous ; in fact there is no part of the mathematics which has 
 been more studied by geometricians, both ancient and 
 modern, than the properties of these curves. To the an- 
 cients they furnished an excellent field for the exercise of 
 their elegant geomerrical analysis; and the more difficult 
 investigations of series for their quadrature and rectification 
 have given occasion to some of the most elegant applica- 
 tions of the modern calculus. The following are some of 
 the principal geometrical treatises — Apollonii Pergati Coni- 
 corum Libri Oclo, <fcc, Oxford, 1710, by Dr. Halley ; Vivi- 
 ani's two works— I. De Maximiset Minimis Geometrica Di- 
 vina'io, 2. De Locis Solidis Secunda Divinalio Geometrica ; 
 De La Hire's Sections Conica, Paris, 1635 ; Hamilton, De 
 Sectionibus Conicis Tractatus Geometricus, Dublin, 1753 ; 
 Simson's Treatise, in Latin and English ; Robertson's ditto ; 
 A short Treatise on the Conic Sections, by the Rev. T. New- 
 ton, Cambridge, 1794 ; Walker's Treatise, London, 1794 ; 
 Leslie's Treatise on Lines of the Second Order; A Geo- 
 metrical Treatise on the funic Sections, by Professor Wal- 
 lace. Edinburgh, 1837, &c. &c. 
 
 COM'DIA. (Gr. kovis, dust.) A term sometimes used 
 in describing lichens, to denote the bodies which constitute 
 the powdery matter called soredia, lying upon the surface 
 of the iha'.li. By others Ihev are called the propagula. 
 
 CONTFGR.dE. (Lat.) In Botany, a natural order of ar- 
 borescent or shrubby Gymnosperms, inhabiting most parts 
 of the world, and usually both resinous and evergreen. 
 Their real organization was, for a long period, but little un- 
 derstood, until Brown discovered that the ovules of the en- 
 tire order are naked. No other race of plants can be 
 named of more importance to mankind than this, — first, for 
 their resinous secretions, as turpentine, pitch, Canada bal- 
 sam, &c. ; and secondly, for their timber, which is used 
 under the names of fir, pine, deal, cedar, sandarach, and 
 many others. All the kinds of fir, cedar, juniper, pine, 
 savin, cypress, and arbor vitse, are species of genera be- 
 longing to this order, which appears from geological evi- 
 dence to have existed in great abundance among the earli- 
 est vegetal ion that clothed the surface of our planet. 
 
 CONIRO'STERS, Coni io.it res. (Lat. conus, a cone, and 
 rostrum, a beak.) A tribe of Insessorial birds or perchers, 
 including those which have a thick robust conical beak, as 
 the crows and finches. 
 
 CONISTE'RIUM. (Gr. icovicrrnqiov.) In Ancient Ar- 
 chitecture, a room in the gymnasium and palaestra, where- 
 in the wrestlers, having been anointed with oil, were 
 sprinkled over with dust, that they might lay firmer hold 
 of their antagonists. 
 
 CO'NITE." (Gr. kovis, powder.) A silicious carbonate 
 of lime, found associated with certain zeolites, in the form 
 of a white powder. 
 
 CONJOINT DEGREES. In Music, a term used of two 
 or more notes which immediately follow each other in the 
 order of the scale. 
 
 CONJOINT TETRACHORDS. In Music, two tetra- 
 chords or fourths, in which the same note is the highest of 
 one and the lowest of the other. 
 
 CONJUGATION. (Lat.) In Grammar, is to verbs what 
 declension is to substantives — the sum total of the inflexions 
 which they admit, corresponding to the various circum- 
 stances of time or mood under which an action is con- 
 ceived to take place. 
 
 CONJUNCTION. In Grammar, that part of -speech 
 which expresses the relation of propositions or judgments 
 to each other. -See Grammar. 
 
 CONJUNCTIVE MOOD. That modification of the 
 verb which expresses the dependence of the event intend- 
 ed on certain conditions. See Grammar. 
 
 CONNARA'CEjE. (Connarus, one of the genera.) In 
 Botany, a natural order of shrubby or arborescent Exogens 
 inhabiting the tropics, and only distinguished with certainty 
 from Leguminosoe. by the radicle being re mote from the hi- 
 lum: they approximate very closely to the Caesalpineous 
 section of Leguminosx ; but their want of stipules and re- 
 gular liowers will usually be sufficient to distinguish them 
 from the great mass of the Papilionaceous section. 
 275 
 
 CONSIDERATION. 
 
 CONNTVENT. (Lat. conniveo, / wink.) A term used 
 figuratively by botanists in describing the direction of or- 
 gans, to denote a gradual inward direction, as in many pe- 
 tals. It is the same as converging. 
 
 In Anatomy, the term is applied to those valvular folds of 
 the lining membrane of canals which are so disposed as to 
 retard, while at the same time they permit, and, as it were, 
 connive at, the passage of the contents of such canals as 
 the " valvules conniventes" in the human intestine. 
 
 CO'NNOISSEU'R. (Fr. connoitre, to know.) In the Fine 
 Arts, one who is versed in a knowledge of the fine arts. 
 His qualifications are so numerous, that very few sound 
 connoisseurs have appeared ; and in nine cases out of ten 
 these come under the description of a well-known Italian 
 author of being " conoscitori senza cognizione." 
 
 CONOHE'LIX. A genus of shells, intermediate be- 
 tween the Cones and Volutes. 
 
 CO'NOPS. (Gr. Kojvoixp, agnat.) A Linnaean genus of 
 Dipterous insects, characterized by having an elongated, 
 slender, pointed proboscis. It is at present subdivided into 
 the genera Bucentes, Prosena and Stomoxys, Myopa, Zodi- 
 on, and Conops proper : the larva? of the latter subgenus 
 are developed within the abdominal cavity of the humble 
 bees, and other Hymenoptera. 
 
 CONSCIENCE, COURTS OF, and of REQUESTS, are 
 courts for the recovery of small debts. The jurisdiction of 
 these courts in London and other places arises out of vari- 
 ous statutes, beginning with 1 J. I. c. 14., their original ap- 
 pointment having been by order in council under Henry 
 VIII. The jurisdiction of the London Court of Conscience 
 is extended by 39 & 40 G. III. c. 104. to the recovery of 
 debts not exceeding £o, and inSouthwark and many other 
 places by subsequent statutes. 
 
 CO'NSCRIPT. (Lat. conscribo, / enrol together with 
 others.) Patres Conscripti, or Fathers Conscript. A title 
 of the Roman senators; properly of those who were added 
 to the senate subsequently to the expulsion of the kings. 
 
 CONSCRI'PTION. The compulsory enrolment of in- 
 dividuals for military or maritime service, taken from the 
 population at large. The conscription, in the Roman com- 
 monwealth, was made not by lot, but by arbitrary selec- 
 tion by the consuls from among the bulk of the citizens 
 when a levy was required. In France the conscription was 
 established during the revolution, before which period the 
 armies of that country had been recruited by voluntary en- 
 listment. The word is first used in a law of 1793. Ac- 
 cording to the law as at present established, all citizens are 
 liable to the conscription at the age of twenty. Each arron- 
 dissement has its contingent allotted to it out of the total 
 number required for the service, and this number is filled 
 up by lot from the youths liable to the conscription. There 
 are, however, various claims of exemption recognised by 
 the law. The legal duration of the service is seven years. 
 
 CONSECRA'TION. (Lat. sacer, holy.) The act of set- 
 ting apart a person or thing to the service or worship of 
 God : thus a newly built church is consecrated with certain 
 ceremonies, varying in different communities. The admis- 
 sion of a bishop to his office is called his consecration. 
 
 CONSE'NTIAN GODS. A term by which the Latins 
 distinguished their twelve chief deities — Juno, Vesta, Mi- 
 nerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Nep- 
 tune, Vulcan, and Apollo. The origin of these deities was 
 Italian, and distinct from those of the Greeks ; but as the 
 literature of Rome took its tone and colour from Greece, so 
 its mythology was mixed up with that of the latter country, 
 those deities whose functions most resembled each other 
 being confounded, till the above names became regarded 
 as nothing more than the Latin appellations of the Greek 
 divinities. 
 
 CONSERVATORY. In Horticulture, is a glazed struc- 
 ture, in which exotic trees and shrubs are grown in a bed 
 or floor of soil. It is distinguished from an orangery by its 
 having a glazed roof, while that of the latter is opaque ; and 
 from a greenhouse by the plants being planted in the free 
 soil, and thus growing up from the floor, while in the green- 
 house the plants are grown in pots placed on shelves, or on 
 a stage or series of shelves, rising one above another. 
 Above a century ago, for example, in the time of Evelyn, 
 the term conservatory was applied to those garden build- 
 ings now called orangeries, and in modern horticulture em- 
 ployed only for the preservation of exotic plants, such as 
 orange trees, &c, which are in a dormant state during 
 winter. The greenhouse and the modern conservatory 
 were then not in existence. They are exclusively employ- 
 ed for the preservation of plants which are in a growing 
 state during winter. The largest conservatory in the world, 
 at the present time (1341). is that erected at Chatsworth in 
 Derbyshire, for palms and other tropical plants, which 
 covers above an acre of ground, and is sixty feet high. 
 There are very handsome conservatories for Cape and 
 Australian plants at Alton Towers, and other places. (See 
 Loudon's Encyclovcedia of Gardening ) 
 
 CONSIDERATION. In Law, is the material cause of 
 a contract, without which it is not binding on the party.
 
 CONSISTORY. 
 
 Consideration is said to be either expressed or implied. 
 An express consideration is where the motive or induce- 
 ment of the parties to the contract is distinctly declared by 
 its terms ; as where a man bargains to sell his land for 
 JE100. It is implied, where an act is done, or a legal de- 
 mand forborne, at the request of another, without an ex- 
 press stipulation : in which case, the law presumes an 
 adequate compensation for the act or forbearance to have 
 been the inducement of the one party, and the offer of the 
 other; as where a person comes to an inn and makes use 
 of it, intention to pay for the accommodation is presumed. 
 Consideration is also either "valuable," that is, for money 
 or an equivalent; or it is "of natural affection," certain 
 degrees of relationship affording in some cases sufficient 
 consideration for a gift. 
 
 CONSI'STORY. (Lat. r.onsistorium, said to have been 
 the private councillors of the Roman emperors.) An assem- 
 bly of ecclesiastical persons ; also certain spiritual courts 
 are so called which are holden by the bishops in each dio- 
 cese. At Rome the consistory denotes the judicial court 
 constituted by the college of cardinals. The representative 
 body of the reformed church in France is styled Consistory ; 
 a title and assembly originated by Calvin. There is now, 
 or should be, according to law, a consistory for every 6000 
 Protestant souls, consisting of the pastor or pastors, and 
 from 6 to 12 elders. The consistory names the pastor. 
 There are now 83 reformed consistories in France (not in- 
 cluding the Lutheran churches.) 
 
 CONSI'STORY COURT. The chancellor of every arch- 
 bishop and bishop is the judge of this court in England, and 
 a commissary is appointed for places remote from the con- 
 sistory. See Ecclesiastical Courts. 
 
 CO'NSOLE. (Ital.) See Ancones. 
 
 CONSOLIDATED FUND. Down to 1816, the ex- 
 chequers of Great Britain and Ireland were kept separate, 
 certain portions of the public revenue arising in each king- 
 dom being especially appropriated to the discharge of the 
 interest on its own debts, and other peculiar purposes. But 
 on January 5th, 1816, the separate exchequers were con- 
 solidated into one ; and an act was at the same time passed 
 consolidating certain portions of the joint revenue of Great 
 Britain and Ireland into one fund, hence called the Consoli- 
 dated Fund, and providing for its indiscriminate application 
 to the payment of the public debts, civil lists, and other 
 specified expenses of both kingdoms. Some portions of 
 revenue are not included in this fund ; but it embraces by 
 far the largest part of the public income. Thus, in 1838, of 
 a total nett income of 47,333,460/., the consolidated fund in- 
 cluded no less than 44,144,438/. : the expenditure on account 
 of the peculiar charges to be defrayed by the fund during 
 the same year amounted to 31,742,918/., leaving a surplus 
 of 12,401,570/. applicable to other objects. (Fairman on the 
 Funds, 7th ed. p. 896 ; Pari. Paper, No. 849. Sess. 1839, 
 <fcc.) 
 
 CO'NSONANCE. (Lat. consonans, sounding together.) 
 In Music, the agreement of two sounds simultaneously 
 produced, the one grave and the other acute. 
 
 CONSONANT. See Letter, Vowel. 
 
 CO'N SORDI'NI. (Ital.) In Music, a direction to per- 
 form the passage, if on a pianoforte, with the dampers 
 down, or on a violin with the mute on ; it is usually written 
 short, C. S. 
 
 CONSPIRACY. (Lat. consyiirzlio, agreement.) In Law, 
 is in the strictest sense an agreement of two or more per- 
 sons falsely to indict one, or procure him to be indicted, for 
 felony ; who, after acquittal, may have his writ of conspi- 
 racy. In a more general sense, many species of combina- 
 tions to injure another are termed conspiracies ; as to pro- 
 cure one to be arrested, to defraud under certain circum- 
 stances, &c. Conspiracy is an indictable offence ; and two 
 at least of the persons indicted must be found guilty to 
 produce a conviction, as otherwise the offence is not proved 
 against any one. Combinations of workmen to regulate 
 the rate of wages, prior to the 6 G. 4. c. 129, were common- 
 ly termed conspiracies. 
 
 CO'NSTABLE. A high officer in the monarchical estab- 
 lishments of the middle ages. (Lat. comes stabuli, count 
 of the stable ) In France, the first dignitary under the 
 crown, commander-in-chief and supreme military judge. 
 In that country the office was abolished in 1627, as confer- 
 ring powers too dangerous in the hands of a subjpct. In 
 England the last permanent lord high constable was Edward 
 Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, whose office was forfeited 
 to the crown by his attainder in 1522; since which time it 
 has only been occasionally conferred on particular emer- 
 gencies. The title is supposed to have originated in the 
 tower Empire. (Ducange, Gloss.). 
 
 Constable. A constable is an officer particularly charged 
 with the preservation of the peace, either within the hun- 
 dred, where he is called high constable, or within the parish 
 or ty thing, where he is called petty constable, and where he 
 has generally superseded the tything-man. The duties of 
 the high constable respecting the preservation of the peace 
 are now merely nominal : but he is still of use to represent 
 276 
 
 CONSTELLATION. 
 
 the hundred in certain legal actions, and to perform certain 
 ministerial offices connected with the administration of jus- 
 tice, as, for instance, the return of jurors, which originally 
 devolved upon the bailiff of the hundred. The functions of 
 petty constable are still of great and daily importance. It 
 is his business, in the first place, to interfere upon his own 
 authority, and if necessary by apprehension of the offender, 
 whenever a breach of the peace or other more serious 
 offence is committed in his presence, or whenever he has 
 sufficient information of a felony ; and, in the next place, to 
 execute all such warrants apparently and upon the face of 
 them legal as shall be committed to his hands by competent 
 authorities. He has a right, when impeded in the execu- 
 tion of his duty, to call upon bystanders for assistance, and 
 has the power in case of sickness or disability to appoint a 
 deputy to execute warrants in his stead. Constables were 
 anciently appointed, and still might legally be so, by the 
 jury of the leet ; but high constables are now appointed 
 either at quarter sessions or by the justices of the hundred 
 out of sessions, and petty constables are annually sworn in 
 to the office at quarter sessions for each parish upon pre- 
 sentment of the vestry ; and the person so presented is 
 compellable under the penalty of fine and imprisonment, 
 except in recognized cases of disability or exemption, to 
 serve the office. A special constable is a person appointed 
 to act as constable upon a particular occasion ; and any two 
 magistrates have, in case either of actual or apprehended 
 riot, the power of calling upon all persons who would be 
 liable to serve as petty constables to act as special con- 
 stables, and their refusal is punishable in the same manner 
 as in the case of the former office. Constables are frequent- 
 ly appointed in pursuance of particular acts of parliament, 
 as the police constables in London. {Burns' Justice, tit. 
 " Constable ;" Viner's Abridgment.) 
 
 CONSTELLA'TION. (Lat. con, together ; Stella, a star.) 
 In order to distinguish with greater facility the different 
 stars, it has been the practice of observers, from time im- 
 memorial, to separate them into groups or clusters, which 
 have received the name of constellations, and been repre- 
 sented by the figures of men or animals, or other sensible 
 objects to which they were fancied to have some resem- 
 blance. Hipparchns called them Asterisms ; Aristotle and 
 Hyginus, Bodies; Proclus, Animals ; others, Meteors; but 
 the term Constellation has been long established by general 
 usage. The origin of these figures and names is involved 
 in impenetrable obscurity. By most authors the twelve 
 constellations of the zodiac are supposed to have been es- 
 tablished about 1700 years before our era, either by the 
 Egyptians or the Chaldeans. Dupuis supposes them to 
 have had an incomparably more ancient origin, and that 
 their names are significative of the climate of Egypt at the 
 epoch when the solstice was in Capricorn; that is, about 
 15,000 before Christ. But even on this hypothesis, namely, 
 that the names of the zodiacal constellations, or signs, as 
 they are frequently called, are significative of the seasons, 
 it may be supposed that reference was made to the sign 
 opposite to the sun, instead of that which the sun occupied ; 
 in which case the origin of the names would be referable 
 to an epoch preceding our era by about 2000 or 3000 years. 
 This arises from the motion of the equinoctial points, which 
 regress or go backward annually among the stars, accom- 
 plishing half a revolution in about 12,500 years. 
 
 Hipparchus was the first who constructed a catalogue of 
 the stars from exact, observations. It has been preserved 
 to our own times in the Almagest of Plolemy, and contains 
 1022 stars, distributed among 48 constellations ; namely, 12 
 in the zodiac, 21 to the north of the zodiac, and 15 to the 
 south. Stars which were not comprehended in any of the 
 constellations (and it is evident that there must be many 
 such) were called by a Greek term signifying ■unformed; 
 that is, not entering into the forms of the constellations. 
 Several have been added in modern times, as the stars of 
 the southern heavens became better known. A much 
 better idea may be formed of the figures and relative posi- 
 tions of the constellations by inspecting a common celestial 
 globe, than from any description, however detailed. 
 
 The 48 constellations of Hipparchus are as follows: — 
 
 In the zodiac 12 — Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, 
 Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, 
 Pisces. 
 
 In the northern hemisphere 21 — Ursa Minor (the Little 
 Bear), Ursa Major (the Great Bear), Draco (the Dragon), 
 Cepheus, Bootes, Corona Borealis, Hercules, Lyra, Cygnus 
 (the Swan), Cassiopeia. Perseus, Auriga (the Waggoner), 
 Ophiucus or Serpenlarius, Serpens. Sagitta (the Arrow), 
 Aquila (the Eagle), Delpltinus (the Dolphin), Equideus (the 
 Horse's Head), Pegasus, Andromeda, Triangulum (the 
 Triangle). 
 
 In the southern hemisphere 15 — Cetus (the Whale), 
 Orion, Eridanus, Lepus (the Hare), Canis Major (the 
 Great Dog), Cards Minor (the Little Dog), Argo (the Ship), 
 Hydra, Crater (the Cup), Corvus (the Crow), Centaurus, 
 Lnptis (the Wolf), Ara (the Altar), Corona Austral 'is (the 
 Southern Crown), Pisces Australis (the Southern Fish).
 
 CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. 
 
 To the above 48 constellations of Hipparchus, 12 near the 
 south pole were added by Bayer, and represented in his 
 Uranometria, the first edition of which appeared in 1603. 
 These were, Indus (the Indian, or Indian Triangle), Grus 
 (the Crane), Phamix, Apis or Musca (the Bee), Triangu- 
 lum (ttie Southern Triangle), Avis IndicaQhe Bird of Para- 
 dise), Pavn (the Peacock), Pica Indica (the Toucan). Hy- 
 drus (the Hydra), Dorado, Pisa's Volans (the Flying Fish), 
 Chameleon. The two constellations, Coma Berenices (Be- 
 renice's Hair) and Antinous, were formed by Tycho Bra- 
 he ; the first comprehending some of Ptolemy's unformed 
 stars near Leo, and the second of others near Aquila. They 
 are given in the catalogue of Riccioli, published in his As 
 tronomy Reformed in 10(35. 
 
 In the Pianisphcbrium Stellatum of Bartschius, published 
 in 1624, the eight following constellations are found, and 
 said In have been formed by the moderns in that part of 
 the heavens which is visible in Europe— Camelopardalis 
 (the Giraffe), Tigris, Jordanus, Vespa (the Wasp), Columba 
 Noachi (Noah's Dove), Monoceros (the Unicorn), Rhombus 
 (the Rhombus or Rhomboid), Gallus (the Cock). The 
 same constellations are met with in the Celestial Charts of 
 Royer, published in 1679, with the exception of Gallus. 
 Vespa is also changed into Lis (the Flower-de-luce), and 
 Crux (the Cross) added. 
 
 In the Charts of Hevelius, entitled Firmamentum Sobies- 
 cianum, and published in 1690. we find 10 new constella- 
 tions — Canes Venalici (the Greyhounds, Asterion, and 
 Chara), Lacerta (the Lizard), L : o Minor (the Little Lion, in 
 place of Jordanus, mentioned above), Lynx (instead of Ti- 
 gris). Sextans (the Sextant of Urania), Scutum Sobiescian- 
 um. (Sobieski's Shield), Triangulum (the Little Triangle), 
 Vulpecula et Anser (the Fox and Goose), Cerberus, and 
 Mons Mamalus. 
 
 To the above Cor Caroli (the Heart of Charles II.) was 
 added bv Flamsteed, and Robur Carolinum (the Oak of 
 Charles) by Halley. 
 
 Notwithstanding the additions already made to the con- 
 stellations in the southern hemisphere since the time of 
 Ptolemy, l.acaille found so many clusters of unformed 
 stars, while observing at the Cape of Good Hope, that he 
 added to the list no fewer than 14 new constellations, to 
 which he gave the following names--Officina Sculptoria 
 (the Sculptor's Workshop), Fornax Chi/mica (the Chemi- 
 cal Furnace), Horolugium (the Clock), iieticulus Rtiomboi- 
 dal.is (the Rhomhoidal Net), Caelum Scalptorium'\}ie Grav- 
 er). Equuleus Pictoris (the Painter's Easel), Pyxis Nauti- 
 caohe Mariner's Compass), Octane Hadleiamts (Hadley's 
 Octant), Machina Pneumulica (the Air Pump). Circinus 
 (the Compass). Quadra (the Square), the Telescope, the 
 Microscope, and Tab'e Mountain. Some still more recent 
 additions have been proposed, particularly by Bode ; among 
 which are the Honours of Frerleric, the Sceptre of Bran- 
 denburg, Hers'heVs Telescope, &c. ; but they do not seem 
 to be generally used in astronomical catalogues. 
 
 If the question were to be asked, What good purpose 
 can be served by this multiplication of arbitrary divisions 
 and fantastic names? we apprehend that no very satisfac- 
 tory answer could be given. Astronomers doubtless find 
 it convenient to classify the stars under certain divisions ; 
 but when the number of divisions becomes so great as to 
 be remembered with difficulty, the advantage disappears. 
 The arbitrary nature of the divisions also leads to great in- 
 convenience, inasmuch as they are liable to much uncer- 
 tainty, and frequent change of boundary. Not. only have 
 the names in several instances been changed, but it seem* 
 to have been a common practice with astronomers and 
 chart-makers to take stars from one constellation and give 
 them to another, without any other rule than that of pleas- 
 ing their own fancies. On this account it is frequently ex- 
 tremely difficult to identify stars (particularly in the south- 
 ern hemisphere) in the different catalogues. It is to be 
 wished that, the whole of the constellations (excepting per- 
 haps the 48 of Hipparchus and Ptolemy) were obliterated 
 from our celestial charts and globes, and that observers in 
 describing the places of the stars would confine themselves 
 to a simple statement of their right ascensions and declina- 
 tions, at least until some better arrangement and nomen- 
 clature shall have been devised and agreed upon. Excel- 
 lent maps of the Stars, with the Constellations, coloured, 
 have been published by the Society for the Diffusion of 
 Useful Knowledge: six plates, each"25 inches square, ed- 
 ited by Sir Wm. Lubbock. 
 
 CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY. In French History, the 
 first of the national assemblies of the revolution; elected 
 in 17S8 as the states general, dissolved in 1791 after pro- 
 claiming the constitution of that year. 
 
 CONSTITUTION. The collective body of the funda- 
 mental laws of a stale: either contained in written docu- 
 ments, or established by prescriptive u.<age. Constitutions 
 have been divided into three kinds by political writers: — 
 1. Those granted (octroyees) by monarchs to their sub- 
 jects; 2. Those springing out of rights enjoved indepen- 
 dently by the people, or classes of the people, which in 
 277 
 
 CONSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 monarchical countries are recognised by the sovereign in 
 his contract with the people ; 3. Those founded on com- 
 pact between sovereign powers, i. e. federal constitutions. 
 In a certain sense, all states in which the power of a sove- 
 reign over his people, or classes of his people, is limited 
 by law or legal usage in any particular, may be said to pos- 
 sess pro tanto a constitution ; but, in ordinary language, 
 only a government in which the power o( legislation, or 
 that of granting and withholding supplies to the sovereign, 
 is vested in the people, or a body of representatives elected 
 by them, or by a class of them, is termed constitutional. 
 Constitutions have again been divided into— 1. Those in 
 which legislative power is exercised directly by the peo- 
 ple (as in some small modern commonwealths, and in all 
 the free states of antiquity); and, 2. Representative con- 
 stitutions. The last again, as prevailing in modern Europe 
 and America, has been divided historically into — 1. Those 
 which have originated from compact between several inde- 
 pendent interests, as the sovereign, clergy, nobles, and 
 commons, in feudal kingdoms ; 2. Those formed artifici- 
 ally, in modern times, on the model of the British consti- 
 tution ; which, although arising out of the same causes 
 which produced the feudal constitutions, assumed in the 
 course of time a different and more comprehensive cha- 
 
 CONSTITUTIONS. In Roman Law, decrees of regu- 
 lar authorities, as praetors, <kc. ; more particularly decrees 
 of the emperors, whether by decree, edict, or letter. 
 
 Constitutions, Apostolical. An ancient code of re- 
 gulations respecting the doctrine and discipline of the 
 church, said by some to have been promulgated by the 
 Apostles, and collected by Clemens Romanus. They ap- 
 pear to have been at one time admitted into the canon of 
 Scripture. Their authenticity has been a subject of much 
 dispute. They have been printed together with the so- 
 called Canons of the Apostles. (See Cotelerii Pat res Apos- 
 tolici, vol. i. ; Krahbe's Dissertations on the Apostol. Con- 
 stitutions and Canons, Hamb. and Gotting. 1829; Gieseier, 
 Bed flist. I Period, 3 Div. § 66. 
 
 CONSTRUCTOR. (Lat. constringo, I squeeze.) A name 
 applied to the larger serpents, which overcome and des- 
 troy a struggling prey by throwing themselves round it in 
 overlapping folds, and crushing it by their muscular force. 
 The Boa Constrictor, properly so called, is a native of South 
 America, having anal hocks, and a single row of subcaudal 
 scuta? 
 
 CONSTRUCTION. (Lat. con, with, and struo, I pile 
 up.) In Architecture, literally the building up from the 
 architect's designs ; but amongst architects it is more par- 
 ticularly used to denote the art of distributing the different 
 forces and strains of the parts and materials of a building 
 in so scientific a manner as to avoid faiiure and ensure du- 
 rability. 
 
 CONSTRUCTION OF EQUATIONS, in Algebra, is the 
 representing of the roots of equations by means of the in- 
 tersections of geometrical lines. The roots of any alge- 
 braic equation may be represented by the intersection of a 
 straight line with a curve nf the same dimensions as the 
 proposed equation, the roots of the equation being the or- 
 dinates of the points of intersection. An equation of any 
 degree may also be constructed by means of two curves, 
 whose dimensions, multiplied together, produce the di- 
 mensions of the given equation. Thus, a quadratic equa- 
 tion may be constructed by the intersection of a straight 
 line with a circle, or with any conic section ; a cubic equa- 
 tion by the intersection of a st -aighr line with a line of the 
 third order ; a biquadratic by the intersection of a straight 
 line with a line of the fourth order, or by means of two 
 conic sections. 
 
 CO'NSUBSTA'NTIA'TION. The term by which Lu- 
 ther expressed the opinion which he held upon the nature 
 of the elements in the Eucharist, as distinguished from 
 Transubstantiation, the doctrine of the Romanists. The 
 latter assert, as the word they use implies, that the 
 bread and wine are changed into the body and blood, and 
 lose their former substance, although they retain its ap- 
 pearance miraculously to the senses. The Lutherans de- 
 ny this change ; but affirm that while the bread and wine 
 clo still remain in their natural substance, the body and 
 blood are at the same time transfused into them, and thus 
 that both are actually partaken of together. Calvin says, 
 "I assert that the body of Christ is really (ns the usual ex- 
 pression is), that is, truly given to us in the sacrament, to 
 be the saving food of our souls— the Son of God offers 
 daily to us in the holy sacrament the sums body that he 
 once offered in sacrifice to his Father, that it may he our 
 spiritual food. If any one ask me concerning the manner, 
 I will not be ashamed to confess that it is a secret too high 
 for my reason to comprehend, or my tongue to express." 
 A reformer of the Enalish church would have said proba- 
 bly that the Romanist is decidedly in error, for the mystery 
 that he maintains exceeds even the literal interpretation of 
 the scripture language. Upon the truth of the Lutheran 
 hypothesis he would decline to express an opinion, notde-
 
 CONSUL. 
 
 nying the possibility of consubstantiation, but neither pre- 
 suming to define the manner of Christ's presence in the 
 elements ; and he would rather recognize in the language 
 of Calvin a right appreciation of the verity of our Saviour's 
 expressions, and a just perception of the nature of a 
 mystery. 
 
 CO'NSUL. In Politics, a public officer whose functions 
 partake of the diplomatic and commercial characters. 
 Such officers appear to have been first employed by the 
 Italian republics, to protect their merchants engaged in 
 trade in the cities of the Levant. The consuls of European 
 states in that region, and in Africa, are at the present time 
 officers of more importance than those established in the 
 cities of Christendom : as they exercise, according to trea- 
 ties, civil jurisdiction over the citizens of their respective 
 states. In general, the consul is not regarded as a minister 
 or diplomatic functionary, and is subject to the civil author- 
 ities of the place where he resides. A resident English 
 merchant, acting here as consul of a foreign country, is not 
 exempt from arrest on mesne process. English consuls 
 are now under the regulations of stat. 6 G. 4., by which 
 they are made salaried officers, and the fees which they 
 are still allowed to take are specified. (See M'Culloch's 
 Com. Diet.) 
 
 CO'NSULARS. The title given to Roman citizens who 
 had been dignified with the office of consul, and conse- 
 quently were honoured with a certain precedence in the 
 senate. 
 
 CO'NSULS. The supreme magistrates of Rome after 
 the expulsion of the kinzs. Their number was two, and 
 the period of their office one year; but there was no re- 
 striction as to the number of times the same individual 
 might be elected. The power of the consuls was nearly 
 the same as that of the kings ; i. e. they were the supreme 
 executive officers, but had no legislative authority. In time 
 of war it was highest ; they then levied the armies, and led 
 them in person against the enemy. The consuls were 
 originally chosen only from the Patricians, but afterwards 
 from the Plebeians also. The age required by law was 43 
 years; but besides this it was requisite to have passed 
 through the inferior offices of quaestor, aedile, and prsetor. 
 They were elected at the Comitia Centuriata, some months 
 before their entrance into office, which took place at differ- 
 ent periods of the year at different times, but finally in Jan- 
 uary, during which interval they were termed consules de- 
 signati, or appointed consuls. Soon after their entrance 
 into office they cast lots about the provinces to fall to the 
 share of each, the superintendence of which was conferred 
 on them by the senate. Under the emperors the nominal 
 office of the consulate was preserved, but its substantial 
 power destroyed ; the elections also became merely forms, 
 the emperor appointing whom he pleased. Then too the 
 custom was introduced of having several sets of consuls in 
 one year; those admitted on the first day, however, gave 
 their names to the year, and were distinguished from the 
 others, who were termed suffecti (i. e. substituted), by the 
 title ordinarii (t e. regular). Persons also were sometimes 
 dignified merely with the title without enjoying the office, 
 and were then styled honorary consuls. Under Justinian 
 (a. u. 1294) the year ceased to be denominated by the 
 name of the consul. 
 
 Consuls, in French History, were the persons (Bona- 
 parte, Sieyes, and Ducos) to whom, after the dissolution 
 of the Directory in November 1799, was entrusted the pro- 
 visional government of the country, and at whose sugges- 
 tion it was agreed that France should be permanently sub- 
 jected to consular authority. According to the constitution 
 framed on this suggestion, Bonaparte, Cambaceres, and 
 Lebrun, called first, second, and third consuls, were elected 
 by the conservative senate each for ten years, and invested 
 with different degrees of authority But the senate having 
 passed various decrees curtailing the powers of the second 
 and third consuls and augmenting those of the first, by which 
 the government was gradually assimilated to a monarchy, 
 after tho lapse of four years and a half an easy transition 
 was made from the consular to the imperial form ; the title 
 of emperor was substituted for that of consul, and the exer- 
 cise of the sovereign authority, which indeed had been only 
 nominally shared with his colleagues, delegated exclusively 
 to Napoleon Bonaparte. 
 
 CO'NSULTA'TION, (Lat.) in ordinary Legal language, 
 is a meeting of the counsel engaged by a party to a suit, for 
 the purpose of deliberating on the best mode of proceeding 
 in the case. 
 
 Consultation, Writ op. In Law, a writ granted by the 
 king's court, whereby a cause which had been removed 
 into such court by prohibition out of the ecclesiastical court 
 is returned thither again. It is so called because it issues 
 in consequence of the judges, on consultation, having found 
 that the suggestion on which the proposition was granted is 
 false or not proved. See Prohibition. 
 
 CONSUMPTION. (Lat. consumo, I waste away.) This 
 term is commonly applied to a diseased state of the lungs, 
 attended by emaciation, debility, cough, hectic fever, and 
 278 
 
 CONTINGENT. 
 
 purulent expectoration. It may be produced by a variety 
 of causes ; but hereditary disposition and scrophulous habit 
 are leading causes which predispose to its most alarming 
 form, namely, that which arises from tubercles in the lungs. 
 Its first symptoms are cough ; at first dry, but afterwards 
 attended by mucous expectoration, difficult breathing, lassi- 
 tude, and impaired appetite. Thes-e are succeeded by more 
 copious expectoration of viscid or purulent matter, some 
 times streaked with more or less blood ; greater difficulty 
 of breathing, pain in the side, especially on coughing or 
 taking a full inspiration ; and inability to lie with equal com- 
 fort upon both sides ; the emaciation becomes more percep- 
 tible ; and the pulse, at first not much affected, becomes 
 full, hard, and quick ; frequent flushings and fever of a re- 
 mittent character ensue, attended by chills and red sedi- 
 ment in the urine, but the tongue is not much altered, and 
 the mouth is usually moist ; the bowels, at first irregular, 
 become habitually relaxed ; profuse perspirations, attended 
 by extreme debility and rapid emaciation, follow ; the legs 
 swell ; and the patient sinks, generally retaining the senses, 
 and even in hope and spirits to the last. In the early treat- 
 ment of this disease the tendency to inflammatory action 
 must be most cautiously encountered by bleeding, cupping, 
 or blisters; the bowels gently opened by saline aperients; 
 and the cough and irritability quieted by opium, henbane, 
 or hemlock, and by small doses of expectorants. Tonics 
 and acids require to be given with the utmost prudence ; 
 and after all little except palliation can be effected. The 
 diet must from the beginning be scrupulously attended to, 
 and should be mild and nutritive, but not stimulant ; and 
 sometimes a temporary benefit results from change of air; 
 but where the disease is once established its effect is un- 
 certain, and it is in many cases worse than injudicious to 
 advise change of climate. The inhalation of vapours of 
 chlorine and iodine, in very minute quantity, has appeared 
 to give in some cases a little temporary relief; in others it 
 has proved decidedly mischievous ; in none permanently 
 useful; and we must with regret assume that there has 
 been some mistake in the supposed cures of established 
 and constitutional consumption. In its very early periods, 
 change ofcountry, diet, habit, and occupation will sometimes 
 seem to suspend its progress; it has also been checked by 
 other diseases, and not unfrequently it lies dormant in fe- 
 males who breed quickly; but at a later period it again 
 shows itself, and proceeds to its fatal end. (See Clarke on 
 Consu?nption, 8vo. 1841.) 
 
 CO'NTACT, ANGLE OF. In Geometry, the angle made 
 by a curve line with its tangent. Euclid has demonstrated 
 that the angle made by the circle with its tangent is smaller 
 than any rectilinear ansle, and that no straight line can be 
 drawn between the circle and tangent without cutting the 
 circle. Innumerable circles may, however, be made to 
 pass between them. Formerly the angle of contact afforded 
 geometers a fruitful source of metaphysical controversy. 
 See an excellent account of the writings of Wallis, Peleta- 
 rius, Clavius, Vieta, and others, on this subject, in the notes 
 to Camerer's Euclid, Berlin, 1824. 
 
 CONTA'GION. (Lat. contagies.) The propagation of 
 specific diseases from person to person. Contagioiis poisons 
 communicate the property of producing similar poisons: 
 the small-pox is a characteristically contagious disease. By 
 some writers the term has been limited to diseases requir- 
 ing actual contact for their communication ; but contagious 
 matter appears often transmissible by the air, hence the 
 terms immediate and mediate contagion. Where diseases 
 are propagated through the medium of the air, they are 
 generally called infectious. 
 
 CONTF/MPT. In Law, disobedience to the rules, orders, 
 or process of a court of competent authority. Contempt in 
 court is punishable by fine and imprisonment: for contempt 
 out of court an attachment may be granted. Contempt of 
 the king's prerogative, by refusing to assist, him in the ex- 
 ercise of his lawful authority, &c, is a high misprision or 
 misdemeanor. 
 
 CO'NTEXT. (Lat. contextus.) The general series of a 
 discourse ; when we cite a particular passage, we mean by 
 its context the parts immediately preceding and following 
 it, which determine or affect its sense. 
 
 CONTINE'NTAL SYSTEM. In Modern History, the 
 celebrated plan of the Emperor Napoleon for excluding the 
 merchandise of England from all parts of the Continent. It 
 was commenced by the decree of Berlin, issued 21st Nov. 
 1806, which declared the British islands in a state of block- 
 ade, and made prisoners of war all Englishmen found in 
 the territories occupied by Fiance and her allies. The 
 blockade thus instituted was far from complete ; and in the 
 course of events licenses were expressly granted by the 
 government for its evasion, and became a source of reve- 
 nue. Some writers have affirmed that British commerce 
 lost by this decree and those which followed it more than 
 60 millions sterling in 18 months; but this is an enormous 
 exaggeration. 
 
 CONTI'NGENT. (Lat.) In Politics, the proportion 
 (generally of troops) furnished by one of several contract-
 
 CONTINUAL PROPORTIONALS, 
 
 Ing powers in pursuance of an agreement. The Germanic 
 diel lias fixed the contingents of the several states forming 
 that confederacy to ils army by the stipulations of 1814. 
 
 CONTI'NUAL PROPO'RTIONALS Quantities are 
 said to be continual proportionals, or in continued propor- 
 tion, when the first is to the second as the second to the 
 third, as the third to the fourth, and so on. 
 
 CONTINUED BASS. In Music, the same as thorough 
 bass. It receives the name from its continuation through 
 the whole of a composition. 
 
 CONTl'NUED FRA'CTIONS. In Arithmetic, a spe- 
 cies of fractions first proposed about the year 1670 by Lord 
 Brounker, President of the Royal Society, and improved by 
 Dr. Wallis ; but which have acquired their greatest value 
 by their application, in the hands of the Continental mathe- 
 maticians, to the solution of numerical equations, and of 
 problems in the indeterminate analysis. Their nature will 
 be most easily understood from a numerical example. 
 
 Let it be required to convert the fraction ij| into a con- 
 tinued fraction. The value will not be altered by dividing 
 both terms by the same number. Assume 27, which is 
 contained in the numerator 108, and on dividing the de- 
 nominator by it there will result the compound quotient 
 514. The given fraction therefore becomes m, or 
 4 5 
 
 ^+14. Again, dividing the fraction ^ * Dv tne greatest 
 measure of its numerator, namely 7, it will be changed 
 into _ 6 , or _ , g. Wherefore the original fraction is 
 now transformed into _ . 2 , „. It is, however, more 
 
 5+3 + f 
 
 convenient to divide by such numbers as will render the 
 
 numerators all units. Thus, let the fraction be f--|X' 
 
 1 a M " 
 
 Divide both terms by 287, and there results ^131 Di- 
 
 d 2BV 
 
 viding again the terms of the last fraction by its numerator 
 
 131, there arises — 25 • Dividing again by 25, the fraction 
 
 T3T . 6 , 
 
 Tn S T ' 3 converted into - 5 Lastly, — — = _ 1 Collect- 
 1 3 1 5-j. £> 4 ff . 
 
 „ ,u <- 237 1 
 
 Ing all the fragments, we now get -^y=-n , 
 
 It is easy to see how the continued fraction is reconstructed 
 into its equivalent simple fraction, by following the reverse 
 process. 
 
 By decomposing a fraction in this manner a series of 
 derivative fractions is obtained, which constantly approach 
 to the true expression, and exhibit the successive ap- 
 proximate values in the lowest terms. Taking the last 
 
 example, '^L: if we stop with the first term of the 
 
 992 1 
 
 expansion, we find for the approximate value 3', which is 
 considerably too small; if we take in two terms, we find 
 Ll =y, which is a little too large. Admitting three 
 
 1 _n 
 
 terms, we get 3J.I , i~~38' which is again too little, but 
 
 nearer the true value than the last. In this manner we 
 approach nearer and nearer at every successive step ; 
 and it may be remarked, that the errors are alternately in 
 excess and defect. (See Leslie's Philosophy of Arithmetic ; 
 Euclid's Analysis Inftnitormn ; and the Additions to the 
 French translation ol Eider's Algebra.) 
 
 CONTINU'lTY, LAW OF. A principle of considerable 
 use in investigating the laws of motion, and of change in 
 general, and which may be thus enunciated: — Nothing 
 passes from one state to another without passing through all 
 the intermediate states. Leibnitz claims the merit of having 
 first made known this law ; but in so far as motion at least 
 is concerned, it is distinctly laid down by Galileo, and as- 
 cribed by him to Plato. But though a perception of its truth 
 seems to have been felt long before, Leibnitz was certainly 
 the first who applied the principle to test the consistency 
 of theories, or supposed laws of nature. The argument on 
 which he attempted to establish it a priori is, that if any 
 change were to happen without the intervention of time, 
 the thing changed must be in two different conditions at 
 one and the same instant, which is obviously impossible. 
 A remarkable application of the law of continuity was made 
 by John Bernoulli in an Essay on the Laws and Communi- 
 cation of Motion, which gained the prize of the Academy 
 of Sciences of Paris in 1724, to prove that perfectly hard 
 bodies cannot exist ; because, in the collision of such 
 bodies, a finite change of motion must take place in an in- 
 stant, an event which, by the law now explained, is impos- 
 sible. This conclusion was objected to by D'Alembert and 
 Maclaurin.wbo on account of it were disposed to reject the 
 279 
 
 3+Y 
 
 CONTRACT. 
 
 law of continuity altogether ; but the difficulty is got over by 
 supposing (which on various grounds is extremely probable) 
 that there is no real contact, and that bodies begin to act on 
 each other when their surfaces, or what seem to be their 
 surfaces, are yet at a distance. 
 
 CONTO'RNIA'TI. In Numismatics, medals supposed 
 to have been struck about the period of Constantine the 
 Great and his immediate successors; they are of bronze, 
 with a flat impression, and marked with peculiar furrows. 
 (It. contorni, whence their name.) They bear the figures 
 of famous emperors or celebraied men. Their object is 
 uncertain; but they have been supposed to be tickets of 
 admission to the public games of the circus in Rome and 
 Constantinople. 
 
 CONTOUR. (It. contorno.) In the Fine Arts, the exter- 
 nal lines which bound and terminate a figure. The beauty 
 of contour consists hi those lines being flowing, lightly 
 drawn, and sinuous. They must be carefully and scien- 
 tifically drawn, which cannot be effected without a thorough 
 knowledge of anatomy. 
 
 CO'NTRABA'ND. (It. contra, against; bando, an edict 
 or proclamation.') In Commercial language, goods exported 
 from or imported into a country against its laws. Contra- 
 band of icar, such articles as a belligerent has, by the law of 
 nations, the right of preventing a neutral from furnishing to 
 his enemy. Articles contraband of war are, in general, arms 
 and munitions of war, and those out of which munitions of 
 war are made : all these are liable to be seized : but very 
 arbitrary interpretations have been affixed to the term by 
 powerful states, when able to enforce them by arms. Thus 
 provisions are held contraband of war when it is the object 
 to reduce the enemy to famine. But with respect to these 
 and other articles not in their nature contraband, it seems 
 to be the practice that the belligerent should purchase them 
 from the neutral for a reasonable equivalent, instead of 
 confiscating. 
 
 CONTRABA'SSO. (It.) The largest of the violin species 
 of string and bowed instruments, whereof it forms the low- 
 est bass, usually called the double bass. 
 
 CO'NTRACT. In Civil Law, the term usually applied 
 to such agreements, whether express or implied, as create, 
 or are intended to create, a legal right, and corresponding 
 liability ; such right not attaching to the possession of the 
 subject matter of the contract, except in equity, and that 
 indirectly, but subsisting both in equity and law against the 
 contracting party. 
 
 The conditions essential to the legal validity of a contract 
 relate eitherto the competency of the parties, the sufficiency 
 of the consideration or inducement, the nature of the thing 
 contracted for, the fairness of the transaction, or, lastly, to 
 the form of the agreement. 
 
 And, first, as to the competency of the parties. The party 
 to be sued must have been at the time of the contract of 
 sound mind, and, unless it was for the supply of neces- 
 saries, of full age : and if a woman, she must have been 
 unmarried, subject as to the latter condition to some excep- 
 tions established either by local custom or by the doctrines 
 of equity. 
 
 Secondly, as to the sufficiency of the consideration on the 
 part of the person suing, — it must have been either future 
 marriage since performed, or money, or something capable 
 of being estimated in money ; or some act. whether of per- 
 formance or abstinence, whereby some undoubted advan- 
 tage, though not capable of being exactly valued, accrues to 
 the party sued. 
 
 Thirdly, the act contracted for must be neither contrary to 
 written law, nor to public policy ; and it must be beneficial 
 to the party seeking either performance or compensation, or 
 to some one on whose behalf he gave the consideration. 
 
 Fourthly, there must have been neither fraud (either by 
 concealment or misstatement) nor compulsion on the part 
 of the plaintiff in obtaining the agreement ; and fraudulent 
 acts subsequent to the agreement having reference to it are 
 also sufficient to deprive the guilty party of all right under 
 it. Some circumstances are in equity considered either as 
 conclusive evidence of fraud, or as substantive acts of coer- 
 cion, which are not strictly of such a nature, and are not so 
 deemed at law. 
 
 Lastly, as to the form of the agreement. Where it relates 
 to an interest in land of three years' duration or more, or to 
 goods of the value of \Ql. or upwards, unless there be earnest 
 or delivery, or where it is an agreement as surety, or where 
 it is upon marriage as a consideration, it must be in writing; 
 though the want of a written instrument may be supplied 
 in equity by partial performance, that is, by acts evidently 
 done in pursuance of the alleged contract. 
 
 Contracts are sometimes implied either in the whole 
 from the acts of the parties, as from the ordering of goods 
 a contract to pay for them ; or in part, and as incidental to 
 the principal agreement, as, in the case of a lease, a con- 
 tract by the tenant to use fairly and take due care of the 
 thing leased. And at law some obligations not arising in 
 any manner from contract are, as regards the mode of en- 
 forcing them, placed on the same footing as those which do
 
 CONTRADICTORY PROPOSITIONS. 
 
 arise from contract ; the remedy, and not the right, being 
 assimilated by statute. 
 
 Such are the general requisites to the validity of agree- 
 ments; but at law the extent of the right and liability 
 arising under them varies according to their form : agree- 
 ments being there divided into those under seal, which 
 are called agreements by specialty, and those not under 
 seal, which are called simple contract or parol agreements, 
 including not only such as are merely verbal, but such as 
 are written and unsealed. The first sort alone are binding 
 upon the land, and that only when the heir is named ; and 
 they possess this farther advantage over agreements by 
 simple contract, that being executed as the deed of the con- 
 tracting party, a sufficient consideration will always be im- 
 plied in their favour, unless an insufficient one be actually 
 stated on the face of them. Again, agreements both by 
 specialty and simple contract are either to pay a sum cer- 
 tain actually stated in the agreement, or a sum uncertain 
 to depend upon the value of the thing received ; or they 
 are agreements to perform certain acfs. In the first case, 
 the remedy is by action of debt either on bond or covenant, 
 or upon simple contract, as the case may be. In either of 
 the latter cases the remedy is by action for breach of cov- 
 enant where the agreement is under seal, or by action of 
 assumpsit where it is by simple contract ; the relief given 
 in each of the two last-mentioned sorts of action being 
 compensation in damages for the injury accrued from 
 non-performance of the agreement. See Action. 
 
 The remedy in equity, where there is any, is in all cases 
 alike — specific performance of the act agreed to be done ; 
 and such relief will be given to the same extent and against 
 the same parties, whether the contracting party himself or 
 his real or personal representatives, without any distinction 
 between agreements under seal and those which are not so. 
 
 But though courts of equity have jurisdiction in all cases 
 of agreements, at least in all such as do not constitute an 
 actual debt at law, yet the exercise of that jurisdiction is 
 subject to certain rules, a matter of discretion ; for the 
 reason that the denial of the equitable relief will not leave 
 the party without some remedy, namely, that of damages 
 at law: and on this account specific performance can only 
 be obtained in equity in those cases where pecuniary 
 damages wouid not afford to the disappointed party an 
 adequate compensation. Thus such relief will not be 
 granted in any of t\r.se cases where the inducement to the 
 bargain or agreement was merely the expectation of profit, 
 as it is in agreements for the sale or purchase of personal 
 chattels; and other circumstances also are a bar to equita- 
 ble relief, which are no defence to an action at law, as, for 
 instance, the want of mutual liability, apparent laches, and 
 indifference in follnvingup the agreement; or particular 
 consequences of collateral hardships arising to one party 
 from actual performance ; or the impropriety in equity of 
 the agreement, as where performance would be a breach 
 of trust. And on the other hand, though the equitable 
 jurisdiction is founded upon a supposed legal right, there 
 arc cases in which the right having been lost at law, as by 
 default in literal compliance with the terms of the agree- 
 ment, will yet be enforced in equity. 
 
 Contract, Original or Social. In Politics, that 
 which is supposed to exist ab initio, according to some 
 theories of government, between the sovereign power and 
 the subject So prevalent was this doctrine at the period 
 of tl 3 revolur ; ' n of 1688, that the Convention Parliament 
 pron l.inced James II. to have broken the " original con- 
 tract between the king and the people." The original con- 
 tract with the reciprocity of rights and duties which it en- 
 genders, is clearly a supposition having no historical foun- 
 dation in the annals of any people ; but it is, nevertheless, 
 the only hypothesis in which men can consistently pro- 
 ceed in framing a theory of government which shall satisfy 
 at once the moral and economical wants of society. 
 
 CONTRADICTORY PROPOSITIONS. In Logic, are 
 those which having the same terms differ in quantity and 
 in quality. Contrary Propositions are two universals with 
 the same terms, the one negative and the other affirma- 
 tive- See Proposition. 
 
 CONTRA'LTO. (It.) In Music, the part immediately 
 below the treble ; called also the counter tenor. 
 
 CO'NTRAST. (Fr. contraste.) In the Fine Arts, an 
 opposition of lines or colours to each other, so contrived 
 that the one gives greater effect to the other. By means 
 of contrast energy and expression are given to a subject, 
 even when employed on inanimate forms. All art is in- 
 deed a system of contrast : lights should contrast with 
 shadows, figures with figures, members with members, 
 and groups with groups. It is this which gives life, soul, 
 and motion to a composition. 
 
 CO'NTRATENO'RE. In Music, the same as Contralto, 
 which see, 
 
 CO'NTRAVALLA'TION. (Lat. vallum, trench.) In 
 
 Fortification, a trench guarded by a parapet, formed by 
 
 the besiegers between their camp and the place besieged, 
 
 to secure themselves and check the sallies of the garrison. 
 
 2S0 
 
 CONVENTION. 
 
 The line of eontratallation is thus, as the name implies, 
 a sort of coun'er fortification. 
 
 CONTROL, BOARD OF, or BOARD OF COMMIS- 
 MISSIONERS FOR THE AFFAIRS OF INDIA, is con- 
 stituted under the authority of Mr. Pitt's celebrated Act, 
 passed in 1783. It consists of such members of the privy 
 council as his Majesty is pleased to appoint, of whom the 
 two principal secretaries of state and chancellor of the ex- 
 chequer always form three. The president is usually a 
 cabinet minister. The controlling functions of the board 
 consist in revising all despatches prepared by the court of 
 directors and addressed to the governments in India. It 
 also has the power of requiring the court to prepare de- 
 spatches on a given subject, and revising and altering 
 them. The board is divided into six departments, — ac- 
 counts, revenue, judicial, military, secret political, and 
 foreign and public. The names of the first four indicate 
 their duties : the third has three subdivisions, — the secret 
 departments, respecting confidential communications ad- 
 dressed (as the act prescribes) by the local governments to 
 the secret committee of the court of directors, and vice 
 versa ; the political, comprising general correspondence 
 respecting native chiefs and slates ; the foreign, respecting 
 foreign Europeans and Americans resorting to India. The 
 public department takes charge of commercial, ecclesias- 
 tical, and other miscellaneous affairs. The salary of the 
 president of the board is 3500/., that of a paid commis- 
 sioner 1200/., of the secretary 1500/. 
 
 CONTROLLER. (Fr. controleur.) An officer ap- 
 pointed to control or oversee the accounts of other offi- 
 cers, and to certify whether the matters confided to his 
 care have been controlled or examined. hi England, 
 there are several public functionaries of this title, as the 
 controller of the mint, customs, stationery, &c. 
 
 CO'NTUMACY. (Fr. contumace,s/MJ6(/r?!.) In Scotch 
 Ecclesiastical Law, a wilful disobedience to any lawful 
 summons or judicial order. It is punished by imprisonment. 
 
 CO'NUS. (Gr. kwvos, a cone.) A term in Botany, de- 
 noting that form of inflorescence called astrobilus or cone, 
 which is a spike, the carpels of which are scale like, spread 
 open, and bear naked seeds. Sometimes the scales are 
 thin, with little cohesion ; but they often are woody, and 
 cohere into a single tuberculated mass. 
 
 Conns. The name of a Linna?an genus of Vermes Tes- 
 tacea, characterized by the conical form of the shell, the 
 base of which is formed by the spire, which is accordingly 
 flat, or very slightly projecting ; the aperture is narrow and 
 rectilinear, or nearly so, without any enlargement or pli- 
 cation. The genus is retained without subdivision, and 
 forms part of the Buccinoid family of the Pectinibranchiatc 
 order of Gastropods in the system of Cuvier. 
 
 CO'NVENT. (Lat. conventus, from convenio, / come 
 together.) A religious house, inhabited by a society of 
 monks or nuns. ,S'ee Monachis.m. 
 
 CONVE'NTICLE. (Lat., diminutive of conventus.) 
 An assembly for the purpose of divine worship; first used 
 in a contemptuous sense for the meetings of the followers 
 of Wicliflfe (stat. 2 H. 4. c. 15.) and since applied to the 
 places of meeting of petty sects and of Dissenters in 
 general in the Conventicle Act, 16 Car. 2., repealed by 52 
 G. 3. c. 155. Originally the word had no such peculiar 
 application, but was used by the fathers and ancient writers 
 for a church. 
 
 CONVE'NTION. In Political language, this name has 
 been applied to assemblies of national representatives 
 meeting on extraordinary occasions without being con- 
 voked by the legal authority. Two parliaments have been 
 so called in English history. The first, that which met in 
 April, 1660, and restored Charles II. to the throne — the 
 Lords assembling by their own authority ; and the Com- 
 mons, by virtue of writs issued in the name of the keepers 
 of the liberties of England, by the authority of parliament. 
 The second, that which met in 1688, each house by its own 
 authority, and on the summons of the Prince of Orange ; 
 which declared King James II. to have abdicated the 
 crown, and transferred it to William and Mary. In French 
 History, the name Convention is applied to that assembly 
 which met after the legislative assembly had pronounced 
 the suspension of the royal functions, in September, 1792, 
 and proclaimed the republic at its first sitting. This body 
 dissolved itself on the establishment of the Directory, in 
 October, 1796. The Scottish assembly which met on the 
 flight o f James n. was entitled the Convention of Estates. In 
 the United States, meetings of the people of separate states, 
 by specially chosen representatives, to review and amend 
 the state constitutions, have been termed Conventions. 
 
 Convention, Military. A treaty between military 
 commanders concerning terms for a temporary cessation 
 of hostilities ; generally between a victor and a defeated 
 general, for the evacuation of a district or position by the 
 latter. Such, at least, were the two most celebrated con- 
 ventions of modern times : that of Closter-Seven (1757), 
 between the Dukes of Cumberland and Richelieu ; that 
 of Cintra (1808), between Junot and the English generals.
 
 CONVERGENT-NERVED 
 
 CONVE'RGENT-NERVED. A term used in describ- 
 ing the venation of leaves, to denote cases where the ribs 
 form a curve and meet at the point, as in Plantago Ian- 
 ceotata. 
 
 CONVE'RGING SERIES. In Analysis, are series of 
 which every succeeding term is smaller than the preced- 
 ing, and which, consequently, tend to a certain limit. It 
 is only converging series which admit of summation. 
 
 CO'NVERSE. In Geometry, a proposition is said to be 
 the converse of another when the conclusion of the first 
 being used as the supposition in the second, the conclu- 
 sion of the second agrees with the supposition of the first. 
 Thus, the fifth proposition of the first book of Euclid af- 
 firms that if the two sides of a triangle be equal, the angles 
 at the base are equal ; and the sixth affirms that if the 
 angles at the base be equal, the two sides are equal. The 
 sixth is therefore the converse of the fifth. 
 
 CONVE'RSION. In Logic, a proposition is said to be 
 converted when the terms are so transposed that the sub- 
 ject is made the predicate, and vice versa. All logical 
 conversion is illative ; ;'. e. the truth of the converse fol- 
 lows from that of the original. Conversion is either "sim- 
 ple" or " per accidens." Universal negatives (denoted by 
 the sign E) and particular affirmatives (I) can be converted 
 simply, retaining both quantity and quality : thus, " No 
 virtuous man is a rebel;" " No rebel is a virtuous man." 
 Conversion per accidens changes either quantity or quali- 
 ty. Universal affirmatives (A) are converted by changing 
 the quantity ; as, " All oaks are trees ;" " Some trees are 
 oaks." Particular negatives (O) by changing the quality, 
 considering the negative as attached to the predicate in- 
 stead of the copula : the proposition is thus changed into 
 I. — " Some poets are not learned :" " Some not learned 
 (unlearned) men are poets." See Proposition. 
 
 CO'NVEItT. (Lat.) A person who changes his reli- 
 gion. Individuals, of what faith soever, who abandon their 
 own creed and embrace Christianity are called converts. in 
 contradistinction to apostates, applied generally to Chris- 
 Hans who adopt another religion. History, both sacred 
 and profane, has transmitted to us many instances of sud- 
 den conversion, in which the hand of a miraculous provi- 
 dence may clearly be traced. Among the most remarka- 
 ble may be mentioned the conversion of 3000 Jews on the 
 day of the Feast of Tabernacles, and that of Paul the apos- 
 tle, the emperor Constantine, and Clovis, king of France. 
 
 CONVEY' ANCE. (From convey.) In Law, a deed 
 which passes land from one to another. (See Real Pro- 
 perty, Law of.) A conveyancer is a lawyer, whose 
 business consists in advising and preparing such deeds. 
 It is not necessary to be called to the bar to practise as a 
 conveyancer; but most conveyancers take that step soon 
 after beginning their business, and frequently combine it 
 with that of equity draftsmen. 
 
 CONVI'CTION. At Common Law, is the finding of 
 one guilty of an offence by the verdict of a jury > w>d may 
 take place where one is outlawed, or appears and con- 
 fesses, or is found guilty on the inquest (See Jury, Ver- 
 dict.) By various statutes summary proceedings, without 
 the intervention of a jury, are authorized for the trial and 
 conviction of minor offenders. Such are those before 
 commissioners of excise, &c. for breaches of the revenue 
 laws, ami before justices of the peace for various disor- 
 derly offences. The party charged must be summoned to 
 attend ; and a conviction by a magistrate must be in writing, 
 and should state the whole of the evidence for and against 
 the defendant. 
 
 CONVOCATION. (Lat. convoco, / call together.) In 
 English Ecclesiastical Law, the council of the church, 
 derived, first, from the custom of the bishops assembling 
 their diocesan clergy for the sake of considering spiritual 
 matters; and, secondly, of the archbishops holding con- 
 vocations of the clergy of a whole province. Convoca- 
 tions were first assembled in England under the king's 
 authority by Edward I., who summoned them by their 
 provinces, for the sake of obtaining subsidies from the 
 clerical body. They met in each province in two houses 
 — one of the suffragan bishops ; the other of deans, arch- 
 deacons, and representatives of the inferior clergy. The 
 taxation of their own body was withdrawn from convoca- 
 tion in 1664 ; and, on the other hand, the privilege of voting 
 for knights of the shire was then conceded to ecclesias- 
 tics. As the power of enacting canons had been already 
 virtually abolished by statutes of Henry VIII., Elizabeth, 
 and Charles II., there now remained no business for con- 
 vocation to transact ; and it was only in the reigns of Wil- 
 liam III. and Anne, when attempts were made by the 
 high church party to impart fresh activity to it as an eccle- 
 siastical tribunal, that its meetings were attended with any 
 historical importance. Since that period it has become 
 customary to prorogue convocation every year immediate- 
 ly upon its assembling. The rights and history of the con- 
 vocation are treated of at length in several writings of the 
 learned Bishop Gibson, especially big Synodus Anglicana, 
 Load. 1702. 
 
 281 
 
 CO-ORDINATES. 
 
 Convocation, House of, in the University of Oxford, 
 is the assembly which enacts, amends, <fec. laws and stat- 
 utes ; elects burgesses, many professors, and other offi- 
 cers, <fcc. It is composed of all members of the university 
 who have at any time been Regents (see Regents), and 
 who, if independent members, have retained their names 
 on the books of their respective colleges. The power of 
 convocation at Oxford to make statutes is limited : in the 
 first place, the royal statutes cannot be explained or 
 amended without royal license ; and, in the next place, 
 with respect to all other laws and statutes, no proposition 
 can be entertained in convocation unless it has been first 
 submitted to the hebdomadal meeting of heads of houses, 
 by whom it must be in the first instance sanctioned or 
 rejected. 
 
 CONVO'LVULA'CEiE. (Convolvulus, one of the gen- 
 era.) A natural order of herbaceous or shrubby Exogens, 
 twining and producing a milky juice when wounded. 
 They are very abundant in the tropics, and possess pur- 
 gative qualities in their roots, depending upon a peculiar 
 resin, of which scammony and jalap, yielded by the Con- 
 tolulus Scamnwnia and Ipomaa purga, may be taken as 
 examples. Many of these plants are objects of striking 
 beauty ; some, which unfold their pure, white, magnificent 
 flowers at night only, are called in tropical countries Belle 
 de Nuit ; others expand only beneath a warm and brilliant 
 sunshine. The Lignum Rhodium of the old pharmacolo- 
 gists is produced by an upright bushy species, called 
 Breweria seoparia. 
 
 CO'NVOY. (Fr. convoyer, to conduct.) In Navigation, 
 the term applied to designate a ship or ships of war, ap- 
 pointed by government, or by the commander in chief on 
 a particular station, to escort or protect the merchant ships 
 proceding to certain ports. Convoys are mostly appointed 
 during war; but they are sometimes also appointed dur- 
 ing peace, for the security of ships navigating seas infested 
 with pirates. For an account of the various regulations 
 ainl conditions relative to convoys, see ftVCulloch's Coin. 
 Diet. 
 
 Convoy, in the Military service, signifies a detachment 
 of troops appointed to guard supplies of provisions, ammu- 
 nition, or money, in their progress to a distant part of any 
 country', or to an army .in the field, against an attack which 
 might be made upon them either by the peasantry or by 
 parties of the pnemy. 
 
 CONVU'LSION. (Lat. convello, I pull together.) A 
 writhing and agitation of the limbs, and involuntary action 
 of the muscles in general. The fits vary much in extent 
 and violence, sometimes attacking the whole body, and at 
 others confined to particular parts ; in the former case the 
 mind is affected, but it often remains in the latter undis- 
 turbed : they also vary in duration, lasting from a few 
 minutes to some hours. They are sometimes preceded 
 with dizziness, double or disturbed vision, and coldness, 
 and are followed by great languor ; but at others they come 
 and go without much disturbance. Teething, worms, and 
 overloaded bowels are common causes of convulsive at- 
 tacks in children ; and these are relieved by freely and 
 timely lancing the gums, and by the administration of pro- 
 per purges. In puerperal convulsions bleeding and opiates 
 are the usual remedies ; and in cases where convulsive 
 attacks arise from violent affections of the mind, the ex- 
 citing causes must be studiously avoided. Warm baths, 
 bleeding, and nervine stimulants are the usual medical 
 aids ; and where there is difficulty of swallowing, a glyster, 
 composed of half a pint of gruel with a drachm of tincture 
 of opium and two drachms of tincture of assafcetida, has, 
 in adults, proved eminently useful. Cold effusions often 
 do harm. The after-treatment consists in the judicious 
 use of tonics and nervous stimulants, and in avoiding all 
 obvious exciting causes. 
 
 COO'LER. An apparatus used by brewers and distil- 
 lers for cooling worts. The coolers generally consist of 
 very shallow vessels exposing great surface, and placed in 
 the high and airy parts of the brewery : the cooling is 
 sometimes assisted by fans, which agitate the air over their 
 surfaces. Worts are also occasionally cooled by causing 
 them to traverse metal pipes, which are surrounded by a 
 counter-current of cold water. 
 
 CO-O'RDINATES. (Lat. con, together, and ordino, / 
 arrange.) In Analytical Geometry, the system of lines to 
 which points under consideration are referred, and by 
 means of which their position is determined. The posi- 
 tion of a point on a plane is absolutely determined if we 
 know its distances, measured in a given direction, from 
 two straight lines given by position in the same plane. In 
 like manner, the position of a point in space is determined 
 by its distances from three straight lines given by position, 
 provided any one of them be not in the same plane with 
 the other two. The use of co-ordinates was introduced 
 into geometry by Descartes, for the purpose of facilitating 
 the investigation of the properties of curve lines. For the 
 sake of convenience, they are generally chosen at right 
 
 angles to each other, and are then called rectangular co> 
 T .
 
 COPAIBA. 
 
 ordinates. In plane geometry, one of them is the absciss, 
 and the other the ordinate. The geometry of three dimen- 
 sions requires one absciss and two ordinates ; the first hori- 
 zontal, and the second vertical. The point from which they 
 all proceed is the origin of the co-ordinates. 
 
 COPAI'BA or COPIVl BALSAM. An exudation from 
 the Copaifera officinalis, a South American tree ; it is a li- 
 quid resin, and yields by distillation a considerable quantity 
 of a pungent volatile oil. A small teaspoonful taken twice 
 a day in a glass of water proves diuretic, and is of use in 
 the cure of gleet and the latter stages of gonorrhma. A 
 larger dose is aperient, and has been of service in the treat- 
 ment of hemorrhoids. 
 
 CO'PAL. (An American name applied to clear gums?) 
 This substance is often improperly called gum. copal. It is 
 a peculiar resin, very difficultly soluble in alcohol ; hard, 
 brittle, and inodorous : its specific gravity varies from 104 
 to 113. It is the produce of the Rhus copallinum and of 
 the Elceocarpus copaliferus of the East Indies : a third kind 
 of copal is also brought from the Coast of Guinea. It is 
 used in varnishes. 
 
 COPA'RCENARY. (Lat. con, andparticeps.) In Law, 
 an estate is said to be held in coparcenary, and the tenants 
 termed coparceners, where it descends from an ancestor 
 to two or more persons. Sisters are coparceners at com- 
 mon law ; tenants in gavelkin by custom. No right of sur- 
 vivorship exists between coparceners. They may agree, 
 or any one may force the rest to make partition. 
 
 CO'PING. (Sax. cop, the head.) In Architecture, the 
 upper covering or top course of a wall, usually of stone, 
 and wider than the wall itself, in order to let the rain water 
 fall clear from the wall. 
 
 CO'PPEB. (Cuprum, a corruption of Cyprium, from 
 the island of Cyprus, whence it was formerly brought.) 
 This metal was known at a very remote period ; and in the 
 early ages of the world, before iron was in use, copper was 
 the chief ingredient in domestic utensils and instruments 
 of war. It is an abundant metal, and is found native, and 
 in many ores ; of these the most important are the varie- 
 ties of pyrites, which are sulphurets of copper and iron. 
 The richest mines are those of Cornwall. It occurs in 
 veins, traversing the primary rocks of that county ; it is 
 chiefly transported to Swansea to be smelted, in conse- 
 quence of the deficiency of coal in Cornwall. The ores 
 are repeatedly roasted and fused to drive off the sulphur, 
 and the oxide of copper is ultimately rpduced by the joint 
 agency of heat and carbon. Copper is distinguished by its 
 colour. Its specific gravity is 8 6. It is ductife and malle- 
 able, and requires a temperature equal to about 2000° of 
 Fahrenheit's scale for its fusion ; that is, nearly a white 
 heat. Exposed to air and moisture, copper gradually be. 
 comes covered by a green rust; heated red-hot it absorbs 
 oxygen, and is superficially converted into a black oxide, 
 which is the basis of the principal salts of copper: it con- 
 sists of 32 copper and 8 oxygen. It forms blue or green 
 ealts with the acids ; of these the sulj>hale of copper, or blue 
 vitriol, is a good example. The salts of copper are poison- 
 ous ; and in consequence of the use of copper vessels for 
 culinary purposes, food is sometimes contaminated by 
 them. It is detected when in very minute quantities by 
 the bright blue colour produced by the addition of liquid 
 ammonia, and by a brown precipitate with ferrocyanate of 
 potash. A clean plate of iron dipped into a solution con- 
 taining copper becomes covered with the latter metal in a 
 metallic state. 
 
 COPPERAS. Green vitriol, or sulphate of iron. 
 
 CO'PPERPLATE. In Engraving, a plate of copper high- 
 ly polished on which an engraving is made. 
 
 CO'PPICE. Woods which are cut down at stated periods 
 to be manufactured into poles, rods, stakes, faggots for fuel, 
 bark for the tanner, or charcoal. When wood of this kind 
 has no standard trees, it is called simply a coppice, or copse 
 wood ; but when it has standard trees interspersed through 
 it, it is called a wood. When coppices are cut down for 
 hoops, rods, and small stakes for manufacturing into crates, 
 hoops, wicker hurdles, &c, the period at which they are 
 cut varies from six to ten years, according to the soil. 
 When they are cut down for poles for hops and similar pur- 
 poses, the periodical cuttings are commonly between twelve 
 and fourteen years apart ; and when they are cut down 
 chiefly for the sake of the bark, they are seldom cut often- 
 er than from fourteen to twenty-one years. A country 
 abounding in coppice wood generally abounds also in sing- 
 ing birds, which are comparatively rare in countries where 
 all the woods are of the pine and fir tribe. 
 
 COPRO'PHAGANS, Coprophaga. (Gr. Koiraot, dung, 
 and <bayta, I eat.) A section of Lamellicorn beetles which 
 live in and upon the dung of animals. 
 
 CO'PULA. (Lat. a bond or tie.) In Logic, that part of 
 the proposition which affirms or denies the predicate of the 
 subject. The only true logical copula is the present tense 
 of the verb to be, with or without the negative sign, " is " or 
 "is not." 
 
 CO'PY. (Fr. copie.) In the Fine Arts, a transcript from 
 282 
 
 CORCULUM. 
 
 an original work of art. When an artist copies his own 
 work, it is called a duplicate or double. 
 
 Copy. In Printing, is the subject matter to be printed, 
 whether it be an original work in manuscript or a reprint : 
 in the first case it is termed manuscript copy, or written 
 copy ; in the second printed copy. 
 
 CO'PYHOLD. In Law, is a species of customary estate, 
 said to be held by copy of court roll ; i. e. where the tenant's 
 title is evidenced by a copy of the rolls of a manor made 
 by the steward of a lord's court. Customary estates are 
 those which exist in real property subject to the custom of 
 manors ; and their peculiar characteristic is, that all aliena- 
 tions of them must be transacted, in part at least, in the 
 lord's court, the ordinary mode of alienations being by sur- 
 render to the lord and admittance of the new tenant. The 
 peculiar tenure called copyhold is derived from the tenure 
 in villain socage, as it was termed, held formerly under a 
 manor. This was in its origin a mere permissive tenure 
 by serfs attached to the soil ; and copyhold estates are still 
 expressed in legal phraseology to be held "at the will of 
 the lord by the custom of the manor." With respect to 
 the incidents of dower, and other characteristics, they are 
 frequently governed by the custom ofthe manor; butwhere 
 this is not the case, they are under the same rules which 
 govern the transmission and alienation of freehold property. 
 By the Reform Act, copyholders for life, or a greater estate 
 to the amonnt of 10/. per annum, are admitted to the exer- 
 cise ofthe electoral franchise in counties. The best treatises 
 on the law of copyholds are those of Watkins and Scriven. 
 
 CO'PYRIGHT. In Law, the right of property in a lite- 
 rary composition vested in the author. By 54 G. 3. c. 156. 
 s. 4. the term of copyright in an author and his assignee 
 extends to twenty-eight years absolutely, and for the life of 
 the author if he survive that period. Neglect to enter a 
 work at Stationers' Hall does not affect copyright. Every 
 assignment of copyright must be in writing. The author 
 or assignee of a pirated work has his remedy by action ; 
 or chancery will grant an injunction to restrain the sale of 
 pirated copies, and produce an account of such copies 
 printed and sold. The act above mentioned required that 
 eleven copies of every work should be delivered at the ex- 
 pense of authors and publishers, on demand in writing, for 
 the use of a few favoured public and private libraries in the 
 United Kingdom ; but by the 6 & 7 Will. 4. cap. 110. the 
 number was reduced to five. In France, copyrights con- 
 tinue for 20 years after the death of the author. In most 
 of the German states, they are perpetual ; and to prevent 
 spurious copies being introduced from other states, a late 
 resolution of the Diet has declared that a copyright secured 
 in one state is good in all. Both in England and on the Con- 
 tinent, various other compositions, such as engravings, etch- 
 ings, prints, maps, charts, and sculpture of all kinds, receive 
 from statute a protection analogous to that of literature. 
 
 CO'K ACLE. A boat made of wicker-work covered with 
 leather, usci chiefly by the ancient Egyptians. 
 
 CO'RACOlD (Gr. (copaf, a crow, and eiSos, form.") A 
 name first applied to a small process of the blade-bone of 
 apes and man, on account of its resemblance to the beak 
 of a crow ; and now extended to a large flattened bone 
 passing from the shoulder-joint to the sternum in birds, 
 reptiles, and monotremes, and of which the process above 
 mentioned is the rudimental representative. 
 
 CORALLI'NA. A name applied by Linnaeus to agenus 
 or group of marine organized bodies of arborescent habit, 
 with jointed stems, supported on a kind of root, divided 
 into branches, which are likewise jointed. Neither pores 
 nor polypes are distinguishable on the surface of these be- 
 ings ; their chief puqiose in the economy of nature is to 
 prepare during life, and precipitate by their decay, fine 
 particles of carbonate of lime or chalk : they thus lend 
 their aid to the Lithophytous corals in covering submerged 
 land with the elements of a fertile soil, which the expansive 
 subterranean forces may afterwards convert into dry land. 
 
 CORALLI'NES. The name commonly applied to the 
 tubular or nudibrachiate order of Polyps which havean ex- 
 ternal jointed calcareous or homy covering : the true na- 
 ture of these plant-like animals was discovered by our coun- 
 tryman Ellis. See Tubulifera. 
 
 CO'RBEILS. In Fortification, little baskets filled with 
 earth, about a foot and a half high, and from eight inches 
 to a foot in diameter, which are set on a parapet or else- 
 where to afford cover from the fire of an enemy. 
 
 CO'RBEL. (From the Fr. corbeille, a basket.) In Archi- 
 tecture, a projecting bracket, often sculptured like a modil- 
 lion, sometimes in the form of a basket, for the purpose of 
 supporting a superincumbent object, also for receiving the 
 springing of an arch. A corbel table is a projecting battle- 
 ment, parapet, or cornice, resting on corbels. 
 
 CO'RCULUM. (Lat. cor, the heart.) An old name for 
 what botanists now call the embryo of a plant. It was not, 
 however, applied with much precision ; for the plumula 
 and radicle alone of such seeds as the bean and almond 
 were called the corculum, while the term should have in- 
 cluded the cotyledons also.
 
 CORDATE. 
 
 CO'RDATE. (Lat. cor, the heart ; literally heart-shaped.) 
 A term used in describing the general form of organs, to 
 denote any thin; having two round lobes at its base, the 
 whole resembling the heart in a pack of cards ; as the leaf 
 of Alnus cordifolia. 
 
 COR'DIA'CE^E. (Cordia, one of the genera.) A na- 
 tural order of arborescent Exogens, inhabiting the tropics 
 of both hemispheres. They are nearly allied to Convol- 
 vulacem, from which they are separated by their inverted 
 embryo and drupaceous fruit. They were formerly asso- 
 ciated with Boraginaceoz ; but their plaited cotyledons and 
 dichotomous style caused them to be removed. The flesh 
 of the fruit is succulent, as seen in the Sebesten plums, 
 the produce of the Cordia myxa and Sebesfena; but other- 
 wise they are of no value. It has been asserted that the 
 wood from which the mummy cases of the Egyptians 
 were made was that of Cordia myxa; but there is no 
 doubt that it was really produced by Ficus sycomorus. 
 
 CO'RDON. In Fortification, a row of stones jutting out 
 between the rampart and base of the parapet. A line of 
 troops drawn round a town or tract of country, so as to pre- 
 vent ingress or egress, is also called a cordon. 
 
 CO'RIA'RIA'CEjE. (Coriaria, one of the genera.) Ana- 
 tural order of shrubby Exogens, inhabiting Chile, Peru, the 
 south of Europe, and a few other places. Placed by De 
 Candolle directly after Ochnacem ; an order with which 
 they no doubt agree in some respects, but they differ from 
 them very essentially in being apocarpous. Some botan- 
 ists consider them apetalous, and allied to PhytularcacetB ; 
 the question of their affinity is still unsettled. Their sen- 
 Bible.properties are of a poisonous nature. 
 
 CORIA'NDER. The second of the Coriandrum sati- 
 vum, (Gr. n»K, a bug, the odour of the fresh plant re- 
 sembling that of a bug.) It is a native of Europe, culti- 
 vated on account of its seeds, which are occasionally used 
 in medicine ; they have a peculiar perfumed flavour, with 
 some bitterness, and form one of the ingredients of curry 
 poxcder. 
 
 CORI'NTHIAN ORDER. In Architecture, one of the 
 five orders of architecture. The capital (see Architec- 
 ture) is a vase elegantly co- 
 vered with an abacus, and sur- 
 rounded by two tiers of leaves, 
 one above tho other; from 
 among which stalks spring 
 out, terminating at their sum- 
 mits in small volutes at the ex- 
 ternal angles and centres of 
 the abacus. The capitals of 
 the Tuscan, Doric, and Ionic 
 orders appear added to tin- 
 tops of the shafts ; but the Co 
 rinthian capital sterns to grow 
 out of the column, varying in 
 height from a diameter and 
 one sixth of the lower part of 
 the shaft to one diameter only ; 
 such last being the height of 
 the capitals of the temple at 
 Tivoli. The entablature of 
 this order is variously deco- 
 rated. The architrave is usu- 
 ally profiled, with three fascice 
 of unequal height, though in 
 some specimens there are 
 only two. The frieze is often 
 sculptured with foliage, and 
 the cornice decorated both 
 with modillions and dentils ; 
 the former having a sort of baluster front with a leaf un- 
 der them ; and the latter, which are cut into the body ot 
 the band, being occasionally omitted, as are sometimes 
 even the modillions. The principal remaining ancient ex- 
 amples of the order at Rome are in the Temple of Mars 
 Ultor, Portico of Severus, the Forum of Nerva, Temple of 
 Vesta, Basilica of Antoninus, the Pantheon, <fcc. <fcc 
 
 CORK. (Corrupted from Lat. cortex; Germ, kork.) 
 The bark of the Quercxtssuber, a species of oak growing in 
 the southern provinces of Spain, France, and Italy. When 
 rasped cork is digested in water and alcohol, it leaves from 
 70 to 80 per cent, of insoluble matter, which has been 
 called suberine, and which, by the continued action of ni- 
 tric acid, is converted into suberic acid. 
 
 CO'RMUS. (.Gr. Kopfios, a stem.) The dilated base of 
 the stem of Endogens, intervening between the roots and 
 the first buds, and forming the reproductive portion of such 
 plants when they are not caulescent : as in the genera Col- 
 chicum, Crocus, &c. It is a short roundish rhizoma. 
 
 CORN. The seeds of certain grasses which have been 
 used as food, for man or animals, from time immemorial 
 are called corn ; and those which are used exclusively or 
 principally by man are called the bread corns. The term 
 corn is also sometimes applied to the seeds of other plants 
 which can be ground into meal and used as food, such as 
 283 
 
 CORN. 
 
 the seeds of the buckwheat, the quinoa, and those of cer- 
 tain leguminous plants, which, however, are more properly 
 denominated pulse. That which constitutes any kind of 
 seed a corn seems to be its having been generally ground 
 into meal, and used as human food ; because seeds which 
 are ground or crushed, and not used as food, or, if con- 
 sidered as food, are not used in the state of bread, such as 
 the seeds of the oil plants, of mustard, &c, are never 
 called corns. The principal bread corns of temperate cli- 
 mates are wheat, rye, oats, and barley ; those of warm 
 climates are maize, rice, and millet ; and those of cold cli- 
 mates oals and barley. 
 
 It may be worthy of remark, that all bread corns are an- 
 nual plants, and from that circumstance far better adapted 
 for universal cultivation than if ihey had been perennials, 
 or even biennials. An annual plant may indeed be said to 
 belong to no country in particular, because it completes its 
 existence during the summer months; and in every part 
 of the world there is a summer. Hence, we find the same 
 corns ripening their seeds within the frigid and the torrid 
 zone ; and though the quality of the grain of barley and 
 wheat grown in Lapland is far inferior to that grown in tho 
 south of Spain, or on the plains of India, yet it is still such 
 as to be made into wholesome bread and invigorating fer- 
 mented liquor. Had the bread corns been perennials, they 
 must necessarily have required to live through the winter 
 in every country in which they were grown, as well as 
 through the summer; and such of them as might have 
 been adapted to the winters of cold climates, when taken 
 to warm climates would have been so far weakened by be- 
 ing kept in a growing state throughout the year as in a few 
 years to have ceased to exist; while the perennials of 
 warm climates, such as the south of Spain and Italy, could 
 not have lived through a single winter in Russia or Lapland. 
 For the same reason, that is, because they are annuals, 
 and require little more than to be sown and reaped, the 
 bread corns are in an especial manner the doraestio 
 plants of man in an early stage of civilization. A people 
 like the wandering Arabs, who live in tents, and change 
 their encampments annually oroftener, may conveniently 
 reap their crop, raise their tents, and carry their seed corn 
 about with them, till they find a suitable spot where they 
 can pitch their tents and take their next crop. This, how- 
 ever, could not be done by a people who, in addition to 
 corn and pulse, depended for the food of themselves and 
 cattle on the production of roots, such as the turnip and 
 the potatoe ; and these accordingly are plants character- 
 istic of a settled people, in a higher degree of civilization 
 and a greatly advanced state of agriculture. The capacity 
 of any country for growing corn may be said to be accord- 
 ing to the flatness of its surface, provided it be neither too 
 hot nor too cold, too wet nor too dry ; and hence the im- 
 mense plains of Russia and Tartary are eminently calcu- 
 lated for raising food for man. The perennial grasses and 
 trees also grow better in plains than any where else ; but 
 they will thrive nn the steep declivities of hills, which, if 
 subjected to tillage in order to grow corn, would have the 
 surface soil washed away by rains ami thawing snows. 
 
 Value of the Produce of Corn.— In agricultural coun- 
 tries, not in a very high state of civilization, the culture of 
 corn is the princfpal employment of the great bulk of the 
 community ; and in all considerable countries, how far so- 
 ever they may be advanced in arts and refinement, its cul- 
 ture is always by far the most extensive as well as the most 
 important branch of national industry. No great country, per- 
 haps,ever existed, the population of which was so extensively 
 engaged in manufactures and commerce as that of Great 
 Britain. Still, however, we employ about a third part of our 
 inhabitants in agriculture ; and of these, fully three fourths 
 are directly or indirectly engaged in the raising of corn. Un- 
 fortunately, there are no accounts on which it would be safe 
 wholly to rely of the ordinary produce of corn either in this 
 or any other great country. That produce has, however, 
 been estimated in the Commercial Dictionary at 52,000,000 
 quarters (of which 12.000,1X10 are wheat), for Great Britain 
 and Ireland : and it is believed, by those best acquainted 
 with such subjects, that this estimate is rather within than 
 beyond the mark. But supposing it to be accurate, and 
 taking the average price of the different descriptions of 
 corn at 35s. a quarter, the total value of the corn annually 
 produced will amount to the sum of jE91,000,000 sterling, 
 or to nearly three times the total annual value of the cot- 
 ton manufacture ! This is sufficient to evince the para- 
 mount importance of agriculture as a source of wealth as 
 well as a means of subsistence. 
 
 Corn Laws. — This superior importance of com as an 
 article of culture, and the dependence so generally placed 
 upon it as an article of food, are the causes why the trade 
 in it has been so very generally subjected to regulation. It 
 is long even before the most enlightened portion of an in- 
 structed community become satisfied of the advantage of 
 permitting the supply of corn or any indispensable article 
 to be adjusted, like that of other less important things, by 
 the unfettered competition of private individuals. It seems,
 
 CORN. 
 
 at first sight, reasonable to suppose that the most likely 
 way to secure plenty at home is to impose restrictions on 
 exportation. But in truth and reality, this is .very far from 
 being the case. How fertile soever, no country that im- 
 poses restrictions on exportation need hope to escape 
 perpetually recurring scarcities ; for wherever free expor- 
 tation is prevented, the excess of supply that occurs in 
 plentiful years being thrown wholly upon the home market, 
 depresses prices to such an extent as to be ruinous to the 
 farmer ; and thus, by injuring agriculture and lessening 
 the quantity of land in corn, never fails to occasion a scar- 
 city on the occurrence of a deficient harvest. In Great 
 Britain, however, the policy has long been to give every 
 facility to exportation, and even to lay restrictions on im- 
 portation. This has arisen from our legislature being 
 principally composed of individuals dependent on and 
 connected with the land ; and whose interest consequently 
 has led them to endeavour to secure as high a price as 
 possible for its produce. But it is needless to add that this 
 policy is, if possible, even more objectionable than the 
 other. Instead of being publicly advantageous, high prices 
 are, in every instance, distinctly and completely the re- 
 verse. The less the sacrifice of money or of labour for 
 which corn or any other article can be procured, so much 
 the better. But to make sure that the price of corn, or of 
 any thing else, will be fixed at the lowest limit at which 
 the required supply can be obtained, all that is necessary 
 is to abolish all restrictions, whether on exportation or im- 
 portation. Freedom is the parent of abundance, cheap- 
 ness, and equality of price ; restriction, of scarcity, dear- 
 nese, and uncertainty. Any interference with the trade in 
 corn, or with any other great department of trade, that has 
 not the removal of natural or artificial restraints for its 
 object, is not only inconsistent with the best established 
 principles, but is sure to be pernicious. In this, as in all 
 other things connected with national industry, the short 
 and only safe rule is to leave individuals to pursue their 
 own interest in their own way. 
 
 Our limits forbid our attempting to make any enumera- 
 tion of the various statutes that have been passed at dif- 
 ferent periods for regulating the trade in corn. Down to 
 the Revolution, the policy was to restrict exportation ; 
 but from that period the contrary policy has been pursued, 
 and the legislature has pretty uniformly endeavoured to 
 facilitate exportation, and to prohibit or fetter importation. 
 It was not, however, till about 1770 that the restrictions on 
 importation began to have much practical influence. But 
 about that time, population having begun rapidly to advance, 
 in consequence of the extraordinary impulse given to 
 manufacturing industry by the inventions and discoveries 
 of Watt, Arkwright, Wedgwood, and others, the price of 
 corn in England began to rise above its price on the Conti- 
 nent ; and from being an exporting we became an occa- 
 sionally, or rather a pretty constantly, importing country. 
 Had there been no restrictions on importation, our prices, 
 it is plain, could not have exceeded those of the adjoining 
 Continental states by a greater sum than might have been 
 required to defray the cost of importing into this country. 
 The restrictions, however, overturned this natural prin- 
 ciple ; and in deficient years added materially to the dif- 
 ference between our prices and those of the Continent. 
 This difference attained to its greatest height during the 
 late war, owing to the formidable difficulties it threw in the 
 way of importation. During the last six years of that con- 
 test, prices in England (after allowing for the depreciation 
 of the currency) were fully double their amount in the 
 principal Continental markets. 
 
 At the close of the war, in 1814 and 1815, the renewed 
 Intercourse with the Continent led to a great importation 
 of corn, which occasioned such a sudden and heavy fall of 
 prices as was productive of much severe distress amongst 
 the farmers. Parliament, endeavoured to obviate this by 
 increasing the restrictions on importation, a device which 
 had, in part, the anticipated effect. But since 1820, the 
 influence of improved communications and of ameliora- 
 tions in agriculture has been so very great, that, notwith- 
 standing the vast increase of population, prices have been 
 progressively falling, and were, in 1835, lower than in any 
 previous year since 1787. Practically, therefore, the in- 
 fluence of the restrictions has been materially diminished, 
 and a much greater effect is now usually ascribed to them 
 in ordinary years than they really exert. No doubt, how- 
 ever, they tend materially to aggravate the scarcity and 
 suffering originating in a deficient harvest, and are, there- 
 fore, highly objectionable. 
 
 The existing duty on foreign corn, or that imposed by 
 the act 9 Geo. 4. cap. 60., is not invariable but fluctuates 
 indirectly as the price in the home market ; being 24s. 8d. 
 on wheat, when the price is at 62s. and below 63s. a quar- 
 ter, decreasing as the price advances till it reaches 73s., 
 when the duty is Is. only. This fluctuating scale of duty 
 materially adds to the proverbial risk and uncertainty of 
 the corn trade ; for, supposing a merchant orders a quan- 
 tity of foreign corn when prices are at a certain level, if 
 284 
 
 they fall before it arrives, he not only loses in consequence 
 of the decrease of price, but is further charged with a 
 corresponding increase of duty ; whereas, on the other 
 hand, had the price advanced, he would have gained not 
 merely by its increase, but by the fall in the rate of duty 1 
 The effect of the present system is, therefore, precisely 
 the reverse of what it should be were it founded on sound 
 principles, inasmuch as it aggravates the loss arising from 
 a bad, and increases the profit of a successful, speculation ! 
 Under its operation, the foreign corn trade is rendered 
 little better than gambling on a great scale. 
 
 But in recommending the policy of a free trade in corn, 
 we do not mean to contend that it would be either just or 
 expedient always to admit of importation free of duty. In 
 certain circumstances this may be the proper course, but 
 not in all. No duty should ever be laid upon foreign corn 
 on pretence of protecting industry at home, as that is, in 
 fact, taxing the other classes in order to secure a doubtful 
 benefit for the agriculturists. But if agriculture be more 
 heavily burdened than any other great department of in- 
 dustry carried on at home, a constant duty should be laid 
 on foreign corn imported, to balance the excess of duty 
 falling on the agriculturists. This is not to favour the 
 latter, but to do them justice. It has been denied that the 
 British agriculturists are in this predicament ; but were 
 this the place for entering upon such investigations, it 
 would not be difficult to show that they are in fact more 
 heavily taxed than the manufacturers or traders ; and that, 
 on that account, they are entitled to claim that a fixed and 
 invariable duty should be laid on all foreign corn when im- 
 ported, corresponding to the excess of taxation by which 
 they are affected. Those who may wish for further in- 
 formation as to the interesting topics now merely glanced 
 at, and others we have not been able to notice, are referred 
 to the article " Corn Laws" in the new edition of the En- 
 cyclopedia Britannica, the art. "Corn Laws" in the Com- 
 mercial Dictionary, and the note on the same subject in 
 M'Culloch's edit, of the Wealth of Nations, 1 vol. 8vo. 
 
 We subjoin the estimate of the produce of corn given in 
 the Cominercial Dictionary, and an account of the average 
 prices of British wheat from 1771 to 1837, both inclusive. 
 Cousumption of Wheat and other Grain in the United 
 Kingdom, in a Year, Six Months, a Month, a Week, &c. 
 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 Other Graio. 
 
 Total. 
 
 A year . 
 Six months 
 Three months 
 Six weeks 
 One month 
 Two weeks . 
 One week 
 One day 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 12,000.000 
 
 6,000,000 
 
 3,000,000 
 
 1,500,000 
 
 1,000.000 
 
 500,000 
 
 250,000 
 
 35,714 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 40.000,000 
 
 20.oro.ooo 
 
 10.000,000 
 5,000.000 
 3,333.333 
 1,666.666 
 833,333 
 119,048 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 52,000.000 
 
 26.000.000 
 
 13,000,000 
 
 6,500,01:0 
 
 4,333,333 
 
 2,166,666 
 
 1,063,333 
 
 154,762 
 
 Account of the Average Prices of British Wheat per Win- 
 chester Quarter, in England and Wales, since 1771, aa 
 ascertained by the Receiver of Corn Returns. 
 
 1771 
 1772 
 1773 
 1774 
 1775 
 1776 
 1777 
 1778 
 1779 
 1780 
 1781 
 1782 
 1783 
 1784 
 1765 
 1786 
 1787 
 
 2 7 
 2 10 
 2 11 
 2 12 
 2 8 
 
 1 18 
 
 2 5 
 2 2 
 1 13 
 
 1 15 8 
 
 2 4 8 
 2 7 10 
 2 12 8 
 2 8 10 
 2 11 10 
 
 1 18 10 
 
 2 1 2 
 
 1788 
 1789 
 1790 
 1791 
 1792 
 1793 
 1794 
 1795 
 1796 
 1797 
 1798 
 1799 
 1800 
 1801 
 1802 
 1803 
 
 Wheal. 
 
 L. s 
 2 5 
 2 11 
 2 13 
 2 7 
 
 d. 
 
 
 2 
 2 
 
 2 
 2 11 
 8 11 
 11 8 
 
 5 13 
 5 18 
 3 7 
 2 16 
 
 1804 
 1805 
 1806 
 1807 
 1608 
 1809 
 1810 
 1811 
 1812 
 1813 
 1814 
 1815 
 1816 
 1817 
 1818 
 1819 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 5 8 
 
 3 14 
 
 3 4 
 
 3 15 10 
 
 4 14 9 
 4 4 1 
 3 13 
 
 Account of the Average Prices of British Wheat per Im- 
 perial Quarter, in England and Wales, since 1820, as 
 ascertained by the Receiver of Corn Returns. 
 
 1820 
 1821 
 1822 
 1823 
 1824 
 1825 
 
 Wheat. 
 
 L. s. d. 
 
 3 7 11 
 
 2 16 2 
 
 2 4 7 
 
 2 13 5 
 
 3 4 
 3 8 7 
 
 1S26 
 1827 
 1828 
 1829 
 1830 
 1831 
 
 2 18 
 
 2 16 
 
 3 
 3 6 
 3 4 
 3 6 
 
 
 Years. 
 
 d. 
 
 
 9 
 
 1832 
 
 9 
 
 1833 
 
 5 
 
 1834 
 
 3 
 
 1835 
 
 3 
 
 1836 
 
 ■1 
 
 1837 
 
 2 18 8 
 2 12 11 
 2 6 2 
 
 1 19 4 
 
 2 8 6 
 2 15 10
 
 CORNACEjE. 
 
 CORNA'CEiE. (Cornus, one of the genera.) A natu- 
 ral order of arborescent or shrubby Exogens, inhabiting 
 temperate climates, and formerly confounded with Capri- 
 foliacea, from which they are easily distinguished by being 
 polypetalous. They appear to possess medicinal proper- 
 ties, since the bark of C.florida and sericea is said to rank 
 amongst the best tonics of North America. The common 
 Dogwood is a familiar instance of this order. 
 
 CO'RNBRASH. A rubbly stone, forming a soil cele- 
 brated in Wiltshire for the growth of corn. 
 
 CO'RNEA. (Lat. comu, a horn.) The transparent 
 membrane of a horny texture which forms the anterior 
 part of the eyeball. In vertebrates it is simple : in insects 
 it is subdivided into numerous hexagonal segments. 
 
 CO'RNET. (It. cornetta, a smaUJlag.) Acommissioned 
 officer in a troop of horse, corresponding in rank with the 
 ensign of a battalion of infantry. His duty is to carry the 
 standard, near the centre of the front rank of the squadron. 
 Cornet. In Music, a shrill wind instrument formed of 
 wood, which appears to have been in use in the earliest 
 times, and rem lined so till about the commencement of 
 the 18th century, when it was displaced by the oboe. For 
 a representation of this instrument see Mersenne's Har- 
 monic Universeltc. 
 
 CORNET-A-PISTONS. (Fr.) Abrass wind musical in- 
 strument, of the French horn species, but capable of much 
 greater inflexion from the valves and stoppers (pistons) 
 with which it is furnished, and whence it derives its name. 
 CO'RNICE. (Fr. corniche.) In Architecture, the upper 
 great division of an entablature (see Entablature), con- 
 sisting of several members. The cornice used on a pe- 
 destal is called the cap of the pedestal. 
 
 CORNS. Thickenings of the cuticle of the toes, of a 
 horny texture, arising from continued pressure over a pro- 
 jection of bone. One of the best and simplest remedies 
 for this painful disorder is to wear upon the toe or part af- 
 fected a piece of leather, spread with diachylon or other 
 emollient plaster, and having a hole in it corresponding 
 with the size of the corn. By this means all pressure 
 upon the corn is avoided. (See Sir B. Brodie's Lecture un 
 Corns and Bunions, Medical Gazelle, 13th Feb. 1836. ) 
 
 CO'RNSTONE. A provincial name for a species of red 
 limestone, 
 
 CORNU AMMONIS. A name sometimes applied to 
 (tie fossil shells called Ammonites. 
 
 CO'RNUA. (Lat. cornu, a /torn.) In Zoology, hard and 
 more or less elongated processes projecting from the head. 
 The term is usually applied to such processes in the class 
 Mammalia, to which they serve as weapons of offence and 
 defence. These weapons consist either of bone, when 
 they are called "antlers;" or of horn, or of bone and horn, 
 or lastly of bone and hairy skin. The first kind of horns 
 are peculiar to the deer tribe ; the second to the rhinoce- 
 ros ; the third to the sheep, ox, and antelope tribes; and 
 the fourth to the giraffe. The bony horns, antlers, cerata, 
 or cornua solida, as they are technically termed, during the 
 whole period of their formation resemble the horns of 
 the giraffe, inasmuch as they are covered with a hairy and 
 highly vascular integument: the bony material of these 
 processes is in fact secreted by the vessels of that integu- 
 ment, so that their co-existence is essential as long as growl h 
 proceeds. When their growth is completed, and the ant- 
 lers have arrived at their characteristic size and figure 
 (which in the elk and Wapiti deer are truly remarkable), 
 the determination of blood to the parts gradually lessens; 
 the vessels shrink ; the circulation in the formative mem- 
 brane is at length suppressed; and the tegument then 
 shrivels, dries, cracks, and is rubbed off by the instinctive 
 actions which the deer now almost ceaselessly performs 
 with his newly acquired and consolidated antlers. The 
 skin and periosteum of the head, once continuous with 
 those of the antler, now terminate at an abrupt line at the 
 base of the antler, from which a ridge of bone, or " burr, 7 ' 
 as it is termed, is developed, apparently for the purpose of 
 defending the margin of the persistent integument; for I 
 when this is continued, as in the Munt-jac deer, half way 
 up the antlers, the burr is developed immediately above 
 its termination, or at the middle, and not at the base of the j 
 antlers. Some physiologists have conjectured that the 
 use of the " burr" was to compress the vessels of the peri- I 
 osteum of the antler, and that its formation was deferred j 
 to near the completion of the antler : but observation shows 
 that it commences at an earlier period of growth ; and 
 sound physiology teaches that the cessation, like the com- 
 mencement of the growth of the horn, must be the result 
 of deeper and more constitutional operations. The most 
 remarkable fact in the economy of antlers is that they are 
 shed and renewed annually, the fall of the horns being 
 concomitant with the shedding of the hair. The attempts 
 to assign the final cause of this phenomenon have not been 
 very successful. In the axis deer, e. g. the bucks do not all 
 shed their horns at the same time, but at different periods 
 of the year. In the rein-deer the branches which project 
 forwards from the base of the horn, or the brow antlers. 
 285 
 
 CORONA. 
 
 are habitually used to scrape away the snow which con- 
 ceals the lichens on which they principally feed. The fe- 
 male, therefore, needs antlers as much as the male, and 
 she has them ; but this is a rare and singular exception, 
 for the females of other species of deer are destitute of 
 these ornamental weapons. True horns, or those which 
 consist either partly or entirely of horny material, are 
 commonly present in both sexes, and the bony basis is hol- 
 low. The term cornua cava is, however, usually applied 
 to all horns consisting of bone and horn, and reciprocally 
 the ruminants having such horns are termed " hollow- 
 horned." But this extension of the term seems to have 
 arisen from a consideration of the external horny sheath 
 alone, which is but a part, and that not the most essential, 
 of the horn. The horn or horns of the rhinoceros consist 
 of an agglutination of horny fibres, which are attached 
 only to the integument; the integument adhering with 
 more than usual firmness at this part to theroughened sur- 
 face of the bone beneath. The horn of the rhinoceros dif- 
 fers from that of other mammalia in being situated upon 
 the median line of the forehead ; so that when there are 
 two they are placed one behind the other, and not laterally 
 and symmetrically, as in the ruminants. 
 
 A few ruminants have naturally two pairs of horns ; and 
 this was the case with a great extinct species, Sivntherium, 
 whose remains have been discovered in the Himalayan 
 mountainous regions, where the small Anlilope quadricurnis 
 still exists. Horns are characterized in zoological des- 
 criptions according to their position, as Cornua 7iasalia, 
 Jronlalia, parietalia, <&c. : or according to their direction, 
 as Cornua prona, turned forwards ; reclinata, turned 
 back ; incurva, bent inwards ; vara, bent outwards ; redun- 
 ca, with the apices curved forwards ; lyrata, when they re- 
 present the horns of the ancient lyre ; gyrata, when spirally 
 twisted ; or according to their period of existence, as cornua 
 perennia, when they last the life-time of the animal ; or 
 ta decidua, or annua, when annually shed : lastly, 
 horns are termed cornua ossca, cornua solida, cava, accord- 
 ing to their structure, as above described. For the pecu- 
 liarities of the giraffe's horns, see Giraffe. 
 
 Certain species of many other classes have parts pro- 
 jecting from the head, analogous in form or structure to the 
 cornua of the mammalia. The frontal protuberance of 
 the emeu, horn bill, and helmeted curassow consists of 
 bone covered with a sheath of horn : the kamichi or horned 
 screamer, is a still more remarkable example of a bird so 
 armed. In tvptiles we find horned toads, vipers, and igu- 
 anas. Fishes present divers simulations of true horns. 
 In mollusca retractile feelers or eye-stalks are commonly 
 called " horns," as in the snail ; but the appendages which 
 would come under the general definition of our present 
 term arrive at their maximum relative size, variety, and 
 singularity of form in the class of insects. 
 
 CO'RNUOO'PI A (Lat. cornu, ahom, and copia, plenty.) 
 In the Fine Arts, an ornament representing a horn, from 
 which issue (lowers, fruits, leaves, and the like. The origin 
 of the cornucopia has been variously given. Some au- 
 thors have traced it to the infant days of Jupiter, whose 
 nurse, Amalthea, when one of her goats had broken off a 
 horn against a tree, presented it to the god wreathed with 
 flowers and filled with fruit. Hence it became the emblem 
 of Plenty among the ancients, in which light it is regarded 
 also 1» many modern nations. The cornucopia is found 
 very frequently in the types of ancient coins, particularly 
 u;i m those of Sicily. (See the medal of Arsinoe.) 
 
 CORO'LLA. (Lat. corolla, a garland.) That envelope 
 of a llower which is placed next within the calyx. It is 
 usually more richly coloured and larger than the iatter, but 
 is extremely variable in this respect. Owing to its being 
 in many plants one of the most striking parts of the flower, 
 it is much employed by botanists in their systematical ar- 
 rangements, and by the French school has been taken as 
 the means of forming fundamental characters of the sub- 
 classes in the great Dicotyledonous division ; but there ia 
 no doubt that its importance for this purpose has been 
 much overrated. Theoretically considered, the corolla is 
 composed of modified leaves, with the ordinary organiza 
 tion of which its parts or petals correspond as much as can 
 be expected of rudimentary organs; its physiological ac- 
 tion is to absorb oxygen, without decomposing carbonic 
 acid, in which respect it agrees with leaves in their morbid 
 state in the autumn. The corolla has been described by 
 Lamarck as a diseased state of the foliage. 
 
 CO'ROLLARY. (Lat. corollarium, signifying originally 
 a gratuity or donation presented to a person over and above 
 what was strictly his due.) In its mathematical sense, this 
 word is used to designate a consequence drawn from some 
 proposition already demonstrated without the aid of any 
 other proposition. Thus, supposing it demonstrated that if 
 a triangle have two equal sides, it has also two equal angles ; 
 it would then follow, as a corollary, that if the three sides 
 of a triangle are equal, its three angles are also equal. 
 
 CORO'NA. (Lat.) In Architecture, the flat, square, 
 massy member of a cornice, very frequently called the 
 25
 
 CORONA AUSTRALIS. 
 
 drip or larmier. Its situation is between the cymatium 
 above and the bed moulding below, and its use to carry the 
 water drop by drop from the building. 
 
 CORO'NA AUSTRALIS and CORONA BOREALIS. 
 (The southern crown and northern crown.) Two of the old 
 constellations of Ptolemy ; the first in the southern, and 
 the second in the northern hemisphere. 
 
 CORO'NA DENTIS. In Zoology, the exposed part of a 
 tooth, which projects beyond the alveolus and gum. 
 
 CORONA'MEN. In Zoology, the superior margin of a 
 hoof, called in veterinary surgery trie coronet. 
 
 CO'RONARY. (Lat. corona, a crown. ) Coronary ves- 
 sels and ligaments are those which spread round certain 
 viscera, bones, &c. 
 
 CORONA'TION. See King. 
 
 CORONER (Lat. coronator), is the title of an office es- 
 tablished in Saxon times, of which the holder was, as his 
 name indicates, in a peculiar manner the officer of the 
 crown, whose private rights of property, whether arising 
 by escheat, wardship, or consisting in demesne, it was his 
 business to maintain and superintend in the county for 
 which he acted. Connected in some degree with this char- 
 acter is the more important if not the sole function which 
 he now exercises: that of holding inquests on the bodies 
 of such as either die or are supposed to die a violent death. 
 (4 Edw. I. st. 2.) For which purpose he is empowered to 
 summon jurymen out of the neighbourhood, and witness- 
 es. Should violent death be occasioned by any personal 
 chattel, it is forfeited as a deodand to the crown; but juries 
 are now in the habit of assessing a small sum of money in 
 lieu of the chattel or its full value. (See Deodand.) The 
 coroner was originally in some sort the colleague and as- 
 sistant of the sheriff", and in his default might still act as 
 sheriff in the execution of writs, which in such case would 
 be directed to him. The coroner is still, as the sheriff was 
 formerly, elected by the freeholders of the county ; but the 
 office, which was once strictly honorary, has lost much of 
 the dignity which belonged to it, and is now held by per- 
 sons, usually either surgeons or attorneys, whose object in 
 accepting it is the profit to be derived from fees. There 
 are generally several coroners in the same county. (Jervis 
 on Coroners.) 
 
 CO'RONET, or CORO'NA. This word is employed by 
 botanists to express certain appendages of the corolla, which 
 are arranged within it in a circle, and which not unfrequent- 
 ly give a very peculiar appearance to the flower in which it 
 is found. In the Narcissus it is a cup; in Symphylum it 
 consists of five glandular narrow processes ; in Asclepias 
 it is a thick fleshy ring extended into bended lobes. In all 
 cases the coronet is a modification of sterile stamens. 
 
 CO'RONET. In Heraldry, an inferior crown belonging to 
 the British nobility. The figure of John of Eltham, second 
 son of Edward II., who died in 1334, affords the earliest 
 representation of this ornament Barons do not appear to 
 have bome them earlier than the reign of Charles II. The 
 time at which the coronets of the present orders of nobili- 
 ty were respectively distinguished in the existing fashion 
 cannot be ascertained. 
 
 CO'RONET-BONE. The second of the consolidated 
 phalanges of the horse's foot. 
 
 CO'RPORAL. (Fr. caporal, from capo, a head.) A non- 
 commissioned officer in a battalion of infantry immediately 
 under the serjeant ; his business is to place and relieve the 
 sentinels, and at drill he has charge of a squad. In the 
 ranks he does the duties of a private, but his pay is some- 
 what higher. 
 
 CORPORA'TION. (Lat. corpus, body.) A body politic 
 or incorporate ; consisting of a person or persons having 
 power to take and grant, &e. to himself or themselves and 
 their successors. Corporations, in English Law, are divid- 
 ed, — I. Into sole and aggregate. Sole corporations are such 
 as consist of a single person who is constituted a corpora- 
 tion by law, for the purpose of enjoying certain advantages 
 and incurring certain duties, transmissible to his succes- 
 sors. Such is the parson of a living in respect of his bene- 
 fice; a bishop, in respect of the ecclesiastical rights and 
 property of his see ; the king, &c. Corporations aggregate 
 are such as consist of more individuals than one, and are 
 kept up by a perpetual succession of members. 2. Into 
 ecclesiastical and lay. Parsons, bishops, deans and chap- 
 ters, are instances of the former. The latter are again sub- 
 divided into civil and eleemosynary. Among the first are 
 trading companies and municipal corporations ; among the 
 latter, hospitals, colleges in the universities, and similar es- 
 tablishments (which, however, were anciently esteemed 
 ecclesiastical). 
 
 By the law of England, corporations are erected only 
 with the king's consent, express or implied ; and may exist 
 by prescription, by letters patent, or by act of parliament. 
 Bishops, parsons, &c, may indeed be said to exist as cor- I 
 porationsby force of the common law; but some ancient j 
 municipal bodies, such as the corporation of London, are 
 in a stricter sense corporations by prescription Corpora- 
 tions by act of parliament may be created either expressly, 
 
 CORPORATIONS. 
 
 or by implication ; as, where a body is to take lands by suc- 
 cession, this constitutes them a corporation. But the ordi- 
 nary mode by which they are erected is by the king's let- 
 ters patent or charter of incorporation ; persons exercising 
 the power of founding corporations by a grant of their own 
 (as the chancellor of the university of Oxford) being for 
 this purpose only delegates of the king. 
 
 The chief incident of a corporation is the power of taking 
 by succession. This power is, however, confined in the 
 case of sole corporations to estates of freehold; corpora- 
 tions aggregate only can take goods and chattels by succes- 
 sion. Grants by a corporation aggregate must be by deed 
 under their common seal, which is necessary to give valid- 
 ity to most of their acts. A corporation has essentially the 
 power of making by-laws to bind its own members, which 
 are valid so far as they are not contrary to the laws of the 
 kingdom. Corporations ecclesiastical and eleemosynary 
 may, moreover, be subject to rules or statutes imposed by 
 the king or the founder; civil corporations only to the com- 
 mon law and their own by-laws. In aggregate corporations, 
 the act of the majority is the act of the whole. 
 
 The common law capacity of corporations to take lands 
 has been, however, materially narrowed by statute. Thus 
 a devise of lands to a corporation by will is bad. except for 
 charitable purposes. And, in consequence of the Statutes 
 of Mortmain (see Mortmain), a corporation, whether lay 
 or ecclesiastical, must now have a license from the king in 
 order to purchase. 
 
 All corporations are said to be subject to visitation. The 
 visitor of ecclesiastical corporations is the ordinary (sec 
 Ordinary) ; the visitor of lay corporations is the founder. 
 In eleemosynary corporations this right, therefore, is in the 
 founder and his heirs, or in such person as he has appoint- 
 ed : in civil corporations, the king is visitor, and exercises 
 that jurisdiction in the King's Bench ; where alone misbe- 
 haviour of such corporations or their officers can be inquired 
 into, chiefly by means of the processes termed mandamus 
 and quo warranto (which see). A corporation is dissoluble, 
 1. By act of parliament ; 2. In the case of an aggregate cor- 
 poration, by the death of all its members; 3. By surrender 
 of its franchises into the hand of the king ; 4. By forfeiture 
 of its charter through negligence or abuse of the franchise. 
 
 CORPORA'TION S, MUNICIPAL. These bodies, which 
 have acted so important a part in the history of modern 
 Europe, originated in the Italian and provincial towns sub- 
 ject to the Roman sway. Under that empire the govern- 
 ment of the lowns was in many respects independent of 
 the central authority, or only controlled by it in the last 
 resort; and as the municipal institutions of the Romans 
 remained undestroyed through the long period of the dark 
 ages, the free cities which arose in the eleventh and twelfth 
 centuries in Italy, France, and elsewhere, did in fact only 
 preserve their ancient systems of internal policy in the new 
 character of republican constitutions. (See especially 
 Savigny on Roman Jurisprudence in the Middle Ages.) 
 
 In England we have no record of the internal constitution 
 of our towns prior to the Saxon times, and during those 
 times our information is extremely scanty and imperfect. 
 The magistracy in Saxon towns appears to have been elec- 
 tive; that in Danish hereditary. In Domesday Book we 
 find in every town (eighty-two in all, in those parts of the 
 record which remain to us) a certain number of persons 
 mentioned as li burgesses;" a number sometimes equalling, 
 sometimes falling far short of the houses enumerated. It 
 has been supposed that at this early period all free inhabi- 
 tants paying scot and lot were burgesses; a supposition 
 which can neither be easily proved nor controverted. Bo- 
 roughs at this period were exempt from the immediate ju- 
 risdiction of the sheriffs of the counties in which they were 
 situate : they possessed their own hundred courts, leets, 
 and view of frankpledge ; but they were liable for various 
 duties to the king, who was usually lord of the leet, i. e. ex- 
 ercised jurisdiction iu the borough ; and to the lord of the 
 soil, also, if there were any. It became usual after the 
 Conquest for the king to let the fees and revenues thus due, 
 together with the right of appointing the officers of justice, 
 to the burgesses in general ; and by this species of enfran- 
 chisement the borough became an independent municipal- 
 ity. But a free borough was constituted by having, in 
 addition to those powers, exemption from the king's tolls, 
 granted to its burgesses by royal charter. Such continued 
 to be, in substance, the condition of English boroughs for 
 several centuries. Burgess-ship was gained, either by resi- 
 dence simply, with payment of scot and lot, or, in some 
 cases, by apprenticeship, constituting a title of admission 
 to the guild merchant or trading community of the borough, 
 which by degrees became identified with the borough it- 
 self; or, as in London, by admission into the guilds of the 
 several trades, an alteration which appears to have taken 
 place in that city as early as the thirteenth century. 
 
 During all this period no one seems to have doubted the 
 capability inherent in the burgesses of a town, as a com- 
 munity, to take and enjoy lands, tolls, or other heredita- 
 ments, to themselves and their successors. But about t!ie
 
 CORPORATIONS. 
 
 period of the reigns of Henry V. and VI. the increasing 
 subtlety of our legal system, and more particularly the no- 
 tions introduced by the study of the civil law, appear to 
 have occasioned the custom of granting charters in a new 
 form. It appears to have been thought that the power of 
 holding lands in succession, and the right of suing and being 
 sued by a common name, could not in strictness be en- 
 joyed, except by a body constituted for those very purposes 
 by the king's grant. Hence originated charters or let- 
 ters of incorporation. These seem to have been first grant- 
 ed to eleemosynary foundations ; afterwards, and first in 
 the reigns before mentioned, they were granted to the men 
 or burgesses of towns jointly with the mayor, bailiff, or 
 other chief officer ; and thus municipal corporations in the 
 strict legal sense were first constituted. 
 
 But previously to this time it is probable that a great change 
 had taken place, in most towns, in the character of the 
 class of "men" or "burgesses" to whom these charters 
 were granted. As the privileges of burgess-ship became 
 more valuable, additional difficulties were thrown by the 
 governing body in the borough in the way of its acquisition. 
 While the old household right remained" in some places, it 
 was lost in others : in its stead, or by its side, arose the 
 rights of freemen of a guild or trade ; those of the holders 
 of particular tenements, which alone were recognized as 
 conferring on their occupant the title of burgess; those of 
 freeholders in cities, counties of themselves, &-c. And 
 hence the variety of the old parliamentary franchise (see 
 Parliament), as members of parliament were elected by 
 the burgesses. Hence the corporations, which were consti- 
 tuted by the charters of Henry VI. and Edward IV., were 
 already very different bodies from the general mass of 
 dwellers in a town. But close corporations, properly so 
 called, were not established until the reigns of the Tudors, 
 when the first " governing charters" were granted ; that is 
 to say, charters which, disregarding the old common law 
 system, by which every burgess had a share in corporate 
 rights, and the power of electing his magistrates, established 
 special rules for the internal regulation of a borough. By 
 these new charters the powers of municipal government 
 were usually vested in a mayor and common council ; the 
 latter consisting of councillors and aldermen ; the former 
 of whom were selected in various ways, by the whole of 
 the council or the aldermen ; the aldermen mostly nomi- 
 nated by and out of the rest of the council. In these bodies 
 the control over the town funds, the civil and criminal ju- 
 risdiction of the town, and police authority within its limits, 
 became veBted. The freemen, as well as the common- 
 alty, thus ceased to be members of the governing body ; 
 but the former retained the extensive pecuniary advanta- 
 ges which in many places belonged to them. 
 
 The causes of this revolution, and of the gradual change 
 by which the municipal bodies became more and more ex- 
 clusive in their character, are chiefly to be found in the 
 parliamentary franchise enjoyed by most of the corporate 
 boroughs. When the House of Commons became an im- 
 portant body in the empire, the crown, as well as the noble- 
 men and the powerful individuals to whose estates the bo- 
 roughs were contiguous, had a strong and direct interest in 
 controlling the nomination of members. This was much 
 more easily effected by the agency of select bodies, such 
 as the corporations, than by influencing the votes of an in- 
 dependent community. Hence, while in the larger places 
 the corporation, usually devoted to the interest of its patron, 
 exercised a decisive or a strong authority in controlling 
 elections, in many smaller boroughs the elective franchise 
 became in effect confined to the corporation itself by means 
 of the freemen who were closely associated with it. Thus 
 the system of close corporations, established under the 
 Tudors, acquired continually more strength and more ex- 
 clusiveness : although the committee of privileges presided 
 over by Mr. Serjeant Glanville, in the reign of James I., 
 resolved that charters of the crown were inoperative so far 
 as they assumed to alter the parliamentary franchise of a 
 borough. The governing bodies in the previous reign seem 
 also to have assumed in many places the power, which has 
 been since so liberally exercised, of admitting to the rights 
 of freemen, or burgesses, whom they pleased, either by 
 free gift or purchase. The great bulk of the property of cor- 
 porations, both that enjoyed by themto their own use, and 
 that of which they were trustees for charitable purposes, 
 seems to have been acquired after the first charters of in- 
 corporation were grantedand previously to the Revolution. 
 In the reign of Charles the Second, when the corporate 
 bodies in the larger towns had become for the most part 
 attached to the Whig interest, and hostile to the court, they 
 were attacked by the crown through the famous writs of 
 quo warranto. These were writs issued out of the King's 
 Bench to the municipal bodies, to inquire by what right 
 they exercised their jurisdictions and enjoyed their fran- 
 chises; and the object was to contest the validity of the 
 ancient charters, or at least to terrify them into surrender- 
 ing them into the king's hands, and receiving new ones 
 from him. Many such surrenders were actually made, 
 887 
 
 CORPUSCULAR ACTION. 
 
 and new charters granted : these, however, were recalled 
 by a proclamation of James II., and the old ones regranted 
 or revived ; and this proclamation was allowed, after the 
 [ Revolution, to have the force of law. A few boroughs, how- 
 ever, did not accept the restoration of their charters, and 
 remained without a corporation. From the period of the 
 Revolution, little or no change of importance took place in 
 ; the constitution of the towns or their governing bodies, 
 [ until the passing of the Municipal Reform Act in 1S35. By 
 this act (5 &. 6 W. 4. c. 76.) the municipal franchise is made 
 uniform all over the kingdom. In order to enjoy it, an in- 
 dividual must have occupied a house, warehouse, count- 
 ing-house, or shop, within the borough, for three years ; and 
 must have been rated to all poor rates in respect of such 
 premises during the whole of such time ; and must be en- 
 rolled on the burgess list, which is framed by the overseers 
 of the parishes and revised every year by the mayor and 
 assessors. He must also have resided within seven miles 
 of the borough during that time. There are also provisions 
 for the cases of successive occupancy and change of resi- 
 dence. These burgesses form the electoral body. They 
 choose, — 1. The councillors ; of whom the number is limit- 
 ed by the act, according to the number of wards of which 
 each borough consists (this number being also specified by 
 enactment, and varying from one to sixteen). No person 
 can be qualified as a councillor, or alderman, unless he is 
 a burgess possessing a certain amount of property (1000/.), 
 or a rating at 30/. per annum, in boroughs having four wards 
 and upwards; 500/., or 15/. per annum, in boroughs not 
 having that number. One third part of the councillors go 
 annually out of office. 2. The council, i. e. the mayor, 
 existing aldermen, and councillors, jointly elect every year 
 the aldermen from among the qualified burgesses; half of 
 whom go out of office every third year. 5. The council- 
 lors and aldermen together elect out of their own united 
 body the mayor, whose office is annual. The mayor, al- 
 dermen, and councillors together form the council. The 
 town-clerk, treasurer, &c. are appointed by the council 
 during pleasure. 
 
 With regard to existing rights, freemen are retained, so 
 as to enjoy their rights of property and parliamentary fran- 
 chise ; but they can no longer be made by gift or purchase ; 
 and they must be inhabitants of the borough. The income 
 arising out of the corporation property is to form a borough 
 fund ; which is to be applied, subject to existing claims, to 
 the payment of salaries and other municipal expenses, pro- 
 secutions, maintenance of the gaol, &c. &c. ; and if the fund 
 be insufficient for these purposes, the council can impose 
 a rate to supply the deficiency. Wherever a municipal 
 corporate body, either sole or in conjunction with other 
 persons, had lands, &c. in trust to charitable uses, the 
 trusts are gradually transferred by this act to the new coun- 
 cils ; but every corporation possessed of advowsons, or 
 rights of nomination to benefices in the church, is required 
 to sell such advowsons, &c. under the direction of the ec- 
 clesiastical commissioners. Where the watching of the 
 town was regulated by local acts, these acts are repealed, 
 and the corporation is directed in all places to appoint a 
 committee for the purpose of superintending that duty ; 
 and wherever the lighting is not regulated by local acts, 
 that also is placed under the management of the corporation. 
 With respect to jurisdiction, the council of every borough 
 now having a separate court of quarter sessions, or desi- 
 ring to attain one, may apply to the king to retain or to 
 acquire it; on which the king may, if he pleases, ap- 
 point a recorder to be paid by the town, being a barrister 
 of five years' standing. This officer is to hold the court of 
 quarter sessions of the peace, in which he is to be sole 
 judge. Borough courts of record are to be retained as 
 heretofore, and those in which a barrister of five years' 
 standing acts as judge have power to try personal actions 
 to the amount of 20/. The king is empowered to grant a 
 commission of the peace to all boroughs named in Sche- 
 dule A of the act, and to such boroughs named in Sche- 
 dule B as he shall see fit, on petition of their council. The 
 mayor and recorder to be justices of the peace ex officio ; 
 the others named by the crown. The council also are di- 
 rected, if they think tit, to petition for the appointment of 
 salaried police magistrates in their borough, stating the sa- 
 lary which they are willing to pay ; on which the crown 
 will appoint such officer or officers, being barristers of not 
 less than five years' standing. The history of municipal 
 corporations has been often written, and generally with 
 much party spirit and unfairness. Those who wish to study 
 it in the only authentic records, viz. charters and other 
 documents, will find the most abundant collection of them, 
 chronologically arranged, in Messrs. Merewether and Ste- 
 phen's History of Boroughs, 1836. 
 
 CORPII'SCULA VERMIFO'RMIA. (Lat. corpus-colum, 
 diminutive of corpus, body, and vermiformis, icormshaped.) 
 In Vegetable Anatomy, are synonymous with strangulated 
 or necklace-shaped ducts, a kind of spiral vessel found 
 chiefly in the knotR and contracted parts of stems. 
 CORPU'SCULAR A'CTION. The power or influence
 
 CORPUSCULAR PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 which the minute particles, or atoms, or corpuscles of mat- 
 ter, exercise on each other, and which is the cause ot all 
 chemical chanses. 
 
 CORPU'SCULARPHILO'SOPHY. A system of physics 
 in which all the phenomena of the material world are explain- 
 ed by the arrangement and physical properties of the cor- 
 puscles or minute atoms of matter. A doctrine of tins sort 
 was anciently taught in Greece by Leucippus and Democn- 
 tus and is described in the beautiful poem of Lucretius. 
 
 CO'RPUS JURIS. (Lat. body of law.) Corpus Juris 
 Romani, the collection of the authentic %vorks containing 
 the Roman law as compiled under Justinian. The Corpus 
 Juris' comprehends the Pandects, the Institutes, the Code. 
 and the Novels or Authentics, i. e. the later constitutions ol 
 Justinian ; to which, in some editions, are added a few issued 
 by his successors. M. Beck has lately published at Leip- 
 zig the most complete edition. There are likewise publica- 
 tions styled Corpus Juris Canonici,Germanwi, Feiulalts^c. 
 CORRE'CTION. (Lat. corrigo, Icorrect.) In the i me 
 Arts. With the Italians the word, correzione, is used to 
 denote an exact acquaintance with the different proportions 
 of the parts of a body or design generally : but with us the 
 term is applied to those emendations of inaccuracies or 
 alterations of first thoughts, which they call pentimenh, to 
 be seen under the surface of the finished picture, and 
 which are accounted indications of its originality. 
 
 CORRECTING, in Printing, in the first instance, is to 
 amend and put right the errors in the types that the com- 
 positor may have made, and any defects in his workman- 
 ship; in the next, it is the correcting ot the proof sheets 
 of a work by the author or editor, in the orthography, the 
 punctuation, the language, and in making such alterations 
 as may appear to him necessary. The following explana- 
 tion of the marks which are in general use by printers for 
 this purpose, with the annexed specimen, will enable a 
 gentleman who has to superintend a work through the press 
 to correct the proof sheets in a way that will be clearly under- 
 stood by the printer, and will tend to promote correctness 
 by preventing those mistakes that occasionally occur, owing 
 to his not clearly comprehending the marks on the proof 
 
 1. Where a word is to be changed from small letters to capi- 
 tals draw three lines under it, and write caps, in the margin 
 
 2. Where there is a wrong letter draw the pen through 
 that letter, and make the right one opposite in the margin. 
 
 3. A letter turned upside down. 
 
 4. The substitution of a comma for another point, or for 
 a letter put in by mistake. 
 
 5. The insertion of a hyphen. 
 
 6. To draw the letters of a word close together that stand 
 apart. , 
 
 7. To take away a superfluous letter or word the pen is 
 struck through it and a round top d made opposite, being 
 the contraction of deleatur, to expunge. 
 
 8. Where a word has to be changed to Italic drawa line un- 
 der it, and write Ital. in the margin ; and where a word has 
 to be changed from Italic to Roman, write Rom. opposite. 
 
 9. When words are to be transposed three ways of mark- 
 ing them are shown ; but they are not usually numbered 
 except more than three words have their order changed. 
 
 10. The transposition of letters in a word. 
 
 11. To change one word for another. 
 
 12. The substitution of a period or a colon for any other 
 point. It is customary to encircle these two points with a line. 
 
 13. The substitution of a capital for a small letter. 
 
 14. The insertion of a word, or a letter. 
 
 15. When a paragraph commences where it is not in- 
 tended, connect the matter by aline, and write in the mar- 
 gin opposite run on. 
 
 16. Where a space or a quadrat stands up and appears, 
 draw a line under it and make a strong perpendicular line 
 in the margin. 
 
 17. When a letter of a different size to that used, or of a 
 different face,appears in a word, draw a line either through 
 it or under it, and write opposite w. f., for wrong fount. 
 
 18. The marks for a paragraph, when its commencement 
 has been omitted. 
 
 19. When one or more words have been struck out, and 
 it is subsequently decided that they shall remain, make dots 
 under them, and write the word stet in the margin. 
 
 20. The mark for a space where it has been omitted 
 between two words. 
 
 21. To change a word from small letters to small capi- 
 tals make two lines under the word, and write sm. caps, op- 
 posite. To change a word from small capitals to small let- 
 ters make one line under the word, and write in the mar- 
 gin lo. ca. for lower case. 
 
 22. The mark for the apostrophe : and also the marks 
 for turned commas, which designate extracts. 
 
 23. The manner of marking an omission, or an insertion, 
 when it is too long to be written in the side margin. When 
 this occurs it may be written either at the top or the bottom 
 of the page. . 
 
 24. Marks when lines or words do not appear straight. 
 
 H 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 CORRECTING. 
 Antiquity, like every other im^ 
 
 — / / 2 
 
 quality that attracts the notice _ a 
 of i^ankind, has undoubtedly 3 
 votaries that reverence it, not Sta£ 
 from reason/ but from preju- J 
 dice. j?ome seem to admire 
 indiscriminately whatever has v_r* 
 been long preserved, without 
 considering that time has some, 
 times co-operated with chance: 
 all perhaps are more willing to 
 honour /present\than i/past^ ex- fyj 
 cellence ; and the the mind 
 contemplates gemys through iaj 
 the shades of age, as the eye 
 views the sun through artificial MunMjJr 
 opacity-/ y&e great contention oiQj $f 
 of criticism is to find the faults 
 of the moderns, A the beauties amdj 
 of the ancients.") n*/n onf vl 
 
 (While an auyor is yet living, /-y 
 
 we estimate~his powers by his i6| 
 
 worst performances ; and when 
 he is dead A [To works, however. (B^-ak, ^ 
 of which/the excellence is not ^^ 
 
 5 / 4 l 2 3 
 
 gradual but absolute and defi 
 nitelandlcomparative ; to works, ;/ 
 raised noTAupon principles de- 
 i^onstrative) and scientific, but 4kt 
 a/pealing /wholly to observa- ^ 
 tic/i and I experience, nojpther if 
 test/can be\ applied than length ^ eaju 
 of deration) and continuance of 
 
 A 
 
 & 
 
 84 
 
 / 
 
 OS 
 
 ^w-c 
 
 raJb/&<i»'fy&J fatj '&
 
 CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 The preceding specimen when corrected would be as 
 follows : — 
 
 ANTIQUITY, like every other quality that attracts the 
 notice of mankind, has undoubtedly votaries that reverence 
 it, not from reason, but from prejudice. Some seem to ad- 
 mire indiscriminately whatever has been long preserved, 
 without considering that time has sometimes co-operated 
 with chance: all perhaps are more willing to honour past 
 than present excellence; and the mind contemplates ge- 
 nius through t!i • shades of age, as-the eye surveys the sun 
 through artificial opacity. The great contention of criticism 
 is to find the faults of the moderns, and the beauties of the 
 ancients. While an author is yet living, we estimate his 
 powers by his worst performances; and when he is dead, 
 we rate them by his best. 
 
 To works, however, of which the excellence is not ab- 
 solute and definite, but gradual and comparative ; to works, 
 not raised upon principles demonstrative and scientifick, 
 but appealing wholly to observation and experience, no 
 other test can be applied than length of duration and con- 
 tinuance of esteem. 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE. (Lat. con,tf*7/i,respondeo, Ian- 
 swer.) In the Fine Arts, the fitting or proportioning the parts 
 ofa design to each other, so that they may be correlative, and 
 that the same feeling may pervade the whole composition. 
 
 CO'RRIDOR. (Ilal. corridoro.) In Architecture, a 
 gallery or open communication to the different apartments 
 of a house. 
 
 CORRO'SIVE SUBLIMATE. The bichloride of mer- 
 cury, composed of 200 mercury + 72 chlorine. It is an 
 acrid poison of great virulence: the stomach-pump and 
 emetics are the surest preventives of its deleterious effects 
 when accidentally swallowed ; white of eg_ f has also been 
 found serviceable in allaying its poisonous influence upon 
 the stomach. Its specific gravity is 52. It requires 20 parts 
 of coM water, but only 2 oi boiling water, for its solution. 
 See Mercury. 
 
 CO'RRUGaTE. (Lat. ruga, wrinkle.) In Zoology, the 
 surface of an animal is so called when it rises and falls in 
 parallel aueles more or less acute. 
 
 CO'RSAIR. (Ilal. corsaro.) A term used in the south 
 of Europe and some other parts for a pirate or his ship. 
 The corsairs of Barbary were commissioned by their 
 princes to attack the merchant ships of hostile countries. 
 
 CO'RTES. {See States.) The old assembly of the 
 estates in Leon, Castile, Arragon, and Portugal. These- 
 estates were framed, as elsewhere, of nobility, dignified 
 clergy, and representatives of the towns. In Arragon, 
 they were presided over by a high officer, termed Justiza, 
 with powers in some respects sufficient lo control the m >- 
 narch. The origin of popular representation in the cortes 
 of the several kingdoms out of which that of Spain was 
 finally formed, is assigned to a date as early as the 12th 
 ceniuryjbui the deputies sent by the towns were irregu- 
 larly summoned, frequently did not attend, and the num- 
 bers which appeared for each town frequently bore no 
 proportion to the relative size of the different places. In 
 the 11th century the power of the cortes seems to have 
 been at its height, after which it gradually decayed, and 
 under the government of Ferdinand arid Isabella, was re- 
 duced almost to a nullity. (See Prescott's Ferdinand ami 
 Isabella, vol. i. ; HaUam'a Middle Ages.) After the time 
 of Philip II., the cortes of Spain were only occasionally 
 convoked on the accession of kings, and their sittings were 
 a mere form. In 1811, during the French invasion, they 
 were convoked at Cadiz, and conducted the affairs of that 
 kingdom during the war of independence. In 1814, Ferdi- 
 nand VII. dissolved them, and declarer! all their decrees 
 null. In 1820, the cortes met again, and adopted a new 
 constitution ; in 1821, the people of Portugal followed the 
 same example : both constitutions were overthrown in 
 1823: the first by the French invasion, the latter by a 
 counter revolution. The later events of Spanish and 
 Portuguese history have again called these national as- 
 semblies into existence. 
 
 CORTI'CIFERS, Corliciferi. (Lat. cortex, bark, fero, 
 I carry.) Those Polyps whose uniting fleshy substance 
 is spread, like the bark ofa tree, over a central calcareous 
 or corneous axis. 
 
 CO'RTILE. (Ital.) In Architecture, an open quad- 
 ransular or curved area in a dwelling-house, surrounded 
 by the buildings of the house itself. 
 
 CO'RTINA. (Lat. cortina, a kind of table.) A term used 
 in describing Fungi, to denote that portion of the velum 
 which adheres to the margin of the pileus in fragments. 
 
 CORU'NDUM. A crystallized or massive mineral of 
 extreme hardness, and composed of nearly pure alumina ; 
 it is usually almost opaque, and of a reddish colour. It is 
 allied to the sapphire. 
 
 CORVE'E. (Fr.) In Feudal Law, the obligation of the 
 inhabitants ofa district to do certain services, as the repair of 
 roads, <fcc, for the sovereign or the feudal lord. Some spe- 
 cies of corvee were performed gratis: others for a fixed pay, 
 but generally below the value of the labour performed. 
 289 
 
 COSMOGONY. 
 
 CO'RVUS. (Lat. the raven.) A Linnrean genus of birds, 
 now the type of a family (Corrida), belonging to the Coni- 
 rosiral division of the Passeres of Cuvier ; and including, 
 with the Crows proper, the Rollers ( Coracias) and Birds 
 of Paradise (Paradisea). 
 
 Co'nvus. In Astronomy, one of Ptolemy's constella- 
 tions, in the southern hemisphere. 
 
 CORYBA'NTES, (Gr.) in Grecian Mythology, were the 
 priests of Cybele ; so called either from Corybas, the son 
 of that goddess, or from the frantic gestures with which 
 iheir devotions were accompanied ; the term Corybantes 
 signifying literally "shaking the head violently." They 
 used to beat brazen cymbals in their sacred rites ; „ 
 
 Acuta ' 
 
 Si geminant Curybumes cera. Hor. Od. 1.16.8. 
 
 and their whole religious proceedings were characterized 
 by such extravagant fanaticism as to have enriched the 
 Greek language with several terms expressive of madness 
 or frenzy. 
 
 CORYCETJM. (Gr. nopvKos) In Ancient Architec- 
 ture, an apartment in a gymnasium whose exact destina- 
 tion i3 not known. 
 
 CORYDA'LEA. An alcaline principle, from the Cory- 
 da/is tuberosa and Fumaria cava. 
 
 CO'RYMBI'FERiE. (Lat. corymbus, aflat-headed kind 
 of infioresce?ice, and fero, I bear.) One of the divisions of 
 the great group of Composite admitted by Jussieu. It com- 
 prehends those plants which, like the Chrysanthemum 
 and the Aster, have the capitula furnished with a ray ; and 
 those others which, like Artemisia, although destitute of a 
 ray, are similar to such plants in the majority of their cha- 
 racters. 
 
 CORY MBUS. (Lat.) In Ancient Sculpture, the cluster 
 of ivy leaves, berries, garlands, &c, with which vases were 
 encircled. 
 
 Cory'mbus. In Botany, a form of inflorescence con- 
 sisting of a central axis, developing lateral pedicels, the 
 lower ones of which are so long that their flowers are 
 elevated to the same level as that of the uppermost. 
 
 CORYPIKE'NA. (Gr. Kopvs, a helmet, and (patvw, I 
 show.) A genus of spiny-finned fishes, so called from the 
 head being crested like a helmet. It belongs to the 
 Mackerel family (Srotnljeroids) : and includes the true 
 dolphin, or changeable coryphene (Coryphana hippuris). 
 The genii3 is now raised to the rank of a family, including, 
 with Coryphmna proper, the subgenera Centrolopus and 
 Leptnvodes. 
 
 CO RYPIKETS. (Gr. Kopv^n, summit.) The leader 
 of the chorus in ancient dramas : by whom the dialogue 
 between the chorus and the other actors of the drama was 
 carried on, and who led in the choric song. 
 
 CORY'ZA. (Gr. Koov^a.) A copious running from the 
 nose. 
 
 co'SECANT and COSINE. Theseeantand sine of the 
 complement of an angle or arc ; the prefix co being merely 
 the abbreviation of complement, first introduced by Gunter. 
 COSME'TIC. (Gr. Kocrpeo}, I adorn.) Remedies to 
 remove freckles and pimples from the face and to improve 
 the complexion. 
 
 CO'SMICAL. (Gr. koo/xos, the world.) This word 
 occurs frequently in the ancient astronomy, in which it is 
 userl to denote a particular position of a planet or star, at 
 its rising or setting, in respect of the sun. A star is said to 
 rise cosmically when it rises at the same instant that the 
 sun rises ; and to set cosmically, when it sets with the sun. 
 Cosmical is opposed to achronycal, which signifies that a 
 star rises at the instant the sunsets, and vice versa. The 
 cosmical and achronycal risings of a star are invisible to 
 the naked eye, because the light of the sun in the horizon 
 effaces that of the star. 
 
 COSMO'GONY. (Gr. koo/ws, world, and yopoc, birth.) 
 The science, which treats of the origin of the universe. 
 If we except the cosmogony of the Indians, the earliest 
 extant is that of Ilesiod, which is delivered in hexameter 
 verse. The first prose cosmogonies were those of the 
 early Ionic philosophers, of whom Thales, Anaximenes, 
 Anaximander, and Anaxagoras are the mast celebrated. 
 In modern times, a Theory of the World has been pro- 
 duced by Burnet. We do not include in this list of cos- 
 mogonies the researches of modern geologists, or the 
 systems to which they have led. They may be said to 
 hold the same place in relation to the old cosmogoners, 
 which the astronomer or the chemist occupies in reference 
 to the aslrologers and alchemists of ancient times. 
 
 The different theories which have been formed to ac- 
 count for the origin of the world may be comprehended 
 under three classes : — 1st, Those which suppose the world 
 to have existed from eternity under its actual form. Aris- 
 tode embraced this doctrine; and conceiving the existing 
 universe to be the eternal effect of an eternal cause, main- 
 tained that not only the heavens and the earth, but all ani- 
 mate and inanimate beings are without beginning. 2d, 
 Those which consider the matter of the universe eter- 
 nal, but not its form. This was the philosophical sys-
 
 COSMOGRAPHY. 
 
 tem of Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus, and indeed most 
 of the ancient philosophers and poets, who feigned the 
 world either tote produced by the fortuitous concourse of 
 atoms existing from all eternity, or to have sprung out of 
 the chaotic form which preceded its present state 3d, 
 Those which ascribe both matter and its form to the direct 
 agencv of a spiritual cause. 
 
 COSMO'GRAPHY. (Gr. kovuos, and j . pa<pw, I write.) 
 The science which treats of the construction, figure, and 
 arrangement of all the parts of the world ; and therefore 
 comprehends astronomy, geography, and geology. 
 
 COSMO'LOGY. (Gr. KOtrpos, and \oyos, a discourse.) 
 See Cosmogony. 
 
 COSMO'POLITE. (Gr. Kocrnos, and ttoAi?, a city.) A 
 citizen of the world : one who makes the world his country. 
 
 COSMORA'MA. (Gr. koohos, and bpaio, I see.) A spe- 
 cies of picturesque exhibition, consisting of a number of 
 drawings, generally about eight or ten, which are laid hori- 
 zontally round a semicircular table, and reflected by mir- 
 rors placed opposite to them diagonally. The spectator 
 views them through a convex lens placed immediately in 
 front of each mirror. The pictures are illuminated by lamp 
 light; but the lamps are so placed that they cannot be re- 
 flected by the mirrors, and are therefore invisible to the 
 spectator. 
 
 COSS. When algebra was first introduced into Europe, 
 it was called the Rule of Coss ; probably from the Italian 
 Regola di Cosa, the Rule of the Thing; the unknown 
 quantity being termed cosa, the thing. Hence Cossic Art, 
 Cossic Numbers, &c, found in some of the old authors. 
 
 COSSA'CKS. A people inhabiting those parts of the 
 Russian empire which border on the northern dominions 
 of Turkey, Poland, and the southern confines of Siberia. 
 Both the name and origin of this people are involved in 
 great uncertainty. They seem to have nothing Russian in 
 their origin and character, and are probably a mixed Cau- 
 casian and Tartar race. They form a sort of independent 
 republic, paying no taxes to Russia, but cheerfully contribu- 
 ting their numerous and valuable contingent of troops; and 
 are well known as the most harassing light troops that ever 
 exercised a predatory warfare in the train of any army. 
 
 Their dress is a short vest in the Polish style, large trow- 
 sers of a deep blue colour, and a black sheepskin cap. 
 Their arms consist of a sabre, long spear, musket, a pair of 
 pistols, and a long whip, which they apply to their enemy 
 as well as their charger's back. They are" mostly members 
 of the Russian Greek Church, and are described as a hospi- 
 table, generous, and disinterested people. Their numbers 
 have not been estimated for nearly a century., when they 
 amounted to 955,223 males. 
 
 CO'STA. (Lat. costa, arib.) A term formerly confined 
 to that bundle of vessels which passes directly from the 
 base to the apex of a leaf; but which is better extended to 
 all the main veins which proceed directly from the base 
 to the apex, or to the points of the lobes. 
 
 CO'STAL. (Lat. costa.) Beloncing to the ribs. 
 
 CO'STARDMO'NGER. (From costard, a large apple.) 
 An itinerant dealer in apples. The word is often written 
 costermonger, and applied to hawkers and pedlars who sell 
 fruit. 
 
 CO'STATE. (Lat. costa, a rib.) In Botany, a term ap- 
 plied in two ways, in describing the venation of leaves : 
 either to indicate the presence of but one rib, as in most 
 leaves ; or in speaking of cases where three or more ribs 
 proceed from the base to the apex of a leaf, and are con- 
 nected by cross veins. The latter are frequently called 
 nerves, or nervures. If a leaf has its ribs all distinct from 
 the very base, it is called tricostate, quinquecostate, and so 
 on ; but if the ribs are united at the base in a distinct man- 
 ner, the term becomes triplicostate, quintuplicostate, &c. 
 
 Costatb. In Zoology, the surface of the whole or part 
 of an animal is so termed when it has several broad elevat- 
 ed lines. 
 
 COSTS. In Law, the expenses lo which parties are put 
 in the prosecution and defending of actions. Costs are to 
 be considered either as between attorney and client, i. e. 
 the expenses and fees which the attorney is entitled to re- 
 cover from his client ; or as between party and party, i. e. 
 that portion of the expenses to which a successful party 
 has been put in his suit, which he is entitled in certain cases 
 to recover from the unsuccessful one. Costs in the latter 
 sense are not given by the common law. The statute of 
 Gloucester (6 E. 1. c. 1. s. 2.) first enacted, that the de- 
 mandant should recover from the tenant the cost of his 
 writ, if successful ; and that this provision should extend 
 to all cases where a man recovers damages. By a liberal 
 construction of this statute the costs of the writ are under- 
 stood as the costs of the action, and its benefit is extended 
 to plaintiffs in most cases where they would have been en- 
 titled to damages before that statute. In other cases, the 
 plaintiff is not entitled to costs, unless they are expressly 
 given by statute. In assumpsit, covenant, and debt, if the 
 plaintiff have a verdict, but the damages or debt and dama- 
 ges be under 40s., the judge may deprive him of any more 
 290 
 
 COTTAGE ALLOTMENTS. 
 
 costs than damages by certifying to that effect on the record, 
 under 43 Eliz. c. 6. s. 2. In actions for assault and battery, 
 and trespass, wherever the damages given by a jury do not 
 amount to 40s., the plaintiff (by several statutes) is allowed 
 no more costs Ihan damages, unless the judge shall certify 
 that assault and battery was sufficiently proved ; or, in tres- 
 pass, that the title to land came in question. The certificate 
 may be granted at the trial, or within a reasonable time af- 
 terwards. Where, out of several issues, some are found 
 for the plaintiff and others for the defendant, the plaintiff 
 is now only entitled to costs on those issues on which he 
 may succeed, and the costs of the defendant's issues will 
 be deducted from his. The defendant's right to costs rests 
 also on several statutes, principally 23 H. 8. c. 15. Double 
 and treble costs are given by some statutes in particular 
 cases ; and they follow by implication where double and 
 treble damages are given. Double costs, in practice, mean 
 single costs and one half their amount in addition : treble, 
 the same, with one half of these last. Costs are taxed as 
 between party and party by officers of the court : and re- 
 coverable by action, execution, or attachment. As between 
 attorney and client, the attorney has a right of action for 
 costs ; but his bill is liable to taxation by officers of the court, 
 under certain restrictions. Costs in equity are within the 
 discretion of the court, except in certain cases; as where 
 no answer is made to a bill exhibited, or an insufficient 
 answer, &c. 
 
 COSTU'ME. (It.) In Painting and Sculpture, this word 
 has become used chiefly as a term denoting the particular 
 sort of dress suitable to the subject, according to the time- 
 in which the action is supposed to have taken place ; but 
 the word has a more general signification, inasmuch as it in- 
 cludes the keeping of all the accessories, ornaments, uten- 
 sils, &c.of such forms and colours as historical knowledge 
 proves them really to have possessed. 
 
 COTE' DROIT, COTE^ GAUCHE. See Deputies, 
 Chamber of. 
 
 COTERIE. An old French word, supposed to be derived 
 from the Lat. quot, hcnc many, signifying literally a society 
 or company. In the 13th or 14th century, when merchants 
 were about to embark in any commercial enterprise, they 
 formed a coterie or company, each contributing his quota 
 of goods or money, and deriving his quota of profit. But 
 the term soon acquired a more extended signification, in 
 which, however, the original meaning is still perceptible, 
 being applied to any exclusive society in which interesting 
 subjects (chiefly literary and political) are discussed, each 
 member being supposed to contribute his quota or share of 
 information for the general edification or amusement. 
 
 COTI'SE. (Fr. cote, side.) In Heraldry, a diminutive 
 of the bend, being one half the width of the bendlet; gene- 
 rally borne in couples, with a bend or charges between 
 them. A bend, fess, &c. between two cotises, is termed 
 cotised. 
 
 CO'TTABUS. (Gr. kottoSos.) A celebrated Greek 
 game. It consisted in throwing wine from cups into little 
 basins of metal suspended in a particular manner, or float- 
 ing in a large vessel of water ; so that dexterity might be. 
 shown in throwing it without spilling, in producing a par- 
 ticular sound, &c. The cottabus was so favourite a sport, 
 that rooms were built expressly forits performance, styled 
 cottaheia. 
 
 CO'TTAGE ALLOTMENTS, are those portions of 
 ground which are allotted to the dwellings of country la- 
 bourers for the purpose of being cultivated by them as gar- 
 dens. Sometimes these allotments are placed adjoining 
 the dwellings, in which case they are more commonly 
 called cottage gardens ; but at other limes they are placed 
 at a distance from the cottage, and form small portions of 
 a large enclosure ; and to this kind of cottage garden the 
 term allotment is more properly applied than to the other. 
 The object in both cases is to afford resources to the cotta- 
 ger ; and to enable him, by growing vegetables and roots of 
 various kinds, not only to supply his own family, but to keep 
 pigs, rabbits, poultry, &;c. Such being the uses of cottage, 
 allotments, the advantage of each cottage having its garden 
 surrounding it, instead of at a distance, is sufficiently oh- 
 vious. In the latter case, the cottager must necessarily 
 lose much time in travelling backwards and forwards from 
 his house to his garden ; and his wife and children will often 
 be prevented from employing themselves in it. In such u 
 garden he cannot grow fruits, because they would be com- 
 paratively unprotected ; nor can it be worlh his while to 
 grow flowers in a place where they would not prove an orna- 
 ment to his dwelling. On the supposition that the cottager 
 has his pigstye close to his dwelling, the food for the pigs 
 must be brought, home from the allotment ; and the ma- 
 nure made by them, which is one of the advantages of 
 keeping pigs, must be carried out again. It is well known 
 to all persons of any experience on this subject, that by far 
 the most valuable part of the manure made by (lie cottager, 
 such as soapsuds, &c, may be included under the term 
 liquid manure ; and this, when the allotment is at a dis- 
 tance, may be considered as entirely lost, the cottager being
 
 COTTON. 
 
 without either conveniences or time for carrying it out. In 
 point of usefulness, therefore, a cottage allotment in afield, 
 at the distance of a furlong or less from the cottage, is not 
 worth half what it would be if adjoining the dwelling ; 
 while in point of enjoyment to the cottager, and of orna- 
 ment to the roadside, it is hardly worth anything. A cot- 
 tage allotment is therefore a miserable substitute for a cot- 
 tage garden. On the other hand, the iabourer who has a 
 lease of a comfortable cottage surrounded by a garden, 
 even if the latter should not be larger than the eighth part 
 of an acre, has within his reach all the essentials of happi- 
 ness possessed by the richest landed proprietor. He can 
 grow good and wholesome vegetables and fruits; he may 
 have his live stock of pigs, poultry, rabbits, and bees ; he 
 may ornament his house front, and the borders of his 
 walks, wilh shrubs and flowers ; and he has the wages of 
 his labour for the purchase of those comforts and luxuries 
 which his garden does not afford. In the culture and man- 
 agement of this spot, he has constant occupation of the 
 most agreeable and useful kind for his leisure hours 
 throughout the year; and, in short, whatever the farmer 
 or country gentleman has on a large scale, he has on a 
 small one. In quiet possession of this little garden, which 
 he regards as his own, he learns to respect himself, acquir- 
 ing at the same time a taste for accumulating property. 
 The time, it is to be hoped, is not far distant when the hum- 
 blest country labourer will possess such a cottage and gar- 
 den ; but it is necessary that the country labourer should 
 acquire previously a taste for these comforts by seeing 
 them possessed by others of his class ; and for this we 
 must look partly to the country labourers themselves, part- 
 ly to the government for the establishment of a system of 
 universal education which shall raise the taste of the hum- 
 blest part of society, and partly to the humanity and sym- 
 pathetic feeling of the landed proprietors ; because it is to 
 them we must look, in the first instance, for building the 
 cottage and accompanying it with garden ground. 
 
 COTTON. (Gossypiiu/i. Lin.) A species of vegetable 
 wool, the produce of the Gossypium herbaceum, of which 
 there are many varieties. The kinds of cotton mel with in 
 the marketare usually designated by the names of the places 
 from which they are brought ; but practically, they are all 
 divided into the two great classes of lon« and short stapled. 
 Its goodness depends on its colour, and the length, strength, 
 and fineness of its fibre. Its price varies, according to 
 quality, from 2s. to id. per lb. The general chemical cha- 
 racters of cotton are those of tignin. It. is peculiarly sus- 
 ceptible of combination with certain metallic oxides or 
 bases; whence the facility with which it is locally dyed, as 
 in the process of calico printing, 
 
 COTTON MANUFACTURE. In modern times cotton 
 has attained to an importance among vegetables second 
 only to that of corn, and which could not have been so 
 much as dreamed of in former ages. The manufacture of 
 cotton wool into articles of use and ornament appears, in- 
 deed, to have been carried on in India from the remotest 
 antiquity; but it has not made any very great progress in 
 the East, and obtained no footing worth mentioning in Eu- 
 rope, till last century. 
 
 The truth is, that this manufacture, though it now affords 
 employment and subsistence to many hundreds of thou- 
 sands of persons in this and other countries, is almost 
 wholly a consequence of discoveries and inventions made 
 in Great Britain and the United States, since the middle of 
 last century. Previously to that period the manufacture 
 was everywhere confined within the narrowest limits. 
 Owing to the difficulty of separating the wool from the 
 seed, its price, so long as this operation had to be perform- 
 ed by the hand, was naturally high : while the cost of its 
 spinning and weaving by the wheels and looms in use pre- 
 viously to 1760 added so much to its price, that cotton ar- 
 ticles were suited only to the use and demand of the better 
 classes of society ; and it seems unreasonable to suppose 
 thatthe manufacture should havebeen materially extended 
 without a greatly increased facility of production. But in 
 this respect the most signal and extraordinary improve- 
 ments have been made. The. Tenny invented byHargreaves 
 in 1767 enabled one individual to spin 80 or 120 threads with 
 about the same facility that a single thread had been previ- 
 ously spun. The jenny, however, was fitted only to spin 
 the softer descriptions of yarn or that used as iceft, being 
 unable to give the thread the firmness and hardness re- 
 quired in that used as warp. But this deficiency was soon 
 supplied: The genius of Arkwright completed what Har- 
 greaves had begun, by inventing the spinning frame, — that 
 wonderful piece of machinery which spins any number of 
 threads of any degree of fineness and hardness, leaving to 
 man merely to feed the machine with cotton, and to join 
 the threads when they break ! Nearly at the same time 
 that the spinning department was thus wonderfully im- 
 proved. Dr. Cartwright, a clergyman of Kent, invented the 
 power-loom, a machine which has already gone far to su- 
 nersede weaving by the hand, and which will, no doubt, in 
 the end bring about this desirable result. While these ex- 
 291 
 
 COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 traor.linary inventions were being made, Watt was perfect- 
 ing the steam-engine, endowing it with capacity to engrave 
 a seal, to give motion to the most ponderous machinery, 
 or to lift a ship like a bauble in the air; and was thus not 
 only supplying the manufactures with a new power appli- 
 cable to every purpose, and easy of controul, but with one 
 that might be placed in the most convenient situations, and 
 amid a population trained to industrious habits. 
 
 Still, however, something more was necessary to com- 
 plete this astonishing career of discovery Without a 
 vastly increased supply of the raw material at a lower price 
 than it had previously brought, the inventions of Har- 
 greaves, Arkwright, and Watt would have been of compa- 
 ratively little value. Luckily, however, what they did for the. 
 manufacturers, Mr. Eli Whitney did for the cotton growers. 
 This extraordinary person, a native of the northern states 
 of America, invented a machine by which cotton wool is 
 separated from the seed with the utmost facility and ex- 
 pedition. Previously to 1790 the United States did not ex- 
 port a single pound weight of raw cotton. In 1792 they ex- 
 ported the trifling quantity of 138.328 lbs. Whitney's in- 
 vention came into operation in 1793 ; and in 1794, 1,601,760 
 lbs., and in 1795, 5,276,305 lbs. were exported ! And so as- 
 tonishing has been the growth of cotton in the interval, oc- 
 casioned by this discovery and the discoveries made in 
 England, that in 1838 the exports from the United States 
 amounted to the prodigious quantity of 595,952,297 lbs. ! 
 
 A cotton mill is probably, all things considered, the most 
 astonishing triumph of skill and ingenuity. All the various 
 operations, from the carding of the wool to its conversion 
 into a texture as fine almost as that of the gossamer, is per- 
 formed by machinery. Each of the workmen at present 
 employed in a cotton mill superintends as much work as 
 could have been executed by two or three hundred work- 
 men 60 or 70 years ago, and yet, instead of being diminished, 
 the numbers employed have increased even in u still great- 
 er proportion ! It would be curious to investigate how 
 many persons in the old and new worlds directly depend 
 for subsistence on the inventions and discoveries of Har 
 greaves, Arkwright, Watt, Whitney, and the oilier founders 
 and improvers of this great manufacture. They certainly 
 amount to several millions ; al the same time that there is 
 hardly an individual in any country, how remote or bar- 
 barous soever, who is not indebted to them for an increase 
 of comfort and enjoyment. 
 
 " It is impossible to estimate the advantage to the bulk 
 of the people, from the wonderful cheapness of cotton 
 goods. The wife of a labouring man may buy, at a retail 
 shop, a neat and good print as low as Ad. a yard ; so that. 
 allowing 7 yards for the dress, the whole material shall only 
 cost 2s. Ad. sterling. Common plain calico may he bought 
 Inr ■_"//. a yard; elegant cotton prints for ladies' dresses 
 sell at from 10rf. to Is. Ad. per yard, and printed muslins at 
 from Is. to 4s., the hisher priced havins beautiful patterns, 
 in brilliant and permanent colours. Thus the humblest 
 classes have now the means of as great neatness, and even 
 gaiety of dress, as the middle and upper classes of the last 
 age. A country wake in the 19th century may display as 
 much finery as a drawing room of the 17th : and the pea- 
 sant's cottage may, at this day, with good management, 
 have as handsome furniture for beds, windows, and tables, 
 as the house of a substantial tradesman 60 years since." 
 (Blaines's Hist. Cotton Manufacture, p. 358.) 
 
 The following statements give a view of the progress of 
 the manufacture in Great Britain : — 
 Account of the Imports of Cotton Wool, and of the official 
 
 Value of the Cotton Goods exported from Great Britain 
 
 in the following Years, from 1697 to 1764, both inclusive 
 
 Years. 
 
 Raw Cotton 
 imported. 
 
 Official 
 Value of 
 British Cot- 
 ton Goods 
 exported. 
 
 Yeais. 
 
 Raw Cotton 
 imported. 
 
 Official 
 Value of 
 British Cot- 
 ton Goode 
 exported. 
 
 1697 
 1701 
 1710 
 1720 
 
 Ibt. 
 
 1,976,359 
 1,985,668 
 
 7I5;003 
 1,972,805 
 
 L. 
 
 5,915 
 23.253 
 
 5,698 
 16,200 
 
 1730 
 1741 
 1751 
 1764 
 
 lbs. 
 
 1,545.472 
 1,6-15.031 
 2,976,610 
 3,870,392 
 
 L. 
 13,524 
 20.709 1 
 45,986 I 
 200,354 1 
 
 The spinning jenny was invented in 1767, and Arkwrisht 
 took out his first patent for spinning by rollers in 1769. The 
 influence of these and numberless other inventions on the 
 trade is exhibited in the following table : — 
 
 1 
 
 Years. 
 
 Cotton 
 imported. 
 
 Cotton 
 
 exported. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Cotton 
 imported. 
 
 Cotton 
 exported. 
 
 1781 
 1735 
 1790 
 1795 
 1800 
 1805 
 
 tb». 
 
 5,198,778 
 13,400,384 
 31,447,605 
 26,401,340 
 56,010,732 
 59,682,406 
 
 lb*. 
 
 96,788 
 
 407,496 
 
 844,154 
 
 1,193,737 
 
 4,416,610 
 
 804,243 
 
 1810 
 1811 
 1812 
 1813 
 1814 
 1815 
 
 lbs. 
 132,488,935 
 91.576,535 
 63,025,936 
 50.966.000 
 60.060,239 
 99,306,343 
 
 lbs. 
 
 3.787,109 
 L266.867 
 1,440,912 
 
 6.282,437 
 6,780,392
 
 COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 The subjoined statement, taken from the circular of Messrs. George Holt and Co., cotton brokers at Liverpool, 
 dated the 31st December, 1840, gives a very complete view of all the more important particulars respecting the British 
 cotton manufacture in the undermentioned years, from 1816 to 1840, both inclusive. 
 
 Statement of the Consumption, Exportation, &c. of the different sorts of Cotton Wool, in and from Great Britain, 
 in different Years, from 1816 to 1840, both inclusive. 
 
 Average Weekly Consumption. 
 
 Upland 
 
 Orleans and Tennessee 
 
 Sea Island 
 
 Total United States 
 
 Brazil 
 
 Egypt 
 
 East India - 
 
 Demerara, West India, <fcc. - 
 
 Total 
 Packages annually consumed 
 Average weight of packages 
 
 consumed, in lbs. 
 Weekly consumption in pack- 
 ages, average 346 lbs. - 
 Average weight of packages 
 
 imported, in lbs. 
 Packages exported 
 Lbs. weight annually import- 
 ed, in millions and tenths • 
 Lbs. weight consumed, do. - 
 Lbs. weight in ports, 31st of 
 
 Dec. do. • 
 Lbs. weight in Gt. Britain, do. 
 Averageprice per lb. of up 
 
 lands in Liverpool 
 Do. do. Pemam 
 
 Do. do. Surats • 
 
 990 
 
 4.036 
 1,589 
 
 207 
 656 
 
 6,488 
 337,400 
 
 263 
 
 5,122 
 
 256 
 
 29,300 
 
 93 9 
 
 88-7 
 192 
 
 26d. 
 15i(/. 
 
 2.91S 
 
 1,192 
 
 409 
 
 4,519 
 2,408 
 
 1,518 
 534 
 
 8 979 
 466,900 
 
 6,945 
 
 249 
 
 23,400 
 
 1439 
 120 3 
 110'5 
 
 127 
 
 ll§d. 
 Ibid. 
 8§d. 
 
 3.713 
 2,442 
 
 360 
 
 6,515 
 2,502 
 
 891 
 
 1,096 
 
 527 
 
 5.452 
 
 4,756 
 
 460 
 
 11.531 
 599,600 
 
 278 
 
 9,634 
 
 270 
 
 72,800 
 
 222-4 
 166-8 
 107 
 
 115-5 
 
 11 -6d. 
 15-lrf. 
 8-9d. 
 
 10,66- 
 3,602 
 
 508 
 ' 940 
 
 284 
 
 16,002 
 932.10U 
 
 298 
 
 14,320 
 
 300 
 33,400 
 
 2612 
 2476 
 914 
 
 •1188 
 
 6-9<7. 
 
 Std. 
 
 bd. 
 
 5,! 
 
 7,823 
 
 354 
 
 14,073 
 2,339 
 
 446 
 1,069 
 
 421 
 
 18,348 
 954,100 
 
 333 
 
 18,348 
 
 331 
 102,800 
 
 361-7 
 3181 
 73-3 
 
 89 6 
 
 tow. 
 
 14. Id. 
 7kd. 
 
 4,438 5,505 5,464 
 
 10,223 11,742 9,915 
 
 310 317 265 
 
 14,971 
 
 2.483 
 
 '779 
 
 1,639 
 
 461 
 
 17.564 
 
 2,460 
 781| 
 
 1,760 
 639 
 
 20,3a3 23,204 
 1,057,300 1,206,600 
 
 346 
 
 20,333 
 
 347 
 123,400 
 
 403-2 
 
 365 7 
 
 82-1 
 
 346 
 
 23,204 
 
 350 
 
 103,300 
 
 501-0 
 416-7 
 110-1 
 
 160-9 
 
 Id. Id. 
 
 9|d. 9-375rf. 
 
 4 - 85c£ I 5d. 
 
 15.C44 
 2,373 
 
 £43 
 
 2,142 
 
 723 
 
 21,430 
 1,114,400 
 
 343 
 
 20,764 
 
 348 
 117,300 
 
 331-7 
 96-5 
 
 7ld. 
 I0d 
 bid. 
 
 5.346 
 
 13,354 
 
 392 
 
 19,592 
 
 1,444 
 
 540 
 
 2,227 
 
 260 
 
 24,063 
 ,251,300 
 
 354 
 
 24,063 
 
 365 
 
 119,700 
 
 583-4 
 458-9 
 162-9 
 
 207 
 
 6d. 
 94-d. 
 4K 
 
 X. rj _ Messrs. Holt & Co. estimate the average weight of the packages imported in 1840 at 333 lbs. per bag Upland ; 415 
 lbs. Orleans and Alabama; 230 lbs. Sea-Island; 171 lbs. Brazil; 215 lbs. Egyptian ; 342 lbs. East Indian; aud 166 lbs. 
 West Indian. 
 
 We subjoin from Burm's Glance, — a tabular statement, annually published at Manchester, and admitted to be 
 drawn up with great care, — an account of the cotton spun in Great Britain and Ireland in 1S38 , and how that spun ill 
 England was disposed of, with several other interesting particulars. 
 
 Statement of Cotton spun in England, Scotland and Ireland, in 1838; showing the Quantity of Yarn produced, and how 
 
 that spun in England was disposed of. 
 
 Number of Bags 
 consumed. 
 
 Average weight of 
 Bags in lbs. 
 
 938,168 
 147.392 
 40,273 
 94,468 
 16.519 
 
 1,236,820 
 
 373 
 171 
 284 
 363 
 316 
 
 346 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 
 American Cotton - 
 
 Brazil ditto 
 
 Egyptian ditto .... 
 
 East India ditto .... 
 West India ditto .... 
 Total number of bags consumed • 
 
 Allowed for loss in spinning, If oz. per lb. 
 
 '■ Total quantity spun in England and Scotland ....... 
 
 ' Deduct quantity spun in Scotland 
 
 j Total quantity spun in England in 1833 
 
 How disposed of. 
 
 ! Exported in yarn during the year 
 
 Ditto in thread 
 
 Ditto in manufactured goods 
 
 I Estimated quantity of yarn sent to Scotland and Ireland 
 
 j Exported in mixed manufactures, not stated in the above-named articles, con 
 . sumed in cotton banding, healds, candle and lamp wick, waddings, flocks, cal 
 I ender bowls, paper, umbrellas, hats, and loss in manufacturing goods • 
 j Balance left for home consumption and stock, 1st January, 1839 
 Ditto ditto ditto 1838 - 
 
 Ditto ditto ditto 1837 - 
 
 Ditto ditto ditto 1836 - 
 
 IRELAND. 
 
 Gross weight of cotton spun in Ireland in 1838 
 
 Allowed for loss in spinning, If oz. per lb. ...... 
 
 Toatl quantity of yarn spun in Ireland in 1838 ....... 
 
 Total weight in lbs. 
 
 Weekly consumption of 
 Bags, describing each 
 
 349,936,664 
 25,204,032 
 
 11,437.532 
 34.291.884 
 5,220.004 
 
 426,090,116 
 
 40.603,00;; 
 
 113,753,197 
 2,362,983 
 
 120,784,029 
 6,875,952 
 
 16,753,000 
 84,133,283 
 
 63.657.902 
 43,486,686 
 49,932,800 
 
 4,412, c 60 
 482.656 
 
 3,930,204 
 
 18,041.36 
 
 2,834.24 
 
 774.25 
 
 1.816.36 
 
 317.35 
 
 23.785 
 
 379,486,510 
 34.823,466 
 
 344,663,044 
 
 344,663,044 
 
 In 1832 the quantity spun was 222,596,907 lbs., giving a 
 weekly supply of 4,280,709 lbs. Mr. Burns estimates the 
 quantity spun per spindle, per week, at 8} oz., making the 
 total number of spindles employed in England and Wales, 
 in 1832, 7,949,208. Those employed in Scotland, during the 
 same year, are estimated, in the same way, at 331,020. Mr. 
 Burns further calculates the number of looms employed in 
 England and Wales, in 1832, at 203,730. The consumption 
 of flour in the manufacture is much greater than any one 
 292 
 
 not pretty well acquainted w'th it would readily suppose. 
 The average quantity required for each loom is estimated 
 at 4 lbs. per week ; making the total annual consumption in 
 England and Wales, in 1832, 42,301,584 lbs. or 215,824 bar- 
 rels of 196 lbs. each !, 
 
 The places whence the supply of raw cotton is derived, 
 and the quantity furnished by each, are seen in the follow- 
 ing table :—
 
 COTTON MANUFACTURE. 
 
 Account of the Quantities of Cotton Wool imported into the United Kingdom during the Seven Yeara ending with 
 1838; specifying the Quantities brought from different Countries, the Total Quantities exported, and the Quantities 
 left for Consumption. — (Compiled from Pari. Papers.) 
 
 Countries. 
 
 183.'. 1833. 
 
 1834. 
 
 1835. 
 
 1836. 
 
 1837. 
 
 1838. 
 
 Cotton wool from foreign countries, viz. 
 
 lbs. lbs. 
 
 lbs. 
 
 lbs. 
 
 /6s. 
 
 lbs. 
 
 lbs. 
 
 United Slates of America 
 
 219.756,7531237,506,758 
 
 269,203,075 
 
 284,465,812 2s9.615.C92 
 
 320,651,716 
 
 431,437.888. 
 
 Brazil 
 
 20.109,560 
 
 2S.463.S21 
 
 19,291,396 
 
 24,986,409| 27,501,272 
 
 20,940,145 
 
 24,464,505 
 
 Turkey and Egypt 
 
 9,113,890 
 
 987,262 
 
 855,167 
 
 5,738,966 5.426.721 
 
 7,881,540 
 
 5,412,478) 
 
 Other foreign countries 
 
 598,048 
 
 1,696,108 
 
 2,260,852 
 
 5,207.389 6,73-1,413 
 
 4,616,829 
 
 4,759,688 1 
 
 Cotton wool fromBritish possessions,viz. 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 East Indies and Mauritius 
 
 35,178,625 
 
 32,755,164 
 
 32,920,865 
 
 41,474,909! 75,957,887 
 
 51,577,197 
 
 40,230,064 
 
 British West Indies, the growth of 
 
 1,708,764 
 
 1,653,166 
 
 1,672,211 
 
 1,495,5171 1,312,806 
 
 1,199,162 
 
 928,425 
 
 Ditto ditto, imported from 
 
 331,664 
 
 431,696 
 
 624,314 
 
 319,753' 401,531 
 
 396,540 
 
 600,931 
 
 Other British possessions 
 
 Total quantities imported 
 
 35,221 
 
 162,862 
 
 47,545 
 
 24,203 8,735 
 
 23,654 
 
 16,606 
 
 2S6,832,525 
 
 303,656,537 
 
 326,875,425 
 
 363,702,963 406,959,057 
 
 407,286,783 
 
 507,850,577 
 
 Quantities exported 
 Left for consumption 
 
 18,027,940 
 
 17,363,882 
 
 24,461,963 
 
 32,779,734 31,739,763 
 
 39,722,031 
 
 30,644,469 
 
 268,804,585 
 
 286,292,955302,414,462 
 
 330,923,229 375,219,294 
 
 367.564.752 
 
 477,206,108 
 
 Account of the Exports of Cotton Goods and Yarn from the United Kingdom in 1837 ; specifying the Quantity and 
 declared Value of those shipped for each Country. 
 
 Couutries to which exported. 
 
 Russia 
 
 Sweden .... 
 
 Norway .... 
 
 Denmark .... 
 Prussia .... 
 
 Germany .... 
 Holland .... 
 
 Belgium .... 
 
 France .... 
 
 Portugal, Proper . 
 
 Azores 
 
 Madeira . 
 Spain and the Balearic Islands 
 
 Canaries 
 Gibraltar .... 
 
 Italy and the Italian Islands . 
 
 Malta 
 
 Ionian Islands 
 Morea and Greek Islands 
 Turkey .... 
 
 Syria and Palestine 
 
 Egypt 
 
 Tripoli, Tunis, Algiers, and 
 Morocco .... 
 Western Coast of Africa 
 Cape of Good Hope 
 St. Helena .... 
 Mauritius 
 
 E. I. Co. 's Territories <fc Ceylon 
 Sumatra, Java, dc other Islands 
 
 of the Indian Sea 
 Philippine Islands 
 
 China 
 
 N.S. Wales.VanDieman's Land, 
 & other Australian Scltlcm'ts, 
 British N. American Colonies 
 British West Indies 
 Hayti .... 
 
 Cuba and other Foreign West 
 
 Indian Colonies 
 United Slates of America 
 States of Central and S.America 
 
 Mexico . 
 
 Columbia 
 
 Brazil 
 
 States of R. de la Plata 
 
 Chili 
 
 Peru 
 Isles of Guernsey, Jersey, Al-( 
 derney, Man, &c. 
 
 Yards. 
 
 930,779 
 62,939 
 
 164,634 
 45,992 
 
 14,203,855 
 
 16,382,581 
 
 865,339 
 
 1,169,753 
 
 15,966,118 
 541,605 
 519,315 
 151,380 
 471,917 
 
 i::.9.-6.-:;n 
 
 21.976.111 
 
 1,108,032 
 
 1,497,260 
 
 9,054 
 
 23,727,096 
 
 5,140 
 
 5,559,900 
 
 2,928,580 
 
 C.II7.S13 
 
 2,293,943 
 
 18,816 
 
 3,053,808 
 
 46,366,175 
 
 5,952,848 
 
 473,370 
 
 8,519,245 
 
 1,275,348 
 
 6,319,864 
 
 19,695,492 
 
 1,246,463 
 
 6,798,703 
 5,471,788 
 
 2,713,90: 
 1,436,553 
 25,387,191 
 10,923,196 
 7,825,718 
 3,655,774 
 
 833,704 
 
 £ 40,203 
 1,717 
 4,081 
 1,033 
 
 Totals 
 
 294,378 
 
 341,448 
 
 32,271 
 
 23,683 
 
 26s, 1S9 
 
 11,789 
 
 8,255 
 
 4,047 
 
 10,763 
 
 310.777 
 
 526,881 
 
 21,638 
 
 26.314 
 
 256 
 
 482,438 
 
 330 
 
 107,125 
 
 41,552 
 15,783 
 54,567 
 519 
 78,395 
 1,040,018 
 
 144,962 
 
 10,075 
 
 193,075 
 
 36,561 
 161,392 
 417,580 
 
 28,421 
 
 148,024 
 187,585 
 
 55,651 
 32,630 
 436.192 
 207,714 
 150,492 
 88,01" 
 
 38,975 
 
 Yards. 
 
 145,760 
 48,552 
 
 347,809 
 71,569 
 
 28,967,374 
 
 ll.5ss.241 
 1,998,160 
 
 1, 269,924 
 
 15,748,216 
 
 731,946 
 
 649,954 
 
 205,986 
 
 435,599 
 
 12,681,183 
 
 17,631,057 
 
 562,773 
 
 si l. est; 
 
 67,794 
 
 9,423,139 
 
 693,240 
 
 253.009 
 4,365,569 
 3,136,936 
 5,326 
 2,237,689 
 17,847,458 
 
 2,620,300 
 613,421 
 
 2,445,178 
 
 1.335,325 
 
 7,950,884 
 
 17,998,452 
 
 1,612,897 
 
 11,966,502 
 12,010,067 
 
 4,227.065 
 2,675,164 
 23,380,427 
 9,260,258 
 9,356,806 
 5,641,351 
 
 159,360 
 
 . 236,164,256 6,085,789 245,209,407 6,642,200 
 
 £7,590 
 1,850 
 9,964 
 1,369 
 
 713,771 
 322,400 
 
 72,528 
 35,529 
 
 369,712 
 18,740 
 12,767 
 5.694 
 12,234 
 
 375,367 
 
 481.915 
 17,364 
 19,955 
 2,664 
 
 288,230 
 
 ' 23,207 
 
 4,892 
 119,540 
 
 NUSt 
 
 141 
 
 73,556 
 468,231 
 
 97,620 
 17,695 
 79,300 
 
 44,889 
 222,001 
 465,449 
 
 53,270 
 
 293,865 
 407,237 
 
 143,805 
 58,136 
 551,258 
 237,557 
 240,267 
 165,804 
 
 4,334 
 
 Hosiery 
 Liid small 
 Wares. 
 
 £9,106 
 
 708 
 
 1,682 
 
 162,263 
 
 50,205 
 
 102.233 
 
 93,76s 
 
 21,084 
 
 S3S 
 
 1,068 
 
 221 
 
 924 
 
 17,271 
 
 40,910 
 
 2,208 
 
 790 
 
 33 
 
 2,297 
 
 349 
 
 407 
 
 391 
 
 9,389 
 
 19 
 
 7,749 
 
 30,444 
 
 5,931 
 1,115 
 1,012 
 
 Twist and Yam. 
 
 Pounds 
 
 24,108,593 
 
 734,336 
 
 197,700 
 
 57,470 
 
 4,924 
 
 34,272,607 
 
 15,993,072 
 
 67,397 
 
 94.707 
 
 323.262 
 
 17,840 
 
 1,358 
 
 687 
 
 1,071 
 
 225,939 
 
 8,775,028 
 
 176,260 
 
 297,a80 
 
 1,800 
 
 3,527,538 
 
 660,700 
 
 2,982 
 9,314 
 
 10,400 
 8,478,021 
 
 127,620 
 
 ' 1,873,965 
 
 15,809 13,625 
 
 39,068 260,732 
 
 43,812' 55,549 
 
 2,751 . 
 
 11,608' 6,250 
 
 117,572; 219,712 
 
 13,339 2,654,867 
 
 4,0851 188,283 
 
 26.987 
 18,818: 
 18.217 
 14,300! 
 
 21,323 
 
 560 
 5,734 
 
 7,255 
 
 Total 
 Declared 
 Value. 
 
 £1,612,956 
 
 55,060 
 
 10,474 
 
 2,870 
 
 5021 
 
 2,177,823 
 
 1,386.388 
 
 Si752 
 
 31,364 
 
 23,612 
 
 786 
 
 78 
 
 45 
 
 63 
 
 14,729 
 
 477,882 
 
 9,729 
 
 14,303 
 
 100 
 
 180,225 
 
 ' 41,372 
 
 395 
 899 
 
 468 
 602,293 
 
 7358 
 
 103,908 
 
 781 
 14,307 
 4,487 
 
 309 
 13,359 
 
 144,489 
 
 12,488 
 
 48 
 
 364 
 
 £1,669,855 
 
 59,335 
 
 26,201 
 
 5,357 
 
 502 
 
 3,348,235 
 
 2,100,441 
 
 215,784 
 
 184,344 
 
 682,597 
 
 32,153 
 
 22,168 
 
 10.007 
 
 231984 
 
 718,144 
 
 1,527.588 
 
 50;939 
 
 61,362 
 
 3,053 
 
 953,190 
 
 330 
 
 172,053 
 
 46,851 
 136,109 
 145,338 
 679 
 160,168 
 2.160,986 
 
 256,371 
 28,885 
 377,295 
 
 98,040 
 436,768 
 931,328 
 
 84,442 
 
 453,806 
 725,753 
 
 357,284 
 107,339 
 1,014,485 
 464,473 
 408,970 
 268,117 
 
 65,008 
 
 912,192103,455,138 6,955,942; 20,596,123 
 
 Owing partly to our having had the start in the career of 
 discovery, hut more to our command of all but inexhausti- 
 ble supplies of coal, so indispensable to the cheap and ad- 
 vantageous supply of steam as amoving power, and to the 
 enterprise and invention of our capitalists, engineers, and 
 workmen, we have continued to keep that lead in the man- 
 ufacture we early acquired. At this moment it affords em- 
 ployment to not fewer than 1,500,000 individuals in this 
 country , and constitutes, in fact, the grand source of our 
 293 
 
 manufacturing prosperity, and the principal element of our 
 commerce. 
 
 Manchester, or rather Lancashire, is the grand seat of the 
 English cotton manufacture ; and next to it Cheshire, Not- 
 tinghamshire, the West Riding of Yorkshire, and Cumber- 
 land, are its principal seats. Glasgow and the surrounding 
 district is the seat of the manufacture in Scotland. In Ireland 
 it is principally confined to Belfast ; but there it is of very 
 limited dimensions, and is said to be rather on the decline.
 
 COTTUS. 
 
 With the exception of those employed in hand-loom 
 weaving, the condition of the labourers employed in the 
 cotton trade is eminently satisfactory. It has not only made 
 a vast addition to the field of employment, but it has in- 
 creased the comforts of those engaged in it. The stories 
 once so current as to the cruelties practised upon and the 
 hardships endured by the children and young persons em- 
 ployed in cotton factories, were, though not wholly with- 
 out foundation, grossly exaggerated: — they never, indeed, 
 existed in the first-class mills ; and since the system began 
 of excluding children under 9 years of age, limiting the 
 hours of employment, and appointing inspectors, abuses 
 have been wholly put an end to. 
 
 The value of the cotton manufacture of Great Britain is 
 greater than that of all Europe besides. And provided 
 tranquility be maintained at home, and we continue to be 
 exempted from that political agitation that iB the bane of 
 industry and the curse of every country in which it pre- 
 vails, we have nothing to fear from foreign competition. 
 Our natural and acquired advantages for the prosecution of 
 manufactures and trade are vastly superior to those of 
 every other country; and though foreigners do excel 
 us in a few departments, and may come to excel us in 
 others, so that the character and species of the manufac- 
 ture may in consequence be partially changed, there is 
 not so much as the shadow of a foundation for supposing 
 that its amount will be at all affected. On the contrary, it 
 is all but certain it will continue to augment with the aug- 
 menting wealth and population of the innumerable nations 
 with which we have commercial relations. 
 
 It is impossible to frame any accurate estimate of the 
 total value of the cotton goods and yarn annually produced 
 in Great Britain. In the Commercial Dictionary they are 
 estimated at about 34,000,000/. and we are inclined to think 
 that this is not far from the mark. Mr. Baines, in his elab- 
 orate work on the history of the Cotton Manufacture, gives 
 the following estimate of the number of people employed, 
 and the value of the manufacture. 
 
 Estimated Yearly Value of the British Cotton 
 Manufacture. 
 Wages of £ 
 
 237,000 " operatives engaged in spinning and pow- 
 er-loom-weaving .... 6,044,000 
 
 250,(HX)t hand-loom weavers, at 7s. per week each 4,375,000 
 45,000 callico printers, at 10s. per week each 1,170,000 
 159,300 1 lace workers (including 100,000 employed 
 in embroidery, and 30,000 in mending, 
 pearling, drawing, and finishing) - -1,000.000 
 33,000 makers of cotton hosiery - - 505,000 
 
 Bleachers, dyers, calenderers, fustian-cut- 
 ters, machine-makers ; makers of steam- 
 engines, cards, rollers, spindles, shuttles, 
 looms, and reeds; smiths, joiners, builders 
 of all classes, mill-wrights, carriers, car- 
 ters, warehouse-men, &c. &c. say 4,000,000 
 Raw material (spun in 1833) 283,675,200 lbs.TI at Id 
 per lb. ..... 8,244,693 
 
 Profits of capital, sums paid for materials of ma- 
 chinery, coals, flour for dressing, and other out- 
 goings. « 6,000,000 
 
 £31,338,693 
 In the Commercial Dictionary the capital employed in 
 the manufacture is estimated at 34,000,000/.; which Mr. 
 Baines thinks is very moderate. 
 
 CO'TTUS. (Gr. kottt), a head.) A genus of spiny- 
 finned fishes ; so called on account of the large size of the 
 head. It includes two British species, viz. the Falherlash- 
 er (Cottus bubalis.) and the Sea Scorpion (Cottus scorpio) ; 
 both of which are dreaded by fishermen on account of the 
 painful and dangerous wounds which they inflict by means 
 of the spines with which the gill-covers are armed. 
 
 • Mr. Stanway, from the Returns of the mil] owners, ascertained that 
 67,819 mill operatives in England received 141,6352. 5s. 7 3-4c2. aa wages 
 for a month of four weeks : at the same rate, 237,000 mill operatives, 
 the number in the United Kingdom, would earn 6,434,453/. per year. 
 But as wages in Scotland are 10 per cent, and in Ireland 15 or 53 per 
 cent, lower than in England, and as two weeks' wages in the year 
 ought to be deducted for holidays, the amount of wages paid will be 
 about 6,044,000/. 
 
 t In my estimate of the number of weavera I have not reckoned the 
 winders, draw-boys, &c. who assist them, and who must amount to a 
 great many thousands ; but, in the supposed average of their wages, I 
 include those earned by the assistants of the weavers as well as by the 
 weavers themselves. The sum of 7s. per week for the gross wages of 
 all hand-loom weavers is, I am convinced, a fair estimate. The calcu- 
 lation is for 50 weeks in the year. 
 
 I The wages paid to the women and children employed in embroidery, 
 mending, &c. the lace, must be extremely low. Mr. Felkin estimates 
 the whole value of the lace manufactured in England at 1,850,650;.; de- 
 duct the cost of the yarn, 635.000/. and there remains the sum of 1 ,'215.. 
 650/. ; of which, probably, 1,000,010/. consists of wages to the work- 
 people. 
 
 T| The quantity stated by Burns in the Commercial Glance. 
 
 I I "adopt this sum from Mr. M'Culloch, thinking it a moderate 
 estimate." 
 
 294 
 
 COUNCIL. 
 
 COTYLE'DON. (Gr. kotv\ti, aholluic.) In Botany, the 
 seminal leaf of a plant This organ forms a part of the 
 embryo, and is what nourishes the plumula and radicle at 
 their first period of development, before they are able 
 to subsist upon the organizable matter absorbed by the 
 latter from the earth Exogenous plants have gener- 
 ally two cotyledons, Endogenous as generally one only ; 
 but there are exceptions in both cases. The latter class of 
 plants seldom elevate their cotyledon above ground, and 
 never convert it into a green leaf-like body, but usually 
 leave it behind them within the integuments of the seed'; 
 the former frequently raise their cotyledons above the soil 
 in the form of small green leaves, as in the garden radish ; 
 but there are very numerous exceptions to this, as in the 
 pea, the oak. the chesnut, &c. 
 
 COTYLE'DONS. (Applied by Aristotle to designate 
 the sucking-cups of the arms of the Dibranchiate Cepha- 
 lopoda.) In Comparative Anatomy, the cup-shaped vascu- 
 lar productions of the chorion in Ruminants, serving the 
 office of a placenta, are so called. 
 
 COTY'LIFORM. (Gr. kotv\v, a cup.) A term used in 
 describing the general form of organs to denote a rotate 
 figure with an erect limb. 
 
 COUCH. A layer or heap of barley, moistened and 
 prepared for mailing; also the name of that part of the 
 malting floor on which the barley is spread out. 
 
 COUCHANT. (Fr.) In Heraldry, a term applied to a 
 beast when represented as lying on the ground. 
 
 COU'CHING. In Agriculture, clearing land from couch 
 grass (Triticum repens), which iseffected by first pulver- 
 izing it, and then, in very dry weather, collecting the couch 
 by harrows, or by a horse rake, such as that used for col- 
 lecting stubble, and which so applied is called a couch 
 rake. 
 
 Cou'ching. One of the operations to restore vision in 
 cases of cataract : it consists in depressing the opaque lens, 
 so as to remove it out of the axis of vision. 
 
 COUGH. This term is applied to a spasmodic action of 
 the respiratory organs, occasioning a sonorous expulsion 
 of air from the lungs : it is very commonly symptomatic 
 of other affections ; and some nosologists have considered 
 that it is always so, and never idiopathic. Many cases of 
 cough depend upon the extension of catarrh to the trachea 
 and bronchiae, which become loaded with mucus or phlegm, 
 the efforts to expel which constitute coughing. Others are 
 perhaps referable to a vitiated secretion ; and others to im- 
 perfect action of the absorbents, by which the natural 
 mucous secretion remains and accumulates in the air 
 vessels, and by evaporation becomes inspissated and irri- 
 tating ; this appears to be one of the causes of the dry 
 cough to which old people are subject. The treatment of 
 catarrhal cough consists in allaying irritation by demul- 
 cents, such as mucilaginous drinks and lozenges, which, 
 acting upon the glottis, sympathelically affect the trachea 
 and its ramifications : amongst these extract of liquorice, 
 and lozenges made of it and equal parts of gum tragacanth, 
 are very effectual. Stimulants and full diet are to be 
 avoided, and inflammatory symptoms carefully guarded 
 against ; for these are not unfrequently brought on by the. 
 violence of a cough. It is not unfrequently necessary to 
 call in the aid of sedatives, expectorants, and aperients. 
 Amongst the former small doses of Dover's powder, or 
 of equal parts of it and extract of henbane, are very 
 serviceable ; and it is not uncommon to observe a trouble- 
 some cough disappear after a brisk dose of physic. An 
 emetic will also sometimes effect its cure ; so that coughs 
 have been by some considered as symptomatic of a vitiated 
 state of stomach and bowels. Where a cough periodically 
 returns at night, and is not inflammatory, a dose of lauda- 
 num sufficient to induce sound sleep will often, as it were, 
 break the habit and relieve it. Sedatives, conjoined with 
 stimulating expectorants, such as squills, ammoniacum, 
 benzoic acid, &c, are often effectual in relieving the 
 coughs of old age ; and in these, and what are called 
 nervous coughs, much relief is experienced by administer- 
 ing mild opiates in the form of lozenges, so that they may 
 pass gradually over the neighbourhood of the affected part, 
 in consequence of the slowness with which they are dis- 
 solved in the mouth and swallowed : lozenges of sugar, 
 liquorice, or tragacanth, with about two grains of extract 
 of poppies in each, are useful in such cases. Where 
 coughs are symptomatic of inflammatory action, of asthma, 
 &c, they often require modes of treatment which have 
 more particular reference to their exciting causes. 
 
 COU'LTER. (Lat. culter, the coidter of a plough.) In 
 Agriculture, an iron blade or knife inserted into the beam 
 of a plough, for the purpose of cutting the ground and fa- 
 cilitating the separation of the furrow-slice by the plough- 
 share. See Plough. 
 
 COU'MARIN. A crystalline odoriferous principle ex. 
 traded from the tonka bean, which is the seed of the Cow- 
 marouna odorata. 
 
 COU'NCBL,. In Church History, an assembly of pre- 
 lates and other spiritual persons for the regulation of ec-
 
 COUNCIL, PRIVY. 
 
 clesiastical matters. Such councils are either national, or 
 oecumenical ; the latter being those in which the whole 
 body of the clenry throughout the world is represented, 
 and are convened for the settling of points of universal in- 
 terest. 
 
 The Roman Catholics hold that the decision of oecume- 
 nic or general councils are infallible, and for the most part 
 allow their superiority to the popes themselves. This su- 
 periority was first asserted at the Council of Pisa, in which 
 the two reigning anti-popes were deposed ; and confirmed 
 by the proceedings of those of Constance and Basil. Since 
 that time the popes have been very unwilling to convene a 
 general council, and that of Trent is the only one that has 
 assembled in liter times. 
 
 The Protestants allow the authority of general councils 
 in matters which do not contradict Scripture, and attach 
 great importance to the four first councils ; viz. of Nice, 
 Constantinople I., Ephesus, and Chalcedon. But they 
 maint tin that a general council can only be called by a tem- 
 poral prince, which prerogative is assigned by the Roman- 
 ists to the pope. 
 
 Their infallibility they strongly deny, and appear to re- 
 duce that assumption to an absurdity by asking — 
 
 1. What is the proof of infallibility existing in the church 
 at all 7 
 
 2. Supposing it to exist, how can it be shown that the 
 church has been truly represented in any council! Or, 
 
 3. How can it be shown that the infallibility resides in a 
 hare majority rather than the minority, when a difference 
 of opinion prevails? 
 
 COU'NCIL, PRI'VY. The principal council belonging 
 to the king of England. In its origin it appears as a small 
 permanent committee, or minor council, consisting of 
 members selected by the king himself out of the great 
 council of the kingdom. The latter body is supposed to 
 have been originally composed of all the immediate tenants 
 of the crown ; and if was occasionally summoned as late 
 as tli'i reign of Ric. II., and seems then to have comprised 
 nearly all the prelates, nobles, and bannerets of the king- 
 dom, "et autrea sages" When the privy council was 
 formed out of it has not been ascertained. It appears in 
 early rolls of parliament as the permanent or continual 
 council ; and as its powers under the Piantagenet kings 
 were very extensive, so parliament exercised considerable 
 influence in controlling the appointment of its members, 
 although always vested in the crown as an essential prero- 
 gative. The privy council under these sovereigns usually 
 consisted of the five great officers of state, the two arch- 
 bishops, and from ten to fifteen other individuals, spiritual 
 or temporal. It sat continually as a court, both to expedite 
 the executive part of the administration, and to provide 
 equitable relief in cases submitted to it, thus controlling the 
 courts of common law. (See Sir F. Palgrave's Essay on 
 the Original Authority of the King's Council, 1834 ; and the 
 Preface to the Records of the P. Credited by Sir II. Nicolas.) 
 There were also under the Tudors councils, portions of the 
 privy council, exercising like powers in various parts of 
 England. The increasing power of parliament on the one 
 hand, and the extended equitahle jurisdiction of the lord 
 chancellor on the other, gradually encroached upon the 
 ancient dignity and importance of both the councils. The 
 decline in power of the privy council was, however, ex- 
 tremely gradual. The Star Chamber and Court of Re- 
 quests, dissolved in the reign of Charles I . were both com- 
 mittees of the privy council. By stat. 16 C. 1. its direct 
 jurisdiction in England in civil cases was taken away. 
 
 Privy councillors are made by the king's nomination, 
 without patent or grant. Their number, having greatly in- 
 creased under the Tudor princes, was restricteil by Charles 
 1 1, to thirty ; but soon became indefinite again, and has so co- 
 tiuued. But no privy conncillors attend except such as are 
 specially summoned. The. privy council continues in office 
 six months after the demise of the crown, unless sooner 
 dissolved by the successor. The separation of the func- 
 tions of the privy council from the more important politi- 
 cal duties of the cabinet council seems to have been 
 chiefly effected in the reign of W. III. 
 
 The jurisdiction of the privy council is of several sorts: 
 1. The king in council may issue proclamations binding on 
 the subject, if consonant to the laws of the land. He is- 
 sues also orders in council for the temporary regulation of 
 various matters relating to trade and international inter- 
 course. 2. The privy council has power to inquire into 
 offences against government, and commit offenders to 
 take their trial according to law. 3. Appellate jurisdiction 
 in the last resort from all his Majesty's dominions, except 
 Great Britain and Ireland, is vested in the privy council. 
 By 3 & 4. W. 4. c. 41. a judicial committee of the privy 
 council is constituted, to which are entrusted appeals from 
 the prize and admiralty courts, and courts in the planta- 
 tions abroad, and all other appeals which might before 
 have come before the king in council. The judicial com- 
 mittee may direct feigned issues to be tried at common 
 law. The lord president of the council is the fourth great 
 295 
 
 COUNTY. 
 
 officer of state. The office must probably have been co- 
 temporaneous with the origin of the council itself; but the 
 title is comparatively recent. It was created by Hen. VIII., 
 and revived by Charles II. in favour of the Earl of Shaftes- 
 bury. 
 
 COU'NCIL OF STATE. A political and judicial body 
 of very indefinite powers in the French monarchy, both 
 before and since the Revolution. 
 
 COU'NSELLOR. (Lat. consiliarius.) In Law, a per- 
 son retained by a client to plead his cause, who is also said 
 to be of counsel for him. For the regulations by which 
 the admission to practise as a counsellor is restricted in 
 England, see Barrister. 
 
 COUNT. (Lat. comes, a companion; or according to a 
 fanciful conjecture of some etymologists, from comedere, 
 to eat with, because the holders of this dignity had the pri- 
 vilege of dining with the emperor.) A title of dignity in 
 most of the continental stales of Europe, equivalent in 
 rank to the British earl and the German graf This title 
 has been in existence since the time of Augustus, who is 
 said by Dion Cassius to have thus designated all the officers 
 of his household. Under the Lower Empire and the first 
 two races of the Frank kings, this title of count was given 
 to officers of various degrees, and was at first attached to 
 the office, and not to the person ; but in the progress of 
 time, when feudalism had introduced inheritance instead 
 of election as a fixed rule in succession, it became subject 
 to the same law as the higher titles of kings and dukes, 
 and conferred hereditary privileges on its possessor. (See 
 Feudalism.) The term count has in most of the states 
 where it is in use degenerated into a mere title, to which 
 no political importance is attached. " In the Papal states it 
 may be bought for no considerable sum, and in most of the 
 German states the sovereign may confer it as a mark of 
 honour and esteem." Though the title count has never 
 been introduced into Britain, the wives of earls have from 
 the earliest period of its history been designated as count- 
 esses. (For further information on this subject, see Dutil- 
 let's Recueildes Itoisde France.) 
 
 Count. In Law See Declaration. 
 
 COU'NTERFOBT. (Fr. centre, against, and fort. 
 strong.) In Architecture, a buttress or pier built against 
 and at rieht angles to a wall to strengthen it. 
 
 COU'NTER(;l'AKl)S, in Fortification, are small ram- 
 parts with parapets and ditches, to cover some part of the 
 body of a place. They are generally made before the bas- 
 tions, sometimes before the ravelins. 
 
 COU'NTERMARK In Numismatics, a stamp frequently 
 seen on ancient coins, often obliterating a large part of the 
 impression. The countermark is generally a figure or in- 
 scription ; and some antiquaries have considered that their 
 use was to augment the value of the money ; others, that 
 it was only struck on money taken from an enemy. 
 
 COUNTERPART. In Law, when the parts of an in- 
 denture are interchangeably executed by the several 
 parties, that part which is executed by the grantor is 
 termed the original, and the rest are counterparts. If each 
 part is signed by all parties, they are duplicate originals. 
 
 COU'NTERPOINT. (It. contrapunto.) In Music, a 
 composition of several parts. The name originated in the 
 circumstance of the notes being formerly placed one 
 against or over the other, and without any stems. 
 
 COU'NTER PROOF. In Engraving, an impression ob- 
 tained from another impression while it is yet wet from a 
 copper plate, in which the design is in the same direction 
 as in the plate itself. They are made chiefly for investi- 
 gating the state of a plate; and of some prints the coun- 
 terproofs are more valuable than the prints, where the 
 drawing from the picture has not been reversed on the 
 copper. 
 
 COU'NTERSCARP. In Fortification, the slope or talus 
 of the exterior side of the ditch, towards the country. 
 The interior slope is called tscarpe. Sometimes the whole 
 covert way, with its parapet and glacis, are termed coun- 
 terscarp. 
 
 COUNTERSIGN. In Diplomatics, the signature of a 
 public officer to the charter of a king, prelate, &c, byway 
 of certificate " Obtulit," ' : recognovit," " relegit et sub- 
 scripsit," are common additions, in charters of the middle 
 ages, to the name of the countersigner. 
 
 COU'NTER-TE'NOR. In Music. See Tenor. 
 
 COU'NTY. A county is in England that district of ter- 
 ritory which was anciently subject to the government of 
 an earl or ealdorman, from whose Latin title cojnes the 
 term is derived. The Saxon word corresponding to county 
 was shire, meaning division, which is therefore not applied 
 to such counties as were originally distinct sovereignties ; 
 such as Kent, Essex, Sussex, Middlesex, Suffolk, Norfolk. 
 
 The division of the kingdom into counties, which, in 
 common with many other of our earlier institutions, is 
 commonly attributed to Alfred, though it was probably of a 
 date far anterior, was in ancient times chiefly of use in 
 marking the limits of different jurisdictions. To each 
 county belonged a couuty court, which it was the duty of
 
 COUNTY COURT. 
 
 COURTS, SUPERIOR. 
 
 the thanes and other freeholders to attend and do suits at, 
 though it seems the lhanes only took part in the adminis- 
 tration of justice. Such court was originally held by the 
 earl and bishop, the latter assisting in respect of the eccle- 
 siastical jurisdiction belonging to the court : or in fteir ab- 
 sence by the sheriff, upon whom the right to preside in the 
 county 'court, either in person or by deputy, as well as the 
 other civil functions of the earl, have long since devolved. 
 Considered in its judicial character, the county court was 
 ilie »reat court baron or civil court of the county, and was 
 originally competent to the trial of almost nil civil actions 
 within such county. The criminal jurisdiction be- 
 lon'"in~' to the county, which is now vested in the magis- 
 trates ?t quarter sessions, was anciently exercised by the 
 sheriff in his tourn (« • title Tourn). The boundaries of 
 a count; serve also to mark the limits of the jurisdiction, 
 both civil and criminal, which other courts or judges exer- 
 within each county severally by commission from the 
 crown (ser Yf.nir); and within which limits also are con- 
 lined the ministerial functions of the sheriff as executor of 
 the wins awarded by either of the great courts. 
 
 The division into counUes is alsoforsome purposes, par- 
 licularlv that of representation in parliament, political; and 
 it is in the county court that the election of members of 
 parliament takes' place, and that other political acts ot the 
 men of the countv are done : lor county meetings convened 
 and presided over by the sheriff are, properly speaking, 
 holdings ofthe county court. What has been said of coun- 
 ties in England applies without qualification, save as to the 
 time of the institution, to Wales, and, with very little qual- 
 ification, to Ireland and Scotland ; the most important point 
 of difference being the greater extent of the jurisdiction and 
 power of the sheriff in the latter country There are in 
 England 40 counties, in Wales 12, in Scotland 32, and in 
 
 F VVlountv Palatine, of which description there are now 
 two in England, viz. Durham and Lancaster, is a county in 
 which all Jura regalia, i. e. the whole rights of sovereignty 
 in judicial matters, belonged to the earl of such county ; 
 hut these privileges are now reduced to the possession oi 
 courts of their own. corresponding in number and jurisdic- 
 tion to the King's courts at Westminster, whose jurisdiction 
 is not excluded by theirs, and whose writs may be so framed 
 as to run within the limits of the county palatine. 
 
 COU'NTY COURT. The Countv Court properly so call- 
 ed is a court baron, not of record, for civil causes, held by 
 the sheriff in each county. This court can only hold pleas 
 where the debt or damage is under 40s., except by virtue 
 of the writ called of justicies, which is a special precept to 
 the sheriff to do justice between parties in the same manner 
 as it might be done in the courts of Westminster. Causes 
 are removed out of this into the higher courts by writ of 
 recordari (For the extension of the powers ot the sheriff 
 hv statute to try personal actions of greater amount, see 
 Sheriff; Read's County Courts ; Greenwood on Courts; 
 Watson's Sheriffs.) 
 COUNTY RATE. See Rate. 
 
 COI 'PLED COLUMNS. In Architecture, columns hall 
 a diameter apart. See Ar.E0SYSTYL0S. 
 
 COTJ'PLING BOX. A strong iron cylinder, by which 
 the shafts of machinery are connected. 
 
 COURIERS (Fr. courir, to run.) A name given in or- 
 dinary language to the bearers of public despatches or pri- 
 vate intelligence by express. The institution of persons to 
 convey intelligence with celerity and regularity is coeval 
 with the earliest history of civilized nations. By the ter- 
 tians they were styled ayyapoi, by the Creeks jjucpodpopoi 
 and by the Romans cwrsores ; and the duties of the ancient 
 couriers seem to have been wholly analogous to those ot 
 the moderns, and were performed chiefly on horseback; 
 lhou»h the original derivation of the name would lead loan 
 opposite supposition. In the middle ages couriers were 
 known hv the appellation trottarii, or trotters ; and hence 
 nerhans originated the English term running foottnen,of 
 whom history makes mention in the 17th and 18th centuries 
 COURSE (I.at. cursus.) In Architecture, a continued 
 level range of stone., or bricks of the same height through- 
 out the fare or faces of a building. Set Bonn. 
 
 COI RSE OF CROPS The rotation or r.ureession in 
 which crops follow one another, in a prescribed course of 
 cropping. The rule is to follow a crop grown for its seeds 
 or roots by one grown for Its leaves or stems. 
 
 COU'RSERS, Cursores (Lai curro./run.) An order 
 of birds, including those which are disabled from flight by 
 the restricted development of the wings, bul which possess 
 gnnerior powers of running from the compensating size and 
 
 strength of the bus: i Btrich, rhea, casowary, emeu, 
 
 and apteryx are examples of this order. 
 
 i 01 'RSES. The lower square sails, as the forcsailanrl 
 
 "cOTJ'RTESx" (Ft. conrtoisle, Ital cortesta.) II 
 
 the courts of princes and great feudatories that the min- 
 strels and troubadours of the middle ages especially -de- 
 lighted to exercise their art ; and it was there, also, that the 
 296 
 
 peculiarities of chivalrous life and manners were chiefly 
 ted. Hence courtesy wasageneial term, expressive 
 of all the elegance and refinement which the society of 
 those times had attained ; in fact, it was synonymous with 
 ,11 the gentler parts of chivalry itself: and it is in this sense 
 that it is used both bv the early trouveres and romancers, 
 and also by poets of a later age, when affecting the use of 
 chivalrous language, as in the first lines ot the great poem 
 of Ariosto :— 
 
 Ledoime, i cavalier, 1'arme, gli ainori, 
 i 'tadaci imprrse io canto. 
 
 The transition from this wider meaning to that in which it 
 is now employed is obvious enough. It may be sufficient 
 to refer to the very ingenious theories ol Signor Rossetti 
 respecting the secret meaning attached to this (among other) 
 words of Trequenl occurrence in the poems of the Italian 
 can/.onieri of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. (/»- 
 femu di Dante, 1827, vol. ii. p. 430, &c.) 
 
 COURT PIASTER. Black silk varnished over with a 
 solution of isinglass, which is often perfumed with benzoin. 
 
 COURTS OF JUSTICE, are divided by Ihe rules ol 
 
 English law into courts of record and not of record, the 
 former have power to make up their acts and judicial pro- 
 ceedings in the form technically called a record, as evidence 
 of their judgment. All courts having power to fine or lrn- 
 i are said to be impliedly courts of record ; but mis 
 seems questionable. «.__- „<- 
 
 The courts termed Superior are divided into those of 
 Law, Equity, Ecclesiastical. Maritime, Prize or Internation- 
 al, and Courts of Appeal and Error. They are — 
 
 Three Superior Courts of Common Law (see Courts, 
 
 Superior), being— 
 
 1 The Court of King's Bench. See King's Bench. 
 
 2. The Court of Common Pleas. See Common Pleas. 
 
 3. The Court of Exchequer. Sre Exchequer. 
 Four Superior Courts of Equity (see Chancery), being— 
 
 4. The High Court of Chancery. 
 
 5. The Rolls Court, 
 fi. The Vice-Chancellor's Court. 
 7 The Equity side of the Court of Exchequer. 
 3. The Ecclesiastical Courts. -See Ecclesiastical 
 
 Courts. 
 0. The Court of Admiralty. See Admiralty. 
 10 The Prize Court. See Admiralty. 
 II. The Courts of Bankruptcy. See Bankruptcy. 
 The Courts of Error and Appeal are— 
 
 12 The Exchequer Chamber, from the Superior Com- 
 mon Law Courts. See Exchbcubh Chamber. 
 
 13 The Privy Council, and Judical Committee ol the 
 Privy Council, which are Courts of Appeal 
 from the Ecclesiastical Courts, Admiralty, and 
 also from the decisions of various Colonial Ju 
 dical tires. 
 
 14 The Hi»h Court of Parliament. See Parliament. 
 Inferior Courts are numerous, both of record and not of 
 
 record ; being for the most part local jurisdictions ot very 
 various extent and authority. To these belong the Courts 
 of Conscience and Requests, Courts Baron, Hundred 
 Courts, Borough Courts, and County Courts, in which the 
 sheriff presides. . 
 
 COURTS. SUPERIOR. The three superior common 
 law courts of England are the Court of King's Bench, of 
 common Pleas, and of the Exchequer. For the origin and 
 historyof each court, and its peculiar jurisdiction, see those 
 separate heads. . . « 
 
 For several centuries, by means of various admitted ni 
 tions, these three courts have exercised a concurrent juris- 
 diction in all personal actions (see Actions) ; andtheprac- 
 tice Of all three is, in material points, Ihe same. II" 
 during term, at Westminster. The different branches o 
 jurisdiction of the three superior courts are, I. Thatol 
 the full court in banc, during term only, when four judges 
 Bit together in each ; 2. Of the Practice or Bail Court (cre- 
 atedbN thel W 4. c.70. s. 1., which as yet ha6 been brought 
 mto operation in the King's Bench only. in whir!; 
 judge disposes of so me less important man. rsol i u 
 3 Of a single judge at chambers, whert also points ol 
 minor importance in the conduct of a cause are decided and 
 directions given; 4. Of the master or prothonotanes, Offi- 
 cers to whom various matters of fact, as computations, &c, 
 red; 5 Of the judge at Nisi Prius and on the cir- 
 cuu \ f , ,,. m a in fact ; 6. Of Ihesherifl 
 
 county, who ma\ be considered asan officer ol the supi 
 rior courts for the purpose of trying issues directed to him 
 under3&4W. 4. c. 42. 
 
 The course of proceeding in the superior courts is cither 
 formal or summary. Formal proceeding, in personal ac- 
 tions, is the regular curse of a trial, whether the 181 ue, 01 
 mod. be one of fact or law. The party complain 
 ,„.' or plaintiff, having brought the defendant into court in 
 person, or constructively, by preliminary process, entitles 
 his declaration, or the form of statement ol his gi 
 
 &8 ol of the three courts, the ami Ul 
 
 which the writ for commencement of the action I
 
 COURT BARON. 
 
 be returnable. The defendant then pleads; and all the 
 subsequent pleadings, or preparatory statements in writing, 
 are entitled of [lie same court ; in which also the record, or 
 parchment roll containing ihe authentic entry of the whole 
 proceeding, is made up. The question eventually raised 
 between the parties will turn out to be either of law, or of 
 fact. The former, being raised on what is termed a de- 
 murrer (see Pleading.) is argued at Westminster before 
 the full court, and the judgment in law is conclusive of the 
 issue. If the question be of fact, it must be tried by a jury. 
 If the pleadings are dated at London or in Middlesex, as in 
 local aclions they must be if the question arise in those 
 districts, and as in transitory actions they may be all cases 
 (see Pleading,) the jury will be summoned accordingly, 
 and the case tried before a judge of the court in which the 
 action is brought, at nisiprius (see that head,) either during 
 term or in the sittings after term. If, on the other hand, 
 the date, or venue, as it is termed, be in any other county, 
 the parties proceed to trial at the assizes (the plaintiff bring- 
 ing down the record from Westminster, by which means 
 it is in his option to proceed to trial or not.) In this case a 
 jury is summoned in like manner before the judges of 
 assize, by virtue of their commission of oyerand terminer. 
 In some special cases, trial at bar is granted on application ; 
 in which case the cause is tried by a jury before the full 
 court, at such time as the court may fix for convenience. 
 If a party imagines himself to have grounds for being dis- 
 satisfied with the result of a trial, as, that the judge has 
 summed up the evidence improperly to the jury, or that 
 material testimony has been illegally rejected, he may 
 move the court at Westminster for a new trial, or to set 
 aside the verdict, according to the circumstances of the 
 case ; and such motion is made before the full court in 
 term. On the issue of the trial judgment is awarded, de- 
 claring that the plaintiff" either has, or has not, entitled 
 himself to the remedy prayed : and costs are given with 
 the judgment; after which the successful party may sue 
 out execution, unless there be an appeal by writ of error, 
 ■which only lies on matter of law arising on the face of the 
 proceedings. 
 
 Summary proceedings are of very miscellaneous charac- 
 ter ; and are by affidavit, motion, rule nisi (t. e. unless 
 cause is shown asainst the rule on a certain day ; when, if 
 no cause, or insufficient cause, is shown, the rule is made 
 absolute ; and if made absolute, followed by demand of 
 performance, and this performance enforced by means of 
 attachment for contempt of court). By these means the 
 courts have extensive authority to give directions and en- 
 force conditions during the progress of a suit. Among sum- 
 mary proceedings may also be enumerated the leave given 
 ■on motion, to amend various formal defects in pleadings. 
 COURT BARON. A Court Baron, so called either from 
 the lord or baron who presided over it, or from the free- 
 men, in ancient times also called barons, who were its 
 suitors and judges, was a court having its origin apparently 
 in notions of a patriarchal jurisdiction, properly and in the 
 first instance incident to every manor, in which it was held 
 by the lord of the manor or his steward, who. assisted by 
 the freeholders of the manor, there decided on the purely 
 civil controversies which arose between them. A court 
 baron also belonged to every hundred and county (see 
 those titles) : and in many cases also to particular franchi- 
 ses or lordships, which might include several manors. 
 Courts baron, from the inferiority of their judges, and from 
 the effects of their jurisdiction, which a party might defeat 
 by removal of the cause to ahighei tribunal, have long fall- 
 en into disuse ; except in manors of ancient demesne, 
 where the jurisdiction was, and in some respects still is, in 
 the first instance exclusive, the lord of such manors having 
 once been the king ; and except in manors containing 
 land of copvhold or customary tenure. See Copvhold. 
 
 COURT-MARTIAL. A court for trying and punishing 
 the military offences of officers and soldiers. Courts-mar- 
 tial, in our law, are bound by the same rules and principles 
 of evidence as courts of law. Their jurisdiction is confer- 
 red by the Mutiny Act (1 W. &. M.) which is annually re- 
 newed. The crimes cognizable by them are designated by 
 the Mutiny Act and Articles of War. The persons liableto 
 martial law are officers, soldiers, and persons serving with 
 the army in the field : and receiving pay as a soldier sub- 
 jects the receiver to it : but officers on half-pay are not 
 liable. The judgments of courts-martial are open to the 
 disapprobation of the king or his commande'rs-in-chief ; and 
 are likewise liableto reversal by the Courtof King's Bench. 
 The acts of a court-martial, like those of other courts insti- 
 tuted by statute with particular powers, may become the 
 subject of application to the courts at Westminster for a 
 prohibition. Naval courts martial have their jurisdiction 
 defined by the thirty-six articles of war, embodied in 22 G. 
 2. c. 23, and 19 G. 3. c. 17., and are composed of admirals, 
 captains and commanders. (See M' Arthur on Courts 
 Martial : Kennedy on C. M.; James, Collection of Proceed- 
 ings of C. M. 1820 ; Tytler on Military Law.) 
 COU'SSINET. (Fr. a cushtim.) In Architecture, the 
 297 
 
 COVENANTERS. 
 
 crowuing stone of a pier, or that which lies on the capital 
 oj the impost and under the sweep. Its bed is level below 
 and inclined above, receiving the first rise or spring of the 
 arch or vault. This word is also used for the ornament in 
 the Ionic capital, between the abacus and echinus or quarter 
 round, which serves to form the volute, and is thus called 
 because its appearance is that of a cushion or pillow seem- 
 ingly collapsed by the weight over it, and bound with a 
 strap or girdle called the baltheus. 
 
 COVE. An inlet on a rocky coast. It is a term nearly 
 synonymous with tiarbour ; the word cove beins generally, 
 though not always, used when the indentation on the coast 
 is too shallow or narrow to admit first-class vessels. 
 
 CO'VENANT. In history the famous bond of associa- 
 tion adopted by the Scottish Presbyterians in 1638. It was 
 framed on the model of a similar declaration, which had 
 been twice solemnly subscribed in the early period of the 
 Reformation : but in more violent language, and with more 
 specific obligation to support the kirk, together with a pro- 
 hibition and abjuration of the Anglican liturey and articles. 
 The founders of the Solemn League and Covenant were 
 Alexander Henderson, leader of the clergy, and Archibald 
 Johnston of Wariston, an advocate. (See Laing's History 
 of Scotland, vol. iii.) A new religious covenant between 
 the two kingdoms was framed in 1643, and taken by the 
 English House of Commons and assembly of divines at 
 Westminster. Charles II. subscribed the Scottish cove- 
 nant on his coronation in 1651 ; but on his restoration it 
 was declared null by act of parliament, and burned by the 
 common hangman. It formed, however, the watch-word 
 and bond of union of the discontented party, or Covenant- 
 ers, as they were called, in the rebellions of his reign. 
 
 Covenant. In a theological sense, a promise made by 
 God to man upon certain conditions : the two grand dis 
 tinctions of which are emphatically designated the Old and 
 New Covenant or Testament ; in each of which certain 
 temporal or spiritual benefits are promised to man upon 
 the performance of duties therein pointed out. 
 
 Covenant. In Law, is an engagement under seal to do 
 or to omit a direct act. Covenants are of many different 
 species, as in fact and in law, implied and express, .fee; and 
 according to their subject matter, or express stipulation, 
 they are binding respectively on the heirs, executors, anil 
 assigns, or executors and assigns only, of the covenantor. 
 
 Covenant is also a form of action, which lies where a 
 party claims damages for breach of a covenant or contract 
 under seal. 
 
 COVENA'NTERS. The great body of the Scottish 
 people, at the era of the Reformation, adopted the presby- 
 terian faith and polity as established by Calvin at Geneva, 
 and as introduced into Scotland by Knox, and recom- 
 mended and enforced by his eloquence. As presbyterian- 
 ism was thus closely associated in their minde with their 
 deliverance from what they regarded as the degrading au- 
 thority of popery, the people of Scotland have ever been 
 distinguished for their cordial and unflinching adherence 
 to this new faith. But though it was the object of public 
 veneration, it never succeeded in gaining permanent!/ 
 either the affection or countenance of the court. On the 
 contrary, the successive monarchs by whom Scotland was 
 governed from the Reformation in 1560 till the final estab- 
 lishment of presbytery as the national church in 1690, re- 
 garded it with disfavour, and did all in their power, either 
 by open persecution, or by private intrigue, to undermine 
 and destroy it. They regarded it, being a republican hier- 
 archy, as incompatible with royal authority: and James 
 VI. declared that " presbytery and monarchy could no 
 more agree than God and the devil." But though, owing to 
 royal favour, episcopacy, or " black prelacy," as it was 
 contemptuously called "by the presbyterians, occasionally 
 predominated, it was as often superseded by presbytery. 
 The latter, after having been for some time' displaced by 
 prelacy, gained the superiority in 1592 ; from which time 
 till 1606 it was established as the national religion. At this 
 latter period, however, episcopacy obtained the mastery, 
 which it enjoyed for upwards of thirty years. But thout'h 
 this polity, being favoured by the influence of the court, 
 so long maintained the ascendency, it continued as ob- 
 noxious as ever to the great body of the Scottish people. 
 Indeed, so obnoxious was it known to be, that though epis- 
 copacy legally prevailed, it was thought prudent for some 
 time nominally and formally to rule the church by means 
 of the ecclesiastical judicatories peculiar to presbytery 
 But the people were not so easily deceived : nor could any 
 consideration induce them either to forego the ecclesiastical 
 polity which was so dear to them, or look on its rival with 
 the least degree of toleration or favour. Matters at length 
 came to a crisis on this subject. Charles I. having intro- 
 duced that arbitrary judicatory in matters religious and ec- 
 clesiastical, the High Commission Court, and having at 
 tempted to introduce the Book of Canons and the Liturgy or 
 Service Book, the public voice was aroused, and public in- 
 dignation was generally and unequivocally expressed, par 
 ticularly in Edinburgh, where a very serious tumult took 
 26
 
 COVENANTERS. 
 
 place (July, 1(337) on a Sunday, on occasion of an attempt 
 being made (according to royal proclamation) to read the 
 liturgy in the church of St. Giles. Supplications against 
 the liturgy issued from almost every quarter of the coun- 
 try, from all classes of the people, and from the great ma- 
 jority of municipal corporations, and were carried by the 
 principal men of the kingdom to be presented to the privy 
 council. These supplications were not attended with the 
 success which it was hoped they would have experienced. 
 But the supplicants or the public were not to be driven 
 from their purpose. The supplicants, who had nocked to 
 Edinburgh in great numbers, could not long remain there. 
 But the most effectual means were adopted to keep up an 
 organized opposition to the royal procedure in this matter. 
 Four tables, as they were called, were formed. One table 
 consisted of nobility, another of gentry, a third of clergy- 
 men, a fourth of burgesses ; thus representing all ranks 
 and classes of the people. There was also a general table 
 composed of representatives from the four subordinate ta- 
 bles, which received suggestions from these, and decided 
 on what steps it was necessary to adopt. One of the first 
 acts they passed was the production of the Covenant ; and 
 hence all those who either then or afterwards subscribed it, 
 or gave in their adherence to it, were denominated Cove- 
 nanters. (Baillie : s Letters, i. passim ; Laing's Hist . of 
 Scotland, iii. ; Coik's Hist, of the Cliurch, iii. ; Acts of 
 General Assembly. 
 
 The origin of the Covenant in Scotland may be traced to 
 the Reformation, during the progress of which it was re- 
 newed several times ; and it evidently had a reference to 
 the covenants so frequently adopted by "the children of Is- 
 rael, and by which they bound themselves to adhere to that 
 religion which the Almighty had established among them. 
 
 The Covenant to which we at present more immediately 
 refer, is in many respects a renewal of the Covenant which 
 was subscribed in the year 1530, 1581, and 1590, but so 
 modified and enlarged as to embrace the circumstances 
 under which the church was placed at the interesting crisis 
 under review. It inveighed not merely against popery, as 
 the former Covenant had done, but "against the danger of 
 the true reformed religion (that is, the presbyterian faith 
 and polity as established in 1592), of the king's honour, and 
 of the public peace of the kingdom, by the manifold inno- 
 vations and evils" so generally prevalent. The subscribers 
 also profess, and "before God, his angels, and the world, 
 solemnly declare, that, with their whole heart, they agree 
 and resolve all the days of their life constantly to adhere 
 unto and to defend the foresaid true religion." " We 
 promise and swear," to use their own words, "by the 
 great name of the Lord our God, to continue in the profes- 
 sion and obedience of the foresaid religion ; and that we 
 shall defend the same, and resist all these contrary errors 
 and corruptions, according to our vocation, and to the ut- 
 termost of that power that God hath put in our hands, all 
 the days of our life." ( Vide the National Covenant ap- 
 pended to the Westminster Confession of Faith, p. 483. 
 edit 1315.) 
 
 These expressions, however unequivocal or strong, are 
 not more energetic than others in the same document. 
 They showed that the persons by whom they were uttered 
 were in earnest, and that nothing could satisfy them but 
 the abolition of the High Commission Court, and the re- 
 vocation of the canons and liturgy ; in other words, the 
 total and unconditional abrogation of prelacy. They in- 
 sisted on the questions that existed between them and the 
 king being immediately submitted to a free General As- 
 sembly of the Kirk, and to parliament. 
 
 Meanwhile the tables invited all the supplicants to repair 
 from the country to attend a solemn meeting, which was 
 to be held in Edinburgh in honour of the Covenant. The 
 supplicants having obeyed the summons, the Covenant 
 (1st March, 1638) was solemnly subscribed and sworn, amid 
 prayers and witli uplifted hands, by the nobility, gentry, 
 clergy, and burgesses ; by thousands of all classes, of both 
 sexes, and of every age. Nor was this all. Commission- 
 ers were immediately despatched with copies of it 
 throughout Scotland ; and in a few weeks every district of 
 the country, with some partial exceptions, submitted to the 
 Covenant." 
 
 The nation was now divided into two parties,— the Cove- 
 nanters, a name originally imposed by their adversaries, 
 
 •So pertinaciously was subscription of the Covenant insisted on, that 
 no student could enter college, or lake a degree there, and no person 
 could be admitted to the Lord's Supper, without having first subscribed 
 this obligation. Not only were such persons as professors and teachers, 
 but every human being of whatever rank, bound to subs-ribe under the 
 risk of "all ecclesiastical censure." Those "suspected of papistry" 
 ■were summoned before the church courts, with a view of inducing them 
 10 sign the covenant ; and if they refused, they were ordered to be 
 proceeded ag3inst and tried as disaffected persons. Every university, 
 synod, presbytery, and parish were obliged to have each a copy of the 
 Covenant in 4to., " with some blank paper, whereupon every body may- 
 be obliged to sign." Subscriptions of the Solemn Lcasue and Covenant, 
 afterwards to he spoken of, was prosecuted with almost equal zeal. 
 I Acts of Assembly, apud r.nnos 1639.18.) . 
 
 298 
 
 and the Non- Covenanters ; the latter being a small, feeble, 
 and scattered body. (Battlie's Letters ; Livingstone's MS. 
 Life.} 
 
 Charles, seeing the formidable position assumed by the 
 Covenanters, and the influence which they possessed, was 
 at length willing to recal the liturgy and the canons, and to 
 make considerable concessions for the sake of peace. 
 But it was too late : no compromise could now be accept- 
 ed ; nothing could satisfy the Covenanters but the extirpa- 
 tion of prelacy : nothing that fell short of this would be at 
 all listened to. Nay, so far did they carry their condem- 
 nation of the bishops, that they had not only preferred an 
 accusation against them as the authors of the innovations, 
 but had, meanwhile, applied for an interdict, prohibiting 
 them from having a seat in the privy council. The pre- 
 lates, indeed, finding that they were the object of public 
 odium, and that their influence was nearly gone, volunta- 
 rily withdrew from the council. The king, after much 
 temporizing and intrigue, found himself obliged, however 
 reluctantly, to agree to the meeting of the General Assem- 
 bly on the terms which the Covenanters had proposed, — 
 namely, that lay-elders should, as in the best days of pres- 
 bytery, be recognized as constituent members of the infe- 
 rior ecclesiastical courts, and eligible as members of as- 
 sembly ; that not only should the bishops, the former oflv 
 cialmoderators(presidents) of presbyteries, not be replaced, 
 but that these dignitaries might be legally prosecuted by the 
 Assembly, and "their usurpations restrained, if not their 
 order entirely suppressed. (lb.) 
 
 The Assembly accordingly met at Glasgow in November, 
 and continued its sittings (for thirty days) as its inalienable 
 right, even though the royal commissioner, the Marquis of 
 Hamilton, had meanwhile declared the meetings dissolved. 
 It embraced in the list of its members the most eminent 
 of the nobility and gentry as lay-elders. It not only an- 
 nulled the canons, liturgy, the High Commission Court, 
 and other innovations, but it abolished episcopacy itself, 
 and declared it as having been from the first both illegal and 
 unscriptural. Of the prelates, fourteen in number, of 
 whom the Scottish hierarchy had consisted, eight were ex- 
 communicated, four deposed, and the remaining two mere- 
 ly suspended from their ecclesiastical functions. Nor did 
 the Assembly stop here ; for, while it abolished prelacy, it 
 re-established presbytery as it had existed previously to 
 the late innovations, with all the privileges, liberties, powers, 
 and jurisdictions which it had formerly enjoyed. (Actscf 
 Assembly, 1638.) 
 
 The proceedings of this Assembly, particularly its con- 
 temptuous and summary mode of dealing with the favour- 
 ite hierarchy of the king, could not be agreeable to Charles. 
 These proceedings were, on the contrary, so obnoxious to 
 him, that, on the Supplication voted at the conclusion of its 
 meetings being presented to him, he expressed himself as 
 deeply offended, and declined to return any answer to it. 
 "When the Covenanters," says he, "have broken my 
 head, they will put on my cowl." This injudicious con- 
 duct on the part of the king brought matters to a crisis. 
 Both parties prepared for war; a step, however, which the 
 Covenanters, who always professed the greatest loyalty, 
 adopted with reluctance. So devoted, however, were the 
 people to what they regarded as a righteous cause, that the 
 expense on the side of the Covenanters, who included in 
 the list of their adherents almost every individual in Scot- 
 land, was defrayed by a general voluntary assessment. In 
 raising both men and money the clergy took an active 
 part ; and contributions for carrying on the war were levied 
 by them from their respective flocks to an extent scarcely 
 credible. "We sent from Stranraer," says John Living- 
 stone, then minister of that parish, " our fourth fencible 
 man, viz. 15 men. The town was but little and poor ; all 
 the yearly rent was estimated at 2000 merks Scots * * *. I 
 propounded to my flock the condition of the army, and 
 desired they would prepare their contribution to be given 
 after sermon ; at which time we got 45/. sterling," or nearly 
 the half of the whole income of the place. (MS. Life, p. 
 34.) Nor was the spirit which pervaded the army less in- 
 teresting or enthusiastic than that which characterized the 
 whole body of the Covenanters. " Every company," says 
 an eye-witness, " had fleeing at the captain's tent door a 
 brave new colour, stamped with the Scottish arms, and the 
 motto. Far Christ's Crmrn and Covenant, in golden 
 letters." (Baillie, i. 174.) Every regiment was attended 
 by a chaplain. " I carried myself," says Dr. Baillie, who 
 attended the army in the capacity of a chaplain, " as the 
 custom was, a sword and a couple of Dutch pistols at my 
 saddle." " Our soldiers grew in experience of arms, in 
 courage, and favour daily. Every one encouraged another : 
 the sight of the nobles and their beloved pastors daily 
 raised their hearts. The good sermons and prayers, morn- 
 ing and evening, under the roof of heaven, to which their 
 drums did call them for bells, the remonstrances very fre- 
 quent of the goodness of their cause, of their conduct 
 hitherto by a divine hand, made them as resolute for battle 
 as could be wished." "Had you lent your ear, in the
 
 COVENANTERS. 
 
 morning, or especially at even, and heard in the tents the 
 sound of some singing psalms, some praying, and some 
 reading scripture, ye would have been refreshed." (lb.) 
 
 Such was the spirit under the influence of which the Cove- 
 nanters waged and carried on the war with their sovereign. 
 Of the hostilities that ensued it is unnecessary here to give 
 a farther account than to say, that the Covenanters, though 
 they gained the only battle that was fought, lost no time in 
 making proposals of peace. These proposals were accept- 
 ed by the king ; and a treaty was concluded (June. 1639) 
 Tour months after the commencement of the war. Of this 
 treaty the most important clause was, that, as the king would 
 not ratify the enactments of the Assembly of Glasgow, and 
 as the Covenanters would not annul them, a free General 
 Assembly should be held in the ensuing month of August, 
 and a parliament immediately afterwards; to the decision 
 of which courts every dispute between the contending par- 
 ties was to be referred. This Assembly met accordingly ; 
 and its proceedings, as miirht have been expected, were ex- 
 actly of the same character as those of tiie former; and 
 yet, such was the progress of public opinion, that the Earl 
 of Traquair, the royal commissioner, not only did not re- 
 fuse to ratify them, but consented to subscribe that obnox- 
 ious bond, the Covenant, which was ordained, under the 
 penalty of ecclesiastical censure, to be subscribed by all 
 ranks. The members of the privy council, besides, gave 
 to the Covenant the sanction of their authority, and attach- 
 ed their signatures to it. (lb.) 
 
 The proceedings of this Assembly were, if possible, more 
 obnoxious to Charles than those of its predecessor; and 
 afraid lest the parliament, which had already met, should 
 exhibit a similar spirit, he lost no time in proroguing it. Hut 
 nothing could now arrest the march of public sentiment ; 
 end in the parliament, which met in June 1640, in direct op- 
 position to the wishes of the king, who had determined to 
 prorogue it, every enactment of the General Assembly re- 
 specting the Covenant and the presbyterian faith obtained 
 the sanction of that supreme court, and became the law of 
 the land. 
 
 Thus the Covenanters, after an arduous struggle of three 
 years, saw their object fully gained ; namely, their favourite 
 ecclesiastical polity established, and the validity and au- 
 thority of the Covenant recognised by the legislature. 
 Their history from this date (which will be found more at 
 length under the article Presbyterians) becomes that 
 of the presbyterian church in Scotland, and is interwoven 
 with the annals of their country. Charles, offended with 
 the triumph of the Covenanters, again declared war against 
 them ; but after a short campaign, unfavourable to the roy- 
 alists, peace was restored (1641). The king having, mean- 
 while, alienated the affections of his English subjects, and 
 a civil war having, in consequence, broken out, the Cove- 
 nanters, on the repeated and urgent application of the par- 
 liament of England, made common cause with them, and 
 took up arms for the third time against royal authority. 
 But along with a civil league the Scots succeeded (1643) in 
 carrying a religious covenant, known in history under the 
 name of the Solemn League und Covenant ; an obligation 
 which was long revered in both divisions of the island, and 
 the main object of which was to accomplish uniformity of 
 religious doctrine and church government in both king- 
 doms. Nor was this object long in being, so far, attained : 
 a presbytery, as it existed in Scotland, having obtained the 
 sanction of the famous Assembly of Divines met at West- 
 minster (1643-9), and having been afterwards ratified by 
 the English parliament, was recognised as the national 
 church of both portions of the empire. Presbytery, how- 
 ever, was introduced into England rather as an experiment 
 than a permanent institution. Besides, it was not syste- 
 matically adopted except in London and Lancashire ; and 
 it rapidly declined, having been, to a considerable extent, 
 superseded by Independency. But at the Restoration 
 episcopacy triumphed over both these forms, and has since 
 prevailed as the established church in England. (Solemn 
 League and Covenant appended to the Westminster Con- 
 fession of Faitk, edit. 1815 ; Acts of General Assembly ; 
 tVodrow, Baillie, Laing.) 
 
 Though the presbyterians had, meanwhile, differed some- 
 what in opinion as to some public matter, and though they 
 were not all equally zealous in favour of the Covenant, yet 
 the importance ot this obligation was never lost sight of. 
 On the martyrdom of Charles I. the Scots refused to re- 
 cognise the right of his son, Charles II., to the throne, till 
 he consented to subscribe the Covenant, and to guarantee 
 and uphold the presbyterian church. Cromwell, though he 
 allowed them the free exercise of their religion, never was 
 the object of their affections and confidence, inasmuch as 
 he was a sectary, and a friend to toleration, which lat- 
 ter they had uniformly condemned. But the Protector, 
 while he tolerated the presbyterian faith, deprived it of 
 some of its most valuable attributes. He not mereiy in- 
 terdicted the meetings of the General Assembly, but pro- 
 hibited the tender of the Covenant or any similar obliga- 
 tion, and divested some of the ecclesiastical penalties, such 
 299 
 
 COW POX. 
 
 as excommunication, of their terrors by depriving them of 
 their civil effects." But a worse fate yet awaited the Cove- 
 nant. At the Restoration, not only was episcopacy restored 
 and presbytery superseded as the national church ; but by 
 a sweeping act, called the Act Rescissory, passed in 1661, 
 all the parliaments that had been held since 1640 were de- 
 clared null and void : thus rendering invalid those acts, in 
 confirmaiion both of the Covenant and of presbytery, to 
 which the late king had assented, and which Charles II. 
 himself had sworn to maintain. From this period the 
 Covenant may date its decline. It continued, indeed, to 
 be regarded as sacred by perhaps the most valuable, if not 
 the most numerous, portion of the clergy and people, — of 
 those who would submit to no compromise, and who, in 
 consequence, were the objects, during the reigns of Charles 
 and his brother James, of the most" ruthless persecution. 
 Nay, so far did some of these parties carry their opinions, 
 that they did not regard any person entitled to homage as 
 kin; unless he had "covenanted,'' or affixed his signature 
 to the Covenant. The party by which such a principle was 
 professed are known in history under the name of Came- 
 ronians : a body which, though now much reduced both in 
 numbers and importance, and who have moderated or 
 changed their sentiments on this subject as well as on 
 others, slill exist in Scotland as a distinct religious sect. 
 (.See CamerONians.) At the Revolution, when presbytery 
 was revived in Scotland and established as it now obtains, 
 no mention was made of the Covenant either in the Gene- 
 ral Assembly or inferior courts. It seems to have been al- 
 lowed to fall into desuetude, no steps having been taken 
 with regard to it. It now exists only as a matter of history ; 
 though, as just said, the Cameronians may be regarded as 
 the successors and descendants of the Covenanters of the 
 17th century. (lb.) 
 
 CONVERTS. In Ornithology. "The lesser coverts" 
 (tectn'ces prima) are small feathers which lie in several 
 rows on the bones of the wings. The " greater coverts" 
 (tcctrices secunda) are the feathers that lie immediately 
 over the quill-feathers and the secondaries. " The under 
 coverts" are the feathers that line the inside of the wings. 
 
 CO'VER'iTRE. In Law, the legal condition of a mar- 
 ried woman. See Marriage, Law of. 
 
 CO'VERT WAY, or COVERED WAY. In Fortifica- 
 tion, a road or space of ground on the outer edge of the 
 ditch, level with the adjacent country, and ranging all 
 round the works. It is usually about 30 feet broad, and is 
 protected by the glacis. Sometimes it is called the corridor. 
 
 CO'VEY. An old bird with her young ones ; but gene- 
 rally used to designate a number of partridges or other 
 game. It also in some countries signifies a cover for 
 game. 
 
 CO'VIN. In Law, a compact between two or more, to 
 deceive or prejudice others in certain cases ; as, if tenant 
 for life or in tail conspire with another party, to the intent 
 that such party may recover lands held by the tenant to 
 the prejudice of him in reversion. 
 
 COW'HAGE, COWITCH. This term is generally ap- 
 plied to the hairs or spiculaj which cover the seed pods of 
 the Mitcuna pnaiens, a climbing perennial plant, which is 
 a native of the East and West Indies. An electuary formed 
 by dipping the pods into treacle, syrup, or despumated 
 honey, and then scraping them, has long been used as a 
 vermifuge ; but it is often a very troublesome remedy, 
 from the excessive itching which it produces when it 
 touches the unprotected skin, and there are other more ef- 
 fectual means of expelling worms. 
 
 COW'-KEEPER. A person whose business it is to keep 
 a stock of cows for supplying the public with milk and 
 cream. The principal cow-keepers of the metropolis have 
 their establishments in the suburbs, where they are con- 
 nected with pasture fields, in which the animals are turned 
 out a portion of every day throughout the year, excepting 
 when the ground is covered with snow, or when it rains 
 very hard. The cows are fed in the house with grains, 
 mangold wurzel, hay, tares, and other kinds of nourishing 
 food ; and as the animals get air and exercise, their milk 
 may be considered wholesome. There are many cow- 
 keepers, however, in the metropolis, who keep only a few 
 cows in confined back houses, and even in dark cellars ; 
 and, while they feed them with rich food, give them no 
 exercise at all : hence the milk of such cows cannot be 
 considered as wholesome. 
 
 COW POX. This disease was proposed in the year 
 
 • The General Assembly had met annually from the year 16?8 to 1049 
 inclusive It sometimes met without having the sanction of the king, or 
 without his majesty being represented in it. as is usual, by a commis- 
 sioner. Not merely the Covenanters, but Presbyterians in general, laid 
 it down as a principle, that the church courts are, in matters ecclesias- 
 tical and religious, independent of civil authority, and irresponsible to it. 
 Accordingly, in 1633, the Assembly continued its sittings even after it had 
 been dissolved by the royal commissioner. Cromwell in 1C53 caused the 
 General Assembly, then sitting, to be summarily dismissed, and interdict- 
 ed its meeting in future. In this instance, the Assembly had implicitly 
 to obev. This judicatory did not again meet till after the Revolution.. 
 (BoiUie's Letters, U. 3tifl-70..1
 
 COWRIES. 
 
 1793 as a substitute for, and preventive of, the small pox, by 
 Dr. Jenner; and subsequent experience, as well as the ex- 
 tent to which the inoculation of it, or vaccination, as it is 
 called, is carried throughout the civilized world, furnish 
 well-grounded hopes of the ultimate extinction of one of 
 the severest visitations of the human race. Small bluish 
 vesicles, surrounded by inflammation, elevated at the edge 
 and depressed in the centre, and containing a limpid fluid, 
 occasionally appear upon the teats of the cow, the animal 
 being at the same time somewhat indisposed : a similar 
 disease is transferable under certain circumstances to the 
 hands of the milkers ; and persons who had so received it 
 were found to be in many instances unsusceptible of small 
 pox, both natural and inoculated. There is a disease of 
 the horse's heel called grease, which appears to have pro- 
 duced similar effects upon the hands of farriers, and is per- 
 haps the origin of the cow's disease : but it is from the lat- 
 ter animal that the matter is most certainly effective, and 
 from which it is transferred to the human race, where it 
 produces similar pustules; and the fluid of these may again 
 be transferred with the same effects from one human sub- 
 ject to another. Whether by continuous circulation through 
 human subjects the virus, as it is called, gradually loses its 
 preventive efficacy, is an important question, and one upon 
 which there are differences of opinion ; but it would pro- 
 bably be more safe if more frequently derived from its 
 original source upon the cow's teat. It seems useless here 
 to discuss the various objections which have been raised, 
 and the suspicions which have been thrown out against the 
 permanent efficacy of this preventive, since the most ex- 
 tended and unbiassed experience of the most skilful ob- 
 servers seems amply to have proved that when the^pustule 
 hasgoyie through its regular stages, the person is afterwards, 
 during the whole period of life, unsusceptible of natural 
 and of inoculated small pox, the exceptions to this state- 
 ment being so few as either to be referable to imperfect 
 vaccination, or to idiosyncracy ; and though it is not pre- 
 tended that cases of small pox after vaccination are as rare 
 as of small pox after small pox, yet it is well known that the 
 latter do occur, and. in short, that there is no rule without 
 exceptions. In doubtful cases vaccination should always 
 be repeated ; and as no inconvenience results from a repe- 
 tition of its inoculation, and the disease is not infectious by 
 effluvia, it may be performed at certain intervals, or may 
 even be tested as to its efficacy by variolous inoculation ; 
 although to the latter there are certainly serious objections, 
 if we look to its ultimate extermination. In inoculating pa- 
 tients for the cow pox the matter should be taken from a 
 healthy child, at about the 6lh or the Sth day, at which time 
 the pustule is well formed ; and it should be immediately 
 transferred upon the point of the lancet from the pustule 
 to the arm, and inserted by a small oblique puncture under 
 the cuticle, one place in each arm being quite sufficient. 
 If this direct mode cannot be followed, the virus intended 
 for inoculation may be transferred between two pieces of 
 plate glass, one of which is slightly indented for its recep- 
 tion ; when slid over each other they are air-tight, and the 
 edges may be secured by a strip of moist gold-beaters' skin 
 or very thin bladder. If it is necessary to moisten the 
 virus, this should be done with as small a portion as possi- 
 ble of tepid water, not exceeding the temperature of 100°. 
 Lancet points which have been armed, as it is called, can- 
 not be long depended upon, and are apt to be rusted and to 
 irritate the arm. About the third day after inoculation the 
 puncture generally becomes red and elevated, but the pe- 
 riods of its incipient progress are very uncertain ; it then 
 continues to enlarge and become vesicular; and is in full 
 perfection about the eighth or ninth day, at which period 
 also the surrounding circle of inflammation or areola is at 
 its height. About the eleventh or twelfth day this declines, 
 and the centre of the pustule becomes brown, and gradually 
 dries up into a dark-brown circular scab, depressed in the 
 centre. During the progress and scabbing off of the pus- 
 tule great care should be taken to avoid all external injury ; 
 all irregularities in its progress should also be carefully 
 watched ; and if much inflammation comes on spontane- 
 ously two or three days after inoculation, and especially if 
 suppuration ensues, the probability is that the operation 
 has failed ; and in all cases where there is the least doubt 
 the inoculation should be repeated, although, if one of the 
 pustules lias gone through the above described progress, 
 the failure or irregularity of the otherisof no consequence. 
 The cow-pock is seidom attended by any symptoms re- 
 quiring medical aid ; but generally there is a slight drowsi- 
 ness and febrile symptoms, with some restlessness, and 
 occasionally sickness, about the second and third days ; but 
 these symptoms are immaterial to the preventive efficacy 
 of the virus, which can only be judged of by the appear- 
 ance and progress of the pustules, to which therefore it is 
 necessarv to pay close attention. 
 
 COWRIES. (Germ, kouri.) Small shells brought from 
 the Maldives, which pass current as coin in smaller pay- 
 ments in Hindostan, and throughout extensive districts in 
 Africa : 100 are equivalent to a penny. 
 300 
 
 CRAYONS. 
 
 COY'POTJ. A Rodent quadruped ; the myopotamus of 
 geologists. See Nutria. 
 
 CRAB. See Cancer. 
 
 CRA'BRO. (Lat. crabro, a Iwrnet.) A genus of Hy- 
 menopterous insects, belonging to the section Acvleata or 
 sting-bearers, and to the subsection Fossores or burrowera 
 The hornet {Crabro vulgaris) is the type of this genus, 
 which is now raised to the rank of a family (Crabrodinte), 
 including two groups of subgenera. In one of these groups 
 all the species have their Tore-legs provided with strong 
 spurs, for the purpose of excavating in decayed wood, or 
 burrowing in sand, to form cavities in which their eggs are 
 deposited ; the insects of the other section have the fore- 
 legs unarmed, and form no burrows, but deposit their eggs 
 in the nests of other species. The true hornets 'Crabro) 
 excavate their retreat in wood, and feed their larva? with 
 the caterpillars of small moths found upon the oak, as well 
 as with flies. 
 
 CRA'DLING. (Sax. cradel.) In Architecture, the tim- 
 ber ribs in arched ceilings and coves to which the laths for 
 the plaistering are nailed. 
 
 CRAFT. See Trade and Vessel. 
 
 CRAG. A provincial name applied in Norfolk and Suf- 
 folk to certain accumulations of gravel. 
 
 CRAMP. Spasmodic or involuntary contraction of some 
 of the muscles, often attended with great pain ; it is com- 
 mon in the muscles of the leg and foot, especially after any 
 extraordinary exertion of them, and is sometimes brought 
 on apparently by irritation in the stomach of indigestible, 
 food. When cramp seizes the calf of the leg, it usually 
 goes off upon placing the limb in an erect posture and rub- 
 bing the affected part : those subject to it find much relief 
 by applying opiate liniments. If it arises from indigestion, 
 or from indulgence in acescent drinks or champagne, mild 
 bitters with magnesia, taken at bed time, will generally pre- 
 vent its recurrence. 
 
 Cramp. (Dutch, kramp.) In Architecture, a piece of 
 metal, bent or dovetailed at each end, for the purpose of 
 holding two blocks of any material firmly together. 
 
 CRANE. (Sax. cran.) In Mechanics, a machine for 
 raising heavy weights, and depositing them at some dis- 
 tance from their original place; for example, raising bales 
 from the hold of a ship, and depositing them on the quay. 
 A jib or transverse beam, inclined to the vertical in an angle 
 of 40° or 50°, is constructed, which, by means of a collar, 
 turns on a vertical arbor. The upper end of the jib carries 
 a fixed pulley, and the lower end a cylinder, which is put 
 in motion by a wheel and pinion, or cog wheel, or merely 
 with a handle. The weight is made fast to a rope which 
 passes over the pulley and is wound round the cylinder. 
 On turning the cylinder, the weight is raised as far as ne- 
 cessary ; the jib is then turned on its arbor till the weight 
 is brought immediately over the spot where it is to be de- 
 posited ; when, by withdrawing the moving power, it is al- 
 lowed to descend by its own gravity. Cranes may be con- 
 I structed of immense power. They are generally turned 
 by human force ; sometimes, however, by a steam engine. 
 
 CRA'NGON. (Gr. xpayyi), a cran- fish.) The name of 
 the genus of Macrourous Crustaceans, including the com- 
 mon shrimp (Crangon vulgaris, Fabr.) This species 
 abounds most on sandy coasts, and is caught by means of 
 a large open net fixed to the end of a long stick. 
 
 CRANIO'LOGY. See Phrenology. 
 
 CRA'NIUM. (Gr. xpavtov, the skull.) Sometimes ap- 
 plied to the entire bony compages of the head of the ver- 
 tebrate animals ; but, in Human Anatomy, is restricted to> 
 that portion of the skull which surrounds the brain. 
 
 CRANK. A mechanical contrivance for changing a re- 
 volving into an alternate motion. An iron axis is bent in 
 some part of its length out of its rectilinear direction. As 
 the axis turns the bent part describes the circumference of 
 a circle, and gives a reciprocating motion to a piston or rod 
 attached to it. 
 
 Crank. (Germ, krank, sick.) In Nautical language, a 
 ship is said to be crank, when by the form of its construe 
 t ion. or by want of a sufficient quantity of ballast or cargo, or 
 by being loaded too much above, it is incapable of carrying 
 sail without being exposed to the danger of oversetting. 
 
 CRAPE. A species of gauze made of raw silk woven 
 without crossins : it is stiffened with gum-water. 
 
 CRASSULA'CE.<E. (Crassula, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of herbaceous or shrubby Exogens, growing 
 in hot, dry, and exposed situations ; remarkable for the 
 succulent nature of their stems and leaves. They have an 
 affinity with Penthorum and with lllecelracea, through 
 TiUaa ; and possess refrigerant abstergent properties, 
 mixed at times with a good deal of acridity. 
 
 CRA'TER. (Gr. a large dip or boicl, used in antiquity 
 during a repast, for holding mixed wine and water.) Tho 
 mouth of a volcano, which see. 
 
 CR AYO'NS. Coloured cylinders used for drawing upon 
 paper; they are usually made of a fine pipe-clay, coloured 
 with metallic pigments or carmine. Crayons containing 
 plumbago are styled solid lead pencils.
 
 CREAM. 
 
 CREAM. (Fr. creme.) A semifluid yellowish substance 
 whiclt collects on the surface of milk, and which is made 
 into butter by the process of churning. When the milk of 
 any animal is allowed to stand for some time, it spontane- 
 ously undergoes certain changes ; this substance rises to 
 the surface, and forms a thin stratum, which is called cream, 
 and which consists chiefly of oily particles ; while the milk 
 below, which of course is thinner than it was before the 
 cream separated from it, is of a pale bluish colour, and con- 
 sists of curd, coagulum, or the matter of which cheese 13 
 made. When cream is kept for some days it gradually be- 
 comes thicker, and partially coagulated ; and if put into a 
 iinen bag and suspended from the ceiling of a cool room, 
 it will acquire the consistence of cheese ; and this is one 
 among other modes of making cream cheeses. When 
 cream is shaken by churning, it is resolved into its compo- 
 nent parts, and hence we have butter and buttermilk. In 
 order to make butter it is not always necessary that the 
 cream should be separated from the milk; but whether 
 separated or not, the process is facilitated by allowing the 
 liquid to stand for some, time, during which a part of the 
 sugar contained in the serum is changed into an acid, which 
 shortens the process of churning by facilitating the sepa- 
 ration of the butter from the milk. When either cream or 
 milk is churned without having previously become sour, 
 the process is much more tedious; and sometimes, from 
 causes not easily accounted for by the dairy-maid, it is un- 
 successful, and the milk is said to he bewitched. The true 
 cause, however, is the want of acidity ; because it has been 
 found that the addition of a small portion of vinegar will 
 dissolve the charm, and cause the almost immediate ap- 
 pearance of butter. Cream, when separated from milk 
 and kept til! it has become acid, is frequently mixed with 
 milk newly drawn from the cow ; and this eaten with sugar 
 is one of the most delicious preparations of the dairy. 
 Costorphin cream, so called from a village of that name in 
 the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, is made by putting the 
 milk of three or four days together with the < ream into a 
 vessel, and allowing it to remain there till it has become 
 sour and coagulated. The whey is then drawn oft' and 
 fresh cream added ; and when it is brought, to table it is 
 eaten with sugar, and in the strawberry season witli that 
 fruit. Devonshire cream is simply sour curd, or sour cream 
 eaten with fresh milk, or fresh cream, with or without the 
 addition of sugar. Devonshire scalded or clouted cream 
 is milk and cream heated to the boiling point, and suffered 
 to cool, when the cream will be found to have separated 
 from the milk, and when skimmed off may either be made 
 into butter or eaten with fresh cream and sugar. Common 
 clotted cream is simply milk and cream in a coagulated 
 state, and sour. When the clotted cream is broken and 
 stirred, and the whey drawn off, the mass may be turned 
 into cheese by artificial pressure, by which the whey is 
 separated instantaneously ; or by suspending it in a porous 
 bag, in a cool airy situation, when it will be separated by 
 degrees. See Hutter, Cheese. 
 
 CREDENTIALS, LETTERS OF. The instrument in 
 the form of a letter, from one monarch to another, which 
 constitutes the evidence of the title of a minister at a 
 foreign court to the power which he exercises. There 
 are two sorts of credentials : the one sealed, drawn up 
 and countersigned by the minister of foreign affairs; the 
 other open, signed only by the king. Unless the minister 
 be mentioned expressly in his credentials as an ambassa- 
 dor, he has only a right to the observances due to foreign 
 ministers of inferior rank. 
 
 CRE'DIT, in Political Economy, is a term used to ex- 
 press the lending of wealth, or of the means of acquiring 
 wealth, by one individual or set of individuals to another. 
 The party who lends is said to give credit, and the party 
 who borrows to obtain credit. Hence credit may be de- 
 fined to be the acquisition by one party of the wealth of 
 another in loan, according to conditions voluntarily agreed 
 on between them. 
 
 Very exaggerated notions are commonly entertained of 
 the influences of credit ; but, in fact, ail operations in 
 which credit is given or acquired resolve themselves into 
 a new distribution of wealth already in existence. The 
 " magical" effect that is every now and then ascribed to 
 credit is quite imaginary. A party who purchases goods 
 payable at. some future date obviously acquires the com- 
 mand of so much of the capital of the seller of the goods 
 as their value amounts to, in the same way that a party 
 who discounts a bill acquires the command of a correspond- 
 ing portion of the capital of the discounter. Wealth is not 
 created by the issue of bills ; and all that their negotiation 
 does is to transfer already existing property from one in- 
 dividual or party to another. 
 
 In the great majority of cases loans are made by indi- 
 viduals who wish to retire from business, or who have 
 more capital than they can advantageously employ, to 
 individuals entering into business, or who wish to extend 
 their concerns and to acquire a greater command of ca- 
 pital. The probability is, that capital will be more likely 
 301 
 
 CRESCENT. 
 
 to be efficiently employed by the latter than by the former 
 class of persons ; and the advantage of credit, in a na- 
 tional point of view, consists in that circumstance Loans 
 made to prodigals or spendthrifts, or to individuals who 
 expend them on unprofitable undertakings, are, in so far, 
 publicly injurious ; but, speaking generally, these bear but 
 a very small proportion to the other class of loans, or those 
 made to individuals by whom they are advantageously ex- 
 pended. 
 
 Public credit is the phrase used to express the trust or 
 confidence placed in the state by those who lend money 
 to government. 
 
 The interest or premium paid by the borrowers to the 
 lenders depends on a great variety of circumstances, — 
 partly on the rate of profit that may be made by the em- 
 ployment of capital at the time, partly on the duration of 
 the loan and the security for its repayment, and partly on 
 the facilities given by the law for enforcing payment. The 
 only way, indeed, in which a government can advantage- 
 ously interfere to encourage credit is by simplifying the 
 administration of the law, and by giving every facility for 
 carrving the conditions of contracts into effect. 
 
 CRE'DITOR. See Bankruptcy. 
 
 CREED. Any brief summary of Christian belief; but 
 more especially either of the three confessions commonly 
 called the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian. The term 
 is derived from the word credo, / believe ; in like manner 
 as paternoster, avemaria, «fcc, are prayers named from 
 the first word of these formulas in the Latin tongue. 
 
 CREEK (Sax. crecca, said to be derived from the Lat. 
 crepido), is a shore or bank on which the water beats, run- 
 ning in a small channel from any part of the sea. It is also 
 applied to any part of a large river which is resorted to as 
 a harbour or landing place by small craft. In the United 
 States, the term creek is used as synonymous with our 
 English words brook or rivulet. 
 
 CREEL. A kind of basket ; such, for instance, as is 
 used bv anglers. 
 
 CRE'MOCA'RPIUM. (Gr. Knepao), / suspend, and 
 xapvos, fruit.) A two to five-celled inferior fruit, the cells 
 of which are one-seeded, indehiscent, dry, perfectly close 
 at all times, and when ripe hanging separate from a com- 
 mon axi-s. as in umbelliferous plants. 
 
 CREMO'NA. A general designation of the violins made 
 at Cremona in Italy, during the 17th and 18th centuries, 
 chiefly by the family Amati. (-See Violin.) Cremona 
 is also a name erroneously given to a stop in the organ; 
 being nothing more than a corruption of krumhorn, an 
 ancient wind instrument, which it was originally designed 
 to imitate. 
 
 CREO'LE. (In Spanish, Criollo.) A name given to the 
 descendants of whites born in Mexico, South America, and 
 the West Indies ; in whom the European blood has been 
 unmixed with that of other races. The various jargons 
 spoken in the West India islands by slaves, <fec. are called 
 Croole dialects. 
 
 CKI/OSOTE, or KREASOTE. A colourless, transpa- 
 rent, oily liquid, separable from wood-tar : it appears to be 
 the principle to which the antiseptic power of wood-tar, 
 smoke, and crude pyrolignous acid is owing. Hence its 
 name, from xpeas, J/esh, and croj^a), I save. 
 
 CRE'PITUS. (L;it.) The crackling noise which is 
 produced upon pressing cellular membrane when it con- 
 tains air. 
 
 CRESCE'NDO. (It.) In Music, a direction to the per- 
 former to increase the volume of sound from soft to loud ; 
 marked thus <. 
 
 CRE'SCENT (Lat. cresco, I increase), in Heraldry, is a 
 bearing in form of a half moon. When the horns are 
 turned towards the chief or upper part of the shield, it 
 is called crescent, in contradistinction to the terms in- 
 crescent and decrescent ; in the former of which the horns 
 are turned to the right, and in the latter to the left side 
 of the shield. The crescent is frequently used to distin- 
 guish the coat armour of a second brother or junior family 
 from that of the principal branch. As is well known, the 
 crescent, or, as it is usually designated, the crescent mon- 
 tant, has become the symbol of the Turkish empire, 
 which has thence been frequently styled the Empire of 
 the Crescent. This symbol, however, did not originate 
 with the Turks. Long before their conquest of Constan- 
 tinople the crescent had been used as emblematic of 
 sovereignty, as may be seen from the still existing medals 
 struck in honour of Augustus, Trajan, and others, and it 
 formed from all antiquity the symbol of Byzantium. On 
 the overthrow of this empire by Mohammed II., the Turks, 
 regarding the crescent which every where met their eye 
 as a good omen, adopted it as their chief bearing; and it 
 has continued ever since to decorate their minarets, their 
 insignia, their dress, and in short every thing appertaining 
 to their empire. Crescent has also been applied to three 
 orders of knighthood : the first of which was instituted by 
 Charles I., king of Naples and Sicily, in 1268 ; the second 
 by Rene of Anjou, in 1448 ; and the third by the sultan
 
 CREST. 
 
 Selim in 1801, two years after (he battle of Aboukir. The 
 last-mentioned order is still in existence, and is remarka- 
 ble lor tlie fact that none but Christians are eligible for ad- 
 mission. 
 
 CRE'ST. (Lat.) In Heraldry, the ornament affixed to 
 the helmet, being a personal or hereditary device. War- 
 riors bore insignia peculiar to themselves in this manner 
 among the classical ancients. The earliest instance of the 
 heraldic crest in England is said to be that of Edmund 
 Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster (about 1280). The crest 
 is, in modern blazonry, a figure placed upon a wreath, 
 coronet, or cap of maintenance, which surmounts the coat 
 of arms. It is not unfrequently a repetition of some bear- 
 ing in the shield itself; as, the crest of Castile is a castle. 
 
 CRETA'CEOUS. (Lat. creta, chalk.) Composed of 
 chalk. In Geology, the cretaceous group of rocks includes 
 the upper strata of the secondary series, immediately below 
 the tertiary deposits, and resting upon the oolitic group. 
 (See Fitton, in Geo!. Trans., 2d Series, vol. iv.) 
 
 CRETINS. A name applied in the Valais and else- 
 where to a class of idiots, who are also generally afflicted 
 with goitres, which see. 
 
 CRIB. Sometimes applied to a rack for hay or straw 
 for cattle, and sometimes to a manger for corn or chaff ; 
 also to a small enclosure in a cow-house or shed for calves 
 or sheep. 
 
 CRIB-BITING. Biting the manger or crib ; a bad habit 
 among horses, brought on by uneasiness occasioned by 
 diseases of the teeth, or by roughness in the person who 
 currycombs them. 
 
 CRIBBLE. A coarse sieve, or screen, for sifting sand, 
 gravel, or corn ; the term is also applied to a sort of coarse 
 meal. 
 
 CRI'COID. (Gr. xpinog, a ring, and £i<Jo?, appearance.) 
 Annularor ring-shaped. Acartilage of the larynx is hence 
 called the cricoid cartilage. 
 
 CRI'NO. A cuticular disease, supposed to arise from 
 the insinuation of a hair-worm under the skin of infants. 
 
 CRINOTDEANS, Crinoidea. (Gr. npivov, a lily, and 
 tidoi, appearance.) A name given by Miller to an extinct 
 family olEchinoderms, having a radiated, lily-shaped disc, 
 supported on a jointed stem. When this stem is cylin- 
 drical, the species are termed Encrinites ; when it is pen- 
 tagonal, Pentacrinites. See those words. 
 
 CRI'SIS (Gr. xpiais, a decision), may be defined, in its 
 most extended signification, as a decisive point in any im- 
 portant affair or business ; but it is used more particularly 
 in a political sense, to denote a certain conjuncture of 
 affairs in which, from what cause soever it may have ori- 
 ginated, the ordinary operations of government are so fet- 
 tered or deranged a3 to lead to some important change in 
 the policy or institutions of a country. Like many ex- 
 pressions of similar import, the phrase " political crisis" 
 admits of an almost endless variety of shades of meaning, 
 being applicable at once to a change of ministry, the aboli- 
 tion of a constitution, a revolutionary* insurrection, and the 
 dethronement of a sovereign. Hence this expression 
 will be better interpreted by the feelings, predilections, or 
 prejudices of each individual, than by any definition of 
 which it is susceptible. In France, a " crise politique," as 
 it is called, is synonymous with the terms coup d'etat, 
 emeute, revolution, insurrection, <fec. In Medicine, certain 
 symptoms which announce a favourable or an unfavoura- 
 ble termination of a disease are called critical symptoms, 
 an 1 the period at which they show themselves the crisis 
 of the disease. In the progress of fevers these symptoms 
 have been supposed to show themselves at certain de- 
 finite periods, which therefore have been called critical 
 days. 
 
 CRITICISM (Gr. icpivo), I judge), has been defined 
 "the art of judging with propriety concerning any object, 
 or combination of objects." In a somewhat more limited, 
 but still extensive meaning, its province is confined to 
 literature, philology, and the fine arts; and to subjects of 
 antiquarian, scientific, or historical investigation. In this 
 sense, every branch of literary study, as well as each of 
 the fine arts, has its proper criticism as an appendage to it. 
 The elements of criticism depend on the two principlesof 
 Beauty and Truth, one of which is the final end or object 
 of study in every one of its pursuits : Beauty, in letters 
 and the arts ; Truth, in history and the sciences. The 
 office of criticism, therefore, is, first to lay down those 
 forms or essential ideas which answer to our conception 
 of the beautiful or the true in each branch of study ; and, 
 next, to point out by reference to those ideas the excel- 
 lences or defects of individual works, as they approach or 
 diverge from the requisite standard in each particular. 
 Thus, historical criticism teaches us to distinguish the true 
 from the false, or the probable from the improbable, in 
 historical works ; scientific criticism has the same object 
 in each respective line of science ; while literary criticism, 
 in a general sense, has for its principal employment the in- 
 vestigation of the merits and demerits of style or diction, 
 according to the received standard of excellence in every 
 302 
 
 CROCODILES. 
 
 language ; and, in poetry and the arts, criticism develops 
 the principles of that more refined and exquisite sense of 
 beauty which forms the ideal model of perfection in each. 
 Taste is the critical faculty ; that perception of the beauti- 
 ful in literature and the arts, for the acquisition of which, 
 perhaps, some minds have superior natural powers than 
 others, but which can in no instance be fully developed 
 except by education and habit. (See ."Esthetics.) Among 
 the classical ancients, the criticism of Beauty was carried 
 to a high degree of perfection. Less encumbered with a 
 multitude of facts and things to be known than ourselves, 
 their minds were more at leisure, and more sedulously 
 exercised in reflecting on their own notions and percep- 
 tions; hence the astonishing progress which they made in 
 the fine arts ; and hence, in literature, they valued more 
 the beauty of the vehicle in which sentiments were con- 
 veyed, and the moral or poetical beauty of those sentiments 
 themselves, than the objective branches of study which it 
 is the principal purpose of literature, in our days, to con- 
 vey easily and precisely to the mind. And as the criticism 
 which antiquity has left us consists almost wholly of such 
 as relates to literature and the arts (in history they had, as 
 far as we know, few critical spirits, in the sciences almost 
 none), the name is still confined, in its most popular signifi- 
 cation, to those provinces of research. The criticism of 
 Truth is of later growth ; but as it is regulated for the most 
 part by similar rules and principles, and as minds which 
 possess the faculty of judgment in a high degree in the one 
 are generally capable, if exercised, of forming right appre- 
 hensions in the other, they may be considered as nearly 
 allied in the more essential respects. For although it is 
 true that in scientific investigation great knowledge of the 
 individual subject is required to constitute a critic, and in 
 the fine arts the most gifted mind will require much edu- 
 cation and practice to judge of beauty ; yet it is equally 
 true in both of these branches of study, however widely 
 differing from each other, that knowledge alone (except 
 perhaps in purely abstract science, in respect of which the 
 name of criticism seems hardly applicable) will not make 
 the critic, and that the habit of discriminating and judging 
 correctly is a distinct faculty or compound of faculties in 
 the mind. Among a host of works which maybe consulted 
 with advantage on this subject, are Blair's Lectures on 
 Belles Lettres'; Campbell on Rhetoric ; Whately on Rhetoric ; 
 Knight and Alison on 7'uste : Laharpe, Cours de la Littera- 
 lure ; La Crctelle, Traite de la Rhetorique ; Horn and 
 MenzeVs History of Polite Literature ; and Schlegel's Mis- 
 cellaneous Essays, &:c. See Belles Lettres and Rhe- 
 toric. 
 
 Criticism, in a more limited sense, is a branch of belles 
 lettres. Essays written for the purpose of commending 
 or discommending works in literature or the arts, and 
 pointing out their various merits and defects, are works in 
 the critical department. Thus the term " periodical criti- 
 cism" is used to express the body of writing contained in 
 the various works under the name of magazines, review.-, 
 &c, which are periodically published in most literary 
 countries. 
 
 CRO'CKETS. (Fr. crochet, a hook.) In Gothic Archi- 
 tecture, ornaments resembling curved and bent foliage 
 running up on the edge of a gable or pinnacle. They are 
 of two varieties : the earliest are formed by a simple curve 
 turning downwards, as in the gables and spires of Lincoln 
 cathedral; the later have the point of the leaf returned 
 and pointing upwards. Sometimes animals are substituted 
 in the place of leaves. 
 
 CRO'CODILES. (Gr. kpokoSii'Xos.) A name first ap- 
 plied by Herodotus to the crocodile of Egypt, because that 
 animal resembled a small lizard of the same name (Stellio 
 of the moderns), which is now known in Greece under 
 the name of Koslordylus. The Egyptian and other species 
 of crocodile were confounded by Linnm'us under the name 
 of Lacerta crocoddus ; but the crocodiles are distinguished 
 from all other Saurian reptiles, or Locertm of Linnajus, 
 by the following characters: — They have a long and pow- 
 erful tail, which is flattened in the vertical direction, to 
 serve as the principal means of propelling the body through 
 water with the swiftness required in the pursuit of fish, 
 which form the principal prey of the crocolile. The ex- 
 tremities are short, and comparatively of little use in 
 aquatic progression, except in guiding and changing the 
 direction of the motion, for which purpose they are always 
 webbed or half-webbed. The fleshy tongue is attached 
 by its entire marginal circumference, as in most fishes, to 
 the inner side of the lower jaw, and is not extensible, as is 
 the case in all true lizards. The teeth are simple, coni- 
 cal, sharp-pointed, large, lodsed in distinct sockets, and 
 arranged in a single row ; which structure and disposition 
 are in relation with the carnivorous habits of the crocodile. 
 Lastly, the intromittent organ of the male is single. 
 
 To these essential differences between the crocodiles 
 and lizards may be added the following characters, which 
 are common to all the crocodiles : — 
 1. The fore-feet have five toes ; the hind-feet four toes-
 
 CROFT. 
 
 2. Three toes only on each foot are armed with claws ; 
 so that there are two toes in front and one behind which 
 have no claws. 
 
 3. The whole of the tail and the upper and under parts 
 of the body are covered with square scuta? or plate-scales ; 
 and the greater number of those on the back are traversed 
 longitudinally by a more or less prominent lidge. 
 
 4. The sides of the body are covered with small round 
 scales. 
 
 5. The ridges on the scales of the tail form at its base 
 two prominent lateral series, or dentated keel-like crests, 
 which converge and blend into one at the posterior part 
 of the tail. 
 
 6. The tympanum or drum of the ear is protected by 
 two moveable flaps. 
 
 7. The eyes are provided with three eyelids. 
 
 8. Two little pouches containing a substance of a musky 
 odour. Their anatomy also affords some characters which 
 are cummon to all the species, and very well distinguish 
 their skeleton from that of other Saurians. The ventricles 
 of the heart do not intercommunicate. The vertebra; in 
 the cervical region support a series of spurious ribs, which 
 are directed backwards, and the extremities of each over- 
 lapping the next in succession prevent the animal from 
 turning the head to the side. This structure, it will be 
 seen, is in admirable accordance with the aquatic habits of 
 these large piscivorous reptiles ; since, in order to displace 
 (he fluid medium through which they move, it is essential 
 that the head should be firmly locked to the trunk. It is 
 for this reason that the vertebra; immediately behind the 
 head in fishes bear ribs; and the cervical vertebra; of the 
 whale, although they accord in their number and in the 
 absence of ribs with those of other mammalia, are modi- 
 fied so as to answer the same end as the eosto-cervical 
 vertebra? of crocodiles and fishes, being compressed from 
 before backwards, and anchylused sometimes into a single 
 piece. 
 
 CROFT. A small field adjoining the dwelling house and 
 kitchen garden. The term is also sometimes applied to 
 common field lands. 
 
 CRO'MLECII, or CROMLEII. In British Antiquities, 
 large Hat stones laid across others in an upright position; 
 very commonly found in parts of Wales, in Devonshire 
 and Cornwall, and other exposed districts of England, as 
 well as in some continental countries. Cromlechs are 
 generally supposed by antiquaries to have been constructed 
 to serve as altars. According to some (see Fosbrooke's 
 Encyclopcudia of Antiquities, 508.) there is a difference be- 
 tween the cromlechs of the Britons and those of nations 
 of Germanic descent ; the former being inclined stones, 
 perhaps for the purpose of allowing the blood shed in sa- 
 crifice to run otT; the latter thick round stones, standing 
 on small hillocks and covering caves. 
 
 CROP OUT. Aminingand ecological term, expressing 
 the rising up or exposure at the surface of a stratum or 
 series of strata. 
 
 CROPS, ROTATION OF. See Agriculture. 
 
 CRO'SIER. The staff* of an archbishop, surmounted 
 by a cross, and thereby distinguished from the pastoral 
 staff or crook of a bishop. This staff, according to Poly- 
 dore Virgil, was given to bishops wherewith to chastise the 
 vices of the people ; and was called baculus pastoralis, in 
 respect of their pastoral charge and superintendence over 
 their flock, as well as from its resemblance to the shep- 
 herd's crook. Many authors contend that the crosier is de- 
 rived from the lituus or augural staff of the Romans. 
 
 CROSS. (Lat. crux.) A gibbet made of two pieces of 
 wood laid upon each other at any angle. Originally, it was 
 nothing more than a tree ; but it afterwards assumed a 
 variety of forms, of which the following are the most usual 
 examples, X T +• The cross was used as a very general 
 instrument of punishment by almost all the nations of 
 antiquity, from the earliest period of their history. Among 
 the Syrians, Jews, Egyptians, Persians, and especially the 
 Carthaginians, it appears to have been the usual military 
 punishment (Fa'. Max. ii. 7; Herod, iii. 125—159.); and 
 that it was not unknown to the Greeks, the crucifixion of 
 200) Tyrians by Alexander after his capture of their city 
 abundantly testifies (Quin. Cur. 44.; Just. IS. 3.) But in 
 no part of the ancient world was this punishment so gene- 
 rally resorted to as in the Roman empire. Under the 
 early monarchical government of Rome, it extended in- 
 discriminately to every rank (Liv. i. 26.); but latterly it 
 came to be regarded as the most infamous of deaths, and, 
 save in cases of sedition, was inflicted only on slaves or 
 the vilest malefactors. The disgust and horror in which 
 this punishment was held by the Romans is evident from 
 the expressive epithets applied to it by Cicero, " crudelis- 
 simumetteterrimum"(?no.s£/"ou'a7ia"6!T**a/),a3 weliasfrom 
 the phrases used synonymously with the instrument of 
 punishment itself; such as "arbor infelix," "infame lig- 
 num," &c. From the multiplicity of conflicting details 
 respecting the punishment of the cross, it is clear that 
 there was but little uniformity observed in carrying it into 
 303 
 
 CROSSES, STONE. 
 
 effect. By the Roman law the culprit, or, as he was 
 called, the cruciarius, was scourged previously to the cru- 
 cifixion, either in the prajtorium or on the way to the place 
 of execution. On his arrival there he was stripped of his 
 garments, and then either nailed by the hands and feet to 
 the cross, or, as sometimes happened, only fastened to it 
 by ropes. In order to hasten death, it was the practice to 
 break the legs or to pierce the body of the sufferer with a 
 spear or other sharp instrument; but this was not always 
 done ; and instances have occurred of persons, who, after 
 being suspended for some considerable time on the cross, 
 were taken down and survived. By the Jewish law, it was 
 ordained, that the body of the culprit should be removed 
 from the cross on the day of his execution ; but the 
 Romans frequently allowed it to hang till it dropped piece- 
 meal to the ground and nothing remained. " Suffixorum 
 corpora crucibus, - ' s;iys Seneca, " in suam sepulturam de- 
 fluunt." In general, the cross was erected near some 
 great road or highway, in order to indicate more distinctly 
 the ignominy of the culprit and the severity of his death. 
 
 After Jesus Christ had, by an unjust sentence, suffered 
 on the cross, and by his death made atonement for the 
 transgressions of mankind, the cross, from being an object 
 of horror, became, as it were, the symbol of the Christian 
 world, and in the end came to be regarded even with su- 
 perstitious veneration. Constantine, from respect for 
 these feelings, abolished the punishment of crucifixion 
 throughout the Roman world. 
 
 The Apostles make use of the term cross as expressive 
 of the sufferings to which the faithful must submit in at- 
 \t station of their belief, which they liken figuratively to 
 those of our Saviour in his death. Tertullian says that the 
 early Christians were accustomed on every occasion of 
 daily life, frontem cruris signaculo terere, to make the sign 
 trith the fingers tipon the forehead. This extravagant pro- 
 fuseness in the use of a symbol naturally led to supersti- 
 tion ; and the cross appears to have become the object of 
 actual adoration as early as the 4th century, when that prac- 
 tice is made a reproach against the Christians by Julian. 
 The allegation of the later Romanists, that it is not the 
 wood of the cross, but Christ figuratively present, that is 
 worshipped by them, appears to have been put forward oc- 
 casionally at this lime, but sometimes not without reproof 
 from the ecclesiastical authorities. In the Romish church 
 there are certain festivals observed to this day in memory 
 of circumstances connected with the cross ; as the Inven- 
 tion or Discovery and the Exaltation of the Cross : the 
 former commemorates the supposed discovery of the true 
 cross by the Empress Helena, the latter its restoration to 
 Calvary by Heraclius. 
 
 Cross. In Heraldry, an ordinary, formed by lines drawn 
 palewise, and fesswise, inclosing (if bounded by the es- 
 cutcheon) one fifth of the shield, or one third if charged. 
 A cross gules is termed the cross of St. George. A plain 
 cross is one the extremities of which do not reach to the 
 circumference of the escutcheon, but are "couped," or cut 
 off in a straight line. There are many other kinds of 
 crosses not reaching the circumference of the escutcheon 
 known in heraldry ; the following are only a few, most 
 commonly used in bearings : — A cross crosslet is one crossed 
 on eacli arm. Such a cross between four plain crosses is 
 termed a Jerusalem cross. A cross fiory has three points 
 at each end. A Maltese cross has arms increasing in 
 breadth towards the end, with double points. A cross fitchy 
 has the lower limb pointed, as if to fix in the ground. A 
 patriarchal cross, the insignia of patriarchs or archbishops, 
 is plain, having two bars, the upper smaller than the lower. 
 A cross moline terminates in representations of the ends of 
 the fer-de-moulin, or milrind. It is the difference of the 
 eighth son of a family. 
 
 Cross. An instrument formerly used in surveying for 
 laying out perpendicular lines, but now seldom employed. 
 It consists of a brass cross or circle, divided into four 
 equal parts by two diameters at right angles to each other. 
 At each extremity of these diameters perpendicular sights 
 are fixed. The instrument is mounted on a staff to fix it 
 in the ground, and its use is to find the point in a given line 
 or direction through which a straight line drawn to an object 
 at some distance will be perpendicular to the former line. 
 
 CRO'SS-BOW. A weapon used for shooting With, before 
 the invention of fire-arms. All weapons having the bow 
 attached to a stock were called cross-bows ; and some of 
 the larger sort were furnished with instruments for bend- 
 ing the bow. 
 
 CRO'SS-BREED. The offspring of parents of two dif- 
 fGrent breeds. 
 
 CRO'SSES, STONE, in Architectural Antiquities, are 
 of various descriptions, according to the occasion or pur- 
 pose of their erection. They are 6aid to have originated 
 in the practice of marking the Druid stones with a cross, 
 at the period of the conversion of the Celtic tribes to 
 Christianity. Preaching crosses are generally quadrangular 
 or hexagonal, open on one or both sides, and raised on 
 steps. They were used for the delivery of sermons in the
 
 
 CROSSETTES. 
 
 open air; such was the famous Paul's Cross in London. 
 Market crosses are well known. Weeping crosses were so 
 called because penances were finished before them. 
 Crosses of memorial were raised on various occasions ; 
 sometimes where the bier of an eminent person stopped 
 on its way to burial, in attestation of some miracle per- 
 formed on the spot : such are the well-known crosses of 
 Queen Philippa. Crosses served also as land-marks ; they 
 are especially set up for this purpose on the lands of the 
 Templars and Hospitallers. 
 
 CROSSE'TTES. (Fr.) In Architecture, the returns 
 on the corners of door cases or 
 window frames; called also ears, 
 elbows, ancones, prothyrides. In 
 architectural construction, they are 
 the small projecting pieces in arch 
 stones which hang upon the adjacent stones — a, a, a, a. 
 
 CRO'SS-FURROW A furrow or open trench cut across 
 other furrows to intercept the water which runs along 
 them, in order to convey it to the margin of the field where 
 it may find its way to an open ditch or some other general 
 drain. 
 
 CRO'SS-STONE. So called from the intersection of its 
 crystals. It is a species of harmotome, found in great 
 beauty at Andreasberg. (See Andreasbergolite.) It is 
 composed of 49 per cent, of silica, 16 alumina, 18 baryta, 
 and 15 water. 
 
 CRO'TALUM. (Gr. KporaXov.) An ancient kind of 
 Castanet, used by the Corybantes or priests of Cybele. 
 This instrument must not be confounded with the modern 
 crotalo, a musical instrument used chiefly by the Turks, 
 and corresponding exactly with the ancient cymbalum. 
 
 CRO'TALUS. (Lat. crotalum, a Castanet or rattle.) A 
 genus of poisonous serpents, including those which are 
 furnished with a rattle at the extremity of the tail. 
 
 CRO'TCHET. (Fr. crochet.) In Music, one of the 
 notes or characters of time, equal to half a minim. 
 
 CRO'TCHETS, in Grammar, more frequently called 
 brackets, are certain marks or hooks in which words or 
 phrases are included, thus [ ], by way of distinguishing 
 them from or of illustrating the context. 
 
 CRO'TON OIL. The expressed oil of the seeds of the 
 Croton tiglium ; formerly called Gruna tiglia, and Molucca 
 grains. The tree is a native of Ceylon, and of Malabar 
 and the Molucca Islands. Its seeds are very purgative ; 
 and their expressed oil so drastic, that a single drop will 
 often prove violently operative, completely emptying the 
 bowels and exciting a copious watery secretion from them. 
 The most active form for its exhibition is made into a pill 
 with bread crumb ; it may also be rubbed with a little mu- 
 cilage of gum arabic, and given in a liquid form ; but it al- 
 ways requires much caution in its administration. 
 
 CROUP. An inflammation of the larynx and trachea, ac- 
 companied by difficulty of breathing and cough, and by a 
 peculiar shrillness of voice and wheezing ; there is also 
 generally more or less expectoration of purulent and filmy 
 matter, which is thrown out upon the affected part and con- 
 tinually threatens suffocation. This disease is most com- 
 mon in infants, and in children from three to nine years 
 old ; it is of rare occurrence, in its acute form at least, after 
 twelve years of age. In the successful treatment of this 
 distressing and dangerous disease, every thing depends 
 upon promptitude in the application of remedies calculated 
 to subdue the local inflammatory action. This is to be done 
 either by leeches to the region of the trachea, by cupping, 
 or by bleeding in the jugular vein ; by the cautious applica- 
 tion of external irritants of rapid action, such as a piece of 
 lint dipped in strong acetic acid, which, however painful, 
 is sometimes of service ; by blisters, and by the exhibition 
 of large doses of calomel : there is a difference of opinion 
 as to the employment of emetics. The inhalation of steam 
 is useful where it can be resorted to, but in young children 
 it is impracticable. In spasmodic croup the wheezing and 
 sense of suffocation appear to depend upon spasmodic ac- 
 tion of the larynx or epiglottis : uke the former it attacks 
 infants and children, but comes on and goes off very sud- 
 denly, returning at intervals, during which the patient is 
 comparatively easy. In weakly and irritable children it 
 sometimes appears a consequence of teething. An emetic, 
 calomel purges, warm bath, diaphoretics, and a blister, are 
 the leading remedies ; bleeding should be avoided. There 
 is a kind of croup which sometimes attacks children of 
 weakly constitutions, and which appears symptomatic of 
 irritation in the stomach and bowels, for it is relieved by 
 purging, and disappears as the constitution improves. 
 Another form of this disease is called chronic croup. It is 
 attended by cough and the expectoration of tough mucus, 
 sometimes apparently membranous or tubular, occasion- 
 ing difficulty of breathing and suffocation. This disordered 
 state of the trachea and bronchial membranes may occur 
 at all periods of life : it is relieved, and often cured, by 
 using the inhaler with warm water, by expectorants with 
 small doses of sedatives and mercurials, and by occasional 
 purging. 
 
 304 
 
 CRUDE. 
 
 CROWN. (Lat. corona.) In Heraldry. Among the 
 ancients, and especially in the Roman republic, crowns 
 were presented to citizens as marks of distinction for val- 
 iant or otherwise meritorious exploits. From this usage 
 the crown has been adopted as a bearing by modern 
 heralds. Nine species of the crown are enumerated in 
 heraldry ; some of which, however, have not been intro- 
 duced into modern arms, and are only known from the 
 description left of them by the ancients : — 1. The Eastern 
 Crown, imitated from that which appears on coins of 
 Greek oriental sovereigns, and borne by [hose who have 
 distinguished themselves in the East : the East India 
 Company's arms have this Crown. 2. The Triumphal 
 Crown, which, after being borne by Julius Cssar, became 
 the Crown Imperial. 3. The plain Circlet or Diadem. 
 4. The Obsidional Crown, given among the Romans to 
 those who had performed exploits in the defence of forti- 
 fied places. 5. The Civic Crown, for saving the life of a 
 citizen. 6. The Crown Vallary, to soldiers who had first 
 entered the enemy's trench. 7. The Mural Crown, to sol- 
 diers distinguished in besieging armies. 8. The Naval 
 Crown, common in English coats of augmentation. 9. The 
 Crown Celestial. 
 
 Crown. In Architecture, the uppermost member of the 
 cornice ; called also corona and larmier. 
 
 CROWN or DEMESNE LANDS (Terra Dominicales). 
 The lands, estates, or other real property belonging to the 
 crown or sovereign. These were anciently very extensive 
 in this and most other European countries. The rents and 
 other payments arising from them formed during the mid- 
 dle ages an important part of the revenue of our English 
 kings ; and they still form an important part of the revenue 
 of several Continental sovereigns. These lands have been 
 acquired by various means, such as purchase, succession, 
 forfeiture, &c. Having been regarded for a lengthened pe- 
 riod as the private property of the crown, and as being con- 
 sequently at the free disposal of the sovereign for the time 
 being, but little providence has been displayed in their ma- 
 nagement. A grant of crown lands was, indeed, the ordi- 
 nary method in which our sovereigns used formerly to gra- 
 tify their favourites ; and, in consequence of the magnitude 
 and improvidence of such grants, the crown estates in this 
 country have been reduced within very narrow limits. Par- 
 liament frequently interposed to check this profusion, but 
 without effect till after the Revolution, when the lavish 
 grants of crown lands, made by William III. to the Ben- 
 tinckand other families, occasioned so much dissatisfaction 
 that the practice was put an end to. This was done by the 
 act 1 Ann, st. 1. cap. 7., which declared that all future grants 
 or leases of lands from the crown for a longer term than 
 31 years, and of houses for a longer term than 50 years, 
 should be void. 
 
 The crown estates, forests, manorial rights, &c. not 
 granted away, have now become, in consequence of ar- 
 rangements to that effect, the property of the public ; and 
 are administered by a department specially appropriated 
 to that purpose, called the " Woods and Forests." Their 
 total nett revenue in 1838 amounted to 383,642/., collected 
 at an expense of 10J per cent. Of late years a consider- 
 able extent of crown lands, consisting of old forests and 
 chaces, have been enclosed and planted with forest trees, 
 with a view to the supply of timber for (he navy. 
 
 Certain lands, manorial rights, &c, with the sum paid as 
 commutation for the loss of the tin duties, are the private 
 property of the prince of Wales, as duke of Cornwall ; and 
 when there is no prince of Wales, of the crown. 
 
 CRU'CIBLE. (Lat. crucio, / torment ; because, in the 
 language of old chemistry, the metals were tortured by fire 
 to yield up their various virtues.) A vessel, generally 
 made of very refractory earthenware, in constant use in 
 the chemical laboratory for performing fusions of metals 
 and other substances. 
 
 CRUCI'FER^E. (Lat. crux, a cross ; the flowers being 
 in the form of a Maltese cross.) A natural order of Exo- 
 gens, inhabiting most temperate countries. They are allied 
 to Capparidacem, but differ in their tetradynamous stamens ; 
 and also to Paparcracew and Finnariacea, but are distin- 
 guished by their seeds, and having no albumen. They are 
 characterized essentially by their deviation from the ordi- 
 nary symmetry observable in the relative arrangement of 
 the parts of fructification of other plants. Linnaeus divid- 
 ed this order into Si/iquoste and Siliculosa', from the forms 
 of their fruits ; butmore recently divisions have been found- 
 ed upon the nature of the plicature of the cotyledons, and 
 the position of the radicle with respect to them. They 
 possess universally antiscorbutic and stimulant properties, 
 combined with an acrid flavour; and their seeds uniformly 
 abound in a fixed oil, — properties of which cress, mustard, 
 and rape may be taken as representatives. 
 
 CRU'CIFIX. The figure of Christ upon a cross ; also a 
 cross with the figure of Christ upon it. 
 
 CRUDE. (Lat. crudus.) In Painting, a term applied to 
 a picture when the colours are rudely laid on, and do not 
 blend or harmonize.
 
 CRUISE. 
 
 CRUISE. (Germ, kreutzen, to cross.) A voyage within 
 certain limits, for the purpose of meeting with enemy's 
 ships, pirates, &c, or for mere exercise. 
 
 CKU'OR. (Lat. gore.) The red coagulum of the blood, 
 which appears as the blood cools. 
 
 CRUPPER. A roll of leather put under a horse's tail, 
 and connected with the saddle by a strap and buckle, for 
 the purpose of preventing the saddle from being cast for- 
 ward on the horse's neck by the action of riding. 
 
 CRU'RAL. (Lat. crus, the teg.) Relating to the leg, or 
 shaped like a leg or root. 
 
 CRUSA'DES. (Lat. crux, cross.) In the European His- 
 tory of the Middle Ages, wars undertaken by confedera- 
 cies of chiefs and soldiers with a religious object. Those 
 which were engaged in by great part of the nations of Eu- 
 rope for the recovery of Palestine from the infidels are 
 more frequently denoted by this peculiar name. The term 
 Crusade is derived from the sacred symbol of the cross, 
 which was borne by the warriors engaged in it over their 
 arms : the colour of the cross often served to designate the 
 nation of the soldier ; as, the white cross on a red ground, 
 France; the red cross on a white ground, England. The 
 principal crusades for the conquest of Palestine were — 1. 
 The first, a. d. 1096, excited by the preaching of Peter the 
 Hermit and the encouragement of Pope Urban II., in which 
 Godfrey of Boulogne headed the Christians, who made 
 themselves masters of Jerusalem and great part of Pales- 
 tine. 2. The second, a. d. 1142, in which Conrad III. of 
 Germany and Louis VII. of France led armies to complete 
 the conquest of Palestine, but without success. 3. The 
 third, A. d. 1139, was occasioned by the capture of Jerusa- 
 lem by sultan Saladin ; Frederic II. of Germany, Philip 
 Augustas of France, and Richard Coeur de Lion of Eng- 
 land, were the chief among the confederate monarchs : the 
 capture of Acre was almost the only fruit of this great ex- 
 pedition. 4. The fourth crusade was conducted by the 
 King of Hungary, Andrew II., in 1217. 5. The fifth was 
 conducted by Frederic II. of Germany (Barbarossa), who 
 recovered Jerusalem, but for a short time. 6. The sixth, 
 A. d. 124S, by Saint Louis, king of France, against Egypt, 
 but without success. Among other wars which have been 
 at various times denoted by the name of Crusades, that 
 against Raymond count of Toulouse and his heretical vas- 
 sals the Albigeois, of which the first leader was the famous 
 Simon de Montfort, is the most memorable. (See At.bi- 
 genses.) Whether the Crusades exercised a beneficial 
 influence on the state and condition of society, is a ques- 
 tion which lias long engaged the attention of the learned ; 
 and, as is the case with every subject of a purely specula- 
 tive character, different opinions have been entertained re- 
 specting it at different times. In the seventeenth century, 
 when the question came first to be agitated, these extraor- 
 dinary expeditions were generally regarded as having been 
 in the highest degree favourable to the intellectual, com- 
 mercial and political interests of the world ; but in the suc- 
 ceeding century there arose a host of inquirers, at the head 
 of whom was Voltaire, less dazzled by the brilliancy which 
 romance had thrown around these enterprises than the phi- 
 losophers of the preceding age, by whom they were repre- 
 sented as mere ebullitions of superstition, fanaticism, and 
 barbarism, which, how strongly soever they agitated the sur- 
 face of society, in no degree contributed to its permanent im- 
 provement. And it was not until Robertson published the in- 
 troduction to his Charles V., in which he expressed his con- 
 viction that the Crusades had exercised a most favourable 
 influence over the progress of freedom and the advance- 
 ment of the human mind, that a ch3ck was given to these 
 unfavourable views, and that the interest and importance 
 formerly attached to the Crusades began to be revived. 
 With the view of stimulating inquiry into this grand his- 
 torical question, the French Institute, in the year 180G, with 
 its usual enlightened spirit, proposed it to the learned of all 
 countries as a subject of general competition ; and the 
 prize was awarded jointly to the essays of Heeren and 
 Choiseul d'Aillecourt, which have since been published. 
 These essays form the groundwork of the more elaborate 
 researches of Michaud, and of the numerous other treatises 
 upon this subject with which the literature of France, 
 England, and Germany has since been inundated ; and 
 along with all the most recent discussions upon this ques- 
 tion, which it has been our fortune to see, manifest a sin- 
 gular coincidence of opinion respecting the tendency of 
 the Crusades, which, in spite of some strong drawbacks 
 and disadvantages, they consider as having materially con- 
 tributed to the revival of European learning and civiliza- 
 tion. There are few disputed subjects of which it is more 
 difficult to form a correct estimate than the influence of 
 the Crusades, whether we regard the distant period when 
 they took place, the insufficiency of contemporary history, 
 the different phenomena and consequences by which they 
 were accompanied in different countries, or, above all, the 
 difficulty of assigning to these enterprises their own pecu- 
 liar effects, amid the multiplicity of other causes, more 
 powerful, perhaps, though less apparent, which were then 
 305 
 
 CRYPTOGAMIC PLANTS. 
 
 operating on society. As our limits necessarily preclude 
 us from entering upon this interesting inquiry, we must 
 content ourselves with merely glancing at the chief argu- 
 ments which have been adduced on both sides of the 
 question. Some of those who maintain that the Crusades 
 exercised a beneficial influence over the interests of so- 
 ciety, scruple not to trace to them the origin of almost all 
 the civilization which modern Europe at present enjoys. 
 But those who take a more reasonable view of the matter, 
 reckon among the advantages which resulted from these 
 enterprizes the general intercourse which they tended to 
 establish between nations that might otherwise have long 
 remained strangers to each other ; the removal of inter- 
 national contentions and prejudices, which the union or 
 nearly all the European states in pursuit of a common ob- 
 ject tended to effect ; the impulse which they gave to com- 
 mercial enterprize throughout the world, more especially 
 in Italy, and subsequently to the revival of literature and the 
 fine arts in that country ; the general diffusion of more lib- 
 eral modes of thinking and acting on political and religious 
 questions ; and finally the breaking up of the feudal system, 
 which, as is alleged, laid the foundation of the civil liberty 
 at present enjoyed by all the communities of Europe. On 
 the other hand, those who advocate the negative side of the 
 question allege that the Crusades were begun in folly, pro- 
 secuted without skill, and ended in defeat. They caused, 
 it is maintained, a waste of life and labour beyond example, 
 without any advantageous return. For two centuries they 
 afflicted almost every family in Europe with the most pain- 
 ful privations ; and withdrew the attention of its inhabit- 
 ants from the peaceful pursuits of industry to marauding 
 expeditions undertaken in a spirit of religious fanaticism, 
 and evincing in their conduct a disregard for the most ob- 
 vious principles of justice. Agriculture, commerce, arts, 
 and education were neglected by all ranks, under a genera! 
 distemper of the imagination, which represented the re- 
 covery of the Holy Land from the possession of infidels as 
 the most sacred and urgent of duties. In this Quixotic at- 
 tempt, they sacrificed the flower of successive generations, 
 and the strength and ornament of their respective coun- 
 tries. It is contended too by those who take this view of 
 the matter, that the absence of the principal sovereigns 
 from their kingdoms gave full scope to all sorts of faction 
 and disturbance at home ; and that though the power of 
 some of the greater barons was broken by the debts and 
 obligations they contracted during these expeditions, the 
 anarchy inseparable from the feudal system was greatly 
 augmented, and the progress of good government greatly 
 retarded. Without attempting to determine the precise 
 degree of weight that should be attached to these conflict- 
 ing statements, it is abundantly clear that there has been, 
 on both sides, a vast deal of exaggeration ; and though it be 
 obviously absurd to ascribe to the Crusades the superior 
 wealth, civilization, and freedom of modern Europe, it is 
 at the same time sufficiently clear that their beneficial in- 
 fluence, in various respects, countervailed to a considerable 
 extent the improvement, anarchy, and war in which they 
 involved the greater part of Europe and Asia. In addition 
 to the prize essays already referred to, the reader may 
 consult the elaborate and important work of Michaud I'His- 
 toirc des Croisades, and his BMiographie des Croisades ; 
 with Wilken's Geschichte der Kreuzzuge ; Haken's Gemiil- 
 de der Kreuzzuge ; the art. "Croisades" in the Encyclo- 
 pedie des Gens du Monde, &c. &c. 
 
 CRU'SCA, ACCADEMI'A DELLA. See Academy. 
 
 CRU'STA. (Lat.) In Gem Sculpture, a gem engraved 
 for inlaving on a vase or other object. 
 
 CRUST A'CEANS, Crustacea. (Lat. crusta, a hard co- 
 vering.) A class of free articulate animals, with articulated 
 limbs, a branchial respiration, and a dorsal ventricle or 
 heart. 
 
 CRY'OLITE. (Gr. icpvos, ice, \iBos, stone.) A rare mi- 
 neral from Greenland. It is a double fluoride of sodium 
 and aluminum. It readily fuses in the flame of a candle, 
 whence its name. 
 
 CRYO'PHORUS. (Gr. xpvof, and ^spo, / bear.) The 
 frost-bearer or carrier of cold ; an instrument contrived by 
 Dr. Wollaston for freezing water by its own evaporation. 
 (Phi/os. Tratis. 1813, p. 71.) 
 
 CRYPT. (Gr. Kovtrru, I hide.) In Architecture, the 
 under or hidden part of a building. It is used also to de- 
 signate that part of the ancient churches and abbeys ap- 
 propriated to the monuments of deceased persons. (See 
 Dugdak's Monasticon.) 
 
 CRY'PTA. (Gr. Kpvxrai.) In Botany the round re- 
 ceptacles for secretion present in the leaves of some plants, 
 as in the orange and myrtle. 
 
 CRY'PTA. (Gr. KpvTrro).) Little rounded excrescences, 
 in which the minute ramifications of the arteries terminate 
 in the cortical part of the kidneys. 
 
 CRYPTOGA'MIC PLANTS' (Gr. icpmros, concealed, 
 
 and yapos, marriage), are those which never produce 
 
 flowers or sexes, but which are multiplied without the aid 
 
 of sexual intercourse. Linneeus gave them their name 
 
 V
 
 CRYPTOGRAPHY. 
 
 upon the supposition that they in fact do possess sexual 
 organs, although he was unable to discover them ; and 
 since his time Hedvvig and others have endeavoured to 
 show that sexes do exist in them, although in a concealed 
 and anomalous state. In fact, it appears that in Merchanti- 
 ance, Mosses, Jungermanniacea, and some others, the re- 
 productive organs are of two sorts, and it is not altogether 
 unreasonable to call the one male and the other female ; 
 but at the same time it must be confessed that if such parts 
 are rightly named, they are exceedingly dissimilar to the 
 organs so called in Phanerogamic plants, and that the ut- 
 most which can be conceded to them is, that one contains 
 a male principle and the other a female principle. From 
 the recent observations of Agardh, Morren, Leveille, 
 Klotzsch, and others, it is not improbable that two such 
 principles exist, although in a state of intimate intermix- 
 ture, even in plants like Fungi and Alga,. The principal 
 natural orders of Cryptogamic plants are Ferns, Mosses, 
 Equisetacea, Lycopodiacea, Characea, Hepatica, Lichens, 
 Alga., and Fungi. In these orders we have the greatest 
 variation in the organ of vegetation, some of the ferns 
 forming trees 50 or 60 feet high, while many Alga and 
 Fungi are vesicular and microscopic. Among the latter, 
 vegetable life approaches so nearly to that of animals that 
 distinctions fail, and it is no longer possible to say that lo- 
 comotion is the peculiar property of the one and fixation 
 that of the other ; for in numerous Alga the seeds have 
 an undoubted spontaneous power of motion in water until 
 they begin their growth as young plants. Cryptogamic 
 plants are connected with Gymnosperms through Lycopo- 
 diacea and Equisetacea, with Rhizanths through Fungi, 
 and perhaps with Endogens by tree ferns ; they do not ap- 
 pear to have any immediate relation to Exogens. 
 
 CRYPTO'GRAPHY. (Gr. Kpvwros, and vpa<po>, Iwrile.) 
 Also termed Polygraphy and Steganography. The art of 
 writing in a manner intelligible only to those admitted into 
 the secret of the method, either by conventional signs (ci- 
 pher), or by other contrivances. 
 
 CRY'PTO PORTICUS. In Ancient Architecture, a con- 
 cealed portico ; also one that for coolness is enclosed on 
 every side. Some of them were sunk some way into the 
 ground. 
 
 CRY'STAL, Crystallus. (Gr. xptiirraXXof, ice.) This 
 term was originally applied to those beautiful transparent 
 varieties of silica, or quartz, known under the name of 
 rock crystal. When substances pass from the fluid to the 
 solid state, they frequently assume those regular forms 
 which are generally termed crystals. 
 
 CRYSTALLINE LENS. The lens of the eye, placed 
 in a depression upon the anterior part of the vitreous hu- 
 mour. See Eye. 
 
 CRYSTALLIZATION, Chrystallography. (Gr. upvo- 
 raAAof, a crystal, and ypcupo), 1 describe.) The doctrine of 
 the relation of crystalline forms, and of the origin and 
 structure of crystals. Natural as well as artificial crystals oc- 
 cur in an infinite variety of forms ; but they may generally 
 be referred to some primary figure, of which these vari- 
 eties may be regarded as modifications. The structure of 
 crystallized bodies is most easily illustrated by reference 
 to natural crystals, but the theory applies to all crystallized 
 bodies ; it assumes the existence of some definite primary 
 figure, which by various truncations may be modified into 
 its secondary forms. 
 
 The varieties of calcareous spar may be referred to as 
 presenting one of the easiest illustrations of the mechani- 
 cal texture of crystals, and of the modifications of which 
 a definite primary figure is susceptible. Calcareous spar 
 occurs in more than a hundred different forms, all of 
 which, by careful mechanical division, are reducible to 
 an obtuse rhomboid, whose faces are inclined to each other 
 at angles of 105° 5' ; this, therefore, is called the primary 
 form of calcareous spar. 
 
 The secondary forms are presumed to be derived from 
 the primary forms in consequence of decrements of parti- 
 cles taking place upon the edges, or angles, or both, of the 
 primary form. Thus, if the primary form were a cube, it 
 might be reduced to a secondary octahedron by decre- 
 ments, or truncations, in the direction of the planes pro- 
 duced by the removal of its solid angles ; and by a similar 
 operation a primary octahedron might become a secondary 
 cube. 
 
 The doctrine of the relations and conversions of these 
 forms is, properly speaking, a branch of solid geometry ; 
 but its practical applications to chemistry have in fact ren- 
 dered crystallography a subsidiary branch of those depart- 
 ments of science. By a careful examination of the forms 
 and modifications and texture and fracture of crystals, the 
 chemist and mineralogist are in many cases enabled to de- 
 termine their nature or composition ; and in some cases a 
 strict examination of such forms may supersede analysis, 
 or other more circuitous methods. 
 
 When we attempt by cautious mechanical means to dis- 
 sect a crystal, we find that it will only yield kindly and af- 
 ford smooth surfaces when broken or divided in certain 
 306 
 
 CUBIC EQUATION. 
 
 directions. A cube of fluor spar, for instance, will only 
 give way under such circumstances in the direction of its 
 solid angles or corners ; and pursuing the division in such 
 directions an octahedron will be the resulting figure ; and 
 each slice which is removed may be further divided into 
 octahedra and tetrahedra. The new and smooth surfaces 
 resulting from this division or cleavage of the crystal are 
 called its cleavage planes, the line produced by the meet- 
 ing of two planes is called the edge of the crystal, and the 
 meeting of any two lines or edges forms a. plane angle. A 
 solid angle is produced by the meeting of three or more 
 plane angles. Different crystallographers have assumed va- 
 rious primitive forms as the bases of their respective sys- 
 tems of crystallization. Hauy assumed six (Traite de Mi- 
 neralogie) ; Mr. Brooke enumerates fifteen primary forms 
 (Fatniliar Introduction to Crystallography); and almost 
 each author upon this subject has adopted different views 
 as regards the number of fundamental forms and the 
 modes of derivation of secondary figures. In Germany 
 the system of crystallosraphy of Mohs is generally adopt- 
 ed. (See Haidenger's Translation of Mohs' Mineralogy.) 
 But any detailed account of these different systems and 
 theories would be inconsistent with our present object. It 
 may be observed, however, that the theory of crystallization 
 is greatly simplified by assuming all secondary forms as 
 resulting from the aggregation of primary spherical or 
 spheroidical molecules. (See a paper on this subject by 
 Dr. Wollaston, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1813 ; 
 and Mr. Daniell's interesting confirmations of the hypo- 
 thesis in the first volume of the Quarterly Journal of Sci- 
 ence and the Arts.) 
 
 The process of crystallization is resorted to for many use- 
 ful and important purposes in the chemical arts : it is the 
 principal means by which various saline products are ob- 
 tained in a state of purity ; for, in the act of crystallization, 
 they throw off foreign substances and acquire definite com- 
 position. It is thus, for instance, that nitre is purified for 
 the manufacture of gunpowder ; and that the common and 
 other salts with which crude nitre is contaminated are got 
 rid of, a crystal of nitre being of necessity a definite com- 
 pound of 54 parts of nitric acid combined with 48 of potassa. 
 Nitre furnishes an instance of what is termed an anhydrous 
 crystal ; it retains none of the water in which it had been 
 dissolved, and from which it is deposited. There are, 
 however, many sails, the crystals of which are hydrous; 
 and in such cases the quantity of water which they con- 
 tain always bears a certain definite quantitative relation to 
 the elements of the salts. Sulphate of magnesia, for in- 
 stance, or Epsom salt, forms prismatic crystals, which al- 
 ways contain 51-2 per cent, of water of crystallization : they 
 are constituted of20 parts of magnesia, 40 of sulphuric acid, 
 and 63 of water. 
 
 CTE'NOBRA'NCHIATA. (Gr. ktcis, a comb, and Ppay- 
 %ia, gills.) A name substituted by some naturalists for 
 Pectinibranchiata ; applied by Cuvier to that order of Gas- 
 tropods which breathe by means of pectinated gills. 
 
 CTENOl'DES. (Gr. ktcis, and eiios, form.) A name 
 given by Agassiz to one of his orders of fishes, character- 
 ized by scales composed of lay ers with pectinated or toothed 
 posterior margins. These combs overlapping one another 
 give a rough feel to the skin : the scales are horny or bony, 
 without enamel. The Ctenoid order includes the following 
 families: — Chetodontes, Pleuronectes, Percoides, Polyacan- 
 thes, Scienoides, Sparoides, Scorpenoides, Aulastomcs. 
 
 CU'BATURE, is the measurement of the contents of a 
 solid body, or finding a cube equal to it. 
 
 CUBE. (Gr. kv/3os, a die.) In Geometry, a solid body 
 bounded by six equal squares. The cube is one of the five 
 regular Platonic bodies, which, being placed beside each 
 other, fill up the space about a point. It is also called the 
 hexaedron, on account of its six sides. The duplication of 
 the cube, or the finding of the side of a cube containing 
 exactly twice as much matteras another given cube, was a 
 celebrated problem among the geometers of antiquity, but 
 which cannot be solved by means of the straight line and 
 circle, the only lines which the ancients admitted into their 
 geometrical constructions. (See Duplication of the 
 Cube.) In arithmetic, cubes, or cubic numbers, are numbers 
 formed by the multiplication of any number into itself 
 twice: thus 8 and 27 are cubes; the first being equal to 
 2 X 2 X 2, and the second to 3 X 3 X 3 - 
 
 CU'BEBS. The berries of the Piper ctibeba, or Java 
 pepper. They have a bitter and aromatic flavour, and con- 
 tain volatile oil and resin : they are stomachic : and given 
 in a dose of from one to two drachms in powder, two or 
 three times a day, have proved curative in certain forms of 
 gonorrhoea. 
 
 CU'BIC EQUA'TION. In Algebra, is an equation which 
 involves the cube or third power of the unknown quantity. 
 Like equations of any other degree, cubic equations are 
 either pure or adfected: the pure containing only the cube 
 of the unknown quantity ; and the adfected containing the 
 square or simple power, or both, of that quantity. A pure 
 cubic equation is of this form, x' =a; where a is any
 
 CUBIC EQ.UATION. 
 
 number whatever, positive or negative, and the value of x 
 is found by extracting the cube root of the number a by the 
 usual arithmetical rule. 
 
 It might seem, at first sight, that the only value which x 
 can have in the equation x 3 = a is x = ya ; but on further 
 consideration it will be seen that there are two more values 
 of x, or at least two other sets of symbols by which the 
 value of x may be represented, which equally 'satisfy the 
 equation. On substituting n 3 for a, the equation becomes 
 x* = n 3 , ori 2 -n ! =zo; butar 3 — n 3 is resolvable into the 
 two factors (x — n) X 0r s + xn + n 8 ). therefore the equa- 
 tion is satisfied either by making x — n = o, or X s + x n 
 + vP- = o. The first gives x = n; and on solving the quad- 
 ratic X? + x n ■+- n s = o, the following values o f x re sult, 
 namely, x = J ( — n+ V — 3n 8 ) = i n ( — 1 + V —3, and 
 * = i(_n — V_37i s )=irc( — 1 — V — 3). The three 
 roots" of the equation x 3 — n 3 = o are therefore a: = n, 
 a; = i n ( — 1 + V — 3), a: = * n ( — 1 — V^Tjj) ; and 
 this conclusion is easily verified by raising each of these 
 three expressions to the cube, or by multiplying all three 
 together : in either case the result will be n 3 . It may be 
 remarked that the first expression only for x is real, the 
 two latter are imaginary. 
 
 A complete cubic equation has the form x 3 -f- Aa: 2 + Bar 
 -J- C =o, where A, B, and C denote known quantities, po- 
 sitive or negative. Now it is always possible, by assuming 
 x= y — \ A, to transform an equation of this form into another 
 in which the second term shall be wanting, and which shall 
 have the form y 3 + a y + 6 = o ; the coefficients a and b of 
 this last equation being also known, and depending on 
 those of the former equation. If, therefore, we can suc- 
 ceed in finding the value or values of y from this equation, 
 those of x will also become known in consequence of the 
 equation ar = y — j A. 
 
 In order to discover the roots of the equation »/'+ai/+6 = 
 o, suppose y to be composed of two parts, u and v, orassume 
 y = u + v. The equation then becomes by substitution, 
 u 3 + 3m 5 v + Zuv^ + v 3 ] 
 
 -\-au -\-av (=-o\ 
 + b) 
 which, as it contains two indeterminate quantities, may be 
 divided into any two parts at pleasure. Let it be resolved 
 into the two, u 3 +v 3 +b = o, 
 
 3u* v + 3uv* + au-{-av=^o. 
 The last of these is the same as 
 
 (3tt» + a) (u + v) = o, 
 which maybe satisfied either by making u ■+• v = o, or 
 :; u r + a =z o. But the supposition that u -f- v = o is inad- 
 missible, since ?« +f = y; for if we suppose i/ = o, then on 
 account of the original equation, y 3 + a y + l> z= o, it would 
 be necessary to suppose also b = o, which is inconsistent 
 with the hypothesis. To determine u and v, therefore, 
 we have only the two equations, 
 
 u 3 + v 3 + b = o, 3ur + o=o; 
 the first of which gives uf +v 3 = — b, and the second uv 
 = £ a, whence u 3 v' = J= a 3 . On substituting in the first 
 of these two last equations the value of v s deduced from 
 
 the second, we find u 3 + 
 
 27;/. 
 
 ;=s — b, from which u 3 is ob- 
 
 tained by the solution of a quadratic. The solution gives 
 u*z= — i 6 i V oV ° 3 + i * ! i whence, and from the equa- 
 tion u 3 + v 3 = — b, m s = — *6 + V/j <z' + }6 2 , v * 
 
 = -ib-^/^-^+ib'-,u= ^-£& + VV7 a3 +* 62 > 
 <o— V_i6_'y/-*_ a 3_j-i& S! ; buty = «+t>, therefore 
 
 y = ^- h b+V-i^+^+ V-hb— v/^+i*" 8 - 
 Having obtained a value of y in terms of a and b, which 
 satisfies the equation y 3 + a y + b = o. that equation is 
 resolved; but, as in the case of pure cubic equations, two 
 other values of y may be found, each of which also sa- 
 tisfies the equation. For the sake of abridging, let P = 
 
 - i 6 + ^/^\a 3 +ib%q = -i b -Vjr a'+jb*] 
 
 and let also p = i (— 1 + V — 3), q = I ( — 1 — V — 3) ; 
 then u 3 = P, and v 3 = Q_ ; and in consequence of what 
 was shown above, u and v have each these three values : 
 m = ^/P, u=pyP, u = q ^P. ("0 
 
 t> = ^/Q, v = pyQ., » = g^/Q. («) 
 
 To determine in what manner these equations must be 
 combined in order to give the corresponding values of y 
 ( = u ^1 v), we must recollect that uv =■ % a; but PQ = 
 •i a 3 , or v^Q = |o; therefore uv = nKP Q. But it is 
 obvious thatp q = 1 ; in order therefore to preserve these 
 relations, we must combine the first of the equations (m) 
 307 
 
 CUIRASS. 
 
 with the first of (n), the second of (m) with the third of 
 (n), and the third of (m) with the second of (71). Hence 
 the three values of u -\- v, or y, are y = ^P + ^Q, y=.j> 
 -vVP + 1 \VQ, y = qyP+p ,yQ. 
 
 The first of these three formulas was intended by Nicho- 
 las Tartalea and Scipio Ferreus independently about the 
 same time ; but having been first published by Cardan, is 
 generally known by the name of Cardan's Rule. 
 
 In applying the above formula for the resolution of a 
 cubic equation, it is necessary to extract the square root 
 of the quantity ~ a 3 -\- \ 6 s . Now, as a and b may have 
 any values whatever, if it happen that a is negative, and 
 such that J T a 3 is greater than | b 2 , the quantity JLo' + 
 J 6 2 becomes negative, and the extraction of its" square 
 root impossible. This circumstance gives rise to what 
 is termed the irreducible case, and long continued to 
 puzzle algebraists, the three roots of the equation ap- 
 pearing all under an imaginary form. It has been found, 
 however, from a more profound analysis of the nature of 
 equations, that in this case (that is, when a is negative, and 
 _L a 3 greater than \ o 2 ) all the three roots are real, not- 
 withstanding their imaginary form. In fact, every equa- 
 tion of the third degree must have at least one real root : 
 when the irreducible case occurs, all the roots are real ; in 
 the other case, one root is real, and the other two imaginary. 
 CUBI'CULUM. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, strictly 
 a bed room ; but with the Romans applied in a more ex- 
 tended sense to the balcon or tent provided to cover the 
 emperors at the public shows. 
 
 CU'BIT. (Lat. cubitus.) In Architecture and Sculpture, 
 a linear measure of the ancients, equal to the length of the 
 arm from the elbow to the extremity of the middle finger, 
 usually considered about 18 English inches. The geome- 
 trical cubit of Vitruvius was equal to six ordinary cubits. 
 
 CU'BITUS. The fore arm ; the larger bone of which is 
 called the 0.5 cubiti. This term is said to be derived from 
 cubo, Hie down, from the ancient custom of leaning on that 
 part of the arm when in the recumbent posture at meals. 
 
 CU'CULINiE. A name given by Latreille to a family of 
 bees, distinguished by the absence of the femoral plates 
 for transporting pollen, and which are consequently com- 
 pelled to resort to the combs of other bees in order to de- 
 posit their eggs : hence they may be regarded, like the 
 cuckoo, as a kind of parasite. 
 
 CU'CULUS. (Lat. cuculus, a cuckoo.) A most interest- 
 ing genus of Passerine birds, belonging to that group which 
 is characterized by having the toes situated two before and 
 two behind (Zygodactyli) ; and so named from including 
 as the typical species the common European cuckoo (.Cu- 
 culus canorus). The cuckoo is a migratory bird ; it arrives 
 in England in the month of April for the purpose of breed- 
 ing. It differs from almost every other bird in not con- 
 structing a nest, nor under any circumstances hatching its 
 own eggs ; but deposits them in the nests of other birds, 
 as the hedge-sparrow. The unfledged young have a re- 
 markable instinct, which impels them to unceasing efforts 
 to expel their helpless companions from the nest, which 
 they effect by pushing them in the hollow of their back 
 to the verge of the nest, and tilting them over, until they 
 at length monopolize all the care and provision of the fos- 
 ter-parent. The young cuckoos of the year do not leave 
 this country till the month of September. 
 
 CUCU'RBITA'CEjE. (Cucurbita, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of Exogens, inhabiting the hot countries of 
 both hemispheres. They are placed by Auguste de St. Hi- 
 laire and De Candolle between Myrtacea, to which they ap- 
 pear to have little affinity, and Passifloraccm, to which they 
 are so closely allied that they differ only in the sinuous 
 stamens, unisexual flowers, inferior fruit, and exalbumin- 
 ous seeds. St. Hilaire also insists upon their affinity with 
 Onagracea, with which, including Combretacece., they agree 
 in some respects. The order is one of the most useful in 
 the vegetable kingdom, comprehending the melon, the 
 choco, and the various species of gourd ; all valuable as 
 the food of man. Colocynth is the pulp of Cucumis colo- 
 cynthis, which is so drastic as to be classed by Orfila 
 among his poisons. The root of Bryonia possesses a 
 powerful purgative property, but is said to become whole- 
 some if properly cooked ; and the perennial roots of all 
 the order appear to contain similar bitter drastic virtues: 
 especially of the Monwrdica elaterium, which has an active 
 poisonous principle called elatine. 
 
 CUIRA'SS. (Fr. cuir, leather.) A covering for the 
 breast ; originally, as the name denotes, of leather, also of 
 quilted linen, cloth, &c. The cuirass of plate-armour suc- 
 ceeded the hauberk, hacqueton, &c. of mail, about the 
 reign of Edward III. ; and from that period the surcoat, 
 jupon, &c. which were usually worn over the coat of mail, 
 began to be laid aside. From that period the cuirass or 
 breast-plate continued to be worn, and was the last piece of 
 defensive armour laid aside in actual warfare. There were 
 cuirassiers in the English civil wars, and in the French ser- 
 vice nearly to the end of the 17th century : after this pe-
 
 CUISSES. 
 
 riod, Ihe cuirass was generally laid aside, until il was again 
 employed by some of Napoleon's regiments, and it is now, 
 in most services, worn by some regiments of heavy ca- 
 valry. 
 
 CUISSES, CUISSOTS, CUISSARTS, &c. In Plate Ar- 
 mour, the pieces which protected the front of the thigh. 
 
 CULDE'ES. A religious order, whose origin is attribut- 
 ed to St. Columba, an Irish monk of the 6lh century, who 
 evangelized the western parts of Scotland, and founded a 
 famed monastery in Iona. The word is probably contract- 
 ed from cuHores Dei. See Jamieson's Hist. 
 
 CU'LEX. (Lat, agnut.) A Linnaean genus of insects, 
 having the common gnat (Culex pipiens, L.) for its type ; 
 but now raised to the rank of a family (Culicida), includ- 
 ing the genera Mega-rhino, Sabethes, CEdes, Aropheles, and 
 Culex proper : the two latter are British. 
 
 CU'LINARY VEGETABLES. Plants cultivated in gar- 
 dens, and sometimes in fields, for culinary purposes. They 
 may be classed as — leaf plants, such as the cabbage tribe, 
 spinaceous plants, salads, pot and sweet herbs ; stalk plants, 
 such as asparagus, tart rhubarb, sea kale, <fcc. ; roots, such 
 as the turnip, carrot, potato, &c. ; seeds, such as the pea 
 and bean ; fruit, such as the cucumber, gourd, &c. ; and 
 the entire plants, such as the onion, leek, mushroom, &c. 
 They may be otherwise arranged, as — the cabbage family ; 
 the leguminous family; esculent roots; spinaceous plants ; 
 aliaceous plants; asparaginous plants; acetarious plants; 
 pot herbs, sweet herbs, plants used in tarts and confection- 
 ary, and edible fungi. 
 
 CULI'NUS. A term introduced by Linnaeus to denote 
 the stem of Graminacem, which has a peculiar organiza- 
 tion. The term is now used by few writers. 
 
 CU'LLET. The term given to broken glass brought to 
 the glass-house for the purpose of being melted up with 
 fresh materials. 
 
 CULM. A provincial synonym of anthracite. Mineral 
 carbon, glance coal, columnar coal, are terms also applied 
 to this species of coal, of which Kilkenny coal furnishes 
 an example. 
 Culm. In Agriculture, the stem cf grasses. 
 CULMINATION. (Lat. culmen, the top.) The pas- 
 sage of a celestial body over the meF'Jian, or the highest 
 point of its diurnal circle. 
 
 CULTIVA'TOR. An implement of the horse-hoe kind, 
 chiefly used in working fallows. It consists of a frame, 
 sometimes of wood and sometimes of iron, into which a 
 number of coulters, or tines, are introduced ; which, when 
 the instrument is drawn along lands already ploughed, 
 penetrate to the bottom of the furrow, and thoroughly pul- 
 verize the soil. One of the best of these implements for 
 using on a large scale is Finlayson's harrow ; but it requires 
 six horses to work it properly. On a small scale, and for 
 working with two horses between rows of plants, Wilkie's 
 grubber is an excellent implement ; as is that known as 
 Kirkwood's cultivator. 
 
 CU'LTRATE. (Lat. culler, a plouglishare.) Coulter- 
 shaped, as when a body is straight on one side and curved 
 on the other. 
 
 CU'LVERT. An arched channel of masonry built be- 
 neath the bed of a canal, for the purpose of conducting 
 water under the canal. If the water to be conveyed has 
 nearly the same level as the canal, the culvert is built in 
 the form of an inverted siphon, and acts on the principle 
 of a water pipe. This word also signifies any arched 
 channel for water under ground. 
 
 CU'LVERIN. A cannon equal to an lS-pounder ;ac?emy- 
 cuicerin is a 9 pounder. 
 
 CU'MIN SEED. The seed or fruit of the Cuminum 
 cyminum. It is imported from Sicily and Malta. It forms 
 an ingredient in curry powder, and in some kinds of cheese ; 
 it has also been used medicinally, but is unimportant. It 
 has a very peculiar odour, and a bitter and aromatic taste. 
 In poultices and plaisters, it is supposed to promote the 
 dispersion of indolent tumours. Some of the Roman 
 poets allude to its power of producing pallor and languor. 
 
 CU'NEATE. (Lat. cuneus, a wedge.) An animal or 
 part is so called which has the longitudinal diameter ex- 
 ceeding the transverse, and narrowing gradually down- 
 wards. 
 
 CU'NEIFORM LETTERS, called Keilschriften by 
 the Germans. (Lat. cuneus, a wedge.) The name given 
 to the inscriptions found on old Babylonian and Persian 
 monuments, from the characters being formed like a 
 wedge. This species of writing, as it is the simplest, so 
 it is the most ancient of which we have any knowledge ; 
 and though it is difficult to say by whom or in what coun- 
 try it was invented, its use was common to the Medes, Per- 
 sians, and Assyrians, at the most remote periods of their 
 history. It should seem, however, that the peculiarity of 
 its form caused it to be employed, like the hieratic charac- 
 ter of the Egyptians, chiefly in monumental inscriptions, 
 there being another mode of writing in use better calculated 
 for ordinary purposes ; and Mr. Rich conjectures that it fell 
 into disuse soon after Alexander's conquest of Persia, 
 308 
 
 CUPID. 
 
 when neither the Persians nor the Babylonians had any 
 monuments to erect or events to record. The native 
 princes, says that ingenious traveller, who wrested the 
 throne of Persia from his feeble successors, adopted the 
 Greek language and character in their coins and inscrip- 
 tions ; and all recollection of the cuneiform writing must 
 have perished during the long period in which they held 
 the sceptre of Iran. 
 
 About seventy years ago, a few specimens of inscriptions 
 existing at Persepolis having found their way into Europe, 
 the attention of the learned was directed to the subject; 
 and many German philologists, at the head of whom was 
 tine celebrated Tychsen, applied themselves to the task of 
 deciphering and translating these inscriptions with an un- 
 rivalled energy and enthusiasm. It was not, however, till 
 the commencement of the present century, when Dr. 
 Grotefend of Hanover engaged in the pursuit, that the 
 mystery in which this species of writing had for so many 
 centuries been involved began to be cleared up, and the 
 foundation laid of a more satisfactory and philosophical 
 mode of explication. As might be expected on a subject 
 on which so much wing may be given to the imagination, 
 the most diverse and extraordinary theories have been pro- 
 pounded respecting it, many of them supported by ingeni- 
 ous reasonings, and displaying great learning and research ; 
 but as the general opinion inclines to regard Dr.Grotefend's 
 theory as based on the most solid foundation, and as the 
 most likely to lead to important results,we shall limit our- 
 selves to giving a brief summary of his views. According 
 to him this mode of writing is formed of two radical signs, 
 — the wedge and the angle, — susceptible, however, of about 
 thirty different combinations ; and consists of three va- 
 rieties, distinguished from each other by a greater or less 
 complication of the characters. It is of Asiatic origin ; is 
 written from right to left, like the Sanscrit; differs from 
 the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, inasmuch as it is alpha- 
 betic, not ideographic ; and, finally, with a few considerable 
 modifications, forms the basis of most of the Eastern lan- 
 guages. The views of Dr. Grotefend received striking confir- 
 mation from the researches of Mr. Rich, whose valuable 
 Memoirs, enriched as they are with numerous inscriptions 
 found at Babylon and Persepolis, cannot fail to give con- 
 siderable impulse to the prosecution of this intricate study. 
 A full exposition of this species of writing would prove one 
 of the most valuable accessions to modern literature, as it 
 would throw a flood of light upon many points of the man- 
 ners, customs, and civil polity of many Eastern nations now 
 enveloped in the most profound obscurity, and rescue their 
 ancient history from the gross fictions by which it is disfigur- 
 ed in the modern literature of Persia. But upon this subject 
 we are far from entertaining very sanguine hopes. Apart 
 from the collateral benefits which have flowed from the 
 prosecution of this study, and which have exhibited them- 
 selves chiefly in the greatly increased desire that exists 
 throushout Europe to obtain a knowledge ofrthe Eastern 
 languages, the only direct results by which it has been hith- 
 erto followed may be stated to be the translation of a few 
 minor inscriptions, and the establishment of a canon so ex- 
 tremely arbitrary, that it is very problematical if the labours 
 of others in the same field can be materially benefitted by 
 it. To all who have read the paper of Dr. Grotefend ad- 
 dressed to the university of Gottingen two years ago, in 
 which all that has been done on this subject is exhibited 
 with much perspicuity, it must be matter of painful regret 
 to observe that the immense amount of labour and learn- 
 ing expended upon it has been attended by such incom- 
 mensurate results ; and a study which has proved so un- 
 productive even to its most enthusiastic disciple will scarce- 
 ly be found to improve in the hands of others, who, whatever 
 be their qualifications, can never be expected to surpass the 
 gentleman in question either in learning, ingenuity, or de- 
 votion to the subject. For further information on this sub- 
 ject, the reader is referred to Rich's Memoirs, which con- 
 tain innumerable specimens of the cuneiform writing. 
 
 CU'NON'IA'CE-E. (Cunonia, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of arborescent or shrubby Exogens, inha- 
 biting South America and the East Indies ; allied so very 
 intimately to Saxifragacea, that they are only distinguish- 
 ed by their arborescent habit and interpetiolar stipules. 
 The bark of some species is used for tanning leather. 
 
 CU'PEL. A shallow earthen vessel, somewhat of a 
 cup shape, geuerally made of bone earth. It is used in 
 the assays of the precious metals, which are fused upon a 
 cupel with lead. Cupellation means the refining of gold or 
 silver upon a cupel. 
 
 CU'PID. (Lat. Cupido.) The Roman name of the Gre- 
 cian god of love Eros ('Epwj). There were three divini- 
 ties, or rather three forms of the same deity, with this ap- 
 pellation (Cic. de Xat. Deor. 3. 23.); but the one usually 
 meant when spoken of without any qualification was the 
 son of Mercury and Venus. Like the rest of the gods, 
 Cupid assumed different shapes ; but he is generally re- 
 presented as a beautiful child with wings, blind, and carry- 
 ing a bow and quiver of arrows, with which he transpierced
 
 CUPOLA. 
 
 the hearts of lovers, inflaming them with desire. Among 
 the ancients he was worshipped with the same solemnity 
 as his mother Venus ; his influence pervaded all creation, 
 animate and inanimate ; and vows and sacrifices were 
 daily offered up at his shrine. Statues of Cupid formed 
 among the ancients great objects of vertu. Praxiteles is 
 said to have derived great honour from his statues of this 
 divinity ; and in his orations against Verres, Cicero has 
 given celebrity to one statue of Cupid by this artist, which 
 formed an object of peculiar veneration to the Thespians. 
 
 CU'POLA. (It.) In Architecture. See Dome. 
 
 CU'PPING. (From the cup shape of the glasses used 
 in its performance.) In this operation a cup-shaped glass 
 is used, into which the large flame of a spirit lamp is 
 momentarily introduced, so as to expel a great part of its 
 air by dilatation ; it is then instantly applied to some part 
 of the body, which is forced into it by the external pres- 
 sure ; and on removing the glass a circular red mark is 
 left, from the propulsion of the blood in the small vessels 
 of the part : this is called dry cupping. It is generally fol- 
 lowed up by making a number of incisions in the part by 
 means of an instrument called a scarificator, from which 
 the blood oozes, and from which a considerable portion 
 may be drawn by again applying the cupping glass. Cup- 
 ping, when well performed, is not a very painful or disa- 
 greeable operation, and is an excellent mode of local blood- 
 letting. When the operator is not dexterous, it is not 
 only painful, but often dangerous in its consequences. The 
 bleeding may generally be easily stopped by a piece of lint 
 or soft rag ; but this should be looked after, as instances 
 have occurred of persons bleeding to death from the 
 wounds of a scarificator. 
 
 CUPULI'FER^E. (Lat. cupa, a cup.) A natural order of 
 arborescent or shrubby Exogenous plants, inhabiting all 
 temperate and some hot climates. They are distinguished 
 by their amentaceous flowers and peculiarly veined leaves 
 from all European trees ; and from other plants by their 
 apetalous superior rudimerflary calyx, fruit enclosed in a 
 husk or cup ; and by their nuts, which contain but one 
 cell and one or two seeds, in consequence of the abortion 
 of the remainder. These plants are akin to Betulacea and 
 Salicacea,, from which Iheyare distinguished by the pre- 
 sence of a calyx and the veiningofthe leaves. They are 
 nearly allied to Urticacem ; but differ in their many-celled 
 ovary, pendulous ovules, and superior calyx. This order 
 comprehends the oak, hazel, beech, chestnut, and horn- 
 beam, — well known valuable forest trees. 
 
 CURACO'A. A liqueur which derives its name from 
 the island of Curacoa : it is prepared in great perfection by 
 the Dutch. It derives its flavour from Seville orange peel, 
 with a small quantity of cinnamon and mace. 
 
 CURASSOW. See Crax. 
 
 CU'RATE. (Lat. curare, to take care.) Properly an in- 
 cumbent who has the cure of souls ; now generally re- 
 stricted to signify the spiritual assistant of a rector or vicar 
 in his cure. Curates form the lowest order of the clergy ; 
 and are divided into two classes, perpetual and stipendiary. 
 " Perpetual curates are such as are appointed to the 
 churches of those parishes in which the tithes were ap- 
 propriated to some monastery before the statute 4 II. 4. 
 making it necessary to endow a vicar, or which had from 
 some cause or other escaped its operation :" or they are 
 such as officiate in some chapel : in either of which cases, 
 their salary is usually paid by some fixed payment, or by 
 a portion of the tithes appropriated for their maintenance 
 at the foundation of the chapel. Stipendiary curates are 
 6uch as are appointed by the vicar or rector to officiate at 
 their churches in their stead. The salary of stipendiary 
 curates is defrayed by the party who appoints them ; and 
 by the 57 Geo. 3. c. 90. it must in no case be under 90/. ; 
 and where the population of the parish amounts to 500, 
 with certain restrictions, 150/. (See IVtCulloch's Stat. 
 Brit. Empire, vol. it. 280. 2d ed.) 
 
 CURA'TOR (Lat), in a general sense, signifies a per- 
 son who is appointed to take care of any thing. Among 
 the ancient Romans, there were officers in every branch 
 of the public service to whom this appellation was given : 
 thus we read of Curatores frumenli, viarum, operum pub- 
 licorum, Tiberis, <&c. &c. ; i. e. persons who distributed 
 corn, superintended the making of roads and the public 
 buildings, or were conservators of the river. Curator, in 
 the Civil Law, is the guardian of a minor who has attained 
 the age of fourteen. Before that age, minors are under a 
 tutor. The guardianship of persons under various dis- 
 abilities, and of the estate of deceased or absent persons 
 and insolvents, is also committed to a curator. This title 
 is derived from the ancient Romans, by whom, as was re- 
 marked above, it was given to various officers who acted 
 as superintendents of different departments of the public 
 service. In learned institutions, the officer who has charge 
 of libraries, collections of natural history, &c. is frequently 
 styled curator. 
 
 CURB ROOF. (Fr. courber, to bend.) In Architec- 
 ture, a roof in which the rafters, instead of continuing 
 309 
 
 CURRENT. 
 
 straight down from the ridge to the 
 walls, are at a given height received 
 on plates, which in their turn are sup- 
 ported by rafters less inclined to the 
 horizon, whose bearing is, through 
 the medium of the wall-plate, directly 
 on the walls. It presents a bent ap- 
 pearance, as in the diagram, whence it derives its name. 
 
 CURCU'LIO. (Lat. curculio, a weevil.) A Linnzean ge- 
 nus of Coleopterous insects, now the type of an extensive 
 family,— CurcuHonidce,, or weevils belonging to the Te- 
 iramerous section of the order. The prolongation of the 
 anterior part of the head, in the form of a proboscis or 
 snout, at once distinguishes the insects of the present fa- 
 mily from all other beetles. The number of the Curcu- 
 lionida may be imagined when it is stated that entomolo- 
 gists have found it necessary to distribute them into nearly 
 three hundred subgenera. They are all vegetable feeders, 
 and include some of the most dangerous enemies to the 
 vegetable stores of mankind. 
 
 CU'RFEW. (From the French couvre-feu, in modern 
 Latin ignitegium.) The practice of tolling the church bell 
 at eight or some other hour in the evening, to warn people 
 to extinguish their fires, was a very common one in the 
 middle ages. It is difficult to say on what foundation the 
 common tradition, that William the Conqueror introduced 
 it from Normandy to prevent the English from assembling 
 in the evening to plan schemes of rebellion, rests. Lord 
 Lyttleton, in his Life of Henry [I., discusses the question. 
 It is more probable that the Conqueror enforced a very 
 common police regulation. The real reason of the curfew 
 was to prevent fires. The custom of ringing the evening 
 or curfew bell is still retained in many places. (See 
 Brand's Popular Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 136, 137.) 
 
 Cli'RIA. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, a court, coun- 
 cil, or senate house. 
 
 CU'RIES, Curio?,. A subdivision of the Roman patri- 
 cian tribes, each of which were divided into ten curies. 
 Three curies probably contained originally ten houses 
 (gentes) each. These houses were similar to the Scottish 
 clans, in which, though the bond of union was supposed to 
 be that of common blood, yet in reality there was no con- 
 sanguinity between many of the component families. 
 
 CURL. A disease in potatoes, in which the leaves on 
 their first appearance appear curled and shrunk up ; and 
 consequently, as they do not present a sufficient surface to 
 the light to elaborate the sap in a sufficient manner forcar- 
 ryingon the growth of the plant, it neveracquires strength, 
 and either dies, or produces very imperfect tubers. The 
 cause of the disease in the first instance is generally sup- 
 posed to be the unhealthy state of the set ; but something 
 also may be owing to bad management and improper soil. 
 CU'RRANT. The fruit of two species of Rihes ; name- 
 ly, R rub) um, which furnishes the common red and white 
 currants ; and the R. nigrum, which produces the black 
 currant. The currants of the grocers' shops are the dried 
 berries of a small species of grape cultivated in Zante, 
 Cephalonia, and Ithaca ; and in the Morea in the vicinity 
 ofPatras. Notwithstanding the heavy duty of 22s. 2d. per 
 cwt., with which this commodity is burdened, they are 
 largely imported into the British empire. The entries of 
 currants for home consumption amounted at an average 
 of the two years ending 1838 to 193,827 cwt., producing an 
 annual revenue of 189,192W. 
 
 CU'RRENCY. (Lat. curro, / run.) In Political Eco- 
 nomy, a term sometimes used to express the collective 
 amount of the money, and of the bills, checques, and other 
 substitutes for money, employed in selling or buying, or in 
 the distribution of the commodities and services among 
 the different ranks and orders of the community. 
 
 CU'RRENT (Lat. curro), denotes in its most general 
 sense the progressive movement of any object ; but it is 
 applied chiefly to the progressive movement of fluids, espe- 
 cially of air, electricity, and water. 
 
 Currents in the ocean arise from various causes, either 
 occasional or constant. They may be occasioned by an ex- 
 ternal impulsion, for example a gale of wind ; from a dif- 
 ference in the temperature of different parts of the sea ; 
 from the inequality of evaporation, the melting of the polar 
 ice, or in short any cause tending to disturb the hydrostatic 
 equilibrium. It is difficult in many cases to trace their 
 causes, or to give any satisfactory theory of their existence ; 
 but on account of their importance to navigation they have 
 been observed, especially of late years, with great care. 
 Among those which have a permanent or general charac- 
 ter, there are two which are very remarkable. The first is 
 that of the tropical waters westward round the globe, and 
 the second that which constantly flows from each pole 
 towards the equator. The tropical or westerly current is 
 chiefly confined within the zone extending to about 30° on 
 each side of the equator, and its velocity is estimated by 
 Humboldt at about nine or ten miles a day. In the Atlan- 
 tic it separates into two branches : one of which forms the 
 gulf stream ; and the other flows along the coast of Brazil, 
 27
 
 CURRYING. 
 
 and passes through the Straits of Magellan. The gulf 
 stream flows northward through the middle of the Atlantic, 
 till it reaches the Cape Verd Islands ; it then passes through 
 the Caribbean Sea, between Cuba and the peninsula of 
 Yucatan, sweeps round the Gulf of Mexico, and rushes out 
 by the Bahama Channel ; then, spreading out to a greater 
 breadth, it continues its course along the shores of the 
 United States to Newfoundland, where it is deflected east- 
 ward by a current setting in from Baffin's Bay ; and, pass- 
 ing the Azores and Canary Islands, returns in a great mea- 
 sure into itself. Its breadth is 51 leagues in the Bahama 
 Channel, and velocity from 3 to 5 miles an hour. (.Mur- 
 ray's Geography, p. 186.) The polar currents How con- 
 stantly from the poles towards the equator, though it is evi- 
 dent that their sources must be supplied by currents in a 
 contrary direction. Their existence is proved by the great 
 masses of ice which are carried every year from the polar 
 s«as to tropical latitudes. Oceanic currents, by carrying 
 with them the temperature of the regions whence they 
 flow, contribute in no small degree to modify the tempera- 
 ture of the atmosphere, and give a character to the climate 
 of the countries to which they are contiguous. On the 
 parallel of New York Humboldt found the temperature of 
 the gulf stream 72° of Fahrenheit, while out of the current 
 the heat of the ocean at the surface was only 63°. The 
 current which flows along the eastern coast of Africa, and 
 doubles the Cape of Good Hope in a stream 130 miles 
 broad, is from 7° to 8° warmer than the contiguous sea. 
 The existence of under currents in the ocean is suspected 
 rather than proved. For currents in the atmosphere, see 
 Winds. 
 
 CU'RRYING. (Fr. corroyer.) The art of dressing 
 skins after they are tanned, for the purposes of the shoe- 
 maker, saddler, and harness-maker, &c. ; or of giving them 
 the necessary smoothness, lustre, colour, and suppleness. 
 The operation of currying is performed in two ways ; either 
 upon the flesh, or on the hair, or, as it is technically called, 
 me grain; and consists chiefly of four processes, which 
 require great experience and dexterity. The reader will 
 find in Dr. Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Sec. a full account of 
 this curious operation, accompanied by a wood cut illustra- 
 tive of the singular tools and manipulations which it re- 
 quires. 
 
 CU'RSITORS. (Lat. curro, / run.) Officers in the 
 Court of Chancery, whose duty it is to make out original 
 writs. They are called also clerks of the course (clerici 
 de cursu) ; and are 24 in number, forming a peculiar cor- 
 poration. Cursitor Baron is the name of an officer in the 
 Court of Exchequer, who administers the oath to all high 
 sheriffs, under sheriffs, bailiffs, and all the functionaries of 
 the customs. 
 
 CURTAI'L STEP. (Lat. curtus, short.) The lower step 
 in a flight of stairs ending at its outer extremity in a scroll. 
 Perhaps taking its name from the step curling round like a 
 cur's tail. 
 
 CURTA'NA. The sword (as it is called) of Edward the 
 Confessor, which has its edge blunted as an emblem of 
 Mercy. It is carried between the swords of justice tem- 
 poral and justice spiritual ; and borne before the kings of 
 England at their coronation. 
 
 CU'RTATE DISTANCE. A term employed in astro- 
 nomy to denote a planet's distance from the sun reduced 
 to the plane of the ecliptic. The curtate (or shortened) dis- 
 tance is therefore equal to the true distance multiplied by 
 the cosine of the planet's heliocentric latitude. 
 
 CU'RTESY or COURTESY OF ENGLAND, in Law, 
 is the right of a husband who has married a wife seised in 
 fee simple or fee tail general, or heiress in special tail, and 
 has issue male or female born alive, and which by possi- 
 bility may inherit, to hold her lands after her death for his 
 life. (See Marriage, Law of.) Thus, four things are 
 said to be necessary to give an estate by the curtesy, — 
 marriage, seisin of the wife, issue, and death of the wife. 
 
 CU'RULE MAGISTRACD3S, in Ancient History, were 
 those of the greatest dignity in the Roman state ; and were 
 distinguished from all others by the privilege enjoyed by 
 the persons who held them of sitting on ivory chairs (se/te 
 curules) when engaged in their public functions. The cu- 
 rule magistrates were the consuls, praetors, censors, and 
 chief ffidiles ; which last, on account of this privilege, were 
 called curule wdiles, to distinguish them from the plebeian. 
 
 CU'RVATURE. The continual flexure or bending of a 
 line from the rectilinear direction. The curvature of a 
 circle is greater in proportion as the radius is smaller ; and 
 the curvature of any other curve at a given point is mea - 
 sured by comparing it with a circle which osculates it, or 
 forms with it a contact of a particular kind at that point. 
 (See Osculating Circle, and Radius op Curvature.) 
 The determination of the curvature of curve lines requires 
 the aid of the differential calculus. 
 
 CURVE. In Analytical Geometry, a line of which no 
 
 three consecutive points are in the same direction or straight 
 
 line. The general theory of curve lines, and of the figures 
 
 bounded by them, forms an extensive and important part 
 
 310 
 
 CURVE. 
 
 of mathematical science, and in fact properly constitutes 
 what is called the high or transcendent geometry. It will 
 easily be understood, however, that the carves which form 
 the object of geometrical speculation are those only of 
 which the succession of points observes a regular law, ca- 
 pable of being expressed by a mathematical formula ; not 
 those which are formed irregularly by the hand, for exam- 
 ple, like letters in writing. 
 
 Although the ancient geometricians had bestowed some 
 attention on the subject of curve lines, and in addition to 
 the conic sections had investigated some of the properties 
 of a few other curves, as the cissoid, the conchoid, partic- 
 ular kinds of spirals, and perhaps others whose names may 
 have been forgotten : yet their researches had only led 
 them to the knowledge of a small number of particular 
 propositions deduced from a laborious consideration of 
 the circumstances of each individual case, and not admit- 
 I ting of extended application. The general methods of in- 
 vestigation which the modern geometer can apply with so 
 much greater advantage are owing to the progress of alge- 
 bra, and the happy invention by Descartes of the method 
 of defining curves by algebraic equations. 
 
 Let M N be a curve, and A B, A C two straight lines in 
 the same plane, to which all its points are referred ; then 
 A B and A C are the axes of the curve. Take a point P in 
 the curve, and draw P Q parallel to A C ; the line A(i is 
 called the absciss of the point P, and is denoted by x ; and 
 _ P Q. the ordinate, and denoted by y. Now 
 if for any given value of A Q a correspond- 
 ing value of P Q can be assigned, that is, if 
 P Q can be expressed in terms of A Q and 
 known quantities, that expression is called 
 the equation of the curve, and all its pro- 
 perties can be thence deduced by means 
 B of algebraic n-ansformations without any 
 reference to the diagram. 
 
 The first use of this method of defining curve lines by 
 means of an equation between the absciss and ordinate is 
 to enable us to divide them into classes, of which all the 
 individuals have some properties in common. Descartes- 
 divided them into two great classes, — geometrical and me- 
 chanical. It is now usual to indicate the same distinctions 
 by the terms algebraic and transcendental. Algebraic 
 curves are those in which the relation between the absciss 
 and the ordinate is expressed by an algebraic equation : 
 transcendental curves are those in which the relation be- 
 tween x and y is not expressed by an algebraic, but by a 
 differential equation ; that is, by an equation between d x 
 and d y. There is still a class which may be regarded as 
 intermediate between these two ; namely, exponential 
 curves, or those in the equation of which one or both of 
 the unknown quantities enters as an exponent. Such, for 
 example, is the equation y=za*. 
 
 In order to form an idea of a curve of which the equation 
 is given, it is necessary to suppose the equation resolved ; 
 that is to say, that the value of y is found in terms of x and 
 given numbers. This being found, we take all the positive 
 values of x from to -f- infinity, and also all the negative 
 values to — infinity. The corresponding ordinates or valuea 
 of y will give all the points of the curve ; the positive or- 
 dinates being taken on one side of the axis of the abscissa, 
 and the negative on the opposite side. 
 
 Algebraic curves are divided into different classes or 
 orders, according to the degree of the equation which ex- 
 presses the relation between their co-ordinates. Straight 
 lines are denominated lines of the first order, because the 
 equation of a straight line being of the form = A-|-Br 
 ■+■ C y, is only of one dimension ; that is to say, it con- 
 tains no powers or products of the variables x and y. 
 Lines of the second order are those of which the equation 
 rises to two dimensions. The general form of this equa- 
 tion is, 
 
 = A + B x + C y + D x » + E x y + F y* ; 
 and the curves which it includes are the conic sections ; 
 that is, the circle, the ellipse, the hyperbola, and the para- 
 bola. These curve lines are the simplest of all, because 
 lines of the first order are not curves ; hence they are 
 sometimes called curves of the first order. Following out the 
 analogy, lines of the third, or those whose equation rises to 
 the third degree, axe curves of the second order, and so on. 
 The dimension of the equation of a curve line is not al- 
 tered by changing the origin or position of its co-ordinates, 
 or in making any transformation of its axes. It follows, 
 therefore, that a line of the wth order can never be inter- 
 sected by a straight line in more than n points, because the 
 ordinates can never have more than n real values. This 
 follows from the general theory of equations; and in fact 
 all the properties of any curve line being deducible from 
 its equation, a complete theory of algebraic equaiions of 
 any degree includes the theory of lines of that order. In 
 this way it is proved that all lines of any order of which the 
 number is uneven have necessarily at least two infinite 
 branches ; for in this case one at least of the co-ordinates 
 is raised to an uneven power in the equation,— for example,
 
 CUSCUTACEjE. 
 
 the 3d, the 5th, &c. ; and therefore will have at least one 
 real value, whatever value (which may be increased in in- 
 finitum, positively and negatively) may be given to the 
 other coordinate. 
 
 We have mentioned that the lines of the second order 
 include only the circle and the conic sections. Newton, in 
 his Enumeratio Linear um Tertii Ordinis, reckons 72 spe- 
 cies of lines of the third order, or curves of the 2d degree. 
 As the order is more elevated the number of genera and 
 species becomes more numerous. The subdivisions into 
 genera and species are, however, founded on some arbi- 
 trary properties, and consequently are not made uniformly 
 by different authors. Cramer, in his Analyse des Lignes 
 Courbes, found fourteen different genera of curves of the 
 third order ; and Euler (Inlroductio in Analysin lnfinito- 
 rum) sixteen. The whole number of curves belonging to 
 this order has been supposed to amount to some thousands. 
 
 Curves of Double Curvature. — Hitherto we have spoken 
 only of curves on a plane ; but if they are traced on sur- 
 faces which are not plane, they will have a double curva- 
 ture ; that which belongs to the line itself, and that of the 
 surface on which it is traced. In order to investigate the 
 properties of a curve of this sort, it must be supposed to be 
 projected on two different planes perpendicular to each 
 other ; the projections will be two ordinary curves having 
 a common axis and different ordinates. One of these 
 curves will be defined by an equation between x and y, and 
 the other by an equation between x andz; so that the 
 equation ot a curve of double curvature is composed of 
 two equations, each containing two variables, of which one 
 is common to both equations, and taken on the line of in- 
 tersection of the two planes of projection. 
 
 Curve Surfaces. — A curve surface is represented alge- 
 braically by an equation containing three variables; for ex- 
 ample, x, y, and z. It is geometrical when its equation is 
 algebraic, and expressed in finite terms; and mechanical 
 when the equation is differential, and not algebraic. Curve 
 surfaces are also classed according to the dimensions of 
 the variables in their equations. When the variables are 
 only of the second degree, the surfaces are of the second 
 order; when the variable co-ordinates rise to the third de- 
 gree, they are surfaces of the third order, and so on. 
 
 The most complete treatise on the theory of curve lines 
 is that of Cramer, Introduction a V Analyse des Lignes 
 •Courbes ; but more or less on the subject is contained in 
 every work treating of the application of algebra to geome- 
 try. For curve surfaces, and curves of double curvature, 
 the student may consult Lacroix's large work, Traitc du 
 Calcul Dijfcrenlicl et du Calcul Integral ; or the Applica- 
 tion de V Analyse a la Geometric of Monge. 
 
 CUSCUTA'CEvE. (Cuscuta, one of the genera.) A 
 very small natural order of Exogens, consisting of but one 
 genus, inhabiting all the quarters of the globe, and related 
 to Convolvulacea ; but distinguished by the imbricate co- 
 rolla, which does not fall off after flowering, the spiral em- 
 bryo, and the parasitical habit. Common dodder, a curi- 
 ous thread-like twining plant, found on heaths, belongs to 
 the order. 
 
 CUSP. (Lat. cuspis, point.") In Astronomy, expresses 
 the points or horns of the moon. In geometry the word 
 is used to denote the point or corner formed by two parts 
 of a curve meeting and terminating there. 
 
 Cusp. In Architecture, a term applied by Sir James 
 Hall, in his Origin of Gothic Architecture, to the spear- 
 fihaped ornaments appended to the several points of tre- 
 foil, quatrefoil, &c. arches ; but this term, it is to be observ- 
 ed, has not been generally adopted by architects. 
 
 CUSPA'RIA BARK. See Anotjstura. 
 
 CU'SPIDATE. (Lat. cuspis.) In Botany, a term used 
 in describing the apex of a body, when it gradually tapers 
 into a rigid point. It is also used sometimes to express ab- 
 ruptly acuminate, as the leaf of many Rubi. 
 
 CU'STARD APPLE. A term applied in the West In- 
 dies to the fruit of the Anona reticulata. 
 
 CU'STOM, (Fr. coutume), in Law, signifies generally a 
 right or law not written, but established by long usage. To 
 render a custom valid it has been said that the following 
 qualities are requisite :— 1. Antiquity ; i. e. that it shall have 
 been used as far back as time of legal memory, that is, the 
 first year of Richard I. 2. Continuance without interrup- 
 tion; 3. Without dispute. 4. It must be reasonable ; and 5. 
 Certain. 6. Compulsory. 7. Customs must be consistent 
 with each other. Customs in derogation of the common 
 law must be construed strictly. General customs, relating 
 to all England, are determinable by the judges; but local 
 customs by a jury. An exception to this rule is to be found 
 in the Custom of the City of London, which, if questioned, 
 is established by certificate of the mayor and aldermen ; 
 with the exception of those customs from which the cor- 
 poration itself claims a benefit. Customs (coutumes), in 
 the law of France, were the laws relating both to moveable 
 and immoveable property peculiar to different districts of 
 the kingdom before the Revolution. Districts governed by 
 customs were commonly termed pays coutumiers, in con- 
 311 
 
 CUTTING. 
 
 tradistinction to the remainder of the realm, which being 
 under the civil law was termed pays de droit Romain. The 
 pays coutumiers embraced all the north of France. The 
 valid coutumes were estimated at 140 general, or compre- 
 hending districts, and 360 local, belonging to towns and 
 places ; but the enumeration was not exact. The coutume 
 de Paris was the most important of all ; and it was a gene- 
 rally recognized principle that when a case was unprovided 
 for by local custom, that of Paris was to be applied in aid. 
 Works containing the customary law of a particular dis- 
 trict are stvled Coutumiers. 
 
 CU'STOMARY FREEHOLD, in Law, is a superior kind 
 of copyhold ; the tenant holding, as it is expressed, by copy 
 of court roll, but not at the will of the lord. See Copyhold. 
 
 CU'STOMS. (Lat. portoria.) In Finance, duties charged 
 on the importation or exportation of certain commodi- 
 ties ; that is, on their being brought into, or sent from, a 
 country. Such duties were levied in antiquity, and form 
 an important part of the revenue of this and "most other 
 modern states. Down to the a?ra of the Revolution, cus- 
 toms duties were charged indiscriminately on most com- 
 modities, whether exported or imported ; but since the 
 epoch in question they have been almost exclusively laid 
 on imported articles ; those laid on exports being, in most 
 instances, imposed rather to check or prevent the exporta- 
 tion of the articles, than in the view of raising revenue. 
 
 Were this the proper place for such investigations, it 
 might be easily shown that moderate customs duties are 
 about the least exceptionable of all taxes. They are col- 
 lected with the greatest possible facility, involving no in- 
 quiry Into the circumstances of individuals, as is the case 
 with taxes on income or property ; nor any interference of 
 any sort with the processes carried on in the arts, as is the 
 case with certain excise duties. By allowing imported 
 goods to be lodged in bonded warehouses, under the joint 
 locks of the king and the importer, the revenue is protect- 
 ed, without its being necessary for the importer to pay the 
 duties till the goods be withdrawn for consumption, so that 
 but little additional capital is required to be at the command 
 of the importing merchant because of the articles in which 
 he deals being subject to duties, and but little addition is 
 consequently made to the price of the goods on account of 
 the profits accruing to the dealers on the duties. 
 
 Customs duties should not be carried to such a height 
 as to give any overpowering stimulus to smuggling. They 
 then contradict and defeat the very purpose for which they 
 are intended. Our finance ministers have not, however, 
 been sufficiently alive to this obvious consideration. There 
 can be no articles better fitted to bear customs duties than 
 tobacco and spirits ; but the duties with which they are 
 loaded are so extravagantly high, that they occasion a great 
 deal of smuggling, with its accompanying crime and de- 
 moralization, and would certainly be a good deal more pro- 
 ductive, were they effectually reduced. The existing 
 duties on brandy and geneva are, perhaps, the very worst 
 in our tariff; but they would be about the very best, were 
 they reduced from 22s. 6d. to 8s. or 10s. a gallon. 
 
 We subjoin an account of the gross and nett amount of 
 the customs duty collected in each of the great divisions 
 of the United Kingdom in 1837 and 1838. 
 
 England 
 Scotland 
 Ireland 
 
 Total 
 
 Gross Receipt, 
 1837. 
 
 Gross Receipt, 
 1838. 
 
 Nett Receipt, 
 1837. 
 
 Nett Receipt, 
 1838. 
 
 L. s. 
 19,321,324 15 
 1,626,291 19 
 1,945;849 3 
 
 L. ». 
 19,585,250 15 
 1,666,399 
 1,951,507 17 
 
 L. 8. 
 
 17,471,469 10 
 1,402,920 6 
 1,682,169 7 
 
 L. e. 
 17,734,405 17 
 1,326,000 18 
 1,693,776 
 
 22,893,465 17 
 
 23,203,157 12 
 
 20,556,359 3 
 
 20,754,182 15 
 
 CU'TICLE. (Lat. cutis, skin.) In Anatomy, the scarf 
 skin. The exterior membranous covering of the body. In 
 its chemical characters it resembles nail, quill, &c. v and 
 has the properties of a condensed form of albumen. 
 
 Cu'ticle. In Botany, the thin vesicular membrane that 
 covers the external surface of vegetables, and adheres 
 firmly to the cellular substance beneath it. It acts in plants 
 as a means of preventing a too rapid perspiration, and is 
 furnished with respiratory openings called stomata. 
 
 CU'TLERY. A term used to designate all kinds of sharp 
 and cutting instruments made of iron or steel, as knives, 
 forks, scissors, razors, &c. The principal seat of the 
 manufacture of British cutlery is Sheffield ; and the articles 
 made there are held in the highest estimation in all parts 
 of the world. See Hardware. 
 
 CU'TTER. A vessel with one mast and a bowsprit, of 
 considerable breadth in proportion to her length. The dis- 
 tinction between a cutter and other vessels of one mast, 
 which are called sloops, is, that in the cutter the jib has no 
 stay to support it. 
 
 CU'TTING. An excavation made through land, to con- 
 duct a road through it on a level lower than that of the 
 surrounding land. See Railroad.
 
 CYANIC ACID. 
 
 CYA'NIC ACID. A compound of 26 cyanogen + S 
 oxygen = 34 cyanic acid. 
 
 CY'ANITE. (Gr. nvavot, blue.) A massive and crystal- 
 lized mineral. It has a pearly lustre, is translucent, and 
 of various shades of blue : it is a silicate of alumina, with 
 a trace of oxide of iron. Only found in primitive rocks. 
 
 CYA'NOGEN. (Gr. icvavot, and yiyvop.ai, I am pro- 
 duced; because it is an essential ingredient of Prussian 
 blue.) Cyanogen is a gas of a strong and peculiar odour, 
 resembling that of rubbed peach leaves ; it is obtained by 
 heating cyanuret of mercury. Under a pressure of between 
 3 and 4 atmospheres it becomes a limpid liquid. It ex- 
 tinguishes a taper, is highly poisonous and unrespirable, 
 and burns in contact of air with a rich purple flame. Water 
 absorbs between 4 and 5 times its volume of the gas. It is 
 composed of carbon and nitrogen in the proportions of 12 
 carbon + 14 nitrogen = 26 cyanogen ; it is therefore a bi- 
 carburet of nitrogen. Mixed with oxygen it explodes by 
 the electric spant, and is resolved into carbonic acid and 
 nitrogen gas. It combines with hydrogen to produce the 
 hydrocyanic or prussic acid : it forms with the metals cy- 
 anuret s or cyanides. 
 
 CYANO'METER. (Gr. nvavo;, and uerpov, mea- 
 sure.) An instrument contrived by Saussure for de- 
 termining the deepness of the tint of the atmosphere. 
 A circular band of thick paper or pasteboard is divided 
 into 51 parts, each of which is painted with a different 
 shade of blue, decreasing gradually from the deepest blue 
 formed by a mixture of black, to the lightest formed by a 
 mixture of white. The coloured zone is held in the hand 
 of the observer, who notices the particular tint which cor- 
 responds to the colour of the sky. The number of this 
 tint, reckoned from the lightest shade, marks the intensity 
 at the time of observation. 
 
 CYANO'SIS. (Gr.) In Medicine, the blue disease. A 
 blueness of the body occasionally arises from malforma- 
 tion of the heart. The whole of the body, and especially 
 its exposed parts, becomes a blue or lead colour, in conse- 
 quence of the administration of nitrate of silver. 
 
 CY'ANU'RETS. Compounds of cyanogen. When 
 Prussian blue is boiled in water with red oxide of mercury, 
 and the solution filtered, it yields white or pale buff crystals 
 of cyanuret of mercury. 
 
 CYANU'RIC ACID. A crystallizable acid, obtained by 
 decomposing urea by heat. 
 
 CYBE'LE (Gr. Ku/JjjA/j), in Mythology, was originally 
 the Phrygian goddess of the earth. When her worship 
 was introduced among the Greeks, they confounded her 
 with Rhea, as did the Latins with their Ops. Her rites, 
 like those of the Asiatic deities, in general were celebrated 
 with great excitement ; her priests, who were called Galli, 
 Corybantes, Curetes, <fec, running about with howlings 
 and clashing of cymbals. 
 
 CY'CADA'CEjE. (Cycas, one of the genera.) In 
 Botany, a very small natural order of arborescent Gym- 
 nosperms, inhabiting the tropics of Asia and America. 
 They were formerly referred by Linnaeus to the Palms ; 
 but in 1825 Brown showed the analogy between Cycadacea 
 aud Coniferm, and hence their present station. Adolphe 
 Brongniart also proved the affinity by finding the vessels 
 contained in the wood of both orders to be, as he says, of 
 the same structure. The only remarkable quality in the 
 order is the production of a kind of sago by the soft centre 
 of Cycas circinalis. 
 
 CY'CLANTHA'CEvE. (Cyclanthus,oneofthegenera.)In 
 Botany, a natural order of Endoiens, inhabiting the tropics 
 of the western hemisphere, and allied to Pandanacea 1 ., from 
 which their plaited leaves and spiral flowers divide them. 
 
 CY'CLAS, SINGLETON, &c. An article of dress worn 
 both with and without defensive armour, which came into 
 fashion about the reigns of Edward II. and III. in England. 
 It was a mantle or surcoat without sleeves, of silk, cloth, 
 &c, reaching to the knees before and to the calves of the 
 legs behind. It was succeeded by the japon or gyppon, 
 a shorter kind of surcoat. 
 
 CY'CLAS. (Gr. kvk\os, a circle.) A genus of fresh- 
 water air-breathing Gastropods or snails, so named on ac- 
 count of the more or less rounded circumference of the 
 shell in all the species. Of these the following are natives 
 of Britain : — the river cycle (Cyclas rivicola, Leach), the 
 largest species of which is not uncommon in the smaller 
 streams communicating with the Thames; the horny cycle 
 (C. cornea, Lam.), common in ditches near Battersea; 
 cupped cycle (Cyclas calyndata, Drap.); lake cycle 'Cy- 
 clas lacuslris, Drap.) 
 
 CY'CLE. (Gr. kvk\os.) The revolution of a certain 
 period of time which finishes and recommences perpetu- 
 ally. Cycles were invented for the purposes of chronology, 
 and for marking the intervals in which two or more periods, 
 of unequal length, are each completed a certain number of 
 times, so that both begin exactly in the same circumstances 
 as at first. The cycles used in chronology are three ; the 
 cycle of the sun, the cycle of the moon or Metonic cycle, and 
 the cycle of indiction. 
 342 
 
 CYCLOID. 
 
 The cycle of the sun, or solar cycle, is a period of time 
 after which the same days of the week recur on the same 
 days of the year. If the number of days in the year were 
 always the same, this cycle could only contain seven years ; 
 but the order is interrupted by the intercalations. In the 
 Julian calendar the intercalary day returns every fourth 
 year, and the cycle consequently contains 4X7 = 28 years ; 
 after which period the Dominical letters return in the sama 
 order, or the first day of the year and of every month falls 
 again on the same day of the week. The origin of this cycle 
 is unknown ; it is supposed to have been invented about the 
 time of the Council of Nice (325) ; but the first year of the 
 cycle is placed by chronologists nine years before the com- 
 mencement of the Christian era. Hence the year of the 
 cycle corresponding to any given year in the Julian calen- 
 dar is found by the following rule :— Add nine to the date, 
 and divide the sum by ticenty-eight ; the quotient is the 
 number of cycles elapsed, and the remainder is the year of 
 the cycle. Should there be no remainder, the proposed 
 year is the 28th, or last of the cycle. In the reformed ca- 
 lendar this rule can only apply from century to century ; 
 for the order is interrupted by the omission of the interca- 
 lary day every hundredth year, and is not restored till the 
 end of four hundred years. .See Dominical Letter. 
 
 The cycle of the moon is a period of 19 solar years, after 
 which the new and full moons fall on the same days of the 
 year as they did 19 years before. This cycle was invented 
 by Meton, a celebrated astronomer of Athens, and the 
 chronological period which he founded on it is celebrated 
 in history under the name of the Metonic cycle. The 
 Metonic cycle contained exactly 6940 days, which ex- 
 ceeds the true length of 19 solar years by nine and a half 
 hours nearly. On the other hand, it exceeds the length of 
 235 lunations, or synodic revolutions of the moon, by seven 
 hours and a half only. The framers of the ecclesiastical 
 calendar, in adopting this period, altered the distribution of 
 the lunar months, in order to accommodate them to the 
 Julian intercalation ; and the effect of the alteration was 
 that every three periods of 6940 days was followed by one 
 of 6939. The mean length of the cycle was therefore 6939| 
 days, which agrees exactly with 19 Julian years. A table, 
 therefore, showing the days of the new and full moons fov 
 19 years, would serve to show the days of these phenome- 
 na for any year whatever when its number in the cycle is 
 known. The number of the year in the cycle is called the 
 golden number ; either because it was so termed by the 
 Greeks, who, on account of its utility, ordered it to be in- 
 scribed in letters of gold in their temples, or more proba- 
 bly because it was usual to distinguish it by red letters in 
 the calendar. The cycle is supposed to commence with 
 the year in which the new moon falls on the 1st of January. 
 This happened in the year preceding the commencement 
 of our era ; hence to find the number of any year in the 
 lunar cycle or the golden number of that year, we have this 
 rule: — Add one to the date, and divide by nineteen; the 
 quotient is the number of cycles elapsed, and the remainder 
 is the year of the cycle. Should there be no remainder, 
 the proposed year is the last or 19th of the cycle. 
 
 Cycle of indiction, or Roman indiction, a period of 15 
 years ; not astronomical, like the two former, but entirely 
 arbitrary. Its origin and the purpose for which it was estab- 
 lished are alike uncertain ; but it is conjectured that it 
 was introduced by Constantine the Great, about the year 
 312 of the common era, and had reference to certain judi- 
 cial acts that took place under the Greek emperors at stated 
 intervals of 15 years. In chronological reckoning, it is 
 considered as having commenced on the 1st of January of 
 the year 313. By extending it backwards to the beginning 
 of the era, it will be found that the first year of the era cor- 
 responded with the 4th of the cycle. In order, therefore, 
 to find the number of any year in the cycle of indiction, 
 we have this rule : — Add three to the date : divide the sum 
 by fifteen, add the remainder is the year of indiction. See 
 Calendar. 
 
 CY'CLIC CHORUS. The chorus which performed the 
 songs and dances of the Dithyrambic Odes at Athens. 
 They derived their name from the circumstance of their 
 dancing round the altar of Bacchus in a circle (kvk^os), and 
 were thus distinguished from the square (Terpayayvos) cho- 
 ruses of tragedy. 
 
 CY'CLIC POETS. (Gr. kvk\o;.) This term was ap- 
 plied to a succession of Epic poets who followed Homer, 
 and wrote merely on the Trojan war and the adventures 
 of the heroes immediately connected with it, keeping, as it 
 were, to one circle (kukAos) of subjects. None of their 
 works have come down to us. 
 
 CY'CLOBRA'NCHIANS, Cyclobranchiata. (Gr. kvk\os, 
 and (Ipayxia, gills.) The name of an order of hermaphro- 
 dite Gastropodous Mollusks, including those in which the 
 branchiae consist of little tufts or pyramids attached in a 
 circular arrangement to the inner surface of the margin of 
 the mantle. 
 
 CYCLOI'D, or TROCHOID. (Gr. kvk\os, or rpo^oj, 
 wheel; and eidos, form.) In Geometry, one of the tran-
 
 CYCLOIDES. 
 
 etendental curves, described by a point P in the circum- 
 ference of a circle which rolls along an extended straight 
 line A B until it has completed a revolution. Some of the 
 properties of the curve are obvious from this definition. 
 The line A B, which is called the 
 base of the cycloid, is equal to the 
 circumference of the generating 
 circle ; and C D, which is the axis 
 of the cycloid, is equal to the di- 
 ameter. In any position E P F of " A 
 the generating circle, A E is equal 
 
 to the arc E P, A Q the absciss = AE — QE=arcEP 
 — sine E P, and P Q the ordinate = 1 — cosine of E P. 
 It is also easy to prove that the whole length of the cycloid 
 A D B is equal to four times C D, and the- whole area or 
 space between the curve and its base triple that of the gen- 
 erating circle. A portion of the curve D P, counted from 
 its summit, is double of F P, the supplemental chord of 
 the arc E P ; and F P is also a tangent to the cycloid at P. 
 The curve has many other remarkable properties which 
 have been discovered by more recondite investigations. 
 Its involute, or the curve formed by unfolding a thread or 
 flexible line from its convex side, is a cycloid equal and 
 similar to the original. If a heavy body descends by the 
 force of gravity in an inverted cy- . „ 
 
 cloid, the velocity which it acquires 
 is exactly proportional to the length 
 of the cycloidal arc P D ; so that P' 
 from whatever point (P, P') it may 
 begin to fall, it will arrive at the low- — 
 
 est point D in precisely the same time. If a body is to de- 
 scend by the force of gravity from a point A to another 
 point D not in the same vertical, it will accomplish the pas- 
 sage in a less time by describing the cycloid A P D than by 
 moving in the straight line A D, or in any other path what- 
 ever. See Brachystochrone. 
 
 The cycloid may be made to assume an endless variety 
 of forms by placing the tracing point not in the circum- 
 ference of the generating circle, but without or within it, 
 though still in the same plane. When the tracing point is 
 without the circle, the curve has its base shortened, and is 
 called the curtate or contracted cycloid. If the point is 
 within the circumference, the curve is called the prolate or 
 inflected cycloid. 
 
 Few curves have afforded finer scope for the exercise of 
 modern geometry than the cycloid. Its properties suc- 
 cessively engaged the attention of Roberval, Fermal, Des- 
 cartes. Pascal, Slusius, Wren, and Wallis. Huygens recti- 
 fied the curve so early as 1657 ; and having afterwards dis- 
 covered its lsochronism, or the remarkable property that 
 all bodies gliding along it will descend from any point in the 
 same time, and likewise that it produces a similar cycloid 
 by its development, he applied these discoveries to the 
 improvement of the pendulum, and showed how a perfect- 
 ly synchronous vibration could be procured, theoretically 
 at least, by causing a flexible rod to vibrate between cy- 
 cloidal cheeks. Its property of being the line of swiftest 
 descent was discovered by John Bernoulli in 1697. 
 
 CYCLOl'DES. (Gr. kvk\os) A name given by Agassiz 
 to one of his orders of fishes, the species composing which 
 have scales composed of simple layers with smooth mar- 
 gins, but often ornamented on their exterior surface with 
 different figures impressed upon all the layers : these are 
 of honi or bone without enamel; the scales of the lateral 
 line, instead of being flat, are funnel-shaped ; the contracted 
 part applied against the disk of the scale forms the tube 
 by which the mucus exudes which covers the fish. The 
 families included in the Cycloid order are, Labroides, 
 Muges, At/ierines, Scomberoids, Gadoids, Gobioids, Mu- 
 renoids, Lucioids, Salmonoids, Clupeoids, and Cyprinoids. 
 
 CY'CLOP-dE'DIA. (More correctly Encyclopaedia, from 
 the Greek words iv kvk\o> iraiScia ; instruction in acircle.) 
 A work containing definitions or accounts of the principal 
 subjects in one or all departments of learning, art, or sci- 
 ence. Its arrangement may be either according to divi- 
 sions into the various sciences, &c, or the subjects may 
 be arranged and treated in alphabetical order. The En- 
 eyclopedie Frangoise, or Dictionnaire Encyclopedique, and 
 the Encyclopaedia Britannica, have been the most cele- 
 brated works of this species ; but the earliest appears to 
 be the Lexicon Technicum of Harris, published in 1706. 
 The great French work, the Encyclopedic Methodique, con- 
 sists, not of one, but of a series of encyclopedias or dic- 
 tionaries. See Dictionary, Encyclopedia. 
 
 CYCLO'PEAN. An epithet applied to certain huge 
 structures, the remains of which are found in many parts 
 of Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor, the architecture of which 
 was totally different m style from that which prevailed 
 during the historical ages. The epithet originated in the 
 Grecian tradition that assigned these edifices to the gigan- 
 tic strength of the Cyclops. It is most probable that they 
 were really raised by the Pelasgians, the predecessors or 
 ancestors of the later Greeks ; and a gradual progress may 
 be traced in them from the extreme of rudeness to a de- 
 313 
 
 CYNICS. 
 
 gree of symmetry that indicates an approach to the ele- 
 gance of Grecian architecture. 
 
 CYCLO'PES. (Gr. kvk\o(, circle, and &><//, eye.) In 
 Mythology, a race of gigantic beings fabled by the Greeks 
 to dwell in Sicily, where they assisted Vulcan in forging the 
 thunderbolts of Jupiter. They had only one eye, round, 
 and situated in the centre of the forehead. The most ce- 
 lebrated among them was Polyphemus, whose exploits 
 have formed a prolific theme for the poets of antiquity. 
 His attachment to the nymph Galatea, is happily described 
 in an idyl of Theocritus; and the 9th book of the Odyssey 
 contains a graphic account of his savage propensities, and 
 of the loss of his eye by the stratagem of Ulysses. 
 
 CYCLO'SIS. (Gr. kwAoj.) A term applied by Schultz 
 to that general motion of latex or the vital fluids of plants, 
 which passes through vessels of a peculiar kind, and which 
 are diffused through the system of plants without interrup- 
 tion ; in distinction to rotation, or the movement of fluids 
 in different cells, as in Chara, Valisncria, &c. According 
 to this physiologist, the phenomenon of cy closis is confined 
 to the highest forms of vegetation, while that of rotation is 
 characteristic of the more imperfect orders of plants. 
 
 CY'CLOSTO'MA. (Gr. kvk'Xos, and orofia, a mouth.) 
 A genus of air-breathing Gastropods or snails; so called 
 on account of the circular form of the aperture of the shell. 
 Cyclostoma elegans and Cycl. productum are both natives 
 of England. 
 
 CY'CLOSTO'MES, Cyclostoma. (Gr. kvk\o%, and cropa, 
 a mouth; round-mouthed.) A tribe of cartilaginous fishes, 
 including those in which the mouth is surrounded by a 
 circular lip, forming a large sucker, as in the lamprey. 
 
 CY'GNUS. (Lat. the swan.) In Astronomy, one of the 
 old constellations in the northern hemisphere. 
 
 Cy'gnus. In Ornithology. See Swan. 
 
 CY'LINDER. (Gr. kv\ivSo), I roll.) In Geometry, a 
 solid which may be conceived to be formed by the revolu- 
 tion of a rectangular parallelogram about one of its sides. 
 The surface of a cylinder, not including the two ends, is 
 equal to the rectangle formed by multiplying the circum- 
 ference of its base into its altitude ; and the solid content is 
 equal to its altitude multiplied into the area of its base. 
 The cone, the sphere, and the cylinder have a remarkable 
 relation to each other, first discovered by Archimedes: 
 namely, that the cone is one-third of the cylinder, having 
 the same base and altitude ; and the inscribed sphere two 
 thirds of the cylinder; or the cone, the sphere, and the 
 cylinder are to each other as the numbers 1, 2, and 3. 
 
 CYLI'iNDROID. (Gr. Kv\ivSpov, cylinder, and ii&os, 
 form.) A solid which differs from a cylinder in having 
 ellipses instead of circles for its ends or bases. 
 
 CY'MA, or C'YMATIUM. (Gr. xvua,awave.) InArchi- 
 "'r lecture, a moulding, taking its name from its 
 
 \ contour resembling that of a wave, being hollow 
 
 in its upper part, and swelling below. Of this 
 
 moulding there are two sorts ; the cyma recta, just de- 
 — scribed ; and the cyma reversa, whose upper part 
 swells, whilst the lower is hollow. By the work- 
 men these are called ogees. 
 
 Cyma. (Gr. Kvrjjia,afcetus.) In Botany, a form of in- 
 florescence consisting of a solitary flower seated in the ax- 
 illa of dichotomous ramifications, as in Sambacus. This 
 term is also sometimes improperly used, in place of coma, 
 to express the head of a forest tree. 
 
 CY'MBALS. (Gr. KVfi6a\ov, from KVfiftos, hottote.) Brass 
 musical instruments ot percussion, played in pairs by strik- 
 ing one against the other. They are circular, about six or 
 eight inches diameter, attached to leather mountings, by 
 which they are held. Cymbals are musical instruments 
 of great antiquity, though there is considerable doubt as to 
 who was the inventor. They were employed by the Greeks 
 in the festivals of Cybele and Bacchus, and indeed by near- 
 ly all the nations of antiquity. The cymbals and the crotola 
 (which see) were used together. 
 
 CY'MBIUM. In Natural History, a name given by many 
 writers to a kind of sea-shell, commonly called the gondola. 
 It belongs to the genus concha globosa, ordolium. 
 
 CYNA'PIA. A crystallizable alkaline base obtained from 
 the jEthusa cynapium. 
 
 CY'lVARAXEJE. (Cynara, one of the genera.) In 
 Botany, one of the divisions of the great group of Composite, 
 admitted by Jussieu. It contains the thistle, the artichoke, 
 and similar plants, having their capitula surrounded by a 
 hard spiny or lacerated involucrum, and long equal tubular 
 florets with an inflated limb. They are also called Cynaro- 
 cephalm. 
 
 CYNAROCEPHALJE. See Cynaraceje. 
 
 CYNARRHO'DIUM. (Gr. Kva>v,adog,and poSov,arose.) 
 In Botany, a fruit with distinct ovaria, and hard indehiscent 
 pericarpia enclosed within the fleshy tube of the calyx, as 
 in Rosa. 
 
 CY'NICS. A sect of philosophers among the Greeks, so 
 
 called from their snarling humour, and their disregard of 
 
 the conventional usages of society ; the name being derived 
 
 from kvuv, a dog. It is difficult to give any satisfactory 
 
 V
 
 CYNIPS. 
 
 account of the tenets of this sect, as during all the period 
 of its existence it was in a state of constant fluctuation, 
 and, like most of the philosophical systems of antiquity, de- 
 rived its character and complexion from the peculiar tem- 
 perament and disposition of those who embraced it. But 
 amid all the follies and incongruities by which it was dis- 
 figured, and which exhibited themselves chiefly in a con- 
 temptuous neglect of all science and art, and of all the com- 
 forts and charities of life, it is impossible not to admit that 
 its grand aim was to inculcate the love of rigid virtue and a 
 contempt of pleasure. On this point the testimony of 
 Horace,— himself a zealous adherent of the school of Aris- 
 tippus, the very opposite of the cynical sect,— even were 
 there no other, must be held to be conclusive ; and, accord- 
 ing to his opinion, the aim of the cynical philosophy was to 
 induce every man to become 
 
 Virtutis verae custos, rigidusque salelles. 
 This sect was founded by Antisthenes, a disciple of So- 
 crates, who sought to imitate his master in carelessness of 
 outward splendour and contempt of riches ; but his indif- 
 ference to these things soon degenerated unhappily into a 
 love of ostentation, shown by a display of poverty. Thus 
 he and many of his followers rejected not only the conve- 
 niences but the common decencies of life, and lived in 
 rags and filthiness ; while they sneered bitterly at the rest 
 of the world, instead of endeavouring to teach it to culti- 
 vate the pure reason of which they professed themselves to 
 be the only followers. Of this sect was the famous Dioge- 
 nes, whose meeting with Alexander the Great is too well 
 known to require being noticed in this place. 
 
 CY'NIPS. (Gr. kvu), I am pregnant.) A Linnsean 
 genus of Hymenopterous insects, belonging to that section 
 which has not a poisonous sting. The ova of this genus 
 are deposited in living trees, and the irritation excited by 
 their presence gives rise to the formation of the excres- 
 cences called galls. 
 
 CY'NOMORIA'CEJE. (Cynomorium, one of the ge- 
 nera.) In Botany, a natural order of Rhizanths, at present 
 but little known. One species is a native of Malta, and 
 was formerly supposed to possess great medicinal powers 
 as an astringent: it figures in old officinal catalogues under 
 the name of Fungus melitensis. 
 
 CY'NOSA'RGES. A sort of academy in the suburbs 
 of Athens, situated near the Lyceum ; so called from the 
 mythological story of a white dog (kvvos apyov), which, 
 when Diomus was sacrificing to Hercules, the guardian of 
 the place, carried off part of the victim. Besides possess- 
 ing several temples erected in honour of Hercules. Alc- 
 mene, and other mythological personages, it was chiefly 
 famed for its gymnasium, in which foreigners or citizens 
 of half blood used to perform their exercises; and as be- 
 ing the place where Antisthenes instituted the sect of the 
 cynics, and taught his opinions. 
 
 CY'NOSURE. (Gr. kvoiv, a dog, and ovpa, a tail) Li- 
 terally the tail of a dog, applied by some philosophers to 
 the constellation Ursa Minor, by which the ancient Phoeni- 
 cians used to be guided on their voyages : whence it has 
 been borrowed by the language of poetry, in which it sig- 
 nifies " a point of attraction :" 
 
 Where perhaps some beauty lies, 
 
 The cynosure of neighbouring eyes. L' Allegro, 79. 
 
 CY'NTHIUS and CY'NTHIA. In Mythology, sur- 
 names given by the ancient poets to Apollo and Diana: 
 from Cynthus, a mountain of the island of Delos, on 
 which they are fabled to have been born. (Virg. Eclog. 6. 3.; 
 Hot., Od. III. 28.) / 
 
 CYPERA'CEjE. (Cyperus. one of the genera.) A na- 
 tural order of Endogens, inhabiting the marshes, ditches, 
 streams, &c. of all countries. They closely resemble 
 Graminacece ; but are distinguished from them by the 
 stems being solid and angular, not round and fistular, and 
 by there being no diaphragms at the articulations. They ap- 
 proach Juncacea. and Restiacecc, but are known at once by 
 the sheaths of their leaves not being split. The entire or- 
 der has lately been re-arranged by Nees Von Estenbeck 
 and Kunth. Their sensible properties are unimportant. 
 Carex arenaria affords one of the European substitutes 
 for sarsaparilla. 
 
 CYPHE'LL-E. (Gr. nv<pos, a tubercle. - ) A term used 
 in describing lichens, to denote pale tubercle-like spots on 
 the under surface of the thallus. 
 
 CY'PHER, or CIPHER. In Diplomatic affairs, " an oc- 
 cult manner of writing, legible to those only who possess 
 the key or secret." This art, in a variety of forms, has 
 been more or less practised in every civilized country ; and 
 has been cultivated by the moderns in particular to such a 
 degree as to have acquired the importance of a distinct 
 science,under the names Cryptography, Poly graphy, Steno- 
 graphy, &c. To give a general exposition ofthe principles 
 of the art, it would be necessary to enter into minute de- 
 tails inadmissible in a work of this kind ; but the reader 
 will find in Rees's Cyclopaedia a full and learned disquisi- 
 tion on the subject 
 314 
 
 CYSTICS. 
 
 CY'PHONISM. (Gr. kvQiov, an instrument of punish- 
 ment.) A species of punishment frequently resorted to by 
 the ancients, which consisted in besmearing the criminal 
 with honey, and then exposing him to insects. This pun- 
 ishment was carried into effect in various ways, but chiefly 
 by fastening the sufferer to a stake, or extending him on the 
 ground with his arms pinioned. 
 
 CYPRiE'A, Cowry. The name of a Linnsean genus of 
 the Vermes Testacea, characterized by a subovate smooth 
 shell, with a linear aperture extending from one end ofthe 
 shell to the other, and transversely furrowed or dentated 
 in the mature state. The genus is retained without subdi- 
 vision, and forms part of the Buccinoid family of the Pec- 
 tinibranchiate order of Gastropods of the system of Cuvier. 
 This genus is remarkable for the difference of form 
 which exists in the young and old states of the shell: in 
 the former the lip is thin, and the aperture wide, but the 
 mantle is progressively developed until its lobes extend 
 over the columella on the one side and the lip on the oppo- 
 site side of the aperture, covering them with successive 
 layers of nacreous shell, and at length diminishing the 
 aperture to a narrow linear form. One species of cowry 
 {CypraM moneta, L.) is commonly used by the natives of 
 certain parts of Africa and other semi-barbarous nations as 
 a medium of monetary exchange. 
 
 CYPRI'NUS. (Lat. cyprinus, a carp.) A Linnaean ge- 
 nus of abdominal fishes, now the type of a family of Mala- 
 copterygians in the system of Cuvier, and of Cycloid fish- 
 es in the system of Agassiz ; including the genus Cyprinus 
 proper, or carps ; Barbus, or barbels ; Gof/io, or gudgeons; 
 Tenca, tenches ; Abrama, breams ; Leucisens, minnows ; 
 Cirrhinus ; Labes ; Catasiomics ; and Gonorhynchus. 
 
 CY'PSELA. (Gr. KvxpeXri, a hee-hive.) In Botany, one- 
 seeded, one-celled, indeniscent fruit, with the integuments 
 of the seed not cohering with the endocarp : in the ova- 
 rium state evincing its compound nature by the presence 
 of two or more stigmata ; but nevertheless unilocular, and 
 having but one ovule. Usually called an Achenium. 
 
 CYRE'NIANS. The philosophers of a school founded 
 at Cyrene, a Grecian colony on the northern coast of 
 Africa, by Aristippus. a disciple of Socrates. They held, 
 with the Epicureans, that pleasure was the only good and 
 pain the only evil, and were not at such pains as the latter 
 to prove that the first could only attend on virtuous con- 
 duct ; they also differed from them in not considering ab- 
 sence from pain of itself to be a pleasure of the highest 
 order. But though these philosophers held that pleasure 
 should form the ultimate object of pursuit, and that it was 
 only in subserviency to this that fame, friendship, and even 
 virtue are to be desired, still there were many points in their 
 philosophy calculated to command general sympathy. It 
 is impossible not to admit that, with all the defects of the 
 system, its object, as Dryden says in reference to Horace, 
 is to render us happy in relation to ourselves, agreeable 
 and faithful to our friends, and discreet, serviceable, and 
 well-bred in relation to those with whom we are obliged to 
 live and converse. Perhaps the best view of the philoso- 
 phy of this sect is to be obtained from the Satires and 
 Epistles of Horace, in which the versatility of disposition, 
 politeness of manners, and knowledge of the world that 
 distinguished the Cyrenians, are set forth with great clear- 
 ness, and with all the ardour of an enthusiastic disciple. 
 The grand principles of Aristippus are thus happily de- 
 scribed in the couplet — 
 
 Omnis Aristippumdecuit color et status et res, 
 Tentautem majora, fere pr&seulibus arquum : 
 
 and the poet's own partiality for this system of philosophy, 
 and its accommodating character, are thus exhibited : — 
 
 Nunc in Aristippi furtim prrecepta relabor, 
 Et mihi res non me rebus suhjmigere Conor. 
 
 CY'RTANDRA'CEjE. (Gr. Ktiproc, crooked, and avnp, 
 a 'male; Cyrtandra, the name of one ofthe genera.) A 
 natural order of Monopctalous Dicarpous Exogens, in- 
 habiting the tropics, and closely allied to Gesneracea, Big- 
 noniacea}, and Pedaliaceai ; from the former differing only 
 in never producing an inferior ovary, their deeply lobed 
 placenta?, their siliquose fruit, and the want of albumen ; 
 from Bignoniacea,, by their habit, their minute apterous 
 seeds, one-celled ovary, with two double parietal placenta; ; 
 from Pedaliaceai, in nothing except their minute indefinite 
 seeds, and the membranous not woody texture of the fruit 
 and placentae. 
 
 CY'STIBRA'NCHIANS, Cystibranchia. (Gr. kvctis, the 
 bladder, and ^payx^, gills.) A family of Isopodous Crus- 
 tacea, comprehending those which have the branchiae 
 lodsred in vesicular cavities. 
 
 CY'STIC OXIDE. (Gr. kwtis.) A species of urinary 
 calculus, composed of a peculiar animal matter. 
 
 CY'STICS, Cystica. (Gr. xvaris.) Rudolphi thus de- 
 nominates the order of Entozoa, in which the body is ter- 
 minated by a cyst peculiar to one individual or common to 
 many. The hydatid in the brain of sheep, and the parasite 
 which produces measly pork, are examples of this order.
 
 CYSTITIS. 
 
 CYSTI'TIS. (Gr. (cuanj.) Inflammation of the bladder. 
 
 CY'STOCE'LE. (Gr. kvctis, and <cnAn_, a tumour.) A 
 hemia or rupture formed by a protusion of the bladder. 
 
 CYSTO'TOMY. (Gr. kvotu, and rtuvw, 1 cut.) The 
 operation of cutting into the bladder for the extraction of a 
 stone or other extraneous substance. 
 
 CYTHERJi'A. In Mythology, a name given to Venus, 
 from the island Cythera, where she was worshipped with 
 peculiar veneration. {Ovid. Fast. iv. 285.) 
 
 CY'TINA'CEJD. (Cytinus, one of the genera.) In 
 Botany, a natural order of Rhizanths inhabiting the south 
 of Europe, the Cape, and Guinea. They are very little 
 known, and have no sensible properties of importance. 
 Pelletier says that Cytinus has the property of precipitating 
 gelatin without containing tannin. 
 
 CYZICE'NUS. In Ancient Architecture, a large hall 
 decorated with sculpture ; and so called from the inha- 
 bitants of Cyzicus, who were celebrated for their mag- 
 nificence in building. 
 
 CZ'AR, ZAR, or TZAR. A title given to their monarch 
 by several Sclavonic tribes. In Russia, Ivan II. adopted 
 in 1579 the title of Czar of Moscow. The eldest son of the 
 czar was termed Czarovicz; but after the death of Alexis, 
 the murdered son of Peter I., this title was no more used, 
 \intil revived by Paul I., in 1799, in favour of his second 
 son. and the late grand duke of Constantine. The consort 
 of the emperor of Russia is styled Czarina. 
 
 D. 
 
 D. The fourth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and those 
 derived from it, is the medial of the order of dentals or 
 palatodentals ; and is susceptible of various interchanges, 
 particularly in the German and English languages. As an 
 abbreviature, D has several significations : thus, D. stands 
 for Doctor,— M. D. Doctor of Medicine, — D. D. Doctor of 
 Divinity, <&c. Amon» Roman writers, D. is used for Di- 
 vus, Decimus, Devotus, Diebus, A;c. D. M. in the Roman 
 epitaphs signifies Diis Manibus ; but, on other occasions, 
 Deo Magno, or Dii Maanis. As a Roman numeral, D signi- 
 fies five hundred : in this rase it is more correct to write IC. 
 
 D. In Music, the note on the third line in the bass or F 
 clef, on the fourth space in the tenor clef, on the third 
 space in the counter tenor clef, and on the fourth line in 
 the treble or G clef. 
 
 DA CA'PO. (It.) In Music, usually written short, D. C. 
 An instruction to the performer in such airs as end with 
 the first strain, that the song must be begun again and end- 
 ed with the first part. 
 
 DA'CELO. One of those generic terms which Dr. 
 I. each framed by transposing the letters of the name of the 
 typical or Linnoean genus from which the species so de- 
 signated were dismembered ; in the present case, the 
 word is obtained from Alcedo, and is applied to a large 
 Australian species of Passerine bird, nearly allied to the 
 kingfisher. 
 
 DACRYO'MA. (Gr. tiaicpvio, Iveep.) A disease of the 
 lachrymal duct of the eye, by which the tears are prevent- 
 ed passing into the nose, and therefore trickle over the face. 
 
 DACTI'LIOGLYPH. (Gr. <Wt)Xio{, a ring; and 
 y\v't>a}, to engrave.) In ancient gem sculpture, the inscrip- 
 tion of the name of the artist on a gem. 
 
 DACTILIO'GRAPHY. (Gr. <5a*-™Aio{, and ypa$u, to 
 write.) In gem sculpture, the science of gem engraving. 
 
 DA'CTYL. (.Gr. faKTv\os, the finger.) The name of a 
 metrical foot in Greek and Latin poetry, consisting of along 
 and two short syllables ; as in the word earminti. In the 
 English and German languages, where accent determines 
 quantity, the word dactyl means an accented followed by 
 two unaccented syllables; as in quantity, Hebliche. 
 
 DA'CTYLI. Priests of Cybele in Phrygia; so called, 
 according to Sophocles, because they were five in number, 
 thus corresponding with the number of the fingers (San- 
 twXoi), from which the name is derived. Their functions 
 appear to have been simflar to those of the Cory bantes and 
 Curetes, other priests of the same goddess in Phrygia and 
 Crete. 
 
 DA'CTYLO'LOGY. (Gr. SaiervXos, a finger, and \oyos, 
 discourse.) The art of spelling words by placing the fin- 
 gers in such positions as to signify the letters of the alphabet. 
 
 DACTYLO'PTEROUS. (Gr. <WtiAos, and irrtpov, a 
 icing or fin ; finger-finned.) A fish is said to be so when 
 the inferior rays of its pectoral fin are partially or entirely 
 free. The term Dactyhpterus has been applied by Lace- 
 pede to a genus of Gurnards, remarkable for the great ex- 
 pansion of their pectoral fins. The most common and best 
 known species of this genus inhabits the Mediterranean, 
 and is the Trigla volitans of Linnaeus, or the flying gur- 
 nard. It is sometimes confounded with the true flying-fish 
 {Exocatus.) 
 
 315 
 
 DAGUERREOTYPE. 
 
 DA'DO. (It. a die.) In Architecture, the die, or that 
 part in the middle of the pedestal between the base and 
 cornice. It takes its name from being a cube like a die. 
 
 DiE'DALUS. In Fabulous History, the great grandson of 
 Erechtheus king of Athens, is celebrated as the most an- 
 cient statuary, architect, and mechanist of Greece. To 
 him is ascribed the invention of the saw, the axe, the plum- 
 met, and many other tools and instruments ; and to such a 
 degree did he excel in sculpture, that his statues are fabled 
 to have been endowed with life. For the alleged murder 
 of his nephew he was obliged to quit Athens, whence he 
 repaired to Crete, then under the sway of Minos, by whom 
 he was favourably received. Here he constructed the fa- 
 mous labyrinth, on the model of the still more famous one 
 of Egypt ; but having assisted the wife of Minos in an in- 
 trigue with Taurus (see Minotaur), he was, by a strange 
 fatality, confined to this very labyrinth along with his son 
 Icarus. By means, however, of wings, which he formed 
 of linen or feathers and wax, Daedalus and his son contrived 
 to make their escape. The former pursued his aerial 
 journey, and arrived safely in Sicily ; but the latter having 
 soared too near the sun, in consequence of which the wax 
 that fastened the wing was melted, dropped into and was 
 drowned in the sea (thence called the lcarian). In Sicily 
 Daedalus continued to prosecute his ingenious labours, and 
 lived long enough to enrich that island with various works 
 of art. From the plastic powers of Daedalus, the ancient 
 poets used to regard his name as synonymous with inge- 
 nious, as in the phrase Dadaleum opus ; and in a somewhat 
 similar sense Lucretius applies it to the earth, in order to 
 describe its vernal vegetation, — 
 
 tibi suaves Dasdala tellus 
 
 Submitlit (lores. 
 
 A few years ago the name of Daedalus, which had been ap- 
 propriated by various artists in the history of Grecian art. 
 was assumed by the constructors of some ingenious auto 
 mata, in memory of the grand impressions which the 
 works of D;edalus had produced. 
 
 DA'GON. (Heb. 3*1, dag, a fish.) One of the principal 
 divinities of the ancient Phoenicians and Syrians, and more 
 especially of the Philistines. The origin, attributes, and 
 even the sex of this divinity, are all wrapt in the most pro- 
 found obscurity ; but the sacred writers concur in assigning 
 to him such a degree of authority as must place him on a 
 level with the Jupiter of the Greeks and Romans. The 
 reverence in which he was held by the Philistines, and the 
 remarkable circumstances attending his downfall, will be 
 found fully detailed in Judges, c. 16., and 1 Samuel, c. v. ; 
 but we cannot refrain from transferring to our pages Mil- 
 Ion's graphic sketch of the leading features of his history : — 
 
 Next came one 
 
 Who mourned in e arneal when the captive ark 
 Maimed bis brute image, head and hands lopt off 
 In his own temple, on the grunsel edge, 
 Wheo he fel! flat, and shamed his Worshippers . 
 1 iagon his name, sea monster, upward man 
 .And downward fish ; >vt had his temple high 
 Reared in Aiotus, dreaded through the coast 
 Of Palestine, in r.ath and Ascalon, 
 And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bound*. 
 
 The Samson Agonistes, as is well known, exhibits the 
 great importance of this divinity ; and the 
 
 D olemn feasts, 
 With sacrifices, triumph, pomp, and games, 
 
 celebrated to his honour by the Philistines. 
 
 DAGUE'RREOTYPE. The name given to a process late- 
 ly introduced by Daguerre, an ingenious French artist, by 
 which the images from the lens of a camera obscura, as is 
 supposed, are fixed on metal plates. It has been our good 
 fortune to see several of the productions of this surprising 
 discovery, and we regret that words cannot convey the im- 
 pression they made on us. With the exception of local 
 colour, they present nature herself to the spectator. The 
 qualities of objects are so clearly expressed, that silk could 
 not in the representation be mistaken for satin, nor marble 
 for plaster. The sky is given with as different an expres- 
 sion of quality from stone as that substance is from the 
 ground on which it stands. The productions we saw were 
 nearly uniform in size, being about 10 inches by perhaps 
 6 or 7 ; and notwithstanding the small space within which 
 the views are confined, we could by means of a lens count 
 the strands in a rope. This extraordinary discovery must 
 not be confounded with that of an ingenious gentleman (Mr. 
 Talbot) of this country, in which what in nature is in light 
 becomes a dark space in the representation, and the parts 
 that are dark are exhibited in masses of light. In Da- 
 guerre's discovery the objects are lighted as they are in 
 nature, with all the sparkling effects which the sun scatters 
 on them : the intensity of tone in the foregrounds is ba- 
 lanced by the aerial effects in the distances ; in short, the 
 only step wanting to rival the original is to impart to these 
 self-created pictures that which the father of colour, the 
 sun, bestows upon all things beneath him, namely, colour. 
 Mr. Talbott's process has been made known by a paper
 
 DAIRY. 
 
 read before the Royal Society, and some have called his 
 specimens Photogenic pictures. See Photogenic. 
 
 DATRY. (Dey, milk, obsol. Eng.) An apartment in a 
 house, or a separate building, for the purpose of holding 
 milk and manufacturing it into butter, cheese, or other dai- 
 ry produce. On a small scale, where butter only is made 
 from milk, the dairy may be a room in the north side of 
 the dwelling-house ; or it may form one of the offices con- 
 nected with the kitchen court. The requisites for the 
 room to contain the milk are — an equal temperature 
 throughout the year, viz. between 48° and 55° ; sufficient 
 ventilation to carry off all bad smells and impurities in the 
 air; and the exclusion of flies and other insects. An equa- 
 ble temperature is maintained by thick or by hollow walls, 
 and by double windows. In winter the temperature is 
 somewhat raised by the warm milk, and in summer it is 
 cooled to the degree required by ventilation and the evapo- 
 ration of water poured on the floor. The ventilation is 
 effected by opening the glazed sashes of the windows, and 
 supplying their places by wire shutters, and indeed one of 
 the best modes of arranging the windows of a dairy is to 
 have wooden shutters outside for closing in the most se- 
 vere weather in winter ; next, a fixed frame of wirework to 
 exclude the flies ; and within this, at three or four inches 
 distance, the glazed sash, which should be made to open. 
 A dairy on a large scale is most conveniently arranged as 
 a detached building; in which case, it contains a milk, 
 room, a churning-room, and a dairy scullery, or place for 
 scalding the utensils. If cheese is to be made, a room will 
 be required for the cheese press and another for drying 
 the cheeses. 
 
 The quantity of milk raised in the vicinity of London for 
 the supply of the inhabitants, and the revenue derived 
 from the sale of it, show the importance of this article. In 
 his valuable work on cattle, their breeds, &c, " Mr. Youatt 
 estimates the number of dairy-cows, at present kept in 
 London and its environs, at 12,000; affording, on Mr. Mid- 
 dleton's hypothesis, an annual supply of 38,400,000 quarts 
 of milk. Now, as milk is sold by the retailers at from 3d. 
 to4d. a quart, after the cream is separated from it, and as 
 the cream is usually sold at from 2s. <jd. to 3s. a quart, and 
 there is reason to suspect that a good deal of water is in- 
 termixed with the milk, we should hardly be warranted in 
 estimating that the milk, as obtained from the cow, is sold 
 at less than 5d. a quart, which gives 800,000?. as the total 
 price of the milk consumed in the city and its immediaie 
 vicinity. 1 ' (M-Cidlocli's Statistics, 2d ed. vol. i. p. 490.) 
 
 DA'IS. (Fr.) In Architecture, the platform or raised 
 floor at the upper end of a dining hall, where the high 
 table stood ; also the seat with a canopy over it for those 
 who sat at the high table. 
 
 DALMA'TICA. A long white gown with sleeves ; worn 
 by deacons in the Roman Catholic church over the alb and 
 stole. It was imitated from a dress originally worn in Dal- 
 matia, and imported into Rome by the emperor Commo- 
 dus, where the use of it gradually superseded the old Ro- 
 man fashion of keeping the arms uncovered. A similar 
 robe was worn by kings in the middle ages at coronations 
 and other solemnities. 
 
 DA'MAGE-FEASANT. In Law, a beast is said to be so, 
 when found in another person's ground without his leave 
 or licence ; in which case the tenant may distrain or im- 
 pound it : but at his own peril, if the accident have hap- 
 pened through his own negligence in not repairing the 
 fences of his close. Possession, without title, is sufficient 
 to empower the tenant to distrain damage-feasanL Proper 
 notice is, however, to be given ; and if the owner of the 
 estate tender amends, it is unlawful to detain them. 
 
 Da'MAGES. (Lat. damna.) In English Law, the re- 
 compence awarded by a jury to a plaintiff, in certain forms 
 of action, for the loss or damage he has sustained by the 
 injury committed by the defendant. At common law, 
 damages are recoverable in personal and mixed actions. In 
 actions upon the case, trespass, &c, a certain amount of 
 damages, sufficient to coverall the hurt really sustained by 
 the plaintiff, is alleged or laid in the declaration ; and it is 
 the duty of the jury to inquire the real amount of damages, 
 and assess it accordingly. In the action of debt, where the 
 amount due is something certain, the damage laid is now 
 merely nominal, for the injury supposed to be done by the 
 detention of the debt ; the jury, therefore, award a nomi- 
 nal sum only. Damages are also allowed in actions upon 
 a variety of statutes, and sometimes double or treble da- 
 mages ; in which case the plaintiff is entitled to twice or 
 three times the amount awarded by the jury. 
 
 DA'MASK. (From Damascus, where it was anciently 
 made.) A woven fabric produced by a particular con- 
 struction and management of the loom, in which are re- 
 presented various figures of flowers, fruit, leaves, &c. The 
 chief seat of this manufacture is Dunfermline in Fifeshire, 
 and Lisburne and Ardoyne near Belfast. The best damasks 
 are of linen ; those of cotton are cheaper, but less elegant 
 and durable. 
 DAMASKEE'NTNG. The art of inlaying iron and steel 
 316 
 
 DARIC. 
 
 with gold and silver, originally practised at Damascus in 
 Syria. 
 
 DAMA'SSIN. A species of woven damask with gold 
 and silver flowers. 
 
 DAME (probably a corruption of the Lat. domina, a 
 mistress), was formerly a title of honour, and is still used 
 in the English law to denote the wife of a knight or baronet. 
 Dame was also the designation of nuns of the Benedictine 
 and certain other ancient orders. 
 
 DA'MPER. An iron plate sliding backwards and for- 
 wards in a groove, and so arranged as to enlarge or con- 
 tract, and occasionally close the chimneys of furnaces, 
 steam boilers, &c, so as to increase or diminish the draught 
 of air through the fire, and consequently regulate the in- 
 tensity of the combustion. 
 
 DAMPS. (Germ, dampf. vapor.) The noxious exhala- 
 tions of mines and excavations. The carburetted hydrogen 
 of coal mines is called Fire Damp ; carbonic acid is term- 
 ed Choke Damp. 
 
 DA'NOING (Germ, tanzen), may be defined to be a 
 graceful movement of the figure, accompanied by gestures 
 and attitudes indicative of certain mental emotions, and by 
 measured steps in harmony with a piece of music arrang- 
 ed for the purpose. The great antiquity of dancing is at- 
 tested by history, both sacred and profane. It consisted at 
 first, probably, of nothing more than gesticulation and 
 moving in a procession ; in which sense it formed part of 
 the celebration of the religious rites of the ancient Hebrews 
 and Egyptians. But the Greeks, who are confessedly in- 
 debted to the Egyptians for the elements of their religion 
 and literature, though these were afterwards refined by 
 them to such a degree as nearly to obliterate all traces of 
 their origin, soon polished and improved these sacred rites, 
 and introduced them into all the festal ceremonies of which 
 their elegant mythology was composed. In this they were, 
 as usual, imitated by the Romans. If we believe Scaliger, 
 the early bishops of the church were styled prastdes, be- 
 cause (as the word literally implies) they led off the dance 
 at their solemn festivals; and this practice continued in 
 the church till the 12th century. Almost every country 
 can boast of its national dances peculiar to the inhabitants ; 
 which it is rare to see so well performed when adopted by 
 others. Of these the best known to us are the tarantella 
 of the Neapolitans, the bolero and fandango of the Span- 
 iards, the mazourek and krakowiaque of Poland, the cosaque 
 of Russia, the redoicac of Bohemia, the quadrille and co- 
 tillon of France, the waltz and gallopade of Germany, and 
 the reel of Scotland. 
 
 DA'NEGELT. A tribute of twelve pence laid by the 
 Danes upon the Anglo-Saxons upon every hide of land 
 throughout the realm. 
 
 DA'NNEBROG. An ancient Danish order of knight- 
 hood, supposed to have been founded in 1219 ; revived in 
 1693, and re-constituted in 1808. 
 
 DANS. Small trucks or sledges used in coal mines. 
 
 DATHNE. (Gr. Aafvrj.) In Grecian Mythology, a 
 nymph of Diana, the daughter of the river god Peneus. 
 She was beloved by Apollo ; but she resisted all his at- 
 tempts to excite in her a mutual attachment, and at last be- 
 took herself to flight. On being hody pursued by the god, 
 she invoked the earth to swallow her up, when her prayer 
 was granted, and she was immediately changed into a 
 laurel tree, which was ever after sacred to Apollo, and re- 
 garded as the symbol of fame and glory. ( Ovidi. Met. 1. x.) 
 
 DA'PHNIA. A genus of the Entomostracous or lower- 
 organized Crustaceans, belonging to the order Branchio- 
 pod.a, and the section Lophyropoda. The most common 
 species and type of this genus, Monoculus pulex of Lin- 
 nffius, is a favourite and interesting microscopic object. 
 Its body is compressed, oval, and enclosed in a large bi- 
 lobed carapace ; the two lobes being connected together 
 along the back and open below, resembling a bivalve shell. 
 The head is prolonged into a snout, and provided with a 
 single central compound eye. The chief organs of swim- 
 ming are the modified antennse, which have a long basal 
 joint, supporting two jointed branches beset with long 
 bristles. It is by the sudden contraction of these organs 
 that the little animalcule propels itself through the water 
 by a series of jerks. The true legs are ten pairs, very small, 
 having a respiratory vesicular organ attached to the second 
 joint; the first eight pairs have the terminal joint dilated 
 and hairy. The eggs are incubated in a kind of marsupial 
 pouch, situated towards the dorsal aspect of the lower end 
 of the body : in five days the young are excluded. The 
 Daphnia pulex is extremely prolific ; and as it assumes a 
 rose-red colour in summer time, the swarms which abound 
 in stagnant water often impart to it so deep a colour as to 
 give rise to a suspicion and popular belief that it is occa- 
 sioned by blood. 
 
 DA'RIC. A Persian gold coin (so called by the Greeks, 
 from Darius, the name of several Persian sovereigns), hav- 
 ing upon the obverse an archer crowned and kneeling upon 
 one knee, and on the reverse a quadrata incusa, or deep 
 cleft. The weight of the daric is about 130 grains.
 
 DAROO TREE. 
 
 DAROO' TREE. The Ficus sycai/iorus, or Egyptian 
 sycamore. 
 
 DA'RTER. Certain web-footed birds of the Pelican 
 family are so called. See Plotus. 
 
 DASH. (Etym. uncertain.) In Music, a small mark, 
 thus ', denoting that the note over which it is placed is to 
 be performed in a short and distinct manner. 
 
 DA'SYPRO'CTA. (Gr. Saavs, hairy, and wp(x>KTOS ; 
 Lat. anus.) The subgeneric name applied by Illiger to the 
 Agouti and Acouchi, which before were included in the 
 great genus Cavia of Linnffius. 
 
 DA SYPUSi (Gr. Saavs, and ttovs, a foot.) A name 
 originally and very appropriately applied by the Greeks to 
 the hare, but transferred by Linnffius to the genus including 
 the Armadillos. This genus is subdivided in modern sys- 
 tems into Dasypus proper, Tatusia, and Prionodon. The 
 remains of a gigantic extinct animal of the armadillo kind 
 has recently been discovered in South America, and called 
 Glyptodon. See that word. 
 
 DA'SYURE. (Gr. Saavs, and ovpa, a tail ; hairy-tailed.) 
 The name of a genus of Carnivorous Marsupials, compre- 
 hending those which have hairy tails combined with digiti- 
 grade feet, and a dental formula of— incisores S-, canini 8-1 
 molares spurii 1, molares veri J^ = 42. 
 
 DA'TA. (Lat. things given.) A term used in geometry 
 to denote certain things or quantities determined by the con- 
 ditions of the problem, and at the same time known as as- 
 signable. According to Simson (Preface to Euclid's Data), 
 a thing is said in general to be given which is either actually 
 exhibited or can be found out ; that is, which is either known 
 by hypothesis or can be demonstrated to be known ; so 
 that in the analysis or investigation of a problem, from the 
 things that are laid down to be known or given, by the help 
 of known propositions olher things are demonstrated to be 
 given, and from these other things are again shown to be 
 given, and so on, until that which was proposed to be found 
 out in the problem is demonstrated to be given. When 
 this is done the problem is solved, and its composition is 
 made and derived from the compositions of the data which 
 were made use of in the analysis. 
 
 In the language of the ancient mathematicians, geome- 
 trical quantities are given in species, magnitude, or position. 
 Thus, a triansle is given in species when its three angles, or 
 the ratios of its sides, are known. A straight line is given 
 in magnitude when we know its length, or the area of a 
 fxiangle of which the three sides are given. And lastly, a 
 line is given in position when we know its inclination to 
 another given line. The Book of Data, ascribed lo Euclid, 
 is the first in order of the ancient treatises on the geometri- 
 cal analysis. There are numerous editions of this work. 
 Those of Simson and Horsley are the best. 
 
 DATE. In Diplomatics, the notation of the time and 
 place of the delivery or subscription of an instrument. 
 The word is derived from the common formula at the foot 
 of instruments, " datum" or " data," given at such a place 
 and time. Dates of time are distinguished into definite 
 and indefinite. The former mark specially the year, and 
 sometimes the month, day, <Scc. ; the latter only contain a 
 general reference to some period of time. Thus many in- 
 struments of the earlier part of the middle ages are dated 
 only " Regnante Domino nostro Jesu Christo ;" and very 
 often the date contained only mention of the reigning 
 prince, without reference to the years of his reign. De- 
 finite dates are various in ancient charters and deeds. The 
 Christian Greeks dated generally, down to the fall of Con- 
 stantinople, by the year of the world ; beginning their year 
 at the 1st of September. The date used in the oldest 
 Latin charters is commonly that of the Indiction (see 
 Indiction), which is also frequently added in the Greek. 
 The Christian era (under the several names of year of 
 grace, of the incarnation, of the reign of Christ, of the na- 
 tivity, <kc. Arc.) began to be in common usage in royal 
 charters in France about the reign of Hugh Capet; in 
 Spain and Portugal not until the 13th and 14th centuries. 
 In England, the Saxon kings frequently dated by the in- 
 carnation ; but deeds and charters under the Plantagenet 
 kings generally bear the year of the reigning prince. 
 
 DA'THOLITE, or DATOL1TE. A mineral composed 
 of silica, lime, and boracic acid ; a borosilicate of lime. It 
 occurs in Norway, in the Tyrol, and in the Hartz. It be- 
 comes opaque when heated. 
 
 DA'TIVE CASE. (Lat. dativus, from do, I give.) That 
 inflexion of a noun which denotes participation in the ac- 
 tion of the verb which accompanies it. See Grammar. 
 
 DATU'RIA. The poisonous principle of the Datura stra- 
 monium. It belongs to the class of crystallizable alkaloids. 
 
 DAU'PHIN. The well-known title of the heir appar- 
 ent to the crown of France, before the Revolution, was 
 that of the counts or lords of Vienne in Dauphine, from 
 the 12th century, or an earlier period : its origin cannot 
 be ascertained. From the last male of that ancient house 
 the title passed to his heirs, the house of Burgundy ; and 
 from them to the family of La Tour Dupin, of whom 
 317 
 
 DEAD WATER. 
 
 Humbert n. surrendered his principality in 1349 to Charles, 
 grandson of Philip of Valois : from which period the 
 principality of Dauphine continued to be the apanage, and 
 the title of Dauphin the appellation of the king's eldest 
 son. The name of the province is derived from the title 
 of its lords. 
 
 DA'VIT. A piece of timber used in managing the 
 anchor. 
 
 DA'VITE. A name given to a fibrous sulphate of 
 alumina found in a warm spring near Bogota, in Columbia. 
 
 DAVY'NE. A white or brown crystallized mineral 
 found in cavities of some of the lapideous masses ejected 
 by Vesuvius. 
 
 DAY (Lat. dies; Germ, tag.), in its most common ac- 
 ceptation, denotes the interval of time during which the 
 sun remains above the horizon ; and is opposed to night, 
 which denotes the time the sun is below tne horizon. In 
 this sense it is sometimes called the artificial day. But 
 the term day is also generally used to denote the time in 
 which the earth makes a complete revolution with respect 
 to the celestial bodies, and consequently expresses differ- 
 ent intervals, according as the body with which the earth's 
 rotation is compared is fixed or moveable. 
 
 The Astronomical or Solar Day, called also the Apparent 
 Day, is the time that elapses between two consecutive re- 
 turns of the same terrestrial meridian to the centre of the 
 sun. Astronomical days are not of equal length, for two 
 reasons; 1st, the unequal velocity of the earth in its orbit, 
 in consequence of which the apparent daily motion of 
 the sun is greater in winter than in summer ; and 2d, the 
 obliquity of the ecliptic, in consequence of which the 
 sun's apparent daily motion in right ascension (that is, in 
 the plane of the earth's equator) is less at the equinoxes 
 than at the tropics. The astronomical day commences at 
 noon, and is counted on, through the 24 hours, to the noon 
 following. 
 
 The Civil Day, or Mean Solar Day, is the time employ- 
 ed by the earth in revolving on its axis, as compared with 
 the sun, supposed to move at a mean rate in its orbit, and 
 to make 3652425 revolutions in a mean Gregorian year. 
 In this mode of reckoning time, the days are all of the same 
 length ; and noon, or any given hour of the civil day, some- 
 times precedes and sometimes comes after apparent noon, 
 or the corresponding hour of the astronomical day. Most 
 nations, at least in modern times, have agreed in placing 
 the commencement and termination of the civil day at 
 mean midnight. 
 
 The Sidereal Day is the time that elapses between two 
 successive culminations of the same star. This interval 
 of time has always remained of the same invariable length, 
 as is proved by the most ancient astronomical observations. 
 It is divided into 24 sidereal hours; and these are again 
 subdivided into sidereal minutes and seconds. This mode 
 of reckoning time, during the day, is now universally 
 adopted by astronomers in their observatories; although 
 the commencement of the day is still determined by the 
 apparent culmination of the sun. 
 
 DE'ACON. (Gr. Siokovos, a minister or servant.) A 
 minister of religion, holding, in Protestant churches, the 
 lowest degree in holy orders. The first appointment of 
 deacons is mentioned in Acts vi., where the Apostles direct 
 the congregation to look out seven men of honest report, 
 upon whom they may lay their hands. Their office at this 
 time seems to have been chiefly the care of the poor and 
 the distribution of the bread and wine in the love feasts. 
 We learn, however, from the example of Philip, Acts viii., 
 that they also had authority to preach. In the English 
 church it is customary to require a candidate for deacon's 
 orders to have completed his 23d year. As a deacon he is 
 not capable of holding any benefice, and may only officiate 
 as a curate, chaplain, or lecturer. It is generally under- 
 stood that a deacon may not read the Absolution : he may 
 not administer the sacrament alone, but in assisting the 
 priest may offer the cup to the communicants. 
 
 DEAD BEAT. In Clock-work (called also dead scape- 
 mtnt, or scapement of repose), a peculiar kind of scape- 
 ment invented by Mr. George Graham about the year 1700, 
 with a view to lessen the effect of the wheel work on the 
 motion of the pendulum ; and acquired its name from the 
 circumstance that the seconds' index stands still after each 
 drop, whereas the index of a clock with a recoiling scape- 
 ment is always in motion, hobbling backward and lorward. 
 See Horology. 
 
 DEAD LIGHTS. Strong wooden posts or shutters put 
 over the glass windows of the cabin in bad weather, as a 
 defence against the sea. 
 
 DEAD RECKONING. A term used in navigation to 
 express the estimation that is made of a ship's place with- 
 out having recourse to observation of the celestial bodies. 
 It is made by observing the way she makes by the log, and 
 the course on which she has been steered, making allow- 
 ance for drift, leeway, &c. 
 
 DEAD WATER. The water that closes in with a ship's 
 stern.
 
 DEAFNESS. 
 
 DEA'FNESS. An imperfection of the sense of hearing, 
 arising from a variety of causes, some of which are inex- 
 plicable and incurable, and others ascertainable and sus- 
 ceptible of relief or entire removal. When the organ of 
 hearing is imperfect in its functions, either at birth or in 
 childhood, dumbness or imperfect articulation attends it ; 
 for speech is an imitative faculty, and an infant born deaf, 
 cannot attempt those motions of the organs of voice which 
 gradually attain perfection by practice : he consequently 
 becomes incapable of communicating his ideas through 
 that medium. 
 
 The external ear, though tending by its form and situ- 
 ation to improve and perfect the sense of hearing, is in no 
 way necessary ; for it may be cut off without producing 
 deafness. A common cause of deafness arises out of im- 
 perfections or obstructions in the passage leading from the 
 external ear down to the membrane of the tympanum. 
 This passage is partly cartilaginous and partly bony ; and 
 from its oblique direction it is difficult so to see into it as 
 to ascertain the seat or cause of the obstruction. In some 
 persons, however, when placed in a proper position, so 
 that the sunshine or other strong light may be properly 
 directed into it, a little management enables us to ex- 
 amine nearly its whole extent. In some cases of con- 
 genital deafness this passage is closed by a membrane, 
 which, if near the external orifice, is easily detected, and 
 may be divided or removed ; but, if deeply seated, it may 
 escape observation till the child attains a certain age, or 
 should begin to talk : for till that time the deafness of in- 
 fants often passes unobserved. Under these circumstances, 
 and where the malformation exists in both ears, the child 
 will be dumb as well as deaf ; for although the organs of 
 speech may be perfect, if those of hearing are inert he is 
 incapable of imitating sounds : in this case, therefore, a 
 timely operation may effect the double benefit of giving 
 both hearing and speech. Where the passage to the tym- 
 panum is more extensively obliterated or malformed, the 
 cases become of course more complicated, but yet often 
 admit of entire cure by a skilful and timely operation. 
 
 The presence of foreign bodies in the aural passage is a 
 common cause of imperfect hearing, and sometimes it is 
 obstructed by accumulations of hardened wax. These 
 causes of deafness may in most cases be relieved or 
 removed by syringing the ear with warm water, which 
 should be forcibly injected, and so directed as to reach 
 the membrana tympani. Insects or worms in the ear 
 may be washed out in the same way, or killed by the in- 
 troduction of a few drops of olive oil, or of camphorated 
 oil. 
 
 Another cause of deafness is deficient secretion of wax, 
 occasioning a dryness of the tube of the ear. It is relieved 
 by greasy applications, and by the cautious use of stimu- 
 lants, such as olive oil, to which a few drops of oil, of tur- 
 pentine, or of compound camphor liniment, or of spirit of 
 ammonia, have been added. 
 
 In cases of inflammation of the tympanum followed by 
 suppuration, more or less deafness ensues, dependent upon 
 the extent of the mischief going on, and requiring prompt, 
 and generally antiphlogistic treatment : the pain, especially 
 at the outset of the disorder, is often intense, and the dis- 
 charge purulent and often offensive. 
 
 Lastly, hardness of hearing often appears to depend 
 upon imperfection in the functions of the auditory nerve, 
 and from obstructions in the Eustachian tube. The deaf- 
 ness that attends a violent cold is frequently dependent 
 upon the latter cause, and goes off as the secretions of the 
 part return to their natural state. 
 
 DEAL. (Sax. delan, to divide.) In Architecture, the 
 small thicknesses of timber into which a piece of timber 
 of any sort is cut up ; but the term is now improperly re- 
 stricted in its signification to the wood of the fir tree cut up 
 into thicknesses in the countries whence deals are import- 
 ed, — viz. Christiana, Dantzic, &c. Their usual thickness 
 is three inches, and their width nine. They are purchased 
 by the hundred, which contains 120 deals, be their thick- 
 ness what it may, and reduced by calculation to a standard 
 thickness of one inch and a half, and a length of twelve 
 feet. Whole deal is that which is one inch and a quarter 
 thick, and slit deal is half that thickness. 
 
 DEAN. (Lat. decanus.) An ecclesiastical dignitary in 
 cathedral and collegiate churches, being the head of the 
 chapter of canons or prebendaries, and forming together 
 with them a council to advise the bishop in the affairs of 
 the see. {See Chapter.) In England there are, properly 
 speaking, three classes of ecclesiastical presidencies to 
 which the title dean belongs ; deans rural, deans of cathe- 
 drals, and deans in peculiars. Rural deans were originally 
 beneficed clergymen appointed by the bishop to exercise 
 a certain jurisdiction in districts of his diocese remote from 
 his personal superintendence. They seem to have been 
 equivalent in many respects to the chorepiscopi of the 
 early church, and many parts of their office are now dis- 
 charged by the archdeacons. By degrees this office fell 
 into disuse ; and though rural deans are still occasionally 
 318 
 
 DECANTATION. 
 
 employed in visitations, to examine into the state of repair 
 of churches, and performance of divine service, their func- 
 tions have for many years become almost obsolete. Deans 
 of cathedrals have already been noticed. The third spe- 
 cies of deans, or deans in peculiar, are those of " particu- 
 lar parishes and churches, or rural districts that have 
 jurisdiction within themselves, and are not under the ordi- 
 nary of the diocese." These peculiars are of different 
 kinds ; and their functions consist sometimes of jurisdic- 
 tion united to spiritual cure, as the dean of Battel in Sussex, 
 and somelimes of jurisdiction only, as in the case of the 
 Dean of the Arches, London. 
 
 DEATH WATCH. See Anobium. 
 
 DE'BACLE. (Fr. debacler, to unbar.) A rush of wa- 
 ters, breaking down all opposing barriers, and carrying 
 away and dispersing the broken fragments of rocks. 
 
 DEBE'NTURE. A custom-house certificate entitling 
 the exporter of goods to a drawback or bounty. Also, an 
 instrument in use in some government departments, by 
 which government is charged to pay to a creditor or hia 
 assigns the sum found due on auditing his accounts. 
 
 DEBRI'S. (Fr.) In Geology, the fragments of rocks, &c. 
 
 DEBT, in Law, is a species of contract, whereby a chose 
 in action, or right to a certain sum of money, is mutually 
 acquired and lost: usually divided into debts of record, 
 debts by special contract, and debts by simple contract. A 
 debt of record is a sum which appears to be due by the 
 evidence of a court of record ; such as debt on judgment 
 or recognizance. Debt by specialty is where a sum is ac- 
 knowledged to be due, or becomes due, by instrument 
 under seal ; such as a covenant, bond, &c. Both these 
 species of debts, being contracted by a man for himself and 
 his heirs, attach on his lands and tencmenls, and bind 
 them in the hands of his heir or devisee. Debt by simple 
 contract is either by parole or by written obligation unseal- 
 ed ; within which class fall bills of exchange and promis- 
 sory notes. 
 
 Debt is also a personal action of contract, in which the 
 plaintiff seeks the recovery of a debt ; i. e. a liquidated or 
 certain sum of money alleged to be due to him. See Ac- 
 tion. 
 
 DEBT, NATIONAL. See National Debt. 
 
 DEBUT, (Fr.), in its most general acceptation, is applied 
 to the commencement of any undertaking, or to the first 
 step made in a public career; but it is confined more par- 
 ticularly to the language of the theatre, in which it signifies 
 the first appearance of an actor, or his first appearance on 
 any particular stage. 
 
 DE'CADE. (Lat. decas, from Gr. Scica, ten.) A word 
 used by some old writers in a general sense for the num- 
 ber ten, or an enumeration by tens ; but more peculiarly 
 appropriated to the number of books into which the history 
 of the Roman Empire by Livy is divided, each division 
 consisting of ten books or decades. It was also the name 
 given to the space of ten days, which in the French repub- 
 lican calendar was substituted for the ordinary week. The 
 tenth or last day was termed decadi. Thus, except in bis- 
 sextile years, the whole number of decades was thirty-six 
 and a half: the days of the half decades, falling at the close 
 of the year, were at one time called sansculottides, and after- 
 wards complementary ; and dedicated respectively to Virtue, 
 Genius, Labour, Opinion, andRecompence. 
 
 DE'CAGON. (Gr. <5«a, ten, and yoivia, an angle.) A 
 geometrical figure, having ten sides and ten angles. If the 
 sides and angles are all equal, the figure is a regular deca- 
 gon, and inscribable in a circle. Euclid, in the Fourth Book 
 of his Elements, shows that the side of a regular decagon is 
 equal to the greater segment of the radius of the circum- 
 scribing circle divided by a medial section, or so that the 
 rectangle contained by the whole radius and one of the parts 
 is equal to the square of the other part ; consequently, if 
 we denote the radius by r, and the side of the decagon by 
 s, we shall have the proportion r:s::s:r — s; whence s 3 
 + r s:=r^, and by solving the quadratic s = h.r (\/5 — 1). 
 If the radius is unit, s = h.<V 5 — 1) = -618034 ; and the 
 area = 7691209 X «% °r 7694209 of the square of the side. 
 
 DE'CALOGUE. (Gr. Sexa, ten, and Xoyoj, discourse or 
 catalogue.) The commandments which were delivered by 
 God to Moses upon Mount Sinai (Exod. xx.) That their 
 number was understood by the Jews to be ten appears from 
 Exod. xxxiv. 28. ; but they differed from us in the manner 
 of dividing them, considering our two first as one, and 
 separating the last into two. The same method is adopted 
 by the Romish church, professing to follow the authority 
 of St. Augustine. (See Catechism ad Parochos.) 
 
 DE'CA'MERON. (Gr. <5«a, ten, and iqntpa, day.) The 
 name given by Boccaccio to his celebrated collection of 
 tales : they are supposed to be narrated in turn, during ten 
 days, by a party of guests assembled at a villa in the coun- 
 try to escape from the plague which raged at Florence in 
 1348. 
 
 DECA'NDROUS. (Gr. Seica, and avrip, a male.) A 
 plant having ten stamens. 
 
 DECANTA'TION. The pouring off a clear liquid from
 
 DECAPITATION. 
 
 its subsidence or residue ; it is often resorted to in the 
 chemical laboratory instead of filtration, the clear super- 
 natant liquor being poured or syphoned off from precipi- 
 tates, which may thus be repeatedly washed or edulcorated, 
 so as to free them from all soluble matters. 
 
 DECAPITA'TION. (Lat. decapitare, to behead.) A 
 mode of punishment of great antiquity, having been prac- 
 tised by the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, and some other 
 ancient nations. Among the Continental nations of modern 
 times, it has long been the ordinary punishment inflicted 
 on all capitally convicted criminals. During the early pe- 
 riod of English history, it was the usual mode of punishing 
 felons ; but it aftenvards became a punishment appropri- 
 ated only to criminals of the highest rank, and even to this 
 day it is considered as the most honourable death which a 
 capital offender can undergo. The last instance of the in- 
 fliction of this punishment in England occurred in 1745, 
 soon after the rebellion in Scotland had been quelled. 
 
 DE'CAPOD, Decapoda. (Gr. Sena, and rrovs, afoot ; ten- 
 footed.) A name applied by Dr. Leach to a tribe of Ce- 
 phalopods, including those which have ten locomotive and 
 prehensile appendages proceeding from the head ; two 
 of which are always longer than the rest, and are called 
 tentacles. Also applied by Cuvier to designate an order of 
 Crustaceans, comprehending those which have ten thoracic 
 feet. 
 
 DECA'PTERY'GIANS, Decapterygia, (Gr. Stica, ten, 
 and TTTtpvl, pinion.) A name given by Schneider to an ar- 
 tificial division of fishes, including those which have ten fins. 
 
 DE'CARBONIZATION OF CAST IRON. This pro- 
 cess is resorted to in order to convert cast iron into steel, 
 or by a further decarbonization to reduce it to the state of 
 malleable iron ; hence, many articles which were formerly 
 exclusively manufactured of wrought iron are now cast, 
 and afterwards decarbonized, such as horseshoes, &c. ; and 
 in other cases various cutting instruments are cast, and 
 afterwards brought to a proper hardness by a similar pro- 
 cess. The articles to be decarbonized are packed in finely 
 powdered haematite, or native oxide of iron, and exposed 
 for a sufficient time to a high red heat. It is often neces- 
 sary to mix iron filings or turnings with haematite : these 
 substances, thus applied, gradually abstract the excess of 
 carbon in cast iron, and reduce it to a state analogous to 
 that of steel ; or, by a longer continuance of heat, to that 
 of soft iron. In some cases, however, the process seems 
 rather to affect the texture and mechanical properties than 
 the composition of the iron, and is therefore more analo- 
 gous to annealing. 
 
 DE'CASTYLE. (Gr. itna, ten, and orv\os, a column.) 
 In Architecture, a building having ten columns on a front 
 or flank. 
 
 DE'CASYLLA'BIC, having ten syllables. In the Ger- 
 man and English languages the ordinary heroic verse is 
 decasyllabic ; but a short syllable is sometimes added at 
 the end by way of variety, and this, in consequence of the 
 structure of those languages, takes place more frequently 
 in the former than the latter. In the Italian heroic verse 
 the eleventh syllable is almost uniformly added, and hence 
 it is more properly to be termed an hendecasy/labic. In 
 French versification the decasyllabic line is appropriated 
 to light compositions, especially tales. 
 
 DECE'MBER (Lat. decern, ten), was the tenth month in 
 the calendar of the ancient Romans, who began the year 
 with March. 
 
 DECE'MVIRI. (Lat. ten men.) Properly any body of 
 ten men appointed for particular purposes. But that which 
 i.s especially known by this name was the commission 
 elected from the Roman patricians in the 302d year after 
 the foundation of the city, and invested with all the su- 
 preme powers of the state, for the purpose of drawing up 
 a body of laws founded, according to Roman tradition, on 
 the most approved institutions of Greece. They presented 
 to the people a number of laws engraved on ten tames, con- 
 taining a summary of the privileges to be enjoyed by the 
 people, and the crimes to be punished, &c. At the same 
 time they informed the people that their plan was incom- 
 plete ; and accordingly a new commission, to which the 
 plebeians were admitted, was appointed for the next year, 
 with the same powers ; the result of which was the addi- 
 tion of two more tables to the former ten, thus making up 
 the famous twelve tables, which were the foundation of all 
 Roman law in subsequent times. The second decemvi- 
 rate did not demean itself with the same moderation as 
 the first, but sought to prolong its power, and at the same 
 time proceeded to some violent acts of despotism, which 
 so exasperated the people as to make its dissolution 
 necessary. 
 
 Besides these extraordinary commissions, there was a 
 body of decemviri chosen for judicial purposes, to preside 
 over and summon the centumviri, and to judge certain 
 causes by themselves. There were likewise decemviri ap- 
 pointed from time to time to divide lands among the military. 
 
 DECE'PTIVE CA'DENCE. In Music, a cadence in 
 which the final close is avoided by varying the final chord. 
 319 
 
 DECLARATION. 
 
 DECFDUOUS. (Lat. decido, I fall off.) In Zoology, a 
 term applied to parts which have but a temporary existence, 
 and are shed during the life-time of the animal, as certain 
 kinds of hair, horns, and teeth. 
 
 Deci'duous is applied, in Botany, to plants whose leaves 
 fall off in the autumn, in contradistinction to evergreens. 
 
 DE'CIMAL ARITHMETIC, is the common system of 
 arithmetic, in which the scale of numbers proceeds by 
 tens. See Arithmetic. 
 
 DE'CIMAL FRACTIONS, are fractions which have for 
 their denominator 10, 100, 1000, <fec, or in general some 
 power of 10. The use of decimal fractions is merely an 
 extension of the ordinary scale of arithmetical notation. 
 Setting out from the unit's place, the first figure to the left 
 (in the expression of any whole number) denotes so many 
 tens, the second to the left so many hundreds, the third 
 so many thousands, and so on ; so that in the number 
 765, for example, each unit of the six is the tenth part of 
 each unit of the 7, and each unit of the 5 a tenth of each 
 unit of the 6. In like manner, in the expression of a deci- 
 mal fraction, setting out from the unit's place, the first 
 figure to the right expresses so many tenth parts, the 
 second to the right so many hundredth parts, the third so 
 many thousandths, and so on ; so that each figure, as be- 
 fore, expresses parts, which are each ten times smaller 
 than those expressed by the figure immediately preceding. 
 By expressing fractions in this manner, the operations of 
 addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are ex- 
 actly the same as in integer numbers. 
 
 In order to distinguish the integral from the fractional 
 part of a numerical expression, a point or comma is placed 
 between them. Various marks have been used for thia 
 purpose at different times ; but the point is now most com- 
 monly employed, and, according to the practice of Sir Isaac 
 Newton, it should always be placed near the top of the 
 figure, thus 246, which prevents it from being confounded 
 wilh the ordinary marks of punctuation. 
 
 Decimal fractions appear to have been introduced by 
 Regiomontanus, about the year 1464 ; but Stevinue was the 
 first who wrote an express treatise on the subject in his 
 Practique d' Arilhmetique, published in 1582. They are 
 now universally employed in all arithmetical calculations ; 
 and it is much to be regretted that a decimal division of 
 weights, measures, money, &c. has not been adopted in 
 all civilized countries, by which the reduction of fractional 
 parts from one scale to another would be obviated, and all 
 the applications of arithmetic to the ordinary purposes of 
 life greatly simplified. A subdivision of weights and mea- 
 sures on this principle was adopted in France at the time 
 of the Revolution, but has not been imitated by other 
 countries. 
 
 DECIMA'TION. (Lat.) In Roman History, the se- 
 lection by lot of one man out of every ten, who was put to 
 death as an example to, or satisfaction for, the rest. If an 
 army, legion, or century, as the case might happen, had 
 quitted its post, raised a mutiny in the camp, or otherwise 
 failed in its duty, it was assembled before the general; the 
 lots were cast into an urn ; so many were drawn as formed 
 the tenth part of the number of the offenders, and the un- 
 lucky drawers were put to the sword. This practice has 
 been occasionally recurred to in modern times ; as by the 
 Spanish general Cuesta, after the battle of Talavera. 
 
 DECLAMA'TION (Lat. declamatio), signified, among 
 the ancients, the art of speaking indifferently upon both 
 sides of a question : a species of intellectual exercise re- 
 sorted to by the rhetoricians of Greece and Rome, as the 
 best means of acquiring facility in public speaking. In 
 modern times the meaning of declamation is different in 
 different countries. In Germany, and in most parts of the 
 Continent, it is often used in a sense nearly synonymous 
 with recitative. In France and England, especially the 
 latter, it is sometimes applied to any grand oratorical dis- 
 play, either in the pulpit, at the bar, in the senate, or on the 
 stage, in which the voice, gesticulation, and the whole de- 
 livery of the speaker are in perfect keeping with the sub- 
 ject matter of his address. But it is employed most usually 
 in a disparaging sense, to indicate the use of forced empha- 
 sis, inflated language, and violent gestures, to withdraw the 
 attention of the auditors from the weakness or fallacy of 
 the reasoning. See Eloquence. 
 
 The Romans employed the term declamare only in the 
 sense of to plead or practise at the bar, as in the verse of 
 Horace (Epis. 2. 2.),— 
 
 Dura tu declaraas Romse ; 
 
 but that they at the same time assiduously cultivated the 
 art of declamation in the sense of recitation, is evident 
 from the following couplet, in which Martial has happily 
 illustrated the great importance of a good delivery : — 
 
 Qucm rccitas roeus est, O Fidentine, libellus ; 
 Sed male quum recitas, incipit esse luus. 
 
 DECLARA'TION. In Law, a legal specification, on 
 record, of the cause of actionj by a plaintiff against a de- 
 fendant. See Pleading.
 
 DECLENSION. 
 
 DECLE'NSION. (Lat. declinatio, from declino, / de- 
 flect.) In Grammar, the changes of termination in nouns, 
 corresponding to the various relations in which substances 
 are conceived to stand. See Case and Grammar. 
 
 DECLINA'TION CI'RCLES, are small circles of the 
 sphere, parallel to the equator, in which the stars perform 
 their apparent diurnal revolutions. 
 
 DECLINA'TION OF A CELESTIAL BODY, is the 
 angular distance of the body north or south from the equa- 
 tor^ and is measured on the great circle which passes 
 through the centre of the body and the two poles, and is 
 consequently perpendicular to the equator. The place of 
 a star in the heavens is determined oy means of its right 
 ascension and declination; the right ascension being the 
 angular distance, measured on the equator, between the 
 first point of Aries and the point in which the meridian of 
 the star intersects the equator. Right ascension and de- 
 clination thus correspond to longitude and latitude on the 
 surface of the earth. In the analytical theory of the planets 
 it is often necessary to define the place of a planet or comet 
 with reference to the ecliptic, or plane of the earth's annual 
 motion ; and the early astronomers unfortunately adopted 
 for this purpose the terms longitude and latitude, which, 
 as the same terms are appropriated to terrestrial objects in 
 a different sense, is the cause of considerable embarrass- 
 ment to beginners. The student of astronomy must there- 
 fore remember that in speaking of celestial objects, decli- 
 nation and right ascension have reference to the equinoc- 
 tial, or plane of the earth's diurnal rotation ; while latitude 
 and longitude refer to the ecliptic. 
 
 The declination of a star is said to be north when the 
 s.tar is north of the equator, and south when the star is 
 south of the equator. 
 
 DECLINA'TION OF THE MAGNETIC NEEDLE. The 
 axis of a magnetic needle, that is, the straight line which 
 joins its poles, does not coincide with the astronomical me- 
 ridian, but deviates from it more or less, sometimes to- 
 wards the west, and sometimes towards the east. This de- 
 viation is called the Declination of the Needle. 
 
 It was formerly imagined that the magnetic needle, 
 when freely suspended, took a direction exactly north and 
 south at all places on the earth ; and Columbus is said to 
 have been greatly astonished when he observed, in his me- 
 morable voyage for the discovery of the New World, in 
 1492, that the needle of his compass did not point to the 
 true north. The same fact was observed by Sebastian 
 Cabot about the year 1500; but notwithstanding its great 
 importance to mariners, the first tables showing the amount 
 of the declination at various places were only prepared in 
 1599 by the Dutch navigators at the orders of the Prince of 
 Nassau. In 1622, Gunter, professor of geometry at Gre- 
 sham College, made the important discovery that the decli- 
 nation is not constant. He found it to be 6° 13' to the east 
 at London in that year ; whereas in 1580 it had been observ- 
 ed by Robert Norman to be 11° 15' also to the east. 
 
 The following table of observations, made at Paris, will 
 be sufficient to give an idea of the changes which the de- 
 clination of the needle has undergone at different epochs : 
 
 Years. 
 
 Declination. 
 
 Years. 
 
 Declination. 
 
 1580 
 
 11° 30' East. 
 
 1805 
 
 22° 5' West. 
 
 1G18 
 
 8 
 
 1813 
 
 22 28 
 
 1663 
 
 
 
 1814 
 
 22 34 
 
 1678 
 
 1 30 West. 
 
 1817 
 
 22 19 
 
 1700 
 
 8 10 
 
 1819 
 
 22 29 
 
 1767 
 
 19 16 
 
 1822 
 
 22 11 
 
 1780 
 
 19 55 
 
 1824 
 
 22 23 
 
 1785 
 
 22 
 
 1825 
 
 22 22 
 
 From this table it appears that since 1580 the declination 
 has varied more than thirty degrees. In 1663 it vanished. 
 From the date of the first observations till 1820, it has ad- 
 vanced progressively westward ; but since that time it 
 appears to have assumed a retrograde movement towards 
 the east. (Pouillet, Siemens de Physique, t. i. p. 462.) 
 
 DECOLLA'TION. (Lat. de, ojf, and collum, the neck.) 
 A word synonymous with beheading; used chiefly in re- 
 ference to the decapitation of John the Baptist, to the 
 festival instituted by the Romish church in his honour, and 
 to the celebrated picture of Mabuse ( Walpole's Anecdotes 
 of Painting, vol. i. p. 82.) which represents this subject. 
 This word is used by Fabyan so far back as the year 1350. 
 
 DECOMPOSITION, CHEMICAL. When compounds 
 are resolved into their elements, or when the chemical 
 constitution of substances is altered, they are said to be 
 decomposed ; and when, in this operation, new products 
 are formed, such products are called the results of decom- 
 position. Thus, ammonia is the result of the decompo- 
 sition of most animal substances ; carburetted hydrogen 
 gas is the result of the decomposition of pit-coal, &c. 
 
 Chemists use the terms simple and compound, or single 
 and double decomposition, to distinguish between the less 
 and more complicated cases. When a compound of two 
 320 
 
 DECREE. 
 
 substances is decomposed by the intervention of a third, 
 which is itself simple, or which acts as such, the case is 
 one of simple decomposition : water, for instance, is a 
 compound of oxygen and hydrogen. When the metal 
 potassium, which is a simple body, is thrown into it, it is 
 decomposed ; the hydrogen is liberated in the form of gas, 
 and the oxygen combines with the potassium to form po- 
 tassa. Such a case is often tabularly represented as fol- 
 lows; and the annexed numbers are the equivalents of the 
 acting bodies, or the respective weights which are required 
 for perfect decomposition. 
 
 Water 9. ■ 
 
 Hydrogen 1. 
 
 Oxygen 8 + potassium 40. 
 
 Potassa 48. 
 
 This shows that when 9 parts by weight of water are de- 
 composed by 40 parts of potassium, 48 parts of potassa (or 
 oxide of potassium) are formed, and 1 part of hydrogen 
 liberated. 
 
 When two new compounds are produced, the result is 
 called double or complex decomposition. Thus, when po- 
 tassa (composed of potassium and oxygen) and hydro- 
 chloric acid (composed of hydrogen and chlorine) react 
 upon each other, chloride of potassium (composed of 
 chlorine and potassium) and water (composed of hydrogen 
 and oxygen) are the results. These, with their respective 
 equivalents, are shown in the following diagram. 
 Water 9. 
 
 Potassa 
 
 Hydrochloric J H y do S en l + ox yg en & 
 acid 37. , ch i orme 36 _l. potassium 40. 
 
 Chloride of potassium 76. 
 
 This table, therefore, shows that 37 parts by weight of 
 hydrochloric acid and 48 of potassa produce, by mutual 
 decomposition, 76 parts of chloride of potassium and 9 of 
 water. 
 
 A knowledge of the mutual decomposing powers of dif- 
 ferent substances, or, in other words, of their relative affini- 
 ties, constitutes the skill of the practical chemist. See in 
 reference lo this subject the articles Affinity, Equiva- 
 lents, and the general article on Chemistry. 
 
 DECO'MPOSI'TION OF FORCES. In Mechanics, sig- 
 nifies the same thing as the Revolution of Forces. Any 
 force whatever may always be decomposed or resolved 
 into several others, the resultant of which is equal to the 
 given force. For example, a force represented in intensity 
 and direction by the diagonal of a parallelogram, may be 
 resolved into two others of which the intensities and direc- 
 tions are respectively represented by the sides of the same 
 parallelogram. See Composition of Forces. 
 
 DECO'MPOSI'TION OF LIGHT. The separation of a 
 beam of light into the different rays which exhibit the pris- 
 matic colours. See Light. 
 
 DE'CORATION. (Lat. decorare, to adorn.) In the Fine 
 Arts, adornment, ornament, embellishment. It is a com- 
 bination of ornamental objects, which a desire for variety 
 brings together in all sorts of forms for embellishing those 
 subjects which are the objects of art. The decoration of 
 any work should be confined strictly to the development 
 of impressions which the mass itself is intended to create ; 
 its object being merely to multiply the relations it has, by 
 presenting new images which spring from the original bare 
 design. Decoration in all the arts, except on particular 
 occasions, should be used with a sparing hand. Onco 
 commenced it becomes difficult to know when to cease. 
 
 DECOY. A device by which aquatic birds, chiefly 
 ducks, are enticed from a river or lake, up a narrow wind- 
 ing canal or ditch, which, gradually becoming narrower, at 
 last terminates under a cover of net work of several yards 
 in length. The birds are enticed by the smoothness of the 
 turf on the margin of the canal, which tempts them to 
 leave the water, and begin to dress their plumage. When 
 so engaged at some distance up the canal, they are sud- 
 denly surprised by the decoy man and his dogs, who have 
 been concealed behind a fence of reeds; and having again 
 taken the water, they are driven up by the dogs till they 
 enter within the net work which terminates the decoy, and 
 are then easily caught. 
 
 DECRE'E, Decretals. (Lat. decerno, 1 decide.) De- 
 creta or decrees, in the Civil Law, are the decisions of 
 emperors on cases submitted to them, forming a part of 
 their constitutions. Decretals were the decrees of popes, 
 having the same authority in canon law as decrees in civil. 
 They retained this authority in most Catholic countries 
 until the 14th century. Several compilations of them are 
 in existence. The false decretals of Isidore, a spurious 
 collection framed with a view to extend the papal power,
 
 DECREMENT. 
 
 profess to contain the decrees of popes during the first 
 three centuries : they were forged in the 9th. 
 
 Decree. In Law, the judgment of a court of equity on 
 any bill preferred. Either party may petition the court for 
 a rehearing, before it is signed and enrolled. After that 
 form has been gone through, a bill of review may be had 
 upon apparent error in judgment on the face of the decree. 
 It may also be appealed against in the House of Lords. In 
 Scottish law, various legal subjects and sentences are 
 Ktvled decreets. 
 
 'DE'CREMENT. (Lat. decresco, Idecrease.) The small 
 part by which a variable quantity becomes less and less. 
 It is opposed to increment ; but these terms are now sel- 
 dom used bv mathematicians. 
 
 DECREPITATION. (Lat. decrepito, / crackle.) The 
 crackling noise which common salt and many other sub- 
 stances make when thrown into the fire. 
 
 DECU'RION. The Latin name for the commander of 
 ten men. A military decurion was a cavalry officer, who 
 originally commanded ten soldiers, or one third of a turma ; 
 but afterwards the same name was preserved, though the 
 command was extended to the whole turma. Municipal 
 decurions were magistrates in the municipal towns, an- 
 swering to senators at Rome. In later times also certain 
 officers of the imperial household used this title ; as de- 
 curions of the chamberlains, &c. 
 
 DECUSSA'TUS, Decussate. Applied to the arrange- 
 ment of bodies in pairs that alternately cross each other; 
 as the leaves of many plants. 
 
 DEDICA'TION. (Lat.) In Literature, a complimenta- 
 ry address to a particular person, prefixed by an author to 
 his work. Dedications arose out of the dependent situa- 
 tion in which authors have too frequently been placed in 
 reference to their powerful or wealthy patrons ; and, at no 
 very distant time, were often rewarded by pecuniary pre- 
 sents. The custom of dedicating works was in use at a 
 very early period. The brightest ornaments of Roman 
 literature, Horace, Virgil, Cicero, and Lucretius, were 
 among the number of those who practised it. At the pe- 
 riod of the revival of letters in Europe, few works were 
 published without dedications; many of which are re- 
 markable for their elegance and purity of style, and from 
 the interesting matter which they contain are of far mere 
 value than the treatises to which they are prefixed. But 
 the practice became gradually perverted ; and many of the 
 authors of the succeeding generations employed them 
 chiefly with the view of securing the patronage of the great. 
 Dedications were most abused in France under Louis XIV., 
 and in England from 1670 to the accession of George III. 
 Dryden was a great dedicator, and Johnson wrote dedica- 
 tions for money. Corneille got 1000 louis d'ors for the 
 dedication of Cinna. Some of the most beautiful dedica- 
 tions with which we arc acquainted, are those prefixed to 
 the different volumes of the Spectator, by Addison ; and in 
 more recent times the poetical dedications with which each 
 canto of Sir Walter Scott's Marmion is prefaced. A com- 
 plete history of dedications would prove a valuable acces- 
 sion to modern literature, as they would throw a flood of 
 light upon the history, character, and attainments of many 
 distinguished persons which are now involved in obscurity. 
 A few such works are in existence ; but they are only ac- 
 cessible to the learned. See De Dedica. Lib. vrt. Lat. by 
 Walch. (Leip. 1715.) Commenla. de Dedica. Lib. by Tacke. 
 (Wolfenbiittel, 1733.) 
 
 DE'DIMIIS POTEST ATEM. In Law, a writ or com- 
 mission given to one ormore private persons, for the speed- 
 ing an act appertaining to a judge or some court. When 
 the commission of the peace is renewed, a writ of dedimus 
 potestatem is issued out of chancery, directed to some an- 
 cient justice, to swear in a justice newly inserted. 
 
 DEED. A deed, in Lawj is a writing sealed and delivered 
 by the parties. If made by one party only, it is termed a 
 deed poll ; if by several, an indenture. The formal parts 
 of a deed of conveyance are, first, the date and names of 
 the parties; secondly, the recitals, in which the intention 
 of the parties and former transactions with reference to the 
 same property are recounted, so far as necessary ; then 
 the operative part. This expresses, first, the consideration 
 for which the deed is made (which for many sorts of deeds 
 is now merely nominal) ; then the conveyance by and to 
 the several parties ; then the parcels, or description of the 
 tenements and their legal adjuncts; then what is termed 
 the habendum, beginning with the words "to have and to 
 hold," expressing the quantity of estate conveyed ; then 
 the declaration of uses, which limits ormodifies'the enjoy- 
 ment to one or more parties, according to the stipulations 
 previously made ; then the declarations of trusts, if any, 
 that is, of equitable interests created in the property ; and 
 lastly, the covenants for title. These covenants stand in 
 the place of the ancient warranty, a clause by which the 
 grantor warranted and secured to the grantee the thing 
 granted ; arising out of the feudal custom, whereby if a 
 lord had thus warranted a fief, and the tenant was after- 
 wards evicted, the lord was bound to recompense him 
 321 
 
 DEER. 
 
 with another fief of equal value. The covenants relating 
 to the title secure to the grantee a pecuniary compensation 
 for any damage he may suffer contrary to their stipulations. 
 Besides the covenants for title, such as may be demanded 
 by the peculiar circumstances of the case, — as in a lease 
 the covenants for repairing, payment of rent, &c, — cove- 
 nants in general, when broken, give the covenantee an ac- 
 tion for damages against the covenantor ; or if he be dead, 
 against his executor or administrators to the extent of his 
 personal property in their hands ; or if the covenant be 
 with him, his heirs and assigns, the remedy extends to the 
 heir or grantee of the covenantee. 
 
 Lastly, the conclusion of a deed contains its execution 
 and date. It must be signed and sealed by the grantor ; 
 and also by the grantee, if any engagement or covenant is 
 entered into by him. It is usual for witnesses to attest the 
 deed ; but this is not necessary, unless where a power 
 having been given to be executed by deed the terms of the 
 power require such attestation. There are several species 
 of deeds ; some having effect at common law, others under 
 the Statute of Uses ; some creating an estate termed ori- 
 ginal orprimary ; some enlarging, restraining, transferring, 
 or extinguishing estates already created, which are called 
 secondary or derivative. 
 
 DEER. The English generic name for the ruminating 
 quadrupeds with deciduous horns, or antlers ; which ap- 
 pendages form, in fact, the essential character of the genus 
 Certus of Linnaeus. (<S"ce Cornua.) Deer are anatomi- 
 cally distinguished from other ruminants by the absence of 
 a gall bladder. 
 
 The species of deer may be primarily divided into two 
 groups, of which one includes those with antlers more or 
 less flattened, the other those with rounded antlers. The 
 elk (Cerxusalces, L.) is the most characteristic species of 
 the first group, and forms the type of the subgenus Alces 
 i of modern systems. It equals or exceeds the horse in 
 bulk ; has a short body, with a still shorter neck, raised on 
 long stilt-like legs* The muzzle is long, broad, and over- 
 hangs the mouth like a square-shaped lapel: it is very 
 muscular, and is of essential service to the animal in de- 
 taching the lichens and mosses from the trunks of trees 
 and other places within its easy reach. The long legs of 
 the elk particularly adapt it to the marshy and swampy 
 forests which it chiefly frequents, in the northern parts ut" 
 both the European and American continents. The antlers 
 of the elk appear first in the form of dags or unbranched 
 pointed stems ; these are succeeded by a stem or beam 
 i supporting a few short branches. At five years he puts up 
 j antlers in the form of a triangular plate, supported on a 
 pedicle, and notched along the outer margin. Afterwards 
 the buny plate increases in its expanse, and the points be- 
 tween the notches are developed into long branches or 
 ' snags, of which a single antler sometimes sends off as 
 many as fourteen ; and the pair will then weigh about fifty 
 pounds. The female elk goes with young rather longer 
 j than eight months. 
 
 The rein-deer ( Cerrus tarcndus) differs from the rest of 
 j the genus in the presence of antlers in both sexes, and in 
 the great development of the brow-antlers, or branches 
 which extend forward over the forehead from the base of 
 I the beam. The antlers are retained through the winter; 
 j and, as it is understood that the brow-antlers are used to 
 dftach the frozen snow, which at that season covers the 
 lichen rangiferinus, and other species on which the rein- 
 | deer feeds, the necessity of the singular exception in fa- 
 : vour of the female reindeer becomes obvious. Her ant- 
 lers are, however, always smaller than those of the male. 
 The rut takes place in mid-winter, and the period of gesta- 
 tion is about six months: as in most other species of deer, 
 j one fawn is produced at a birth. The rein deer is a native 
 j of the most northern parts of Europe and America. To 
 the Laplander it serves all the ordinary offices of the beast 
 ! of draught, and supplies him with the rich variety of nutri- 
 ment, clothing, and useful implements, which man in more 
 favoured climes obtains from other species of the valuable 
 i order of Ruminantia. 
 
 The third species of deer referable to the flat-horned 
 , group is that which the ancients termed platiceros, and 
 which now forms the ornament of the English park; the 
 fallow deer(Cerr«s damas, Linn.) In the technical lan- 
 guage of the hunter, the male fallow deer is called a li buck," 
 the female a " doe," and the young a " fawn." The buck- 
 ! fawn of the second year, which is characterized by having 
 simple dags, is a " pricket." In the third year a brow- 
 antler is put forth, and the young buck is termed a " sorel." 
 In the fourth year he is a " sore," and the summit of the 
 j beam presents a bifid expansion. At the fifth year the ex- 
 panded summit of the beam is formed, and begins to de- 
 velop snags, and the fallow deer is then a " buck of the 
 ; first head." At each subsequent year the branches of the 
 expanded beam increase in length to a certain period, after 
 which they lose their size and regularity. The period of 
 j gestation in the fallow doe is eight months. 
 
 Of the species of deer of which the beam of the antler 
 28
 
 DEFECATION. 
 
 gives a rounded form in section, the red deer (Cervus eta- 
 phus) and the roe-buck (Cervus capreolus) are indigenous 
 species. 
 
 The male red deer, in the language of " the noble art of 
 venerie, "is called a "hart," and the female a "hind." 
 She goes with young about a week longer than the fallow 
 doe ; and brings forth in May a single fawn, rarely two. 
 The young of both sexes are at first styled " calves." The 
 male differs from that of the fallow deer in putting up at 
 six months a pair of rudimental antlers, in the form of cy- 
 lindrical knobs, called "bossets." In the second year 
 they assume the condition of "dags," and the wearer is 
 called a " brocket." In the third year two or three branches 
 or " tynes" are developed, and the young deer becomes a 
 "spayad." In the fourth year the summit of the beam 
 expands into the crown or " surroyal," and the deer is now 
 distinguished by the name of "staggard." In the fifth 
 year the term " stag" is applied to him in a limited and 
 technical sense. At the sixth year he is a " hart," and 
 his designation is not afterwards changed ; but at this pe- 
 riod he is particularly distinguished as a "hart of ten," 
 and is not considered fair game till his seventh year, when 
 the hart is said to be "palmed" or "crowned." in refer- 
 ence to the full development of his antlers. The antlers 
 or "attire" are shed very soon after pairing; at this pe- 
 riod, when the hart has " lost his attire," he retreats to 
 the shadiest or most unfrequented part of his range. New 
 antlers begin to grow very soon after the old ones are shed, 
 and they are completed in the month of August. The 
 skin, or " velvet," which protected the vascular periosteum 
 during their growth now dries, and is rubbed off against 
 the trees or any resisting body ; this act is technically call- 
 ed " burnishing." The harts during this period form a pe- 
 culiar and distinct association. The hinds form another 
 group, and go also into retirement with their calves, to 
 which they attend with a high degree of instinctive mater- 
 nal solicitude. The "brockets," and the " brockets' sis- 
 ters," constitute a third association. 
 
 The roebuck is the smallest species of European deer; 
 the male is monogamous, and the female brings forth two 
 fawns. In our own island they are now confined to the 
 Scottish mountains. 
 
 The largest species of round-antlered deer in America 
 is the Wapiti (Cervus strongyhceros) ; that of Asia is the 
 great Rusa (Cervus hijiptlaphus), which is noticed in the 
 writings of Aristotle. In South America there is a singular 
 group of small deer, called prickets or brockets, on ac- 
 count of the antlers never being developed beyond the 
 simple condition of "dags," such as characterize the 
 brocket age of the red deer. 
 
 DEFiECA'TION. (Lat. de, and faex, dregs.) The sepa- 
 ration of the dregs and impurities of liquors. 
 
 DEFAMATION. See Libel. 
 
 DEFAU'LT. (Fr.defaut.) In Law, is in a general sense 
 the omission of any act which a party ought to do in order 
 to entitle himself to a legal remedy. Such is, for example, 
 non-appearance in court on a day assigned. If a plaintiff 
 in an action make default in appearance, he is non-suited ; 
 if a defendant, judgment by default passes against him. 
 Suffering judgment by default is taken for an admission 
 of the contract alleged by the plaintiff. 
 
 DEFEASANCE. In Law— 1. A collateral deed, made 
 at the same time with a deed of conveyance, containing 
 conditions on the performance of which the estate created 
 by the deed of conveyance may be defeated. 2. A defea- 
 sance on a bond, recognizance, or judgment recovered, is a 
 condition which when performed defeats a bond, &c. (see 
 Bond), contained in or indorsed on the instrument itself. 
 
 DEFE'CTIVE FIFTH. In Music, an interval contain- 
 ing a semitone less than the perfect fifth. It is also called 
 semidiapente. and fiat, lesser, or diminished fifth. 
 
 DEFE'NDER OF THE FAITH. (Fidei Defensor.) A 
 title bestowed on Henry VIII. of England by Pope Leo X. 
 on the occasion of that monarch's publishing his writing 
 against Luther. When at the Reformation Henry sup- 
 pressed all the monasteries and convents in England, the 
 pope deprived him of this title ; but in the thirty -fifth year of 
 his reign it was confirmed by parliament, and it has been 
 since constantly assumed by the sovereigns of England. 
 
 DE'FERENT. (Lat. defero, / carry away.) In the 
 Ptolemaic system of the universe the planets move in cir- 
 cular orbits, the centres of which are carried round in the 
 circumferences of other circles. These secondary circles 
 are called the deferents, as carrying the orbits : those in 
 which the planets move being the epicycles. The system 
 of epicycles and deferents was invented by Hipparchus for 
 the purpose of explaining the eccentricities, perigees, and 
 apogees of the planets. See Epicycle. 
 
 DEFICIENT NUMBERS, in Arithmetic, are numbers 
 such that the sum of their aliquot parts is less than the 
 numbers themselves. Thus, 8 is a deficient number ; be- 
 cause its aliquot parts, 1, 2, 4, when added together, make 
 only 7. In like manner the number 16 is deficient, its 
 parts being 1, 2, 4, 8, the sum of which is 15. 
 322 
 
 DEGREE. 
 
 DEFILADING. See Fortification. 
 
 DEFI'LE. In Fortification, a narrow way, through which 
 troops can pass onlv in file, or a small number abreast. 
 
 DE'FIMTE PROPORTIONALS. In Chemistry. See 
 Atomic Theory and Equivalents. 
 
 DEFINl'TION (Lat.), literally laying down a boundary, 
 signifies, in Logic, an expression which explains any term 
 so as to separate it from every thing else, as a boundary 
 separates fields. By the schoolmen definitions are divided 
 into nominal and real, according to the object accomplished 
 by them, whether to explain merely the meaning of the 
 word or the nalure of the thing; and, on the other hand, 
 they are divided into accidental, physical, and logical, ac- 
 cording to the means employed by each for accomplishing 
 their respective objects, whether it be the enumeration of 
 attributes, or of the physical or the metaphysical parts of 
 the essence. (Whately's Logic,p\). 141-2.) 
 
 DEFLAGRA'TION (Lat. deflagro, I burn.) A chemi- 
 cal term applied to sudden and rapid combustion: when 
 a mixture of charcoal and nitre is thrown into a red hot 
 crucible it burns with a kind of explosion, or deflagrates. 
 
 DEFLE'CTION OF THE RAYS OF LIGHT. When 
 a luminous ray passes very near an opaque body it is 
 deflected, or bent from its rectilinear course, towards the 
 surface of the body, and the deflection is greater in pro- 
 portion as the distance of the ray from the body is less. 
 This phenomenon was first observed by Grimaldi,and was 
 carefully examined by Newton, who gave it the name of 
 diffraction. 
 
 DE'FTER-DAR, literally Bookkeeper. The title given 
 by the Turks to the chancellor of the exchequer and his 
 two coadjutors or deputies in the finance department. 
 
 DEGLUTI'TION. (Lat. de, and glutio, I sicalloie.) In 
 Physiology, the act of swallowing food. This operation is 
 performed by mechanism of the most extraordinary and 
 complicated kind, in which the consentaneous actions of the 
 various muscles of the tongue, the soft palate, the pharynx, 
 the larynx, and the oesophagus or gullet, are concerned, 
 partly by voluntary and partly by involuntary impulse. 
 
 There are, as it were, four openings at the back part of 
 the mouth, three of which, during deglutition, must be per- 
 fectly but temporarily closed ; whilst the fourth, namely, 
 that through which the food is to pass towards the slomach. 
 must be open and without impediment. The openings 
 which are to be closed are those which communicate with 
 the nose, with the ears, and with the lungs ; but, as far as 
 the latter is concerned, it follows of course that respiration 
 can only be suspended for a very short time, and that there- 
 fore the moment the morsel is swallowed, or has passed 
 over the larynx, the communication between it and the 
 nose must again be free. 
 
 When food is properly masticated, a sufficient quantity- 
 is collected upon the tongue, which is then so pressed 
 against the palate by a muscular action proceeding from the 
 tip of the tongue backwards as to propel it towards the 
 pharynx, or upper end of the gullet; at this moment the 
 soft palate, previously hanging like a pendulous veil at the 
 back of the mouth, is drawn into a horizontal position, so 
 as to form a continuation, as it were, of the bony part of 
 the palate, and at the same time to close the nasal canals. 
 No sooner does the portion to be swallowed reach the 
 pharynx, than it is embraced, as it were ; while the base 
 of the tongue, the os hyoides, and the larynx, are raised 
 forward to meet it, and hurry it over the opening of the 
 glottis towards the ossophagus. The instant the larynx is 
 raised the glottis is firmly closed ; and as soon as the mor- 
 sel has passed over it the larynx descends, the epiglottis i-i 
 raised, and the glottis opens again to allow air to enter the 
 lungs. Thus it is, therefore, that the food is limited to the 
 direction of the ossophagus, and neither passesinto the nasal 
 canals, nor into the Eustachian tubes, nor into the larynx, 
 all the concurrent actions in this period of theact of deglu- 
 tition being simultaneously and involuntarily performed. 
 By the contraction of the pharynx the morsel is delivered 
 into the oesophagus, and propelled by the muscular struc- 
 ture of that tube towards the stomach. In the upper part 
 of the ossophagus, the fibres relax immediately after the 
 passine of the food, but the inferior portion remains con- 
 tracted for some moments after the food has entered the 
 stomach. The due admixture of saliva with the food, and 
 the lubrication of the various and complicated parts over and 
 through which the food passes, by mucous secretion, tend 
 materially to facilitate the progress of the alimentary pellet. 
 
 DEGRE'E. A distinction of rank in universities : in 
 its proper use denoting a certain amount of proficiency in 
 the faculty or science of which it is entitled ; but, by 
 modern usage, frequently conferred either of right to mem- 
 bers of the university of sufficient standing, or merely as 
 an honorary distinction. The origin of degrees at the uni- 
 versities of Paris and Bologna, the two most ancient in 
 Europe, appears to have been only the necessary distinc- 
 tion between those who taught and those who learnt. The 
 former were styled (such was at least the case at Paris) 
 doctors or teachers, and masters, as a token of respect, in-
 
 DEGREE. 
 
 discriminate^. At what time the distinction between these l 
 two degrees arose we cannot ascertain ; but about the 
 middle of the 13th century wc find, at Paris, doctors and 
 masters simply as graduates, and not necessarily connected 
 with the business of teaching ; those who were so being 
 called regent masters, or simply regents. (See Regent.) 
 The degree of Bachelor, the lowest in the several faculties, 
 is certainly of French origin ; from whence it has been 
 argued that the whole system of academical titles is so 
 likewise. Degrees still continue to bear the same names, 
 and, with some variation, the same relative academical 
 rank, in most European countries; but the mode of grant- 
 ing them, and their value at different universities as tokens 
 of proficiency, vary greatly. At Oxford and Cambridge 
 degrees are given in arts, divinity, law, medicine, and 
 music ; but among all these the lowest decree in arts, viz. 
 that of bachelor (B.A.), is the only one conferred on a sub- 
 stantial examination, and the only one which is attained by 
 proceeding through a regular academical course of study. 
 The higher degrees in arts, and those in the other faculties, 
 are attained simply by residence and the performance of 
 a few unimportant exercises. Honorary degrees, in the 
 English universities, are generally conferred in civil law. 
 
 A considerable difference of opinion exists upon the 
 question how far the possession of degrees forms a valid 
 test of ability to exercise any of the learned professions ; 
 and though at first sight nothing might appear more pre- 
 posterous than to question the necessity of some such 
 test being exacted from those to whom the lives and for- 
 tunes of millions of human beings are in a peculiar manner 
 intrusted, — physicians and lawyers, — still there are many 
 who maintain that " degrees hare always been, and must 
 continue to be, utterly worthless." Among those who 
 entertained this opinion may be mentioned Dr. Smith ; 
 whose sentiments on this subject, though pretty distinctly 
 indicated in the Wealth, of Nations, are fully detailed in a 
 letter to Dr. Cullen, which the reader will find in Mr. 
 M'Culloch's edition of that work, 1 vol. 8vo. But those 
 who wish to see this question fully examined in all its 
 bearings, should consult a note, or rather dissertation, "On 
 the Value and Proper Mode of conferring Literary and 
 Scientific Degrees," in the same edition of the work now 
 referred to, in which the author contends that it is not 
 against the principle of degrees, so much as the mode of 
 conferring them, that the chief objections may be urged. 
 The value of a degree, it is there contended, must always 
 depend on the disinterested character of the parties who 
 confer it. Now, when it is remembered that, till very re- 
 cently, in every university, those in whom was vested the 
 privilege of granting degrees are the identical parties en- 
 gaged in preparing the candidate for receiving them, who 
 are thus, as it were, called upon to form an estimate of 
 their own handiwork, it will be sufficiently obvious that the 
 system hitherto pursued in awarding academical distinc- 
 tions must be wholly inadequate as a test of literary or 
 scientific merit. This being the case, it might seem almost 
 unaccountable that so little success should have attended 
 the many efforts that have been made to place the grant- 
 ing of degrees on a sounder and more satisfactory footing, 
 were it not matter of notoriety that to divert into a new 
 channel the current of popular feelings or prejudices 
 which has been (lowing for ages in a particular direction is 
 almost impracticable, even after the benefits of the change 
 have been clearly and unequivocally demonstrated. Some 
 such ideas as to the inadequacy of degrees appear to have 
 been entertained a few years ago in many of the German 
 states. There the bare possession of a degree was former- 
 ly sufficient to authorize members of the legal or medical 
 profession to engage in the exercise of their several duties; 
 but a change has been since effected, which has at once 
 infused new life into the educational establishments of the 
 country, and has been attended with great advantage to all 
 classes of the people. This change consists in the estab- 
 lishment of boards composed of gentlemen eminent for 
 their attainments, and wholly unconnected with the busi- 
 ness of education, whose duty it is to ascertain by a rigid 
 examination the qualifications of those who have already 
 obtained degrees in the faculties of law and medicine, and 
 thus to determine whether the degree has been properly 
 conferred; and unless the diploma obtained at the uni- 
 versity be stamped with the authority of these different 
 boards, the possessor of it is prohibited from engaging in 
 the exercise of his profession. In this way the degree, 
 which was formerly regarded as the aim or end of the 
 student's ambition, is now looked upon simply as a means 
 of attaining it, inasmuch as it confers no direct privileges, 
 and does not necessarily secure professional honour or 
 emolument, though it form the sole passport to both. A 
 somewhat similar course relative to the granting of degrees 
 was adopted in this country on the establishment of the 
 London University ; with this peculiarity, that while in 
 Germany the different faculties of the universities retain 
 the privilege of conferring degrees, which, however, are 
 of little value, unless confirmed by the authority of the 
 323 
 
 DEGREE OF LATITUDE. 
 
 boards alluded to, in the London University this right is 
 vested in the board to the entire exclusion of the profes- 
 sors. Whether this system will work well remains yet to 
 be seen ; but, to use the words of Mr. M'Culloch, " if we 
 mistake not, its formation will mark the commencement 
 of a new era in the history of education." 
 
 Degree. In Algebra, a term applied to equations to de- 
 note the highest power of the unknown quantity. Thus, 
 if the index of the highest power of the unknown quantity 
 is 4, the equation is said to be of the fourth degree. 
 
 Degree, in Geometry and Trigonometry, is the 360th 
 part of a circumference, or of four right angles. Every 
 circle, whether great or small, is considered as divided into 
 360 parts or degrees, each degree being subdivided into 60 
 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds. This division 
 of the circle has been employed since the most remote 
 ages. It is not certainly known what gave occasion to the 
 adoption of the arbitrary number 360 ; but it most probably 
 had reference to the space described by the sun in one 
 day in performing his annual revolution in the ecliptic, the 
 number 360 being taken instead of 365, as being more con- 
 venient for arithmetical operations on account of its con- 
 taining a great number of divisions. The Chinese divide 
 the circle into 365^ equal parts; so that the sun describes 
 daily an arc of one Chinese degree. An attempt was made 
 by the French philosophers, at the period of the Revolu- 
 tion, to introduce into works of science a division of the 
 circle better adapted to our decimal arithmetic (the quad- 
 rant or right angle being divided into 100 degrees, the de- 
 gree into 100 minutes, and so on) ; but though the system 
 was adopted by some writers of the first order of merit 
 (for example, Laplace in the Mecanique Celeste), and ex- 
 tensive tables were computed for the purposes of astro- 
 nomical calculation, it never came into general use, and 
 now appears to be entirely abandoned. It may be remark- 
 ed, that a division of this sort was recommended long ago 
 by some of the most eminent mathematicians, Stevinus, 
 Wallis, Briggs, Gellibrand, Newton, and others. 
 
 Decree. In Grammar. See Comparison. 
 
 DEGRE'E OF LATITUDE, on the surface of the earth, 
 is the distance an observer must advance along the meri- 
 dian, to the north or south, in order to produce a variation 
 of one degree in the altitude of the pole. Ever since it 
 was discovered that the earth is round, the exact measure- 
 ment of a degree of the terrestrial meridian has been a 
 problem of extraordinary interest, inasmuch as it leads di- 
 rectly to a knowledge of the earth's dimensions. In 
 modern times the problem has acquired a still greater im- 
 portance, in consequence of the discovery of the earth's 
 ellipticity; for it is by the comparison of the lengths of 
 meridional degrees at different latitudes that we are en- 
 abled to ascertain accurately the true figure of the earth, 
 which enters as an element into many of the most inte- 
 resting inquiries of physical astronomy. 
 
 When we consider the great irregularities of the actual 
 surface of the earth, and that the length of a degree de- 
 pends on the radius of the circle on which it is measured, 
 it will readily appear that terrestrial degrees at different 
 places, if measured on the external surface, must be ex- 
 ceedingly unequal. In order to obviate the effects of 
 superficial irregularities, and to reduce all the degrees to 
 the same radius, the surface of the sea is supposed to be 
 continued all round under the continents, and it is to this 
 surface or level that all the measurements must be referred. 
 This being understood, the general principle on which the 
 measurement of degrees of the terrestrial meridian must 
 be accomplished are readily perceived. Two stations 
 being assumed on the same, or nearly the same meridian, 
 the distance between them must be found with great ex- 
 actness in feet, yards, or some known linear measure. 
 Having ascertained the itinerary distance, the latitude of 
 each of the stations must be determined ; the difference 
 of the two latitudes is the length of the celestial arc inter- 
 cepted between the two stations; and by comparing this 
 with the terrestrial measure, the number of yards or feet 
 corresponding to a degree becomes known. It is evident 
 that, in order to obtain a result of any value, all these 
 operations must be executed with the greatest care and 
 precision. An error of a single second in the celestial arc 
 corresponds to about 100 feet on the ground, and a long se- 
 ries of astronomical observations must be made to obtain 
 the latitude of any place true to a second. On this account 
 it is necessary to measure an arc of considerable length, 
 two or three degrees at least ; because the error in the de- 
 termination of the latitudes is the same, whether the arc 
 be long or short, and in the case of a long arc its influence 
 becomes less sensible. But the exact measurement of a 
 line extending two or three degrees on the surface of the 
 earth, by the direct application of rods or chains, is perhaps 
 altogether impracticable, on account of the irregularities 
 of the ground and many other circumstances which render 
 an operation of this sort, when carried on even for a few 
 miles, an affair of great difficulty. Hence it becomes ne- 
 cessary to have recourse to other methods. A level piece
 
 DEGREE OF LATITUDE. 
 
 of ground is selected near the meridional arc proposed to 
 be measured. On this a straight line A B is traced in any 
 direction, and its length 
 accurately found by the 
 application of rods of 
 metal, or sometimes of II 
 wood or of glass. The 
 ground adjoining the arc 
 to be measured is then 
 formed into triangles by 
 means of signals, C, D, E, F, K, erected at convenient dis- 
 tances, or on remarkable points of the country ; and the 
 angles which the signals make with each other determined 
 by a theodolite or other appropriate instrument. The sides 
 AC and BC are then deduced from the measured base AB, 
 and (hence successively the sides of the other triangles ; 
 and in this manner the whole distance between the stations 
 which form the terminal points of the arc is determined by 
 a series of trigonometrical calculations. The reductions 
 for differences in the levels of the signals must next be ap- 
 plied, and also for their altitude above the level of the sea ; 
 and it is obvious that these reductions cannot be made 
 without having at least an approximate knowledge of the 
 dimensions of the earth, and without making some hy- 
 pothesis respecting its figure, though the dimensions aiid 
 figure of the earth are elements that can only be deduced 
 from the measurement and comparison of degrees. 
 
 From this general description it will be readily inferred 
 that the measurement of terrestrial degrees depends on 
 astronomical operations of very great nicety, and that the 
 attempts made in ancient times could lead only to rude 
 approximations with respect to the dimensions of the 
 earth, supposing its figure to be spherical. Eratosthenes 
 who lived in the 3d century before Christ, is the first with 
 the detail of whose operations we are acquainted who 
 undertook to determine the length of a meridional arc on 
 correct principles. Having observed the difference of the 
 sun's altitude at the summer solstice at Alexandria and 
 ISyene in Upper Egypt, and having found, by means with 
 which we are unacquainted, the itinerary distance between 
 the two places, he inferred the circumference of the earth 
 to be 250.000 stadia, and consequently the length of a degree 
 694J stadia. Posidonius, some time after, measured in a 
 similar manner the arc between Alexandria and Rhodes, 
 and inferred the length of the degree to be 66fi§ stadia. 
 Ptolemy, in his Geography, assigns 500 stadia as the length 
 of a degree of the meridian ; but as we are unacquainted 
 with the precise value of the stadium, we cannot form any 
 correct idea of the approximation attained in these ancient 
 measures. In the 9th century, the Arabian caliph Alma- 
 moun ordered a degree to be measured on the plains of 
 Mesopotamia. His mathematicians arrived at the exact 
 value given by Ptolemy ; a circumstance which, as it could 
 scarcely have happened if they had operated indepen- 
 dently, has led to the suspicion that they merely adopted 
 the conclusion of the Greek astronomers. In modern 
 times the measurement of terrestrial degrees has been 
 justly regarded as of the greatest scientific importance. 
 About the middle of the 16th century, Fernel made a rough 
 measurement of the distance between Paris and Amiens 
 by counting the revolutions made by his coach wheel, 
 and concluded the length of the meridional degree to be 
 364,960 English feet. Norwood, in 1635, measured the dis- 
 tance between London and York, and found the length of 
 the degree to be 367,176 feet. But the first who employed 
 the method of triangulation for obtaining the length of a 
 terrestrial arc was Snell, a native of Holland. The appli- 
 cation of the telescope to instruments for measuring an- 
 gles, by Picard, was an invention which gave a far greater 
 accuracy and certainty to operations of this kind than 
 could before be attained : and the discovery bv Richer of 
 the flattened form of the earth at the poles, and the conse- 
 quent inequality of the meridional degrees, invested the 
 subject with a new and unexpected interest. In the year 
 1735, the Academy of Sciences of Paris, to decide the im- 
 portant question of the spheroidal form of the earth, resolv- 
 ed that two arcs of meridian, the one at the equator and 
 the other as near the pole as possible, should be measured 
 with all the accuracy which the improved state of astrono- 
 my admitted of. Accordingly. Bouguer, Godin, and Con- 
 damine were despatched to Peru ; Maupertuis. Clairaut, 
 Lemonnier, and some other associates, to Lapland, — for 
 the execution of this purpose. The latter party accom- 
 plished their mission, and returned to Paris within 16 
 months : Bouguer and his companions had to contend with 
 great difficulties and hardships, and were detained not less 
 than ten years. The result was, that the length of the de- 
 gree of the meridian at the equator, reduced to the level 
 of the sea, was found to be 56,753 toises, or 362,912 English 
 feet; and in Lapland, under the parallel of 65§°, to be 57,437 
 toises, or 36,729 feet, exceeding the former" by 684 toises. 
 
 Since these memorable expeditions several arcs of me- 
 ridian have been measured in different countries, and all 
 the results concur in proving that the degrees increase in 
 324 
 
 length as we proceed from the equator to the pole, agree- 
 ably to the theory of hydrostatic equilibrium, which re- 
 quires an accumulation of matter in the equatorial regions 
 of the earth, in order to counterbalance, by its attraction, 
 the effect of the centrifugal force of rotation. Lacaille, in 
 1751, measured a degree at the Cape of Good Hope ; and 
 the result is interesting on account of the locality, as no 
 other operation of the kind has yet been undertaken in the 
 southern hemisphere. In the same year an arch was mea- 
 sured in the Roman states by Maire and Boscovich ; 
 j another by Liesganig in Hungary in 1762; one in North 
 j America by Mason and Dixon in 1764 ; and one by Becca- 
 ; ria in Piedmont in 1777 ; but the results cannot be regarded 
 ; as entitled to much confidence in comparison of those ob- 
 j tained from the more extensive and accurate operations 
 that have been since executed in France and England, and 
 also in India. The French philosophers, in 1792, having 
 chosen for the unit of their new system of weights and 
 measures a fractional part of the terrestrial meridian, it 
 was resolved to measure the arc extending through the 
 whole of France from Dunkirk to Barcelona. This splen- 
 did undertaking was confided to two astronomers of the 
 highest eminence, Mechain and Delambre, by whose 
 spirited exertions it was carried through in the face of ob- 
 stacles of the most formidable kind, arising from the po- 
 litical state of the country at that time. Every precaution 
 that profound theory or eminent practical skill could sug- 
 gest was adopted to secure the accuracy of the results. 
 In 1806 the triangulation was extended from Barcelona 
 through Spain to the coasts of the Mediterranean ; and sub- 
 sequently, after the death of Mechain, who fell a victim to 
 his exertions, by Biotand Arago to the Balearic Isles. The 
 whole, thus extended from Dunkirk on the north to 
 Formentera on the south, comprehends 12° 22'. The 
 English arc, connected with the trigonometrical survey of 
 the kingdom, which has been carried on since 1790 under 
 the direction of the Board of Ordnance, reaches from Dun- 
 nose in the Isle of Wight to Burleigh Moor in Yorkshire ; 
 nearly 4 degrees. Though no doubt is entertained that the 
 result of this measurement is of a high degree of accu- 
 racy, it must be confessed that our confidence arises rather 
 from the great excellence of the instruments employed 
 than the science or skill of those to whom the operations 
 were entrusted. It is deserving of remark that both the 
 French and English arcs present this anomaly, that when 
 portions of them taken at particular places are considered 
 separately, the length of the degrees appears to increase 
 on going southward. Two arcs of meridian have been 
 measured in India. The first extends only a degree and a 
 half; but the second is the longest which has been mea- 
 sured in any country, and includes about 16 degrees. It 
 was begun, and about 10° executed, by Colonel Lambton ; 
 and the remainder was conducted by Captain Everest. 
 The details of Colonel Lambton's operations are given in 
 the Asiatic Researches (vols. viii. toxiii.); those ofCapt. Ev- 
 erest in his Account of the Measurement of an Arc of the Me- 
 ridian beticeen the Parallels of \S° 3' and 24° 7'. Lor.d. 1830. 
 Some portions of meridional arcs have more recently 
 been measured in Europe ; but as our limits will not per- 
 mit us to enter into further details, we shall content our- 
 selves with giving the following table of the results of those 
 which appear to be deserving of confidence : — 
 
 No. Meridional Arcs. 
 
 1. Arc measured by Bou- 
 I guer, recomputed by 
 ! Delambre 
 
 2. First Arc measured in In- 
 dia by Col. Lambton, 
 from Trivandeporum 
 to Paudree 
 
 Second Indian Arc by 
 I Col. Lambton and Cap- 
 tain Everest, from Pun- 
 I nae to Kulliampoor — 
 
 4. French Arc from Dunkirk 
 j to Formentera by Me- 
 I chain and Delambre . . 
 
 5. English Arc from Dun- 
 j nose to Burleigh Moor.. 
 
 6. Arc measured in Hano- 
 I ver by Gauss, from Got- 
 
 tingen to Altona 
 
 7. Arc measured in Lithua- 
 I nia by Struve, from Ja- 
 
 cobstadt to Hockland . . 
 
 8. Arc measured in Sweden 
 I by Svanberg, from Mal- 
 ' torn to Pahtawara 
 
 Ampli- 
 tude or 
 length 
 of Arc. 
 
 3° 7' 3' 
 
 1 34 56 
 
 15 57 39 
 
 12 22 12 
 3 57 1 
 
 2 57 
 
 3 35 
 1 37 20 
 
 Latitude 
 
 of middle 
 
 point. 
 
 [Length 
 I of 
 Degree 
 I in 
 English 
 feet. 
 
 1°31'0"S, 
 
 44 51 
 52 35 45 
 
 52 32 17 
 
 58 17 37 
 
 66 20 11 
 
 362,809 
 362,988 
 
 363,040 
 
 364,644 
 365,032 
 
 365,301 
 
 365,377 
 
 365,697
 
 DEGREE OF LONGITUDE. 
 
 In the preceding table the numbers are exhibited as if the 
 whole arcs had been measured at once, and the latitudes 
 only observed at each extremity ; but In fact, in the three 
 long arcs, latitudes were observed at several intermediate 
 stations, and consequently so many more independent 
 measures obtained. Thus the second Indian arc consisted 
 of five partial arcs, the French of six, the English of three, 
 and Struve's of two ; so that there are in the whole twenty 
 independent determinations of the meridional degree. 
 Combining the results of these twenty measurements by 
 methods well known to mathematicians so as to deduce 
 the most probable mean values, the dimensions and ellip- 
 ticity of the earth are found to be as follows : — 
 
 English feet Miles. 
 Equatorial diameter - - 41.843,330=7924 87 
 
 Polar diameter - - - 41,704,733=7893-63 
 
 Difference of diameters • - 138,542= 2624 
 
 Ellipticity, or difference of diameters ) 1 
 
 divided by greater - - S 302026 
 
 Assuming these as the true elements of the earth's mag- 
 nitude and figure, the following table is calculated, showing 
 the length of a degree of the meridian at every 10th degree 
 of latitude. The formula from which the calculation is 
 made is the following :— Let a be the equatorial semidia- 
 meter of the earth, e the ellipticity, I the latitude of the 
 place, and d the length of a degree at the latitude I ; then 
 U=zaO— e + 3esin 2 /) 3600 sin. 1" 
 
 Latitude. 
 
 
 10 
 20 
 30 
 40 
 
 Length of Degree 
 in English feel. 
 
 Latitude. 
 
 Length of Degree, 
 in English feet.' 
 
 362,731 
 362,843 
 363,158 
 363,641 
 364,233 
 
 50 
 60 
 70 
 SO 
 90 
 
 364,862 
 365,454 
 365,937 
 366,252 
 366,361 
 
 DEGREE OF LONGITUDE, on the earth, is a degree 
 of the equator, or of any of its parallel circles. If the earth 
 is a regular spheroid of revolution, the circles parallel to 
 the equalor, and consequently the degrees of those circles, 
 must diminish regularly as their distance from the equator 
 increases, according to a law derived from the nature of 
 the ellipse. Hence, if we know the measured lengths of 
 a degree of two or more small circles in different latitude ■• 
 we are in possession of data sufficient to determine the 
 diameters and ellipticity of the earth. The measurement 
 of degrees of longitude, therefore, in reference to the de- 
 termination of the earth's figure, is of equal importance 
 with the measurement of degrees of the meridian, and has 
 accordingly been executed in various instances. The geo- 
 detical operations required in the one case are the same as 
 in the other ; but on account of the great difficulty of de- 
 termining the astronomical longitudes with the necessary 
 accuracy, the results have never been regarded as equally 
 satisfactory. Supposing the equatorial diameter of the 
 earth, as indicated by the meridional degrees, to be 
 
 1 
 
 41,843,330 English feet, and the ellipticity = . 
 
 the 
 
 ' 302 026, 
 
 following table shows the length of a degree of longitude at 
 every tenth degree of latitude. 
 
 Latitude. 
 
 Degree of Loncimde. 
 in English feel. 
 
 Latitude. 
 
 Degree of Longitinle 
 in English feel. 
 
 
 
 10 
 20 
 30 
 40 
 
 365,152 
 359,640 
 343,263 
 316,493 
 280,106 
 
 50 
 60 
 70 
 RO 
 90 
 
 235.171 
 
 183,029 
 
 125.254 
 
 63,612 
 
 
 
 DEGRE'ES. In Music, the small intervals of which the 
 concords or harmonical intervals are composed. 
 
 DEIII'SCENT. (Lat. dehisco, I gape.) A termapplied 
 to those fruits which separate regularly round their axes, 
 either wholly or partially, into several pieces. 
 
 DEIFICATION. See Apotheosis. 
 
 DEI GRATIA (by the grace of God). A Latin formula, 
 usually inserted in the ceremonial description of the title 
 of a sovereign. It was used originally by the clergy. 
 
 DEILE'PHILA. (Gr. <5eiXn, evening, and 6i\eo), I love.) 
 A subgenus of hawk-moths (Sphingiace) belonging to the 
 crepuscular or evening tribe of Lepidopterous insects. 
 They are characterized by wings entire and acute ; antlia 
 rather elongated ; antenna? short, and clubbed in the male. 
 One species, De.il. celerio, feeds upon the vine. 
 
 DEINOTHE'RIUM. (Gr. Setvos, terrible, Sriptov, wild 
 beast.) The name of a fossil genus of gigantic Pachy- 
 derms, chiefly remarkable on account of its enormous 
 tusks, which projected downwards from the lower jaw 
 instead of the upper, as in the elephant and walrus. 
 
 DE'ISM, or THEISM. (Lat. Deus; Gr. Oeos, God.) 
 Belief in the existence and attributes of God coupled with 
 325 
 
 DELPHI, ORACLE OF. 
 
 disbelief in any express revelation of his will. There exist 
 various shades of opinion among Deists, which the reader 
 will find pointed out in Clarke's learned work on the Attri- 
 butes ; but general usage has assigned this word a meaning 
 synonymous with sceptic or freethinker : hence it is re- 
 garded as a term of reproach. In its original acceptation, 
 theist was directly opposed in meaning to atheist; but these, 
 terms are now frequently, though very incorrectly, em- 
 ployed without distinction to designate an unbeliever in 
 Christianity. 
 
 DEJEUNER (Fr. breakfast.) A term wholly natural- 
 ized in almost all the languages of modern Europe, not ex- 
 cepting the English, signifying the morning meal. The 
 materials of which it is composed vary of course with the 
 climate and usages of different countries; but it is worthy 
 of remark that in France itself this term is rapidly losing, 
 if indeed it has not already lost, its original acceptation, 
 being used, particularly by the fashionable world, as sy- 
 nonymous with the Enslish luncheon. 
 
 DEL CREDERE COMMISSION. In Mercantile Law, 
 a term derived from the Italian (credere, to trust), which 
 denotes a commission granted by a merchant to a factor to 
 dispose of goods ; the factor, for the consideration of an 
 additional percentage, agreeing to guarantee the solvency 
 of the purchaser. See Factor. 
 
 DELEGATES, COURT OF. Formerly the highest ec- 
 clesiastical court of appeal in England : in ordinary cases 
 composed of three common law judges and three civilians ; 
 in special cases a fuller commission is sometimes issued. 
 In case of a division of opinion, or where no common law 
 judge is in the majority, a commission of adjunctB was is- 
 sued. Appeal lay to it from the archiepiscopal courts. Its 
 powers are transferred by 2 & 3 W. 4. c. 92. to the privy 
 council. 
 
 DELEGA'TION. In the Civil Law, the act by which a 
 debtor transfers to another person the duty to pay, or a 
 creditor makes over to a third party the right to receive 
 payment. 
 
 DELFT WARE. A coarse species of porcelain, origin- 
 ally manufactured at Delft in Holland, whence its name. 
 DE'LIAN PROBLEM. See Duplication op the Cube. 
 DE'I.K ACY. (Lat. deliciro.) In the Fine Arts, minute 
 accuracy as opposed to strength or force : slenderness of 
 proportion. ere:tt finish, and softness are its characteristics. 
 DELIQTJE'SCENCE. (Lat deliquesce, to melt dozen.) 
 When certain saline substances are exposed to air, they 
 absorb so large a quantity of moisture as to run down into 
 a liquid stall 1 , nr deliquesce. 
 
 DELI'RIUM TRE'MENS. A disease of the brain, re- 
 sulting from tin- excessive and protracted use of spirituous 
 liquors; it is therefore almost peculiar to drunkards. It 
 begins with excessive irritability, loss of sleep, frightful 
 dreams and visions, and a multiplicity of the ordinary de- 
 lusions of insane persons, ending in furious madness. The 
 hands are usually, but not always, tremulous. By careful 
 treatment, and more especially by the judicious use of 
 opium, patients have recovered from this disease ; but, for 
 obvious reasons, it is difficult to manage, and subject to re- 
 lapses. Bleeding should in almost all cases be, if possible, 
 avoided. 
 
 DE'LITE'SCENCE. (Lat. delitescere, to lie hid.) In 
 Surgery, when a tumour very suddenly and unexpectedly 
 subsides, it is said to terminate in delitescence. 
 
 DE'LPHI, ORACLE OF; so called from Delphi, the 
 capital of Phocis, the most famous of all the oracles of an- 
 tiquity, sacred to Apollo. The origin of the oracle at Del- 
 phi is wrapt in obscurity. By some authors it is ascribed 
 to chance ; but many incline to believe that it owed its origin 
 j to certain exhalations, which, issuing from a cavern on 
 which it was situated, threw all who approached it into con- 
 vulsions, and during their continuance communicated the 
 power of predicting the future. Be this as it may, these 
 exhalations were soon invested with a sacred character; 
 and as their reputation extended, the town of Delphi insen- 
 sibly arose around the cavity from which they issued. The 
 responses were delivered by a priestess, called Pythia, who 
 sat upon a tripod placed over the mouth of the cavern ; and 
 after having inhaled the vapour, by which she was thrown 
 into violent convulsions, gave utterance to the wished-for 
 predictions, either in verse or prose, which were then in- 
 terpreted by the priests. Originally the consultation of the 
 oracle was a matter of great simplicity ; but in process of 
 time, when the accuracy of the predictions became known, 
 a series of temples, each more magnificent than its prede- 
 cessor, was erected on the spot. Immense multitudes of 
 priests and domestics were connected with the oracle ; and 
 to such a height of celebrity did it attain, that it wholly 
 eclipsed all the other oracles of Greece. 
 
 The position of the oracle was the most favourable that 
 could well be imagined. Delphi formed at once the seat 
 of the Amphictyonic Council and the centre of Greece, 
 and, as was universally believed, of the earth. Hence, in 
 every case of emergency, if a new form of government 
 was to be instituted, war to be proclaimed, peace con-
 
 DELPHIN. 
 
 eluded, or laws enacted, it came to be consulted, not only 
 by the Greeks, but even by the neighbouring nations ; and 
 thus the temple was enriched by an incredible number of 
 the most valuable presents and the most splendid monu- 
 ments, and the town of Delphi rose to be one of the most 
 wealthy and important of the cities of Greece. 
 
 As it was well known that the riches of all Greece were 
 concentrated in the temple at Delphi, this sacred reposi- 
 tory became frequently an object of plunder. But in spite 
 of all the rapacity to which it was exposed, the oracle con- 
 tinued to utter its responses long after the seat of empire 
 had been transferred from Greece to Rome ; and it was 
 only when Constantine the Great removed the sacred tri- 
 pods to adorn the hippodrome of his new city, that the re- 
 sponses of the oracle ceased to be delivered. For a view 
 of the characteristics of oracles in general, and the influ- 
 ence which they exercised over the nations of antiquity, 
 see the article Oracle. 
 
 DE'LPHIN. In Literary History, a name given to the 
 edition of the Latin classics, prepared and commented 
 upon by thirty-nine of the most famous scholars of the day, 
 at the suggestion of Louis XIV., for the benefit of the 
 young prince (in usum Delphini) under the superintendence 
 of Montausier his governor, and his preceptors Bossuct 
 and Huet. 
 
 DELPHI'NIA. A vegetable alkaline base, obtained from 
 the seeds of the Delphinium staphisagria or stavesacre. 
 
 DELPHI'NUS. (Lat. a dolphin.) The Dolphin, one of 
 the ancient constellations of the northern hemisphere. 
 
 Dblphintjs. This term is restricted in modern Zoology 
 to those species of Cetacea which have teeth in both jaws, 
 all simple, and almost all conical. They are the most car- 
 nivorous in proportion to their size. The Linnaean genus 
 Delphinus is now subdivided into Hyperoodon, of which the 
 great bottle-nose dolphin is the type ; Delphinapterus, re- 
 presented by the beluga ; Phocama, represented by the 
 common porpesse ; and Delphinus proper. 
 
 DE'LTA. The Greek letter A; and, in antiquity, the 
 lower portion of Egypt, comprised between the E. and W. 
 branches of the Nile and the sea, was from its resemblance 
 to the above letter called the Delta. And hence if any 
 large river, before it enters the sea, diverges and forms two 
 sides of a triangle, the sea being the base, the strand or al- 
 luvial land included by the three lines is called a delta; as 
 the delta of the Rhone, the Danube, Ganges, &c. 
 
 DELTO'ID. Of the shape of the Greek letter delta, A. 
 The term is used in anatomy and botany. 
 
 DE'LUGE. (Lat. diluvium.) In the 165Cth year after 
 the creation (according to ordinary chronology), in the 
 600th year of the life of Noah, and on the 17th day of the 
 second month (November, according to some commenta- 
 tors), the waters began to rise upon the earth. They ap- 
 pear to be represented as swelling upwards by some up- 
 heaving force (the fountains of the great deep were broken 
 up), and descending also in continual rain for forty days and 
 nights. All the mountains " that were under the whole 
 heaven" were covered ; " all flesh perished that moved on 
 the earth," with the exception of Noah and his family , and the 
 animals which entered with him into the Ark. The waters 
 remained 150 days ; and then " returned from off the earth 
 continually :" and the Ark rested on Ararat on the seven- 
 teenth day of the seventh month ; and on the first day of 
 the first month of the following year " the face of the 
 ground was dry," but not completely drained of the water 
 for nearly two months longer. Such is a very concise 
 abridgement of the account of this great catastrophe con- 
 tained in the 7th and 8th chapters of Genesis. Two sub- 
 jects connected with it require a brief discussion — the pa- 
 rallel traditions of ancient mythology ; and the confirma- 
 tion which the Mosaic account has been supposed by some 
 to receive from the discoveries of modern geological sci- 
 ence, which others have represented as directly opposed 
 to it. 
 
 As to the first, the belief in the destruction of mankind 
 by a deluge in the earliest times, and of the escape of one 
 individual and family under circumstances resembling 
 those recorded in sacred history respecting Noah, is a re- 
 markable feature in the traditions of a great variety of na- 
 tions. The Fo-ki of the Chinese, the Satyavrata of the 
 Indians, Xisuthrus or Seisithrus among the Assyrians, 
 Deucalion and Ogyges among the Greeks, — all present 
 striking features of analogy to the patriarch of scripture : 
 even the Mexicans had their traditional deluge. These 
 fragments of early belief are collected very copiously in 
 the third volume of Bryanf s Ancient Mythology. (See also 
 Russell's Connexion of Sacred and Profane History, vol. ii.) 
 It is undoubtedly true that some of these deluges may have 
 been local inundations only ; as, for example, the natural 
 features of the Thessalian plain seem to account conclu- 
 sively for the tale of Deucalion. Still the universality of 
 these traditions, and their general agreement as to circum- 
 stances, seem to point to some common source of infor- 
 mation. 
 With regard to geological theories of the deluge, it is per- 
 326 
 
 DEMARCATION. 
 
 haps the safest and wisest course to acquiesce in the general 
 principle, that as scripture was given for a very different 
 purpose than that of conveying physical knowledge, so the 
 endeavour to torture its brief language into exact accordance 
 with our discoveries, real or imaginary, in that branch of 
 inquiry, is both vain and unreasonable. But since much 
 controversy has been expended on the subject, it may be 
 worth while to observe, that in the instance of the deluge, 
 the chief difficulties have arisen not from any endeavour 
 of infidel writers to confute scripture by the aid of geology, 
 but through the over eagerness of the advocates of religion 
 to seize on each hasty generalization made in the progress 
 of an advancing science, in order to press it into the service 
 of their own opinions. Thus the cause of revelation has 
 been defended by physical arguments where no defence 
 was called for ; and these arguments have been necessarily 
 abandoned afterwards by those who advanced them. We 
 need not here speak of the notions which have been pro- 
 pounded by speculative geologists respecting the proximate 
 causes of the deluge ; such as Burnet (Telluris Tlieoria 
 Sacra), Newton, &c. ; and Dr. Geddes, whose ingenious 
 theory is that it was produced by a sudden increase of the 
 central heat expanding the volumes of water supposed to 
 be contained in cavities of the globe, breaking up its surface 
 from within, and then submerging it under an inundation 
 of hot water. More general interest has been excited by 
 the imaginary proofs which from time to time geology has 
 been supposed to furnish of the fact of a universal deluge. 
 Thus the discovery of fossil shells in inland strata, and 
 near the summits of the highest mountains, was at one 
 time offered as conclusive evidence ; and some infidel 
 writers were reduced to the absurd shift of representing 
 them as lusus natura, or accounting, like Voltaire, for those 
 found on the Alps by supposing them to have been thrown 
 away by pilgrims on their journey ! But when, in the course 
 of discovery, it was known that these fossil relics are to be 
 found scattered through an infinite variety of solid strata 
 formed apparently by partial deposition, one reposing be- 
 neath another, so as to form the whole superficial crust of 
 the globe, the impossibility of considering them as the re- 
 sults of any great convulsion became evident, and the ar- 
 gument founded on them fell to the ground. A similar in- 
 stance of over-hasty conclusion has been exhibited in more 
 recent times. Some geologists imagined themselves to 
 have discovered proofs of a general convulsion, attended 
 by a rapid passage of water over the surface of the whole 
 earth, at a period subsequent to the deposition of the last 
 tertiary strata. This notion is to a certain extent counte- 
 nanced by Cuvier (Theory of the Earth, Dr. Jameson's 
 translation, pp. 11. 13. &c), and by Dr. Buckland (Rclirjvia, 
 Diluviana, 1823.) ; and it is unfortunate that Dr. Sumner 
 (Records of the Creation) should have adopted it as the 
 foundation of an argument in favour of revelation For 
 more recent investigations have shown that it is impossible 
 to distinguish these supposed traces from those of local 
 disturbance. 
 
 On the whole, the question may perhaps be summed 
 up thus: many writers (Cramer, Von Hoff, &c.) havo 
 contended that the scriptural deluge was local only, ex- 
 tending over the then inhabited portion of the earth ; but 
 it is to be regarded as universal, and the expressions of 
 the Bible taken in their literal sense, geology (in its pre- 
 sent very imperfect state) affords us no insight into the 
 possible causes of such a convulsion. But on the suppo- 
 sition of its having been produced by a sudden miraculous 
 interference with the order of nature, no such information 
 was to be expected from science. Neither does geology 
 afford any distinct evidence of a universal deluge ; but, 
 looking at the manner in which that deluge is recorded 
 to have taken place, and the short period of its duration, 
 it is difficult to see how many permanent results which it 
 may have produced could be distinguished from those of 
 the innumerable local inundations of which the surface 
 of the earth furnishes such manifest testimony. The points 
 of contact between natural science and revelation are in 
 reality few or none ; it is the jealousy of believers on the 
 one hand, and the cavils of scepticism on the other, which 
 have given rise to the very unmeaning controversies which 
 exist upon the subject. 
 
 DE'MAGOGUE. (Gr. <5r;^oc, people, and ayoiyos, leader.) 
 One who directs or leads the people in political matters. 
 In its original acceptation it was considered as a most 
 honourable designation, having been applied to Solon, De- 
 mosthenes, and in fact to many of the most illustrious 
 characters of antiquity ; but it is now almost invariably 
 used in a bad sense. The oldest and most satirical of all 
 portraits of the demagogue is traced by Aristophanes in 
 his play of the Knights, in the character of Cleon. 
 
 DEMA'ND. In Political Economy. See Supply and 
 Demand. 
 
 DEMARCATION. (Fr.) A term used to designate 
 the line or boundary by which one object is separated 
 from another. The word was first introduced in 1493, 
 when Pope Alexander VI., in order to put an end to the
 
 DEMESNE. 
 
 dispute, which prevailed between the crowns of Spain and 
 Portugal, relative to their Indian discoveries and conquests 
 by virtue of his pontificial authority drew through the 
 ocean an imaainary line, by which the dominions of both 
 parties were defined ; and thus originated the expression 
 line of demarcation. It is only in this phrase that the 
 word is employed to this day in all the languages of Eu- 
 rope. 
 
 DEMES'NE. (Lat. terra dominicalis.) In Law, origi- 
 nally that portion of the lands belonging to a lord which 
 was held in his own occupation. Hence it is sometimes 
 used to distinguish those parts of a manor which the lord 
 has in his own hands, or those of lessees at rack-rent, from 
 those which are in the hands of freeholders and copyhold- 
 ers. See Ancient Demesne. 
 
 DEME'TER. (Doric Gr. Sa, the earth, and //i?r»)p, a 
 mother.) The Greek appellation Ceres (quod vide). 
 
 DE'MI. (Fr.) A word signifying half, frequently used 
 in the composition of English words, being equivalent to 
 the Latin semi. 
 
 DE'MIDITO'NE. (Gr. «5irovoj.) In Music, a minor 
 third. See Third. 
 
 DE'MIGODS. A general appellation of the inferior di- 
 vinities of Greece and Rome, more particularly of such of 
 the mixed offspring of divinities and mortals as were after- 
 wards deified. Of these the number was almost incredi- 
 ble ; and though their worship was not cultivated with 
 such veneration or solemnity as that of the superior gods, 
 it prevailed to a greater or less extent in every quarter of 
 the ancient world, and formed a large part of the heathen 
 mvtholosy. 
 
 DE'MILTJNE, in Fortification, is a work placed before 
 the curtain. 
 
 DE'MIQUAVER. In Music, a note equal in duration to 
 half a quaver. 
 
 DE'MITINT. In Painting, a tint representing the mean 
 or medium between light and shade ; by some called a 
 half tint. 
 
 DEMIU'RGUS, Demiurge. (Gr. iriptovpyo; ; from (Jmzof, 
 people, epyov, work.) In the original sense of the word, as 
 used by classical authors, an artificer employed in ordina- i 
 ry handicraft. In the language of Platonist writers, it de- j 
 notes an exalted and mysterious agent, hy whose means , 
 God is supposed to have created the universe. Hence the j 
 Demiurgus. or Logos, as the same imaginary asent isterm- 
 ed in the Timaus of Plato, is identified by the Platonizing 
 Christians with the second person in the Trinity. 
 
 DEMO'ORAOY. (Gr. <5fUioj, people, and upartw, I gov- 
 ern.) A government is usually termed a democracy in 
 which the whole of the people, or a large proportion of it, 
 exercises sovereignty either directly or by representatives. 
 According to some political writers, (he term is strictly ap- 
 propriate only where "a majority of the adult males" share 
 in the government. In Aristotle's view ofgo\ ernments, de- 
 mocracy i3 a perversion of the imaginary system, which 
 he terms Politeia, or commonwealth par excellence ; in 
 which the majority are supposed to govern for the good of 
 the whole, while in democracy they govern for their own. 
 See Republic. 
 
 DE'MOGO'RGON. (Gr. Saiuoiv, a demon, and yopyot, 
 terrible.) In Mythology, a mysterious divinity of antiquity, 
 of whose origin, attributes, and history no satisfactory ac- 
 count can be given, in consequence of the obscurity in 
 which they are enveloped. By some writers he is regard- 
 ed as the author of creation ; others consider him to have 
 been a famous magician, to whose spell all the inhabitants 
 of Hades were subjected ; but all concur in viewing him as 
 an obiect rather of terror than of worship : hence in the 
 Paradise Lost (Book 2.), Milton speaks of 
 
 Ihe dreaded name 
 
 Of Demogorgon. 
 
 For further information the reader is referred to one of 
 the most learned works of any age or country, the Diction- 
 naire de Treroux. 
 
 DE'MOISELLE. In Zoology. See Grindae. 
 
 DE'MON. (Gr. daipwv, a spirit.) The existence of in- 
 visible beings of superior powers and intelligence to man- 
 kind, though inferior to the Deity, has been an article of 
 belief among all heathen nations. They have varied, how- 
 ever, in the dispositions they have assigned to them. The 
 Greeks, from whom we derive the term in Scriptural lan- 
 guage, applied it originally to the deified spirits of departed 
 heroes, whom they supposed to have some influence in 
 promoting the good of mankind, and considered there- 
 fore as objects of adoration. The manner, however, in 
 which demons are represented in Scripture as evil spirits 
 inflicting injury on men at the suggestion of the Father of 
 Evil, is conformable to the oriental notion upon such points ; 
 except, indeed, that in the Scriptures the general supre- 
 macy of God, who suffers evil to exist, is maintained, in 
 opposition to the eastern dogma of the eternal and equal 
 conflict of the good and the evil principles. The early 
 fathers indulged in much speculation upon these subjects ; 
 but in modern times the literal interpretation of the agency 
 327 
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 of demons as referred to in Scripture has been frequently 
 called in question. The demons, like the fairies and goblins 
 of other mythologies, are represented with various charac- 
 ters of beneficence, malice, and wanton mischief. They 
 were sometimes distinguished by the names Cacodemon 
 and Agathodemon (from /ca/rof, bad, and ayaQos, good), ac- 
 cording as their influence was evil or beneficent. 
 
 DEMO'NIACS. Persons possessed by or under the in- 
 fluence of demons or devils, of whom mention is made in 
 some passages in the New Testament. Some divines have 
 supposed that such influence was permitted to the powers 
 of evil at one particular time for the greater manifestation 
 of our Lord's authority in rebuking them : but it is certain 
 that the idea of demoniacal possession was very ancient 
 among the oriental nations ; and those to whom it seems 
 incredible that it should have been grounded on fact, must 
 be content with interpreting such passages of Scripture as 
 a concession to the opinions and feelings of the Jewish 
 people. 
 
 DEMONO'LOGY. (Gr. Satpcov, deity or dctmon, and 
 \oyos, discourse.) The belief in an intermediate race of 
 beings, between deity and humanity, has been a prevalent 
 feature in almost every popular creed ; and all tradition or 
 speculation respecting it may be said to fall under the gene- 
 ral term of Demonology. Among the early oriental na- 
 tions, especially the Persians and Egyptians, the science 
 of astronomy appears to have been essentially connected 
 with this branch of superstition ; the heavenly bodies were 
 honoured as daemons or celestial intelligences. This an- 
 cient belief appears to have had much influence on the 
 Jewish rabbinical writers ; and out of it, connected with 
 what is revealed to us in the Old Testament of the exist- 
 ence and attributes of angels, they framed their peculiar 
 mythology. 
 
 The Greek word Jai^toi', daemon, is said to be derived 
 from Sari/ib)!/, knowing or intelligent. In the earliest 
 monuments of the language, its signification is vague and 
 uncertain. In Homer it generally signifies a deity : lat- 
 uovtov is anything godlike, wonderful, which may have 
 been communicated or inspired by a deity ; but, in the 
 Odyssey, some traces are to be found of the meaning 
 "fortunate" or "unfortunate" attached to the word. In 
 Hesiod, however, we have an express mythological ac- 
 count of the da'mons, — as spirits, in a state between mor- 
 tality and divinity, peaceful and favourable to man : he de- 
 scribes them as of different orders. The mortals who lived 
 in the golden age have become daemons of the first rank ; 
 those of the silver age have inferior honours, and are mor- 
 tal, although their life is prolonged to a length of many hun- 
 dreds of human generations. The heroes form a stiil infe- 
 rior class of int.rmediate spirits. In popular language, 
 when hero-worship became widely spread in Greece, the 
 words hero and daemon were used without much distinc- 
 tion ; but the more recondite difference appears to have 
 been this, — the hero was the departed worthy himself, 
 such as he had once lived on earth; the daemon was his 
 immaterial part, converted into a sort of abstract principle, 
 — a spiritual agent of good or evil, favourable or unfriendly 
 to mankind. It is in this sense also that the inferior deities 
 themselves are designated as daemons. Thales is said to 
 have defined more accurately the difference between gods, 
 heroes as the souls of deceased mortals, and daemons pro- 
 perly so called ; and in Plato's theology the daemons oc- 
 cupy an important place— as intermediate spirits, closely 
 wa'ching over, directing, and recording the actions of mor- 
 tals. By later writers they were divided into many classes: 
 some ministers of punishment and revenge, some freeing 
 from evils already befallen (\wtot), some warding off their 
 approach (aX«JiKa<coi), &c. It was in Egypt and Syria, 
 under the Ptolemies and Seleucidae, that the Grecianphi- 
 losophy and mythology came in contact with those of the 
 Rabbis; and from that union a new mixed system of dae- 
 monology took its origin. Hence, in the Greek of the New 
 Testament, the word latpoviov is taken, without addition 
 or qualification, as an evil spirit, and rendered by our trans- 
 lators "devil." 
 
 Analogous to the daemons of the Greeks were the genii 
 of the Romans ; but there were peculiar and characteristic 
 features about the belief in the latter which show it to be 
 of a different origin, probably derived from the Etruscans, 
 who, as some antiquarians believe, drew their mythology 
 from the ancient source of Samothrace. The genii of the 
 Romans were an innumerable host of spirits : every man, 
 house, or city, had an attendant genius. The genius of 
 every mortal is mortal as himself; accompanies him into 
 life, and conducts him in all its vicissitudes. In this sense, 
 the genius was a favourable companion : to enjoy the good 
 things of life is represented as " indulging" or gratifying 
 the genius; abstaining from them, as "defrauding" him. 
 Wine and flowers are appropriate offerings to him. But 
 he is also "vultu mutabilis, albus et ater:" he is the com- 
 panion of the mischances as well as the pleasures of life; 
 unless, as the difficulty appears sometimes to have been 
 solved, the individual had his pair of genii good and bad.
 
 DEMONSTRATION. 
 
 And this latter should appear to have been the popular be- 
 lief among the Etruscans, as far as we can collect it, in a 
 subject where all is vague and indistinct ; and it is impos- 
 sible accurately to separate the abstract creations of philo- 
 sophers and poets from the substantive objects of general 
 belief. The Etruscans represented the evil genius as a 
 dark and frightful figure, attending a mortal on one side, 
 who is protected or followed on the other by a child or 
 youth — the usual emblem of the good genius. The genius 
 is often represented on vases and in ancient paintings as a 
 winged figure ; and a genius holding a torch downwards is 
 the "emblem of death. 
 
 The daemons of the middle ages were simply fallen an- 
 gels or devils, according to the sense of the word in the 
 New Testament; and hence demonology, in the language 
 of modern writers, generally signifies the history of the 
 supposed nature and properties of such evil spirits, and 
 of the modern superstition respecting compacts between 
 them and mankind. See Magic, Witchcraft. 
 
 DEMONSTRATION (Lat. demonstro, / shoic), was 
 used by the old writers to signify -'any manner of showing 
 either the connection of a conclusion with its premises, or 
 that of a phenomenon with the asserted cause ; but it now 
 means, in philosophical language, only that process by 
 which a result is shown to be a necessary consequence 
 of the premises from which it is asserted to follow, on the 
 supposition that those premises are admitted, either as 
 matter of fact, or of intuitive evidence, or of previous de- 
 monstration." Demonstration is also used in ordinary 
 language as synonymous with proof: thus it is often said 
 that " evidence amounts to demonstration." 
 
 Demonstrations, in a Military sense, are manoeuvres 
 practised for the purpose of misleading the enemy. 
 
 DE'MOS. (Gr. Stifio;.) In Ancient History, a borough 
 or ward ; an Attic word, denoting one of the districts into 
 which Attica was divided, and which in early times were 
 bound together by the ties of common blood, but were not 
 united closely into one nation till the time of Theseus, who 
 fixed on Athens as the nucleus of the state. 
 
 DEMU'RRAGE. In Mercantile Law, the delay which 
 a merchant makes in loading or unloading a ship, beyond 
 the time specified in his charter-party, or other agreement 
 with the owners ; in which it is usually stipulated that he 
 shall pay at a certain rate per diem for such extra lime, 
 which payment is also termed demurrage. 
 
 DEMU'LCENTS. (Lat. demulceo, lsoothe.) Medicines 
 which sheathe and defend sensible parts from the action 
 of irritating matters ; they are chiefly mucilaginous sub- 
 stances, such as gum, starch, &c. 
 
 DEMU'RRER. (From the Lat. demoror, / delay.) In 
 Law, an issue between plaintiff and defendant on matter 
 of law. It confesses that the facts are true as stated by the 
 opposite party, but denies the legal consequences inferred 
 by the opposite party from these facts. Demurrers are 
 either general or special. (See Pleading.) Demurrersin 
 equity are of the same nature with those at law. Demurrer 
 may be also to an indictment in criminal cases. 
 
 DEMY. See Paper. 
 
 DENA'RIUS. A Roman silver coin worth ten asses 
 originally, and afterwards considered equal to eighteen 
 asses, when the weight of the latter coin was reduced to 
 one ounce. 
 
 Originally the denarius was — 1-j. of a pound of silver, but 
 its weight varied. Its value is considered equal to 7f d. of 
 English money. 
 
 There was also a gold denarius equal in value to twenty- 
 five silver ones. 
 
 DENDRO'DOA. (Gr. SevSpov, a tree, and oiov, an egg.) 
 The name of a subgenus of Ascidians, or fixed tunicated 
 Mollusks, suggested by the ramified form of the ovarium ; 
 but this structure is not peculiar to the species included in 
 the genus so designated. 
 
 DE'NDROMYS. (Gr. SevSpov, and /ivs, a mouse.) A 
 South African genus of Rodentia, nearly allied to the true 
 mice, but differing in the habits of the species, which fre- 
 quent the branches of trees, in which they construct their 
 nest and bring forth their young. 
 
 DE'NDROPHIS. (Gr. SevSpov, and o<pn, a serpent.) A 
 genus of harmless serpents of the great family of Colubers, 
 remarkable for their long and slender body. 
 
 DE'NIZEN. (Welsh dinassdyn, man of the city.) In 
 Law, an alien boni, who has received ex donatione regis 
 letters patent to make him an English subject. He may 
 take lands by purchase and devise ; but cannot enjoy offices 
 and trusts, &c, or receive a grant of land from the crown. 
 
 DENOMINATOR. A term used in Arithmetic, in speak- 
 ing of fractions, to denote the number of parts into which 
 the unit or whole is divided. Thus, for example, in the 
 fraction -^ (seven twelfths) of a foot, 12 is the denomina- 
 tor, and indicates that the unit or one foot is divided into 12 
 equal parts ; and 7, the numerator, shows how many of 
 these parts are to be taken. The denominator always indi- 
 cates unity, for the whole is equal to all its parts. A frac- 
 328 
 
 DENTES. 
 
 tion may always be regarded as a whole number, whose 
 unit is a part of the primitive unit, which part is expressed 
 by the denominator. Thus, in the fraction -J^ of a foot, 
 the foot is supposed to be divided into twelfths'or inches, 
 and -jL- expresses the same thing as 7 inches, or the par- 
 ticular"unit, an inch, taken seven times. 
 
 DENOU'EMENT. (Fr.) A term completely naturalized 
 in England ; used to designate the development of the plot 
 or story in a novel or play, and in short in every department 
 of literature. 
 
 DE'NSITY (Lat. densus, thick),\s used in Physics to de- 
 note the quantity of matter which a body contains under a 
 given or determinate surface ; for example, a cubic foot. 
 The quantity of matter in any body is called its mass, and 
 is measured by the weight of the body, to which it is al- 
 ways proportional. Hence the density of any body is great, 
 in proportion as its weight is great and its volume small ; 
 or, the density of bodies are directly as their masses, and 
 inversely as their volumes. It follows also from the defi- 
 nition, that if two bodies have the same volume, their den- 
 sities are directly as their masses or weights; and that if 
 two bodies have the same mass or weight, their densities 
 are respectively in the inverse ratio of their volumes. The 
 density of a body is also proportional to its specific gravity. 
 
 DE'NTAL FO'RMULA. (Lat. dens, a tooth.) A nota- 
 tion used to signify the number and kind of teeth of a mam- 
 miferous animal, and usually forming the main element in 
 its generic character. Thus the cats, or genus Felts, are 
 characterized by incis.^ ; canin.|. i; prsemol.-|, ■§; mol.^,^ 
 = 30; wftich signifies that they have six incisores in both 
 the upper and the lower jaw; one canine tooth on each 
 side of both jaws ; two pramolares, or false molares, on 
 each side of each jaw ; two true molares on each side of the 
 upper, and two on each side of the lower jaw. The dental 
 formula of man is — incis. £ ; canin. J- ; prosmol. %i^\ mo- 
 lares, §i ^ = 32. 
 
 DENTA'LIUM. A genus of Mollusks inhabiting elon- 
 gated univalve shells, resembling an elephant's tusk in 
 miniature, whence the name. 
 
 DEN'TATE. (Lat. dens. ) In Zoology, the margin of a 
 part of an animal is so termed when it is cut into teeth 
 whose sides are equal, or nearly so. 
 
 DENTA'TUS. (Lat. dens.) Toothed; applied to the 
 margins of bodies furnished with sharp teeth with concave 
 edges. 
 
 DE'NTES (Lat. the teeth), properly so called, are parts 
 peculiar to the vertebrate animals, composed of gelatin, 
 hardened principally by the phosphate of lime, and are 
 fixed to the bones of the mouth. They serve to catch, kill, 
 hold, pierce, cut, or crush the objects of food, and are va- 
 riously shaped accordingly. Substances composed of soft- 
 er material, generally horn, perform the analogous offices 
 in the invertebrate animals, and are generally called teeth ; 
 horny material is substituted for teeth in a few fishes, in che- 
 lonians, birds, whales, and the Ornithorhynchus paradoxus. 
 
 In fishes the teeth may be situated on the intermaxillary, 
 maxillary, mandibular, palatine, vomerine, pterygoid, hy- 
 oid, or pharyngeal bones ; in a few instances they are im- 
 planted in sockets or "alveoli," or they may be fixed to an 
 osseous base which is attached by ligamentous substance 
 to the oral bones ; but most commonly they are immedi- 
 ately anchylosed, or joined by a direct continuation of bony 
 substance, to the bones themselves which encompass the 
 mouth. 
 
 In reptiles the teeth may be found on the palatine, pte- 
 rygoid, or vomerine, as well as on the maxillary and inter- 
 maxillary bones. They are generally anchylosed, or con- 
 fluent with the substance of the jaws ; but in the plesio- 
 saurs and crocodiles are implanted in sockets. 
 
 In mammals the teeth are confined to the maxillary and 
 intermaxillary bones, are always implanted in sockets, and in 
 this class only may be so fixed by more than one fang or root. 
 
 Teeth generally consist of three distinct substances ; viz. 
 ivory, enamel, and bone, or cffimentum, also called crusta 
 petrosa. 
 
 The texture of the ivory is minutely tubular, that of the 
 csmentum of combined tubules and cells ; and the earthy 
 material is arranged principally in these cavities, which 
 have definite arrangement and proportions in each specie3 
 of animal. The enamel consists of hexagonal filamentary 
 crystals. 
 
 In the human subject the teeth are called, according 
 to their figure, " incisors," " canines," " bicuspids," and 
 "molars;" the same terms have been transferred to the 
 teeth of the mammalia generally, except that those which 
 are analogous to the bicuspids in man are called " pne- 
 molars," or spurious molars. A tooth is divided into a 
 crown, a neck, and a fang or fangs. 
 
 The vascular bodies concerned in their development are 
 called " puip" and " capsule :" the ivory or body of the 
 tooth is formed by the former, the enamel and cement are 
 due to the latter organ.
 
 DENTILS. 
 
 In most cases when the pulp has secreted as much ivory 
 as forms the full sized crown of the tooth, it begins to di- 
 minish in size ; and as it continues to exercise its function 
 during the progress of its absorption, a gradually decreasing 
 fang is the result : when the absorption of the pulp, instead 
 of being general, proceeds from two or three parts, a cor- 
 responding number of fangs are extended from the crown. 
 But sometimes the pulp retains its full size and activity 
 during the lifetime of the animal, in which case the part of 
 the tooth lodged in the socket presents the same size and 
 form as the protruded crown, of which it is a direct con- 
 tinuation. The fore teeth of the rat, beaver, and other 
 rodents, are familiar examples of these constantly growing 
 teeth. But this is not the only mode in which excessive 
 wear and tear of the teeth is provided for. In the elephant 
 when one grinder is worn down it is pushed out, and re- 
 placed by a second of subsequent formation ; these suc- 
 cessional teeth, or "dents de reniplacement," as they are 
 termed by the French anatomists, are formed in the ele- 
 phant, each in a cavity at the back part of the jaw, behind 
 the tooth which they are destined to succeed. In other 
 animals again, the teeth which suit the size of the jaws 
 when young are pushed out by others which are propor- 
 tioned to the size of the full-grown jaws ; these, which arc 
 termed " permanent teeth," succeed the " deciduous teeth" 
 in the vertical direction, being developed in the substance 
 of the jaws above the deciduous teeth in the upper, and 
 below the deciduous teeth in the lower jaw. As the de- 
 ciduous series of teeth are generally developed in the 
 mammalia at the period when the young animal is suck- 
 ling, they are commonly called "milk" teeth; but as in 
 some rodents deciduous teeth are formed and shed before 
 birth, they might be termed " uterine" teeth. Thus teeth 
 may succeed each other in the horizontal or vertical direc- 
 tion. In the human subject all the deciduous teeth are 
 succeeded vertically ; but the additional teeth follow each 
 other from behind forwards. In mammalia a tooth has not 
 more than one successor in the vertical direction, but in 
 reptiles and fishes there may be many such. 
 
 It is a singular but constant fact, that in mammalia the 
 permanent molar always presents a more simple crown 
 than the deciduous one which it has replaced ; thus, in 
 man, the quadricuspid milk grinders are succeeded by the 
 permanent bicuspides. 
 
 DE'NTILS. (Lat. dentes, teeth.) In Architecture, small 
 square blocks or projections in the bed mouldings of the 
 cornices in the Ionic, Corinthian, Composite, and occa- 
 sionally Doric orders. Their breadth should be half their 
 height; and, according to Vitruvius, the intervals between 
 them should be two thirds of their breadth. In the Grecian 
 orders they are not used under modillions. 
 
 DE'NTIRO'STRES. (Lat. dens, and rostrum, a beak.) 
 The name of a tribe of Insessorial birds, characterized by 
 having a notch and tooth-like process on each side of the 
 margin of the upper mandible. In connection with this 
 organization the Dentirostral birds manifest rapacious 
 habits, and prey on smaller and weaker birds. The butcher- 
 birds belong to this tribe. 
 
 DENTI'TION. (Lat. dens.) The cutting of the teeth. 
 At birth the teeth consist of pulpy rudiments buried in the 
 gum ; and it is not till the third or fourth month that they 
 begin to assume shape and hardness. At this period chil- 
 dren generally become fretful ; the saliva flows copiously, 
 and they are fond of biting upon any thing hard and cold ; 
 the gums become turgid ; there is more or less fever, fre- 
 quently a cough ; and a rash appears, commonly called the 
 red gum. These symptoms generally subside in the course 
 of a fortnight or three weeks, and the child remains 
 tolerably free from uneasiness till the seventh or eighth 
 month, when the gums become tender ; and often so much 
 so, at some particular spot, that the slightest touch or 
 pressure produces extreme pain : the gums become more 
 red and swollen, but paler at the upper part, which, just 
 before the tooth appears, becomes blistered. During these 
 periods an increased flow of saliva and a lax state of bowels 
 are favourable symptoms ; but where the local irritation 
 is considerable, the gums should be freely lanced, and any 
 excessive diarrhcea should be very cautiously checked : 
 small doses of magnesia, or of chalk julap with dill water, 
 and occasionally with a little powdered rhubarb, will gene- 
 rally be sufficient for this purpose. When involuntary 
 motions of the jaws and face, or more general convulsions, 
 ensue, and are not relieved by the loss of blood which 
 generally follows proper lancing of the gums, or where 
 there is drowsiness and oppressed respiration, a leech or 
 two to the temples, and a small blister to the back of the 
 neck, or behind the ear, must be promptly resorted to ; and 
 any sluggishness of bowels prevented, or even anticipated, 
 by a little calomel and rhubarb, or some other active purge. 
 Very mild opiates, very cautiously administered, may 
 afterwards prove necessary ; but the administration of 
 these in any form to young children requires the utmost 
 caution, and syrup of poppies and other soothing remedies 
 should never be entrusted to the nurse. The period of 
 329 
 
 DEPILATORY. 
 
 teething in children cannot be too scrupulously watched 
 over, as the irritation which then ensues seems not un- 
 frequently to lay the foundation of water in the head, espe- 
 cially where there is a predisposition to that disease. 
 
 DENUDA'TION. (Lat. denudo, 1 lay bare.) In Ge- 
 ology, the removal of part of the land, so as to lay bare 
 inferior strata. 
 
 DENUDA'TUS. (Lat.) Naked. In Botany, applied to 
 the polish or texture of bodies, and denoting the reverse 
 of hairy, downy, or any similar term. 
 
 DEO'BSTRUENTS. Medicines which remove obstruc- 
 tions. The term is often used in reference to the removal 
 of glandular complaints. 
 
 DE'ODAND. (Lat. Deo dandum, to be given to God.) 
 At Common Law, every personal chattel which has been 
 the immediate occasion of the death of a human being is 
 forfeited to the king on the finding of a coroner's inquest ; 
 to be applied as alms by his almoner. Where a thing not 
 in motion is the cause of death, it has been held that the 
 part only which was the immediate cause is forfeited ; as 
 the wheel of a cart, where a man meets his death by climb- 
 ing on the wheel at rest and falling from it: if in motion, 
 the whole ; as, the whole cart, where the wheel goes over 
 him. However, juries have for a long time past taken on 
 themselves to assess a sum of money, as the value of the 
 thing forfeited ; which has become in practice very arbi- 
 trary, and usually, but not always, trifling. In this way co- 
 roners' juries have to a certain extent usurped a power 
 which the principle of the law by no means entrusts to 
 them; viz. of imposing a fine where they believe negli- 
 gence to have caused death. By 3 & 4 W. 4. c. 99. s. 29. 
 coroners are to make out and transmit to the treasury an 
 account of deodands. 
 
 DEONTO'LOGY. (Gr. Slov, due, and X<5joj, discourse.) 
 The science of duty ; a term assigned by the followers of 
 Jeremy Bentham to their own doctrine of ethics, which is 
 founded on the tendency of actions to promote happiness. 
 (See Bentham's Deontology, init. ; also Mr. Whewell's Pre- 
 face to Sir James Macintosh's Dissertation on Ethics, 
 Edinb. 183G; and art. Ethics in this work.) 
 
 DEPA'RTMENT. (Fr. departir, to divide.) In Geo- 
 graphy, a territorial division of the kingdom of France. 
 Before the first revolution, France was divided into 37 ge- 
 neralities, or governments, each of which was subdivided 
 according to local custom into districts, bearing various 
 names; and the laws regulating property in each were 
 subject to extremely complicated varieties. The plan of 
 a new division into more convenient portions was first con- 
 ceived by the Constituent Assembly in 1787, and carried 
 into effect in 1790. Mirabeau proposed the formation of 
 120 departments ; but the actual number formed was 80, 
 afterwards increased by subdivision to 83. M. Belleyme, 
 geographical engineer, was the chief agent in the work. 
 In tracing the limits of the departments, the subsisting di- 
 visions o( provinces and generalities were maintained to 
 a certain extent ; but the chief object was to render them 
 nearly equal on an average repartition of size and popu- 
 lation, so that the more populous departments are in ge- 
 neral smaller; but the division is by no means uniform. 
 The names of the departments are chiefly taken from 
 rivers, mountains, or other well-known geographical ob- 
 jects. In 1908, the number was increased by conquest to 
 127, including 12 for the colonies. These last were sub- 
 sequently retrenched: but in 1811, when the empire ex- 
 tended from Rome to Hamburg, the total number was 
 130. At present France has 86 departments. Each is 
 administered by an officer named by the government with 
 the title of Prefect, and subdivided into arrondissments 
 and cantons. 
 
 DEPA'RTURE. A nautical term, used to denote the 
 distance a ship has gone to the east or west of 
 j c the meridian from which she departed. The 
 difference of meridians being first found in de- 
 grees, the departure must be estimated by the 
 number of miles in a degree of the parallel of 
 latitude where the ship is. In Mercator's 
 Sailing, the departure is represented by the 
 base A B of a right-angled plane triangle, 
 B A A B C ; of which the angle at C opposite the 
 
 base is called the course, and the hypothennse B C is the 
 distance sailed. Hence the theorem for finding the de- 
 parture :— As radius is to the sine of the course, so is the 
 distance run to the departure. 
 
 DEPHLEGMA'TION. The operation of freeing spirit 
 of wine and certain other fluids from the water which they 
 usually contain. A very strong and pure spirit is often said 
 to be hishly dephlegmated. 
 
 DEPHLOGISTICA'TION. (Lat. de, down ; and Gr. 
 (fKnyio-roi, lit. burned.up.) A term applied by the older 
 chemists to certain processes by which they imagined that 
 phlogiston was separated from bodies. They regarded 
 oxygen as common air deprived of phlogiston, and hence 
 called it dephlogisticaled air. 
 
 DEPI'LATORY. (Lat. de,from, and pilus, haxr.) Any 
 W
 
 DEPLOY. 
 
 application which removes hair from any part of the body. 
 The celebrated Turkish Depilatory is a mixture of 7 parts 
 of quicklime and 1 of orpiment. The latter ingredient is 
 probably useless ; for when powdered quicklime is made 
 into a thin paste with water, and applied by a camel-hair 
 pencil to any part till it produces a tingling or burning sen- 
 sation, on wiping it off with a wet sponge, the hair, especi- 
 ally if it be soft and delicate, is removed with it. 
 
 DEPLOY. (Fr. deployer.ro expand.) In the art Mili- 
 tary, the expansion of a body of troops previously com- 
 pacted in column, so as to present a larger front ; generally 
 for the purpose of performing some evolution, or of form- 
 ing into line, or of directing an attack in some quarter least 
 expected by the enemy. 
 
 DEPORTA'TION. In French law, a punishment equi- 
 valent to transportation in English. It is ranked as third in 
 degree ; after capital punishment, and condemnation to 
 the galleys or public labour (travaux forces) for life. De- 
 portation for political offences was a common punishment 
 at one period during the French revolution ; especially 
 after the fall of Robespierre and his party. It was then 
 usually executed by conveying the criminals to Cayenne 
 in South America. 
 
 DEPOSI'TION. In Law, the testimony of a witness, 
 put down in writing, in answer to interrogatories legally 
 exhibited for that purpose. In the court of chancery such 
 depositions form the established medium of proof; and 
 the interrogatories are exhibited, in London by the ex- 
 aminers, in the country by commissioners appointed for 
 that purpose. Depositions in civil actions, in the courts 
 of common law, are regulated by the stat. 1 W. 4. c. 22. 
 By 7 G. 4. c. 64. the examination of the prisoner and wit- 
 nesses before a magistrate on a charge of felony must be 
 taken down in writing, and returned to the court. If duly 
 taken, these depositions are evidence at the trial under 
 certain restrictions. 
 
 DEPO'T (Fr.), is used to designate a place where all 
 sorts of military stores and provisions are kept, or where 
 recruits are received and trained. It is also applied to that 
 portion of a regiment which remains at home when the 
 rest is ordered upon foreign service. 
 
 DEPRE'SSED. (Lat. deprimo, / depress.) In Zoology, 
 the whole or part of an animal body is so called when its 
 vertical section is shorter than the transverse. 
 
 DEPRE'SSION OF EQUATIONS, in Algebra, is the 
 reduction of equations to a lower degree, by dividing them 
 by one or more of their component factors. It is only in a 
 few cases that equations, whose roots are unknown, can be 
 thus depressed. 1st, When some particular relation sub- 
 sists between two (or more) of the roots ; for example, if 
 anequation contain equal roots these may be found, and the 
 equation reduced as many dimensions lower as there are 
 equal roots. 2d, If two roots of an equation be of the form 
 + a, — a, differing only in their signs, they may be found, 
 and the equation depressed. 3d, If the equation is reci- 
 procal, that is to say, such that its form is not changed by 
 changing x into - , then it is susceptible of depression. The 
 
 methods by which these classes of equations are depress- 
 ed, are to a certain point to be regarded as a branch of the 
 transformation of equations, since the general object of the 
 theory is to make the solution of an equation depend on 
 the solution of another more simple. (See Bourdon's Al- 
 gebra.) 
 
 DEPRE'SSION OF THE HORIZON, or DIP OF THE 
 HORIZON, in Nautical Astronomy, denotes the depres- 
 sion or dipping of the visible horizon below the true hori- 
 zontal plane, and which arises from the circumstance that 
 the eye of the observer is not placed on the same level 
 with the surface of the sea, but at some distance above it. 
 Hence in observing the altitude of the sun or a star above 
 the horizon with the sextant, the altitude appears greater 
 than it really is. Let a — the radius of the earth, and 
 x — the height of the eye above the horizon ; then the co- 
 
 a 
 sine of the angle of depression = . . At the height 
 
 of 10 feet this amounts to about three minutes of a degree. 
 
 DEPUTA'TION (Lat.), is applied to a certain number 
 of persons selected from a company or body., and appoint- 
 ed to lay before a sovereign, an assembly, a minister, or 
 other public functionary, a statement of the views of the 
 selecting party relative to any question, or to prosecute any 
 affair in their name. 
 
 DE'PUTIES, CHAMBER OF. The lower of the two 
 legislative chambers in France. The right of election to 
 the Chamber of Deputies is in persons of 25 years of age, 
 paying 200 francs of direct contributions ; i. e. the land 
 tax, personal tax, door and window tax, and a few others : 
 officers in the army and navy, and members and corres- 
 pondents of the Institute, are only required to pay 100 
 francs. The list of electors is made out by the mayors of 
 the communes annually, and revised by the prefect ; sub- 
 sequent claims are judged by the prefect in council, and, 
 in the last resort, by the Cour Royale. There are 459 
 330 
 
 DERMATOBRANCHUS. 
 
 members of the chamber, each elected by a separate 
 electoral college : the election is by ballot. To be eligible 
 to the chamber, the candidate must be thirty years of age, 
 and pay 500 francs of direct taxes. The total number 
 of electors in 1833-39 amounted to 197,598. The duration 
 of the chamber is triennial. 
 
 The Chamber of Deputies is divided into nine bureaux; 
 which are renewed every month. To these bureaux ques- 
 tions are referred by the chamber; as well laws proposed 
 by the king or the house of peers as propositions of indi- 
 vidual members. The bureaux report on the question, 
 after separate discussion in each, before the general dis- 
 cussion in the chamber begins. Except in case of dissolu- 
 tion, measures commenced in one section pass on to the 
 next in the same stage in which they have been left. The 
 vote on a proposed law is secret, on any other proposition 
 open. 
 
 The "cote droit," "cote gauche," and the "centres," 
 form the three grand divisions of which the Chamber of 
 Deputies is composed. When the three chambers of the 
 States-General of 1789 were consolidated into one by the 
 designation of the National Assembly, the most distin- 
 guished members of the aristocratic and republican par- 
 ties were in the habit of sitting together, for the purpose 
 of communicating more easily with one another: the for- 
 mer occupied the benches to the right, the latter those to 
 the left of the president's chair: while the centre benches, 
 or those fronting the president's chair, were filled by those 
 who held various intermediate shades and modifications 
 of opinion. This custom remains in force at the present 
 day, and nothins can exceed the nicety with which each 
 variety of political opinion is grouped in the French repre- 
 sentative assembly. The cote droit, or the side to the right 
 of the president's chair, is occupied by those members 
 who incline to favour the royal prerogative ; the cote 
 gauche, on the other hand, is set apart for those who are 
 more in favour of popular ascendency ; while those mem- 
 bers who, with considerable difference of opinion among 
 themselves, generally support the ministers, occupy the 
 " centres" (centre droit et centre gauche), which may thus 
 be termed the ministerial benches. But, it has been judi- 
 ciously remarked, " as in every great political party there 
 are shades of opinion, some being more warm and violent, 
 and others more moderate, discriminating, or cautious, so 
 both the cote droit and the cole gauche are generally sub- 
 divided into three sections each. The more zealous royal- 
 ists take their seats at the outer extremity of their side of 
 the house towards the president, and are styled the "ex- 
 treme droit ;" the ultra liberals sit on the corresponding 
 seats on the opposite or left side, and are styled the "ex- 
 treme gauche." For a more minute view of this arrange- 
 ment, and an account of the various changes which these 
 different divisions have undergone, see the Encyclopedie 
 des Gens du Monde, and the Penny Cyclop, art. " Cote 
 Droit." 
 
 DE'RBYSinRE SPAR, Fluor Spar. It is of various 
 colours ; and the large nodules, which are peculiar to 
 Derbyshire, are often beautifully veined, and admit of 
 being turned in the lathe into vases and small columns. A 
 fine variety of this spar occurs in Cumberland, in cubic 
 crystals of a pale sea-green colour. The cube is the most 
 common form of the crystals of fluor ; but it also occurs in 
 octohedra. some fine specimens of which have been found 
 associated with galena in the mine of Beer Alston upon 
 the Tamar. It consists of fluorine and calcium. 
 
 DERM. (Gx. hpfia, skin.) The true or organized layer 
 of the tegumentary covering of animals. It is composed 
 of a close and irregular network of whitish fibres, consist- 
 ing of condensed cellular tissue, whence it is also termed 
 " corium," and is everywhere traversed by capillary arte- 
 ries and veins, absorbents and nerves; and, in the mam- 
 malia, with the roots of the hairs and the ducts of the su- 
 dorific follicles : it is covered with the " rete mucosum" 
 and " epiderm." The derm is of considerable thickness 
 in the rhinoceros, hippopotamus, elephant, &c. ; whence 
 the name " Pachyderma," applied to the order containing 
 these allied quadrupeds. 
 
 DERMA'PTERANS, Dermaptera. (Gr. depua, and 
 iTTCpoi/, a icing; skin-winged.) An order of insects dis- 
 membered from the Orthoptera of Latreille, and including 
 those which have the elytra wholly coriaceous, and always 
 horizontal ; the two membranous wings are folded longi- 
 tudinally, and the tail is armed with a forceps. This order 
 is represented by a single Linnsean genus, — viz. Forficula, 
 or earwig ; insects which are common in damp places, and 
 often found in numbers under stones, and beneath the 
 bark of trees : they do much damage in gardens by prey- 
 ing upon the fruit. The English common name, and also 
 the French, "pierce-oreille," relate to a habit absurdly 
 attributed to these insects of penetrating the ears. 
 
 DE'RMATOBRA'NCHUS. (Gr. Sepfta, and fipayxia, 
 gills.) A genus of Gastropods, or snails, in which the bran- 
 chiae consists, as in Scyllcea, of ramified productions of 
 skin. 

 
 DERMATOLOGY. 
 
 DERMATO'LOGY. (Gr. Seppa, and \oyos, a discourse.) 
 A treatise or history of the skin and its diseases. 
 
 DERMES'TES. (Gr. ispiia, and eaQiu, I eat; skinde- 
 vourers.) The name of a Linnoean genus of Clavicorn Co- 
 leopterous insects, noted for their ravages on dead animal 
 substances, especially the preserved skins of animals, and 
 which are consequently the pests of a museum. The old 
 genus Dermestes is subdivided in modern entomology into 
 several subgenera. The " bacon-beetle," (Dermestes lar- 
 darius) is the type of that to which the term Dermestes is 
 now confined. 
 
 DE'RMOBRA'NCHIATES, Dermobranchiata. (Gr. Sep- 
 ua, and ffpayxia, gills on tlie skin.) The name of a family 
 of Gastropods, comprehending those which respire by 
 means of external branchias or gills, having the form of 
 membraneous plates, filaments, or tufts. 
 
 DE'RMOSKE'LETON. (Gr. Scppa, and OKt\tr6v, the 
 dried remains of a body, or tlie skeleton ; skinrskeleton.) A 
 term applied to'the coriaceous, crustaceous, testaceous, or 
 osseous integument, such as covers most invertebrate and 
 some vertebrate animals ; it serves more or less complete- 
 ly the offices of protecting the soft parts of the body, and 
 as a fixed point of attachment to the moving powers. 
 
 DE'RRICK, in Nautical language, used in a variety of 
 meanings, but chiefly for a tackle used at the outer quar- 
 ters of a mizen-yard, consisting of a double and single 
 block connected by a fall. 
 
 DE'RVISE. (From a Persian word signifying poor.) 
 The name of certain classes of religious persons among 
 the Mohammedans of Turkey and Asia. They live partly in 
 monasteries, partly alone, either stationary or wandering ; 
 and belong to a great variety of orders, of which there are 
 thirty-two (it is said) within the Turkish empire only. It is 
 impossible to determine the period to which the origin of 
 the dervises is to be referred. As in most other countries, 
 there has existed in Persia from time immemorial a class 
 of enthusiasts, who, impressed with the conviction that po- 
 verty is the only passport to virtue, and that the privations 
 of this world will be commensuralely compensated in the 
 world to come, have voluntarily renounced all the com- 
 forts, luxuries, and charities of this life, and devoted them- 
 selves entirely to religious exercises. In most instances, 
 however, such enthusiasts have been more famed for the 
 theory than the practice of sanctity ; and the dervises do 
 not appear to form an exception to the rule. Their public 
 religious exercises are disfigured by the grossest fanati- 
 cism and buffoonery ; and their private life is said to be 
 marked bv great hypocrisy and licentiousness. (D'Herbe- 
 lot, Hibi. Off.) 
 
 DESCANT. (It. descanto.) In Music, composition in 
 several parts. It is either plain, which consists in the or- 
 derly placingof many concords answering to simple coun- 
 terpoint ; jQurate or florid, wherein discords are em- 
 ployed ; or double, where the parts are so contrived that 
 the treble or any high part may be made the bass, and the 
 contrary. 
 
 DESCE'NT. In Law, if a person die seised in fee-simple, 
 otherwise than as a joint tenant (see post), of lands or tene- 
 ments which he has not disposed of by will, they will de- 
 scend to his heir. Such seisin is either actual possession 
 or virtual ; as, possession by the tenant of a chattel interest, 
 whose possession is always held to be the same with that 
 of the remainderman, or reversioner, who is to succeed 
 him. If a person have become possessed by purchase of 
 lands or tenements in fee-simple, of which, from the nature 
 of the estate, he cannot obtain seisin (as a remainder ex- 
 pectant on a particular estate of freehold), these likewise 
 descend to the heir in case of his intestacy. It is well 
 known that by the common law of England the rules of 
 descent were different from those obtaining in other coun- 
 tries ; that a direct lineal ancestor could in no case inherit 
 from his descendant ; that brothers and sisters of the half 
 blood, i. e. sprung from another mother, or from another 
 father, were also excluded from the succession. These 
 rules have now (by 3 <fe 4 W. 4. c. 106.) been wholly re- 
 moved or modified ; so that the law of descent recognizes 
 in succession the following heirs : — 1. The eldest or only 
 son, or his issue. 2. The younger son, or his issue. 3. 
 The daughter, or, if more than one, all the daughters as 
 coparceners (see post) and their issue ; such issue claiming 
 per stirpes, not per capita, i. e. claiming only the share of 
 their respective mothers. 4. In default of lineal descend- 
 ants, the nearest lineal ancestor now succeeds, in prefer- 
 ence to any person who would have been entitled to in- 
 herit either by tracing his descent through such lineal an- 
 cestor, or in consequence of there being no descendant of 
 such lineal ancestor ; e.g. a father inherits before a brother, 
 a grandfather before an uncle, &c. 5. In default of father, 
 brothers, or sisters of the whole blood and their issue, 
 then the inheritance devolves on the eldest brother or sis- 
 ter of the half blood by a different mother, the half blood 
 following the same rule where the inheritance devolves 
 on the descendant of any other ancestor. 7. On failure of 
 male ancestors on the paternal side and their descendants. 
 331 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE GEOMETRY. 
 
 female paternal ancestors and their descendants. 8. On 
 failure of these, the mother, her ancestors, — first male, 
 then female, — and their respective descendants. 9. The 
 half blood follow always next after any relation in the same 
 degree of the whole blood and his issue, if the common 
 ancestor be a male ; next after the common ancestor, if a 
 female : so that the brother by the half blood on the part 
 of the mother inherits next after the mother. Descent is 
 always traced from the first purchaser ; but the last owner 
 is presumed to be the first purchaser unless the contrary 
 can be proved. In some particular localities the custom 
 of gavelkind prevails, by which all the sons inherit equally 
 from the father. By the custom of borough English, the 
 youngest son is heir. Bastards cannot inherit, nor can an 
 alien ; but a natural born subject may derive his title 
 (under certain restrictions) through alien ancestors. 
 
 Descent, in Mechanics, is the motion of a body towards 
 the centre of the earth caused by the attraction of gravity. 
 The following are the laws of descent of bodies : — 
 
 1st. Heavy bodies, in an unresisting medium, fall with a 
 uniformly accelerated velocity. 
 
 2d. When the action of gravity is uniform, the space 
 passed over in a given time is exactly half that which 
 would be passed over in the same time by the velocity ac- 
 quired at the end of the time if continued uniformly. 
 
 3d. The spaces passed over in different times are pro- 
 portioned to the squares of the velocities, or the squares 
 of the times. 
 
 4th. The time of the oblique descent of a body down any 
 chord of a circle, drawn from the uppermost or lowermost 
 point of the circle, is equal to the time of descent through 
 the diameter of the circle. 
 
 5th. The times of descent through all arcs of the same 
 cycloid are equal. 
 
 6th. It is found by experiment that a heavy body near 
 the surface of the earth, when allowed to descend by its 
 own gravity, falls through lti\ feet in the first second of 
 time ; consequently, by the 2d law, it acquires a velocity 
 in that time which would carry it through 32 feet in a 
 second, if gravity ceased to act. See Attraction, Ac- 
 celeration 
 
 DESCRIPTION (Lat. descriptio), in Rhetoric, is used 
 to designate such a strong and lively representation of any 
 object as places it before the reader in a clear and satis- 
 factory light. The execution of this task, as is universally 
 admitted, is attended with great difficulty, and requires no 
 ordinary powers. Indeed, such is the importance which 
 some critics of eminence attach to the possession of this 
 quality, that they have erected it into a standard whereby 
 to estimate the productions of genius in every department 
 of literature ; and though such a test may seem somewhat 
 arbitrary, yet when we consider the powers indispensably 
 requisite to form a good description, we shall not be sur- 
 prised to find that amid the galaxy of brilliant productions 
 in other departments with which our literature is adorned, 
 there are so few authors who have attained eminence in 
 this. A good description, according to Dr. Blair, is simple 
 and concise ; it sets before us such features of an object 
 as on the first view strike and warm the fancy ; it gives us 
 ideas which a statuary or a painter could lay hold of and 
 work after them — one of the strongest and most decisive 
 trials of the real merits of description. Hence among the 
 qualities essentially necessary, and without which, indeed, 
 even mediocrity is unattainable in this walk of literature, 
 are an eye conversant with nature in all her aspects, a 
 strong imagination wherewith to catch her grand and pro- 
 minent features, and great simplicity and clearness of 
 style to transmit the impression unimpaired to the ima- 
 gination of others. 
 
 There is no species of composition, prose or poetical, 
 into which description does not enter in some shape; but 
 the term has been borrowed from literature generally, and 
 applied more particularly to those poetical productions 
 which are devoted exclusively to the description of nature, 
 such as Milton's Allegro and Thomson's Seasons. Hence, 
 although Shakspeare may with great justice be styled a 
 descriptive poet, from the exquisite descriptions of nature 
 with which his unrivalled plays are interspersed ; yet as 
 his chief excellence lies in pourtraying the character and 
 passions of man, he does not fall, properly speaking, within 
 this category. By no writer, either of antiquity or modern 
 times, was the faculty of description possessed in a more 
 eminent degree than by Sir Walter Scott. AH his de- 
 lineations of natural scenery are executed with an un- 
 rivalled fervour of imagination ; while at the same time 
 they are marked by such traits of character and truth that 
 every object is brought distinctly before the mind, and 
 might without difficulty be transferred to canvass by the 
 artist's pencil. Under the head "Descriptive Poetry," in 
 Blair's Lectures on the Belles Lettres, the reader will find 
 an admirable account of the characteristics of this species 
 of composition, with a critical notice of the most celebrated 
 descriptive poets of all ages and countries. 
 
 DESCRIPTIVE GEO'METRY. A term first employed
 
 DESERT. 
 
 by Monge, and subsequently by other French geometers, 
 to express that part of science which consists in the appli- 
 cation of geometrical rules to the representation of the 
 figures, and the various relations of the forms of bodies, 
 according to certain conventional methods. It differs from 
 ordinary perspective, inasmuch as the design or represen- 
 tation is made in such a manner that the exact distance be- 
 tween the different points of the body represenied can 
 always be found, and consequently all the mathematical 
 relations resulting from the form and position of the body 
 may be deduced from the representation. 
 
 In the descriptive geometry, the situation of points in 
 space is represented by their orthographical projections on 
 two planes, at right angles to each other, called the plants of 
 projection. It is usual to suppose one of the planes of pro- 
 jection to be horizontal, in which case the other is vertical; 
 and the projections are called horizontal or vertical, ac- 
 cording as they are on the one or the other of these planes. 
 
 According to this system, any point whatever in space is 
 represented by drawing a perpendicular from it to each of 
 the planes of projection : the point on which the perpen- 
 dicular falls is the projection of the proposed point. As 
 contiguous points in space form a line, so the projections 
 of those points, which are also contiguous, form a line in 
 the same manner, which is the projection of the given line. 
 
 Hence as two projections only are required for the deter- 
 mination of a point in space, they are also sufficient for 
 the determination of any curve whatever, whether of single 
 or double curvature. 
 
 The same mode of representation cannot be employed 
 with regard to surfaces ; for as the projections of the con- 
 tiguous points of a surface cover a continuous area on both 
 planes of projection, there is nothing to indicate that any 
 particular point on one of the planes of projection corres- 
 ponds to one point more than another on the second plane, 
 and consequently that it belongs to one point more than 
 another in space. But if we conceive the surface which 
 is to be represented to be covered with a system of lines 
 succeeding one another according to a determinate law, 
 then, by projecting these lines on each of the two planes, 
 and marking the correspondence of the one projection with 
 the other, the projections of all the different points of the 
 surface will have an evident dependence on each other, and 
 the surface will be rigorously and completely determined. 
 
 Some elementary surfaces may. however, be represent- 
 ed in a much more simple way. The plane, for example, 
 is completely defined by the straight lines in which it in- 
 tersects the two planes of projection. These lines are 
 denominated the traces of the plane. A sphere is also 
 completely defined by the two projections of its centre, and 
 the great circle which limits the projections of its points. 
 A cylinder is defined by its intersection (or trace) with one 
 of the planes of projection, and by the two projections of 
 one of its ends. A cone is represented by its intersection 
 with one of the planes of projection and the two projec- 
 tions of its summit. 
 
 The most immediate application of descriptive geometry 
 is the representation of bodies, of which the forms are 
 susceptible of rigorous geometrical definition. Sculpture, 
 architecture, painting, and all the mechanical arts, the ob- 
 ject of which is to give to matter certain determinate 
 forms, borrow from descriptive geometry their graphical 
 procedures, by the aid of which all the parts of an object 
 are faithfully represented in relief before the object itself 
 is executed. But it was chiefly in consequence of its ap- 
 plication to civil and military engineering, and to fortifica- 
 tion, that this branch of geometry received a distinctive 
 appellation, and was considered of so much Importance as 
 to form one of the principal departments of study in the 
 Polytechnic school of France. The best systematic works 
 written on the subject are those of Monge, Hachette, Val- 
 ine, and Leroi. A good general idea of the methods of 
 procedure may be obtained from the small work of Lacroix, 
 Complement des Elemens de Geometrie. 
 
 DE'SERT. (Lat. desertum.) A term generally used to 
 designate an uninhabited place or solitude ; in which sense, 
 as has been judiciously remarked, it is equally applicable 
 to the fertile plains watered by the Maranon, and the sandy 
 wastes of Lybia, but applied more particularly to the vast 
 sandy and stony plains of Africa and Asia. In every re- 
 gion of the globe plains are to be found of greater or less 
 extent, which, though marked by strong features of resem- 
 blance in their grand outlines, exhibit with the different 
 latitudes in which they are placed a corresponding variety 
 of character, and according to the distinguishing pecu- 
 liarities of each are known by different appellations. Thus 
 we have the steppes of Europe, the deserts of Asia and 
 Africa, the savannalts of the Mississippi and the Missouri, 
 and the pampas and llanos of South America. (See these 
 different articles.) 
 
 The most striking feature of Africa consists of its im- 
 mense deserts, which have in all ages presented to the spe- 
 culations of the geographer objects highly worthy of atten- 
 tion. Of these the chief is the Sahara, or the Desert, so 
 332 
 
 DESIGN. 
 
 called by way of eminence. This prodigious zone of sand 
 stretches, with few interruptions, from the shores of the At- 
 lantic to the confines of Egypt, and comprehends in its 
 length and breadth a superficies of about 2,200.000 square 
 miles. The sand raised by the burning wind called the 
 simoom is frequently in a state of motion, and as it sweeps 
 along in its career of desolation bears a strong resemblance 
 to the waves of a tempestuous sea. This immense ex- 
 panse, however, is by no means a uniform surface of loose 
 sand. In many parts the dreary waste is broken by low 
 hills of naked sandstone, or by tracts of arid clay, and oc- 
 casionally it is enlivened by verdant isles or oases, which 
 serve as resting-places for the caravans that traverse these 
 dismal regions. (.Traill's Physical Geog.) But for these 
 oases, indeed, the Sahara would be wholly impassable. It 
 presents, says Malte Brun, no traces of a beaten path, 
 and the caravans that traverse it, directing their way by the 
 polar star, describe a tortuous road in order to profit by the 
 oases, which are represented as brilliant with vegetation, but 
 which probably owe a great part of their reputation to the con- 
 trast they form with the absolute barrenness of the desert. 
 
 As we have elsewhere remarked (see Camel and Cara- 
 van), the camel is the sole medium of the communication 
 between those countries which are separated by extensive 
 deserts. In the beautiful and expressive metaphor of east- 
 em speech, it is "the ship of the desert ;" and in truth it 
 is the only ship by which the wilderness can be navigated 
 with certainty and safety. 
 
 The great deserts of Africa are only separated from those 
 of Asia by the valley of the river Nile, and the Red Sea. 
 But upon this subject we cannot refrain from transferring 
 to our columns the remarks of Dr. Traill, who has sketch- 
 ed with a masterly hand the grand outlines of the Asiatic 
 deserts. " Soon after quilting the Nile, the traveller by the 
 route of Suez encounters sand, which is continued into the 
 centre of Arabia, where it forms the desert of Nedsjed, 
 extending to the valley of the Euphrates. The sandy zone 
 then inclines northward, enters Persia, and forms the saline 
 deserts of Adjemi, Herman, and Mekran ; it is turned 
 north-east by the valley of the Indus, passes through Cau- 
 bul and Little Bukharia, till it joins the vast deserts of Cobi 
 and Shamoo, which occupy so large a portion of Central 
 Asia between the Altaian and Mustag chains, and reach to 
 the confines of China. The sandy zone, thus traced 
 throughout the breadth of the ancient continent from West- 
 ern Africa to the 120° of east longitude, has been comput- 
 ed to cover an area of 6,500,000 square miles ; but the Asi- 
 atic portion of this tract includes many chains of moun- 
 tains and fertile valleys. It is characterized by the occur- 
 rence of arid wastes of sand orclay, sometimes with saline 
 incrustations on the surface, and is remarkably deficient in 
 considerable rivers: except the Nile, the Euphrates, the In- 
 dus, and the Oxus, there are no large rivers in a region which 
 embraces almost a fourth part of both Africa and Asia. This 
 portion of Central Asia forms a series of elevated plains, 
 6000 miles in length from east to west. Some of these plains, 
 says Humboldt, are covered with herbage ; others produce 
 only evergreen saliferous plants, with fleshy and jointed 
 stems ; but a great number glitter from afar with a saline 
 efflorescence that crystallizes in the semblance of lichens, 
 and covers the clayey soil with scattered patches like new- 
 fallen snow." (.Physical Geog. pp. 21, 22.) Under the head 
 Mirage will be found some account of the so-called singu- 
 lar optical illusion so often seen in the desert. 
 
 In Scripture, the term desert bears a wholly different in- 
 terpretation from that usually attached to it in profane 
 writings. It has been fully shown by Reland (Palest. 1. i. 
 p. 37"i.)that the Hebrew "OlD. (midbar), the zpripos of the 
 Greeks, and the deserlum or solitudo of the Latins, bear no 
 analogy to each other ; the first being appropriated almost 
 exclusively to those thinly peopled districts of the Holy 
 Land which yielded pasturage for cattle, and were remark- 
 able at once for their beauty and the luxuriance of their 
 vegetation. 
 
 DESE'RTER. (Lat.) An officer, soldier, or sailor, who 
 absents himself from his post without permission, and with 
 the intention not to return. The crime of desertion has 
 in all ages and countries been regarded with peculiar detes- 
 tation. In Greece and Rome, the deserter, during war, suf- 
 fered death; during peace, was deprived only of civil 
 rights : a sound and enlightened distinction. The military 
 code of Great Britain inflicts " death or such other punish- 
 ments as may be adjudged by a general court-martial" on 
 deserters ; thus leaving a proper discretionary power for 
 the exercise of lenity in cases where the motives to the 
 crime may bear the most favourable construction. 
 
 DESICCA'TIVES. (Lat. de, and secus, dry.) In Mate- 
 ria Medica, applications which dry up the secretion of 
 membranes, ulcers. &c. 
 
 DESIDERA'TUM (Lat. wished for), is used to signify 
 something wanted to improve or perfect any art or sci- 
 ence, or to promote the advancement of any object or 
 study whatsoever. 
 
 DESI'GN. (Fr. dessin.) In all the Arts, the idea formed
 
 DESIGNATOR. 
 
 . ft the mind of an artist on any particular subject, which 
 he endeavours to transfer to some medium for the pur- 
 pose of making it known to others. It issometimes loosely 
 and improperly used synonymously with drawing. 
 
 Every work of design is to be considered either in rela- 
 tion to the art that produced it, to the nature of its adap- 
 tation to the end sought, or to the nature of the end it 
 is destined to serve ; thus its beauty is dependent on the 
 wisdom or excellence displayed in the design, on the fit- 
 ness or propriety of the adaptation, and upon the utility of 
 the end. The considerations of design, fitness, and utility, 
 have become the three great sources of beauty of form. 
 This beauty frequently arises from the combined power 
 of these expressions. 
 
 Every work of art supposes unity of design, or some par- 
 ticular end proposed by the artist in its structure or com- 
 position. In forms considered simply as expressive of 
 design, the only possible sign of unity of design is uni- 
 formity or regularity, by which the productions of chance 
 are distinguished from those of design ; and without the 
 appearance of this, variety becomes confusion. In every 
 beautiful work of art, we are not satisfied with mere de- 
 sign, — we must have elegant design, of which the grand 
 feature is variety ; it is this which in general distinguishes 
 beautiful from plain forms, and without it uniformity is 
 dull and insipid. 
 
 The arts of design are usually considered those of 
 Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture ; to which, under 
 their several heads, the reader is referred for further in- 
 formation. 
 
 DESl'GNA'TOR. (Lat.) In Roman Antiquities, a spe- 
 cies of master of the ceremonies, whose duty it was to 
 assign to each person his proper place in the theatres and 
 at the other public spectacles. Officers with this appella- 
 tion were employed among the Romans on every occasion 
 of public display, and in all domestic solemnities, whether 
 of a joyful or mournful character. But the chief occupa- 
 tion of the designator consisted in arranging and marshalling 
 the funerals of distinguished persons ; and in this capa- 
 city he was attended by a troop of inferior officers, all ar- 
 rayed in black, whose part it was, among other duties, to 
 keep off the crowd, like the lictors of the magistrates. In 
 this brief and elegant description of the insalubrity of 
 Rome during the autumnal season (Epis. i. 7.), Horace 
 thus graphically introduces the designator and his at- 
 tendants : — 
 
 dum ficus prima calorque 
 
 Designatorem decorat licloribua atris. 
 
 DE'SPOT. (Gr. Scandrrti, master.) A name applied to 
 sovereign princes possessing absolute authority. The well- 
 known address of the slave to Hippolytus, in Euripides — 
 " O king, for it is fitting to call only the gods despots" (.mas- 
 ters) — shows the distinction which the republican spirit of 
 the Greeks took between the two titles. The later Greet' 
 emperors took the title of despot: which was afterwards, 
 about the eleventh century, given to the son or nearest re- 
 lation of the reigning prince. 
 
 DE'SPOTISM. In Politics, absolute and irresponsible 
 government by a single individual or despot. In popular 
 language, all governments are called despotical that are 
 administered by one individual whose decisions are not 
 controlled by any representative assembly or recognized 
 subordinate authorities, Thus, we are in the habit of say- 
 ing that the emperors "f Austria and Russia and the king 
 of Prussia are despotical or absolute sovereigns ; meaning 
 by this, that all legislative and executive measures seem to 
 proceed from their free will. But the abstract idea of des- 
 potism goes farther than this ; and means a government 
 by a single individual with unlimited power over the lives 
 and fortunes of his subjects. The prophet Daniel, in his 
 description of the Babylonian monarch Nebuchadnezzar, 
 has given what is perhaps the best account of this species 
 of government. " All people, nations, and languages, 
 trembled and feared before him : whom he would he slew, 
 and whom he would he kept alive : whom he would he set 
 up, and whom he would he put down." (Chap. v. 19.) 
 
 But though this gives a vivid idea of what is understood 
 by a pure despotism, it can be regarded only as a popular, 
 or rather poetical account, of a government where the 
 sovereign is possessed of great power. The truth is, that 
 a purely despotical government never had, and never can 
 have, any existence in fact How absolute or despotical 
 soever, all sovereigns must conduct their government so 
 as to procure the concurrence and support of a large, or, 
 at all events, a powerful portion of their subjects. A des- 
 pot is, after all, merely an individual, and becomes quite 
 powerless when those masses of individuals, in whom the 
 ability to coerce others really resides, disapprove of his pro- 
 ceedings. The praetorian bands in antiquity, the janissa- 
 ries of Constantinople, and the grenadiers of Petersburg, 
 must, at least, be led by opinion. But though the sanction 
 of the instruments employed in his government be indis- 
 
 Eensable to the existence of a despot, it is but seldom that 
 e dares trust to it only. The most absolute and tyranni- 
 333 
 
 DETACHED. 
 
 cal of the Roman emperors, when they wished to get rid 
 of any obnoxious individual, dared not to order him to be 
 executed, but were obliged to suborn false evidence, and 
 to proceed against him according to legal forms : and so it 
 is in all countries. Were the most absolute sovereign of 
 whom we have any certain accounts openly to seize on the 
 property of any individual in his dominions, or to put him 
 to death, without being able to assign some apparently satis- 
 factory grounds for doing so, the foundations of his power 
 would be shaken to the very centre ; and the repetition of 
 such conduct would most likely occasion his deposition. 
 The strength of absolute governments, when they embark 
 in oppressive courses, depends on their being able to con- 
 ceal or pervert the real facts of the case, so that the vic- 
 tims of their tyranny may be made to appear to be the 
 victims of their justice. We may be assured that no ruler 
 of any country emerged from the merest barbarism ever 
 could, for any considerable period, openly commit on his 
 own responsibility any gross injustice towards any consid- 
 erable portion of his subjects. Those who have done so 
 have rarely, if ever, failed to expiate their folly and tyranny 
 by some signal punishment. 
 
 Neither the government of Prussia nor Austria, nor even 
 that of Russia, can be justly called despotical. Their rulers 
 are controlled to a very great extent by the force of public 
 opinion ; and are influenced by a much more lively feel- 
 ing of responsibility than the sovereigns of limited mo- 
 narchies, or of countries in which the legislative functions 
 are divided. It is this fear of their subjects that makes 
 them so anxious, by laying restrictions on the freedom of 
 the press, to conceal their conduct, or to obtain a favourable 
 judgment upon it. There can be no despotism, nor any 
 considerable approach towards despotical government, 
 where the press is free and the people instructed ; and it 
 is to their influence in securing the freedom of the press, 
 and consequently- in enlightening public opinion, and mak- 
 ing the bulk of the people acquainted with their real inter- 
 ests, that the advantage of representative assemblies and 
 of a popular form of government is mainly to be found. 
 
 DESQUAMATION. (Lat. squama, srale.) The sepa- 
 ration of lavers or scales from the skin or bones. 
 
 DESSE'RT. A word, of doubtful etymology, signifying 
 the last service at dinner, consisting of fruits and confec- 
 tions, &c. The modern desert is probably equivalent to 
 the mensm secundcz of the Romans. If we believe Con- 
 greve, the term came into use among the French about the 
 commencement of the W«h century, and was soon adopted 
 into and naturalized in most of the European languages. 
 In all the counties of Europe the splendour of the des- 
 sert has ev™ since the period of its introduction kept pace 
 with ti* progress of refinement and civilization, and by 
 m»<iy gastronomes the qualities and arrangement of a des- 
 sert are looked upon as the most valid test of all that is 
 Attic in taste and refined in elegance. 
 
 DESTE'MPER. (Fr. detrempe.) In Painting, a pre- 
 paration of opaque colour ground up with size and water, 
 used in scene painting. This species of painting is also 
 called, when practised on a small scale, body colour paint- 
 ing. Destemper painting differs from fresco painting in 
 that the latter is performed while the walls are still wet, 
 whilst the former requires that they should be dry. 
 
 DE'STINY. (Lat. destinare, to appoint.) An inevitable 
 necessity depending upon a superior cause. This doctrine 
 has, under a variety of names, been embodied in almost 
 all the religious systems of antiquity ; and even in modern 
 times, with a few modifications, it has been largely adopted 
 by many sects of the Christian church. (.See Predesti- 
 nation, Necessity.) Destiny was called by the Romans 
 Fatum (see Fates), and by the Greeks Avayvri, Necessity, 
 or Moipa, a Part, as if it were a chain or necessary series 
 of things indissolubly linked together. According to many 
 of the heathen philosophers, destiny was a secret and in- 
 visible power or virtue, which with incomprehensible wis- 
 dom regulated all the occurrences of this world which to 
 human eyes appear irregular and fortuitous. The Stoics, 
 on the other hand, understood by destiny a certain conca- 
 tenation of things, which from all eternity follow each 
 other of absolute necessity, there being no power able to 
 interrupt their connection. (Rees's Cyclo.) To this in- 
 visible power even the gods were compelled to succumb. 
 Jupiter and Venus are represented by the poets as vainly 
 attempting to withdraw Caesar from his impending fate ; 
 but, as Seneca observes, it is thus that the Ruler of all 
 things, in writing the book of destiny, has prescribed the 
 limitation of his own power : " Scripsit fata ; sed sequitur, 
 semper paret." 
 
 DESTRUCTIVE DISTILLATION. A term applied 
 to the distillation of organic products at high temperatures, 
 by which the ultimate elements are separated or evolved 
 in new combinations. The destructive distillation of coal 
 is resorted to for the production of gas, and that of bone 
 for the production of ammonia, and of wood for the for- 
 mation of vinegar. 
 DETA'CHED. (Fr. detache") In Painting, a term ap- 
 29
 
 DETACHMENT. 
 
 plied to all objects in a picture which appear to stand out 
 from those by which they are surrounded. It arises from 
 a due knowledse of aerial and linear perspective. 
 
 DETA'CHMENT (Fr. detachement), in Military lan- 
 guage, is a certain number of squadrons of cavalry and bat- 
 talions of infantry, selected from the main body of an army 
 for the purpose of being employed in some particular duty, 
 such as in foraging, escorting, &c. 
 
 DETA'ILS. (Fr. detail.) In the Fine Arts, the parts 
 of a work as distinguished from the whole as a mass. They 
 must always be so kept under as not to interfere with the 
 general effect of the work ; neither must they be overla- 
 boured, lest, instead of aiding, they embarrass the work of 
 which they form parts. 
 
 DETE'NTS, in Clock-work, arc the stops which lock 
 and unlock the machinery in striking. 
 
 DETE'RGENTS. (Lai. detergo, / wipe away.) Medi- 
 cines which remove viscidity, and cleanse sores. 
 
 DETERMINATE PRO'BJLEM. In Geometry, is a 
 problem which admits of one solution only, or a limited 
 number of solutions ; and is opposed to an indeterminate 
 problem, which admitsofan indefinite numberof solutions. 
 DETERMINATION OF BLOOD. In Medicine and 
 Surgery, when there is apparently a more copious and 
 rapid flow of blood to any part, it is said to suffer under a 
 determination of blood ; as to the brain, liver, &c. 
 
 DE'TINUE, in Law, is a personal action of contract, and 
 lies .where a party seeks to recover goods and chattels, or 
 deeds and writings, detained from him. 
 DETONATING TUBE. A stout glass tube used in 
 the chemical laboratory for the detonation of gase- 
 ous bodies. It is generally, as represented in the 
 annexed cut, graduated into centesimal parts, and 
 perforated by two opposed wires, for the purpose 
 of passing an electric spark through the gases 
 which are introduced into it, and which are con- 
 fined within it over water or mercury. When a de- 
 tonating tube is used over either of these fluids, the 
 smallest possible quantity of explosive gas should 
 be introduced into it, as in consequence of the ex- 
 pansion which ensues, a portion is apt to be forced 
 out at the moment of the explosion. The tube, 
 when used, should be firmly held : a spring is 
 sometimes substituted for the grasp of the hand, but it is 
 inconvenient. 
 
 DETONA'TING POWDER. A term applied in Chem- 
 istry to fulminating mercury and silver, and to other com- 
 pounds which suddenly explode when struck or heated. 
 Some of these compounds have lately beor, much used for 
 the ignition of gunpowder in percussion locks 
 
 DETONA'TION. When chemical combination or (j e . 
 composition is sudden and attended by flame and t* D i . 
 sion, it is often said to be effected by detonation. It a. 
 mixture of hydrogen gas and oxygen be inflamed by the 
 electric spark or by a taper, it burns rapidly and with ex- 
 plosion, and is said to detonate. When a grain or two of 
 phosphorus is mixed with chlorate of potassa and struck 
 with a hammer, the mixture detonates. 
 
 DETRl'TUS. A geological term applied to deposits 
 composed of various substances which have been com- 
 minuted by attrition. The larger fragments are usually 
 termed debris ; those which are pulverized, as it were, 
 constitute detritus. Sand is the detritus of siliceous rocks. 
 DEUCA'LION. One of the most famous personages 
 of antiquity, the son of Prometheus, and king of Thessaly. 
 The story of the deluge with which Thessaly was inundat- 
 ed during his reign, the preservation of Deucalion with his 
 wife Pyrrha, and the mode by which, in compliance with 
 the injunction of the oracle, they repeopled the world, are 
 too well known to require being dwelt upon in this place. 
 The grand features of the flood of Deucalion, which, as 
 recorded by Ovid and other writers of antiquity, bear so 
 striking a resemblance to the scriptural account of the de- 
 luge, are common to the history or the traditions of almost 
 all nations, how remote or barbarous soever. The great 
 Indian poem Mahabarada, for instance, contains a graphic 
 description of a flood, by which, with two exceptions, the 
 whole human race was overwhelmed j and M. Humboldt 
 found on the banks of the Orinooko a similar tradition, 
 which had prevailed among the barbarous natives from 
 time immemorial. In that beautiful ode dedicated to Au- 
 gustus (Book 1., 2.). in which richness of imagery and 
 elegance of language vie with the loftiest tone of morality, 
 Horace thus alludes to the flood of Deucalion : — 
 Terruit gentes. grave ne rediret 
 Sfficulum PyrrliE nova monstra qusstae, 
 Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos 
 Visere rnontee, &c. 
 The date assigned to Deucalion by Eusebius is 1541 B. C, 
 by the Parian marbles seven years earlier : but many of 
 the statements concerning him are so obscure, while oth- 
 ers are so manifestly mythological, as to leave considera- 
 ble doubts of his having ever existed. See Deluge. 
 DEUS EX MACHINA. A scholastic expression, bor- 
 334 
 
 DEW. 
 
 rowed from the stage. In conformity with the mytholo- 
 gical belief of the age, the tragic poets of Greece, and 
 especially Euripides, instead of bringing about their catas- 
 trophe by natural means, often resorted to a more conve- 
 nient expedient — the intervention of a divinity. But when 
 any such intervention, contrary to the maxim of Horace, 
 Nee deus intersit nisi dignus vindice noduB, 
 
 took place without an adequate cause, it was injurious to 
 scenic effect; and hence the expression devs ex machina 
 originated, the divinity in such a case being nothing more 
 than a machine. This expression has also been applied by 
 analogy to those philosophers who, unable to solve a diffi- 
 culty by ordinary means, have immediate recourse to the 
 aid of a supernatural power. 
 
 DEU'TERONOMY. The name given to the last book 
 of the Pentateuch. The term is composed of two Greek 
 words, Sevrcpos, second, and vofiog, law ; and is equivalent 
 to the Mischna of the Hebrews, who thus designated the 
 book of Deuteronomy, from its containing a recapitulation 
 of the laws and ordinances scattered over the other books 
 of Moses. See Pentateuch. 
 
 DEUTEROPA'THIA. (Gr. fovrcpov, second, and ira0oj, 
 disease.) A sympathetic affection of any part ; as a head- 
 ache from an overloaded stomach, or sickness from an in- 
 jury of the head. 
 
 DEU'TOXIDE. A term applied in Chemistry to cer- 
 tain compounds containing one atom or prime equivalent 
 of base in combination with two of oxygen ; in this sense 
 the word is synonymous with binoxide. It is sometimes 
 indiscriminately applied to the second degree of oxidize- 
 ment of which bases are susceptible. 
 
 DE'VIL. (Gr. StaftoXos, an accuser), lit. one " who ac- 
 cuseth us before God day and night." (Rev. xii. 10.) The 
 word bears the same sense as Satan, and is applied in the 
 New Testament to the evil principle, the adversary of man 
 referred to throughout the books of the Old and New Tes- 
 tament under various names and titles, as Satan, Lucifer, 
 Belial, Apollyon, Abaddon, the Man of Sin, the Tempter; 
 and described as an angel who fell from heaven with many 
 inferior spirits, being cast down from thence by God for 
 his pride and rebellious spirit. From that lime he is said 
 to have had permission to try and tempt mankind, in 
 which he succeeded in the persons of our first parents, 
 thereby introducing sin and sorrow into the world. He is 
 represented in Job and Zechariah as standing in the pre- 
 sence of the Lord, seeking permission to tempt men. It 
 is manifest that the character herein attributed to the De- 
 vil is identical with (hat of the Evil Principle in the Gnostic 
 and Manichean philosophy, and in the oriental system of 
 religion generally ; excepting, indeed, that the scriptures 
 always maintain the inferiority of the evil to the good ; but 
 it may also be reasonably inferred that it was held by the 
 Jews anterior to their captivity in Babylon, and the contact 
 tiiVo which they then came with the Magian superstitions. 
 Although the serpent who tempted Eve in Paradise is not 
 expressly caid to be this Satan or Devil, nor is he at all 
 mentioned by name by Moses, yet the character of the 
 Evil Principle is there vividly delineated ; he is character- 
 istically mentioned in the Psalms, the Book of Job, and the 
 Chronicles. 
 
 DEVI'SE, or DEVICE. (Fr. deviser, to invent, will, or 
 imagine.) In Heraldry, the i= r m Devise is popularly used 
 in the same sense as armorial hearings (which see) ; but it 
 is more strictly employed to signify a symbol, consisting 
 of a representation of some visible object, and in many 
 instances a motto appropriate to it, used, not by way of 
 heraldic bearing, but according to the fancy of the inventor : 
 sometimes for the motto alone. Monograms are also a 
 species of device. From the word deviser, in its ancient 
 signification of to will, is derived the Norman French de- 
 vise, a bequest of real property by testament, which is 
 still retained in our law. 
 
 Devise, in Law, is a gift of lands by a last will and testa- 
 ment. Lands held in fee-simple became devisable, where 
 not so by special custom, by the statute 34 <fc 35 H. 8. c. 5. 
 By 3 <fc 4 W. & M. c. 14. devises were made void against 
 specialty creditors. Estates pur auter vie are devisable by 
 stat. 29 C. 2. c. 3. A will of lands formerly only operated 
 on those lands of which the testator was possessed at the 
 time of publishing it. (See Will.) In a devise, the words 
 are, in general, more liberally construed than in alienation 
 by deed. But by the recent Statute of Wills (1 Vic. c. 26.) 
 every will is held to speak, both as to real and personal 
 property, as if executed immediately before the death of 
 the testator. 
 
 DEW. (Germ, thau, moisture.) The deposition of 
 water from the atmosphere, occasioned by cold. The 
 phenomena of dew have been considered by all writers on 
 meteorology, from Aristotle downwards ; but they were 
 first successfully investigated by the late Dr. Wells, who 
 gave the true theory of the meteor in an admirable essay 
 on the subject, first published in 1814. 
 
 The circumstances which influence the production of
 
 DEW. 
 
 dew are the following :— Dew is never abundant except 
 during calm and serene nights. It is, however, frequently 
 observed in small quantities both on windy nights, if the 
 sky is clear, and on cloudy nights, if there is no wind ; but 
 it is never seen on nights both cloudy and windy at the 
 same time. If, in the course of the night, the weather, 
 from being calm and serene, should happen to become 
 windy and cloudy, not only will no more dew be formed, 
 but that which has been already formed will disappear, 
 or at least diminish considerably. In calm weather, if the 
 sky be partially covered with clouds, more dew will appear 
 than if it were entirely covered, but less than if it were 
 entirely clear. A slight motion of the air is rather fa- 
 vourable than otherwise to the formation of dew. On two 
 nights equally calm and serene, the quantities of dew de- 
 posited may be very unequal. If rain has fallen recently, 
 it will be formed in abundance ; on the contrary, very little 
 will be formed in nights otherwise favourable, if the wea- 
 ther has been dry for some time previously. In general, 
 whatever tends to increase the quantity of moisture in the 
 atmosphere will contribute to render the deposition of dew 
 more abundant. Dew is commonly more plentiful in 
 spring and autumn than in summer; the reason is, that 
 the differences of the temperatures of the day and night 
 are greater in the former seasons of the year than in the 
 latter. It is always most copious on those clear and calm 
 nights which are followed by misty or foggy mornings ; 
 the formation of the fog showing that the atmosphere had 
 previously contained much moisture. Dew has been ob- 
 served to be unusually plentiful on a clear morning suc- 
 ceeding a cloudy night. The notion that dew is only form- 
 ed in the morning and evening is incorrect; bodies are co- 
 vered with dew at all hours of the night, provided the sky 
 be serene. In this country dew probably begins to appear 
 opon grass, in places shaded from the sun during clear and 
 calm weather, soon after the heat of the atmosphere has 
 declined; that is, three or four hours after midday. Grass 
 is frequently felt to be moist, in dry weather, several hours 
 before sunset ; but, on the other hand, dew is scarcely 
 ever known to be present in such quantity upon grass as 
 to exhibit visible drops before the sun is very near the 
 horizon, or to be very copious till some time after sunset. 
 Other circumstances being equal, less dew is formed 
 during the first half of the night than during the second, 
 although the air at midnight has already lost a certain por- 
 tion of its moisture. 
 
 Polished metals are, of all bodies, those which attract 
 the least quantity of dew. This property of metals is suf- 
 ficiently remarkable to have led some respectable philo- 
 sophers to affirm that they are never wetted by dew. Dr. 
 Wells, however, observed it to form on gold, silver, copper, 
 tin, platina, iron, steel, zinc, and lead ; but when dew does 
 form on these metals, it commonly only sullies the lustre 
 of their surfaces ; and even when it is sufficiently abundant 
 to gather into drops, these are almost always small and 
 indistinct. Dew which has been formed upon a metal 
 will often disappear, while other substances in the neigh- 
 bourhood remain wet ; and a metal which has been pur- 
 posely wetted will often become dry, though similarly 
 exposed with bodies that are contracting dew. This in- 
 aptitude of the metals to attract dew is communicated to 
 bodies of a very different nature which touch or are near 
 them : for example, wool laid upon a metal will acquire 
 much less dew than an equal quantity laid upon grass in 
 the immediate vicinity ; and, conversely, bodies on which 
 the metals are laid have an influence on the quantity of 
 dew which the latter will attract. The metals do not all 
 resist the formation of dew with the same force. Dr. 
 Wells one night saw platina distinctly dewed, while gold, 
 silver, copper, and tin, though similarly situated, were en- 
 tirely dry ; and he several times saw these four metals free 
 from dew, while iron, steel, zinc, and lead were covered 
 with it. 
 
 Difference in the mechanical state of bodies, though the 
 other circumstances be similar, has an effect on the quan- 
 tity of dew which they attract. Thus, more dew is formed 
 upon fine shavings of wood, than upon a thick piece of the 
 same substance. It is chietly for a similar reason that fine 
 raw silk, fine unwrought cotton and flax, were found by 
 Dr. Wells to attract somewhat more dew than the wool 
 he employed, the fibres of which were thicker than those 
 of the other substances just mentioned. 
 
 The quantity of dew which is precipitated on bodies 
 does not depend solely on their nature and constitution, 
 but also on the situation in which they are placed with re- 
 gard to surrounding objects. As a general principle, it 
 may be affirmed that whatever tends to diminish the por- 
 tion of the sky which can be seen from the place which 
 the body occupies, diminishes the quantity of dew with 
 which the body will be covered. 
 
 Of the Cold connected with the Formation of Dew. — The 
 
 temperature of grass covered with dew is always lower 
 
 than that of the surrounding air. On calm and clear nights, 
 
 Dr. Wells verv frequently found the grass 7 8, or 9 de- 
 
 335 
 
 grees, and on one occasion 14 degrees, colder than the air 
 about 4 feet above the ground. He also observed that in 
 places sheltered from the afternoon sun, but still open to 
 a considerable portion of the sky, the difference between 
 the temperature of the grass and the air begins to be sen- 
 sible as soon as the heat of the atmosphere begins to di- 
 minish. In analogous circumstances, a similar coldness 
 continues on grass, in still and serene mornings, for some 
 time after the rising of the sun. In cloudy nights, particu- 
 larly if there was wind, the grass was never much colder 
 than the air; sometimes it was even warmer: but in calm 
 weather, very high clouds, though sufficiently extensive 
 and dense to conceal the sky, would yet frequently allow of 
 the grass being several degrees colder than the air. If the 
 night became cloudy, after being very clear, the tempera- 
 ture of the grass immediately became higher. The tem- 
 perature of metals sometimes falls from 2 to 4 degrees 
 below that of the surrounding air ; when this takes place, 
 other bodies, such as wool, swan-down, the leaves of plants, 
 &c, are considerably colder than the atmosphere. The 
 substances which are most easily covered with dew are 
 those which are cooled down the quickest when exposed 
 to a clear sky. Of all substances tried by Dr. Wells, swan- 
 down exhibited the greatest cold ; in general, the most 
 productive of cold are the filamentous and downy. Snow, 
 also, is one of those bodies which acquires a temperature 
 very considerably lower than the atmosphere. 
 
 Theory of Dew.— Dr. Wells's experiments show that the 
 most perfect analogy subsists between the faculty which 
 bodies possess of attracting moisture from the atmosphere, 
 and the other property which they have of acquiring, in 
 calm and clear nights, a temperature much below that of 
 the surrounding air. But is the cold which is observed on 
 bodies covered with dew the cause or the consequence of 
 the precipitation of the fluid 1 The latter opinion was 
 maintained by Dr. Wilson of Glasgow, in a paper on hoar- 
 frost inserted in the first volume of the Transactions of the 
 Royal Society of Edinburgh. But it has been clearly estab- 
 lished by Dr. Wells that the cold is the cause of the dew ; 
 for he found, 1st, that in certain circumstances bodies 
 would become colder than the air without being dewed, 
 whence it is obvious that the cold could not be the effect 
 of the dew ; and, 2d, that when dew was formed, its quan- 
 tity and the degree of cold that appeared with it, at differ- 
 ent times, were very far from being always in the same 
 proportion to each other. He also invariably found that 
 bodies became colder before dew began to appear on them. 
 The formation of dew is therefore a phenomenon pre- 
 cisely of the same kind as the precipitation of moisture 
 which takes place on the outside of a vase into which a 
 liquid colder than the air is poured. But this is a pheno- 
 menon of which the most complete and satisfactory ex- 
 planation has been given. It is well known that atmo- 
 spheric air, at every different degree of temperature, 
 can contain only adcteiminate quantity of water, and that 
 the quantity is greater as the temperature is higher. Con- 
 ceive then a stratum of air coming into contact with a solid 
 body colder than itself: the contact cools it down to a lower 
 temperature, and immediately a portion of its water is 
 precipitated. A second stratum of air succeeds the first, 
 is cooled down in its turn, and abandons that portion of its 
 moisture which its decreased temperature does not permit 
 it to retain. The phenomenon is repeated with great 
 rapidity, and in a short time the cooling body is covered 
 with small drops, or even a continuous sheet of moisture. 
 As soon as it was proved that bodies exposed to the clear 
 sky acquire a temperature lower than that of the atmo- 
 sphere, the origin of the moisture with which their sur- 
 faces become covered could not be mistaken. 
 
 In order to render this theory complete, it only remains 
 to explain the cause why bodies, when exposed to the sky 
 in clear and calm nights, become colder than the surround- 
 ing atmosphere. Since the laws of the radiation of heat 
 were established by the experiments of Sir John Leslie, 
 and Count Rumford, the rationale of this phenomenon has 
 been well understood. During calm and serene nights, the 
 upper parts ot the grass radiate their heat into the regions 
 of empty space, from which they receive back no heat in 
 return ; its lower parts, from the smallness of their con- 
 ducting power, transmit little of the earth's heat to the 
 upper parts, which at the same time receiving only a small 
 quantity from the atmosphere, and none from any other 
 lateral body, must remain colder than the air, and condense 
 into dew its watery vapour, if this be sufficiently abundant, 
 in respect of the decreased temperature of the grass. 
 
 This explanation is grounded on the hypothesis of M. 
 Prevost of Geneva respecting the constant radiation of 
 heat by bodies in contact with the atmosphere, even at the 
 time when they are exposed to the influence of bodies 
 warmer than themselves : but the hypothesis has not been 
 universally admitted ; and Sir J. Leslie, on the contrary, 
 ascribes the effect to the descent of cold air from the 
 upper regions of the atmosphere. " The application of the 
 eethrioscope," he remarks, " haa not only ascertained the
 
 DEWBERRY. 
 
 existence, but measured the intensity, of the cold pulses 
 which are at all times darted downwards from the succes- 
 sive strata of air, though often partially intercepted by 
 clouds, or more completely obstructed by low fogs. It may 
 be computed that in fine bright evenings those cold pulses, 
 rained from the sky, are sufficient alone to depress the 
 temperature of the ground, according to the seasons, some- 
 times eight degrees, but generally about three degrees of 
 Fahrenheit's scale. The blades of grass, thus chilled from 
 exposure, cool in their turn the damp air which touches 
 them, and cause it to drop its moisture." (Ency. Brit. art. 
 " Dew.") The theory of Dr. Wells has also been exam- 
 ined by Mr. Blackadder, in the Edinburgh Philos. Journal, 
 Nos. XXI., XXVII., and XXVIII. ; and more recently by 
 Van Roosbroek of Ley den in his Theorie de la Rosee, Rot- 
 terdam, 1836. 
 
 It may be added, that among all the phenomena con- 
 nected with the formation of dew, there is not one which 
 does not admit of a satisfactory explanation on the prin- 
 ciple established by Dr. Wells ; namely, that dew is never 
 deposited on the surface of bodies till they have been pre- 
 viously cooled down by their radiation towards space. 
 
 DEWBERRY. The fruit of the Rubus cazsius, so term- 
 ed from the resemblance of the bloom or waxy secretion 
 upon it to dew. 
 
 DEW POINT. The degree indicated by the thermo- 
 meter when dew begins to be deposited. It varies with 
 the degree of the humidity of the atmosphere. 
 
 DEXIA'RIiE. A family of Dipterous insects, which 
 subsist chiefly on the juices of flowers. The typical ge- 
 nus is Dexia, Mirgen ; the other genera included in the 
 family are Zcuxia, Dinera, Scotiptera, Rutila Gymnoslyla, 
 OtntUogaster, and Prosena. 
 
 DE'XTRINE, in Chemistry, means the soluble or gum- 
 my matter into which the interior substance of starch glo- 
 bules is convertible by diastase, or by certain acids. It is 
 remarkable for the extent to which it turns the plane of 
 polarization to the right hand, whence its name. The 
 term is also applied to starch which by exposure to heat 
 has been rendered soluble in cold water. 
 
 DEY. (Derived by some from the Turkish da'i, a ma- 
 ternal uncle.) A Turkish title of dignity, given to the gov- 
 ernors of Algiers (before the French conquest), Tunis, and 
 Tripoli. The dey is chosen for life from among the chief 
 authorities of the place, with the approbation of the Turk- 
 ish soldiery. At Tunis the equivalent title of bey is more 
 usually substituted for dey. This term is admitted by all 
 philologists to be of very great antiquity ; though it is im- 
 possible to assign any precise date to its introduction. The 
 reader will find in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclop. much 
 valuable information respecting this title, and the regencies 
 in which it is in use. 
 
 DIABE'TES. (Gr. Sia, through, and fiawouai, I pass.) 
 An immoderate flow of urine. There are two varieties 
 of this disorder: the one is merely a superabundant dis- 
 charge of ordinary urir.e, and is termed diabetes insipi- 
 dus; in the other the urine has a sweet taste, and contains 
 abundance of a peculiar saccharine matter : it is called 
 diabetes mellitus. This disease usually attacks persons 
 of a debilitated constitution towards the decline of life, and 
 generally without any obvious cause. Thirst and a vora- 
 cious appetite are its first symptoms ; the urine gradually 
 increases in quantity ; and then there is a sense of weight 
 and uneasiness in the loins, emaciation, oedematous legs, 
 and hectic fever. The quantity of urine which is voided 
 sometimes far exceeds that of liquid and solid food taken 
 together ; so that it has been supposed that the solids of the 
 body are, as it were, melted down, and flow off in the form 
 of water and sugar. In diabetes mellitus the quantity of 
 saccharine matter is generally such, especially where the 
 disorder has been of long standing, as materially to in- 
 crease the specific gravity of the urine ; and this accord- 
 ingly forms a useful criterion of the state of the disease, 
 for whatever tends to diminish the specific gravity of the 
 urine is at the same time diminishing its saccharine con- 
 tents : an hydrometer therefore is useful in determining 
 this point. The specific gravity of healthy urine does not 
 exceed 1020, and contains about 330 grains of soHd matter in 
 the pint ; that of diabetic urine sometimes attains a spe- 
 cific gravity of 1040 to 1050 ; in which case, as appears 
 from Dr. Henry's table (Medico- Chirurgical Transactions, 
 vol. ii.), it contains from 766 to 960 grains of solid matter 
 in the pint. The cause of this disease is unknown ; but it 
 has been shown that there are no traces of sugar in the 
 blood of persons who are voiding it abundantly by urine ; 
 so that the idea of its formation in the stomach, and subse- 
 quent separation in the kidneys, is untenable. Nor has 
 dissection thrown much light upon the subject, for in some 
 cases no morbid state of the viscera is observed ; in oth- 
 ers, however, the kidneys are flabby, pale, and enlarged, 
 or more vascular than they should be : the lacteals are 
 also sometimes thickened, and the mesenteric glands en- 
 larged. There are very few cases on record of the cure, 
 or even of the relief, of confirmed diabetes. Where it is 
 336 
 
 SIOEE DIAL. 
 
 symptomatic of hysteria, dyspepsia, or hypochondriasis, 
 the usual remedies for those affections are useful ; but 
 where it is idiopathic, and saccharine, nothing ha3 proved 
 decidedly serviceable. Strict abstinence from vegetable 
 food of every kind, and the free exhibition of opium, are 
 the only plans which have held out hopes of success ; but 
 there are very few cases upon record in which these seem 
 to have been permanently successful. 
 DIACAU'STIC CURVE (Gr. Sia, through, and koicj, 
 J burn), in the higher 
 Geometry, is the caustic 
 by refraction. It is gene- 
 rated as follows : — If 
 rays P m issuing from 
 a luminous point P be 
 refracted by the curve 
 A m B, so that the sine3 
 of incidence are to the 
 sines of refraction in a 
 given ratio, the curve C 
 D H, which touches all the refracted rays, is called the 
 diucaustic, or caustic by refraction. See Caustic. 
 
 DIA'CHYLUM, or DIACHYLON. (Gr. Sia, and %v\os, 
 juice.) A celebrated plaister of former days made of the 
 juices of several plants; the term is still retained, and 
 applied to common plaister, made by boiling hydrated 
 oxide of lead with olive oil. 
 
 DIACO'DIUM. (Gr. Sia, and x<>>Sia, a V°PPy) A Pre- 
 paration of the poppy. Syrup of white poppies was for- 
 merly called syrup of diacodium. 
 
 DIA'COPE. (Gr. Sia, and kottto}, I cut.) A genus of 
 spiny-finned fishes of the perch tribe, allied to Serranus ; 
 but distinguished by a notch at the lower part of the preo- 
 perculum, to which a projecting tubercle is adapted. 
 
 DIACOU'STICS. (Gr. Sia, and olkovw, I hear.) That 
 branch of physics which treats of the properties of sound 
 refracted in passing through media of different densities. 
 See Sound. 
 
 DIACRI'TIC MARKS. (Gr. Siaxptvu, I distinguish.) 
 In Palaeography, marks used to distinguish letters between 
 the forms of winch much similarity exists. Thus n and u 
 are distinguished in German running hand by the mark ^ 
 over the latter letter. 
 
 DIADE'LPHOUS. (Gr. Sia, and St\fv(, a womb.) A 
 term applied to stamens the filaments of which have coa- 
 lesced into two masses, as in Fumaria and many legumi- 
 nous plants. 
 
 DI'ADEM. (Gr. SidSnua, from Sew, Ibind.) Originally 
 a fillet wound round the temples, probably imported into 
 Greek costume from the East. It was the symbol of royalty 
 among various oriental nations. The diadem of Bacchus, 
 from the representation in ancient statues, &c, was a broad 
 band, which might be unfolded so as to form a veil. Con- 
 stantine the Great was the first Roman emperor who used 
 the diadem ; after his time, it was set with rows of pearls 
 or precious stones. 
 
 DItE'RESIS. (Gr. Siaipo), I divide.) In Grammar, the 
 resolution of a diphthong, or a contracted syllable, into two 
 syllables : as, in Latin, aurai foraurae, &c. ; and, in English, 
 the resolution of the last syllable of participles by a sound 
 of the final e: beloved, cursed, &c. See Metaplasm. 
 
 DIAGNO'SIS (Gr. Siayiyvwoicw, 1 distinguish.) The 
 art of distinguishing one disease from another. The cha- 
 racteristic symptoms of diseases, by which they are recog- 
 nized, are termed their diagnostic symptoms. 
 
 DIA'GONAL. (Gr. Sia, through, and yiovia, angle.) A 
 straight line drawn through a figure, joining two opposite 
 angles. The term is chiefly used in geometry, in speaking 
 of four-sided figures; but it is also properly applied with 
 reference to all polygons of which the number of sides is 
 not less than four. Euclid uses the term diameter in the 
 same sense ; but modern geometers use diameter only 
 when speaking of curve lines, and diagonal when speaking 
 of angular figures. 
 
 DI'AGRAM. (Gr. Siaypap.ua; from Sia, through, and 
 ypafoj,I zcrite.) The figure or scheme drawn for the il- 
 lustration of a mathematical proposition, or the demon- 
 stration of any of its properties. It is also used in other 
 branches of science, and in the fine arts, for the general 
 purposes of illustration. 
 
 DI'AGRAPH. (Gr. Sia, and ypaipo, Idescribe.) Aname 
 given by the French artists to a recently invented instru- 
 ment used in perspective. For a minute description of its 
 properties we beg to refer the reader to the Encyclopedic 
 des Gens du Moiulc, and to the paper of M. Gavard, the in- 
 ventor, recently published at Paris. 
 
 Dl'AL, or SUN-DIAL. (Lat. dies, day.) An instrument 
 for showing the hour of the day by means of the sun's 
 shadow. The invention and use of sundials are of the 
 highest antiquity. According to Herodotus, the Greeks 
 learned the use of them from the Chaldeans ; and the first 
 of which history makes mention is the hemisphere of Be- 
 rosus, who is supposed to have lived about 540 years before 
 Christ. The sun-dial and the clepsydra were the only in- 

 
 DIAL. 
 
 sftrumcnts known to the ancients for the measurement of 
 time. 
 
 In constructing a sun-dial, the object is to find, by means 
 of his shadow, the sun's distance at any time from the me- 
 ridian. When this distance is known, the hour is also 
 known, provided we suppose the sun's apparent motion to 
 be uniform, and that during the whole course of a day he 
 moves in a circle parallel to the equator. Neither of these 
 conditions is, in fact, accurately fulfilled, but the error 
 which this gives rise <o is of small amount ; and it is, more- 
 over, sufficiently obvious that the use of a dial is not to in- 
 dicate the hour with astronomical precision, but merely to 
 give such an approximation as is necessary for the pur- 
 poses of civil life. 
 
 Dials are usually constructed on an immoveable surface, 
 and admit of an infinite number of different constructions, 
 all depending on the nature of the surface and its position 
 with regard to the equator of the earth. The general prin- 
 ciples, however, are the same in all, and depend on the 
 simplest elements of geometry and astronomy. The first 
 part that claims attention is the style or gnomon, or axis of 
 the dial, which is usually a cylindrical rod, or the edge of 
 a thin plate of metal. The style must be directed perpen- 
 dicularly to the terrestrial equator; in which direction it 
 may be considered, on account of the smallness of the 
 earth's diameter in comparison of the distance of the sun, 
 as coinciding with the axis of the diurnal rotation ; conse- 
 quently the plane which passes through the style and its 
 shadow on the surrounding surfaces, and which always 
 passes through the centre of the sun. will be an hour 
 plane, and turn with the sun as the sun turns round the 
 style by the effect of the diurnal motion. All that remains 
 to be done, in addition, is to discover, and describe, for the 
 different hours of the day, the intersections of this variable 
 hour plane with the surface on which the dial is to be con- 
 structed. On these intersections the shadow of the style 
 will be projected every day at the same hour ; because at 
 the same hour the sun must have returned to the same 
 hour plane, although his distance from the equator may be 
 different. 
 
 From these considerations it is manifest that the whole 
 theory of dialling is comprehended in the solution of this 
 general problem: — ''Twelve planes all intersecting each 
 other in the same straight line, and making with each other 
 equal angles of 15°, being given in position ; to find the 
 intersections of those planes with any surface whatever, 
 also given in form and position." The surface which in- 
 tersects the hour planes may be of any kind whatever, but 
 for obvious reasons it is generally a plane; and when its 
 position witli respect to the common intersection of the 
 hour planes (which is the slyle of the dial) and to any one 
 of those planes is given, the traces or intersections, which 
 are in this case all straight lines, are the hour lines nn the 
 dial, and easily calculated by the ordinary rules of trigo- 
 nometry or geometry. 
 
 According to the position of the plane of the dial with 
 respect to the horizon of the place, the dial is horizontal, 
 vertical, or inclined. The simplest case of all is that in 
 which the plane of the dial is parallel to the axis of the 
 earth (or passes through the poles) and perpendicular to 
 the meridian of the place. In this case the style is also 
 parallel to the plane of the dial IXXXIIXI , n ,„ IV 
 
 and the hour lines are parallel 
 straight lines, whose distances 
 from the meridian, e» twelve hour 
 line, are respectively proportional 
 to the tangents of the angles which 
 the hour planes make with the 
 plane of the meridian. Let d be VI " ^xxtxn i n in iv 
 the shortest distance ot the style from the plane of the 
 dial ; then the distance of the hour line of xi and i from 
 the hour line of xn is equal to d X tan. 15°. The distance 
 of the hour line of x and n from xn is d X tan. 30° ; the 
 distance of ix and in is d X ,a n. 45° ; and so on, the hour 
 line of xii being the intersection of the plane of the meri- 
 dian in which the style is with ihe plane of the dial. This 
 is called a Polar Dial. 
 
 The most common construction is the Horizontal Dial, 
 or that in which the plane of the dial is parallel to the 
 horizon, and consequently 
 makes with the style an angle 
 equal to the latitude of the 
 place. At the equator, [his is 
 the same as the polar dial, 
 which has just been de- 
 cribed ; but at all other places, 
 the hour lines intersect each 
 other in the point in which 
 the style intersects the plane 
 of the dial, which point is 
 called the centre, and ihe an- 
 gles they make with one an- 
 other, or with the xu hour 
 line, depend on the latitude. Their respective positions 
 337 
 
 r~^ 
 
 
 MORNING. 
 
 XI. 
 X. 
 
 IX. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VI. 
 
 are computed from this theorem : — As is the radius to the 
 sine of the latitude, so is the tangent of the hour from noon 
 (reckoning 15° to the hour) to the tangent of the hour 
 angle at the centre. Or, putting h = the hour from noon, 
 I = latitude of the place, and x = the hour angle at the 
 centre of the dial ; then the formula for computing the 
 hour lines is tan. x = tan. h sin. I, the radius being uniL 
 From tliis formula the following table is computed, show- 
 ing the angles which the different hour lines of a horizontal 
 dial make with the meridional line, at the latitude of Lon- 
 don, or 51£°. 
 
 AFTERNOON. 
 
 I. . 11° 51' 
 
 II. . 24 19 
 
 III. 38 3 
 
 IV. . . 53 35 
 V. . . 71 6 
 
 VI. 90 
 
 After the horizontal dials, the construction most fre- 
 quently employed is that in which the plane of the dial is 
 vertical ; for example, when fixed on the wall of a house. 
 In this case, the positions of the different hour lines de- 
 pend on the latitude of the place and on the aspect of the 
 dial ; that is to say, its position with respect to the meridian. 
 If the dial is perpendicular to the meridian, it is a south 
 dial, or north dial, according as it faces the south or north. 
 (The vertical south dial is represented 
 in the annexed figure.) When not 
 perpendicular to the meridian, the 
 vertical dial is said to be declined. The 
 formula for the hour lines of a south 
 vertical dial differs from that for a 
 horizontal dial in no respect excepting 
 I / / \ \ that the sine of the latitude is changed 
 
 into the cosine, the cause of which 
 will be obvious when it is considered 
 that the plane of the dial in passing 
 from the horizontal to the south vertical direction preserves 
 its inclination to the different hour planes unaltered ; while 
 the angle which it makes with the style, or the axis of the 
 earth, is the complement of the angle it made with the 
 same line in its former position. Lei y, therefore, be the 
 hour angle at the centre of the dial ; and putting, as before, 
 h = the hour from noon, and I = the latitude, the formula 
 for the south vertical dial is tan. y = tan. h cos. /; whence 
 it follows that a horizontal dial constructed for any given 
 latitude will be a south vertical dial for any place of which 
 the latitude is the complement of the latitude of the former 
 place,— a property which was discovered by the Arabians. 
 The hour lines of the vertical north dial are found exactly 
 in the same way as those of the south dial. 
 
 When the face of the vertical dial is exactly east or ex- 
 actly west, its plane is in the meridian, and consequently 
 parallel to the vertical plane in which the style is. The 
 hour lines, therefore, as in the polar dial, are all parallel to 
 each other Let d be the height of the style above the 
 plane of the dial, h' the hour from G o'clock, and x the dis- 
 tance of that hour line from the hour line of vi, which is the 
 intersection of the prime vertical with the plane of the 
 dial; then x=zd tan. h' : the same formula as was given 
 for the polar dial. 
 
 When the vertical dial does not face directly one of the 
 four cardinal points, it is called a declining vertical dial, 
 and the investigation of the hour lines is somewhat more 
 complicated. 
 Let / denote the latitude of the place, 
 
 d the declination of the dial, reckoned from the east 
 
 towards the south, 
 h the hour angle from noon, 
 y the hour line angle on the dial. 
 Find these two auxiliary quantities, viz. an angle P, and 
 the tangent of an angle 6. (of which only the logarittun is 
 required), such that 
 
 tan. P - sinMand : tan. Q = corJ_sin_P 
 rad. sin. d ' 
 
 then, the forenoon hours on the west declining dial, and 
 the afternoon hours on the east, will be found from the 
 formula 
 
 >an y- tan. Q. sin, ft . 
 
 COS. (X + P) 
 
 and the morning hours on the east declining dial, and toe 
 afternoon hours on the west, by the formula 
 tan y _ tan.Q.sin.ft 
 
 COS. (T. — P) 
 
 The formulse which have now been given are sufficient 
 to enable any one who has a slight knowledge of loga- 
 rithmic compulation to trace the hour lines of any one of 
 the dials which has been described with great facility. It 
 is therefore unnecessary to explain the geometrical me- 
 thods of construction by the rule and compasses, which 
 X 30
 
 DIALECT. 
 
 are besides less accurate, and more liable to be misun- 
 derstood. Of the mechanical operations necessary to be 
 executed, such as fixing the style and placing the plane of 
 the dial in the true vertical or horizontal position, it is 
 unnecessary to speak, as they will readily suggest them- 
 selves to any one who has a clear conception of what is 
 required to be done. The only thing that requires ex- 
 planation is the method of finding the meridian line with- 
 out having recourse to any of the more delicate operations 
 of astronomy. The method generally practised is as fol- 
 lows: — Assume a point in the plane of the dial through 
 which it is intended the meridian line shall pass. With 
 this point as a centre, describe several concentric circles ; 
 then fix a pin or wire in the same point, perpendicular to 
 the plane, and of such a length that the extremity of the 
 shadow shall fall within (he circles (or some of them) at 
 midday. Observe the time when the extremity of the 
 shadow reaches some one of the circles in the forenoon, 
 and marl: the point where it crosses the circle. In the 
 afternoon mark the point where it again crosses the same 
 circle, and divide the arc between the two points thus 
 marked into two equal parts; the straight line which joins 
 the point of bisection with the centre is the meridian line 
 required. For greater security, the passage of the shadow 
 over several circles may be marked ; and if the points of 
 bisection of the different arcs do not lie in the same straight 
 line with the centre, a point must be chosen which occu- 
 pies a mean position among all the others, and the straight 
 line passing through it may be regarded as the true me- 
 ridian. This method is sufficiently accurate for the pur- 
 poses of a dial. Two plummets suspended over the meri- 
 dian line will indicate the plane of the meridian in space. 
 Its intersection with any vertical plane may be found by 
 the eye. 
 
 It will be observed that the time indicated by a dial is 
 solar time or true time, and agrees with mean time, or that 
 which is shown by a well-regulated clock, only on four dif- 
 ferent days of the year. In order to rind the mean time 
 from the dial, it is necessary to apply a correction called the 
 Equation of Time. (See the term.) 
 
 It has been supposed that the style is formed by a wire, 
 <>r the straight edge of a thin plate ; but a slit in a plate 
 properly placed, allowing a line of light to pass, will evi- 
 dently answer the purpose. Sometimes a small hole is 
 preferred ; and the hour lines, instead of being described 
 on a plane surface, are sometimes described on the sur- 
 face of a sphere, or a cylinder or a cone. The reader may 
 find a description of some curious dials in Brewster's 
 edition of Ferguson's Lectures. For the history of dialling, 
 see Delambre, Aslronomie Ancienne, tome ii. ; Montucla, 
 Histoire des MathemaUques, tome i. The writers on the 
 subject are very numerous. For a concise and perspicu- 
 ous treatise we may refer to the article in the Encyclopedia 
 Britannica. 
 
 Dl'ALECT. (Gr. Sta\tKTOS, from Sta, signifying divi- 
 sion, and \£ya>, I speak-.) In the philosophical sense of 
 the word, any variety of a common ianguage. Hence 
 German, English, Swedish, &c. are all strictly said to be 
 dialects, as coming all of them from the same original 
 stock. Commonly, however, we limit the application of 
 the term dialect to the varieties of a national language ; and 
 speak of the dialects of English, French, <&c. In Greek 
 the four dialects (Doric, Ionic, .Kobe, Attic) were the four 
 written varieties of the language, each possessing a litera- 
 ture of its own. In this respect no modern tongue pre- 
 sents a parallel to the Greek ; inasmuch a3, in all, one dia- 
 lect has been arbitrarily adopted as the standard of polite 
 writing and conversation, and the written works which are 
 extant in the other dialects are regarded merely as excep- 
 tions to the general rule. 
 
 DIaLE'CTICS. (Gr. 8ta\iyojiai, T converse or debate.) 
 This name was originally used by Plato as synonymous 
 with metaphysics, or the highest philosophy. Strictly 
 speaking, it can only be regarded as a preparatory disci- 
 pline for such investigations, or at most as a scientific 
 method of prosecuting them. The most splendid exam- 
 ples of dialectical sublilty that exist are to be found in the 
 Dialogues of Plato, especially in those entitled Parmenides, 
 the Statesman and Sophist. Aristotle expresses himself 
 with some contempt of dialectics. It is certain, however, 
 that its own logic owes its existence to the dialectical exer- 
 cises of the Platonic schools ; and that it may, in one point 
 of view, be regarded as a body of canons and directions for 
 their legitimate use. (See Platonic Philosophy.) In 
 modern times various systems of dialects have been pro- 
 pounded in different countries ; but by no philosophers, 
 either ancient or modern, has this science been more suc- 
 cessfully cultivated than by the Germans, who, among a 
 host of other names more or less distinguished, can 
 boast of a Fichte, Kant, Leibnitz, Hegel, Schelling, and 
 Schlegel, as the propounders each of a peculiar dialectical 
 system. 
 
 DIA'LLAGE. (Gr. StaWayij, difference.) A mineral 
 of a foliated structure easily divisible in one direction, its 
 338 ' 
 
 DIAMETER. 
 
 natural joints and fractures exhibiting a very different lustra 
 and appearance. 
 
 Dl'ALLING LINES, or SCALES. Graduated lines on 
 rules or circles to facilitate the construction of dials. They 
 usually consist of two lines of tangents, and a line of lati- 
 tudes. Such contrivances are of no great use ; the readiest 
 and best method is to compute the angles of the hour lines 
 from the trigonometrical formulae : when the angles are 
 known, they can be set off by means of a scale of chords, 
 or by any of the other methods employed in practical 
 geometry. 
 
 DIA'LOGISM. (Gr. Sia\oyo$, from Sta, through, and 
 \oyos, speech.) In Rhetoric, a mode of writing which con- 
 sists in the narration of a dialogue ; i. e. in which the con- 
 versation of two or more persons is reported, without their 
 being actually introduced as personages speaking; in 
 which, therefore, the sentence is framed or governed by 
 the third person instead of the first. A speech by a single 
 person, or the species of conversation held by a person 
 with himself (thinking aloud), when reduced into the nar- 
 rative form, is also, although somewhat incorrectly, termed 
 by French literary writers dialogism. 
 
 DI'ALOGUE. (Gr. iiaXoyos.) In Literature, a compo- 
 sition or part of a composition in the form of a conversa- 
 tion between two or more persons. The dialogue was the 
 form most generally adopted by the ancients for the con- 
 veyance of instruction, and was considered equally appli- 
 cable to the most grave and philosophical, and to the most 
 ludicrous and comical subjects. Thus it was adopted by 
 Plato, Cicero, and Lucian, with equal success. Plato chose 
 this form for the conveyance of his philosophical senti- 
 ments ; because real conversation had been the mode by 
 which his master, Socrates (who left no writing), gave in- 
 struction to the Athenians. In the Dialogues of Plato, 
 Socrates is himself introduced as the chief interlocutor. 
 Among modern writers the philosophical dialogue has been 
 frequently employed for the same purpose, more especially 
 by the French, to whose language and mode of thought it 
 should seem to be peculiarly suited. Among other eminent 
 persons of that country who have enriched its literature 
 with this species of composition are, Fenelon ; Paschal, in 
 his Provincial Letters; Bouhours, in his Entreliens d' 
 Aristeet d' Eugene ; Fontenelle, in his Dialogues of the 
 Dead, and Plurality of Worlds ; Galiani, Sur le Commerce 
 des Grains, &c. In England this method of composition 
 has been less frequently practised ; and, perhaps, with the 
 exception of Berkeley and Hurd, has rarely succeeded in 
 the hands of those who attempted it. Both the Germans 
 and Italians have attempted to impart a knowledge of their 
 different philosophical systems in this manner. Among the 
 latter may be mentioned Machiavelli and Algarotti ; and 
 among the former, Lessing, Mendelssohn, Schelling, and 
 Herder; though the labours of none of these distinguished 
 persons in this department of literature are so important 
 as to require any particular notice in this place. It has 
 long been a question of dispute as to the class of subjects 
 for the discussion of which this mode of writing is chiefly 
 adapted, and upon this point various opinions have been 
 entertained. Upon this question it is not our intention to 
 enter; but we cannot refrain from citing here the opinion 
 of a gentleman as to its peculiar fitness for conveying philo- 
 sophical instruction, whom few will venture to gainsay on 
 such subjects. "There are some subjects," says Mr. 
 Hume, " to which dialogue writing is peculiarly adapted, 
 and where it is preferable to the direct and simple method 
 of composition. Any point of doctrine which is so obvious 
 that it scarcely admits of dispute, but at the same time so 
 important that it cannot be too often inculcated, seems to 
 require some such method of handling it ; where the 
 novelty of the manner may compensate the triteness of the 
 subject, where the vivacity of conversation may enforce 
 the precept, and where the variety of lights presented by 
 various personages and characters may appear neither 
 tedious nor redundant. Any question of philosophy, on 
 the other hand, which is so obscure and iincertain that 
 human reason can reach no fixed determination with re- 
 gard to it, if it. should be treated at all, seems to lead us 
 naturally into the style of dialogue and conversation. 
 Reasonable men may be allowed to differ where no one 
 can reasonably be positive ; opposite sentiments, even 
 without any decision, afford an agreeable amusement ; and 
 if the subject be curious and interesting, the book carries 
 us in a manner into company, and unites the two greatest 
 and purest pleasures of human life, study and society." 
 
 The dramatic dialogue differs from the philosophical, in- 
 asmuch as its subject is one of action. The whole of 
 modern dramas is dialogue, with the exception of occa- 
 sional monologue or soliloquy. (For a learned account of 
 the dialogue, see the Encyclo. des Gens du Monde.) 
 
 DIA'METER. (Gr. Sta, through, and /icrpov, a mea- 
 sure.) A straight line passing through the centre of a geo- 
 metrical figure, as that of a circle, ellipse, or hyperbola. 
 Many figures have diameters, though they have, properly 
 speaking, no centres ; in this case, the diameter is ths
 
 DIAMOND. 
 
 straight line which bisects all the parallel chords. Some 
 geometers extend this definition, and apply the term dia- 
 meter to the curve lines which pass through the points of 
 bisection of all the parallel chords of other curves. In this 
 sense every curve has a diameter. In astronomy the ap- 
 parent diameters o( the celestial bodies are estimated by the 
 number of seconds in the angles they subtend at the eye. 
 The apparent diameter (which is measured by the micro- 
 meter), compared with the distance of the body, gives its 
 real diameter ; for the distance of the sun or a planet is to 
 its real diameter, as radius to the sine of the angle sub- 
 tended by the apparent diameter of the body. 
 
 Diameter. In Architecture, the measure across the 
 lower part of the shaft of a column, which is usually divided 
 into sixty parts, called minutes, and forms a scale for the 
 measurement of all the parts of an order. 
 
 DI'AMOND. (A corruption of adamant : from Gr. a, 
 priv., and Sapacj, I conquer, from its extreme hardness and 
 difficulty of fracture.) The most valuable of the precious 
 stones. Diamonds were originally discovered in Bengal, 
 and in the Island of Borneo. About the year 1720 they 
 were found in Brazil. They always occur in a detached 
 state in alluvial soil. The primitive crystalline form of the 
 diamond is a regular octahedron, of which there are numer- 
 ous modifications. Diamonds are found of all colours: 
 those which are colourless, or which have some very de- 
 cided tint, are most esteemed ; the latter, however, are 
 rare. Those which are slightly discoloured are the least 
 valuable. The diamond is the hardest known substance, 
 and can only be polished by its own dust or powder. 
 The art of splitting or cutting and polishing this gem, 
 though probably of remote antiquity in Asia, was first in- 
 troduced into Europe in 1436 by Louis Berghem of Bruges, 
 who accidentally discovered that by rubbing two diamonds 
 together their surfaces miuht be abraded. They are cut 
 chiefly into two forms, rose and brilliant: the latter have 
 the finest effect, but require the sacrifice of a larger por- 
 tion of the gem ; so that the weight of an ordinary polished 
 diamond often does not exceed half that of the rough gem. 
 The largest known diamond is probably that mentioned by 
 Tavernier, in possession of the great mogul : it was found 
 in Golconda in 1550; is of the size of half a hen's egg, and 
 said to weigh 900 carats. Among the crown jewels of 
 Russia is a magnificent diamond, weighing 195 carats: it is 
 of the size of a pigeon's egg, and was purloined from a brah- 
 minical idol by a French soldier; it passed through several 
 hands, and was ultimately purchased by the Empress Ca- 
 therine for the sum of 90,000/. and an annuity of 4000/. 
 Perhaps the most perfect and beautiful diamond hitherto 
 found is a brilliant brought from India by a gentleman of 
 the name of Pitt, who sold it to the regent Duke of Orleans 
 for the sum of 100,000/. It weighs about 136 carats, or 514 
 grains. 
 
 That the diamond is combustible, was first proved by 
 the Florentine academicians in 1694, who found that when 
 exposed to the heat of the sun concentrated in the focus of 
 a large lens, it burned away with a blue lambent flame. 
 The products of its combustion were first examined by La- 
 voisier in 1772, who showed that when it was burned in air 
 or oxygen it produced carbonic acid : subsequent experi- 
 ments have shown that nothing but carbonic acid is thus 
 formed ; and hence it is proved that the diamond is char- 
 coal or carbon in a pure and crystalline form. 
 
 DIA'NA. In Mythology, the" Latin name of the goddess 
 known to the Greeks by the name of Artemis C&prtutq), 
 the daughter of Jupiter and Lalona. and sister of Apollo. 
 She was the virgin goddess of the chase, and also presided 
 over health. The sudden deaths of women were attributed 
 to her darts, as those of men were to the arrows of Apollo. 
 In later times she was confounded with various other god- 
 desses, as Hecate, Lucina, Proserpina, and Luna. In the 
 two last of these characters she was said to appear in the 
 nether world and in heaven respectively, while on earth 
 she assumed the character of Artemis ; whence she was 
 called the three- formed goddess. Her power and func- 
 tions in these characters have been happily expressed in 
 the couplet — 
 
 Terret, lustrat, agit, Proserpina, Luna, Diana 
 Ima, suprema, fcras, sceplro, fulgore, sagittu. 
 
 She was generally represented as a healthy active maiden 
 in a huntress's dress, with a handsome but ungentle ex- 
 pression of countenance. The homage rendered to Diana 
 was so extensive that the silversmith who remarked that 
 she was worshipped in all Asia and the world, can scarcely 
 be accused of exaggeration. A catalogue of the various 
 places where temples were erected in her honour would 
 comprise every city of note in the ancient world. Among 
 others may be mentioned Ephesus, Abydos, Heraclea, 
 Aulis, Eretria, Samos, Bubastus in Egypt, Delos (whence 
 she was termed Delia), and Mount Aventine at Rome. But 
 of all her temples, that at Ephesus was the most celebrated. 
 It was erected at the joint expense of all the states of Asia; 
 and according to the accounts of ancient authors, it must 
 339 
 
 DIASTASE. 
 
 have surpassed in splendour all the structures of antiquity, 
 and fully deserved to be regarded as one of the wonders of 
 the world. A small statue of the goddess, or, as she wa;- 
 termed by her votaries, the " Great Diana of the Ephesians," 
 which was commonly supposed to have been sent from 
 heaven, was li ere enshrined and adorned with all that wealth 
 and genius could contribute. The fate of this temple is well 
 known. On the daythat AlexandertheGreatwasbom,itwas 
 set on fire by Eratostratus ( Vol. Max. 8. 14.), from a morbid 
 desire lo transmit his name even with infamy to posterity. 
 This edifice was afterwards rebuilt on a plan of similar 
 magnificence ; and it remained in full possession of its 
 v/ealth and reputation till the year 260 a. d., when it was 
 completely destroved during an invasion of the Goths. 
 
 DIA'NA, TREE OF. A name given by the old chemists 
 to the crystallized silver which is separated when mercury 
 is put into a solution of nitrate of silver. 
 
 DIA'NDROUS. (Gr. Sis, double, and avrjp, a man.) A 
 term applied to any plant having but two stamens. 
 
 DIAPA'SON. (Gr. Sia, through, and nas, all.) In Mu- 
 sic, an interval used by most authors to express the octave 
 of the Greeks. By one of the boldest metaphors with 
 which we are acquainted, Dryden has beautifully availed 
 himself of this expression in the well-known stanza of his 
 first Ode to St. Cecilia's Day : — 
 
 From harmony, from heavenly harmony 
 
 This universal frame began ; 
 From harmoivr to harmony 
 
 Through all the compass of the notes it ran, 
 
 The diapason closing full in man. 
 
 For an account of the diapason in the organ pipes, see 
 Organ. 
 
 DIAPE'NTE. (Gr. Sta, and nevrc, five.) In Music, an 
 ancient term signifying a fifth. 
 
 DI'APER. A woven linen ornamented with patterns, 
 and used for towels and table linen ; it sometimes resem- 
 bles an inferior kind of damask. It is said to have been 
 originally manufactured at Ypres in Flanders; whence the 
 term d'Ypres, corrupted into diaper. 
 
 DIA'PHANOnS. (Gr. Sia, and <paivo), I shine.) A term 
 applied to bodies which permit the light to pass through 
 their substances. It is the synonyme of translucent. A 
 body which allows the forms of objects to be seen through 
 it is transparent. 
 
 DIAPHO'NICS. (Gr. Sia, and <puvr\, sound.) The doc- 
 trine of refracted sound. See Sound. 
 
 DIAPHORE'SIS. (.Gr. Siatpopuo, T carry through.) A 
 perspiration ; hence also diaphoretics, medicines which 
 promote perspiration. 
 
 DI'APHRAGM. (Gr. Sia, and (iparrio, I divide.) This 
 term is applied to the straight calcareous plate which di- 
 vides the cavity of certain shells into two parts only ; its 
 more common signification relates to the muscular and 
 tendinous partition which separates the chest from the ab- 
 domen in mammalia. 
 
 DI'APIIRAGMATI'TIS. Inflammation of the diaphragm, 
 or of its peritona?al coats. The treatment is the same as 
 that of pleurisy and peritonitis. 
 
 DIARRHOEA. (Gr. Stappeu, I fimc through.) A purg- 
 ing or looseness of the bowels. There are several varie- 
 ties of diarrhcea, depending upon different causes, and con- 
 sequently requiring in many instances distinct modes of 
 treatment. In general it is necessary first to remove of- 
 fending and irritating matters from the bowels by means 
 of aperients; rhubarb, from its astringent tendency, is the 
 purgative usually employed ; afterwards astringents with 
 warm aromatics, and the occasional addition of some form 
 of opium, are prescribed and continued till the inordinate 
 laxity of the bowels is quelled. Where diarrhnsa is con- 
 nected, as it often is, with excess of acidity iu the stomach, 
 magnesia, chalk, or carbonated alkalis are united to the 
 other remedies. 
 
 DIARTHRO'SIS. (Gr. articulation.) The moveable 
 connection of bones. 
 
 DI'ARY. (Lat. diarium, literally a daily allotoance ; 
 from dies, a day), signifies properly a note-book or re- 
 gister of daily occurrences, in which the writer has a prin- 
 cipal share, or which have come under his own observa- 
 tion, or have happened in his own time. The term diary 
 is equivalent to the French journal, the Italian diario and 
 giornaJe, and the German Tagebuch. 
 
 DIASCHI'SMA. (Gr. otacx'S", I cleave.) In Music, an 
 interval consisting of two commas. 
 
 DI'ASPORE. A laminated mineral, composed of 80 
 alumina, 18 water, 3 oxide of iron. A small fragment de- 
 crepitates when heated, and is dispersed in numerous 
 fragments; hence its name, from the Gr. SiaaKtipw, 1 
 scatter. 
 
 DI'ASTASE. (Gr. Sia, and ivrripi, Iset.) A peculiar 
 substance generated during the germination of barley, 
 wheat, &c, which tends to accelerate the formation of 
 sugar daring the fermentation of worts. It is precipitated 
 from infusions of bruised malt by alcohol. It is the prin-
 
 DIASTEM. 
 
 ■ pie which by its reaction on starch tends to develop 
 .uuar in the processes of germination and malting. 
 
 DI'ASTEM. (Gr. 6taare)iua.) In Ancient Music, a sim- 
 ple inierval as distinguished from a compound one; to 
 which latter was given the name of a system. 
 
 DIASTE'MA. (Gr.) In Zoology, the vacant space oc- 
 curring in the dental series by the absence of the canine 
 or laniarv leeth. 
 
 DIA'STOLE. (Gr. Sta, and areWo), I stretch.) The di- 
 latation of the heart and arteries. 
 
 DI'ASTYLE. (Gr. <ha, and orvkos, a column.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, that mode of arranging columns in which the 
 intercolumniation or space between the columns consists 
 of three diameters, oraccording to some of four diameters. 
 
 DIATE'SSARON. (Gr. ita, and rtcroapa, four.) In 
 Ancient Music, the interval of a fourth. 
 
 DI'ATHE'RMAL, or DIATIIERMANOUS. (Gr. Sia, 
 eii\t\$eptiT), icarmth.) A term applied to certain substances, 
 such as transparent pieces of rock salt, &c, which suffer 
 radiant heat to pass through them, much in the same way 
 as transparent or diaphanous bodies allow of the passage 
 of light. 
 
 DIA'THESIS. (Gr. Siaridrjui, 1 dispose.) A particular 
 state of constitution predisposing to certain diseases : such 
 as inflammatory, nervous, and putrid diathesis; uric dia- 
 thesis, in which there is excess of uric acid thrown off by 
 the kidneys ; gouty diathesis, &c. 
 
 DIA'TONI. (Gr. Sia, and tovos, an extension.) In An- 
 cient Architecture, the angle stones of a wall, which were 
 wrought on two faces, and which, from stretching beyond 
 the stones above and below them, made a good bond ortye 
 to the work. 
 
 DIATO'NIC. (Gt. Sta, and tows, a tone.) In Music, a 
 term denoting the natural scale of music, which proceed- 
 ing by degrees includes boih tones and semitones. It in- 
 cludes the intervals formed by the natural notes, as well as 
 those produced in transposing the natural. 
 
 DIAZENE'TIC. (Gr. &ia£tvyvvn , 1 separate.) In the 
 Ancient Greek Music, a term applied to the tone disjointing 
 two fourths, one on each side of it, and which joined to 
 either made a fifth. 
 
 DIAZO'MA. (Gr. Sta, through, and $o>ua, a cincture.) 
 In Ancient Architecture, the landings or resting places 
 which encircled the amphitheatre at different heights, like 
 so many bands or cinctures ; whence the name. 
 
 DI'BBLE. In Agr. and Hort., a cylindrical piece of wood 
 from one to two inches in diameter, and from 1 ft. to 2 ft. 
 in length, having a cross handle at one end, and brought to 
 a conical point at the other, for the purpose of making holes 
 in the ground to receive plants or seeds. Dibbles which 
 are used for planting potatoes or beans are commonly from 
 two to two and a half feet in length, with a peg inserted 
 near the ground in order that the operator may press it in 
 with his foot. 
 
 DIBO'THRIANS, Dibothri. (Gr. da, twice, PuQoiov, a 
 pit ; two-pitted.) The name of a division of tape-worms, 
 including those Bol hriocephalans which have not more than 
 two pits or fossa? on the head. 
 
 DIBRA'NCHIATES, Dibranchiata. (Gr. (5ij, and 0pay- 
 Xia, gills ; two-gilled ) The name of the order of Cephalo- 
 pods which includes those with two gills, and which are 
 also characterized by having three distinct hearts; an ap- 
 paratus for secreting and emitting an inky fluid; cephalic, 
 arms, never exceeding ten in number, solid, and supporting 
 acetabular, and in short all the chief characteristics which 
 are usually ascribed to the entire class of Cephalopods. 
 The same term (Dibranehes) is applied by Latreille to an 
 order of the class Cirripedia, comprehending those species 
 which are similarly characterized by having two gills. 
 
 DICASTE'RIUM. (Gr. Atari, justice.) In Ancient Archi- 
 tecture, the name of a tribunal or hall of justice in Athens. 
 
 DICE COAL. A species of coal easily splitting into 
 cubical fragments. 
 
 DICER A'TES, Dicerata. (Gr. <3is, double, and /ctpaj, 
 horn; two-horned) A name applied by De Blainville to a 
 family of the order Paraccphahrphora Polybranchiata, com- 
 prehending all such Gastropodous Mollusks as have two 
 tentacles on the head. The term Diceras was previously 
 applied by Lamarck to a fossil genus of Bivalves. 
 
 DICHO'TOMOUS, Dichoto?nus. (Gr. <5<xoro/iOj.) Sig- 
 nifies the division of an object by repeated bifurcation, so 
 that the branches are always in pairs. 
 
 DICHO'TOMY. An artificial system, in which natural 
 objects are arranged according to the above mode of di- 
 vision. 
 
 DI'CIIROISM. (Gr. St;, double, and xp M ^ a . colour.) 
 A term in Optics, used to designate a properly possessed 
 by several crystallized bodies of appearing under two dis- 
 tinct colours according to the direction in which light is 
 transmitted through them. Thus the muriate of palla- 
 dium appears of a deep red colour along the axis, and of 
 a vivid «reen when viewed in a transverse direction. Sir 
 D. BrewstPr states (Optics, Cab. Cyclopedia) that in ex- 
 amining this class of phenomena, he' found them to depend 
 340 
 
 DICTIONARY. 
 
 on the absorption of light, being regulated by the inclina- 
 tion of the incident ray to the axis of double refraction, and 
 on a difference of colour in the two pencils formed by 
 double refraction. 
 
 DICO'LOPHUS. (Gr . <5i'x<i, separately, and \nfo;, a 
 crest.) The name of the genus of wading birds (Gialla- 
 tores), including the cariama, which is characterized by 
 a tuff of feathers projecting from the crown of the head in 
 two directions. 
 
 DICOTYLE'DONS. (Gr. i5is, double, and kotvMo'wv, a 
 seed-leaf.) One of the primary classes of the vegetable 
 world, consisting of all those plants that have their embryo 
 furnished with two cotyledons, or with a greater number 
 arranged on the same plane. These plants are also called 
 Exogens. 
 
 DICTA 'TOR. In Ancient History, a Roman magistrate 
 appointed on special occasions to supersede the consuls. 
 The first dictator was elected some years after the expul- 
 sion of the kings, on the occasion of a war with the Latins, 
 while a dangerous sedition was feared at home ; but the 
 period is very uncertain. Dictators were appointed also for 
 mere ceremonial objects, as for holding comitia. But the 
 purposes for which the dictator was appointed differed so 
 materially at different times, and the opinions of later his- 
 torians respecting the extent of his authority are so con- 
 flicting and unsatisfactory, that more obscurity still exists 
 upon this subject than almost any other within the compass 
 of Roman antiquities. According to Niebuhr, the object 
 aimed at in the institution of the dictatorship was to evade 
 the Valerian laws, and to re-establish the unlimited author- 
 ity of the patricians over the plebeians ; for the appeal to 
 the commonalty granted by these laws was from the sen- 
 tence of the consuls, and not from that of this new magis- 
 trate. But this unlimited power did not extend over the 
 patricians. The form of their election was precisely sim- 
 ilar to that of the kings, who were appointed by the senate, 
 while their authority was confirmed by a decree of the 
 curies. Originally the dictator continued in office only six 
 months ; but at a later period this salutary rule was ne- 
 glected. Sylla and Julius Caesar, the last dictators, were 
 nominated perpetual dictators ; the former in the year 81 
 B. c, the latterafter the battle of Pharsalia. The title was 
 subsequently offered to Augustus by the people, but de- 
 clined ; and it was never afterwards assumed by the Roman 
 emperors. An officer called magister equitum, appointed 
 sometimes by the dictator, sometimes by the senate, and 
 sometimes by the people, was always in attendance on the 
 dictator. (See Niebuhr's Rom. History, and Ersch and 
 Gruber's Encyclo. ) 
 
 DICTIONARY (Mod. Lat. dictionarium), either signifies 
 a collection of words in one or more languages, with their 
 peculiar significations, arranged in alphabetical order; or 
 it may be applied in a more extended sense to any work 
 which professes to communicate information on an entire 
 subject, or an entire branch of a subject, under word3 or 
 heads digested in order of the alphabet. Hence dictiona- 
 ries may be said to be of two sorts, of words, and of facts or 
 things; in the former sense the term dictionary being 
 equivalent to lexicon, in the latter to encyclopadia. 
 
 Dictionary of words. — The ancients have left us no mon- 
 uments of this species of literature ; and, with a few bril- 
 liant exceptions, all the attempts that took place at the early 
 period of the Christian era, and during the middle ages, 
 are comparatively incomplete. It was not till after the in- 
 vention of printing, when a taste for the classic literature 
 of antiquity became general, that some laborious men, 
 in the view of elucidating the Greek and Roman authors. 
 and of facilitating the investigations of others, undertook 
 the task of compiling dictionaries. Under the head Lexi- 
 con will be found a succinct notice of the chief perform- 
 ances in this department of literature; and we shall here 
 restrict ourselves to the remark, that the history of ancient, 
 and, witli a few modifications, of modern lexicography, 
 presents the singular phenomenon, that it is only when the 
 language of a country is on the decline, or at all events has 
 attained such a degree of perfection as to be apparently 
 unsusceptible of further improvement, that dictionaries be- 
 gin to be compiled. " No one," says an able writer, " thinks 
 of writing a dictionary till the language he intends to illus- 
 trate has become a study ;" and this is seldom the case till 
 the age of its purity and vigour has gone by, till the phrase- 
 ology of its original authors has become in some degree 
 obsolete, and the caprice or ignorance of later writers has 
 diversified or corrupted the significations of words. In 
 modern times the honour of possessing the best dictiona- 
 ries belongs to Italy, Fiance, and England. These are the 
 Vocabulario dcgli Academici della Crusca, extended in the 
 latest editions to 6 vols. fol. ; the Dictionnaire de I' Acade- 
 mic Francaise, 2 vols. 4to., to which a supplementary 
 volume hasbpen recently added ; and Johnson's Dictionary, 
 2 vols. fol. 1755; — works unrivalled in plan and execution, 
 and which, notwithstanding the cavillings of certain philo- 
 logists, will long remain standards in their respective lan- 
 guages. The Spaniards also possess a dictionary of con-
 
 DICTIONARY. 
 
 siderable reputation, entitled Diccionario de la Lengua 
 Castellana, compuesto par la Real Academia Espanola, 6 
 vols. fol. 1726 ; but the Germans, perhaps from the cause 
 above adverted to, that the resources of their language 
 have, as is universally admitted, not yet been adequately 
 developed, do not possess any dictionary of acknowledged 
 authority. 
 
 Dictionaries of facts or things are of two species ; being 
 either devoted to separate or single branches of science, 
 art, or literature, or embracing the whole circle of the arts 
 and sciences. Of the former, the Historical and Critical 
 Dictionary of Bayle, and the Dictionnairc de la Bible, by 
 Dom Calmet, may serve as specimens; and of the latter, 
 the Enrycltjpidie Franr-aise, and the Encyclopaedia Britan- 
 nica. That the idea of comprising all the sciences in a 
 single work was not unknown in antiquity is evident from 
 the expression syKvuXios naitiua, which was used to signify 
 such a course of instruction as should embrace all the sci- 
 ences. The earliest approximation to this species of lite- 
 rature is to be found in the work of Varro, Rerum Hum. et 
 Divin. Antiquitates, of which nothing remains but the 
 title ; and in the Historia NaturaJis of Pliny, who has em- 
 bodied in that work all the results of his multifarious 
 studies and vast erudition. But the term Encyclopaedia is 
 said to have been first applied to works of this description 
 by some of the Arabian writers of the middle ages, and 
 particularly by Alfarabius, whose general treatise on the 
 sciences is still preserved under this designation. Towards 
 the close of the lGth and the commencement of the 17th 
 centuries, there appeared in Europe several similar trea- 
 tises with the same title, of which the most celebrated was 
 that of Alstedius, in 2 vols. fol. ; but none of these produc- 
 tions can be properly termed dictionaries or encyclopaedias, 
 being merely collections of treatises resembling rather such 
 works as Kelt's Elements of General Knowledge, &c, than 
 corresponding to the modern notion of an encyclopedia. 
 The strongest resemblance to the works in question is pre- 
 sented by the Lexicon Universale Historicum Sacrum et 
 Pmfinum of Hofmann, 1677, in 2 vols, fol., and followed 
 in 1683 by a supplement of equal extent; the form of 
 which, at least, has served for a model to nearly all suc- 
 ceeding dictionaries or encyclopedias. (Penny Cyc.) It 
 might perhaps be preposterous to assert that Hoimann bor- 
 rowed the notion of his Lexicon from Bacon's theory of 
 the Encyclop&dian Tree, as set forth in the Novum Orga- 
 non (Leyden, 1650) ; but, as M. Guizot has observed, there 
 can bo little doubt that the great abundance of dictionaries 
 and encyclopedias which the whole of Europe has since 
 witnessed is in some degree owing to that eminent philo- 
 sopher's Classification Complete et Raisonnee of human 
 knowledge. 
 
 The subjoined list contains a selection of the most valua- 
 ble productions in this department of literature which have 
 appeared since that time, arranged according to the place 
 and date of their publication. 
 
 Great Britain. 
 
 1. Lexicon Technicum, or Universal Dictionary of the 
 Arts and Sciences, 2 vols. fol. ; the first published 
 1704, the second in 1710. A supplementary vol. was 
 afterwards added. 
 
 2. Chambers's Cyclopedia, 2 vols. fol. 1728. This work 
 was extended in a 7th edit, to 4 vols. fol. 1778-85, by 
 Dr. Itees, who afterwards re-edited the work in 45 
 vols. 4to. (See infra.') 
 
 3. An Univ. History of Arts and Sciences, &c, by Dr. De 
 
 Coetlogon, 2 vols. fol. 1745. 
 
 4. Barrow's New and Universal Dictionary of Arts ami 
 Sciences, 1 vol. fol. 1751 ; with a suppl. vol. 1754. 
 
 5. A New and Complete Diet, of Arts and Sciences, by a 
 
 Society of Gentlemen (commonly called Owen's Dic- 
 tionary, from the name of the publisher), 4 vols. 8vo. 
 1754. 
 
 6. The Complete Diet, of Arts and Sciences, 3 vols. fol. 
 
 1766, by the Rev. Ben. Croker, Dr. Thos. Williams, 
 and Sam. Clark. 
 
 7. Encyclopaedia Britannica, 3 vols. 4to. 1771. The fifth 
 edition of this work, completed in 1814, was extended 
 to 20 vols. ; and a supplement in 6 vols., under the 
 editorship of Mr. Napier, added in 1824. A seventh 
 edition of this work, in which the supplement is incor- 
 porated, was published during the past year, 1842. 
 
 8. The English Encyclopedia, 10 vols. 4to. 1795-1803. 
 
 9. The Cyclopaedia, commonly known by the name of 
 Rees's Cyclopedia, 1802-19. 45 vols. 4to. 
 
 10. British Encyclopedia, 6 vols. 8vo. 1807-9. 
 
 11. Encyclopedia Londinensis, 24 vols. 4to. 1810-29, by 
 .lohn Wilkes. 
 
 12. Brewster's Edin. Encyclop. 18 vols. 4to. 1810-30. 
 
 13. Pantalosia, or New Diet, of Arts and Sciences, 12 vols. 
 8vo. 1813-16. By Mason Good, Gregory, and Bos- 
 worth. 
 
 14. Burrowe's Modern Encyclopedia, 10 vols. 4to. 1816. 
 
 15. Encyclopedia Edinensis, 6 vols. 4to. 1816. 
 
 341 
 
 16. Encyclopedia Perthensis, 23 vols. roy.Svo. ; completed 
 in 1816. 
 
 17. Encyclopedia Metropolitana, 1818. Not yet com- 
 pleted. 
 
 18. Oxford Encyclopedia, 6 vols. 4to. 1828; to which a 
 supplement in 1 vol. was added in 1831. 
 
 19. The London Encyclopedia, 24 vols. 8vo. 1826. 
 
 20. Partington's British Cyclopedia, 10 vols. 8vo. 1833-36. 
 
 21. Penny Cyclopedia, large 8vo. 1333, now in course of 
 publication. 
 
 France. 
 
 1. Dictionnaire Universel Frangais et Latin, known by the 
 name Dictionnaire deTrevoux, 1704. 3 vols. fol. The 
 fifth and last edition, Paris, 1771, was augmented to 
 8 vols. fol. 
 
 2. Encyclopedic, ou Dictionnaire raisonnee des Sciences, 
 des Arts, et des Metiers, par Diderot et d'Alembert, 
 35 vols. fol. 1751-80. The original series consisted of 
 28 vols., of which 11 were plates. A supplement of 
 
 5 vols, was afterwards added, one of which consisted 
 of plates ; besides a "Table Analytique" of the whole 
 work, compiled by M. Monchon, in 2 vols. A variety 
 of encyclopedias of more or less reputation was pub- 
 lished in France immediately after the " Encyclo- 
 pe"die" of Diderot and D'Alembert ; but as they are all, 
 to a greater or less extent, mere abridgments of, or 
 compilations from, this great work, we do not think 
 them worthy of notice in this catalogue. 
 
 3. Encyclopedie. ou Dictionnaire Universel raisonnee des 
 Connaissances humaines, par le Professeur de Felici. 
 Yverdun, 1770-75. 42 vols. 4to. ; besides a sup. of 
 
 6 vols. 4to. 
 
 4. Encyclopedie Methodique, &c, 1782, 1S32, 201 vols. 
 4to., including 47 vols, of plates. In this work every 
 art or science is treated of in a separate volume or se- 
 ries of volumes ; so that it forms in fact a collection of 
 dictionaries. 
 
 5. Dictionnaire des Sciences et des Arts, par Lumier, 
 3 vols. 8vo. 1805. 
 
 6. Encyclopedie Moderne, &c, par M. Courtin, 1823, &c. 
 24 vols. 8vo. 
 
 7. Encyclopedie des Dames, par une Societe des Dames, 
 Paris, 1821, <fcc. 
 
 8. Dictionnairc de la Conversation etde la Lecture. Paris, 
 
 1834-9. 52 vols. 8vo. or 104 livraisons. 
 9 Encyclopedie des Gens du Monde. Paris, 1833, &c 
 Of this valuable and popular work 30 parts or 15 vols. 
 8vo. have already appeared, bringing it down to letter I. 
 Germany. 
 
 1. Grosse vollstandige Universal Lexicon, von Zedler, 
 
 1732-50, 64 vols. 8vo. ; with a sup. Another edition 
 was published 1751-54 in 4 vols. fol. Halle and Leipsig. 
 
 2. Deutsche Encyclopedie, &c, 1778-1804, by Koester 
 and Roos. Of this work 23 vols. 4to. appeared, bring- 
 ing it down to letter K. 
 
 3. Economische Encyclopedie, by Krunitz, Floerke, and 
 Korte, 1774, 1828. 148 vols. 8vo. Berlin. 
 
 4. Conversations Lexicon, 1796-1809, 6 vols. 8vo. ; besides, 
 a sup. of 2 vols. The 6th edition was completed al 
 Leipsig, 1824, in 10 vols., with 2 of a sup. ; since that 
 time there have appeared several editions of this work 
 materially augmented. An English translation of it- 
 with the addition of much valuable information, was 
 completed at Philadelphia, in 13 vols. 8vo. 1820-33, 
 under the superintendence of Dr. Liebner; and a re- 
 publication of this American work, with considerable 
 improvements, has been recently completed at Glas- 
 gow, in 6 vols. 
 
 5. Allgemeine Encyclopedie der Wissenschaften und 
 Kiinste, von Ersch und Gruber, 1818, &c. Leipsig. 65 
 vols. 4to. of this work have already appeared. It is di- 
 vided into sections, of each of which A, H, and O are 
 the commencement. 
 
 6. Gehler's Physicalisciies Wiirterbuch, neu bearbeitet 
 von Brandes, Gmelin, Horner, Munclte, Pfaff. 9 vols. 
 8vo. Leipsig, 1825-40. As the title implies, it is con- 
 fined to general physics, and physical astronomy; bui 
 its great value renders it worthy of a place in this cata- 
 logue. 
 
 7. Haus-Lexicon, or Vollstandiges Handbuch praktischei 
 Lebens-kentnisse ftir alle stande, 8 vols. 8vo. Leipsig 
 1835-37. 
 
 8. Damen Conversations Lexicon, 10 vols, small 8vo. 
 Adorf, 1835-38. 
 
 Besides these, there are no fewer than 19 Encyclo 
 pedias of greater or less extent in course of publica 
 tion in Germany ; but it has not been our fortune to see 
 any of them, with the exception of the Conversations 
 Lexicon der Gegenwart, which forms a species of sup- 
 plement to the Conversations Lexicon above specified. 
 Italy. 
 1. Dizionario Scientifico ex Curiosa, Sacra, Profana, by 
 G. P. Pinati. 10 vols. fol. Venice 1746-51.
 
 DICTIONARY. 
 
 2. Encyclopedia Ilaliana. Naples, 1788. 
 
 3. Encyclopedia Methodica Ciitica Ragionnata delle belle 
 Arli, by Pietro Zani. Parma, 1818-20. 
 
 But anoiher branch of the same encyclopaDdian tree, 
 which, as already remarked, yielded such brilliant fruits 
 in the hands of Ducange, Bayle, and Calmet, has taken deep 
 root in Europe, and more especially in this country, and 
 has greatly coniribuled to the diffusion of knowledge; viz. 
 the compilation of dictionaries appropriated to separate 
 branches of literature, science, or art. A mere catalogue 
 of these would swell this notice to a size wholly incom- 
 patible with our limits, as there is scarcely a department 
 ol human knowledge in which works of this class have not 
 been published within the last fifty years. It is not our in- 
 tention lo enter upon a discussion of the positive or com- 
 parative merits of the works referred to, though there ex- 
 ist perhaps few more fertile fields for criticism ; but, if we 
 take into consideration the extreme difficulty of compiling 
 a good dictionary, and the acquirements essential to the 
 individual who undertakes it, we shall not be surprised if 
 but a lew only of the vast number of dictionaries with 
 which the literature of this and other countries is inun- 
 dated be respectably executed. It may be true that the 
 qualities of brevity, precision, and distinctness, without 
 which no work of this class is even tolerable, do not belong 
 to the highest order of intellect; though they are, perhaps, 
 quite as rarely to be met with as its more showy attributes; 
 but it is easy to see that to give interest to a work of this 
 nature, and to present the reader with satisfactory informa- 
 tion in a perspicuous and compendious form, a more than 
 ordinary share of ability is indispensable. Montesquieu 
 said of Tacitus that he abridged all, because he knew all. 
 But though a thorough knowledge of the subject be indis- 
 pensable, that is not enough to enable an individual to make 
 a good dictionary. He must be able to split it into its ele- 
 ments ; to treat each part as if it were separate and inde- 
 pendent, and the reader wished to study it only ; and at 
 the same time to preserve all the parts in due subordina- 
 tion to each other, and to the plan of the work. The judg- 
 ment, tact, and variety of research and learning, to say no- 
 thing of the labour, necessary to give permanent interest 
 and real value to a work of this sort in any of the great 
 departments of human knowledge, may be more easily 
 imagined than described ; and hence the extreme fewness 
 of such works. But even the inferior class of dictionaries 
 have many recommendations ; and though mostly com- 
 piled at second-hand from other works, and with but little 
 unity of plan or execution, still, if they be tolerably accu- 
 rate and precise, they cannot fail to be of great utility. We 
 are aware, indeed, that this position has been denied ; and 
 that it has been contended that the general prevalence of 
 dictionaries has exercised a baneful influence upon the 
 literature of the age, inasmuch as, by making people satis- 
 fied with the information which they contain, they tend to 
 generate a taste for superficial learning, and thus, by dis- 
 couraging all reference to more elaborate treatises, strike 
 at the root of original thought and profound erudition. 
 Those, however, who adopt this line of argument, quite 
 overlook the main objects which dictionaries are calcu- 
 lated to serve. Such arguments would have some weight 
 had it been ever contemplated that the mathematician 
 should study mathematics, the philosopher philosophy, the 
 divine theology, or any professional man the subjects that 
 form the basis of his profession, in a dictionary only. But 
 this is by no means the case. The grand object aimed at 
 in such works, is to place within the reach of persons en- 
 gaged in the business of active life a mass of well-digested, 
 accurate and readily accessible information upon subjects 
 not connected with their own immediate pursuits, such as it 
 might be exceedingly difficult for them to procure else- 
 where ; while even to the learned, or to those who have 
 access and leisure to refer to more extensive depositories 
 of human knowledge, they serve as convenient manuals 
 or reference books. But upon this subject we cannot do 
 better than transfer to our columns an eloquent passage 
 from the elaborate paper of M. Guizot on encyclopedias 
 (Paris, 1826), to which we beg to refer the reader for a clear 
 and learned exposition of the merits of this species of lite- 
 rature. '• Parleraije enfin de leur utilite commune et pra- 
 tique, de l'abondante instruction, des innombrables en- 
 seignemens qu'elles fournisse nt, et qui s'appliquent a tant 
 de circonstances, a tant de besoins de la vie 7 Dans les 
 grandes villes, an milieu de toutes les facilites, de toutes 
 les richesses de la societe hnmaine, onoublie trop qu'une 
 multitude de families independantes, aisees, dont le travail 
 u'absorbe point le temps ni les facultes, vivent dans une 
 situation toute differente, celles-ci a la campagne, celles-la 
 dins de petites villes, eloignees de toutes ces ressources 
 de la science et de l'industrie qui se pressent aulour de 
 nous. C'est la qu'on apprend a connaitre le prixde cette 
 science domestique qui se transporte en quelques volumes 
 dans la solitude la plus profonde. Sans donte elle est in- 
 complete et fautive ; on se trompe souvent dans l'applica- 
 cation qu'on en fait ; mais a tout prendre, elle €claire et 
 342 
 
 DIDELPHYS. 
 
 dirige plus souvent encore ; elle diminue les embarras, lea 
 ennuis de l'isolement; elle rassure les imaginations; elle 
 elablit enfin, entre des milliers d'individus disperses et les 
 grands foyers de la science, une sorte de lien intellectuel 
 dont 1'importance et les effets se laissent diflieilemenl ap- 
 precier." Such, then, being the purposes contemplated 
 by works of this class, and such the acknowledged benefits 
 that accrue from them, so far from the number and va- 
 riety of works which have been published in the course of 
 the last and present century under the title of dictionaries 
 and encyclopaedias, occasioning any surprise, we are al- 
 most warranted in anticipating that, owing to the gradual 
 progress of human knowledge, the progressive augmenta- 
 tions to the stock of polite literature, and the number and 
 rapidity of the inventions and discoveries which are con- 
 stantly enriching the arts and sciences, this species of pub- 
 lication will continue to increase, and that, in a word, the 
 literature of every country will gradually assume more and 
 more of the dictionary form. 
 
 DI'CTUM. (Lat. something said.) A word used in com- 
 mon parlance to signify the arbitrament or award of a judge. 
 
 DI'CTYOTHE'TON. (Gr. 6iktvov, a net, and riQr,ui, I 
 place.) In Ancient Architecture, masonry worked in 
 courses like the meshes of a net. Also open lattice work 
 for admitting light and air. 
 
 DIDA'CTIC. (Gr. iiiauKos, I teach), in the schools, 
 signifies every species of writing, whether in verse or 
 prose, whose object is to teach or explain the rules or prin- 
 ciples of any art or science. Thus to this class of litera- 
 ture belong the writings of Aristotle on grammar, poetry, 
 and rhetoric ; Longinus's Treatise on the Sublime ; and the 
 Institutions of Quintilian, &c. But the term has been 
 borrowed from scholastic phraseology, and appropriated 
 more exclusively to all poetical writings devoted to the 
 communication of instruction on a particular subject, or 
 of a reflective or ethical character, thence called didactic 
 poetry. Were this the place for such investigations, it 
 might be easily shown that the didactic must have been 
 among the first species of poetical composition ; and that 
 the writings of the earliest poets of whom profane history- 
 makes mention, such as Orpheus and Linus, might with 
 propriety be classed under this category. But be this as it 
 may, this species of poetry has been in use from a very re-, 
 mote period, and there is scarcely any nation in which it 
 has not taken root. Among the most celebrated poems of 
 this species may be reckoned in ancient times that of Lu- 
 cretius, De Rerum Natura, in which the Epicurean system 
 of philosophy is explained ; Virgil's Georgics, which has 
 almost always served as a model to the didactic poets of 
 succeeding ages ; and Horace's Art of Poetry ; and in more 
 recent times, Pope's Essays on Criticism and Man ; Du 
 Fresnoy's Art of Painting (see Mason's translation in the 
 Literary Works of Sir J. Reynolds); Vida and Boileau's 
 Art of Poetry; Ak'enside's Pleasures of the Imagination ; 
 Armstrong's Art of Preserving Health; Somerville'sCAoce; 
 Dyer's Fleece ; Young's Universal Passio7t, &.c. The 
 reader will find in Blair's Lectures, vol. hi., a full exposi- 
 tion of the nature and characteristics of this species of 
 poetry, and a critical notice of the most famed didactic 
 poems of all ages and countries. 
 
 DIDA'CTYLE. (Gr. du, double, and &anTv\os, the fin- 
 ger ; two-fingered, or twotoed.) This epithet is applied to 
 various animals, as to the ruminants among quadrupeds 
 (by Klein) ; to the ostrich among birds ; to the amphiuma, 
 an amphibious reptile with two digits on each extremity ; 
 and to certain insects, as the Pterophorus didactylus and 
 Gryllotalpa didactyla. 
 
 DIDASCA'LIV (Gr.) A term in use among the Greek 
 writers of antiquity, and till within the last century among 
 almost all the nations of modern Europe, applied to the re- 
 presentation of dramatic pieces, or to critical notices of the 
 stage, and of every thing appertaining thereto. The only 
 paper with this designation, now in existence, is, as far as 
 we know, that published at Frankfort, which enjoys a large 
 circulation. 
 
 DI'DORON. (Gr. SiSopuv.) In Ancient Architecture, 
 a brick whose length was one loot, and its breadth one half 
 its lensth. 
 
 DIDE'LPIIYS. (Gr. Sis, double, and Sc\(pvs, tr omb.) A 
 generic name originally applied to the opossum, and al5 
 other quadrupeds which like it have a duplicature of the 
 integument of the abdomen forming a pouch, in which 
 the prematurely born young are received, protected, and 
 nourished, as in a second womb, until their growth is ad- 
 vanced to a stage corresponding to that of the new born 
 young in the ordinary mammalia. In modern systems the 
 term is, singularly enough, restricted to that group of Mar- 
 supials in which there are certain species deficient in the 
 abdominal pouch. The genus Didelphys, or true opos- 
 sums, are characterized by the following dental formula — 
 incisores y canini -2, molares spurii ^, molares veri ^ 
 = 50; and by having the hinder fcot provided with a 
 thumb, and a prehensile tail.
 
 DIDUS. 
 
 DT'BUS. The generic name for the dodo or dronte. 
 birds oT this kind were discovered by the Portuguese in 
 1499 on the island now called Mauritius, where they were 
 afterwards observed by the Dutch in 1598, and in the early 
 part of the following century. Original figures of the bird 
 are given in Ve Bry (Quinta pars India. Orientalis. £fc, 
 Mdci.) ; by Clusius, in his Exotica, 1605 ; by Herbert, in his 
 Travels, 1634; by Bontius (l'iso's edition, 1658) ; and by 
 Savery, in his celebrated picture of "Orpheus charming 
 the Beasts," now in the museum at the Hague. The last 
 figure is the best ; it was painted, as were the other figures 
 of exotic species in the same picture, from studies of the 
 living animals preserved at that time in the celebrated me- 
 nagerie of Prince Maurice of Nassau. It is highly proba- 
 ble that the same dodo was the subject of the painting of 
 which the one now in the British Musenm is a copy. 
 
 Besides this pictorial evidence there exist a head and a 
 foot of the dodo in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and 
 a foot of the dodo in the British Museum. The following 
 is Willoughby's translation of the original description of 
 this extinct bird by Clusius : — '' The dodo is called by Clu- 
 sius Gallus gallinaceus peregrinus.by Nieremberg Cygnus 
 cucullatus, by Bontius Bronte. This exotic bird, found by 
 the Hollanders in the island called by the Portuguese 
 Vygnata or Cerne, that is the Swan Islaud, and Mauritius 
 Island by the low Dutch, of thirty miles compass, famous 
 especially for black ebony, did not exceed a swan in big- 
 ness ; but was of a far different shape, for its head was 
 great, covered as it were with a certain membrane resem- 
 bling a hood ; besides, its bill was not flat and broad, but 
 thick and long, of a yellowish colour next the head, the 
 point being black. The upper chap was hooked ; the 
 nether had a bluish spot in the middle, between the yellow 
 and black part. They reported that it is covered with thin 
 and short feathers, and wants wings, instead whereof it 
 hath only four or five long black feathers ; that the hinder 
 part of the body is very fat and fleshy, wherein for the tail 
 were four or five small curled feathers, twirled up together, 
 of an ash colour. Its legs are thick rather than long, whose 
 upper part, as far as the knee, is covered with black fea- 
 thers; the lower part, together with the feet, of a yellowish 
 colour; its feet divided into four toes, three (and those 
 the longer) standing forward, the fourth and shortest 
 backward, all furnished with black claws. After I had 
 composed and writ down the history of this bird, with as 
 much diligence and faithfulness as 1 could, I happened to 
 see in the house of Peter Pauwius, primary professor of 
 physic in the university of Leyden, a leg thereof cut off 
 at the knee, lately brought overoutof Mauritius his island. 
 It was not very long from the knee to the bending of the 
 foot, being but little more than four inches, but of a great 
 thickness ; so that it was almost four inches in compass, 
 and covered with thick set scales ; on the upper side 
 broader, and of a yellowish colour; on the under (or back 
 side of the leg) lesser and dusky. The upper side of the 
 toes was also covered with broad scales, the under side 
 wholly callous. The toes were short for so thick a leg ; 
 for the length of the greatest or middlemost toe to the 
 nail did not much exceed two inches, that of the other toe 
 next to it scarce came up to two inches ; the back toe fell 
 something short of an inch and a half; but the claws of all 
 were thick, hard, black, less than an inch long; but that 
 of the back toe longer than the rest, exceeding an inch. 
 The mariners in their dialect give this bird the name 
 Walgh-rogel, that is, a nauseous or yellow bird ; partly be- 
 cause after long boiling the flesh became not tender, but 
 continued hard and of difficult concoction (excepting the 
 breast and gizzard, which they found to be of no bad relish), 
 partly because they could get many turtle-doves, which 
 were much more delicate and pleasant to the palate. 
 Wherefore it was no wonder that in comparison of those 
 they despised this, and said they could be well content 
 without it. Moreover they said that they found certain 
 stones in its gizzard ; and no wonder, for all other birds as 
 well as these swallow stones to assist them in grinding their 
 meat." Thus far Clusius. 
 
 Now, with respect to the parts of the bird which still 
 remain to us, we infer that the head, from the sudden 
 rising of the cranium above the face, and the form of the 
 anterior extremity of the lower jaw, as also from the nos- 
 trils being covered with an arched scale, did not belong to 
 a vulture or any other Accipitrine bird ; while in the pre- 
 sence of the cere at the base, and the forward position of 
 the nostrils, it resembles the rhea and apteryx among the 
 Struthious birds. The apteryx. however, deviates more 
 from the typical Slrutkiomda in the shape of the bill and po- 
 sition of the nostrils than does the dndo. With respect to the 
 foot in the British Museum, this differs from that of the vul- 
 tures in the form and disposition of the tarsal scales, in the 
 shortness of the middle toe, and the bluntness and straighter 
 figure of the claws ; while in all these respects it agrees 
 with the foot of the apteryx and the Gallinaceous order. 
 So that even those naturalists who, like Mr. Gray of the 
 British Museum, still reject the evidence in proof of the 
 343 
 
 DIET. 
 
 Struthious nature of the dodo, and deny its existence at 
 any period, are compelled to imagine that the bird repre- 
 sented in the original figures above quoted was made up by 
 joining the head of a bird of prey to the legs of a Gallina- 
 ceous bird. The analogies of ornithology, however, by no 
 means sanction the rejection of the multiplied, and, if we 
 except Leguat's narrations, consistent evidence, of the 
 actual existence of the Struthious dodo. Whoever inspects 
 the painting by Savery, above mentioned (which seems 
 hitherto to have escaped the attention of the naturalists 
 who have written on the dodo), must feel a conviction that 
 its original was no factitious orartificial specimen. Neither 
 the head nor the feet still preserved in our museums can 
 be referred to an albatross, a penguin, a vulture, or any 
 other known existing species; while they closely cor- 
 respond (allowing for the absence of the horny sheath of 
 the bill) with the original figures of the dodo. We have 
 therefore no hesitation in concluding that in other respects 
 those figures are equally faithful representations of the ex- 
 tinct Struthious form in question. Such also appears to be 
 the conclusion to which the learned writer of the article 
 '• Dodo" in the Penny Cyclopedia arrived ; in whose words 
 we shall conclude the present notice : — " If the picture in 
 the British Museum and the cut in Bontius be faithful re- 
 presentations of a creature then living, to make such a 
 bird a bird of prey, a vulture in the ordinary acceptation of 
 the term, would be to set all the usual laws of adaptation 
 at defiance. A vulture without wings ! How was it to be 
 fed? And not only without wings, but necessarily slow 
 and heavy in progression on its clumsy feet. The Vul- 
 turida. are, as we know, among the most active agents in 
 removing the rapidly decomposing animal remains in 
 tropical and intertropical climates ; and they are provided 
 with a prodigal development of wing to waft them speedily 
 to the spot tainted by the corrupt incumbrance. But no 
 such powers of wing would be required by a bird appointed 
 to clear away the decaying and decomposing masses of 
 luxuriant tropical vegetation — a kind of vulture for vege- 
 table impurities, so to speak; and such an office would not 
 be by any means inconsistent with comparative slowness 
 of pedestrian motion." 
 
 DIDY'NAMOUS. (Gr. <5<y, twice, and Swapis, poicer.) 
 A term applied to flowers having four stamens, of which 
 two are short and two are long. 
 
 DIE (Fr. de), in Coinage, is the instrument by which the 
 impressions are given upon the various denominations of 
 coin. The following is an outline of the die manufacture, 
 as conducted in her Majesty's mint : — The engraver selects 
 a forged plug of the best cast steel of proper dimensions for 
 his intended work ; and having carefully annealed it, and 
 turned its surfaces smooth in the lalhe, proceeds to en- 
 grave upon it the intended device for the coin ; the Queen's 
 head, for instance. When this is perfect the letters are put 
 in, and the circularity and size duly adjusted ; it is then 
 hardened, and is termed a matrix. Another plug of soft 
 steel is now selected ; and the matrix being carefully ad- 
 justed upon it, they are placed under a very powerful 
 fly-press, and two or three blows so directed as to com- 
 mence an impression of the matrix upon the plug; this is 
 then annealed, and the operation repeated till the plug re- 
 ceives a perfect impression of the work upon the matrix. 
 This impression is of course in relief, the original work 
 upon the matrix being indented, and produces what is 
 termed the punch. This, being duly shaped in the 
 lathe, is hardened, and is employed in the production of 
 impressions in soft steel or dies, which, being properly 
 turned and hardened, are exact facsimiles of the original 
 matrix, and are used in the process of coinage. When a 
 pair of dies are made of good steel duly hardened and 
 tempered, and are carefully used, they will sometimes 
 yield from two to three hundred thousand impressions be- 
 fore they become so far worn or injured as to require to be 
 removed from the coining presses. 
 
 DI'ERESl'LIS. A term invented by Mirbel to denote a 
 many-celled superior fruit ; the cells being dry, indehiscent, 
 few-seeded, and cohering by a common style round a com- 
 mon axis — Ex. Malta. 
 
 DIE'SIS. (Gr.) In Music, an interval less than a com- 
 ma. The harmonical diesis is the difference between a 
 greater and a less semitone. 
 
 DI'ET. (Lat. dies, a day; Germ. Reichstag.) A name 
 given to the principal national assembly in many countries 
 of modern Europe. 
 
 By the usage of the German Empire, two diets were sum- 
 moned every year by the emperor, besides such as were 
 convoked on extraordinary occasions. There were three 
 chambers— 1. Thatof the electors (see Electors). 2. That 
 of the sovereign princes, divided into two spiritual and four 
 temporal benches. The counts of the empire voted col- 
 lectively in four benches or divisions, and not as individu- 
 als; the prelates and the abbots in two. 3. The chamber 
 of the imperial cities, divided into the Rhenish and the 
 Swabian benches. The diets, together with the emperor, 
 exercised the prerogatives of sovereignty. A decree of
 
 DIET DRINK. 
 
 'he diet was termed a recess of the empire. The diet of 
 the modern Germanic Confederation is a meeting of pleni- 
 potentiaries, permanently assembled in the city of Frank- 
 fort-on-the-Maine. There are two diets: one termed ple- 
 num, in which the thirty-eight sovereign members of the 
 confederacy have seventy votes divided between them ; the 
 other the lesser or ordinary, in which their votes amount 
 together only to seventeen. In the latter assembly propo- 
 sitions are brought forward and discussed, which are de- 
 cided in the other without discussion. On some funda- 
 mental questions unanimity is required, in order that any 
 proposition may be adopted; in other cases a majority of 
 two thirds is necessary. Austria presides in both diets, and 
 has the casting voice in the lesser. 
 
 The diet of Hungary is composed of the king (Emperor 
 of Austria) and the estates. The latter consists of the 
 higher clergy, the magnates, the two courts of appeal, and 
 two representatives from each chapter, county, city, and 
 privileged district. They are divided into two chambers, 
 called tabulae. 
 
 The diet of Switzerland is composed of the representa- 
 tives of the cantons, and manages such affairs as by the 
 federal constitution are exempted from the jurisdiction of 
 those several independent states. It is held every two 
 years, alternately at Zurich, Berne, and Lucerne, which 
 are termed the presiding cantons (vorort). The schultheiss 
 or governor (chief executive magistrate) of the presiding 
 canton is landamman of Switzerland for the time being. 
 Each canton has one vote in the diet. 
 
 From a very remote period, down to 1832, Poland en- 
 joyed a national assembly, or diets, which were of two 
 sorts, ordinary and extraordinary. The ordinary diet was 
 held every two years, and usually at Warsaw ; though it 
 was expressly enacted that every third meeting should be 
 convened at Grodno, in Lithuania. The duration of its 
 sitting was restricted to six weeks, and could not, under any 
 pretext, be protracted beyond this period. The diet was 
 composed of a selection from the nobility, who formed 
 what was called the senate, and of the deputies returned 
 by each of the palatinates and districts of the country. 
 The number amounted to about 400. The period of its 
 meeting was fixed by the king, who presided over its de- 
 liberations ; except during an interregnum, when the bu- 
 siness of summoning the diet devolved on the archbishop 
 of Guesna. The extraordinary diets differed from the 
 ordinary chiefly in this, that there was no stated period for 
 the former being summoned together, that they were con- 
 yoked only to listen to propositions from the throne, and 
 lasted only four days. 
 
 As is well known, the throne of Poland was not heredi- 
 tary, but elective ; and, on the occasion of choosing the 
 sovereign, the Polish diets were held in the open country, 
 and were attended by all the nobility on horseback, armed 
 and equipped as if for battle. On this subject the reader 
 is referred to a work of great ability, by De la Birardiere, 
 entitled Histoires des Dietes de Pologne' pour les Elections 
 ties liois, depuis 1572jusgit'en 1674 (8vo. Paris, 1679.) Diet- 
 inea was the name given to the particular assemblies of the 
 Polish nobility in which deputies were elected to serve in 
 the ordinary diets, and to represent the wishes and interests 
 of their constituents. In these dietines every gentleman 
 possessing an estate of three acres had the right of voting, 
 and every deputy was chosen by the majority of suffrages, 
 (bee Dunham's History of Poland.) 
 
 DIET DRINK. Alterative decoctions taken in consider- 
 able quantities ; such as decoction of sarsaparilla, sassafras, 
 dandelion, &c. Lisbon diet drink nearly resembles the 
 compound decoction of sarsaparilla of the London Pharma- 
 copoeia. 
 
 DIETE'TICS. (Gr. Siairaeiv, to nourish.) That part of 
 medical science which relates to the diet or ordinary food. 
 &ee Digestion and Food. 
 
 DIEU ET MON DROIT. (Fr. God and my right.) The 
 motto of the royal family of England. It was first assumed 
 by Richard I., to intimate that he held his sovereignty from 
 God alone, and not in vassalage to man ; and it should 
 seem that it fell into desuetude among the immediate suc- 
 cessors of that prince, and remained so till the reign of 
 Edward III., by whom it was revived when he first claimed 
 the crown of France. Since that period, if we except the 
 reigns of Elizabeth, William III., and Anne, the first and 
 last of whom used the motto " Semper eadem," and the 
 second, though only in his private capacity, " Jemaintien- 
 dray,"' Dieu et mon droit has always formed the royal motto 
 of England. 
 
 DIFFERENCE. In Logic, one of the predicables. It 
 is that particular quality which distinguishes the subject 
 from all others, when contemplated from that point of view 
 in which we are then regarding it ; and is said, logically, 
 to be part of the essence of the subject. The genus, to- 
 gether with the difference, is said logically to make up the 
 species ; the species, with the difference, to make up the 
 lower species, or the individual : — e. g. To the genus metal 
 adii the difference l> susceptible of magnetic attraction," 
 344 
 
 DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS. 
 
 and we obtain the species iron, which is distinguished from 
 all other metals by the existence of that peculiarity. .See 
 Logic. 
 
 Difference, in Arithmetic and Algebra, is the excess 
 of one quantity over another, or that which remains when 
 one quantity is taken from another quantity of the same 
 kind. In the higher mathematics the theory of Finite Dif- 
 ferences forms an extensive branch of analysis, which is 
 usually explained in treatises on the Differential and Integ- 
 ral Calculus. (See the treatises of Euler, Bossut, Lacroix, 
 &c. ; or the Appendix by Sir J. Herschel to the English 
 translation of Lacroix's smaller work.) 
 
 DIFFERENCES. In Heraldry, devices borne on the 
 escutcheon to indicate the part of a family to which the 
 bearer belongs. This has been effected by various me- 
 thods, — at present by what are termed brisures, marks of 
 filiation, or of cadency ; being small charges placed con- 
 spicuously in the shield. The eldest son bears a label of 
 three points ; the second, a crescent ; the third, a mullet ; the 
 fourth, a martlet ; the fifth, an annulet or small ring; the 
 sixth, a fleur-de-lys ; the seventh, a rose ; the eighth, a 
 cross moline ; the ninth, a double quatrefoil. The family 
 of the second son repeat these differences on their own 
 paternal mark of filiation : — e. g. the second son's first 
 son bears a crescent ensigned with a label, and so on of 
 the rest. Females do not bear differences. 
 
 DIFFERENTIAL (diminutive of Difference), in the 
 higher Mathematics, denotes a quantity infinitely small, or 
 less than any assignable magnitude. See Differential 
 Calculus. 
 
 DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS. The name by which 
 one of the most important branches of the higher mathe- 
 matics is usually designated. 
 
 In confining ourselves to a very general view of the sub- 
 ject, it may be said that the object of the differential cal- 
 culus is to find the ratios of the differences of variable, 
 magnitudes, on the supposition that these differences be- 
 come infinitely small ; an hypothesis which gives rise to 
 considerable abbreviations in the general calculation of 
 differences. But it is here necessary to attend to the par- 
 ticular signification in which the terms infinite, infinitely 
 small, are used in the language of the calculus. Every 
 magnitude which forms the subject of mathematical rea- 
 soning is susceptible of augmentation or of diminution 
 without limit. We may therefore always conceive a 
 quantity to become so great as to exceed any finite assign- 
 able quantity of the same nature as itself; or so small as 
 to be less than any finite assignable quantity also of the 
 same nature as itself: in the former case the quantity ia 
 said to be infinite ; in the latter, infinitely small. In this 
 sense it is obviously not necessary to attribute a real and 
 physical existence to an infinitely great or infinitely small 
 quantity : it is sufficient to imagine that if We attribute to 
 any quantity which enters into a question a value as great 
 or as small as we please, there always exists, beyond thia 
 limit, a quantity of the same kind still greater or still 
 smaller, and which in this sense is infinitely great or infi- 
 nitely small in comparison of any other finite quantity of 
 the same kind. So that a finite magnitude may be regarded 
 as nothing, or zero, in comparison of one infinitely great ; 
 and an infinitely small magnitude as nothing, or zero, in 
 comparison of a finite magnitude. 
 
 The infinitely small quantities which come under con- 
 sideration in the differential calculus are called differen- 
 tials. The differential of a magnitude or variable function 
 is expressed by writing the letter d before the magnitude 
 or function: thus da: signifies the differential of the vari- 
 able magnitude x, d (x y) the differential of the product of 
 the two variables x and y, and so on. Instead of using the 
 letter d, the English mathematicians formerly indicated the 
 fluxion of a quautity (which is equivalent to the differential) 
 by placing a dot over it ; thus x represented the fluxion of 
 
 x, and x y that of the product x y ; but this notation wa3 
 found in the progress of the calculus to be inconvenient, 
 and has been disused by all the modern writers. The 
 letter d was introduced by Leibnitz, and it has been adopted 
 by all the Continental writers since the origin of the cal- 
 culus as the symbol of differentiation. 
 
 The principles upon which the doctrine of infinitesimal 
 quantities can be best established have been the subject 
 of much dispute among mathematicians, and various 
 methods of deducing the fundamental theorems have been 
 proposed, of which the principal are — the differential me- 
 thod of Leibnitz, the Newtonian method of fluxions, New- 
 ton's method of prime and ultimate ratios followed in the 
 Priyicipia, D'Alembert's method of limits, Lagrange's me- 
 thod of derivation, and Landen's residual analysis. The 
 principles and general procedure of Leibnitz's method 
 (which, properly speaking, is the differential calculus) may 
 be explained as follows : — 
 
 The differential of a variable quantity may be defined 
 to be the infinitely small difference between two successive 
 states of the sanie variable, and the object of the calculus 

 
 DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS. 
 
 is to find this differential for all possible cases ; that is to 
 say, for all the possible functions of the proposed variables, 
 such as x, y, z, &c, of which the particular differentials 
 are expressed by dx, dy,dz, &c. Before explaining how 
 this is done, it is necessary to examine into the distinction 
 that must be made between the operation by which an or- 
 dinary or finite difference is found, and that to which we 
 must confine ourselves when the difference is infinitely 
 small, or a differential. If we consider the proposed sys- 
 tem or function in any two determinate states different 
 from each other, the difference of the two values of the 
 same quantity taken in the two states will be determinate, 
 and consequently cannot be supposed as small as we 
 please, so that no part of its expression can be omitted ; 
 but if the two states of the function approach indefinitely 
 near each other, the difference of the two values of the 
 same variable may be rendered as small as we please. It 
 then becomes a differential, and is in fact nothing more 
 than the ordinary difference simplified by the suppression 
 of the quantities which in its expression may be regarded 
 as infinitely small in comparison of the other quantities of 
 which it is composed. Such is the general principle of 
 differentiation. (Carnot, Reflections aUT la Metaphysique 
 du Calcul Infinitesimal, Paris, 1813.) 
 
 From this general principle it follows evidently that in 
 order to differentiate a quantity, or any function whatever 
 of a quantity, or of several combined quantities, which 
 function we shall represent by <p (x, y, z, #.c. ), it is only 
 necessary to consider it in its second state ; that is to say, 
 when x, y, z, <fcc. having become respectively x + dx, 
 y + dy,z -\-dz,&c, the function itself becomes <p(x + dx, 
 y + dy, z + d z, &c.) ; to subtract the primitive value of 
 the function from its value thus increased, which will give 
 for the finite difference of the proposed function. 
 
 <p (x + dx, y + dy, z + dz, &c.) — <p (x, y, 2, &c); 
 
 and, lastly, to pass from this difference to the differential 
 by neglecting those quantities which in the development 
 are infinitely small in comparison of those to which they 
 are to be added, or from which they are to be taken away. 
 This general rule will be belter understood by showing its 
 application to some particular examples. 
 
 1. Let it be proposed to differentiate the sum a + b 
 + x + y, composed of constant and variable quantities. 
 According to the general formula, the constants a and b 
 have no differential ; and those of x and y are dx and dy 
 respectively ; therefore the differential of the proposed 
 sum, that is, d (a + b + x + y) is a + b + (x + dx) + 
 (y + dy) — (a + b + x + y). which becomes on reduction 
 dx + d y. Hence, lh° differential of any sum whatever of 
 coristanis and variables is equal to the sum of the differen- 
 tials of the variables alone. 
 
 2. Let it be required to differentiate x — y. Here we 
 have d(x — y) = (i + dr) — (y + dy) — (x — y) ; or after 
 reduction, d(x — y) = d x — d y ; whence the differential 
 of the difference of any two variables is equal to the differ- 
 ence of their differentials. 
 
 3. Let it be proposed to differentiate the product x y. 
 By the formula we have d (x y) ■= ( x + rf x) (y + d y) — 
 xy=xdy + ydx + dxdy; but it is necessary to re- 
 mark that the last term d x d y is infinitely small in com- 
 parison of each of the two others, as will be evident on di- 
 viding it by either of them, for the quotient is obviously an 
 infinitely small quantity. The third term must therefore 
 be neglected ; whence the formula becomes d (x y) = 
 x dy + y d z. In like mannerd(xy 2) = x y d z + z z dy 
 + y t z d x; and so on for the differential of the product of 
 any number of variable quantities. 
 
 x 
 
 4. Let it be proposed to differentiaie the fraction — . 
 
 By the general formula the difference will be — ~-^— ■ ; 
 
 y + dy y' 
 which being reduced to a common denominator, becomes 
 ydx-~ xd y , , . , 
 
 - — 5 7 — — ; and on leaving out the quantity ydy, which 
 
 y* — ydy B * J * ■" 
 
 is infinitely small in comparison of y 3 with which it is 
 , , , x y d x — x dy 
 
 joined, we have d — =- — - — . 
 
 V V s 
 
 5. Let it be proposed to differentiate the function xm . 
 In this case the general formula gives (x + dx)m — jm . 
 Expanding (x + d x)m by the binomial theorem, we get 
 (xm +m im-l d x + J (m — l)im-2 d X* + <fec.) — xm , 
 or m arm— 1 d x + h (m — 1) xm-2 d x" + &c, for the dif- 
 ference. But d x 2 being infinitely small in comparison of 
 dx, the term into which it enters as a factor (and all the 
 succeeding ones which are multiplied by d x 3 , d x 4 , <tc.) 
 must be rejected. We have therefore simply, for the dif- 
 ferential, dxm = m arm— 1 d x. It will easily be under- 
 stood that m may be any quantity, whole or fractional, posi- 
 tive or negative. 
 
 G. Let it be proposed to differentiate the expression ax, 
 in which a is a constant quantity, and 1 a variable expo- 
 nent. According to the general principle the differential is 
 345 
 
 ax+dx — ax, or a* ■ adx — ax, or a* (adx — I). Assume 
 a = \ + b, and we shall have ad* = (1 + 6)dx ; whence by 
 the binomial theorem, 
 
 dx- 
 
 1 ■ ■,_,, Ca'J- l )(a , g-2) 
 - + dxb * 2T3 
 
 adx = 1 + dxb + dxb- 
 
 + &c. ; and as the quantity d x, being infinitely small in 
 comparison of the finite numbers 1, 2, 3, <fcc, must be re- 
 jected, the equation, on transposing the first term of the 
 second member, becomes 
 
 ad,-l = dx(6-'l , + ^_^ + &c.) 
 
 Substituting this value of adx — 1 in the expression ax (adx 
 — 1), and writing a — 1 instead of 6, we have for the dif- 
 ferential of the proposed function 
 
 dax. = axdx ( (a — 1) — J(a — l) s + i( a — l) s — &c. ) 
 
 Or, making the constant factor (which is the Napierean 
 logarithm of the number a) = M, 
 
 d ax = M ax d x. 
 
 7. Let the proposed function be log. y. Make x = log. y ; 
 then d x = d log. y ; and by the general definition of a loga- 
 rithm, we have always, whatever may be the value of a, 
 the base of the system, y = ax. Hence d y = d ax ; and 
 substituting for d a* its value M ax d x, given in the last pa- 
 ragraph, we have d y = M ax d x. Substituting, therefore, 
 y for ax, and d log. y for d x, we find ultimately 
 
 dIo g .y = ^ 
 
 My 
 
 8. Let it be proposed to differentiate sin. x, x being an 
 arc of a circle of which the radius is 1. By the general 
 principle d sin. ar=sin. (x + dx) — sin. x; whence, by the 
 common trigonometrical formula, d sin. x = sin. x cos. dx 
 + cos. x sin. dx — sin. a:. Now if we recollect that dxis 
 an infinitely small arc, it will be obvious that its cosine dif- 
 fers from unity only by an infinitely small quantity, which 
 therefore must be rejected. The formula consequently 
 becomes d sin. x=sin. x-j-cos. x sin. dx — sin. x = cos. x 
 sin. d x. Again, d x being infinitely small, it differs from its 
 sine only by an infinitely small quantity, which must there- 
 fore be rejected. Hence sin. d x = d x, and we have 
 
 dsin. x = cos. x d x. 
 
 By the same process of reasoning we find d cos. x=— 
 
 sin. x dx, and d tan. x = -. It is unnecessary to 
 
 cos. x 3 ' 
 
 give more examples: the method of applying the general 
 principle is obvious. 
 
 Hitherto we have considered the system of variable 
 quantities in two successive states only ; but it may be con- 
 sidered successively in two, three, four, or any number of 
 consecutive states, all differing infinitely little from each 
 other. This consideration gives rise to successive orders 
 of differentials, derived from each other by a continued 
 repetition of the same operation. By differentiating a 
 function of any variable quantities we obtain a derivative 
 function, in which the corresponding quantities differ infi- 
 nitely little from their values in the original function. 
 Another differentiation gives a second derivative function, 
 and so on ; so that we obtain as many successive orders of 
 differentials as operations are performed. But it is to be 
 remarked, that the infinitely small differences between the 
 quantities in the first derivative system and the correspond- 
 ing quantities in the ordinal function, are not the same as 
 the infinitely small differences between the quantities in 
 the second derivative system and the corresponding quan- 
 tities in the first ; and those between the second and third 
 systems are again different from those between the first 
 and second. Hence it follows that these differentials are 
 themselves variable, and consequently, like all other vari- 
 able quantities, have their differentials. If therefore we 
 retain the symbol das the characteristic of the differential 
 of any species of variable, the expression ddx will denote 
 the quantity by which dx is augmented in passing from the 
 first derivative state to the second, exactly in the same man- 
 ner as dx represents the increase of x in passing from the 
 original to the first derivative state. In like manner dddx 
 will express the augmentation which d dx receives in pass- 
 ins from the second system to the third, and so on. 
 
 The quantities d x, d d r, d d d x, &c. are called the first, 
 second, third, &c. differentials of x. In the same manner, 
 dy, dd y,d d dy, &c. are the first, second, third, <fcc. differ- 
 entials of y. Instead of writing d d x, ddd x. <fec, it is 
 usual to write d 2 x, d z x, &c. And this notation is not 
 merely preferred on account of the abbreviation ; it is ab- 
 solutely necessary in many cases for the sake of carrying 
 on the investigation when many successive differentials of 
 the same variable are necessary to be considered. But 
 these symbols must be carefully distinguished from dx*, 
 d x 3 , &c, which are likewise abbreviations, but which at 
 the same time denote real powers of d x, signifying re- 
 spectively d x d x, d x d x d x, 6cc. ; and they must also be 
 distinguished from the quantities d(x)', d (,x)", <fcc, which
 
 DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS. 
 
 are the differentials of the powers ar 3 , x 3 , &c. of x, while 
 dx*, d x 3 , &c. are the powers of the ditferentials. 
 
 From these considerations it follows that the differen- 
 tials of all orders are differentiated in the same manner as 
 any other variable, and consequently no particular rules 
 are required for this purpose. For example, the differen- 
 tial of x y is x d y + y d x ; and on differentiating this dif- 
 ferential, we find d x d y -f- x d* y -J- dy d x + y d- x. Dif- 
 ferentiating a third time, we get, on adding the similar 
 terms, 3 d x d" y + 3 d y d- x -j- x d 3 y + y d 3 x, and so on. 
 
 In the application of the calculus, it is very important to 
 observe, that when different variables are connected by 
 equations we are always at liberty to assume the differen- 
 tial of one of the variables to be constant ; and this con- 
 stant differential then becomes a term of comparison, and 
 serves to regulate all the others. For instance, in con- 
 sidering a curve line, we may suppose the successive in- 
 finitely small increments of the absciss to be all equal ; in 
 this case d x is invariable, and consequently d 2 x = 0. 
 But the increments of the ordinate, which correspond to 
 these equal increments of the absciss, are not equal, and 
 consequently the differentials of dy (or dr y) are not zero ; 
 and the law according to which dy varies in passing from 
 one point to another, while d x remains constant, is pre- 
 cisely that which will make known the nature of the curve. 
 In other words, the nature of the curve will be determined 
 by the relations between the successive differentials d y, 
 d 2 y, d 3 y, &c. of the variable y. 
 
 Having now endeavoured to explain the general princi- 
 ples of the calculus, we shall give a few examples of its 
 application to the theory of curve lines, the first subject to 
 which it was applied by its inventors. 
 
 Let A M N be a curve line, which we may regard as a 
 polygon of an infinite number of sides. Let one of these 
 sides M N be produced tilt it 
 meet the axis A B in T, and 
 draw M P perpendicular to A 
 B ; then M T is the tangent and 
 TPthe subtangent. Through 
 N, the other extremity of the 
 side M N, draw N Q. parallel 
 to M P, and draw M O parallel 
 to A B. Now, since M N is 
 
 supposed to be infinitely small, M P and N Q are infinitely 
 near each other; consequently MO is the differential of 
 the axis A P = x, and N O the differential of the ordinate 
 M P = y ; whence M O = d x. and NO = dy. But the 
 two triangles M N O and MTP are similar, therefore 
 NO:OM::MP:PT; that is, d y : dx ::y:PT; 
 
 dx 
 whence P T = y — , an equation giving the value of the 
 
 subtangent, and consequently the position of the tangent 
 itself. It therefore only remains to determine the value of 
 
 d x 
 y - — from the equation of the curve. As an example, let 
 
 it be required to find the subtangent of the common para- 
 bola, the equation of which is y Q = ax, a being the semi- 
 parameter of the axis. Differentiating the equation of the 
 
 d x 2 y 
 curve, we get 2 y d y = a d x ; whence -=— = — - , and the 
 ' 6 3 * dy a 
 
 dx 2 v 2 
 subtangent y -r- = -*— . Substitute in this expression 
 
 dy a 
 a x for y 2 , and we have the subtangent = 2 x, a well- 
 known property of the parabola. 
 
 The position of the normal is found in a similar manner. 
 Draw M R through M perpendicular to M T and meeting 
 A P in R ; then M R is the normal, and P R the subnormal. 
 Because T M R is a right angle ; therefore P R : P M : : 
 
 dx 
 PM:PT; that is, P R : y : : y : y -p, consequently the 
 
 d 
 subnormal P R = y~ . Let the curve, for example, be an 
 
 dx 
 ellipse, the equation of which is b 2 x 2 -\- a 2 y 3 = a 5 b 2 , the 
 co-ordinates being referred to the centre. The differential 
 of this equation is 2 4 3 x d x + 2(1* y dy = 0, whence we 
 dy b" 
 
 PQ, R B 
 
 find ^ = 
 dx 
 
 a- y' 
 
 and consequently the subnormal 
 
 dy_ 
 " d x ~ ' a 2 x 
 
 The differential calculus applies with like facility to the 
 determination of the radii of curvature and the involutes 
 of curve lines, to the finding of maxima and minima, in- 
 vestigations respecting series, and numerous other inqui- 
 ries ; in all of which it affords a singular facility in resolv- 
 ing questions, the solutions of which without its aid could 
 only be obtained with great labour and difficulty. 
 
 The differential calculus was invented by Leibnitz ; but 
 reduced to a systematic form, arid greatly extended, by the 
 two celebrated brothers James and John Bernoulli. Some 
 years, however, before Leibnitz fell on the discovery, the 
 method of fluxions, with which the differential calculus 
 agrees in every respect excepting its notation and the man- 
 346 
 
 DIFFRACTION. 
 
 ner in which the principles are usually explained, had been 
 invented and applied by Newton. This circumstance gave 
 rise to a dispute, which was long carried on with great 
 acrimony, between the mathematicians of England on the 
 one hand, who put forward the claims of Newton for the 
 honour of the invention, and those of France and Germany 
 on the other, who gave the merit of it to Leibnitz. It was 
 established beyond doubt that Newton was in possession 
 of his method before it had been thought of by Leibnitz ; 
 the only question, therefore, was whether Leibnitz received 
 such hints or information respecting the nature of New- 
 ton's method as were sufficient to guide him to its disco- 
 very. Of this there is no evidence, and extremely little 
 probability ; accordingly mathematicians have long agreed 
 in recognizing the claim of Leibnitz to be regarded as an 
 independent inventor. The notation introduced by New- 
 ton was followed generally by British mathematicians till 
 some years after the beginning of the present century ; 
 but that of Leibnitz and the Bernoullis is now universally 
 adopted. 
 
 DIFFERENTIAL COEFFICIENT, in Analysis, is the 
 ratio of the differential of any function of a variable quan- 
 tity to the differential of the variable. Let x and y denote 
 two quantities related to each other by the equation y == 
 a x 2 + b x + c, then y is a function of the variable x ; the 
 
 d y dii 
 
 differential coefficient is —■; and we have ~--=2ax-\-b. 
 
 dx dx 
 
 It is to be observed that the differential coefficient is not to 
 be considered as an algebraic fraction, but merely a sym- 
 bol, showing (in the present instance,) that the function y 
 has been differentiated with respect to x, and of which the 
 two parts d y and d x have no independent meaning. 
 
 DIFFERENTIAL THERMOMETER. An ingenious 
 instrument, of great use in experimental philosophy, for 
 measuring very small differences of temperature ; invent- 
 ed and first applied by Sir John Leslie, though the idea of 
 an instrument of the same kind seems to have long before 
 suggested itself to Sturmius. The differential thermometer 
 is described by Leslie, in his Experimental Inquiry into 
 the Nature and Proclamation of Heat, nearly as follows : — 
 Two glass tubes of unequal lengths, each terminating in a 
 hollow ball, and having their bores somewhat widened at 
 the other ends, a small portion of sulphuric acid tinged 
 with carmine being introduced into the ball of the longer 
 tube, are joined together by the flame of a blow-pipe, and 
 afterwards bent into nearly the shape of the letter U ; 
 the one flexure being made just below the joining, where 
 the small cavity facilitates the adjustment of the instru- 
 ment, which, by a little dexterity, is performed by forcing 
 with the heat of the hand a few minute globules of air from 
 the one ball into the other. The balls are blown as equal 
 as the eye can judge, and from four tenths to seven tenths 
 of an inch in diameter. To one of 
 the legs of the thermometer a scale 
 is attached ; and the liquid contained 
 in the tube is so disposed that it 
 stands in the graduated leg opposite 
 the zero of the scale, when both balls 
 are exposed to the same tempera- 
 ture. From this construction of the 
 instrument, it is easy to see that it is 
 affected by the difference only of 
 heat in the two balls. As long as both 
 balls are of the same temperature, 
 whatever this may be, the air con- 
 tained in the one will have the same 
 elasticity as that contained in the 
 other; and consequently the inter- 
 cluded coloured liquid, being thus 
 pressed equally in opposite direc- 
 tions remain stationary. But if, for instance, the ball which 
 holds a portion of the liquor be warmer than the other, the 
 superior elasticity of the confined air will drive it forwards, 
 and make it rise in the opposite branch above the zero, to 
 an elevation proportional to the excess of elasticity or of 
 heat. Sulphuric acid is chosen as the liquor best adapted 
 to the purpose ; because it is not vaporizable, and conse- 
 quently does not by its vapour affect the pressure of the 
 air above if. The carmine is used to render it more easily 
 visible. 
 
 DIFFRA'GTION. In Optics, a species of deviation or 
 inflexion which the rays of light undergo in passing very 
 near the extremities of any opaque body. This phenome- 
 non was first observed by Grimaldi, who described the 
 principal appearances with sufficient accuracy ; but it was 
 Newton who first attempted to explain its cause by the 
 general properties of light. His experiments are detailed 
 in the last book of his Optics. In order to exhibit the phe- 
 nomena of refraction, let a beam of solar light, reflected 
 horizontally, be admitted into a dark chamber through a 
 small round hole, and received on the white horizontal 
 wall. If the hole has a sensible diameter, the image of the 
 sun thrown on the wall will suffer no sensible alteration 
 of colour ; but if we place in the axis of the beam of light, 

 
 DIFFUSION OF GASES. 
 
 and at a distance of 5 or 6 feet from the hole through 
 Which it is admitted, a metallic plate, having a puncture 
 made in it by the point of a very fine needle, and intercept- 
 ing all other light than that which passes through the punc- 
 ture, the appearance on the wall will no longer be a cir- 
 cular spot of white light only ; it will be surrounded with 
 several concentric coloured rings, covering a space far ex- 
 ceeding in extent that which the solar beam would have 
 occupied if the rays of which it was composed had followed 
 their rectilinear direction. It is obvious therefore, both 
 from the colours and the space occupied by the light, that 
 the different rays have been reflected or bent in different 
 degrees, and in a manner quite analogous to what takes 
 place when light passes through a glass prism. By sub- 
 stituting a very narrow slit for the puncture in the me- 
 tallic plate, or several punctures or slits very close to each 
 other, and arranged in a certain manner, some of the most 
 beautiful phenomena of optics are exhibited. The pheno- 
 mena of diffraction have been much studied of late years, 
 as affording a test by which to try the truth of the rival theo- 
 ries of light. At present the result is in favour of the theo- 
 ry of undulation, inasmuch as it has afforded a satisfactory 
 explanation of all the phenomena without exception. See 
 Light. 
 
 DIFFUSION OF GASES. When two gaseous bodies 
 which do not act chemically upon each other are mixed 
 together in any relative proportions they gradually diffuse 
 themselves through each other ; so that after a sufficient 
 time has elapsed for the purpose, whatever may have been 
 their relative densities, they are found intimately blended : 
 the heavier gas does not fall, nor does the lighter one float. 
 Daltori, therefore, has appropriately represented gaseous 
 bodies as acting as vacua to each other. Professor Gra- 
 ham's researches have lately thrown much new light upon 
 this subject, and he has determined the laws of gaseous 
 diffusion by a series of well conceived experimental inqui- 
 ry. (See Graham's Elements of Chemistry, vol. i. p. 71 ; 
 and Quarterly Journal of Science, N. S., vol. v.) 
 
 DIGA'MMA. (Gr. Sis, double, and yappa (T), so called 
 from its representing two gammas, one set above another, 
 thus, F. ) The name given to the form of that letter in the 
 ancient Greek alphabet which corresponds in appearance 
 generally to the Latin F. 
 
 A mere outline of the controversies that have prevailed 
 among the learned respecting the form and power of the 
 digamma, the mode of its pronunciation, and the purposes 
 which it served in the early language of Greece, would oc- 
 cupy more space than our prescribed limits admit of; and 
 we must content ourselves with referring the reader to the 
 article " Digamma" in the Encyc. Metrop., and Ersch and 
 Gruber's AUgem. Encyc, in which the discussions on this 
 subject display great learning and research. This letter 
 appears to have occupied the sixth place in the alphabet, 
 and was most prevalent in the JEoMc dialect; though some 
 grammarians contend that it was common to all the dia- 
 lects of Greece in their more ancient mode of pronunci- 
 ation. It has often been expressed by IS, and sometimes 
 by r, A, 0, <l>, and X; and it is now almost universally 
 considered to have had the force of F, V, or the English 
 W. As the Latin language approximated more nearly to 
 the jEolic than to any of the other Grecian dialects, the use 
 of the digamma is very prevalent in many Latin words, 
 and the facility with which it was there interchanged for 
 V, both at the commencement and in the middle of words, 
 will be at once apparent from the followmg examples: — 
 Gr. tap, spring, JEol. Feap, Lat. ver ; Gr. iairtpos, evening, 
 JEo\. Yuxttcpos, LaL.vesperus ; Gr. otvos, wine, JEo\. Fomog, 
 Lat. vinum ; Gr. ioov, an egg, JEo\. wFov, Lat. ovum, &c. 
 (See Kidd's edition of Dawe's Miscellanea Critica, pp. 
 175 — 335; and Bultman?i's Greek Grammar. ) 
 
 DIGA'STRIC MUSCLE. (Gr. Sis, and yaurr\p, belly.) 
 A double muscle, situated externally between the lower 
 jaw and mastoid process ; it is attached to the os hyoides 
 in the human subject at the middle of its course. It pulls 
 the lower jaw downwards and backwards ; and when the 
 jaws are shut it draws the larynx, and with it the pharynx, 
 upwards in the act of swallowing. 
 
 DI'GEST. Several compilations of the Roman Law 
 have been so called ; but the best known is that which was 
 made by order of the emperor Justinian. It is also termed 
 the Pandects, from the Greek words irav, all, and Scx^ai, 
 to receive ; signifying the general nature of the collection. 
 The care of this great compilation was entrusted by the 
 emperor to Tribonian, with seventeen associates. It was 
 completed in three years, and published a. d. 533. It con- 
 tains the best decisions and opinions of former jurists, col- 
 lected, it is said, from more than two thousand volumes; 
 and follows the same arrangement as the code of the same 
 emperor, which had appeared in 529. The Pandects of 
 Justinian, according to the commonly received story, were 
 neglected in the Eastern Empire shortly after the decease 
 of that emperor, and were wholly lost in the West until the 
 accidental discovery of a MS. at A.malfi in 1130. But this 
 tradition is now generally believed to rest on no solid foun- 
 347 
 
 DIGRESSION. 
 
 dation. See Law, Civil. (See also Gibbon, cap. 44. ; 
 Savigny on the Roman Law.) 
 
 DIGE'STER. A strong iron or copper vessel with a 
 tightly adjusted lid, furnished with a safety valve, in which 
 bodies may be subjected to the action of high-pressure 
 steam. 
 
 DIGE'STION. The general process by which food is 
 converted into chyme in the stomachs of animals, and by 
 which it is rendered fit for the production of chyle, and 
 ultimately of blood. The term digestion is also more gene- 
 rally applied to the entire functions of the intestinal canal. 
 The phenomena of digestion, though exclusively chemical, 
 are also under the immediate influence of vitality, and are 
 consequently perfectly different from any changes which 
 the food suffers out of the body ; hence the unsatisfactory 
 conclusions of the older physiologists, who considered at- 
 trition, fermentation, and similar mechanical and chemical 
 processes as sufficient to account for the extraordinary 
 changes that are produced. It has been clearly ascertained 
 that the influence of the nervous system is essential to the 
 due performance of the functions of the stomach ; and 
 that when the brain, or the nerves that supply that viscus, 
 are either injured or divided, digestion is either impaired 
 or altogether suspended, and the food then ferments and 
 putrefies instead of digesting. It has been said that the 
 transmission of a current of electricity through the nerves 
 is equivalent to their connection with the brain, and that 
 under such circumstances the stomach, notwithstanding 
 the division of its nerves, continues its functions ; but 
 these, and other statements in which electricity is said to 
 be equivalent to the nervous and cerebral agency, require 
 much more extended experimental proofs than they have 
 hitherto received, before they can be admitted as true in- 
 terpretations. 
 
 Digestion. In Surgery, this term was formerly applied 
 to the treatment by which wounds or ulcers were brought 
 into that state in which they form healthy pus : the reme- 
 dies or applications promoting this object were termed 
 digrstives. 
 
 DI'GGING. The operation of moving earth with a spade. 
 In gardens where the soil is loose the main object of dig- 
 ging is to mix the soil by burying the surface, and bringing 
 what is below to the top, and in that case a spade with a 
 large blade may be used , but in digging firm ground spades 
 can only be used which have narrow blades, as these may 
 be more easily made to penetrate the ground. 
 
 DI'GIT(Lat. digitus, finger), in Arithmetic, signifies one 
 of the ten symbols, 0, 1, 2, 3, <fcc, by which all numbers are 
 expressed. By astronomers the term is used in speaking 
 of eclipses, to denote the twelfth part of the diameter of 
 the sun or moon. Thu3, the eclipse is said to be of ten 
 digits, if ten parts out of twelve of the diameter are con- 
 cealed. It is convenient to employ this mode of defining 
 the magnitude of an eclipse. 
 
 DIGITA'LIA. A vegetable alcaloid, procured from the 
 leaves of the digitalis. See Foxglove. 
 
 DI'GITIRRADES, Digitigrada. (Lat. digitus, a digit ; 
 gradior, I walk.) The carnivorous quadrupeds, which walk 
 on the extremities of their digits. An artificial group of 
 Carnivora is so called in the system of Cuvier. 
 
 DI'GLYPH. (Gr. Sis, twice, and y\v<poj, J carve.) In 
 Architecture, a projecting face with two panels sunk 
 thereon. 
 
 DI'GNITARY, in the Canon Law, signified originally a 
 person who held an ecclesiastical benefice ordignity, which 
 gave him some pre-eminence above mere priests and 
 canons. To this class exclusively belonged all bishops, 
 deans, archdeacons, &c. ; but it now includes all the pre- 
 bendaries and canons of the church. 
 
 DIGRESSION (Lat. digredi, to diverge), signifies any 
 details introduced into a work, which are either altogether 
 foreign from the immediate subjects of which it treats, or 
 not absolutely necessary to the progress or development 
 of the story. It will at once be perceived from this defi- 
 nition that, as a general rule, digressions are to be carefully 
 avoided, from their tendency to withdraw the attention of 
 the reader from the chief points of the story or the question 
 under discussion. There are, however, some departments 
 of literature in which the use of digressions is not only ad- 
 missible, but even advantageous. On this subject, how- 
 ever, no definite rules can be laid down for the guidance 
 of the author; but there can be little doubt that if intro- 
 duced properly and without effort, managed with good 
 taste, and confined within reasonable limits, digressions 
 have the effect of relieving the mind from the fatigue of a 
 too long sustained attention, and of imparting life and in- 
 terest to a subject that may be naturally dry and uninte- 
 resting. The Essays of Montaigne exhibit more clearly 
 than any similar productions with which we are acquainted, 
 the admirable uses to which digressions may be turned in 
 the hands of a master. Many of the writings of Slerne, but 
 more especially his Tristram Shandy (which contains an 
 eulogium upon digressions), supply the happiest examples 
 of their effects; and in our times The Doctor, Sfc, of which
 
 DILAPIDATION. 
 
 five volumes have already been published, owes its prin- 
 cipal attractions to the digressions with which the story is 
 Interlarded. See Episode. 
 
 Digression, in Astronomy, denotes the apparent dis- 
 tance of the inferior planets Mercury and Venus from the 
 sun. Mercury is never seen at a greater distance than about 
 28° from the sun ; this is called its greatest digression : but 
 on account of the great eccentricity of the planet's orbit, 
 the limit is subject to considerable variation. The greatest 
 digression of Venus is about 47i°, and it admits of a varia- 
 tion only amounting to about 20° 48' between its extreme 
 values. When the digression of an inferior planet attains 
 its maximum, the visual ray along which it is seen is a tan- 
 gent to the orbil, and the planet appears for some days 
 nearly stationary. The term elongation is also used to de- 
 note a planet's apparent distance from the sun ; but elon- 
 gation is applied indifferently to any planet, whereas di- 
 gression is usually confined to the two inferior ones. 
 
 DILAPIDATION, chiefly in Ecclesiastical Law, is where 
 an incumbent of a benefice suffers the parsonage house or 
 outhouses to fall down or be in decay for want of neces- 
 sary repairs, or commits any wilful waste of the inheritance 
 of the church. Proceedings against an incumbent for di- 
 lapidations must be in the spiritual court. Against his 
 executors, the remedy is either by proceeding in that court, 
 or the successor may have an action of debt or on the case 
 for damages at common law. 
 
 DILATA'TION. See Expansion. 
 
 DILE'MMA. (Gr. Sis, tioice, and Mppa, an assump- 
 tion; a ticofold assumption ) In Logic, a species of argu- 
 ment in the form of a complex conditional syllogism. (See 
 Syllogism.) It has been divided by logical writers into — 
 J. The simple constructive dilemma, in which the major 
 premiss contains several antecedents all with the same 
 consequent; the minor premiss grants that some one of 
 these antecedents is true; and the conclusion infers that 
 the common consequent is true : e. g. If A is B. C is D; 
 and if X is Y, C is D ; but either A is B or X is Y, there- 
 fore C is D. 2. The complex constructive dilemma, in 
 which the several antecedents have each a distinct con- 
 sequent; and it being granted that one antecedeni is true, 
 it follows that one consequent is true : e g. If A is B, 
 C is D ; and if X is Y, E is F ; but. eilher A is B or X is 
 Y, therefore either C is D or E is F. 3. The destructive 
 dilemma, properly so called, has several antecedents 
 with each a different consequent; and by denying the 
 consequents disjunctively (i.e. denying that one or the 
 other consequent is true) in the minor premiss, we pro- 
 ceed in the conclusion to deny the truth of one or the other 
 antecedent : e. g. If A is B. C is D ; and if X is Y, E is F ; 
 but either C is not D or E is not F, therefore eilher A is 
 not B or X is not Y. Every dilemma may be reduced inlo 
 two or more simple conditional syllogisms. 
 
 In the ordinary sense of the word, a dilemma is an ar- 
 gument in which two or more propositions are pressed 
 upon the mind in such a manner that by granting which 
 we will, we are compelled to infer the same conclusion. 
 One of the most celebrated dilemmas is that of the philo- 
 sopher Protogoras in reference to his pupil Euathlus ; for 
 an account of which we beg to refer the reader to the 
 Athenian Letters, vol. i. p. 149. 
 
 Dl'LETTA'NTE. (II.) A term wholly naturalized in 
 France, England, and Germany; signifying an amateur, 
 chiefly of music, but also of the kindred sciences. There 
 has existed in England, since the year 1760, a society called 
 the Dilettanti Society, which was originally instituted by 
 gentlemen who had travelled in Italy, simply for social 
 purposes, and for perpetuating in each other's company 
 the pleasure they had derived from their residence in that 
 classic country : but its objects soon become materially 
 extended ; ami it has acquired universal celebrity by the 
 liberality with which it has devoted its funds to the pur- 
 poses of science and art. The society still exists, and 
 meetings of it are occasionally held. Some of the most 
 famous travellers in Greece and Asia Minor, among whom 
 we may mention Chandler, have been sent out at the sole 
 expense of the Dilettanti Society; and many works illus- 
 trative of the art and science of Ihe classic regions of an- 
 tiquity, which would otherwise in all probability never 
 have seen the light, have under their auspices been given 
 to Ihe world. 
 
 DILIGENCE. In Scottish Law, a general term, com- 
 prehending the process of law by which persons, lands, or 
 effects are seized in execution or in security for debt. 
 It is divided into that against the heritage, that anainst the 
 moveables, and that against the person of the debtor; of 
 each of which there are several species. (See Inhibi- 
 tion, Adjudication, Poinding, Sequestration, Horn- 
 ing ) Diligence is also the name of the warrants insued 
 by courts for enforcing the attendance of witnesses, or the 
 production of writings. 
 
 DILLEMA'CEjE (Dillenia, one of the genera) In 
 Botany, a natural order of chiefly arborescent Exogens, 
 inhabiting thp hotter parts of the world. Allied to Magno- 
 348 
 
 DIOPHANTINE ANALYSIS. 
 
 liacete ; from which they are distinguished by their want 
 of stipules, and the quinary arrangement of the parts of 
 fructification. They differ from Ranunculacea, to which 
 they are also akin, in their persistent calyx and hahit, and 
 are universally characterized by the presence of an aril. 
 Their properties are generally astringent. 
 
 DILL SEED. The seed of the Anethum graveolens, or 
 common dill. This plant is grown for the supply of the 
 medical market with seeds : they are warm aromatics, with 
 something of the caraway flavour, and yield dill water and 
 an essential oil when distilled with water. Dill water is a 
 useful remedy in flatulency and gripes of children. 
 
 DI'LUENTS. (Lat. diluo, / wash away.) Water and 
 aqueous drinks, which increase the secretion of urine and 
 the perspiration, and appear to dilute the fluids of the body, 
 are medically spoken of as diluents. 
 
 DILU'VHJM. (Lat.) The accumulations of gravel, &c. 
 supposed to have been the consequence of the deluge. 
 
 DI'MERANS, Dimera. (Gr. Sis, two, /tripos, thigh.) The 
 name of a section of Celeopterans, comprehending those 
 which have apparently only two joints in each tarsus ; this 
 structure, however, does not in point of fact exist, there 
 being always a third ruriimental tarsal joint. 
 
 DIMINISHED IN'TERVAL. In Music, one that is de- 
 fective or short of its just quantity by a lesser semitone. 
 
 DIMINUE'NDO. (It.) In Music, an instruction to the 
 performer to lessen the volume of sound from loud to soft, 
 usually marked thus >. 
 
 DLMINU'TION. (Lat. diminutio.) In Music, a division 
 of a large note into smaller ones ; as a semibreve into two 
 minims, four crotchets. &c. 
 
 Diminu'tion. In Architecture, the gradual decrease of 
 the diameter of a column as it rises. See Entasis. 
 
 DIMI'NUTIVE (Lat.), in Grammar, is applied to words 
 which, by the addition of one or more syllables to those 
 from which they are derived, soften the meaning or dimi- 
 nish the force and effect thereof. Every language is in a 
 greater or less degree susceptible of diminutives; but in 
 this respect, as is well known, the Italian language sur- 
 passes all those both of ancient and modern times. 
 
 Dl'MITY. A cotton cloth of a thick texture, and gene- 
 rally striped or otherwise ornamented in the loom ; it is 
 chiefly used for articles of female dress, and for bed furni- 
 ture or window curtains, and is very rarely dyed. 
 
 DIMYA'RIAS, Dimyarias. (Gr. Sis, twice, jxvwv, a mus- 
 cle.) All those bivalves or conchifers are so called which 
 have two distinct and separate adductor muscles, and con- 
 sequently two corresponding muscular impressions on each 
 valve. 
 
 DI'OCESE. (Gr. Sioiktigis, a government.) The terri- 
 torial extent of a bishop's jurisdiction, embracing several 
 parcecia? or parishes. As in early times the Christian con- 
 verts were most numerous or most easily collected into 
 a congregation in large towns, so in these towns did the 
 bishop reside and minister to the faithful in his church, as- 
 sisted by his priestsand deacons. When the uumberof be- 
 lievers required the accommodation of additional temples, 
 or congregations were formed in the neighbouring villages, 
 the bishop was wont to appoint priests for their service, 
 and ihe districts inhabited by these subsidiary congregations 
 would become Ihe parishes of his diocese. 
 
 DI'ODON. (Gr. Sis. and oSovs, a tooth; two.toolhed.) 
 The name of a genus of Plectognathic fishes with undivided 
 jaws, each with a single and continuous denial plate. 
 
 DIONY'SIA. (Gr. ra Atovvota.) In Ancient History, 
 the festivals of Dionysus or Bacchus, but more particularly 
 those that were celebrated in Aitica, Which were three in 
 number, distinguished by the following titles: — I. The 
 Country Dionysia (ra xar' aypovs). 2. Those in Limnae 
 (a part of the city of Athens, where they were held), which 
 were also called Lensan (ru Xavaia, from ^rjvos, a wine- 
 press), or Anihesteria (&v6taTr,nia, from Anlhesterion, the 
 name of the Attic month corresponding to our January, in 
 which they were celebrated) ; and 3. The Great Dionysia 
 (to iilya\a)- At all of these festivals the chief amuse- 
 ments consisted in the representalion of stage plays ; but 
 the last was most celebrated, as then, before the face of all 
 Greece, the great tragic contests were held, no expense 
 being spared to render the decorations and accompani- 
 ments as splendid as art could make them: for on Ihese 
 exhibitions a great portion of the revenues drawn from 
 Ihe tributary states was expended, besides ihe private pro- 
 perly of the persons appointed to superintend them, they 
 being not only under the protection of the state, but a prin- 
 cipal object of its care. (See Bmckh's Public Economy of 
 Athens.) 
 
 DIOPHA'NTINE ANA'LYSIS. A branch of algebra, 
 which treats of certain classes of indeteriniuafe questions 
 relating to squarp and cuhe numbers, rectangular triangles, 
 &c. The name is derived from Diophanius, a mathema- 
 tician of Alexandria, who is supposed lo have lived in the 
 third century of our era, and who examined and resolved 
 a great number of queslions of ihis nature in his celebrated 
 treatise on arithmetic. Of this work, which exhibits the
 
 DIOPSIS. 
 
 state of algebra anion? the Greeks, there are two editions : 
 one by Bachet at Paris, in 1621 ; the other at Toulouse, in 
 1670, which is enriched by some valuable notes of Fermat. 
 The following example will serve lo illustrate the nature of 
 the Diophantine problems ; the object of which, in general, 
 is to find commensurable numbers that satisfy conditions 
 which may be satisfied by an infinity of indeterminate 
 numbers. Suppose it were required to find three numbers, 
 such that the sum of ihe squares of the two first is equal to 
 the square of the third; that is, to find x, y, and z, such 
 that x- + y i = c 3 . The solution may be as follows : — Let 
 z zzz x + u, then j ! =i ! -(-2iii + « 2 , and x* -j- y" = #- 
 
 y a — u' ! 
 
 + 2« -|- u-, or y' 2 = 2 x u + u", whence x = 
 
 2a 
 
 Now we may choose for y and ;t any numbers we please, 
 so that y- — u- is divisible by 2 u (which will be the case 
 if wo make tt = 1, and y any odd number whatever). Tor 
 example, if we suppose y = 3, and » = 1, we have ar = 4, 
 and z = .r+ w = 5 ; so that the three numbers are 3, 4, and 
 o. Since x- +</ 5 = z 2 , it is obvious that x and y may re- 
 present the two sides of a right angled triangle, of which 
 z is the hypoihenuse. The student of the indeterminate 
 -ii ilysis will find this subject very fully and perspicuously 
 ireated in the second volume of Eider's Algebra. 
 
 DIO'PSIS. (Gr. ma, through, and ojt//, an eye.) The 
 name of a genus of Dipterous insects, remarkable for 
 having the eyes and antenna? situated at the extremity of 
 slender horny peduncles rising from the sides of the head, 
 and equalling, in some species, the entire length of the body. 
 
 DIO'PTRICS. (Gr. dioxrpov. something transparent; 
 from 6ia, through, andonro/tai, I see.) A branch of Optics, 
 of which the object is to investigate and explain the effects 
 of the refraction of light when it passes through different 
 media, as air, water, glass, &c. Its principal application is 
 to the construction of telescopes and microscopes, and 
 <>tlnT instruments which require the use of refracting 
 lenses. The term is not much used by modern writers on 
 optics, the phenomena to which it refers being under the 
 general head of Refraction. See Lens, Light, Optics. 
 Refraction. 
 
 DIORA'MA. (Gr. Sta, through, and opaoi, Isee.) A mode 
 of painting or scenic representation, invented by two 
 French artists, Daguerre and Bouton, and recently brought 
 forward as a public exhibition in all the principal cities of 
 Europe. 
 
 The peculiar and very high degree of optical illusion pro- 
 duced by the diorama depends upon two principles; the 
 mode of exhibiting the painting, and the manner of pre- 
 paring it. With respect to the first of these, the spectator 
 and the picture are placed in separate rooms, and the 
 picture viewed through an aperture, the sides of which are 
 continued towards the picture, so as to prevent any object 
 in the picture room from being seen excepting the painting 
 itself. Into the room in which the spectator is placed no 
 light is admitted excepting what comes through this aper- 
 ture from the picture ; he is thus placed in comparative 
 darkness, and also (which contributes to the effect) at a 
 considerable distance from the picture. The picture room 
 is illuminated from the roof, which is glazed with ground 
 glass; and the picture so placed that the light falls on it at 
 a proper angle to be reflected towards the aperture. The 
 roof, which is invisible to the spectator, is provided with an 
 apparatus of folds or shutters, by which the intensity of 
 the illumination may be increased or diminished at plea- 
 sure, and so modified as to represent, with great effect and 
 accuracy, the different accidents of light and shade, or the 
 changes of appearance depending on the state of the at- 
 mosphere ; as bright sunshine, cloudy weather, or the ob- 
 scurity of twilight. 
 
 The second principle consists in painting certain parts of 
 the picture in transparency, and admitting a stream of light 
 upon it from behind, which, passing through the picture, 
 produces a brilliancy far surpassing what could be obtained 
 by illuminating the picture in the ordinary way, and renders 
 the relief of the objects represented much stronger and 
 more deceptive. Hence, the diorama is peculiarly adapted 
 for representing architectural objects, as the interiors of 
 cathedrals, &c. 
 
 In order to render the exhibition more attractive, it is 
 usual to present more scenes than one. This may of 
 course be effected by removing one picture ;i id substitu- 
 ting another: but. with a view to prevent the i '>ision from 
 being impaired by the accidents incidental to scene-shill- 
 ing, a differen' method is sometimes resorted to. In the 
 dioramain the Agent's Park, the room in which the spec- 
 tator is seated iSa rotunda about 40 feet in diameter, which 
 turns round a vertical axis^iy means of machinery placed 
 under the floor. There are two picture room- contiguous 
 to each other, each containing a view ; an 1 when the 
 scene is to be changed, the rotunda is turned round until 
 the aperture in front of the spectators, wl«ch was first op- 
 posite to the opening into one of the picture rooms, is placed 
 directly opposite the opening into the other. This con- 
 349 
 
 DIPLOMACY. 
 
 trivance, however, it will be observed, is independent of 
 the principles peculiar to the diorama. 
 
 DIOSCOREA'CEJE. (Dioscorea, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of Endogens, inhabiting the tropics, and 
 agreeing with Simlacea by the genus Tamus, in having an 
 inferior fruit ; but differing from it by the threefold char- 
 acter of inferior ovary, capsular fruit, and the albumen 
 having a large cavity. The mealy tubers of Dioscorea, un- 
 der the name of yams, form an important food in al! tropi- 
 cal countries. 
 
 DIP, in Magnetism, is the angle which a magnetic needle 
 makes with the plane of the horizon, when poised on its 
 centre of gravity and at liberty lo turn in the vertical plane. 
 See Dipping Needle. 
 
 Dip. In Geology, when strata are inclined, the angle 
 which they make with the horizon is called the angle of 
 dip or inclination, and the point of the compass towards 
 winch they slope is called the dip of the strata. 
 
 DIP OF THE SEA HORIZON. The apparent angular 
 depression of the visible horizon, caused by the height of 
 the spectator above the surface. To find it, multiply the 
 square root of the height in feet by 1063 ; the result is the 
 dip in minutes(of a degree) and decimals. 
 
 The actual dip observed is generally less than the true or 
 abstract dip by ,^ on the average ; but this Is again affect, 
 ed by the temperature of the sea ; when the sea is warmer 
 than the air the horizon appears lower than its place by 
 theory, and the contrary when the sea is the colder. 
 
 DI'PHTIIONG. (Gr. Sis, double ; and ipdcyyopai, 1 
 sound.) has usually been defined to be a double vowel, or 
 the union of two vowels pronounced together, so as only 
 to make one syllable. If, however, this definition be more 
 narrowly examined, it will be found to be deficient in two 
 of the most essential qualities of a good definition — preci- 
 sion and accuracy. If, says Mr. Walker, a diphthong be 
 two vowel sounds in succession, they must necessarily 
 form two syllables, and therefore by the very definition 
 cannot be a diphthong : if it be such a mixture of two vow- 
 els as to form but one simple sound, it is improperly called 
 a diphthong j nor can any such simple mixture exist. Per- 
 haps the best definition of a diphthong, although even that 
 is tar from embracing all the peculiarities of "tins class of 
 letters, is to be found in Smith's Scheme for a French arid 
 English JJirtionan/, to which we beg lo refer the reader. 
 DTPHYANS, Diphyes. (Gr. Sis, two, and <pvn, an off- 
 spring.) A family of Acelaphans, comprehending those sin- 
 gular species in which two distinct individuals are always 
 conjoined, one being lodged in the concavity of another. 
 DI'PLOE. (Gr. Sm\ow, / double.) The horny or 
 spon»y substance between the tables of the skull. 
 
 DIPLO'MA. (Gr. 6iK\wjia, from SnrXos, double.) Every 
 sort of ancient charter, donation, bull, &c. is comprehend- 
 ed by writers on diplomatics under the name diploma. 
 The term is derived from the earliest charters of donation 
 with which we are acquainted, those of the early Roman 
 emperors having been inscribed on two tablets of copper 
 joined together so as to fold in the form of a book. Writ- 
 ings of earlier date than the fifth century are generally on 
 leaves of the papyrus, or Biblos sEgyptiaca ; those of a 
 later period, on parchment. The form and character of 
 the diploma srranted by the sovereigns, prelates, nobles, &c. 
 of modern Europe, varied from age to age ; and the know- 
 ledge of these variations forms an important branch of the 
 science of diplomatics. 
 
 DIPLO'MACY, in its most restricted sense, is used to 
 express the art of conducting negotiations or arranging 
 treaties between nations by means of their foreign minis- 
 ters, or written correspondence ; but, in its most extended 
 signification, it embraces the whole science of negociation 
 with foreign states as founded on public law, positive en- 
 gagements, or an enlightened view of the interests of each. 
 But, upon this subject, we cannot do belter than embody in 
 our pages some remarks from the Introduction to Marten's 
 Manuel Diplomatique, in which a distinct view is exhibit- 
 ed of the importance and main objects of diplomacy. 
 
 Diplomacy, says that able statesman, must be placed in 
 the foremost rank of the useful sciences. The fate of na- 
 tions, in the present state of the world, depends greatly on 
 their relations with others ; and these again are materially 
 influenced and determined by the nature of their foreign 
 policy, that is, by the success with which they have cultiva- 
 ted and applied the principles of this science. Diplomacy 
 embraces — 
 
 1. The law of nations, by which the relations of one 
 state with another are determined both in peace and war. 
 
 2. The political principles of individual states, as de- 
 duced from a regard to their peculiar interests ; and a 
 knowledge of the way in which these interests may be re- 
 conciled with, and made subservient to, the law of nations. 
 
 3. An acquaintance with the privileges and duties of di- 
 plomatic agents. 
 
 4. The conduct of negotiations, or the course to be pur- 
 sued in treating of the interests of different states. 
 
 31
 
 DIPLOMATICS. 
 
 5. The moral and physical statistics of each power. 
 
 6. The political and military history of the states having 
 diplomatic relations ; and the projects, tendency, and policy 
 of their respective governments. 
 
 7. The various systems of government, supremacy, con- 
 cession, retention, equilibrium, centralization, confederacy, 
 &c, that may be brought into operation. 
 
 8. The art of composing diplomatic despatches. 
 
 To this multifarious information the diplomatist should 
 unite the powers of calculation and application peculiar to 
 strong minds, — the '• tact des convenances," which may be 
 felt, but cannot be expressed, — circumspection, address, 
 and perfect integrity. The combination of these various 
 qualities will procure for the diplomatist such a character 
 lor sagacity, rectitude, and straightforwardness, and will 
 sooner or later obtain for him an ascendency over the 
 minds of others, and give great weight to his opinions. 
 
 It must be remembered that the diplomacy of every na- 
 tion is more or less within the range of casualties ; being 
 subject to the versatility inseparable from human affairs, 
 the fickleness and passions of man, and the uncertainty of 
 events; — an unlooked-for death, a change of ministry, 
 treacherous designs, undue influence from any quarler, a 
 false calculation, corruption, — each of these causes may 
 change the policy or course of agovernment; and this will 
 more or less affect every other government, in proportion 
 to the extent of its influence. In addition to these numer- 
 ous causes of variation, if ambitious projects be entertained 
 by any great power, diplomacy becomes still more intri- 
 cate and difficult. Every state desires to be protected 
 against the storm which its rulers imagine they can prog- 
 nosticate, and of whose bursting they are apprehensive. 
 Again, we must remark that the schemes of a government, 
 how admirably soever contrived, have often miscarried, 
 either from subordinate persons or those intrusted with 
 putting them in execution having misapplied or misunder- 
 stood the instructions of their superiors. 
 
 From what has been said, it will be easily understood 
 that, in diplomacy, false estimates are frequently formed 
 of the merits of original plans or designs from looking at 
 their results only. The diplomatist is of course exempted 
 from all responsibility in regard to operations mixed up 
 with the events of war;— he is answerable only for the suc- 
 cess of his projects under the conditions on which he pro- 
 posed Ihem. 
 
 A diplomatist of moderate capacity, if favoured by cir- 
 cumstances, may accomplish much more than the man 
 of genius who has to contend with adverse fortune ; but 
 this difference of success makes no change in their relative 
 ability, and those acquainted with the circumstances readily 
 discriminate between sagacity and accident. 
 
 Diplomacy has been practised in substance ever since 
 mankind have been formed into independent states, though 
 it is difficult to ascertain the precise period at which the 
 term came into use. The system, however, of the regu- 
 lar and uninterrupted residence of foreign ministers during 
 peace at the European courts, as at present practised, is 
 said to have originated with the Cardinal de Richelieu. 
 Before that time embassies had been only sent on special 
 occasions, but attended with much greater show and reti- 
 nue than has been the fashion in modern times ; while the 
 substantial business of states at the neighbouring courts 
 was transacted by agents of a lower stamp and character. 
 Diplomatic agents are now ranked, in Europe, in the fol- 
 lowing order, according to the regulations of the Congress 
 of Vienna: — 1. Ambassadors; 2. Envoys extraordinary 
 and ministers plenipotentiary; 3. Ministers resident; 4. 
 Charges d'affaires ; 5. Secretaries of legation and attaches : 
 the latter, however, have no precise diplomatic character, 
 and are only considered by courtesy as attached to the 
 legation. 
 
 Among the best works on this important subject are the 
 Traile complet de Diplomalie, ou Theorie generate des Re- 
 lations exleriturrs des /'uissances de I' Europe, par M. le 
 Comte de Garden (Paris, 1°33), 3 vols. Svo. ; and De Wic- 
 queforVs Ambassadeur et sis Fonctions (Ed. Opt.), 1746, 12 
 vols. 4to. See also the Manuel Diplomatique, by Von Mar- 
 ten (Paris, 1825) ; Flassan's Hist. Gen et Raisonn. de la 
 Diplom. Francaise, 7 vols. (Paris, 1811); and Von Marten's 
 (senior) Grundriss finer Diplom. Geschichte der Europ. 
 Staatshandel. #c. (Hamburg, Svo). 
 
 DIPLOMATICS. The science of deciphering ancient 
 writings, assigning their date, &c. The name is derived 
 from diploma, which see. Writings of earlier date than 
 the fifth century were mostly on the leaves of the papyrus, 
 or Biblos jEgyptiaca. Parchment appears to have been 
 first generally used in that century ; and the oldest docu- 
 ments bearing the character of diplomas which we pos- 
 sess do not extend to a higher antiquity. Not long after 
 the general adoption of parchment, a variety of substances 
 and colours began to be used in writing, as vermillion, pur- 
 ple, gold and silver ; but this sumptuous fashion did not 
 long remain in use. The science of diplomatics teaches 
 the different styles and forms adopted in ancient public 
 350 
 
 DIPPING NEEDLE. 
 
 documents; the lilies, rank, &c, of public officers whose 
 names are subscribed to them ; the knowledge of the ma- 
 terials used in writing in different ages, of the different 
 characters used in successive periods and in various coun- 
 tries ; and the several kinds of diplomas or public instru- 
 ments. 
 
 This science is said to owe its origin to a Jesuit of An- 
 twerp, named Papelroch, who devoted himself arduously 
 to the research and exposition of old diplomas about the 
 year 1675; but the honourof having reduced it to a science, 
 and established it on a sure and more satisfactory founda- 
 tion, is due to Mabillon, whose learned work, Dere Diplo- 
 matica, was given to the world in 1GSI. The principles 
 laid down by Mabillon, however, were more fully developed 
 about the middle of last century, in one of the most elabo- 
 rate works of which ihe literature of any nation can hoa.st, 
 the Nouveau Traile de Diplomatique, ; and which has left 
 little to be done by subsequent labourers in this field be- 
 yond the duty of translation, compilation, or abridgment 
 From the above statement of the objects of this science, it 
 will be at once perceived that it is of immense utility. It 
 has greatly facilitated the researches of the historian, the 
 politician, the divine, the political economist; and has con- 
 tributed to the elucidation of points in the history of na- 
 tions which might otherwise have been for ever buried in 
 obscurity. We subjoin a list of the most important works 
 on this interesting science, arranged according to the date 
 of their publication ; from which it will be seen that the 
 French and Germans have prosecuted this science with an 
 enemy and enthusiasm to which, considering its vast im- 
 portance, our national literature presents a most humiliat- 
 ing contrast. Besides the work of Papelroch above re- 
 ferred to, entitled the Prop:/!aum, there are, Mabillon, De 
 re Diplomalica, 6 vols. fol. (Paris, 1681), to which a supple- 
 mentary vol. was added in 1704 ; Historia Diplomalica, by 
 Maffei, 41o. (Mantua, 1727: this work may be regarded as 
 merely a supplement to Mabillon) ; Chron. Walt her i Lexi- 
 con Diplom. 3 vols. fol. (Gotting. 1745-7) ; Heumann von 
 Teulschenbrunn, Commenta. de re Diplom. Regum, #c, 
 4to. (Nuremberg, 1745) ; Nouveau Ti aiti de Diplomatique, 
 by ihe Benedictine monks Toussaint and Tassin, 6 vols. 
 4to. (Paris, 1750-65) ; De Vainc's Diction. Raisonnee de 
 Diplomatique, 2 vols. Svo. (Paris, 1774 : this work is intended 
 chiefly to aid beginners in the science) ; Gatterer, Abriss 
 der Diplomalik, Svo. (Gotting. 1798); Schcenemann's Pro- 
 lusio de jinibus Arlis. Diplom. Pract. Regundis ; and his 
 Versuch eines Vollstiind. Systems der Allgem. besonders iil- 
 lern Diplomatik. Svo. (Gotting. 1802). 
 
 DIPLONEU'RANS, Diploneura. (Gr. oittXo;, double, 
 and vevpov, nerve.) A name applied by Rudolphi to that 
 division of the animal kingdom comprehending the species 
 which have two nervous systems, viz. the ganglionic or 
 sympathetic, and the cerebro-spinal ; the series so desig- 
 nated corresponds with the Vertebrata of Cuvier. 
 
 DIPLO'PIA. (Gr. dnr\os, double, and OKTOjiai, I see.) 
 Double vision. This affection occasionally is symptomatic 
 of nervous irritability, worms, indigeslion, hysteria, &c. 
 
 DIPLO'PTERA. (Gr. 6nr\os, double, and jrrcpov, a 
 wing ; doubled wing.) The name of a division of Aculeate 
 Hymenopterous insects, comprising those species of was]) 
 which have the upper wings folded or doubled up longitu- 
 dinally when at rest. 
 
 DIPLO'ZOON. (Gr. JittAos, double, ^wov, an animal ; 
 double animal.) The name of a very "singular parasitic 
 worm, which infests the gills of the bream, and which ap- 
 pears to be formed of two distinct bodies united in the 
 middle, so as to present the appearance of a St. Andrew's 
 cross, each half of the animal containing precisely the 
 same organs : viz. the alimentary canal, a sanguiferous and 
 a generative system. 
 
 DIPNEUMO'NEANS, Dipneumonem. (Gr. Sis, twice, 
 and TTVLvp<j)v,a lung; two-lungcd.) A term applied to a 
 section of spiders (Araneidai), including those which have 
 only two pulmonary sacs. 
 
 Dl'PPEL'S OIL. An empyreumatic oil, produced dur- 
 ing the destructive distillation of bone. 
 
 DI'PPER- A name commonly given to the water-ouzel 
 and other species of the genus Cinclus. 
 
 DI'PPING NE'EDLE. An instrument for showing the 
 direction of the magnetic force of the earth. It is a mag- 
 netic needle, furnished with an axis at right angles to its 
 length, and passing as exactly as possible through its cen- 
 tre of gravity, about which it moves in a vertical plane. 
 When a needle thus mounted is placed any where not on 
 the magnetic equator, it dips, or points downwards ; and if 
 the vertical plane in which it moves coincides with the 
 magnetic meridian (which is always known by means of a 
 variation compass), the position which it assumes shows at 
 once the direction of the magnetic force; and the intersec- 
 tion of two or more directions, found by making the expe- 
 riment at different places, indicates the place of the mag- 
 netic pole. Though the principles on which the dipping 
 needle acts are abundantly simple, its practical construc- 
 tion is found to be exceedingly difficult. It must be ac- 

 
 DIPSACEjE 
 
 curately balanced on its axis ; the axis must be placed ex- 
 actly horizontal ; the friction must be diminished to the 
 utmost extent possible ; and the adjustments can only be 
 made when the needle is perfectly free from magnetism, 
 and also secure.! from the effects of the magnetic influence 
 of the earth. It must be subsequently magnetized, and 
 during this process much care is required to guard against 
 derangement. The simple construction is represented in 
 the annexed figure. The needle D d consists ol a flat 
 oblong piece of steel, tapering to a point at both ends, 
 and having a slender cylindrical axis passed through its 
 centre of graviiy. The axis moves 
 freely in circular holes made in the 
 lateral horizontal bars HA, which sup- 
 port a vertical circle C C, graduated 
 for the purpose of showing the inclina- 
 tion of the needle to the horizon. The 
 stand S T, to which the circle is fixed, 
 is provided with levels, and adjusted 
 to horizontality by means of screws. 
 But in the most improved form of 
 construction of the dipping needle, the 
 axis, instead of heing a cylinder, is a knife edge, resting 
 perpendicularly, like the supports of a pendulum, on two 
 agate planes. A needle thus supported, however, must 
 necessarily make small oscillations; consequently it must 
 be so adjusted that when it points in the direction of the 
 magnetic force, the knife edges maybe perpendicular to 
 the agate planes. The mean value of the angle of the dip 
 must therefore be known previously to its construction ; but 
 it is the best adapted, on account of its delicacy, for ascer- 
 taining the minute variations of the dip at the same place. 
 The angle of the dip, like that of the variation, changes its 
 value even at the same place, following of course the mo- 
 tion of the magnetic poles, which, from the observations 
 made by Scoresby, Parry, Ross, and others, in high lati- 
 tudes, appear to have a motion westward, the annual 
 amount of which is about 11' 4". In the summer of 1831, 
 Commander Ross, in an excursion from the vessel in which 
 Ids party were so long detained in the polar seas, reached 
 a spot on the continent of North America, which had been 
 calculated to be the position of the magnetic pole. There 
 he found the dip of the needle to be 80° 53', within one 
 minute of the vertical ; and compass-needles suspended in 
 the most delicate manner possible exhibited no polarity 
 whatever. The latitude of this spot is 70° 5' 17" north, 
 itnd its longitude 93° 46' 45" west. (For a description of 
 some other forms of the dipping needle, see Brewster's 
 Treatise on Magnetism.) 
 
 DIPSA'CEiE. (Dipsacus, one of the genera.) In Bo- 
 lany, a natural order of herbaceous Exogens, chiefly in- 
 habiting the south of Europe and a few other countries. 
 Nearly allied to Composite; but differing in their stamens 
 being distinct, and their ovule pendulous. They are dis- 
 tinguished from CcdyceracecB in the latter bavins connate 
 anthers and alternate leaves; and from ValerianacecB by 
 their capitate flowers, and the presence of albumen. Their 
 properties are unimportant. Dipsacus fu'lonum is em- 
 ployed mechanically, for the sake of its hard stiff bracts, in 
 the oro-i'sj of dressing woollen cloths. 
 
 DI'PSAS. (Or. a viper.) This term has been applied 
 by Laurenti to a genus of Colubrine serpents; and by 
 Dr. Leech to a genus of fresh-water Bivalves, intermediate 
 to Unio and Anodonta. 
 
 DIPTERA'CE/E. A natural order of arborescent Exo- 
 gens, onlv found in India ami the Indian Archipelago, very 
 near to Ehzocarpeit, ; but distinguished by the petals not 
 being fringed, and in the want of albumen. They are also 
 allied to Malvaceee in the contorted sstivation of the corolla 
 and the crumpled cotyledons; but differ in the stamens be- 
 ing either distinct or partially combined, their long, narrow, 
 2-celled anthers, and pendulous ovules. Blume truces an 
 affinity with Guttiferth in their resinous juice, compound su- 
 perior ovary, drupaceous fruit, numerous long anthers, irre- 
 gular coloured calyx, and single exalbuminous seed; but 
 from this order the stipules and the aestivation of the co- 
 rolla abundantly distinguish them. The order is chiefly 
 marked by the enlarged foliaceous unequal segments of 
 the calyx investing the fruit. To it belongs the camphor 
 tree (DryoboJanops camphora), which also yields the cam- 
 phor oil of Borneo and Sumatra, and a timber called sal, 
 the best and most extensively used in India; while other 
 species vield pilch. 
 
 DI'PTERAL. CV.r. SnrTcpos,double-u-inged.) In Archi- 
 tecture, a temple which had a double range of columns on 
 each of its flanks. 
 
 DI'PTERANS. Diptera. (Or. Siwrcpos.) An order of 
 insects having for their main and most conspicuous cha- 
 racter two wings only corresponding to the anterior pair, 
 and two short clubbed appendages, called haXleres or ba- 
 lancers, and which seem to be the rudiments of the poste- 
 rior pair in four -winged insects. The Dipterans are also 
 distinguished by having the mouth in the form of a sucker, 
 composed of from two to six lancet-shaped elongated scales, 
 351 
 
 DISCHARGE. 
 
 inclosing a canal upon the upper surface of a fleshy tongue 
 or proboscis. The larva? or maggots of the Dipterous in- 
 sects have frequently a membranous head; and always 
 have the stigmata, or breathing pores, confined to the se- 
 cond and terminal segments of the body. In some species, 
 as the blowfly, the eggs are hatched within the body of the 
 parent; in others, as the forest-fly (Ilippobnsca), the larva 
 undergoes its metamorphosis in the parent's body, and the 
 young are excluded in the form ot'pupai. 
 
 DIPTERY'GIANS, Diplerygia. (Gr. Sis, twice, and 
 7tt £puf a fin ; two finned.) A family of fishes compre- 
 hending l hose which have but two fins. 
 
 DIP'TVCII. (Gr. Si-nrvxov, two-fold .) Among the Ro- 
 mans, a tablet of wood, metal, or other bubstauce, used for 
 the purpose of writing, and folded like a book of two leaves: 
 when the book consisted of several leaves, it was termed 
 ttoXvxtvxoi', or manifold. The diplychs of antiquity 
 were employed especially for public registers. The sacred 
 diptycha of 'the Greek church were double catalogues, con- 
 taining on one side names of the living, on the other those 
 of the dead, which were rehearsed during the office. 
 
 DI'PUS. (Gr. Sis, and ttovs, afoot.) The general name 
 for the Jerboas or Rodent animals, in which the hind-legs 
 are disproportionately developed, and chiefly serve for lo- 
 comotion. The numerous species referable to the Lin- 
 najan genus are now divided into the subgenera Alactaga, 
 Gerbillus, Dipus proper, &x. ; and form the family Dipo- 
 didai ; the Gerbi'li, however, are more nearly allied to the 
 Mu riil a-.. 
 
 DIPV'RE. (Gr. Sis, and xvp, fire ; i. e. a mineral dou- 
 bly susceptible of the action of fire.) This mineral was 
 originally confounded wiih picnile. It is found in the West- 
 ern Pyrenees. When heated before the blowpipe, it first 
 becomes phosphorescent, and then fuses : characters by 
 which it is distinguished from picnile. It occurs in white 
 or reddish white transparent or translucent crystals, of a 
 prismatic form; its specific gravity is2 63. It is hard, 
 enough to scratch glass. It is a silicate of alumina and 
 lime. 
 
 DI'RECT. (Lat. dirigo.) In Music, a character used at 
 
 -■ s~_ the end of a staff, to direct the performer's no- 
 
 — -^W^-^ tice to the succeeding note at the beginning of 
 
 the following staff. 
 
 DIRE'CTOR. A common surgical instrument ; it is 
 generally made of silver, and resembles a grooved probe. 
 Us use is to direct the knife, and protect the parts under- 
 neath from its edge or point. 
 
 DIRECTORS. In Commerce, the name given to the in- 
 dividuals composing the board of management of a joint 
 stock company ; as the Bank of England, the E. I. Co., &c 
 
 DIRE'CTORY. In French History, the name given by 
 the constitution of 1795 to the executive body of the 
 French republic. It consisted of five individuals, called 
 directors, who were selected by the council of elders from 
 a list of candidates presented by the council of five hun- 
 dred. One of these directors retired every year,and was suc- 
 ceeded by another elected on the same principle. To the 
 Directory was entrusted the superintendence of the home 
 and foreign departments, the finances and the army, and 
 the appointment of the ministers of state and other public 
 functionaries. Its policy was at first moderate and con- 
 ciliatory ; but after a short interval it. had recourse to mea- 
 sures which produced wide-spread dissatisfaction, and it 
 was at length overthrown on the ascendency of Bonaparte 
 after an existence of four years. (For the history of the 
 Directory, see Memoir ea de Gohier, Paris, 1824.) 
 
 Directohy, signifies also a book containing the names 
 of the inhabitants of a town, arranged in alphabetical order, 
 together with their places of abode, &c. It. is likewise ap- 
 plied to a book containing directions for public worship, or 
 other religious services. 
 
 DIRE'CTRIX. In Geometry, the name given to a cer- 
 tain straight line perpendicular to the axis of a conic sec- 
 tion ; and it is a property of these curves that the distance 
 of any point of the curve from the directrix is to the dis- 
 tance of the same point from the focus in a constant ratio. 
 The term is also sometimes applied generally to any line, 
 whether straight or curved, which is required for the de- 
 scription of any curve. 
 
 DIRGE. (.\ contraction of dirige, used in the old for- 
 mula of the Catholic service for the dead — Dirige, Domine, 
 Deus) A funeral song or hymn. 
 
 DISABILITY, in Law, signifies a state which renders a 
 person incapable of enjoying certain legal benefits ; as, the 
 state of an alien renders him incapable of taking lands, that 
 of infancy of making valid contracts, and so forth. Disa- 
 bility, it is said, may happen in four ways : by the act of 
 the ancestor, of the person, of God, or of the law. 
 
 DISC, or DISK. (Lat. discus.) In Astronomy, the face 
 of the sun, moon, or a planet, such as it appears to us pro- 
 jected on the sky. The forms of the celestial bodies being 
 spherical, their projections are circular planes. 
 
 DISCIIA'RGE. (Fr. discharger.) In Architecture, a 
 term used to signify the relief or distribution of a weight
 
 DISCIPLE. 
 
 or load to be borne ; tbus discharging arches are those 
 used in any wall over a lintel to discharge the lintel of the 
 weight which would be otherwise borne by it. 
 
 D1SC1TLE. (Lat. discipulus.) Literally, one who 
 learns the principles of any science or liberal art from 
 another; hut the lerm is used in a eulogistic sense, more 
 particularly to signify the followersof any renowned teacher 
 or philosopher, whose spirit they have imbibed along with 
 a knowledge of his peculiar tenets. 
 
 DISCIPLINE (Lat.) signifies, primarily, instruction or 
 government; but it is applied figuratively to a peculiar 
 mode of life, in accordance with the rules of some profes- 
 sion or society. It is also used to designate the punish- 
 ments employed in convents, and those which enthusiasts 
 undergo or inflict upon themselves by way of mortification. 
 
 DISCIPLINE, BOOK OF, in the Church of Scotland, 
 Is a common order, drawn up by the General Assembly in 
 1650 for the reformation and uniformity to be observed in 
 the discipline and policy of the church. In this book epis- 
 copal government is set aside, Kirk sessions are established, 
 the observance of saints' and other holy days is condemned, 
 and other regulations for the internal government of the 
 church are prescribed. It is called the First Book of 
 Discipline. , 
 
 DISCIPLINE, 31ILITARY. The obedience to and exer- 
 cise of the laws of military men and matters: bravery 
 may gain a battle, but the final event of war is essentially 
 dependent upon discipline. "Discipline is the right arm 
 of a general, and money is his shield." 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF THE SECRET, or DISCIPLI'NA 
 ARCA'NI. A name given by theological writers to a sys- 
 tem supposed to have been in force in the primitive church, 
 by which its most important and mysterious doctrines 
 were concealed from the mass of believers, and fully de- 
 veloped only to a select class. When at the beginning of 
 the Reformation the Roman Catholics were urged with 
 the silence or ambiguity of the fathers of the first four cen- 
 turies upon many principal points of their doctrine, they 
 met the objection by declaring it to be the constant custom 
 of the primitive church, enjoined by the apostles them- 
 selves (for which they quoted 1 Cor. iii, 1, 2.), to throw a 
 veil of mystery, or preserve entire silence, upon all such 
 awful and incomprehensible subjects. The opinions of 
 Protestants upon this question have certainly been far from 
 uniform ; but all allow probably that in the 4th century the 
 practice alluded to was prevalent : the usage of the 3d is 
 more equivocal, and there are few who attach any weight 
 to the defence set up by their adversaries by appealing to 
 the two first. 
 
 The following we are disposed to consider a fair repre- 
 sentation of the subject. 
 
 The apostles and evangelists say very little directly and 
 systematically concerning the principal doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity. We may suppose that in their private teaching 
 they were more express, and that some particulars assumed 
 a more definite shape from their connection with apostolic 
 tradition, than would have been the case had they been de- 
 rived to us from the language of the Holy Scriptures merely. 
 But the comparatively private and temporary occasions of 
 the writings of most of the apostles may account for this 
 want of precision, without supposing that they purposely 
 concealed their ultimate conclusions. The one or two pas- 
 sages upon which a contrary opinion is grounded certainly 
 refer only to the spiritual progress of a believer, and not to 
 any advance in the knowledge of forms and results. The 
 writings of the Fathers of the first two centuries may, we be- 
 lieve, be pronounced entirely clear of any passage which 
 can fairly be appealed to by the advocates of the Disciplina. 
 In the third Clemens of Alexandria is oonsidered to fur- 
 nish the strong-hold of the theologians of that party ; but 
 although he makes a very marked and accurate distinc- 
 tion between the perfect and imperfect Christian, he founds 
 it not upon superior knowledge of the doctrines, but upon 
 an advance in purity and spiritual conduct. This is what 
 he denominates true gnosticism, which he is at great pains 
 to distinguish from the spurious and heretical : and even 
 herein he appears to be speaking only from his own indi- 
 vidual notions, or at least from those only of the Alexan- 
 drian school of theology, and not from any recognized 
 opinions and usages of the church. 
 
 It is to be observed that the primitive church was wont 
 to make some trial of the candidates for baptism, causing 
 them to pass through a course of religious instruction, in 
 which they were led by certain steps from the elemental to 
 the more complete knowledge of their duties preparatory to 
 that initiatory ceremony. This is no more than would be 
 practised even now in the case of an adult convert; but such 
 cases in these times are extremely rare, anil hardly admit 
 of a definite formal custom. But in the first four centuries 
 the conversion of adults was the most prominent object of 
 Christian solicitude: it was this that most drew the atten- 
 tion of the church ; it was this therefore which naturally 
 became the subject of formal ceremonies and practices. 
 Accordingly in process of time, when the clergy began to 
 352 
 
 DISCOURSE. 
 
 feel the strength of their position, and to cherish the ambi- 
 tious views which were prompted by it, this practice waa 
 an instrument fitted to their hands. They made a mystery 
 of that which was before only a second step in knowledge, 
 and excited the awe or curiosity of their hearers by check- 
 ing themselves ostentatiously when hovering on the borders 
 of a doctrinal subject, with such phrases as 'iaaaiii, or 
 \iCjivj))nivoi. the. initiated understand me, &e. ; and probably, 
 by the rhetorical flourishes with which they screened their 
 real meaning, deceived themselves, or at least posterity, 
 into the exaggerated notions whose shape and system were 
 finally confirmed at the Council of Trent. 
 
 DISCLAI'MEK, in Law, is a plea containing an express 
 denial or renunciation of some claim which has been made 
 upon or by the party pleading. It is more especially taken 
 for the denial, by an alleged tenant, of his tenancy. Such 
 disclaimer is punishable at common law by the forfeiture 
 of the land, if, on writ of right sur disclaimer brought, the 
 lord succeed in proving the tenancy. 
 
 DI'SCOBOLES, Discoboli. (Gr. Juntos, a quoit ; /?dXAa>. 
 I throw.) Those who played at quoits (discus) in anti- 
 quity. In Ichthyology, this word is applied to a family of 
 pectoral or subbrachian fishes ; comprehending those 
 which have the ventral fins confluent, and forming a sucto- 
 rious disc beneath the throat. 
 
 DI'SCOID. (Gr. StcrKoeiins) This term is applied to 
 those univalve shells of which the whorls are disposed 
 vertically on the same plane, so as to form a disc ; as in 
 the pearly nautilus and planorbis. 
 
 DISCONTINUANCE. In Law, an injury to real pro- 
 perty, which consists in the keeping out the rightful owner 
 of an estate by a tenant whose entry was at first lawful, 
 but who wrongfully retains the possession afterwards: as, 
 where tenant in tail makes a feoffment in fee-simple for 
 life or in tail. In this case the heir in tail, remainder-man, 
 or reversioner, is put to his writ : so alienations made by 
 husbands seised in right of their wives, or by ecclesiastics 
 seised in right of their church, work a species of discon- 
 tinuance. 
 
 DI'SCORD. (Lat. discordia.) In Music, the relation of 
 two sounds which the ear receives with displeasure, 
 whether used in succession or consonance. 
 
 DISCO'RDIA. In Mythology, a malevolent deity, daugh- 
 ter of Night, and sister of Erinnys, the Parca?, and Death. 
 She is represented as having been banished from heaven 
 by Jupiter, on account of the broils she perpetually occa- 
 sioned. This was the goddess who, from disappointment 
 at not being invited to the marriage of Thetis and Peleus, 
 threw into the midst of the assembly the golden apple, 
 with the inscription detur pukhriori {let it be given to the 
 fairest); which, as is well known, occasioned the famed 
 contest between the goddesses Juno, Minerva, and Venus, 
 and ultimately led to the Trojan war, and the destruction 
 of Troy. The ancient poets represent this divinity with a 
 pale and ghastly look, a dagger in her hand, and her hair 
 entwined with serpents ; and Milton graphically describes 
 her as 
 
 Discord, with a thousand various mouths* 
 
 DISCOUNT. An allowance made for the payment of 
 money before it is due, and is equivalent to the interest of 
 the principal sum diminished by the discount during the 
 time that must elapse before the money becomes payable. 
 The proper meaning of discount, and the rule for comput- 
 ing it, will be best understood from an example. Suppose 
 the rate of interest to be 4 per cent., and that A holds a bili 
 of 104/. payable a year hence. Suppose, also, that B has a 
 sum of 100/. in hand, which he wishes to layout at interest 
 for one year. At the end of the year A's bill becomes due- 
 and he receives 104/. B also receives back for principal 
 and interest 104/. It is therefore clear that if at the com- 
 mencement of the year A had given B his bill, and received 
 from B his 100/., neither party would have gained or lost 
 by the transaction. Hence a bill of 104/, payable a year 
 hence, interest being 4 per cent., is equivalent to 100/. in 
 hand; and the difference between the amount of the bill 
 and its present value, viz. 4/., is the discount. Now the dis- 
 count on 104/. having been found, the discount on any other 
 sum is found by simple proportion. If we observe that 4 
 is the rate per cent, of interest, anil that 10-1/. is the present 
 worth plus the discount, the truth of the following rule for 
 the computation of discount will be apparent: — "As 100/. 
 with the rate per cent, added is to the rate per cent., so is 
 the principal sum to the discount." This rule supposes 
 the time of payment to be one year ; if it is less or more, 
 the result must be diminished or increased in proportion 
 to the time. Bankers and mercantile people, however, in- 
 stead of computing discount in this correct way, reckon it 
 in the same manner as simple interest, by which, in large 
 transactions, they obtain a very considerable advantage. 
 At 4 per cent, interest is 1 in 25, whereas discount is only < 
 in 26. 
 
 DISCOURSE. (Lat. discurrere, /o rf/sewss.) In Rheto- 
 ric, signifies in its widest acceptation a series of sentences 
 and arguments arranged according to the rules of art, with
 
 DISCOVERY. 
 
 tti! view of prr ■(.!.: i - jng some impressioi: on Hip mind or 
 feelings of those in whom n is addressed. In Logic, this 
 
 term is applied to the third operation of the mind, com- 
 monly called reasoning. .S'ee Louie. 
 
 DISCO'VERY. In Law, the act of revealing or dis- 
 closing any matter by a defendant in his answer to a bill in 
 Chancerv. See Chancery. 
 
 DISCRE'TE PROPOSITION (Lat. discretus, separated,) 
 in Arithmetic, is a proportion in which the ratio of the 
 antecedents to the consequents is different from the ratio 
 of the consequent of the first pair of terms to the ante- 
 cedent of the second. Thus, the proportion 2 : 3 : : 4 : 6, 
 is a discrete proportion ; for the ratio of 2 to 3, or of 4 to ti, 
 is different from the ratio of 3 to 4. Discrete is therefore 
 opposed to continual, a continual proportion being that in 
 which the ratio of every two contiguous numbers is the 
 same throughout ; thus, 2 : 4 : : 8 : 16. 
 
 DISCRE'TE QUANTITY. A term applied to quantities 
 of which the component parts have a separate and distinct 
 existence. Thus, numbers are discrete quantities, being 
 composed of separate units. 
 
 IH'SCUS. (Gr. Smtkos.) The ancient quoit, which con- 
 sisted of a heavy circular mass of iron, sometimes perfo- 
 rated in the middle. In the ancient game, the players did 
 not try to hit a mark, but to throw the quoit to the greatest 
 possible distance. There is a discus preserved in the 
 Cabinet of Antiques at Paris, in which holes are provided 
 for the thumb and lingers. The practice of throwing discs 
 is mentioned by Homer among the sports which occurred 
 at the funeral of Patroclus ; and Pindar celebrates Castor 
 and Iolaus as skilful launchers of the discus. 
 
 DISCU'TIENT. (Lat. discutio, / destroy.) Remedies 
 which repel or resolve tumours. 
 
 Dl'SDIAPA'SON. (Gr. Sis, twice, and hairaaoiv, through 
 all.) In Music, two octaves or a fifteenth. 
 
 DISEA'SE. (Dis, and ease.) Any morbid state of the 
 body generally, or of any particular organ or part of the 
 body, is called a disease. By medical writers the term 
 disease is defined as implying " a deviation from the natural 
 and healthy actions of the whole system or of any indi- 
 vidual part;" and they are in the habit of designating 
 certain forms of disease by the following terms, namely . 
 -Acquired, which are not' congenital or hereditary, but 
 derived from causes evidently operating afterbirth. Acute, 
 which are severe, but of comparatively short duration. 
 Asthenic, attended by manifest depression of the vital 
 powers. Chronic, which are of long duration. Congenital, 
 which are born with the individual. Constitutional, which 
 more or less affect the whole system. Contagious; this 
 term should be confined to those diseases only which are 
 communicable from one to another by contact, either per- 
 sonal or intermediate: it is presumed, for instance, that 
 lite plague is a truly contagious disease, and that it can only 
 be transferred from one individual to another by actual 
 bodily contact, or through the medium of bedclothes or 
 articles of apparel. The term "contagious disease" is, 
 however, often misapplied to those which are infectious, 
 ...- communicable through the medium of the atmosphere. 
 flndemic, diseases which are either peculiar to particular 
 places, or which are especially prevalent in certain districts 
 only. Epidemic, itiseases which are generally diffused 
 over a whole country ; they may generally be traced to at- 
 mospheric causes, and are commonly of an infectious 
 character: influenza and cholera often prevail in this way. 
 Exanthema! ous, are those diseases which are accompanied 
 hv an eruptive fever, such as measles, small-pox, &c. 
 Hereditary diseases are such as prevail in families, and are 
 transmitted by parents to their offspring; gout and scrofula 
 furnish examples. Idiopathic or primary diseases are 
 those which are not dependent upon or symptomatic of 
 others; certain affections of the head, for instance, may 
 arise immediately from disease of the brain, or they may 
 be mediately connected with disordered states of the 
 stomach : the former are idiopathic, the latter symptomatic. 
 Intercurrent diseases are those which arise in individuals 
 from incidental causes daring the prevalence of endemic 
 or epidemic sickness. Intermittent diseases are marked 
 by a regular cessation and recurrence of symptoms; the 
 patient, during the interval, being, to all appearance, free 
 from disorder : the various forms of ague are characteristi- 
 cally intermittent. Local diseases are opposed to those 
 which are constitutional; they are presumed to be limited 
 to some particular organ : the term "chronic disease" is 
 sometimes misapplied in this sense. Malignant diseases 
 are those which are of a highly dangerous and intractable 
 character, and the symptoms of which are generally very 
 formidable from the first; various forms of fever, rapidly 
 depressing the vital energies, are said to assume a malig- 
 nant type : hence also the term malignant, as generally 
 applied to the Asiatic cholera. Local diseases are frequent- 
 ly malignant, such as cancer and ill-conditioned ulcers : 
 all these are opposed to the mild forms of the same mala- 
 dies. Periodical, diseases which recur at fixed periods, as 
 in autumn, winter, <Vx. Puerperal diseases incident to 
 353 
 
 DISPERSION. 
 
 women soon after child-birth. Specific diseases are those 
 which are marked by some disordered vital action not 
 belonging to disease in general, but peculiar to the indivi- 
 dual case. Sporadic diseases are those arising from ad- 
 ventitious causes affecting the individual Sthenic diseases 
 are marked by the activity of the vital powers, directly 
 opposed to those which are asthenic. 
 
 DISINFECTING LIQOUR. Solution of chloride of soda, 
 or of chloride of lime. 
 
 DISJUNCTIVE PROPOSITION, in Logic, is a propo- 
 sition compounded of two or more categorical proposi- 
 tions, so stated as to imply that some of them must be 
 true :— thus, "Either A = B, or C = D." A disjunctive, 
 in which the two propositions are not naturally connected 
 together in such a manner a3 to warrant their being pro- 
 posed as alternatives, is nugatory and absurd in sense, al- 
 though not incorrect in logical form. If one or more of the 
 categorical antecedent propositions be denied, we infer that 
 the remaining one, or, if there are more than one, some 
 one of those remaining, is true: e. g. "Either A ;= B, or 
 C = D; but A is not equal to B, therefore C = D." A 
 poem is either good, bad, or indifferent : but it is not good ; 
 therefore, it is bad or indifferent. There are different 
 forms of the disjunctive syllogism, founded on the disjunc- 
 tive proposition. 
 
 DISK. In Botany, a term applied to certain bodies or 
 projections, situated between the base of the stamens and 
 the base of the ovarium, but forming part of neither, and 
 taking a variety of forms. The disk is usually supposed to 
 consist of rudimentary stamens, since an anther has been 
 noticed to grow from that of Paonia moutan, and in other 
 cases manifest indications are observable of a tendency to 
 assume the form of those organs. 
 
 DISLOCATION. (Lat. dislocare, to put out of place.) 
 A surgical term, synonymous with luxation. "When the 
 articular surfaces of bones are forced out of their proper 
 situation, they are said to be dislocated or luxated. A con- 
 siderable share of anatomical knowledge is required to de- 
 tect the nature of these accidents; and it is much to be 
 lamented that students neglect to inform themselves suffi- 
 ciently upon the subject. (See Sir A. Cooper's Essays, 
 i. p 2.) 
 
 DISO'MUM. (Lat.) In Ancient Sculpture, a tomb made 
 for the reception of the remains of two persons. 
 
 DISPART, in Gunnery, is the difference between the 
 semidiameter of the base ring at the breech of a gun and 
 that of the ring at the swell of the muzzle. 
 
 DISPE'NSARY. A place where medicines are made 
 up and distributed ; but used more generally for a charita- 
 ble institution, where the poor are supplied with medicines 
 and advice. Institutions of this nature are of compara- 
 tively recent origin ; though they are now to be met with 
 in every town of any importance both in this country and 
 on the Continent. In London there are one or more dis- 
 pensaries in each district; and to every dispensary there 
 are always attached one or more physicians, surgeons, and 
 apothecaries, whose duty it is respectively to prescribe and 
 dispense medicines to the poor, and to visit them in their 
 own houses in the event of their being too ill to attend per- 
 sonally at the institution. In most cases dispensaries are 
 supported hv voluntary contributions. 
 
 DISPENSATION. In Law, a licence granted by the 
 bishop to a clergyman within his diocese to omit some par- 
 ticular of his duty ; as, to hold two or more benefices, or 
 to reside out of his parish. The name is peculiar to eccle- 
 siastical law, and was formerly applied to the licences 
 granted by the papal authority for several purposes ; as, to 
 marrv within the prohibited degrees, <kc. 
 
 DISPE'NSATORY. A word synonymous with Pharma- 
 copoeia (which see) ; signifying a book which describes the 
 history, preparation, and composition of medicines. 
 
 DISPE'RSfON. In Optics, a term used to denote the 
 angular separation of the constituent rays of light when de- 
 composed by the prism. In consequence of the unequal 
 refrangibility of the different rays, a beam of light admitted 
 through a small hole or slit in the shutter of a darkened 
 room, and refracted by passing through a prism, forms an 
 elongated image or spectrum ; the red rays, which are the 
 least refracted, occupying one end of the spectrum, and the 
 violet rays, which suffer the greatest refraction, occupying 
 the other end. The rays therefore, after refraction, are no 
 longer parallel ; so that the index of refraction (or the ratio 
 of the sine of incidence to the sine of refraction) is different 
 for each ray ; and the difference of the indices for the ex- 
 treme rays is called the dispersion of the light. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton, who first examined the prismatic co- 
 lours, was led by some imperfect experiments to suppose 
 the dispersion proportional to the refraction ; but it was 
 soon discovered that although the colours in spectra form- 
 ed by prisms of different substances are always arranged 
 in the same order, they do not occupy the same relative 
 lengths, — a prism of flint glass, for example, giving propor- 
 tionally less red and more violet than a prism of crown 
 glass ; and that substances, for which the index of refrac-
 
 DISPLUVIATUM. 
 
 tion of the middle ray of the spectrum is nearly the same, 
 produce spectra of different lengths, or different amounts 
 of dispersion. It is on this property, namely, the irration- 
 ality of the refractive and dispersive powers of different 
 substances, that the methods of forming achromatic lenses 
 depend : had the supposition of Newton been correct, it 
 would have been impossible to produce an image by re- 
 fraction unaccompanied by the prismatic colours. See 
 Achromatism. 
 
 The difference between the indices of refraction of the 
 extreme rays of the spectrum formed by a prism of any 
 substance is called the coefficient of dispersion with respect 
 to that substance, or simply the dispersion ; and the dis- 
 persive power is the quotient which is obtained by dividing 
 the coefficient of dispersion by the mean index of refrac- 
 tion diminished by unity. The mean index is that of the 
 ray which corresponds to the middle of the spectrum. As 
 these terms are of frequent occurrence in scientific works, 
 we shall illustrate the definitions by an example. Accord- 
 ing to Sir D. Brewster, the index of refraction of diamond 
 for the extreme violet ray is 2-467, and for the extreme red 
 ray 2411 ; the difference of these two bodies is 056, which, 
 therefore, is the coefficient of dispersion for diamond. 
 Again, the mean index, or mean of the above two numbers, 
 is 2439, which diminished by unity becomes 1-439; there- 
 fore the dispersive power of diamond is 056 divided by 
 1-439, or 0388. 
 
 For a table of the dispersive powers of a great number 
 of different substances, see Brezrster's Optics, in the Ca- 
 binet Cyclopedia : but we may remark, that as this table 
 appears to have been constructed before the discovery of 
 Fraunhofer's method of determining the indices of refrac- 
 tion by means of the dark rays in the spectrum, it rests 
 on data subject to great uncertainly. See Refraction ; 
 also Light. Optics, and Spectrum. 
 
 DISPLUVIA'TUM. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, a 
 place in which Ihe rain is conveyed away in two channels. 
 A cavaedinm displuviatum, according to Vitruvius, was an 
 open court exposed lo the rain. 
 
 DISPOSI'TION. (Lat. dispositio.) In Architecture, one 
 of the six essentials of the art. It is the arrangement of 
 the whole design by means of ichnography (plan), or- 
 thography (section and elevation), and scenography (per- 
 spective view) : and differs from distribution, which signi- 
 fies the particular arrangements of the internal parts of a 
 building. 
 
 DISQUISI'TION. (Lat.) An inquiry into the nature 
 and properties of any problem, question, or subject, in the 
 view of gaining or communicating correct information re- 
 specting it. 
 
 DISSE'CTION. (Lat. disseco, I cut asunder.) Signifies 
 literally the cutting to pieces of any organized body with 
 a view to elucidate its structure and functions. See Ana- 
 tomy. 
 
 DISSE'ISIN. In Law, a species of wrongful ouster or 
 putting out of him who is seised of the freehold in lands ; 
 it is either single disseisin, or disseisin by force, more pro- 
 perly termed deforcement. 
 
 DISSE'NTERS. Persons who dissent on religions 
 grounds from the usages and formula of the established 
 church in England. Roman Catholics, however, are ge- 
 nerally referred to as a distinct class, and the term Dis- 
 senters applied to Protestants only. 
 
 The first dissenters from the church of England were 
 the Puritans, who, at the beginning of the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, complained of the use of the surplice, the sign of 
 the cross in baptism, and some other relics, as they es- 
 teemed them, of popery. The laws of Elizabeth, how- 
 ever, required their attendance at church under severe 
 penalties ; and no opportunity was allowed them, even 
 though they held episcopacy itself in abhorrence, of form- 
 ing separate sects or congregations. Perhaps the first dis- 
 tinct sect of dissenters were the Brownists, who adopted 
 very extreme opinions on the subject of church govern- 
 ment, and against whom the punishment of death was 
 enacted, as denying the queen's supremacy in ecclesias- 
 tical matters. On the accession -of .tames an attempt was 
 made by the puritanical party within the church to obtain 
 a relaxation in some points of doctrine and discipline ; but 
 the conference at Hampton Court, which was convened 
 npon that occasion, separated without effecting more than 
 a few trifling alterations in the services. The penal laws 
 continued in force, and Dissenters were not recognized as 
 a distinct body by the state. They may be said to owe 
 their origin in this sense to the assembly of divines con- 
 vened by authority of parliament at Westminster in 1643, 
 when a body of 120 clergymen and 30 laymen met and 
 established the Presbyterian forms of doctrine and govern- 
 ment, as set forth in the book called the Directory. The 
 Independent party did not entirely accede to this settle- 
 ment, and created some disturbances during the Protec- 
 torate. At the Restoration, the Presbyterian clergy were 
 ejected on St. Bartholomew's-day, 1662, by the Act of Uni- 
 formity, which re-established the Liturgy, and was attend- 
 354 
 
 DISTEMPER. 
 
 ed with some circumstances of aggravation and harshness* 
 Two thousand nonconforming clergy were thereby eject' 
 ed from their benefices. The Corporation Act, requiring 
 attendance on the sacrament preparatory to accepting mu- 
 nicipal offices, was also passed at the' beginning of this 
 reign; and the Test Act followed, which excluded Dis- 
 senters in like manner from all places of trust and profit 
 under government. These laws were repealed by 9 G. 4. ; 
 and Dissenters are now required only to make a declara- 
 tion, according to the form of the act, that they will not 
 exercise any influence they may possess by virtue of such 
 office to injure or weaken the church by law established 
 The Act of Toleration (I W. & M.) had long since abro- 
 gated the penal laws of Elizabeth against Dissenters, ex- 
 cepting Papists and such as deny the Trinity. 
 
 DISSE'PIiVIENTS. In Botany, the partitions that arc 
 formed in ovaria by the united sides of the cohering car- 
 pella, and which separate the inside into cells ; also called 
 sepa. 
 
 DISSERT A'TION. (Lat.) An oral or written examina- 
 tion of any question or subject under some general or 
 particular view. Perspicuity, simplicity, and methodical 
 arrangement are the most essential qualites of a good dis- 
 sertation. 
 
 DI'SSIDENTS. In modem European History, a term 
 applied in Poland to those dissenters from the established 
 religion (Catholic) who, under the old republic, were allow- 
 ed the free exercise of their faith : including Lutherans. 
 Calvinists, and Greeks, but excluding various minor sects. 
 Their rights were fixed by the Religious Peace (paxdissi- 
 denrium) of 1573, but they were infringed upon in the 18th 
 century by various princes. They were supported in de- 
 manding the repeal of these restrictions by Russia and 
 Prussia (in 1766,) and hence those powers acquired one of 
 their favourite pretexts for interference in the affairs of the 
 Polish nation. Their rights were restored in 1775, with 
 some exceptions; but after the Russian conquest they 
 were placed on the same footing with the Catholics. 
 
 DI'SSONANCE. (Lat. dissonans, discordant.) In Music,, 
 a false consonance or concord. The same as discord. 
 
 DISTE'MPER. A disease of the dog. The distemper 
 in dogs is commonly considered as a catarrhal disorder, 
 and in general a running from the nose and eyes is one of 
 the first and leading symptoms ; it is usually accompanied 
 by a short dry cough, and succeeded by wasting of the flesh 
 and loss of' strength and spirits. The nasal defluxion, 
 which is at first watery, becomes after some days, or per- 
 haps weeks, mucous and purulent, loading the eyes and 
 obstructing the nostrils : the cough becomes more distress 
 ing, and is attended by an effort compounded of coughing 
 and vomiting : the listlessness. wasting, and loss of appe- 
 tite also increase. 
 
 If the disease be virulent, symptoms of affection of the 
 brain are its freqnent concomitants, attended by fits, and 
 great debility and paralysis of the extremities, or by con- 
 vulsive twitchings resembling St. Vitus's dance ; and such 
 is the induced irritability of the animal at this period, that 
 an angry menace, or the sight of another dog in a fit, 
 will often bring one on : and fondling and encouraging a 
 dog under these primary attacks will shorten their duration* 
 or altogether check them. If they continue, and increase 
 in violence and frequency, they commonly prove fatal. 
 " When the epileptic fits." says Sir. Blaine, " have gained 
 their full hold on the dog, a partial or total mental aliena- 
 tion takes place ; when total, the poor brute is often per- 
 fectly phrenitic ; he waters and dnngs unconsciously ; he- 
 tears up the ground, bites every thing around him, and 
 not unfrequently himself also. When the fit is over^ 
 lie shakes himself, and looks and acts as usual, unless thp 
 attacks have been very violent and long-continued, when 
 they leave him greatly exhausted and dispirited." In 
 some of these attacks the dog walks round and round, un- 
 conscious of every thing about him. In such cases, the 
 unfortunate animal is often supposed to be mad. and is 
 frequently sacrificed accordingly ; " but the suddenness of 
 the seizure ought to inform the looker-on of the total im- 
 possibility of its being rabies, which is always in the worst 
 cases marked with some recollection, some knowledge,- 
 and which never exhibits the indiscriminate fury Which 
 characterizes epilepsy." 
 
 Inflammation of the lungs is by no means an unfrequent 
 consequence of distemper ; and the bowels are always 
 more or less affected by diarrhoea and dysenteric dischar- 
 ges, often indicating ulceration of the intestinal canal, and 
 accompanied by bloody mucus and extremely offensive 
 evacuations. 
 
 Protracted cases of distemper are sometimes attended by 
 a pustular eruption on the abdomen and chest, accompa- 
 nied sometimes by an hepatic affection, called by sports- 
 men the yellow disease, from its giving the whole surface of 
 the body a yellow hue : these are almost always fatal symp- 
 toms. 
 
 The danger and fatality of this disease depend upon so 
 many causes that it is extremely difficult to prognosticate
 
 DISTICH, 
 
 the results ; young dogs and puppies seldom survive, and 
 it is generally fatal to weakly and delicate dogs, and more so 
 in town than in the country. Early in the disease a single fit 
 is not alarming ; but one or more fits in the advanced stages 
 are seldom followed by recovery ; impatience of light, 
 red eves, pneumonic attacks, and obstinate diarrhcea, are 
 all bad symptoms ; and spasmodic twitchings, a yellow 
 tinge of the skin, and a pustular eruption, arc in almost 
 all cases the forerunners of death. 
 
 Laxatives, emetics, and occasional bleeding, are the 
 leading remedies in the early stage of this disease ; obsti- 
 nate diarrhoea should be checked by astringents; and 
 warm bathing and antispasmodics must be resorted to quell 
 the violence of the fits. 
 
 The distemper is communicated by the contact of the 
 diseased catarrhal secreiion, and it may also be given by 
 its inoculation ; inoculation has indeed been proposed as a 
 mitigation of the disorder, and it has been asserted that 
 vaccination is a preventive. But it has been proved by 
 Mr. Blaine that vaccination is quite inefficacious; and that 
 inoculation with the matter of distemper is equally ineffi- 
 cient in mitigating the complaint, even when it is borrowed 
 from the mildest forms. Many dogs, indeed, which have 
 taken the disease by inoculation have had it with peculiar 
 severity, and several have sunk under it. (See Blaine's 
 Canine Pathology.) 
 Distemper. In Painting. See Distemper. 
 DI'STICH. (Gr. <St<rnx<»'-) A couplet of verses. In 
 the Greek, Latin, and German languages, distich is applied 
 to pieces of poetry consisting of two lines, in hexameter and 
 pentameter verse. 
 
 DISTICIII'ASIS. (Gr. dis, twice, and otixos, a rote.) 
 A double row of eyelashes the innermost of which excite 
 a constant irritation of the eye. The term trichiasis is ge- 
 nerally applied to this malformation. 
 
 DI'STUJIIOUS. (Gr.) A term applied to the arrange- 
 ment of organs in two rows, the one opposite to the other, 
 as the florets of many grasses. 
 
 DISTILLA'TION. (Lat.) The evaporation and subse- 
 quent condensation of liquids by means of a still and refri- 
 geratory, or of a retort and receiver. 
 
 The discovery of the art of distillation is generally as- 
 cribed to the alchemists; but it was doubtlessly known in 
 more remote ages to the Arabians, and by them probably 
 derived from nations further east. 
 
 The processof distillation, though in continual use in the 
 chemical and pharmaceutical laboratory, is carried on 
 upon the most extensive scede for the production of ardent 
 spirits in the distilleries. Under the words Alcohol, 
 Brandy, Fermentation, Wine, &c. will be found some 
 details bearing upon the nature, sources, and production 
 of spirituous liquors ; in the present article, therefore, we 
 shall limit ourselves to an outline of the different pro- 
 cesses which are more exclusively conducted in the British 
 distillery. 
 
 There are two distinct operations in the production of 
 ardent spirits: the one is the conversion of certain vegeta- 
 ble principles into alcohol ; and the other, the separation of 
 the alcohol from the other substances with which it is ne- 
 cessarily blended during its production. 
 
 The vegetable principle which is essential to the forma- 
 tion of alcohol is sugar ; and this is sometimes used direct- 
 ly, as where molasses and analogous saccharine products 
 are subjected to immediate fermentation ; or it is indirectly 
 obtained by subjecting amylaceous grains to certain pro- 
 cesses, by which the starch they contain is first converted 
 into sugar, and then that sugar afterwards alcoholized. 
 
 In our distilleries the latter alternative is adopted ; and 
 various kinds of grain, but chiefly barley, wheat, and rye, 
 with more or less malt, are subjected to the operation of 
 mashing. For this purpose the ground grain and the 
 bruised malt are duly mixed, and infused under constant 
 agitation in a proper quantity of hot water in the mash-tun ; 
 the wort is then run off, and fresh water added, till the 
 soluble materials of the grain are extracted. 
 
 In this way the mixed worts or wash is obtained, which 
 is afterwards to be subjected to fermentation; but in the 
 distillery the operator is not, as in the brewery, left to his 
 own judgment or convenience, but enforced to conform 
 to the excise laws, which are of a very peremptory and 
 often of a very unscientific character. By these laws the 
 distiller is restricted in the density of his worts to specific 
 gravities between 1050 and 1090 ; and in Scotland, between 
 1030 and 1075. It is presumed that at those specific gra- 
 vities, which are called 50 and 90, and 30 and 75, the actual 
 quantity of saccharine or saccharifiable matter contained in 
 each barrel (or 36 imperial gallons) amounts respectively 
 to from 47^ lbs. to 85 lbs., and from 28 lbs. to 79 f 3 u lbs. 
 
 When the wash above alluded to is adjusted as to density, 
 it is run into the fermenting vats, where, mixed with a 
 small quantity of yeast, it is subjected to the process of 
 fermentation, which continues from six to ten or twelve 
 days, the time required for its completion varying with 
 355 
 
 DISTILLATION, 
 
 the mass of liquid and with the temperature of the atme 
 sphere. 
 
 During mashing, as well as during fermentation, the 
 starch passes into sugar, and the sugar into alcohol; the 
 consequence of which is that the wash gradually decreases 
 in density or attenuates ; and as soon as this attenuation 
 has reached its maximum, which may be determined by 
 the hydrometer, it should be distilled, in order to prevent, 
 the access of acetous fermentation. 
 
 In all large distilleries there, are two sets of stills : one for 
 the purpose of distilling from the wash a weak spirit, tech- 
 nically called low wines ; and the other for redistilling (or 
 rectifying) the low wines. In these distillations there 
 passes over along with the first and last portions of the spi- 
 rits a peculiar volatile oil of a disagreeable flavour and 
 odour, and rendering the weaker spirit milky. These por- 
 tions are called faints, and are carefully turned into sepa- 
 rate receivers as soon as the appearance of the runnings 
 from the worm end indicates their presence. 
 
 The quantity of alcohol which may be obtained from a 
 given quantity of sugar will depend upon the skill and care 
 with which mashing, fermentation, and distillation have 
 been respectively conducted; theoretically, 100 pounds of 
 sugar are convertible into about 51 of alcohol and 49 of car- 
 bonic acid. The quantity of alcohol to be procured from 
 different kinds of grain will also depend upon the same 
 causes, and upon the quantity of sugar, and of starch and 
 gum convertible into sugar, which each may contain. Ac- 
 cording to Hermstffidt 100 pounds of starch should yield 35 
 pounds of real alcohol ; and 100 pounds of the following 
 grains should yield the following quantities of spirit of the 
 specific gravity of 09427 ; that is, of spirit containing 45 per 
 cent, of real alcohol ; namely, wheat 40 to 45 pounds, rye 
 36 to 42, barley 40, oats 36, buckwheat 40, maize 40. 
 
 Sometimes malt only is used in the distillery, in which 
 case the distiller calculates in obtaining two gallons of 
 whiskey of proof strength from each bushel of malt. 
 
 What is meant by the term proof spirit will appear obvi- 
 ous from the following extract from a report of a commit- 
 tee of thelloyal Society respecting the improvement of the 
 hydrometer. " With regard to the substance alcohol upon 
 which the duty is to be levied, there appears to be no rea- 
 son, either philosophical or practical, why it should be 
 considered as absolute (that is, pure). A definite mixture 
 of alcohol and water is as invariable in its value as absolute 
 alcohol can be. It is also invariable in its nature ; and can 
 be more readily and with equal accuracy identified by that 
 only quality or condition to which recourse can be had in 
 practice, namely , specific gravity. A diluted alcohol is that, 
 therefore, which we recommend as the only exciseable 
 substance ; and as on the one hand it will make no differ- 
 ence in the identification, and on the other will br a great 
 commercial advantage, it is further recommended that the 
 standard be very nearly that of the present proof spirit. 
 The proposition, therefore, of your committee is, that 
 standard sqririt be that which, consisting of alcohol and 
 water alone, shall have a specific gravity of 092 at the tem- 
 perature of 62° Fahrenheit. This standard is rather 
 weaker than the old proof spirit in the proportion of nearly 
 11 gallon of the present proof spirit per cent. But this dif- 
 ference is trifling compared with the convenience resulting 
 from the adoption of the specific gravity 0-92, instead of 
 that of the present proof spirit, which is 0018633. It may 
 be interesting hereafter to ascertain what proportion of ab- 
 solute alcohol enters into the composition of the recom- 
 mended standard spirit, but the point possesses not the 
 slightest practical importance in reference to the present 
 question." 
 
 The proof spirit of commerce, and that of the Pharma- 
 copoeia, is generally stated to be of the specific gravity of 
 0920 at 62°, and is considered as a mixture of equal 
 weights of absolute alcohol of the specific gravity of 0791 at 
 60° and of water. The rectified spirit of commerce, or 
 rather that of the Pharmacopoeia, is directed to be of the 
 specific gravity of 0838 at 60°, and may be regarded as a 
 mixture of about 82 parts of absolute alcohol and 18 of 
 water. 
 
 The inquisitorial regime, observes Dr. Ure, imposed by 
 law upon our distilleries might lead a stranger to imagine 
 that our legislators were desirous of repressing by every 
 species of annoyance the fabrication of the fiery liquid 
 which infuriates and demoralizes the lower population of 
 these islands. But, alas! credit can be given them for no 
 such moral or philanthropic motive. The necessity of the 
 exchequer to raise a great revenue, created by the waste- 
 ful expenditure of the state on the one hand, and the efforts 
 of fraudulent ingenuity on the other, to evade the payment 
 of the hi°h duties imposed, are the true origin of that re- 
 gime. Examinations in distilleries are constantly making 
 by the officers of excise. There is a survey at six o'clock 
 in the morning, when the officers take their accounts and 
 gauges, and make calculations which occupy several hours. 
 At ten o'clock they again survey, going over the whole pre- 
 mises, where they continue a considerable time, frequently
 
 DISTOMA. 
 
 till the Succeeding officer conies on duty j at two in the 
 afternoon another survey takes place, but not by the same 
 people; at six in the evening the survey is repeated; at 
 ten there come? another survey by an officer who had not 
 been engaged in any of the previous surveys of that day. 
 He is not relieved tiil six o'clock next morning. In addi- 
 tion to these regular inspections, the distilleries are sub- 
 ject to frequent and uncertain visits of the surveyor and 
 general surveyor. " We are never," says Mr. Smith, the 
 eminent distiller of Millbank, " out of their hands." 
 
 There can he no doubt that all the operations of our dis- 
 tilleries would be susceptible of infinite improvement by 
 an alteration in the excise laws. As these at present stand, 
 the duty is charged from calculations— 1. On the quantity 
 and density of the wash ; 2. On the quantity and density 
 or strength of the low wines, or first products of distilla- 
 tion ; 3. Upon the quantity and strength of the spirit, or, 
 in other words, of the alcohol actually produced. It is pre- 
 sumed, in reference to the wash, that the alcohol which 
 it will afford by fermentation will be directly as its density 
 (without reference to the nature of the matter which it 
 holds in solution). In low wines, and in the spirits, the 
 proportion of alcohol is inversely as the density, and the 
 duty is charged in conformity with experiments upon the 
 composition of mixtures of alcohol and water of different 
 densities. 
 
 Nothing need be said here of the mode of judging of the 
 value of the worthy its attenuation during fermentation, nor 
 of the fallacies to which the different operations are liable, 
 and we are well aware of the danger and difficulties of 
 meddling with so important a branch of the revenue ; but 
 it is impossible for any scientific person to visit our distil- 
 leries without at once seeing much that is susceptible of 
 safe and effectual alteration ; or to peruse the multitu- 
 dinous documents, and the evidence which has been 
 brought before the commissioners of revenue inquiry and 
 before the parliamentary committees, bearing directly or 
 indirectly upon this subject, without an anxious wish that 
 some remedy should be found for the evils which are there 
 set forth. In every point of view two things seem highly 
 desirable, and apparently not unattainable ; Ihe one is 
 that the materials employed as sources of spirit, and the 
 mode .''"conducting the operations of the distillery, should 
 be, as . tr as possible, entirely unshackled; the other (a 
 necessary consequence), that the duty should be levied 
 upon the ultimate product at Ihe worm end ; or, in other 
 words, upon the quantity of absolute alcohol actually pro- 
 duced, and that the charge should be made ia reference to 
 that alone. 
 
 In reference to further details regarding the operations 
 of the distillery and their influence upon the revenue, the 
 reader is referred to Dr. Ure's Dictionary of Arts and 
 Manufactures, art. "Distillation;" and to M-Culloch's 
 Dictionary of Commerce, art. " Spirits," which is enrich- 
 ed with numerous tables. See also the article Spirits in 
 this work. 
 
 DI'STOMA. (Gr. <5<j, twice, and crro/ia, mouth.) The 
 name of a genus of Tremafodous intestinal worms, in- 
 cluding those which have two suckers or organs of adhe- 
 sion, of which the anterior alone is a true mouth ; and the 
 posterior or larger disc is situated on the ventral aspect of 
 the bodv, a little way behind the mouth. 
 
 DISTO'RTION. '(Lat. distorqueo, I turn atvry.) An 
 unnatural deviation of shape or position of any part of the 
 body, producing visible deformity. 
 
 Some distortions are exclusively dependent upon dis- 
 ordered actions of the muscles or nerves, or both ; cer- 
 tain kinds of lameness, for instance, arise from a want of 
 due sympathy between the flexor and extensor muscles, 
 or from an unnatural contraction of one or more muscles 
 In consequence of the inefficiency of their opponents; 
 hence various paralytic distortions, squinting, wry neck, 
 and some forms of what is termed club-foot. 
 
 The most common cause of distortion, however, is dis- 
 ease of the bones, which, being sometimes deficient in 
 their hardening or earthy principle, are incapable of sup- 
 porting the weight of parts which they are designed to 
 bear, or of sustaining pressure or muscular action, wilh- 
 out more or less flexure. Of this kind is the disease 
 called rickets (from pax'S, the spine), in which it has been 
 presumed, (hough erroneously, that the vertebrae are the 
 chief seat of the mischief. Besides rickets, there are other 
 cases of curvature of the spine, the causes of which are by 
 no means very obvious, more especially those of the ser- 
 pentine or lateral curvature, which is not unfrequent 
 among delicate girls in the higher and middling classes of 
 life, though of very rare occurrence among tbe lower or- 
 ders. This disease is usually observed about the ninth or 
 tenth year, and the symptoms are generally traced in the 
 following order:— 1. The child makes frequent attempts 
 to prevent the dress falling off one shoulder; 2. One shoul- 
 der appears higher than the other; 3. One of the collar- 
 bones, or one side of the breast-bone, appears fuller than 
 the other; 4. One hip appears to project; 5. One leg ap- 
 36G 
 
 DISTORTION. 
 
 pears shorter than the other; 6. There is a peculiarity In 
 the manner of walking, one foot being swung round and 
 the shoulder thrown forward. When the girl reaches the 
 age of twelve or thirteen (for this disease is tfery rare ir. 
 boys), she becomes evidently twisted, and the spine is 
 found to have assumed a serpentine form. In reference 
 to the treatment of this kind of distortion, it appears that 
 very opposite methods have been successful ; thus, some 
 patients have been confined for months to the same posi- 
 tion; another violently exercised ; another shampooed and 
 acupuncturated ; a fourth, relies on artificial supports, 
 such as stays and bandages ; a fifth is leeched or blistered ; 
 and many are told to attend only to the general health 
 The truth is, that distortion may depend upon different 
 causes, and different remedies may be required in its dif- 
 ferent stages of progress. The serpentine curvature of the 
 spine generally originates in muscular debility ; and there- 
 fore, at its commencement, is appropriately treated by 
 attention to the general health, by proper exercises and 
 tonics. As the disease, however, proceeds, the muscles 
 and ligaments acquire a certain form, and then artificial 
 supports may be appropriately resorted to. In a yet more 
 advanced stage, the vertebne themselves become altered 
 in form ; and hence the spine may require to be stretched, 
 and kept so during a considerable part of the twenty-four 
 hours, so as to allow the bones to resume their natural 
 form. When the ribs and sternum have become much 
 displaced and misshapen, methods of compressing and re- 
 modelling them must be adopted ; and lastly, when what 
 is called anchylosis, or permanent bony deformity, has 
 taken place, palliations and preventives of further mischief 
 can alone be resorted to. 
 
 In all cases where there is a tendency to distortion, its 
 early progress should be watched with the utmost solici- 
 tude, and preventive means steadily and perseveringly 
 adopted. When a girl is eight or ten years old, she should 
 not be confined to the school room, and to a walk once or 
 twice a day, but she should be induced by amusing and 
 romping games to use active exercise, and especially such 
 as brings the muscles of the trunk into play ; she should 
 not be kept long at the piano forte, and her chair should be 
 made so as to support her. If she has a tendency to lean 
 to one side, she should be allowed to learn her lessons in a 
 recumbent posture, and not constantly admonished to " hold 
 herself up." By attention to these simple rules at a very 
 early period of this tendency to distortion, its further pro- 
 gress may be possibly prevented ; but if the girl becomes 
 listless, lounging, and pallid, appearing awkward in her 
 gait, and the clothes slip off of one shoulder, the spine is 
 probably becoming distorted ; and in this case she should 
 not be allowed tosit erect without using some artificial 
 support, such as an arm-chair, or chair crulch, and she 
 should read always lying down ; while by the help of pro- 
 per stays and a belt support should be given to the loins, 
 while the tipper part of the chest is left free. No shoulder- 
 straps, collars, or back-boards, should be used to push in 
 the projecting shoulder, unless the loins be at the same 
 time supported ; for in the majority of cases a sinking of 
 the lumbar part is the cause of ihe inequality of the shoul- 
 ders. The child should, in this stage of the disorder, be a 
 good deal in the open air; not walking sedately, but, if pos- 
 sible, skipping about ; and when she comes in, should not 
 lounge on a chair, but lie down ; or if out-of-door exercise 
 is inadmissible, she should play at battledore and shuttle- 
 cock, and use a skipping rope. But whatever exercise he 
 used, it should never be carried to fatigue. The child 
 should sleep on a firm hair mattress with scarcely any 
 pillow : she should have good nourising diet ; occasional 
 warm aperients and alkaline tonics may be proper; and 
 cold bathing or sponging. By scrupulously following up 
 the preceding plan, the general health is improved, and the 
 tendency to distortion often diminished : but constant care 
 for months, and even years, can alone ensure its removal 
 Where the spine has acquired a decided twist, a variety of 
 mechanical contrivances, and many different plans of treat- 
 ment, have been proposed and used with more or less suc- 
 cess, with a view of correcting the deformity, or prevent- 
 ing its increase and improving the figure. For an account 
 of these we must refer to the authors who have expressly 
 treated upon these subjects, and especially to the sensibla 
 tract of the late Mr. John Shaw, from which we hav6 
 abridged the preceding remarks. 
 
 There is another kind of distortion, differing entirely 
 from the preceding ; namely, angular curvature of tha 
 spine. It generally proceeds from the scrofulous ulcera- 
 tion of the bodies of the vertebrae ; it is attended with para- 
 lysis of the lower extremities, and is often fatal. Similar 
 disease often occurs in the other bones and joints of tha 
 body. 
 
 There are a variety of deformities resulting from other 
 causes than those above adverted to ; namely, from gout, 
 rheumatism, and various chronic and local affections 
 which, however, do not come under the general term of" 
 distortions: nor can we properly refer to this head a va-
 
 DISTRACTILE. 
 
 riety of real deformities which are chiefly the consequence 
 of dress and fashion ; such as those which result from wear- 
 ing stays, bandages, ill-made and tight shoes, and the like. 
 
 DISTRA/CTILE. In Botany, a term invented by Rich- 
 ard to denote a connective whicii divides into two unequal 
 portions, one of which supports a cell and the other not, as 
 in Salvia, 
 
 DISTRE'SS, in Law, is the taking of a personal chattel 
 out of the possession of a wrongdoer into the custody of 
 the party injured, to procure satisfaction for the wrong 
 committed. 
 
 Distress may be had for various kinds of injuries, and 
 as a means of enforcing process, or the performance of 
 ceriain acts in various cases. But the most usual injury 
 for which a distress may be taken is that of non-payment 
 of rent. Distress for rent is said to be incident to the re- 
 version ; so that it may be taken for rent reserved upon a 
 gift in tail, lease for life, years, <fcc, though there be no 
 clause of distress in the deed, if the reversion is in the 
 party distraining. Distresses are to be of things valuable, 
 wherein some one lus a property. But various species 
 of personal chattels are exempt from distress, especially 
 the utensils and instruments of a person's trade and pro- 
 fession, if in actual use, otherwise they are not privileged. 
 All distresses for rent must be made by day, and on the 
 premises; but if any tenant fraudulently removes goods 
 from off the premises, the landlord may within thirty days 
 seize such goods wheresoever found, unless they are sold 
 for a valuable consideration before the seizure. Persons 
 who distrain for rent may sell the distress for payment of 
 rent in arrear, if the tenant or owner fails to replevy, with 
 sufficient security, within five days after taking the distress 
 and giving the tenant notice of the cause. In this case the 
 constable is bound to assist ; the goods are to be appraised 
 by two sworn appraisers ; and the overplus, if any, left in 
 the constable's hands for the use of the owner. 
 
 DI'STRIOT. A territorial division. This term was for- 
 merly used in France, and particularly in the year 1790, 
 when by the law of 16th Feb. the whole country was di- 
 vided into 555 districts ; and it is still common to many of 
 the Continental states. The county of Lincoln is divided 
 into three districts; Lindsey, Kestevon, and Holland. 
 These divisions areof great antiquity, and in all probability 
 owe their origin to the distinct natural features by which 
 they are characterized. 
 
 DITHYRA/MBIC ODE. (Gr. (5i0upa/i/?oc.) A species 
 of Greek lyrical poem in honour of Bacchus, whicii derived 
 its name from Dithyrambu3, (At0upa/t/?oj), one of the ap- 
 pellations of that deity : a word of uncertain meaning and 
 etymolosy. The style of this poetry was very bold, often 
 passing into bombast ; so much so indeed as to become 
 
 Sroverbial for the latter quality. The most celebrated 
 lithyrambic writer was Pindar; none of whose composi- 
 tions in this line, however, have come down to us, or in- 
 deed any other known poems of this class. In modern 
 times t lie term i< indiscriminately employed to designate 
 odes of an impetuous and irregular character. See Ode. 
 
 DI'TONE (Gr. Sitovo;.) In Music, an interval con- 
 sisting of two tones. 
 
 DFTRIGLYPII. (Gr. Sts, twice, rptis, three, and 
 y\v<pw. I carve.) In Architecture, an arrangement of in- 
 tercolumniations in the Doric order, by whicii two tri- 
 glypha are obtained in the frieze between the triglyphs 
 that stand over the columns. 
 
 DI'TTO. In Bookkeeping, more usually contracted 
 into Do, signifies the same as that which precedes it. It is 
 derived from the Italian word ditto, signifying the said. 
 
 DI'TTY. (Fr. ditie.) A word of great antiquity in the 
 English language, signifying most usually a simple or pas- 
 toral song. Thus Milton says — 
 
 Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, 
 Tempered to the oalen flute ; 
 Rough satyrs danced, &c. 
 
 Shakespeare, Dryden, and many of the old classic Eng- 
 lish writers, have repeatedly given importance to this word. 
 
 DIURE'SIS. (Gr. Siovprieris. a discharge of urine.) An 
 excessive How of urine. See Diabetes. 
 
 DIURE'TIC, signifies literally any thing whicii increases 
 the secretion of urine. The term is usually applied to 
 certain medicines which act especially upon the kidneys, 
 such as squills, turpentine, and some of the neutral salts; 
 and it frequently happens that during an inordinate flow of 
 urine derived from such causes watery fluids are absorbed 
 from other parts, and, as it were, transposed to the kidneys ; 
 upon this principle is founded the use of diuretics in dropsy. 
 There are some alteratives which operate as diuretics, es- 
 pecially when they are taking a favourable operation upon 
 the system : this seems especially to be the ease with sar- 
 saparilla. Water and other diluents and liquids, when 
 taken in excess, also operate as diuretics; as far, at least, as 
 mere increase in the flow of urine is concerned. 
 
 DIU'RNAL (Lat. dies, a day), is the name given to 
 the book containing those canonical hours of the Roman 
 Catholic breviary which are to be said during the day. It 
 357 
 
 DIVINE RIGHT. 
 
 is intended especially for the clergy of the Romish church, 
 and consists generally of four volumes, one for each sea- 
 son of the year. 
 
 DIU'RNALS. (Lat. diurnus, by day.) A tribe of Rap- 
 torial birds, including those which fly by day and have la- 
 teral eyes : also a family of Lepidopterous insects, which 
 have a similar period of activity. 
 
 DIVA'N. A word common to many of the eastern lan- 
 guages, signifying in Turkish the audience-chamber of the 
 vizier, or supreme judicial tribunal. The divan of the ca- 
 liphs was a court for the relief of petitioners, over which 
 those monarchs presided in person. The Turkish divan, 
 as is well known, is the great council of the empire. 
 
 It would seem that the earliest acceptation in which this 
 word was employed is that of a muster-roll or military day- 
 book ; and we find it used, especially by the ancient Arabs, 
 who borrowed it from the Persians, to signify a collection 
 of poems by one and the same author, arranged in alpha- 
 betical order ; thus we hear of the Divan (i. e. the collected 
 poems) of Sadi, the Divan of Halfiz, &c. The word divan 
 is also among the Turks a common appellation for a saloon 
 or hall which serves for the reception of company, for the 
 transacting of business, or for occasional repose ; hence in 
 all probability the term is employed in all modern lan- 
 guages to signify a sofa. 
 
 DIVA'RICATE. (Lat. divarico.) In Zoology, when the 
 divisions of a part spread out widely. 
 
 DIVE'RGENT. (Lat. divergo.) In Zoology, when the 
 branches form a right angle with the stem; as the snags 
 of certain antlers, the divisions of certain Polypiaries, &c. 
 
 DIVE'RGING. In Botany, used in describing the vena- 
 tion of leaves, to denote the angle which is formed by the 
 midrib and one of the primary veins, when it is between 
 20° and 40°. 
 
 DIVIDEND. (Lat. divido, I divide.) In Arithmetic, 
 the number or quantity given to be divided. Dividend, in 
 Commerce, is the name given to the payment made to cred- 
 itors out of the estate of a bankrupt, and to the annual inte- 
 rest payable upon the national debt and other public funds. 
 
 DIVINA'TION. (Lat.) The art of foretelling future 
 events. A singular and ever-active feeling of curiosity has 
 in all ages induced mankind to cast an anxious look to- 
 wards futurity in the desire of penetrating its mysteries, 
 originally either by serious reflections on the past, by a 
 comparison of the past with the present, or by inferences 
 more or less satisfactorily deduced from the probable oc- 
 currence of events. But mankind did not rest here : since 
 the remotest period of antiquity, divination formed a regu- 
 lar science, intimately allied to religion, and furnished 
 with peculiar rules and regulations, more or less skilful 
 and ingenious in proportion to the state of civilization of 
 the people by whom it was practised. But of all the na- 
 tions of antiquity there were none who, notwithstanding 
 their great learning and refinement, cultivated the science 
 of divination with such enthusiasm as the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans. Independently of their credulity with reaard to augu- 
 ri'-s and oracles, which may be termed the higher class of 
 divination, the most trifling incidents supplied them with 
 the occasion to indulge in this propensity ; and there was 
 nothing in the wide range of human affairs from which 
 they did not derive tokens of futurity. To enumerate all, 
 or even the chief objects of divination among the ancients, 
 would far exceed our prescribed limits. Under the differ- 
 ent heads, as Belomancv, Necromancy, &c , the reader 
 will find a notice of the principal of them ; and for the rest 
 he may consult with advantage Cicero, De Divinatione. 
 See Oracle. 
 
 DIVINE RIGHT, THE, OF KINGS. In Politics, means 
 the absolute and unqualified claim of sovereigns on the 
 obedience of the people ; insomuch that, although they 
 may themselves submit to restrictions on their authority, 
 yet subjects endeavouring to enforce those restrictions by 
 resistance to their unlawful acts are guilty of a sin. This 
 doctrine, so celebrated in English constitutional history, 
 has been asserted on very different grounds. Hobbes 
 {De Civ.) deduced the absolute authority of kings from the 
 supposed social contract, whereby men parted absolutely 
 with their natural rights in exchange for protection. But 
 the fashionable political writers and theologians of the 
 times both of Charles I. and II. (in the latter reign, Sir 
 Robert Filmer, author of the Patriarcha, may be more es- 
 pecially cited, on account of his having been directly an- 
 swered by Leslie), maintained that government had an ex- 
 istence before property, and before any supposed social 
 contract could took place ; that itoriginatedin the patriarchal 
 sway, whicii was succeeded by the regal, and that no other 
 was authorized by Scripture. See also the Convocation 
 Book of 1603; Archbishop Leslie on the Potter of the 
 Prince ; Sherlock's Case of Resistance to Supreme Potters, 
 1681; Mackenzie's Jus Regium, 1683. The same princi- 
 ples were practically adopted by the Jacobites, when they 
 maintained the divine right of the expelled sovereign, and 
 afterwards of his descendants, by hereditary title. As to 
 the views of modern high church divines on the subject,
 
 DIVING. 
 
 see Dr. Ptisey's Sermon on the 5th of November, 1837. See 
 
 NON RESISTANCE. 
 
 DI'VING. The art of descending in water. Indepen- 
 dently of the valuable native productions which are found 
 at the bottom of the sea, such as pearls, coral, sponges, <tc, 
 the treasure which is so frequently carried down in wrecked 
 vessels makes it an object of importance to be able to de- 
 scend to the bottom and remain there long enough to exe- 
 cute the operations necessary to recover it. But without 
 the assistance of some mechanical apparatus, it is ex- 
 tremely little that even the most practised divers can per- 
 form. A minute and a half, or two minutes, is the longest 
 time that a diver, in general, can remain underwater. Bo- 
 sides, on account of the loss of weight in water, the power 
 which a man can exert is extremely small, unless borne 
 down by a load which would entirely prevent him from 
 rising again to the top. For these reasons, numerous pro. 
 jects'have been brought forward to assist the natural powers 
 of the body, and render diving an art of more extensive 
 utility. In all these projects, the principal object aimed at 
 is to supply the diver with fresh air and light, and leave 
 him the free use of his arms, and the power of walking 
 within a moderate range at the bottom. Borelli contrived 
 an apparatus which he called a diving bladder; the bladder 
 being of brass or copper, about two feet in diameter, to 
 contain the diver's head, and fastened to a goatskin cover- 
 ing exactly fitted to the shape of the head. An apparatus 
 of this kind was successfully used by Mr. Deane on the 
 west coast of Scotland, at Spithead, and at Donaghadee, 
 where he brought up an immense number of dollars and 
 various otherarticles from a vessel which had been wrecked 
 there more than thirty years before. 
 
 The principal part of Mr. Deane's apparatus consists of 
 a helmet of thin sheet copper, which covers the head of the 
 diver, large enough to admit of free motion, and furnished 
 with three eye-holes, covered with glass protected by 
 brass wires. The helmet comes pretty well down over 
 the breast and back, and is fastened by rivets to a water- 
 proof canvass jacket so tightly that no water can pene- 
 trate. A leather belt passes round the diver, to which are 
 attached two weights, one before and the other behind, each 
 about 40 lbs. The belt is supplied with a buckle in front, 
 which, in case of any accident happening, can be instantly 
 undone. The diver is supplied with fresh air by means 
 of a flexible water-proof pipe, which en- 
 ters the helmet, and communicates with 
 an air-pump, wrought above in the barge 
 from which he descends. This pipe 
 passes under the left arm of the diver, 
 and enters the back of the helmet, being 
 so contrived that the fresh air is made 
 to impinge on the glasses; which in a 
 great measure prevents their being dim- 
 med by the moisture of the breath. 
 From the back part of the helmet there is also led an 
 eduction pipe, to allow the escape of the breathed air. A 
 signal line passes under the right arm to communicate 
 with attendants at the surface. The diver descends from 
 the side of the vessel, either by means of a rope or wooden 
 ladder, loaded at the lower end, the weight being kept at 
 a little height above the ground. When the diver descends 
 to the bottom, the weight is let down, and the rope allowed 
 to become slack, to prevent the motion of the boat from 
 obstructing him. His motion is rendered steady by heavy 
 weights attached to his feet: and he carries a line in his 
 hand, that he may, when necessary, guide himself back to 
 the rope. A waterproof dress covers his body entirely ; 
 and he is thus enabled to remain under water five or six 
 hours at once, all the while perfectly dry. (.See Popular 
 Encyclopaedia, art. " Diving.") 
 
 DIVING BELL. An apparatus by means of which per- 
 sons are let down and enabled to remain under water, and 
 execute various operations ; such as levelling or clearing 
 the bottoms of harbours, preparing a foundation for build- 
 ings, bringing up sunken materials, &c. The principle of 
 the diving bell depends on the impenetrability of atmo- 
 spheric air, and may be illustrated by a very familiar ex- 
 periment. Bring the edge of an inverted tumbler, or any 
 close vessel, to the surface of water, and, keeping the 
 mouth horizontal, press it down in the water. It will be 
 seen that, though some portion of water ascends into the 
 tumbler, the greater part of the space remains empty, or 
 only filled with air; and any object placed in this space, 
 though surrounded on all sides with water, would remain 
 perfectly dry. In fact, the quantity of air remains the same, 
 but is compressed into a smaller volume, in proportion to 
 the depth to which it is made to descend. Now, if we 
 conceive a vessel of wood or iron, sufficiently capacious 
 to hold several men, to be suspended by a chain, and low- 
 ered by means of weights attached to it to any moderate 
 depth under water, it is evident that they may remain 
 there for a considerable time, and perform any operation 
 that could be executed on land in (he same confined space. 
 The machine, however, as thus described, is liable to two 
 358 
 
 DIVING BELL. 
 
 great defects, which must be obviated by other con- 
 trivances before any great advantage can be derived from 
 it. In the first place, as the air by its comprcssibilily al- 
 lows the water to enter the lower part of the bell, the dry 
 space is not only diminished, but the bottom on which the 
 bell rests, and where the operations arc to be carried on, 
 is also covered with water to a proportional depth. In the 
 second place, the air within the bell, by repeated respira- 
 tion, soon becomes mephitic, and unfit to support life; so 
 that it is necessary to elevate the apparatus after short in- 
 tervals, to admit a fresh supply. 
 
 It is not known at what period the diving bell was invent- 
 ed. Beckman, in his History of Inventions, mentions that 
 at Toledo, in the sixteenth century, two Greeks, in the 
 presence of the emperor Charles V. and several thousand 
 spectators, let themselves down under water in a large in- 
 verted kettle with a burning light, and rose again without 
 being wet. George Sinclair, the author of Solan's Invisi- 
 ble World Displayed, in his work entitled Ars Aova et 
 Magna Gravilatis et Levitatis, mentions some attempts 
 that were made, about the year 1665, to raise, by means of 
 a diving bell, the treasure from the ships of the Invincible 
 Armada that went to the bottom near the Isle of Mull in 
 the Hebrides, and describes the kind of bell that was em- 
 ployed. But, on account of the defects to which we have 
 alluded, the diving bell continued to be of very little use 
 till the time of Dr. Halley, who contrived a means of intro- 
 ducing fresh air into the bell while under water, and of al- 
 lowing the mephitic or breathed air to escape. The bell 
 he made use of he describes as having been of wood, con- 
 taining about 60 cubic feet in its cavity, and of the form of a 
 truncated cone, whose diameter at the top was three feet, 
 and at the bottom five. This was coated with lead, so 
 heavy that it could sink empty, and the weight so distri- 
 buted about its bottom that it could only descend in a per- 
 pendicular direction. In the top a clear glass was fixed, to 
 let in the light from above, and a cock to let out the air that 
 had been breathed. To supply the air to the bell he caused 
 a couple of barrels, of about 36 gallons each, to be cased 
 with lead so as to sink empty, each of them having a bung- 
 hole in its lowest part, to let in the water as the air in them 
 condensed on their descent, and to let it out again when 
 they were drawn up full from below. To a hole in the up- 
 permost part of the barrels a trunk or hose was fixed, long 
 enough to fall below the bung hole, and kept down by a 
 weight, so that no air could escape by the hose till its end 
 was raised up. The barrels thus prepared were let down 
 by the side of the bell. A man slationed on a stage sus- 
 pended from the bell was ready to take up the hose ; and, 
 as soon as their ends were brought to the surface of the 
 water in the barrels, all the air that was included in the up- 
 per parts of them was blown with great violence into the 
 bell, while the water entered at the bung-holes below and 
 filled the barrels. By means of this contrivance the air 
 was not only kept fresh, but another great advantage was 
 gained ; namely, that by admitting a sufficient quantity of 
 it the whole of the water was expelled from the inside of 
 the bell, and the bottom of the sea laid dry. 
 
 By means of this contrivance for the admission of fresh 
 air, it was now possible to remain for any length of time 
 under water; but the use of the apparatus was still found 
 to be attended with some inconveniences, and even con- 
 siderable danger. The divers within the bell having no 
 power over it, its rising or sinking depends entirely upon 
 the people at the surface of the water ; and as the bell, 
 even when in the water, has a considerable weight, there is 
 always a possibility of the chain by which it is raised break- 
 ing, which would inevitably be attended with the destruc- 
 tion of the divers Another danger, still more to be appre- 
 hended, is, that if the mouth of the bell in its descent 
 should come upon a sunken ship, or a rock projecting ab- 
 ruptly from the bottom, it might be overset before any sig- 
 nal could be given to those above. These defects were 
 obviated by the very ingenious contrivances of Mr. Spald- 
 ing of Edinburgh. In order to avoid the risk of being upset 
 when the bell descends on a rocky or uneven bottom, he 
 suspended a considerable weight, which he called a ba- 
 lance ueight, below the bell, by a rope passing over a pul- 
 ley fixed in the inside ; and the other weights attached to 
 the bell being so adjusted that they could not sink it with- 
 out the balance weight, as soon as the latter rested on the 
 ground the bell remained suspended in Ihe water. In case, 
 of the mouth of the bell being caught by any obstacle, the 
 balance weight is immediately lowered, till it rests on the 
 bottom; and as the bell, when thus relieved, is buoyant, 
 the divers, having disengaged it from the rock, have it in 
 their power either to descend by pulling in the rope, or by 
 allowing it to run to ascend to the surface. Another con- 
 trivance of Mr. Spalding deserves mention. He divided 
 the bell into two compartments, the one above the other, 
 and communicating by means of a stopcock. The divers 
 are stationeil in the lower one, and the weights are so ad- 
 justed that when the cavity above is empty the bell is buoy- 
 ant ; when it is filled with water, the bell sinks. Immedi-
 
 DIVINING ROD. 
 
 ately above the partition are some slits in the sides of the 
 bell ; and at the top is an orifice, which can be opened or 
 shut at pleasure. Suppose now, this orifice being open, 
 the bell is required to be lowered ; as it descends, the wa- 
 ter enters at the slits, and the air escapes by the orifice. 
 When the apparatus is entirely under water, and the cavity 
 consequently completely filled, let the orifice be shut. 
 The bell will now continue to descend ; but if the stopcock 
 communicating with the upper compartment be opened, 
 the air will rush from the under to the upper, and displace 
 a quantity of the water, and the apparatus will be lightened 
 by the whole of the water so displaced. The divers have 
 it thus in their power to regulate the descent or rise as 
 they please. By admitting a certain quantity of airinto the 
 tipper cavity, the descent of the bell is arrested ; by admit- 
 ting a greater quantity it becomes buoyant, and rises to the 
 top. This method of constructing the diving bell has not, 
 however, been adopted. 
 
 The greatest improvement on the diving bell, since that 
 of Halley, was made by the celebrated Mr. Smeaton, and 
 consists in forcing down a continued stream of air by 
 means of an air-pump through a flexible lube; and this 
 plan is now always adopted. In the year 1783, Smeaton 
 constructed a diving bell to be used in the operations then 
 contemplated at Ramsgate harbour on a new and im- 
 proved plan. Instead of a bell-shaped vessel sunk by 
 weights, his apparatus consisted of a square chest of cast 
 iron, four and a half feet long, four and a half feet high, and 
 three feet wide, affording sufficient room for two men 
 under it. It was cast of such a thickness that its own 
 weight was sufficient to sink it; and its thickness was 
 greatest near the mouth or lower part, to prevent it from 
 being easily overset. This construction of the diving bell 
 gave the men within it no power of raising or sinking it; 
 but as the apparatus was made to be used at a place where 
 the nature of the bottom was known, this advantage was 
 not considered of grDat consequence ; and. in fact, it. is 
 found by experience that it. is better to leave the bell to be 
 entirely guided from above. On account of the facility 
 with which water conveys sound, the strokes of a hammer 
 on the inside of the bell can be heard at a great distance ; 
 and the sound coming through the water has a peculiar 
 character, which cannot be mistaken. By previous ar- 
 rangement any directions can be given in this manner. 
 For instance, one blow may denote more air; two, stand 
 fast ; three, heave up ; four, lower down, and so on. With 
 these successive improvements, the diving hell is found to 
 be a most important machine in all the great operations to 
 be performed under water. It was used with great ad- 
 vantage by Mr. ltennie in the construction of the various 
 harbours he projected ; and it has recently been success- 
 fully employed in deepening the Clyde between Glasgow 
 and Greenock, and improving the navigation of the river. 
 See the article "Diving Bell," in the new edition of the 
 Encyclopedia Brita nnica. 
 
 DIVI'NING ROD. See Rabdomancy. 
 
 DIVI'SIBII.I'TY. The property which all bodies possess 
 of being separable into parts. It was a question formerly 
 much agitated among philosophers, whether matter is divi- 
 sible in infinitum; or whether a certain term does not 
 exist beyond which the particles are reduced to simple 
 atoms incapable of further division. The question is inca- 
 pable of direct solution, and fortunately is of no importance 
 to science; but the extent to which the actual subdivision 
 of bodies has been earned in many cases in the arts may 
 well be considered as prodigious. " In the gilding of buttons, 
 6 grains of gold, which is applied as an amalgam with mer- 
 cury, is allowed to each gross ; so that the coating left must 
 amount to the 110,000th part of an inch in thickness. If a 
 piece of ivory, or white satin, be immersed in a nitro-muri- 
 ate solution of gold, and then exposed to a current of hydro- 
 gengas, it will become covered with a surface of gold hardly 
 exceeding in thickness the ten-millionth part of an inch." 
 
 "The solution of certain saline bodies, and of other co- 
 loured substances, exhibits a prodigious subdivision and 
 dissemination of matter. A single grain of the sulphate of 
 copper, or blue vitriol, will communicate a fine azure tint 
 to five gallons of water. In this case the copper must be 
 attenuated at least ten million times; yet each drop of the 
 liquid may contain so many coloured particles, distinguish- 
 able by our unassisted vision. Odours are capable of a still 
 wider diffusion. A single grain of musk has been known 
 to perfume a room for the space of twenty years. Animal 
 matter likewise exhibits in many instances a wonderful 
 subdivision. The milt of a codfish when it begins to pu- 
 trefy has been computed to contain a billion of perfect in- 
 sects, so that thousands of these living creatures could be 
 lifted on the point of a needle. But the infusory animal- 
 cules display in their structure and functions the most 
 transcendent attenuation of matter. The Vibrio undula, 
 found in duck weed, is computed to be ten thousand mil- 
 lion times smaller than a hemp seed. The Vibrio lineola 
 occurs in vegetable infusions, every drop containing my- 
 riads of these oblong points. The Monas gelatinosa, dis- 
 359 
 
 DOCKET. 
 
 covered in ditch water, appears in the field of a microscope 
 a mere atom endued with life, millions of them playing 
 like sunbeams in a single drop of liquid." (Leslie's Na- 
 tural Philosophy.) 
 
 DIVI'SION. (I.at. divido, I divide.) One of the four fun- 
 damental rules of arithmetic, the object of which is to find 
 how often one number is contained in another. The num- 
 ber to be divided is the dividend, the number which divides 
 is the divisor, and the result of the division is the quotient. 
 Division is the converse of multiplication. 
 
 Divi'sion. In Music, a dividing or separation of the in- 
 terval of an octave into a number of lesser intervals. 
 
 Divi'sion, in Logic, is the enumeration of several things 
 signified by a common name ; thus, tree is said to be di- 
 vided into oak, ash, elm, &c. A common term may be 
 divided in several ways, according to the various points of 
 view in which it may be regarded for the purpose of quali- 
 fication. Thus a bookbinder may divide books into folios, 
 quartos, &c. ; a librarian into theological, historical, &c. 
 
 Division, in the art Military, signifies generally a certain 
 proportion of an army, consisting of cavalry and infantry 
 together or separately, that is, under the order of a briga- 
 dier or other general officer; but, in a more restricted 
 sense, it is applied to any number of men on military duty 
 detached from an established body, as a division of artil- 
 lery, pioneers, &c. The divisions of an army are the 
 numberof the brigades and squadrons of which it consists; 
 the divisions of a battalion are the several platoons into 
 which a regiment or battalion is divided either in marching 
 or firing. (James's Mil. Diet.) 
 
 DIVO'RCE. (From the modern Latin word divortiare, 
 to turn or put aicay.) The Jewish law of divorce is founded 
 on the directions given in the 24lh chapter of Deuteronomy ; 
 but the permission therein contained is subject to many 
 obstacles and formalities in modern practice. In Greece, 
 in classical times, the practice of divorce seems to have 
 varied in different states ; at Sparta it appears to have been 
 unusual, in Athens great facilities were afforded by the 
 law. In republican Rome great strictness in this branch 
 of morals prevailed fora long period, although parties were 
 less impeded in pursuing a divorce by the difficulties im- 
 posed by the law than by public opinion. But in the later 
 period of the republic, and under the emperors, divorce 
 became extremely common, and was obtained with equal 
 ease by either sex. Our Saviour's declaration to the Pha- 
 risee, in the 19th chapter of St. Matthew, became the 
 foundation of the law on this subject in Christian coun- 
 tries, and divorces were consequently allowed in one par- 
 ticular case only ; but after the Roman church had erected 
 matrimony into a sacrament, they became, as they now 
 are in Catholic countries, wholly impossible: the only 
 dissolution of marriage being in cases where it is void ab 
 initio. In most Protestant countries, the facility of divorce 
 has been so much restored in latter times as to approxi- 
 mate to the heathen practice. In England divorce avin 
 culo matrimonii, on the ground of adultery, can only be 
 obtained by act of parliament ; divorce a mensii et toro* 
 commonly termed separation, by sentence of the spiritual 
 court. See Marriage, Law op. 
 
 DO. In Music, a syllable used by the Italians instead of 
 ut, than which it is by them considered more musical and 
 resonant. 
 
 DOCE'T/E. (Gr. Sokciv, to seem.) One of the earliest 
 heretical sects; so called from the reality of our Lord's 
 incarnation, and considering him to have acted and suffered 
 only in appearance. Some divines have conceived that the 
 express declarations of the nature of Christ in St. John's 
 writings were soecially directed against these opinions. 
 
 DO'CIMA'STIC ART. (Gr. (Wi/ia^co, I prove.) The 
 art of assaying minerals or ores, with a view of determining 
 the quantity of metal which they contain. 
 
 DOCK. (Probably from the Gr. 6£x°t ial i I receive.) An 
 artificial basin for the reception of ships. Docks are of 
 two sorts, wet and dry : the former are used for the pur- 
 pose of loading and unloading a ship's cargo out of the in- 
 fluence of the tide, and are constructed with gates, which 
 when shut keep the ship constantly afloat at low water; 
 the latter are intended for the building, repairing, or ex- 
 amination of ships, which are admitted into them at flood 
 tide, and are so called because they are either left dry by 
 the ebbing of the sea, or rendered so by the use of great 
 flood gates or of pumps. The reader will find in the 
 Commercial Dictionary a full account of all the docks of 
 Great Britain, with remarks on their utility, history, &c. 
 A naval dock is a place provided with all sorts of naval 
 stores, timber, and all the requisite machinery for ship- 
 building. The principal naval docks of Great Britain ara 
 Portsmouth, Plymouth, Chatham, Sheerness, Woolwich, 
 and Deptford. It is in these docks, and particularly the 
 three first, that ships of war are laid up in time of peace. 
 
 DOCKET, DOCQ.UET, or DOGGETT (Lat. docu- 
 mentum), in Law, is an abridged entry of an instrument 
 or proceeding on a small piece of paper or parchment 
 Exemplifications of decrees in chancery, fiats in bank-
 
 DOCTOR. 
 
 ruptcy, and other instruments, are thus docketed for pur- 
 poses of reference. 
 
 DO'CTOR, or TEACHER. This title of learned dis- 
 tinction was first adopted in the twelfth century. The 
 degreee of Doctorate, succeeding and superior to that of 
 Master in European universities, was first conferred at 
 Bologna ; by the university of Paris, in 1145, on Peter 
 Lombard ; in England, it is supposed, in the reign of King 
 John. Before this time, if the appellation of Doctor was 
 used, it was only in its plain sense of "teacher," and as 
 synonymous with master. The degree of Doctor is con- 
 ferred, in the English universities, in each of the three 
 faculties of divinity, law, and medicine, — but not in that of 
 arts, — and in the science of music. The Continental degree 
 of Doctor of Philosophy is unknown among us. 
 
 Do'ctor. A thin plate of steel used in scraping the 
 colour or mordant off the copper plates employed in calico 
 printing ; the term is probably a corruption of the word 
 abductor. 
 
 DO'CTORS' COMMONS, is the popular name for the 
 courts and offices occupied by the body incorporated in 
 1768 under the title of "The College of Doctors of Law 
 exercent in the Ecclesiastical and Admiralty Courts " and 
 which are situate on the southern side of St. Paul's Church- 
 yard. The college consists of a president (the dean ol the 
 arches for the time being), and of those doctors of law who 
 having regularly taken that degree in either of the univer- 
 sities of Oxford or Cambridge, and having been admitted 
 advocates in pursuance of the rescript of the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury, have been elected fellows of the college in 
 the manner prescribed by the charter. See Courts, Ec- 
 clesiastical. 
 
 DO'CTRINAIRES. In Politics, a cant word, originally 
 applied in France to a section of politicians who occupied 
 a place, in the first chambers after the restoration of 1815, 
 between the deputies of the centre, who generally sup- 
 ported ministers, and the extreme left, which always op- 
 posed them. The chief men of this party were systematic 
 writers and speakers on government, who sought to estab- 
 lish a frame of constitution somewhat more resembling that 
 of England than any which has hitherto subsisted in France. 
 The nickname given to them implied that they were con- 
 sidered by the public as theorists: they were, in fact, the 
 same class which Napoleon used to term Ideologists. They 
 supported the Due de Cazes when in office ; afterwards they 
 were generally in opposition until 1830, since which time se- 
 several of their leaders have held office at different times. 
 Royer Collard, De Broglie, the young Baron de Stael, Gui- 
 zot, &c, were among the chief public men commonly call- 
 ed Doctrinaires ; but this, like other party nicknames, has 
 been, and is, employed in a very arbitrary manner. 
 
 DO'CTRINE (Lat. doceo, 1 teach), signifies, in itsmost ex- 
 tended sense, any thing that is taught either as a matter of 
 faith or practice ; and accordingly the term is applied more 
 particularly to various theories that have been embraced 
 and enforced in philosophy and religion : hence we hear of 
 St. Augustine's doctrine of grace, Newton's doctrine of co- 
 lours, &c. 
 
 DO'CUMENTS. (Lat. doceo, / teach.) In Law, writ- 
 ten instruments adduced for the purpose of evidence. See 
 Evidence. 
 
 DO'DECADA'CTYLUS. (Gr. AwSena, twelve, and 
 5aicTv\os, a finger.) The portion of the small intestines 
 called duodenum, its length being about the breadth of 
 twelve fingers : this at least may be the case in some ani- 
 mals to which the dissection of the earlier anatomists, who 
 gave this name, was limited. 
 
 DODE'CAGON. (Gr. dwScKa, and ycovia, an angle.) 
 A regular polygon of 12 equal sides. If the side of a do- 
 decagon be represented by 1, the area is = 3 X (2 + V3) 
 = 11-196 nearly. In general, the area of the figure is equal 
 to the square of its side multiplied by the constant number 
 11196. 
 
 DO'DECAIIE'DRON. (Gr. SaiSexa, and hSpa, seat.) 
 One of the five Platonic bodies or regular solids ; its surface 
 being composed of 12 equal and regular pentagons. The 
 surface of a dodecahedron is found by multiplying the square 
 of its side or linear edge into the number 20 64578 : and its 
 solidity by multiplying the cube of its side by 766312. 
 
 DODECA'NDROUS. (Gr. <5wJ«a, and avrjp, a male.) 
 Any plant having twelve stamens. 
 
 DODECA'STYLE. (Gr. twitKa, and trrvXof, a co- 
 lumn) In Architecture, a building having twelve columns 
 on a front or flank. 
 
 DODO'NA. In Antiquity, the seat of the most ancient, 
 and one of the most celebrated oracles of Greece, sacred 
 to Jupiter. By some writers its origin is attributed to Deu- 
 calion, who is said to have built the town of Dodpna where 
 it stood ; but according to the traditions of the priestesses 
 of the temple, it was founded by a dove, which, perching 
 on the branch of an oak, recommended in a human voice 
 that a temple should be erected to Jupiter in that place. 
 The situation of the oracle was in an extensive forest, the 
 oaks of which are said to have been endowed with the gift 
 360 
 
 DOGMA. 
 
 of prophecy ; and the oracles were most frequently de- 
 livered by three priestesses, who expounded the will of the 
 divinity. That the responses of this oracle were received 
 with singular veneration, may be inferred from the number 
 of votaries by whom it was frequented, and the costly pre- 
 sents which adorned the temple and its precincts. This 
 oracle continued to utter responses till the time of Augus- 
 tus, when it ceased. (Strabo, vii.) See Oracle. 
 
 DO'DRANS. (Lat.) A measure equal to about nine 
 inches, being the space between the end of the thumb and 
 of the little finger when both are fully extended. It is about 
 equal to the palm. 
 
 DOG. See Canis. 
 
 DO'G BELTS. A term used in some coal mines for a 
 strong broad piece of leather round the waist, to which a 
 chain is attached, passing between the legs of the men 
 drawing the dans in the low works. 
 
 DOG DAYS. See Canicular Days. 
 
 DOGE. (Probably a corruption of the Lat. dux, a 
 leader.) The tide of the supreme executive magistrate in 
 the republic of Venice. The origin of this office dates as 
 far back as 697 ; when, owing partly to the dissensions and 
 intrigues that resulted from the annual election of the 
 seven tribunes by whom the affairs of Venice had been 
 previously administered, and partly to so divided an autho- 
 rity being found inadequate to the conduct of the rapidly 
 increasing powers of the state, the Venetians resolved to 
 replace the tribunes by a single chief magistrate, who 
 should hold office for life. This magistrate, whom they 
 called the Doge, was clothed with almost regal authority. 
 In him was vested the power of convoking assemblies, of 
 declaring war or concluding treaties; of commanding the 
 armies of the state ; of appointing the military tribunes 
 and the judges ; of hearing appeals and deciding defini- 
 tively on all matters at issue ; of collecting the citizens in 
 their different islands, and in the quarters or districts of 
 Venice, for the purpose of choosing their parish priests or 
 bishops; of judging all matters concerning the clergy in 
 all causes, both civil and criminal ; and of awarding eccle- 
 siastical punishments, investing the bishops, and installing 
 them in their churches. (And. Dandolo aptid Gallicioli. 
 Chron. i.) But notwithstanding these apparently vast 
 powers which were vested in the doge at the first institu- 
 tion of the office, the slightest glance at the history of Ve- 
 nice, which for more than eleven centuries, with a few in- 
 terruptions, continued to be governed by doges, will abun- 
 dantly prove that though the Venetians allowed four cen- 
 turies to elapse before they attempted to fix the bounds or 
 control the exercise of the sovereign authority by any legal 
 enactments, they never ceased to regard with jealousy the 
 chief magistrate of their own appointment and approval, 
 and at last succeeded in limiting and restricting his power, 
 so as to render him a mere state pageant of the grand 
 council, in which resided the supreme executive authority. 
 The history of the doges is so incorporated with that of the 
 Venetian republic as to be wholly inseparable from it ; and 
 a bare outline of the various phases which they exhibited 
 during a career unrivalled for duration and brilliancy in 
 the annals of human society, would be incompatible at 
 once with our limits and the design of this work. The 
 reader will find ample information on this subject in Da- 
 rn's Histoire de la Republiqne de Venise, (8 vols. 8vo. Pa- 
 ris) ; the Quarterly Review, vol. 31 ; and Edinburgh Re- 
 view, vol. 46. (See Bucentaur.) Doge was also the title 
 given to the chief magistrates of Genoa, who were elected 
 from the senatorial body. The doges of Genoa held office 
 originally for life, as at Venice ; but from 152S down to 
 1797, when that form of Government was abolished by the 
 French, they remained in office only two years, and their 
 authority was exceedingly circumscribed. 
 
 DO'GMA. (Gr. Sokciv, to seem.) Literally, a conclu- 
 sion founded upon experience. In Theology, dogma has 
 been defined to be a fundamental article of belief derived 
 from acknowledged authority, and is usually applied to 
 what are considered as the essential doctrines of Chris- 
 tianity, deduced either from the Scriptures or from the fa- 
 thers of the church. (See Theology.) There are, how- 
 ever, many other dogmas peculiar to the different sects 
 into which Christianity is divided. Thus the bulls and de- 
 cretals of the pope, together with all the councils both of 
 earlier and later times, are regarded by the Roman Catho- 
 lics with as much veneration as the authority of the Scrip- 
 tures and the holy fathers. The Greek church, on the 
 other hand, ^knowledges the authority only of the earlier 
 councils, in addition to that of the Scriptures and the fa- 
 thers; and the Lutheran and other Protestant churches 
 have embodied their dogmas in their respective confes- 
 sions of faith and other ecclesiastical standards. Dogma- 
 tictheology, as this branch of divinity is called, in contra- 
 distinction to moral and scholastic theology, forms an im- 
 portant object of study in many of the Continental uni- 
 versities. In the Protestant universities of Germany, there 
 are chairs set apart for the history of dogmas, or, as it is 
 termed, Dogmatik ; in which the origin and nature of the
 
 DOG STAR. 
 
 dogmas of the various Christian sects are examined, and 
 the merit of the arguments by which they are supported 
 respectively canvassed. Among the ancient physicians, 
 the dogmatists founded their practice upon conclusions or 
 opinions drawn from certain theoretical inferences, which 
 they conceived might be logically defended or proved. At 
 present a dogmatist is one who is fond of strong assertions 
 not always founded upon correct reasoning. 
 
 DO'G STAR. A name popularly given to Sirius, a star 
 of the first magnitude, in the constellation Cants Major 
 (the Greater Dog), and the brightest fixed star in the fir- 
 mament. 
 
 DO'G WOOD. A name applied to two different plants : 
 in England to any of the shrubby species of Cornus ; in 
 the West Indies to the Piscidia erythrina. The former 
 are of little interest, except as ornamental shrubs ; the lat- 
 ter is a powerful narcotic, the real value of which in medi- 
 cine has still to be determined. 
 
 DOLA'BRIFORM. (Lat. dolabra, a hatchet.) In Zool- 
 ogy, when a whole or part is shaped like a hatchet, as the 
 foot of certain Bivalves. 
 
 DO'LCE. (It.) In Music, an instruction to the per- 
 former that the music is to be executed softly and sweetly. 
 
 DO'LERITE. A trap-rock composed of augite and 
 felspar. 
 
 DOLICHO'TIS. (Gr. Ao\ixos, long, and a>s, an ear.) 
 The name applied by F. Cuvier to the subgenus of Cavies, 
 to which the Patagonian hare (Cavia Patachon.) belongs. 
 
 DOLLAR. See Money. 
 
 DO'LOMITE. Magnesian marble, or granular magne- 
 sian carbonate of lime. Named after Dolomieu. 
 
 DO'LPHIN. This term is applied, in common language, 
 to two inhabitants of the ocean of widely different habits 
 and organization : by naturalists it is generally used to 
 signify the dolphin of the ancients, which is a cetaceous 
 mammal of the genus Delphis of Linnreus ; by poets it is 
 applied to the coryphene (Coryjjhe&na Hippurus, Linn.), 
 a fish long celebrated for the swiftness of its swimming, 
 and the brilliant and beautiful colours which it successively 
 assumes in the act of death. 
 
 DOM (Lat. dominus, a lord), in the middle ages, was a 
 title originally possessed by the pope, and at a somewhat 
 later period by the dignitaries of the Roman Catholic 
 church. In more recent times, it formed a distinguishing 
 title of certain monastic orders, such as the Benedictines, 
 &c. ; and it appears to have been equivalent to the don of 
 the Spaniards, the von of the Germans, and the de of the 
 French. Mabillon and Calmet are always spoken of as 
 Dom Mabillon and Dom Calmet. 
 
 DOMAI'N (Lat. dominicum, from dominus, lord; in 
 legal language, demesne), signifies properly that portion of 
 the territorial possessions of a lord which he retains in 
 his own occupation. Thus, the lands retained in posses- 
 sion of the crown, and not granted out to the great feudal 
 lords, were styled domains in France. Ancient demesne, 
 in English law, is a peculiar tenure by which certain lands 
 are held of the crown, being such as are evidenced by 
 Domesday Book to have been in the possession of King 
 Edward the Confessor. 
 
 DOME. (Lat. domu3.) In Architecture, the spherical 
 or other figured concave ceiling over a circular or polygo- 
 nal building. A surbased or diminished dome is one that is 
 segmental on its section ; a surmounted dome is one that is 
 higher than the radius of its base. The forms of domes 
 are various, both in plan and section. In the former, they 
 ere circular and polygonal ; in the latter, we find them 
 semicircular, and semi-elliptical, segmental, pointed, some- 
 times in curves of contrary flexure, bell-shaped, &c. 
 The oldest cupola on record is that of the Pantheon at 
 Rome, which was erected under Augustus, and is still per- 
 fect. We here subjoin a list of the domes whose dimen- 
 sions entitle them to notice. 
 
 Domes. 
 
 Feet diam. 
 
 Feet high. 
 
 Pantheon at Rome . . . . 
 
 142 
 
 143 
 
 Duomo at Florence, Sta. Maria del 
 
 
 
 Fiore ...... 
 
 139 
 
 310 
 
 St. Peter's at Rome . 
 
 139 
 
 330 
 
 St. Sophia at Constantinople . 
 
 115 
 
 201 
 
 Baths of Caracalla (Ancient) . 
 
 112 
 
 116 
 
 St. Paul's, London . . . . 
 
 112 
 
 215 
 
 Dome of the Mosque of Achmet . 
 
 92 
 
 120 
 
 Chapel of the Medici 
 
 91 
 
 199 
 
 Baptistery at Florence 
 
 86 
 
 110 
 
 Church of the Invalids at Paris 
 
 80 
 
 173 
 
 Minerva Medica at Rome 
 
 78 
 
 97 
 
 Madonna della Salute, Venice . 
 
 70 
 
 133 
 
 St. Genevieve at Paris (Pantheon) . 
 
 67 
 
 190 
 
 Duomo at Sienna . 
 
 57 
 
 148 
 
 Duomo at Milan .... 
 
 57 
 
 254 
 
 St. Vitalis at Ravenna 
 
 55 
 
 91 
 
 Val de Grace at Paris 
 
 55 
 
 133 
 
 St. Mark, Venice .... 
 
 44 
 
 
 361 
 
 DONATIVE. 
 
 DO'MESDAY BOOK (Liber Jwliciuriits, or Censualis 
 Anglia), according to Hume, the most valuable piece of 
 antiquity possessed by any nation, was framed by order of 
 William the Conqueror (1031-6), and contains a general sur- 
 vey of most of the lands in England, their extent in each dis- 
 trict, their proprietors, tenures, value ; the quantity of mea- 
 dow, pasture, wood, and arable land which they contained ; 
 and, in some counties, the number of tenants, cottagers, 
 and slaves of all denominations who lived upon them. It 
 consists of two volumes; one in fol., the other in 4to. : the 
 former comprehending 31 counties, the latter those only of 
 Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk. The counties of Northumber- 
 land, Cumberland, Westmoreland, and Durham, were not 
 comprehended in this survey, probably on account of their 
 then wild uncultivated state. Nor does Lancashire appear un- 
 der its proper name ; but Furness and the northern part of 
 that county, as well as the south of Westmoreland and part 
 of Cumberland, are included within the West Riding of 
 Yorkshire. Though in several respects the information 
 contained in Domesday Book is inaccurate and defective, 
 still in a variety of interesting particulars it serves admira- 
 bly to illustrate the ancient state of England. The publica- 
 tion of Domesday Book was undertaken by order of Geo. 
 III. in 1767, and was completed under the superintendence 
 of Mr. Abraham Farley, in 1783. The original is deposited 
 in the Chapter House at Westminster, where it is open to 
 inspection. Sir H. Ellis has published a useful introduc- 
 tion and index to it. Two volumes of Records supple- 
 mentary to Domesday Book, framed for a similar purpose, 
 and of a nearly contemporary date, were published in 1816 
 by the Commissioners upon the Public Records. The term 
 Domesday is of doubtful origin : the first syllable seems 
 derived trom doom, judgment. 
 
 DO'MICILE. In Law, the place where a person has his 
 home. Personal property, on the decease of the owner, is 
 distributable according to the law of the country in which 
 he was domiciled at the time of his death ; not according 
 to the law of the country in which the property is situate. 
 Residence for forty days constitutes a domicile as to juris- 
 diction in Scotland. 
 
 DOMI'NICAL LETTER. For the purpose of exhibit- 
 ing the day of the week corresponding to any given day of 
 the year, the framersof the ecclesiastical calendar denoted 
 the seven days of the week by the first seven letters of the 
 alphabet, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G ; and placed these letters 
 in a column opposite to the days of the year, in such a 
 manner that A stood opposite the Istof January or first day 
 of the year, B opposite the 2d, and so on to G, which stood 
 opposite the 7th : a*Tter which A returns to the 8th, and so 
 on through the 365 days of the year. Now if one of the 
 day3 of the week, Sunday, for example, falls opposite to 
 E, Monday will be opposite F, Tuesday G, Wednesday A, 
 and so on ; and every Sunday through the year will be re- 
 presented by the same letter E, every Monday by F, and so 
 on. The letter which represents Sunday is called the Do- 
 minical Letter, at Sunday Letter. As the number of days 
 in the week and the number in the year are prime to each 
 other, two successive years cannot begin with the same 
 day ; hence the Dominical Letter changes every year. 
 This mode of representing the days of the week has now 
 fallen nearly into desuetude, and "the initial letter of the 
 name of the day is placed in our almanacs opposite the 
 day of the month. 
 
 DOMI'NICANS. Friars of the order of St. Dominic, 
 instituted at the beginning of the 13th century. See art. 
 Orders, Mendicant. 
 
 DO'MINO. (Hal.) A long loose cloak of black silk, fur- 
 nished with a hood removable at pleasure, and worn chiefly 
 at masquerades by persons of both sexes by way of gene- 
 ral disguise. See Maso.uerade. 
 
 DON. (Lat. dominus.) A Spanish and Portuguese title, 
 which the king, the princes of the blood, and the highest 
 class of the nobility prefix to their names. The ladies of 
 rank have the predicate donna. The title was originally 
 equivalent to that of knight. 
 
 DO'NATISTS. A religious faction, which arose in Af- 
 rica in the beginning of the 4th century in opposition to 
 Cecilianus, bishop of Carthage. The Numidian bishops 
 were indignant at a slight received from him at the time 
 of his consecration, and declared him informally appoint- 
 ed, on account of their absence from the ceremony. They 
 also accused him of unworthy conduct during the Diocle- 
 tian persecution. There are two persons of the name of 
 Donatus celebrated as leaders of this party. Their cause 
 was heard before several councils (those of Aries, Milan, 
 and Carthage), in all of which they were pronounced 
 schismatics. The Donatists, however, continued to be a 
 powerful faction for more than 100 years, and raised at va- 
 rious times great wars and commotions. The name of 
 Circumcelliones was given to the numerous bands of coun- 
 try people of the lowest ranks who took up arms in their 
 cause. St. Augustin was most successful in bringing pub- 
 lic opinion to bear against the Donatists. 
 DO'NATIVE, in Law, is a benefice merely given 
 Y" 32
 
 DONJON. 
 
 anil collated by the patron, without presentation or in- 
 duction. 
 
 DO'NJON, or DUNGEON. Originally a fortress on a 
 hill : from the Celtic dun, height. The central building or 
 keep of an ancient castle ; frequently raised on an artificial 
 elevation. 
 
 DOOR. (Sax. dor, Gr. Svpa.) In Architecture, the gate 
 or entrance of a house. The door frame is the. surround- 
 ing case into and out whereof the door shuts and opens. It 
 consists of two upright side pieces or posts and a head, 
 generally fixed together by mortices and tenons, and 
 wrought, rehated. and beaded. 
 
 DORA'DO. (Span, gilt.) A southern constellation, 
 formed bv Bayer; called also sometimes the Sword-fish. 
 
 DO'RIC ORDER. In Architecture, one of the five or- 
 ders. The true origin and birthplace of this order is not 
 satisfactorily known". The example here given is from the 
 temple of Theseus at Athens. The principal points in 
 which the Grecian differs from the Roman Doric are, that 
 it stands at once on the pavement of the building without 
 socle, tori, or fillets ; and that it presents a more pyramidal 
 section than the other, from the 
 great diminution given to it. Its 
 flutes too are never deeply sunk ; 
 the capital has no astragal, but 
 only some small annulets to se- 
 ^"7J~V parate it from the shaft. The en- 
 
 tablature is so subdivided that the 
 architrave and frieze are each 
 more than a third of its height, 
 the remainder being given to the 
 cornice, which has a band under 
 the mutulus. The mutulus pro- 
 jects forward under the corona, 
 over which is generally placed an 
 ovolo fillet, with another larger 
 orolo and fillet thereover. The 
 column is usually five or six di- 
 ameters high. The principal ex- 
 amples of the order are in the 
 Parthenon, temple of Theseus, 
 Propylteum, portico of the Agora 
 at Athens, the temple of Minerva 
 at Sunium, one at Corinth, temple 
 of Apollo and portico of Philip in 
 the isle of Delos, &c. <kc. The 
 Roman Doric varies considera- 
 bly from that, above described. 
 
 1 From the diagram it will be seen 
 
 that the triglyphs are always placed over the centre of the 
 column, and the metopes should always bean exact square. 
 It follows thence that the intercolumniations are always 
 regulated by the tri- 
 glyphs. Sometimes it is 
 placed on a plinth, at 
 other times on a pedestal 
 sparingly decorated with 
 mouldings. Though it 
 occasionally, as in this 
 example, has an Attic 
 base, it is more common- 
 
 gj i^^mi' — h- ly used with only a torus 
 
 I and as'ragal. The capi- 
 
 tal is formed with a neck 
 and astragal under the 
 ovolo, and acyma-rever- 
 sa and fillet on the aba- 
 cus. The only pure an- 
 cient example of this or- 
 der is that of the theatre 
 of Marcellus at Rome. 
 The flutes are without 
 fillets between them, as 
 in the Grecian Doric, and 
 are twenty in numbpr. 
 Of the moderns, by far 
 the most successful in 
 his profile of the order, 
 which they have made 
 what may be called Ital- 
 ian Doric, is Palladio, 
 from whom the example here given is selected. 
 
 DORI'PPE. A genus of the short-tailed Decapod Crus- 
 tacean?, belonging to the tribe Notopoda. The species of 
 this genus exist at great depths in the sea, and it is probable 
 that they use the small feet, which are directed towards 
 the back, to cover themselves with foreign bodies for con- 
 cealment: they have been found in the Mediterranean, 
 Adriatic, and Indian seas. 
 
 DO'RMER. (Lat. dormio, / sleep.) In Architecture, a 
 window placed on the inclined plane of the roof of a house, 
 whose frame is placed vertically on the rafiers. 
 
 DO'RMITORY. (Lat. dormio, I sleep.) In Architecture, 
 a large sleeping apartment capable of containing many beds. 
 3G2 
 
 
 II 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 
 I 
 
 .1 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 DOWER. 
 
 DO'RNOCK. A stout figured linen, named after thr- 
 town in Scotland where it was originally manufactured. 
 
 DORSIBRA'NCHIATES, Dorstbranchiata. (Lat. dor- 
 sum, back; branchiae, gills.) A name given by Cuvier tc 
 an order of Anellidans, or red blooded worms, compre- 
 hending those which have the gdls projecting from the 
 middle part of the back or sides of the body. The Nereis, 
 or sea-centipede, is an example of this order 
 
 DORT, SYNOD OF. An assembly of Protestant divines 
 con% - oked at Dort in 1(518—1 9, by the States-general, under 
 the influence of Maurice, Prince of Nassau, in which the 
 tenets of the Arminians on the five points relating to elec- 
 tion, redemption, original sin, effectual grace, and perse- 
 verance, were condemned by the adherents of Calvinism. 
 This national synod consisted of thirty-eight Dutch and 
 Walloon divines, five professors from different universities, 
 and twenty-one lay elders; but besides these there were 
 ecclesiastical deputies present from most of the states of 
 the United Provinces, and from the churches of the Palati- 
 nate, Hesse, Switzerland, Bremen, England, and Scotland. 
 This synod was opened on Nov. 13, 1618, and continued 
 till May 29lh in the following year, during which period it 
 held 180 sessions ; but long before these sessions had come 
 to a close, the Arminians were pronounced guilty of pes- 
 tilential errors, and condemned as cormplors of the true 
 religion. For minute details of the proceedings of this ce- 
 lebrated synod, the reader may consult Brandt's History of 
 the Reformation in and about the Low Countries (Loudon, 
 1720-^2), and the usual authorities in ecclesiastical affairs. 
 It was at this synod that the project of obtaining a transla- 
 tion of the Bible into Dutch was first stalled. The execu- 
 tion of this task was entrusted to some of the most learned 
 men of the time ; and alter the lapse of 19 years their 
 labours were given to the world in what has been since 
 known as the Dort Bible. (See Totcnley's Illustrations of 
 Biblical Literature.) 
 
 DOSI'THEANS. The name of a religious sect which 
 sprung up in the first century of the Christian era. Their 
 principal tenets consisted in believing in the divine mission 
 of their leader, Dositheus, from whom they derived their 
 name, and in rejecting the authority of the prophets by de- 
 nying their inspiration. This sect remained in existence 
 till the 4ih century; but with regard loiu history, there 
 exists but little authentic information. 
 
 DOTTREL. See Numerius. 
 
 DOU'BLE BASS. See Contrabasso. 
 
 DOU'BLE STARS. See Stars, Double. 
 
 DOUBLOO'N. See Money. 
 
 DOUCHE. (Fr.) A jet or current of water directed 
 upon some part of the body. An apparalus for this pur- 
 pose is to be found in most bathing establishments. Steam 
 or vapour is also sometimes applied in the form of douche. 
 
 DO'VECOT. A structure for keeping tame pigeons ; 
 the only essential difference between which and a com- 
 mon poultry-house is, that the entrance for the birds must 
 be raised to a considerable height from the ground, be- 
 cause pigeons fly higher in the atmosphere than most other 
 birds. 
 
 DO'VER'S POWDER. A compound of ipecacuanha, 
 opium, and sulphate of potash. It is the pulvis ipecacu- 
 anha cowposilus, or compound powder of ipecacuanha of 
 the present Pharmacopoeia. Ten grains, which is the 
 average dose, contain one grain of opium and one of ipeca- 
 cuanha. It is an excellent sedative and sudorific. 
 
 DO'VE-TAIL. (From its spreading like a pigeon's tail.) 
 In Architecture, a joint used by carpenters in connecting 
 two pieces of wood by letting one piece into the other, in the 
 form of the expanded tail of a dove. It is the strongest 
 method of joining masses, because the tenon or piece of 
 wood widens as it extends, so that it cannot be drawn out, 
 because the tongue is larger than the cavity through which 
 it would have to be drawn. The French call this method 
 queue d'hirende, or swallow's tail. 
 
 DOWAGER (Fr. douairiere), seems to signify a 
 widow who either enjoys a dower from her deceased hus- 
 band, or who has property of her own brought by her to 
 her husband on marriage (dowry), and settled on herself 
 after his decease. In the language of etiquette the term is 
 applied to a widow lady, to distinguish her from the wife of 
 her husband's heir having the same title. 
 
 DOW'ER (Lat. dotarium, from dos), in Law, is de- 
 fined to be the estate for life a widow acquires in a certain 
 portion of her husband's real property after his death. 
 Dower by the common law entitles her to a third part of 
 all the lands and tenements of which the husband waa 
 seised in fee-simple or fee-larl at any lime during the co- 
 verture. Hence this species of dower could not be affected 
 by the husband's conveyance of the lands, unless by fine or 
 recovery in which the wife joined, or by his devise. But 
 the law in this respect has undergone material alterations 
 by the provisions of the 3 & 4 W. 4. c. 105. Dower by 
 custom varies in different districts. There were oiher ob- 
 solete species of dower, now abolished by the statute 
 already mentioned. A married woman may be deprived 

 
 DOWLAS. 
 
 of her right to dower by attainder of her husband for trea- 
 son, or herself for treason and felony ; by divorce a vinculo 
 matrimonii ; by elopement from the husband and living 
 with an adulterer, which incapacity may be removed by 
 reconciliation with the husband. In order to prevent the 
 inconveniences occasioned by this right, which materially 
 impeded the conveyance of property, various modes of 
 barring, i. e. defeatins, the right to dower were invented 
 by legal ingenuity. Of these the most usual in practice 
 was and still is the limitation of a separate estate (com- 
 monly, although incorrectly, called a jointure) to the wife 
 on marriage. This estate must be "a competent liveli- 
 hood of freehold for the wife, of lands and tenements, to 
 take effect in profit or possession presently after the death 
 of the husband, for the life of the wife at least." This 
 mode of barring dower derives its efficacy from the provi- 
 sions of the Statute of Uses, 27 H. 8. c. 10. But now by 3 
 & 4 W. 4. c. 105. dower may be barred by a simple decla- 
 ration in the deed by which land is conveyed to the hus- 
 band, or in any deed executed by him ; or by declaration 
 in his will, or by any devise if real estate to her. 
 DOWLAS. A coarse kind of linen. 
 DOWNS, have been defined to be banks or elevations of 
 sand which the sea gathers and forms along its shores, and 
 which serve it as a barrier. The word is derived from the 
 Celtic duns, which see. The term is also applied to large 
 tracts of poor naked hilly land, which serve chielly for the 
 grazing of sheep, thence called Down sheep. Downs is 
 the name given to the well-known road for shipping in the 
 English Channel, which possesses excellent anchorage, 
 and in time of war forms the place of rendezvous for the 
 Enslish navy. 
 
 DOWRY, although often confounded with dower, has a 
 different meanini ; namely, the dos mulieris or marriase 
 portion brought by the wife to her husband. The word, 
 however, has no legal signification. 
 
 DOXO'LOGY. (Gr. So%a, glory, \oyos, discourse.) A 
 form of praise or glorification. The greater and lesser 
 Doxologies, as they are distinguished by the liturgical wri- 
 ters, are the hymn sung by the angels at the Nativity, 
 " Glory be to God on high," &c. ; and the shorter form, 
 u Glory be to the Father," &c. The last clause in the 
 Lord's Prayer, as it is recorded by St. Matthew, the genu- 
 ineness of which has been sometimes questioned, is also 
 frequently called the Doxology. 
 
 DRACHM. There are two drachms in our system of 
 weights ; namely, the avoirdupois drachm, which is the 
 sixteenth part of the avoirdupois ounce ; and the apothe- 
 caries' drachm, which is the twelfth part of the troy ounce, 
 and equivalent to sixty troy grains : the latter drachm isthc 
 only one which is retained in common use. 
 
 DRA'CHMA. (Gr. ipaxufi) An Athenian silver coin 
 of the value of six oboli, or about 7£d. of our money. Other 
 Greek slates had drach?n& of different values, but the above 
 is that generally referred to. There was also a weight of 
 this name nearly equivalent to 2 dwt. 7 gT. troy weight. 
 
 DRa/CO. (Lat. the Dragon.) One of the ancient con- 
 Btellatinns in the northern hemisphere. 
 
 DRA'CO MITIGA'TUS. An alchemical name of calo- 
 mel : corrosive sublimate was probably called draco or the 
 drazon. 
 
 DRACO'NIN, or DRACINA. The colouring matter of 
 the resin called dragon's blood. 
 
 DRA'GOMANS. The interpreters attached to European 
 embassies or consulates in the Levant. The dragoman of 
 the Sublime Porte is an important Turkish officer, who 
 forms the medium of communication between his own go- 
 vernment and the embassies of foreisn countries. 
 
 DRA'GON. (Gr. Spa/caw.) In Fabulous History, one of 
 the most famous mythological creations of antiquity and 
 the middle ages. The position which this being occupies 
 in fabulous history presents one of the most singular phe- 
 nomena of the human mind, as its existence was firmly 
 accredited among the ancients of almost every nation, both 
 in the eastern and western regions of the earth. It occurs 
 in the sacred allegories of the Jews, and in the legends of 
 the Chinese and Japanese ; and the pages of the classic 
 poets of Greece and Rome teem with representations of 
 the dragon. Thus the dark retreats of their gods and their 
 sacred groves were defended by dragons : the chariot of 
 Ceres was drawn by them ; and a dragon kept the garden 
 of the Hesperides. In Scandinavian mysteries, the dragon 
 was the minister of vengeance under their vindictive gods 
 (see Grimm's Deutsche Mytlwlogie) ; and the ancient Bri- 
 tons, enslaved in the trammels of Druidic superstition, en- 
 tertained a similar notion of its nature. (Rees's Cyctopce- 
 dia.) The allegory of the Dragon has even found a place 
 amons many nations who have embraced Christianity. In 
 the Book of Revelations (chap. 20,) the angel is represent- 
 ed as laying " hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which 
 is the devil;" and hence in painting and statuary, the tri- 
 umph of Christianity over infidelity and heathenism is some- 
 times represented by a dragon pierced or trampled under 
 foot. This representation forms also the attribute of diffor- 
 363 
 
 DRAINING. 
 
 ent saints in the legends of Christianity, more especially 
 of St. Michael, St. George, and St. Margaret the Martyr. 
 The draaon of antiquity was a species of monstrous ser- 
 pent with wings and feet ; and he seems to have possessed 
 many qualities in common with the most famed terrors of 
 ancient Greece, such as the 
 
 Gordons and hydras and chima:ra8 dire, 
 
 with whicli he was in all probabiliy intimately allied. 
 
 Dragon. In Zoology, this term is applied to a genus of 
 small Saurian reptiles, characterized by two lateral aliform 
 productions of the skin supported upon the first six pairs of 
 ribs ; which, instead of bending round the thorax, are elon- 
 gated and directed outwards for that purpose. 
 
 DRA'GON BEAM. In Architecture, an horizontal piece 
 of timber on which the hip or angle rafters of a roof pitch. 
 It is framed into a short diagonal piece, which lies the 
 plates at the internal angles of a roof. 
 
 DRA'GON FLY. A common name for the Neuropter- 
 ous insects belonsing to the genus Agrion or Lobellula. 
 
 DRAGONNA'DES. (Fr.) The name given to the per- 
 secutions instituted by Louis XIV. and his successor against 
 the French Protestants, from the coercive measures (parce 
 qu'on y employait les dragons) which were put in force to 
 effect their conversion. 
 
 DRA'GON'S BLOOD. A deep red resin used in colour- 
 ing varnishes ; it is the produce of the Pterocarpus draco, 
 and is imported from India. 
 
 DRAGOO'NS (Fr. dragon; probably from the Lat. dra- 
 conarius, the bearer of a standard upon which teas repre- 
 sented the figure of a dragon), is the name given to a spe- 
 cies of cavalry trained and armed to act either on foot or 
 on horseback, as emergencies may require. The origin of 
 this species of troops has been ascribed by Pere Daniel to 
 the Marechal de Brissac ; but there can be but little doubt 
 that a sort of soldiers answering exactly to the definition 
 above given of dragoons was in use among the ancient Ro- 
 mans/ At present dragoons form part of the military force 
 of all the powers of Europe. The first regiment of dra- 
 goons in this country was raised in 1631. and called the 
 Royal Regiment of "Dragoons of North Britain, now the 
 Scots Greys. In England, this species of troops is of two 
 sorts, — Dragoons simply, and Dragoon guards; the dif- 
 ference between them consisting in this, that the accoutre- 
 ments and horses of the latter are somewhat heavier than 
 those of the former. See Cavalry. 
 
 DRAl'NING. The art of freeing the surface of the soil 
 from superfluous water, considered with reference to culti- 
 vated vegetables, and the health of man and animals. 
 Water may become superfluous by being collected in the 
 natural hollows on the surface, and thus forming bogs; by 
 being retained in the surface stratum, in consequence of 
 a retentive subsoil ; or by oozing through a moist subsoil 
 to the surface stratum, in consequence of supplies from 
 subterraneous sources. Water collected in bogs, or marshy 
 places, remains there, because it has no natural outlet, 
 neither by an opening or hollow along the natural surface, 
 nor by the porosity ol the subsoil, in consequence of which 
 the water might sink into it and disappear. The obvious 
 mode of draining in the first case is by a trench or drain, 
 so deep as lo draw the water from the lowest parts of the 
 hollow, bog, or marsh. Where water is retained in the 
 surface soil in consequence of a retentive subsoil, as in 
 the case of clays and many loams, the most effective mode 
 is to cut a number of small drains parallel to and at short 
 distances from one another; and by the tops of these 
 drains reaching within an inch or two of the bottom of the 
 surface soil, which in cultivation is turned over by the 
 plough, they absorb the superfluous water that passes 
 through this soil and carry it off. Or, should the land be 
 in pasture, the tops of the drain should be brought within 
 an inch or two of the grassy surface, so as to intercept the 
 water, both oozing laterally from the surface soil, and ver- 
 tically from among the leaves of the grass. It may be ob- 
 served also that pasture lands on this description of reten- 
 tive soil may be more readily drained when laid into 
 ridges, and an underground drain formed under each fur- 
 row or surface drain. This, however, is not essential ; and 
 though furrows or surface drains would be no deformity 
 in field culture, yet in lawns and parks the appearance of 
 furrows would destroy the continuity and evenness of sur- 
 face, which in lawns is one chief source of beauty. To 
 drain the surface soil, where it is supplied by water from 
 the subsoil, requires some knowledge of the strata of which 
 the subsoil is composed. In general the strata composing 
 the subsoil lie over one another in a direction more or less 
 approaching to horizontal ; and when the natural inclina- 
 tion of the surface is everywhere parallel to this strata be- 
 neath, the water, if it oozes out of the subsoil at all, will 
 generally do so equally throughout the subsoil; and in 
 such cases numerous drains at no great distance are re- 
 quired to carry it off, precisely as in the case of draining 
 soils with retentive subsoils. But when the line of surface 
 does not correspond with the line of substrata, but inter- 
 sects this line, then water will generally be found oozing
 
 DRAMA. 
 
 out at the line of intersection, technically called the crop- 
 ping out of the strata. The quantity of water which will 
 issue from these sections orcroppings out of broken strata 
 will depend on a great variety of circumstances, into which 
 it is unnecessary hereto enter; because in all cases the 
 mode of draining is the same, viz. that of forming a drain 
 parallel lo the line of fracture of the strata. This drain 
 in some cases is not required to extend the whole length 
 of the line of the fracture ; because if the strata have a 
 double inclination, so as it were to conduct the water to one 
 angle or point, a drain at that angle or point will carry off 
 the whole of the superfluous water contained in the strata. 
 The subsoil in some cases is composed of strata in a nearly 
 vertical position, and in others of strata alternately depress- 
 ed and elevated, so that a section through them would 
 form a serpentine line ; and sometimes the subsoil is com- 
 posed of strata the layers of which have been broken up 
 and jumbled together. All these, and other cases, are to 
 be drained in one or more of the above described modes; 
 that is, accumulated water, whether in the soil or above it, 
 is to be let off by cuts or drains made at the lowest points 
 of accumulation ; and surface soil saturated with water, 
 whether from greater atmospherical supplies than can be 
 carried off by evaporation or can sink into the subsoil, or 
 whether it arise from sources in the subsoil, is to be carried 
 off by numerous drains close to one another, and the tops 
 of which are within a few inches of the cultivated soil, or 
 of the permanent clothing of grass or other herbage. 
 
 DRA'MA (from the Greek word Spa/ia, an action or thing 
 done; derived from the verb Spaoj, J act or do), has been 
 defined a species of poem in which the action or narrative 
 is not related, but represented. The invention of the drama 
 is one of those which should seem to proceed most natu- 
 rally from the ordinary customs and feelings of men. 
 There is a species of dramatic action which seems almost 
 instinctive ; we naturally imitate the tone and gestures of 
 others in reciting their sayings or adventures, or even in 
 adopting their sentiments. Yet some nations appear never 
 to have taken the farther step of doing, methodically and 
 with design, what all do involuntarily. In the accounts 
 which we possess of the ancient Egyptians, for example, 
 we have no trace of their having possessed dramatic repre- 
 sentation. But among a great number of tribes, wholly in- 
 dependent of each other, we find something approaching 
 to the dramatic art intermingled with their common or so- 
 lemn customs, and generally connected with religious ob- 
 servance. This was especially the case in Greece, whence 
 the name and substance of the drama have been chiefly 
 derived by the modern European nations. 
 
 The history of the development of the dramatic art in 
 Greece is well known : its elements were found in the reli- 
 gious festivals celebrated from the earliest ages in that 
 country. The feasts of Bacchus in particular had sacred 
 choruses or odes ; these were afterwards intermixed with 
 episodic narrations of events in mythological story, recited 
 by an actor in the festival with gesticulation : thence again, 
 the next step was to introduce two actors with alternate 
 recitation ; and thus were produced tragedy (rpayoiSid, 
 the song of t/w goat, from the animal which was led about 
 in those festive processions) ; and comedy (.KoipuSia, the 
 village song,) which differed from the former in that the 
 dialogue of the interlocutors was satirical, and not mytho- 
 logical. The early Greek tragedy was a dramatic repre- 
 sentation of some scenes or events recorded in the na- 
 tional traditions, the actors personating those who played 
 a part in these events, together with a chorus or band of 
 singers, representing such persons as might naturally be 
 supposed to have been bystanders at the occurrence (cap- 
 tive women, old men, or counsellors, &c), who sang at in- 
 tervals, during the representation, hymns to the gods, or 
 songs appropriate to the scenes passing in representation : 
 while the Attic comedy, in its first invention, must be re- 
 garded as a parody on tragedy, in which the personages 
 were either real characters introduced for the purpose of 
 satire, or ludicrous personifications. iEschylus, the oldest 
 tragic writer (with the exception of Phrynichus, his cotem- 
 porary), carried the Greek drama at once to nearly its 
 highest state of perfection. Sophocles and Euripides in- 
 troduced additional actors into the dialogue (which at first 
 admitted only two at the same time), and turned the naked 
 recitals of events which form the substance of the plays 
 of JEschylus into something more nearly resembling the 
 modern idea of a plot, with contrasted characters and inci- 
 dents leading to the accomplishment of a main action. 
 Many tragic writers, the whole of whose works have been 
 lost, flourished after Euripides in Athens and Alexandria ; 
 but they do not seem to have altered the character of the 
 art which they received from their predecessors. The 
 fate of comedy was different : the old Attic comedy was a 
 political or philosophical satire in action, which in form 
 was a burlesque on the tragedy. Afterwards, passing 
 through the intervening stage of the middle comedy, of 
 which we know little, the art acquired in the new comedy 
 of Menander and Philemon a character somewhat ap- 
 364 
 
 preaching to that in which it is at present cultivated ; a nar- 
 rative in representation of scenes and incidents in ordinary 
 life of a light or ludicrous character. 
 
 The dramatic art among the Greeks aimed at produc- 
 ing an impression upon the spectators by three different 
 means; which, according to modern phraseology, we may 
 denominate poetical effect, dramatical effect, and theatri- 
 cal effect. The poetry of the Greek drama was of the 
 highest order ; but it forms a topic to be considered apart. 
 Dramatical effect is the proper subject of the dramatic art; 
 and, in judging of the efforts of the Greek mind in thia 
 direction, we are assisted not only by the study of the dra- 
 matic poems which we possess, but by the rules of criti- 
 cism delivered to us by Greek authors, and especially by 
 Aristotle. From these it appears that the parts or charac- 
 teristics of a tragedy, essentially divided, were held to be 
 the fable or story, the manners, the style, the sentiment, 
 the music, and the diction : that the fable should consist 
 of an entire action, namely, one principal event and the 
 auxiliary events ; and that the proper emotions to be ex- 
 cited by the action are terror and pity : that its parts of 
 quantity, according to the division of form, were the pro- 
 logue, being that part of the tragedy which precedes the 
 parode or first entry of the chorus ; the episode, being all 
 those several parts which are included between the several 
 choral odes ; the exode, the part which follows the last 
 choral ode ; and the chorus itself, or the intervening odes, 
 which also admit of various subdivisions. Formally con- 
 sidered, the arrangement of the old comedy nearly resem- 
 bled that of tragedy ; in the new, the chorus was altogether 
 omitted. The unity of action was a remarkable character- 
 istic of the Greek drama, although widely different from 
 that peculiar quality which modern critics have character- 
 ized by the name : it should rather be termed unity of sub- 
 ject, inasmuch as in many of our remaining tragedies, and 
 especially those of iEschylus, there is little or no trace of 
 what we term a plot, i. e. a main incident at which we 
 arrive through subordinate incidents tending to its accom- 
 plishment. The unity of time, — viz. that the imaginary 
 duration of the action should not exceed twenty- four hours; 
 and that of place, — namely, that the scene in which the 
 events occur should be the same throughout, — are inven- 
 tions of French critics, not warranted by the remains of 
 Greek art, in which both are not unfrequently violated ; but, 
 although not rules of Grecian discovery, they are easily 
 rendered applicable to the simple and severe form of the 
 Greek tragedy. 
 
 In considering the theatrical effect of the Greek drama, 
 we must remember that the tragedies were originally re- 
 ligious solemnities ; the theatre, a vast building open at the 
 top, calculated for the accommodation of several thousand 
 spectators ; the scene, &c. proportionally large. Dramatic 
 representations were, at Athens, the offering of wealthy 
 men to the people : he who contributed the expenses of the 
 entertainment was said, liaayctv, to bring in the play ; the 
 poet who produced it, SiS6.GKe.iv, to teach it, i. e. teach the 
 actors to perform it. A complete representation consisted 
 of four pieces by the same author ; a triology, or three 
 tragedies, narrating successive events in the same series 
 of mythological tradition ; and a fourth piece, termed a 
 satyric drama, of which the chorus consisted of satyrs, and 
 the mythological subject was treated in a manner approach- 
 ing to burlesque. The features of the actors were ex- 
 aggerated by masks, their height increased by dress, their 
 powers of voice aided by acoustic contrivances, in order 
 to suit the colossal dimensions of the theatre. The whole 
 vocal part was rhythmical ; the choral odes were sung, 
 and accompanied by the choric dance, in which the actors 
 composing the chorus took part, subjected to very peculiar 
 rules ; the narrative part of the performance was spoken 
 in a peculiar modulated voice, resembling probably the 
 recitative of the modern opera. As to the metrical cha- 
 racter of the ancient Greek drama, the metre used in the 
 dialogue was the iambic trimeter, varied occasionally with 
 the anapaestic and trochaic, chiefly where the other dra- 
 matis persona? conversed with the chorus, or the members 
 of the chorus itself took part in the action ; the choral odes 
 were composed in a great and very artificial variety of 
 metre. 
 
 Latin Drama. — The early Etruscans possessed dramatic 
 representations, whence the Romans derived some peculiar 
 national entertainments (see Mimi) ; but, with this slight 
 exception, their drama consisted merely in the first in- 
 stance of translations, afterwards of close imitations of tho 
 Greek. Accius and Pacuvius transferred to the Roman 
 stage the tragedy of the three Attic poets ; Plautus and 
 Terence the new comedy of Menander. Of these writers 
 Terence is the only one who appears to have deviated, and 
 that slightly, into original invention : in the degeneracy of 
 the Roman empire even this adscititious taste ceased to be 
 cultivated, and the theatres were entirely occupied by 
 farcical buffoonery, or shows and sports on a gigantic scale. 
 Among an infinite variety of works which treat of the 
 classical drama, may be cited the first volume of Schlegel
 
 DRAMA. 
 
 o>! Dramatic Art and Literature. A catalogue of them will 
 be found at the end of the 4th edition of the Theatre of the 
 Greeks, Cambridge, 1836. See also Edin. Iiev., vol. 4 l J. 
 
 Chinese Drama. — Before proceeding to the dramatic art 
 of modern Europe, derived as it is from that of Greece, 
 two oriental nations may be noticed which possess a 
 national drama of their own. In China, theatrical enter- 
 tainments form one of the most popular amusements, and 
 theatrical writing has been cultivated from a very early 
 period. The Chinese drama comprises pieces which we 
 should term both tragical and historical plays, tragi- 
 comedies, and comedies both of intrigue and of manners ; 
 together with abundance of low, pantomimic, and farcical 
 representations. In their regular drama, however, there 
 appears to be less of what we should term connected than 
 of successive action : many of them are, as it were, dra- 
 matized memoirs or biographies of individuals, real or 
 fictitious ; the representation of some is said to require 
 ten days. It is remarkable that, of all national dramas, the 
 Chinese appears to be the only one in which we can trace 
 no original connection with religious observance. (Morri- 
 son, flora Linicaz ; Abel Remusat ; Memoirs of the Acad. 
 <des Inscriptions, &c.) 
 
 Hindoo Drama.— The Hindoo plays which now exist 
 are written for the most part in Sanscrit, although not a 
 living language at the period when they were composed ; 
 mixed, however, with other dialects, which, according to 
 Hindoo critics, are respectively appropriate to different 
 parts of a play. They seem to have been appropriate to 
 the entertainment of "learned persons, and acted only on 
 solemn occasions. They are few in number; about sixty 
 only are known: some containing long mythological nar- 
 ratives, others much complicated incident of a domestic 
 character, in a strain of tragedy alternating with comedy, 
 like the romantic drama of modern Europe. The dra- 
 matic art appears to have flourished in India during a 
 period of several ages, ending about the 14th or 15th cen- 
 turies of our era. Dramatic criticism was also much cul- 
 tivated; and the most minute and artificial rules are laid 
 down by Hindoo commentators as to the conduct of a 
 piece, the requisite ethics, the formal arrangement, and the 
 character which must be introduced. The Hindoo drama 
 is so widely different from the Greek or Chinese, that it 
 must be regarded, like them, as a spontaneous offspring of 
 national genius. ( Wilson's Specimens of the Tnealre of the 
 Hindoos, 2 vols. 8vo. 1R.'{.">.) 
 
 Modern European Drama. — For many centuries after 
 the downfall of the Roman empire, the dramatic art ap- 
 pears to have been entirely lost. Its first revival in the 
 middle aces was owing to the solemnities of the church, 
 into which dramatic interludes were introduced in various 
 countries of western Europe, representing at first events in 
 biblical history or the lives of the saints, and afterwards in- 
 termingled with allegorical fantasies. (See Mysteries, 
 Moralities ) The framers of these early pieces were 
 monks, and the monks were the only preservers of clas- 
 sical learning ; but whether we can infer from these facts 
 that the idea of these rude representations was suggested 
 or their details improved by classical associations, if is not 
 easy to pronounce. At the period of the revival of litera- 
 ture, however, the dramatic art was called nearly at once 
 into life In the four principal countries of western Europe ; 
 Italy. France, Spain, and England. In the two first of these 
 countries it arose simply classical, and unmixed with any 
 original conceptions, or with the sentiments and fashions 
 of the middle ages; in the two last it partook largely of 
 both, and was also immediately derived from the mys- 
 teries and moralities above mentioned : hence, in a histo- 
 rical view, arose the distinction, so elaborately explained 
 by modern critics, between the classical and romantic 
 drama. 
 
 Italian Drama.— Originated in close imitation of clas- 
 sical models. The Sofonisba of Trissino (1515) is not ab- 
 solutely the oldest Italian play, but the first which served 
 as a model for subsequent composers. Rucellai and many 
 others followed in the same track; Bihbiena. Machiavel, 
 Ariosto, as closely imitated the model of the Terentian 
 comedy. The pastoral drama of the 16th century, of 
 which Tasso and Guarini were the most celebrated writers, 
 furnished the first novelty in this branch of literature ; but 
 these are rather poetical than dramatical compositions. 
 The true national theatre of Italy arose in the 17th century, 
 in (he musical drama (opera), to which Metastasio, early in 
 the 18th, communicated all the charms of poetry ; but since 
 the period of that writer, the operatic part of the dramatic 
 art has again been wholly disconnected from the literary, 
 and the words only serve as vehicles for the music. While 
 the higher classes were devoted to the opera, the lower 
 found their national amusement in the commedie dell' 
 arte ; comedies performed by masqucd characters, which 
 gradually became fixed in the well known persons of Har- 
 lequin, Pantaloon, Brighella, &c, who improvised their 
 parts : Goldoni, in the middle of the 18th century, succeed- 
 ing in establishing a regular comic drama in possession of 
 365 
 
 the stage ; while his rival, Gasparo Cozzi, took up the com- 
 medie dell' arte as models, and founded upon them a series 
 of amusing extravagances. But since the period of theso 
 two spirited writers comedy has fallen almost completely 
 into disrepute. At the end of the 18th century Alfieri, a 
 bold and severe genius, produced tragedies in "which the 
 ancient classical form (with the exception of the chorus) 
 was again reverted to, instead of the French imitations of 
 it which bad long been current in Italy as well as the rest 
 of Europe ; and several dramatic poets have since appeared, 
 who have adopted the same model. (Ginguene. Litera- 
 ture Italienne; Tiraboschi ; Walker on I/alum Tragedy, 
 1?'j9; On the Revival of the Drama in Italy, 1805; Ric- 
 coloni, Hist, of the Ital. Theatre.) 
 
 French Drama— The early French tragic writers, from 
 the beginning of the 16th century down to Corneille in the 
 middle of the 17th, produced nothing but unsuccessful and 
 somewhat barbarous imitations of the Greek tragedy. The 
 first pieces of Ibis kind represented on the French stage 
 had prologues and choruses. Corneille had studied and 
 loved the Spanish drama; and without introducing much 
 of iis varied form and incident, he transfused a portion of 
 its boldness and romantic sentiment into the French the- 
 atre, together with a power of energetic declamation pecu- 
 liarly his own. Racine, on the other hand, was a pure ad- 
 mirer of antiquity ; but with a taste and delicacy of feeling 
 which until his time had been very rarely found to accom- 
 pany classical knowledge. The French tragedy grew up 
 with these two great writers as models, and Boileau as its 
 legislator. A peculiar and rigorous system of criticism was 
 introduced, affecting both the form and the substance of 
 dramatic writing; and this system became established in 
 the minds of the French public, as the natural and not the 
 conventional rule of beauty. It would be impossible to 
 enter into an examination of the rules of the French 
 drama : suffice it to say, that they banished from the tragic 
 stage all except heroic characters and passion ; required 
 perfect simplicity of plot, uniformity of language, and, in 
 addition, the observance of the before-mentioned technical 
 unities of place and time. These rules have ever since 
 been scrupulously followed, without deviation, on the re- 
 gular French stage, and many of the greatest names in 
 dramatic literature have voluntarily subjected themselves 
 to their restraints. The French comedy, however, is infi- 
 nitely more national and characteristic than the French 
 tragedy : it originated in that of Spain, and was carried at 
 once to a high degree of perfection by Moli&re. — rejecting 
 the extravagance of the Spanish drama, confining itself 
 within certain definite limils governed by analogy to those 
 established for tragedy, and retaining satire instead of ad- 
 venture as its leading principle. Since that period the 
 French comic stage has been, beyond all contradiction, not 
 only the best, but the model from which that of all other 
 nations has been wholly derived. Of the present state of 
 the French drama it is difficult to speak with precision ; but 
 the national or regular stage seems to be every day losing 
 in popularity, while the attempts to establish a new one on 
 what is termed in France the romantic model have hitherto 
 met with very partial success. (Laharpe, Cours de Littera- 
 tttre ; Correspondance de Grimm, passim ; Voltaire, Dis- 
 course on Tragedy ; Schlegel.) 
 
 Sparush ZJrama.— Spain commenced her literary career 
 more independent of foreign aid than any other country 
 Her dramatic art appears to have originated as early as the 
 14th century ; which produced satirical pieces in dialogue, 
 and one complete dramatic romance by an unknown au- 
 thor (La Celes/ina*), in addition to the mysteries and mi- 
 racle plays, which were exhibited in Spain even more 
 plentifully than elsewhere. The early Spanish comedies 
 of the 16th century were conversations, like eclogues, be- 
 tween shepherds and shepherdesses; with occasional in- 
 terludes of negroes, clowns, and Biscayans, the favourite 
 subjects of popular jest. But the Spanish drama owed to 
 one great author. Lope de Vega, what our own owed to his 
 contemporary, Shakspeare, — a rise at a single bound from 
 insignificance to great richness and variety ; he created, 
 moreover, nearly all its numerous divisions, and has left 
 examples of each. The name comedy, in the early Span- 
 ish stage, implied no ludicrous or satirical representation, 
 but simply a play of adventure, Comedias divinas, or 
 spiritual comedies, were subdivided into lives of saints, 
 and pieces of the holy sacrament (antos sacramentalcs) : 
 the comedies of human life into heroic, answering to the 
 tragedy of our early English dramatists, although even less 
 regular in form; and comedies of domestic adventure 
 (comedias de capa y espanda,— of cloak and swoid). Be- 
 sides these, th» interludes which were played between the 
 prologue and the piece (sayneteres) possess a distinct cha- 
 racter as literary compositions. Almost all pieces have 
 one favourite invariable character, the gracioso or buffoon. 
 Calderon, a greater poet than Lope, and his equal in dra- 
 matic power, is the only other great name in the Spanish 
 drama. Subsequent writers may all be classed as imitators 
 either of their own older poets, or of the favourite dra-
 
 DRAMATURGY. 
 
 (Bouterweck's Hist, of Sp. 
 38 ; Sismondi, Lit. du Midi 
 
 matists of the French school. 
 Literature ; Quart. Rev., vol 
 del' Europe; Schlegel.) 
 
 English Drama. — For the semi-religious representations 
 out of which the English drama arose, see Mystery 
 and Morality. One of the latter, Tlw. New Custom, was 
 printed as late as 1573; by which time several regular tra- 
 gedies and comedies, tolerably approaching to the classical 
 model, had appeared. But a third species of exhibition 
 soon took possession of the stage, the historical drama, 
 in which the successive events of a particular reign or por- 
 tion of history were represented on the stage ; and, to- 
 gether with it, arose the English tragedy and comedy. Our 
 first dramatic poets (those before Shakspeare) were schol- 
 ars ; hence they preferred the form of the ancient drama, the 
 division into acts, &c. But they were also writers, who 
 strove for popularity with the general class of their coun- 
 trymen ; hence, instead of imitating classical simplicity, and 
 confining themselves to a peculiar cast of diction and senti- 
 ment removed from the ordinary course of life, they in- 
 vented a species of composition which intermingled po- 
 etical with ordinary life and language. Comedy, again, be- 
 came in their hands a representation of adventures, dif- 
 fering from those of tragedy only by ending generally in a 
 happy instead of an unhappy exit, and not materially either 
 in the characters or language. Thus the distinctions which 
 they established between tragedy, comedy, and tragico- 
 medy, are little more than adventitious ; and the Shak- 
 spearian drama, properly considered, must be looked on 
 as a miscellaneous compound, in which actors, language, 
 and sentiments, of a character far removed from those of 
 ordinary life, alternate with those of alow and even a bur- 
 lesque character. There is no tragedy in Shakspeare in 
 which comic scenes and characters are not introduced : 
 there is only one comedy (The Merry Wives of Wind- 
 sor) without some intermixture of sentiment approaching 
 to tragic. It continued to be the chief national literature, 
 as well as the favorite national amusement, down to the 
 period of the civil wars, when the opinions and legislation 
 of the prevailing party put a stop to dramatic representa- 
 tion altogether. During the interval thus created the old 
 English art was unlearned altogether, and the new drama, 
 on the model of the French, introduced almost at once on 
 the return of Charles II. and his courtiers from the Conti- 
 nent. The distinction between tragedy and comedy was 
 then first substantially recognized : the former confined to 
 heroic events and language, the latter to those of ordinary 
 life. But tragedy, subjected to foreign rules, ceased en- 
 tirely to flourish : and Otway, the last writer of the old 
 English drama, who wrote partly on the ancient model, al- 
 though after the Restoration, is also the last tragic poet of 
 England who still occupies the stage ; with the exception 
 of Rowe. and of a few authors of that peculiar species of 
 composition, the domestic tragedy, in which the distresses 
 and melancholy events of common life are substituted for 
 those of an heroic character. Comedy, on the other hand, 
 obtained possession of the national taste and stase ; and 
 although the charm of poetry and romantic adventure, 
 which had belonged to the old drama under either name, 
 was denied to the modem comedy, it soon attained a high 
 degree of excellence as well as popularity. The last 
 comedies in verse were written shortly after the Restora- 
 tion ; since which time, with the exception of a few insu- 
 lated attempts to revive the older form, it has been en- 
 tirely framed on the French model. The main element of 
 a modern comedy is satire ; but it admits of a subdivision 
 into comedy of intrigue and comedy of manners,— the for- 
 mer being chiefly directed to the development of a plot, 
 the latter to the delineation of manners; although these 
 qualities ought, properly speaking, to be united to consti- 
 tute a good play. The most distinguished of our dramatic 
 writers in the former line are, amongst many, Congreve, 
 Vanbrugh, Farquhar, Colman, Sheridan : in the latter, the 
 writines of Shadwell and Foote, perhaps, afford the most 
 remarkable instances of that less popular form of comedy 
 which almost neglects the interest of plot, and confines 
 itself to a satirical representation of prevailing vices and 
 follies. (See Edin. Rev. vol. 38 ; Prolegomena to Mail one 
 and Boswell's Shakspeare ; Hazlitt's Lectures ; Coleridge's 
 Remains; Collier, Hist, of Eng. Dramatic Poetry.) 
 
 German Drama. — -The modern German drama is 
 founded on the old English model ; and, although the last 
 in order of time, has risen to a high desree of excellence, 
 the stage in Germany being incomparably more national 
 and popular at the present time than in other European 
 countries. While France, England, and Spain have to 
 look back two hundred years for those names which form 
 fie glory of their dramatic literature, Lessing, Schiller, and 
 Goethe are writers only of the past generation. 
 
 DRAMATU'RGY. (Gr. Spapa, and epyov, work.) The 
 science or art of dramatic poetry and representation ; a 
 word used by German writers. 
 
 DRAM TIMBER. See Baulk. 
 
 DRATERY. (Fr. draperie.) In Painting and Sculp- 
 366 
 
 DREAMS. 
 
 ture, the clothing applied to the human figure. See Cast- 
 ing op Drapery. 
 
 DRA'STIC MEDICINES. (Gr. SpaariKOi, effective.) 
 A term chiefly applied to purgatives and some other re- 
 medies which are rapid and powerful in their operation. 
 
 DRAUGHT OF WATER. The depth of the lowest 
 point of the ship : as the keel is seldom exactly horizontal, 
 the draught of water is taken forward and aft. A ship of 
 the largest size draws nearly 30 feet. 
 
 DRAWBACK. In Political Economy. When a duty 
 is laid on an article produced in a country that is suitable 
 for the foreign market, it is usual, on its being entered for 
 exportation, to remit or pay back the duty to the exporter : 
 and hence the technical phrase drawback. The policy of 
 a measure of this sort is, in most cases, obvious. It is 
 rarely for the public advantage to impose a duty on an ar- 
 ticle about to be exported ; the inevitable effect of such 
 duty is, by proportionally increasing the price of the arti- 
 cle, to lessen the foreign demand for it ; and its probable 
 effect is, in most instances, entirely to exclude it from the 
 foreign markets. Except in a few rare cases, one country 
 has seldom so great an advantage over others in the pro- 
 duction of commodities as would juslify the imposition of 
 a duty on their exportation, without incurring an extreme 
 risk of making them be supplied from some other quarter. 
 This, however, is a result to be deprecated in every point 
 of view. And hence in every case in which the exporting 
 country has no ascertained or decided superiority over 
 others in the production of commodities on which duties 
 are laid at home, there can be no question as to the expe- 
 diency of drawbacks. These must not, however, exceed 
 the amount of duty charged ; for when they do this, the 
 excess becomes, in fact, a bounty. 
 
 DRAWING. (Sax. dragar, to draw along.) In the 
 Fine Arts, the art of representing any object by means of 
 lines circumscribing its boundaries. Drawing is of course 
 the foundation of every thing in art, including within it a 
 knowledge of perspective anatomy, and proportion, and 
 when acquired giving, as Sir Joshua Reynolds observes, 
 "a proportionable power of drawing correctly what we im- 
 agine" The human figure is the principal, perhaps the 
 only object, upon which a student should be first employed ; 
 for he who can correctly draw that will not be at a loss in 
 representing any thing else he may wish. Sir Joshua ob- 
 serves, that he who endeavours to copy nicely the figure 
 before him, not only acquires a " habit of exactness and 
 precision, but is continually advancing in his knowledge of 
 the human figure ; and though he seems to superficial ob- 
 servers to make a slower progress, he will be found at last 
 capable of adding (without running into capricious wild- 
 ness) that grace and beauty which is necessary to be given 
 to his more finished works, and whicli cannot be got by the 
 moderns, as it was not acquired by the ancients, but by an 
 attentive and well compared study of the human form." 
 
 DREAMS, (German, Traume,) may be defined to be 
 those trains of ideas which occupy the mind, or those 
 imaginary transactions in which it is engaged, during sleep. 
 Dreams constitute some of the mostcurious phenomena of 
 the human mind, and have in all ages presented to philo- 
 sophers a subject of most interesting investigation. The 
 theory of dreams embraces two distinct classes of phe- 
 nomena, physical and psychological : the former relate to 
 the question as to how the body is affected in a state of 
 sleep (see Sleep,) how the body in that state affects the 
 mind, and how this affection operates to the production of 
 the phenomena of dreams ; the latter comprehend an in- 
 quiry into the laws which regulate the train of ideas that oc- 
 cur during sleep, and the mode in which these laws ope- 
 rate, together with an examination of certain psychological 
 appearances peculiar to that state. To both these classes 
 of phenomena the attention of some of the most distin 
 snished philosophers, both ofantiquity andof modern times, 
 has been directed ; and much labour and ingenuity have 
 been expended in endeavouring to ascertain the origin and 
 nature of dreams, and to account for the various pheno- 
 mena by which they are accompanied. To give even an 
 outline of the various theories that have been propounded 
 on this subject, would be wholly incompatible with our 
 limits. The system of condensation on which works of 
 this species must be constructed is, as will be easily under- 
 stood, but little suited for metaphysical disquisitions, iti 
 which, to use a remark of Horace, brevity so easily dege- 
 nerates into obscurity ; but in the present instance this is 
 perhaps the less to be regretted, for of all those speculative 
 questions which are said to lie beyond the reach of human 
 inquiry, there is none on which the opinions of philoso- 
 phers are more conflicting and unsatisfactory than the the- 
 ory of dreams. Among a multitude of other efficient causes, 
 dreams have been ascribed to direct impressions on the 
 organs of sense during sleep, — to the absence of real im- 
 pressions on the senses, — to a disordered state of the di- 
 gestive organs, — to a less restrained action of the mental fa- 
 culties, — to the suspension of volition while the powers of 
 sensation continue,— and to the succession and unequal re>
 
 DREDGING MACHINE. 
 
 laxation and cessation of the different senses at the com- 
 mencement and during the time of sleep. (Encyc. Edin.) 
 From the remotest period of antiquity, dreams have also 
 been ascribed to supernatural agency. The records of his- 
 tory, both sacred and profane, abound in instances of 
 dreams which it is impossible to account for on any other 
 hypothesis than that of a supernatural interposition ; and, 
 as has been well observed, though there can be no doubt 
 that many dreams which have been considered superna- 
 tural, as revealing facts and scientific truths, may now be 
 explained by means within our own knowledge, it can just 
 as little be doubted that many well authenticated dreams 
 are utterly inexplicable by ordinary or natural means. This 
 belief in the supernatural character of dreams is common 
 to every nation in a greater or less degree ; but it prevails 
 more especially in the countries of the East, where, from 
 time immemorial, there has existed a class of persons 
 whose peculiar occupation consists in the interpretation and 
 explanation of dreams. Those who wish for comprehen- 
 sive details on this subject may consult the writings of 
 Aristotle, Lucretius, Democritus, <fcc.; and among ourselves, 
 of Locke, Newton, Hartley, Baxter, Beattie, and Stewart ; 
 and still more recently, those of Abercrombie and Mac- 
 nish, which are extremely valuable for the numerous in- 
 stances of extraordinary dreams with which their theories 
 are illustrated. The Penny Cyclopaedia, also, contains an 
 article upon dreams, which exhibits great metaphysical 
 acumen. (See TTie Royal Book of Dreams.) 
 
 DRE'DGING MACHINE. A machine for clearing out or 
 deepening the beds of navigable rivers, harbours, canals, 
 •fee, by the removal of deposited matters. 
 
 DRE'SSING. A term applied to gum. starch, and other 
 articles used in stiffening or preparing silk, linen, and other 
 fabrics. 
 
 DRE'SSINGS. In Architecture, mouldings round doors, 
 Windows, and the like. 
 
 DRIFT, in Navigation, is the angle which the line of a 
 ship's motion makes with the meridian, when she is driven 
 by the wind or waves and not governed by the helm. It 
 also signifies the distance to which she is carried in a given 
 time in that direction. 
 
 Drift. (Sax. drifan.) In Architecture, the horizontal 
 force which an arch exerts with a tendency to overset the 
 piers. 
 
 DRILL. In Mechanics, a small instrument of steel for 
 perforating metals or hard substances. Its action is pro- 
 duced by communicating to it a very rapid rotation by 
 means of a drill-bow. 
 
 Drill. In Agr., a machine for sowing agricultural seeds 
 in rows; sometimes worked by the hand alone, and some- 
 times by the addition of a horse. 
 
 DRILL HUSBANDRY. In Agr., the cultivation of arable 
 land, by sowing the crops in rows ; the advantage of which 
 is, that it admits of destroying the weeds, and stirring the 
 soil in the intervals between the lines of plants. As this 
 mode of cultivation requires some implements and ma- 
 chines not in use in the commoner kinds of farming, and 
 as it is besides better adapted for some soils than for others, 
 it is not so generally used as the obvious advantages attend- 
 ing it would lead us to expect. 
 
 DRIP. In Architecture, the same as Corona, which see. 
 DRI'PPING EAVES. (Dan. dripper, to drop.) In Archi- 
 tecture, the lower edges of a roof wherefrom the rain drips 
 or drops to the ground. 
 
 DRI'VING NOTES. In Music, such notes as connect 
 the last note of one bar with the first of the following one, 
 so as to make only one note of both. They are also used 
 in the middle of a measure, and when a note of one part 
 terminates in the middle of the note of another, in which 
 case it is called binding or legaiure. Driving notes are 
 also called syncopation, when some shorter note at the 
 beginning of a measure or half measure is followed by two, 
 three, or more longer notes, before any other occurs equal 
 to that which occasioned the driving note to make the num- 
 ber even ; for instance, when an odd crotchet succeeds 
 two or three minims, or an odd quaver two or more 
 crotchets. 
 
 DROITS OF ADMIRALTY. The perquisites resulting 
 chiefly from the seizure of the property of an enemy at 
 the commencement of a war, and attached to the office of 
 lord-hish-admiral, or to the crown when that office is va- 
 cant. These perquisites were originally vested in the 
 sovereign, to enable him to provide for the expense of de- 
 fending the realm, and clearing the seas of pirates; and 
 their value and importance will be at once perceived from 
 the following brief statement. In 1798, one ship which had 
 been captured brought 55,000/. ; in 1800, another brought 
 65,000/. ; in 1804, one captured ship was worth 105,000/. ; 
 and in 1806, several taken at once netted 155,000/. During 
 the last war, also, the Dutch ships at one seizure brought 
 1,030,000/. ; the Spanish ships, 2,200,000/. ; and so large 
 were the sums made at one and the same moment in this 
 rich fund, that the crown one year, after paying many hun- 
 dred thousands to captors, and large sums to different 
 367 
 
 DROWNING. 
 
 branches of the royal family, gave a million out of the re- 
 sidue to the public service. {Edin. Rev. vol. xxxiii. p. 482.) 
 By the civil list introduced on the accessiop of William IV., 
 it was arranged that all the droits of admiralty which might 
 accrue during his reign should be paid into the exchequer 
 for the benefit of the public service ; and the civil list of 
 her present Majesty has made no alteration in that ar- 
 rangement. See Prize Money. 
 
 DRO'MEDARY. See Camelus. 
 
 DROPS. (Sax. droppan.) In Architecture, the frusta 
 of cones in the Doric order, used under the triglyphs in 
 the architrave below the tCEnia. Th°y are also used in the 
 under part of the mutuli or modillions of the order. In the 
 Greek examples they are sometimes curved a little in- 
 wards on the profile. 
 
 DROP SERENE. (Lat. gutta serena.) See Amaurosis. 
 
 DRO'PSY. (Gr. wStop, water.) An unnatural collection 
 of watery fluid in any part of the body. When it takes 
 place in the cellular membrane, it constitutes anasarca; 
 when in the cavity of the abdomen, ascites; in the cavity 
 of the cranium, hydrocephalus ; in the scrotum, hydrocele; 
 in the uterus, hydrometra ; and in the chest, hydrothorax 
 Dropsy may arise from a variety of morbid actions, either 
 of the secerning or absorbing vessels. When the fluid 
 which lubricates the internal surfaces and cavities of the 
 body is secreted in excessive quantity, or is not adequately 
 removed by the absorbents, it may so accumulate as to 
 constitute the various forms of this disease ; it may there- 
 fore arise out of excessive as well as of defective action ; 
 it may also result from a variety of other causes connected 
 with organic lesion or derangement, both vascular and 
 nervous. The treatment of dropsy will of course vary with 
 the cause of the disease : it sometimes requires depletion, 
 and at others tonics ; and local accumulation of fluids is 
 often susceptible of removal by remedies which stimulate 
 the absorbents to increased action, or which excite the ex- 
 cretories of the intestines or promote the flow of urine. 
 Dropsy is a common symptom of a broken constitution 
 and failure of the powers of life. 
 
 Dro'psy. In Botany, a disease peculiar to succulent 
 plants, arising from an excessive introduction of water into 
 the system. It produces rapid rottenness, and can only be 
 stopt by destroying all the parts affected by it, and expos- 
 ing the individual to a very dry atmosphere. 
 
 DROSO'METER. (Gr. Spooo;, dew, and fxcrpov, mea- 
 sure.) Any instrument for measuring the quantity of dew 
 that collects on the surface of a body exposed to the open 
 air during the night. The first instrument for this purpose 
 was proposed by Weidler. It consisted of a bent balance 
 which marked in grains the preponderance which a piece 
 of glass of certain dimensions, laid horizontally in one of 
 the scales, had acquired from the settling and adhesion of 
 the globules of moisture. A simpler and more convenient 
 drosometer would be formed on the principle of the rain 
 gauge ; and in order to facilitate the descent of the dew 
 down the sides of the funnel into the tube, a coat of deli- 
 queate salt of tartar may be spread over the shallow surface. 
 Dr. Wells, in making his celebrated experiments on dew, 
 exposed a small quantity of wool to the open sky, and the 
 difference in its weight when laid down and taken up show- 
 ed the quantity of moisture it had imbibed in the interval. 
 
 DROWNING. When a person is submerged under 
 water, suffocation ensues, not in consequence of the access 
 of water to the windpipe or lungs, but merely from the ex- 
 clusion of air, the mechanism of the glottis, or upper 
 portion of the windpipe, being such as to prevent, by the 
 pasmodic closure of the epiglottis, the entrance of more 
 than a very trifling and accidental quantity of water. Un- 
 der these circumstances, however, an attempt is made to 
 inspire, which is followed by the reaction of expiration, and 
 consequently a little air is thrown out, and the residuary 
 quantity in the lungs still further diminished ; access of 
 oxygen to the blood is therefore effectually cut off, the aera- 
 tion of the blood is prevented, and venous blood circulates 
 in the arterial system, the right side of the heart becoming 
 loaded with it, and the pulmonary vein returning it to the 
 right cavities of that organ. The consequences of the non- 
 aeration of the blood thus ensuing upon the vital functions 
 is their suspension and rapid extinction; so that in the 
 course of four or five minutes after the access of air has 
 been cut off, death ensues, although some of the organic 
 functions may and do continue for a much longer period. 
 When therefore a person has been perfectly submerged in 
 water for the space of five minutes, perfect insensibility 
 ensues, and the functions upon which life more immedi- 
 diately depends cannot be restored. 
 
 In consequence, however, of the struggles made by a 
 drowning person, and of their chances of occasional gasps 
 of air, and of the varying quantity of air which the lung3 
 may contain, we must not despair of the possibility of re- 
 suscitation, even when the body has been for fifteen or 
 twenty minutes in the water, although it must be confessed 
 that after four or five minutes' submersion the chances of 
 recovery are very remote.
 
 DRUGGET. 
 
 The slate of alarm and agitation into which persons fall- 
 ing into the water, and who cannot swim, are thrown, and 
 their ignorance in general of the means which should be 
 resorted to upon such an emergency, as well as want of 
 presence of mind to adopt them, lead to neglect of those 
 obvious measures by which immediate dangers might be 
 averted. They should endeavour to recollect that the spe- 
 cific gravity of the human body when the lungs are filled 
 with air, is less than that of water, and that consequently 
 the body has, under such circumstances, a natural tenden- 
 cy to float ; and that if the head can then be so placed as 
 to keep the mouth or even the nostrils above water, respi- 
 ration may be continued. They should also remember 
 that by a forced inspiration a much larger quantity of air 
 may be drawn into and retained in the lungs than in a com- 
 mon or natural inspiration ; and that therefore the blood will 
 continue longer aerated, and consequently a longer period 
 will elapse before a second attempt at inspiration need be 
 made, and before insensibility or the cessation of the vital 
 functions will ensue. If, for instance, while breathing as 
 usual, we suddenly hold our breath, we shall find ourselves 
 forced to make an inspiration in the course of from a quar- 
 ter to half a minute ; but if we previously make two or 
 three forced respirations, so as to cleanse the lungs in the 
 first instance of foul air, and then take a forced inspiration, 
 we shall be able to hold breath for more than a minute, and 
 sometimes even for two minutes. It is upon this princi- 
 ple, that skilful divers are enabled to remain under water 
 lor a period that sometimes appears almost incredible ; 
 and if the depth of water be considerable, and the air sup- 
 plied from a diving bell, its degree of condensation or di- 
 minished bulk will of course enable a given volume to 
 oxygenate the blood more effectually than the same vo- 
 lume at common atmospheric pressure. 
 
 Such, then, is an outline of the physiology of drowning ; 
 it naturally leads to the important question as to the most 
 effective means of restoring suspended animation in such 
 cases. It of course follows from what has been said, in 
 the first place, that not a moment is to be lost in getting the 
 body out of the water, and removing it with the utmost 
 speed to any place where further means can be resorted 
 to ; and now air should be thrown into the lungs, and arti- 
 ficial respiration should be attempted with as little loss of 
 time as possible, for till the blood has an opportunity of 
 being aerated, the return of the vital functions is of course 
 impossible. The body should also be immediately stripped 
 of the wet clothes, which should be cut off or otherwise 
 removed with the utmost speed ; and warm blankets should 
 be at hand as wrappers, and warm towels for rubbing and 
 drying the body. Artificial respiration, together with 
 warmth and friction, carefully, however, and moderately 
 employed, are the first and most essential remedies. Much 
 has been said of the advantage in these cases of electricity ; 
 and, if possible, it should certainly be resorted to : slight 
 shocks should be passed through the region of the dia- 
 phragm, the heart, and along the course of the spine ; and 
 various forms of the magneto-electric machine seem parti- 
 cularly well adapted to these purposes. The truth is, that 
 the means to be adopted in all these cases are few and 
 simple; but unless they are immediately at hand, and in- 
 stantly available, they will fail, even under the most favour- 
 able circumstances. Yet, where even a glimmering of 
 hope remains, they should, even under unfavourable cir- 
 cumstances, be as speedily and completely as possible 
 resorted to ; for there are on record extraordinary cases 
 of resuscitation, when every thing appeared to militate 
 against a successful issue. 
 
 But in these cases it is not only important to know what 
 to do, but also what to avoid. Nasal stimulants, such as 
 ammonia, aromatic vinegar, and other pungent and volatile 
 applications, should be avoided : they can be of little use 
 under the most favourable circumstances, and in the most 
 judicious hands ; and if unskilfully employed, may do in- 
 finite mischief. The warm- water bath is a bad substitute for 
 warm air and friction ; it interferes with the latter, and with 
 the use of electricity, and places the body in a constrained 
 and unfavourable position. In these days it is scarcely 
 necessary to point out the extreme absurdity of holding the 
 body with the head downwards, to allow the water to run 
 out by the mouth, or of the still more dangerous use of to- 
 bacco, especially the injection of tobacco smoke, — means 
 calculated to put the life of a healthy person in jeopardy, 
 and every way suited to render all attempts at the restore- 
 tion of suspended animation ineffectual. 
 
 DRU'GGET. A coarse and flimsy woollen texture, 
 chiefly used for covering carpets. It was formerly exten- 
 sively employed as an article of clothing by the poorer 
 classes, more especially of females ; but this and similar 
 fabrics are now almost wholly superseded by cotton goods, 
 which induce greater cleanliness, and are less liable to re- 
 tain infectious and contagious poisons. 
 
 DRU'IDS. The priests of the Celtic inhabitants of an- 
 cient Gaul and Britain. Our classical information respect- 
 ing them is chiefly derived from Julius Caesar; Strabo, 
 368 
 
 DRY ROT. 
 
 Tacitus, Pliny, Lucan, and other authors, have also left us 
 particulars respecting them. On those slender foundations 
 very extensive superstructures have been raised by the 
 imagination of English and French antiquaries. The 
 classical name of Druid was derived by the Latins from 
 <fy>rc, an oak ; but is more probably of Celtic origin. The 
 doctrine of the Druids was not committed to writing, but 
 retained by memory in the form of verses; of which the 
 Welsh Triads are supposed, with some probability, to re- 
 tain the form and vestiges. There appears to have been 
 much of fraud and vulgar delusion mixed up in the reli- 
 gious rites which they practised. The gods whom they 
 worshipped, according to classical writers, were Jupiter 
 (Taranis), Apollo (Belenus), Mars (Hesus), and several 
 others, whom they believed to be the same with person- 
 ages of the Grecian mythology. The sacrifice of human 
 victims is uniformly represented as a part of their worship. 
 Their places of worship were chiefly consecrated groves, 
 of one of which Lucan has given a fine description in the 
 second book of his Pharsalia. The rock-altars, cromlechs, 
 cist-vaens, and otherrelics of antiquity, which are scattered 
 over the surface of parts of England and France, are attri- 
 buted by antiquaries for the most part to the Druidical age. 
 Claudius and other Roman emperors issued severe edicts 
 acainst the Druids, but did not succeed in extirpating them. 
 This was only effected by the general introduction of 
 Christianity ; and some suppose that the celebrated Cul- 
 dees of Scotland and Ireland were converted Druids. 
 
 DRUM. (Dan. tromme.) In Architecture, the upright 
 part of a cupola either above or below a dome. The same 
 term is used to express the solid part or vase of the Corin- 
 thian and Composite capitals. 
 
 Drum. In Music, an instrument of percussion, formed 
 by stretching a piece of parchment over each end of a 
 cylinder formed of thin wood, or over the top of a caul- 
 dron-shaped vessel of brass ; the latter is hence called a 
 kettle drum. The large drums which are beaten at each 
 end are called double drums, and are used chiefly in mili- 
 tary bands. Kettle drums are always used in pairs ; one 
 of which is tuned to the key note, the other to the 
 fifth of the key. It is principally used for military pur- 
 poses, especially for exciting the soldiers under the fatigue 
 of march or in battle. The drum is supposed to be an 
 eastern invention, and to have been brought into Europe 
 by the Arabians, or perhaps the Moors. The kettle drum, 
 the bass drum, and tambourine, are common in the East. 
 
 DRUM OF THE EAR. See Ear. 
 
 DRUPE. In Botany, a one-celled, one or two-seeded, 
 superior, indehiscenl fruit ; the outer coal is soft and fleshy, 
 and separable from the inner endocarpium (stone), which 
 is hard and bony : the whole proceeding from an ovarium. 
 which is perfectly simple. The peach, plum, apricot, cherry, 
 are examples of this. 
 
 DRY. (Sax. drig.) In Painting, a term applied to a 
 painting wherein the outline is too strongly marked, and the 
 colours of the objects do not unite with those by which 
 they are surrounded. In sculpture it is used in speaking 
 of a work wherein there is a want of luxuriousness and ten- 
 derness in the forms. 
 
 DRY'ADS. (Gr. fyuc, an oak.) In the Heathen Mytho- 
 logy, a kind of imaginary female deities whom the ancients 
 believed to inhabit the woods and groves. 
 
 DRY DISTILLATION. This term is applied to the dis- 
 tillation of substances per se, or without the addition of wa- 
 ter : Ihus if we put wood into a retort or other distillatory 
 apparatus, and subject it to heat, it yields tar, vinegar, wa- 
 ter, and various gaseous and other matters, which are called 
 the products of its dry or destructive distillation. 
 
 DRY'ING OIL. This term is generally applied to lin- 
 seed and other oils which have been heated with oxide of 
 lead : they are the bases of many paints and varnishes. 
 
 DRY ROT. A disease which attacks wood, rendering 
 it brittle, and destroying the cohesion of its parts, is known 
 by this name. It occurs among the timbers of ships, 
 where it sometimes commits the most serious damage, and 
 in damp ill-ventilated houses. It is usually ascribed to the 
 attacks of fungi, especially to such as Polyporus destructor 
 and Meruliits lachrymans, whose filamentous spawn or thal- 
 lus appears upon the surface, overspreading it like a tough 
 thick skin of white leather ; and there is no doubt of its be- 
 ing often connected with the appearance of such fungi. 
 But dry rot is certainly, in some cases, to be identified with 
 the presence of fungi of a more simple kind than those just 
 mentioned ; especially of such as belong to or resemble the 
 genus Sporotrichun. 
 
 The destruction of timber by such plants is effected in 
 part by the disintegration of the tubes of the weed, in con- 
 sequence of the introduction between them of the fine fila- 
 mentous spawn of the fungi, and in part by the dampness 
 which is thus conveyed to the interior of the wood, where 
 it soon produces decomposition. It is not, however, cer- 
 tain that dry rot is always caused in this manner ; on the 
 contrary, the term appears to be frequently applied to cases 
 of spontaneous decomposition of limber without the pre-
 
 DRYSALTER. 
 
 sence of fungi, or when the appearance of the latter takes 
 place long after the commencement of the disease. 
 
 When dry rot produced by fungi has once made its ap- 
 pearance, there is no means of arresting its progress with- 
 out removing the whole of the diseased and neighbouring 
 parts ; and even then it will probably again break out, un- 
 less means can be taken to introduce a circulation of fresh 
 air among the parts liable to the affection. For if timber is 
 allowed to remain in a damp situation, and in the dark, it 
 affords so favourable a nidus for the seeds of fungi, that 
 they are almost certain to vegetate upon it ; unless some 
 means have been previously taken to render the timber 
 permanently unsuited to their growth. This end appears 
 to have been attained by Mr. Kyan, who has obtained a pa- 
 tent for pickling timber, as a preventive of the dry rot, and 
 who employs for this purpose a solution of corrosive subli- 
 mate. This salt of mercury is a well-known vegetable 
 poison : if any animal jelly, upon which fungi will quickly 
 appear in the form of mouldiness, is mixed with a minute 
 quantity of corrosive sublimate, no fungi will in that case 
 be produced ; so that both theory and experience are in fa- 
 vour of Mr. Kyan's process. It is not improbable that the 
 progress of dry rot might even be arrested in the buildings 
 where it occurs, if the timbers could be got at and well 
 washed with the same solution. 
 
 Although dry rot generally fixes itself upon timber, it will 
 also attack any form of vegetable matter. The paper hang- 
 ings of rooms, chiefly composed of cotton and linen thread, 
 are occasionally overrun in houses which have been long 
 shut up and neglected ; and the mildew which destroys 
 the strength of canvass is only another form of dry rot, the 
 appearance of which is altered by the special circum- 
 stances under which the fungus is developed, or by the 
 species of the fungus itself. 
 
 DRY 'SALTER. A dealer in sailed or dried meats, and 
 in the materials used in pickling, salting, and preserving 
 various kinds of food ; hence drysalters usually sell a num- 
 ber of saline substances and miscellaneous drugs. 
 
 DRY'STOVE. A glazed structure for containing the 
 plants of dry arid climates ; such as the cactuses, mesem- 
 bryanthemums, aloes, and other succulents of Africa. 
 
 DU'ALISM. A name given to those systems of philoso- 
 phy which refer all existence to two ultimate principles. 
 Dualism is a main feature in all the early Greek cosmogo- 
 nies, and is that which distinguishes them from the eastern 
 speculations on similar subjects, which mostly regard all 
 things as emanating from a single principle. The dualistic 
 hypothesis was, doubtless, originally snggested by the ana- 
 logy of male and female in animal existence. The earliest 
 forms under which the theory appeared are, as might be 
 expected, rude in the extreme. The Orphic poets made 
 the ultimate principles of all things to be Water and Night; 
 by others iEther and Erehus, Time and Necessity, are 
 severally deemed worthy of this distinction. (Brandis, 
 Gesch. der Phil. i. p. 71 ; Arist. Metaph. xix. 3.) The an- 
 cient Greek and Roman mythology was evidently construct- 
 ed on this principle. (See Varro, De Re Rustica, i. 2.) In 
 its more philosophic form, the dualistic theory was main- 
 tained anions the ancients by Pythagoras aad many of the 
 Ionian school ; among the moderns, chiefly by Descartes. 
 {See arts. Ionic Philosophy, Cartesian Philosophy.) It 
 may be expressed generally as the assumption of the co- 
 eternity and simultaneous development of the formative 
 with the formed, of the natura naturans with the natura 
 naturata. So the system of philosophy which regards 
 matter and spirit as distinct principles is a species of dual- 
 ism, as opposed to materialism. 
 
 In Theology, the doctrine of the two sovereign principles 
 of good and evil (see Manicheism) is also dualistic ; and 
 the high Calvinistic theory may be said to be a species of 
 dualism, viz. that all mankind are divided, in the eternal 
 foreknowledge of God, and by his arbitrary decree, into 
 two classes, — the elect and reprobate. 
 
 DU'AL NUMBER, in Grammar, is the name given to 
 that form of the verb and substantive by which, in the an- 
 cient Greek, Sanscrit, and Gothic, and the modern Lithua- 
 nian languages, two persons or things are denoted, in con- 
 tradistinction to plural, which expresses an indefinite num- 
 ber of persons or things. For full discussions on the nature 
 and peculiarity of the dual number, see Buttmann and 
 MatthiiVs Greek Grammar ; see also the Penny Cyclop., 
 and the authorities there referred to. 
 
 DU'BBING OUT. A term used by plasterers to signify 
 the bringing of an uneven surface to a plane by pieces of 
 tiles, slate, plaster, or the like. 
 
 DUCAT, DUCATOON. See Money. 
 
 DUCK. See Anas. 
 
 DUCKBILL. See Ornithorhynchus. 
 
 DUCTI'LITY. (Lat. duco, I draw.) A property of cer- 
 tain bodies, in consequence of which they can be drawn 
 out at length without suffering any interruption of the con- 
 tinuity of their constituent particles. The term ductility is 
 frequently confounded with malleability, or that property 
 of bodies through which different forms can be given to 
 369 
 
 DUEL. 
 
 them by pressure or percussion. In general ductility de- 
 pends, in a greater or less degree, on the temperature. 
 Some bodies, wax for example, are rendered ductile by a 
 small degree of heat; while glass requires a violent heat 
 before it acquires ductility. Some of the metals — for ex- 
 ample, gold, silver, lead, &c. — are ductile under all known 
 temperatures. 
 
 "The ductility of some metals far exceeds that of any 
 other substance. The goldbeaters begin their operations 
 with a riband an inch broad and 150 inches long, which had 
 been reduced, by passing it through rollers, to about the 
 800th part of an inch in thickness. The riband is cut into 
 squares, which are disposed between leaves of vellum, and 
 beat by a heavy hammer till they acquire a breadth of 
 about three inches, and are thus extended to ten times 
 their former surface. These are again quartered and 
 placed between the folds of goldbeaters' skin, and stretched 
 out by the operation of a lighter hammer to the breadth of 
 five inches. The same process is repeated, sometimes 
 more than once, by a succession of lighter hammers ; so 
 that 376 grains of gold are thus finally extended into 2000 
 leaves of 33 inches square, making in all SO books, con- 
 taining each of them 25 leaves. The metal is consequently 
 reduced to the thinness of the 282,000th part of an inch, 
 and every leaf weighs rather less than the fifth part of a 
 grain. A particle of gold, not exceeding the 500,000th part 
 of a grain, is hence distinctly visible to the naked eye." 
 
 "It has been asserted that wires of pure gold can be 
 drawn of only the 4000th part of an inch in diameter ; but 
 Dr. Wollaston, by an ingenious procedure, has lately ad- 
 vanced much farther. Taking a short cylinder of silver, 
 about the third part of an inch in diameter, he drilled a fine 
 hole through its axis, and inserted a wire of platinum only 
 the 100th part of an inch thick. This silver mould was now 
 drawn through the successive holes of a steel plate, till its 
 diameter was brought to near the 1500th part of an inch ; 
 and consequently the internal wire, being diminished in 
 the same proportion, was reduced to between the 4000th 
 and 5000th part of an inch. The compound wire was then 
 dipped in warm nitric acid, which dissolved the silver, and 
 left untouched its core, or the wire of platinum. By pass- 
 ing the incrusted platinum through a greater number of 
 holes wires still finer were obtained, some of them only 
 the 30,000th part of an inch in diameter. The tenacity of 
 the metal, before reaching this limit, was even consi- 
 derable ; a platinum wire, of the 18,000th part of an inch in 
 diameter, supporting the weight of a grain and a third." 
 (.Leslie's Elements of Nat. Philosophy.) 
 
 Glass, when well softened by the fire, becomes as ductile 
 as soft wax, and may be spun out into threads of greater 
 fineness than any hair, and which bend and wave like hair 
 in the wind. The method of producing these threads is 
 exceedingly easy. Two workmen are employed ; the first 
 holds the glass over the flame of a lamp ; the second ap- 
 plies a hook to the metal in fusion, which, when drawn 
 back, brings with it a thread of glass, still adhering to the 
 mass ; the hook is then fitted on the circumference of a 
 wheel, which, being turned round, draws out the thread, 
 and winds it about its rim. Some of these threads are 
 scarcely larger than that of a silkworm, and are surprising- 
 ly flexible. 
 
 DUCTS. Those membraneous tubes in the internal 
 anatomy of plants which have conical or rounded extre- 
 mities ; their sides being marked with transverse lines, or 
 rings, bars, or dots, arranged spirally, and being incapable 
 of unrolling. 
 
 DU'EL (Lat. duellum, a conflict between two indivi- 
 duals ; in the original use of the Roman word, between two 
 states), signified originally a trial by battle resorted to by 
 two persons as a means of determining the guilt or inno- 
 cence of a person charged with a crime, or of adjudicating 
 a disputed right ; but in more modern times it is used to 
 signify a hostile meeting between two persons, arising from 
 an affront given by one to the other, and for the purpose 
 (as is said) of affording satisfaction to the person affronted. 
 
 The practice of the duel, as a private mode, recognized 
 only by custom, of deciding private differences, seems to 
 be of comparatively recent date, and descends by no very 
 direct transmission from the ancient appeal to the judicial 
 combat as a final judgment in legal disputes. That it ori- 
 ginated with the feudal system is abundantly clear, if it 
 were only from the fact that in Russia, where that system 
 was never known, the custom of the duel was unheard of, 
 until introduced by foreign officers, even within the memory 
 of the present generation. But it is certain that many an- 
 tiquarian writers have confused together two very different 
 institutions : the appeal to arms, as an alternative for the 
 trial by ordeal or by compurgators, appointed by tradi- 
 tionary usage from the earliest periods of Germanic his- 
 tory ; and the voluntary challenge or defiance, resorted to 
 for the purpose of clearing disputes involving the honour 
 of gentlemen. This last custom was first elevated to the 
 dignity of an established institution by Philip le Bel of 
 France, whose edict regulating the public combat between
 
 DUEL. 
 
 nobles bears the date of 130S : the best comment on which 
 may be found in the spirited and accurate representation, 
 by Shakspeare, of the quarrel between Mowbray and 
 Bolingbroke. 
 
 The duello, in this its high and palmy state, when fa- 
 voured by princes and tolerated by the church, became 
 the subject of many fantastic regulations, partly framed on 
 the imaginary code of chivalry, and partly on the precepts 
 of the civil law. Thus, in a curious treatise on this sub- 
 ject by Dario Attendoli, an officer of the Italian wars (print- 
 ed in 1565), we find it laid down that not less than twenty 
 days must elapse between the receipt of a cartel or chal- 
 lenge and the answer ; because such was the lime required ' 
 to elapse, in civil suits, between the plaintiff's charge and 
 the defendant's first pleading. Three, four, or five months 
 must then be allowed to the champions for preparation. 
 The combat must take place in lists, and under the eyes 
 of the sovereign authority of the city selected by the chal- 
 lenger. The strictest equality of rank must be observed be- 
 tween the parties ; a rule which appears to have been 
 tolerably well attended to, and must have saved the shed- 
 ding of much unnecessary blood. But, while every pre- 
 caution was taken to render such duels not easily to be 
 engaged in on light grounds, it was part of the same code 
 i hat they should be carried through in serious earnest. In 
 another curious Italian book of problems concerning the 
 duel (of the same date), the question is put, "Whether a 
 prince will do well or ill in separating two champions, when 
 both shall be so weakened by loss of blood as to appear 
 unable to continue the combat V and resolved in the nega- 
 tive. And if the vanquished had his life spared him, he 
 was bound to consider himself the prisoner of his con- 
 queror, and devoted to his service, until released by death 
 or by positive permission ; although Attendoli intimates 
 that, in his opinion, the limitation of thirty years, accord- 
 ing to the maxims of the civil law, ought to apply to this 
 servitude. 
 
 The particular regulations of these Italian laws of honour 
 are of the most curious and pedantic minuteness. Atten- 
 doli has favoured us with several common precedents of 
 challenges and answers. The commencement of the car- 
 tel, "per injuria di fatti," for injury in deeds, runs as fol- 
 lows : — " I., M., having been by thee, N., enormously beaten 
 with a stick (superchievolmente con un bastone percosso) 
 at Rome, on the ultimo, after an evil fashion, from be- 
 hind, I not being aware of thee, and in time of peace, say 
 to thee that thou hast done basely and wickedly, and as a 
 traitor and vile cavalier." To this cartel are appended 
 the signatures of four witnesses, who affirm themselves 
 to have been present at the administering of the bastina- 
 do. The cartel was to be publicly placarded in the 
 streets; as was also the answer, or, if the adversary de- 
 clined the combat, a statement of his refusal. In this latter 
 case, it was debated whether it were not allowable to hang 
 up a likeness of the person declining to fight; but. this sin- 
 gular 6pecies of posting, although we are told it was not 
 uncommon, is reprobated as unbecoming a gentleman. 
 The distinctions as to persons are not less amusing. (See 
 e. g. question 3d of the Book of Problems in the treatise of 
 Attendoli above referred to.) 
 
 The fashion of the public duel seems never to have pre- 
 vailed to any extent in England. Although the ancient Ju- 
 dicium Dei was so interwoven with our laws that, at a com- 
 paratively late era, the whole court of Common Pleas would 
 occasionally adjourn in full term to Smithfield or Bank- 
 side, to see the long-contested intricacies of a " writ of 
 right" brought fairly to issue in a match at singlestick ; 
 yet the stern necessity of washing out affronts in blood, 
 whether in open or private quarrel, does not seem to have 
 been strictly adhered to until the latter part of the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth. Then the imaginations of the young no- 
 bles of the court, heated with the favourite study of chivalry, 
 readily adopted the sanguinary practice of foreign realms. 
 At this period appeared the famous Treatise of Honour of 
 Vincentio Saviolo — a fierce and punctilious Italian, a fencing 
 master by profession, bred in the wars of Italy, and deeply 
 versed in the science of the public duello, then a favourite 
 theme of reminiscence, although no longer known in prac- 
 tice, as will be presently shown. This little work, published 
 in 1594,— now little known to us, save by the famous quar- 
 rel in Shakspeare's As You Like It, concerning the cut of 
 the courtier's beard, which seems intended as a parody on 
 some parts of it, — appears to have been adopted by the 
 gallants of the time as a standing book of reference in all 
 cases of supposed insult. Saviolo resolves all quarrels into 
 the lie, — that is, he supposes the original insult to be fol- 
 lowed, either expressly or impliedly, by a regular series of 
 replies and retorts, until one or the other party is reduced 
 to give the lie direct; which, like the phrase "stupid 
 youth" (dummer junge), in some German universities, was 
 immediately followed by the appeal to arms. 
 
 That ordinary commolioner the lie, 
 
 The father of most quarrek in this climate, 
 
 appears to have been raised to this " bad eminence" by 
 370 
 
 Francis the First, the great guide of his day in matters of 
 chivalry, who first gave it as his opinion, that the lie could 
 under no circumstances be brooked by a man of honour. 
 Attendoli holds that the virtue of the insult lies mainly in 
 the word lie; and that any circumlocution, however plain, 
 greatly deprives it of its effect. This, however, Saviolo 
 stoutly denies ; and maintains that an imputation on the ve- 
 racity of a party, in whatever words it may be couched, is 
 equally deserving of resentment. The lie, being a matter 
 of so great importance, became the subject of much nice 
 distinction ; insomuch that a note to Dr. Moore's Essay on 
 Duelling informs us, that they enumerated thirty-two dif- 
 ferent ways of giving the lie in the latter part of the six- 
 teenth century. Saviolo, however, contents himself with 
 the division into the lie direct and lie circumstantial ; each 
 of which he sub-divides into general and special ; besides 
 a fifth sort, which he calls " fictitious" or "sham" lies. 
 These, he says, seem to have originated from the custom 
 that he who receives the lie direct, or last retort, being of 
 necessity the challenger, has the choice of weapons ; to 
 gain which advantage it was not unusual for one who sought 
 a quarrel to address his enemy with, " If you say I am a 
 scoundrel, you are a liar ;" by which means they suppose 
 that the latter was put to the necessity of making a direct re- 
 ply. In opposition to this notion, Vincentio shows divers 
 honourable devices by which an ingenious duellist, when 
 assailed in this manner, may retort on his adversary, so as 
 to throw the burden of the last word on him. Paris de 
 Puteo, a Neapolitan lawyer, is said to have practised chiefly 
 in this branch of business, and to have answered cases on 
 the point of honour put to him from all parts of Europe. 
 
 Yet, however extravagant the foolery of these early wri- 
 ters may seem on a matter of such serious nature, it must 
 be confessed that, retaining as they did much of the old 
 opinion, refined into a sentiment, respecting the immedi- 
 ate interposition of God in the judicial combat, the true 
 point of honour was far safer in their hands than in the less 
 scrupulous ones of the professed duellists of modern 
 times. Saviolo does not hesitate earnestly to inculcate on 
 his pupil the duty of maintaining no cause except that 
 which he seriously believes to be just and true, and of 
 submitting to any humiliation rather than fight in defence 
 of a falsehood. A fine, although somewhat extravagant 
 illustration of this chivalric principle, may be found in the 
 old play of A Fair Quarrel, by Middleton and Rowley. 
 Captain Ager, the hero of the piece, is saluted by his colo- 
 nel on the occasion of some dispute with the appellation of 
 "son of a whore." A challenge follows, and the time and 
 place are fixed ; but the captain cannot satisfy his consci- 
 entious honour without repairing to his mother, and ac- 
 quainting her, although indirectly, with the provocation he 
 has received. She, suspecting his meaning, and fearing 
 for his life, in a moment of weakness falsely intimates the 
 imputation to be a true one. The captain's mind is instantly 
 made up — he will not fight in a bad quarrel ; but, for his 
 mother's sake, he will not divulge the reason. His two se- 
 conds arrive, and he hears, with seeming equanimity, their 
 expostulations, and at last their insults, declaring that al- 
 though he is ready to follow them to the field, he will not 
 fight a stroke. But, being branded on that account by his 
 adversary with the epithet "coward," he thankfully seizes 
 on the opportunity afforded him by this fresh insult ; draws 
 in "a fair quarrei," and overthrows his opponent. 
 
 In 1547, Henry II. of France issued an edict absolutely 
 prohibiting the judicial or public combat. This decree 
 was produced by the death of his favourite, La Chataigne- 
 raye, in consequence of wounds received in the lists in 
 the presence of Henry himself. By a curious coinci- 
 dence, the abolisherof one of the grand institutions of the 
 feudal ages was destined, in his own person, to be the cause 
 of the disuse of another: he was slain in a tournament, 
 and that knightly exercise was no longer practised at courts 
 after that melancholy event. The public duel survived 
 some time longer in Italy, as may be seen by the dates of 
 the treatises quoted above. Its abolition in France was by 
 no means followed by the good effects which the statesmen 
 of those days probably anticipated from it. Debarred from 
 public conflict, the gentlemen of France were at the same 
 time freed from itsmanifold restraints ; and private duels, 
 conducted with a ferocity and sanguinary spirit hitherto 
 unheard of, became prevalent to the most astonishing de- 
 gree. The wars of religion, prosecuted with a degree of 
 bitterness perhaps unexampled in the history of any nation, 
 added public causes of dispute to those of an hereditary 
 and personal nature. Even the ordinary laws of honour, 
 which seem inseparable from the practice, were neglected. 
 We find in Brantome, that there were duellists who prided 
 themselves on the advantages which they had taken of 
 their antagonists, and were not esteemed the less in society 
 for having done 30. Not only had individuals and families 
 their quarrels ; we are told that there were regiments in 
 the same service, of which the officers were bound to fight 
 one another whenever they met. The duellist seems to 
 have usurped, with the fair sex, the attentions usually paid
 
 DUENNA. 
 
 to the soldier. We have the testimony of Lord Herbert 
 of Cherbury, himself a vain and cold-blooded quarreller, 
 for the honour in which the ladies of France held the brave 
 Balagny— an ordinary man, in a threadbare doublet and 
 grey breeches, with neither figure, wit, nor fortune to re- 
 commend him; but whose testimonials consisted in the 
 fact of his having killed eight or nine of his friends in sin- 
 gle combat. 
 
 It was about the reign of Henry III. also, that the san- 
 guinary custom of the seconds taking part in the quarrel of 
 their principals seems first to have become established, 
 a custom which only gradually wore out in the beginning 
 of the last centurv. When such bloody practices were rile 
 in all parts of France, we are scarcely tempted to doubt 
 the extraordinary assertions we find in the writers of those 
 days— that one hundred and twenty gentlemen were killed 
 in duels, in a single French province, in six months ; that 
 in the reign of Henry IV. four thousand fell in two years ; 
 that this strange species of mania cost France more gen- 
 tle blood than thirty years of civil war. Henry IV. issued 
 edicts against duelling ; Louis XIII. proceeded against it 
 at one time with such severity, that we are told that wound- 
 ed duellists were dragged at once from the field to the gib- 
 bet • but this unwarrantable violence, as usual in such cases, 
 had' no effect. The evil at length produced a remedy by 
 its own excess. In the minority of Louis XIV. the Duke 
 de Nemours, a prince of the blood, fell with two of his four 
 seconds, in a quarrel with another grandee of the court. 
 After this deplorable event, many noblemen and gentle- 
 men of undoubted courage entered into a voluntary com- 
 pact to abstain from duelling. Louis XIV., when of age, 
 approved of their resolution, and seconded it by several 
 edicts To the honour of this prince it should be remem- 
 bered that during the whole of his life he laboured firmly 
 and temperately to correct this abuse, and with no ordinary 
 success. This he effected, not merely by the force of 
 laws but by exhibiting in his own demeanour, and encour- 
 aging in his courtiers, that mixture of dignity with gentle- 
 ness'which most readily turns away wrath and repels inso- 
 lent familiarity. One of his expedients, however, it must 
 be admitted, seems to our modern ideas not very likely to 
 attain the object proposed. This was the establishment of 
 a court of chivalry ,— the members of which were the mar- 
 shals of France,— which was to decide on all questions in 
 which a gentleman might conceive his honour to be in- 
 volved. Ills said that this singular sort of arbitration was at 
 first very efficacious ; although in Mercier's time (the reign 
 of Louis XVI.) he tells us (as we might naturally suppose) 
 that a person who should have resorted lo the court to re- 
 dress an insult would only have incurred ridicule in addi- 
 tion to the disgrace of not personally resenting it. Various 
 laws relating to the duel have been since made in France, 
 but have fallen into disuse for the most part. Whether 
 slaying in a duel be murder, is a point on which there has 
 been a continual conflict between the courts of cassation 
 and the royal courts since 1817, when it was raised in the 
 case of He Poligny and Rosay. But the legal question is 
 of comparatively small importance, from the licence as- 
 sumed by juries in that country. A civil action lies on be- 
 half ofthe friends of theslain man. 
 
 In England, the first attempt made to introduce legisla- 
 tive enactments in aid of the common law for repressing of 
 duels is said to have taken place in 1713 ; when, after the 
 celebrated duel of Duke Hamilton and Lord Mohun, a bill 
 for that purpose was brought into the Commons, but lost 
 on the third reading. A provocation or challenge to fight 
 Is a high misdemeanour. In Scotland, as late (we believe) 
 as the middle of the 16th century, licences for duelling 
 were granted by the crown, and formed a source of reve- 
 nue-death in a duel without licence was murder. (See 
 Pitcnim's Criminal Trials) The new codes of Bavaria 
 and Prussia contain a number of provisions, with perhaps 
 too mucli minuteness of distinction, against duels, challen- 
 ges, &e. The common punishment is imprisonment for a 
 shorter or longer term. 
 
 See as to duels, in addition to former works on the sub- 
 ject, Fougfroux de Campigneulles, Hisloire des Duels, 3 
 vols. 8vo. 1834 ; in which most authorities are collected, al- 
 though it is a compilation including many anecdotes, &c. 
 of no authenticity. For modern legislation on the subject, 
 the article " Duel," in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopaedia, 
 may be consulted with advantage. 
 
 DUE'NNA (Span, dnefia.) The chief lady in waiting 
 on the queen of Spain. In a more general sense, it is ap- 
 plied to a person holding a middle station between a gov- 
 erness and companion, and appointed to take charge of the 
 junior female members of Spanish and Portuguese fami- 
 lies. 
 
 DUE'T. (Lat. duo, two.) A piece of music composed 
 for two performers, either vocal or instrumental. 
 
 DIIGO'NG, or DUYONG. The name of a herbivorous 
 
 cetaceous animal characterized by two large permanent 
 
 incisive tusks in the upper jaw, and four molar teeth above 
 
 and below, the grinding surface of which exhibits a rim of 
 
 371 
 
 DUNES. 
 
 cemenlum surrounding a slight excavated centre of Ivory. 
 The upper lip is beset with numerous strong bristles, and 
 similar ones are found more sparingly scattered over the 
 body. The anterior extremities are fin-like, and without 
 nails. The caudal fin is broad, and of a crescendo figure. 
 One species (Halicore Indicxts, Cuv.) inhabits the seas of 
 the Indian Archipelago. A second dugong has been re- 
 cently discovered in the Red Sea (Halicore tabernacuh, 
 Ruppel.) but which is at most only a variety of the prece- 
 ding. The fabled mermaid seems to have been founded 
 on the dugong. 
 
 DUKE. (From the Latin dux, leader or commander.. 
 The title of Duke is said to have originated in the usages 
 of the Lower Empire, where it was given to the military 
 governors of provinces. From thence it was borrowed by 
 the Franks, who adopted, in many respects, the titles and 
 distinctions of the empire. Charlemagne is said to have 
 suffered it to become obsolete, but the emperor Louis cre- 
 ated a duke of Thuringia in 847. In course of time, ac- 
 cording to the usual progress of feudal dignities, the title 
 became hereditary. In Germany the dukes became the 
 chief princes of the empire ; this title being proper to all 
 the secular electors, and to most of the greater feudato- 
 ries. In other countries their dignity became merely titu- 
 lar. In Italy and France dukes form the second rank in 
 the nobility, being inferior to princes: in England they 
 form the first. The title was not known in the latter coun- 
 try until the reign of Edward HI. ; and the word dux is 
 used by writers before that period as synonymous with 
 count or earl. In the eleventh year of the latter monarch 
 the i 
 
 dignity of Duke of Cornwall was bestowed on his eld- 
 est son, Edward the Black Prince. In the year 1351, his 
 third son, John of Gaunt, Earl of Lancaster, was created 
 Duke of Lancaster for life, furnishing the next instance of 
 this dignity. In neither of these instances, nor in any 
 subsequent one, according to Sir H. Nicolas (Introduction 
 to the Peerage, vol. i. p. lxxvii.), was the dignity thus cre- 
 ated a dukedom by tenure : it has always remained a per- 
 sonal title only, and descendible according to the limita- 
 tions of the charter. 
 
 DULCAMA'RA. (Lat. dulcis,swee/, and amarus,6i»er.) 
 The common woody nightshade, the stalk of which is used 
 in medicine to furnish a decoction which is somewhat nar- 
 cotic and diuretic, and has a very peculiar bitter sweet fla- 
 vour. It has been recommended in chronic rheumatism, 
 and as an alternative in some cutaneous cases, but is not 
 much depended upon. 
 
 DU'LCIMER. (Etym. uncertain.) A musical instni 
 ment, of what description is unknown, but probably of the 
 wind species, in use among the Jews. 
 
 DU'MBNESS. (Aphonia of medical writers; from a, 
 privative, and (pwvrt, voice.) This term is generally ap- 
 plied to persons who are either born deaf, or become so 
 in early infancy; the consequence of which is that the or- 
 gans of speech have never been called into due action, 
 Their functions being at first imitative in respect to sounds, 
 and the numerous muscles of the tongue, glottis, &c. con- 
 cerned in speech remain inactive ; for persons who even 
 in very early life become deaf are not rendered dumb, the 
 organs of speech having been once called into activity, and 
 having once acquired their peculiar powers and consenta- 
 neous" actions. Dumbness may also arise from injury to 
 the lingual nerves, or from great general or local debility ; 
 in which case blisters, stimulants, tonics, and other reme- 
 dies, maybe resorted to for the restoration of speech. It 
 is remarkable that the loss of the tongue, and even of part 
 of the palate, does not necessarily occasion dumbness; 
 this has happened from disease, and among barbarous na- 
 tions the tongue was occasionally extirpated; yet cases 
 are on record showing that even under such circumstances 
 speech was mere or less perfectly retained ; and there is 
 an account in the Memoires de V Academic des Sciences for 
 1718 of a girl who was born without a tongue, and yet ac- 
 quired the faculty of speech. The case of Margaret Cut- 
 ting, related in the Philosophical Transactions (1742) by Dr. 
 Parsons, may also be consulted in reference to this subject. 
 DU'MUS. In Botany, a low and much-branched shrub. 
 DUNES. (Ang. Sax. low hills.) Hills of moveable sand, 
 which are met with along the sea coast in various parts of 
 Great Britain, Ireland, and the Continent. The mode ot 
 their formation and progress is exceedingly curious. In 
 various districts the sea deposits on the beach a quantity of 
 fine sand, which is carried forward by the wind till it meets 
 with some obstruction in the shape of large stones, roots 
 of trees, or other obstacles, when it gradually accumulates 
 into mounds or hillocks, " whose general appearance, size, 
 and distribution depend on those of the obstacles to which 
 they owe their existence." When these mounds have at- 
 tained a certain elevation they are urged forward upon the 
 land ; for, as Cuvier observes, " le memo vent qui eleve e 
 sable du rivage sur la dune iette celui du sommet de la 
 dune a son revers oppose." The direction which they 
 take depends chiefly on that of the wind ; and their inroads 
 upon the land are attended by the most destructive effects.
 
 DUNKERS. 
 
 One of the departments of France, the Landes, has been 
 nearly overwhelmed by their progressive advance. The 
 quantity of moveable sand which the sea annually deposits 
 on that coast has been estimated at upwards of 3,000,000 
 square feet, and its annual progress inland at about 72 feet. 
 In that department the dunes advance in a north-easterly 
 direction ; and it has been calculated, with apparently suf- 
 ficient exactness, that unless their progress be arrested, 
 they will have reached Bordeaux in 1500 years. During the 
 violent hurricanes which frequently occur in these regions, 
 the whole mass of sand of which the dunes are composed 
 appears to be in agitation ; and such is the rapidity with 
 which they then advance, that entire villages, fields, and 
 gardens are almost instantaneously engulphed, and the as- 
 pect of whole districts changed within four and twenty 
 hours. The progress of the dunes, however, as already 
 remarked, is in general slow and steady. Thus the town 
 of Mimizan, after struggling for more than the fourth part 
 of a century against their encroachments, is now almost 
 buried beneath them ; and such have been their destruc- 
 tive effects upon a village of Britanny, that nothing is visible 
 of it except a small part of the church steeple. As will be 
 easily imagined, Ihe means of arresting the progress of the 
 dunes forms a most interesting and important inquiry. For 
 this puqoose various measures have been recommended ; 
 but by far the most efficient means hitherto adopted con- 
 sists in planting close together, so as to form, as it were, a 
 line of defence against the sand, such trees and shrubs as 
 are known to thrive in a barren soil. This process, where- 
 ever it has been tried, has been found not only to fix the 
 dunes, but at the same time to form a simple and secure 
 barrier against all further encroachment of the sand. 
 
 DU'NKERS. A Christian sect, which formed itself into 
 a society under peculiar rules in Pennsylvania in the year 
 1724. The origin of their name is unknown. They prac- 
 tise abstinence and mortification, under the idea that such 
 austerities are meritorious in the sight of God, and effect- 
 ive, first in procuring their own salvation, and further in 
 contributing to that of others. They form a society strictly 
 connected within itself, and hold love feasts, in which all 
 assemble together ; but their devotions and ordinary busi- 
 ness are carried on in private, nor do they recognize a com- 
 munity of goods. They also deny the eternity of future 
 punishments ; conceiving that there are periods of purga- 
 tion, determined by the sabbath, sabbatical year, and year 
 of jubilee, which are typical of them. 
 
 DU'ISNAGE. Any light or loose material, as wool, &c, 
 used as a bed in the stowage of heavy articles. 
 
 DUODE'CIMAL. (Lat. duodecim, twelve.) Proceeding 
 by twelves. The term is given to a rule or operation of 
 arithmetic, by which the contents of any surface or solid 
 are found by multiplying together its linear dimensions, 
 expressed in feet, inches, and lines, and is consequently 
 much used by artificers in finding the contents of their 
 work. The rule is also called cross multiplication, from 
 the manner in which the operation is usually performed, 
 and which is as follows: Suppose it were required to find 
 the superficial content of a plank 12 feet 9i inches long, and 
 3 feet 7 inches broad. Set down the two dimensions under 
 each other, placing feet under feet, inches under inches, 
 &c, and for the half inch put down its equivalent 6 lines, 
 as in the following example : — 
 
 12 9 6 
 3 7 
 33 4 6 
 7 5 6i 
 
 Now, since the feet are conceived to be units of measure, 
 the inches are so many 12ths of unity, and the lines so 
 many 12ths of a 12th, or 144th parts of unity. The units 
 consequenily form the first column, the 12ths the second, 
 and the 144ths the third. Multiplying therefore the first 
 line by 3 feet or 3 units, we get 38 feet,4-12thsof afoot, and 
 6-144ths of a foot. Next, multiplying the upper line by 
 7-12ths, we get first the 6 lines or 6144ths, multiplied by 
 7-12ths, equal lo 42-1728lhs, which is equal to 3Jj-144ths. 
 Then the 9 12ths multiplied by the 7-12ths give 63-144ths, 
 which added to the 3i make 66i-144ths, or 5-12ths and 6i- 
 144ths ; therefore 6J is placed in the third column, and the 
 512lhs carried on. Lastly, the 12 units mulliplied by the 
 7-12ths give &i-12ths, which added to the 5-12ths make 
 89-12ths, and this is equal to 7 units or feet and 5-12ths; 
 consequently 7 is placed in the first column and 5 in Ihe 
 second. Adding the two products together, we get 45 feet, 
 10-12ths of a foot, and J-144ths of a foot. But in square or 
 superficial measure the 144th part of a foot is an inch ; and 
 10-12ths = 120 144ths ; consequently the result of the ope- 
 ration is 45 sq. feet and 120^ sq. inches. 
 
 The operation is itself much simpler than the description 
 or explanation, which is found embarrassing to beginners ; 
 it would therefore, perhaps, be better to reject the rule al- 
 372 
 
 DWARFING TREES. 
 
 together from elementary books of arithmetic ; and, re- 
 garding the inches and lines as parts of a foot, to perform 
 the operation by the ordinary rule of practice. 
 
 DUODE'CIMO. (Lat.) a book is said to be in duodecimo 
 (abbreviated 12mo.), when every sheet being six times 
 folded makes twelve leaves or twenty-four pages. 
 
 DUODE'NUM. (From duodenus, consisting of twelve.) 
 The commencement of the intestinal canal, lorming a di- 
 vision, which in some animals is about as long as the 
 breadth of twelve fingers. This term, introduced by the 
 older anatomists, is still applied to that portion of the in- 
 testines, though the measure is generally inapplicable. 
 
 DU'PLICATE RATIO, is the ratio of the squares of two 
 quantities, or the square of their ratio. Thus the ratio of 
 a 2 to b" is the duplicate of the ratio of a to b. If there be 
 three quantities in continued proportion, the first is to the 
 third in the duplicate ratio of the first to the second: — thus 
 if a, b, c be continual proportionals, that is, if a : b : : b: c, 
 then a is to c in the duplicate ratio of a to b. 
 
 DUPLICATION OF THE CUBE. A celebrated pro- 
 blem of the ancient geometry. While a plague was deso- 
 lating Athens, a deputation was sent to consult the oracle 
 of Apollo at Delos, who returned for answer that the plague 
 would cease when they had doubled the altar of the god. 
 The altar was cubical, consequently the problem was to 
 find the side of another cube of twice the solid contents. 
 As this problem requires the solution of a cubic equation, 
 it cannot be solved by plane geometry ; but Hippocrates of 
 Chios reduced it to another ; namely, the insertion of two 
 mean proportionals between two given straight lines, a pro- 
 blem which several of the ancient geometers, particularly 
 Archimedes, Eutocius, Pappus, and Nicodemes, discover- 
 ed methods of constructing by means of the higher curves. 
 Among the modern geometers who have not disdained the 
 same inquiry, are the illustrious names of Newton and 
 Huygens. See Montucla, Histoire des Mathnmatiques. 
 
 DU'PPER, or DUBBER. A globular short-necked ves- 
 sel made of buffalo's hide, in which castor oil is imported 
 from India. Each dupper holds about 80 lbs. of oil. 
 
 DU'RA MATER. A thick membrane enveloping the 
 brain and adhering to the inner surface of the cranium. 
 See Brain. 
 
 DURA'MEN. (Lat.) The fully formed central layers 
 of the wood of Exogenous trees ; what is called in common 
 language the heart wood. It is only the sapwood solidified 
 by the introduction of various secretions into the interior 
 of the cells or tubes of which such wood is composed. 
 
 DU'RESS (Lat. duritas. hardship), in Law, is such con- 
 straint, either actual or by threats occasioning a reasonable 
 fear, as will invalidate legal acts done by a party suffering 
 it. Duress of imprisonment must be by illegal imprison- 
 ment. Duress per minas, by threats, is interpreted to mean 
 such threats as occasion fear of life or limb. 
 
 DUTCH GOLD. Copper, brass, and bronze leaf ia 
 known under this name in commerce; it is largely used 
 in Holland for ornamenting toys and paper. 
 
 DUTCH SCHOOL. In Painting, this school, generally 
 speaking, is founded on a faithful representation of nature, 
 without attention to selection or refinement. The ideas 
 are usually low, and the figures local and vulgar. Its merit 
 lies in colouring and drawing with extreme fidelity what 
 was before the eye of the artist. The pothouse, the work- 
 shop, or the drunken revels of unintellectual boors, seem 
 to have furnished its principal subjects. The great appear- 
 ance of reality infused into its productions induced Hage- 
 dora to call it the School of Truth. Notwithstanding its de- 
 ficiency in all that tends to raise the mind, it has gained an 
 unspeakable lustre from its great head, Rembrandt van 
 Rhyn, to whose name may be added those of De Leide, 
 Heemskirk, Polemburg, Wouvermans (an exception to our 
 general observations), Gerard Dow, Mieris, and Vande- 
 velde, &c. 
 
 DUU'MVIRI. A general appellation, among the ancient 
 Romans, given to any magistrates elected in pairs to per- 
 form any function or class of functions. The chief Duum- 
 viri were the Duumviri Sacrorum.to whom were entrusted 
 the care and the interpretation of the Sibylline books. The 
 Duumviri Municipales had almost consular power in the 
 municipal cities. The Duumviri Navaleswere officers ap- 
 pointed to man, eqnip,and command the Roman navy. 
 
 DWA'RFING TREES. Dwarf trees may be produced 
 in three different ways : -by grafting on dwarf slow-growing 
 stocks, as, for example, Ihe pear on the quince; by plant- 
 ing in pots of small size filled with poor soil, by which the 
 plant is starved and stunted ; and by causing a portion of 
 the extremity of a branch to produce roots, and then cut- 
 ting it off and planting it in a pot or box of poor soil. This 
 last is the Chinese method, and is thas performed : — The 
 extremity of a branch two or three feet in length, in a fruit 
 or flower-bearing state — for example, the points of the 
 branches of a fir tree bearing cones, or of an elm bearing 
 blossom buds— being fixed on, a ring of bark is taken off at 
 the point where it is desired that the roots should be pro- 
 duced. The space thus laid bare is covered with a ball of
 
 DWARF WALL. 
 
 moist clay, which is kept moist by being covered with 
 moss, which is occasionally watered. In the course of two 
 or three months in some trees, and of a year or two in 
 others, roots are protruded into the ball of clay. The 
 branch may then be cut off below the part from whence 
 the roots have been protruded, and the branch being plant- 
 ed in a pot of poor soil, and kept sparingly supplied with 
 water, it will remain nearly in its present state for many 
 years ; producing leaves, and perhaps flowers, annually, 
 but never shoots longer than a few lines. 
 
 DWARF WALL. (Sax. dweorh.) In Architecture, a 
 low wall, not so high as the story of a building in which it is 
 used. 
 
 DY'EING. The object of this beautiful art is to fix cer- 
 tain colouring matters uniformly and permanently in the 
 fibres of wool, silk, linen, cotton, and other substances. 
 There are a few dyeing materials which impart their co- 
 lour to different stuffs without any previous preparation, 
 and these have been technically termed substantive co- 
 lours ; by far the greater number, however, of colouring 
 materials, only impart a fugitive tint under such circum- 
 stances, and require that the stuff to be dyed should under- 
 go some previous preparation, in order to render the co- 
 lour permanent ; that is, capable of resisting the action of 
 air, light, and water. The substance applied with this in- 
 tention is called a base or mordant, and must possess an 
 affinity for the fibre of the stuff on the one hand, and for 
 the colouring materials on the other. The mordant often 
 effects another important object ; that of changing or ex- 
 alting the colour at the same time that it fixes it. The 
 principal mordants are aluminous earth and oxide of iron, 
 and these are usually applied in the state of acetates. As 
 an instance, we may mention the mode of dyeing calico 
 red by means of madder, a decoction of which, if applied 
 to the unprepared goods, would only give them a dirty red 
 tinge, neither agreeable nor permanent. If the calico be 
 previously passed through a weak solution of acetate of 
 alumina, and then dried at a high temperature, and after- 
 wards washed, a portion of the alumina is retained in che- 
 mical combination with the fibre of the calico ; and when 
 thus prepared and submitted to the action of a hot decoc- 
 tion of madder, and again washed, it comes out of a fine 
 red, which is fixed in consequence of the attraction of the 
 alumina for the peculiar principle which gives colour to 
 the madder. If the mordant he oxide of iron instead of 
 alumina, the colour which is then produced is purple ; and 
 various shades and colours are obtained by mixing mor- 
 dants, by using more or less of them, and by applying the 
 coloured solutions in various states of concentration. Some- 
 times articles are dyed by a similar precipitation of colour- 
 ed metallic oxides in the fibre ; thus yellow is obtained by 
 passing cloth impregnated with acetate of lead through a 
 solution of chromate of potash : a double decomposition 
 ensues, and yellow chromate of lead is precipitated in and 
 combined with the vegetable or animal fibre. Blues are 
 produced by passing the goods previously mordanted with 
 iron through an acidulated solution of ferrocyanate of pot- 
 ash ; these are generally called chemical colours, though 
 not in fact more so than the others. Scarlet is exclusively 
 produced by the colouring matter either of the cochineal 
 or of the lac insect, which is fixed by oxide of tin, or by 
 alumina, and heightened by the action of tartar. 
 
 The chemical principles of the art of calico printing are 
 the same as those of dyeing, but the details are more dif- 
 ficult and complicated ; and in consequence of the combi- 
 nation of a great variety of colours upon the same ground, 
 the process is sometimes extremely refined and intricate ; 
 so that a rich, varied, and pleasing pattern, thus effectively 
 produced, may be considered as a triumph of practical 
 skill over theoretical difficulties, which is scarcely rivalled, 
 and certainly not excelled, in any other of the arts. It is 
 obvious that calico printing is in the abstract a topical dye- 
 ing ; and much discrimination and taste are requisite in the 
 contrivance of the pattern, its general design, and the co- 
 lours in which it is exhibited. In this art the mordants, 
 and sometimes the colours, are applied either by blocks, 
 upon which the pattern is designed in relief, or by copper 
 plates, which are engraved, or by cylinders or rollers. If 
 the aluminous mordant be printed by one block and the 
 iron mordant by another, and a mixture of the two by a 
 third, and the piece thus prepared be then passed through 
 a madder bath, and properly cleansed and bleached, the 
 colour will only adhere to the mordanted places, and it will 
 be red where the aluminous earth only has been applied, j 
 purple with the mixed mordant, and black with the iron ; 
 if the same three mordants be used with a decoction of 
 quercitron bark, the resulting colours will be ypllow, olive, 
 and brown ; and in this way a great variety of a 'lours may 
 be produced. Sometimes copperplate and block printing 
 are combined ; a fine running pattern being printed by the 
 plate or cylinder over the whole surface, which serves as 
 a groundwork, and upon which other figures are printed 
 by blocks. Sometimes the mordant and colour are both 
 applied at once by means of a block, and rendered fixed 
 373 
 
 DYNAMOMETER. 
 
 and permanent by exposing the goods for some time to 
 steam. Some beautiful effects are also produced by print- 
 ing the pattern upon a mordanted ground with some sub- 
 stance which will resist the colour, and so produce a 
 white pattern upon a coloured ground. The same effect 
 I is sometimes brought about by discharging the colour by 
 j the topical application of certain bleaching materials. 
 
 DYKE, or DIKE. When a mass of unstratified or ig- 
 neous rock, such as granite, trap, or lava, appears as if in- 
 jected into rents and fissures in the stratified rock, so as to 
 intersect the strata, it is called a dyke. Dyke is also the 
 name given to a mound of earth, stones, or other mate- 
 rials, intended to prevent low land from being inundated 
 by the sea, &c. ; as the dykes of Holland. 
 
 DYNA'MICS (Gr. Swapis, force, or power), signifies 
 literally the doctrine of force or power; but as force or 
 power is known to us in no other way than by its effect, 
 that is, by the motion which it produces in the body on 
 which it acts, and is measured by that motion, dynamics 
 may be defined to be the science which treats of the mo- 
 tion of bodies. It is, however, usually restricted to those 
 circumstances of motion in which the moving bodies are 
 at liberty to obey the impulses communicated to them ; 
 the opposite cases, or those in which the bodies, whether 
 by external circumstances, or by their connection with one 
 another, are not at liberty to obey the impulses given, be- 
 ing comprehended in the science of mechanics. Thus, 
 the motion of a stone falling freely to the ground, or of a 
 celestial body in its orbit, belongs to dynamics ; while that 
 of a body descending an inclined plane would properly be- 
 long to mechanics. 
 
 The theory of varied motions, and of the accelerating 
 forces which produce them, is founded on two general 
 laws : 1st, That all motion impressed on a body is by its 
 nature uniform and rectilinear; and 2nd, That different 
 motions impressed either simultaneously or successively 
 on the same body, are compounded in such a manner that 
 the body is found at every instant in the same point of 
 space in which it would have been found in consequence 
 of the combination of the motions had they existed sepa- 
 rately. Thus, if a body be acted on by two forces at the 
 same instant, one of which acting alone would cause it to 
 move uniformly over A B, and the other acting alone would 
 cause it to move over A C at right angles to A B in the 
 same time ; the velocity of the body in the one of these 
 directions will not be changed by the force impelling it in 
 the other. With regard to the first of these laws, it is evi- 
 dent that a body in motion, not subjected to the action of 
 any new force, will continue to move in the prolongation 
 of the straight line in which it moves at any given instant, 
 since there is no reason why it should deviate from its rec- 
 tilinear direction rather to one side than the other; but the 
 uniformity of its motion cannot be asserted a priori: it is 
 only by induction and experience that we come to be per- 
 suaded that the velocity with which any body is impressed 
 will not diminish of itself, nor the body finally come to 
 rest unless it is impeded by some external causes. The 
 second law, which involves the theory of the composi- 
 tion of forces, has been demonstrated by several mathe- 
 maticians, particularly Daniel Bernoulli, D'Alembert, 
 Laplace in the Mecanique Celeste, and Poisson in his ex- 
 cellent Traite de Mecanique ; but all these demonstrations 
 are too difficult to be accounted elementary. 
 
 The science of dynamics is due entirely to the moderns, 
 and its foundations were laid by the celebrated Galileo. 
 Before him no one had considered the forces which act 
 on bodies, excepting in the case of equilibrium ; and al- 
 though the acceleration of falling bodies, and the curvili- 
 near motion of projectiles, had been attributed to the con- 
 stant action of terrestrial gravity, no one had yet succeeded 
 in determining the laws of these common phenomena. 
 Galileo first made this important step in advance, and 
 thereby opened a new and boundless field for the progress 
 of mechanics. Huygens added to Galileo's theory of the 
 acceleration of falling bodies the theories of the motion of 
 pendulums and of centrifugal forces, and thus prepared 
 the way for the great discovery of universal gravitation. 
 In the hands of Newton mechanics became a new science ; 
 and the discovery of the infinitesimal calculus at length 
 enabled geometers to express all the laws and circum- 
 stances of the motion of bodies by analytical equations. 
 The investigation of the forces which produce the pheno- 
 mena of the material world, or of the mutual action of the 
 different parts of matter on each other, now form indeed 
 the principal object of mathematical studies. The best 
 systematic treatises on Dynamics are to be found in La- 
 grange's Mecanique Analytique, and Poisson's Traite de. 
 Mecanique. Of late years several valuable elementary 
 treatises have appeared in our own language. See Force, 
 Mechanics, Motion. 
 
 DYNAMOMETER. (Gr. Swapis, power, and ucrpov, 
 measure.) An instrument for measuring power of any 
 kind, as the strength of men and animals, the force of ma- 
 chinery, the magnifying power of a telescope, &c. An in- 
 33
 
 DYNASTIDiE. 
 
 stniment for measuring animal force was invented by Mr. 
 Graham many years ago, and afterwards improved by Des- 
 aguliers; but as it consisted of wooden works, it was too 
 heavy and bulky to be conveniently used for ordinary pur- 
 poses. Leroy, of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, pro- 
 posed a dynamometer, which consisted merely of a tube of 
 metal of ten or twelve inches in length, placed vertically on 
 s stand, and containing a spring in its interior, which indi- 
 cated by its compression the amount of the force applied. 
 The instrument was in fact the same in principle as the 
 common spring balance. 
 
 The most convenient dynamometer is that of Regnier, 
 which is described in Cahier 5. of the Journal de V Ernie 
 Polytechnique. It consists of an elliptical steel spring of 
 about 12 inches in circumference, and the force is applied 
 either by pressing the two vertices of the axis minor against 
 each other, or by drawing in opposite directions the two 
 ends of the axis major. In both cases the sides of the 
 spring are made to approach each other ; and thus they 
 move an index which marks the degree of approximation 
 on a semicircular scale. By means of this machine the 
 mean force is ascertained which a man can exert with the 
 right hand, or with the left, or with both together, and in 
 various positions of his body. Some interesting results 
 relating to the average strength of men at different ages, 
 and of different weights and sizes, have been deduced by 
 M. Quetelet of Brussels, from numerous experiments 
 with this dynamometer. See Strength of Animals. 
 
 DYNA'STIDiE. (Gr. Svvaarrn, a master.) A family of 
 beetles, including the giants of the Coleopterous order. 
 They are remarkably powerful insects, excavating burrows 
 in the earth and in putrescent timber, upon the latter of 
 which they principally feed. 
 
 DY'NASTY. (Gr. ivnaareia, from Swaartj;, a lord or 
 chieftain.) A race or family of sovereigns in succession. 
 
 DYSiESTHE'SIA. (Gr. <5t>s, an adverb signifying in 
 composition badness or difficulty, and aiadavopat, 1 feel.) 
 Impaired sense of touch. 
 
 DY'SENTERY. (Gr. Svi, and tvrtpa, bowels.) A dis- 
 ease of the bowels, endemic in many climates in the au- 
 tumnal months, and frequently arising from marsh miasma, 
 bad diet, exhaustion and fatigue : its symptoms are loss of 
 appetite, sickness, pain about the bowels, and a frequent 
 ineffectual desire to evacuate their contents, which when 
 passed are mucous, fetid, and bloody, with small indura- 
 ted lumps. It is often accompanied by intermittent and re- 
 mittent fever, especially in hot and damp countries. In 
 this country dysentery is generally a mild disorder, and not 
 infectious ; and is commonly cured by gentle aperients, 
 such as castor oil, or salts and manna, to cleanse the bow- 
 els, and opiates to allay irritation. The chronic symptoms 
 which remain are treated with mild tonics, especially vege- 
 table bitters, such as infusion of calumba, angustura, or 
 cascarilla. The contagious dysentery of camps, attended 
 by remittent or typhoid fever, is an alarming and fatal dis- 
 ease : its treatment requires much consideration and skill, 
 and consists in judiciously meeting the various symptoms 
 as they arise. Aperients, diaphoretics, and nauseants, 
 succeeded by tonics, are leading remedies ; and the febrile 
 symptoms must be treated according to their inflammatory 
 or putrid tendency. 
 
 DVSPE'PSIA. (Gr. <5vy,an<_, ireirro), I digest or concoct.) 
 Indigestion. This is a complaint from which few entirely 
 escape, which assumes an infinite variety of shapes and 
 symptoms, and which arises from many causes. In the 
 higher ranks of society, and amongst the luxurious and 
 opulent, it is a common consequence of over eating, or of 
 indulgence in difficultly digestible or over-stimulating food, 
 or of want of due exercise and general bodily and mental 
 exertion. In others it results from mental anxiety and la- 
 bour associated with a sedentary life ; from the fatigues of 
 business, or the influence of debilitating passions. In the 
 lower orders it is the constant result of indulgence in spirit- 
 uous liquors, combined in many instances with want of 
 proper food, the means which ought to be applied to pro- 
 curing it being disposed of in the gin shop. 
 
 The symptoms of dyspepsia vary, therefore, in the differ- 
 ent grades of life. The epicure loses his relish for the 
 most refined dishes, becomes bloated, plethoric, heavy, 
 and perhaps apoplectic ; the lady of fashion suffers from 
 headaches, flatulence, occasional giddiness, and dimness 
 of sight; she becomes indolent, capricious, and full of fan- 
 cies, or, as the old physicians used to say, she has the va- 
 pours ; the studious man feels the intensity of his mind 
 blunted, loses his appetite, or at least all enjoyment of 
 meals, sleeps ill, and dreams much, gets whimsical and 
 discontented with himself and his friends, and becomes a 
 liypocliandriac ; the lower classes at first take their glass of 
 gin or of rum because they find it a cheap stimulant, little 
 thinking of the misery they are laying up for future years ; 
 this stimulant soon becomes habitual, and they not only 
 feel miserable and heartbroken without it, but the single 
 glass soon loses its efficacy, and the dose must be gradually 
 increased till they degenerate into regular tipplers, the as- 
 374 
 
 E. 
 
 pecf and characters of whom it were needless to describe - , 
 as they may be daily and hourly studied in those hells of 
 temptation and iniquity, the gin shops of London, — where it 
 is curious and instructive, but humiliating and alarming, tu 
 witness the various grades of mental and bodily disease in 
 the men, women, and even children, who there immolate 
 to Satan. 
 
 Complicated as are the symptoms of dyspepsia, and nn- 
 merous as are the remedies and modes ol treatment pro- 
 posed for its relief or cure, they really resolve themselves 
 into a few simple rules. In the majority of cases, absti- 
 nence is the first and most essential step : the epicure must 
 abstain from the luxuries of the table, eat and drink 
 with moderation, rise betimes, and use due exercise ; the 
 woman of fashion must revert to regular hours, that is, 
 the night and the day must be employed as intended by 
 nature, and not in inverted order ; the philosopher and the 
 scholar must occasionally, and often frequently and assidu- 
 ously, divest themselves of their mental labours, and resort 
 to amusements and occupations of a more trivial character. 
 Those among the lower orders who have once acquired the 
 habit of dram drinking are incurable ; for such is the de- 
 pression of mind and body, and such the gnawing restless- 
 ness that want of the accustomed stimulus occasions, that, 
 without it they become miserable and inconsolable, and 
 usually fall a sacrifice to mental or bodily disease, or to 
 both combined: here, therefore, prevention is the only 
 cure. The medical treatment of dyspepsia generally re- 
 solves itself into that of such of its particular symptoms 
 or consequences as are most prominent ; the inactivity of 
 the bowels is to be opposed by proper aperients properly 
 administered ; the debilitated stomach to be strengthened 
 by mild tonics, antacids, and stimulants; the mental symp- 
 toms often yield to the same treatment, and often require 
 local depletion, or diffusible stimulants, such as ammonia 
 and ether ; and lastly, change of air, of scene, and of oc- 
 cupation, are often indispensable, under which head sea 
 bathing and courses of mineral waters may be included. 
 The above observations are of course inapplicable to all 
 cases of dyspepsia resulting from structural disease, which, 
 though often an effect, is also a frequent cause of sy mptomt! 
 of indigestion ; indeed, such are the sympathies of the 
 stomach that it is apt to be affected by any aberration from 
 health. 
 
 DYSPHA'GIA. (Gr. hi, and <f>ayoi, I eat.) Difficulty 
 of swallowing. Paralysis, stricture of the oesophagus, en- 
 larged tonsils, relaxed uvula, a debilitated state of the mus- 
 cular coat of the pharynx and oesophagus, spasm of the 
 organs concerned in deglutition, inflammation, are among 
 some of the leading causes which occasion difficulty of 
 swallowing ; it is also an attendant upon hysteria, hypochon- 
 driasis, tetanus and trismus, and hydrophobia. The treat- 
 ment will depend upon the prevailing cause, and is noticed 
 under other articles. 
 
 DYSPNCE'A. (Gr. hi, and m/e to, I breathe.) Difficulty 
 of breathing. This is generally a symptomatic affection, 
 and commonly attends upon various morbid affections of 
 the lungs, heart, &c. It occasionally happens that persons 
 in full health are seized with an attack of difficulty of res- 
 piration ; where this occurs in nervous irritable habits' it 
 generally goes off by perfect quiet, with the help of a little 
 ether or ammonia; if in full habits, bleeding is sometimes 
 requisite. Persons who are subject to these attacks should 
 keep themselves as quiet and tranquil in body and mind 
 as possible, and should avoid excess of food and wine, and 
 even all stimulating diet. A recumbent posture, and sud- 
 den change of air, — as going out of a warm into a cold 
 room, or into the open air, — will often relieve an accidental 
 attack of dyspnoea. 
 
 DYSU'KIA. (Gr. Svs, and ovpov, urine.) Dysury. Dif- 
 ficulty in voiding the urine. A common symptom in cases 
 of gravel, inflammation of the urinary organs, spasm, and 
 stricture. The nature of the relief must depend upon the 
 exciting cause. 
 
 E. 
 
 E. The fifth letter in the Hebrew alphabet, and in those 
 derived from it. In the Latin language it is often inter- 
 changed with i and o ; and in the Greek with a, o, and oc- 
 casionally u. In most languages e admits of great vari- 
 ety in its pronunciation, and, in French and English parti- 
 cularly, surpasses every other letter in the alphabet in this 
 quality : as a Latin numeral E signifies 250 — 
 
 E quoque ducentos et quinquaginta tenebit- 
 
 E. In Music, the third note or degree of the diatonic 
 scale, corresponding to the mi of the French and Italians. 
 In the bass clef it is that on the third space of the staff, in 
 the tenor on the first space, in the counter tenor on the 
 fourth line, and in the treble clef that on the first line.
 
 EA'GLE. 
 
 EA'GLE. In Ornithology. See Ahuila, Falconid;e. 
 Ea'gle. In History, the symbol of royalty; as being, 
 according to Philostratus. the king of birds. Hence, in the 
 Scriptures, a Chaldsan and Egyptian king are styled eagles. 
 The eagle was borne as a standard by many nations of an- 
 tiquity. The first who assumed it, according to Xenophon 
 ' Anab. i. 10.), were the Persians, from whom (in all proba- 
 bility through the medium of the Greeks) it was borrowed 
 toy the Romans at an early period of their history, but hrst 
 adopted as their sole ensign in the consulate of C. Manus. 
 (Plin. x. 4.) Previously to that period they had used as 
 standards wolves, leopards, eagles, and other animals, in- 
 differently, according to the humour of their generals. The 
 Roman eaates were gold or silver figures in rihevo, about 
 the size of a pigeon ; and were borne on ihe tops of spears, 
 with their wings displayed, and frequently with a thunder- 
 bolt in their talons. When the army marched the eagle 
 was always visible to the legions ; and when it encamped, 
 the ea<de was always placed before their prcBtonum or tent 
 of the general. The eagle on the summit of an ivory start- 
 was also ihe symbol of the consular dignity. In modern 
 times Napoleon caused the tricolor flag, which at the ou- 
 tbreak of the first French Revolution had become the stand- 
 ard of France, to be surmounted with an eagle ; and thus 
 constituted it the standard of the consular and imperial 
 armies From this circumstance, and from the almost un- 
 precedented career of victory so long pursued bv the 
 French under this standard, the expression eagles of Napo- 
 leon is often used metaphorically to designate the armies 
 under his command. After the battle of Waterloo the 
 ea^le was superseded in France by the tleur de lys, the an- 
 cient emblem of the Bourbon race. Eagles are frequently 
 found on ancient coins and medals ; where, according to 
 Spanheim, they are emblematic of divinity and providence, 
 but according to all other antiquaries of empire. They are 
 most usually found on the medal3 of the Ptolemies of 
 E»ypt and the Selucidaeof Syria. An eagle, Willi the word 
 consecratio, indicates the apotheosis of an emperor. 
 
 Eagle. In Heraldry, a bearing of frequent occurrence, 
 and particularly assumed by sovereigns as the emblem of 
 empire from having been borne on the legionary standard 
 of the ancient Romans. The eagle of Russia is or, with 
 two heads displayed, sable, each ducally crowned of the 
 field • the whole imperially crowned, beaked, and mom- 
 bered, gules. The eagle of Austria is also displayed with 
 two heads ; the Prussian eagle has one only. The Ameri- 
 cans have adopted an eagle of a peculiar species belonging 
 to their continent as the device of the Union, which is im- 
 pressed on their gold coins. 
 
 EA'GLE, BLACK. A Prussian order of knighthood, 
 founded in 1701 ; united with the order of the Red Eagle, 
 or order of Sincerity, instituted by the Margraves of Bay- 
 
 EA'GLE STONE. A term applied by the old pharma- 
 ceutists to globular clay ironstone, which they called lapis 
 
 atites. . , .... 
 
 EA'GLE WOOD. A fragrant wood, used by the Asiatics 
 for burning as incense. The Malayan name is Agila, 
 whence the Portuguese name Pao a" Agila. 
 
 EAR. (Germ, ohr.) The external ear is formed of a 
 pliant cartilage covered by a thin skin, and having appro- 
 priate nerves and muscles; its various cavities and projec- 
 tions have received distinctive names from the anatomist. 
 The curved and irregular passage which leads to the in- 
 ner ear is called the meatus auditorius, and in the adult 
 is more than an 
 
 inch in length ; 
 it is lined with 
 a peculiar secre- 
 lion called ceru- 
 men. The tym- 
 panum separates 
 the external from 
 the internal ear; 
 it is closed by a 
 membrane call- 
 ed the membra- 
 na tympani or 
 drum of the ear, 
 upon the inner 
 surface of which 
 a nerve called the 
 chorda tympani 
 ramifies, and to 
 the centre of 
 which is affixed 
 the process of a 
 little hammer- 
 shaped bone, 
 called the mal- 
 leus, and which, 
 
 together with the incus, the os orbiculare, and the stapes, 
 forms a chain of communication between the tympanum 
 and the fenestra ovalis; these small bones are supplied 
 375 
 
 EARTH. 
 
 with appropriate muscles. The vestibule is a small cavity 
 in the petrous portion of the temporal bone, having a little 
 spiral cavity called the cochlea connected with it, and three 
 cylindrical cavities, or tubes, bent in a semicircular form, 
 two of which are horizontal and one vertical. These cavities 
 contain a liquid ; and in them the auditory nerve, which 
 proceeds from the fourth ventricle of the brain, ramifies 
 and terminates. It is obvious that vibration of the tympa- 
 num, occasioned by undulations of the air, may be com- 
 municated through the bony chain above mentioned to the 
 fluid in the vestibule, and thence to the acoustic nerve ; 
 but any further uses of this extraordinary and complicated 
 mechanism are beyond our knowledge. In the annexed 
 diagram a reDresents the external ear, 6 the external mea- 
 tus, c the tympanum, d the malleus, e the incus, / the 
 stapes g the semicircular canals, and h the cochlea. 
 
 EA'RINGS. Small ropes fastened to cringles (loops) m 
 the upper corners, and also to ihe leeches of sails, for the 
 purpose of fixing the leeches of the sail to the yard. The 
 first or head earings fix the corners of the sail permanent- 
 ly, the second are used only in reeling. 
 
 EARL A title of dignity, derived from the Anglo- 
 Saxons. It denoted at first any person of noble race, (see 
 PatTave's Rise of the E. Commonwealth); and there 
 seem to have remained in popular language traces of this 
 ancient use of the name down to a late period. After- 
 wards some of the Saxon earls were hereditary, and some 
 official governors of extensive districts After the Con- 
 quest the title of earl was used by the English to express 
 the French title of count (in Latin comes); to which again 
 the word graf (identical in origin with the English reeve) 
 furnishes an equivalent in Germany. Hence the wife of an 
 earl is still styled countess. In writings earlier than the 
 a^e of Stephen, the Latin word consul is also used as sy- 
 nonymous. It has been supposed (and the explanation is 
 supported by Mr. Cruise, On Dig7iities, p. 17,) that the 
 dignity of an earl was originally annexed to the possession 
 ofa certain tract of land, and that there were three sorts 
 of earldoms-one, when the dignity was annexed to the 
 possession of a whole county with jura regalia, in which 
 case Ihe county was a county palatine, as Chester, Pem- 
 broke, and Durham; the second, where the earl had no 
 possession of the county, and no advantage from it, but 
 Ihe third penny or third part of the sum arising from pleas 
 in the county court; the third, where a tract of land was 
 granted to hold as a county, "per servitium unius comi- 
 tatus " But this is an opinion open to controversy ; and it 
 may be doubted whether there are any settled principles 
 as to the creation or descent of earldoms earlier than the 
 rei-m of Edward III., when they were granted by letters 
 patent to the earl and the heirs of his body. Earldoms, 
 like baronies, gradually became converted from territorial 
 to merely titular honours. These two were the only titles 
 in the English peerage, until the creation of ihe duchy of 
 Cornwallln the 11th year of Edward HI. (See Nicolas s 
 Synopsis of the Peerage of England.) 
 
 E\RL MA'RSHAL OF ENGLAND. One of the great 
 officers of state, who regulates all great ceremonies, takes 
 cognizance of all matters relating to honour, arms, and 
 nedigree, and superintends the proclamation of peace or 
 war The court of chivalry, curia militaris (now almost 
 forgotten), was formerly under his jurisdiction : he is still 
 at the head of the herald's office, or college of arms. 
 Camden, in his discourse concerning the etymology, anti- 
 quity, and office of earl marshal, alleges that it was first 
 introduced in the reisn of Richard II., who conferred it on 
 Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, his predecessors 
 havin" been styled only Marshals of England. Various 
 limitations have been made in the grants of this office from 
 time to time; but it is now hereditary m the family ol 
 Howard, and enjoyed bv its head, ihe Duke of Norfolk. 
 
 EA'RNEST (Lat. arr'hre ; Fr. arrhes), in Law. is a part 
 of the subject of a contract, a* money or goods, transferred, 
 in order by such delivery to pass the property in the whole, 
 or in some other way to confirm the contract. By trie 
 Statute of Frauds, 29 C. 2. c. 3, no coniract for sale of 
 goods of the value of 10/. or more is good unless in writing, 
 or unless such earnest be given or taken. 
 
 EA'R RINGS. (Germ, ohrringe.) Well-known orna- 
 ments worn by women, and sometimes by men, in all ages 
 and countries. They have assumed an endless variety of 
 forms ; but consist generally at present of a simple ring, to 
 which are attached pendant jewels, such as pearls, dia- 
 monds, or other precious stones. In the middle ages they 
 were termed pendants, to which article the reader is re- 
 ferred for full information. 
 EARS. In Architecture. See Crosettes. 
 EAR SHELL. See Haliotis. 
 
 EA.RTH. (Germ, erde, Lat. terra.) The name of the 
 planet which we inhabit. It is the third in order from the 
 sun, its orbit embracing the orbits of Mercury and Venus, 
 but being within the orbits of all the other planets The 
 earth is endowed with a double motion : first, a motion of 
 rotation about an axis passing through its centre; and
 
 EARTH. 
 
 secondly, a motion of revolution about the sun. It is the 
 first of these motions which produces the phenomena of 
 day and night, and the apparent diurnal revolution of the 
 celestial bodies. The time in which the earth's rotation is 
 performed is measured by the interval which elapses be- 
 tween two transits of the same fixed star over the meridian 
 of any place ; and this interval is always precisely the same, 
 for astronomers have proved that it cannot have varied so 
 much as three times the thousandth part of a second since 
 the date of the first astronomical observation, that is to 
 say, during the last two thousand years. It is called the si- 
 dereal day, and forms a perfectly uniform measure of time. 
 
 The revolution of the earth about the sun is performed 
 in an elliptic orbit, which lies all in one plane, and has the 
 sun in one of the foci. The eccentricity of the orbit, or 
 the distance of the foci from the centre, is 01679 parts of 
 the mean distance of the earth from the sun ; so that if we 
 take the mean distance for unity, the greatest distance of 
 the sun is 101679, and the least 0-93321. The mean dis- 
 tance is nearly 95 millions of miles. The motion of the 
 earth in its orbit is not uniform ; being most rapid when it 
 is at its perihelion, or point nearest the sun, and slowest at 
 its aphelion, or greatest distance from the sun. This ine- 
 quality of the angular motion of the earth about the sun 
 gives rise to an inequality in the lengths of the apparent 
 solar day, which is the interval of time between the suc- 
 cessive transits of the sun over the same terrestrial meri- 
 dian. If the earth moved uniformly in its orbit, accom- 
 plishing its annual revolution in the same time it does, the 
 interval between any two consecutive transits of the sun 
 over the same meridian would always be the same. This 
 interval is called the mean solar day. The time in which 
 the earth performs a revolution in its orbit, with respect to 
 the fixed stars, or points in absolute space, is 365-2563612 
 mean solar days, or 365 days, 6 hours, 9 minutes, 9-6 
 seconds. This is called the sidereal year. 
 
 The plane which contains the earth's orbit is called the 
 plane of the ecliptic. The axis of the earth's diurnal rota- 
 tion is not perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, but 
 makes with it an angle of 66° 32' 4" ; whence the equator 
 of the earth is inclined to the ecliptic in an angle of 
 23° 27' 56". This inclination, which is called the obliquity 
 of the ecliptic, gives rise to the phenomena of the seasons, 
 fn fact, as the two planes intersect always at the centre of 
 the earth, it is evident that if, while the earth is carried 
 round its orbit, its axis of rotation remains always parallel 
 to itself, the sun must rise above the equator during one 
 half of the revolution, and fall below it during the other. 
 Now this is what takes place : — the earth's axis of rotation 
 preserves its parallelism, or points always towards the 
 same star; and the sun in consequence at one period of 
 the year is 23° 27' 56" to the north of the equator, and at 
 the opposite season of the year is precisely the same dis- 
 tance to the south of it. The straight line formed by the 
 intersection of the planes of the equator and ecliptic does 
 not preserve the same position on the ecliptic; it has a 
 slow motion westward, or contrary to the order of the 
 signs, and retreats at the rate of 501" annually ; so that 
 when the sun appears to return to the equator the sidereal 
 revolution has not been quite completed : there remains 
 an arc of 50-1". The lime in which the sun, or, to speak 
 correctly, the earth, describes this arc is 20 minutes, 19 9 
 seconds; consequently the periodical return of the seasons 
 is shorter by 20 m. 199 sec. than the true sidereal revolu- 
 tion of the earth round the sun. But the revolution of the 
 seasons forms what is called the equinoctird or tropical 
 year ; which, therefore, is equal to 3652422414 mean solar 
 days, or 365 d. 5 h. 48 m. 497 sec. 
 
 The figure of the earth is that of an oblate spheroid of 
 revolution, the axis of the poles being to the diameter of 
 the equator in the ratio of 301 to 302. The equatorial di- 
 ameter is nearly 7925 English miles, and the polar diameter 
 about 7898 miles. (See Degree.) The mean radius of 
 the earth is 3956 miles. Hence, supposing the earth to be 
 a sphere, its whole surface would contain about 197,663,000 
 square miles. 
 
 The knowledge of the true figure and dimensions of the 
 earth has been obtained by a combination of the results of 
 mathematical theory with the actual measurement of de- 
 grees, and observations of the length of the seconds' pen- 
 dulum at different places on its surface. As a great portion 
 of the surface of the earth is covered by the sea, the ge- 
 neral figure must be such as will satisfy the conditions of 
 hydrostatic equilibrium. If the earth were fluid, and had 
 no motion of rotation, its figure would be that of a sphere ; 
 but the rotation gives rise to a force which tends to cause 
 every particle to recede from the axis, and which is pro- 
 portional to the distance of the particle from the axis. 
 Hence the attraction of the whole mass on any particle is 
 to a certain extent counteracted by the centrifugal force of 
 rotation, and the attraction is most diminished at the equa- 
 torial parts, where the distance from the axis is the great- 
 est. Hence, in order that equilibrium may be restored, an 
 accumulation of matter must take place round the equator, 
 376 
 
 so that the mass will bulge out in that region, and become 
 flattened at the poles. These theoretical considerations 
 only render the spheroidal form of the earth probable ; but 
 they are fully confirmed by experiments of different kinds. 
 If the earth is an oblate spheroid of revolution, the force 
 of gravity at its surface must increase on going from the 
 equator towards the poles ; and the increase must be ex- 
 actly proportional to that of the square of the sine of the 
 latitude. Now it has been found by swinging an invariable 
 pendulum at a great number of places, that the increase of 
 gravity from the equator to the poles does follow this law. 
 Anomalous results, indeed, appear; but they are only 
 such as might be expected a priori from local irregulari- 
 ties of the surface, which, however, bear a much smaller 
 proportion to the whole mass of the earth than the protu- 
 berances on the skin of an orange to its diameter. Ano- 
 ther method of determining the exact form of the earth is 
 by measuring the length of degrees of the meridian. Sup- 
 posing the meridian to be an ellipse, the degrees of latitude 
 must become longer and longer as we recede from the 
 equator, and the augmentation must be proportioned to the 
 square of the sine of the latitude. This has likewise been 
 found, by numerous measurements undertaken for the 
 purpose, to hold true ; so that theory and experiment fully 
 concur in proving the general form of the earth to be that 
 of an oblate spheroid of revolution. 
 
 On account of the large proportion of the earth's surface 
 which is covered with water, and the comparatively small 
 height to which the dry land rises above the level, it is evi- 
 dent that the figure of the earth cannot deviate much from 
 that which is required for the hydrostatic equilibrium. It 
 is computed that the proportion of water to land over the 
 whole surface is as 2 to 1 ; that is to say, two thirds of the 
 whole surface is covered with water, the surface of which 
 must be in equilibrium. The altitude of the highest moun- 
 tains on the earth above the level of the sea is supposed to 
 be about 26,000 feet, or nearly five miles. But the mean 
 radius of the earth, as we have already stated, is nearly 4000 
 miles ; consequently the greatest superficial inequalities do 
 not exceed the 800th part of the radius. In general they 
 amount to but a small part of this quantity. 
 
 The mass of the earth compared with that of the sun is 
 nearly as 1 to 355,000. Its mean density, which has been 
 ascertained by observing the effect of mountains in deflect- 
 ing the plumb-line from the perpendicular (Attraction 
 op Mountains), and by experiments on the attraction of 
 leaden balls, is to that of water as 5J to 1. The centrifugal 
 force at the equator is to that of gravity as -00346 to 1 ; and 
 the force of gravity there is such that bodies fall through 
 16jL feet in the first second of time. If the rotation of the 
 eartn were 17 times more rapid, the centrifugal force at the 
 equator would be just equal to the attractive force, and bo- 
 dies would have no weight. 
 
 From a knowledge of the form of the earth, and of its 
 mean density, we are enabled to form some conjecture re- 
 specting its interior constitution. Newton demonstrated 
 that if the earth were a homogeneous mass, or of equal 
 density throughout, the ratio of its polar to its equatorial 
 diameter would be that of 230 to 231 ; that is, the ellipticity 
 would be = -^A-p But the ellipticity found from the actual 
 measurement of degrees is, as we have seen, considerably 
 less than this fraction ; consequently the earth is not homo- 
 geneous. Huygens, on the other hand, adopting the hypo- 
 thesis that the density increases regularly from the surface 
 to the centre, at which point it is infinite, found the ratio 
 of the diameters to be that of 578 to 579. The true com- 
 pression considerably exceeds that given by this ratio ; and 
 therefore, since it lies between the results of the two hypo- 
 theses, we infer that the density increases towards the 
 centre, but that the density at the centre is not infinitely 
 great. 
 
 Considering that the mean density of the whole earth is 
 only about five and a half times (hat of water, and that the 
 materials of which the crust of the earth is composed are 
 all compressible in a greater or less degree, so that even at 
 no very great depth the density of the different substancea 
 must be greatly increased by the mere pressure of the su- 
 perincumbent materials, some philosophers have supposed 
 that the effects of pressure must be counterbalanced by the 
 expansive force of a great heat subsisting in the interior of 
 the earth ; and others that the earth is not solid, but merely 
 a hollow shell of inconsiderable thickness. It has been 
 calculated that at the depth of 35 miles, air, subjected to the 
 pressure of a column of matter of the mean density of that 
 at the surface of the earth, would acquire the density of 
 water ; that at the depth of 173 miles, water itself, which is 
 eminently incompressible, would acquire the density of 
 marble ; and at the centre, marble would have a density 
 1 19 times greater than at the surface. But the compara- 
 tively small mean density of the mass proves that none of 
 these effects take place. The hypothesis which supposes 
 the earth to be hollow in the interior, is contrary to every 
 analogy ; and as it can be demonstrated from astronomical
 
 EARTH. 
 
 tonsideraiions that the density must increase in descend- 
 ing from the surface to a depth equal at least to one fourth 
 of the radius, it is infinitely probable that this density con- 
 tinues to increase even to the centre ; but that a very high 
 temperature exists in the interior of the earth, in conse- 
 quence of which the materials resist the effects of the con- 
 densation due to the pressure to which they are subjected. 
 The principal arguments which have been brought forward 
 to prove the high temperature of the interior parts of the 
 earth, or the central heat, are drawn from the following 
 circumstances : — 
 
 1. The form of the earth, nearly spherical, and flattened 
 at the poles of rotation, together with the regular disposi- 
 tion of the materials about the centre in elliptic layers, 
 proves that it must have originally existed in a fluid, if not 
 an aeriform state ; so that the constituent molecules must 
 have had free liberty to obey the forces arising from their 
 mutual attraction and from the rotation of the whole mass, 
 and arrange themselves in the position of equilibrium. But 
 there is no other agent than heat to which we can attribute 
 the fusion of such substances as compose the greater part 
 of the exterior crust of the earth. 2. The phenomena of 
 volcanos, hot springs, and earthquakes, receive a very sim- 
 ple explanation on the hypothesis that the nucleus of the 
 earth still remains in a 6tate of fusion, and that the consoli- 
 dation of the exterior crust still proceeds, though at an ex- 
 tremely slow rate. 3. The fact, which now appears to be 
 fully established, that a sensible increase of temperature 
 takes place as we descend from the surface (in deep mines 
 for example), after passing the depth at which the influ- 
 ence of the solar heat ceases to be felt, furnishes a direct 
 proof of a very high temperature in the interior of the earth. 
 Much uncertainty exists as to the rate at which this increase 
 takes place ; but the mean results of a number of experi- 
 ments made in the deep mines of Cornwall, and different 
 parts of France and Germany, give an increase of 1° of 
 Fahrenheit's thermometer for every 15 yards of vertical 
 descent, after passing the stratum of constant temperature. 
 Admitting this rate of increase, and supposing it to be con- 
 tinued to the centre, the intensity of heat at the centre will 
 be expressed by 3500° of Wedgewood's pyrometer. The 
 temperature of 100° of Wedgewood, which is sufficient to 
 fuse the lavas and the greater part of the known rocks, 
 would be found at the depth of 125 miles; but M. Cordier, 
 who, in the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences of 
 Paris (volume for 1S27), has collected a great number of 
 facts relative to this subject, is of opinion that the pheno- 
 mena warrant the conclusion lhat the mean thickness of 
 the solid crust of the earth does not exceed 60 miles. 
 
 In order to explain the primitive fluidity of the earth, 
 which it is necessary to admit ill consequence of its figure 
 and the law of the diminution of gravity from the poles to 
 the equator, a different hypothesis has been proposed, and 
 had numerous partizans. It consists in supposing a pri- 
 mitive dissolution of all the materials of the earth in a 
 liquid, such as water. But if we consider that the fluidity 
 of all bodies, even of liquids, is an effect of heat; that it 
 is necessary to suppose not merely a partial fusion of the 
 exterior crust, but of the whole mass of the earth ; and 
 that the weight of all the water on the globe does not 
 probably amount to a 50-thousandth part of that of the 
 solid materials, the insufficiency of this hypothesis will be 
 apparent. 
 
 In whatever manner the earth may have taken its ex- 
 isting form, there are abundant proofs that its surface has 
 been the theatre of many great revolutions. The masses 
 of sand and gravel, and beds of limestone composed of 
 shells and corals, Which are found in the interior of conti- 
 nents, and even to the summits of the highest mountains, 
 plainly show that the present land was once immersed 
 deep under the waters of the ocean. The remains of ani- 
 mals and plants belonging to tropical countries, found in 
 the highest latitudes, indicate an entirely different disposi- 
 tion of climates from that which now exists. The appear- 
 ances of the mineral strata, twisted, and dislocated, and 
 broken asunder, also afford undeniable evidence that the 
 changes which have taken place on the surface of the earth 
 have not all been brought about by the silent action of the 
 causes which we see in daily operation, but by the opera- 
 tion of some violent force which has shaken the globe to 
 its very centre. Whether these convulsions have been 
 produced by an internal or external force ; by the action 
 of a central heat heaving up the solid crust of the earth, 
 and raising mountains from the depths of the ocean ; or 
 by the collision of a comet, changing the axis of the earth's 
 diurnal rotation, destroying the pre-existing equilibrium, 
 and carrying the waters towards the new equator, — can 
 never be any thing more than matter of speculation and 
 conjecture. All that science makes known on the subject 
 is, that since the time of the first recorded astronomical 
 observations, that is to say, during the last two thousand 
 years, the poles of the earth have been at precisely the I 
 same points on its surface as at the present day. See Ge- 
 ography. Planet. 
 377 
 
 EARTHQ.UAKE. 
 
 Earth. In Agriculture, earths are distinguished from 
 soils by their being without organized matter in their com- 
 position. Though scarcely any such earths are found, on 
 or near the ground's surface, yet the distinction is of use 
 in speaking of soils. Thus we say a soil, the basis of 
 which is earth, of sandstone, or of chalk, &c. 
 
 Earth. In Chemistry, this term is applied to certain in- 
 soluble metallic oxides of abundant occurrence in rocks 
 and soils, such as silica and alumina. Lime, magnesia, 
 baryta, and strontia have been called alkaline earths, their 
 action on vegetable colours being similar to that of the 
 alkalis. 
 EARTHENWARE. See Pottery. 
 EARTH NUTS, are various subterranean substances 
 produced by plants. In England the name is given to the 
 nut of Conopodium Jlexuosum, an umbelliferous plant ; in 
 Egypt to the round tuber of Cyperus rotundus, and other 
 species of the same genus; in China to the subterranean 
 pods of Arachis hypogaia, a leguminous plant; and in other 
 countries to similar pods produced by the genera Voandzeia, 
 Amphicarjxta, &c. : or to the small tubers of Cyperaceous 
 plants. 
 
 EARTHQUAKE. One of the most formidable pheno- 
 mena of nature. As the name implies, it consists of a vio- 
 lent agitation of the earth, accompanied by various other 
 phenomena more or less singular and destructive in their 
 effects, but by no means uniform in character, as the fol- 
 lowing enumeration of concomitant circumstances, gleaned 
 from the accounts of various earthquakes that have oc- 
 curred in ancient and modern times, will sufficiently 
 evince. Earthquakes are usually preceded by a general 
 stillness in the air, and an unnatural agitation of the waters 
 of the ocean and of lakes. The shock comes on with a deep 
 rumbling noise, like that of a carriage over a rough pave- 
 ment, or with a tremendous explosion resembling a dis- 
 charge of artillery or the bursting of a thunder cloud ; and 
 sometimes heaves the ground perpendicularly upwards, 
 and sometimes rolls it from side to side. The single 
 shocks of an earthquake seldom last longer than a minute, 
 but they frequently follow one another at short intervals 
 for a considerable length of time. During these shocks 
 large chasms are made in the ground, from which some- 
 times smoke and flames, but more frequently stones and 
 torrents of water, are discharged. In violent earthquakes, 
 these chasms are sometimes so extensive as to overwhelm 
 whole cities at once. In consequence of these shocks, 
 also, whole islands are frequently sunk and new ones 
 raised ; the course of rivers is changed ; seas overflow the 
 land, forming gulfs, bays, and straits; sometimes disrupt- 
 ing the land into islands, and sometimes joining them to 
 the continent. 
 
 There is no portion of the earth's surface, whether it be 
 land or water, that is not more or less subject to earth- 
 quakes ; and records of their destructive effects have been 
 transmitted to us through every age. The first earthquake 
 particularly worthy of notice was that which, in a. d. 63, 
 destroyed Herculaneum and Pompeii. In the fourth and 
 fifth centuries, some of the most civilized parts of the world 
 were almost desolated by these awful visitations. Thrace, 
 Syria, and Asia Minor, according to contemporary histo- 
 rians, suffered most severely. On the 26th of January, 
 a. d. 447, subterranean thunders were heard from the 
 Black to the Red Sea, and the earth was convulsed without 
 intermission, for the space of six months ; and in Phrygia, 
 many cities and large tracts of ground were swallowed up. 
 On the 30th of May, a. d. 205, the city of Antioch was over- 
 whelmed by a dreadful earthquake, and 250,000 of its in- 
 habitants are said to have been crushed in its ruins. 
 
 In the year 1346, Asia Minor and Egypt were violently 
 shaken ; and in the following year severe earthquakes 
 were experienced in Cyprus, Greece, and Italy. 
 
 In 1692, the island of Jamaica was visited by a terrible 
 earthquake, in which enormous masses of earth were de- 
 tached from the Blue Mountains ; and vast quantities of 
 timber, hurled from their flanks, covered the adjacent sea, 
 like floating islands. It was during this earthquake that the 
 city of Port Royal, with a large tract of adjacent land, sunk 
 instantaneously into the sea. In the following year great 
 earthquakes occurred in Sicily, which destroyed Catania 
 and 140 other towns and villages, with 100,000 of their in- 
 habitants. 
 
 Since the records of history, there have been no earth- 
 quakes equal in intensity to those which ravaged different 
 parts of the world in the eighteenth century. Passing over 
 the convulsion which in 1746 nearly laid waste Lower Peru, 
 and those by which in 1750 the ancient town of Concepcion 
 in Chili was t<>:ally destroyed, we come to 1755, when the 
 city of Lisbon was almost wholly destroyed by one of the 
 most destructive earthquakes which ever occurred in 
 Europe. It continued only six minutes ; but such was the 
 violence of the convulsion, that in that short space upwards 
 of 60,000 persons are said to have perished. The pheno- 
 mena that accompanied it were no less striking. The sea 
 first retired and laid the bar dry ; it then, rolled in, rising
 
 EARTHQ.UAKE. 
 
 fifty feet or more above its ordinary level. The largest 
 mountains in Portugal were impetuously shaken from their 
 very foundations : and some of them opened at their sum- 
 mits, which were split and rent in a wonderful manner, 
 huge masses of them being thrown down into the subjacent 
 valleys. But the most remarkable circumstance which 
 occurred in Lisbon during this catastrophe was the entire 
 subsidence of the new quay, called Cays de Prada, to 
 which an inmense concourse of people had fled for safety 
 from the falling ruins. From this hideous abyss, into 
 which the quay sunk, not one of the dead bodies ever float- 
 ed to the surface ; and on the spot there is now water to the 
 depth of 100 fathoms. This earthquake excited great at- 
 tention from the incredibly great extent at which contem- 
 porary shocks were experienced. The violence of the 
 shocks, which were accompanied by a terrific subterra- 
 nean noise, like the loudest thunder, was chiefly felt in 
 Portugal, Spain, and northern Africa ; but the effects of the 
 earthquake were perceived in almost all the countries of 
 continental Europe, and were even experienced in the 
 West Indies, and on the Lake Ontario in North America. 
 Ships at sea were affected by the shocks as if they had 
 struck on rocks : and even at some of the Scottish lakes, 
 Loch Lomond in particular, the water, without the least 
 apparent cause, rose to the perpendicular height of two 
 feet four inches against its banks, and then subsided be- 
 low its usual level. During the next twenty years, various 
 earthquakes occurred in different parts of the world, at- 
 tended with more or less destructive consequences. In 
 1759, Syria was agitated by violent earthquakes, the shocks 
 of which were protracted for three months, throughout a 
 space of 10,000 square leagues, and levelled to the ground 
 Accon, Saphat, Balbeck, Damascus, Sidon, Tripoli, and 
 many other places In each of these places many thou- 
 sands of the inhabitants perished ; and in the valley of Bal- 
 beck alone, 20,000 men are said to have been victims to the 
 convulsion. In 1766, the island of Trinidad and great part 
 of Columbia were violently agitated by earthquakes. In 
 1772, the lofty volcano of Papandayang, the highest moun- 
 tain in Java, disappeared, and a circumjacent area, fifteen 
 miles by six, was swallowed up. In 1783, the north-eastern 
 part of Sicily and the southern portion of Calabria were 
 convulsed by violent and oft-repeated shocks, which over- 
 threw the town of Messina, and killed many thousands of 
 its inhabitants, as well as many persons in Calabria. In the 
 same year the islands of Japan, Java in 1786, Sicily and the 
 Caraccas in 1790, Quebec in 1791, and the Antilles and 
 Peru in 1797, were violently agitated by convulsions of this 
 kind. 
 
 Since the commencement of the present century, vari- 
 ous earthquakes have occurred both in the Old and New 
 World. In 1811, violent earthquakes shook the valley of 
 the Mississippi, by which lakes of considerable extent dis- 
 appeared, and new ones were formed. In 1812, Caraccas 
 was destroyed, and upwards of 12,000 of its inhabitants 
 buried in the ruins. In 1815 the town of Tombora, in the 
 island of Sumbawa, was completely destroyed by an earth- 
 quake, which extended throughout an area 100 miles in 
 diameter, and destroyed 12,000 persons. In 1819, a violent 
 earthquake occurred at Cutch, in the Delta of the Indus, 
 by which, among other disastrous consequences, the prin- 
 cipal town, Bhoog, was converted into a heap of ruins. In 
 1822, Aleppo was destroyed by an earthquake. In the same 
 year Chili was visited by a most destructive earthquake, 
 from which the coast for 100 miles is stated to have sus- 
 tained an elevation of from two to four feet, while about a 
 mile inward from Valparaiso it was raised from six to seven 
 feet. In 1827, Popayan and Bogota suffered severely from 
 earthquakes, during which vast fissures opened in the ele- 
 vated plains around the latter city. In 1835, the town of 
 Concepcion, in Chili, was entirely demolished by an earth- 
 quake. In 1837, the countries along the eastern extremity 
 of the Mediterranean, especially Syria, were violently agi- 
 tated by an earthquake, which caused great damage to the 
 towns of Damascus, Acre, Tyre, and Sidon, and entirely 
 destroyed Tiberias and Safet. Such are some of the most 
 violent earthquakes that have occurred within the period 
 of authentic history. The reader will find in Poggendorfs 
 Annalen lists of the different earthquakes that have taken 
 place within the last twenty years ; and from these it will 
 be observed that scarcely a month elapses without being 
 signalized by one or many convulsions in some part of the 
 globe. Shocks of earthquakes have at different times 
 been felt in various parts of Britain, and more particularly 
 in Scotland ; but they have all fortunately been so insig- 
 nificant, compared to those which have been experienced 
 in other countries, that we shall refrain from entering into 
 any details respecting them. 
 
 But though history supplies us with so large a catalogue 
 of well-authenticated earthquakes, it is surprising that so 
 little was done by the ancients either in investigating their 
 causes or noticing their effects. It is only within the last 
 century and a half, says Mr. Lyell, since Hooke first pro- 
 mulgated his views respecting the connection between 
 378 
 
 EASTER. 
 
 geological phenomena and earthquakes, that the peitna- 
 nent changes effected by these convulsions have excited 
 attention. Before that time the narrative of the historian 
 was almost, exclusively confined to the number of human 
 beings who perished, the numberof cities laid in ruins, the 
 value of property destroyed, or certain atmospheric ap- 
 pearances which dazzled or terrified the observers. The 
 creation of a new lake, the engulphing of a city, or the 
 raising of a new island, are sometimes, it is true, adverted 
 to, as being too obvious or of too much geographical in- 
 terest to be passed over in silence. But no researches were 
 made expressly with the view of ascertaining the amount 
 of depression or elevation of the ground, or any particular 
 alterations in the relative position of sea and land ; and 
 very little distinction was made between the raising of soil 
 by volcanic ejections, and the upheaving of it by forces 
 acting below. The same remark applies to a very large 
 proportion of modern accounts; and how much reason we 
 have to regret this deficiency of information appears from 
 this, that in every instance where a spirit of scientific in- 
 quiry has animated the eyewitnesses of these events, facts 
 calculated to throw light on former modifications of the 
 earth's structure are recorded. Upon these questions, 
 however, it is not our present intention to enter, as they will 
 be more appropriately treated of under the heads Ge- 
 ology and Volcano ; to which articles we must refer the 
 reader for an account of the various theories that have been 
 maintained in regard to the origin or cause of earthquakes, 
 as well as for a view of the grand permanent changes which 
 these convulsions have produced on the surface and in 
 the internal structure of the earth's crust. See BakeweU's 
 Introduction to Geology ; Lyell's Geology ; Traill's Physical 
 Geography ; and Phillips's Geology. 
 EA'RWIG. See Dbrmaptera Forficula. 
 EA'SEL. (Germ, esel, an ass.) In Painting, a wooden 
 frame used for supporting a picture during the progress of 
 its execution. 
 
 EA'SEL PIECES. In Painting, pictures whose size is 
 small enough to be painted on an easel. 
 
 EA'SEMENT. In Law, a convenience which one man 
 has of another, his neighbour, by grant or prescription. 
 Easements were included in the Roman law under the title 
 servitutes ; such are a way over the lands of another, or a 
 water-course. 
 
 EAST. (Germ. Ost.) The point of the horizon at which 
 the sun rises at the time of the equinoxes; or the point de- 
 termined by a perpendicular to the meridian drawn towards 
 the quarter of sunrise. The east is one of the four cardinal 
 points of the compass. 
 
 EA'STER. (Ger. Ostern.) The festival which is held 
 in commemoration of our Lord's resurrection. The term 
 seems to be derived from a Saxon word signifying rising. 
 
 The Jews celebrated their passover, in conformity with 
 the directions given them by Moses, on the 14th clay of the 
 month Nisan, being the lunar month of which the 14th day 
 either falls on, or next follows, the day of the vernal equi- 
 nox. In the year of our Lord's crucifixion this fell on a 
 Friday : the resurrection, therefore, took place on the first 
 day of the next week, which from thence is denominated 
 the Lord's day. The primitive Christians in their desire 
 to celebrate this anniversary fell into two different systems. 
 The Western churches observed the nearest Sunday to the 
 full moon of Nisan, taking no account of the day on which 
 the passover would be celebrated. The Asiatics, on the 
 other hand, following the Jewish calendar, adopted the 14th 
 of Nisan upon which to commemorate the crucifixion, and 
 observed the festival of Easter on the third day following, 
 upon whatever day of the week that might fall; hence 
 they obtained the name of Quartodecimantes : the former 
 appealed to the authority of St. Peter and St. Paul, the lat- 
 ter to that of St. John. 
 
 The dispute which took place upon this point in the 2d 
 and 3d centuries of our era is remarkable, as connected 
 with perhaps the first event which can be brought to bear 
 upon the question of the primacy of the Roman bishop ; 
 and it is the more interesting as both parties are accustomed 
 to claim it as a testimony in favour of their own views. 
 Victor, bishop of Rome, wrote an imperious letter to the 
 Asiatic bishops, requiring their conformity to the Western 
 rule ; which was answered by Polycrates, bishop of Ephe- 
 sus, in the name of the rest, expressing their resolution to 
 maintain the custom handed down to them by their ances- 
 tors. The Roman bishop thereupon broke off communion 
 with them ; but he was rebuked by Irenffius of Lyons, and 
 it was agreed by his meditation that each party should re- 
 tain its customs. Such continued to be the practice till the 
 time of Constantine, when the Council of Nice determined 
 the matter by the following canons : — 
 
 1. Easter must be celebrated on a Sunday. 
 
 2. This Sunday must follow the 14th day of the paschal 
 moon ; so that if the 14th day of the paschal moon falls on 
 a Sunday, then Easter must be celebrated on the Sunday 
 following. 
 
 3. The paschal moon is that moon of which the 14th
 
 EAST INDIA COMPANY. 
 
 day either falls an, or next follows, the day of the vernal 
 equinox. 
 
 4. The 2lst day of March is to be accounted the day of 
 the vernal equinox. 
 
 The new moons, it is necessary to observe, are those of 
 the ecclesiastical calendar, which are determined arbitra- 
 rily (by the lunar cycle in the Julian calendar, and by 
 means of the table of epacts in the Gregorian) ; so that the 
 above rules define Easter without ambiguity. The new 
 moons of the calendar are in general one or two days, 
 sometimes even three days, later that the astronomical or 
 true new moons ; and the 14th day of the moon is accounted 
 the full moon, although the opposition takes place more fre- 
 quently on the 16th day. See Calendar, Epact. 
 
 EAST INDIA COMPANY. A famous joint stock asso- 
 ciation originally established to carry on the trade between 
 this country and the East Indies, or rather with the coun- 
 tries to the eastward of the Cape of Good Hope. It was 
 constituted by royal charter in 1600, and continued, not- 
 withstanding repeated efforts to open the trade, to enjoy the 
 exclusive privileges originally conceded till 1638. At that 
 period the power of the crown to restrain the freedom of 
 trade without the sanction of parliament having been de- 
 nied, a rival association obtained an act of parliament in 
 its favour ; but after a variety of negotiations, which it is 
 unnecessary to specify, the two corporations were joined 
 hi 1702 under the name of ,; The United Company of Mer- 
 chants trading to the East Indies;" an appellation which 
 has been continued to the present day. In 1708 the United 
 Company was secured by parliament in the exclusive pri- 
 vilege of trading to all places eastward of the Cape of 
 Good Hope to the Straits of Magellan ; and this privilege, 
 with some modifications, was confirmed and prolonged by 
 successive acts of parliament down to 1814. By the act 53 
 Geo. 3. c. 133., passed in 1313, the East India Company's 
 charter was renewed for twenty years ; but it then received 
 some important modifications, by which a restricted inter- 
 course was permitted to all British merchants with the whole 
 of the Company's Indian possessions; the monopoly of the 
 trade between England and China being, however, retained 
 in the hands of the East India Company. These concessions 
 paved the way for the act of 1833, by which, though the 
 Company's charter was prolonged till 1854, not only was 
 the monopoly of the China trade abolished, but an end 
 wholly put to the Company's original character of a com- 
 mercial association. 
 
 But it is not as a commercial association so much as a 
 great territorial power, that the East India Company has 
 become so distinguished. The first establishments of the 
 English in India, as of other European nations, arose out 
 of the alleged necessity of providing armed factories or 
 strongholds, where the adventurers might warehouse their 
 goods, and reside in safety for the purpose of carrying on 
 their intercourse with the natives ; but the factories speedily 
 degenerated into fortifications, and the garrisons into 
 armies. For a while the power of the English and French 
 was pretty nearly balanced in India; but the talents and 
 victories of the famous Lord Clive gave us a decided supe- 
 riority over every competitor, foreign or native, and ex- 
 tended our sway over some of the largest and finest por- 
 tions of the Mogul empire. The policy of Clive, whether 
 it were really approved by the succeeding governors-gene- 
 ral of our Indian dominions, or were forced upon them by 
 necessity, has, some few short intervals excepted, been 
 steadily followed up ; and with such signal success, that 
 our Indian empire comprises at present the whole of 
 Hindostan from the Himalaya Mountains to Cape Comorin, 
 with a population of above 120 millions ! 
 
 The most exaggerated accounts have been at all times 
 current in Europe of the extraordinary wealth of India, and 
 of the importance of the commerce with that part of the 
 world. After the victories of Lord Clive, the most sanguine 
 •expectations began to be entertained, not only of a vast in- 
 crease of trade with India, but that we should draw from 
 her an immense amount of surplus revenue, or tribute. 
 Perhaps it is not going too far to say that these expectations 
 have been entirely disappointed. Great abuses existed in 
 die government of the Bengal provinces when conquered 
 by Clive ; the servants of the East India Company making 
 large fortunes by the oppression of the natives and the ruin 
 of the country. But, notwithstanding the eradication of 
 the abuses in question, the immense additions that have 
 since been made to our empire, and the oppressive taxes 
 laid on the natives, it is not very clear that England has 
 hitherto derived any direct revenue from India. The dis- 
 tance of the country, and the totally dissimilar language 
 and customs of the people, are very great obstacles to our 
 governing it with the economy necessary to make it yield 
 any considerable amount of surplus revenue. The East 
 India Company always contended that the profits made by 
 their monopoly of the China trade were necessary to enable 
 them to conduct the government of India. But, though there 
 are strong grounds on which to impeach the accuracy of 
 this statement, still it is abundantly clear that the surplus re- 
 379 
 
 venue we have derived from India, supposing there has been 
 any such, has been comparatively inconsiderable ; and quite 
 trifling, indeed, compared with our own anticipations, and 
 with the notions entertained by others of its magnitude. 
 
 Until 1815 and 1816, when the continued fall in the price 
 of cotton goods, caused by the astonishing discoveries and 
 inventions of Arkwright. and the other founders and im- 
 provers of the cotton manufacture, enabled us to export 
 cottons to India and to undersell the natives, the trade be- 
 tween this country and India was of the most limited de- 
 scription. Previously to the opening of the trade in 1813-14 
 the total amount of the exports of all sorts, including the 
 important item of military stores, by the East India Com- 
 pany and by private traders in the Company's ships, did 
 not amount to 1,400,000/. a year; and even on this a con- 
 siderable loss is believed to" have been incurred ! But such 
 has been the increased demand for British cottons, that the 
 value of those exported to India amounts, at present, to 
 above 2,500,000/. a year, and the whole of our exports to her 
 to near 4,000,000/. Even this, considering the vast extent 
 of India, is but a trifling export ; it is, in fact, less than half 
 the amount of our exports to the United States. 
 
 The restricted amountof our commerce with India may, 
 perhaps, be in some degree ascribed to its having been so 
 long monopolized by the East India Company. But this 
 will not explain the small surplus of Indian revenue ; for, 
 however ill fitted to serve as a commercial engine, the 
 East India Company has governed India with singular dis- 
 cretion ; and has made the most praiseworthy efforts to en- 
 force economy in all departments of the administration, 
 and to appoint the best men to all situations of power and 
 emolument in that country. The patronage of India has 
 always been less jobbed and abused than that of England ; 
 and there are few governments that have made more vigo- 
 rous exertions to repress abuse, and to protect the rights 
 of their subjects. 
 
 Under the act 3 & 4 W. 4. c. 85., to which we have al- 
 luded above, for continuing the charter till 1854, the func- 
 tions of the East India Company have been rendered wholly 
 political. She is to continue to govern India, with the con- 
 currence and under the supervision of the Board of Con- 
 trol (see Control, Board op) nearly on the plan laid down 
 in Mr. Pitt's act, in 1784, by which the Board of Control 
 was constituted. All the real and personal property belong- 
 ing to the company on the 22d of April, 1834, is vested in 
 the crown, and is to be held or managed by the company 
 in trust for the same ; subject, of course, to all claims, debts, 
 contracts, &c. already in existence, or that may hereafter 
 be brought into existence by competent authority. The 
 company's debts and liabilities are all charged on India. The 
 dividend, which is to continue at 10A per cent., is to be paid 
 in England out of the revenues of India; and provision is 
 made for the establishment of a security fund for its dis- 
 charge. The dividend may be redeemed by parliament, 
 on payment of 200/. for 100/. stock, any time after April, 
 1874 ; but it is provided, in the event of the company being 
 deprived of the government of India in 1854, that they may 
 claim redemption of the dividend any time thereafter upon 
 3 years' notice. (3 &4 Will. 4. c. 85.) 
 
 Company's Slock— forms a capital of 6,000,0007., into 
 which all persons, natives or foreigners, males or females, 
 bodies politic or corporate (the Governor and Company of 
 the Bank of England only excepted), are at liberty to pur- 
 chase, without limitation of amount. Since 1793, the divi- 
 dends have been 10£ per cent., to which they are limned 
 by the late act. 
 
 General Courts. — The proprietors in general court as- 
 sembled are empowered to enact by-laws, and in other re- 
 spects are competent to the complete investigation, regula- 
 tion, and control of every branch of the company's con- 
 cerns ; but, for the more prompt despatch of business, the 
 executive detail is vested in a court of directors. A gene- 
 ral court is required to be held once in the months of 
 March, June, September, and December, in each year. 
 No one can be present at a general court unless possessed 
 of 500/. stock; nor can any person vote upon the determi- 
 nation of any question who has not been in possession of 
 1000/. stock for the preceding 12 months, unless such 
 stock have been obtained by bequest or marriage. Per- 
 sons possessed of 1000/. stock are empowered to give a 
 single vote ; 3000/. are a qualification for two votes ; 
 6000/. for three votes ; and 10,000/. and upwards for four 
 votes. There were 2003 proprietors on the company's 
 books in 1825 ; of these, 1494 were qualified to give single 
 votes ; 392, two votes ; 69, three votes ; and 43, four votes. 
 Upon any special occasion, 9 proprietors, duly qualified by 
 the possession of 1000/. stock, may, by a requisition in 
 writing to the court of directors, call a general court ; 
 which the directors are required to summon within 10 days, 
 or, in -default, the proprietors may call such court by notice 
 affixed upon the Royal Exchange. In all such courts the 
 questions are decided by a majority of voices ; in case of 
 an equality, the determination must be by the treasurer 
 drawing a lot. Nine proprietors may, by a requisition in
 
 EAST INDIA COMPANY. 
 
 Wiling, demand a ballot upon any question, which shall not 
 be taken within 24 hours after the breaking up of the gene- 
 ral court. 
 
 Court of Directors.— The court of directors is composed 
 of 24 members, chosen from among the proprietors, each 
 of whom must be possessed of 2000/. stock; nor can any 
 director, after being chosen, act longer than while he con- 
 tinues to hold stock. Of these, 6 are chosen on the second 
 Wednesday in April in each year, to serve for 4 years, in the 
 room of 6 who have completed such service. After an in- 
 terval of 12 months, those who had gone out by rotation are 
 eligible to be re-elected for the ensuing 4 years. Formerly, 
 no person who had been in the company's civil or military 
 service in India was eligible to be elected a director until 
 he had been a resident in England two years after quitting 
 the service; but this condition no longer exists; and all 
 civil or military servants of the company in India, suppos- 
 ing they are otherwise eligible, may be chosen directors 
 immediately on their return to England, provided they have 
 no unsettled accounts with the company ; if so, they are 
 ineligible for 2 years after their return, unless their accounts 
 be sooner settled. (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 85. § 28.) The di- 
 rectors choose annually, from amongst themselves, a 
 chairman and a deputy-chairman. They are required by 
 bylaws to meet once in every week at least ; but they fre- 
 quently meet oftener, as occasion requires. Not less than 
 13 can form a court. Their determinations are guided by 
 a majority. In case of an equality, the question must be 
 decided by the drawing of a lot by the treasurer: upon all 
 questions of importance, the sense of the court is taken by 
 
 ballot. The company's officers, both at home and abroad, 
 receive their appointments immediately from the court, to 
 whom they are responsible for the due and faithful dis- 
 charge of the trust reposed in them. The patronage is, 
 nevertheless, so arranged, as that each member of the 
 court separately participates therein. 
 
 Secret Committee. — The principal powers of the court of 
 directors are vested in a secret committee, forming a sort 
 of cabinet or privy council. All communications of a con- 
 fidential or delicate nature between the Board of Control 
 and the company are submitted, in the first instance at 
 least, to the consideration of this committee ; and the direc- 
 tions of the board, as to political affairs, may be transmitted 
 direct to India, through the committee, without being seen 
 by the other directors. The secret committee is appointed 
 by the court of directors, and its members are sworn to se- 
 crecy. 
 
 The territorial possessions of the East India Company 
 are divided into the three presidencies of Bengal, Madras, 
 and Bombay, at each of which the executive government is 
 administered by a governor and three councillors, the go- 
 vernor of the Bengal presidency being at the same time 
 governor-general of India. In their several presidencies, 
 the governors and their councillors possess the privilege of 
 enacting and enforcing laws ; subject, however, in some 
 cases, to the concurrence of the supreme court of judica- 
 ture, and, in all cases, to the approval of the court of di- 
 rectors and the board of control. 
 
 We copy the following tables of Revenue, &c. from Mr. 
 M'Culloch's Statistics, vol. ii. p. 519. 
 
 An Account of the Total Annual Revenues and Charges of the British Possessions in India under the East India Com- 
 pany, from 1809-10 to 1829-30 ; showing also the Nett Charge of Bencoolen, Prince of Wales Island, and St. Helena, the 
 Interest paid on account of Debts in India, and the Amount of Territorial Charges paid in England. —(Pari. Papers, No. 
 22. Sess. 1830, and No. 306. Sess. 1833.) 
 
 
 
 
 Nett ! 
 
 Territorial charges paid in England- 
 
 General Result. 
 
 
 Total Cross 
 
 Total 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Years, 
 
 Revenues of 
 India. 
 
 Charges in 
 India. 
 
 Bencoolen,' Bebts. 
 
 Cost of 
 Political 
 Slorcs. 
 
 Payments, 
 
 Pensions, 
 
 &c. 
 
 Total. 
 
 Surplus 
 Revenue. 
 
 Surplus 
 Charge. 
 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 L. 
 
 1809—10 . 
 
 16,464,391 
 
 13,775,577 
 
 203,361 
 
 2,159,019 
 
 190,128 
 
 867,097 I 1,057,225 
 
 . 
 
 730,791 
 
 1810—11 . 
 
 16,679,198 
 
 13,909,983 
 
 199,663 
 
 2,196,691 
 
 217,703 
 
 901,688 
 
 1,119,391 
 
 
 736,530 
 
 1811—12. 
 
 16,605,616 
 
 13,220,967 
 
 168.288 
 
 1,457,077 
 
 154,998 
 
 922,770 
 
 1,077,768 
 
 681,516 
 
 
 1812—13 . 
 
 16,459,774 
 
 13,659.429 
 
 201,349 
 
 1,491,870 
 
 193,784 
 
 1.184,976 
 
 1,378,768 
 
 . 
 
 271,634 
 
 1813—14 . 
 
 17,228.711 
 
 13,617,725 
 
 209,957 
 
 1,537,434 
 
 64,257 
 
 1,148,156 
 
 1,212,413 
 
 651,182 
 
 
 1814—15 . 
 
 17,231,191 
 
 14,182,454 
 
 204,250 
 
 1,502.217 
 
 129,873 
 
 1,064,223 
 
 1,194,596 
 
 147,677 
 
 
 1815—16 . 
 
 17,168,195 
 
 15,081,587 
 
 225,558 
 
 1,584,157 
 
 81,903 
 
 1,199,952 
 
 1,281,885 
 
 
 1,004,992 
 
 1816—17 . 
 
 18,010,135 
 
 15,129,839 
 
 205,372 ! 1,719,470 
 
 194,374 
 
 1,071,176 
 
 1,265,550 
 
 
 310,096 
 
 1817—18 . 
 
 18.305,265 
 
 15.844,964 
 
 219,793 
 
 1,753,018 
 
 81,941 
 
 1,094,701 
 
 1.176,642 
 
 
 689,152 
 
 1818—19 . 
 
 19,392,002 
 
 17,558,615 
 
 210,224 
 
 1,665,921 
 
 133,162 
 
 1,150,378 
 
 1,280,540 
 
 
 1,323,305 
 
 1819—20 . 
 
 19,172,506 
 
 17,040,848 
 
 142,049 
 
 1,940,327 
 
 265,055 
 
 1,150,391 
 
 1,415,446 
 
 
 1,466,164 
 
 1820—21 . 
 
 21,292,036 
 
 17,520,612 
 
 220,043 
 
 1,902,585 
 
 228,058 
 
 1,072,106 
 
 1,300,164 
 
 348.632 
 
 
 1821—22 . 
 
 21,753,271 
 
 17,555,668 
 
 207,816 1,932,835 
 
 202,735 
 
 1,175,149 
 
 1,377,884 
 
 979,068 
 
 
 1822—23 . 
 
 23,120,934 
 
 18,083,482 
 
 154,761 1,694,731 
 
 204,147 
 
 1,354,960 
 
 1,559,107 
 
 1,528.853 
 
 
 1823—24 . 
 
 21,238,623 
 
 18,902,511 
 
 257,276 1,652,449 
 
 395,276 
 
 758,590 
 
 1,153,866 
 
 
 727,479 
 
 1824—25 . 
 
 20,705,152 
 
 20,410,929 
 
 279,277 1,460,433 
 
 414,181 
 
 1,166,078 
 
 1,580,259 
 
 
 3,025,746 
 
 1825—26 . 
 
 21,096,960 
 
 22,346,365 
 
 214,285 1,575,941 
 
 740,728 
 
 1,076,504 
 
 1,817,232 
 
 
 4,856,857 
 
 1826—27 . 
 
 23,327,753 
 
 21.424,894 
 
 207,973 1,749.068 
 
 1.111,792 
 
 1,318,102 
 
 2,429,894 
 
 
 2,484,076 
 
 1827—28 . 
 
 22,818,184 
 
 41,778,431 
 
 272,014 1,958,313 
 
 805,016 
 
 1,255,125 
 
 2,060,141 
 
 
 3,250,715 
 
 1828—29 . 
 
 22,692,711 
 
 19,298,622 
 
 250,794 2,121,165 
 
 449,603 
 
 1,517,802 
 
 1,967,405 
 
 
 945,275 
 
 1829—30 . 
 
 21,662,310 
 
 18,300,715 
 
 213,304 3,007.693 
 
 293,873 
 
 1,454,867 
 
 1,748.740 
 
 
 608.142 
 
 Abstract View of the Revenues and Charges of India for the Years 1831-32, 1832-33, 1833-34, and (by estimate,) 1834-35. 
 
 Bengal - 
 Agra 
 
 Madras - 
 Bombay - 
 
 Total revenues 
 of India- 
 Deficiency of or- 
 dinary reve- 
 nue. 
 
 Revenue. 
 
 Bengal 
 
 Madras 
 Bombay 
 
 Total Charges in 
 India 
 
 Charge on account 
 of St. Helena - 
 
 Charge on account 
 of India in Eng- 
 land - 
 
 Total charges of 
 
 India 
 Surplus of ordinary 
 
 Charge. 
 
 1831-32 
 
 L. 
 
 9,474,084 
 
 3,222,155 
 1,401,916 
 
 1832-33. 
 
 L. 
 
 9,487,778 
 
 2,969,956 
 1,497,308 
 
 1833-34. 
 
 L. 
 
 8,844,241 
 
 3,235,233 
 1,600,691 
 
 1834-35. 
 
 L. 
 
 5.445,100 
 3,657.900 
 3,301,982 
 1,503,782 
 
 1831-32. 
 
 1832-33. 
 
 1833-34. 
 
 1834-35. 
 
 L. 
 
 7,535,170 
 
 3,239,261 
 
 2,060,498 
 
 L. 
 
 7,687,228 
 
 3,174.347 
 2,034,710 
 
 L. 
 
 7,018,449 
 
 3,258,995 
 1,968,045 
 
 L. 
 
 6,749,295 
 
 581,800 
 
 3,076,404 
 
 1,905,748 
 
 12,313,246 
 10,986 
 
 2,162,868 
 
 14,198,155 
 207,581 
 
 13,955,642 
 264,332 
 
 13,680,165 
 
 13,908,764 
 578,336 
 
 12,834,929 
 94,152 
 
 1,476,655 
 
 12,896,285 
 95,553 
 
 1,227,536 
 
 12,245,489 
 91,641 
 
 1,293,637 
 
 14,405,736 
 
 14,219,374 
 
 13,680,767 
 49,398 
 
 11,487,100 
 
 14,405,736 14,219,374 
 
 13,680.165 
 
 14,487,100 
 
 14,405,736 
 
 14,219,374 
 
 13,680,165 
 
 14,487,100 
 
 N.B. The Company realized in 1834-35 the Bum of 10,679,223/. by the sale of commercial assets. The debts of the Company in India on the 3Uth of 
 April, 1834, amounted to 34,463,483i., bearing an interest of 1,754,545;. a year.— < Pari. Paper, No. 3S0. Sess. 1830. ) 
 
 380
 
 EAST INDIA COMPANY. 
 
 We subjoin the following table, exhibiting the extent and population of India, which we copy from the second edition of 
 Mr. Hamilton's Indian Gazetteer. Some later accounts have been published as to the population of particular provinces; 
 but we believe that this is the most accurate statement that has hitherto been framed, embracing the whole country. 
 
 Bengal, Bahar, and Benares ........ 
 
 Additions in Hindostan since A. D. 1765 ...... 
 
 Gurwal, Kumoon, and the tract between the Sutuleje and Jumna 
 
 Total under the Bengal presidency . . . . - 
 
 Under the Madras presidency ...----- 
 
 Under the Bombay presidency ....... 
 
 Territories in the Deccan, <fec, acquired since 1815, consisting of the Peishwa's do- 
 minions, &c., and since mostly attached to the Bombay presidency 
 
 Total under the British government ..... 
 
 British Allies and Tributaries. 
 
 The Nizam ..--------- 
 
 The Nagpoor Raja ......... 
 
 TheKingofOude - 
 
 The Guicnwar ---------- 
 
 Kolah, 6,500; Boondee, 2,500; Bopaul, 5,000 
 
 The Mysore Raja ......... 
 
 The Satara Raja ......... 
 
 Travancore, 6,000; Cochin, 2,000 ....... 
 
 Under the Rajas of Jondpour, Jeypoor, Odeypoor, Bicancere, Jesselmere, and other 
 rajpoot chiefs, Holcar, Ameer Khan, the Row of Kutch, Bhurtpoor, Macherry, 
 and numerous other petty chiefs, Seikes, Gonds, Bheels, Coolies, and Catties, all 
 comprehended within the line of British protection • 
 
 Total under the British government and its allies 
 
 Independent States. 
 The Nepaul Raja .......... 
 
 The Lahore Raja (Runjeet Singh) ....... 
 
 The Ameers of Sinde ......... 
 
 The dominions of Sindia ........ 
 
 The Cabul sovereign, east of the Indus ....... 
 
 Grand total of Hindostan ....... 
 
 India beyond the Ganges. — British Acquisitions in 1824 and 1825. 
 Countries south of Rangoon, consisting of half the province of Martaban, and the 
 
 provinces of Tavoy, Ye, Tenasserin, and the Mergui isles 
 The province of Arracan .-.--.... 
 Countries from which the Burmese have been expelled, consisting of Assam and 
 
 the adjacent petty states, occupying a space of about .... 
 
 Total 
 
 Population. 
 
 162,000 
 
 143,000 
 
 18,000 
 
 328,000 
 
 154.000 
 
 11,000 
 
 600,000 
 
 553,000 
 
 39,000,000 
 
 18,000,000 
 
 500,000 
 
 96.000 
 75,000 
 20,000 
 18,000 
 14,000 
 27,000 
 14,000 
 8,000 
 
 283,000 
 
 1,103,000 
 
 53.000 
 50,000 
 24,000 
 40,000 
 10,000 
 
 1,2^1,(1110 
 
 57,500,000 
 15,000,000 
 2,500,000 
 
 8,000,000 
 
 83,000,000 
 
 10,000.000 
 3.000,000 
 3,000,000 
 2.000,000 
 1,500,000 
 3,000,000 
 1,500,000 
 1,000,000 
 
 15,000,000 
 
 123,000,000 
 
 2.000,000 
 3,000,000 
 1,000,000 
 4,000,000 
 1,000,000 
 
 i:!1.0U),nuo 
 
 12,000 
 11,000 
 
 54,000 
 
 77,000 
 
 51,000 
 100,000 
 
 150,000 
 
 301,000 
 
 EASY. The sea phrase for a ship that moves over the i 
 sea without jerking or straining. 
 
 EAU DE COLOGNE. A perfumed spirit originally pre- | 
 pared at Cologne, and principally used as a perfume ; 
 though many imaginary medical virtues have also been 
 ascribed to it. Various recipes have been published for 
 the preparation of eau de Cologne, some of them extremely 
 complicated. (See lire's Dictionary of Arts and Manu- 
 factures, art. " Eau de Cologne.") The following affords | 
 a good imitation of the original article : — Take of alcohol 
 one pint; of the oils of bergamot, orange-peel, and rose- i 
 mary, each one drachm ; of bruised cardamom seeds one 
 drachm; orange flower water one pint : distil one pint from 
 a water-bath. 
 
 EAU DE LUCE. A strong solution of ammonia, scent- , 
 ed and rendered milky by the addition of a little mastic and 
 oil of amber. It is considered an effective remedy in India 
 against the bites of poisonous snakes. 
 
 EAVES. (Fr. eaux.) In Architecture, the lowest edges 
 of the inclined sides of a roof which project beyond the face 
 of the wall so as to throw the water off therefrom, that be- I 
 ing their office. 
 
 EBBING OF THE TIDE. The reflux of the tide. See 
 Tide. 
 
 EBENA'CE.5:. (Ebenus, one of the genera.) A natu- 
 ral order of shrubby or arborescent Exogens chiefly in- 
 habiting the tropics. They are allied to Oleacea, with 
 which they agree in the placentation of their seeds ; but 
 are distinguished by their alternate leaves, and axillary 
 usually unisexual flowers. They are more closely related 
 to Aquifuliacetz ; but differ in the number of their stamens 
 and in their divided sexes. Some species are remarkable 
 for the hardness and blackness of their wood, known un- 
 der the name of ebony and iron wood ; others, as the Kaki 
 of China, yield an eatable fruit; all are beautiful objects 
 when growins. 
 
 E'BIONITES. An ancient sect (referred by Mosheim to 
 the second century), who believed in Christ as an inspired 
 messenger of God, but considered him to be at the same 
 time a mere man, born of Joseph and Mary. They main- 
 tained also the universal obligation of the Mosaic law, and 
 381 
 
 rejected the authority of St. Paul. The origin of their 
 name is uncertain, some deriving it from that of their sup- 
 posed founder ; others deduce it from a Hebrew word sig- 
 nifying poor, and suppose the tide to be given to them in 
 reference either to the poverty of the class to which they 
 mostly belonged, or the meanness of their doctrine. (See 
 Gieseler's Eccl. Hist. b. i. c. 3.) 
 
 E'BONY. See Ebenaceje. 
 
 EBULLI'TION. (Lat. ebullitio, bubbling up.) The mo- 
 tion produced in a liquid by its rapid conversion into 
 vapour. 
 
 ECCHYMO'SIS. (Gt. eicxeoi, 1 pour out.) The extrava- 
 sation of blood into the cellular membrane which results 
 from blows and bruises. 
 
 ECCLE'SIA. (Gr. cxKXriata.) In Ancient History, the 
 great assembly of the Athenian people, at which every free 
 citizen might attend and vote. This assembly, though nomi- 
 nally possessed of the supreme authority of the state from 
 the earliest times, yet having no fixed times of meeting, 
 was but seldom convened at all ; so that the archons, who 
 who were elected from the body of nobles or eupatrida?, 
 had virtually the whole management of the state. But the 
 regulations of Solon, which appointed it to meet regularly 
 four times in every period of thirty -five days, besides ex- 
 traordinary occasions on which it might be convened, call- 
 ed it into active energy. Solon, however, restricted the 
 subjects discussed in the Ecclesia to such as had before 
 passed through the senate of five hundred ; but when the 
 democratic spirit of after-times prevailed, this rule was not 
 at all strictly observed. The magistrates who had the man- 
 agement of these assemblies were the Prytanes (see Pry- 
 tanes), the Prohedri (see Prohedri), and Epislates (see 
 Epistates). The first of these sometimes convened the 
 people, and hung up in a conspicuous place a programme 
 giving an account of the matters to be discussed. The 
 Prohedri proposed to the people the subjects on which they 
 were to decide, and counted the votes. The Epistate, who 
 presided over the whole, gave the liberty of voting, which 
 might not be done before his signal was given. 
 
 The forms of their proceedings were as follow : — First, 
 an expiatory victim was sacrificed, and his blood carried
 
 ECCLESIASTES. 
 
 and sprinkled round the bounds of the assembly. Then 
 the public crier demanded silence, and invited all persons 
 above fifty years of age to speak ; after that, any one who 
 pleased. After the subject was discussed, they proceeded 
 to vote on the crier's demanding of them, u whether they 
 would consent to the decree proposed to them 1" The 
 votes were commonly given by show of hands, but on some 
 occasions by ballot. When the suffrages had been ex- 
 amined and their numbers declared, the Prytanes dis- 
 solved the assembly. In order to incite the people to at- 
 tend the Ecclesia, a small pay of one or three oboli was 
 given for early appearance ; and a rope, rubbed with ver- 
 milion, was carried through the Agora, to mark such as 
 lagged behind, who were accordingly fined. 
 
 ECCLE'SIA'STES. One of the canonical books of the 
 Old Testament, so called from the Greek word signifying 
 a preacher. Solomon is generally supposed to be the au- 
 thor of this book, though various opinions have been enter- 
 tained on the subject ; and indeed the whole question of its 
 author, date, and design is involved in such difficulty, 
 " that the labours of critics and commentators serve rather 
 to perplex than to assist the inquirer." (Holdeu onJDccles.) 
 
 ECCLE'SIA'STIC. Something pertaining to or set apart 
 for the church : in contradistinction to civil or secular, 
 which regards the world. Ecclesiastics are persons whose 
 functions consist in performing the service or in maintaining 
 the discipline of the church. See Clergy. 
 
 ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS. The ordinary Ecclesi- 
 astical Courts in England and Wales are, beginning with 
 the lowest, — 
 
 1. The Peculiar Courts, which are very numerous ; Royal, 
 Archiepiscopal, Episcopal, Decanal, Sub-decanal, Preben- 
 dal, Rectorial, and Vicarial ; with jurisdiction frequently 
 extending only to a single parish, and sometimes limited 
 only to a part of the matters usually subject to ecclesias- 
 tical cognizance. 
 
 2. The Archdeacon's Court, generally subordinate, with 
 an appeal to that of the bishop. 
 
 3. The Courts of Commissaries, especially appointed by 
 the bishop. 
 
 4. The Diocesan Court of every bishop within his re- 
 spective diocese. 
 
 5. The Provincial or Archiepiscopal Courts. 
 
 These, in the province of Canterbury, which contains 
 twenty-two dioceses, are — 
 
 (1.) The Court of Peculiars, which takes cognizance of 
 matters arising in some particular deaneries. 
 
 (2.) The Prerogative Court. This court has authority in 
 the matter of all wills or administrations of property left 
 by persons having bona nolabilia, that is, personal estate to 
 a certain amount, within several dioceses of the province. 
 It grants administration to the effects of all such persons 
 dying intestate, and probate of wills. 
 
 (3.) The Court of Arches, or Supreme Provincial Court 
 of Appeal. It also may take original cognizance of causes, 
 by letters of request from the inferior courts; and it has a 
 separate jurisdiction of its own in suits for legacies. 
 
 The province of York, including four dioceses besides 
 that of Sodor and Man, has two courts ; the Prerogative 
 Court, and the Chancery or Court of Appeal. 
 
 A suit is commenced in the Ecclesiastical Courts by a 
 process, sued out by the party complaining, and served on 
 the other party by an officer of the court. The party cited 
 may appear either in person or by his proctor, who dis- 
 charges duties similar to those of the attorneys in common 
 law courts. A party disobeying citation may be pronounced 
 contumacious, and imprisoned by an attachment out of the 
 lord chancellor's court. 
 
 In case the party cited appear to show cause against his 
 citation that the court has no jurisdiction, or that he is not 
 amenable to it, this preliminary objection is heard upon 
 petition and affidavits. If the judge decide against the de- 
 fendant on the question of jurisdiction, the latter may ap- 
 ply to the courts of common law for a prohibition. 
 
 If the cause proceed to trial, the plaintiff's first state- 
 ment of facts is termed, in criminal cases, articles ; in tes- 
 tamentary causes, an allegation ; in other civil proceed- 
 ings, a libel. Every subsequent plea in all cases is called 
 an allegation ; and every allegation is divided into separate 
 heads or articles ; so that witnesses are produced and ex- 
 amined, not as to the whole allegation, but as to such spe- 
 cial facts as may be within their knowledge. Where a 
 plea has been admitted, a certain time, or term probatory, 
 is allowed to the party making it to examine his witnesses. 
 
 The witnesses are either brought to London, or exa- 
 mined in the country by a commission. The depositions 
 are taken in private, and in writing, by the examiners of 
 the court; who, on view of the allegations, examine the 
 witnesses by such questions as they judge most proper to 
 elicit the truth. The cross-examination is conducted by 
 means of interrogatories, delivered by the adverse party 
 to the examiner, and by him addressed to the witness. 
 The examinations are kept secret until publication passes ; 
 after which either party is allowed to except, by a plea 
 382 
 
 ECCLESIAST ICALCOURTS. 
 
 called an exceptive allegation, to the credit of an adverse 
 witness. 
 
 When the cause is heard, the judge first peruses and 
 carefully considers all the pleas and evidence, and then 
 hears the case argued by counsel. Judgment is given in 
 open court; and execution enforced by the compulsory 
 process of contumacy, significavit, and attachment. Such 
 is a very general view of the ordinary process of these 
 courts. 
 
 If either party be condemned in costs, the other party's 
 bill is taxed by the registrar. But the costs due by a party 
 to his own proctor cannot be recovered in this court, and 
 must be sued for by an action at law. 
 
 The law of the Ecclesiastical Courts is administered by 
 men associated, as a distinct profession, for the practice of 
 the civil and canon laws. They are incorporated as " the 
 college of doctors of law." Every advocate must have 
 taken that degree in the university of Oxford or Cam- 
 bridge. From the college of advocates the archbishop 
 selects the judges of the provincial courts. 
 
 The jurisdiction of these courts may be considered as 
 threefold : — 1. In causes of a purely spiritual nature per- 
 taining to the discipline of the church ; 2. In mixed causes. 
 partaking of a spiritual and civil nature ; 3. In causes of 
 a purely civil nature. 
 
 1. The first of these branches arises out of the natural 
 power exercised by every church to correct its communi- 
 cants by censures and discipline submitted to. Under this 
 class falls the cognizance of offences committed by the 
 clergy themselves by neglect of duty, immoral or here- 
 tical delinquencies, suffering dilapidations, &c. ; also by 
 laymen, in brawling and other indecent conduct in churches 
 and churchyards, in neglecting to repair churches, in cases 
 of incest, incontinence, defamation. All these, except the 
 last, are termed "causes of correction." The punish- 
 ments inflicted are monition, penance, excommunication, 
 suspension ab ingressu ecclesia:, and (in the case of cler- 
 gymen) suspension from office and deprivation. In the 
 case of laymen a great part of this jurisdiction has fallen 
 into disuse ; and the real penalty, whenever a cause is tried, 
 consists, for the most part, in the payment of costs by the 
 guilty party. The terrors so long attached to the process 
 of excommunication (the only one by which ecclesiastical 
 courts can enforce a sentence), are now matter of history. 
 By the common law a person excommunicated was inca- 
 pacitated from any legal act, and was, moreover, on certi- 
 ficate from the bishop, liable to imprisonment until recon- 
 ciled to the church ; but now, by statute 53 George 3. chap- 
 ter 127., the writ de contumace capiendo is substituted for 
 the old writ de excommunicato capiendo in cases of con- 
 tempt ; and in the few cases in which excommunication is 
 still pronounced as a sentence, the court is empowered to 
 assign a term of imprisonment, not exceeding six months. 
 2. Causes of a mixed description are suits for tithes, 
 church rates, seats in churches, and faculties; which con- 
 cern the temporals or external possessions of the church. 
 The subtraction of tithes or other ecclesiastical dues may 
 be complained of in the Ecclesiastical Courts; but if any 
 question of law arises on the defence, as where modus or 
 prescription is relied on aeainst a claim of tithe, either 
 party may apply for a prohibition from the King's Bench, 
 as the Ecclesiastical Court has not authority to decide the 
 point of law. Suits of this description are consequently 
 of rare occurrence. The Ecclesiastical Court exercises 
 jurisdiction to enforce the payment of church rates; but 
 where the amount to be recovered does not exceed 10/., 
 and the validity of the rale is undisputed, two justices 
 may enforce payment by distress. 3. Exclusive property 
 in a seat in the body of the church can be claimed only in 
 virtue of a faculty, that is, a grant from the ordinary (or 
 immediate ecclesiastical superintendent); or of a prescrip- 
 tion, that is, immemorial usage, presumed to be founded 
 on a faculty. But the courts of common law interfere. — 
 1. Where the pew is claimed as annexed to a house ; 2. In 
 all cases of prescription, in which a prohibition will be 
 granted to remove the cause from the ecclesiastical tribunal 
 in order to have the prescription tried by a jury. Causes 
 of a purely civil nature, although in their origin supposed 
 to possess something of a spiritual character, are testa- 
 mentary and matrimonial. And these constitute the bulk 
 of the business transacted in the Ecclesiastical Courts. 
 The jurisdiction of these courts over wills is of very an- 
 cient date in England; while it either ceased at an early pe- 
 riod or was never held valid in other Christian countries. 
 The distribution of the personal effects of persons who 
 died intestate was entirely at the discretion of the ordi- 
 nary. This is one of the rights confirmed to the prelates 
 by Magna Charta. The absolute power of the ordinary 
 was first limited by Edward I., in whose reign he was com- 
 pelled to discharge the intestate's debts ; and in the reign 
 of Edward III. he was obliged to divide them, by means 
 of administrators, among the kindred of the deceased, in 
 proportions which were finally determined by the Statute 
 of Distributions. Sec Administration.
 
 ECCLESIASTICUS. 
 
 As a natural consequence of their power to distribute in- 
 testates' effects, the bishops acquired a jurisdiction over 
 wills, both to determine their validity, and to decide dis- 
 putes respecting bequests of personal property : hence 
 arose the granting probate of iciUs, and suits for legacies. 
 (See Will.) The courts of common law exercise exclu- 
 sive jurisdiction over all testamentary devises of real estate ; 
 the ecclesiastical courts possess a similar power over be- 
 quests of personal estate ; but courts of equity have no au- 
 thority to determine the validity of a will of any description 
 of property. Hence, in a devise of land, a judge and jury 
 determine on a viva voce evidence ; in a bequest of per- 
 sonalty, the judge of the ecclesiastical court on depositions 
 reduced into writing ; and when the will relates both to 
 real and personal estate, there may be a double trial and 
 conflicting determinations. 
 
 Matrimonial causes form the next and most important 
 branch of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. (See Marriage, 
 Law op.) Directly, the ecclesiastical courts have the sole 
 cognizance of the validity of a marriage ; but indirectly, 
 the common law courts assume this jurisdiction whenever 
 the question arises in a civil or criminal proceeding before 
 them. 
 
 ECCLE'SIA'STICUS. An apocryphal book, composed, 
 as is generally supposed, by Jesus the son of Sirach, and 
 admitted by the Romish church into the canon of the Old 
 Testament. This book was originally written in SyroChal- 
 daic, and consists chiefly of meditations relating to religion 
 and the general conduct of human life. It displays^but 
 little regard for methodical arrangement ; but the style is 
 so highly poetical, and the sentiments so profound, that 
 Addison (Spectator, No. 60.) has pronounced it one of the 
 most brilliant moral treatises on record. 
 
 ECCOPRO'TICS. (Gr. Ik, out, and icoirpos, excrement.) 
 The term formerly applied to mild aperient medicines. 
 
 E'CHEA. (Gr. i?x £t0 - Isound.) In Ancient Architecture, 
 sonorous vases of metal or earth in the form of a bell, used 
 in the construction of theatres for the purpose of reverbe- 
 rating the sound of the performer's voice. They were dis- 
 tributed between the seats; and are described in the fifth 
 book of Vitruvius, who states that Mummius introduced 
 them in Rome, after the taking of Corinth, where he found 
 this expedient used in the theatre. 
 
 E'CIIELON (Fr.), in the art Military, signifies the posi- 
 tion of an army, when its divisions are so formed as to 
 be behind one another in the form of steps. 
 
 ECHI'DNA. In Grecian Mythology, the daughter of 
 Geryon and the sea-nymph Callirhoe, or of Tartarus and 
 Gaia ; a monster that devoured travellers : parent, accord- 
 ing to Hesiod, of those well-known terrors of ancient 
 Greece, — Cerberus, the Hydra, the Sphinx, and the Ne- 
 mean lion. Hence some suppose the name to represent a 
 sort of general type of monsters and terrific phenomena. 
 
 Echi'dna. In Zoology, a name proposed by Cuvier for 
 a genus of Australian quadrupeds, having the general form 
 of an ant-eater, but covered with spines. The Echidna, 
 like the Ornithorhynchus, deviates in a remarkable manner 
 from the typical structure of the mammalia in general in 
 the organization of the generative and osseous systems, and 
 forms with it a family or order called Monolrema. (See 
 that word.) In the male of the Echidna, as in the Orni- 
 thorhynchus, the hind foot is armed with a curved spur, 
 perforated like the fang of a viper by the duct of a poison 
 gland, whence probably the reason for the name. Among 
 the colonists of Australia, the Echidna is generally known 
 by the name of the porcupine. It frequents sandy locali- 
 ties, lives in burrows, and feeds on ants and other insects, 
 which it entraps by means of a long and adhesive tongue. 
 
 ECHINA'TUS. in Botany, signifies bristly. 
 
 ECHI'NOCO'CCUS. (Gr. tx lv °s, a spine, and kokkos, 
 a cyst.) A genus of Hydatids or Cystic Entozoons, of which 
 one species (Echin. hommt's) is recorded by Rudolphi as 
 infesting occasionally the human subject. 
 
 ECHI'NODERMS, Echinoderma. (Gr. ex 1 "";, a hedgehog, 
 and Scpfia, skin.) A name applied to a class of inverte- 
 brate animals, which have a crustaceous or coriaceous inte- 
 gument, most commonly armed with tubercles or spines. 
 
 ECHINO'PORA. (Gr. ex lv °s, a spine, and nopos, a 
 pore.) A subgenus of Madrepores. See that word. 
 
 ECHI'NUS. (Gr. exwo$). The generic name of the 
 sea-urchins, which constitute the type of the class Echino- 
 derma. The Linnsan genus is now subdivided into many 
 subgenera ; some of which have their names compounded 
 of Echinus and some other word, as Echinobrissus, Echi- 
 nocidaris, Echinoclypeus, Echinoconus, Echinocorys, EcM- 
 nncyamus, Echinodiscus, Echinoampas, Echinometra, 
 Echinoneus, Echinorodon, &c. 
 
 Echinus. In Architecture, the same as the ovolo or 
 iniarter round, though the moulding is only properly so 
 called when carved with eggs and anchors. (See Anchors.) 
 It is the shell or husk of the chesnut, though the ornament 
 does not seem to bear much resemblance to it. 
 
 E'CHO. (Gr. tjxo}, sound.) A sound reflected from a 
 distant surface, and repeated to the ear. When sound in 
 383 
 
 ECLECTICS. 
 
 its passage through the atmosphere meets an obstacle, the 
 molecules of air in vibration are reflected in the same 
 manner as elastic bodies, and communicate to the contigu- 
 ous molecules a vibratory motion, which is propagated in 
 the direction determined by the inclination of the opposing 
 surface to the original direction in which the sound reaches 
 it, the angle of incidence being equal to the angle of reflec- 
 tion. Though echo is a simple consequence of the reflec- 
 tion of sound, several conditions must be fulfilled before it 
 can be produced. In the first place, it is necessary that the 
 ear be situated in the line of the reflection ; and in order 
 that the person who emits the sound may himself hear the 
 echo, this line must be perpendicular to the reflecting sur- 
 face, at least if there is only one reflecting surface ; but if 
 there are several such surfaces properly disposed, the 
 sound may be brought back by a series of successive re- 
 flections to the point from which it emanated. In the se- 
 cond place, it is necessary that the opposing surface be at a 
 certain distance from the ear ; for if the direct and reflect- 
 ed sound succeed each other with great rapidity, they are 
 in some measure confounded, and the echo cannot be dis- 
 tinguished. Hence large rooms and vaulted caves have a 
 strong resonance, but no echo is produced by them ; the 
 proximity of the walls rendering it impossible to distin- 
 guish the reflected sounds. 
 
 Observation proves that sound passe s through the atmo- 
 sphere at the rate of about 1125 feet in a second ; hence a 
 person placed at half that distance, or 512 feet from the re- 
 flecting surface, would hear the echo exactly one second 
 after the sound was emitted by him, and the echo would 
 repeat as many distinct sounds as the ear can distinguish 
 in a second. The utmost number of sounds which any 
 ear can distinguish in a second perhaps does not exceed 
 ten ; hence the least distance of the reflecting surface from 
 the point whence the sound is emitted must be about 50 
 feet, in order that an echo may be produced. 
 
 Every thing which is capable of reflecting sonorous 
 pulses may cause an echo ; whence the wall of a house, or 
 the rampart of a city, a wood, rocks, or mountains, produce 
 echoes. Unless, however, the surface which reflects the 
 sound is of considerable extent, the echo will be too feeble 
 to be heard. A certain degree of concavity in the surface, 
 by which several diverging rays of sound are collected and 
 concentrated at the point where the echo is audible, if not 
 absolutely essential, is at least highly favourable to the pro- 
 duction of echoes. It is a property of the ellipse that every 
 sound proceeding from one of its foci, and impinging 
 against the curve, is reflected into the other focus ; whence 
 two persons placed in the two foci of an elliptic chamber 
 may converse with each other in a whisper, and their 
 voices not be heard by those who are in the other parts of 
 the room. Hence also walls or buildings approaching to 
 the elliptic form return sounds with great distinctness and 
 force. In the whispering gallery of St, Paul's, the faintest 
 sound is conveyed from one sound of the dome to the 
 other, but is not heard at any intermediate point. In Glou- 
 cester cathedral a gallery of an octagonal form conveys a 
 whisper 75 feet across the nave. Some echoes are remark- 
 able for their frequency of repetition. An echo in Wood- 
 stock Park repeats 17 syllables by day and 20 by night. 
 Southwell (Phil. Trans. 1766) describes an echo in the 
 Simonetta palace, near Milan, which repeated the report of 
 a pistol 60 times. In Birch's History of the Royal Society, 
 an account is given of an echo at Rosneath, near Glasgow, 
 that repeats a tune played with a trumpet three times, com- 
 pletely and distinctly. 
 
 Echo, in Architecture, is a term often applied, though 
 improperly, to certain vaults and arches, usually of an eclip- 
 tic or parabolic form, made for the purpose of producing 
 artificial echoes. 
 
 ECHO'METER. In Music, a sort of scale or rule, mark- 
 ed with lines, which serve to measure the duration of 
 sounds, and to ascertain their intervals and ratios. 
 
 ECLE'CTICS. (Gr. ixXiyoj, I pick out.) Those philo- 
 sophers who endeavour to select from the systems of va- 
 rious schools those doctrines alone which are true, and to 
 present these in the form of an entire whole. An eclectic 
 spirit, it is evident, can only arise at a period of some ma- 
 turity in philosophical speculation. Whether or not it is to 
 be regarded as an evidence of the decay of original power 
 in the age in which it appears, must depend on the less or 
 greater coherence in the system when completed. In one 
 sense of the word, Plato and Aristotle may be regarded as 
 eclectics. They both availed themselves largely of the la- 
 bours of their predecessors. Plato, in particular, compre- 
 hended in his scheme of philosophy the whole of more 
 than one foregoing system ; as the doctrine of Heraclitus 
 of the perpetual flux of sensible objects, and the conse- 
 quent uncertainty of sensible impressions. But in the 
 hands of these great thinkers the discerpta membra are re- 
 united, and endued with a principle of vitality as constituent 
 parts of a harmonious whole. The same cannot be said 
 of others who have adopted a similar method ; especially 
 of most of those to whom the term eclectic has been more
 
 ECLIPSES. 
 
 peculiarly applied. These philosophers lived chiefly un- 
 der the Roman empire. The most celebrated among them 
 maybe said to have been Epictetus(A. d. 90) and Plutarch. 
 The latter, in particular, a man of great and various endow- 
 ments, may yet be taken as a striking instance of a false 
 eclecticism. His great object, in his philosophical writings, 
 seems to have been to reconcile the profound speculations 
 and pure morality of the philosophers with the fanciful in- 
 ventions and the gross theology of the poets and priests of 
 Greece, Italy, or Egypt. 
 
 A far more favourable specimen of the eclectic spirit has 
 been afforded us in modern times in the person of M. Vic- 
 tor Cousin, without doubt the most able and ingenious 
 thinker of modern France. See his Lectures on the Hist, 
 of Philosophy, in which eclecticism is presented under its 
 fairest guise, and vindicated with the utmost vigour of style 
 and acuteness of thought. 
 
 ECLI'PSES (Gr. exXctxpts, from tKXenro), I faint 
 away or disappear), taken in a general sense, are those phe- 
 nomena which exhibit the obscuration of astronomical lumi- 
 naries, and may be divided into two kinds, in reference to 
 the circumstances under which they are presented ; viz. 
 1. When the obscuration is caused by an interception of 
 the light received by the luminary from the sun ; as in the 
 cases of eclipses of the moon, eclipses of Jupiter's satel- 
 lites, &c. 2. When the obscuration is caused by an inter- 
 ception, either totally or partially, of the light transmitted 
 from the luminary to the spectator ; and this kind consists 
 of eclipses of the sun, occultations of stars and planets by 
 the moon, and the transits of Mercury and Venus over the 
 disc of the sun. 
 
 The most popular and generally interesting objects are 
 the eclipses of the sun and moon ; and their causes and 
 aspects will here deserve some explanation. The earth 
 and moon, being opaque bodies, are illuminated by the sun ; 
 and, just as we observe with small opaque bodies on the 
 surface of the earth which are within the range of ocular 
 examination, they cast their shadows in directions which 
 are opposite to the sun. As the figures of the bodies are 
 nearly spherical, and as the sun is the largest, it is plain that 
 these shadows must be very nearly of a conical form. The 
 moon is eclipsed when it becomes involved in the shadow 
 of the earth, and so deprived of the light it is accustomed 
 to receive from the sun; and this can take place only at 
 the time of full moon, or when the moon- is in opposition 
 to the sun. Let S represent the sun, E the earth, and n' t n 
 
 its conical shadow, into which the rays of the sun do not 
 enter. This shadow must evidently be a portion of the 
 larger cone T t T' which envelops both bodies. Suppose 
 the plane of the paper to be the plane of the ecliptic, or the 
 plane in which the earth moves round the sun, and let 
 ([ ([' represent a portion of the path of the moon round the 
 earth, the arrows indicating the direction of her motion. 
 Conceive also by means of cross tangents T P Q , T' P (J ' 
 the two opposite and circumscribing cones TP T', ([' P ([ 
 to be drawn. The latter of these cones, ([ ' P ([ , is called 
 the penumbral cone ; and the space Nnn' N', projected 
 beyond the earth, is called the earth's penumbra. It is evi- 
 dent that any position within this penumbra is at least par- 
 tially deprived of the light of the sun ; for if we imagine a 
 spectator to be in that position, it is obvious that the inter- 
 position of the earth would act as a partial screen and ob- 
 scure a portion of the sun's disc from his view. It is also 
 evident that a greater portion of the disc of the sun would 
 be hidden from this supposed spectator as his position ap- 
 proaches nearer to the earth's shadow ; and that if we sup- 
 pose him to enter the shadow, he will become totally de- 
 prived of the light of the sun, the disc of the sun in this case 
 being entirely hidden by the intervention of the earth. 
 From this observation it follows that as the moon advances 
 in the penumbra from {torn her disc will receive less 
 and less light from the sun, and its brightness will gradually 
 diminish ; also, as soon as a portion of the moon's disc en- 
 ters the shadow, that portion becomes totally deprived of 
 the light of the sun, and is, in other terms, darkened or 
 eclipsed. If in the course of the eclipse only a part of the 
 moon's disc enters the earth's shadow, it is called a. partial 
 eclipse ; but if the moon is totally darkened by the whole 
 disc entering the shadow, it is called a total eclipse. It is to 
 be understood in the diagram that the orbit of the moon, or 
 the path she describes round the earth, is not in the plane 
 of the ecliptic or the plane of the paper, but inclined to it 
 at an angle always greater than 4° 57' and less than 5° 21'. 
 This is the reason why eclipses of the moon do not happen 
 384 
 
 at every full moon, for they can only take place when the 
 moon's elevation above the ecliptic at full moon happens 
 to be less than the semidiameter of the section of the earth's 
 shadow through which she passes. In the course of a year 
 there may be three eclipses of the moon, which is the 
 greatest number that can happen ; but there must always 
 necessarily be two. 
 
 At the time of new moon, or when the moon is between 
 the sun and the earth, her shadow or penumbra may fall 
 on the disc of the earth at certain places, and prevent either 
 all or part of the light of the sun from reaching those 
 places on the earth's surface. This circumstance pro- 
 duces the phenomenon of a total or partial eclipse of the 
 aun, which is limited to the portion of the earth on which 
 the moon's shadow or penumbra happens to fall. The 
 shadow of the moon does not always reach so far as the 
 earth. In the two following diagrams, annexed by way 
 of illustration, the former represents the case in which it 
 does reach, and the latter represents tho case in which it 
 
 does not reach, the surface of the earth. The shadow of 
 the moon in the first diagram falls upon a portion of the 
 earth's surface between m and m' ; and the inhabitants, if 
 any, of that portion, will evidently, from what has been 
 said before, have the sun's disc wholly covered by the in- 
 tervention of the dark body of the moon, and therefore 
 Jig. 3. 
 
 T 
 
 have presented to them a total eclipse of the sun. But in the 
 second diagram, where the shadow of the moon does not 
 reach the earth, if we suppose the dark conical shadow 
 win' to be produced into the small opposite cone mtm' 
 meeting the surface of the earth, it will be obvious, after a 
 slight consideration, that any supposed spectator within 
 this latter cone, or any inhabitant of the portion mm' of 
 the earth, will perceive the dark body of the moon wholly 
 within the disc of the sun, and intercepting only an interior 
 part of his light; the unobscured part of the sun which cir- 
 cumscribes the disc of the moon will consequently present 
 the appearance of a beautiful luminous ring or annulus, 
 and the eclipse exhibiting this aspect is commonly called 
 an annular eclipse of the sun ; the cone mtm' may be simi- 
 larly called the annular cone. It does not always occur, 
 during the progress of an eclipse of the sun, that either the 
 dark shadow of the moon or the annular cone will fall on 
 the earth's surface, and it very rarely happens that either 
 of them fall on any defined spot, such as London or Edin- 
 burgh. For the occurrence of an eclipse on the earth, it is 
 only necessary that the moon's penumbra Nnn'N' shall 
 be projected against a portion of the terrestrial surface, as 
 an inhabitant of that portion will at least have a part of the 
 disc of the sun intercepted by the moon. When neither 
 the moon's shadow nor the annular cone meets the earth 
 in the course of an eclipse, and consequently only a part of 
 the sun's disc is obscured to terrestrial vision, it is called a 
 partial eclipse of the sun, and in that respect it is similar to 
 a partial eclipse of the moon. If in the two diagrams we 
 suppose, as before, the plane of trie paper to be the plane 
 of the ecliptic, the position of the moon must not neces- 
 sarily be considered to be in that plane. The north pole of 
 the earth will be directed upwards at an angle of about 23° 
 28', and the arrows will represent the direction in which 
 the earth revolves about its axis; the moon proceeds round 
 the earth in the same direction, and carries her penumbra 
 across the earth's surface with a much greater velocity than 
 the earth's rotation. It follows, therefore, that the arrows 
 indicate also the direction in which the phenomena of the 
 eclipse pass geographically over the earth, viz. from west 
 to east ; and that different places will have the eclipse at a 
 later or earlier time, according as they are more to the east 
 or west. Eclipses of the sun occur more frequently than 
 eclipses of the moon. In the course of each year there 
 must be two at least in some parts of the earth ; but there 
 cannot possibly be more than four, — a number that some- 
 times, though very seldom, happens. 
 
 Calculation of Eclipses of the Sun and Moon. — It is here 
 chiefly intended to explain methods by which the times of
 
 ECLIPSES. 
 
 beginning and ending of any phase or appearance may be 
 predicted for a particular place on the earth. For these 
 calculations it is necessary, first, to ascertain the longi- 
 tudes and latitudes of the sun and moon by means of the 
 solar and lunar tables. Those of the sun may be deter- 
 mined from the revised tables of Carlini, which form the 
 supplement to the Milan Ephemeris for the year 1S33 ; and 
 those of the moon may be calculated from the tables of 
 Burckhardt orDamoiseau. With the help of the tables, 
 the hourly variations of the same quantities, as well as the 
 horizontal parallaxes and semidiameters of both bodies, 
 are to be calculated. The results so found will be ele- 
 ments from which the phenomena of the eclipse maybe 
 determined for any stated place on the earth ; but their 
 computation is necessary only for eclipses that occur at 
 remote periods, since all these calculations are accurately 
 executed and registered in the Nautical Almanac, a work 
 regularly published three or four years in advance. The 
 positions are there likewise reduced to the plane of the 
 equator, so as to determine the places of the bodies by 
 their right ascensions and declinations, which are more 
 readily applicable to the calculation of all the circum- 
 stances of an eclipse ; besides, the right ascensions and 
 declinations of the moon are given with the utmost pre- 
 cision for every hour, which adds considerably to the 
 facility of these calculations. It will here be the more ge- 
 nerally useful and interesting, therefore, to describe me- 
 thods by which, with the use of the Nautical Almanac, the 
 circumstances of an eclipse may be predicted, as it will 
 appear from any given spot on the earth's surface. 
 In the diagram (Jig. 1.) join Em, E ([, s n, and denote 
 E ron=the moon's horizontal parallax, by P, 
 
 E S n = sun's ' by tt, 
 
 T«S= sun's semidiameter, by a ; 
 
 then the angle MEm is the semidiameter of the section 
 of the earth's shadow traversed by the moon, as it would 
 be seen from the centre E ; and the angle M E fl is the 
 similar semidiameter of the penumbra To determine 
 the semidiameter of the section of the shadow, we have 
 mEt = Emn — Etm = E to»— (S*»T — nS t) = Emn 
 + nSt — SnT: that is, the semidiameter of the shadow 
 = p + f _ ff . This value, however, is affected by the at- 
 mosphere of the earth, which absorbs those rays of the 
 sun that would pass near to the surface, and thus makes 
 the shadow of the earth to appear sensibly larger. To 
 take this effect into account, it is the usual practice of 
 astronomers to increase the value given by the preceding 
 expression by one sixtieth, or to add as many seconds as 
 there are minutes in the radius of the section. The actual 
 formula employed in this calculation is therefore 
 
 Semid. of shadow = .-j; (P + ir — a). 
 
 By adding to this the angle mE <[ = mn <J = TnT' = 2<r, 
 we have also, 
 
 Bemid. of penumbra = ^ P + t— a) +2 a. 
 
 Let the circle H H' K represent the section of the earth's 
 shadow through which the moon passes during the eclipse ; 
 P Q. a portion of the circle 
 of declination which passes 
 through the centre S and 
 the north and south poles, 
 P being towards the north, 
 and S towards the south ; 
 A B a portion of the parallel q 
 of declination, which also 
 passes through S; OR, in- 
 tersecting P Q in c, the line 
 or orbit described by the 
 centre of the moon in passing through the shadow; M her 
 position when she first comes into contact with the shadow, 
 and begins to be eclipsed at H ; m her position at the mid- 
 dle of the eclipse, or time of greatest obscuration ; and M' 
 her position at leaving the shadow when the eclipse ceases. 
 In the figure, for the sake of convenience, the shadow is 
 supposed to be fixed; and hence the motion of M is not 
 considered to be the entire motion of the moon, but the 
 motion with which she passes through the shadow, or, as 
 it is called, the relative motion of the moon. This relative 
 motion is equal to the difference between the motion of 
 the moon and that of the shadow. But as the centres of 
 the sun and shadow must always be in opposite points 
 of the sphere, as seen from the centre of the earth, the 
 motion of the shadow will be just the same as that of the 
 sun. 
 
 At any assumed time T, near to the time of opposition, 
 let a be the position of M, and draw a b parallel to A B ; at 
 this instant let a denote the difference between the right 
 ascensions of the moon and shadow ; also let x = S b, and 
 y=ab. Then, from what has preceded, 
 
 Right ascension shadow — right ascension © -(- 12h. 
 
 Declination shadows declination © with a contrary 
 name. 
 
 385 
 
 
 p 
 
 
 /jw^» 
 
 ■ ^M 
 
 rfmfi 
 
 \ 
 
 %- > 
 
 -\J4 
 
 Q 
 
 s 
 
 ^K 
 
 ECLIPTIC. 
 
 a = right ascension shadow — right ascension (J 
 
 x= declination ([ — declination shadow 
 
 = declination ([ -f- declination W, 
 
 But as a b = y may be considered to be part of a parallel 
 of declination, and as a is the spherical angle it subtends 
 from the pole, it is evident that y= a X c °s- fl's declina- 
 tion. We must therefore first calculate the following quan- 
 tities :— 
 
 Right ascen. shadow = right ascen. -J- I2h. 
 
 y = (right ascen. shad. — that of (J ) X cos. (J 's dec. 
 
 hourly mo. y = (nor. mo. fl 's right ascen. — that of 0) 
 X cos. fl 's dec. 
 
 x = fl's dec. + ©*s dec. 
 
 hourly mo. x = hor. mo. fl 's dec. -f hor. mo. © 's dec. 
 
 It will be here observed that hourly mo. y denotes the 
 decrease of y, while hourly mo. x denotes the increase 
 of x. in one hour. 
 
 If i denote the angle cISorwSc, which is the inclina- 
 tion of the relative orbit O R with the parallel A B, we find 
 also, 
 
 hourly mo. x 
 
 tan.i = - r 
 
 hourly mo. y 
 
 ■ ^ ■_ ■ ^ ~ hourly mo. y 
 hourly motion in the orbit O R = — — - — : — — 
 
 ' COS. I 
 
 Again, in the right-angled triangle a b S, knowing the sides 
 S b =.r, and abz=.y, we calculate the angle aS b and the 
 distance Sa. The difference of the angles Sa S b, m S c, 
 gives the angle a 8 m ; and in the right-angled triangle aSm, 
 knowing also the side a S, we find the other two sides a m, 
 S m, the latter of which is the nearest distance of the cen- 
 tres of the moon and shadow. The distance S M, at the 
 beginning or ending of the eclipse, is found by adding 
 the semidiameter of the moon to that of the shadow; 
 hence, in the triangle MS m, knowing also the side S m, 
 we find the side M m = m M' ; and by subtracting and add- 
 ing the value of a nx, before found, we get the distances 
 Ma, oM'. Knowing therefore these distances, and the 
 hourly motion in the orbit O R, we find the times employed 
 by the moon in traversing them : the former of these times, 
 subtracted from the time originally assumed at which the 
 elements were taken, will therefore give the time of the 
 beginning of the eclipse; and, similarly, by adding the lat- 
 ter, we get the time at which the eclipse will terminate. 
 The times thus found will be for the meridian of Green- 
 wich, and will require reducing for the longitude of the 
 place. 
 
 To those who are not familiar with algebraical opera- 
 tions, a rough sketch of the figure, drawn by the hand, 
 will indicate most distinctly the way in which the several 
 angles and lines ought to be combined in the process of the 
 calculation. 
 
 For an eclipse of the sun the relative positions of the 
 sun and moon are not independent of the observer's posi- 
 tion, like those of the moon and the earth's shadow. In 
 the calculation of an eclipse of the sun, we must first ap- 
 ply the effects of the relative parallax to the right ascen- 
 sion and declination of the moon to get her exact position 
 with respect to the sun, as she will appear to a spectator at 
 the place for which the calculation is proposed to be made. 
 (See the article Parallax.) By subtracting and add- 
 ing the hourly motions, given in the Nautical Almanac, 
 we obtain the values of the quantities for an hour before 
 and after the time of conjunction in right ascension. Then, 
 after calculating and applying the effects of parallax to the 
 moon, we find the quantities x, y, in the same manner as 
 for an eclipse of the moon, only substituting the sun in 
 place of the sections of the earth's shadow. The half dif- 
 ferences of the quantities so computed for an interval of 
 two hours will show their apparent hourly motions; and 
 with these the remaining calculation, for either time, is pre- 
 cisely the same as has already been described for an 
 eclipse of the moon. It is only further to be observed, 
 that as the apparent relative motion of the moon is not 
 very uniform, the results will be most accurate when they 
 are close to the times assumed. If a very accurate calcu- 
 lation of the beginning or ending be required, it will, for 
 this reason, be necessary to repeat the calculation for a 
 single assumed time close to the occurrence of the phase; 
 and for this purpose we may adopt the hourly motions in 
 the first calculation. In these cases, greater accuracy is 
 to be obtained by interpolating the right ascensions and de- 
 clinations from the running ephemeris than by inferring 
 them from the list of elements. 
 
 ECLI'PTIC. In Astronomy, the great circle of the 
 heavens which the sun appears to describe in his annual 
 revolution. It has been called the ecliptic, because eclipses 
 only happen when the moon is in the same plaae, or very 
 near it. The ecliptic, from time immemorial, has been con- 
 ceived to be divided into twelve equal parts, called signs,— 
 Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo. Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, 
 Sagittarius, Caprieornus, Aquarius, Pisces. But the signs 
 of the ecliptic are not to be confounded with the signs of 
 the zodiac, which denote the places occupied by certain 
 A*. 34
 
 ECLIPTIC DIGITS. 
 
 constellations, and consequently never alter their position 
 in the heavens. The signs of the ecliptic, denote merely 
 arcs of 30° ; and as they are reckoned from the intersec- 
 tion of the equator and ecliptic, which is rot a fixed point, 
 their limits are not, in all ages, determined by the same 
 etars. 
 
 The ecliptic is the circle to which longitudes and latitudes 
 in the heavens are referred, as right ascensions and decli- 
 nations are referred to the earth's equator. 
 
 The angle which the plane of the ecliptic makes with the 
 plane of the equator is called the obliquity of the ecliptic. 
 It is to the oblique position of these two planes that we owe 
 the vicissitudes of the seasons. If the equator coincided 
 with the ecliptic, the days and nights would always be equal 
 at all parts of the earth, and there would be no summer or 
 winter. 
 
 The obliquity of the ecliptic at the present time (Jan. I, 
 1840) is 23° 27' 36-52". (Nautical Almanac ) This quasi; 
 tity, besides being subject to a periodic variation of about 
 18", arising from the nutation of the earth's axis, is affected 
 by a secular inequality, of which the period is not ascer- 
 tained. By comparing the observations of the present 
 times with those made in former ages, it is found that the 
 obliquity has continued to undergo a slow progressive di- 
 minution, the rate of which appears to be about 45" in a 
 century, amounting to a fourth of a degree since the time 
 of Hipparchus. The planes of the ecliptic and equator 
 have consequently been approaching each other during the 
 last 2000 years; but though mathematicians have not yet 
 ventured to assign the limit of this approach, it cannot ex- 
 ceed a certain small quantity; and, after a few thousand 
 years more, the two planes will begin again to recede. The 
 diminution of the obliquity is caused by the action of the 
 other planets, particularly Venus and Jupiter, on the earth ; 
 in virtue of which action the plane of the earth's orbit is 
 drawn, as it were, near to the planes of these two planets. 
 See Nutation, and Precession of the Equinoxes. 
 ECLIPTIC DIGITS. See Digits. 
 ECLIPTIC LIMITS, are the greatest distances at which 
 the moon can be from her nodes, in order that an eclipse 
 of the sun or moon may happen. When the moon is 
 within those limits at the time of the new or full moon, an 
 eclipse certainly happens ; but when the moon is beyond 
 those limits, an eclipse cannot happen. The limits for an 
 eclipse of the sun are about 17°, and for an eclipse of the 
 moon about 12°. 
 
 E'CLOGUE. (Gr. tK\6yri, a selection.) In the original 
 meaning of the word, the select or choice pieces of an au- 
 thor; or extracts collected out of former works, such as 
 were termed in Latin excerpta. It is not known how this 
 title was originally given to the pastoral poems of Virgil ; 
 but from the circumstance of their being so named, the 
 word eclosrue in modern usage is applied to that species of 
 poetry. The persons who are introduced conversing in 
 eclogues, or whose adventures are recounted in them, are 
 shepherds ; that is, for the most part, imaginary person- 
 ages, whose sentiments, and the external circumstances 
 anions which they live, belong rather to an ideal age of 
 gold than to the realities of modern life ; and their loves 
 constitute the main and proper subjects of the eclogue. 
 Nevertheless various writers (Gay, <fcc. among ourselves) 
 have endeavoured, but with little success, to give an air of 
 greater reality to pastoral poetry, and give their rustics more 
 of the costume and diction of actual clowns ; but the re- 
 sult has been a species of burlesque, not at all answering 
 to our conceptions of pastoral poetry ; nor can we easily 
 imagine that the personages of Theocritus, although the 
 earliest and therefore the simplest of pastoral poets, are 
 correct resemblances of the Sicilian rustics among whom 
 the writer lived. The eclogues of Virgil are of various 
 descriptions: some of them only have the true character 
 of pastorals ; others contain occasional poems on public 
 and private events of the day, very slightly enveloped in 
 the pastoral costume. The characteristics of this species 
 of poetry, as assumed by the moderns, are, first, the re- 
 presentation of nature in soft and quiet scenes of cultiva- 
 tion ; secondly, a slightly dramatic turn either of action or 
 narration; thirdly, characters whose sentiments and lan- 
 guage are confined within certain peculiar limits: thus, any 
 strong emotion, virtue, or vice, would be an unfit topic for 
 a pastoral poet to dwell upon. Among ourselves, Spenser, 
 Philips, and a few others, may be named as pastoral poets 
 in the strict sense of the word ; others, as Milton in his 
 Eycidas, have assumed the pastoral costume in order to 
 convey a very different class of ideas. It is worthy of re- 
 mark, that this species of composition is amons those 
 which have wholly disappeared in the present day: we 
 have had no pastoral poet since Gay and Collins ; and Ges- 
 ner, in Germany, is the latest author who has acquired any 
 degree of celebrity in this line. See Idyll, Bucolic. 
 ECO'NOMY, POLI'TICAL. See Political Economy. 
 ECTHY'MA. (Gr. tkOvw, I break out.) An eruption 
 of pimples or small pustules common in young persons 
 after having overheated themselves, or eaten indigestible 
 386 
 
 EDICT. 
 
 and greasy things. Analogous eruptions are seen upott 
 infants, especially those who are ill-nursed. Proper diet, 
 mild aperients, especially small doses of rhubarb and mag 
 nesia, generally carry them off. 
 
 ECTRO'PIUM. (Gr. cktos-itcj, I evert.) An unnatural 
 eversion of the eyelids, arising from tumefaction of the 
 inner membrane, or from a contraction of the skin cover- 
 ing the eyelid. 
 
 ECZE'MA. (Gr. ck^so}. I boil out.) An eruption of the' 
 skin frequently observed in irritable habits, and sometimes 
 mistaken for the itch: it is not pustular, but consists of 
 small vesicles, often forming patches or blotches, and 
 producing, as they die off, a desquamation of the cuticle. 
 Alteratives and cooling local applications are the remedies 
 usually resorted to for the relief of this complaint. 
 
 E'DDA. The ancient collection of Scandinavian poetry 
 in which the national mythology is contained. There are 
 two Eddas : the older is believed to have been reduced to 
 writing, from oral tradition, in Iceland, between a. d. 105C 
 and 1133. It was recovered and published in Denmark in 
 1643. The new Edda, supposed to have been composed 
 200 years after the former, is an abridgment of it, with a 
 new arrangement of its parts. It was translated by Re 
 senius in 1640, and is thence called the Resenian Edda. 
 The authenticity of these monuments of an early age has- 
 been doubted in recent times, but the latest researches of 
 critics (the brothers Grimm and others) seem to go far 
 towards establishing it. (See the Penny Cyclopaedia.) 
 
 E'DDY (Sax. ed, water, and ea, backicards), is the water 
 of a stream or tide which, in consequence of striking 
 against some obstacle, is thrown backwards, and runs in a 
 direction opposite to that of the general current. More 
 frequently, however, the term is used to denote (he whirl- 
 ing or circular motion caused by the meeting of two oppo- 
 site currents : and, in this sense, it is also applied to a 
 similar motion of the atmosphere. See Whirlpool, 
 Whirlwinl 
 
 EDE'NTALS Edentata. The name of an order of 
 Mammals, including those genera in which the dental ap- 
 paratus is more or less incomplete : the incisive teeth are 
 almost always deficient. 
 
 E'DICT. (Lat. edico, / speak out.) An instrument 
 signed and sealed by a despotic prince to serve as a law to 
 his subjects. In ancient Rome, the ordinances of the 
 magistrates, hut especially of the two iirators, prcbtor ur- 
 banus and pra tor peregrinus, wert so called. Previously 
 to the time of Augustus, the grand principles of Roman 
 law were exceedingly ambiguous and undefined ; and to 
 remedy this defect in some measure, the prstors used to 
 publish, on their accession to office, edicts or rules for 
 regulating the practice of their courts, as well as for their 
 own guidance in the decision of doubtful cases. A juris- 
 diction, however, thus vague and arbitrary in its nature, 
 being constantly abused, it was enacted by the Cornelian 
 Law (b. c. 56), that the praetor of the year should be com- 
 pelled to adhere to the spirit and letter of his first procla- 
 mation. The edicts of the preceding piaator were not 
 binding on his successor. If the latter confirmed them, 
 they were styled edicla Vetera, or tralatilia; in contradis- 
 tinction to edicta nova, those framed by himself. (See 
 Praetor.) Under the emperor Hadrian, a digest of the 
 best decisions of the praetors from the earliest times was 
 made by Sylvius Jnlianus, collected into a volume called 
 Edictum Perpetuum, or Perpetual Edict, ratified by the 
 emperor and senate, and fixed as the invariable standard of 
 civil jurisprudence. 
 
 The Edict of Milan was a proclamation issued by Con- 
 stantine after the conquest of Italy (a. d. 313), to secure to 
 the Christians the restitution of their civil and religious 
 rites, of which they had long been deprived, and to estab- 
 lish throughout his extended dominions the principles of z 
 wise and enlightened toleration. 
 
 The most famous edict of modern history is the Edict 
 of Nantes, issued by Henry IV. in 1593, to secure to the 
 Protestants the free exercise of their religion. This act, 
 after continuing in force nearly a century, was repealed by 
 Louts XIV. ; and, as is well known, its revocation led to a 
 renewal of the persecutions anrl bloody scenes which pre- 
 viously to the issuing of this edict had been enacted against 
 the Protestants. The depopulation caused by the sword 
 was also increased by emigration. Above half a million 
 of her most useful and industrious subjects deserted 
 France, and exported, together with immense sums of 
 money, those arts and manufactures which had chiefly 
 tended to enrich the kingdom. About 50,000 refugees 
 passed over into England; and there can be little doubt 
 that their representations of the cruelties perpetrated by 
 the King of France tended to excite the suspicions of the 
 English against their own Roman Catholic sovereign, and 
 in some decree accelerated the advent of the Revolution 
 of 1688. See Huguenots. 
 
 In the French law, the term edict has a wide significa- 
 tion, beins applied equally to the most momentous and the 
 most trifling proclamations of the government.
 
 EDINGTONITE. 
 
 K'DINGTONITE. A mineral found near Dumbarton 
 in small greyish-white translucent prisms, composed of 
 eilica, alumina, lime, water, and probably some alkali. 
 
 EDl'TION (from Ihe Latin verb edere, to give out or 
 publish), means simply the (indefinite) number of copies 
 of a work printed at one time, before the types are dis- 
 tributed by the compositor. Any one who prepares for 
 publication the writings of another is said to edit them, and 
 is called the editor. In literary language, since the inven- 
 tion of printing, the editor of a work revises, adds notes, 
 prepares for the press, <fec. &c. : the publisher is the book- 
 seller who negotiates the sale of the impression. Some- 
 times (but especially in classical works) the edition goes 
 generally by the name of the printer or publisher, some- 
 times by that of the editor. Thus, we have the Aldine and 
 Elzevir Classics, &c, the houses of Aldus and Elzevir 
 having been concerned both in printing and publishing; 
 while Bentley's Horace, Heyne's Homer, &c, are so de- 
 nominated from the name of the editor. In bibliographical 
 works, editio princeps signifies the earliest printed edition 
 of an author ; editio optima, that which is generally re- 
 garded as the best, <fcc. 
 
 E'DITORS, are of different species:— 1. Those who 
 merely republish a text, or content themselves with adding 
 notes and commentaries to it. 2. Thuse who superintend 
 the publication of a work, receiving the manuscripts from 
 one or more contributors; seeing that the object of the 
 work is attained, that the language is correct, the illustra- 
 tions appropriate, and the facts accurately stated, and that 
 all the parts of the work are properly adjusted and made 
 subordinate to each other. 
 
 E'DRIOPHTHA'LMA. (Gr. eSpaios, fixed, and o<pda\- 
 jios, an eye.) The name under which the Malacostracous 
 Crustaceans with sessile eyes are grouped together. 
 
 EDUCA'TION (Lat. educare), in its most extended sig- 
 nification, may be defined, in reference to man, to be the 
 art of developing and cultivating the various physical, in- 
 tellectual, and moral faculties; and may thence be divided 
 into three branches — physical, intellectual, and moral edu- 
 cation. This definition is by no means complete; but it 
 is used merely as indicative of the manner in which this 
 subject has generally been discussed. Under physical 
 education is included all that relates to the organs of sen- 
 sation, and the muscular and nervous system. Intellec- 
 tual education comprehends the means by which the 
 powers of the understanding are to be developed and im- 
 proved, and a view of the various branches of knotrledge 
 wbich form the objects of instruction of the three depart- 
 ments into which we have divided education. Moral edu- 
 cation embraces the various methods of cultivating and 
 regulating the affections of the heart. 
 
 The wide extent of this subject, and the infinity of col- 
 lateral questions with which it is mixed up, would prevent 
 us from entering into any details respecting it, even if the 
 difficulty of communicating any satisfactory information 
 upon so boundless a theme within our limits did not pre- 
 clude us from the attempt. The influence which educa- 
 tion has exercised in humanizing the world is universally 
 acknowledged. Its importance has been recognized by 
 philosophers and legislators in every age ; and by all the 
 nations, both of antiquity and modern times, which have 
 become distinguished in history, it has been regarded as 
 the chief element in the attainment and promotion of 
 civilization. The reader will find, in the writings of Plato, 
 Plutarch, and Quintilian, among the ancients, and in mo- 
 dern times of Locke, Rousseau, Basedow, Niemeyer, Reh- 
 borg, Cousin, &c, a view of the chief systems that have 
 been proposed or adopted in reference to this subject ; and 
 for an account of the comparative merit of the different 
 systems, and the innumerable controversies that have been 
 maintained in regard to them, he may consult the Edin. 
 and Quar. Reviews, passim, and the other periodical pub- 
 lications of England. 
 
 EDU'LCORA'TION. (Lat. edulcoro, I purify or sweeten.) 
 A chemical term applied to the cleansing of substances, 
 especially pulverulent precipitates, by the repeated affu- 
 sion of water, so as to remove all soluble matters, and ren- 
 der them free from taste and smell. 
 
 EFFE'CT. (Lat. eflicio.) In the Fine Arts, that quality 
 in works of art whose nature is to give particular efficacy 
 to other qualities, so as to bring them out and to attract the 
 eye of the spectator. 
 
 Effect. See Keeping. 
 
 EFFE'NDl. A Turkish word signifying lord or supe- 
 rior; applied to legal, ecclesiastical^ or other civil func- 
 tionaries, in contradistinction to aga, the name by which 
 high military personages are designated. See Reis Ef- 
 fendi. 
 
 EFFERVE'SCENCE. (Lat. effervesco.) The escape 
 of gaseous matter from liquids, as in the act of fermenta- 
 tion. All liquids from which bubbles of gas rapidly escape, 
 so as to rpsemble boiling, are said to effervesce. 
 
 E'FFIGY. (Lat. effigies.) In Painting and Sculpture, 
 the representation of an individual. 
 387 
 
 EISTEDDFOD. 
 
 EFFLORES'CENCE. (Lat. effloresco, I flower.) The 
 spontaneous crumbling down of transparent crystals, in 
 consequence of the loss of water. 
 
 EFFLU'VIUM. (Lat. eflluo, / spread abroad.) The va- 
 pours arising from putrefying matters. 
 
 EFFU'SION. (Lat. eft'undo, I pour out.) In Surgery, 
 the escape of a fluid from the vessel naturally containing 
 it; thus when the chest is wounded blood may be effused 
 into the cavity of the pleura, and in injuries of the head 
 blood may be effused upon the brain. 
 
 EGEON. See Pontoptulus. 
 
 E'GERAN. A variety of garnet found near Eger in Bo- 
 hemia. 
 
 EGG. (Germ, ei.) The ovum of birds and oviparous 
 animals. The changes which the hen's egg undergoes 
 during incubation have been described by Sir E. Home in 
 the Plalosuphical Transactions for the year 1822 (page 339), 
 and illustrated by a beautiful series of plates after Bauer's 
 drawings : the same volume also contains a valuable paper 
 by Dr. Prout on the same subject, but chiefly in reference 
 to the chemical changes of the egg during that process. 
 The specific gravity of new-laid eggs at first rather exceeds 
 that of water, varying from 1US0 to 1090 ; but they soon be- 
 come lighter, and swim on water, in consequence of eva- 
 poration through the pores of the shell. When an egg is 
 boiled in water, and suffered to cool in the air, it loses about 
 32 hundredths of a grain of saline matter, together with a 
 trace of animal matter and free alkali. The mean weight 
 of a hen's egg is about 875 grains, of which the shell and 
 its inner membrane weigh t37 grains, the albumen or 
 white 529-8 grs., and the yolk 2518 grs. The shell con- 
 tains about 2 per cent, of animal matter and I per cent, of 
 the phosphates of lime and magnesia, the remainder be- 
 ing carbonate of lime, with a trace of carbonate of magne- 
 sia. When the yolk of a hard-boiled egg is digested in 
 repeated portions of strong alcohol, there remains a white 
 residue having the leading characters of albumen, but con- 
 taining phosphorus in some peculiar state of combination; 
 the alcoholic solution is yellow, and deposits a crystalline 
 fatty matter, and when distilled leaves a yellow oil. The 
 albumen of the egg contains sulphur. The use of the 
 phosphorus is to yield phosphoric acid to form the bones 
 of the chick ; but the source of the lime with which it is 
 combined is not apparent, for it has not been detected in 
 the soft parts of the egg, and hitherto no vascular com- 
 munication has been discovered between the chick and 
 the shell. 
 
 The trade in eggs is of great value and importance ; 
 the number of eggs imported into England from various 
 parts of the Continent, for the year ending Jan. 5, 1839, 
 was 83,745,723; and the gross amount of duty received for 
 the same was 29,1 Hi 
 
 E'GLANTINE. (Fr. eglantier.) The old English name 
 of the sweet-briar rose. The term is improperly applied 
 by Milton to the honeysuckle. 
 
 EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. See Architecture. 
 
 EGYPTIAN BEAN. The fruit of the Nelumbium spe- 
 ciosum has been so called : it has been regarded as the for- 
 bidden bean of the disciples of Pythagoras. 
 
 EGYPTIAN PEBBLE. A species of agate or jasper. 
 
 E'IDER-DUCK. The species of duck tribe so called is 
 one of the largest and most valuable of the Anatida, and, 
 from certain modifications of the beak and sternum, con- 
 stitutes the type of a subgenus, called Somateria. The 
 common eider (Somateria mollissiina) frequents in great 
 numbers the Orkneys, Hebrides, and Shetland isles. It is 
 defended from the cold of the dreary northern coasts by 
 the development of an unusual quantity of the finest down 
 beneath its dense exterior plumage, which is equally well 
 adapted to form an impenetrable barrier to the wet. The 
 down of the eider constitutes its chief value, as it com- 
 bines with its peculiar softness, fineness, and lightness so 
 great a degree of elasticity that the quantity of this mate- 
 rial which might be compressed and concealed between 
 two hands will serve to stuff a coverlet. 
 
 As the female plucks from her own body a quantity of 
 her finest down to line her nest, the Orcadians avail them- 
 selves of this instinct, and take an early opportunity to rob 
 the nest of both eggs and down. She then begins to lay 
 afresh, and envelops her eggs with another layer of down; 
 and if this be removed, the male is said to contribute his 
 own down when the female can afford no more. Lastly, 
 when the brood of ducklings is hatched, the nest is again 
 visited and the down removed. Thus a considerable quan- 
 tity of the valuable material furnished by the eider-duck 
 is obtained independently of that which is plucked from 
 the slaughtered birds. Besides the clown and eggs, the 
 islanders turn the skins and flesh of the eiders to profit; 
 while these birds cost them no expense, as they feed en- 
 tirely on sea-weed and other natural productions of the 
 ocean. 
 
 EISTE'DDFOD. (Welsh, from eistedd, to sit.) The 
 assemblies or sessions of the Welsh bards were so termed. 
 (See Bard.) They were held, according to Pennant (Tour
 
 EJECTMENT. 
 
 in Wales), at different places for the minstrels of their 
 respective neighbourhoods ; at Caerwys, at Aberfraw in 
 Anglesea, and Matliravel in Powys. The judges were 
 appointed by commissions from the Welsh princes, and 
 after the Conquest from the English kings. The last was 
 issued in 1508. But the Gwynnedigion and Cambrian So- 
 cieties have lately revived the old custom; and annual 
 meetings for the recitation of prize poems, and for per- 
 formances on the harp, are now held under the name of 
 Eisteddfod. 
 
 EJE'CTMENT, in Law, is a personal action in the 
 form of trespass, in which a tenant for years claims dam- 
 ages for his expulsion from land demised to him ; and it 
 has become the usual form of trying questions of right to 
 real property by a singular fiction. The party claiming 
 land or its appurtenances not in his possession is the real 
 plaintiff, through the means of a fictitious tenant (the cele- 
 brated John Doe), who complains of being ejected from 
 his farm by the defendant. The defendant justifies by dis- 
 puting the plaintiff's title to let the land ; and if the plaintiff 
 succeeds, he recovers not only nominal damages for his 
 ejectment, but also the land itself for the term of Doe's 
 supposed demise, and in fact for the term of his own right. 
 
 EL^AGNA'CEiE. (Eleeagnus, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of shrubby arborescent Exogens inhabiting 
 the entire northern hemisphere down to the equator, hav- 
 ing leprous leaves, superior fruit, tubular calyx, and apeta- 
 lous flowers. They are distinguished from Thymelacece, 
 by the ovule being erect, from Proteacece by the valvate 
 calyx and the dehiscent fruit of the latter, and from San- 
 talacea. by the superior ovary. The berries of some spe- 
 cies are eaten in Persia and Nipal. 
 
 EL^OTE'RIUM. (Gr. iXaiov, oil.) In Ancient Archi- 
 tecture, an apartment in the ancient baths wherein the 
 bathers anointed themselves after leaving the bath. 
 
 ELAI'DIN. A fatty matter produced by the action of 
 nitric acid upon certain oils, especially upon castor oil. 
 
 ELAI'N. (Gr. eXatov, oil.) That portion of fat or oil 
 which retains a liquid state ; it may be pressed out of hog's 
 lard and other solid fats, and separated from oils by expos- 
 ing them to cold and subsequent pressure. 
 
 ELAIO'DIC ACID. (Gr. eXatov, and eiSos,form.) One 
 of the compounds produced during the saponification of 
 castor oil. 
 
 E'LAOLITE, (Gr. eXatov, and XtBos, stone.) A brittle 
 mineral, of a greasy lustre, crystalline in its texture, of va- 
 rious shades of grey, green, and red, and composed of silica 
 and alumina, with about 18 per cent, of potash. It is found 
 in Norway, and when chatoyant is sometimes used for ring 
 stones. 
 
 E'LAPS. A subgenus of vipers. See Vipera. 
 
 ELA'SMOTHE'RIUM. (Gr. cXncuog, a plate, and 6rip, 
 a beast.) The name of an exlinct Pachydermatous ani- 
 mal, which forms the type of a new genus, characterized 
 by the laminated structure of its teeth, and intermediate 
 between the horse and rhinoceros. 
 
 ELASTICITY. (Gr. eXatjTrj, a spring ; from tXavvo), 
 I draw.) In Physics, that property which certain bodies 
 possess of recovering their primitive form and dimensions 
 after the external force by which they have been dilated or 
 compressed or bent is withdrawn. 
 
 The theory of elasticity must be deduced from some hy- 
 pothesis respecting the constitution of matter. The sim- 
 plest and most general view which can be taken of the 
 subject is, that all matter is composed of indefinitely small 
 parts or molecules acted upon by attractive and repulsive 
 forces. The attractive forces result from the action of 
 the molecules on each other; the repulsive forces from 
 the caloric with which the molecules are combined. From 
 the combined action of these two forces, the attraction 
 of matter and the repulsion of caloric, the different forms 
 of matter and its varied physical properties may be ex- 
 plained. 
 
 This view of the constitulion of bodies supposes that the 
 molecules are not in contact, but at a certain distance from 
 each other, which, though it is to be regarded as infinitely 
 small in comparison of any distance appreciable by our 
 senses, admits nevertheless of increase and diminution. 
 When a body is in a slate of rest, the opposite forces which 
 any two of its contiguous molecules exercise on each other 
 are in equilibrium. The energy of the forces also depends 
 on the distance between the two molecules, or, in mathema- 
 tical language, is a function of that distance. If thedislance 
 be increased within the limits of the action of the forces, both 
 forces are diminished ; and if the distance is diminished, 
 both are increased, but not in the same proportion. If the 
 interval at which the two forces balance each other be di- 
 minished, the repulsive force becomes stronger than the 
 attractive force, and the two molecules are repelled from 
 each other; on the contrary, if the distance be Increased, 
 the attractive force acquires the superiority, and the mole- 
 cules are drawn towards each other. 
 
 Let us now suppose a solid body, of which all the mole- 
 cules are in a state of equilibrium, to receive the impres- 
 
 ELASTIC CURVE. 
 
 sion of an external force. The operation of the force is to 
 produce a change in the distances of the molecules at the 
 surface, in consequence of which the equilibrium is dis- 
 turbed, and the molecules thrown into a state of vibration. 
 This vibration is communicated to the interior molecules; 
 and the body, under the action of the external force, un- 
 dergoes a certain change of form. The molecules at the 
 surface, which receive the impulse, transmit it to those in 
 the interior of the body, and are reacted on by them with 
 an equal force. In this manner the action is propagated 
 through the whole mass, until it is destroyed by another 
 exterior force, or by the resistance of an obstacle to the 
 motion of the body itself. 
 
 From this hypothesis respecting the constitution of 
 matter, analytical expressions may be deduced to repre- 
 sent the motions or the equilibrium of the molecules of a 
 body acted upon by an external force which is not so great 
 as to exceed the limits of its elasticity, or to produce a 
 change in the distance of the molecules greater than the 
 radius of the sphere of molecular action. These equations 
 contain a numerical coefficient, which is constant for the 
 same body, but variable for different bodies : and which has 
 no influence on the law of elasticity, though it serves to 
 measure its effects. It is therefore called the modulus of 
 elasticity, or coefficient of elasticity ; and is of the same na- 
 ture and order of magnitude as the cohesive resistance 
 which bodies oppose to rupture on being crushed, and may 
 therefore be expressed as so many pounds acting on a 
 square inch of surface. The modulus of elasticity for each 
 particular body must be determined by experiment, and 
 has only been ascertained in a few instances. 
 
 Elasticity is perfect when the body exactly recovers its 
 primitive form, after the force by which it is bent or com- 
 pressed or dilated has been removed, in the same time as 
 was required for the force to produce the alteration. This 
 perfect elasticity is, however, not found in any of the bodies 
 of nature ; the aeriform fluids or gases are those whose 
 elasticity approaches the nearest to it. Hard bodies, even 
 tempered steel and ivory, possess it in a less degree : in 
 fluid substances the elastic force is greatly diminished ; and 
 in soft bodies, as butter, moist clay, it entirely disappears. 
 In solid bodies the elastic force is, in general, diminished 
 by use, or by a long-continued application of a straining 
 force. A bow which has been long bent, or a spring which 
 has been long compressed, will not entirely recover its 
 original form. In many cases the elasticity of a body can 
 be augmented by producing a closer aggregation of the 
 molecules. The metals, for example, are rendered more 
 elastic by hammering them cold, or by alloys. Iron and 
 steel acquire a greater elasticity by tempering ; that is, by 
 producing a sudden contraction of their volumes when 
 they have been expanded by heat. 
 
 The principal phenomena of elastic bodies are the fol- 
 lowing : — 1. That an elastic body (the elasticity being sup- 
 posed perfect) exerts the same force in endeavouring to 
 restore itself as that with which it was compressed or bent. 
 2. The force of elastic bodies is exerted equally in all direc- 
 tions, but the effect chiefly takes place on the side on 
 which the resistance is the least. 3. When an elastic 
 solid body is made to vibrate by a sudden stroke, the vi- 
 brations are performed in equal times, to whatever part of 
 the body the stroke may be communicated. Thus, sono- 
 rous bodies always emit sounds of the same pitch ; and the 
 difference of the pitch depends on the greater or less fre- 
 quency of the vibrations of the sonorous body. 4. A 
 body perfectly incompressible cannot be elastic, therefore 
 bodies perfectly solid can have no elasticity ; and hence, 
 also, the small degree of elasticity belonging to the liquids 
 which are eminently incompressible. See Collision, Per- 
 cussion, Strength of Materials; also Atmosphere, 
 Hydrodynamics, Pneumatics, and Vapour. 
 
 ELA'STIC CURVE. In Mechanics, the figure assumed 
 by an elastic plate or lamina, one end of which is fixed 
 horizontally in a vertical plane, and the other loaded with a 
 weight which tends by its gravity to bend the plate. This 
 was the manner in which the curve was conceived to be 
 formed by James Bernoulli, who first investigated its pro- 
 perties ; but a more general view may be taken of its for- 
 mation. Let the lamina M N be fixed at the point M in 
 such a manner that, however it may be bent, 
 the direction of the tangent M T shall be con- 
 stant ; and let it be submitted to the action of 
 any number of forces acting in the same 
 plane,which will be the plane of the curvature. 
 Let P be the resultant of all the forces acting 
 in the direction O M, the axis of y, and Q the resultant of 
 all those acting in the direction O N, the axis of x ; and let 
 the distances of the directions of the forces P and Q from 
 the axes of the co-ordinates be respectively p and q. The 
 curve at any point m, the co-ordinates of which are x and 
 ;/, is kept in equilibrio by the action of three forces, namely, 
 P and Q, which are exerted in turning the lamina round 
 the point m, and the elasticity E, which may therefore be 
 considered as acting in the direction perpendicular to m f,
 
 ELATER. 
 
 the tangent at m. But the action of P on the point in is 
 equal to the product of that force by its distance from the 
 ordinate of m parallel to its direction, which distance is 
 p — x. The action of P is therefore equal to P ( p — x) ; 
 and, in the same manner, the action of Q is equal to Q 
 (q — y). Hence, since the elasticity is equal to the sum of 
 these two, we have the equation 
 
 V(p — X) + Q.(q~y)z=&. 
 
 It is now necessary to make a hypothesis respecting the 
 manner in which the elasticity E varies from point to point 
 in the curve. The law usually assumed is, that the force 
 of elasticity at any point is proportional to the tension, or 
 inversely as the radius of curvature at that point; hence 
 if t denote the radius of curvature, and E be the elasticity 
 at the point where r=xl, the general equation of the elastic 
 curve becomes 
 
 P(p — x) + Q(q — y)=-E. 
 
 Let /'* = ■ 
 
 d r « 
 
 djL. 
 dx' 
 
 x'h 
 
 ■ — ~ , and /"x = ~ : then, by the known ex- 
 dx J dx*' 
 
 1 f" x 
 pression for the radius of curvature,we have -=, ..,,„ 3 
 
 The differential equation of the curve therefore becomes 
 
 P ( p_ I)+ a(,-r)= aif'**& 
 
 To take a simple case, let us suppose the lamina so situ- 
 ated that the tangent M T is parallel to the 
 axis O N, in which situation the force Q 
 vanishes: and also let the force P be 
 that resulting from the gravity of a weight 
 suspended from the extremity N of the 
 lamina ; then, if I = the length of the la- 
 mina, we shall have 
 
 Let us further suppose the curvature to be very small, 
 
 in which case, /' x = ~ will be very small, so that ita 
 
 square may be neglected. We have then, on substituting 
 for/" x its value, 
 
 P(Z — .r) = E 
 
 The integral of this is 
 
 P(lx — *x») = E 
 
 and a second integration gives 
 
 fc being a constant, and equal to the distance O M. 
 
 The elastic curve is the same as that which a perfectly 
 flexible line would form itself into, if supported at its two 
 extremities and loaded with a fluid of uniform density 
 filling the whole cavity of the curve ; or it is the figure as- 
 sumed by a spider's thread fixed at its extremities and 
 blown bv the wind. 
 
 E'LATER. (Gr. eXarrip, leaper.) A Linnaean genus 
 of Coleopterous insects, now the type of an extensive 
 family of the Serricorn Coleoptera. The Elaterida may 
 be distinguished from the other Serricorn beetles by the 
 presence of a strong, short, and often slightly curved spine, 
 projecting from the posterior margin of the prosternum, 
 and of a depression just above the origin of the second 
 pair of legs adapted for the reception of the preceding 
 spine. An Eiater may be recognized on a distant view 
 from the particular use to which it puts the above described 
 sternal modifications. If a beetle be seen to fall upon its 
 back, and instead of making the ordinary attempts to set 
 itself upon its legs, bends its head towards its tail, raising 
 this part, and then suddenly springing into the air, and re- 
 peating the action until it has fallen upon its feet, such a 
 beetle may be recosnized at once as a species of one or 
 other of the numerous subgenera of the Elateridce. This 
 leap is due to the rebound occasioned by the sudden disen- 
 gagement of the sternal spine from its socket. One of the 
 species of Eiater proper (Eiater noctitucus) is the com- 
 mon fire fly of the tropical parts of America. Its lumino- 
 sity is emitted by two round convex yellow spots situated 
 at the sides of the thorax. The Elaleridce generally are 
 vegetable feeders ; the larvae devour decayed timber ; the 
 perfect insects feed on flowers or other soft and living parts 
 of vegetables. 
 
 ELa/TERES. In Botany, the loose spiral fibres that 
 are contained, together with the sporules, in the concepta- 
 cles of Jungermaunia and Morchantia. 
 
 ELATE'RIUM. (Gr. tXavvew, to stimulate.) This sub- 
 stance, commonly called extract of elaterium, is obtained 
 from the fruit of the Momordica elaterium, or squirting 
 cucumber, which, if gathered a little before it ripens and 
 the juice gently expressed, deposits a green sediment, 
 which is collected and dried. In the dose of from one 
 339 
 
 ELECAMPANE. 
 
 eighth of a grain to a grain, good elaterium operates a3 a 
 drastic purge, bringing away from the bowels a large 
 quantity of watery secretion ; it is seldom prescribed ex- 
 cept with a view of diminishing the collection of fluid in 
 cases of dropsy. 
 
 Elaterium. In Botany, a term invented by Richard to 
 denote that kind of fruit which is found in Euphorbia, con- 
 sisting of three or more carpels, consolidated when young, 
 but bursiins with elasticity when ripe. 
 E'LBOVV. The sea phrase for the half twist in the ca- 
 | bles by which the ship is moored, caused by her swinging 
 the wrong way. (.See Hawse.) Also a term for a sudden 
 turn in a line of coast or course of a river. 
 
 ELBOWS. (Sax. elboga.) In Architecture, the upright 
 sides which flank any panelled work, as in windows below 
 the shutters, «fcc. 
 
 ELCA'JA. An Arabian tree, the fruit of which is emetic, 
 and is employed in an ointment for the cure of the itch : 
 it is the Trickilia emetica of botanists. 
 
 E'LDERS. Certain laymen who, according to the con- 
 stitution of the Presbyterian church, form a council of 
 which the minister is the moderator, and discharge the 
 functions of a spiritual court. They also assist the minis- 
 ter in the management of the concerns of the parish, at- 
 tending to the interests of the poor, like the deacons of the 
 primitive church . Among the Jews, elders were those 
 persons most distinguished for age, rank, and wealth, who 
 formed the council of the people. See Presbyters. 
 
 EL DORA'DO. (Span, l/te golden region.) The name 
 given by the Spaniards to an imaginary country, supposed 
 in the 16th century to be situated in the interior of South 
 America, between the rivers Orinoco and Amazon, and, 
 as the name implied, abounding in gold and all manner of 
 precious stones. After the Spanish conquest of Mexico 
 and Peru, the most exaggerated accounts of the wealth 
 and riches of the newly acquired territory were circulated 
 and believed. A new region was fabled to exist far sur- 
 passing the wealth and splendour of Peru ; expeditions 
 were fitted out for the purpose of discovering it ; and 
 though all such attempts proved abortive, the rumours of 
 its existence continued to be believed down to the begin- 
 ning of last century. The term has now passed into the 
 language of poetry, in which it is used to express a land of 
 boundless wealth and felicity, like the ancient Elysium or 
 the Mohammedan Paradise. (See a learned article on 
 '• Sir Walter Raleigh." in vol. Ixxii. of the Edin. Review, 
 which contains a resume of all the speculations that have 
 been entertained upon this subject.) 
 
 ELEA'TIC PHILOSOPHY. A system owing its origin 
 to Xenophanes, a native of Elea (in Latin Velia), who lived 
 about the year b. c. 530. The most celebrated of his fol- 
 lowers were Parmenides and Zeno, also natives of Elea. 
 The dialectical character of the principal systems of an- 
 tiquity may be said to owe its existence to the Eleatics. 
 The tendency of their speculations was the direct contrary 
 of that which distinguishes the Ionic school. While the 
 latter fixed their attention on outward nature, and strove 
 to discover the laws which regulate its progress, Xeno- 
 phanes and his disciples confined their thoughts to what 
 they conceived to be the only objects of real knowledge — 
 the'ideas of God, or Being as it is in itself. The world of 
 succession and change, which they designated under the 
 title of tkat which becomes (to yiyv6pcvov\ they held to be 
 utterly vain and illusory ; the very conception of change 
 itself seeming to them to involve a contradiction. Time, 
 space, and motion they regarded as mere phantasms, ge- 
 nerated by the deceiving senses, and incapable of scientific 
 explanation. They were consequently led to distinguish 
 between the pure reason, the correlative of Being, and in 
 one sense identical with it, and opinion or common under- 
 standing, the faculty which judges according to the im- 
 pressions of sense. Parmenides, in particular, was the 
 author of a philosophical epic, the two books of which 
 treated respectively of these two modes of thinking. For 
 a full account of all that can be gathered from remaining 
 fragments of this rigid system of rationalism, the reader 
 must consult the German writers on the subject ; in par- 
 ticular Brandis and Ritter, in their histories of philosophy. 
 Frequent allusion is made both by Plato and Aristotle to 
 the Eleatic doctrines, the authors of which are mentioned 
 by both those philosophers in terms of evident respect and 
 veneration. Plato has made their system the subject of a 
 whole dialogue, entitled the Parmenides ; perhaps the most 
 striking specimen of dialectic subtlety which Grecian phi- 
 losophy affords. Many valuable remarks on the nature 
 and influence of the Eieatic doctrines are to be met with 
 in Mr. Thirl wall's History of Greece, vol. ii. c. 12. 
 
 ELECA'MPANE. The vulgar name of the Inula Belt- 
 nium. It is an aromatic bitter, and was formerly regarded 
 as expectorant ; whence the monkish line, 
 Enula campaoa reddit preecordia saaa 
 
 A coarse candy, composed of little else than coloured 
 sugar, is sold under the name of elecampane.
 
 ELECT. 
 
 ELE'CT. (Lat. electus.) Some functionaries are so 
 termed during the period between their appointment and 
 some act which is necessary to ratify it; as, a bishop after 
 election and before consecration. 
 
 ELE'CTION, in Law, is when a man is left to his own 
 free choice to take or do one thing or another, which he 
 pleases ; as, where a man has two forms of action by which 
 he may recover his right, it is within his election to choose 
 that according to which he will proceed ; or where, as in 
 Borne cases, he has an election between several parties, 
 against any of whom he may prosecute his suit. Where 
 there are coparceners of lands, on partition the eldest sister 
 has the election. 
 
 Ele'ction, in Theology, is the choice made by God of 
 certain individuals of the human race to enjoy peculiar 
 privileges and blessings. In the Old Testament election is 
 spoken of as national, not individual. The Jews were the 
 ehosen people of God (Deut. iv. 37., Is. Ixv. 9., and in pas- 
 sages too numerous to be cited). And that the " elect" or 
 chosen of God, of whom the inspired writers of the 
 Epistles speak, and to whom they often address them- 
 selves, are in some instances only persons called to partake 
 in the benefits of the Christian dispensation, appears to be 
 admitted on all hands (1 Pet. i. 1, 2. ; 1 Pet. ii. 9.) But an 
 opinion arose from very early limes in the church, that in 
 other passages (Rom. ix. 18. 24., Eph. 1, &c.) the election 
 spoken of is a predetermined choice, not to the immediate 
 blessings of the covenant, but to eternal life; that God, by 
 arbitrary will, selects a number of persons without respect 
 to foreseen faith or good works, and infallibly ordains to 
 bestow upon them eternal happiness through the merits of 
 Christ. This doctrine is of course opposed to that of uni- 
 versal redemption ; namely, that every man is enabled (if 
 he will) to obtain salvation through those merits. It is cer- 
 tain that the doctrine of election — something resembling 
 which is attributed to the Basilidians, Valentinians, and 
 other early heretics — cannot easily be traced in the writ- 
 ings of any father of the church before Augustine, who em- 
 braced it with all the ardour of his eager disposition, but 
 appears to have varied much in his opinions respecting it. 
 It is most rigidly laid down in his treatise De Dono Perse- 
 verantice. Calvin, in modern times, was its great reas- 
 sertor, and declared it in a dogmatical manner : " We were 
 elected from eternity, before the foundation of the world, 
 from no merit of our own, but according to the purpose of 
 the divine pleasure." (Inst. iii. c. 15. s. 5.) It became a 
 fundamental article of belief in Calvin'istic churches. The 
 synod of Dort was expressly convened to vindicate the 
 doctrines of election and predestination against Arminian 
 tenets (1615). The language of the Church of England, on 
 this as on other controverted points, admits of a variety of 
 interpretations; but during the prevalence of Calvinism in 
 the higher clergy, and especially in the university of Cam- 
 bridge, under Archbishop Whitgift, an attempt was made 
 to define her tenets more strictly. The Lambeth articles, 
 agreed to in 1595 by a portion of the clergy, assert that 
 "God from eternity hath predestinated certain men unto 
 life, certain he haih reprobated." But these were never 
 authentically received by the church. See Calvinism, 
 Predestination. 
 
 ELECTIVE AFFINITY signifies the order of preference, 
 as it were, in which substances combine ; thus, if nitric 
 acid be added to a mixture of lime and magnesia, it will 
 elect or choose to combine with the lime in preference to 
 the magnesia. See Affinity, Chemical. 
 
 ELECTIVE GOVERNMENTS are those in which all 
 functionaries, from the highest lo the lowest, are chosen 
 by the suffrages of a greater or less number of citizens. 
 Of these the government of Athens in antiquity, and in 
 modern times that of the United States, will serve as exam- 
 ples. When the functionaries of an elective government 
 are chosen by a very great number, it is identical wilh a 
 democracy."; and when by a comparatively small number, 
 either with an aristocracy or an oligarchy. 
 
 ELE'CTORS. (Germ, chur- or kur-fiirsten.) Those 
 princes of the old German empire who had a voice in the 
 election of the emperor. These were originally (a. d. 
 1256) seven : Mentz, Treves, and Cologne, — ecclesiastical ; 
 and Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, and the Elector Pala- 
 tine, — lay ; but to these Bavaria was added soon after their 
 institution. In 1692 this dignity was conferred on the dukes 
 of Brunswick-Luneburg, who were afterwards styled elec- 
 tors of Hanover; and, at different periods during the last 
 century, on the princes of Salzburg, Wurtemberg, Baden, 
 and Hesse Cassel. But on the dissolution of the German 
 empire in 1806, the title of elector was merged in that of 
 king, grand duke, &c. &c, by all the German states except 
 Hesse Cassel, whose sovereign is still designated elector. 
 The electors had various privileges, both general and 
 special. 
 
 ELE'CTRIC FISHES. The species of the class Pisces 
 are so called which have the power of discharging electric 
 shocks ; the most remarkable are the Torpedo, Gymnotus, 
 and Silurus, or Malapterurus electricus. 
 390 
 
 ELECTRICITY. 
 
 ELECTRI'CITY. (Gr. riXcxvpov, amber ; the substance 
 in which the property of attracting light substances after 
 friction was first observed.) 
 
 This truly extraordinary power of matter, independent of 
 the interest that always belonged to it, has of late years ac- 
 quired much importance from its influence over chemical 
 phenomena, and its connection with those of magnetism. 
 When a clean glass tube is rubbed with the dry hand, or 
 with a piece of silk, it attracts and repels any light substan- 
 ces, — such as feathers, bran, or little pieces of paper,-~- 
 which are brought near it ; a stick of sealing wax rubbed 
 upon dry flannel exhibits the same appearances, and to a 
 superficial observer seems to be exactly in the same state 
 as the glass ; and they are said to be electrically excited. 
 But, on more close examination, it is found that when light 
 bodies are attracted by excited glass, they are repelled by 
 excited sealing wax, and vice versa, so that the glass and 
 wax are said to be in opposite electric states ; and hence the 
 terms vitreous and resinous or positive and negative elec- 
 tricity. But these two states are always coexistent ; thus 
 when glass is rubbed by silk the glass becomes positive, 
 but the silk bocomes negative ; and in the case of sealing 
 wax rubbed by flannel the wax is negative, but the flannel 
 is positive. 
 
 A similar excitation of electricity is seen in an infinity of 
 other cases ; as when we rub a cat's back with the hand, 
 or a piece of silk riband is drawn briskly between the fin- 
 gers, or a sheet of paper rubbed with India rubber, or a 
 metal rod with a silk handkerchief. These, and other ex- 
 traordinary phenomena connected with them, are hypo- 
 thetically referred to the presence of a peculiar form of 
 matter called the electric Jluid ; it is supposed to apper- 
 tain to all matter, but to become evident only when in re- 
 dundance or deficiency. When glass is rubbed with silk 
 the equilibrium of the electric fluid is disturbed, the silk 
 imparts it to the glass ; and hence the former, losing elec- 
 tricity, becomes minus or negative, and the latter, acquiring 
 electricity, becomes plus or positive. This is commonly 
 called " Franklin's Theory," having been proposed and de- 
 fended by that celebrated electrician. Others have as- 
 sumed the existence of two fluids as essential to the expla- 
 nation of electrical phenomena ; both equally subtile, elas- 
 tic, and universally diffused, and each highly repulsive as 
 to its own particles, and attractive of those of the opposite 
 kind. Electrical quiescence is referred to the combination 
 of these fluids, and their consequent mutual neutralization ; 
 and electrical excitation is the consequence of either being 
 free or in excess. It is supposed that they are separated 
 by friction, and by all those other causes which give rise 
 to the appearance of free electricity. Eitherof these hypo- 
 theses may be adopted as facilitating the explanation of elec- 
 trical phenomena, and as conferring meaning on terms which 
 would otherwise be unintelligible : of the two the simplest, 
 or that which refers the phenomena to one fluid, is per- 
 haps the most generally applicable. Both are apparently 
 equally consistent with facts ; but the existence of any 
 fluid, or form of matter, as the cause of electrical pheno- 
 mena, is at best extremely problematical. 
 
 There are two series of distinct phenomena represented 
 by electrified bodies ; the one seems to result from the 
 accumulation of electricity upon the surface of bodies ; 
 they are commonly included under the term electricity of 
 tension, and are well exhibited by the common electrical 
 machine and its prime conductor. It affects all neighbour- 
 ing bodies, and they are thrown by it into a polar electrical 
 state by what is termed induction : it has a tendency to 
 pass off in sparks through the air, or gradually to escape 
 from points. The thunder storm furnishes a magnificent 
 specimen of this state of electricity. The other state of 
 sensible electricity is that exhibited by electricity in motion ; 
 as when a current of electricity is passing through a wire 
 or other conducting medium : in this case a vast quantity 
 of electricity may be concerned in the phenomena without 
 any apparent intensity ; but whilst the current is continu- 
 ous, it produces magnetic phenomena of a most extraor- 
 dinary character ; and when the perfect conductor is 
 broken by the intervention of certain other media, they 
 suffer in some cases chemical decomposition, and in others 
 become heated, and even ignited. The phenomena of elec- 
 tricity in motion are best exhibited by the Voltaic apparatus. 
 
 In all electrical experiments remarkable differences are 
 observed in respect to the transfer of the electric fluid 
 through different bodies : some, such as the metals, allow 
 its free and nearly unimpeded passage through their sub- 
 stance ; while others receive and retain it more superfi- 
 cially, such as glass, resin, and other substances which ex- 
 hibit attractive and repulsive powers when rubbed. Hence 
 the division of bodies into co?iductors and ?wnconductors. 
 
 Many most important electrical phenomena depend ap- 
 parently upon induction, a subject which has been ably 
 studied by Faraday. (Phil. Trans.) We shall here enter 
 into such details only as are required to render some of 
 the principal terms employed in discussing electrical phe- 
 nomena intelligible.
 
 © 
 
 <±2 
 
 ELECTRICITY. 
 
 If P+ represent a metallic sphere in a highly positive 
 electric state, and N P a metallic con- 
 ductor in its vicinity insulated upon a 
 glass stem ; it will be found that the 
 extremity N of N P is negative, whilst 
 the other extremity P is positive, and 
 that these opposite electricities are 
 greatest at the extremities of the con- 
 ductor,and gradually diminish towards the centre line iO, 
 which is neutral. This extraordinary state of excitation in 
 N Pis entirely dependent upon the proximity ol V + , ior 
 if P + be withdrawn, N P loses all appearance o elec- 
 tricitV; and the degree of excitement in it is directly pro- 
 portional to the extent to which P + is excited and I (with n 
 certain limits) to its nearness to N ; so that floctuat ions in 
 the electricity of N P wi be observed in propoition as, 
 P+ is brought towards or removed from N, provided they 
 are not taK into contact, and that no spark passes. 
 These pSmena have been theoretically expired u„ 
 
 the supposition that the ^ee electricity mP + disturbs the 
 equilibrium of the natural electricity of N P, and by repel 
 line it from N to P leaves the former minus and the latter 
 vhfs OrA( we assume the existence of two electric fluids, 
 fhen the free positive electricity of P + repete the positive 
 fluid of N P and attracts its negative fluid, throwing it into 
 Z electro-polar state. If N P, instead of being insulated be 
 connected by its extremity P with the ground, the accumu- 
 latton at P is prevented whilst N retains its deficient or nega- 
 tfw State ; or, upon the other theory, the positive fluid at P 
 U 'neutral zed by a supply of negative fluid from the earth ; 
 and if after having effected this by momentarily touching 
 N P with the finger, we suddenly remove P +, the insula- 
 ted conductor N P will be left with an excess of negative 
 
 ^Itwufbe obvious from the above statement that when 
 light bodies, especially if they be conductors, are attracted 
 by electrified surfaces in their vicinity, they are thrown by 
 induction into opposite electrical states ; and when the 
 hand is brought near the excited conductor of the electrical 
 machine, it becomes negative, and remains so till the 
 equilibrium is restored by the passage of a spark; which 
 phenomenon is supposed to be the result of the combina- 
 tion of the two electric fluids. 
 Many important phenomena of electrical accumulation 
 
 are explained by reference to the principles of in 
 duction, and among them the action of the Ley- 
 den jar or phial. A thin glass jar or bottle, A, is 
 coated inside and out, to within three or four 
 inches of its mouth, with some conducting sub- (1 
 stance ; tin foil, being especially convenient for I 
 the purpose, is generally used ; and a metallic rod 
 protecting a few inches from the aperture, and 
 surmounted by a brass ball, B, communicates with 
 
 '''whe'n'hVbatis'applied to the prime conductor of the 
 electrical machine, and the outer coating communicates 
 with the ground, the interior acquires a positive and the 
 exterior I neeatvc charge ; and on making a communica- 
 tton by means of a conductor between the inner and outer 
 coatings ™he electricities are annihilated with the produc- 
 Hon of a bright spark and explosion, and by a most disa- 
 Lreeable sensation, called the electric shock, if the body 
 h^made part of the circuit. When several jars are so ar- 
 ranged that the r interior and exterior coatings are all se- 
 ^?ely connected, the assemblage constitutes the electri- 
 
 C 1n"he r common electrical machines, electricity is excited 
 by the fricUon of the plate or cylinder of glass upon the 
 cushions or rubbers; and the glass becomes positive, and 
 uiisnions or luuuc , opposed conductor, 
 
 —fly e 4 med" he*™™ conductor o/The machine ; the 
 f^Sber becomes negative, and is sometimes connected 
 
 W Th:arexed O fi gures r r epresent the two common forms 
 of the electrical machine. The 
 first is the cylinder machine, com- 
 monly called Nairne's machine. 
 B is the glass cylinder, which is 
 made to revolve upon its axis by 
 the multiplying wheels F, C, the 
 necessary friction for the electric 
 excitation being produced by the 
 cushion and silk flap D. A A are 
 the positive and negative conduc- 
 tors : the latter, bearing the cush- 
 ion, is adjusted as to its requisite 
 pressure upon the cylinder by the 
 screw at E. The conductors are 
 respectively supported and insu- 
 lated by the glass pillars G G, which should be coated with 
 lac varnish ; and the axis of the cylinder rests upon the 
 pillars H H, which are also of glass. The second figure 
 represents theplate machine, usually termed Cuthbertson s 
 machine, in which A is the prime conductor, borne by a 
 391 
 
 ELECTRO-MAGNETISM. 
 
 stout glass stem which is attached 
 to the frame of the machine. B B 
 are the upper and lower pairs of 
 cushions, by which, together with 
 the silk flaps C C, the necessary 
 friction is obtained. E is the disk 
 of plate glass which is made to re- 
 volve upon its axis by the winch F. 
 In this machine, as the cushions 
 or rubbers are not insulated, the ne- 
 gative electricity cannot be sepa- 
 rately accumulated or exhibited, as 
 in the cylinder machine. 
 
 There are many other and high- 
 ly important causes of electric ex- 
 citation than those above adverted to ; such as contact of 
 different metals (see Galvanism), chemical action (see 
 Voltaic Electricity), change of temperature (see Ther- 
 mo-electricity), and magnetism (see Magnetism and 
 Electro-Magnetism). 
 
 ELE'CTRO-CHEMISTRY. That branch of chemical 
 science describing the especial applications of electricity 
 as a chemical agent. 
 
 ELE'CTRODE. (Gr. n^exTpov, and bdog, a way.) the 
 surfaces by which electricity passes into and out of other 
 media have been called by Mr. Faraday electrodes, lhe 
 term has also sometimes been derived from j)\cKTpov, am- 
 ber, and ziios, like, and applied to substances which, like 
 amber, become electric bv lriction. 
 
 ELE'CTRO-DYNA'MICS. (Gr. nXcicTpov, and dwa/t if, 
 power ) The phenomena of electricity in motion. 
 
 ELE'CTROLYTE. (Gr. riXucrpov, and \vu, I set free.) 
 Substances susceptible of direct decomposition by the ac- 
 tion of the electric current: hence, also, the verb electro- 
 luze ■ i e. to resolve compounds into their elements by 
 the agency of electricity. Faraday has shown that in many 
 supposed cases of electrolysis, the evolution of elements 
 is the consequence of a secondary action ; the sulphur, 
 for instance, which is thus evolved at the negative pole 
 from sulphuric acid, is the result of the evolution of hy- 
 drogen at that pole ; in all cases of true electrolytic action 
 sulphur appears at the anode. 
 
 ELECTROMAGNETISM. When a current of electri- 
 city is traversing any substance, or when electricity is in 
 mot on, magnetism is at the same time developed. This 
 fact was first observed by Professor Oersted of Copenha- 
 gen and has become the source of an important series of 
 discoveries included under the above term. The excita- 
 tion of magnetism depends upon quantity of electricity, 
 and is best observed in the wire which closes the voltaic 
 circle especially of one or more pairs of large plates. If 
 a magnetic needle be brought near a wire through which an 
 electric current is passing, it will immediately deviate 
 from its usual position, and assume a new one, depen- 
 dent upon the relative position of the needle and the wire. 
 On placing the electric wire above and parallel to the mag- 
 net, the pole next the negative end of the battery always 
 moves to the west ; and when the wire is placed under 
 the needle, the same pole turns to the east. When the 
 electric wire is on the same horizontal plane with the nee- 
 dle, no declination takes place ; but the magnet shows a dis- 
 position to move in a vertical direction, the pole next the 
 negative side of the battery being depressed when the 
 wire is to the west of it, and elevated when it is to the east. 
 The magnetic phenomena of a wire transmitting electri- 
 city are such as appear to depend upon the circulation of 
 magnetism at right angles to the electric current, so that if 
 N P represent the wire transmit- 
 
 j ting a current of electricity in the 
 
 ,p direction of the horizontal darts, a 
 current of magnetism will be estab- 
 
 i u [ I ' 11 1 Ul Uia^iiciiai" "in v ^^w*« 
 
 lished in the direction of the vertical dart, appearing to 
 move round the axis of the electric current ; hence the 
 term vertiginous or rotary magnetism, applied to these 
 phenomena ; and hence the motion of the pole of the 
 magnet round the electric wire, or of the electric wire 
 round the pole of the magnet, when they respectively are 
 so arranged as to be able to move freely in any direction. 
 If a steel needle be placed ; n contact with the electric wire, 
 and parallel to it, it acquires opposite magnetisms upon its 
 two sides ; but if it be placed at right angles to the connect- 
 ing wire, it becomes polar, and 
 — g S SaB&sL permanently magnetic. If the 
 yjJyfcH=#§l£=S electric wire be twisted into a 
 spiral, and the steel needle placed 
 within it (as in the cut), it is re- 
 tained there, and becomes a more powerful magnet in con- 
 seauence of the repetitions and direction of the electric 
 and magnetic currents, as will be evident from the annexed 
 figure, where a represents a glass tube with the wire np 
 conveyin" the electric current twisted round it; the darts 
 at the ends of which show the ingress and egress of the 
 electricity, and the transverse darts the direction of the 
 magnetic current. If the cylinder round which tne wire
 
 ELECTROMETER. 
 
 conveying the electric current is twisted be of steel, it be- 
 comes a permanent magnet; if of pure soft 
 iron, it becomes a temporary magnet, so long 
 as the electric current is in motion, and s and 
 7i are powerfully opposed poles. If the bar 
 be bent, as in the annexed cut, a powerful 
 horse shoe magnet is obtained when the ends 
 p n of the copper wire twisted round it are 
 connected with the voltaic eircle ; and a single 
 pair of plales is sufficient for the purpose. 
 
 ELECTRO'METER. (Gr. riXexxpov, and perpov, a mea- 
 sure.) An instrument for ascertaining the presence and 
 intensity of electric excita- 
 
 
 «8-# 
 
 tion. The simplest form of 
 electrometer consists of two 
 very small pith balls sus- 
 pended from a small con- 
 ductor by very fine wire or 
 thread ; upon the principle 
 that bodies similarly electri- 
 fied repel each other, these 
 diverge upon the reception of very minute quantities of 
 electricity. Two thin slips of gold leaf are also similarly 
 applied ; and, to prevent the influence of the agitation of 
 the air upon (hem, they are suspended in any convenient 
 way underaglass shade. The other forms ofelectrometers 
 generally act upon the same principle, being respectively 
 adjusted to the varying degrees of quantity and intensity 
 
 ELECTRO'PHORUS. (Gr. nXcxrpov, and <pcpw, I 
 carry.) This instrument consists of a flat smooth cake of 
 resin A, which is rendered negatively electrical by friction ; 
 a plate of brass with a glass handle is then placed upon 
 it, and becomes electropolar by induction. 
 The brass plate, having been touched by the 
 finger whilst lying upon the resin, is after- 
 wards lifted off by its glass handle, and gives 
 a spark of positive electricity. The same 
 operation may be indefinitely repealed. This 
 instrument is sometimes a convenient substitute for the 
 electrical machine, and is elegantly applied to inflame a 
 jet of hydrogen gas in Volta's inflammable air lamp. 
 
 ELE'CTROPO'LAR. A term applied to conductors, 
 one end or surface of which is positive, and the other nega- 
 tive ; a state which they commonly exhibit when under the 
 influence of induction. 
 
 ELE'CTROSCOPE. (Gr. rjXcxTpov, and axontu, Isee.) 
 An instrument for rendering electrical excitation apparent 
 by its effects. The gold leaf electrometer, and other simi- 
 lar arrangements, are electroscopes. 
 
 ELE'CTRUM. (Gr. tiXtxrpov.) A term applied by the 
 ancients to various substances; but especially to the sub- 
 stance now called amber, or to a certain melallic alloy con- 
 sisting of four parts of gold and one part of silver. (See 
 Pliny, lib. xxxiii. and xxxvii.) 
 
 ELE'CTUARY. (Lat. electuarium.) This term is ge- 
 nerally applied to powders which are mixed up with syrup, 
 so as to be of about the consistency of treacle. The con- 
 fections of the present Pharmacopoeia are substituted for 
 the former electuaries. 
 
 ELE'DONE. (Gr. eXtSovrj.) A name applied by Aris- 
 totle to a genus of Malakia or Cephalopods having a single 
 row of suckers on each arm, and without any musky 
 odour; it is applied in modern zoology to the same genus. 
 
 E'LEGANCE. (Lat. elegantia.) In the Fine Arts, a 
 quality indicating grace and lightness, but especially the 
 latter. In painting and sculpture it greatly depends on 
 good selection and delicacy of execution, and these again 
 upon taste. Heaviness, and leanness or extreme lightness, 
 are the boundaries between which elegance is a mean. 
 
 ELE'GIT (Lat. he has chosen), in Law, is a writ of exe- 
 cution, which lies for one who has recovered debt or 
 damages ; or upon a recognizance in any court against one 
 not able in his goods to satisfy the same, directed to the 
 sheriff, commanding him to make delivery of a moiety of 
 the party's land, and all his goods except beasts of the 
 plough. The creditor holding the moiety of the land until 
 satisfaction is termed tenant by elegit. 
 
 E'LEGY, is the name given in modern times to a species 
 of poetical composition of a mournful character. But 
 though this signification of the term tallies with its ety- 
 mology (Gr. £, and Xcyciv, to cry alas), the expression 
 elegy among the Greeks, with whom it originated, and 
 among the Romans, by whom it was assiduously culti- 
 vated, had a much wider signification. Thus among the 
 former it embraced equally the warlike verses of Tyrtffius, 
 the melancholy effusions of Mimnermus, and the moral 
 and political aphorisms of Theognis and Solon ; and among 
 the latter it comprehended the miscellaneous themes of 
 Ovid, Propertius, Tibullus, and Catullus. The form of 
 verse in which it was composed was the alternate hexame- 
 ter and pentameter. (See Pentameter.) In modern 
 times almost all the nations of Europe have practised this 
 species of composition ; but if we except the Elegies of 
 Hammond, Milton's Lycidas, and Gray's Elegy among our- 
 392 
 
 ELEVATION. 
 
 selves, and Matthisson's Elegie among the Germans, It 
 does not appear wilh great success. 
 
 E'LEMENTS. The old chemists applied this term to 
 certain imaginary principles or essences of matter; such 
 as fire, water, earth, and air. The elements of the alche- 
 mists are salt, sulphur, and mercury. The term element 
 is now used as synonymous with simple or undr compound- 
 ed body ; that is, a substance which we cannot resolve into 
 simpler forms of matter. The present list of elements in- 
 cludes all the metals, and the following substances— oxygen, 
 chlorine, iodine, bromine, fluorine, hydrogen, nitrogen, sul- 
 phur, phosphorus, carbon, selenium, and boron ; amount- 
 ing in all to fifty- four, exclusive of the imponderable forms 
 of matter. See Equivalents, Chemical. 
 
 E'LEMI. The resinous exudation of the Amyris elemi- 
 /era, brought from the West Indies : it yields a volatile oil 
 on distillation. It is used in ointments, giving them a gently 
 stimulating character, and adding to their viscidity. The 
 compound elemi ointment of the Pharmacopoeia i3 a good 
 preparation of this kind, and resembles the yelloic basilicon 
 of old pharmacy. 
 ELE'NCHUS. See Sophism. 
 
 ELEPHANTI'ASIS. A disease which chiefly affects the 
 legs and feet, which become rough, scaly, and swollen, and 
 have been compared to the feet of the elephant; the skin 
 gets thick, unctuous, and insensible, and the limb occa- 
 sionally attains an enormous size. 
 
 E'LEPHANT, WHITE. A Danish order of knighthood 
 of great antiquity : the number of knights is limited to 
 thirtv, besides members of the royal family. 
 
 E'LEPHAS, or ELEPHANT. (Gr. eXc<pa S , an elephant.) 
 The generic name of the most gigantic ol existing quadru- 
 peds. They are characterized essentially by having grind- 
 ers composed of alternating vertical plates of ivory, enamel) 
 and caementum, and two tusks in the upper jaw : they are 
 also the only living Mammalia which have a proboscis or 
 trunk longer than the head. It is inferred from the struc- 
 ture of the skull that the extinct Mastodons, which have 
 grinders of a more simple structure, also possessed a long 
 proboscis ; and accordingly Cuvier includes the genus Ele- 
 phas and Mastodon in a particular family of Pachyderms 
 called Proboscidians. Of the true genus Elephas there are 
 two living and a greater number of extinct species. The 
 Indian elephant (Elephas Indicus, Cuv.) differs from the 
 African species in its greater size, in the skull being higher 
 in proportion to its length, and with a more concave fore- 
 head. The Indian elephant has also comparatively smaller 
 ears; the skin is of a paler brown colour; and it has four 
 nails on the hind feet instead of three. The elephant will 
 breed in confinement ; its period of gestation is twenty 
 months and some days. It brings forth one young at a 
 birth, which derives its nourishment from two nipples 
 placed on the inner side of the setting in of the fore-legs. 
 The perpendicular height of the Indian elephant, measured 
 from the top of the shoulder, has not been found to exceed 
 ten feet six inches : the ordinary height is from seven to 
 nine feet. The Indian elephant varies as to the length of 
 the tusks; their ends only are visible externally in the fe- 
 males, and there is also a race (Mooknah) in which they 
 are straight and short in the males. In other races the 
 males have the tusks long and curved, especially in that 
 called "Dauntelah." The anecdotes of the docility, saga- 
 city, and tenacious memory of the elephant are numerous 
 and generally known. The characteristics of the African 
 elephant may be inferred from the account of those of the 
 Indian species. It is usual to describe it as having a fore- 
 head convex instead of concave ; but the projection is 
 caused by the nasal bones, which are higher placed than 
 in the Indian species ; and the true front is in reality con- 
 cave in the African species, but in a less degree than in the 
 Indian. The chief external character of the African ele- 
 phant is his huge ears. It is a remarkable fact that no Af- 
 rican nation has ever snbdued the elephant, or made it 
 available for any useful purpose. For an account of the 
 fossil elephants, see Mammoth. 
 
 ELEUSI'NIAN MYSTERIES. The secret religious 
 rites performed every year in honour of Ceres and Proser- 
 pine at the Attic town of Eleusis. To these mysteries all 
 Greeks of both sexes, if unpolluted by crime, were admit- 
 ted; and as persons thus initiated were considered to be 
 peculiarly under the protection of the gods and to enjoy their 
 favour, it was a privilege much sought after. It has been 
 thought that many passages of ancient classical writers re- 
 fer in a covert manner to these mysteries, and the doc- 
 trines disclosed in them : thus, the whole sixth book of the 
 JEneid has been interpreted by Warburton and others as 
 an allegorical exposition of them, a notion controverted by 
 Gibbon in one of his early works. See Mysteries. 
 
 ELEVA'TION. (Lat. e, from, and levo, / raise.) In 
 Architecture, a geometrical representation of a building 
 measured vertically in respect of the horizon ; by the an- 
 cient architects called the orthography. It is only in this 
 sense that it is technically used by architects; in general 
 terms it is the height of a building above the ground.
 
 ELEVATOR. 
 
 Elevation, in Astronomy, denotes the angular height 
 or the altitude of a celest.al object above the ho ^ 
 Thus, elevation of the pole denotes the arc of the meridian 
 intercepted between the pole and the horizon. 
 
 Elevation, in Perspective, is sometimes used for the 
 scenography or perspective representation of the whole 
 object or building. — s-sm c\p 
 
 E'LEVATOR. A surgical instrument for raising ae 
 pressed portions of the skull. , _„__ 
 
 P ELFS, or FAIRIES. Imaginary be ings, honoured more 
 particularly by the northern nations, in whose mythology 
 they occupy a prominent place. They were divided into 
 wo classes-the good and the bad ; and their exploits have 
 given rise to a multiplicity of delight ul stones. (See M* 
 summer-Night's Dream; and Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, 
 i). 259.) See Fairies. „ . , .„_ ,„,:„<•„ 
 
 P E'LGIN MARBLES. A collection °' f ? nc,e n n ' b "£S: 
 statues, &c, which were chiefly decorations of the Par he 
 non at Athens, and are now deposited wllh »Xm archi 
 at the British Museum. Mr. Harrison, a_ northern ^ ,tu 
 tect of great abilities, suggested to Lord Elgin in 1797, , at 
 the period of his nomination to the embassy at Constant, 
 nople, the removal of these celebrated I works. But U was 
 not till some time after Lord Elgin's arnval that the mm, 
 ters of the Porte were prevailed on to aUowbun to detach 
 any portion of the marbles ; and about eighty cases arrive 
 in England in 1812. In 1816 the collec ion was pmxhased 
 by government under a recommendation of a comn it ree 
 of The House of Commons, at, if we rightly recollect the 
 sum of £35,000. They are without question the finest pro- 
 ductions of sculpture in the world. 
 
 ELI'MINA'TION. (Lat. ehmmo, I put out.) A term 
 u=ed by writers on algebra to denote that operation by 
 which any number » ofequattona being 8'«n, ^nto.n.ng « 
 unknown quantities, a single equation » deducedfrom 
 them containing only one unknown quantity ™ that, by 
 resolvi.i" this equation, we find the value of the unknown 
 quantity it contains, and thence, by successive substim- 
 uons, the values of all the other unknown quantities. To 
 eliminate a quantity is therefore to cause that quantity to 
 disappear from an equation. _...], 
 
 ELIQUA'TION. (Lat.) The separation of two metals 
 
 by EU'SK>N. (Lat. elido.) In Grammar, the cutting off 
 or suppressing of a vowel at the end of a word, for the 
 sake of euphony or the measure of the verse. The use 
 of the elision was confined chiefly to the languages of 
 
 G Tu'Xll ^Arab.) A term applied in old pharmacy to 
 certain essences or tinctures: a mixture of an ar omaUc 
 tincture with sulphuric acid was called etor «/ Wfrwt 
 The alchemists applied the term elixir to various solutions 
 employed in the art of transmutation. 
 
 ELLA'GIC ACI1) US An acid obtained by Braconnot from 
 gall nuts, and differing from the gallic acid : the term is de- 
 rived from the word galle, reversed. 
 
 ELLl'PSE. (Gr. tAXt.t/zis, defect.) One of the conic 
 sections, produced by cutting a cone by a plane passing ; ob- 
 liquely ihroush its opposite sides. {See Conic bECTioNs.) 
 The ancient Greek geometers gave this name to the figure, 
 because, among its other properties, one is, that the squares 
 of the ordinate* are less than the rectangles under the re- 
 spective abscissa and the parameter, or differ from them 
 
 '"Though the ellipse was first suggested to geometers from 
 considering the sections of the cone, it may be defined in 
 various ways, and all its properties investigated without any 
 reference to the solid. We subjoin some of these defini- 
 tions, which are, in fact, so many different properties of 
 the ellipse. . , , „ •„, 
 
 1. If two points F and / be given in a plane, and a point 
 D be conceived to move around them in 
 such a manner that the sum of the two 
 distances D F and D/ is always the same, 
 Hie point D will describe upon the plane 
 an ellipse A D B. The points E and / 
 are the foci of the ellipse ; and the point 
 C, which bisects the distances between 
 the foci, is its centre. The line A a is the major or 
 traverse axis ; and B 6, which passes through the centre, 
 and is perpendicular to A a, is the minor or conjugate axis. 
 From this definition it is obvious how the curve may be 
 described mechanically. Having fixed two pins F and / 
 in the plane, let the ends of a thread be lastened to the 
 two pins ; then, moving a style or pencil within the thread, 
 so as to keep it always stretched, the point of the style 
 will describe the ellipse. 
 
 2 Let F be a given point, and M N a straight line given in 
 position • if another point D move on the same plane so 
 that its distance D F from F shall have always to the per- 
 pendicular D E, or its distance from the given line M N, 
 the constant ratio of two given lines X and Y, of which X 
 is less than Y, the point D will describe an ellipse. The 
 393 
 
 ELLIPSOID OF REVOLUTION. 
 
 line M N is called the directrix, and its distance from the 
 centre C is such that C G is a third proportional to CI and O 
 A. It is obvious that F A is to A G in the given ratio ot X to V . 
 3. It is also a property of the ellipse that the rectangle 
 under A II and H a is to the square of the ordinate HD in 
 the ratio of the square of C A to the square of C B. b rom 
 this property the common algebraic equation of the ellipse 
 is derived. Let C A. = a, C B = 6, C H = x, and II D = 
 y;then AHHa:HD 2 : : a 2 : 6 2 , that is, (a — x) (a + f) 
 
 : j/ 2 : : a 2 : 6», or a 2 — x 2 : i/ 2 : : a 2 : 6 3 , whence y 2 = -„ 
 
 (a 2 — ar 2 ). This equation may be put under the following 
 
 a: 2 r/ 2 
 elegant form, — „ + jj = L 
 
 4 Let M N, P Q be two straight lines intersecting each 
 other in C ; then if a straight line B A 
 of a given length be carried along the two 
 straight lines M N, P Q, any point D in 
 A B (or in A B produced) will describe an 
 ellipse the centre of which is at C. It is 
 on this principle that elliptic compasses 
 and lathes for turning ovals are con- 
 structed. 
 
 5 If a moving or generating circle roll along the concave 
 circumference of a fixed circle in the same plane, and the 
 radius of the former be half that of the latter, any given 
 point in the plane of the generating circle, within or with- 
 out it, will describe an ellipse. This very remarkable pro- 
 perty of the ellipse, by which the curve is shown to be an 
 epicycloid, was applied by Professor Wallace of Edinburgh 
 to the invention of an ingenious instrument for describing 
 an ellipse by continued motion. The construction of the in- 
 strument is as follows : — 
 
 "a and b are two wheels, the axes of which turn in 
 holes c o, near the ends of the connect- 
 r/iSf^ ing bar d. One of the wheels 6 must 
 „ be just half the diameter of the other a, 
 p which may be of any size, and a band e 
 /goes round them outside ; an arm cp 
 is attached to the wheel b, and admits 
 of being lengthened or shortened by 
 sliding along its surface in a socket which may be any 
 where on the wheel. Suppose now that the wheel a is 
 fixed or kept from turning, and that the bar d is turned 
 round the centre o, carrying at its other extremity the 
 wheel b ; the action of the band e/will then turn this wheel 
 round its centre c ; and while the bar makes one revolu- 
 tion round the centre of the fixed wheel, the other wheel 
 will make two revolutions about its centre, and the point p 
 in the sliding bar will describe the ellipse." {Wallaces 
 Conic Sections.) 
 
 6. The ellipse is the curve in which the planets perlorm 
 their revolutions about the sun, and its properties enter 
 into almost every investigation connected with physical as- 
 tronomy. In these investigations it is found most conve- 
 nient to define the curve by means of an equation between 
 the radius vector, that is, a line drawn from the focus to 
 the curve, and the angle which it makes with the trans- 
 verse axis. This is called the polar equation to the ellipse, 
 and is found as follows :— Let F D the radius vector (see 
 the first diagram) = r, C A = a, C F the eccentricity = e, 
 and the angle A F D, which is called the anomaly = f ; 
 a' — e* 
 
 then r = — j ■ . ■ 
 
 o + e cos. (p 
 It is a property of the ellipse, that if a circle be described 
 upon either axis, and from any point of that axis an ordi- 
 nate be drawn both to the circle and ellipse, then the ordi- 
 nate of the circle is to the ordinate of the ellipse as that 
 axis to the other axis. Hence the whole area of the circle is to 
 the whole area of the ellipse in the same proportion, and 
 consequently the area of an ellipse is a mean proportional 
 between the areas of the two circles described upon its 
 transverse and conjugate axes. Hence, to find the area of 
 an ellipse, multiply the two axes together, and multiply the 
 product by 7S54. See Circle. 
 
 The whole length of the periphery of an ellipse is ex- 
 pressed by the following series : 
 V / l l 2 -3 l 2 -3 2 -5 „ l 2 -3 2 -5 2 -7 . . ^ 
 
 2)T 
 
 2s° " 2 2 -4»" 2 3 -4 2 -6 2 2 2 -4 2 -6 2 . 
 where 2;r denotes the circumference of the circle de- 
 scribed about the greater axis, and e is the eccentricity; 
 that is, e 4 = 1 — ft 2 , b being the semi-axis minor, and the 
 semi-axis major being unit. 
 
 ELLI'PSIS. (Gr. eXXeittw, / omit.) In Grammar and 
 Rhetoric, the omission of a word or part of a sentence, 
 which is left to be supplied by the imagination of the hearer 
 
 ^ELLIPSOID. (Gr. cWcixpi;, and uSosJorm.) ^geome- 
 trical solid, of such a nature that every section oi it made 
 by a plane produces an ellipse. 
 
 ELLIPSOID OF REVOLUTION, called also the Sphe- 
 roid, is the solid generated by the revolution of an ellipse 
 about its lesser axis. 
 AA -
 
 ELLIPTIC COMPASSES. 
 
 ELLIPTIC COMPASSES. An instrument for describ- 
 ing an ellipse by continued motion. An instrument of this 
 kind has been described under Ellipse. Various contri- 
 vances for effecting this purpose are described in the Ex- 
 ercitationes Mathematical of Schooten, 
 
 ELLIPTI'CITY of the TERRESTRIAL SPHEROID. 
 A term used by Clairaut and other writers on the figure of 
 the eanh, to denote the deviation of the earth's form from 
 that of a sphere. Clairaut employed Ihe term to denote the 
 difference of the two axes divided by the smaller: most 
 other writers understand by it the difference of the axes 
 divided by the greater. Thus, let a = the equatorial dia- 
 meter, 6 the polar diameter, e = the elliDticity ; then e = 
 a — b , 
 . whence o = a (1 — e.) 
 
 ELM. A valuable genus of trees, confined to the colder 
 parts of the northern hemisphere, but common to both 
 the old and new world. Most of the species are trees of 
 considerable size, and produce a timber useful for many 
 common purposes in which great strength and durability 
 are not required; but some of them are small bushes of 
 no known value. In Great Britain there are several spe- 
 cies in a wild state, the most valuable of which are called 
 the Welsh, the Hertfordshire, the Huntingdon, and the 
 smooth-leaved ; in other countries of Europe and Asia 
 many peculiar species exist, but they have been little ex- 
 amined by botanists. The elm is valued for the rapidity 
 of its growth, its hardiness, and its capability of thriving 
 in poor soil unfit for tillage. The word seems to be an 
 alteration of ulmus, its Latin name. 
 
 ELOCU'TION (Lat. eloquor, I speak out), signified ori- 
 ginally, as the derivation of the word imports, the act of 
 choosing and adapting words and sentences to the ideas to 
 be expressed ; but it is more frequently employed to de- 
 note the just and graceful management of the voice, coun- 
 tenance, and gesture in speaking; in which sense it is sy- 
 nonymous with what is termed a good delivery or pronun- 
 ciation. See Declamation, Eloquence. 
 
 E'LOGE. (Gr. £v\oyia, Ang. eulogy.) A term applied 
 in France to the panegyrical orations pronounced in honour 
 of illustrious deceased persons, and particularly of mem- 
 bers of the Royal and other academies. Formerly the se- 
 cretaries of the various French literary institutions used to 
 compose and pronounce the eloge; but this duty is now 
 performed by the new member elected in the room of the 
 deceased. This practice is no doubt open to censure; 
 but it has been the means of giving to the world many in- 
 teresting biographical sketches, which would never other- 
 wise have appeared. Eloge is also applied to any species 
 of biographical writing in which praise predominates over 
 censure, and has been much cultivated by French and 
 Italian authors. 
 
 ELONGA'TION, in Astronomy, is the apparent dis- 
 tance of a planet from the sun. The greatest elongation 
 of Mercury amounts to about 28§ degrees, and that of 
 Venus to about 47° 48'. With regard to the superior pla- 
 nets, the elongation may have any value from to 180°. 
 
 E'LOQUENCE. (Lat.) The art of clothing the thoughts 
 in the most suitable expressions, in order to produce con- 
 viction or persuasion. In its primary signification, elo- 
 quence (as indeed its etymology implies) had reference to 
 public speaking alone ; but as most of the rules for public 
 speaking are applicable equally to writing, an extension of 
 the term naturally took place ; and we find even Aristotle 
 (Iihe. book iii.), the earliest systematic writer on the sub- 
 ject whose works have come down to us, including in his 
 treatise rules for such compositions as were not intended 
 for public recitation. A still wider extension of the term 
 was contended for by the ancient rhetoricians, who in- 
 cluded under it all kinds of literary productions (such as 
 treatises on law, logic, &c.),'and whatever might be neces- 
 sary to illustrate and explain them. In the following ob- 
 servations we shall confine ourselves chiefly to the etymo- 
 logical meaning of the word, and shall give a brief sketch 
 of the history, the objects, and the divisions of eloquence. 
 The invention of eloquence is ascribed by the Egyptians 
 and the fables of the poets to the god Mercury ; but no 
 certain account can be given when or by whom this art 
 first began to be cultivated. If we may judge from the 
 eulogiums which Homer pronounced upon Ulysses and 
 Nestor for their attainments in eloquence, it must have 
 been very early in high esteem among the Greeks. But 
 though, from time to time, there arose in Greece many 
 distinguished writers upon eloquence, it does not appear 
 that the practice of the art was combined with the theory 
 for public purposes till the time of Pisistratus, who owed 
 to his rhetorical acquirements his elevation to the throne. 
 Passing from Pericles (Ihe next in order to Pisistratus), 
 who was distinguished at once as a general, a statesman, 
 and an orator, we find many eminent names during the 
 Peloponnesian war immortalized for their eloquence by 
 the pen of Thucydides. In the succeeding age arose the 
 school of rhetoricians, or sophists, as they are called, 
 who endeavoured to graft upon eloquence the subtleties 
 394 
 
 ELOQ.UENCE. 
 
 of logic ; and among the earliest and most eminent of this 
 school were Gorgias, Isocrates, and Iseeus, of whose pub- 
 licly delivered orations there are still ten extant. It was 
 in this age that Grecian eloquence attained its highest per- 
 fection by the genius of Demosthenes, to whom Ihe palm 
 has been conceded by the unanimous consent of ancient 
 and modern limes. Various are the writers that have en- 
 deavoured to point out the beauties of Demosthenes; but 
 by none are Ihe peculiar qualities and distinguished pro- 
 perties of his style more vigorously and happily (though 
 briefly) pourtrayed than by Hume, who, throwing aside his 
 usual calm and dispassionate manner, thus describes it: — 
 " It is rapid harmony exactly adjusted to the sense : it is 
 vehement reasoning without any appearance of art : it is 
 disdain, anger, boldness, freedom, involved in a continued 
 stream of argument; and of all human productions, the 
 orations of Demosthenes present to us Ihe models which 
 approach the nearest to perfection." After this period, 
 Grecian eloquence declined rapidly ; and though in the fol- 
 lowing ages there flourished among others Hermagoras, 
 Athenaius, Apollonius, Caecilius, and Dionysius, their 
 names have been almost without exception rescued from 
 oblivion by a work which may be regarded as Ihe last ex- 
 piring ray of Grecian eloquence — the incomparable treatise 
 of Longinus on the Sublime. 
 
 In consequence of the all-absorbing spirit for military 
 glory with which the ancient Romans were animated, it 
 was long before they found leisure to appreciate the ad- 
 vantages of eloquence ; and even so late as the year of the 
 city 592, when, by the industry of some Greeks," the liberal 
 arts began to flourish at Rome, the senate passed a decree 
 banishing all rhetoricians from the country. But a few 
 years afterwards, when Carneades,Critolaus, and Diogenes 
 were sent as ambassadors from Athens to Rome, the Ro- 
 man youth were so charmed with the eloquence of their 
 harangues, that the study of oratory formed Ihenceforlh a 
 branch of a liberal education. Men of the highest rank 
 were now seen teaching and learning respectively the art 
 of eloquence ; and such was the impetus given to this study, 
 that it made the most rapid advances, and was at last 
 crowned by the appearance of Cicero, to whom critics have 
 concurred in assigning a rank inferior only to that of De- 
 mosthenes. That many illustrious orators existed at Rome 
 prior to the age of Augustus, we learn from the work of 
 Cicero, De Claris Oratoribus. In this treatise Cicero, in 
 detailed notices and liberal eulogiums, has given immor- 
 tality to the very men whose works were thrown info ob- 
 scurity by the splendour of his own : as Quintilian says of 
 Menander and his predecessors — atque ille quidem omni- 
 bus ejusdem operis aucloribus abstulit nomen, et fulgore 
 quodam sua claritatis tenebras obduxit. The mighty scale 
 on which every thing was conducted at Rome, and the 
 enormous interests so frequently at stake, were never so 
 wonderfully exhibited as in the age of Cicero ; and the un- 
 paralleled exigency found or created in him a latent for 
 profiting by its advantages or coping with its difficulties 
 In the succeeding ages of the Roman empire, the despotic 
 character of the government checked the growth of the 
 rhetorical art ; but the names of Tacitus, Quinlilian, and 
 Pliny are an earnest of what might have been achieved in 
 this arena, had circumstances permitted the development 
 of their talents. 
 
 During the middle ages, though the practice of eloquence 
 may, as far as we know, be said to have Iain dormant, the 
 theory formed part of the scholastic study, as may be seen 
 from ihe old doggrel hexameter, which served to fix the 
 monastic studies in the memory — 
 
 "Granim. (Grammatiee) loquitur ; Dia. (Dialectice) vera doc«t ; 
 Rhet. (Rhetorice) verba colorat. " 
 
 With regard to the early history of eloquence in England, 
 there are found, indeed, the names of several distinguished 
 men who in former times directed the resolutions of our 
 parliament ; but no pains were taken fo preserve their 
 speeches; and, as Hume observes, the authority which 
 they possessed seems to have been owing to their expe- 
 rience, wisdom, or power, more than to their talents for 
 oratory. It was not until the close of the last century (a 
 period which, it may be said, Hume did not live to see), that 
 an era arose in the history of British eloquence, which the 
 genius of Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Fox, and Sheridan has 
 consecrated and immortalized. 
 
 We can only allude to the history of eloquence in other 
 countries. The little opportunity afforded for a display of 
 forensic or senatorial eloquence by the different govern- 
 ments of Germany has almost entirely checked its growth 
 in that country ; and the same remark is applicable to Italy, 
 Spain, and Portugal ; all of which, however, have been rich 
 in the eloquence of the pulpit. The only two countries in 
 the world whose orators can be put in competition with 
 those of Britain, are France and America. To the pulpit 
 oratory of the former, the illustrious names of Bossuet, 
 Bourdaloue, and Massillon have given enduring celebrity; 
 while the popular character of their respective institutions
 
 ELOQ.UENCE. 
 
 has formed a host of forensic and senatorial speakers wor- 
 thy a prominent place among the orators of antiquity, and 
 modern limes. The pulpit orators of England are too well 
 known to be noticed here. 
 
 The elements of eloquence are usually comprised under 
 the four following divisions — invention, disposition, elocu- 
 tion, and delivery. The first has reference to the character 
 of the thoughts or ideas to be employed ; the second to 
 their arrangement (usually called the parts of a discourse, 
 — consisting of ihe exordium or introduction, the narration, 
 the proposition, the proof or refutation, and the perora- 
 tion: see these terms) ; and the third and fourth have re- 
 spect to words, style, utterance action, &c. 
 
 The Greeks divided discourses according to their con- 
 tents, as relating to precept (\oyovs), manners (f)0r/), and 
 feelings (jrnQr/), and as Iherefore calculated to instruct, to 
 please, and to move. The Romans distinguished three 
 kinds of eloquence : — the demonstrative, occupied with 
 praise or blame, and addressed to the judgment; the de- 
 liberative, which acts upon the will by persuasion or dis- 
 suasion ; and the judicial or forensic, which was used in 
 defending or attacking— a division originally laid down 
 by Aristotle, De Rlietorica. In our own times, a division 
 somewhat similar has been made ; and the bar, the senate, 
 and the pulpit are the three grand theatres for the exhi- 
 bition of oratory. With regard to the distinguishing charac- 
 teristics of these three kinds of eloquence, the reader will 
 find ample information on this head by consulting Blair, or 
 Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric. The following is a 
 summary of their views. In popular assemblies, the great 
 object to be effected by the orator is persuasion : the 
 speaker aims at determining his audience to adopt some 
 line of conduct, as good^fil, or useful; and in order to ac- 
 complish this object, he must address himself to all the 
 principles of action in human nature, — to the passions, to 
 the heart, as well as to the understanding. At the bar, on 
 the other hand, it is not persuasion, but conviclion, that the 
 ora'or aims at producing. There it is not the speaker's 
 business to persuade the judges to what is good and use- 
 ful, but to show them what is just and true. Hence it is 
 chiefly lo the understanding that his eloquence is to be ad- 
 dressed. Hence, also, the eloquence of the bar is consi- 
 dered by most rhetoricians of a more limited kind than 
 that of popular assemblies. In many instances, however, 
 the eloquence of the bar has a much wider scope than such 
 writers have conceded, and the trial by jury admits of the 
 most impassioned appeals to be found in the annals of mo- 
 dern eloquence. With regard to the eloquence of the pulpit, 
 though it appears at first view to be possessed of many 
 qualities advantageous to oratorical display, such as the 
 dignity and sublimity of the subject, the large and mixed 
 audience, and Ihe leisure of the speaker for premeditation, 
 these will be found to be counterbalanced by many disad- 
 vantages ; e.g. the triteness of the subject, and the diffi- 
 culty experienced by the speaker to excite attention. 
 Besides, at the bar, or in the senate, the orator addresses 
 passions which are forbidden ground to the preacher; and 
 if at any time the latter makes an incursion into those re- 
 gions, he is in danger of assuming a tone inconsistent with 
 the dignity and the charity of his profession. The fierce 
 invective, the terrible crimination, the bold and unexpected 
 retort, the cutting sarcasm, the cool and dignified irony, on 
 the one hand.— and, on the other, the skilful flattery, the 
 exquisite artifice, with which the baser as well as the no- 
 bler passions of the audience are wrought into a subservi- 
 ence of the purpose of the orator; all these fall more or 
 less within the province of the bar and the senate, but are 
 beyond the sphere of the pulpit orator. With all these re- 
 strictions, however, the subjects to which pulpit eloquence 
 may be addressed are sufficiently extensive to admit of 
 great oratorical display ; and as to convince the intellect and 
 force the unwilling homage of the reason, as well as to 
 awaken the conscience and to arouse the imagination, are 
 the objects of preaching, the pulpit orator may, by the 
 choice of his subject, at one time be argumentative and 
 ratiocinative, at another declamatory and impassioned. 
 
 It is admitted on all sides that, in modern times, elo- 
 quence has not been invested with so much importance, or 
 cultivated with so much care, as anions the ancients. For 
 the cause of this alleged inferiority of modern as compared 
 with ancient eloquence, no satisfactory reason has been 
 hitherto assigned, ami nven Hume has confessed his in- 
 ability to solve the problem. Perhaps one cause of the 
 ascendency of the ancient orators lies in the difference of 
 the mpans employed in ancient and modern limes to gain 
 the consent of the audience Among the ancients, the 
 most violent and passionate expressions, accompanied by 
 what Cicero calls the " snpplosio pedis," and the " per- 
 cussio frontis vel femoris," were not only admissible, but 
 were even necessary, in order to produce an effect upon 
 the audience. Among the moderns, such violence of ges- 
 ture, except on the staae, would excite nothinz but lauzhter. 
 Those orators are now-a-days more esteemed who aim at 
 convincing Ihe understanding than at captivating the feel- 
 395 
 
 EMANCIPATION. 
 
 ings ; and this is a characteristic that pervades every spe« 
 cies of modern eloquence. Again, if we look to the pecu- 
 liarities of ancient law, the tribunals of justice, and the 
 legislative assemblies of the Greeks and Romans, we may 
 perceive, perhaps, the superior arena of the ancients. The 
 great scope for eloquence in ancient limes, as has been 
 observed by an able writer in the Quarterly Review, arose 
 from a circumstance that with us would be considered 
 a vice — the blending of the legislative with the judicial 
 powers. When the legislature is employed, as in England, 
 in establishing, from the contemplation pf a whole class of 
 cases, a general principle for deciding on every future 
 case that may be referable to that class ; and when the 
 judicial power is only occupied in ascertaining to what 
 previously established legal class any particular case 
 belongs, and what the decision of the law is regarding 
 that class : in this state of things, there is scope, indeed, 
 for the exercise of the most useful and respectable pow- 
 ers of eloquence, — the clear, strong, and elegant de- 
 velopment of ratiocination, and of the information and the 
 viewsof a comprehensive mind ; and this is all. Butwhen, 
 as was the case in Greece and Rome, the written laws are 
 few and vaguely expressed ; when the judges exercise an 
 undefined equitable jurisdiction, in the application of 
 which they are not bound by any regulation of their prede- 
 cessors ; still more, when the tribunal is invested with a 
 direct legislative power, the question is no longer to be 
 decided by argument and the application to general prin- 
 ciples alone, but the individual passions and interests of 
 the judges are let loose ; and then all the higher and more 
 perilous faculties of the orator are called forth to rule in 
 this war of elements, and direct the storm as may suit his 
 purpose, — whether to sweep away falsehood and oppres- 
 sion, or to bear down the barriers of truth, law, and justice. 
 (See Wliately's Rhetoric ; Campbell's Rhetoric ; Cicero, 
 De Oratore ; and the works already mentioned.) 
 
 ELUTRIA'TION. (Lat. elutrio, / cleanse.) The sepa- 
 ration of substances by washing them in large quantities of 
 water, so that the heavier particles fall to the bottom, and 
 the lighter ones, remaining some time suspended, are gra- 
 dually deposited in a finely divided state. 
 
 EL'YDO'RIC PAINTING. (Gr. cXaiov, oil, and vSuip, 
 water.) In Painting, a species of painlinz with a vehicle 
 composed of oil and water, invented by M. Vincent of Mont- 
 petit. Its object is to add the fresh appearance of water 
 colours and the extreme finish of miniature painting to the 
 mellowness of oil colours. Not, however, having seen any 
 specimen of it, we are unable to state from our own 
 knowledge whether those objects have been attained. 
 
 ELY'SIUM, or the ELYSIAN FIELDS. (Gr. n\vaia 
 rrlSia.) In Mythology, the region lo which the souls of 
 the virtuous were said by the poets to be transported after 
 death. They are variously represented as a part of the in- 
 fernal realms, or islands situated in the Western Ocean be- 
 yond the Columns of Hercules. The enjoyments of the 
 blessed spirits in this abode were held to consist in the 
 same pursuits that were their delight on earth, carried on 
 in a calmer and happier climate : beautifully described in 
 the well-known passage (Orfyss. iv. 563) — 
 
 AAXo a' Si n\v<?iov ireSiov teat lrtipara yatns, &c. 
 Thus admirably rendered by the late A. Moore : — 
 
 Thee to the Elysian plains, earth's farthest end, 
 Where Rhadamanlhits dwells the sods shall ;end : 
 There mortala easiest pass the careless hour; 
 There neither winter comes, nor snow, nor shower ; 
 But ocean ever, to refresh mankind, 
 Breathes the shrill spirit of the western wind. 
 
 A tract on the coast of Campania was also termed the 
 Elysian Fields. 
 
 E'LYTRUM. (Gr. eXvrpov, a sheath.) The superior or 
 first pair of wings in four-winged insects are so called when 
 they are of a coriaceous and hardly flexible texture, and 
 serve as a protective covering to the second pair; as in 
 beetles. 
 
 EMANATION, SYSTEM OF. In Philosophy. See 
 Pantheism. 
 
 EMA'NCIPA'TION. (Lat. from manenpo, / sell, or de- 
 liver over the tangible property in any thing.) By the an- 
 cient Roman law, the son stood in the relation of a slave to 
 the father. By a fiction of that law, the son might be freed, 
 from this relation by being three times sold (mancipatus) 
 by the father. Hence the enfranchisement of the son de- 
 rived from thi3 ceremony the name of emancipation. In 
 course of time, various modes of emancipation, both lacit 
 and express, became recognized by the Roman jurispru- 
 dence. The word, in countries following that law, sig- 
 nifies the exemption of the son from the power of the 
 father, either by express act, or by implication of law. By 
 the present civil law of France, majority (and with it eman- 
 cipation) is attained at21 yearsof aze ; and the marriage ofa 
 minor emancipates him. (See Code Civil, lib. 1. ch 3.) In 
 ordinary language, emancipation is used in a gpneral sense 
 to signify the enfranchisement ofa slave, or the admission 
 of particular classes to the enjoyment of civil rights.
 
 EMARGINATE. 
 
 EMA'RGINATE. In Zoology, when the margin of a 
 part is broken by an obtuse notch, or the segment of a 
 circle. 
 
 EMARGFNULA. A subgenus of GastroporlousMollusks, 
 dismembered from the genus Patella of Linnasus, and 
 characterized by a shell of a simple conical form, but 
 having a narrow fissure extending from the margin to near 
 the summit. 
 
 EMBA'LMING. (Lat. balsamum, balm.) A process 
 adopted by the ancient Egyptians, chiefly lor the preserva- 
 tion of dead bodies from putrefaction. The term is derived 
 from the use of balsamic substances in the operation ; in 
 addition to these, saline substances and tanning materials 
 seem also to have been used. See Mummy. (See Gran- 
 ville, in Pkil. Trails. ; and Pettigrew upon Mummies.) 
 
 EMBA'NKMEIST. In territorial improvement, an em- 
 bankment is a mound of earth or a wall, or a structure 
 composed partly of a wall and partly of a bank of earth, to 
 protect lands from being overflown by rivers or the sea. 
 Embankments appear to have been coeval with the culture 
 of corn crops ; because these, it appears, were first grown 
 on the alluvial soils which border large rivers, and to pro- 
 tect the crops from the overflowing of these rivers after 
 heavy or long-continued rains, the cultivator would natu- 
 rally throw up a bank of earth. This appears to have been 
 done in Egypt at the most remote period of which there is 
 any record. In modem times, embankments are employ- 
 ed, not merely to protect lands under cultivation, but to en- 
 close land that is occasionally overflown by rivers or the sea, 
 and render it fit for the purposes of husbandry. This has 
 been done to a greater extent in Holland than in any other 
 country. There are also immense embankments in Italy, 
 particularly in Lombardy. In Britain, we have the em- 
 bankments of the Thames near London, which have been 
 in existence since the time of the Romans ; many in Lin- 
 colnshire, formed during the time of Cromwell, and some 
 of them many centuries before ; and one of the most re- 
 cent is that at Tre Madoc in Caernarvonshire, by which 
 upwards of 4000 acres were recovered from spring tides, 
 and in great part rendered fit for the plough. Embank- 
 ments are attended with immense expense ; but as the soil 
 gained or protected is generally of the best quality, a judi- 
 cious embankment is commonly considered as paying 
 about the same rate of interest as a landed estate. 
 
 EMBA'RGO. A restraint or prohibition imposed by the 
 public authorities of a country on merchant vessels or other 
 ships, to prevent their leaving its ports. Embargoes are 
 usually imposed only in time of war, or in apprehension of 
 an invasion; in which cases the government employs the 
 ships under embargo in armaments, expeditions, and trans- 
 portation of troops, &c. When it is found necessary to 
 stop the communication of intelligence between any two 
 places, an embargo is laid upon all ships, both foreign and 
 under the national flag. 
 
 E'MBASSY. See Ambassador. 
 
 E'MBER DAYS, in the Romish calendar, are certain 
 fasts appointed by Pope Calixtus for imploring the bless- 
 ing of the Almighty on the fruits of the earth, and upon the 
 ordinations performed in the church at these times. They 
 occur four times a year, or once in each of the four sea- 
 sons ; being the Wednesday, Fridav, and Saturday after 
 the first Sunday in Lent, after the Feast of Pentecost or 
 Whitsunday, after the festival of Holy Cross on the 14th of 
 September, and after the festival of St. Lucia on the 13th 
 of December. The weeks in which the ember days fall 
 are called ember toeeks. The word embers signifies ashes, 
 which the primitive Christians strewed on their heads at 
 these solemn fasts. 
 
 EMBERFZA. (Lat.) The name of a genus of Passe- 
 rine birds, characterized by having the upper mandible 
 narrower than the under one, with the edges turned in- 
 wards, and with a hard knob on the palate : the entire bill 
 has the usual short strong conformation of the Conirostral 
 tribe of Passerine birds. It is now the type of a family, 
 subdivided into minor genera, under the name of Emberi- 
 zida or Buntings. 
 
 EMBE'ZZLEMENT, in Law, is a felony, consisting of the 
 same class of acts which would in any other case amount 
 to larceny, when committed by one employed as a clerk 
 or servant, and by virtue of his office, on the goods and 
 chattels of his employer. 
 
 E'MBLEM. (Gr. t)ifi\rtjia ; from tv and ftaMeiv, to 
 throw in.) Literally, something inserted. This term has 
 various significations; but it is used most frequently in 
 English to signify a figurative representation, which by the 
 power of association suggests to the mind some idea not 
 expressed to the senses. In Bibliography, books consisting 
 of a series of plates, containing emblematic subjects, with 
 explanations, generally in verse, in Latin or modern lan- 
 guages, are termed books of emblems. They were fash- 
 ionable in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The 
 best known is the Emhlemata Alciati, by Andre Alciat, a 
 French lawver, which went through many editions. 
 
 EMBOLFSMIC (Gr. cu/3a\\o), I insert), in Chronology, 
 396 
 
 EMBRYO. 
 
 signifies the same thing as intercalary, and is chiefly ap> 
 plied to the additional months required to fill up the lunar 
 cycle. See Cycle and Epact. 
 
 EMBO'SSING, Embossment. (Fr. bosse, a protuberance.) 
 In Architecture and Sculpture, the raising or forming in 
 rilievo any sort of figure, whether performed with a chisel 
 or otherwise. It is a kind of sculpture, in which the 
 figures rise from the plane on which they are formed ; 
 and as they are more or less prominent, they are said to be 
 in alto, mezzo, or basso rilievo. 
 
 EMBOUCHU'RE (Fr.), signifies the mouthof ariver: it 
 is used also for the mouth-piece of a musical instrument. 
 
 EMBRA'CERY. (Norm. Fr. embraserie.) In Law, the 
 offence of endeavouring to corrupt or influence a jury ; 
 punishable by fine and imprisonment 
 
 E'MBRASU'RE. In Fortification, an opening made in 
 the wall or parapet of a fortified place, or breast-work of a 
 battery, through which the guns are fired. The embra- 
 sures are usually made about two and a half feet wide at 
 the interior extremity, and eight or nine feet at the exte- 
 rior ; and the sole or lower surface is at the height of about 
 two and a half feet above the platform on which the car- 
 riage of the gun is placed; but their forms and dimen- 
 sions are of course varied, according to their position rela- 
 tively to that of the point against which the fire is to be 
 directed. 
 
 E'MBROCATION. (Gr. cufipexw, / moisten.) A fluid 
 application to any part of the body when painful or in- 
 flamed. 
 
 EMBROFDERY. (Fr. broderie.) The name given to 
 the art of working figures on stuffs or muslins with a nee- 
 dle and thread. All embroidery may be divided into two 
 sorts, embroidery on stuffs and on muslin: the former is 
 used chiefly in church vestments, housings, standards, ar- 
 ticles of furniture, &c, and is executed with silk, cotton, 
 wool, gold and silver threads, and sometimes ornamented 
 with spangles, real or mock pearls, precious or imitation 
 stones, &c. ; the latter is employed mostly in articles of 
 female apparel, as caps, collars, &c, and is performed 
 only with cotton. In Germany this division is indicated by 
 the expression iceisse (white or muslin), and bunte Slicke- 
 rei (coloured or cloth) embroidery. The embroidery of 
 stuffs is performed on a kind of loom or frame ; that of 
 muslin by stretching it on a pattern already designed. 
 The modes of embroidering stuffs or muslin with the 
 common needle are extremely various ; but a minute de- 
 scription of these processes would be as difficult as it 
 would be uninteresting to the general reader. They con- 
 sist for the most part of a combination of ordinary stitches ; 
 but no limit can be assigned to their number or variety. 
 The art of embroidery was well known to the ancients. 
 As early as the time of Moses we find it practised success- 
 fully by the Hebrews ; and long before the Trojan war 
 the women of Sidon had acquired celebrity for their skill 
 in embroidery. At a later period, this art was introduced 
 into Greece, probably by the Phrygians (by some consi- 
 dered as the inventors) ; and to such a degree of skill did 
 the Grecian women attain in it, that their performances 
 were said to rival the finest paintings. In our own times 
 the art of embroidery has been cultivated with great suc- 
 cess, more especially in Germany and France ; and though 
 for a long period it was practised only by the ladies of these 
 countries as an elegant accomplishment, it is now regarded 
 as a staple of traffic, and furnishes employment for a large 
 portion of the population. In England also it appears to 
 have taken deep root, as it now forms an accomplishment, 
 of which almost every lady is in possession. About seven 
 years ago a great impetus was given to the cultivation of 
 this art, both on the Continent and in England, by the in- 
 vention of a machine which enables a female to execute 
 the most complex patterns with 130 needles, all in motion 
 at once, as accurately as she could formerly do with one. 
 But as no account of this remarkable invention which we 
 might give could be intelligible without the aid of illustra- 
 tions, which would be out of place in this work, we must 
 refer the reader to Dr. Ure's Dictionary of Arts, fyc. for 
 full information respecting it. One such machine with 130 
 needles is estimated to perform daily the work of 15 hand 
 embroiderers employed in the ordinary way. Many of 
 them are now mounted in Germany, France, and Switzer- 
 land ; and in Manchester there is one factory where they 
 do beautiful work. (See the Art of Needlework, edited by 
 the Countess of Wilton. Lond. 1840. ) 
 
 E'MBRYO. (Gr. epPpvov, from 0pvo), 1 bud forth.) In 
 Botany, a fleshy body occupying the interior of a seed, 
 and constituting the rudiment of a future plant. It is di- 
 vided into three parts ; — viz. a plumula or growing point, a 
 radicle or root, and a cotyledon or cotyledons. It is the 
 vegetable fetus ; and is so tenacious of life under particu- 
 lar circumstances, that there are well-attested instances of 
 its having preserved its vitality much beyond 1000 years. 
 The term is also applied to the fetus in utero before the 
 fifth month of pregnancy, because its growth has been 
 compared to the budding of a plant. 

 
 EMBRYOTOMY. 
 
 EMBRYO'TOMY. (Gr. cuffpvov, thefoztus, and tcuvcj, 
 I cut. ) The operation of cutting the tetus out of the womb. 
 E'MERALD. (Fr. emeraucte.) A mineral of a beauti- 
 ful geen color, which occurs in prismatic crystals, and is 
 much valued for ornamental jewellery. The finest are ob- 
 tained from Peru. It consists of 65 silica, IS alumina, 13 
 glucina, about 3 oxide of chromium (which is the colour- 
 ing matter), and a trace of lime. (Vauqvelin.) The mines 
 from which the ancients obtained emeralds are said to 
 have existed in Egypt, near Mount Zabarah. (Caillaud). 
 
 EME'RITI. (Lat.) The name given to the soldiers and 
 other public functionaries of ancient Rome, who had re- 
 tired from their country's service. On these occasions the 
 parties were entitled to some remuneration, resembling 
 our half pay ; but whether it was a grant of land or of 
 money has not been accurately ascertained. 
 
 EME'RSION. (Lat. emergo, I sink.) In Astronomy, 
 the reappearance of the sun, moon, or planets, or of a star, 
 from behind the celestial body by which it has been 
 eclipsed. The phenomena of immersions and emersions 
 are of considerable use in determining the longitudes of 
 places. 
 
 E'MERY. (From Cape Emeri in the island of Naxos.) 
 A variety of corundum ; amorphous, compact, and gene- 
 rally opaque. It is characterized by excessive hardness; 
 and its powder is used for cutting and polishing glass, 
 gems, and all hard substances : it scratches and wears 
 down nearly all minerals except the diamond. 
 
 EME'TICS. (Gr. cacto, I vomit.) Medicines which 
 occasion vomiting. The only vegetable emetic in general 
 use is ipecacuanha, from ten to twenty grains of which is 
 a dose ; the chief mineral emetics are the tartrate of an- 
 timony and potash, or emetic tartar, sulphate of zinc, and 
 sulphate of copper. When it is merely wished to evacuate 
 the contents of the stomach in cases where it is disordered 
 by improper food, twenty grains of ipecacuanha in an ounce 
 of water is a safe and good emetic ; it generally operates 
 in ten or twenty minutes, and its action may be assisted 
 by chamomile tea or warm water. At the beginning of 
 fevers or inflammatory disorders, an emetic is often ad- 
 vantageously administered, and then ten or fifteen grains 
 of ipecacuanha with half a grain or a grain of emetic tartar 
 in an ounce and a half of water is to be preferred : the per- 
 spiration which the vomit induces should be kept up by 
 remaining in bed, and by warm drinks or other proper re- 
 medies. Where poisons have been swallowed, the stomach 
 is often insensible to these means, especially where large 
 doses of opium are concerned ; and then half a drachm of 
 sulphate of zinc or of sulphate of copper may be dissolved 
 in three ounces of warm water, and a third part of the solu- 
 tion taken every ten minutes till it operates. In such cases, 
 however, the stomach-pump is principally to be relied 
 upon. When emetics are given in small doses, they pro- 
 duce nausea, and to this extent they have proved useful in 
 restraining hemorrhage of the lungs and stomach. Emetics 
 should be avoided in all plethoric habits, and where there 
 are any symptoms announcing fulness of the vessels of 
 the head ; in hernia, in the advanced stage of pregnancy, 
 and in active inflammations. They should also be given 
 with the utmost caution to young children ; and when given, 
 ipecacuanha should be resorted to. Old chronic pains 
 and obstinate rheumatism are sometimes relieved by an 
 emetic. 
 
 EME'TIC TA'RTAR. A triple salt, composed of oxide 
 of antimony, potassa, and tartaric acid. It is soluble in 
 eighteen parts of cold and in three of boiling water. In the 
 close of from half a grain to two grains it operates as a pow- 
 erful emetic and sudorific ; in smaller doses, it acts upon 
 the bowels, and is diaphoretic. 
 
 E'METINE. A substance discovered in 1817 by Pel- 
 letier in ipecacuanha. It is white, pulverulent, and bitter; 
 easily soluble in hot water and alcohol, and intensely 
 emetic. It exists in ipecacuanha to the amount of about 
 1G per cent., and appears to be the sole cause of its emetic 
 properly. 
 
 EMIGRA'TION. (Lat.) Migration is the movement of 
 an individual or a number of people from one place of re- 
 sidence to another: emigration, their abandonment of 
 their former home ; immigration (a word of modern coin- 
 age), their settlement in their new one. Emigration is, 
 in modern times, chiefly regarded in the light of a mode 
 of relieving a country or district labouring under excess 
 of population. The prejudices which formerly existed 
 against it, on account of the loss of inhabitants thus sus- 
 tained by a country, have long been removed, both by 
 severe necessity, and by the progress of economical know- 
 ledge. The power of reproduction in the human race is 
 so great, that the vacuum occasioned by any practicable 
 amount of emigration is speedily filled. It was long ago 
 observed that those provinces in Spain from which the 
 most constant emigration to America was going on (Bis- 
 cay, Asturias, &c.) were among the best peopled. The 
 subject of emigration, considered in an economical light, 
 has been amply discussed by Sir W. Horton (1825, &c.) by 
 397 
 
 EMPHASIS. 
 
 Col. Torrens, and by Mr. G. Wakefield (on Colonization, 
 1830, in which there are some curious calculations as to 
 the effect produced on the movement of population by the 
 emigration of a comparatively small number of marriage- 
 able persons: England and America, 1837.) Emigration 
 from our islands has for two centuries been chiefly directed 
 to North America : of late years, the Cape of Good Hope 
 and Australia have begun to absorb a small portion of our 
 surplus population. In 1831, a government commission on 
 emigration was formed, with a view to the regulation of the 
 practice; by which officers were appointed both at home 
 and in the North American colonies to watch over the in- 
 terests of emigrants and furnish them with necessary in- 
 formation. With reference to Australia, they established, 
 for the first time, the useful principle of disposing of the 
 public lands by sale, in order to form a fund for emigration. 
 The following table, showing the number of emigrants who 
 have left the United Kingdom from 1825 to 1837 inclusive, 
 is taken from the Journal of the London Statistical Society, 
 i. 159. 
 
 1825 
 
 14,891 
 
 1830 
 
 56,907 
 
 1835 . 44,478 
 
 18*26 
 
 20,900 
 
 1831 
 
 83,160 
 
 1836 . 75,417 
 
 1827 
 
 28,003 
 
 1832 
 
 103,140 
 
 1837 . 72,034 
 
 1828 
 
 26,092 
 
 1833 
 
 . 62,527 
 
 
 
 1829 
 
 31,198 
 
 1834 
 
 76,222 
 
 In all 694,969 
 
 Of these there went, in 1837, 
 
 29,884 to the North American colonies. 
 36,770 to the United States. 
 
 326 to the Cape of Good Hope. 
 5,054 to the Australian colonies. 
 The number in the same year from England was 40,502 
 
 Scotland . 4,779 
 
 Ireland . 26,753 
 
 The control of this important department is now (1841) 
 transferred to three officers, entitled Commissioners of 
 Colonial Lands and Emigration. 
 
 E'MINENCE. A title of honour borne in Europe by 
 various dignitaries at different times ; but appropriated to 
 cardinals by a papal decree of the year 1630. 
 
 E'MIR. (In Arabic, chief or lord.) The khalifs took the 
 title of Emir-al- Mumenin, — chief or commander of the 
 Faithful. The title is now given by prescriptive usage to 
 those who are considered to descend from Mohammed, by 
 his son-in-law Ali and daughter Fatima(see Scherif, a title 
 having the same application). But when joined to another 
 word expressive of a particular command or office, it is a 
 common title of dignity ; as, Emir-al- Omrah — a title given 
 by the Turks to viziers and pachas, &c. See Mirza. 
 
 EMME'NAGOGUE. (Gr. cuunvtoc, monthly, and ayto, 
 Imove.) Medicines which promote the menstrual evacu- 
 ation. 
 
 EMO'LLIENTS. (Lat. emollio, / soften.) Medicines 
 which are supposed to relax the living animal fibre. 
 
 E'MPEROR (Lat. imperator), was originally merely the 
 title of a Roman general ; but, on the fall of the republic, 
 it was particularly applied to the head of the state. The 
 authority of the Roman emperors was formed principally 
 by the combination of the chief offices of the old republic 
 in a single person ; besides which, some extraordinary 
 powers were conferred. Thus, Octavius held the titles of 
 emperor, proconsul, and tribune, pontifex maximus or 
 high priest; and was invested with perpetual consular au- 
 thority, and also that of the censorship. Besides this, he 
 was termed prince of the senate, and Augustus, which de- 
 signation descended to his successors; but he was much 
 more moderate in his use of titular dignities than his suc- 
 cessors, contenting himself with substantial power. The 
 provinces of the empire were divided between the senate 
 and emperor, who appointed their governors, distinguished 
 by the respective titles of proconsul and propraMor ; but 
 this division threw all the armies into the hands of the lat- 
 ter, as he took for his share the frontier provinces. The 
 emperors appointed their own successors, who were dig- 
 nified with the title of Ceesar, and in later times enjoyed a 
 share in the government. Dioclesian first divided the care 
 of the empire with a second Augustus in the person of 
 Maximian, and each of these colleagues associated with 
 himself a Cssar. After the court was removed to Con- 
 stantinople, the old titles and forms of the republic vanished 
 by degrees, and the emperors assumed the style of oriental 
 princes. 
 
 Charlemagne assumed the title of emperor after his co- 
 ronation at Rome ; and from his time this title (in German 
 kaiser) was claimed exclusively, in western Europe, by the 
 rulers of Germany. On the dissolution of the German 
 empire in 1805, the title passed to the emperor of Austria, 
 and, in the same year, Napoleon assumed it in France : the 
 czars of Russia claimed it in the reisn of Alexander. 
 
 E'MPHASIS. (From the Greek preposition cv, and ^r\fii, 
 I speak.) In Elocution, the stress laid on particular words 
 or syllables in the pronunciation of a sentence, in order to 
 express or enforce a meaning. It is divided by some 
 writers into emphasis of force, which we lay on almost 
 every significant word ; and emphasis of sense, which wa 
 35
 
 EMPHYSEMA. 
 
 lay on particular words, to distinguish them from the rest 
 of the sentence. 
 
 EMPHYSE'MA. (Gr. eutyvcaoi, Iinflate.) A collection 
 of air in the cellular membrane, rendering the part tense 
 and elastic, and crepitating when pressed. 
 
 EMPH yTE'USIS. (Gr. efityvrevois, from <pvTov, a plant ; 
 a contract conveying the right of cultivation.) In the Civil 
 Law, a contract by which houses or lands are given to be 
 possessed for ever, or for a long term, on condition they 
 shall be improved, and a small annual rent or pension 
 (canon emphyteuticus). either in money, grain, or any other 
 thing, reserved and made payable to the grantor as a re- 
 cognition of his paramount title. The grantor is said to re- 
 tain the dominium directum, the grantee to acquire the 
 dominium utile. The Scottish grant in feu-farm resembles 
 the emphyteusis. From this word (pronounced in the 
 lower age of Latinity emphytefsis) it is supposed that fief 
 (fevodum, feodum) is derived. 
 
 E'MPIRE. (Lat. imperium.) Originally the territory 
 or extent of land under the command and jurisdiction of 
 an emperor. The dominions under the sway of ancient 
 Rome were the first to which the term empire was applied : 
 they consisted of two grand divisions, — the Empire of the 
 East, or, as it was afterwards called, the Lower Empire ; 
 and the Empire of the West. The former admitted of va- 
 rious subdivisions in reference to the different dynasties to 
 which it was subject ; and the latter became, about the end 
 of the 9th century, the German or Holy Roman Empire. 
 In all these cases the sovereign or chief person in the em- 
 pire was named the emperor. But the term empire has 
 in several instances been employed to designate a large 
 extent of dominion, without reference to the title of the 
 ruler or sovereign of a country : thus we hear of the em- 
 pire of Persia," Hindostan. &c. The dominions of the 
 Queen of England are invariably designated the British Em- 
 pire ; and the epithet " imperial" is officially prefixed to 
 the parliament of the United Kingdom. The term empire 
 was applied from 1S04 to 1314 to the dominions of France, 
 including all the countries then incorporated with it by the 
 conquests of Napoleon. 
 
 EMPI'RIC. (Gr. tfi-etpiKog.) One whose knowledge 
 is founded on experience. The empiric school of medi- 
 cine was opposed to the dogmatic; it appears to have ori- 
 ginated with Serapion of Alexandria. The empirics con- 
 sidered the foundation of medical science to rest upon ex- 
 perience, derived either directly from experiment or from 
 chance and imitation. They were, however, a pretending, 
 and generally ignorant sect ; so that the term empiric is 
 generally applied to quacks and pretenders, without refer- 
 ence to its strict etymology, which should have limited it 
 to the study of medicine, in accordance with the principles 
 of Lord Bacon's philosophy. 
 
 EMPLE'CTION. (Gr. eunXexw, I entangle.) In Archi- 
 tecture, a method of constructing walls, in which, accord- 
 ing to Vitruvius, the front stones were wrought fair, and the 
 interior left rough and filled in with stones of various sizes. 
 EMPO'RIUM. (Gr. eunoptov.) A Greek word wholly 
 naturalized in England, signifying a city or place where 
 great commercial transactions are made. This word has 
 been in use in England upwards of three centuries. 
 
 EMPROSTHO'TONOS. (Gr. eurrpoodev, forwards, and 
 
 tcivcj, I draic.) A spasmodic action of the muscles, by 
 which the body is involuntarily drawn forwards. 
 
 EMPYE'MA. (Gr. ev, in, and ttvov, pus.) A collection 
 of purulent matter in the cavity of the thorax. This is an 
 
 occasional termination of pleurisy, and is attended by dif- 
 ficulty of breathing and inability to lie on the side opposite 
 
 that which is affected ; an external swelling is sometimes 
 
 Eerceptible, and the matter has occasionally been let out 
 y making an opening between the sixth and seventh ribs. 
 EMPYRE'AL AIR. Oxygen gas. 
 
 EMPYREU'MA. (Gr. efiirvpeva), I kindle.) A burned 
 odour. Hence, the oils obtained by distilling various or- 
 ganic substances at high temperatures are called empyreu- 
 malic oils. 
 
 EMU. A three-toed Struthions bird, peculiar to Austra- 
 lia, differing from the rhea of South America in the extreme 
 shortness of its wings, and from the cassowary of Java in 
 the absence of the horny projection on the head. 
 
 EMU'LGENT. The artery and vein of the kidney are 
 so called. 
 
 EMU'LSION. (Lat. emulgeo, I milk.) A milky liquid; 
 as almond emulsion. 
 
 EMU'NCTORIES. (Lat. emungo, I drain off.) The ex- 
 cretory ducts of the body. 
 
 E'MYDINES, Emydina. A section of Chelonian rep- 
 tiles or tortoises, having the genus Emys as the type. 
 
 EMY'DO-SAURIANTS, Emydosauria. (Gr tjivs, and 
 oavpos, a lizard.) The name of an order of the class Rep- 
 tilia, including the tribe of Crocodiles (Crocodiliens, Cuv.), 
 which form part of the order Sauria of the Regne Animal. 
 ENA'LIOSAU'RIA. (Gr. tv, in, aX{, the sea, and aavpos, 
 a lizard.) A name applied to the entire group of extinct 
 Saurians, in the organization of which paddles, like those 
 398 
 
 ENDOGENS. 
 
 of the whale or turtle, were combined with the head and 
 trunk of a crocodile. See Ichthyosatjr, Plesiosaur. 
 
 ENA'MEL. (Fr. enemail.) A semitransparent or opaque 
 glass. Common glass fused with oxide ol tin is converted 
 into enamel. It is often variously coloured. 
 ENAMEL OF TEETH. See Teeth. 
 ENAMEL PAINTING. (Fr. en email.) In Painting, the 
 art of painting with vitrifiable colours on thin plates of me- 
 tals which are melted on to it. This art is of extremely 
 high antiquity ; it was practised by the Egyptians to a con- 
 siderable extent, and by the Etruscans from the time of 
 Persenna. After lying dormant, or at least in little vogue, 
 for centuries, it was renewed in Italy under the pontificate 
 of Julius II. The various colours used are prepared from 
 oxides of different metals, melted with some vitrescent 
 mixture laid on with a fine brush, the medium being oil of 
 spike or some other essential oil : and it is not difficult to 
 conceive, says Mr. Aikin, " how much the difficulties of 
 this nice art are increased, where the object is not merely 
 to lay a uniform coloured glazing on a metallic surface, but 
 also to paint that surface with figures and other designs 
 that require extreme delicacy of outline, accuracy of 
 shadowing, and selection of colouring. The enamel painter 
 has to work, not with actual colours, but with mixtures 
 which he knows from experience will produce certain co- 
 lours after the operation of the fire. 1 ' This work requires 
 several firings. The outline is first burnt in, after which 
 the parts are filled up gradually with repeated burnings to 
 the last finishing touches. 
 
 EN ARTHRO'SIS. (Gr. tv, in, and apQpov, a joint.) The 
 ball and socket joint. 
 
 ENCA'MPMENT, in Military affairs, signifies the posi- 
 tion occupied for an indefinite period by an army, with all 
 its artillery, stores, baggage, &c, either for the purposes of 
 exercise or warfare. 
 
 ENCANTHIS. (Gr. tv, in, and xavOos, the angle of the 
 eye.) A small tumour or excrescence growing from the 
 inner angle of the eye. 
 
 ENCA'RPUS. (Gr. tv, and Kapnos, fruit.) In Archi- 
 tecture, the festoons on a frieze, consisting of fruits, flowers, 
 leaves, &c. 
 
 ENCAU'STIC PAINTING. (Gr. tv, and KavariKOS, 
 burning.) In Painting, a method of painting used by the 
 ancients, the precise mode of executing which is by no 
 means sufficiently explained. From Pliny's account, it 
 seems that the colours were made up into crayons through 
 a medium of wax, and, the subject being previously traced 
 with a metal point, were melted on the picture as they 
 were used. The picture being finished, a varnish of melted 
 wax was spread over all. The colours thus not only ob- 
 tained considerable brilliancy, but the work was also pro- 
 tected from the weather. It was lastly well polished. The 
 attempts to revive this art, which, after all, if we may draw 
 our conclusion from Pliny's account, seems to have been 
 but a clumsy process, have not been attended with success- 
 ENCE'PHALOCE'LE. (Gr. ty*t(pa\os, the brain, and 
 Kyj^r], a tumour.) Hernia of the brain. There are two 
 kinds of this disease : one occurs in young infants, before 
 the skull is completely ossified ; the other presents itself 
 after the destruction of" a part of the skull in consequence 
 of disease, accident, or the operation of the trepan. 
 
 ENCE'PHALON. (Gr. ev, in, and Ktipa\rt, the head.) 
 The brain. The contents of the cranium. 
 
 ENCHA'NTMENT. The name given to the charms or 
 ceremonies to which magicians have recourse in the prac- 
 tice of their art. It is derived from the Lat. in, and cantare, ' 
 to sing ; and is so called because the formula? used in 
 magic were usually written in verse and designed to be 
 sung. See Magic, Demonologt. 
 ENCHASING. See Chasing. 
 
 ENCHIRI'DION. (Gr. eyxtipiStov, from ev, in, and 
 %tip, thehand.) In Literature, a brief and useful compila- 
 tion ; a manual. The ethical treatise of Epictetus is termed 
 his Enchiridion. 
 ENCLI'TICS. See Particles. 
 E'NCRINITES. See Crinoideans. 
 ENCYCLOPEDIA. See Cyclopedia, Dictionary. 
 ENCY'STED. A term applied to tumours which are 
 inclosed in a sac or cyst. 
 
 ENDE'CAGON, or UNDECAGON. (Gr. tvgtita. eleven, 
 and ycovia. angle.) A plane geometrical figure bounded 
 by eleven sides. If the sides are all equal, and the length of 
 each be supposed = 1, the area of the figure is 9-36564. 
 
 ENDE'MIC. (Gr. tv, amongst, and Sn/xoi. the people.) A 
 disease peculiar to a certain class of persons, or to a cer- 
 tain district. Thus agues or intermittent fevers are ende- 
 mic in low countries, — the goitre in the Alps, the plica Po- 
 lonica in Poland. »S'ee Epidemic. 
 
 E'NDOCA'RPIUM. (Gr. tvoov, trithin, and Kapiros, 
 fruit.) A term invented by Richard to denote the inner 
 coat or shell of a fruit. 
 
 E'NDOGENS. (Gr. evtiov, and yewofiai, 1 groie.) One 
 of the primary classes of plants, so called because their 
 stems grow by successive additions to the inside. They
 
 ENDOPHYLLOUS. 
 
 are usually known by the veins of their J«JIM*J 
 parallel with each other, without branching or d'v>amg. 
 ferasses, lilies, the asparagus, and similar plants belong to 
 this class, which in warm countries contains trees ot 
 large size, such as palms and screw pines. 
 
 ENDOPHY'LLOUS. (Gr. cvdov, and 0t>AAoi/, a leaj.) 
 A term invented by Dumortier to denote the young eaves 
 of Monocotyledons, from their being evolved within a 
 sheath, while those of Exogens are not so enclosed. 
 
 ENDOPLEU'RA. (Gr. tv&ov, and n\tvpa ) the siae.) in 
 Botsnv, the internal integument of a seed. 
 
 E'NDORHI'ZjE. (Gr. evOov, and pi(a, a root.} Aieini 
 invented by Richard for the embryo of *»^J*°M 
 which the radicle has to rupture I the integument i .the base 
 of a seed prior to entering into the earth, appearing as U it 
 came from within the mother root. 
 ENDORSEMENT. See Exchange. 
 E'NDOSITHONITES. (Gr. tviov, internal, aiQav, a 
 tube.) A genus of extinct Cephalopods, with chambered 
 convolute discoidal shells, having the siphon .P^attt» e 
 irner side of the turns, as in the Spirula. The bndoupho- 
 nit!s characterize the slate rocks of the Cambrian system, 
 and have not yet been observed in the Silurian ormauon 
 
 ENDOSMO'SE. (Gr. cvdov, and oier/ioj, impulsion) ifie 
 transmission of gaseous bodies, or vapours or hquids 
 through membranes or porous substances from without 
 
 '"eNDOSPE'RMIUM. (Gr. cvdov. and aircppa, seed.) A 
 term invented by Richard to denote the albumen of seeds. 
 
 E'NDOSTOME. (Gr. cvSov, and arojia, the mouth.) ine 
 passage through the inner integument of a seed immedi- 
 ately below the part called the foramen. ,..„,„ 
 
 ENDOTHELIUM. The fibrous cellular tissue lining an 
 anther. 
 
 ENDOWMENTS. See Founoation. 
 
 ENE1D. See jEneid. . 
 
 ENE'MA. (Gr. cvnpciv, to inject.) A medicine inject- 
 ed into the rectum. A clyster. 
 
 ENFEOFFMENT. See Feoffment. 
 
 ENFILA'DE. A term used in military language to de- 
 note a fire of artillery or musketry in the direction i of the 
 enemy's line. A trench or parapet is said to be enJUaded 
 when guns are so placed that the shot can be fired into it in 
 a direction parallel to its length. . 
 
 ENFRANCHISEMENT (French, franchise, freedom or 
 right), in Law, is the act of incorporating a person into any 
 society or body politic ; as where one is maue a citizen or 
 free burgess ofYtown corporate. In feudal usage a villein 
 was said to be enfranchised when he was made free by his 
 lord ; and hence is derived the popular signification of the 
 term For enfranchisement of land, see Copyhold. 
 
 ENGA'GED COLUMNS. In Architecture, columns at- 
 tached to walls, by which a portion of them is concealed; 
 they never stand less than one half out from the walls 
 
 ENGA'GEMENT, signifies either a battle by sea or land , 
 but it is applied more frequently to the former, being sy- 
 nonymous with action. An engagement between two ships 
 is called simply an action : between fleets, a general action. 
 As the object is to get possession of the enemy if possible, 
 efforts are made either to disable him by cannonading, or, 
 as is the practice of the English, to board htm at once. 
 The conquered vessel strikes (hauls down) her colouis, 
 which are afterwards replaced by those of the enemy 
 
 h °E'NGINE, in 'Mechanics, is used to denote generally 
 any kind of machine in which two or more of the simple 
 mechanical powers are combined together 
 
 ENGINEERING. (Fr. engine.) Strictly, the art oi 
 managing engines ; but latterly applied in a more extended 
 sense! not only to that art, but to all manufacturing and 
 buildhV operations in which engines are used. It is divid- 
 ed into two branches, Military and Civil. 
 
 Military engineering, as a science, implies a knowledge 
 of the construction and maintenance of fortifications, and 
 all buildings necessary in military posts ; aud hence in- 
 cludes a thorough instruction on every point relative to the 
 attack and defence of places. The science also embraces 
 the surveying of a country for the various operations ot 
 war, and consequently an acquaintance with mathematics 
 and facility in drawing. When at a siege the engineer has 
 surveyed a place, he reports to the commander the weak- 
 est places, and those in which approaches may be made 
 with most success. He draws the lines of circumvallation 
 and contravallation ; marks out the trenches, places ot 
 arms batteries, and lodgments ; and in general directs the 
 workmen in these operations. He should possess a prac- 
 tical and theoretical knowledge of gunnery. In regard to 
 the marine branch of military engineering, it requires ot 
 course a "eneral acquaintance with the construction of ves- 
 sels ietties, moles, and other buildings of that description. 
 Civil engineering, as its name imports, does not include 
 those branches above named which specially belong to the 
 art of war: but relates to the forming of roads and bridges, 
 railroads, the construction of machinery for all purposes, 
 399 
 
 ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 the formation of canals, aqueducts, harbours, drainage of a 
 country, &c. Till the year 1760, civil engineering was little 
 cultivated in England as a distinct occupation ; at that pe- 
 riod, manufactures began to be extended by the enterprise, 
 the capital, and science of a number of individuals eminent 
 for their deep knowledge and persevering industry. New 
 and more appropriate situations were chosen lor carrying 
 them on than the small towns in which they had been seat- 
 ed and where combinations and corruption made the wages 
 of the workman extravagant. Internal navigation was con- 
 sequent upon this change : communication from harbours 
 to warehouses, and the converse, as well as facility ot 
 transport from factory to factory, became absolutely neces- 
 sary Hence a system of canal navigation and aqueducts, 
 which perhaps will not be entirely superseded even by the 
 more modern railroad. Previous to the above period, a 
 few ietties and piers of defence were thrown out in our 
 seaports, affording to the mariner little better protection 
 than nature herself: they have since become harbours of 
 refuse ; some of them are capable of holding large navies. 
 The application ofthe steam engine to almost every purpose, 
 independent of its importance in manufactures, has smooth- 
 ed the difficulties formerly experienced in forming works 
 under water, and has now made rapid strides towards su- 
 perseding all animals of draught. To give the faintest out- 
 line of the science of practical engineering would be to 
 write treatises on mathematics, mechanics, hydraulics, 
 hydrostatics, and the other branches of natural philosophy : 
 the reader must therefore seek for information under the 
 separate heads of science involved in it. 
 
 ENGLAND, CHURCH OF. The period at which Chris- 
 tianity was first preached in this country has not been set- 
 tled with any certainty ; but there was certainly a British 
 church existing in the island at the time of the mission of 
 Augustine, in the year 597, to convert the Saxons The 
 British church, however, at that time, had shared the fate 
 of the general British population, and had been pent up by 
 the pressure of the heathen invaders within narrow limits 
 at the extremities of the island. It can hardly be thought 
 to have retained sufficient vigour to have effected the con- 
 version of the barbarians, and would probably have died 
 out but for the seasonable reinforcement Irom Rome. It 
 such be the case, we must allow that Christianity in Bri- 
 tain owes at least its second foundation to the Romish see ; 
 but this foundation took place at a comparatively pure age, 
 and possibly the influence of the uncoutaminated religion 
 of the Britons may have had its effect in preserving to the 
 Saxons a very modified form of popery. Certain it is, as 
 has been shown from existing homilies by Anglo-Saxon 
 prelates, that some of the principal novelties of the Ro- 
 manists were unknown to or repudiated by the English 
 church, at least up to the time of Edward the Confessor. 
 
 The intercourse with France, which began to take place 
 in that reign, and the superstitious temper of the monarch, 
 prepared the way for the introduction of the Roman power : 
 it was furthered by the necessities of the usurpers Wil- 
 liam and Stephen. Under Henry II. royalty took the 
 alarm, and a fierce struggle took place, in which the papal 
 authority was eventually victorious. Under John, the tri- 
 umph of Romanism was completed, when the crown of 
 England was actually given into the hands of Innocent HI. 
 Bufatthat very time the seeds of the Reformation were 
 being sown among the lowest classes ; sects of strolling 
 fanatics were constantly appearing and passing away ; mis- 
 guided themselves, but drawing the attention ofthe people 
 to the errors of the church ; and at length, under the im- 
 pulse given by the learning of Wiclif, taking a definite and 
 lasting shape under the name of the Lollards. A general re- 
 formation in opinion was almost at hand, when Henry VIII. 
 threw off the supremacy of the Pope. But while he en- 
 couraged the reformers by that step, he checked them by 
 severe enactments upon points of belief; and, as far as he 
 is concerned, it may be doubted whether he at all assisted 
 the development of the Reformation. The Church of 
 England was first reformed by law on the accession of 
 Edward VI. ; but many points of doctrine and discipline 
 were left untouched; and the enactments of Elizabeth, by 
 which its whole constitution was finally settled, lolloweu 
 rather than preceded the expressed convictions of the na- 
 tion. (For the variations that have since taken place in 
 the services of the church, see art. Common Prater.) 
 The government of the Church of England is episcopal, 
 and the bishops sit in the House of Lords by virtue of the 
 temporal baronies into which 'heir benefices were con- 
 verted by William the Conqueror. This constitution was 
 lubverted on the success ofthe Great Rebellion, and pres- 
 byterianism established in its stead ; but the episcopal form 
 was restored in 16C0 with the return of Charles II. 
 
 ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. We have already, un- 
 der tliearacle Architecture, given a general view ofthe 
 rise and progress of Gothic Architecture. Our purpose m 
 "nls Place is to enter into details respecting its subdivisions 
 n this country. Without disrespect to the later writers 
 who have differently arranged and named the styles, we
 
 ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 think none more convenient than that used by the Rev. 
 Geo. Millers (in his description of the cathedral church of 
 Ely) for giving the reader a succinct and satisfactory view 
 of some of the examples which England affords. We pro- 
 pose, therefore, to subdivide the styles into five periods : — 
 Is; Period, or Anglo-Saxon, which may be comprised from 
 A. d. GOO to 1056, that is, from the conversion of the Sax- 
 ons to the Norman Conquest ; 2d Period, or Norman, from 
 1066 fo nearly 1200, comprising the reigns of William I., 
 William II., Henry I.. Stephen, Henry II., and Richard I. ; 
 3d Period, or Early English, from 1200 to 1300. or during 
 the reigns of John, Henry III., and Edward I. ; 4th Period, 
 or Ornamented English, 1300 to 1460, comprising the latter 
 portion of the reign of Edward I., that of Edward II., Ed- 
 ward III., Richard II., Henry IV., Henry V., and Henry VI. ; 
 5th and last Period, or Florid English, by some called the 
 Tudor Style, from 1460 to the dissolution of the religious 
 houses in 1537, comprising the reiins of Edwards IV. and 
 V., Richard HI., Henrys VII. and VIII. 
 
 Ducarel, in his Norman Antiquities, enumerates the 
 churches in England anterior to the Norman Conquest ; 
 among which appear those of Stukely in Bucks, Barfres- 
 ton in Kent, and Avington in Berks. Other examples are 
 to he found in Waltham Abbey ; the transept arches of 
 Southwell, Notts ; the nave of the abbey church of St. 
 Alban, Herts ; nave of St. Frideswide, Oxford, &c. The 
 principal characteristics of this the First Period are, arches 
 (1) of semicircular form, frequently quite plain, (1) 
 occasionally decorated with various sorts of mould- 
 ings, both on the face and soffit; often double, 
 triple, or quadruple, each projecting beyond the 
 face of the other, with a moulding on the semi- 
 circular edge or arris, and resting on columns. The 
 columns are always single, and on the plan circular, \!k 
 hexagonal, or octagonal ; placed on a square plinth, 
 and so low in proportion to their height as to be not more 
 than 3J diameters high. The shafts are sometimes orna- 
 mented with spiral fluted or other work. The capitals are 
 indented, or rather engrailed, with fis- 
 sures of different lengths and forms 
 variously sloped off, or hollowed out 
 towards the top. (2) They are often 
 decorated with rude imitations of vo- 
 lutes and leaves, being exceedingly 
 varied in their composition. — Win- 
 dows, semicircular- headed, extremely 
 narrow, being sometimes not more than six or eight inches 
 wide to a height of little more than three feet, and splayed or 
 levelled offon the inside through the whole thickness of the 
 wall. — Walls ofgreat thickness, without external buttresses. 
 — Ceilings open-timbered, with a few specimens of vault- 
 ing in crypts. — Ornaments very sparingly used, except to 
 capitals and shafts of columns.— Plan rectangular and pa- 
 rallelogram mic, being usually divided into a body and 
 chancel separated by an ornamental arch. The chan- 
 cel occasionally as broad as the nave, and at the east- 
 ern part ending in a semicircle. In large churches 
 there is a nave and two side aisles, the latter being divided 
 from the former by ranks of columns ; but no transepts 
 appear till the latter part of the period, that is, about 970. 
 when they were generally adopted, with a square tower 
 over their interspction with the nave of the church, and 
 rising a little above the roof. At this date also towers be- 
 gan to appear at the west end, for the reception of bells. 
 The churches of this period were of small dimensions, and 
 it seems doubtful whether they were ever higher than one 
 tier of arches with a rantre of windows above. 
 
 Of the Second Period, or Norman Style, many more 
 examples remain than of those in the First Period ; as in 
 the nave, aisles, transept, and west front of Tewkesbury ; 
 the nave and west front of Malmsbury ; Wimborn minster ; 
 Dunstable ; St. Cross in Hampshire ; Romsey in the same 
 county, &c. Also in the cathedrals of Ely ; western towers, 
 and nave, choir, and round tower, called Becket's Crown, 
 at Canterbury ; nave and choir at Norwich ; transept and 
 choir at Hereford, chapterhouse at Chester; presbytery 
 at Chichester; transept at Peterborough, &c. The cha- 
 racteristics of this style are, arches, generally semicircular, 
 as in the diagram (3) here given of the nave 
 of Gloucester cathedral, and of much larger 
 dimensions than those of the preceding pe- 
 riods ; their ornaments less minute. They 
 are sometimes without ornament at all, and 
 their soffits are always plain. In the second 
 I -.'.. tier two small equal arches are comprised 
 
 * rr ^ s ' '" ™ under one larger one, with a column between, 
 from which they spring, thus (4) : — In 
 the third tier there are generally three 
 together, the central one being higher 
 and wider than those on the sides, and 
 usually opened for a window- The 
 three, however, only occupy a space 
 equal in width to the lower arch. The 
 arches, which serve for the decoration 
 400 
 
 (3) 
 
 of entrance doorways, are richly ornamented with mould- 
 ings, foliage, representations of men and animals of gro- 
 tesque forms fantastically put together. The pointed arch 
 began to creep in about the end of this period, though but 
 sparingly ; and it may sometimes be seen capriciously in- 
 termixed with the semicircular arch, and alternating with 
 it : when these appear they are usually sharp-pointed. — 
 Columns. These are of large diameter compared with 
 their intervals ; the shaft is circular, hexagonal and some- 
 times octagonal on the plan : fluted, lozenged, reticulated, 
 and otherwise sculptured. Sometimes they are square on 
 the plan, and then they are accompanied by portions of co- 
 lumns or pilasters applied to them. Sometimes four columns 
 are connected together, with or without angular pieces. 
 They are much higher in proportion to their diameters than 
 the Saxon columns above described ; and though their capi- 
 tals are not unfrequently quite plain, they are more com- 
 monly decorated with a species of volute, or with plants, 
 flowers, leaves, shells, animals, &c. The bases stand on a 
 strong plinth adapted on its plan to the shape of the com- 
 bined forms. — Windows. These are still narrow, and semi- 
 circular-headed ; but they are higher, and often in groups of 
 two or three together. — Ceilings always of timber, except in 
 crypts; in which they are vaulted with stone, with plain 
 groins, frequently moulded, and with ornamented edges ; 
 /\ ss. y\. yv DUt tne y are universally without 
 (5) V\^^\^V tracery: the White Tower of Lon- 
 (gj rrirpri rp-] r— -] r: don, however, affords an example 
 IM! LkLI L=L I I 1 — ' F of a centre aisle covered with 
 (7t \\~7/^~77 \V~77 vaulting — The uralbareof extraor- 
 *■' ' ^A Z±z^\Z / -^\ /*- dinary thickness, with but few but- 
 (8) E B |3 E tresses, and those of small projec- 
 ts L-lL^L-m—tJ tion, usually without ornament. — 
 I i — r~i-3 3 The ornaments employed were, the 
 chevron or zigzag moulding (5) : 
 the embattled frette (6) ; the trian- 
 gular frette (7) ; the nail head (8) ; 
 the billet (9); the cable (10); the 
 wavy (11); the nebuly (12); and 
 some others. Many of these were 
 used in the preceding period, as well as many which have 
 received no names. Ranges of small arehes also appear; 
 these rest on brackets, sometimes with carved heads, along 
 the upper part of a building, just below the eaves or battle- 
 ment, and have received the name of a corbel table. (13) — 
 (I3\ Plans in this period are always with 
 
 transepts and a tower at the inter- 
 " ier loftier than before, 
 spires ; there are usually 
 one above the other, 
 and the eastern ends are semicircular. Though much of 
 the Saxon style is retained, there is, from the larger dimen- 
 sions of the edifices of this period, a much more impres- 
 sive air of magnificence than has hitherto appeared. In- 
 deed, the larger dimensions alone have by some been 
 thought to be the only criterion for distinguishing the Nor- 
 man and Saxon styles ; but this cannot be depended on, 
 inasmuch as many of the former buildings are of small ex- 
 tent. 
 
 The Third Period, or Early English Style— It was not 
 till towards the close of the reign of Stephen, that the first 
 transition from the Anglo-Norman style appears to have 
 taken place. As we have before hinted, it is discoverable 
 in the arch, which, from being semicircular, became point- 
 ed ; a circumstance, though often investigated by antiqua- 
 ries, still in obscurity. There is, however, another remark- 
 able feature exhibited in the transition ; the transformation, 
 namely, of single massive pillars into clusters of small 
 ones. Specimens of this style may be seen in the conven- 
 tual edifices of Westminster Abbey, Tintern Abbey in 
 Monmouthshire, Ripon and Beverley minsters in York- 
 shire : and in the cathedral of Lincoln, the nave and arches 
 beyond the transept ; in York, the north and south tran- 
 septs ; in Wells, the tower and western front ; in Ely, the 
 presbytery; in Oxford, the chapterhouse; in Worcester, 
 the transept and choir ; and in Salisbury throughout. The 
 characteristics of the style are, arches sharply pointed, and 
 lofty in proportion to their span. In the upper tiers two 
 or more are comprised under one, and finished with tre- 
 
 wAMWW 
 
 1 transepts and i 
 
 JTT--7 s — \ f — v y—\ I section, rather 
 
 U y U U y and without spi 
 
 * tiers of arches i 
 
 (14) 
 
 (15) 
 
 foil (14), or cinquefoil (15) 
 A heads, instead of points. — 
 /\ l\ The columns(\6) on which 
 > < C ) the arches rest are ex- 
 f ^ tremely slender in respect 
 -> L. _l L of their height, and usu- 
 ally consist of a central shaft surrounded by 
 several smaller ones. The base assumes the 
 general form of the cluster, and the capital is 
 often decorated with foliage of extremely ele- 
 gant formation. — Windows tall, narrow, and shaped at the 
 top like the head of a lancet ; hence some writers, among 
 whom Dallaway, have called this style the lancet Gothic. 
 They are divided by one or at most two plain mullions, 
 finished at their upper extremities with some simple orna-
 
 ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 ment, such as a trefoil. — Roofs are high-pitched, and the 
 ceilings vaulted, affording the first examples of arches with 
 cross springers only, which, after a short period, diverged 
 into many more, rising from the capitals of the columns, 
 and almost overspreading the whole of the vaulting; the 
 longitudinal line which reigned along the apex of the vault 
 being decorated with bosses of flowers, figures, and other 
 fancies. — The trails now lessen in thickness ; but they are 
 strengthened externally with buttresses, leaning as it were 
 against them, for the purpose of counteracting the thrust 
 exerted by the vaults of the ceilings, which the walls and 
 piers could not by their own gravity resist. The buttresses 
 are, moreover, aided in their office by being surmounted 
 with pinnacles, adorned with crockets at their angles, and 
 crowned with a finial flower. — The ornaments, though nu- 
 merous, are simple and elegant. The mouldings have not 
 the variety found in the preceding period, being usually 
 cut into a combination of leaves and flowers, placed com- 
 monly round the sides of arches, and especially of win- 
 dows ; but the columns are sometimes completely, as 
 it were, embroidered with them. The spandrels of the 
 arches are often covered with trefoils, quatrefoils, cinque- 
 foils, roses, mullets, bosses, patera?, &c. The pinnacles of 
 shrines are high and acutely formed, often with niches un- 
 der them containing statues ; similar niches are also fre- 
 quently used on the west and eastern fronts, their heads 
 being extremely sharp. These ornaments, however, are 
 not so profusely used in large as in small edifices, or in 
 parts added to old ones. — The plans are generally similar 
 to those of the Second Period ; but the towers rise to a 
 great height, and lanterns and lofty spires are very fre- 
 quent accompaniments to the structure. In the transition 
 from the second to the third style, it will naturally occur to 
 the reader that the architect left one extreme for another, 
 though it has been contended that the latter has its germ 
 in the former. Be that as it may, the period of which we 
 are now speaking was undoubtedly the germ of the suc- 
 ceeding slyles by no very forced or unnatural relationship. 
 The Fourth Period, or Ornamented English Style. — Ex- 
 amples of this style are, the Chapel of Merton College, 
 Oxford ; New College Chapel in the same city ; St. Ste- 
 phen's Chapel, Westminster, so injured by the conflagra- 
 tion of the houses of parliament as to be now no longer in 
 existence ; St. Mary's, in York ; choir of Tewkesbury, in 
 Gloucestershire ; Magdalen College, Oxford ; Eton College 
 Chapel, Bucks ; and the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick : 
 also in the cathedrals of Exeter ; nave and choir of Litch- 
 field throughout; naves of Worcester and 
 York ; spire and tower of Norwich ; spire 
 of Salisbury ; nave and choir of Bristol; the n. 
 Lady Chapel and Louvre at Ely ; choir of N^, 
 Gloucester; Bishop Beckington's additions 
 at Wells and at Lincoln, from the upper 
 transept to the great east window. lis 
 characteristics are, that the arches are less 
 acute, changing in form, and more open. 
 (17) In the columns the central and de- 
 tached shafts are now brought into one 
 general combination. — The windows are not only larger, 
 but divided into several lights by a number of mullions, 
 which constantly branch out at the top into leaves, flowers, 
 wheels, fans, and numberless other forms. Though, how- 
 ever, these expanded considerably during the reigns of 
 the two first Edwards, they grew narrower and sharper in 
 proportion to their height during the reign of Edward HI., 
 when the head was often formed of lines scarcely curved 
 above the haunches. The eastern and western windows 
 were of large dimensions, and their glass splendidly painted. 
 The ceilings were constructed with vaulting of very highly 
 decorated parts, whose principal ribs, spreading out from 
 their springings on the imposts, covered the whole surface 
 with tracery, much subdivided, and ornamented with beads, 
 bosses, and a multitude of other devices, which were 
 elaborately painted and gilt. — The ornaments are not so 
 pure in line as in the previous style; but they are more 
 varied and studied. Niches covered with tabernacles, for 
 the reception of statues, every where abound; tiers of orna- 
 mental arches; pinnacles, not so lofty and tapered, but 
 adorned with leaves and crockets, with much sculpture, 
 painted and gilt, constantly occur ; as also screens, carved 
 stalls, panelled ceilings, and other ornaments in carved and 
 painted wood. 
 
 The Fifth Period, being the Florid English or Tudor 
 Style (18), is very completely exhibited in (18) 
 Henry the Seventh's Chapel at Westminster, 
 King's College Chapel at Cambridge, and 
 St. George's Chapel at Windsor, — edifices 
 well known to most persons in this country. 
 Examples are to be found also in the Lady 
 Chapel of Gloucester Cathedral, Alcocke's 
 Chapel at Ely, the exterior of the choir at 
 Winchester, the Lady Chapel at Peterborough, 
 and the north porch at Hereford. In the 
 Tudor style, it seems as though this species of archi 
 401 
 
 ENGRAVING. 
 
 tecture having culminated, was now destined to set in 
 a blaze of uncontrolled splendour of ornament. Simpli- 
 city was superseded by the dazzle of minute decoration, 
 which was exhausted by the caprice of its inventors. It 
 has therefore as well received the name of Florid, as its 
 other name of Tudor ; the latter from having been intro- 
 duced and carried to its utmost pitch during the power of 
 the family of that name. Its arches are universally flat and 
 wide in proportion to their height. — The ir indows are much 
 more open than in the last, flatter at the top, divided in the 
 upper parts by transoms, which are almost constantly 
 crowned with miniature embattled work. — The ceiling 
 epreads out into such a variety of parts that the whole sur- 
 face seems covered with a web of delicate sculpture or em- 
 broidery thrown over it ; and from different intersections 
 of this ribbed work clusters of pendent ornaments hang 
 down, as Mr. Millers observes, like " stalactites in caverns." 
 The flying buttresses are equally ornamented, and the ex- 
 ternal surfaces of the walls are one mass of delicate sculp- 
 ture. The ornaments, as may be deduced from what we 
 have above noticed, are lavish and profuse : fretwork, 
 figures of men and animals, niches and tabernacles, ac- 
 companied with canopies, pedestals, and tracery of the 
 most exquisite workmanship, carried this style to the sum- 
 mit of splendour, and perhaps had no small share in pro- 
 ducing the extinction it was doomed to undergo. 
 
 The beautifully timber-framed roofs, of which many ex- 
 amples still exist, appear to have originated, as applied to 
 great halls, about the reign of Edward III. About 1400 
 they were employed in churches, wherein prior to that 
 date stone vaulting appears to have been more common. 
 The Norman castles had their keeps and halls vaulted with 
 stone, as was the case in those in North Wales built by 
 Edward I. 
 
 Our limits preclude us from adverting to many fine spe- 
 cimens of ecclesiastical architecture in Scotland ; but the 
 abbeys of Melrose and Kelso, founded by David I., as well 
 as those in Dryburgh and Jedburgh, all in Roxburghshire, 
 show that the art was carried to as great perfection north 
 of the Tweed as in the southern parts. Roslin and Holy- 
 rood Chapels, for richness and variety of ornamental carv- 
 ings (the first erected by Sir William St. Clair), cannot be 
 exceeded. Its plan is without parallel in any other speci- 
 men of the fifteenth century. The latter was finished by 
 James, the second of that name, in 1440 ; and is a beautiful 
 specimen, with flying buttresses, more ornamented than 
 any even in England. 
 
 It would be impossible here to enumerate the palaces 
 and private Gothic buildings of this country, of which parts 
 still exist in the remains of the ancient palace at West- 
 minster, Eltham, Kenilworth Castle, Hampton Court, and 
 in many other places. A desire to renew it has appeared 
 in this country of late years; but we doubt whether such 
 will be attended with success. The habits of the people, 
 one of the principal stimulants in architectural style, seem 
 to us rather out of joint for the purpose. The following 
 list exhibits the dimensions of the different cathedrals in. 
 England, rearranged from the Rev. Mr. Dallaway's Dis- 
 courses upon Architecture. 
 
 
 
 Internal 
 
 
 
 Total Internal Length iu Feet. 
 
 
 Breadth of 
 Transept. 
 
 
 Choir. 
 
 
 
 
 L. 
 
 B. H. 
 
 Old St. Paul's .... 
 
 •V* 
 
 248 
 
 165 
 
 42 88 
 
 Winchester .... 
 
 Mr. 
 
 186 
 
 138 
 
 — 78 
 
 Ely 
 
 517 
 
 178 
 
 101 
 
 73 70 
 
 Canterbury .... 
 
 514 
 
 154 
 
 150 
 
 74 80 
 
 York 
 
 498 
 
 222 
 
 131 
 
 — 99 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 49- 
 
 227 
 
 — 
 
 
 Westminster .... 
 
 4sy 
 
 189 
 
 152 
 
 — 101 
 
 Peterborough .... 
 
 ISO 
 
 203 
 
 138 
 
 — 78 
 
 Salisbury .... 
 
 452 
 
 210 
 
 140 
 
 — 84 
 
 
 420 
 
 176 
 
 117 
 
 33 71 
 
 Gloucester .... 
 
 420 
 
 144 
 
 140 
 
 — 86 
 
 Chichester .... 
 
 Hl| 
 
 131 
 
 100 
 
 
 Norwich .... 
 
 111 
 
 191 
 
 165 
 
 _ 
 
 Litchfield .... 
 
 411 
 
 88 
 
 110 
 
 — 67 
 
 Worcester .... 
 
 nil 
 
 130 
 
 126 
 
 — 74 
 
 
 .v.m 
 
 140 
 
 131 
 
 — 69 
 
 Wells .... 
 
 371 
 
 135 
 
 106 
 
 — 67 
 
 Hereford (ancient) . 
 
 :;7ii 
 
 140 
 
 105 
 
 — 64 
 
 Chester 
 
 348 
 
 _ — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 Rochester .... 
 
 :m 
 
 122 
 
 156 
 
 — 
 
 
 213 
 
 — 
 
 137 
 
 71 — 
 
 
 ■J Hi 
 
 126 
 
 
 
 — — 
 
 
 175 
 
 128 1 
 
 100 
 
 — — 
 
 Oxford 
 
 154 
 
 102 1 
 
 80 
 
 — 37* 
 
 ENGRAI'LMENT. The ring of dots round the edge of 
 a medal. 
 
 ENGRAVING. (Sax. grafan, to dig.) The art of pro- 
 ducing by incision or corrosion designs upon blocks of wood, 
 plates of metal, or other materials, from which impressions 
 Bb
 
 ENGRAVING. 
 
 or prints upon paper or other soft substances are obtained 
 by pressure. Engraving, as an art, seems to have nearly 
 the same relation to design and painting as typography 
 bears to written language ; and its utility and great import- 
 ance must be obvious to every one from its capability of 
 giving a boundless circulation to representations of the most 
 valuable examples of the arts and of objects connected with 
 science. By some authors it is placed among the represen- 
 tations called monochromes (jxovoxpdjiaroi ). Xylography, 
 or wood- engraving, was the earliest method practised ; but 
 its origin is involved in obscurity. If we might rely on Du 
 Halde {Description, #c. de V Empire de la Chine, 4to. 1736), 
 it is possible that it was known in China 1120 years before 
 Christ ; though we think its invention is of a much later 
 period, as the Chinese were not acquainted with the 
 art of making paper till 95 b. c. It has been stated that 
 this art was introduced into Europe from China through 
 the intercourse of the Venetian merchants with its in- 
 habitants; for it is proved that engraving on wood had 
 been practised in that part of Italy which borders on the 
 Adriatic as early as the 13th century. The first wood en- 
 gravings in Europe of which any thing is known with cer- 
 tainty were executed in 1285, by a brother and sister of a 
 noble family of the name of Cunio. They represent the 
 actions of Alexander; and though doubts of their authen- 
 ticity are expressed by Heinecken, Mr. William Young 
 Ottley, the author of the elegant and learned History of 
 Engraving, to which we are much indebted, thinks other- 
 wise. But for the accidental discovery by a Venetian ar- 
 chitect of the name of Temanza of a decree of the magis- 
 tracy of Venice, in 1441, we might have been without posi- 
 tive proof of the practice of the art in Italy previous to 
 1467, and the Germans might still have continued to claim 
 the honour of its introduction into Europe. This decree, 
 dated 11th October, 1441, states in substance that the art 
 and mystery of making cards and printed figures had fallen 
 to decay owing to their extensive importation ; and in or- 
 der that the native artists might find encouragement rather 
 than foreigners, it was ordered that no work of the said 
 art, printed and painted on cloth or paper, — viz. altar- 
 pieces or images and playing cards, and whatever other 
 work of the said art is done with a brush and printed, — 
 should be allowed to be brought into the city, on pain of 
 forfeiting the works, besides a pecuniary penalty. This 
 decree plainly indicates that wood engraving was practised 
 in Venice as early as the commencement of the fifteenth 
 century. In Germany and the Low Countries, the early 
 block books seem to have existed as early as 1420, and to 
 have given Guttenburg the hint for using moveable types. 
 At Rome, in 1467, a work intituled Meditationes Johannis 
 de Turrecremata, issued from the press of lllric Han, em- 
 bellished with wood engravings, in which the design and 
 execution of an Italian artist are evident. The decorations 
 of the work of Valturius by Matteo Pasti, of Verona, pub- 
 lished five years afterwards, exhibit considerable spirit and 
 accuracy ; and before the end of the fifteenth century the 
 art had been carried to great perfection, as may be proved 
 by the delicacy and purity with which the designs are en- 
 graved in the celebrated Hypnerotomachia of Colonna. 
 (■See Architecture.) At this period, however, the dis- 
 covery of copper-plate engraving had been made, and to 
 this the more ancient art yielded place. Maso Finiguerra, 
 a goldsmith and sculptor of Florence, and pupil of Masac- 
 cio, about the middle of the fifteenth century, seems from 
 the most authentic accounts to have been the person to 
 whom the world is indebted for the discovery. In his time, 
 and for a considerable period previously, it was the prac- 
 tice to decorate church and other plate with works in 
 niello, which were designs hatched with a steel point upon 
 gold or silver, then engraved with the burin, and run in, 
 while hot, with a composition called niello, — a compound 
 of silver, lead, copper, sulphur, and borax, which was 
 more easily fusible than silver, and of a black colour. The 
 superfluous part of this niello which remained above the 
 surface of the plate was then rubbed off with scrapers, 
 and cleaned away with pumice-slonf, leaving the engraved 
 design on the plate with all the effect of a print. In order 
 to preserve copies of their designs, the artists were in the 
 habit before filling the design with the niello to take im- 
 pressions of the plates with earth, over which liquid sul- 
 phur was poured, and from which, when cold, the earth 
 was removed. But Finiguerra carried his practice beyond 
 this ; for with a mixture of soot and oil he filled the cavi 
 ties of the engraving, and by pressing damp paper upon it 
 with a roller, obtained impressions on the paper, having, 
 as Vasari says, all the appearance of drawings done with a 
 p^n, "venivano come disignate di penna." Bartsch, in 
 Ms Essay on the History and Discovery of the Art of tak- 
 ing Impressions from Engravings, prefixed to the thir- 
 teenth volume of his work Le Peinteur Graveur, very un- 
 willingly admits the invention to have originated with Fini- 
 guerra, though he claims for the Germans the merit of ap- 
 plying it to practice for the multiplication of copies of pic- 
 tures, &c. ; but to this the opposing arguments of Mr. Ott- 
 402 
 
 ley are so powerful that we apprehend the subject is no! 
 likely to be again mooted. Finiguerra was followed by 
 Baccio Baldini, a goldsmith of Florence, who, according 
 to Vasari, employed Sandro Botticelli to design for him. 
 Mr. Ottley doubts, however, the inference that might be 
 drawn from this passage ; and indeed it does not appear 
 likely that such an artist as Botticelli could have resigned 
 himself to employment in such works as Baldini would be 
 constantly requiring. Baccio's works were numerous, 
 and are of course much sought after by collectors. Bot- 
 ticelli, a painter of eminence as well as an engraver, was a 
 native of Florence, where he was born in 1437. He is 
 spoken of with praise by Vasari, and especially for his pic- 
 ture at San Pietro Maggiore, of the assumption of the Vir- 
 gin : among the works he engraved from his own designs 
 are subjects illustrative of Dante, and a number of prints 
 of prophets and sybils. His death occurred in 1515. Con- 
 temporary with him flourished Antonio del Pollajuolo, and 
 rather later Gherardo and Bobetta, who advanced the art ; 
 though it was still dry in execution, and more to be ad- 
 mired for correctness of drawing and design than for any 
 altempt at relief or effect. There can be no doubt that at 
 this period the art was practised at Rome, though the Ve- 
 netian state and other parts of the north of Italy furnished 
 a more abundant supply of artists, — of whom Francesco 
 Squarcione, Andrea Mantegna, Girolamo Mocetto, Marcello 
 Fogelino, Montagna, Bramante the architect, Altobello, 
 Gio. Bat. del Porto, Giovanni Maria, and Giovanni and An- 
 tonio de Brescia, were among the most eminent. The 
 works of Mantegna exhibit great marks of improvement 
 on the Florentine school, and are characterized by a vigour 
 and facility of execution which might naturally be expected, 
 considering the rapid strides towards perfection made in 
 the other arts. 
 
 In Germany and the Low Countries the art of engraving 
 had made extraordinary progress during the fifteenth cen- 
 tury ; and the name of Martin Schoen or Schongauer must 
 not be forgotten. This artist, who was also a painter and 
 goldsmith, was the father of the German school of engrav- 
 ing. He was a native of Culmbach in Franconia, and born 
 about 1420. He began the practice of the art when it was 
 in its infancy, and succeeded in carrying it to a great degree 
 of perfection. His death occurred at Colmar in 1486. Va- 
 sari relates that Michael Angelo, when young, was so 
 pleased with a print by Schongauer, representing St. An- 
 thony tormented by devils, that he copied it in colours. 
 Albert Durer, the most celebrated of the early engravers 
 of Germany, was born at Nnremburg, in 1471. Skilled in 
 many arts, and a painter of no ordinary powers, it is aston- 
 ishing that, in a life not exceeding fifty-eight years, he 
 should have succeeded so eminently in that of engraving 
 that he has even hardly been surpassed. On copper as 
 well as wood his works exhibit specimens of executive ex- 
 cellence, which the experience of centuries has not beeu 
 able to surpass. Durer is supposed to have been the in- 
 ventor of the art of etching, at least no etchings are known 
 before those which are extant from his hand. Of the 
 works he has left, which are very numerous, his wood en- 
 gravings are the most free and masterly. Following Albert 
 Durer were Aldegrever his pupil, Hans Beham and his 
 brother Bartholomew, Altdorfer, Binck, Goerting, Penz, 
 and Solis. Hans Holbein, who, according to some was a 
 native of Basle, and according to others of Augsburg, be- 
 sides acquiring celebrity as a painter, is known as an en- 
 graver on wood, executed many pieces ; the best known 
 and most remarkable of which are the fifty-three prints 
 called the " Dance of Death," first published about 1530. 
 Of the Dutch and Flemish schools Lucas van Leyden must 
 be considered the head. Born in 1494, at the place whence- 
 he derives his name, he was the contemporary and frienrl 
 of Albert Durer; to whom, though inferior in design, he 
 was superior in composition. His works, which were both 
 on wood and copper, are few in number. The Low Coun- 
 tries furnished a host of engravers, among whom we think 
 it unnecessary to name more than the Sadelers ; Bloemart, 
 who laid the foundation of the principles upon which lines 
 become capable of expressing quality, colour and chiaro- 
 scuro, which the French engravers afterwards improved; 
 Goltzins and his pupils; Muller; and Lucas Kiliau : the 
 three last, though they handled the graver with great 
 freedom and dexterity, fell into boundless absurdity and 
 extravagance, which, however, were tempered and cor- 
 rected by Mathieuand Saenredam. In the beginning of the 
 seventeenth century the two Bolswerts appeared, whose 
 style was much improved by the instructions of Rubens. 
 Vosterman, Pontius, and Peter de Jode the younger, were 
 of this school, which is distinguished for the success and 
 correctness with which it transferred the picture to the 
 copper. Rembrandt, notwithstanding all his faults and 
 absurdities, claims a special notice in this place as an en- 
 graver. The Descent from the Cross, and the print called 
 "Hundred Guilder Print," are extraordinary efforts of art. 
 His portraits and landscapes are full of nature, expression, 
 and character ; and it is difficult to say whether he is more
 
 ENGRAVING. 
 
 successful in his sunshine effects, than in the sober solemn 
 twilight with which his varied subjects are enveloped, 
 Vandyke has left a few specimens of etchings worthy of 
 his name. Jegher, Lutma, and above all the family of the 
 Vischers, exhibited great excellence in the art, which con- 
 tinued to advance under the hands of Waterloo, Jacob 
 Ruysdael, and Paul Potter ; the last of whom, in his etch- 
 ings of aniimls, displayed a scientific acquaintance with 
 drawing and anatomy till his time unpractised. 
 
 We must now return to close the brief account of the 
 Italian school, in which the appearance of Marc Antonio 
 Raimondi forms the most splendid era. Born at Bologna 
 about 1488, he became the pupil of Raibolini, an artist of 
 that city. His master in the art of engraving is, however, 
 unknown. We first hear of him at Venice, whither Albert 
 Durer went to institute proceedings against him for pirat- 
 ing his prints, which had been copied by Raimondi with 
 such wonderful accuracy that they were sold for the 
 originals. But the proper sphere for Marc Antonio was 
 Rome, whither he soon bent his steps. There his merit 
 soon gained him the friendship and esteem of Raffaelle, 
 then in the plentitude of his glory, by whom he was em- 
 ployed to engrave from his designs. His first plate from a 
 design by Raffaelle was the Lucretia, soon after which he 
 executed the Judgment of Paris. His engravings after this 
 master are very numerous ; and though free from the 
 blandishments of style, chiaroscuro, and local colour which 
 the art has received since his time, such was his knowledge 
 of drawing, such the beautiful character that pervades his 
 works, that he is entitled to the highest rank in the art to 
 which excellence has ever attained. Strutt considers him 
 one of the most extraordinary engravers that ever lived. 
 His school attracted to Rome artists from all parts ; among 
 whom may be enumerated Marco de Ravenna, Ginlio Bo- 
 nasoni, Agostino de Musis, EneaVico, and Nicolo Beatrici. 
 Some of the German artists whom we have named above 
 — viz. Beham, Penz, and James Binck — resorted to Rome 
 for the benefit of his instructions. On the death of Raf- 
 faelle, he execuied engravings of some of the works of Gi- 
 ulio Romano. His last print, the Battle of the Lapithee, is 
 dated 1539. Some of the principal pupils of Marc Antonio 
 have already been named ; to them may be added Georgio 
 Grisi, commonly called Mantuanus, and others of his 
 family. Many of the Italian painters were extremely suc- 
 cessful in engraving, among whom Titian etched many 
 landscapes; but none cultivated the art with more success 
 than Agostino Caracci, who studied under Cornelius Cort, 
 a Dutch engraver, born at Hoorn in 1536. His design and 
 execution are equally to be admired ; and had he but con- 
 centrated his lights more, and attended to local colour, he 
 would have been exceeded by none. In the seventeenth 
 century Delia Bella, Callot (who, though born in France, 
 belongs to the Italian school), Guercino, Salvator Rosa, and 
 Claude continued the reputation of the art. At the latter 
 end of this century was born Antonio Canaletti, originally 
 a scene painter, like his father Bernardo. His etchings 
 opened an entirely new field in architectural engraving, 
 and may be considered almost if not quite the first in 
 which fine sparkling effects of light are introduced, and in 
 which the darkest shadows partake of the transparency 
 and clearness which n.iture herself exhibits. Piranesi, who 
 was born in Venice, and died in 1770, appeared about the 
 middle of that century : he was one of the most surprising 
 architectural engravers that have ever existed, whether we 
 consider the astonishing power or number of his works. 
 His use of the etching needle surpassed all that has been 
 done before or since ; and in our own time Volpato of Flo- 
 rence, who, besides his other works, engraved almost all 
 the celebrated performances of Canova with a delicacy, 
 grace, and correctness of the first order. 
 
 The French school commenced about the middle of the 
 sixteenth century with Noel Gamier, who was followed by 
 many clever artists ; but till the time of Louis XIV. it can- 
 not be said to have been highly distinguished. At that epoch 
 we have Gerard Edelinck, who, though born at Antwerp, 
 belongs properly to the French school, and Gerard Audran. 
 The former of these, who worked entirely with the graver, 
 carried what is called colour in engraving to a much greater 
 degree of perfection than had ever before been practised. 
 His facility was amazing, and portrait and history were 
 equally the subjects of his burin. The name of Audran, 
 not less from the circumstance of the family having pro- 
 duced six engravers, than for Gerard Audran, who en- 
 graved the well known Battles of Alexander after Le Brun, 
 is conspicuous in the history of the art ; his name, how- 
 ever, will descend to posterity with greater lustre from his 
 engravings after the Italian school, and particularly those 
 of Nicolo Poussin. Gerard Audran was born at Lyons in 
 1640, and died in Paris in 1703. John Audran, the last of 
 the family who exercised the art, and nephew of Gerard, 
 died in 1756. Nanteuil, the three Drevets, of whom Peter 
 was the most eminent, Le Clerc, Chereau, Cochin, Beau- 
 vais, Simonneau Dupuis, and many other masters, belong 
 to this period ; but Balechon and Wille, towards the mid- 
 403 
 
 die of the century, outstripped all that had been done by 
 their predecessors. Wille was a German ; but his resi- 
 dence having been chiefly at Paris, he is always ranked 
 among the French engravers. His extraordinary powers 
 in imitating the qualities of objects, and particularly of satin, 
 the smoothness of effect he produced, and his extraordi- 
 nary clearness in the use of the graver, entitle him to a 
 place of the first rank in the French school, which, since 
 the age of Louis XIV., has been more distinguished for its 
 great mechanical skill, than for grace, correctness, and 
 beauty in the higher departments of the art. 
 
 Till the middle of the seventeenth century England was 
 indebted to foreign artists for the embellishment be- 
 stowed upon the typographical works she produced, as 
 well as for such engravings, either in history, portrait, or 
 landscape, as the taste of the nation required. Among the 
 artists who visited England and made it their permanent 
 or temporary residence were the Passes, Vaillant, Hondius, 
 Vosterman, Hollar, Blooteling, Dorigny, and several others. 
 Payne, who died about 1648, and Failhorne, who execuied 
 many historical pieces and portraits in a masterly manner, 
 were the earliest English engravers deserving mention. 
 William Faithorne, son of the last named, was eminent as 
 one of the earliest mezzotinto engravers ; a species of en- 
 graving of English invention, if the editor of Wren's Pa- 
 centalia can be relied on, and discovered, according to him, 
 by his eminent relation, Sir Christopher Wren. This in- 
 vention, which is usually attributed to Prince Rupert, is 
 claimed by Heineken for Lieutenant Colonel Siegen, who 
 was a Hessian officer, from whom Heineken says Prince 
 Rupert learned the secret, which he brought to England on 
 his return with Charles II. After the two Whites, father 
 and son, appeared Vertue, who was born in 1684. He was 
 the scholar of Vandargucht, and from the numerous works 
 he brought out must have been an artist of great industry 
 and facility. The larger portion of his labours was con- 
 fined to portraits. Vertue died in 1757, and left behind him 
 a History of Painting and Painters in England, which was 
 published by Horace Walpole in 4 quarto volumes. The 
 works of Pond and Knapton can only be mentioned as con- 
 tinuing the history, though occasionally they possess some 
 spirit ; but Vivares, a Frenchman by birth, belonging, how- 
 ever, to the English school, and indeed the founder of it 
 in landscape engraving, has shown in his engravings from 
 the pictures of Claude talents, the precursors of that pre- 
 eminence in landscape engraving which this country has 
 not only improved upon but exclusively possessed. Wool- 
 lett carried execution to a far greater extent than Vivares, 
 uniting with that engraver's spirit all the elegance, clear- 
 ness, and delicacy of the French school; and to these 
 Woollett superadded every beauty that mechanical skill 
 could effect. John Browne was a contemporary worthy of 
 Woollrtt, whose works after Salvator, Both, and others are 
 well executed. Sir Robert Strange distinguished himself 
 by his great mechanical skill, whence resulted beautiful 
 execution, by the breadth he preserved in the effects he 
 copied, and by the delicacy he imparted to flesh in a man- 
 ner that has never been equalled. His principal engravings 
 are from the Italian painters, especially Titian, Guido, and 
 Corregio, and reflect great honour on the English school, 
 which since his time has never been deficient in producing 
 artists of the first class. Strange was a native of one of the 
 Orkney Islands, where he was born in 1721, and died in 
 1792. Since his time the names of artists of talent might 
 be here supplied to a very great extent ; we shall merely 
 mention those of Basire, Bartolozzi, Rooker, Heath, Byrne, 
 Bromley, Lowry, Earlom, Raphael, Smith, &c. In the 
 present day the demand of prints for the embellishment of 
 books has produced talent which perhaps might be more 
 nobly employed in works of a higher order. In the enu- 
 meration of masters it will be seen that the name of Ho- 
 garth does not find a place, — for which our reason is that 
 his engravings partake more of the nature of pictures trans- 
 ferred at once to copper, often without proceeding through 
 the intermediate stage. 
 
 Engraving on Wood, or Xylography. — In this branch of 
 the an the material used is a block of box or pear-tree 
 wood, cut at right angles to the direction of the fibres, its 
 thickness being regulated by the size of the print to be ex- 
 ecuted. The subject is drawn on the block with a black- 
 lead pencil, or with a pen and Indian ink, taking care that 
 the whole effect is represented in the lines so drawn. The 
 whole of the wood is then cut away, except where the lines 
 are drawn, which are left as raised parts ; in which point it 
 is that this mode of engraving differs so essentially from 
 copper-plate engraving, wherein the lines are cut out or 
 sunk in the metal, instead of being raised from it. The 
 impressions from wood blocks are taken in the same man- 
 ner as from printing types. 
 
 Engraving on Copper is performed by cutting lines re- 
 presenting the subject on a copper-plate by means of a 
 steel instrument ending in an unequal-sided pyramidal 
 point, such instrument being called a graver or burin, with- 
 out the use of aquafortis ; which mode will be seen below.
 
 ENGRAVING. 
 
 under the art. Etching. Besides the graver there are 
 other instruments used in the process ; viz. a scraper, a 
 burnisher, an oil stone, and a cushion for supporting the 
 plate. In cutting the lines on the copper the graver is 
 pushed forward in the direction required, being held in the 
 hand at a small inclination to the plane of the copper. The 
 use of the burnisher is to soften down lines that are cut too 
 deep, and for burnishing out scratches in the copper : it is 
 about three inches long. The scraper, like the last, is of 
 steel, with three sharp edges to it, and about six inches 
 long, tapering towards the end. Its use is to scrape off the 
 burr, raised by the action of the graver. To show the ap- 
 pearance of the work during its progress, and to polish off 
 the burr, engravers use a roll of woollen or felt called a 
 rubber, which is put in action with a little olive oil. The 
 cushion, which is a leather bag about nine inches diame- 
 ter filled with sand for laying the plate on, is now rarely 
 used except by writing engravers. For architectural sub- 
 jects, or in skies, where a series of parallel lines are wanted, 
 an ingenious machine was invented by the late Mr. Wilson 
 Lowry, called a ruling machine, the accuracy of whose 
 operation is exceedingly perfect. This is made to act 
 on an etching ground by a point or knife connected with 
 the apparatus, and bit in with aquafortis in the ordinary 
 way. 
 
 Etching is a species of engraving on copper or other me- 
 tals with a sharp-pointed instrument called an etching nee- 
 dle. The plate is covered with a ground or varnish capa- 
 ble of resisting the action of aquafortis. The usual method 
 is to draw the design on paper with a black-lead pencil ; the 
 paper being damped and laid upon the plate, prepared as 
 above, with the drawing next the etching ground, is passed 
 through the rolling press, and thus the design is transferred 
 from the paper to the ground. The needle then scratches 
 out the lines of the design ; and aquafortis being poured 
 over the plate, which is bordered round with wax, it is al- 
 lowed to remain on it long enough to corrode or bite in 
 the lines which the etching needle has made. Etching 
 with a dry point, as it is called, is performed entirely with 
 the point without any ground, the burr raised being taken 
 off by the scraper. Etching with a soft gronnd is used to 
 imitate chalk or black-lead drawings. For this purpose the 
 ground is mixed with a portion of tallow or lard, according 
 to the temperature of the air. A piece of thin paper being 
 attached to the plate at the four corners by some turner's 
 pitch and lying over the ground, the drawing is made on 
 the paper and shadowed with the black-lead pencil. The 
 action of the pencil thus detaches the ground which ad- 
 heres to the paper, according to the degree to which the 
 finishing is carried : the paper being then removed, the 
 work is bit in in the ordinary way. Stippling is also exe- 
 cuted on the etching ground by dots instead of lines made 
 with the etching needle, which, according to the intensity 
 of the shadow to be represented, are made thicker and 
 closer. The work is then bit in. Etching on Steel is exe- 
 cuted much in the same way as in the process on copper. 
 The plate is bedded on common glazier's putty, and a 
 ground of Brunswick black is laid in the usual way, through 
 which the needle scratches. It is then bit in, in the way 
 above described. 
 
 Mezzolinto Engraving. — In this species of engraving the 
 artist, with a knife or instrument made for the purpose, 
 roughs over the whole surface of the copper in every di- 
 rection, so as to make it susceptible of delivering a uniform 
 black, smooth, or flat tint. After this process the outline 
 is traced with an etching needle, and the lightest parts are 
 scraped out, then the middle tints so as to leave a greater 
 portion of the ground, and so on according to the depth re- 
 quired in the several parts of the work. 
 
 Aquatinta Engraving, whose effect somewhat resem- 
 bles that of an Indian-ink drawing. The mode of effecting 
 this is (the design being already etched) to cover the plate 
 with a ground made of resin and Burgundy pitch or mastic 
 dissolved in rectified spirit of wine, which is poured over 
 the plate lying in an inclined position. The spirit of wine, 
 from its rapid evaporation, leaves the rest of the composi- 
 tion with a granulated texture over the whole of the plate, 
 by which means a grain is produced by the aquafortis on 
 the parts left open by the evaporation of the spirit of wine. 
 The margin of the plate is of course protected in the usual 
 way. After the aquafortis has bitten the lighter parts they 
 are stopt out, and the aquafortis is again applied, and so on 
 as often as any parts continue to require more depth. For- 
 merly the grain used to be produced by covering the cop- 
 per with a powder or some substance which took a granu- 
 lated form, instead of using the compound above mention- 
 ed ; but this process was found to be both uncertain and 
 imperfect. In the compound the grain is rendered finer or 
 coarser, in proportion to the quantity of resin introduced. 
 This mode of engraving was invented by a Frenchman of 
 the name of St. Non, about 1662. He communicated it to 
 Jean Baptiste le Prince, who died in 1781, from whom it 
 was acquired by Paul Sandby, who introduced it through 
 the medium of Mr. Jukes into England. It has been prac- 
 404 
 
 ENHARMONIC SCALE. 
 
 tised in this country with much greater success than else- 
 where. 
 
 Etching on Glass.— The glass is covered with a thin 
 ground of beeswax : and the design being drawn with the 
 etching needle, it is subjected to the action of sulphuric 
 acid sprinkled over with pounded flour or Derbyshire spar. 
 After four or five hours this is removed, and the glass 
 cleaned off with oil of turpentine, leaving the parts covered 
 with the beeswax untouched. This operation may be in- 
 verted by drawing the design on the glass with a solution of 
 beeswax and turpentine, and subjecting the ground to the 
 action of the acid. 
 
 Engraving on Stone, or Lithography {\i9os, astone, and 
 ypatytiv, towrite or draw). A modern invention, by means 
 whereof impressions maybe taken from drawings made 
 on stone. The merit of this discovery belongs to Aloys 
 Senefelder, a musical performer of the theatre at Munich 
 about the year 1800. The following are the principles on 
 which the art of lithography depends : — First, the facility 
 with which calcareous stones imbibe water; second, the 
 great disposition they have to adhere to resinous and oily 
 substances; third, the affinity between each other of oily 
 and resinous substances, and the power they possess of re- 
 pelling water or a body moistened with water. Hence, when 
 drawings are made on a polished surface of calcareous 
 stone with a resinous or oily medium, they are so adhesive 
 that nothing short of mechanical means can effect their se- 
 paration from it, and whilst the other parts of the stone take 
 up the water poured upon them, the resinous or oily parts 
 repel it. Lastly, when over a stone prepared in this man- 
 ner a coloured oily or resinous substance is passed, it will 
 adhere to the drawings made as above, and not to the 
 watery parts of the stone. It was formerly thought that 
 this country did not possess a sort of stone like that of Ger- 
 many suitable to the purposes of lithography ; this, how- 
 ever, is now known to be erroneous, as the neighbourhood 
 of Bath abounds with it, being the white lias, which lies 
 immediately under the blue. It is also found in Scotland. 
 The ink and chalk used in lithography are of a sapona- 
 ceous quality : the former is prepared in Germany from 
 a compound of tallow soap, pure white wax, a small quan- 
 tity of tallow, and a portion of lamp-black, all boiled to- 
 gether, and when cool dissolved in distilled water. The 
 chalk for the crayons used in drawing on the stone is a 
 composition consisting of the ingredients above mentioned, 
 but to it is added when boiling a small quantity of potash. 
 After the drawing on the stone has been executed and is 
 perfectly dry, a very weak solution of vitriolic acid is pour- 
 ed upon the stone, which not only takes up the alkali from 
 the chalk or ink, as the case may be, leaving an insoluble 
 substance behind it, but it lowers in a very small degree 
 that part of the surface of the stone not drawn upon, and 
 prepares it for absorbing water with greater freedom. 
 Weak gum water is then applied to the stone, to close its 
 pores and keep it moist. The stone is now washed with 
 water, and the daubing ink applied with balls as in print- 
 ing ; after which it is passed in the usual way through the 
 press, the process of watering and daubing being applied 
 for every impression. 
 
 There is a mode of transferring drawings made with the 
 chemical ink on paper prepared with a solution of size or 
 gum tragacanth, which being laid on the stone and passed 
 through the press leaves the drawing on the stone, and the 
 process above described for preparing the stone and taking 
 the impressions is carried into effect. 
 
 In Germany many engravings are made on stone with 
 the burin, in the same way as on copper ; but the very 
 great inferiority of these to copper engravings makes it im- 
 probable that this method will ever come into general use. 
 
 Perhaps one of the greatest advantages of the art of li- 
 thography is the extraordinary number of copies that may 
 be taken from a block. As many as 70,000 copies or prints 
 have been taken from one block, and the last of them nearly 
 as good as the first. Expedition is also gained, inasmuch 
 as a fifth more copies can be taken in the same time than 
 from a copper-plate : and as regards economy the advan- 
 tage over every other species of engraving is very great. 
 
 Zincography. — This art, which is of very recent introduc- 
 tion in this country (so much so, indeed, that but few spe- 
 cimens are as yet to be seen), is similar in principle to 
 lithography, the surface of the plates of zinc on which it is 
 executed being bit away, leaving the design prominent or 
 in relief. We have seen some beautiful examples of this 
 art, but varying little in their appearance from those of 
 stone engraving. 
 
 ENGRO'SSING. The writing of a deed over fair, and 
 in proper legible characters. Among lawyers it more par- 
 ticularly means the copying of any writing upon parchment 
 or stamped paper. In statute law, engrossing means the 
 buying up of large quantities of any commodity in order to 
 sell it again at an unusually high price. See Forestall- 
 ing. 
 
 ENHARMO'NIC SCALE. In Music, a scale in which 
 the modulation proceeds by intervals less than semitones ;
 
 ENIGMA. 
 
 that is, by quarter tones, having two dieses or signs of rais- 
 ing or lowering the voice. 
 
 ENI'GMA. (Gr. aiviyfia ) A proposition put in obscure 
 or ambiguous terms to puzzle or exercise the ingenuity in 
 discovering its meaning. In the present day, the enigma 
 is only a jeu d'esprit, or a species of amusement to beguile 
 a leisure hour; but formally it was a matter of such impor- 
 tance that the eastern monarchs used to send mutual em- 
 bassies forthe solution of enigmas. Every one remembers 
 the enigma which Sampson proposed to the Philistines for 
 solution ; and the still more famous enigma of the Sphinx 
 (quod vide), the source at once of the elevation and the 
 misfortunes of CEJipus. About the 17th century the enig- 
 ma, which had been for centuries neglected as a species 
 of literary display, again came into favour ; and in France 
 particularly it was cultivated with so much zeal, that seve- 
 ral grand treatises were dedicated to its history and charac- 
 teristics. The best enigmas with which we are acquainted 
 were written by Schiller, and have been incorporated in 
 his works. Even in the present day the periodical litera- 
 ture of France and Germany does not disdain this species 
 of writing; though, as was before observed, it is now em- 
 ployed generally for amusement, and rarely to convey 
 moral instruction. 
 
 ENLI'STMENT, in Military and Naval affairs, means a 
 voluntary engagement to serve as a private soldier or sailor, 
 either for a fixed or unlimited period. Unlike the armies 
 of the Continental nations, whose ranks are generally sup- 
 plied by conscription, the troops of the British army in all 
 its departments, whether of the line, artillery, or East In- 
 dia Company, are obtained by voluntary enlistment. About 
 a century ago, it was usual to engage recruits for the pe- 
 riod of three years ; but the present practice is to enlist 
 either for an unlimited period, as during the continuance 
 of a war, or for certain defined numbers of years, which 
 vary in the different classes of troops. For the infantry 
 the period is seven years; forthe cavalry ten years; for 
 the artillery twelve years; and for the East India Com- 
 pany for an unlimited time or twelve years, provided the 
 recruit be upwards of eighteen years of age, otherwise the 
 difference between his age and eighteen years is added to 
 each period. (Penny Cyclo ) By an act passed in 1819, 
 called the Foreign Enlistment Act, no British subject was 
 allowed to enter foreign service without permission from 
 the crown ; and though this act was recently suspended 
 for three successive years in favour of the troops raised in 
 this country for the service of the Queen of Spain, it is 
 once more in full operation. 
 
 The navy of Great Britain is also manned by voluntary 
 enlistment; though in time of war, or other great emer- 
 gencies, impressment (quod vide) is often resorted to for 
 obtaining adequate supplies. The period of engaging to 
 serve in the navy was, by an act passed in 1835, limited to 
 five years ; after which the sailor is entitled, under certain 
 beneficial restrictions, to his discharge, with the privilege, 
 however, of re-enlisting for a similar period. 
 
 E'NNEAGON. (Gr. ivvta, nine; ytovia, angle.) A 
 plane geometrical figure bounded by nine sides. When 
 the figure is regular and the side supposed = 1, the area 
 is 618182. 
 
 ENNEA'NDRODS. In Botany, having nine stamens. 
 
 ENNUI', a French term wholly naturalized in England, 
 signifies a kind of listlessness or inaptitude for mental ex- 
 ertion ; or it may be more scientifically defined as that un- 
 easiness or languor which prevails during the absence of 
 mental impressions. The Italian word noja corresponds 
 to the French ennui. 
 
 ENROLLMENT (in legal orthography, more properly, In- 
 rolment), signifies in law the registering or entering of any 
 document or lawful act in the rolls of the chancery, or su- 
 perior courts of common law, or in the records of the 
 quarter sessions. Such inrolment is rendered necessary 
 in different cases by statute ; as a deed of bargain and sale 
 in order to pass lands must be inrolled in one of the courts 
 of record at Westminster, or by the clerk of the peace in 
 any county, by 27 H. 8. c. 16. Every deed before it is in- 
 rolled is to be acknowledged to be the deed of the party 
 before a master in chancery, or a judge of the court in 
 which it is inrolled. 
 
 ENSE'MBLE. (Fr.) In the Fine Arts, a term denot- 
 ing the masses and details considered with relation to each 
 other. 
 
 E'NSIGN. The national flag carried by a ship. Men of 
 war carry a red, a white, or a blue ensign, according to the 
 colour of the flag of the admiral in command of the station. 
 Ships do not display their ensigns at sea, except in meeting 
 strangers, on which ships show their national ensign. In har- 
 bour the ensign is not shown before 8 a.m., nor after sunset. 
 
 The ensign hoisted with the upper corner (or in British 
 ships the union of the crosses of St George and St An- 
 drew) downwards, is the signal of distress. 
 
 The English ensign is a red, white, or blue flag, having 
 the union in the upper corner next the mast. 
 
 E'nsign. The lowest commissioned officer, subordinate 
 405 
 
 ENTHYMEME. 
 
 to the lieutenants, in a regiment of infantry. An ensign is 
 appointed to each company, and the junior ensigns carry 
 the colours of the regiment. In the artillery and in the 
 rifle brigade a second lieutenant takes the place of an 
 ensign. 
 
 ENTA'BLATURE. (Fr. entablement.) In Architec- 
 ture, the whole of the parts of an order above the column. 
 The assemblage is divided into three parts: the archi- 
 trave, which rests immediately on the column ; the frieze 
 next, over the architrave, being the middle member; and 
 the cornice, which is the uppermost part. The first and last 
 are variously subdivided in the different orders. See Order. 
 
 ENTAI'L. See Fee Tail. 
 
 E'NTASIS. (Gr. ti/rao-ij.) In Architecture, a delicate 
 and almost impercepible swelling of the shaft of a column, 
 to be found in almost all the Grecian examples, adopted to 
 prevent the shafts being strictly frusta of cones. This re- 
 finement, which is alluded to in the second chapter of the 
 third book of Vitruvius, was first observed in execution 
 bv Mr. AUason in 1614 in the Athenian edifices. 
 
 ENTE'LECHY. (Gt. hreXixria; from ivre\>is, per- 
 fect, and ex", I hold.) A peripatetic term, invented by 
 Aristotle in order to express an object in its complete ac- 
 tualization, as opposed to merely potential existence (ro 
 dwdfiei Sv.) See Aristotelian Philosophy. 
 
 ENTELMI'NTHA. (Gr. evroi, within, and tA/^i/f, a 
 worm.) A name synonymous with Entozoa, and applied 
 to the same heterogeneous group of invertebrate animals. 
 See Coblelmintha and Sterelmintha. 
 
 ENTERI'TIS. (Gr. evrepa, the intestines.) Inflamma- 
 tion of the bowels. This disease is frequently occasioned 
 by incautious exposure to cold, by acrid substances of 
 hardened faces in the bowels. Its symptoms are, pain 
 over the abdomen ; thirst, heat, and excessive restlessness 
 and anxiety ; sickness ; obstinate constipation ; and a hard, 
 small, and quick pulse. The pain increases as the disease 
 proceeds, especially about the navel ; there is great diffi- 
 culty in voiding the urine, which is small in quantity and 
 high-coloured ; and the abdomen is so tender as not to en- 
 dure the slightest pressure. It often terminates in a few 
 hours in mortification of a part of the intestinal canal ; in 
 which case the pain suddenly ceases, the belly becomes 
 tumid, the pulse sinks rapidly, and the countenance ac- 
 quires a peculiar ghastliness : it also proves fatal during 
 the inflammatory stage. Favourable symptoms are, a 
 gradual diminution of pain and of tenderness on pressure, 
 natural evacuation by the bowels, moist skin, equal and 
 firm pulse, and a copious discharge of urine depositing 
 abundance of red sediment. This is a disease which re- 
 quires prompt and decided treatment, more especially as 
 relates to bleeding, which should be carried as far as the 
 strength will allow upon the first accession of the inflam- 
 mation. Leeches should be applied over the abdomen, and 
 the patient should be put in a hot bath, or fomented with 
 hot water : the lower bowels should be evacuated by a 
 glyster of castor oil and gruel ; and small doses of saline 
 purgatives, or of calomel and cathartic extract, should be 
 administered to clear the bowels. The stomach, however, 
 is very apt to reject these remedies, and sickness should 
 be avoided : it must be quelled by the effervescing draught, 
 with a very few drops of tincture of opium. In some cases 
 pretty large doses of calomel and opium have been given 
 with success. When the urgent symptoms give way, and 
 the bowels have been cleared, diaphoretic saline medi- 
 cines and gentle aperients may be used, and a mild nou- 
 rishing diet allowed; but great care is requisite in ascer- 
 taining that all relics of the inflammatory action are got 
 rid of, and that it is not lurking in some one spot in a 
 chronic form. 
 
 E'NTEROCE'LE. (Gr. cvrepa, the bowels, and xn^l, 
 tumour.) A hernia or rupture, the contents of which are 
 a portion of intestine. 
 
 ENTERODE'LA. (Gr. tvrzpa, and SnXos, manifest.) 
 The name given by Ehrenberg to a section of his class 
 Polygastrica, comprehending those which have a complete 
 alimeotarv canal terminated by a mouth and anus. 
 
 E'NTEROEPI'PLOCE'LE. (Gr. cvrepa; iirtirXoov, the 
 amentum ; kt\Kt), tumour.) A hernia or rupture containing 
 both intestine and omentum. 
 
 ENTERO'LOO Y. (Gr ) A treatise on the bowels. 
 
 ENTHYME'ME (Gr. iv, and Svaos, mind; something 
 understood in the mind and not expressed), in Logic, is 
 commonly defined to be an argument having one premiss 
 expressed, the other understood. (Stee Logic, Syllogism.) 
 This is the character under which the universal form of 
 reasoning, or syllogism, generally presents itself in con- 
 nected writing. For example, the following argument, if 
 drawn out in the correct logical form, would stand thus, 
 "All tyrants deserve death; but Caesar is a tyrant, there- 
 fore Cffisar deserves death." But in the rapid diction of 
 oratory, or poetry, it would probably be expressed either, 
 " All tyrants deserve death, therefore so does Caesar ;" in 
 which case the minor premiss, " Caesar is a tyrant," is 
 suppressed : or, " Caesar is a tyrant, therefore he deserves
 
 ENTOMOLOGY. 
 
 death," by suppressing the major premiss. Instances may 
 be cited in which the enthymeme consists merely of one 
 of the premisses expressed, while both the other premiss 
 and the conclusion are to be supplied by a rapid exercise 
 of thought. Thus in the well-known words, " But Brutus 
 says he was ambitious, and Brutus is an honourable man," 
 the last of these propositions contains a complete argu- 
 ment, — " what honourable men say is to be believed : 
 Brutus is an honourable man, therefore what Brutus says 
 is to be believed." 
 
 ENTOMO'LOGY. (Gr. evroua, insects, and ~\oyos, a 
 discourse.) The science of insects : the history of the or- 
 ganization, habits, properties, and classification of those 
 articulated animals which are distinguished by the pre- 
 sence of antennae and of breathing organs, composed of 
 ramified tracheae with or without air-sacs. The name in- 
 sect, from its etymological signification o fan animal insect- 
 ed or divided into sections, is applicable to the greater part 
 of the Articulate sub-kingdom, but is now restricted to 
 those species characterized as above. The presence of 
 highly developed organs for breathing air, together with 
 peculiar and complex organs of sensation, is associated, as 
 might be expected, with active powers of locomotion; and 
 most insects, besides having articulated members for ter- 
 restrial progression, for leaping or climbing, swimming or 
 diving, are endowed with wings, and are capable of rapid 
 and extensive flight. The power of traversing space is 
 given in greater fulness and perfection to the class of in- 
 sects than to any other created beings on our planet. A 
 peculiar condition of the breathing organs, and a peculiar 
 animal tissue (chitine), which combines great strength, 
 elasticity, and levity, coexist in insects, and in insects only. 
 If, therefore, the highest of living created animals contain 
 the characteristic structures of all lower forms, as some 
 transcendental anatomists assume, then man is not the 
 acme or apotheosis of animal organization ; for neither 
 anastomosing tracheae nor a particle of chitine is present in 
 his system ; nor does he possess a thousandth part of the 
 locomotive energies of certain insects. 
 
 Those insects which have more than six articulated legs, 
 and have the segments of the trunk free, without distinc- 
 tion of thorax and abdomen, which undergo no other me- 
 tamorphosis than acquiring an increased number of seg- 
 ments after exclusion from the egg, and which lastly pos- 
 sess neither compound eyes nor wings, are separated by 
 some zoologists as a distinct class, under the name Myria- 
 poda, which see. 
 
 In the Hexapod insects, the body is divided into a head, 
 thorax, and abdomen ; the head supports a pair of antennae, 
 and contains a pair of compound, and often also simple 
 eyes; the mouth is provided with alabium, labrum, mandi- 
 bulae, and maxillae ; the labium and maxillae also support 
 peculiar feeling organs, called palpi. Sometimes these 
 parts of the mouth, which are termed collectively trophi, 
 or oral organs, are distinct, and adapted to mastication : 
 the insects thus characterized constitute an extensive pri- 
 mary division of the class termed Mandibulata. Those 
 insects in which the trophi are so modified as to form an 
 instrument of suction are included in the primary division 
 called Haustellata. 
 
 The Hexapod insects were divided by Linnaeus into the 
 following orders : — 
 
 1. Coleoptera. Wings four, the upper hair hard, with a 
 
 straight suture. Ex. : Beetles and earwigs. 
 
 2. Hemiptera. Wings four, the upper pair moderately 
 
 hard and incumbent. Ex. : Bugs, locusts, tree-hop- 
 pers, plant-lice, &c. 
 
 3. Lepidoptera. Wings four, covered with scales. Ex. : 
 
 Moths and butterflies. 
 
 4. Neuroptera. Wings four, membranaceous ; anus un- 
 
 armed. Ex. : Dragon-flies, May-flies, &c. 
 
 5. Hymenoptera. Wings four, membranaceous ; anus acu- 
 
 leate. Ex. : Bees, ants, saw-flies, &c. 
 
 6. Diptera. Wings two ; halteres two, in place of the pos- 
 
 terior wings. Ex. : Flies. 
 
 7. Aptera. Wings none. In this order Linnaeus included 
 
 not only true Apterous insects, as fleas, but also centi- 
 pedes, spiders, crabs, lobsters, &c. ; or the articulate 
 animals now forming the classes Myriapoda, Arach- 
 nida, and Crustacea. 
 There is not, perhaps, any class of the animal kingdom 
 which has been the subject of more numerous and various 
 attempts at classification than that of insects. We have 
 just seen that Linnaeus adopted the locomotive system as 
 the basis of his method. Fabricius, his pupil, proposed a 
 system founded on modifications of the structure of the 
 mouth. Latreille endeavoured to form a natural classifica- 
 tion of those most numerous animals from a considera- 
 tion of their entire organization. His latest system is as 
 follows : — 
 
 Sub-class I. Aptera. No wings ; simple eyes in most. 
 A. No metamorphosis, but simple moulting, without a 
 season of torpidity ; mouth in some a simple sucker, 
 in others mandibulate. 
 406 
 
 ENTREPOT. 
 
 Order 1. Thysanura. 
 
 2. Anoploura (or Parasita). 
 
 B. A complete metamorphosis ; larvae apodal ; pupae 
 torpid ; mouth haustellate, composed of an articulate 
 sheath containing three setae, with two scales at their 
 base ; body much compressed ; the species saltatory 
 and parasitic. 
 
 3. Aphaniptera (or Siphonaptera). 
 
 Sub-class II. Ptilota. Wings, but sometimes not developed 
 as such ; two compound eyes, to which in many are 
 added simple eyes. 
 
 A. Two wings covered by two elytra, either crustaceous 
 or coriaceous. 
 
 a. Mandibles and maxillae ; elytra of the same consis- 
 tence. 
 
 4. Coleoptera. 
 
 5. Dermaptera. 
 
 6. Orthoptera. 
 
 b. No mandibles nor maxillae ; mouth haustellate, com- 
 posed of an articulate sheath, including four setae ; 
 elytra membranous at their extremity in most. 
 
 7. Hemiptera. 
 
 B. Wings four, or two ; not covered by elytra. 
 
 a. Mandibulate ; wings four, membranous, and generally 
 transparent ; a small scale (tegulum)at the base of the 
 two anterior wings. 
 
 8. Neuroptera. 
 
 9. Hymenoptera. 
 
 b. Haustellate ; wings scaly ; tegula large, and thrown 
 back. 
 
 10. Lepidoptera. 
 
 c. Two wings ; haustellate. 
 
 11. Strepsiptera (or Rhipiptera). 
 
 12. Diptera. 
 
 For the characters of the above orders see the articles 
 under their respective denominations. 
 
 ENTOMO'PHAGA. (Gr. tvroua, insects, and <f>ayu, I 
 eat.) A tribe of Marsupial quadrupeds, characterized by 
 having three kinds of teeth — viz. incisors, canines, and mo- 
 lares — in both jaws, and the intestinal canal provided with 
 a moderate-sized ccecum. The Opossums (Didelphys), 
 Bandicoots {Perameles), and the genera Myrmecobius and 
 Chatropus are associated to form this group ; and feed prin- 
 cipally, though not exclusively, on insects. 
 
 E'NTOMO'STRACANS. (Gr. evrouos, incised, and 
 otjrpaKov, a shell.) A division of the class Crustacea, in- 
 cluding those species which are covered with a thin horny 
 tegument in the form of a shell, and consisting of one or 
 two pieces. 
 
 ENTOZO'A. (Gr. evros, and ^u>ov, an animal.) A 
 name given to an extensive series of low- organized inver- 
 tebrate and generally vermiform animals, of which the 
 greater part are parasitic on the internal organs of other 
 animals. They have colourless blood, circulated in the 
 higher organized species in a closed system of vessels, 
 without an auricle or ventricle ; they have no respiratory 
 organs, no articulated members for locomotion, no organs 
 of sense. The digestive system consists either of tubes or 
 cavities excavated in the parenchymatous texture of the 
 body, and without an anal outlet ; or of a tube with both 
 oral and anal orifices freely suspended in an abdominal 
 cavity. A filamentary nervous system has been recog- 
 nized in the higher organized Entozoa, occasionally compli- 
 cated with a ganglion near the mouth ; the generative sys- 
 tem is unisexual, hermaphrodite, or dioecious. (For the 
 classification of the Entozoa, see Intestinalia.) The spe- 
 cies of Entozoa known to infest the human body are the 
 following : — Ascaris rermicularis, Ascaris lumbricoides, 
 Tricocephalus dispar, Bothriocephalic latus, Tamia solium, 
 in the alimentary canal; Distoma hepaticum, in the gall- 
 bladder; Acephalocystis endogena, Echinococcus hominis, 
 in the substance of the liver, in the omentum and cavity of 
 the abdomen ; Filaria bronchialis, in the bronchial glands ; 
 Strongylus gigas, in the kidney; Spiroptera hominis and 
 Slrongylus spiniger, in the urinary bladder ; Polystoma 
 pinguicola, in the ovarium ; Trichina spiralis, in the volun- 
 tary muscles ; Cysticercus celluloses, filaria medinensis, 
 and Filaria oculi, in the cellular tissue. 
 
 ENTREPOT. In Commerce, the name given in France 
 and some other countries to a warehouse or other place 
 where goods brought from abroad may be deposited, and 
 from whence they may be withdrawn for export to another 
 country, without payment of any tax or duty An entrepot 
 is, therefore, synonymous with what is called a free port 
 on the Continent, and in this country with a bonded ware- 
 house; that is, a warehouse in which foreign products are 
 stored under the joint locks of the king and the importer: 
 if such products be entered for home consumption, they 
 are free of duty till their entry ; and if they be re-exported 
 to a foreign country, they are exempted from all duty, and 
 merely pay a small sum as warehouse rent. In popular 
 language, however, the word entrepot is frequently em- 
 ployed to designate a sea-port or commercial town which, 
 exports the produce of a considerable adjacent territory,
 
 ENTRESOL. 
 
 and imports the foreign articles required for its supply. 
 But its correct signification is that given above. 
 
 E'NTRESOL. (Fr.) In Architecture. See Mezzanine. 
 
 ENTRO'PIUM. (Gr. ev, in, and rperreiv, to turn.) A 
 turning in of the eyelashes and eyelid, so as to irritate the 
 ball of the eye. 
 
 E'NTRY, in Law, signifies the taking possession of lands 
 and tenements where a man has title of entry. It is also 
 used for a writ of possession. Entry is either actual, made 
 by the party or his attorney ; or an entry in law, by conti- 
 nual claim. Remedy by entry takes place in cases of 
 abatement, intrusion, and disseisin ; not on discontinuance 
 or deforcement. 
 
 ENVELOPE. In Fortification, a mound of earth, raised 
 to cover some weak part of the works. Envelopes are 
 sometimes raised in the ditch of the place, sometimes be- 
 yond it ; and are in the form of a single parapet, or a small 
 parapet bordered by another. 
 
 E'NVOYS, ORDINARY and EXTRAORDINARY, be- 
 long to the second order of diplomatic ministers. They 
 are inferior in rank to ambassadors, properly so called ; 
 the chief difference between them being that the latter are 
 held to represent the interests of their sovereign as agents, 
 the former his person. See Ambassador. 
 
 E'OCE'NE. (Gr. >)&){, the morning, and kouvos, recent.) 
 In Geology. "This period we shall call Eocene, because 
 the extremely small proportion of living species contained 
 in these strata indicates what may be considered the first 
 commencement or dawn of the existing state of the animal 
 creation. To this period the formations first called tertiary, 
 of the Paris and London basins, are referable." (Lyell, 
 Geology.) 
 
 E'OLIPILE. See jEolipile. 
 
 EPA'CRIDA'CE/E. (Epacris, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of shrubby Exogens, chiefly natives of Aus- 
 tralia; they differ from Ericea chiefly in the structure of 
 the anther, which is one-celled and destitute of appen- 
 dages. The fruit of Lissanthe sapida, and a few other 
 species, is eaten under the name of tlie Australian cran- 
 berry ; otherwise there is no plant of any known use in 
 the order, which, however, contains many beautiful spe- 
 cies of the genera Epacris, Lysinema, Sphenoloma, Sty- 
 p/ielia, and Dracophyllum. 
 
 E'PACT (Gr. t-Kaxroi, added or introduced), in Chrono- 
 logy, denotes the moon's age at the end of the year, or the 
 number of days by which the last new moon has preceded 
 the beginning of the year. The common solar year con- 
 sists of 305 days, and the lunar year of only 354 days : the 
 difference is therefore 11 ; whence, if a new moon fall on 
 the 1st of January in any year, the moon will be 11 days 
 old on the 1st day of the following year, and 22 day a old on 
 the 1st of the third year. The numbers 11 and 22 are 
 therefore the epacts of those years respectively. The 
 addition of 11 to the last epact gives 33 for that of the suc- 
 ceeding or fourth year; but as the lunar month never ex- 
 ceeds 30 days, the epact cannot exceed 30; whence 30 is 
 deducted from 33, and the epact is reduced to 3. Of the 
 thirty days thus rejected an embolismic or intercalary 
 month is formed, which, consequently, occurs every third 
 year of the lunar cycle, and gives 13 lunar months to that 
 year. In like manner the epacts of all the succeeding 
 years of the lunar cycle are obtained ; that is to say, by 
 adding successively 11 to the epact of the former year, 
 and rejecting 30 as often as the sum exceeds that number, 
 the leap years being taken account of by adding one day 
 to each lunar month which contains the 29th of February. 
 Supposing, therefore, the epact of the first year of the cy- 
 cle to be 11, the epacts of all the 19 years of which the cycle 
 is composed will be as follows.— 11, 22,3, 14,25, 6, 17, 28, 
 9, 20, 1, 12, 23, 4, 15, 26, 7, 18, 29. But the order is inter- 
 rupted at the end of the cycle ; for the epact of the follow- 
 ing year, formed in the same manner, would be 29 +11 — 
 30 = 10, whereas it ought obviously to be 11, to correspond 
 with the moon's age, all the circumstances being now sup- 
 posed to be the same as they were at the commencement 
 of the previous cycle. In order to understand this, it is ne- 
 cessary to remember that the lunar cycle of the ecclesias- 
 tical calendar is composed in the following manner: — The 
 lunations are supposed to consist of 29 and 30 days alter- 
 nately, or the common lunar year of 354 days ; and, in or- 
 der to make up 19 solar years, six embolismic or interca- 
 lary months of 30 days each are inserted in the course of 
 the cycle, and one of 29 days at the end. Hence it follows 
 that after adding 11 to the epact of the 19th year of the cy- 
 cle, we must reject 29 instead of 30, in order to have Ihe 
 epact of the following year, or the first year of the follow- 
 ing cycle. 
 
 This method of forming the epacts is adapted to the Julian 
 calendar, and might be continued indefinitely, if the Julian 
 intercalation were followed without interruption, and the 
 lunar cycle, defined as above, had corresponded exactly 
 with the lunar motions. But the intercalation is subject to 
 correction, and the cycle is not quite exact. Hence the 
 epacts must occasionally be adjusted ; and, generally speak- 
 407 
 
 EPHIALTES. 
 
 ing, an alteration is made on the last year of each century, 
 In the ordinary tables of the church calendar the epacts 
 are therefore given only for a single century ; but as the 
 Gregorian calendar now in use defines precisely the length 
 of the year, tables, though somewhat more complicated, 
 have been formed, which show the epacts of every future 
 year in all time to come. They may even be found by 
 means of an algebraic formula of no great perplexity. 
 (See the article " Calendar" in the Encyclopedia Briton- 
 nica.) The epacts were invented by Luigi Lilio Ghiraldi; 
 more frequently styled Aloysius Lilius, a physician of Na- 
 ples, and author of the Gregorian Calendar, for the pur- 
 pose of showing the days of the new moons, and thence 
 the moon's age on any day of the year, and consequently 
 of regulating the church festivals. It is only in ecclesias- 
 tical computations that the epacts are ever employed ; in 
 civil affairs the civilized portion of mankind have long 
 since laid aside the use of the lunisolar year, and regulated 
 time entirely by the sun. In the calendar of the Church 
 of England, Easter and the other moveable feasts are de- 
 termined in the same manner as in the old Romish calen- 
 dar, excepting that the golden numbers are prefixed to Ihe 
 days of the full moons, instead of the days of the new 
 moons. The epacts are consequently not used. It is de- 
 sirable that the custom of reckoning time by the moon, 
 which had its origin in ignorant ages, were abandoned, and 
 the civil year adopted for every purpose. See Calendar. 
 The following table shows the epacts corresponding to 
 each year of the lunar cycle during the present century. 
 The year of the cycle is what is usually called the golden 
 number, which is found by the following rule : — Add 1 to 
 the date (or year), and divide the sum by 19 ; the quotient 
 will be the number of cycles elapsed since the commence- 
 ment of the era, and the remainder the golden number. 
 See Golden Number. 
 
 Table of Gregorian Epacts. 
 
 Golden 
 Number. 
 
 Epact. 
 
 Golden 
 Number. 
 
 Epact. 
 
 Golden 
 Number. 
 
 Epact. 
 
 I. 
 
 
 
 VIII. 
 
 17 
 
 XV. 
 
 4 
 
 11. 
 
 11 
 
 IX. 
 
 28 
 
 •XVI. 
 
 15 
 
 III. 
 
 22 
 
 X. 
 
 9 
 
 XVII. 
 
 26 
 
 IV. 
 
 3 
 
 XI. 
 
 20 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 7 
 
 V. 
 
 14 
 
 XII. 
 
 1 
 
 XIX. 
 
 18 
 
 VI. 
 
 25 
 
 XIII. 
 
 12 
 
 I. 
 
 
 
 VII. 
 
 6 
 
 XIV. 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 EPA'NALE'PSIS. (From the Greek preposition Itcii 
 and avaXayifiavw, I take up.) In Rhetoric and Composi- 
 tion, a figure by which the word which begins the sentence 
 is repeated at the end of it: "Judge not, that ye be not 
 judged." 
 
 EPAU'LE. In Fortification, the shoulder of the bastion, 
 or the angle made by the face and flank. 
 
 EPAU'LEMENT. A side work hastily raised to cover 
 the cannon or men : also used for a demi-bastion, consist- 
 ing of a face and flank ; or for the redoubts made on a right 
 line. 
 
 EPAULETTES. (Fr.) Distinguishing ornaments worn 
 both by military and naval officers. In the different armies 
 of the German states ensigns are not allowed to wear epau- 
 lettes ; and hence the phrase "to obtain epaulettes," is sy- 
 nonymous with " to become a lieutenant." In the British 
 army all officers with the rank of captain upwards wear two 
 epaulettes; all under that rank only one. 
 
 EPENE'TIC. (Gr. £rraiv£Ti*cos, from eiraivos, an enco- 
 mium.) The laudatory or "encomiastic" species of ora- 
 tory : a branch of the Epideictic, according to the division 
 of Aristotle's De Rhetorica. See Panegyric. 
 
 EPE'NTHESIS. A figure of grammar, by which one or 
 more letters are inserted in the middle of a word ; as in the 
 Latin rettulit for retulit. See Metaplasm. 
 
 EPHEBEI'UM. (.Gr. S(priPos, a youth.) In Ancient Ar- 
 chitecture, the building appropriated for the wrestling and 
 exercises of youth till they had, on their arrival at man- 
 hood, the right to enter the gymnasium. 
 
 EPHE'BI. (Gr. c(j>ri/3ot, signifying arrived at the age of 
 puberty.) Applied particularly to the Athenian youth be- 
 tween the ages of eighteen and twenty years. 
 
 EPHE'MERANS, Ephemerincn. (Gr. uprtpepog, daily.) 
 A family of Neuropterous insects, having the genus Ephe- 
 mera as the type. They are called day-flies, from the en- 
 joyment of their last stage of existence being generally 
 "limited to twenty-four hours. 
 
 EPHE'MERIS. (Gr. c.<pr)pe.pis ; tm. upon, and ypcpa, 
 day.) An astronomical table showing the places of a celes- 
 tial body for every day at noon. Ephemerides (the plurai) 
 of the planets are computed and published annually for 
 most of the principal observatories of Europe. The most 
 celebrated of these are our own Nautical Almanac, the 
 French Connaissance des Terns, and the Berlin Jahrbuch. 
 
 Ephemeris, in Literature, is a collective name for re- 
 views, magazines, and all kinds of periodical literature. 
 
 EPHIA'LTES. (Gr. e<pa\\op.at, I leap upon; from the
 
 EPHOD 
 
 sensation of something leaping upon the breast.) The 
 nightmare. This affection, consisting of horrid dreams, 
 with a sensation of great pressure upon the body, and of 
 fruitless endeavours to escape and call for help, is gene- 
 rally symptomatic of indigestion, or of over-distension of 
 the stomach. For its relief opening medicine, and some- 
 times an emetic, are often required, and careful abstinence 
 from all that promotes dyspepsia, especially supper eating. 
 E'PHOD. (Heb.) A species of ornament worn by the 
 Hebrew priests. The ephod worn by the high priest, says 
 Calmet, was richly composed of gold, blue, purple, crim- 
 son, and twisted cotton ; and upon the part which came 
 over his shoulders were two large precious stones, upon 
 which were engraven the names of the twelve tribes of Is- 
 rael, six names upon each stone. The ephods worn by the 
 ordinary priests were of fine linen. (See Exod. xxxix.) 
 
 E'PHORI. (Gr. t<popoi.) In Ancient History, the title 
 of a class of magistrates common to many of the Dorian 
 states of Greece, but more particularly known in reference 
 to the political constitution of Sparta. The Spartan ephors 
 were five in number, and were elected annually from the 
 body of the ruling caste, and not from any particular tribe. 
 They originally seem to have exercised a jurisdiction over 
 the Spartans in their civil concerns, the limits of which it 
 is not easy to define ; but their power increased by degrees, 
 till it became supreme in the state. Besides their ju. cial 
 authority, they exercised a control over the functions of the 
 kings and the senate, and sometimes recalled the former 
 from their foreign expeditions, and demanded an account 
 of their proceedings. The executve power likewise was 
 almost wholly in their hands. 
 
 E'PIC. (Gr. tiros, averse.) A poem of an elevated cha- 
 racter, describing generally the exploits of heroes. This 
 species of poetry claims a very ancient origin, and is uni- 
 versally allowed to be the most dignified and majestic to 
 which the powers of the poet can be directed. There are 
 various theories regarding the character of an epic poem ; 
 and while some critics claim this title exclusively for the 
 Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, the jEneid of Virgil, and the 
 Paradise Lost of Milton, others— and particularly the Ger- 
 mans — embrace in the catalogue of epic writers Scott, 
 Byron, Pope, Moore, and Campbell. Epic poetry has often 
 been compared to the drama ; and the essential difference 
 between them is, that description is the province of the 
 former— action of the latter. The emotions which epic 
 poetry excite are not so frequent and violent as those pro- 
 duced by dramatic composition ; but they are more pro- 
 longed, and more developed by actual occurrences ; for an 
 epic poem embraces a wider compass of time and action 
 than is admissible in the drama. History has generally 
 supplied the best epic writers with themes ; but a close at- 
 tention to historical truth in the development of the story 
 is by no means requisite. Fiction, invention, imagination, 
 maybe indulged in to an almost unlimited extent; pro- 
 vided always the poet be careful to preserve what the cri- 
 tics call unity, i. e. provided his work embrace an entire 
 action, or have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This is 
 the distinguishing characteristic of the great epic poems. 
 The object of the JEneid, for instance, is the establishment 
 of iEneas in Italy ; and amidst all the ramifications of the 
 poem, the great object is kept steadily in view, and every 
 digression from the subject is made powerfully and di- 
 rectly conducive to the progress and development of the 
 tale. According to Aristotle, who has been implicitly fol- 
 lowed by Blair, the essentials of an epic poem consist in 
 the recital of some great event in a poetical form,— the con- 
 trivance of a plot important in itself, and instructive in the 
 reflections which it suggests, filled with suitable incidents, 
 enlivened with a variety of characters and descriptions, 
 and maintaining throughout propriety of character and ele- 
 vation of style. But besides these essential ingredients in 
 epic poetry, there are also what may be termed accidentals, 
 in which none of the great epic poems are deficient. These 
 are a prescribed and lengthened march, formal addresses, 
 sustained pomp, episodes, and machinery. About the ne- 
 cessity and use of machinery (the introduction of super- 
 natural beings) in an epic poem there are various opinions. 
 The French critics consider it as essential to the constitu- 
 tion of an epic poem, alleging that no poem, though pos- 
 sessed of every other requisite, has any pretension to be 
 ranked in the epic class unless the main action be carried 
 on by supernatural beings. " On peut dire," says Bossu, 
 " en un mot qu'il faut user de machines partout, puisque 
 Homere et Virgile n'ont rien fait sans cela." To be con- 
 vinced of the error of this critic, we have only to ask our- 
 selves what it is, in the writings of Homer and Virgil, that 
 pleases us most 1 Assuredly, as an ingenious writer has 
 remarked, it is not the councils of Olympus, the wiles of 
 Juno and Venus, or the " animis in coelestibus irae" (how 
 beautiful soever these are all pourtrayed), that awake a 
 chord of sympathy, even after a lapse of two thousand 
 years, in the breast of every one who reads them ; but it 
 is the knowledge of human nature, and the pictures of hu- 
 man feeling which these poems display, that have made 
 408 
 
 EPICUREANS. 
 
 them a " xTripa eif act,"— a work for all time, a possession 
 for eternity. In a word, upon this head we may say, that 
 while, on the one hand, the observance of all these rules 
 regarding machinery alone will never constitute an epic 
 poem ; so, on the other, the absence or violation of them 
 in the hands of a man of genius will never deprive it of 
 that character. 
 
 If the epic is the highest, it is also the most difficult style 
 of poetical composition, and that in which mediocrity is 
 least endurable ; and hence few of the writers of epics on 
 the classical model have obtained a high reputation as na- 
 tional poets in any language. Virgil is the earliest imitator 
 of Homer whose epic has been preserved, and the most 
 successful. The other Greek and Latin epic poets contain 
 passages of great beauty ; but their poems, as wholes, are of 
 an inferior order. In the English language we have only two 
 epics which can be said to form part of the national literature, 
 and those only in partframed on the classical model: the Pa- 
 radise Lost and Regained of Milton. French epics, including 
 even the Henriade of Voltaire, so famous in its time, have 
 no place among the chefs-d'csuvreof the national literature. 
 Of the great Italian poems, only one (the Jerusalem De- 
 livered of Tasso) fulfils the conditions of an epic. The 
 poem of Danle, however sublime in style, has no unity of 
 event or action : those of Ariosto, and the other Roman- 
 zieri, form a class distinguished from the epic by the mix- 
 ture of the serious and ludicrous. The Italia Liberata of 
 Trissino is simply pedantic. The old German and Spanish 
 national poems, — the Romance of the Cid, and the Niebe- 
 lungen-Lied, especially the latter, which is closely confined 
 to the conduct of one great action, — although the work of 
 writers unskilled in classical literature, deserve the title of 
 epic as truly as those of Homer. There is a brief but 
 masterly exposition of the origin and distinguishing charac- 
 teristics of epic poetry in the Penny Cyclopaedia, with re- 
 ference to the chief German authorities on this subject. 
 
 EPICA'RIDANS, Epicarides. (Gr. em, upon, and 
 tapis, a shrimp.) A family of Isopodous or equal footed 
 Crustaceans, which are parasitic upon shrimps. 
 
 EPICE'DIUM. (Gr. tiri, and xySos, grief.) In Poetry, 
 an elegiac poem on the occasion of a funeral solemnity in 
 honour of some deceased person. 
 
 EPICRA/NITIS. (Gr. i-riKpaivia, I finish.) In Ancient 
 Architecture, a tile forming the cyma of the cornice. The 
 angular stone forming the vertex of the pediment was call- 
 ed the angular epicranitis. The term is used in the cele- 
 brated Athenian inscription brought to this country by Dr. 
 Chandler, and now in the British Museum. 
 
 EPICURE'ANS. Followers of the tenets of Epicurus, 
 a philosopher who lived from b. c. 337 to b. c. 270, and 
 taught during the latter half of his life at Athens. The 
 name of Epicurean has become the general designation of 
 those who, either theoretically or practically, make plea- 
 sure the chief end of life and the standard of all virtue. Of 
 the genuine doctrines of Epicurus himself we have notices 
 in the work of Diogenes Laertius, who has preserved to us 
 fragments of his very voluminous writings: but for these 
 remains we should be at a loss, amid the conflicting state- 
 ments of his friends and enemies, how to judge of his cha- 
 racter as a man and a philosopher. The private character 
 of Epicurus has, we doubt not, been unjustly aspersed ; it 
 will be found, however, on a careful examination of his 
 system, that his merits as a philosopher have been as un- 
 deservedly extolled. Epicurus was the first philosophical 
 teacher who deserted the lofty idea of science which Plato 
 and Aristotle had striven to develop. Truth is, with him, 
 no longer an object worth pursuing for its own sake, but 
 only in so far as it contributes to the piece of mind of its 
 possessors. Hence, though he retains the threefold divi- 
 sion of philosophy into ethics, physics, and dialectics (in 
 Epicurean language, canonic), he assigns the two latter a 
 place subordinate to the first, and bestows on them a cur- 
 sory and heedless mode of treatment. 
 
 We should greatly wrong Epicurus if we represented 
 the gratification of the sensual appetites to be the object 
 proposed by him to the wise man. The happiness which 
 he regards as the true end of existence is rather a species 
 of quietism, in which the philosopher, protected by his 
 knowledge from all fear of injury from the powers of na- 
 ture, and by the laws from the assaults of his fellow-crea- 
 tures, holds himself open to all the pleasurable sensations 
 which the temperate indulgence of his ordinary appetites, 
 the recollection of past enjoyments, and the anticipation 
 of future, are sufficient abundantly to furnish. In order to 
 support his imaginary wise man in this tranquillity, he 
 deemed it necessary to show that the apprehensions which 
 beset mankind, of death, of the power and anger of the 
 gods, and the like, are wholly unfounded. For this pur- 
 pose he made use of the physical doctrine of Democritus ; 
 a system of atomic materialism, which makes all existen- 
 ces to arise from the concourse of minute particles of mat- 
 ter — the soul among the number, which is consequently, 
 at the moment of death, resolved into its constituent ele- 
 ments. The mental philosophy of Epicurus was of a sim-
 
 EPICYCLE. 
 
 ilar stamp : all our mental powers are resolved into sensa- 
 tion, immediate or recollected ; and sensation, under both 
 its forms, consists in the influx of certain extremely fine 
 filni3, which are perpetually, as it were, sloughed from 
 external objects, and find their way through the organs 
 of sense to the soul. The gods of the Epicureans bear 
 no relation to any part of their system : they are beings 
 sprung, like men, from the concourse of atoms, and differ- 
 ing from them only in their superior blessedness and tran- 
 quillity, shown in their entire aloofness from the care and 
 government of the world. The followers of Epicurus were 
 numerous, especially among the Romans. Little more, 
 however, than their names are recorded; with the excep- 
 tion of Lucretius, who, in his well-known poem, De Jierum 
 Natura, illustrates and defends the physical and religious 
 tenets of his master. In modern limes, Gassendi, an ato- 
 mic philosopher of the 17th century, has published an able 
 statement ot (he Epicurean system, under the title of Syn- 
 tagma Philosophica Epicuri. (See also Diogenes Laertius. 
 Vit. Phil. 1. x. ; and Cicero's philosophical writings gene- 
 rally ; also Rilter, Gesch. der Philos. b. x. And for a list of fne 
 Epicureans, Fabricii BibliothtcaGr&ca, vol. iii. ed. Hsrles.) 
 EPICY'CLE (Gr. tin, upon, and kvkXos. circle), in the 
 Ancient Astronomy, is a circle having its centre on the 
 circumference of another circle. It was a favourite axiom 
 of the Greek astronomers, that all the cekstial motions 
 must be circular and uniform. The phenomena of the 
 stations and retrogradalions of the planets were apparently 
 inconsistent with this supposition ; and in order to explain 
 them, Anollonins of Perga imagined the ingenious appa- 
 ratus of epicycles and deferents. He supposed the planet P 
 to move uniformly in the smal! circle or epi- ». — P 
 cycle PAD, the centre of which is carried uni- / A Ap) 
 formly forward along the circumference of the ' a iK 
 large circle or deferent CDF, of which the V, J 
 earth occupies the centre E. Hipparehus, ^ — 
 having discovered the eccentricity of the solar orbit, sup- 
 posed the motions w be performed in eccentric circles. 
 Ptolemy, the celebrated founder of the system which 
 astronomers followed till the days of Copernicus, adopted 
 the hypotheses both of Apollonius and Hipparehus; that 
 is, he supposed the earth E to be placed at a small distance 
 from the centre of the deferent circle (which consequently 
 was called an eccentric), and the planet to move uniformly 
 in the epicycle, the centre of which also moves uniformly 
 in tlie deferent. By means of these suppositions, and by 
 assigning proper ratios (determined by observation) be- 
 tween the radius of the deferent and the radius of the epi- 
 cycle, and also between the velocity of the planet in its 
 epicycle and the velocity of the centre of the epicycle on 
 the deferent, he was enabled to represent with considerable 
 accuracy, indeed with all the accuracy which the observa 
 tions of that lime required, the apparent motions of the 
 planets, and particularly the stations and retrogradations 
 which formed the principal object of the researches of the 
 ancient astronomers. As a first step towards connecting 
 the two sciences of astronomy and geometry, the system 
 of epicycles does infinite honour to its inventors; and it 
 ought to be borne in mind that it was never given out by 
 Ptolemy as any thing else than a mere hypothesis for re- 
 presenting the apparent celestial motions, or, as he ex- 
 presses it. for saving the appearances. 
 
 E'PICY'CI.OID (Gr. etiicidcAos, and t«5oc, form), in 
 Geometry, is a curve line which is generated by the re- 
 volution of a point in the circumference of a circle which 
 rolls on the circumference of another circle cither exter- 
 nally or internally. Thus, let the 
 circle whose centre is E touch the 
 circle ABF at the point A, and 
 roll along the outside of the cir- 
 cumference ; the point of original 
 contact C, carried round till it re- 
 turn again to the circumference at 
 F, will trace an epicycloid. If the 
 circle revolve on the inside of the 
 circumference, the curve traced 
 out by the point C will still be of the same kind, though 
 somewhat different in form. This is sometimes called the 
 hypocycloid. 
 
 The revolving circle is called the generating circle, the 
 circle on which the revolution is performed the funda- 
 mental circle, and the portion of the fundamental circle on 
 which the epicycloid rests is called its 6a?c. Some of the 
 properties of the curve are easily deduced from these de- 
 finitions. It is evident that the whole base A F is equal to 
 the circumference of the generating circle : and when the 
 radius of the generating circle is any aliquot part of that of 
 the fundamental eircle, the epicycloid, after repeated ac- 
 cessions to the cin-umference of the fundamental circle, 
 most return into itself at the same point A. 
 
 The epicycloid assumes a variety of forms, according to 
 
 the relative magnitudes of the fundamental and generating 
 
 circles; when the two circles are equal, its form is that of 
 
 the annexed figure. This is one of the caustic curves ; for 
 
 409 
 
 EPIDOTE. 
 
 rays of light, issuing from a luminous point R in tire circum- 
 A ference of a circle 11 I A, and 
 
 reflected from any points I i in 
 the circumference, are tangents 
 to the curve; consequently all 
 the reflected rays intersect in 
 the curve which is thus traced 
 out by the assemblage of bril- 
 liant points. When the radius 
 of the generating eircle is only 
 half that of the fundamental cir- 
 cle, the exteriorepicycloid forms 
 the caustic of parallel rays. In 
 this case the interior epicy- 
 cloid becomes a straight line, 
 the point C tracing out the diameter of the fundamental 
 circle. 
 
 It is a remarkable property of epicycloids, that when the 
 diameter of the generating circle is any aliquot part of the 
 diameter of the fundamental circle, they are algebraic 
 curves; and the whole epicycloidal circuits are capable of 
 being expressed geometrically in terms of the diameters 
 of those circles. Thus, let the radius of the generating 
 circle be 1, and the radius of the fundamental circle n ; then 
 the length of the complete arc of the exterior epicycloid is 
 
 expressed by the formulas ( j, and of the interior 
 
 epicycloid by 8 ( Y In this case also the epicycloidal 
 
 spaces, or areas, are expressible in terms of the areas of 
 these circles; the surface of the exterior epicycloid being 
 
 - times, and that of the interior epicycloid 
 
 times the area of the generating circle. In all cases 
 the epicycloid, as above defined, is rectifiable ; but when 
 the tracing point i3 not situated in the circumference 
 of the generating circle, but. any where in its plane within 
 or without it, the. curve is of a different nature, and the 
 above properties no longer hold true. In this case the ex- 
 terior curve is usually called the epitrochoid, and the inte- 
 rior the hypotrochoid. 
 
 The epicycloid was invented by the celebrated Danish 
 astronomer Romer, the discoverer of the progressive motion 
 of light, who proposed this curve, about the year 1674, as 
 the proper form of the teeth of wheels, in order to destroy 
 the friction. Newton, in the first edition of the Principia, 
 gave its rectification ; and Ilalley. in the Philosophical. 
 Transactions, No. 218, showed how its quadrature depends 
 on that of the generating circle. The other principal pro- 
 perties of the curve were discovered and demonstrated by 
 John Bernoulli. 
 
 The term epicycloid is applied to other curves than the 
 above, but described in an analogous manner. If the re- 
 volving circle forms a constant angle with the plane of the 
 fundamental circle, the curve traced out is called a spheri- 
 cal epicycloid. If an ellipse is made to roll on another el- 
 lipse, the generating point traces an elliptic epicycloid, &c. 
 
 EPIDE'MIC. (Gr. em, upon, and Sr\jioi, people.) An in- 
 fectious or contagious disease, which attacks many people 
 at the same period and in the same country, " rages for a 
 certain lime, and then gradually diminishes and disappears, 
 to return again at periods more or less remote." Thus in- 
 fluenza, scarlet fever, measles, &c, frequently appear as 
 epidemics ; that is, are found to prevail in certain parts of 
 a country, while the adjacent districts are wholly free from 
 their ravages. It is essential to the medical notion of an 
 epidemic that it be of a temporary, in contradistinction to 
 a permanent character. It differs from endemic, inasmuch 
 as the latter class of diseases are of a permanent nature, 
 and prevail only among certain people, and in certain dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 EPIDE'RMIS. (Gr. cirt, and Scpua, the true skin.) In 
 Anatomy, the cuticle or scarf skin. It is an albuminous 
 membrane. 
 
 Epidermis. In Botany, the cellular integument, or the 
 exterior cellular coating of the bark, or leaf, or stem of a 
 plant. It is composed of cells compacted together into a 
 stratum, varying in thickness in different species, and is 
 often readily separable by gentle violence. It is believed 
 to be intended by nature as a protection of the subjacent 
 parts from the drying effects of the atmosphere. 
 
 E'PIDOTE. (Gr. cttiSiSwiii, I increase.) A mineral 
 which has received a great variety of names. It occurs 
 crystallized, massive, and granular; its usual colours are 
 various shades of green ; its structure is generally fibrous. 
 It is a triple silicate of alumina, lime, and iron. It occurs 
 in most parts of Europe, in America, and in the East In- 
 dies. "L'epidole emprunte meme des dimensions de sa 
 molecule on caracte re particulier; il consiste en ce que 
 Pun des cotes de la base de cette molecule est plusetendu 
 que 1'autre, en sorte que cette base estun parallelogramme 
 allonge, au lieu que dans les autres substances (actinote, 
 amohibole, &c.) la figure de la base est d'un nombre. 
 Bb" 36
 
 EPIG^OUS. 
 
 C'estde cette espece d'accroissement que j'ai tire fe tiom 
 d'epidote." (Huuy.) 
 
 LPIGjE'OUS. (Gr. t7ri, upon, and yi), M« errrtft.) In 
 Botany, a term used in describing the situation of bodies 
 to denote anv one growing close to the earth. 
 
 EPIGA'STRIC REGION (Gr. cm, and yaorr)p, the 
 stomach), is that part of the abdomen which is over the 
 stomach. It is also called the epigastrium. 
 
 E'PIGE'NESIS. In Physiology. See Evolution. 
 
 EPIGLO TTIS. (Gr. cm, and yXotrra, the tongue.) An 
 oval cartilage at the root of the tongue, which closes upon 
 the superior opening of the larynx ; its superior extremity 
 is loose, anil elevated by its own elasticity : it closes the 
 aperture of the larynx when the tongue is drawn back in 
 the act of deglutition. Its base has a ligamentous attach- 
 ment to the base of the tongue, the thyroid cartilage, and 
 the os hyoides. 
 
 EPI'GONI. (Gr. cm, in the sense of after, and yiyva- 
 ftai, lam born.) The collective appellation of the sons of 
 (he seven Greek princes who conducted the first war 
 against Thebes without success. The war subsequently 
 undertaken by the Epigoni to avenge the defeat of their 
 forefathers is celebrated in history. Their capture of 
 Thebes forms the theme of Wilkie's epic poem, the Epi- 
 goniad, which was published about the middle of the last 
 century, and procured for its author great reputation. 
 
 E'PIGRAM. (Gr. cniypappa, an inscription.) In Poe- 
 try, a short poem or piece in verse, which has only one 
 subject, and finishes by a witty or ingenious turn of thought ; 
 or, to use a more general definition, an interesting thought 
 represented happily in a few words. 
 
 The first of these definitions, although tolerably correct 
 as to the modern epigram, differs, as it will be seen, widely 
 from the original sense of the word in Greek. The Greek 
 epigram was, in the first instance, a short collection of lines 
 actually inscribed on a monument, statue, fountain, <fcc. ; 
 and the word was thence transferred to such short poems 
 as might serve for inscriptions : of such the collection 
 termed the Greek Epigram is almost wholly composed. 
 Their general characteristic is perfect simplicity, and the 
 seemingly studied absence of that point which characteri- 
 zes the modern epigram. They are almost wholly in one 
 form of metre, the elegiac. 
 
 In the poetry of classical Rome, the term epigram was 
 Ktill somewhat indiscriminately used to designate short 
 pieces in verse ; but the works of Calullus, and still more 
 the well known collection of the Epigrams of Martial, con- 
 tain a great number winch present the modern epigram- 
 matic character : and Martial has, in fact, afforded the mo- 
 del on which the modern epigram has been framed. In 
 this class of composition, and especially where the turn of 
 thought is satirical, the French writers have been far more 
 successful than those of any other nation ; and the term 
 " piquant" seems expressly invented to designate the pecu- 
 liar force of those epigrammatic sallies of fancy of which 
 their literature is full. (See Dr. Johnson's learned Essay 
 on Epigrams. ) 
 
 E'PIGRAPH (Gr. tmypatyoy, 1 inscribe), also termed 
 Motto. In Literature, a citation from some author, or a 
 sentence frampd for the purpose, placed at the commence- 
 ment of a work or of its separate divisions. 
 
 EPI'GYNOUS. (Gr. cm, upon, and yvvrj. afemale.) A 
 term used in botany to denote any organ growing upon the 
 summit of the ovarium. 
 
 E'PILEPSY. (Gr. cmXau0avo), I seize upon.) This 
 disease is also called the falling sickness, from the sudden- 
 ness of its attack. It is attended by convulsive stupor and 
 frothing at the moulh. It comes on by fits, which after 
 lasting a certain time go off generally leaving a degree of 
 lassitude and drowsiness. Where epilepsy is symptoma- 
 tic of irritation in the prima? viae, from worms, or indigesti- 
 ble and noxious food or poisons, or when it arises from the 
 suppression of long-accustomed evacuations, the treatment 
 is sufficiently obvious ; so also in cases where it results 
 from a blow, wound, or fracture, or from diseased bone, 
 it may be relieved by proper surgical aid. Plethoric habits 
 require lowering, and debility indicates the use of tonics. 
 The disease, however, is always indicative of something 
 essentially wrong in the nervous system ; and where it 
 arises from hereditary disposition, or comes on about the 
 age of puberty, where the fits are frequent, and cannot be 
 referred to any apparent cause, an unfavourable opinion 
 must be formed respecting its termination, which, if not in 
 apoplexy, is commonly in mental alienation or imbecility. 
 Yet, the most unpromising cases have in a few rare instan- 
 ces ended well ; that is, they have not recurred after vio- 
 lent pains, or eruptive disorders. It sometimes happens 
 that certain symptoms precede the attack; and among 
 them a sense of coldness proceeding from some part of 
 the body towards the head, and called aura epileptica,\\ilh 
 palpitation, flatulency, and slight stupor, are the most com- 
 mon. In such cases a brisk emetic, a large dose of opium 
 and ether, a cold bath where it may be ventured upon, or 
 any thing which produces a sudden shock upon the sys- 
 410 
 
 EPISCOPACY 
 
 tern, has prevented the fit. The most effective reBiedia? 
 treatment seems to be that which is directed to the riimi- 
 lately morphia and slrichma, have been recommended ; 
 nution of nervous irritability by sedatives and tonics: a- 
 mong the formeropium,ether, henbane, hemlock, and more 
 and as tonics bark, quintal cascarilla, valerian, and some 
 melallic salts, such as sulphate ol iron, zinc, or copper, ar 
 seniate of potash, or the arsenical solution, and especially 
 nitrate of silver ; but the chance of permanently disfigur- 
 ing the patient by the leaden hue which this last salt often 
 communicates to the skin, should induce practitioners to 
 be most scrupulous in the selection of (his remedy. It is 
 said that a violent scald or burn, or great alarm, as from a 
 fire, a fall, and such accidents, have sometimes relieved 
 the system of this horrible complaint; and hence perhaps 
 the superstitious notions which have attached to its cure 
 by charms. 
 
 During an epileptic fit, nothing can be done for the relief 
 of the sufferer except taking care that he does not injure 
 himself, and relieving him of any part of his dress which 
 may tend to compress the vessels of the head; the pa- 
 roxysms, however, are most frequent in the night. 
 
 E'PlLOGUE. (Gr. cmboyos.) In Dramatic Poetry, the 
 closing address to the audience at the end of a play. 
 
 EPI'PHANY. (Gr. em<pavris, manifest.) A church fes- 
 tival, signifying the manifestation of Christ, and referring 
 to the appearance of the star which announced our Sa- 
 viour's birth to the Gentiles. It is observed on the 5th of 
 January, being the twelfth day from Christmas. 
 
 EPIPHONE'MA. (Gr. cm, upon, and Aosvcw, I speak.) 
 In Rhetoric and Composition, a short reflection added by 
 way of corollary, or passing remark, to the end of a course 
 of narrative or reasoning. 
 
 EPIPHORA. (Gr. cm, upon, and d,cpu>, 1 bear.) In 
 Rhetoric, the emphatic repetition of a word or series of 
 words at the end of several sentences or stanzas. The 
 finest instance of this figure with wliich we are acquainted 
 in modern oralory occurs in Fox's defence of himself and 
 his measures in the House of Commons after the dissolu- 
 tion of the Coalition Ministry. Anapho.-a j s a similar re- 
 petition at the beginning of several sentences. 
 
 Epi'phoka. A disease occasioned by a superabundant 
 secretion of tears. 
 
 EPIPHY'LI.OUS. (Gr. cm, and <p v \\ov, a leaf.) In Bo- 
 tany, something inserted upon a leaf. 
 
 EPI'PHYSIS. (Gr. cm, upon, and </>t)c-is, nature.) A 
 process of a bone separated at first by a layer of cartilage 
 from that to which it is attached. 
 
 EPIPLOCE'LE. (Gr. cmirXoov, the omentum, and Ki)\n, 
 tumour.) A hernia or rupture formed by a protrusion ol 
 the omentum. 
 E'PIPI.OON. (Gr.) The omentum. 
 EPISCE'NUJM. (Gr. cm, upon, and CKnvn, aacene.) In 
 Ancient Architecture, the upper order of the scene in the 
 theatre. 
 
 EPI'SCOPACY. (Gr. cmoKoxos, an overseer.) The 
 government of a church by three distinct orders of minis- 
 ters — bishops, priests, and deacons. The nature of the 
 argument upon which this constitution is best defended 
 will be most clearly seen in a quotation from Mr. Short's 
 History of the English Church. Speaking of the points at 
 issue between the Presbyterians and the Church parly in 
 the reign of Elizabeth, he says, '• Were there three dis- 
 tinct orders in the primitive church? and if so, was the 
 right and office of ordaining peculiar to the highest of 
 these?" He then proceeds to argue thus: — "In the apos- 
 tolical history, as contained in the New Testament, these 
 questions are not clearly answered, and there is much in- 
 distinctness about the names of bishop and priest or elder ; 
 but if we suppose, by way of hypothesis, that there were 
 bishops, priests, and deacons, we shall find no statements 
 which cannot be easily reconciled with the supposition. 
 As we proceed with ecclesiastical history, those same 
 traces become more decisive, till we find that at an early 
 period the questions are bolh answered in the affirmative ; 
 and we infer, therefore, that unless it can be shown that a 
 change in this particular took place, we may presume that 
 the same ecclesiastical constitution existed from the time 
 of the apostles. A Presbyterian might argue that in the 
 apostolical history of the New Testament there is nothing 
 which militates against the hypothesis of the two orders 
 only, at least nothing which proves the point ; that St. 
 James might have been the chief elder, the moderator of 
 the church of Jerusalem; that Titus and Timoihy might 
 have held no higher office than that of dean in a cathedral 
 church, or archdeacon in a diocese ; and that as the pres- 
 bytery had the power of ordaining, they, as its superinten- 
 dents, were directed by St. Paul to set all things in order. 
 But then this hypothesis does not account for the introduc- 
 tion of episcopacy, without even a hint from the historians 
 that any alteration in the church government was effected. 
 When to Ihis it is added, that there never existed a church 
 without episcopacy till the Reformation, the proof seems 
 as strong as moral proof can be, that it is most probable
 
 EPISODE. 
 
 Trial episcopacy is derived from the times of the apostles." 
 He adds in a note — "The argument concerning the name 
 of bishop is frequently mistaken. There is no doubt that 
 twicrKOTToi is equivalent to TrpeaSirepoi in the New Testa- 
 ment ; but then the terms used in the New Testament lor 
 bishop are d7r<So-roAo>, or ay/e\o;. The concession, there- 
 fore, of the use of the name cnioKorros proves nothing. 
 The Presbyterian is forced to say, that the order equiva- 
 lent to that of the apostles does not now exist in the church, 
 and to explain ayyeXo; by l/ie chief pastor of the church. 
 So that the argument from the names is rather in favourof 
 episcopacy." It will be observed that this defence mainly 
 relies upon the argument from antiquity and immemorial 
 usage ; and this is the authority to which the episcopalian 
 always pays the highest regard when the Scriptures do not 
 appear to be decisive. But the Presbyterians and Inde- 
 pendents very generally take a different ground, and argue 
 in the words of Dr. Maclaine, the translator of Mosheim— 
 " that Christ, by leaving this matter undetermined, has of 
 consequence left Christian societies a discretionary power 
 of modelling the government of the church in such a 
 manner as the circumstantial reasons of times, places, 
 <fec, may require; and therefore the wisest government 
 of the church is the best and the most divine ; and every 
 Christian society has a right to make laws for itself, pro- 
 vided that these laws are consistent with charity and peace, 
 and with the fundamental doctrines and principles of 
 Christianity." 
 
 E'PISODE. In Poetry. From the Greek txtia6&iov, 
 which in its original sense denotes those parts of a clas- 
 sical drama which are between the entrances, iiaoioi, of 
 the chorus ; and thence, by analogy, has the signification 
 which has adhered to the derivative word in modem use, — 
 an incidental narrative or digression in a poem, more or 
 less connected with the main plot, but not essential to its 
 development. 
 
 EPISPA'STIC. (Gr. tmavaoi, I draw upon.) A term 
 applied to substances which raise a blister upon the skin. 
 
 E'PISPEltM. (Gr. cm, upon, and airepua, a seed.) In 
 Botany, the testa or integuments of a seed. 
 
 EPI'STATES. (Gr. tnterarns.) The title of the pre- 
 sidents of the two great councils of the Athenians, viz. the 
 Ecclesia and the senate of the Five Hundred. They were 
 both respectively elected from the number of the prohedri 
 of the ecclesia and senate, and their office only lasted one 
 day. The latter of these two officers had the post of the 
 greatest trust, as in his hands were placed the keys of the 
 citadel and public treasury. 
 
 E'PISTA'XIS. (Gr. cmara^civ. to drop from.) Bleeding 
 at the nose. In young persons, and where it is produced 
 by accidental causes, this is of no consequence; unless, 
 indeed, it should be very profuse, and then the topical ap- 
 plication of cold and of styptics, especially a strong solution 
 of alum, or a plug of lint properly introduced, will check 
 it; but when it occurs frequently in advanced life, and is 
 independent of nasal disease, it is apt to indicate an alarm- 
 ing fulness of the vessels of the head. It is also a danger- 
 ous omen in disorders of great debility, and more espe- 
 cially in putrid fever. 
 
 EPISTHO'TONOS. (Gr. emoOev, forwards, and rtivot, 
 I bend.) A spasmodic affection, in which the body is bent 
 forwards. 
 
 EPI'STLE. (Gr. ctthttoXi].) The use of this word is 
 now confined in our language to the designation of those 
 written addresses by apostolical writers to their Christian 
 brethren which are contained in the canon of Scripture : a 
 few others, either spurious or of hi°h antiquity, although 
 not recognized among inspired writings, are also so de- 
 nominated. The Epistles of St. Paul, and others contained 
 in the volume of the New Testament, are not arranged 
 according to their date, but, in all probability, according to 
 the views which those who arranged the canon entertained 
 of the relative importance either of the writings them- 
 selves, or of the parties to whom they are addressed. 
 Thus the Epistles of St. Paul to the different churches, and 
 the Catholic Epistles of St. John (i. e. addressed to the uni- 
 versal church), are ranked before the Epistles of those 
 saints to individual Christians. An exception to this rule 
 is to be found in the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is 
 placed last among those of St. Paul, and seems to have 
 been admitted into the canon at a comparatively recent pe- 
 riod. The practice of reading a portion of an Epistle in the 
 service of the church is extremely ancient, and said to be 
 noticed bv Justin in his First Apology. 
 
 E'PISTY'LIUM. (Gr. em, upon, and o-ruXof, a column.) 
 In Architecture, the same as architrave, which see. 
 
 E'PITAPH. (Gr. em, and ra<po(, a tomb.) Literally an 
 inscription on a tomb. As has been well observed, inscrip- 
 tions in honour of the dead are perhaps as old as tombs 
 themselves ; though they were by no means bestowed in 
 such profusion in ancient as in modern times. Among the 
 -Greeks, for instance, this honour was paid only to the 
 tombs of heroes, as in the case of Leonidas and his gallant 
 comrades. (Her. vii. 228.) The Romans were the first to 
 411 
 
 EPOCH. 
 
 deviate from Otis course. Every Roman family who con- 
 secrated a tomb to their relations had the privilege of in- 
 scribing an epitaph thereon ; and as their tombs were 
 usually situated on the highway, the attention of passers-by 
 was sought to be arrested by the words "sta viator,"— the 
 formula with which all their epitaphs were prefaced. But 
 how much soever the epitaphs of the ancient Greeks and 
 Romans differed in point of number, there were three 
 qualities which they possessed in common — brevity, sim- 
 plicity, and familiarity; qualities which a modern critic, 
 Boileau, has pronounced to be indispensable in this spe- 
 cies of writing. 
 
 At what period sepulchral inscriptions came into use in 
 England, has not been precisely ascertained ; though there 
 can be little doubt that this practice was introduced by the 
 Romans at the period of their invasion of Britain. During 
 the first twelve centuries of the Christian era, the monu- 
 mental inscriptions of this country were all written in Latin. 
 About the 13th century, the French language was adopted, 
 and continued to be used for this purpose till the middle of 
 the 14lh century ; at which time monumental inscription* 
 in the vernacular tongue became commoti, though the 
 clergy and learned of that lime, as might have been ex- 
 pected, still preferred the Latin, as their more familiar 
 idiom. The modem English, French, and German epi- 
 taphs, of which several collections have been made, are 
 infinitely more numerous than those of any time or nation, 
 and exhibit every variety of style and sentiment ; from the 
 most chaste and majestic gravity, impressive tenderness, 
 and laconic terseness, to the most puerile epigrammatic 
 conceits, pointed satire, and heraldic prolixity. It would 
 be out of place here to give specimens of all the various 
 kinds of epitaphs included in this category ; but we cannot 
 refrain from citins, in illustration of our assertion, one or 
 two instances, exhibiting each in an eminent degree th« 
 different characteristics of the class to which it belongs. 
 Epitaph on the Countess of Pembroke, by Ben Jonson. 
 
 Underneath this sable hearse 
 
 Lies the subject of all verse ; 
 
 Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother : 
 
 Death, ere thou canst find another 
 
 <iood and fair and wise as she, 
 
 Tiuie shall throw a dart at thee. 
 
 Epitaph on Robespierre. 
 
 Passant, ne uleure point mon sort ; 
 Si je vivais, lu serais mort t 
 
 Epitaph on a French General. 
 Hisle, viator ; heroem ralcas I 
 Stop, traveller ; thou treadest on a hero ! 
 
 E'PITIIALA'MIUM. (Gr. ImQaXdpiov.) A nuptial 
 song, sung by a chorus of boys and girls when the bride 
 and bridegroom entered the bridal chamber, and again on 
 the first morning after the marriage. This was the custom 
 in Greece, which was somewhat varied at Rome, where 
 the chorus consisted of girls only, who sang before the 
 door of the nuptial chamber till midnisht. The most per- 
 fect examples of this species which antiquity has left us are 
 by Theocrilus and Catullus. 
 
 E'PITHET (Gr. iniQerov, something imposed upon 
 another), in Rhetoric and Composition, denotes a term em- 
 ployed in an adjective sense to express an attribute or 
 quality of another substantive term. The abundance and 
 the propriety of epithets form peculiar characteristics of 
 various poeiical styles. In the strict rhetorical sense, epi- 
 thets are oniy such adjectives as convey a notion already 
 implied in the noun substantive itself, and add nothing to 
 the sense. Thus, the "glorious" sun is a mere epithet; 
 while the ''rising" or the "setting" sun would, as convey- 
 ing some additional idea into the sense of the passage, not 
 be considered as epithets. The former sort, however, are 
 sometimes called in disparagement by writers on rhetoric 
 " otiosa." or idle epithets. 
 
 EPITI'THIDES. (Gr. em, and rtfij/ii, 1 place.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, the crown or upper mouldings of an entablature. 
 
 EPI'TOME. (Gr. cmreuvo, I cut short.) In Literature, 
 an abridgment: a work in which the contents of a former 
 work are reduced within a smaller space by curtailment 
 and condensation. In the later classical period, extending 
 through the declining age of the Western Empire, the prac- 
 tice of epitomizing the writings of older writers, especially 
 in history, became very prevalent; and while some regard 
 the works of Justin, Eutropius, and similar writers, as 
 having preserved to us much historical knowledge which 
 would otherwise have been lost, others have maintained 
 that these laborious compilers have done great disser- 
 vice to literature, inasmuch as the voluminous works 
 which they abridged being superseded by their more popu- 
 lar and cheaper compendia, in an illiterate age, have from 
 that cause for the most part perished. See Abridgment. 
 
 EPIZO'ANS,i?pi'zoa. (Gr. cm, upon, $a>ov, animal.) Th<! 
 name of a class of parasitic animals, which chiefly infest 
 fishes and of which the Linnasan genus Lernaa is the type. 
 
 E'POCH. (Gr. itroxn, from emx *, I stop.) In Chrono- 
 logy, a fixed point of time from which dates are numbered,
 
 EPODE. 
 
 or at which a new compulation begins. It is consequently 
 the commencement of an sera. See JEka. 
 
 E'PODE. (Gr. etoxJoj, something added to the wdq, or 
 ode.) In the slrophic choruses of the Grecian drama, the 
 last portion following the strophe ami anlistropbe is so call- 
 ed. The name of Epodes, applied to a book of Horace's 
 poems, merely signifies additional or supplementary odes. 
 
 EPOPEE. See Epic. 
 
 E'POPT. (Gr. ciToiTTrii, inspector.) A functionary of 
 the Eleusinian Mysteries, which see. 
 
 EPROUVE'TTE. In Gunnery, a machine for proving 
 the strength of gunpowder. A small gun is attached to a 
 frame, which is suspended from a horizontal rod, about 
 which it oscillates like a pendulum. On the sun being 
 fired, the recoil causes the frame to swing; ancfthe force 
 of the recoil is measured by the angle which the frame de- 
 scribes. In this manner the relative strength of different 
 sorts of gunpowder is ascertained. 
 
 K'PSOM SALT. Sulphate of magnesia; formerly ob- 
 tained by evaporating the water of certain springs at Epsom 
 in Surrey. 
 
 EPD'LIS. (Gr. ctti, upon; ov\a, the gums.) A small 
 tubercle on the gums. 
 
 EPULO'TIC. (Gr. mi, and dvXrj, a scar.) Applications 
 which promote the skinning over of sores; hence the epic- 
 lolic ointments of old pharmacy. 
 
 E'QUANT, in the Ptolemaic Astronomy, denotes a cir- 
 cle which was conceived to be described in the plane of 
 ttie deferent or eccentric, for regulating and adjusting cer- 
 tain motions of the planets, and reducing them to easier 
 calculation. 
 
 EQUA'TIONS, ALGEBRAICAL. An algebraical equa- 
 tion is aii expression of equality between two quantities in- 
 volving the ordinary symbols of algebra in any manner 
 whatever. The "Theory of Algebraical Equations" forms 
 an important subject or department of analysis, and is al- 
 ways understood to embody the discussion of equations 
 when presented in their most convenient form for solu- 
 tion ; and its great object is to develop the properties and 
 to evolve the values of the real and imaginary roots. The 
 equations are supposed to be cleared from radicals, and 
 are classed in degrees according to the highest exponent of 
 the unknown quantity. 
 
 Thus, if x denote ihe unknown quantity, and co. CI, C2, 
 C3, &c. the given numbers or coefficients; 
 
 ei x + co = is a si?nple equation, or an equation of the 
 first degree ; 
 
 c-2 xi + ct x + co = is a quadratic, or an equation of 
 the second degree ; 
 
 C3 x3 + C2 x? + cl x + co = is a cubic equation, or 
 an equation ot the third degree ; 
 
 c 4 x* + C3 x3 + ci x2 + a x + co = is a biquadratic 
 equation, or an equation of the fourth degree, &c. &c. 
 
 And Cn Xi' + C n— I X>1— I + Cl xi + Cl X + CO = is 
 
 an equation of the «th degree. 
 
 We shall here consider two or three of the most im- 
 portant and useful general properties of an equation of the 
 nth degree. 
 
 The complete solution of every equation of the nth de- 
 gree must always comprise as many as n roots, real and 
 imaginary, the imaginary roots being of the forms p + 
 q V — 1, p — qV — 1. When a real root is substituted for 
 x in the equation, the involved terms must counteract one 
 another, and cause the result to vanish ; and when an im- 
 aginary root is substituted for x in the equation, both the 
 real and imaginary portion of the result must separately 
 vanish. If the substitution of p + qV — 1 causes both the 
 real and imaginary parts to vanish, it is evident that the 
 substitution of p — q\/ — 1 will have the same effect, since 
 the result will only differ from that of the former in the 
 imaginary terms having changed al their signs. It follows 
 from this remark that if an equation possesses a root of the 
 formp + flV— l, it must likewise possess a corresponding 
 imaginary root of the form p — ? i/— 1. The roots p + 
 iyV — 1, p — y V — 1 are called a pair of imaginary roots > 
 and as these roots must thus enter equations in pairs, every 
 equation must have an even number of impossible roots", 
 or else none at all. 
 
 Suppose the roots of an equation to be all real, and let 
 them be denoted by rl, ri, r3 ■ ■ ■ ■ &c. ; then the equation 
 will in all cases be produced by multiplying together the 
 factors x— -n, x — ri, x — r3, &c. The equation may 
 therefore be put in the form, 
 
 (x — ri)(x — ri)(x — n).... &c. — 0... (A). 
 
 If, however, the equation likewise contains pairs of ima- 
 ginary roots, p + 7 V — Up — ?V — 1, />' + ?' V — j 
 p' — q' \/ — l, & c ., it will also embody the factors (x — p — 
 7 V^\ ) ( x — p + q V^l ) (x -p' — q' V^I ) (x - p' + 
 
 if V~—\) &c. ; or Ux—pf- + tf* ) ((.x—p')1 + q"l \ &c. ; 
 412 
 
 EQUATIONS, ALGEBRAICAL. 
 
 and will consequently take the form, 
 
 (x — n)(x — r2)(x — rz).... ((x — p)2 + g 2) ({x—p'yi 
 
 +r/2 ) &c = . . . (B). 
 
 The equation, when thus put in the form (A) or (B), is 
 evidently satisfied when x is made equal to any one of 
 the roots n, ri, rz . . . . p + q V _ l, p _ q V^l, p' + 
 
 q'V-\,p' 
 
 'v: 
 
 -1 . . . &c. ; and the idea is very 
 
 clearly conveyed how an equation of the nth degree may be 
 fulfilled by n different roots, determined by equating the 
 factors severally with zero. 
 
 If the factors of (A) be incorporated by actual multiplica- 
 tion, we shall derive expressions for the coefficients of the 
 equation in terms of its roots. The operation will be as 
 follows : 
 
 x — n 
 
 X — Tl 
 
 x'l — rl 
 
 x + n j-2 
 
 — n 
 
 
 x — r3 
 
 
 x-i — n | xi + r\ rz i x — n r2 n 
 
 — n + ri r3 
 
 — r3 I + r2r3 | 
 
 xi — n 
 
 *2 
 
 + rl r2 
 
 xi — ri n n 
 
 — 72 . 
 
 
 + rl r3 
 
 — ri n n 
 
 -7-3 
 
 
 + r2 r3 
 
 — T\ n ri 
 
 -n j 
 
 
 + rt rt 
 + ri n 
 + rs n 
 
 — r2 n rt 
 
 x + ri r2 r3 ri 
 
 By continuing the process we infer, generally, that for 
 any equation in which the highest power of x has the co- 
 efficient unity, the coefficient of the second term is equal 
 to the sum of the roots with the sign changed ; that of the 
 third term is equal to the sum of the products of every 
 two roots ; that of the fourth term is equal to the sum of 
 the products of every three roots with the sign changed, 
 &c. &c. ; and the last term co, unaccompanied by x, is 
 equal to the continued product of all the roots, with the 
 proper algebraic sign when the degree of the equation is 
 even, but with the sign clianged when the degree is odd. 
 
 The consideration of an equation resolved into its sim- 
 ple factors (A) also, amongst other useful matters, suggests 
 the method of eliminating a known root from an equation 
 so as to descend to another equation of the next less de- 
 gree, which contains the remaining roots. If ri be the 
 known root, it is only necessary to divide the equation by 
 the factor x — ri ; and in this operation the occurrence of 
 no remainder will assure us that rl is in reality a true root 
 of the equation. It will therefore be an advantage to as- 
 certain a systematic plan by which the process of division 
 by such a factor may be performed with facility. To pre- 
 serve generality, suppose m to be any number that either 
 may or may not be one of the roots of the equation, 
 Co xa + cn-l xn— 1 + Cn-2xn-2 . . . + C2 X* + Cl X+C = 0. 
 And on the equation being divided by X — m, suppose the 
 quotient to be 
 
 c'n— i xn— 1 + c'n— 2 x»— - . . . + c'l x + c'o- 
 Then the actual work of the division will stand thus: 
 
 X—mjCa XO + Ca— 1 X°— '+Cu— 2 X"— 2 +&C ( c' D ~ l Xu— 1 
 c'n— 1 X" — OTc'n— 1 X»— 1 
 
 c'n— 2 xn— 1 -f Cn-2 X»— 2 
 c'n_2 *n— 1 — mc'n—1 xn— 2 
 
 -4- c'n-2 xn— 2 
 
 c'n— 3 xn-2 -f. i C- 
 By equating the several subtractions we hence derive 
 the following relations for determining the coefficients 
 c'n-1, c'n-2, &c ; viz. 
 
 c'n— 1 = Cn 
 
 c'n-2 = Cn— 1 + Jnc'n—i 
 c'n— 3 = C n — 2 + "c'o- J, &C 
 c'o = Cl + mc 'l 
 and the remainder, p = c'o + 7«c'o. 
 
 Thus it appears that the coefficient of the pth term of the 
 depressed equation is successively found by adding m times 
 the coefficient of the preceding term to the pth term of the 
 original equation. As an example, let it be required to di- 
 vide the equation 3x3 4. 3x1 — 48x + 60 — bv x — 3. 
 Coefficients proposed, 3 +3—48 +00 
 + 9+36—36 
 3x2 + V2x — 12 I + 24 
 
 Quotient. | Remainder 
 Again, let it be required to divide the same equation by 
 x — 2.
 
 EQUATIONS, ALGEBRAICAL 
 
 Coefficients proposed, 3 
 
 + 3—48 +60 
 6 + IS —60 
 0~ 
 
 Or-! + 9x — 30 
 
 Quotient. | Remainder. 
 
 Here the existence of no remainder points out 2 to be a 
 root of the proposed equation, and 3H + 9 X — 30 = 0, or 
 tci + 3x — 10 = to be the depressed equation containing 
 the other two roots, which are therefore 2 and — 5. 
 
 This expeditious method of dividing an equation by a 
 simple factor may be employed with advantage in trans- 
 forming an equation into another, whose roots shall differ 
 from those of the former by any given quantity. Let the 
 proposed equation be 
 
 c-4 xl + « x' + C2 r3 + ci x + co = 0. 
 
 Suppose that x = x' + r, and the substitution of this 
 value instead of x will manifestly give a transformed equa- 
 tion, the roots of which will be less than those of the former 
 by the quantity r; and this transformed equation will be of 
 the form, 
 
 c\ x'4 + e% x'3 + c'2 x'2 + c'l x" + c'o = 0. 
 Now, if x — r he put for x', this must return to the origi- 
 nal equation ; and hence the proposed equation is the same 
 as a (x — r)< + c'z (x — r)3 + c'2 (x — r)- + c'l (x — r) 
 + c'o = 0. The following process of successive division, 
 which may be rapidly executed by the foregoing rule, thus 
 furnishes a simple method of arriving at the sought co- 
 efficients: 
 
 g— r) C4 (x— r)4 + c'3 (x— r)3 + c'2 (x— r)2 + c'l (x— r)+c'p 
 x— r) c4 (x— r)3 + c'3 (x— r)2 + c'i (x— r ) +c'l | rem. c' 
 x — r ) a (x— r)2 + c'3 (x— r) + c'2 | rem. c'l 
 « — r) ci (x — r) + c'i | rem. c'2 
 c4 | rem. c'3 
 
 Example : Let it be required to transform the equation 
 x4 + 5x' + 4 x^ + 3 x — 105 into another, whose roots 
 shall be 2 less than those of the proposed equation. 
 
 1 
 
 + 5 
 2 
 
 + 4 
 + 14 
 
 + 3 
 + 36 
 
 — 105 ( 2 
 + 78 
 
 1 
 
 + 7 
 2 
 
 + 18 
 + 18 
 
 +.39 1 
 + 72 1 
 
 — 27 = 
 
 1 
 
 + 9 
 
 o 
 
 + 36 
 + 2-2 
 
 1 +m=c' 
 
 c'2 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 + H 
 2 
 
 + 68 = 
 
 
 1 I + 13 = c'3. 
 The transformed equation is therefore x'4 + 13 x'3 + 
 58 x'2 + 11 1 x' — 27 = 0. If the several addends be sup- 
 pressed and performed mentally, the operation will be re- 
 duced to the following 
 1 
 
 + . r > 
 
 + 4 
 
 + 3 
 
 — 105 ( 2 
 
 + 7 
 
 + 18 
 
 + 39 
 
 — 27 
 
 + 9 
 
 + 36 
 
 + 111 
 
 
 + 11 
 
 + 53 
 
 
 
 + 13 
 
 
 
 
 It is on the principle of this operation that Mr. Horner has 
 founded his general method of evolving the numerical value 
 of a real root of an equation, which consists in similarly di- 
 minishing the equation by the successive digits of the root. 
 
 Some of the most useful properties of equations are here 
 annexed. 
 
 1. If the real roots of an equation, ranged in the order 
 of their magnitudes be ri,r2.r3. . . ., rt being the greatest, 
 r2 the nextln magnitude, &c. ; and if a number o greater 
 than ri be substituted for x, the result will be positive ; if a 
 number 6, in magnitude between ri and ri, be substituted 
 for x, the result will be negative, <fcc, and so on with alter- 
 nate signs. 
 
 2. No equation can have a greater number of positive 
 roots than there are changes of sign from -f- to — and from 
 — to +, in the tprms or coefficients of its expression ; nor 
 can it have a greater number of negative roots than of per- 
 manencies of sign in the same terms. 
 
 3. Let p and q be any two numbers, such that q with its 
 sign is greater than p with its sign ; then, if an equation in 
 x has m real roots comprised between p and 9, the trans- 
 formed equation in (x — p) will have at least m variations 
 more than the transformed equation in (x — q). 
 
 4. For conciseness let X = denote any equation, and 
 
 dX 
 let the differential coefficient -, — be denoted by X; then 
 
 ax 
 will the real roots of the equation X = be limits to those 
 of the equation Xl = ; that is, the roots of the latter equa- 
 tion, taken in the order of magnitude, will fall severally 
 between those of the orisinal equation. 
 
 5. Assuming the same notation as in the last, the greatest 
 common measure of the two expressions X, Xl, equated 
 with zero, will determine the values of all equal roots that 
 may be repeated in the equation X = 0; if there be no com- 
 mon measure, the roots will be all unequal. 
 
 A very important theorem has been recently discovered 
 413 
 
 EQUATION OF TIME. 
 
 1 by M. Sturm, by which we are enabled, without fail, to as- 
 certain, by a direct process, the nature and situation of all 
 the real roots of an equation. It is as follows : Let X =0 
 be any equation whose coefficients are real, and whose roots 
 are unequal : and let Xi, as before, be the differential co- 
 efficient, -r^jOfx. Let the operation of finding the great- 
 est common measure of X and X] be performed ; and in 
 the several remainders which successively arise in the 
 course of the process change all the signs from + to — , 
 and from — to +. Suppose now that in the several result- 
 ing expressions, 
 
 X, Xl, X2, X3 X,n 
 
 two numbers, p, q, such thatp<c/ he successively substi- 
 tuted for x, the results will furnish two series of signs ; and, 
 according to Sturm's theorem, the difference between the 
 number of variations of algebraic sign in the first series and 
 that of the second will always express exactly the number of 
 real roots of the proposed equation comprised between p 
 and q. If — co and + co be taken for p and 7, the total 
 number of real roots may thus be immediately ascertained. 
 
 For a demonstration of this remarkable theorem, see 
 Young's Treatise on Equations. 
 
 EQUA'TION OF TIME, in Astronomy, denotes the dif- 
 ference, expressed in mean solar time, between the true 
 or apparent right ascension of the sun and its mean right 
 ascension. It may be popularly defined as the difference 
 between the times indicated by an accurately constructed 
 sundial and a well regulated clock. 
 
 The equation of time arises from the combined operation 
 of all the causes which tend to produce inequalities of the 
 sun's motion in right ascension. The first of these is the 
 eccentricity of the solar orbit, in consequence of which the 
 sun's motion in longitude is unequal. The second is the 
 obliquity of the ecliptic, in consequence of which the 
 arcs of the ecliptic and equator, counting from the inter- 
 section of these circles to the meridian, are in general un- 
 equal The third cause of the equation of time arises from 
 the perturbations of the moon and planets, which sensibly 
 affect the sun's motion in longitude. The different parts 
 of the equation of time are collected and computed in the 
 following manner: — Let N P represent the ecliptic, N Q 
 the equator ; and let N be the intersection of these circles, 
 or the first point of Aries. Take N A to represent the 
 A B p mean motion of the sun in any given 
 _^-— — r p time T, reckoning from the vernal 
 
 equinox; then, if the sun advanced 
 I equably in the ecliptic, his place at 
 
 p i7 « the time T would be at the point 
 
 A. But suppose that in conse- 
 quence of the eccentricity of the orbit he would have ad- 
 vanced to B ; then A B is what is called the equation of the 
 centre. Suppose, further, thai by the combined action of 
 the planets, during the time T he is carried forward to C : 
 then the true arc of the ecliptic described by the sun is N 
 C. Now, if we pnt 
 
 | = NC, the sun's true longitude, 
 m = N A, the sun's mean longitude, 
 e = A B, the equation of the centre, 
 p = B C, the effect of the perturbations, 
 there will result the equation l = m + e+p. Through 
 C let the arc C I) be drawn perpendicular to the equator; 
 the point D will be that point of the equator which passes 
 the meridian at the same time with the sun. If we now 
 make r = N C — N D ; then r is the reduction of the eclip- 
 tic, and the sun's true risht ascension is / — r = N D. Let 
 NF = Na = ot; then F is the point of the equator which 
 the sun would occupy at the instant he occupies the point 
 A in the ecliptic if he moved uniformly in the equator, and 
 N F is the sun's mean right ascension. The mean sun 
 would consequently pass the meridian with the point F, 
 whereas the true sun passes it with the point D; therefore 
 at the instant of true noon, when the points C and D are on 
 the meridian, the mean sun is at the distance D F from 
 the meridian. But D F = N D — N F = l — r — m = e 
 + /? — r, which is the equation of time expressed in an 
 arc of a circle. To convert it into mean solar time, we 
 must multiply by 24 hours (corresponding to 360 de- 
 grees) ; therefore, representing the equation of time by /, 
 we have t = r l(e+p-r). 
 
 This equation still requires to be corrected for the effect 
 of nutation. The variation of the mean longitude re- 
 sulting from the nutation is expressed by the formola 18" 
 sin. (360° — moon's node) = 18" sin. N ; and this reduced 
 to the equator is 18" sin. N cos. co (w being the obliquity 
 of the ecliptic.) Consequently the effect on the equation 
 of time, being the difference of the variations on the eclip- 
 tic and equator, becomes IS" sin. N (1 — cos. w). But 18" 
 (I — cos. to) being reduced to time, becomes 003925 
 seconds ; therefore, including the correction for nutation, 
 the equation of time becomes finally 
 
 t = TS(e +p — r) + sin. N- X 09925 see.
 
 EQUATOR 
 
 The last term of this expression is very small, amount- 
 ing when greatest to less than the tenth of a second, and is 
 therefore scarcely sensible. The part depending on the 
 perturbations is also very small, and can scarcely exceed 
 two seconds. The principal parts, therefore, are the two 
 depending upon the eccentricity and obliquity ; and these 
 were known in the time of Ptolemy. 
 
 The equation of time is at its maximum about the be- 
 ginning of November, when it amounts to about 16 min. 16 
 sec. ; and is subtractive, that is to say, the clock is faster 
 than the dial by that quantity. At four times in the year 
 the equation vanishes, or the clock lime and dial time 
 agree. This happens about the 25lh of December, the 
 10th of April, the 16th of June, and the 1st of September. 
 But these epochs, depending on the longitude of the sun's 
 perigee, are subject to some variation. The equation is 
 given in the Nautical Almanac for every day of each year. 
 EQUATOR. In Astronomy, the great circle of the ce- 
 lestial sphere, of which the plane is perpendicular to the 
 axis of the earth's diurnal motion. It is called the equator, 
 because when the sun is in its plane the days and nights 
 are exactly equal all over the world. The equator divides 
 the sphere into the northern and southern hemispheres 
 and the apparent diurnal motions of all the celestial bodies 
 are performed in circles which are parallel to it. The right 
 ascensions are measured on the equator; and the declina- 
 tions on circles which intersect it at right angles. The 
 equator, in the heavens, is often styed the equinoctiul. 
 
 In Geography, the equator is the great circle of the ter- 
 restrial sphere which is every where equally distant from 
 the two poles, and divides the earth into the northern and 
 southern hemispheres. Terrestrial longitudes are mea- 
 sured on the equator, or some one of its parallel circles; 
 commencing from some arbitrary point, which different 
 nations assume variously, most of them adopting the me- 
 ridian which passes through their capital city or principal 
 observatory. Latitudes are counted from the equator along 
 the meridian. 
 
 EQUATO'RIAL. An astronomical instrument, contrived 
 for the purpose of directing a telescope upon any celestial 
 object of which the right ascension and declination are 
 known, and of keeping the object in view for any length of 
 time, notwithstanding the diurnal motion. For these pur- 
 „ poses, a principal axis C D, resting on firm 
 
 supports, is placed parallel to the axis of 
 the earth's rotation, and consequently point- 
 K ing to the poles of the heavens. On this 
 polar axis there is fixed, near one of its ex- 
 tremities, a graduated circle A B, the plane 
 i of which is perpendicular to the polar axis, 
 and therefore parallel to the earth's equa- 
 tor. This circle is called the equatorial 
 ^_^ circle, and measures by its arcs the hour 
 ^-^]\^~'P angles, or differences of right ascension. 
 ^i&— jcr.gi^ The polar axis is pierced at E F, and pene- 
 'V c trated by the axis of a second circle G H, 
 
 at right angles to it. The axisof the second 
 circle has consequently no connection with any external 
 support, but is sustained entirely by the polar axis. The 
 plane of the second circle G H, which is called the decli- 
 nation circle, and carries the telescope K, is thus in all po- 
 sitions at right angles to the plane of the first or equatorial 
 circle A B. Now it is easy to conceive, from this general 
 description, that when the telescope is pointed to a star, the 
 angle between the direction of the telescope and the polar 
 axis is equal to the polar distance of the star; consequently, 
 when a motion is given to the polar axis without altering 
 the position of the telescope on the declination circle, the 
 point to which the telescope is directed will always lie in 
 the small circle of the heavens coincident with the star's 
 diurnal path ; and hence, if the motion communicated to 
 the polar axis be just equal to the earth's diurnal rotation, 
 the star will remain constantly, and as long as we please, 
 in the field of the telescope, at least while above the hori- 
 zon. In many observations this is indispensable, and it is 
 an advantage which attaches to no other instrument. The 
 polar axis may be moved by a peculiar kind of clock ma- 
 chinery, adjusted to sidereal time ; and the best and largest 
 equatorials are now furnished with such an apparatus. 
 Besides relieving the observer from the fatigue of turning 
 the instrument, the motion thus given is perfectly equable, 
 and all those jerks avoided which, when the instrument is 
 turned by the hand, often prove fatal to an observation. 
 (For the method of adjusting the equatorial, see a paper 
 by Professor Llttrow of Vienna in the Memoirs of the Royal 
 Astr. Society, vol. ii. p. 45.) 
 
 E'QUERRY. (Fr. ecuyer.) In the British Court, a sub- 
 ordinate officer under the master of the horse. The chief 
 • qnerry is also styled clerk marshal, with a salary of 5CKM. 
 per an. There are also four equerries in ordinary, whose 
 calary is 300/. a year, and an equerry of the crown stable. 
 A queen consort has three equerries. 
 
 E'QUIA'NGULAR FIGURE. (I.at. asquus and angu- 
 lus.) In Geometry, a figure of which all the angles are 
 414 
 
 EQUIPAGE. 
 
 equal among themselves, as is the case with all the regu- 
 lar polygons. Two figures also of the same kind, having 
 each angle of the one equal to a corresponding angle of the 
 other, are said to be equiangular, although when considered 
 separately they may not be equiangular figures. 
 
 EQUILA'TERAL BIVALVE. A shell is so called When 
 a transverse line drawn through the apex of the umbo bi- 
 sects the valve into two equal and symmetrical parts. 
 
 EQUILA'TERAL FIGURE, in Geometry, is one that 
 has all its sides equal to each other. Equilateral figures 
 inscribable in circles are necessarily equiangular; but the 
 converse does not always hold true. When the number 
 of sides is odd, the equiangular figure inscribed in a circle 
 is always equilateral; but when the number of sides is even, 
 they may either be all equal, or one half equal to each 
 other, atid the other half equal to each other, though not 
 to the former, the two sets beins placed alternately. 
 
 EQUILA'TERAL HYPERBOLA, is that which has the 
 two axes equal to each other, the asymptotes forming a 
 right angle. <S'ee Hyperbola. 
 
 EQUILIBRIUM. (Lat. aequus, equal, and libra, balance.) 
 In Statics, results from the simultaneous action of several 
 forces on a body, or material point, when they reciprocally 
 destroy each other's action, so that the body or point, 
 though free to move, remains at rest. Two equal forces, 
 acting in contrary directions, destroy each other; and when 
 a body submitted to the action of several forces remains 
 at rest, it is necessary that the resultant of one part of the 
 forces be exactly equal and opposite to the resultant of the 
 remainder, or that the resultant of the whole be nothing. 
 The science of equilibrium is thus founded entirely on the 
 composition of forces. See Statics. 
 
 Equilibrium. (Lat.) In the Fine Arts, the just poise 
 or balance of a figure or other object, so that it may appear 
 to stand firmly. Also the due equipoise of objects, lights, 
 shadows, &c. against each other by some striking feature. 
 This quality is obvious in the works of nature, as well in 
 the human form as in landscape. In the latter, for instance, 
 the sun is generally the medium of producing it by strong 
 contrasts of light and shadow. In Architecture, the same 
 means are employed to produce the most striking effects, 
 on the theory of which Le Roy has ably written. 
 
 Equilibrium. In Politics. See Balance op Power. 
 
 E'QUIMU'LTIPLES. The products of quantities mul- 
 tiplied by the same numbers. For example, 5 a and 5b 
 are equimultiples of a and b; and m^np&ndm^nq are 
 equimultiples of pand q. Equimultiples of quantities have 
 to each other the same ratio as the quantities themselves. 
 
 EQUINO'CTIAL. (See Equinox.) The great circle 
 formed by the intersection of the plane of the earth's 
 equator with the sphere of the heavens. This term is 
 chiefly met with in the older books of astronomy, the term 
 equator being now generally given to the same circle. See 
 
 E&UATOR. 
 
 EQUINOCTIAL POINTS. The two opposite points of 
 the celestial sphere, in which the ecliptic and equator in- 
 tersect each other ; the one being the first point of Aries, 
 and the other the first point of Libra. The equinoctial 
 points do not retain a fixed position relatively to the stars, 
 but retrograde or move backwards from east to west with 
 a slow motion, equal to about 50 seconds yearly, requiring 
 25,000 years to accomplish a complete revolution. This 
 motion is called the precession of the equinoxes. 
 
 E'QUINOX (Lat. sequus, and nox, night), in As- 
 tronomy, is the time at which the sun passes through the 
 equator in one of the equinoctial points. When the sun 
 is in the equator the days and nights are of equal length all 
 over the world, whence the derivation of the term. This 
 happens twice every year; namely, about the 21st of 
 March, and the 22d of September: the former is called the 
 venial and the latter the autumnal equinox. The equi- 
 noxes do not divide the year into portions of equal length ; 
 for in consequence of the sun being at his greatest distance 
 from the earth during the summer months, and his angu- 
 lar motion in his orbit being consequently slower, the 
 interval from the vernal to the autumnal equinox is greater 
 than that from the autumnal to the vernal. In other words, 
 the sun continues longer on the northern than on the 
 southern side of the equator. At the beginning of the 
 present century, the difference amounted to 7 days 16 hours 
 and 51 minutes. The summer in the northern hemisphere 
 is consequently longer than in the southern by this quan- 
 tity ; and to this circumstance some meteorologists ascribe, 
 in part at least, the higher temperature that is found to 
 prevail in the northern hemisphere under the same paral- 
 lel of latitude. 
 
 E'QUIPAGE (Fr. equipper), in ordinary language,, 
 signifies the carriage, horses, and liveries which indicate- 
 the fortune or rank of any gentleman when lie appears 
 abroad. — Equipage, in marine affairs, signifies the crew 
 of a ship, together with all a ship's furniture, masts, sails, 
 ammunition, &c. In the art military, it denotes all sorts of 
 utensils and artillery, &c, necessary for commencing and) 
 prosecuting with ease or success any military operation.
 
 ECIUISETACEjE. 
 
 E'QUISETA'CE^. (Equisetum, one of the genera.) 
 A natural orfler of Gymnosperms, inhabiting the ditches 
 and rivers of most parts of the world. They have no de- 
 cided affinity with any known order, but are more like 
 flowering plants than flowerless; and therefore are best 
 considered as a degeneration of Coni/erce, to which they 
 have so much resemblance, rather than as a race in af- 
 finity with ferns, with which they have no resemblance. 
 They have no medicinal qualities; but for economical 
 purposes are useful for polishing furniture, owing to the 
 quantity of silex contained in their epidermis. They are 
 considered by the farmer, who calls them horsetails, as a 
 sign of heavy, bad, wet land. 
 
 E'QUISE'TIC ACID. A peculiar acid, discovered by 
 Braconnot, existing, combined with magnesia, in the Equi- 
 selvm fluviatile. 
 
 E'QUITANT. In Botany, a term used in describing the 
 vernation of leaves, to denote that they overlap each other 
 parallelly and entirely, without any involution, as the leaves 
 of iris. They seem as if they bestrode each other in op- 
 posite directions, whence the name. 
 
 E'QUITES. In Ancient History, a class of Roman citi- 
 zens, commonly represented by the English word knights, 
 but not answering in all respects to its meaning. The origin 
 of the Equites was the body of Celeres, instituted by 
 Romulus ; and they originally consisted of those who were 
 rich enough to serve in war on horseback, but afterwards 
 they became a distinct order. They were chosen promis- 
 cuously from the patricians and plebeians whose age was 
 above 18 years, and fortune, at least towards the end of the 
 republic, not less than 400 sestertia, or 3229/. The badges 
 of the equites were a golden ring and a robe with a narrow 
 purple border ; and to them were appropriated the fourteen 
 rows of seats in the theatres next the orchestra, where the 
 senators sat. This body disputed with the senate the privi- 
 lege of forming the jury who assisted the prator in trials; 
 but, after repeated transfers of this office from one to the 
 other, it was finally shared between both. The equites also 
 furnished the farmers of the public revenue, or publicani ; 
 but though they had enjoyed this privilege under the re- 
 public, it was only during the empire that they looked to 
 such offices as their birthright. Cicero affirms that the 
 llower of the Roman chivalry, the ornament of Rome, the 
 strength of the empire, lay in these engrossers of the public 
 revenue : " florem equitum Romanorum, ornamentum ci- 
 vitatis, firmamentum reipublicte, publioanorum ordine con- 
 lineri." (See Niebuhr's Roman History.) 
 
 E'QUITY. (Lat. aequitas.) In Jurisprudence. In the 
 words of Blackstone (Comm. i. CI.), '-Since in laws all 
 cases cannot be foreseen or expressed, it is necessary that 
 when the general decrees of the law come to be applied to 
 particular cases, there should be somewhere a power 
 vested of defining those circumstances which (had they 
 been foreseen) the legislator himself would have express- 
 ed." In the same view, Grotius defines equity, as " Cor- 
 rectrix ejus in quo lex propter universalitatem deficit" (De 
 JEquitaX. i. s. 12.); and distinguishes it from the dispens- 
 ing power, which does not mitiaate law, but dispenses cer- 
 tain persons from the obligation of it. Puffendorf consi- 
 ders it under two heads. — as declaring a case to be excepted 
 out of the general provisions of a law; and as deciding 
 omitted cases on which the law does not pronounce at all. 
 (Elements, i. 22, 23.) The necessity of some power to 
 modify and apply, with allowances for particular cases, the 
 strict rules of law, is necessarily felt in every jurisprudence, 
 and provided for in different ways. Thus in ancient Rome 
 the praHor, "juvare, supplere, interpretari, mitigore, jus 
 civile potuit ; mutare vel tollere non potuit." (Digest. I. i. t. 
 1. 7.) So, in English law, the judges have constantly as- 
 sumed the authority to pronounce cases to be wilhin the 
 "equity," as it is termed, of statutes or rules, when they 
 are not within its words ; as. for example, action of waste 
 given by the Statute of Gloucester against tenant for life 
 '■or years" is extended by equitable construction against 
 tenants who hold for a year or half a year only. But the 
 word equity, in English jurisprudence, is now more pro- 
 perly applied to a separate body of law, created and sus- 
 tained on the strength of precedents, and administered by 
 tribunals distinct from the common law courts of the coun- 
 try. The separation of equity from law originated in the 
 necessity which has already been spoken of; but from the 
 circumstance of the former being administered by a differ- 
 ent class of functionaries, it has by degrees assumed this 
 distinct shape and substance. By seeking relief in equity 
 is now meant, not so much applying for a mitigation of the 
 strict rules of law, as seeking a remedy before a tribunal 
 having a jurisdiction either concurrent with the courts of 
 law or (in some cases) exclusive, but exercising it accord- 
 ing to a different process and on different principles. The 
 origin of this peculiar system is to be traced, in part, to the 
 system of uses (see Use, Trust) ; in part to the obvious 
 advantages resulting from the examination of the parties, 
 and compelling discovery on oath in cases of fraud, account, 
 <tc. ; and to the power, gradually acquired by equity judges, 
 415 
 
 EQ.UUS. 
 
 of compelling the specific performance of contracts where 
 courts of law could only award damages for their breach ; 
 in part, also, to the peculiar functions imposed by statute 
 and usage on the lord chancellor as guardian of infants, 
 idiots, and lunatics, superintendent of charities, &c. The 
 general view of the system of equitable jurisprudence as at 
 present existing is given in the articles Chancery and 
 Trust. (See Blackstuve's Commentaries, vol. iii. ; Fvn- 
 blanque on Equity ; Milford's Pleadings in Chancery.) 
 
 EQUIVALENTS, CHEMICAL. A term introduced into 
 chemistry by Dr. Wollaston to express the system of defi- 
 nite ratios in which substances reciprocally combine, re- 
 ferred to a common standard of unity. If we assume hy- 
 drogen as unity, it being the substance which combines 
 with others in the smallest relative weight or proportions, 
 then all other substances may be represented by certain 
 multiples of that unit, expressed with sufficient precision 
 for all ordinary purposes by whole numbers. (See Atomic 
 Theory and Affinity.) Thus, upon this system the 
 equivalent number of oxygen will be 8, and that of water 
 will be 9, for 8 oxygen + 1 hydrogen = 9 water ; and the 
 equivalent of potassium will be 40, and of polassa or ox- 
 ide of potassium 48, for 40 potassium + 8 oxygen = 48 
 potassa. Upon the same principle the equivalent of hydro- 
 chloric acid, which is a compound of chlorine and hydro- 
 gen, is 37, for it consists of 1 part by weight of hydrogen and 
 36 of chlorine ; or, in other words, of an atom of hydrogen 
 = 1 -4- an atom of chlorine = 36. The equivalent of sul- 
 phur is 16 : to form sulphuric acid one atom of sulphur = 
 16 combines with 3 atoms of oxygen (8 X 3) = 24 ; hence 
 the equivalent of an atom of sulphuric acid is 16 -f- 24 = 40. 
 These equivalents are often expressed by certain abbrevia- 
 tions, termed chemical symbols; which, as far as single 
 equivalents of the simple substances are concerned, are 
 represented, together with their equivalent "numbers, in a 
 table in the article Chemistry. 
 
 E'QUIVALVE. A bivalve is so called when its two 
 valves are of similar size and form. 
 
 EQUl'VOCAL TERM. In Logic, a term which has 
 several significations, applying respectively and equally to 
 several objects. A word is generally said to be employed 
 equivocally where the middle term is used in different 
 senses in the two premises (see Syllogism); or where a 
 proposition is liable to be understood in various senses, 
 according to the various meanings of one of its terms. 
 
 EQUU'LEL'S (Lat.), called also Equiculus and Equus 
 Minor. The Little Horse ; one of Ptolemy's constellations 
 in the northern hemisphere. 
 
 EauuLEis was also the name given in antiquity to a 
 species of rack used in extorting confessions. It was ori- 
 ginally practised on slaves, but at a later period it was em- 
 ployed against the Christians. 
 
 E'QUUS. (Lat. a horse.) The generic name of the 
 quadrupeds with a single digit and hoof on each foot, as 
 the horse, ass, and zebra. Of these species the horse is 
 the largest, most docile, most valuable, and most widely 
 distributed over the glob*\ Of the Mammalia which existed 
 on the earth's surface during the tertiary periods of geology, 
 the horse is one of the few which have been preserved to 
 the present epoch ; and in the American continent, where 
 it once became extinct, along with the Mastodon and Me- 
 gatherium, it now again ranges wild in vast troops, the 
 descendants of the war horse introduced by the European 
 discoverers and conquerors of the so-called " new world." 
 
 The first record of the taming and application of the 
 horse to the purposes of man is in Genesis, 19. ; in which 
 it is written, that when Joseph transferred his father's re- 
 mains from Egypt to Canaan, " there went up with him 
 both chariots and horsemen." The period when the horse 
 is thus indicated as a beast both of draught and burden, is 
 calculated to have been 1650 years before the birth of 
 Christ. Horse and chariot races formed part of the Olym- 
 pic games in Greece, 1450 years s. c. 
 
 The wild horses which inhabit the steppes of Tartary are 
 supposed to be, like those that traverse the pampas of 
 South America, descendants of certain individuals which had 
 escaped from the thraldom of man. The best of the wild 
 Asiatic races are those which inhabit Tseherkessi. Abassi, 
 and the northern slopes of the Caucasian range. The prin- 
 cipal varieties which Pallas indicates in the Asiatic horse 
 are, first, the " moustachoed horse,"characterized by nume- 
 rous strong bristles on the upper lip; the "woolly horse," 
 a Russian variety, covered with a crisp woolly hair, and 
 common among the Baschkirs ; a naked or hairless horse, 
 not uncommon amongst the Krim Tartars, who keep it 
 always clothed ; lastly, the variety delineated by Johnston, 
 in which a woolly mane is continued from the neck along 
 the middle of the back to the tail, and which Pallas saw 
 among the Buracti. 
 
 The wild horses appear to be free from nearly all those 
 diseases to which the domestic breed are prone. They 
 are generally of a pale or greyish brown colour, with brown 
 mane and tail, a whitish muzzle, changing to black about 
 the mouth. They are less than the domestic breed ; with
 
 Eauus. 
 
 a larger head ; longer legs ; larger ears, with the apices 
 sub- reflected ; the forehead is more convex above the 
 eyes ; the hoofs are contracted and sub-cylindrical (un- 
 gules contractor subcylindracecb) ; mane sub-erect, less 
 Tax than in the domestic horse; the coat, in winter, looser 
 and sub-undulated along the back (indorso subundulalum) ; 
 the tail not very large. They recognize the presence of 
 man at a great distance when he approaches them to wind- 
 ward, and fly from him with wonderful speed ; they prefer 
 sunny slopes, and avoid forests and steep places. They 
 do not wander beyond the 50th degree of north latitude. 
 Wild stallions attracted by domestic mares are often taken 
 and killed. 
 
 The first change which domestication works upon the 
 form of the wild horse is to increase the bulk of his trunk 
 as compared with his head and limbs. This change is 
 beautifully exemplified in the Arabian, which we must 
 regard as an early, if not first remove, from his wild neigh- 
 bours of the more northern deserts, and which the Bedouin 
 still hunts for the sake of their flesh. The head is not only 
 proportionally smaller, but is remarkable for the breadth 
 and squareness of the forehead, the shortness and fineness 
 of the muzzle, the prominence and brilliance of the eye, 
 and the smallness of the ears. The body is still somewhat 
 light, and narrow at the forepart; but the shoulder is supe- 
 rior in its formation to that in any other breed. The Ara- 
 bian seldom stands more than 14 hands 2 inches. The 
 " Barb," so called from its native country, Barbary, is 
 somewhat smaller than its near ally the Arabian ; it seldom 
 exceeds fourteen hands and an inch ; the shoulders are 
 flat, the chest round, the legs rather long, and the head 
 small and very beautiful. The Barb is remarkable for its 
 fine and graceful action ; but though it is superior to the 
 Arabian in its general form, it has not its untiring spirit or 
 its speed. Our most valuable English varieties of the horse 
 date from the introduction of, and interbreeding with, the 
 Barb and Arabian. 
 
 We have no means of ascertaining the nature or pecu- 
 liarities of the horses which the ancient British charioteers 
 managed with such dexterity in their destructive charges 
 through the disciplined troops of Caesar. They must have 
 been subsequently modified by crossing with the Roman 
 horses. King Athelstan received from Hugh Capet of 
 France several German running horses ; William the Con- 
 queror and his followers introduced the Spanish horse, 
 with the blood of the Barb. The first Arabian horse is re- 
 corded to have been introduced in the reign of Henry I. ; 
 and a greater admixture of Arabian blood was a natural 
 consequence of the return of the Crusaders. King John 
 devoted especial attention to the improvement of his stud ; 
 and he imported one hundred choice stallions of the Flan- 
 ders kind. The size and strength required to carry the 
 warrior clad in the heavy armour of those days led to the 
 frequent introduction in subsequent reigns of the large 
 and heavy war horses of the Low Countries. Afterwards, 
 when the nobles derived their amusements more from the 
 sports of the turf and field, they were induced to cross 
 their stately and heavy breed of war horses with those of 
 lighter structure and greater speed ; the latest improvement 
 seems to have been derived from a direct intermixture of 
 the pure Arabian. 
 
 The principal varieties or breeds of English horses are — 
 The hackney or road horse. " He should be," Mr. Youatt 
 observes, " a hunter in miniature ; with these exceptions : 
 His height should rarely exceed fifteen hands and an inch. 
 He will be sufficiently strong and more pleasant for gene- 
 ral work below that standard. He should be of a more 
 compact form than the hunter, of more bulk according to 
 his height. It is of essential consequence that the bones 
 beneath the knee should be deep and flat, and the tendon not 
 tied in. The pastern should be short, and less oblique or 
 slanting than that of the hunter or race horse. The foot 
 should be of a size corresponding with the bulk of the ani- 
 mal, neither too hollow nor too flat, and open at the heels. 
 The forelegs should be perfectly straight ; for a horse with 
 his knees bent will from a slight cause, and especially if 
 overweighted, come down. The back should be straight 
 and short, yet sufficiently long to leave comfortable room 
 for the saddle between the shoulders and the huck without 
 pressing on either. Some persons prefer a hollow-backed 
 horse. It is generally an easy one to go. It will canter 
 well with a lady; but it will not carry a heavy weight, or 
 stand much hard work. The road horse should be high in 
 the forehead, round in the barrel, and deep in the chest." 
 
 The origin of the better kind of coach horse, says Mr. 
 Youatt, is the " Cleveland bay," confined principally to 
 Yorkshire and Durham, with Lincolnshire on one side and 
 Northumberland on the other, but difficult to meet with 
 pure in either county. The Cleveland mare is crossed by 
 a three-fourth or thorough-bred horse of sufficient sub- 
 stance and height, and the produce is the coach horse 
 most in repute, with his arched crest and high action. 
 
 There is, or rather was, a breed called, from its round 
 punchy make, the Suffolk punch. " It stood from fifteen to 
 416 
 
 sixteen hands high, of a sorrel colour; was large-headed, 
 low-shouldered, and thick on the top ; deep and round- 
 chested ; long-backed; high in the croup ; large and strong 
 in the quarters ; full in the flanks; round in the legs, and 
 short in the pasterns. It was the very horse to Ihrow his 
 whole weight into a collar, with sufficient activity to do it 
 effectually, and hardihood to stand a long day's work." 
 This valuable breed is now nearly extinct: it is thought to 
 have been produced from the Norman stallion and the Suf- 
 folk cart mare. Excellent carriage horses are obtained by 
 crossing the Suffolk breed with a good hunter. 
 
 The best dray horses are produced from the Suffolk 
 punch crossed with the Flanders. 
 
 The breed of English racers is traced authentically to an 
 Arabian stallion introduced into this country by a Mr. Dar- 
 ley, and hence called the "Darley Arabian." Anterior to 
 this period the pedigree of a racer can rarely be carried 
 back beyond some obscure reference to an Eastern horse. 
 The Darley Arabian was the sire of Flying Childers, and 
 the great grandsire of Eclipse. Eclipse was remarkable 
 for the very great size, obliquity, and lowness of his shoul- 
 ders ; the shortness of his fore-quarters ; his ample and 
 finely proportioned quarters, and the swelling muscles of 
 his forearm and thigh. He was, moreover, what is termed 
 a thick-winded horse, and pufTed and roared so as to be 
 heard at a considerable distance ; yet he never had an op- 
 ponent on the turf sufficiently fleet to put his full speed to 
 the test. Eclipse died at the age ol twenty- five years, 
 having begot the extraordinary number of three hundred 
 and thirty-four winners. 
 
 Another stream of Eastern blood was introduced into the 
 swelling veins 3f our thorough-bred horses by a beautiful 
 Barb, called the Godolphin Arabian. 
 
 The hunter, a favourite English variety, includes as 
 much of the blood and high breeding of the racer as is com- 
 patible with the power and endurance demanded by the 
 chase. The author of the excellent work on the horse in 
 the Library of Useful Knowledge, thus describes the good 
 points of a hunter : — " The first points of a good hunter is, 
 that he should be light in hand. For this purpose his head 
 must be small; his neck thin, especially beneath ; his crest 
 firm and arched : and his jaws wide. The head will then 
 be well set on. It will form a pleasant angle with the neck, 
 which gives a light and pleasant mouth." 
 
 The more extreme varieties which we have in England 
 are the ponies and Galloways : of these theShellieor Shet- 
 land pony is the most diminutive; it rarely exceeds nine 
 hands high, and sometimes does not reach seven and a 
 half. His strength is proportionally far greater than his 
 size ; he is perfectly docile, and will fatten on the hardest 
 fare. 
 
 The dental character of the horse, and of the genus 
 Equus, is thus expressed in zoology : 
 
 Incisors ^ Canines — 
 o 1 
 
 6-6 
 
 Molares ^—^ = 40 ; i. e. it has 
 
 I o • b 
 
 six incisors or nippers in the front of both the upper and 
 lower jaws, one tusk or canine, and six molars or grinders, 
 on each side of both jaws. They appear in the following 
 order: — The two middle incisors, and the two anterior 
 grinders, come into place at about a week after birth ; the 
 third grinder in the course of the first month ; the two ad- 
 joining incisors before the end of the sixth week ; the two 
 outer incisors between the sixth and ninth month ; making 
 the six incisors above and below, and completing what 
 is termed the colt's mouth. There are also two very 
 small deciduous canines developed about the sixth month ; 
 the fourth grinder generally makes its appearance at the 
 end of the first year; and thus the formula, incisors 
 
 6 4 '4 
 
 - ' molares — ' is characteristic of the yearling foal. A 
 
 fifth grinder makes its appearance at the end of the second 
 year ; and now commences the displacement of the first 
 set, and the protrusion of the second or permanent set of 
 teeth. The deciduous teeth are lost in the order of their 
 acquisition ; the two middle incisors of both the upper and 
 lower jaws are displaced between the second and third 
 years ; the first and second deciduous grinders are shed at 
 two years and eight months. A three-year old colt has the 
 permanent middle incisors above the gum, but not on a 
 level with the adjoining deciduous incisors ; they are also 
 characterized by a large and deep groove containing a black 
 substance traversing transversely the working edge of the 
 crown of the tooth ; the sixth grinder is also coming into 
 place. At three years and a half or little later the adjoining 
 deciduous incisors are shed, and their large successors 
 begin to peep above the gum ; the small lateral incisors 
 are diminished in size and much worn. This gives a very 
 characteristic condition to the mouth. 
 
 At four years the sixth grinder has attained the level of 
 the others ; the permanent tusks begin to appear ; the se- 
 cond permanent incisors have come into place, and are 
 marked with a deep fissure extending quite across the 
 edge of the crown ; the corresponding mark in the middle
 
 ERA. 
 
 incisors is worn wider and fainter; the third deciduous 
 grinder is shed. The external incisors are shed between 
 four and a half mid Jive years. At fice years their perma- 
 nent successors are in place, with a long deep mark on the 
 inner side of the edge of the crown. The corresponding 
 mark is much worn in the middle incisors, and to a less 
 degree in the adjoining ones. The tusks are about an inch 
 in length. At six years the mark or fissure on the middle 
 incisors is worn away, but a discolouration on the part re- 
 mains; the mark in the adjoining incisors is shorter, broad- 
 er, and fainter ; and the lateral incisors present the edges 
 of the enamel in a more regular state, and evidently worn ; 
 the tusks are an inch in length and pointed; the third per- 
 manent grinder has taken its place in the dental series. 
 At seven years the mark is worn away on the four middle 
 incisors in both jaws, and in progress of obliteration in the 
 lateral incisor: the apex of the canine or tusk is blunted. At 
 eight years the mark is gone from all the lower incisors, 
 and they cease to afford and indication of the subsequent 
 age of the horse. The tusks are rounded off; the marks 
 remain longer on the incisors of the upper jaw. Of course 
 the marks are obliterated in proportion to the friction to 
 which the teeth are subject : they are sooner lost in a stall- 
 fed horse than in one at grass ; they are prematurely worn 
 away in the crib-bitcr. 
 
 The age of a horse being always calculated from the 
 1st of May, it is very difficult to determine whether an 
 animal be a late foal of one year or an early one of the 
 next. A horse may be made to appear older than he 
 really is by premature extraction of the deciduous teeth; 
 or younger by imitating artificially the natural marks of the 
 incisors after they have been obliterated by attrition ; but 
 these frauds are readily detected when all the concomitant 
 conditions of a horse's mouth are scanned by the practised 
 eye. 
 
 Owing to the premature labour to which the horse is in 
 general condemned in this country, and to the present 
 rapid rate of travelling, ho has rarely a chance of living 
 out his natural term of existence. A well-used horse may 
 last between thirty and forty years. Mr. Percival gives an 
 account of a barge-horse that died in his sixty second 
 year. Mr. Youatt quotes the record of another horse that 
 received a ball in his neck at the battle of Preston in 1715, 
 and which was extracted at his death in 1758. 
 
 ERA. See /Era. 
 
 ERA'SED, in Heraldry, signifies any thing forcibly torn 
 off, leaving the edges jagged and uneven ; as, a lion's head 
 erased, &c. 
 
 ERA'STIANS. The followers of Erastus, a German 
 divine : a sect which obtained some notoriety in England 
 in the time of the civil wars. They referred the punish- 
 ment of all offences, civil or religious, to the civil magis- 
 trate ; and asserted that the church had no power to en- 
 force any acts of discipline, nor to refuse the communion 
 of the Lord's Supper to any one who desired it. 
 
 E'RATO. (Gr. cptos, lute.) In Ancient Mythology, the 
 muse who presided over love poetry. (See Cailimachi 
 Epigramm.) She is frequently confounded with Terpsi- 
 chore; and in the 7th Book of the Jlneid she is invoked 
 by Virgil as synonymous with Calliope. 
 
 E'REBUS. (Gr. Epe/3o{.) According to the classic 
 mythology, the son of Chaos and Darkness, who dwelt in 
 the lowest part of hell, which is frequently called by his 
 name. 
 
 ERETHI'SMUS. (Gr. cpedtZetv, to excite.) This term is 
 generally applied to a peculiarly irritable state of constitu- 
 tion, which occasionally results from the use of mercury, 
 and in which there is great depression of strength and irre- 
 gularity of pulse, anxiety, paleness, and tremors. 
 
 E'RGOT, or CLAVUS, is a disease of the rye, produced 
 by the attack of fungi which take possession of the ovary 
 and destroy it, producing in its room a long, black, hard, 
 hornlike body. It is remarkable for the specific stimu- 
 lating effects it produces upon the uterus, on which 
 account it is much employed in cases of difficult partu- 
 rition. 
 
 ERICA'CEiE. (Erica, one of the genera.) A natural 
 order of shrubby Exogens, inhabiting the Cape of Good 
 Hope and many other places. It differs from Vaccinaceai 
 and Campanulaceas in the superior ovary ; from Epacri- i 
 dacecb in the anther being two-celled ; from Pyrolacece and 
 Monotropacect, in the structure of the seeds, and in habit; 
 and from all the orders represented by Scrophvlariacea I 
 and GentianacetB in the number of the cells of the ovary i 
 agreeing with the lobes of the calyx and corolla. Their 
 general qualities are astringent and diuretic, some few 
 being poisonous. The Arbutus, Andromeda, Kalmia, Rho- 
 dodendron, Azalea, all well known shrubby plants of great 
 beauty, belong to this order. 
 
 ERI'CHTHIANS. See Erichthus. 
 
 ERI'CHTHUS. (Gr. r/pi, early, and x0coi/, the earth.) 
 
 A genus of long tailed Decapod Crustaceans, inhabiting the 
 
 tropical ocean. These Crustacea are remarkable for the 
 
 delicate and often transparent and colourless character 
 
 417 
 
 ERMINE. 
 
 of their large and undivided thoracic shield or carapace, 
 which always is terminated anteriorly in a stylil'crm ros- 
 trum : they have no moveable rostral plate, and the gills 
 are in general very small and simple, and sometimes 
 wholly inconspicuous. The genus thus characterized is 
 now subdivided into Squilkrichthus, Alrnia, and Erichthus 
 proper ; and the whole are included under the lamily name 
 of Erichthians, or Erichlhidfb, which in the natural system 
 ranks next to the St/uillida:, or seamanlises. 
 
 ERI'DANUS. (The river Eridanus.) One of the an- 
 cient constellations in the southern hemisphere, first 
 mentioned by Aratus. 
 
 ERINA'CEUS. (I/at. erinaceus, a hedgehog ) A genus 
 of useful insectivorous Mammals, of which our common 
 hedgehog is a well-known and unmeritedly persecuted 
 species. The teeth are small, and form a series of sharp 
 bristling points, well adapted for the crushing of beetles, or 
 cracking the backbone of a snake ; but quite inadequate 
 to the purpose of self-defence against larger carnivorous 
 quadrupeds. Nature has, however, provided the hedgehog 
 with a compensatory coat of armour, thickly bristled over 
 with strong elastic spines, and capable of being drawn by 
 powerful cutaneous muscles over every part of the body. 
 When the hedgehog thus puts himself in a defensive atti- 
 tude, he resembles a bristled sphere ; and is capable of 
 enduring hard blows or heavy falls without suffering ma- 
 terial injury. 
 
 Mr. Bell says, in his excellent history of British quadru- 
 peds, " The strenglh and elasticity of this covering is such, 
 that I have repeatedly seen a domesticated hedgehog in 
 my own possession run towards the precipitous wall of an 
 area, and without hesitation throw itself off; and contract- 
 ing at the same instant into a ball, in which condition it 
 reached the ground from a height of twelve to fourteen 
 feet, after a few moments it would unfold itself and run off 
 unhurt." 
 
 As the food of the hedgehog consists almost entirely of 
 cold-blooded animals, which in our climate almost entirely 
 disappear from the scene of nature in the winter season, 
 the hedgehog must have starved if he had not been en- 
 dowed with the singular properly of subsiding into a state 
 of suspended animation during the period of famine. In 
 order, however, to preserve the low temperature which 
 he then possesses, he prepares in some retired hole a soft 
 nest of moss and leaves ; and thus passes his winter u un- 
 disturbed by the violence of the tempest, and only ren- 
 dered still more profoundly torpid by the bitterest frost." 
 All the store of nutriment which he carries with him to his 
 place of hybernation is a thick layer of fuf. about his vis- 
 cera and beneath his skin, which is slowly absorbed, as 
 the little waste of his inactive life requires, and more ra- 
 pidly during the first few days of his resuscitation in spring. 
 The female produces from two to four young ones in the 
 summer; they are blind, and covered with soft and flexi- 
 ble spines. The hedgehog has thirty-six teeth. The inter- 
 maxillary bones contain six teeth, of which the two ante- 
 rior are longer than the rest, placed wide apart, directed 
 obliquely downwards with a slight convergence. The 
 six upper incisors are opposed to six below, of which the 
 two anterior ones have the same disproportionate size 
 as the corresponding ones above. Of the remaining 
 teeth the four posterior ones on each side of both jaws are 
 large, multicuspidate, true molares. The intermediate 
 teeth are small, with two fangs, and represent the spuri- 
 ous molares. 
 
 E'RIOCAULO'NEjE. (Eriocaulon, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of Endogens, inhabiting the marshes of 
 most parts of the world ; usually combined with Restia- 
 ceai. It is composed of herbaceous plants, with their 
 flowers growing in close heads, and contains no species of 
 any known use. 
 
 ERIO'METER. (Gr. epiov, wool, and ucrpov, a mea- 
 sure.) An optical instrument proposed by the late Dr. 
 Young for measuring the diameters of minute particles 
 and fibres, by ascertaining the diameter of any one of the 
 series of coloured rings they produce. "The eriometer 
 is formed of a piece of card or a plate of brass, having an 
 aperture of about a fiftieth of an inch in diameter in the 
 centre of a circle about half an inch in diameter, and per- 
 forated with about eight small holes. The fibres or par- 
 ticles to be measured are fixed in a slider: and the eri- 
 ometer being placed before a strong light, and the eye as- 
 sisted by a lens applied behind the small hole, the rings of 
 colours will be seen. The slider must then be drawn out or 
 pushed till the limit of the first red and green ring (the one 
 selected by Dr. Young) coincides with the circle of perfo- 
 rations, and the index will then show on the scale the size 
 of the particles or fibres." {Brewster's Optics, Cabinet 
 Cyclopaedia. ) 
 
 ERI'PHIA. (Gr. cpitpos) A genus of short-tailed or 
 Brachyurous Crustaceans, including the Cancer spinifrons, 
 Herbst. ; Cancer conagra, Fabr. ; and other later discovered 
 species. 
 
 ER'MINE. ("This," says Gwillim, "is a little beast 
 Cc
 
 ERODED. 
 
 less than a squirrel, that hath his being in the woods of the 
 land of Armenia. .whereof he taketh his name.") In Zool- 
 ogy, a species of Mustela, or stoat, differing from the com- 
 mon weasel in being about one third larger, and in having 
 a somewhat broader head and a longer tail. In the sum- 
 mer season the upper part of the head, neck, and body, 
 and the greater part of the tail, are of a pale reddish brown 
 colour; the under parts white, with a very slight tinge of 
 yellow ; tip of the tail black, and somewhat bushy. In the 
 winter the whole of the body becomes white, slightly 
 tinged with yellow; but the black termination of the tail is 
 permanent. The fur is closer and finer at this season, 
 especially in the colder latitudes, from which countries 
 the ermine affords one of the most beautiful and valuable 
 of furs. When made up the tails are inserted one to each 
 skin, at regular distances, and in the quincunx order; and 
 thus arranged the ermine fur forms the distinctive doub- 
 ling of the state robes of sovereigns and nobles, as well as 
 of their crowns and coronets. 
 
 Ermine. In Heraldry, one of the furs used in blazonry. 
 It represents the skin of that animal white, spotted or tim- 
 bered with black. Ermines is black, spotted or timbered 
 with white. Erminites differs from ermine in having the 
 side hairs of the timberings red. Erminois is the same as 
 ermine, except that the gold is substituted for white. 
 Pean is black, timbered with gold. 
 
 ERO'DED. (Lat. erodo, J gnaw.) In Zoology, when a 
 part has its edges irregularly jagged, as if gnawed or eaten. 
 ERO'TIC (Gr. epios, love), is an epithet applied gene- 
 rally to all that relates to the passion of love. Thus what- 
 ever excites that passion, or depicts its effects, is termed 
 erotic. In a more confined sense, this application has been 
 conferred on a certain class of Greek and Latin authors, 
 both in prose and poetry, of whose writings love formed 
 the principal theme. Of these the most distinguished are 
 Achilles Tatius, Heliodorus, Anacreon, Sappho, Ovid, Ti- 
 bullus, Propertius, &c. (See the learned work entitled 
 Scriptores Erolici Gra.ci, cura Mitschcrlichii.) 
 
 ERO'TOMA'NIA. (Gr. tpcuf, and fiavta, madness.) 
 Mental aberration, supposed to be occasioned by the pas- 
 sion of love. 
 
 ERPETO'LOGY, more properly Herpetohgy. (Gr. 
 IpircTos, a reptile, and Xoyos, a discourse.) The branch of 
 zoological science which specially treats of the class Rep- 
 tilia. This class of animals is characterized by having a 
 heart so constructed as to transmit to the lungs a part only 
 of the circulating mass of blood which it receives from the 
 systenni veins, the remainder being sent again to the body 
 without having been purified in the lungs. There thus re- 
 sults a less amount of reaction of oxygen upon the blood 
 than takes place in Mammalia, and consequently a lower 
 grade of animal heat, and an inferior activity of muscular 
 contraction ; but, as the proportion of venous blood trans- 
 mitted by the heart to the general system varies in differ- 
 ent reptiles with the various modifications of the heart, 
 there is a corresponding difference in the manifestation of 
 their vital phenomena. 
 
 As reptiles are thus exempt from the office of preserving 
 the temperature of a circulating fluid many degrees warmer 
 than that of the external atmosphere, they have no need 
 of teguments adapted to retain heat; and are accordingly 
 naked, or covered with scales or hard bony plates. Their 
 brain is very small, and without the great commissures. 
 The lungs serve more or less as reservoirs as well as de- 
 composers of the atmospheric air; and thus with a certain 
 degree of independence of the general circulation, the rep- 
 tiles are enabled to remain much longer under water than 
 either birds or mammalia. Some species, indeed, have 
 in addition to their lungs gills for breathing water, either 
 during their immature state, or throughout life, and thus 
 are truly amphibious. With a cold blood, low respiration, 
 low sensation, and sluggish habits, is associated an ex- 
 traordinary power of endurance of abstinence and bodily 
 injury. 
 
 Reptiles are either oviparous, or ovoviviparous : they do 
 not incubate. They present a great variety of forms, and 
 constitute altogether a much less natural group than either 
 birds or mammals. The character which Cuvier has as- 
 signed to the Reptilia would not seem to distinguish them 
 from certain fishes with highly developed air bladders, 
 without the additional statement that the organ of smell in 
 the class Reptilia is situated in a canal communicating both 
 with the cavity of the mouth and the external surface. 
 
 Cuvier divides, after Brongniart, the reptiles into four 
 orders, viz. : — 
 
 The Chelonia (tortoises and turtles); of which the heart 
 has two auricles, and the body is supported on four legs, 
 and inclosed between two plates or shields formed by the 
 ribs and sternum. 
 
 The Sauria (lizards and crocodiles) ; of which the heart 
 has two auricles, and the body, supported on four legs, is 
 covered with scales. 
 
 The Ophidia (slow-worms and serpents) ; of which the 
 heart has two auricles, and the body is without legs. 
 418 
 
 ERROR. 
 
 The Batrachia (frogs, toads, newts, <fcc.) ; of which the 
 heart has but one auricle, and the body is naked, and sup- 
 ported on four, or in a few cases two legs. Most of these 
 pass, as they advance to maturity, from the condition of a 
 fish breathing by gills to that of a quadruped breathing by 
 lungs. Some, however, never lose their gills. 
 
 Such are the characters assigned by Cuvier (in 1829) to 
 his primary divisions of the class Reptilia, but they are not 
 a true expression of (he organization of the groups so dis- 
 tinguished. The Batrachia, for example, have since been 
 proved to have two auricles, although not so distinct exter- 
 nally as the other reptiles. Some of Cuvier's Sauria, 
 again, have two distinct ventricles ; whilst the rest have but 
 one, like the Chelonia and Ophidia. The crocodiles, alli- 
 gators, and gharrials are the higher organized Sauria here 
 alluded to ; and since they differ also from the Lacertine 
 Sauria in having a simple undivided tongue and intromit- 
 tent organ, and a well-marked modification of the tegu- 
 mentary system, they deserve to rank as a distinct order, 
 at the head of the class Reptilia. This order has been 
 termed by Merrem Loricata ; for the skin, in fact, instead 
 of being covered by imbricated scales, is strengthened and 
 protected by several rows of flattened and generally ellip- 
 tical bones, developed between the cuticle and true skin, 
 and often supporting a longitudinal crest ; these bones or 
 scutae are situated chiefly along the back part of the neck, 
 body, and tail. 
 
 Another order of Reptilia is clearly indicated by the re- 
 mains of several large or even gigantic species now extinct, 
 in which the extremities were modified to serve as fins on 
 the plan of the paddles of the Cetacea. These reptiles are 
 chiefly referable to the genera Ichthyosaurus and Plesio- 
 saurus ; they were marine, and of predaceous habits, and 
 constitute the order Enaliosauria. 
 
 The Chelonia form a third and very natural order. 
 
 Those Saurians of Cuvier which have a heart composed 
 of a single ventricle and two auricles, which have a bifid 
 tongue and double intromittent organ, and which have a 
 scaly and generally imbricated covering, form a fourth 
 order of reptiles, to which the term Sqtiamata has been 
 given. 
 
 The Ophidia of Cuvier constitute the fifth order of rep- 
 tiles. Some naturalists have proposed to unite the serpents 
 with the lizards in the same order, on account of the gra- 
 dual transition traceable in different genera from one to 
 the other group ; but the class of reptiles, by parity of rea- 
 soning, ought to be merged in that of fishes; and the 
 naturalists who favour the blending of the tetrapodal with 
 the apodal reptiles seem to forget that an order is a con- 
 ventional division, a group of convenience, and not an 
 entity circumscribed by nature. To separate the Batra- 
 chia as a distinct class from the Reptilia, seems to be an 
 error in the opposite extreme. The viviparous four-footed 
 salamander, breathing air by membranous lungs, and cir- 
 culating blood by a biauricular heart, is thus placed in a 
 distinct class from the four-footed lizard, without any es- 
 sential difference in the pulmonary or sanguiferous sys- 
 tems to warrant the separation ; the only differences that 
 can be urged for such a step are a modification of the 
 tegumentary covering, and a greater development and later 
 continuance of the temporary branchial apparatus, of 
 which traces are met with in the embryos of all the air- 
 breathing Vertebrata; and a modification of the repro- 
 ductive system. The naked integument ; the presence of 
 external gills in the young state ; the almost simultaneous 
 fecundation, sometimes without intromission, of numerous 
 ova, — may be grounds for regarding the Batrachia or Am- 
 phibia as a subclass, or a group somewhat higher than an 
 order; but seem not to warrant their separation from the 
 scaled reptiles as a distinct class, as a group equivalent 
 among Vertebrata to that of birds or mammals. For the 
 subdivisions of the above orders see Loricata, Enalio- 
 sauria, Chelonia, So.uamata, Ophidia, Batrachia, and 
 also Amphibia. 
 
 E'RPETON. See Herpeton. 
 
 ERRA'TA. (Lat.) The term applied to the faults that 
 have escaped in the impression, or, as the case may be, in 
 the composition of a work; usually inserted in a list either 
 at the commencement or the end of the book. This man- 
 ner of indicating typographical errors is coeval with the art 
 of printing itself. Various dissertations have been devoted 
 to this subject ; among others may be mentioned that of 
 Lindenberg, De Errorihus Typographies, which, although 
 of a somewhat impracticable nature, contains many in- 
 genious observations. 
 
 E'RROR. In Law, a writ of error is one which au- 
 thorizes the judges of a superior court to examine a record 
 on which judgment has been given in an inferior court on 
 an allegation of error in pleading a process, &c, and to 
 affirm or reverse the same. It is the common remedy for 
 erroneous judgments in courts of record. Error lies from, 
 inferior courts of record, and from the Common Pleas, to 
 the King's Bench ; from each of the three superior courts 
 to the judges of the other two sitting in the Exchequer
 
 ERSE. 
 
 Chamber ; from the Exchequer Chamber, and in certain 
 cases directly, to the Hosue of Lords. It lies in criminal 
 as well as in civil cases. Writ of error must be brought 
 within twenty years. Correctly speaking, it is applicable 
 only for the reversal of judgments on account of errors in 
 law. and not of fact. 
 
 ERSE. The name given by the English and Scots to the 
 dialect of Celtic, spoken by the inhabitants of the Highlands 
 of Scotland. The term is evidently another form of the 
 word Irish. The people speaking the Erse tongue call 
 themselves Gael (written, but not pronounced, Gaidheal), 
 and their language Gaelig. The inhabitants of the low 
 country of Scotland, it is remarkable enough, they call 
 Gall, a term which they occasionally apply also to any 
 stranger. England in the Erse language is called Sasson, 
 meaning Saxony, and the people and language Sassonach ; 
 the latter being often called Beurla, which means speech 
 in general, and in this case " the language" par excellence. 
 The Irish are called by the Scots Highlanders Gael, like 
 themselves, with the distinction of belonging to Erin, or 
 Ireland. For the Welsh and their country there appear to 
 be no names known to the Erse language. The Erse 
 or Gaelic has been asserted to be one of the dialects of 
 that Celtic or Gaulish language which is once supposed to 
 have pervaded nearly the whole western portion of Europe, 
 including France, Spain, and Britain. For such an hy- 
 pothesis, however, there is no good evidence ; and all 
 analogy is wholly opposed to the supposition that a people 
 so rude, so divided, and so scattered as the inhabitants of 
 Europe were 2000 years ago, should have had a common 
 language. The great probability, on the contrary, is that 
 in such times there were in Europe, as there are now in 
 America, in Hindostan, and in the great group of the Ori- 
 ental Archipelago, many languages; a few so closely con- 
 nected as to amount only to dialects of each other, but the 
 greater number either differing wholly, or agreeing only in 
 a few words, — communicated possibly through the medium 
 of religion, or adopted for convenience by the rest from 
 one tribe or nation, which through good fortune or favour- 
 able position had obtained the start in civilization. The 
 languages supposed to be of the Celtic stock, and of which 
 we have sufficient evidence either by remains or as living 
 tongues, are the Welsh, the Bas Breton or Armorican, the 
 Irish, the Erse or Gaelic, the Manks or language of the Isle 
 of Man, the Cornish, and the Basque or language of the 
 provinces of the same name in Spain. An examination of 
 these appears to prove the truth of the theory we have 
 now suggested. The Welsh and Armorican are but dialects 
 of the same language, and the same observation holds true 
 of the Irish and Erse. These languages agree respectively 
 with each other, not only in grammatical structure, but in 
 that numerous class of words which constitutes the ground- 
 work of every language : viz. prepositions, adverbs, con- 
 Junctions, with such verbs, adjectives, and nouns as are of 
 most frequent and familiar use. The Irish and Erse so 
 nearly resemble each other, that after a short familiarity 
 with the pronunciation, the Irish and Scots Highlanders 
 have no difficulty in understanding each other; and the 
 same is said to he the case with the Welsh and Bas Breton. 
 On the other hand, the languages of the two latter are 
 wholly unintelligible to the first, and vice versa. The Manks 
 " but a dialect of the Irish or Erse, and the now extinct 
 Cornish was unquestionably a dialect of the Welsh. As 
 to tlir Basque, long supposed to be a Celtic tongue, a care- 
 ful examination of it by the late Baron William Humboldt 
 showed tiot only that it bore no resemblance to the Welsh, 
 the Irish, or their dialects, but that it had nothing in com- 
 mon wiih any known language, ancient or modern. 
 
 Respecting the causes which produced a similarity be- 
 tween the languages of Wales and Britany we possess 
 somp historical evidence. In the fourth and fifth centuries 
 the Welsh, or ppople shaking the Welsh language in Bri- 
 tain, emigrated in L'reat numbers to the opposite shore of 
 the Continent, driven fromineir own country by the tribes 
 of the northern part of the island. Their number was so 
 considerable ihat they acquired * superiority over the na- 
 tive population of the part of Gaul where thev settled, and 
 succeeded ultimately in imposing on it their own name and 
 language. A similaremigralion from Ireland, although we 
 have no historical record of it, probably propagated the 
 name and language of the Irish, with their manners, cus- 
 toms, and traditions, over the poor and mountainous' por- 
 tion of Scotland which is now the site of the Gaelic or Erse 
 language. It does not necessarily follow, in this case, that 
 the Highlands of Scotland were without inhabitants when 
 the Irish colonists or conquerors planted themselves there. 
 A primitive race of inhabitants no doubt previously existed, 
 whose name and language were lost in the strength and' 
 multitude of the invaders that occupied their country, as 
 happened in America as the result of a British invasion, 
 and in Britain itself as the result of a Saxon one It may 
 perhaps be said, in this instance, that the emigration is as 
 likely to have taken place from the Hishlands of Scotland 
 to Ireland, as from Ireland to the Highlands: but the an- 
 419 ■ 
 
 ERYSIPELAS. 
 
 swer to such a supposition is obvious, viz. that conquest is 
 more likely to have proceeded from an extensive and fer- 
 tile country to a poor one destitute of resources, than from 
 the latter to the former. 
 
 Although we have stated that between the Irish and 
 Gaelic on one hand, and the Welsh and Armorican on the 
 other, there is no such connection as would imply an iden- 
 tity of origin, there is still much evidence exhibiting an 
 early and frequent communication, and probably to some 
 extent even an intermixture of races, originating in an un- 
 settled and stirring period of the history of the inhabitants 
 of Europe ; in such a state of society, in short, as produced 
 within the memory and knowledge of history the migra- 
 tions and invasions of the Gauls, and of the Cimbri and 
 Teutones. The similarity of language to which we now 
 allude bears no inconsiderable resemblance to that which 
 is ascertained to exist between most of the languages of the 
 great Oriental Archipelago and Pacific Ocean, and which 
 has been satisfactorily traced from Madagascar to Gaster 
 Island. We may take as an example the numerals, which, 
 with few exceptions, are the same in the Irish, Erse, Welsh, 
 and Armorican, just as they are in many, although not in 
 all, the languages of the innumerable nations and tribes oc- 
 cupying the scattered islands which lie between Asia and 
 Australia north and south, Africa, and America west and 
 east. But the numerals, it should be recollected, are not 
 essential and indispensable portions of rude language; but, 
 on the contrary, as much comparatively recent inventions 
 as an alphabet, or the Arabian system of notation ; and in- 
 deed an invention, particularly when carried to the length 
 to which it has been in this case, implying a very conside- 
 rable advancement in early society. Trie system is, as 
 usual, decimul ; and although it contains evidence of rude 
 attempts at local and less perfect plans, is obviously of sin- 
 gle origin. It reckons by ten up to twenty, and then counts 
 by scores up to a hundred. Thus nineteen is "one and 
 nine," and expressed by the very same words in all the 
 languages. The word for twenty in the two classes of lan- 
 guages differs. Thirty is expressed by the circumlocution 
 of "one score and ten," forty by " two scores," and fifty 
 by " two score and ten," &c. One hundred is expressed 
 by the same term in all the languages ; and it is the utmost 
 limit of native enumeration, for a thousand and the num- 
 bers above it are borrowed from the Latin. In the exam- 
 ple of the numerals, then, we discover, what might be 
 looked for, evidence of considerable simplicity aud even 
 rudeness in these Celtic languages. 
 
 Of the four languages now spoken of, the Welsh ap- 
 pears to be that which was longest and most cultivated. 
 It was unquestionably a written language in the lOih cen- 
 tury ; and the perfect alphabet, by which every sound in 
 it is invariably expressed, consisting of sixteen radical and 
 twenty-seven derivative characters, forming in all forty- 
 three letters, is still preserved. The Erse or Gaelic was 
 the least cultivated ; and until late years even the Bible 
 which was used in the Highland churches was no other 
 than the Irish. It first attracted notice after the publica- 
 tion in the English language of the poems of Ossian, said 
 to be derived from it about the middle of (he last century. 
 These, it was pretended, were translated from manuscripts 
 in the translator's possession ; but such poems in a written 
 form, it is now sufficiently known, never had any existence, 
 either in the Irish or Gaelic language. Although not com- 
 mitted to writing, or rather not handed down in writins, 
 these poems, committed to memory and handed down 
 from one bard or story-teller to another, still exist in the 
 Highlands of Scotland, and in a dress not remote from that 
 in which they were rendered by Macpherson into English. 
 Their scene is sometimes laid in Scotland, but more fre- 
 quently in Ireland. In short, they are the Iliad and Odys- 
 sey of the Celtic race of the two islands, handed down by 
 tradition only, — what the poems of Homer were in all like- 
 lihood to the Greeks themselves, before the art of writing 
 was known to them. The Erse, although a rude and un- 
 cultivated language, is a nervous and manly one, both as 
 to expression and sound, and well suited to poetry, whether 
 sublime or tender. The range of i's sounds is very great; 
 for it possesses twelve vowels, and no less than eighteen 
 diphthongs and triphthong?, with forty-one consonants, in- 
 cluding aspirates. Many of the consonants are guttural ; 
 and of these, as well of the vocalic sounds, there are seve- 
 ral utterly unpronounceable by a stranser : the attempts 
 made to express such a variety of sounds by the Roman 
 alphabet are, of course, both awkward and imperfect. As 
 to the grammar, that of the Gaelic is of complex structure, 
 implying a primitive language which has undergone little 
 ehanee hv admixture with other tongues. 
 
 ERYSI'PELAS. (According to etymologists, from the 
 Gr. epvcaOat, to spread, and -nikaf, near — spreading over 
 the neighbourins parts ; but the derivation is doubtful.) 
 Called also St. Anthony's Fire, that saint havins miracu- 
 lously cured it. This disease usually commences with 
 fever, followed by an eruption of a very red colour, some- 
 times vesicular, and attended by tumefaction. It com-
 
 ERYTHEMA. 
 
 monly attacks the head and face, and is at its height 
 from the third to the sixth day; but its duration and pro- 
 gress are very variable in different individuals. The fever 
 which attends this form of erysipelas is more or less in- 
 flammatory, and at first cooling diet and aperients are re- 
 quired ; and the local irriiation and itching may be quelled 
 by cooling lotions, or by sprinkling the part with a puff of 
 hair powder, which is sometimes singularly soothing to the 
 sufferer. From the eighth to the twelfth day, the eruption 
 scabs or scales off. If sickness, shiverings, and delirium 
 attend the height of the disorder, an unfavourable termina- 
 tion may be anticipated. Sometimes suppuration occurs, 
 especially of the eyelids and scalp. The greater number 
 of cases of this disorder have a tendency, in their latter 
 stages, to debility ; and bark, or sulphate of quinine, with 
 other tonics, are indicated. But where inflammatory symp- 
 toms run high, aperients and diaphoretics must be perse- 
 vered in ; and blistering, and even cupping, are necessary. 
 
 Where erysipelas is attended with typhoid symptoms, 
 it is dangerous from the beginning ; and wine, bark, am- 
 monia, and other stimulants, are usually prescribed. 
 
 In that form of erysipelas which attacks different parts 
 of the body in successive patches, aperients, diaphoretics, 
 and alteratives are useful; but in every case of this dis- 
 ease, lotions and ointments should be used with the utmost 
 caution, and warm or cold water, and milk and water, are 
 generally the best applications. There is a variety of ery- 
 sipelas which attacks infants, and which is sometimes 
 alarming from its gangrenous or suppurative tendency. 
 Erysipelatous inflammation is also often a sequel of sur- 
 gical operations, especially in crowded and ill-ventilated 
 hospitals, where it sometimes spreads among the patients 
 to a very alarming extent. Cleanliness, ventilation, fumi- 
 gation, and. above all, the removal of the affected persons 
 to a better air. are the only chances of eradication. 
 
 ERYTHE'MA. (Gr. epvOpof, red.) All rashes, as they 
 are commonly called, and rednesses of the skin, atlended 
 by marked constitutional affection, and very mild forms 
 of erysipelas, come under this denomination. 
 
 ERY'THRIC ACID, applied by Brugnatelli to a red sub- 
 stance ohtaitied hv the action of nitric on uric acid. 
 
 ERY'THROGEN. A peculiar substance, discovered in 
 1821, by M. Bizio of Venice, in the gall-bladder of a person 
 who died of jaundice. It was a green tasteless liquid, 
 which became deep purple in nitric acid and ammonia, and 
 when healed in the air produced a purple vapour; hence 
 its name, from covOpos, red. He supposes it identical with 
 the colouring milter of the blood. 
 
 ERYTHRO'NIl'M. A name originally given to the me- 
 tal since called Vanadium, from the red colour of its acid. 
 
 E'RYX. (Gr.) A genus of serpents with a short obtuse 
 tail and a single series of snbcaudal scutrp. as in Boa; but 
 having both the abdominal and caudal scutte much nar- 
 rower, and the anal hooks inconspicuous. 
 
 E'SCALADE. (Fr.) The scaling of a fortification by 
 means of a ladder is so called. 
 
 ESCAPA'DE. (Fr.) A term almost naturalized in Eng- 
 land, signifying any impropriety of speech or behaviour of 
 which an individual is unconscious. 
 
 ESCA'PEMENT, in Clock and Watch-work, is the name 
 given to that part of the mechanism by which the circulat- 
 ing motion of the wheels is converted into a vibratory mo- 
 tion, as that of the pendulum of a clock or balance of a 
 watch. Various contrivances are employed for this pur- 
 pose, depending on different mechanical principles, as the 
 dead beat escapement, the lever escapement, the duplex 
 escapement, thp detached escapement, &c. See HonoLOGY. 
 
 ESCA'RP (Germ, scharf, sharp), in Fortification, signi- 
 fies any tiling high and precipitous. Sometimes it is used 
 to denote the side of the ditch next the place ; in which 
 case it is opposed to counterscarp, which denotes the side 
 next the country. In a fortress, the escarp is the exterior 
 surface of the revetment wall supporting the rampart. 
 
 ESCA'RPMENT. In Geology, the steep face often pre- 
 sented by the abrupt termination of strata where subjacent 
 beds "crop out" from under them. The two most "exten- 
 sive lines of hill which traverse the centre and south of 
 England arc formed by the escarpments of the oolite and 
 chalk formal ion = respectively. The first extends through 
 Yorkshire, the West of Lincolnshire, Rutland. Northamp- 
 ton, Warwick, Gloucester. Somerset, Dorset ; being bound- 
 ed throughout <>n the N. W by the outcrop of the lias for- 
 mation. The latter commences in Yorkshire, rises again 
 in Norfolk, and extends throush Cambridge, Hertford, 
 Bucks. Oxford, Berks, Wilts, and Dorset, in a parallel line 
 to the former. 
 
 E'SCHAR. (Gr. caxapa, the crust of a scar produced by 
 burning.) When a living part has been burned, it becomes 
 hard, rough, and of a grey colour, forming what is properly 
 called an eschar: it is a slough produced by fire or caus- 
 tics. The English scar is evidently derived from this term. 
 
 ESCIIARO'TICS Applications which form eschars. 
 The term is generally applied in surgery to mild caustics. 
 
 ESCHE'AT, in Law, happens when tenant in fee-simple 
 420 
 
 ESCURIAL. 
 
 dies without having left any heir to the land, and withoot 
 having incurred a forfeiture to the crown (as for treason. > 
 This case arises on sentence of death for murder; but not 
 for other felonies, which, since 54 G. 3. c. 145., leave the 
 power of disposition of his estate after death to the offender. 
 In this case the land goes to the lord of the fee. There is no 
 escheat of equitable estates. 
 
 E'SCROW. (Fr. ecreu, screll.) In Law, a deed deli- 
 vered to a third party, to be the deed of the party making it 
 upon a future condition when a certain thing is performed, 
 until which it has no effect as a deed. 
 
 E'SCUAGE, or SCUTAGE. (Either derived from scu- 
 tum, a shield, or the same word signifying a piece of mo- 
 ney ; which latter denomination of coin, indeed, perhaps 
 originates in the fact of money having been levied under 
 the name of this tribute.) Apecuniary satisfaction, paid in 
 lieu of military service by tenants in chivalry. There have 
 been doubts among our antiquarian lawyers whether escu- 
 age were, properly speaking, a tenure in itself, or merely 
 an incident to tenure ; but the latter is probably its proper 
 character. Lyttleton says, that tenant by homage, fealty, 
 and escuage is tenant by knight service. The assessment 
 of escuage was uncertain in amount, and, by Magna Charla 
 and 25 Ed. L, could only be taken by assent of parliament. 
 Escuage, together with the other appendages of military 
 tenures, was abolished by 12 C. 2. c 24. 
 
 ESCU'RIAL, or EL ESCURIAL. A royal palace of 
 Spain, about twenty-two miles from Madrid, at the foot of 
 the Carpentani mountains, which divide the two Castiles. 
 It was commenced by Philip II., from two motives— the 
 dying injunction of his predecessor Charles V., who was 
 desirous that a tomb should be constructed for the royal 
 family of Spain ; and the other lo erect a monument sur- 
 passing all triumphant arches and similar buildings, to 
 commemorate the famous victory of San Quintin, won on 
 the festival of St. Lawrence, to whose intercession the 
 king attributed his success. Its foundations were laid iu 
 1563; Giovanbatista of Toledo being the architect who 
 planned and continued to superintend the building till his 
 death in 1567, when his pupil Giovanni d'Herrera carried 
 on and finished it. As an architectural composilion it is 
 unworthy to be attributed, as it has been, to Bramante, Pel- 
 legrini, or Vignola. They as well as others may have 
 given designs for it, but such were not selected. It is con- 
 sidered by Spaniards as entitled to be called the eighth 
 wonder of the world ; and numberless fables are told about 
 the number of its doors, windows, and columns, as well as 
 its cost having been twenty-four millions of ducats, though 
 the expense of erecting it was not quite one fourth of that 
 sum. The whole pile comprises a magnificent monastery, 
 which was given to the fathers of San Girolamo ; of a col- 
 lege, a seminary, and a royal palace. In plan the form 
 resembles a gridiron, the instrument of martyrdom of St. 
 Lawrence, of which that part used for the royal palace is 
 supposed to represent the handle. It is internally disposed 
 inio fifteen courts of various dimensions, the largest, 
 whereof are ornamented with porticoes and galleries ; and 
 the material employed is a species of granite. The prin- 
 cipal facade, looking towards the west, is 740 feet long, and 
 60 feet high to the cornice. Towers flank the facade at 
 each angle of the edifice 200 feet high. The masses are 
 much cut up by the division of the principal facade inlo no 
 less than five stories of windows. The elevation !o/he 
 east is 1100 feet long, and that to the south 580 feet tong. 
 The church of the' monastery is 364 feet long, 850 feet 
 wide, and 170 feet high ; and is divided and supported by 
 piers 53 feet distant from each other. From the centre a 
 cupola rises of good form exteriorly, but clumsily com- 
 posed inside. Its diameter is 66 feet, and from Ihe pave- 
 ment lo the top of the cross the height is 330 feet. The 
 pantheon here is a crypt under Ihe high altarof Ihe church, 
 and is used as the place of sepulture of the Spanish royal 
 family. On extraordinary occasions it is lighted by a su- 
 perb lustre. The staircase leadin? to this mausoleum has 
 fifty-nine steps, divided by one landing; at the sides of 
 which are two bronze statues, — one of Human Nature 
 stripping herself of Ihe illusions of the crown and sceptre, 
 the other of Hope. O" the two inferior landings are two 
 doors,— one leading to the vault, where are laid the re- 
 mains of the infants and infantas, and queens who have 
 had no issue ; the other to the chamber, 36 feet diameter 
 and 38 feet high, where the remains of the kings are de- 
 posited. The whole of the building is profusely orna- 
 mented, particularly with paintings from Ihe best masters 
 of Italy, Flanders, Spain, and Germany. The adjacent 
 buildings are worthy of so august a pile. Attached to the 
 monastery by an arched gateway is an edifice called the 
 Campagna. which has two galleries, each 100 feet long and 
 20 feet wide. This was built by Francesco de Mora, the 
 successor of Giovanni d'Herrera. Here are the hospitals, 
 granaries, pantries, and other offices; here also are the 
 gardens, which from being seated on ihe acclivity of a hill 
 appear hanging. The garden on the south side of the 
 monastery is 8000 feet in circuit. Adjoining the eastern
 
 ESCUTCHEON. 
 
 and northern facades is a spacious gallery or esplanade 
 surrounded by a parapet. On this side are the quarters for 
 the guards, the riding school, the aqueduct, <fcc. &c. Be- 
 yond the outer buildings is the Fresnada. about half a league 
 to the east. This villa is surrounded by a wall, and con- 
 tains courts, gardens, meadows, fountains, trees of all sorts, 
 lakes with islands, fisheries, &c. Here also is a church 
 of fine and simple form, by Francesco de Mora. In 1773 
 many works were executed at the Escurial for the infants 
 Don Antonio and Don Gabriele by Villaneuva, the then 
 architect of the palace ; indeed from the time of Philip II. 
 all his successors have made some additions to this su- 
 perb edifice, which, like the original fabric, contain great 
 beauties and great defects. 
 
 ESCU'TCHEON, or ESCOCHEON. In Heraldry, a 
 shield on which arms are emblazoned : derived from the 
 French ecu orecusson, Italian scudo, Latin scutum. The 
 favourite shape for the purpose of heraldry is that com- 
 monly called the Norman shield ; but women, (laughters 
 of parents entitled to coat-armour, bear their father's arms 
 on a lozenge-shaped shield. The points of the escutcheon 
 are the parts named in order to express the local position 
 of the charges borne on the field. (.See Charge.) They 
 are nine in number. Escutcheon of pretence is the shield 
 on which a man carries the arms of his wife ; in England 
 only borne if she is an heiress, and he has children by her. 
 It is borne in the centre of his own shield, and generally 
 of the same shape. Inescutchcon, an escutcheon borne also 
 within the shield in the middle of the coat (but smaller 
 than an escutcheon of pretence), or in chief. It is a spe- 
 cies of ordinary. 
 
 ESOTE'RIC, opposed to Exoteric. (Gr. cVco, within, 
 ?J<o, without.) Much dispute has prevailed among the 
 learned as to the precise import of this distinction. By 
 some it was thought that the ancient philosopers had a set 
 of mysterious doctrines which they communicated only 
 to the more enlightened of their disciples, and another 
 more popular doctrine which they promulgated to the mul- 
 titude. In the case of Aristotle, to whose writings the dis- 
 tinction properly applied, this opinion is, to a certain ex- 
 tent, well founded ; except so far as regards the suspicion 
 of intentional concealment implied in it. The exoteric or 
 published writings of that philosopher appear to have been 
 written in the form of dialogues, all of which are lost. His 
 esoteric works, we gather from the synonymous term 
 acroamatic (tiKpodo8ai,to liear.) were not intended to su- 
 persede the necessity of oral instruction to render them 
 intelligible. This agrees well enough with the brevity, the 
 frequent repetitions, and the perplexed arrangement of the 
 works of Aristotle which survive. (See Ritter, Gesch. d. 
 Ph. b. ix. c. 1.) 
 
 E'SPALIER. In Horticulture, a substitute for a wall 
 on which to train fruit trees, and sometimes ornamental 
 shrubs. The objects are to expose the foliage of the 
 plants more perfectly to the light, to prevent the branches 
 from being blown about by the winds, and to economize 
 space by confining them within definite limits. The espa- 
 lier is either constructed of wood or iron ; and commonly 
 ■of two horizontal rails joined by upright rods, six or eight 
 inches apart. The most elegant and economical structure 
 of this kind at present in use is a double espalier formed 
 of hoop iron posts in the shape of the letter A, twenty 
 inches wide at bottom, and six or seven feet high, at which 
 height the hoops meet in a point. Through the hoop iron 
 posts wires are inserted horizontally at six inches apart, 
 and drawn quite tight; the result of which is a double sur- 
 face on which to train the trees. (See Loudon's Suburban 
 Gardener, p. 232.) 
 
 ESPA'RTO. (Span.) A species of rush ; the Stipa te- 
 nacissima of botanists. It is found in the southern pro- 
 vinces of Spain. It is made into cordage, much used in 
 the Spanish navy ; and is platted for other purposes, such 
 as mats, shoes. <fec. 
 
 ESPLANA'DE, or GLACIS. In Fortification, the slop- 
 ing of the parapet of the counterscarp or covered way to- 
 wards the open country. 
 
 ESQUI'RE, Ecuyer, Escudero. (In Latin, armiger.) A 
 well known title of rank ; derived from the French ecu, 
 Lat. scutum, a shield. Some suppose that it has its origin 
 from the Scutarii, a sort of soldiery in the Roman armies ; 
 others derive it from equus, a horse, and suppose that 
 esquire and eqnerry denoted originally the same thing, viz. 
 a groom. But it is generally supposed to hav* belonged to 
 the shield or nrmour bearers (armigeri) attached to the 
 person of kni?lits. This office, in the times of chivalry, 
 was honourable, and generally borne by persons of good 
 family. Hence the term esquire became gradually appro- 
 priated, in England, to a rank above the simple gentleman 
 and below the knight. Younger sons of peer-; (now called 
 Honourables). their eldest sons, eldest sons of knights, 
 sheriffs of counties, Serjeants at law, justices of the peace, 
 and doctors of divinity, are esquires by virtue of their res- 
 pective rank or office. Heads of ancient families are con- 
 sidered esquires by prescription ; and hence has originated 
 421 
 
 ESTAFETTE. 
 
 the use of the word, in the present day, as a common ad- 
 dition to the namesofall those who live in the rank of gen- 
 tlemen. The king creates an esquire, by putting round 
 his neck a silver collar of ff; to which ceremony was for- 
 merly added the putting on of a pair of silver spurs. 
 
 E'SSAY. In Literature, an attempt; a species of com- 
 position. In general, this title is given to short disquisi- 
 tions on subjects of taste, philosophy, or common life. In 
 this sense it has been applied to periodical papers, pub- 
 lished at regular intervals under a collective name, by one 
 or more writers, containing remarks on topics of the day 
 or on more serious subjects. From the appearance of the 
 Taller, in the beginning of the last century, which was 
 chiefly written by Sir Richard Steele, this species of lite- 
 rature continued to be a favourite in England for seventy 
 years, and many similar series of essays were produced ; 
 the best of which are united in one collection under the 
 name of The English Essayists. The most celebrated of 
 these works was the Spectator, to which Addison was the 
 best contributor ; and next to it the Rambler, published and 
 almost wholly written by Samuel Johnson. The title of es- 
 say has been also adopted, by way of indicating diffidence in 
 the completeness of their work, by various authors of more 
 extended performances ; as by Locke (.Essay on the Hu- 
 man Understanding). 
 
 E'SSENCE. (Lat. essentia, from esse, to be or exist.) 
 In Philosophy, a scholastic term, denoting what the Plato- 
 nists called the idea of a species. The school philoso- 
 phers give two significations of the word essence : the first 
 denoting the whole essential perfection of a being, and 
 consequently its entity, with all its intrinsic and necessary 
 attributes taken together; the second denoting the princi- 
 pal or most important attributes of any thing. The es- 
 sences of things were held by many to be uncreated, eter- 
 nal, and immutable. See Metaphysics. 
 
 E'SSENCE D'ORIENT. A term applied to a pearly- 
 looking matter found principally at the base of the scales 
 of the bleak, a small fish of the genus Cyprinus : it is used 
 to line the interior of glass bubbles or beads, as in the 
 manufacture of artificial pearls. 
 
 ESSE'NES. A sect among the Jews in the time of our 
 Saviour, of whom an account is preserved to us by Jose- 
 phus and Philo, though they are not mentioned in Scrip- 
 ture. They were few in number, and lived chiefly in soli- 
 tude, taking no part in public affairs, but devoting their 
 lives to contemplation. There were indeed two classes 
 of them, distinguished as the practical and contemplative, 
 who differed in the degree of strictness and austerity which 
 they observed. They believed in the immortality of the 
 soul, and held the Scripture in the highest reverence ; in- 
 terpreting it, however, after an allegorical system of their 
 own. (See Blackwood's Mag., 1840.) 
 
 ESSE'NTIAL OILS, or VOLATILE OILS. Under this 
 term are included all those peculiar compounds obtained 
 by distilling vegetable substances with water, and which 
 pass over along with the steam, and are afterwards con- 
 densed in the liquid or solid form. They appear to consti- 
 tute the odorous principles of vegetables. Their specific 
 gravity fluctuates on either side that of water: they are 
 very sparingly soluble in water, and these solutions consti- 
 tute the medicated waters ; rose, peppermint, and other 
 waters being such solutions of the respective essential oils. 
 They dissolve in alcohol and form essences, many of which 
 are used as perfumes. When these oils are pure, they 
 evaporate from paper when held before the fire ; but if 
 adulterated with fixed oils, they leave a greasy stain, and 
 seldom dissolve perfectly in alcohol. The more expensive 
 of these oils are frequently adulterated with the cheaper 
 ones, and this fraud can only be detected by an experi- 
 enced nose. Their chief use is in perfumery, on account of 
 their odour, and in medicine they form valuable stimulants. 
 They are inflammable, and are, with few exceptions, com- 
 pounds of hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. The essence of 
 turpentine, of lemons, and a few others, are hydrocarbons. 
 
 ESSOI'GN. In Law, an excuse for one who is sum- 
 moned to appear and answer an action or perform suit in a 
 court, &c, by reason of sickness or other prevailing cause. 
 The first return day in every term was called the essoignday, 
 because the court sate on it to take essoigns ; i. e. excuses for 
 such as did not appear according to the summons of the 
 writ. The essoign day seems to be done awav with by the 
 effect of the statutes 11 G. 4., 1 W. 4. c. 70. and 1 W. 4. c. 3. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT. See Foundation. 
 
 ESTABLISHMENT OF THE PORT. A term used by 
 writers on the tides, to denote the interval between the time 
 of high water at any given port and the time of the moon's 
 transit immediately preceding the time of high water, when 
 the moon is in syzygy ; that is, at the new or full moon. 
 This interval is influenced by local circumstances, and con- 
 sequently different at different places. See Tides. 
 
 ESTAFE'TTE. (Span, estafeta.) Applied originally to 
 military couriers, but now used in all the countries of mo- 
 dern Europe to signify an express. The difference between 
 a courier and an estafette consists in this, that while the 
 37
 
 ESTATE. 
 
 former must deliver die despatches, &c. entrusted to him 
 personally at the place to which they are addressed, in the 
 latter the despatches, letters, &c. to be forwarded are con- 
 signed to the care of postillions, who are changed with 
 every relay of horses successively till they arrive at the 
 place of their destination. 
 
 ESTA'TE, in common parlance, is applied to the landed 
 property held by individuals; and a man is said to be of 
 good or of small estate, according to the magnitude of his 
 landed property. 
 
 Estates vary exceedingly in size and value in most parts of 
 England. The largest estate in the kingdom may be worth 
 100,000/. or upwards a year ; and there are estates of most 
 inferior degrees of magnitude, down to the annual value of 
 40s. ! In some counties property is more, and in others it 
 is less, subdivided. In Cheshire, the East Riding of York- 
 shire, and one or two other counties, there are compara- 
 tively few small proprietors ; but the latter predominate in 
 most parts of the West of England, in the North, and gene- 
 rally throughout the country. On the whole, we believe it 
 may be safely affirmed, that by far the largest portion of 
 the kingdom is parcelled into properties of less than 1000/. 
 a year. It is not difficult to account for the prevalent mis- 
 conceptions on this point. Though few in number, the 
 owners of large estates engross the attention of common 
 observers, and hinder them from fixing their eye on the 
 mass of obscure, petty land-owners, that constitute the 
 great bulk of the class. Dr. Beeke, whose authority as to 
 such matters is deservedly high, estimated the total num- 
 ber of proprietors in England and Wales at 200.000 ; and 
 supposing the gross rental of the kingdom to be 30,000,000/. 
 a year, the average annual income of each, in his capacity 
 of landlord, will be only 150/. ! and seeing that a few have 
 much more, it follows that many must have good deal less. 
 Hence it is that few lead a more laborious life, or are more 
 under the necessity of abstaining from luxurious indul- 
 gences, than the owners and occupiers of small landed 
 properties. Nothing, in fact, can be a greater mistake than 
 to suppose, as is generally done, that the landowners are 
 an extremely opulent and an extremely indolent body. 
 These may be the characteristics of a few individuals 
 amongst them ; but it would be quite as wide of the mark to 
 affirm that they are generally applicable to the entire class, 
 as that they are generally applicable to the classes of manu- 
 facturers and traders. (See M-Culloch's Statistics, vol. ii.) 
 ESTATE FOR LIFE, in Law, is a freehold interest in 
 lands and tenements, whether enjoyed for the life of the 
 tenant, or for the life of another party (in which latter case 
 it is termed an estate pur auter vie). This species of in- 
 terest includes estates granted for an uncertain period lim- 
 ited within the duration of a life ; as, for instance, an estate 
 granted to a widow during her widowhood. An estate for 
 life is created wherever lands or tenements are given by 
 means adequate to the conveyance of a freehold, without 
 any express limitation of an estate. If tenant for life con- 
 vey an estate greater than his own by feoffment, fine, or 
 recovery, he forfeits his estate ; but if he does so by any 
 of those conveyances which are termed innocent, he cre- 
 ates an estate determinable on his own death. With re- 
 spect to estates pur auter vie, it is observable that formerly, 
 when lands were given to A. for the life of B., if A. or A.'s 
 assignee happened to die in B.'s lifetime, the estate belonged 
 to the first person who could take possession, termed an 
 occupant ; but if given to A. and his heirs for the life of B. 
 on the same event, A.'s heir succeeded as special occu- 
 pant. Now, by the Statute of Frauds (29 C. 2. c. 31. s. 12), 
 estates pur auter vie are devisable ; and, if there be no 
 special occupant, they go to the executors or administra- 
 tor of the deceased. 
 
 ESTATE FOR YEARS. In Law, an estate limited for 
 a term of years, or other determinate time, in lands, tene- 
 ments, or hereditaments, is a chattel or personal interest ; 
 and, on the death of the owner, devolves, like other per- 
 sonal property, on his executors or administrator. An es- 
 tate for years is properly created or demised by an instru- 
 ment termed a lease ; which, at common law, has not full 
 operation until the entry of the tenant. It may also be 
 created by declaration of use, or by devise in a will ; and 
 may be made either to commence immediately, or on a 
 future day and event ; in which latter case, unless there 
 be any particular estate to support it as a remainder, it is 
 called an interesse termini, until the time arrives for its re- 
 duction into possession. Covenants between the lessor and 
 lessee, relating to the land (which are usually inserted in 
 the lease), are said at common law to run with the land : 
 they pass, along with the term of years, to a party to whom 
 the lessee conveys it by assignment ; but the lessee's cove- 
 nants do not pass to a party to whom he conveys part of 
 the term by underlease. A tenancy from year to year is a 
 species of estate for years. 
 
 ESTATE OF INHERITANCE. In Law, an estate in 
 fee-simple, or fee-tail. (See these articles ; and Real 
 Property, Law op.) 
 ESTA'TES, POLITICAL. See States. 
 422 
 
 ETHERIA. 
 
 ESTIVA'TION. A term applied to the parts of a flower 
 when unexpanded : it is used, in connection with various 
 adjectives, to express the manner in which sepals or petals 
 are rolled up before the flower unfolds. 
 
 ESTO'PPEL. In Law, an impediment or bar to a right 
 of action, arising from a man's own act, or that of one to 
 whom the party estopped is privy. As, if a party is bound 
 by a particular name in an obligation, and afterwards sued 
 by that name on the same obligation, he is estopped, i. e. 
 forbidden in law to say in abatement that he is misnamed ; 
 as he cannot say contrary to that which he has admitted by 
 his own deed. All parties to a deed are estopped to say 
 any thing against what is contained in it; and privies are 
 also bound. 
 
 ESTRE'AT. In Law, the extract, copy, or note of some 
 original writing or record, and especially of fines and 
 amercements ; entered on the rolls of the court, to be le- 
 vied by its bailiff or other officer. Fines to the king are es- 
 treated into the Court of Exchequer. Estreats are made 
 out in that court by the remembrancer for the lord trea- 
 surer, and received from him by the clerk of the estreats, 
 who writes them out to be served for the king, &c. Pro- 
 vision is made for the due return, estreating, and levying 
 of fines, &c. in the superior and some other courts by 3 & 
 4 W. 4. c. 99. 
 
 ES'TRICH. The commercial name of the fine down of 
 the ostrich. 
 ES'TUARY. See jEstuary. 
 
 ETiE'RIO. In Botany, an aggregate fruit, having the 
 ovaries distinct, pericarp indehiscent ; either dry upon a 
 fleshy receptacle, as the strawberry ; or dry upon a dry re- 
 ceptacle, as the ranunculus ; or fleshy upon a dry recep- 
 tacle, as the rubus : the parts being achenia or small drupes. 
 ET C VETERA, usually expressed by the sign §c, means 
 and so on. 
 ETCHING. See Engraving. 
 
 ETCHING NEEDLE. An instrument of steel with a 
 fine point, for tracing outlines, &c. on the copper plate. 
 
 ETE'RNITY. An attribute of the Deity, the existence 
 of whom is without beginning or end. It is the immediate 
 consequence of the self-existence which we attribute to 
 him. Being the cause of all things, he is himself inde- 
 pendent of any cause. 
 
 Eternity being infinite, is inconceivable by our finite un- 
 derstandings; at the same time, we cannot imagine an 
 infinite being to exist without it. There is a distinction 
 made between an anterior and a posterior eternity. The 
 latter belongs to creatures whom God proposes to pre- 
 serve forever ; the former to himself alone. We suppose 
 God to exist without parts, and also without succession. It 
 is an inconsistency in atheism to suppose a succession 
 of generations from an anterior eternity : nothing that is 
 successive can be actually infinite and eternal. 
 ETESIAN WINDS. See Winds. 
 
 E'THAL. A substance formed during the saponification 
 of spermaceti. Chevreul derived the name from the first 
 syllables of ether and alcohol, on account of its analogy to 
 those liquids in point of composition. 
 
 E'THER. (Gr. aidtjp.) In Chemistry, this term is ap- 
 plied to a highly volatile, fragrant, inflammable, and intoxi- 
 cating liquid, produced by distilling a mixture of equal 
 weights of sulphuric acid and alcohol. When these liquids 
 mutually act on each other, a series of complicated changes 
 ensue, which terminate in the conversion of alcohol into 
 ether. Ether, like alcohol, may be regarded as a com- 
 pound of hydrocarbon and water; and if alcohol be con- 
 sidered as consisting of one equivalent of olefiant hydro- 
 carbon =14, and one of water = 9, ether may be regarded 
 as constituted of two of olefiant hydrocarbon (14 X 2) = 28, 
 and one of water = 9: hence, the equivalent of alcohol being 
 14 + 9 = 23, that of ether will be 14 X 2 = 28 + 9 = 37 ; and 
 the process of etherification maybe stated to consist in the 
 abstraction from alcohol of one half of its elemental water. 
 By some, ether is regarded as the oxide of a peculiar hy- 
 drocarbon, which they term ethu/e, composed of 4 equiva- 
 lents of carbon and 5 equivalents of hydrogen ; and alcohol 
 must in that case be considered as hydrate of ether. 
 
 Ether, or, as it is often called, to distinguish it from analo- 
 gous products obtained by the intervention of other acids, 
 sulphuric ether, is a limpid colourless fluid, of an agreeable 
 odour, and a hot pungent taste. Its specific gravity is about 
 0713, though that of the shops is usually heavier ; it boils at 
 about 98°, and freezes at the low temperature of 46° below 
 0°. The specific gravity of etherial vapour compared with 
 atmospheric air is as 258 to 100. Ether is sparingly soluble 
 in water, which takes up about a tenth of its bulk ; it dis- 
 solves in all proportions in alcohol. The principal use of 
 ether is in medicine. When taken internally, it is stimu- 
 lant ; and it is sometimes applied externally, by reason of 
 the cold produced during its evaporation, as an ingredient 
 in refrigerating lotions. 
 
 ETHE'RIA. (Gr. ai6o), I shine.) A genus of Lamelli- 
 branchiate Dimyary Bivalves, with a large ventral muscular 
 plate or foot, as in the Uniones; but having their shell ad-
 
 ETHERIN. 
 
 herent, as in the oyster, to foreign bodies : the hinge is 
 toothless, irregular, undulated, and callous ; the ligament 
 external, but penetrating in a pointed form into the interior 
 of the shell. The term Etheria has also been applied by 
 Rafinesque to a genus of Macrourous Crustacea. 
 
 E'TIIEIUN. A name applied by some chemists to 
 quadrihydrocarbon ; that is, to an hydrocarbon 1 atom or 
 equivalent of which is constituted of 4 atoms of carbon and 
 4 of hydrogen. It is obvious that such a compound may- 
 be regarded as the base of ether; its equivalent would be 
 6X4=24+4=29. 
 
 E'THICS. (Gr. ij9oj, custom, moral character.) The 
 science the object of which is to determine what ought to 
 be in relation to voluntary action, and to those dispositions, 
 faculties, or affections of mind which tend mediately or 
 immediately to voluntary action. It has been our aim 
 throughout the present work, in all articles relating lo ab- 
 stract or speculative subjects, especially to such as have 
 been matter of long controversy, rather to present our 
 readers with a history of the opinions which have been held 
 by others, and to direct them to the works in which those 
 opinions are maintained with the greatest ability, than to 
 give a systematic account of what appeared to us the cor- 
 rect view of the particular department of inquiry before 
 us. The definition with which we preface this article may 
 appear in some degree a deviation from this our practice, 
 inasmuch as it contains by implication a decision of certain 
 questions in the science before us, which some of our 
 readers may consider to be still "sub jutlice," besides in- 
 cluding the use of terms to which it his been asserted by 
 certain modern writers on ethics that no intelligible mean- 
 ing can be attached. Our answer is, that we can conceive 
 of no definition, not including the terms in question, or 
 their equivalents, which shall justify us in assigning to the 
 science of ethics an independent existence, or, by conse- 
 quence, in giving to the word which designates it a distinct 
 place and a separate treatment. Whether the words 
 •' ought" and li voluntary" have any meaning or not, must 
 appear from the sequel : it is enough for our present pur- 
 pose that the majority of moralists have believed them to 
 possess one. 
 
 There is no subject within the limits of speculation con- 
 cerning which controversy has been waged with greater 
 vehemence, with the exception, perhaps, of theology, than 
 that of ethics. We have not far to search for the general 
 reasons of this fact. Besides being a science of pre-emi- 
 nent interest to those who unite high moral feeling and a 
 concern for the interests of their kind with a capacity for 
 speculation, it is a science also the treatment of which is 
 peculiarly liable to be affected by the moral nature and ha- 
 bits of those who take it in hand. Without taking upon us 
 to assert that, to be a good ethical writer, it is necessary to 
 be a good man, we think that the history of speculation 
 justifies us in the belief that a partial or confined view of 
 moral science intlicates, for the most part, a corresponding 
 excess or defect in the moral qualities of the person hold- 
 ing it ; at least where such peculiarity cannot be traced 
 either to imperfect intellectual qualifications, or to singu- 
 larly unfavourable circumstances of time, place, or educa- 
 tion. Systems which have sprung up under such influ- 
 ences commonly expire with the circumstances which 
 called them into being. The youthful student may indeed 
 be attracted by the ingenuity or confounded by the subtlety 
 with which they have been maintained ; but with a person 
 of sound mind, who has access to writers of larger and 
 deeper views, they cannot long maintain a place in his un- 
 derstanding, much less in his practical habits. We have 
 introduced these remarks, partly as our justification for 
 omittinir from this article all notice of such systems as 
 those of Epicurus in ancient, and Hobbes, Helvetius, and 
 Mandeville in modern times ; and partly as an introduc- 
 tion to what we shall make the central point of our obser- 
 vations — an account of the controversy which at present 
 divides ethical speculators in England. We allude, it will 
 be perceived, to the dispute which has for some time pre- 
 vailed between the respective partizans of what have 
 been called the "utilitarian" and "sentimental" schools. 
 Those who are acquainted with the most recent records 
 of opinion which have been published on both sides of this 
 controversy will see reason to wonder at two things : at the 
 very small real discrepancy between the parlies engaged ; 
 and at the singular vehemence with which they disclaim 
 all community of opinion, and strive to establish a diffe- 
 rence which does not exist, or to exaggerate one which 
 does. An historical examination of the origin and growth 
 of the two schools will in a great degree explain these two 
 facts ; inasmuch as it will show that the difference between 
 the disputants is one rather of feeling and habit than of 
 pure theory. It will also serve as a thead whereon to hang 
 such notices of past systems as it was necessary to give, 
 in order to impart to this article the same historical cha- 
 racter with that possessed by the articles on similar sub- 
 jects which occur during the course of this work. We 
 ehall thus have an opportunity of communicating to our 
 423 
 
 ETHICS. 
 
 readers by far the most of what is really important in 
 English ethical speculation ; and in the attempt which we 
 shall make to show the essential incompleteness of both 
 theories, and to indicate the true central point from which 
 the science of morals ought to be viewed, we shall be ena- 
 bled to introduce an account of some of the leading fea- 
 tures which distinguished the systems of antiquity. We 
 begin with those whom we liave named the sentimental 
 moralists. 
 
 The most eminent of these have been men who avc 
 devoted their attention chiefly or entirely to what may be 
 called empyrical psychology ; that science, namely, which 
 determines the sequences of mental phenomena, and their 
 dependence on each other in the relation of cause and ef- 
 fect ; in one word, to the physics of the mind. In tins de- 
 partment of science the most fruitful discovery that has 
 been made is what is commonly named the Law of As- 
 sociation. This law, according lo which Hobbes and Con- 
 dillac atlempted to account for the origin of our perceptive 
 and intellectual faculties, was applied with better success 
 by Hartley to the analysis of our emotive principles. The 
 moral sentiments, the ultimate source of which Hutchison 
 held to be benevolence, and Adam Smith sympathy, Hart 
 ley sought still lower, in the simple capacity of organic 
 pleasure and pain. From these original elements arc 
 formed, by successive or co-ordinate processes of associa- 
 tion, the feelings of sympathy, gratitude, resentmem. 
 shame, and the like ; and, as the last and most perfect for- 
 mation, the faculty of moral approbation or disapprobation. 
 This theory, which must not be, as it frequently is, con- 
 founded with the selfish theory, is that which the cele- 
 brated dissertation of the late Sir James Mackintosh, pre- 
 fixed to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, is intended to illus- 
 trate. It is in reference to the successive stages of deve- 
 lopment of the associative principle that this elegant work 
 is alone valuable. Its author may be considered as end- 
 ing the series of sentimental moralists; in which, in ad- 
 dition to the names given above, may be inserted that of 
 Dr. Thomas Brown. The result of their speculations is, 
 that they have established the existence of a moral faculty 
 in man, as a fact of natural history : a fact, also, which 
 holds a distinct and defined place in a physical theory. It 
 is, as we shall see, by no means an insignificant circum- 
 stance thai, of the five names we have enumerated, two 
 were physicians by profession, and one had dedicated 
 great part of his youth to the study of practical medicine. 
 
 The reputed father of the "utilitarian" moralists is tne 
 celebrated Jeremy Bentham. The labours of this unques- 
 tionably powerful thinker were principally devoted to the 
 sciences of legislation and jurisprudence; to which, also, 
 much of the attention of those who profess themselves his 
 followers or admirers has been directed. It is only as aux- 
 iliary to these sciences that Mr. Bentham has handled the 
 subject of morality. The most complete account of the 
 utilitarian principle is to be found in Mr. Austin's work on 
 jurisprudence. This principle is thus enunciated : — "The 
 morality or immorality of an act consists in the beneficial 
 or pernicious consequences resulting from it ; the morality 
 or immorality of an agent, in the goodness orbadness of his 
 intention, the goodness or badness of the intention being 
 determined by the nature of the consequences which are 
 foreseen, or might be foreseen, as resulting from the act." 
 Here, we are told, we must carefully distinguish between 
 intention and motive ; between foresight of the conse- 
 quences of an action, and the state of mind which causes 
 the action. To quote an instance used by the acute author 
 of a recent work named A Fragment on Mackintosh, — "A 
 man, to save his family from starving, wires a hare on my 
 estate. My first impulse is to throw him into jail. Before 
 I determine to do so, however, I consider the misery which 
 I shall bring on the man himself, and the state of want, 
 wretchedness, and probable demoralization, into which I 
 shall plunge his family. In spite of these foreseen conse- 
 quences, 1 resolve to prosecute him. Here my motive is the 
 preservation of my game, my intention the production of 
 misery and vice in a multitude of my fellow-creatures. 
 The immorality of this act manifestly consists in the inten- 
 tion ; the motive is neither moral nor immoral." Having 
 given this preparatory illustration, we shall extract from 
 the same work what is there denominated "A list of the 
 requisites of a moral act." These are—"]. The motive. 
 There is no act without a motive ; but the motive is ir 1- 
 self neither moral nor immoral. 2. The volition. There 
 is no act which is not willed ; but the act of willing is 
 neither moral nor immoral. 3. What is called the external 
 act ; to wit, the bodily part or motive. That, like the motive, 
 is in itself neither moral nor immoral. The same bodily ope- 
 ration is indifferently a part of every sort of act. It is, how- 
 ever, a necessary part of every act. 4 The consequences 
 of the act. An act which has no consequences that are 
 materially either beneficial or hurtful is not called a moral 
 act. That alone receives this denomination which has 
 consequences material to some one or more human be- 
 ings. 5. The ex-pectativn of the beneficial consequences in
 
 ETHICS. 
 
 the 7nind of the agent. 6. This is not all : it is not enough to 
 make an act moral that the agent expects from it benelicial 
 consequences to somebody ; it is further necessary that he 
 have no reason to expect from it evil consequences equiva- 
 lent to any other body ; that is, in other words, that he have 
 a conviction of its general utility." 
 
 In order to obviate an objection to the principle so enun- 
 ciated, — viz. that it supposes a laborious calculation of con- 
 sequences to precede every moral action, — Mr. Auslin, in 
 the work to which we previously alluded (The Province 
 of Jurisprudence Determined), qualifies the statement by 
 the admission that the principle of utility itself requires 
 that our conduct should be guided by general rules, formed 
 according to the principle of utility, and not by an imme- 
 diate appeal to utility itself in each particular instance. 
 Thus qualified, the principle is precisely the same with 
 that laid down by Kant, as the "groundland of the pure 
 practical reason :"— " Act so that the maxims of thy will, in 
 each particular instance, may hold equally as the principle 
 of a universal legislation." And this philosopher, in com- 
 mon with the English utilitarians, regards this principle as 
 a postulate which lies at the foundalion of morality. Thus 
 explained, it will be seen that there is no theoretical incon- 
 sistency between the utilitarian and sentimental moralists. 
 Sir James Mackintosh expressly admits that the only crite- 
 rion of morality in action,— that is, the only criterion by 
 which right and wrong in human conduct can be deter- 
 mined. — is the consequences of such conduct on the hap- 
 piness of mankind. It has been with reason objected, that 
 the second department of the two into which he divides 
 the science of ethics, "the nature of those feelings with 
 which right and wrong are contemplated by human be- 
 ings," does not in itself belong to morality at all. It is in 
 truth a part of psychology, and nothing more, and that by 
 his own admission, that the purpose of moral science is 
 " to answer the question ' what ought to be.' " The obli- 
 gation of the rule of action is the same, whatever are the 
 feelings with which we may happen to regard right and 
 wrong : and whatever may be their origin, and the process 
 of their formation. That the nature of these feelings ought 
 to be made an important item in every calculation of the 
 consequences of our actions, would be admitted by any 
 consistent utilitarian who is capable of such considerations, 
 and that in obedience to his own principle. The science 
 of psychology is admitted by such persons to be a valuable 
 auxiliary to that of ethics, and as such has been elaborately 
 treated by Mr. Mill, in his Analysis of the Human Mind. 
 This we conceive to be all that Sir James Mackintosh, in 
 the principles of his general philosophy, had a right to 
 claim for that branch of science, to the elucidation of 
 which he has devoted by far the greater part of his disserta- 
 tion. The relation between utilitarianism and sentiment- 
 alism may consequently be expressed thus : It is our duty 
 so to frame our conduct, that it may contribute as much as 
 possible to the happiness of mankind. The happiness of a 
 man consists, as experience proves, not in the gratification 
 of one or two desires, but of as many as possible. But the 
 more faculties a man can exercise the more numerous are 
 his desires, and the greater the happiness of which he is 
 capable ; consequently, it is our duty to conlributeas much 
 as we can to the development of the faculties of all with 
 whom we have to do : the means to this end are supplied 
 by the science of experimenlal psychology, including the 
 doctrine of the formation, among other faculties, of the 
 moral sentiments. 
 
 The question now arrives, is this a complete theory of 
 morals 1 We think not ; and we will proceed to state our 
 reasons for this opinion. It will be admitted, that in order 
 to conceive of the existence of a particular class of plea- 
 sures, and by consequence of a particular class of facul- 
 ties or desires of which these pleasures are the exercise 
 or the gratification, we must be conscious of the existence 
 of the same class in our own constitution. What is true 
 of one class is true of all. Before, therefore, we can take 
 upon us to determine wherein the greatest happiness of 
 man consists, we must take care that our idea of human 
 nature be a complete one ; we must see to it that we leave 
 out of consideration no element in the constitution of man. 
 Nor is this enough. It will be admitted, as a fact of ex- 
 perience, that the gratificalion of certain of our desires 
 does, if carried beyond certain bounds, impair and interfere 
 with the free action of certain other equally important 
 sources of enjoyment. Consequently, what is true of the 
 constitution of a slate, is true, likewise, of the constitution 
 of man: the action of its constituent parts requires to be 
 determined by some measure or law which shall appoint 
 to each the sphere and limits of its exercise. The Greek 
 philosophers, who, whatever may be their deficiencies in 
 subordinate inquiries, saw more distinctly than any before 
 or since the true problems which philosophy ought to 
 solve, have pointed to this law under different names— 
 whether of the chief good, the ride of right, the harmony 
 of thesoul, or the like— as the great difficulty of ethics to 
 the clearing up of which all other inquiries ought to be re- 
 424 
 
 ETHNOGRAPHY. 
 
 garded as subordinate and tributary. Of all the moralist? 
 of antiquity Plato perceived this with the greatest clear- 
 ness. His Republic is meant as an approximation to the 
 determination of this law, alike in the individual and in the 
 state. That we may not be accused of blind veneration 
 for antiquity, we will adduce the most celebrated ethical 
 writer of the last century in our justification. Those of our 
 readers who have formed their conception of the objects 
 of Bishop Butler's moral writings from the strangely partial 
 view of them taken in Sir James Mackintosh's dissertation, 
 will probably be surprised to hear that his is the name to 
 which we allude. The preface which he has prefixed to 
 his Sermons is intended as a brief preliminary statement 
 of what he calls " the occasion, scope, or drift" of the de- 
 tached inquiries which follow. Of what this scope or drift 
 was we are bound to accept his own account ; and before 
 we can rightly apprehend it, he tells us we must " he- 
 gin by stating to ourselves exactly the idea of a system, 
 economy, or constitution, of any particular nature, or 
 particular anything. We shall, I suppose, find that it is 
 a one, or a whole, made up of several parts ; but yet 
 that the several parts, even considered as a whole, do not 
 complete the idea, unless in the notion of a whole you in- 
 clude the relations and respects which these parts have to 
 each other. Every work, both of nature and art, i»a sys- 
 tem ; and as every particular thing, both natural and artifi- 
 cial, is for some use or purpose out of and beyond itself, 
 one may add, to what has been already brought into the idea 
 of a system, its conduciveness to this one or more ends. 
 Let us instance a watch : Suppose the several parts of it 
 taken to pieces, and placed apart from each other; let a. 
 man have ever so exact a notion of these several parts, un- 
 less he considers the respects and relations which they 
 have to each other, he will not have anything like the idea 
 of a watch. Suppose these several parts brought together 
 and united anyhow; neither will he yet, be the union ever 
 so close, have an idea which will bear any resemblance to 
 that of a watch. But let him view those several parts put 
 together, or consider them as to be put together in the 
 manner of a watch ; let him form a notion of the relations 
 which those several parts have to each other — all condu- 
 cive in their respective ways to this purpose, showing the 
 hour of the day ; and then he has the idea of a watch. Thus 
 it is with regard to the inward frame of man. Appetites, 
 passions, affections, and the principle of reflection, consi- 
 dered merely as the several parts of our inward nature, rfo 
 not at all give us the idea of the system or constitution of thie- 
 nature ; because the constitution is formed by somewhat not 
 yet taken into consideration, namely, by the relations which 
 these several parts have to each other." Bishop Butler goes, 
 on to remark, that "what in fact or event commonly hap- 
 pens is nothing to this question ;" for, " one may determine 
 what course of action the economy of man's nature requires, 
 without so much as knowing in what degrees of strength 
 the several principles prevail, or which of them have ac- 
 tually the greatest inlluence." But between a machine and 
 a man, says Butler, in allusion to the illustration from the 
 watch, " there is a difference loo important ever to be omit- 
 ted. A machine is inanimate and passive : but we are 
 agents. Our constitution is put in our own power. We are 
 charged with it ; and therefore are accountable for any dis- 
 order or violation of it." The inference which an impartial 
 reader of these quotations, after comparing them with the 
 Sermons on Human Nature, will necessarily draw is this, 
 that notonly has Butler's object and purpose been miscon 
 ceived by Mackintosh, but that it was an object which, con 
 sistently with the rest of his philosophy, Mackinlosh must 
 have held to be unattainable. For it implies two things; 
 first, that in order to complete the rule of human action, 
 we must have an idea of perfect humanity ; secondly, that 
 before such rule can be binding upon man, we must show, 
 not only that, he feels himself or may be made to feel him 
 self, but that he really is, accountable for its violation. 
 Whether these two questions can be adequately disposed 
 of without the introduction of higher, that is, of theological 
 or metaphysical considerations, is a matter which each man 
 must decide according to the tenorof his general philosophy. 
 The former of the two was so distinctly perceived by Aris- 
 totle, that his whole ethical system must be viewed in refer- 
 ence to it; the latter lies atthoroot of the moral philosophy 
 of Kant. Until the first is disposed of, the rule of action is 
 implicated in an inevitable circle ; without the second, no 
 rule can be shown to be obligatory, and ethics can no longer 
 be distinguished on the one hand from the history of inter- 
 nal, on the other from that of external, phenomena. 
 
 E'THIOPS MINERAL. The black powder obtained by 
 rubbina mercury with sulphur. 
 
 ETHMOPD. (Gr. tduos, a sieve, and ados, form.) The 
 ethmoid or cribriform bone. A bone of the head enclosed 
 in the osfrontis, between the orbilary processes ; it is very 
 light and spongy, and consists of a network of convoluted 
 plates. 
 
 ETHNQ'GRAPHY. (Gr. iQvos, nation, and ypa<ph>, / 
 describe.) The science which treats of the parltcularilies
 
 ETHULE. 
 
 of nations, describing their customs, peculiarities, &.c. Al- 
 though a peculiar name has been given to it, it. is in general 
 considered as a branch of the sciences of geography and 
 history. (See Balbi's Ethnography.) 
 
 ETHU'LE. (Or. aiQrip, and «Xi), principle.) A term 
 applied by Berzelius to the elementary carbon and hydro- 
 gen of ether ; he regards ether as an oxide of a compound 
 of 5 equivalents of hydrogen and 4 of carbon. 
 
 E'TIOLA'TION, or CHLOROSIS, is that condition of a 
 plant in which all the green colour is absent. Such a stale 
 Is produced by want of light, and is artificially obtained by 
 keeping plants in the dark in order to insure their being 
 more tender and insipid than is natural to them. Etiolated 
 parts become green by exposure to light. 
 
 ETiaUE'TTE. (Fr. a ticket.) Is the ceremonial code 
 of polite life, more voluminous and minute in each portion 
 of society according to its rank. The word is derived from 
 the custom of arranging places at processions, <&c. by tick- 
 ets delivered beforehand to applicants. The Byzantine 
 court appears to have carried the practice of ceremonial 
 observances to the most inconvenient and ludicrous extent. 
 But of modern courtly etiquette, Philip the Good. Dukf> of 
 Burgundy, is regarded by some as the founder (see Con- 
 versations Lexicon). His desire to conceal his inferiority 
 in rank (as a great feudatory only) to the great sovereigns 
 of Europe, whom he equalled in power, induced him to 
 surround his presence with a multitude of officers and 
 numberless formalities. At no time, probably, was the 
 spirit of etiquette so predominant and so tyrannical as in 
 the court of Louis XIV. ; and the Memoirs of St. Simon 
 are full of the most extraordinary proofs of the subjugation 
 of the minds of men of sense, wit, and even independent 
 character in other respects, to its engrossing influence, — 
 their pride in attaining any little point of precedence, and 
 their mortification in failing of it. The smaller courts of 
 Germany caricatured the ceremonial of that of the Great 
 Monarch, and carried its strictness to an absurd extent. 
 At the present day the ancient etiquette of courts is con- 
 tinually losing something of its strictness. 
 
 ETYMO'LOGY. (Gr. trvpos, true, and \oyos, descrip- 
 tion, &c.) The science which treats of the origin or root 
 of individual words, and of the relation borne respectively 
 by their several meanings to that origin. It is a branch of 
 the general science of philology. See Philology. 
 
 EU'CIIARIST. (Gr. ev\apiaTia.) Signifying properly 
 giving of thanks, but generally used in theological language 
 to denote the sacrament of the Lord's Supper. The cele- 
 bration of this rite is derived from the account given by 
 the Evangelists of the action of our Lord in offering to the 
 apostles bread and wine, saying at the same time, " Take 
 and eat, this is my body ;" and " Drink ye all of this, for 
 this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for 
 many for the remission of sins ;" and adding at the same 
 time, "Do this as oft as ye shall do it in remembrance of 
 me." This commemoration is spoken of in the N. T. and 
 by the Fathers as a sacrament and a mystery ; it must be 
 supposed, therefore, that there is an interior signification 
 conveyed under our Saviour's words — a further effect to be 
 derived from the communion in the bread and wine be- 
 sides that which is obvious and external. Under the head 
 of Transubstantiation will be found the solution which 
 the Roman Catholics discover for this mystery. Consub- 
 stantiation. or the simultaneous presence of the body and 
 blood with the bread and wine, is the attempt made by Lu- 
 ther to explain the operation of a divine mystery according 
 to the literal interpretation of Scripture. According to the 
 doctrine of the Anglican church, there is an inward and 
 spiritual grace conveyed in the Eucharist to those who par- 
 take of it ; and it is in this that our church diners from 
 many Protestant communities, whe conceive the commu- 
 nion to be nothing more than an outward act of obedience 
 enjoined upon us as a commemorative ceremony, and only 
 instrumental to our salvation in the same way as any other 
 act of obedience. See Sacrament. 
 
 It is common in the Fathers to meet with the term sa- 
 crifice applied to the Eucharist, and this has been consi- 
 dered by the Romanists as favouring their view of its na- 
 ture. They appeal also to the prophecy of Malachi, which 
 alludes to a pure offering or an unbloody sacrifice, which 
 shall be offered up to the Lord from the rising to the set- 
 ting of the sun ; and maintain, therefore, that the conse- 
 crated elements are offerings made to God for the sins of 
 the people, in the same sense as the expiatory sacrifices of 
 the Jewish law, and not merely commemorative tokens. 
 From hence follows the supposed necessity of the sacri- 
 fice of the Mass, and its efficacy for the absent, or even 
 dead, and the mediatorial character attributed in the Ro- 
 mish church to the priest. The Protestants, however, 
 while they do not deny the applicability of the word sacri- 
 fice to the Eucharist, restrict it to one of the senses which 
 it bears in the Hebrew phraseology ; and consider the pure 
 offering prophesied by Malachi to be an offering of prayer 
 and thanksgiving, such as is constantly referred to by the 
 Psalmist; as, CXLI. 2., "Let my prayer be set forth be- 
 425 
 
 EUPATRID^. 
 
 fore thee as incense, and the rising up of my hands as the 
 evening sacrifice;" LI. 17., "The sacrifices of God are a 
 broken spirit," &c. The seventh chapter of Hebrews is 
 considered decisive against the mediatorial character of 
 the Christian priest; and the Eucharist is held by the 
 church of England to be not a propitiatory but a com- 
 memorative sacrifice — a federal act of professing our 
 belief in the death of Christ, and of renewing our bap- 
 tismal covenant with him ; and endued with virtue to 
 confer grace upon those who partake of it sincerely and 
 devoutly. 
 
 EU'CHLORINE. (Gr. ev. very, and xXupos, green.) 
 A name given by Sir H. Davy to the oxide of chlorine, in 
 consequence of its deep yellow-green colour. 
 
 EUCHO'LOGY. (Gr. ivxi, prayer, and Ae^gj, I collect.) 
 A book of prayers; synonymous, in the phraseology of the 
 Roman Catholic church, with missal or breviary. 
 
 EU'CLASE. (Gr. tv, well, and /cAaw, I break.) A very 
 rare mineral, brought in small greenish crystals from Peru 
 and Brazil. It is a silicate of glucina and alumina. 
 
 EU'CRASY. (Gr. tv, and Kpaois, temperature.) An 
 agreeable well-proportioned mixture of qualities, by which 
 a body is said to be in good order, and disposed for a good 
 state of health. 
 
 EUDIO'METER. iGr. evSia, calm air, and ptrpov, mea- 
 sure.) This term is generally applied to instruments for 
 facilitating the analysis of atmospheric air, or rather for 
 determining the quantity of oxygen contained in a given 
 volume of air; under the idea that the salubrity of air de- 
 pended upon its relative quantity of oxygen. We now 
 know, however, that this is not the case, and that the rela- 
 tion of the oxygen to the nitrogen in the atmosphere is not 
 subject to any discernible fluctuation. 
 
 EU'LABES. (Gr. iv\a/3fis, timid.) A genus of Passe- 
 rine birds, belonging to the family of thrushes, and distin- 
 guished by having broad strips of naked skin on each side 
 of the occiput, and a bald spot on the cheek. The bill 
 nearly resembles that of a thrush ; their nostrils are round 
 and smooth. The species are termed Mainates by the 
 French ornithologists ; and the Javan mainate (Eulabes 
 javamens) of all birds is said to imitate most completely the 
 language of man. 
 
 El'Ll'MA. (Derivation unknown.) A genus of marine 
 shell-clad Gastropods, whose characters are shell turreted, 
 acuminate, with many whorls ; aperture ovate, acumi- 
 nated posteriorly ; outer lip thickened, and bearing nume- 
 rous obsolete varices or wart-like processes ; operculum 
 horny, thin, and with its nucleus anterior. 
 
 EU'LOGY. (Gr. tv, tcell, and Xtyoj, I speak.) In a ge- 
 neral sense, an encomium pronounced on any person for 
 his meritorious or virtuous qualities; but, in a more re- 
 stricted meaning, it was used in ecclesiastical history to 
 denote any present bestowed on the church after having 
 been blessed or hallowed. 
 
 EU'NICE. (Gr. The name of a Nereid in Apollodorus.) 
 A genus of Marine Dorsibranchiate Anellidans, having 
 tufted branchia, and a mouth armed with three pairs of 
 homy jaws. One species (Eunice gigantea) attains the 
 enormous length of between four and five feet. 
 
 EU'NUCH. (Gr. tvvn, a bed, and txtiv, m tne sense of 
 to have the care of.) A term applied to those who have 
 been subjected to the operation of castration. The for- 
 tunes of such individuals form an eventful chapter in the 
 history of the human race ; whether we consider the pur- 
 poses for which the operation was performed, or the num- 
 bers of those who have undergone it. This practice seems 
 to have originated in the jealousy which prevails in eastern 
 countries. As far back as the time of Herodotus, it was 
 carried to a great extent by the Persians, who not merely 
 intrusted to eunuchs the care of their wives and daughters, 
 but considered them in every respect as more trustworthy 
 than other individuals. In the middle ages the "chief of 
 the eunuchs" was one of the most important functionaries 
 of eastern government ; and the seraglios of these countries 
 are superintended by eunuchs even in the present day. In 
 modern times the loss of virility is in some countries believ- 
 ed to preserve and improve the voice ; and hence, especially 
 in Italy, this operation is practised upon children intended 
 to supply the operas of Europe with singers. Zeal for re- 
 ligion has also caused many persons to undergo this ope- 
 ration, in the view of guarding themselves from sensual 
 pleasures. As early as the third century there arose a 
 class of enthusiasts, who, animated by the example of Ori- 
 gen, not only castrated those of their own persuasion, but 
 even all persons on whom they could lay their hands. Se- 
 veral of the Christian Roman emperors instituted severe 
 prohibitions against this revolting practice ; and at a later 
 period the Council of Nice excluded from the pale of the 
 church all who, actuated by whatever motives, had allowed 
 themselves to be thus mutilated. 
 
 EUPA'TRHXE. (Gr. ivrdrpiSai.) In Ancient History, 
 
 the nobles of Attica, in whose hands in early times all the 
 
 power of government was vested, in consequence of which 
 
 the lower orders sunk into a low state of degradation, being 
 
 Cc*
 
 EUPHEMISM. 
 
 particularly oppressed by their debts which the pressure of 
 their circumstances compelled them to incur, and which, 
 if not paid, gave the creditor power over the bodies and 
 liberties of the debtor and his family. These evils were 
 remedied by the legislation of Solon, who reduced the in- 
 terest of debts, and deprived the creditor of his power over 
 the body of the debtor, and at the same time threw the ju- 
 dicial and much of the legislative power into the hands of 
 the people at large or Demus (Arj//os). The alterations in 
 the constitution of Athens subsequent to the time of Solon 
 by degrees deprived the Eupatrida? of all their political 
 privileges, and finally established an unmixed democracy. 
 
 EU'PHEMISM. (Gr. svfrincTv, to speak icell of a person 
 or thing.) A figure in rhetoric, by which one expression 
 is substituted for another, conveying, through some associ- 
 ation of ideas, an image offensive to the hearer or reader. 
 In classical writers, euphemism often arises from a super- 
 stitious avoidance of certain words and phrases; and 
 among ourselves similar fastidiousness prevails on some 
 points, as in the constant use of the words " deceased" 
 and "departed" for "dead." 
 
 EU'PHONY (Gr. tv, well, and (buvrj, sound), in contra- 
 distinction to Cacophony (quod vide). That agreeable qual- 
 ity in language which results from happy combinations of 
 the enunciative elements ; such especially as, though essen- 
 tially different in their characteristic powers, melt easily 
 into each other, so as to preserve an uninterrupted flow 
 through the respective members of a sentence, without 
 labour to the speaker or offence to the hearer. No rules 
 can be laid down to ensure this agreeable quality in com- 
 position : his taste, ear, and discrimination must be the 
 guide of every writer. 
 
 EUPHORBIA'CETE. (Euphorbia, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of Exogenous plants, inhabitants of almost 
 all parts of the globe; nearly allied to Malvacea, and Eham- 
 nacecb, especially agreeing with the former in the starry 
 structure of the hairs, the monadelphous stamens, and the 
 definite number of ovules in three united carpels. Their 
 sensible properties are. on the whole, poisonous and excit- 
 ing, both being of a volatile nature and often dispelled by 
 heat. Thus the stem of Jatropha manihot, or Cassava, 
 which, when raw, is one of the most violent of poisons, 
 becomes a wholesome nutritious food when roasted : in 
 the seeds the albumen is harmless and eatable, but the 
 embryo itself is acrid and dangerous. Independently of 
 the volatile principle there are two others,— viz. 1. Caout- 
 chouc, the most innocuous of all substances, produced by 
 the most poisonous of all families. 2. Turnsol, the bark 
 of several crotons, the wood of Croton tiglium and com- 
 mon box, — the leaves of the latter, of Cicca disticha, and 
 of several euphorbias, are sudorific, — and many other spe- 
 cies, amongst which Ricinus may be mentioned, are pur- 
 gative ; the latter produces from its seeds by pressure the 
 well-known castor oil. 
 
 EUPHO'RBIUM. (From Euphorbus, physician to king 
 Juba, in honour of whom the plant was named.) An acrid 
 gum resin, the produce of the Euphorbia officinalis ; it is 
 virulently purgative and emetic, and the dust of it is dan- 
 gerously stimulant to the nose. 
 
 EU'PION. (Gr. ev, very, and mav, greasy.) A very 
 limpid liquid which stains paper like oil, and which exists 
 in the tar produced during the destructive distillation of 
 animal and vegetable substances. Its specific gravity is 
 074, and it boils and evaporates at 340°. It is insoluble in 
 water, but dissolves in ether and alcohol. It is insipid and 
 inodorous, but highly inflammable. 
 
 EURI'PUS. (Gr. evptiro;.) In Ancient Architecture, the 
 space which separated the arena from the seals in the 
 circus. 
 
 EURO'PA. In Fabulous History, the daughter of Age- 
 nor, king of Sidon. She is represented as having been of 
 such surpassing beauty that Jupiter became enamoured 
 of her. In order to gain her affection the god transformed 
 himself into a bull of wonderful whiteness, and while Eu- 
 ropa was gathering flowers in a meadow near the sea shore, 
 mingled with her father's herds. The virgin, attracted by 
 the beauty of the bull, began to caress him ; and at length, 
 in the playfulness of youth, ventured to get on his back. 
 Upon which the bull, taking advantage of her situation, 
 made a retreat towards the sea, through which he carried 
 her in safety. Arrived in Crete, the god resumed his real 
 form, and declared his passion, which was returned ; and 
 from their connection sprang Minos, Rhadamanthus, and 
 iEacus, the celebrated Elysian judges. The simple state- 
 ment of Herodotus, that Europa was carried off by some 
 Cretan merchants, who, according to some authors, arrived 
 at. Sidon for mercantile purposes with a ship bearing a 
 white bull on its prow, but, according to Diodorus, with a 
 commander named Taurus (bull), offers one of many pro- 
 bable solutions of this fabulous story. From her, accord- 
 ing to my thologists, the quarter of the globe which we in- 
 habit received its name. The word is possibly derived from 
 Gr. evpvs , large, and coxp, the eye ; large eyes having been 
 regarded by the Greeks as a mark of great beauty. 
 426 
 
 EVAPORATION. 
 
 EUR VOICE. In Fabulous History. See OrFHeCS 
 
 EURY'THMV. (Gr. evftvO/tia, justness of proportion, j 
 In Architecture, the regular, just, and symmetrical measure 
 resulting from harmony in the proportions of a building or 
 order. It is one of the six essentials of Vitruvius. 
 
 EUSTA'CHIAN TUBE. Named after the celebrated 
 Italian anatomist Bartholomew Eustachius, who is said to 
 have discovered it, though it is accurately described by 
 Aristotle, who quotes an earlier Greek anatomist, Alcmeon. 
 as having known it. This communication between the ear 
 and the mouth begins in the anterior part of the tympanum, 
 and runs in a bony canal forwards and inwards, terminating 
 with the petrous portion of the temporal bone. It then pro- 
 ceeds, partly cartilaginous and partly membranous, gradu- 
 ally enlarging to its termination behind the soft palate. It 
 is through this tube of communication with the ear thai 
 persons who have a perforated tympanum blow tobacco 
 smoke : when the Eustachian tube is stopped or obliterated 
 it produces deafness. 
 
 EUSTA'CHIAN VALVE. A semilunar membranous 
 valve, which separates the right auricle of the heart from 
 the inferior vena cava, first described by Eustachius. 
 
 EUSTA'THIANS. A sect of heretics of the 4th century ; 
 so called from their founder Eustathius, a monk whose 
 opinions were condemned at the council of Gangea. 
 
 EU'STYLE. (Gr. tv, well, <rrt>Aos, column.) In Archi- 
 tecture, that species of intercolumniation or space between 
 columns, which, as the name imports, the ancients consi- 
 dered the most beautiful, and which Vitruvius says ex- 
 ceeded all others in strength, convenience, and beauty ; iJ 
 was two diameters and a quarter of the column in width. 
 
 EUTE'RPE. (Gr. tv, and rtpirco, I delight.) In Mytho- 
 logy, the muse which presided over wind instruments. 
 
 Si neque libiaa 
 Euterpe cohibet, nee Polyhymnia 
 Lesboum refugit tendere barbiton. {Hot. Ode I. 1.54.) 
 
 To this muse is ascribed also the invention of tragedy. 
 
 EUTHANA'SIA. (Gr. ev, and Bavaros, death.) Lite- 
 rally, an easy death. By political writers it is employed 
 in various senses to indicate such peculiar theories as have 
 the best tendency to uphold the state or disentangle it frons 
 difficulties. Thus, for instance, it is maintained that the 
 issue of inconvertible paper money is the true euthanasia 
 of public debts in modern countries. 
 
 EUTY'CHIANS. A sect of the fifth century, who ap- 
 pear to have been seduced into an erroneous view of the 
 nature of Christ by the vehemence of their opposition to 
 the heresy of the Nestorians. These latter had asserted 
 the distinctness of the two natures in Christ ; the Eu- 
 tychians confounded them together, and supposed the hu- 
 man to be merged in the divine. Their originator, Euty - 
 ches, was the abbot of a monastery at Constantinople, and 
 was excommunicated in the year 448 by a synod which 
 was convened there for that purpose. This decision was 
 controverted by another council at Ephesus in the following 
 year; but the new opinions were finally condemned by 
 the council of Chalcedon in 451, which established the 
 orthodox doctrine that Christ was perfect God and perfect 
 man, consubstantial with the Father as to his divinity, and 
 with man as to his humanity, the two natures being united 
 in him without conversion, without confusion, and with- 
 out division. 
 
 EVANGE'LICAL CHURCH. (Gr. ivayye\wv, gospel 
 literally good tidings : from tv, well, and ayytXos, messen- 
 ger.) The different Protestant sects of Germany assume 
 this general title, implying their reliance on the Bible alone 
 as the rule of faith : it more especially designates the Lu- 
 theran church. 
 
 EVA'NGELIST. (Gr. tvayysXtcrris.) One who brings 
 good tidings. Hence the authors of the Four Gospels are 
 called Evangelists. 
 
 EVA'NTES. Priests of Bacchus ; so called from their 
 usual exclamation during their org ; es, " ohe evan." 
 
 EVAPORA'TION. The conversion of substances into 
 vapour is one of the most important and general effects of 
 heat. During this process, a considerable quantity of sen- 
 sible heat passes into the latent or insensible state. When 
 a vessel of water is placed upon the fire, its temperature 
 gradually rises till it attains 212° ; then, although it remains 
 upon the fire, and of course receives heat as before, it 
 does not become hotter, but is gradually converted into 
 steam or vapour : so that the effect of heat is not to ele- 
 vate temperature, but to change state or form : that is, in 
 the case of water, to convert it into steam. Hence we as- 
 sume that steam, though not hotter than water, contains a 
 much larger quantity of heat, and this heat again makes its 
 appearance when the steam is condensed or re-converted 
 into water. At whatever temperature vapour is produced, 
 it is similarly constituted; and that which escapes from 
 water at ordinary temperatures, by the process usually 
 called spontaneous evaporation, resembles the former in 
 all respects : hence it is that evaporation is to surrounding 
 bodies a cooling process ; and that in the converse change^ 
 or the return of the vapour to the liquid state, heat »3
 
 EVECTION. 
 
 evolved and rendered sensible. The same general phe- 
 
 nomena are observed wilh all other liquids, and those which 
 evaporate rapidly at common temperatures often give rise 
 to the production of a great degree of cold ; such as spirit 
 of wine, or ether. If the latter fluid be suffered to dribble 
 over the bulb of a thermometer, it will cause it to sink be- 
 low the freezing point of water ; and by accelerating simi- 
 lar cases of evaporation, we obtain most intense degrees of 
 artificial cold. 
 
 The circumstances that principally influence the process 
 of evaporation are, extent of surface, and the state of the 
 air as to temperature, dryness, stillness, and density. 
 
 EVE'CTIOX. (Lat. eveho, / raixe up.) An inequality 
 of the moon's motion, depending on the position of the 
 transverse axis of the lunar orbit in respect of the line of 
 the syzygies, or line joining the sun and earth. When the 
 transverse axis lies in the same direction with that line, the 
 quantity by which the solar force diminishes the gravita- 
 tion of the moon is greatest when the moon is in the apo- 
 gee, and least in the perigee. In this situation of the orbit, 
 therefore, the difference between the moon's gravitation at 
 her apogee and perigee is increased by the solar action, 
 and the orbit consequently appears to have its eccentricity 
 augmented. When the line of the apsides is in the quad- 
 ratures, the contrary happens ; the difference between the 
 amount of gravitation at the apogee and perigee is dimin- 
 ished, and the eccentricity of the orbit appears also to be 
 diminished. The evection is proportional to the sine of 
 twice the angular distance between the sun and moon, di- 
 minished by the moon's mean anomaly ; and its greatest 
 value amounts to 1° 20' 29-9". This inequality (sometimes 
 called the second inequality of the moon's motion, the 
 equation of the centre being the first) was noticed by Hip- 
 parchus, and Ptolemy gave a construction which repre- 
 sents its general effects with great accuracy. The term 
 evection was first applied to it byBullialdus. 
 
 E'VEN KEEL. A ship is said to be on an even keel, 
 properly speaking, when she draws the same water abaft 
 as forward ; the expression, however, often implies, though 
 inaccurately, not inclined to either side, or upright. 
 
 E'VERGREEN. A name applied to those plants whose 
 leaves remain perfect upon a stem beyond a single season ; 
 as the Ilex aqutfoHum. 
 
 E'VIDENCE. In Law, has been defined "any matter 
 of fact, the effect, tendency, or design of which, when pre- 
 sented to the mind, is to produce a persuasion, affirmation, 
 or disaffirmation of the existence of some other matter of 
 fact." 
 
 A witness, in a court of common law, is compelled to 
 give his attendance, in civil cases, by subpoena, or by ha- 
 beas corpus if the witness be in custody. The reasonable 
 expenses both of going and returning must be tendered to 
 the witness when he is served with the subpoana. A wit- 
 ness, refusing to attend on subpoena, may be attached for 
 contempt of court, and is liable to an action at tfie suit of 
 the party damaged. In criminal cases, the attendance of a 
 witness for the prosecution is enforced either by subpasna, 
 or more usually by the magistrates who take the deposi- 
 tions in the first instance binding him over to appear. His 
 expenses, in a case of felony, are ensured to him by statute. 
 The defendant may compel attendance of his witnesses by 
 subpoena. 
 
 When the witness appears in court, objections may be 
 taken to his competency ; and those arising from his igno- 
 rance or unbelief, or turpitude of character, ought, in the 
 usual course, to be taken before he is sworn. 
 
 Incompetency. — 1. Incompetency from defect of religious 
 principle is where the witness disbelieves or is ignorant of 
 the existence of a God, and of a future state of rewards and 
 punishments. Infidels, therefore, are excluded ; but no 
 others of whatsoever sect or opinion. 2. Incompetency 
 from turpitude arises from a conviction for treason, felony, 
 and several misdemeanours ; but is removed by pardon, or 
 by reversal of the judgment, or by endurance of the punish- 
 ment awarded by the sentence. 3. The next source of in- 
 competency is interest ; and the general rule on this sub- 
 ject is, that a party is disqualified only by a direct and cer- 
 tain interest in the event of the suit. But it will be obvious 
 that the distinctions arising out of so general a proposition 
 are infinitely minute, and create constant difficulty in prac- 
 tice. The following are a few of the leading rules : — 
 
 All parties to the suit, although but nominal, are excluded 
 from giving evidence. A prosecutor, in a criminal case, is 
 not a party, nor directly interested in the verdict, and is 
 consequently admitted. A person to whom a liability 
 would immediately result from the verdict is incompetent 
 to give evidence for the party in whose success he is in- 
 terested ; as, for instance, one who has guaranteed a party 
 against the event of the suit ; or a co-partner ; or an agent 
 liable to his principal, in the case where a principal is sued 
 for any damage arising from the agent's neglect. A wit- 
 ness is also incompetent where he has an interest in the 
 record ; that is to say, where the judgment of the court, if 
 his party succeeded, would be evidence of a matter of fact 
 to entitle him to some legal advantage. In criminal pro- 
 427 
 
 EVIDENCE. 
 
 ceedings, however, no verdict obtained wholly or partly on 
 the testimony of any witness can be evidence for or against 
 that witness in any other proceeding; and therefore he 
 cannot be objected to on that ground. Some exceptions 
 also to this rule of exclusion arise from the necessity of the 
 case: upon this principle the testimony of the servants of 
 tradesmen, to prove the delivery of goods and payment of 
 money, is daily admitted. 
 
 The objection to competency is removable in some cases 
 by a release of all liability to the witness. But it is now 
 provided, by 3 <fc 4 W. 4. c. 42., that whenever a witness is 
 objected to as incompetent on the ground that the verdict 
 would be evidence for or against him, he shall neverthe- 
 less be heard ; and his name being entered on the back of 
 the record, the verdict so obtained shall never be used as 
 such evidence. 
 
 All testimony must be given under a judicial oath, with 
 an exception only in favour of Quakers, which is now ex- 
 tended to criminal as well as civil cases. 
 
 Evidence, immediate and mediate.— Besides the exclu- 
 sion of witnesses on the score of competency, large classes 
 of evidence are inadmissible. Admissible evidence must 
 be, in general, immediate: that is, it must convey the ac- 
 tual knowledge or belief of the witness. This rule excludes, 
 as a general proposition, all hearsay ; that is, all narration 
 of the declarations made by others to the witness. There 
 are, however, several classes of mediate testimony which 
 are admissible. Such are, general reputation in certain 
 cases ; and declarations, made by a parly to the suit, which 
 contain admissions contrary to hfs own interest. So, in va- 
 rious cases, letters or entries made in books are admissi- 
 ble, where they contain similar admissions. Upon the 
 same principle, the confession of a prisoner is evidence 
 (if unextorted by fear or hope) in a criminal case. Depo- 
 sitions of a witness now deceased, but who had formerly 
 given evidence on the same dispute, are admissible. Evi- 
 dence may also be considered as divided into original or 
 best, and secondary evidence. For instance, the reading 
 of a document is better evidence of its contents than state- 
 ments, either written or oral, respecting them. It is a 
 general rule, that all secondary evidence is excluded, if 
 better evidence (that is, evidence of a class which the law 
 recognizes as better) happen to be attainable. Other ex- 
 clusive rules rest on grounds of public policy. Thus hus- 
 band and wife are excluded from giving testimony for or 
 against each other. Communications between an attorney 
 and his client, and, for particular purposes, some other pri- 
 vate communications between parties, are in their nature 
 privileged. and cannot be given in evidence. 
 
 Examination of Witnesses. — A witness, on beingadmitted 
 in court, is first subjected to the examination of the party 
 in whose behalf he is called, which is termed the exatni- 
 nation in chief ; and the principal rule to be observed by 
 the party examining is, that leading questions are not to be 
 asked. What are leading questions, it is not always easy 
 to ascertain ; but questions to which the answer yes or no 
 would be conclusive of the issue fall undoubtedly within 
 this designation. All questions which suggest an answer 
 may be considered, in one sense, as leading questions ; but 
 they are not all equally objectionable. The witness is then 
 cross-examined by the opposite party. The object of cross- 
 examination is two-fold : to weaken the evidence given by 
 the witness as to the fact in question, eithi r by eliciting 
 contradictions or new explanatory facts ; or, secondly, to 
 invalidate the general credit of the witness. In the latter 
 case, it is a general rule, that a wilness may refuse to 
 answer any question, if his answer will expose him to cri- 
 minal liability; and this, whether immediately or by col- 
 lateral inference. Whether he can refuse to answer a 
 question tending to disgrace him without involving him in 
 danger, is a point which has been frequently debated, but 
 which the general practice of our courts seems to settle in 
 the affirmative. The credit of a witness may likewise be im- 
 peached by the general evidence of others as to his cha- 
 racter. But in this case no evidence can be given of par- 
 ticular facts which militate aeainst his general credit; as 
 this would be in contravention of another rule, that collate- 
 ral issues— questions of fact unconnected with the subject 
 of dispute — shall not be raised during the course of a trial. 
 Re- examination of a witness by the party who first ex- 
 amined him, must be directed to such new points only as 
 have been raised by the cross-examination. If it is wished 
 to put a question not connected with these points, the pro. 
 per course is for the counsel to apply to the court to put the 
 question for him. 
 
 Evidence, Documentary. — Written instruments, consid- 
 ered as evidence in a court of justice, have been divided 
 into public judicial documents ; public non-judicial ; pri- 
 vate documents ; and mixed, which are partly public and 
 partly private. The contents of the record of a court of 
 justice are properly proved by inspection of the record it- 
 self; otherwise by exemplification, or by sworn copy. A 
 copy of a record, under the seal of the Court of Chancery, 
 or of one of the King's other courts, is an exemplification ; 
 as are also the records of some inferior tribunals. Office
 
 EVIL, KING'S. 
 
 copies are evidence, wherever the law has entrusted a par- 
 ticular officer with the making of them. Sworn copies are 
 copies proved on oath to have been examined with the 
 original. All public documents, whether judicial or non- 
 judicial, which cannot be removed, can be and usually are 
 proved in this manner. But before it can be read, it must 
 be proved that the original came out of the hands of the 
 officer of the court, or from the proper place of deposit. 
 A copy of a copy is in no case admissible. 
 
 Mixed documents are of a nature partly public and partly 
 private ; such as court-rolls of manors, and corporation 
 books. Examined copies of these are evidence. The 
 books of public companies — as, for instance, the East In- 
 dia Company — are evidence in questions between parties 
 interested in them. Private writings are of two sorts: first, 
 writings to which the person against whom they are offered 
 was party or privy ; secondly, writings of third persons. 
 All documents of the first class are, in general, evidence 
 against the party. And an admission under seal (as a deed 
 or bond) is, in general, conclusive evidence against the ob- 
 ligor, or party binding himself; that is, he is estopped, or 
 prevented, from offering to rebut it. 
 
 A discussion of the rules which govern the admissibility 
 of written instruments not under seal as evidence would 
 occupy far too wide a field for the present purpose. Oral 
 evidence can in no case be received as an equivalent or 
 substitute for an instrument, where a writing is required 
 by law ; or to give effect to such an instrument, if defective 
 in any particular required by law ; or to vary its terms, if 
 it have been appointed, either by act of law or by compact 
 of the parties, as a memorial of the transaction between 
 them. This rule proceeds on the general principle already 
 adverted to, that where the best evidence can be had se- 
 condary testimony shall not be substituted for it. But oral 
 evidence is admissible in various cases, to explain, to re- 
 strict, and to defeat instruments, on the ground of fraud or 
 mistake. 
 
 Entries in writing, as well as declarations by third per- 
 sons, are in general excluded. The cases in which they may 
 be admitted are, either where they serve to explain and ac- 
 company material facts ; or, in some cases, on a principle of 
 necessity, where the party who made them is supposed to 
 have had peculiar grounds of knowledge as to the fact in 
 dispu ■•. In the first, category, as a common instance, we 
 may cite declarations of a trader at the time of his quitting 
 his place of business, which are commonly received in 
 evidence on bankruptcy questions. The second may be 
 instanced by entries of bailiffs or stewards, which are re- 
 ceived where the payment of rent is disputed. 
 
 Proof of Written Documents. — This is effected either by 
 witnesses, by admission of the adversary, or by enrol- 
 ment; the latter mode of proof being confined to a few 
 classes of documents by virtue of acts of parliament. 
 
 In the first and common mode of proof, the instrument 
 must either be produced, or its absence must be accounted 
 for by loss or destruction (and if either of these negative 
 assertions, as they may be called, cannot be directly proved, 
 evidence of diligent search will be received, and its con- 
 tents may be proved by counterpart or secondary evi- 
 dence) ; or it must be proved to be in possession of the ad- 
 versary, and that notice was given him to produce it. In 
 the case where the instrument itself is produced, it is 
 either attested or not attested. If the former, the attesting 
 witness must be called ; or his absence must be accounted 
 for, and his handwriting proved ; or it must appear that 
 the instrument is thirty years old, and has come out of 
 proper custody, in which case its authenticity is presumed. 
 Where a subscribing witness is called to prove a deed, 
 proof of sealing and delivery is required from him ; where 
 there are several subscribing witnesses, one is sufficient. 
 Where there are no attesting witnesses to an instrument, 
 the hand-writing of the party binding himself is generally 
 sufficient proof. On the proof of handwriting, — a very 
 difficult matter of evidence, — we can only observe, that it 
 is ordinarily proved by the testimony of a witness who has 
 acquired a general knowledge of the party's hand, either 
 by having seen him write (although but once), or by a cor- 
 respondence with him, or other transactions. It is a gene- 
 ral rule, that evidence by comparison of writings is not 
 receivable ; and this, although a skilled person (as a clerk 
 from the post office) offer his opinion. (For the mode of 
 taking evidence in courts of equity, see Chancery. ) Pub- 
 he documents, when the originals are not procurable, are 
 commonly proved by examined copies. 
 
 E'VIL, KING'S. See Scrofula. 
 
 E'VOLUTE (Lat. evolvo, J roll out), in the theory of 
 curve lines, is a curve from which any given curve may 
 be supposed to be formed by the evolution or unlapping of 
 a thread from a surface having the same curvature as the 
 first curve. For example, let B H E be a model of a plane 
 curve made of a solid material having some thickness ; 
 and let one end of a thread II E C be fastened to a point B 
 on the edge of the model, and applied along its convexity, so 
 as to coincide with it entirely between B and E, the remain- 
 428 
 
 EX CATHEDRA. 
 
 ing portion E C of the thread forming a straight line touch- 
 ing the curve at E. Suppose, now, the thread to be gradu- 
 D ally unlapped from the curve B E 
 
 v/ keeping it always tight; the extre- 
 
 mity C will describe anolher curve, 
 CPD. The curve EH I!, by which 
 the curve C P D is generated, is 
 called the evolute ofCPD; and the 
 curve C P D is called the involute of 
 E H B. All curves in which the cur- 
 vature is neither infinitely great nor 
 infinitely small, may be generated in this way by the evo- 
 lution of a thread from anolher curve. 
 
 From this mode of generating curve lines it is obvious, 
 first, that P II, the part of the thread disengaged from the 
 arc E H, is a tangent to the evolute at H ; second, that P H 
 is a perpendicular to the tangent to the involute C P D at the 
 point P ; third, that it is the radius of curvature of C P D 
 at P ; fourth, that the point H is the centre of curvature of 
 C P D at P, and that the evolute E H B is the locus of the 
 centre of curvature of every point in the involute CPD. 
 Hence the problem to find the evolute of any curve is the 
 same as to find the locus of the points which successively 
 form the loci of its centres of curvature. 
 
 Let AQ = x, and PQ = y; then x and y are the co-or- 
 dinates of the point P in the curve CPD, the origin being 
 at A. Let also AK=», and K H = u ; then v and w are 
 the co-ordinates of H, the centre of curvature of C P D at 
 P ; and their values are found from the formulae, 
 
 dy dx^ + dy* , dx' + dy 3 
 
 v = x r^ . ^ — 2-: u = y-\ -1 2. 
 
 '■' y ' v ^ d 2 y 
 
 d x 
 
 in which x is regarded as the independent variable, and y 
 as a functiou of x, the nature of which is determined by 
 the equation of the curve CPD. 
 
 Since the radius of curvature H P is the sum of the arc 
 H E and the straight line C E, it follows thatH E is the dif- 
 ference of two straight lines ; and since it is possible to 
 form innumerable curves whose radii of curvature are ex- 
 pressible in algebraic terms, therefore corresponding to 
 every such curve there is another curve, namely, its evo- 
 lute, which can be exactly rectified. The theory of gene- 
 rating curve lines by evolution was proposed by Huygens, 
 before the invention of the differential calculus, and pub- 
 lished in his Horologiiim Oscillatorium. His object was to 
 find the evolute of the common cycloid, with a view to the 
 mechanical means of causing clock pendulums to vibrate 
 in cycloidal arcs ; for he had already discovered the beau- 
 tiful property of this curve, — that all vibrations in its arc are 
 synchronous, or performed in equal times, whether the 
 arcs be great or small. See Cycloid. 
 
 EVOLU'TION. (Lat. evolvo, J unfold.) In Physiology, 
 the theory of generation, in which the germ is held to pre- 
 exist in the parent, and its parts to be unfolded and ex- 
 panded, but not actually formed, by the procreative acts. 
 The principal and most consistent supporters of this theory 
 maintain that the first created individuals contained the 
 germs of all future possible successors, successively in- 
 cluded one within the other; and that generation is merely 
 the act of unfolding, or an evolution of the germ : Swam- 
 merdam, Bonnet, Spallanzani, Haller, and Cuvier maintain 
 this theory. 
 
 The theory of evolution is opposed to that of epigenesis 
 generation, in which the germ is held to be actually formed 
 as well as expanded by virtue of the procreative powers of 
 the parent. Its chief supporters are Harvey, Caspar Fred. 
 Wolff, Blumenbach, and the professors of the modem 
 German physiological school. 
 
 Evolution, in Arithmetic and Algebra, denotes the ex- 
 traction of roots. (.See Extraction.) In Geometry, evolu- 
 tion is the opening or unfolding of a curve. 
 
 E'VOV^;. In Music, the vowels used with the ending 
 notes of the ecclesiastical tones : it is a word, for brevity's 
 sake, formed of the six vowels in the words sacidorum 
 amen, which are subjoined to the notes in Antiphonaries, 
 &c, to indicate that those are the ending notes. 
 
 EXACERBA'TION. (Lat. exacerbo, / groin violent.) 
 An increase in the violence of symptoms of disease; as of 
 pain, or especially of fever. 
 
 EX^'RESIS. (Gr. e^aipca, I remove.) One of the divi- 
 sions of surgery adopted by old writers, and confined to 
 operations concerned in the removal of parts of the body. 
 
 EXALTA'DOS. In Spanish History, the name of the 
 party attached to what has been vulgarly termed the liberal 
 system of politics, corresponding to the " extreme gauche" 
 of the French, or Whig-radicals among ourselves. 
 
 EXANTHE'MA. (Gr. c^avdeu, I effloresce.) An erup- 
 tive disorder. 
 
 EXARCH. (Gr. c^apxoi.) The title of the viceroys of 
 the Byzantine emperors in the provinces of Italy and Africa 
 after they had been conquered by Justinian. The exarch 
 of the former province fixed the seat of his government at 
 Ravenna. They were also styled patricians. 
 
 EX CA'THEDRA. A Latin phrase ; originally applied
 
 EXCELLENCY. 
 
 to decisions rendered by prelates, chiefly popes, from their 
 cathedra or chair : i. e. in a solemn judicial manner. Hence 
 applied to every decision pronounced by one in the exer- 
 cise of his peculiar authority : a professor in his lecture 
 room, a judge from the bench, ifcc. 
 
 E'XCELLENCY. A title of honour in various Euro- 
 pean states. It was borne, successively, by the Lombard 
 kings ; by some emperors of the West ; by various minor 
 Italian potentates; and it is now appropriated to persons in 
 the actual execution of certain official services: ministers, 
 some court dignitaries, and ambassadors, but not charges 
 d'affaires. Governors of English cclonies are styled Ex- 
 cellency. 
 
 EXCE'NTRIC (Lat. ex, out, and centrum, centre), in 
 the Ancient Astronomy, is the deferent circle in the cir- 
 cumference of which the centre of the epicycle ofa planet 
 is carried forward in its orbit round the earth. It was ex- 
 centric in respect of the earth ; that is, though the orbit ofa 
 planet was a circle described about the earth, the earth was 
 not placed at the centre of that circle. In modern astro- 
 nomy, the excentric is the circle which circumscribes the 
 elliptic orbit of a planet. Hence, Excentric Anomaly is 
 the arc of the excentric between the perihelion of the orbit 
 and the straight line drawn through the centre of the planet 
 perpendicular to the major axis. See Anomaly. 
 
 EXCENTRI'CITY. In Astronomy, the distance of the 
 foci from the centre of the elliptic orbit of a planet or satel- 
 lite, the semi-axis major being regarded as unity ; or, it is 
 the ratio of the distance between the focus and centre to 
 the semi-axis major. Thus, if a and b denote respectively 
 the semi-axes major and minor, and e the excentricity, we 
 have ae = \/a ! — 6 s . Excentricity is thus to be carefully 
 distinguished from ellipticity, which denotes the ratio of the 
 difference of the two axes to the greater. For the excen- 
 tricities of the different planets, see Planet. 
 
 EXCEP'TION. In Law, a stop or stay to an action. In 
 common law proceedings, a denial of a matter alleged in 
 bar to an action. In chancery, what is alleged against the 
 sufficiency of an answer. 
 
 EXCE'SS, SPHERICAL, in Trigonometry, is the quan- 
 tity by which the sum of the three angles of a spherical 
 triangle p.xceeds two right angles. 
 
 EXCIIA'NGE, in Arithmetic, is the finding the value of 
 one commodity or denomination of money in terms of 
 another. When a unit of each denomination is determined 
 in terms ofa common standard, all the operations of this 
 rule are applications of the rule of proportion. 
 
 Exchange. In Commerce, a term used to designate 
 that species of mercantile transactions by which the debts 
 dee to individuals at a distance from their creditors are 
 paid without the transmission either of money or goods. 
 
 Among cities or countries having any considerable inter- 
 course together, the debts mutually due by each other ap- 
 proach, for the most part, near to an equality. There are 
 at all times, for example, a considerable number of persons 
 in London indebted to Hamburah ; but, speaking generally, 
 there are about an equal number of persons in London to 
 whom Hamburgh is indebted ; and hence, when A. of Lon- 
 don has a payment to make to B. of Hamburgh, he does 
 not remit an equivalent sum of money to the latter ; but he 
 goes into the market and buys a bill upon Hamburgh for an 
 equal amount,—!, e., he buys an order from C. of London, 
 addressed to his debtor D. of Hamburgh, directing him to 
 pay the amount to A. or his order. A. having indorsed this 
 bill nr order, sends it to B., who receives payment from his 
 neighbour I). The convenience of all parlies is consulted 
 by a transaction of this sort The debts due by A. to B., 
 and by D. to C, are extinguished without the intervention 
 of any money. A. of London pays C. of ditto, and D. of 
 Hamburgh pays B. of ditto. The debtor in one place is 
 substituted for the debtor in anol her ; and a postage or two, 
 and the stamp for the bill, form the whole expenses. 
 
 A bill of exchange may, therefore, be defined to be an 
 order addressed to some person residing at a distance, 
 directin? him to pay a certain specified sum to the person 
 in whose favour the bill is drawn, or his order. In mer- 
 cantile phraseology, the person who draws a bill is termed 
 the drawer ; the person in whose favour it is drawn the re- 
 mitter ; the person on whom it is drawn the drawee, and 
 after he has accepted the acceptor. Those persons into 
 whose hands the bill may have passed previously to its be- 
 ing paid are, from their writing their names on the back, 
 termed indorsers ; and the person in whose possession the 
 bill is at any given period is termed the holder or possessor. 
 The negotiation of inland bills of exchange, or of those 
 drawn in one part of the United Kingdom on another, is 
 almost wholly in the hands of bankers. Many of the banks 
 established in different parts of the country have a direct 
 intercourse with each other, and all of them have corres- 
 pondents in London. Hence an individual residing in any 
 part of the country who may wish to make a payment in 
 any other part, however distant, may effect his object by 
 applying to the nearest bank. Thus, suppose A. of Pen- 
 zance has a payment to make to B. of Inverness. To send 
 429 
 
 EXCHANGE. 
 
 the money by post would be hazardous ; and if there were 
 fractional parts of a pound in the sum, it would hardly be 
 practicable to make use of the post. How then will A. 
 manage 7 He will pay the sum to a banker in Penzance, 
 and his creditor in Inverness will receive it from a banker 
 there. The transaction is very simple. The Penzance 
 banker instructs his correspondent in London to pay to the 
 London correspondent of a banker in Inverness the sum 
 in question, on account of B. ; and the Inverness banker 
 being advised in course of post of what has been done, 
 hands over the money to B. The whole charges are 
 limited to a trifling commission and twopence for postage : 
 so that the affair is transacted in the cheapest as well as in 
 the most commodious possible manner. Bills drawn by 
 the merchant of one country upon another are termed 
 foreign bills of exchange, and it is to their negotiation that 
 the following remarks principally apply. 
 
 I. Par of Exchange.— The par of the currency of any 
 two countries means, among merchants, the equivalency 
 of a certain amount of the currency of the one in the cur- 
 rency of the other, supposing the currencies of both to be 
 of the precise weight and purity fixed by their respective 
 mints. Thus, according to the mint regulations of Great 
 Britain and France, 1/. sterling is equal to 25 fr. 20 cents, 
 which is consequently said to be the par between London 
 and Paris. And the exchange between the two countries 
 is said to be at a par when bills are negotiated on this foot- 
 ing; that is, for example, when a bill for 100/. drawn in 
 London is worth 2520 fr. in Paris, and conversely. When 
 1/. in London buys a bill on Paris for more than 25 fr. 20 
 cents, the exchange is said to be in favour of London, and 
 against Paris ; and when, on the other hand, 1/. in London 
 will not buy a bill on Paris for 25 fr. 20 cents, the exchange 
 is against London, and in favour of Paris. (See tabic of the 
 Par of Exchange, at the end of this article.) 
 
 II. Circumstances which determine the Course of Ex 
 change. — The exchange is affected, or made to diverge 
 from par, by two classes of circumstances. First, by any 
 discrepancy between the actual weight or fineness of the 
 coins, or of the bullion for which the substitutes used in 
 their stead will exchange, and their weight or fineness as 
 fixed by the mint regulations ; and, secondly, by any sud- 
 den increase or diminution of the bills drawn in one coun- 
 try upon another. 
 
 a. It is but seldom that the coins of any country corres- 
 pond exactly with their mint standard ; and when they di- 
 verge from it, an allowance corresponding to the difference 
 between the actual value of the coins and their mint value 
 must be made in determining the real par. Thus, if 
 while the coins of Great Britain corresponded with the 
 mint standard in weight and purity, those of France were 
 either 10 per cent, worse or debased below the standard 
 of her mint, the exchange, it is obvious, would be at real 
 par when it was nominally 10 per cent, against Paris, or 
 when a bill payable in London for 100/. was worth in Paris 
 2772 fr., instead of 2,520 fr. In estimating the real course 
 of pxchange between any two or more places, it is always 
 necessary to attend carefully to this circumstance : that 
 is, to examine whether their currencies be all of the stand- 
 ard weight and purity ; and if not, how much they differ 
 from it. When the coins circulating in a country are either 
 so worn or rubbed as to have sunk considerably below 
 their mint standard, or when paper money is depreciated 
 from excess or want «f credit, the exchange is at real par 
 only when it is against such country to the extent to which 
 its coins are worn or its paper depreciated. When this 
 circumstance is taken into account, it will be found that 
 the exchange during the latter years of the war, though 
 apparently very much against this country, was really in 
 our favour. The depression was nominal only ; being oc- 
 casioned by the great depreciation of the paper currency, 
 in which bills were paid. (See art. "Exchange," new 
 edition, Ency. Britannica.) 
 
 b. Variations in the actual course of exchange, or in the 
 price of bills, arising from circumstances affecting the cur- 
 rency of either of two countries trading together, are nom- 
 inal only ; such as are real grow out of circumstances af- 
 fecting their trade. 
 
 When two countries trade together, and each buys of 
 the other commodities of precisely the same value, their 
 debts and credits will be equal, and, of course, the real ex- 
 change will be at par. The bills drawn by the one will be 
 exactly equivalent to those drawn by the other, and their 
 respective claims will be adjusted without requiring the 
 transfer of bullion or of any other valuable produce ; but 
 it very rarely happens that the debts reciprocally due by 
 any two countries are equal. There is almost always a 
 balance owing on the one side or the other ; and this ba- 
 lance must affect the exchange. If the debts due by Lon- 
 don to Paris exceeded those due by Paris to London, the 
 competition in the London market for bills on Paris would, 
 because of the comparatively great amount of payments 
 our merchants had to make 'in Paris, be greater than the 
 competition in Paris for biUs on London ; and consequently
 
 EXCHANGE. 
 
 the real exchange would be in favour of Paris and against 
 London. 
 
 It is plain, however, that all fluctuations of the real ex- 
 change must be confined within comparatively narrow 
 limits ; and that, though they may be under, they can never 
 exceed, the expense of transmitting bullion from the debtor 
 to the creditor country ; for, if they exceeded this amount, 
 it would plainly be more for the debtor's advantage to trans- 
 mit bullion rather than bills, and the exchange would im- 
 mediately sink to pai - . 
 
 It is usual to suppose, when the exchange is against a 
 country, that it can only be adjusted by an exportation of 
 bullion ; but provided the fall of the exchange be real, and 
 not nominal. — that is, provided the currency of the coun- 
 try which has the unfavourable exchange be in a sound 
 state, and that it is neither depreciated from excess, nor 
 from the coins being reduced below their mint standard, 
 but that the depression originates in some circumstances 
 affecting the trade of the country, as the occurrence of a 
 bad harvest, the breaking out of a war, &c, — then, in such 
 a case, it may, and most probably will not be necessary to 
 export a single ounce of bullion. Suppose, to illustrate 
 this, that an English merchant has 100/. to pay in Peters- 
 burgh, and that the real exchange is 3 per cent, against 
 England, or that a bill that cost. 103/. in London will only 
 fetch 100/. in Petersburgh ; now, suppose that the cost of 
 transmitting bullion to Petersburgh is also three per cent. ; 
 the question is, what will the merchant do 1 If he had no 
 other resource but to send a bill or bullion, it is plain it 
 would be indifferent to him which he sent. But he is not 
 so restricted. He will compare together the prices of ar- 
 ticles in London and Petersburgh : and if he find that there 
 is any exportable article whatever costing in London 100/. 
 that will sell in Petersburgh for 100/. after paying the ex- 
 penses of carriage, he will obviously gain 31. by exporting 
 it, rather than transmitting bullion or a bill. The fact is, 
 that a nation might cancel a foreign debt of 10 or 100 mil- 
 lions without sending abroad a single ounce of gold and 
 silver: the latter are never exported, unless when it hap- 
 pens to be more profitable to export them than anything else. 
 They always go abroad to find, and not to lose, their level. 
 
 III. A fall of the nominal exchange, that is, a fall of the 
 exchange occasioned by the depreciation of the currency, 
 has no influence whatever over trade. When the currency 
 is depreciated, the premium which the exporter of com- 
 modities derives from the sale of the bill drawn on his 
 correspondent abroad is countervailed by a precisely equal 
 rise in the price of the commodity occasioned by the de- 
 preciation, so that the result is nothing. But it is other- 
 wise when the real exchange is depressed, or when the 
 sums payable to the foreigner exceed those receivable 
 from him. In this case, there is no rise of prices, and the 
 depression of the exchange operates as a stimulus to ex- 
 portation. As soon as the real exchange diverges from 
 par, the mere inspection of a price current is no longer 
 sufficient to regulate the operations of the merchant. If 
 it be unfavourable, the premium which the exporter will 
 receive on the sale of his bill must be included in the esti- 
 mate of the profit he is likely to derive from the transac- 
 tion. The greater that premium the less will be the dif- 
 ference of prices necessary to induce him to export; and 
 hence an unfavourable real exchange has an effect exactly 
 the same with what would be produced by granting a boun- 
 ty on exportation equal to the premium on foreign bills. 
 
 But, for the same reason that an unfavourable real ex- 
 change increases exportation, it proportionally diminishes 
 importation. When the exchange is really unfavourable, 
 
 the price of commodities imported from abroad must be so 
 much lower than their price at home as not merely to 
 afford, exclusive of expenses, the ordinary profit of stock 
 on their sale, but also to compensate for the premium 
 which the importer must pay for a foreign bill, if he remit 
 one to his correspondent, or for the discount, added to the 
 invoice price, if his correspondent draw upon him. A less 
 quantity of foreign goods will therefore suit our market 
 when the real exchange is unfavourable ; and fewer pay- 
 ments having to be made abroad, the competition for 
 foreign bills will be diminished, and the real exchange ren- 
 dered proportionally favourable. In the same way, it is 
 easy to see that a favourable real exchange must operate 
 as a duty on exportation and as a bounty on importation. 
 
 It is thus that fluctuations in the real exchange have a 
 necessary tendency to correct themselves. They can 
 never, for any considerable period, exceed the expense of 
 transmitting bullion from the debtor to the creditor coun- 
 try. But the exchange cannot continue either permanently 
 favourable or unfavourable to this extent. When favour- 
 able, it corrects itself by restricting exportation and facili- 
 tating importation ; and when unfavourable, it produces 
 the same effect by giving an unusual stimulus to exporta- 
 tion, and by throwing obstacles in the way of importation. 
 The true par forms the centre of these oscillations ; and 
 though the thousand circumstances which are daily and 
 hourly affecting the state of debt and credit prevent the 
 ordinary course of exchange from being almost ever pre- 
 cisely at par, its fluctuations, whether on the one side or on 
 the other, are confined within certain limits, and have a 
 constant tendency to disappear. 
 
 This natural tendency, which the exchange has to cor- 
 rect itself, is powerfully assisted by the operations of the 
 bill merchants. 
 
 England, for example, might owe a large excess of debt 
 to Amsterdam ; yet, as the aggregate amount of the debts 
 due by a commercial country is generally balanced by the 
 amount of those which it has to receive, the deficiency of 
 bills fin Amsterdam in London would most probably be 
 compensated by a proportional redundancy of those on 
 some other place. Now it is the business of the merchants 
 who deal in bills, in the same way as of those who deal in 
 bullion or any other commodity, to buy them where they 
 are cheapest, and sell them where they are dearest. They 
 would, therefore, buy up the bills drawn by other countries 
 on Amsterdam, and dispose of them in London ; and by 
 so doing would prevent any great fall in the price of bills 
 on Amsterdam in those countries in which the supply 
 exceeded the demand, and any great rise in Great Britain 
 and those countries in which the supply happened to be 
 deficient. In the trade between Italy and this country, 
 the bills drawn on Great Britain amount, almost inva- 
 riably, to a greater sum than those drawn on Italy. The 
 bill merchants, however, by buying up the excess of 
 the Italian bills on London, and selling them in Holland 
 and other countries indebted to England, prevent the 
 real exchange from ever becoming much depressed. 
 (For further information as to the principles involved 
 in this curious and interesting department of commer- 
 cial and international economy, see the able and ex- 
 cellent tract, entitled Observations on the Course of Ex- 
 change, by William Blake, Esq., and the art. "Exchange" 
 in the new edition of the Encyc. Britannica ; and for the 
 practical details connected with the subject, see Commercial 
 Dictionary.) We subjoin from the latter a table of the par 
 of exchange between London and some of the principal 
 foreign places for the negotiation of bills of exchange. 
 
 Par of Exchange between England and the following places, — viz. Amsterdam, Hamburgh, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Leg- 
 horn, Genoa, Naples, and Venice; the same being computed from the intrinsic Value of their principal Coins, by 
 comparing Gold with Gold, and Silver with Silver, according to their Mint Regulations, and to Assays made at the 
 London and Paris Mints. 
 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Silver. 
 
 Explanations. 
 
 Mint 
 Regula- 
 
 
 Old Coinage. 
 
 New Coinage. 
 
 
 
 Assays. 
 
 Mint 
 
 
 Mint 
 
 
 Moneys of Exchange. 
 
 
 tions. 
 
 
 Regula- 
 
 Assays. 
 
 Regula- 
 
 Assays. 
 
 
 Amsterdam, banco 
 
 
 
 tions. 
 
 
 tions. 
 
 
 
 35 8 
 
 36 6-8 
 
 37 3 
 
 3710 5 
 
 35 
 
 35 6-5 
 
 ( Schillings and pence Flemish per pound sterling. Agio 
 I 2 per cent. 
 Florins and stivers per pound sterling. 
 
 Do. current . 
 
 11 45 
 
 11 3-8 
 
 11 8-5 
 
 11 11-8 
 
 1014 6 
 
 1017-6 
 
 Hamburgh 
 
 34 3-5 
 
 35 15 
 
 34 1 
 
 35 1-3 
 
 3211 
 
 3211-5 
 
 Schillings and pence Flemish banco per pound sterling. 
 
 Paris 
 
 25 20 
 
 26 2G 
 
 24 73 
 
 24 91 
 
 23 23 
 
 2340 
 
 Francs and centimes per pound sterling. 
 
 Madrid . 
 
 37 3 
 
 37-2 
 
 39-2 
 
 39 
 
 41-7 
 
 41-5 
 
 Pence sterling for the piastre or dollar of exchange. 
 
 Lisbon 
 
 67-4 
 
 67-5 
 
 60 41 
 
 58-33 
 
 64-30 
 
 62-69 
 
 Pence sterling per milree. 
 
 Leghorn . 
 
 491 
 
 49 
 
 46 46 
 
 46-5 
 
 49-60 
 
 49 5 
 
 Pence sterling per pezza of exchange. 
 
 Genoa 
 
 45 5 
 
 45-5 
 
 46-46 
 
 48-9 
 
 49-4 
 
 520 
 
 Pence sterling per pezza fuori banco." 
 
 Naples . 
 
 41-22 
 
 
 41-42 
 
 
 43-9 
 
 
 Pence sterling per ducat (new coinage of 1818). 
 
 Venice 
 
 46-3 
 
 460 47-5 
 
 49-9 44-6 
 
 461 
 
 Lire piccole per pound sterling. 
 
 * The currency of Genoa has consisted, since 1826, of Lire Italiane of exactly the same weight and fineness as francs ; so that the par of exchange 
 with Genoa is now the same us with Paris. 
 430
 
 EXCHEQUER CHAMBER. 
 
 EXCHEQUER CHAMBER, COURT OF, In Law, is 
 constituted by 1 W. 4. c. 70. the proper tribunal for the 
 trial of writs of error from the three superior courts, which 
 before was only partially the case. In this court the writ 
 is tried before the judges, or judges and barons, of the two 
 courts which had not given the former judgment. Error 
 from this court lies in the House of Lords, which is the last 
 and highest appellate tribunal of the country. 
 
 EXCHEQUER, COURT OF, in Law, was originally 
 established for the recovery of the king's debts and ordi- 
 nary revenues of the crown. In its modem shape, it 
 is in fact a combination of eight distinct ancient courts. 
 It acquired concurrent jurisdiction with the other two 
 superior courts in all personal actions (see Courts, 
 Superior) by the fiction of the complaining party being 
 debtor to the king ; a fiction which is now removed. It 
 has exclusive jurisdiction in cases in which the king's 
 revenue is concerned, whether personal actions, or in- 
 formations filed under the various revenue acts. It has 
 also an equitable jurisdiction ; exclusive with respect to 
 matters connected with the revenue, concurrent with the 
 court of chancery in civil suits. It has also the original and 
 proper equitable jurisdiction in cases of tithes. (.See 
 Chancery.) The chief and four puisne or younger judges 
 of the Exchequer are termed Barons. 
 
 Exchequer, Court of (in Scotland), established on its 
 present footing by 6 Anne, c. 26., should consist of a chief 
 baron and four junior barons (but three only have been 
 commonly appointed). It has a privative jurisdiction as to 
 duties of customs, excise, and other revenues of the crown. 
 
 EXCHEQUER BILLS, are bills of credit issued by au- 
 thority of parliament. They are for various sums, and 
 bear interest (generally from 1W. to 2£d. per diem per 
 1002.) according to the usual rale at the time. The ad- 
 vances of the Bank to Government are made upon exche- 
 quer bills ; and the daily transactions between the Bank and 
 Government are principally carried on through their inter- 
 vention. Notice of the time at which outstanding exche- 
 quer bills are to be paid off is given by public advertise- 
 ment. Bankers prefer vesting in exchequer bills to any 
 other species of stock, even though the interest be for the 
 most part comparatively low ; because the capital may be 
 received at the Treasury at the rate originally paid for it, 
 the holders being exempted from any risk of fluctuation. 
 Exchequer bills were first issued in 1096, and have been 
 annually issued ever since. 
 
 Account of the Amount of the Exchequer Bills outstanding 
 in each Year since 1815, and the Rate of Interest payable 
 on such Bills. 
 
 Years 
 
 Rate of Inte- 
 
 Years 
 
 
 Rale of Inte- 
 
 ended 
 
 Amount 
 
 rest on Exche- 
 
 ended 
 
 Amount 
 
 rest on Exche- 
 
 5 Jan. 
 
 outstanding. 
 
 quer Bills. 
 
 5 Jan. 
 
 outstanding. 
 
 quer Bills. 
 
 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 
 
 Per cent. 
 
 
 
 per diem. 
 
 
 
 per diem. 
 
 
 L. 
 
 d. d. d. 
 
 
 L. 
 
 d. d. d. 
 
 1816 
 
 41,441,900 
 
 3k 
 
 1829 
 
 27,657.000 
 
 2 
 
 1817 44,650,300 
 
 3 2l 2 
 
 KM 
 
 25,4911.550 
 
 2 if n 
 
 1818 56,729,400 
 
 1831 
 
 27,271,650 
 
 i! " 
 
 1819 13.655,400 
 
 2£ " 2 
 
 1832 
 
 27.133,350 
 
 1820 
 
 36,900,200 
 
 2i 2 
 
 1833 
 
 27,278,000 
 
 1821 
 
 30,965,900 
 
 2| 2 
 
 1334 
 
 27,906,900 
 
 14 
 
 1822 
 
 31.566,5.50 
 
 o 
 
 1835 
 
 
 'i 
 
 1823 
 
 36,231,150 
 
 2 
 
 1--!i-i 
 
 28,976,600 
 
 1* 
 
 1824 34,741,750 
 
 2 
 
 1837 
 
 26,976,000 
 
 H 2 2* 
 
 1825 32,393.450 
 
 2 H 
 
 1833 
 
 24,041,5.50 
 
 9l 
 
 1826 27,994,200 
 
 U 2" 
 
 1839 
 
 24,026,050 
 
 " 2 
 
 1827; 24,565,850 
 
 " o 
 
 1840 
 
 19,965,050 
 
 If 
 
 1828| 27,546,850 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 EXCISE DUTIES, in Revenue and Finance, are duties 
 imposed on articles produced or manufactured at home, 
 while in the possession of the producers or manufacturers. 
 They were introduced into England by the Long Parlia- 
 ment in 1643, being then laid on the makers and venders 
 of ale, beer, cider, and perry. The royalists soon after 
 followed the example of the republicans ; both sides de- 
 claring that the excise should be continued no longer than 
 the termination of the war. But it was found too produc- 
 tive a source of revenue to be again relinquished ; and 
 when the nation had been accustomed to it for a few years, 
 the parliament declared, in 1649, that the imoost of excise 
 was the most easy and indifferent levy that 'could be laid 
 upon the people. It was placed on a new footing at the 
 Restoration ; and notwithstanding Mr. Justice Blackstone 
 says, that " from its first original to the present time, its 
 very name has been odious to the people of England" 
 {Com., book i. c. 8), it has continued progressively to gain 
 ground ; and is at this moment imposed on several impor- 
 tant articles, and furnishes nearly a third part of the entire 
 public revenue of the kingdom. 
 
 For the more easy levy of the excise duties, England and 
 431 
 
 EXCOMMUNICATION. 
 
 Wales are divided into about fifty six collections, some of 
 which are called by the names of particular counties, 
 others by the names of great towns. Where one county is 
 divided into several collections, or where a collection com- 
 prises the contiguous parts of several counties, every such 
 collection is subdivided into several districts, within which 
 there is a supervisor ; and each district is aeain subdivided 
 into out-rides and foot- walks, within each of which there is 
 a surveying officer or gauger. Some excise duties, that 
 were justly objected to, have been repealed within these 
 few years ; and with the exception of the duty on glass, 
 which interferes injuriously with the manufacture, we are 
 not sure that there is one of the existing duties that can be 
 fairly objected to on principle, though the rate of duty 
 might, in some instances, be advantageously reduced. It 
 has been said, that the excise duties "greatly raise the cost 
 of subsistence to the labouring classes." But this assertion 
 has really no foundation. In fact, the only excise duty that 
 can be said to fall on a necessary of life is that on soap, 
 which produced in 1833 (in Great* Britain) 509,031/. ; but as 
 the population of Great Britain amounts at present to about 
 13,000,000, the soap tax cannot, at an average, impose a bur- 
 den of lid. a year on each individual. If we estimate its 
 annual pressure on a labouring family of five persons at 
 from 2s. 6d. to 3s., we shall not be within but beyond the 
 mark. 
 
 The only taxes, in the various departments of the re- 
 venue, that can be truly said to fall on articles necessary to 
 the labourer, are, besides soap, principally those on tea and 
 sugar. We incline to think that the duties on these arti- 
 cles might be very materially reduced without affecting the 
 revenue ; but, however that may be, it cannot be truly 
 affirmed that they entail any grievous burden on the labour- 
 ing classes. The entire nett produce of the excise duties 
 in Great Britain in 1833 amounted to 12.775.955; , of which 
 the duties on spirits and malt, that is, on spirits and beer, 
 produced no less than 8.604,115/. In Ireland, during the 
 same year, the excise duties amounted to 1,974,566/., of 
 which the spirit and malt duties furnished above four-fifths, 
 or 1,795,165/. The rate at which this revenue was collected 
 was nearly 6£ per cent, in Great Britain, and 9£ per cent, 
 in Ireland. Now, we are bold to say, that no equal amount 
 of revenue was ever raised with so little inconvenience or 
 injury to the contributors. Even though they were not re- 
 quired by the public exigencies, the duties bn spirits ob- 
 struct a pernicious habit, and should not be given up. They 
 are the best of all possible duties ; and the only thing to be 
 attended to in their imposition, is not to carry them to such 
 a height as to defeat their object by encouraging smuggling. 
 We have y et to learn, supposing they are not carried beyond 
 this limit, that a single good objection can be made to these 
 duties. 
 
 The obscurity and complexity of the excise laws has been 
 justly complained of. It is needless to say, that they ought 
 to be brief, clear, and level to the apprehension of every 
 one. But, so far from this being the case, they are in 
 most instances lengthened, contradictory, and unintelligi- 
 ble. There were at no distant period some 40 or 50 acts in 
 existence having reference to the glass duties, and at this 
 moment from 25 to 30 have reference to the paperduties, and 
 so for the others. It is, in fact, all but impossible for any 
 one to tell what the law really is on many points ; so that 
 the trader is left at the mercy of the officers, and a wide 
 door is opened to favouritism and fraud. This disgraceful 
 state of things might, however, be easily remedied by get- 
 ting the treasury or the excise to prepare a short abstract 
 of the law as to each duty, drawn up in the clearest and 
 least ambiguous manner possible, and without any of that 
 verbosity, repetition, and technical jargon that infects acts 
 of parliament, and renders them all but incomprehensible 
 to ordinary persons. A manufacturer abiding by this ab- 
 stract should be held to have abided by the law, and should 
 not be further questioned on the subject. A measure of 
 this sort might be easily carried into effect. It would be 
 an immense improvement, and would go far to obviate the 
 onlv ?nod objection to the excise duties. 
 
 EXf.'ITABI'LITY. A disposition to be affected by ex- 
 citing causes. It is a term chiefly used in medicine, in 
 reference to that state of system which is more or less sus- 
 ceptible of morbid excitement. 
 
 EXCOMMU'NICATION. An ecclesiastical censure, by 
 which a man is cut off from communion with his church. 
 The right possessed by any community of ejecting any per- 
 son who contravenes the laws by which it is governed is 
 founded on the original principles of society, and is exer- 
 cised in some shape or other by every sect among Chris- 
 tians. If we suppose, however, one society to be the de- 
 positary of all God's covenants and mercies, and to afford 
 the exclusive means of salvation, excommunication will in 
 such case involve eternal perdition, and must be defended 
 on some higher grounds than those of social expediency. 
 An appeal is made to scripture in defence of this practice 
 on the following grounds: — The power of binding and loos- 
 ing is undoubtedly given to the apostles. St. Paul delivers
 
 EXCORIATION. 
 
 ever to Satan a heretic, or one who troubled the church ; 
 '.tie sudden death of Ananias and Sapphira seems to have 
 been inflicted upon them by the apostle himself as a pun- 
 ishment for their crimes ; the faithful are charged to keep 
 no company with heretics ; Titus is directed by St. Paul to 
 reject such after the first and second admonition. Upon 
 the authority of these passages many Christian churches 
 have assumed the power of excommunication. Protes- 
 tants, however, do not generally venture to pronounce upon 
 the future condition of a person thus excluded from cove- 
 nanted benefits ; whereas in the forms of excommunica- 
 tion of the Greek and Roman churches, the excommuni- 
 cated person is solemnly devoted to the devil. 
 
 The English church retains a form of excommunication, 
 in cases of adultery, incontinence, heresy, simony, and 
 neglect of public worship, &c. ; the practice, however, has 
 long become obsolete. In English law, excommunication 
 was the ordinary mode by which contempt of the ecclesi- 
 astical jurisdiction was punished and its process enforced. 
 Forty days after sentence the writ de excommunicatio ca- 
 piendo issued (called also a sig>uficavit, from the recital of 
 the bishop's certificate with which it commenced), under 
 which the party was apprehended by the sheriff. By stat. 
 53 G. 3. c. 127. the legal effect of excommunication is abo- 
 lished, and the writ de contumace capiendo substituted for 
 the former one. 
 
 EXCORIA'TION. (Lat. excorio, I remove the skin.) An 
 abrasion of the cuticle. 
 
 EXCRE'TION. (Lat. excerno, I separate from.) A sub- 
 stance which is rejected from the body as useless. 
 
 EXCU'RRENT. In Botany, a term used in describing 
 the ramification of any body whose axis always remains in 
 the centre ; the other parts being regularly disposed around 
 it, as the stem of Pinus abies. 
 
 EXECU'TION. The carrying into effect of a judgment 
 given in a court of law. Unless execution be taken out 
 within a year and a day after the judgment has been given, 
 the judgment must be revived by writ of scire facias. Exe- 
 cution may be against the person of defendant by imprison- 
 ment, which is under a writ of capias ad respondendum. 
 There are also various writs of execution against the goods 
 of a defendant and against his lands. Criminal execution 
 is in the country directed by the judge of assize who tries 
 the prisoner, and in London by the recorder. 
 
 Execution. In the Fine Arts, the mode of performing 
 a work of art, and the dexterity with which it is accom- 
 plished. 
 
 EXE'CUTIVE. In the theory of Government, that part 
 of the powers of the state which is employed in putting into 
 execution the laws made by the legislative or the decrees 
 of the judicial power. In England, all executive power is 
 supposed to be vested in the king, and in inferior officers 
 by his delegation. 
 
 EXE'CUTOR. In Law, an executor is a person appointed 
 by a testator, and whose appointment is confirmed by the 
 proper ecclesiastical court, to execute his will, and to 
 represent him in his personal rights and liabilities. Thus 
 the rights and liabilities of an executor in his representa- 
 tive capacity (the same as those of an administrator), are 
 those of the testator or intestate, arising, — for or against 
 him — either out of contract, or from injury done to his 
 property, real or personal, or from injury done by him to 
 the real or personal property of another ; but the liabilities 
 of an executor or administrator do not overreach the pro- 
 perty or assets which he has received, or might but for his 
 negligence or default have received, by virtue of his office. 
 
 The first and most important duty of executors and ad- 
 ministrators is the payment of debts which attach to the 
 property in their hands, in the following order; the rea- 
 sonable expenses of the funeral, and the necessary ex- 
 penses of proving the will, or of obtaining letters of admin- 
 istration, being first defrayed. 
 
 1st. Debts due to the crown by record or on specialty. 
 
 2dly. Debts due to the subject by virtue of the judgment 
 of any court of record. 
 
 3dly. Debts acknowledged upon record, as by recogni- 
 zance. 
 
 4thly. Debts due upon specialty, or on account of rent.' 
 
 5thly. Debts of the crown not upon specialty or record. 
 
 6thly. Debts by simple contract. 
 
 Creditors of each class are entitled to be paid in full be- 
 fore any thing is allowed to debts of an inferior order ; and 
 as between themselves they are paid pro rata as far as the 
 assets will extend. But an executor will be allowed, upon 
 account, any debt that he may have paid without notice of 
 another debt of a higher class ; and as between creditors 
 of equal degree, he may, before action brought at law, or 
 decree to account in equity, give preference to any. He 
 may also at any time as against creditors of an equal class 
 retain a debt due to himself. 
 
 Next to debts stand, in the first place, specific legacies, 
 
 »'. e. gifts of specific parts of personal estate ; and in the 
 
 next place general legacies, that is, gifts of money payable 
 
 out of the general residue of such estate : what remains 
 
 432 
 
 EXHAUSTION. 
 
 after payment of legacies, where there are any, or where 
 there are none after payment of debts, is divisible among 
 the next of kin according to the Statute of Distributions. 
 Specific legacies may be recovered at law; but the rights 
 of general legatees, and of next of kin, are enforcible 
 only in courts of equity, or in the ecclesiastical courts. 
 
 Most frequently also claims in the nature of debt or le- 
 gacy to which the personal estate of testators or intestates 
 is subject are prosecuted in courts of equity ; which do not 
 only, like courts of law, take cognizance of each individual 
 right as brought forward, but will take upon themselves the 
 whole administration of the estate, and retain it in their 
 hands for the purpose of doing justice to all claimants. 
 
 In so doing courts of equity are bound to follow the legal 
 order of priority above stated, so far at least as the assets 
 are legal ; i. e. either recoverable in courts of common 
 law, or arising upon trust direct and proper and co-exten- 
 sive with the legal interest {vide Trust), to which the prin- 
 ciple of (Bcjuilas sequitur legem applies. But where there 
 are assets recoverable only in equity, and arising upon im- 
 plied or resulting trusts, these are called equitable ; and in 
 the application^ such assets the rule obtains of equality 
 between all debts, the priority of debts to legacies, and 
 among these of specific to general, being still observed. 
 Where there are both legal and equitable assets, creditors 
 availing themselves of their priority against the legal as- 
 sets will not be admitted to any participation in the equitable 
 assets till other creditors shall have received out of them the 
 same proportion of their debts as the creditors of a higher 
 degree shall have been already paid out of the legal assets. 
 
 By the recent act of the 3 & 4 W. 4. real estate not de- 
 vised for or charged with the payment of debts is made 
 assets for the payment of all debts, to be administered by 
 courts of equity according to the, legal order of priorities; 
 but real estate so devised or charged still remains as before 
 equitable assets. Executors and administrators as such have 
 no concern in either case with the application of real assets. 
 
 Many questions arise in regard to legacies, — as to when 
 they are vested, when specific or general, — which it is im- 
 possible to notice within the limits of this summary. 
 
 EXEGE'SIS. (Gr. ef, and jjyeo//ai, / lead.) The term 
 applied most usually to the exposition or interpretation of 
 the Holy Scriptures ; it is also used, however, in an unre- 
 stricted sense. This department of biblical learning has 
 been most assiduously cultivated in modern times, espe- 
 cially by the Germans, as the writings of Michaelis, 
 Schleussner, Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, &c. amply testify. 
 
 EXE'RGUE. (Fr.) In Numismatics, the basis or lower 
 limb of a coin or medal, when separated by a line from 
 the rest of the face, which usually contains words giving 
 the date, place, &c. of the coin, or other subsidiary mat- 
 ter. Sve Numismatics. 
 
 EXFOLIA'TION. (Lat. exfolio, I scale off.) The sepa- 
 ration of a piece of dead bone from the living. 
 
 EXHALA'TION. See Vapour, Evaporation. 
 
 EXHAU'STION. Iu Geometry, a method of demon- 
 stration employed by the ancient geometers to prove the 
 equality of two magnitudes, by showing that their diffe- 
 rence is less than any assignable magnitude. The ancients 
 employed this method in their difficult researches, particu- 
 larly in the theory of curve lines and surfaces, and in de- 
 termining the areas and volumes which those surfaces con- 
 tain. As they admitted no demonstrations but such as are 
 perfectly rigorous, they did not consider curves as poly- 
 gons of a great number of sides ; but in attempting to dis- 
 cover the properties of any curve, they regarded it as the 
 fixed term or limit to which the inscribed and circum- 
 scribed polygons continually approach, and approach the 
 nearer as the number of their sides is increased. Thus 
 they exhausted, as it were, the space between the polygons 
 and the curve ; and hence this method of procedure was 
 called the method of exhaustion. 
 
 As polygons bounded by straight lines were known 
 figures, their continual approach to the curve gave a more 
 precise idea of its properties in proportion as the diffe- 
 rence was diminished ; and by following the law of con- 
 tinuity, an exact knowledge of these properties was at 
 length obtained. But when the properties of the curve 
 were thus divined, as it were, it remained to verify them 
 by a geometrical demonstration ; and this was done by prov- 
 ing that every contrary supposition necessarily leads to a 
 contradiction. This method of demonstration is the re- 
 ductio ad absurdum. 
 
 By the method of exhaustion the ancients demonstrated 
 that the areas of circles of different diameters are to each 
 other as the squares of their diameters ; that the volumes 
 of spheres are to each other as the cubes of their diame- 
 ters ; that pyramids of the same altitude are in proportion 
 to their bases ; that the cone is the third of a cylinder of 
 the same base, &c. In the same manner Archimedes de- 
 monstrated that the convex surface of a right cone is equal 
 to the area of the circle whose radius is a mean propor- 
 tional between the side of the cone and the radius of the 
 base ; that the area of a sphere is four times that of one
 
 EXHEDRA. 
 
 of its great circles ; and that the area of any of its zones 
 is equal to the circumference of a great circle multiplied 
 by the height of the zone. The differential calculus of the 
 moderns is only the method of exhaustion of the ancients 
 reduced to a simple and commodious analysis. (See Mac- 
 iaurin's Fluxions; and Carnot, Metaphysique du Ccdcul 
 Infinitesimal.) 
 
 E'XHEDRA. (Gr. t\, out of, and eSpa. a chair.) In 
 Ancient Architecture, a small room in the baths and other 
 buildings appropriated for conversation. 
 
 EXHIBITION. (Lat. exhibeo, Ishow.) A term ap- 
 plied in modern times to the public display of works of 
 art. This word is also used to denote private benefactions 
 instituted for the maintenance of scholars in Hie universi- 
 ties. /See Bursars. 
 
 EXHUMATION. (Lat. ex, out of, and humus, the 
 ground.) The act of digging up a body interred in holy 
 ground by the authority of the judge. In France the laws 
 enforce exhumation on proof that any person has been 
 killed in a duel. 
 
 E'XIGENT. In Law, a writ which lies when the defen- 
 dant in an action personal, or in an indictment, cannot be 
 found : and where, in the former case, nothing of his can 
 I* found within the county whereby he may be attached 
 or distrained upon. The writ is directed to the sheriff, to 
 proclaim the absent party on five county court days, one 
 after another; and if he do not answer on the fifth, he is 
 outlawed. 
 
 E'XILE. (Lat. exsilium, from exsul, one banished ex 
 nolo from the soil of his country.) In Roman Law, the pun- 
 ishment of banishment, or, more strictly speaking, the 
 consequence of the interdiction from the use of fire and 
 water, pronounced in early times as a sentence against 
 great offenders, which compelled them to expatriate them- 
 selves. It appears that the direct sentence of exile was 
 not known to ancient Roman jurisprudence. 'Cicero ad 
 Herenn.) In modern France (before the Revolution), 
 there was a distinction between banishment and exile. 
 The former was a punishment assigned by the law, and 
 producing infamy ; the latter a measure of discipline, in- 
 llicted by the arbitrary act of the monarch (usually through 
 lettres de cachet). Thus political offenders were fre- 
 quently exiled to their estates, to a certain distance from 
 court. &c. 
 
 EXISTENCE. See Perception, Materialism. 
 
 F/XIT. A word placed in the margin of plays to mark 
 the time at which the plaver leaves the stage. 
 
 EXO'UIUM, in Greek Tragedy, signified the end or de- 
 nouement of the play ; or more properly that portion of it 
 (generally the last act) in which the catastrophe is indicated, 
 or the plot begins to be unravelled. 
 
 E'XODIIS. See Pentateuch. 
 
 EXOFFI'CIO. (Lat. by reason of office or duty.'' In 
 general language, every act done by an officer either in 
 prosecution of the general duty of his office, or in execut- 
 ing some special duty imposed by it, is said to be done ex 
 officio. But, in more strict phraseology, a proceeding ex 
 officio is one taken by an officerof hisown will, in execution 
 of what he takes to be the duty of his office ; as, where a 
 iustice of the peace demands and takes surety of his own 
 discretion, without the request of the injured party. An 
 ex officio information is an information at the suit of the 
 king, filed by the attorney-general, without applying to a 
 court for leave. (See Information.) Ex officio criminal 
 informations are employed in cases of libel, sedition, &c, 
 when officially prosecuted. 
 
 EXO'GENOUS. (Gr. tf, and yctvopai, I groic.) A 
 term applied (o those plants a transverse slice of whose 
 stem exhibits a central cellular substance or pith, an ex- 
 ternal cellular and fibrous ring or bark, and an intermedi- 
 ate woody mass, and certain fine lines radiating from the 
 pith to the bark through the wood, and called medullary 
 rays. They are called Exogens. because they add to their 
 wood by successive external additions ; and are the same 
 as what are otherwise called Dicotyledons. They consti- 
 tute one of the primary classes into which the vegetable 
 world is divided, characterized by their leaves being reticu- 
 lated ; their stems having a distinct deposition of bark, wood, 
 and pith ; their embryo with two cotyledons; and by their 
 llowers usually formed on a quinary type. 
 
 EXO'MPHALOS. (Gr. tf, and 'd/<pa\6s, the navel.) A 
 hernia or runture at or near the navel. 
 
 E'XOPHTHA'LMIA. (Gr. sf, and ofOaXuos, the eye.) 
 The protrusion of the eyeball from the orbit. It is usually 
 the consequenc" of concussions or blows ; sometimes it is 
 produced by a tumour in the orbit, which gradually pushes 
 the eveball out of its socket. 
 
 EXOPHY'LLOrS. (.Gr. e^ and fvWov, a lef) A term 
 invented by Dumnrtier to be applied to the yoni.j leaves of 
 Exogens; sine" they are said to be always naked, while 
 those of EndoL"" us sheath each other. 
 
 EXO'PTILES. (Gr. ef.and tttiXoi/, a feather.) A term 
 invented by M. Lestiboudois for Dicotyledonous plants, be- 
 cause their plumula is naked. 
 433 
 
 EXPANSION. 
 
 EXORCI'SM. (Gr. eJo/j/cij'co, / bindor charge upon 
 oath.) The solemn adjuration by which those endowed 
 with certain powers were believed to be able to subject evil 
 spirits to their obedience : more particularly to compel 
 them to leave the bodies of those supposed to be subject 
 to demoniacal possession. The exorcists form one of the 
 minor orders in the church of Rome. 
 
 EXO'RDIUM. (Lat. exordior, / begin an oration.) In 
 Oratory and Literature, the opening part of an oration; 
 which, according to ancient critics, should be drawn either 
 from the subject ilself or from the situation of the speaker; 
 presenting either brief remarks on the general character 
 of the topic on which he is about to deliver himself, or in- 
 sinuations (according to the advice of Cicero), calculated 
 generally to prejudice the audience in favour of the speaker, 
 and against his adversary. 
 
 EXORRHI'Z^E. (Gr. t$, and piga, a root.) A term in- 
 vented by Richard to be applied to the embryo of Dicotyl- 
 edons; inasmuch as their radicle always elongates down- 
 wards, directly from the outside of the base of the embryo. 
 
 EXOSMO'SE. (Gr. e$. and coauog, impulsion.) The 
 passage of gases, vapours, or liquids through mem- 
 branes or porous media from within outwards. Mr. Du- 
 trochet having found that if two lluids of unequal density 
 are separated by an animal or vegetable membrane, the 
 denser will attract the less dense, through the membrane 
 that divides them : this property he called Endosmose 
 when the attraction is from the outside to the inside ; and 
 Exosmose when it operates from the inside to the outside 
 of the body acted upon. 
 
 EXOSTO'ME. (Gr. tf, and aroua, a mouth.) A term 
 invented by Mirbel to denote the passage through the outer 
 integument of an ovule, commonly called the foramen. 
 
 EXOSTO'SIS. (Gr. «£. from, and ocrsov, a bone.) In 
 Anatomy, a swelling or tumour of a bone. 
 
 Exostosis. In Botany, a disease to which the roots and 
 stems of trees are subject, when knots or large tumours 
 are formed upon or among the wood. It is caused by a 
 stoppage of growth on the one hand, and an attempt at ex- 
 cessive development on the other. It is from sections of 
 the exostoses of trees that some of the most beautiful wood 
 used by cabinetmakers is obtained. 
 
 EXP'STKA. (Gr. i^oarpa.) In Ancient Architecture, 
 a machine for representing the interior part of a building 
 as connected with the scene of a theatre. 
 
 EXOTERIC. See Esoteric. 
 
 EXOTHE'CIUM. (Gr. sfoj, without, and $nKn, recep- 
 tacle.) That portion of an anther from which the pollen is in- 
 correctly supposed to separate; it is the coalingof the anther. 
 
 EXOTIC. (Gr. efain/coj, foreign.) Any thing intro- 
 duced to one country from some other country. In gar- 
 dening it is sometimes applied to plants which require 
 protection in winter, or to plants in general which are not 
 European. 
 
 EXPA'NSION. One of the most common and obvious 
 effects of heat, which expands or enlarges the bulk of all 
 the forms of matter. The expansion of solids by increase 
 of temperature is comparatively small ; but it may be 
 rendered sensible by carefully measuring the dimensions 
 of any substance when cold, and again when heated : an 
 iron bar, for example, fitted to a gauge, which shows its 
 length and breadth, will no longer pass through the aper- 
 tures when heated. Among solids the metals are most 
 expansible and contractile by heat and cold ; but they vary 
 much in this respect, as shown in the following table, 
 which exhibits the change of dimensions which several of 
 them undergo when heated, from the freezing to the boil- 
 ing point of water : — 
 
 Temperature. 
 
 Platinum 
 Steel . 
 Iron 
 Copper 
 Brass 
 Tin . 
 Lead . 
 Zinc . 
 
 32° 212° 
 
 120000 120104 
 
 — 120147 
 
 — 120151 
 
 — 120204 
 
 — 120230 
 
 — 120290 
 120345 
 120360 
 
 The average expansion of glass is very nearly the same 
 as that of platinum. The expansibility of different liquids 
 is also very variable ; ether, for instance, and alcohol, are 
 more expansile than water, and water more than mercury, 
 The expansibility of mercury is applied to a very useful 
 purpose in the construction of the common thermometer. 
 In general all liquids expand and contract in proportion as 
 they are heated and cooled ; but to this law there is a re- 
 markable and anomalous exception in regard to water. 
 When a large thermometer tube is filled with water of the 
 temperature of 60°, and placed in a cold situation, or in a 
 freezing mixture of ice and salt, the water goes on shrink- 
 ing in the tube, till it has attained the temperature of about 
 40° ; and then, instead of continuing to contract till it 
 freezes (as is the ca6e with other liquids), it slowly expands, 
 D d 38
 
 EX PARTE. 
 
 and actually rises in the tube until it congeals. In this case, 
 the expansion above 40° and below 40° seems to be equal ; 
 so that water will be of the same bulk at 4S° and at 32°. 
 This anomalous expansion of water by cold is productive 
 of some important consequences, considered as a natural 
 operation ; for if water, like other fluids, went on increas- 
 ing in density till it froze, the consequence would be that 
 large bodies of water, instead of being only superficially 
 frozen in winter, would be converted throughout into solid 
 masses of ice. Let us take a fresh water lake as an ex- 
 ample. The earth being in winter warmer than the air, 
 the heat is withdrawn from the surface of the water by the 
 cold breezes that blow over it; and the whole body of 
 water has its temperature lowered to 40°, which is the point 
 of its greatest density, and a temperature perfectly con- 
 genial to fish and most other aquatic animals. The cold 
 now continues to operate upon the surface of the water; 
 but, instead of diminishing its bulk, and therefore render- 
 ing it heavier than the warmer water beneath, it expands 
 it, and renders it lighter; so that under these circum- 
 stances a stratum of ice-cold water (at 32°) will be found 
 lying upon the mass of warmer water beneath it (at 40°). 
 The influence of the cold continuing, the surface of the 
 lake will soon freeze, but the water immediately below the 
 superficial covering of ice will be found comparatively 
 warm ; and as water is almost a non-conductor of heat, it 
 will be a long time before the ice attains any thickness ; and 
 the whole body of water, if of any depth, can never freeze 
 throughout. Indeed, it will be obvious that the retardation 
 of freezing will be proportional to the depth of water which 
 has to be cooled; and hence some very deep basins or 
 lakes are scarcely ever even covered by ice. 
 
 As liquids are enlarged and consequently rendered spe- 
 cifically lighter by heat, very different effects are produced 
 by applying heat to different parts of the vessels containing 
 them. If the heat be applied to the bottom of the vessel, 
 it is soon heated equally throughout, and made to boil ; but 
 if the surface only be heated, it may then be boiled and 
 evaporated, while the lower parts remain quite cold. 
 
 Aeriform bodies and vapours are the most expansible 
 forms of matter, and they present an important peculiarity ; 
 for in other substances each individual has its own degree 
 of expansion and contraction, whereas all pure aeriform 
 bodies expand and contract alike ; so that if we accurately 
 determine the expansion and contraction of any one of 
 them, that knowledge applies to all the rest. 100 measures 
 of air, when heated from the freezing to the boiling point 
 of water, suffer an increase of bulk equal to 375 parts ; so 
 that 100 cubic feet of air at 32° become dilated to 137 A cubic 
 feet at 212°. 
 
 EX PARTE. In Law, of the one part. A commission 
 ex parte in chancery is that which is taken out and ex- 
 ecuted by one side or party alone, on the other party's 
 neglecting or refusing to join. 
 
 EXPECTATION OF LIFE. By this term writers on an- 
 nuities and reversions express the mean duration of human 
 life, after a specified age, according to a given table of mor- 
 tality. With regard to an individual of a given age, the 
 expectation of life is the mean number of future years which 
 individuals of that age, one with another, actually live ; 
 those who live longer than that period enjoying as much 
 more life in proportion to their numbers as those who live 
 a shorter time enjoy less. The expectation of life, accord- 
 ing to this definition, differs altogether from what is called 
 the probable life, or the number of years which an indi- 
 vidual has an equal chance of surviving. The latter term 
 denotes the period of time at the end of which the proba- 
 bility of being alive is equal to the probability of being dead, 
 or is equal to J ; and this is manifestly the period in which 
 the number of lives in the table, beginning with any given 
 age, is reduced to one half. For example, if in a given table 
 of mortality we find that 1000 individuals are living at the ase 
 of 40, and that of these 500 only are living at the age of 63, 
 then the probable life of a:i individual aged 40, according 
 to that table, would'be 23 ye:irs ; that is to say, it is an even 
 wager whether he will be alive or dead at the end of 23 
 years. The mean life, or expectation of life, is, however, 
 quite different in principle (though in most tables not very 
 different in amount), and depends on the same mathemati- 
 cal probabilities of living wer each future year of life, to 
 the last in the table, as are employed in the calculation of 
 life annuities. It is computed as follows : — 
 
 Let the probabilities that a life of a given age will live 
 over, 
 
 1, 2, 3, 4 a: years, 
 
 be pi pn p'i pi px respectively ; 
 
 then the probability that the life will fail in any given year 
 x, is px—\ — p_r- 
 
 Now, in computing the portion of existence which an in- 
 dividual may expect to enjoy in respect of any future year 
 x, there are two contingencies to be considered : — 1st, The 
 individual may live over that year, in which case he will 
 enjoy a whole year of life = 1. But the probability of this 
 event is px ; therefore px X 1 =Px 's the portion of time 
 434 
 
 EXPIATION. 
 
 he may at present expect to live in respect of that year. 
 2d, The individual may die in the course of that year ; and 
 as the chances of dying at any particular part of the year 
 are equal, we must suppose him to die at the middle of the 
 year; in this case, therefore, he enjoys half ayearof life = 
 k. But the probability his death will happen in the arth year 
 
 ispj— t — px ; consequently hfpx— l — px 'N is the portion 
 
 of lime he may hope to live, in respect of that year, on the 
 second contingency. 
 
 Adding the two results together, we getpr + if px— l— px ) 
 
 = h (px— 1 + P J ) for the whole of his expectation of life 
 
 in respect of the xW\ year from the present. Substituting 
 successively the numbers 1, 2, 3, <fcc. for x, in order to get 
 the expectation for each succeeding year till the last age in 
 the table, and denoting the sum of the expectations by E, 
 we find (since po = 1)" 
 
 E = A (1 +pi +P2 +p3 -f &c.) 
 + i (P 1 + .P 2 +P3+&C); 
 consequently, 
 
 E = J + pi -f p-2 + P3 + &c (1) 
 
 Thus it appears that the true value of the expectation of 
 life is equal to the sum of the probabilities of the life en- 
 during through 1, 2, 3, &c. years to the limiting age of the 
 table of mortality, increased by £. The labour that would 
 be required to sum this series for every different age is 
 avoided by deducting the expectation of one age from that 
 of the next older, as is usually done in computing annuity 
 tables. Thus, let Ei denote the expectation of life for an in- 
 dividual one year older than the former, and let the proba- 
 bilities of his living over 1, 2, 3, &c. years be respectively 
 91 52 93, &c. ; then we must have 
 
 El = | + 91 + 92 + 93 + &C (2) 
 
 But from the nature of the probabilities in question, 
 p-2 = pi 91 
 p3 = pi 92 
 
 pi =pi 93, &c. 
 Substituting, therefore, these values in (1), we find 
 
 E = A + pi(l-r. 91 + 92 + 03 + &c.) (3) 
 
 Whence, on eliminating 91 + 92 + 93 4- &c, from the two 
 equations (2) and (3), we get 
 
 E— *=pi (El + A), 
 which is the most convenient form under which the for- 
 mula can be put for computation. 
 
 For the explanation of the manner in which the probabil- 
 ities p',p2,p3, &c.,are determined from the ordinary tables 
 of mortality, see Annuity. 
 
 The following table, from Mr. Milne's Treatise on the 
 Valuation of Annuities and Assurances (vol. ii. p. 565.) 
 shows the expectation of life at every age, according to the 
 law of mortality at Carlisle :— 
 
 Age. 
 
 Expectat. 
 
 Age. 
 
 Expectat. 
 
 Agt. 
 
 Expectat. 
 
 Age. 
 
 Expectat. 
 
 
 
 38-72 
 
 26 
 
 37-14 
 
 52 
 
 19-68 
 
 78 
 
 6-12 
 
 1 
 
 44-68 
 
 27 
 
 3641 
 
 53 
 
 18-97 
 
 79 
 
 5-80 
 
 2 
 
 47-55 
 
 28 
 
 35-69 
 
 54 
 
 18-28 
 
 80 
 
 551 
 
 3 
 
 49-82 
 
 29 
 
 35 00 
 
 55 
 
 17-58 
 
 81 
 
 5-21 
 
 4 
 
 50 76 
 
 30 
 
 34-34 
 
 56 
 
 16-89 
 
 82 
 
 4-93 
 
 5 
 
 51-25 
 
 31 
 
 33-68 
 
 57 
 
 16-21 
 
 83 
 
 4-65 
 
 6 
 
 51-17 
 
 32 
 
 33 03 
 
 58 
 
 15-55 
 
 84 
 
 4-39 
 
 7 
 
 50-80 
 
 33 
 
 32 36 
 
 59 
 
 14 92 
 
 85 
 
 412 
 
 8 
 
 50-24 
 
 34 
 
 31-68 
 
 60 
 
 14-34 
 
 86 
 
 3-90 
 
 9 
 
 49-57 
 
 35 
 
 3100 
 
 61 
 
 13 82 
 
 87 
 
 3-71 
 
 10 
 
 48-82 
 
 36 
 
 30-32 
 
 62 
 
 1331 
 
 88 
 
 3-59 
 
 11 
 
 48 04 
 
 37 
 
 29-64 
 
 63 
 
 12 81 
 
 89 
 
 3-47 
 
 12 
 
 47-27 
 
 38 
 
 28-96 
 
 64 
 
 12-30 
 
 90 
 
 3-28 
 
 13 
 
 46-51 
 
 39 
 
 23-28 
 
 65 
 
 11-79 
 
 91 
 
 3 26 
 
 14 
 
 45-75 
 
 40 
 
 27-61 
 
 66 
 
 11-27 
 
 92 
 
 3-37 
 
 15 
 
 45-00 
 
 41 
 
 26-97 
 
 67 
 
 10 75 
 
 93 
 
 3-48 
 
 16 
 
 44-27 
 
 42 
 
 26-34 
 
 68 
 
 10-23 
 
 94 
 
 3-53 
 
 17 
 
 43-57 
 
 43 
 
 2571 
 
 69 
 
 9-70 
 
 95 
 
 3-53 
 
 18 
 
 42-87 
 
 44 
 
 25 09 
 
 70 
 
 9-18 
 
 96 
 
 3 46 
 
 19 
 
 4217 
 
 45 
 
 24 46 
 
 71 
 
 8-65 
 
 97 
 
 3-28 
 
 20 
 
 41-46 
 
 46 
 
 23 82 
 
 72 
 
 816 
 
 98 
 
 3 07 
 
 21 
 
 40-75 
 
 47 
 
 2317 
 
 73 
 
 7-72 
 
 99 
 
 2-77 
 
 22 
 
 40 04 
 
 4S 
 
 22 50 
 
 74 
 
 7-33 
 
 100 
 
 2-28 
 
 23 
 
 39-31 
 
 49 
 
 2181 
 
 75 
 
 701 
 
 101 
 
 179 
 
 24 
 
 38-59 
 
 50 
 
 21-11 
 
 76 
 
 6-69 
 
 102 
 
 1-30 
 
 25 
 
 37-86 
 
 51 
 
 20-39 
 
 77 
 
 6-40 
 
 103 
 
 0-83 
 
 EXPE'CTORANTS. (Lat. expectorare, to expectorate.) 
 Medicines which increase the secretion of the tracheal 
 and bronchial mucus. The term expectoration is applied 
 to any thing cast off from those vessels or from the cells 
 of the luncs by spitting or coughing. 
 
 EXPIA'TION (Lat.) signifies, in its most extended 
 meaning, the acts by which a guilty person makes atone- 
 ment to religion, morals, or society at large, for any crime 
 or fault he may have committed, whatever be its nature
 
 EXPILATION. 
 
 or extent. The belief in the efficacy of expiation as a 
 means of compensating for a breach of the moral law, 
 formed an important feature in all the religious creeds 
 with whicli we are acquainted. In this respect, there is a 
 wonderful coincidence in the mythological system of the 
 ancients, the creed of the Jews, and that of the Christian 
 world. These ceremonies, of course, were very diversi- 
 fied, and varied with the character of every nation and the 
 nature of the crime whicli it was intended to expiate. 
 Among the Greeks and Romans, expiations were some- 
 times made for whole cities; and, in the more ancient 
 times, to remove or prevent, or to avert an impending ca- 
 lamity, human victims were immolated. We need here 
 hardly advert to the numerous kinds of expiations in use 
 among the Jews, as the Old Testament is filled with ac- 
 counts of them ; and under the heads Atonement and Sa- 
 crifice, we have defined the great act of expiation by 
 which the guilt of the human race has been atoned for, and 
 God reconciled to man in the Christian dispensation. 
 
 EXPILA'TION. In the Roman Law, any injury done 
 to the property of a minor was so designated. 
 
 E'XPLETIVE. (Lat. expleo, / fill up.) In Composi- 
 tion, chiefly poetical; a word not necessary to the sense, 
 but used merely to fill up the measure of a verse, or give 
 roundness to a period. 
 
 EXPLO'SION. (Lat. explosio.) In Natural Philoso- 
 phy, a sudden and violent expansion of the parts of any 
 object. Explosion differs from expansion in this, that 
 whereas the former is always sudden, and only of momen- 
 tary duration, the latter is the effect of some gradual and 
 continued power, acting uniformly for some considerable 
 time. See Expansion ; Matter, Properties op. 
 
 EXPO'NENT, in Algebra, is used in various senses ; 
 thus we say the exponent of a power, the exponent of a 
 rank, the exponent of a ratio. The exponent of a power 
 is a number or algebraic character expressing the degree 
 or elevation of the power to which the quantity is raised. 
 For example, in the expression a 4 , 4 is the exponent, de- 
 noting that a is raised to the fourth power. In the expres- 
 sion am the exponent m is indeterminate, as it may repre- 
 sent any number whatever. The exponent may also be 
 fractional, in which case it denotes not the power, but the 
 
 root of the quantity ; thus a 5 denotes the third or cube 
 root of a. Or it may be negative, in which case it denotes 
 the quotient that arises from the division of unit by the 
 quantity raised to that power; for example, a-o is the 
 
 same thing as — , The earliest writers on algebra denoted 
 au 
 
 the powers of numbers by an abbreviation of the name of 
 
 the power. Harriot repeated the quantity, and for ai wrote 
 
 a a a a; the present convenient system was introduced by 
 
 Descartes. 
 
 The exponent of a rank is the number or place of any 
 term in a series; thus, in the series of uneven numbers, 
 1, 3. 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, <fcc, 7 is the exponent of the rank 
 of the term 13, because 13 is the 7th term from the com- 
 mencement. 
 
 The exponent of a geometrical ratio is the quotient 
 that arises from dividing the consequent by the antecedent 
 of the ratio. Thus, in the ratio of 2 to 8, the exponent is 
 4 = 4; and in the ratio of 8 to 2, the exponent is f = t- 
 Some mathematicians, however, consider logarithms as 
 the exponents of ratios. 
 
 EXPONENTIAL. This term is variously applied. The 
 exponential calculus is the method of performing algebraic 
 operations on exponential quantities, by which is under- 
 stood quantities raised to powers of which the exponents 
 are indeterminate or variable. Exponential curce is a curve 
 defined by an exponential equation, or an equation of the 
 form y =. ax, or y ■=. xx. Exponential equation is an equa- 
 tion which contains an exponential quantity. Thus y=z* is 
 an exponential equation. These equations are commonly 
 resolved by means of logarithms. For example, if we had 
 the equation ax = b, in which x is the unknown quantity, 
 by taking the logarithms of both sides we should get 
 
 x log. a = log. b, and consequently x = r-=*— . But this me- 
 
 log. a 
 thod of solution is not always possible ; for in the equation 
 ax + b*?=zc (and an infinity of others), the value of * can 
 only be found by trial and error. See Logarithm. 
 
 EXPORTATION. The act of sending commodities 
 out of one country into another. See Commerce. 
 
 EX POST FACTO. (Lat. literally, by something done 
 afterwards.) A punishment inflicted in consequence of a 
 law made with a view to a particular offence already com- 
 mitted is sairl to be inflicted ex post facto ; and the phrase 
 "an ex post facto law," is popularly applied to all laws 
 enacted with a retrospective effect, and with intention to 
 produce that effect, which are justly regarded as tyrannical. 
 That species of laws which the Romans termed privilegia, 
 i. e. laws passed in order to impose restrictions on indi- 
 vidual citizens, were frequently ex post facto. The English 
 practice of a bill of pains and penalties is a species of ex 
 435 
 
 EXTRACTION OF ROOTS. 
 
 post facto legislation, and was much animadverted on in 
 the debates which took place on the occasion of its adop- 
 tion against Queen Caroline in 1S20. No ex post facto law 
 can be passed in the U. S. 
 
 EXPOSURE OF CHILDREN. See Foundlings. 
 
 EXPRE'SSION. (Lat. expressio.) In the Fine Arts, 
 the representation of the various passions of the mind. 
 "Care," says Sir Joshua Reynolds in his Fourth Discourse, 
 " must be taken not to run into particularities. Those ex- 
 pressions alone should be given to the figures which their 
 respective situations generally produce. Nor is this enough ; 
 each person should also have that expression which men 
 of his rank generally exhibit. The joy or the grief of a 
 character of dignity is not to bo expressed in the same 
 manner as a similar passion in a vulgar face." 
 
 E'XTANT. (Lat.) In Literature, something that still 
 exists or is in being. Thus it is said that but part of the 
 writings of Livy, Cicero, Ca;sar, &c. are extant, the rest 
 being lost. 
 
 EX TE'MPORE. (Lat.) A term applied to any thing 
 that is done without premeditation. See Voluntary. 
 
 EXTE'NT, in Law, is a writ of execution (sometimes 
 called an extendi facias), directed to the sheriff, against 
 the body, lands, and goods, or the lands only, of a debtor. 
 Writs of extent were of two kinds — extent in chief, and 
 extent in aid; to both of which the king was entilled by 
 ancient prerogative, for the purpose of obtaining satisfac- 
 tion of debts originally due to him, or assigned to the. 
 crown. The writ of extent in chief is a proceeding by the 
 king for the recovery of his own debt, and in which he is 
 the real plaintiff. The writ of extent in aid is also sued out 
 at the instance and for the benefit of the crown against the 
 debtor of a crown debtor ; but in this proceeding the king 
 is the nominal plaintiff only. Under this writ the lands, 
 tenements, and possessions, as well as the person of the 
 defendant, may be taken in execution; and if within seven 
 days he do not liquidate the debt, a writ of "venditioni 
 exponas is issued to sell the same ;" the crown claiming a 
 priority of satisfaction over every other creditor. 
 
 E'XTRACT. or EXTRACTIVE MATTER. The term 
 extract is applied in pharmacy to the brown substance 
 which remains after the evaporation of certain decoctions 
 or infusions of vegetables ; thus we have extract of bark, 
 extract of rhubarb, and so on. These extracts are usually 
 mixtures of gum, starch, sugar, or other soluble matters, 
 along with a certain portion of a peculiar vegetable princi- 
 ple of a brown colour, or which becomes so by exposure 
 to air, and which is soluble in water and in alcohol, but 
 scarcely soluble in ether. It combines with alumina, and 
 is often the basis of brown dyes : it is this principle which 
 chemists call extractive, and which is frequently closely 
 allied to various forms of colouring matter. 
 
 EXTRACT OF LEAD. A term applied to the impure 
 subacetate of lead obtained by boiling litharge in vinegar. 
 It was first used by a surgeon of the name of Goulard, and 
 hence called Goulard's extract of lead. 
 
 EXTRA'CTION OF ROOTS. An operation which 
 consists in finding a certain root of a number or algebraic 
 quantity ; or in finding that number or quantity which, 
 multiplied into itself a certain number of times, will pro- 
 duce the given number or quantity. If we take the series 
 of numbers, 
 
 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, C, 7, 8, 9, 11^ 
 and multiply each into itself, we shall obtain the series of 
 2d powers or squares, 
 
 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100 ; 
 and multiplying each of these again by its corresponding 
 number in the first column, we get the series of 3d powers 
 or cubes, 
 
 1, 8, 27, 64, 125, 216, 343, 512, 729, 1000. 
 
 Taking any one of the first series of numbers, for exam- 
 ple 7, we see that its 2d power (the 1st power is the num- 
 ber itself), or square, is 49, and its C:d power, or cube, 343. 
 Reciprocally, 7 is said to be the 2d or square root of 49, and 
 the 3d or cube root of 343. It is obvious, on inspecting the 
 above series, that out of all the numbers, consisting of one 
 or two digits, there are only nine which are the squares 
 of other whole numbers ; and that of all numbers com- 
 posed of not more than three digits, that is to say, all num- 
 bers up to 999, there are only nine which are the cubes of 
 whole numbers. The roots of all the other whole numbers 
 are not only not integers, but, what is very remarkable, are 
 not expressible by exact fractional numbers, and it is only 
 approximations to their values that can be found. 
 
 The rules for extracting the square and cube roots of 
 numbers are to be found in every elementary treatise of 
 arithmetic ; but require too many explanations and illus- 
 trations to be introduced here to any good purpose. The 
 extraction of the cube root in particular is an intricate and 
 laborious operation ; and, since any root of a number can 
 be found immediately from a table of logarithms, it is an 
 operation of very little use. It is to be regretted that so 
 much time as is frequently given to it in our schools should 
 be so unprofitably employed.
 
 EXTRADOS. 
 
 The general solution of algebraic equations exceeding the 
 fourth degree, has hitherto resisted the efforts of the greatest 
 mathematicians ; but in the case of equations with numeri- 
 cal coefficients (whatever the order of the equation) a 
 value of the unknown quantity, that is, a root of the equa- 
 tion, can always be found by an arithmetical process. A 
 general method of accomplishing this was first given by 
 Vieta; another was proposed by Newton, which has been 
 very commonly employed ; but the important discovery 
 by Mr. Horner of Bath of an easy means of performing the 
 arithmetical computations required in Vieta's method has 
 greatly simplified the operation, and in fact rendered the 
 solution of an affected equation of any degree scarcely 
 more laborious than the ordinary process of extracting the 
 cube root. For an account of Horner's method, first pub- 
 lished in the Philosophical Transactions for 1819, see 
 Young's Theory of Algebraic Equations ; or the Companion 
 to the British Almanac for 1839, in which the reader will 
 find an interesting historical account of the progress of the 
 problem of evolution. 
 
 EXTRA'DOS. The exterior curve of an arch. Ge- 
 nerally the term is used to denote the upper curve of the 
 voussoirs, or stones which immediately form the arch. 
 
 EXTRAVAGA'NTES CONSTITUTIONES. In the 
 Canon Law, certain papal constitutions not included in the 
 Corpus Juris Canonici are so called, and comprised iu a 
 separate volume. They are those of John XXII. and a few 
 of his successors in the papacy. 
 
 EXTRAVASA'TION. (Lat. extra, external to, and vas, 
 a vessel.) A term applied to fluids when out of their pro- 
 per receptacles or vessels. Thus when blood is thrown 
 out upon the brain, or into any of the cavities of the body, 
 it is said to be extravasated. 
 
 EXTRE'ME. (Lat. extremus ) In Logic, has the same 
 meaning with term, when used in reference to a proposi- 
 tion. The subject and predicate are the two extremes of a 
 proposition, the copula being, as it were, placed between 
 them. In speaking of a syllogism, the extremes are under- 
 stood to mean the extremes or terms of the conclusion. 
 
 Extreme. In Music, a word employed in describing 
 those intervals in which the diatonic distances are increased 
 or diminished by a chromatic semitone. 
 
 EXTREME AND MEAN RATIO. A straight line is 
 said to be divided in extreme and mean ratio when the 
 whole is to the greater part as the greater part to the less ; 
 or when the rectangle contained by the whole line and the 
 smaller segment is equal to the square of the greater seg- 
 ment. Euclid shows how a line may be divided in this 
 manner in the lltli prop, of his 2d book ; and it is by means 
 of this proposition that he constructs the decagon on a 
 given straight line. 
 
 EXTRE'ME U'NCTION. One of the seven sacraments 
 of the Romish church, founded upon the passage in the 
 Epistle of St. James in which he says, "If any be sick 
 among you, let him call upon the elders of the church, and 
 let them pray over him. anointing him with oil in the name 
 of the Lord." (v. 14.) The performance of this ceremony 
 is supposed to purify the soul of the dying person from any 
 sins that he may have committed, and which have not been 
 previously expiated by participation in the other means of 
 grace. The Protestants usually answer the text above cited 
 by continuing the quotation to the next verse, where it is 
 said, " And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the 
 Lord shall raise him up ;" from which they argue that re- 
 ference is made to a miraculous gift which was exercised 
 in the Apostle's time, and has no application to our davs. 
 With respect to the usage of antiquity, to which the Ro- 
 manists lay claim, it is answered that the passages to which 
 they refer allude to the ceremony not as a sacrament for 
 the good of the soul, but only as a rite that carried with it 
 health to the body. When the Apostle goes on to say, that 
 the Lord will forgive the sins of the sick man, this evi- 
 dently supposes him to have a lively faith ; and that such 
 faith is the condition of the miraculous cure. 
 
 EXTRE'MITIES. (Lat. extremus.) In Painting and 
 Sculpture, the head, the hands, and the feet. In Zoology, the 
 arms and legs, and analogous members in the lower animals. 
 EXTRO'RSAL. A term used in describing the direc- 
 tion of bodies to denote their being turned from the axis to 
 which they appertain ; thus anthers, whose line of dehis- 
 cence is towards the petals, are said to be extrorste. 
 
 EXU'VI^E. (Lat. cast clothes.) This term was applied 
 by the Roman naturalists and poets to the shed skin of the 
 snake : " Positis exuviis novus coluber," says Virgil. And 
 it is extended in modern zoology to the external layer of 
 the integument of every animal, when it is periodically 
 shed entire or in large portions. The films of mucus 
 thrown off from the external surface of most zoophytes and 
 mollusks may be regarded as exuvia? ; also those portions 
 of the shell which are deserted and partitioned off by a 
 new-formed plate, as in the Spondylvs varius, and univalve 
 chambered shells ; but the exuvial layers are retained by 
 adhesion to the last secreted portion of the shell. In in- 
 sects the whole integument is shed generally several times 
 436 
 
 EYE. 
 
 in succession, the last cadysis taking place in the transition 
 from the pupa to the imago state. In the Crustacea the ex- 
 uvial shell is commonly cast annually ; the cephalothorax 
 or carapace cracks longitudinally down the back, and the 
 limbs are withdrawn after successive painful efforts; the 
 lining membrane of the stomach is at the same time shed. 
 
 Fishes seem to cast off exuvial layers of mucus only ; but 
 in most reptiles the epidermis is periodically moulted, 
 either entire or in large coherent masses. In some spe- 
 cies the moulting could only have been detected by careful 
 watching, as the main evidence, the cast skin, is made 
 away with the moment the operation is ended. Mr. Bell 
 thus describes the cadysis of the common toad: — u Oa 
 watching carefully I one day observed a large toad, the skin 
 of which was particularly dry and dull in its colours, with 
 a bright streak down the mesial line of the back ; and on 
 examining further, I discovered a corresponding line along 
 the belly. This proved to arise from an entire slit in the 
 old cuticle, which exposed to view the new and brighter 
 skin underneath. Finding therefore what was about to hap- 
 pen, I watched the whole detail of this curious process. I 
 soon observed that the two halves of the skin thus com- 
 pletely divided continued to recede further and further 
 from the centre, and become folded and rugose ; and after 
 a short space, by means of the continued twitching of th« 
 animal's body, it was brought down in folds on the sides : 
 the hinder leg, first on one side and then on the other, was 
 brought forward under the arm, which was pressed down 
 upon it; and on the hinder limb being withdrawn, its cuti- 
 cle w~as left inverted under the arm, and that of the anterior 
 extremity was now loosened, and at length drawn off by 
 the assistance of the mouth. The whole cuticle was thus 
 detached, and was now pushed by the two hands into the 
 mouth in a little ball, and swallowed at a single gulp." The 
 common snake {Coluber natrix) when in confinement 
 moults as follows: The formation of the new cuticle pro- 
 duces a detachment of the old from the subjacent living 
 parts, and the latter then loses part of its transparency and 
 smoothness. As the cuticle is continued over the cornea, 
 the sight of the serpent is dimmed ; its motions are also in 
 some degree cramped, and it endeavours to free itself of 
 its incumbrance by rubbing the sides of its mouth against 
 any rough and hard resisting substance. The old cuticle is 
 thereby detached from the circumference of the mouth, 
 and is turned back over the head ; and the impediment to 
 vision being thus removed, the snake proceeds with more 
 vigour and rapidity to detach and turn back the cuticle, by 
 repeating the same actions as those with which it com- 
 menced the operation ; and at length it literally creeps out 
 of its skin, which is left inverted, and more or less entire, 
 according to the degree of the animal's health and vigour 
 at the time of the operation. The rattle-snake is described 
 as actually inverting and drawing off its own skin. After 
 having rubbed back the cuticle from the head, it throws 
 the posterior part of the body in numerous coils around the 
 anterior; one coil is placed in front of the detached part 
 of the integument; and compressing the body strongly, it 
 pushes forward the head and neck, gradually unfolding 
 the coils behind, and stripping off the skin, as it advances 
 forwards. In the warm-blooded classes the periodically 
 moulted feathers of birds, and hairs of various species of 
 Mammalia, may be regarded as exuvial deposits ; as also 
 the small scales of the scarf-skin which are incessantly cast 
 off in man. 
 
 EYE. In describing the structure of the organ of vi- 
 sion anatomists generally refer to external and internal 
 parts ; the former include the eyebrows, or supercilia ; the 
 eyelashes, or cilia; and the eyelids, or palpebral-. The 
 cartilaginous edge of the eyelids is called the tarsus, in 
 which, and in the inner surface of the eyelids, are small 
 glands which secrete a lubricating serous fluid, called, af- 
 ter their discoverer, the glands of Meibomius Near the 
 external corner or canthus of the eye, and in a depression 
 of the frontal bone, are the lachrymal glands (glandula, 
 lachrymales) which secrete tears ; their ducts open on the 
 inner surface of the upper eyelid. The little projection at 
 the inner angle of the eye is called the lachrymal carun- 
 cle. There are also two small orifices observable at the in- 
 ner angle, one in the upper and one in the lower eyelid, 
 which are called the puncta lachrymalia ; they convey the 
 tears by means of two small tubes to the lachrymal sac, 
 from whence they pass by the nasal duct, which opens un- 
 der the inferior spongy bone into the nose. The conjunc- 
 tive membrane of the eye, called also tunica albuginea, or 
 white of the eye, is a membrane which lines the inner eye- 
 lids and the fore part of the globe of the eye. The internal 
 parts of the eye are, the sclerotic membrane, which is the 
 hard outer case of the globe ; the choroid membrane, which 
 is the interior coat of the sclerotic, beginning around the 
 optic nerve, and proceeding to the margin of the transpa- 
 rent cornea, where it deflects inwardly, forming the iris, 
 the posterior surface of which is called the uvea, and 
 its central opening the pupil, which is muscular, admitting 
 of dilatations and contractions so as to modify the quantity
 
 EYE OP A DOME. 
 
 of light admitted into the inner 
 chambers of the eye. The crys- 
 talline lens is a pellucid body in- 
 cluded in a delicate capsule, and 
 lodged in a concave depression of 
 the front of the vitreous humour, 
 which is a transparent and pellu- 
 cid pulpy texture, filling the ball 
 of the eye behind the lens, and 
 covered externally by the hyaloid 
 or arachnoid membrane. The op- 
 tic nerve enters the back of the 
 eyeball by a perforation in the scle- 
 rotic and choroid coats, and is 
 spread upon the posterior and in- 
 ner surface of the latter, form- 
 ing a pulpy film or nervous matter 
 called the retina. The eye is moved by six appropriate 
 muscles. In the annexed cut, representing a section of 
 the ball of the eye, a is the sclerotic membrane or coat, b 
 the iris, c the retina, d the optic nerve, e the vitreous hu- 
 mour, and/ the crystalline lens. See Vision. 
 
 EYE OF A DOME. In Architecture, the circular aper- 
 ture in its summit. 
 
 EYE OF A VOLUTE. In Architecture, the circle in 
 its centre. 
 
 EYE'TEETH. The two upper cttspidali are so called 
 in consequence of the length and direction of their fangs, 
 which extend upwards nearly to the orbit of the eye. 
 
 EYRE, in Law, signifies the court of justices itinerant. 
 The term is in all probability derived from the Lat. iter, 
 journey; as Bracton styles the justices who presided in 
 these courts jusliciarii itinerantes. 
 
 F. 
 
 F. The sixth letter of the English and Latin alphabets ; 
 a labiodental aspirate, "bearing the same relation to the 
 other labiodental aspirate, V, which the letters called 
 tenues,p, A-,/, bear to the media, b, g, d." It corresponds 
 with the Digamma (quod vide) of the jEolian dialect, to 
 which it is closely related both in form and power ; and is 
 susceptible of a few interchanges, chiefly in the Spanish 
 and Latin languages. 
 
 F, or FA. In Music, the note on the fourth line in the 
 bass clef generally ; but it stands on the third line when 
 the part is Barytone. The ordinary character of the F or 
 
 bass clefF is ^V;, which Kepler has much laboured to 
 
 deduce from F itself. 
 
 FA. In Music, one of the syllables invented by Guido 
 Aretino to mark the fourth sound of the modern scale of 
 music ; rising thus, tit, re, mi, fa. 
 
 FABACEjE. (Faba, a bean.) An extensive natural 
 order of plants. Ste Leguminos.2E. 
 
 FA'BLE. (Lat. fabula.) In Literature, a term applied 
 originally to every fictitious tale ; but confined in modern 
 usage to a class of tales, either in prose or verse, which 
 inculcate a moral precept through the medium of a short 
 fictitious story. In the very ancient Indian Fables of Pilpay, 
 the Arabian of Lockman, and the Greek of iEsop, the 
 fictitious personages introduced are chiefly animals, endued 
 for the purpose of the story with human faculties and lan- 
 guage ; and hence modern fabulists have generally intro- 
 duced similar agents in the greater number of their fables. 
 In this sense, the fable is synonymous with apologue, and 
 a species of the class allegory. Fables are either in prose 
 or verse ; but if the latter, they will not bear with propriety 
 a highly poetical or ornamented character. Herder has 
 divided fables, according to the character of their mean- 
 ing, into three classes : — 1. Theoretic, intended to form or 
 exercise the understanding ; 2. Moral, which contain rules 
 for the regulation of the will; 3. Fables of fate or destiny, 
 in which the narrative contains no maxim of self-conduct, 
 as it merely represents a series of contingencies brought 
 on by necessary connection. But it may be doubtful 
 whether every fable, in the sense in which the name is 
 generally used, does not belong properly to the second 
 class ; the instances cited by Herder as appertaining to the 
 first and third were certainly intended by the inventors to 
 bear a moral meaning. 
 
 FA'BLIAUX. In French literature, the metrical tales of 
 the Trouvfires or earlv poets of the Langue d' Oil, or dia- 
 lect of the north of France ; composed, for the most part, 
 in the 12th and 13th centuries. 
 
 FACADE. (Fr.) In Architecture, the face or front of 
 any building towards a street, court, garden, or other place ; 
 a term, however, more commonly used to signify the prin- 
 cipal front. 
 
 FACE, in Geometry, denotes in general one of the planes 
 which form the surface of a polyhedron. In Fortification, 
 437 
 
 FACTOR. 
 
 face denotes a line of rampart, or the extent between the 
 outermost points of two adjacent bastions. 
 
 FA'CIAL ANGLE, is that angle which is formed by the 
 concurrence of two ideal lines, one of which passes by the 
 hole in the skull termed the meatus auditorius externus to 
 the anterior extremity of the alveolar margiu of the upper 
 jaw, while the other extends to the same point from the 
 most prominent part of the forehead. 
 
 FA'CIES. (Lat.) In Zoology, a term applied to express 
 the general aspect or external character of an animal, as it 
 appears on a casual or first view ; mostly with reference to 
 another to which it bears a superficial resemblance. 
 
 In Anatomy, it signifies the anterior part of the skull 
 forming cavities of the orbits, nose, and mouth. 
 
 FA'CIES IH'PPOCRA'TICA. The peculiar expression 
 of countenance which indicates the approach of death; it 
 has been accurately described by Hippocrates, whence the 
 above common medical term. 
 
 FA'CING. In Architecture, that part of the work in a 
 building seen by a spectator; but the term is usually em- 
 ployed to signify a better sort of material which masks an 
 inferior one internally. 
 
 FAC SIMILE (Lat. facere, to make, and simile, like), ex- 
 pressed in French by fais-semblable, signifies an exact and 
 faithful copy of any writing, engraving, or other work of art. 
 
 FA'CTION. (Lat.) In Ancient History, an appellation 
 given to the different troops or companies of combatants 
 in the games of the circus. Of these factions there were 
 four, — the green, blue, red, and white ; to which two others 
 were said to have been added by the emperor Domitian, — 
 the purple and the yellow. In the time of Justinian 40,000 
 persons were killed in a contest between two of these 
 factions ; so that they were at last suppressed by universal 
 consent. The term faction is applied, also, in a more 
 general sense, to any party in a state which attempts with- 
 out adequate motives to disturb the public repose, or to 
 assail the measures of government with uncompromising 
 opposition. In the ancient Greek republics, faction was 
 carried to an extent unparalleled in modern times. " We 
 may always observe," says Hume (Essays, vol. i. 423.), 
 "where one party (faction) prevailed, whether the nobles 
 or people (for I can see no difference in this respect), that 
 they immediately butchered all of the opposite party that 
 fell into their hands, and banished such as had been so 
 fortunate as to escape their fury. No form of process, no 
 law, no trial, no pardon." The middle ages were distin- 
 guished chiefly by two factions, the Guelfs and Guibelins, 
 who long kept Italy in a state of alarm. In the present 
 day, in England, the termfaction is bandied about between 
 the three great parties of the country, the Whigs, Tories, 
 and Radicals, being applied indiscriminately by the ad- 
 herents of one party to those of another. See Party. 
 
 FA'CTOR. (Lat. facio.) In Mercantile Law, a mer- 
 cantile agent, who is entrusted with the possession of the 
 property which he is commissioned to dispose of. Under 
 the law which obtained previously to the passing of the 
 act 6 G. 4. c. 94. it was held that a factor, as such, had 
 authority to sell only, and not to pledge, the goods of his 
 principal ; and consequently, that a party who had made a 
 bona fide advance to the factor on the credit of the goods 
 was liable to restore them to the principal without his be- 
 ing bound to repay the advance. By that statute it is 
 enacted, that any person intrusted, for the purpose of con- 
 signment or sale, with goods, &c, and in whose name such 
 shall have been shipped, shall be deemed the true owner, 
 so far as to entitle the consignee to a lien thereon in respect 
 of any money or negotiable security advanced by such con- 
 signee for the use of the person in whose name such goods, 
 &c. shall have been shipped ; provided the consignee has no 
 notice, by bill of lading or otherwise, that such party is not 
 the true owner. Various other provisions are added by 
 the same act, to the effect that persons in possession of 
 bills of lading shall be deemed owners, so far as to make 
 valid contracts; that no person can acquire a security upon 
 goods in the hands of an agent for an antecedent debt be- 
 yond the amount of the agent's interest in the goods; that 
 persons may contract with known agents in the ordinary 
 course of business, or out of that course, if within the 
 agent's authority ; that persons may accept and take goods 
 in pledge from known agents ; and a right is preserved to 
 the true owner to follow his goods, while in the hands of 
 his agent or agent's assignee, in ca3e of the bankruptcy of 
 such agent or assignee. A factor has a general lien on 
 goods consigned to him, not only for incidental charges, but 
 as an item of mutual account for the balance due to him, 
 as long as he rpmains in possession. 
 
 In Scotland, the term factor is used synonymously with 
 steward in England. 
 
 Factor, in Arithmetic and Algebra, is the name given to 
 each of the quantities which we multiply into one another 
 in order to form (facere) a product ; that is to say, to the 
 multiplicand and the multiplier. Factors are otherwise 
 called divisors, especially in speaking of a number which 
 is regarded as the product of several others.
 
 FACTORY. 
 
 FA'CTORY. Establishments supplied with machinery 
 for the purpose of carrying on any branch of manufacture, 
 are usually called factories. Hence we have woollen, cot- 
 ton, flax, &.C factories, according to the different branches 
 of industry carried on in each. Factories on an extensive 
 scale are to be found only in countries far advanced in civi- 
 lization, and where the arts are highly improved. In rude 
 countries, and in the earlier stages of society, manufac- 
 tures are necessarily carried on upon a small scale, with 
 very imperfect instruments, and little or no division of la- 
 bour. In factories, on the contrary, the most improved 
 machinery is introduced ; every individual has a peculiar 
 task to perform, in the execution of which he cannot fail to 
 acquire the greatest proficiency. We need not, therefore, 
 be surprised to learn that, wherever factories are generally 
 introduced, domestic manufactures are totally superseded, 
 as all classes find it to be more for their advantage to buy the 
 products furnished by the factories than to attempt to sup- 
 ply themselves with similar products by their own labour. 
 Many complaints have been made as to the injurious 
 influence of factory labour on the health of the labourers, 
 and especially of the young persons, employed in them. 
 This, however, is a subject as to which there has been 
 much misrepresentation. Children, that is, young persons 
 between the ages of nine and fourteen years, as well as 
 adults, are largely employed in factories ; and, while the 
 health and morals of the latter are said to suffer severely, 
 the former have been described as being stunted in their 
 growth, and rendered decrepit and miserable for life, by the 
 prolonged confinement, drudgery, and ill treatment to 
 which they are exposed. These representations of the in- 
 jurious effects of what has been called white slavery, were 
 at length embodied in a Reportofa Committee of the House 
 of Commons in 1832. We believe, however, that we run 
 little risk in affirming that this report contains more false 
 statements and exaggerated representations than any other 
 document of the kind ever laid before the legislature. It 
 made a great sensation ; and the discussions to which it, or 
 rather the proposal that grew out of it, for limiting factory 
 labour to ten hours a day, gave rise, induced government 
 to appoint a commission to inquire, on the spot, into the 
 actual condition of the labourers, and especially of the 
 children, employed in factories. This commission col- 
 lected a great deal of valuable and authentic information ; 
 and mucii light has since been thrown on the question of 
 factory labour. It were absurd to pretend, as some have 
 done, that the statements and representations as to its per- 
 nicious influence have been proved to be irholly destitute 
 of foundation ; but they have been shown to be very greatly 
 exaggerated. That great inattention to cleanliness, and 
 some very revolting abuses, have existed in some factories, 
 particularly in those of the smaller class, is auite certain ; 
 but the instances of abuse bear but a small proportion to 
 the total number ; and, speaking generally, factory work- 
 people, including non-adults, are as healthy and contented 
 (is any class of the community obliged to earn their bread 
 in the sweat of their brow. 
 
 We do not, however, know that we should object to the 
 total exclusion of children, from nine to thirteen years of 
 age, from factories, provided we had anv reasonable secu- 
 rity that they would be moderately well attended to and 
 instructed at home. But no such security is to be looked 
 for. The parents of such children frequently want the 
 ability, oftener the opportunity, and sometimes the wish, 
 to keep them at home in any thing like a decent condition ; 
 to provide them with instruction, or to impress on them 
 the importance of habits of cleanliness, sobriety, and in- 
 dustry. Were they turned out of the factories, few would 
 either go to the country or to school. Four- fifths of them 
 would be thrown loose upon the streets, to acquire a taste 
 for idleness, and to be early initiated in the vicious prac- 
 tices prevalent amongst the dregs of the populace in Man- 
 chester, Glasgow, Leeds, and other great towns. What- 
 ever may be the state of society in these towns, we hesitate 
 not to say that it icould have been ten times irorse but for 
 the factories. They have been their best and most im- 
 portant academies. Besides taking the children out of 
 harm's way, they have imbued them with regular, orderly, 
 and industrious habits. Their earnings are considerable, 
 and are a material assistance to their parents ; at the same 
 time that they make them perform their tasks with a zeal 
 and alacrity that is rarely manifested by apprentices serv- 
 ing without pay, merely that they may learn some art, 
 trade, or mystery. Many factories have also day schools, 
 or Sunday schools, or both, attached to them, which the 
 children attend. But, independently of this, the training 
 they undergo in factories is of inestimable value, and is 
 not more conducive to their own interests than to those of 
 the public. 
 
 Besides supposing that the health of the population is 
 injured by the extension of manufactures, it has been sup- 
 posed that the extreme subdivision of labour in manufac- 
 turing establishments, and the undivided attention which 
 every one employed in them must give to the single opera- 
 438 
 
 tion in which he is engaged, has a most pemfctatis influ- 
 ence over the mental faculties. The genius of the master 
 is said to be cultivated, but that of the workmen to be con- 
 demned to perpetual neglect. •' Many mechanical arts," 
 says Dr. Ferguson 'Essay on Civil Society, p. 303), " re- 
 quire no capacity ; they succeed best under'a total suppres- 
 sion of sentiment and reason ; as ignorance is the mother 
 of industry as well as of superstition. Reflection and fancy 
 are subject to err; but a habit of moving the hand or the 
 foot is independent of either. Manufactures accordingly 
 prosper most when the head is least consulted, and where 
 the workshop may, without any great effort of imagination, 
 be considered as an engine, the parts of which are men." 
 Similar statements have been made by others. Even Dr. 
 Smith, who has given so beautiful an exposition of the 
 benefits derived from the division of employments, has in 
 this instance concurred with the popular opinion, and has 
 not hesitated to affirm that constant application to one par- 
 ticular occupation in a large manufactory "necessarily 
 renders the workmen as stupid and ignorant as it is pos- 
 sible to make a human being." Nothing, however, can be 
 more marvellously incorrect than these representations 
 Instead of its being true that the workmen employed in 
 manufacturing establishments are less intelligent and acute 
 than those employed in agriculture, the fact is distinctly 
 and competely the reverse. The weavers and other me- 
 chanics of Glasgow, Manchester, and Birmingham, possess 
 far more information than is possessed by the agricultural 
 labourers of any county in the empire. And this is really 
 what a less prejudiced inquiry into the subject would have 
 led us to anticipate. The various occupations in which the 
 husbandman has successively to engage, their constant 
 liability to be affected by so variable a power as the weather, 
 and the perpetual change in the appearance of the objects 
 which daily meet his eyes, and with which he is conversant, 
 occupy his attention, and render him a stranger to that 
 ennui and desire for extrinsic and adventitious excitement 
 which must ever be felt by those who are constantly en- 
 gaged in burnishing the point of a pin, or in performing the 
 same endless routine of precisely similar operations. This 
 want of excitement cannot, however, be so cheaply or ef- 
 fectually gratified in any way as it may be by cultivating, 
 that is, by stimiilaling, the mental powers. Workmen in 
 general have no time for dissipation ; and if they had, the 
 wages of labour are too low, and the propensity to save and 
 accumulate too powerful, to allow of any large propor- 
 tion of them seeking to divert themselves by indulging in 
 riot and excess. They are thus driven to seek for recrea- 
 tion in mental excitement ; and their situation affords them 
 every facility for amusing and diverting themselves in this 
 manner. Agricultural labourers, spread over a wide extent 
 of country, are without the means of assembling, except on 
 some rare occasions, for the purpose either of amusement 
 or instruction ; but, by working together, those engaged in 
 manufacturing establishments have constant opportunities- 
 of discussing all topics of interest and importance. They 
 are thus gradually trained to habits of thinking and reflec- 
 tion; their intellects are sharpened by the collision of con- 
 flicting opinions ; and a small contribution from each indi- 
 vidual enables them to establish lectureships and libraries, 
 and to obtain a large supply of newspapers and periodical 
 publications. But whatever doubt may exist respecting 
 the cause, whether it be ascribed to the better elementary 
 instruction of the lower classes in towns and villages, or to 
 the circumstances under which they are placed in after 
 life, there can be none as to the fact that the intelligence 
 of manufacturing workmen has increased according as 
 their numbers have increased, and as their employment* 
 have been more and more subdivided. There is not, we 
 apprehend, any real ground for supposing that they were 
 ever less intelligent than the agriculturists; though, what- 
 ever may have been the case formerly, none will now ven- 
 ture to affirm that they are inferior to them in mental 
 acquirements, or that they are mere machines withoui 
 sentiment or reason. 
 
 No statutory restrictions respecting the employment of 
 children in the mills and factories of the United Kingdom 
 existed until the year 1302, when an act of parliament was 
 passed (42 Geo. 3.) for the preservation of the health and 
 morals of apprentices and others employed in cotton and 
 other factories ; and directing the magistrates to report whe- 
 ther the factories were conducted according to law ; and to 
 adopt such sanatory regulations as they might think fit. 
 This act wa3 followed, in 1816, by an act, generally called 
 Sir Robert Peel's Act, imposing various regulations on the 
 employment of children in cotton-mills. 
 
 Both of these acts were repealed in 1831 by an act, 1 &2 
 Will. 4. c. 39., commonly called Sir John Hobhouse's Act, 
 which provided that in cotton factories, to which alone it 
 related, no child could legally be employed till it had at- 
 tained the age of 9 years ; and that no person under 18 
 years of age could be suffered to remain in the factories 
 more than 12 hours in one day ; and that on Saturdays 
 they should only be employed in the factories for 9 hours.
 
 FACTORY. 
 
 Account of all the Cottton, Woollen, Worsted, Flax, and Silk Mills or Factories in each County of England and Wales, and 
 in the Kingdom, in the year 1838 ; specifying the Amount and Description of the Moving Power, and the Number, Age, and 
 Sex of the Persons employed in the same : compiled from Returns of the Factory Inspectors, printed by Order of the 
 House of Commons in 1839. 
 
 
 No.of Mills. Moving Power. 
 
 
 
 Persons employed. 
 
 
 
 j. 
 
 Steam- 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 Power 
 
 Jnderl Age, 
 
 Ages 
 
 
 Totals. 
 
 Counties. 
 
 £ 
 
 a 
 
 1 
 
 is 
 
 
 
 Total 
 Horse 
 Power. 
 
 era- £ 
 ployed. 
 
 I rs 1 between 
 
 between 
 
 13 and 
 
 IS. 
 
 Ages 
 
 above 
 
 18. 
 
 
 En- 
 gines- 
 
 Horse 
 Power. 
 
 Wheels. 
 
 Horse 
 Power. 
 
 Of 
 
 Age. 
 
 9 and 
 15. 
 
 Males. 
 
 Fe- 
 males. 
 
 Engl Ami-Cotton Mills. 
 
 
 j 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 Chester 
 
 154 
 
 12 210 
 
 6,921 
 
 60 
 
 1,726 
 
 8,647 
 
 7,104 
 
 
 1,190 
 
 11,970 
 
 23,192 
 
 17,676 18,676 
 
 Cumberland 
 
 
 13 
 
 b . 
 
 11 
 
 293 
 
 5 
 
 66 
 
 359 
 
 359 
 
 
 21 
 
 764 
 
 1,200 
 
 720 
 
 1,265 
 
 Derby 
 
 
 76 
 
 7 
 
 56 
 
 960 
 
 91 
 
 2,138 
 
 3,098 
 
 2,753 
 
 
 727 
 
 3,721 
 
 6,014 
 
 4,231 
 
 6,231 
 
 Gloucester - 
 
 
 1 
 
 . . 
 
 1 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 8 
 
 15 
 
 14 
 
 Lancaster 
 
 
 1,125 
 
 62 
 
 1,003 
 
 29,909 
 
 272 
 
 3,558 
 
 33,467 
 
 33,422 
 
 
 7,579. 
 
 58,562 
 
 65,982 
 
 69,839 
 
 82,234 
 
 Leicester • 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 4 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 36 
 
 36 
 
 
 - 
 
 102 
 
 142 
 
 54 
 
 190 
 
 Middlesex - 
 
 
 11 
 
 . . 
 
 11 
 
 131 
 
 
 
 131 
 
 131 
 
 1 
 
 14 
 
 212 
 
 312 
 
 289 
 
 250 
 
 Norfolk 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 54 
 
 76 
 
 6 
 
 124 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 
 13 
 
 • - 
 
 9 
 
 170 
 
 9 
 
 137 
 
 307 
 
 307 
 
 
 34 
 
 564 
 
 862 
 
 454 
 
 1,006 
 
 Salop 
 Stafford 
 
 
 1 
 
 • - 
 
 2 
 
 28 
 
 
 
 28 
 
 28 
 
 
 6 
 
 17 
 
 16 
 
 15 
 
 24 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 4 
 
 139 
 
 14 
 
 357 
 
 496 
 
 496 
 
 
 230 
 
 65S 
 
 1,190 
 
 734 
 
 1,344 
 
 Surrey 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 2 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 128 
 
 78 
 
 110 
 
 Warwick - 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 5 
 
 155 
 
 
 
 155 
 
 17* 
 
 
 3 
 
 14 
 
 67 
 
 43 
 
 41 
 
 York, ex. of W. Riding 
 
 69 
 
 4 
 
 619 
 
 38 
 
 515 
 
 1,134 
 
 1,134" 
 
 
 394 
 
 1 .6.3"> 
 
 2,177 
 
 2,171 
 
 2,055 
 
 York, \V. Riding 
 Wales. 
 
 100 
 
 
 67 
 
 1,170 
 
 83 
 
 980* 
 
 2,150* 
 
 2,07 1 % 
 
 
 744 
 
 3,327 
 
 4,172 
 
 3,491 
 
 4,722 
 
 1,589 
 
 85 
 
 1,422 
 
 40,589 
 
 572 
 
 9,477* 
 
 50,066* 
 
 47,917 
 
 1 
 
 10,942 
 
 81,671 
 
 125.533 
 
 99,866 
 
 118,286 
 
 Flint - 
 
 Totals 
 England. — Woollen. 
 Chester 
 
 5 
 
 
 7 
 
 103 
 
 5 
 
 140" 
 
 243" 
 
 144 
 
 
 78 
 
 395 
 
 537 
 
 376 
 
 634 
 
 1,594 
 
 85 
 
 1,429 
 
 40,697 
 
 577 
 
 9,6171 
 
 50,314* 
 
 48,061 
 
 1 
 
 11,020 
 
 62,066 
 
 126,075 
 
 100,242 
 
 118,920 
 
 13 
 
 
 2 
 
 15 
 
 12 
 
 81 
 
 96 
 
 96 
 
 
 30 
 
 54 
 
 90 
 
 135 
 
 39 
 
 Cornwall 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 45* 
 
 451 
 
 42 
 
 
 1 
 
 8? 
 
 117 
 
 9 
 
 197 
 
 Cumberland 
 
 
 14 
 
 " 2 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 135" 
 
 135" 
 
 135 
 
 
 53 
 
 105 
 
 116 
 
 176 
 
 98 
 
 Derby 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 31 
 
 37 
 
 26 
 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 26 
 
 31 
 
 4 
 
 Devon 
 
 
 39 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 521 
 
 521 
 
 469j 
 
 
 286 
 
 586 
 
 938 
 
 360 
 
 1,450 
 
 Dorset 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 26 
 
 26 
 
 24 
 
 
 9 
 
 23 
 
 26 
 
 29 
 
 29 
 
 Durham 
 
 
 3 
 
 . . 
 
 2 
 
 39 
 
 I 
 
 10 
 
 49 
 
 39 
 
 
 21 
 
 37 
 
 31 
 
 35 
 
 54 
 
 Essex 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 
 - 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 Gloucester 
 
 
 90 
 
 29 
 
 49 
 
 843*. 
 
 219 
 
 1,628J 
 
 2,472 
 
 1,987* 
 
 
 91 
 
 2,010 
 
 3,314 
 
 2,677 
 
 2,738 
 
 Hampshire 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 11" 
 
 11 
 
 11* 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 6 
 
 5 
 
 9 
 
 Hereford - 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 19 
 
 19 
 
 17 
 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 15 
 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 Kent - 
 
 
 1 
 
 • . 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 Lancaster • 
 
 
 101 
 
 4 
 
 61 
 
 1,024 
 
 70 
 
 607 
 
 1,031 
 
 1,631 
 
 
 947 
 
 1,726 
 
 2,274 
 
 3,086 
 
 1,861 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 Middlesex • 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 3 
 
 22 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 30 
 
 30 
 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 11 
 
 2 
 
 Monmouth 
 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 25 
 
 25 
 
 19 
 
 
 25 
 
 25 
 
 21 
 
 34 
 
 37 
 
 Norfolk 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 2 
 
 A 9* 
 
 . . 
 
 . 
 
 9i 
 
 V 
 
 
 20 
 
 35 
 
 66 
 
 83 
 
 38 
 
 Northampton 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 11 
 
 14 
 
 Northumberland 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 28 
 
 28 
 
 28 
 
 
 9 
 
 6 
 
 38 
 
 30 
 
 23 
 
 Oxford 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 11 
 
 106 
 
 114 
 
 113 
 
 
 26 
 
 146 
 
 04 
 
 187 
 
 89 
 
 Salop 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 33 
 
 3S 
 
 34 
 
 
 3 
 
 24 
 
 30 
 
 53 4 
 
 Somerset - 
 
 
 30 
 
 1 
 
 13 
 
 260 
 
 41 
 
 372 
 
 632 
 
 545 
 
 
 179 
 
 773 
 
 1,181 
 
 1,138 945 
 
 Surrey 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 2 
 
 36 
 
 2 
 
 36 
 
 72 
 
 n 
 
 
 3 
 
 38 
 
 29 
 
 63 
 
 7 
 
 Westmoreland 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 5 
 
 107 
 
 14 
 
 123 
 
 230 
 
 230 
 
 
 41 
 
 198 
 
 143 
 
 201 
 
 181 
 
 Wilts - 
 
 
 53 
 
 2 
 
 39 
 
 718 
 
 56 
 
 412 
 
 1,130 
 
 807 
 
 
 62 
 
 1,250 
 
 1,916 
 
 1,976 
 
 1,252 
 
 York, ex. of W. Riding 
 
 63 
 
 7 
 
 15 
 
 243 
 
 52 
 
 424 
 
 672 
 
 672 
 
 
 165 
 
 583 
 
 620 
 
 917 
 
 451 
 
 York, W. Riding 
 
 Wales. 
 
 543 
 
 
 3621 
 
 7,492 
 
 191 
 
 2,067 
 
 9,559 
 
 9,302 
 
 4 
 
 3,617 
 
 9,558 
 
 12,991 
 
 
 
 17,818 
 
 8,362 
 
 1,029 
 
 47 
 
 559^ 
 
 10,833 
 
 777 
 
 6,774 
 
 17,612 
 
 16,369f 
 29| 
 
 < 
 
 5,613 
 
 17,330 
 
 24,U6| 29,157 
 
 17,908 
 
 Brecon 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 
 . 
 
 10 
 
 31 
 
 31 
 
 
 17 
 
 19 
 
 46 48 
 
 34 
 
 Cardigan • 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 10 
 
 
 12 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 [Carmarthen 
 
 19 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 21 
 
 26 
 
 26 
 
 25 
 
 
 30 
 
 34 
 
 33 
 
 72 
 
 25 
 
 Denbigh - 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 41 
 
 41 
 
 35 
 
 
 27 
 
 66 
 
 103 
 
 146 
 
 50 
 
 'Glennorgan 
 
 15 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 15 
 
 51* 
 
 55* 
 
 48* 
 
 
 50 
 
 40 
 
 50 
 
 56 
 
 84 
 
 Merioneth • 
 
 25 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 26 
 
 54" 
 
 54" 
 
 48" 
 
 
 18 
 
 50 
 
 66 
 
 75 
 
 5'J 
 
 Montgomery 
 
 61 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 22 
 
 66 
 
 262 
 
 284 
 
 253 
 
 
 174 
 
 362 
 
 187 
 
 507 
 
 216 
 
 Radnor 
 
 Totals. 
 England. — Worsted. 
 Chester 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 17 
 
 19 
 
 8 
 
 1,179 
 
 58 
 
 563J 
 
 10,864 
 
 936 
 
 7,261* 
 
 18,125* 16,827| 
 
 
 } 5,943 
 
 17,917 
 
 24,636 
 
 30,113 
 
 18,387 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 20 
 
 . 
 
 
 20 
 
 2 
 
 
 . 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 Derby 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 36 
 
 36 
 
 36 
 
 
 11 
 
 26 
 
 54 
 
 32 
 
 39 
 
 Durham 
 
 4 
 
 
 5 
 
 116 
 
 1 
 
 20 
 
 136 
 
 136 
 
 
 36 
 
 209 
 
 187 
 
 130 
 
 302 
 
 | Lancaster - 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 181 
 
 5 
 
 80 
 
 261 
 
 261 
 
 
 66 
 
 419 
 
 437 
 
 337 
 
 587 
 
 Leicester - 
 
 26 
 
 
 25 
 
 421 
 
 . 
 
 
 421 
 
 409 
 
 
 72 
 
 679 
 
 983 
 
 662 
 
 1,072 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 . 
 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 3 
 
 6 
 
 Norfolk 
 
 3 
 
 
 3 
 
 90 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 102 
 
 192 
 
 
 36 
 
 223 
 
 124 
 
 86 
 
 299 
 
 Northampton 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 24 
 
 24 
 
 
 IS 
 
 24 
 
 20 
 
 11 
 
 46 
 
 Northumberland 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 4 
 
 
 4 
 
 75 
 
 I 
 
 25 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 154 
 
 209 
 
 150 
 
 213 
 
 Salop 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 22 
 
 
 2£ 
 
 32 
 
 44 
 
 22 
 
 79 
 
 Stafford 
 
 2 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 33 
 
 36 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 ■ 40 
 
 76 
 
 51 
 
 65 
 
 Warwick • 
 
 2 
 
 
 2 
 
 21 
 
 
 . 
 
 21 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 32 
 
 104 
 
 56 
 
 80 
 
 Worcester - 
 
 9 
 
 
 3 
 
 106 
 
 9 
 
 93 
 
 199 
 
 192 
 
 
 6; 
 
 1 252 
 
 331 
 
 156 
 
 540 
 
 York, ex. of W.Riding 
 
 6 
 
 
 1 
 
 25 
 
 5 
 
 70 
 
 95 
 
 95 
 
 
 5' 
 
 11,170 
 
 142 
 
 102 
 
 267 
 
 York, W. Riding 
 Totals. 
 
 342 
 
 
 225| 
 
 4,767 
 
 87 
 
 929 
 
 5,696 
 
 5,325 
 
 
 5 4,14; 
 
 > 619 
 
 10,466 
 
 6,890 
 
 19,344 
 
 416 i 
 
 * 283f 
 
 5,863 
 
 115 
 
 1,313 
 
 7,176 6.857 
 
 
 5 4,52< 
 
 ) 13,883 
 
 13,217 
 
 8,694 
 
 22,940 
 
 439 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 FACTORY. 
 
 TABLE.— continued. 
 
 
 No.of Mills. 
 
 Moving Power. 
 
 
 Actual 
 Power 
 
 Persons employed. 
 
 
 it 
 
 Steam. 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 Und 
 
 r Ages 
 
 Ages 
 
 
 Totals. 
 
 Counties. 
 
 t 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 Horse 
 Power. 
 
 em- 
 ployed. 
 
 4 it 
 of 
 
 Age 
 
 8- between 
 
 9 and 
 
 13. 
 
 between 
 
 13 and 
 
 18. 
 
 above 
 18. 
 
 
 Fe- 
 males. 
 
 En- 
 gines- 
 
 Horse 
 Power. 
 
 Wheels 
 
 Horse 
 Power. 
 
 Males. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cumberland 
 
 9 
 
 
 2 
 
 66 
 
 8 
 
 97 
 
 163 
 
 163 
 
 
 16 
 
 144 
 
 206 
 
 57 
 
 309 
 
 Derby 
 
 1 
 
 . . 
 
 1 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 
 15 
 
 31 
 
 31 
 
 
 15 
 
 40 
 
 41 
 
 23 
 
 731 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 51 
 
 51 
 
 45 
 
 
 1 
 
 28 
 
 72 
 
 10 
 
 91 
 
 
 18 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 72 
 
 21 
 
 202 
 
 274 
 
 214 
 
 
 19 
 
 250 
 
 387 
 
 113 
 
 543 
 
 Durham 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 126 
 
 2 
 
 35 
 
 161 
 
 161 
 
 
 
 164 
 
 258 
 
 100 
 
 322 
 
 Gloucester 
 
 3 
 
 
 4 
 
 63 
 
 
 
 63 
 
 39 
 
 
 2 
 
 66 
 
 71 
 
 18 
 
 121 
 
 Hampshire 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 28 
 
 28 
 
 28 
 
 
 
 52 
 
 34 
 
 3 
 
 83 
 
 Kent - 
 
 1 
 
 . . 
 
 1 
 
 20 
 
 . 
 
 
 20 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 37 
 
 38 
 
 37 
 
 38 
 
 
 16 
 
 2 
 
 21 
 
 480 
 
 3 
 
 42 
 
 522 
 
 622 
 
 
 78 
 
 1,392 
 
 1,411 
 
 1,083 
 
 1,798 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 2 
 
 24 
 
 . 
 
 - 
 
 24 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 29 
 
 19 
 
 43 
 
 Middlesex - 
 
 3 
 
 
 4 
 
 68 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 70 
 
 56 
 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 57 
 
 10 
 
 53 
 
 Northumberland 
 
 3 
 
 
 4 
 
 74 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 86 
 
 86 
 
 
 
 120 
 
 132 
 
 42 
 
 210 
 
 Salop 
 
 1 
 
 
 o 
 
 116 
 
 
 
 116 
 
 116 
 
 
 101 
 
 342 
 
 358 
 
 369 
 
 432 
 
 Somerset - 
 
 13 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 67 
 
 16 
 
 124 
 
 191 
 
 138 
 
 
 11 
 
 189 
 
 227 
 
 64 
 
 363 
 
 Surrey 
 
 1 
 
 . . 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 90 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 20 
 
 21 
 
 4 
 
 37 
 
 Westmoreland - 
 
 4 
 
 
 2 
 
 70 
 
 4 
 
 24 
 
 94 
 
 94 
 
 
 32 
 
 213 
 
 204 
 
 185 
 
 264 
 
 York, ex. of W. Riding 
 
 31 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 153 
 
 43 
 
 466 
 
 619 
 
 619 
 
 
 312 
 
 770 
 
 999 
 
 751 
 
 1,330 
 
 York, W. Riding 
 
 Totals. 
 England.— Silk. 
 Berks 
 
 60 
 
 • " 
 
 59 
 
 1,709 
 
 3 
 
 32! 
 
 1,741! 
 
 1,525! 
 
 
 831 
 
 3,396 
 
 3,346 
 
 2,489 
 5,377 
 
 5,084 
 11,194 
 
 178 
 
 11 
 
 125 
 
 3,134 
 
 111 
 
 1,130* 
 
 4,264i 
 
 3,891! 
 
 
 1,420 
 
 7,260 
 
 7,891 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 30 
 
 30 
 
 30 
 
 
 1 48 
 
 57 
 
 73 
 
 28 
 
 151 
 
 Bucks ... 
 
 2 
 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 S 65 
 
 36 
 
 9 
 
 65 
 
 53 
 
 Chester 
 
 92 
 
 12 
 
 81 
 
 794 
 
 28 
 
 240 
 
 1,034 
 
 786 
 
 4i 
 
 A 2,709 
 
 4,154 
 
 4,515 
 
 4,870 
 
 6,962 
 
 Derby 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 17 
 
 178 
 
 2 
 
 6j 
 
 184! 
 
 204 
 
 i 
 
 7 640 
 
 839 
 
 1,690 
 
 1,013 
 
 2,203 
 
 Devon 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 . 
 
 4 
 
 72 
 
 72 
 
 48 
 
 
 4 79 
 
 119 
 
 203 
 
 62 
 
 343 
 
 Dorset 
 
 G 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 
 38 
 
 46 
 
 40 
 
 c 
 
 4 72 
 
 92 
 
 125 
 
 37 
 
 296 
 
 Essex 
 
 7 
 
 . . 
 
 6 
 
 77 
 
 6 
 
 59 
 
 136 
 
 129 
 
 
 6 233 
 
 561 
 
 641 
 
 204 
 
 1,237 
 
 Gloucester - 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 5J 
 
 5A 
 
 5| 
 
 
 1 62 
 
 27 
 
 23 
 
 22 
 
 101 
 
 Hampshire • 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 18" 
 
 J 
 
 3 56 
 
 79 
 
 74 
 
 21 
 
 201 
 
 Hertford - 
 
 6 
 
 
 5 
 
 41 
 
 4 
 
 52 
 
 93 
 
 93 
 
 1 
 
 >6 272 
 
 247 
 
 209 
 
 367 
 
 417 
 
 Kent .... 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 
 
 I 
 
 11 
 
 28 
 
 2 
 
 38 
 
 
 31 
 
 1 
 
 29 
 
 529 
 
 5 
 
 36 
 
 565 
 
 557 
 
 ! 
 
 59 1,176 
 
 2,043 
 
 2,283 
 
 1,689 
 
 3,902 
 
 :; ddlesL.\ ... 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 18 
 
 
 2 44 
 
 64 
 
 44 
 
 33 
 
 121 
 
 | Norfolk 
 
 4 
 
 
 4 
 
 120 
 
 
 
 120 
 
 120 
 
 5 
 
 »6 329 
 
 990 
 
 929 
 
 162 
 
 2,112 
 
 Nottingham 
 
 4 
 
 
 3 
 
 27 
 
 1 
 
 12 
 
 39 
 
 29 
 
 
 8 110 
 
 129 
 
 192 
 
 177 
 
 272 
 
 Somerset - 
 
 24 
 
 1 
 
 16 
 
 125 
 
 19 
 
 149 
 
 274 
 
 235 
 
 It 
 
 6 560 
 
 559 
 
 780 
 
 406 
 
 1,659 
 
 Stafford 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 103 
 
 2 
 
 35 
 
 138 
 
 122 
 
 I 
 
 )? 394 
 
 441 
 
 601 
 
 508 
 
 986 
 
 Suffolk 
 
 3 
 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 12 
 
 
 9 198 
 
 160 
 
 88 
 
 47 
 
 418 
 
 Surrey 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 
 8 22 
 
 13 
 
 22 
 
 21 
 
 44 
 
 Warwick - 
 
 9 
 
 2| 8 
 
 53 
 
 2 
 
 12 
 
 65 
 
 58 
 
 . 
 
 99 
 
 133 
 
 303 
 
 218 
 
 317 
 
 Wilts .... 
 
 B 
 
 3 
 
 18 
 
 4 
 
 26 
 
 44 
 
 39 
 
 
 7 74 
 
 109 
 
 160 
 
 26 
 
 324 
 
 Worcester - 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 50 
 
 50 
 
 38* 
 
 t 
 
 6 97 
 
 75 
 
 116 
 
 68 
 
 266 
 
 York, W. Riding 
 Totals. 
 Grand Totals. - 
 
 16 
 
 ■ - 11 
 
 193 
 
 5 
 
 66 
 
 259 
 
 270 
 
 
 2 102 
 
 366 
 
 613 
 
 603 
 
 480 
 
 263 
 
 22 199 
 
 2,309 
 
 110 
 
 928 
 
 3,237 
 
 2,886 
 
 1,0 
 
 35 7,442 
 
 11,304 
 
 13,721 
 
 10,649 
 
 22,903, 
 
 3,630 
 
 178' 2,600 
 
 62,867 
 
 1,849 
 
 20,250! 
 
 83,117! 
 
 78,5231 
 
 1.0 
 
 J5 30.354 
 
 132.430 
 
 165.540 
 
 155.075 
 
 194,344 
 
 Sir John Hobhouse's Act was repealed, in 1833, by the act 
 3<fc4 Will. 4. c. 103., which contains the following provisions, 
 comprehending the whole statutory regulations at presentap- 
 plicableto cotton and other factories in the United Kingdom: 
 
 1. That after the 1st of January, 1834, no person under 
 18 years of age shall be allowed to work in the night : that 
 is, between half-past 8 p. m. and half-past 5 A. m., in any 
 cotton or other factory in which steam, or water, or any 
 other mechanical power, is or shall be used to propel the 
 machinery, excepting in lace-factories. 
 
 2. That no person under 18 shall be employed more than 
 12 hours in one day, nor more than 69 hours in one week. 
 
 3. That there shall be allowed, in the course of every day, 
 not less than 1! hour for meals to every person restricted 
 to the performance of 12 hours' work. 
 
 4. That after the 1st of January, 1834, no child, except in 
 silk mills, shall be employed who shall not be 9 years old. 
 
 5. That after the 1st of March, 1834, no child, except in 
 silk-mills, shall be employed in any factory more than 48 
 hours in any one week, nor more than 9 hours in any day, 
 who shall not be 11 years old ; nor after the 1st of March, 
 1835, who shall not be 12 years old ; nor after the 1st of 
 March, 1836, who shall not be 13 years old ; and that these 
 hours of work shall not be exceeded, even if the child has 
 worked during the day in more factories than one. 
 
 6. That children, and young persons whose hours of 
 work are regulated, shall be entitled to 2 holidays and 8 
 half-holidays in every year. 
 
 7. That children, whose hours of work are restricted to 
 9 hours a day, are not to be employed without obtaining 
 a certificate from a physician or surgeon, certifying that 
 they are of the ordinary strength and appearance of chil- 
 dren of the age before mentioned, which certificate is to be 
 countersigned by some inspector or justice. 
 
 440 
 
 8. That it shall be lawful for his majesty to appoint, du- 
 ring pleasure, 4 persons to be inspectors of factories, with 
 extensive powers as magistrates, to examine the children 
 employed in the factories, and to inquire respecting their 
 condition, employment, and education ; and that one of the 
 secretaries of state shall have power, on the application of 
 an inspector, to appoint superintendents to superintend the 
 execution of the act. 
 
 9. That those inspectors are to make all rules necessary 
 for the execution of the act, and to enforce the attendance 
 at school, for at least 2 hours daily, out of 6 days in the 
 week, of childreji employed in factories ; from whose 
 weekly wages a deduction, not exceeding I penny in every 
 shilling, for schooling, shall be made. 
 
 10. That no child shall be employed who shall not, on 
 Monday of every week, give to the factory master a cer- 
 tificate of his or her attendance at school for the previous 
 week. 
 
 11. That the interior walls of every mill shall be white- 
 washed every year. 
 
 12. That a copy or abstract of the act shall be hung up in 
 a conspicuous part of every mill. 
 
 13. That the inspectors shall regularly, once a year, 
 report their proceedings to one of the secretaries of 
 state. 
 
 The act also contains regulations extending the hours of 
 work, where time shall be lost by the want of or an excess 
 of water in mills situated upon a stream of water ; respect- 
 ing the steps to be taken in order to obtain regular certifi- 
 cates of age for the children requiring them ; respecting 
 the erection of schools where necessary ; and respecting 
 the proceedings to be had before inspectors and magis- 
 trates for enforcing the act, and the right to appeal from 
 their decisions.
 
 FACUL^E. 
 
 FA'CUL-E. In Astronomy, certain spots sometimes 
 seen on the sun's disc, which appear brighter than the rest 
 of his surface. These bright spots, and the variable ap- 
 pearances of the solar disc, have given rise to much specu- 
 lation respecting the constitution of the sun. See Sun. 
 
 FA'CULTY. (In the Universities.) In the origin of the 
 university of Paris (which is considered as the model of all 
 European institutions in the middle ages) the seven liberal 
 arts (grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astro- 
 nomy, and music) seem to have been the subjects of aca- 
 demic instruction. These constituted what was afterwards 
 designated the Faculty of Arts. Three other faculties— 
 those of divinity, law, and medicine — were subsequently 
 added. In all these four lectures were given, and degrees 
 conferred by the university. The four faculties were trans- 
 planted to Oxford and Cambridge, where they are still re- 
 tained : although, in point of fact, the faculty of arts is the 
 only one in which substantial instruction is communicated 
 in the academical course. By an anomaly of ancient date, 
 the English universities also give degrees in what is not 
 properly a faculty, but only a branch of one of the faculties, 
 viz. music. On the Continent, the faculty of arts is synony- 
 mous with that of philosophy. In England, that of divinity 
 is not wholly distinct from, but superior to, that of arts ; 
 degrees in the latter being preliminary qualifications for 
 those in the former. 
 
 FA'CULTY, DEAN OF. In Scotland, the elective pre- 
 sident of the faculty of advocates, answering to barristers 
 in England. 
 
 FAGOTTO. The same as bassoon, which see. 
 
 FAHLERZ. A miueralogical synonym of grey copper 
 ore. 
 
 FA'HLUNITE. A mineral, from Fahlun, in Sweden. 
 It is a hydrated silicate of alumina. 
 
 FAIE'NCE. (From Faenza, the original place of manu- 
 facture.) In the Fine Arts, pottery embellished with painted 
 designs. Raffaelle in his early days is believed to have 
 been much engaged on this department of the art; but the 
 matter is very doubtful. It is certain, however, that many 
 of his designs were transferred to porcelain, which hence 
 obtained the name of Raffaelle's ware ; but the date of their 
 execution is posterior to that artist's death. 
 
 FAI'NTING. See Syncope. 
 
 FAINTS. The impure and weak spirit constituting the 
 first and last runnings of the still. 
 
 FAIR. (Either from the Latin ferire or forum.) A meet- 
 ing held at stated times of the year in particular places, for 
 the purposes of traffic, to which merchants resort with 
 their wares. Fairs, in Christian countries, were usually 
 held on particular festivals ; and are so still in England, un- 
 less where they have been fixed to particular days in the 
 month by later grants of privileges. By the English law, 
 the king's authority only is susposed to confer the privilege 
 of holding a fair, with the court of piepowder to determine 
 disputes arising there, which is incident to it. Fairs are 
 considered free, unless mil is due to the owners by special 
 grant, or by custom, which supposes such arant. 
 
 FAI'RIES. Imaginary beings, who occupied a distin- 
 guished place in the traditional superstitions of the nations 
 of Western Europe, and especially in these islands. Their 
 English name is probably derived from " fair," or has the 
 same etymology with that word; and, although some simi- 
 larity has been traced between them and the Peris of the 
 Persians (pronounced Feri by the Arabians), it is not pro- 
 bable that the resemblance of name is more than acci- 
 dental. There is also a distinction between the fairy of 
 our island and the Fata or prophetic sybil of the Italians, 
 from which last the French Fee is derived ; although the 
 French, in their romantic mythology, have somewhat 
 mingled the characteristics of the two. The British fai- 
 ries, also, although they have something in common with 
 the Dweraas or Gnomes of the Scandinavian mythology, 
 are not idenlical with them; they are in fact peculiar to 
 people of Celtic race, and the notions respecting them 
 prevalent among the Celtic population in Scotland, Wales, 
 and Ireland tally to a remarkable degree. The popular be- 
 lief, however, was nowhere invested with so poetical a 
 character as in the Lowlands of Scotland, where it forms 
 a main ingredient in the beautiful ballad poetry of the dis- 
 trict. The fairies of the Scottish and English mythology 
 are diminutive beings, who render themselves occasionally 
 visible to men, especially in exposed places, on the sides 
 of hills, or in the glades of forests, which it is their custom 
 to frequent. They have also dealings with men, but of an 
 uncertain and unreal character. Their presents are some- 
 times valuable ; but generally accompanied, in that case, 
 with some condition or peculiarity which renders them 
 mischievous: more often they are unsubstantial, and turn 
 into dirt or ashes in the hands of those to whom they have 
 been sriven. Mortals have been occasionally transported 
 into Fairy land, and have found that all its apparent splen- 
 dour was equally delusive. One of the most ordinary em- 
 ployments of fairies, in vulgar superstition, is that of steal- 
 ing children at nurse, and substituting their own offspring 
 441 
 
 FALCO. 
 
 in place of them, which after a short time perish or are 
 carried away. The popular belief in fairies has been made 
 the subject of poetical amplification in the hands of so 
 many of our greatest writers, from Shakspeare to Scott, 
 that it is not easy to disentangle the embellishments with 
 which it has been invested from the original notions on 
 which they are founded. The Fata of the Italians, who 
 figures in their romantic epics, and from whom the French 
 have made the Fee of their fairy tales, is quite a different 
 personage : a female magician, sometimes benevolent, and 
 sometimes malevolent, partaking herself of the supernatu- 
 ral character, and peculiarly gifted with the spirit of pro- 
 phecy. Such is the Fata Morgana, to whom the celebrated 
 optical delusion occasionally produced in the Straits of 
 Messina was formerlv attributed by popular belief. 
 
 FAITH. (Gr. viarit, Lat. fides.) In Theology. It is 
 observable that the writers of the New Testament employ 
 one and the same word for faith and belief. In most mo- 
 dern languages, the use of two different terms has, per- 
 haps, strengthened the feeling of a difference between the 
 conviction of the heart and that of the understanding : the 
 German, like the Greek, has one only. Faith, in the lan- 
 guage of St. Paul, is " the substance of things hoped for, 
 the evidence of things not seen." Perhaps these strong 
 expressions might be more accurately rendered " confi- 
 dence" in things hoped for (compare 2 Cor. ix. 4. xi. 17.), 
 "conviction" of things not seen. (Heb. xi. 1.) Through 
 this faith, the apostle proceeds to declare, men receive as 
 true things delivered to them on divine authority, to which 
 neither their senses nor their uninstructed reason bear tes- 
 timony, and endure sufferings and do great actions for 
 God's sake. And without it "it is impossible to please 
 him." Such faith "wasimputed" toAbraham "forright- 
 eousness" (Rom. iv. 21.); and thus, "being justified by 
 faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ." 
 (Rom. v. ].) It is evident from these as well as many 
 other passages in the Epistles of St. Paul, that this justifi- 
 cation is attained only by that faith which obeys the com- 
 mand as well as relies on the promise of God ; termed by 
 theologians efficacious or saving faith. Nevertheless, it 
 may be supposed that these passages were misinterpreted 
 by many of those to whom they were addressed, as con- 
 veying the doctrine of salvation through the mere act of 
 belief. Perhaps they were among those expressions of St. 
 Paul which, according to St. Peter, those who were unsta- 
 ble "wrested to theirown destruction ;" since the Apostle 
 James found it necessary to insist so strongly on the ineffi- 
 cacy of faith without works (ii. 17.), or a dead faith (ib. 
 20.), and to assert that "by works a man is justified, and 
 not by faith only" (24.) It is needless to state how much 
 theologians, in every age of the church, have been per- 
 plexed by the ethical problem thus presented. Their diffi- 
 culties may be thought to arise, in great measure, from the 
 inadequacy of our mental powers to separate the naked 
 act of belief, to which, as far as is perceptible to our facul- 
 ties, no quality of ethical risht or wrong can attach, from 
 the moral predispositions which have produced that be- 
 lief, and the influence on the character which results from 
 it; the whole, perhaps, entering into the Apostolic view of 
 faith. In all ages and churches, there has been a tendency 
 in some to insist exclusively on the doctrine of justifica- 
 tion by faith,— a tendency which has sometimes proceeded 
 so far, as in the case of Luther at one period of his life, 
 as to induce them to undervalue or altogether reject the 
 Epistle of St. James ; in others, to postpone it to the other 
 great truth of judgment according to works. But the for- 
 mer characteristic has more particularly marked the te- 
 nets which are commonly called Calvinistic, in which it 
 is combined with the peculiar doctrine of election ; the lat- 
 ter has been apt to prevail in Roman Catholic teaching, 
 and to mingle with what is termed Arminianism in Protes- 
 tant churches. 
 
 FAKI'R, an Arabic word signifying poor ; applied in 
 some Eastern countries to a sect of enthusiasts, who re- 
 tire from the world and devote themselves to religious ob- 
 servances. They are chiefly remarkable for their assiduity 
 in "mortifying the flesh," considering no infliction of the 
 body as too severe, provided they can inspire the observer 
 with reverence towards them. There are, however, some 
 classes of Fakirs distinguished for good sense, learning, 
 and piety. 
 
 FALCA'TE. (Lat. falx, a sickle ; sickle-shaped. ) In Zool- 
 ogv, when a part is curved with the apex acute. 
 
 FA'LCATED. (Lat. falx.) The moon is said to be fal- 
 cated when her illuminated part appears in the form of a 
 crescent or sickle, which happens when she is in the first 
 and fourth quarters. 
 
 FA'LCIFORM PROCESS OF THE BRAIN. (Lat. 
 falx.) A process of the dura mater, which arises from the 
 crysta galli and terminates in the tentorium, separating the 
 hemispheres of the brain. 
 
 FA'LCO. (Lat. falco, a falcon.) The name of a Lin- 
 naean genus of Accipitrine Diurnal birds, characterized by 
 a beak crooked, and covered with a cere at the base ; head 
 Dd"
 
 FALCONINES. 
 
 closely invested with feathers. To the short Linnaean 
 phrase descriptive of this group of birds of prey may be 
 added, that the supraciliary arch projects above the eye, 
 giving a bold and threatening physiognomy to these rapa- 
 cious birds, the majority of which subsist on living prey. 
 The first plumage differs from that of maturity, which is 
 not acquired before the third or fourth year. The female 
 is generally one third larger than the male. The Linnaean 
 genus is now subdivided into the. subgenera Falco, Bech- 
 stein ; Hierofalco, Cuv. : Aquila, Brisson ; Haliatus, Sa- 
 vigny ; Pandwn, Sav. ; Circtztus, Vieillot ; Harpyia, Cuv. ; 
 Morphnus, Cuv. ; Asticr, Bechstein ; A T isus, Cuv. ; Milvus, 
 Bechstein ; Pernis, Cuv. ; Buteo, Bechstein ; Circus, Bech.; 
 Gypogeranus, Illig. 
 
 Of these subgenera the first two form what are termed 
 the " noble" birds of prey, and they are the most courage- 
 ous in proportion to their bulk. This quality is associated 
 with a powerful form of the beak, of which the arch com- 
 mences from the base, and which is armed with a strong 
 tooth on each side near the apex. Their wings are strong, 
 long, and pointed, the second quill-feather being the long- 
 est. It is from this division of falcons that, the birds are se- 
 lected for the sport of falconry. 
 
 In the " ignoble" division of the birds of prey, the longest 
 quill- feather of the wing is almost always the fourth, and the 
 first is very short, which gives the wing an appearance of 
 having the extremity obliquely truncated. The bill is not 
 armed with lateral tooth-like processes. 
 
 FA'LCONINES, Falconince. (Lat. falco, a hawk.) A 
 subfamily of Accipitrine birds, having the genus Falco pro- 
 per as the type ; and characterized by a beak short, hooked 
 from its base, and toothed near the apex ; wings long, sec- 
 ond quill shortest. It includes the genera Ferax and Falco. 
 The term Falconidce, is used by some ornithologists in a 
 6ense as extended as Diurnal, which see. 
 
 FA'LCONRY. The origin of this celebrated sport has 
 given occasion to much controversy. It has been said that 
 it was unknown to the Greeks ; it is, however, described 
 by Ctesias and Aristotle as practised in their time in India 
 and Thrace. Martial and Apuleius present us with plain 
 indications of the knowledge of this pastime among the Ro- 
 mans. In modern Europe, it appears to have been prac- 
 tised earliest, or at least with most ardour, in Germany : 
 the title of the emperor, Henry the Fowler (a. d. 920), is 
 said to be derived from an anecdote respecting his fondness 
 for it. In the 12th century, it was the favourite sport of no- 
 bles and knights throughout Europe ; and in that which fol- 
 lowed its rules were reduced into a system by the Emperor 
 Frederic II. (Barbarossa), and by Demetrius, physician 
 to the Greek Emperor Palaeologus. In that court the grand 
 falconer was an officer of distinction ; and the title was bor- 
 rowed from it by the western sovereigns. According to 
 the opinion of Strutt, the sport was not known so early in 
 England as on the Continent ; yet there are traces of it as 
 early as the 8th century. From the commencement of the 
 17th, we may date its gradual decline. James L, devoted 
 to hunting, was no admirer of falconry, which up to his 
 time had been the favourite royal sport. But its final aban- 
 donment, except as the fancy of a few individuals, was ow- 
 ing to the gradual improvement in firearms presenting far 
 easier methods of obtaining game. Among the many cu- 
 rious works which exist on this subject, once so universally 
 interesting, may be mentioned the treatise De la Faucon- 
 •nesie of Charles d'Esperon, Paris, 1605; the celebrated 
 Book of St. Alban's, by the Prioress Juliani Berners, 1486; 
 Latham on Falconry, 1658 ; Ray's Idea of Falconry, pub- 
 lished with Willoughby's Ornithology. The Emperor Fred- 
 eric II. (Barbarossa) did not disdain to give the world the re- 
 sults of his experience in the art, in a treatise published in 
 1596 from his MS., under the title Reliqua librorum Frede- 
 rid II Imp. de arte venandi cum avibus. 
 
 FA'LCULA. (Lat. falx, a sickle.) In Zoology, a claw is 
 so called when it is compressed, elongate, curved, and 
 sharp-pointed. 
 
 FALL. The sea term for the rope of any pully or sys- 
 tem of pulleys. To fall aboard signifies to run foul of 
 another vessel. 
 
 FA'LLACY (Lat. fallo, I deceive), in Logic and Rhetoric, 
 has been defined " any argument, or apparent argument, 
 which professes to be decisive of the matter at issue, while 
 in reality it is not." Fallacies have been divided into those 
 " in dictione," in the words : and " extra dictionem," in 
 the matter. The latter of these it is not the province of 
 logic to discover and refute ; they being, strictly, instances in 
 which the conclusion follows from the premises, and which 
 therefore depend on the unsoundness of these premises 
 themselves, which can only be detected by a knowledge of 
 the subject-matter of the argument. Logical fallacies, or 
 fallacies in dictione, are those in which the conclusion ap- 
 pears to follow, but in reality does not, from the premises ; 
 and which, consequently, can be detected by one unlearned 
 in the subject-matter of the argument, but acquainted with 
 the rules of logic. These are subdivided, however, into 
 fallacies purely logical, ». e. vicious syllogisms (see Syllo- 
 442 
 
 FAMILY. 
 
 gism, Paralogism), and fallacies semi-logical ; those, 
 namely, which arise from the employment of a middle 
 term in argument (see Syllogism, Proposition, Middle 
 Term) ambiguous in sense. In rhetoric, a common set of 
 artifices, by which the mind of the reader or hearer is di- 
 verted from the question at issue and fixed on some colla- 
 teral topic, are termed fallacies ; as, where the character 
 of the proposer of a measure is discussed as a reason for 
 or against the measure itself, &c. &c. &c. 
 
 FA'LLING HOME. The term applied to the timbers or 
 upper parts of the sides of a ship when they curve inwards. 
 The old ships fell home, or tumbled in (as it is also called), 
 much more than the modern ones, which approach more 
 nearly to being wall-sided. 
 
 FA'LLING STARS. See Shooting Stars. 
 
 FALL OF MAN. The disobedience of Adam and Eve 
 as related in the book of Genesis, by which sin and death 
 were introduced into the world. 
 
 The word fall is universally employed in the United 
 States as synonymous with autumn. 
 
 FALLO'PIAN TUBE. The name given to a canal or 
 tube, discovered by Fallopius, arising at each side of the 
 fundus of the uterus, and terminating in the ovarium. 
 
 FA'LLOW. In Agriculture, lands are said to be under 
 fallow when they are without a regular crop of corn or 
 pulse. A naked fallow is one in which the soil remains a 
 whole year without any crop whatever ; and a turnip or 
 green crop fallow is one in which the lands after being 
 without a crop from harvest till the beginning of summer, 
 and being properly laboured during that period, are sown 
 with turnips or other similar crops in rows, and the ground 
 cultivated in the intervals. Fallowing was practised by the 
 Romans on all soils whatever, and has been continued 
 through the dark ages, in all the cultivated parts of Europe, 
 so as to have become, till lately, a general habit, in the 
 treatment of arable lands. The practice of taking two 
 corn crops, and then allowing the land to rest or lie fallow, 
 was, till the commencement of the present century, pre- 
 valent throughout Europe ; and it is still a very common 
 practice in most parts of the Continent. It appears to have 
 been first broken through by the Flemings about the end 
 of the 16th century ; and subsequently in Britain, with the 
 culture of turnips, above a century and a half later. Fal- 
 lows, under the most improved systems of agriculture, are 
 no longer had recourse to in the case of free or easily 
 worked soils, where turnip fallows are made, or drill crops 
 of legumes are substituted ; but in very strong clays they 
 are still found necessary, and this will probably continue 
 to be the case till by the " frequent drain system," and 
 long-continued culture, the strong clays become friable and 
 fit for the drill husbandry, like the sandy loams and other 
 ffQQ soils. 
 
 FALSE CADENCE. In Music, one wherein the bass 
 rises a tone or semitone, instead of rising a fourth or falling 
 a fifth. 
 
 FALSE KEEL. The timber added below the main 
 keel, both to serve as a defence, and also, by deepening 
 the plane surface, to enable the ship to hold a better wind. 
 
 FALSE'TTO. In Music, that part of a person's voice 
 which lies above its natural compass, and is produced to 
 various extents in different subjects, male as well as female. 
 It rarely extends more than four or five notes above the 
 natural voice, and is produced by diminishing the aperture 
 of the throat. 
 
 FAMI'LIA. (Lat.) A house or family, being a subdi- 
 vision of gens or clan (see Gens). Its members were 
 distinguished by having the last of their three names or the 
 cognomen the same. 
 
 FAMI'LIAR, or FAMILIAR SPIRIT ; mentioned in the 
 book of Samuel in a passage which has produced much 
 observation from commentators. The genius or iaijx6vtov, 
 which Socrates and some other celebrated ancients were 
 said to have possessed as a companion, was a species of 
 familiar. In modern Europe and Asia, the belief in 
 familiar spirits forms an important feature in the widely 
 spread superstition respecting the magical art. The sub- 
 ject is curiously examined in the article in the Enc. Metri- 
 politana. 
 
 FA'MILY. In Zoology, the group next in value and 
 comprehensiveness above the genus ; existing in fact, 
 though under the name of the genus, in the classification 
 of Linnaeus, who indicated the different groups of species 
 therein comprehended by numbers, instead of collective 
 appellations. 
 
 Such divisions of the Linnsean genus occur only in those 
 instances in which an unusual number of species presented 
 themselves to the consideration of the clear-sighted Swede. 
 The progress of modern discovery has added so many 
 new forms to the naturalist's catalogue, as to render neces- 
 sary a corresponding subdivision of most of the Linnsean 
 genera. To these subordinate groups of species distinct 
 names are given, for the sake of convenience ; and in order 
 to designate the natural family which these groups com- 
 pose, the name of the original or typical genus is generally
 
 FAN. 
 
 retained, with the addition of the Greek patronymic idm to the 
 genitive case. Thus, e. g. the characters of the Linnaean 
 genus Mus are applicable to a vast number of Rodents, 
 which scientific precision requires to be arranged in nu- 
 merous subordinate groups ; these are distinguished by 
 appropriate generic names in modern systems, and the 
 term Muridm is applied to the family which they collec- 
 tively compose. 
 
 FAN, FANNERS, or FANNING MACHINE. A ma- 
 chine forseparating the chaff,husks, dust, or other light mat- 
 ters from seeds which are to be preserved for sowing, or for 
 some other purpose in general or domestic economy. The 
 air is put in motion by a wheel, commonly driven by hand 
 with leaves or fans instead of spokes, directed in a stream 
 against the seeds to be fanned ; which seeds are placed in a 
 hopper, so regulated as to proportion their descent through 
 the stream of air to the force of the current created by the 
 fan wheel. Before fanners were invented the process was 
 performed by hand in a manner the reverse of what it is 
 now by machinery ; that is, the seeds and refuse to be 
 separated from them were taken up in shovel fulls, and 
 thrown to as great a distance as possible through the calm 
 air; when die full-bodied seeds, being the heaviest, were 
 found at the greatest distance, and the chaff and other mat- 
 ters nearer, according to their degree of lightness. With 
 the progress of the arts a system of screens and sieves was 
 added to the fanning machine ; in consequence of which, 
 as it separated the seed from every kind of refuse, it is 
 called a winnowing machine ; and in that case, it not only 
 separates the chaff and other light matters generally from 
 the heavy matters, but it parts both according to their bulk 
 and weight ; so that the seed comes from the winnowing 
 machine fit for being measured up for the market or store 
 room, and the various kinds of inferior products in a state 
 fit for immediate use. 
 
 FANA'TIC. (Lat. fanum, a temple.) An enthusiastic 
 and visionary person, who, in matters chiefly relating to 
 religion, disregards reason and scripture, and under (he in- 
 fluence of his feelings alone adopts the wildest and most 
 extravagant opinions. The term fanaticus was applied an- 
 ciently to a set of prophetic priests (Struv. Antiq. Rom. 
 p. vi. p. 312.), who performed the sacrifices in a wild and 
 extravagant manner; and hence, by an easy transition, has 
 been bestowed in modern times on those who make pre- 
 tensions to inspiration, or who conduct their worship with 
 extravagance or licentiousness. 
 
 FA'NCY. See Imagination. 
 
 FANDA'NGO. (Spanish.) An air for dancing to, in triple 
 time, and of a quick and lively character. It is the favourite 
 dancing air of the Spaniards, among whom it is of great an- 
 tiquity. The dancer is usually provided wilh castanets, — a 
 practice borrowed from the Moors,— which serve to mark 
 the time more distinctly than a stringed instrument alone 
 would do. The Spaniards in dancing to this species of air 
 often carry their gestures beyond the bounds of decency. 
 
 FANTA'SIA. (It.) In Music, a species of composition 
 in which the author ties himself to no particular theme, 
 ranging as his fancy leads amidst various airs and move- 
 ments. Rousseau in his definition of this word confines 
 its meaning to extempore composition, and makes this dis- 
 tinction between the Capriccio and the Fantasia; namely, 
 that the former is a collection of singular and whimsical 
 ideas strung together by an excited imagination and written 
 down at one's leisure, whilst Ihe latter is an off-hand dis- 
 play of whatever comes across the mind at the instant of 
 execution. 
 
 FANTOCCINI. (It. fantoccio, apuppet.) Dramatic re- 
 presentations in which puppets are substituted in the scene 
 for human performers. 
 
 FARCE. (From the French word, which again is de- 
 rived from the Italian, and this from the Latin farcire, to 
 stuff.) In English Dramatic Composition, a short piece 
 of low comic character. The original term seems, like the 
 Lanx Satura of the Romans, which gave its denomination 
 to the satire, to signify a miscellaneous compound or mix- 
 ture of different things. In modern languages it has borne 
 various significations. Certain songs which were sung be- 
 tween the prayers on the occasion of religious worship are 
 said to have been denominated Farces in Germany, during 
 the middle ages ; whence the word appears to have denoted 
 simply an interlude of any kind. In England, the farce 
 appears to have risen to the dignity of a regular theatrical 
 entertainment about the beginning of the last century: 
 since which time it has formed one of the most popular of 
 our exhibitions, and usually performed, by way of contrast, 
 after a tragedy at (he national theatres. The farce is re- 
 stricted to three acts as its limit, but frequently consists 
 only of two or one. Of all the pieces of this class which 
 have successively amused English audiences, none have 
 acquired a permanent literary reputation except those of 
 Foote,— performances in which the licence of the theatre 
 in satirizing living persons was carried to the utmost height. 
 The FabulcR Atellanm of the Romans, which appears to 
 have been short dramatic entertainments of a miscellaneous 
 443 
 
 FARMING. 
 
 character, sometimes pastoral, sometimes tragi-comic, &c. 
 but not so coarse in plan or diction as the Mimes and their 
 Exodia, which were satirical dialogues in verse between 
 some set characters or stagebuffoons, appear to have filled 
 in some respects the place of the modern farce. On the 
 French stage the vaudeville answers to the English farce. 
 See Vaudeville. 
 
 FA'RCY, or FARCIN, is a disease of the horse which 
 affects the lymphatics of the skin, either generally pro- 
 ducing a distended appearance of the vessels like moles or 
 buttons, when it is called the bud or button farcy ; or lo- 
 cally, when it is chiefly confined to dropsical accumula- 
 tions in the legs, and is called the water farcy. Both forms 
 of the disease are contagious ; and, like the glanders, an 
 allied disease, both are difficult to cure. The button farcy 
 is generally removed by burning off the buttons by caustics 
 or a red-hot iron, and by the exhibition of mercury ; and 
 the water farcy by the exhibition of mercury alone. Both 
 diseases are sometimes cured by feeding the animal en- 
 tirely on green food. See Blaine in Encyc. ofAgr. 2d edit, 
 page 985. 
 
 FARI'NA. (Lat. far, corn, of which it is made.) Meal 
 or flour, obtained by grinding and sifting wheat and other 
 seeds ; hence the term farinaceous food. 
 
 FA'RM. In Agriculture, a farm is a portion of land, 
 with suitable buildings, fences, and other arrangements 
 necessary for carrying on the business of farming, which 
 is let to the farmer or occupier for rent. Farming is no 
 doubt coeval with the invention of property in land ; be- 
 cause we may suppose that when a proprietor has taken 
 possession of a portion of territorial surface, and called it 
 his own, he would require the assistance of various per- 
 sons to cultivate it ; and these persons he could only lemu- 
 nerate by giving them a share of the produce. Hence the 
 origin of what on the Continent is called the Metayer 
 system,— in which the landlord supplies the farmer or 
 tenant with the soil, buildings, and the whole or a certain 
 portion of the stock ; while the latter supplies the labour of 
 cultivation and management, and takes as a remuneration 
 the half, or some other measure of the produce. In process 
 of time, as the tenants or farmers began to acquire capital, 
 they furnished the whole of the live and dead stock, as 
 well as the labour of cultivation and management, and paid 
 the proprietor or landlord a fixed rent in money or pro- 
 duce. To enable the tenant or farmer to do this with the 
 greater security, leases were invented, by which the tenant 
 holding the land for a certain number of years was enabled 
 to lay out money for its improvement at the commence- 
 ment of his lease, and to receive it back again in the form 
 of increased produce before its termination. 
 
 At the commencement of this system of what may be 
 called free farming, all farms were undoubtedly of very 
 limited extent ; but with the increase of capital and skill on 
 the part of the farmer they have become greatly enlarged. 
 Much has been written respecting the most profitable size 
 of farms for the public ; but this may safely be left to the 
 interest of the parties immediately concerned. Whatever 
 size of farm brings in the highest rent to the landlord will 
 be the best size for the public ; because the higher the rent 
 the greater the amount of the produce that must be sent to 
 market to pay it. That there is a natural limit to the size 
 of farms there can be no doubt ; but what this is is a dif- 
 ferent question, and has no connection with the other. It 
 depends on the character of the surface, the kind of farm- 
 ing, and the climate. But though there is a natural limit 
 to the size of farms, and which in any given case can be 
 readily defined, there is no limit to the number of farms 
 that an individual may hold but those of his capital and 
 his skill. 
 
 FA'RMERY. The buildings and yards necessary for 
 carrying on the business of a farm. Their situation should 
 be central to the farm lands, in order that the distance from 
 which the crops are brought from the fields to the farmery, 
 and the manure carted from the farmery to the fields, may 
 be reduced to the lowest degree ; for when the farm build- 
 ings are on one side of the farm lands, it is evident that the 
 cartage to or from the more distant fields must be attended 
 with considerable loss of labour and time. The charac- 
 teristic yard of the farmery is the rick yard, and the prin- 
 cipal feature among the buildings is the barn. 
 
 FARMING. The business of farming, or the cultivation 
 of lands held on lease, necessarily varies in different coun- 
 tries and climates ; but one point is common to them all, — 
 viz. that no article shall be cultivated which shall not fully 
 remunerate the cultivator or farmer within the limits of 
 his lease. Hence, as few leases in any part of the world 
 exceed twenty years in duration, timber trees are never 
 objects of cultivation by farmers , and it is only in particular 
 cases that orchards and vineyards can be planted by them. 
 As a business, farming may be described as that which 
 under ordinary circumstances yields a lower degree of 
 profit than any other mode in which capital and skill can 
 be employed ; but where abundance of capital and extraor- 
 dinary skill are brought to bear on farming, its profits, on
 
 FARROW. 
 
 an average of a long series of years, may perhaps not be 
 much inferior to those of commerce anrt manufactures, 
 on the average of a very long period. The great advan- 
 tages of farming as a pursuit are — 1. That the articles pro- 
 duced, being of the first necessity, there is always a market 
 for them at some price, without the necessity of any or of 
 much exertion on the part of the farmer; 2. The certainty 
 of always bavins; a home and the means of existence on the 
 farm ; and 3. The comparative degree of independence 
 which these circumstances are calculated to create in the 
 mind. These advantages, however, depend much on the 
 length of lease, and on the rent being equitable. 
 
 FA'RROW. A sow is said to farrow when she brings forth 
 
 pigs ; and the pigs brought forth are called a litter or farrow. 
 
 FA'RTHING. A small English copper coin, amounting 
 
 to one fourth of a penny ; it was anciently styled fourthing, 
 
 as being the fourth of the integer or penny. 
 
 FA'RTHINGALE. A name given to the hoop of whale- 
 bone used formerly by the ladies of this and other Euro- 
 pean countries to spread out the petticoat to a wide circum- 
 ference. It was introduced into England in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth, and continued to be used on state occa- 
 sions down to the commencement of the present century. 
 (See Struft's Manners and Customs.) 
 
 FA'SCES. (Lat.) In Ancient History, some of the 
 insignia of authority of the chief magistrates of Rrme. 
 They consisted of bundles of wooden rods, each enclosing 
 an iron axe so that its head appeared above ; and were 
 used as instruments of punishment, the rods being applied 
 for minor offences, and the axe for capital crimes. They 
 were carried before the magistrates on public occasions by 
 officers called lictors, and the number appointed to each 
 varied for the different magistracies. Thus the civic praetors 
 had two, proconsuls and provincial praetors six, the consuls 
 twelve, and dictators twenty-four. The municipal decem- 
 virs also had the privilege of having two fasces carried 
 before them in their own towns. 
 
 FA'SCIA. (Lat. a band.) In Architecture, a flat mem- 
 ber in an entablature or elsewhere, like a flat band or broad 
 fillet. The architrave, when subdivided for instance, has 
 three bands, called fasciae ; of which the lower is called the 
 first fascia, the middle one the second, and the upper one 
 the third. See Ionic and the other Orders. 
 
 FA'SCIjE. In Astronomy, bright stripes or belts ob- 
 served on the discs of some of the planets, particularly 
 Jupiter. The fasciae or belts of this planet are sometimes 
 broader and sometimes narrower, and alter their situation 
 on the body of the planet, though they always appear pa- 
 rallel to his equator. See Jupiter. 
 
 Fa'sci.e. In Anatomy, the tendinous expansions of 
 muscles. The fascia lata is a strong tendinous sheath of 
 the muscles of the thigh. 
 
 Fa'SCICULA'RIA. (Lat. fasciculus, a bundle.) A 
 genus of extinct Zoophites, whose calcareous cases are in 
 the form of tubes aggregated together in conical bundles, 
 like those of the organ-pipe coral (Tubifora). The Fas- 
 cicularias are abundant in the English coralline crag for- 
 mation. 
 
 FASCI'CULUS In Botany, a form of inflorescence ex- 
 actly similar to that called a corymbus, with the exception 
 of the expansion being centrifugal in place of being cen- 
 tripetal. 
 
 FASCINA'TION. The fact of being charmed, operated 
 upon, or influenced by the look of certain individuals, ge- 
 nerally taken in an evil sense. The word i3 originally 
 derived from the Greek (iaaxaivtiv (Theocr. Idyl VI.), 
 whence the Latin fascinare. Fascination is the power sup- 
 posed to be possessed by certain persons of working mis- 
 chief to others bv means of a glance of the eye. We find 
 it mentioned in Theocritus; and it was so prevalent among 
 the Romans that it was personified as the godFascinus, the 
 patron of the evil eye. Virgil alludes to it thus : — 
 
 Nescio quis teneros oculus mini fascinat agnos. 
 
 Eclog. 3. 
 
 It is to this day a common belief among the vulgar in 
 almost all countries ; but probably it is nowhere more ge- 
 nerally retained than in Turkey and the kingdom of Naples 
 and Sicily. In the former country, the Mussulmans deem 
 it necessary to have recourse to a variety of amulets and 
 charms, in order to preserve themselves from the evil 
 eye of an enemy, or of an infidel. In Naples, the evil eye 
 and its fascination (known to them by the name of getta- 
 tura) are subjects of dread and superstitious precaution 
 among all classes of the people. There is a treatise on 
 fascination by Vairus, prior of a convent at Benevento in 
 that country (1589); another by Frommann (1675). 
 
 FA'SCINES (Lat. fascina, fagot), in Fortification, are 
 bundles of fagots, twigs, or branches of trees, which, being 
 mixed with earth, are made use of for filling up ditches, 
 forming parapets, &c. 
 
 FASCIOLA'RIA. (Lat. fasciola, a swathing band.) A 
 genus of Pectinibranchiate Mollusks, dismembered from 
 the rock-shells (.Murices) of Linnaeus on account of the 
 smooth band-like surface of their windings, which have I 
 444 
 
 FATA MORGANA. 
 
 not any "varices;" and distinguished from the species of 
 Fusus in having plaits on the columella, which are oblique, 
 and consequently spiral. 
 
 FA'SHION. (Fr facon ; originally from the Lat. facere, 
 to make or form.) A term used to signify the prevailing 
 mode or taste in any country, the only recognized quality 
 which it possesses being mutability. It may safely be 
 averred that in proportion to the Influence which fashion 
 exercises in any country may its claim to civilization be 
 vindicated, nothing being so characteristic of a rude and 
 barbarous state of existence as a rigid adherence to the 
 customs of antiquity. The term fashion has generally 
 been considered as applicable chiefly to the adornment of 
 the person, in conformity with the prevailing taste as in- 
 troduced by some individual of consideration in society : 
 but it has a much wider signification, being applied to the 
 most trivial kind of conventional usages, a disregard or 
 ignorance of which is sufficient in the eyes of the votaries 
 of this tyrannical goddess to banish the offender beyond 
 the pale of civilized society. The remark which Horace 
 makes on the introduction, disuse, and revival of language 
 is so applicable to the term in question, that we cannot for- 
 bear quoting it in this place : — 
 
 Multa renascentur, qux jam cecidere, cadentque 
 Q.ns nunc sunt in honore vocabula, si volet usus, 
 Quern penes arbitrium est, et jus, at norma loqnendi. 
 
 Ars Poetica, v. 70. 
 FA'SSITE. In Mineralogy, a variety of augite from 
 Fassa in the Tyrol. 
 
 FA'STI. In Ancient History, the records of the Roman 
 state, in which all public matters, military and civil, were 
 registered by the high priest, according to the days on 
 which they took place. The Fasti of Ovid is a poem giv- 
 ing an account of the Roman year, and the ceremonies at- 
 tached to the different days, with their historical or mytho- 
 logical origin. The first six books, containing the first six 
 months of the year, beginning with January, have come 
 down to us ; the rest are lost. 
 
 FASTI'GIUM. In Architecture, the same as Pediment, 
 which see. 
 
 FA'STING. In a theological sense, the abstaining from 
 food as a religious observance. This practice is recom- 
 mended in the New Testament by the example of the 
 Apostles and early Christians, who are frequently repre- 
 sented as fasting, especially on solemn occasions, such as 
 when Paul and Barnabas are sent forth by the Apostles to 
 preach to the Gentiles. At the same time it must be ob- 
 served, that during our Saviour's lifetime his disciples were 
 notorious among the Jews for not fasting, as was the com- 
 mon religious practice of the day : from which we must 
 not suppose that Christ did not appoint stated days or pe- 
 riods of fasting, such as among Christians in later times, 
 as well as among the Jews then, have generally degene- 
 rated into heartless ceremonial observances, but left such 
 exercises rather to the judgment and feelings of his disci- 
 ples to be made by them part of their own private devo- 
 tions. The observances, however, of stated fast days pre- 
 vailed very early and universally in the church ; and the 
 Church of England has not hesitated, accordingly, to point 
 out the practice of early antiquity as a guide to its children 
 in this matter. 
 
 In the Romish church, Wednesday and Friday are ob- 
 served as fasts throughout the year, those being the days 
 on which our Lord was betrayed and crucified respec- 
 tively. There are a considerable number of fast days that 
 occur also in the course of the year; and the whole period 
 of Lent is held as a term of abstinence, in which the stated 
 fast days that occur are observed with especial rigour (in 
 imitation of our Lord's forty days' fast in the wilderness.) 
 These were periods of real abstinence in the primitive 
 church ; but the little that was eaten does not appear to 
 have been limited in early times, either in kind or quan- 
 tity, by any positive precept. Fasting was practised diffe- 
 rently by churchps and individuals. 
 
 The objection then that is brought against the Romish 
 church in this particular, is, first, that it commmds and 
 enforces that which was originally left to the discretion of 
 Christians ; and secondly, that by so doing, and by multi- 
 plying the occasions on which such abstinence is enjoined, 
 it causes the practice to be looked upon as a work merito- 
 rious in itself and efficient for the expiation of sins, which 
 was never intended to serve any other use than that of a 
 means towards attaining a godly frame of mind. 
 
 FA'TALISM. The belief in an overruling fate or des-. 
 tiny which annihilates frr-e will and controls all human ac- 
 tions. For the philosophical doctrine of fatalism, see Ne- 
 cessity; forthose religious opinions which have assumed 
 a similar character, Election, Predestination. 
 
 FATA MORGA'NA (called also Castles of the Fairy 
 Morgana, the spectacle being supposed to be under the in- 
 fluence of the Queen of the Fairies, the Morgan la Fay of 
 popular legends.) A remarkable phenomenon of mirage 
 or unusual refraction, mentioned by different authors and 
 travellers as seen in the straits of Messina, especially in
 
 FATE. 
 
 the vicinity of Reggio ; and which consists in the appear- 
 ance in the air, over the surface of the sea, of multiplied 
 images of the objects on the surrounding coasts. It is 
 thus described by Minasi : — "A spectator on an eminence 
 in the city of Reggio, with his back to the sun and his face 
 to the sea, and when the rising sun shines from that point 
 whence the incident rays form an angle of about 45° on 
 the sea of Reggio, sees upon the water numberless series 
 of pilasters, arches, castles, well delineated, regular co- 
 lumns, lofty towers, superb palaces with balconies and win- 
 dows, villages and trees, plains with herds and flocks, ar- 
 mies of men on foot and horseback, all passing rapidly in 
 succession on the surface of the sea." There can be little 
 doubt that this description, which has been frequently 
 copied, and even admitted into treatises on optics, has re- 
 ceived considerable embellishment from the aid of the 
 imagination. Captain Smyth, in his excellent work on Si- 
 cily, observes, " I never met with a Sicilian who had actu- 
 ally seen any thing more than the loom or 'mirage' conse- 
 quent on a peculiar stale of the atmosphere ; but which, I 
 must say, I have here observed many times to be unusu- 
 ally strong." (Memoir descriptive of the Resources, Inha- 
 bitants, and Hydrography of Sicily and its Islands, p. 109.) 
 See Mirage. 
 FATE. See Destiny, Necessity. 
 FATES. (Lat. fat um, that which is spoken) In Mytho- 
 logy, the three sister goddesses named Clotho (Spinster), 
 Lacbesis (Allotter), and Atropos (Unchangeable), whose 
 office it was to spin the destinies of men, and break the 
 threads when their appointed hours of death came. They 
 were also called Parcaj by the Latins. Their Greek name 
 was MoTpai, i. e. "the Dispensers." 
 
 FATHERS OF THE CHURCH. The early Christian 
 writers whose works have thrown light upon the history, 
 doctrines, and observances of the primitive church, and 
 who are thereby entitled to be looked up to by us to a cer- 
 tain extent as guides and instructors. The period to which 
 the list may he extended is, of course, arbitrary. St. Ber- 
 nard in the I2lh century is generally styled the last of the 
 Fathers. The writers of the 1st century, or who were co- 
 temporary with the first disciples, are distinguished by the 
 term Apostolic Fathers. The general character of the 
 Writings of these celebrated men, their trustworthiness as 
 witnesses, their anlhorily as judges in matters of doctrine 
 and discipline, and the utility of studying their works, have 
 been, unfortunately, discussed by divines of different par- 
 ties with far more of prejudice and the spirit of system than 
 the love of truth. It has been sometimes the fashion to 
 exalt, and sometimes to depreciate them : seldom have 
 they been used by learned men of any church for the sim- 
 ple and serious purposes of edification. A voluminous 
 controversy was carried on upon this subject between some 
 Protestants, chiefly ol the Calvinist churches, who attacked 
 the Fathers, and others, both Protestant and Catholic, who 
 defended them, towards the end of the 17th century. On 
 the former side, two works of some notoriety were pro- 
 duced. — Daille's Treatise on the Use of the Fathers ; and 
 Barbeyrac, Morale des Peres de VEglise. Among many 
 answers, may he cited that of Cellier to Barbeyrac, 1718. 
 In England, Burnet, Hill, Peter Allix, Reeves (Apologies 
 of the Early Fathers, with Dissertations, 1709), took part in 
 it. The Benedictines of Paris, in the 17th century, pub- 
 lished valuable editions of the principal Fathers, both Greek 
 and Latin. Nourry, a learned member of that order, pub- 
 lished an Apparatus to Despont's great collection, the Bib- 
 liotheca Palrum, in which much information is collected. 
 Of late years Mr. Collinson,by his Bnmpton Lectures (1817), 
 raised anew a spirit of controversy on the subject. At Ox- 
 ford and at Paris, new editions of an extensive and valuable 
 character of the Fathers are now in progress. 
 
 FA'THOM. An English measure of length, equal to two 
 yards, or six feet. 
 
 FAT OF ANIMALS. A concrete oil contained in the 
 cellular membrane of animals ; it is generally white or yel- 
 lowish, with little smell or taste, and varies in consistency 
 according to the relative quantities of stearine and elaine 
 which it contains. The ultimate elements of animal fat 
 are the same as those of vegetable oils : according to the 
 analysis of Chevreul, 100 parts of human fat are composed 
 of 79 carbon. 114 hydrogen, and 9 6 oxygen. Hog's lard 
 and mutton suet are verv similarly constituted. 
 
 FA'TTENING DOMESTIC ANIMALS. The difference 
 between feeding and fattening, as far as respects domestic 
 animals, consists in this, that the object of the former is to 
 maintain the animal in a state of health and vigour for the 
 purpose of facilitating its growth to maturity, or if mature 
 keeping it in good working condition ; while the object of 
 the latter is to accumulate on the animal more flesh and 
 fat than is sufficient for either of these purposes, and in 
 general as much as possible, so as to increase the bulk and 
 weight of the flesh and fat in proportion to the size of the 
 bone. Till within these few years, the means used by all 
 fatteners of domestic animals, whether quadrupeds or 
 poultry, were preventing the animals from taking exercise, 
 445 
 
 FEATHERS. 
 
 and gorging them with food. The excessive fat produced 
 by these means, more especially in sheep and swine, was 
 found to be both disagreeable and unwholesome ; and ac- 
 cordingly the most approved system of fattening animals 
 of every description, at the present day, consists in not 
 merely supplying them with abundance of food, but also 
 of the means of taking exercise. Hence the farmers in the 
 most enlightened districts, such as Berwickshire, East Lo- 
 thian, <kc, instead of tying up their fattening cattle in sta- 
 bles like horses, and placing their food before them, put 
 two or three together in small yards with sheds attached, 
 in which they can run about, eat when they choose, and 
 take shelter from the rain, the cold, or the sun at pleasure 
 under the open shed. Swine are treated in the same man- 
 ner, and also spring lambs that are fattened for the market. 
 Poultry are no longer kept in coops and crammed, or rab- 
 bits in hutches ; but the former are allowed to take exer- 
 cise in fields sown with various herbs, and the latter are 
 kept in a species of artificial warren, where they can take 
 exercise by burrowing. 
 
 FAU'CES. (Plural of faux.) The posterior part of the 
 mouth, terminated by the pharynx and larynx. 
 
 FAULT. In Mining and Geology, a dislocation of strata, 
 whether from a break or slip, or the introduction of some 
 extraneous mass. 
 
 FAUNA. The animals peculiar to a country constitute 
 its fauna. The term is derived from the Fauni or rural 
 deities of Roman mythology. 
 
 FAU'NUS. An Italial rural deity resembling the Grecian 
 Pan, and, like him, endued with the gift of prophecy. 
 Mention is sometimes made of several Fauni, who were 
 represented, like the satyrs, with the horns and feet of 
 goats. There was an annual festival instituted to their 
 honour, called Faunalia. 
 
 FAUSSE BRAYE. In Fortification, a low rampart going; 
 quite round the body of the place, the height being about 3 
 feet above the level ground. 
 
 FAUX. The orifice of the tube of the corolla, the tube 
 being formed by the confluence of the petals. 
 
 FE'ALTY. In Feudal Law, the oath of fidelity (Fr. 
 feaute) taken by every tenant on admission to be true to 
 his superior lord. General fealty is that due from the sub- 
 ject to the prince ; special fealty from tenant to mesne lord. 
 Fealty is said to differ from homage in being due to every 
 new lord. The oath, as administered in England, was fixed 
 by stat. 17 E. 2. c. 2. ; but it has long beep, obsolete, al- 
 though, in copyhold tenements, the memory of it is still 
 preserved by the customary entry of respite of fealty on 
 the admission of a new tenant. 
 
 FEASTS, or FESTIVALS, are days set apart by the 
 church, either for the grateful celebration of the most re- 
 markable events connected with the scheme of redemption, 
 or upon which to commemorate the actions and sufferings 
 of such persons as have been most instrumental in carry- 
 ing forward the designs of God for the salvation of man- 
 kind. This was a practice of the primitive church ; but in 
 process of time (as early as the 4th century) the great num- 
 ber of names which had been introduced into the calendar, 
 and the many corruptions which the honour paid to their 
 memory had engendered, rendered its observation both 
 burdensome and superstitious. Accordingly at the Refor- 
 mation the Protestants directed their attention to the re- 
 trenchment and purification of these ceremonies. The 
 English church retains the festivals of the nativity, circum- 
 cision, manifestation, the death and resurrection and as- 
 cension of Christ, the purification of the Virgin and the 
 annunciation (or Lady-day), Whit Sunday in honour of the 
 Holy Spirit, and Trinity Sunday. Besides these the most 
 remarkable of the Apostles and the Evangelists are com- 
 memorated on their respective days ; and one day is set 
 apart for the remembrance of all the saints. From this 
 calendar, therefore, the names of the martyrs and saintsof 
 later ages are excluded (with which the Romish calendar 
 is so crowded), partly from the uncertainty which hangs 
 over the stories of many of them, and partly also in order 
 to cut away what would otherwise have furnished a danger- 
 ous precedent. Festivals are either moveable or immove- 
 able ; the former depending upon Easter, the latter being 
 fixed to certain davs of their respective months. 
 
 FEATHER-EDGED. In Architecture, a term applied 
 to a board whose section is triangular, or rather trapezoidal, 
 one edge being very thin. 
 
 FEATHERS. The term, in Zoology, is restricted to those 
 productions of the dermal system which form the most 
 exterior covering of birds, and which consist of the fol- 
 lowing parls, viz. a quill (calamus), a shaft (rhachis), and 
 vanes (pogonium externum et internum). 
 
 The quill is that part of a feathpr by which it is attached 
 to the skin ; it is nearly cylindrical in form, hollow, and 
 semitransparent. possessing in an eminent degree the op- 
 posite qualities of strength and lightness. The end which 
 is implanted in the skin is more or less obtuse, and ia 
 pierced by an orifice called the lower umbilicus. At the 
 opposite end, where it is continued into the shaft, and just' 
 39
 
 FEATHERS. 
 
 at the meeting of the two lateral vanes, there is another 
 orifice, called the upper umbilicus. The cavity of the 
 quill contains an imbricated series of conical capsules, 
 united together by a central pedicle, forming the membra- 
 nous remains of the original formative pulp. 
 
 The shaft is quadrilateral, with a smooth convex surface. 
 anil an opposite concave surface traversed by a longitudinal 
 impression continued from the upper umbilicus. It is 
 covered by an outer layer of firm horny material like that 
 of which the quill is formed, and this incloses a soft elastic 
 substance called Ihe pith. 
 The vane consists of burbs and barbules. 
 The barbs are attached to the Bides of the shaft, and 
 consist of narrow elongated plates, arranged with their Hat 
 sides towards each other, and their margins in the direction 
 of the external and internal sides of the feather. By this 
 disposition they offer much resistance to being bent out of 
 their plane, though readily yielding to any force acting upon 
 them in the lineof the stem. 
 
 The barbules are minute and often microscopic pro- 
 cesses, given off from either side of the barbs, and arranged 
 in a single series, just as the barbs are placed with reference 
 to the shaft. In' true feathers, they are short, stiff, and 
 curved in opposite directions on opposite sides of the barb; 
 and the concavities of one series of barbules interlock with 
 those of the adjoining barbs, whereby the whole vane pre- 
 sents a continuous and resisting surface, as in the quill- 
 feathers of most birds. When the barbules are long and 
 disjoined, the feather is termed a plume ; in the long dorsal 
 plumes of the peacock, the barbules themselves are ciliated. 
 In a few instances, as the apteryx and ostrich, the fea- 
 thers are simple. In most birds each feather is complicated 
 by a part termed the accessory plume. This is usually a 
 small downy tuft ; but it varies as to its size both in different 
 species, and even in the feathers of different parts of the 
 body of the same bird. In the body-feathers of the hawks, 
 grouse, ducks, gulls, &c, the accessory plume is generally 
 well developed, and acquires in some species a size equal 
 to that of the feather from which it is produced. In the 
 emeu this is the case with the whole plumage, and the quill 
 of each feather supports two shafts. In the cassowary 
 there are two accessory plumes, one of which is equal to 
 the size of the original feather, the other is much smaller. 
 
 Feathers vary in form, size, and function, in different 
 parts of the bird, and have accordingly received distinct 
 names in ornithological science. Thus the feathers which 
 Burround the external opening of the ear, and which serve 
 to augment the intensity of sound, are termed the auricu- 
 lars. Those which lie above the scapula and humerus are 
 called the scapulars. The small feathers which are ar- 
 ranged in imbricated rows upon the bones of the antibra- 
 chium are called the lesser coverts (tecl rices primas); those 
 which line the under or inner side of Ihe wings are the 
 under coverts. The feathers which lie immediately over 
 the quill-feathers are the greater coverts (teclrices secundce). 
 The largest quill-feathers of the wing, which arise from the 
 bones corresponding with those of the hand, are termed 
 primaries (remiges primores); those which rise from the 
 ulna, towards its distal end, are the secondaries (remiges 
 secondaries); those which are attached to its proximal 
 extremity are the tertiaries (remiges terliaria, seu parap- 
 terum). The quill-feathers which grow from the phalanx 
 commonly called thumb form what is termed the bastard 
 v/\ng(alida spuria). The quill- feathers which are implanted 
 upon the os coccygis are called rectrices. 
 
 The development of feathers is always preceded by that 
 of down, which constitutes the first covering of young 
 birds. Each down-fascicle consists of a small quill, sup- 
 porting a bunch of equal-sized finely-ciliated filaments. 
 The down-fascicles are succeeded by the feathers, which 
 they guide, as it were, through the skin ; and the feathers 
 of each succeeding plumage serve, during the moult, as the 
 gubernacula of those which follow. 
 
 The mechanism concerned in the formation of a feather 
 is, as might be expected, of a very complicated character. 
 It consists of vascular parts which secrete the material, 
 and of moulds or capsules, in which the fluid material is 
 thrown into the proper form ; the whole is inclosed in an 
 outer sheath, which is protruded with the new formed fea- 
 ther from the skin, and which becoming dry and friable 
 from contact, with the atmosphere, crumbles away, and 
 leaves the feather free to unfold its beautiful and compli- 
 cated structure. 
 
 Every feather, the eloquent Paley justly observes, is a 
 mechanical wonder: li their disposition all inclined back- 
 ward, the down about the stem, the overlapping of their 
 tips, their different configuration in different parts, not to 
 mention the variety of their colours, constitute a vestment 
 for the body so beautiful, and so appropriate to the life 
 which the animal is to lead, as that I think we should have 
 had no conception of any thing equally perfect if we had 
 never seen it, or can now imagine any thing more so." 
 For the laws which reaulate the varieties and changes of 
 plumage, see Indumentum. 
 446 
 
 FEE TAIL. 
 
 FE'ERUARY. (Eat. februo, I purify, because in tha? 
 month funeral lustrations were performed at Rome.) The 
 2d month of the year, containing 26 days in common years, 
 and 29 in leap years, the intercalary day being given to it 
 as the shortest month. 
 
 FE'CIALS, or FETIALS. The B.oman heralds, whose 
 peculiar office it was to declare war and conclude peace. 
 The former office they performed with the following cere- 
 monies : — They were first sent to demand redress : and if 
 it was not given within thirty-three days, they returned to 
 the confines of the hostile state and threw a bloody spear 
 into them, having proclaimed war according to a given for- 
 mula before not less than three adult witnesses. The fe- 
 cial, who took the oath in the name of the Roman people 
 in concluding a treaty of peace, was called Pater Patratus. 
 The college of Fecials was instituted by Numa, and is sup- 
 posed to have been borrowed from the Greeks. They 
 were probably twentv in number. 
 
 FE'CULA, or FjECULA. (Lat. dim. of ftex, a sediment.} 
 When certain vegetable products are bruised and mixed 
 with water, the pulverulent matter which subsides is called 
 the fecula or faeces ; it is commonly of a starchy nature, 
 hence starch is often called/erata. 
 
 FE'DERAL GOVERNMENT. (Lat. fa?dus, a league or 
 treaty.) A government formed by the union of several 
 sovereign states, each surrendering a portion of its power 
 to the central authority. But the amount of the power thus 
 surrendered varies in different federations. Thus the go- 
 vernment of the German empire as it existed before the 
 French revolution, and that of the United Provinces of the 
 Netherlands, were both termed federal ; and the Swiss 
 cantons, under the present Swiss constitution, have re- 
 tained more of their individual sovereignty, both as to fo- 
 reign relations and as to domestic arrangements, than those 
 of the United States of America, each being at liberty, in 
 some cases, to make treaties with foreign powers, and also 
 having almost unlimited power to modify its own institu- 
 tions ; while the latter states have transferred the whole 
 of their foreign affairs to the general government, and are 
 moreover bound by their articles of union lo remain demo- 
 cratic in constitution. The best work on the federative 
 governments of antiquity is that of St. Croix, Des Anciens 
 Gouvernemrnts Federatifs. 
 
 FEE-FARM RENT, in Law, is defined a rent charge in 
 fee, issuing out of an estate in fee of at least one quarter of 
 the value of the land at the time of its reservation. Some 
 authorities consider the amount as immaterial. No grant in 
 fee farm can be made since the statute of QuiaEmptorea. 
 FEE'LERS. Organs fixed to the mouth of insects, gene- 
 rally less than the antenna;, and often jointed. See Palps. 
 FEES. In Law, perquisites allowed to ministers of jus- 
 lice, fixed either by act of parliament or ancient usage. 
 The word fee is derived either from an Ang. Sax. word 
 signifyinz money, or the French foi, faith, 
 
 FEE SIMPLE, in Law, is an estate of freehold of inheri- 
 tance in lands, tenements, or hereditaments. Tenant in 
 fee simple absolute, or, as it is more briefly expressed, in 
 fee, is one who has the fullest power of disposing of his 
 tenement which the law allows ; and not being disposed of 
 by him either in his lifetime or by devise, it descends to 
 his heirs general. 
 
 An estate to a man and his heirs qualified by a condition 
 or limitation capable of abridging it, as an estate to A. and 
 his heirs on condition of paying a sum of money on a stipu- 
 lated day, and if he fail to do so then to another, is termed 
 a fee conditional ; or, with less propriety of language, a fee- 
 simple conditional. 
 
 FEE TAIL, in Law, arose out of the statute De Donis, 
 13Edw. I., which restrained the alienation of lands and 
 tenements by one to whom they had been given, with a 
 limitation to a particular class of heirs. A gift, for instance, 
 to a man and the heirs of his body, constituted before the 
 statute a fee-simple conditional, which could be alienated 
 as soon as a child was born lo the donee : after the statute 
 it became inalienable, until more latitude was given by the 
 invention of certain refined fictions of law. 
 
 A deed creating an estate tail is properly called a gift, and 
 the giver and receiver the donor and donee. Estates tail 
 are general, where only one person's body is specified from 
 which the issue must he derived ; special, where both the 
 progenitors are marked out, as in a gift to A. anil the heirs 
 of his body to be begotten upon B. It may also be descen- 
 dible to ali the issue, or to male or female issue : in which 
 case estates are said to he in tail male or in tail female. Half 
 blood is no impediment in the descent of an estate tail ge- 
 neral. Where lands and tenements are given to a man 
 and his heirs in special tail (by a wife named in the grant), 
 and the wife dies without issue, the husband is tenant in 
 tail after possibility of issue extinct; and his estate is in 
 most respects equivalent to one for life only. 
 
 Estates tail being contrary to the general policy of the 
 law, legal ingenuity was taxed, in early limes, lo invent 
 modes whereby they might be defeated; i. e. whereby the 
 donee might destroy the special limitations of the gift^atwi
 
 FELIS. 
 
 acquire an estate in fee simple without incurring forfeiture. 
 This was done by the fiction of common recoveries (.of which 
 the validity was established in the courts in the reign of 
 Ed. 4), and by that of fines, recognized by statute (4 H. 7. 
 c. 24., 32 H. 8. c. 36.) A simpler process has been substi- 
 tuted for these ancient contrivances by the recent Real 
 Property Act (3 & 4 W. 4. c. 74.) 
 
 FELIS. (Lat. a cat.) The name given by Linnants to 
 the genus of Ferine or carnivorous quadrupeds of which 
 the common cat is an example. The essential characters 
 of this genus repose on the strong, sharp, retractile talons 
 with which all the four feet are armed, and the correspond- 
 ing destructive nature of the dentary organs. These con- 
 sist of six small incisors in each jaw, the exterior ones 
 larger than the rest; two long and strong laniaries, bound- 
 ing the series of incisors in the lower jaw; and two in the 
 upper jaw of still greater length and strength, conical, sharp- 
 pointed, slightly incurved, and separated from the incisors 
 by an interval corresponding in size with the summits of 
 the inferior laniaries, which always pass, when the mouth 
 is closed, in front of those of the upper jaw. 
 
 The molar teeth are four in number on each side of the 
 upper jaw, and generally three on each side of the lower; 
 the two anterior in each series are smaller than the third, 
 and furnished each with a single conical pointed middle 
 process. The third molar is the largest in both jaws, and 
 presents a very characteristic form in the lower one being 
 compressed, and terminating in two sharp-pointed tren- 
 chant triangular lobes, which play upon the inner surface 
 of three corresponding lobes of the tooth above : the ap- 
 pulse of the lower carnassial or sectorial tooth is checked, 
 and the upper gum defended, by an internal tubercle in the 
 upper sectorial. The fourth molar in the upper jaw is 
 placed within the posterior margin of the third, and pre- 
 sents a simple transverse slightly convex plate, affording 
 additional surface for the inferior sectorial to work against. 
 The claws and teeth above described are better adapted 
 for the seizure and destruction of living animals than are 
 those of any other mammalia ; and the power of wielding 
 these weapons is enjoyed in a corresponding degree of per- 
 fection. There are no quadrupeds in which the muscles 
 of the jaws and limbs are more fully developed. The teeth, 
 as we have seen, are few, though formidable : those of the 
 lower jaw occupy only its anterior half; the rest of the jaw 
 consisting chiefly of a broad and high coronoid, and a strong 
 angular process for the implantation of the immense mus- 
 cles destined for its movements. The skeleton of the fe- 
 line animals presents a light but well-built mechanism : the 
 hones, though slender, are extremely compact ; the trunk, 
 having to contain the simple digestive apparatus requisite 
 for the assimilation of highly organized animal food, is 
 comparatively slender, and flattened at the sides. The 
 muscular forces are thus enabled to carry the light body 
 along by extensive bounds, and it is thus that the largest 
 felines generally make their attack. When the impetus 
 of the spring is added to the stroke of the paw, the lion or 
 tiger has power to fell an ox, or smash the skull of a man 
 at a single blow; and as the strength of the neck corres- 
 ponds with that of the jaws and limbs, they are enabled to 
 bear away with ease animals bigger and heavier than them- 
 selves, it fortunately happens that the feline animals have 
 not the instinct of sociality, otherwise what terrestrial spe- 
 cies could withstand a troop of lions or tigers hunting in 
 concert like a pack of wolves 1 "Conscious of their own 
 undisputed superiority," says the author of a favourite zo- 
 ological work, "which secures them against the attacks of 
 other animals, each with his female partner occupies a sol- 
 itary den, which is usually concealed in the depths of the 
 forest. Hence, when pressed by hunger, they issue forth 
 in search of their prey, which they rarely attack with open 
 force ; but stealing on with noiseless tread, or stationing 
 themselves in ambush in such situations as appear suitable 
 to their purpose, watch with indefatigable patience the ap- 
 proach of their victim. Their motions are peculiarly cha- 
 racteristic of their habits and mode of life. Incapable of 
 long-continued speed, their usual gait is slow, cautious, 
 and stealthy, with their posterior limbs beneath them, and 
 their ears distended to catch the most trifling noise. Guided 
 by these organs, the internal structure cf which is highly 
 developed, they trace the sound of footsteps to an almost 
 incredible distance, and direct themselves towards Iheir 
 prey with unerring certainty. In this quest the sense 
 of smell, which they possess in a very low degree, affords 
 them but little assistance ; their sight, however, is good, 
 and serves them equally well both by day and night, their 
 extremely dilatable pupils adapting themselves with admir- 
 able precision to various intensities of light. To this ob- 
 ject the frequently elongated form of their pupils, the light 
 green or yellow colour of a large portion of the choroid 
 coat of their eyes, and the extent of their nictitating mem- 
 brane, must also essentially contribute. 
 
 "No sooner is the object of their pursuit within reach 
 of their attack, than, suddenly bursting forth from their 
 lurking place, or changing their slow and Btealthy pace for 
 447 
 
 FELLING TIMBER. 
 
 a furious and overwhelming bound, they dart with the ve- 
 locity of lightning upon their terrified victim. The great 
 strength and extreme flexibility of their fore-paws enable 
 them at once to dash him to the earth, and to seize him 
 with an irresistible grasp. They then proceed to rend him 
 in pieces by the united efforts of their teeth and claws, and 
 gorge themselves upon his lacerated flesh." 
 
 The feline animals or cats constitute a well-defined and 
 circumscribed genus. The leopards, panthers, jaguars, 
 and tigers are the most typical or truly feline species; in 
 these the beauty of colouring, sleekness of skin, elegance 
 of form, craft, suspicion, bloodthirstiness, agility under 
 excitement, and sloth during repletion, are most strongly 
 manifested. The lion combines more robustness of body 
 with the feline attributes; and his pre-eminent stature 
 receives an air of nobility and grandeur from the mane that 
 decorates his head and neck. He has the credit, too, of a 
 greater share of boldness and generosity than the other 
 cats. His vocal organs also exhibit a modification of struc- 
 ture not present in the other felines, by which he has the 
 power to utter his tremendous roar;— a roar which, when 
 sent forth under the excitement of hunger, scares from 
 their hiding places the timid ruminants which may be lurk- 
 ing within the compass of its fearful reverberations. 
 Among the felines, one group is characterized by the short- 
 ness of the tail, and the tuft of hairs on the tip of the ears , 
 this includes the lynxes. 
 
 The cheetah, or hunting leopard, deviates most in the 
 half retractile condition of the talons and the upright car- 
 riage of his body from the true feline characters ; and with 
 these physical modifications is combined so much of the 
 canine disposition as enables this species to be used in 
 packs for the purposes of the chase. 
 
 The middle sized cats, which lurk in the branches of 
 trees, as the leopards, ocelots, &c, have a fulvous ground 
 colour, broken by irregular dark spots; a marking which 
 admirably adapts them for concealment amidst foliage. A 
 similar relation of adaptation to the peculiar theatre of their 
 destructive habits may be traced in other species. The 
 tiger, for example, which prowls on the ground, and creeps 
 stealthily towards his victim between the stems of the trees 
 and plants of the jungle, has his bright ground colour in- 
 terrupted with black vertical stripes. The lion, which 
 traverses the parched deserts of Africa, and lies in wait to 
 intercept the antelopes which bound in troops from one 
 oasis to another, would be rendered too conspicuous if his 
 tawny hide were ornamented by the stripes or spots that 
 characterize the feline livery ; these, therefore, which are 
 obvious enough in the earlier periods of his existence, be- 
 come obliterated as he attains to maturity. A smaller 
 feline species, the puma, or American lion, which plays 
 the predatory character in a corresponding theatre of the 
 Is'ew World, presents a similar uniformity of colour. 
 
 The feline animals bring forth from two to six young 
 ones at a birth. The domestic cat is the most fertile; a 
 circumstance which arises from the abundance of food, shel- 
 ter, and protection consequent on her alliance with man. But, 
 as has been frequently remarked, this, of all domesticated 
 animals, is the least servile or restrained ; and though in- 
 stances of personal attachment are not wanling, the aifection 
 of the cat is rather to the house than to its owner. There 
 are many singularities in the nature of the cat, which per- 
 haps our comparatively limited acquaintance with the other 
 felines leads us to regard as peculiar to this species. She 
 is remarkably nervous, and readily startled ; gives out the 
 electric spark when her fur is rubbed contrary to its direc- 
 tion, as is very conspicuous when this is done in the dark. 
 Under the excitement of fear, the same effect is produced 
 on the long hairs of the tail as if a stream of electricity 
 were transmitted through fhem, and they all stand out from 
 the surface to which they are attached, giving the tail an 
 appearance of treble its usual thickness ; at the same lime 
 the back is raised, and the body drawn into its smallest 
 compass. Cats are attracted by peculiar odours, and ex- 
 hibit a violent fondness for catmint and valerian, rubbing 
 their noses and rolling themselves in the latter with signs 
 of great and uncontrollable excitement. Cats are very 
 cleanly, are fond of warmth, and seek a soft place for their 
 repose. They express their satisfaction by a peculiar soft 
 vibrating noise, railed " purring." 
 
 FE'LUNG TIMBER. In Arboriculture, when a full- 
 grown tree is cut down it is said to be felled ; but this term 
 is never applied to young trees or bushes, undergrowth, or 
 hedges, which are said to be rooted out orcut over. Much 
 has been written respecting the proper season for felling 
 trees; some arguing in favour of midwinter, and others in 
 favour of midsummer. The question principally turns 
 upon the quantity and the value of the soft or outer wood 
 in the trunk of the tree to be felled known by foresters and 
 carpentersas the sap. As this sap orouler wood is the only 
 poriion of the trunk in which the sap or juices of the tree 
 circulate, it is evident that if no value be set upon it the 
 tree may be cut down at any season ; because the truly 
 valuable part of the trunk, the mature timber, is imper-
 
 FELLOW. 
 
 meafte to t'ne sap in its ascent through the soft wood, and 
 is therefore in the same state at every season of the year. 
 Oa the other hand, where much value is attached to the 
 soft or outer wood, where this outer wood is wished to be 
 made as valuable as possible, or where, as in the case of 
 comparatively young trees, the greater part of the trunk con- 
 sists of sap wood, felling ought to take place when there is 
 least sap in the course of circulation. This season is without 
 ■loubt midwinter, which, all other circumstances being 
 equal, is unquestionably the best season for felling timber ; 
 the next best being midsummer, when the sap is chiefly 
 confined to the young shoots, the circumference of the soft 
 wood, and the bark : as the worst is the spring, just before 
 the development of the buds, when the tree is fullest of sap, 
 and receiving constantly fresh supplies from the root; and 
 in autumn, immediately before the fall of the leaf, when 
 there is a superabundance of sap, from its being as it were 
 thrown out of employment by the falling of the leaf In ge- 
 neral, all the soft woods, such as the elm, lime, poplar, wil- 
 low,.^., should be felled during winter; hard woods, like the 
 oak, beech, ash, &c, when the trunks are of large size, and 
 valuedchiellyfortheirheartwood, may be felled atany time. 
 FE'LLOW. In the colleges of the English Universities, 
 and some other collegiate institutions, the superior mem- 
 bers of the foundations are so termed in general. In some, 
 however, all members of the foundation are fellows from 
 their admission. The usages of different foundations in 
 the two universities vary so materially, that no general ac- 
 count will apply equally to all. The fellows are, in general, 
 graduates ; elected either on free competition, or accord- 
 ing to limitations fixed in the statutes of foundation. Most 
 fellows are obliged to abandon their fellowships if they do 
 not take orders at a certain period : there are, however, 
 lay fellowships in both universities. Fellowships are also 
 vacated in the universities (without exception) by mar- 
 riage ; and by the acceptance of preferment in the church 
 from the college, or in some instances of other preferment 
 of a certain value. From among the resident fellows are 
 selected for the most part the governing officers and tutors 
 of the colleges. The principal or head of the college is 
 generally elected either by the whole or a select body of 
 the fellows. There is a distinction in some colleges be- 
 tween senior and junior fellowships, in point of emolument, 
 which does not exist in others. At Cambridge there is 
 also a distinction between foundation fellowships and bye 
 or appropriation fellowships ; the former only, in most col- 
 leges, entitling the possessor to college offices. The value 
 of fellowships is extremely various; nor do they always 
 maintain the same amount, being generally dependent on 
 corn-rents. The advantages obtained by the fellow are 
 partly in income, partly, if resident, in free lodging and al- 
 lowances towards board. There are fellowships of Ihe 
 value of 500/. or 600/. per annum, and others of 100/. or les3 ; 
 but a large proportion may be said to average from 150/. to 
 300/. a year. Fellow is also the general title of members of 
 learned academies and socielies in England. 
 
 FELLOWSHIP, or PARTNERSHIP. A rule in Arith- 
 metic, of considerable use in balancing accounts among 
 partners in trade. Considered as an arithmetical process, 
 it is simply a method of dividing a number into parts 
 which shall have given proportions to each other. Fellow- 
 ship is either simple or compound. To simple fellowship 
 belongs a question of this sort:—-' A contribution of 20,000/. 
 is levied on three towns, and each is required to pay in 
 proportion to the number of its inhabitants. Now the 1st 
 contains 2000 inhabitants, the 2d 3000, and the 3d 5000 ; 
 what sum must each contribute 1" This question is obvi- 
 ously the same as if it had been required to divide the 
 number 20,003 into three parts, having the ratios of 2, 3, and 
 5, which is done by dividing 20,000 by the sum of 2, 3, and 
 5, that is by 10, and multiplying the quotient by each of 
 those numbers separately ; the several results are the sums 
 required. Here 20,000 ~ 10 = 2000 ; and 2000 X 2 = 4000, 
 for the share of the first ; 2000 X 3 = 6000, for the share of 
 the second; and 2000X5=10,000, for the share of the 
 third. These results are in the given proportions, and 
 their sum amounts to 20,000. 
 
 Compound fellowship is when the parts into which the 
 given number is to be distributed are proportional to more 
 than one set of numbers. This is usually called fellowship 
 with time, because in distributing the profits of a mercan- 
 tile transaction carried on by several partners, the share 
 of each must be proportional, both to the amount of the 
 capital he contributed and to the time it was employed. It 
 must therefore be proportional to the product of these two. 
 nencethe rule for compound fellowship :— Multiply each 
 stock by the time of its continuance, the products are the 
 numbers to which the several parts of the sum to be dis- 
 tributed must be proportional ; and with these numbers 
 proceed, as in the case of single fellowship. Both cases, 
 it may be remarked, belong to what is more correctly 
 termed Distributive Proportion. 
 
 FE'LO DE SE. In Law, one who is found by the coro- 
 ner's jury to have laid violent hands on himself, or occa- 
 448 
 
 FEND OFF. 
 
 sioned his own death feloniously. This verdict occasions 
 forfeiture of chattels, real and personal ; but not of lands 
 of inheritance. One found felo de se was formerly buried 
 in the king's highway, with a stake driven through the 
 heart ; but since 1823 (4 G. 4 c. 52.), privately buried in a bu- 
 rial ground, between the hours of nine and twelve at night. 
 
 FE'LONY. (A word of uncertain derivation. Sir H. 
 Spelman derives it from the word fee or fief, and the Teu- 
 tonic lohn, reward or price; that which costs or forfeits 
 land. More probably from the same root with the verb to 
 fail.) In Law, in the general sense, comprises every spe- 
 cies of crime which occasioned at common law the for- 
 feiture of lands and goods. Treasons, therefore, are, 
 strictly speaking, felonies, though in common language dis- 
 tinguished from them. The term felony appears, in feu- 
 dal law, to have been synonymous with forfeiture to the 
 feudal lord. The general punishment attached to felony 
 at common law was death ; and if any statute, even now, 
 makes a new offence felony without specifying the punish- 
 ment, the law implies it to be capital. But some species 
 of felony were not thus punishable at common law ; and 
 the gradual operation of altered opinion upon our code has 
 removed this punishment from all but a few. The princi- 
 pal species of felony are, — 1. Offences against the person, 
 such as murder, manslaughter, rape, &c. ; assault with fe- 
 lonious intent, that is, with intent to injure the sufferer in a 
 greater or less degree. The highest of these offences 
 against the person are still punishable by death. The acts 
 respecting these offences were consolidated by 7 &. 8 Geo. 
 4. c. 31. Some of them, as common assaults, &c, are 
 only misdemeanours. 2. Of offences against property, the 
 great body is comprehended under the ancient appellation 
 of larceny. 3. Embezzlement. 4. Burglary. 5. Mali- 
 cious mischief to property, arson, riotous demolition of 
 churches, chapels, houses, &c, are capital offences within 
 this class. 6. Forgery. 7. Numerous offences of a pub- 
 lic nature (many such, however, amount only to misde- 
 meanour) — 1. Either against the king and government, as 
 treason, sedition, embezzlement of the king's stores, &c. ; 
 2. Against public justice ; 3. Against the public peace; 4. 
 Against public trade ; 5. Against public police and economy. 
 Under this head also are to be ranked some offences relative 
 to game, while others come under the description oflarceny. 
 
 FE'LSPAR. (Germ, feldspath.) An important mine- 
 ral composed of silica, alumina, and potash, with traces of 
 lime, and often of oxide of iron. Common felspar is of 
 various shades of white and red ; it forms an ingredient in 
 granite, and is the base of some other rocks. It is often 
 crystallized, and cleaves into rhomboidal fragments. 
 
 FE'LTING. (Germ, filzen.) The process by which 
 different kinds of fur or wool are blended into a compact 
 texture for the manufacture of hats. The anatomical pe- 
 culiarities of the different hairs or furs are much con- 
 cerned in the perfection of the felt ; they must be such as 
 to enable them to interlace and intertwine with each other. 
 Hare and rabbit fur, wool, and beaver, are the chief mate- 
 rials used ; they are mixed in proper proportions, and are 
 tossed about by the strokes of a vibrating string or bow 
 till they become duly matted together. 
 
 FEL'UCCA. (Span, faluca ; Fr. felouquer; Ital. feluca.) 
 A small vessel, carrying two masts, and propelled by oars 
 and sails, used chiefly in the Mediterranean and on the ad- 
 jacent coasts for coasting voyages. Small war boats used 
 in the same quarter are also so called. 
 
 FEMME COVERT. In Law, a term borrowed from the 
 French to signify a married woman. 
 
 FEMUR. (Lat. a thigh.) In Vertebrate Anatomy, the 
 first bone of the leg or pelvic extremity ; in Entomology, 
 the third joint of the leg, and is long and usually compressed. 
 
 Femur. In Architecture, the interstitial space between 
 the channels in the triglyph of the Doric order. These fe- 
 mora are sometimes called the legs of the triglyph. 
 
 FENCE. Any continuous line of obstacle interposed by 
 art between one portion of the surface of land and another 
 for the purpose of separation or exclusion. The kind of 
 obstacle or material differs according to the animals which 
 are to be separated, excluded, or confined, and the nature 
 of the soil and situation. All fences are either live or dead, 
 or a compound of these. Live fences are hedges ; that is, 
 rows of shrubs placed close together, and pruned on the 
 sides, so as to form a sort of living wall. Dead fences are 
 either stone walls, mounds of earth, or structures of wood 
 or of other materials raised above the ground's surface, or 
 upon ditches excavated in it. The latter are sometimes 
 filled with water. Mixed fences are those in which some 
 kind of dead fence is used with some kind of live fence ; 
 for example, a ditch with a bank of earth on one side, or a 
 ditch with a wall or a hedsre on one side; the latter the com- 
 monest of all fences. The introduction of fences into 
 agriculture was about as great an improvement in the pro- 
 gress of that art, as that of the principle of the division of 
 labour info the art of manufacture. 
 
 FE'ND OFF. The sea term for pushing off a boat or 
 any heavy body, to break the shock or avoid contact.
 
 FENESTRATE. 
 
 FENESTRATE (Lat. fenestra, a window), in Ento- 
 mology, signifies the naked hyaline transparent spots on 
 the wings of butterflies. 
 
 FE'N LANDS. Lands, the subsoil of which is constantly 
 •n a state of saturation with water, and the surface is liable 
 to be overflown by rivers or streams during spring or 
 autumn. The soil of these lands is generally black, light, 
 and rich, to the depth of two or three feet; and as the sur- 
 face water readily filtrates through this soil to the subsoil, 
 fen lands generally produce bulky crops of grass and corn. 
 As they have very seldom any natural outlet for drainage, 
 this is generally performed by machinery ; and when this is 
 the case few lands are more productive. Till lately wind- 
 mills were employed for draining the English fens; but 
 steam is now frequently had recourse to as the moving 
 power, and the advantages to the cultivator are immense ; 
 because he can lay his lands dry at the season when it is 
 most convenient that they should be so, whereas the opera- 
 tion of the windmill is always a matter of chance. For an 
 account of the Fens in England, see British Statistics ; and 
 M'Culloch's Geographical Diet., art. " Bedford Level." 
 
 FE'OFFMENT. In Law, a species of conveyance. It 
 was in early times the public and solemn mode of alienating 
 lands and tenements in possession, and was performed by 
 a deed, accompanied by livery of seisin ; which last was the 
 delivery of the land itself, effected by certain symbolical 
 acts and customary words. As secret conveyances to uses 
 gradually prevailed, feoffments fell comparatively into dis- 
 use. The grantor is termed the feoffor, and the person re- 
 ceiving the feoffee. 
 
 FER^E. (Lat. ferus, wild.) The name given by Lin- 
 naeus to the order of Mammalia comprehending those 
 which subsist more or less exclusively on the flesh of other 
 animals. They are characterized by having three kinds 
 of teeth, incisors, canines, and molars ; unguiculate extre- 
 mities, without an opposable thumb on the fore foot, but with 
 the power of rotation in the forearm. This order corres- 
 ponds with the Insectivora, and the Plantigrade, Digitigrade, 
 and Pinniarade Carnivora of Cuvier's Carnassii re. 
 
 FE'RGUSONITE. In Mineralogy, a crystallized com- 
 pound of columbic acid and yttria with a small quantity of 
 zirconia, and of oxides of tin, cerium, iron, and uranium. 
 It has hitherto only been found in Greenland. 
 
 FE'RIi'E. In Roman Antiquities, solemn religious fes- 
 tivals. The most celebrated were the Feriae Latina; (Latin 
 holidays), celebrated on the Alban mount by all the states 
 of Latium in common. The deputies of the various cities, 
 with those from Rome, met on the Alban mount, where, 
 under the presidency of the latter, they sacrificed a bull to 
 •Jupiter Latialis, and under sanction of this ceremony took 
 oaths to preserve their mutual friendship and alliance. This 
 festival was originally instituted by the second Tarquin, in 
 whose time and long subsequently it lasted for one day only ; 
 but in process of time it extended to four. It was observed by 
 the consuls regularly before they set out for their provinces. 
 
 FERINES. (Lat. ferus, wild.) The English equivalent 
 of the Carnassiers of the system of Cuvier; but generally 
 employed to designate the group corresponding with the 
 Fierce of Linnaeus, and excluding the hats (Clieirojitera), 
 which form the first family of Cuvier's Carnassiers. 
 
 FERMENT. (Lat. ferveo, IboU.) The substance which 
 is essential to the process of fermentation. It is either na- 
 turally present in the fermentable juice, as in the grape ; 
 or it is added, as in the manufacture of beer, where yeast 
 constitutes the ferment. Ferments are of an albuminous 
 or glutinous character; the presence of nitrogen seems 
 essential in their composition, hence they are classed by 
 .hemists among azotised compounds. Their modus ope- 
 randi is still unexplained. 
 
 FE'RMENTATION. (Lat.) When certain vegetable 
 substances are dissolved in water, and subjected to a due 
 temperature (between 65° and 85°), they undergo a series 
 of changes which terminate in the production of alcohol or 
 spirit ; these changes constitute the phenomena of vinous 
 fermentation. Sugar and some ferment are essential to 
 the process; and during the formation of the alcohol the 
 sugar disappears, and carbonic acid is more or less abun- 
 dantly evolved. The simplest case of fermentation is that 
 of must, or of the expressed juice of the grape, which when 
 exposed, either in close or open vessels, to a temperature 
 of about 70°, soon begins to give off carbonic acid, and to 
 become turbid and frothy; after a time a scum collects 
 upon the surface, and a sediment is deposited; the liquor 
 which had grown warm gradually cools and clears, loses 
 its sweet taste, and is converted into wine. The chief.com. 
 ponent parts of must are water, sugar, mucilage, gluten, 
 and tartar. During the fermentation carbonic acid escapes, 
 the sugar disappears, and with it the greater par,t of the 
 mucilage ; Ihe gluten chiefly forms the scum and a portion 
 of the sediment; and the tartar, originally in solution, is 
 thrown down in the form of a coloured deposit^ "It appears, 
 therefore, that the new products, which are alcohol and 
 carbonic acid, are principally formed at the expense of the 
 sugar; and Gay Lussac's experiments have shown that 4o 
 449 
 
 FESTOON. 
 
 pounds of sugar are resolved, in the process of fermenta- 
 tion, into 23 of alcohol and 22 of carbonic acid. Sugar and 
 water alone will not ferment; the ingredient requisite to 
 the commencement of the change is the gluten, which ab- 
 sorbs in the first instance a little oxygen from the air, be- 
 comes insoluble, and induces the subsequent changes. The 
 reason why grapes never ferment till the juice is expressed, 
 seems to depend upon the exclusion of air by the husk or 
 membranes ; and if grapes be bruised in a perfectly clcse 
 vessel, carefully excluding oxygen, the juice undergoes no 
 change ; so that the mere breaking down of the texture of the 
 fruit is insufficient. But a very short exposure of the pulp 
 to air is sufficient to induce that change in the juice which 
 leads on to fermentation, and which is afterwards inde- 
 pendent of the furl her contact of air, the evolution of car- 
 bonic acid being exclusively referable to the decomposition 
 of sugar. In beer the alcohol is derived from the sugar, 
 original and produced, of the malt. When wine is exposed 
 to air and a due temperature, a second fermentation en- 
 sues, which is called acetous fermentation, and which ter- 
 minates in the production oi vinegar. During this process 
 oxygen is absorbed, and more or less carbonic acid in most 
 cases evolved ; but the apparent cause of the formation of 
 vinegar is the abstraction of hydrogen from the alcohol, so 
 as to leave the remaining elements in such proportions as 
 to constitute acetic acid. Thus alcohol is theoretically con- 
 stituted of charcoal, water, and hydrogen : and acetic acid 
 of charcoal and water only : the oxygen of the air, there- 
 fore, converts the hydrogen of the alcohol into water, and 
 so effects the change into vinegar. 
 
 FE'RMO. See Canto Fermo. 
 
 FERN ROOT. The root of the Aspidium frfix mas, or 
 male fern. About two drachms of the dried root, in pow- 
 der, followed up by a brisk purge, is occasionally given as a 
 vermifuge. It was Madame Nouffers's celebrated specific. 
 
 FERNS. Cryplogamic plants of the highest grade of 
 development, and more especially remarkable for the per- 
 fect manner in which their leaves are formed. See Filiceb. 
 
 FE'RRO-CYANIC ACID. A compound of 3 atoms of 
 cyanogen, 2 of hydrogen, and 1 of iron. It is the ferro- 
 chyazic acid of Mr. Porrett, Ihe term chyazic being com- 
 posed of the initials of carbon, hydrogen, and azote, which 
 are the ultimate elements of hydro-cyanogen. 
 
 FERRUGO. In Botany, a disease of plants, commonly 
 called rust. It is caused by the presence of myriads of 
 minute fungi, chiefly of the genus Uredo, which are to 
 plants what intestinal worms are to animals. 
 
 FE'RRY. (Germ, and Sax. fahren, to pass over.) In 
 Law, a right arising from royal grant or prescription to 
 have a boat to carry men and horses across a river, and to 
 levy reasonable toll. The land on both sides ought to be- 
 long to the owner. 
 
 FE'RULA. A genus of Umbelliferous plants, with thin 
 flat fruit, resembling that of the parsnip, and yellow flowers. 
 The species are chiefly natives of Persia, where they yield 
 the drug asafcclida. According to K»mpferlhis fetid gum- 
 resin is an exudation from the root of F. asufattida; but there 
 is no doubt that it is also produced by several other species. 
 
 FE'SCENNINE VERSES (Verses Fescennini), so called 
 from Fescennia, an Etrurian town, where they first had their 
 origin, were rude extemporaneous pieces of poetry recited 
 by the youth of Latium and Etruria at rustic festivals, espe- 
 cially at harvest home, with gestures adapted to the sense. 
 They consisted principally of raillery arid playful rustic a- 
 buse ; a species of humour very much in vogue wilh Ihe 
 Grecian and Egyptian country pVople also. The Fescen- 
 nine verses are chiefly remarkable from having given rise 
 to satire, the only class of poetry of native Italian growth. 
 
 FE'SCUE GRASS. A valuable grass for meadows and 
 pastures. (Festitea ]>ratensis, Lin.) In deep ricli soils 
 somewhat moist it is considered as the most bulky and nu- 
 tritiveof all grasses; but in poorer soils it is equalled, if not 
 surpassed, by the rye grass (Lolium perenne). and the mea- 
 dow foxtail grass (Alenpecurus pratensis). The meadow 
 fescue grows to the height of between two and three feet; 
 but the sheep fescue (F. ovana), and several other species, 
 seldom grow above six inches or a foot in height, and are 
 chiefly sown on sheep pastures, arid used to lay down lawns 
 and grassy surfaces to be mown in pleasure grounds. All Ihe 
 fescues are perennials ; and they are all natives of Britain. 
 
 FESS. (Lat. fascia, a wide belt.) In Heraldry one of the 
 ordinaries. It is bounded by two horizontal lines across the 
 escutcheon, equally distant from Ihe fess point or centre of 
 the escutcheon. A fess not reaching to the sides of the 
 escutcheon is said to be couped (cut) or hmnetty. The dimi- 
 nutives of Ihe fess are the bar, the clospt, and the barulet. A 
 fess with a barulet on each side of it is said fo be cotised. 
 A fess removed to the top of the escutcheon is termed a 
 chief, and held to be an honourable augmentation. 
 
 F'ESTOO'N. (Fr. feston.) In Architecture, a carved 
 representation of a wreath or garland of flowers, or leaves 
 and fruit, or all of them, interwoven together; thick in the 
 centre and small at each extremity, where it is fastened, 
 and frequently turned over. 
 Ee
 
 FETIALS. 
 
 FE'TIALS. See Fecials. 
 
 FE TICH, Fetichism. The word Fetich is said to be 
 derived from the Portuguese, and appears to have been 
 brought into common usage from the writings of some trav- 
 ellers on the western coast of Africa. It is now comprehen- 
 sively employed to signify any object of worship not repre- 
 senting a living (or rather, perhaps, a human) figure ; thus 
 excluding idols, properly so called. This perverted form of 
 religion prevails very extensively among barbarous nations, 
 and especially those of the Negro race. Among the latter, 
 tribes, families, and individuals have their respective Fe- 
 tiches; which are often objects casually selected, or chosen 
 under the influence of some occasional superstition, as 
 stones, weapons, vessels, plants, &c. &c. 
 
 FE'TLOCK. (Quasi footlock, whence the derivation.) 
 In the Manege, a tuft of hair growing behind the pastem 
 joint of horses ; hence the joint where it grows is called the 
 fetlock joint. 
 
 FE'TTERED, in Zoology, is applied to the feet of ani- 
 mals when they are stretched backward and appear unfit 
 for the purpose of walking, or when they are concealed 
 within the integuments of the abdomen. 
 
 FE'TTSTEIN. (Germ, fat stone.) See Elaolite. 
 FEU (Lat. feodum, >>/), in Scottish Law, is used in con- 
 tradistinction to ward-holding or military tenure, to signify 
 that holding where the vassal makes a return in grain or 
 money in lieu of military service. The feu contract is that 
 which regulates the giving out of land, as between superior 
 and vassal ; the rent paid being termed the feu duties. 
 
 FEU'DAL SYSTEM. (From the modern Latin word 
 feodum or feud ; in English fief or fee.) A body of institu- 
 tions of a peculiar character, introduced into Europe by the 
 German and Gothic tribes which conquered the provinces 
 of Rome, which prevailed for a long period, and has left 
 important traces of its existence in most European countries. 
 The words fief and feud are both, it is conjectured with 
 much probability, corruptions of the Graco-Latin term em- 
 phyteusis (pronounced emphytefsis), signifying a contract 
 whereby an individual acquired the enjoyment of a piece of 
 land without the absolute property in it. Hence by con- 
 traction came fef or fief, and by the addition of a neuter 
 termination fevodum, feudum, feodum. Another derivation, 
 recently suggested, is from the Irish "fuidhur," "fuidh," 
 signifying, in the Brehon Laws, a stranger who enjoyed 
 land within the domains of a clan, and the tenure by which 
 he enjoyed it. It is singular that the word " vassal" is also 
 probably of Celtic derivation. (See Vassal.) The English 
 word " feud" (quarrel or strife) is of an entirely distinct or- 
 igin, being the same with the German fehde. The German 
 equivalent for fief is another original word, lehn. 
 
 It is clear that feudal usages were absolutely unknown to 
 the ancient Romans ; but as among that people, and espe- 
 cially in the later times of the empire, there existed certain 
 customs which were analogous in appearance, although not 
 in origin — such as the establishment of military colonies on 
 the frontier, where the tenant of land was a soldier, and lia- 
 ble to be called into active duty; and the cultivation of 
 great part of the empire by coloni, a distinct class of men, 
 raised above the condition of the slave, and yet bound to 
 render services to the proprietor, and in some instances an- 
 nexed to the soil — the barbarians in many instances adapt- 
 ed the conventional language and the laws of Rome to their 
 own native customs ; thus producing a confusion of idiom 
 and practice, of which a better instance cannot be found 
 than the fact already mentioned, that the word "feud" it- 
 self is derived from a legal term of the Greek empire (em- 
 phyteusis). 
 
 The immediate result of the conquest of Gaul, Italy, and 
 Spain by the various barbarian tribes, was the division of 
 the lands (except such portions as were left in the posses- 
 sion of the Roman cultivators and only rendered liable to 
 tribute) between all the armed men of the nation. The 
 shares were undoubtedly unequal even in the earliest of 
 these divisions; but, however differing in point of wealth, 
 all the free proprietors were equal in rights : all were held 
 liable to serve with the national force when called into the 
 field; all had a voice, at least nominally, in the making of 
 laws and in the choice of a sovereign. These free citizens 
 are called by various names in the legislation of the differ- 
 ent tribes; the Lombard title of Jlrimannus (ehren-mann, 
 man of honour, or heer-man, warrior) seems to have been 
 the most permanent. Such, however, was the general con- 
 stitution of the kingdoms of the Lombards in Italy; the 
 Franks in Gaul ; the Visigoths, Ostrogoths, and Burgtin- 
 dians; and of the various states which grew up within the 
 limits of Germany itself, after the confusion occasioned by 
 the great migrations had passed away. 
 
 The decay of these aristocratic republics was brought 
 about by nearly the same causes which operate in under- 
 mining all systems founded on equality of rights and classes. 
 The constant wars and vicissitudes to which these govern- 
 ments were subject naturally raised up among the citizens 
 450 
 
 FEUDAL SYSTEM. 
 
 some more powerful than the rest, and converted a great 
 body of the freemen into dependants upon these. The dukes 
 and counts, and other great men, became the actual con- 
 trollers of the community : the free citizens, wherever un- 
 able to associate for mutual protection, were subject to 
 innumerable vexations. From the earliest times, and before 
 the fall of the Roman empire, it had been customary among 
 the Germans for the princes and chief men to be attended 
 by a select body of faithful companions, whose dependance 
 on them, and services due to them, were recognised and 
 fixed by general usage. This custom, under the new cir- 
 cumstances of the Germanic and Gothic kingdoms, acquired 
 peculiar force. It became an object of ambition to the 
 chieftains to have as many dependants as possible. With 
 this view, every species of vexation was exercised by them 
 towards the unprotected Arimannus, to induce him to abdi- 
 cate his own independence, and enrol himself under their 
 command. During the wars and confusions of the eighth 
 and ninth centuries, the foundations of the feudal system 
 were laid by this personal dependance assuming gradually 
 the character of a territorial dependance also. The Ari- 
 mannus was induced to surrender up his free or allodial 
 lands to the king or count, and became his "liegeman" 
 (fidelis), "antrustion" (our English word trust comes from 
 the same origin), "vassal," or "man" (homo, whence ho- 
 magium, homage), receiving back his lands to hold of the 
 superior. This process can only now be traced by insulated 
 documents and historical facts ; but, arising out of the same 
 circumstances in most countries of Western Europe, it took 
 in all of them nearly the same course. It is ably developed 
 by Hallam (in his first chapter on the Feudal System), and 
 Meyer (Institutions Judiciaires, livre i.). 
 
 The success and energy of Charlemagne arrested for a 
 time the decomposition of the old form of society : his em- 
 pire extended over nearly all those portions of Europe 
 which afterward became feudal ; and his various laws (in 
 the end of the eighth and beginning of the ninth century) 
 present us with a remarkable picture of what may be called 
 the state of transition from the allodial to the feudal system. 
 We find in them that the free proprietors, or Arimanni, still 
 formed a very numerous body ; and that the exigencies of 
 military service fell most heavily upon them. They were 
 obliged to serve at their own cost; while the counts, &c, 
 brought their vassals to the field at their own expense. 
 These laws are full of the vexations endured by the former 
 class from the powerful military chieftains. On the other 
 hand, the practice of attaching individuals to the person of 
 the sovereign or superior by the grant of lands (benefices), 
 and the obligations imposed on the inferior by the grant, are 
 clearly developed. The distinction between aVodial and 
 feudal lands (though the latter term was not yet used) is as 
 marked as at any subsequent period. But benefices were 
 not yet hereditary : it is doubted by the most learned wri- 
 ters/whether or no they were, generally or frequently, pre- 
 carious and revocable. 
 
 The decay of Charlemagne's empire, and the disasters of 
 the two centuries which followed his reign, completed the 
 formation of the feudal system. The great step by which 
 that change was completed was when the benefices or fiefs 
 became, like the former allodial properties, hereditary. 
 There can be little doubt that this change was merely the 
 result of those disastrous circumstances of civil and barba- 
 rian wars which during that period relaxed the slight bonds 
 of the Carlovingian monarchy, and rendered every man as 
 far as possible dependant on an immediate superior, and in- 
 dependent of a central authority. The earliest express cre- 
 ation of an hereditary fief is considered to be the donation 
 of the duchy of Aquitaine to Eudes and his heirs by 
 Charles-le-Chauve. The great vassals established their 
 families permanently in the lands which they held of the 
 fisc or royal domain : their liegemen, in turn, were gratified 
 by acquiring the same right in their own subordinate fiefs. 
 There can be no doubt that the nobility of modem Europe 
 owes its origin, in general, to nearly the same period and 
 the same causes: those families which succeeded in acqui 
 ring extensive fiefs, and preserving them for several genera- 
 tions, became noble by prescription. In the mean time, the 
 Arimanni, or allodial proprietors, found their condition be- 
 came worse from generation to generation : they were load- 
 ed with services and dues until, in the tenth century (as is 
 shown by Meyer), the term " arimannia" became synony- 
 mous with exaction. But, although the feudal system be- 
 came so generally prevalent that the maxim " Nulle terre 
 sans seigneur" (importing that lands were presumed feudal 
 until the contrary was shown) became generally received, 
 yet in France and Germany they never became wholly ex- 
 tinct. In some districts of the former country the maxim 
 was reversed, and lands were presumed allodial. (See 
 Hallam.) 
 
 Character and Features of the Feudal System.— -This in- 
 stitution is generally supposed to have been fully consolida- 
 ted by the commencement of the eleventh century : the law
 
 FEUDAL SYSTEM. 
 
 of Conrad, the Salic, in Lombardy (1039), contains all its 
 main features : the Assises de Jerusalem, and other compi- 
 lations, show that in a century more it had been invested 
 with all the refinements of a legal system. 
 
 By the principles of this system, the king was, in the last 
 resort, proprietor of all the feudal lands of his kingdom. 
 Those who were infeoffed of lands directly from the crown, 
 and owed homage and service to the king, were termed ten- 
 ants in chief (in capite), &c. These, again, infeoffed other 
 inferior tenants, who held immediately of them; and this 
 practice (called sub-infeudation) might be carried on through 
 several gradations. Thus the same individual was a vassal 
 or dependant of the crown, and lord or suzerain with refer- 
 ence to his own vassal who held of him, also termed mesne 
 or mediate lord, a term which comprehended both these re- 
 lations. But, although all perfect fiefs resembled each other 
 in their theoretical character, and particularly in their great 
 attribute of military service, yet, in point of fact, tenants 
 holding immediately of the crown stood in very different 
 degrees of subordination. Thus, in France, the great vas- 
 sals (the Dukes of Normandy, Britany, &c.) were immedi- 
 ate tenants of the crown, but in effect almost independent 
 of it ; while they exercised much stricter sovereignty over 
 their own immediate tenants. But other lands, being the 
 demesne of the crown itself, were held of it by lesser ten- 
 ants in chief, who stood to the king in the same close rela- 
 tion as the vassals of the great feudatories did to them. 
 Thus the government of France, at the period when the 
 feudal system was in the greatest vigour, was that of a col- 
 lection of independent sovereigns, of whom one, the king, 
 had a certain supremacy over the rest ; but each, within his 
 own domains, exercised an equal authority : and such was, 
 in theory at least, the constitution of every feudal kingdom. 
 The ceremonies used in conferring a fief were chiefly three : 
 1. Homage, by which the vassal owned the lord's suprema- 
 cy ; but homage per paragium, or simple homage, was un- 
 accompanied by any feudal obligation ; homagium ligeum, 
 or liege homage, implied such obligations: the former only 
 was rendered to the king by the great feudatories above 
 mentioned. (See Hallam's Middle Ages, c. 2, part 1.) 2. 
 The oath of fealty. 3. investiture, or the conveyance of 
 feudal lands, actual or symbolical. The chief obligation 
 of a feudal tenant was military service ; but the laws which 
 regulated this essential part of the contract were so various, 
 that it is not possible to give any comprehensive description 
 of them. In some places every tenant was obliged to serve 
 personally for his fief, whether large or small ; in others (as 
 England), the land was divided into a certain number of 
 equal parcels, from each of which a soldier's service was 
 due: the term of service was also variously regulated by 
 custom. The conflicting rights of superior and inferior lords 
 to the vassal's military service were also never satisfactorily 
 adjusted. When feudality was in its most flourishing state, 
 he commonly followed the banner of his immediate supe- 
 rior, even against the crown ; but with the progress of the 
 royal power, his obligations were gradually transferred to 
 the king as lord paramount : military service was in most 
 cases rendered commutable, in process of time, for an 
 amercement in money. (SeeEscuAGE.) There were other 
 inferior obligations which attached to the military tenures, 
 commonly called feudal incidents. These were chiefly, 1. 
 Reliefs ; i. e., sums of money paid to the lord by tenants of 
 full age on taking fiefs by descent. 2. Fines upon aliena- 
 tion, which were sums paid on alienating a fief; a privilege 
 which was only gradually acquired by feudal tenants, being 
 contrary to the principles of the institution. 3. Escheats ; 
 i. e., the reversion of the fief to the lord, on failure of the 
 tenant's heirs or forfeiture. 4. .lids ; sums paid by tenant 
 to the lord on certain specified occasions. And to these may 
 be added the feudal rights of wardship, by which the lord, 
 in some countries, had the custody of his tenant's person, 
 and the enjoyment of his lands until he was of full age ; 
 and marriage, by which the lord had the right of disposing 
 of such ward's land in marriage, or, if the marriage were 
 rejected, to a sum of money equivalent to the marriage, i. e., 
 as much as it was presumed the party seeking the marriage 
 would have given the lord for the alliance. Forfeiture of 
 the fief to the feudal lord was incurred by the tenant's vio- 
 lating any of the original conditions of fealty, homage, and 
 military service. But the vassal was protected from the 
 unjust aggression of the lord by that which seems to have 
 been an inherent and necessary condition of the feudal sys- 
 tem ; the judgment, namely, of his peers, without which 
 such forfeiture could not be incurred, supported, as it were, 
 by the right of private warfare, which in the last resort 
 was the resource both of the lord to enforce obedience from 
 the vassal, and the vassal to protect himself rmainst his 
 equal or his superior: on failure of heirs, the fief fell or es- 
 cheated to the lord. Fiefs holden by military tenure were, 
 strictly, proper fiefs. There were also a great variety of 
 tenures by rendering particular stipulated services, created, 
 for the most part, in comparatively late times, which were 
 
 also deemed feudal in their character, and constituted im- 
 proper fiefs; such were, especially, tenures by the perform- 
 ance of menial or other personal services, from which arose 
 the English grand serjeanty (Which see). All these tenures 
 were of a higher or noble character ; but in some countries 
 large portions of the land were held either immediately of 
 the king, or mediately of feudal lords, by base or inferior 
 tenures. Such lands were styled fiefs roturiers in French 
 jurisprudence: in English, this class of tenures was com- 
 prehended under the common term of socage, which com- 
 prised both tenures in free or common socage, and those in 
 villein socage, from which are derived tenures in ancient 
 demesne. (See Socage.) 
 
 The division of ranks under the feudal system correspond- 
 ed in theory, although not precisely in practice, to the terri- 
 torial division of lands according to their tenures. Those who 
 held their fiefs by knight-service were the original nobility 
 of the soil ; nor has the class of gentry, in most countries, 
 any other origin. The bearing of arms, the distinctive char- 
 acter of simames, &c. &c., became afterwards, in course of 
 time, the distinctive marks of the class of nobility, which no 
 longer adhered so closely to the soil from which it sprang. 
 Thus, in France, we find that a noble might, in later times, 
 hold a fief roturier, while a roturier might hold a proper 
 fief; although, in such a case, services such as were render- 
 ed by the gentry were of course commuted. But it may be 
 in general observed, that almost the whole soil of France, 
 north of the Loire, was under noble tenures; in the south 
 only were free tenants, not noble — a numerous class. In 
 many parts of Germany the distinction between adelichc 
 giiter (noble fiefs) and bauer giiter (peasant fiefs) has only- 
 been recently effaced, or still subsists : in Prussia it was abol- 
 ished in 1807. In England the course of the feudal system 
 was somewhat different ; the class of free tenants in socage 
 was far more numerous and influential : hence the yeoman- 
 ry of England formed a body of men to which a parallel 
 could hardly be found in any other country. The burgesses, 
 or inhabitants of towns, constituted in feudal realms a class 
 apart; and their communities were either really, or by fic- 
 tion, emancipated by royal charters from the tenure by which 
 they were supposed to hold their land either of the king or 
 some mesne lord. Lastly, the lowest class of the population 
 consisted of serfs or villeins, attached to the soil in many in- 
 stances; but whose state varied so greatly under different 
 circumstances, as to render it impossible to give any general 
 description of their condition. 
 
 Such is a very brief and general outline of the complica- 
 ted system of rights and duties which bears the historical 
 name of feudal. It is necessary, however, to add, that this 
 system assumed very different shapes in the different coun- 
 tries in which it prevailed. 1. France was the country in 
 which feudalism had, if not its origin, at least its greatest 
 extension, and was most nearly reduced in practice to its 
 theoretical form. Up to the fall of the Carlovingian empire, 
 that country must be regarded as an aggregate of provinces, 
 inhabited by different nations, and governed by a variety of 
 laws, but acknowledging the sovereignty of a monarch 
 whose power was more or less obeyed, according to his own 
 personal talents and other casual circumstances. After the 
 separation of France and Germany by the treaty of Verdun 
 in 843, a succession of feeble princes and the invasions of 
 the Normans almost broke up the slender frame of the French 
 monarchy. The governors or masters of extensive provin- 
 ces, who had by this time secured to themselves the heredi- 
 tary sovereignty of their respective benefices, became inde- 
 pendent within their own limits : when feudal royalty was 
 continued under the Capetian kings, these ranked as the 
 great vassals of the crown. Their powers have been classed 
 (by Mr. Hallam) under five heads: 1. the right of coining 
 money ; 2. that of waging private war ; 3. the exemption 
 from all public tributes except the feudal aids; 4. the free- 
 dom from legislative control ; and 5. the exclusive exercise 
 of original judicature in their dominions : of these, the fourth 
 was the most characteristic of the French system. No gen- 
 eral legislative power, vested in an assembly of the nation, 
 seems ever to have existed in France as a whole. This cir- 
 cumstance, which in the first instance seemed to the great 
 vassals their independence, proved in the end the cause of 
 their decay; as, with the gradual increase of the royal pow- 
 ers, the legislative authority of the king himself, in the ab- 
 sence of any recognised national council to assis* him, ac- 
 quired continually increasing force. Meanwhile, the extra- 
 ordinary power of the great vassals in France in some de- 
 gree weighed down that of the inferior nobility ; the ties of 
 feudal subjection, weakened in the highest relation (that be- 
 tween the great vassals and the crown), were much stronger 
 between the great lords and the lesser barons, chatelains, or 
 vavassors, who depended on them. The king, according to 
 the establishments of St. Louis, could not declare any new 
 law in the territory of his baron without his consent, neither 
 could the baron in that of his vavassor; but, in a partial 
 point of view, the king and the baron, within their respective 
 
 451
 
 FEVER. 
 
 demesnes, exercised a much more real sovereignty than that 
 which the former possessed over the latter. It was about 
 the reign of Philippe-le-Bel, in the beginning of the 14th cen- 
 tury, that the feudal system, which had lasted up to that 
 time from its establishment in the 10th without material in- 
 novation, was in effect overthrown, and that the king of 
 France began to be in reality master of his kingdom. This 
 change was chiefly brought about by the extension of the 
 king's juridical power by means of the parliament ; and last- 
 ly by the convocation of the states-general, as the represent- 
 ative body of the whole nation : the greater fiefs were re- 
 annexed in the course of events to the crown, with the re- 
 maining power and privileges of their lords. — 2. There can 
 be no question that feudal principles prevailed to a consider- 
 able degree in the polity of the Saxons in England ; but 
 when tiiat kingdom was conquered by the Normans they 
 imported with them the entire system, already invested (in 
 the 11th century) with a legal and regular character. Hence, 
 while feudalism grew up from the circumstances of society 
 in France, it may be said to have been transplanted, as to 
 most of its details, into England from a foreign soil. The 
 land was parcelled out, as in France, between higher feuda- 
 tories and inferior tenants holding of them by knight-service. 
 But two circumstances chiefly produced the very different 
 shape into which the system ultimately resolved itself: 1. 
 The existence of the great body of freemen of Saxon descent, 
 who were neither reduced into villenage, nor deprived of 
 their lands, nor yet ennobled by being ranked along with the 
 Norman military tenants. 2. The permanent national coun- 
 cil, which seems to have been every where a peculiarity of 
 the Norman system of government, and which, by taking 
 cognizance of matters pertaining to the general interests of 
 the realm, at once controlled the power of the king and that 
 of the great barons as single and independent chiefs. Thus 
 the country remained, even in the most troubled period of 
 the Plantagenet dynasty, in constant union under some cen- 
 tral authority ; and the feudal principles were modified, both 
 by the common law of the land, and also by various statutes, 
 of which that commonly styled by its first words " Quia 
 Emptores," passed in the reign of Edward II. which put an 
 effectual stop to all farther sub-infeudation, was perhaps the 
 most effectual. — 3. In Germany, as well as France, the feu- 
 dal usages seem to have grown into a system under the sov- 
 ereignty of the Carlovingian emperors. But in that country, 
 owing, perhaps, partly to the constant danger from foreign 
 invasion on the eastern side, which kept the people more 
 together under the central authority, the sovereigns never 
 lost, during the dark period of the 9th and 10th centuries, so 
 much of their power as those of France. Hence the greater 
 vassals did not acquire such complete independence ; but 
 when, after the 11th century, the elective character of the 
 empire was more fully recognised, the imperial power de- 
 cayed ; and that of the vassals rose during the period in 
 which the contrary progress was taking place in France. 
 And as the inferior barons had not been depressed, as in the 
 latter country, by the overgrown power of the superior, Ger- 
 many presented the example of a country' in which the feu- 
 dal system was carried out more completely, and for a great- 
 er length of time, into actual existence than any other; nor 
 is there any in which the frame of society, to the present 
 day, shows so many relics of its long predominance. — 1. In 
 Italy the feudal system, under the Carlovingian government, 
 was widely prevalent. The chief cause, in that country, 
 which weakened and brought it to decay, or rather prevent- 
 ed its complete establishment, was to be found in the power 
 and independence of the large towns, which at first effectu- 
 ally resisted, and afterwards broke down, the strength of the 
 nobility. — 5. In Spain feudal tenures were of late introduc- 
 tion, and very partially known, except in the kingdom of Ar- 
 ragon. — 6. In the northern and eastern kingdoms of Europe 
 (Sweden, Denmark, Hungary, Bohemia) they were never in- 
 troduced at all, except in seme few instances wholly without 
 general effect, 
 
 FE' VER. (Lat febris.) A disease, one of the most gen- 
 eral symptoms of which is increased heat of the body. The 
 temperature is often actually higher than it should be ; and 
 often the sensations of heat, dryness, and even burning of the 
 skin, are excessive, independent of any proportional increase 
 of thermometric heat. The subject of fever has given rise 
 to an infinity of medical discussion and theory ; and the def- 
 initions of the disease, given by different writers, are not less 
 varied than numerous. In fevers there is generally great 
 constitutional derangement, unaccompanied by local or per- 
 ceptible organic disease. Fevers generally begin with lan- 
 guor of body and mind; chilliness, amounting to shivering, 
 though the skin often at the same time feels hot ; the pulse 
 is quicker than it should be ; respiration hurried or laboured ; 
 pains are complained of in various parts, and especially 
 about the head, back, and loins; the appetite falls off, or 
 there is nausea and vomiting ; the mouth is dry ; the bowels 
 generally constipated ; and the urine small in quantity and 
 deep in colour. These, which constitute the first stage of or- 
 452 
 
 FICTION OF LAW. 
 
 dinary febrile symptoms, are succeeded by alternate flush- 
 ings, a quicker and fuller pulse, rapid alternations of shiver- 
 ing and burning heat, and by mental anxiety and wander- 
 ing, which, under a great variety of aspects and modifica- 
 tions, constitute the second stage : they are succeeded by the 
 third stage, in which the leading appearances are a cleaner 
 tongue, a more natural pulse, a moist skin, calm mind, and 
 the urine becomes more copious in quantity, and deposits a 
 sediment as it cools. The symptoms of fever generally un- 
 dergo an increase every evening, which is called an exacer- 
 bation ; and this fluctuation often takes place more than 
 once in the twenty-four hours, the violence of the attacks 
 increasing with their occurrence, and forming what is called 
 a continued fever. After some days, a crisis takes place ; 
 that is, the symptoms either take a favourable or an unfa- 
 vourable turn. If the exacerbation and remission of symp- 
 toms are well marked, and occur once or oftener in the day, 
 the fever is called a remittent ; if the fever leaves the pa- 
 tient after some hours' duration, and returns at stated inter- 
 vals, it is called an intermittent. (See Ague.) Fevers are 
 also variously denominated, according to the prevalent symp- 
 toms, as inflammatory, typhus or putrid, nervous fever, &c. ; 
 or according to cutaneous appearances connected with them, 
 such as scarlet fever and yellow fever. 
 
 FIARS. A word of Gothic origin, signifying, in Scotland, 
 the prices of grain for the current year in the different coun- 
 ties, fixed by the sheriffs respectively in the month of Feb- 
 ruary, with the assistance of juries. The form of striking 
 the fiars, says Mr. Bell, in his Law Dictionary, is prescribed 
 by the Acts of Sederunt, Dec. 21, 1723, and July 29, 172*. 
 A jury must be called, and evidence laid before them of 
 the prices of the different grains raised in the county ; and 
 file prices fixed by the opinion of the jury, and sanctioned 
 by the judge, are termed the fiars of that year in which 
 they are struck, and regulate the prices of all grain stipulated 
 to be sold at the fiar prices. The fiar prices also regulate 
 the price in contracts concerning grain (the product of the 
 county) to be delivered, and where no price has been other- 
 wise agreed upon between the parties. Having the prices 
 of grain, &c, ascertained in each county has greatly facili 
 tated the introduction into Scotland of the practice of letting 
 land for corn rents convertible at the prices of the day. In 
 England, where there are no such authentic local returns, 
 there is great difficulty in converting com rents into money 
 rents, inasmuch as reference can only be made to the prices 
 in some particular market, or in the kingdom at large; the 
 one of which is too limited, and the other too extensive. 
 See Bell's Law Dictionary, and the authorities there re- 
 ferred to. 
 
 FI'AT. (Lat) In Law, a short order or warrant of 
 some judge for making out certain processes, &c. 
 
 Fiat. In Bankruptcy. See Bankruptcy. 
 
 FI'BRE. One of the two bases of all vegetable structures. 
 It may be compared to a hair in inconceivable fineness, its 
 diameter often not exceeding 1-1200 of an inch ; also the 
 name of the finer divisions of roots. 
 
 FIBRI LL^E. In Botany, the minute subdivisions of the 
 root, each being a small bundle of annular ducts, or some- 
 times of spiral vessels incased in woody tissue covered by a 
 lax cellular integument, and in direct communication with 
 the vascular system of the root. The apex is composed of 
 lax cellular tissue and mucus. 
 
 FI'BRIN. A term applied by chemists to the muscular 
 fibre when cleansed by washing from all adhering impuri- 
 ties ; or to the coagulum of the blood when the whole of the 
 colouring matter is washed out of it. It is white, insipid, and 
 inodorous; its ultimate elements are, according to Guy Lus- 
 sac and Thenard, 
 
 Carbon 53-36 
 
 Hydrogen 702 
 
 Nitrogen 1993 
 
 Oxygen 19-09 
 
 It is merely a form of albumen. 
 
 FI BROL1TE. A rare mineral of a peculiar fibrous tex- 
 ture, accompanying corundum from the Carnatic and from 
 China. 
 
 FI'BULA. A long slender bone of the leg, placed upon 
 the outer side of the tibia, the lower end of which forms the 
 external ancle. 
 
 FICOI'DEiE. A natural order of shrubby or herbaceous 
 Exogens, inhabiting hot sandy plains. They are related to 
 Crassulacetf, Chenopodiacece, and Silenaceae, and especially 
 to Cactace<e ; but are distinguished by their embryo being 
 curved round mealy albumen, a superior calyx, and perigyn- 
 ous stamens. The succulent leaves of some are eaten, while 
 others vield soda. 
 
 FICTION. In Literature. See Novel, Romance. 
 
 FICTION OF LAW, has been defined, by writers on the 
 civil jurisprudence, to be an assumption of the law upon an 
 untruth in something possible to be done but not done. The 
 utility of such fictions is merely, by substituting the imaginary 
 for the true state of the case, to pass more rapidly over those
 
 FID. 
 
 parts of the subject which are not disputed, and arrive at the 
 points really in iasue. Among the more notorious fictions of 
 the English law may be noticed the course of proceedings in 
 the action of ejectment, in which an imaginary tenant brings 
 his complaint of having been turned out of possession by a 
 wrongdoer, in order to try the validity of the title of the 
 landlord : that of a common recovery, by which estates tail 
 were bound through a complicated proceeding (removed by 
 recent statutes, see Fee-Tail), consisting of an imaginary 
 suit at law. The general rule is, that such fictions are not 
 traversable; i. e., cannot be contradicted by him against 
 whom they are used, so as to defeat the end for which they 
 are invented. And for the same purpose the court will take 
 notice that they are only fictions, if necessary, in order to 
 prevent more technical objections to them. 
 
 FID. A short bar of wood or iron put through the heel or 
 lower part of a topmast, and resting by its ends on the trestle- 
 trees, and on which the mast is therefore supported. When 
 the topmast is to be got down, it is first lifted to take the pres- 
 sure off the fid, which is then withdrawn. 
 
 FID, or SPLICING FID, is also a sharp cone of wood for 
 opening the strands of rope. 
 
 FI'DEI COMMI'SSUM. (Lat. committed or intrusted to 
 faith.) A species of testamentary disposition recognised 
 by the Roman law, by winch a testator, in indirect terms, 
 charged his heir to deliver over to a specified person the 
 whole or a part of the goods which he inherited. Fidei 
 commissa were usually adopted as a means of bequeathing 
 property to persons legally incapable of directly receiving the 
 bequest. Fidei commissa were, as their name implies, at 
 first dependant entirely on the faith of the heir for their exe- 
 cution ; but that execution was rendered compulsory by Au- 
 gustus in some cases ; and this became afterwards the general 
 law, the heir being, however, entitled, where lie voluntarily 
 accepted the testament and charged himself with its execu- 
 tion, to retain one fourth of the property intrusted to him for 
 delivery. 
 
 FIDE JU'SSOR. In the Civil Law, one who engages 
 himself for the debt of another, promising to pay in case the 
 original debtor should make default: who is called in the 
 law of England a guaranter. 
 
 FIEF. (Lat. feodum.) The French name for an estaste 
 in lands held of a feudal superior. In English law language, 
 a fee : also termed a feud by writers on feudal jurisprudence. 
 (.See Feudal System.) In the legal language of France, a 
 fief was opposed to an aleu, or estate held allodially, with- 
 out any lord paramount. Various derivations of the word 
 have been given ; but the most probable is that which traces 
 it through the steps feodum, feudum, emphyteuticum, from 
 the Gr. efiipvTevaii, a contract whereby the use of the land 
 without the property in it was surrendered to a tenant. 
 
 FIELD. In Agriculture, a portion of land enclosed by a 
 fence, or rendered distinct by some line of separation, so as 
 to adapt it for culture. In former times, and until within the 
 last two centuries, almost all the land cultivated with the 
 plough throughout Europe was unenclosed ; and the term 
 field was then applied, in Britain at least, to the lands under 
 culture by the plough. Subsequently, when farmers en- 
 closed and subdivided a portion of the lands near the farm 
 yard, these portions were called fields ; and the more distant 
 portion which remained open was called open field, or com- 
 mon field ; while grass lands unenclosed were called com- 
 mons. In the present improved state of agriculture, every 
 farm is divided into fields, either simply by lines of demarca- 
 tion, which are sufficient when no animals are to be grazed 
 on the farm ; or by lines of separation which will act as 
 fences, such as walls, hedges, ditches, &lc, where cattle are 
 to be grazed. Without some regular fixed division of arable 
 lands, it would be next to impossible to conduct a rotation or 
 succession of crops. It is interesting to observe that as agri- 
 culture in a rude state had no fences, so this is also beginning 
 to be the case in agriculture in its most refined form ; because 
 it is found much more advantageous, both for the production 
 of butcher's meat and manure, to consume the grass and her- 
 bage grown on farm lands in farm yards, with the single ex- 
 ception of that portion which is eaten by sheep ; and these are 
 confined to successive portions of grass land by light netting 
 hurdles, scarcely visible at a short distance. By thus getting 
 rid of fences of every description, from a tenth to a fifth will 
 be added to the contents of the greater number of corn farms ; 
 and a very considerable first cost and annual expense will be 
 saved in planting hedges or building walls, and in keeping 
 them in repair afterward. 
 
 Field. In Heraldry, the tincture, or combination of tinc- 
 tures, which forms the ground of the escutcheon on which 
 the device or charge is delineated. See Tincture. 
 
 FIE'LDFARE. A bird of the thrush tribe (Turdus 
 pilaris, Linn.,) which is a seasonal visitant in this island. 
 It makes its appearance about the beginning of October, 
 migrating from the colder northern parts of the Continent in 
 flocks, numerous according to the severity of the season. 
 They fly in a body ; and if alarmed when dispersed over a 
 
 FIGS. 
 
 field in quest of food, they collect together as they fly off, 
 and often settle in a swarm on the same tree. They leave 
 us about the latter end of February, or the beginning of 
 March ; and retire to breed in Sweden, Norway, Russia, and 
 the northern parts of Asia as far as Kamtschatka. 
 
 FIELD LARK. See Lark. 
 
 FIELD MA'RSHAL. The highest military title in this 
 and some other countries. It is conferred only on officers 
 distinguished for brilliant military services or exalted station. 
 The term is derived from the marecJial de camp in the old 
 French service, and was long in use among the Germans in 
 its present distinguished acceptation before it was adopted in 
 this country. There are at present only five field marshals 
 in the British army; the Duke of Wellington, the King of 
 Hanover, the Duke of Cambridge, the King of Belgium, and 
 Prince Albert. 
 
 FIELD OF VIEW, in a telescope or microscope, is the 
 space within which objects are visible when the instrument 
 is adjusted to focus. 
 
 FIE'LDVOLE. A name of the short-tailed field-mouse, 
 or meadow-mouse (Jirvicola agrestis, Cuv.). A species 
 which subsists exclusively on vegetable productions; and 
 being, like the rest of the rat tribe, extremely prolific, multi- 
 plies occasionally to such a degree, even in this country, as to 
 become the most injurious of our wild quadrupeds. " After 
 having followed the labours of the reaper, and taken their 
 share of the harvest, the fieldvoles," says Mr. Bell, "attack 
 the newly sown fields, burrowing beneath the surface, and 
 robbing the husbandman of his next year's crop; and at 
 length, retreating to the woods and plantations, commit such 
 devastations on the young trees as would scarcely be credi- 
 ble, were not the evidence too certain to be doubted. In the 
 years 1813 and 1814 these ravages were so great in the New 
 Forest and the Forest of Dean, as to create considerable 
 alarm lest the whole of the young trees in those extensive 
 woods should be destroyed by them." A timely and assidu- 
 ous attention to restraining the increase of this pernicious 
 species by the aid of terriers, ferrets, and traps, is imperative 
 on those who have the charge of young plantations ; but 
 when the numbers of the fieldvole have surpassed the usual 
 bounds, then it is recommended to dig holes about a foot in 
 depth, and the same in diameter, taking care to make them 
 much wider at the bottom than at the top, so that the animal 
 when once in cannot easily get out again. In holes of this 
 kind Mr. Jesse states that at least thirty thousand fieldvolea 
 were caught, in the course of three or four months, in Dean 
 Forest plantations ; that number having been counted out 
 and paid for by the proper officers of the forest. 
 
 FI'ERI FACIAS. In Law, a judicial writ, that liea 
 where judgment is had for debt or damages recovered in the 
 king's court ; by which writ the sheriff is commanded to levy 
 the debt and damages of the goods and chattels of the de- 
 fendant. This writ is to be sued out within a year and a 
 day after judgment; or the judgment must be revived by 
 scire facias. 
 
 FIFE. (Germ, pfeiffe.) A small wooden musical wind 
 instrument of the flute species played by holes, exceedingly 
 shrill in tone, and rarely used except in military bands. 
 
 FIFTEENTH. In Music, an interval of two octaves ; 
 also a name given to a stop on the organ, a double octave 
 above the diapason, as its name imports. 
 
 FIFTH. In Music, one of the harmonical intervals or 
 concords. It is the second in order of the concords, the ratio 
 of the chords that afford it being as 3 : 2. It is called the 
 fifth, as containing five terms or sounds between its extremes 
 and four degrees ; so that in the natural scale of music it 
 comes in the fifth place or order from the fundamental. 
 The ancients called it Diapente, and the Italians at present 
 call it Quinta. The imperfect, defective, or false fifth, call- 
 ed by the ancients semi-diapente, is less than the fifth by a 
 lesser semitone. 
 
 FIFTH MO'NARCHY-MEN. A fanatical sect, who 
 formed a principal support of Cromwell during the Protec- 
 torate. They considered his assumption of power as an ear- 
 nest of the foundations of the fifth monarchy, which should 
 succeed to the Assyrian, the Persian, the Grecian, and the 
 Roman, and in which Jesus Christ should reign with the 
 saints on earth for the space of a thousand years. Upon the 
 restoration of the royal family, and the return of the king- 
 dom to its former principles in church and state, a party of 
 these enthusiasts, headed by a man of the name of Venner, 
 made a desperate insurrection in the streets of London, 
 which was put down with the slaughter of a great number 
 of them. 
 
 FIGS (Lat. ficus, a fig-tree), are the fruit of a small tree 
 with broad-lobed leaves, inhabiting the south of Europe and 
 similar latitudes in Asia. This fruit is not of the same nature 
 as the apple, the orange, and other fleshy seed-vessels ; but 
 is a hollow receptacle, containing a great multitude of minute 
 flowers, the ripe fruit of which is the seed, as it is wrongly 
 called, that is imbedded in the pulp. It is remarkable that 
 the fig-tree, although it produces so agreeable a fruit, is in some 
 
 453
 
 FIGURATE COUNTERPOINT. 
 
 measure poisonous, its milky juice being acrid to the taste, 
 and of the same nature, although less intense, as that of cer- 
 tain Indian species called F. toxicaria Dwmonum, &c, be- 
 cause of their venomous qualities. The genus Ficus itself 
 is of considerable extent, and its species are among the most 
 noble objects belonging to the vegetable kingdom in tropical 
 countries, where they often yield caoutchouc of the finest 
 quality. Ficus elastica is particularly valuable for this pur- 
 pose, as are also various unknown species in the island of 
 Java. The banyan tree, so celebrated for the large extent 
 of ground covered by single individuals, which carry an 
 enormous canopy of branches and leaves upon columnar 
 trunks provided for the purpose as the tree advances in 
 diameter, is a kind of fig-tree, Ficus religiosa. 
 
 FIGURATE COUNTERPOINT. In Music, that which 
 contains a mixture of discords together with the concords. 
 
 FI'GURATE NUMBERS. In Arithmetic, the name 
 given to series deduced from any progression by differences 
 of which the first term is unity and the ratio a whole num- 
 ber, by taking successively the sum of the first two, the first 
 three, the first four, &c. terms of the progression ; and then 
 operating on the new series thus obtained in the same man- 
 ner as on the original progression, in order to obtain a second 
 series, and so on. 
 
 For example, let the progression be that of the natural 
 numbers, the common difference of which is 1 ; then the 
 progression and the different series of figurate numbers suc- 
 cessively deduced from it are as follows: 
 
 A....1, 2, 3, 4, 5, C, 7, 
 B....1, 3, C, 10, 15, 21, 28, 
 C....1, 4, 10, 20, 35, 56, 84, 
 D....1, 5, 15, 35, 70, 126, 210. 
 
 The first line, A, is the progression from which the series 
 arises. The second line, B, is the series of triangular num- 
 bers, or polygonal numbers of the first order. Its formation 
 is obvious, each term being the sum of the corresponding and 
 all the preceding terms of the progression ; whence, by the 
 theory of series, its general term is, 
 n(n+l ) 
 1-2 
 The third line, C, is the series of triangular pyramidal num- 
 bers, and is formed from B in the same manner as the latter 
 was formed from A. Its general term is, 
 
 Tt(n-f-l) (tt + 2 ) 
 1-2-3 
 The fourth line, D, is formed from C in the same manner 
 as C from B, or B from A. Its general term is, 
 n (w + 1) (n + 2) (n + 3) 
 1-2-3-4 
 If the original progression be, 
 
 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 
 the common difference of which is 2 ; then the series of 
 figurate numbers successively derived from it are, 
 
 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 
 
 1, 5, 14, 30, 55, 91, &c. 
 The first of these is the series of square numbers, the second 
 that of quadrangular pyramidal numbers. In like manner, 
 if the common difference of the assumed progression be 3, 
 then the successive sums will be the series of pentagonal 
 numbers; if it be 4, the sums will give the hexagonal num- 
 bers, and so on. The formation of these different orders of 
 figurate numbers will be readily understood from inspection 
 of the following table : 
 
 1,2,3, 4 
 
 l, 3, 5, 7 
 
 1,4,7, 10 
 1, 5. 9. 13 
 
 Tri. 1, 3, 6, 10 
 Sq. 1, 4, 9, 16 
 Fent. 1 5, 12. 22 
 Hex. 1. 6. 1^. 23 
 
 SecoDd sums, or poly 
 
 50ns of the second 01 
 
 der. 
 
 1, 4, 10. 20 
 1, 5, 14, 30 
 
 1,6, IS, 40 
 1. 7, 22. 50 
 
 The names triangular numbers, squares, pentagons, hexa- 
 gons, &c, have been applied on account of certain analogies 
 which the numbers so denoted have with the geometrical 
 figures bearing the same denominations. Thus, in the second 
 column of the above table, which contains the polygons of 
 the first order, the terms forming the first line of series ex- 
 press the different numbers of points which may be placed 
 at equal distances, so as to form an equilateral triangle. 
 The second line or series gives the different numbers of 
 points which may be arranged in squares, the third those 
 which form regular pentagons, the fourth those which form 
 regular hexagons, and so on. In the third column of the 
 table, the first series contains the several numbers of points 
 which may be so disposed as to form a triangular pyramid, 
 the second those which form a quadrangular pyramid, and 
 so on. 
 The different series formed as above possess several curi- 
 454 
 
 FILTRATION. 
 
 ous properties, of which one of the most remarkable is, that 
 the general term, and the sum of any number of terms n, 
 can always be expressed rationally in terms of n. In fact, 
 the expression of the nth term of any series is the same as 
 that of the sum of the n first terms of the series immediately 
 preceding it, or from which it is immediately derived. 
 
 Fl'GURE, in Rhetoric, has been defined, generally, as a 
 mode of speech in which words are changed from their lit- 
 eral and primitive sense. It is almost impossible to give, 
 within the limits of a definition, the precise and numerous 
 meanings of which this term is susceptible ; but under the 
 separate heads, such as Antithesis, Metaphor, &c, will 
 be found a notice of the different figures used in composi- 
 tion. In Logic, the word figure is applied to the form of a 
 syllogism with regard to the disposition of the middle term. 
 See Trope. 
 
 Figure, in Geometry, is used in two different senses. In 
 the first sense, it denotes, generally, a space bounded on all 
 sides, whether by lines or by planes ; in the second sense, 
 it signifies the representation (on paper, for example) of the 
 object of a theorem or problem, in order to render the dem- 
 onstration or solution more easy to be understood and fol- 
 lowed. In this last sense, figure is synonymous with dia- 
 gram. 
 
 All bodies are necessarily enclosed by one or more bound- 
 aries, and therefore possess figure: hence figurability is 
 reckoned one of the essential properties of matter. 
 
 For Figure of the Earth, see Earth and Degree ; for 
 Figure of the. Planets, see Planet. 
 
 Apparent Figure, in Optics, is the figure under which an 
 object presents itself to our view. This depends on the sit- 
 uation of the points from which rays of light pass to the eye 
 of the spectator, and may be very different from the real 
 figure of the object; for a straight line, when placed in a 
 particular direction, will be seen only as a point, a plane as 
 a straight line, and a solid which presents only one of its 
 faces will appear as a simple surface. (Perspective.) 
 
 FIGURE HEAD. The figure, statue, or bust, on the pro- 
 jecting part of the head of a ship, called the cutwater. 
 
 FIGURES, in Arithmetic, are the numeral characters, 
 or ten digits, by which numbers are expressed. They are 
 supposed to be of Indian origin, and to have been introduced 
 into Europe by the Moors of Spain in the 13th century ; but 
 the date of their introduction is much disputed. (Arith- 
 metic.) 
 
 FI'LACER, or FI'LAZER. (Fr. fil, thread.) An offi- 
 cer of the court of Common Pleas, who files writs. The 
 filacers (of whom there are fourteen) are mentioned as early 
 as the stat. 10 II. 4. There are also filacers of the Queen's 
 Bench. 
 
 FI LBERT, or FLLBERD, the well-known fruit of the 
 cultivated hazel nut, or Corylus avellana, is a seed-vessel 
 enclosed within an involucre or cupule, which is the part 
 commonly called the husk. This organ is of the same na- 
 ture as the cup of the oak, and the prickly case in which 
 the nuts of the sweet chestnut and the mast of the beech are 
 enclosed. In the filbert it is much larger than in the com- 
 mon nut; and it is this character, together with the length- 
 ened figure of the nut, which distinguishes the two races of 
 nuts and filberts, each of which abounds in varieties. The 
 best known varieties of the filbert are the red, the frizzled, 
 and the white, the latter being the kind most commonly 
 grown in this country. 
 
 FILE. (Germ.feile.) This instrument is formed by cut- 
 ting teeth upon a plate or tool of soft steel by the repeated 
 blows of a straight-edged chisel. These teeth either form a 
 single series of straight lines, or they are crossed by a second 
 series; the former are called single cut, the latter double cut 
 files. Files are required to be extremely hard ; and unless 
 they are carefully and skilfully hardened, they are apt to 
 warp. The best files are made exclusively of cast steel, and 
 are cut by hand, none of the file-cutting machines producing 
 unexceptionable tools. 
 
 FI'LIFORM. (Lat. filum, a thread.) In Zoology, when 
 a part is slender, thread-shaped, and of equal thickness. 
 
 FILL. The sea term for bracing a yard which had been 
 laid aback, so that the wind may act on the after or proper 
 side of the sail. 
 
 FI'LLET. (Fr. filet.) In Architecture, a small square 
 member placed above or below other larger members in an 
 order. The term as used by carpenters and joiners means 
 a small piece to which boards, joists, or quarters are nailed. 
 
 FI'LLIGRANE, or FILLI'GREE. (Lat. filum, thread.) 
 In Sculpture, an extremely fine ornamental work of flowers, 
 fruits, &c, formed with gold or silver wire in serpentine 
 layers, or plaited and worked otherwise together and solder- 
 ed. It is an eastern invention. 
 
 FILO'SE. (Lat. filum.) In Zoology, when a part ends 
 in a thread-like process. 
 
 FILTRA'TION. (Lat) The process by which liquids 
 are separated frcm substances mechanically suspended in 
 them ; it is also sometimes rescued to to separate colouring
 
 FIN. 
 
 matters and other bodies which are in a stale of solution, 
 and which are removed by the substance or matter through 
 which the liquids are filtered. Unsized paper is commonly 
 used in the chemical laboratory for the former purpose, and 
 is known under the name of filtering paper; it is properly 
 folded, and placed for support in a glass funnel. In the 
 arts, linen and calico bags of different forms are frequently 
 employed, containing well-burned charcoal or other materi- 
 als, through which the liquids requiring purification are suf- 
 fered slowly to trickle. In mater filters, the coarser particles 
 are generally collected in a piece of sponge, and the farther 
 separation of the more finely divided matters or organic 
 taints is effected by layers of sand of various degrees of fine- 
 ness mixed with a proper quantity of charcoal. (See Fara- 
 day's Chemical Manipulation ; and Ure's Diet, of Arts, 6,-c.j 
 
 PIN. (Lat. finna.) A flattened expanded organ, project- 
 ing from the body, and serving as an instrument of locomo- 
 tion in water. 
 
 Many species of the whale tribe possess an immoveable 
 fin upon the back, composed merely of a reflection of integ- 
 ument over a mass of dense and ligamentous cellular mem- 
 brane ; the tail fin in the same order has a similar structure, 
 but is moved by the action of the muscles upon the caudal 
 vertebra', which are continued through the middle part. 
 The anterior fins, corresponding to the pectorals in fish, are 
 susceptible of greater variety of motion, from being support- 
 ed by a series of bones corresponding to those of the fore ex- 
 tremity of other mammalia. In fishes the fins are supported 
 by elongated filamentary bones or rays, the nature and num- 
 ber of which afford the zoologists important characters for 
 distinguishing the different groups; and in works of Ichthy- 
 ology a system of notation is employed, which briefly but 
 clearly expresses these characters. Thus the formula of 
 the number of fin-rays in the perch is thus expressed : — 
 D. 15,1 + 13; P. 14; V. 1 + 5; A. 2+8; C. 17. 
 
 Which signifies that D., the dorsal fin, has in the first fin 15 
 rays, all spinous or bony; in the second fin, 1 spinous plus 
 13 that are soft. P., pectoral fin, 14 rays, all soft. V., the 
 ventral fin, with 1 spinous ray plus 5 that are soft A, Hie 
 aural fin, with 2 spinous rays plus 8 that are soft. C, the 
 tail or caudal fin, 17 rays. In enumerating the rays, those 
 only which extend from the longest ray in die upper portion 
 to the longest ray in the lower portion, both inclusive, are 
 counted. 
 
 FI'NALE. (It.) In Music, the last of a series of move- 
 ments in a composition; also the closing scene of each act 
 of an opera buffo. 
 
 FINA'NCE. The revenues of a king or state. The w< ird 
 is derived by some from the German finanz ; by others from 
 the barbarous Latin word financiatio, a loan. 
 
 FINCH. See Fringillid*. 
 
 FINE, in Law, as a punishment, is a pecuniary mulct or 
 amende imposed by a competent jurisdiction. The party 
 thus mulcted for offences against a feudal superior was said, 
 in the language of that jurisprudence, "finem facere de 
 transgressione cum rege, domino," &c, to make an end of 
 his offence : whence the word is derived. Fines are in no 
 case determined as to amount by common law, and seldom 
 by statute, except as to their maximum ; but by the general 
 cautions of Magna Charta and the Bill of Rights, exces>ive 
 fines ought not to be imposed. Courts of record have in 
 general the power of imposing fines in case of contempt, and 
 also on conviction of offences punishable in this manner. 
 The mode of returning, entreating (i. e., entering on the rolls 
 of a court), and levying fines, is now regulated by 3 & 4 W. 
 4, c. S9.) 
 
 FIXE OF LANDS. In Law, a species of conveyance of 
 record for the settling and securing lands and tenements, 
 now abolished by stat. 3 &. 4 W. 4, c. 74; although, as long 
 as questions can still arise on the validity and effect of fines 
 levied before that period, the legal doctrines respecting it 
 cannot be said to be wholly obsolete. A fine was, in its 
 original signification, an agreement or composition of a suit 
 (whether real or fictitious) made between demandant and 
 tenant in respect of lands and tenements, with the consent 
 of the judges, and enrolled among the records of the court. 
 Hence, by a common fiction, such an imaginary agreement 
 was employed in certain cases as a mode of conveyance. 
 Its chief properties were— -the extinguishment of dormant 
 titles by birring strangers (unless thev claimed within five 
 years, under 1 Ric. 3, c. 7) ; and, when levied of an estate 
 in tail, the barring the issue in tail immediatelv, but not 
 those in remainder or reversion, except when tenant in tail 
 had such reversion in himself. A fine was effected with 
 certain solemnities, as the termination of an imaginary ac- 
 tion at law. The party conveying was termed the cog'ni^or 
 or conusor, the party to whom conveyance was made the 
 cognisee of the fine. A fine, besides its peculiar properties 
 in the settlement of land held in tail, was the usual methed 
 whereby a feme covert joined in the sale, se'tlement, or in- 
 cumbrance of an estate ; for which, by the stat. 3 & 4 W. 4 
 
 FIRE BALLS. 
 
 above mentioned, a peculiar deed is substituted, to be exe- 
 cuted and acknowledged by the married woman after ex- 
 amination by commissioners. 
 
 FINE'SSE (Fr.) may be defined simply as a peculiar ap- 
 titude of discovering, in any business, the best means of at- 
 taining the object in view ; or as the power of embracing in 
 one comprehensive glance the various interests of any sub- 
 ject, together with ingenuity to devise and tact to earn' out 
 the plan best calculated to obtain success. 
 
 FINE STUFF. In Architecture, plaister used in common 
 ceilings and walls for the reception of paper or colour. It 
 is composed of lime, slaked and sifted through a fine sieve, 
 then mixed with a due quantity of hair and fine sand. A 
 mixture of lime and hair, used in the first coat and floating 
 of plastering, is called coarse stuff. 
 
 FI'NGER BOARD. In Music, the black board attached 
 to the neck of instruments of the viol class, on which the 
 strings are pressed by the fingers for the purpose of adjust- 
 ing their lengths, so as to produce the different sounds. 
 
 Fl'NGERING. In Music, the art of arranging the fingers 
 on instruments of all classes, so that they may be in the best 
 positions for performing the different passages written for 
 such instruments. 
 
 FI'NIAL. (Lat. finis, the end.) In Gothic Architecture, 
 the top or finishing of a pinnacle or gable, as it is now gen- 
 erally understood ; but in ancient documents an entire pin- 
 nacle is understood by this term. 
 
 FI NISH. (Lat. finire, to end.) In the Fine Arts, the 
 last working up of any object of art, whereby its completion 
 is effected. 
 
 FI'NISHING COAT. In Architecture, the best coat of 
 stucco work when three coats are used. When in the third 
 coat fine stuff is used for paper, it is called setting. 
 
 FI'ORITE. A silicious incrustation, from Fiora in Is 
 chia. 
 
 FIRE. See Fj.ame and Heat. 
 
 FIRE BALLS (called also Bolides, and Fiery Meteors), 
 in Meteorology, are luminous bodies which suddenly appear 
 in the sky. usually at a great height above the earth, and 
 shoot through the heavens with immense velocity, and are 
 sometimes accompanied with the fall of an aerolite. These 
 meteors are of frequent occurrence, and numerous descrip- 
 tions of their appearances at different times are to be found 
 in the Transactions of the Royal Society ; but by far the 
 most remarkable apparition of the kind on record, is that 
 which was observed in America on the 13th of November, 
 1833, and is described in vols. xxv. and xxvi. of the Ameri- 
 can Journal of Science, and also the American Almanac for 
 the J ear 1835. We v> ill give a brief abstract of the relation, 
 which is of extreme interest ; not only on account of the ex- 
 traordinary nature of the appearances, but also as it seems 
 to indicate that these phenomena, hitherto but little heeded, 
 may serve to make us better acquainted with the constitu- 
 tion of the planetary system. 
 
 "The meteors began to attract notice by their frequency 
 as early as nine o'clock on the preceding evening (Nov. 12) ; 
 the exhibition became strikingly brilliant about eleven, but 
 most splendid of all about four o'clock; and continued with 
 but little intermission until merged in the light of day. A 
 few large fire balls were seen even after the sun had risen. 
 The entire extent of the exhibition is not ascertained, but it 
 covered no inconsiderable portion of the earth's surface. It 
 has been traced from the longitude of 61° in the Atlantic 
 Ocean, to longitude 100° in central Mexico, and from the 
 North American lakes to the southern side of the island of 
 Jamaica. Even' where within these limits the first appear- 
 ance was that of fire-works of the most imposing grandeur, 
 covering the entire vault of heaven with myriads of fire 
 balls resembling sky-rockets. On more attentive inspection, 
 it was seen that the meteors exhibited three distinct vane- 
 tie- ; the fir-t consisting of phosphoric lines, apparently de- 
 scribed by a point; the second, of large fire balls, that at in- 
 tervals darted along the sky, leaving numerous trains, which 
 occasionally remained in view for a number of minutes, and 
 in some cases for half an hour or more ; the third, of unde- 
 fined luminous bodies, which remained nearly stationary for 
 a long time. 
 
 "One of the most remarkable circumstances attending 
 this display was, that the meteors all seemed to emanate 
 from one and the same point. Thev set out at different dis- 
 tances from this point, and proceeded wi'h immense velocity. 
 describing in seme instances an arc of 30° or 40° in less than 
 four seconds. At Poland, on the Ohio a meteor (of the 
 third variety) was distinctly visible in the north-east for 
 more than an hour. At Charleston, South Carolina, another 
 oi' extraordinary size was seen to course the heavens for a 
 great length of lime, and then was heard to explode with 
 the noise of a cannon. The point from which the meteors 
 seemed to emanate, was observed by those who fixed its po- 
 sition among the stirs to be in the constellation Len; and, 
 what is very remarkable, this point was stationary among 
 the stars during the whole period of observation ; that is to 
 
 455
 
 FIRE BALLS. 
 
 say, it did not move along with the earth in its diunial rota- 
 tion eastward, but accompanied the stars in their apparent 
 progress westward. It is not certain whether the meteors 
 were in general accompanied by any peculiar sound. A 
 few observers reported that they heard a hissing noise like 
 the rushing of a sky-rocket, or slight explosions like the 
 bursting of the same bodies. Nor does it appear that any 
 substance reached the ground which could be clearly estab- 
 lished to be a residuum or deposit from the meteors. A re- 
 markable change of weather from warm to cold accompa- 
 nied the meteoric shower, or immediately followed it, in all 
 parts of the United States." 
 
 The particulars which have now been stated afford data 
 for entering on the explanation of these mysterious phenom- 
 ena. And, first, as the meteors appeared to emanate from 
 a point which did not follow the earth's rotation, it is clear 
 that they had not their origin in the atmosphere, but in the 
 regions of space beyond it. The next question that occurs 
 is, what was the distance from the earth of the region of 
 space in which they had their origin'? It was ascertain- 
 ed that observations made in different latitudes indicated 
 a corresponding parallax in declination ; and these observa- 
 tions being collected and carefully compared, gave an aver- 
 age distance from the surface of the earth of 2238 miles as 
 the height of the meteoric cloud. This estimate must be re- 
 garded only as an approximation — the best, however, that 
 could be derived from data that are imperfect and often dis- 
 cordant. Assuming this result to be nearly correct, it is 
 easy to compute the velocity with which the meteors would 
 enter the atmosphere. A body falling from a height of 2238 
 miles by the attraction of gravity alone would acquire, at 
 the distance of fifty miles from the earth (the supposed 
 height of the atmosphere) a velocity of four miles per sec- 
 ond, which is more than ten times the velocity of a cannon- 
 ball. The meteors, therefore, on entering the atmosphere, 
 would produce a sudden and powerful compression of the 
 air before them. But when the air is suddenly compressed, 
 a great quantity of heat is extricated from it. In the present 
 case, the heat would produce in the falling bodies an in- 
 tense ignition ; and, if they were combustible, set them on 
 fire. On submitting the subject to accurate calculation on 
 established principles, it is ascertained that the quantity of 
 heat extricated from the air by the falling meteors exceeded 
 that of the hottest furnaces, and can only be compared to 
 those immeasurable degrees of heat produced in the labora- 
 tory of the chemist. And this supposes the meteors to have 
 entered the atmosphere with only the velocity due to the 
 earth's attraction ; but if we suppose that they had also a 
 relative velocity arising from the earth's motion towards 
 them, they might then enter the atmosphere with a velocity 
 of fourteen instead of four miles per second. In this case, 
 the heat extricated from the air would be proportionally 
 augmented. It is evident that the meteors must have been 
 constituted of very light materials ; for, had their quantity 
 of matter been considerable, with so prodigious a velocity 
 they would have had sufficient momentum to reach the 
 earth, and the most disastrous consequences might have fol- 
 lowed. From the apparent magnitude of many of the me- 
 teors, and their probable distance, it was conjectured that 
 they were bodies of very large size, though of course it is 
 impossible to fix the limits of their magnitude with any cer- 
 tainty. Those masses were only stopped in the atmosphere, 
 and prevented from reaching the earth, by transferring their 
 motion to columns of air, large volumes of which would be 
 suddenly and violently displaced. Now it is a remarkable 
 fact, that the state of the weather, and the condition of the 
 seasons following the meteoric shower, corresponded to 
 those consequences of the disturbances of the atmospheric 
 equilibrium. It is from the great and sudden changes of 
 temperature caused by phenomena of this kind that the 
 greatest danger is to be apprehended. 
 
 Theory of Fire Balls. — Various hypotheses have been 
 proposed to account for these remarkable phenomena. In 
 general, they have been regarded as meteors having their 
 origin in the atmosphere ; and electricity, magnetism, hydro- 
 gen gas, have in turn been assigned as their immediate 
 causes. Others again suppose them to be products of nebu- 
 lous matter (perhaps of the same nature as the tails of com- 
 ets), floating in the planetary regions, and which, when it 
 happens to lie near the path of the earth in its revolution 
 about the sun, will be attracted by terrestrial gravitation. 
 The parallax of the meteors of 1833 indicates, as we have 
 seen, that they proceeded f om a point far beyond the limits 
 of the atmosphere. The attentive examination of the cir- 
 cumstances of their appearances leads to other indications 
 of a very remarkable nature. On projecting a diagram to 
 represent the respective planes of the earth in its orbit, and 
 the plane of the body from which the meteors proceeded, it 
 appears that the earth was moving almost directly towards 
 the meteoric body. Now the meteoric cloud remained ap- 
 parently at rest, and of course nearly in the earth's path, for 
 at least two hours. This could not have happened unless 
 456 
 
 FIRE ENGINES. 
 
 it had been moving nearly in the same direction as the eartii, 
 and with nearly the same angular velocity round the sun ; 
 for had it been at rest, the earth, carried forward at the rate 
 of 19 miles per second, would have overtaken it in less than 
 two minutes ; and had the angular velocities of the two bod- 
 ies not been nearly equal, they could not have remained so 
 long apparently stationary with respect to each other. Hence 
 it is inferred that the body which afforded the meteors was 
 pursuing its way with the earth round the sun. 
 
 But supposing there is a body, or, which is more probable, 
 a zone composed of myriads of little bodies, whose orbits in- 
 tersect the plane of the ecliptic, is it not probable the earth 
 must encounter some of them every time it passes through 
 the point of intersection "\ A more attentive observation of 
 these meteors than has yet been bestowed on them is perhaps 
 necessary to solve this question. At present the following 
 facts have been collected : On the 12th of November, 1799, 
 at Cumana, in South America, thousands of meteors or fal- 
 ling stars were seen to succeed each other during four hours. 
 Of this exhibition an account is given by Humboldt and 
 Bonpland. On the 13th of November, 1831, M. Berard, 
 commander of the French brig Loiret, then off the coast of 
 Carthagena in Spain, saw a great number of shooting stare 
 and luminous meteors of large size. During more than three 
 hours there occurred, on the average, at least two a minute. 
 One of these meteors, which appeared near the zenith, in 
 leaving an enormous train in the direction from east to west, 
 presented a very large luminous band (equal to half the 
 diameter of the moon), in which several of the colours of 
 the rainbow were distinctly exhibited. Its trace remained 
 visible during more than six minutes. ( Arago, Annuaire for 
 1836.) On the 13th of November, 1832, remarkable exhibi- 
 tions of meteors were seen at Mocha in Arabia ; and on the 
 19th of the same month in various parts of England. Ou 
 the 13th of November, 1835, a large and brilliant meteor 
 fell near Belley, in the department of the Ain, in France, 
 and set fire to a bam. On the same night a shooting star, 
 larger and more brilliant than Jupiter, was observed at Lille 
 by M. Delezenne ; and, what is very remarkable, a number 
 of extremely brillian: meteors were seen also on the same 
 night, by Sir John Herschel and his assistant at the Cape of 
 Good Hope, who, apprized of the phenomena that had beeu 
 observed in America, were looking out for their appearance. 
 The attention of observers being now generally called to the 
 subject, the lapse of a few years will probably decide the 
 question, whether the recurrence of the meteors on the same 
 day of tlie year has been merely accidental ; or a stream of 
 nebulous matter has a temporary or permanent existence in 
 that part of space through which the earth passes in its 
 annual revolution, about the 13th of November. {See Aero- 
 lite, Shooting Stars.) 
 
 FIRE BLAST. A term of very doubtful meaning, like 
 the word blight. In Agriculture it is sometimes applied to 
 plants which are suffering from the mildew fungi, or from 
 minute insects ; but its legitimate use would appear to be 
 applicable only when the delicate parts of plants are too 
 suddenly exposed to a brilliant sun, and the rapid transpira- 
 tion which takes place in consequence dries up and shrivels 
 their leaves. 
 
 FI'RE DAMP. The carburetted hydrogen gas of coal mines. 
 FIRE ENGINE. This most useful machine is construct- 
 ed in a variety of forms, which all, however, agree in one 
 principle. It generally consists of a double forcing pump 
 communicating w-ith the same air vessel ; and instead of a 
 force-pipe a flexible leathern hose is used, through which 
 the water is driven by the pressure of the condensed air in 
 the air vessel. The annexed diagram 
 represents a section of the apparatus. 
 The pipe T descends into a receiver or 
 vessel containing a supply of water. 
 This pipe communicates with two suc- 
 tion valves V. which open into the pump 
 barrels of two forcing pumps A, B. in 
 which solid pistons P, are placed. The 
 piston rods of these are connected with 
 a working beam F, elongated so that a 
 number of persons may work at both 
 ends of it at once. Force-pipes t, t, pro- 
 1,1 ceed from the sides of the pump barrel 
 
 above the valves V, and they communicate with an air ves- 
 sel M, by means of forcing valves V, which also open up- 
 wards. The pipe descends into the air vessel near the 
 bottom. This pipe is connected with the flexible leathern 
 hose L, the length of which is adapted to the purposes to 
 which the machine is to be applied. The extremity of the 
 hose may be carried in any direction, and may be introduced 
 through the doors and windows of buildings. By the alter- 
 nate action of the pistons, water is drawn through the suction 
 valve, and propelled through the forcing valves, until the air 
 in the top of the vessel M is highly cempressed. The pres- 
 sure acts on the surface of the water in the vessel, and forces 
 it through the leathern hose in a continued stream, so as to 

 
 FIRE ESCAPE. 
 
 spout from its extremity with a force depending partly on 
 the degree of condensation, and partly on the elevation of 
 the extremity of the hose above the level of the engine. It 
 is to he considered that the pressure of the condensed air 
 has, in the first instance, to support a column of water, the 
 heighth of which is equal to the level of the end of the tube 
 above the level of the water in the air vessel ; and until the 
 pressure exceeds what is necessary for this purpose, no water 
 can spout from the end of the hose ; and, consequently, the 
 force with which it will so spout will be proportional to the 
 excess of the pressure of the condensed air above the weight 
 of the column of water, whose height is equal to the eleva- 
 tion of the end of the hose above the level of the water in 
 the air vessel. (Cabinet Cyclopedia, "Hydrostatics and 
 Pneumatics," p. 326.) 
 
 The fire engine has received various improvements from 
 Bramah, Dickenson, Simpkin, Raventree, Philips, and others. 
 The above description applies to Newsham's engine. Braith- 
 waite's steam fire engine is an application of the power of 
 steam to the working of the fire engine. The mechanical 
 arrangement consists of two cylinders of about six inches in 
 diameter, one of them being the steam cylinder, and the 
 other the water pump; and they are placed horizontally, so 
 that a parallel motion is easily produced. This engine will 
 deliver 9000 gallons of water an hour at the height of 90 
 feet. The time of getting the machine into action, from the 
 time of igniting the fuel (the water being cold), is only 18 
 minutes. Some of the Fire Insurance Companies in London 
 have floating engines on the Thames, which are extremely 
 serviceable in cases of fire among the shipping or buildings 
 near the river. 
 
 FIRE ESCA'PE. Any machine or apparatus for the 
 purpose of enabling persons to escape from the upper stories 
 of houses on fire. The contrivances which have been pro- 
 posed for accomplishing this desirable object ure very nume- 
 rous, and are of two kinds; the first kind comprising those 
 by means of which the escape is effected without external 
 aid, and the second those requiring the assistance of persons 
 without. Of the first kind the most obvious is a rope ladder, 
 which may be kept in a sleeping apartment, and used upon 
 occasion by fastening one end of it to a window-sill or bed- 
 post. Mr. Maseres contrived an apparatus which consists 
 of a long rope and an assemblage of cordage or belts, so dis- 
 posed as to form a seat ; the person about to descend binds 
 himself into the seat, and then lowers himself to the ground 
 by allowing the rope which is fastened to the window-sill to 
 slide slowly through his hands ; an in order that this may 
 be done easily, the rope is made to pass through a series of 
 holes in a block. But unfortunately contrivances of this 
 kind can rarely be expected to be of any use ; for supposing 
 them at hand when the alarm of danger is given, few per- 
 sons can command the coolness and attention which are 
 requisite for fixing and adjusting the apparatus ; and even 
 then it is only the strong and active who could safely de- 
 scend by such means from a considerable height. 
 
 With regard to escapes of the second kind, the object is to 
 enable persons without to establish speedily a communica- 
 tion with an upper room, so as to aflbrd the inmates the 
 means of safe descent ; or to remove them if necessary, as 
 in the case of the feeble or children. A very portable sort 
 of ladder, invented by Mr. Young, is described in the Trans- 
 actions of the Society of Arts for 1813. It consists of a 
 number of cross bars or rounds, connected with ropes, which 
 form the sides of the ladder; the ends of the rounds are 
 fitted into each other, so as to form a pole, which is readily 
 elevated to a window ; and at the extremity is an iron frame 
 terminating in hooks which can be lodged in the window-sill. 
 When the hooks are properly fixed, a sudden jerk suffices to 
 separate the rounds, which immediately fall into their places 
 when the ladder is formed and suspended from the frame. 
 But this apparatus only answers the same purpose as a rope 
 ladder, and is therefore liable to the same objections. Mr. 
 Brady's fire escape, described in the 34th vol. of the same 
 Transactions, consists of a car or cradle, which is made to 
 slide on a slip of plank fixed to a pole, and is governed by a 
 rope. Mr. Ford's escape consists of a spar of timber about 
 35 or 40 feet long, having two projecting arms at the top 
 furnished with prongs, by which a firm bearing against the 
 wall of a house is obtained. . A grooved pulley is mortised 
 into the spar near the top, and another near the bottom ; 
 over the pulleys runs an endless rope, to which is attached 
 at one point a main rope, and at another the semicircular 
 brace of a large grooved roller, which traverses up and 
 down the space between the pulleys. This brace carries on 
 the under side of the spar a hook, to which a cradle is 
 attached, whereby persons can be easily lowered to the 
 ground. 
 
 For a description of various other contrivances of a similar 
 kind, we refer to the Transactions of the Society of Arts 
 above quoted. 
 
 FI'RE FLY. A name commonly given to those insects 
 which have the singular propeitv of emitting a luminous 
 40 
 
 FISHERY. 
 
 secretion. This power is not confined to insects of one or- 
 ganization or order. Among the Coleoptera, the Elater 
 noctilucus and the female glow-worm are conspicuous ex- 
 amples. The Fulgoridce, or lantern and candle flies, are 
 also described, but some think apocryphally, as luminous 
 insects. 
 
 FIRE, GREEK. This fire, which was employed in the 
 wars of the Christians and Saracens in the middle ages, is 
 said to have been invented during the reign of Constantine 
 Pogonatus in the year 668 by Callinicus, an architect of 
 Heliopolis. Naphtha was probably its principal ingredient, 
 which, if skilfully projected and inflamed, creates great 
 havoc and dismay, in consequence of its extreme combusti- 
 bility and the difficulty of quenching its flame. (See a 
 learned paper on this subject, by Dr. jWCulloch, in the 
 Quarterly Journal of Science, vol. xiv.) 
 
 FI'RELOCK, or FUSIL. A musket or small gun, which 
 is fired with a flint and steel ; and thereby distinguished 
 from the old musket, or match-lock, which was fired with a 
 match. The date of the invention of fire-locks is uncertain. 
 FIRE, ST. ANTHONY'S. See Erysipelas. 
 FI'RE-WORKS. Artificial preparations made of gun- 
 powder, sulphur, and other inflammable ingredients, dis- 
 played at public rejoicings and on other occasions. See 
 Pyrotechny. 
 
 FI'RKIN. A measure of capacity, being the fourth part 
 of a barrel, or containing 9 ale gallons, or 7£ imperial gal- 
 lons ; that is, 2538 cubic inches. 
 
 FI'RLOT. A dry measure used in Scotland, but of dif- 
 ferent capacities, according to the article it is used for 
 measuring. The Linlithgow wheat firlot is to the imperial 
 bushel as - 998 to 1 ; and the barley firlot to the imperial 
 bushel as 1-456 to 1. 
 
 FI'RMAMENT, in the language of the old astronomers, 
 is the orb of the fixed stars, or the most remote of all the 
 celestial spheres. In common language it signifies the same 
 thing as heaven, or shy. See Heaven. 
 
 FI'RMAN (more properly Fermdn), in the Persian lan- 
 guage, signifies a command, and is the name given in Turkey, 
 Persia, and India to mandates or certificates of the sovereign, 
 issued for various purposes. Those best known to Europeans 
 are given to travellers, and serve as passports. The Ferman 
 has placed at ils head in Turkey the cipher of the reigning 
 sultan, written in a complicated manner, affixed by the 
 chief Bacretary of the sign manual. 
 
 FIRST COAT. In Architecture, the laying the plaster 
 on the laths, or the rendering, as it is called, on brick when 
 only two oats are used. When three coats are used, it, is 
 called pricking up when upon laths, and roughing in when 
 upon brick. 
 
 FIRST FRUITS. (Annates, or Primitia;.) The profits 
 of every spiritual living for the first year after its avoidance, 
 which the new incumbent paid in Catholic limes to the 
 Pope, but since the Reformation to the king. The valuation 
 is that which was made by Henry VIII. The stat. 2 Anne 
 transfers the first fruits and tenths of all livings over 50/. at 
 that time to a fund called Queen Anne's Bounty, for the in- 
 crease of the smaller benefices, which are released from any 
 payment of the kind. 
 FIRTH. See Frith. 
 
 FISC. (Lat. fiscus.) The term used in the Roman law, 
 and laws derived from it, to denote the property of the state. 
 Under the emperors, however, it had acquired the significa- 
 tion of the pecidiar domain or treasure of the prince, in con- 
 tradistinction to arariam, the public treasury. The word 
 confiscation is derived from fisc ; and every lord or body 
 corporate to which things may be confiscated in course of 
 law has, properly speaking, the right of fisc. Fiefs, being 
 originally lands granted to individuals out of the king's do- 
 main, are sometimes termed fisc in writers of the middle 
 ages. See Feudal System. 
 
 FI'SCAL. Something relating to the pecuniary interest 
 of the sovereign, or the community. 
 
 FISH. In Architecture, a piece of wood secured to 
 another to strengthen it. 
 Fish. See Pisces. 
 
 FI'SHERY. The fisheries of the British Islands are partly 
 coast and river, and partly carried on in the open sea at a 
 greater or less distance from the shore. Of the former, sal- 
 mon, herring, pilchard, and oyster are most important ; of 
 the latter, cod, turbot, and whale. 1. The salmon fishery 
 has considerably diminished in importance of late years. 
 That of Scotland is regulated by 9 G. 4. c. 39. and subsequent 
 acts. 2. The herring fishery, at first almost engrossed by 
 the Dutch, was fostered in 1749 by a tonnage bounty granted 
 on vessels employed in it. Under this system the fishery 
 does not appear to have thriven. The bounty was gradually 
 withdrawn, and finally ceased in 1830. The most important 
 seats of the herring fishery at the present day are the coasts 
 of the north-east of Scotland. In 1834, 11,000 boats and 
 82,000 persons (fishermen and boys, coopers, curers, &c.) 
 were employed in this fishery. 3. The pilchard fishery is a 
 E e* 457
 
 FISHPONDS. 
 
 limited business, carried on almost entirely on the coasts of 
 Devon and Cornwall. 4. Oysters are found on most parts 
 of our coasts, but ihe principal seats of the trade of breeding 
 them for the London market are Kent and Essex. 5. Tur- 
 bot, cod, and mackerel are the principal articles of the fisher- 
 ies off the British coasts. Turbot are chiefly caught by 
 Dutch fishermen, and close to the shores of Holland. In 
 1833 a report was made by a committee on the British 
 Channel Fisheries, in which the declining state of those 
 fisheries is much commented upon, and attributed to three 
 causes: the extensive interference and aggression of the 
 French fishermen on the coasts of Kent and Sussex; the 
 large quantities of foreign-caught fish illegally imported and 
 sold ; and the great decrease and comparative scarcity of 
 fish in the channel ; which last they attribute to the destruc- 
 tion of spawn. But by far the greatest fishery of cod, hake, 
 ling, &c. is that carried on on the great bank of Newfound- 
 land, and on the neighbouring coasts. The former is now 
 chiefly engrossed by the French and Americans ; but the 
 British fishery, although principally confined to the coasts 
 cf Newfoundland and Labrador, is very extensive. Mr. 
 M'Gregor, in his work on the North American Colonies, es- 
 timates the value of the produce, on an average of five years 
 to 1832, at 857,000/. per annum (ii. 596). 6. The Greenland 
 whale fishery was engaged in by the English in the 17th 
 century, but not with vigour until encouraged by a bounty 
 in 1740. During the late war it became extremely valuable ; 
 afterwards it declined in importance. In 1815, 146 vessels 
 sailed; in 1834, 76 only. The southern whale fishery is a 
 more modern branch of the traffic. (See M'Culloch, Statist. 
 of Great Britain, ii. 21. &.C.; article "Fisheries," in Enc. 
 Brit., new ed. ; Report of the Committee on the Channel 
 Fisheries, 1833 : the former writer estimates the annual 
 value of the fisheries at about 3,0C0,000Z. per annum.) The 
 coast and sea fisheries are protected by a variety of enact- 
 ments. Fishing vessels are licensed by the commissioners 
 of customs under 6 G. 4. c. 108. As to inland fishing, the 
 law of offences in private fisheries is now consolidated by 7 
 & 8 G. 4. c. 27. Taking or destroying fish in water running 
 through, or in land adjoining or belonging to the dwelling- 
 house of the owner of the water, is a misdemeanour; in 
 any water not within this description, but private property, 
 or in which there is a private right of fishing, it is punishable 
 with fine on summary conviction. Angling in the daytime 
 is not within these enactments, but is punishable summarily 
 — with less penalty. The right of fishing in a river prima 
 facie belongs to the lord of the manor, who has the owner- 
 ship of both banks. Fishery is said to be either several or 
 free, or common of piscary. The first is in the owner of 
 the soil, or one deriving title from him ; the second is a royal 
 franchise, conveying an exclusive right of fishing in a public 
 river. Common of piscary is a liberty of fishery in common 
 with others in a stream or river the soil whereof belongs to 
 a third person, and resembles other commonable rights. 
 
 FISHPONDS, are ponds made by art, in which different 
 kinds of fish are bred and fattened. In general this is only 
 attempted with fresh-water fish ; but in some places ponds 
 have been formed on the sea shore, and so contrived as to 
 have their waters renewed every tide, and in these sea fish 
 have been kept for use for a considerable time. The fresh- 
 water fish which is the most successfully managed in ponds 
 is the carp. 
 
 FISSI'PARA. (Lat. findo, I divide, and pario, / engen- 
 der.) Those animals are so called which propagate by 
 spontaneous fission, or the detachment of a greater or less 
 proportion of the body, having inherent power of self-support 
 and growth. As the animals which manifest this mode of 
 generation differ widely among themselves in their general 
 organization, ihe term fissipara cannot be applied to desig- 
 nate any natural group ; spontaneous fission is limited to the 
 lowest classes of animals, as Infusories, Polyps ; certain 
 worms, as the Nais, &c. 
 
 FISSIRO'STRALS, Fissirostres. (Lat. findo, and ros- 
 trum, a beak.) The name of a tribe of perching birds 
 (Inscssorcs), comprehending those which have a very wide 
 gape, as the swallow. 
 
 FISSURE'LLA. (Lat. findo.) A genus of Gastropodous 
 Mollusks, having a shell shaped like that of a limpet {Patella), 
 but with a fissure at the apex of the cone, which opening is 
 associated with a different form and arrangement of the 
 breathing organs. 
 
 FI'STUL A (Lat. a pipe.) A long sinuous ulcer, often 
 communicating with a larger cavity, and having a small 
 external opening. 
 
 FI'STULA SPIRA'LIS. In Botany, a term used by 
 Malpighi to denominate that kind of vegetable tissue now 
 called the spiral vessel. 
 
 FISTULI'DANS, Fistulidcs. (Lat. fistula, a pipe.) A 
 tribe of Echinodermatous animals, comprehending those 
 which have an elongated cylindrical tube-like body. 
 
 FIVE POINTS. The principal points of controversy be- 
 tween the Calvinists and Arminians, which became the 
 458 
 
 FLAME. 
 
 subjects of the decisions of the Synod of Dort. They relate 
 to predestination, satisfaction, regeneration, grace, and final 
 perseverance. See article Arminians. 
 
 FIXED AIR. The old term for carbonic acid, from its 
 existence in a fixed state in limestone, &c. 
 
 FIXED OILS. The common greasy oils are so termed 
 in consequence of the high temperature which they sus- 
 tain before giving out vapour. 
 
 FIXED STARS. Those which retain the same, or very 
 nearly the same position, with respect to each other. It has 
 been discovered, by the accurate observations of modern 
 times, that many of the stars have a proper motion. Sea 
 Stars. 
 
 FI'XTURE, in Law, is a term generally applied to all ar- 
 ticles of a personal nature affixed to land. This annexation 
 must be by the article being let into or united with the land, 
 or with some substance previously connected therewith. 
 Thus a barn, built on a frame not let into the earth, is not a 
 fixture ; a brewer's stills, set in brickwork resting on a founda- 
 tion, are fixtures ; and* the application of the same principle 
 gives, in every case, the true rule to judge whether anything 
 be a fixture or not. Whatever is thus fixed becomes, by law, 
 parcel of the freehold or realty. It is, therefore, on general 
 principles, not removable ; but there are exceptions to this 
 rule established by custom, of which the principal arise out 
 of the right of tenants to remove fixtures set up for pur- 
 poses of trade, and in some instances for ornament and con- 
 venience (commonly called tenants' fixtures), and the right 
 of executors to some fixtures, generally of the same descrip- 
 tion, as against the heir or devisee of the realty. 
 
 FLAG. In Naval affairs, the flags are— the royal stand- 
 ard ; the admiralty flag, an anchor on a red ground ; the 
 union, or jack, in which are blended together the crosses of 
 St. George, St. Andrew, and St. Patrick : this is carried by the 
 admiral of the fleet. 
 
 FLAGE'LLA. A term used by the older botanists to de- 
 note the twigs or youngest shoots of plants. 
 
 FLAGE'LLANTS. (Lat. flagellum, o whip.) A sect of 
 enthusiasts who first appeared in the middle of the 13th cen- 
 tury, and being then repressed, sprang up again with renew- 
 ed violence in the 14th. Beginning first at Cremona in Italy, 
 the contagion of the example spread in a few years through- 
 out Europe ; and every city was infested by multitudes who 
 went naked from the loins upward, and inflicted upon them- 
 selves several daily flagellations, with the idea of obtaining 
 thereby merit in the eyes of God. They formed themselves 
 into a society, and at first were at least innocent in their be- 
 haviour ; but as their numbers increased, they gave way to 
 great excesses, and were eventually suppressed by a holy war 
 proclaimed against them by Pope Clement VI. 
 
 FLAGE'LLUM. In Botany, a trailing shoot of the vine ; 
 sometimes used to denominate that form of stem called a 
 runner. 
 
 FLA'GEOLET. (Fr.) A wooden musical wind instru- 
 ment, played with a mouthpiece, the holes and keys where- 
 of are stopped with the fingers, in the same way as the flute. 
 
 FLAIL. A wooden implement for threshing corn by hand. 
 It consists of the handle or hand-staff, which the labourer 
 holds in his hand, and uses as a lever to raise up and bring 
 down the swiple, or part which suikes the corn, and beats out 
 the grain and chaff from the straw. The swiple is joined to 
 the hand-staff by the caplins or couplings, which are thongs 
 of untanned leather, and sometimes the skins of eels or of 
 other fish. These thongs are passed through holes in the 
 ends of the htndle and swiple, and made fast by being sewed 
 together. The flail was in use among the Romans, though 
 the prevailing mode of separating com from straw among the 
 nations of antiquity was by treading it out with cattle in the 
 open air. In the colder parts of Europe, this could never have 
 been generally the case, for obvious reasons; and hence the 
 flail was the universal threshing implement till the introduc- 
 tion of the threshing machine, which is now taking the place 
 of the flail in all countries where capitalists engage in farm- 
 ing. Sec Threshing Machine. 
 
 FLAKE WHITE. A term often applied to the purest 
 white lead. 
 
 FLAME. (Germ, flamme.) When the temperature of 
 inflammable gases or vapours is raised very high, and in the 
 contact of air, they are said to burst intojlame ; if previously 
 mixed with a due proportion of oxygen, or of atmospheric 
 air, they explode. In the former case the combustion only 
 goes on at the surface in contact with air, and is quiet and 
 gradual ; in the latter, every particle of the inflammable body 
 being in contact with the supporter of combustion, the in- 
 flammation extends instantaneously through the whole mass. 
 The nature of flame was first explained by Hooke in 1677 (in 
 his Eampas) ; but the relation of the light to the heat of 
 flames, and the whole philosophy of their constitution, was 
 first developed by Sir II. Davy in his researches published in 
 the Philosophical Transactions between 1815 and 1817. 
 
 All the leading phenomena of flame are well exhibited by 
 a large gas-flame burning from a wide orifice. It presents a
 
 FLAMEN. 
 
 hollow cone, the heat and light of which are confined to its 
 exterior surface. A transverse section of such a flame ex- 
 hibits a ring of light surrounding a central uninflamed core : 
 the inflammable gas or vapour may be drawn by a tube out 
 of this central portion, as in the annexed figure, 
 where a represents the tube inserted into the 
 central non-luminous part of the riame, and 
 where the abstracted inflammable vapour is 
 again kindled at its extremity. (See illustra- 
 tions of this subject in the papers of Mr. Sym 
 and Mr. Davies, Jinn, of Phil., vols. viii. and 
 x.) 
 
 A flame may be extremely hot without being proportion- 
 ately luminous, as is the case with the flame of hydrogen, 
 which is scarcely visible in daylight, but the heat of which 
 is shown by introducing into it a piece of fine platinum wire, 
 which immediately becomes white hot, and emits abundance 
 of light. The light of all flames is of a similar origin, and 
 depends upon solid matter ignited and rendered incandescent 
 by the heat of the flame : thus, if magnesia or lime in fine 
 powder be projected into the flame of hydrogen, the lumi- 
 nosity of the flame is immediately increased. Finely-divided 
 charcoal is the substance to which all common flames owe 
 their luminosity. It is derived from the hydrocarbon pro- 
 duced by the decomposition of oil, wax, tallow, &c, as con- 
 tained in coal gas; but as charcoal, unlike magnesia and 
 lime, is itself combustible, it not only renders the flame lumi- 
 nous, but is burned in the act of so doing, and passes off in a 
 well-regulated and perfect flame in the invisible form of 
 carbonic acid gas. 
 
 When flames are cooled, they are at the same time ex- 
 tinguished ; hence a flame cannot be made to traverse or re- 
 cede through a metallic tube of small bore ; and hence a 
 flame may, as it were, be bisected by a piece of wire gauze 
 held transversely across it : in which case the smoke, gas, or 
 vapour and charcoal go through, but not hot enough to in- 
 flame, having been cooled down by their passage through 
 the metallic meshes; but by applying a flame to this Bmoke, 
 it may again be kindled. In this way the upper portion of 
 the flame may be burned, while the inflammation of the 
 lower half is prevented by the interposed cooling medium. 
 These experiments are best illustrated by the flame of a gas- 
 burner, and ihc two cases just cited are represented in the 
 annexed figures. 
 
 ill A 
 
 FLA'MEN. The title applied by the Romans to the 
 priests of any particular deity, as distinguished from priests 
 in general. Originally Numa instituted three orders of da- 
 rn, ns: viz., those of Jupiter, Mars, and Ciuirinus (Romulus). 
 But in after times this number was much increased by the 
 introduction of new gods and superstitions, and by the wor- 
 ship paid to deceased emperors. 
 
 FLAMl'NGO. See Phoznicopterus. 
 
 FLANK. (Fr. flanc.) In Architecture, the side of any 
 building. 
 
 Flank, in Fortification, is that part of the bastion which 
 reaches from the curtain to the face ; the flank of one bastion 
 serves to defend the ditch before the curtain and face of the 
 opposite bastion. See Fortification. 
 
 FLANNEL. See Woollen Manufacture. 
 
 FLASHINGS. (Probably from flaque, a splash.) In 
 Architecture, pieces of lead or other metal let into the joints 
 of a wall so as to lap over the gutters or other conduit pieces, 
 and prevent the splashing of rain injuring the interior works. 
 
 FLAT. In Architecture, that part in the covering of a 
 house of lead or other metal which is laid horizontal. 
 
 Flat. In Music, a character of this form \), which de- 
 presses the note before which it is placed a chromatic semi- 
 tone. Flats and sharps were originally contrived to remedy 
 the defects of musical instruments whereon temperament 
 was required, the natural scale of music being limited to cer- 
 tain fixed sounds, and adjusted to an instrument in many 
 points defective; for we can only proceed from one note to 
 another by a particular order of degrees. Hence, from one 
 note to another, upwards or downwards, we cannot find any 
 interval at pleasure. To supply or remedy this defect, mu- 
 sicians have had recourse to a scale proceeding by twelve 
 degrees, making therefore thirteen notes to an octave, in- 
 cluding the extremes, which, though it does not make the in- 
 strument perfect, leaves little room for complaint. In instru- 
 ments whose sounds are fixed, a sound or note dividing it 
 into two unequal parts, called semitones, is placed between 
 the extremes of every tone of the natural scale ; so that we 
 have twelve semitones between thirteen notes in the compass 
 of an octave. In order, then, to keep the diatonic series dis- 
 tinct, the inverted notes answer for the name of the natural 
 
 FLEXIBILITY. 
 
 note next below, with this character #, called a sharp ; or 
 the name of the natural note next above it, with this charac- 
 ter t>, called a flat. Thus D t> signifies a semitone below D 
 natural ( q ). On keyed instruments the short keys are the 
 representatives of these fiats and sharps. The system, how- 
 ever, does not strictly produce what it represents: it is only 
 an approximation. See Temperament. 
 
 FLAT FIFTH. In Music, an interval of a fifth depress- 
 ed by a flat, called by the ancients semidiapentc. 
 
 FLAT FISH See Pleuronectes. 
 
 FLA'TTEN A SAIL. To extend it fore and aft, where- 
 by its effect is lateral only. 
 
 FLATTING. In Architecture, a coat of paint, which, 
 from its mixture with turpentine, leaves the work flat, or 
 without gloss. 
 
 FLA'TULENCY. (Lat. flatus, blast.) A morbid col- 
 lection of gas in the stomach and bowels, commonly symp- 
 tomatic of indigestion or indulgence in certain kinds of vege- 
 table food. Warm tonics and well-seasoned animal food, 
 w it li weak brandy and water as a beverage at dinner, are the 
 usual and effective remedies. 
 
 FLAX. (Germ, flachs.) The fibre of the Linum usita- 
 tissimum, which is spun into thread and woven into linen 
 textures. 
 
 The flax is reaped a little before the seeds are ripe; it is 
 stripped, and the stalks are then soaked in water, or retted 
 (rotted), when fermentation running into putrefaction en- 
 sues, so as to destroy the foreign matters with which the 
 fibres are blended in the plant; the flax is then dried, and 
 broken or beaten and winnowed, so as to separate the fibrous 
 from the other parts ; these are afterwards heckled, and pre- 
 pared for the spinner. (For an account of these operations, 
 and of the machinery by which they are effected, see lire's 
 Dictionary nf Arts, l\-c, art. "Flax.") 
 
 FLECHE. In Fortification, a simple redan usually con- 
 structed at the foot of a glacis. See Redan. 
 
 FLEECE, ORDER OF THE GOLDEN. One of the 
 miKt distinguished among European orders of knighthood. 
 It was founded by Philip III., duke of burgundy, in 1430; 
 and as by its foundation his successors were declared to be 
 hereditary grand masters, that title passed, with the Burgun- 
 dian inheritance, to the house of Austria; thence, after the 
 death of Charles V., to the Spanish line of that house: but 
 when the monarchy of Spain passed to the Bourbons and 
 the Spanish Netherlands to Austria, the archdukes of Aus- 
 tria claimed the grand mastership ; and claims are made on 
 it at present both by the Emperor of Austria and King of 
 Spain ; the order is consequently conferred both at Vienna 
 and Madrid, and is, in both courts, the highest in point of 
 rank. As its nominal object is the protection of religion, it is 
 rarely conferred on any Protestants, with the exception, by 
 courtesy, of Protestant sovereigns. 
 
 FLEET, in its most extended signification, is applied to a 
 number of shij>s, pursuing in company either mercantile or 
 warlike purposes, or both ; but it is more generally confined 
 to the different detachments which form the navy of any 
 country, stationed in various parts of the world for the pur- 
 poses of defence, aggression, or intimidation. See Navy, 
 Squadron. 
 
 Fleet. The sea term for shortening any thing, by taking 
 it up, that had been pulled out or stretched. 
 
 FLE'MISH SCHOOL. In Painting, the school formed 
 in Flanders. The works of this school are distinguished by 
 the most perfect knowledge of chiaro-scuro ; high finishing 
 without dryness; by an admirable union of colours well 
 blended and contrasted, and by a flowing, luxurious pencil. 
 Its defects are somewhat similar to those of the Dutch school. 
 The Flemish painters, like the Dutch, represented nature as 
 they found her, and not as she should be. Rubens and 
 Vandyke (the glory of this school), though men of the great- 
 est genius, were liot free from this defect, and the former 
 especially. Teniers was another great master of the school 
 in question ; to it also belong Snyders, Steenwick, Neefs, 
 Schwaneveldt, Van Eyck, &c. 
 
 FLE'TA. The title of an ancient treatise on English law, 
 attributed to the reign of Ed. I., and named (according to 
 tradition) from its composition by a judge in the Fleet prison. 
 
 FLEUR-DE-LIS. In Heraldry, a charge supposed to 
 represent a lily : bome from a very" early period in the royal 
 arms of France. It is, however, more probably conjectured 
 that the shape of this bearing was intended to represent the 
 iron of a javelin. 
 
 FLE'XIBI'LITY. (Lat. flecto, / bend.) That property 
 of bodies in virtue of which, when a sufficient force is ap- 
 plied to them, they change their form, and are bent. Flexi- 
 bility is opposed to stiffness on the one hand, and to brittle- 
 ncss on the other ; stiff bodies being such as resist bending, 
 and brittle those which cannot be bent without a disruption 
 of their parts. Of unorganized bodies the most flexible are 
 the metals: and their flexibility is in general increased by 
 heat, though brass is rendered brittle when subjected to a 
 high temperature. Of organized bodies, young fresh plants 
 
 459
 
 FLEXURA. 
 
 and animal substances (excepting bone) are eminently flexi- 
 ble ; and bodies of this class are rendered more flexible by 
 heat and moisture. In many machines where great stability 
 is required, it is often a matter of much importance to be ac- 
 quainted with the flexibility of the component materials, in 
 order to determine the load they can support without yield- 
 ing. (See Cohesion.) Flexibility is only a relative term, 
 for all bodies are more or less flexible ; and in bars of wood 
 or metal the stiffness or resistance to flexure is directly as the 
 breadth and cube of the depth, and inversely as the cube of 
 the length. 
 
 FLEXU'RA. (Lat. flecto, / bend.) In Mammalogy, the 
 joint between the antibrachium and carpus, usually called 
 the fore-knee in the horse ; analogous to the wrist-joint in man. 
 
 FLE'XURE. The bending or incurvation of a line or 
 surface. Point of contrary flexure is a term used in analyti- 
 cal geometry to denote that point of a curve at which the 
 curvature passes from convex to concave, or vice versa, with 
 respect of the axis. At this point the radius of curvature is 
 infinite. At the points of the curve immediately preceding 
 and following, the centre of curvature lies on opposite sides 
 of the curve. 
 
 FLINT. Common flints are nearly pure si'ica. They 
 usually occur in irregular nodules in chalk. Their origin is 
 an unsolved geological problem. 
 
 FLINT GLASS, or CRYSTAL. A species of glass which 
 derives its name from flint, because that substance was for- 
 merly employed in its manufacture. It is very extensively used 
 for domestic purposes ; but is chiefly interesting to the philos- 
 opher on account of the property which it possesses of caus- 
 ing a greater dispersion of the rays of light which pass through 
 a prism or lens formed of it than any other of the vitreous 
 compounds. This property renders it invaluable in the manu- 
 facture of the object glasses of telescopes and microscopes; 
 for by combining a concave lens of flint glass with one or two 
 convex lenses of crown glass, which possesses a much less 
 dispersive power, a compound lens is formed, in which the 
 prismatic colours arising from a simple refraction are de- 
 stroyed, and the lens rendered achromatic. This construc- 
 tion of object glasses was first discovered by a Mr. Hall, a 
 country gentleman in Worcestershire, about 1729 ; but the 
 discovery was forgotten, and no farther notice taken of it for 
 nearly 30 years, when it was again brought to light by John 
 Dollond. after a long-continued course of experiments under- 
 taken for the purpose of perfecting the telescope. It is, how- 
 ever, very difficult to prepare flint glass fit for the purposes of 
 achromatic telescopes. This difficulty arises not from the 
 w T ant of sufficient dispersive power in the substance, but 
 from the want of purity or homogeneity ; the slightest im- 
 purity or inequality of composition in the glass giving rise to 
 a streaked or imperfect image by reason of the unequal re- 
 fraction of the rays. The composition of pure flint glass long 
 remained a secret in the family of the Dollonds, and its manu- 
 facture formed a very profitable article of exportation ; for 
 till about the beginning of the present century, no flint glass 
 of good quality was made on the Continent. Of late \ i ars, 
 however, a great change has taken place in this respect, and 
 glass of the best quality has been manufactured, both in 
 France and Germany, in much larger masses than our Eng- 
 lish artists have yet succeeded in obtaining. This result has 
 been mainly produced by the experimental researches of 
 D'Artigues, Fraunhofer, Cauchoix, Guinand, and Komer. 
 Formerly, an object-glass exceeding five inches in diameter 
 could scarcely be produced. Fraunhofer succeeded in ma- 
 king them of nine, and even twelve inches. The object- 
 glass of the large parallactic telescope belonging to Sir James 
 South, at Campden Hill, was manufactured by Cauchoix; 
 it exceeds twelve inches, and is throughout of the utmost 
 purity. The exact proportion of the ingredients which enter 
 into these choice specimens is not known, and probably their 
 excellence depends in part on some accidental circumstances 
 in the preparation. Korner produced some of his best speci- 
 mens by employing the following ingredients : 100 parts of 
 quartz, first treated with muriatic acid ; 80 parts of litharge, 
 or red lead ; and 30 parts of the bitartrate of potash. Flint 
 glass for common purposes is usually made of 100 parts of 
 fine white sand, 40 parts of well purified pearl ash, 35 parts 
 litharge or minium, 13 parts nitre, and a small quantity of 
 the black oxide of manganese ; the latter ingredient being 
 used to correct the green colour occasioned by the presence 
 of oxide of iron in the sand. The principal difference be- 
 tween this and the glass used for optical purposes consists in 
 the much greater quantity of lead in the latter, and which 
 is introduced for the purpose of increasing its dispersive power. 
 There is a valuable paper on the manufacture of glass for 
 optical purposes, containing the results of an extensive series 
 of experiments upon the subject, made in the laboratory of 
 the Royal Institution, by Mr. Faraday, in the Philosophical 
 Transactions for the vear 1830, vol. cxx. See Glass. 
 
 FLOAT BOARDS'. The boards fixed to the rim or outer 
 circumference of undershot wheels, which receive the im- 
 pulse of the water and communicate the motion to the wheel. 
 460 
 
 FLOOR CLOTH. 
 
 FLOA'TED LATH AND PLASTER. In Architecture, 
 plastering of three coats, whereof the first is pricking up (see 
 First Coat) ; the second, floating or floated work ; and the 
 last of fine stuff. 
 
 FLOA'TED WORK. In Architecture, plastering made 
 of a perfectly plane surface, by means of a tool (which is a 
 long rule with a straight edge) called a float 
 
 FLOA'TLNG MEADOWS. Meadow lands, the surface 
 of which is flat, adjoining a river or other source of water, 
 with which they can be flooded or covered at pleasure. 
 The water is turned on chiefly in the winter season, when 
 it is more or less muddy, and leaves a deposit that serves as 
 a kind of manure. It is also useful to vegetation, by pre- 
 serving a higher temperature in the surface soil than it 
 could maintain through the winter, if fully exposed to the 
 action of the atmosphere ; because, wherever water is in a 
 fluid state, its mean temperature, and that of the bodies im- 
 mediately in contact with it, must be above 32°, and at that 
 temperature the grasses common in British meadows will 
 grow. There are probably other benefits which grass lands 
 receive from being covered with water during a portion of 
 the winter season, but these have not yet been satisfactorily 
 explained by science. 
 
 FLOA'TLNG SCREEDS. (Ital., probably from schier- 
 ato, ranged.) In Architecture, strips of plaster arranged 
 and nicely adjusted for guiding the floating-rule. See 
 Floated Work. 
 
 FLO A 'TSTONE. A porous variety of flint, which floats 
 upon water. 
 
 FLO'CCI. (Lat.) In Botany, the woolly filaments that 
 are found mixed with the sporules of many Gastromyci : 
 the same name is also applied to the external filaments of 
 Byssacea. 
 
 FLOCCILLA'TION. Picking the bed-clothes. This is 
 a verv alarming svmptom in many acute diseases. 
 
 FLO'CCUS. In Mammalogy, the tuft of long flaccid 
 hairs which terminate the tail. 
 
 FLOETZ ROCKS. A term applied by the German ge- 
 ologists to the secondary strata, because they generally oc- 
 cur in flat or horizontal beds. 
 
 FLOOR. (Saxon, flore.) In Architecture, the pave- 
 ment or boarded lower horizontal surface of an apartment. 
 It is constructed of earth, brick, stone, wood, or other mate- 
 rials. Carpenters include in the term the framed timber 
 work on which the boarding is laid, as well as the boards 
 themselves. 
 
 Floor. The lower part of a ship's bottom. 
 
 FLOOR CLOTH. This useful and ornamental manu- 
 facture originated in this country about the year 1740, when 
 a manufactory of it was established at Knightsbridge, near 
 London, by Mr. Smith. It was originally made of narrow 
 canvass sewn together like sail cloth, to which successive 
 coats of paint were applied ; but the seams provine incon- 
 venient, a canvass was wove for the purpose, about four 
 yards wide ; it was then extended to seven yards in width, 
 and afterwards to nine, which is the widest at present made. 
 The manufactory at Knightsbridge, now- carried on by Mr. 
 Baber, is the largest establishment of the kind ; the common 
 dimensions of the oil cloths produced there being 20 yards by 
 8, and 30 yards by 7, giving therefore entire pieces of 160 
 and 210 square yards without seams. These canvasses are 
 stretched upon frames, and accessible over their whole sur- 
 face by stages erected for the purpose : these are the cir- 
 cumstances which render the large dimensions of the manu- 
 factory requisite. The canvass being duly strained, is rub- 
 bed over with pumice stone, which renders its surface 
 smooth and even, and then brushed over with a weak solu- 
 tion of size ; when this is dry, the first coat of oil colour is 
 laid on, not with brushes, but with trowels, something in the 
 manner of plastering ; when this is dry a second coat fol- 
 lows it ; and in this way seven coats of paint are usually 
 applied in succession, three on the back and four on the 
 front. When the cloth in this state, and of one colour, is 
 sufficiently dry, it is removed from its frame upon a large 
 roller, and carried to the upper part of the building to be 
 printed ; that is, to receive its pattern. This was originally 
 effected by a process of pencilling ; but in the year 1780, Mr. 
 Smith introduced the great improvement of block-printing, 
 by which the colours are more correctly laid on, and in 
 greater body and variety. The printing table, which is 
 about 30 feet long, 4 wide, and 2 feet 6 inches high, is very 
 firmly constructed of deal timbers laid edgeways and clamp- 
 ed together, the surface being truely planed ; the roll of 
 painted cloth is placed underneath it, and as it is unrolled it 
 gradually passes over the table, where it is printed, and is 
 then drawn forward so as to hang perfectly free while dry- 
 ing, the height of the building being such as conveniently to 
 admit of this, without rolling, doubling, or folding the mate- 
 rial, which in these stages would of course injure it. The 
 colours, which are the usual oil colours very carefully pre- 
 pared, are put on in succession with wooden blocks, which 
 are made of pear-tree, box, or holly wood, and upon which
 
 FLOOR. 
 
 the patterns are cut in relief; they are about eighteen inch- 
 es square, and are applied in succession over the whole of 
 the surface of the cloth lying upon the printing table. Every 
 colour is put on bv a separate block, and much dexterity is 
 required in so placing them that the patterns may correctly 
 interlace and join each other, without in any case overlap- 
 ping or interfering : to effect this, the workman is aided by 
 guide pins, or pitches, as they are termed, which direct him 
 in placing the block. The colours are first brushed or tiered 
 upon hard cushions, from which they are transferred to the 
 block, and thence to the cloth ; and, though many are often 
 required, it is astonishing how much effect is sometimes ob- 
 tained by the judicious arrangement or mixture of two only, 
 upon a third, which forms the ground. It will be obvious, 
 from what has been stated, that the weight of the finished 
 oil cloth, as compared with the naked canvass, is no unim- 
 portant criterion of its goodness ; each square yard when 
 finished weighing from three pounds and a half to four or 
 four and a half: this distinguishes a good oil cloth from 
 those which are vamped up and stiffened with size and other 
 perishable materials. 
 
 Independent of the common application of oil cloth, it is 
 not unfrequently advantageously employed as a roofing ma- 
 terial, especially for covering verandas and other light struc- 
 tures. When used for this purpose, the canvass should be 
 made of picked long flax, and thoroughly saturated with 
 good oil paint ; it will then stand our climate and last for 14 
 or 1*5 vears. 
 
 FLOOR, FOLDING or FOLDED. In Architecture, one 
 in which the floor boards are so laid that their joints do not 
 appear continuous throughout the whole length of the floor, 
 but in bavs or folds of three, four, five, or more boards each. 
 
 FLOOR, STRAIGHT JOINT. In Architecture, one in 
 which the floor boards are so laid that their joints or edges 
 form a continued line throughout the direction of their 
 length ; in opposition to folding floor, where the joints end in 
 folds. 
 
 FLORA'LIA. A festival celebrated with some magnifi- 
 cence in honour of Flora, the Roman goddess of flowers. 
 
 FLO'RETS. The flowers of a capitulum or anthodinm; 
 which are smaller in size, but not different in structure from 
 ordinary flowers. Those which are placed in the middle of 
 the capitulum are called discoidal, or of the disk ; those in 
 the circumference are named radiant, or of the ray. 
 
 FLORIN. .See Money. 
 
 FLOS-FERRI. A coralloidal carbonate of lime, often 
 found in veins of spathose iron ore. 
 
 FLOTA. A name given by the Spaniards to the ships 
 that formerly sailed together, or under convoy, from Cadiz 
 and the other ports of the Peninsula authorized to trade di- 
 rectly with the Transatlantic ixissessions of Spain. 
 
 FLOTI'LLA. (Span.) Literally a little fleet ; in which 
 sense, however, it is seldom used, being applied almost in- 
 variably to a fleet, how large soever, composed of small ves- 
 sels. Thus the term flotilla was given to the immense naval 
 force with which Napoleon meditated the invasion of Great 
 Britain, and which consisted of 2365 vessels of every descrip- 
 tion, was manned by about 17,000 sailors, and carried 100,000 
 soldiers, and 10,000 horses. In Spain, the name flotilla is 
 given to a number of vessels appointed to announce to the 
 home government the departure and nature of the cargo of 
 the flota or mercantile ships from foreign ports on their 
 homeward voyage. 
 
 FLO'TSAM (floating), Jetsam (Fr. jeter, to throw), and 
 Lagan (lying), as law terms, are usually joined together. 
 The first, according to Blackstone, designates goods cast 
 from a ship and swimming in the waves; jetsam, goods cast 
 and sunk; lagan, sunk but tied to a buoy by the owners. 
 Goods in either of these three predicaments belong to the 
 king, if the owners be not known, and may by him be grant- 
 ed with other franchises. 
 
 FLOW ERLESS PLANTS. Those plants that are des- 
 titute of flowers and sexes. They are the same as crypto- 
 gamic, or acrogenous, or cellular plants. 
 
 FLOWERS. The old chemists gave this name to several 
 light flocculent substances obtained by sublimation ; such as 
 flowers of sulphur, flowers of benzocs, &c. 
 
 FLUE. In Architecture, the long open tube of a chim- 
 ney from the fireplace to the top of the shaft for voidance of 
 the smoke. 
 
 FLU'ENT or FLOWING QUANTITY, in Analysis, 
 is the variable quantity, considered as increasing or diminish- 
 ing. The term denotes the same thing as integral, which 
 is now universally used in its stead, the differential and in- 
 tegral calculus having superseded the methods of fluxions 
 and fluents. See Fluxion, Integral. 
 
 FLU'ED, or FLUID BODY, is that whose parts yield to 
 the smallest pressure, and are moved among each other 
 without any sensible resistance. Some writers distinguish 
 between fluid and liquid, confining the latter term to those 
 substances which wet, or whose particles adhere to other 
 bodies plunged into them. Thus air, ether, mercury, water, 
 
 FLUOSILICIC ACID. 
 
 alcohol, &c. are all fluids ; but water and alcohol are also 
 liquids, because they wet other bodies, while air and mer- 
 cury do not. The term liquid is, however, very frequently 
 used in the same general sense as fluid. Fluids are of two 
 kinds, elastic and non-elastic. The mechanical properties of 
 elastic fluids, comprehending air and the different gases, con- 
 stitute the science of Pneumatics ; those of the non-elastic 
 fluids, water, mercury, &c, Hydrostatics and Hydraulics. 
 It is to be remarked, however, that the terms elastic and 
 non-elastic are here used in a relative, not in an absolute 
 sense ; for water, alcohol, and probably all other fluids ot the 
 same class, are, to a certain extent, compressible and elastic, 
 though thev resist compression with a very great force. 
 
 FLUI'DITY (Lat. fluo, I flow), is that state of a sub- 
 stance in which its constituent particles are so slightly co- 
 hesive that they yield to the smallest impressions. The 
 term is usually confined to express the condition of the non- 
 elastic fluids ; and hence it denotes one of the three states 
 in which matter exists ; namely, the solid, the fluid or liquid, 
 and the gaseous. The state of fluidity is best defined as that 
 in which bodies tend to form drops, as this disposition does 
 not belong either to bodies in a gaseous form, or to solid 
 bodies reduced to fine powder. The formation of drops ari- 
 ses from this, that the molecules of fluid bodies adhere to 
 each other with a certain force, at the same time that they 
 glide over one another without any sensible resistance. It 
 is incorrect to say that the molecules of bodies in a state of 
 fluidity offer no resistance to separation; for, on bringing a 
 flat disc of glass or metal into contact with the surface of a 
 liquid, a very sensible degree of force is required to separate 
 them. That adhesion exists among the molecules of fluid 
 bodies is also proved by various other phenomena. Water 
 or mercury on a flat plate of metal collects in globules, and 
 when slowly poured into a wine glass will remain heaped up, 
 as it were, above the level of the edge. 
 
 Various hypotheses have been framed by philosophers to 
 explain the different stales in which matter is found to exist. 
 Confining ourselves to the most general views, we may re- 
 gard all bodies as assemblages of particles constantly main- 
 tained in equilibrium between two forces, an attractive 
 force which tends to unite the particles, and a repulsive 
 force which tenils to increase the distance between them. 
 The solid slate results from the preponderance of the at- 
 tractive force. Conceive the repulsive force to receive an 
 augmentation until it becomes equal to, or forms an equilib- 
 rium w ith, the attractive force. When the two forces are 
 thus balanced, the particles exert on each other neither at- 
 traction nor repulsion, and the body is in the fluid state. 
 Lastly, if the repulsive energy be still increased, the particles 
 will be separated from each other to such distances that 
 their mutual attractions will cease altogether to be sensible, 
 and then the body passes into the gaseous state. Hence we 
 may pronounce that there is no natural state of body ; and 
 that fluidity, solidity, the state of vapour, and the aeriform 
 state are only accidental, and determined by the tempera- 
 ture of the medium in which the body is placed. See 
 Crystallization, Capillary Attraction, Gas, &c. 
 
 FLUKE. A name commonly applied to a species of flat 
 fish, or Pleuronectes ; and also to an Entozoon of a similar 
 form (Distoma hepaticum), which infests the ducts of the 
 liver of different animals, especially of the sheep. 
 
 Fluke is also applied in navigation to the broad part of the 
 anchor which takes hold of the ground. 
 
 FLUOBO PIC ACID. A gas obtained by heating to red- 
 ness a mixture of dry boracic acid and powdered fluor spar. 
 Its specific gravity is 230. It is colourless, pungent, and pro- 
 duces a dense white cloud when it escapes into a moist at- 
 mosphere ; it is resolved by the action of Water into boracic 
 and hydro-fluoric acids. It acts with great energy upon ani- 
 mal and vegetable substances, and chars them. It is proba- 
 bly a compound of 20 parts of boron and 108 of fluorine, or 
 of one atom of boron and sue atoms of fluorine. 
 
 FLUO'RIC ACID. See Hydrofluoric Ann. 
 
 FLU'ORINE. The hypothetical base of the hydrofluo- 
 ric acid : it has not yet been obtained in a separate state. 
 
 FLU OR SPAR." This is a common mineral product, 
 found in great beauty in Derbyshire ; hence known in this 
 country under the name of the Derlryshire spar. It is gen- 
 erally "crystallized in cubes, but its primitive form is an octa- 
 hedron. It is of various colours, and often beautifully band- 
 ed, especially when in nodules, which are much prized for 
 the manufacture of vases, and occasionally used for beads, 
 brooch stones, and other ornamental purposes. It is proba- 
 bly a compound of fluorine and calcium, hence a fluoride of 
 calcium. The term fluor is derived from the fusibility of 
 this substance, on which account it is sometimes used as a 
 flux to promote the fusion of certain refractory minerals. It 
 is manufactured at Matlock and Derby into a great variety 
 of articles. . 
 
 FLU'OSI'LICIC ACID. A gas obtained by applying a 
 gentle heat to a mixture of one part of powdered fluor spar, 
 one of silica, and two of sulphuric acid, in a retort. It Is 
 
 461
 
 FLUSH. 
 
 colourless, pungent, fumes when it escapes into a humid air, 
 and is rapidly absorbed by water. Its specific gravity is 
 about 3-6; 100 cubic inches weighing nearly 112 grains. It 
 is decomposed by water, and forms silica and hydrofluoric 
 acid. It consists of 8 parts by weight of silicium, and 18 of 
 fluorine, its equivalent (upon the hydrogen scale) being 26. 
 
 FLUSH. (Lat. fluxus.) In Architecture, the continued 
 surface in the same plane of two contiguous masses. 
 
 FLUTE. (Fr.) A wooden musical wind instrument 
 played by holes and keys, stopped and opened with the fing- 
 ers. The lips and tongue are both used in playing it. The 
 octave flute is a smaller but similar instrument, whose pitch 
 is an octave higher than the flute, as its name implies. 
 
 FLUTES, or FLUTTNGS. (Fr.) In Architecture, up- 
 right channels on the shafts of columns, usually ending 
 hemispherically at top and bottom. Their plan or horizontal 
 section is sometimes circular or segmental, and sometimes, 
 as in the Grecian examples, elliptical. The Doric column 
 has twenty round its circumference : the Ionic, Corinthian, 
 and Composite twenty-four. The Tuscan column is never 
 fluted. They are occasionally cabled. (See that word.) 
 
 FLUVIA'LES. (Lat. fluvius, a river.) A natural order 
 of Endogenous water plants common in all extra-tropical 
 countries, and approaching somewhat to flowerless plants. 
 Pollini, according to De Candolle, asserts that spiral vessels 
 do exist in them, while Amici urges the contrary. Agardh 
 refers to this order both Ceratophyllum and Sparganium ; 
 but those genera are nearer allied to Juncaginacece. Their 
 sensible properties are unimportant. Zostera or sea wrack, 
 one of the genera, is used to stuff cushions, and as a materi- 
 al for packing. 
 
 FLUX. (Lat. fluo, I flow.) Applied in technical chem- 
 istry to substances which are in themselves very fusible, or 
 which promote the fusion of other bodies. When tartar is 
 deflagrated with half its weight of nitre, a mixture of char- 
 coal and carbonate of potash remains, which is often called 
 black flux : when an equal weight of nitre is used, the whole 
 of the charcoal is bumed off, and carbonate of potassa re- 
 mains, which, when thus procured, is called white flux. 
 For flux and reflux of the sea, see Tides. 
 
 Flux. In Pathology, a disease attended by inordinate se- 
 cretion from the bowels. 
 
 FLU'XION (Lat. fluxus, flow), in Analysis, signifies the 
 same thing as differential, the term being suggested by a par- 
 ticular view of the manner in which variable quantities in- 
 crease or diminish. Newton considered a curve as genera- 
 ted by the uniform motion of a point, the constant velocity 
 of this point being decomposed at every instant into two oth- 
 ers, one parallel to the axis of the abscissa, and the other 
 parallel to the axis of the ordinates. These velocities are 
 what he called the fluxions of the co-ordinates ; while the 
 arbitrary velocity of the point which describes the curve is 
 the fluxion of the arc. Reciprocally, the arc described is 
 called the fluent of the velocity with which it is described 
 by the moving point ; the corresponding absciss is the fluent 
 of the velocity estimated in the direction of the absciss, and 
 the ordinate the fluent of the velocity of the point estimated 
 in the direction of the ordinate. The same considerations 
 may be extended to the areas bounded by curve lines, to 
 surfaces, and the volumes which they determine, to forces 
 which give rise to motion in bodies, and to the effects which 
 they produce. In fact, the theory is applicable to every 
 thing which forms the object of the mathematical or physi- 
 co-mathematical sciences. 
 
 The method of fluxions is derived naturally from that of 
 prime and ultimate ratios ; for the variable velocity of a 
 point is not the path described by it in a given time divided 
 by this time ; but it is the prime or ultimate ratio of that 
 quotient ; that is to say, the quantity to which that quotient 
 approaches more and more in proportion as the time is sup- 
 posed to be shorter. This observation has occasioned an ob- 
 jection to the method of fluxions— namely, that of introdu- 
 cing into geometry, which is a branch of the pure mathe- 
 matics, the idea of velocity, which belongs to the mixed 
 mathematics ; and of defining an idea which ought to be 
 simple by one that is complex. The objection is frivolous ; 
 the only question of any consequence being whether the 
 theory is more easily apprehended by this manner of exposi- 
 tion than by any other. 
 
 In applying the method of fluxions to mathematical inves- 
 tigation, the procedure is precisely the same as in the differ- 
 ential calculus; from which, indeed, it differs in no respect 
 save that of notation. The method was invented by New- 
 ton; and the notation which he used was adopted by all 
 English writers, and long obstinately adhered to, although 
 the notation of Leibnitz, the inventor of the differential cal- 
 *■ ut ns, possesses over it many advantages, particularly in the 
 more abstruse theories of analysis. At length, however, the 
 great number of excellent works which appeared on the 
 Continent, in all of which the differential notation was used, 
 the manifest advantage of uniformity in the symbols em- 
 ployed in scientific researches, and the intrinsic superiority 
 
 FOCUS. 
 
 of the foreign notation, caused that of fluxions to be gradtf 
 ally abandoned, and at the present time it has entirely dis- 
 appeared in all mathematical works possessing any claim to 
 merit. The first systematic treatise on fluxions in our lan- 
 guage, in which the differential notation was employed 
 throughout, w T as the article "Fluxions" in the Edinburgh 
 Encyclopedia, which appeared in the year 1815. 
 
 FLY. In Mechanics, an appendage given to machines 
 for the purpose of regulating and equalizing the motion, as 
 in the windlass, jack, pile-engine, &c. ; and sometimes for 
 collecting force in order to produce a very great instantane- 
 ous impression, as in a coining press. Generally it is 
 formed of a heavy disc or hoop at right angles to the axis ; 
 sometimes of heavy knobs at the extremities of a bar having 
 the same position. The fly is of great use in all cases where 
 the power, or the resistance, acts unequally in the different 
 parts of a revolution. 
 
 FLY-CATCHER. See Muscicapa. 
 
 FLYING BUTTRESS. In Gothic Architecture, a but- 
 tress in the form of an areh, springing from a solid mass of 
 masonry, and abutting against the springing of another arch 
 which rises from the upper points of abutment of the first. 
 It is seen in most of our cathedrals, and its office is to act aa 
 a counterpoise against the vaulting of the nave. If flying 
 buttresses were built solid from the ground, it is obvious 
 that they would interfere With the vista along the aisles of 
 the church ; hence the project of continuing a resistance by 
 means of arches. Their stability depends on the resistance 
 afforded by the weight of the vertical buttress from whence 
 they spring. See the diagram, art. Gothic Architecture 
 
 AFTER THE 12th CENTURY. 
 
 FLY'ING FISH. The species of two distinct genera of 
 fish, in which the pectoral fins are so developed as to enable 
 them to sustain themselves for a short time in the air, are so 
 called. The more common species are the Exocate (Exo- 
 cwtus volitans), and the flying gurnard {Dactyloptera voli- 
 tans). 
 
 FLY POWDER. An imperfect oxide of arsenic, formed 
 by the exposure of native arsenic to the air; when mixer? 
 with sugar and water it is used to kill flies. 
 
 FO. The name given by the Chinese to Buddha, by one 
 of those phenomena in literature whereby appellations are 
 introduced from one language into others with which it has 
 little or no affinity. Originally the name Buddha was ex- 
 pressed in the Chinese language with sufficient exactness by 
 the term Ffl-thau, pronounced Foudah ; but, as is usual in 
 China with proper names, the last syllable was subsequent- 
 ly dropped. According to the Chinese historians, the re- 
 ligion of Buddha was introduced into China in the reign of 
 Ming-ti, of the dynasty of the Hans, about the 64th year of 
 the Christian era ; but there is good reason to believe that 
 the doctrines of the Indian reformer had been earned thith- 
 er by some of his enthusiastic adherents long before that pe- 
 riod, and that it is only to their official recognition by the 
 government that this later date refers. This is not the place 
 to give an exposition of the religious and philosophical prin- 
 ciples of Fo (see Buddhism) : suffice it to say that the same 
 principles are adopted by all the Buddhists of the various 
 countries where they are professed, with the exception of a 
 few trifling deviations which the various translations of the 
 Buddhist writings from their original Sanscrit have natural- 
 ly generated. It is only when these writings, or at all 
 events the chief of them shall have been translated into the 
 languages of Europe (which we have good grounds to sup- 
 pose will soon be the case), that an accurate idea can be 
 formed of the doctrines which they inculcate, and which 
 have exercised so mighty nn influence on the largest por- 
 tion of the inhabitants of Asia. (See the Penny Cyclope- 
 dia.) 
 
 FO'CAL DISTANCE. (Lat. focus, a hearth.) In Op- 
 tics, the distance between the centre of a lens or mirror, and 
 the point into which the rays are collected. 
 
 FO'CUS, in Geometry, is applied to certain points belong- 
 ing to conic sections, which possess very remarkable proper- 
 ties. The focus of the parabola is a point in the axis having 
 this property, that a radius drawn from it to any point in the 
 curve makes the same angle with the tangent at that point 
 that the tangent makes with the axis. Hence a ray of light 
 proceeding from the focus, and reflected by the curve, pro- 
 ceeds in a direction parallel to the axis; or, if parallel rays 
 fall on the concave side of a parabola, they are reflected 
 into the focus. In the ellipse the two foci are situated in 
 the greater axis, at equal distances from the centre ; and if 
 from both foci straight lines be drawn to the same point in 
 the circumference, the two lines make equal angles with the 
 tangent at that point. A ray of light, therefore, issuing from 
 the one focus, is reflected by the curve into the other focus. 
 In the hyperbola a similar property holds good ; with this 
 difference, that whereas in the ellipse the two straight lines 
 fall both on the concave side of the arc, in the hyperbola 
 one falls on the concave and the other on the convex; in 
 other words, the two lines drawn from the foci to any point
 
 FODDER. 
 
 In the hyperbola make equal angles with the tangent on op- 
 posite sides of it. A ray of light, therefore, proceeding from 
 one focus of a hyperbola, will be reflected by any point of 
 the curve into the direction of a ray coming from the other 
 focus and passing through that point. In the solar system, 
 the sun occupies one of the foci of the orbits of all the plan- 
 ets and comets. 
 
 Focus, in Optics, is the space into which the rays of light 
 are collected by a burning glass or mirror. On account of 
 uie apparent diameter of the sun's disc, the solar rays can- 
 not be collected into a single point, even if we could suppose 
 a lens or mirror to be formed into the perfect shape which 
 geometry requires for that purpose. They cover a certain 
 Circular space, which space is called the focus ; and its mag- 
 nitude has the same relation to the apparent diameter of the 
 sun, as the image of any other object formed in the focus of 
 the lens or mirror has to the object itself. Let A C be a 
 
 jj ray proceeding from the cen- 
 
 . tre of the sun's disc, and B C 
 A another proceeding from its 
 ' B border ; then the angle L C M 
 is equal to the apparent semidiameter of the sun, that is 16' ; 
 and if we make the focal distance LCnf, we have the 
 semidiameter of the focus L M = / tan. 16 . .But the tan- 
 gent of 16' is very nearly = 1-216 ; therefore the semidi- 
 ameter of the focal circle is very nearly the 216th part of 
 the focal distance. Hence we derive a rule for finding the 
 intensity of the heat in the focus of a burning glass ; since 
 all the rays which fall on the glass are collected within tile 
 focal circle, the intensity of the heat in that circle is to the 
 intensity of the heat falling on the glass in tile ratio of the 
 area of the glass to that of the focal circle. But circles are 
 to each other as the squares of their diameters ; whence, 
 calling the diameter of the glass d, and supposing the light 
 falling on it to be represented by unit, the intensity of the 
 light or heat within the focal circle is d? divided by 
 (1-108) 2 ft ; or it is directly proportional to the square of the 
 diameter of the glass, and inversely to the square of the fo- 
 cal distance. For a spherical lens, convex on both sides, 
 the diameter of the focal circle is one eighth of the thick- 
 ness of the lens; but though it cannot be less than this 
 quantity, in imperfect glasses it will considerably exceed it. 
 See Lens, Burning Glass. 
 
 FODDER. (Germ, futter.) In Agriculture, the food 
 given to quadrupeds, which consists of" the stems and leaves 
 of plants, such as the culmiferous stems of the grosses, the 
 haulm of legumes, potatoes, &c. ; or, in short, whatever is 
 given as the ordinary food is designated fodder; whereas 
 com, beans, and other articles, which present nourishment 
 in a more concentrated form, are not included under the term 
 fodder, but rather known as solid food. 
 
 Fodder, is the name of a weight formerly used in the 
 weighing of lead : it was of various magnitudes, but most 
 common! v amounted to about 2400 lbs. 
 
 FOE'TUS. (Lat. feo, / bring forth.) From about the 
 fifth month after pregnancy till the period of its birth, the 
 child in the womb of its mother is termed afwtus. 
 
 FOG. (Dan. fog.) In Meteorology, a dense vapour near 
 the surface of the land or water. Fogs, in general, are the 
 consequence of the nocturnal cooling of the atmosphere. 
 The air, by its rapid cooling, becomes surcharged with mois- 
 ture ; a part of which, being precipitated in the form of a 
 cloud, gives rise to the ordinary fog. During the day the 
 heat of the sun generally disperses the fog, because the 
 quantity of moisture which the air is capable of holding be- 
 comes more considerable in proportion as its temperature is 
 increased. 
 
 In calm weather the surfaces of rivers, lakes, &c. are fre- 
 quently in the morning covered with fog. The reason is 
 this. During the night the air is colder than the water ; the 
 strata of air in contact with the water are consequently heat- 
 ed, and become saturated with moisture. The mixture of 
 the vapour with the air, together with its elevation of tem- 
 perature, renders the air specifically lighter. It rises in con- 
 sequence, and mixing with the cold air in the superior stra- 
 ta, is cooled, and precipitates its moisture. The cloud or 
 fog resulting from this precipitation can only rise to a small 
 height, because the uniformity of temperature is soon re- 
 stored. Hence it is easy to see how winds, or a great agi- 
 tation of the air, prevent the formation of fogs over the sur- 
 face of water. In the equinoctial regions, fogs sometimes 
 continue during a considerable part of the year. Humboldt 
 relates that Lima is often covered with a fog half the year, 
 especially in the mornings and evenings ; and that along the 
 whole of that eoast fogs supply the place of rain, which is 
 extremely rare. In the polar seas thick fogs often prevail, 
 even during the wannest months ; and they are so dense 
 that objects frequently cannot be distinguished at the dis- 
 tance of a few yards. 
 
 Sometimes, though rarely, fogs occur of which the cause 
 is not very well understood. In 1783, the whole of Europe 
 was covered with a dense fog during nearly two months. 
 
 FONT. 
 
 On the 23d of May, 1822, about five o'clock in the afternoon, 
 a fog covered Paris and the neighbourhood, which had the 
 odour of nitrous gas ; it continued about an hour. Dry fogs, 
 or those In which no moisture is present, are supposed to be 
 the vapours and ashes ejected by volcanoes, and diffused in 
 the atmosphere by the winds. 
 
 FOIL. (Fr. feuille, or Lat. folium, a leaf.) This term 
 is generally applied to varnished metal. Common foil is 
 manufactured as follows: a copper plate covered with a 
 thin layer of silver, is rolled out into sheets under the flatting 
 mill ; the silver surface is then highly polished or covered 
 with a colourless varnish. The coloured foils are similarly 
 prepared with coloured varnishes. 
 
 FOLD. (Sax. fealde.) A temporary enclosure for keep- 
 ing cattle or other agricultural animals together, either for 
 the purpose of protection during night, or jointly for pro- 
 tection and feeding. Sometimes, also, sheep are folded 
 for the purpose of manuring. The barrier of which folds 
 are constructed is commonly wooden hurdles; but some- 
 times, when the fold is only to contain ewes and lambs, 
 netting stretched between posts is made use of, there being a 
 strong rope fixed to the lower parts of the posts close to the 
 ground, to which the under edge of the netting is attached, 
 while its upper edge is attached to a rope stretched along 
 the tops of the same posts. The practice of folding sheep 
 on naked fallows, with a view to manuring them, is still 
 common in several parts of England ; but the more im- 
 proved sheep farmers consider that it deteriorates the wool, 
 and impedes the fattening of the sheep, by keeping them for 
 the greater part of the night wholly without food. 
 
 Fold. In Painting, the doubling or lapping of one piece 
 of drapery over another. 
 
 FO'LIAGE. (Lat. foliatus, leaved.) In Architecture and 
 Sculpture, a group of leaves of plants and flowers, so ar- 
 ranged as to form architectural or sculptural ornaments ; as 
 in friezes, panels, and also in the capital of the Corinthian 
 order. 
 
 FO'LIATE, in the doctrine of curve lines, is the name 
 given to a curve of the third order, defined by the equa- 
 tion x3-\-y3=a x y. It is one of the species of defective hy- 
 perbolas, having one asymptote and two infinite branches ; 
 and its figure has some resemblance to a leaf, whence the 
 name (See Newton's Enumeratio Linearum Tertii Or- 
 dinis.) 
 
 FO LIA'TION. The manner in which the nascent leaves 
 are arranged within a leaf-bud. 
 
 FO'LIO. (Ital. a leaf), in Account-books, signifies page. 
 Thus folio 7 — written abridgedly fo. 7 — denotes the seventh 
 page; Folio recto, or Fo R°, signifies the first page; Folio 
 verso, or Fo V°, the second page of a leaf. A book in folio, 
 or simply a folio, is that where the sheet is only folded in 
 two, each leaf making half a sheet. 
 
 FOLI'OLUM. A leaflet borne on the axis of a leaf. 
 
 FO'LKMOTE, among our Saxon ancestors, signified any 
 popular or public meeting of all the folk or people of a place 
 or district; for instance, of all the tenants at a court leet or 
 court baron, or of all the freemen of the county, or of all the 
 barons of the kingdom. Antiquaries are, however, by no 
 means agreed as to the nature of the folkmote ; some con- 
 sidering it an institution of great, others of minor import- 
 ance. (See Somner's Anglo-Saxon Dictionary ; Brady's 
 Introduction to Old English History ; Fabian's Chronicles ; 
 and Wilk. Leg. Anglo-Sax.) 
 
 FOLLI'CULUS. A one-celled, one or many seeded one- 
 valved superior fruit, dehiscent by a suture along its face, 
 and bearing its seeds at the base, or on each margin of the 
 suhire ; differing from the legumen in having but one valve 
 instead of two. 
 
 This term has also other significations, viz. 1. According 
 to Linnsus, any kind of capsule. 2. The cases bearing the 
 reproductive organs of Equisetacece. 3. According to Gtert- 
 ner, a double, one-celled, one-valved, membraneous, cori- 
 aceous capsule, dehiscing on the inside, and either bearing 
 the seed on each margin of its suture, or on a receptacle 
 common to both margins ; as Asclepias, &c. 4. According 
 to Willdenow, any oblong pericarpium bursting longitudi- 
 nally on one side, and filled with seeds; as Vinca. 
 
 FO'MALHAUT. A star of the first magnitude in Piscis 
 Australia. 
 
 FOMENTATION. Local bathing with hot water, or 
 medicated decoctions. 
 
 FONT. (Lat. fons.) In Architecture and Sculpture, a 
 vessel generally of stone or marble for containing the water 
 of baptism in the Christian church. Some of the early 
 fonts are extremely beautiful, and wrought with extraordi- 
 nary richness of decoration. The singular inscription which 
 is frequently found on the walls of baptisterips occurs also 
 occasionally on ancient fonts— NPFON ANOMHMATA 
 MH MON AN OflN ; which reads equally forwards or 
 backwards, admonishing the reader to cleanse himself from 
 evil deeds not less than use the outward ceremony of bap- 
 tism. 
 
 463
 
 FONTANEL. 
 
 FO'NTANEL. The interstice, or mould, as it is often 
 Called, which exists at birth between the frontal and parie- 
 tal bones : it is closed by bony matter about the end of the 
 third year. 
 
 FOOD. All substances susceptible of digestion and as- 
 similation may come under the denomination of food ; but 
 the proximate principles of organic bodies on which their 
 nutritive powers depend are comparatively few. Hence, 
 although the articles employed in different countries for the 
 support of animal life are almost infinitely various, their sus- 
 taining powers may be referred to certain substances capa- 
 ble of being separated and identified by chemical analysis 
 and tests. Among the proximate elements of vegetable food 
 gluten and its modifications, starch, gum, sugar, and lignin 
 or woody fibre, are by far the most important ; and among 
 those of animal food albumen, gelatin, and their modifica- 
 tions, together with fats and oils, which are common to both 
 kingdoms of nature. 
 
 To illustrate the actual simplicity of our food as compared 
 with its apparent multifariousness and complexity, it may 
 suffice to state, that wheat and almost all the esculent grains 
 consist principally of starch and gluten ; that the same in- 
 gredients are found in many fruits and roots ; that sugar, 
 gum, or a relation of gum which is called vegetable jelly, 
 together with minute traces of aromatic principles which 
 give flavour, and more or less abundance of water, and of 
 vegetable acids, are the chief component parts of apples, 
 pears, peaches, currants, gooseberries, and all analogous 
 tribes of fruits ; a very few also contain oil. Then, as re- 
 gards animal food, the muscular fibres of various animals 
 closely resemble each other in composition and nutritive 
 power ; in some cases texture merely, and in others minute 
 additions of foreign matters, Confer upon them their relative 
 digestibilities, and their different aspects and flavours : albu- 
 men or fibrine, and gelatin, small proportions of saline bodies, 
 and a large quantity of water are found in them all. 
 
 It often happens that the truly nutritious part of food is 
 so combined with or protected by indigestible matters, as to 
 escape the solvent powers of the stomach, unless previously 
 prepared and modified by various chemical and mechanical 
 agents. Indurated woody fibre, for instance, or lignin, as 
 chemists call it, will often resist the joint action of the stom- 
 ach and bowels, and pass through the alimentary canal with 
 scarcely any alteration. The husks of many seeds and 
 fruits are composed almost exclusively of this material. 
 This is the case with the kernels of the apple, pear, &c. ; the 
 seeds of the currant, gooseberry, melon, and so on ; the skin 
 or husk of peas, beans, &c, and of wheat, barley, and oats ; 
 so that unless the woody part is either broken down by the 
 teeth, or previously removed, the food which it envelopes is 
 protected from the solvent action of the secretions of the 
 stomach. This is in some respects a wise and curious pro- 
 vision in nature ; for birds in this way become the carriers 
 of seeds, which pass through them not only undigested, but 
 even retaining their vegetative powers; and in this way un- 
 inhabited and sterile portions of the globe may gradually be- 
 come clothed with verdure, and shrubs and trees. Bones 
 are highly nutritive; but unless broken into very small 
 fragments by the masticatory powers of the animals which 
 eat them, they too would elude digestion. In reference, 
 however, to the food of man, much of its digestibility and 
 nutritious power is referable to the important chemical ope- 
 rations preparatory to its use which are carried on in the 
 kitchen : in other words, cookery is essentially a chemical 
 art ; and substances totally unfit, in their raw state, for re- 
 ception into the stomach, are rendered palatable, digestible, 
 and nutritious by the skill of the cook. And here salt, and 
 a variety of condiments, as they are called, and which are 
 aromatic and stimulant substances, chiefly of vegetable ori- 
 gin, play an important part ; nor must the mere effect of heat 
 be overlooked, for it is most important. Meat, by boiling 
 and roasting, is not only softened in its fibre, but new sub- 
 stances are generated in it. Among these a peculiar ex- 
 tractive matter, and osmazome, or the principle which gives 
 an agreeable flavour and odour to dressed meat, are especi- 
 ally recognised. Nor are the changes which vegetables suf- 
 fer under the influence of heat less obvious. 
 
 There is another important point in the history of our 
 food, namely, its ultimate composition. We have spoken 
 of starch, sugar, gum, albumen, and other substances as the 
 proximate principles upon which we live ; but what is the 
 ultimate constitution of these secondary products, what are 
 their true elements ? It is curious that four elements only 
 are principally concerned in the production of our food. 
 These are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. Among 
 vegetable substances gluten (including vegetable albumen) 
 is the only one which abounds in nitrogen ; gum, sugar, 
 starch, and the rest are constituted of carbon, hydrogen, and 
 oxygen only ; and what is very remarkable is, that in all 
 these important principles, and also in lignin, the oxygen and 
 hydrogen bear to each other the same relative proportions as 
 in water, so that they may be figuratively described as com- 
 464 
 
 FOOD. 
 
 pounds of charcoal and water. Now there are two very cu- 
 rious points in reference to that part of the chemical history 
 of our food which has been adverted to: the one is, that no 
 animal can subsist for any length of time upon food which 
 is destitute of nitrogen ; and the other, that a certain mixture 
 of different kinds of food is absolutely essential. An animal 
 fed exclusively on starch, or sugar, or albumen, or jelly, soon 
 begins to suffer in health ; peculiar diseases make their ap- 
 pearance, and his existence is painful and brief; but mix 
 these together, and occasionally modify their proportions, 
 and he then thrives and fattens. Magendie's experiments 
 on this subject, together with those of Tiedemann and 
 Gmelin, well illustrate this fact. Thus, geese fed upon gum 
 died on the 16th day, those fed upon starch on the 34th, and 
 those fed on boiled white of egg on the 46th : in all these 
 cases they dwindled away and died as if of starvation. 
 
 Habit, as is well lenown, will do much in accustoming the 
 stomach to particular descriptions of food ; many persona 
 live exclusively, or almost so, on vegetable, others on animal 
 matters, and particular kinds of diet are forced on the inhab- 
 itants of many regions of the globe ; but, as far as we are 
 concerned, a due mixture of vegetable and animal matter ia 
 not only most palatable, but most conducive to health. No- 
 thing is fit for food which has not already undergone organi- 
 zation ; and water, though an essential part of the food of 
 all animals, is obviously not in itself nutritious, though it per- 
 forms the extremely important function of dissolving nutri- 
 tive matter, so as to render it conveyable by the lacteals and 
 other absorbents into the blood. No compound then of ni- 
 trogen, hydrogen, carbon, and oxygen, which can be formed 
 artificially, can constitute food. Air, water, and charcoal, 
 though involving the elements of our nutriment, are them- 
 selves unfit for our support ; and it is only by passing through 
 the hidden processes which are carried on in the vessels of 
 living things, that they are so recombined and modified as to 
 be rendered capable of supporting animal life. It is the ve- 
 getable world which commences this wonderful operation. 
 Plants absorb their nutriment from the air and from the soil ; 
 they assimilate inorganic as well as organic matter; they be- 
 come the food of the graminivorous tribes, and from these 
 man derives the great bulk of his animal food. 
 
 In speaking of the composition of food, that of milk, the 
 most important of all food, must not be forgotten ; in it na- 
 ture has wonderfully provided a mixture which, though se- 
 creted by an animal, partakes also of the nature of vegetable 
 food, and it presents a perfect analogy to that combination 
 of vegetable and animal matter which has been mentioned 
 as most congenial to the palate and stomach. The albumen 
 or curd of milk is a highly elaborated animal principle, 
 abounding in nitrogen, yet, from its attenuated and soluble 
 state, easy of digestion. A second principle of milk is what 
 is termed sugar of milk ; in composition and properties it 
 resembles a vegetable product, and is intermediate between 
 gum and sugar. The third component of milk is butter, par- 
 taking of the nature of vegetable oil and animal fat ; there 
 are certain saline and acid substances in small proportion ; 
 and all these matters are either dissolved or suspended in a 
 large relative proportion of water. 
 I. Table showing the average quantity of nutritive matter 
 
 in 1000 parts of several varieties of animal and vegetable 
 
 food. 
 
 Blood . . . 
 
 . . 215 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mutton . . 
 
 . 290 
 
 Pork . . . 
 
 . 240 
 
 
 
 Chicken . . 
 
 . 270 
 
 
 
 Haddock . . 
 
 . 180 
 
 Sole .... 
 
 . 210 
 
 
 . 510 
 
 
 
 While of egg . 
 
 . 140 
 
 Wheat 950 
 
 Rice 880 
 
 Barley 920 
 
 Rye 792 
 
 Oats 742 
 
 Potatoes . . . . 260 
 Carrots .... 98 
 Turnips .... 42 
 
 Beet root . 
 Strawberries 
 Pears . . . 
 
 Apples 170 
 
 Gooseberries . . . 190 
 Cherries .... 250 
 
 Plums 290 
 
 Apricots . . . .260 
 Peaches .... 200 
 
 Grapes 270 
 
 Melon 30 
 
 Cucumber ... 25 
 Tamarind . . . 340 
 AlmonJs .... 650 
 Morels 896 
 
 The above table represents the relative proportion of solid 
 digestible matter contained in 1000 parts of the different arti- 
 cles of food which are enumerated. When blood, for in- 
 stance, is evaporated to dryness, at a temperature not ex- 
 ceeding 212°, the residue amounts to 215 parts in 1000, and 
 may be regarded as almost entirely composed of digestible 
 matters ; it consists of albumen and colouring matter, with 
 small proportions of saline substances. The different kinds 
 of meat were dried in the same way. The loss of weight 
 during their desiccation is almost wholly referable to water ; 
 and the dry residue composed of albumen or fibrine, with 
 some gelatine, and perhaps traces of fat and of saline mat- 
 ters, represents the true nutritive value. Upon an average, 
 therefore, the nutritive matter in a pound of meat is not 
 more than four ounces. This, however, only applies to raw 
 meat ; for when dressed a considerable portion of its consti- 
 tuent water is often dissipated. The nutritive matter of 
 wheat is chiefly starch and gluten, and in this species of 
 grain the gluten is in much greater relative proportion to the 
 starch than in barley, oats, or rye. In rice there is little else
 
 FOOLS, FEAST OF. 
 
 than starch. There can be little doubt that the great value 
 of wheat as an article of food depends upon this excess of 
 gluten, which is a nitrogenous substance, and has not inaptly 
 been termed the vegeto-animal principle. In the esculent 
 roots, such as carrots, &c., but especially turnips, sugar is 
 the leading nutritive matter ; and the common fruits contain 
 sugar, gum, albuminous matter, and acids, together with a 
 highly attenuated form of woody fibre, or lignin, which, in 
 that state, is probably digestible. 
 
 The following table shows the ultimate composition of 
 those proximate principles which have been above adverted 
 to as constituting the nutritive part of food : 
 II. Table showing the ultimate elementary composition of 
 
 1000 parts of the following proximate principles of animal 
 
 and vegetable food. 
 
 
 Carbon. 
 
 Hydrogen. 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 Nitrogen. 
 
 516 
 
 76 
 
 258 
 
 150 
 
 
 4S3 
 
 SO 
 
 276 
 
 161 
 
 
 780 
 
 122 
 
 9S 
 
 
 
 609 
 
 73 
 
 116 
 
 203 
 
 
 454 
 
 61 
 
 485 
 
 
 
 557 
 
 78 
 
 220 
 
 145 
 
 
 438 
 
 62 
 
 500 
 
 
 
 419 
 
 6S 
 
 513 
 
 
 
 444 
 
 62 
 
 494 
 
 
 *» • • • 
 
 500 
 
 56 
 
 444 
 
 
 FOOLS, FEAST OF. A festival anciently celebrated in 
 almost every church and monastery of France on New Years' 
 Day, in which every absurdity and even indecency was prac- 
 tised. It was equivalent to the Saturnalia among the Ro- 
 mans, whence indeed it is said to be derived. This festival 
 received some modifications in the different districts where it 
 was celebrated, and inquired various designations according 
 to the multifarious ceremonies of which it consisted. Thus 
 it was termed " la fete des diacres =ouls, des cornards, des in- 
 nocents," &c. Several bishops and councils attempted, 
 though in vain, to abolish this festival ; but at length about 
 the loth century it became leas generally observed, and soon 
 after fell into almost total disuse, though its characteristic 
 absurdities are still maintained in the Carnival of the pti seal 
 times. For full details on the Feast of Fools see the Eney- 
 clopedie des Gens da Monde, under the head " Foils (Fete 
 des)," and the authorities there referred to. 
 
 FOOL'S PARSLEY. An umbelliferous plant, common 
 in waste ground, and so called from its resembling parsley 
 enough in appearance to deceive ignorant persons. It is a 
 poisonous plant, acting like hemlock upon the human sys- 
 tem ; and is easily known by the involucels having each 
 three leaflets, which are always placed next the circumfer- 
 ence of the umbel. It is the JEthusa cynapium of botanists. 
 
 FOOT. (Germ, fuss.) A measure of length. As this 
 term is employed in almost all languages as a linear meas- 
 ure, it has doubtless been derived from the length of the hu- 
 man foot. Thoush the denomination is the same, the meas- 
 ure itself varies considerably in different European countries. 
 In all of them, however, it is divided, like the English foot, 
 into twelve equal parts or inches. See Measures. 
 
 Foot. In Prosody, a measure consisting of two, three, or 
 four syllables, long, short, or long and short. All the com- 
 binations of which these numbers are susceptible amount to 
 twenty-eight ; and such is accordingly the number of feet 
 enumerated by Greek and Latin prosodists, according to the 
 following table : 
 
 — w — ^ Ditrochaeus. 
 w — -^ — Diiambus. 
 
 — -^ «-« — Choriambus. 
 *-> >-* Antispastus. 
 
 •-^ •>- Ionicus a minore. 
 
 —- — Ionicus a majore. 
 
 — ^ w ^ Preon primus. 
 -^ — ^ — - Paeon secundus. 
 
 — -^ — ^ Preon tertius. 
 --' ^ ^ — Preon quartus. 
 
 — Epitritus 1. 
 Epitritus 2. 
 Epitritus 3. 
 Epitritus 4. 
 
 • ^ Pyrrhic h. 
 
 Spondee. 
 
 — — ' Trochee 
 -^ — Iamb. 
 
 -~^ ^ ^ Tribrachys. 
 
 Molossus. 
 
 — ^w Dactylus. 
 
 *- -^ — Anaprest. 
 
 •— — »-» Amphibrachys. — 
 
 — "-' — Amphimacer. -^ 
 
 ■-' Bacchreus. ^ 
 
 ««' Palimbacchreus. — 
 
 »-■ w w^< Proceleusmaticus. — 
 
 Dispondeus. — 
 
 But by rejecting those which are merely reduplications of 
 disyllabic feet (Proceleusmaticus, Dispondeus, Ditrochaeus, 
 and Diiambus), the number is reduced to twenty-four ; and 
 by also striking off those which are compounds of disyllabic 
 feet (Choriambus, Antispastus, two Ionics, four Preons. and 
 four Epitrites), the number of simple feet becomes twelve 
 only. See Rhythm. 
 
 FOOTINGS. In Architecture, the spreading courses at 
 the base or foundation of a wall. 
 
 FO RAGE, in Military affairs, signifies the provisions 
 brought by the troops into the camp for the sustenance of 
 the army, &c, during a campaign. 
 
 FORA'MEN. (Lat. foro, I pierce.) In Anatomy, a small 
 opening. The foramen ovale is an opening between the two 
 auricles of the heart of the foetus, which closes at birth. 
 
 FORCE. 
 
 Fora'mex. In Botany, the opening that exists in the in- 
 teguments of every ovulum. 
 
 FORAMI'NIFERS, Foraminifera. (Lat. foramen, fero ; 
 I bear.) A name applied by D'Orbigny to a tribe of minute 
 shells, which he believed to be formed by Cephalopods ; they 
 are now proved to belong to a lower-organized class of ani- 
 mals. See Symplectomerans. 
 
 FORCE, in Mechanics, is that which produces motion, or 
 a change of motion. Forces may be of different kinds ; but 
 they are all compared and measured by the quantities of mo- 
 tion which they respectively produce in a given time : in fact, 
 we know nothing whatever of forces excepting through their 
 effects. 
 
 In order to determine what will be the effect of a force 
 upon any given mass of matter, three circumstances respect- 
 ing the force are necessary to be known ; namely, its inten- 
 sity, the place where it acts or its point of application, and 
 its direction. Its intensity is proportional to the space through 
 which the unit of mass is moved in the unit of time ; there- 
 fore, since the space described is proportional to the velocity 
 (supposed uniform), if the mass remains constant a double 
 force will produce a double velocity ; and if the velocity is 
 constant, a double mass must be urged by a double force. 
 Hence the force of the body is proportional to the mass and 
 to the velocity conjointly. Thus let m and m' be two mass- 
 es, or the quantities of matter in two bodies, and v and v be 
 the velocities with which they respectively move in conse- 
 quence of the two forces whose intensities are / and / ' ; then 
 / is proportional to m c, and /' to m' v'. 
 
 When a bodv is acted upon by more forces than one, it is 
 obvious that it "will not move in the direction or with the ve- 
 locity due to one of the forces alone, but in a direction and 
 with a velocity due to their collective influence. The ef- 
 fect produced bv the joint action of the several forces is 
 called their resultant ; and it is determined both in magni- 
 tude and direction by the following theorem, celebrated un- 
 der the name of the Composition of Force :— " If the lines 
 which each of two forces acting singly would have caused a 
 body to describe in a given time make any angle whatsoever 
 with one another, the line which the body will describe in 
 that time, when both the forces act upon it at the same in- 
 stant, is the diagonal of the parallelogram under the two 
 first-mentioned lines." Thus, let a body at A be acted upon 
 by two forces at the same instant, one of which, if acting 
 
 alone, would cause it to move over the q^ «j 
 
 line A B in a given time, and the other 
 acting alone would cause it to move 
 over the line A C in the same time ; _ 
 then the direction of the motion re- A *> 
 
 suiting from the action of both forces will be that of the di- 
 agonal A D of the parallelogram A B D C, and at the end 
 of the given time the body will be found at D. The theo- 
 rem may be derived from the principle that the velocity of 
 the body in one of the directions is not changed by the force 
 impelling it in the other ; but of this principle it is not easy 
 to give a satisfactory demonstration, without introducing 
 considerations drawn'from the resources of the higher math- 
 ematics. (See Poisson, Mecanique, tome i.) 
 
 It is obvious that by means of this theorem the resultant 
 of any number of forces whatever may be found ; for after 
 finding the resultant of any two of the forces, we may con- 
 ceive them to be removed, and their resultant substituted, 
 when the resultant of this and the third force will be the re- 
 sultant of three of the forces. This last resultant may then 
 be combined with a fourth force, and so on till the whole of 
 the forces have been included. This construction is called 
 the polygon of forces. 
 
 As the forces represented by the straight lines A B and A 
 C are compounded into a single force, represented in inten- 
 sity and direction by A D ; so any given force may be re- 
 solved into two others, such that the straight lines by which 
 they are represented form the two sides of a parallelogram 
 of which the line representing the given force is the diagonal. 
 This composition and resolution of forces is of constant ap- 
 plication in Mechanics. 
 
 If a body impelled at the same time by three forces re- 
 main at rest, these forces are proportional to 
 the three sides of a triangle formed by draw- 
 ing straight lines parallel to their directions. 
 For. let the three forces actios: on the point 
 A be respectively represented in intensity 
 and direction by the three straight lines A 
 B, A C, A E ; then by forming the parallel- 
 ogram A B D C, and drawing the diagonal 
 A D, we have the two forces represented by 
 A B and A C equal to the single force rep- 
 resented bv A D and acting in the direction 
 A D. Bui the point A is by hypothesis in r> 
 
 equilibrium ; therefore A D must be equal 
 to A E, and in the same straight line with it ; whence, 
 since B D is equal to A C, the three forces by which the 
 point A is kept in equilibrium are respectively proportional 
 F f 465
 
 u 
 
 — F 
 
 FORCE. 
 
 to the three sides A B, B D, and A D of the triangle 
 ABD. 
 
 Let the three forces be respectively denoted by P, Q, and 
 E ; then, the sides of a triangle being proportional to the 
 sines of the opposite angles, 
 
 P : Q : R : : sin. A D B : sin. D A B : sin. A B D. 
 
 But by reason of the parallel lines the angle A D B is equal 
 to D A C, and ABD being the supplement of C A B their 
 sines are equal ; whence 
 
 P : Q. : R : : sin. D A C : sin. D A B : sin. C A B. 
 From this we infer that if a point A be kept in equilibrium 
 by the action of three forces P, Q, and R, each of these for- 
 ces is proportional to the sine of the angle formed by the di- 
 rection of the two others. It is also a consequence of this 
 proposition that if three forces be in equilibrium they must 
 all act in the same plane, and any two of them must be 
 greater than the third. 
 The resultant of three forces X, Y, Z, applied to the same 
 point A in space, and severally represented 
 in magnitude and direction by the straight 
 lines A B, A C, A D, is represented by A F, 
 the diagonal of the parallelepipedon, of 
 which the sides are A B, A C, and A D. 
 — For the two forces X and Y, which are rep- 
 _\J/ resented by A B and A C, the two sides of 
 G the parallelogram A B G C will have for 
 their resultant a force P, represented by A G, the diagonal 
 of this parallelogram. And because A D is equal and par- 
 allel to G F, the figure A D F G is a parallelogram ; and 
 consequently the two forces P and Z, represented by A G 
 and A D, will have for their resultant a force R, represented 
 by A F, the diagonal of the parallelogram A D F G, which 
 is also the diagonal of the parallelepipedon. 
 
 From this theorem it follows that any force whatever R 
 can always be decomposed into three others, X, Y, Z, re- 
 spectively parallel to three straight lines given in space, pro- 
 vided that no two of them be parallel ; and if each of the 
 three given lines be at right angles to the plane of the other 
 two, and the angles which A F (the direction of the given 
 force R) makes respectively with A B, A C, A D (the direc- 
 tions of the forces X, Y, Z) be denoted by a, b, c, we have 
 then, evidently, 
 
 X=R cos. a, Y=R cos. b, Z=R cos. e, 
 the three angles a, b, c, being connected by the relation 
 cos. 2fl-)-C0S. 24+COS. 2c=l. 
 In those investigations in mechanics where a number of 
 forces are concerned, it is usual to resolve them all into three 
 forces parallel to three rectangular co-ordinates ; when the 
 resultant of the three sets of rectangular forces will evident- 
 ly be the common resultant of all the forces. If F, F', F", 
 F'", &c. be the forces ; a, a', a'', a'", &c. the angles which 
 they make with one of the three axes ; b, b\ b", b'", &c. the 
 angles which they make with another of the axes; and c, 
 c', c", c" , &c. the angles which they make with the third ; 
 and X, Y, Z be the three rectangular forces which are the 
 sums of the components of all the original forces, F, F', F", 
 F'", &c. ; then, 
 X=F cos. a+F' cos. a'+F" cos. a"-\-¥" cos. a'"+&c. 
 Y=F cos. H-F' cos. i'-f-F" cos. b"+F'" cos. b'"+k.c. 
 Z=F cos. c-f-F' cos. e'-j-F" cos. c"-j-F'" cos. c ' '+&-C. 
 As the three forces X, Y, Z are not situated in the same 
 plane, and can therefore never be in equilibrium so long as 
 any one of them has a real value, in order that the body 
 may remain at rest under the action of all the given forces 
 F, F', F", F '", &c, it is necessarv that the three conditions 
 be fulfilled : namely, X=0, Y=0, Z=0. 
 
 Forces have different denominations according to the man- 
 ner in which they act ; thus we have Accelerating Forces, 
 Central Forces, Parallel Forces, Uniform and Variable For- 
 ces, &c. See Acceleration, Central Force, Pressure, 
 fee. 
 
 Accelerating Force. — An accelerating force is that which 
 continues to act upon a body after it has been put in mo- 
 tion ; whence the body moves with a variable velocity, and, 
 when the intensity of the force is constant, receives equal 
 increments of velocity in equal intervals of time. We 
 have a familiar example of an accelerating force of this 
 kind in terrestia! gravity, under the action of which heavy 
 bodies dropped from a height fall to the ground with a con- 
 stantly accelerated velocity. 
 
 When a body is urged by an accelerating force, the rela- 
 tions between the force, the velocity, the space passed over, 
 and the time, are expressed by three equations, which are 
 called the equations of motion, and may be investigated as 
 follows : 
 
 Let t denote the time from the commencement of the 
 motion, v the velocity acquired at the end of the time t, and 
 a the space described by the moving body. During an infi- 
 46C 
 
 FORCING. 
 
 nitely small time, d t, the velocity may be regarded as uni- 
 form, and the increment of the space in this time is d x ; 
 therefore, since the space described by a uniform velocity is 
 proportional to the velocity and time conjointlv, we have 
 dx — vdt. (1.) 
 
 Let <j> represent the force which accelerates the body at 
 the end of the time t ; since the motion may be regarded as 
 uniform during an infinitely small time, if v be the velocity 
 at the end of the time t, then v + d v is the velocity at the 
 end of the time t -\- d t, and therefore d v is the increment 
 of velocity due to the force during the time d t. Assume F 
 = a constant force which produces a velocity = V in the 
 portion of time which is assumed as unit}' (for instance, one 
 second) ; then the velocity generated by F in the time d t 
 will be V d t. Now, since <p produces the velocity d v in 
 the instant of time d t, and F produces the velocity V d t in 
 the same instant, and since forces are proportional to the 
 impressed velocities, we have therefore ip : F : : d v : V d t. 
 Now, suppose F to be the unit of force, and V the unit of 
 velocity, and the proportion becomes tf> : 1 : : d v : d t ; 
 whence d v = (p d t. (2.) 
 
 Differentiating the equation d x = v d t on the supposition 
 that d t is constant, and substituting the resulting value of d v 
 in (2), we obtain d* x = <p d &. (3.) 
 
 The three differential equations now found, which define 
 the motion of a body urged by an accelerating force, are 
 usually exhibited as follows: 
 
 dlx 
 
 d x d v 
 
 V—-T-, <p = 
 
 d t 
 
 d t 
 
 d n 
 
 On eliminating d t from the first and second, we obtain a 
 fourth, r d v — <p d x, which it is often convenient to em- 
 ploy. These equations, which may be considered as the 
 foundation of the science of dynamics, are easily integrated 
 when the accelerating force d> is supposed to be uniform. 
 Their immediate integrals, taken on this supposition, give 
 the equations of the motion, in vacuo, of bodies accelerated 
 by gravity, the discovery of which sheds so much lustre on 
 the names of Galileo and Newton. See Gravity. 
 
 Laving Force, or Vis Viva, is a term frequently used by 
 the mathematicians of the last century to denote the action 
 of a force when it is estimated in such a manner as to be 
 proportional to the square of the velocity. It has been sta- 
 ted above that when the masses moved are equal, the mov- 
 ing forces are respectively as the velocities. But the effect 
 of a body in motion may be considered under different as- 
 pects. If we conceive the effect to be measured by the time 
 which elapses before a resistance of uniform intensity redu- 
 ces the body to rest, then the force is proportional to the 
 velocity simply ; but if, on the other hand, w r e conceive the 
 effect to be measured by the distance passed over by the 
 moving body while subjected to the uniform resistance, then 
 the force will be proportional to the square of the velocity. 
 These two measures may both be considered as correct; 
 and they are not inconsistent when rightly understood. A 
 warm controversy, however, arose on the subject, in which 
 seme of the most distinguished mathematicians of the time 
 took a part ; but w hen the ambiguity arising from the use 
 of the word force in different senses was cleared away, 
 both sides were found to be in the right. (See Playfair's 
 Dissertation, F.ncy. Brit.) 
 
 FO'RCER. In Mechanics, a solid piston applied to 
 pumps for the purpose of producing a constant stream, or 
 of raising water to a greater height than it can be raised by 
 the pressure of the atmosphere. See Pump. 
 
 FO'RCIBLE ENTRY AND DETAINER. In Law, a 
 species of offence against the public peace, committed by 
 violently taking or keeping possession of lands and tene- 
 ments with menaces, arms, and force, and without authority 
 of law, to the hinderance of him who has right of entry. 
 The remedy is, under several statutes, by action : by the 
 intervention of justices of the peace, who have power, on 
 view of the force, to make a record of it, and commit the 
 offender. 
 
 FO'RCING. In Horticulture, the art of accelerating the 
 growth of plants, so as to obtain fruits or flowers at seasons 
 when they are not produced naturally in the open air. The 
 practice appears to be as old as the Romans ; since Pliny 
 informs us that Tiberius, who was fond of cucumbers, 
 forced them to bear fruit in the winter time by growing the 
 plants in boxes kept in houses with talc windows, which 
 boxes were wheeled out during fine days, and always taken 
 into the house again at night or in cold weather. From 
 some epigrams of Martial it has been thought that the Ro- 
 mans had both vineries and peach-houses ; talc (lapis spec- 
 ularius) being used instead of glass. In England, forcing 
 appears to have been practised from a very early period ; 
 radishes having been raised on dung beds, covered during 
 night by wheat straw, from time immemorial, and cherries 
 having been forced on wooden walls or boarded espalier 
 rails, heated by linings of hot dung at the back, at least 
 from the time of Charles II., and probably long before,
 
 FORCING-PUMP. 
 
 since it is certain that melons and cucumbers were grown at 
 Hampton Court for the royal table in the time of Henry VIII. 
 At the present time forcing is carried on in Britain, and in 
 analogous climates throughout Europe and North America, 
 chiefly under glass roofs. Structures for forcing are known, 
 as frames, pits, and houses, all of which have glass roofs ; 
 but there are also structures for forcing without glass roofs, 
 such as cellars and sheds for growing mushrooms in the 
 winter season ; and also seakale, rhubarb, blanched succory, 
 and such other stalks or leaves of plants as are eaten in a 
 blanched state, and consequently do not require much light. 
 The art of forcing plants must never be confounded with the 
 art of growing them in artificial climates, though in both 
 cases the principles by which the gardener proceeds are es- 
 sentially the same ; viz., the art of imitating nature. The 
 chief difficulty of accomplishing this in forcing is the want 
 of light; and hence the earlier in the season that any forced 
 crop is produced, the greater is its deficiency in colour and 
 flavour. Gentle forcing, so as, as it were, to anticipate 
 spring, and bring fruits so far forward as to enable them to 
 profit from the full influence of the sun during our short 
 summers, may be considered as a real advantage, which will 
 never cease to be sought for ; and as a case in point we will 
 mention the grape, the fruit of which is never brought to per- 
 fection in this country unless the plants have been partially 
 forced. To force, in any country, the fruits which come to 
 perfection in the open air in that country, such as the apple, 
 pear, cherry, gooseberry, &c, in Britain, and analogous cli- 
 mates on the Continent, can only be considered as a luxuri- 
 ous waste of wealth, which would be more elegantly and 
 usefully expended in forcing the fruits or in growing the 
 flowers of warm climates, which can only be brought to per- 
 fection in this country under glass. Even this kind of for- 
 cing is open to criticism, on what may be called the greatest 
 enjoyment principle. For example, there are certain fruits, 
 such as the mango, the dourion, mangosteen, &c, which 
 could only be grown in this country at an enormous expense, 
 and probably when grown would not be worth eating ; while 
 there are certain other fruits, such as the pineapple and the 
 banana, which can be grown in this country at a moderate 
 expense to almost as great a degree of perfection as in tin ir 
 native climate. To attempt growing the former kind of frail 
 merely for the sake of overcoming the difficulty of doing so, 
 we hold to be in bad tas!e ; though we allow that some good 
 might result from it to horticultural science, by calling forth 
 the skill and ingenuity of gardeners: this, indeed, may be 
 considered as the only permanent benefit which will he pro- 
 duced by forcing. With the progress of intercommunication 
 by means of steam and railways, it seems highly probable 
 that the fruits of warm climates will cease altogether to lie 
 cultivated in cold climates ; with the exception of some, such 
 as the cucumber, melon, banana, fig, &c, which require to 
 be eaten when freshly gathered. Even at the present time, 
 with the comparatively imperfect communication which ex- 
 ists between this country and the south of Spain and the 
 West Indies, there is no reason why we should not be sup- 
 plied with pines, grapes, and oranges throughout the year. 
 The hot-houses of gardens will then be chiefly employed for 
 the culture of exotic flowers and exotic plants of curiosity. 
 
 FORCING PUMP. See Pump. 
 
 FORE. The sea term for the part of the ship near the 
 head. 
 
 FORE AND AFT, implies lying in the direction of the 
 head and stern ; also, the whole of the vessel generally. 
 
 FORECASTLE. The upper deck near the head ; this 
 was formerly much raised, hence the name. 
 
 FO'REFOOT. A piece of limber at the fore extremity of 
 the keel. 
 
 FO RELAND. In Fortification, a piece of ground be- 
 tween the wall of a place and the moat. Foreland is also 
 used synonymously with promontory, cape, headland, &c, 
 as the North Foreland in Kent. 
 
 FORESHO'RTENING. In Painting, the representation 
 of any object presented obliquely to the eye. 
 
 FO'REST. (In Germ, forst, from whence our word is 
 probably derived, although the ultimate etymology is un- 
 known. The Saxon word hurst, with which the names of 
 so many places in the south of England terminate, has prob- 
 ably the same origin. In the primitive meaning of the word 
 it probably signified an enclosed space, from which intruders 
 were excluded : hence some have derived it from the Latin 
 forts.) An extensive surface covered naturally by trees and 
 undergrowth ; as opposed to a plantation, which has been 
 made by art. In former times the greater part of every 
 country in the temperate parts of Europe was undoubtedly 
 covered with forest; and these, by nourishing wild animals 
 of every description, particularly wild swine, afforded a 
 principal part of the food of man. With civilization, how- 
 ever, they gradually disappeared before the spread of exten- 
 sive pastures or arable land. In every country a large por- 
 tion of the forests belonged to the government, and formed a 
 main source of its revenue. This is still the case in France 
 
 FORFEITURE. 
 
 and Germany, and till lately it was also the case to a certain 
 extent in Britain. Hence extensive tracts in England still 
 bear the name of forest, though they are now in a state of 
 cultivation, and in a great measure without trees. Many 
 ancient laws and customs are recorded in books respecting 
 the forests of the crown ; but at present, as there are only 
 three or four government forests in Great Britain, these laws 
 and customs are of very little consequence, excepting to 
 those living in their immediate neighbourhood. 
 
 Many of the spots which in England bear the name of 
 forest have no appearance of having been covered with 
 trees at any period since Britain became inhabited. The 
 English forests (with the exception of the New Forest, of 
 which the history is well known) are, however, so ancient 
 that we possess no record of their origin. Their number has 
 been reckoned at 68 ; another enumeration extends them to 
 76, but some of these are propably only parts of the same 
 forest with different names. A forest is created by the king, 
 by a commission issued out of the Court of Chancery ; and, 
 when its laws and ordinances have been framed and officers 
 appointed, it becomes a forest by matter of record. Forests 
 are grantable to subjects; but Savernake Forest in Wilt- 
 shire, held by the Marquis of Aylesbury, is, we believe, at 
 present the only instance. By the ancient forest laws, the 
 Courts of the Forest were— 1." The Justice Seat ; a court'of 
 justice in eyre of the forest, held every third year to take 
 cognizance of trespasses, pleas, and causes. (The last jus- 
 tice seat held in England for any other than mere formal 
 business was for Windsor Forest in 1632.) 2. The Swain- 
 Mote, or meeting otfreeholders of the forest, held to receive 
 and try presentments against offences in matters connected 
 with the forest laws (in vert and venison) ; which present- 
 ments, 3. The Wood-Mote was held every forty days to re- 
 ceive and inquire into, but not to try. The principal officers 
 of the forest were, its two justices in eyre, warden, regarders, 
 foresters, rangers, &c. ; some of which are still retained. 
 The forest laws are of early date in England ; those of King 
 Canute are the earliest preserved. Under the first reigns af- 
 ter the Conquest their severity went on gradually increasing, 
 and formed one of the chief oppressions under which the 
 English suffered. But in 1224 the Carta de Foresta, granted 
 by Henrv III., fixed the limit of these aggressions. The cap- 
 ital punishments and mutilations of the former laws were 
 rendered commutable for fines, and the king assented to a 
 new perambulation of the forests; at which time, and sub- 
 sequently, portions which had been illegally armexed to for- 
 ests were disafforested. These portions are called Purlieus. 
 In 1297, this charter was fully confirmed by Edward I. For 
 mi account of the evisting forests of this country, see Statis- 
 tic* of the British Empire. 
 
 FO'RE- STAFF. A rude instrument, formerly used at 
 sea for taking altitudes; and so called because, in using it, 
 the observer turns his face to the object, instead of turning 
 bis back to the object, as is necessary in using the back-staff. 
 Both these instruments have been superseded bv the sextant. 
 
 FORESTA LLING THE MARKET, in Law, is defined 
 to be the buying up or bargaining for goods on their way to 
 the market, in order to dispose of them at a higher price. 
 But all mercantile practices having a tendency to enhance 
 the common price, have been, by a very sweeping intend- 
 ment of the law, included within the same description. 
 Forestalled are usually classed with ingrossers (those who 
 buy up their commodities to retail), and regraters (said to be 
 derived from Fr. regratter, to scrape over again, from frauds 
 practised in the dressing or scraping of second-hand cloth to 
 sell again). Severe statutes have been passed at different 
 times, from 5 & 6 Ed. 5, downwards, against this alleged 
 offence. They were all repealed by 12 G. 3, c. 71. But it 
 is saiil that the offence at common law still exists; nor was 
 it until 1827 (7 & 8 G. 4, c. 38) that constables were express- 
 ly relieved from the (obsolete) duty of making presentments 
 of forestallers at the quarter sessions. Although acts of this 
 description have ceased to be subjects of criminal prosecu- 
 tion, it cannot be said that the public prejudice against 
 them is yet wom out; although it is easily understood, and 
 has been often proved, that in no way can the market for 
 most commodities be rendered steady, the purchaser protect- 
 ed from the injurious consequences of excessive deamess, 
 and the seller from those of glut and over-cheapne=s, as by 
 the intervention of an intermediate body of wholesale deal- 
 ers between the former and the latter. 
 
 FO'RFEITURE (Lat. forisfacrura, expulsion or outlawry), 
 has been defined to be a punishment annexed by law to 
 some illegal act or necligence in the owner of real property, 
 wherebv he loses all his interest therein, and thev go to the 
 party injured as a recompense for the wrorg which either 
 he alone or the public with him hath sustained. Forfeiture 
 is either civil or criminal. Civil forfeiture takes place when 
 some alienation is made contrary to law, as in mortmain ; or 
 when a particular tenant alienes for a larger estite than he 
 himself hath, as when tenant for life makes a enveyauce 
 in fee. Forfeiture for criminal causes takes place in treason 
 
 467
 
 FORFICULA. 
 
 or felony, and for one or two other offences. After judg- 
 ment has been given, and the guilty party is said to be at- 
 tainted, the forfeiture has a retrospective operation to the 
 time when the offence was committed, so as to invalidate all 
 sales and incumbrances that may have been effected since 
 that time. Except in treason or murder, the forfeiture is 
 only for the life of the offender; in treason and murder, 
 however, the forfeiture extends to the disinherison of the 
 heir. 
 
 FORFI'CULA. (Lat. forfex, pincers.) A Linnsean ge- 
 nus of insects, now forming a distinct order, Dermaptera 
 (which see), and comprehending the subgenera Labidura, 
 Labia, Chclidura, and Forficula proper, of which the labours 
 of modern entomologists have made known numerous spe- 
 cies; the common earwig (Forficula auricularia) is the type 
 of this group of insects. 
 
 FORGE. (Fr.) The workshop in which iron is ham- 
 mered and shaped by the aid of heat. The term is gener- 
 ally applied to the places in which these operations are 
 carried on upon the comparatively small scale ; the great 
 workshops in which iron is made malleable for general pur- 
 poses being called a shingling- mill. A common forge con- 
 sists of the hearth or fireplace, which is merely a cavity in 
 masonry or brickwork well lined with fine clay or brick, 
 upon which the ignited fuel is placed, and upon the back or 
 side of which a powerful blast of air is driven in through 
 the nozzle of a double-blasted bellows, which, in a common 
 forge, is generally worked by a hand lever. Forges are 
 sometimes constmcted so as to be portable, when the bellows 
 is most conveniently placed under the hearth: these are 
 used in ships, and for various jobs on railways, &c. 
 
 FO'RGERY, in Law, is defined to be the fraudulent ma- 
 king or alteration of any record, deed, writing, instrument, 
 register, stamp, &c., to the prejudice of another man's right. 
 The statutes respecting this offence were consolidated by the 
 act of 1830 (11 G. 4, and 1 W. 4, c. 66), which also, after 
 long and reiterated discussions, finally abolished the punish- 
 ment of death in all cases, except for the forgery of wills 
 and bills of exchange. This last remnant of the ancient 
 code was finally removed in 1832 and 1837 by the statute 2 
 & 3 W. 4, c. 123, and 1 Vict., c. 84, by which the present 
 punishments are fixed ; varying from imprisonment for vari- 
 ous terms to transportation for life, according to the classifi- 
 cation of the offences comprehended under this general title. 
 
 According to a return contained in the report of the Con- 
 stabulary Force Commission, 1839, the number of persons 
 convicted of forging and uttering forged notes amounted to 
 104 in 1816, from whence it increased to 352 in 1820, fell to 
 134 in 1821, and since that time has diminished to a very 
 small amount. The number of executions in 1812 was 23, 
 in 1818 (the greatest) 24. The last execution for forgery 
 took place in 1829. 
 
 FORLO'RN HOPE, in Military affairs, signifies certain 
 men detached from several regiments or otherwise appoint- 
 ed to assume the initiative in an engagement ; or, at a siege, 
 to storm the counterscarp, mount the breach, &c. They 
 are so called from the great danger to which they are inev- 
 itably exposed in such cases. 
 
 FORM. (Lat. forma.) In the Fine Arts, the bounding 
 line of a material object. In Painting, the word is more 
 generally applied to the human form. See Beauty. 
 
 FORMA'TION. A geological term, applied to a group 
 of deposites or strata apparently referable to a common ori- 
 gin or period. 
 
 FO'RMEDON. In Law, a writ in the nature of a writ 
 of right, which lies for him who has right to lands or tene- 
 ments by virtue of an entail. (Sec Fee Tail.) Formedon 
 is in the descender, the remainder, or the reverter, according 
 to the estate of the party who sues. 
 
 FORMI'CA. (Lat. an ant.) A Linnsean genus of insects, 
 now the type of a very numerous and extensively distributed 
 family (Formicidm), belonging to the order Hymenoptera, 
 and to that section which is negatively characterized by not. 
 being armed with a sting, and by not possessing any instru- 
 ment for piercing the bodies of animals, or the substance of 
 plants, for the purpose of oviposition. 
 
 The procreative economy of these well-known and most 
 interesting insects is that to which all their wonderful habits 
 and peculiarities are essentially related ; and among those 
 genera which the wisdom of Providence has ordained should 
 form associations for the purpose of multiplying, preserving, 
 and providing for their kind, the ants stand in a prominent 
 and interesting rank, whether viewed as presenting some of 
 the higher traits of animal instinct, or as a living evidence 
 of an all-wise Intelligence, whose mute but incontrovertible 
 orders are thus so implicitly and cheerfully obeyed. 
 
 In every species of insect the parents are relieved from 
 the charge of providing for their offspring: they neither at- 
 tend to their wants, nor defend them from harm in their 
 immature and helpless state ; and this, not from any defi- 
 ciency of natural attachment, but from the brief period of 
 their existence after having attained the state of maturity 
 468 
 
 FORMICA. 
 
 adapted for procreation ; for at the close of this season the 
 male generally dies before the eggs which he has impregna- 
 ted are excluded ; and the female, whose last care has been 
 to select a proper place for their development, soon dies af- 
 ter oviposition. 
 
 In the instincts and habits of which we are about to give 
 a brief notice, the exception to the above rule is more appa- 
 rent than real ; for the individuals which manifest the feel- 
 ings and discharge, the duties of the mother, are but foster- 
 parents, and consist of females with undeveloped ovaria, and 
 which are consequently unprolific, and are termed neuters. 
 The males perish, and are destroyed by the neuters soon 
 after having fulfilled their office ; the prolific females, upon 
 whom, on the contrary, the cares and affections of the neu- 
 ters or workers are abundantly lavished, die soon after the 
 ova are matured and excluded. This apparently threefold 
 distinction of sex is peculiar to gregarious insects, as bees and 
 ants. 
 
 Our intelligent countryman Gould describes five species of 
 English ants; viz., 1. The hill ant (Formica rufa, Linn.); 
 2. The jet ant (F. fuliginosa, Latr.) ; 3. The red ant (Myr- 
 mica rubra, Latr. ; Formica, Linn.) ; 4. The common yellow 
 ant (F.flava, Latr.) ; and, 5. The small black ant (Formica 
 fusca, Linn.). 
 
 In incipient societies of ants, as well as humble-bees (Bombi, 
 Latr.) and wasps (Vespa, Linn.), one female lays the foun- 
 dation of the future colony, and the first brood which is 
 hatched is very small. The larva, when first hatched, are 
 hairy, and continue in the larva state twelve months or more. 
 
 The larva of the red ant do not, as other ants do, spin a 
 cocoon when they assume the pupa state. The societies of 
 ants, as also of other Hymenoptera, differ from those of the 
 Termites, or white ants, in having inactive larvae and pupae, 
 the neuters or workers combining in themselves the office 
 of nurses, soldiers, and attendants. These undeveloped 
 females never acquire wings. The female ants are furnish- 
 ed, at their first exclusion, with two pair of wings, which, 
 after swarming in concourse with the males, they almost 
 immediately cast. The office of the perfect or winged fe- 
 male is to provide a constant supply of eggs for the mainte- 
 nance of the population. These are usually the least 
 numerous part of the community. The office of the males 
 (which are also winged during the time of swarming, and 
 are extremely numerous) is merely the propagation of the 
 species ; after the season for this is past, they die. Some- 
 times the swarms of a whole district unite their infinite 
 myriads, and, seen at a distance, produce a beautiful and 
 curious effect, from the glancing of their silvery wings. The 
 males and females quit the nests, their nursing places, about 
 the end of July, or later, to the beginning or middle of 
 September. The commotion which these winged individuals 
 create in the nests, before they issue forth to fulfil their 
 proper functions, is excessive. The whole swarm, when un- 
 housed, alternately rises and falls with a slow movement to 
 the height of about ten feet, the males flying obliquely, with 
 a rapid zigzag motion, and the females, though they follow 
 the general movement of the column, appearing suspended 
 in the air, like balloons, seemingly with no individual motion, 
 and having their heads turned towards the wind. 
 
 The noise emitted by countless myriads of these insects 
 does not, however, exceed the hum of a single wasp ; for 
 their wings are weak, and bend to the wind, which carries 
 the swarm irresistibly along. All the males, and the greater 
 part of the females, are destroyed by becoming the prey of 
 birds and fish, and other insectivorous creatures ; for the 
 loss of their wings, only lent them till the swarming season 
 be past, renders them the most helpless and inactive beings, 
 and they fall into the water in shoals, as well as bestrew 
 the land. Dr. Bromley, while surgeon of the ship Clorinde, 
 witnessed a scene which will give some idea of the multi- 
 tudes of these insects which fall a prey to fishes alone. 
 
 "In September 1814," he observes, "being on the deck 
 of the hidk of the Clorinde, my attention was drawn to the 
 water by the first lieutenant (since Captain) Haverfield, 
 observing there was something black floating down with 
 the tide. On looking with a glass, I discovered they were 
 insects. The boat was sent, and brought a bucket full of 
 them on board. They proved to be a large species of ant, 
 and extended from the upper part of Salt Pan Reach out 
 towards the Great Nore, a distance of five or six miles. The 
 column appeared to be in breadth eight or ten feet, and in 
 height about six inches, which I suppose must have been 
 from their resting one upon another." 
 
 These ants were winged, so that they had probably beeu 
 driven into the water by violent weather. When impreg- 
 nation has taken place, the females alight, and then the 
 neuters have been seen to seize and make prisoners of them, 
 hanging upon their legs to detain them ; leading them back 
 to the formicary, and never quitting them till they are ready 
 to lay their eggs, or become reconciled to state imprisonment, 
 for such it really appears to be. They pay every attention 
 to the royal prisoner's wante or comforts, leading her to the
 
 FORMICA. 
 
 most genial spots in the nest, and regularly feeding her ; but 
 all this under a body guard, which, a.s her powers of loco- 
 motion become impeded by the enlargement of the ovaria, is 
 gradually reduced to one sentinel, who is constantly relieved. 
 The situation of this attendant is remarkable, being mounted 
 on the queen-mother's body ; and its office seems to be that 
 of waiting till the eggs are produced, when it seizes and 
 carries them off to the nurseries, or cells, prepared for this 
 purpose. One of these queen ants will lay upwards of four 
 or live thousand eggs in a year. 
 
 Gould gives an amusing account of the homage paid to 
 the fertile mother of the future colony by the working ants. 
 They will press round her, offer her food, conduct her by 
 her mandibles through the difficult or steep passages of the 
 formicary: they even carry her about their city. She is 
 then suspended upon their jaws, the ends of which are 
 crossed, and, being coiled up, she is packed so close as to 
 incommode the bearers but little. When she is alighted, 
 others surround and carress her, one after another tapping 
 her on the head with their antennte. They have a particu- 
 lar way of skipping, leaping, and standing upon their hind 
 legs, and prancing with each other. These frolics they 
 make use of in congratulation when they meet, and to show 
 their regard for their queen. Some of them gently walk 
 over her, others dance round her, and if separated from her 
 will soon collect in a body and enclose her in the midst. 
 When she dies, they have been known to pay her the same 
 attentions for months, and to brush and lick her continually. 
 Different species vary in their instincts, which produces 
 some variation in their domestic proceedings, but the general 
 line of conduct is the same throughout. In some nests 
 several female ants have been known to live together on 
 amicable terms, showing none of the spirit of exclusive 
 rivalry so observable in the queen bee. Of all insects the 
 ants seem to have the most perfect mode of communicating 
 with each other. On this curious subject, the learned en- 
 tomologists Kirby and Spence thus express themselves : — 
 "The fact being certain that ants impart their ideas to each 
 other, we are next led to inquire by what means this is ac- 
 complished. It does not appear that, like the bees, they 
 omit any significative sounds; their language, therefore, 
 must consist of signs or gestures, some of which I shall now 
 detail. In communicating their fear or expressing tin ir an- 
 ger, they ran from one to another in a semicircle, and strike 
 with their head or jaws the trunk or abdomen of the ant to 
 which they mean to give information of any subject of 
 alarm. But those remarkable organs, their antenna;, are 
 the principal instruments of their speech, if it may be so 
 called, supplying the place both of voice and words. When 
 the military ants before alluded to go upon their expeditions, 
 and are out of the formicary, previously to setting oil' they 
 touch each other on the trunk with their antenna; and fore- 
 head : this is the signal for marching ; for, as soon as any 
 one has received it, he is immediately in motion. If a hun- 
 gry ant wants to be fed, it touches with its two antennie, 
 moving them very rapidly, those of the individual from 
 which it expects its meal. The helpless larva 1 , also, of the 
 ants are informed by the same means when they may open 
 their mouths to receive their food. Whether ants, with 
 man and some of the larger animals, experience anything 
 like attachment to individuals, is not easily ascertained ; but 
 that they act as if they felt the full force of the sentiment 
 which we tern) patriotism, or the love of the community to 
 which they belong, is evident from the whole series of their 
 proceedings. Distress or difficulty falling upon any member 
 of their society, generally excites their sympathy, and they 
 do their utmost to relieve it." 
 
 The attachment of the neuteurs is continued to the off- 
 spring of the perfect female through the states of ova, larva, 
 and pupa, and even increases at each progressive stage ; 
 their greatest cares are lavished on the cocoon, which they 
 may be seen bringing out into the air in fine weather, and 
 carrying back again into the nest when the heat is too great, 
 or on the approach of rain, of which they have an instinctive 
 knowledge. It is the cocoons, also, which are the first ob- 
 jects of their solicitude when the formicary is broken in 
 upon ; and although the cocoon is double the size of the 
 neuter itself, yet it bears it away with an agility which shows 
 that the weight is no incumbrance. 
 
 The combats between the ants of neighbouring communi- 
 ties are generally caused by the instinctive fondness which 
 the workers have for the cocoons, and which they cannot 
 see without attempting to appropriate it as an object of care 
 and attention. In their battles they fight with fierceness 
 and obstinacy, sometimes carrying off the head of the van- 
 quished upon Iheir antenna;, like an American Indian who 
 bears his enemy's scalp about his neck as a trophy ; not that 
 the ant warrior voluntarily carries this troublesome proof of 
 his valour, for he woidd willingly be rid of such an incum- 
 brance, but ibis is seldom the case while he lives. 
 
 The males and females never fight ; the neuters alone at- 
 tacking or defending; Besides their other weapons, ants are 
 
 furnished with the power of ejecting an acrid juice from 
 their abdomen, in sufficient quantity and force to repel any 
 small antagonist. 
 
 Huber also gives a most terrific account of tile civil wars 
 between ants of the same species, but composing different 
 communities. Nothing can exceed the ferocity or pertinacity 
 of these battles. The infuriate creatures tear each other 
 almost to pieces — now struggling in single combat, till a 
 third, coming up, puts an end to the affiiir, by helping to kill 
 or take the enemy prisoner ! — now lighting in bodies linked 
 together, and refusing all quarter, till a reinforcement alters 
 the tide of war, and gives victory to one side. But these 
 battles are frequently renewed day by day, the combatants 
 retiring as night approaches, till the rainy season brings the 
 fierce little citizens to reason, and both parties retire to their 
 citadel. It is a curious fact that, though the opposing armies 
 are of one species, each party knows a fellow-lodger even in 
 the wildest part of the action ; for Huber states, that if by 
 accident an ant had attacked a friend, caresses immediately 
 succeeded to blows. M. P. Huber states as a fact the start- 
 ling circumstance of certain species of ants (F. rufcscen3, 
 and F. sanguined, Latr.) procuring slaves which they carry 
 off in predatory excursions while in an infant state. These 
 slaves are of a small black species, and when reared perform 
 the offices which generally devolve upon the neuters or 
 workers in other societies ; besides which they have to feed 
 their masters and cany them about the nest. Indeed, so 
 totally dependant are their masters upon these indefatigable 
 little slaves, that the term should rather be reversed ; for it 
 appears that these lords of the community may not venture 
 forth from the nest but with permission of the negroes; and 
 M. P. Huber proved, by experiment, that they would die of 
 starvation if not fed by these indispensable servants. There 
 is likewise another species (the F. cunicularia, L.), which 
 are forcibly carried off by the rufescent ants; but from their 
 being more courageous than the negro species, the depreda- 
 tors are obliged to go with greater strength of numbers and 
 more precaution. The account which M. Huber gives of 
 these excursions after slaves is highly curious and interest- 
 ing ; the enemy, making use of manoeuvres and tactics, aud 
 the assailed receiving them with such arrangements, as any 
 but a close observer of insect economy and habits would 
 declare to be impossible but to human intellect: The F. 
 sanguined is not, however, so helpless and utterly dependant 
 on the black ants ; but will rouse themselves upon occasion, 
 and protect their slaves, and even transport them to another 
 habitation when changing their residence, which is some- 
 times the case. 
 
 The negro and miner ants, when attacked by the ma- 
 rauding species in their dwelling, make every eftbrt to place 
 the young brood and the newly excluded females out of 
 danger, carrying them to some distant place of security as 
 soon as the alarm is given, and during the combat hundreds 
 are so employed ; but when tranquillity is once more restored, 
 they bring back these precious charges, and place them 
 within the walls of the fort, of which they barricade the 
 entrances, and place a strong guard.near in case of future 
 attempts. To prove how dependant the rufescent ants are 
 upon their little notable black servants, Huber tells of an 
 experiment he made, by shutting up thirty of them in a 
 glazed box, supplying them with honey in one corner of 
 their prison, and placing with them larva: and pupa; both of 
 their own species and that of the negro. At first they made 
 some little exertions in regard to the young, carrying them 
 from one place to another, but soon seemed to find this too 
 great an effort ; and though food was in the box, most of 
 them died in a few days, rather than help themselves to it. 
 Huber, in commisseration of their wretched condition, then 
 put in a single little negro ant, which actively set to work, 
 making a cell in the earth, into which it collected the larvae, 
 and feeding the pupa; ready to emerge, as well as the still 
 surviving neuters. Huber also mentions other experiments 
 tending to the same end, which perfectly succeeded in show- 
 ing the vital importance of these slave ants to their masters 
 under various circumstances, and proved that this curious 
 habit depends on something more than the mere blind at- 
 tachment of the imperfect females for pu pec. 
 
 LinnEeus speaks of the strange fact of " ants milking their 
 cows, the Aphides ;" and Huber relates many highly inter- 
 esting particulars in addition. He says, the ants not only 
 suck the sweet juice which is constantly passing through 
 the body of the Aphides, but make use of their antenna 
 during the operation, to produce a ready evacuation, patting 
 the Aphides on the sides pretty briskly. They are very 
 jealous of the possession of these their milch cows, some- 
 times fighting fiercely in their defence, and forming earihen 
 boundaries for their detention. The British species of ant 
 (Formica flava, Gould) is especially fond of collecting herds 
 of the Aphis radicum in its hemispheric d formicary, tending 
 the eggs as it would those of its own brood. This yellow 
 ant exceeds all the other species of Aphis-loving Formica in 
 the great number of its herds. 
 
 469
 
 FORMICA. 
 
 It appear?, from observations made both by Gould and 
 Huber, that when a nest becomes overpopulated, or from 
 some other reason, emigrations take place, which are con- 
 ducted in a very interesting and singular manner. A few 
 having apparently made up their minds on the subject, en- 
 deavour, by the usual signs, to induce others to accompany 
 them to the spot chosen for the new encampment ; and 
 having so far succeeded, carry the newly-persuaded recruit 
 upon their mandibles thither, who in his turn goes back with 
 his conductor to the old nest, and engages a fellow-citizen 
 to accompany him also, and thus by degrees the whole con- 
 gregation emigrate. Thisemigrationdoesn.it, in all instances, 
 proceed by dint of persuasion; for the recruiting ant will, 
 without warning, sometimes seize upon another, and carry it 
 off suddenly to the new site : which rough proceeding does 
 not, however, prevent the ant so removed in joining in the 
 attempt to raise more recruits; for it returns, like the others, 
 and fetches a companion. The turf ants (F. ccespitum, L.), 
 upon these occasions, carry their fellow emigrants in an un- 
 coiled form, with the head downwards. These observations 
 chiefly apply to the great hill ant (F. rufa), though several 
 other species migrate. They will, in case the new settle- 
 ment is at a considerable distance, form temporary' colonies 
 by the way, all, however, uniting at last in one principal 
 formicary. 
 
 Ants work during the night as well as by day. 
 
 Our native ants usually make their first appearance in 
 March, and continue in activity till the middle or end of 
 October. They are fond of basking and sporting in the sun ; 
 and their antics, at these times, are described by the best 
 observers as exceedingly amusing, some appearing to wrestle, 
 and others actually carrying each other on their back in the 
 most playful manner. They are not torpid during the whole 
 winter, but are, in genial and mild days, sometimes to be 
 seen in full activity. Extreme cold causes them to cluster 
 together in compact bodies, as if by this means to preserve a 
 sufficient quantity of animal heat to allow of their occasional 
 return to the labours of life. That ants will attack and kill, 
 for food, insects and animals infinitely larger than them- 
 selves, is very well known : their strength is prodigious com- 
 pared with their size. Mr. Kirby says, " I have seen an ant 
 dragging a wild bee many times bigger than itself." 
 
 The bite of some foreign ants is very severe. Sir Joseph 
 Banks observed a green species in New South Wales which 
 inflicted a wound scarcely less painful than that of a bee. 
 One, called the fire ant, is so called from its bite resembling 
 the pain occasioned by a spark of fire. Some ants in Ceylon 
 produce great anguish from their bite. Those species usually 
 found in Great Britain may almost be called harmless in 
 this respect. 
 
 There is a species in Cayenne (Formica bispinosa) which 
 collects from the bombax and silk cotton tree a sort of lint 
 which the natives value much as a styptic in cases of 
 haemorrhage ; but though this species benefits man, there 
 are several whose ravages have sometimes more than coun- 
 terbalanced the good produced by the s e insects. Within 
 the last century, what might truly be called a plague of ants 
 appeared at one period* in the island of Granada, in such 
 hosts as to put a stop to the cultivation of the sugar cane. The 
 destruction of this plant is not caused by the ants devouring 
 it, but by their constructing their nests under its nx>ts. At 
 the time of this irruption, their numbers were only to be 
 compared with sand strewed over every' place and thing. 
 They descended from the hills, and covered the plantations; 
 and did not confine their attacks to plants, but rats, mice, 
 and even birds, when alighting on the ground, fell a prey to 
 them. Streams of water only opposed their frightful pro- 
 gress for a moment, masses of them rushing, or being im- 
 pelled by the hosts behind, into the water, and only forming 
 by their carcasses a raft or bank for the rest to pass upon. 
 Fire was tried in vain as a barrier to their progress ; such 
 infinite swarms rushed into the blaze as to extinguish it. A 
 reward of 23.000/. was offered to whoever should discover 
 an effectual method of destroying them, but in vain. The 
 standing crops of sugar cane were burnt down, and the earth 
 dug up: but no human means was found effective. At 
 length, in the year 1780, they were annihilated by the tor- 
 rents of rain which accompanied an awful hurricane, which 
 was most fatal in its effects to the other West India islands. 
 But it is only fair to state, after such an account of devasta- 
 tion, that such an occurrence is exceedingly rare; and that 
 thes3 all-devouring creatures, besides being admirable in 
 their household economy and laws, benefit us by removing 
 and destroying multitudes of tormenting insec'a and n ; 
 and in tlnir turn serve as food to thousands of other animals. 
 
 Several species of Mammalia, in foreign countries, arc ex- 
 pressly organized for restraining the undue increase of this 
 genus of insect (see Myrmacophaga), having claws of pro- 
 digious strength for making a breach into the strong walls of 
 the formicaries < f the exotic ants, and a long glutinous tongue 
 for sweeping off thousands of the disturbed community. In 
 England, the habitations of the various species of ants are 
 470 
 
 less conspicuous, but not less curious, than the formicaries 
 of tropical counliies. They are thus described by Kirby and 
 Spence : — 
 
 " The nest of the large red ants (F. rufa, L.), which are 
 common in woods, at the first aspect seems a very confused 
 mass. Exteriorly it is a conical mount, composed of pieces 
 of straw, fragments of wood, little stones, leaves, grains; in 
 short, of any portable materials within their reach ; but, 
 however rude its outward appearance, and the articles of 
 which it consists, interiorly it presents an arrangement admi- 
 rably calculated at once for a protection against the exces- 
 sive heat of the sun, and yet to retain a due proportion of 
 genial warmth. It is wholly composed of numerous small 
 apartments of different sizes, communicating with each oth- 
 er by means of galleries, and arranged in separate stories, 
 some very deep in the earth, others a considerable height 
 above it ; the former for the reception of the young in cold 
 weather and at night, the latter adapted to their use in the 
 daytime. In forming these, the ants mix the earth excava- 
 ted from the bottom of the nest with the other materials of 
 which the mount consists, and thus give solidity to the 
 whole. Besides the avenues which join the apartments to- 
 gether, other galleries, varying in dimensions, communicate 
 with the outside of the nest at the top of the mount. These 
 open doors would seem ill calculated for precluding the ad- 
 mission of wet or nocturnal enemies ; but the ants alter their 
 dimensions continually, according to circumstances; and 
 they wholly close them at night, when all gradually retire 
 to the interior, and a few sentinels only are left to guard the 
 gates. On rainy days, too, they keep them shut; and when 
 the sky is cloudy open them partially. 
 
 " The habitations of these ants are much larger than those 
 of any other species in this country, and sometimes as big as 
 a small haycock; but they are mere molehills when com- 
 pared with the enormous mounds which other species, ap- 
 parently of the same family, but much larger, construct in 
 warmer climates. Malouet states, that in the forests of Gui- 
 ana he once saw ant-hills which, though his companion 
 would not sutler hiin to approach nearer than forty paces for 
 fear of his being devoured, seemed to him to be fifteen or 
 twenty feet high, and thirty or forty feet in diameter at the 
 base, assuming the form of a pyramid, truncated at one third 
 of its height; and Stedman, when in Surinam, once passed 
 ant-hills six feet high, and at least one hundred feet in cir- 
 cumference. 
 
 "The nest of Formica brunvea, Latr., is composed wholly 
 of earth, and consists of a great number of stories sometimes 
 not fewer than forty, — twenty below the level of the soil, 
 and as many above ; which last, following the slope of the 
 ant-hill, are concentric. Each story, separately examined, 
 exhibits cavities in the shape of saloons, narrower apart- 
 ments, and long galleries, which preserve the communica- 
 tion between both. The arched roofs of the most spacious 
 rooms are supported by very thin walls, or occasionally by 
 small pillars and true buttresses; some having only one ent- 
 rance from above, others a second, communicating with the 
 lower story. The main galleries, of which in some places 
 several meet in one large saloon, communicate with other 
 subterranean passages, which are often carried to the dist- 
 ance of several feet from the hill. These insects work 
 chiefly after sunset. In building their nest, they employ soft 
 clay only, scraped from its bottom when sufficiently moisten- 
 ed by a shower, which, far from injuring, consolidates and 
 strengthens their architecture. Diffetent labourers convey 
 small masses of this ductile material between their mandi- 
 bles; and with the same instruments they spread and mould 
 it to their will, the antenna; accompanying every movement. 
 They render all firm by pressing the surface lightly with 
 their fore feet; and, however numerous the masses of clay 
 composing these walls, and though connected by no glutin- 
 ous material, they appear, when finished, one single layer, 
 well united, consolidated, and smoothed. Having traced the 
 plan of their structure, by placing here and there the foun- 
 dations of the pillars and partition walls, they add succes- 
 sively new portions; and when the walls of a gallery or 
 apartment, which are half a line thick, are elevated about 
 half an inch in height, they join them by springing a flatfish 
 arch or roof frrm one side to the other. Nothing can be a 
 more interesting spectacle than one of the cities while build- 
 ing. In one place, vertical walls form the outline, which 
 communicate with different corridors by openings made in 
 the masonry ; in another, we see a true saloon, w hose vaults 
 are supported by numerous pillars; and further on are the 
 cross w ays or squares where several streets meet, and whose 
 root's, though often more than two inches across, the ants are 
 under no difficulty in constructing, beginning the sides of the 
 arch in the angle formed by two walls, and extending them 
 by successive lavers of clay till they meet; while crowds of 
 masons arrive from all parts with tlnir particle of mortar, 
 am! work with a regularity, harmony, and activity which 
 can never enough be admired. So assiduous are they in 
 their operations, that they will complete a stoiy, with ail its
 
 FORMIC ACID. 
 
 saloons, vaulted roofs, partitions, and galleries, in seven or 
 eight hour?. If they begin a story, aud, for want of mois- 
 ture, are unable to finish it, they pull down again all the 
 crumbling apartments that are not covered in. 
 
 "Another species of ants (F. fusca, L.) are also masons. 
 The societies of F. fuliginosa, Latr., make their habitations 
 in the trunks of old oaks or willow trees, gnawing the wood 
 into numberless stories, more or less horizontal. Two other 
 tribes of carpenter ants (F. athiops, and F. flava, Latr.) use 
 saw-dust in forming their buildings. Some ants form their 
 nests of the leaves of trees. One of these was observed by 
 Sir Joseph Banks in New South Wales, which was formed 
 by glueing together several leaves as large as a hand. To 
 keep these leaves in a proper position, thousands of ants united 
 their strength ; and if driven away, the leaves spring back 
 with great violence." 
 
 FO'RMIC ACID. A sour liquor which ants eject when 
 irritated, and which was formerly obtained by bruising the 
 insects and distilling them, mixed with water: a peculiar 
 volatile acid passed over. It has been ascertained by Dobe- 
 reiner, that an analogous acid may be artificially obtained by 
 distilling, from a capacious retort, a mixture of 2 parts of tar- 
 taric acid, 3 of peroxide of manganese, and 3 of sulphuric 
 acid diluted with 5 of water. The tartaric acid acquires 
 oxygen from the oxide of manganese, and is resolved into 
 water, carbonic acid, and formic acid. From the analysis by 
 Berzelius of formiatc of lead, it appears that formic arid is a 
 compound of 2 atoms of carbon, 3 of oxygen, and 1 of hydro- 
 gen ; or of 2 atoms of carbonic oxide and 1 of water. 
 
 FORMICA'TION. (Lat. formica, an ant.) The creep- 
 ing sensation upon the skin, resembling the crawling of ants 
 over different parts of the body. 
 
 FO'RMULA. In Algebra, the expression of a theorem or 
 general rule for the solution of some problem. Thus the 
 area of a triangle is expressed in terms of its three sides, a, b, c, 
 and the semiperimeter, s, by the formula 
 
 y/ s (s — a) (s — b)(s — c). 
 
 FORMULA, or FORMULARY, in Medicine, &c, signi- 
 fies a prescription. 
 
 FORNES. A term occasionally applied by medical wri- 
 ters to the infectious causes of diseases. 
 
 FORNIX. (Lat.) An arch. In Anatomy, this term is 
 applied to a part of the corpus callosum of the brain, which, 
 when viewed in a particular direction, somewhat resembles 
 the shape of a Gothic arch. It is the medullary body, com- 
 posed of two anterior and two posterior crura, situated at 
 bottom and inside of the lateral ventricle, over the third ven- 
 tricle and below the septum lucidum. See Brain. 
 
 FO'RSTERITE. A mineral named after Mr. Forster ; it 
 forms brilliant and small crystals, colourless and translucent, 
 and is found at Vesuvius, accompanied by pyroxene. It 
 contains silica and magnesia, but has not been carefully 
 analyzed. 
 
 FORT. A castle or small fortress; a place of inconsider- 
 able extent, fortified by nature or art. Field-fort, or fortlet, 
 is a small fort, principally constructed for the defence of a 
 camp, or for defending a pass or post. 
 
 FO'RTE. (Ital.) In Music, a direction to the performer 
 to execute the part loudly to which the word is affixed. It 
 is indicated by the single letter F. If two F F's, thus, are 
 used, the part is to be played or performed fortissimo, very 
 loud. 
 
 FO'RTIFICATION, also called Military .Irchitecture, is 
 the art of constructing such works of defence as may enable 
 a comparatively small number of men to maintain possession 
 of a city or place against the assaults of a superior force. 
 
 The nature of constructions necessary for defence will be 
 determined by the means of aggression. In early ages, 
 when the sling and the bow formed the principal weapons 
 of offence, men considered themselves sufficiently defended 
 by a single wall or a bank of earth, from behind which they 
 could discharge their missiles against their assailants. In 
 progress of time projecting towers were added, which served 
 the double purpose of increasing the front of the besieeed, 
 and of enabling them to attack in flank the besiegers when 
 approaching to scale the wall. The invention of the batter- 
 ing ram rendered no other change necessary than that of in- 
 creasing the thickness and strength of the wall. To aid the 
 means of defence, projecting galleries were constructed at the 
 summit of the wall and round the towers, through the 
 pierced floors of which stones and other missiles were show- 
 ered down on the heads of the assailants. These galleries 
 were called -machicoulis or massecoulis, from the French 
 couler des jnasses ; because they served the purpose of en- 
 abling the besieged to let fall heavy masses, to which cords 
 were attached, in order that they might be drawn up again 
 and let fall anew when the enemy returned to sap. Aper- 
 tures or loop-holes for the discharge of arrows and javelins 
 were made in the battlements, or pierced in the walls; and 
 the defensive means were completed by surrounding the 
 whole place with a deep moat or ditch. But the invention 
 of gunpowder rendered it necessary to adopt an entirely dif- 
 
 FORTIFICATION. 
 
 ferent mode of defence. Walls of masonry, however thick, 
 can withstand for but a short time the assault of heavy ar- 
 tillery ; hence those successive circumvallalions and con- 
 structions of eartli which constitute the defences of a mod- 
 em fortress. 
 
 Happily for Great Britain, whose insular situation has ex- 
 empted her f:< m foreign invasion, her internal dissensions 
 have neither been so frequent nor so protracted as to render 
 the art of constructing permanent fortifications of much na- 
 tional importance. It has been on the continent of Europe, 
 where war has flourished in greater vigour, that the art has 
 been created and chiefly cultivated. A modem fortification 
 consists of a great number of parts, to which, for the purpos- 
 es of description, it is necessary to give distinct names; and 
 it would naturally happen that those who first contrived the 
 particular forms of the different parts would designate them 
 by names drawn from their own language. These appella- 
 tions, chiefly of French, but occasionally of Italian origin, 
 have been transferred into our language by the ignorance of 
 translators, and carefully retained through the pedantry of 
 our military engineers; so that all our works, without ex- 
 ception, which treat of fortification, are obscured by a mass 
 of barbarous jargon, through which it is difficult to catch a 
 glimpse of the few simple principles which determine the 
 forms of all defensive constructions. 
 
 Modern fortifications, though differing in some subordinate 
 details, which differences are dignified by the name of sys- 
 tems, closely resemble one another in all their essential 
 parts. In order to explain their structure, it will be conve- 
 nient to consider them first without reference to their form, or 
 the position of the ground lines in respect of each other, but 
 merely as defences against an army with artillery advancing 
 directly in front. The annexed figure represents a vertical 
 
 section of a regular fortification on the ground line X Y, tho 
 place to be defended being supposed between X and A. 
 The mass of earth ABC I) E F G II forms the rampart with 
 its parapet. A B is the interior slope of the rampart ; B C is 
 the terre-plcin of the rampart, having a breadth of about 40 
 feet, on which the troops and cannon are placed ; D E is 
 called the banquette, or step, on which the soldiers mount to 
 fire over the parapet; E F G is the parapet, of a height 
 (about 7 feet) sufficient to protect the men and guns on the 
 terre-plein, and sloped in the direction F G towards M, the 
 opposite edge of the ditch, so that a man approaching there 
 may be seen and fired at; G H is the exterior slope of the 
 parapet; H I is the revetment or wall of masonry supporting 
 the rampart, and strengthened by buttresses placed at small 
 intervals behind it. This must be of sufficient height to pre- 
 vent its being easily scaled ; but yet must not rise higher 
 than the edge of the exterior work at Q., in order that it may 
 not be seen and breached by distant batteries. The exterior 
 front of the rampart, covered with the revetment II K, is 
 called the escarp ; I K L M is the ditch, the dimensions of 
 which will be determined by the nature of the ground, but 
 must be such, in general, that its excavation or deblai must 
 produce sufficient earth or remblai to form the rampart ; the 
 opposite side of the ditch L M is the counterscarp, also sup- 
 ported by a revetment of masonry; M X is the covered way, 
 a space about 10 yards in breadth, having a banquette NOP, 
 and protected by a parapet P O, the superior slope of which, 
 Q. R, is called the glacis. The use of the covered way is to 
 allow troops to be drawn up, unseen by the besiegers, for the 
 purpose of making sorties; it also enables the garrison to 
 keep up a closer fire on the approaches of the enemy, and its 
 parapet forms a strong protection to the revetment of the 
 rampart. 
 
 It is easy to see that the strength of a place will be in- 
 creased by a succession of such works, so that when the be 
 sieged are driven from one they may retire to the next be- 
 hind it. Sometimes there are three ditche- with intermediate 
 works, or rather worts raised within the ditch itself, similar 
 to the rampart, though of a less height, in order that the guns 
 on the rampart may range above them. A work of this sort, 
 between the inner and the main ditch, is called a tcnaille; 
 that between the main ditch and the outer ditch is called a 
 ravelin. All works outside the ditch are called outicorks. 
 
 Before proceeding to construct a fortification, it is neces- 
 sary to lay down a plan. This will differ in some respects 
 according to the system adopted: but the following descrip- 
 tion, which properly belongs to Vauban's First System, will 
 explain the general method : When the work is regular, the 
 sides are all equal, and therefore the general foim will be 
 that of a polygon inscribed in a circle. The first thing to be 
 done is to determine on the number of sides. We shall sup- 
 pose them to be six, and the radius of the circumscribing cir- 
 cle to be 360 yards, when the construction will be as follows : 
 
 471
 
 FORTIFICATION. 
 
 Let A B, B C be two sides of a hexagon inscribed in a cir- 
 cle; each of these lines will lie equal to the radius, or 360 
 yards. Bisect A B in 1) ; draw the perpendicular D E, on 
 
 which set off D E. equal to one sixth of A B, or 60 yards; 
 draw the lines A E P and B E G, in which take A H and 
 B I, each equal to 100 yards, or five ninths of A D ; make 
 H F and I G each equal to the distance H I; then the line 
 A H G F I B is the principal outline of the front ; and by 
 making the same construction on each of the sides of the 
 hexagon, we obtain the principal outline of the whole for- 
 tification, or that by which the first figure of the work is de- 
 fined. 
 
 The part F I B K L is called the bastion, B I and B K are 
 the faces of the bastion; I F and K L are its flanks ; F L is 
 the gorge; G F is the curtain; A F and B G are the lines 
 of defence; B is the flanked angle; I and K are the angles 
 of the shoulder; G, F, L, and" M the angles of the flank. 
 From the points A and B as centres, and a radius of 40 yards, 
 describe circular arcs ; if lines be drawn from the opposite 
 angles of the shoulder H I to touch those arcs, the parts of 
 those lines a c, b c. together with the arc?, will represent the 
 counterscarp of the ditch. The curtain is defended by a 
 ravelin, which is constructed thus: From c, the re-entering 
 angle of the counterscarp, set eft" on the perpendicular D E, 
 a line c d, equal to 110 yards, and from d draw d c, d f, in 
 the directions of H and I, to meet the counterscarp ; then 
 d e and d f are the faces of the ravelin, and c c and c J' its 
 semigorges. The counterscarp g h i of the ditch of the rav- 
 elin is parallel to its faces, and rounded off at h. Stairs, call- 
 ed pas-dc-souris, are constructed to facilitate the descent 
 from the ravelin to the ditch. Besides the ravelin, there is 
 usually another appendage to the bastion and curtain. This 
 is the tenaille, represented in the figure by the parts p q made 
 in the direction of the lines of defence ; but it has sometimes 
 other forms. The tenaille is made in the ditch before the 
 curtain, with passages between the ends and the flanks of 
 the bastion. It is a low work, having its parapet only about 
 3 feet higher than the level ground of the ravelin, and its use 
 is to defend the bottom of the ditch by a grazing fire. 
 
 Such are the works which form the envelop of the place 
 fortified; but various other constructions are in most cases 
 added, according to the nature of the ground and other cir- 
 cumstances, for the purpose of protecting or strengthening 
 euch parts as are most exposed, or of interrupting the works 
 of the besiegers. These additional constructions are either 
 internal or external. Among the former are retrenchments 
 of various kinds, either constructed at the same time with the 
 principal works or thrown up during the siege. They are 
 made behind the ramparts, r the bastions most exposed to 
 attack, their use being to enable the garrison to continue the 
 defence from behind a fresh obstacle when a rampart or 
 bastion has been breached. When a hill or rising ground 
 overlooks any of the works, a cavalier is raised, about ten or 
 twelve feet higher than the rest of the works. This is com- 
 monly placed within the bastion when it has the same form, 
 but sometimes on the middle of the curtain when its form is 
 semicircular. Of the exterior works one of the most impor- 
 tant is the counttrguard, constructed to cover some of the 
 principal parts, as the bastion or 
 the cavalier, in such a manner that 
 without obstructing their fire it pre- 
 vents them from being breached 
 till itself is taken. The counter- 
 guard is constructed parallel with 
 the faces of the work it is destined 
 to cover; and it must he lower 
 than the principal work, though of 
 a sufficient height to screen its re- 
 vetment. A horn-work, represented in the annexed figure, 
 h composed of two branches, and a front composed of two 
 ! llf I. i-i ins and a curtain, resembling a front of the body of 
 the place. It is here represented as made before the curtain, 
 but it may be also constructed before a bastion. A crown- 
 work is of the same nature as a horn-work, but larger, and 
 having two fronts, which give it somewhat the appearance 
 of a crown. Horn- works and crown-works are constructed 
 where a large spot of ground lies beyond the fortification 
 which might be advantageous to an enemy, or to cover a gate 
 or entrance into a town. Lunettes, a, a, are placed on both 
 472 
 
 sides of the ravelin, and are constructed 
 on lines bisecting the faces of the rave- 
 lin at right angles. A bonnet, b, is a 
 work covering Ihe salient angle of the , 
 ravelin. Tenaillons are similar in con- 
 struction to lunettes, but having one of their faces formed on 
 lines which are the production of the faces of the ravelin, 
 instead of bisecting those faces. The application of all these 
 and other works of a similar description depends on the na- 
 ture of the localities; and it must be left to the judgment of 
 the engineer to determine in each particular case which is 
 best adapted to the ground. 
 
 We have already alluded to the use and importance of the 
 covered way. In order to increase its strength traverses, or 
 portions of parapet, are thrown across it, which screen it 
 from an enfilading fire, and enable the defenders to dispute 
 its possession foot by foot. Places of arms, or places for as- 
 sembling troops, and protected by traverses and redoubts, are 
 also formed on it at the re-entering and salient angles of the 
 counterscarp. The redoubts serve not only as a place of re- 
 treat, but facilitate the making of sorties upon the enemy's 
 lodgments. 
 
 The descriptions given above belong more especially to 
 that method of fortification which, in the military schools, is 
 denominated Vauban's first system. Marshal Vauban served 
 in the wars of Louis XIV., and in the course of his life direct- 
 ed the construction of thirty-three new fortresses, and the im- 
 provement of three hundred others. From the different con- 
 structions observed in these works have been compiled his 
 three systems ; which, however, in a general view of the sub- 
 ject, may be considered as only differing in points of detail, 
 or in a greater or less degree of complication. In his second 
 system, represented in the annexed figure, he separated the 
 bastions from the body of the place by a ditch about 40 feet 
 wide, in order that the besieger, after 
 the breach and capture of the bas- 
 tions, might be compelled to renew T-C/ ^j^Vr ry't 
 his operations against his enceinte or ~4%f ''v'v^"* 
 
 body of the place. The angles of the ^ 
 
 polygon are crowned by pentagonal towers of masonry, call- 
 ed tower bastions, to which, in fact, the regular bastions only 
 form counterguards. It was from a desire to take advantage 
 of these tower bastions, which he found already existing at 
 Landau when called upon to fortify that place, that he was 
 led to adopt the system in question. Vauban's third system 
 does not differ in any materal respect from the second. He 
 increased the size of the ravelin, and gave 
 it a redoubt. The tower bastions were 
 likewise made larger, and the curtail ^ 
 which united them was broken inwards, 
 so as to form two small flanks under- 
 neath ; while casements for cannon were constructed, to co 
 operate with those of the tower bastions in the defence of 
 the ditch. 
 
 Cochorn's System. — Contemporary with Vauban was the 
 Baron de Coehorn, director-general of the fortifications of the 
 United Provinces of Holland. This celebrated engineer is 
 also the author of three different systems, though the third 
 has never been constructed. His methods are only applica- 
 ble m low swampy countries, like Holland; and the object 
 which he kept principally in view was to throw such obsta- 
 cles in the way of a besieging force that the place could only 
 be approached with great difficulty and hazard. This he 
 sought to accomplish by covering and flanking his works 
 more effectually than had previously been done, and by de- 
 priving the assailant of the room necessary for erecting his 
 batteries. An idea of his methods may be formed from the 
 annexed figure, which respresents his first system. It is con- 
 structed on a hexagon ; the sec- 
 ond was on a heptagon, and the 
 third on an octagon. And it may , 
 be remarked of his systems in 
 general, that they differ from 
 Vauban's principally in the great- 
 er width of the ditch (which is nearly twice as wide as in 
 Vauban's systems) and the narrow space between the flanks. 
 Coehorn's principles have been adopted in the construction 
 of the fortresses of Nimeguen, Breda, Manheim, Namur, and 
 Bergen-op-zoom. 
 
 ( brnumtaigTie's System. — The methods of Vauban were 
 improved in many essentia] respects by Cormontaigne, a 
 French officer of engineers, who died in 1750. In the sys- 
 tem which he adopted, and which is 
 here represented, the faces of the bas- 
 tion are made longer than in Vauban's 
 methods, and the flanks are placed at J^'y 
 right angles with the faces of the oppo- ">/ 
 site bastions. The enlargement of the 
 bastion renders it capable of containing interior retrench- 
 ment- ; and the flanks, though shortened, are better covered. 
 His ravelins are also constructed on a larger base, and con- 
 tain a larger redoubt, from which the besiegers, can keep up 
 
 ■*^b^ 
 
 ^x s=r "\;
 
 FORTIFICATIONS. 
 
 a reverse fire on breaches made in the collateral bastions; j the height of the parapet arc in field-works necessarily limit- 
 bo that the assault upon the latter becomes impracticable ed to what can be effected by these simple means, 
 until the ravelin and its redoubt are both captured The com- ™*™*" '■» «"»r ^ed- mtt^ftree classes : 
 bination round the extremities of the traverses ot the covered j Woik^open at^the gorge 
 way are arrar.eed in a zig-zag line ; so that the passage round 
 the extremity of one traverse is defended by the fire of another 
 in its rear, and the advance of the assailants along the cover- 
 ed way thereby checked. In general, Cormontaigne's sys- 
 tem possesses greater defensive properties, and is more eco- 
 nomical of materials. 
 Modern System— -The annexed figure represents v. hat is 
 
 called the modem system : it varies but little from that of 
 Cormontaigne. The ravelin is made to cover the shoulder 
 of the bastion more effectually by a greater projection, and 
 its faces are retrenched by coupurcs or cuts through the ram- 
 part, perpendicular to the faces of the bastion, which pre- 
 vent the enemy from taking the redoubt in the re-entering 
 place of arms without first possessing himself of the redoubt 
 in the ravelin. 
 
 All the systems above enumerated, however they may 
 differ in details, agree in their principal features, and present 
 the same general outline. They may be all included under 
 the name of the bastion system. Some engineers, however, 
 among the most celebrated of whom are Montalembert and 
 Carnot, have pointed out defects which appear to be inherent 
 in the system, and proposed to give the polygon a different 
 form. By suppressing the curtain and the tenaille, and pro- 
 ducing the faces of the bastions inward, a line of rampart 
 would be formed presenting simply a succession of salient 
 and re-entering angles. According to this plan, the defence 
 is made to depend on the number of reverse fires that can be 
 maintained from casemated (i. e., bomb-proof) batteries ; but 
 as the plan has never been practically carried into effect, it 
 is unnecessary to enter into particulars. In the present state 
 of the military art, a fortress can be regarded as nothing more 
 than a means of stemming for a time the torrent of an in- 
 vading force. Such is the superiority of the means of attack 
 over those of defence, that however strong the works may 
 be, and however skilfully disposed, their reduction, when 
 assailed by adequate means, is, generally speaking, a matter 
 of absolute certainty. The besieging army, sheltered by its 
 trenches from the missiles of the garrison, advances in zig- 
 zag lines parallel to the faces of the ramparts, till it passes 
 over or circumvents all the exterior defences of the place, 
 and arrives at the main wall, where a breach has been made 
 by batteries erected for the purpose. To this covered mode 
 of attack, supported by the ricochet batteries, by which the 
 defenders are driven from the ramparts and the guns dis- 
 mounted, it is perhaps impossible to offer any effectual re- 
 sistance. Indeed, such is the protection to which the art of 
 attack has been reduced, that even the length of time which 
 any fortress will be able to hold out against an enemy pro- 
 vided with the proper train of sappers and miners, and the 
 implements necessary for carrying on their operations, may 
 be computed with the greatest precision. 
 
 Field Fortification. — Field Fortification is the art of con- 
 structing all kinds of temporary works for assisting the opera- 
 tions of an army in the field, and enabling it to maintain 
 a position against a superior force. In the disposition and 
 construction of such works, the engineer must have regard 
 to the nature of the locality, and endeavour to turn to the 
 ben account all its natural advantages, as well as the build- 
 ings, enclosures &c, which may be found on it : and there 
 
 es: 
 Works enclosed all round ; 
 and, 3. Lines either continued or with intervals. To the first 
 class belong redans, single and double, tcnailled heads, and 
 bastioiied heads ; to the second, redoubts, star forts, and bas- 
 tioned forts ; and to the third, lines of various kinds for de- 
 fending a position. The redan is the sim- 
 plest of all works, consisting merely of two 
 lines, A B and A C, forming an angle with 
 each other. It is only employed for such 
 purposes as defending the avenues of a vil- jjf 
 lage, bridge, or defile. The length given itp| 
 is usually about 50 yards. When the redan 
 is thrown out in front of other works it is called a fleche, or 
 arrow. Lunettes are also applied for similar purposes, and 
 are formed by adding two parallel faces, B D and C E, to the 
 redan, at the extremities of its open flanks. The double r»- 
 dan, or bonnet de pritre, consists of two 
 faces, A B and C D ; and two flanks, A E 
 and C E, usually shorter than the faces, 
 and affording a reciprocal defence to each _ 
 other. The re-entering angle at E should B 
 be a right angle ; if it is less, the two flanks are in danger of 
 being struck by each other's fire ; and if it is much greater 
 than a right angle, the defence will be weakened: for it ia 
 found by experience that soldiers placed behind a screen in- 
 variably fire strait before them, or at right angles to the 
 screen. When a greater extent of front is to be fortified, the 
 lines are disposed in the form of bastions or tenailles, and 
 thence called bastioned heads and tenail/ed heads. 
 
 Redoubts are works closed on all sides, of a polygonal or 
 quadrilateral figure, and usually square. An opening is left 
 in one of the sides, for communication with the exterior, and 
 a traverse is thrown up within for protection. As the work 
 is without flanks, the ditches are left without defence. The 
 ansles are sometimes rounded, or cut off, in order that a 
 fire may be maintained on an assailant advancing in the 
 direction of the diagonal. 
 
 Star forts arc enclosed works constructed upon an equi- 
 lateral triangle or a square. In the former case they have 
 six point- 1 , in the latter eight. When constructed on a square 
 each of the sides (which may be about 90 
 yards long) is divided into three equal 
 parts, and on the middle part an equi- 
 lateral triangle is constructed, which gives 
 the trace of the figure. The object of 
 this work is to remedy the defects of the 
 redoubt by flanking the angles of the 
 square; but as a considerable space is 
 consumed by the re-entering angles, it 
 scarcely admits of sufficient troops and artillery being placed 
 in it for its defence. 
 
 Bastioned forts are constructed in the field on the same 
 principles as in permanent works; but A 
 are only constructed on the square or 
 pentagon. The distance A B, or ex- 
 terior side of the polygon, should not 
 exceed the range of musketry, or about 
 200 yards. They are employed only 
 in fortifying important positions, and 
 require, accordingly, to be constructed 
 in a more solid manner than other 
 works of a temporary nature. 
 
 The last class of field-works comprehends lines of va- 
 rious descriptions. Continued lines are constructed to en- 
 close a front, or connect principal works with one another 
 by a continued parapet. They are constructed, according to 
 circumstances, with redans, tenailles, or bastions, placed at 
 certain intervals, seldom exceeding 180 yards. From the 
 descriptions given above, the different forms of the redan line, 
 tenaille line, and bastion line will be readily conceived. 
 Sometimes they are formed of a succession of faces and 
 flanks at right angles. In this case they are called lines-en- 
 cremaittiires. The flanks 
 are about a four'h of the 
 length of the faces, and afford a defence to the ditches. 
 
 is no part of his art in which talent and skill are so requisite, 
 or in which he must rely so exclusively on the resources of 
 his own judgment. On account of the endless varieties and ' Lines with intervals consist of isolated works, as redans or 
 
 accidents of the ground on which he has to act, the observance 
 of fixed rules is, indeed, impracticable : nevertheless there 
 are certain general maxims which apply to the construction 
 of fortifications of all kinds, whether temporary or permanent, 
 and which must be observed in all his operations. For ex- 
 ample, works constructed to flank others, must not be at so 
 great a distance as to be beyond the effective range of mus- 
 ketry: the angles of defence should be nearly right angles. 
 and the salient angles as obtuse as possible. The general 
 nature of defensive works is also the same in all cases, name- 
 ly, a ditch and a parapet ; though, as the pick-axe and the 
 Bpade are the only implements which an armv in the field 
 can carry about with it, the depth and width of the ditch and 
 
 redoubts, placed at distances which shoidd not exceed 200 
 yards, and so as to aff ird one another a mutual defence. 
 
 Besides the works now enumerated, various expedients 
 are resorted to in order to prevent, or at least to render more 
 dirnrult the approaches of an enemy. Among these are 
 palisades, abatis, trous-de-coup, ehevaux-dc-frizc, crowi' 
 feet, &c. 
 
 The principal authors on Fortification are Errard, Stevinus, 
 Antoine de Ville, Compte de Pagan, Coehorn, Vauban, Mal- 
 let, Belidor, Blondel, Montalembert, Bisset, Bousmard, Car- 
 not, Mouze, &c. For a practical treatise the reader may be 
 referred to the ar:ic!e " Fortificatior." in the Ency. Metro 
 poliiaim. 
 
 F f* 473
 
 FOIITRESS. 
 
 FORTRESS. Any fortified place. (See the preceding 
 article.) 
 
 FORTIN, FORTKET. A sconce or small fort. 
 
 FORTU NA. In Mythology, the goddess who presided 
 over the destinies of mankind, and, generally speaking, over 
 all the events of life. She was represented as blind, with 
 winged feet, and resting on a wheel. This goddess was not 
 known in the more ancient systems of the Greek theogony: 
 all the guidance of human affairs, for instance, is intrusted 
 by Homer to Destiny; but in Italy, and chiefly at Rome, Ac- 
 tiuni, and Pneneste, her worship was most assiduously cul- 
 tivated. 
 
 FO'RUM. (Lat) In Ancient Architecture, a public mar- 
 ket; also a place where the common courts were kept, and 
 matters of judgment pleaded. The fora of the Romans were 
 large open squares surrounded by porticoes; parts of which 
 answered for the market-places, other parts for public meet- 
 ings of the inhabitants, and other parts for courts of justice. 
 The forum was also occasionally used for shows of gladia- 
 tors. There were in Rome seventeen; of these fourteen 
 were for the sale of goods, provisions, and merchandize, and 
 called Fora Venalia ; the other three were for civil and judi- 
 cial proceedings, and called Fora Civiliaet Judicialia: of the 
 latter sort was the forum of Trajan, of which the Trajan 
 column formed the principal ornament. The forum of the 
 Romans was identical with ayopa of the Greeks. 
 
 FO'SSA (Lat. fossa, a trench), in Zoology, is applied to 
 certain depressions on the external surface; generally the 
 seat of cutaneous glands, as the lachrymal fossa in deer and 
 antelopes, the jugular fossa, inguinal fossa, &c. 
 
 FOSSA t>\ A LIS. Adepression in the right auricle of 
 the heart, which in the foetal state opened into the left auri- 
 cle, forming the foramen ovale. 
 
 FOSSE (Fr.), in Fortification, is the moat or ditch sur- 
 rounding the rampart. See Fortification. 
 
 FO'SSIL. (Lat fodio, I dig.) Literally, anything dug 
 out of the earth. The term is now chiefly confined to or- 
 ganic remains. 
 
 FOSSIL FARINA. A soft carbonate of lime. 
 
 FOSSO'RES. (Lat. fodio, I dig.) An extensive group 
 of Aculeate Hymenopterous insects, most of the species of 
 which are organized for excavating cells in earth or wood, 
 in which they bury other insects in a wounded and feeble 
 state, and at the same time deposit their eng.s ; so that the 
 larva, when hatched, find a store of food prepared for their 
 sustenance. The Fossorial Hymenoptera are solitary in 
 their habits ; and some species, which have not the requisite 
 structure of the legs for burrowing, are parasitic, and, like 
 the cuckoo among birds, lay their eggs in the nests of other 
 species, at whose expense the voting are reared. 
 
 FOSSO'RIAL. (Lat. fodio, I dig.) In Zoology, animals 
 which dig their retreats and seek their food in the earth are 
 so called. The locomotive extremities, which are organ- 
 ized for burrowing, as those of the mole, or mole-cricket, are 
 called " pedes fossorii." 
 
 FO'SSULATE. (Lat. fossa, a trench.) When a surface 
 presents one or more somewhat long and narrow depres- 
 sions. 
 
 FO'THER, or FODDER, A SADL. This is thrumming a 
 sail ; and covering it with loose stuff, and then passing it un- 
 der the bottom of a ship that has sprung a leak or been 
 aground : the pressure of the water forces the sail against 
 the bottom, and partly stops the leak. 
 
 FOUGASS. In Fortification, a small mine, from 6 to 8 
 feet under ground. It is derived from the Lat. focata. 
 
 FOUL. The term applied to the wind when contrary ; 
 also to the bottom when uneven and rocky. Set Anchor, 
 Fall, Hawse. 
 
 FOUXDA'TIOX. (Fr. fondation.) In Architecture, the 
 lower part of a wall, on which the insistent wall is raised, 
 and always of much greater thickness than such i 
 wall. A practice has lately been introduced in tin- 
 try of laying foundations (if not in water) on a bed of what 
 is called concrete, which i* a mixture of rough small . 
 or large gravel -tone- with sand and stone, lime and water, 
 with just enough of the lime to act as a ccmentitious medium, 
 with the best effect Set Concrete. 
 
 FOUNDA Tl< INS. (Lat. fundo, / institute.) In Politi- 
 cal Economy, the generic name given to institutions establish- 
 ed and endowed by individuals, associations, or the public, 
 for the promotion of what is believed to be, at the time when 
 the foundation is made, some useful or benevolent purpose. 
 In most old-settled and rich countries then' are fi 
 tions for a vast variety of objects. During the Middle Ages, 
 it was very common to bequeath property for the founda- 
 tion of monastic institutions and scholastic establishments. 
 The two great universities of Oxford and Cambridge are no- 
 ble examples of the last species of foundations; and by far 
 the greater number of the grammar and free schools in mi -t 
 parts of England, and indeed of Europe, owe their origin to 
 the same source. A great deal of property has also been 
 bequeathed by benevolent individuals in this and other 
 474 
 
 FOUNDLING HOSPITALS. 
 
 countries for the erection and endowment of hospitals, or 
 foundations of various descriptions, for the relief and assist- 
 i l the poor; aud not unfrequently also property is ap- 
 propriated, or foundation instituted, for the amusement and 
 recreation of the public. 
 
 Rut notwithstanding the large amount of property that has 
 been appropriated in most countries to the establishment of 
 foundations, and their extreme importance in a public point 
 of view, it may appear rather singular that the principles and 
 conditions on which they should be established are far from 
 being well ascertained. No one can doubt that it is highly 
 expedient to allow individuals or associations to institute 
 foundations or to bequeath property for the promotion of bene- 
 ficial public purposes. But admitting this, the knotty ques- 
 tion arises, how far should the legislature go in authorizing 
 private parties to lay down the conditions under which the 
 property so bequeathed, or the foundation, is to be adminis- 
 tered. If, on the one hand, government interference be car- 
 ried too far, the institution of foundations will be discouraged ; 
 and if, on the other hand, government do not interfere at all, 
 the folly or the presumption of individuals will be allowed to 
 legislate for all future ages; and a large amount of property 
 may be appropriated for the support of institutions, which, 
 though once believed to be beneficial, experience may prove 
 to be disadvantageous. The regulation of foundations is, 
 therefore, a matter of at least as much difficult}- as importance, 
 and involves a great variety of considerations. It is impossi- 
 ble, perhaps, to lay down any principles with respect to it 
 that should apply to all cases ; but some leading positions may 
 notwithstanding be established, that should always be kept in 
 \ iew and referred to. We shall endeavour to state some of 
 these in our articles on Property (Right of), Wills and 
 Testaments, Universities, &c. to which we beg to refer. 
 
 FOU'XDIXG, or FOUNDRY. The building in which 
 various metals are cast into moulds or shapes. Such of the 
 details of the processes carried on in the respective metal 
 foundries as are consistent with the plan of this work, will be 
 found under the heads of the metals to which they refer. 
 The furnaces used in fusing and founding metals are various- 
 ly constructed, according to the nature of the metal and the 
 quantity to be operated upon ; and frequenUy two or more 
 furnaces of different constructions are employed in the same 
 foundry. The wind furnace, blast furnace, and reverberatory 
 furnace, are the forms which are most generally employed. 
 The wind furnace is either square or circular, and varies in 
 dimensions, according to the size of the crucibles which it 
 is intended to contain, and which are placed upon proper 
 supports, resting generally upon the bars or grating of the 
 furnace. It has three apertures; one above, for the purpose 
 of introducing the crucible and fuel, and which is usually 
 closed by a fire tile or brick ; another below, for the purpose 
 of admitting the air, so as to pass through the grate and fuel, 
 and up the chimney ; and the third communicating with the 
 chimney, whicli should be lofty and supplied with a damper, 
 for the purpose of regulating the draught of air through the 
 fireplace, and consequently also the heat produced. 
 
 The blast furnace differs from the preceding in having no 
 grating, and in the air being supplied by a bellows or blowing 
 machine. The construction of these furnaces is much varied, 
 according to circumstances; but the largest and most perfect 
 are those- employed in the iron works. 
 
 The reverberatory furnace is so constructed, that the flame 
 and hot air are directed into a separate cavity intermediate 
 between it and the chimney : in this cavi:y. commonly called 
 the hearth, the materials to be fused are placed ; and there is 
 an aperture connected with it by which the fused metal is 
 suffered to run out or through which it may be removed in 
 ladles for the purpose of supplying the moulds. 
 
 The materials of whicli the moulds are formed are very 
 various. In some cases, as in stereotype founding, they con- 
 sist of plaster of Paiis ; jn bronze works for figures and statues, 
 they are made of a mixture of plaster of Paris, sand, and 
 brick-dust, and require the utmost skill and care in their 
 preparation. Iron is usually cast in sand; brass and other 
 metals in clay ; and very frequently the moulds are made of 
 cast iron. 
 
 FOU'NDLING HOSPITALS, [n those ancient nations 
 with the details of whose social life we are acquainted, the 
 practice of exposing new-born infants seems to have been, as 
 it is at this day in China, a species of legitimate infanticide. 
 .Neither Plato nor Aristotle, nor in general any political wri- 
 ters of antiquity, condemn i; ; they merely profess to lay down 
 rules for tin 1 preservatii n of the healthier and .stronger, at 
 the expense of the more w eakly. Among the Greeks, a more 
 tender mother chose the market-place, or some temple, far 
 the exposure of her child, in order to have the chance of 
 some charitable hand succouring it: if its death was desired, 
 it was abandoned in solitary places; and their dramas and 
 romances are full of narratives in which this custom forms 
 the foundation of the interest. Thebes, m republican Greece, 
 is the only state in which the exposure of children is known 
 to have been forbidden by law. The practice of exposure
 
 FOUNDLING HOSPITALS. 
 
 was common i;i republican Rome: the law is doubtful. The 
 street called Vclabrum (Juvenal, Sat., vi.), and the column 
 called Lactaria (from this circumstance, according to some 
 antiquaries) were places usually selected lbr the purpose. 
 Abandoned children were declared by law to be the Slaves 
 or absolute property of those by whom they were brought up ; 
 and several were saved from death, not from humane mo- 
 tives, but that their foster-fathers might, by mutilating their 
 persons and exhibiting them in the streets, derive an in- 
 famous livelihood from the alms given them by the paaaen 
 gers. At length the progress of Christianity put an end to 
 these disgusting enormities. The exposure of children was 
 made a punishable offence in A.D. 374 ; and their slavery 
 was abolished by an edict of Justinian in 530. 
 
 Infanticide has most properly been prosecuted with the ut- 
 most rigour, and made a capital offence in almost all modern 
 countries. But it was early supposed that were the ex- 
 posure or abandonment of children wholly prohibited, there 
 would, despite of all that could be done to prevent it, be a 
 great deal of infanticide. In consequence of the prevalence 
 of this feeling, it has been customary in the Christian world, 
 from a remote period, to connive at the abandonment of 
 children, and to provide means for the support of those that 
 might be abandoned ; and hence the origin of Foundling 
 Hospitals. 
 
 The first distinct trace of an express foundation for found- 
 lings is at Milan in 787. In 1070 the order of Brothers of the 
 Holy Ghost was established, with the express purpose of 
 taking care of sick, orphans, and foundlings. After that time 
 this species of foundations rapidly multiplied in every part, of 
 Europe. But while private beneficence was thus exerted in 
 their behalf, the Church, which in the earlier period had un- 
 dertaken the general care of them, seems by degrees to have 
 thrown on the commonalty, in most European countries, the 
 charge of nourishing such as were not received into any of 
 the foundations. Traces of legal contests between the reli- 
 gious and civil establishments on this subject are to be found 
 in the history of France through the whole 16th century. 
 The uncertain state of tho law rendered their preservation in 
 that country extremely precarious. St. Vincent de Paule, in 
 the 17th century, undertook their cause ; and the foundation 
 of the great Foundling Hospital of Paris, in 1070, is due to 
 his efforts. In the provinces, and in most Catholic countries, 
 and in those under the Greek church, public charity took the 
 same direction. 
 
 It has been customary in these establishments to receive 
 all children brought to them, without inquiring whether they 
 were the fruit of regular marriages or of illicit amours! It 
 seems idle to deny that the multiplication of such establish- 
 ments, by providing a ready way for disposing of children, 
 must have hindred a few cases of infanticide ; but the injury 
 they have done to public morals, and the waste of human 
 life that they have occasioned, are ten times greater evils 
 than any they have obviated. It is long, indeed, since well- 
 informed persons in this and other countries were aware of 
 the pernicious tendency of foundling hospitals ; and it is proba- 
 ble that, at no very distant period, they will be everywhere 
 suppressed. In France the multiplication of these hospitals, 
 and of exposures, has called at last the attention of the pub- 
 lic to the frightful immorality, mortality, and expense which 
 attend it. In 1680, ten years after its foundation, the great 
 hospital at Paris admitted 890 ; in 1750, 4000 ; in 1830, nearly 
 8000. In all France there were nourished at the public ex- 
 pense in 1784, 40,000 children ; in 1809, 69,000 ; 1826, 118,000. 
 The number is now about 130,000. It varies greatly in the 
 different departments ; being greatest in the north, centre, and 
 south ; least in the eastern departments bordering on Ger- 
 many, and in the western, or Britanny, La Vendee, &c. 
 And the statistics of France plainly show, as Messrs. Terme 
 and Montfalcon, tile authors of the most comprehensive work 
 on the subject, explicitly declare, that it is "not poverty, but 
 luxury, which produces exposures." The two great measuri s 
 for reducing the burden, which have lately been partially 
 put in execution, are the suppression of the turning-boxes, or, 
 in other words, rendering the abandonment public ; and the 
 removal of the new-born children into another department, 
 which, it is said, always produces, when tried, a great reduc- 
 tion in the number of exposures. In Italy, Belgium, &c, 
 similar institutions prevail, and a similar increase of burden 
 has of late years been felt. It has, no doubt, been augmented 
 by the improvement which has taken place in the manage- 
 ment of these unfortunate creatures. Formerly death soon 
 relieved the institutions of their maintenance. Towards the 
 end of the last century, 80 per cent, of the children are said 
 to have died at Paris in a single year ; 90 at Marseilles ; 91 at 
 Dublin. The mortality is now much diminished; though it 
 is thought that in France nearly 60 per cent, still die in their 
 first year. The whole number of children annually exposed 
 is said to be, at St. Petersburgh, about 45 per cent, of those 
 born; Rome, 28; Lisbon, 26; Vienna, 23; Paris, 21. In 
 England, Captain Thomas Coram is celebrated for his estab- 
 lishment of the Foundling Hospital in 1739. It was extreme- 
 
 FOUNTAIN OF HERO. 
 
 ly popular at the time, and for many years was assisted by 
 frequent votes of parliament. Similar institutions were pro- 
 jected in other parts of the country ; but the enormous in- 
 crease of abandonments, and the expense which they occa- 
 sioned, produced such an alteration in public opinion, that the 
 system of the Foundling Hospital was entirely altered ; and, 
 notwithstanding its name, it is now destined merely for the 
 reception of orphans. Abandoned children in England be- 
 come burdens to the parish in which they are found. 
 
 We may remark, by the way, that the statements now laid 
 before the reader, as to the injurious influence of foundling 
 hospitals, strikingly corroborate the principles laid down in 
 the article Foundations, as to the necessity of the legisla- 
 ture exercising a certain control over the property left to pro- 
 mote what is believed to be at the time a charitable or be- 
 nevolent purpose. (See Gouraff, Essai sur les Enfans 
 Trouvis, 1819; Quart. Rev., vol. xi. ; VAbbe Gaillard, 
 Hecherches, 1837 ; and the excellent work of Messrs. Terme 
 and Montfalcon, already cited, Histoire des Enf. Trouvis, 
 1837.) 
 
 FOUNT. (Fr. fonds.) The quantity of types of any par- 
 ticular sort in a printing office, whether it be great or small. 
 Thus a small fount may consist of fifty or one hundred 
 pounds weight, comprising the usual proportion of the various 
 letters of the alphabet; and a large fount of thirty or forty 
 thousand pounds weight, or more. 
 
 FOU'NTAIN. (Lat fons.) By this term is designated 
 any natural or artificial apparatus by means of which water 
 springs up. In natural fountains the ascensional effort is pro- 
 duced by the hydrostatic pressure of the water itself; in arti- 
 fical fountains it is produced either by the same pressure, or 
 by that of compressed air, or sometimes by machinery. 
 
 The theory of natural fountains is extremely simple, and 
 depends on the well-known property of fluids — that, when 
 enclosed in tubes or vessels communicating with one another, 
 the fluid rises to the same level in all of them ; and that its 
 pressure on the sides of the tube at any point is proportional 
 to the height of the vertical column above that point. Sup- 
 pose a b and c d to be two pipes communicating „ ,, 
 with each other, and that water is poured into 
 the first at a ; it will ascend equally in both 
 tubes, though they may be of very different 
 sizes, and stand at the same level a c. Let us 
 now suppose the tube c d to be cut away at d, jj 
 and let the line b d be horizontal ; then the 
 pressure at d being the same as at //, the water 
 will spring from d with a velocity \' = 2^/ gh, 
 where g is the accelerating force of gravity (equal to 32 feet 
 in a second of time), and h is the altitude of the column a b. 
 (See Hydrodynamics.) The water, therefore, if it suffered 
 no resistance from the air, or other impediment, would spring 
 up from d to c. 
 
 Now it is precisely on this principle that all natural foun- 
 tains are explained. The rain which falls from the atmo- 
 sphere is absorbed in three different ways. One part of it 
 collects in rills on the surface of the ground ; these unite in 
 streams or rivulets, which flowing into one another form 
 rivers, and thus it is conveyed to the ocean. A second part 
 is taken up in giving humidity to the soil, from which it is 
 returned to the atmosphere by evaporation. A third portion 
 descends into the earth, through soils of a spongy or porous 
 nature, or through crevices and interstices in the strata, until 
 it meets, frequently at a very considerable depth, with strata 
 through which it cannot penetrate, and is then collected in 
 subterraneous reservoirs. When confined in this manner it 
 is subject to the pressure of the water which fills the channels 
 through which it has descended ; and when this pressure is 
 sufficient to overcome the resistance of the superincumbent 
 mass of earth, the water breaks the artificial strata, and gush- 
 es forth in a spring. But if the strength of the superincum- 
 bent materials exceed the hydrostatic pressure, the water will 
 remain stored up as it were in the subterraneous reservoir. 
 Now if the ground above such a reservoir, or any channel 
 communicating with it, be perforated, the water, having free 
 access to the opening, will rise in it till it attains the level of 
 the highest part of the channels from which it is supplied. 
 If this level is above the surface of the ground, the water will 
 have a tendency to rise ; and when the ascensional force is 
 considerable, it may by proper means be formed into a fount- 
 ain. That subterraneous reservoirs formed in this manner 
 exist in great abundance, and at great depths under the sur- 
 face, we have sufficient evidence in the facility with which 
 water may be obtained in almost all countries from Artesian 
 Wells. 
 
 FOUNTAIN OF HERO. An ingenious hydraulic ma- 
 chine, of which the invention is ascribed to Hero of Alex- 
 andria, who lived about 150 years before our era. Its princi- 
 ple depends on the transmission of the pressure sustained by 
 a body of water in one vessel to that in another by means of 
 the elasticity of air. The essential parts of the apparatus 
 consist of two close vessels, A and B, the first placed at 
 some height above the other, and connected by a frame ; and 
 
 475
 
 ftg. 1. Fig. 2. 
 
 FOUNTAIN. 
 
 of three tubes or pipes, of which the 
 first, a b, descends from a basin C to 
 very near the bottom of the lower 
 vessel B ; the second, c d, rises from 
 the summit of the vessel B to the 
 top of A; the third, ef, rising from 
 the lower part of A to some height 
 above A, and forming the jet at /. 
 Conceive the vessel A to be filled 
 with water, and B with air. In this 
 disposition of the apparatus, let water 
 be poured into the basin C ; this will 
 descend the pipe a b, and gradually 
 fill the vessel B. But as it rises in B the 
 air in that vessel escapes through the 
 pipe c d, and is compressed at the top of A, and, by its spring 
 or elasticity, forces the water through the tubes ef, and thus 
 produces a jet at /, which will continue until the vessel A is 
 nearly emptied, or B nearly filled. The force which pro- 
 duces the jet is equal to the pressure of a column of water, 
 the height of which is equal to the ditference of the levels 
 of the water in C and B : according to theory, therefore, the 
 water should spout to a height above its level in A equal to 
 that distance. 
 
 The second figure represents the fountain of Hero in an- 
 other form. An apparatus constructed on this principle is 
 employed for draining the water from the mines of Schem- 
 nitz in Hungary. 
 
 Artificial fountains are also produced by means of the elas- 
 ticity of heated air, or of air condensed by any other means. 
 Two different apparatus for this purpose are frequently met 
 with in cabinets of natural philosophy. The 
 first consists of two close vessels of tin, placed 
 the one above the other, the lower one, C D 
 E F, being of a considerable size ; and the 
 upper, ABCD, furnished with a tube or jet, 
 K L, which reaches to near the bottom of the 
 vessel. On applying the heat of a lamp to 
 the lower vessel, the air within it expands, 
 and making its way through the open tube 
 G H is compressed at the top of the vessel 
 ABCD, and thus by its pressure forces the 
 J F water in that vessel through K L, forming a 
 small jet at K. This apparatus being generally constructed in 
 the form of a temple, produces a very pleasing effect. 
 
 The other apparatus to which we have alluded exhibits 
 the appearance of a fire-fountain, and when neatly construct- 
 ed forms an exceedingly elegant toy. On a pedestal of wood 
 or metal, a glass globe with a pretty long neck, from the mid- 
 dle of which spring two branches, A and B, is placed in an 
 inverted position, the globe being first filled with spirits of 
 wine, and the neck well corked. The pressure 
 of the atmosphere prevents the fluid from escap- 
 ing at the orifices of the tubes A and B, while 
 the temperature is undisturbed ; but on applying 
 the flame of a taper to the drops which form at 
 these orifices, the globe is heated ; steam is form- 
 ed at the upper part, the elastic force of which 
 causes the spirit to spring from the orifices, and 
 this taking fire heats the globe to a still greater 
 degree, and increases the action, so that two 
 beautiful jets of burning spirit of wine are produced. As the 
 pressure of steam is very apt to burst the globe, the exhibition 
 of this experiment is attended with some danger. 
 
 FOURTH. In Music, one of the harmonica] intervals; so 
 called because it contains four sounds or terms between its 
 extremes, and three intervals ; or as being the fourth in order 
 of the natural or diatonic scale from the fundamental. 
 
 FOVTLLA. In Botany, the matter contained within the 
 grains of pollen. 
 
 FOWLING. The art of catching birds with nets, bird- 
 lime, decoys, or other devices. It is also used for taking 
 birds with hawks, falcons, and other birds of prey; more 
 properly called falconry and hawking. In Latin this sport 
 was called aucupium ; from avis, a bird, and capio, / take. 
 FOX. See Vulpes and Canis. 
 
 Fox. A particular kind of strand made of rope-yarns. 
 FO XGLOVE. The Digitalis purpurea ; a common in- 
 digenous plant, the leaves of which, when carefully dried and 
 powdered, or made into a tincture or infusion, are used in 
 medicine. In small and repeated doses it lowers the pulse 
 in an extraordinary manner, and produces debility and faint- 
 ing ; combined with other remedies, it forms an ingredient in 
 some powerful diuretics. 
 
 FRA'CTION, in Arithmetic, is an aliquot part of unity. 
 In order to form a precise idea of a fraction of any unit, we 
 must consider the unit to be divided into a certain whole 
 number of equal parts, of which parts we take one, two, 
 three, &c. : the number of parts so taken is what constitutes 
 the fraction. The expression of a fraction therefore necessa- 
 rily involves two whole numbers ; namely, one to denote the 
 number of parts into which the unit is divided, and the other 
 476 
 
 FRACTION. 
 
 to express how many of these parts are to be taken to form 
 the fraction. The first of these numbers is called the denom- 
 inator, and the second the numerator. Thus, seven eighths 
 of a foot, five twelfths of a pound are fractions. In the first 
 we suppose the foot or unit to be divided into eight equal 
 parts, of which seven are taken ; so that eight is the denomi- 
 nator and seven the numerator. In the second the unit or 
 pound is supposed to be divided into twelve equal parts, of 
 which five are taken ; here twelve is the denominator and 
 five the numerator. From these considerations it results 
 that a fraction is a magnitude referred to a certain part of the 
 principal unit, which part may itself be considered a particu- 
 ticular kind of unit. Thus the fraction seven eighths of a 
 foot being the same as seven times the eighth pan of a foot, 
 this eighth part is a particular unit which the proposed frac- 
 tion contains eight limes. Hence two fractions are said to be 
 of the same kind when their denominators are the same. 
 For example, five twelfths, six twelfths, eleven twelfths, are 
 fractions of the same kind ; but two thirds and three fourths 
 are fractions of dilierent kinds, because their denominators 
 are different. 
 
 In order to express fractions by the numerical digits, the 
 numerator is placed over the denominator, with a line or bar 
 between them. Thus the fraction three fourths is written 3-4, 
 five twelfths 5-12, &c. Reciprocally 13-15, 17-20, &c, desig- 
 nate the fractions thirteen fifteenths, seventeen twentieths, &c. 
 
 A fraction may also be regarded as the quotient that arises 
 from the division of its numerator by its denominator. For 
 example, the expression seven eighths, or seven times the 
 eighth part of unity, is identical with the expression the eighth 
 part of seven, or seven divided by eight. 
 
 From the definition which we have given of the numera- 
 tor and denominator of a fraction, the following consequen- 
 ces result : — 1. If, without altering the denominator of a frac- 
 tion, we multiply or divide its numerator by any number, the 
 new fraction will be so many times greater or less than the 
 original fraction. 2. If, without altering the numerator, we 
 multiply or divide the denominator of a fraction by any num- 
 ber, the new fraction will be so many limes smaller in the 
 former case, and so many times greater in the latter, titan the 
 original fraction. 3. The value of a fraction is not altered by 
 multiplying or dividing both numerator and denominator by 
 the same number. It is on these three principles that the 
 practical rules for the addition, subtraction, multiplication, 
 and division of fractions are -grounded. 
 
 Addition and Subtraction of Fractions. — In order that two 
 fractions may be added together, or the one subtracted from 
 the other, it is necessary that they both be of the same kind 
 or denomination ; for it is only homogeneous things that ad- 
 mit of amalgamation. The fractions 2-3 and 3-4 cannot be 
 added together in their present form, because they are of dif- 
 ferent denominations. But fractions can always be reduced 
 to the same denomination, or to a common denominator, by 
 means of the third principle above laid down ; for numbers 
 can always be chosen such that if we multiply the terms of 
 each fraction by them severally, the resulting equivalent 
 fractions will have the same denominator. Thus, multiply- 
 ing the terms of the fraction 2-3 by 4, we get the equivalent 
 fraction 8-12 ; and multiplying the terms of 3-4 by 3, we get 
 the equivalent 9-12. The two proposed fractions are there- 
 fore reduced to the two others, 8-12 and 9-12, the sum of 
 which is 17-12, and the difference 1-12. When any number 
 of fractions are to be added together they are most conve- 
 niently reduced to a common denominator by this rule : — Find 
 the least common multiple of all the denominators ; divide 
 this multiple by each of the denominators one after the oth- 
 er ; and multiply the terms of the proposed fraclions respect- 
 ively by the corresponding quotients thus found ; the results 
 will be a series of equal fractions, all having the same denom- 
 inator, and this expressed by the lowest possible number. 
 When this operation has been performed, the sum or differ- 
 ence of the fractions is obtained by placing the sum or differ- 
 ence of their numerators over the common denominator. 
 
 .Multiplication of Fractions. — Let it be proposed to multi- 
 ply 3-5 by 6-7. As the multiplier 6-7 is equal to six times the 
 seventh part of unit}', it is obvious that the product must be 
 equal to six times the seventh part of three-fifths. Now by 
 the second principle above laid down, the seventh part of 3-5 
 is found by multiplying the denominator by 7 ; this gives 3-35. 
 And in order to obtain a fraction six times greater than 3-35, 
 we must multiply the numerator by 6, which gives 18-35 for 
 the product required. Hence for the multiplication of frac- 
 tions we have this rule: — Multiply all the numerators to- 
 gether for the numerator of the product, and all the denomi- 
 nators for its denominator. 
 
 As a whole number can always be expressed in the form 
 of a fraction by placing 1 under it for a denominator, this 
 rule includes nil the different cases. 
 
 Division of Fractions. — Let it be proposed to divide 3-5 by 
 8-11. Here the divisor 8-11 being equal to eight times the 
 11th part of unity, the dividend 3-5 must (from the nature of 
 division) be equal to 8 times the 11th part of the quotient.
 
 FRACTURE. 
 
 But, by the second principle, the 8th part of 3-5 is 3-40, there- 
 fore 3-40 is the 11th part of the quotient required; conse- 
 quently 11 times 3-40, or 33-40, is the quotient itself. Hence 
 we deduce the general rule for the division of one fraction by 
 another: Multiply the numerator of the dividend by the de- 
 nominator of the divisor, the product will be the numerator 
 of the quotient ; and multiply the denominator of the dividend 
 by the numerator of the divisor, the product will give the de- 
 nominator of the quotient required. It is obvious that this 
 amounts to the same tiling as to invert the terms of the divi- 
 sor, and then proceed as in multiplication. 
 
 Fractional expressions are divided into several kinds: — 
 proper and improper, simple and compound. A proper frac- 
 tion is one whose numerator is less than its denominator, 
 and its value consequently less than unity. An improper 
 fraction is one whose numerator is equal to or greater than 
 its denominator, and its value consequently equal to or great- 
 er than unity. A simple fraction is an expression consisting 
 of one fraction only. A compound fraction is a fraction of a 
 fraction, or a fractional part of some whole or mixed number. 
 And a mixed number is an expression consisting of a whole 
 number and a fraction. 
 
 The fractions of which we have now spoken are common 
 or vulgar fractions; when the denominators are 10, 100, or 
 in general any power of 10, they become decimal fractions, 
 and are expressed by a different notation. See Decimal. 
 
 FRA'CTURE. (Lat. frango, / break.) In Mineralogy, 
 when minerals are broken, they either exhibit a smooth reg- 
 ular surface, to which the term cleavage is generally ap- 
 plied ; or they give an irregular or uneven surface, termed a 
 fracture. Werner, who first employed this character in his 
 description of minerals, divides their various fractures into 
 compact, fibrous, radiated, and foliated. The terms earthy, 
 granular, uneven, hackly, and splintery, the meanings of 
 which will be s\ifnciently obvious, are employed by other 
 mineralogists. 
 
 Fracture. In Surgery', this term is limited to broken 
 bones. Such accidents are generally the result of external 
 force; but it occasionally happens that the powerful action 
 of certain muscles may cause a fracture, as is frequently the 
 case in regard to the patella or knee-pan. Fractures are dis- 
 tinguished by surgeons into transverse, oblique, and longitu- 
 dinal, depending upon the direction in which the bone is bro- 
 ken ; and into simple and compound, dependant upon the cir- 
 cumstances with which the injury is accompanied. "By 
 simple fracture surgeons mean a suddenly formed breach in 
 the continuity of one or more bones, without any external 
 wound communicating internally with the fracture ; by a 
 compound fracture they signify the same sort of injury of a 
 bone or bones, attended with a laceration of the integuments, 
 which laceration may be produced by the protrusion of one 
 or both ends of the fracture through the skin, or by a ball or 
 other body which enters or otherwise wounds the soft parts 
 at the same moment that it breaks the bone." 
 
 The history and treatment of fractures is an extensive and 
 important department of surgery, upon which several treati- 
 ses have been written by very eminent practitioners. An ex- 
 cellent article on the subject will be found in Cooper's Sur- 
 gical Dictionary, from which work we have borrowed the 
 above definition. 
 
 FRAISE. In Fortification, a kind of defence which is 
 formed by driving pointed stakes at a small angle with the 
 horizon into the retrenchment of a camp, &c. 
 
 FRAMBCE'SIA. (Framboise, a raspberry.) The yaws; 
 a disease endemic in the Antilles and some parts of Africa, 
 which is attended by cuticular excrescences something like 
 mulberries, which discharge a watery fluid. It is conta- 
 gious, but not dangerous. " 
 
 FRAMING. (Sax. framman, to form.) In Architecture, 
 the rough timber-work of a house, including floors, roof, par- 
 titions, ceilings, and beams. Generally, any pieces of wood 
 fitted together with mortices and tenons are said to be fra- 
 med ; as doors, sash frames, sashes, &c. 
 
 FRA NCHISE. In Law, a species of incorporeal heredi- 
 tament, synonymous with liberty, which is defined " A royal 
 privilege, or branch of the king's prerogative, subsisting in the 
 hands of a subject. For an account of the nature of the 
 elective franchise, see Parliament. 
 
 FRANCI'SCANS. One of the four Mendicant Orders, 
 founded by St. Francis of Assisi, in Umbria, in the year 1209. 
 Sec art. Orders, Mendicant. 
 
 FRANK. A coin in use in France, equivalent to 9.6SM. 
 See Money. 
 
 Frank. A privilege enjoyed by the members of both 
 houses of Parliament, some government offices, and certain 
 public functionaries, of sending and receiving a certain num- 
 ber of letters post free ; abolished Jan. 10, 1840. Sec Post- 
 age. 
 
 FRANK ALEU. In Law, an absolute right to real estate 
 in Lower Canada; and also in Guernsey and Jersey, ac- 
 knowledging no feudal superior, and consequently not a ten- 
 ure. See Allodium. 
 
 FRECKLES. 
 
 FRANKALMOI'GN. (From two Norman French words, 
 signifying free alms.) In Law, a tenure by spiritual service, 
 where an ecclesiastical corporation, sole or aggregate, hold 
 land to them and their successors of some lord and his heirs 
 in free and perpetual alms. Donations in Frankalmoign are 
 now out of use, as none but the king can make them; but 
 they were expressly excepted from the operation of stat. 12, 
 C. 2, c. 24. 
 
 FRANKINCENSE (said to be so called from its liberal dis- 
 tribution of odour). The gum-resin olibanum, which is the 
 produce of the Boswellia scrrata, and imported from the Le- 
 vant, bears the commercial name of frankincense. When it 
 is burned, or sprinkled upon hot coals, it exhales a very fra- 
 grant and diffusible odour. 
 
 FRANKPLEDGE, or FREEBORG (German, burge, 
 pledge). A celebrated Anglo-Saxon usage, which appears 
 to have been of two kinds. 1. That which may be termed 
 seigniorial frankpledge, by which every lord (hlaford) was 
 rendered responsible for the appearance of his own men or 
 dependants, when accused before justice, in the hundred 
 court ; when, if the party absconded, the lord became liable 
 to the king in the amount of the " were" or amercement for 
 the offence. 2. Collective or public frankpledge, which is 
 the sense in which the word is most commonly used by mod- 
 ern writers, is of very obscure origin, but appears to have ex- 
 isted after the Conquest in the southern and eastern parts of 
 England. The burghers and ceorls, or inferior class of free- 
 men, were enrolled in small collective bodies termed tythings 
 or decennaries (in many instances equivalent to the town- 
 ships), under the superintendence of a chief pledge or tything- 
 man. The tything thus organized was bound for the ap- 
 pearance of any one of its members under accusation. The 
 " view of frankpledge" originated in the usage of calling to- 
 gether the individuals who were enrolled in each of these 
 bodies at certain stated times; which were usually held at 
 the court leet, but were not (as Blackstone states it) the main 
 object of that institution, since courts leet were held from an 
 early period in the northern parts of England, in which frank- 
 pledge never existed, as well as in the southern. On the 
 view of frankpledge, the members of each tything also took 
 the oath of allegiance under the Norman kings. (See Tur- 
 ner's Anglo-Saxons ; Sir F. Palgrave's Commonwealth, of 
 England'; and art. Court Leet.) 
 
 FRANKS. A general appellation conferred by the Turks 
 and other Asiatic nations on all the inhabitants of Europe. 
 
 FRATE'RCULA. The generic name for the puffins. Sec 
 Mormon. 
 
 FRATERNITIES, were associations of laymen in the 
 middle Ages formed for the purposes of general benevolence, 
 and for the discharge of other Christian duties. 
 
 FRAUD, in Law, is the general name for any species of 
 deceit in contracts, either by suppression of truth or assertion 
 of falsehood. The most complete definition of it is that given 
 by Forbes: — "Dolum malum esse oinnem cailiditatem, fal- 
 laciam, machinalionem, ap circumveniendum, fallendum, 
 decipiendum alterum adhibitum." (Story's Commentaries 
 on Equity Jurisprudence.) With a view to the provisions of 
 the English law, frauds may be divided into such as are cog- 
 nizable by courts of common law, such as are cognizable in 
 equity only, and such as are expressly provided against by 
 statutes. It has been laid down as a general principle, that 
 courts of common law can relieve against the consequences 
 of fraud (by making contracts void, &x.) as well as courts of 
 equity, wherever the fraud is clearly established ; and that 
 their inadequacy to provide a proper remedy arises only from 
 their inability to attain the necessary evidence. But how- 
 ever this may be, it has long been a general principle, that 
 courts of equity, in the language of Lord Coke, have juris- 
 diction over frauds, covin, and deceits, for which there is no 
 remedy by the ordinary course of law. Hence arises one of 
 the three great branches of equity jurisdiction — trust, fraud, 
 account. (See Chancellor.) The general principles of 
 that jurisdiction appear to be, that the courts will relieve, by 
 considering acts as performed of which the performance has 
 been fraudulently prevented ; by setting aside bargains made 
 in ignorance of rights, or where there is material conceal- 
 ment of title, value, &c. ; or, finally, misrepresentation in 
 material particulars. Various acts have been made fraudu- 
 lent, so as to produce the consequence of annulling contracts 
 and avoiding conveyances by statutes: e. g., conveyances 
 with intent to defraud creditors, by 13 Eliz.,c. 5; voluntary 
 conveyances, 27 Eliz.,c. 4 ; various contracts, conveyances, 
 &c. not executed with the formalities required by the Statute 
 of Frauds, 29, C. 2, c. 3. Some frauds are of a criminal na- 
 ture, and punishable by indictment; but they are chiefly 
 such as affect the public, or such as are effected by means 
 of false tokens. 
 
 FRE'CKLES. Small yellow specks and spots which ap- 
 pear upon the face, especially of fair persons much exposed 
 to the weather. The best application is a dilute spirituous 
 lotion (one part of brandy to eight of water), with a few 
 drops of muriatic acid, so as to render it just perceptibly sour. 
 
 477
 
 FREEBOOTERS. 
 
 FREE'BOOTERS. (Germ, freibeuters, Fr. flibustiers.) 
 A name given to some adventurers of all nations, but espe- 
 cially of France and England, who have obtained a place in 
 history by the courage and intrepidity which they displayed 
 in executing the most difficult enterprises. The origin of 
 their history is merged in obscurity, and it is impossible to 
 ascertain precisely whence their name is derived ; but the 
 flibustiers of tile French naval historians are identical with 
 the buccaneers of our own language. (Sec Buccaneers.) 
 The South American islands formed the chief theatre of 
 their depredations; and such was the relentless hostility 
 with which they visited the Spaniards, that during the latter 
 half of the seventeenth century, which embraced the most 
 formidable period of the freebooter's career, their commercial 
 operations in the Indian seas were nearly destroyed. At the 
 commencement of the 18th century, the freebooters sustained 
 in their expedition a series of disasters, which sensibly di- 
 minished their numbers; and since that period the designa- 
 tion has been applied indiscriminately to any individual who 
 regards "the universe as his property," and appropriates to 
 himself either furtively or forcibly the possessions of another. 
 
 FREE'HOLD, in Law, is a term which is used in two dif- 
 ferent senses : I. To express the quantity of estate which a man 
 may have in lands or tenements; and, 2. To express a tenure 
 by which lands and tenements are held. Thus, an estate of 
 freehold, to satisfy the full acceptance of the term, must be 
 both sufficient in quantity of interest and sufficient in tenure. 
 
 1. As to quantity of interest, all estates for a term uncer- 
 tain in duration are estates of freehold ; and they are divided 
 into estates of inheritance, and not of inheritance. The first 
 of these are either absolute (fee-simple) or limited (fee-tail, 
 or fee-simple conditional). The second are estates for life, 
 or for an uncertain period limited within the term of a life ; 
 as, an estate granted to a widow durante viduitate. Such 
 estates as this are by the law regarded as estates for life, de- 
 terminable on a given event. 2. With respect to tenure, 
 freehold tenure is derived from the ancient free socage ; and 
 lands held by copy of court roll according to the custom of 
 a manor, viz., copyholds, are not within this denomination. 
 But lands held by custom of the manor, not by copy of court 
 roll, are not copyholds, but customary freeholds. 
 
 In order, therefore, to give the privileges or impose the du- 
 ties attached by the law to freeholders (such as serving on 
 juries, voting at county elections, &c), the estate in respect 
 of which such right or duty attaches must be either for life 
 or a greater interest, and must be held in freehold tenure. 
 
 FREEM A'SONR Y. A well-known institution, the origin 
 of which has given rise to much fabulous narrative and idle 
 speculation. Some derive the mysteries of Freemasonry 
 from those of the priests of Eleusis, and these again from 
 Egypt; others from the secret associations of the Templars. 
 (See Templars, Baphomet.) The last opinion was illus- 
 trated at great length by M. Barruel (Memoires du Jacobin- 
 isme), who conceived both Freemasons and Jacobins to be 
 the relics of a long-established conspiracy for the subversion 
 of religions and empires. But our distinct historical infor- 
 mation merely amounts to this, that the fraternity of archi- 
 tects or builders in the middle ages extended over all Catho- 
 lic countries, and was especially patronized by the see of 
 Rome. It is to this craft that we owe the magnificent Gothic 
 edifices dedicated to religion, which contrast so strongly with 
 the barbarous efforts of those ages in most other departments 
 of art. It is said that this association was introduced into 
 Scotland in the 13th century, and about the same time into 
 England, it being ascertained that the Abbey of Kilwinning 
 in the former country was raised by this fraternity ; and it 
 is believed to have continued to exist, although small in 
 number, in these two countries after it had disappeared from 
 the Continent. The Kilwinning and York lodges are re- 
 spectively the most ancient in either country. But the mode 
 and period in which the association became changed from a 
 mere professional fraternity to a society of persons of all de- 
 scriptions connected by secret symbols, is unknown. It cer- 
 tainly excited great attention, and numbered individuals of 
 high rank as honorary members, as early as the 15th cen- 
 tury. The Scottish masons appointed St. Clair of Roslin as 
 their hereditary grand-master in 1G30; and the office was re- 
 signed by his descendant in 1736, when the grand lodge of 
 Scotland was instituted. In 1725, the first French lodge was 
 established : in 1730, the first American ; in 1735, the first 
 German. From that period until the present, while the so- 
 ciety has existed among ourselves as a mere convivial and 
 benevolent association, and has been patronized even by 
 royalty and the nobility, it has been subjected on the Conti- 
 nent to a variety of suspicions; and it is most probable that 
 political intriguers have availed themselves of the secrecy 
 afforded by it to further their schemes. Indeed, in this coun- 
 try, the " Royal Arch" degree is said to have been devised 
 by the Scottish Jacobites. Pope Clement XII. excommuni- 
 cated the Freemasons in Spain and Portugal : until recent 
 events, their name was synonymous with that of deists and 
 revolutionists. But the most singular chapter in the history 
 478 
 
 FRICTION. 
 
 of the society relates to its fortunes in America ; where it 
 has given origin to two violent political parties. The story 
 of the abduction and murder of a certain William Morgan, 
 suspected of having revealed the secrets of the fraternity, 
 made a great sensation in the Union, and is not cleared up 
 at this day. The reader will find it detailed and <•( mmented 
 on in Miss Martineau's recent work. (See Lawric's Histo- 
 ry of Freemasonry, Edin., 1804; Mnderson's ditto; Preston's 
 Illustrations of Masonry ; the Freemason's Quarterly Mag- 
 azine ; the German Freimaurer Encyclopaedic, &c.) 
 
 FREE THINKER. A term, usually of reproach, applied 
 to those who reject the ordinary modes of thinking in mat- 
 ters of religion. It is almost synonymous with Deist, 
 which see. 
 
 FREEZING. See Frost. 
 
 FREEZING MIXTURES. When five parts of powder- 
 ed nitre and five of powdered sal ammoniac are mixed with 
 sixteen parts of water, the thermometer falls in the mixture 
 from 50° to about 10°; so that in this way a degree of cold 
 much below the freezing point of water may be artificially 
 and cheaply obtained, for the salts may be again procured by 
 evaporation and used repeatedly. When ice or snow can 
 be obtained, the most effective freezing mixture is produced 
 by mixing it with about half its weight of salt; it carries the 
 thermometer nearly to 0°. The utmost degree of cold pro- 
 duced by the skilful combination of the best freezing mix- 
 tures has not exceeded 140° below 0° 
 
 FREIGHT. In Mercantile Law, the sum paid by the 
 merchant or other person hiring a ship, or part of a ship, for 
 the use of such ship or part for a specified voyage, or for a 
 specified time. Freight must be mentioned, eo nomine, in a 
 policy of insurance, and is not covered by a policy on goods. 
 
 FRE'SCO PAINTING. (It. fresco, fresh.) In Painting, 
 a method of painting by incorporating the colours with plas- 
 ter before it is dry, by which it becomes as permanent as the 
 wall itself. This method of painting is extremely ancient. 
 It was used by the Greeks, and can be traced even to Egypt. 
 From difficulty of alteration when the colour is once absorb- 
 ed, the greatest precision of design is necessary before com- 
 mencing the work. 
 
 FRET, or FRETTE. (Etymology doubtful.) In Archi- 
 tecture, a species of ornament consisting of one or more 
 
 small fillets meeting in vertical . — , . . p. ._„ 
 
 and horizontal directions. The fS fipy f JpJ jST 
 section of the channels be-= JL = JIL = J S^ ilsi itsdfl 
 tween the fillets is rectangular. The subjoined diagram 
 shows two sorts of simple frets ; but they are often much 
 more complicated. 
 
 FRETS. The cross bars on the finger boards of stringed 
 instruments of ivoiy or brass, by pressure whereon with the 
 finger the string is stopped to produce a certain note in the 
 scale. The use of frets is still continued on the Spanish gui- 
 tar, and was formerly in constant use upon what was called 
 the bass-viol for learners, and taken off when they had 
 learned by practice to measure the accurate distance of the 
 stops. On lutes and viols they were always permitted to 
 remain. 
 
 FRIAR. (Lat. frater, brother.) A brother or member of 
 any religious order ; but more exclusively applied to those 
 of the Mendicant Orders, of which the four chief were the 
 Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, and Augustines. See 
 Orders, Mendicant. 
 
 FRI'CTION. (Lat. frico, / rub.) In Mechanics, the re- 
 sistance produced by the rubbing of the surfaces of two solid 
 bodies against each other. If the surfaces of bodies were 
 perfectly smooth and polished, they would slide along one 
 another without suffering any resistance from their contact, 
 and all the simple relations between power and resistance 
 determined by theory in respect of the different machines 
 would hold good without any modification whatever. But 
 this state of perfect polish never exists. The surfaces of all 
 bodies with which we are acquainted, even when most care- 
 fully polished, retain a greater or less degree of asperity, 
 which prevents them from sliding over one another without 
 impediment; and in many cases the resistance thus created 
 amounts to a large proportion of the whole resistance to be 
 overcome. In order, therefore, to ascertain the real value 
 of the effect of powers applied to machinery, it is necessary 
 to determine the amount of the friction, and to add this new 
 resistance to that which is given by the theory of mechanics. 
 
 The determination of the laws of friction, and its amount 
 with respect to particular substances, have occupied the at- 
 tention of many experimental philosophers and mathemati- 
 cians, as Amontons, Euler, Desaguliers, Vince, &.c. ; but the 
 first complete set of experiments on the subject was made by 
 Coulomb about the year 1780. His results, though they 
 have been partly modified by subsequent experiments, throw 
 much light upon the subject, and are of great value to the 
 practical engineer. 
 
 There are two modes by which the nature and operation 
 of friction may be ascertained. The first is very simple, and 
 consists in merely placing a heavy body W on a horizontal
 
 FRICTION. 
 
 piane A B, and elevating the end of the plane till the body 
 begins to slide. When this motion commences, it is evident 
 that the force of gravity just begins to ex- 
 ceed the resistance occasioned by the 
 friction ; and as the gravity is known from 
 , the weight of the body and the inclination 
 of the plane, we have thus the means of 
 comparing the friction with a given force. For let A E he 
 drawn perpendicular to the horizontal line C B ; then, since 
 the weight, the friction, and the pressure make equilibrium, 
 if we take A B to represent the weight W, the force down 
 the plane (which is equal to the friction) will be represented 
 by A E, and the pressure perpendicular to the plane by B E. 
 Hence, putting P = the pressure, F = the friction, and i = 
 ABC, the inclination of the plane, we have P = W cos. i, 
 F = VV sin. i, and consequently F = P tan. i. The angle i 
 is called the limiting angle of resistance. ; and tan. i, or the 
 ratio of friction to pressure, is called the co-efficient of fric- 
 tion. 
 
 But this method is liable to some uncertainty. Most bod- 
 ies, after having been in contact for some time, require a 
 greater force to originate than to keep up progressive mo- 
 tion ; but it is obvious that the inclination of the plane of 
 descent marks only the initial obstruction. Coulomb ac- 
 cordingly adopted a different mode of proceeding. His gen- 
 eral method was to draw a sort of loaded sledge along a 
 horizontal bench, by means of weights placed in a dish at- 
 tached to the sledge by a cord passing over a pulley. The 
 sledge was mounted on sliders of the substance on which the 
 experiments were to be made ; and corresponding slips of 
 the same or a different substance placed under the sliders on 
 the bench. This apparatus has been called a tribometer. 
 The following are some of the results which were obtained: 
 
 Assuming the pressure as equal to 100 parts, the friction 
 of oak against fir was 06 in the direction of the fibres, but 
 amounted only to 16 when moved with the velocity of a foot 
 each second ; the friction of oak against oak in the direction 
 of the fibres was 43, and across them only 27, the effect being 
 still reduced by motion to 10 ; the friction of fir against fir in 
 the direction of the fibres was 56, which sunk to 17 during 
 motion ; the friction of elm against elm in the direction of 
 the fibres was 46, and reduced by motion to 10. On the 
 other hand, the friction of copper upon oak, lengthwise, was 
 8 at the commencement of the motion, but increased to 18 
 when the velocity was a foot in a second ; the friction of 
 iron upon oak with the initial velocity was 11, and was in- 
 creased by the motion to 18. But the mutual friction of 
 metals appeared in general to be scarcely, if at all. affected 
 by motion. In these experiments no unguents were used. 
 
 Where metals rub against wood, it is necessary that the two 
 bodies continue longer in contact, in order that the friction 
 may acquire its maximum. In the case of iron against wood 
 at least 4 or 5 hours must elapse before the momentary in- 
 crease of friction disappears ; whereas in the case of wood 
 against wood a single minute was sufficient. But the resist- 
 ance appears to increase by contact, though less sensibly, 
 even for several days. The application of grease to the sur- 
 faces of wood produces a similar effect, and the resistance 
 does not attain its maximum till after a very considerable 
 time. At the end of 5 or 6 days the resistance is perhaps 14 
 times greater than it was at the first instant, if the surface of 
 contact is considerable in respect of the pressure ; but when 
 the surface is small, the friction reaches its maximum much 
 more quickly. 
 
 An important part of the investigation was to ascertain 
 whether the friction is increased by the velocity of the nib- 
 bing bodies. With respect to bodies of the same kind de- 
 scending on inclined planes. Coulomb found that the time 
 required for passing over the first half was a little more than 
 double that required for passing over the second. But a 
 body put in motion by a constant accelerating force employs 
 for passing over one space, and over two equal consecutive 
 spaces, times that are to each other in the ratio of y/\ : y/% 
 =100 : 112; that is to say, if 100 units of time are consumed 
 in passing over the first space, 142 will be consumed in pass- 
 ing over the first and second together, and consequently 42 
 in passing over the second. Now this agrees as nearly as 
 possible with the result of the experiments; consequently we 
 infer that a load drawn along a smooth plane by a constant 
 accelerating force (that of a descending weight for example) 
 is uniformly accelerated. But this requires that the fricion, 
 at every instant, destroys only a proportional quantity of the 
 force added by the constant action of gravity. The "conclu- 
 sion, therefore, is, that, for moderate velocities at least, the 
 resistance due to friction is a constant quantity, and very 
 nearly the same for every degree of velocity. 
 
 Another point of great importance was to ascertain the 
 relation the frictinn bears to the pressure; for example, in 
 what ratio the friction is increased by doubling or trebling 
 the load. Coulomb found that when wood has been allow- 
 ed to rest on wood for some time, without the intervention 
 of any unguent, the resistance occasioned by the friction is 
 
 proportional to the pressure. This resistance for a short time 
 increases rapidly by the contact, but attains its maximum in 
 a few minutes. The friction of wood sliding on wood with 
 any velocity is still proportional to the pressure; but the re- 
 sistance is much less in amount than that which is required 
 to detach the surfaces after some minutes of contact. In the 
 case of oak, for instance, the force required to detach the 
 surfaces after being some minutes in repose is to that which 
 is necessary to overcome friction alone after motion has 
 commenced in the ratio of 100 to 23. The friction of metals 
 on metals is also proportional to the pressure ; but the inten- 
 sity is the same, whether the surfaces have been any length 
 of time in contact, at rest, or are gliding along with a uni- 
 form velocity. 
 
 The friction of heterogeneous substances, as wood and the 
 metals, is entirely different from the above. In the case of 
 wood against wood dry, or of metal against metal, the fric- 
 tion of the rubbing bodies is very little influenced by the 
 velocity ; but in the present case the friction increases very 
 sensibly with an augmented velocity. Coulomb inferred 
 that the friction increased as the natural numbers, when the 
 velocities are increased as the squares of those numbers. In 
 all cases of a hard body rubbing against a very soft sub- 
 stance, the friction increases remarkably with the velocity. 
 
 Since the friction is in general proportional to the pressure, 
 it follows that it will not be altered by increasing or dimin- 
 ishing the extent of the rubbing surfaces. Nevertheless this 
 consequence fails in the extreme cases. The friction is sen- 
 sibly diminished when the surfaces in action are reduced to 
 the smallest dimensions. Thus, while the friction of a ruler 
 of brass against a similar one of iron is expressed by 26, it 
 was found to be only 17 after the sledge had been mounted 
 on 4 round-headed brass nails. 
 
 On the whole, the following conclusions may be stated as 
 the general results of Coulomb's experiments respecting the 
 friction of bodies sliding on each other. 
 
 1. Between similar substances, under similar circumstan- 
 ces, friction is a constant retarding force. 2. Friction is 
 greatest between bodies whose surfaces are rough, and is 
 lessened by polishing them. 3. It is greater between surfa- 
 ces composed of the same material, than between the sur- 
 faces of heterogeneous bodies. 4. If the rubbing surfaces 
 remain the same, the friction increases directly as the pres- 
 sure. 5. If the pressure continue the same, the friction has 
 no relation to the magnitude of the surface. 6. The appli- 
 cation of grease in general diminishes the friction, though in 
 very different degrees. 
 
 The obstruction which a cylinder meets with in rolling along 
 a smooth plane is quite distinct in its character, and far infe- 
 rior in its amount, to that which is produced by the friction 
 of the same cylinder drawn lengthwise along a plane. For 
 example, in the case of w r ood rolling on wood, the resistance 
 is to the pressure, if the cylinder be small, as 16 or 18 to 
 1000; and if the cylinder be large, this may be reduced to 6 
 to 1000. The friction from sliding, in the same cases, would 
 be to the pressure as 2 to 10, or 3 to 10, according to the na- 
 ture of the wood. Hence, by causing one body to roll on 
 another, the resistance is diminished from 12 to 20 times. It 
 is therefore a principle in the composition of machines that 
 attrition should be avoided as much as possible, and rolling 
 motions substituted whenever circumstances admit. 
 
 On this principle depends the advantages resulting from 
 the application of friction wheels antifriction rollers. The 
 extremity of an axle C, instead of 
 resting in a cylindrical socket, is made 
 to rest on the circumferences of two 
 wheels, A and B, to the axles of 
 which, a and b, the friction is trans- 
 ferred, and consequently diminished 
 in the ratio of the radius of the wheel 
 A to the radius of the axle a. This 
 ingenious contrivance appears to have first been applied by 
 Henry Sully, in the year 1716. (Descr. Jlbrcgce d'une Hor- 
 loge, ($-c, Brrdeaux, 1716.) 
 
 The following are deductions from Coulomb's experiments 
 relative to the friction of rolling bodies: 1. Like the friction 
 of sliding bodies, it is a constant force. 2. It is affected by 
 the nature of the surface so f;ir as polish is concerned ; but 
 is not lessened by the interposition of unctuous substances. 
 3. It is less between heterogeneous than between homogene- 
 ous substances. 4. It is directly proportional to the pressure. 
 5. It has no relation to the maenitude of the surface. 6. It 
 is much less thnn in the ca«e of sliding surfaces, ard varies 
 in the inverse ratio of the diameter of the rolling body. 
 
 The friction of the axle of a wheel or pulley (whether 
 the axle itself turns, or the wheel turns on the axle) is of a 
 different kind from that of a cylinder rolling on a plane. It 
 is less than that of sliding but greater than that of rolling 
 bodies, and follows in all respects the laws of the friction of 
 sliding bodies. A great advantage is here obtained by grea- 
 sing the surfaces. By the application of fresh tallow the 
 friction is reduced to one half. 
 
 479
 
 FRICTION-WHEELS. 
 
 Friction is one of the most effectual means of arresting 
 motion. In some machines, especially wind-mills, cranes, 
 &c, it is very important to have 
 the power of suddenly stopping 
 the machine, or at least oi con- 
 trolling its motion. This is ef- 
 fected by means of a strong 
 bridle of wood or iron, a, b, c, 
 fixed at one end, and at the 
 other furnished with a lever, by 
 pressing on which, the bridle is 
 brought into close contact with 
 the broad rim of a wheel which 
 participates in the general motion of the machine. The bri- 
 dle may be made to bear on the whole circumference of the 
 wheel ; and a moderate pressure on the lever will produce 
 a resistance sufficient to destroy the motion almost instanta- 
 neously. 
 
 Coulomb's experiments were also directed to ascertain the 
 resistance arising from the rigidity of ropes when bent 
 round rollers or cylinders. The results are as follow: 1. 
 The resistance of ropes are directly proportional to the ten- 
 sions to which they are subjected. 2. The resistance in- 
 creases with some determinate power of the diameter, and 
 is greatest in ropes that have been strongly twisted, or are 
 coated with tar. 3. The resistances are inversely as the di- 
 ameters of the cylinders about which the ropes are bent. 
 
 When a rope is wound more than once round a cylinder, 
 the resistance increases in a geometrical progression. This 
 principle is frequently applied in practice: thus, in arresting 
 the progress of a vessel, a rope is wound round a post, and 
 a very tew turns is sutficicnt to overcome any force which 
 the rope is capable of withstanding. 
 
 A valuable series of experiments on friction was made 
 some years ago by Mr. George Rennie, the details of which 
 are given in the Phil. Trans, for 1829. The following are a 
 few of the results: Assuming as before the pressure equal to 
 100 parts, the friction of steel upon ice is 1-4 ; ice upon ice 
 2-8; hard wood upon hard wood 13; brass upon wrought 
 iron 135; soft steel upon soft steel 14'G; leather upon iron 
 25; granite upon granite 30; yellow deal upon yellow deal 
 35 ; sandstone upon sandstone 36 ; woollen cloth upon wool- 
 len cloth 43. Some of the conclusions deduced by Mr. Ron- 
 nie are as follow: 1. In fibrous substances, such as clolh, 
 friction is increased by surface and time, and diminished by 
 pressure and velocity. 2. In harder substances, such as 
 woods, metals, and stones, the friction is directly as the 
 pressure, without regard to surface, time, or velocity. 3. 
 Friction is greatest with soft, and least with hard substances. 
 4. The effect of unguents is as the nature of the unguents, 
 ■with reference to the substances to which they are applied. 
 In the Memoires de rinstitut for 1833, two very extensive 
 sets of experiments are described, which were made by M. 
 Morin, at Metz, under the auspices of the French government, 
 for the purpose of verifying or correcting the results of Cou- 
 lomb. In general, M. Morin's results differ widely in abso- 
 lute amount from those of Coulomb, giving in some instances 
 ratios three times as great; but they point to, and indeed 
 fully establish, the same general conclusions. See Coulomb, 
 Th orie des .Midlines Simples (Paris, 1821), and Mem. des 
 Savans Etrangers, torn. ix. and x. ; Ximenes, Tcoria e 
 Practicn delle Resist, de Solidi ne'loro Jittrili (Pisa, 1782) ; 
 Vince, Phi'.. Trans., 1785 ; Rennie, Phil. Trans., 1829 ; 
 Morin, Mem. de I'Institut, 1833; Ency. Brit.,art. "Mechan- 
 
 FRICTION- WHEELS. See the preceding article. 
 
 FRI'DAY. (Germ. Freitag.) The sixth day of the week. 
 The name is derived from Freya or Friga, a Saxon goddess. 
 It is a fast day in the Romish church. 
 
 FRIE'NDLY SOCIETIES, or BENEFIT SOCIETIES. 
 Voluntary associations of subscribers, for the purpose of form- 
 ing a fund for the assistance of members in sickness, or other 
 occasions of Hi itress. It is supposed by Mr. Turner (in his 
 History of the Anglo-Saxons), that the ancient guilds origi- 
 nated in associations of this description. " Of the various 
 means that have been suggested in this view, and for ena- 
 bling the poor to provide a resource against sickness and old 
 age, none seem so likely to accomplish their object as the in- 
 stitution of friendly societies and savings' banks. The for- 
 mer are founded on a principle of mutual insurance. Each 
 member contributes a certain sum, by weekly, monthly, or an- 
 nual Subscriptions, while he is in health ; and receives from 
 the society a certain pension or allowance when heisincapaci 
 tated for work by accident, sickness, or old ape. Nothing, it 
 is obvious, can be more unexceptionable than the principle 
 of these associations. Owing to the general exemption from 
 sickness until a comparatively late period of life, if a number 
 of individuals under 30 or 35 years of age form themselves 
 into a society, and subscribe each a small sum from their 
 surplus earnings, they are able to secure a comfortable pro- 
 vision for thein-elves in the event of their becoming unfit for 
 labour. Any miil'Ic individual who should trust to his own 
 480 
 
 FRIGID ZONE. 
 
 isolated efforts would plainly be placed in an infinitely more 
 hazardous position. Whenever an unfavourable contingency 
 exists, the best and cheapest way of obviating its effects is by 
 uniting with others, each subjecting himself to a small priva- 
 tion, so that none may be overwhelmed by any great ca- 
 lamity. However industrious and frugal, aii individual, not 
 a member of a friendly society, might not be able to insure 
 his independence ; inasmuch as the occurrence of any acci- 
 dent, or an obstinate fit of sickness, might, by throwing him 
 out of employment, and forcing him to consume the savings 
 he had accumulated against old age, reduce him to a state 
 of indigence, and oblige him to become dependant on the 
 bounty of others. Hence the paramount utility of the socie- 
 ties in question. 
 
 "For these and other reasons," says Mr. M'Culloch, "we 
 are glad to find that friendly societies have been very widely 
 introduced. There were enrolled from the first of January, 
 1793, to the commencement of 1832, no fewer than 19,783 
 such societies; of which 16,596 were in England, 769 in 
 Wales, 2144 in Scotland, and 274 in Ireland. The societies 
 existing in 1815 are said to have comprised 925,429 individu- 
 als. We have, however, some doubts as to the authenticity 
 of this statement ; but, if it may be depended on, the socie- 
 ties now in existence must comprise above 1,200,000 mem- 
 bers ! It should also be recollected that the progress of these 
 societies, though great, and most honourable to the labouring 
 population of Great Britain, has been not a little counteracted 
 by the ignorance and mismanagement of their officers, and 
 by the real difficulty of establishing them on a secure founda- 
 tion. The great error has consisted in their fixing too high a 
 scale of allowances. At their first institution they are ne- 
 cessarily composed of members in the prime of life ; there is, 
 therefore, comparatively little sickness and mortality among 
 them. In consequence their funds rapidly accumulate; and 
 they are naturally tempted to give too large an allowance to 
 those members who are occasionally incapacitated. But the 
 circumstances under which the society is placed at an ad- 
 vanced period are materially different. Sickness and mor- 
 tality are then comparatively prevalent. The contributions 
 to the fund decline at the time that the outgoings increase ; 
 and it has not unfrequently happened that the society has 
 become altogether bankrupt; and that the oldest members 
 have been left, at the close of a long life, destitute of all sup- 
 port from a fund on which they had relied, and to which 
 they had largely contributed. 
 
 "But the errors in the constitution of friendly societies 
 have been, in a great degree, amended. Various efforts, 
 several of which have been productive of beneficial effects, 
 have been made by private individuals and associations, and 
 by the legislature, to obviate the chances of their failure, and 
 to encourage their formation on sound principles. Two re- 
 ports, by committees of the House of Commons, on the laws 
 respecting friendly societies, printed in 1825 and 1827, supply 
 a great deal of important and useful information ; and the 
 reports and tables published by the Highland Society are 
 also valuable. There are, doubtless, several important points 
 that still remain to be satisfactorily cleared up; but, in the 
 mean time, enough has been done to enable government to 
 interfere with effect in assisting the formation of friendly so- 
 cieties on a solid foundation. In this view several statutes 
 have, at different times, been passed ; but the act 10 Geo. 4, 
 c. 56., repealed all previous statutes, and, with the act 4 & 5 
 Will. 4, c. 40, imbodies the existing law upon the subject. 
 All friendly societies, claiming the benefit of these acts, are 
 obliged to submit a statement of their rules and regulations 
 for the approval of the officer appointed by government for 
 that purpose ; and it is only in the event of their being ap- 
 proved by him, and Ihe tables of payments and allowances 
 appearing suitable to the justices, that the society is to be 
 confirmed by the latter, and becomes entitled to the privileges 
 conferred by the act in question. These consist in being al- 
 lowed to invest the funds of the society in government se- 
 curieties at the minimum rale of interest (2!d. per cent, per 
 diem), and in the funds of savings' banks. But it is, of 
 course, open to any individuals, not seeking any connection 
 with government, to establish friendly societies on any terms 
 thev may think proper." (Statistics of the British Empire.) 
 
 FRIEZE. (Ital. fregio, adorned.) In Architecture, the 
 member in the entablature of an order between the archi- 
 trave and the cornice. It is always plain in the Tuscan ; or- 
 namented with triglyphs and sculpture in the Doric; in the 
 Ionic it is occasionally, in modern or Italian architecture, 
 swelled, in which case it is called a, pulvinated or cushioned 
 frieze; and in the Corinthian and Composite it is variously 
 decorated, according to the taste of the a'chitect. 
 
 FRI'fJA, or FREYA, in Northern Mythology. See OniN. 
 
 FRI GATE, is applied to a ship with one coveted gun 
 dork, and carrying more than twenty-eight guns. 
 
 FRIGIDA'RIUM. (Eat. frigidus, cold.) In Ancient Ar- 
 chitecture, the apartment in which the cnld bath was placed. 
 It is sometimes used to denote the bath itself. 
 
 FRI'GID ZONE. The space about either pole of the
 
 FRINGILLA. 
 
 earth terminated by the parallel of 7(W degrees of latitude. 
 At this parallel the sun at noon, in the middle of winter, is 
 90 degrees from the zenith ; and consequently, were it not for 
 the refraction, would only be viable for an instant in the hori- 
 zon. Within this parallel the sun continues invisible in win- 
 ter, and continually visible in summer, for a shorter or longer 
 space of time, depending on the distance of the place from 
 the pole, where the sun remains for one half the year above 
 the horizon, and the other half below it. See Zone. 
 
 FRINGI'LLA. (Lat. fringilla, a chaffinch.) A Linmean 
 genus of Passerine birds, characterised by a broad-based, 
 sharp-pointed, strong, conical bill : now raised to the rank of 
 a family, FHngitlida ; including the buntings (Emberiza) ; 
 the cross-bills (I.ozia) ; the grosbeaks (Coccothrustes) ; the 
 linnets (Linaria) ; canary-birds (Canaria); finches (Cardu- 
 elis) ; and many exotic subgerena of seed and grain-eating 
 Conirostral birds. 
 
 FRITH, or FIRTH (Lat. fretum, a narrow sea), is a term 
 chieflv applied to a narrow and deep inlet of the sea upon a 
 river, "as the Frith of Forth in Scotland. This term corre- 
 sponds to the fiord of the Danes and Norwegians, who, in all 
 probability, borrowed it from the English. Both Latin and 
 Teutonic are derived not improbably from the same root, 
 fahren, to pass over ; whence ferry, ford, furt (Germ.), as in 
 Frankfurt, Erfurt, &c. 
 
 FRITT. The materials of glass are first mixed together, 
 and heated, so as to expel water, and induce fusion : the 
 mass thus obtained is called Fritt. 
 
 FROG. See Batrac" hia and Rana. 
 
 FROND. A combination of stem and leaf in one organ, 
 as in Lemna. Marchantia, and such plants. It is often also 
 misapplied to the leaves of palm-trees and ferns, which dif- 
 fer in no respect from common leaves. 
 
 FRONDE, WAR OF THE. That maintained by the 
 malcontent partizans of the parliament in France, under the 
 regency of Louis XIV., against the government of Cardinal 
 Mazarin. The name of Frone (sling) was given to this 
 war in consequence of some incidents of a street quarrel, 
 which have been differently represented. The party op- 
 posed to government was called that of the Fronde ; and the 
 word Frondeurs has hence acquired in the French language 
 the signification of discontented politicians. Among the best 
 authorities to consult on this period of French history are, 
 Mailly, Esprit de la Fronde, 2 vols. Paris, l</2; the well 
 known Memoirs of Cardinal de Reiz ; and those of Guy 
 Joltj, 2 vols. Amst. 1718. See also other Memoirs in Peti- 
 tot's General Collection. 
 
 FRONS. In Mammalogy, the region of the cranium be- 
 tween the orbits and the vertex. In Ornithology, the space 
 between the base of the bill and the vertex. 
 
 FRO'NTAL BONE. The front bone of the head, which 
 forms the forehead. 
 
 FRO'NTIER (Ital. frontiera, Lat. frons), means the boun- 
 dary of a state, or the territories adjacent to the boundary. 
 The best frontier is the sea ; next best, great rivers or moun- 
 tains, as the Rhine, Rhone, Alps, and Pyrenees. Prussia 
 has the worst frontier of any European slate, and will run a 
 great chance of being annihilated on the occurrence of a 
 Continental wnr. 
 
 FRO'NTISPIECE. (Lat. frons, front, and inspicio, / look 
 upon.) In Architecture, the face or fore front of a house ; 
 but more usually applied to the decorated entrance of a 
 building. This term is also used for the ornamental first 
 page of a book, being, as the derivation imports, that part 
 which fir*t meets the eve. 
 
 FRONTLET. In Ornithology, the margin of the head 
 behind the bill of birds, generally clothed with rigid bristles. 
 
 FROST, in Meteorology, is the freezing or congelation of 
 water or the vapours of the atmosphere by cold. Water be- 
 gins to freeze when the temperature of the air is such that 
 the mercury in Fahrenheit's thermometer stands at 32°. At 
 this temperature ice begins to appear, unless some circum- 
 stance, for example the agitation of the water, prevents its 
 formanon. As the cold increases the frost becomes more in- 
 tense, and liquids which resist the degree of cold required to 
 congeal water at length pass into the solid state. Frost is 
 peculiarly destructive to vegetation. During severe frosts al- 
 most all vegetables fall into a state of decay, and even a 
 moderate degree of frost is sufficient to destroy many of the 
 more tender kinds. The injury which vegetables sustain 
 from frost is greatest when it is preceded by a thaw or copi- 
 ous rains ; for the plants are then saturated with moisture, 
 which, expanding in bulk as it passes into the solid state, 
 produces the rupture of the vegetable fibres. Fruits are in 
 like manner destroyed by frost. Their watery portion is 
 changed into crvstals of ice, which, occupying a greater 
 space than the fluid from which they were produced, burst 
 the small vessels in which they are formed ; hence the fruit 
 is deprived of its flavour, and, when thaw takes place, falls 
 into putrefaction. 
 
 The hour frost, or white frost, which appears in the morn- 
 ings, chiefly in autumn and spring, is merely frozen dew. It 
 42 
 
 FUEL. 
 
 is generally the consequence of a sudde:i clearing up of the 
 weather after rain, when a considerable degree of cold is 
 produced by the rapid evaporation. In our European cli- 
 mates, it usually happens that after a fall of rain the wind 
 shifts into a northern quarter, and the atmosphere suddenly 
 clears up. When this takes place during the night, or early 
 in the morning, a strong radiation of heat from the earth 
 commences, the cooling effect of which is increased bv the 
 copious evajwration from the wet surfaces of the plants and 
 the grass. The influence of evaporation on the phenomena 
 is obvious from this, that the moisture which appears in the 
 form of dew before sunrise is often changed into rime or hoar 
 frost on the appearance of that luminary. The reason is, 
 that as the atmosphere begins to be wanned by the sun's 
 rays, the evaporation is accelerated, and consequently the 
 cold at the wet surface of the ground augmented. Hence we 
 see the reason why frosty nights are so much more prejudicial 
 to the tender shoots of plants when they are succeeded by very 
 bright mornings. Hence also hoar frost is formed on grass or 
 plants when the thermometer, placed a few feet above the 
 ground, indicates a temperature three or four degrees above 
 the freezing point. 
 
 Various projects have been proposed at different times to 
 avert the disastrous effects of the morning frosts on vegeta- 
 tion in spring; but unfortunately, it is only on a very limited 
 scale that any means can be adopted for the purpose. What- 
 ever prevents the formation of dew will protect plants ; hence 
 a covering of net or thin gauze will often preserve the blos- 
 soms of wall-fruit. But the most effectual means is to check 
 the radiation by screening the plant from the chilling aspect 
 of the clear sky. See Dew. 
 
 FRUIT, in Botanical language, is the ovarium or the pis- 
 tillum arrived at maturity ; but the term is commonly extend- 
 ed to whatever is combined with the ovarium when it is 
 ripe. It comprehends many kinds of what are commonly 
 called seeds; as those of com, buckwheat, caraway, parsley, 
 &c. ; as well as the succulent inflorescence of the pine-apple, 
 which is a mass of ovaria and envelopes m a consolidated 
 condition. 
 
 FRUST, or FRUSTUM. (Lat. frustura, cut off.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, a piece cut off from a regular figure, as the shaft 
 of a column is a frustum of a paraboloid. 
 
 FRU'STUM. In Geometry, the part of a solid next the 
 base, formed by cutting off" the top; or it is the part of any 
 solid, as a cone, a pyramid, &c, between two planes, which 
 may be either parallel or inclined to each other. The frus- 
 tum of a pyramid, when the cutting plane is parallel to the 
 base, is equal to the sum of three pyramids whose bases are 
 — 1st, the lower base or end of the frustum: 2d, the upper 
 base; and 3d, a surface which is a geometrical mean be- 
 tween these two. Hence the solid content of such a frus- 
 tum, whatever be the figure of the base, is found by this 
 rule: add into one sum the area of the two ends and the 
 mean proportional between them, then one third of that sum 
 will be the area of the base of an equal prism having the 
 same altitude as the frustum ; and consequently this area 
 multiplied into the altitude gives the solid content of the 
 frustum. 
 
 FRU TEX (Lat. a shrub), is a plant whose branches am 
 perennial, and proceed directly from the surface of the earth, 
 without any supporting trunk. 
 
 FUE'L. (Norm. Fr. fuayl.) Any combustible substance 
 which is used for the production of heat constitutes a spe- 
 cii ■; of fuel ; and in this extended sense of the term, alcohor, 
 wax, tallow, coal gas, oil, and other inflammable bodies 
 which are occasionally used, especially in the chemical la- 
 boratory, as sources of heat as well as light, might be in- 
 cluded under it. But the term fuel is more properly limited 
 to coal, coke, charcoal, wood, and a few other substances, 
 which are our common sources of heat, and as such are burn- 
 ed in grates, stoves, fireplaces, and furnaces of different de- 
 scriptions. 
 
 In this country, coal, from its abundance and cheapness, is 
 the commonly employed fuel ; but where wood is abundant, 
 or where its value is little more than that of felling it it is 
 used either in its original state or in the form of charcoal. 
 But whatever substance is used, the ultimate elements of fuel 
 are carbon and hydrogen: and the heat which is evolved by 
 their combustion is derived from their combination at high 
 temperatures with the oxygen of the air: the results or pro- 
 ducts of this combustion are carbonic acid and water, these 
 escaping into the atmosphere by the flue or chimney gener- 
 rally attached to furnaces and fireplaces. 
 
 It is essential to good and profitable fuel that it should be 
 free from moisture ; for unless it be dry. much of the heat 
 which it generates is consumed in converting its moisture into 
 vapour: hence the superior value of old, dense, and dry 
 wood, to that which is porous and damp ; hence al=o the 
 greater quantity of heat evolved during the combustion of 
 charcoal as compared with that of wood, for even the driest 
 wood always retains a certain quantity of water; hence also 
 coke gives out more heat than pit coal, parti}' because it fe 
 Go 481
 
 FUEROS. 
 
 absolutely dry, and partly because during the combustion or 
 heating of coal, tar, oil, water, and gas are evolved, all of 
 which carry off a certain proportion of the heat in a latent 
 form. A pound of dry wood will, for instance, heat 35 
 pounds water from 32° to 212°, and a pound of the same 
 wood in a moist or fresh state will not heat more than 25 
 pounds from the same to the same temperature ; the value, 
 therefore, of different woods for fuel is nearly inversely as 
 their moisture, and this may be roughly ascertained by find- 
 ing how much a given weight of their shavings loses by dry- 
 ing them at 212°. 
 
 Charcoal is itself very hygrometric, and when exposed to 
 air increases in weight to the amount of 10 or 12 per cent, in 
 consequence of the absorption of humidity : a pound of dry- 
 charcoal is capable of raising, when properly burned, 73 
 pounds of water from the freezing to the boiling point. 
 
 The different kinds of pit coal give out variable quantities 
 of heat during their combustion ; upon an average, one pound 
 of coal should raise 60 pounds of water from the freezing to 
 its boiling point. The heating power of coke as compared 
 with coal is nearly in the ration of 75 to 09 : a pound of good 
 coke will heat from 64 to 66 pounds of water from 32° to 
 212°; its power, therefore, is about nine tenths that of wood 
 charcoal. 
 
 The value of turf and peat as fuel is liable to much varia- 
 tion, and depends partly upon their density, and partly upon 
 their freedom from earthly impurities. A pound of turf will 
 heat about 26 pounds of water from 32° to 212°, and a pound 
 of dense peat about 30 pounds : by compressing and drying 
 peat its value as a fuel is greatly increased. 
 
 The following table, by Dr. Ure, shows the quantity of 
 water raised from 32° to 212° by one pound weight of the 
 
 Combustible. 
 
 Pounds ol 
 Water which 
 a Pound can 
 raise from 32^ 
 to 212°. 
 
 Pounds of 
 Boiling Water 
 evaporated by 
 one Pound. 
 
 Weight of 
 Atmospheric 
 Air at 32° re- 
 quired to burn 
 one Pound. 
 
 Dry wood 
 
 Commou wood .... 
 
 Coke 
 
 Oil, wax, or tallow . . . 
 Alcohol 
 
 3500 
 26 00 
 7300 
 60-00 
 65 00 
 30 00 
 7600 
 7800 
 52-00 
 
 636 
 
 4 72 
 13.27 
 10!0 
 11-81 
 
 5-45 
 13-91 
 1418 
 
 9.56 
 
 596 
 
 4-47 
 11-46 
 
 9-26 
 11-46 
 
 4-60 
 14-5S 
 1500 
 11 GO 
 
 different combustibles enumerated in the first column ; it also 
 shows the number of pounds of boiling water, which the 
 same weight of fuel will eva]x>rate, and the quantity of at- 
 mospheric air absolutely consumed during combustion. The 
 quantity of air, however, as given in the last column, is 
 much less than would be necessary in practice, where much 
 of the air passes the fuel without coming into contact with it 
 so as to have its oxygen consumed. The heating power 
 also, as represented by this table, can seldom be practically 
 attained. 
 
 FUE'ROS, is the term by which in Spain the peculiar 
 rights and privileges of certain provinces are distinguished. 
 It corresponds to the old French word for or fors ; and is 
 said to be derived either from the Latin word forum, or (what 
 is more probable) from the Spanish fuera, which signifies 
 outside or without, thereby indicating the difference which 
 exists between the administration of the provinces in which 
 the fueros prevail, from that of the other constituent parts of 
 the Spanish monarchy. The history of the fueros is lost in 
 their profound antiquity ; but there can be little doubt that 
 their origin may be fairly associated with the political exist- 
 ence of the brave Cantabrians, who were never wholly sub- 
 jugated to the Roman yoke, and who, even when partially 
 vanquished, still maintained their ancient laws and customs 
 inviolate. Be this as it may, it is well known that from 
 their earliest origin the Basque Provinces enjoyed certain 
 privileges unknown to the rest of the Spanish kingdom, and 
 which, though originally not reduced to writing, and exist- 
 ing like our common laws of old in the traditions of the 
 country, were mutually and religiously observed botli by the 
 monarch and the people. In this state they remained till 
 the year 1235, when, on the accession of Thibault, a French 
 prince, to the crown of Navarre, some misunderstanding hav- 
 ing arisen respecting the nature and extent of the fueros, it 
 became necessary to imbody them in a written code, which, 
 with some considerable enlargement sanctioned by Charles 
 V., was, down to the period of the last revolution, faithfully 
 recognised by all the monarchs of Spain as the magna charta 
 of the Basque Provinces. Though the immunities of the 
 provinces, Guipozcoa, Alava, Biscay, and Navarre, exhibit 
 considerable difference in detail, their main features are 
 marked by a striking uniformity, the form of government 
 which prevails in each province being essentially republican 
 in all its branches. In the province of Biscay, for instance, 
 which, with a few modifications more or less Important, may 
 serve as an example for the other provinces, the royal au- 
 thority is purely nominal. The only privilege of the crown 
 482 
 
 FULLERS' EARTH. 
 
 consists in nominating the corregidor, the highest officer in 
 the state ; but even this appointment is subject to the appro- 
 val of certain members (called deputation) of the junta or 
 states, in whose assemblies he has a seat and vote. In the 
 junta is vested the chief management of affairs. This as- 
 sembly forms, with the exception of the American Congress, 
 by far the most popularly constituted representative body in 
 modern times, the right of voting being conferred on every 
 man who possesses a domicile within the lordship ; and its 
 chief dutias consist in administering the affairs of the com- 
 monwealth, in collecting the taxes, in providing for the pro- 
 tection and defence of the country, in nominating the official 
 servants of the government, and in forming of itself a court 
 of appeal from the decisions of the corregidor. Of the privi- 
 lege s and immunities of the province itself, the following are 
 the principal : Freedom from paying any imposts but those 
 due from the inhabitants to their own lordship, and which 
 are fixed by themselves, and, additionally, whatever gratui- 
 tous contributions may be deemed necessary to meet the ex- 
 traordinary emergencies of the state ; the enjoyment of the 
 privileges of nobility in the Castilian dominions on merely 
 proving a descent from pure Biscayan blood ; exemption 
 from appearing before any tribunal beyond the limits of the 
 lordship ; to tolerate no royal intendant or comptroller within 
 the province ; to permit no estanco or royal monopoly, as in 
 the rest of Spain ; exemption from duty on imported mer- 
 chandise ; to have no royal administration, except that of the 
 post-office; to admit no Spanish troops within the territory; 
 to furnish no recruits for the royal army ; to defend their ter- 
 ritory with their own means and blood ; and to visit with 
 summary punishment all who maybe convicted of extortion, 
 or of any attempt to injure or even to interfere with the con- 
 stitution of the province. These details, borrowed chiefly from 
 an able article on this subject in the Monthly Chronicle for 
 Nov. 1839, will convey to the reader some idea of the nature 
 and extent of the fueros, the maintenance of which formed 
 the sole ground for the sanguinary hostilities which for the 
 last few years devastated the northern provinces of the 
 Spanish territory ; hostilities which have at length happily 
 been put an end to by the formal recognition of all the rights, 
 privileges, and ancient customs of the Basque Provinces, on 
 the part not only of the Spanish government, but also of the 
 Cortes. (For farther information on this subject, the reader 
 is referred to a masterly resume of a work entitled El Fuero 
 — Privilegios, Franqueias, tire*, confirmados por el Hey Don 
 Carlos, nueslros senor, S?e. 1762 ; commenced in The Times 
 of Oct. 14, continued in the same journal 16th Nov. 1839, 
 and ended March, 1840.) 
 
 FUGA, or FUGUE. (Lat. fuga, flight.) In Music, a 
 composition wherein the different parts follow each other, 
 each repeating the subject at a certain interval above or be- 
 low the preceding part. 
 
 FU'GLEMAN, or FLUGELMAN. A non-commission- 
 ed officer, appointed to take his place in front of a regiment 
 as a guide to the soldiers in the movements of the drill. The 
 word is derived from the Germ, fltigel, a wing. 
 
 FU'LCRA. (Lat. fulcrum, a prop.) A term invented by 
 Linnjeus to denote a tendril, a prickle, a spine, a hook, or any 
 other process by which plants are enabled to support them- 
 selves upon other plants. 
 
 FU'LCRUM (Lat.), in Mechanics, is the fixed point about 
 which a lever moves. See Lever. 
 
 FU'LGORA. (Lat. fulgor, an effulgence.) The generic 
 name of certain singular insects of the order Homoptera, and 
 family Cicadarim, which have the fore-part of the head pro- 
 duced in the form of a snout or large hollow receptacle ; and 
 the antenna? inserted beneath the eyes, only three-jointed, 
 and terminated by a slender bristle. It is asserted by one 
 naturalist (Mad. Merian), that the frontal projection emits a 
 bright light; but others who had opportunities of making ob- 
 servations on the " living lantern-fly," as the larger species is 
 called, have not witnessed the exercise of its illuminating 
 powers, if it really possess them. 
 
 The Fulgora lanternaria is a native of South America ; 
 the Fulgora candclaria of China. There are many other 
 species included in the Linnasan generic character, but which 
 now form the subgenera Otiocrrus, l/ystra, Ciiius, P&cilop- 
 tera, Issus, Anotia, Delphax, Fulgora proper, be., in the fam- 
 ily Fulirnridw. 
 
 FULGURA'TION. A term applied by the assayer to the 
 sudden brightening of the fused globule of gold or silver 
 when the last film of oxide of lead or copper leaves its surface. 
 
 FU'LICA. (Lat. fuliga ; from fuligo, soot.) The name 
 of a genus of Wading birds of the family JUacrodarhilcr, now 
 restricted to those who have a strong, moderate-sized, straight, 
 conical, and compressed bill, with a dilated naked plate at 
 the base of the upper mandible ; the toes are furnished at the 
 sides with a scalloped membrane; the wings middle-sized. 
 The British species, or common coot (Fulicra atra), is well 
 known : all its congeners approach more or less to its sooty 
 or blue-black colour. 
 
 FU'LLERS' EARTH. A mineral essentially composed
 
 FULLING. 
 
 of silica and alumina, with about 24 per cent, of water, used 
 in fulling cloth. Like other soft aluminous minerals, it has 
 the property of absorbing grease. It occurs in Hampshire, 
 near Wobum in Bedfordshire, and at Nutfield in Surrey; its 
 exportation was formerly forbidden under severe penalties. 
 In most cases soap is now substituted. 
 
 FU'LLING. The art of cleansing, scouring, and pressing 
 stuffs, cloths, stockings, &c, to render them stronger, firmer, 
 and closer; it is also called milling, because these cloths, &c. 
 are in fact scoured by a water mill. (See Urc's Dictionary 
 of Jlrts, &-c.) 
 
 FU'LMINATES. (Lat. fulmen, a thunderbolt.) Com- 
 pounds of the fulminic acid with various bases, all more or 
 less possessed of the property of exploding or detonating by 
 heat or friction. The fulminates of silver and mercury (or 
 fulminating silver and mercury) are objects of manufacturing 
 interest ; the former being used in detonating bonbons, and 
 the latter more largely and importantly as a priming for the 
 percussion caps of gun locks. 
 
 FU'LMINATING POWDER. A compound of three 
 parts of nitre, two of purified pearlash, and one of flowers of 
 sulphur, carefully mixed and dried before the fire : about 20 
 grains of this powder heated upon an iron plate over a slow 
 fire becomes brown and pasty ; a blue flame then appears 
 upon it, and immediately after the whole explodes with a 
 stunning report. 
 
 FULMINA'TION, used synonymously in a general sense 
 with denunciation ; but applied more peculiarly to the ex- 
 communications or anathemas pronounced by the papal see. 
 
 FULMI'NIC ACID. An acid composed of 2 equivalents 
 of cyanogen=:52, and 2 of oxygen=16, corresponding there- 
 fore in ultimate composition with the cyanic acid. In com- 
 bination with the oxide of silver and oxide of mercury, this 
 acid constitutes fulminating silver and fulminating mercury. 
 
 FUMARIA'CEiE. (Fumaria, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of herbaceous Exogens, inhabiting all temper- 
 ate climates, and related to Papaveracca so nearly as to be 
 incorporated with them by some writers. Their sensible prop- 
 erties are not of any value ; a few are objects of cultivation 
 for their beautv. 
 
 FUMIGATION. (Lat. fumigo.) The diffusion of cer- 
 tain vapours through the air, for the purpose of destroying 
 contagion and infection : goods are also fumigated for the 
 same purpose. Acid vapours have frequently been used for 
 this purpose ; there are, however, very few which are at all 
 effectual, and some of them, such as vinegar, only serve to 
 cover bad smells without destroying noxious effluvia. There 
 is no substance so certain in its effects as chlorine ; and it is 
 cheap, and easily obtained either from muriatic acid and 
 black oxide of manganese, or from a mixture of salt, sulphu- 
 ric acid, and black oxide. In inhabited rooms it requires to 
 be cautiously used, in consequence of its bad effects upon the 
 respiratory organs : but even here it may be so extensively 
 diffused as to be effective in destroying noxious matters, with- 
 out serious injury to persons who breathe the atmosphere. 
 When a room can be shut up it may be freely used, and it 
 should be generated in saucers placed in different parts of the 
 apartment (if a large one) ; and not upon the ground, but 
 upon shelves high up in the room, for chlorine being heavier 
 than air, is thus more quickly and rapidly diffused. Infected 
 clothes and furniture may at the same time be subjected to 
 its action. Of all common diseases, the scarlet fever is that 
 which appears to require the most scrupulous attention to 
 careful fumigation. 
 
 FUNCTION, in Analysis, signifies any mathematical ex- 
 pression considered with reference to its form, and not to the 
 value which it receives by giving particular values to the 
 symbols contained in it. Thus a-\-x and a2-\-x 2 are both 
 functions of x, though of different forms. In whatever man- 
 ner an expression may be compounded of constant and vari- 
 able quantities, it is always called a function of the variable 
 quantities only, because it is only with reference to the man- 
 ner in which the variables enter into the expression that it is 
 necessary to consider the function. Thus the above expres- 
 sions, as well as the following, a+log. x, A-f-sin. p x, c*, are 
 all functions of z, the quantities a, b, p, c. being constant, and 
 independent of x. The calculus of functions may be regard- 
 ed as standing in the same relation to algebra that algebra 
 occupies with regard to common- arithmetic. The definite 
 abstract numbers about which arithmetic is concerned are in 
 algebra laid aside for symbols of general number, thus ena- 
 bling us to express a definite operation performed on an in- 
 definite number. In the calculus of functions the generaliza- 
 tion is carried a step farther ; the definite character of the 
 operation is dropped, and indefinite symbols of operation are 
 used, which may be unknown, but determinable by certain 
 conditions ; or arbitrary, or conventionally definite, to denote 
 particular operations. (See " Calculus of Functions" in the 
 Ency. Metrop., by Mr. De Morgan ; also Babbarre's Element- 
 ary Treatise on the Calculus of Functions ; Lagrange, Thc- 
 orie des Fonctions Jlnalytiques ; Cauchy, Coars d'Jlnalyse 
 and Elemens du Cilcu.1 Ir>ftn. ; Peacock's JUgebra, &c.) 
 
 FUNGI. 
 
 FUNDAMENTAL BASS. In Music, the lowest note or 
 root of a chord, which is found by inverting its notes so as to 
 set them in thirds above such root. 
 
 FUNDS, PUBLIC. The name given to the public funded 
 debt due by government 
 
 The practice of borrowing money in order to defray a part 
 
 of the war expenditure began, in this country, in the reign of 
 
 William III. In the infancy of the practice it was customary 
 
 j to borrow upon the security of some tax, or portion of a tax, 
 
 j set apart as a fund for discharging the principal and interest 
 
 I of the sum borrowed. This discharge was, however, very 
 
 i rarely effected. The public exigencies still continuing, the 
 
 | loans were, in most cases, either continued, or the taxes were 
 
 j again mortgaged for fresh ones. At length the practice of 
 
 borrowing for a fixed period, or, as it is commonly termed, 
 
 : upon terminable annuities, was almost entirely abandoned ; 
 
 I and most loans were made upon interminable annuities, or 
 
 | until such time as it might be convenient for government to 
 
 pay off the principal. 
 
 In the beginning of the funding system, the term fimd 
 meant the taxes or funds appropriated to the discharge of the 
 principal and interest of loans: those who held government 
 securities and sold them to others, selling, of course, a corre- 
 sponding claim upon some fund. But after the debt began 
 to grow large, and the practice of borrowing upon intermina- 
 ' ble securities had been introduced, the meaning attached to 
 j the term fund was gradually changed ; and, instead of signi- 
 fying the security upon which loans were advanced, it has, 
 I for a long time, signified the principal of the loans themselves. 
 Owing partly, perhaps, to the scarcity of disposable capi- 
 tal at the time, but far more to the supposed insecurity of the 
 j revolutionary establishment, the rate of interest paid by gov- 
 \ emment in the early part of the funding system was, com- 
 paratively, high. But as the country became richer, and the 
 confidence of the public in the stability of government was 
 increased, ministers were enabled to take measures for redu- 
 cing the interest, first in 1716, and again in 1749. 
 
 During the reigns of William III. and Anne, the interest 
 stipulated for loans was very various. But in the reign of 
 George H. a different practice was adopted. Instead of va- 
 rying the interest upon the loan according to the state of the 
 money market at the time, the rate of interest was generally 
 fixed at three or three and a half per cent. ; the necessary 
 variation being made in the principal funded. Thus, suppose 
 government were anxious to borrow, that they preferred bor- 
 rowing in a 3 per cent, stock, and they could not negotiate a 
 loan for less than 4A per cent., they effected their object by 
 giving the lender, in return for even,' j£100 advanced, j£150 
 3 per cent, stock ; that is, they bound the country to pay him 
 or his assignees £4 10s. a year in all time to come, or other- 
 wise to extinguish the debt by the payment of £150. In 
 consequence of the prevalence of this practice, the princi- 
 pal of the debt now existing amounts to nearly two fifths 
 more than the sum actually advanced by the lenders. 
 
 Some advantages are, however, derivable, or supposed to 
 be derivable, from this system. It renders the management 
 of the debt, and its transfer, more simple and commodious 
 than it would have been had it consisted of a great number 
 of funds bearing different rates of interest: and it is con- 
 tended that the greater field for speculation afforded to the 
 dealers in stocks bearing a low rate of interest has enabled 
 government to borrow, by funding additional capitals, for a 
 considerably less payment on account of interest than would 
 have been necessary had no such increase of capital been 
 made. See National Debt. 
 
 FU'NERAL (Lat. funus), may be defined generally as 
 the last rites performed to a deceased person, of whatever 
 nature they may be, whether of interment, burning, em- 
 balming, &c. Among the ancients ceremonies of this na- 
 ture were accompanied by processions, and gladiatorial com- 
 bats, called funeral frames ; and were usually followed, par- 
 ticularly where the deceased was of high rank or otherwise 
 distinguished, by a discourse, or funeral oration, pronounced 
 in his praise. See Sepulture, Rites or. 
 
 FU'NGI. A large natural order of plants of a very low 
 organization, consisting chiefly of cellular tissue, sometimes 
 intermixed with flocculent matter, and very rarely with 
 spiral vessels. They inhabit dead and decaying organic 
 bodies, and are also a common pest to living plants, upon 
 which they prey in the same manner as vermin and intes- 
 tinal worms upon animals. A vast number of species are 
 described by writers upon fungi, called mycologists : and 
 they are often of great importance to man either for their 
 use or their miscfiievous qualities. The common mush- 
 room, the truffle, and morel, are delicacies well known at 
 table : ergot is valuable in obstetric practice as a uterine 
 stimulant : verv manv of them are dangerous poisons. 
 Blight, mildew, rust, brand, &c, are diseases caused by the 
 ravages of the microscopic fungi ; and, finally, the destruc- 
 tive effects of dry rot are owing to the attacks of Merulius 
 Inchrymans and many other species, some of which are mi- 
 croscopic. The best general work on Fungi is Fries's Sys-
 
 FUNGICOLA. 
 
 tema Mycologicum. Numerous species are figured in the 
 works of Greville, Bulliard, Sowerby, Corda, and Nees von 
 Esenbeck. 
 
 FUNGl'COLA. (Lat. fungus, a mushroom, and colo, to 
 inhabit.) The name of a family of Coleopterans, compre- 
 hending those which are found on mushrooms. 
 
 FUNGI'LLIFO IIMIS, a Latin term signifying mushroom- 
 headed, is applied to any bodies having a short thick figure, 
 one end of which is much more dilated than another. 
 
 FU'NGIN. The fleshy part of mushrooms purified by 
 digestion in hot water. 
 
 FU'NGUS, in Surgery, is a term applied to the too luxu- 
 riant formation of flesh about an ulcer, or what is common- 
 ly called proud flesh. 
 
 FUNI'CULAR MACHINE. (Lat. funis, a rope.) In 
 Mechanics, if a body fixed to two or more ropes is sustain- 
 ed by powers which act by means of those ropes, the as- 
 semblage is called the funicular machine, or rope machine. 
 If a rope is stretched horizontally between two points, its 
 own weight alone will prevent it from becoming perfectly 
 straight, whatever force be employed in stretching it ; and 
 a very small force applied at its middle point, at right an- 
 gles to its direction, will be sufficient to overcome a very 
 great resistance at the points to which its extremities are 
 attached. In this manner a very small force may be made 
 to raise a very great weight to a minute height. This meth- 
 od of applying force is familiar to seamen, who frequently 
 have recourse to it in bracing their sails. 
 
 FUNI'CULUS. A prolongation of the placenta in the 
 shape of a cord, to which the ovules are attached. 
 
 FU'NNKL. (Lai. infundibulum.) In Architecture, the 
 upper part of a chimney. In common life, it is a trumpet- 
 mouthed utensil, with a" pipe fixed to the apex for the pur- 
 pose of conveying liquors into a vessel without spilling 
 them. 
 
 FU'NNEL-SHAPED. In Botany : used in describing the 
 general form of a calyx, corolla, or other organ, the tube of 
 which is like a funnel or inverted cone ; that is, narrowest 
 at the base and widest at the orifice. 
 
 FUR. (Fr. fourruxe.) The coated skins of wild animals, 
 especially of those of high northern latitudes ; such as the 
 wolf, bear, beaver, &c. The hair or fur is cleansed, and the 
 akin is generally slightly tanned or tawed. The most val- 
 nable furs, such as ermine and sable, come chietiy from 
 Russia. When unprepared, or merely dried, the fur skins 
 go under the name of peltry. 
 
 FURFURA'CEOUS. (Lat. furfur, bran.) A term ap- 
 plied to certain eruptions in which the cuticle peals off in 
 scales: also to a branlike sediment which is sometimes ob- 
 served in the urine. 
 
 F CRIES (Furiffi), in Mythology, called by the Greeks 
 Erinnyes ('Eplvvvcg) and Eumenides ('vvuiviScs), were the 
 avenging deities, who punished gods and men for their trans- 
 gressions against those whom they were bound to esteem and 
 reverence. Their number was not fixed, though sometimes 
 they were considered to be three sisters. The Athenians, 
 who, according to Plutarch (Soton), were particularly ad- 
 dicted to this sort of euphemism, called them also Tcuvat Qcai, 
 the venerable goddesses, their true names being considered 
 ominous. By this name they were mentioned in the oaths 
 taken at the Areopagus. 
 
 FURL. In Navigation, to roll the sail up and confine it 
 closely to the yard ; the sail being gathered up by the men on 
 the yard, the leech or edge is passed along the yard to the 
 middle or bunt, where the body of the sail, the foot and 
 clews, are collected. In this way the sails of a man of war 
 are removed nearly out of view in an almost incredibly short 
 space of time. 
 
 FU'RLONG. An English measure of length, containing 
 the eighth part of a mile. 
 
 FURLOUGH, in Military language, signifies the permis- 
 sion granted to an officer or soldier to absent himself for a 
 given time from military duty. 
 
 FU'RNACE. (Lat. Fornax.) An apparatus wherein is 
 placed a cavity to contain combustible matter, which in va- 
 rious ways is supplied with air to facilitate its combustion. 
 The two classes into which furnaces are divided are air or 
 wind furnaces, and blast furnaces. In the former the air is 
 conducted through the fire by the draught of a funnel or 
 chimney which communicates with it; in the latter, the ac- 
 tion of bellows or some other pneumatic apparatus supplies 
 the air. The word furnace has generally, however, a more 
 circumscribed application; being applied usually to an ap- 
 paratus for the fusion of metals, or to that used in a chemical 
 laboratory. 
 
 FU'RNITURE. In Printing, the materials used to extend 
 pages of type to their proper length; also to separate them, 
 when imposed, to a just distance from each other, so that 
 when the sheet is printed and folded the margin shall be 
 regular and uniform. (Sec Imposing.) It consists of pieces 
 of oak wood planed up to specific thicknesses, and to about 
 half an inch high ; sidesticks and footsticks, which are placed 
 484 
 
 FUTTOCK PLATES. 
 
 at the outside of the pages, and made thinner at one end than 
 the other, to allow the quoin to secure them more effectually ; 
 and quoins or wedges, usually made of beech wood, with 
 which the pages are wedged up in a chase. See Chase. 
 
 Fu'rniture. (Fr. foumir, to furnish.) In Architecture, 
 the visible brasswork of locks, knobs to doors, window shut- 
 ters, and the like. 
 
 FU RRING. (Fr. fourrer, to thrust in.) In Architecture, 
 the small slips nailed on joists or rafters, where some parts 
 of them are lower than others, or where the surface is not 
 regular, so as to bring the boarding they are to receive into 
 the same planes. 
 
 FURU'NCULUS. (Lat. furo, I rage.) A boil ; an in- 
 flammatory tumour, which generally has a central core, and 
 appears in full and healthy habits. Where boils prevail in 
 delicate constitutions, they generally indicate a cachectic state, 
 which is often corrected by a course of sarsaparilla. 
 
 FURZE. A prickly bush, found abundantly in exposed 
 heaths in England anil the more southern countries of Eu- 
 rope, from which it is by some supposed to have been intro- 
 duced ; a conjecture rendered probable by its not being able 
 to bear the more rigorous of our winters. Its preference for 
 sterile soil has caused it to be extensively used for fences in 
 such land, as a cover for game and a shelter for young planta- 
 tions. Its young and tenderer shoots are browsed upon by 
 sheep and cattle. Botanists call it Ulex Europaus, and class 
 it with the Leguminous order. 
 
 FUSE'E. In Watch-work, that part of the machinery 
 about which the chain is wound, and which is immediately 
 acted upon by the mainspring. The use 
 of the fusee is to equalize the action of 
 the spring. In proportion as the spring 
 becomes unwound, its effort continually 
 relaxes; so that if the first wheel were 
 attached to the barrel, as is often the case 
 in common watches, the inequality of the 
 impelling power would produce a corre- 
 sponding inequality in the rate of going. In order to correct 
 this, one end of the chain is attached to and wound round 
 the barrel in which the main-spring is contained ; while the 
 other end is coiled about the fusee, which has a conical 
 shape, and is fixed on the axis of the first wheel. The prin- 
 ciple generally adopted for determining the figure of the fusee 
 is, that its radius, at any point to which the chain is a tangent, 
 should be inversely as the tension of the chain in that posi- 
 tion. Within certain limits this is true ; and if we assume 
 with Hooke that the force of a spring is proportional to the 
 distance to which it is drawn from the position of rest, and 
 also lay aside all consideration of the length of the chain 
 wrapped about the fusee, it would be easy to show that the 
 fusee should be the solid generated by the revolution of the 
 equilateral hyperbola about its asymptote. This conclusion 
 is, however, by no means correct ; but though the subject has 
 been treated by several eminent mathematicians, very little 
 practical advantage has been derived from the theoretical in- 
 vestigations. In fact, a moderate approximation to the true 
 figure (whatever that may be) is all that can be attained in 
 practice, and all that is necessary. 
 
 FU'SIBLE METAL. An alloy of eight parts of bismuth, 
 five of lead, and three of tin It liquefies at a temperature 
 below 212°. 
 
 FU SIBLE SALT OF URINE. A name by which the 
 old chemists designated the ammonio-phosphate of soda, ob- 
 tained by the evaporation of urine. 
 
 FUSIL (Fr. fusee), in Heraldry, is a bearing of a rhomboi- 
 dal figure more slender than the lozenge ; its upper and lower 
 angles being more acute than the two middle ones. 
 
 Fusil. A light musket nearly similar to a carabine, but in 
 general more neatly finished. The fusil was originally used by 
 officers atlached to light companies ; and in the British army it 
 has given its name to several regiments called the fusiliers. 
 The bore is usually calculated for balls of eighteen to the 
 pound ; and the length of the barrel is from thirty-four to 
 thirty-eight inches. 
 
 FUST. The same as Frust, which see. 
 FU'STIAN. (Fr. fustaine.) A thick twilled cotton, of 
 which velveteen, corduroy, and thickset are varieties. (See 
 Velvet.) Fustian is generally dyed of a deep olive or lead 
 colour. 
 
 Fustian, in Criticism, is applied to writings remarkable fo» 
 a forced elevation of style, or for an exaggerated or unnatural 
 use of metaphors or other rhetorical figures. 
 
 FU'STIC. A yellow dye stuff. There are two kinds of 
 fustic occasionally used by dyers. Old fustic is the wood of 
 a large tree, the .Mums tinctoria, which grows abundantly 
 in many parts of tile West Indies and America; it gives a 
 dingy yellow dye, and is chiefly useful in the production of 
 compound colours. Young fustic is the Rhus cotinus, or 
 Venice sumach, a shrub growing in Italy and the south of 
 France ; it gives a greenish-yellow dye, and is also used as an 
 accessory material. 
 FU'TTOCK PLATES. Flat iron bars or plates, receiving
 
 PUTTOCKS. 
 
 at one end the lower dead-eye of the topmast rigging, and at 
 the other the futtock shroud. 
 
 FU'TTOCKS. In Nautical language, the timbers be- 
 tween tile floor timbers and the top timbers. 
 
 G. 
 
 G. The seventh letter of the English Alphabet, but the 
 third in those of all the Oriental languages, and also of the 
 Greek. The form of our G is borrowed from the Roman 
 alphabet. G, in English, has two sounds: before a, o, and u, 
 and occasionally before i and e, it is the medial letter of the 
 guttural order ; the other sound, which it possesses only be- 
 fore e and i, is one of the medials of the sibilant series. The 
 guttural G is liable to a variety of changes in different dialects 
 and languages. (See Penny Cyclo.) G, as a Roman ab- 
 breviature, is used for gratis, gens, gaudium, &c. G. V. signi- 
 fies genio urbis, G. L. genio loci, and G. P. R. gloria populi 
 Romani. As a numeral it denoted 400, — 
 
 G quadringentos demonstrativa tenebit. 
 
 On the French coins G indicates the city of Poictiers ; and in 
 chronology it is the seventh Dominical letter. G, in music, 
 is the fifth note or degree of the diatonic scale, corresponding 
 to the sol of the French and Italians. It is used also to de- 
 signate the treble clef. 
 
 GABE'LLE. (Probably derived, through some unknown 
 inflexion, from the Teutonic word geben, to give.) Any im- 
 post laid on commodities was originally thus tenned in 
 France ; as gabelle de vin, de draps, &.c. : but the word ac- 
 quired in the course of time the peculiar signification of a 
 duty on salt, which is meant when the word " gabelle" is 
 used simply. The Gabelle was first established in the early 
 part of the 14th century, during the reign of Philip de Valois, 
 and, with a brief interruption of five years, from 1340 to 1345, 
 continued to be levied down to the reign of Louis XVI., at 
 which time the revenue it produced was estimated at 38 
 millions of francs. The distribution of this tax was most 
 capricious and arbitrary, some provinces having been alto- 
 gether exempt from, some more and others less subject to, its 
 operation : and it may safely be affirmed that the gabelle was 
 one of the greatest curses imposed on France previously to 
 the Revolution. (See Com. Diet., art. " Salt ;" art. " Taxa- 
 tion," Supp. Encyc. Brit.) 
 
 GA'BIONS, in Fortification, are baskets made of twins, 
 which, being filled with earth, are used as a screen from the 
 enemy's fire. 
 
 GA'BLE. (Brit, from gavel.) In Architecture, the verti- 
 cal triangular piece of wall at the end of the roof, from the 
 level of the eaves to the summit. 
 
 GA'DFLY. See OIstrum. 
 
 GA'DOIDS, Gadoidcz. (Gr. yaSos, a fish.) A family of 
 soft-finned fishes, which belong to the section Subbrachians, 
 or those which have the ventral fins below or in advance of 
 the pectorals, and of which the cod-fish (Gadus morrhua, 
 Linn.) may be regarded as the type. 
 
 The general character of the Gadoid family is as follows : 
 Body moderately elongated, sub-compressed, and covered 
 with soft and very numerous scales ; head smooth ; jaws and 
 front of the vomer armed with pointed, unequal, moderate, or 
 small teeth, disposed in several rows, like a rasp ; gill-open- 
 ings large, and with seven rays; most of the species with two 
 or three dorsal and one or two anal fins ; stomach strong and 
 capacious; ccecal appendages very numerous; air-bladder 
 large, with strong parietes, often dentated laterally. The 
 greater number of the cod tribe inhabit the seas of cold or 
 temperate latitudes ; their flesh is white and well flavoured ; 
 they are most prolific, and constitute the most important sub- 
 ject of fisheries. The great sand-bank of Newfoundland is 
 the most famous of the cod-fisheries : here 100,000,000 pounds 
 weight have been taken by the British alone in one year. 
 
 GA'DOLINI'TE. A mineral found almost exclusively in 
 Sweden, containing yttria and oxide of cerium ; named in 
 honour of Dr. Gadolin, who discovered yttria. 
 
 GAFF. The boom or yard extending the upper edge of j 
 what are called fore and aft sails. The gafl" turns round the 
 mast, against which it rests in a circular opening (called the 
 jaws) as an axis. It is supported by two independent ropes ; 
 the throat halliards at the mast and the peak halliards at the 
 outer end. It is steadied, when the sail is not set, by ropes | 
 at the extremity called the vangs. 
 
 GAGE, or GAUGE. (Ang. Sax. ga?ggian, to bind or con- 
 fine.) In Architecture, the length of a slate or tile below the 
 lap; also the measure to which any substance is confined, j 
 Plasterers use the word to signify the greater or less quantity 
 of plaster of Paris used with the common plaster to accelerate 
 its setting. 
 
 Gage. In Physics, an instrument or apparatus for measur- j 
 ing the state of a phenomenon. Gage of the air pump is | 
 
 GALBULUS. 
 
 merely a barometer communicating with the inside of the 
 receiver, which marks, in the usual manner, the pressure of 
 the air within the receiver by the height of the equiponderant 
 column of mercury, and consequently shows the degree to 
 which the air is rarefied. A short barometer may be employed 
 for this purpose ; but in this case it will not be affected till the 
 rarefaction of the air has been carried so far as to correspond 
 with the length of the tube. An instrument for the same 
 purpose, but on a different principle, was invented by Smeaton, 
 and from its form called the pear-gage. It is a vessel sus- 
 pended in the receiver, and exhausted to the same degree ; 
 but when the rarefaction is carried as far as intended, the 
 open orifice of the gage is let down into a vessel containing 
 mercury, which, on the readmission of the air, is forced up 
 into the pear, and the degree of rarefaction is judged of by the 
 quantity of mercury introduced. The idea is ingenious ; but 
 the indications given by this instrument are not correct. For 
 wind-gage, see Anemometer ; water-gage, see Hydrome- 
 ter. 
 
 GAILLARDE. (Ital.) The name of a lively dance pecu- 
 liar to Italy, and supposed to have been practised by the an- 
 cient Romans, whence it is sometimes designated Roman- 
 esque. 
 
 GALA'CTOPOIETIC. (Gr. ya\a, milk, and neieoi, I 
 make.) A term applied by some medical writers to diet and 
 medicine, supposed to promote the secretion of milk. 
 
 GA'LA'GO. See Otolicnus. 
 
 GALA'NGAL. A dried root brought from China ; it has 
 an aromatic smell, and a pungent bitter flavour, and was 
 formerly used in medicine. The greater galangal is the pro- 
 duce of the Kampferia galanga, and the lesser of the 
 Maranta galanga. 
 
 GALATHiE A. A genus of long-tailed (macrourous) 
 Crustacea, including some very beautiful species (Gal. ru- 
 
 fosa, strigosa, et squamifcra), occasionally found on the 
 ritish coasts. The true Galathaa have the thorax oblong 
 or ovoid, the median antenna? produced, and the pincers 
 elongated. This term is derived from the celebrated nymph 
 of that name. 
 
 GA'LAXY, or MILKY WAY. (Gr. ya\a, milk.) In 
 Astronomy, " that great luminous band which stretches ev- 
 ery evening all across the sky, from horizon to horizon, and 
 which forms a zone completely encircling the whole sphere, 
 almost in a great circle. At one part it sends off a kind of 
 branch, which unites again with the main body, after re- 
 maining distinct for about 150 degrees. This remarkable 
 belt has maintained from the earliest ages the same relative 
 situation among the stars ; and when examined through 
 powerful telescopes is found to consist entirely of stars, 
 scattered by millions, like glittering dust, on the black 
 ground of the general heavens." {HerscheVs Astronomy; 
 Cabinet Cyclopedia.) The phenomena of the milky way, 
 says the same illustrious authority, " agree with the suppo- 
 sition that the stars of our firmament instead of being scat- 
 tered in all directions indifferently through space, form a 
 stratum, of which the thickness is small in comparison 
 with its length and breadth, and in which the earth occu- 
 pies a place somewhere about the middle of its thickness, 
 and near the point where it subdivides into two principal 
 lamina;, inclined at a small angle to each other. For it is 
 certain that to an eye thus situated, the apparent density 
 of the stars, supposing them pretty equally scattered through 
 the space they occupy, would be least in a direction of the 
 visual ray perpendicular to the lamina, and greatest in that 
 of its breadth ; increasing rapidly in passing from the one 
 direction to the other, just as we see a slight haze in the 
 atmosphere thickening into a decided fog bank near the 
 horizon by the rapid increase of the mere length of the visual 
 ray. Accordingly such is the view of the construction of 
 the starry firmament taken by Sir William Herschel, whose 
 powerful telescopes have effected a complete analysis of 
 this wonderful zone, and demonstrated the fact of its con- 
 sisting entirely of stars." (P. 376.) See Star. 
 
 GA'LBANUM. A slightly fetid gum-resin, produced by 
 the Galbanum officinale. It is imported from Turkey and 
 the East Indies for medical use, but is a drug of little im- 
 portance. 
 
 GA'LBULA. (Lat. the name of a bird in Martius.) A 
 genus of Scansorial birds, closely allied to the kingfishers 
 by their elongated sharp-pointed beak, the upper ridge of 
 which is angular ; and bv their short feet, the anterior toes 
 of which are almost wholly united: these toes, however, 
 are not precisely the same as those of the kingfishers. The 
 plumage of the species of Galbula, which are called by the 
 French "jacamars," is not so smooth as that of the king- 
 fishers, and always has a metallic lustre. They are solitary 
 birds, that live in wet forests, feed on insects, and build on 
 low bushes. 
 
 GA'LBULUS. In Botany, a term invented by Gart- 
 ner, to denote a form of fruit similar to a cone, excepting 
 that the galbulus is round, and has the heads of the carpels 
 much enlarged. Example— the fruit of the juniper. 
 
 485
 
 GALEA. 
 
 GA'LEA, i;i Antiquity, was the headpiece or helmet used 
 iii battle by the Roman soldiers. 
 
 Jim galtam Pallas et aegida 
 Curruique et rabiem parat. 
 
 The galea, was used for the same defensive purposes as the 
 cassis ; but differed frcm it in this, that while the cassis 
 was of metal, the galea was originally of hides. It was too 
 heavy fur general use ; hence eacli army was attended by 
 galearii, a species of military domestics, whose duty it was 
 to carry the galea? of the soldiers. 
 
 GALE'NA. (Gr. yaXcti), J shine.) Native sulphuret of 
 lead. 
 
 GA'LENISTS. In Ecclesiastical History, a subdivision 
 of the sect called Waterlandions in the 17th century. (Jilo- 
 sheim, Transl., vol. v. 490.) In Medical History the follow- 
 ers of Galen were so termed, in opposition to the practitioners 
 of the chemical school. 
 
 GALE OF WIND. The sea term for a continued storm 
 of wind : the lowest degree is the fresh gale, the next a strong 
 gale, and the next a heavy or hard gale. 
 
 GA'LEOPITHE'COS. (Gr. yaXcos, a weasel, 7rt6tjxo;, an 
 ape.) A genus of Insectivorous Mammalia, having the 
 bones of the arm and leg, but not those of the digits, ex- 
 cessively elongated, and supporting extensive lateral folds 
 of skin serviceable as a parachute, but not as organs of 
 flight. The species are restricted to the great islands of the 
 Indian archipelago ; their inferior incisors are remarkable 
 for their complex" form, like the teeth of a comb. 
 
 GALERU'CA. (Lat. galerus, a cap or tuft.) A genus 
 of Tetramerous Coleoptera, now the type of an extensive 
 family (Galcrucidie), including, among other subgenera, 
 the noxious turnip flies (Haltica). All the Galerucidm are 
 vegetable-feeders, both in their larva and perfect state. 
 There are about a dozen known British species of Galeruca 
 proper, which are small, and generally dark or dull-coloured 
 beetles. 
 
 GALIA'CEiE. (Galium, one of the genera.) A natural 
 order of herbaceous Exogens, inhabiting the cooler parts of 
 the world. They are distinguished from Cinchonaccce by 
 their square stems and verticiliate leaves without stipules. 
 The Rubia tinctoria yields madder, and some of the other 
 species produce a similar colouring substance. The torrefied 
 grains of Galium are said to be a good substitute for coffee, 
 and the flowers of Galium vcrum are used to curdle milk. 
 GALL. See Bile. 
 
 GALL BLA'DDER; An oblong membranous receptacle 
 attached to the under part of the liver. It retains the bile 
 which regurgitates from the hepatic duct, and sends it 
 through the cistic duct, which proceeds from its neck into 
 the ductus communis choledochus, and thence into the duo- 
 denum. 
 
 GA'LLEQN. Certain Spanish treasure ships with three 
 or four decks, formerly employed in communicating with 
 Peru. 
 
 GA'LLERY. In the Fine Arts, a term applied to a col- 
 lection of works in painting or sculpture. The earliest gal- 
 lery of which there is any record was that of Verres. It is 
 described by Cicero, and was rich in pictures as well as 
 sculpture. In Europe, at the present day, the gallery of the 
 Louvre, though much reduced in 1815 by the restoration of 
 many works of art which conquest had enabled the French 
 to acquire, is the finest in Europe, if taken as a whole. That 
 founded at Florence by Cosmo II. long enjoyed the first rank, 
 but must be now considered secondary to the French col- 
 lection. The other principal galleries of Europe are those 
 at Munich, Dresden, Berlin, and, though last not least both 
 in size and importance, that of the Vatican at Rome ; which, 
 however, is more generally called the Museum of the Vati- 
 can. The building for the reception of the National Gallery 
 in London is wholly unworthy of the nation and of the fine 
 situation which it occupies. The collection of pictures in 
 this gallery is small, but some of them are of rare and unri- 
 valled excellence. The gallery of antiques at the British 
 Museum is, in many respects, matchless. The galleries of 
 the Duke of Sutherland, Lord F. Egerton, Mr. Hope, and 
 other private individuals, contain many very fine pictures. 
 
 Ga'llery. In Fortification, a covered passage across the 
 ditch of a fortified town. In Mining, gallery is a narrow 
 passage from our part of the mine to another. 
 
 G' ALLEY. (Fr. galore.) A low-built vessel propelled 
 by sails and oars, cither on a single tier, or on tiers of benches 
 one above the Other. The war vesst Is of antiquity were all 
 galleys. Among the Greeks those chiefly mentioned are 
 the pentccontori, which appear to have had fifty oars dis- 
 posed in a single tier; and the trieres (Lat. triremes), vessels 
 with three banks of oars, concerning the disposition of which 
 much controversy has taken place. It is commonly sup- 
 posed that a trireme had three banks of oars one above the 
 other ; but this is rendered improbable by the circumstance 
 of Pliny making mention of galleys having thirty, forty, 
 and even fifty banks of oars ; for it seems hardly credible that 
 eo many could have been arranged directly above each 
 486 
 
 GALLICAN CHURCH. 
 
 other. Some have suggested that the rows of oars in the 
 trireme were disposed, not horizontally, but obliquely ; in 
 which case an increase in the number of banks of oars 
 would augment the length, and probably the height would 
 be' increased in proportion. (See Mcibomius, De Fabrica 
 veterum Trircmium.) 
 
 Galleys were likewise chiefly employed by the maritime 
 nations of the middle ages in the Mediterranean. Their use 
 in naval war hardly ceased until the end of the 17th century : 
 and the Venetian republic, down to the period of its extinc- 
 tion, always maintained a number of war galleys. The 
 Venetian galleys had a single tier only, and all modem gal- 
 leys followed the same construction. These were formidable 
 vessels in a calm, but unfit for a sea, and accordingly found 
 chiefly in the Mediterranean. The Venetians had also a 
 large high-pooped sort of galley called galeazza, whence the 
 word galleass and galliolt in old English writers. 
 
 The Deal galley is a long narrow boat vised by the Deal 
 boatmen, and managed on the most hazardous occasions in 
 saving the crew of stranded vessels with consummate skill ; 
 it is also used by smugglers on account of its velocity. The 
 galley is also the kitchen of a ship. 
 
 The punishment of the galleys, i. e. the employment of 
 condemned criminals in the toilsome employment of rowing 
 them, is said to have originated under the Greek empire; as 
 well as the name TaXcapoi, or galley slaves — in French 
 galeriens. It was used by all the nations bordering on the 
 Mediterranean. In France, under the old jurisprudence, the 
 punishment of the galleys was the severest after that of 
 death. About the end of the feign of Louis XIV., when 
 galleys themselves began to be disused, the galley slaves 
 were employed in hospitals, public works, &c. : and the 
 name of the punishment was changed by the constituent 
 assembly (1798) to travaux forces, compulsory labour, 
 whence the word forcal for a criminal so condemned. Un- 
 der the code of the empire the punishment was accompanied 
 with forfeiture of property, infamy, and branding. By an 
 alteration of the law effected in 1832, the brand was abolish- 
 ed ; and the criminals, who had hitherto been intermingled 
 in the three penal fortresses (Toulon, Rochefort, and Brest), 
 were classified. Toulon is now appropriated to those con- 
 demned for 10 years and under ; Brest, to those from 10 to 
 20; Rochefort, to the condemned for life. The name Bagne, 
 which is applied in France to prisons in which those con- 
 demned to compulsory labour are confined, is derived from 
 the famous Bagnio prison at Constantinople, so called on 
 account of some baths situated there. The principal crimes 
 now punished in this manner by the French law are — some 
 acts of violence against the government or public law ; coining 
 and forgery ; assaults followed by death on legal officers ; 
 murder, unless under such aggravated circumstances as are 
 punished by death ; cutting and maiming ; rape, abduction, 
 burglary, highway robbery, burning of insulated buildings, 
 threatening letters, perjury, &c. 
 
 GA'LLI. The priests of Cybele were so named at Rome 
 from the country (Galatia or Gallo-Grtecia) in which Pessinus, 
 the head quarters of her worship, was situated : also termed 
 Curetes, Corybantes, and Idrei Dactyli. Cybele, the mother 
 of the gods, was introduced to Rome from Asia on the occa- 
 sion of a pestilence by the advice of the Sybilline oracles 
 {Liv. 29. c. 14.), and her worship became in time one of the 
 most popular in the city. Her priests were eunuchs, of which 
 Lucretius (lib. ii.) gives the alleged reason. They are de- 
 scribed as the vilest of mankind by the Roman satirists, yet 
 they had extraordinary power over the vulgar. Juvenal 
 describes them among the low companions of his debauched 
 consul Damasippus : 
 
 Et resupinati cessantia tympana Galli. 
 
 GA'LLIC ACID. An acid obtained from galls and 
 several other vegetable astringents. Its ultimate components 
 are 7 car. + 3 h. + 5 o. ; its equivalent number is 85. 
 
 GA'LLICAN CHURCH. The distinctive title of the 
 Roman Catholic church in France, which maintains a cer- 
 tain degree of independence in respect of the Romish see. 
 The liberties of the Gallican church, first asserted in the 
 Pragmatic Sanction (1438), were defined and confiimed in 
 the Utmtuor Propositiones Cleri Gallicani, promulgated in 
 1682. The occasion of this declaration was a dispute be- 
 tween Louis XIV. and Pope Innocent XT. concerning the 
 light long practised by the French kings of occupying in their 
 own persons the inferior preferments of a diocese which 
 lapsed during the vacancy of the see. It was then deter- 
 mined by an assembly of the French clergy, that the pope 
 has no temporal, but only spiritual rights, as the vicegerent 
 of Christ; that even these are limited by canons and coun- 
 cils ; and that the decrees of the holy see are subject to 
 reversal upon the decision of the clergy in general. (See 
 the Declaration of tlie French Clergy concerning F.cclesias- 
 tical Power, drawn up by the famous Bossuet, bishop of 
 Meatix, in the assembly convoked by Louis XIV. in 1682.) 
 While, however, it asserts this liberty in speculative points,
 
 GALLICISM. 
 
 the Gallican church does not differ from the Romish in any 
 points of faith or ceremonial observances. It was upon the 
 basis of these liberties that the concordat was founded by 
 which the Catholic religion was re-established in France in 
 1801 ; and they continue to be maintained upon their original 
 fooling, now that the church is no longer connected with the 
 state. It has always been the object of the Jesuits lo bring 
 the French church into more deferential submission to the 
 Komish see ; and at the present day the party among the 
 clergy who desire this consummation is said to be on the 
 increase. The controversy on this subject was carried on 
 in the last century between the two classes called Cismontane 
 and Tramontane divines. The new Gallican church of the 
 Abbe Chatel, founded at Paris in 1831, seems not to have 
 met with much success. The abbe styles himself primate 
 of it. It denies the infallibility of the pope and of councils, 
 rejects the celibacy of priests, leaves confession voluntary, 
 and performs service in the mother tongue. In all these 
 respects its doctrines approach those of the church of Eng- 
 land. (See the Profession de Foi de I'Eglise Catholique 
 Francaise, Par. 1831.) 
 
 GA'LLICISM. Literally, a phrase or construction pecu- 
 liar to the French language, but used generally to denote 
 such phrases or modes of speech in English as are formed 
 after the French idiom. 
 
 GALLI'COLA. (Lat.galla, a gall, colo, I inhabit.) The 
 name of a family of Pupiparous Hymenopterans, including 
 those of which the larva: inhabit the galls or vegetable ex- 
 crescences caused by the perforation and oviposition of the 
 parent insect. 
 
 GA'LLINA'CEANS. Gal/inacea. (Lat. gallus, a cock.) 
 See Rasores. 
 
 GALL-INSECTS, Gall-insecta. The name of a family 
 of Hemipterans, comprehending those the females of which, 
 towards the period of oviposition, assume a globular form, 
 analogous to the galls caused by the gallicolcs. 
 
 GA'LLINULE, or WATER-HEN. The type of the 
 subgenus Gallinula, now dismembered from the Fulica of 
 Linnams, which term is restricted in modem systems of or- 
 nithology to the Coots proper. 
 
 GA'LLIOTT. A strong and cumbrous vessel used by the 
 Dutch, having a main and mizen mast, which is often close 
 aft. 
 
 GALL NUTS. Excrescences produced by the cynips, a 
 email insect which deposits its eggs in the tender shoots of 
 the Quercus infectoria, a species of oak abundant in Asia 
 Minor. When the maggot is hatched it produces a morbid 
 excrescence of the surrounding parts, and ultimately eats its 
 way out of the nidus thus formed. The best galls are im- 
 ported from Aleppo and Smyrna ; their principal ingredients 
 are tan and gallic acid. The infusion of galls affords a dense 
 white precipitate in solution of jelly, and a black precipitate 
 with the persalts of iron. The latter property leads to the 
 use of galls in the manufacture of ink and of black dye ; 
 they are also used as an astringent in medicine. 
 
 GALL OF GLASS. The salts and other impurities 
 which float upon the fused materials for the manufacture of 
 glass, and which is skimmed off. It is also called sandiver. 
 
 GA'LLON. An English measure of capacity. By act 
 of parliament the imperial gallon is to contain 10 lbs. avoir- 
 dupois of distilled water, weighed at the temperature of 62° 
 of Fahrenheit, and the barometer standing at 30 inches. 
 This is equivalent to 277-274 cubic inches. The old English 
 gallon, wine measure, contained 231 cubic inches ; beer 
 measure, 282 cubic inches. See Measures. 
 
 GA'LLOPER. In Artillery, the carriage on which the 
 very small guns are conveyed. 
 
 GALLS. Local affections or diseases of plants, caused 
 by the puncture of insects. They are produced by an exces- 
 sive deposition of cellular tissue, and are of no consequence 
 to the general health of the individual subject to them. 
 
 GA'LL-STONES. Concretions occasionally found in the 
 gall bladder and biliary duct. They consist either of a 
 peculiar fatty matter called cliolesterine, or of inspissated 
 bile, or of mixtures of the two. The gall-stones of the ox 
 generally contain a peculiar yellow colouring matter, which 
 is much valued bv painters. 
 
 GA'LLY-WORM. See Julidans. 
 
 GA'LVANISM. (From Galvani, professor of anatomy at 
 Bologna, the discoverer of some of the phenomena connected 
 with this form of electricity in the year 1790.) Under this 
 term are frequently included the phenomena of Voltaic 
 electricity (which see). We shall here limit it to the appa- 
 rent evolution of electricity by the contact of different metals : 
 this is best observed by the muscular contractions which are 
 produced in the leg of a frog recently killed, when two dif- 
 ferent metals, such as zinc and silver, tin and gold, &c, one 
 of which touches the crural nerve, and the other the mus- 
 cles, are brought into contact. Every time the metals touch 
 each other the limb becomes powerfully convulsed ; and if 
 the experiment be made with a dead rabbit, so that one of 
 the metals be in contact with the brain, and the other with 
 
 GAMES. 
 
 the muscles of the extremities, the whole body of the animal 
 is strangely agitated. Similar experiments have been made 
 upon the bodies of criminals shortly after execution. These 
 results, which have till lately been considered to depend 
 upon the effects of electricity excited by the contact of the 
 metals upon the nervous and muscular systems, led Volta to 
 his celebrated researches, which terminated in the discovery 
 of the Voltaic battery. Nearly all the cases, however, of 
 the apparent production of electricity by contact have been 
 satisfactorily traced by Faraday to chemical action. See 
 Voltaic Battery. 
 
 GA'LVANO'METER. An instrument for ascertaining 
 the presence of a current of electricity, especially Galvanic 
 or Voltaic electricity, by the deviation which it occasions in 
 the magnetic needle. The simplest form a j 
 of galvanometer is a magnetic needle f " 
 poised upon a point, and surrounded by 
 one or more coils of copper wire covered 
 with silk, the ends a and b being either 
 left free, or terminating in two small cop- 
 per cups containing mercury, for the con- 
 venience of communication with the source of electricity. 
 When this needle is placed parallel to the coil, and in the 
 magnetic meridian (as represented in the margin), it imme- 
 diately deviates when the electric current passes through 
 the coil ; and the deviation is either to the east or the west, 
 according to the direction of the current. See Electro- 
 Magnetism. 
 
 GA'MBA. A technical term in Mammalogy, applied by 
 Illiger to the elongated metacarpus or metatarsus of the 
 Ruminants and Solipcds. 
 
 GAMBO'GE. A yellow gum resin much used as a pig- 
 ment, and in medicine as a drastic and nauseating purge. 
 It is chiefly imported from Ceylon in cakes rolled up in flag 
 leaves, and is the produce of the Garcinia cambogia and of 
 the Stalagmites cambogioides. 
 
 GAME LAWS. The principal statutes relating to game, 
 now in force, are the 7 & 8 Geo. 4, c. 29, the 9 Geo. 4, c. 69, 
 and 1 & 2 Wm. 4, c. 32, by which last statute important 
 changes have been made. By the common law, which fol- 
 lowed the old forest law, as introduced into this country by 
 the Normans, all game was the property of the king ; no 
 person whatsoever could enjoy the diversion of spoiling, un- 
 less authorized by royal grant of a chase or free warren ; 
 and to kill a deer was deemed almost as heinous an act as 
 to kill a man. But although at common law no persons 
 could with impunity encroach upon the kingly prerogative 
 of pursuing game, yet those were exposed to the additional 
 pains and penalties of the statute law who committed this 
 offence not being possessed of a certain rank or dignity, or 
 of a certain amount of landed property. Strictly speaking, 
 then, the superior condition in life of a party constituted 
 the ground of his exemption from additional punishment, 
 and not, as commonly supposed, a qualification to do that 
 which was altogether interdicted, whether to the peer or 
 the peasant. But the aggravated offence under the statutes, 
 namely, that of sporting without rank or fortune, being in 
 later times severely visited, while the original offence at 
 common law was passed over, rank and fortune were, in 
 the end, looked upon as a qualification ; and a freehold 
 estate of 100/. a year, or leasehold for 99 years of 150/. a 
 year, or being the son and heir apparent of an esquire or 
 person of superior degree, were accounted as so many 
 qualifications. The statute law prohibited any persons 
 whatsoever, whether qualified to kill game or not, from 
 making it the subject of sale or merchandise. 
 
 By section 2, of the new act above mentioned, the word 
 " game" shall include hares, pheasants, partridges, grouse, 
 heath or moor game, black game, and bustards. The prin- 
 cipal alterations in the law made by this act are, 1st, that 
 all qualifications are now done away with, and that any 
 person taking out a proper certificate may kill game on his 
 own land, or that of another person with his leave ; and 
 2dly, that every person having such a certificate may sell 
 game to any person licensed to deal in it according to the 
 act, who again is at liberty to retail it without restiiction. 
 
 Most trespasses and offences relating to game are punish- 
 able upon summary conviction, before magistrates. The 
 most serious of these oflences is what is called night 
 poaching. After two convictions before a magistrate for 
 this offence it becomes a misdemeanor, to be proceeded 
 against by indictment, and punishable by transportation for 
 seven years, or imprisonment and hard labour. Night 
 poaching committed by three or more persons in company 
 together is a misdemeanor in the first instance, and pun- 
 ishable by transportation for fourteen years, or imprison- 
 ment and hard labour. 
 
 GAMES, have been resorted to in all ages, and among 
 all nations, for the purposes of mental or physical exercise 
 or amusement, according to their nature and peculiarities. 
 The games of the ancient Greeks were, in their original 
 institution, religious solemnities, founded, according to tra- 
 
 487
 
 GAMING. 
 
 dilion, by gods and heroes, and continuing to be celebrated 
 in their honour. They were Ihe most important national 
 assemblies, which brought the citizens of all the inde- 
 pendent states of Greece in contact ; and these festal com- 
 munions (-rravriyvpci() served as the most popular bonds of 
 social union among all who bore the Hellenic name. The 
 four principal were, the Olympian, Pythian, Nemean, and 
 Isthmian. (See those several articles. See JVachsmuth's 
 Historical Ant. of the Greeks, chap. 1, part ii.,s. 22; Her- 
 mann's Antiquities, Oxf. trans., sec. 10. See also the 
 treatise of Barbeyrac on the Morality of Games.) 
 
 GA'MING. In Law. All common gaming houses are 
 nuisances in the consideration of English law. The first 
 statute against public gaming is the 33 H. 8, c. 9. By 9 
 Ann. c. 54, securities given for the repayment of money 
 lent for purposes of gaming are void; and any person losing 
 and paying 10/. at one sitting may, within three months, 
 recover the same, with costs, in any court of record. By 5 
 & 6 W. 4, c. 41, if any person make, draw, or execute any 
 note, bill, or mortgage for a gaming debt, and actually pay 
 to any indorsee, holder, or assignee of such note, bill, or 
 mortgage, the sum thereby secured or any part thereof, 
 such money shall be deemed to be paid on account of the 
 person to whom such note, bill, or mortgage was originally 
 given (upon the illegal consideration), and shall be deemed 
 to be a debt due from such last-mentioned person to the 
 person who shall so have paid such money, and shall be 
 recoverable by action at law in any court of record. But 
 though the English law has always been hostile to the 
 practice of gaming, it has never been found sufficiently 
 strong, or perhaps sufficiently willing, to suppress it. In 
 London and in other large towns the existence of " Hells," 
 as the places of resort for gaming are appropriately called, 
 is notorious to all the world. In many of the Continental 
 states gaming houses are licensed, and large revenues are 
 in many instances derived from this source. It is only 
 within the last two years that the French government 
 abolished the practice of granting licences. 
 
 Previously to that period the privilege of keeping gaming 
 houses was farmed by a company, for which they paid the 
 government 6,000,000 francs annually. 
 
 GA'MMARINES, Gammarina. (Gr. Kauuapov, a lobster.) 
 The name of a family of Amphipodous Crustaceans, having 
 the genus Gammarus, or the sand-hopper, as the type. 
 
 GA'MMONING. The rope by which the bowsprit is 
 bound firmly down to the cutwater, in which is a hole for 
 the purpose of reefing several turns of it. 
 
 GA'MUT, or GAMMA UT. In Music, a scale whereon 
 the musical notes are disposed in their several orders. Its 
 invention is attributed to Guido Aretino, a monk of Tus- 
 cany; it is also called the harmonical hand, from Guido 
 having made use of the figure of the hand to demonstrate 
 the progression of his sounds. 
 
 GANGLION. (Gr. yayy\iov, a knot.) An enlargement 
 in the course of a nerve. A tumour in the sheath of a 
 tendon. 
 
 GA'NGLIONETJRA. (Gr. yayy\wv, and vevpov, a 
 nerve.) A name applied by Rudolphi to the Molluscous 
 and Articulate divisions of the animal kingdom, which are 
 characterized by a ganglionic type of the nervous system. 
 In the articulated gangliated animals the ganglia are always 
 disposed symmetrically along the middle line of the body, 
 and brought into communication by a double chord : these 
 have therefore been termed Homogangliata. In the Mol- 
 lusca, on the contrary, the ganglions are dispersed, and 
 placed at a distance from each other, and from the mesial 
 plane, and are frequently unsymmetrical in their arrange- 
 ment : these have therefore been termed Heterogangliata. 
 
 GA'NGRE'NE. (Gr. ypaciv, to feed upon.) The loss of 
 vitality of a part of the body. 
 
 GANG WAY. The sea term for a narrow passage way ; 
 particularly that part of the upper deck which is next the 
 ship's side, between the fore and main masts. 
 
 GA'NNET. See Pelecanus and Sula. 
 
 GAOL. (Fr. geole, Lat. caveola, a cage.) A prison. 
 The present law as to building, repairing, and maintaining 
 gaols and houses of correction, is regulated by the statute? 
 4 G. 4, c. 64 ; 5 G. 4, c. 12, and c. 85, and 2 & 3 Vict., c. 56 
 (1839), the latest act on the subject. No gaol can be erect- 
 ed under any less authority than that of an act of parlia- 
 ment. There must now be at least one common gaol and 
 one house of correction in every county. Gaolers are ap- 
 pointed by the high sheriff; by 4 G. 4 they are allowed to 
 exercise no other trade or office, and must reside within the 
 prison. As to the discipline and management of gaols, see 
 Prison. 
 
 GAPE. In Ornithology, the opening between the mandi- 
 bles of birds. 
 
 GA'RDANT, or GUARDANT. In Heraldry, a term ap- 
 plied to a beast when represented full-faced, as looking at the 
 spectator. Ke-guardant, when looking backwards. 
 GA'RDEN. (Fr. jardin.) A piece of ground, generally 
 
 GARTER, ORDER OP THE. 
 
 of limited extent, and attached to a house, and enclosed, in 
 which are cultivated various vegetables, fruits, and flowers, 
 for the use of man. In the infancy of civilized society, all 
 these objects were cultivated in one enclosure ; but as man- 
 kind advanced in civilization and refinement, and the num- 
 ber of objects to be cultivated increased, it became necessary 
 to adopt separate departments; and culinary vegetables 
 came to be cultivated in the kitchen garden, fruits in the 
 orchard, flowers in the flower garden, ornamental trees and 
 shrubs in the shrubbery or pleasure grounds, and timber 
 trees in plantations, woods, and forests. Hence the word 
 garden, in the extensive sense in which it is at present used, 
 is no longer confined to a limited enclosure, but extends to 
 an extensive area, in which are contained various scenes of 
 utility, comfort, convenience, and luxury. 
 
 GA'RDENING. The art of cultivating a garden, which, 
 as we have seen in the preceding article, comprehends a 
 great variety of objects and scenes. All these at the present 
 time are generally included under the following heads: 
 Horticulture, which comprehends the culture of culinary 
 vegetables and fruits; floriculture, whicli includes the cul- 
 ture of ornamental and curious flowers, shrubs, and trees; 
 arboriculture, which implies the culture of trees or shrubs 
 used for various purposes in the arts and in general econo- 
 my ; and landscape gardening, or the general disposition of 
 the scenery or landscape about a country residence. Horti- 
 culture includes the culture of the kitchen garden and orch- 
 ard ; floriculture, the culture of flower gardens, botanic gar- 
 dens, shrubberies, and pleasure grounds; arboriculture, the 
 culture of nurseries for fruit and forest trees and shrubs; 
 and landscape gardening, the formation and management of 
 lawns, roads, walks, lakes, ponds, and artificial rivers, of 
 rock work, and of every description of objects in artificial 
 scenery which come under the denomination of ornamental 
 or picturesque. See Horticulture, Botanic Garden, 
 Arboriculture, and Landscape-Gardening. 
 
 GA'RGARISM. (Gr. yapyapfyiv, to gargle.) A wash 
 for the throat. 
 
 GA'RNET. A mineral of which there are several varie- 
 ties. The precious garnet is transparent, red, and in crystals 
 or rounded grains ; it is a silicate of alumina and iron, and is 
 used for ornamental jewellery. Common garnet is often 
 found in large crystals and masses, translucent, and of vari- 
 ous colours. 
 
 GA'RNISHMENT. In Law, a warning or notice given 
 to a party to appear in- court or give information; a techni- 
 cal term, used only in one or two instances. Thus garnish- 
 ment or warning is given to a third person, in whose hands 
 money is attached within the liberties of the city of London, 
 by process out of the Sheriff's Court, who is termed a gar- 
 nishee. 
 
 GA'RRISON. (Modem Lat. gamitio, military stores, 
 ire.) A body of forces disposed in a fortress to defend it 
 against the enemy, or to keep the inhabitants of the town 
 where it is situated in subjection. The term garrison is 
 sometimes used synonymously with winter quarters, viz. a 
 place where a number of troops are laid up in the winter 
 season without keeping the regular guard. 
 
 GARRO'TE, THE. A mode of capital punishment em- 
 ployed in Spain. The criminal is seated on a stool with his 
 back to a stake. A tight collar is passed round his throat, 
 of which the ends nearly meet ; the executioner, standing 
 behind him, twists them closer by means of a screw : the 
 death is instantaneous. 
 
 GA'RTER, ORDER OF THE. The various accounts 
 respecting the original foundation of this noble order are for 
 the most part well known. The commonly received story, 
 which attributes it to the dropping of the Countess of Salis- 
 bury's garter, is contradicted by many recent writers, who 
 attribute its institution to Richard I., who tied thongs of 
 leather as marks of distinction round the legs of several of 
 his officers at the siege of Acre. In the opinion of Dr. Mey- 
 rick (On Armour, vol. ii. p. 54), the garter is nothing more 
 than a symbol of unity. The order was, however, either 
 founded or restored by Edward III., and, according to gener- 
 al opinion, either in the year 1344 or 1350. The first of these 
 dates was that of a festival in which the king formed him- 
 self and his associates into a company, under the patronage 
 of St. George ; but nothing is said respecting the garter until 
 the latter year. The statutes of the Garter have been re- 
 vived and augmented by King Henry V., Henry VIII., and 
 George III. in 1805. It was generally called the order of St. 
 George until the reign of Edward VI. ; St. George of Cappa- 
 docia, the tutelar saint of England, being likewise patron of 
 this order. It originally consisted of twenty-six knights, the 
 king being the chief; and the same number is still retained, 
 with the addition of princes of the blood royal as supernu- 
 meraries. In the beginning of the present century, it was 
 estimated that eight emperors and twenty-eight foreign kings 
 had been members of it. The number has been since much 
 augmented. It is the most ancient of all the lay orders of 
 chivalry, and may rightly be accounted the noblest in the
 
 GAS. 
 
 world. The college of the order is held at the chapel of St 
 George, in the castle of Windsor. The vestments and en- 
 signs of the order are, the mantle of blue velvet, changed to 
 purple by Queen Elizabeth, but restored to the original co- 
 lour by Charles I. ; the surcoat, now of crimson velvet ; the 
 hood, which is now fixed to the mantle, a cap of black vel- 
 vet with an aigrette of heron's feathers being worn on the 
 head instead of it ; the collar of gold, composed of twenty- 
 six pieces made to resemble garters, with the badge of the 
 order (the figure of St. George and the Dragon) pendent from 
 it , and the garter, of blue velvet. The lesser George, as it is 
 called, is attached to a blue ribbon, passing from the left 
 shoulder to the right hip. The officers of the order are, the 
 prelate (the bishop of Winchester for the time being) ; the 
 chancellor (the bishop of Salisbury) ; the register (the dean 
 of Windsor) ; garter king at arms (this officer combines two 
 functions, being herald to the order of the garter, and also 
 principal king at arms, the highest officer of the Herald's 
 College under the earl marshal) ; and the usher or black 
 rod. It has also a dean and twelve canons, &c, with twen- 
 ty-six pensioners, or poor knights. The most authentic work 
 on the order of the Garter is that of the learned antiquary 
 Elias Ashmole, printed at London in 1715. 
 
 GAS. (Probably from the German geist, or spirit.) This 
 term is applied to all permanently elastic fluids, or air3 dif- 
 fering from atmospheric air. 
 
 GAS ILLUMINATION. Under the head Carburet- 
 ted Hydrogen, we have adverted to two gaseous com- 
 pounds of carbon and hydrogen, which perform an important 
 part in the economy of gas illumination. There are several 
 other analogous compounds, which are produced in various 
 relative proportions during the destructive distillation of pit 
 coal, and which, therefore, are more or less concerned in the 
 history of coal-gas, which, as far as gas illumination is con- 
 cerned, may be defined as a mixture of two or more hydro- 
 carburetted gases or vapours with small portions of other 
 gaseous bodies, among which free hydrogen and carbonic 
 oxide are the most common. 
 
 The application of the gases produced during the destruc- 
 tive distillation of pit coal to the purposes of illumination is 
 a very modem invention. But the germ of it may be traced 
 back exactly 100 years; for the first mention of the produc- 
 tion of a permanently elastic and inflammable gas from coal 
 occurs in the Philosophical Transactions for 1739, in which 
 there is a paper by the Rev. Dr. Clayton describing a method 
 of filling bladders with what he calls the spirit of coal, ob- 
 tained by distilling coal in a retort in the open fire. He says, 
 "I filled a good many bladders therewith, and might have 
 filled an inconceivable number more ; for the spirit continued 
 to rise for several hours, and filled the bladders almost as 
 fast as a man could have blown them with his mouth, and 
 yet the quantity of coals distilled was inconsiderable. I kept 
 this spirit in the bladders a considerable time, and endeav- 
 oured several ways to condense it, but in vain ; and when I 
 had a mind to divert strangers or friends, I have frequently 
 taken one of these bladders and pricked a hole therein with 
 a pin, and compressing gently the bladder near the flame of 
 a candle till it once took fire, it would then continue flaming 
 till all the spirit was compressed out of the bladder; which 
 was the more surprising, because no one could discern any 
 difference in the appearance between these bladders and 
 those which are filled with common air." Dr. Clayton 
 seems also to have observed those curious phenomena which 
 have lately excited so much attention under the terms exos- 
 mose and endosmose ; for he goes on to say that he found 
 "that this spirit must be kept in good thick bladders, as in 
 those of an ox or the like ; for if I filled calves' bladders 
 therewith, it would lose its inflammability in twenty-four 
 hours, though the bladders became not relaxed at all." 
 
 Dr. Hales (in his Vegetable Statics) and Dr. Watson (in 
 his Chemical Essays) have each alluded to the properties of 
 the gas from coal; but it was not until the end of the last 
 century that the practicability of substituting coal gas for 
 other inflammables, as a means of lighting streets and build- 
 ings, became an object of attention. 
 
 The idea of applying coal gas to economical purposes 
 seems first to have occurred in 1792 to Mr. William Murdoch, 
 then residing at Redruth, in Cornwall. His apparatus con- 
 sisted of an iron retort, with tinned copper and iron tabes, 
 through which the gas was conducted to a considerable dis- 
 tance; and there, as well as at intermediate points, was 
 burned through apertures of varied forms and dimensions: 
 he also washed the gas with water, and used other means 
 for its purification. In 1798 Mr. Murdoch constructed a lar- 
 ger and improved apparatus for the purpose of lighting Boul- 
 ton and Watt's celebrated manufactory at Soho, near Bir- 
 mingham, which, on the occasion of the peace in 1802, was 
 publicly illuminated by the si'.me means. (See Jin Account 
 of the .Application of Gas from Coal to Economical Purpo- 
 ses, by Mr. W. Murdoch, Phil. Trans. 1808. p. 124.) 
 
 But the attention of the public in London was first called 
 to this important subject by the experiments of Mr. Winsor, 
 
 GAS ILLUMINATION. 
 
 who, in 1803 and 1804, lighted the Lyceum theatre, and 
 shortly afterwards one side of Pall Mall, with gas from coal. 
 From that period, the manufacture of gas suggested itself as 
 a lucrative speculation ; several private gas works were 
 erected, and companies were formed for the purpose of car- 
 rying it on upon an extended scale. Oil lamps were soon 
 after banished from all the great thoroughfares of the me- 
 tropolis ; and in the course of from ten to fifteen years not 
 only was every street and alley illuminated from the same 
 source, but it was generally introduced into shops and hous- 
 es ; was adopted in the theatres and other public buildings ; 
 was carried into the suburbs ; and has now become general 
 in every town and city of the empire. 
 
 When coal is subjected to what chemists term destructive 
 distillation, that is, when it is heated red-hot in close ves- 
 sels, it yields a great variety of complicated products, which, 
 as far as our present subject is concerned, may be classed 
 under three heads : namely, first, permanent gases ; secondly, 
 vapours, which are condensable into the liquid or solid state 
 by cooling ; and, thirdly, the fixed or residuary matter, which 
 remains in the retort. The object of gas manufacture is to 
 separate these from each other, and so to purify the gaseous 
 products as to render them fit for combustion. 
 
 The apparatus employed for this purpose consists, first, of 
 the retorts, as they are called, or cast-iron cylinders, in 
 which the coal is subjected to heat ; secondly, the apparatus 
 for condensing the solid and liquid products; thirdly, the 
 purifiers, by which the gas is cleansed from various matters 
 which would be prejudicial if retained : and, fourthly, the gas- 
 ometers, in which the purified gas is ultimately received, and 
 which are connected with the service pipes for its distribution. 
 The following is a brief description of these several parts: 
 
 The retorts are usually about 7 feet 6 inches long and 1 
 foot in diameter, and in the shape of an arched cylinder ; 
 from five to eight of them are set in brickwork, so as to be 
 heated red-hot by one fire. Each retort has what is called 
 a mouth-piece, which projects from the front of the brick- 
 work, and from which there rises an upright pipe, about 12 
 feet high and 3 or 4 inches in diameter, and which carries 
 the products of distillation into the hydraulic main. Each 
 retort has a cover, which is kept in its place by holdfast 
 screws, and rendered air tight by lime luting. The hydraulic 
 main is a long horizontal pipe, 12 or 14 inches in diameter, 
 and into which the dip pipe of each retort dips, so as to be 
 sealed by the fluid which fills the lower half of the main, 
 and which is allowed to run off at that level. This fluid is 
 of a very complicated nature ; but tar and ammoniacal liquor 
 are the "terms applied to its chief component parts ; and these, 
 1m ling condensed in the hydraulic main, serve to seal the ends 
 of the dip pipes, and are constantly running oft' into what is 
 termed the tar vessel. Those products of the distillation of 
 the coal which are not thus in the first instance condensed 
 are conveyed, by a pipe continued from the hydraulic main, 
 through a series of tubes or other contrivances, so as to ex- 
 pi «e a large and cold surface. This part of the apparatus is 
 called the ■condenser; in it the more volatile vapours are 
 brought to the liquid state, and are collected in an appropri- 
 ate receiver. The uncondensed gases then pass on to the 
 purifiers, which are vessels so constructed as to expose them 
 to the action of a very large surface of lime and water, or of 
 slaked lime, by which carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydro- 
 gen are abstracted ; and thence the gas, now purified, passes 
 into the gasometers, where it is stored up for use. 
 
 It would be impossible within the limits of this article, and 
 indeed irrelevant to the object of this Dictionary, to enter into 
 minute details respecting the structure, uses, and arrange- 
 ment of each of the above parts of the apparatus for the 
 production of coal gas; but the reader may be enabled to 
 form some idea of the importance and extent of the whole 
 manufacture from the following outline of results. 
 
 There are, in the largest gas manufactories of London, 
 from 500 to COO retorts, each of which is charged four times 
 a day with 2 bushels of coal. They are ranged in rows on 
 either side of the retort house, and the flues from their re- 
 spective furnaces are generally so arranged as to meet in one 
 central chimney ; but as coke is the usual fuel used for heat- 
 ing the retorts, there is commonly little or no smoke. Each 
 chaldron of coals submitted to distillation yields on an aver- 
 age 24 gallons of tar, ammoniacal liquor, and other condens- 
 able products, and 12,000 cubic feet of purified ca=; while 
 there remains in the retorts a chaldron and a quarter of coke. 
 To purifv those 12,000 cubic feet of gas there is required 
 about one bushel of lime, which, after its removal from 
 the purifying vessels, is used for making mortar, luting the 
 retorts, and other similar purposes ; while the fetid liquor 
 which runs from it is transferred to the ashpits of the fur- 
 naces, where it is consumed bv evaporation, its vapour 
 passing through the fire, and tending materially to preserve 
 the bars of the furnaces by keeping them cool. 
 
 In a well-conducted eas establishment two men are re- 
 quired for the management of sixteen retorts, which are 
 charged four times in the 24 hours ; the retorts are kept in 
 Go* 489
 
 GAS ILLUMINATION. 
 
 constant work throughout the 24 hours, so that relays of 
 men are required for the night-work. In small gas works 
 the agitators of the purifiers are worked by hand ; but in 
 the larger establishments there are usually one or more 
 steam engines on the premises for this purpose, and for 
 pumping water, lifting coals, and other heavy work. 
 
 The number and dimensions of the gasometers will of 
 course vary with the circumstances, space, and extent of 
 the manufacture : in the works of the Chartered Gas Com- 
 pany, at their station at Westminster, there are twenty-one 
 gasometers, each containing on the average 30,000 cubic feet 
 There are, besides those parts of the apparatus above 
 adverted to, and which are essential to the manufacture, 
 several other ingenious and beautiful contrivances in our 
 larger gas works, wliich may be considered as auxiliaries. 
 One of these is the station meter; a large instrument 
 through which the whole of the gas passes in its way to 
 the gasometers, and by which its volume is registered, so 
 that the quantitity made during any given time can be im- 
 mediately ascertained, and the weekly, monthly, or annual 
 production accurately determined. The gas meter was in- 
 vented by Mr. Clegg, formerly engineer to the Chartered 
 Gas Company. It consists of a hollow cylinder, which Is 
 made to revolve upon its axis by the ingress and egress of 
 gas into and from the three compartments into which it is 
 divided, the cylinder being partly immersed in water ; and 
 by a train of wheel work connected with it the number of 
 its revolutions in a given time is registered, and the num- 
 ber of cubic feet of gas which traverse it in a minute, hour, 
 day, or year, shown upon separate dials. The invention of 
 this instrument forms an important epoch in the history of 
 gas manufacture ; for it is now constructed upon any scale, 
 and is applicable to any case of the consumption of gas ; 
 so that by having a meter in each house of a size appro- 
 priate to the number of burners employed, the companies 
 are enabled to sell their gas by measure, and have an un- 
 erring check upon the quantity which each instrument 
 consumes. 
 
 Another beautiful contrivance, adopted in most of our 
 gas works, is that by which the pressure upon the gas in 
 the main and service pipes is adjusted ; so that when a 
 number of burners are suddenly extinguished, or suddenly 
 lighted, in any part of the district which is supplied, there 
 shall be an intimation of the change at the works, so as to 
 prevent either excess or deficiency of supply ; or, in other 
 words, to prevent the lights which remain from flaring up 
 on the one hand, or being nearly or quite extinguished on 
 the other. This is effected by a small and nicely adjusted 
 gasometer connected with the service main, and which, by 
 its rising and falling with diminished or increased pressure 
 of the gas within the main, points out the necessity of 
 opening or shutting the valve by which the gas is admitted 
 from the gasometers to a greater or less extent. This small 
 regulating gasometer has a vertical rod connected with it, 
 which carries a pencil made to bear upon a paper cylinder 
 properly ruled and divided, and which is made to rotate 
 upon its axis by communication with a timepiece ; so that 
 every change of pressure which takes place during the 
 night, for instance, is shown by the aberration of the line. 
 Mr. Crossley, to whom the improvement of the gas-meter, 
 by which it is rendered universally applicable, is due, is 
 also the inventor of these pressure registers. 
 
 The following particulars may serve to give an idea of the 
 quantity of gas annually consumed in London, of the quan- 
 tity of coal required for its production, and of the general 
 economy of this mode of illumination. It must also be borne 
 in mind that gas is an article of increasing consumption ; and 
 that in proportion as attention is paid to its manufacture, and 
 more especially to the fittings as they are called — that is, to 
 the pipes, cocks, burners, and other arrangements required 
 for its use and distribution in houses — it will become more 
 generally adopted in private dwellings, so as, in all probabili- 
 ty, to supersede ere long all other sources of artificial light. 
 Nor are the attempts which have been made to employ it as 
 a source of heat unimportant. Gas stoves, although hitherto 
 made upon very erroneous principles, are not without their 
 advantages ; and it has been promisingly applied to some of 
 the operations of cooking. 
 
 The oldest of the London gas works is the establishment 
 belonging to the Original Chartered Company. They have 
 three stations: the largest situated in Peter-street, Westmin- 
 ster ; the second in Brick Lane, St. Luke's ; and the third in 
 the Curtain Road, Shoreditch. This company consumes 
 50,000 chaldron of coals annually, the produce of which, in 
 gas, may be estimated at about six hundred million cubic feet, 
 or about eighteen million seven hundred and fifty thousand 
 pounds weight of gas. It may be assumed that each -chal- 
 dron of coals weighs 2880 lbs., and yields an average produce 
 of 12,000 cubic feet of purified gas. The prime cost of gas 
 is about four or five shillings per 1000 cubic feet; the usual 
 retail price is from seven to ten shillings per 1000 cubic feet. 
 The Chartered Company probably supply about a fifth 
 41)0 
 
 GAUGE-POINT. 
 
 part of the whole of the gas consumed in London and the 
 suburbs ; so that the total annual consumption of coal em- 
 ployed for this important manufacture in the London district 
 only, probably exceeds two hundred and fifty thousand chal- 
 drons, and the quantity of gas produced for the supply of 
 this district amounts annually to three thousand million cubic 
 feet. The weight of this quantity of gas exceeds 75 millions 
 of pounds ; and the light produced by its combustion may be 
 considered as equivalent to that which would be obtained by 
 the combustion of 160 millions of pounds of mould candles of 
 six to the pound. 
 
 The operations of the London Gas Light Company, which 
 was established in the year 1833, are also on a scale of great 
 magnitude. This company was called into existence by the 
 dissatisfaction which existed among gas consumers at the 
 defective supply, both in quantity and quality, previously af- 
 forded. Their works, situated at Vauxhall, are not only the 
 most powerful, but the most complete in arrangement of 
 any in the world. From this point their mains ramify to a 
 prodigious extent in Middlesex as well as Surry; and by the 
 admirable mode in which they are laid, aided by the power 
 of their works, they are enabled to supply gas at Highgate 
 Hill (seven miles off), with the same precision and in the 
 same abundance as at Vauxhall. The extent of their pipes 
 exceeds one hundred and fifty miles. 
 
 The cost of light equivalent to that of seven mould can- 
 dles (six to the pound) is, in coal gas, $d. per hour; in an 
 Argand oil lamp, 3d. per hour ; in mould candles, 3Sd. per 
 hour ; in wax candles, Is. 2d. per hour. 
 
 GA'SKET. A platted cord, by which the sails, when 
 furled, are kept bound up close to the yards or gaffs. The 
 same term is applied to the platted hemp used for packing 
 the piston of the steam engine and its pumps. 
 
 GA'STEROPODS, Gasteropoda. (Gr. yaarnp, the belly, 
 and -ovs, a foot.) The name of a class of Molluscous ani- 
 mals, comprehending those which have a ventral muscular 
 disc of greater or less extent, adapted for creeping. The 
 class is divided, according to the modifications of the breath- 
 ing organs, into the orders Pulmonata, Nudibranchia, Jn- 
 ferobranchia, Tectibranchia, Pectinibranchia, Tubulibran- 
 chia, Scutibranchia, and Cyclobranchia. The carinaria, in 
 which the ventral foot is reduced to a rudimental compressed 
 plate, forms the type of an aberant group or order, called 
 Heteropoda. The pulmonated snail or slug may be regard- 
 ed as types of the Gasteropodous Mollusks. 
 
 GASTRjE UM. (Gr. yaarnp.) A term in Zoology, ap- 
 plied to the whole of the prone or under surface of an ani- 
 mal's bodv. 
 
 GA'STRIC JUICE. The peculiar fluid secreted by the 
 stomach, and essential to the process of digestion. When 
 collected from the stomach of an animal killed while fast- 
 ing, it is transparent and saline, but during digestion it is dis- 
 tinctly acid ; and Dr. Prout found that the free acid which it 
 contains is the muriatic. One of the most characteristic 
 properties of the gastric juice is its solvent power over the 
 varieties of animal fibre, or albumen, and the facility with 
 which it coagulates milk, and then disolves the coagulum. 
 See Digestion. 
 
 GASTRI'LOQUUS. See Ventriloquist. 
 
 GASTRI'TIS. Inflammation of the stomach. It is at- 
 tended by great irritability of the stomach, indicated by hic- 
 cup, vomiting, and much pain and general uneasiness: the 
 pulse is small and hard, and there is fever, attended by 
 prostration of strength. It is a very dangerous disease, and 
 requires prompt treatment; especially bleeding, general and 
 local ; blisters ; hot bath, or fomentation. The constant sick- 
 ness generally prevents the exhibition of any of the ordinary 
 remedies. When it arises from poison, the stomach pump 
 and other distinct treatment is often requisite. 
 
 GASTROCHiE'NA. (Gr. yaarnp, and xaiww, I gape.) 
 A genus of Bivalve Mollusks, in which a large hiatus or gape 
 intervenes between the closed valves on the ventral aspect 
 of the animal. The mantle is perforated, opposite to this 
 gape, by a snrall aperture for the passage of the foot ; and is 
 prolonged posteriorly into two muscular tubes or siphons. 
 The Gastrochenes inhabit burrows, which they perforate in 
 the substance of madrepores or calcareous rocks, and they 
 line their perforations with a calcareous tube. 
 
 GA'STROCNE'MIUS. (Gr. yaarnp, and Kvnun, the leg.) 
 The muscle which forms the protuberant part of the leg : 
 the calf. 
 
 GA STRODYNIA. (Gr. yaarnp, and oSvvv, pain.) A 
 painful affection of the stomach, often attendant upon dys- 
 pepsia. 
 
 GA STROMANCY. (Gr. yaarnp, and uavrc.ia,prophecy.) 
 A kind of divination practised among the ancients by means 
 of words issuing or seeming to issue from the belly. This 
 term is applied also to a species of divination performed by 
 means of glasses or other round transparent vessels, in the 
 centre of which certain figures appear by magic art. 
 
 GAUGE, or GAGE. See Gage. 
 
 GAUGE-POINT, is a term used in Gauging to denote the
 
 GAUGING. 
 
 diameter of a cylinder whose altitude is one inch, and its 
 content equal to that of a unit of a given measure. For ex- 
 ample, the old wine gallon contained 231 cubic inches. The 
 diameter of a cylinder of the same capacity, and whose al- 
 titude is one inch, is 17-15 inches; which, therefore, is the 
 gauge-point for this measure. 
 
 GA'UGING, in Mensuration, is the measuring of the ca- 
 pacities of vessels, chiefly casks, barrels, vats, &c, and de- 
 termining the contents of the substances contained in them. 
 The principles of gauging are those which geometry fur- 
 nishes for the measurement of solids in general ; but as the 
 contents of vessels of the kind now mentioned are so fre- 
 quently required to be known, at least approximately, for 
 the purposes of commerce and the collection of the revenue, 
 a set of technical rules and appropriate instruments have 
 been contrived, by the help of which the art can be, and 
 generally is, practised mechanically by those who are utter- 
 ly ignorant of the principles on which it depends. The in- 
 strument generally used for the purpose is the gauging-rod, 
 or diagonal-rod, by which the contents of a cask are inferred 
 from its diagonal length, measured from the bung to the ex- 
 tremity of the opposite stave at the head. On one face of a 
 square rule, generally about four feet long, is a scale of inches 
 for taking the measure of the diagonal ; and on the opposite 
 face is a scale expressing the corresponding contents of the 
 cask in gallons. It is obvious that this method of proceed- 
 ing can only give approximate results, on the supposition 
 that all casks are similar solids. (See Symon's Practical 
 Ganger; Leadbetter'' s Treatise on Gauging; Hutton's 
 Mensuration , &c. 
 GAUGING RULE. See Sliding Role. 
 GAULT. A provincial name in the east of England for 
 a series of beds of clay and marl, the geological position of 
 which is between the upper and lower green-sand. 
 
 GAU'NTLET, RUNNING THE. A barbarous punish- 
 ment of former times, by which the criminal was obliged to 
 pass between the seamen arranged in two rows, and provided 
 with knotted cords, with which they flogged him. 
 
 GAUZE. A textile fabric generally made of silk, and said 
 to have been invented in Gaza, a city of Palestine. 
 
 GA'VELKIND. An old English custom or tenure annex- 
 ed to all lands in the county of Kent not especially exempted, 
 by which the land of the father is equally divided at his 
 death among all his sons, or the land of the brother among 
 all his brethren if he have no issue of his own. Tenure in 
 gavelkind is considered by Blackstone to have been in the 
 nature of free socage. In most places the gravel kind tenant 
 had the power of devising by will before the Statute of Wills. 
 The same custom seems to have been prevalent in Wales, 
 where all gavelkind lands were made descendible to the heir 
 at common law by stat. 34 & 35 H. 8, c. 36. In Kent the 
 lands have been for the most part disgavelled, or deprived of 
 their customary discendible quality, by particular statutes; 
 but lands in Kent are presumed to be gavelkind, unless the 
 contrary be shown. 
 GA'VIAL. See Crocodile. 
 
 GA'VOT. (Fr. gavotte.) In Music, an air for a dance, 
 which has two strains; the first having usually four or eight 
 bars, and the second eight or twelve more, each of which 
 are played twice over. It is of a brisk nature. 
 
 GAZE LLE. The name of a small, swift, and elegantly 
 formed species of antelope, the Antelope dorcas of Linnaeus ; 
 long famed for the peculiar lustre and soft expression of its 
 large dark eves. 
 
 GAZETTE. A periodical paper, published at short in- 
 tervals, containing articles of general intelligence. Both on 
 the Continent and in England such sheets were generally 
 termed Mercuries in the first times of their invention, and 
 appeared only occasionally; the earliest among ourselves 
 were published during the general apprehensions from the 
 presence of the Spanish armada, but some doubt has been 
 lately thrown on the authenticity of the specimens preserv- 
 ed in the British Museum. The first gazette produced in 
 France (under that title) was in 1631 : the first in England 
 in 1665, when the court resided at Oxford on account of the 
 plague of London. From that period the Gazette has re- 
 gularly appeared twice a week, containing such notifications 
 as are either published by the court or the government, or 
 such as are authoritatively required by law in private trans- 
 actions. The name Gazette is said to be derived from Gaz- 
 zetta, a small Venetian coin, being the price that was paid 
 for one of the flying sheets of commercial and military in- 
 formation (notizie scritte), which were first published by that 
 republic in 1563. See Newspaper. 
 
 GAZETTEE'R, is applied in England to a work contain- 
 ing a brief account of all or any of the countries of the 
 world, arranged in alphabetical order. To this class belong 
 Brookcs's General Gazetteer, and similar works. 
 
 GA'ZONS, in Fortification, are the turfs, or pieces of earth 
 covered with grass, with which the faces of works raised of 
 earth are lined in order to keep them up and preserve their 
 form. 
 
 GENDARMES. 
 
 GECKOTM. A family of lizards, having for its type the 
 genus Gecko ; in which most of the species present a curious 
 organization of the foot, by which the sole is converted into 
 a sucker, enabling the animal to creep up vertical walls and 
 along ceilings against gravity, like the flies upon which they 
 feed. 
 
 GEHE'NNA. A term in Scripture, adopted from the 
 usage of the Jews to signify hell or the place of eternal pun- 
 ishment. The word is a slight corruption of Gehinnon, or 
 the Valley of Hinnom in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, 
 wherein, at a place named Tophet, it was recorded that cer- 
 tain idolatrous Jews had sacrificed to Moloch. The sewers 
 of the city were emptied into this hollow, and perpetual fires 
 were kept up to consume the noxious matter, and prevent 
 pestilential effluvia. Hence, it is said, the name of the place 
 came to be used metaphorically in the sense above described. 
 From this word seems to be derived the old French gehenne, 
 torture ; and from thence the common word gene, con- 
 straint. 
 
 GE'HLENITE. A mineral in small grey or yellow crys- 
 tals, found in the Valley of Fassa in the Tyrol, named in hon- 
 our of Gehlen the chemist. It is a ferrosillicate of alumina 
 and- lime. 
 
 GE'LATIN. (Lat. gelu, ice.) An abundant proximate 
 principle in animals. It is confined to the solid parts of the 
 body, such as tendons, ligaments, cartilages, and bones, and 
 exists nearly pure in the skin ; but it is not contained in any 
 healthy animal fluid. Its leading character is the formation 
 of a tremulous jelly, when its solution in boiling water 
 cools ; and it may be repeatedly liquefied, and again gela- 
 tinized, by the alternate application of heat and cold. Isin- 
 glass, glue, and size are various forms of gelatine, the first 
 being this substance in a very pure state. Its most distinct- 
 ive chemical character is the formation of a dense white 
 precipitate when its solution in warm water is poured Into 
 an infusion of galls or other form of vegetable tannin. A 
 solution of one part of gelatin in 5000 of water is rendered 
 slightly turbid by the addition of a strong tincture of galls. 
 Gelatin is a nutritious article of food. The ultimate com- 
 ponents of gelatin are 478 carbon, 7-9 hydrogen, 16-9 nitro- 
 gen, 27'4 oxvgen. 
 
 GE'LATINES. Mr. Kirby thus renders the term Ra- 
 diaires molasses of Lamarck, by which are designated the 
 same radiated animals as those called Acalephes by Cuvier : 
 the bodies of these Radiaries are generally of a gelatinous 
 consistency. 
 
 GELD (Ger. money), in the Laws of the Saxon and other 
 Teutonic communities, is used in the sense of any fine, rent, 
 or payment : for instance, the fine paid as compensation for 
 an injury, as in the compound wcregild; the compensation 
 for murder, dannegild, &c. 
 
 GEM. (Lat. gemma.) In Sculpture, a precious stone, 
 used for the purpose of sculpture. The practice of carving 
 gems is of remote antiquity, though it is doubtful whether 
 they were able to cut the diamond or use the emerald and 
 topaz for sculptural purposes. The stones usually selected 
 are rock crystal of different colours, jasper, chalcedony, 
 onyx, cornelian, and blood stone. Among the Greeks the 
 art was carried to great perfection ; but having fallen with 
 the other arts into disuse, its revival was effected in Italy 
 in the 15th century, and modern masters have more than 
 rivalled some of the ancient productions. 
 
 GE MINI. (Lat. the Twins.) The third constellation 
 of the zodiac, into which the sun enters about the 21st of 
 May in each year. The Twins are named from Castor and 
 Pollux; sometimes, also, from Apollo and Hercules. The 
 constellation is easily distinguished by means of two con- 
 spicuous stars of the second magnitude near together ; Cas- 
 tor being that which is farthest to the west, and Pollux that 
 which is farthest to the east. 
 
 GEMMI'PARES, Gemmipara. (Lat. gemma, a bud, and 
 pario, I produce.) The animals which propagate by buds, 
 as the hydra, or fresh-water polype, &c. 
 
 GEMS, ARTIFICIAL. These are made of a very fusi- 
 ble, transparent, and dense glass, or paste, as it is called, 
 containing a large proportion of oxide of lead, and generally 
 some borax : the colours are given by metallic oxides. Much 
 of their perfection depends upon the skill with which the 
 exact tint of the real stone is imitated, and upon the care 
 with which they are cut and polished. 
 
 GE'NA. (Lat. gena, the cheek.) A term applied in 
 Zoology to the region between the eye and the mouth, gen- 
 erally extended over the zveomatic arch. 
 
 GENDA'RMES, or GENS D'ARMES. In the 15th and 
 16th centuries, the heavy French cavalry, which constituted 
 the only national force, were termed Gendarmes, or men- 
 at-arms. Each lancer had four, five, or six followers on 
 horseback, attached to him in various capacities ; so that a 
 lance, in the language of historians of that epoch, compre- 
 hends six or seven men. After the cuirass and lance had 
 become obsolete, the name of gendarmes ceased to be thus 
 applied. It was afterwards transferred to a corps of police.
 
 GENDER. 
 
 In consequence of the unpopularity of this corps in Paris ; 
 the gens d'armes were abolished after the revolution of 
 1830, and a new police force organized under the title of 
 Municipal Guard. (See. the Encyc. des Gens du Monde.) 
 In all the German states, there is a body of mounted mili- 
 tary police, with this appellation, of which the Germ, 
 equivalent is " Landdragoner." 
 
 GE'NDER. (Lat. genus.) In Grammar, the designa- 
 tion of sex by the form of a word. (See an elaborate arti- 
 cle in the Penny Oyclopasdia.) 
 
 GENEA'LOGY. (Gr. ytvea, family, and \6yos, descrip- 
 tion.) The pedigree of each family. A series of several 
 persons, descended from a common progenitor, is called a 
 line. A direct line is either ascending (father, grandfather, 
 &c. : in the civil law particular names were given to seven 
 degrees in this line), or descending (son, grandson, &c). The 
 collateral lines comprehend the several lines which unite in 
 a common progenitor ; and are either equal or unequal, ac- 
 cording as the number of degrees in the lines is the same or 
 different. The collateral relations on the father's side are 
 termed in the civil law cognati, on the mother's agnati. 
 
 GE'NERAL, in the Army, is, next to field marshal, the 
 highest military title adopted by the European states. Like 
 most military designations, it owes its origin to the French, 
 who, about the middle of the 15th century, conferred the 
 title of lieutenant-general on the individual to whom the 
 monarch (by virtue of his birth the commander or general 
 of the national forces) intrusted the superintendence of the 
 army. The title of general is conferred either on the com- 
 mander-in-chief of the forces of a nation, or on the com- 
 mander of an army or grand division ; it is also given to the 
 officers next in rank to the general, who, besides perform- 
 ing functions peculiar to their own offices, frequently act as 
 the substitutes of their superior, with the designation of 
 lieutenant-general and major-general. 
 
 GE'NERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE CHURCH OF 
 SCOTLAND. Sec Assembly, Presbyterians. 
 
 GENERALI'SSIMO. A title conferred, especially by 
 the French, on the commander-in-chief of an army consist- 
 ing of two or more grand divisions, each under the super- 
 intendence of a general. According to Balzac, this dignity 
 was first assumed by Cardinal Richelieu on the occasion of 
 his leading the French army into Italy ; but the term does 
 not appear to have found favour among the other European 
 states. 
 
 GENERA'LITY. A French territorial division under 
 the government prior to the Revolution. The generalities 
 amounted in all to 34. This division was principally with 
 reference to the collection of taxes. 
 
 GENERALIZATION, in Logic, has been defined as the 
 net of comprehending under a common name several objects 
 agreeing in some point which we abstract from each of them, 
 and which that common term serves to indicate. ( ff hate- 
 ley's Logic, p. 388.) 
 
 GENERA'TION, or GE'NESIS, in Geometry, denotes 
 the formation or production of a geometrical figure or quan- 
 tity. A line is said to be generated by the motion of a point, 
 a surface by the motion of a line, and a solid by that of a 
 surface. A sphere or spheroid is generated by the revolu- 
 tion of a semicircle, or semi-ellipse, about its diameter; and 
 a circle by the revolution of its radius about one of its ex- 
 tremities. The figure thus produced, or generated, is called 
 tile generant ; and it is a general property of every such fig- 
 ure that its area or content is equal to the product which 
 arises from multiplying the generating quantity into the 
 length of the path described by its centre of gravity. All 
 quantities may be considered as generated by motion ; and 
 hence arose the terms fluxion and fluent in the infinitesimal 
 analysis. 
 
 GE'NESIS, BOOK OF. See Pentateuch. 
 
 GENE'THLIAC. (Gr. yevcdXiaicev ; from yevcOXov, a 
 birth.) An ode or other short poem composed in honour of 
 the birth of an individual. 
 
 GENE VA. See Gin. 
 
 GE'NIA. (Gr. ytvciov, the chin.) Terms in Anatomy 
 compounded of this word, and applied to muscles attached 
 to the chin. 
 
 GENI'CULATE. (Lat. genu, the knee.) Bending ab- 
 ruptly in an obtuse angle, like the knee when a little bent. 
 
 GE'NII, called by the Eastern nations Genn or Gien, are 
 a race of beings created from fire, occupying an intermedi- 
 ate place between man and angels, and endowed with a 
 corporeal form, which they are capable of metamorphosing 
 at pleasure. They are said to have inhabited this earth 
 many ages before the creation of man, and to have been at 
 last driven thence for rebellious conduct against Allah. 
 Their present place of abode is Ginnistan, the Persian Ely- 
 sium ; but they are represented as still interesting themselves 
 deeply in the affairs of this earth, over which they exercise 
 considerable influence. Every one is aware of the impor- 
 tant part which the genii perform in the interesting stories 
 of the East ; and indeed a more correct idea may be formed 
 
 GENTILE. 
 
 of their origin, characteristics, and history, from a perusal 
 of the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, than can be con- 
 veyed by the most elaborate dissertation. For an account 
 of the superstitions of the modern Arabs in regard to genii, 
 see Lane's Modern Egyptians. 
 
 GE'NITIVE CASE. (Lat.genitivus.^enerafiue.) That 
 inflexion of the noun which denotes the relation of property. 
 See Grammar. 
 
 GE'NIUS. (Lat. gigno, / produce.) According to the 
 belief of the old Italian races, especially the Etruscans, the 
 genius was a spiritual agency of very indeterminate charac- 
 ter, which seems to have been appropriated not only to ev- 
 ery human family and individual as a companion, but to 
 every god, and' even to places and tilings. This conception 
 was altogether foreign to Grecian mythology, although in 
 later times it became mingled in that of Rome with the Gre- 
 cian notions respecting demons. (See Djemon.) As, for in- 
 stance, inthe idea of a double genius, good and bad. Cen- 
 sorinus (Ve Vie Natali) says, "The genius is that god un- 
 der whose protection every mortal is born and lives." Hence 
 the worship of the genius was closely connected with all 
 domestic ceremonies and feelings: the marriage bed was 
 lectus genialis ; the day of the genius, genialis dies, sacred 
 to mirth and relaxation ; the genius accompanied human 
 fortunes in their vicissitudes (Vultu mutabilis, albus et ater 
 — Hot.) ; and death was typified by the figure of a genius 
 with a lamp reversed. The genii of places were usually 
 represented and worshipped under the figure of snakes. 
 Whether there is any connexion between the Italic genius and 
 the djinn of oriental nations (see Genii) is a doubtful point. 
 
 GENS. In Ancient History, a clan or sect, forming a 
 subdivision of the Roman people next in order to the curia 
 or tribe. The members and houses (familim) composing 
 one of these clans were not necessarily united by ties of 
 blood, but were originally brought together by a political 
 distribution of the citizena, and bound by religious rites, and 
 a common name, derived probably from some ancient hero. 
 This common name, which distinguished the gentiles or 
 members of the same clan, was the second of the three 
 borne by a Roman citizen, and was specially termed the 
 nomen. It is supposed that each of the curies originally 
 contained ten gentes, and that each of these was represented 
 in the senate by one of its members. (See Vico, Scienza 
 Nuova ; JVicbuhr's History of Rome, 2d ed., p. 387.) 
 
 GE'NTIAN. In Pharmacy, the root of the Gentiana 
 lutea, a plant abundant in the Swiss and Austrian Alps, and 
 in the mountainous parts of Germany. An infusion or 
 tincture of gentian root is an excellent stomachic bitter. 
 
 GE'NTlANA CE^E. (Gentiana, one of the genera.; A 
 natural order of herbaceous Exogens, inhabiting most purts 
 of the world. They are very near to Jipocynacee, from 
 which they differ in their herbaceous habit, permanent co- 
 rolla, want of milk, and in many other characters From 
 Scrophulariacea they are distinguished by their regmar flow- 
 ers, the stamens of which are equal in number to the lobes 
 of the corolla ; but they arc with difficulty distinguished if 
 the flowers are absent. Lastly, they have a natural rela- 
 tion to Cinchonaccm, inasmuch as the genera Mitreola and 
 Houstonia have both been mistaken by good botanists for 
 Cinchonaceous plants. Their chief characteristic sensible 
 property is an intense bitterness, which resides both in the 
 stems and roots, rendering them tonic, stomachic, and feb- 
 rifugal ; on which account the roots of Gentiana lutea and 
 others are admitted into all pharmacopoeias. Many of the 
 species are beautiful in the hands of the cultivator. The 
 prevailing colours are red and blue. 
 
 GE NTILE. (Lat. gens, nation.) The original meaning 
 of the Latin word gcntUis is, one of the same kith or nation 
 with the speaker. In a later age of Latinity, individuals of 
 foreign or barbarous races were called Gentiles. (Jiuson. ; 
 and Cod. Theodos.) The Jews designated all not professing 
 their religion indiscriminately as "the nations," m cdvr) (N. 
 T.) ; and hence the Greek word cdvitcos (whence our hea- 
 then and the corresponding Latin word gentile) became used 
 to signify Pagans, in opposition to Christians and Jews. The 
 word gentilis is used in this sense by St. Jerome, Pruden- 
 tius, and Christian writers of that age in general. The jeal- 
 ousy with which the Jews regarded all foreign nations, and 
 the bigoted obstinacy with which they clung to their notions 
 of their own peculiar sanctity and favour in the sight of 
 God, are well known. The earlier half of the history of 
 the Acts contains the account of the struggle which Chris- 
 tianity maintained against these prejudices before it finally 
 subdued them, even in the breasts of the Apostles and first 
 teachers themselves. The design of Christ that all nations 
 should be admitted to the benefits of his mission, is clearly 
 shown in many of his own words and actions ; but, upon his 
 crucifixion, his followers appear in the first instance to have 
 shrunk from carrying out this groat principle. Their preach- 
 ing is confined for some time to Jerusalem ; and there, it is 
 to be remarked, they are treated with no severity, and ob- 
 tain considerable success. But, upon the appointment of
 
 GENTLEMAN. 
 
 the deacons, who appear to be Hellenists — much more lax 
 in their Judaical notions and prejudices than the Jews of 
 Palestine — and upon the preaching of Stephen, which was 
 probably the first bold declaration of the equality of the 
 Gentile with the Jew, the anger of the people is imme- 
 diately roused ; the flame of persecution breaks suddenly 
 forth ;" the disciples are driven from Jerusalem, and scat- 
 tered abroad in places where they are brought more in 
 contact with foreigners ; and the vision which is vouch- 
 safed to Peter recoanises distinctly the claim of the Gen- 
 tiles to the benefits of the Gospel. The observance of cer- 
 tain Jewish ceremonies continued, however, for a long 
 time to be a stumbling-block to the most devout and sin- 
 cere Christians. St. Paul combats the notion of the neces- 
 sity of submitting to some of these, especially circumcision ; 
 yet even he feels obliged to make some indulgence to the 
 prejudices of the Judaizing party. In after times this party 
 occupied one distinct division of the Christian world, split 
 itself into various sects, such as the Ebionites and Nicolai- 
 tans, and for a long time exercised considerable influence 
 even within the pale of the church. 
 
 GE'NTLEMAN. (The English word gentle, in its origi- 
 nal sense, signifies one belonging to a race or family ; Lat. 
 gens.) In Heraldry, a rank expressed in Latin by the term 
 generosus. All entitled to coat-armour are gentlemen ; but 
 the name is more commonly applied to the lowest rank of 
 those who have no other distinguishing title. Gentlemen by 
 blood were those who could show four generations of gen- 
 tlemen, both in the paternal and maternal line. Those 
 who could not prove this, but against whom the contrary 
 was not known within memory of man, were gentlemen by 
 prescription. Gentlemen were also created by letters pat- 
 ent of the king. Officers (not menial) of the king's house- 
 hold, persons holding a royal commission, civil or military, 
 who had taken a degree in the liberal arts, and persons 
 adopted by gentlemen, were considered entitled to this 
 rank, which has now been Ions obsolete as a distinction. 
 
 GENTLEMEN PENSIONERS. In England, a band of 
 forty gentlemen, entitled esquires, whose office is to attend 
 the king's person to and from the Chapel-Royal, and on 
 other occasions of solemnity. They were instituted by 
 Henrv VUJ. 
 
 GE'NTLES. The maggots or apodal larvae of the flesh 
 fly (Musca camaria), and other Diptera, are sometimes so 
 called. 
 
 GE'NUS. (Lat.) In Zoology, that distinct but subordi- 
 nate group of animals which gives its name as a prefix to 
 that of all the species of which it is composed. 
 
 Genus. In Logic, one of the predicables, which is con- 
 sidered as the material part of the species of which it is af- 
 firmed. See Logic, Predicable. 
 
 Genus. In Music, the general name for any scale of 
 music. If a scale proceed by tones, it is called the diatonic 
 genus ; if between the tones semitones are introduced, it is 
 called the chromatic genus. When the subdivisions are 
 smaller, as quarter tones, it is called the enharmonic genus. 
 
 GE'OCE'NTRIC. (Gr. yv, earth, and Kcvrpov, centre.) 
 A term frequently used in Astronomy, signifying literally 
 having the earth for its centre. The apparent motion of 
 any planet, as seen from the earth, is called its geocentric 
 motion. The geocentric latitude of a planet is the angle 
 formed by a straight line, supposed to be drawn from the 
 planet to the earth, with the plane of the earth's orbit or 
 the plane of the ecliptic. Geocentric longitude of a planet 
 is the angle at the earth formed by two straight lines, one 
 of which is drawn to the first point of Aries, and the other 
 to that point of the ecliptic which is intersected by a per- 
 pendicular circle, the plane of which passes through the 
 earth and planet. Geocentric is opposed to heliocentric, 
 which refers to the centre of the sun. These terms are 
 only used in speaking of bodies belonging to the solar sys- 
 tem. The fixed stars are at such prodigious distances, that 
 they are referred to the same points in space, whether we 
 consider them as seen from the earth or the sun. 
 
 GE'ODES. (Gr.yzw&ris, earthy.) Nodules of iron-stone, 
 hollow in the centre. Rounded pebbles having an internal 
 cavitv lined with crystals are also so called. 
 
 GE'ODESY (Gr. y v , and iatu>, I divide), literally signi- 
 fies the division of the earth, in which sense it is synony- 
 mous with land surveying ; but it is usually employed in 
 a more general sense to denote that part of practical geom- 
 etry which has for its object the determination of the mag- 
 nitude and figure either of the whole earth, or of any given 
 portion of its surface. In this sense it comprehends all the 
 geometrical or trigonometrical operations that are necessary 
 for constructing a map of a country, measuring the lengths 
 of degrees, &e. In order to construct an accurate map, or 
 determine the form and dimensions of a country, it is ne- 
 cessary, in the first place, to determine the absolute distan- 
 ces between the several stations or points ; secondly, to de- 
 termine the azimuths of the lines thus measured, that is, 
 their situation with respect to the meridian ; and thirdly, 
 43 
 
 GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 the differences of latitude and longitude of the stations 
 The operations necessary for determining the absolute dis- 
 tances, comprehending the measurement of a base, the ob- 
 servation of angles, the computation of the sides of the tri- 
 angles, and their reduction to the same level, are called 
 the geodesical or geodctical operations ; while those which 
 are required for determining the azimuths and latitudes are 
 called the astronomical operations. The determination of 
 the figure and dimensions of the earth is a problem of 
 very great importance to astronomy and geography, and 
 has accordingly at all times been a subject of much interest 
 to mathematicians ; but it is only since towards the middle 
 of the last century that operations on an adequate scale for 
 its solution have been undertaken in different parts of the 
 world. For the results of the more important of these op- 
 erations, see Degree. 
 
 GEO'GNOSY. See Geology. 
 
 GEO'GRAPHY. (Gr. v», and ypadxt, I describe.) The 
 description of the earth. The etymology of the term indi- 
 ] cates the nature and extent of this department of knowl- 
 I edge, which, in fact, embraces everything relating to the 
 I circumstances and condition, natural or artificial of the 
 i globe which we inhabit. The immense variety of subjects 
 ; comprehended in the science of Geography are usually ar- 
 ranged under three great divisions — Mathematical, Physi- 
 cal, and Political Geography. 
 
 Mathematical Geography. — This division of geography 
 has for its object the determination of the form and dimen- 
 sions of the earth, its relations with the celestial bodies, 
 the relative positions and distances of places on its surface, 
 and the representation of the whole or portions of it*sur- 
 face on globes or maps. 
 
 In order to describe the earth, the first element that must 
 be ascertained is its general form. That the surface of the 
 earth is convex, is apparent even to the senses. Let a 
 spectator stand on the seashore, and attend to the success- 
 ive appearances of a ship proceeding to sea. First, the 
 lower part becomes invisible ; then the whole hull ; and, 
 lastly, the masts and rigging, the lower parts disappearing 
 first. Now this phenomenon can only be explained by the 
 convexity of the portion of the water between the ship 
 and the spectator ; and when the curvature of the sea is 
 recognised, the conclusion can scarcely be avoided that the 
 land, abstracting from its local inequalities, participates in 
 the same curvature, and that the earth is a round body. 
 The same conclusion is drawn from the gradual coming on 
 of day and night, and the deplacement of the stars in pro- 
 ceeding towards the north or south ; for if the earth were 
 flat, the sun, in appearing above the horizon, would illu- 
 mine the whole of its surface at the same instant ; and on 
 the supposition of its being either flat or cylindrical, the 
 pole star would maintain the same elevation, whereas to 
 the traveller who advances northward it gradually appears 
 more elevated, and to him who advances southward more 
 depressed. All these appearances are observed in the same 
 manner on whatever part of the earth we are placed ; and 
 from them alone the globular form of the earth might be 
 inferred, even if the fact had not been placed beyond doubt 
 by the voyages of circumnavigators. Astronomers in mod- 
 ern times have indeed discovered that it is not a perfect 
 sphere, being flattened in a slight degree at two opposite 
 points (which are the poles of rotation) ; but the deviation 
 from perfect sphericity is so small, that for all the purposes 
 with which geography is concerned it may be neglected 
 without sensible error. See Figure of the Earth. 
 
 In order to determine the relative positions of points on a 
 sphere in the most commodious manner, mathematicians 
 refer them to two great circles ; that is to say, circles form- 
 ed by the intersection of the surface of the sphere by a 
 plane passing through its centre. The earth is a body which 
 revolves about an axis of rotation ; the position of this axis, 
 therefore, with respect to the celestial constellations, deter- 
 mines one great circle, namely, the equator, or the circle 
 which is equally distant from the two poles of rotation, and 
 divides the globe into two opposite hemispheres. The 
 equator, therefore, being marked out by nature, or by the 
 apparent revolutions of the celestial bodies arising from the 
 real diurnal rotation of the earth, is a circle to which all 
 places are most conveniently referred : and it has this prop- 
 erty, that it never undergoes any change of place on the 
 sphere ; for astronomers have proved that since the date of 
 the earliest observations, the poles of rotation, and conse- 
 quently the equator, have always maintained the same in- 
 variable position on the earth's surface. 
 
 The distance of a place from the equator cannot be di- 
 rectly measured ; but by means of astronomical observations 
 we can determine that distance in aliquot parts of the earth's 
 circumference, that is, in degrees of a great circle. It is 
 not, however, sufficient to know how many decrees a place 
 is distant from the equator. It is necessiry, also, m order 
 to distinguish it from all other places, to know how it is situa- 
 ted with respect to a certain meridian, or great circle perpen- 
 
 493
 
 GEOGRAPHY. 
 
 dicular to the equator, and consequently passing through 
 the poles. In reference to the diurnal rotation of the earth, 
 all meridians are in precisely the same circumstances ; the 
 choice is consequently entirely arbitrary, and geographers, 
 as well as astronomers, generally select that which passes 
 through the capital of their own country as the circle to 
 which they refer all other places. The equator and the as- 
 sumed meridian thus form the co-ordinates of the sphere. 
 The distance of any place from the equator, measured on 
 the arc of the meridian, is the latitude of the place ; and its 
 distance from the assumed meridian, measured on a circle 
 parallel to the equator, is its longitude ; and when the lati- 
 tude and longitude of any place are both known, the posi- 
 tion of the place itself is entirely determined. The latitude 
 of a place is ascertained by observing the height of the pole 
 above its horizon ; and the longitude of one place in re- 
 spect of another, by the interval of time which elapses be- 
 tween the passage of any celestial body over their respect- 
 ive meridians. See Latitude and Longitude. 
 
 Besides the rotatory motion about its axis, the earth has 
 also a motion of revolution about the sun, which is comple- 
 ted in the course of one year. The first of these motions 
 causes the succession of day and night; the second the 
 vicissitudes of the seasons, and the inequality of the length 
 of the natural days. These two last phenomena depend on 
 two circumstances : 1st, that the axis of the earth is not 
 perpendicular to the plane of the ecliptic, or the plane in 
 which the annual revolution is performed ; and, 2d, that 
 the extremities of this axis, or the two poles of rotation, 
 continue to be directed to the same points of the celestial 
 sphere during the whole time of 
 * the revolution. Hence it follows 
 that the plane of the equator, 
 though invariable in respect of ab- 
 solute space, is continually chan- 
 ging its position in respect of the 
 sun ; and the apparent effect is 
 > the same as if the sun had a vi- 
 bratory motion in the heavens, ri- 
 sing above the plane of the equator E E one half of the 
 year, and falling below it dining the other half. When 
 the sun is in the equator at S, the two poles of the earth 
 n and s are in the great circle which divides the illu- 
 minated from the dark hemisphere. When the sun reach- 
 es his greatest northern declination at S', the illumina- 
 *r ted hemisphere is a E a', and the north pole n comes 
 ' considerably within it. On the other hand, when the 
 sun's declination is south, as at S", the south pole s comes 
 into the illuminated hemisphere, while n is left in dark- 
 ness. When the sun is at S his apparent diurnal mo- 
 tion is performed in the equator, and the days and nights 
 are of equal length all over the world. The angle which 
 the planes of the equator and ecliptic make with each other 
 Is about 234°; consequently, since the greatest declina- 
 tion of the sun from the equator is the same quantity, it 
 must happen that at midsummer the sun is 23 .° to "the 
 north of the equator, and at midwinter 234° to the south 
 of it. The inequality of the natural days is an immediate 
 consequence of the sun's declination ; for as the solar rays 
 come to the earth parallel, one half of the globe must al- 
 ways be illuminated at once, and the other half in dark- 
 ness ; consequently, when the sun declines 23^° to the 
 north of the equator, all that part of the earth "which is 
 within 23i° of the north pole will remain, while the 
 earth performs its diurnal revolution, within the illumina- 
 ted hemisphere. A small circle of the sphere parallel to 
 the equator, and at the distance of 23i° from the pole, is 
 called the polar circle ; and at this latitude the sun, when 
 at his greatest declination, comes exactly to the horizon at 
 midnight, without setting ; consequently, the length of the 
 longest day is twenty-four hours. At the equator the 
 length of the day is always twelve hours ; and from the 
 equator to the polar circle the length of the longest day is 
 greater and greater as the latitude increases. At "the 
 pole the sun is one half of the year above the horizon, 
 and the other half below it; and from the polar circle to 
 the pole, the length of time the sun continues above the 
 horizon without setting increases with the latitude from 
 twenty-four hours to six months. The two small circles 
 of the sphere parallel to the equator, which limit the sun's 
 greatest declination, are called the tropics ; and the whole 
 surface of the globe is divided by the two tropics, and the 
 two polar circles, into five zones or spaces ; namely, the torrid 
 zone, which is included between the two tropics, or extends 
 23|° on either side of the equator; the two temperate 
 zones, or the spaces included between the tropic and polar 
 circle in each hemisphere ; and the two frigid zones, or the 
 spaces between the poles and their respective polar circles. 
 These may be called the astronomical divisions of the 
 globe, as they depend on the position of the earth's axis 
 of rotation with respect to the plane of its orbit, and are 
 determined by astronomical observations. 
 494 
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 Physical Geography has for its object the description of 
 the principal features of the earth's surface, as consisting of 
 land and water ; the extent and configuration of the conti- 
 nents and islands; the elevation and direction of the mount- 
 ain chains; the conformation of the plains and valleys; 
 their altitude above the level of the sea ; and the soil, cli- 
 mate, and animal and vegetable productions of different 
 countries. It embraces also the various phenomena of the 
 ocean, which may be classed under the term Hydrology ; 
 the depth of the sea, and the inequalities of its depth, its 
 saltness and temperature; the direction and velocity of cur- 
 rents, the tides, the polar ice, &c. In like manner it com- 
 prehends also many of the questions which are usually 
 treated under the terms Meteorology and Climate ; the mean 
 temperature of different countries; the height of the snow 
 line; the prevailing winds; the barometric pressure; the 
 quantity of annual rain, of evaporation, &c. ; and the effect 
 of all these circumstances on the condition of the human 
 race. 
 
 On casting our eye on a globe or map, we immediately 
 perceive the very unequal distribution of land and water on 
 the surface of the earth. The land occupies a very little 
 more than one third of the whole surface, and the water all 
 the remaining portion. Nor is the inequality of the distribu- 
 tion in respect of the two hemispheres less remarkable. Of 
 the whole land about four fifths is situated in the northern 
 hemisphere, and the remaining one fifth in the southern. In 
 a general view, the land consists of three great masses: the 
 old continent, which comprehends Europe, Asia, and Africa; 
 the new continent, or America; and New Holland — which 
 are separated from each other by the great oceans. The 
 general features of the two continents differ remarkably. In 
 the old continent the general direction of the land, and of 
 the great mountain chains, is from west to east, almost par- 
 allel to the equator ; while in America the general direction 
 is from north to south, along the meridian. Thus the four 
 great systems of mountain ranges in Asia — namely, the Al- 
 tai, the Thian-chan, the Kuen-lun, and the Himalaya — all 
 stretch from west to east ; and the Andes, which extends 
 from one extremity of America to the other, ranges in the 
 perpendicular direction from north to south. Another stri- 
 king feature of the land is, that all the great peninsulas are 
 pointed to the south pole. This is the case with South 
 America, Africa, Arabia, Hindostan, Malaya, Cambodia, the 
 Corea, Kamtschatka, California, Alaska, Greenland, Florida, 
 Italy, &c. ; in short, the only two exceptions are Yucatan in 
 the Gulf of Mexico, and Jutland in the German Sea, which 
 are both formed of alluvial land, and may therefore be sup- 
 posed to owe their formation to partial influences which 
 have not operated on the great continental masses. This 
 similarity of disposition can only be attributed to the agency 
 of some mechanical cause ; and the phenomena strongly 
 suggest the idea of the terraqueous masses having been 
 shaped into their existing forms by the action of a great wave 
 or current flowing from the southern to the northern pole. 
 (See Atmosphere, Climate, Geology, Tides, Wind, &c. 
 See also an excellent article on this subject by Dr. Traill in 
 the Encyclopedia Britannica.) 
 
 Political Geography considers the earth as the abode of 
 mankind ; and has for its object the description of all that 
 relates to the moral or social condition of the different na- 
 tions; their language, religion, government, degrees of civil- 
 ization ; and the population, resources, and local relations of 
 different countries. This part of geography is consequently 
 related to history and statistics, and does not fall within the 
 scope of this work. (See M'Culloch's Geographical Dic- 
 tionary ; Murray's Encyclopedia of Geography ; the large 
 work of Malte Brun, of which there is an English transla- 
 tion; the Dictionnaire Geographique Universel ; tile Sys- 
 tems of Malte Brun and Balbi abridged, published by Black ; 
 and, for recent discoveries, the Journal of the Royal Geo- 
 graphical Society of London.) 
 
 GEOLOGY. (Gr. yv, the earth ; \oyog, a discourse.) Till 
 within the last five-and-twenty years geology consisted of a 
 very limited collection of facts, strung upon amusing but in- 
 sufficient theories and hypotheses; but it may now be said 
 to have taken its place among the rigid and exact sciences. 
 It requires for its successful exposition not only an intimate 
 acquaintance with the rnhreralogical history of the crust of 
 tlie globe, but it also involves a series of extensive and dis- 
 tinct inquiries respecting the physical and chemical causes 
 that are and have been active in producing present and past 
 changes; and it branches out into several distinct investiga- 
 tions connected with the discovery of organic remains, in the 
 successful pursuit of which no small share of zoological and 
 botanical information are requisite, and which also demand 
 the aid of comparative anatomy. 
 
 There is this, therefore, to recommend geology, that it ex- 
 cites a distinct interest in the external characters of a coun- 
 try or district, independent of the beauties, or ruggedneaa, or 
 sublimity of its aspect, or of its geographical peculiarities, 
 and endeavours to trace a connexion between its exterior
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 features and interior structure ; and in these its simplest 
 details it bears upon agriculture, and ultimately upon all 
 those numerous arts in which mineral substances are con- 
 cerned. The fanner should be a geologist, and so should 
 the architect: the miner and the mineralogist must be so. 
 But this is, as it were, the mere title of the volume ; for 
 when we come more narrowly to peruse its contents, we do 
 indeed find it "as a book wherein man may read strange 
 matters." It is full of relics, so extraordinary as to arrest 
 the attention of the most superficial inquirer, and to awaken 
 the deepest interest in the philosophic observer : it is throng- 
 ed with records of strange and mighty changes and convul- 
 sions ; of revolutions in climate, and in the genera and spe- 
 cies of the organic creation ; it carries the mind back to a 
 period indefinitely remote, when our present continents were 
 at the bottom of the ocean, from which they seem to have 
 been elevated sometimes by the slowest degrees, and at oth- 
 ers by a more rapid and violent cause, and when both sea 
 and land were tenanted by distinct tribes and races of extra- 
 ordinary animals and vegetables; it shows that every thing 
 as we now find it has been gradually and successively de- 
 veloped, as it were, and that man himself has appeared but 
 late upon this singular stage. 
 
 In this article our principal object will be to give an outline 
 of the present state of geology, and an explanation of the 
 terms of the science. To attain this object, the works which 
 we have principally consulted, and from which, with the 
 kind permission of their authors, we have made copious ex- 
 tracts, are those of Lyell and De la Beetle : the explanatory 
 diagrams are chiefly from the same sources. To them, and 
 to the works of Phillips, Bakewell, Mantell, and Buckland, 
 and to the Transactions of the Geological Society, we must 
 refer our readers for details which would have been incon- 
 sistent with the objects of this Dictionary. 
 
 In tracing out the present appearance of the earth's sur- 
 face, and in examining minutely the effects of causes now 
 in action, there is nothing, as Hutton has said, in which we 
 can distinctly perceive either the evidence of a beginning or 
 the prospect of an end. Geometers have taught us that in 
 the midst of all the fluctuations which can possibly take 
 place in the elements of the orbits of the planets by reason 
 of their mutual attraction, the general balance of the parts 
 of the system will always be preserved, and every depar- 
 ture from a mean state periodically compensated. But, in 
 saying that we can discover nothing that points to a begin- 
 ning or threatens an end, we only mean that mere human 
 powers are as yet inadequate to such a discovery. There 
 are, it is true, some circumstances in the physical constitu- 
 tion of our own planet which do obscurely point to an origin 
 and a formation, but from them nothing distinct can be con- 
 cluded. On the other hand, neither the researches of as- 
 tronomy nor of geology give us the slightest grounds for 
 regarding either our system, or the globe we inhabit, as of 
 eternal duration ; in short, if we would speculate to any 
 purpose, either upon the former state of our globe, or upon 
 the succession of events which from time to time may have 
 changed the condition and the form of its surface, we must 
 confine our views within limits far more restricted, and to 
 subjects much more within the reach of our capacity, than 
 either the beginning or the end of the world. These, in- 
 deed, were almost the sole inquiries of the older geological 
 school, the favourite speculations of a race of geologists 
 now nearly extinct. Within the limits of the present cen- 
 tury even geology'has undergone an entire change of char- 
 acter, and is, as we have already remarked, brought with- 
 in the list of the inductive sciences. Geologists now no 
 longer ransack their imaginations for theories of the forma- 
 tion of the globe from chaos, or bewilder themselves with 
 its hypothetical transformations ; but they aim at a careful 
 and accurate examination of the records of its former state, 
 and of the indisputable evidences of former life and habita- 
 tion which the organic remains of its strata afford. 
 
 These wonderful wrecks of a former state of nature, 
 preserved, like ancient medals and marbles in the ruins of 
 an extinct empire, afford a kind of rude chronology, by the 
 aid of which the successive depositions of the strata in 
 which they are found may be marked out in epochs more 
 or less definitely terminated, and each recognised by some 
 peculiarity which enables the diligent observer to recognise 
 the deposits of any period, in whatever part of the globe 
 they may occur. And, so far at least as investigation has 
 hitherto gone, these deposits are in the same order of suc- 
 cession in every part of the world. 
 
 But, in using these terms, we must not forget how very 
 little we do actually know of the earth's surface. We talk 
 of certain strata extending over the whole globe, forget- 
 ting that nearly three fourths of it are covered by the wa- 
 ters of the ocean, and that consequently of that portion we 
 can know but little, and that little imperfectly ; and that 
 of the fourth which remains in the shape of dry land not 
 one thousandth part has been at all examined, or at least 
 not investigated. Again, we speak of the crust of our 
 
 globe, and of the bowels of the earth, and the fopth of the 
 sea, and the loftiness of mountains, forgetting how insignif- 
 icant all these things really are, compared with the entire 
 bulk of our planet; that our deepest mines hardly pene- 
 trate to a depth surpassing the ten thousandth part of the 
 distance from the surface to the centre ; that the profound- 
 est recesses are mere scratches upon the surface ; that the 
 loftiest hills and most inaccessible mountains arc only as 
 grains of dust and of sand sprinkled on the surface of one 
 
 I of our moderate-sized artificial globes. 
 
 Such being the real state of our information, and such 
 
 | the limitations to which all farther pursuit is subjected, we 
 
 J may well be animated by the magnitude and extent of the 
 inquiries which this limited range displays. " And finding, 
 even in these restricted bounds, the amplest proofs of order 
 and design, the mind is naturally led to the sublimest in- 
 ferences respecting what is unseen, and even to the con- 
 ception of a power and intelligence to which we may well 
 apply the term infinite ; since we not only see no limit to 
 the instances in which they are manifested, but find, on the 
 
 j contrary, that they continually open upon us in increasing 
 abundance, in proportion as we are enabled to extend our 
 sphere of observation and inquiry ; and that as the study 
 of one prepares us to understand and appreciate another, 
 wonder follows on wonder, till our faculties become bewil- 
 dered in admiration, and our intellect falls back on itself in 
 utter hopelessness of arriving at an end." 
 
 We may now state of what the external film or cuticle 
 of the globe appears to consist, and examine how far we 
 are justified in surmising respecting the nature of its deep- 
 er-seated parts, and of such portions as are out of the reach 
 of actual inspection. 
 
 We say that the crust of the earth is stratified, because 
 it consists chiefly of distinct strata or layers of different ma- 
 terials. These differ in depth and extent ; but, what is 
 most essential to our present purpose, they follow each 
 other, on the large scale and as masses, in an apparently 
 regular and uniform succession in all places, districts, and. 
 countries where they admit of examination and have been 
 attentively studied. They appear, in most instances, to rest 
 upon, and are blended with, invaded, and in some few in- 
 stances overflowed, as it were, by substances which are not 
 distinctly stratified, and which most geologists have agreed 
 in calling unstratified rocks. The former, or the stratified 
 rocks, from their texture and contents, have apparently 
 been formed under water ; and some of them, especially 
 the uppermost series, abound in fossil remains of the or- 
 ganized kingdom. The unstratified rocks, on the other 
 hand, are in many instances of indisputable volcanic origin ; 
 and others, from their position, texture, and effects upon 
 their neighbours, are also presumed to be of igneous forma- 
 tion. Water, therefore, on the one hand, and fire on the 
 other, seem to have been the great agents to which the 
 present aspects of the earth's surface are referable. In 
 proceeding to enumerate the principal divisions of the 
 stratified rocks in their order from above downwards, we 
 must remind the reader that the series of strata seem to 
 have been removed from certain districts by causes which 
 we shall afterwards endeavour to trace, constituting what 
 have been called denudations. 
 
 In this diagram A represents the crystallized or unstrati- 
 fied rocks, presumed to be of igneous origin, upon which lie 
 the stratified rocks, B, C, and D. The rocks A were for- 
 merly called primitive, and were supposed to be the origi- 
 nal crystalline crust of the globe, upon which the strata B, C, 
 D had been subsequently deposited ; but it is now supposed 
 that the rocks B, C, and D have been upheaved by the sub- 
 sequent intrusion of A by volcanic agencies from beneath. 
 
 The substances which usually constitute the ground we 
 tread upon are produced chiefly by causes in daily opera- 
 tion — soils and detritus of various kinds washed down from 
 the neighbouring hills by the influence of rain and torrents, 
 and forming wiiat have been generally called alluvial de- 
 posits: these are more or less associated with matters 
 probably of a similar but a more ancient origin, and which, 
 suspected by some to be relics of the deluge, have been 
 termed diluvial deposites ; such as gravel and boulder 
 stones. 
 
 We then find in many parts of England and elsewhere 
 occasional patches of what have been termed tertiary 
 rocks, which often are of singular interest,. and frequently 
 consist of detached and insulated deposits surrounded by 
 other rocks, and, in reference to their neighbours, occupy- 
 ing a position very like that of the water of lakes, inland
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 seas, and gulfs, in relation to a continent; and, like such 
 waters, being often very deep, but of limited extent: hence 
 they are often designated as basins. They consist of clays 
 and calcareous and arenaceous matters, in which are im- 
 bedded remains of marine animals, blended with fresh- 
 water species, quadrupeds, and even birds. These lie upon 
 chalk, which is the newest rock of the secondary series. 
 They constitute the supracretaceous rocks of which the ba- 
 sins of Paris, London, and the Isle of Wight, and parts of 
 Suffolk, furnish instances. Chalk constitutes the upper- 
 most of the secondary series of the European area; and it 
 is immediately succeeded by certain varieties of sand and 
 sandstone, included by Mr. De la Beche in his Cretaceous 
 group. We then (in the same area) come to the Oolitic 
 group, composed of calcareous freestone and of lias, resting 
 upon the varieties of red sandstone, and succeeded by coal, 
 mountain limestone, and old red sandstone ; and these are 
 followed by the Greywacke group, forming the transition 
 series of Werner, a part of which lias been ably described 
 under the name of Silurian system by Mr. Murchison, rest- 
 ing upon a lower portion termed Cambrian syste?n by Pro- 
 fessor Sedgwick. The Greywacke may be conveniently 
 divided into three portions : 1. Upper, equivalent to the old 
 red sandstone of England ; ~. Intermediate, equal to the 
 Silurian system ; and 3. Inferior, equivalent to the Cam- 
 brian series. These are often made up of fragments of the 
 older series, or contain a few ancient organic relics. They 
 rest upon the inferior order of stratified nonfossiliferous 
 rocks, and upon the unstratified or primary series. 
 
 In endeavouring to trace out the history of the respective 
 strata to which we have adverted, it would, perhaps, be 
 most philosophical to commence our inquiries with the 
 causes that are now active in producing alterations upon 
 the surface of the globe ; to consider the action of changes 
 of temperature, and of water and other agents, that tend to 
 degrade and disintegrate the surface, to wear down its as- 
 perities, and to modify the present order of things — among 
 which earthquakes and volcanoes form a prominent feature. 
 But the narrative will be more clear if we first sketch out 
 the history of the formations, considering them in refer- 
 ence to their position, their composition, their organic relics, 
 and the purposes to which they are applied in the arts ; 
 and then, having adverted to their relative durabilities and 
 aspects as mountain masses, we may consider the action 
 of rivers, and of the ocean, both as destructive and as ren- 
 ovating agents, tracing out their connexion with meteoric 
 phenomena, and with the effects of volcanic fires. We 
 shall thus be enabled to compare present with past chan- 
 ges, and to form an opinion upon the great controversial 
 question which now seems chiefly to engage theoretical ge- 
 ologists ; namely, whether things have always gone on 
 pretty much ■ns we now see them, or whether our globe 
 has been subject to great and destructive changes and con- 
 vulsions out of the ordinary course of nature. 
 
 $1. 
 
 First, then, as respects those superficial and insulated 
 formations constituting the tertiary or supracretaceous group 
 of rocks. Our knowledge of their distinct existence is chief- 
 ly due to the labours of Cuvier and Brongniart, whose Me- 
 moir on the Environs of Paris was published in 1811. In 
 this part of Europe they form patches or basins ; but there 
 is much reason to believe that they have once been more 
 continuous and extensive, and that their present insulated 
 character is, partly at least, due to the elevation of the 
 strata below them, by which they have been broken up, 
 and in part also removed by denudation. 
 
 Among these formations we may also class many exten- 
 sive series of rocks in different parts of Europe, which, al- 
 though they bear records of having been deposited at differ- 
 ent and probably remote periods, are still, compared with 
 the strata beneath them, of comparatively modern origin, 
 and belong to the general epoch of the supracretaceous se- 
 ries. 
 
 It will easily be understood that one characteristic test 
 of the date or age of a rock formation is to be found in the 
 fossils which are entombed in it. If these are of genera 
 and species now existing; it is an inference in favour of 
 modern formation ; if the genera are extant, but the species 
 extinct, we are carried back to a more remote date; and if 
 the genera are also extinct, we presume upon a yet more 
 remote period of deposition. It is obvious, also, that other 
 conclusions of great importance may he deduced from the 
 same source, and that the remains of certain quadrupeds, 
 amphibious animals, and fresh-water and marine fish and 
 shells, will announce the existence of dry land, lakes, or 
 seas, at the periods of the respective depositions ; and 
 again, from alternations of these deposits, we are often en- 
 abled to infer the successive or alternate states of dry land, 
 lakes, and the ocean, upon one and the same spot. All 
 these inferences require to be drawn with the utmost cir- 
 cumspection, and many concomitant circumstances to be 
 496 
 
 taken into the account ; but the data, when judiciously 
 used, are of the greatest interest and importance, and give 
 the most unexpected and extraordinary yet philosophical 
 clues to the discovery of a former and very remote state of 
 things upon the surface of the globe. 
 
 The tertiary rocks, when tried by the test just hinted at, 
 may be subdivided into three or four periods, founded upon 
 the comparison of their respective fossils; all these periods 
 are distinct from and anterior to that which lias elapsed 
 since the earth has been tenanted by man, and which may 
 therefore be called the historical, recent, or contemporane- 
 ous period. 
 
 In the most modern of the above periods, the formations 
 are such as contain fossil testaceous remains, of which the 
 greater part are referable to recent species. In some of 
 there is an immense preponderance of recent species, and 
 the formations pass by insensible gradation into those of the 
 historical period ; as in part of Sicily and the district about 
 Naples. In others, the recent species vary from one third 
 to one half of the entire number ; as in the subappenine 
 hills and in the English crag. The formations of the next 
 period contain a minority only of imbedded fossil shells of 
 recent species (Touraine and the beds of the Loire) ; and 
 in the last, they are of such very sparing occurrence, as to 
 indicate what may be considered as the first commence- 
 ment of the existing state of the animal creation (Paris and 
 London basins). 
 
 These three periods of formations Mr. Lyell designates 
 by the terms Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene. (Pliocene, 
 from 7rAau)i<, major, and icatvos, recent, because the major 
 part of the fossil testacea; of this epoch are referable to re- 
 cent species; Miocene, from ptiuv, minor, a minority only 
 of fossil shells imbedded in the formations of this period 
 being of recent species ; Eocene, from >;ws, aurora, because 
 the very small proportion of living species contained in 
 these strata indicates the dawn, as it were, of the present 
 state of the animal creation.) To give some idea of the 
 contents and arrangement of these strata, we may briefly 
 refer to the Paris, Hampshire, and London districts. 
 
 A descending section of the strata near Paris presents the 
 following orders of succession : The uppermost rock con- 
 sists of various marls and siliceous compounds, containing 
 organic remains, which characterize it as of fresh-water 
 formation ; to this succeed marls, sand, and limestone, with 
 marine shells ; then fresh-water marls, siliceous lime- 
 stone, and gypsum, with the bones of animals ; then a 
 coarse limestone abounding in marine remains, often hard, 
 and applicable to architectural purposes ; and lastly, lying 
 upon the uneven surface of the chalk, plastic clay, with 
 beds of sand containing lignite, amber, and shells both 6f 
 marine and fresh-water animals. 
 
 In this extraordinary assemblage some of the organic 
 relics are of great interest. The gypseous strata contain the 
 bones of extinct mammalia and other animals, which have 
 been almost recalled, as it were, into existence by the scien- 
 tific skill of Cuvier, who has given sketches of their proba- 
 ble forms and habitudes. There are the remains of about 
 fifty species of quadrupeds, all extinct, and nearly 4-5ths of 
 them belonging to a division of the order Pachydermata, now 
 only represented by four living species ; namely, three ta- 
 pirs and the daman of the Cape. There are a few carnivo- 
 rous animals, among which are a species of fox and gen- 
 net; there are the dormouse, squirrel, bat, and an opos- 
 sum (a marsupial animal, now confined to America and 
 Australia). There are about ten species of birds; and, 
 among the reptiles, crocodiles and tortoises. 
 
 Though we shall again advert to the probable and ap- 
 parent causes of this extraordinary assemblage of relics, it 
 may be worth while to refer to some general points con- 
 nected with the geology of the Paris district, which seem 
 to explain certain states of the earth's surface then ex- 
 isting. 
 
 In the first place, as respects their general arrangement, 
 we find that they do not repose horizontally upon each 
 other, but that there are irregularities, announcing hills 
 and valleys upon the original surface of the chalk on which 
 all these deposits rest. So that the plastic clay and its as- 
 sociates were deposited in these hollows, filling them more 
 or less up : upon this the lowest marine stratum (calcaire 
 grossier) was formed, also following the uneven surface 
 beneath. Then came the gypseous deposit, containing land 
 and river shells, with fragments of wood, and the assem- 
 blage of skeletons : respecting which it deserves particular 
 notice, that they are often entire, the most delicate extremi- 
 ties being preserved, as if the carcasses clothed with their 
 flesh and skin had been floated down soon after death; so 
 that Prevost has suggested that a river may have swept 
 away the bodies of the animals and plants which lived on 
 its borders, or in the lakes which it traversed, and may 
 have carried them down to a gulf into which flowed waters 
 impregnated with sulphate of lime, and by which they 
 were gradually consolidated. But whatever was the cause
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 of this singular state of things, it is clear that the deposit of 
 sulphate of lime afterwards ceased ; that the relative level 
 of the sea and land apparently became altered ; and that 
 marls with sea shells were formed, and pebbles were pro- 
 duced, to which oysters became attached, some of the peb- 
 bles being pierced by boring shells. To these deposits suc- 
 ceeds sand with broken organic remains, filling up inequali- 
 ties of surface, and apparently announcing a long-continued 
 action of water. Then those causes which prevented the 
 envelopment of organic remains ceased, and marine exuvice 
 became entombed in great abundance ; and lastly, to close 
 this eventful history, a varied deposit follows, containing 
 the remains of such animals and vegetables as are known 
 only to exist on dry land, or in marshes or fresh water. 
 This variety of mineral structure has been supposed to re- 
 sult from springs holding various substances in solution en- 
 tering various parts of a shallow lake. That it was shal- 
 low is probable, from the remains of the small seed vessels 
 of fresh water plants belonging to the genus Chara. These 
 curious remains were once supposed to be microscopic 
 shells : they have been called Gyrogonites (from yvpos, 
 curved, and yovos, seed). They occur frequently in fossil 
 formations of ditferent eras. 
 
 In the Isle of Wight there is a succession of fresh-water 
 and marine strata, which, as far as fossil contents go, agree 
 in many respects with the Paris district ; but in mineral 
 character they are very different. They appear almost ex- 
 clusively mechanical ; and the chemical solutions of silica, 
 and of sulphate and carbonate of lime, which seem to have 
 prevailed about Paris, are not to be traced here. But the 
 bones of mammalia corresponding to the celebrated gyp- 
 sum deposits of Paris have been disinterred at Binstead, 
 near Ryde. 
 
 Here as elsewhere we find signs of an upheaving of the 
 strata, as announced in the different succession of forma- 
 tions, and in the verticality of certain neighbouring beds. 
 In the Isle of Wight, and also on the opposite coast of 
 Hampshire, the fresh-water beds rest upon sand ; and there 
 seems, as in the Paris beds, to have been alternations of 
 currents with more quiescent deposits. 
 
 A peculiar clay underlies London and the adjoining dis- 
 trict, commonly known as Ijondon clay. It is of various col- 
 ours, and contains argillaceous and calcareous matters ; but 
 the latter rarely so far predominate as to form limestone, or 
 even marl. It contains layers of argillo-calcareous nodules, 
 called septaria, and occasional beds of sandstone. Its thick- 
 ness varies, sometimes exceeding 500 feet. As many of the 
 marine shells found in it have been identified with th'ose of 
 the Paris basin, it is probable that the formations belong to 
 the same epoch. No remains of terrestrial mammals have 
 as yet been found in it, so that we want that evidence of 
 the vicinity of dry land at the time of its formation ; but, 
 that such was the case appears probable from the immense 
 number of seeds and fruits, some of them resembling the 
 cocoa nut and spices of tropical regions. The lower beds 
 of the London clay, called plastic clay, are contemporane- 
 ous with the equivalent plastic clay of Paris ; they contain 
 beds of sand, shingle, clay, and loam, irregularly alternating, 
 and rest upon the irregularities of the chalk beneath. 
 
 Although sulphate of lime is not found in the distinct 
 manner noticed in the Paris basin, the clay of London is in 
 many places abundant in it, and it is sometimes found in 
 fine crystals. Its presence is also announced in the hard- 
 ness of the spring waters that issue from it, as contrasted 
 with the softness of the springs from the plastic clay sands. 
 
 In Norfolk and Suffolk there is a rock already mentioned, 
 known under the provincial name of crag. It appears from 
 its position and fossil contents to appertain to the newest 
 formations, being yet more modern than London clay, and 
 containing a considerable number of testaceous remains 
 identical with species inhabiting the neighbouring seas. Its 
 mineral character is difficult to define. It generally consists 
 of sand, gravel, and marl ; and sometimes presents itself in 
 the form of a soft stratified rock, composed almost entirely 
 of corals and echini, or of loam and clay, containing bones 
 of terrestrial quadrupeds and drift wood", with fragments of 
 older rocks, and gradually passing into alluvium. 
 
 Having thus enumerated some of the peculiarities of these 
 tertian' strata, there are two or three questions connected 
 with the formation generally, which, before we leave it, it 
 will be right briefly to advert to. In the first place, the 
 great elevation at which some of these strata occur above 
 the level of the sea would seem to indicate to the super- 
 ficial observer a retreat or falling of the waters of the ocean. 
 But more accurate inquiry forbids such a conclusion, and 
 leads to another, at first more extraordinary inference ; 
 namely, that the land has often been elevated, the proofs 
 and illustrations of which we shall again recur to. Second- 
 ly, that the organic remains, animal as well as vegetable, 
 and also the mineral structure of many of these rocks, show 
 that the temperature of these parts of the globe has under- 
 gone a considerable declension from its former state; for 
 
 there are among them evidences of something more than a 
 tropical climate, and of thermal or even boiling springs. 
 The cause of this change of the globe's temperature forms 
 an important subject of discussion with geologists. Some, 
 however, have contended that this evidence of change of 
 temperature, as far as it rests upon organic relics, is insuf- 
 ficient ; for, say they, we do not absolutely know that such 
 animals and vegetables, though they vow require a high 
 temperature, may not at some former period have been 
 adapted to a lower one ; and they adduce the Siberian ele- 
 phant, and a few analogous cases, as proofs. But as we 
 now find every animal and vegetable adapted to their proper 
 situations, we have a right to infer the existence of the 
 same fitness and design at all antecedent periods, and under 
 every possible state of the globe, and therefore to conclude 
 that similarly constituted animals and vegetables have in 
 general had similar habitants. 
 
 We therefore are obliged to conclude that the earth's 
 surface has suffered a notable decrease of temperature, or 
 at least that there has been a great change of climate over 
 large tracts of the globe. In relation to this question, some 
 have argued the possibility of a decrease of temperature 
 from internal causes — have considered the whole globe as 
 having cooled from absolute fusion — and that this process 
 has now only gone to a certain extent, so as that its inte- 
 rior is still glowing. They adduce volcanos and thermal 
 springs as proof of this, and maintain that the warmth 
 which we experience in deep mines is attributable to this 
 central source of heat. 
 
 In so far as this hypothesis of a central heat is resorted to 
 to explain a change in climate, it seems inadequate; for it 
 is un philosophical to assume that the same effects would 
 result from such a cause as those which are produced by 
 the influence of the sun's rays and by peculiarities of sur- 
 face. 
 
 Another, and perhaps upon the whole a more plausible 
 explanation of this subject, refers the change to the varying 
 influence of the disposition of land and sea over the surface 
 of the globe. A change of such distribution in the lapse of 
 ages, by the wearing down of old continents and the eleva- 
 tion of new, is a fact which we shall be able to demon- 
 strate ; and the influence of such a change on the climates 
 of particular regions, if not of the whole globe, may be fair- 
 ly concluded from what we know by actual observation of 
 insular, oceanic, and continental climates. Here then, "in 
 language of very high authority," we have a cause on which 
 a philosopher may consent to reason ; though whether the 
 changes actually going on are such as to warrant the whole 
 extent of the conclusion, or are even taking place in the 
 right direction, must be considered as undecided till the 
 matter has been more thoroughly examined. It will be ob- 
 served that this theory, for so it may fairly be called, sup- 
 poses a combination of external and internal causes ; the 
 latter raising or depressing the land in proper situations, the 
 former supplying the necessary heat. It also infers the 
 possible return of a warm climate ; so that the same situa- 
 tions might be alternately placed under the influence of a 
 raised and depressed temperature, or as it were of an equa- 
 torial and polar clime. 
 
 Lastly, and the suggestion is sanctioned by the authority 
 of Sir John Herschel, we may look to the astronomical fact 
 of the actual slow diminution of the eccentricity of the 
 earth's orbit round the sun. This, as a general cause, af- 
 fecting the mean temperature of the whole globe, and as 
 one of which the effect is both inevitable and susceptible to 
 a certain degree of exact estimation, certainly deserves to be 
 considered. It is evident that the mean temperature of the 
 whole surface of the globe, in so far as it is maintained by 
 the action of the sun at a higher temperature than it would 
 have were the sun extinguished, must depend on the mean 
 quantity of the sun's rays which it receives ; or, which 
 conies to the same thing, on the total quantity received in a 
 given invariable time ; and the length of the year being 
 unchangeable in all the fluctuations of the planetary system, 
 it follows that the total annua] amount of the solar radia- 
 tion will determine, ceteris paribus, the general climate of 
 the earth. Now it is not difficult to show that this amount 
 is inversely proportional to the minor axis of the ellipse de- 
 scribed by the earth about the sun, regarded as slowly va- 
 riable ; and that therefore the major axis remaining, as we 
 know it to be, constant, and the orbit being actually in the 
 state of approach to a circle, and consequently the minor 
 axis being on the increase, the mean annual amount of so- 
 lar radiation received by the whole earth must be actually 
 on the decrease. We have here, therefore, an evident real 
 cause of sufficient universality, and acting in the right di- 
 rection, to account for the phenomenon : its adequacy is 
 another consideration. (Herschel' s Preliminary Discourse.) 
 We may suggest the possibility of the three causes adverted 
 to acting in unison, to account for the complicated and cu- 
 rious effects of which we seek an explanation. 
 
 Such, then, are the leading considerations ari-ing out of 
 Hh 497
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 the inspection of the most superficial, and apparently the 
 most recent, of the earth's strata. They suggest a general 
 change in the disposition of sea and land ; an alteration in 
 their relative levels, sometimes often repeated ; the exist- 
 ence of animals and vegetables now extinct; and a remark- 
 able alteration in the general temperature of the globe. 
 How far the supposed causes of these changes are borne 
 out by observations upon the more ancient formations, will 
 be seen as we proceed in our examination of the descending 
 series. 
 
 A 
 
 B 
 
 mm 
 
 In the above diagram A A represents the chalk upon 
 which the tertiary strata BCD have been deposited ; the 
 latter may be supposed to be of different ages, as indicated 
 by their included fossils, and all of a more recent date than 
 the chalk upon which they lie. 
 
 The tertiary rocks rest either upon chalk or upon the 
 geological equivalents of chalk ; and the formations of this 
 series constitutes a prominent feature of the district which 
 surrounds the London basin ; for as soon as we leave the 
 tertiary deposits which characterize the vicinity of the me- 
 tropolis we enter upon the cretaceous strata. The ranges 
 of chalk in this part of the kingdom are very extensive ; and 
 in consequence of their smooth and rounded outline, and the 
 singular cup-shaped concavities and deep hollows in which 
 their sides abound, they confer a monotonous peculiarity on 
 the scenery. They are, however, of much interest in their 
 geological relations. Salisbury Plain and Marlborough 
 Downs form, as it were, a centre from which the chalk 
 emanates in a north-east direction, through Buckingham, 
 Bedford, and Cambridge shires, and terminates in one di- 
 rection upon the coast of Norfolk. Another branch, inter- 
 sected by the valley of the Humber, traverses Lincolnshire, 
 and terminates at Flamborough Head in Yorkshire. The 
 extreme western point in the chalk is not far from Honiton 
 in Devonshire, whence it branches towards the south-east 
 to the Isle of Purbeck, and again appears forming a ridge 
 that crosses the Isle of Wight. Another range of chalk 
 commences near Hungerford in Berkshire, and passes by 
 Alton and Rochester to the coast of Kent, forming the cliffs 
 between Deal and Folkstone. From near Alton another 
 branch passes off, terminating at the lofty promontory of 
 Beech y Head on the coast of Sussex. In these districts 
 some of the chalk hills are of no inconsiderable elevation. 
 Near Dunstable and Shaftesbury, for instance, it forms hills 
 nearly 1000 feet above the level of the sea. Between 
 Lewes in Sussex and Alton in Hampshire there are several 
 similar elevations. Between Anton and Dover the highest 
 point is about 800 feet ; and Dover Castle Hill about 470 
 feet. 
 
 The geological history of the chalk offers many matters of 
 interest. Where it is denuded of alluvial and tertiary de- 
 posits, and also under these, its surface appears water-worn ; 
 and the fissures which it exhibits are often filled with rolled 
 masses, debris and flints. One of its most remarkable charac- 
 ters, in England at least, is the presence of numerous beds of 
 flint in the upper part of the chalk strata ; while the lower 
 beds are generally deficient in flints, and argillaceous or sandy. 
 These flints are commonly in distinct nodules, horizontally 
 arranged; but they sometimes* are vertical or variously in- 
 clined, and occasionally form seams, cutting the chalk at 
 different angles. 
 
 The great abundance of organic remains in the chalk has 
 been observed from a very early period ; they have recently 
 been carefully examined, and proved to be almost entirely 
 marine. No remains of mammalia have been detected in 
 them ; but in Yorkshire and Sussex reptiles, one of them of 
 a considerable size, have been observed. The Mososaurus 
 Hoffmanni, and a crocodile, fish, and shark's teeth, have 
 been found ; as also zoophites, shells, mollusks, and a few 
 crustaceous animals. 
 
 The origin of chalk it is difficult to explain. There appears 
 no evidence of its having been deposited from chemical solu- 
 tion; but, on the other hand, it bears marks of a mechanical 
 deposit, as if from water loaded with it in fine division. And 
 upon this principle some gleam of light may perhaps be 
 thrown upon the enigmatical appearance of the flints ; for it 
 is found that if finely powdered silica be mixed with other 
 earthy bodies, and the whole diffused through water, the 
 grains of silica have, under certain circumstances, a tendency 
 to aggregate into small nodules; and in some chalk small 
 grains of quartz are discoverable. 
 
 Many of our chalk strata afford decided evidence of great 
 disturbances having taken place among them, probably at 
 the period of their elevation from the sea. Illustrative in- 
 498 
 
 stances of such disturbances are given by Mr. Lyell in the 
 case of the chalk of Newbury in Berkshire, and of the ravine 
 called the Coomb, near Lewes, in Sussex ; the latter shows 
 how narrow openings of this kind may have been accompa- 
 nied by shifts and dislocations, as well as fracture of the 
 strata. The steep declivities on each side and the bottom of 
 the ravine are covered with green turf, and no outward signs 
 of disturbance are visible ; but when we examine the section 
 in the neighbouring chalk-pits, we find that there has been 
 much internal derangement. 
 
 The evidence of this derangement is shown in the annexed 
 diagram, where A and B represent the chalk with and the 
 chalk without flints on each side of the gap. 
 
 These dislocations, or shifts or faults, are common in al! 
 strata, though most observed in coal districts, from the im- 
 portance of the material affected by them. 
 
 It must be confessed that such appearances are favourable 
 to the idea of those local convulsions alluded to in referring 
 to certain tertiary strata. For if portions of the secondary 
 rocks emerged from the sea during that period, it is probable 
 that the chalk underwent many oscillations of level ; that 
 certain tracts became land and then sea, and then land again ; 
 so that parts of the surface first excavated by currents or 
 rivers were occasionally submerged, and after having been 
 covered by tertiary deposits upraised again ; and assuming 
 the elevation of the chalk to have been slow, every part of 
 it must have been exposed for some time to the action of the 
 waves: hence the valleys upon its surface, and the broken 
 and rolled flints which overspread it. 
 
 In describing the general characters of the chalk, we have 
 limited ourselves to England; but in other countries the 
 mineralogical characters of this formation are such as would 
 lead us to arrange it with other groups, were it not that the 
 included organic remains mark them as of the same epoch : 
 such are the hard limestone and sandstone of the Alps, Py- 
 renees, and some other primitive countries. 
 
 The lower beds of chalk graduate into a variety of sands 
 and sandstones of different aspects and degrees of induration, 
 and often abounding in green particles composed of silicate 
 of iron; whence the term green-sand. These beds are asso- 
 ciated as one formation, in consequence of the general char- 
 acter of their fossil remains: there is also an argillaceous 
 deposit, provincially known under the name of gault, which 
 belongs to the same class. 
 
 But we now descend by gradual transition to the clays, 
 sands, and limestones of a distinct formation, known in this 
 country as the Wcahl rocks, Hastings sands, and Purbeck 
 beds. These had generally been confounded with the pre- 
 ceding green-sands of the chalk formation ; but a closer ex- 
 amination of their organic remains shows them of distinct 
 origin ; for, strange to say, after what we know of the chalk, 
 they abound in terrestrial and fresh-water remains : showing 
 the existence of dry land, and lakes and rivers, before the 
 chalk rocks were formed ; and showing also, by the way in 
 which they blend with the sands above, that the change of 
 circumstances which permitted the residence of marine .ani- 
 mals over a surface previously inhabited by fresh-water ani- 
 mals was not sudden, but gradual. The examination of 
 these strata has been ably and diligently pursued by Mr. 
 Mantell, whose splendid illustrative collection is now in the 
 British Museum. 
 
 The clays and sandstones of this formation contain con- 
 cretions and veins of argillaceous iron; and these were for- 
 merly worked in the Weald of Sussex, as shown by the 
 relics of ancient iron works, and by the abundance of re- 
 maining slags, which are at this day still used for mending 
 the roads about Rotherfield, Mayfield, &c. The extensive 
 triangle of which Folkstone, Beechy Head, and Alston are 
 the points, is characterized by this formation, forming greater 
 part of the region intervening between the North and South 
 Downs, known as the Valley of the Weald. 
 
 This district is very instructive, both as to theoretical and 
 practical geology, it seems highly probable that the chalk 
 lias once been continuous, but that it has been washed away 
 by breakers and currents, and fractured by the power which 
 has elevated the strata. In illustration of this important point 
 of theory, the section of the country between the London and 
 Isle of Wight basins may be referred to. 
 
 If we set out from London, travelling southwards, on leav- 
 ing the immediate vicinity of the metropolis we ascend an 
 inclined plane of flinty chalk, and then find ourselves on the
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 summit of a declivity consisting chiefly of the different, mem- 
 bers of the chalk formation. This is called the escarpment 
 of the chalk ; it overhangs a valley excavated chiefly out of 
 the lower beds of the chalk formation, such as sandstones 
 and gault, and is continuous along the southern termination 
 of the North Downs ; so that it may be traced from the sea 
 at Folkstone westward to Guilford and the neighbourhood 
 of Petersfield, and thence to the termination of the South 
 Downs at Beechy Head, where the strata are cut off abruptly 
 by the inroads of the ocean, but where it is evident that they 
 must have at one time been continued. 
 
 This denudation is frequently referred to by geological 
 theorists, as rendering it extremely probable that the second- 
 ary districts were gradually elevated and denuded when the 
 basins of London and Hampshire were still submarine, and 
 while they were progressively filling up with tertiary sand 
 and clay. It would also appear that subsequently to the 
 emergence of the secondary rocks an immense mass of their 
 upper portions has been removed by the force of water, and 
 that the materials thus carried away were probably con- 
 veyed into the depths of the contiguous sea 
 
 The above diagram will serve to explain a valley of de- 
 nudation, the strata 1, 2, and 3 being to a greater or less 
 extent removed or washed away, and different surfaces of 
 these, and of 4, being now exposed. 
 
 We now again advert to the organic contents of the Weald 
 rocks, which, as already stated, are such as indicate the 
 existence of fresh water and dry land before the present 
 chalk deposits were formed ; and although some of the in- 
 ferences of geologists upon this subject appear at first start- 
 ling and even romantic, they are perfectly fair deductions 
 from the phenomena observed. 
 
 The Hastings sands consist of sand and sandstone, with 
 occasional beds of clay and shale, containing silicified wood 
 and fragments of carbonized vegetables, lignite, ironstone, 
 and argillaceous limestone; and the Purbeck beds include 
 varieties of sand and limestone much used for pavement. 
 From the organic remains of these rocks it would appear 
 that they were formed chiefly in fresh water ; in lakes, rivers, 
 or estuaries. There is a formation in the Isle of Portland 
 belonging to this series which has been called the dirt-bed, 
 and which has also been found near Weymouth and else- 
 where. It appears from its contents to announce the first 
 appearance of dry land, succeeded by submersion of the same 
 land under fresh water in which the Weald rocks were 
 formed; not suddenly, for there are no marks of violence, 
 but gradually, the shells being tranquilly entombed in the 
 sandy and calcareous deposits. 
 
 We shall find, in examining the oolitic rocks upon which 
 these rest, that they abound in marine remains ; so that we 
 must suppose a rise of the land or a depression of the sea to 
 such an extent as to permit the sea-formed rocks to become 
 dry land, upon which tropical plants flourished. Then this 
 land again became in its turn depressed ; but so quietly that the 
 trees were apparently left in their natural positions, and even 
 the pebbles and soil not washed away. There is, in short, 
 a great resemblance between these very ancient relics and 
 those of submarine forests of later date upon the coast ; ex- 
 cept that the former are tropical plants, the latter oak, hazel, 
 &c. 
 
 In the sands we find entombed tortoises, crocodiles, plesi- 
 osauri and megalosauri, and huge iguanodons. (Mantell, 
 Phil. Trans. 1825.) 
 
 It is probable that these monstrous reptiles sported in the 
 waters and basked upon the banks of the lake or estuary 
 into which trees and different vegetables were drifted. Now 
 it will be remembered that the sea again resumed its do- 
 minion after this state of things, because these strata are 
 covered by the chalk rocks already recognized as marine 
 deposits ; and as there are no marks of violence where the 
 Wealden rocks and the green-sands of the cretaceous series 
 come together, but, on the contrary, as they gradually pass 
 into each other, these extraordinary transitions seem to have 
 been gradual, and not attended by any violent or sudden 
 catastrophe. 
 
 Such, then, are the remarkable records of the Wealden 
 rocks, and there are analagous cases in other parts of Europe. 
 
 The oolitic rocks form a very important and curious, but 
 rather complicated series of strata, in this country ; in which, 
 however, there are certain analogies which enable us to 
 group them into one general assemblage. Mr. Lonsdale's 
 paper on the Bath district may be referred to as giving a lucid 
 account of the varieties and peculiarities of these rocks. The 
 oolitic limestones are well known from their common use as 
 
 building materials under the names of Bathstone, freestone, 
 &c. They are intermingled with limestones which do not 
 possess the oolitic structure, and with arenaceous and argil- 
 laceous beds. Lias, the lowest member of the series, is an 
 argillo-calcareous deposit, commonly containing numerous 
 organic remains. 
 
 In England, this formation extends from the sea coast of 
 Dorset, near Bridport, to the northern extremity of the Cleave- 
 land Hills, in Yorkshire, in one range of hills, broken by the 
 vale of the Humber. The lias is often bituminous, and is 
 impregnated with sulphate of soda, sulphate of magnesia, 
 and common salt: it abounds in ammonites, belemnites, and 
 other chambered shells ; and in bivalves, and some univalves ; 
 gryphites (a deeply incurved bivalve), encrinites, and penta- 
 crinites, and other zoophiles ; and the remarkable saurian 
 animals already noticed. 
 
 To the rocks enumerated under the general term of the 
 oolitic group there succeed a series of sandstones, which 
 from their prevailing colour are generally known as the red 
 sandstone and marl formation, and which are incumbent 
 upon the coal deposits of this country. Their organic relica 
 are numerous ; and they derive interest from being the seat 
 of our great beds of salt, which occur in the counties of 
 Cheshire and Worcester. 
 
 In the salt itself there is nothing very remarkable, except, 
 perhaps, its occasional purity. It is sometimes colourless, and 
 contains not more than 2 per cent, of foreign matter ; in other 
 parts it is tinged red, and more or less mixed with earthy 
 impurities. The brine springs, which often yield 20 per 
 cent, of salt, are doubtlessly derived from the accession of 
 water to similar solid masses. 
 
 How the salt came where we now find it, is a question of 
 no easy solution. It has been supposed that it was produced 
 at the bottom of salt-water lakes, and the existence of beda 
 of salt in certain lakes of Afiica and South America is quoted 
 in favour of such an hypothesis. 
 
 Another substance abundant in this formation, and appa- 
 rently more or less connected with the salt deposits, is gyp- 
 sum, or sulphate of lime ; known also under the name of 
 alabaster. It has been already mentioned as occurring in 
 the tertiary strata, forming the cement which entombs the 
 organic remains of the Paris basin, and where it was proba- 
 lilv formed by sulphuric exhalations and springs acting upon 
 the detritus of the secondary chalk, which there appears to 
 have suffered such extensive degradation. 
 
 In our red-sand districts the salt and gypsum are distinct, 
 but they are not unfrequently mixed ; and in Egypt a highly 
 saline gypsum is sometimes used as a substitute for salt. 
 This rock, when exposed to air and water, would of course 
 lose its more soluble common salt ; and hence, probably, the 
 scriptural and oriental allusion to the inefficiency of salt 
 which has lost its saltness. 
 
 In the north of England, magnesian limestone is associ- 
 ated with these strata. It is usually of a yellowish or fawn 
 colour, not abundant in organic remains, and is often a valu- 
 able and durable building stone. 
 
 The next substances which occur in descending order are 
 the coal strata, or measures, or coal basins, as they are some- 
 times called ; and if, upon our journey downwards, we have 
 been srruck with the extraordinary aspect of the animal 
 kingdom at certain periods or epochs of the earth, we shall 
 now meet with matters quite as wonderful in the remains of 
 extinct vegetable tribes, while at the same time we have 
 brought before us a substance of such importance to our 
 commercial welfare and national resources, that every trifle 
 connected with its history assumes an air of peculiar and 
 distinct interest. 
 
 There are two or three points, and those of much theoreti- 
 cal importance, respecting the origin of coal, in which geolo- 
 gical authorities seem nearly unanimous. The one is, that 
 our present coal is exclusively of vegetable origin, formed 
 apparently from the destruction of vast forests ; and from the 
 prodigious quantities of timber drifted by some of the great 
 rivers of the world into the present ocean, it is by no means 
 improbable that a similar formation is now going on in the 
 depths of certain parts of the sea : and, secondly, from the 
 nature of the preserved vegetables, it would seen that the 
 climate of these parts of Europe was of a tropical character. 
 It may also be inferred that these strata were deposited in 
 the neighbourhood, and often probably upon the verge, of 
 extensive tracts of dry land ; for the trees that are found in 
 coal strata are often like those of our submarine forests, or 
 of the Portland dirt-bed, as far as position goes; and, finally, - 
 that they were afterwards elevated, and often singularly dis- 
 located and contorted by forces, the nature of which we 
 shall afterwards consider. 
 
 In some coal fields there are appearances which justify 
 the term coal basin ; they are of limited extent, frequently 
 dip, as it were, to a common centre, and consist of various 
 beds of sandstone, shale, and coal, irregularly stratified, 
 sometimes mixed with conglomerates— the whole showing 
 a mechanical origin.
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 That these depositions have taken place, and that the 
 change of the wood into coal has often been effected under 
 great pressure, and often under pressure and heat, seems evi- 
 dent from the appearance of some of the vegetable masses, 
 and also from the manner in which the carburretted hydro- 
 gen escapes in the form of blowers from the strata ; as if it 
 were pent up in their cavities under vast condensation, and 
 sometimes perhaps even in a liquid form. 
 
 An opinion respecting the origin of coal, first advocated by 
 De Luc, and more recently by Adolphe Brongniart, (the cele- 
 brated fossil botanist), is, that coal beds have been extensive 
 sheets of vegetable matter, resembling in that particular peat 
 bogs, which have, one after the other, been submerged and 
 covered by sand and silt. There are numerous facts in favour 
 of this view, which has also been sanctioned by Mr. De la 
 Beche, as, upon the whole, more consistent with the phe- 
 nomena presented by coal formations. 
 
 It has been well observed by one of the most instructive 
 geological writers, that in the present condition of the coal 
 measures we have opportunities of observing design, even 
 where things are so disposed as at first sight apparently to 
 preclude any such inference. The accumulation of vegeta- 
 ble matter at a remote epoch in the history of the world, for 
 the convenience and consumption of creatures which were 
 long afterwards to exist upon its surface, must strike the least 
 inquiring ; but when the twisted, dislocated, upturned, and 
 broken strata so common in the coal districts are before us, 
 the design appears to the superficial observer to be frustrated, 
 especially when the miner complains of them as interrupting 
 or even preventing his progress ; so that this apparent confu- 
 sion has sometimes been regarded as a bar to the ingenuity 
 and industry of man in extracting the combustible so valua- 
 ble and requisite. When, however, we contemplate the 
 subject more closely, we find that these very irregularities 
 and inconveniencies are in reality highly advantageous, for 
 they often heave up seams of coal that would otherwise be 
 beyond reach ; and they perform the yet more important 
 service of excluding the passage of subterraneous waters 
 from one part of the workings to another : so that the miners 
 in collieries situated in one particular mass have only to 
 contend with the waters in it ; whereas if the strata were 
 always unbroken and continuous, such would be the abun- 
 dance of water flowing into the workings that the utmost 
 difliculty and expense would be incurred in proceeding, and 
 it would often be necessary altogether to abandon the far- 
 ther extraction of the coal. The section of strata in Jarrow 
 colliery, near Newcastle, shows how curiously they are 
 sometimes fractured and dislocated ; and in the coal meas- 
 ures at Little Haven, St. Bride's Bay (Pembrokeshire), we 
 have a good instance of their occasional contortions. 
 
 The annexed diagrams represent a section of a coal basin, 
 and the disturbance and dislocation of the strata by dikes 
 or cross-courses. A A, in the first figure, are the dikes by 
 which the shales and coal B B B, are disturbed ; and, in the 
 second, the seam of coal B B, which, as in the other case, 
 was once continuous, has been dislocated by the intrusion of 
 the dike A. 
 
 Though there may be many beds and seams of coal in one 
 field, it is seldom that many of them are worked ; they are 
 generally of uniform thickness through a great extent, but 
 are sometimes subject to irregularities. When less than two 
 feet thick, they are seldom worked to any great extent. 
 
 The nature of the upper stratum of stony matter, or roof, 
 is very important. If compact, it is secure from falling, and 
 keeps out water ; if loose, the expense incurred in support- 
 ing it absorbs the profits of the coal. The deepest coal 
 mines in England are those of Northumberland and Dur- 
 ham, which are worked nearly 1000 feet below the surface. 
 500 
 
 The thickest bed of coal is said to be at Wood Mill Hill col- 
 liery in Staffordshire, and to exceed 40 feet. From 6 to 9 
 feet is the average thickness of the most productive seams. 
 
 Coal strata are often accompanied by clay ironstone ; an 
 ore of iron not so rich in metal nor so pure as many others, 
 but which has acquired infinite importance from its associa- 
 tion with coal and limestone, the substances which are 
 requisite to reduce and purify it. The richest varieties of 
 this ore are said to yield about 25 to 30 per cent, of metal, 
 and it is the chief soiuce of the enormous quantities of iron 
 manufactured in this country. 
 
 $n. 
 
 Mountain Limestone, which is the next rock in descend- 
 ing order, may be considered as forming the foundations as 
 it were, or basins, in which the coal is commonly deposited, 
 and in this respect bears some correspondence to the chalk 
 and its tertiary formations. 
 
 This kind of limestone is of various colours, and often so 
 full of organic remains as to appear almost entirely made up 
 of them, especially of encrinal columns; but sometimes 
 scarcely an organic relic is to be detected, and it is veined 
 and variegated with streaks of calcareous spar. Both these 
 varieties form useful and often handsome marble. 
 
 This rock is of farther interest, as being that which in the 
 centre and north of England is the seat of our most pro- 
 ductive lead mines ; hence it is called metalliferous limestone. 
 The great patch of limestone extending from the Tweed to 
 the Tees, bounded by the coal measures on the east, and on 
 the west by the Cheviot Hills, is especially known as the 
 lead measures. The characters of the rocks are very varia- 
 ble. The veins hitherto worked occupy a space of about 15 
 miles north and south, and 20 west and east, and run, with 
 little exception, nearly west and east. 
 
 The Yorkshire limestone district, exclusive of its metallic 
 veins, is traversed by others, which, as they are only filled 
 with lapideous substances, are of little interest to the miner, 
 but of deep importance to the geologist. They often inter- 
 sect the metallic veins, disturbing the parallelism of the 
 strata, and often occasion much irregularity and confusion. 
 There is here an instance of the elevation of the strata to 
 more than two fathoms upon the side of one of these cross 
 veins. The contents of these cross courses are very miscel- 
 laneous ; and where the material they are filled with is 
 much harder and more durable than the assailed strata, 
 their course is often perceptible upon the weather-worn sur- 
 face of the country which they traverse. Such is the cross 
 vein of the lead measures called the Devil's Backbone, 
 forming a ridge that may be traced a considerable distance 
 along the country through which it passes. 
 
 The Derbyshire limestone district is well known, and 
 frequently visited on account of the romantic scenery and 
 wonders in which it abounds. Castleton is its northern point, 
 and it extends southward about 25 miles to Weaver Hill. 
 Its breadth is very irregular, but nowhere exceeds about 20 
 miles. Its eastern end contributes to the delightful and 
 varied scenery of Matlock, and its north-western extremity 
 is celebrated for the wonders of the Peak. 
 
 In regard to the varied aspect of this district, it may be 
 observed that the different strata of limestone differ consid- 
 erably from each other ; that beds and dikes of another 
 species of rock intervene, provincially called toadstone ; and 
 that the respective edges of these strata come to the surface ; 
 and, lastly, that the country is traversed by a great fault or 
 dislocation. 
 
 The singular turreted and broken appearance of these 
 limestone rocks, and the fantastic shapes which their various 
 masses occasionally assume, are well seen in Dovedale ; and 
 some of their other peculiarities, especially their curvatures, 
 and some of the dislocations which they have suffered, are 
 evident in Matlock and its neighbourhood. In the High Tor 
 the stratification appears horizontal and regular when view- 
 ed in front ; but a more accurate examination shows that 
 it is curved and irregular : a section made by the river Der- 
 went, near the toll bar, well illustrates this peculiarity. 
 Another instance of curved strata may be seen in Crich 
 Cliff, about 4 miles east of Matlock ; it is an isolated hill 
 about 900 feet above the level of the river. According to 
 Mr. Bakewell, the mass of the hill consists of arched strata 
 of limestone. The different beds of limestone are of very 
 different qualities and composition ; the upper, cherty, and 
 often bituminous, abounding in corallites and encrini, &c, 
 often curiously seen in relief upon its weather-worn surface. 
 Beneath, the rock contains beds of magnesian limestone 
 and silicious limestone or dunstone, and towards its lower 
 part, beds of black marble. The lowest limestone stratum 
 is that which forms the Peak Forest, the downs of Buxton, 
 and the Weaver Hills; and in it are several remarkable 
 caverns. Here also we find at Castleton those curious no- 
 dules of fluor spar, celebrated for the manufacture of vases, 
 &c. ; also that very singular mineral, the elastic bitumen, 
 or fossil caoutchouc. The subterranean streams which
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 traverse many of these caverns, the stalactites and stalag- 
 mites in which they abound, and the thermal waters which 
 characterize the district, are all important points to be no- 
 ticed. The toadstone of Derbyshire is sometimes represent- 
 ed as regularly stratified between the limestone beds, but 
 this requires further investigation; and at all events the 
 beds, if such they are, are liable to many extraordinary ir- 
 regularities. The toadstone never contains shells or organic 
 remains ; calcedony, zeolite, and globules of calcareous spar 
 are not uncommon in it ; and whatever theory may be en- 
 tertained in respect to it, it evidently bears the character of 
 a formation distinct from its associates. In the cave at Cas- 
 tleton it forms a large irregular column, having the appear- 
 ance of the rock called basalt. 
 
 The veins in the limestone in Derbyshire contain the 
 ores of lead, manganese, copper, zinc, and iron : the proper 
 repository of the lead appears to be the limestone, though it 
 also occurs in some other strata, and rarely in the toadstone, 
 in which it is always in small quantities, and merely in strings 
 of very imperfect veins. Near Bristol the limestone hills 
 rise from below the red sandstone, and form the edges of 
 the coal basin. In some places it is very bituminous, as on 
 the Avon at Chepstow, and even exudes petroleum. On the 
 Welch coast of the Bristol Channel we have another ridge 
 of limestone, forming the basin, as it were, in which the 
 great coalfield of South Wales is situated. The hills on the 
 west of Swansea and the cliffs on the south of Pembroke 
 are of this formation ; and again on the banks of the Wye 
 it constitutes scenery of a soft but romantic character. 
 There is something singularly fascinating in the landscape 
 of the limestone districts, resulting not only from the varied 
 forms and groupings of the mountain masses, hut depending 
 also upon the nature of the substance, and of the soil derived 
 from its decay. Upon the perpendicular and projecting 
 precipices, lichens of various and singular hues alternate 
 with the gray surface of the uncovered rock ; a variety of 
 shrubs are scattered by nature's hand upon its picturesque 
 and waving sides ; ivy and other creeping plants issue in 
 gay luxuriance from its crevices, and the glens and valleys 
 are adorned by every variety of verdure. 
 
 We may now cast a glance upon the probable state of the 
 globe at the period at which the coal and the subordinate 
 limestone rocks were formed In regard to the latter it 
 would appear that they extend over a great part of central 
 and northern Europe; and that rocks containing the same 
 organic remains are found in the lake district of North Amer- 
 ica, and are even abundant upon the borders of the Arctic 
 Sea. The great quantity of corals found in this formation, 
 as well as its vast extent, seem to prove that it was formed 
 in a deep and extensive sea, in the midst of which there were 
 many isles. These isles were apparently composed of pri- 
 mary and of volcanic rocks, which being exposed to the 
 erosive action of torrents, to the artillery of the waves, and 
 to superficial decomposition, supplied materials for the peb- 
 bles, sand, and shale, which, together with substances in- 
 troduced by minerai springs and volcanic eruptions, con- 
 tributed the inorganic parts of the carboniferous strata. In 
 regard to the fossil remains of these strata, the vegetation 
 of the coal districts is stated by botanists to possess the 
 characters of an insular and not of a continental flora ; and 
 we may suppose the carbonaceous matter to have been 
 derived from trees swept into the sea by torrents, and from 
 peaty matter, which even in our climate often blackens tire 
 rills of marshy grounds. It has been acutely observed by 
 Mr. Lyell, that if we seek for present points of analogy to 
 this state of things, we must either turn to the North Pacific, 
 and its numerous submarine or insular volcanoes between 
 Kamchatka and New Guinea ; or, in order to obtain a more 
 perfect counterpart to the coralline and shelly limestones, 
 we may explore the archipelagoes of the South Pacific be- 
 tween Australia and South America, where coral reefs, con- 
 sisting in great part of compact limestone, are spread over 
 an area not inferior perhaps to that of our ancient calcareous 
 rocks, though we even suppose these to he prolonged from 
 the North American lakes to central Europe. 
 
 In these remarks we anticipate a subject requiring more 
 full discussion, and they are merely introduced here to direct 
 attention to the coincidences and analogies between the 
 present order of things produced by causes now active, and 
 by the ordinary proceedings of nature, and those great but 
 remote changes of the earth's surface often unnecessarily 
 referred to extraordinary catastrophes and convulsions. 
 
 Beneath this great limestone formation, strata of sandstone 
 occur, which, from their position as opposed to those above 
 the coal, are known under the name of the old red sandstone. 
 It often appears more as a conglomerate than a sand- 
 stone; that is, made up of fragmented particles and pebbles; 
 and ranges of it sometimes follow those of the primitive 
 rocks, and are evidently composed of their debris. On the 
 north coast of Somerset and Devon, upon the Bristol Chan- 
 nel, it may be seen recumbent upon slate, and gradually 
 passing into that rock ; but it often graduates into a series of 
 
 formations known to geologists by the German term of 
 grauwacke. These rocks, considered en masse, consist of a 
 large stratified deposit of sandy and slaty matters, often ex- 
 tending over considerable districts. Sometimes from the 
 coarseness of their texture, they pass into conglomerates ; 
 and sometimes, from its fineness, graduate into roofing slate, 
 apparently formed of highly comminuted detritus. In this 
 formation the sandstones are comparatively deficient in or- 
 ganic relics, but they abound in the limestone. Upon the 
 whole they exhibit marks of slow deposition. This series 
 of rocks, namely, the formation intervening between the 
 mountain limestone and the inferior granitic or hypogene 
 rocks, has been ably investigated by Mr. Murchison, who 
 has assigned to them the name of Silurian, from their being 
 best developed in that part of England and Wales formerly 
 included in the ancient British kingdom of the Silures. The 
 lower part of the Grauwacke series constitutes the Cambrian 
 rocks of Professor Sedgwick. 
 
 There are some curions facts respecting the stratification 
 of the slaty portions of these rocks, which, as they apply to 
 slate generally, it may be proper here to mention ; and as an 
 illustrative instance, that noticed by Mr. De la Beche as oc- 
 curring at Bovey Sand Bay, on the east side of Plymouth 
 Sound, may be referred to : a, a, curved beds of slate, the 
 
 laminae of which meet the apparent lines of stratification 
 at various angles, being even perpendicular to them. The 
 beds are cut off by the fault / from the slates c, the lamina? 
 of which are confusedly horizontal. The whole is covered 
 by detritus of fragmented slate b. 
 
 We are now gradually descending into the non-fossilifer- 
 ous rocks; for the lower grauwackes graduate into slates 
 destitute of organic remains, and into rocks of chemical 
 rather than of mechanical origin. Thus we arrive at that 
 very remote condition of our planet, when neither animal 
 nor vegetable life seems to have existed on its surface ; and 
 instead of wandering in imagination amid forests, lands, and 
 seas, surrounded by strange vegetables, and by animals yet 
 more strange, our attention must be directed to the laws 
 which govern inorganic matter. 
 
 Of these inferior, stratified, and non-fossilifcrous rocks, 
 one of the most abundant and important is argillaceous or 
 clay slate. It differs in texture and composition ; and except 
 from its geological position, is often scarcely distinguishable 
 from the slates of the grauwacke series. When chlorite 
 prevails, it is called chlorite slate ; and it passes into horn- 
 blende slate, and into mica slate, and is associated with quartz 
 rock. 
 
 The origin of these rocks is extremely ambiguous. In re- 
 gard to clay slate, it is apparently a mechanical deposit of 
 very finely comminuted matter. It often contains regular 
 crystals of pyrites: it is of various colours, generally gray, 
 black, or reddish, and like most other rocks derives its 
 colours from the oxides of iron. Beds of this slate, when 
 finely lamellar, are valuable, as furnishing materials for 
 roofing. Those which are least absorbent of water, and 
 which split into the thinnest and smoothest plates, are select- 
 ed ; but they should not be too thin, as they then fail in dura- 
 bility, and do not resist the force of storms. Slate is also 
 largely employed for other architectural purposes, and for 
 the construction of tanks and cisterns. In this country there 
 are extensive quarries in Westmoreland, Yorkshire, Leices- 
 tershire, North Wales, Cornwall, and Devonshire. 
 
 The forms, tints, and general associations and outlines of 
 some of the mountains of Cumberland especially, and the 
 English lake scenery in general, are illustrative of the mount- 
 ains of the grauwacke and slate formations. The former 
 exhibit united softness and grandeur; the latter a more ele- 
 vated and rugged aspect. We have varied and grand in- 
 stances of slate in the mountainous district of North Wales, 
 and in Cumberland and Westmoreland. The cluster of hills, 
 of which Skiddaw forms the highest elevation, may perhaps 
 be referred to as genuine clay slate; and in Devonshire and 
 Cornwall the granitic range, which traverses the promontory 
 like a backbone, beginning at Dartmoor and terminating at 
 the Land's End, has slate overlying it on both sides. The 
 scenery of Fowey, Looe, Tintagel, and other places on the 
 north and south sides of Cornwall, derives its grandeur and 
 charms from the various assemblages of slaty headlands, 
 promontories, creeks, and islands. Sometimes its strata jut 
 out in bold fantastic forms upon the ocean, and sometimes 
 gradually shelve away into gentle slopes. Their verdure is 
 
 501
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 usually scanty and uncertain; but here and there a clayey 
 soil finds a resting place, and cherishes patches of shrubs 
 interspersed with trees of loftier growth, and attracting at- 
 tention by the sterile and fragmented surface which often 
 surrounds these insulated spots. The beauties of the coast 
 of Cornwall are singularly contrasted by the barren exterior 
 of its central road and great mining district ; where scarcely 
 a blade of grass relieves the black and sombre hues of the 
 ground, but where heaps of rubbish, once rich in emboweled 
 treasures, give a gloomy irregularity to the surface; and 
 where the ponderous heaving of machinery raises subter- 
 ranean rivers to a new level and into new channels, and 
 enables the miner to arrive at treasures which but for the 
 inventive genius of Watt would have remained inaccessible. 
 
 The mountainous aspect of slate is seen to great perfec- 
 tion on the western side of Wales ; where Snowdon, Plyn- 
 limmon, and Cader Idris, with many of their respectable 
 associates, present the peaked summits, the dark and narrow 
 valleys, the steep precipices, and the fragmented slopes that 
 peculiarly belong to this formation. 
 
 Associated with the rocks of the inferior stratified group 
 (slate, mica-slate, gneiss), there are those beautiful varieties 
 of white and crystalline limestone known as the statuary 
 marbles of Greece and Italy. They vary in their texture. 
 That of the lake of Como, which is the building stone of 
 Milan cathedral, is a good instance of coarse-grained marble ; 
 and sometimes it acquires a slaty fracture from the admix- 
 ture of mica or talc, and passes into dolomite from the pres- 
 ence of magnesia. 
 
 Before we quit these rocks, there is one remarkable feature 
 which belongs to them and others, and which may now be 
 adverted to, though its cause will perhaps be more evident 
 hereafter ; namely, the singular contortions to which they 
 are subject. The strata of slate, for instance, are often 
 waved to a greater or less extent ; and sometimes an entire 
 bed affects a serpentine irregularity which gradually merges 
 into a straight line above and below. These contortions are 
 sometimes, to all appearance, independent of any other kind 
 of rock. Sometimes they are apparently caused by veins 
 of a granitic, porphyritic, or basaltic character, invading the 
 slate as it were from below, and bending it into various ir- 
 regularities, or sometimes merely dislocating and breaking 
 its strata : as if, in the one instance, it had acted upon soft, 
 yielding, and unconsolidated matter ; and in the other, as if 
 it had been violently protruded into the surrounding strata 
 of an already hardened mass. These contortions are not 
 peculiar to the slaty rocks; they may also be seen in the 
 newest and in the oldest formations, varying infinitely in 
 their forms and dimensions. They have sometimes misled 
 geologists as to the relative positions or conformity and non- 
 conformity of alternating rocks ; so that it requires great care, 
 though at first sight it may appear extremely easy, to deter- 
 mine whether one rock rests on the upturned edges of 
 another or not. 
 
 In taking leave of the stratified rocks, we lose sight of 
 that regularity of superposition which is of so much use in 
 assigning to them the periods of their formation, and which, 
 in conjunction with their organic remains, affords such im- 
 portant evidence respecting their relative ages, and the cir- 
 cumstances of climate under which they have been deposited. 
 
 Their minute examination shows the caution with which 
 certain theories connected with them require to be receiv- 
 ed. The gradual transitions of one kind of rock into oth- 
 ers on the one hand, and their sudden and abrupt lines of 
 demarcation on the other; their verticality in one place, 
 and their horizontality in others ; their occasional resem- 
 blances and frequent dissimilarities, are circumstances 
 which will lead the unprejudiced observer to receive all 
 geological hypotheses with the utmost circumspection. 
 Another important point relates to the dissimilar texture 
 and contents of rocks appertaining to the same series, but 
 occurring in different situations and countries: thus the 
 equivalent of our chalk is a granular limestone in part of 
 the Alps ; and here, as in other cases, it is the identity of 
 the organic remains that determines the geological era. 
 
 We have now then arrived at the crystalline, massive, 
 and unstratified rocks, which seem to form the basis or 
 foundations upon which the others have been deposited. 
 They have therefore been called primary or primitive 
 rocks ; and as they are destitute of organic remains, they 
 were regarded at one time as of more ancient origin than 
 the superincumbent strata. But the progress of inquiry 
 has led to a very different view of the origin and antiquity 
 of these rocks; and modern geology, in assigning to them 
 an igneous origin, assumes, that though they have been 
 formed at different epochs, they are often of more recent 
 production than the older stratified rocks, and even some- 
 times of a date subsequent to those depositions which form 
 the tertiary series. 
 
 Upon this subject the theories of M. de Beaumont have 
 excited much attention. He assumes that the different 
 mountain chains of the world have been thrown up at dif- 
 502 
 
 ferent geological periods ; that each great chain runs in a 
 certain uniform direction ; and that their relative dates of 
 protrusion may be ascertained by their effects upon the 
 sedimentary strata. If, for instance, we find the great mass 
 of crystalline rock on all sides surrounded by tranquil and 
 horizontal sedimentary deposits, we infer the deposition of 
 the latter subsequent to the former. But if we find the 
 sedimentary deposits upheaved by the crystalline rocks, we 
 then infer the posterior date of the latter ; and if other hori- 
 zontal sedimentary deposits lie upon the upraised series, 
 another geological date is obtained as respects them. 
 
 The following diagrams will, perhaps, assist the illustra- 
 tion of De Beaumont's theory. A may represent a chain of 
 granitic rocks ; and B, C, and D the incumbent rocks or 
 strata. From the dislocated and inclined position of B, 
 and the horizontal and undisturbed state of" C, it may be 
 presumed that the chain A was elevated subsequently to 
 the existence of B B, but before the deposition of C C. On 
 the other hand, in the lower figure, C C have also been 
 elevated, whilst D D are undisturbed ; whence the infer- 
 ence that in this diagram the chain A is of a later date ; 
 here D D represent the undisturbed or horizontal deposits. 
 
 Reasoning upon such grounds, it has been attempted to 
 prove that the great mountain chains of the earth are of 
 various dates, some formed prior to and others subsequent 
 to their secondary or sedimentary neighbours. Thus also, 
 if we assume that these great crystalline masses have been 
 thrust up from below, may we account for the elevation of 
 rocks abounding in organic remains. Whether these 
 mountains have been suddenly or gradually upheaved, is a 
 very important point in controversial geology. The one 
 opinion has been advocated by De Beaumont, the other by 
 Mr. Lyell. According to De Beaumont, there have been 
 long periods of repose in the history of the earth, during 
 which the deposition of sedimentary matter has gone regu- 
 larly on ; and there have been short periods of violence, 
 during which that continuity was broken by the sudden 
 formation of great mountain chains. It is supposed that 
 all the chains thrown up by a particular revolution, or at 
 one time, are nearly parallel ; but that those thrown up at 
 different periods have different directions, so that they some- 
 times cross each other : that, therefore, there has been a re- 
 currence of these paroxysmal movements from the remo- 
 test geological periods ; and, of course, that they may still 
 be reproduced, and break the present repose of our globe. 
 It is presumed that the latest of these revolutions (even 
 within the historical period) was that which upraised the 
 Andes, for that chain is the best defined and least oblitera- 
 ted feature in the present exterior configuration of the 
 globe ; and as the instantaneous appearing of such enor- 
 mous mountain masses must have caused a prodigious agi- 
 tation in the waters of the ocean, it is probable that a del- 
 uge was one of its effects ; and, lastly, as common volcanic 
 powers are apparently inadequate to these successive rev- 
 olutions, they are assumed to depend upon the secular re- 
 frigeration of the interior nucleus of our planet causing a 
 fracture of the outer crust, and the consequent spirting out, 
 as it were, of some of its interior contents. 
 
 There is much that is imposing, and to all appearance 
 satisfactory, in parts of this bold theory ; but the question 
 is, how far is it strictly consistent with facts ? Have we 
 any evidence of such frightful convulsions 1 are they con- 
 sistent with what we actually know of the earth's struct- 
 ure 1 are they in accordance with present phenomena 1 or 
 can we frame any other theory equally applicable, and less 
 at variance with the changes now in progress, and with the 
 known causes of those changes 1 These are questions 
 which Mr. Lyell has directed himself to, and which in- 
 volve the effects of existing volcanoes, and of various causes 
 of decay and reproduction that now affect the surface of 
 the earth, and to which we shall allude afterwards : they 
 are discussed at length in his valuable work which we huve 
 already so abundantly quoted — his Priyiciples of Geology. 
 
 Proceeding in the retrospective survey of geological mon- 
 uments, from those of recent to those of more ancient date, 
 we have traversed a series of strata, each characterized by 
 their relative positions in respect to the others, but more 
 unequivocally distinguishable into regular epochs of forma-
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 tion by their organic relics. These we have found gradu- 
 ally to diminish, and ultimately to disappear; the rocks 
 slowly losing their sedimentary character, and appearing 
 as crystalline aggregates, and consequently as products of 
 chemical rather than of mechanical action. 
 
 The formations at which we have now arrived include 
 granite, and its associates greenstone and basalt ; and from 
 these more ancient substances we pass by regular analogies 
 to a variety of evidently volcanic products — some of remote 
 antiquity, others formed within the historical period. How 
 this interesting series of rocks are thus connected into one 
 group, and what the evidences are of their igneous origin, 
 will appear presently. 
 
 As they form the basis upon which the sedimentary 
 rocks appear to lie, rising to the surface in the central and 
 highest parts of the great mountain chains, and at the same 
 time passing down and forming the inferior parts of the 
 crust of the earth, they were once, as already stated, called 
 primitive rocks, and regarded as having been formed ante- 
 riorly to the others ; but the more close examination of 
 their relations to the sedimentary deposits just adverted to, 
 and of the changes which they have effected upon them, 
 have induced modern geologists to reject such an hypothe- 
 sis, and to consider them as of a later date ; varying, how- 
 ever, in this respect among themselves, and hence divided 
 into ancient and recent groups, or plutonic and volcanic for- 
 mations. 
 
 To represent the great mountains of the world — the Alps, 
 the Andes, and the Himalayan chains — as upheaved in a 
 liquid or semifluid state from below by processes analogous 
 to those exhibited by the volcanoes and earthquakes of pres- 
 ent times, has been by some regarded as a bold but improb- 
 able conjecture, and as outreaching in improbability many 
 of those theories which have been unanimously condemn- 
 ed as absurd and insufficient. But when we carefully 
 compare the nature of the rocks which compose them, and 
 their influence upon those which they invade and elevate, 
 and examine the vast powers of existing volcanoes, the 
 enormous quantities of matter which they have ejected, 
 the force with which they act, the upraising power of 
 earthquakes, as manifested within the historical period, 
 and their evident connexion with volcanic phenomena, and 
 more especially when these forces are considered as oper- 
 ating under the great pressure of a superincumbent ocean, 
 we And a connected series of facts and analogies which 
 justify the conclusion. We may here examine the rocks 
 in question, and the evidences which they bear of a distinct 
 formation ; reserving the history of contemporaneous vol- 
 canic phenomena, and of the effects of earthquakes, for a 
 subsequent section. 
 
 The first circumstance which strikes us in these forma- 
 tions is the height to which they tower above the sedi- 
 mentary rocks. In Britain, Ben Nevis and Cairngorm, in 
 Inverness-shire, are between 4000 and 5000 feet above the 
 level of the ocean ; Mont Blanc is between 15,000 and 
 16,000 feet above the same level, and is the highest mount- 
 ain in Europe ; Soxate, the highest summit of the Andes, 
 from 24,000 to 25,000; and the highest peak of the Thibet 
 chain, 20,000 to 27,000 feet. 
 
 Under the term granitic formation, we may include not 
 merely granite (which is a crystalline aggregate of quartz, 
 felspar, and mica), properly so called, but other rocks into 
 which it merges, either from the predominance of one or 
 other of its ingredients, from the loss of one or other of 
 them, or from the occasional addition of some new miner- 
 al. We may also include in this division of rocks those 
 substances which are their occasional accompaniments. 
 
 When mica abounds, granite passes into gneiss ; and 
 when the felspar is nearly or altogether wanting, it forms 
 mica slate; and this again often passes into quartz rock 
 from the scantiness or absence of mica. These would 
 seem to be sedimentary rocks gradually passing into gran- 
 ite. They may be traced upon the one side into clay slate, 
 and into granite on the other. Hornblende, which is an 
 alumino-silicious mineral containing magnesia, and abun- 
 dant in black oxide of iron, forming prismatic crystals, is 
 often intermixed with granite, and sometimes with felspar 
 only, forming sienite and sienitic rocks ; and when crystals 
 of felspar are as it were embedded in massive felspar, the 
 rock is called porphyritic or porphyry. 
 
 The presence of granular or crystalline marble amidst 
 these rocks has already been mentioned. Respecting its 
 source, there is room for difference of opinion ; but it pos- 
 sibly may have been fossiliferous limestone, the organic 
 relics of which have been destroyed by the heat which 
 conferred upon it its semicrystalline form ; and it has been 
 proposed to account, upon the same principle, for the ab- 
 sence of organic relics in the slaty rocks of this series. 
 
 Serpentine is a rock which it is somewhat difficult to de- 
 fine. Hornblende, schiller spar or diallage, and felspar, 
 and, perhaps, also talc, appear to be essential to its consti- 
 tution, and sometimes they are distinctly visible; while 
 
 at others the rock is so fine-grained as to be nearly homo- 
 geneous. Its variety of colours (whence its name) recom- 
 mends its for ornamental purposes, but it is too soft to ad- 
 mit of a permanent polish. Talc forms inelastic lamina?, 
 soapy to the feel, and differs little from steatite, which 
 often pervades serpentine in veins. 
 
 Such are the varieties of the granitic group ; the hypo- 
 gene rocks of Lyell (from vtto, under, and yivouai, lam 
 formed), that is, nether-formed rocks: he calls the strati- 
 fied rocks of this class metamorphic. 
 
 The largest granite tract of England is that of Devon 
 and Cornwall, where its sides are covered by slate, but 
 where it rises in several places to the surface; it also 
 forms the rocky promontory of the Land's End. There is 
 here nothing either picturesque or sublime belonging to the 
 granite formation. Dartmoor appears the head quarters of 
 dreariness and desolation, forming a large mountain tract 
 of nearly 80,000 acres in extent, strewed with boulders and 
 fragments, and appearing to set cultivation at defiance. 
 This granitic district is nowhere of any considerable eleva- 
 tion ; its highest point, near Okehampton, is 2070 feet. 
 
 The peculiarities of the West of England granite are 
 best seen at the Land's End, where a large patch of it pro- 
 trudes in a wedge-shaped promontory. It appears formed 
 of fragments and masses placed upon each other in the 
 rudest disorder, and sometimes in fantastic piles and insu- 
 lated blocks, which, though arising from the peculiar man- 
 ner in which the rock is decomposed and dislodged by the 
 weather, have been mistaken for Druidical remains. These 
 tors, as they have been called, have been described by Dr 
 M'Culloch (Geol. Trans.), and some of them are depicted 
 in the engravings annexed to his paper. One, called the 
 Cheesewring, near Liskeard, consists of five blocks, of 
 which the upper are larger 
 than the lower, the whole pile 
 being about 15 feet high. The 
 stones composing this and oth- 
 er similar piles suffer by the 
 action of the weather most 
 rapidly upon their edges and 
 angles, which gradually be- 
 come rounded, and the blocks 
 then begin to totter and ulti- 
 mately fall. This tendency 
 of square blocks to become 
 spheroidal, and which has Cheeseixnn;. 
 
 sometimes been mistaken for the effect of friction, shows that 
 attrition and transportation by streams are not always es- 
 sential to their rounded appearance. The celebrated Log- 
 ging-stone well exhibits the tendency of this kind of gran- 
 ite to cuboidal separation. Some of the Shetland Isles pre- 
 sent magnificent specimens of the wear and tear of granite. 
 On the west of Meikle Roe the softer veins have moulder- 
 ed away, while the firmer rock which included them has 
 remained unaltered ; and in this way long narrow ravines 
 are laid open which give access to the waves. The singu- 
 lar cluster of rocks at Hillswickness, which has been com- 
 
 Hillswickness. 
 pared, when seen at a distance, to a small fleet of vessels 
 with spread sails, also affords a good instance of granitic 
 disintegration on the one hand, and of its permanence on 
 the other ; weathering storms and an ocean which would 
 long ago have consigned softer materials to utter destruction. 
 There are, however, some varieties, which decay with 
 comparative rapidity. De Luc talks of the friable granite 
 of the Hartz, and Saussure describes the mouldering down 
 of that of the Alps. The waters of the Arve are rendered 
 turbid by the pulverulent felspar that comes from the 
 Aiguilles de Chamouny and other points that border the 
 Mer de Glace. The road across Dartmoor from Ashburton 
 to Chagford traverses, in one place, such loosely compacted 
 granite as to resemble a bed of gravel. The granite of 
 the Carglaise mine, near St. Austle, is so soft and pulveru- 
 lent, that the excavation might almost be taken for a chalk 
 pit; and in the same vicinity the immense quantities of 
 white porcelain earth, as it is called, is of similar origin, 
 and apparently derived from the perishable nature of the 
 felspar, which, giving way, suffers the grains of quartz 
 
 503
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 and mica to fall out. Chemical analysis points to the loss 
 of the alkali of the felspar as the cause of this extreme 
 proneness of some kinds of granite to decay. Independent, 
 however, of chemical composition, mere mechanical tex- 
 ture and the general aggregation of mountain masses have 
 much to do with their relative durabilities. When the 
 arrangement of granite resembles that prevalent in the 
 greater part of Cornwall, water gradually penetrating be- 
 tween the blocks and masses freezes there, and thus slow- 
 ly removes or transfers them to unstable ground ; while 
 the more solid texture of other varieties of granite, denying 
 the access of water to its fissures, is slower in suffering the 
 decay referable to that powerful cause. 
 
 Gneiss and mica-slate often form mountain masses in as- 
 sociation with each other and with the varieties of granite. 
 The former is seen singularly contorted upon the coast of 
 Lewes; and mica-slate rock is associated with the ser- 
 pentine of Cornwall, and is seen in great perfection among 
 the Scotch granitic scenery, more especially in the vicinity 
 of Dunkeld, and in extraordinary magnificence in the lofty 
 mountain of Benmore. Ben Lawers, on the north of Loch 
 Tay, and many of the neighbouring mountains, furnish 
 highly instructive specimens of granite passing into gneiss, 
 mica-slate, and chlorite-slate. About three miles south of 
 Dunkeld, a stratum of grauwacke is seen incumbent upon 
 chlorite-slate, gradually passing into a fine gray roofing 
 slate, and this recumbent upon mica-slate. The peculiar 
 and differing dip of the respective strata, the singular man- 
 ner in which they are pierced and traversed by veins of 
 felspar and quartz, and their association with micaceous 
 iron, are circumstances highly interesting in respect to the 
 origin of hypogene rocks ; and the beauty and magnificence 
 of the district in regard to scenery is not less than its diver- 
 sified geological peculiarities. 
 
 Mica-slate, abounding in garnets, and often sprinkled 
 with red patches originating in their decomposition, and be- 
 coming sienitic from the interspersion of hornblende, is 
 prevalent upon the banks of the Tay and about Dunkeld ; 
 but it is in Glentilt that the geologist, both practical and 
 theoretical, will find the most ample materials for the study 
 of the association and junctions of this series of rocks. 
 
 In the immediate neighbourhood of Blair, the Tilt ex- 
 hibits upon its banks a section of the rocks forming its bed ; 
 and the micaceous strata here and at the falls of the 
 Bruar incline nearly at the same angle to several points of 
 the compass, giving a curious confusion and interweave- 
 ment to their assemblage. Ascending a few miles up the 
 glen we observe granular limestone in the midst of the 
 granite, which sends forth so many veins as to reticulate 
 the slate ; and often there appear to be detached fragments 
 of granite in the limestone and shistose rocks. 
 
 There are other places in which analogous peculiarities 
 of granite and its associates may be observed ; for instance 
 in St. Michael's Mount, upon the south coast of Cornwall, 
 where the granite not only graduates into mica-slate, but 
 the latter is traversed by granite veins, which appear to 
 break and indurate it. Exclusive of Cornwall and Devon- 
 shire, the hypogene or plutonic rocks are comparatively 
 rare upon the surface of England. The Malvern Hills, 
 Mount Sorrel in Leicestershire, and a few of the ridges of 
 Cumberland and Westmoreland, afford specimens of these 
 rocks. In the Isle of Man and in Anglesey, granite is asso- 
 ciated with clay-slate; and near G windy in Anglesey the 
 points of granite curiously protrude from beneath the slate. 
 
 In reference to the origin of granite rocks, it appears al- 
 most impossible to reject that theory which regards them 
 as having been formed by the igneous fusion of sedimenta- 
 ry rocks ; while it cannot be denied that peculiar circum- 
 stances must have conspired in conferring upon these for- 
 mations their distinct and peculiar characters. Their anal- 
 ogy to basalt, greenstone, and trap will presently be noticed, 
 and the close resemblance of the latter to existent and con- 
 temporaneous volcanic products traced out. But then why 
 is not granite formed by our present volcanoes ? or why are 
 more modern lavas so distinct from these ancient rocks 1 
 The probable cause of the difference lies in the circum- 
 stances under which the subterranean fusions have been 
 effected ; in the case of granite, probably under great press- 
 ure, and out of the contact of air and water. What is now 
 going on at great depths, and under the pressure of fused 
 masses and a fathomless ocean, it is Impossible actually to 
 ascertain, and analogy only can guide us ; but the circum- 
 stances just mentioned appear essential to the formation of 
 highly crystalline rocks, and the extremely slow cooling of 
 these fused masses would also favour many of their pecu- 
 liarities. In demanding this liquefaction and gradual re- 
 frigeration the plutonic geologist has often been sneered at 
 for the exorbitancy of his postulates ; but the great length 
 of time which lava streams require to cool, even in the 
 open air, justifies the conclusion. The melted matter pour- 
 ed out of Jornllo in Mexico, in 1759, which accumulated in 
 some places to the height of 550 feet, retained a high tem- 
 504 
 
 perature for fifty years after the eruption. For what im- 
 mense periods then may not great masses of subterranean 
 lava remain red hot, and how gradual must be the process 
 of their refrigeration ! This process, indeed, may be retard- 
 ed for an indefinite time ; for the lava in the crater of 
 Stromboli has been in a state of constant ebullition for the 
 last 2000 years, and this mass of fused matter must of 
 course communicate with some great reservoir below. In 
 the Isle of Bourbon also, where there has been an eruption 
 every two years for a very long period, the lava below must 
 be in a state of permanent liquefaction. In adverting to 
 the effects of long-continued fusion upon earthy and alka- 
 line compounds, and to the various textures and characters 
 of rocks which may thus result from the liquefaction of 
 similar materials, sometimes producing distinct crystalline 
 aggregates, at others more homogeneous products, we are 
 sanctioned by the result of actual experiments ; and al- 
 though our artificial products are necessarily formed upon 
 a scale of trifling insignificance as compared with the nat- 
 ural ones, we sometimes obtain extraordinary and unex- 
 pected results to such an extent, that it is impossible by 
 any a priori reasoning to determine what new mineral prod- 
 ucts may not be obtained by the varied effects of heat upon 
 components little dissimilar. 
 
 When, therefore, melted matter is injected into the fissures 
 of a contiguous rock, it may either cool rapidly if that rock 
 had not previously acquired a high temperature ; or if it 
 had, it may continue for centuries at a high temperature, 
 and consequently attain various textures, and present a va- 
 riety of distinct minerals. 
 
 We have already stated what our means are of judging of 
 the relative ages of these rocks. Some of the granitic chains 
 appear to be of great antiquity, antecedent to the secondary 
 and tertiary rocks ; though perhaps there may be a few 
 cases in which they are apparently contemporaneous. It is 
 also probable that they are constantly in a state of produc- 
 tion, perhaps to be upheaved at some future period, by op- 
 erations which we shall afterwards endeavour to unravel. 
 
 From granite and its associates we pass to a class of rocks 
 often designated as the trap formation, including whinstone, 
 basalt, greenstone, &c. They are apparently of igneous or- 
 igin, and approach in many instances very closely in their 
 effect and character to the lavas of contemporaneous vol- 
 canoes. 
 
 The term trap rock has been especially applied to those 
 step-like or scalar declivities which mountain masses of this 
 substance sometimes present. In employing this term, we 
 shall rather use it as a generic name of the rocks in ques- 
 tion, than as specially implying the materials of which they 
 are composed ; and since the varieties known under the 
 names of greenstone, basalt, toadstone, whin, pitchstone, 
 and amygdaloid belong to this same class, and often gradu- 
 ate into each other, these terms may be occasionally em- 
 ployed as characterizing individual specimens of trap rock 
 — designating the fine-grained homogeneous rock basalt ; 
 the greenish varieties which especially occur among the 
 older rocks, and sometimes approximate to the nature of 
 sienite, greenstone ; those containing nodules of calc-spar, 
 quartz, agate, zeolite, &c, amygdaloid or toadstone. 
 
 The general character of these rocks is, that they appear 
 among stratified deposits of all dates, and among the oldest 
 and newest rocks : sometimes graduating through green- 
 stone and hornblende rocks into varieties closely connected 
 with granite ; at others degenerating, as it were, into sub- 
 stances closely resembling the lavas of existing volcanoes. 
 When they assume a stratified character, it arises from 
 their apparent injection in a state of fluidity among other 
 rocks, or from having been subjected to peculiar laws of 
 action while cooling; and where they come into contact 
 with other rocks, they often fill their rents and fissures with 
 dikes and veins, and harden or alter them in such a way 
 as to leave indisputable records of their igneous origin — 
 converting chalk into marble, coal into cinder or coke, sand- 
 stone into chert and jasper ; and the veins themselves pre- 
 sent different textures, dependant on their bulk or breadth, 
 and upon the greater or less rapidity with which they ap- 
 pear to have cooled. The following may be selected as 
 illustrative instances of the aspects, characters, and situa- 
 tions of trap rocks : Under the name of greenstone it is 
 seen in characteristic masses, associated with the granite, 
 mica-slate, and serpentine of the Lizard Point in Cornwall. 
 Near Kington and Radnor in Wales, it accompanies clay- 
 slate and old red sandstone ; and upon the northern side of 
 Snowdon, Plynlimmon, and Cader Idris, coarse-grained, and 
 with regular crystals of hornblende in one place, and in an- 
 other fine-jrrained, homogeneous, and even basaltic or co- 
 lumnar. In Derbyshire, under the name of toadstone, this 
 rock is associated with mountain limestone, and with new 
 I red sandstone or red marl in the coalfields of the north of 
 England and elsewhere. In Antrim we find it variously 
 blended with the sandstone and chalk, and even sometimes 
 j superior to the newest secondary formations. These in-
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 Fineal s Cave. 
 
 stances will serve to show the varied position of these 
 rocks. In regard to their aspects, we observe them in Corn- 
 wall forming blocks and masses, not unlike the granite of 
 the country. Sometimes, as in the coalfields, it forms im- 
 mense walls or dikes, and even axes of elevation ; some- 
 times, as in Derbyshire, it has the appearance of stratifica- 
 tion. In the Isle of Mull and elsewhere it is massive and 
 amorphous, and in many places it is columnar ; of which 
 the coast of Antrim, the island of Staffa, and some parts of 
 Mull furnish such magnificent instances. The Isle of Mull, 
 Ulva, and the Tresharnish Isles exhibit trap rocks and 
 veins in the greatest variety ; and the veins of the Isle of 
 Sky are not only remarkable for their singular extent and 
 arrangement, but for the changes they produce upon the 
 rocks they penetrate, and which are of such a nature as to 
 throw some few rays of light upon the most recondite 
 chemical phenomena connected with geology. Two of 
 these veins penetrate the white marble of Strath. At their 
 junction the trap passes into a substance resembling serpen- 
 tine, and is penetrated by fissures containing steatite ; while 
 the marble acquires all sorts of colours and changes in com- 
 position, from argillaceous to magnesian, and from magne- 
 sian to silicious. In other parts the trap veins exhibit the 
 several varieties of greenstone, basalt, and amygdaloid. 
 
 The island of Staffa is one of the most celebrated basaltic 
 monuments of the world : it is about a mile and a half in 
 circumference ; and its greatest elevation, which is upon its 
 north-west side, is about 144 feet. Its lowermost bed upon 
 that side is a basaltic conglomerate. The columns are com- 
 pact and uniform in texture, dark grayish-black interiorly, 
 and rusty brown where exposed to the weather. Amor- 
 phous and columnar basalt and a stratum of pebbles foreign 
 to the island form its upper portion. Fingal's Cave is just- 
 ly considered as the most beau- 
 tiful of ocean caverns, and 
 owes its existence to the cir- 
 cumstance of the columns be- 
 ing jointed in that place, while 
 their general character is to be 
 without divisions ; hence the 
 successful invasion of the 
 waves in this particular quar- 
 ter. The entrance is 70 feet 
 high, and resembles a Gothic arch ; the width 40 to 50 feet. 
 the length 227 feet. Its interior preserves a considerable 
 degree of regularity throughout, its sides being columnar, 
 and in many places broken and irregularly grouped, so as 
 to catch a variety of direct and reflected tints, mixed with 
 unexpected shadows, and producing a picturesque effect 
 which no regularity could have conferred. The sea never 
 entirely ebbs out of this cave, but the broken range of col- 
 umns which forms the exterior causeway is continued on 
 each side within It. "This cave," says Dr. MCulloch, 
 " has been frequently described, but no description is ade- 
 quate to the representation of its varied beauties and singu- 
 lar associations. If it were even destitute of that order and 
 symmetry, that richness arising from multiplicity of parts 
 combined with greatness of dimensions and simplicity of 
 style which it possesses — still the prolonged length, the 
 twilight gloom half concealing the playful and varying ef- 
 fect of reflected light, the echo of the measured surge as it 
 rises and falls, the pellucid green of the water, and the pro- 
 found and fairy solitude of the whole scene, could never 
 fail strongly to impress any mind alive to the wonders and 
 beauties of nature." Mackinnon's Cave and the Boat Cave 
 in the island are also worthy the traveller's attention. 
 
 The Giant's Causeway, and the various promontories of 
 the coast of Antrim, form another basaltic district of great 
 grandeur and interest. 
 
 The Causeway itself consists of three piers of columns, 
 which extend into the sea, and are walled round, as it were, 
 by precipitous rocks from 200 to 400 feet high, in which are 
 several striking columnar assemblages, vertical, inclined, 
 curved, and horizontal, and in some places appearing as if 
 wedged or driven into the surface of the precipice : Ben- 
 gore, which bounds the Causeway on the east, consists of 
 alternate ranges of tabular and massive with columnar ba- 
 salt : Pleskin presents several colonnades of great height 
 and regularity, separated from each other by tabular basalt ; 
 and at Fairhead there is a range of columns from 200 to 
 nearly 300 feet in height, supported by a steep declivity, 
 which forms a terrace nearly 600 feet above the level of the 
 sea beneath. 
 
 Sometimes basalt rises in massive and abrupt rocks, as- 
 suming the appearance of a uniform homogeneous sub- 
 stance, and scarcely exhibiting any of that singular tenden- 
 cy to columnar regularity which we have just had occasion 
 to admire in Staffa and the Causeway. The castles of 
 Dumbarton, Edinburgh, and Stirling are built upon such 
 masses. At other times it forms low, rugged, and unpictu- 
 resque strata, sometimes remarkably bent, but without form- 
 ing decided columns. 
 
 44 
 
 We have already noticed the effects of these rocks upon 
 their neighbours, and upon the strata which they penetrate 
 and invade. As these involve a variety of important theo- 
 retical considerations, it will be proper to consider them 
 a little more in detail. 
 
 In describing the effects of the intrusion of granite into 
 the superincumbent slates and stratified rocks, we noticed 
 the fragments that occasionally occur in the granitic veins, 
 their induration, and other symptoms of fusion and vio- 
 lence ; and in the veins and dikes of basalt wo meet with 
 precisely similar effects. Near Edinburgh the sandstone is 
 hardened and rendered like jasper by the whin dikes, and 
 loose pieces are occasionally seen to have been floating, as 
 it were, in the fused basalt. In Antrim the limestone is 
 sometimes overtopped by basalt, and the dikes as they 
 traverse it harden it into a species of marble, and the neigh- 
 bouring flints are reddened. In coal mines those accumu- 
 lations of carburetted hydrogen gas which form what are 
 called the blowers, appear to have resulted from the action 
 of veins of basalt. 
 
 In addition to this evidence, we have some of a chemical 
 nature, which is not less decisive ; and it is to be regretted 
 that such experiments have not been extended. 
 
 The first great experiment of this kind was made by Mr. 
 Gregory Watt ; he fused 7 cwt. of fine-grained basalt, and 
 suffered the fused mass to cool gradually, so that the whole 
 process lasted eight days. The mass after fusion was three 
 feet and a half long, two feet and a half wide, eighteen 
 inches thick at one end, and only four at the other. The 
 structure was singularly altered, and in many places there 
 were aggregations of spheroids of a radiated texture, not un- 
 like the globular structure exhibited by some kinds of de- 
 composing basalt, and occasionally forming by their mutual 
 pressure a tendency to prismatic or columnar arrangement. 
 
 In glass which li::s been slowly cooled we occasionally 
 observe somewhat similar and highly interesting effects ; 
 its texture is variously modified, and globules of a radiated 
 and crystalline texture are formed in it from a new arrange- 
 ment of its molecules. And, lastly, certain sandstones and 
 clays may assume in some instances a columnar texture by 
 the action of long-continued heat short of fusion. Doctor 
 M'Culloch observed in a hearthstone of an old furnace which 
 had been in constant work for 18 years, that a prismatic 
 structure extended through its whole mass, and he thus 
 explains the occasional columnar structure of sandstone 
 when in contact of basalt ; and in regard to some kinds of 
 basalt itself, he observes that its frequent nmygdaloidal 
 structure proves that it was originally cellular and porous 
 like lava, the cells having been subsequently filled up by 
 the infiltration of the various substances found in them. It 
 is a mere dispute about terms, therefore, to refuse to these 
 ancient eruptions the name of submarine volcanoes ; for such 
 they are in every essential point, though they no longer eject 
 fire and smoke. 
 
 The examination of the igneous rocks of Sicily has proved 
 that all the ordinary' varieties of trap have been produced 
 under the waters of the sea, since the Mediterranean has 
 been inhabited by a great proportion of the existing testa- 
 ceous species. " We are therefore entitled to feel the ut- 
 most confidence that if we could obtain access to the ex- 
 isting bed of the ocean, and explore the igneous rocks poured 
 out within the last 5000 years beneath the pressure of a sea 
 of considerable depth, we should behold formations of mod- 
 ern date scarcely distinguishable from the most ancient trap 
 rocks of our isjand. We cannot, however, expect the ident- 
 ity to be perfect, for time is ever working some alteration in 
 trie composition of these mineral masses ; as, for example, 
 by converting porous lava into amygdaloids." 
 
 §m. 
 
 We have now examined the structure of the crust of our 
 globe, and found it to consist of a succession of sedimentary 
 deposits of different dates, characterized by peculiarities of 
 mineral structure and composition, and by distinct organic 
 relics, upheaved and displaced by a series of crystalline 
 rocks apparently of igneous origin, and in many instances 
 similar in composition and effects to the products of existent 
 volcanoes. 
 
 These must be now more particularly examined, for the 
 purpose of ascertaining how far we are justified in attribu- 
 ting to analogous agents those stupendous powers of eleva- 
 tion and dislocation which the theory of the crystalline or 
 hypogene rocks has obliged us to call to our aid. The ex- 
 tent of volcanic fires, their connexion with earthquakes, the 
 nature of their products, their usual effects, and their modi- 
 fied action under the influence of pressure, are the principal 
 points now requiring attention. 
 
 The geographicarextent of volcanic districts is very con- 
 siderable, and demonstrates the universality of subterranean 
 fire in all quarters of the globe. It is true that the points of 
 eruption and the movements of great earthquakes are con- 
 fined to certain regions in which the volcanic vents are dis- 
 Hh* 505
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 tributed at intervals, and most commonly in a linear direc- 
 tion ; but there is abundant evidence that the igneous pow- 
 ers are at work continuously throughout the intermediate 
 spaces, tor the ground is from time to time convulsed, gases 
 and vapours are disengaged, and hot springs issue, the wa- 
 ters of which are very commonly impregnated with the same 
 mineral matters which are discharged by the eruption of the 
 volcano. 
 
 There are also abundent proofs of the existence of volcanic 
 fires under various parts of the bed of the ocean, where their 
 effects, though at present unseen and unknown, are proba- 
 bly destined to become evident at some future but very re- 
 mote period. 
 
 The substances thrown out by volcanoes are elderly earthy 
 and alkaline bodies in a state of fusion : masses of red-hot 
 and melted rock, stones, cinders, ashes, steam, and various 
 gases are their accompaniments ; and, although they differ 
 very materially in tiie quantity of ejected matter, their prod- 
 ucts so generally agree in quality that they arc doubtless all 
 referable to the operations of one cause. What that cause 
 is, is a question which has long been agitated, but is as yet 
 not very satisfactorily determined ; although considerable 
 advances have been made towards an explanation of the 
 phenomena by those great discoveries in chemistry which 
 bear the stamp of Davy's name, and which have taught us 
 the existence of a class of bodies possessed of previously un- 
 known and unsuspected properties, and which are in some 
 respects applicable to the solution of the problem before us. 
 
 These bodies are the metallic bases of the alkalies and 
 earths; many of which, the moment that they touch water, 
 explode, burn, melt, and become converted into red-hot mat- 
 ter, not unlike some sorts of lava. 
 
 It has been said that if we adopt the existence of great 
 masses of these highly inflammable and active metals deep 
 within the earth as one of the causes of volcanic force, that 
 they would remain inactive without water ; consequently, 
 that the access of water is a necessary condition. We find, 
 in fact, that many of the great volcanoes of the world are 
 not far from the sea or from lakes ; but it must also be ad- 
 mitted that there are great volcanic districts to which water 
 has no apparent access. In central Asia there is a volcanic 
 district, with an area of nearly 3000 geographical miles, be- 
 tween 300 and 400 leagues distant from the sea. The cen- 
 tral chain of the Andes, too, is at a great distance from the 
 sea, and yet has several active volcanic vents. But we 
 ' ow too little of the interior of our globe, of what hidden 
 ra i: may contain, or what may be the subterranean 
 C'mmunications of the ocean, to justify us in excluding this 
 theory upon such grounds, were it otherwise satisfactory 
 and accordant. 
 
 When these highly inflammable metals act upon water, 
 they combine with its oxygen, and the hydrogen is evolved ; 
 and as hydrogen is very rarely traced as a product of vol- 
 canic eruptions, its absence lias been urged as fatal to this 
 theory. But upon this point we are also not well informed ; 
 the hydrogen may be evolved, and yet its presence not de- 
 terminable ; or, if evolved at a high temperature and in the 
 contact of air, it would burn probably with explosion, and 
 reproduce water. Now aqueous vapour is often ejected 
 with explosive force from volcanoes ; and this sudden gen- 
 eration of steam, in part perhaps resulting from the explo- 
 sive union of hydrogen and oxygen, may be one great source 
 of their power and violence, and of the concussions attend- 
 ant on earthquakes. 
 
 But there are properties of these singular metals which 
 are less evident, and may yet play an active part where 
 their mutual affinities are concerned. In certain propor- 
 tions, sodium and potassium form an alloy liquid as water, 
 highly inflammable; and when touched by certain other 
 metals, mercury for instance, becoming red-hot and explo- 
 sive. Now these properties, curious as they are, may pos- 
 sibly belon?, in a yet more eminent degree, to certain alloys 
 and other compounds of the metallic bases of the earths, 
 for we know as .vet little of the chemical properties of 
 these bodies ; and it may be presumed, upon strict analogy, 
 that there may be other agents of a similar kind, and gifted, 
 perhaps, with yet more energetic powers : for who could 
 even have ventured to imagine the existence of such re- 
 markable bodies as potassium and sodium before their dis- 
 covery ? So that upon the whole, if we cannot frame a 
 perfect theory of volcanoes upon these chemical principles, 
 they at all events go some way towards an explanation of 
 some of their concomitant phenomena, as will appear from 
 the details we are about to enter upon. One difficulty, 
 however, we are certainly not prepared to meet ; namely, 
 the perpetuity, as it may almost be called, of some active 
 volcanoes — volcanoes which have continued to burn and 
 throw out lava and cinders, not only for years, but for 
 successive ages. The lava in the crater of Stromboli has 
 been in a state of ignition for 2000 years; so that there 
 must here be a constant accession of heat, if not renovation 
 of fuel. 
 
 506 
 
 We have ample evidence of the connexion of earth- 
 quakes with volcanoes ; and all great eruptions have com- 
 monly been preceded by violent convulsions which have 
 ceased upon the bursting forth of the volcanic lires, as if 
 the pent-up matters had found a vent. All this shows the 
 cause of the eruption to be deep below the surface, and 
 perhaps sanctions the notion of the existence of great masses 
 of ignited matter below the rocks that form our mountains ; 
 or even the idea of some of the ancient as well as modern 
 geologists, that the interior and nucleus of the globe is in a 
 state of most intense incandescence — an idea already al- 
 luded to when noticing the evidences of change of climate 
 deduced from the examination of fossil plants. Another 
 fact in reference to this view deserves notice ; namely, 
 that there is a very manifest connexion between volcanic 
 vents situated at great distances from each other. Such a 
 connexion has been suspected between Vesuvius and Etna ; 
 and some of the volcanoes of the Andes appear to alternate 
 in their eruptions, though at great distances from each 
 other. 
 
 When lava is examined as near as possible to the vent 
 whence it issues, it is usually a semifluid muss about the 
 consistence of honey. It soon cools externally, and its 
 surface becomes rough mid irregular ; but, being a very 
 bad conductor of heat, the interior remains red-hot long 
 after the surface has cooled. It is probable that large 
 masses of lava ejected into the sea retain their high tem- 
 peratures in the central parts of the mass for a great and 
 even indefinite length of time. 
 
 The quantity of matter which has been thrown to the 
 surface by volcanic agencies during the historical period is 
 very enormous, and may serve to give an idea of their in- 
 fluence in modifying the surface of the globe, when such 
 powers are considered in reference to great periods of time. 
 In illustration of this point we may select the volcanoes of 
 Iceland, because our details respecting them are well au- 
 thenticated ; though it must be recollected that they proba- 
 bly fall into insignificance when compared with what has 
 happened in some of those districts of Asia and South 
 America which are ravaged by subterranean lires. In the 
 following sketch of these volcanic districts we shall avail 
 ourselves as hitherto of Mr. Lyell's excellent abstract of 
 volcanic history, as given in his Principles of Geology. 
 
 Iceland itself is little else than a mass of lava ; and so 
 intense is the energy of volcanic action in that region, that 
 some eruptions of Hecla have lasted six years without 
 ceasing. Earthquakes have often shaken the whole island, 
 causing a complete revolution in its geographical physiog- 
 nomy ; such as the rending of mountains, the elevation of 
 some and the sinking down of others, the desertion by 
 rivers of their channels, and the appearance of new lakes. 
 Upon the coasts too, and In great depths of water, new 
 islands have been thrown up, some of which have remain- 
 ed and others disappeared. In this island too, the volcanic 
 vents are often in alternate action, one serving, as it were, 
 for a time as a safety valve to the rest ; and when, as is 
 often the case, new cones are thrown up, they generally 
 take a linear direction. In 1783, a new island was thrown 
 up off the coast, consisting of high cliffs ; and with such an 
 ejection of pumice, that the ocean was covered to the dis- 
 tance of 150 miles, and ships impeded in their course by 
 the shoals of floating stones. Ere a year had elapsed, 
 however, the sea resumed her ancient domain, the volcanic 
 cliff's had disappeared, and nothing was left but a rocky 
 reef from 5 to 30 fathoms under water. In June, Skaptar- 
 Jokul, 200 miles distant from the new isles, threw out a 
 torrent of lava, which in the first place flowed down into 
 the river Skapta, and completely dried it up ; its channel 
 was between high rocks, and was in some places 400 to GOO 
 feet dee]) and 200 broad. Not only did the lava fill these 
 great defiles up to the brink, but overflowed the adjacent 
 country and filled up a deep lake. There was then a short 
 intermission in the eruption ; but in a few days it was re- 
 sumed, and the newly ejected lava flowed rapidly over the 
 surface of the first, and damming up numerous streams, 
 deluged the neighbouring country with water, and destroy- 
 ed several villages ; when, after flowing for several days, 
 it was precipitated down a tremendous cataract, and filled 
 the profound cavity which the waterfall had been hollow- 
 ing out for ages. Afterwards the lava took a new direction, 
 and discharging itself into the bed of another river (the 
 Hyversfliot), occasioned a scene of destruction rivalling the 
 former : the lava accumulated to a great depth, and coming 
 to the plains spread out into broad lakes of lire, some of 
 which were from 12 to 15 miles wide, and 100 feet deep. 
 When the fiery lake which filled the valley of the Skapta 
 had been augmented by new supplies, the lava flowed up 
 the course of the river to the foot of the hills where it 
 rises. This eruption continued two years ; and when Mr. 
 Paulson visited it eleven years after (in 1794), the lava 
 was still smoking, and its vents filled with hot water. 
 Although the population of Iceland did not exceed 50,000,
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 twenty villages were destroyed, exclusive of those inun- 
 dated by water ; and all the cattle of the district, and more 
 than 9000 human beings, perished. 
 
 We have quoted the narrative of this eruption, as giving, 
 upon good authority, some notion of the extraordinary 
 volume of melted matter produced. Of the two branches 
 of lava, and they flowed nearly in opposite directions, one 
 was 50 and the other 40 miles in length ; the extreme 
 breadth of one branch was from 12 to 15, and of the other 
 about 7 miles. The ordinary height of the currents was 
 about 100 feet ; but in deep ravines and defiles they some- 
 limes attained 600 feet. How striking a feature, Mr. Lyell 
 remarks, would these streams form in the geology of Eng- 
 land, had they been poured out on the bottom of the sea 
 after the deposition, but before the elevation of our second- 
 ary and tertiary rocks ! and how easily may we now refer 
 the trap and basaltic rocks to similar causes ! 
 
 But there are some phenomena connected with volcanic 
 action which seem to be caused by yet more extraordinary 
 agents than those we have adverted to ; namely, their great 
 projectile and explosive force, the effects of which are, in 
 some instances, upon so stupendous a scale as to appear 
 utterly incredible, had we not the clearest and must un- 
 objectionable evidence. Let us select one or two illus- 
 trative relations, and then see how far we are acquainted 
 with any powers or agents in nature adequate to explain 
 the results. 
 
 From the era of the discovery of the New World to the 
 middle of the last century, the great volcanic district of 
 Mexico had remained undisturbed. It is an elevated pla- 
 teau, between 2000 and 3000 feet above the level of the sea, 
 and bounded by hills of ancient igneous origin. It was 
 occupied by fields of sugar-cane and indigo, and watered 
 by two brooks. In June, 1759, alarming sounds and earth- 
 quakes preceded the bursting forth of (lame from the 
 ground, and fragments of red-hot rocks were thrown to 
 prodigious heights. A great chasm was formed, from 
 which six volcanic cones were thrown up, the least of 
 which was 300 feet high ; and Jorullo, the central volcano, 
 was elevated 1000 feet above the level of the plain. It 
 sent forth streams of basaltic lava, including fragments of 
 granitic rocks, and its eruptions did not cease till 1760. 
 Humboldt visited the country forty years afterwards : there 
 then appeared round the base of the cones, and spreading 
 from them over an extent of four square miles, a convex 
 mass of matter, between 500 and 600 feet high, gradually 
 sloping in all directions towards the plains, and which was 
 still so hot that he lighted a cigar in one of its fissures. It 
 was covered with thousands of little mounds, which emit- 
 ted steam and sulphuric acid. The two small rivers lost 
 themselves below the east extremity of the plain, and re- 
 appeared as hot springs at its western limit. Humboldt 
 attributed the convexity of the plain to inflation from below, 
 supposing the ground for the extent of four square miles to 
 have puffed up like a bladder to the elevation of 550 feet 
 in the highest part ; but of this there seems no good evi- 
 dence, except the hollow sound made by the steps of a 
 horse upon the plain, and this might result from any porous 
 material. A subsequent eruption of Jorullo happened in 
 1819, and it is much to be regretted that no European 
 travellers have since visited the spot. It is known, how- 
 ever, that ashes fell in Guanaxato, 140 miles from Jorullo, 
 in such quantity as to lie 6 inches deep in the street ; and 
 the tower of the cathedral was thrown down. Of these 
 forces, thus elevating matter from below, and throwing up 
 extensive plains and lofty mountains, we have numerous 
 other instances ; and in farther illustration of their great 
 power may cite the elevation of islands in deep water by 
 submarine volcanoes. Those off Iceland have been already 
 noticed. In 1811 a volcano forced its way from beneath 
 the sea off the island of St. Michael, one of the Azores 
 forming a crater above the water a mile in circumference, 
 and about 300 feet high. In the middle of the 17th century 
 an island was thrown up among the Hebrides, which in a 
 month again disappeared. In July, 1731, a volcano rose in 
 the sea between the island of Pantellaria and the coast of 
 Sicily, forming a crater 240 feet diameter and 20 feet above 
 water. Many shoals are no doubt of volcanic origin. 
 
 The Pacific ocean, in equatorial latitudes, seems to be 
 one vast theatre of igneous action : and its innumerable 
 archipelagoes, such as the New Hebrides, Friendly Islands, 
 and Georgian Isles, are all volcanic, with active vents here 
 and there interspersed. Of such a formation Owhyhee is 
 a magnificent example. The whole mass, estimated as 
 exposing a surface of 4000 square miles, is composed of 
 lava, the highest peaks of which are between 15,000 and 
 16,000 feet above the level of the sea. The crater of Kiraue 
 is described by Mr. Ellis as situated in a lofty elevated 
 plain, bounded by a precipice 15 or 16 miles in circum- 
 ference, apparently sunk from 200 to 400 feet below its 
 original level. The surface of this plain, he says, was 
 uneven, and strewed over with loose stones and rocks ; 
 
 and in the centre of it was the great crater. At the edge 
 of it a sublime and appalling spectacle presented itself — 
 an immense gulf in the form of a crescent, about 2 miles 
 long and 1 wide, and apparently 800 feet deep, yawned 
 beneath ; the bottom was covered with one vast flood of 
 burning matter in a state of terrific ebullition, rolling to and 
 fro its fiery surge and flaming billows : fifty-one conical 
 islands, as it were, forming as many district craters, rose 
 round the edge of this burning lake, emitting columns of 
 smoke or pyramids of flame ; and several of them vomited 
 from their ignited mouths streams of lava, which rolled in 
 blazing torrents down their black indented sides into the 
 lake below. 
 
 We may conclude this part of our subject with a brief 
 notice of one other volcano ; namely, that of Tomboroo in 
 the island of Sumbawa, the account of which we owe to 
 the late Sir S. Raffles. It began on the 5th of April, 1815. 
 It appears that a Mala} prow, while at sea, on the 11th, was 
 enveloped in utter darkness ; and that afterwards passing 
 the Tomboroo mountain, at the distance of 5 miles, the 
 commander observed that the lower part appeared in flames, 
 while the upper portion was concealed in clouds. Upon 
 landing to procure water, he found the ground 3 feet deep 
 in ashes, and several large vessels thrown on shore by the 
 concussions of the sea. 
 
 At the commencement of the explosion the commander 
 of the E. I. C. cruiser Benares, which was at Macassar, 
 supposed that there was an engagement of pirates some- 
 where in the neighbourhood, so closely did the reports 
 resemble those of cannon. On the 11th the ship was again 
 shaken, as it was thought, by the discharge of cannon. At 
 8 A.M. on the 12th, the face of the heavens to the south 
 and west had assumed a dingy aspect, and it became darker 
 than it had been at sunrise. A dusky red appearance 
 gradually spread over the heavens; and by 10 it was so 
 dark that a ship could hardly be seen a mile off. By 11 
 the whole heaven was obscured, except a small space in 
 the east horizon, whence the wind came. The ashes now 
 fell in showers, and the appearances were most awful and 
 alarming. By noon the light which had lingered in the 
 horizon disappeared, and complete darkness ensued. At 
 half-past 7 the next morning there was a glimmering of 
 light, and objects could just be perceived on deck. When 
 day returned the appearance of the ship was most singular ; 
 every part being covered with gray dust, which lay in heaps 
 of a foot deep on many parts of the deck. On the 13th the 
 vessel left Macassar, and made Sumbawa on the 18th. 
 Approaching the coast, she encountered an immense quan- 
 tity of pumice, with numerous burnt trees and logs ; and 
 the anchorage was greatly altered, for the vessel grounded 
 on a bank where there had previously been 6 fathoms 
 water. The shores were entirely covered with ashes and 
 cinders ejected from Tomboroo, although 40 miles distant. 
 The explosions were terrific ; and there is evidence of their 
 having been heard in Sumatra, upwards of 900 nautical 
 miles from Sumbawa. Lieut. Phillips, who was despatch- 
 ed to afford relief to the perishing inhabitants, learned from 
 the Rajah of Saugar that on the 10th of April the fire and 
 flame raged with exhaustless fury, till all became dark 
 from the quantity of falling matter. At this time stones 
 fell verv thick, from the size of a walnut up to that of two 
 fists. Then a whirlwind arose, which destroyed every 
 house in the village of Saugar, tore up the trees, and carried 
 them into the air, together with men and cattle. The sea 
 rose 12 feet above its usual levels, and swept away all 
 within its reach, including some thousands of the inhabi- 
 tants. 
 
 Extraordinary and appalling as these narrations are, they 
 might be greatly extended. In 1772 the inhabitants of a 
 district of Java were alarmed by flashes of light issuing 
 from one of their volcanoes. They took flight ; but. before 
 they could all escape the mountain fell in, with thundering 
 reports like cannon. The extent of ground swallowed up 
 was 15 miles by 6. Forty villages were ingulfed, and 3000 
 persons destroved. We have not space to advert to the 
 historical details of Vesuvius and Etna. In the Bay of 
 Naples, Monte Nuovo was thrown up in one day, nearly 
 500 feet high, and a mile and a half in circumference. Of 
 the eruptions of Vesuvius there are numerous and excel- 
 lent narratives. It deserves especial notice in relation to 
 this mountain, that before the Christian era, and from the 
 remotest periods of which we have any tradition, this vol- 
 cano was in a state of inactivity ; affording no ether indi- 
 cations of its volcanic character than such as were deducible 
 from the resemblance in its structure to other volcanoes, 
 like the extinct volcanoes, as they are called, of the present 
 day. Pliny does not include it in his list of active vents, 
 but Strabo" adverts to its volcanic aspect. Its form was 
 then very different, from that which it now exlulute, and 
 the sides were covered with fertile fields ; and at its base 
 were the populous cities of Kerculaneum and Pompeii. 
 The first svmptom of renovated activity was 63 years after 
 
 507
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 Christ, when an earthquake shook the neighbourhood ; 
 and in August, 79, it erupted lava. The elder Pliny, who 
 commanded the Roman fleet, then stationed at Misenum, 
 in his anxiety to get a near view of the phenomena was 
 suffocated by the exhalations. His nephew has given a 
 lively description of the scene, but has inexplicably passed 
 over the destruction of Herculaneum and Pompeii. Indeed, 
 so vague are the narratives long subsequent to that event, 
 that had those buried cities never been discovered, the ac- 
 counts of their tragical end would probably have been 
 regarded as fabulous. Tacitus, the friend and contem- 
 porary of Pliny, merely says that cities were destroyed ; 
 Suetonius is silent respecting them ; Martial adverts to 
 their immersion in cinders ; but the first writer who alludes 
 to them by name is Dion Cassius, who flourished about a 
 century and a half after Pliny. We have some interesting 
 historical facts, showing that Pompeii and Herculaneum 
 were destroyed by ashes and mud, and not by red-hot lava. 
 When the amphitheatre at Herculaneum was first cleared 
 out, ashes were arranged on the steps just as snow would 
 lie had it fallen there : the whole superincumbent mass 
 was from 70 to 112 feet deep. The foundation of both 
 cities is ancient lava. It is curious that, notwithstanding 
 the much greater depth of Herculaneum than Pompeii, it 
 was first discovered, by the accidental circumstance of a 
 well being sunk in 1713, which came directly down upon 
 the theatre, where the statues of Cleopatra and of Hercules 
 were soon discovered. 
 
 In both cities records have been found commemorating 
 their having been rebuilt after they had been thrown down 
 by an earthquake which happened in the reign of Nero, 16 
 years before the inhumation of the cities. Very few skele- 
 tons have been discovered in either city ; so that it is 
 probable the greater number of the inhabitants escaped, 
 carrying with them no doubt the principal part of their 
 valuable effects. In the barracks at Pompeii were the 
 skeletons of two soldiers chained to the stocks ; and in the 
 vaults of a villa in the suburbs were the skeletons of seven- 
 teen persons, who probably fled there for safety : they were 
 found enclosed in indurated tufa, in which was preserved 
 a perfect cast of a woman with an infant in her arms. 
 Although her form was imprinted in the rock, nothing but 
 her bones remained : to these was suspended a chain of 
 gold, and rings with jewels were on the fingers of the skele- 
 ton. Earthen amphora; were ranged along the side of the 
 vault. The writings scribbled by the soldiers in their bar- 
 racks, and the names of the owners of each house written 
 over the doors, are still legible. The colours of many of 
 the paintings on the stuccoed walls are almost as vivid as 
 if recently painted; and a collection of shells was found in 
 the house of a painter, who probably amused himself with 
 natural history, in as good a state of preservation as if they 
 had remained the same number of years in a museum. 
 The beams of the houses are black exteriorly, but little 
 altered within ; and the state of preservation of several 
 animal and vegetable products is truly astonishing. Fish- 
 ing nets are very abundant ; linen with the texture ; and 
 almonds, chesnuts, and walnuts in a fruiterer's shop. In a 
 baker's a loaf retaining its form, with a name stamped upon 
 it ; and a box of pills upon the counter of an apothecary, 
 with a small cylindrical roll by the side of it, evidently 
 prepared to be cut into pills. In 1827, olives in a square 
 jar, and caviar, were found in a state of wonderful preser- 
 vation. At Herculaneum the animal and vegetable sub- 
 stances are preserved by having been apparently enveloped 
 in a paste which consolidated, and then allowed them to 
 become slowly carbonized. At Pompeii they are pene- 
 trated by a gray pulverulent tufa. The history of the 
 Papyri is well known. It is supposed that only a small 
 part of Herculaneum has as yet been explored, and that 
 the quarters hitherto cleared out at great expense are those 
 where there was the least probability of discovering manu- 
 scripts. 
 
 It would, however, be irrelevant here to enlarge upon 
 these and other details of buried cities ; but the few facts 
 mentioned, and which are abridged from Mr. Lyell's sum- 
 mary, are not without geological importance, as giving some 
 idea of the little change which the lapse of seventeen cen- 
 turies has effected. 
 
 There are many instances of rocks of decided volcanic 
 origin, that is, extinct volcanic vents, in districts where all 
 other trace of activity has been lost since the earliest his- 
 torical times, except hot and mineral springs ; such are the 
 Vivarias and Auvergne in central France, and the district 
 of Eifel, near Coblentz, on the Rhine. The attempts to de- 
 termine the ages of these rocks, or to ascertain the periods 
 of their activity by their association with primitive, second 
 ary, or tertiary strata, are not in general satisfactory : those 
 who are curious upon this point may be referred to the de- 
 tails given by Mr. Lyell. 
 
 Important as are the geological results of volcanic, action, 
 those of earthquakes, which extend over greater areas, and 
 508 
 
 produce extensive changes in the configuration of the earth's 
 crest, demand perhaps even greater attention. 
 
 There can be little doubt as to the unity of cause in vol- 
 canoes and earthquakes ; they frequently precede violent 
 volcanic eruptions, and often seem to arise from explosive 
 matters accumulating their force from want of vent. They 
 are often felt over great extents of territory. The earth- 
 quakes which destroyed Lisbon, in 1755, was felt over the 
 whole of Europe, and extended even to the West Indies. 
 What enormous powers or forces, therefore, must be called 
 into action in order to produce such extensive results ! 
 
 It would be useless here to quote long details respecting 
 the effects of earthquakes ; but it will be necessary to select 
 two or three illustrative cases, and especially to direct our 
 attention to those phenomena connected with them which 
 immediately bear upon geological changes. 
 
 The great earthquake at Lisbon occurred on the 1st of 
 November, 1755. A sound like loud thunder was heard un- 
 der ground, and instantly afterwards the greater part of the 
 city was shaken down ; so that, in six minutes, at least 
 00,000 persons are said to have perished. The sea first re- 
 tired, but was violently agitated, and presently rolled in in a 
 huge wave sixty feet high. Many of the largest mountains 
 in Portugal were shaken from their foundations, and most 
 of them were wonderfully split and rent. It was supposed 
 that they emitted fire and smoke ; but lightning and dust, 
 perhaps, gave rise to the appearance. The New Quay, a 
 massive marble structure, sunk down with an enormous 
 concourse of persons upon it who had taken refuge there 
 for safety ; and it was so ingulfed, that not one of the dead 
 bodies ever floated to the surface ; and many vessels anchor- 
 ed near it, and full of people, were swallowed up as in a 
 whirlpool. No fragments of the wrecks ever rose again, 
 and the water upon the spot was deepened by 100 fathoms. 
 Many ships at sea experienced violent concussions. Off' St. 
 Lucar, the captain of the Nancy frigate thought he had 
 struck on the ground ; but, on heaving the lead, found he 
 was in great depth of water. Another ship, 40 leagues 
 west oft - St. Vincent, experienced so violent a concussion 
 that the men were thrown up a foot and a half perpendicu- 
 larly from the deck. 
 
 The agitation of the sea during earthquakes has almost 
 always been remarked, and probably such effects are more 
 common than is supposed ; for in almost all parts irregulari- 
 ties in its motion are at times observable, which cannot be 
 referred to temporary currents or winds in the offing. The 
 movement is generally a quick flow and reflow of the water, 
 and often so trifling as to escape the attention of all ordinary 
 observers ; though detected by seamen and fishermen, who 
 are surprised to find the boats suddenly floated, or as sud- 
 denly left dry. 
 
 In the Lisbon earthquake, many of the rivers and lakes 
 of Great Britain were singularly disturbed. Loch Lomond 
 suddenly rose between two and tliree feet, and as suddenly 
 subsided. 
 
 In the great. Calabrian earthquake, in 1783, an interesting 
 narrative of which is given by Mr. Lyell, the aspect of the 
 country was singularly changed. The earth appears to have 
 had an undulating, vibratory, and horizontal motion ; there 
 were the usual tremors in the neighbouring ocean ; numer- 
 ous deep and extensive gaps and fissures were formed, and 
 faults and dislocations in the strata; large landslips took 
 place, and extraordinary lacerations ; large buildings and 
 farms were ingulfed ; and in some places the chasms closed 
 upon their prey with such violence that on excavating af- 
 terwards to recover articles of value, the workmen found 
 detached parts of buildings jammed together in one compact 
 mass. Some of the resulting gaps and ravines were up- 
 wards of a mile long, and from 200 to 300 feet deep and 
 broad. Large lakes were formed, sometimes filled with 
 thermal waters from below, and sometimes the consequence 
 of the obstruction of streams ; land and houses were in some 
 places uplifted, in others depressed, in others transferred 
 with all their plantations to a distance varying from a few 
 feet to upwards of a mile. 
 
 In these narratives it is a matter of much geological im- 
 portance to establish clearly the fact of elevations and de- 
 pressions of districts and strata ; and, if possible, to ascertain 
 the amount of such change in perpendicular position. Upon 
 these points the Chilian earthquake of 1822 affords some 
 satisfactory evidence. According to Mrs. Graham's (now 
 Lady Calcott's) account, the shock extended for more than 
 a thousand miles along the coast, and a great part of the 
 country was bodily elevated for a length of more than a 
 hundred miles; the beach and the bottom near the shore 
 being raised from three to four feet. The uplifting of the 
 former was rendered evident by the adhesion of the shell- 
 fish to the rocks ; and it was observed that there were other 
 lines of beach above that newly elevated, attaining in paral- 
 lel lines a height of about fifty feet above the. sea, seeming to 
 show that previous elevations had been effected by the same 
 causes. An old wreck of a ship, which before could not be
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 approached, became accessible from the land; cones of 
 earth were thrown up in several districts by the forcing up 
 of water, mud, and sand, through funnel-shaped hollows. 
 The elevation inland appeared, by the effect upon water- 
 courses, to have been two or three times greater than upon 
 the beach. 
 
 There are some other points connected with earthquakes 
 and volcanoes which, though generally considered of subor- 
 dinate importance, seem to refer very immediately to their 
 causes ; such, for instance, as intermittent and boiling 
 springs, and the escape of carbonic acid gas. 
 
 The Geysers of Iceland are fine specimens of the former ; 
 their waters hold so large a quantity of silica in solution as 
 to incrust everything they run over. They rise in a tract 
 covered by lava. The Great Geyser springs from a spacious 
 basin at the summit of a mound formed of silicious incrusta- 
 tions deposited by the spray of its waters. In the centre of 
 this basin is a pipe 78 feet deep, through which the water 
 rises, flows over, and is thrown up in jets, attended by loud 
 explosions and subterranean rumblings, and slight tremors 
 of the ground. When these jets are most violent, they 
 shoot to 200 feet high ; and after playing for some time, a 
 snorting noise is heard, which gradually becomes as loud as 
 thunder, and steam rushes forth with prodigious violence. 
 This deafening roar lasts for a variable time, and the erup- 
 tion terminates, coming on again after a variable interval 
 of rest. 
 
 Of this phenomenon we have a plausible explanation, and 
 one which bears most importantly upon the theory of vol- 
 canoes and earthquakes. 
 
 Suppose the surface water of the country to penetrate into 
 the chasm A by the fissures B B, while at the same time 
 steam of great force and temperature emanates from the 
 fissures D D. A portion of this steam is first condensed by 
 the water in A, which it gradually raises to its boiling point ; 
 then it forms high-pressure steam, and drives the boiling 
 water through the pipe into the basin C, and after the whole 
 has been ejected the steam itself rushes out. Now, if we 
 suppose a number of large subterranean cavities at the depth 
 of several miles below the surface, in which melted lava 
 accumulates, and that water penetrating to these is convert- 
 ed into steam ; this, together with other gases pent up, and 
 perhaps liquefied by pressure in similar cavities, or gener- 
 ated by the decomposition of melted rocks, ma}" press upon 
 the lava and force it up the duct of a volcano, in the same 
 manner as the column of water is driven up the pipe of the 
 geyser. But the weight of lava being immense, the pres- 
 sure exerted on the sides and roofs of such large cavities 
 and fissures may well be supposed to occasion not merely 
 slight tremors, but even violent earthquakes. Sometimes 
 the lateral pressure of the lower extremity of the high col- 
 umn of lava may cause the more yielding strata to give way, 
 and so for a time give relief to the fused matter. Some- 
 times, on the contrary, a weight equal to that of tiie vertical 
 column of lava, pressing on every part of the roof, may 
 heave up the superincumbent strata, and force lava into 
 every fissure ; which, on consolidation, may support the 
 arch, and cause the land above to be permanently elevated : 
 on the other hand, subsidences may follow the condensa- 
 tion of vapour when cold water descends through fissures, 
 or when heat is lost by the cooling down of the lava. 
 
 Besides aqueous vapour, several gases are emitted by vol- 
 canoes, and among them carbonic acid, which is also fre- 
 quently given out by fissures in the earth, and by mineral 
 springs not associated with direct volcanic action. Its oc- 
 currence in the Grotto del Cane is well known. It is given 
 out in enormous quantities near the lake of Laach, and in 
 Brohlthal on the Rhine, where it is used in a chemical man- 
 ufactory ; 600 pounds of the gas are calculated to be dis- 
 charged from only one of the jets in twenty-four hours. 
 Near Fort Diadine, on the Euphrates, it issues through the 
 cracks of the limestone rocks with a loud hissing noise, and 
 in such quantities as to kill animals that unwarily approach 
 it. The Upas valley, in Java, appears to be a cavity filled 
 to a certain height with carbonic acid ; it is about half a mile 
 in circumference, and about 35 feet deep, without vegetation, 
 and covered with skeletons of men and various animals, such 
 as tigers, hogs, deer, &c, which have perished by their en- 
 trance into the gas. 
 
 We micht enumerate many similar cases of the accumu- 
 lation of the carbonic acid ; but those quoted are sufficient to 
 show that it often issues from the strata of the earth in 
 enormous volumes, and therefore doubtless from reservoirs 
 where it is pent up, under great pressure ; and in all proba- 
 bility there are large accumulations of it in a liquid form, in 
 which state it exerts a pressure, at common temperatures, of 
 from 50 to 60 atmospheres upon the walls that confine it, and 
 at higher temperatures of much greater force. We are also, 
 perhaps, warranted in inferring that there are subterranean 
 cavities, not only filled with this, but probably with other 
 gases, perhaps also in their liquid forms, and of still greater 
 tensive force ; and if so, what may not be the mechanical 
 
 and chemical energies of some of these, acting upon the 
 highly in. flammable metals at very elevated temperatures'? 
 Upon the whole, it does not appear that powers are wanting 
 adequate to the greatest observed effects ; that these are con- 
 stantly in activity ; and that stupendous as the results appear 
 in their collective effects, the great mountains of the globe 
 may have been elevated by causes now in action ; that, at 
 all events, we need not call to our aid unknown powers, 
 since existing causes (especially if it be admitted that thev 
 were once more energetic than at present, and that the 
 agents have, as it were, spent a part of their force) appear 
 adequate to the explication of this class of geological phe- 
 nomena ; and if we now have powers in activity, and we 
 have seen that such there are, which are capable of eleva- 
 ting 100 miles of rocky coast 3 or 4 feet, why may not a suc- 
 cession of such elevations, even admitting them not to have 
 been greater than at present, carried on through an indefinite 
 period of time, have occasioned those liftings up of the moun- 
 tains which we have had such abundant occasion to advert 
 to 1 It is well known that slight forces continuously repeat- 
 ed produce gigantic effects. It has, says Mr. Lyell, been ar- 
 gued by the opponents of this view, " that it is useless to ap- 
 peal to time, for time can effect no more than its powers are 
 capable of performing. If, say they, a mouse be harnessed to 
 a large piece of ordnance, it will never move it, even if cen- 
 turies upon centuries were allowed. This is true enough. 
 But let us suppose a lever applied capable of propelling it 
 forward at the rate of an inch in a century; it is clear that 
 in a sufficient succession of centuries we should have ad- 
 vanced a mile: any force that could move it at all must, if 
 it continue in action, continue to propel it." 
 
 The full bearing of this question, however, will be more 
 evident when we have considered the causes which are now 
 effective in producing sedimentary formations, in wearing 
 down the present surface of the globe, and in conjunction 
 with those more violent powers which we have just noticed 
 in giving rise to various superficial inequalities. 
 $IV. 
 
 We have now surveyed the structure of the earth's sur- 
 face, and have traced the apparent causes of many of the 
 changes which it has undergone, and which have contributed 
 to its present state and aspect ; but there are a variety of 
 processes now active, and of changes now going on, which 
 are slowly tending to modify the existing order of things, and 
 which, if considered in reference to their continuity through 
 past ages, and to their accumulated effects through ages to 
 come, will perhaps assume an air of unexpected importance. 
 
 Among the powers of matter which change the earth's 
 surface, heat and cold are obviously at all times concerned 
 in exciting dilatations and contractions, and thus keeping up 
 a perpetual and varying motion among the particles upon 
 which they act. Of such changes the sun is the grand 
 source ; to whose varying influence the earth in its diurnal 
 revolutions upon its axis, and in its annual circumvolutions 
 through space, is always exposed.* It may perhaps seem. 
 that the mere influence of change of temperatue, derived 
 from the solar rays, must be of little efficacy in disintegrating 
 hard and solid substances; but when we reflect upon the 
 very extensive range of natural temperatures, and on the 
 great receptive and emissive powers in respect to radiant 
 heat which the surfaces of some rocks present, very consid 
 erable transitions from heat to cold, and the reverse, may en- 
 sue, and, acting upon certain textures, may alone lend pow- 
 erful aid to that general work of decay which is commonly 
 called the weathering of rocks. 
 
 But when the influence of change of temperature is con- 
 joined with the varied agencies of water, the powers of de- 
 struction will not only be materially increased, but rendered, 
 in many instances, rapid and irresistible. About three fourths 
 of our globe are covered by the waters of the ocean, the 
 mean depth of which is probably about 3 miles. The mean 
 height of the dry land above the ocean's level, does not ex- 
 
 * " The sun's ravs." s-iys Sir J. Herschel {Astronomy, p. 21 ',) " are the 
 ultimate source of almost every motion which takes place on the surface of 
 the earth. By its heat are produced all winds, and those disturbances in the 
 electric equilibrium of the atmosphere which give rise 'o (he phenomena of 
 terrestrial magnetism. By their vivifying action vegetables are elaborated 
 from inorganic matter, and become in their turn the support nf animals and 
 of mar, and the sources of lh"se (treat deposits of dynamical efficiency which 
 are lai i up for human use in our coal stra'a. By 'hem tl.e wa'ers of the sea 
 are made to circulate in vapours through the air, and irrigate the land, pro- 
 ducing springs and rivers. Bv them are produced all riis'urbances of the 
 chemical equilibrium of the elements of nature, which, by a series of com- 
 positions aud decompositions, give rise to new products, and originate a trans- 
 fer of materials. Even the slow degradation of the solid constituents of the 
 surface, in which its chief geological changes consist, and their diffusion 
 among the wa'ers of the ocean, are entirely due to 'he abrasion of the wind 
 and rain, and the alternate action of the siasons; and wren we consider the 
 immense transfer of matter so produced, the increase of pressure over large 
 spaces in the bed of Ihe ocean, and diminution over correspoo.lmr portions 
 of the land we are not at a loss to conceive how the elas'ic power of sub- 
 terranean fires, thus repressed on the one hand and relieved on the other, 
 mav break forth in points where the resistance is barely adequate to their re- 
 tention, and thus bring the phenomena cf volcanic activity even under the 
 general law of solar influence- 
 
 50U
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 cecd 2 miles ; so that the present dry land might be so dis- 
 tributed over the bottom of the ocean that the surface of the 
 globe would present a mass of waters. This is an important 
 possibility, when geologically considered ; because, with it 
 at command, every variety of superficial land and water 
 may be imagined, and consequently every variety of organic 
 life, each suited to the various situations and climates under 
 which it would be placed. In consequence of the general 
 uniformity of level preserved by the ocean, it enters the nu- 
 merous irregularities of the land, and sometimes forms in- 
 land seas as it were, in which geological changes, differing 
 from those which occur in the open ocean, may occasionally 
 take place, as in the Mediterranean and the Baltic. There 
 are also inland seas, or lakes, as they are usually called, not 
 in direct communication with the open sea ; some of salt and 
 others of fresh water. The latter cover very large tracts ; 
 and it is obvious that in them depositions may take place 
 exclusively characterized by terrestrial and fresh-water re- 
 mains. 
 
 It is also obvious that earthquakes and volcanoes will ma- 
 terially contribute towards existing changes, and, co-opera- 
 ting with aqueous forces, may often produce a joint effect to 
 which neither could separately give rise ; as when frequent 
 earthquakes aid the excavating power of water in carving 
 out a valley, or widening one which already exists. Of these 
 powers the statements in the preceding section furnish abun- 
 dant proofs ; so that we may now more exclusively attend 
 to aqueous causes, some of which are of a destructive, others 
 of a renovating or reproductive character. 
 
 When lands are much elevated above the sea they con- 
 dense the vapours of the atmosphere, in consequence of their 
 low temperature, and thus become reservoirs of water which 
 irrigate the valleys and plains below, and descending, often 
 by steep declivities, acquire an impetuosity calculated to sur- 
 mount powerful obstacles. The summits, therefore, of 
 mountains are particularly subject to atmospherical influ- 
 ences, and to great alternations of temperature and moisture. 
 We have already alluded to the gigantic force of water 
 freezing in the chasm and crevices of rocks ; and it is in this 
 way that great havoc is effected where comparatively little 
 wet falls, and that the decay of rocks in high latitudes goes 
 on as rapidly, or more so, than where they are deluged by 
 the tropical torrents of rain. This mechanical power of wa- 
 ter is often aided by its solvent energies ; and although these 
 are usually very slow in their operation, the time for which 
 they are continued and the extent of surface upon which they 
 operate produce a great aggregate effect. Some granitic 
 rocks thus disintegrate apparently by the washing out of their 
 alkaline constituents ; in other cases carbonic acid aids the 
 solvent power ; and in others the air in water converts black 
 oxide of iron into red, and the decay of the rocks is rapid in 
 proportion to the extent of this conversion. The granite tors 
 of Dartmoor and of the Land's End furnish curious instances 
 of the effect of slow decay from several causes, among which 
 the tendency in the rock to cubical and prismatic fracture 
 must not be overlooked. By degrees the surfaces become 
 separated; and the wearing continuing to proceed more 
 rapidly near the parts which are most external, and there- 
 fore most exposed, the masses which once were angular and 
 prismatic acquire an irregular curvilinear boundary, and the 
 stones assume that appearance which has sometimes been 
 regarded as artificial, and has induced persons to consider 
 them as Druidical remains. Enormous stones are thus 
 thrown from their original positions, and becoming rounder 
 and rovmder by the progress of decomposition, assume a 
 fpheroidal figure, often referred to the continuous action of 
 running water : under favourable circumstances logging 
 stones are, as we have previously observed, thus produced. 
 The weathering of some of these tors is so gradual that the 
 life of man scarcely allows an individual to observe a change, 
 whence we may infer the long periods that have been re- 
 quisite to bring about their present appearances. It is pos- 
 sible that chemical changes may sometimes be aided by the 
 electrical powers called into action, and as a more immediate 
 agent electricity is not without its influence. The thunder 
 storm shivers rocks and hurls them down in mighty frag- 
 ments, often fusing their surfaces, and sometimes consolida- 
 ting soft materials. Near Drig in Cumberland, the sandy 
 soil contains hollow tubes produced by lightning striking and 
 penetrating the ground ; some of these have been traced to 
 a depth of 40 feet, and furnish curious illustrations of the 
 passage of the electricity. When running water is mixed 
 with sand and pebbles it acquires a new mechanical power, 
 and these carried along by streams grind down and excavate 
 the adjacent strata, so that the superincumbent portions are 
 ultimately precipitated into the stream. The obstruction 
 causes a temporary accumulation of water behind, which 
 afterwards bursts the barrier; and in this way small ravines 
 are slowly widened into narrow valleys, in which sinuosities 
 are caused by the deflection of the stream, first to one side 
 and then to the other. The unequal hardness of the ma- 
 terials through which the channel is eroded tends also to 
 510 
 
 modify the lateral power of excavation, and thus the little 
 stream acquires a serpentine direction. When the flexures 
 are great, a direct line is often restored by the river cutting 
 through the isthmus which separates two or more of its 
 curves. These windings occur from similar causes in some 
 of the largest rivers of the world ; and not only in those 
 which flow through flat alluvial plains, but large valleys are 
 excavated to a great depth through solid rocks in this scr 
 pentine form. These tortuous flexures of rivers show that 
 the valleys in which they flow were not produced or ex- 
 cavated by any flood of uncommon power and magnitude, 
 or by any diluvial operation; for such causes would proba- 
 bly have produced straight channels. 
 
 In referring to the transporting powers of water, it has 
 been justly observed by Mr. Lyell, that we are often sur- 
 prised at the facility with which small streams bear along 
 sand and gravel ; for we usually estimate the weight of rocks 
 in air, and do not sufficiently reflect on their comparative 
 buoyancy when submerged in a denser fluid. The specific 
 gravity of most rocks is only from twice to thrice that of 
 water ; so that the fragments lose from a third to half of 
 what we usually call their weight. 
 
 The power of rivers in transporting mud, sand, and gravel, 
 is shown by the accumulation of those substances at their 
 mouths, where they terminate either in lakes or in the sea ; 
 ;ind the history of storms and floods affords many memora- 
 ble instances of the force with which they transport heavy 
 materials. In August, 1829, Aberdeenshire and the adjacent 
 counties of Scotland were visited by a storm and hurricane 
 which extended over a space of 5000 square miles — flooding 
 the rivers, carrying away bridges, and removing masses of 
 rock of some tons weight, and transporting from 1000 to 3000 
 tons of gravel to great distances in one day. 
 
 In alpine countries the moving of massive stones is facili- 
 tated by the ice which adheres to them, and forms with the 
 rocks a mass of less specific gravity. The glaciers also, 
 formed of consolidated snow, carry down prodigious loads 
 of rock and sand, which are generally ranged in long ridges 
 running parallel to the glacier, and from 20 to 40 feet high. 
 They are slowly protruded into the valleys, where the ice 
 melts, and the whole accumulation is swept away by tor- 
 rents. 
 
 If the materials which streams have to work upon are but 
 loosely consolidated, the rapidity with which they some- 
 times excavate deep channels is truly astonishing. After 
 the heavy rains which followed the eruption of Vesuvius hi 
 1822, the water flowing from the Atrio del Cavallo cut, in 
 three days, a new chasm 25 feet deep. 
 
 We may also adduce striking examples of the erosion of 
 deep chasms in comparatively hard and durable materials. 
 Some of the clearest illustrations of this excavating power 
 are presented in the valleys of central France, where the 
 ancient channels of rivers have been filled up by lava, 
 through which the present streams have re-excavated a 
 passage from 20 to 70 feet deep, and often of great width. 
 
 This subject has been well illustrated by another case 
 quoted by Mr. Lyell, upon the base of Etna, where a great 
 current of lava descending, in 1C03, from near the summit of 
 the volcano, flowed into the alluvial plain of the Simeto, 
 one of the largest of the Sicilian rivers, which skirts the base 
 of Etna, and falls into the sea a few miles south of Catania. 
 It entirely filled up and obliterated the bed of the river 
 with indurated lava ; yet now (that is in the course of two 
 centuries) it has re-excavated for itself a new passage, which 
 is from 40 to 50 feet deep, and more than 100 wide. 
 
 But of the numerous examples which might be cited of 
 the powers of rivers to carve out their courses and exca- 
 vate valleys in their rocky boundaries, the falls of Niagara 
 are perhaps the most magnificent. That river flows from 
 Lake Erie to Lake Ontario, the distance between them being 
 32 miles ; and the level of the former lake is 330 feet above 
 that of the latter. As it leaves Lake Erie, the Niagara is al- 
 most level with its banks, and three quarters of a mile wide ; 
 so that should it rise 8 or 10 feet, Canada and the State of 
 New York would be inundated. Proceeding towards the 
 falls, it has a descent of 50 feet in half a mile, and rushes 
 with great force. At the verge of the cataract, an island 
 divides it into two falls: one 1800 feet wide, and 158 feet 
 perpendicular; the other 600 feet wide, and 164 feet high. 
 This enormous body of water is precipitated over a ledge of 
 hard limestone in horizontal layers, which rests upon a soft 
 shale. This crumbles away so rapidly, that the harder lime- 
 stone forms a projecting mass, which overhangs the space 
 below, and being left without support, falls from time to 
 time in large masses into the abyss beneath ; occasionally 
 producing shocks which are felt at some distance, and at- 
 tended by a noise like thunder. As soon as the river has 
 passed the falls, its character is completely changed ; it 
 runs furiously in a deep trench cut in the horizontal strata, 
 so that the ravine is only perceived on approaching the edge 
 of the precipice. Through this deep chasm the river flows 
 for 7 miles ; and then the table-land, which is nearly level
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 with Lake Erie, suddenly sinks down at a town called 
 Queenstown, and the river traverses a plain which con- 
 tinues to the shore of Lake Ontario. 
 
 Now it appears probable that the great cataract of the 
 river was once at (tueenstown, and has gradually retrograded 
 from that place to its present position, about 7 miles up. 
 Within the last 40 years the falls have receded 50 yards ; so 
 that, supposing the ratio of recession never to have exceeded 
 this slow progress, it must have required nearly 10,000 years 
 for the excavation of the whole ravine ; and should it not be 
 accelerated in future, it will require nearly 30,000 years for 
 the falls to eat their way backwards to Lake Erie, to which 
 they most undoubtedly seem destined to arrive. Of course 
 this calculation is only provisional, and may be interfered 
 with by many causes ; but supposing Lake Erie to remain 
 nearly in its present state, the sudden escape of such an im- 
 mense body of water would cause a tremendous deluge. 
 But Lake Erie is constantly diminishing in depth by the 
 enormous quantities of matter brought down by the rivers 
 which feed it. Long Point, near the influx of Big Creek 
 River, has advanced three miles within the last three years : 
 another important effect of rivers. There arc other causes 
 which in this case would probably prevent a sudden deba- 
 cle ; for the waters of a lake with a rocky barrier can only 
 be suddenly let out so as to produce a deluge when the hard 
 barrier separating it from the land at a lower level presents 
 a perpendicular face to the whole depth of the lake, and, 
 accordingly, inundations from such causes are comparatively 
 rare. (See Lyell' s Principles.) 
 
 We come now then to consider the farther progress of 
 the detritus carried down by rivers. It is clear that their 
 tendency will be to fill up valleys and hollows : lakes will 
 gradually diminish in depth, or even be choked up and again 
 cut through ; and low lands flooded, and deposits left upon 
 them. In some situations, rivers raise their beds when re- 
 strained by artificial embankment. Of this the Po furnishes 
 a remarkable example, traversing the plains upon a high 
 mound like an aqueduct, even more elevated than the roofs 
 of the houses in the city of Ferarra. 
 
 In other cases, where two or more streams unite into one 
 river, so that the water does not expose a surface equal to 
 the two previous surfaces, the action of the united waters is 
 to deepen the channel. 
 
 Of the matters carried down by rivers large quantities are 
 transported to their mouths, and there deposited either in 
 lakes or in the ocean bed. The Lake of Geneva is thus re- 
 ceiving enormous supplies of detritus from the Rhone ; so 
 that from calculations which have been made of its in- 
 crease, and the diminution of the depth of the lake, it ap- 
 pears probable that if we could obtain a section of the ac- 
 cumulation formed during the last eight centuries, we should 
 see a great series of strata from 600 to 900 feet thick, and 
 nearly two miles in length, inclined at a slight angle. We 
 should also find a number of smaller deltas at the mouths 
 of the smaller rivers, each composed of such materials as 
 the respective rivers happen to have brought down. 
 
 When the Rhone again issues from this lake, it is as pel- 
 lucid as crystal; but its pure waters are presently again 
 mixed with the turbbl sediments of the impetuous Arve, 
 bringing down the granite detritus of the glaciers of Mont 
 Blanc. It afterwards receives vast contributions from the 
 Alps of Dauphiny, and from the primary and volcanic 
 mountains of central France ; and when at" length it enters 
 the Mediterranean, it discolours its blue waters with a 
 whitish sediment for the distance of between six and seven 
 miles from its mouth, throughout which space the current 
 of fresh water is perceptible. Mr. Lyell has collected a 
 body of very curious information respecting this and other 
 deltas, of which we can only here hint at the general re- 
 sults. 
 
 It appears that by the confluence of the Rhone, and the 
 currents of the Mediterranean driven by winds from the 
 south, sand bars are often formed across "the mouths of the 
 river, by which means considerable spaces become divided 
 off from the sea, and subsequently from the river also, when 
 it shifts its channels of efflux. As some of these are subject 
 to the occasional ingress of the river when flooded, and of 
 the sea during storms, they are alternated salt and fresh ; so 
 that both fluviatile and marine shells arefound in them. Of 
 the new deposits in th is delta great part consists of calcareous 
 and arenaceous rock cemented by carbonate of lime. A 
 cannon taken up near the mouth of the river was entirely 
 entombed in solid calcareous rock. 
 
 The delta of the Po in the Adriatic presents another in- 
 stance of the vast accumulations of matter that are thus de- 
 posited by rivers ; and it appears that within the historical 
 period, that is, within 2000 years, the accessions of land have 
 increased trom 2 to 20 miles in breadth. Adria, a sea-port 
 in the time of Augustus, is now about 20 miles inland : and 
 Ravenna, which was also a sea-port, is 4 miles from the 
 main sea. 
 
 The delta of the Nile also affords some interesting geolo- 
 
 gical considerations ; but we must look to the great rivers of 
 Asia and America for the most instructive examples of these 
 formations. 
 
 Of the delta of the Ganges and Barrampooter we have 
 some curious information from Major Rennel. These rivers 
 descend from the highest mountains in the world into a 
 gulf which runs 225 miles into the continent. The part of 
 the delta bordering on the sea is composed of a labyrinth of 
 rivers and creeks, infested by tigers and alligators, and equal 
 in extent to the whole principality of Wales. The mud and 
 sand poured into the gulf in the flood season is so great, 
 that the sea only recovers its transparency at the distance 
 of 60 miles from the coast. And in farther proof of the im- 
 mense transportation of earthy matter, we have the great 
 magnitude of the islands formed in the channels of the river 
 during a period even far short of a man's life. Some of 
 these, many miles in extent, have originated in large sand 
 banks thrown up at points, and afterwards insulated by the 
 stream ; others are caused by various accidental obstruc- 
 tions, such as sunk trees or boats. In the great gulf below 
 Luckipoor, some of the islands rival the Isle of Wight in 
 size. These newly-formed lands are soon overrun with 
 reeds, grass, and shrubs, which form impenetrable thickets, 
 where tigers, buffaloes, deer, and other wild animals take 
 shelter; so that both animal and vegetable remains must 
 continually be precipitated into the flood, and sometimes be- 
 come embedded in the sediment of the delta. Crocodiles also 
 swarm upon the shoals ; and the habits of these animals are 
 such as to render them particularly liable to become im- 
 bedded in the horizontal strata of mud which are annually 
 deposited in the Bay of Bengal over many hundred square 
 miles. Mr. Lyell has also gone into the history of the Missis- 
 sippi, the course of which is very instructive, in consequence 
 of the undisturbed and natural state of its banks, and the 
 varieties of climate through which it flows. Its delta is di- 
 vided into innumerable lakes, marshes, and streams, inhabit- 
 ed by multitudes of alligators ; and millions of logs and 
 trunks of trees are brought down at particular seasons, and 
 either carried out to sea, or bound together by adventitious 
 vegetation, so as to retard the river and become embedded in 
 mud. 
 
 We thus find that matters washed down from the decay 
 and disintegration of the land into lakes and seas are there 
 accumulated, and are now forming stratified deposits, varying 
 in their nature and texture, and often abounding in organic 
 relics ; but, to form a just notion of the magnitude of these pro- 
 cesses, they must be compared with objects with which we 
 are familiar. Now it is probable that the water of the Ganges 
 hold in suspension from 2 to 3 per cent, of solid matter ; but 
 if we only assume one per cent., which is, perhaps, the aver- 
 age of most rivers, we are, says Mr. Lyell, brought to the 
 extraordinary conclusion that there passes down, every ten 
 days, into the Bay of Bengal, a mass equal in weight and 
 bulk to the great Egyptian pyramid. 
 
 We have already adverted to the enormous quantity of 
 matter ejected by volcanoes. The most voluminous current 
 of lava which has flowed from Etna within historical times 
 was that of 1669, calculated at 140 million cubic yards. 
 Now this would only equal in bulk one seventh of the sedi- 
 mentary matter carried down in a single year by the Ganges 
 (assuming 1 per cent, of sand) ; so that allowing seven such 
 eruptions in a century, it would require 100 Etnas to trans- 
 fer a mass of lava from the subterranean regions to the sur- 
 face equal to the mud carried down in the same time from 
 the Himalaya mountains into the Bay of Bengal. (Lyell's 
 Principles of Geology.) 
 
 That enormous quantities of matter, therefore, are thus by 
 slow and silent operations carrying down into the deep, and 
 there forming strata which may one day be upheaved and 
 assume the character of dry land, will now be obvious ; and 
 shows how some of the mightiest operations in nature are 
 effected insensibly, without noise or disorder, and without the 
 aid of extraordinary convulsions, mighty deluges, or other 
 temporary and sudden causes. We might form some curi- 
 ous speculations respecting the nature of the strata thus 
 forming. Some will be argillaceous, some calcareous, hard 
 and soft, coarse and fine, depending upon a variety of obvi- 
 ous interfering causes : some abounding in organic remains, 
 others without them ; and among these, from the number of 
 shipwrecks and other casualties, human remains and works 
 of art must often be abundantly interred. 
 
 From the wearing down of rocks and strata, and the ex- 
 cavation of valleys by rivers, streams, and alternations of - 
 temperature, we may now take a cursory view of the action 
 of the sea on coasts. 
 
 The waves of the ocean operate, in many instances, like 
 mighty artillery, battering and breaking down the solid bar- 
 riers opposed to their inroads. If the rocks are soft, the 
 wear is proportionately rapid, as we see upon the east coast 
 of our island, where many spots now standing in the sea, or 
 even covered by its waters, are marked in old maps as sites 
 of towns and villages, the inhabitants having gradually re- 
 
 511
 
 GEOLOGY. 
 
 treated inland. Where the rocks are hard, or where they 
 are so stratified as to oppose resistance, the declension of 
 coast is much more gradual. The substances thus delivered 
 into the sea are acted on according to their respective weights, 
 forms, and textures : some transported by tides and currents ; 
 others rolled about, and ground down upon the shore; and 
 where indurated masses are contained in softer materials, 
 flints for instance in chalk, they remain at the base of the 
 cliff, and tend to protect it from the breakers and check its 
 farther excavation. 
 
 Veins and dikes sometimes are curiously exposed and in- 
 sulated by this wear and tear. Arches are cut out and cav- 
 erns excavated, and even the hardest rocks often drilled as it 
 were in various directions. 
 
 The protecting influence of the waves is seen in those long 
 lines of shingles and sand which often defend low and marshy 
 land, especially at the mouths of valleys, from the access of 
 the sea; and the higher the tide and the heavier the gale, 
 the higher the rampart that is raised. These beaches travel 
 in the direction of the prevalent winds ; and of this engineers 
 are practically aware, as we see by the works which they 
 erect to arrest their progress. 
 
 An instructive example of the nature and effects of accu- 
 mulations of this sort is furnished by the Chesil Bank, which 
 connects the Isle of Portland with the mainland ; it is about 
 16 miles long, and the size of the pebbles increases from 
 west to east. Its formation is probably due to a meeting of 
 tides between the peninsula and the land. The storm of 
 1824 burst over it and overwhelmed the village of Chesilton. 
 Another example of land thus protected is on the south coast 
 of Devon. What is called Slapton Sands is, in fact, a ridge 
 of pebbles, which protects and blocks up the mouths of sev- 
 eral valleys. Sand is also often accumulated and thrown up 
 in the same way as shingles ; and when it is left by the tide 
 and dried by the sun, winds often transport it to great dis- 
 tances, so as even to overwhelm large districts — houses, culti- 
 vated lands, and even forests, disappearing beneath them. 
 On the eastern shore of the Bay of Biscay, these moving 
 heaps force lakes of fresh water before them, derived from 
 the rains which are pent up ; and several villages in the de- 
 partment of the Landes have been thus buried, and others are 
 now threatened with destruction. They have been calculated 
 to advance at the rate of 60 to 70 feet in a year. Sometimes 
 these sands become consolidated by the percolation of calca- 
 reous or ferruginous waters. Of this we have an example on 
 the north coast of Cornwall, where the sand is formed of com- 
 minuted shells ; and the drift having taken place at different 
 times, the recent sandstone thus formed is stratified with oc- 
 casionally interposed vegetable remains. Where church- 
 yards have existed, human remains have been entombed ; and 
 an old pot of coins has been found in this formation. This 
 rock is so hard that holes are bored in it for the purpose of 
 securing vessels. The parish church of Crantock is built of 
 it. ^The fossil skeletons of Guadaloupe appear to have been 
 preserved by this species of rock formation. 
 
 Among reproductive causes now in action, none are of 
 more curiosity or interest than the operations of the small 
 soophytic animals which produce coral, and which, labour- 
 ing on through long periods of time, gradually accumulate 
 such enormous masses of carbonate of lime as to form, to- 
 gether with shells which they entangle and envelope, islands 
 of no inconsiderable dimensions. 
 
 Coral reefs are usually of a form approaching to the circu- 
 lar, and the water is shallow in the centre, but surrounded by 
 a very deep, and even unfathomable sea. When the reef is 
 so high as to remain nearly dry at low water, the animals 
 leave off building ; and then the rim or edge of the great basin 
 becomes covered by calcareous sand, which offers a founda- 
 tion for the growth of marine vegetables, and afterwards a 
 resting place for the seeds of trees and plants cast upon it by 
 the waves. Trunks of trees also, carried by rivers from con- 
 tinents and islands, after their long wanderings are often 
 pitched ashore ; and sometimes carry with them small ani- 
 mals, such as lizards and insects which become the first in- 
 habitants. The Pacific ocean, throughout a space compre- 
 hended between the thirteenth parallel of latitude on each 
 side of the equator, is a great nursery of coral islands; also 
 the Arabian and Persian gulfs. Between the coast of Mala- 
 bar and that of Madagascar there is a great sea of coral. 
 Flinders describes an unbroken reef 350 miles long upon the 
 coast of New Holland ; and between that country and New 
 Guinea coral formations extend throughout a distance of 700 
 miles, interrupted by no intervals exceeding 30 miles in 
 length. The growth of coral is, when compared with human 
 epochs, extremely slow; but the facts just cited show that 
 they have produced results of no mean importance, as influ- 
 encing the general aspect of the earth's crust. Their circu- 
 lar form, the steep angle at which they plunge into the sea, 
 and the countries in which they occur, render it extremely 
 probable that they are the crests, as it were, of submarine 
 craters; and occasionally lava and volcanic rocks have been 
 found in their central lagoons : these have generally a deep 
 512 
 
 narrow passage, which is kept open by the efflux of the ocean 
 at low tides. These openings are almost always on the lee- 
 ward side, and the windward side of the islands is more com- 
 
 IVhitsunday Island in the Pacifli 
 
 losed Lagoon. 
 
 plete and perfect than the other ; so that, from this fortunate 
 circumstance, ships can enter and sail out with ease ; indeed 
 the safety of many of these harbours is entirely dependant 
 upon this cause. It would seem most probably to arise from 
 the large masses of coral rock that are thrown up by the 
 waves on the windward side. These rocks are probably 
 subject to elevations and depressions connected with volcanic 
 agencies. Mr. Lyell thinks that the carbonate of lime, which 
 is the building material employed by the busy little architects 
 of these islands, is in all probability derived from calcareous 
 springs issuing into the sea from fissures in the volcanic bottom. 
 
 Ui 
 
 Section of a Coral Island.- 
 
 I the habitable p; 
 
 Section of a Coral Island wpen a large Scale— a b the ha 
 e slope of the side j c c parts ot the lagoou ; d d knolls of con 
 
 We may now conclude this subject by a brief reference 
 to those erratic blocks and pebbles which are so widely 
 scattered over different districts, and which, with the de- 
 posites of bones and stalactite in certain caverns, are often 
 regarded as especial proofs of diluvial action. 
 
 Where pebbles occur immediately upon the beach, and 
 are evidently derived from the fragments of neighbouring 
 rocks rolled into form by the action of waves, or where 
 larger masses, forming what are called boulder stones, are 
 found in similar situations, or lying upon the strata of which 
 they constitute the fragments and relics, there is no great 
 difficulty in accounting for one or the other; but where 
 immense deposits of gravel are found, not only inland, bit 
 out of the reach of all running waters, and where boulder 
 stones are found in similar situations, and very distant 
 from the rocks of which they are the apparent remains, 
 our curiosity and ingenuity are then excited to ascertain 
 how they came into their present places, and whence they 
 are derived. We must of course always carefully distin- 
 guish between these importations, as they may be called, 
 of foreign matters, and those kinds of detritus which mere- 
 ly result from the weathering of the rocks. 
 
 We have elsewhere pointed out the numerous evidences 
 which we have of fractures, elevations, and depressions of 
 the strata ; of the consequent existence of faults ; and of 
 the formation of valleys, frequently in the line of such 
 faults and fractures. Now it seems clear that all these ef- 
 fects must have been attended in many instances by propor- 
 tionate changes in the levels of waters, and that there must 
 have been great inundations and torrents passing over such 
 districts at the time of their disturbance ; and farther, that 
 where land once covered by water has been elevated, 
 rounded masses of rock or boulders, as well as gravel of 
 all degrees of fineness and all manner of composition, may 
 have been elevated along with them. Here, then, are two 
 apparent causes of gravel and boulders. 
 
 But independent of these sources of such appearances, 
 there are other geological phenomena, which seem to indi 
 cate the passage of great masses of water over the British 
 Isles in a direction from north to south ; upon the neigh- 
 bouring continent of Europe, too, evidences of currents set- 
 ring in the same direction, and transporting gravel and boul- 
 ders, are not wanting. Of course these currents have in 
 many places been greatly modified as to direction by the 
 valleys, hills, and mountains which they encountered; so 
 that their detritus is in many instances scattered in other 
 directions. In some cases ice, in the form of glaciers, ap- 
 pears to have been a cause of the transportation of masses 
 and fragments of rock to places far remote from their origi- 
 nal source. The glaciers which descend from alpine re- 
 gions are charged with blocks and fragments, and any cur- 
 rent of water rushing through the valleys into which they 
 descend would float them and their burdens. It is probable 
 that those immense masses of ice called icebergs are por- 
 tions of polar glaciers ; and these with their contents, are 
 often floated into warmer climates, so that the debris which 
 they carried with them may thus have been dispersed at 
 the bottom of parts of the ocean far distant from the source
 
 GEOMANCY. 
 
 of such materials. These circumstances show (when taken 
 in conjunction with the facts already enumerated respect- 
 ing the causes which influence the decay of rocks) how 
 careful we must be in reasoning respecting the age and 
 sources of blocks, gravel, and those remains generally call- 
 ed diluvial ; and how difficult it is to form any inference 
 respecting their sources and transport, excepting in cases 
 where these are at hand and obvious. Whatever may 
 have been the cause of such passages of torrents over the 
 land, and the evidences of them are quite sufficient, it is 
 obvious that they must have destroyed nearly all such liv- 
 ing beings as came in their way, or as frequented those 
 parts of the earth over which they swept. Accordingly, the 
 remains of various animals are found in such deposites ; 
 and their examination and comparison with living genera 
 and species, and with those more ancient animals before 
 alluded to in the tertiary and secondary strata, is a very 
 curious and interesting subject of inquiry. Dr. Buckland's 
 researches connected with these relics have given them 
 additional interest, especially as connected with certain 
 theoretical points of diluvial geology, and with their assem- 
 blage in caverns. In these caverns the bones are usually 
 mixed with mud, stones, and fragments ; and circumstances 
 sometimes seem to show that the animals resided in them 
 for a great length of time : they are covered by stalagmite, 
 which forms the pavement as it were of the cave, and ef- 
 fectually conceals and preserves the organic remains. The 
 celebrated Kirkdale cavern in Yorkshire, discovered in 1821, 
 contains the remains of the hyena, tiger, bear, wolf, fox, 
 weasel, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, horse, ox, 
 deer, hare, rabbit, rat, mouse, raven, pigeon, lark, thrush, 
 and a species of duck. From the mode in which these 
 remains were strewed over the bottom of the cavern when 
 the mud was removed, the great proportion of hyena's 
 teeth over those of other animals, and the manner in which 
 many of the bones were gnawed and fractured, Dr. Buck- 
 land inferred that this cavern was the den of hyenas during 
 a long succession of years ; that they brought in, as prey, the 
 animals whose remains are now mixed with their own ; 
 and that this state of things was suddenly terminated by 
 an irruption of turbid water into the cave, which buried the 
 whole in mud. In other caves other animals have been 
 found, indicating the same general facts of the existence of 
 animals now no longer known in these latitudes. Where 
 the bones of man or works of art have been found in these 
 caves, there is generally good evidence of their being of a 
 much later date than the remains of quadrupeds ; but occa- 
 sionally the bones of extinct quadrupeds are so mixed with 
 those of existing testacea as to show that they at least 
 were co-existent. 
 
 GE'OMANCY. (Gr. yn, earth, and uilvrtta, prophecy.) 
 Divination by points or circles made on the earth. It was 
 termed by old writers " a part of natural magic, the daugh- 
 ter and abbreviation of astrology." Geomancy was among 
 the acts of divination most sedulously cultivated by profes- 
 sors of that science in the 15th and 16th centuries. Nativ- 
 ities were cast, fortunes predicted, and oracular answers 
 obtained to questions, by the inspection of certain combina- 
 tions of lines and figures representing the conjunctions of 
 the planets. &c. See Astrology. 
 
 GEOMETRICAL. Something relating to geometry. 
 Thus geometrical construction is the representation of a 
 proposition, or of an algebraic equation, by means of a dia- 
 gram formed by geometrical lines; as straight lines, circles, 
 &c. 
 
 Geometrical curves, or geometrical lines, are those in 
 which the relation between the abscissa and ordinates is 
 expressed by a finite algebraic equation. See Curve. 
 
 Geometrical locus is the line traced by a point which va- 
 ries its position according to some determinate law. For 
 example, if from any number of given points straight lines 
 are to be drawn to meet in another point, under this condi- 
 tion that the sum of their squares shall be equal to a given 
 space, then innumerable points may be found by which the 
 condition will be satisfied, and the locus of all those points 
 is the circumference of a given circle. (See Simson's Loci 
 Plani, or Leslie's Geometrical Jlnalysis. 
 
 Geometrical progression is a progression in which all the 
 successive terms have the same ratio. Thus the progres- 
 sions 
 
 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, &c. 
 a, <j2, a\ a*, a\ a§, dl, &c. 
 are geometrical ; the common ratio of the first being 2, and 
 of the second a. The general property of a geometrical 
 progression is, that the product of any two terms, or the 
 square of any one single term, is equal to the product of 
 every other two terms taken at an equal distance before 
 and after the former. .See Progression. 
 
 Geometrical Proportion. — Four quantities are said to be 
 in geometrical proportion, or simply proportionals, when 
 the ratio of the first to the second is equal to the ratio of 
 the third to the fourth. Thus, if a : b is equal to c : d. 
 
 GEOMETRY. 
 
 then the four quantities, a, b, c, d, are in geometrical pro- 
 portion. A general property of this proportion is, that the 
 product of the two extreme terms is equal to the product 
 of the two means. See Proportion. 
 
 GEO'METRY. (Gr. yrj, earth, and uerpov, measure.) 
 The science which treats of the properties of figured space. 
 The etymology of the term suggests the object to which 
 geometry was first applied, viz., the measurement of 
 land. It is pretended that the science was invented in 
 Egypt, where the annual overflowing of the waters of the 
 Nile obliterated the land marks, and rendered it necessary 
 to have recourse to measurement in order to ascertain the 
 proper allotment of each individual; but whatever may 
 have been the origin of the term, the occasions on which it 
 is necessary to compare things with one another in respect 
 of their forms and magnitudes are so numerous in every 
 stage of society, that a geometry more or less perfect must 
 have existed since the first dawn of civilization. 
 
 Objects of Geometry. — In geometry bodies are considered 
 only in reference to the properties of extension or magni- 
 tude, figure, and divisibility. Every body occupies in inde- 
 finite space a certain determinate place, or finite portion of 
 space, which is called its volume. The limits or boundaries 
 which distinguish the place of the body, and separate it 
 from the surrounding space, are called surfaces ; a surface 
 is, therefore, common to the two portions of space which it 
 separates. As the limitation of space gives rise to the idea 
 of surface, so the limitation of surface produces lines, a line 
 being the boundary of a surface, or the place in which two 
 surfaces intersect each other, and therefore common to 
 both. In like manner, the limitation of a line, or the inter- 
 section of two lines, produces a point. But a point marks 
 only position, and has no properties. A line has length ; u 
 surface length and breadth ; and a volume length, breadth, 
 and thickness. Hence the properties of lines, the proper- 
 ties of surfaces, and the properties of volumes or solids, 
 comprehend the objects of geometry. 
 
 Although the notion of a point is acquired from the con- 
 sideration of lines, that of a line from the consideration of 
 surfaces, and that of a surface from the consideration of 
 bodies or material objects, it does not follow from this that 
 points, lines, and surfaces are themselves really material. 
 Geometry regards all bodies in a state of abstraction very 
 different from that in which they actually exist; and the 
 truths which it discovers and demonstrates are pure ab- 
 stractions — hypothetical truths, which are not, however, 
 on that account, the less useful. For example, it is impos- 
 sible by any mechanical means to draw a line absolutely 
 straight, or to describe, a perfect circle; but the nearer the line 
 approaches to perfect straightness, and the more accurately 
 the circle is described, the nearer will their properties ap- 
 proach to those of the ideal straight lines and circles which 
 are the objects of geometrical consideration. The theorems 
 of geometry are, therefore, not strictly true in their applica- 
 tion to material bodies, but they approximate sufficiently to 
 truth for all practical purposes. They enable us to ascer- 
 tain, with all the precision of which our senses are capable, 
 the distances of inaccessible objects, the dimensions of a 
 given surface, the contents of a given solid ; to compute the 
 distances and motions of the planets ; to predict the celes- 
 tial phenomena; and to navigate a ship from any given 
 point of the globe to any other. 
 
 Divisions of Geometry. — Geometry is divided into ele- 
 mentary and transcendental. Elementary geometry treats 
 only of the straight line and circle ; of figures bounded by 
 straight lines and circles ; and of solids bounded by these fig- 
 ures. The circle is only the curve line introduced into the 
 elements of geometry ; the simplicity of its description, the 
 ease with which many of its most useful properties are de- 
 duced, and the necessity of making use of it in the simplest 
 constructions — such as raising a perpendicular, measuring 
 an angle, and even making one straight line equal to an- 
 other — being reasons for this preference. The construction 
 of algebraic equations of the second degree, and in general 
 all problems that can be solved by means of straight lines 
 and circles, are also referred to elementary geometry. 
 Transcendental geometry, properly speaking, is that which 
 has for its object all curves different from the circle ; as the 
 conic sections, and curves of the third and higher orders. 
 It comprehends, also, the construction of equations of the 
 third and fourth, as well as of the higher degrees. But 
 some writers understand by transcendental geometry the 
 applications of the differential and integral calculus to the 
 investigation of the properties of curve lines and surfaces. 
 Geometry is also divided into ancient and modern; ancient 
 geometry being that form of demonstration and investiga- 
 tion which was employed by the Greeks, and of which 
 Euclid's Elements form a well-known example; modern 
 geometry that in which algebra, or the differential or inte- 
 gral calculus, is made use of. We also speak of pure ge- 
 ometry, practical geometry, and applied geometry. Descrip- 
 tive rreometrv has already been considered under that term. 
 It 513
 
 GEOMETRY. 
 
 Methods of Demonstration. — Of the different methods of 
 demonstration adopted in elementary geometry, one of the 
 simplest, and at the same time one of the most fertile, is the 
 method of superposition. This consists in showing that two 
 figures being applied to each other, or being laid the one up- 
 on the other, entirely coincide, or till the same space ; from 
 which coincidence we infer the equality of all their parts, each 
 to each. Tims Euclid, in order to prove that two triangles 
 which have two sides of the one equal to two sides of the 
 other each to each, and also the angles contained by those 
 sides equal, are equal in all respects, supposes the one trian- 
 gle to be placed upon the other, and shows that from the hy- 
 pothesis an entire coincidence must necessarily take place; 
 whence it follows that the remaining angles of the one trian- 
 gle are equal to those of the other each to each, and the re- 
 maining side of the one to the remaining side of the other. 
 On this principle is founded the whole doctrine of the com- 
 parison of triangles, and, consequently, of all rectilineal fig- 
 ures ; for it is demonstrable that any two equal rectilineal 
 figures may, by resolving them into parts, be applied by su- 
 perposition one upon the other, so as entirely to coincide. 
 
 Another frequently convenient method of demonstration is 
 that which is called by logicians the rcductio ad absurdum. 
 It consists in assuming the proposition which is announced to 
 be not true, and in reasoning from this assumption till con- 
 sequences are deduced which are either contradictory of 
 the hypothesis, or of some proposition previously demon- 
 strated. Many examples of this method occur in the Ele- 
 ments of Euclid ; but it is to be remarked, that though the 
 proof which it gives is perfectly rigorous and satisfactory, 
 the procedure is in some respects indirect, and therefore 
 should not be adopted unless when it affords a shorter and 
 simpler demonstration than can be obtained by a direct mode 
 of reasoning. It is especially applicable to those proposi- 
 tions which are the reciprocals of others already demon- 
 strated, and to incommensurable quantities. 
 
 In their more difficult researches, and particularly in those 
 relative to curve lines and surfaces, the ancient geometers 
 had recourse to the method of exhaustions. Admitting no 
 demonstrations but such as are perfectly rigorous, they did 
 not consider it consistent with the strictness of geometrical 
 reasoning to regard curve lines as polygons of a very great 
 number of sides ; but when they proposed lo investigate the 
 properties of any curve, they regarded it as the fixed "term to 
 which the inscribed and circumscribed polygons continually 
 approach in increasing the number of their* sides. The con- 
 tinual approximation of these polygons to the curve afforded 
 an idea of the properties of the latter, the more accurate as 
 the number of sides was greater. But it still remained to 
 prove, by some recognised principle of demonstration, the 
 truth of the properties that had thus in a manner been di- 
 vined ; and this was done by showing that every supposition 
 contrary to them necessarily led to a contradiction. In this 
 manner they demonstrated that the areas of different circles 
 are to each other as the squares of their respective diame- 
 ters; the volumes of spheres as the cubes of their diame- 
 ters ; that pyramids of the same height are as their bases, 
 &c. (Carnot, Reflexions sur la Mctaphysique du Calcul In- 
 finite' simal.) 
 
 Analysis and Synthesis. — The Greek geometers employed 
 two distinct modes of investigation, analysis and synthesis ; 
 the one, as the names imply, being the inverse of the other. 
 In the Mathematical Collections of Pappus, book vii., analy- 
 sis and synthesis are thus described : Analysis is the method 
 which, setting out from the thing demanded, arrives by 
 means of certain established consequences to something 
 known before, or placed among the number of principles ac- 
 knowledged as true. It passes from a proposition through 
 all its antecedents ; and is therefore called analysis, or reso- 
 lution, or an inverted solution. In synthesis, on the con- 
 trary, we begin from the proposition with which the analysis 
 concluded, ordering properly the above antecedents, which 
 now present themselves in the form of consequents, and pass 
 from one to another till we arrive at the conclusion sought, 
 or that from which we started in the case of analysis. These 
 two methods have each their peculiar use. Tlie first is the 
 method of invention, and is employed in order to discover a 
 construction which will satisfy the proposed conditions ; the 
 second is the method of demonstration, and employed to 
 prove the sufficiency of the construction to which tlie analy- 
 sis has led. In general, both methods are employed simul- 
 taneously when the object is to discover new relations, or 
 the solution of new problems; but when the object of the 
 geometer is to prove to others the propositions which he has 
 discovered, the synthetical method is usually preferred. 
 
 Application of Algebra to Geometry. — A different kind of 
 analysis from that of which we have now been speaking 
 consists in the application of algebra to the solution of geo- 
 metrical problems. This has opened up a new and rich 
 field, entirely unknown to the ancients, and been the direct 
 cause of the great extension of the modern mathematics. 
 In general, when a problem is of a certain degree of diffi- 
 514 
 
 GEORGICS. 
 
 culty, the use of the algebraic notation, which substitutes 
 the simple arithmetical operations of multiplication and 
 division for the complex geometrical methods of the com- 
 position and resolution of ratios, is attended with great ad- 
 vantage. By the aid of algebra, the properties of curve 
 lines, their tangents, points of inflexion, asymptotes, branch- 
 es, rectification and quadrature — subjects which the an- 
 cient geometry could reach only in some limited cases, and 
 with great difficulty— are demonstrated with the utmost fa- 
 cility. Some mathematicians of eminent rank, delighted 
 with the beautiful specimens of investigation afforded by 
 the ancient geometry, have regretted the extensive applica- 
 tion of algebra which characterizes the scientific works of 
 the present day ; but in a science which presents so many 
 real difficulties, and in which so many discoveries remain 
 to be made, the path which leads most directly to the ob- 
 ject aimed at, and which, moreover, is the easiest to follow, 
 is that which ought to be preferred Without the aid of 
 algebra and the new calculus, geometry could not have 
 been applied to dynamics, and only in a few limited cases 
 to any other branch of natural philosophy. 
 
 History of Geometry. — It has already been mentioned 
 that geometry is supposed to have had its origin in Egypt. 
 From that country it is said to have been transported into 
 Greece by Thales. The celebrated proposition of the square 
 of the hypotenuse was the discovery of Fythagoras. An- 
 axagorns of Clazomene composed a treatise on the quad- 
 rature of the circle ; and Plato had certainly made consid- 
 erable advances in the science, as is proved by the simple 
 and elegant solution which he gave of the duplication of 
 the cube. About fifty years after the time of Plato, Euclid 
 collected the propositions which had been discovered by 
 his predecessors, and formed of them his famous Elements; 
 a work which continues to the present da}' to be regarded 
 as one of the best (if not the very best) introductions to the 
 mathematical sciences. It consists of fifteen Books, of 
 which thirteen are known to have been written by Eu- 
 clid ; but the 14th and 15th are supposed to have been add- 
 ed by Hypsicles of Alexandria. Apollonius of Perga, about 
 250 years B.C., composed a treatise on the conic sections, in 
 eight books; and he is said to have been the first who ap- 
 plied to those curves the appellations by which they have 
 ever since been distinguished, namely, the parabola, the el- 
 lipse, and the hyperbola. (See Conic Sections.) About 
 the same time flourished Archimedes, the most illustrious 
 of the ancient philosophers, who distinguished himself in 
 geometry by the discovery of the beautiful relations be- 
 tween the sphere and cylinder, by his work on conoids and 
 spheroids, by his discovery of the exact quadrature of the 
 parabola, and his very ingenious approximation to that of 
 the circle. In the list of names which have come down to 
 our times in connexion with geometry, we may mention 
 Eudoxus, Archytas, Eratosthenes, Aristarchus, Dinostratus, 
 and Nicomedes ; but for an account of the discoveries or 
 inventions by which they are individually celebrated, we 
 must refer to Montucia's Histoire des Mathimatiques. The 
 school of Alexandria produced Pappus and Diophantus; 
 but the Greek geometry, though it was afterwards enriched 
 by many new theorems, may be said to have reached its 
 limits in the hands of Archimedes and Apollonius; and a 
 long interval of 17 centuries elapsed before this limit was 
 passed. In 1637, Descartes published his Geometry; a 
 work which will ever be remarkable, as containing the first 
 systematic application of algebra to the solution of geomet- 
 rical propositions. Soon after this followed the discovery 
 of the infinitesimal calculus ; and from that time to the 
 present geometry has shared in the general progress of all 
 the mathematical sciences. 
 
 Works on the Ancient Geometry : — Euclid, Elements of 
 Geometry, and Book of Data ; Apollonius, Conies ; Ar- 
 chimedes, Opera; Pappus, Mathematics, Col/cctiones ; Vieta, 
 Opera Mathematical Huygens, Opera; E. Simson, Opera 
 Rcliqua, and Loci Plant; Stewart, Propositiones Geometri- 
 es; T. Simpson, Elements of Geometry; Legendre, Ele- 
 ments of Geometry ; Leslie, Elements of Geometry, &c. 
 For an account of the numerous Editions of Euclid's Ele- 
 ments (which have been translated into every European 
 language), see Murhard, Bibliothcca Mathematica ; but to 
 the list contained in that work should be added the more 
 recent edition of Peyrard, in Greek, Latin, and French 
 (Paris, 1814). An edition of the first six books, in Greek 
 and Latin, by Camerer and Hauber (Berlin, 1824), also de- 
 serves to be noticed, on account of the valuable notes with 
 which it is accompanied. 
 
 GEOPO'NICA. V.r. yn and w,>vn, labour.) The name 
 of a Greek compilation of precepts on rural economy, ex- 
 tracted from ancient writers. The name of the compiler is 
 unknown ; but the authorities which he quotes are numer- 
 ous, and deservedly celebrated. (Sec Niclas's edition, 4 
 vols. 8vo. Leipsic, 1781.) 
 
 GEO'RGICS. (Gr. ra yrxopyiKd, things pertaining to 
 husbandry.) The title of a poem of Virgil's, in four books,
 
 GEORGIUM SIDUS. 
 
 on agriculture, and the care of cattle, bees, &c. It is con- 
 sidered the most perfect of his works. 
 GEORGIUM SIDUS. See Uranus. 
 GERA'NIA CE/E. (Geranium, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of herbaceous or shrubby Exogens, growing 
 in most parts of the world, nearly related to Oialidacem, 
 Balsaminacae, and Tropaolacece, with which they are by 
 some botanists associated. They are distinguished by the 
 peculiar dehiscence of their fruit, the tumid joints of their 
 stem, and their stipulate leaves. Their sensible properties 
 consist in an astringent principle, and an aromatic or resin- 
 ous flavour. Many of them, especially those of the genus 
 Pelargonium, are beautiful objects, and much cultivated in 
 gardens. 
 
 GERMAN SCHOOL. In Painting. In this school we 
 find an attention to individual nature, as usually seen, with- 
 out attempt at selection, or notion of ideal beauty. The 
 German painters seem to have set a particular value on 
 high finishing, rather than on a good arrangement and dis- 
 position of the subject. Their colouring is far better than 
 their drawing, but their draperies are generally in bad taste. 
 Though among the painters of this school some are free 
 from the application of these observations, they are not suf- 
 ficient in number to change the general judgment that must 
 be passed upon it. Wohlgemuth, Holbein, and Albert Du- 
 rer are the heads of it. These observations do not apply to 
 a school which seems now rising in Germany, and which, 
 with such leaders as Retsch and others, seems likely to put 
 the school of painting there on a level with its highly splen- 
 did intellectual powers in all other branches of the arts and 
 sciences. 
 
 GE'RMEN. (Lat. a bud.) In Botany, the organ com- 
 monly called the ovarium. 
 
 GERMINA'TION. (Lat. Germen.) The process by 
 which a plant is produced from a seed. The phenomena 
 of germination are best observed in dicotyledonous seeds ; 
 such, for instance, as the bean, pea, lupin, &c. These 
 seeds consist of two lobes or cotyledons, enveloped in a 
 eommon membrane ; when this is removed a small project- 
 ing body is seen, which is that part of the germ which af- 
 terwards becomes the root, and is termed the radicle : the 
 other portion of the germ is seen on carefully separating the 
 cotyledons, and is termed the plumula ; it afterwards forms 
 the stem and leaves. When the ripe seed is removed from 
 the parent plant it gradually dries, and may be kept often 
 for an indefinite period without undergoing any change ; but 
 if placed under circumstances favourable to its germination, 
 it soon begins to grow : these requisite circumstances are a 
 due temperature, moisture, and the presence of air. The 
 most favourable temperature is between 60° and 80°; at 
 the freezing point none of the more perfect seeds vegetate ; 
 and at temperatures above 100°, the young germ is usually 
 injured. No seed will grow without moisture : water is at 
 first absorbed by the pores of the external covering, and de- 
 composed ; the seed gradually swells, its membranes burst, 
 and the germ expands. The root is at first most rapidly de- 
 veloped, the materials for its growth being derived from the 
 cotyledons; and when it shoots out its fibres or rootlets, 
 these absorb nourishment from the soil, and the plumula is 
 developed, rising upwards in a contrary direction to the 
 root, and expanding into stem and leaves. For this growth 
 the presence of air is requisite ; if it be carefully excluded, 
 though there be heat and moisture, yet the seed will not 
 vegetate. Hence it is that seeds buried very deep in the 
 earth, or in a stiff clay, remain inert ; but, on admission of 
 air by turning up the soil, begin to shoot forth. From ex- 
 periments which have been made upon the germination of 
 seeds in confined atmospheres, it appears that the oxygen 
 set free by the decomposition of water combines with a por- 
 tion of the carbon of the seed, and carries it off in the form 
 of carbonic acid, and that the consequence of this is the 
 conversion of part of the albumen and starch of the cotyle- 
 dons into gum and sugar ; so that most seeds, as we see in 
 the conversion of barley into malt, become sweet during 
 germination. Light is injurious to the growth of a seed. It 
 is, therefore, obvious that the different requisites for germi- 
 nation are attained by placing a seed under the surface of 
 the soil warmed by the sun's rays, when it is moistened by 
 its humidity and by occasional showers: excluded from 
 light, but within reach of the access of air. 
 
 When the young plant is perfected, the cotyledons, if not 
 converted into leaves, rot away, and the process of nutrition 
 is carried on by the root and leaves : the principal nourish- 
 ment is taken up from the soil by the root, and chiefly by 
 its small and extreme fibres ; so that when these are injured 
 or torn, as by careless transplantation, the plant or tree gen- 
 erally dies. The matters absorbed, consisting of water hold- 
 ing small portions of saline substances, and of organic matter 
 in solution, become the sap of the plant; and this is propel- 
 led upwards in the vessels of the stem, or of the outer layer 
 of wood, into the leaves; here it is exposed to the agency of 
 air, or of light : it transpires moisture, and occasionally car- 
 
 GHOST, HOLY, ORDER OF. 
 
 bonic acid. But the leaves also at times absorb moisture, 
 and during the influence of light they decompose the car- 
 bonic acid, and, retaining the carbon, evolve oxygen ; the sap 
 thus becomes modified in its composition, and" the characte- 
 ristic proximate principles of the vegetable are formed. These 
 return in appropriate vessels from the leaves, chiefly to the 
 inner bark, where we accordingly find the accumulation of 
 the peculiar products of the plant : they also enable it annu- 
 ally to form a new layer of wood. Hence it is that the trans- 
 verse section of the wood exhibits as many distinct zones as 
 the tree is years old. We are ignorant of the causes of this 
 circulation of the sap ; but that it does follow the cause which 
 has been stated is proved by the operation which gardners 
 call ringing, and which they sometimes resort to, to make a 
 barren branch bear flowers and fruit : it consists in cutting 
 out and removing a circular ring of bark, so as to prevent the 
 return of the sap by the descending vessels, which at first 
 ooze copiously, but afterwards the wound heals, and the 
 juices are accumulated in all parts above the extirpated ring, 
 producing tumefaction in the limb, and often inducing a crop 
 of flowers and fruit, or causing those to appear earlier than 
 on the uncut branches. If a tree be wounded so as to cut 
 into the central portions of the wood, or the outer layer of 
 new wood, the flow of ascending sap is then seen to take 
 place upon the lower section, where the vessels are that 
 carry it up to the leaves ; and the flow of descending is prin- 
 cipally confined to the upper section of the inner bark, from 
 which, after a time, new bark is produced, and the parts 
 again united. 
 
 GE'ROCO'MIA. (Gr. yzpwv, an aged person, and Kouetv, 
 to be concerned about.) That part of medicine which relates 
 to the diet and treatment of old age. 
 
 GERU'SIA. (Gr. ytpovaia, an assembly of elders.) In 
 Ancient History, the senate of Sparta. The number of this 
 council was thirty, including the two kings; and the qualifi- 
 cations of its members were, pure Spartan blood, and an age 
 not below sixty years. The election was performed in a 
 primitive manner by acclamation, the candidates being 
 brought forth one by one before the people. He who was 
 greeted with the loudest applause was held to receive the 
 highest honour next the throne. The functions of the geru- 
 sia were partly deliberative, partly judicial, and partly exec- 
 utive. It prepared measures which were to be laid before 
 the popular assembly ; it exercised a criminal jurisdiction, 
 with power of capital punishment; and also wielded a kind 
 of censorial authority for the correction of abuses. (See 
 Memoircs de I' Acad, des Inscrip. vol. xv. ; Midler's Dori- 
 ans.) 
 
 GF/SNERA'CEiE. (Gesnera, one of the genera.) A nat- 
 ural order of herbaceous Exogens, inhabiting the tropics, al- 
 lied to Bignoniacea ; from which it differs in the partly in- 
 ferior one-celled ovary, apterous seeds, and habit ; from Cyr- 
 tandraccm in the one-celled ovary, simple: placenta, and al- 
 buminous seeds ; from Scrophulariacem by the snme char- 
 acters, with the exception of the seeds. The fruit, when 
 succulent, is sometimes eatable, mucilaginous, and sweetish. 
 Many beautiful species of Gloxinia, Gesnera, and Sinnin- 
 gia are known in our gardens. 
 
 GEY SERS. (From an Icelandic word signifying raging 
 or roaring.) The celebrated spouting fountains of boiling 
 water in Iceland. The Geysers are situated about 30 miles 
 from the volcano Hecla, in plains full of hot springs and 
 steaming fissures. Their jets are intermittent, and the height 
 to which they rise appears to vary much at different times. 
 Olafsen and Povelsen estimate that of the Great Geyser, 
 when they saw it, at 550 feet. Few English travellers have 
 seen it spout higher than 90 or 100 ; but Mr. Henderson saw 
 it reach 150 feet in 1815, and one of the smaller Geysers, 
 when a stone was thrown into it, 200. The latest account of 
 the Geysers is in the work of the Hon. A. Dillon (A Visit to 
 Iceland, 1840). 
 
 GHAUTS. A term applied originally to the narrow and 
 difficult passes in the mountains of Central Hindostan, but 
 which has been gradually extended to the mountains them- 
 selves. They consist of two great chains extending along 
 the east and west coasts of the Deccan, parallel to each 
 other, or rather diverging, and leaving between them and the 
 sea only a plain of 40 or 50 miles in breadth. The precise 
 altitude of these mountains has not been ascertained, but 
 their general elevation is from 3000 to 4000 feet ; and while 
 the extent of the Eastern Ghauts has been limited to a line of 
 300 miles, the chain of Western Ghauts is said to extend 
 without interruption nearly 1000 miles. (See Murray's Encyc. 
 of Geography.) 
 
 GHEBRES. See Guebres. 
 
 GHI'BELLINES. In Italian History, the name of a po- 
 litical party, which maintained the supremacy of the German 
 emperors over the Italian states, and their claims to investi- 
 ture, &c, disputed by the Popes. See Guelfs. 
 
 GHOST. See DiEMON, D/emonology, Apparition. 
 
 GHOST, HOLY, ORDER OF. The principal military 
 order of France under the old regime ; instituted in 1574 by 
 
 515
 
 GIANT. 
 
 Henry HI., for nobles only ; abolished at the Revolution ; 
 reconstituted by the Bourbons. 
 
 GIANT. (Gr. yiyag ; said to be the same with yyyivtis, 
 earth-born.) The giants of Grecian antiquity are not the 
 same with the Titans, although frequently confounded with 
 them in poetry : the latter were produced by Earth to com- 
 batSatum; the former afterwards, against Jupiter. {Servius 
 ad JEn. ii., 40.) They were destroyed by the gods of" Olym- 
 pus, in the famous giganto-machia, or giant-fight, of which 
 the scene was laid in the Campi Phlegrai of Campania. The 
 appellation "giant" in the Old Testament, given to various 
 races of men, is thought rather to refer to violence, power, 
 &c, than to actual stature ; but individual giants, such as 
 Og and Goliath, are undoubtedly recorded. In Northern 
 Mythology, the giants were the aboriginal inhabitants of the 
 earth (Olaus Magnus, book v.), called Josnar. There is a 
 learned as well as amusing article on this subject in the Enc. 
 Metr. (See for remarks on natural deviations from ordinary 
 stature in individuals and races of men, Pritchard's History 
 of Mankind, vol. ii. ; Lawrence, Lectures on Mail.) 
 
 GIAOUR. (Turk, a dog.) An epithet conferred on all, 
 but more especially on Christian unbelievers, as those who 
 do not profess an adherence to Mohammedanism are styled 
 by the Turks. 
 
 GI'BBET, or JIB. The projecting beam of a crane on 
 which the pulley is fixed. 
 
 GIBBO'SE. (Lat. gibba, a hunch.) Humped. When a 
 surface presents one or more large elevations. 
 
 GI'BBOUS. (Lat. gibbus, convex, protuberant.) This 
 term is applied in Astronomy to the appearance of the moon 
 when more than half full or enlightened. In the telescope, 
 the planet Venus exhibits a similar appearance. 
 
 GIE'SECKITE. A mineral discovered in Iceland by 
 Giesecks. It is a hydrated silicate of alumina and potash ; 
 it occurs in brownish hexagonal prisms. 
 
 GIFT, in Law, is, in its general sense, a conveyance which 
 passes either lands or goods. But when restricted to im- 
 moveable property, it signifies in its proper sense the creation 
 of an estate tail. (See Fee-Tail.) It is so termed from the 
 operative words of the conveyance, which are always " I 
 give," or " have given." A gift of personal property differs 
 from a grant in being wholly gratuitous and without consid- 
 eration. 
 
 GIGA, or JIG. (Ital.) In Music, an air for dancing in 
 triple time, usually 6-8 or 12-8. 
 
 GIGA'NTOMA'CHIA. (Gr. yiyaq, a giant, and fia%V, 
 a battle.) In Painting, representations of combats with or 
 between giants. The term is more particularly applied to 
 the conflicts waged between Jupiter and the giants. See 
 Giant. 
 
 GIG. A well-known kind of light carriage drawn by one 
 horse. Gigs, or gig machines, are rotatory cylinders cov- 
 ered with wire-teeth, for teazling woollen cloth. 
 
 GI'LDING. The application of a superficial coat of gold 
 on wood, metal, and other materials. The beauty and dura- 
 bility of gold render it the most valuable of all ornamental 
 substances ; but, on account of its weight and high price, its 
 use in these respects would be exceedingly limited, were it 
 not the most extensible and divisible form of matter, so that 
 it may be made to cover a larger surface than an equal quan- 
 tity of any other body. Metals are usually covered with 
 gold by the process of water gilding. It consists in perfectly 
 cleaning their surface, and then, in the case of silver, for in- 
 stance, rubbing it over with a solution of gold in mercury, 
 called amalgam of gold : the vessel is then heated over a 
 clear charcoal fire, by which the mercury is driven off and 
 the gold left adhering to the silver surface, upon which it is 
 afterwards burnished. The surface of copper or brass is 
 usually prepared by cleaning and rubbing it over with a so- 
 lution of nitrate of mercury, which amalgamates the sur- 
 face, and enables the gold amalgam, when subsequently ap- 
 plied, to adhere ; heating and burnishing are then resorted 
 to as before. Brass and copper buttons are gilt in this way ; 
 and the requisite quantity of gold is so small that twelve 
 dozen buttons of one inch diameter may be completely gilt 
 upon both surfaces by five grains of gold. Other kinds of 
 gilding are performed by gold leaf, which, if intended for 
 out-door work, is laid on by the help of gold size, which is 
 drying oil mixed with calcined red ochre ; or, if for picture 
 and looking-glass frames, they are prepared by a size made 
 by boiling parchment clippings to a stiff jelly, and mixed 
 with fine Paris-plaster or yellow ochre. The leaves of 
 books are gilt upon the edges by brushing them over, while 
 in the binder's press, with a composition of four pails of 
 Arminian bole and one of powdered sugar candy mixed up 
 with white of egg ; this coating, when nearly dry, is smooth- 
 ed by the burnisher, then slightly moistened, and the gold 
 leaf applied and burnished. To impress gilt figures on 
 book covers, the leather is dusted over with finely-powdered 
 mastic : the iron tool by which the figure is made is then 
 moderately heated and pressed upon a piece of leaf-gold, 
 which slightly adheres to it; being then immediately ap- 
 510 
 
 GIRAFFE. 
 
 plied to the leather with a certain force, the tool makes an 
 impression, and, softening the mastic, transfers and fixes 
 the gold. In gilding glass and porcelain, powdered gold is 
 blended with gum-water and a little borax, and applied by 
 a camel-hair pencil ; the article is then put into an oven or 
 furnace ; the gum burns off, and the borax, by vitrifying, 
 cements the gold to the surface, upon which it may after- 
 wards be polished by the burnisher. Within the last few 
 years nearly all the gilt articles manufactured at Birming- 
 ham, such as buttons, neck-chains, ear-rings, and so forth, 
 have been gilt by a process patented by Mr. Elkington, in 
 which, after the articles have been properly cleansed by a 
 weak acid, they are immersed in a hot solution of nitro- 
 muriate of gold, to which a considerable excess of bicar- 
 bonate of potash has been added ; in the course of a few 
 seconds they thus receive a beautiful and permanent coat 
 of gold. 
 
 GI'LLIESIA'CE^E. (Gilliesia, one of the genera.) A 
 small natural order of Exogens, allied very nearly to Lilia- 
 cem, of which they may in fact be considered an anomalous 
 form. Their principal peculiarity consists in having irregu- 
 lar flowers, surrounded externally by calyx-like bracts. 
 They inhabit Chili, are little known, and of no known use. 
 
 GILLS. Parts of the body are so called in which the 
 blood-vessels are in greater number than is necessary for 
 mere preservation or growth, and are minutely subdivided 
 for the purpose of submitting the blood to the influence of 
 air contained in water. 
 
 GI'MB ALS, or GIMBOLS. (Lat. gemellus, a pair.) A 
 piece of mechanism consisting of two brass hoops or rings 
 which move within one another, each perpendicularly to 
 its plane, about two axes placed at right angles to each 
 other. A body suspended in this manner, having a free 
 motion in two directions at right angles, will assume the 
 vertical position : hence the apparatus is employed for sus- 
 pending portable or mountain barometers, sea-compysses,&.c. 
 
 GI'MLETING THE ANCHOR. Turning it by the stock 
 round its shank as an axis, like a gimlet. 
 
 GIMP. Silk twist, interlaced with brass or other wire. 
 
 GIN. (Fr. genievre, juniper.) Ardent spirit flavoured 
 by the essential oil of juniper. It was originally made by 
 the Dutch, and is hence distinguished in this country by 
 the name of Hollands. The liquor bearing the above name 
 in this country is of British manufacture, and is frequently 
 flavoured by oil of turpentine, and rendered biting upon the 
 palate by caustic potash. In Holland, the finest gin bears 
 the name of Schiedam, the principal place of its manufac- 
 ture, and where there are many distilleries. Owing to the 
 excessive duty, 22s. Gd. per gallon, gin is one of the principal 
 articles of clandestine importation. See Spirits. 
 
 Gin, in Mechanics, is a machine used for raising great 
 weights, driving piles, &c. It usually consists of three long 
 legs or spars, which support a pulley at the top, round 
 which a rope is passed for elevating the weight. 
 
 GI'NGER. The dried rhizoma of Zingiber officina'is, a 
 native of the East Indies, and abundantly cultivated in 
 America and the West India islands, whence Europe is 
 chiefly supplied. It is a good stimulant and carminative ; 
 and the fresh root preserved makes an agreeable, warm, 
 and not very unwholesome sweetmeat. The acrimony of 
 ginger appears to reside in a peculiar extractive matter 
 which is. soluble in alcohol ; hence a spirituous tincture of 
 ginger contains the virtues of the root. 
 
 GI'NSENG. A Chinese word applied to the root of the 
 Panax quinquefolium : it has a bitter-sweet flavour, and is 
 considered as a powerful restorative in China, where its 
 consumption is very great. It is found chiefly in the north- 
 ern parts of Asia, and in America; but it is almost wholly 
 from the latter source that the Chinese draw their supplies. 
 In 1832, there were sent from the United States to China 
 407, 007 lbs. of ginseng, valued at 99,303 dollars. See Com- 
 mercial Diet. 
 
 GIPSY. See Gypsy. 
 
 GIRA'FFE. (Arab, xariffa.) The tallest quadruped on 
 the face of the earth, and the largest and most singular of 
 the Ruminant order. Pliny informs us that it was called 
 Nabun by the ^Ethiopians of his time, and Camclopardalis 
 by the commonalty at Rome. "JVabun jEthiopes vocant, 
 collo similem equo, pedibus et cruribus bovi, camelo capite, 
 albis maculis rutilem colorem distinguentibus, unde appel- 
 lata cameloparda/is. Dictatoris Caisaris circensibus ludis 
 primum visa Roma;." (Hist.JVat., lib. viii.) The natural 
 philosophers of Rome had again, subsequent to the gorge- 
 ous spectacles of Caesar, the means of studying the living 
 giraffe. Not fewer than ten of these rare and beautiful an- 
 imals were publicly exliibited at one time by the third Gor- 
 dian, which afterwards were brutally slaughtered in the 
 arena of the amphitheatre, at the millenarian games, in the 
 reign of tho emperor Philip. Notwithstanding these oppor- 
 tunities, all the zoological information regarding the giraffe 
 which we derive from the naturalists of Rome is comprised 
 in the brief notice above quoted from the writings of Pliny ;
 
 GIRAFFE. 
 
 a notice which is too vague to have served to enable lis 
 again to recognise the strange compound of horse, ox, cam- 
 el, and pard exhibited to the wondering Romans, had it not 
 been more intelligibly recorded in medals, mosaic pave- 
 ments, and the ornaments of public buildings. The resem- 
 blance of the giraffe to the horse in regard to its neck is 
 restricted to the presence of a mane, composed of short stiff 
 black hairs, which resembles rather that of the gnu or ass. 
 In the length, slenderness and flexibility of the neck, the 
 giraffe surpasses all other quadrupeds; the comparison of 
 the legs and feet of the giraffe to those of the ox is still less 
 fortunate, because the two posterior or spurious.hoofs com- 
 mon to the ox with most other Ruminants are wanting in 
 the giraffe, as in the camel ; but the toes are not joined to a 
 common broad elastic sole, as in the camel ; they are com- 
 pletely separated, and provided each with a well-formed, 
 sharp-pointed hoof. The head of the giraffe resembles that 
 of the camel in the absence of a naked muzzle, and in the 
 shape and organization of the nostrils, which are oblique 
 and narrow apertures, defended by the hair which grows 
 from their margins, and surrounded by cutaneous muscular 
 fibres by which the animal can close them at will. This is 
 a beautiful provision for the defence of the air passages and 
 the irritable membrane lining the olfactory cavities, against 
 the fine particles of sand which the storms of the desert 
 raise in almost suffocating clouds. The large, dark, and 
 lustrous eyes of the giraffe, which beam with a peculiarly 
 mild but fearless expression, are so placed as to take in a 
 wider range of the horizon than is subject to the vision of 
 any other quadruped. While browsing on his favourite 
 acacia the giraffe, by means of his laterally-projecting or- 
 bits, can direct his sight so as to anticipate a threatened 
 attack in the rear from the stealthy lion, or any other foe of 
 the desert. To an open attack he sometimes makes a suc- 
 cessful defence by striking out his powerful and well-armed 
 feet : and the king of beasts is said to be frequently repelled 
 and disabled by the wounds which the giraffe has thus in- 
 flicted with his hoofs. The horns of the giraffe, small as 
 they are, and muffled by skin and hair, are by no means the 
 insignificant weapons that they have been supposed to be. 
 We have seen them wielded by the males against each 
 other with fearful and reckless force ; and we know that 
 they are the natural arms of the giraffe most dreaded by the 
 keeper of the present living giraffes in the Zoological har- 
 dens, because they are most commonly and suddenly pat in 
 use. The giraffe does not butt by depressing and suddenly 
 elevating the head, like the deer, ox. or sheep; but strikes 
 the callous obtuse extremity of the horns against the object 
 of his attack with a sidelong sweep of the neck. One blow 
 thus delivered at full swing against the head of an unlucky 
 attendant would be fatal : the female once drove her horns 
 in sport through an inch deal board. Notwithstanding 
 those natural arms of hoofs and horns, the giraffe does not 
 turn to do battle except at the last extremity; where escape 
 is possible, it seeks it in flight. This is extremely rapid, es- 
 pecially along rising ground ; but cannot be maintained for 
 a sufficient period of time to enable it to escape the Arab 
 mounted on his long-winded steed. The paces of the giraffe, 
 owing to the disproportion between his long legs and short 
 body, are very peculiar; when walking at a brisk rate, it 
 seems to move forward simultaneously the two legs of the 
 same side, as noticed of old by the learned bishop of Sicca, 
 in his account of the presents brought to Hydaspes by the 
 ambassadors of the Axeomita? (Abyssinians). " It differed," 
 says Heliodorus, "in gait from every other land or water an- 
 imal, and waddled in a remarkable manner: each leg did 
 not move alternately, but those on the right side moved to- 
 gether independently of the other, and those on the left in 
 the same manner, so that each side was alternately eleva- 
 ted." Both legs of the same side are undoubtedly oft' the 
 ground at the same time through the grenter part of the 
 step; but upon a close inspection the hind-leg is always 
 seen to be first lifted from the ground, and after a very brief 
 interval the fore-leg of the same side is moved. In the 
 sanded paddock appropriated to the giraffes in the Zoologi- 
 cal Gardens, they exhibit in the warm days of summer all 
 their various and singular paces. In the simple walk the 
 neck, which is then stretched out in a line with the back, 
 gives them a stiff and awkward appearance; but this is en- 
 tirely lost when they commence their graceful undulating 
 canter. To judge by the movement of the legs, this pnee 
 appears to be less rapid than it actually proves, when the 
 extent of ground is observed over which it has carried them 
 in a given time. The motions of the legs are now very pe- 
 culiar and uncommon; the hind pair are lifted alternately 
 with the fore, and are carried, or rather swung forward, 
 outside of and beyond them at each bound. When excited 
 to a swifter pace they often kick out their hind-legs during 
 their course, and their nostrils are then actively and un 
 wontedly dilated. The general figure of the giraffe, its 
 raised anterior parts, elongated neck, light and tapering 
 head, and long, slender and flexible tongue, are all condi- 
 45 
 
 tions which beautifully harmonize with its geographical 
 position and the nature of its food. No Ruminant of ita 
 magnitude could exist in the arid tropical regions to which 
 the giraffe is peculiar, if it were not modified so as to be 
 able to obtain vegetable sustenance independently of ordi- 
 nary pasturage. But in those localities shrubs and trees 
 continue to put forth buds and leaves when all the herbage 
 on the surface of the earth is scorched up ; and it is for the 
 purpose of browsing on the green food supplied by lofty 
 branches that the Ruminant type is modified in so extraor- 
 dinary a manner as we witness it in the giraffe. A zoolo- 
 gist, ignorant of the giraffe, could never have anticipated or 
 conceived so beautiful and perfect a solution of this difficult 
 problem in the scheme of animal enjoyment. The tongue 
 is an organ exquisitely formed for prehension ; it is used to 
 hook down the branches which grow beyond the reach of 
 the muzzle of the giraffe, and the animal in captivity in- 
 stinctively puts it to use in a variety of ways. We have 
 seen the giraffe, in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, stretching 
 upwards its neck and head, and protruding its tongue to the 
 full extent to hook out single straws, which were platted 
 into the partition separating it from the contiguous inclosure. 
 In our own menagerie at Regent's Park many a fair lady 
 has been robbed of the artificial flowers which adorned her 
 bonnet by the nimble filching tongue of the rare object of 
 her admiration. The giraffe seems, indeed, to be guided 
 more by the eye than the nose in the selection of objects of 
 food ; and if we may judge of the apparent satisfaction with 
 which the mock leaves and flowers so obtained are mastica- 
 ted, the tongue would seem by no means to enjoy the sensi- 
 tive in the same degree as the motive powers. The differ- 
 ence in the size of the nerves of sensation and motion which 
 we observed in the dissection of the tongue accords with 
 I these habits of the living animal. From the same dissec- 
 tion it was proved that the movements of the tongue, both 
 those of extension, prehension, and retraction, were due to 
 muscular, and not, as Sir Everard Home supposed, to vascu- 
 lar action. Observations of the living animal, and dissec- 
 tion of the dead, have at length dispelled most of the errors 
 and doubts which obscured the exact knowledge of the na- 
 ture and zoological affinities of the giraffe. Up to a very 
 recent period we find it described as having callosities on 
 •he knees and over the sternum, like the camel, and as a 
 kind of lusus with three homs; of which one, being articu- 
 lated over a suture in the middle line of the forehead, seem- 
 ed to take away from the chimerical nature of the unicorn 
 by indicating a transition to that heraldic monster. The 
 truth is, however, that the giraffe possesses neither those 
 callosities nor this median articulated horn. It is essentially 
 a true Ruminant, having a stomach divided into four com- 
 partments, the paunch being simply papillose, without water 
 bags; and the reticulum with extremely shallow hexagonal 
 cells, as in the reindeer. It is also a horned Ruminant, the 
 horns being two in number, small, straight, and simple, like 
 those of the pricket deer. But in the giraffe the bony base 
 of each horn is articulated by a broad rough epiphysial basis 
 to the cranium ; it is covered by a vascular periosteum and 
 a hairy integument, which is not deciduous. These horns, 
 or rather antlers, terminate in a truncate extremity capped 
 with a callous plate, and fringed with long and strong black 
 hairs: these horns are present in both sexes, as in the rein- 
 deer; and are larger in the male. The median protube- 
 rance is a simple thickening of the contiguous parts of the 
 frontal and nasal bones. In the form of the mouth the gi- 
 raffe differs from every other Ruminant. The upper lip is 
 not bifid, as in the camel ; and though it is prolonged and 
 covered with hair, as in the elk, it differs in its elegant and 
 tapering form. 
 
 The giraffe has a long neck, and has not spurious hoofs, 
 and this far it resembles the camel ; but the cervical verte- 
 bra; in the camel tribe present a peculiarity of structure, 
 combined with their length, in which the giraffe does not 
 participate. The camels have many other peculiarities of 
 internal organization, to some of which we find resemblances 
 in certain ordinary Ruminants, but not in the giraffe. Its 
 place in the Ruminant series is between the deer and ante- 
 lope. These extensive families are respectively distin- 
 guished, not onlv by the nature of their horns, but by a 
 well-marked anatomical character: the gall-bladder is 
 present in the antelopes, and not in the deer. In three 
 giraffes lately dissected in this country a gall-bladder was 
 present in one, and not in the other two. In that in which 
 it was discovered it presented an abnormal structure, being 
 bifid at the fundus, and divided into two compartments. 
 We may infer, therefore, that in this part of their organiza- 
 tion, as in the structure of their horns, the giraffes are more 
 nearly akin to the deer tribe than to the antelopes. Yet it 
 must not be forgotten that while we search in vain among 
 the Cervidas for an equine mane and tufted tail, such as 
 ornament the giraffe, we find both these peculiarities com- 
 bined in the gnu among the antelopes. A giraffe more than 
 two thirds grown will eat daily, in confinement, eighteen 
 
 517
 
 GIRASOL. 
 
 pounds of clover-hay, and eighteen pounds of a mixed 
 vegetable diet, consisting of carrots, mangel-wurzel, barley, 
 split beans, and unions ; and will drink four gallons of 
 water. They copulate in March. The female has four 
 inguinal udders : she brings forth one young one at a birth ; 
 and the period of gestation is fifteen months. The new- 
 born giraffe measures six feet from the fore-hoofs to the top 
 of the head. In a few hours it is able to follow the dam. 
 It resembles the mature animal in the markings of the hide. 
 The first giraffe known to have been produced in captivity 
 was brought forth in June, 1839, at the gardens of the Zoo- 
 losical Society in London. 
 
 GIRASOL. A milk-white or bluish opal, which, when 
 turned to the sun or any bright light, reflects a reddish 
 colour; hence its name, from gyro, / turn, and sol, the sun. 
 
 GI'RDER. (Sax. gyrdan, to inclose.) In Architecture, 
 a principal beam in a floor for supporting the binding or 
 other joists, whereby their bearing or length is lessened. 
 Perhaps so called, because the ends of the joists are in- 
 closed bv it. 
 
 GI'RDLE. (Anglo-Sax. girdan, to encircle.) A belt or 
 band of leather or some other substance used in girding up 
 the loins. The girdle (Gr. ^oji/i?, Lat. cingulum) was in use 
 among the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans, for various pur- 
 poses more or less important. By the Hebrews it was 
 worn chiefly upon a journey, and sometimes as a mark of 
 humiliation and sorrow ; and by the Greeks and Romans it 
 was used as a military ornament. Hence in the Latin 
 phraseology cingulum deponere denoted " to quit the serv- 
 ice." To deprive a soldier of his girdle was the deepest 
 mark of ignominy with which he could be branded ; and 
 even among the civilians, who always wore a girdle over 
 the tunic to render their motions unembarrassed, the want 
 of this appendage was considered strongly presumptive of 
 idle and dissolute propensities. In conformity with this 
 opinion, or perhaps in allusion to the occasional substitu- 
 tion of the girdle for the purse among the Romans, Horace 
 has affirmed that " you may do what you please with him 
 who has lost his girdle," — 
 
 Ibit eo quo vis qui zonam perdidit 
 
 Zonam solvere rirgincam was a well-known phrase appro- 
 priated to the marriage ceremony. To Venus was attribu- 
 ted by the poets the possession of a particular kind of girdle, 
 called ccstus, which was said to have the power of inspiring 
 love. 
 
 It was formerly the custom in England for bankrupts or 
 other insolvent persons to put off and surrender their gir- 
 dles in open courts. 
 
 GIRO'NDE. THE. In French History, a celebrated po- 
 litical party during the Revolution ; its members were 
 termed Girondists or Girondins. The name was derived 
 from that of the department La Gironde (in which Bor- 
 deaux is situated), which sent to the legislative assembly 
 of 1791, anion" its representatives, three men of elpquence 
 and talent (Gaudet. Gensonne, Vergniaud), who were 
 among the chief leaders of the party. Its principles were 
 republican. During the continuance of that assembly the 
 Girondists formed a powerful, but not always consistent 
 party. Out of these Louis XVI. chose his republican min- 
 isters in the beginning of 1792. But after the massacres of 
 September in that year the party in general withdrew from 
 all connection with the Jacobins, and approximated towards 
 the Constitutionalists. In the Convention the Girondists at 
 first commanded a majority, but on the king's trial they 
 were much divided ; and, being pressed by the violence of 
 the sections of Paris, they were at length expelled the as- 
 sembly: thirty-four of them were outlawed, and finally 
 twenty-two of their leaders guillotined (7th and 31st Octo- 
 ber, 1793', while a few escaped, and others put an end to 
 themselves. Perhaps the most celebrated member of the 
 Gironde party was a lady. Madame Roland, the wife of the 
 minister of that name, who was executed when the party 
 fell, and whose writing— the Appcl au Peuple — bears all the 
 stamp of that high republican enthusiasm which character- 
 ized them. (The remaining part of her memoirs is of sus- 
 picious authenticity.) Various apologies and eulogies of 
 the party have appeared. Its members were not without 
 high qualities; but its counterpart will be found in all rev- 
 olutions, in that body of men of high theoretical views of 
 social reform and little practical knowledge, who are com- 
 monly lifted into power by supporters more energetic hut 
 less high-principled than themselves at one turn of affairs, 
 and sure to be thrust down in a short time by their own 
 former adherents. (See particularly the histories of Micnet 
 and Thiers, for general views on the subject; for details, 
 the Histoirc Parlemerttaire of Messrs. Buchez and Itoux, 
 who are perhaps too unfavourable to the patty. 
 
 GIRT LINE. A rope to lift the rigging up to the mast 
 head on first risging the ship. 
 
 GIVEN, in Geometry, signifies something that is known. 
 Thus, a straight line is given in position when we know the 
 518 
 
 GLACIERS. 
 
 situation of two points through which it must pass; and it 
 is given in magnitude when we know its length. A trian- 
 gle is given in species when we know the magnitude of 
 each of its three angles, and a circle is given when we 
 know its centre and radius. 
 
 GLA'BROUS. (Lat. glaber, smooth.) A term applied 
 in Mammalogy to those parts of the surface of a quadruped 
 which are naturally devoid of hair; and in Entcmology, 
 when a surface is smooth and devoid of hair or pubescence. 
 
 GLA'CIERS. (Fr.) The name given to the immense 
 masses of ice which accumulate on the peaks and slopes, 
 and in the upper valleys, of lofty mountains. The phe- 
 nomena of glaciers form one of the most interesting subjects 
 of scientific investigation, whether we regard their forma- 
 tion, structure, or appearance. In all parts of the globe 
 they have the same general characteristics : but though the 
 glaciers of other countries have often been described by 
 geographers and naturalists, it is chiefly in respect to those 
 of Switzerland that we possess detailed information. In 
 that country, as indeed in every other, those parts of the 
 mountains that rise above the line of congelation are cov- 
 ered with perpetual snow, which being partially thawed 
 during the summer months, is on the approach of cold con- 
 verted into ice, thus constituting what is called a glacier. 
 The ice so formed descends along the slopes of the moun- 
 tains into the valleys, by which their ridges are furrowed, 
 where it accumulates into vast beds or fields ; presenting, 
 where the descent is gradual, a very level surface, and with 
 few crevices, but where there is a rapid or rugged declivity, 
 being rent with numerous chasms*, and covered with ele- 
 vations rising from 100 to 200 feet. Though the snow line 
 on the Alps is found at an elevation of about 8000 feet 
 above the level of the sea, some of the glaciers descend so 
 far downward that their lower extremity is not more than 
 3500 feet above it. This is particularly the case in the val- 
 ley of Chamouni, where the singular spectacle is presented 
 of huge pyramids of ice of a thousand fantastic shapes in 
 juxtaposition with the most luxuriant pastures, or towering 
 in majestic grandeur in the midst of verdant forests. The 
 principle of the descent of the glaciers is twofold : viz. one 
 of a slow and gradual character, like the dunes of France, 
 by which a progressive movement of about twenty-five feet 
 annually is effected; the other of a rapid and impetuous 
 kind, in which a portion of the ice having been disrupted 
 from the main body glides down the mountain's side, accu- 
 mulating as it goes, and precipitating into the valleys be- 
 neath immense stones, fragments of rock, and other sub- 
 stances to which it had adhered. Philosophers and natu- 
 ralists have attributed this downward movement of a glacier 
 to various causes; but by far the most prevalent opinion 
 respecting it is that of Saussure, who maintained it was 
 nothing more than a slipping upon itself, occasioned by its 
 own weight. On the other hand, M. Aeassiz ascribes this 
 motion to the expansion of the ice, resulting from the con- 
 gelation of the water which has filtered into it and penetra- 
 ted its cavities; while Mr. R. Mallet is inclined to attribute 
 it to the hydrostatic pressure of the water which flows at 
 the bottom and makes rents in the mass. When the debris 
 which the glaciers accumulate in their descent has been 
 deposited in the valleys, it constitutes what in Savoy is 
 termed their moraine or border, an essential feature in the 
 Alpine glaciers. These borders present every variety of 
 aspect ; but their most usual appearance is that of unfath- 
 omable bogs or morasses wholly destitute of vegetation, and 
 in many instances fraught with infinite peril to the traveller. 
 They are generally arranged in long ridges or mounds from 
 30 to 40 feet high ; and being often two, three, or even four 
 in number, resemble so many lines of entrenchment. 
 
 The Alpine glaciers occupy a superficial extent of 1484 
 square miles. From Mont Blanc to the borders of the Tyrol 
 there are reckoned about 400, of which the greater number 
 varies from 10 to 15 miles long, and from 1 to 2J broad ; 
 their mean vertical thickness ranges from 100 to 600 feet. 
 Besides the grand and picturesque appearance they present 
 externally, their lower extremities are sometimes excavated 
 by the melting of the ice into the form of immense grottoes, 
 adorned with the finest stalactic crystallizations, whose 
 brilliant azure tints are reflected on the foaming streams and 
 torrents which generally issue from these caverns, forming 
 altogether so beautiful and imposing a picture as to defy the 
 most faithful pencil to portray it adequately. The glacier 
 ice does not resemble that found in ponds and rivers : not 
 being formed in layers, but consisting of small grains or 
 crystals of congealed snow, it has neither the compactness, 
 the solidity, nor the transparency of river ice ; and though 
 
 * " These chasms are frequently many feet wide and more than 100 ileep- 
 Their formation, which never lakes place in winter. Lut is frequent during 
 summer, is acenmpaoied with a loud noise resemhling ihuntlrr, and a shock 
 which makes 'he adjacent mountains tremble. They are suhjec! to change 
 every day, and almcs' every hour; and it is this circums'ance that render* 
 the ascent of the glaciers so dangerous to travellers.' - — Gtog. Diet., article 
 " Alps."
 
 GLACIS. 
 
 "every single crystal seems perfectly white, the whole mass 
 is of a blue colour, passing through every variety of shade, 
 from the most feeble sky-blue to that of the lnpis lazuli." 
 From the large accessions of snow and ice which the gla- 
 ciers receive, especially in winter, it might reasonably be 
 conjectured that they must be gradually increasing in size, 
 and would consequently, in the course of time, break through 
 their usual limits, and overwhelm the cultivated lands of 
 the surrounding country. This, however, is by no means 
 the case. It no doubt often happens that on some occasions 
 the glaciers are observed to descend lower than usual ; but, 
 when this takes place, the warm atmosphere of the lower 
 valleys into which they have advanced (whose temperature 
 rises in proportion to their depression) operates with such 
 powerful effect in reducing their bulk, that they are invari- 
 ably found to recede proportionably. Thus nature has 
 established a compensating process, by which an effectual 
 though simple check is administered to the encroachment 
 of the glaciers upon the cultivated lands of the Alpine val- 
 leys. There are various other phenomena connected with 
 the glaciers, for a full account of which the reader is re- 
 ferred to Saussure's Voyage dans lea Jllpcs. See also 
 Jti'Gxlloch's Geographical Diet., art. "Alps;" Penny Cyelo., 
 art. "Glacier;" and arts. Iceberg and Moraine in this 
 work. 
 
 GLA'CIS. In Fortification, a sloping bank of earth, ex- 
 tending from the parapet of the counterscarp to the level 
 country. 
 
 GLADIA'TORS. (Lat. gladiatores ; from gladius, a 
 sword.) Sword players, who were originally employed to 
 fight at the funerals of illustrious Romans, in order to ap- 
 pease their manes by the effusion of blood. They were 
 subsequently introduced into the public amphitheatres, and 
 became one of the most favourite spectacles of the Roman 
 people. The gladiators were either captives or condemned 
 criminals, or else people of the lowest rank, who served for 
 hire, the profession being considered one of the greatest in- 
 famy. In spite of this, however, under some of the emper- 
 ors, persons of the first families, who had enjoyed the highest 
 honours of the state, entered the arena, either at the com- 
 mand of the despot, or in order to gratify him ; and even 
 females of patrician blood, in some instances, followed their 
 example. Gladiators did not merely use the sword, as their 
 name st: icily implies, but were armed in various ways. (See 
 Mirmillo and Retiarian.) The gladiators were, in gen- 
 eral, desperate and ruffian characters ; anil considerable 
 bodies of them were sometimes kept in the pay of wealthy 
 and turbulent citizens, or hired as bullies. Perhaps the best 
 exposition of the opinion of the more philosophical Romans 
 on the subject is thus given by Cicero: "< 'indole giadiato- 
 rum spectaculum et inhumanum nonnullis videri solet: et 
 hand scio an non ita sit, ut nunc fit: cum veto sontes depug- 
 nnhanl, auribus fortasse multa, oculis quidim nulla poterat 
 esse fortior contra dolorem et mortem disciplina." — (Tusc, 
 QurBst. 2.) It is commonly, but inexactly said, that the 
 shows of gladiators were put a stop to by the Christian 
 emperors. They certainly had not ceased in A.I). 404, and 
 probably not before the conquest of Italy by the Goths. 
 (Beugnot, Destruction du Taganisme en Occident, book ix., 
 ch.1.) 
 
 GLA'DIUS. (Lat.) The name of the internal horny 
 plate of the calamaries, which was called by the Greeks 
 \t(poc, or the sword. 
 
 GLANCE COAL. See Anthracite. 
 
 GLAND. In Anatomy. This term is applied to those 
 orgnns of the body in which secretion is carried on, and 
 which appear to consist of a congeries of blood-vessels, 
 nerves, and absorbents: they are frequently distinguished 
 according to their secretion, into mucous, sebaceous, lym- 
 phatic, and lachrymal; or, according to their form and tex- 
 ture, into simple, compound, conglobate, and conglomerate. 
 
 GLANDS, LENTICULAR. In Botany, a term invented 
 by Guettard to denote brown oval spots found upon the 
 bark of many plants, especially willows, indicating the 
 points from which roots will appear if the branch be placed 
 in circumstances favourable to their production. They are, 
 in fact, nothing but protuberances formed by the pressure 
 upon the epidermis of subjacent roots attempting to pierce 
 through it. 
 
 GLASS. (Germ.) A transparent, impermeable, and 
 brittle substance. There are several varieties of glass, ap- 
 plicable to different purposes, and differing in their compo- 
 sition. Its essential ingredients are silica and potash or 
 soda, to which a variety of other substances are occasion- 
 ally ridded ; one of the most common and important of 
 which is oxide of lead, by which the fusibility and density 
 of the glass is increased, so that it is more easily worked, 
 and more brilliant, especially when ornamented by cutting: 
 of this latter description is the glass called flint glass, used 
 for decanters, drinking-glasses, chandeliers, &c. It con- 
 sists of about 52 parts of silica, 34 of oxide of lead, and 14 
 of potash. Chemically speaking, therefore, it is a double 
 
 GLASS. 
 
 silicate of potash and lead, containing 12 atoms of silica, 
 1 of potash, and 1 of oxide of lead. Crown glass, used for 
 windows, is a compound of silica and soda, with a portion 
 of lime. Green bottle glass is made of a mixture of sand 
 with impure wood ash, kelp, and a portion of brick clay. 
 These kinds of glass are manufactured by the operation 
 called blowing. Plate glass, invented by Abraham Thwart, 
 was first manufactured in Paris in 1C88. It may be com- 
 posed of 300 lbs. of fine sand, 000 of soda, 30 of lime, 32 oz. 
 of black oxide of manganese, 3 of cobalt azure, and 300 lbs. 
 of fragments of good glass. These materials, when in per- 
 fect fusion, are poured upon a hot copper plate ; the mass 
 is then rolled out, annealed, and afterwards polished by 
 grinding with sand, emery, and colcothar. The difficulty 
 of producing a perfect plate without specks, bubbles, or 
 waves, together with the risk of breakage, render large 
 plates very expensive : on account of their necessary thick- 
 ness they are also very heavy. 
 
 The manufacture of glass is one of the highest beauty ; 
 and, considering the worthlessness of the materials of which 
 it is made, and the various purposes of a useful, ornament- 
 al, and scientific nature which it subserves, may be regard- 
 ed as perhaps the most important in the history of inven- 
 tions. The period of its invention is involved in great ob- 
 scurity ; but if we believe Pliny, we are indebted for this 
 necessary of life, as we are for the gift of letters, to the 
 Phoenicians. The popular opinion upon this subject refers 
 the discovery to accident;* but, as Dr. lire has observed, 
 there were circumstances in the ancient arts likely to lead 
 to it, such as the fusing and vitrifying heats required for 
 the formation of pottery and for the extraction of metals 
 from their ores. But, be this as it may, the Egyptians were 
 certainly acquainted with the art of glass-making; for in 
 some nomes glass beads have been found, coloured with a 
 metallic oxide, and pieces of glass have been discovered in 
 the ruins of Thebes. (See M. Boudet, Desc. rie V Egypt, 
 vol. ix. ; Au'. Memoires.) Tn Strabo and Pliny's time, the 
 inhabitants of Sidon and Alex, were famed for the produc- 
 tion of beautiful glass, which they cut, engraved, gilt, and 
 stained of the richest colours, in imitation of precious stones, 
 and exported to all ports of the then civilized world. At 
 Rome, too, glass was manufactured into various articles of 
 convenience and ornament ; and so great was the luxury 
 of this article, or so exquisite its manufacture in those days, 
 that Nero is reported to have given G00O sesterces for two 
 glass cups. For a long time Venice is said to have excelled 
 all the countries of Europe in this manufacture ; of which, 
 indeed, it may be said to have enjoyed a monopoly till 
 about the middle of the 17th century, when the invention 
 of blown mirror glass by Colbert gave France a decided 
 superiority over its rival. At what period the manufacture 
 of glass was introduced into England is not precisely known ; 
 but there can be no doubt that, till near the close of the 
 17th century, this country was obliged to have recourse to 
 foreigners for the supply of the common articles of drink- 
 ing glasses. In 1G73, the Duke of Buckingham materially 
 improved the fabrication of British plate-glass by bringing 
 over several Venetian artisans to the works at Lambeth, 
 which were under his patronage ; and the manufacture 
 was still farther improved by the arrival of the French ref- 
 ugees subsequently to the revocation of the edict of Nantes. 
 The above works, however, were soon abandoned ; and it 
 was exactly one century (1773) later that the first estab- 
 lishment of magnitude for the production of plate-glass was 
 formed, under the title of " The Governor and Company of 
 British Cast Plate-Glass Manufacturers." This company 
 was incorporated by act of Parliament, and soon after erect- 
 ed works on an extensive scale at Ravenhead, near Prescot, 
 in Lancashire, which have continued in constant operation 
 down to the present time. Since that period immense im- 
 provements have been made in the manufacture of every 
 species of glass throughout all the countries of Europe, 
 though the art maybe said to have reached perfection only 
 in England and Bohemia. 
 
 The application of glass to the glazing of windows is of 
 comparatively recent introduction into dwelling-houses, 
 though it was general in churches and other public build- 
 ings as early as the third or fourth century. In London, 
 this manufacture was first begun in 1557 ; but that the use 
 of window-glass was by no means universal even twenty 
 years later, is evident from the fact that at Alnwick Castle, 
 the residence of the Duke of Northumberland, the glaas 
 casements used at that period to he taken down in the 
 absence of the family, to preserve them from accident. In 
 Scotland, even in the early part of the last century, glass 
 was seldom seen in the windows of country houses ; and a 
 
 * Pliny ascribes the ori'in of glass to (he following accident : A merchant- 
 ship laden with natrnn being driven upon the cwt nf ihe mouth of Hie river 
 Belus in lempes'uous weather, the crew were compelled to cook tlieir vic- 
 tuals ashore ; and havine placed lumps of the natron upon the sand as sup- 
 ports to the kettles, found, to their surprise, masses of transparent stone 
 among the cinder . 
 
 519
 
 GLASS PAINTING. 
 
 few years previously, even in the royal palaces and the 
 town houses of the nobility, the windows of the upper sto- 
 ries alone were furnished with it. Since that period, how- 
 ever, a mighty change has been effected ; for now even the 
 windows of the meanest cottage in Great Britain are, al- 
 most without exception, supplied with glass, which, as Mr. 
 M'Culloch has well observed, ought rather to be considered 
 as a necessary of life than as the most elegant and useful 
 of conveniences. 
 
 In 1833, the number of establishments for the manufac- 
 ture of every description of glass in the United Kingdom 
 was 126. of which 106 were in England, and the remainder 
 equally divided between Scotland and Ireland. The prin- 
 cipal seats of the manufacture are, beyond all comparison, 
 New Castle and South Shields ; but it is also carried on 
 with great success at Stourbridge, Dudley, Liverpool, Bris- 
 tol, and Warrington, and to a considerable extent in Leeds, 
 Manchester, and London. The value of the glass annually 
 produced in the United Kingdom is estimated at £2,000,000, 
 and the workmen employed in the diflerent departments at 
 upwards of 50,000. hi 1837, the total gross revenue derived 
 from the glass duties amounted to £903,856 12s. lOrf. ; of 
 which England produced £837,277 14s. 9d. ; Scotland. 
 £50,220 4s.llaL, and Ireland, £10.37^ 13s. 2d. In no branch 
 of manufacturing industry is the prejudicial effect of high 
 duties upon the consumption of articles of convenience 
 more strikingly illustrated than in the history of the duty 
 upon glass in this country. It would be out of place here, 
 however, to enter upon this subject ; and we can only re- 
 fer the reader for full information to the Commercial Dic- 
 tionary, and the Statistics of the British Empire, vol. i.. p. 
 715, 2d edit. 
 
 GLASS PAINTING. In Painting. The method of 
 staining glass in such a manner as to produce the effect of 
 representing all the subjects whereof the art is susceptible. 
 A French painter of Marseilles is said to have been the first 
 who instructed the Italians in this art, during the pontificate 
 of Julius II. It was, however, practised to a considerable 
 extent by Lucas of Leyden, and Albert Durer. The differ- 
 ent colours are prepared as follows : Black is composed of 
 two thirds of iron scales or flakes, and the other third of 
 small glass beads, or a substance called roccagtia by the 
 Italians. White is prepared from sand, or small white peb- 
 bles, calcined, pounded, and then ground finely; one fourth 
 part of saltpetre is added, and the mixture is then again 
 calcined and pulverized : when dyed, a little gypsum or 
 plaster of Paris is added. Yellow is formed from leaf sil- 
 ver ground and mixed in a crucible with saltpetre or sul- 
 phur ; then ground on a porphyry stone ; and, lastly, ground 
 over again with nine times the quantity of red ochre. Red, 
 one of the most difficult of the colours to make, is prepared 
 of litharge of silver and iron scales, gum Arabic, ferretta, 
 glass beads, and bloodstone, in nearly equal quantities. Ex- 
 perience alone will command success in making this colour. 
 Green is formed from a>s ustum one ounce, the same quan- 
 tity of black lead, and four ounces of white lead, incorpo- 
 rated by the action of fire. When calcined a fourth part 
 of saltpetre is added, and after a second calcination a sixth 
 part more ; after which a third coction is made before using 
 it. Jlzure, purple, and violet are prepared in a similar man- 
 ner to green, omitting the a:s ustum, and in its stead using 
 sulphur for azure, perigneux for purple, and both these 
 drugs for violet. Carnations are compounded colours, are 
 calcined, and mostly mixed with water, and must be fin- 
 ished part by part, and each with great despatch, before the 
 plaster dries, and there is little opportunity for blending. 
 The lights cannot be heightened ; but the shadows may. 
 when they besrin to dry, be a little strengthened. Prompti- 
 tude and facility in execution are the great requisites for 
 this method of painting. See Cartoon. 
 
 GLAU'BER'S SALT. Sulphate of soda, originally made 
 by Glauber, in bis process for obtaining muriatic acid, by dis- 
 tilling a mixture of common salt and sulphuric acid. 
 
 GLAU'COLITE. (Gr. 3 Xavxos, blue.) A mineral of a 
 bluish green colour, found near the lake Baikal, in Siberia ; 
 it is a silicate of alumina and lime. 
 
 GLAUCO'MA. (Gr. y^avKo;.) A disease of the eye, 
 supposed to arise from dimness of the vitreous humour, and 
 giving it a bluish green colour. 
 
 GLAUCO'PIS. (Gr. y^avKoc, and ait//, an eye.) A genus 
 of Passerine birds established by Forster, and including cer- 
 tain species remarkable for the presence of fleshy wattles 
 attached to the base of the beak: whence thej are com- 
 monly termed •■ wattle-birds." Temminck characterize $ tin- 
 genus as follows : Bill moderate, strong, and thick, with the 
 base enlarged towards the commissure; upper mandible 
 convex, vaulted, curved towards the end. and without any 
 notch ; lower mandible following the curvature of the up- 
 per, straight below, hidden in part by the sides of the upper 
 mandible. Nostrils basal, lateral, round, partially closed by 
 a large membrane, and entirely hidden by curled feathers 
 advancing from the forehead. Feet robust, the tarsi longer 
 520 
 
 GLOBULINE. 
 
 than the mid-toe ; toes nearly of the same length ; the base 
 of the inner toe, and nearly the whole of the outer toe, at- 
 tached to the middle toe. Wings short ; the first quill short, 
 the three following graduated, and the fifth the longest. 
 Tail long and graduated. 
 
 GLAU'COUS. Sea green ; a term used in describing the 
 colour of bodies, to denote a dull green passing into blue. 
 Also used in describing the polish of bodies, to denote their 
 being covered with a line bloom of the colour of a cabbage 
 leaf. Glaucescent is the diminutive of this. 
 
 GLAU'CUa. (Gr. yXavKog, blue.) In Grecian Mytholo- 
 gy, the name of a marine deity, the son, according to some 
 of the genealogists, of Neptune and one of the Naiads ; ac- 
 cording to others, of Polybius and Alcyone. He enjoyed the 
 power of prophecy. 
 
 In Zoology, Glaucus is the name of -a genus of Nudi- 
 branchiate Mol tusks, remarkable for their beautiful azure 
 tint. The species of Glaucus are found in the wanner lati- 
 tudes floating in the open sea. 
 
 GLEA'NING. (Fr. glaner.) The practice of collecting 
 com left in a harvest field after the harvest has been car- 
 ried, which (Levit., c. 19 ; Dcut., c. 24) appears by the Mosaic 
 law to have been allowed to the poor. The right of the 
 poor to glean is, however, not admitted in the English com- 
 mon law. 
 
 GLEBE. (Lat. gleba, arable soil.) In Law, church 
 land ; usually taken for that which is annexed to a parish 
 church of common right, and belongs to the parson or vicar. 
 
 GLEE. In Music, a composition for voices in three or 
 more parts. The subjects of the words are various, being 
 gay. grave, amatory, pathetic, or bacchanalian. It may con- 
 sist of only one movement, but usually has more. 
 
 GLEE-MAN. (From the Anglo-Saxon gleo, glig, &c, 
 signifying music.) Itinerant minstrels were so called by the 
 Saxons: their appellation is translated joculatores by the 
 Latin writers of the middle a?es. The name appears to 
 have been supplanted by the Norman minstrel, shortly after 
 the Conquest. 
 
 GLIRES. (Lat. glis, a dormouse.) The Linnaean name 
 of the order of Mammalia distinguished by two long chisel- 
 shaped incisors in each jaw. See Ropentia. 
 
 GLOBE. A round body, or sphere ; a term commonly 
 applied to the earth. The term artificial globe is more par- 
 ticularly used to denote a globe of metal, plaster, paper, &.C., 
 on the surface of which a map of the earth or of the celes- 
 tial constellations is delineated, with the principal circles of 
 tin sphere. In the former case it is called the terrestrial, 
 in the latter the celestial globe. Artificial globes are used 
 for the purpose of conveying to children the first ideas of the 
 figure and rotation of the earth, of latitude and longitude, 
 and the situation of places with respect to each other, and 
 to the sun at the diflerent seasons of the year. It is usual 
 to employ them also for the purpose of solving mechanically 
 a few elementary problems of astronomy, "relative to the 
 difference of the hour of the day at ■different places, the 
 times of the rising and setting of the sun, the limits of the 
 visibility of eclipses, &c. The answers, however, which 
 can be found to questions of this nature, by means of ordi- 
 nary globes at least, can only be regarded as rude approxi- 
 mations ; and hence the use of globes should be limited to 
 genera! explanation. 
 
 GLO'BULAR CHART. A delineation of the terrestrial 
 surface, or any part of it, on a plane, according to the prin- 
 ciples of the globular projection. Let A B C be the hemi- 
 sphere to be projected, and A C the E 
 plane of projection ; in order to make a 
 globular projection, the eye is placed at 
 the point E in the straight line B D, 
 which passes through the pole B and 
 the centre of the sphere, and at a dis- 
 tance D E above D equal to the sine 
 of 45°. The peculiar advantage of 
 this projection is that equal arcs, a b, , 
 a c, of great circles, are represented by J 
 straight lines, d c, e f, which are nearly 
 equal. If the plane of projection is the 
 equator, the different meridians will be 
 represented by straight lines, and the parallels of latitude by 
 concentric circles. But in general the projection is made on 
 a meridian, in which case the projections of the other merid- 
 ians are ellipses. The globular projection was first pro- 
 posed by Lahire. See Map, Projection. 
 
 GLO'BULA'RIA'CE^E. (Globularia, one of the genera.) 
 A small natural order of shrubby or herbaceous Oxogens, 
 inhabiting the hot and temperate parts of Europe. Placed 
 by Jussieu and De Candolle near to Primulacca ; but in 
 greater affinity with /)ii/sacca; with which they agree in 
 most respects, differing from them only in having a superior 
 ovary. Their sensible properties arc bitter, tonic and purga 
 tive. 
 
 GLOBULAR SAILING. See Navigation. 
 
 GLO BULINE. A term given by Kieser to the green
 
 GLORY. 
 
 globules lying among the cells of cellular tissue. This 
 word has been applied by Turpin, a French phytotomist, to 
 all minute vesicular granules of a vegetable nature, which 
 he considers the organic elements of vegetation. It is either 
 cellular or vesicular tissue in a young state and disintegrated, 
 or granules of starch or particles of colouiing matter collect- 
 ed into microscopical balls. 
 
 GLORY. (Lat. gloria.) In Painting and Sculpture, a 
 circle, either plain or radiated, surrounding the heads of 
 saints, 4tc, and especially of our Saviour. The term glory 
 is used in the sacred writings in various senses, all of which, 
 however, may be easily deduced from the original meaning 
 of its Hebrew equivalent, which signifies weight. Thus the 
 glory of God means all those attributes and qualities which 
 give him weight in our eyes, or inspire us with reverence. 
 (See Taylor's Concordance.) 
 
 GLOSS. (Gr. yAwccra, tongue.) In the Rhetoric of 
 Aristotle, this word is used in the sense of a foreign, obso- 
 lete, or otherwise strange idiom: which, judiciously em- 
 ployed, he reckons among the ornaments of style. From 
 the sense of " something requiring interpretation" the word 
 came to mean the interpretation itself; strictly, of a single 
 word.or phrase. In the twelfth century, the comments or 
 annotations of learned jurists on passages in the text of the 
 Roman law were denominated glosses ; when these extend- 
 ed to a running commentary, they were termed an apparatus. 
 The glosses were collected by Accursius in the 13th century, 
 and from that period they formed for a long time a body of 
 authority reckoned equal or even superior to the text itself. 
 
 GLO'SSARY. (Lat. glossarium.) A dictionary of diffi- 
 cult words and phrases in any language or writer ; some- 
 times used for a dictionary of words in general. Of all the 
 works published under the title of glossary, the most cele- 
 brated by far is the Glossarium Medio; et Infima Latinitatis 
 of Du Cange. The best edition of this learned and admira- 
 ble work is that edited by Carpentier, in 6 vols, folio, 1733- 
 1736. Carpentier's Supplement, in 4 vols, folio, 1766, is an 
 indispensable addition. 
 
 GLO'TTIS. (Gr. yXtarra, the tongue.) The superior 
 opening of the larynx or windpipe. 
 
 GLOVES. (Anglo-Sax. glof.) Well-known articles of 
 dress used for covering the hands. The practice of covering 
 the hands with gloves has prevailed among almost all the 
 nations of the earth from time immemorial, and is common 
 at once to the rude Tartar, who seeks by their means to pro- 
 tect himself from cold, and to the refined European, with 
 whom their use is an emblem of luxury. (Gough., Sep. 
 Mon., i., p. 185.) In the middle ages, gloves constituted a 
 costly article of dress, being often highly decorated with 
 embroidery and richly adorned with precious stones. In the 
 age of chivalry it was usual for the soldiers who had gained 
 the favour of a lady to wear her glove in his helmet ; and, 
 as is well known, the throwing of a glove was the most 
 usual mode of challenging to duel. This latter practice 
 prevailed so early as the year 1245. Matthew Paris's His- 
 tory. (See the Penny Cyc, and the authorities there refer- 
 red to.) 
 
 GLOW-WORM. See Lampyris. 
 
 GLUCI'NIUM. The metallic base of the earth glucina, 
 discovered by Vauquelin in 1798, and hitherto only found in 
 three rare minerals — the emerald, beryl, and euclase. The 
 name is derived from y\vKV$, sweet, in consequence of the 
 sweet taste of its salts. The metal, which is of a dark gray- 
 colour, was first obtained in 1828 by Wiihler ; he procured 
 it by acting upon the chloride of glucinium by potassium. 
 The equivalent of glucinium is 18, and glucina consists of 18 
 glucinium -f- 8 oxygen. 
 
 GLUE (Lat. gluten) is prepared from the clippings of 
 hides, hoofs, &c. These are first washed in lime water, and 
 afterwards boiled and skimmed ; the solution is then strained 
 through baskets, and gently evaporated to a due consistency ; 
 then cooled in wooden moulds, cut into slices, and dried 
 upon nets. Good glue is semitransparent, deep brown, and 
 free from spots and clouds. When used it should be broken 
 in pieces, and steeped for twenty-four hours in cold water, 
 by which it softens and swells ; the soaked pieces are then 
 melted over a gentle fire, or, what is better, in a water bath, 
 and in that state applied to the wood by a stiff brush. Glue 
 will not harden in a freezing temperature, the stiffening de- 
 pending upon the evaporation of its superfluous water. The 
 chemical properties of glue are those of an impure gelatine. 
 
 GLU'TEN. (Lat.) The viscid elastic substance which 
 remains when wheat flour is wrapped in a coarse cloth, and 
 washed under a stream of water, so as to cany off the starch 
 and soluble matters. Gluten exists in many grains, and oc- 
 casionally in other parts of vegetables ; but it is a charac- 
 teristic ingredient in wheat, giving wheat flour its peculiar 
 toughness and tenacity, which particularly fits it for the 
 manufacture of bread, and for viscid pastes, such as maca- 
 roni and vermicelli. There is generally more gluten in the 
 wheat of warm climates than of cold ; hence the excellence 
 of that grown in the south of Europe for the manufactures 
 
 GNOMON. 
 
 just mentioned. Gluten contains nitrogen, and has conse- 
 quently been called the vegeto-animal principle on this ac- 
 count : it yields ammonia when subjected to destructive 
 distillation, and the vegetables which contain it give out a 
 peculiarly disagreeable odour during their putrefaction. 
 
 GLU'TEUS. (Gr. yXouroj, the buttocks.) The large and 
 thick muscle upon which we sit, and which serves to ex- 
 tend the thigh by pulling it directly backwards. It also as- 
 sists in its rotatory motion. 
 
 GLU'TTON. The name of a carnivorous plantigrade 
 quadruped (Gulo arcticus) ; also applied by some microgra- 
 phers to a diaphanous species of nais. 
 
 GLY'CERLNE. (Gr. y\vKvs, sweet.) A sweet substance 
 formed in the process of saponification. It was originally 
 observed in the formation of common plaster by boiling oil 
 with oxide of lead and water. 
 
 GLYCY'RRHIZLN. The peculiar saccharine matter of 
 the root of Glycyrrhiza glabra, or common liquorice. 
 
 GLYPH. (Gr. yXv<pw, I carve.) In Architecture, a ver- 
 tically sunken channel. From their number, those in the 
 Doric order are called triglyphs. 
 
 GLY'PTIC. (Gr. y\v<j>ui.) In Sculpture, a term deno- 
 ting the art of carving on stone or any other hard substance. 
 
 GLY'PTODON. (Gr. y\vq)u>, and odovs, a tooth.) The 
 name of an extinct gigantic quadruped belonging to the 
 family of Armadilloes (Dasypodida), and covered, like them, 
 with a tesselated osseous armour. It is distinguished from 
 the existing armadilloes not only by its size, which equals 
 that of the rliinoceros, but by its teeth, which are longitu- 
 dinally fluted, whence its generic name. 
 
 GLY'PTOTHE'CA. (Gr.yXu0w, and (fy/o/, deposit.) A 
 building or room for the preservation of works of sculpture; 
 a word adopted by the Germans, as in the instance of the 
 celebrated Glyptothek at Munich. 
 
 GNAT. See Culex. 
 
 GNATHI'DIA. (Gr. yvaOos, a jaw.) A technical term in 
 Ornithology for the lateral parts or rami of the mandible or 
 lower jaw, which are joined to the cranium behind, and 
 meet in front at a greater or less angle. 
 
 GNA'THOTHE'CA. (Gr. yvaOos, and Btjicri, a sheath.) 
 In Ornithology, the horny or cutaneous integument of the 
 beak. 
 
 GNEISS. A species of granite, which from excess of 
 mica is generally of a lamellar or slaty texture. It is a Ger- 
 man miner's term. 
 
 GNOME. A name given by the fanciful writers of the 
 Cabalistic school to that class of their supposed elemental 
 spirits which inhabit the earth. Their name is more prop- 
 erly Gnomons ; derived from the Greek yviijuav, knowing, 
 cunning. (See Darwin's Botanic Garden.) 
 
 GNO'MIC POETS. (Gr. yvbiui], a sentence or opinion.) 
 Greek poets, whose remains chiefly consist of short senten- 
 tious precepts and reflections, are so termed in classical bib- 
 liography. The principal writers of this description, of 
 whom a few fragments are extant, are Theognis and Solon, 
 who lived in the 6th century before the Christian era. With 
 them Tyrtteus and Simonides are joined by Brunck in his 
 edition (Gnomici Poetw Graci, Argent., 1734), although 
 these writers have little of a gnomic character. The metre 
 of these poets is elegiac. 
 
 GNO'MON. (Gr. yvunuiv.) In Astronomy, an Instru- 
 ment for measuring the lengths of shadows, and thereby de- 
 termining the altitudes of the sun. Let A be the top of a 
 vertical style, column, or pillar, B 
 
 or a small hole in a wall A B, S 
 
 the height of which above the A>^ 
 
 horizontal line B E is accurately 
 known ; a ray of solar light com- 
 ing in the direction S A reaches 
 
 the ground at C, and the length 
 
 of the shadow projected by the El) c s 
 
 gnomon is B C. Now, as the length of B C can be accu- 
 rately measured, and as A B is known, and the angle at B 
 is a right angle, it is easy to find by the rules of plane trigo- 
 nometry the angle A C B, or the sun's altitude. Suppose 
 S C B thus found to be the sun's meridian altitude on the 
 day of the summer solstice, and S' D B his meridian alti- 
 tude on the day of the winter solstice ; then half the differ- 
 ence between these two altitudes is the obliquity of the 
 ecliptic, or the sun's greatest declination. And when the 
 sun's declination and meridian altitude aro both known, the 
 latitude of the place of observatfbn is likewise determined. 
 In this way Pytheas, in the time of Alexander the Great, 
 found at Marseilles the ratio of the height of the gnomon to 
 the meridional shadow on the day of the solstice to be 120 
 to 41f (Montucla, vol. i., p. 191), whence the obliquity of the 
 ecliptic is concluded to have been at that time about 23° 49'. 
 
 Gnomons were probably the first astronomical instruments ; 
 and they appear to have been much in use among the Egyp- 
 tians, the Chinese, and even the Peruvians. (Goguet, Ori- 
 gine des Loix.) The Egyptian obelisks are supposed to have 
 been intended as gnomons. It is evident that observations 
 1 1* 521
 
 GNOMONIC PROJECTION. 
 
 of this kind cannot give the sun's altitude with much exact- 
 ness. The shadow is never so well defined that its limits 
 can be ascertained with astronomical precision ; besides, the 
 observation requires to be corrected for parallax, refraction, 
 and the sun's semidiameter — elements which can only be de- 
 termined by means of instruments of a very superior descrip- 
 tion to the gnomon, and which, consequently, render the 
 latter useless. The astronomer Ulug-Beg, about the year 
 1437, erected a gnomon at Samarcand, the height of wliich 
 was 165 Paris feet. 
 
 Gnomon, in Dialling, is the style of the dial, the shadow 
 of which marks the hour. It is placed so that its straight 
 edge is parallel to the axis of the earth's rotation. 
 
 Gnomon. In Geometry, the part of a parallelogram which 
 remains when one of the parallelograms about its diagonal 
 is removed ; or the portion of the parallelogram composed 
 of the two complements and one of the parallelograms about 
 the diagonal. The term is seldom used excepting in Eu- 
 clid's Elements. 
 
 GNOMO'NIC PROJECTION. The representation of a 
 hemisphere on a plane touching it at the vertex, the eye be- 
 ing placed at the centre of the sphere. In this projection all 
 great circles of the sphere are projected into indefinite straight 
 lines, small circles parallel to the plane are projected into 
 circles, and those which are oblique to it into ellipses or hy- 
 perbolas. See Projection. 
 
 GNOMONICS. The art of constructing dials. See Dial- 
 ling. 
 
 GNO'STICISM. (Gr. yvwaic, knowledge.) A philosoph- 
 ical system of religion which prevailed in the East during 
 the four first centuries of our era, and exercised great influ- 
 ence upon Christian theology, giving birth to numerous and 
 widely-diffused heresies, ami insinuating itself under a modi- 
 fied form even into the writings of the most orthodox fathers. 
 The origin of the system is involved in considerable obscu- 
 rity : in its leading principles it seems to point to the Orien- 
 tal philosophy as its genuine parent; but it is objected to 
 this solution that the fathers refer it, together with the er- 
 rors similarly introduced by Platonism, to a Greek origin, 
 and appeal to the cosmogonies of Hesiod and others, as the 
 real exemplars from which it is imitated. It is to be re- 
 marked, however, that the fathers were universally ignorant 
 of the Oriental philosophy; from which we may conclude 
 that their opinion upon such a point is not necessarily deci- 
 sive. A modem solution conceives Alexandria to have been 
 the central point to which the speculations of the Greeks 
 and the Orientals converged, and from whence they fre- 
 quently re-issued, after having undergone the process of fu- 
 sion into a common mass. It is certain that Alexandria 
 was, during the time we have spoken of, a celebrated resort 
 of Gnostic opinions, both within and without the Church. 
 
 The grand principle of this philosophy seems to have been 
 an attempt to reconcile the difficulties attending upon the 
 existence of evil in the world. Evil, it was supposed, being 
 the contrary of good, must be contrary to, and, therefore, the 
 opponent of, God : if the opponent of God, then independent 
 of him and coetemal. From the many imperfections which 
 are involved in all outward and sensible objects, it was held 
 that matter must contain in itself the principle of all evil. 
 The human soul, on the contrary, which aspires after and 
 tends to a higher and more perfect development, was held 
 to be the gift of the Supreme Deity, imparted to man for the 
 sake of combating against the material principle, and with 
 the prospect of finally subduing it. From the Supreme God 
 on the one hand, and matter on the other, succeeding philos- 
 ophers produced various fanciful genealogies of superior in- 
 telligences, under the name of ^Eons — a Greek word, signi- 
 fying, properly, periods; thus representing these divinities 
 themselves by a name expressive of the time and order 
 of their generation, much as in our current language the 
 terms reign, or government, are frequently put for the king 
 or ministers governing. The Demiurgus, who formed the 
 world out of matter, appears to have been an JEon derived 
 from the evil principle. He was also the God of the Old 
 Testament, who was considered by the Gnostics to be an 
 object of aversion to the One Supreme God, to counteract 
 whose machinations the JEon Christ was sent into the 
 world. This is the earlier and simpler system, which is at- 
 tributed to Simon Magus : the number of the iEons was fan- 
 cifully multiplied in later times, and an extravagant theory 
 of morals founded upon the system. The object of these 
 principally was, as may he supposed, to depreciate the hon- 
 our due to the body, as being a part of matter, and to ele- 
 vate the thinking faculty, or at least to remove it from all 
 consideration of worldly things. The Gnostics imagined 
 that by assiduous practice of certain mental and bodily aus- 
 terities, they could obtain an intuition of the divine nature, 
 and dwell in communion with it ; and this part of their sys- 
 tem is adopted to a considerable extent by Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus, whose opinions, as expressed in his Pwdagogus, are 
 very similar to those of a Pietist of more modern times. 
 
 The Gnostics split in process of time into various sects, 
 522 
 
 GOLD. 
 
 distinguisUed rather by the different cosmogonies they in- 
 vented, than by any variation in principle. Of these, the 
 principal were founded by Carpocrates, Basilides, Tatian, 
 and Valentinus. The system did not survive the 4th cen- 
 tury. The Christians seem sometimes to have adopted the 
 general designation of Gnostics. (See Burton's Hampton 
 Lectures ; Neander ; Moshcim, vol. i. (transl.), p. 133, &c. ; 
 Gieseler, Text- Book of Eccl. Hist., i. ; Biddte's Christian 
 Antiquities, p. 133.) 
 
 GOAT, the English name for the well-known ruminant 
 of the genus Capra. The goat is characterized by its long 
 horns, which are rounded posteriorly, angular on the ante- 
 rior edge ; transversely rugose, and rise at first perpendicu- 
 larly, afterwards bending outwards and a little backwards. 
 It is clothed by long hair, which, in the Cashmere breed, is 
 soft and fine, and forms the staple of the celebrated shawls 
 of that name. Beneath the long hair is a soft wool. The 
 female produces two kids at a birth, which derive their nour- 
 ishment from two teats supported on a large pendant udder. 
 The period of gestation is five months. The milk of the 
 goat is less apt to curdle on the stomach than that of the 
 cow, and is thus better adapted for the weak and consump- 
 tive. The flesh of both the goat and kid is much esteemed 
 in many countries, though of a peculiar flavour, arising 
 probably from the aromatic shrubs and heaths on which the 
 goat delights to browse. In Portugal and other countries 
 the goat is used as a beast of draught. A notion of the 
 wholesome influence imparted by the goat to the stable in 
 which it may sleep, is very prevalent among the grooms of 
 this country. 
 
 GO'BBING. In mining, the refuse thrown back into the 
 excavations remaining after the removal of the coal. 
 
 GODROO'N. (Fr.godron.) In Architecture, an inverted 
 fluting, beading, or cabling, used in various ornaments and 
 members. 
 
 GO'DVYTT. See Limosa. 
 
 GOG and MAGOG. The names of two warriors noticed 
 in different portions of the sacred writings (Gen., x. ; Ezekiel, 
 xxxviii., &c), and which, since the Christian era, have been 
 regarded as nearly synonymous with Antichrist. The au- 
 thor of the Apocalypse (xx., 8) uses the terms to express the 
 nations hostile to Christianity ; and Mohammed, in the Ko- 
 ran (21, 96), employs them in a somewhat analogous sense. 
 As is well knowTi, the names Gog and Magog are given to 
 the two huge warlike figures that adorn the Guildhall of 
 London ; but it is impossible to account for this singular ap- 
 plication of the words. 
 
 GOITRE. See Bronchocele. 
 
 GOLA, or GULA. (Lat.) In Architecture, the same as 
 Cyma, which see. 
 
 GOLD. (Germ.) The most valuable and longest known 
 of the metals. It sometimes occurs in regular veins in pri- 
 mary mountain districts : but the largest quantity is found 
 in alluvial soils, and frequently in the beds and sands of 
 rivers, as in Africa, South America, Mexico, Hungary, and 
 Siberia. It is generally separated by washing away the 
 lighter materials with which it is mixed, and subsequently 
 by the progress of amalgamation. Gold has been from the 
 earliest period used as a measure of value and universal 
 equivalent. For details on this subject, see Money. 
 
 Gold is characterized by its yellow colour; its extreme 
 permanence in air and fire ; its density, which is about 19'3; 
 its malleability, which is such that it may be beaten into 
 leaves not more than one two hundred and eighty thou- 
 sandth of an inch in thickness; and its ductility, a grain 
 of gold being drawn out into 500 feet of wire. Gold is not 
 acted upon by the common acids ; but chlorine and nitro- 
 muriatic acid corrode and dissolve it, forming a chloride of 
 gold, which is soluble in water. 
 
 The alloys of gold have been examined in detail by Mr. 
 Hatchett. {Phil. Trans., 1803.) Of these the most impor- 
 tant is that used for the gold coin of the realm, commonly 
 called standard gold, which consists of eleven parts of pure 
 gold and one of copper; it is extremely ductile and mallea- 
 ble, but harder than pure gold, and, therefore, better calcu- 
 lated to resist the wear and tear of circulation. The specific 
 gravity of this alloy is 17-157: 20 lbs. troy of it are coined into 
 034 sovereigns and one half sovereign ; 1 lb. troy, therefore, 
 produces 46 29-40 sovereigns; the same weight was former- 
 ly coined into 44A guineas. The colour of this alloy is deep- 
 er yellow than that of pure gold, and verges upon orange: 
 it frequently happens that a part of the alloy of gold coin is 
 silver, hence the pale colour of some sovereigns as com- 
 pared with others. Among the metals which destroy the 
 colour and malleability of gold, none is so remarkable as 
 lead. It appears from Mr. Hatchett's experiments, that 
 when lead forms about one two thousandth part of the al- 
 loy, it is too brittle for rolling, and that the fumes of lead 
 destroy tlie good qualities of gold. The chemical equiva- 
 lent of gold is probably about 200, and that of the protoxide 
 208, and of the protochloride 236. The peroxide is a com- 
 pound of one proportional of gold and three of oxygen, and
 
 GOLDEN FLEECE. 
 
 the perchloride contains three proportionals of chlorine, i 
 When ether is agitated with solution of chloride of gold, it 
 takes up the metal, and forms a yellow ethereal solution of j 
 gold ; when polished steel instruments are dipped into this i 
 solution, and immediately washed in water and wiped with j 
 a piece of soft leather, they become beautifully gilt with a 
 very thin film of gold. See Gilding. 
 GOLDEN FLEECE. See Argonauts, Fleece, &c. 
 GO'LDEN NUMBER. See Cycle. 
 GO'LDEN RULE. See Rule. 
 
 GO'LDFLNCH. The common name of our well-known 
 and biightest-plumaged songster; the Carduelis elegans of 
 most modern ornithologists, Fringilla carduelis of Linnaeus. 
 This species feeds chiefly on the seed of the thistle and ! 
 plantain ; but builds its nest, which is of the neatest con- 
 struction, in the fork of a branch of some densely-leafed 
 tree, and lays four or five eggs, of a bluish white, spotted 
 with brown'at the greater end. The female is less brightly 
 clad than the male, and the young have a comparatively 
 simple plumage, in which brown predominates. In captiv- 
 ity the goldfinch is remarkable for its docility, and is prized 
 for its beauty as well as its song. Hybrids are bred between 
 the goldfinch and canary, and are much admired. 
 
 GOLF. A game with a ball and clubs, almost peculiar 
 to Scotland, where it enjoys a degree of popularity equal to 
 cricket in England. 
 GOLT. See Gault. 
 
 GO'MARITES. In Ecclesiastical History, the Calvinist 
 divines of the Church of Holland in the 17th century were 
 so called, from Francis Gomar, a colleague and opponent of 
 Arminius at Leyden. See Arminians. JHosheim (trans.), 
 ed. 1826, v., 325.) 
 
 GOMPHI'ASIS. (Gr. yopfos, a nail.) A disease of the 
 teeth, when they loosen and fall out of the sockets. The 
 grinding teeth are also called gomphioi. 
 
 GOMPHO'SIS. (Gr. yo/Kpo^.) A species of junction of 
 bones where they are let into each other, something like 
 pegs in a board. 
 
 GO'NDOLA. (Ital.) The name given to the pleasure 
 boats used at Venice, where the numerous canals with 
 which it is intersected generally render it necessary to sub- 
 stitute boats for carriages. The gondola is from 25 to 30 
 feet long, and five feet wide in the centre, in which a sort 
 of cabin is constructed for passengers. They are sharp- 
 pointed both at the prow and stern, and are rowed by two 
 men called gondolieri. The cabins are always furnished 
 with black curtains, which give a sombre appearance to the 
 gondola at a distance. For an accurate description of the 
 gondola, see Lord Byron's Beppo, 19, 20. 
 
 GO'NFANON, or GO'NFALON. In Heraldry, a ban- 
 ner ; that of the Roman Catholic Church carried in the Pope's 
 army. The gonfalonier or standard-bearer was a high offi- 
 cer in the Italian republics of the middle ages. 
 
 GONG, or TAM-TAM (of the Chinese). A species of 
 cymbal, which, on being struck, produces a very loud sound. 
 According to the analysis of Klaproth, it consists of seventy- 
 eight parts copper and twenty-two parts tin. As this compo- 
 sition is extremely brittle, and the instrument always exhibits 
 marks of the hammer, it is inferred that the Chinese pos- 
 sess the art of rendering the alloy malleable, and restoring it 
 to its natural state of elasticity and brittleness when the in- 
 strument is formed. It is struck with a wooden mallet cov- 
 ered with leather. 
 
 GO'NIATITES. (Gr. yuvta, an angle.) A genus of ex- 
 tinct Cephalopods with chambered spiral shells; nearly al- 
 lied to the Ammonites, but differing in having the lobes of the 
 septa free from lateral crenatures or denticulations, so that 
 the outline of these is continuous and uninterrupted. Goni- 
 atites are found in the mountain limestone of Yorkshire. 
 
 GONIO'METER. (Gr. yiavta, angle, and ytrpov, meas- 
 ure.) An instrument for measuring angles, and more par- 
 ticularly the angles formed by the faces of crystals. The 
 instrument, chiefly used by mineralogists, was invented by 
 Dr. Wollaston. It consists of a brass circle graduated on 
 the edge, and furnished with a 
 vernier, by which the divisions 
 may be read correct to a minute. 
 The circle moves in a vertical 
 plane, and is supported on a 
 stand. The axis of the circle is 
 a hollow tube, within which is a 
 smaller axis, fitting so tightly 
 that when turned round it car- 
 ries the other axis, and conse- 
 quently the wheel, along with 
 it, unless the latter is purposely 
 prevented from moving. The 
 interior axis is furnished with a 
 milled head a, and the exterior 
 with a milled head b ; so that 
 when the head a is held and b turned, the circle may be 
 moved independently of the smaller axis; and when b is 
 
 GOSPEL. 
 
 held and a turned, the smaller axis may be turned independ 
 ently of the circle. Attached to the end of the smaller 
 axis is a sort of universal joint, capable of being fixed in dif- 
 ferent positions by means of screws. The crystal to be ex- 
 amined is attached to the joint at c by a little soft wax, and 
 placed so that its edge shall be parallel to the axis of mo- 
 tion ; which adjustment is obtained by placing it so that the 
 image of some horizontal object, as the bar of a window, 
 successively reflected from the two faces of the crystal, co- 
 incides with another horizontal line seen by direct vision. 
 When this adjustment has been made, the instrument is 
 turned till the horizontal object is seen reflected from one of 
 the faces. The smaller axis is then held fast, and the other 
 turned till the index of the vernier points to the zero of the 
 graduated limb. The circle is then turned round, along with 
 the smaller axis, till the same object is seen in the same po- 
 sition by reflection from the other face of the crystal ; when 
 the arc passed through by the circle is obviously the supple- 
 ment of the angle formed by the two faces of the crystal. 
 In order, however, to avoid calculation, the supplements of 
 the angles are marked on the limb, so that the angle to be 
 measured is read off immediately. 
 
 Other forms of the goniometer have been proposed by 
 Charles, Mains, and Brewster. (See Biot, Traite de Phys- 
 ique, torn. iii. ; and Brewster's Treatise on Philosophical In- 
 struments.) 
 
 GO'NOPLAX. (Gr. yuivia, a knee, and r:\al, a plate.) 
 A genus of crabs or short-tailed Crustaceans (Brachyuri), 
 characterized by the angular, square, or rhomboidal form of 
 their upper crustaceous plate or carapace, and by the length 
 of the eye-stalks. One species (Gonoplaz rhomboides) in- 
 habits the Mediterranean, and is a good swimmer ; but most 
 of the rest of the genus are tropical. 
 
 GO'NYS. (Gr. yovv.) In Ornithology, the inferior mar- 
 gin of the symphysis of the lower jaw, or the united anterior 
 extremities of the guathidia. 
 
 GOOD FRIDAY. The name given in England to the 
 anniversary' of our Saviour's crucifixion. The French and 
 most other European nations substitute the epithet holy for 
 good: the Germans designate this day "Stillerfreitag," or 
 "Char-freitag:" the latter appellation being derived from an 
 old word, " charen," signifying to do penance, or to suffer. 
 From the first dawn of Christianity. Good Friday has been 
 regarded as a solemn festival by the great body of the Chris- 
 tian world. 
 
 GOOD WILL. In Law, the custom of any trade or 
 business. A contract to transfer it is, in general, good at 
 law, though not usually enforced in equity. In what cases 
 the good will of a partnership can be claimed as property by 
 the representatives of a deceased partner appears doubtful. 
 
 GOOSE. See Anas. 
 
 GOO'SEWINGS OF A SAIL. Half the sail loosed ; 
 the other half being kept furled, from the violence of the 
 wind. 
 
 GO'RDIAN KNOT, in History, was a knot made by Gor- 
 dius, king of Phrygia, in the harness of his chariot, so intri- 
 cate as to baffle every effort to untie it. The oracle having 
 declared that he who untied this knot should be the con- 
 queror of the world. Alexander the Great, as is well known, 
 made the attempt ; but fearing lest, in the event of his fail- 
 ure, it should be considered as a bad omen, and interpose an 
 obstacle to his future conquests, he cut it asunder with his 
 sword, and thus, says ftuintus Curtius, either fulfilled the 
 oracle or eluded it. Aristobulus, however, gives a different 
 version of the story. (See Arrian, book iii., c. 20 ; and Plu- 
 tarch, in vit. Alex.) 
 
 GORGE. (Fr.) In Fortification, the entrance into a bas- 
 tion or other outwork. The gorge of a bastion is what re- 
 mains of the sides of the polygon of a place after cutting off 
 the curtains. The gorge of a ravelin, or demilune, is the 
 space between the two ends of the faces next the place. 
 The demi-gorge is that part of the polygon between the flank 
 and the centre of the bastion. See Fortification. 
 
 Gorge. In Architecture, the same as cavetto, which see. 
 
 GO'RGET. (Fr. gorge, a throat.) In Plate-armour, the 
 piece covering the neck attached to the helmet. The old 
 covering for the neck was called camail, made of leather or 
 cloth, and attached to the hood ; on this plates of steel were 
 riveted ; and thus the gorget was formed, about the time of 
 Edward II. The name is supposed to have originated in 
 Lombardy. 
 
 Gorget. A surgical instrument used in the operation of 
 lithotomy. 
 
 GORGONEI'A. (Gr.) In Architecture, carvings of masks 
 imitating the Gorgon or Medusa's head. 
 
 GO'RGONS. In Mythology, three sister deities, fabled by 
 the Greeks to dwell near the Western Ocean. Their heads, 
 which were twined with serpents instead of hair, had the 
 power of turning all who beheld them to stone ; of which 
 property Perseus made use after he had, by the help of 
 Minerva, cut off the head of Medusa. 
 
 GO'SPEL is used to signify the whole system of the Chris- 
 
 523
 
 GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 tian religion, and more particularly, as the terra literally im- 
 plies, the good news of the coming of the Messiah. The 
 word was also originally applied to the books which con- 
 tained an account of the life of Christ, many of which were 
 in circulation in the first century of the Christian era ; though 
 only four, those of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, were 
 considered canonical by the fathers. 
 
 GO'THIC ARCHITECTURE. See Architecture, and 
 English Architecture. 
 
 GOULA'RD'S EXTRACT OF LEAD. A subacetate 
 of lead, obtained by boiling powdered litharge in vinegar. 
 
 GOUT. The origin of this term, from the French goute, 
 is obscure : it is a common disease among the higher classes 
 of society, especially among those who indulge in the luxu- 
 ries of the table, or inherit a disposition to its attack. Fe- 
 males are much less subject to it than males. Medical wri- 
 ters have distinguished several species of gout, and have 
 called the disease in its ordinary form the regular gout. The 
 first symptoms of its attack are those of dyspepsia and irreg- 
 ularity of bowels, low spirits, and some fever and restless- 
 ness ; but these often pass unobserved, till the patient is 
 roused in the night by violent pain in some part of the leg, 
 generally in the vicinity of the great toe, and of one foot only : 
 there is much throbbing and uneasiness, with more or less 
 swelling and inflammation, and the least motion commonly 
 produces great increase of suffering. After some hours the 
 pain and fever abate, perspiration comes on, he falls asleep, 
 and awakes comparatively easy. These fits or paroxysms are 
 apt to return at intervals, and often every evening ; but they 
 decrease in violence, and at length go off, frequently with some 
 decided increase of perspiration or other evacuation : the af- 
 fected part itches, and the cuticle peels oft', more or less lame- 
 ness or uneasiness remaining. But the fit only thus leaves 
 the patient for a time, and returns at intervals of longer or 
 shorter duration, according to his habit of body and the care 
 which he takes of himself; and the attacks not only become 
 more frequent and severe, but last longer, and extend to 
 other limbs ; and when they have been frequently repeated, 
 they leave a permanent stiffness of the joints, upon which 
 gouty concretions are often deposited : and if much attention 
 is not paid to the state of the urine, fits of sand and gravel 
 not uncommonly precede or accompany those of gout. 
 Where the disease is of long standing, and the form of it 
 severe, the body becomes maimed and decrepit, and the mind 
 often worn and irritable ; the joints of the feet and hands, 
 and even the larger joints of the extremities, are stiff and 
 nearly immovable ; and the formation of the chalky matter, 
 as it is called, about the joints increases. If we consider the 
 nature of this secretion in the joints, which is urate of soda, 
 and the tendency of gouty persons to those morbid states of 
 the kidneys and urine which depend upon excess of uric 
 acid, and even upon the frequent alternation of fits of gravel 
 with those of gout, the question will naturally suggest itself 
 whether gout is not a symptom of what is often termed the 
 uric diathesis, and whether the remedies applicable to it 
 may not be beneficial in gout ; and that in many cases they are 
 so, seems to have been amply proved by experience. (See 
 Calculi.) It was once a favourite maxim that the gout 
 was an effort of the system to relieve itself of some peccant 
 matter ; that, therefore, it was to be left almost to itself, and 
 that patience and flannel were the chief remedies : this 
 method still has its advocates, chiefly in consequence of the 
 dangerous results that have sometimes attended more active 
 plans of treatment in causing the revulsion of the gout from 
 the limb to the stomach or head. But though there may be 
 a difference of opinion in regard to certain energetic modes 
 of relieving the disease, no one can object to the adoption of 
 gentle means of quieting the urgency of the symptoms, and 
 to the adoption of such diet and plan of living as appears to 
 diminish the frequency of their occurrence. Warm laxa- 
 tives, moderate diaphoretics and diuretics, and occasionally 
 opiates, are among the former ; and plain food or vegetable 
 diet, with moderate exercise and tonics, are good preventives. 
 Those, however, who have witnessed the sufferings of a reg- 
 ular paroxysm, and the evils of its duration and repetition, 
 will see the necessity of doing something more ; that is, of 
 speedily quelling the pain and carrying off the attack, if it 
 can be done with any chance of safety and success; and 
 this experience shows to be often the case, though much 
 care and judgment are undoubtedly requisite in conducting 
 such treatment. In strong and healthy habits, the affusion 
 of cold water is one of the most effective palliatives of the 
 pain and inflammation ; and by its timely application, in 
 proper cases, the most beneficial results have ensued. An- 
 other celebrated remedy in this disease, and which by some 
 has improperly been called a specific, is colchicum, or meadow 
 saffron — a due dose of which, taken at bed-time, has carried 
 off the paroxysm ; and this it often does without any re- 
 markable evacuation, though it sometimes handles the pa- 
 tient severely as a purgative, and nauseates and depresses to 
 an alarming "extent. This method of cure must not be un- 
 advisedly and generally adopted ; but in some cases, where 
 '524 
 
 GOVERNOR. 
 
 gout had been long established, and where the frequency 
 and duration of the tits and their inroads upon the constitu- 
 tion were increasing to an alarming extent, and that at an 
 advanced period of life, colchicum, carefully administered, 
 seems to have carried off the severity, if no't the frequency 
 of the attacks, and to have prolonged existence in conse- 
 quence. But there are forms of gout, and consequences of 
 gout, the management of which requires the utmost skill 
 and experience: it is sometimes transferred or translated 
 from the limbs to some internal part, in which case it is call- 
 ed retrocedent gout; or it produces sickness, dejection of 
 spirits, fainting, palpitation, and giddiness, as in what is 
 termed atonic gout; or it falls at once upon some internal 
 part, especially the stomach, and is then called misplaced 
 gout. In gout of the head and of the stomach the symp- 
 toms are often frightfully severe, and the pain excessive ; 
 and as these forms of gout are of most common occurrence 
 in debilitated habits and broken constitutions, they become, 
 on that account, the more difficult to treat : the expulsion 
 of the disease to the extremities is in such cases sometimes 
 effected by either brandy or what are termed gout cordials, 
 which generlly consist of warm aperient tinctures; but be- 
 fore these are administered, it must be ascertained that the 
 symptoms are really those of gout, and not idiopathic or 
 common inflammatory actions. In such cases, putting the 
 feet in warm water has sometimes been serviceable. The 
 moderate use of alkaline remedies, of a vegetable diet, of 
 certain diuretics, and, generally speaking, the adoption of 
 those plans of regimen and medicine which are useful in 
 the uric diathesis, are also useful in gout ; and everything 
 which tends to repair the constitution, generally will lessen 
 the liability to its attacks, and render them more managea- 
 ble when they occur. The indolent and sedentary must 
 use moderate exercise, and those who habitually over-exert 
 either body or mind must endeavour to tranquillize both : 
 without such precautionary measures are most perempto- 
 rily enforced, no gouty person can expect much benefit from 
 physic. 
 
 GOU'TY CONCRETIONS. These form in the joints of 
 gouty persons, especially of the toes and fingers, and are 
 sometimes, from their appearance, called chalk stones ; they 
 are composed of uric acid and soda. 
 
 GO'VERNMENT. In Politics, a word used in different 
 senses. 1. As the collective body of the fundamental laws 
 of a state : as when the government of a country is said to 
 he monarchical, aristocratical, &c. 2. The body of persons 
 charged with the conduct of the executive in any country : 
 thus, the king or presiding magistrate, the cabinet ministers, 
 chiefs of departments, &c, in every country, form what is 
 commonly styled its government. 
 
 GO'VERNOR. A contrivance for regulating the speed 
 of machinery, which has long been in use in mill-work^Jmt 
 has of late years attracted more attention by its adaptation 
 to the steam-engine. It consists of two heavy balls B B, 
 attached to the extremities of „ 
 
 two rods B F, B F, which play 
 upon a joint at E, passing 
 through a mortise in the ver- 
 tical shaft D D. These are 
 united by joints at F to the 
 short rods F H, which again b(Jj 
 are connected by joints at H 
 to a ring which slides on the 
 shaft DD. A horizontal wheel, " 
 
 W, is attached to D D, having a groove to receive a rope or 
 strap on its rim, by means of which the motion is commu- 
 nicated to D D from a corresponding wheel on some shaft 
 of the machinery to be regulated. It is evident, from the 
 disposition of the rods, that if the balls B B are by any 
 means raised or drawn asunder, the extremities F F of the 
 rods turning on the pivot E will also be separated, and their 
 distance from the axis increased. This will draw the rods 
 F H in the same direction, and cause the ring or collar II to 
 descend. This ring is connected with the end I of a lever, 
 whose fulcrum is at G, and whose other extremity K is 
 connected by some means with the part of the machine 
 which supplies the power. Suppose now the velocity from 
 any cause to undergo a sudden increase; by reason of the 
 increased centrifugal force arising from the whirling motion, 
 the balls B B will recede from the shaft D T), and raise the 
 extremity K of the lever. On the other hand, if the velocity 
 is diminished, the centrifugal force of the balls will be di- 
 minished, and they will fall by their own weight nearer the 
 axis, and cause the end K of the lever to descend. When 
 the governor is applied to a steam-engine, the rod K I com- 
 municates with a flat circular valve V, placed in the prin- 
 cipal steam-pipe, and so arranged that when K is elevated 
 as far as the divergence of the balls will allow, the opening 
 of the pipe will be closed by the valve V, and the passage 
 of steam entirely stopped. On the other hand, when the 
 balls subside to their lowest position, the valve will be en- 
 tirely open. Thus, when the velocity is increased, the sup-
 
 GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF INDIA. 
 
 ply of steam is checked ; and when it is diminished, the 
 supply of steam is immediately increased ; by which means 
 a uniform proper velocity of the machinery is maintained. 
 
 When the governor is applied to a water-wheel, the lever 
 is made to act on the shuttle through which the water 
 flows, and thereby controls its quantity. When applied to 
 a windmill, it regulates the sailcloth so as to diminish the 
 efficacy of the power upon the arms as the force of the 
 wind increases, or vice versa. (Gardner's Cyclopedia, art. 
 "Mechanics;" Gregory's Mechanics, vol. ii.) See, also, 
 Regulator. 
 
 GO'VERNOR-GENERAL, THE, OF INDIA, is also the 
 head of the local government of the presidency of Bengal. 
 He exercises some of the most important rights of sover- 
 eignty ; as, declaring war and making peace, framing trea- 
 ties, and, to a certain extent, enacting laws. He has a 
 council, consisting of five members ; of whom three are ser- 
 vants of the Company ; one appointed by the directors, but 
 not a servant of the Company; and the fifth is the com- 
 mander-in-chief. But the governor-general is independent 
 of his council, except in a judicial capacity. If the council 
 dissent, its members can record their reasons ; such dissent, 
 however, only operates as a suspensive veto on the decision 
 of the governor-general for forty-eight hours. He has the 
 commission of captain-general, and may head military op- 
 erations in any part of India. He has also the power of 
 suspending the governors of the other presidencies. But in 
 his disputes with his own council or other governor, he is 
 under the supervision of the Court of Directors and Board 
 of Control at home. Regulations passed by the governor- 
 general in council become immediately effective, but are 
 subject to reversal by the home authorities. 
 
 GRACE (Lat. gratia), in the language of the New Testa- 
 ment, is primarily the favour and love of God towards any 
 person: from thence it comes to bo used in various deriva- 
 tive senses, being put generally for all the extraordinary 
 means and assistances with which men are endowed to 
 bring them to salvation, in all of which regard is had to the 
 sacrifice of Christ as the ground upon which God vouch- 
 safes them. The term is used, farther, for the good actions 
 and dispositions of men, which may be supposed to be deri- 
 ved from the operation of the grace of God in the first in- 
 stance. 
 
 The explanation of the term "grace" has given rise to 
 some of the most remarkable controversies in ecclesiastical 
 history. It is evident that it borders close upon the question 
 of free-will and necessity, and the discussion of the one is 
 inextricably entangled in the difficulties that beset the other. 
 The Pelagians, holding extreme opinions on the side of the 
 freedom of the will, conceived the idea of grace operating 
 from without, and controlling or in any way directing men's 
 actions, to be subversive of their fundamental principle: 
 they contrived, therefore, to understand the words of Scrip- 
 ture throughout of the natural good dispositions of men, 
 whom they supposed to find favour in the sight of God by 
 their own merit, and by their own voluntary acceptance of 
 his promises to inherit eternal life. St. Augustin, on the 
 contrary, maintained against them that the mere desire for 
 grace is itself a special gift of God ; a free grace independ- 
 ent of and antecedent to any human actions, to the exclusion 
 of any counteracting principle ; a doctrine which, if rigidly 
 interpreted, seems certainly irreconcilable with that degree 
 of liberty which is a necessary element in the moral gov- 
 ernment of the world. 
 
 Grace. In the Fine Arts, a quality arising from ele- 
 gance of form and attitude combined. A figure may be just 
 in its proportions, its parts and members may be all perfect- 
 ly regulated, yet it may be deficient in grace. It is scarcely 
 possible in words to express this quality, yet it is constantly 
 seen in nature ; and it is scarcely possible to contemplate a 
 picture by RafTaelle without feeling its power. 
 
 GRACE AT MEALS, THE SAYING OF, is a Jewish 
 custom, and appears to have been sanctioned by the prac- 
 tice of our Saviour. (Mark, viii., 6 ; Matth., xiv., 19.) It is 
 mentioned by Jerome and Tertullian as usual among the 
 early Christians. A custom of beginning meals by prayers 
 was common in classical antiquity. (lira, xxxix., 43; 
 Quinti'. Dcclam., 301.) 
 
 GRACE, DAYS OF, in Commercial Law, are certain 
 days allowed by the custom of merchants to be added to the 
 time requisite for presentment of a bill. Thus, if an instru- 
 ment drawn in this country be payable " a certain time after 
 date," three days of grace are added : a bill drawn on the 
 27th of August, payable " two months after date," is there- 
 fore due on the 30th of October. So if a foreign bill be 
 drawn at one, two, or more " usances," the days of grace 
 are added to the usance. The usance between London 
 and Paris is one calendar month : a bill drawn in London 
 on Paris, "at one usance," on the second January, is conse- 
 quently due on the fifth February. The number of days of 
 grace varies in different countries. In France none are al- 
 lowed. 
 
 GRAFTING. 
 
 GRA'CES. (Gr. x a P' T ^> Lat. gratis.) In Mythology, 
 the three sister goddesses, Euphrosyne, Aglaia, and Thalia, 
 attendants on Venus. The Graces, in Sculpture, were ori- 
 ginally represented clothed ; but in later times entirely na- 
 ked. (Hor. Od., lib. iii. ; Pausan., lib. ix.) In one of the 
 groups of statues described by Pausanias they held respect- 
 ively a rose, a die, and a leaf of myrtle. In the Iliad they 
 appear as attendants of Juno; in the Odyssey, of Venus 
 Their temples were often dedicated, also, to Venus, to Cu- 
 pid, the Muses, Mercury, or Apollo. (There is a disserta- 
 tion on these goddesses by Massieu, Mead, des Inscr., vol. iii.) 
 
 Graces. In Music, ornamental notes attached to princi- 
 pal ones, such as the appoggiatura, shake, &c. ; which see. 
 
 GRACIO'SO. The buffoon ; a favourite character on the 
 Spanish stage. (See Quart. Rev., vols, lix., lxxviii.) 
 
 GRA'CULA. (Lat. graculus, a jay.) A genus of Denti- 
 rostral Passerine birds, characterized by a moderately long, 
 slightly arched, and notched beak ; nostrils situated anterior 
 to the base of the beak, oblong, open, and notched ; tongue 
 with a short apex, often bifid. One species of this genus 
 (Gracula tristis, Cuv.) is a native of India, and has been 
 imported into the islands of Bourbon and the Mauritius, 
 where it is held in the highest estimation for the services it 
 performs in restraining the undue increase of locusts. The 
 bird commonly called the mino grackle (Gracula religiosa 
 of Linnreus) is the type of the genus Eulabes of Cuvier. 
 
 GRADATION. (Lat. gradus, a step.) In Painting, the 
 gradual blending of one tint into another. 
 
 Grada'tion. In Music, a diatonic ascending or descend- 
 ing succession of chords. 
 
 GRA'DATORY. (Lat. gradus.) A term applied in 
 Mammalogy to the extremities of a quadruped which are 
 equal, or nearly so, and adapted for ordinary progression on 
 dry land. In Ornithology, the "pedes gradarii" are those 
 in which the whole tibia is covered with feathers. 
 
 GRA'DIENTS. See Railways. 
 
 GRA'DUATE. (Lat. gradus.) One who has taken a 
 degree in a college or university. See Degree, College, 
 University. 
 
 GRADUA'TED. In Ornithology, when the quill-feath- 
 ers of the tail increase in length by regular gradations. 
 
 GRADUA'TION. In Practical Astronomy, the division 
 of circular arcs into degrees, minutes, &c. This is an art 
 which, though depending on the geometrical properties of 
 the circle, requires, to be successfully executed, the appli- 
 cation of very great practical skill. For the principles, see 
 Mascheroni, Geometrie du Compas ; and for the practical 
 part, Trou tr/tton's Account of a Method of Dividing Astro- 
 nomical and other Instruments, &c, in the Phil. TYans., 
 1809 ; also, the article " Graduation" in Brewster's Encyc, 
 by the same eminent artist. 
 
 GRADUA'TOR. Contrivances for accelerating sponta- 
 neous evaporation by the exposure of large surfaces of li- 
 quids to a current of air have been termed graduators ; and 
 in some salt-works, where the brine is strengthened by al- 
 lowing a shower of it to trickle over fagots, the process is 
 called graduation. Vinegar is sometimes manufactured by 
 suffering a mixture of alcohol and water previously mixed 
 with a little vinegar or some ferment to filter through a tub 
 filled with beech shavings, through which a current of air 
 is at the same time passing. 
 
 GRA'FTING. In Horticulture, the operation of affixing 
 one portion of a plant to another in such a manner as that 
 a vital union may take place between them. Grafting may 
 be performed both with herbaceous and ligneous plants; 
 but in practice it is chiefly confined to the latter, and more 
 especially to the propagation of esteemed varieties of fruit- 
 trees. A grafted plant consists of two parts: the stock or 
 stem, which is a rooted plant fixed in the ground ; and the 
 scion, sometimes, but erroneously, termed the graft, which 
 is a detached portion of another plant to be affixed to it. 
 The operation of grafting can only be performed within cer- 
 tain physiological limits ; but what these are science has 
 not yet absolutely determined. 
 
 In general, all the species of one genus may be grafted 
 on one another reciprocally; but this is not universally the 
 case, because the apple cannot be grafted on the pear, at 
 least not for any useful purpose. In general, it may be pre- 
 sumed that all the species of a natural order, or at least of 
 a tribe, may be grafted on one another ; but this does not 
 hold good universally. The reverse of this doctrine, how- 
 ever, viz., that the species belonging to different natural or- 
 ders cannot be grafted on one another holds almost univer- 
 sally true; and therefore a safe practical conclusion is, that 
 in choosing a stock, the nearer in affinity the species to 
 which that stock belongs is to the scion, the more certain 
 will be the success. 
 
 Grafting is one of the most important operations in horti- 
 culture, as affording the most eligible means of multiplying 
 and perpetuating all our best varieties of fruit-trees, and 
 many kinds of trees and shrubs not so conveniently propa- 
 gated by other means. Varieties of fruits are originally pro- 
 
 525
 
 GRALL.E. 
 
 cured by selection from plants raised from seed, but they can 
 only be perpetuated by some mode which continues the in- 
 dividual ; and though this may be done by cuttings and lay- 
 ers, yet by far the most eligible mode is by grafting, as it 
 produces stronger plants in a shorter time than any other 
 methods. 
 
 Grafting is performed in a great many different ways, but 
 the most eligible for ordinary purposes is what is commonly 
 called splice grafting, or whip grafting. In executing this 
 mode, both the scion and the stock are pared down in a 
 slanting direction ; afterward applied together, and made 
 fast with strands of bast matting, in the same manner as two 
 pieces of rod are spliced together to form a whip handle. 
 To insure success, it is essentially necessary that the albur- 
 num or inner bark of the scion should coincide accurately 
 with the inner bark of the stock, because the vital union is 
 effected by the sap of the stock rising up through the soft 
 wood of the scion. After the scion is tied to the stock, the 
 graft is said to be made ; and it only remains to cover the 
 part tied, with a mass of tempered clay, or any convenient 
 composition that will exclude the air. The season for per- 
 forming the operation is, for all deciduous trees and shrubs, 
 the spring, immediately before the movement of the sap. 
 The spring is also the most favourable season for evergreens ; 
 but the sap in this class of plants being more in motion du- 
 ring winter than that of deciduous plants, grafting, if thought 
 necessary, might be performed at that season. 
 
 Grafting by approach, or inarching, is a mode of grafting, 
 in which, to make sure of success, the scion is not separated 
 from the parent plant till it has become united with the 
 stock. For this purpose, the stock and the plant containing 
 the scion must be growing close together; and the scion be- 
 ing drawn to one side, and made to approach the stock, is 
 spliced to it by cutting off a portion of" its bark and wood, 
 and a similar portion of the bark and wood of the stock, ap- 
 plying the one to the other so that their alburnums may join, 
 and then making both fast by matting, and excluding the air 
 by clay, grafting wax, or moss. When the scion has effect- 
 ed a vital union with the stock, its lower extremity is cut 
 through, so as to separate it from the parent plant, and it 
 now becomes an independent graft. In this way trees of 
 difficult propagation may be propagated with certainty ; 
 while if any of the other modes of propagation, whether by 
 cuttings or grafting, were adopted, a proportion of the cut- 
 tings or scions would, in all probability, be lost. 
 
 Grafting herbaceous plants differs in nothing from graft- 
 ing such as are of a woody nature, excepting that the opera- 
 tion is performed when both stock and scion are in a state 
 of vigorous growth. Grafting herbaceous plants is but little 
 practised in England, and on the Continent chiefly as a mat- 
 ter of amusement. The only useful purpose to which it has 
 hitherto been applied is that of grafting the finer kinds of 
 dahlias on tubers of the more common and vigorous grow- 
 ing sorts. In the Paris gardens the tomato is sometimes 
 grafted on the potato, the cauliflower on the borecole, and 
 one gourd on another, as matter of curiosity. 
 
 Grafting the herbaceous shoots of woody plants — the greffe 
 herbace of the French — is scarcely known among English 
 gardeners ; but it has been extensively employed by French 
 nurserymen, and even in some of the royal forests of France. 
 The scions are formed of the points of growing shoots; and 
 the stocks are also the points of growing shoots cut or bro- 
 ken over an inch or two below the point, where the shoot is 
 as brittle as asparagus. The operation is performed in the 
 cleft manner ; that is, by cutting the lower end of the scion 
 in the form of a wedge, and inserting it in a cleft or slit made 
 down the middle of the stock. The finer kinds of azalias, 
 pines, and firs arc propagated in this way in the French nur- 
 series, and thousands of Pinus laricio have been so grafted 
 on Pinus sylvestres in the forest of Fontainebleau. At 
 Hopetoun House, near Edinburgh, this mode of grafting has 
 been successfully practised with Mies Smithiana, the stock 
 being the common spruce fir. 
 
 GRA'LLjE. (Lat. grallae, stilts.) The Linna:an name 
 of the order of long-legged wading birds. 
 
 GRA'MINA'CEiE. An order of Endogenous plants, 
 commonly called grasses, in which the parts of fructifica- 
 tion are essentially perfect, although they are in a very unu- 
 sual state in what may be called their accessory organs. 
 They have neither calyx nor corolla; but, in lieu of them, 
 imbricated scales, called palea* and glumes ; the latter of 
 which give rise to the name glumaeeous, often applied to 
 these plants. They arc nearly allied to sedges, from which 
 they differ in having the sheaths of their leaves slit and their 
 stems hollow. Corn of all kinds, the bamboo, the sugar- 
 cane, many kinds of pasture plants, and reeds, belong to 
 different species of Graminacem. Ergot is the ovary of rye 
 attacked by a fungus called F.rgotatia ahortans. The flinty 
 surface of the stems or straw renders many valuable for 
 domestic use, as for forming the plat from which straw- 
 bonnets, &c, are manufactured. The systematical arrange- 
 ment of grasses is a difficult and unsatisfactory task, and 
 530 
 
 GRAMMAR. 
 
 has occupied the attention of many botanists. The most 
 recent work upon the subject is Kuntk's Jigrostographia, 
 published at Berlin in 183G. Sinclair's Hortus Gramincus 
 Woburnensis is a useful account of the relative qualities of 
 pasture grasses. 
 
 GRAMMAR. (Gr. ypuppariKn Tt\\>n, the grammatical 
 art ; from ypn<f>u>, / write.) The science which has for its 
 object the laws which regulate human language. Lan- 
 guage, in its widest acceptation, may be defined to be the 
 expression, by means of outward signs, of what passes in 
 the mind. If, therefore, it is to admit of rules, or general 
 laws, it is plain that we must seek those laws either in the 
 constitution of the mind where it originates, or of the out- 
 ward materials of which it is composed. These are either 
 sounds, visible images, or gestures. The first two of these, 
 as admitting of the greatest variety, and capable of being 
 most easily distinguished from each other, form by far the 
 most considerable part of language, and that part alone 
 which grammar takes account of. The material of lan- 
 guage, when it is sound, is capable of analysis into a definite 
 number of simple elements. It is not our object at present 
 to enter on the consideration of this part of language, wheth- 
 er consisting of sound, or marks to designate sound. We 
 pass on to its more important class of laws, which result 
 from the internal conditions of the mind ; and which, view- 
 ed in that reference, constitute the subject matter of philo- 
 sophical grammar, properly so called. An analysis of our 
 mental faculties must therefore precede any attempt to de- 
 fine the province and settle the principles of grammar. Of 
 the various divisions of the human faculties proposed by 
 philosophers, we shall adopt, as best suited to our purposes, 
 that which distinguishes them into two grand classes — the 
 province of affection, and that of perception or intellection. 
 The discriminating mark of the former class, under which 
 we include alike the outward senses and the inner sense or 
 emotion, is this, that the faculties which it includes imply a 
 state of mind or consciousness, and that only. By percep- 
 tion or intellection, on the other hand, are meant those states) 
 of mind which refer to a real or supposed object, out of the 
 mind itself. "To know" and "to know nothing" are con- 
 tradictory conceptions; every act of knowledge implies at 
 once an object and a mind to which that object is present. 
 Each of these portions of the mind has its appropriate ex- 
 pression, its peculiar language. The language of emotion i9 
 common to men and animals. It consists, for the most part, 
 of certain simple sounds or exclamations, which, if capable 
 of being reduced to rules at all, must rest for those rules on 
 physiological considerations, which form the province of 
 philosophical grammar. We must seek that province, con- 
 sequently, in Fhe language of intelligence or reason. Ra- 
 tional discourse, or human language, may be figuratively ex- 
 pressed as the outward type or form which thoughts, and 
 the laws which regulate them, impress on the material of 
 sound. In the words of Plato, "reason and discourse are 
 one; only the former, as the conversation of the soul with 
 herself, which goes on without the intervention of sound, 
 lias obtained among us the name of discourse of reason." 
 We do not deny that language, in this limited sense, may 
 become the expression of emotion in ourselves, and excite 
 emotion in others. Both these objests, however, it can ef- 
 fect only mediately : the first, by converting, through reflec- 
 tion, an emotion into an object of consciousness : by render- 
 ing it intelligible to ourselves, then intelligible to others: 
 the second, only through the understanding of those whom 
 we address. The laws of language must therefore corres- 
 pond with the laws of the intellect : if there is anything 
 universal and necessary in the one, its representative or 
 image must be found repeated in the other. But the neces- 
 sary laws of thought nre the object matter of logic. It 
 might, therefore, seem that logic and universal grammar 
 are convertible terms. Both sciences consider alike the 
 forms of the intellect, and the right mode of expressing 
 these forms in language. But they differ in this, that logic 
 considers the intellectual process primarily, and its expres- 
 sion in language only incidentally ; whereas grammar con- 
 siders the former only in so far as it conduces to the right 
 understanding and due regulation of the latter. Having 
 previously distinguished philosophical, from merely practi- 
 cal or empirical grammar, we may now distinguish philo- 
 sophical grammar itself into universal and particular. The 
 first, as we have seen, corresponds to logic : as the one is 
 the science of those conditions which must be presupposed 
 in order to render thought and intelligence possible; so the 
 other contemplates the conditions which are to render pos- 
 sible the outward expression of thought and intelligence. 
 The same relation which universal grammar bears to logic, 
 particular grammar, philosophically treated, may be said to 
 hold to the kindred science of psychology. It considers the 
 experimental laws of the mind with the same view with 
 which universal grammar contemplates those that are ne- 
 cessary. It takes into the account the effects of accidental 
 association, in order to explain the idioms or peculiarities
 
 GRAMMAR. 
 
 of the particular language before it. It calculates, so to 
 speak, the disturbing forces which act on the general law. 
 
 In developing the principles of universal grammar, we 
 shall consider, in order, the various kinds of words or 
 " parts of speech" into which language is ordinarily dis- 
 tinguished. 
 
 The first class of words corresponds to the faculty called 
 by logicians apprehension, or simple apprehension. They 
 are commonly named nouns, or substantives, or nouns sub- 
 stantive ; and express either individuals, as " John, Charles;" 
 or classes, as " man, animal." They are called substan- 
 tives, because they express a real or supposed substance 
 (Lat. sub, stare), a something which is conceived to stand 
 under, or, in scholastic language, to be the support of, cer- 
 tain qualities. These qualities may in their turn be consid- 
 ered as substances, and expressed by substantives, as white- 
 ness, greenness. When considered in relation to the sub- 
 stance of which they are properties, they constitute the 
 second class of words — adjectives, or nouns adjective. Thus 
 we say "a white horse, a dazzling whiteness ;" where the 
 same conception which in the former case is regarded as a 
 quality, and expressed by an adjective, is in the second con- 
 verted into a substance, itself the support of other properties. 
 Thus far the only intellectual power implied in language 
 is that of forming general conceptions. A conception, when 
 formed, is capable of being resolved back into its constituent 
 parts. In the conception "stag" we find the property of 
 swiftness contained This attribution of a quality to a sub- 
 stance is what logicians call a judgment ; its expression in 
 language is an affirmation, or proposition. The sign of this 
 attribution is called the copu'a : "The stag is swift." 
 Every judgment which has regard to matter of fact consid- 
 ers an event either as past, present, or future : " The hair 
 was light, is dark, wi'l be gray." When the attribute prop- 
 erty or quality is combined with the copula or word signify- 
 ing the affirmation or attribution, a third class of words is 
 produced, to which we give the name of verbs. Thus in- 
 stead of saying, "the sun is bright," we may say "the sun 
 6hines;" where the latter form of expression is equivalent 
 to, or capable of being analyzed into, the former. A verb is 
 therefore a compound part of speech, consisting of an adjec- 
 tive and a copula or affirmation, and signifying not only the 
 conception of a property, but our perception or judgment 
 that such property does inhere or belong to some substance, 
 or else that it has belonged or will belong to it. The rela- 
 tion between property and substance, expressed in even' 
 proposition, may be differently stated as the relation of part 
 to whole, of species to genus, of individual to species : dis- 
 tinctions which do not concern us at present, inasmuch as 
 grammar, no less than logic, has regard only to our mode of 
 conceiving things, not to things as they are in themselves. 
 
 The three parts of speech which we have thus analyzed 
 — the substantive, the adjective, and the verb — are called 
 the primary or essential parts of speech. They are those 
 without which no discourse could take place, no act of 
 judgment be communicated ; in other words, without which 
 no sounds could have meaning. The parts of speech which 
 remain to be considered are the pronoun, the article, the ad- 
 verb, the preposition, the conjunction, the interjection. 
 
 The pronoun is so called from its being a substitute for a 
 noun; a compendious contrivance to avoid repetition, or 
 needless and inconvenient specification: as, "John is tall 
 and he is handsome," which is equivalent to saying "John 
 is tall and John is handsome." They are commonly subdi- 
 vided into personal or substantive, adjective, demonstrative, 
 relative, indefinite, and interrogative pronouns. 
 
 Articles are words joined to substantives, for the purpose 
 of defining whether the substance or conception is to be un- 
 derstood in a general sense, or in particular relation to an 
 individual. When the first is our intention, we use in Eng- 
 lish no article whatever: as, " Man is corrupt;" by which 
 we mean that corruption is an attribute of the genus " man," 
 and not of any particular individual to the exclusion of oth- 
 ers. In Greek, however, the use of the article is frequently 
 equivalent to the omission of it in English, as 17 ivotStln, 
 piety. If we used the article a or an, we should, in most 
 instances, mean that some individual or other of the species 
 was contemplated : " I saw a horse." When we use the 
 definite article the, we mean to specify which individual of 
 the species we have in view. 
 
 The adverb derives its existence from the difficulty of de- 
 fining by one word the precise quality of a particular object. 
 When we say a thing is "green," we may call up in the 
 minds of our hearers the image of a very different shade of 
 greenness from that which we are describing. If we say 
 it is " very green," our language is more definite. An ad- 
 verb may consequently be described as a modifying part of 
 speech, joined with adjectives or verbs to define more accu- 
 rately the degree of the quality or circumstances of the ac- 
 tion predicated. That it is not an essential part of language 
 is evident from the circumstance that its place may be sup- 
 plied either by a termination, as "greenisA," for "rather 
 
 green ;" or by a periphrasis, as " he walks with speed," in- 
 stead of" he walks rapidly." 
 
 Prepositions are those parts of speech which express rela- 
 tions between substances, and are consequently joined only 
 with substantives ; as, "from the city to the country." We 
 shall consider them more at length when we come to treat 
 of the inflections of words. 
 
 As prepositions express objective relations, so conjunctions 
 may be said to represent those of a subjective nature; or 
 those relations which we perceive to exist between the 
 judgments of our own intellect, whether of mere succession, 
 of inference, or the like. They are consequently used to 
 connect propositions together; as, "John is wise, therefore 
 he is good ;" " John is wise because he is good," &c. They 
 are to the syllogistic faculty, or the faculty which perceives 
 the connexion and dependance of simple judgments, what 
 the copula is to the faculty which forms these judgments. 
 As the one forms words into propositions, so the other are 
 necessary to combine propositions into sentences. 
 
 The interjection is the expression of emotions, and emo- 
 tions only. It is not, therefore, confined to human dis- 
 course ; and as it has nothing to do with the operations of 
 the intellect, is incapable of logical combination with other 
 words. It might therefore be doubted whether it can with 
 propriety be called a part of speech or not. 
 
 We have said that the last-mentioned " parts of speech" 
 were not necessary constituents of language. We so far 
 qualify that assertion, in regard to prepositions in particular, 
 as to admit that they are the expressions and modes of con- 
 ceptions which the human understanding unavoidably 
 forms. Whether, in technical language, the necessity be a 
 formal or a material necessity, we forbear to discuss at 
 large ; since it is a subject on which logicians are not agreed. 
 We ourselves are inclined, with Kant, to think it formal. 
 We conceive the relations of cause and effect, of time and 
 place, of action and passion, to be as much pure educt of 
 the understanding, and as independent for their form on ex- 
 perience, as those of part and whole, substance and attri- 
 bute, which we have seen to constitute the necessity for the 
 primary parts of speech. They differ, however, in this, that 
 the latter must enter into every proposition to render it a 
 proposition at all ; while those we are now considering may 
 or may not, according to the matter in hand. In all lan- 
 guages they are expressed more or less perfectly. In our 
 own, and in the other branches of the Teutonic stock, this 
 expression is effected in two ways. Either the relation in- 
 truded to be implied is expressed by an affix or prefix to the 
 radical or abstract portion of the word itself: or the relation 
 is regarded as abstracted from all particular objects between 
 which it might be conceived to subsist, and, so abstracted, 
 is embodied in a distinct word or particle. Thus what the 
 Latins expressed by the termination or t", as " domino," 
 "nubi," is represented in English by the prepositions " to" 
 or "for." Generally speaking, the earlier a language the 
 richer it is found to be in terminations ; which, as the fac- 
 ulty of abstraction becomes habitual, are commonly abridg- 
 ed in number, and replaced by particles. A word which 
 admits a variety of such modifications is said to be declina- 
 ble. The only declinable or inflected parts of speech are the 
 substantive and the verb, and in some languages the adjec- 
 tive and participle, with the representative parts of speech, 
 the pronoun and article. The reason of this is sufficiently 
 obvious. It is between supposed substances that the rela- 
 tions of cause and effect and those of place are conceived to 
 exist; while the relations of time pertain to action and pas- 
 sion, or those changes in the state of substances which are 
 expressed in language by verbs. The declension of adjec- 
 tives is an anomaly in language. It probably results from 
 the facility with which we convert in our thoughts a quali- 
 ty or attribute into a substance : unless it is to be accounted 
 for by what grammarians call "attraction ;" a supposed in- 
 fluence which ihe inflexion of a word exerts over those im- 
 mediately in contact with it, and which is owing partly, per- 
 haps, to the desire of euphony, and partly to a confusion of 
 thought, the effect of association. The sum total of the 
 modifications which the words of a language admit consti- 
 tute what is called the accidence of that language. The 
 circumstances under which such modifications or inflexions 
 take place are the subject-matter of that part of grammar 
 which is named syntax. These inflexions are, in nouns, 
 case, number, and gender; in verbs, tense, mood, person, 
 and. in most languages, number. 
 
 The cases of nouns are the expression of the relations of 
 substances. In Latin there are, besides the nominative, or 
 absolute form of a conception, and the vocative, used in ad- 
 dressing or calling to another person (a compound of a noun 
 and an interjection), four cases properly so called ; the geni- 
 tive, the dative, the accusative, and the ablative. Of these 
 the English language retains in its nouns one only, he geni- 
 tive ; in its pronouns two, the genitive and accusative. All 
 other cases it replaces by prepositions. 
 The genitive case expresses the relation of property. A
 
 GRAMMAR. 
 
 single conception is capable of being analyzed into a number 
 of constituent parts, which are either necessary to the whole 
 conception, or bound up with it by association more or less 
 habitual. We represent this process in language by some 
 change either in the word which signifies the property, or in 
 that which denotes the containing substance. The last is 
 the case in most European languages. Thus, we speak of a 
 " horse's colour," of " Socrates' philosophy." 
 
 The dative case implies participation in the effect of an 
 action, expressed in English by the preposition " to" or 
 " for." " Dedi ei," " I gave it to him ;" where the effect of 
 my act of giving is shared only by another. 
 
 The accusative is used where the effect of an action is 
 conceived as passing over entire to another substance: 
 "Laceravi librum," " I tore the book;" where the whole of 
 the immediate effect is conceived as confined to the book 
 which I tear. It is also called the objective case. 
 
 The ablative case, if we regard its etymology only, we 
 should define to be that which expresses loss or privation. 
 In this sense it ought to be considered as a mollification of 
 the dative, or the case which expresses the incidental or 
 participated effects of an action ; and we accordingly find 
 that in Latin the English preposition "from" is frequently 
 expressed by the dative. There is, however, a kind of rela- 
 tion which no other case serves precisely to convey, that of 
 outward proximity, which is expressed in English by such 
 prepositions as at, near, by, upon, and in Latin by the abla- 
 tive case, which consequently is not so useless or superflu- 
 ous a form as some grammarians have considered it to be. 
 
 Besides the inflexion of case, nouns admit, in most lan- 
 guages, those of number and gender. The latter is a mere 
 generalization from experience ; and though it may be con- 
 venient to have a termination to designate it, it is not neces- 
 sary, as is apparent from our own language, which expresses 
 this distinction only in its pronouns, and in some few of its 
 substantives. Our conceptions of number are doubtless 
 conditions of our mental constitution. They may be gener- 
 alized under the forms of unity simple, unity comprehen- 
 sive, and plurality. Unity, whether regarded simply or as 
 an aggregate, is expressed by the singular number. Many 
 languages, besides singular and plural, have a form to de- 
 note duality, or two things together ; a fact which, proba- 
 bly, is owing to the duality of the parts of the human body, 
 as the hands, feet, &.c. 
 
 We proceed to consider the different kinds of verbs, and 
 their modifications. Verbs are divided into transitive, in- 
 transitive, and passive. They admit necessarily of time 
 and mood ; accidentally and by usage of person and number. 
 
 A property, taking the word in the most general sense of 
 which it is capable, may be conceived either as a state, a 
 process, or as a power in action. To the first two corre- 
 spond the verbs commonly called intransitive, or neuter, as 
 "I rest," "I grow," " I fall." When a power is in action, 
 we measure it by its effects on some substance ; we con- 
 ceive the action as passing on to another object, as " the 
 clouds bring rain." The verb which expresses this transi- 
 tion is called the verb active or transitive. But not only are 
 we able to conceive an object exerting power; we may also 
 consider it as susceptible of influence or change from the 
 action of another object. This is expressed by the verb 
 passive, as "the dog was beaten." Many other modifica- 
 tions of action and change have their appropriate forms in 
 different languages. Such are the verb middle or reflex in 
 Greek, the verbs frequentative and desiderative in Greek 
 and Latin. These, however, are matters of idiom, not of 
 universal necessity. 
 
 Equally extensive with the conceptions of cause and ef- 
 fect is that of time, as the universal condition of all change 
 in nature. The words which signify the one must therefore 
 he capable of expressing the other. Hence the necessity for 
 tenses in verbs, or the inflexions w'hich determine the time 
 of the action, as present, past, or future. We may farther ab- 
 stract an action from its relation to time altogether; and 
 this abstraction is in some languages, as in the Greek, repre- 
 sented by a form appropriate to the purpose, called the 
 aorist. 
 
 The modifications of verbs which we have been consider- 
 ing concern change or action objectively, or in relation to 
 the substances which they are supposed to affect. Our 
 judgments themselves are also liable to certain modifica- 
 tions, which, as regarding only the way in which we con- 
 ceive of events, may be said to constitute the subjunctive 
 conditions of verbs. Our knowledge of an occurrence may 
 be either certain or uncertain ; and uncertain either abso- 
 lutely, or only under particular suppositions. When we 
 simply express our judgment that a thing is, has been, or 
 will be, in such and such a state, we are said to speak indic- 
 atively, or in the indicative mood. When we consider a 
 thing as possible merely, we use the potential mood, denoted 
 in English by the auxiliary verbs " may" or " might." 
 When we speak of it as dependant for its occurrence on 
 certain conditions, or in case of its occurrence as connected 
 528 
 
 GRANITE. 
 
 with certain probable or inevitable consequences, we use the 
 conjunctive mood : " I would go, if he would let me." Dif- 
 ferent languages express these modifications of judgment 
 more or less perfectly ; none, perhaps, with absolute accuracy. 
 
 Two other modal forms still remain to be considered. 
 They have been called by grammarians the imperative and 
 optative moods, as conveying the expression of a command 
 or a wish. They may be included under the general term 
 of desiderative, and imply at once the conception of an event, 
 and our desire that that event should take place. They may 
 therefore be regarded as forming the connecting link between 
 verbs and interjections ; between the words which belong to 
 the perceptive and those which pertain to the emotive part 
 of our nature. 
 
 What is commonly named the infinitive mood may be con- 
 sidered as the point of transition from a verb to a substan- 
 tive. It is, so to speak, a substantiied attribute, and is used 
 as the subject of a proposition as correctly as substantives 
 themselves : c. g., " To die is gain." 
 
 The participle is usually ranked as a separate part of 
 speech. It may be said to hold the same intermediate place 
 between a verb and an adjective, as the infinitive holds be- 
 tween a verb and a substantive. It possesses all the proper- 
 ties of the verb, save affirmation ; that is to say, to the prop- 
 erties of the adjective it adds the power of denoting time. 
 
 The attribution to verbs of number and person is logically 
 as anomalous as it is to assign gender and number to adjec- 
 tives. Most languages fall into this error, which is, how- 
 ever, susceptible of a very easy historical solution. It 
 arose, doubtless, from the original custom of annexing the 
 pronoun to the termination of the verb, and continuing the 
 use of the inflection after its import had been forgotten, and 
 when the pronoun had been formed into an independent 
 part of speech. 
 
 Those who wish to investigate the principles of grammar 
 more closely, would do well to consult Mr. Harris's Hermes, 
 perhaps the most complete philosophical treatise on gram- 
 mar that has appeared in England. See also the article 
 " Grammar," in the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, where the 
 paradoxical opinions of Mr. Home Tooke on this subject are 
 ably confuted. Professor Thiersch, in his Greek Grammar, 
 some time since translated into English, has interspersed 
 some ingenious and valuable inquiries into the general prin- 
 ciples of language, from which the student may derive many 
 important hints. 
 
 GRAMMA'RIAN. Literally, one versed in grammar ; 
 but the term was used by the classic ancients as a title of 
 honourable distinction for all who were considered learned 
 in any art or faculty whatever. (See Vossius's work on 
 Grammar.) 
 
 GRANA'DE. See Grenade. 
 
 GRA'NARY. (Lat. granum, corn.) A building in which 
 to lay or store corn, especially that designed to be kept a 
 considerable time. Various scientific principles have been 
 laid down for the erection of buildings of this nature, of 
 which the reader will find a full account in Rees's Cyclo- 
 paedia ; but the most curious, as well as most efficient con- 
 trivances for housing and keeping grain in good order, are to 
 be met with in some parts of Sicily. They consist either of 
 excavations into calcareous rocks, or holes in the ground 
 shaped like a bottle, walled up, and rendered waterproof by 
 the neck of the bottle being hermetically closed with a stone 
 fastened with gypsum. They contain about 200 salme, or 
 about 1600 English bushels of com, which may be thus pre- 
 served for an indefinite period ; at least it has been found in 
 perfectly good order after the lapse of a century. (Simond, 
 p. 25; Swinburne, vol. ii., p. 405.) 
 
 GRAND. (Fr.) In the Fine Arts, a quality by which 
 the highest degree of majesty and dignity is imparted to a 
 work of art. Its source is in form freed from ordinary and 
 common bounds, and to be duly felt requires an investiga- 
 tion of the different qualities by which great and extraordi- 
 nary objects produce impression on the mind. 
 
 GRANDE'E. (Span, grande; from grande de espana.) 
 The highest title of Spanish nobility. The collective body 
 of the higher nobility in Spain is termed la grandeia. They 
 were originally the same with the ricos hombres. Gran- 
 dees bear different titles — duke, marquis, &c. ; but there is 
 no essential difference of rank between these titles: all are 
 equal among themselves. Grandeeships descend through 
 females, and thus become accumulated in families. (Quart. 
 Rev., 1838.) 
 
 GRAND JURY. Sec Jury. 
 
 GRANGE. A farm-yard or farmery, which consists of a 
 farm-house, and a court of offices for the different animals 
 and implements used in farming, and also of hams, feeding 
 houses, poultry houses, &c. See Farm-yard, or Farmery. 
 
 GRA'NITE. A crystalline aggregate of quartz, felspar, 
 and mica, with the occasional addition of other minerals. 
 It is regarded by modern geologists as of igneous oriein, and 
 as having been protiuded from below, so as to elevate and 
 dislocate the adjacent strata, and occasionally to penetrate
 
 GRANIVOR^E. 
 
 them in the form of veins. Granite is a hard and generally 
 durable rock, and of vast importance as a building material, 
 and in its applications to pavements. The crystals of fel- 
 spar are sometimes very large and distinct, and constitute 
 the whitish embedded masses which are seen in such per- 
 fection in some of the granite pavements of London, espe- 
 cially of London and Waterloo Bridges. When the mica 
 prevails in granite, its texture becomes lamellar, and it pass- 
 es into the rock which has been called gneiss ; which again, 
 by the gradual secession of the felspar,degenerates into 7/n'ca- 
 slate. There are some kinds of granite which are under- 
 going rapid disintegration and decay, in consequence of the 
 joint action of air and water upon" the felspar ; the potash 
 of which appears to be removed, and the residue falls into 
 a white powder, composed chiefly of silica and alumina in 
 a state of very fine division : it is thus that the celebrated 
 Cornish, clay is produced, which is in such request for the 
 purposes of pottery. The curious district in which the Car- 
 glaise tin mine, near St. Austle, is situate, is a good and 
 characteristic specimen of decomposing granite. See Geo- 
 logy. 
 
 GRANI'VORJE. (Lat. granum, a grain ; vora, / eat.) 
 The name given by Temminck to an order of birds, includ- 
 ing the Insessorial species, which feed on grains : other ani- 
 mals with a similar diet are termed " granivorous." 
 
 GRANT. In Law, a mode of conveyance by deed, ap- 
 propriate to estates in lands and tenements not in posses- 
 sion, and also to incorporeal hereditaments. 
 
 GRA'NULATE. (Lat. grana, a grain.) When a surface 
 is beset with manv very small elevations, like shagreen. 
 
 GRA'NULATION. The method of dividing ^metallic 
 substances into grains or drops. It is usually effected by 
 pouring the melted metal into water; and if fine division is 
 required, it must pass through a perforated ladle or sieve ; 
 and in order to obtain spherical particles, it must fall from 
 such a height as to have become solid before it meets with 
 the water : hence the height of the towers in which shot is 
 made. 
 
 GRA'NULATIONS. This term is applied to the little 
 granular formations which arise in sores that are healing, 
 and by which the destroyed parts are filled up and the edges 
 brought together. When healthy they are of a red colour, 
 not exuberant; when unhealthy they are pallid, and be- 
 come soft, spunev, and irregular. 
 
 GRAPE-SHOT. In Artillery, a quantity of small shot 
 put into a canvass bag, and corded together in the form of a 
 cylinder, the diameter of which is adapted to the piece of 
 ordnance from which it is intended to be discharged. It is 
 now superseded by canister-shot. 
 
 GRAPHO'METER. (Gr. ypaipw, I write, and utrpov, 
 measure.) A mathematical instrument used in land survey- 
 ing ; otherwise called a semicircle. 
 
 GRA'PHITE. (Gr. ypa(pw.) The substance improperly 
 called black lead, of which pencils are made. It is a pecu- 
 liar form of mineral carbon with a trace of iron. The finest 
 is found only at Borrodale in Cumberland. Coarse varieties 
 are not uncommon. 
 
 GRA'PNEL. A small anchor for a boat. 
 
 GRA'PLING IRONS. Small grapnels with four flukes 
 for securing ships together in action. 
 
 GRA'PTOLITES. Gr. ypafoi, I write; \tOos, a stone.) 
 A genus of fossil Zoophiles, nearly allied to the existing 
 sea-pens (Pennatula') found in the bituminous shales of the 
 Silurian sandstone deposits. 
 
 GRASSHOPPER. See Locust. 
 
 GRASS LAND. In Agriculture, land kept perpetunlly 
 under grass, as contrasted with land which is alternately 
 under grass and tillage. Perpetual grass lands are generally 
 such as from the soil and situation are too moist to be 
 ploughed with advantage, or too hilly and irregular on the 
 surface to be ploughed at all. Hence we have hill pastures, 
 and low moist meadows. The former admit of very little 
 improvement, excepting that of drainage, and occasionally, 
 in low hills, of irrigation ; while the latter may not only be 
 drained, but may be manured, and in some cases irrigated. 
 See Pasture, Meadow, and Irrigation. 
 
 GRATE may be described as the iron frame and bars for 
 holding the fuel burned in our fireplaces. It is, however, 
 confined to the use of coal ; wood fires being better kept up 
 en what are called "dogs." 
 
 GRAU'WACKE. A German miner's term, implving 
 gray rock; adopted in Geology to designate some of the 
 lowest secondary strata, which form the chief part of the 
 transition rocks of some geologists. See Geology. 
 
 GRAVE. In Music. See Allegro. 
 
 GRA'VEL. A term applied to a well-known material 
 of small stones, which vary in size from a small pea to a 
 walnut, or something larger. It is often intermixed with 
 other substances, such as sand, clay, loam, flints, pebbles, 
 iron ores, &c, from each of which it derives a distinctive 
 appellation. See Geology. 
 
 Gravel. In Gardening, gravel is an important article, 
 46 
 
 GRAVITATION. 
 
 being that of which walks are formed whenever it can can 
 be procured. In selecting gravel two qualities are chiefly 
 to be sought for ; viz., a fine colour, and the property of bind 
 ing. The most common colour of pit gravel is a rusty 
 brown ; and that of river or sea gravel a gray, with differ- 
 ent shades of white, red, or brown. The best colour is con 
 sidered to be a deep rich yellow, which is that of the gravel 
 of Kensington, the stony parts of which are flints— sup- 
 posed to be the finest in the world, and which used former- 
 ly to be shipped, not only to different sea-ports of Great 
 Britain and Ireland, but to various places on the Continent, 
 to Petersburgh, to India, and even to South America. The 
 binding properties of gravel are two ; the presence of ferru 
 ginous clay of the same rich colour as the gravel, and which 
 causes the gravel to set or become hard as soon as it is ex- 
 posed to the action of the atmosphere ; and the irregular 
 and angular shapes and sizes of the stones. Where the 
 stones are round or oval, with regular smooth surfaces, 
 they never form a good binding gravel, even if they should 
 be mLxed with ferruginous clay. The reason is, that these 
 stones which are on the surface, having no mechanical hold 
 on those which are beneath or beside them, but being mere- 
 ly slightly cemented by means of ferruginous clay, are easily 
 loosened, and thrown out of their places by the action of 
 frost, or even by the alternate action of drought and mois- 
 ture. Hence, where no gravel but that found in rivers or on 
 the sea shore can be found for making garden walks, one 
 half of the stones ought to be broken and mixed with the other 
 half before laying them on the walks. The Kensington 
 gravel, applying that term to all those of a similar colour 
 and quality in England, binds better than any other, not only 
 on account of the ferruginous clayey matter with which it 
 is mixed becoming hardened by the atmosphere, but also be- 
 cause the stones are exceedineiv irregular in size and shape. 
 
 GRAVEL, URINARY. See Calculus and Elrine. 
 
 GRA'VER, called also BURIN. The sharp tool, whose 
 extremity is of a triangular form, for cutting the lines of an 
 engraving on the copper. See Engraving. 
 
 GRAVI'METER. (Lat. gravis, heavy, and Gr. utrpov, 
 measure.) An instrument for ascertaining the specific gravi- 
 ties of bodies, whether liquid or solid. The particular in- 
 strument to which the term is usually appropriated was in- 
 vented by M. Guyton. who adopted this name in preference 
 to areometer or hydrometer, because these latter terms imply 
 that the liquid is the thing weighed ; whereas, when 
 solids are weighed, the liquid is only the term of compari- 
 son to which the unknown weight is referred. See Hy- 
 drometer. 
 
 GRAVITATION, GRAVITY. (Lat. gravis, heavy.) 
 These terms are often used synonymously to denote that 
 mutual tendency which all the bodies of nature have to ap- 
 proach each other, with forces which are directly as their 
 masses, and inversely proportional to the squares of their 
 distances. 
 
 That every particle of matter in the universe has a dis- 
 position to press towards, and if not opposed to approach to 
 every other, is a fact of which we derive the knowledge 
 partly from our constant experience of what takes place at 
 the earth's surface, and partly by reasoning from the observed 
 motions of the celestial bodies. This mutual tendency of 
 all the particles of matter to each other is called the attrac- 
 tion of gravitation. In reference to any particular body, or 
 mass of matter, the aggregate attraction of all its particles 
 is usually called simply its gravity. 
 
 Of Terrestrial Gravity. — Universal experience demon- 
 strates that all heavy bodies, when unsupported, fall to- 
 wards the surface of the earth. The direction of their mo- 
 tion may be ascertained by a plumb-line ; and it is found to 
 be always perpendicular to the level surface of the earth, 
 that is, to the surface of stagnant water. But the earth is 
 very nearly spherical, and a line perpendicular to the sur- 
 face of a sphere must pass through its centre ; hence the 
 direction of a body moving in consequence of the force of 
 terrestrial gravity is towards the centre of the earth. And 
 this is the direction in which it must move if the force of 
 gravity is the resultant of the attraction of all the particles 
 of terrestrial matter on the falling body ; for it has been 
 demonstrated (by Newton) that a sphere attracts an exterior 
 body in the same manner as if all its matter were condensed 
 into a single point at its centre. 
 
 As bodies when left without support fall from all heights 
 to which they may be carried, it may be inferred that gravi- 
 ty acts on them during the whole time of their descent, and 
 is therefore a uniformly accelerating force. This might also 
 be inferred from the fact, which is easily rendered sensible, 
 that bodies which fall from a greater height arrive at the 
 earth with a greater velocity. But Galileo was the first who 
 proved by experiment that the acceleration of falling bodies 
 is uniform, and that the spaces descended through are con- 
 sequently as the squares of the times of descent. Experi- 
 ments of this kind are attended with some difficulty on ac- 
 count of the resistance of the air. In order to render this 
 Kk 529
 
 GRAVITATION. 
 
 resistance insensible, Galileo caused bodies to descend on 
 planes having a small inclination to the horizon, in which 
 case (neglecting the effects of friction) the velocity is di- 
 minished in tiie ratio of the sine of the plane's inclination. 
 l?y mounting the descending body on wheels, and forming 
 the inclined plane of a hard substance capable of receiving 
 a perfect polish, the friction may also be so much diminish- 
 ed as not to change the nature of the motion. But the best 
 method of showing experimentally that gravity is a uni- 
 formly accelerating force, is by means of an apparatus call- 
 ed (from its inventor) Attwood's machine. This consists 
 of a pulley, the axle of which turns on fric- 
 J tion rollers, and having a groove on its edge 
 to receive a string. Over the wheel a fine 
 silken cord is stretched, to the ends of which 
 are attached two equal weights, A and B. In 
 this state the weights counterbalance each 
 other, and no motion ensues ; but if to one of 
 the weights a small load m be added, so as to 
 give a preponderance, the loaded weight will 
 immediately begin to descend. The motion 
 which now takes place is exactly of the same 
 kind with that of a body descending freely ; 
 but the velocity is diminished in the propor- 
 3 rion of the additional load m to the sum of 
 the three, m, A and B ; for the force, which is impressed 
 by the additional weight, is expended in giving velocity not 
 only to it, but also to the two weights A and B attached to 
 the string. By this machine the properties of uniformly ac- 
 celerated motion are experimentally shown to hold true in 
 the descent of falling bodies ; for if the additional load be 
 such as will carry the weight to which it is added through 
 1 foot in the first second of time, it carries it through 4 feet 
 in 2 seconds, through 9 in 3 seconds, and so on. A proof is 
 therefore afforded by this means that terrestrial gravity is a 
 uniformly accelerating force. 
 
 Terrestrial gravity acts equally on all bodies ; that is to 
 say, impresses on all of them an equal quantity of motion, 
 whatever their nature may be. This property of gravity 
 was also demonstrated by Galileo. In different hollow 
 spheres, of equal weight and diameter, he enclosed equal 
 weights of different substances : the spheres were suspended 
 by strings of equal length, and made to vibrate in very small 
 arcs, and it was fourjd that the time of an oscillation was 
 the same in all of them. Common experience would seem 
 i be at variance with this result. Light bodies, as feathers, 
 paper, &.c, fall slowly and irregularly ; and some substances, 
 ;■ smoke, vapours, &c, even ascend. But this, as is well 
 known, arises from the buoyancy of the atmosphere. In the 
 exhausted receiver of an air-pump a piece of gold and a 
 feather fall with the same speed, and strike the bottom at 
 the same time. 
 
 Measure of Terrestrial Gravity. — Having ascertained the 
 law according to which gravity acts on bodies at the surface 
 of the earth, the next question is to determine its absolute 
 intensity, or the velocity which it communicates to a body 
 falling freely in a given time. On account of the rapidity 
 of the descent of heavy bodies, this cannot be done by di- 
 rect experiment; nor could Attwood's machine be employ- 
 ed for the purpose with sufficient certainty. The only mode 
 by which an accurate result can be obtained is by measur- 
 ing the length of a pendulum which makes a given number 
 of oscillations in a given time. Let / be the length of the 
 seconds' pendulum, n the ratio of the circumference to the 
 diameter, and g the accelerating force of gravity, that is, 
 twice the space through which a body falls by the action of 
 gravity in the first second of time; then (Pendulum) we 
 have the equation g^zlifl. Now the length of the pendulum 
 vibrating seconds of mean solar time in London, in vacuo, 
 and reduced to the level of the sea, has been determined to 
 be 39139.3 British standard inches ; and -=3-14159 ; there- 
 fore s is found=386-3 inches, or 32$ feet. The height, 
 therefore, through which a body would fall in vacuo in a 
 second of time at London is half of this quantity, or 16 1-10 
 feet. It will be observed, however, that this value of g does 
 not express the whole of the earth's attraction, a small part 
 of which (about the l-464th) is counteracted by the centri- 
 fugal force corresponding to the latitude: it is the force of 
 gravity diminished by the centrifugal force, or what is prop- 
 erly called gravitation. 
 
 From experiments made with the greatesl care, it appears 
 that the extreme amount of the variation of the gravitating 
 force between the equator and the poles is one part in 194 
 of the whole quantity ; that is to say, any body which at the 
 equator weighs 194 pounds, if transported to the pole would 
 weigh 195 pounds. The difference of gravitation, therefore, 
 at the equator and the poles, is ex pressed by the fraction 
 l-194th. Now it has been demonstrated by Newton that 
 the ratio of the centrifugal force at the equator to gravita- 
 tion there is I -289th. Tills is considerably smaller than the 
 fraction 1-194 ; but the difference, which is 1-590, arises from 
 the oblate figure of the earth, in consequence of which a 
 530 
 
 body placed at the jwle is at a less distance from the centre 
 than one at the equator/and is therefore attracted more than 
 it would be at the equator, even if the earth stood still, and 
 there was consequently no centrifugal force. From this it 
 may be readily understood that the figure of the earth is de- 
 terminable by measuring the intensity of gravitation under 
 different latitudes. -Sec Degree, Earth. 
 
 Universal Gravitation. — Galileo, who had so fully suc- 
 ceeded in exploring the nature of terrestrial gravity, did not 
 suppose that its action extended to bodies beyond the imme- 
 diate vicinity of the earth. The more speculative genius of 
 Kepler led him to speak of gravity as a force acting mutu 
 ally from planet to planet, and particularly from the earth 
 to the moon ; and he even supposed the tides to be pro- 
 duced by the gravitation of the waters of the sea towards 
 the moon. He did not, however suppose it to have any 
 concern in the regulation of the celestial motions. Hooke 
 also supposed the heavenly bodies to have a gravitation to 
 each other ; but his notions respecting its nature were inac- 
 curate, and he did not attempt to define the law of its vari- 
 ation. This great discovery was reserved for Newton. 
 While meditating on the nature of this force, the thought 
 occurred to him that since gravity is a tendency not confined 
 to bodies on the very surface of the earth, but reaches even 
 to the summits of the loftiest mountains without its intensity 
 or direction suffering any sensible change, may it not reach 
 to a much greater distance, and even to the moon t Before 
 this question, however, could be answered, it was necessary 
 to suppose a law according to w hich its intensity diminishes. 
 Newton soon perceived that this law would require the force 
 of gravity to diminish exactly as the square of the distance 
 increases ; or that the attractive force of the earth at the 
 distance of the moon must be as much less than it is at the 
 surface of the earth, as the square of the radius of the earth 
 is less than the square of the moon's distance from the earth. 
 In a general way the hypothesis is easily verified. The 
 moon's orbit differs not much from a circle whose radius is 
 equal to 60 times the semidiameter of the earth, and the cir- 
 cumference of her orbit is therefore about 60 times the cir- 
 cumference of a great, circle of the earth. Now the diame- 
 ter of the earth being nearly 8000 miles, and the period of 
 the moon's revolution being 27 d. 7 h. 43m., it is easy to com- 
 pute that the versed sine of the arc described by the moon 
 in a minute (which is the same as her deflexion from the 
 tangent or straight line she would describe if there were no 
 force attracting her to the earth) is 16 1-10 feet. But the 
 mean distance of the moon from the earth being 60 times 
 the distance of heavy bodies at its surface from its centre, 
 and her gravity increasing in proportion to the square of the 
 distance, her gravity would be 60x60 times greater at the 
 surface of the earth than at her present mean distance, and 
 therefore would carry her through 60X60X16 - 1 feet in a 
 minute near the surface. But by what was proved by Gali- 
 leo respecting the descent of heavy bodies, the same force 
 would carry her through 60X60 times less space in a second 
 than in a minute ; and therefore the same force which com- 
 pels the moon to move in her orbit about the earth, supposed 
 to vary according to the inverse square of the distance, 
 would cause her to fall, near the surface of the earth, 
 through 16-1 feet in a second. Now this is exactly the 
 space through which heavy bodies descend in a second ; 
 therefore the moon may be retained in her orbit by the 
 power of terrestrial gravity. 
 
 Newton, however, did not allow the argument for univer- 
 sal gravitation to rest on loose considerations of the lunar 
 orbit as a circle described with an average velocity about 
 the earth. He demonstrated that bodies moving under the 
 influence of an attractive force which diminishes according 
 to the inverse square of the distance must describe conic 
 sections having a focus at the centre of force, and observe 
 the laws of motion which Kepler had discovered to belong 
 to the planetary orbits. He succeeded also in proving that 
 some of the principal inequalities of the lunar and planetary 
 orbits are necessary consequences of the mutual gravitation 
 of the different bodies of the system to each other ; and 
 that the same mysterious power not only regulates the mo- 
 tions of all the planets and satellites in space, but also de- 
 termines the figure of the earth, causes the precession of the 
 equinoxes, and produces the tides of the ocean. 
 
 Assuming the different bodies which compose the solar 
 system to be acted upon by their mutual gravitation, accord- 
 ing to the law proposed by Newtion, namely, that each body 
 attracts every other with a force proportional to its mass di- 
 rectly and to the square of the distance inversely, the deter- 
 mination of the motions of the several planets and satellites 
 becomes a question of pure geometry when the requisite 
 data are determined by observation. If, however, the prob- 
 lem were required to be solved in its most general terms, 
 and it were necessary to consider simultaneously the effects 
 of all the bodies in the system, the difficulties of calculation 
 would be enormous, and in fact no methods of analysis 
 hitherio discovered would be sufficient to grapple with them
 
 GRAVITY, SPECIFIC. 
 
 Fortunately the actual condition of the system is such as to 
 afford great simplifications. The principal planets are iso- 
 lated in space, at great distances from each other, and their 
 masses are very small in comparison of that of the central 
 body ; so that the effects of their mutual attractions are not 
 such as to alter the general elliptic form of their orbits, but 
 merely produce small perturbations of their orbits and mo- 
 tions, which admit of being separately computed. By avail- 
 ing themselves of these favourable conditions, mathemati- 
 cians have succeeded in expressing the whole of the compli- 
 cated movements of the planets and satellites by analytical 
 equations; and such is the perfection to which this branch 
 of physical science has attained, that there is now no irregu- 
 larity in the motions of the bodies of the solar system, no de- 
 viation from their mean state appreciable to the most deli- 
 cate astronomical observations, which has not been explain- 
 ed, and its period and amount accurately calculated on the 
 principle of universal gravitation, according to the law dis- 
 discovered by Newton. See Planet. 
 
 The effects of gravitation, as manifested in the influences 
 of the celestial bodies on each other, enable us to form seve- 
 ral conclusions respecting its nature and mode of action. 
 That gravity belongs not only to matter in the aggregate, but 
 to every particle of which bodies are composed, is rendered 
 evident by the manner in which the moon disturbs the 
 waters of the ocean. Let E be the earth and M the moon. 
 If the moon's gravity act- 
 ed only on tlie aggregate 
 mass and not on each 
 particle, it would have 
 no effect on the figure of 
 the earth, and conse- 
 quently no tide would be 
 produced. But the ac- 
 tion of the moon on the different parts is unequal. Those at 
 a, which are nearest the moon, are more attracted than those 
 at the centre c ; which again are more attracted than the 
 parts at b, which are farthest from the moon. The conse- 
 quence is, that a fluid particle at a is drawn away as it were 
 from the general mass, and an accumulation takes place at 
 a' For the same reason, the attraction at c being stronger 
 than at ft, the mass of the earth is drawn away from the 
 parts at b, and the fluid is in a manner left behind, and accu- 
 mulates at b'. Hence we perceive the reason why it is high 
 water on opposite sides of the earth at the same instant of 
 time. In fact, in consequence of the moon's attraction, the 
 fluids on the surface of the earth have a tendency at every 
 instant to arrange themselves in the form of an elongated 
 spheroid, the greater axis of which points towards the moon. 
 It is also proved by astronomical phenomena, that gravity 
 is a force which is transmitted from body to body, not suc- 
 cessively, but instantaneously. Were gravity transmitted 
 with a measurable velocity, the rate of velocity would sen- 
 sibly affect the secular variation of the mean motion of the 
 moon. By a comparison of the results of theory with ob- 
 servation, Laplace found that the velocity of the attracting 
 force, if not infinite must be at least fifty millions of times 
 greater than the velocity of light. (Jllec. Celeste, liv. xvi.) 
 
 Anotlier question which may be put with regard to the 
 nature of gravity is, whether its action is in any degree modi- 
 fied by the interposition of the substances through which it 
 penetrates 7 For example, whether the attractive force of 
 the earth, which must penetrate the whole substance of the 
 moon before its influence reaches the particles on the oppo- 
 site side of that body, acts with the same intensity on those 
 particles as on those nearest the earth, regard being had to 
 the law of the distance - ? Now, if the attractive force suf- 
 fered any diminution in passing through the lunar substance, 
 the parallax would thereby be affected; and, from the 
 amount of the parallax, it is certain that the intensity of ter- 
 restrial gravitation on the different molecules of the moon 
 suffers no variation, excepting what arises from the different 
 distances of the molecules. It may therefore be considered, 
 saya Laplace, as sufficiently established, that the force of 
 gravity is of so subtle a nature that the densest bodies of the 
 universe offer no obstacle to its frcn passage. 
 
 A third conclusion is, that the law of gravity is not modi- 
 fied in any respect by the different natures of the celestial 
 bodies. If the action of the sun on the molecules of the 
 earth differed only by a millionth part from its action on the 
 molecules of the moon, the difference would occasion a va- 
 riation of the sun's parallax amounting to several seconds. 
 But the supposition of any such variation is impossible. It 
 follows, therefore, that the gravitating force of the sun, in 
 equal times and at equal distances, impresses equal velocities 
 on the earth and moon. It is also demonstrated from the 
 theory of Jupiter and Satum, that Jupiter acts on Saturn ac- 
 cording to the same law as on his own satellites. Gravity is 
 therefore a force altogether independent of the nature of the 
 substances on which it acts. 
 
 GRAVITY, SPECIFIC. The specific gravity of a body 
 is the ratio of its weight to the weight of an equal volume 
 
 of some other body assumed as a conventional standard. 
 The standard usually adopted for this purpose is pure dis- 
 tilled water at a given temperature. In England, the tem- 
 perature is generally taken at 62° of Fahrenheit's scale ; 
 the French take it at 32°, or that of melting ice ; sometimes 
 at the temperature at which its density is the greatest (about 
 39-4° of Fahrenheit). The latter is by far the more con- 
 venient, inasmuch as it can be easily maintained without 
 variations; whereas it is hardly ]x>ssible to perform experi- 
 ments at the exact temperature of 02°, in consequence of the 
 continual variations of the temperature of the air. It is 
 only, however, when very great precision is required, the t it 
 is necessary to make the experiment with water at any par- 
 ticular temperature ; in general, it is sufficient to note the 
 temperature, and apply a correction depending on the known 
 density of water at the different degrees of the thermomet- 
 ric scale. 
 
 The most obvious method of ascertaining the relative 
 weights or specific gravities of two different bodies is to im- 
 merse them successively in a cylindrical or prismatic vessel 
 of a known area, containing a liquid of less density than 
 either. When a solid is immersed in a liquid, the liquid oc- 
 cupies as much more space than it did before as is exactly 
 equal to the bulk or volume of the body; and therefore by 
 immersing equal or known weights of different bodies in a 
 vessel of me form specified, the relation between the heights 
 at which the liquid stands will give the relation between 
 their densities. This was the method proposed by Archime- 
 des for solving the famous problem of the crown of Hiero. 
 
 The method now employed is susceptible of far greater 
 accuracy. It depends on this principle, that a body when 
 immersed in a fluid loses just as much of its weight as is 
 equal to the weight of an equal volume of the fluid. By 
 weishing a body, therefore, first in air (or rather in vacuo), 
 and then in a liquid, the ratio of its specific gravity to that of 
 the liquid will be found as follows: Let s = the specific 
 gravity of the body, v — its volume, w = its weight in air, 
 ami W =; its weight in the liquid ; also let s' = the specific 
 gravity of the liquid, and v' and io' be respectively the vol- 
 ume and weight of a given portion of it. Now it is evident 
 in the first place, that if the volume of a body be supposed 
 constant, its specific gravity will be directly proportional to 
 its weight ; and, in the second place, if the weight remains 
 constant, the specific gravity will vary inversely as the vol- 
 ume ; that is to say, the smaller the volume the greater is 
 the specific gravity. The specific gravity of a body is there- 
 fore directly as its weight, and inversely as its volume 
 Hence we have 
 
 But if w« suppose v — v', the weight of the portion of liquid 
 whose volume is v' will be equal, by the principle laid down, 
 to the difference between the weight of the body in air and 
 in the liquid, that is, equal to to — W; whence w' = w — W, 
 and the proportion becomes 
 
 s : s' : : w : w — W ; 
 
 from which we deduce s = s' 
 
 ■W 
 
 Now let the liquid 
 
 be pure water at the standard temperature, then s' = 1, and 
 
 we have simply s = rn \ so lnat > n order to obtain the 
 
 w — W 
 specific gravity of a solid body, its weight in air must be di- 
 vided by the loss of weight it sustains when weighed in pure 
 water. 
 
 The process of finding the specific gravity of any solid 
 body denser than water is rendered very simple by means of 
 the hydrostatic balance. When the solid is less dense than 
 water, its weight in that liquid cannot be ascertained di- 
 rectly; but it may be found by attaching the body to an- 
 other sufficiently dense to cause both to sink. Let ?=the 
 weisht of the light body in air, and x = its weight in water: 
 h = the weight of the heavy body in air, and h' = its weight 
 in water ; c (= / + ft) = the weight of the compound or uni- 
 ted mass in air, and c = its weight in water. All these 
 quantities are found by experiment, excepting x. Now we 
 have obviousiv I — x -f- h — k' = c — c' ; therefore l — xz= 
 ( c _ c ') _ (A — ft'). But if s denote the specific gravity of 
 the right body, we have, by what has already been shown, s = 
 
 - ; therefore s = 
 
 I 
 
 l — x' {c — c') — {h — h') 
 
 In this manner the specific gravity of a solid in the state 
 of powder mav be found by placing it in a vessel whose 
 weight in air and in water has been previously determined. 
 
 The specific gravity of a liquid may be found in several 
 ways hy means of the" hydrostatic balance. Let a solid body 
 of any 'convenient form", for example a sphere of glass, be 
 taken, and let w = its weisht in air, w = its weight in 
 water, and w" = Its weight in the fluid whose specific 
 gravity is to he ascertained ; then, taking s to denote the spe- 
 cific cravity of the solid body, s' the specific gravity of 
 
 531
 
 GRAVITY, SPECIFIC 
 
 water, and s" the specific gravity of the liquid, we have by 
 
 the first formula s — s' 
 
 and also s — s" - 
 
 duce s" = 
 
 7 — s" ■ — 77 ; and making s' = 1, we dc- 
 
 to — w 
 
 ; . It is evident that this process is equiva- 
 lent to finding the ratio of the density of the solid body first 
 to water, and then to the liquid to be experimented on. 
 
 Another method is to take a phial of known weight and 
 weigh it when filled with water ; the increase of weight is 
 of course the weight of the water. It is then filled with the 
 liquid, and again weighed, ami the weight of the contained 
 liquid thus ascertained. We have then the weights of equal 
 hulks of the water and the liquid, whence tile ratio of their 
 specific gravities is known. 
 
 For many practical purposes, and especially for determin- 
 ing the specific gravities or strengths of spirituous liquors, it 
 
 is necessary to have recourse to more expeditious methods 
 than that of the hydrostatic balance. In such cases, the 
 instrument called an hydrometer is employed. (See Hy- 
 drometer.) 
 
 The specific gravities of the gaseous fluids are usually de- 
 termined in terms of that of atmospheric air. The diffe- 
 rence between the weights of a flask when exhausted of air 
 by means of the air-pump and when filled with the gas 
 gives the weight of the gas which it contains. But experi- 
 ments of this kind require to be made with great care, as 
 they are much affected by small variations of the tempera- 
 ture, pressure, and hygrometric state of the atmosphere. For 
 8 detailed account of the method of proceeding, and the 
 manner of applying the requisite corrections, see BioVs 
 Traite de Physique, tome i. 
 
 The subjoined tables give the specific gravities of the sub- 
 stances which most frequently occur : for a more extended 
 list, we refer to Brisson's Table (Pesanteur specifique des 
 Corps) ; or to the Ency. Britannica, art. " Hydrostatics." 
 
 I. Table of the Specific Gravities of Solids and Liquids at the Temperature of 32° of Fahrenheit, the Density of Water 
 
 being 1. 
 
 Acid, Acetic .... 1.062 
 Arsenic .... 3.391 
 Arsenious .... 3.728 
 Benzoic .... 0.667 
 Boracic, crystallized . . 1.479 
 fused . . . 1.803 
 Citric .... 1.034 
 
 Formic .... 1.116 
 Fluoric .... 1.060 
 Molybdic .... 3.460 
 Muriatic .... 1.200 
 Nitric .... 1.271 
 
 Do. highly concentrated . 1.583 
 Phosphoric, liquid . . 1.558 
 solid . . 2.800 
 Sulphuric .... 1.850 
 
 Agate 2.590 
 
 Alcohol, absolute . . . 0.797 
 of commerce . . 0.835 
 
 Alum 1.714 
 
 Amber . . from 1.064 to 1.100 
 
 Ambergris . . from 0.780 to 0.926 
 
 Amethyst, common . . . 2.750 
 
 oriental . . . 3.391 
 
 Amanthus . . from 1.000 to .313 
 
 Ammonia, aqueous . . . 0.875 
 
 Arragonite .... 2.900 
 
 Azure-stone .... 2.850 
 
 Barytes, Sulphate of, from 4.000 to 4.558 
 
 Carbonate of, from 4.100 to 4.600 
 
 Basalt . . . from 2.421 to 3.000 
 
 Beryl, oriental .... 3.549 
 
 occidental . . . 2.723 
 
 Blood, human .... 1.053 
 
 crassamentum of . . 1.245 
 
 Borax 1.714 
 
 Butter 0.942 
 
 Camphor 0.988 
 
 Caoutchouc, or India rubber . 0.933 
 Camelian, speckled . . . 2.613 
 Chalcedony,conmion, from 2.600 to 2.650 
 Chalk . . from 2.252 to 2.657 
 
 Chrosyolite .... 3.400 
 Cinnabar, from Almaden . . 6.902 
 Coals . . from 1.020 to 1.300 
 
 Copal 1.045 
 
 Coral, red . . from 2.630 to 2.857 
 white . from 2.540 to 2.570 
 
 Corundum 3.710 
 
 Cyder 1.018 
 
 Diamond, oriental, colourless . 3.521 
 
 Do. coloured varieties,from 3.523 to 3.550 
 
 Do. Brazilian .... 3.444 
 
 coloured varieties, from 3.518 to 3.550 
 
 Dolomite . . from 2.540 to 2.830 
 
 Dragon's Blood (a resin) . . 1.204 
 
 Ether, Acetic .... 0.866 
 
 Muriatic .... 0.729 
 
 Nitric .... 0.908 
 
 Sulphuric from 0.032 to 0.775 
 
 Emerald . . from 2.600 to 2.770 
 
 Fat of beef 0.923 
 
 Felspar . . from 2.438 to 2.700 
 Flint, black .... 2.582 
 
 Gamboge 1.222 
 
 Garnet, precious from 4.000 to 4.230 
 
 common from 3.576 to 3.700 
 
 Glass, crown .... 2.520 
 
 green .... 2.042 
 
 532 
 
 Glass, flint . . from 2.760 to 3.000 
 
 common plate . . • 2.760 
 
 Granite . . from 2.613 to 2.956 
 
 Gum arable .... 1.452 
 
 Gunpowder, loose . • • 0.836 
 
 solid . . . 1.745 
 
 Gypsum, compact, from 1 .872 to 2.288 
 
 crystallized, from 2.311 to 3.000 
 
 Heliotrope, or Bloodstone, 
 
 from 2.629 to 2.700 
 
 Honey 1.450 
 
 Honeystone,orMellite,from 1.560 to 1.666 
 Hornblende . from 3.250 to 3.830 
 
 Hornstone . . from 2.533 to 2.810 
 Hyacinth . . from 4.000 to 4.780 
 Jasper . . from 2.358 to 2.816 
 
 Jet 1.300 
 
 Indigo 1.009 
 
 Ironstone from Canon . . 3.281 
 Lancashire . 3.573 
 
 Isinglass 1.111 
 
 Ivory 1.825 
 
 Laid 0.947 
 
 Lead — Glance, or Galena, from 
 
 Derbyshire - from 6.565 to 7.786 
 Limestone, compact, from 2.380 to 3.000 
 Magnesia, native, Hydrate of . 2.330 
 Carbonate of, 
 
 from 2.220 to 2.612 
 Malachite, compact, from3.572 to 3.994 
 Marble, Carrara . . . 2.716 
 
 Mastic (a resin) . 
 
 1.074 
 
 Melanite, or black Gamet, from 
 
 
 3.691 to 3.800 
 
 Metals — Antimony 
 
 6.702 
 
 Arsenic 
 
 5.763 
 
 Bismuth 
 
 9.880 
 
 Brass . from 7.824 to 8.396 
 
 Cadmium 
 
 8.600 
 
 Chromium . 
 
 5.900 
 
 Cobalt .... 
 
 8.600 
 
 Columbium . 
 
 5.600 
 
 
 8.900 
 
 Gold, cast 
 
 19.258 
 
 hammered . 
 
 19.361 
 
 Iridium, hammered 
 
 23.000 
 
 Iron, cast at Canon 
 
 7.248 
 
 forged into bars . 
 
 7.788 
 
 Lead .... 
 
 11.352 
 
 Manganese . 
 
 8.000 
 
 Mercury 
 
 13.598 
 
 Molybdenum 
 
 8.600 
 
 Nickel, cast . 
 
 8.279 
 
 forged 
 
 8.666 
 
 Osmium and Iridium, 
 
 
 alloy of 
 
 19.500 
 
 Palladium 
 
 11.800 
 
 Platina, forged 
 
 20.336 
 
 drawn into wire 21 .042 
 
 in plates . 
 
 22.069 
 
 Potassium at 59° Fah. 
 
 0.865 
 
 Rhodium 
 
 11.000 
 
 Selenium 
 
 4.300 
 
 Silver . 
 
 10.474 
 
 hammered . 
 
 10.510 
 
 Sodium at 59° Fahr. 
 
 0.972 
 
 Steel, soft . 
 
 7.833 
 
 tempered 
 
 7.816 
 
 Metals— Steel, hardened . . 7.840 
 Tellurium, from 5.700 to 6.115 
 Tin, Cornish . . 7.291 
 
 hardened . . 7.299 
 Tungsten . . . 17.400 
 Uranium . . . 9.000 
 Zinc . from 6.200 to 7.191 
 Mica . . from 2.650 to 2.934 
 
 Milk 1.032 
 
 Mineral Pitch, or Asphaltum, 
 
 from 0.905 to 1.233 
 Mineral tallow .... 0.770 
 Mynh (a resin) .... 1.360 
 Naphtha . . from 0.700 to 0.847 
 
 Nitre 1.900 
 
 Obsidian . . from 9.348 to 2.370 
 
 Oils, Essential— Amber . . 0.868 
 
 Aniseseed . . 0.986 
 
 Canawayseed . 0.904 
 
 Cinnamon . . 1.043 
 
 Cloves . . 1.036 
 
 Lavender . . 0.894 
 
 Turpentine . 0.870 
 
 Wormwood . 0.907 
 
 Expressed— Sweet Almonds 0.932 
 
 Hempseed . 0.926 
 
 Linseed . . 0.940 
 
 Olives . . 0.915 
 
 Poppyseed . 0.939 
 
 Rapeseed . . 0.913 
 
 Whale . . 0.923 
 
 Opal, precious . . . .2.114 
 
 common . from 1.958 to 2.114 
 
 Opium 1.336 
 
 Orpiment . . from 3.048 to 3.500 
 Pearl, Oriental . from 2.510 to 2.750 
 Pearlstone .... 2.340 
 
 Peruvian Bark .... 0.784 
 Phosphorus .... 1.770 
 
 Pitchstone . from 1.970 to 2.720 
 
 Plumbago,orGraphite,from 1.987 to 2.400 
 Porcelain, from China . . 2.384 
 Sevres . . 2.145 
 Porphyry . . from 2.458 to 2.972 
 Seltzer .... 1.003 
 Proof-spirit .... 0.923 
 
 Pumice-stone . from 0.752 to 0.914 
 Quartz . . from 2.024 to 3.750 
 Realgar . . from 3.225 to 3.338 
 Rock-crystal . from 2.581 to 2.888 
 Ruby, Oriental .... 4.283 
 Sapphire, Oriental from 4.000 to 4.200 
 Sardonyx . . from 2.602 to 2.628 
 Scammony of Smyrna . . 1.274 
 Schorl . . from 2.922 to 3.452 
 Serpentine . . from 2.264 to 2.999 
 Silver Glance . from 5.300 to 7.208 
 Slate (drawing) . . . .2.110 
 Spar, Fl uor . from 3.094 to 3 791 
 
 calcareous. from 2.620 to 2.837 
 
 Spermaceti 0.943 
 
 Stalactite . . from 2.323 to 2.546 
 
 Stone, Bristol . from 2.510 to 2.640 
 
 grinding .... 2.142 
 
 Portland .... 2.496 
 
 rotten .... 1.981 
 
 Sugar 1.606 
 
 Sulphur, native .... 2.033 
 fused .... 1.990
 
 GRAYLING. 
 
 Talc . . from 2.080 to 3.000 
 
 Tallow 0.941 
 
 Topaz . . from 4.010 to 4.0G1 
 
 Tourmaline . from 3.086 to 3.361 
 Turquoise . . from 2.500 to 3.001 
 Ultramarine .... 2.362 
 Vinegar . . from 1.013 to 1.080 
 Water, distilled .... 1.000 
 
 sea 1.020 
 
 of Dead Sea . . . 1.248 
 
 Wax, Bees' .... 0.964 
 
 Shoemakers' . . . 0.897 
 
 Whey, cows' .... 1.019 
 
 Wine, Bourdeaux . . . 0.993 
 
 Burgundy . . 0.991 
 
 Constance . . . 1.081 
 
 Malaga .... 1.022 
 
 Port .... 0.997 
 
 White Champagne . . 0.997 
 
 Wood, Alder .... 0.800 
 
 Apple-tree . . . 0.793 
 
 Ash .... 0.845 
 
 GREEK CHURCH. 
 
 Table I. (continisd ) 
 Wood,Bay-tree . 
 Beech 
 Box, French 
 
 Dutch 
 Brazilian, Red . 
 Campeachy 
 Cedar, Wild . 
 Palestine 
 Cherry-tree 
 Citron 
 Cocoa 
 Crab-tree . 
 Cork 
 
 Cypress, Spanish 
 Ebony, American . 
 
 Indian 
 Elder-tree 
 Elm-tree 
 Filbert-tree 
 Fir, Male 
 
 Female 
 Hazel 
 
 Juniper-tree 
 
 Lemon-tree 
 
 Lignum Vita; . 
 
 Mahogany 
 
 Maple-tree 
 
 Mulberry, Spanish . 
 
 Oak-heart, 60 yrs. old 
 
 Olive-tree 
 
 Orange-tree 
 
 Pear-tree 
 
 Plum-tree 
 
 Pomegranate-tree 
 
 Poplar 
 
 White Spanish 
 
 Vine 
 
 Walnut . 
 
 Willow . 
 
 Yew, Dutch 
 
 Spanish . 
 Woodstone . from 2.045 
 
 Zeolite . . from 2.073 
 Zircon . . from 4.385 
 
 . 0.556 
 . 0.703 
 . 1.333 
 . 1.063 
 . 0.750 
 . 0.897 
 . 1.170 
 , 0.927 
 . 0.705 
 . 0.766 
 . 0.785 
 . 1.351 
 
 0.383 
 , 0.529 
 
 1.327 
 , 0.681 
 . 0.585 
 . 0.788 
 . 0.807 
 to 2.675 
 to 2.718 
 to 4.700 
 
 II. Table of the Specific Gravities of the Gases and Vapours, that of Atmospheric Air being 1. 
 
 Gases — Atmospheric Air . 
 
 . 1.000 
 
 Gases— Euchlorine 
 
 Ammoniacal . 
 
 . 0.590 
 
 Fluoboric Acid 
 
 Carbonic Acid 
 
 . 1.527 
 
 Fluosilicic Acid 
 
 Carbonic Oxide 
 
 . 0.972 
 
 Hydriodic Acid 
 
 Carburetted Hydrogen 
 
 . 0.972 
 
 Hydrogen 
 
 Chlorine 
 
 . 2.500 
 
 Muriatic Acid . 
 
 Chlorocarbonous Acid 
 
 . 3.472 
 
 Nitric Oxide 
 
 Chloroprussic Acid . 
 
 . 2.152 
 
 Nitrogen 
 
 Cyanogen 
 
 . 1.805 
 
 Nitrous Acid . 
 
 2.440 
 2.371 
 3.032 
 4.340 
 0.069 
 1.284 
 1.041 
 0.972 
 2.638 
 
 Gases — Nitrous Oxide . . 1.527 
 
 Oxygen . ... 1.111 
 
 Phosphuretted Hydrogen . 0.902 
 
 Prussic Acid . . . 0.937 
 
 Sub-carburetted Hydrogen 0.555 
 
 Sub-phosphuretted ditto . 0.972 
 
 Sulphuretted ditto . 1.180 
 
 Sulphurous Acid . . 2.222 
 
 GRAYLING. See Salmo. 
 
 GRAZIO SO. (It.) In Music, an instruction to the per- 
 former that the music to which this word is affixed is to be 
 executed elegantly and gracefully. 
 
 GREAVE. (Fr. greve.) A piece of armour defending 
 the shin (in the patois of Burgundy, greve still signifies shin). 
 The greave was a piece of steel hollowed to fit the front of 
 the leg, and fastened with straps behind. The Greeks term- 
 ed them Kvtijjiides, whence the common epithet of ivKi'inxiSts 
 'A%aioi, or " well-greaved Greeks," in the Iliad. It appears 
 that the greave common among the Greeks was used in some 
 instances by the Roman soldiery, but only on one leg, the 
 other being covered with the buckler. It is said to have been 
 discontinued in the armies of the Greek empire, under the 
 emperor Maurice (about the end of the 6th century), and 
 again brought into use in those armies of the middle ages 
 about 1320. They were also called jambs, bcin-bergs, &c. 
 They were originally of leather, quilted linen, &c. The 
 clavons were a species of greaves made of cloth. 
 
 GREAVES, or GRAVES. The sediment of melted tal- 
 low, composed of the membranous, vascular, nervous, and 
 muscular matters blended with the fat, and which not being 
 fusible, are easily separated from it by straining ; they are 
 made up into cakes, and sold by the tallow-chandlers, being 
 chiefly used as a coarse food for large house-dogs. 
 
 GREBE. See Podiceps. 
 
 GRECIAN ARCHITECTURE. See Architecture. 
 
 GREEK CHURCH, THE, comprises the great bulk of the 
 Christian population of Russia and Greece, Moldavia and 
 Wallachia, besides various congregations scattered through- 
 out the provinces of the Turkish and Austrian empires, who 
 acknowledge the patriarch of Constantinople as their head. 
 This prelate, although possessing a certain spiritual suprema- 
 cy over this extensive community, has never ventured to 
 assert any claim to the temporal power so long wielded by 
 his rival at Rome. His ambition was curbed in the first in- 
 stance by the jealousy of the emperors, with whom he was 
 brought into closer contact; and since the Mohammedan 
 conquest the state of weakness and poverty into which the 
 Christian church in Turkey has been thrown has annihi- 
 lated all views of aggrandizement. In earlier times, how- 
 ever, the Constantinopolitan pontiffs clearly showed that 
 they did not lack the will to raise themselves to an equal 
 station in the East with the growing authority of the popes 
 in the West. The origin of the separation which has now 
 prevailed for many hundred years between two such impor- 
 tant sections of Christendom as the Latin and Greek churches, 
 approaching so near as they do in many of their fundamental 
 principles, is to be attributed to the rival pretensions set up 
 by the bishop of the two imperial cities, and dates almost 
 from the foundation of the younger capital. 
 
 As early as the year 451 the council of Chalcedon assign- 
 ed Asia Minor, Pontus, Thrace, and the frontiers of Illyricum 
 for the extent of the spiritual jurisdiction of the church of 
 Byzantium, and conferred upon its bishop the same honours 
 
 and privileges as had been already conceded to the pope of 
 Rome. The patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria main- 
 tained at this period an independent authority; but were 
 gradually reduced under the predominant influence of the 
 patriarch of the East. The aggressions, however, of the 
 rival pontiffs did not proceed pari passu : the Roman, being 
 farther removed from the imperial authority, which was 
 seated at Ravenna, assumed by degrees a direct temporal 
 authority over the neighbouring districts, which led the way 
 to the prodigious indirect supremacy which he usurped after 
 the lapse of several ages. The Constantinopolitan, on the 
 contrary, was always strictly watched, and fettered by the 
 proximity of the Eastern emperors; and the extension or 
 declension of his authority depended in most cases more 
 upon the particular character of the wearer of the crown 
 than of the mitre. The first doctrinal ground of dispute was 
 the assertion of the Latin church, about the beginning of the 
 9th century, of the double procession of the Holy Ghost from 
 the Father and the Son. The word filioque, first surrep- 
 titiously inserted into the Constantinopolitan creed many 
 years after its promulgation, became the badge of the West- 
 ern church ; and whatever apparent advantage the shame- 
 ful forgery above mentioned might give to the opposite 
 party, it is very certain that the other dogma, the procession 
 from the Father alone, had never been declared by the 
 council of the church. And the silence of the symbols upon 
 it was no argument against either the truth of the doctrine, 
 or the fact of its having been held, as much as any doctrine 
 may he said to be so, before it has been brought forward 
 into discussion and settled in men's minds by the great mass 
 of the learned world. 
 
 The discussions produced by this controversy were brought 
 to a head by the sudden elevation of Photius, a layman, to 
 the patriarchate, by the command of the emperor. In six 
 successive days he passed through the six preliminary orders : 
 he became successively monk, reader, subdeacon, deacon, 
 priest, bishop, and finally, on the seventh day, was conse- 
 crated patriarch ; and all this to the violent exclusion of the 
 existing pontiff, Ignatius. The appointment of Photius, who 
 was a man of extraordinary talents, alarmed the Romish 
 see. The cause of Ignatius was supported in the West ; and 
 the intruder excommunicated by Nicholas I. The thunder 
 of Rome was retorted by a charge made on the part of 
 Photius against the Latin church of five distinct heresies ; 
 which it may be as well to enumerate, in order to show the 
 frivolity of the greater part of the grounds of dispute at this 
 period. 1. It was objected that the Romanists fasted on the 
 Sabbath, or seventh day of the week ; 2. That they permit- 
 ted the use of milk and cheese in the first week of Lent; 3, 
 That they forbade their priests to many; 4. That they 
 authorized bishops to baptize with the chrism, and forbade 
 the priests ; 5. That tliey had interpolated the creed of Con- 
 stantinople with the word filioque, and held the doctrine 
 therein implied. 
 
 These proceedings widened the breach which had already 
 
 533
 
 GREEN CLOTH, BOARD. 
 
 in fact taken place by the formal transference which the 
 emperor had effected of several provinces east of the Adri- 
 atic, from the jurisdiction of Rome to that of Constantinople. 
 The Roman party continued, however, still powerful in the 
 East, and the intrigues of the papal see were frequently suc- 
 cessful ; until in 1054 the mutual excommunications pronounc- 
 ed upon each other by Leo IX. and Cerularius caused the final 
 separation, which has continued to the present day. 
 
 The opinions of the Greek church bear considerable affini- 
 ty to those of the Latin. The fundamental distinction is the 
 rejection of the spiritual supremacy of St. Peter, and the 
 denial of any visible representative of Christ upon earth. 
 In the view which it takes of the procession of the Holy 
 Ghost it is at variance not only with the Roman Catholic 
 church, but with. Protestants also. It recognizes, however, 
 the seven sacraments ; authorizes the offering of prayer to 
 the saints and Virgin ; and encourages the use of pictures, 
 though forbidding that of images. It holds in reverence also 
 the relics and tombs of holy men ; enjoins strict fasting and 
 the giving of alms, looking upon them as works of intrinsic 
 merit ; and numbers among its adherents numerous orders 
 of monks and nuns. It allows, however, the marriage of 
 its secular priests, and rejects auricular confession. It holds 
 that modified form of the Roman doctrine of the eucharist 
 which is denominated consubstantiation ; and apparently 
 entertains some confused notions of a purgatory, in consider- 
 ation of which it offers prayers for the dead. It administers 
 baptism by immersion. 
 
 The services of this church mostly consist of ceremonial 
 observances ; preaching and the reading of the scriptures 
 form but a small part of them: the former, indeed, was at 
 one period altogether forbidden in Russia. The mass of the 
 people are in a state of the grossest ignorance upon religious 
 subjects ; and the worship of the lower orders, under the in- 
 fluence of a poor and unlettered ministry, is hardly distin- 
 guishable from the grossest heathenism. 
 
 GREEN CLOTH, BOARD OF. A court of justice be- 
 longing to the king's household, daily sitting in the king's 
 palace, under the lord high steward. It is attended by 
 various officers of the household, and by the steward of the 
 Marshalsea, who is always a banister. They meet for the 
 purpose of taking daily accounts of expenses, making pro- 
 vision and payments for the household, and paying the wages 
 of the king's servants under the lord high steward. It has 
 jurisdiction in all offences committed in the king's palaces, 
 and within the verge of his court. 
 
 GREEN-HOUSE. In Gardening, a house with a roof and 
 one or more sides of glass, for the purpose of containing 
 plants in pots which are too tender to endure the open air 
 the greater part of the year. The green-house, being a 
 structure of luxury, ought to be for the most part situated 
 near the house, in order to be enjoyed by the family in in- 
 clement weather; and, if possible, it should be connected 
 with the flower-garden, as being of the same character with 
 reference to use. Its length and breadth may be varied at 
 pleasure, but its height should never be less than that of the 
 loftiest apartments of the house to which it belongs. The 
 best aspect is to the south or south-east ; but any aspect may 
 be chosen, provided the roof is entirely of glass, and abundant 
 heat is supplied by art. In green-houses facing the north, 
 however, the more tender plants will not thrive so well in 
 winter : more artificial heat will be required at that season ; 
 and the plants should be chiefly ever-greens, and other plants 
 that come into flower in the summer season, and grow or 
 flower but little during winter. In most green-houses the 
 plants are kept in pots or boxes, and set on stages or shelves, 
 in order that they may be near the roof, so as to receive the 
 direct influence of the rays of light immediately on their 
 passing through the glass. An orangery differs from a green- 
 house in having an opaque roof, and in being chiefly devoted 
 to plants which produce their shoots and flowers in the sum- 
 mer season and in the open air; and they are set in the 
 orangery merely to preserve them through the winter. Such 
 a structure might with more propriety be termed a conser- 
 vatory ; but custom in the present day has applied this term 
 to structures having glass roofs in which the plants are not 
 kept in pots, but planted in the free soil, and in which a 
 part of them are encouraged to grow and flower in the win- 
 ter months. See Orangery and Conservatory. 
 
 GREEN ROOM, in the Theatre, the name given to the 
 actors' retiring room ; so called, in all probability, from its be- 
 ing originally painted or otherwise ornamented with green. 
 
 GRE'ENSAND. Beds belonging to the chalk forma- 
 tion : they often contain chlorite or green earth scattered 
 through the sandstone and limestone of which they consist. 
 Sec Geology. 
 
 GREEN, SCHEELE'S. An arsenite of copper. Mineral 
 green is a subcarbonate of copper, and Brunswick green an 
 oxychloride of copper. 
 
 GREEN SICKNESS. See Chlorosis. 
 
 GREENSTONE. A variety of traprock composed of 
 felspar and hornblende. See Geology. 
 534 
 
 GRETNA GREEN MARRIAGES. 
 
 GREEN VITRIOL. The metallic salts of sulphuric acid 
 were formerly designated vitriols : sulphate of iron was 
 termed green vitriol. It is a compound of 1 atom of oxide 
 of iron and 1 atom of sulphuric acid : the crystals contain 
 7 atoms of water ; hence the crystallized salt consists of 36 
 protoxide of iron, 40 sulphuric acid, and 63 water, and its 
 equivalent is = 139. Sulphate of copper is called blue 
 vitriol, and sulphate of zinc white vitriol. 
 
 GREGO'RIAN CALENDAR. The reformed calendar 
 of the church of Rome, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII. in 
 1582, in which the error of the civil year of the Julian cal- 
 ender was corrected by the omission of three intercalary 
 days in four centuries, and the moon's age, with the time of 
 Easter, with the other moveable feasts depending on it, in- 
 dicated by the table of epacts. See Calendar. 
 
 GREGO'RIAN EPOCH. The epoch or time at which 
 the computation by the Gregorian calendar commenced. 
 This was in March, 1582. » 
 
 GREGO'RIAN TELESCOPE. The first and most com- 
 mon form of the reflecting telescope, invented by James 
 Gregory, professor of mathematics in the university of St. 
 Andrew's, and afterwards of Edinburgh, and described by 
 him in his Optica Promota, published in 1663. See Tele- 
 scope. 
 
 GREGO'RIAN YEAR. The civil year of the Gregorian 
 calendar. In the Gregorian calendar the common year con- 
 sists of 365 days, and every fourth year is a leap year, or 
 contains 366 days, excepting the last years of every century 
 of which the number is not divisible by 4. Thus, the years 
 1700, 1800, 1900, are not leap years ; but 1600 and 2000 are 
 leap years, the numbers 16 and 20 being divisible by 4. The 
 period is consequently 400 years, in the course of which there 
 occur 97 intercalations ; so that 400 years contain 365 X 400 
 + 97 = 146,097 days, and therefore one Gregorian year con- 
 sists of 365-2425 mean solar days, or 365 d. 5 h. 49 m. 12 sec. 
 But the true solar year consists of 365 d. 5 h. 48 m. 49-62 
 sec. The Gregorian year, therefore, errs in excess by 22-38 
 seconds ; but the error is not worth taking into account, as 
 it only amounts to one whole day in 3866 years. 
 
 GRENA'DE. A hollow ball of iron about two inches and 
 a half in diameter, charged with gunpowder smd furnished 
 with a proper fuse ; it is often called a hand grenade, being 
 thrown from the parapets of besieged places upon the in- 
 vaders beneath. 
 
 GRENADI'ERS, was the name given at first to the sol- 
 diers who threw the grenade ; but it was afterwards confer- 
 red on certain troops of the line, distinguished from the latter 
 chiefly by some peculiarities of dress, accoutrements, &c. 
 This appellation originated with the French in 1667, but was 
 speedily adopted into all the armies of Europe ; and wherever 
 the name has been introduced, the finest-looking and tallest 
 men of the regiment have always been selected to form what 
 is called the grenadier companies. 
 
 GRE'S. (Fr.) Sandstone or grit. 
 
 GRESSO'RIAL, in Ornithology, is applied to the feet of 
 birds which have three toes forward, two of which are con- 
 nected, and one behind. 
 
 GRETNA GREEN MARRIAGES. A species of mar- 
 riage, so called from its being usually celebrated at that 
 place. The following statement, which we have borrowed 
 from the Geographical Dictionary, conveys so full and ac- 
 curate particulars of these far-famed marriages, that we 
 have taken the liberty of transferring it to our columns. 
 
 " The marriage ceremony merely amounts to an admis- 
 sion before witnesses that certain persons are man and wife ; 
 such acknowledgment being sufficient, provided it be follow- 
 ed or preceded by cohabitation, according to the law of Scot- 
 land, to constitute a valid marriage. A certificate to this 
 effect being signed by the officiating priest (who has never 
 been above the rank of a tradesman), and by two witnesses, 
 the union, under the above condition, becomes indissoluble. 
 The marriage service of the church of England is sometimes 
 read, in order to please the parties. The marriages of this 
 sort celebrated at Gretna Green are estimated at between 
 300 and 400 a year ; but as similar marriages are celebrated 
 at Springfield, Annan, Coldstream, and other places along 
 the border, their total number is said to amount to 500 a 
 yeaT! The parties are generally from England, and of the 
 lowest ranks ; though there are not a few instances of per- 
 sons of the higher ranks, and even of lord-chancellors, having 
 had recourse to the services of the soidisant parsons of Gretna 
 Green. A trip to Gretna, or the presence of a self-dubbed 
 parson, is not, however, at all necessary. Parties crossing 
 the Scottish border, and declaring before witnesses that they 
 are man and wife, are, under the previously mentioned con- 
 ditions, married according to the law of Scotland. This law 
 lias been much objected to, but we are inclined to think with 
 no good reason. It would, indeed, be no difficult matter to 
 show that it is, on the whole, productive of numerous ad- 
 vantages. Nowhere, perhaps, are there so few rash or im- 
 provident marriages as in Scotland; and the retrospective 
 effect of the existing law, or its influence in legitimising the
 
 GREYWACKE. 
 
 children bom before marriage, is, perhaps, its most valuable 
 feature. But it is necessary to observe, that though legiti- 
 mated in Scotland, children born previously to a Scotch mar- 
 riage are not legitimated in England, and do not succeed, ex- 
 cept by special bequest, to heritable property in that part of 
 the U. Kingdom. In all respects, however, Scotch marriages 
 convey the same rights and privileges in England as English 
 marriages. The practice began at Gretna Green about 90 
 years ago by a person named Paisley, a tobacconist, who died 
 so lately as 1314. It is now carried on by various individ- 
 uals : indeed, each inn has its rival priest, in addition, to 
 others who carry on the business on their own account ; and 
 so far has competition reduced the fees, that though large 
 sums (£40 or £50; have been received, the solatium, in some 
 instances, is now so low as nalf-a-crown. One of these 
 functionaries, who breaks stones daily on the verge of Eng- 
 land, has the best chance of succeeding ; for he accosts ev- 
 ery partv as they pass, and tries to strike the best bargain." 
 
 GKEYWACKE. See Grauwacke, Geology. 
 
 GRI'FFIN. (Gr. ypv4 .) A fabulous animal of antiquity 
 represented with the body and feet of a lion, the head of an 
 eagle or vulture, and as being famished with wings and 
 claws. The griffin is one of those imaginary creatures to 
 which the ancients were so confessedly partial, but it belongs 
 more to the romantic than the classical mythology. It plays 
 a prominent part in the fairy tales and romances of the mid- 
 dle ages ; and, like the dragon which was fabled to guard 
 the golden apples of the Hesperides, its chief duties consisted 
 in watching over hidden treasures, and in guarding captive 
 princesses, or the castles in which they were confined. The 
 griffin is at once the symbol of strength and swiftness, cour- 
 age, prudence, and vigilance — qualities which its form is well 
 calculated to represent ; and hence it has been adopted into 
 the language of heraldry, where it constitutes a prominent 
 feature in the armorial bearings of many princely and noble 
 families. 
 
 GRIMA'CE. (Fr.) In Painting and Sculpture, an un- 
 natural distortion of the countenance, from habit, affectation, 
 or insolence. 
 
 GRIPE. The fore part of a ship. To gripe, the tendency 
 of a ship to bring her head up to the wind when carrying 
 sail on the wind. 
 
 GRIT. Hard sandstone, employed for millstones and 
 grindstones, pavement, &.c. 
 
 GROAT. An old English silver coin equal to Ad. of our 
 present money. It was introduced by Edward III. and about 
 the year 1351, and has lately been again adopted and issued 
 from the mint : the first coinage of these modem silver groats 
 or four-penny pieces took place in 1835. 
 
 GROATS, in Agriculture, are the small grains formed 
 from oats by being cut in the mill, after having the husks or 
 shells taken off from the grain. 
 
 GROLN. (Sax. grortn, to grow.) In Architecture, the 
 line formed at the intersection of two arches which cross 
 each other at anv angle. 
 
 GRONI'NGENISTS. In Eccl. History, a subdivision of 
 the sect of Anabaptists. (See JWosheim, transl., vol. v., p. 
 492.) 
 
 GROOM. A name now usually applied to servants who 
 are employed about horses. From the Flemish grom, a boy 
 The groom-porter was an officer of the royal household in 
 the lord steward's department, whose place is said to have 
 succeeded that of the master of the revels. Groom is still 
 the denomination of several officers of the royal household, 
 chiefly in the lord chamberlain's department ; such as grooms 
 in waiting, groom of the stole or robes, &c., &c. 
 
 GROOVE. (Sax. grafan, to dig.) In Architecture, a 
 sunken rectangular channel. It is usually employed to con- 
 nect two pieces of wood together, the piece not grooved 
 having on its edge a projection or tongue, whose section cor- 
 responds to and fits the groove. 
 
 GROSS. In Commerce, the number of 12 dozen. 
 
 GROSSULA CEjE. (Grossularia, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of shrubby Exogens, natives of most parts of 
 the world, excepting Africa, and the tropics; formerly con- 
 founded with Cactacea. Placed by Von Martius between 
 SaxifragacetE and Onagracece ; but nevertheless, on account 
 of their albuminous seeds, appearing to have affinities of 
 another nature, especially with Berberacece and the vine. 
 The gooseberry and currant are fruits of this order, to which 
 many beautiful hardy shrubs common in our gardens also 
 belong. 
 
 GROSSULA'RIA. (Lat. grossula, a gooseberry.) A 
 green garnet found in Siberia. 
 
 GROTE'SaUE. (Fr.) In the Fine Arts, a term applied 
 to capricious ornaments, which as a whole have no type in 
 nature; consisting of figures, animal?, leaves, flowers, fruits, 
 and the like, all connected together. 
 
 Grotesque. In Architecture, artificial grotto-work dec- 
 orated with rockwork, shells, &c. 
 
 GROTTO. (It.) The name given to subterraneous natural 
 excavations formed in the heart of mountains or other places. 
 
 GUARDIAN OF SPIRITUALITIES, 
 
 Many of these cavities are famed for the mephitic exhala- 
 tions that issue from them, and to this class belongs more espe- 
 cially the Grotto del Cane, near Naples ; but there are others 
 not less celebrated for their beauty and grandeur, of which 
 the grottoes of Antiparos and Fingal, are well-known ex- 
 amples. In picturesque gardening, the term is applied to an 
 artificial or ornamental cave or low building intended to 
 represent a natural grotto. The best specimen of this kind 
 is the grotto attached to the Colosseum, which may be con- 
 sidered a model for all similar designs. 
 
 GROUND. (Sax. grund.) In the Fine Arts, a word of 
 various application. In Painting, it is the first layer of colour 
 on which the figures or other objects are painted ; of Sculp- 
 ture, it is the surface from which, in relied, the figures rise ; 
 and in Architecture, it is used to denote the face of the 
 scenerv or countrv round a building. 
 
 GROUND BAIT. Balls made of greaves, bran, boiled 
 grain, gentles, &c, mixed up with clay and thrown into the 
 water, by which the fish are brought together upon those 
 spots which the angler selects for his sport. 
 
 GROUND PLATE, or SILL. In Architecture, the lower 
 part of a timber building, which receives the principal and 
 other posts. 
 
 GROUNDS. In Architecture, pieces of wood flush with 
 the plastering, for which they serve as a guide, &c, to which 
 mouldings and other finishings are attached. 
 
 GROUP. (Fr. groupe.) In Painting, an assemblage of 
 objects, whose lighted parts form a mass of light, and their 
 shaded parts a mass of shadow : the word is also used to de- 
 note any adjoining assemblage of figures, animals, fruits, 
 flowers, &c. In speaking also of objects of different sorts, it 
 is usual to say that one object groups with another. Lights 
 in groups should, as well as shadows, be connected together, 
 or the necessary repose will be wanting. In Sculpture, the 
 word group is applied to a design in which there are two or 
 more figures. In Music, group signifies a number of notes 
 linked together at the stems. 
 
 GROUSE. See Tetrao. 
 
 GROUT. (Sax. grut.) In Architecture, mortar reduced 
 to a state of fluidity by the addition of water : a mixture of 
 plaster and fine stuff, putty, or coarse stuff, used in finishing 
 the best ceilings ; also for mouldings, and sometimes for set- 
 ting walls. 
 
 GRU'IDJE. The name of the family of wading birds rep- 
 resented by the stork (Grus). 
 
 GRUS. (Lat. the Crane.) One of the modem constella- 
 tions in the southern hemisphere See Constellation. 
 
 GRY'LLID^E. (Lat. gryllus, a locust.) The name of 
 the familv of locusts, having the genus G-ryllus for the type. 
 
 GRYPA'.MUM. (Gr. ypv-os, incurved.) In Ornitholo- 
 gy, the rostrum grypaftium is that form of beak in which 
 the culmen is more or less carinated, and is so continued to 
 the apex of the incurved maxilla. 
 
 GRYPILE'A. (Gr. ypviros.) A genus of Ostracean Bi- 
 valves, remarkable for the curvature of the apex or beak of 
 the shell ; it is chiefly represented by fossil species, one of 
 which, Gryphaa virgula, characterizes the Kimmeridge 
 clay, near Oxford, and the upper oolite of parts of France. 
 
 GRYPHO'SIS. (Gr. ypu-ouv, to incurvate.) A growing 
 inwards of the nails. 
 
 GUA'IACUM, is a peculiar resinous substance obtained 
 from the Ghiaiacum officinale, a tree of the West Indies. It 
 has some chemical peculiarities which distinguish it from the 
 common resins, especially its property of becoming blue and 
 green by the action of certain oxidizing substances. Decoc- 
 tion of the wood of the tree, and the tincture of the resin, 
 have been employed in the cure of rheumatism, and as an 
 alterative ; but it is an unimportant medicine. 
 
 GUA'NO. A substance found upon certain small islands, 
 especially in the South Sea, which are the resort of large 
 flocks of birds, and chiefly composed of their excrement: it 
 is said to form beds fifty to sixty feet in thickness. It is an 
 excellent manure. 
 
 GUARANTE'E, in Law, is an undertaking to answer for 
 the failure of another. By the Statute of Frauds, a person 
 is not liable on a special promise in the nature of a guarantee 
 unless a written agreement, or memorandum of such prom- 
 ise, shall be signed by the part)' making the promise, or some 
 person lawfulfv authorized by him. 
 
 GUA'RDIAN, in Law, he who has the custody of such 
 persons as are incapable of directing themselves, and especial- 
 ly of infants. Guardians at common law were — 1. In chiv- 
 a'lry (under the feudal principle of wardship, abolished with 
 the other incidents of military tenure by 12 Ch. 2). 2. By 
 nature ; the father in all cases ; the mother to daughters, 
 where no guardian is assigned by the father's deed or will. 
 3. For nurture ; appointed by the ordinary in default of father 
 or mother. 4. In socage, being the nearest of kin to an in- 
 fant entitled to real estate who cannot inherit that estate. 
 
 GUA'RDIAN OF SPIRITUALTIES. In Ecclesiastical 
 Law, the person to whom the spiritual administration of a 
 diocese is entrusted during the vacancy of the see. Of Tem- 
 
 535
 
 GUARD, NATIONAL, OP FRANCE. 
 
 poralties, one appointed by the king during such vacancy to 
 take care of the goods and profits, and deliver an account to 
 the Exchequer. 
 
 GUARD, NATIONAL, OF FRANCE. This famous in- 
 stitution was first devised by the Municipal Committee of 
 Safety of 1789, which sat at the H6tel de Villa, in Paris, be- 
 fore the taking of the Bastile. The corps which was then 
 raised at first carried green colours, afterwards replaced by 
 the tricolour. It was more fully organized by a decree of 
 September, 1791, to be raised by voluntary enlistment, both 
 in Paris and the departments, in the proportion of one man 
 out of every twenty citizens. The staff of the national guard 
 was dissolved by the Convention after the 13 Vendemiaire 
 (1795), and it was placed under control of the military au- 
 thorities. Napoleon made of the national guard a species of 
 military nursery, and large portions of it volunteered in 1813 
 to act beyond the frontiers. Under the Restoration the na- 
 tional guards were deprived of the privilege of choosing their 
 own officers ; and in 1827, in consequence of their public de- 
 mands for the dismission of the ministry (Villele's), they 
 were dissolved. By their constitution, as remodelled in 1830, 
 they elect their own officers up to the rank of sub-lieutenant 
 inclusive : the rest are appointed by the king. 
 
 GUARD, THE IMPERIAL, in the armies of the Emperor 
 Napoleon, was formed from a small corps of life-guards (as 
 they might be termed) which had served to defend the Con- 
 vention, the Corps Legislatif of 1795, the Directory, and after- 
 wards the Consulate. In 1805, when Napoleon became 
 emperor, the consular guard had already been increased to 
 3300 infantry and 2100 cavalry, besides artillery and marines. 
 Its augmentation and equipment became afterwards one of 
 Napoleon's favourite pursuits ; and as soldiers could not be 
 enrolled except after serving four campaigns in the line with 
 distinction or from the preparatory corps called the young 
 guards, it was an institution of the highest military policy. 
 In the end of 1812, the Imperial Guard, old and young, con- 
 sisted of 56,000 men ; and its farther increase was only pre- 
 vented by the calamities of the following year. At the 
 Restoration, the soldiers of the young guard returned to 
 the line ; those of the old guard were formed into royal regi- 
 ments. 
 
 GUARD, YEOMEN OF THE, were first raised by Henry 
 VII. in 1485, and appear to have been the first standing mili- 
 tary corps ever set on foot in this country. They were at 
 first fifty men, half armed with bows and arrows, and half 
 with arquebusses; afterwards some carried halberds. The 
 arquebusses were exchanged for partizans (which they now 
 carry) in the reign of William III. 
 
 GUARDS. Troops attached to the person of the sovereign. 
 In modern times, the designation is applied in most countries 
 to a body of men distinguished from the line by difference of 
 pay, dress, &c, and possessing a certain military rank. 
 Body-guards have been an inseparable accompaniment of 
 monarchy from the earliest ages : the Assyrian and Persian 
 monarchs employed them. The corps of Argyraspides, or 
 silver-shields, were selected by Alexander out of the bravest 
 men of his army. The Roman emperors had their Prajtorian 
 guard. Napoleon first created a small troop of body-guards,, 
 with the title of Guides, while yet only general, in his first 
 Italian campaign. From this arose by degrees the great in- 
 stitution of the Imperial Guard, itself an army, with its two 
 great divisions of old and young, and 120 pieces of cannon, 
 the whole of which corps was broken up at the Restoration. 
 On the revolution of 1830, the royal guards of France were 
 disbanded, and none have been since embodied in that coun- 
 try. In England, the guards (otherwise called household 
 troops) consist of the life-guards, the royal regiment of horse- 
 guards, and three regiments of foot-guards. Many of the 
 European sovereigns, before the French Revolution, had 
 small corps of foreign troops which served in this capacity. 
 Thus the French kings had, in early times, a body of Scotch 
 Guards, termed archers ; at a later period, a body of Swiss 
 Guards, called the Cent-Swisses ; and after the Restoration 
 of 1815 several battalions of Swiss Guards were organized 
 for the same service. This system has almost disappeared, 
 since the troubles of the Revolution have introduced a spirit 
 at once more military and more national into the councils 
 and populations of Europe. The Pope still retains his Swiss 
 Guards. 
 
 GUA'VA. The fruit of the Psidium pomiferum, from 
 which a jelly is made in the West Indies. 
 
 GU'DGEON. The common name of a small species of 
 theCyprinoid family of soft-finned fishes; having, like the 
 barbel, cirri or feelers at the mouth, and both the dorsal and 
 anal fins short, but without a strong bony ray at the com- 
 mencement of either. The species consequently forms the 
 type of a distinct subgenus called Gobio. 
 
 GU'DGEONS. In Machinery, the pins inserted in the ex- 
 tremities of a shaft, or the axle of a wheel, on which it turns, 
 and which support the whole weight. In order to diminish 
 friction, gudgeons are made as small as possible in diameter ; 
 leaving, however, sufficient strength to support the weight. 
 536 
 
 GUILD. 
 
 They are frequently formed of cast iron, on account of ita 
 cheapness ; but wrought iron of the same dimensions is con- 
 siderably stronger, and will support a greater load. 
 
 GUE'BERS, or GUEBRES (i. e. Giaours, infidels). The 
 sectaries of the ancient Persian religion, of which the chief 
 peculiarity consisted in the worship of fire, are so termed by 
 the Mohammedans. They still exist in some of the southern 
 and eastern districts of Persia ; but a colony of them has been 
 long established at Bombay, and other parts of the western 
 coast of India, and has attained to wealth and distinction. 
 These are termed in India Parsees, from the nation from 
 which they originally sprang. The Guebres explain the 
 worship of fire by professing to regard it as a symbol only of 
 the Divinity. Their sacred books are termed the Zend- 
 Avesta. See Parsees. 
 
 GUELF, ORDER OF, or ROYAL GUELPHIC ORDER. 
 An Hanoverian order of knighthood, founded in 1815 by 
 George IV., then Prince Regent. It consists of grand crosses, 
 commanders, and knights, both civil and military. 
 
 GUELFS. In Italian History, during the middle ages, a 
 political party, the feuds between which and the opposite 
 party of the Ghibellines long distracted that country. The 
 former name is derived from that of the great German house 
 of the Welts or Guelfs. These, in the 12th century, were 
 dukes of Bavaria ; and carried on war in Germany with the 
 house of Hohenstauffen, from one of whose castles (Weib- 
 lingen) the name Ghibelline is supposed to have been derived. 
 The latter house having become the ruling power in Ger- 
 many under Frederic I., that prince invaded Italy in order 
 to re-assert the rights of the empire ; and thus these party 
 names, first used in a German feud, were transplanted into 
 that country. The chief adversaries of the house of Hohen- 
 stauffen in Italy were the Popes, who thus became the heads 
 of the Guelf party ; and the struggle between the two be- 
 came, in the 13th century, when Frederic II. was involved 
 in contests with several successive pontiffs, a contest between 
 the temporal and spiritual power. In that instance the latter 
 prevailed ; but the Ghibellines remained, notwithstanding, 
 powerful, especially in the north of Italy ; and, in the begin- 
 ning of the following century, the invasion of the emperor 
 Henry of Luxemburg added considerably to their power. In 
 the early part of that century the leading Ghibelline powers 
 generally were, Milan under the house of Visconti, Verona 
 under that of La Scala, and the Aragonese kings of Sicily ; 
 the chief Guelf states the republic of Florence, the Angevin 
 kings of Naples, &c. Other states were alternately under 
 the control of the two parties as they in turn predominated. 
 At this time the poet Dante, who had embraced Ghibelline 
 principles, not merely on party grounds, but from exalted 
 political speculation, threw the lustre of his genius over the 
 civil feuds of his age. In the course of the 14th century, 
 especially after the removal of the papal seat to Avignon, 
 the original principles of the two parties were entirely lost ; 
 while the names continued, and factions bearing those ap- 
 pellations constantly agitated the interior of Italian cities and 
 monarchies down to the middle of the 15th century, or even 
 to a still later period. The most complete works which can 
 now be consulted on the subject are those of Raumer (Ge- 
 schichte der Hohenstaiiffen), and Sismondi (Republiques 
 Italiennes). 
 
 GUERRI'LLA. (Span, little war.) The plan of har- 
 rassing the French armies by the constant attacks of inde- 
 pendant bands, acting in a mountainous country, was adopt- 
 ed in the north of Spain during the Peninsular war. It was 
 first reduced into a kind of system in 1810. (See Napier's 
 Peninsular War, book ix., chap. 1.) The bands which con- 
 ducted this desultory warfare were called Partidas: the 
 name of Guerrilla is, by a misapplication of the term, fre- 
 quently applied to them. 
 
 GUIDE. (Fr.) In Music, the leading part in a canon or 
 fugue. 
 
 GUILD, or GILD. (Sax. gikbn, to pay ; sard to be de- 
 rived from payments made by a member of a guild on ad- 
 mission.) A fraternity or association, generally of mer- 
 chants. The Collegia Opificum of the later Roman empire 
 appear to have been societies of this description, in which a 
 body of artisans or traders exercising the same craft were 
 united together for purposes of mutual assistance, and pos- 
 sessed what we should term corporate rights. The Anglo- 
 Saxon guilds were voluntary associations for various purpo- 
 ses, religious and social as well as commercial ; and the old- 
 est English guild of which the history is at all ascertained is 
 said to have been the Cnighten guild of London, which has 
 been thought by its name to have been a military company; 
 but this is doubtful, and its history is altogether extremely 
 obscure. But the more important guilds of later times have 
 been all mercantile. The guild-merchant, in many boroughs 
 of England, seems to have been a trading society, into which 
 all persons wishing to exercise trade within the borough 
 were obliged to be admitted ; and hence, in process of time, 
 the freedom of the borough, which originally depended upon 
 mere inhabitancy, became connected with admission to the
 
 GUILLEMOT. 
 
 guild, and the guild and corporate body of the borough be- 
 came co-extensive. A more remarkable change took place 
 in the constitution of London, where the several trading 
 companies by degrees so completely engrossed the govern- 
 ment that admission into one or the other of them (the liver- 
 ied companies) became a necessary qualification for the ex- 
 ercise of municipal rights; while some relics still remain 
 (such as the division of the city into wards) of the more an- 
 cient state of things. The name guild is still preserved in 
 the ancient boroughs of Scotland, and the dean of guild is 
 the second municipal magistrate of a Scottish borough. The 
 ziinfte of German cities, and the trading companies of those 
 of France and Italy, have acted an equally important part in 
 the history of those countries. 
 
 GUILLEMOT. See Uria. 
 
 GUILLOCHE. (Fr.) In Architec- 
 ture, an ornament composed of curved 
 fillets, which, by repetition, form a con- 
 tinued series. 
 
 GUILLOTI'NE. (Fr.) The name given to the instru- 
 ment of capital punishment used in France ; so called from 
 Joseph Ignace Guillotin, by whom it was introduced into 
 that country. This person was born at Saintes, and, estab- 
 lished as a physician at Paris, obtained a certain celebrity in 
 the early period of the Revolution by the strong part which 
 he took' in favour of the lights of the Tiers-Etat. He was 
 elected in consequence a deputy to the National Assembly. 
 When that body was occupied in its long discussions relative 
 to the reform of the penal code (in 1790) Guillotin proposed 
 the adoption of decapitation — up to that time used only for 
 nobles — as the only method of capital punishment. From 
 sentiments of humanity he recommended the employment 
 of a machine which had been long known in Italy under the 
 name of " mannaja," and in other countries also ; for some- 
 thing much resembling it had been used in Scotland (see 
 Maiden), and in England within the jurisdiction of the 
 borough of Halifax. The Assembly applauded the idea, and 
 the machine was adopted, to which the Parisians have given 
 the name of "Guillotine," and of which Guillotin is most er- 
 roneously supposed to have heen the inventor. It consists 
 of two upright pieces of wood fixed in a horizontal frame ; a 
 sharp blade of steel moves up and down by means of a pulley 
 in grooves in the two uprights ; the edge is oblique instead of 
 horizontal in shape, which gives it the mechanical power of 
 the wedge. The criminal is laid on his face, his neck im- 
 mediately under the blade, which severs it at a blow from 
 his body. It is equally a vulgar error that Guillotin perished 
 by the instrument which bears his name. He was impris- 
 oned during the Reign of Terror, but released at the revolu- 
 tion of July, 1794; and died in 1814, after founding the asso- 
 ciation termed the Academy of Medicine. 
 
 GUI'NEA. An English denomination of money ; for- 
 merly a coin, but now disused. Its value is 21s. The coin 
 weighed 1294 grains, and contained 118-7 grains of pure gold. 
 Guineas were first coined in the reign of Charles H. (1662) 
 of gold brought from Guinea; whence the name. 
 
 GUI'NEA PEPPER. A species of capsicum. 
 
 GUI'NEA WORM. The Filaria medincnsis. A worm 
 which affects the skin, especially of the legs, in warm cli- 
 mates. While it remains under the skin this worm produces 
 little uneasiness, till a part suppurates, and it puts out its 
 head ; much pain being experienced on attempting to draw 
 it out, especially if it be broken. 
 
 GUITA'R. (It. chitarra.) A musical stringed instru- 
 ment, whose invention is attributed to the Spaniards. The 
 strings are stretched over a body much larger than the violin, 
 but of somewhat similar shape ; except that the sharp cor- 
 nels are rounded off, and the strings, which are more in num- 
 ber than the violin, and are not carried over a bridge, are 
 struck or pulled with the fingers. 
 
 GU'LA, in Zoology, is the region of the throat nearest the 
 lower jaw. 
 
 Gu'la. In Architecture. See Gola. 
 
 GULES. (Fr. gueule, a throat.) In Heraldry, red ; one 
 of the colours, or tinctures, employed in blazonry. It is 
 equivalent to ruby among precious stones, Mars among plan- 
 ets. In engraving it is represented by a vertical line. 
 
 GULL. See Larus. 
 
 GULPH. In Geography, an arm of the sea extending 
 more or less into the land, and distinguished from a bay only 
 in being of greater size and extent than the latter. It is de- 
 rived from the Gr. ko\ttos, signifying bosom, and has been 
 adopted with a slight variation into all the languages of mod- 
 em Europe. 
 
 GUM. A vegetable product, distinguished by solubility in 
 water, and insolubility in alcohol ; it is tasteless and inodo- 
 rous. Gum-arabic, which is the produce of the Jlcacia vera, 
 may be taken as a sample of the purest form of gum. It is 
 imported from Barbary and Morocco. Its specific gravity is 
 1-45. Its solution is viscid, and is termed mucilage. Gum 
 is used as a demulcent in medicine, and for giving gloss and 
 stiffness to linens, silks, &c. It consists of carbon 41-4, oxy- 
 
 GUN. 
 
 gen 52-09, hydrogen 5-51 ; or, in other terms, of 41-4 charcoal 
 and 58-6 water. 
 
 GUM-RESIN. An exudation from many trees, composed 
 of a mixture of gum and resin, or of a substance intermedi- 
 ate between the two. 
 
 GUN. Under this general term most of the species of 
 fire-arms are included, the pistol and mortar being almost the 
 only exceptions. Great guns, or cannon (see Cannon), be- 
 gan to be used as military engines about the middle of the 
 14th century ; but small guns, or muskets, appear to have 
 been introduced nearly two centuries later, namely, 1521. 
 They were first used by the Spanish infantry at the siege of 
 Rhege. Muskets were at first of a very clumsy construction, 
 being so heavy that they could not be levelled and fired 
 from the shoulder; accordingly the soldier was provided 
 with a rest, which it was necessary to carry along with him 
 and plant in the ground in order to support the weapon be- 
 fore it could be used. The gun was generally fired with a 
 match ; sometimes by means of sparks generated by the rev- 
 olution of a notched wheel of steel, placed directly above 
 the pan containing the priming. Muskets with rests were 
 employed so lately as the civil wars in the time of Charles 
 I. ; afterwards a lighter matchlock musket came into use ; 
 and about the beginning of the last century the troops 
 throughout Europe were armed with firelocks. 
 
 The barrel forms the essential part of the gun ; and the 
 first requisite to a good barrel is toughness in the material of 
 which it is made, for safety in using it depends mainly on 
 this quality. The best iron for the formation of musket bar- 
 rels is that which has been much worn, and toughened by 
 the loss of its fiery particles; and, accordingly, old horse 
 stub-nails are much in request for this purpose, and sold at 
 a high price to the barrel-forgers. Formerly the best gun 
 barrels were made in Spain ; and their superiority was at- 
 tributed to the excellency of the iron made use of, which 
 consisted almost exclusively of stub-nails, and the old shoes 
 of horses and mules : but the barrels now made in this coun- 
 try are not inferior to those of any country in the world. 
 The method of making the barrel is this : the iron is first 
 formed into a thin flexible bar, something like a cooper's 
 hoop, and when heated is plied or twisted round a mandril, 
 much in the same manner as a ribbon of leather is turned 
 round the handle of a whip. For the best barrels the 
 breadth of the bar does not exceed half an inch ; and it is 
 turned round the mandril in such a manner that the edges 
 are brought close together, but do not overlap. In this posi- 
 tion it is welded by horizontal strokes with the hammer. 
 But in common guns a broader bar is employed ; and its 
 edges, which are placed so as to overlap considerably, are 
 welded down on each other. The Damascus barrels, prized 
 for their beauty, though inferior in strength, are composed of 
 iron and steel in certain proportions laid cross ways, and 
 hammered together the whole length of the barrel. After 
 the barrel has been forged, the inside is rendered smooth 
 and perfectly cylindrical by boring it with a bit, or rather 
 bits of different sizes used in succession. In rifles a certain 
 number of parallel grooves, either straight or slightly twist- 
 ed, are cut in the inside of the barrel, of equal depth and 
 fineness, and through its whole length. The exterior is 
 smoothed by turning it on a lathe. 
 
 By act of parliament every gun barrel offered for sale 
 must be tried by a certain quantity of powder and weight of 
 shot according to its size ; but the best gun-makers do not 
 trust to this legal test, and subject them to a severer trial by 
 water-proof. For fowling pieces and other guns of the best 
 description the flint lock is now laid aside, and the percus- 
 sion or detonating lock almost universally substituted. This 
 ingenious invention belongs to a Scottish clergyman the 
 Reverened Mr. Forsyth, minister of Belhelvie in Aberdeen- 
 shire ; but it has since received some great improvements, 
 especially in the application of the copper cap — to which, 
 indeed, may be attributed all its superiority. The following 
 are the dimensions of the new pattern musket carried by the 
 British troops : 
 
 Length of the barrel, in inches . . . .42" 
 Diameter of the bore . .... "75 
 Diameter of the ball for service . . . -676 
 Weight of the ball for service, in ounces avoir- 
 dupois 106 
 
 Weight of the firelock with bayonet, in pounds 
 
 avoirdupois 1225 
 
 Length of barrel and bayonet, in inches . . 59- 
 
 The carbine carried by regiments of light cavalry is 16 
 inches in length, and weighs 6 pounds. (Encyc. Brit., art. 
 " Gun-making.") 
 
 Great guns, or cannon, used formerly to be very long in 
 the bore, and constructed with a view to support large char- 
 ges of powder; but the experiments of Robins and Hutton 
 proved that neither great length of the bore nor large char- 
 ges are ever necessary. In consequence of these experi- 
 ments, a great improvement took place in the artillery servi- 
 K k * 537
 
 GUNNER. 
 
 ces of Europe about the beginning of the French revolution- 
 ary wars. The best length has been found to be about 17 
 calibres. No field-piece has now a bore of more than 18 
 calibres in length. In the English service the regulation 
 length is 14 calibres; in America, during the late war, it 
 was reduced to 12 ; but has since been increased, on what 
 principle it does not appear, to 18. The length of the gun 
 must, however, be regulated in many cases by the service 
 for which it is destined. In battering guns a certain length 
 in front of the trunnions is absolutely necessary ; for, gener- 
 ally speaking, they are fired from embrasures of earth, which 
 would be injured by the firing if the mouth of the gun did 
 not reach beyond it. Navy guns should also project to a 
 certain distance beyond the side of the vessel, and the same 
 reasons apply to garrison as to battering guns. 
 
 With regard to the shape of guns, it is easy to see that it 
 ought to be such as to give them the greatest strength at the 
 part wliich suffers the greatest strain of firing. This is prob- 
 ably at the part where the ball is lodged. Coimt Rumford 
 therefore proposed to make the thickness of the metal great- 
 est at this point, and planned a gun swelling in a curve from 
 the breech to the lodgement of the ball, and again contract- 
 ing in a curve from that point to the projection of the muz- 
 zle. In some guns, as the American navy 32 pounder, the 
 form is cylindrical from the base ring to the trunnions, and 
 thence conical to the swell of the muzzle. In respect of 
 British guns, the proportion of the weight of metal of an iron 
 gun is to that of the shot, in heavy guns, as about 224 to 1 or 
 2 cwt. to 1 lb. ; in medium guns as 168 to 1, and in light guns 
 112 to 1. The length of a 32 pounder, used in the lower 
 deck of Iine-of-battle ships, is 9 ft. 6 in., and its weight 55 
 cwt., being about 192 times that of the ball. The medium 
 12 pounder brass gun is 6 ft. 6 in. in length, weighs 18 cwt., 
 and has a calibre of 4-6 in. in diameter. The length of brass 
 18, 12, 9, 0, and 3 pounders is 17 calibres. (See Ency. Brit., 
 " Gunnery.") The greater quantity of metal at the breech 
 of a gun than at the muzzle not only gives greater strength 
 to the gun at the part where the danger of bursting is the 
 greatest, but also tends to diminish the force of recoil. 
 
 GUNNER. The first of the three warrant officers of a 
 king's ship. He has the charge of the ordnance, ammuni- 
 tion, and other duties. 
 
 GU'NNERY. A branch of the military art, which has for 
 its object the management of guns and mortars, and of char- 
 ging and directing them so as to hit a proposed mark at any 
 distance within the range of the shot. To accomplish this 
 purpose it is necessary to know the nature of the path which 
 a projectile describes in the air with a given initial velocity, 
 the quantity of gunpowder necessary to produce that veloci- 
 ty, and the elevation that must be given to the gun in order 
 to counteract the effect of gravity and the resistance of the 
 air on the ball in its flight. Various other considerations re- 
 quire also to be attended to ; as the proportion between the 
 length of the gun and the diameter of its bore, the proper 
 windage or excess of the diameter of the bore above that of 
 the ball, and the size or weight of the ball proper to produce 
 a certain effect — to batter down a wall, for example, or to 
 penetrate a ship's side. The method of mounting and work- 
 ing guns, so as to render them most serviceable in military 
 operations, belongs to the head Artillery. 
 
 If we abstract from the effect of the resistance of the air, 
 the path described by a projectile is easily determined. The 
 only force which acts on the ball to deflect it from the 
 straight line in which it is projected is gravity, and it conse- 
 quently describes an arc of a parabola. (Projectile.) 
 But any deductions from the parabolic theory of projectiles 
 are of little or no use in the actual practice of gunnery ; for 
 in consequence of the great resistance which the air opposes 
 to a body moving through it with the velocity of a cannon 
 ball, the circumstances of the motion are completely chan- 
 ged. In the parabolic theory, the motion of the ball in the 
 horizontal direction is assumed to be constant and uniform. 
 But the resistance of the air brings another force into action. 
 the intensity of which depends on the velocity of the ball, 
 and which is exerted in a direction exactly opposite to that 
 of the ball's motion ; hence the velocity of the ball is con- 
 tinually diminished through its whole course, and in conse- 
 quence the ascending and descending branches of the trajec- 
 tary, AV and VB, are unequal 
 and dissimilar. Instead of being 
 branches of the same parabola, 
 they become different arcs of the 
 hyperbolic kind, having asymp- 
 _ totes, CD and EF, dissimilarly sit- 
 uated ; the former being inclined 
 to the horizontal line DE, and the latter perpendicular to it. 
 The motion of the ball in its ascent, being opposed by the 
 resistance of the air as well as by gravity, will neither as- 
 cend so high nor range to so great a distance as in the para- 
 bolic theory; and in descending through the brancli VI! its 
 motion downwards is constantly accelerated by gravity, 
 while its horizontal motion is constantly retarded ; so that 
 538 
 
 GUNNERY. 
 
 its direction continually approaches to the perpendicular, or 
 a parallel with EF. This resistance of the air is so great as 
 to amount in some cases to twenty or thirty times the weight 
 of the ball itself, insomuch that a ball which in the air 
 ranges only to the distance of one mile, if projected with the 
 same velocity in vacuo would range ten or twenty times 
 that distance. 
 
 The determination by theory of the trajectory described by 
 a projectile in the air is, as Dr. Hutton remarks, one of the 
 most difficult problems in dynamics. " Even the solutions 
 of Newton, Bernoulli, Euler, Borda, &c. &c, after the most 
 elaborate investigations, assisted by all the resources of the 
 modern analysis, amount to no more than distant approxi- 
 mations ; and are rendered nearly useless, even to the spec 
 ulative philosopher, from the assumption of a very errone- 
 ous law of resistance in the air, and much more so to the 
 practical artillerist, both on that account, and from the very 
 intricate process of calculation which is quite inapplicable 
 to actual service." ( Tracts, vol. iii.) It may easily be in- 
 ferred from these remarks that no practical rules can be 
 founded on deductions from pure theory ; and that it is ne- 
 cessary to have recourse to trial and experiment in order to 
 obtain even an approximate knowledge of the path of a 
 body projected with so great a velocity as that of a cannon 
 ball. 
 
 The first extensive series of accurate experiments on this 
 subject was made by Benjamin Robins, and is described by 
 him in his New Principles of Gunnery, published in 1742. 
 In this work, which is one of very great merit and elegance, 
 Mr. Robins has treated very fully of the resistance of the at- 
 mosphere, the force of gunpowder, the advantages and de- 
 fects of different guns, and indeed of almost everything re- 
 lating to the flight of military projectiles. Another set of 
 experiments was undertaken by Dr. Hutton, at Woolwich, in 
 1775, of which an account was published in the Phil. Trans. 
 for 1778. A second course of experiments was performed 
 by Dr. Hutton in 1783, 1784, and 1785; the principal objects 
 of which were, to determine the effect of the length of the 
 gun on the velocity of the ball, the velocities with different 
 charges of powder, the effect of varying the weight of the 
 piece, the penetration of balls into blocks of wood, the ran- 
 ges and times of flight, &c. The details of these experi- 
 ments, which were conducted with great skill and ability, 
 are given in the 2d and 3d volumes of his Tracts. Previ- 
 ous to this time a number of experiments similar to those of 
 Robins were made in France by D'Arcy, an account of 
 wliich is given in the Memoirs of the Academy for 1751, and 
 in his Essai d'une Theorie d'jlrtil'eric, published in 1760. 
 There is also an extensive series of experiments on the ef- 
 fects of musket balls of different weights, and fired with dif- 
 ferent charges of gunpowder, by Count Rumford, recorded 
 in the Phil. Trans, for 1781, and republished with additions 
 in 1802. Since the days of Dr. Hutton farther experiments 
 with heavy guns appear to have been made from time to 
 time at Woolwich, under the direction of the ordnance de- 
 partment, as there is an account of a very heavy ballistic 
 pendulum, weighing 7408 lbs. avoirdupois, constructed under 
 the care of Dr. Olinthas Gregory in 1815 and 1818, together 
 with some results from experiments on it with a 24 pounder, 
 given in the Annates de Chiinie, torn. v. and ix., and also in 
 Dupin's Voyages dans la Grande Bretagnc ; but as we are 
 not aware that these results have ever been published in any 
 official form, we know not what credit is to be attached to 
 them. The experiments of Dr. Hutton continue to the pres- 
 ent time to afford the best data for the theory of practical 
 gunnery. 
 
 There are various methods by which the initial velocity 
 (the principal element in the theory) of military projectiles 
 may be determined. The first is by the ballistic pendulum, 
 which consists merely of a heavy block of wood suspended 
 in such a manner that it can swing freely about an axis; 
 into this the ball is fired ; and as it is too thick for the ball 
 to pass through it, the whole momentum of the ball is trans- 
 ferred to the block, and the extent of the arc through which 
 it vibrates shows what this momentum has been ; whence, 
 as the weights of the block and the ball are known, the 
 velocity with which the latter entered the block may be 
 computed. (Ballistic Pendulum.) Another method of 
 determining the initial velocity of the ball is by means of 
 the recoil of the gun. The principle is, that the explosive 
 force of the powder must communicate equal quantities of 
 motion to the gun and to the ball in opposite directions: con- 
 sequently, by suspending the gun, loaded with additional 
 weights, in the manner of a pendulum, the extent of its arc 
 of vibration will give the means of estimating the quantity 
 of motion impressed on it ; whence the initial velocity of the 
 ball can be computed. Both the above methods were em- 
 ployed by Dr. Hutton : Robins employed the first only. A 
 third method consists in transferring the momentum of the 
 ball to a rotary machine instead of a pendulum. An inge- 
 nious apparatus for this purpose was contrived by Dr. Grego- 
 ry, but the method has been little used.
 
 GUNNERY. 
 
 The following are the practical conclusions deduced by 
 Dr. Hutton from his experiments : 
 
 1. The velocity is directly as the square root of the weight 
 of the powder, as far as to the charge of about eight ounces ; 
 and so it would continue for all charges were the guns of an 
 indefinile length. But as the length of the charge is increased, 
 and bears a more considerable proportion to the length of the 
 bore, the velocity falls the more short after that proportion. 
 
 2. That the velocity of the ball increases with the charge 
 to a certain point, which is peculiar to each gun, where it is 
 greatest ; and that by farther increasing the charge the velo- 
 city diminishes till the bore is quite full of powder. 
 
 3. It appears that the velocity continually increases as the 
 gun is longer, though the increase of velocity is very small 
 in respect of the increase in length, the velocities being in a 
 ratio somewhat less than that of the square roots of the 
 length of the bore, but somewhat greater than that of the 
 cube roots of the length, and is, indeed, nearly in the middle 
 of the ratio between the two. 
 
 4. The range increases in a much less ratio than the ve- 
 locity, and indeed is nearly as the square root of the velocity, 
 the gun and elevation being the same. Very little is gained 
 in the range by a great increase in the length of the gun, the 
 charge being the same ; and indeed the range is nearly as 
 the 5th root of the length of the bore, an increase so small as 
 to amount only to about one-seventh part more range for a 
 double length of gun. 
 
 5. It appears that the time of the ball's flight is nearly as 
 the range, the gun and elevation being the same. 
 
 6. It appears also that there Ls no sensible difference 
 caused in the velocity or range by varying the weight of the 
 gun, nor by the use of wads, nor by different degrees of ram- 
 ming, nor by firing the charge of powder in different parts 
 of it. 
 
 7. But a great difference in the velocity arises from a 
 small degree of windage. Indeed with the usual estab- 
 lished windage only, namely, about l-20th of the calibre, no 
 less than between £ and i of the powder escapes and is lost ; 
 and as the balls are often smaller than that size, it frequently 
 happens that half the powder is lost by unnecessary wind- 
 age. 
 
 8. It appeals that the resisting force of wood to balls fired 
 into it is not constant; and that the depths penetrated by 
 different velocities or charges are nearly as the logarithms 
 of the charges, instead of being as the charges themselves, 
 or, which is the same thing, as the square of the velocity. 
 
 9. These, and most other experiments, show that the 
 balls are greatly deflected from the directions they are pro- 
 jected in ; so much, indeed, as 300 or 400 yards in a range 
 of a mile, or almost % of the range, which is nearly a 
 deflection of an angle of 15 degrees. (Dictionary, art. 
 "Gunnery.") 
 
 Dr. Hutton gives the following table as the results of his 
 experiments with a medium one-pounder gun, the iron ball 
 being nearly two inches in diameter ; showing the velocity 
 of the ball, the range, and time of flight, corresponding to 
 different charges, the elevation of the gun being 15 degrees : 
 
 Powder. 
 
 Initial Velocity 
 per Spcond. 
 
 Eange. 
 
 Time of Flight. 
 
 Ounces. 
 2 
 4 
 8 
 12 
 
 Feet. 
 860 
 1230 
 1640 
 1680 
 
 Feet 
 4100 
 5100 
 6000 
 6700 
 
 Seconds. 
 9 
 12 
 
 14 1-2 
 
 15 1-2 
 
 In the application of the rules derived from experimental 
 inquiry, it is necessary to take into consideration the effect 
 that is intended to be produced. The power of penetration 
 which a ball possesses is proportional to the square of its 
 velocity ; hence, when the object is merely to penetrate, the 
 greatest velocity should be given. Thus in breaching walls 
 the guns are first directed so as to cut grooves in the wall, in 
 order to detach as it were a portion from the rest of the mass. 
 This is done by the penetration of the balls ; but the detach- 
 ed portion must then be battered so as to cause it to fall. 
 For this purpose a heavy ball with small velocity is most 
 effectual. In close naval engagements great velocities are 
 less destructive than small ones. The ball, for example, 
 which has just force sufficient to go through a ship's side, 
 generally breaks and splinters the interior surface, and 
 thereby causes far more damage than when it retains a 
 considerable velocity after having passed through ; for in 
 the latter case it will only cut a hole without splintering 
 the wood. On this principle the carronadc (a short species 
 of ordnance fired with a small charge of powder in propor- 
 tion to the ball) has been introduced into the naval service. 
 
 Pointing and elevating Guns. — The art of pointing can- 
 non so as to strike distant objects depends on two things ; 1st, 
 on placing the gun in such a position that its axis is in the 
 vertical plane passing through the object aimed at ; and 2d, 
 on giving it such an elevation as will counteract the effect 
 of the incurvation of the flight of the ball. When a gun is 
 both pointed and elevated, it is said to be laid. 
 
 GUNPOWDER. 
 
 A line drawn from the highest point of the base ring to 
 the highest point of the swell of the muzzle is called the 
 line of metal. Now if the line of metal be directed to the 
 object, that line will necessarily be in the same vertical 
 plane with the object ; but by reason of the conical shape 
 of the gun, the line of metal has an inclination to the axis, 
 which is called the dispart, and in consequence of which 
 the axis will only be in the same vertical plane with the line 
 of metal when the trunnions are perfectly horizontal. If 
 they are not so (and the condition cannot be easily attained 
 or preserved), the shot will be thrown to that side of the 
 object on which the lower trunnion is. This inconvenience 
 is obviated by placing a dispart sight on the muzzle, at a 
 height perpendicularly above its highest point equal to half 
 the difference of the diameters of the muzzle and base ring ; 
 for then a line which passes from the highest point in the 
 base ring to the extremity of the dispart thus placed on the 
 muzzle ring will be parallel to the axis, and consequently 
 the shot will not be thrown to the right or left of the object, 
 however much the one trunnion may be lower than the 
 other. 
 
 In order to determine the proper elevation to be given to 
 the gun, it is necessary to know the distance of the object 
 fired at. Tables have been constructed from actual practice, 
 showing the angles of elevation which in different guns cor- 
 respond to different distances ; and the angle being found from 
 the table, the proper elevation is given by means of a brass 
 tangent-scale which slides up and down in the breech. Thus 
 suppose C D E F to be the 
 pieces, A B its axis, F m half 
 the difference of the diame- 
 ters of the muzzle ring and 
 base ring set upon the muzzle, 
 so that C m may be the line of dispart ; then if C n be set 
 upon the base ring equal to the tangent of the elevation 
 found from the table, the line n m will be the proper fine 
 for pointing the piece, or the gun will be justly laid w-hen n 
 m is directed to the object. In practice the length of C n is 
 found with sufficient accuracy by multiplying the length of 
 the gun in feet by - 21 ; the product giving C n in inches. 
 This rule is founded on the supposition that the tangent of 
 one degree of a circle, whose radius is one foot, i3 equal to 
 the 21-100ths of an inch, which is very near the truth. 
 
 The following table (from the Ency. Brit., art. "Gun- 
 nery"), constructed from actual practice at Woolwich, shows 
 the elevations corresponding to different ranges with iron 
 ordnance of the kinds therein specified : 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 p 
 
 3 = 
 
 6 
 
 ■£ 
 
 V 
 
 rt 
 
 « 
 
 rt 
 
 a 
 
 3 
 
 -r'-J 
 
 s 
 
 t 
 
 a 
 
 5 
 
 g 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 a 
 
 £ 
 
 <J 
 
 W 
 
 * 
 
 w 
 
 a. 
 
 W 
 
 ffi 
 
 
 Cult. 
 
 Lis. O: 
 
 
 Yd: 
 
 
 Yds. 
 
 
 Yds. 
 
 42-pr. 
 
 5S 1-4 
 
 14 
 
 oooo 
 
 400 
 
 1-33- 
 
 1100 
 
 3-50" 
 
 1500 
 
 32 
 
 55 1-2 
 
 10 11 
 
 0-25 
 
 500 
 
 200 
 
 12C0 
 
 3-75 
 
 1550 
 
 24 
 
 50 
 
 8 
 
 ii 50 
 
 600 
 
 225 
 
 1250 
 
 4 
 
 16C0 
 
 18 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 075 
 
 700 
 
 2 50 
 
 13C0 
 
 5 
 
 1800 
 
 12 
 
 34 
 
 4 
 
 1 00 
 
 600 
 
 2 75 
 
 1350 
 
 6 
 
 1980 
 
 9 
 
 31 
 
 3 
 
 1-25 
 
 900 
 
 3-00 
 
 1400 
 
 7 
 
 2148 
 
 
 
 
 1-50 
 
 | 1000 
 
 325 
 
 1450 
 
 ■ 
 
 4000 
 
 (Robins' 1 * Math. Tracts ; Hutton 1 s Tracts ; Sir Howard 
 Douglas's Naval Gunnery ; Paixhans, Force et Faiblessc 
 de la France ; and the United Service Journal for 1834. 
 For a very complete theoretical discussion of the experi- 
 ments hitherto made, the reader may consult a Memoire 
 sur la Vitesse initiate des Projectiles, in the Journal de 
 I'Ecole Polytechnique, torn, xv., 1835.) 
 
 GU'NNEY. (Bengal.) A coarse sackcloth made in 
 Bengal of the fibres of two species of corchoron. Bice, salt- 
 petre, pepper, and other articles exported from Calcutta are 
 packed in bags or sacks made of this material ; they also 
 form a considerable article of exportation. 
 
 GU NPOWDER. A compound of about 78 parts of salt- 
 petre, 12 of charcoal, and 10 of sulphur. The ingredients 
 should all be perfectly pure, separately reduced to powder, 
 thoroughly mixed, moistened, and beaten or pressed into a 
 cake ; which is afterwards broken up, granulated or corned, 
 dried, and polished by attrition. Coarse powder is less care- 
 fully and nicely manufactured. The force of the explosion 
 of gunpowder is the consequence of the sudden and abund- 
 ant" production of gaseous matter expanded by the intense 
 heat resulting from the action of the combustibles upon the 
 nitre. The gases evolved are chiefly carbonic oxide, car- 
 bonic acid, nitrogen, and sulphurous acid, and their volume 
 probably exceeds two thousand times the bulk of the pow- 
 der. Count Rumford's experiments show the immense 
 energy of this astonishing agent as a source of mechanical 
 power (Phil. Trans., vol. 87) : 28 grains of gunpowder, 
 confined in a cylindrical space which it just filled, tore 
 asunder a piece of iron which would have resisted a strain 
 of 400,000 lbs. applied at no greater mechanical advantage. 
 With regard to the introduction of gunpowder into warlike 
 
 539
 
 GUNPOWDER PLOT. 
 
 operations, Dr. Thomson has the following remarks : The 
 discoverer of this compound, and the person who first thought 
 of applying it to the purposes of war, are unknown. It is 
 certain, however, that it was used in the fourteenth century. 
 From certain archives quoted by Wiegleb, it appears that 
 cannons were employed in Germany before the year 1372. 
 No traces of it can be found in any European author pre- 
 viously to the thirteenth century ; but it seems to have been 
 known to the Chinese long before that period. There is 
 reason to believe that cannons were used in the battle of 
 Cressy, which was fought in 1346. They seem even to 
 have been used three years earlier, at the siege of Algesiras ; 
 but before this time they must have been known in Ger- 
 many, as there is a piece of ordnance at Amberg on which 
 is inscribed the year 1303. Roger Bacon, who died in 1292, 
 knew the properties of gunpowder ; but it does not follow 
 that he was acquainted with its application to fire-arms. 
 
 GUNPOWDER PLOT. In English History, the cele- 
 brated conspiracy of certain disappointed Roman Catholics 
 to destroy the king, James I., and the two Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, by gunpowder, which was detected on the 4th of 
 November, 1605. Its details are among the most popular 
 portions of English history, and too well known to need repe- 
 tition. But the miraculous exercise of sagacity by which 
 King James is commonly said to have detected the nature 
 of the plot, from the mysterious letter sent to Lord Montea- 
 gle, is now perhaps negatived beyond a doubt. It had long 
 been remarked that Salisbury and Carlisle (probably before 
 the scheme between themselves and their royal master was 
 concerted) had claimed for themselves the credit of the dis- 
 covery; and it now appears that Lord Monteagle had been 
 previously rewarded by government for mysterious services, 
 apparently rendered in the capacity of spy: so that it is 
 highly probable that he was acquainted with the design of 
 the malecontents, and that the celebrated letter was an in- 
 vention, destined to conceal the real mode of discovery. 
 Those who are anxious to study the Roman Catholic version 
 of the story will find it ably detailed in the pages of Lingard 
 vol. vii., ch. 1., 4to ed.). That writer seeks to throw the 
 whole onus of the conspiracy on Catesby, its chief promoter, 
 and to expulcate Father Garnet ; but Mr. Jardine (in his 
 State Trials), who has fully investigated the subject, is of 
 a different opinion. 
 
 GU'NTER'S CHAIN, so called from its reputed inventor, 
 is the chain commonly used for measuring land. It is 66 
 feet or 4 poles in length, and is divided into 100 links, each 
 of which is joined to the adjacent one by three rings ; and 
 the length of each link, including the connecting rings, is 
 7'92 inches. The advantage of this measure consists in the 
 facility which it affords to numerical calculation. The 
 English acre contains 4840 square yards ; and Gunter's chain 
 being 22 yards in length, the square of which is 484, it fol- 
 lows that a square chain is exactly the tenth part of an 
 acre. A square chain again contains 10,000 square links, so 
 that 100,000 square links are equal to an acre ; consequently, 
 the contents of a field being cast up in square links, it is only 
 necessary to divide by 100,000, or to cut off the last five 
 figures, to obtain the contents expressed in acres. 
 
 GUNTER'S LINE. A logarithmic line engraved on 
 scales, sectors, &c, serving to perform the multiplication 
 and division of numbers instrumentally, as a table of lo- 
 garithms does arithmetically. The numbers are usually 
 drawn on two separate rulers sliding against each other. 
 In rough calculations this line affords considerable facilities. 
 
 GUNTER'S QUADRANT. A quadrant of a peculiar 
 kind adapted to the problems of finding the hour of the day, 
 the sun's azimuth, and other common problems of the 
 sphere. 
 
 GUNTER'S SCALE, casually called by seaman the Gun- 
 ter, is a large plain scale having various lines of numbers 
 engraved on it, by means of which questions in navigation 
 are resolved with the aid of a pair of compasses. On one 
 side of the scale the natural lines (as the line of chords, the 
 line of sines, tangents, rhombs, &c.) are placed, on the other 
 the corresponding logarithmic ones. 
 
 GU'NWALE means, generally, the upper part of the solid 
 workmanship of the vessel's side : the part above this is 
 called the bulwark. 
 
 GU'TTA SERENA. See Amaurosis. 
 
 GUTTVE. In Architecture. See Drops. 
 
 GUTTI'FERjE, or CLUSIACE.dE. A natural order of 
 arborescent, shrubby, and occasionally parasitical Exogens, 
 inhabiting the tropics. 
 
 GUTTUR. (Lat. guttur, a throat), in Mammalogy, is 
 applied to the whole under surface of the neck. 
 
 GU'TTURALS. Letters pronounced by a peculiar effort 
 of the throat. There are no gutturals properly so called in 
 the English language, although the guttural sound may often 
 be heard in some provincial pronunciations of the letter r. 
 Nor are there in the pure French or Italian, although they 
 are frequent in the dialects: e. g. the letter c hard (as in 
 casa) has in the Tuscan a strong guttural sound. In the 
 540 
 
 GYMNOTUS. 
 
 Spanish language alone, of those derived from the Latin 
 gutturals are common. In German, the guttural ch is largely 
 used. In the Celtic languages, gh and ch are also sounded 
 with much variety of guttural intonation. 
 
 GUY. A rope used to swing any weight, or to keep steady 
 any heavy body and prevent it from swinging while being 
 hoisted or lowered. 
 
 GYMNA'SIARCH. (Gr. yvpvaaiapxos.) An Athenian 
 officer who had the charge of providing the oil and other 
 necessaries for the gymnasia. This was one of the offices 
 called XciTovpytai at Athens, the expenses of which were 
 defrayed from tile private pocket of the individual on whom 
 they devolved, and who received no salary from the state. 
 
 GYMNA'SIUM. (Gr. yvfivdaiov, from yv/ivoi, naked.) 
 Originally a space measured out and covered with sand for 
 the exercise of athletic games. Afterwards, among the 
 classical Greeks, the gymnasia became spacious buildings or 
 institutions for the mental as well as corporeal instruction 
 of youth. They were first built at Lacedaemon, whence 
 they spread through the rest of Greece, &c. into Italy. 
 They did not consist of single edifices, but comprised several 
 buildings and porticoes, used for study and discourse, for 
 baths, anointing rooms, palaestras in which the exercises took 
 place, and for other purposes. Two of the Athenian gym- 
 nasia, viz. the Lyceum and Academy, were rendered famous 
 by being the scenes of the lectures of Aristotle and Plato 
 respectively. 
 
 The term Gymnasium has descended to modern times. 
 In Germany the higher schools, intended to give immediate 
 preparation for the universities, are termed gymnasia. In 
 Prussia the scholars undergo examination on leaving them : 
 their compositions at this examination are sent to the minis- 
 ter of instruction and ecclesiastical affairs ; and they receive 
 testimonials of fitness, No. 1, 2, or 3, according to their de- 
 gree of proficiency. Persons who have fitted themselves 
 for the universities without passing through the gymnasia 
 are examined by a committee appointed by government, 
 which sits half-yearly for the purpose. 
 
 GYMNA'STICS. Under this name were comprised by 
 the ancients all those games and exercises which were per- 
 formed with the body partly naked (yv/ivos) ; such as wrest- 
 ling, boxing, running, throwing the quoit, playing at ball, 
 &c. They were first instituted at Laceda-mon, where they 
 were not confined to men, but were also considered a neces- 
 sary part of the education of females. In the rest of Greece, 
 where they subsequently spread, they were also held of the 
 highest importance, and as such were conducted under the 
 superintendence of the government, and entered conspicu- 
 ously into the political schemes of the philosophers. In this 
 respect the Greeks offered a remarkable contrast to th'.ir 
 Asiatic neighbours, among whom it was considered a great 
 disgrace even for a man to be seen naked. At Rome gym- 
 nastics were principally exercised by the mercenary athletes. 
 
 GYMNODONTS, Oymnodontes. (Gr. yvuvos, naked; 
 o&ovs, a tooth.) The name of the family of Plectognathic 
 fishes, comprehending those which have the jaws protruding, 
 and covered with a more or less complex layer of dense 
 ivory substance serving the office of teeth. 
 
 GYMNO'SOPHISTS. (Gr. yvuvoooQioTai, naked philo- 
 sophers.) A sect of Indian philosophers who lived naked in 
 the woods, whence they derived their name, and submitted 
 to other strange austerities. They believed in the immortal- 
 ity of the soul and its migration into several bodies. They 
 enjoyed great reputation for astronomical and physical sci- 
 ence. 
 
 There was likewise an African sect of philosophers bear- 
 ing the same name, who are said to have lived in ^Ethiopia, 
 near the sources of the Nile, whose habits differed from 
 those of the Indian sect, inasmuch as they lived as ancho- 
 rites, while the latter congregated in societies. 
 
 GYMNO'TUS, or rather Gymnonotus. (Gr. yvpvoc, na- 
 ked, and I'orof, the back.) The name of the genus of electric 
 eels which are found in the fresh waters of South America : 
 they have a median fin extended along the belly but none on 
 the back. Although to all outward appearance the gymno- 
 tus Is nearly allied to the eel, yet, were that part of the body 
 cut off which contains the nutrient, respiratory, and genera- 
 tive organs — all the parts, in fact, which are essential to the 
 existence of the gymnotus as a mere fish — it would present a 
 short and thick-bodied form, very different from that of the 
 eel. The long electric organs are tacked on, as it were, be- 
 hind the true fish, and thus give the gymnotus its anguilli- 
 form body. The back-bone and muscles are of course co- 
 extended with the electric organs for their support and 
 motion ; and the air-bladder is continued along the produced 
 electrophorous trunk, to give it convenient specific levity. 
 Two long dorsal nerves are continued from the fifth and 
 eighth cerebral nerves for ordinary sensation and motion. 
 The spinal chord is continued along the vertebral column, 
 for the exclusive supply of the electrical organs. These or- 
 gans are four in number; two very large above, and two 
 small ones below. The electricity discharged from them
 
 GYNiECEUM. 
 
 decomposes chemical compounds, produces the spark, and 
 magnetizes iron, as does that of the torpedo. But the mag- 
 netizing power seems to be relatively weaker, while the 
 benumbing shock communicated to other animals is stronger 
 than in any other electric fish. 
 
 GYNiECE'UM. (Gr. yvvaixeiov.) In Ancient Architec- 
 ture, the portion of a Grecian house set apart for the occu- 
 pation of the female part of the family. 
 
 Gynsce'um. In Botany, a term ii. vented by Rceper to 
 denote that organ commonly called the pistUlum : it may be 
 understood to signify the female apparatus in plants. 
 
 GYNA'NDRIA. (Gr. yvvii, and avnp,amale.) The name 
 of on" of the classes in tiie sexual system of plants invent- 
 ed by Linneus. Its character is to have the stamens, style, 
 and stigma consolidated into a body, called a column. The 
 class chiefiv consists of the plants now named Orchidaceous. 
 
 GYNCECO'CRACY. (Gr. yvvn, and Kparew, I govern.) 
 A term sometimes used to indicate that state in which 
 women are legally permitted to assume the reins of govern- 
 ment. It is used by way of contradistinction to the Salique 
 law, which precludes the fair sex from the privilege of sov- 
 ereignty. There are only four states in Europe to which 
 the operation of the Salique law does not extend — England, 
 Russia, Spain, and Portugal. 
 
 GY'NOPHURE. (Gr. yvvri, and <ptpw, I bear.) The stalk 
 upon which some ovaria are seated, as in the Passion-flower. 
 
 GYNOSTE'MITM. ((jr. ; 1/107, ylld trrnpuiv, a stamen.) A 
 term invented by Richard to denote the column of an Orchi- 
 daceous plant. It is a combination of a filament anda style. 
 
 GYPOGE'RANUS. (Gr. yv\p, a vulture, and yepavog, a 
 crane.) This name was invented by Illiger lor a most sin- 
 gular genus of Accipitrine birds, in which the structure of 
 the binl of prey is modified by a lengthening of the legs and 
 neck to adapt the species to o mbat with and destroy the 
 most poisonous of the serpent tribe. The instincts of the 
 gypogcranus, or secretary bird, as it is termed, correspond 
 with its structure, and it preys principally upon serpents; 
 not refusing, however, lizards, or even ; nsects. The bill is 
 shorter than the head, curved nearly from its base, not 
 toothed ; the wings are armed with a short, stl 
 tuse spur; the feathers are continued down the long tibia to 
 the tarsal joint, covering the front but not the back part of 
 it; the toes are short, but strong; the anterior ones united 
 by a membrane at the base. .Species of the secretary vul- 
 ture inhabit the Cape, the Gambia coast, and the Philippine 
 Islands. The Cape secretary (Oypogeranus serpen 
 lives in pairs, builds on high trees, and runs with considera- 
 ble swifti 
 
 GY'PSIES. The history of this strange nation of vag- 
 rants has been recently illustrated by the labours of several 
 German writers, particularly Grellmau (Historical Inquiry 
 respectinir thr Gypsies, translated into English by Raper, 
 1787) and Bischolf (German am! Gypsy Dictionary). Their 
 English name is a corruption of the word "Egyptian:" the 
 French call them Bohemians; but the names by which 
 they are most widely known throughout Europe are, the 
 German Ziereuner, Russian Tzigan, Italian Zingaro, Span- 
 ish Gitano, Turkish Ckinganeh — all apparently varieties of 
 'he same distinctive appellation. Their origin has long 
 been a subject of curious but unsuccessful antiquarian re- 
 search. In western Europe, they made their first appear- 
 ance early in the fifteenth century, under a leader who 
 styled himself the Duke of Lower Egypt ; fortune-telling 
 and thieving were then, as now, their predominant occupa- 
 tions. They were at that time treated as heatbens and sor- 
 cerers, and the most severe laws were repeatedly enacted 
 against them, but without effect. At present they are found 
 not in Europe only, but in Asia Minor, Egypt. Turkey, &c.-, 
 forming everywhere a distinct race. In Germany, as well 
 •is England, they profess various trades, as itinerant horse- 
 dealers, smiths, farriers, &c. ; but have never been reclaim- 
 ed in any number to settled occupations. In England, their 
 most ordinary haunts are in the midland and southern coun- 
 ties chiefly, whither they are invited by the abundance of 
 green Jfnes, downs, forests, or chases. They possess a lan- 
 e of their own ; and are apparently destitute of religion, 
 although in most countries professing that of the people 
 among whom they dwell. (See Marsden on thr /. 
 of the Gypsies; Hoyland's Hist. Survey. 1816; Quart. 
 Jiev., vol. Iv. Mr. George Borrow's Account of the GT/psics 
 of Spain, 2 vols. 12mo, 1841, may also be consulted with 
 advantage.) 
 
 GY'PSUM. (Probably derived from y v , earth, and expw, 
 I concoct.) Crystals of native sulphate of lime. 
 
 GY'EI (Gr. yyp c, a circle), in Mammalogy, the annular 
 series of scales in the tails of certain quadrupeds. 
 
 GY'RODUS. A fos il fish of the family of Pycnodonts. 
 It occurs in the oolite of Baden. 
 
 GYRO'GONITES. (Gr. yvpoc, and yovos, seed.) Bodies 
 found in fresh-water deposits; originally mistaken for small 
 shells, but afterwards ascertained to be the seed-vessels of 
 plants of the genus Chara. 
 
 47 
 
 HADJ. 
 
 GY'ROMANCY. (Gr. yvpoc, and pavrua, prophecy.) A 
 species of divination performed by drawing a ling or circle 
 and walking round it 
 
 H. 
 
 II. An aspirate of the guttural kind, used in all modern 
 and in must ancient languages. The claims of h to he, re- 
 gaided as a letter have been denied by many grammarians; 
 and certainly, when it is remembered that the sound of this 
 letter is produced by a mere emission ol the breath, without 
 any conformation of the organs of speech, this opinion would 
 seem well founded. Then; are others, However, win. insist 
 that there is no feature in the sound or qualities of this let- 
 ter which it does not possess in common with some other 
 consonants, and consequently any attempt to invalidate its 
 claim to the distinction militates equally against them. The 
 figure II was used by the Greeks to signify the aspirate, until 
 the 5th century before Christ. After that time it was 
 gradually abandoned in Greek writing, while its use was 
 still preserved by the Latins. In the former language it 
 was superseded by the small mark called the spiritus asper 
 ('), which was placed above the letter to which the aspira- 
 ted sound was to be given. The various interchanges of 
 which this letter is susceptible will be found in the Penny 
 Cyclo. The chief of these is the substitution, in Latin, of 
 the letter s for the aspirate of the Greeks: as sub for biro, 
 sal for dXj, sex for i{, septem for tirra, scrpo for ip-01, &c. 
 In English, this letter is frequently dropped altogether in 
 pronunciation; in German, it is sounded only at the begin 
 ning of words : a: d n nerevei it otherwise occurs, it has the 
 effect of lengthening the vowel after which it is placed, as 
 in suhnen, wuhi it. In Latin, many words are written in- 
 differently wi 1 this letter; as aruspez, haruspez, 
 onusms. honustns, &c. As an abbreviation, h was used by 
 I the Latins for homo, litres, and hora; and as a numeral 
 it expressed 200. 
 
 HAA'RKIES. (German.) Capillary pyrites in very del- 
 I icate acicular crystals. The term is also applied by the 
 German mineralogists to a native sulphuret of nick. I. 
 
 HA'BEAS CCRPUS. (Lat.) In Law, the I 
 writ, of Which there are several kinds. Habeas 1 
 respon ove a j isoner, confined by die pro- 
 
 1 an inferior court, in order to charge him with a new 
 j action in a court above. Habeas corpus ad subjiciendum is 
 a high prerogative writ, directed to a person detaining an- 
 other, and commanding hirn to produce the body of the 
 prisoner. This is the writ which, by stat. 31 C. 2, c. 2, must 
 be granted on application of any party committed and char- 
 ged with any crime except treason or felony; or if charged 
 with those crimes, having been acquitted or not tried on the 
 second term or session alter bis commitment 
 
 HABE'RE FA'CIAS POSSE'SSIO'NEM. (Lat.) In 
 Law, a judicial writ, which lies where one hath recovered 
 a term of years in action of ejectment to put him into pos- 
 session. Habere facias seisinam, a similar writ to give seisin 
 of a freehold estate recovered by ejectment or other action. 
 
 HA'CKLE. A board set with sharp iron spikes for comb- 
 ing or pulling out hemp. 
 
 IIA'DES. (Gr. a£i)c; also aiSnc, which is said to be de- 
 rived from a and new, I see ; invisible.) In Classical My- 
 thology, the abode of the dead. According to lb -ad the 
 mortals of the brazen age were the first who descended to 
 Hades. (See especially the 11th book of the Odyssey; He- 
 siod, i pya Km 'Hpepai ; JEneid, book vi. ; Warburton's 
 Dissertation on the latter; Heyne, Excursus 8, ad loc; 
 Spence's Polymctis, Dial. 16.) ilades was also an appella- 
 tion of the god Pluto ; in which sense alone, it is said, He- 
 siod uses it. 
 
 HA'DING. In Mining, the direction of a slip or fault. The 
 deviation from the vertical of a mineral vein is called its hade. 
 
 HADJ. (Arab.) The Mohammedan pilgrimage to Mec- 
 ca and Medina: whence Hadji, a pilgrim, or one who has 
 performed this pilgrimage; Hedjaz, the Holy Land, where 
 these cities are situated. By far the most authentic descrip- 
 tion of it is that 1 f Burkhardt, who performed it in the guise 
 of a Mohammedan, in 1814. It is fixed to a particular lunar 
 month, and consequently takes place in every season of the 
 year. It was a custom long anterior to the establishment 
 oflslamism, when the famous "black stone" of the Caaba 
 at Mecca was an object of idolatrous veneration. Every 
 year a black rilk stuffis now sent by the sultan to cover the 
 Caaba. There are usually five or six caravans : f 0111 Syria, 
 Egypt, Barbary, the East, and the North. In 3814, the 
 number of pilgrims was about 70,000, and this was consider- 
 ed small. The lilgrims go through several ceremonies at 
 Mecca, of which the prim i] <'■ vaf, or procession 
 
 round the Caaba, and drinkihe ol the well of Zemzen ; they 
 then proceed to the summit of Mount At I: tly to 
 
 Medina, the place of the p bu ial. (Burkhard&s 
 
 Travels in Arabia, 1829; Quart. Jiev., vol. xlii.)
 
 ILEMATEMESIS. 
 
 ILEMATE'MESIS. (Gr. atpa, Mood, and cptiv, to vomit.) 
 Vomiting of blood from the stomach, generally preceded by 
 weight and uneasiness about the region of the stomach, and 
 unaccompanied by cough and the other symptoms of hemop- 
 tysis. 
 
 HEMATITE. (Gr. aipa,) Native oxide of iron ; its 
 streak and powder are bloodied. 
 
 HjEMATOCE'LE. (Gr. aifia, and /0/X17. 0. tumour.) A 
 tumour arising from extravasated blood. 
 
 H^EMATOSI'NE. (Gr. atpa.) The red colouring mat- 
 ter of tin.! blood. 
 
 HEMATO'XYL,INE. The colouring principle of the 
 wood of the Htcmatoxylon campechianum, or logwood. 
 
 H^EMATU'RIA. (Gr. ai/ia, and ovpoi; urine.) A dis- 
 charge of bloodv urine. 
 
 HEMODORA'CEE (rfamodorum, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of Endogens principally inhabiting New 
 Holland. They differ from Mmaryilidacem in their flowers 
 and equitant leaves; from Iridacca in their stamens, and in 
 the anthers bursting inwards. They are curious, but not 
 useful or beautiful plants; except in the case of Anigoran- 
 thus, a genus containing some striking herbaceous species. 
 
 HEMO PTYSIS. (Gr. tana, blood, and titvu>, / spit.) 
 The coughing up of blood, sometimes produced by fulness 
 of the blood-vessels of the lungs, or by the rupture of blood- 
 vessels as a consequence of ulceration. It is distinguished 
 from blood coming from the stomach by the comparative 
 smallness of its quantity, and by its usual florid colour: the 
 latter is usually blackened by the acid, and often mixed with 
 the contents of the stomach. The age at which this disease 
 commonly shows itself is from fifteen to five-and-twenty, 
 and it is sometimes brought on by violent exercise or a fit of 
 coughing. It is not very uncommon as a symptom of sup- 
 pression of some natural evacuation ; and when unattend- 
 ed by symptoms of consumption and constitutional cough, 
 and occurring in persons otherwise strong and healthy, it is 
 often not dangerous : when it occurs in some fevers, and in 
 inflammation, it may even be a favourable symptom. Bleed- 
 ing, aperients, acids, diaphoretics, nauseants, and occasion- 
 ally the exhibition of small doses of sugar of lead and of 
 styptic astringents, are the remedies usually resorted to. 
 
 HEMORRHAGE. (Gr. aiua, and payij, rent.) A bleed- 
 ing or flow of blood. This may arise from two causes: 
 either a full state of the vessels, or plethora, when it has 
 been called active hemorrhage ; or from a debilitated state 
 ' f the vessels, or of the system generally, when it is called 
 passive hemorrhage. When haemorrhage occurs from 
 cither of these causes, it usually requires methods of 
 : reatment adapted to the particular case. Where haemor- 
 rhage is the consequence of wounds, the bleeding vessels 
 must be secured by ligature ; or where this cannot be done, 
 styptic applications are applied. 
 
 HEMORRHOIDS. (Gr. aipa, and pew, I flow.) Tumours 
 of the veins of the rectum, constituting the disease com- 
 monly called piles. 
 
 HjiRE SIARCH. (Gr. dipcoig, heresy; apxu, 1 begin.) 
 In ecclesiastical History, the founder of an heretical sect. 
 See Heresy. 
 
 HERESI'MACHE (Gr. Hipeoig, and paxouat, J fight.) 
 In Ecclesiastical History, those who have written contro- 
 versial works against heresies. Of the earliest Christian 
 writers of this description, who wrote chiefly against Basil- 
 ides, Marcion, and the Montanists, we have only fragments 
 remaining. The first complete treatise of this description 
 extant is that of Irenoeus against the Gnostics (A.D. 180). 
 
 HAG, or HAG-FISH. A vernacular name for a species 
 of Cy clostomous fish called Myxine glutinosa and Gastro- 
 branchus emeus by ichthyologists. 
 
 HAGIO'GRAPHA. (Gr. oyios, holy, and ypa(p>'i, writing 
 or Scripture.) The Holy Scriptures. The term is also ap- 
 plied to histories or legends respecting the lives and actions 
 of the saints. See Riddle's Christian Antiquities, 1839, p. 
 394, as to that particular class of the Hebrew Scriptures 
 which were termed by the Jews Hagiographa. 
 
 HAIL. (Germ, hagel.) A well-known meteor, which 
 occurs chiefly in spring and summer, not unfrequently ac- 
 companied with thunder. It is formed of rain or atmo- 
 spheric vapours congealed by cold in the upper regions of 
 the atmosphere, and falling to the ground in small roundish 
 masses, or hailstones. On examining attentively the inte- 
 rior structure of hailstones they are usually found to contain 
 an opaque nucleus of a spongy or porous texture, resembling 
 hardened snow, surrounded by a layer of ice of greater or 
 less transparency. Sometimes several transparent layers 
 are distinguishable, and sometimes the layers are alternately 
 transparent and opaque. Hailstones have also been obser- 
 ved having a radiating structure. Their form is exceedingly 
 various ; in general it is roundish, but sometimes pyramidal, 
 angular, or even thin and flat, with irregular surfaces. The 
 usual size of hailstones is about a quarter of an inch in di- 
 ameter ; but they are frequently of much greater magni- 
 tude, and instances are on record in which the dimensions 
 542 
 
 HAIL. 
 
 would appear incredible if they were not attested by obser- 
 vers of known character. Halley relates that on the 9th 
 of April, 1697, there fell in Flintshire hailstones which 
 weighed 5 ounces. On the 4th of May, 1697, Robert Tay- 
 lor, in Hertfordshire, observed hailstones which measured 
 14 inches in circumference ; that is, about 4 inches in diam- 
 eter. Parent, on the 15th of May, 1703, found them at Iliers 
 as large as his fist. On the 11th of July, 1753, at Toul, 
 some were collected by Montignot measuring 3 inches in di- 
 ameter. Volta affirms that on the night of the 19th of Au- 
 gust, 1787, in a hail storm which ravaged the city of Como 
 and its environs, some of the stones were found "to weigh 9 
 ounces. In the terrible hail storm which traversed the 
 whole of France and the Netherlands on the 13th of July, 
 1788, M. Pessier relates that hailstones were picked up 
 which weighed 8 ounces. And Dr. Noggerath informs us 
 that on the 7th of May, 1822, hailstones fell at Bonn, weigh- 
 ing from 12 to 13 ounces. From these relations we may 
 form some idea of the destruction occasioned by a severe 
 hail storm in a cultivated country. 
 
 Of the different circumstances accompanying a fall of 
 hail, the following are the most remarkable : Hail usually 
 precedes storms of rain, sometimes accompanies them ; but 
 never, or very rarely follows them, especially if the rain is 
 of any duration. The time of its continuance is always very 
 short, generally only a few minutes, and very seldom so 
 long as a quarter of an hour. The quantity of ice which 
 falls from the clouds in so short a time is prodigious, the 
 ground being sometimes covered with it to the depth of sev- 
 eral inches. The clouds from which hail is precipitated 
 appear to be of very considerable extent and depth, inas- 
 much as they produce a great obscurity. It has been re- 
 marked that they have a peculiar gray or reddish colour, 
 and that their lower surfaces present enormous protuberan- 
 ces, while their edges exhibit deep and numerous indenta- 
 tions. Hail is always accompanied with electric phenomena. 
 
 Various hypotheses have been proposed to explain the 
 physical cause of hail, and the phenomena by which it is 
 accompanied. The theory requires the solution of two 
 questions: first, how the cold which causes the congelation 
 of the aqueous particles is produced 1 and, secondly, how 
 a hailstone, after attaining a sufficient size to fall through 
 the air by its own weight, remains suspended a sufficient 
 length of time to acquire a volume of twelve or fifteen inches 
 in circumference? But both these questions are attended 
 with very considerable difficulty ; and after all that has 
 been written on the subject, the theory of hail is still involv- 
 ed in great obscurity. 
 
 The first hypothesis we shall mention is that of the cele- 
 brated Volta. In order to solve the first question, Volta sup- 
 posed that the solar rays which impinge on the upper sur- 
 face of a dense cloud are almost entirely absorbed, whence 
 a very rapid evaporation results, and that this evaporation 
 produces a sufficient degree of cold to freeze water. To this 
 part of the theory it lias, however, been objected, that the 
 evaporation of a liquid through the effect of heat can only 
 become more rapid in consequence of the liquid acquiring a 
 higher temperature ; in other words, that a liquid cannot, at 
 the same time, receive an additional quantity of caloric and 
 have its temperature diminished without the intervention of 
 some other cause. For instance, let two sheets of paper be 
 moistened to the same degree, and one of them be exposed 
 to the sun's rays, and the other placed in the shade ; it will 
 soon be seen that the one on which the sun's rays fall dries 
 more quickly : its evaporation is greater ; but, at the same 
 time, it becomes warmer than the other, whereas, according 
 to Volta's argument, it ought to become colder. 
 
 Volta's solution of the second question is ingenious, but 
 not satisfactory. Admitting the nuclei of the hailstones to 
 be formed, and that there exists a sufficient degree of cold 
 to produce their enlargement by freezing the aqueous va- 
 pours, he supposes two large strata of clouds, charged with 
 opposite electricities, to be disposed the one over the other ; 
 in which case the hailstones, still very small, falling on the 
 lower stratum, would experience the two following effects : 
 In the first place, they would penetrate the stratum on which 
 they fall to some extent, and be covered with a new coating 
 of ice. In the second place, they would acquire the same 
 electricity as the cloud, and consequently be repelled by it; 
 while, at the same time, they would be attracted by the up- 
 per stratum, on account of its preserving the opposite elec- 
 tricity. And the electric attraction of the cloud being sup- 
 posed greater than the force of gravity, the hailstones would 
 thus pass from the lower to the upper stratum, where anal- 
 Ogous effects would take place, and whence, consequently, 
 they would be repelled to the lower stratum. Thus they 
 would be kept pasnng alternately from the one stratum to 
 the other, until at length, either becoming too heavy, or the 
 clouds losing their electricity, or being carried by the wind to 
 too great a distance from each other, the cause which kept 
 the hailstones suspended in the atmosphere becomes inade- 
 quate to support them, and they are precipitated to the ground.
 
 HAIR. 
 
 It is obvious that the accuracy of this theory cannot be 
 proved by any direct experiment ; and doubts have even 
 been raised whether the existence of electric forces sufficient 
 to move masses of ice of the size which hailstones are fre- 
 quently found to have, in the manner the theory supposes, 
 be really possible. The following, which is much simpler, 
 seems adequate to the effects : We may suppose the cold 
 necessary for the formation of hail to be produced by the 
 wind; and that when the hailstones are formed they are 
 also carried along through the atmosphere by currents of 
 wind in a direction very oblique to the horizon, by which 
 means they may be kept suspended a sufficient length of 
 time to acquire the dimensions they possess by congealing 
 the particles of humid vapour with which tliey successive- 
 ly come in contact. Thus the same cause, namely, the 
 wind, determines the production and the enlargement of 
 hailstones ; and the electricity with which the phenomenon 
 is always accompanied, is only the effect of the passage of 
 the particles of water from the liquid to the solid state. 
 
 For farther information on this subject, the reader is re- 
 ferred to an interesting article by Arago in the Jlnnnaire Pre- 
 sence au Roi for 1829 ; also Pouillet's Elemens de Physique, 
 tome ii. 
 
 HAIR. (Germ.haar.) The characteristic covering of the 
 Mammifcrous class of animals. It consists of slender, more 
 or less elongated, horny filaments, secreted by a matrix, con- 
 sisting of a conical gland or bulb, and a capsule, which is 
 situated in the mesh-work of the corium, or true skin. The 
 hairs pass out through canals in the corium, which are lined 
 by a thin layer of cuticle adherent to the base of the hair : 
 the straightness or curl of the hair depends on the form of 
 the canal through which it passes. Spines, bristles, fur, and 
 wool are all modifications of hair, having the same chemical 
 composition, mode of formation, and general structure. 
 
 In the spines of the porcupine, the bulb secretes a fluted 
 pith, and the capsule invests it with a horny sheath, the 
 transparency of which allows the ridges of the central part 
 to be seen. In the spines of the hedgehog, the spine-like 
 whiskers of the walrus, and the bristles of the hog, the two- 
 fold structure of the hair is very conspicuous : but in the finer 
 kind of hair, as of the human head and beard, the central 
 pith can only be demonstrated in fine transverse sections 
 viewed with a microscope. Some kinds of hair, as of the 
 human head, the mane and tail of the horse, are perennial, 
 and grow continuously by a persistent activity of the forma- 
 tive capsule and pulp ; other kinds, as the ordinary hair of 
 the horse, cow, and deer, are annual, and the coat is shed at 
 particular seasons. In the deer the horns are shed contem- 
 poraneously with the deciduous hair. 
 
 Many quadrupeds, especially those of cold climates, have 
 two kinds of hair : a long and coarse kind, forming their 
 visible external covering ; and a shorter, finer, and more 
 abundant kind, which lies close to the skin, and called " fur." 
 It is one of the processes in the arts to remove the coarse 
 hair, and leave the fur attached to the dried skin, as in the 
 preparation of seal-skin, &c. The peculiar characteristic of 
 wool, and that on which its valuable qualities chiefly de- 
 pend, is the seriated character of its surface, arising from its 
 structure, which consists of a series or succession of inverted 
 cones, the base of each being directed from the root of the 
 woolly fibre, and receiving the apex of the succeeding cone. 
 It results from this structure that the pressure to which the 
 workman subjects the wool in moving it backwards and for- 
 wards, brings the fibres together, and multiplies their points 
 of contact. The agitation gives to each hair a progressive 
 motion towards the root, and the serrations of one hair fix 
 themselves on those of another hair which happens to have 
 its root turned in the opposite direction, and the mass at 
 length assumes the compact form which is termed "felted" 
 wool. The microscope has likewise demonstrated various 
 other remarkable modifications in the form of the hair in 
 different quadrupeds. In the mole, e. g., each hair is alter- 
 nately constricted and expanded from its root to its apex, 
 whereby it readily assumes any position, and lies flat and 
 smooth, either towards the head when the little bunower is 
 retrograding in his subterraneous galleries, or in the contrary 
 direction when moving forwards. The organization of the 
 hair is such as to allow of its undergoing certain changes 
 when once formed, according to the slate of health and gen 
 eral condition of the rest of the frame, and even to be affect- 
 ed by loss of colour in consequence of violent mental emo- 
 tions in the human subject. Some of the lower animal-, as 
 the Alpine hare, are subject to periodical change of colour 
 of their fur, by which it is made to harmonize with the pre- 
 vailing hue of the ground which they habitually traverse. 
 
 The chemical properties of hair were first pointed out by 
 Mr. Hatchett, in his paper in the Phil. Trans, for 1800. It 
 chiefly consists of an indurated albumen, and when boiled 
 with water it yields a portion of gelatine. Soft flexible hair, 
 which easily loses its curl, is that which is most gelatinous. 
 Vauquelin discovered two kinds of oil in hair : the one col- 
 ourless, and in all hair ; the other coloured, and imparting 
 
 HALO. 
 
 the peculiar tint to hair. Black hair also contains iron and 
 sulphur. 
 
 Hairs. In Botany, minute, transparent, filiform process- 
 es, composed of cellular tissue more or less elongated and 
 arranged in a single row. They spring from the surface of 
 plants, appear always to have a circulating system, and 
 probably act both as absorbents of moisture and protectors 
 of the surface in which they grow. Many sorts are distin- 
 guished by phytotomists, the principal of which are the se- 
 creting or glandular, which are composed of cellules that 
 are visibly distended either at the apex or base into reccpta 
 cles of fluid ; and the lymphatic, which consist of tissue ta- 
 pering gradually from the base to the apex. 
 
 HA'LBERT. A word of uncertain derivation, applied 
 to an offensive weapon, which consists of a shaft five feet 
 long, with a steel head, partly in the form of a crescent. 
 This weapon was formerly in considerable use in the army, 
 and indeed gave its name to a body of men called halber- 
 diers ; but it is now rarely to be met with except in some 
 borough in Scotland, where it is used by the civil officers 
 who attend the magistrates in processions, and on other pub- 
 lic occasions. 
 
 HA'LCYON. See Alcedo. 
 
 HALCYON DAYS. A name given by the ancients to 
 the seven days that precede and follow the winter solstice, 
 from the circumstance of the halcyon or alcedo selecting 
 that period for incubation. While this process was going 
 on, the weather was generally remarkable for its calmness; 
 and hence the expression has passed into a proverb, signify- 
 ing days of peace and tranquillity. This circumstance ia 
 beautifully alluded to by Ovid in the following lines : 
 
 Perque dies piacidos hibemn tempore septem 
 Incubat Kalcyone per.denlibus aequoro nidis. 
 Turn via tuta maris: venlos cuslodit et arcet 
 iEolus egressu : praetatque nepotibus xquor. 
 
 HALCYONIDiE. (Gr. Q X/aw, a kingfisher.) The 
 family of Fissirostral birds, having the kingfisher as the type. 
 (Halcyon, from o.\kvu>v, itself is derived from Gr. aAf, and 
 Kvu), I procreate, because the halcyons build their nest on 
 the sea-shore.) 
 
 IIALIO'TIDjE. (Gr. aAj, the sea, and ovs, the ear.) A 
 family of Gastropods, having as its type the genus Haliotis, 
 or the sea-ear. 
 
 HALL. (Sax. heal.) In Architecture, properly a large 
 room for the transaction of public business ; also a manor 
 house where courts are held for the admission of tenants and 
 other manorial business. It is perhaps a term improperly 
 applied, as now, to the entrance of a dwelling-house, though 
 not so to a servants' hall. At Oxford an unendowed college 
 is styled a hall ; but at Cambridge the term is used indis- 
 criminately for college, whether endowed or not. 
 
 HALLELU'JAH. (Heb. praise ye the Lord.) A well- 
 known doxology, derived from the Old Testament. It was 
 used, among the early Christians, at Easter, and (luring the 
 interval from thence to Whitsuntide. (Greg., Epist. ix., 
 Ep. 12.) See Riddle's Christian Antiquities, p. 334. 
 
 HA'LLIARDS, Ifaulyards. Ropes by which yards, sails, 
 and t-ignals are hoisted. 
 
 HA'LO. (Lat. halo.) In Meteorology, a luminous circle 
 or ring, usually coloured, surrounding the sun or moon under 
 certain conditions of the atmosphere. Of such rings there 
 are two kinds, which appear to depend on essentially differ- 
 ent physical causes. The first are of small dimensions, 
 their diameters being between 5° and 12°; and ceneralty 
 three or more concentric rings appear together, differently 
 coloured, and presenting appearances similar to the optical 
 phenomena of the rings of thin plates. These are usually 
 called corona: ; and they appear either when a small quan- 
 tity of aqueous vapour is diffused through the atmosphere, 
 or when light fleecy clouds pass over the sun or moon. The 
 second kind consists usually of a single luminous ring, but 
 of much larger dimensions, the diameter being about 45°. It 
 is to the meteors of this second kind that the term halo is 
 usually appropriated. 
 
 The apparent diameters of haloes of the second kind have 
 frequently been measured, and are always found to subtend 
 at the eve of the observer an angle of between 44° and 46°. 
 The lunar halo is simply a white luminous circle, without 
 colour, excepting a pale red, which sometimes fringes the 
 interior edge of the circle. But the colours of the haloes 
 about the sun, though not so bright as those of the rainbow, 
 are, however, marked with sufficient distinctness. The red 
 occupies the interior part of the luminous circle ; the indigo 
 and violet the outer part, and shade away by insensible de- 
 grees till they are blended with the general colour of the 
 sky. In some circumstances a second halo is observed con- 
 centric with the former, but of much larger extent, its ap- 
 parent diameter being about 90°. The colours of this sec- 
 ondary halo are faint and pale, and its Iuminousness much 
 inferior to that of the inner halo. The haloes are very fre- 
 quently attended by a horizontal white circle, with brighter 
 spots, or parhelia, near their intersections with this circle, 
 
 543
 
 HALOGENS. 
 
 and with portions cf inverted arches of various curvature?. 
 See Parhelia. 
 
 Various causes have been assigned for the origin of haloes ; 
 but the most probable is that of Mariotte, who supposes the 
 phenomenon to arise from the refraction of light in passing 
 through small transparent and prismatic crystals of ice float- 
 ing in the higher regions of the atmosphere. Water as- 
 sumes, in congealing, a great varii ty of crystalline tonus, 
 among which are frequently found crystals whose faces are 
 inclined to each other in an angle of 6u°; thus forming 
 prisms of ice of which the refracting angle is 00°. These 
 prisms are turned in all possible directions, and consequent- 
 sun's rays fall on their faces at all different inclina- 
 tions. But in certain positions i f the prism with respect to 
 the incident light, the rays which traverse it suffer a mini- 
 mum deviation, which happens when the refracted ray 
 nial.es an isosceles triangle with the two sides of the prism. 
 The path of the ray in the interior of the crystal in this case 
 an angle of 60° with the face of the crystal, or an an- 
 gle of 30° with the perpendicular to that face. Tins last 
 e is the angle of refraction ; and it is known by experi- 
 ment that, in the case of ice, the angle of refraction being 
 30°, the angle of incidence is 41° ; hence the ray falls on the 
 crystal at an angle of 90° — 11°=49° ; consequently the de- 
 i of the ray from its original direction is (i(J° — !9°=11°. 
 On escaping from the crystal, the ray suffers a second flex- 
 ure of 'the same amount; and the total deviation from its 
 first direction is now 2X11^=22°, which is the semidiameter 
 of the halo. It follows, therefore, 
 that the parallel rays S A, 8 B, from 
 the sun falling on such prisms at A 
 and B at angles of incidence equal 
 to 41°, will be refracted into the di- 
 rection A E and B E, which make 
 angles A E S and B E S equal to 22° ; and an eye situated 
 at the intersection E will see a luminous circle, of which 
 the apparent diameter, or angle A E B, is about 44°. With 
 re | ''Lto the secondary or external halo, whose diameter is 
 about 90°, it may he attributed, says Dr. Young (Lectures, 
 vol. i., p. 444), either to two successive refractions through 
 different prisms, or with greater probability, as Mr. Cavend- 
 ish suggested, to the refraction of the rectangular termina- 
 tions of the prisms. 
 
 This theory explains the order in which the colours are 
 disposed. The ratio of the refraction of the violet ray being 
 greater than that of the red ray, the former will suffer a 
 greater deviation, and consequently the violet band of the 
 halo will have a greater diameter than the red. Supposing 
 this theory to be correct, the condition necessary for the ap- 
 pearance of haloes is the existence of particles of ice in the 
 upper regions of the atmosphere. The appearance of a 
 halo, therefore, furnishes information respecting the tem- 
 perature of the air at great altitudes above the earth. 
 
 The formation of corona;, or the small haloes so frequent- 
 ly seen round the sun and moon in fine weather, is ascribed 
 by Fraunhofer and Sir John Leslie, not to the refraction. 
 but to the deflection of light in passing by the small watery 
 globules suspended in the atmosphere. If a piece of tinfoil 
 punctured with the point of a needle be held close to the 
 eye, the sun will appear through it surrounded with a halo 
 very near his disk, but spreading more in proportion as the 
 hole is contracted. Supposing that an aqueous globule of 
 equal dimensions would produce an equal deflection, the 
 magnitude of the globules might thus be inferred from the 
 diameter of the halo. When the halo approaches nearest 
 to the luminous body, the largest globules are floating, and 
 therefore the atmosphere is surcharged with humidity ; 
 whence the justness of the remark that a dense halo close 
 to the nice hi portends rain. For a full exposition of the 
 theory of haloes and other similar meteors, the reader is 
 referred to a Memoir by Fraunhofer in Schumacher' s Jls- 
 tronomische Abhandlungen, 3 tes., heft; or to the article 
 "Hof," in Oehler's Physiealisches Worterbuch. See also 
 JVcwton's Optics; Smith's (tjitirs ; Pouillet, FJemens dc 
 Physique; Cabinet Cycl., art. "Optics;" L'.ncy. Brit., art. 
 " Meteorology." 
 
 HA'LOGENS. (Or. &\ s , salt.) Substances which by 
 combination with metals produce saline compounds; such 
 as chlorine, iodine, bromine, fluorine, which are simple hal- 
 ogens; and cyanogen, which is a compound halogen. 
 
 HA'LOED. (Gr. dAc.) This term is applied to o class 
 of chemical combinations composed of two bi elementary 
 
 Compounds, one or both of Which arc analogous in ci 
 
 lion to sea salt. The principal groups consist of double chlo- 
 rides, iodides, fluorides, and cyanurets. 
 
 HALTI'CA. A genus embracing numerous species of 
 small and often minute Coleopterous insects, of the family 
 Oalerucidm, and section Tetramera. These insects have the 
 femoral joints of the hind legs thick and strong, and an CO] 
 sequenily good leapers. The native species are smaller than 
 the foreign ones, but are more noxious than might be ex- 
 pected from their diminutive size. The notorious turnip-fly, 
 544 
 
 HANSEATIC LEAGUE. 
 
 or rather turnip-flea [Chrysomela nemorum of Linnaeus), is a 
 species of the present genus. 
 
 HAMADRY'ADS. (Gr. ,',;. .,, together, and Spvs, an oak.) 
 Certain nymphs or- interior deities supposed bv the Greek 
 and Roman poets to preside over woods and forests, and, as 
 their name implied, to live and die with the particular trees 
 to which they were attached. 
 
 HA'MITEB. (Lat. humus, a hook.) A genus of extinct 
 Cephalopoda, which inhabited chambered shells, losing their 
 spiral form soon after their commencement, and then con- 
 tinued for a considerable extent with a single bend upon 
 themselves like a hook. The Hamites are found in the 
 greensand formation in England. 
 
 HA'MLET. (Diminutive of the Saxon ham, hone or 
 house.) A small village. In Law, a hamlet is a portion of 
 a village or parish, and synonymous with vill. 
 
 HA'MMER BEAM. "(Sax. hamer.) In Architecture, a 
 horizontal piece of timber from or near, but above, the foot 
 of a rafter, the object of which is to act as a tie. 
 
 HA'MMOCK. The sailors' bed. An oblong piece of 
 hempen cloth : at each end are fastened several small lines, 
 meeting in a grummet or iron ring ; these form the clues. 
 The whole, having a mattress and pillow, &c placed in it, 
 is hoisted up into its place by small ropes called laniards, 
 between two battens or screws in the beams of the deck 
 over head, about nine feet distant asunder. The hammock 
 is a very agreeable bed, especially in cold weather ; but 
 some little practice is requisite at first in getting in and out 
 successfully. During the day the hammocks, lashed up tight 
 in the form of caterpillars, are stowed in the nettings along 
 the upper edge of the bulwark. 
 
 HA'MSTER. A Rodent quadruped, somewhat larger 
 than a rat, common in all the sandy regions that extend from 
 the north of Germany to Siberia ; extremely noxious from 
 its fertility and great destruction of grain, but an object of 
 interest on account of the economic instincts which conduce 
 to its preservation and support. The hamster excavates n 
 complicated burrow, consisting of different apartments for 
 rearing the young, hibernating, and storing up winter food. 
 An old hamster will often amass a hundred pounds' worth 
 of grain, and fill up a subterraneous magazine which is 
 sometimes seven feet deep. To effect this board nature has 
 provided the hamster with a means of transport in two 
 large cheek-pouches, which, during its incursion among cul- 
 tivated grounds, it crams full of grain, beans, or peas, and 
 empties on its return to its hole by pressing the fore-paws 
 against the cheeks. The hamster, however, is not wholly 
 dependant on its winter store for existence. During the in- 
 clement months, when the frost becomes severe, animation 
 is in great measure suspended, and the need of nourishment 
 abrogated : respiration ceases, the animal heat falls, sensa- 
 tion is benumbed, and a kind of vegetative life is maintained 
 by a slow circulation of dark or venous blood through both 
 sides of the heart. When the returning warmth of spring 
 stimulates the organic machinery to its wonted activity, the 
 awakened hamster finds in the nourishment which it has 
 providentally stored up the means of supplying the conse 
 quent waste, and of maintaining its vital energies. They 
 are thus enabled to commence the business of procreation in 
 April, and the female rears a litter of six or eight twice or 
 thrice every year. In about three weeks the young are able 
 in provide for themselves, and are driven from the holes of 
 the parents. The hamster (Mus cricetus of Linnaeus) is the 
 type of the genus Cricetus of Cuvier, characterized by the 
 short tail and cheek-pouches. The teeth nearly resemble 
 those of the rat. 
 
 HAMULA'RIA. (Lat. hamus, a hook.) A species of 
 worm said to have been found in the bronchial glands of a 
 person who died of typhus. 
 
 IIA'NAPER OFFICE. A common law office in the 
 court of Chancery, in which writs were anciently kept in 
 small separate wicker baskets 'hampers, hanaperia), of 
 which specimens may still be seen among the records at 
 the Chapter House. Writs relating to the subject were de- 
 posited there: those concerning the crown in the Petty or 
 Little B::g, whence another office of the same court is de- 
 nominated. 
 
 IIA'NDLING. (From hand.) In Painting, management 
 of the pencil by touch. Handling should be bold, with fioe- 
 dom, firmness, mid spirit. 
 
 HA'NDSPIKE. A wooden lover employed on board a 
 ship in working the windlass and capstan, ojie end of which 
 is squared to lit the holes in the capstan head and in the 
 barrel of the windlass. 
 
 HANK. In Spinning, the name given to two or more 
 skeins of yarn, silk or cotton, when tied together. When 
 single, the} are called skeins. 
 
 HANKS. Rings of ash or iron, by which sails are con- 
 fined to their stays, upon which they traverse while setting 
 or hauling down. 
 
 RANNO'S PKRIPLUS. See Pbriplus. 
 
 HANSA, I1ANSE, or HANSEATIC LEAGUE. In
 
 HAQ.UEBUT. 
 
 European History, a celebrated confederacy of cities on the 
 coasts of the Baltic, and in the adjoining countries. The 
 first league was formed in 1239, between Hamburg, Minden, 
 and many other towns, to which Liibeck soon afterwards 
 acceded : it was for the purpose of mutual defence against 
 foreign potentates, especially the Danish king Waldemar, as 
 well as the neighbouring nobles of Germany. The league 
 rapidly spread, and comprehended, at one period, eighty-five 
 cities, divided into four provinces. It had four chief foreign 
 depdts: at London, Bruges, Novgorod, and Bergen. In the 
 14th and 15th centuries the league became of high political 
 importance, and made war and peace as an independent sov- 
 ereign power, but it was never recognized by the German 
 empire. Its decay was gradual, and, owing to the increased 
 protection given to commerce by the princes of the several 
 states in which these cities were situated, rendering the alli- 
 ance for mutual defence unnecessary. The name is derived 
 from Hansa, an old Teutonic word signifying league. 
 
 HA'Q,UEBUT. A word of French origin, or more proba- 
 bly a corruption of the term arquebuse or harquebuse, with 
 which it is identified in meaning. See Arquebuse. 
 
 HA'RBOUR, has been defined to be a piece of water 
 communicating with the sea, or with a navigable river or 
 lake, having depth sufficient to float ships of considerable 
 burden, where there is convenient anchorage, and where 
 ships may lie, load, and unload, screened from the winds 
 and beyond the reach of the tide. For a view of the utility 
 of harbours in general, and the qualities essential in good har- 
 bours, with a notice of the principal harbours in this and 
 other countries, see The Commercial Dictionary. 
 
 HARD BODIES, in Natural Philosophy, "are such as 
 resist any pressure or percussion whatever, in opposition to 
 soft bodies, the parts of which readily yield to pressure, and 
 do not recover themselves ; and to elastic bodies, the parts 
 of which also yield to pressure or impact, but presently re- 
 cover themselves when the disturbing force ceases to act. 
 
 HA'RDNESS. In Physics, that quality of bodies in vir- 
 tue of which their particles resist the action of any external 
 force tending to alter their relative positions, or to impart to 
 them any motion in respect of each other. Newton sup- 
 poses the primary particles of all bodies to be perfectly hard, 
 and not capable of being broken or divided by any power in 
 nature; but we are still too little acquainted with the consti- 
 tution of matter to determine with any certainty the condi- 
 tions of the elementary particles which render bodies hard, 
 brittle, elastic, &c. 
 
 Hardness. In Mineralogy. Minerals may occasionally 
 be distinguished and identified by their relative degrees of 
 hardness ; to specify which various scales have been sug- 
 gested, among which that of Mobs is perhaps the most sim- 
 ple. According to it the relative degrees of hardness are 
 expressed in numbers, referring to the following standard 
 substances, which are easily obtained in a state of purity, 
 or crystallized; namely, 
 
 1. Talc. 6. Adularia (Felspar). 
 
 2 Rock-salt. 7. Rock-crystal. 
 
 3. Calc-spar. 8. Topaz. 
 
 4. Fluor-spar. 9. Corundum. 
 
 5. Apatite. 10. Diamond. 
 
 Any mineral which neither scratches nor is scratched by 
 any one of the above substances is said to possess the hard- 
 ness expressed by the attached number. Thus if a mineral 
 neither scratches nor is scratched by calcareous spar, its 
 hardness is represented by 3 ; if it scratches felspar and not 
 rock-crystal, its hardness is stated to be between 6 and 7. 
 
 HA'RDWARE, is used to signify every kind of goods 
 manufactured from metals, comprising iron, brass, steel, and 
 copper articles of all descriptions. The hardware manufac- 
 ture is one of the most important carried on in Great Britain. 
 Its principal seats are Birmingham and Sheffield, which 
 furnish immense quantities of knives, razors, scissors, gilt 
 and plated ware, fire-arms, &c, both for home consumption 
 and exportation. The total aggregate value of the joint 
 hardware manufactures of England and Scotland may be 
 estimated (Statistics of British Empire, i.) at not less than 
 £17,500.000 a-year, affording direct employment in the va- 
 rious departments of the trade to 360,000 persons. 
 
 HARE. .See Lagomyr and Lepus. 
 
 HARELIP. A fissure or perpendicular division of the 
 lip, so named from its supposed resemblance to the upper lip 
 of a hare. Children are frequently born with this malfor- 
 mation, and sometimes it is the consequence of accidents or 
 wounds. It most usually affects the upper lip; and is not 
 only a serious deformity, but may prevent the infant from 
 sucking and cause impediment of speech. The cleft is 
 sometimes double. This malformation admits of partial or 
 entire relief by a surgical operation, which should gener- 
 ally not be performed upon very young infants, in conse- 
 quence of the risk of convulsions. 
 
 HA'REM. (Turk.) The name given to those apart- 
 ments in the houses of the East which are appropriated to 
 
 HARMOSTES. 
 
 the exclusive use of the females of the family. See Se- 
 raglio. 
 
 HA'RLEQUIN, in the Italian Comedy, is the name given 
 to the person who performs a part something similar to 
 that of the clown or merry-andrew of the mountebank 
 stages in our own country. "Harlequin forms also one of 
 the standing characters in the grotesque entertainment 
 of the pantominc. The word is of doubtful etymology. 
 See Pantonine. 
 
 HARMONICA. See Musical Glasses. 
 
 HARMO'NICAL I'NTERVAL. In Music, the same as 
 Concord, which see. 
 
 HARMO'NICAL PROGRESSION. A series of num- 
 bers, such that any three consecutive terms are in harmoni- 
 cal proportion. The principal property of this progression 
 is, that the reciprocals of the terms form an arithmetical 
 progression ; and, conversely, the reciprocals of an arith- 
 metical form an harmonical progression. 
 
 HARMO'NICAL PROPORTION, called also Musical 
 Proportion. Three numbers are said to be in harmonical 
 proportion when the first is to the third as the difference 
 of the first and second is to the difference of the second and 
 third : thus, 2, 3, and 6, are in harmonical proportion, be- 
 cause 2 : 6 : : 1 : 3. And four numbers are said to be in 
 harmonical proportion when the first is to the fourth as 
 the difference of the first and second is to the difference of 
 the third and fourth : thus 9, 12, 16, and 24, form an har- 
 monical proportion ; for 3 : 9 : : 8 : 24. 
 
 HARMO'NICS. In Music, the doctrine of the differ- 
 ences and proportions of sounds with respect to acute and 
 grave. This doctrine was by the ancients divided into seven 
 parts ; viz. of sounds, of intervals, of system, of the genera, 
 of the tones or modes, of mutation, and of melopaeia. 
 
 HARMO'NIC TRUD. In Music, the chord of a note 
 consisting of a third and perfect fifth, or, in other words, the 
 common chord. 
 
 HA'RMONITES. A sect of enthusiasts, founded by one 
 Rapp, in Wurtemburg, about 1780; who, finding no tolera- 
 tion there, emigrated with his followers to America. He 
 first settled in Pennsylvania, and afterwards removed to 
 Indiana ; but about 1822 again returned to the former state, 
 and established himself near Pittsburg. Many details will 
 be found on the subject of his sect in books of travels in 
 America, but tew written with any knowledge of the sub- 
 ject beyond mere external observation. It is a mistake to 
 suppose that his followers lived in celibacy; but they re- 
 garded marriage as no part of the discipline of their church, 
 and treated it as a civil act only. 
 
 HA'RMONY. (Gr. apuovia.) In Music, an agreeable 
 combination of sounds heard at the same instant. As a 
 continued succession of single musical sounds produces 
 melody, so does a continued combination of several together 
 in succession produce harmony. 
 
 HA'RMONY OF THE "SCRIPTUPvES, GOSPELS, 
 &c. The correspondence of the several writers of different 
 pans of the Scriptures in their respective narratives, or 
 statements of doctrine. The earliest Harmony of the Gos- 
 pels was composed by Tatian, in the second century, with 
 the title Diatcssaron. Among many other valuable works 
 of this description may be mentioned Osiander, Harm. 
 Evangelica; Cartwright, Harm. Ev., Commentario illus- 
 trata, 1647; Le Clerc, Harmonie Ev., Amst., fol. 1699; 
 Macknight's Harmony of the Four Gospels, 1756. 
 
 HA'RMONY, PRE-ESTA'BLISHED. A hypothesis in- 
 vented by Leibnitz, to explain the correspondence between 
 the course of our sensations and the series of changes actu- 
 ally going on in the universe, of which, according to that 
 philosopher and many others, we have no direct knowledge. 
 (See Perception.) This hypothesis is connected, in the 
 Leibnitzian system, with the doctrine of monads, — certain 
 spiritual powers or substances, one of which constitutes the 
 principle of vitality and consciousness in every living being. 
 Each of these is, in its degree, a mirror, in which the changes 
 going on in the universe are reflected with greater or less 
 fidelity. But between simple substances, such as spirit and 
 matter, soul and body, no real reciprocal action can take 
 place. The Author of the universe has consequently so 
 ordained that the series of changes going on in any particu- 
 lar conscious monad, corresponds precisely to those of the 
 monads in contiguity to which it is placed. Hence arises 
 our belief that mind is acted on by matter, and vice versa ; 
 a belief which leads to no practical errors in virtue solely 
 of this pre-established harmony. (See Tcnnemann, Gruvdr., 
 p. 339; Broien's Lectures, 31.) 
 
 HARMO'STES. (Gr. apiionfr; from apu/Zu, I fit.) In 
 Ancient History, a Spartan magistrate, called also seme- 
 times sophronistcs (cuxppoviaTfjs, moderator), who was ap- 
 pointed to superintend a conquered state. It is conjectured 
 from Thucyd., iv., 53, that the office was annual. Other 
 Greek states which made conquests afterwards borrowed 
 the name. Xenophon speaks of Theban harmosta: in Achsa. 
 (Hist., 1., vii.) 
 
 L l 545
 
 HARMOTOME. 
 
 HA'RMOTOME. (Gr. &p : .wc.ajoint, and reuviA, I divide.) 
 A mineral chiefly from Andreasberg, in the Haitz, the crys- 
 tal 5 of which often intersect each other, and are easily sepa- 
 It is also c"!lcd cross-stone, or staurolite. See 
 
 HA'RMUS, (Gr. apftoi.) In Ancient Architecture, a tile 
 iring the joint between two common tiles. 
 (Germ, harfe.) A musical stringed instrument 
 it : atiquity, in which the strings are stretched on a 
 formed frame, and pinched, or rather pull 
 to set them in vibration and produce the differ- 
 >unds. The harp is represented on many Egj'ptian 
 monuments ; and though it is usually admitted to be of 
 Eastern origin, it seems doubtful whether it was known to 
 the Greeks and Romans in any shape analagous to its pres- 
 ent form. Of late years this instrument has been much 
 improved by pedals "and other devices; but it is still imper- 
 fect, and more suited to the chamber than the orchestra. 
 
 HA'RPA. (Ger. harfe.) A genus of Pectinibranc 
 MolUtsks, dismembered from fie Linnsan Buccinum, and 
 remarkable for the elegance el" form and beauty of the 
 markings of the shell : this is traversed by longitudinal com- 
 pressed sinuous parallel ribs, which may be compared to 
 the strincs of a harp. 
 
 HA'RPALUS. (Gr. aprriXioc. rapid.) A genus of pre- 
 daceous Coleopterans, and the type of a family (Harpalida:), 
 which is one of the principal divisions of the LinnaDan 
 genus Oi rebus. 
 
 The Harpalida are divi led into three principal sections, 
 characterized by modifications of the anterior tarsi of the 
 male. 
 
 1. Harpalina, having the f ->ur anterior tarsi of the males 
 dilated. 
 
 2. Fcroninaz, having the two anterior tarsi dilated, and the 
 joints heart-shaped. 
 
 3. Patellimana, having the two anterior tarsi of the males 
 dilated ; the joints being s inare or rounded. 
 
 Each of these sections contains numerous subgenera, of 
 which Harpalus proper contains many British species. 
 Harpa'us ruficornis is perhaps the most common: it ex- 
 ceeds half an inch in length, with opaque black elytra and 
 body, and red legs and antenna. 
 
 HA'RPAX. A genus of fossil shells, oblong and some- 
 what triangular, the hinge being fonned by two projecting 
 teeth. (Parkinson.) 
 
 HA'RPIES. (Gr. "Ap^uia ; from apvm, / seize.) In 
 Greek Mythology, the daughters of Pontus and Terra, ac- 
 cording to some mythologists. Ilesiod makes them three in 
 number, with the names Iris, Aello, Ocypete. They were 
 a species of furies or monsters, winged and clawed like 
 birds. They are best known from the celebrated descrip- 
 tion in Hrrr>/ (JEn., hi., 211, &c). See a memoir in vol. 
 xii. of the Mem. de VMc. des Inscr. for the varying mytholo- 
 gical accounts respecting litem. 
 
 HARPOO'N. A well-known spear for striking the whale. 
 
 HA'RPSICHORD. (Fr.) A keyed musical instrument, 
 in which the sounds are produced by means of small verti- 
 cal sticks, called jacks, upon which the keys act as levers. 
 In the jacks are inserted short pieces of quill ; these, upon 
 passing the strings, set them in vibration. This instrument 
 is now little used; indeed, we believe, in the present day 
 none are manufactured. 
 
 HARPY'IA. (Gr. 'Apnvia, Harpy.) This term has 
 been applied both to a genus of Raptorial birds and to a 
 genus of Lepidopterous insects. 
 
 HA'RROW. In Agriculture, a rectangular frame with 
 a number of spikes inserted in it on one side. This frame, 
 when dragged over ploughed land, breaks the furrow slices 
 into small pieces, for the purpose of preparing the land for 
 seed i.i . and for covering the seed in others. The 
 
 most common firm of the frame of the harrow is rectangu- 
 lar, and the usual material employed is wood, wi 
 
 of iron; but in Mine cases both the frame anil the 
 spikes are of wood, and in others both are of iron. Occa- 
 ly the frame is a circle of iron; and the spikes are in- 
 serted in it, at such distances that when the frame is drawn 
 along in a straight line, the spikes, or tines as they are tech- 
 nically termed, pass through every part of the soil traversed 
 by the frame or harrow. In the common kinds of harrows 
 ikes are inserted at riitlit angles to the frame; but in 
 the Improved form al an oblique angle, 
 
 or pointing forwards,- by which means the ham i i 
 
 asily through the soil. The best implement of 
 • I eription at present in use is Finlayson's harrow. 
 implement, by means of a long lev< be i gulated 
 
 1 1 arii a nicety as to stir the soil to the depth of only one 
 i inches, for the purpose of covet clover 
 
 pressed into it of such a depth as to serve, 
 : stubble lands, instead ef ploughing. WilMe's 
 harrow and I arrow can lie used for similar pur- 
 
 poses. They differ nothing from Finlayson's in principle; 
 but being on a smaller scale can be worked with fewer 
 546 
 
 HAT. 
 
 horses than Finlayson's, which commonly requires four 
 or six. 
 
 HA'RROWING. The process of drawing a harrow 
 through the soil for the purpose of reducing it to a level, of 
 covering seed, or of turnin? up weeds in ploughed eround. 
 or moss in grass lands. In agriculture the harrow is drawn 
 by horses or oxen ; and in market-gardening, where a light 
 harrow is sometimes employed, by men. In either case the 
 more rapid the motion of the harrow, up to a certain point, 
 the mote efficient will be its operation. For meadow lands, 
 the object cf harrowing is to disperse the little heaps of 
 earth raised during winter and early spring by moles and 
 worms; and for this purpose the harrows in some parts of 
 tl;f country arc turned upside down ; while in others, as in 
 Middlesex, thorn branches are tucked into a frame resem- 
 bling a harrow, and dragged over the surface for the pur- 
 pose of effecting the same object. This is called a bash 
 harrow. 
 
 HA'RTSIIORN, SPIRIT OF. An impure solution of 
 carbonate of ammonia, obtained by the destructive distilla- 
 tion of harts' horn or any kind of bone. An impure solid 
 carbonate of ammonia, called salt of hartshorn, is fonned at 
 the same time. 
 
 HA'RVEST. (Germ, herbst.) In Agriculture, the pe- 
 riod at which any crop is reaped. The term is more com- 
 monly applied to the crops of corn or hay, though it might, 
 with propriety, be applied to the potatoe crops, or to hops 
 and other field products. 
 
 HA'B VESTING. The operation of pulling, cutting, root- 
 ing up, or gathering field crops, and drying or otherwise pre- 
 paring them for being stored up for winter use. The first 
 In. \ est which occurs in Britain and similar climates is that 
 of the forage grasses, or other plants made into hay : the 
 next is the harvest of cereal grasses, or of corn crops ; and 
 the third the potatoe harvest, or harvest of root crops, such 
 as potatoes, carrots, turnips, mangel wurzel, &c. There is 
 also the harvest of occasional crops ; such as that of rape- 
 seed, turnip-seed, dyers' wood, hemp, flax, and various 
 other articles. 
 
 HASTA'TI. (Lnt. liasta. a spear.) One of the three 
 grand divisions of the Roman infantry, so called because 
 they were armed with spears. It consisted of young men 
 in file flower of life, who were always drawn up in the first 
 line cf battle. The other two divisions were called Prin- 
 cipes and Triarii ; to which, in the first Punic war, was 
 added another, called Velites, or light troops, from volare, 
 
 to fill. 
 
 HATCH, is the covering of a hatchway. In very bad 
 weather the hatches are battened down, to keep the water 
 which comes in upon the decks from getting below. 
 
 HATCHETINE. A fusible wax-like substance, found 
 occasionally in nodules of ironstone: named after Mr. 
 Hatchert. It is usually placed by mineralogists among bit- 
 umens. 
 
 HATCHMENT. In Heraldry, a species of achievement 
 or funeral escutcheon, suspended in front of a house to 
 mark the decease of one of its inmates. These escutcheons 
 are always drawn up with heraldic precision ; so that those 
 acquainted with the science of heraldry can discover at a 
 glance, from the form and accompaniments of the field and 
 the colour of the ground of the hatchment, the sex, 
 tion, and rank of the deceased. See Heraldry, Es- 
 cutcheon. 
 
 HA'TCHWAY. A large opening in a ship's deck for 
 communicatiriL' with the decks below, the hold, tc. : i 
 are the fore, main, and after hatchways. 
 
 HAT. (Germ, hut.) What is usually called a beaver 
 hat is made of a variety of furs, chiefly those of the hare 
 and rabbit, mingled with wool, and in the best hats a pro 
 portii n of beaver's fur: but the latter is altogether omitted 
 in ci mmon st«Jf hats. The furs are mixed, the long hair 
 is pickt d out, and they are then placed on a hurdle, which 
 is shaken and made to vibrate by being struck with a how- 
 string ; in this way the da -'■ is I oaken out, anil the lib i 
 are to a' certain este Felt.) A quan- 
 
 tity of tltis mass of ' for one hat is called a b ft 
 
 or cape '■• [see Vr 's Dictii nary, art. " Hnt-making") : h is 
 pressed, kneaded, and at length moulded so as to form a 
 kind of conical cap, the irregularities or small til ires oft 
 different furs entangling n ith each other so as to !>e ip the 
 is then dipped into warm water 
 
 acidulated b\ id, anil wrought by the hands for 
 
 sevi ral hours, by which it is thickened or fulled: the knots 
 are picki ' i fresh felt here and there added, and 
 
 the beaver ultimately applied; toe hal is fl 
 water , lac varnish, tied upon a block, dyed, 
 
 stiffened by the application of a solution of glue, steamed. 
 brushi i : the brim is then trimmed, and it i< 
 
 ready for Lining and binding. 
 
 Silk hats have a foundation ef woollen felt, similar to 
 those which are covered by beaver, upon which a silk plush 
 is afterwards applied.
 
 HATTEMISTS. 
 
 Various processes have lately been suggested, a:»d some 
 of them carried into effect, for the purpose of improving 
 this manufacture. Several of these are described and re- 
 tired in Ure's Dictionary, but their extension and introduc- 
 tion have hitherto been successfully opposed by the jour- 
 neymen hatters, "among whom," says Dr. Ure, "there 
 exists an organized combination, by which the masters 
 throughout the kingdom are held iu a state of complete 
 servitude." " The public of a free country," he adds, 
 " ought to counteract this disgraceful state of things by re- 
 nouncing the wear of stuff-hats, a branch of the business 
 entirely under the control of this despotic union, and betake 
 themselves to the use of silk hats, which, from recent im- 
 provements in their fabric and dyeing, are not a whit infe- 
 rior to the beaver hats in comfort, appearance, or durability, 
 while they may be had of the best quality for one fourth 
 part of their price." 
 
 HA'TTEMISTS. An ecclesiastical sect in Holland, so 
 called from Pontian von Hattem, a minister in Zealand ; 
 nearly allied to the Verschorists. They arose in the latter 
 part of the 17th century. They appear to have denied the 
 expiatory sacrifice of Christ. It is added, that they denied 
 the corruption of human nature, and the difference between 
 moral good and evil. (Moshicm, transl., ed. 1826, v. 386.) 
 
 IIAU'BERK. (Ital. usbergo.) A piece of armour, sup- 
 posed to be of German origin, common in the chain-mail, 
 or rather ringed mail, of the twelfth century ; being a jacket 
 or tunic, with wide sleeves reaching a little below the 
 elbow, the hood being of one piece with it. The hauberk 
 of ringed mail ceased to be worn about the reign of Henry 
 IH., when the oriental chain-mail, properly so called, came 
 into fashion for a short period. 
 
 In France only persons possessed of a certain estate, call- 
 ed un fief de hauber, were permitted to wear a hauberk, 
 which was the armour of a knight ; esquires might only 
 wear a simple coat of mail, without the hood and hose. 
 
 HAUGH. A Scotch term, applied to lands which in 
 England would be called meadow or pasture. 
 
 HAUL. The sea term for pulling upon a rope directly. 
 — To haul the wind, to bring the ship to sail close by- the 
 wind after running in some other direction. 
 
 HAUPT TON. (Ger. head note.) In Music, that note 
 on which the mark tr. is placed, when a shake is indicated ; 
 the secondarv or superior note being called the hulfston. 
 
 HA'USTELLATES, Baustellata. (Lat. haustellum, a 
 sucker.) A name of a grand section of insects, including 
 all those which in the perfect state have the oral apparatus 
 adapted for suction. 
 
 HAUTBOIS. Sec Oboe. 
 
 HAUYNE. A blue mineral in small granular or spheri- 
 cal masses, generally found in basalt or lava. Named after 
 Hairy, the celebrated French mineralogist. 
 
 HA'VEN. (Germ, hafeu.) The same as harbour, which 
 
 HAWK. See Falco. 
 
 HAWKERS, PEDLARS, and PETTY CHAPMEN. 
 In Law, persons travelling from town to town with goods 
 and merchandize for the purp >se of sale. They arc re- 
 quired to take out licences under 50 G.3, c. 41. Wholesale 
 traders are exempt from the provisions of this act, as are also 
 licensed auctioneers going from town to town. 
 
 HAWKING. See Falconry. 
 
 HAWK-MOTH. See Sphinx. 
 
 HAWSE. The part of the bows close to the cables. The 
 cables pass through the hawse holes, which are made in the 
 timbers and in the hawse piece outside. When the ship lias 
 two anchors down, and the cables diverge from each other, 
 the hawse is said to be clear; when crossed by the ship 
 turning ha'f round, there is a cross in the hawse. Another 
 cross makes an elbow ; then a round turn : in the last two 
 cases the hawse is said to be foul. The process of disen- 
 gaging the cables is called clearing hawse. The danger of a 
 foul hawse is, that if it comes on to blow the cables cannot 
 be veered from their friction against each other. 
 
 Freshening hawse, is veering out a little cable to expose a 
 new surface to the friction in the hawse hole, or across the 
 cutwater. 
 
 Athwart hawse implies across the bows of a vessel at 
 anchor. 
 
 HAWSER. A large rope or small cable. 
 
 HA'YMAKING. The operation of cutting down, drying, 
 and preparing forage grasses and other forage plants for being 
 stacked for winter use. The plants are mown down at the 
 time when they are supposed to contain diffused throughout 
 the whole plant a maximum of nutritious juices, viz., when 
 thev are in full flower. Dry weather, and if possible that in 
 which sunshine prevails, is chosen for this operation ; and 
 the mown material is spread out, and turned over two or 
 three times in the course of the snme day in which it is cut. 
 In the eveninz it is put into small heaps. In the morning of 
 the second day these heaps are spread out, and turned over 
 two or three times ; and in the evening they are formed into 
 
 HEART. 
 
 heaps somewhat larger than they were the day before. If 
 the weather has been remarkably warm and dry, these heaps, 
 in the course of the third day, are carted away and made into 
 a stack ; but if the weather has been indifferent, the process 
 of opening out the heaps and exposing them to the sun is re- 
 peated on the third day, and stack-making is not commenced 
 till the fourth. A great deal might be said on the subject of 
 haymaking ; but it would be altogether unsuitable in a work 
 of this nature. Suffice it to state, that the grand object in 
 making hay is to preserve the colour and natural juices of the 
 herbage, which is best done by continually turning it so as 
 never to expose the same surface for any length of time to 
 the direct influence of the sun. In stacking the hay, the ob- 
 ject is to preserve this green colour, and at the same time 
 induce a slight degree of fermentation, which has the effect 
 of rendering the fibres of the plants which compose the hay 
 more tender, and changing a part of the parenchymous mat- 
 ter into sugar, on the same principle as is effected by malting 
 barley. This sweet taste renders the hay more palatable to 
 horses. The be-t directions for haymaking will be found in 
 Middleton's Agricultural Surrey of Middlesex. 
 
 HA'Y-WARD. (Fr. haie, hedge.) An officer anciently 
 appointed in the lord's court to take care of the cattle of a 
 manor, and prevent them from injuring the hedges or fences. 
 
 HEAD. The fore extremity of a ship. It generally means 
 the cutwater, which is adorned with a figure. By the head, 
 implies that the ship's head is depressed in the water. Head 
 sails, head yards, are the sails and yards in the fore part of 
 the ship. 
 
 HE'ADACH. This is a common symptom in various 
 diseases; it frequently occurs both in full and in debilitated 
 habits, and also in persons who are otherwise healthy. One 
 form of headach consists in a degree of torpor and of con- 
 fusion, with a dull pain over the whole head, dimness of 
 sight, and inability to attend to anything requiring thought or 
 fixed attention. Sometimes it is referable to disordered stom- 
 ach or bowels, but it also conies on without any such assign- 
 able cause. These headachs are relieved by nervous stimu- 
 lants, such especially as camphor, ether, and ammonia. A 
 cup of strong coffee or of green tea often acts like a charm; 
 ami if the pain prevents rest, a small dose of opium is some- 
 times necessary, with perfect rest and quiet. Some very 
 troublesome cases are relieved by cold applications to the 
 temples and head, others by snuff" and nasal stimulants. 
 There is a peculiar form of headach which consists of throb- 
 bing and pain of one particular part, or sometimes over one 
 side of the head ; it lasts an hour or two and then goes off, 
 and returns again at stated intervals. This is called hemi- 
 craniinn, or intermitting headach, and for its permanent cure 
 often requires bark or stdphate of quinia : blisters behind the 
 ears are also of service. In bilious or sick headach, emetics 
 and purges are required. Obstinate headachs are not un- 
 frequendy got rid of by change of air, scene, and occupation; 
 especially where they are the result of too intense intellec- 
 tual application. 
 
 lli:A'DBOROUGH. (Sax. borg, pledge.) The chief of 
 the ten jiledges in frankpledge {see Frankpledge) ; also 
 styled borsholder, tythingman, &c. 
 
 1 LEA'DERS. In Architecture, bricks or stones with their 
 he;ids or short faces in front. 
 
 HEADING COURSES. In Architecture, those courses 
 which consbt entirely of headers. 
 
 HEA'DLAND. In Geography, a term nearly synonymous 
 with cape, mull, er promontory : which see. 
 
 Headland, or Head Ridge, in Agriculture, is a ridge or 
 border, commonly ten or twelve feet broad, which is con- 
 tinued round a field in some cases, and which in others is 
 only formed at the two opposite sides, for the purpose of af- 
 fording space for the horses to turn on while ploughing. 
 
 IIEALDS. The harness for guiding the warp threads in 
 a loom. 
 
 HEA'RING TRTJ'MPET. An instrument for concen- 
 trating sound, and conveying it to the e:'r. It is generally a 
 short bent tube, wide at the one end where the sound enters, 
 and narrow at the other where the ear is applied. The 
 principle on which it acts is the reflection of sound at an 
 angle equal to that at which it strikes a smooth surface ; and 
 accordingly the form of the instrument ought to be so regu- 
 lated that the whole of the vibrations are collected into a 
 focus at the smaller end. But it is not necessary that the 
 form which theory points out should be very accurately ob- 
 served ; the principal advantage is gained by confining the 
 advancing sound by a coniinual reflection, and preventing it 
 from spreading laterally and being dissipated. 
 
 HEART. (Germ, herz.1 The human heart is a hollow 
 muscular organ of a somewhat conical shape, the broad part 
 of which is called its base, and the smaller end its apex. Its 
 base is placed upon the right of the bodies of the vertebra?, 
 and its apex obliquely to the sixth rib on the left. Internally 
 it is divided into a right and left ventricle ; the former an- 
 terior, and the latter almost posterior, in consequence of the 
 oblique manner in which it is placed. Its inferior surface 
 
 547
 
 HEART WHEEL. 
 
 rests upon the diaphragm. Attached to the base of the heart 
 are two auricles, so called from their resemblance in shape 
 to the ear of an animal : they are muscular sacs. In the 
 right auricle are four apertures ; two of the vena 1 cava 1 , one 
 of the coronary vein, and one an opening into the right ven- 
 tricle. In the left auricle there are five apertures ; namely, 
 one into the left ventricle, and those of the four pulmonary i 
 veins. Each ventricle has two orifices ; one from the auricle 
 by which the blood enters, and another into the artery by 
 which it passes out. They are supplied with valves ; those 
 at the arterial openings being called, from their form, semi- 
 lunar valves ; those at the orifice of the right auricle, tri- 
 cuspid ; and those at the orifice of the left auricle, mitral. 
 The valve at the termination of the vena cava inferior, just 
 within the auricle, is called the valve of Eustachius. The 
 cavities are lined with a strong smooth membrane. The pul- 
 monary artery arises from the right ventricle, and conveys 
 venous blood to the lungs, where having been changed into 
 arterial blood by the action of the air, it returns by the pul- 
 monary reins, which terminate in the left auricle ; the vense 
 cava?, which bring back the mass of venous blond from all 
 parts of the body, terminating in the right auricle. The 
 circle, therefore, which the blood takes is this: It is re- 
 turned from the various parts of the body by the venae cava 
 into the right auricle, whence it is forced into the right ven- 
 tricle, and then through the lungs ; whence it returns into 
 the left auricle, and from it into the left ventricle ; and 
 thence, by the aorta, through the general arterial circula- 
 tion. The substance of the heart is supplied by nerves and 
 vessels of its own, which are called coronary vessels ; the 
 coronary arteries branch off from the aorta, and the coronary 
 veins return their blood into the right auricle. The nerves 
 are branches of the eighth and great intercostal pairs. 
 
 HEART WHEEL. The name given to a well-known 
 mechanical contrivance for converting a circular motion into 
 an alternating rectilinear one, common in cotton mills. It is 
 an ellipse turned either on an axle, or by means of a w inch 
 and handle on one of its foci, or its centre, on whose edge a 
 moveable point or circle presses : the latter receives an alter- 
 nating motion from the circumference of the ellipse, which 
 in its revolution presses it to different distances from the 
 centre of motion. The practical disadvantages of this con- 
 trivance are the inequality of pressure and of moving force 
 w hich will be required at different parts of the rotation of 
 the ellipse, and the consequent wearing of some parts of it 
 faster than others. ( Gregory's Mechanics, vol. ii.) 
 
 HEART WOOD. In Botany, the English term for du- 
 ramen. It is the central part of the trunk of a tree hardened 
 by the deposition in its tissue of various secretions, which 
 clog up the passages and forbid the passage of anything 
 through them. 
 
 HEAT. This term has been applied loiiv to the sensation 
 experienced on touching a hot body, and n ihe cause of that 
 sensation : in the latter sense it is synonym his with the term 
 caloric. The cause of the phenomena of heat is unknown : 
 but they are supposed to depend upon the tresence of a 
 highly attenuated, imponderable, and subtile ivrin of matter, 
 the particles of which repel each other, but ara attracted by 
 other bodies. The escape of heat through sp^.es is called 
 the radiation of heat, and its communication by contact 
 conduction. The term specific heat is applied to the quan- 
 tity of thermometric heat required to raise different substan- 
 ces to the same temperature. Thus experiments prove that 
 Ihe quantity of heat which will raise olive oil two degrees 
 will only raise water one degree ; hence a pound of water 
 at 212° may be said to contain twice as much heat, or to 
 have twice the capacity for heat that belongs to oil : or the 
 specific heat of water being =1, that of oil is 0-5. When 
 heat changes the state or form of bodies a large quantity 
 disappears, and remains in them so long as they retain one 
 form. To heat in this state of combination, and inappre- 
 ciable by the thermometer, the term latent heat or caloric of 
 fluidity has been applied. See Expansion, Evaporation, &c. 
 
 HEATH, or HEATHER. In a general sense the term 
 heath is applied to waste land in which the prevailing plants 
 consist of one or more of the common species of heath — 
 Calluna and Erica. (Calluna vulgaris, Sal. The Erica 
 communis of Linnsus.) This plant covers many hundreds 
 of acres in the Highlandsof Scotland, in Ireland, and in simi- 
 lar climates on the Continent. It attains, in many places, 
 the height of three or four feet ; and is used for thatching 
 houses, making besoms, and for a variety of other purposes. 
 The tender tops form a substitute for mattresses in Highland ! 
 cottages ; and they are also eaten green and in a dried state 
 by horses, cattle, and sheep, in countries where the grasses 
 and clovers do not begin to grow till late in the spring. 
 
 HEAVE, in nautical phrase, to employ force to move great 
 weights by the lever, &c. ; as to heave up the anchor by the 
 capstan or windlass : to heave down the ship, or pull her over 
 on one side to get at a leak ; also to heave taught (tight), or 
 turn the capstan till the rope or chain applied to it becomes 
 tight 
 
 548 
 
 HEDGE. 
 
 HEAVEN, the Celestial Sphere, or Firmament, or Sky, 
 in Astronomy, denotes the spaces in which the celestial 
 bodies are placed, or through which they apparently perform 
 their diurnal revolutions. Aristotle and his disciples be- 
 lieved the heavens to be composed of incorruptible elements, 
 incapable of destruction or of any change whatever ; and 
 this opinion long continued to exercise a baneful influence 
 on the progress of astronomy, as it led to the consequence 
 that the celestial bodies are altogether of a different nature 
 from the earth, and have nothing in common with our 
 planet. It was finally overthrown by the discoveries and 
 reasoning of Galileo. The term heaven is also frequently 
 used to denote the orb or sphere in which a celestial body- 
 appears to move ; and hence the ancient astronomers as- 
 sumed the existence of as many heavens as they observed 
 different and apparently independent motions. They sup- 
 posed the various heavens to be solid, because they could 
 not otherwise sustain the bodies placed in them ; and sphe- 
 rical, because perfect motion must be performed in a circle 
 which is formed by the section of a sphere ; and crystalline, 
 because the different bodies are visible, though their orbs in- 
 clude one another. The first heaven was that of the Moon, 
 the second of Venus, the third of Mercury, the fourth of the 
 Sun, the fifth of Mars, the sixth of Jupiter, and the seventh 
 of Saturn. The eighth, which is that of the fixed stars, was 
 called particularly the firmament. Ptolemy added a ninth, 
 which was the Primwn Mobile. All these reveries have 
 been exploded by the discovery of the true system of the 
 world, and the laws of the planetary motions. 
 
 HEA'VY SPAR. Native sulphate of baryta. This is a 
 common mineral in many mining districts. It occurs in se- 
 veral crystalline forms, of which the cleavage is a right 
 rhomboidal prism ; it also occurs fibrous, radiated, and sta- 
 lactitic. Sume beautiful specimens of the latter variety have 
 been found in Derbyshire of a brown colour. The crystals 
 are usually white, or nearly colourless. The specific gravity 
 of sulphate of baryta is 4-1 to 4-6. It consists of 77 baryta, 
 40 sulphuric acid, its equivalent being 117. It enters into the 
 composition of some kinds of pottery, but its chief consump- 
 tion is in the adulteration of white lead. 
 
 HE'BE (Gr. 'H/3?;), in Grecian Mythology, was the goddess 
 of youth, whose office it was to hand round the nectar at the 
 banquets of the gods. She was the daughter of Jupiter and. 
 Juno. 
 
 HE'CATE. (Gr. 'E/tanj). In Mythology, a Grecian god- 
 dess, daughter of the Titan Perses and Asteria. She pre- 
 sided over popular assemblies, war, the administration of 
 justice, and the rearing of children. There is a good deal 
 of obscurity attached to this goddess, who is often confounded 
 with Artemis or Diana, and Proserpine ; whence she is some- 
 times considered the patroness of magic and the infernal re- 
 gions. She was called the triple goddess, and was supposed 
 to wander along the earth at night Statues were set up to 
 her in market places, and especially at cross roads. 
 
 HE'CATOMB. (Gr. frard^.) Properly a sacrifice of a 
 hundred oxen ; but the word is often used to signify a large 
 sacrifice of anv kind of victims. 
 
 HECATOX'PEDON. (Gr. Uarov, a hundred, and jraos, 
 a foot.) In Ancient Architecture, any temple of the length 
 of one hundred feet. 
 
 HECATO'NSTYLON. (Gr. imrov, and arvXos, a co- 
 lumn.) In Ancient Architecture, a building having a hun- 
 dred columns. 
 
 HECKLE. (Germ, heckel.) An instrument used in 
 separating the fibres of flax and placing them in parallel 
 tresses. 
 
 HE'CTIC FEVER. (Gr. tjic, habit.) A constitutional 
 fever, attended by debility, a small quick pulse, paleness, 
 loss of appetite, excessive perspiration and emaciation. It 
 generally affects more or less of an intermittent character; 
 but the exacerbations and remissions are irregular, and the 
 sweating stage is not followed by that relief which it usu- 
 allv announces in other febrile attacks. It is often sympto- 
 matic of some particular disease, and requires to be treated 
 accordingly. Where this is not the case, or where it mere- 
 ly seems an attendant on general debility, a course of sarsa- 
 parilla and a milk diet are often very beneficial ; but where 
 this remedy induces perspiration and nauseates, a great deal 
 of management is required in carrying it on for a sufficient 
 lencth of time to prove of service. 
 
 HEDGE. A living wall formed of woody plants, sown 
 or planted in a line, and cut or clipped in such a manner as 
 to form a compact mass of any degree of width and height 
 that may be required for the purpose of shelter, separation, 
 or defence. The fences most generally used in agriculture 
 are made of the white thorn (Crataegus oxyacantha, Lin.), 
 because it has spiny branches, and forms a strong defence 
 against cattle. Fences for the purposes of shelter and sepa- 
 ration are chiefly used in gardening, and for the most part 
 are formed of evergreen shrubs, such as the holly, yew, 
 box, &c. ; or sub-evergreens, such as the privet ; of flower- 
 ing shrubs, such as the Cydonia japonica ; or of deciduous
 
 HEDGEHOG. 
 
 shrubs or trees with persistent leaves, such as the hornbeam 
 and beech. In the management of hedges of every descrip- 
 tion an important point is to keep them thick, and impervi- 
 ous to wind or animals near the ground; for which purpose 
 the section of the hedge requires to be made broader at the 
 base than at the top, in order tint the exterior leaves in 
 every part of the hedge may enjoy in an equal degree the 
 influence of light, air, and perpendicular rams. 
 HE'DGEHOG. See Erinaceus. 
 
 HEEL. The after extremity of the ship's keel ; also the 
 foot of a mast. To heel over, to incline to one side. 
 
 HE'GIEA. In Chronology, the era used by the Moham- 
 medans in the computation of time. The epoch or first day 
 of this celebrated era, so extensively employed in the East, 
 corresponds to Friday, the 16th day of July, in the year 622 
 of the Christian era. It is a problem of some importance to 
 convert dates expressed by the Mohammedan computation 
 into the corresponding dates of our calendar ; for effecting 
 this it is necessary to be acquainted with the form of the 
 Mohammedan year. 
 
 This year is strictly lunar ; and the civil months are ad- 
 justed to the lunar months by means of a cycle of 30 years, 
 containing 19 common years of 354 days, and 11 intercalary 
 years of 355 days ; the cycle thus containing 10,631 days, or 
 2!) Julian years and 39 days. Each year is divided into 12 
 months, containing alternately 30 and 29 days, excepting 
 that the last month of the intercalary year contains also 30 
 days. The intercalary veais are the 2d, 5th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 
 16th, 18th, 21st, 24th, 26th, and 29th of the cycle. The 
 names of the Mohammedan months, with the number of 
 days in each, are as follows : 
 
 Days, i Davs. 
 
 . . 29 
 . . 30 
 . . 29 
 . . 30 
 . . 29 
 
 Moharem 30'Shaban . , 
 
 Saphar 29 Ramadan . . 
 
 Rabiul 30 Shawall . . 
 
 Rabiu II 29 Dhu'l Kadah 
 
 Jomadhi 1 30 Dhu'l Ilajah 
 
 Jomadhi II 29 
 
 Regeb 30 
 
 - in intercala- 
 
 ry years JU 
 
 Such are the chronological elements by means of which 
 Mohammedan dates are reduced to the Christian era. The 
 rule by which the reduction may be accomplished is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 1. Divide the number of years (of the Hegira) elapsed by 
 30; the quotient will be the number of cycles, and the re- 
 mainder the number of years elapsed since the beginning of 
 the current cycle. Call the quotient A, and the remainder 
 B, and let x be the number of intercalary years in B ; then 
 the number of days that have elapsed from the commence- 
 ment of the Hegira to the beginning of the year in which 
 the date occurs is given by this formula, 
 
 10631 A + 354B + 3-.- 
 for 10,631 is the number of days in the cycle, and 354 the 
 number of days in the common lunar year. To the sum ob- 
 tained by this formula add the days since the beginning of 
 the current year, and the result is the number of days from 
 the commencement of the Hegira to the given date. 
 
 2. To the number of days from the commencement of the 
 Hegira to the given date add the number of days between 
 the commencement of our era and the Hegira, and the sum 
 is the number of days from the first of our era to the given 
 date. The number of days from the beginning of our era 
 to the Hegira, or to the 16th of July, 622, is 227,016. 
 
 3. Having now found the number of days from the Incar- 
 nation to the given date, it only remains to convert the sum 
 into Julian years. For this purpose divide by 1461 (the 
 number of days in the Julian intercalary period), and call 
 the quotient C. Divide the remainder by 365, and call the 
 quotient D, and the remainder of this last division y. Then 
 4 C -f- D is the number of Julian years elapsed since the be- 
 ginning of the Christian era, and y is the number of days 
 that have elapsed of the current year. This gives the date 
 in Old Style. To reduce it to the Gregorian Style, it is only 
 necessary to add 11 days. (See art. " Chronology" in the 
 Encyclopedia Br it a nn ica.) 
 
 HEIGHT. In Geometry, the same as altitude, which see. 
 
 HEI'GHTEN. (From height.) In Painting, a verb sig- 
 nifying to make prominent by means of touches of light or 
 brilliant colours, as contrasted with the shadows. 
 
 HEIGHTS, MEASUREMENT OF. The determination 
 of the relative altitudes of points on the earth's surface is of 
 equal importance in physical geography as the determina- 
 tion of their latitudes and longitudes. There are three differ- 
 ent methods by which the operation is usually effected. 
 When it is required to determine not only the height of one 
 point or station relatively to another, but the relative heights 
 of a number of points above a common horizontal plane (as 
 for tracing the line of a canal), recourse is had to the opera- 
 tion of levelling. The second method is to observe the an- 
 gle of elevation or depression of one station as seen from 
 another, and to compute, from the observation and from the 
 
 HEIGHTS, MEASUREMENT OP. 
 
 distance of the two stations, the difference of altitude by the 
 rules of trigonometry. The third method, and the "most 
 important, as being, generally speaking, the most applica- 
 ble, is to deduce, by means of the known physical properties 
 of the atmosphere, the differences of vertical height from 
 the observed differences of atmospheric pressure as indicated 
 by the barometer. To this method we shall here confine 
 our attention. 
 
 Pascal, who first explained the true cause of the suspen- 
 sion of the mercurial column by referring it to the pressure 
 of the atmosphere, and established the fact of the pressure 
 by his celebrated experiment on the Puy de Dome, was also 
 the first to suggest the application of the barometer to the 
 measurement of mountains ; but as the constitution of the 
 atmosphere and the laws of gaseous bodies were in that age 
 entirely unknown, the numerous attempts which were made 
 to estimate heights in this manner, soon after the introduc- 
 tion of the instrument, had very little success. The first 
 step towards the introduction of a correct theory was the 
 discovery by Mariotte that the elastic force of air (which is 
 the same as the pressure) is exactly proportional to its den- 
 sity ; an important relation, which is true of all the gases, 
 and vapours, and goes by the name of Mariotte's law. Dr. 
 Halley next discovered the remarkable relation which con- 
 nects the density of the atmosphere with the altitude, and 
 proved that the densities decrease in a geometrical progres- 
 sion when the altitudes increase in an arithmetical one. 
 Dr. Halley likewise supposed that the observations might 
 be affected by differences of temperature ; and he roughly 
 estimated the variation to amount to a fifteenth part between 
 winter and summer. 
 
 De Luc was the first who gave precision to barometrical 
 measurements by taking into account the influence of heat 
 in expanding the air ; and by substituting the mercurial for 
 the spirit thermometer, he rendered the determination of 
 temperatures, on which the method so mainly depends, a 
 matter of much greater certainty than it had formerly been. 
 He ateo investigated the dilatation of air at different tem- 
 peratures, and gave a formula for the computation of ba- 
 rometrical measurements, which was adapted to the Eng- 
 lish system of measures by Dr. Maskelyne, and used (with 
 some alterations in the values of the coefficients) by Sir 
 George Shuckburgh and by General Roy in the determina- 
 tion of the altitudes of many of the principal mountains in 
 Britain. 
 
 Laplace, in the Mecanique Celeste, has given a formula 
 which embraces all the different circumstances on which 
 the solution of the problem depends, and enables us to com- 
 pute their influence numerically, when the constants to be 
 found from observation have been accurately determined. 
 Among these are the ellipticity of the earth, the relative 
 densities of air and mercury at a given temperature, their 
 expansion by heat, and the variation of the elastic force of 
 atmospheric air (composed of a mixture of dry gases and 
 watery vapour) corresponding to a given thermometric 
 change. In the present state of our knowledge, some doubt 
 still remains on several of these points; but they are all 
 known with sufficient approximation to render the barome- 
 ter a most valuable instrument for geodetical purposes. It 
 not only gives the relative altitudes, above the general level, 
 of places however distant at which simultaneous observa- 
 tions are made, but even enables us to assign the height of 
 any station on the earth at wliich the mean height of the 
 barometer is ascertained. We now proceed to give the 
 formula by which the height is computed from the obser- 
 vations. 
 
 The temperature being expressed in degrees of the centi- 
 grade scale, let us assume 
 
 ro == the atmospheric pressure at temperature zero, 
 
 D = density of atmospheric air at temperature zero, 
 
 =the temperature in degrees, 
 
 a = -00375, the dilatation of air for 1° of increased tem- 
 perature, 
 
 k = ^, the ratio of the pressure to the density. 
 
 If the pressure remains constant and we suppose that while 
 the temperature changes from to 6 any volume V of air 
 becomes V, and its density D becomes D', then V'=:V 
 (1 + a (?) ; and therefore, the densities being inversely as the 
 
 volumes, D' 
 
 1+00' 
 
 Let us next suppose the pressure to vary while the tem- 
 perature 6 remains constant, and that D' becomes p when zs 
 becomes p ; then, bv the law of Mariotte, w : p : : D' : p. 
 Substituting for D' its above value, observing that rz = k D, 
 this proportion gives 
 
 p = *p(l + <i0)....(l.) 
 This formula holds good for all the gases and vapours, and 
 for the mixtures, as well as for air. 
 
 To form the differential equation of the equilibrium of the 
 
 549
 
 HEIGHTS, MEASUREMENT OF. 
 
 atmospheric column at any altitude : above the surface, sup- 
 pose a column of air whose base is 1 to be divided into thin 
 horizontal slices ; then the difference of the pressure on the 
 under and on the upper surface of any slice will be equal to 
 the weight of the slice. Let, therefore, p be the pressure, 
 and g* the force of gravity at the height i ; then p being the 
 density, and d z the thickness of the slice, we have 
 
 dp=— gfpdz (2.) 
 
 Let g be the force of gravity at the foot of the column, 
 or at the surface of the earth, and r the mean radius of the 
 earth = 20.837,030 feet (see Earth); then, neglecting the 
 small variation of centrifugal force due to the height 
 i g' = gr%-~- (r-f-z)2. Substituting in equation (2) this 
 value of g', and eliminating p by means of equation (1), 
 there results 
 
 d p — g j-2 d z 
 
 y = k(l + ad)(r + z)2 
 Integrating this equation on the supposition of 6 being con- 
 stant, and determining the constants so that p = zs when : = 
 0, we find 
 
 log.~ = ±£T1 ....(3.) 
 
 ° p k(l + ad)(r + z) K ' 
 
 To apply this formula to the determination of the differ- 
 ence of altitudes of two stations, let 
 A, A' = heights of the mercury in the barometer at the low- 
 er and upper stations respectively in inches, 
 m, m' = the densities of the mercury at the two stations, 
 T, T = the temperatures of the mercury (in centigrade de- 
 grees), 
 t, t' = the temperatures of the air, 
 g,g'= force of gravity at the lower and upper station, 
 a, p = the pressure ; then 
 
 a = m g A, p = m' g' A'. 
 Now it has been determined by experiment that the den- 
 sity of mercury increases by the l-5550th part for each cen- 
 tigrade degree by which the temperature diminishes ; there- 
 fore, 
 
 A i T — T'n , r2 
 
 m=m C 1 +-555r) ;and ^ :=£r 
 
 whence, assuming 
 therefore 
 
 = 1 + 
 
 -T' tZ 
 
 (r + Z )2> 
 A(r + z)2 
 
 and 
 
 log. - =log. A — log. c A'-f 2 log. (l + -)■ 
 Substituting this in equation (3), and transposing, 
 2 = _ (1 + a 6) [log. h — log. c h' + 2 log. (1 + 7)] 
 
 (l+V-.(4.) 
 
 It now remains to convert the quantities in this formula 
 (all of which are known excepting z) into numbers. 
 
 1. The logarithms which enter the equation being hyper- 
 bolic, in order that the tabular logarithms may be used it is 
 necessary to divide the second member by the modulus 
 M = -43429. 
 
 2. The quantity k, which expresses the ratio of the pres- 
 sure or elastic force of atmospheric air to its density, depends 
 upon the force of gravity as well as on the temperature, and 
 must therefore be determined with respect to some particular 
 place. Let G denote the accelerating force of gravity at 
 Greenwich, H the standard height of the barometer, m the 
 density of mercury, and D that of air, both at the freezing 
 
 temperature: then n = mGH, and &=^ = —- . G. For 
 
 the height, H = -76 metres, or 2-449348 feet, the ratio of m 
 to D, in respect of dry air, was found by Biot and Arago 
 to be 10402. According to this determination, we have 
 k = 26086 8 X G. For air saturated with moisture, they 
 found A: = 261523 X G. Hence if we adopt the mean of the 
 two coefficients as representing the ordinary state of the at- 
 mosphere, we have 
 
 £ = 26120 XG, in feet 
 
 3. The gravity, g, in equation (4) is that which corre- 
 sponds to the lower station, and to the latitude of the place 
 of observation. Denoting the latitude of the station by ;, 
 and that of Greenwich (to which G corresponds) by L, we 
 have from the theory of the earth 
 
 g 1 + n sin. 2 I 1 — in cos. 2 / 
 
 G ~~ l + 7!sin.2L — 1— Jncos.2L 
 (very nearly.) Here the coefficient is 4 times the ratio of 
 the centrifugal force to gravity at the equator, diminished by 
 the ellipticity, or | X o{g X 3^ = '005145 (see Earth) ; 
 
 HEIR. 
 
 and in = -00257. But L = 51° 28 39", and cos. 2 L = — 
 •2242 ; whence we find 
 
 (1 — -00257) cos. 2/ 
 
 S = G 
 
 e 1-00058 
 
 and we have therefore in feet 
 
 k 26 120 X 1 -000 58 __ 60168 
 
 M g ~ -43429 (1 — -00257 cos. 2 /) ~~ 1 — -00257 cosTTf 
 4. For 6 we may take J (t + f), the mean temperature of 
 the lower and higher station. In the case of perfectly dry 
 air, a = -00375 ; but as the density of air mixed with vapour 
 increases as the temperature is diminished in a faster ratio 
 than dry air, we may assume as the nearest probable value, 
 
 (2t-|-t') 
 a — -004. This gives a — 
 
 1000 
 
 For the sake of abridging, put 
 60168 
 
 K = 
 
 2 1\ ^ 1000 / 
 
 1 — -00257 cos 
 then the equation (4) becomes 
 
 z = K [log. A - log. c h' + 2 log. (l + l)J(l-f i-). 
 
 In computing from this formula, an approximate value of z 
 is obtained by making 
 
 z = K (log. A — log. c A') ; 
 by the substitution of which in the second member of the 
 above equation a more exact value is found, and the result 
 is the height of the second station above the first in feet. 
 
 Instead of the numerical factor 60168 feet in the coefficient 
 K, Poisson (Mecanique, torn, ii.) has 18337-46 metres, w'hich 
 is equal to 60163 feet. The difference arises from our hav- 
 ing assumed a slightly different value for the eccentricity of 
 the earth, and having referred the gravity G to the latitude 
 of Greenwich instead of Paris. 
 
 The temperatures have been assumed to be expressed on 
 the centigrade scale, as the most convenient for computa- 
 tion. If T and t are for Fahrenheit's thermometer, it is 
 
 T A 
 
 , and 
 
 T — T" T 
 
 only necessaiy to substitute 1 -1 — nnnn for 1 + 
 
 "JULIO 
 
 :,:m - 
 
 j-j-t' 64 °(r.-4-r.') 
 
 1 H g-QJj — for 1 + ~ 10(X) ' , respectively, in the factors 
 
 c and K. 
 
 When the altitude is not very considerable, the fraction 
 z-~r is very small, and may be considered as constant; 
 in which case it may be incorporated with the factor 60168. 
 Substituting for 60168 the number 60345 (deduced from a 
 number of measurements by Ramond), and supposing the 
 substitution to change K into K', the formula for the alti- 
 tude will become 
 
 z = K'(log. A — log. eA'), 
 which is the formula most frequently used. 
 
 The most recent and complete investigation of the subject 
 of barometric measurements is that of Bessel, in Schuma- 
 cher's Jlstronomische JVachrichtcn, vol. xv. See also Biot, 
 Astronomie Physique, torn. iii. 
 
 HEIR. (Lat. hieres.) In Law, one who succeeds by- 
 descent to lands, tenements, and hereditaments. Strictly 
 speaking, a person is not properly called heir in the life- 
 time of his ancestor ; according to the ancient maxim, ne- 
 mo est hceres viveutis. (For the rules which govern this 
 succession in England by common law and statute, see 
 Descent.) Heir-apparent is he who (by law or custom) 
 must succeed, by descent, to the hereditaments, if he sur- 
 vive the present tenant ; as, at common law, the eldest 
 son. Heir-presumptive, he who stands nearest in succes- 
 sion in the default of an heir-apparent; as an eldest broth- 
 er where there is no issue. Hcir-at-laic, or heir-general, 
 is he who succeeds by descent to lands in fee-simple. 
 Heir-special, issue in tail claiming by the form of the gift 
 (See Fee-Tail.) Heir by custom, he who succeeds to 
 lands or tenements by custom; as all the sons by gavel- 
 kind. Heir-male, i. e. the nearest male in the succession, 
 is not strictly a term of English law, since lands cannot de- 
 scend in this way; but some dignities are thus limited. A 
 devisee is sometimes called heir by devise, or hirres factus. 
 Bastards, aliens, persons attaint of treason and felony, can- 
 not be heirs; but idiots and lunatics may. Things that 
 pass with the land, as conditions and covenants real, goods 
 and chattels annexed to the freehold (see Fixtures), and 
 terms of years to attend the inheritance, are in ordinary le- 
 gal language said to go to the heir : as also heir-looms, be- 
 ing such goods and chattels as go by special custom along 
 with the inheritance. In Scottish law, the word heir is 
 taken in a larger acceptation, as to personal as well as real 
 property. Heirs-at-law are termed in it heirs whatsomcver. 
 It recognises several species of heirs : as the heir-active,
 
 HEIR-LOOMS. 
 
 who has the right of action ; heir of line, or lineal heir ; 
 heir by conquest, who succeeds to estates to which the de- 
 ceased donor did not himself succeed by descent; heirs 
 portioners, in English law, coparceners ; heir of tailzie (or 
 in tail), and so forth. By the civil law, heirs are of two 
 kinds — legitimate, or by act of law ; and instituted, or by 
 the will of the possessor : the former only answering to 
 those who are properly designated as heirs in our own law, 
 the latter to our purchasers. Legitimate are either heirs of 
 b'ood — heirs under the title "unde vir et uxor" (by which, 
 in default of heirs of blood, a husband or wife succeeded to 
 the goods of the deceased spouse ; a provision not general- 
 ly preserved in modern Continental law) ; and heirs irregu- 
 lar — such as the lord to whom an escheat falls, &c. Heirs 
 instituted are of many kinds. 
 
 HEIR-LOOMS. In Law, such goods and personal chat- 
 tels as go to the heir along with the realty. The quality of 
 heir-looms is fixed by custom ; deeds, charters, deer in a 
 park, &c, are usually such. "Loom" is from an old Sax- 
 on word, " limb," or member. 
 
 HELI'ACAL. (Gr. JjAiof, the sun.) Something relating 
 to the sun. In the ancient astronomy, a star is said to rise 
 keliacally when, after being in conjunction with the sun, 
 and consequently invisible, it rises so soon before the sun 
 as to be visible in the eastern horizon in the morning twi- 
 light ; and it is said to set keliacally when the sun approach- 
 es so near to it that it is lost in his light, or ceases to be 
 visible in the western horizon when he has disappeared. 
 At the opposite season of the year the same star rises as 
 the sun sets, and sets as the sun rises ; it is then said to rise 
 and set acronically. When a star or planet rises and sets 
 at the same instant with the sun, it is said to rise and set 
 cosmically. These technical terms occur frequently in the 
 works of Hesiod, and in Ovid's Fasti. The ancients fixed 
 the commencement of the seasons by the positions of the 
 stars relatively to the sun at his rising and setting. 
 
 HELIiE'A. (Gr. 'HXidta.) In Ancient History, the 
 chief of the ten courts among which the C000 Athenian 
 jurymen were distributed, and which on important occa- 
 sions sometimes contained them all. It probably derived 
 its name from being open to the sun (^Xiost. Before this 
 tribunal causes of consequence to the state and Individuals 
 which did not involve bloodshed were brought. (See .1/' m. 
 de I' Acad, des Inscrip. vol. xviii. ; Boeckh's Public Econo- 
 my of Athens.) 
 
 HE'LICOID, or PARABOLIC SPIRAL. (Gr. iXil, a 
 spiral), in Geometry, is a curve line which is generated as 
 follows : Suppose the axis of the common or Apollonian 
 parabola to be bent into the circumference of a circle, the 
 the ordinates X B, Y D, still retaining 
 their places and perpendicular posi- 
 tions with respect to the axis ; then 
 the spiral curve, A B D, which pass- 
 es through the extremities of the ordi- 
 nates, is the helicoid. It is obvious 
 from this definition that all the ordi- 
 nates, being perpendicular to the cir- 
 cumference of the circle, meet in its 
 centre C ; and if x represent any cir- 
 cular absciss A X, and y the corre- 
 sponding ordinate X B, the equation of the curve will be 
 the same as that of the parabola ; namely, y 2 =a x, a being 
 the parameter. 
 
 HE LIOCAMI'NUS. (Gr. >)Aiof, the sun, and Kapivos, a 
 furnace.) In Ancient Architecture, an arched apartment 
 heated bv the ravs of the sun. 
 
 HE'LIOCE'NTRIC. (Gr. fjAio?, and Ktvrpov, centre.) 
 The heliocentric longitude of a planet is the angle at the 
 sun's centre, formed by the projection of its radius vector 
 on the ecliptic and the straight line drawn from the centre 
 of the sun to the first point of Aries; and the heliocentric 
 latitude of a planet is the inclination of the straight line 
 which joins its centre with that of the sun to the plane of 
 the ecliptic. The greatest heliocentric latitude is conse- 
 quently equal to the inclination of the planet's orbit. 
 
 HELIO'METER. (Gr. ^Aio?, and /xerpov, measure.) A 
 kind of micrometer for measuring the diameters of the sun, 
 moon, and planets, or any small apparent distance between 
 celestial objects. The instrument best known by this name 
 appears to have been proposed or suggested by a Mr. Sa- 
 very {Phil. Trans, vol. xlviii.), about the year 1743 ; but it 
 was first applied by Bouguer in 1747, and has since been 
 improved by Dollond and Fraunhofer. The principle on 
 which the instrument is constructed is as follows : Two ob- 
 ject-glasses of the same focal distance, or rather the two 
 halves of a divided object-glass, are placed side by side in 
 the same tube with an apparatus so contrived that the dis- 
 tance between the centres can be increased or diminished 
 at pleasure. In this manner two images of the sun are 
 formed at the focus of the common eye-glass. Thus the 
 circle AAA representing the field of view of the tele- 
 scope, or the visible circle at the common focus of the two 
 
 HELIX. 
 
 object-glasses and the eye-glass, and 
 the two small circles representing the 
 two images of the sun formed by the 
 two object-glasses, when the observ- 
 er proposes to measure the diameter 
 of the sun, the two object-glasses are 
 brought by means of a tangent screw 
 to such a distance from each other 
 that the two images touch in a point 
 T, and the distance between the cen- 
 tres of the two object-glasses, esti- 
 mated in seconds, gives the distance between B and C, the 
 centres of the images ; that is, the diameter of the sun. 
 
 Formerly the heliometer was formed by two complete 
 lenses ; but as it was found very difficult to give them pre- 
 cisely the same focal length, and as the size of the tube 
 was required to be inconveniently large, they are now made 
 of the same lens by dividing it across its centre. The cen- 
 tres of the two semi-lenses are 
 separated by means of the screws 
 S S, which act on the plates in 
 which they are mounted ; and 
 the distance of the centres A and 
 B is measured by a scale and 
 vernier. This apparatus is oth- 
 erwise called the divided object-glass micrometer. The 
 principle has also been applied to the microscope. See Mi- 
 crometer. 
 
 HE'LIOSCOPE. (Gr. J/Aio?, and okottcu, T view.) The 
 name given by Scheiner to an instrument of his own in- 
 vention for observing the sun without hurting the eye. 
 The ordinary method is to place a disc of coloured glass be- 
 fore the eve-piece of the telescope. 
 
 HE'LIOSTAT. (Gr. JjAio?, the sun, and araui, I stand.) 
 An instrument invented by Gravesande for the purpose of 
 obviating in optical experiments the inconvenience arising 
 from the continual change of direction of the solar rays, by 
 reflecting them in the same straight line. The principle on 
 which the heliostat is constructed may be explained as fol- 
 lows : Let S S' S" S'" be 
 the diurnal circle descri- 
 bed by the sun, O a point 
 on the surface of the 
 earth which may be re- S'" 
 garded as the centre of 
 the circle S S' S" S'", A 
 B the mirror, and O I) 
 the direction in which it 
 is required that the ray 
 shall be reflected. The 
 solar rays will succes- 
 sively coincide with the 
 straight lines whicli form 
 the sides of the conical surface OSS' S" S'". Let there- 
 fore O S' be one of these rays, and let us consider the mo- 
 tion it will be necessary to give to the mirror in order that 
 all the rays O S, O S', &c. may be reflected by the mirror in 
 the direction O D. Produce O D till it meet the plane of 
 the earth's diurnal circle in D, and let D S S'" pass through 
 the centre of the circle. Join D S', and draw O E' at right 
 angles to A B, meeting D S' in E'. The angles of incidence 
 and reflexion being equal, the angle S' O E' is equal to E' O 
 D : therefore S' E' is to E' D in the ratio of S' O to O D, 
 But S' O and O D are constant, therefore the ratio of S' E' 
 to E' D is constant. But D is a given point ; therefore by a 
 simple theorem in elementary geometry (Leslie's Geom. 
 Analysis, b. iii., prop. 2), the locus of E' is a given circle. 
 It follows, therefore, that the axis of the mirror must de- 
 scribe in 24 hours the surface of a cone, the base of which, 
 parallel to the plane of the equator, is a circle determined 
 in magnitude and position by the given direction O D, and 
 the parallel which the sun is describing on a given day of 
 the year. 
 
 It is easy to conceive a mechanism by which this object 
 may be accomplished. Suppose a clock to be placed with 
 its dial parallel to the equator, or the axis of the index 
 hands parallel to the axis of the earth ; and suppose a rod 
 connected with the extremity of the hour hand to meet the 
 axis produced and make with it the proper angle ; then a 
 mirror fixed perpendicularly to the rod will have the mo- 
 tion required. 
 
 For a description of the original instrument see Grave- 
 sandes' Phys. Elementa ; but it has been greatly improved 
 by Charles, Malus, &c. See Journal de I'Ecole Polytech- 
 nique, cahier 16: Biot, Physique Experimental, torn. ii. 
 
 HE'LIOTROPE. A deep-green siliceous m'neral, some- 
 what translucent, and often variegated with blood-red 
 spots: from Gr. r]\ws, the sun, and Tps™, I turn. Its vul- 
 gar name is bloodstone. There is also a common sweet- 
 scented plant of this name. 
 
 HE'LIX. (Gr. 'iXi\. a whorl.) The name of a Linnsean 
 genus of the Vermes Testacea, characterized by the entire
 
 HELLEBORE. 
 
 find crescent-shaped opening of the shell, and forming in 
 the system of Cuvier the t.\ pe of a family of terrestrial and 
 air-breathing Gastropods, including the genera Vitrina, 
 Draparnaud; Bulinus, Adanson; Pupa, Lam.; Chondrus, 
 Cuv. ; Succinea, Drap. ; and Helix proper, of which our 
 common garden snail, Helix hortensis, is an example. 
 
 The great vine snail {Helix pomatia, Linn.) formed one 
 of the luxuries of the tahles of the ancient Romans, and by 
 peculiar feeding and other treatment was brought to attain 
 an immense size. It is still an article of food in certain 
 cantons in Switzerland and France. The snails do much 
 damage to the vegetables in cultivated grounds, biting off 
 pieces of the leaves by means of a semicircular dentated 
 horny plate, which is affixed to the upper lip. 
 
 Helix, in Anatomy, is applied to the reflected margin of 
 the external ear. 
 
 Helix, Helices. In Architecture, the curling stalks or 
 volutes under the flowers in each face of the abacus of the 
 Corinthian capital. 
 
 HE'LLEBORE. (Gr.) In Pharmacy this term is ap- 
 plied to the roots of the black and white hellebore. The 
 root of black hellebore (Hellcborus niger), called also Me- 
 lampodium, has a bitterish acrid taste, and is a drastic 
 purge and emetic : the root of the white hellebore is simi- 
 lar, but more active in its operation. (See Veratria.) It 
 was formerly used in the cure of gout, and in some maniacal 
 cases where no effect is produced except by very powerful 
 means ; but these remedies have now fallen into disuse. 
 The leaves of the Helleborus fatidus, or stinking hellebore, 
 have also been used to evacuate worms from the intes- 
 tines ; but they are dangerously active. 
 
 HELLE'NIC. The name given to the common dialect 
 which prevailed very generally among the Greek writers 
 after the time of Alexander. It was formed, with very 
 slight variations, from the pure Attic of the age preceding 
 its introduction. 
 
 HELLENI'STIC. The name given to that dialect of 
 the Grecian language that was used by the Jewish writers. 
 Its peculiarities consisted in the introduction of foreign 
 words very little disguised, but more especially of oriental 
 metaphors and idioms ; but not at all in the inflexions of 
 words, which were the same as in the Hellenic. 
 
 HE'LLENISTS (Gr. i\Xt,vurrai, from 'EAAj/v, a Greek), 
 the name by which the Jews, who from their foreign birth 
 or travel used the Greek (Hellenic) language, are distin- 
 guished in the Acts of Apostles. The word is derived, ac- 
 cording to a common method of formation in the Greek 
 language, from the verb iWTjvfyiv, to Helleniie, or adopt 
 the manners of a Greek. There were great numbers of 
 Jews scattered throughout the Roman empire at this pe- 
 riod, more especially in the Asiatic and East African prov- 
 inces, where the Greek was the current language ; and as 
 they were in the habit of making frequent journeys to and 
 from Jerusalem, they heard the preaching of the Apostles, 
 and became efficacious instruments in conveying the 
 knowledge of the word throughout all lands. From their 
 long sojourn in foreign countries they were distinguished 
 from the Hebraists, or native Jews, by the greater liberali- 
 ty of their views with respect to the nature of the promises 
 of the Old Testament. It appears from Acts, vi. 1, that 
 these Jews retained the distinctive name of Hellenists after 
 their conversion to Christianity, and that there continued 
 to subsist some jealousy between them and the native 
 Christians. 
 
 HELM, implies the mechanism of the steerage, especial- 
 ly the tiller : as, to put the helm a-starboard, is to put the 
 tiller over to the right side ; a-port, to the left side ; up, to 
 the weather side ; down, to the lee side. 
 
 HELM, or HE'LMET. Defensive armour for the head : 
 a word of Scandinavian derivation. The armour of the 
 ancients, which particularly guarded the head, was known 
 by the general denominations of head-piece, casque, and 
 helmet. Helmets were anciently formed of various mate- 
 rials, but chiefly of skins of beasts, brass, and iron. An 
 open helmet covers only the head, ears, and neck, leaving 
 the face unguarded. Some open helmets have a bar or 
 bars from the forehead to the chin, to guard against the 
 transverse cut of a broad-sword ; but it affords little de- 
 fence against the point of a lance or sword. A close hel- 
 met entirely covers the head, face, and neck; having on 
 the front perforations for the admission of air, and slits 
 tlirough which the wearer may see the objects around 
 him; this pari, which is styled the visor (from the French 
 word viser, to take aim), lifts up by means of a pivot over 
 each ear. Some helmets have a bever (from buveur, drink- 
 er, or from the Italian bevere, to drink), which, when clo- 
 sed, covers the mouth and chin, and either lifts up 1 
 volving on the same pivots as tint visor, or lets down by 
 means of two or more pivots on each side near the jaws. 
 The use of the bever was to enable the wearer to eat and 
 drink more commodiously than conld be done in a helmet 
 with a visor only. The helmets of the Greeks and Ro- 
 552 
 
 HEMEROBIANS. 
 
 mans were mostly open, not unlike scull-caps, as formerly 
 worn by our dragoons. Montfaucon says he never saw an 
 ancient helmet With a visor to raise or let down, although 
 be is of opinion that they had those contrivances. It seems 
 as if the Romans, at least those of which Pompey's army 
 was composed at Pharsalia, had open helmets, as CffiSBI 
 directed his soldiers to strike them in the lace, which order, 
 had their faces been covered, he would not have gives. 
 The two Grecian helmets in the British Museum have a 
 kind of contrivance to cover the nose. Over the top of the 
 helmet rose an elevated ridge called the crest, representing 
 lions or dragons, &.C., to make the warrior appear taller and 
 more terrible. (Mirror, 1839.) 
 HELMET, or HELMET-SHELLS. See Cassis. 
 HELMINTHO'LOGY. (Gr. '{Xfiivs, a worm, and Xoyoc, 
 a discourse.) The natural history of worms. See Intes- 
 tinalia. 
 
 HE'LMSMAN. The man who steers. A good helms- 
 man opposes in time the tendency of the ship to deviate 
 from her course by a small motion, which he relaxes as 
 soon as the effect is felt, and thus disturbs her sailing as lit- 
 tle as possible. A bad helmsman gives her too much 
 helm, and keeps her perpetually yawing from one side to 
 the other. The steerage, therefore, is of the utmost conse- 
 quence in chase. 
 
 HELO'PIDjE. (Gr. 'EAod/, the name of an obnoxious 
 reptile.) A family of Heteromerous Coleopterans, belong- 
 ing to the section Stenelytra, and including numerous sub- 
 genera and species. The typical genus He/ops is remarka- 
 ble for having the anterior tarsi of the males dilated. Of 
 this genus there are four British species known, of which 
 the Helops caraboides may be found at the roots and under 
 the bark of trees: it presents a lengthened ovate form, 
 a brown colour, a punctured surface, and dusky red an- 
 tennje and tarsi. 
 
 HE'LOTS. (Gr. uXiirat.) In Ancient History, the slaves 
 of the Spartans, who consisted originally of the Achaean in- 
 habitants of Laconia, who were subdued by force of arms 
 by the Dorian invaders. The name was derived from He- 
 los, a town of Laconia, of which the inhabitants were thus 
 reduced to servitude ; but to this class were afterwards 
 added the Messenians, who still clung to their native soil 
 after its subjugation by the Spartans. They were employ- 
 ed either as domestic slaves, cultivators of the land, or in 
 the public works ; and though they do not appear to have 
 been treated ordinarily with much severity, yet the recol- 
 lection of their former state urged them frequently to revolt, 
 while their numbers rendered them so formidable to their 
 masters as to drive the latter to schemes of the most abom- 
 inable treachery for their repression. (See particularly 
 Mailer's Hist, of the Dorians ; Wachsmuth Hist. Jint. of 
 the Greeks, transl. i., 323.) 
 HE'LVER. A miner's term ; the handle of a tool. 
 HE'MACRYMES, Hemacryma. (Gr. Sii/ia, blood, and 
 Kpvjios, cold.) A name by which Latreille designates the 
 animals with cold blood. 
 
 HE'MATHERMS, Hemathcrma. (Gr. a?f<«, Sipfiy, heat.) 
 The name given by Latreille to the animals with warm 
 blood. 
 
 IIE'MATIN. (Gr. iipa.) The red colouring principle 
 of logwood. 
 
 HE'MATITE. One of the varieties of native oxide of 
 iron. It occurs in nodules, and in radiated masses of a 
 crystalline fracture. Its name is derived from the red colour 
 which it presents superficially or when rubbed to powder. 
 HEMATOSIN. See H.ematosine. 
 
 HEME'LYTRA. (Gr. fjutevs, half; t\vrpov, a sheath.) 
 The name given to the superior wings or wing-rovers of 
 Tetrapterous insects, when they are coriaceous at the base 
 and membranous at the extremity ; as in the order Hem- 
 iptcra. 
 
 HE'MERALOPIA. (Gr. nutpa day, and wip, the eye.) 
 A disease of the eye which renders virion very imperfect ex- 
 cept in broad daylight ; it has been relieved by tonics and 
 gentle stimulants, with the occasional application of blisters 
 behind the ears. 
 
 HE MEROBAPTISTS. (Gr. S 1U tpa, day; 0niml,<a, I 
 baptize.) An ancient sect among the Jews, so called from 
 w ashing themselves as a religious solemnity every day. It 
 is thought by some that the Christians of Saint John, or Sa- 
 bians, descended from them. (Moshcim, transl., ed. 1826, 
 Lv., 236.) 
 
 HEMERO'BIANS, Hemerobiidm. (Gr. focpa, and /?m<, 
 life ) A family of Neuropterous i ects, of the section coll- 
 i J Planipi tmes by Latreille ; characterized by bavins a slen- 
 der body, which is greatly exceeded in length by the finely 
 I wings. The ova are deposited in clusters, attach- 
 ed each by a long glutinous pedicle to the leaves of various 
 plants; and by some mycologists have been described as 
 fungi. The larva' of these insects are remarkable for their 
 ravenous habits; and as they feed chiefly on the plant-lice 
 (Jlphides), are highly beneficial. They subsist on their jui-
 
 HEMICRANIA. 
 
 ces, suck them to death, and with a singular instinct they 
 clothe themselves with the skins of their victims. Of the 
 typical genus Hemerobius there are fourteen known British 
 species, of which the Hem. perla, Linn., is the most beauti- 
 ful. It is sometimes called the " golden-eye ;" is of a green 
 colour ; the wings transparent, and veined with green. 
 
 HEMICRA'NIA. (Gr. i'dhovs, half, and Kpaviov, the 
 head.) A pain of one side of the head : it is often inter- 
 mittent. 
 
 HEMI'GAMOUS. (Gr. fourvs, and yauog, marriage.) 
 In Botany, a term employed in speaking of grasses, when of 
 two florets in the same spikelet one is neuter and the other 
 unisexual, whether male or female, as in Ischcemum. 
 
 HE'MIOLO'GAMOSE. (Gr. fourvs, o\o<;, entire, and 
 yanoi, marriage.) A term employed in speaking of grasses, 
 when in the same spikelet one of two florets is neuter and 
 the other hermaphrodite, as in several species of Panicum. 
 
 HEMIO'PI A, or HEMIO'PSIA. (Gr. ,'nxicvs, and u>ip, the 
 eye.) A disordered vision, in which objects appear divided. 
 
 HEMI'PTERA. (Gr. fi/xiavs, and nrcpov, a whig.) An 
 order of Haustellate insects, having the wing-covers of a con- 
 sistence intermediate between the elytra of beetles and the 
 ordinary membranous wings. By Latreille the term is re- 
 stricted to those insects the wing-covers of which are coria- 
 ceous at the base and membranous at the top; the term 
 Homoptera being applied to those Fabrician Hemiptcra of 
 which the elytra are deflected and of uniform consistence 
 throughout. 
 
 When the Hemiptera quit the egg they present the form 
 of small hexapod larva, differing but little from the perfect 
 insect save in the absence of wings : before these are acquir- 
 ed the skin is shed several times, during which the larva 
 acquires an increase of general bulk. The pupa is active, 
 and is distinguished by having the wings and elytra con- 
 cealed in small dorsal cases: the next moulling exhibits the 
 perfect insect with the hemelytra and wings fully developed. 
 The bed-bug (Cimex leetularius), and water-bcatman (JVV 
 tonecta), are examples of the present order of insects. 
 
 HE'MISPFIERE. (Gr. wiovs, and ntympa, a sphere.) In 
 Geometry, the half of a sphere, bisected by a plane passing 
 through its centre. In Astronomy, it is used to designate 
 the half of the terrestrial sphere divided by the equator. 
 Hemisphere also denotes a map or projection of half the ter- 
 restrial or celestial sphere on a plane. 
 
 HE'MISTICH. (Gr. }jutoTiX'°v ; from '/in. half, and ot£%<k, 
 verse.) In Poetry, half a verse. The unfinished verses in 
 Virgil's JEncid, concerning which it is not known whether 
 they were purposely left in that state, or are owing to the in- 
 completeness of tile poem, are usually called hemistichs. 
 The Alexandrine, or French hemi-verse, requires a regular 
 pause at the end of the first hemistich. 
 
 HE'MLOCK. A common umbelliferous plant of a pecu- 
 liar odour, and possessed of narcotic powers. For medical 
 use the leaves should be collected just before the plant 
 flowers ; if intended for powder, they should be carefuily dri- 
 ed at a temperature not exceeding 212° ; if for extract, the 
 juice should be squeezed out by moderate pressure, and 
 evaporated in a water or steam bath to a proper consistency. 
 The extract of hemlock is perhaps the best preparation ; but 
 as its activity is liable to vaiy, it should be given with cau- 
 tion. An average dose is five grains; an over dose produces 
 giddiness, wandering of the mind, dilated pupil, convulsive 
 motions of the muscles of the face, and the other symptoms 
 of this class of poisons. Hemlock is a powerful sedative, 
 and often serviceable as a substitute for or an accompani- 
 ment to opium. In allaying morbid irritability of the system 
 attended by any locat*or general excess of vascular action, 
 as in certain stages of phthysis, in the coughs that are apt to 
 hang about patients who have suffered from pulmonic in- 
 flammation, in glandular tumours and unhealthy sores, hem- 
 lock is often preferable to opium. It has also been found 
 very useful in chronic rheumatism, and occasionally in the 
 treatment of whooping cough. A poultice composed of a 
 mixture of finely-powdered fresh hemlock with bread and 
 water, or of the extract of hemlock, is applied to allay the 
 pain of irritable ulcers and cancerous sores: it is sometimes 
 singularly effectual, at others it seems inert, and sometimes 
 appears to increase irritation. The virtues of hemlock re- 
 side in a peculiar alkaline principle, which has been termed 
 conia, combined in the herb with a distinct acid, the coneic 
 acid. 
 
 HEMP. (Germ, hanf.) The fibres of the bark of the 
 Cannabis sativa. It is prepared for spinning in the same 
 way as flax, and is made into strands or yarn for ropes, 
 sailcloth, &c. This plant is supposed to be a native of In- 
 dia, but it has long been naturalized and extensively culti- 
 vated in Italy, and many other countries of Europe, particu- 
 larly Russia and Poland, where it forms an article of prima- 
 ry commercial importance. It is also cultivated to a consid- 
 erable extent in many parts of America; but in the United 
 Kingdom it is but little grown, except in a few districts of 
 Suffolk and Lancashire. 
 
 48 
 
 HEPTARCHY. 
 
 HENBANE. This is a common plant, flowering in July ; 
 I the Hyoscyamus niger. The expressed juice of the leaves 
 | evaporated to the consistency of extract has long been used 
 | as a sedative or narcotic. It has a peculiar, strong, and disa- 
 greeable odour, and a nauseous bitterish taste. From two to 
 five grains of the extract of henbane are ofien found equiva- 
 lent to about one grain of opium, and where the latter disa- 
 grees it often produces quiet : in many cases henbane and 
 various forms of opium may be combined. Henbane is apt 
 to produce giddiness ; but it does not constipate the bowels, 
 and has rather a diuretic tendency. 
 
 HE'NDECASYLLA'BIC. (Gr. ivBcKaJ A verse of 
 eleven syllables. The Latin hendecasyllabic, of which the 
 principal specimens left to us are from the pen of Catullus, 
 consist of a spondee, dactyl, and three trochees : 
 
 Yivamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus. 
 
 The Italian heroic verse, and those of England and Ger- 
 many, when increased by the addition of a final short sylla- 
 ble, are iambic hendecasyllabics. 
 
 The licence of adding an eleventh syllable (and sometimes 
 also a twelfth) is more frequently admissible in English 
 dramatic than epic versification. 
 
 HENRI'CIANS. The followers of an Italian monk of 
 the name of Henry, who in the twelfth century preached 
 with fanatic zeal, principally against the corruptions and 
 impostures of the Romish church. He traversed the south 
 of France from Lausanne to Toulouse, and met with great 
 success at all the towns at which he halted. He rejected 
 the baptism of infants, declaimed vehemently against the 
 vices of the clergy, and exposed the vanity and absurdity of 
 many of the ceremonies of the church. At length his fol- 
 lowers were turned against him by the eloquence of St. Ber- 
 nard, and he died in prison, into which he had been thrown 
 by Eugenius III., in the year 1148. ( IVaddington's History 
 of the Church, c. 10.) 
 
 IIE'PAR. (Gr. hirap.) This term, signifying liver, was 
 applied by the old chemists to various compounds of sulphur 
 with the metals, having a brown-red or liver colour. 
 
 HEPATA'LGIA. (Gr. >/z-tip, the liver, and a\yo;, pain.) 
 A painful affection of the liver. 
 
 HEPA'TICiE. (Hepar, liver, in allusion to the form of 
 some of the species.) A natural order of fiowerless plants, 
 growing in damp shady places in all temperate climates ; in 
 some respects allied to mosses, and in others to lichens. 
 They are of no known importance ; but are interesting to 
 systematic botanists, because they offer strong traces of sex- 
 ual apparatus in plants of a very low kind of organization. 
 
 HEPATI'TIS. (Gr. frap.) Inflammation of the liver. 
 The acute or active form of this disease is ushered in with 
 pain in the region of the liver, sickness, costiveness, and a 
 strong, hard, and frequent pulse ; there is also generally 
 great pain about the clavicle and shoulder. Bleeding, and 
 purging with salts, senna, and calomel, and a blister, are 
 usually effectual in Europe in subduing an attack of this dis- 
 ease : in warm climates, calomel and mercurials must often 
 be continued till they affect the mouth. In chronic hepatitis 
 the same general plan of treatment must be followed up, es- 
 pecially as regards the use of mercurials: with these, and 
 gentle aperients and mild bitters, the yellowness of the com- 
 plexion, lowness of spirits, and other concomitants of what 
 in warm climates is called the liver, are usually subdued, at 
 least in Europe. The chronic hepatitis of India always re- 
 quires for its permanent cure a change of climate. 
 
 HE'PTAGON. (Gr. tirra, seven, and yuvia, angle.) In 
 Geometry, a plane figure of seven sides. The area of a reg- 
 ular heptagon is equal to the square of one of its sides mul- 
 tiplied into the constant number 36339124, or seven fourths 
 of the tangent of the angle at the base to radius 1. 
 
 HEPTA'GONAL NU'MBERS, are a kind of polygonal 
 numbers, of which the difference of the terms of the corre- 
 sponding arithmetical progression is 5. Thus, 
 
 Arithmeticals . . 1, 6, 11, 16, 21, &c. ; 
 Heptagonals . . . 1,7, 18, 34, 55, &c. ; 
 the latter being formed by the continual addition of the terms 
 of the first. Among other properties of heptagonal numbers 
 there is one very remarkable; namelj - , that if any heptago- 
 nal number is multiplied by 40, and 9 added to the product, 
 the sum is a square number. 
 
 HEPTANDROUS. (Gr. itttq, and avnp, a man.) Any 
 flower having seven stamens. 
 
 HE'PTARCHY. (Gr. hrra, and apxw, I govern.) In 
 English History, the division of England into seven Saxon 
 kingdoms, which are represented in most of our histories to 
 have existed at the same time with and independently of 
 each other. The seven kingdoms in question, according to 
 the common divisions, were Kent, Sussex, Wessex, Essex*, 
 East Anglia, Mercia, Northumberland. But in point of fact 
 there was no period of history when these seven kingdoms 
 existed together ; and, in the constant fluctuations of con- 
 quest, fresh subdivisions and unions of territory were contin- 
 ually made by the fortune of war- The sovereign who suc- 
 ' U* 553
 
 HERACLEONITES. 
 
 eeeded in obtaining a temporary supremacy over bis neigh- 
 bour kings generally assumed the title of Bretwalda.or ruler 
 of the Britons, of whom Ella, king of Wessex, was the first; 
 hut it was afterwards borne by kings both of Kent, East Anglia, 
 and Northuiubria. In 617, Edwin, king of the latter district, 
 appears to have acquired a temporary sovereignty over the 
 whole of England, which was also gained by his nephew Os- 
 wald in 034 : but after the brother of the latter king, Oswio, 
 no Saxon monarch assumed the title of Bretwalda. After 
 the death of the latter Alercia rose in the scale ; and its king, 
 Offa, ruled nearly the whole of the Saxon territories in the 
 last half of the eighth century. After his death Egbert, king 
 of the West Saxons, raised his power on the ruins of that of 
 Mercia; and having subdued and rendered tributary the 
 other kingdoms then subsisting, he became, about 830, mas- 
 ter of the whole Saxon realm, and is reckoned as the eighth 
 Bretwalda or ruler of Britain. With his reign the heptarchy 
 is usually considered to have ended. (See Pa/grave's His- 
 tory of England ; Turner's Anglo-Saxons.) 
 
 HERA'CLEONITES. An early sect of heretics belong- 
 ing to the Gnostics, so called from Heracleon, whose tenets 
 they embraced. They rejected all the ancient prophecies, 
 regarded themselves as superior to the Apostles, and, under 
 the pretext of a sublime or elevated exposition of the Scrip- 
 tures, propounded the wildest and most extravagant para- 
 doxes. 
 
 HERACLI'D/E. A general designation for the descend- 
 ants of Hercules, who, after the death of that hero, were 
 expelled from the Peloponnesus by Eurystheus, king of 
 Mycena\ The return of the Heraclidre, which took place 
 about 140 years after their expulsion, or 80 years after the 
 siege of Troy, forms a celebrated epoch in ancient chonolo- 
 gy, as it has been generally considered to mark the transition 
 from the heroic or fabulous ages to the period of authentic 
 history. 
 
 HERiE'A. The name of a celebrated festival instituted 
 at Argos in honour of Juno, whom the Greeks called Hera. 
 Another festival of this name, in honour of the same god- 
 dess, was held at Elis every five years. 
 
 HE'RALD. (Gr. Knpvl-) An officer of arms, possessed 
 of important functions. The ancient heralds (xripuKcs among 
 the Greeks, feciales among the Romans) were privileged 
 persons, sacred by superstition as well as by the law of na- 
 tions. Modern heralds, besides their employment on mes- 
 sages between states and in matters of public negotiation (in 
 which capacily their services are grown into disuse, or be- 
 come merely subordinate), acquired a new character from 
 the prevalence of hereditary devices on coats of arms early 
 in the middle ages. The multiplicity of these inventions 
 rendered it necessary that there should be certain persons 
 about a court skilled in interpreting or in " blazoning" them ; 
 according to the rules of the imaginary scienee to which 
 these fanciful creations were subjected. (See Heraldry.) 
 It became also necessary that they should have a perfect 
 knowledge of the hereditary arms, ensigns armorial, badges 
 of honour, &c, belonging to each family, in order that they 
 might constitute an authority to which appeal might be had 
 in the disputes which frequently arose respecting the rights 
 of individuals to these honourable distinctions. Hence the 
 heralds became, in modern European countries, the deposi- 
 taries of much of the genealogical science which is conver- 
 sant in the pedigrees of noble or gentle families. They have 
 also important parts to fulfil on occasions of public solemni- 
 ty, pageants, installations, nuptials, funerals, &c. 
 
 Edward III. was the first English sovereign who created 
 two heraldic kings-at-arms (Surroy and Norroy), whose of- 
 fice was exercised south and north of Trent respectively. 
 Richard II. gave the earl-marshal power to preside in a 
 court of chivalry, assisted by the heralds. But the first, her- 
 aldic collegiate chapter was held at the siege of Rouen, in 
 1420. The kings-at-arms were fixed at three, their present 
 number, by Henry VIII. Edward VI. fixed the establish- 
 ment of heralds on the site of the building which they at 
 present occupy in the city of London. The present Heralds' 
 College (by which name the kings-at-arms, heralds, and pur- 
 suivants are incorporated) consist of — 1. Three kings-at- 
 arms — Garter, Clarencieux, and Norroy ; of whom the first 
 holds the highest rank. His duties are chiefly to grant sup- 
 porters, arrange funerals, anil present the order of the Garter 
 to foreign princes. 2. The heralds are six in number; sty- 
 led Windsor, Chester, Lancaster, Somerset, York, and Rich- 
 mond : they, with tho kings-at-arms, form the collegiate chap- 
 ter. 3. The four pursuivants (Portcullis, Rouge Dragon, 
 Blue Mantle, and Porte Croix) are junior officers, or proba 
 doners, who afterwards succeeded to the higher offices. 
 The duties of the officers of the Heralds' College are various, 
 and their powers have been considerable, although curtailed 
 by modern Indifference to the purity of their ancient science. 
 They keep the records of tin' arms, crests, and cognizances 
 of every gentleman, i. e., persons entitled to bear them ; and 
 they have considerable authority for the purpose of prevent- 
 ing parties from bearing arms to which they have no right. 
 554 
 
 HERALDRY. 
 
 Their title to confer arms, or rather to assign coats of arms 
 to persons applying for permission to bear them, is still gen- 
 erally recognised. Heraldic visitations of countries, with a 
 view to collect information on the subject of genealogies and 
 coat-armour, was held as early as the reign of Henry IV. 
 In 1528, a regular commission was granted for the whole 
 kingdom ; and visitations were held at intervals of twenty or 
 thirty years from that time to the beginning of the last cen- 
 tury. (See Noble's History of the College of Arms, 1805.) 
 
 HE'RALDRY. The science of conventional distinctions 
 impressed on shields, banners, and other military accoutre- 
 ments. Heraldry has been divided into personal and nation- 
 al. The first of these treats of bearings belonging to indi- 
 viduals, either in their own or in hereditary right. Devices 
 adopted by champions in the field, and borneon their shields 
 or on their banners, are of very high antiquity. The sculp- 
 tures on the shields of Achilles and Hercules, in Homer and 
 Hesiod, are rather ornamental than heraldic. But in the 
 Seven Chiefs against Thebes of iEschylus, we find the cog- 
 nizances of these renowned leaders distinctly blazoned, as 
 worn by them on their shields, in the same fashion with 
 those of the knights in the middle ages. The Romans do 
 not seem to have had any customary devices for individuals 
 resembling our armorial insignia ; except their distinctive 
 crowns for particular services. The jus imaginum, or right 
 of possessing small statues of distinguished individuals of the 
 family, seems to have been their only external hereditary 
 distinction. Early in the middle ages, however, we find 
 abundant notice of cognizances borne by individuals. These 
 were more especially in use in tournaments, where the 
 knights, being clad in complete armour, were unknown to 
 the spectators, except by their banner or shield (see Bla- 
 zonry) ; and probably it was in the lists of the tournament 
 that the fanciful science of heraldry first found its subject 
 matter. This science appears to be a compound of inven- 
 tions collected from very different quarters. The East, the 
 land of allegory and symbol, seems to have contributed 
 many of its most singular devices. Its ordinaries, colours, 
 metals, and gems, are said to be derived from Germany ; and 
 German heraldry appears to be a national science, from the 
 circumstance that its terms of art are nearly all of native or- 
 igin. But the Normans and French undoubtedly cultivated 
 it with the greatest success, and reduced it to its present sys 
 tematic form. Our English terms of heraldry are, as is well 
 known, derived entirely from the French language, although 
 not wholly from France ; as some additions were made to 
 the science by the Norman-English. Hereditary coat-ar- 
 mour, it is said, cannot be traced with certainty to an earlier 
 period than the 13th century ; but it seems that, in the reign 
 of Henry HI., the vocabulary of heraldry was nearly as full 
 and definite as at the present day. National heraldry, or 
 the adoption of distinctive emblems by civil communities, is 
 
 EXPLANATION OF THE PLATE. 
 I. Lines. 
 1. Horizontal or s'raight. 2. Angled. 3. Bevilled. 4. Escartele. 5. 
 Nowy, or Franche. 6. Arched, or enarched. 7. Double arched. 8. Wavy, 
 or Ulidee. 9. Inverted. 10. Engrailed. 11. Batiled-embatlltd, or crenel- 
 lee. 12. Batlled-embatlled. 13. Nebuly. 14. Potent. 15. Indented. 16. 
 Dancettee. 17. Dovetailed. 18. Urdee. 19. Rayonnee, or radiant. 
 
 II. Points of the Escutcheon, Colours, a?id Furs. 
 20. Escutcheon, points of. 21. Or. 22. Argent. 23. Gules. 24. Azure. 
 25. Sable. 26. Vert. 27. Purpure. 28. Terine. 29. Sanguine. 30. Er- 
 mine. 31. Ermines. 32. Erminois. 33. Pean. 34. Vair. 35. Vany 
 cuppy. 
 
 III. Differences, or Filiafjons. 
 36. (First son) Label of three points. 37. (Secondl Crescent. 38. (Third) 
 Mullet. 39. (Fourth) Martlet. 40. (Fifth.) Annulet. 41. (Sijth) Fleur- 
 de-lys. 
 
 Ordinaries, be. 
 42. Chief. 43. Pale (between two annulets). 44. Pallet. 45. Parry per 
 pale. 46. Border. 47. Bars. 48. Fess. 49. Bend. 50. Bend sinis'er. 51. 
 Border. 52. Chevron. 53. Cross. 54. Cross of St. John of Jerusalem, or 
 Malta. 66. Cross palonce. 56. Cross moline. 57. Cross of St. Andrew. 
 58. Crosses humettee. 59. Cross moline in saltier. 60. Cross bottonee, or 
 trefoil. 61. Cross crosslet, fitchee. 62. Cross flory. 63. Cross mascle. 64. 
 Cross fitchee. 65. Lozenge, fleury. 
 
 V. Miscellaneous Bearings. 
 66. Lion, statant guardant. 67. Passant. 6S. Passant guardant. 69. Ram 
 pant. 70. Rampant guardant. 71. Rampant regunrdant. 72. Sejant. 73 
 Couchant. 74. Stag at gaze. 75. Stag's head cabosheJ. 76. Tiger, heral 
 die. 77. Dragon. 78. Griffin. 79. Dragon's head erased. 80. Wivern. 
 81. Eagle displayed, with two heads. 82. Boar's head erased. S3. Water 
 budgets. 84. Snake, bowed dehruised. 85. Quatrefcil. 86. Trefoils. 87. 
 Fleur-de-lys. 88. Clarion, or rest. 89. Mullets. 
 
 VI. Crouyns, Coronet*, 8fC 
 90. Crown of England. 91. Coronet of the Prince of Wales. 92. Coronet 
 of a duke. 93. Marquis. 94. F.arl. 95. Viscount. 96. Baron. 97. Mitre 
 of a bishop. 98. Eastern, nr antique coronet. 99. Celeslial crown. 100. 
 Crown of Edward I. 101. Mortu-r. or cap of sta'e. 102. Cbapeau, or cap 
 of maintenance. 103. Crown of France. 104. Cardinal's hat. 105. Crown 
 triple, or tiara of the pope. 
 
 The principal of these heraldic terms will be found explained under their 
 several articles in the Dictionary.
 
 HERALDRY. 
 
 TTLJUir JTR5Z5Z_ TXim 
 
 "NA^ A/WW VUW 
 
 ,„ 15 18 
 
 ^jjn /x^\ /w\yw\ 
 
 25 
 
 23 
 
 
 •rvms 
 
 
 i^wy^ 
 
 IKf 
 
 inftn
 
 HERBACEOUS. * 
 
 far more ancient than personal. Badges, we know, were 
 borne on the national standards of antiquity : an eagle was 
 Ihe device of Persia and of Rome, an owl of Athens, &.c. ; 
 and Turkey and Persia, where personal heraldry is un- 
 known, possess at this day national ensigns of correct her- 
 aldic character. 
 
 Arms are said, in the heraldic science, to be of dominion 
 or pretension (national) ; arms of community, belonging to 
 episcopal sees, cities, corporations ; arms of patronage, to 
 governors of provinces, &c. ; arms of concession, or aug- 
 mentations of honour, granted by sovereigns to individuals, 
 which in the nest generation become hereditary ; amis of 
 family, or hereditary arms ; arms of alliance, showing the 
 union of families and relations of individuals (marked by 
 various devices termed differences, &c. ; see Difference) ; 
 arms of succession, which accompany the possession of 
 certain estates or lordships; and, finally, arms of assump- 
 tion, taken up by individuals from caprice or vanity, which, 
 although, common enough in the present day, are borne in 
 violation of all heraldic laws ; or, arms taken up with the 
 permission of the sovereign, through his principal herald (in 
 England, king-at-arms). Armorial bearings were chiefly 
 displayed, in the times of chivalry, on the shield or escutch- 
 eon. They were also borne on the pennon or banner ; on 
 sword-hilts, as early as A.D. 1250 ; on the mantle or surcoat 
 (hence the phrase coat-of-arms) ; and, in modem times, on 
 carriages or articles of furniture. The science of heraldry, 
 united as it is with that of family genealogy, was for centu- 
 ries one of the most favourite literary pursuits (if it can he 
 termed such) among the higher ranks of the community. It 
 has been enriched with much legendary knowledge, and 
 diversified with many fanciful antiquarian theories. It is 
 entitled to respect, not merely on account of its intimate 
 connexion with historical knowledge, but also on account 
 of the refinement and curious variety of the learning itself; 
 which, grounded on merely imaginary principles, has been 
 wrought into a system of the minutest accuracy. The best 
 known English work on heraldry is that of Gicillim. The 
 Encyclopedia Heraldica of Berry contains many modern 
 additions. See, also, Edmonson's complete Body of Heraldry, 
 1780; Dallaway's Inquiries, 1783; and the article "Herald- 
 ry" in the Ene. .Mitr., with the various authorities, English 
 and foreign, there referred to. 
 
 HERBA'CEOUS (Lat. herba), in describing the texture 
 of bodies, denotes their being green and cellular, as the 
 tissue of membranous leaves. It is also applied to such 
 perennial plants as lose their stems annually, while their 
 roots remain permanent in the ground. 
 
 HERBA'RIA. (Lat. herba.) Collections of dried planTI, 
 sach as the old botanists called horti sicci, or dry gardens. 
 They are formed by gluing to sheets of paper branches and 
 other parts of plants pressed flat, and dried in the sun or 
 otherwise. If well prepared, they are as useful to the bot- 
 anist as plants alive ; but it is necessary to have some prac- 
 tical skill to be able to employ them advantageously. The 
 largest public herbaria are those of the Museum at Paris ; 
 the Imperial collection of Vienna ; the Royal of Berlin ; and 
 that of the British Museum, formerly Sir Joseph Banks's. 
 Nothing certain is known of the extent of these collections, 
 but they probably contain, in some cases, as many as 60,000 
 species. The herbarium is an unattractive part of public 
 museums ; but a very important one for numerous purposes 
 of science, both practical and speculative. 
 
 HE'RCULES. In Mythology, one of the most celebrated 
 personages of antiquity, believed to be the son of Jupiter and 
 Alcmaena, the daughter of Electryon, king of Mjfcena;. The 
 history and wonderful exploits of this hero are so well 
 known, that it would be superfluous to dwell upon them 
 here. There is, perhaps, no subject connected with anti- 
 quity to the right comprehension of which such formidable 
 difficulties are presented ; and hence the numerous attempts 
 that have been made to separate truth from fiction in the 
 history of Hercules, by divesting it of the mythological tra- 
 ditions with which it had been encumbered by all the wri- 
 ters of antiquity. In some shape or another, •ell the profane 
 nations of antiquity seem to have possessed a divinity to 
 whom they attributed an extraordinary degree of bodily 
 strength, combined with indomitable perseverance and mor- 
 al energy in prosecuting and overcoming difficult achieve- 
 ments. The reader will at once recognise, as belonsin;: t" 
 this class, the Baal of the Syrians, the Melkarth of Phoeni- 
 cia, and the Rama of Hindostan ; who, like the Grecian 
 Hercules, outstripping in bodily and intellectual endow- 
 ments the great mass of the people of the rude era in which 
 they lived, achieved a multiplicity of deeds which were 
 looked upon as altogether miraculous, and which procured 
 for their authors empire and dominion during their lives, 
 and after death a place among the gods. (See Mailer's Do- 
 rians, and the authorities there referred to.) 
 
 He'rcules. One of the old constellations in the northern 
 hemisphere. 
 HE RDERITE. (So called from Herder, who discovered 
 556 
 
 HERMAPHRODITE. 
 
 it.) A mineral found in crystals embedded in fluor at Eh- 
 renfriedensdorf, in Saxony; its primary form is a bright 
 rhombic prism ; its lustre is vitreo-resinous, and its specific 
 gravity 2985. 
 
 HEREDI'TAMENTS. In Law, all things which pass to 
 the heir, being either corporeal (land, with those adjuncts 
 which legally are comprised within that designation), or in- 
 corporeal, which are tilings collateral to laud, or issuing out 
 of it, and are enumerated in Blackstone's Commentaries, 
 under the heads "Advowsons, Tithes, Commons, Ways, 
 Offices, Dignities, Franchises, Crodies or Pensions, Annui- 
 ties, and Rents." 
 
 HE'RESY. A word signifying the taking up of certain 
 opinions in theological matters: from the Greek aipeais, 
 choice, which classical writers apply to the sects of philoso- 
 phers. It is now confined to a theological sense, and is de- 
 fined by Roman Catholic authorities to be the voluntary as- 
 sumption and obstinate maintaining of error in matters of 
 faith. They hold all error to be voluntary where the party 
 knowingly deviates from the judgment of the Church. The 
 Protestants do not, for the most part, profess to have any 
 certain standard by which men may judge whether their 
 fellow-men be heretical. We may infer, from the direc- 
 tions of St. Paul to Titus, that the nature of heresy was un- 
 derstood by the first preachers of Christianity ; but it does 
 not necessarily follow that any infallible tests should exist 
 at the present day. It seems most consonant to a sense of 
 human infirmity, and is the judgment of most divines of the 
 Reformed persuasion, that those only should be considered 
 as heretics by any community who maintain what are ac- 
 counted by it erroneous opinions, either against their real 
 ^cwivictions or without condescending to listen to fair and 
 reasonable argument, and* in defiance of persons whose sta- 
 tion, le'amiBg, and piety should entitle them, at all events, to 
 attention. 
 
 HE'RIOT. In Law, originally a tribute given to the lord 
 of the manor on occasion of his engaging in a war (here or 
 heer-geW). In English law a heriot is a customary service, 
 due, for the most part, on copyhold tenures, and termed 
 heriot custom, being usually the best beast, whether horse, 
 ox, or cow, that the tenant dies possessed of, which is due 
 and payable to the lord of the manor. Some heriots, however, 
 are due on reservation in a grant or lease of land ; such are 
 termed heriot service. In heriot custom the lord may seize 
 the specific article which he seeks to recover; for heriot 
 service he may either seize or distrain, generally, on the 
 goods of the tenant on the land. 
 
 HERI'SSON. (Ft. a hedgehog.) In Fortification, a beam 
 armed with iron spikes, and used as a barrier to block up a 
 passage. 
 
 HE'RITABLE RIGHTS, in Scottish Law, comprehend, 
 in senc-ral, rights to land, and things connected with land 
 which pass to the heir ; the distinction being, in most prac- 
 tical respects, merely identical with that of English law be- 
 tween realty and personalty. Heritable jurisdictions were 
 grants of criminal jurisdiction bestowed on great families by 
 the crown. Thev were abolished after the rebellion of 1745 
 by the act 20 G. 2, c. 40. 
 
 HE'RMES. See Mercury. Trismeoistus. 
 
 HERM A'PHRODITE. (Gr. ; from the well-known myth- 
 ological fable of the union or confluence of the bodies of the 
 nymph Salmacis and Hermaphrodites, the son of 'Fpuns, 
 Mercury, and A(ppo5iTn, Venus.) An organized body, in 
 which there is either a real or apparent combination of the 
 characteristics of the two sexes. The first is the "true," 
 the second the "spurious" hermaphrodite. Hermaphro- 
 dites are also "natural" or " preternatural." 
 
 The animals in which the organs of the two sexes are 
 naturally combined in the same individual are confined to 
 the invertebrate division, and are most common in the Mol- 
 luscous and Radiate classes. If the temi hermaphrodite 
 may be applied to those species which propagate without 
 the concourse of the sexes, but in which no male organ can 
 be detected, as well as to those in which both male and fe- 
 male organs are present in the same body, then there may 
 be (tistiniuished three kinds of hermaphroditism. 
 
 First, The Cryptandrous, or in which the female or pro- 
 ductive organs are alone developed. Ex. : The cystic 
 M^azoa, the hydrostatic Acaiephes, some Polypes, and 
 
 S. < i :i which the male orenns 
 
 are developed, but so disposed as to fecundate the ova of the 
 same individual. Ex.; The Cirripeds, the Rotifers, the 
 trematode and cestoid Entozoa, and some Acephala, as the 
 Cyrlas. 
 
 "Third, The .'ll/otriandrous, or in which the male organs 
 are so disposed as not to fecundate the ova of the same 
 body, but where the concourse of two individuals is required, 
 notwithstanding the co-existence in each of the organs of the 
 two sexes. Ex. : The gastropodous Mollusks, with the ex- 
 ception of the Pectinibranchiate order, and class Jlnnellida. 
 
 All the other invertebrates, as the Cephalopoda and pec
 
 HERMETIC ART. 
 
 tinibir.nchiate Gastropods, most of the acephalous Mollasks, 
 the insects, Arachnidans and Crustaceans, the Epizoa and 
 the nematoid Entozoa, the Echinodcrms and Medusa?, are, 
 like tile vertebrate classes, dioecious, or composed of male 
 and female individuals. 
 
 The unnatural hermaphrodites may be divided into those 
 in which the parts peculiar to the two sexes are blended to- 
 gether in different proportions, and the whole body partici- 
 pates of a neutral character, tending towards the male and 
 female as the respective organs predominate ; and into those 
 in which the male and female organs occupy respectively 
 separate halves of the body, and impress on each lateral 
 moiety the characteristics of the sex. 
 
 This latter and very singular kind of hermaphroditism has 
 hitherto been found only in insects and Crustaceans. In the 
 extracts from the Minute Book of the Linnaean Society, 
 printed in the 14th volume of their Transactions, it is stated 
 that Alexander Maclcay, Esq., Sec.L.S., exhibited a curious 
 specimen, showing that two Papiliones referred to distinct 
 families by Fabricius are in reality the male and female of 
 the same species. This specimen presented the forms and 
 colours of both sexes, divided by a longitudinal line on the 
 body ; the right wings and side of the body being as in the 
 male [Pipilio polycaon, Fabr.), and the left as in the female 
 (Papilio laodocus, Fabr.). 
 
 In Loudon's Magazine of Natural History (vol. iv., p. 
 434), an experienced entomologist, Mr. J. O. Westwood, has 
 given descriptions and figures, not only of dimidiate her- 
 maphrodites (the example is the Bombyz pcnii), hut also of 
 quartered hermaphrodites. The latter singular conditio* is 
 exemplified in a specimen of the Bombyz castrensis, in 
 which the right wing, left antenna, and left side of the ab- 
 domen are male; the left wing, right antenna, and right side 
 of the abdomen are female: and again in a specimen or* 
 stag-beetle (Lucanus cervus), in which the left jaw rind right 
 elytrum are masculine, and the right jaw and left elytrum 
 feminine. 
 
 In most dimidiate hermaphrodites the left side is mascu- 
 line; but an example of the contrary has been .-observerrin 
 Sphinx populi. It is to be regretted that the condition of the 
 internal organs of generation cannot be ascertained in the 
 above singular examples; but this deficiency is in some de- 
 gree supplied by the results of Dr. Nicholl's dissection of an 
 hermaphrodite lobster (Philos. Traits., xxxvi., p. 2f)U) in 
 which a testis was found on that side of the body which ex- 
 hibited externally the male characteristics, and an ovarium 
 on the opposite side. 
 
 In Botany, hermaphroditism is the rule, and a separation 
 of sexes the exception, in the structure of flowers or repro- 
 ductive organs. 
 
 HERME'TIC ART. The imaginary art or science of al- 
 < lit my; so termed from Hermes Trismegistus, a personage 
 of questionable reality, looked up to by the alchemists as 
 t^e founder of the art. Some spurious works bearing his 
 name are still extant. See Alchemy. 
 
 HERME'TIC SEAL. When a vessel or tube is perfect- 
 ly closed by fusing its mouth or extremity, it is said to be 
 hermetically sealed. 
 
 HE'RMITS, or E'REMITES. (Gr. epyuoc, desert.) Per- 
 sons who, in the early ages of Christianity, secluded them- 
 selves from the world for devotional purposes, betaking 
 themselves to solitary and desert places (ipn/jof), whence 
 their name. In the first five centuries of our era this class 
 of persons was extremely numerous ; nor have individuals 
 been wanting in later ages who have undergone the same 
 privations with the same mistaken views, and have ac- 
 quired great reputation for sanctity in consequence. See 
 Gieseler's Text Book, vol. i. ; Riddle's Christian Jlnti- 
 quities, 1839, p. 743 ; Heribertus, Vita Patrum et Eremit- 
 artim, 1628; Cavacius, Jltustrium Anachuretarum Elogia, 
 1625 ; Enc. Metropolitana.) 
 
 UERMODA'CTYLS. (Gr. Hermes, a river in Asia, and 
 dactylus, a date: or from I'putjc, Mercury, and AiktvXos, 
 finger ; i. e., the fingers of Mercury.) This term has long 
 been applied to a species of colchicum tuber, probably that 
 of the Colchicum Illyricum : it is irregularly heart-shaped, 
 and has a furrow upon one side, not unlike the tuber of 
 the Colchicum autumnale, now so much used for the cure of 
 gout : it is imported from Turkey, and was formerly esteem-, 
 ed as a cathartic. Some of the old writers who are fond 
 of the doctrine of signatures, compare the shape of the her- 
 modacty! to that of a gouty finger, and have recommended 
 its efficacy in that disease. 
 
 HERNANDIA'CEjE. (Hemandia, one of the genera.) 
 A small natural order of arborescent Exogens, inhabiting 
 the Indian Archipelago and Guinea. They are very near 
 Thymclacea?, differing only in their fibrous drupaceous fruit, 
 lobed cotyledons and involucre ; and are very different from 
 Eauraceo? and Myristicacca?, to which orders they have been 
 referred. The leaves, stem, &c, are slignr.y purgative : the 
 roots of Hernandia are antidotes to the Macassar poison ; its 
 juice is a depilatory, and its leaves make a good sort of tinder. 
 
 HERRING. 
 
 HE'RNIA. (Gr. cpvoc, a branch.) A rupture. The term 
 is generally applied to a tumor arising from a protrusion of 
 part of the intestines or omentum into a sac composed of 
 peritoneum : the groin, or upper and fore part of the thigh, 
 below Poupart's ligament, are common situations. Other 
 viscera may also occasionally form hernial tumours. When 
 the condition of the accident is such that the parts cannot be 
 reduced or returned into the abdominal cavity, the hernia is 
 said to be strangulated, and in that case the passage through 
 the intestines is interrupted ; there is sickness and constipa- 
 tion ; and inflammation, and even mortification of the part 
 ensue, unless by an operation the cause of the stricture is re- 
 moved and the gut returned. What is termed congenital 
 hernia is the protrusion of a portion of intestine along with! 
 the testicle in its descent through the abdominal ring into 
 the scrotum. Where a rupture exists in early infancy, it is 
 commonly referable to this cause. The surgical history of 
 ruptures is a very complicated and extensive, but highly im- 
 portant subject: it has been ably illustrated by several emi- 
 nent practitioners, who have published treatises upon their 
 causes and treatment. 
 
 HE'RO. (Gr. >'ipo>t.) Lennep derives it from the verb 
 apu>, I lift. But the root of it is probably to be found in the 
 same original word which appears in the Latin herus, mas- 
 ter; Germ, ari-mann ; perhaps the Sanscrit sura. The 
 heroes of the Greeks were deceased mortals to whom divine 
 honours were paid. It is probable, indeed, that such was 
 the origin of their gods themselves (see Polytheism) ; but 
 if so, hero worship was a secondary or added system, which 
 grew up in a later age. The word "hero," in Homer, Is 
 simply synonymous with warrior ; nor is there any trace (at 
 least in the Iliad) of hero-worship. It seems to have com- 
 menced not long after the composition of that poem. The 
 [aa| to whom any honours approaching to divine seem to 
 have been paid, were the Athenians slain at Marathon. 
 The heroic age, commonly so called in Grecian poetry, seems 
 to have ended witli the descendants of those who returned 
 from Tn ly. ( ll'achsmuth. Hist, .intiq. of the Greeks ; Thirl- 
 walVs History of Greece, chap. 5 ; Carlylc's Hero Worship.) 
 
 HERO'DIANS. A sect existing among the Jews at the 
 period of our Saviour's preaching. (See Matthew, c. xvi. : 
 Mark, c. viii., v. 15.) Much doubt exists as to their history 
 and tenets : some commentators, both ancient and modern, 
 imagine that they were fanatics, who regarded Herod the 
 Great as the Messiah ; others, that they were a mere politi- 
 cal party, attached to tile family of Herod ; while a third 
 opinion (Bergier, Victionaire de Theologie) is, that thev 
 supported some innovations attempted by Herod in the reli- 
 gious observances of the country by the partial introduction 
 of pagan usages. (See Mil man's History of Christianity, 
 L,311.) 
 
 IIERO'IC VERSE. That appropriated to epic or heroic 
 poetry: in Greek and Latin, the hexameter. In English, 
 Italian, and German, the iambic of ten syllables, either with 
 or without the additional short syllable. In French, the 
 iambic of twelve syllables. See Epic, Hexameter. 
 
 HE'RPES. (Gr. ipirtiv, to creep.) A cutaneous disease, 
 consisting of clusters of minute vesicles generally containing 
 a brownish or milky lymph : in about eight or ten days they 
 scab off, and other crops appear. It is not limited to any 
 part ofthe body, but is generally preceded by more or less 
 fever and pain or irritation of the part. It is often called the 
 tetters. Another form of it constitutes the slmiglcs. These 
 eruptions are sometimes confounded with erysipelas, from 
 which they are distinguished by the want of tumefaction 
 and considerable constitutional symptoms and by the natural 
 state of the*skin between the crops of eruption : they are 
 distinguished from some similar eruptions by the vesicular 
 form of the elevations at their first appearance, by their regu • 
 lar progress, and limited duration. 
 
 HE'RPETO'LOG Y. (Gr. ipirtroc, a reptile ; Aoyo?, a dis- 
 course.) That branch of science which treats of the history 
 of reptiles. 
 
 HE'RPETON. (Gr. tp-reroc, a reptile.) A genus of sct- 
 pents allied loJZryz ; and characterized by two soft promi- 
 nences covered with scales which are appended to tho 
 muzzle. Botanists have a herpeton which is a section of 
 I 'iola. 
 
 - ■HE'RRING.' (Gem), beer, an army ; in reference to the 
 great numbers in which the fishes so called appear, at stated 
 seasons, along our coasts.) The name is commonly applied 
 to two distinct but closely allied species of the genus Clupea, 
 Linmcus : to the one Mr. Yarrell restricts the name of Clupr.i 
 harengus ; the other is denominated Clupea Lcachii, in com- 
 memoration of the excellent naturalist who first appears to 
 have been aware that our coast produced a second species 
 of herring. 
 
 The genus Clupea is so nearly allied to the genus Salmo 
 that they are both included in the same natural family, un- 
 der the name of Halecoids, by M. Agasaz; the principal ex 
 ternal difference consists in the absence of the small adipose 
 dorsal fin in the Clupea. But in the clupeoids, as in the sal- 
 
 557
 
 HERRING FISHERY. 
 
 mon tribe, the upper maxillary as well as the intermaxillary 
 bones enter into the formation of the mouth, and are both 
 armed with teeth ; the body is always covered with numer- 
 ous scales; and, in the greater number of the herring tri'ie, 
 there is an air-bladder, and the duodenum is complicated 
 with many cmca, or pyloric appendages. 
 
 The annual migration of the herring is not, as has been 
 described, from one latitude to another, but simply from a 
 deeper to a shallower part of the ocean. The common 
 species, impelled by the stimulus of the increasing burden of 
 milt or row, quits the deeper recesses of the ocean, where 
 it has passed the winter and spring months, and approaches 
 the shallower water near the coasts, where the ova may be 
 deposited, and impregnated with the requisite amount of 
 heat, light, and oxygen for their development. 
 
 The common herring visits different parts of our coast in 
 autumn, generally earlier on the southern than on the north- 
 ern localities, and deposits its ova and spawn towards the 
 end of October. In this state the fish are termed "shotten 
 herring," and they retire from the shore into deep water. 
 
 Leach's herring has a different season of sexual migration. 
 " It is found," says Mr. Yarrell, " heavy with roe at the end 
 of January, which it does not deposittill the middle of Febru- 
 ary. Its length is not more than seven inches and a half, 
 and its depth near two inches." 
 
 During the long period in which the herring stays in deep 
 water, the shoals occasionally travel so far as to appear at 
 the next season of oviposition at a different part of the coast 
 from that where they were previously abundant. Hence the 
 herring has been described as a most capricious fish ; and 
 it is truly said, "that there is scarcely a fishing station round 
 the British islands that has not experienced in the visits of 
 this fish the greatest variations, both as to time and quantity, 
 without any accountable reason. 
 
 Herrings are taken in drift nets, and during the night. The 
 stretching of the nets in the daytime is forbidden, as it is 
 supposed that the practice would alarm and drive away the 
 shoal. The darkest nights, and a breeze that ruffles the sur- 
 face of the water, are the circumstances which most favour 
 the capture of the herring. 
 
 HERRING FISHERY. See Fisheries. 
 
 HE'RRNHUT. (Ger. herr, the Lord; hut, protection.) 
 An establishment in Upper Lusatia, comprising, it is said, at 
 present 120 houses, and 1500 inhabitants, which was found- 
 ed by a few Moravians about the year 1722, under the pa- 
 tronage of Count Zinzendorf. The principles of the society 
 thus formed are seclusion from the world, the enjoyment of 
 a contemplative life, and the possession of all goods in com- 
 mon. Its members are bound together, under the title of 
 Moravian Brethren, by strict laws and observances. Accu- 
 sations have been thrown out against them of their indulging, 
 in their retirement, in many licentious practices ; but it is 
 certain that their industry supplies many of the markets of 
 Germany with various useful and ornamental articles of 
 handiwork ; that their zeal has prompted them to establish 
 affiliated societies in many parts of Europe and America ; 
 and that in religious matters they are neither extravagant 
 themselves, nor intolerant of others. (See Mosheim, vol. vi.) 
 
 HERSE, HERSI'LLON. In Fortification, a lattice or 
 portcullis armed with pikes, to block up a gateway, or im- 
 pede the march of an enemy. 
 
 HER'THA (sometimes written Aertha, Aortha, and Eor- 
 the.) In German Mythology, the name generally assigned 
 in modern times to the chief divinity of the ancient German 
 and Scandinavian nations. She was worshipped under a 
 variety of names, of which the chief were exactly analogous 
 to those of Terra, Rhea, Cybele, and Ops, among the Greeks 
 anil Romans. Long before the Christian era the knowledge 
 of Hertha appeared to have been extended over a great por- 
 tion of northern Europe; for in his work, De Moribus Oer- 
 manorum, c. 40, in which the reader will find a graphic de- 
 scription of the peculiarities of her worship. Tacitus speaks 
 of the wonderful unanimity which tribes that had no other 
 feature in common displayed in worshipping this goddess, 
 whom he designates Herthus, or Mother Earth. Her chief 
 sanctuary was situated, according to the same authority, in 
 a sacred grove in an island of the ocean, in insula oceani, 
 which, by some writers, has been supposed to be Riga, and 
 by others Zetland or Heligoland ; but no modern researches 
 have been able accurately to fix its locality. A great deal of 
 curious information upon this subject is to be found in 
 Grimm's Deutsche Mjthologie, chap. x. 
 
 HESPE'RI A. (Gr. 'Earcpia, Evening ; the name of the 
 daughter of Atlas.) A genus of butterflies, now the type Of 
 a family, including several subgenera, to some of which be- 
 long the British species, eight or ten in number. 
 
 HESPE'RIDES. In Greek Mythology the daughters of 
 Night, or the granddaughters of Hesperus the brother of 
 Atlas, three or seven in number, possessors of the fabulous 
 garden of golden fruit watched over by an enchanted dragon 
 at the western extremities of the earth. Such at least is the 
 most ordinary form of the fable, but it is very variously rep- 
 558 
 
 HETEROGENEOUS QUANTITIES. 
 
 resented ; and these varieties are collected by M. Massieu, in 
 a very complete dissertation on the subject, in vol. iii. of the 
 M moires de VJlc. des Inscrip. et Belles Lettres. There are 
 also observations on the subject in vol. xviii., p. 54. There 
 is a difference among the mythologisls whether the treasures 
 ol the Hesperides were in reality fruit or sheep, the word 
 l*rj\a signifying either (JDiod. Sic, lib. v.) ; but the former is 
 the received form of the story among the poets (Ovid, 
 Metam., 4; Virg., Eel., 6; Jlpollon. Jihod.; and in the 
 well-known lines of Milton, 
 
 Hesperus and his daughters three 
 Singing around the golden tree. 
 
 and, the oldest of all, Hesiod, 
 
 'A(j pr)\a irepnv k\vtov ilKtavow, 
 
 XPvoea KaXa ueXovm, (pepovra re bzvbpta Kapirov. 
 
 Some have explained this pleasing fable by the groves of 
 
 orange and lemon trees, known to the Greeks only in the 
 
 western parte of Africa. 
 
 HESPERI'DIUM. In Botany, a many-celled, few-seeded, 
 superior, indehiscent fruit, covered by a spongy separable 
 rind ; the cells easily separable from each other, and con- 
 taining a mass of pulp, in which the seeds are embedded — 
 example, the orange. 
 
 HE'SYCHASTS. (Gr. fjavxaorat, from tjavxtct, quiet; 
 Quietists.) In Eccl. History, a singular class of fanatics, 
 who were established in the 15th century in some of the 
 Greek monasteries of Mount Athos. They pretended to 
 have attained a perfect ulterior life of devotional repose by 
 intense contemplation. One of their maxims, apparently 
 derived from some of the strange practices of the Indian as- 
 cetics, directs the disciple to "raise his spirit above all vain 
 and transient things, repose his head on his breast, and turn 
 his eyes with his whole power of meditation upon his navel." 
 Hence these visionaries derived the nickname of Ouifia- 
 \oipvxoi, or Umbilicarii : they were also termed Thaborites, 
 from their notion respecting a divine light inhabiting the 
 heart of the devotee. ( Waddingtoii's Hist, of the Church, 
 chap, xxvi.) 
 
 HETiE'RIA. (From the Greek iraipua, derived from 
 Zraipo;, a companion.) This word is frequently used by 
 classical writers to signify an association of any description ; 
 thus the fraternities of the early Christians are called Hetse- 
 rioe. In modern times, two celebrated associations among the 
 modern Greeks have assumed the name. The first was the 
 Hetffiria of the Philomusoi, or Friends of the Muses ; a so- 
 ciety formed for the purposes of education, founded (it is 
 said) by Capodistrias, about 1814; it established schools at 
 Athens and Milite in Thessaly, and numbered at one time 
 80,000 associates. It was dissolved in 1821, but renewed in 
 1824, when Athens was in the hands of the Greeks. The 
 more celebrated political Hetteria owes its foundation to the 
 celebrated Rigas, who died in 1798. It was renewed about 
 1816, extended its ramifications through all Greece, and pro- 
 duced the Greek revolution begun by Ypsilanti in 1821. 
 
 HETEROCE'PHALOUS. (Gr. ercpos, various, and kc 
 <pa\r), a head. In Composite plants, when some flower heads 
 are male and others female in the same individual. 
 
 HE'TEROCHRO'MOUS. (Gr. htpos, and xp^a, colour.) 
 When in a flower-head the florets of the centre or disk are 
 different in colour from those of the circumference or ray. 
 
 HE'TEROHOX (Gr. htpos, and So$a, opinion), signifying 
 a person who holds opinions different from some standard 
 with which they are compared, is opposed in theological 
 language to orthodox, one who holds the right opinion. 
 The standard of orthodoxy, by which all heterodox opinions 
 must be tried, resides, humanly speaking, in the judgment of 
 each particular sect of believers. It is, however, generally 
 allowed to represent the highest and strictest interpretation 
 of the creeds which were received in the ancient church, and 
 in England is conceded by general consent to what is called 
 the High Church party. The use of these terms is said to 
 have come into fashion in England in the beginning of the 
 last century, when there arose a party within the church 
 who, from the laxity with which they interpreted its formu- 
 las, and the assumed liberality of the views they took of its 
 nature and authority, were styled Latitudinarians. The 
 High Church or Orthodox party, on the other hand, were 
 those who pushed their opposition to these innovators to an 
 extreme length, but contented themselves with branding the 
 others with the title of Heterodox, as a milder term than that 
 of heretical, to which they would probably have been sub- 
 jected in earlier and more violent times. 
 
 HETERO'G AMOUS. (Gr. htpos, and yauos, marriage.) 
 In Grasses, when the arrangement of the sexes is different 
 in different spikelets from the same root, as in Jlndropogon : 
 in Composite plants, where the florets are of different sexes 
 in the same flower-head. 
 
 HE'TEROGE'NEOUS ATTRACTION. See Affinity, 
 Chemical. 
 
 HETEROGENEOUS QUANTITIES, in Mathematics, 
 are such as are incapable of being compared together in re- 

 
 HETEROGYNA. 
 
 spect of magnitude, as lines and surfaces, surfaces and 
 
 Kulids, &C. 
 
 IlETERO'GYNA. (Gr. eTcpos, and yvvn, a female.) A 
 tribe of Aculeate Hymenoptera, in which the females are of 
 different kinds ; one fertile, the other infertile, called neuters, 
 as the ants, FormiciUcB and Mittillidm. See those words. 
 
 HETEROME'R ANS, Htteromera. (Gr. frtpos, and /xnpos, 
 a leg.) Signifying that the legs have a different structure 
 from one another. The Coleopterous insects are so called 
 which have five joints in the tarsus of the first and second 
 pairs of legs, and only four joints in the tarsus of the third 
 pair. Latreillc divides this somewhat artificial section into 
 four groups. 
 
 1. Jlclasomes, having the wing-covers hard, wings gener- 
 ally wanting, claws simple, and maxilla; with a hook. — Ex. : 
 l'imeliidce, Blapsidce, TcnebrionidtB. 
 
 H. Tazicornes, having the wing-covers hard, wings present, 
 antenna; perfoliate or clavate, claws simple, maxilla; without 
 a hook. — Ex.: Diapcrida, Cossyphida. 
 
 3. Stenelytres, having the wing-covers hard and contract- 
 ed posteriorly, wings present, antennae simple, claws simple 
 or toothed. — Ex. : Helopida, Cistelidce, &c. 
 
 ■1. Traclielides, having the wing-covers flexible, wings 
 piesent, head inserted upon a neck, claws bifid. — Ex. : Meloe, 
 JMordclla, Horia, Lagria, &c. 
 
 HE'TEROPODS, Heteropoda. (Gr. ctcOos, and move, 
 foot.) The name of an order of Gastropods, comprehend- 
 ing those which have the foot compressed, and in the form 
 of a thin vertical fin; as in the Carinaria. 
 
 HETERO'PTERANS, Heteroptera. (Gr. tripos, and 
 -Tepoi', a wing.) The name of a section of Hemipterans, 
 comprehending those in which the hemelytra terminate ab- 
 ruptly bv a membranous appendage. 
 
 HETERO'SCH, or HETERO'SCLYNS. (Gr. crepo;, an- 
 other, and oKia, shadow.) An epithet applied by the ancient 
 geographers to the inhabitants of the two temperate zones, 
 because their shadows at midday are always projected in 
 the same direction in respect of themselves, but in opposite 
 directions in respect of each other ; in one case to the north, 
 and in the other to the south. 
 
 HETERO'TROPAL. (Gr. frepo;, and rpmoi, I turn.) A 
 term applied to the embryo of a seed when the former lies 
 across the latter; that is to say, neither pointing to its base 
 nor apex. 
 
 HE'XACHORD. (Gr. i\, and %op5n.) In Music, a pro- 
 gression of six notes, to which Guido attached the syllables 
 ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la. The hexachord is also called a sixth ; 
 and is twofold, greater and less. The former is composed 
 of two greater, two less tones, and one greater semitone, 
 making five intervals ; the latter of two greater tones, one 
 lesser and two greater semitones. 
 
 HEXAE'DRON, or CUBE. (Gr. i I, siz, and edpa, seat.) 
 One of the five regular or Platonic solids, so called from its 
 having siz faces. The whole surface of a hexaedron is 
 equal to 24 times the square of the radius of the inscribed 
 sphere, and to 8 times the square of the radius of the cir- 
 cumscribed sphere. Its solid content is 8 times the cube of 
 the inscribed sphere. The other four regular solids are the 
 tetraedron or pyramid, the octaedron, the dodecaedron, and 
 the icosaedron. 
 
 HE'XAGON. (Gr. /£, and ywvia, angle.) In Geometry, 
 a plane figure bounded by six straight lines. When these 
 are equal, the hexagon is regular. The side of a regular 
 hexagon is equal to the radius of its circumscribing circle, a 
 property which has numerous useful applications. The area 
 is equal to fhe square of the side multiplied into the constant 
 number 2.598076; that is, into three times half the tangent 
 of 60o. 
 
 HEXA'METER. (Gr. [*, and ptrpov, measure.) The 
 most important species of verse used by the Greeks and 
 Romans. It consisted of six feet, either dactyls or spondees, 
 which might be used indifferently in any part of the verse ; 
 with two important exceptions, that the last foot must in- 
 variably be a spondee, and the last but one a dactyl. In 
 some instances a spondee is introduced into the fifth foot, or 
 last but one ; a license which, if judiciously used, gives an 
 agreeable variety to the otherwise unbroken' fall of the verse, 
 which is thence termed spondaic. (See Foot, Cesura.) 
 Hexameter verse was employed on almost every topic to 
 which poetry can be applied. In modem times several 
 poets of France, England, and Germany have attempted to 
 introduce this measure into the language of their respective 
 countries. The few specimens we have seen of it in French 
 appeared to us wholly unsuccessful. The little countenance 
 given to the attempts made by Dr.. Southey and others, to 
 introduce it among ourselves, is conclusive, we think, against 
 its ever being generally adopted in England ; but, on the 
 other hand, it lias been cultivated in Germany with great 
 success, as the Hermann and Dorothea of Goethe, and many 
 other examples that might be cited, abundantly prove. How 
 admirably the spirit of this measure had been caught by the 
 learned Voss, and transfused into his translation of the great 
 
 HIEROGLYPHICS. 
 
 Virgilian and Homeric poems, is known to every scholar ; 
 and a similar instance may be seen in a beautiful little poem 
 in the same language, called Hannchen und die KuclUein, by 
 Ebcrhard. The qualities and effect of the hexameter have 
 been well described by Schiller in the following distich, of 
 which we subjoin an excellent translation by Coleridge ; 
 who, by the way, we may state, was long supposed to be 
 the original author : 
 
 Schwindelnd tragt er dich fort auf rastlos stromenden Wogen ; 
 
 Hinter dir siehst du, du siehst vor dir nur Hinimel und Meer. 
 
 Strongly it bears us along, in swelling and limitless billows j 
 
 Nothing before and nothing behind but the sky and the ocean. 
 
 (See Quart. Rev., vol. xlii.; and Edin. Rev., vol. xxxv.) 
 
 HEXA'NDROUS. (Gr. l£, and avvp, a male.) Any flower 
 having six stamens. 
 
 HE'XAPLE. (Gr. !£, and dirXou, I ezplain.) The com- 
 bination of six versions of the Old Testament by Origen is so 
 called: viz., the Septuagint, Aquila, Theodotian, Symma- 
 chus, one found at Jericho, and another at Nicopolis. See 
 Biblical History, &c. 
 
 HE'XAPODS, Hexapoda. (Gr. i\, and novs, a foot.) A 
 name applied by Mr. Kirby to a sub-order of Apterous insects, 
 including those which have not more than six legs. 
 
 HE'XASTYLE. (Gr. fy, and otCAoj, a column.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, that species of temple or other building having 
 six columns in front. 
 
 HIA'TUS. (Lat. yawning, gaping.) A word which has 
 passed into several modern languages. In Diplomatics and 
 Bibliography, it signifies a deficiency in the text of'an author, 
 as from a passage erased, worn out, &c. In Grammar and 
 Prosody, it properly signifies the occurrence of a final vowel, 
 followed immediately by the initial vowel of another word, 
 without the suppression of either by an apostrophe. This, 
 in Greek and Latin poetry, was only admissible in certain 
 excepted cases ; as where, in Greek, a final long vowel is 
 succeeded by an initial short vowel, and becomes sometimes 
 short by position ; or in Latin, where the ctesura (see 
 Cssura) gave an additional force to the first vowel, as in 
 the celebrated line, 
 
 " Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam," 
 which affords an instance of both, the first hiatus being oc- 
 casioned by the cassura ; the second, an imitation of the Greek 
 prosody. In French the hiatus is carefully avoided : in Eng- 
 lish less so, although by the more accurate poets still regard- 
 ed as a blemish, except in some instances where a long vowel 
 is followed by a short one. The worst species of hiatus is 
 where the same vowel sound is repeated. 
 
 HIBI'SCUS (for Hybriscus ; Gr. vSpig, haughtiness). A 
 genus of very handsome plants, belonging to the Malvaceous 
 order, with unusually large and showy flowers. They are 
 numerous in the tropics, where they generally form fine 
 trees: but some of the species are only annual. Of the lat- 
 ter //. trionum is a commonly cultivated plant, known in the 
 seed-shops under the name of bladder katmia. Very few of 
 the species are of any interest. H. Syriacus is the Mthaia 
 frutez of shrubberies ; H. abelmoschus yields the musk-seed 
 of pharmacy ; and H. esculcntus, the Gobbo or Ochro of the 
 tropics, bears seed-vessels abounding so much in mucilage 
 as to be a common ingredient in the soups of the hotter 
 climates of the world. H. Rosa sinensis, a Chinese plant, 
 is remarkable for the property possessed by its flowers of 
 dyeing black. 
 
 HIDA'LGO. A Spanish nobleman of the lower class; 
 literally "hijo d'algo," son of somebody; in Portuguese, 
 "fidalgo." It is absurdly derived by B. St. Vincent from 
 " hijo de goto." The title is now obsolete. 
 
 HIDE. (Germ, haut.) This term is limited in commerce 
 to the strong and thick skin of the horse, ox, and other large 
 animals. 
 
 HIDE-BOUND. In Farriery, applied to a certain dis- 
 ease of cows and horses in which the skin adheres to their 
 sides. 
 HIDE OF LAND. See Hyde. 
 
 Hl'ERA PICRA. (Gr. Upos, sacred, and rriKpog, bitter.) 
 A compound of aloes and canella bark made into a powder 
 with honey. 
 
 HI'ERARCHY (Gr. hpog, and apxu, I rule), is a general 
 term, comprehending the various ranks and orders of the 
 sacred ministry, whether of angels, according to an ancient 
 opinion, or of the pastors of the church of God upon earth. 
 
 HIEROGLY'PHICS. (Gr. upo;, sacred, and y\v(pu>, I 
 engrave.) Scripture-writing or picture-writing ; i.e., the ex- " 
 pression of a series of ideas by representations of visible ob- 
 jects. The name is more peculiarly applied to a species of 
 writing in use among the ancient Egyptians. According to 
 the system of Champollion, the hieroglyphical writing of the 
 Esyptians consists of three different species of characters : 
 1. The hieroglyphic, properly so called, in which the repre- 
 sentation of the object conveys the idea of the object itself; 
 either entire, or in an abridged form. Many words were thus 
 expressed, chiefly those denoting common visible objects.
 
 HIEROGRAMMATISTS. 
 
 These are termed by Champollion figurative, and divided 
 into figurative proper, figurative conventional, and figura- 
 tive abridged. 2. The second class of hieroglyphical char- 
 acters consists of those which represent ideas by images of 
 visible objects, used as symbols ; and these are generally em- 
 ployed in the expression of abstract ideas or complex modes : 
 as, a tumult, represented by a man throwing arrows ; adora- 
 tion, by a censer containing incense, &c. In some of these 
 the connexion between the type and antitype is obvious ; in 
 others, it depends on associations which are not understood 
 by us, and consequently cannot be traced. These characters 
 are what the Greeks more peculiarly termed hieroglyphics : 
 they are called by Champollion symbolical. 3. The third 
 class consists of phonetic characters, in which the sign rep- 
 resents, not an object, but a sound. This, according to 
 Champollion, was effected by the following device. The 
 figure representing a letter was the likeness of some animal 
 or other object of which the name began with that letter. 
 Thus Champollion has constructed an alphabet of initials, 
 in which the letter A is represented by an eagle, the initial 
 letter of the Egyptian word " eagle" ( Ahorn) being A ; and 
 so forth. Twenty-nine elementary sounds were thus repre- 
 sented. But the writer was not confined to the use of one 
 representative of a letter only. At first sight it would ap- 
 pear that all objects, the initial of whose name was a par- 
 ticular letter, might be used to express that letter ; but cus- 
 tom seems to have applied only a certain number of objects 
 to this use: some letters have eighteen or nineteen known 
 representatives, others six or seven. In selecting out of these, 
 the writer seems to have been guided by notions of what was 
 suitable in reference to the word which he was writing ; as, 
 for example, the S in the word Si, son, is commonly repre- 
 sented by the figure of a goose, on account, according to 
 Horus Apollo, of the supposed attachment of that bird for its 
 young. The honour of the recent progress made in the ex- 
 planation of hieroglyphical writing is divided between the 
 English Orientalist Dr. Young, and the Frenchman Cham- 
 pollion ; but the latter appears to have had no small share 
 in the original discoveries, as well as to have carried the 
 science to a high degree of cultivation. Besides the hiero- 
 glyphic character, the Egyptians used the hieratic and 
 demotic, which vere, both of them, conversions of the hiero- 
 glyphic into a kind of current hand : the latter nearly alpha- 
 betical. The most civilized people of America, the Mexi- 
 cans, at the time of the Spanish conquest, had advanced as 
 far as the discovery of hieroglyphical or picture writing, al- 
 though they did not possess a written alphabet. The Chinese 
 writing was, originally, wholly ideographic; i. e., expressing 
 ideas by symbols (answering to the second class of Egyptian 
 hieroglyphics, with some admixture of the first). But in 
 process of time the greater part of the characters have be- 
 come simply phonetic. (See Dr. Young's " Egypt" in the 
 Enc. Brit., and his " Account of Recent Discoveries," 1823 ; 
 the works of Champollion ; Jablonski, Pantheon JEgyptia- 
 cum ; Quart. Review, vols, xliii., liii. ; Edinb. Rev., vol. xiv. ; 
 SalVs Essays ; Seyflarth, Rudimenta Hicroglyphices, 1825.) 
 
 HIEROGRA'MMATISTS. (Literally, sacred writers.) 
 The name given to certain Egyptian priests whose duty it 
 was to decipher hieroglyphics and preside over the religious 
 services. 
 
 HIEROMNE'MON. (Gr. hpouvijuwv, an observer of sac- 
 rifices.) In Ancient History, the title of one of the two depu- 
 ties sent to each meeting of the Amphictyonic Council by 
 each tribe composing that confederacy. His office was, as 
 the name imports, to superintend the religious rites on the 
 occasion. 
 
 HIERO'NYMITES, or JERONYMITES. An order so 
 named from its patron St. Jerome. It originated in Spain, 
 and comprehended religious of both sexes. The Hieronymite 
 convents are usually in mountainous and solitary places, in 
 imitation of the retreat of St. Jerome to his hermitage at 
 Bethlehem. 
 
 HI'EROPHA'NTES. (Gr. Upog, and U(VW , / show.) 
 The title of the priest who initiated candidates at the Eleu- 
 sinian Mysteries. He was necessarily a citizen of Athens, 
 and held the office for life, which was regarded as one of 
 high religious importance. (Meursius on the Eleus. Mys- 
 teries ; Potter's Grecian Antiquities, vol. i. ; Mem. de VAcad. 
 des Inscr. vol. xxi.) 
 
 HIGH CHURCH. In English History, an epithet usual- 
 ly applied to those opinions which tend to exalt the eccle- 
 siastical power, and to the parties which embrace them. 
 According to Burnet {Times, vol. ii., p. 249), the term "high 
 church party" began to be used about the year 1700. Those 
 who belonged to it were at that time considered to be un- 
 friendly to the settlement of the nation at the Revolution, 
 and disposed to Jacobite principles. Under Queen Anne, 
 high church principles were for a short time in the ascend- 
 ency ; but after the accession of George I., in 1715, it is diffi- 
 cult to point out any political party which has seriously em- 
 braced them. But in matters relating to the discipline of the 
 church itself, a " high church" and a " low church" party, 
 560 
 
 HIGHWAY. 
 
 the former attaching more and the latter less value to eccle- 
 siastical dignities and ordinances, have always existed in the 
 establishment of England. 
 
 HIGH COMMISSION, COURT OF, in English History, 
 was erected by 1 Eliz., c. 1, as an ecclesiastical tribunal, 
 without power to fine or imprison. The commissioners seem, 
 however, to have committed various arbitrary acts towards 
 the end of that queen's reign. One of their warrants was 
 declared of no authority in 42 Eliz. Under Charles I. it as- 
 sumed enormous and illegal powers, becoming a court for 
 the trial of all manner of offences which might be construed 
 as ecclesiastical ; and was one of the grievances complained 
 of and abolished by the Dong Parliament, 16 Car. 1. 
 
 HIGHGATE RESIN. A fossil resin discovered on cutting 
 the road through Highgate Hill : it is imbedded in the clay 
 in detached nodules. 
 
 HI'GHNESS. A title first attributed to bishops; after- 
 wards to European kings in general (succeeded by Majesty 
 in the sixteenth century), afterwards to sovereign princes 
 and their descendants. The title of " Royal Highness" was 
 first assumed by the Duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIU., 
 in 1631 ; and it is now conferred on all royal princes and 
 princesses, whether in the direct line of succession or not. 
 The elector of Hesse Cassel and the grand dukes of Ger- 
 many have also the title of royal highness. The children 
 of the emperors of Russia and Austria, and their descendants, 
 are styled imperial highness ; and all other princes not in- 
 cluded in the above category bear the title serene highness, 
 which is a literal translation of the term Durchlaucht, by 
 which they are addressed in Germany. 
 
 HIGHWAY. A highway is a way over which the pub- 
 lic at large have a right of passage, and includes a horse- 
 road, or a mere footpath, as well as a carriage road. It was 
 considered formerly that no way which did not lead to a 
 market town was a highway ; but it is now settled that any 
 way common to all people, without distinction, is a highway. 
 A public navigable river is also called a highway. The 
 right of the public in a highway is, however, a right of pas- 
 sage over it, and nothing more. The soil itself, and all the 
 profits upon it, as trees, or underneath it, as mines, minerals, 
 &c, and also any strips of waste land lying between the 
 highway and the lands adjoining it on either side, belong, in 
 moieties, to the owners of such adjoining lands. But if such 
 strips of waste land be contiguous to or communicate with 
 an open common, they are then taken to be part of the com- 
 mon. A highway may originate from a continual user of 
 land by the public in traversing it without interruption from 
 the owner, or from an express dedication of it by him to their 
 use. A much shorter period of user will establish a right in 
 the public than a right in any private person to a way ; the 
 user in the former case being so open and notorious that the 
 owner of the land may fairly be presumed to have had early 
 notice of it, and to have assented to it by not opposing it. 
 Accordingly, a public way may be acquired by an enjoyment 
 for five or six years, although twenty years' enjoyment is 
 necessary in the case of a private way. A highway may 
 also take its origin from statute or from necessity. A high- 
 way originates from necessity when the accustomed line of 
 highway is out of repair so as to be impassable ; in which 
 case the public have a right to traverse the adjoining ground, 
 even if it be sown with grain. 
 
 The duty of keeping highways in repair is cast by the 
 common law upon the occupiers of lands in the parish gen- 
 erally; but particular persons may be liable to repair by 
 prescription or tenure. They may also be liable in respect 
 of enclosure; that is, if a highway be free from fences on 
 either side, and the owner of the adjoining land chooses to 
 fence it off from the highway, he will then be liable in re- 
 spect of his enclosure, because he has thereby deprived the 
 public of using his land as a way of necessity, in the event 
 of the original highway becoming impassable for want of re- 
 pair. The omission to repair on the part of the parish or 
 party liable is an indictable offence, and may be punished 
 accordingly. Various statutes regulate the mode in which 
 the occupiers in a parish are to contribute labour, carts, and 
 cattle, for the purpose of repairing highways, and to perform 
 upon them what is therefore called statute duty. Survey- 
 ors, also, are annually appointed in furtherance of the same 
 objects. Highways are frequently placed by the legislature 
 under the jurisdiction of trustees; such highways are pop- 
 ularly called " turnpike roads." If sufficient materials 
 for the repair of roads cannot be found on the waste lands 
 of a parish, the surveyors have authority to take them from 
 the lands of any private person ("such lands not being a 
 garden, yard, avenue to a house, lawn, park, paddock, or en- 
 closed plantation, or enclosed wood, not exceeding one hun- 
 dred acres in extent"), on making him satisfaction for the 
 materials taken away and the damage done, to be ascertain- 
 ed by the justices at special sessions. Any expenses incurred 
 by the above proceedings may be reimbursed to the surveyors 
 by an assessment made upon the occupiers in the parish, un- 
 der the authority of two justices.
 
 HIMANTOPUS. 
 
 The laws for the regulation of highways have recently 
 been consolidated and amended by the 5 & 6 Will. 4, c. 50. 
 By previous acts of parliament, and by the common law, the 
 county at large were bound to repair a public bridge, and 
 also the highways at the end of such bridge to the extent 
 of 300 feet. The recent act provides that in future, when 
 any bridge shall be built which the county shall be liable 
 to repair, " all highways leading to, passing over, and next 
 adjoining to such bridge, shall be from time to time repaired 
 by the parish, person, or body politic or corporate, or trus- 
 tees of a turnpike road, who were by law, before the erec- 
 tion of the bridge, bound to repair the highway." A most 
 important alteration has been effected by the same act with 
 respect to the creation of highways by dedication. Former- 
 ly, as appears above, if land had been traversed as a way 
 by the public for a few years without interruption, a high- 
 way was at once established, and the liability to repair it 
 was cast upon the parish ; but by this act no road is to be 
 deemed a highway which the inhabitants of a parish shall 
 be compellable to repair, unless the person proposing to 
 dedicate it to the use of the public shall give three months' 
 notice to the surveyor of the parish of his intention to dedi- 
 cate such highway, and the inhabitants of the parish, in 
 X'estry assembled, shall deem it of sufficient utility to them 
 to justify its being kept in repair at the expense of the par- 
 ish. If the vestry shall not deem it of such utility, a ma- 
 gistrate, on the surveyor's application, is to summon the 
 party proposing to dedicate the new highway to appear be- 
 fore trie justices at special sessions, and the question as to 
 its utility is to be determined at their discretion. 
 
 HIMA'NTOPUS. (Gr. i M as, a thong, and novc, a foot : 
 the term Himantopedes is given by Pliny to certain birds 
 remarkable for the slenderness of their legs.) The name is 
 now restricted to a genus of Grallce or wading-birds, in 
 which the legs are proportionally longer and more attenua- 
 ted than in any other species: the bill is long and slender, 
 depressed at the base, and compressed towards the tip, with 
 the nasal groove extending half the length of the bill. This 
 genus includes the British species called the common stilt, 
 or longshanks (Himantopus mclanopterus) . It is an occa- 
 sional visiter, and a rare bird. 
 
 HI'PPIDES. The name under which Latreille and 
 Eichwald designate a family of the tribe of Macrourous 
 Decapod Crustaceans, typified by the genus Hippa. 
 
 HI'PPOBO'SCA. (Gr. imroc, a horse, and (iooKU, J feed.) 
 A genus of Dipterous insects belonging to the Viviparous 
 section of the order, in which the young are not only exclu- 
 ded from the ovum, but undergo their first metamorphosis 
 in the womb of the parent, and are brought forth in the 
 pupa state. {Pupipara, Latr. ; Homaloptera,L,each.) The 
 genus is now the type of a numerous family (Hippobos- 
 cid(s), generally known by the name of "forest flies," and 
 divided by recent entomologists into numerous subgen- 
 era. The horse-fly (Hippobosca equina) is the type of the 
 familv. 
 
 HIPPOCRATEACE^E. (Hippocratea, one of the gene- 
 ra.) This is a small natural order of plants, distinguished 
 from Celustracea by little except the flowers being trian- 
 drous, and the filaments broad at the base. There are no 
 species of any general interest included in the order. 
 
 HIPPOCRE'NE. (Gr. fanoc, and Kprjvn, a fountain.) A 
 celebrated fountain at the foot of Mount Helicon, supposed 
 to have been produced by the horse Pegasus having struck 
 his foot against the mountain. It was regarded in antiquity 
 with peculiar veneration, as it was believed to be a favour- 
 ite haunt of the Muses, and was consequently looked upon 
 as one of the chief sources whence the poets drew their in- 
 spiration. See Muses, Pegasus. 
 
 HI'PPODROME. (Gr. t-mzos, and ?pouo;, a course.) In 
 Ancient Architecture, a place appropriated by the Greeks 
 to equestrian exercises, and in which the prizes were con- 
 tended for. The most celebrated in antiquity of these was 
 at Olympia, which was four leagues long and one in breadth. 
 The term is still in use. 
 
 HIPPOPO'TAMUS. (Gr. imroy, and wrapo;, a river.) 
 A genus of aquatic Pachyderms, represented at the present 
 time by a single species {Hippopotamus amphibius, L.), 
 which inhabits the rivers of Africa. The generic charac- 
 ters are four toes on all the feet, enclosed in small hoofs ; 
 six molar teeth on each side of both jaws ; very large and 
 strong canines, of which the upper ones are nearly straight, 
 the lower ones curved, and working upon each other so as 
 to produce a chisel-edge ; four incisors in each jaw, the up- 
 per ones short and conical, and bent inwards towards the 
 mouth ; the under ones long, cylindrical, and pointins for- 
 wards. The hippopotamus lives, during the daytime, im- 
 merged in the waters of its native rivers, rising to the sur- 
 face and protruding its nostrils for the purpose of breathing : 
 it conies to the land to feed during the night. Remains of 
 species of hippopotamus are found in the tertiary formations 
 of Europe, one of which hardly exceeded the size of a hog. 
 In the tertiary beds at the base of the Himalaya range, an 
 
 HISTER. 
 
 extinct species of hippopotamus has been discovered which 
 had six incisor teeth in each jaw. 
 
 HI'PPOPUS. (Gr. Imros, a horse ; tvvs, a foot.) The 
 name of a genus of Acephalous Mollusks, significative of 
 the resemblance which their shell bears to the foot of a 
 horse. The valves of this shell are equal, regular, but ine- 
 quilateral and transverse; the hinge has two compressed 
 unequal teeth ; the ligament is marginal and external. The 
 Hippopi belong to the family Tridacnidce of the Lamarchian 
 system; but are distinguished from the genus Tridacna by 
 having the posterior slope and lunule closed, or nearly so, 
 and the inner margin dentated at that part. The spines 
 which arm the ribs are tubular, and are never arched or 
 vaulted. The type of the genus is the Hippopus maculatus, 
 or spotted hippopus ; the JEstrea hippopus of Linnaeus. 
 
 HIPPU'RIC ACID. (Gr. Imros, and ovpov, urine.) A 
 peculiar compound deposited from the urine of the horse 
 when it is mixed with muriatic acid. It closely resembles, 
 and is sometimes substituted for benzoic acid ; but it con- 
 tains nitrogen, and its salts are distinct from the benzoates. 
 
 HI'PPURITES. A genus of extinct Mollusks, supposed 
 to be bivalves, and referred to the extensive group called 
 Rudistes by Lamarck. The principal valve of the present 
 genus is of a sub-cylindrical or elongated conical form, trav- 
 ersed by one or more internal longitudinal ridges, and closed 
 by a small sub-circular discoid valve like an operculum. 
 
 The Hippurites are characteristic of the rocks of the cre- 
 taceous era in the south of France, Spain, Greece, and other 
 countries bordering the Mediterranean. 
 
 HIPS. (Sax. hipe.) In Architecture, the inclined diag- 
 onal edges of a roof where the sides intersect ; hence a hip- 
 ped roof is one in which two sides, at least, must intersect. 
 
 HI'RCINE. (Lat. hircus, a he-goat.) A term applied by 
 Chevreul to a liquid, fatty matter which may be separated 
 from mutton suet, and gives it a peculiar rank smell, resem- 
 bling that emitted by the male goat at the period of the rut- 
 When saponified, it produces hircic acid. 
 
 HI'RING AND SERVICE, in Law, constitute the rela- 
 tion between master and servant. The general rule with 
 respect to hiring and service is, that if there be no special 
 agreement, but a general one without mention of time, the 
 hiring is for a year certain ; if the servant continue in his 
 employment beyond that year, a second year is implied, &c. 
 Consequently, if a master dismiss a servant hired generally, 
 the servant is entitled to wages for the current year, unless 
 the dismissal be for such a cause as will legally absolve the 
 master from his contract: ex. g., moral misconduct, or refu- 
 sal to obey orders. But, in the case of domestic servants, 
 the contract is, by general custom, dissoluble by a month's 
 warning on either part, or payment of a month's wages. 
 
 HI'RSUTE. (Lat. hirsutus, bristly.) In Zoology, when 
 an animal or part is covered with long, stiffish hairs, thickly 
 
 HIRUDINE^E. See Leech. 
 
 HIRU'NDO. (Lat. hirundo, a swallow.) A genus which 
 forms the type of the Fissirostral or wide-gaping Passerine 
 birds of the Cuvierian system. It is now divided into the 
 subgenera Cypselus, including the swift and Hirundo proper, 
 embracing the chimney swallow (Hirundo rustica), sand 
 martin (Hirundo viparia), &c. Our British species are oc- 
 casional visiters, and the heralds, generally speaking, of the 
 summer season, though we see now and then a premature 
 straggler, which has given rise to the proverb " one swallow 
 does not make a summer." Africa appears to be the chief 
 resort of the British species during the winter season. Their 
 disappearance at this season has, it is true, been accounted 
 for on the hypothesis that the swallows passed the winter 
 in a torpid state, submerged in river-heads or other fresh 
 waters. No warm-blooded and quick-breathing animal does 
 or can hybernate under water ; and with respect to a bird, it 
 is sufficient to observe that its extra-vascular plumage would 
 be destroyed and decomposed by a six months' immersion. 
 Swallows, like the cuckoo, immigrate to us for the purpose 
 of breeding. 
 
 HI'SPID. (Lat. hispidus, rough.) In Botany, a term 
 used in describing the superficial appendages of bodies, to 
 denote their being covered with long rigid hairs, as the stem 
 of Kchium vulgare. 
 
 Hi'spid. In Zoology, when a surface is rough from mi- 
 nute spines or very rigid bristles. 
 
 HI'STER. A Linnaean genus of Coleopterous insects, 
 now raised to a family (Histeridce), belonging to the section 
 Pentamera, and the subsection Clavicorncs of Latreille. 
 Many of the species of this family are remarkable for the 
 instinctive promptitude and perfection with which they alter 
 their ordinary appearance when alarmed, by drawing in 
 their antenna? and folding up their legs, so as to feign death, 
 and, in many cases, to take on the resemblance of a small 
 black pebble or seed ; whence one of the species is called 
 Seminulum. It is this habit which probably suggested the 
 generic name from histrio, an actor. There are about fifty 
 known British species referable to the Linnsan genus, and 
 Mm 561
 
 HISTORICAL PAINTING. 
 
 now divided into the subgenera Abraus, Orithophilis, Den- 
 drophilus, Plati/soma, and Hister proper. 
 
 HISTO'RICAL PAINTING. In Painting, that depart- 
 ment of the art which comprehends all representations 
 whereof history furnishes the subject. But under this head 
 are generally included subjects from fabulous history, and 
 those founded on allegory. 
 
 HISTORIO'GRAPHER. (Gr.) A professed historian, or 
 writer of histories. It has been a common, although not 
 uniform practice in European courts, to confer the place of 
 public historiographer on some learned man as a mark of 
 royal favour. Voltaire had at one period the title of Royal 
 Historiographer of France. 
 
 HI'STORY. (Gr. 'mTopia, from the verb icToptui, I in- 
 quire.) This word is first used in the commencement of the 
 work of Herodotus, which he there calls by the title Histo- 
 ria. It is probable that this ancient writer thus fixed the 
 sense in which the word has ever since been used ; as ap- 
 plicable, strictly and properly, to the civil history of man, 
 although it has been analogically used to express other 
 branches of investigation, as in the term Natural History, 
 still in use ; an application also sanctioned by classical usage, 
 in the instances of Theopkrastus's History of Plants, Aris- 
 totle's History of Animals, &c. 
 
 Civil history, properly so called, has also been subdivided 
 Into several branches ; first, according to the class of events 
 or actions which is made the subject of narration; as ec- 
 clesiastical, political, and literary : secondly, according to 
 the extent of the subject ; as universal history, in contradis- 
 tinction to the history of particular nations or districts, or of 
 individual men, more properly termed biography. 
 
 Our most ancient civil history is to be found in the Old 
 Testament. But its objects are confined, after the brief and 
 introductory narration of the first ages of the world, to the 
 annals of a separate and peculiar people, the Jews, and such 
 incidental notices of the affairs of other nations (Assyrians, 
 Phoenicians, Egyptians, &c.) as the inspired writers found 
 necessary for the illustration of their main topic. But the 
 great empires and kingdoms which surrounded the little 
 commonwealth of the Hebrews were also connected, by 
 various circumstances of religion and descent, with the first 
 of the two nations (Greek and Roman) whose annals con- 
 stitute what is termed classical history, with which again 
 our own history, or that of modern Europe, is in intimate 
 association. Hence, in a general view of civil history, the 
 whole subject may, perhaps, not be unappropriately classed 
 under five heads, indicating, as it were, five different bodies 
 of history, which, in the main, are distinct from each other 
 in the subject, and partly in the sources from whence our 
 knowledge is derived, although mutually throwing much 
 light on each other. 
 
 I. The Jewish history, as contained in the Old Testament. 
 
 II. The history of the empires and states of antiquity in 
 that portion of the world known to the classical and Jewish 
 historians, and illustrated by classical and Jewish history, 
 viz., Assyria, Persia, Egypt, Phoenicia, and its colony Car- 
 thage. 
 
 III. Classical history, properly so called; the history of 
 the national affairs and conquests of the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans. 
 
 IV. The history of those nations and states (chiefly Ori- 
 ental) which possess annals of their own, independent of 
 classical, Jewish, and modern European literature ; China, 
 India, modern Persia, Arabia, and the Mohammedan con- 
 quests. 
 
 V. Modern European history, including that of the colo- 
 nies and conquests of Europeans. 
 
 1. The Jewish history, as we have said, is to be found in 
 the Old Testament, some Apocryphal books, and in the wri- 
 tings of uninspired Jewish authors (Josephus and Philo-Ju- 
 da;us) who have investigated the antiquities of their country. 
 
 2. Of Assyria, Egypt, Phoenicia, ancient Persia, Carthage, 
 &c, we possess no historical notice except such as is deri- 
 ved, 1. From Jewish or classical authors; 2. From monu- 
 ments, especially in Egypt. Phoenician historical authors 
 of repute (Sanchoniatho, Berosus, &c.) are alluded to by 
 classical writers, and, perhaps, in part abridged by them ; but 
 we have no actual remains of their compositions on the au- 
 thenticity of which reliance can be placed. With respect 
 to Persia, much industry has been expended in endeavour- 
 ing to extract from the histories of modern native writers 
 coincidences with the narrations of Greek and Roman au- 
 thors, but hitherto with little success. 
 
 3. The poems of Homer are generally regarded as con- 
 taining the oldest fragments of Grecian history. Herodotus 
 is the oldest Greek prose writer. His invaluable history 
 comprises a description of several countries bordering on 
 Greece and the Mediterranean ; concise narratives of Egyp- 
 tian, Persian, and Assyrian history ; and a connected ac- 
 count, more or less detailed, according to circumstances, of 
 the history of Greece, both civil and domestic, for about fifty 
 years previous to the invasion of Xerxes, with which his 
 
 562 
 
 HISTORY. 
 
 annals close (B.C. about 480). The history of the Grecian 
 commonwealth is pursued in detail by Thucydides and Xen- 
 ophon for about a century afterwards. After that period 
 our knowledge of Greek domestic history is confined to the 
 incidental notices derived from various cotemporary writers, 
 and the general compilations of later historians. Among 
 these may be mentioned, as authors from whom a large 
 portion of our actual knowledge is derived, Diodorus Sicu- 
 lus, the author of a very miscellaneous general history, of 
 which great part is lost, who lived alioul the ;ige of Augus- 
 tus; Polybius, whose history is more especially devoted to 
 Roman affairs ; Arrian and Quintus Curtius, the historians 
 of the conquests of Alexander ; Livy, as to the transactions 
 between Greece and Rome ; Justin, the compiler of a brief 
 but useful abridgment of general history ; Plutarch, in his 
 Lives of Illustrious Men, &c. These writers bring the stu- 
 dent down to the period of the subjugation of Greece by 
 Rome ; after which, all history of Greek affairs, properly so 
 called, terminates, until the establishment of the Eastern 
 empire, and we have little knowledge of the state of Greece 
 and the Graeco-Asiatic kingdoms in their provincial state. 
 
 Ancient Roman history, down to the first Punic War, is 
 chiefly known from the compilations of Livy and Dionysius 
 of Halicarnassus, writers whose credit is rendered extremely 
 doubtful by modern investigation ; and, where these fail, 
 from incidental sources. In the History of the Punic Wars, 
 the narrative of Livy is aided by the admirable work of Po- 
 lybius. From the end of the second Punic War to the dic- 
 tatorship of Sylla (nearly 150 years) our materials for Ro- 
 man history are very deficient ; the want of cotemporary 
 writers being supplied only by later compilations, and by 
 the incidental knowledge derived from writers on various 
 subjects, the course of whose composition led them to touch 
 on past events — of whom by far the most valuable is Cicero. 
 From the period of Sylla's dictatorship to the accession of 
 Vespasian (nearly 150 years) we have the advantage of a 
 succession of cotemporary writers, some of them actors in 
 the events which they describe, and comprising some of the 
 greatest names in literature — Sallust, Cicero, Ca;sar, Velleius 
 Paterculus, Tacitus. Yet even here there is one considera- 
 ble lacuna, comprising the last thirty years of the reign of 
 Augustus, as to which our knowledge is scanty. From the 
 accession of Vespasian to the reign of Constantine, a long 
 period elapses during which our historical acquaintance 
 with the events of an empire then comprising the greater 
 part of the civilized world is vague and defective. Dio 
 Cassius and Herodian are the two best writers on history 
 who can be named in this long interval ; the latter, during 
 the short epoch which he illustrates as a cotemporary, is 
 full and valuable. After the accession of Constantine, we 
 have abundant materials for history, both eclesiastical and 
 civil, from the hand of cotemporary authors down to the 
 reign of Justinian in the East and of Theodoric in the West, 
 although the quality of the writers is sensibly degenerated. 
 Perhaps the comparative obscurity and uncertainty into 
 which history is plunged after the last of these two epochs, 
 and the absence of all standard writers after Procopius, ren- 
 der it the best period to fix upon for the arbitrary limit be- 
 tween ancient and modem history. It will be seen from 
 this brief summary that the only periods of any extent as to 
 which we have the assistance of cotemporary historians (or 
 original authority, properly so called), in the whole extent 
 of classical history, are : 1. As to Greece, from B.C. 500 to 
 B.C. 380 ; 2. As to Rome, from the dictatorship of Sylla to 
 the accession of Vespasian (B.C. 76 to A.D. 70) ; and, finally, 
 the reigns of Constantine and his successors. 
 
 4. After the downfall of the Roman empire, a long series 
 of revolutions in dynasties and nations followed before 
 Western Europe was parcelled out into the several great 
 countries which, notwithstanding all subsequent changes in 
 political limits, have since subsisted as geographical divisions 
 — Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, the Scandinavian 
 regions. Another period elapsed before the three great 
 countries of Eastern Europe — Russia, Poland, Hungary — 
 were added as distinct members to the family of European 
 states ; and the Greek empire in Europe remained apart, 
 distinct in language, manners, and political history, from both 
 the other divisions. 
 
 From the fall of the Roman empire to the revival of liter- 
 ature (a period composing in round numbers about eleven 
 centuries) our knowledge of the affairs of Western Europe 
 is derived from a series of writers, in each country, who are 
 usually comprehended under the title of chroniclers. A 
 chronicle, or book of annals, is properly a history of which 
 the continuous narrative is so interrupted that each year 
 forms a separate section, and events arc thus related nearly 
 in strict chronological order. This is a form very common- 
 ly adopted by the historians of the dark ages, of whom the 
 greater proportion were monks, who appear to have noted 
 down the acts which occurred within their own sphere of 
 knowledge or memory, derived from the accounts of older 
 men, merely to satisfy the vague desire of communicating
 
 HISTRIONIC ART. 
 
 knowledge to posterity, within the limited circle of the mon- 
 astery or society to which they belonged. But a great many 
 of the histories of the middle ages are not even in the form 
 of chronicles; they have all the requisites which the most 
 fastidious criticism can require of a regular history. Unity 
 of purpose, and a sustained and energetic style, are qualities 
 in which some of the early national annalists of modern 
 Europe have been unsurpassed by their more instructed 
 successors. 
 
 The venerable Bede, who wrote in the 9th century, pre- 
 sents us with the first name of true credit and authority 
 among the annalists of England. Of our monkish Latin 
 chroniclers in later times, Matthew Paris is perhaps best en- 
 titled to the character of an historian. After the period of 
 the invaluable Saxon chronicle, we have no English histo- 
 ries in the native language of the country worthy of note, 
 with the exception of a few meager rhyming chronicles, un- 
 til the revival of letters and discovery of printing. In France, 
 the long collection of native Latin chroniclers presents us 
 with few names of interest after the time of the celebrated 
 Gregory of Tours ; but the Crusades called forth, for a short 
 space, an unusual spirit of historical description. When we 
 arrive, however, at the 14th and 15th centuries, we find 
 among the native French historians two authors, Froissart 
 and Philip de Comines, whose narratives are no less delight- 
 ful from the talent and energy of the writers, than from the 
 romantic character of the times which they portray. The 
 annals of Italy are to be sought in the pages of a long series 
 of chroniclers, from the 8th century downwards, of whom 
 the most valuable are published together in Muratori's great 
 collection. Their works are uniformly in Latin until the 
 13th century. But towards the end of that age the Tuscan 
 dialect was elevated, as it were at a single step, to the rank 
 of a literary language ; and the little Tuscan republics pro- 
 duced a succession of historians, many of them remarkable 
 for the purity of their style, and some (as the three Villain 
 at Florence) fur their extensive information and historical 
 talent. Germany and Spain, in the middle ages, produced 
 few historical works above the rank of dry chronicles. But 
 the annals of the Scandinavian nations form the most im- 
 portant part of their early and peculiar literature. The 
 Greek empire produced, also, a series of chroniclers, whose 
 works have been collected in the Corpus Histories Byian- 
 tincB. 
 
 The period of the revival of letters, and the following cen- 
 tury, were distinguished by the appearance of several wri- 
 ters of first-rate merit in the department of history. In Italy, 
 Guicciardini ; in France, De Thou ; in Spain, Herrera ; and 
 our own Camden may be added, not without justice, to the 
 number. To follow the progress of history in modern times 
 would be an impossible task. Suffice it to say, that with 
 the advance of literary knowledge and the increase of edu- 
 cation, historical writers seem to become more strongly divi- 
 ded into two very different classes : those who furnish con- 
 tributions towards the history of their own times, especially 
 the writers of memoirs — a delightful and useful branch of 
 literature, of which France gave the first examples, and still 
 produces the most numerous ; and the historians, more prop- 
 erly so called, who collect, discuss, and criticise, endeavour- 
 ing to extricate the truth from the mass of former materials. 
 The latter, in our times, has become more peculiarly the 
 province of literary men. Philosophical history, in which 
 the mere narrative of facts is regarded as subordinate to the 
 elucidation of general truths, and too frequently to the estab- 
 lishment of favourite theories, is a modem improvement in 
 the art ; and Voltaire is commonly regarded, not without 
 some truth, as the founder of the school of philosophical 
 historians, among whom the highest rank in popularity has 
 been attained and deserved by Gibbon. 
 
 5. The history of the more remote Oriental nations, and 
 also of those which derive their religion and civilization 
 from Arabia, may be conveniently classed apart ; because 
 the knowledge of it is derived from wholly different sources, 
 and requires, as it were, a peculiar education. Chinese and 
 Indian history form two entirely distinct bodies of knowl- 
 edge. With regard to that of the Mohammedan nations, it 
 may be observed that it is brought into contact with that of 
 modem Europe in several distinct countries and periods, of 
 which the most remarkable instances are the Crusades, the 
 annals of the Moors in Spain, and the history of the Turkish 
 empire in its transactions, first with the Greeks, and after- 
 wards with the other nations of Christendom. It is a curi- 
 ous subject for the philosophical historian, and one which has 
 not hitherto received the attention it merits, to compare the 
 different accounts of the same events which have been trans- 
 mitted to posterity by writers of distinct nations, religions, 
 and lancuages, whose minds, from difference of education, 
 habitually viewed almost every object in a totally different 
 light. 
 
 HISTRIO'NIC ART. The art of acting in dramatic rep- 
 resentations is not unfrequently so called, from the Lat. his- 
 trio, or hister, an actor. {See Theatre.) The word histrio 
 
 HOLOTHURIANS. 
 
 is of Etruscan derivation, as was the Roman dramatic art 
 also. See Mem. de V Ac. des Inscr., vol. xxvii. 
 
 HITCH. In Naval affairs, a particular kind of knot, of 
 which there are several. 
 
 HITHE. An old Saxon word, signifying a port, wharf, 
 or minor harbour, at which goods are shipped or landed: 
 Oueenhithe on the Thames is an example. 
 
 HOA'RY, in describing the superficial appendages of bod- 
 ies, denotes their being covered with very short dense hairs, 
 placed so closely as to give an appearance of whiteness to 
 the surface from which thev grow. 
 
 HO'BILERS (Lat. hobeilarii), in England, were feudal 
 tenants bound to serve as light horsemen or bowmen, for 
 the word seems to have been of somewhat uncertain em- 
 ployment. The smaller feudal gentry were long styled in 
 France " Hobereaux." 
 
 HOE. In Agriculture and Gardening, an instrument for 
 stirring the surface of the soil, cutting annual weeds up by 
 the roots, and earthing up plants. The hand hoe is a thin 
 plate of iron six or eight inches broad, and sharpened on the 
 edge, fixed at right angles on the extremity of a pole or rod, 
 which serves as a handle. This is called a draw hoe, be- 
 cause in the operation of hoeing the instrument is drawn or 
 pulled towards the operator. Another description of garden 
 hoe has the blade or iron plate fixed on the extremity of the 
 handle, and in continuation of it : and this is called a thrust 
 hoe, because in hoeing .the operator always pushes the hoe 
 forward. This kind is also called a Dutch hoe, most prob- 
 ably from having been first introduced from Holland. In 
 agriculture there are hoes of the thrust kind drawn by beasts 
 of labour, and commonly called horse hoes. In general 
 form they resemble a plough ; but instead of the share they 
 have one or more iron blades, or plates with sharp edges, 
 fixed to perpendicular iron rods at their lower extremities. 
 These sharpened plates being drawn through the soil, cut 
 through the roots of weeds an inch or two beneath the sur- 
 face. Agricultural or field hoes are only used in the case 
 of those field crops w T hich are sown or planted in rows. 
 There are a great many kinds of field or horse hoes ; but it 
 is worthy of remark, that they differ very little in mechani- 
 cal merit. The implement, indeed, does not seem suscepti- 
 ble of the same degree of improvement as the plough and 
 the harrow. 
 
 HOEING. The operation of stirring the surface, cutting 
 off weeds, or earthing up plants with a hoe. In the case of 
 any of these operations dry weather must be chosen, other- 
 wise the result will either be useless or injurious. Plants 
 rooted up by the hoe in wet weather will produce fresh 
 roots and grow again, while plants earthed up under similar 
 circumstances will have the leaves which are covered by 
 the soil decayed by it. In either case, also, the ground will 
 be hardened by the treading of the feet of men or horses, so 
 as to obstruct the progress of the roots, and to exclude air 
 and water from penetrating through it to them. Hoeing is 
 sometimes performed on surfaces which are without weeds, 
 for the purpose of stirring the soil ; but in such cases prong- 
 ed hoes, or hoes having three or more long spikes or teeth, 
 are more effective than hoes with broad plates or blades. 
 
 HO GSHEAD. An ancient measure of capacity, contain- 
 ing 63 old wine gallons. 
 
 HOLD. (Sax. healdan.) The inside of the bottom of 
 the ship. It is divided into compartments by bulkheads 
 across ; and contains the ballast, water, coal and wood, pro- 
 visions, and cargo. 
 
 Hold. In Music, the same as Pause, which see. 
 
 HOLIDAYS are considered to be those days, exclusive 
 of Sundays, on which no regular public business is transact- 
 ed at public offices. They are either fixed or variable, and 
 vary in different public offices. The variable holidays are 
 Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, Easter Monday and Tues- 
 day, Holy Thursday, Whit Monday and Tuesday. See 
 Ferine. 
 
 HO'LINESS. The title by which the Pope is addressed ; 
 equivalent to the Latin " Sanctissime." 
 
 HO'LING. (From hole.) In Architecture, piercing the 
 plates to receive the nails. 
 
 Holing. Undermining beds of coal. 
 
 HOLM. (Sax. and Danish.) An island, or fenny place 
 surrounded by water. Two well-known islands in the Bris- 
 tol Channel are called the Steep Holm and Flat Holm. 
 
 HOLM OAK, or HOLLY OAK. See atJERCus. 
 
 HO'LOCAUST. (Gr. 6Ao?, the whole, and khiw, I burn.) 
 A solemn sacrifice among the ancients, in which the whole 
 of the victim was consumed upon the altar, in contradis- 
 tinction to the usual custom, which enjoined that only a 
 portion thereof should be consumed. A similar custom 
 prevailed among the Jews; it is called in Scripture a burnt 
 offering. 
 
 HO LOGRAPH. (Gr. b'\6ypi(pov ; from &Aoc, whole, and 
 ypatpu, I write.) In the Civil Law, a will written entirely 
 by the hand of the testator. 
 
 HOLOTHU'RIANS. (Gr. bXoOovpidv.) The name of 
 
 563
 
 HOLT. 
 
 the family of Echinoderms, having the genus Holothuria 
 for its type. The body presents a subcylindrical elongated 
 form ; is defended by a coriaceous, not spiny integument, 
 open at both ends, and perforated by numerous small ca 
 nals, in linear series, through which prehensile and adhe- 
 sive suckers are protruded. At the anterior extremity is 
 the mouth, surrounded with complicated retractile tentacu- 
 la. At the opposite end is the aperture of the cloaca, in 
 which the rectUBrt and a respiratory branched tube termi- 
 nate. Tlic intestine is very long, and convoluted; and it 
 frequently happens that when the animal is disturbed, it is 
 protruded from the body, or ruptured by the violence of the 
 contraction of the muscular parietes of the abdomen. The 
 "trepang" of Eastern commerce is a dried species of Holo- 
 thuria. 
 
 HOLT. (Sax. a wood; Germ, holz.) The termination 
 of many names of places in England, derived from their an- 
 cient situation in a wood. 
 
 HO'LY ALLIANCE, THE. A league formed between 
 certain of the principal sovereigns of Europe, after the de- 
 feat of Napoleon at Waterloo: on the proposal, it is said, of 
 the Emperor Alexander. It arose from the religious enthu- 
 siasm which was prevalent at that period of deliverance 
 from French domination, and with which the Russian em- 
 peror was just then considerably imbued. The act of this 
 alliance is said to have been sent in his handwriting to the 
 Emperor of Austria and King of Prussia, and signed by 
 them. It is not supposed that the original terms of the 
 league were other than indefinite ; for the maintenance of 
 justice, religion, &c, in the name of the Gospel. But it was 
 subsequently connected with the determination of those 
 monarchs to support, in conjunction with England and 
 France, existing governments throughout Europe, by the Dec- 
 laration of November, 1819 : afterwards the congresses of 
 Troppau, Laybach, and Verona established the character 
 of the alliance; to which the war of France against Spain, 
 in 1823, gave additional illustration. Since the secession of 
 England and France, the alliance can scarcely be said to 
 have anv active existence. (See Ed. Rev., vol. xxxii., xxxix.) 
 
 HO'LY ROOD, or HOLY CROSS. A festival kept on 
 the 14th of September, to commemorate the exaltation of 
 the Holy Cross. It is from this circumstance that the royal 
 palace in Edinburgh has derived its appellation. 
 
 HO'LY STONE. A stone used by hand, with sand, to 
 scour the ship's decks. The large stone worked by ropes is 
 called the bear. The sand is used with water; but it has 
 long been a very general practice in the navy to use dry sand 
 below : this is called dry holy-stoning ; it is considered more 
 healthy than usins water frequently. 
 
 HO'LY THURSDAY, or ASCENSION DAY. In the 
 Romish Calendar, the 39th day after Easter Sunday. A 
 festival in commemoration of Christ's ascension. 
 
 HO'M^EOMERI'A. (Gr. buotopepein, similarity of parts.) 
 The name given to the physical theory of Anaxagoras, a 
 Grecian philosopher of Clazomena?, who flourished in the 
 fifth century B.C. According to this hypothesis, every mate- 
 rial substance is made up of infinitely small parts similar to 
 itself. Hence the growth and nourishment of animals and 
 vegetables was accounted for, by supposing the alimentary 
 substance to be analyzed into its various component parts 
 corresponding to the parts of the substance nourished. For 
 instance, corn was supposed to contain particles of blood, 
 bone, flesh, skin, &c, which by the process of digestion 
 were separated from each other, and added to the corre- 
 sponding parts of the animal body. This theory bears some 
 resemblance to that of the monads of Leibnitz in modern 
 times. See Monad. 
 
 HO'.AM:oPA'I'IIY. (Gr.t^oio.;, similar ; and ttuOoc, feel- 
 ing or affection.) The homreopathic method of healing dis- 
 eases was first proposed by Samuel Hahnemann, a German 
 physician, in 1796. It consists in the administration of med- 
 icines which are presumed to excite in healthy persons 
 symptoms similar to those of the disease which is to be 
 treated, upon the principle that similia similibus curantur. 
 Thus they maintain that sulphur produces a pustular erup 
 tion upon the skin, and therefore cures pustular eruptions; 
 and that quinia produces febrile symptoms, and therefore 
 cures agues, and so forth. Not the least absurd part of this 
 practice is the smallness of the doses in which the homoeo- 
 pathic remedies are administered, it being presumed thai by 
 infinite subdivisions the virtues of remedies are proportion- 
 ately refined and exalted. A grain, for Instance, of any 
 active remedy, such as aloes, is triturated with 1000 grains 
 of sugar of milk ; when this mixture is complete, a grain of 
 it is again diluted with 1000 of the vehicle ; and so of medi- 
 cines which the ordinary practitioner administers in doBM Of 
 One or two grains or more, the nonUBOpathlBt prescribes in 
 the quantity of a millionth or the decillionth of a grain, or 
 even less. It is not surprising that enthusiasts of this cast 
 should occasionally start up; but il is remarkable that they 
 should find converts among persons in their right senses. 
 
 HO'MAGE. (Lat. homagium, or hominium, from homo, 
 564 
 
 HOMOPHONY. 
 
 man, the usual term by which the vassal or dependant of a 
 prince is designated in the older writers of the middle ages.) 
 The symbolical acknowledgment of dependance due from a 
 \ assui to a feudal lord or superior when invested with a fief, 
 or obtaining it by succession. In the earliest periods of the 
 feudal system fealty and homage appear to be confounded 
 (see Sir F. Palgrave on the English Commonwealth, vol. ii., 
 p. cccxc.) ; but in later times the distinction was clearly es- 
 tablished, and fealty might sometimes be due where hom- 
 age was not. Homage was either homagium ligcum, liege 
 homage, by which full and unreserved allegiance was ren- 
 dered ; or homagium non ligeum, simple homage, a mere 
 acknowledgment of feudal superiority, with a saving or ex- 
 ception of the rights of other feudal lords. The one was 
 personal, and could not be renounced (hence the doctrine of 
 allegiance) ; the other bound the vassal only so long as he 
 helil the fief in respect of which it was due. 
 
 HO'MALIA'CEjE. (Homalium, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of arborescent or shrubby Exogens, inhabiting 
 the tropics. According to Brown, related to Passifioracete, 
 but distinguished by their inferior ovary. De Candolle pla- 
 ces them between Samydaccw and Chaillctiacea. They are 
 plants of some beauty, but of no known use. 
 
 HOME, in Naval language, is said of anything that is close 
 in its place : it is applied to the sheets of the sails, the shot 
 and cartridge in a gun, and any article of stowage. 
 
 HO'MICIDE. (Lat. homo, a human being, and caxlo, / 
 kill.) In Law, the killing of any human creature ; which 
 is either justifiable — viz., 1. In case of necessity, public or 
 private; 2. By permission of law for the advancement of 
 justice ; 3. For the prevention of forcible and atrocious 
 crime. Or excusable — 1. By misadventure ; 2. In self-de- 
 fence on a sudden affray, or chance-medley. Or felonious; 
 of which the species are — 1. Self-murder; 2. Manslaughter, 
 which is defined "the unlawful killing of another without 
 malice, expressed or implied ;" 3. Murder, or the wilful kill- 
 ing of another by malice aforethought ; 4. Petit treason, 
 which by the Statute of Treasons was confined to the cases 
 of a servant wilfully killing his master, a wife her husband, 
 or an ecclesiastical person his superior ; but the distinction 
 in judgment between this offence and murder is now abol- 
 ished. 
 
 HO'MILY (Gr. bfit\ia, an assemblage), was used by the 
 early fathers in the same sense as our word sermon ; both 
 of which, according to their original meaning, signify the fa- 
 miliar discourse with which the primitive teachers enforced 
 their doctrines, in opposition to the more remote and declam- 
 atory orations which were more fashionable at the time. 
 Up to the fifth century the practice of preaching was con- 
 fined to the bishops, and the only homilies extant are of 
 their composition. The term, which has now become obso- 
 lete, was in constant use as late as the Reformation; and 
 the English Book of Homilies is a collection of plain ser- 
 mons, setting forth the principal doctrines of Christianity, 
 and pointtng out the principles of Protestantism ; of which 
 the first part was published by Cranmer in the reign of Ed- 
 ward VI., and the second by order of convocation in that of 
 Elizabeth. 
 
 HOMOCHRO'MOUS. (Gr. bpov, together, and xPoua. 
 colour.) When all the florets in the same flower-head are 
 of the same colour. 
 
 HOMO'GAMOUS. (Gr. bptov. and yauog, marriage.) In 
 Grasses, when all the florets of the spikelets of the same 
 individual are hermaphrodite; in Composite plants, when 
 all the florets of a flower-head are hermaphrodite. 
 
 HOMOGE'NEOUS. (Gr. bftov. and yevoi, kind.) Ho- 
 mogeneous bodies are those of which the constituent ele- 
 ments are all similar. Homogeneous quantities are such as 
 can be added to or subtracted from each other. 
 
 HOMO'LOGOUS. (Gr. bfiov, and Uyos, ratio.) Having 
 the same ratio or proportion. In Geometry, those sides of 
 similar figures which are opposite to equal and correspond- 
 ing angles are proportional to each other, and therefore 
 said to be homologous. The areas and solid contents of such 
 figures are likewise homologous for the same reason. 
 
 HOMO'NYMS. (Gr. bfwv, and ovoua, a name.) Words 
 which agree in sound, but differ in signification; as the sub- 
 stantive "bear" and the verb "bear." 
 
 HOMOOU'SIANS and IIOMOIOU'SIANS. Names by 
 which the Orthodox and Arian parties were distinguished in 
 the great controversy upon the nature of Christ in the fourth 
 century; the former word signifying that the nature of the • 
 Father and Son is the same, the latter that they are similar. 
 [Gibbon, vol. iii. See Arians.) Homoousian (Gr. ofioovoi- 
 os) is derived from oiws, the same, and ovaia. being ; Homoi- 
 ousian (bfiotovaos) from b/ioio<;, similar, and ovaia. (See 
 also MUmatCs Hist, of Christianity, ii., 443.) 
 
 HOMOPHO'NOUS. (Gr. b^inc, the same, and #wi<i7, voict 
 or tone.) In Music, of the same pitch, or unisonal. Two 
 or more sounds arc said to be homophonous when they are 
 exactly of the same pitch. 
 
 HOMOTHONY. (Gr. b/wi, and fuxu, / speak.) Ho-
 
 HOMOPTERANS. 
 
 mophonous words or syllables, in language, are words or 
 syllables having the same sound, although expressed in wri- 
 ting by various combinations of letters. Languages which 
 abound in homophonies are, 1. Some Oriental monosyllabic 
 tongues, namely, the Chinese and its kindred dialects, in 
 which very few sounds comprise the whole vocabulary, 
 and the same sound is expressed by a variety of ideographic 
 characters (in Chinese there are only 400 such sounds, multi- 
 plied by the distinctions of tone and accent to 1600 or 2000) ; 
 and, 2. Some European tongues in which, according to the 
 genius of the dialect, the syllables of the original languages 
 from which the words are chiefly derived have been con- 
 tracted in speaking, and part of their sounds dropped, while 
 the greater part of the letters is retained. Thus in English, 
 and still more in French, which is peculiarly a dialect of 
 Latin abounding in contractions, homophonies are numer- 
 ous (in the latter tongue the number of syllables differently 
 spelt, all having nearly the sound of our broad A, amounts 
 to more than a hundred) ; while in Italian, in which the 
 original proportions of the Roman language are preserved, 
 they are scarcely to be found at all. 
 
 HOMO'PTERANS, Homoptera. (Gr. 6/iof, and rrtpov, 
 a wing.) The name of an order of insects, dismembered from 
 the Hemiptera of Linnteus, including those in which the 
 wing-covers are of a uniform semi-membranous consist- 
 ency. Latreille divides this order into the three following 
 divisions: viz., 
 
 1. The OteadaritB, having the tarsi three-jointed, and the 
 antenns very short, terminated by a fine bristle. 
 
 2. The Aphidiens. having the tarsi two-jointed, and the 
 antenns longer, without a terminal bristle ; containing the 
 families Aphida and PsyllidtB. 
 
 3. The Gallinsecta, having the tarsi one-jointed, termina- 
 ted by a single claw. The males have two wings, and are 
 destitute of a mouth ; the females are wingless, and fur- 
 nished with a sucker. 
 
 HOMO'TROPAL. (Gr. buos, and rpnoj, I turn.) In 
 Botany, a term used in describing the direction of bodies, to 
 denote any one having the same direction as the body to 
 which it belongs, but not being straight. 
 
 HO NET. (Germ, honig.) A sweet viscid substance 
 elaborated by the bee from the juices of the nectaries of 
 flowers, and deposited in the waxen cells of the honey- 
 combs. That which spontaneously runs out of the comb is 
 called virgin honey. Pure honey consists of a syrup or un- 
 crystallizable sugar, and of a solid or granular sugar which 
 resemble^ that obtained from the grape. 
 
 HONEY STONE. A yellow mineral found in octoedral 
 crystals at Artem in Thuringia. It is extremely rare. It 
 consists of a peculiar acid (the mellitic acid) combined with 
 alumina and water. 
 
 HONG. The Chinese name for the foreign factories situ- 
 ated at Canton. The hong merchants are those persons 
 who are alone legally permitted to trade with foreigners. 
 They are ten in number, and are always held responsible 
 by the government for paying all duties, whether on im- 
 ports or exports in foreign vessels. No foreign ship that 
 enters the Chinese ports can commence unloading until 
 she has obtained a hong merchant as security for the du- 
 ties. 
 
 HONORA'RIUM. (Lat. honos, honour.) A term used 
 almost synonymously with fee, and applied at present chief- 
 ly to the fees tendered to professors in universities, and to 
 medical or other professional gentlemen for their services. 
 It was originally applied solely to the salaries of the great 
 officers of state, whose services it was considered, by a per- 
 haps pardonable euphemism, were remunerated only, as it 
 were, honoris causa; a shade of meaning which is still per- 
 ceptible in the present use of the term. 
 
 HO'NOUR (Lat.), in Law, signifies the more noble sort 
 of seigniories, on which other lordships or manors depend 
 by the performance of customary services. 
 
 The term honour, in its common sense, is susceptible of 
 various significations ; all of which, however, may easily be 
 traced to its original meaning, esteem or regard built on 
 opinion. Among the Romans honour was deified ; and in 
 modern times the term plays a no less important part, being 
 used, in various terms of phraseology, to indicate certain 
 rules by which society in general, and especially that por- 
 tion of it called fashionable, has tacitly consented to regu- 
 late its proceedings, any deviation from which is attended 
 by expulsion from its pale. To this class may be referred. 
 with slight modifications of meaning, the phrases debt of 
 honovr. /; >r of honour, court of honour, affair of honour, &c, 
 which are all self-explanatory. The term was formerly the 
 style of a man of rank generally ; but it is now distinctively 
 conferred on the Vice-chancellor, and the Master of the 
 Rolls. 
 
 HO'NOURABLE. A title prefixed to the Christian 
 
 names of the younger sons of earls, and to those of all the 
 
 children, both sons and daughters, of viscounts and barons. 
 
 It is also conferred on persons filling certain offices of trust 
 
 49 
 
 HOP POLES. 
 
 and dignity, such as the maids of honour of the qu.">cn and 
 queen dowager; and collectively on certain ;> 
 or institutions, as the House of Commons, the Congies-. of 
 the United States, the East India Company, &c. &c. The 
 title of right honourable is given to all peers and peeresses 
 of the United Kingdom ; to the eldest sons and all the daugh- 
 ters of peers above the rank of viscount ; to all privy coun- 
 sellors ; and to some civic functionaries, as the lord-inavorj 
 of London and Dublin, the lord-provosts of Edinburgh "and 
 Glasgow, &c. 
 
 HONOUR, LEGION OF. See Legion-, &c. 
 
 HOOPING COUGH. See Whooping Cough. 
 
 HOP. The Humulus lupu/us of Linnaeus, the female 
 flowers of which are used for imparting a bitter flavour to 
 malt liquors for the purpose of preserving them from fer- 
 mentation. The hop plant is a perennial indigenous to Brit- 
 ain and different parts of Europe ; but, to produce abundonce 
 of hops, it requires to be very carefully cultivated in good 
 soil, and even then is one of the most precarious of crops. 
 The fields in which hops are grown are commonly called 
 hop gardens : a loamy soil on a dry subsoil is chosen, and 
 the plants are placed in hills, stools, or groups of tlrree or 
 four in a group, the hills being in rows five or six feet apart, 
 and at about the same distance in the row. A full crop is 
 not produced till the fourth or fifth year after planting. 
 Every year the ground is dug in winter, and kept clear of 
 weeds during summer; and the hills have poles, generally 
 three or four to a hill, for the plants to twine on : the pur- 
 chase of these poles, the fixing them in the soil every spring, 
 the taking them down and stacking them every autumn, 
 and their removal every- five, six, eight, or ten years, accord- 
 ing to the kind of wood used, constitute a considerable 
 part of the expense of hop culture. The hops, when mature, 
 are picked by hand, and as they are picked they are carried 
 to a drying kiln, dried, and packed into bags or pockets ; and 
 this is also an expensive process. The hop plant is particu- 
 larly liable to be injured by insects, by cold and continued 
 rains, and by thunder storms ; in consequence of which, it 
 is estimated that a full crop is not obtained oftener than 
 above once in five years. Hence it is easy to conceive that 
 the price of hops must vary greatly in different years, anl 
 that the grower who has a command of capital may profit 
 largely by keeping them back from market when the prices 
 are low, and only exposing them when they are high. In 
 order to keep hops for two or three years, they require to be 
 powerfully compressed, and put into much closer canvass 
 bags than when they are to be sent immediately to market ; 
 they also require to be kept in dry airy lofts, neither too 
 warm nor too cold. The culture of hops was introduced 
 into England from Flanders in the reign of Henry VIII. 
 The most extensive plantations are in Kent, Sussex, and 
 Herefordshire ; but they are cultivated to a considerable ex- 
 tent in many other counties. The hop-growers are placed 
 under the surveillance of the excise, a duty of 18s. 8d. per 
 cwt. being charged upon all hops grown in this country. In 
 1837, the number of acres of land under cultivation of hope 
 was 56,323 ; and in the same year the duty amounted to 
 £310,794 4s. , of which Kent contributed nearly one half. 
 
 HO'PLrTES. (Gr. b-^nat, from 6-Xa, arms.) The 
 heavy-armed infantry of Grecian antiquity. According to 
 the Athenian regulations (similar, probably, to those of 
 other states), the higher classes of citizens only, as estimated 
 by the census, were liable to this expensive form of military 
 service ; in process of time, however, it seems that the The- 
 tes or inferior classes also served as Hoplites. The Hop- 
 lites were armed in early times with the spear, heavy defen- 
 sive armour, and large shield : the latter were exchanged 
 after the time of Iphicrates for the light cuirass and target. 
 
 HOP OAST. A particular description of kiln used for 
 drying hops. The floor of the kiln is generally of wire 
 cloth, and the heat is generated in a stove with flues below. 
 The hops, after being put on the kiln, are frequently turned, 
 and in general they are rendered sufficiently dry in the 
 course of a few hours ; when dried, they are taken to a loft 
 and left to cool for a day or two, and then put into bass, 
 having been previously subjected to the slight action of the 
 fumes of burning sulphur (sulphurous acid), by which they 
 are to a certain extent bleached. 
 
 HO PPLE. A mode of fettering the legs of horses or 
 other animals turned out to graze on a common or other 
 unenclosed place. 
 
 HOP POLES, are poles or stakes annually inserted at 
 the roots of hop plants for their stems to twine round. 
 \Vhen a hop plantation is first made, as the plants are weak, 
 the poles are not required to be more than five or six feet in 
 length, but in the third or fourth year they require to be 
 ten or twelve feet in length. Any kind of young trees or 
 saplings may be used as hop poles ; but the most durable 
 are those of the oak. the a^h, the sweet chestnut, and the 
 larch. The locust, or Rohinia. was strongly recommended 
 as a durable hop pole by Cobbett : but, though this wood is 
 verv durable when of not more than a certain age, it does 
 
 565
 
 HORARY CIRCLES. 
 
 not ftpponr to be so when of the size most proper for hop 
 poles. Much of the durability of the hop pole no doubt 
 depends on the soil in which it is grown; but, all circum- 
 stances being alike, poles of birch wood, which art much 
 employed in the neighbourhood of Farnham, have been 
 found to hist longer than any other. 
 
 HO'EARl CIRCLES, on Globes, are hour lines, or cir 
 cles marking the hours, and drawn at the distance of 15° 
 on the equator from each other. They are the same as 
 meridians. 
 
 HO'KAKY MOTION, is the motion of a celestial body, 
 or the space which it moves through, in an hour. The ap 
 parent horary motion of the heavenly bodies in their diurnal 
 revolution is 15 3 ; for as the whole circle is completed m - 1 
 hours, the 24th part of it, or 15°, must be passed over in 
 one hour. 
 
 HORDE. A collective name given to those migratory 
 nations who, like the Tartars, are not addicted to a pastoral 
 life, hut exist by plunder and rapine. 
 
 HO'RDEIN. A modification of starch, which, according 
 to Proust, constitutes about 55 per cent, of barlev-meal. 
 
 HO'DEOLI.U. fLatdim.ofhordeum,6ariejr.) Asmall 
 tumour on the eyelid, somewhat resembling a barley-corn ; 
 it is a little boil projecting from the edge of the eyelid, and 
 Is commonly called a stye. 
 
 HO'REHOUND. Tliis indigenous plant has a bitter and 
 somewhat aromatic flavour, and is considered as an expec- 
 torant, and as giving relief in asthma; hence the celebrity 
 of horehound tea among the common people. 
 
 HOIU'ZON (Gr. o/^oi, / bound or terminate), in As- 
 tronomy and Geography, is the plane of a great circle of the 
 sphere, dividing the visible from the invisible hemisphere. 
 The horizon is either sensible or rational. The sensible 
 horizon is a plane which is a tangent to the earth's surface 
 at the place of the spectator, extended on all sides till it is 
 bounded by the sky : the rational horizon is a plane parallel 
 to the former, but passing through the centre of the earth. 
 Both the sensible and rational horizon are relative terms, 
 and change Willi every change of the spectator's position on 
 the surface of the earth ; in all cases they are perpendicu- 
 lar to the direction of gravity. 
 
 If the eye of the spectator were in the plane of the sensi- 
 ble horizon, stars would not appear to rise till they are 
 above that plane ; but if he is elevated above the horizon, 
 a greater extent of the earth's surface will be visible, and 
 the stars will appear to rise before they reach the plane 
 which is a tangent of the earth. Hence the sensible hori- 
 zon is sometimes defined to be the conical surface which 
 has its apex in the eye of the spectator, and embraces that 
 portion of the earth over which the eye can reach. 'Che 
 visual rays which are tangents to the earth are situated in 
 this surface, and consequently point below the true sensible 
 horizon, or the rational horizon which is parallel to it; and 
 the angle which a visual ray makes with the plane of the 
 horizon is technically called the depression of the horizon or 
 the dip. The dip can he easily computed from the known 
 dimensions of the earth, and the height of the eye above its 
 surface ; but the real depression of a visible object below 
 the horizon cannot be determined in this manner, on account 
 of the refraction of the atmosphere, which prevents the 
 rays of light from coming to the eve in a straight line. 
 
 HORIZONTAL RANGE, in Gunnery, is the distance t" 
 which a piece of ordnance will carry a ball on a horizontal 
 plane. Supposing no resistance from the atmosphere, the 
 greatest range would be when the piece is elevated at an 
 angle of 45°; and in all other positions the horizontal range 
 would be as the double of the sine of the angle of eleva- 
 tion In a resisting medium the maximum horizontal range 
 requires the elevation to be less than 45°. It is found by 
 experience that with the ordinary velocity a cannon shot 
 ranges the farthest when the elevation of the piece is about 
 30°. See Gunnery. 
 
 HORN, partakes of the chemical nature of the cartilagin- 
 ous part of bone; it consists chiefly of albumen, with some 
 gelatine and a trace of phosphate of lime. See Corma. 
 
 Horn (commonly called French Horn). A brass mu- 
 sical wind instrument of a complex spiral form, increasing 
 In diameter to its end or mouth, which the French call its 
 pavillion. The inflexion of it is much regulated by the in- 
 sertion of the hand in the pavillion. 
 
 HO'RNIU. ENDE. A mineral of a dark green or black 
 colour, abounding in oxide of iron, and entering into the 
 Composition Of several of the trap rocks. It is the amphi- 
 bole of Efauv. 
 
 HOENBLENDE-SCHI8T. A slaty vnriety of horn- 
 blende, generally including felspar and grains of quart/. : it 
 is of a dark green or black colour. Where clay slate i< in 
 contact with granite, it sometimes passes into hornblende 
 slate. 
 
 HO RNET. See VxBFIDS. 
 
 HO'RNING, LETTERS OF. In Scottish Law, a spe- 
 cies of diligence (i. c, process) against a debtor. They are 
 566 
 
 HOROLOGY. 
 
 writs in the king's name, proceeding on the warrant of n de- 
 cree of the Court of Session, or ol the magistrates of bor- 
 c mghs, and of various other inferior authorities ; but in these 
 rases a warrant of the Court of Session must nl.-o be ob- 
 tained. They direct the debt to be paid within a limited 
 number of days (according to the nature of the debt). In 
 default of such payment the debtor incurs the charge of 
 rebellion, and is thereupon liable to caption or arrest. 
 
 HO'ENPIPE. The name of a well known dance, for the 
 skilful performance of which the British sailors have long 
 been celebrated. The origin of the name is uncertain ; but 
 it is believed to he derived from a kind of musical instru- 
 ment called pih-eorn (Aug. hornpipe), consisting of a wooden 
 tube with holes and a reed, anil a horn at each end, which 
 was formerly used in Wales. (.See liarrington's Archao- 
 log-ia, vol. iii. 177.) 
 
 HORN SILVER. A name given by the elder chemists to 
 chloride of silver, which when fused puts on a homy ap- 
 pearance. For the same reason chloride of mercury or 
 calomel is occasionally called horn quicksilver ; and chlo- 
 ride of lead horn lead. 
 
 HO'RNSTONE. A variety of flint of a semitranspar- 
 ency somewhat resembling that of horn. One of the va- 
 rieties of porphyry goes under the name of hornstone 
 porphyry. 
 
 HORN WORK. In Fortification, a kind of outwork car- 
 rying on the head or fore part two demi-bastions resembling 
 horns, whence the name. 
 
 HORO'GRAPHY. 'Gr. £>pa, hour, and ypatyu, I write.) 
 The art of drawing hour lines, or of constructing dials. 
 
 HOROLO'GIUM, or HOROLOGE. (Gr. wpa, and Xoyoc, 
 discozirse.) A term frequently used by ancient writers 
 to denote a clock, watch, or other machine for measuring 
 time. 
 
 HORO'LOGY (Gr. lopa, and Aoyoc, discourse), signifies 
 literally an explanation of the methods of measuring and 
 marking the hours of the day. Anciently the term horo- 
 logium was applied to any sort of contrivance for measur- 
 ing the hours, as the clepsydra and sun-dial (see the terms) ; 
 but as these instruments have been superseded by clocks 
 and watches, horology is now usually understood to signify 
 a description of the principles on which machines for die 
 measurement of time, moved by weights or springs, are 
 constructed. 
 
 Machines for measuring time are designated by the gene- 
 ral appellation of clocks and watches ; hut they are also ilis 
 tinguished by peculiar names arising from certain modifica- 
 tions in their construction, or from certain particular pur- 
 poses they are intended to serve. By the term clock is un- 
 derstood an instrument which not only shows, but also 
 strikes, the hours. A time-piece is one which shows the 
 hours without striking them ; a quarter-clock is one which 
 strikes the quarters as well as the hours ; an astronomical 
 clock is one which shows siderial time ; a watch is a porta- 
 ble or pocket time-piece; a repeater is one having a contri- 
 vance by means of which it can be made at any time to 
 repeat the hours : a chronometer is a watch of the best 
 kind, or one fit to be employed for astronomical purposes. 
 
 In a general view, horological machines may be regarded 
 as consisting of three essential parts : 1st, a moving power, 
 which produces a rotatory motion about an axle ; 2d, a train 
 of w heel-work, by means of which a velocity is obtained 
 having any required ratio to that of the primary axle ; and 
 3d, a regulator, by which the rapidity of the revolution is 
 determined, and uniformity of motion produced. The mov- 
 ing power is either a heavy w< light which descends by the 
 force of gravity, or a spring which is coiled up within a bar- 
 rel and unwinds itself by the force of its elasticity; the first 
 being preferred on account of the perfect regularity of its 
 action when the instrument is to remain fixed in a place, 
 and the second being necessary for pocket time-pieces and 
 those which cannot be kept in a fixed position, as on ship- 
 board. The train of wheel-work is chiefly remarkable or. 
 account of the delicacy and accuracy of its construction. 
 Tin- regulator is either a pendulum, of which, by the the- 
 ory of falling bodies, the oscillations are isochronal or per- 
 formed in equal times; or a heavy balance, the recipro- 
 cal vibrations of which are also isochronal. Sec Balance, 
 
 PtNnULUM. 
 
 ( )f the various mechanical contrivances introduced into 
 horological machines for accomplishing particular purposes, 
 it would be useles to attempt a description in this place, as 
 our limits will not permit them to be given with that min- 
 uteness of detail which is indispensable in order to convey 
 a clear idea of their action. The most important is the 
 escapement (or scapement), or that part of the mechanism 
 by which the original rotatory motion is converted into a re- 
 ciprocating motion, and gives impetus to the pendulum or 
 balance. Some other parts are also of primary importance ; 
 as the maintaining power, a contrivance by means of which 
 the motion is maintained, or the machine kept going, vvhilo 
 the weight or spring is being wound up ; tho fusee, by which
 
 HOROLOGY. 
 
 in watches and spring-clocks the force acting on the wheel- 
 work is rendered equal in all states of the tension of the 
 spring. Sec Fusee. 
 
 The general arrangement of the wheel-work of a clock 
 or watch may be understood from the following description. 
 Fig. 1. represents the movement of a common vertical 
 
 Cl.) 
 
 ^ 
 
 loSSiSi iln irjr.-utA/uifiwSS I 
 
 watch, the frame plates being omitted, and the dial being 
 supposed to be turned downwards. A is the barrel, contain- 
 ing the spring which produces the motion. B is the fusee, 
 connected with the barrel by the chain b. C is the fusee- 
 ■wheel, called also the first or great wliecl, which turns with 
 the fusee, and works into the pinion D, called the centre- 
 wheel pinion : this pinion, with the centre wheel or second 
 wheel E, turns once in an hour. The centre wheel E works 
 into the third-wheel pinion F ; and on the same arbor is G, 
 the third wheel, which drives the fourth or ccntrate-wheel 
 pinion H, and along with it the cenirate wheel I. The teeth 
 of this wheel are placed at right angles to its plane, and act 
 in the pinion K, called the balance-wheel pinion ; L being 
 the balance wheel, or scape-wheel, or crown-wheel, attach- 
 ed to the same arbor. The balance-wheel acts on the 
 two pallets m and n attached to the verge or arbor of the 
 balance M; and these being placed at a distance from each 
 other equal to the diameter of the balance-wheel, and in 
 different planes, receive alternately from the scape-wheel an 
 impetus in opposite directions which keeps up the vibratory 
 motion of the balance. 
 
 This last part of the mechanism, which it requires some 
 attention to understand, is represented more distinctly in 
 (2.) fig. 2., where A is the scape-wheel, and 
 
 B and C the two pallets. The pallets, 
 i= it is to be observed, are not placed on 
 the verge in the same plane, but their 
 planes form an angle equal to the excur- 
 sion of the balance ; so that, supposing 
 one of them to be about 40 or 50 degrees 
 from the mean point towards the right, 
 the other is just as many degrees from the 
 same point towards the left. The teeth of the scape-wheel are 
 bent forward in the direction of the motion, like the teeth of 
 a saw, and their number is odd. Suppose, now, a tooth of 
 the scape-wheel to have caught the pallet B ; it will continue 
 to bear on that pallet, and to accelerate the balance, until, 
 by the revolution of the verge, the extreme edge of the pal- 
 let comes into the plane of the extremities of the teeth, when 
 the pallet escapes. But as the balance continues for a short 
 time longer to move in the same direction, the pallet C now 
 comes in between two teeth at the point diametrically oppo- 
 site to the front of the tooth which B has just quitted ; and 
 as the vibration of the balance now commences in the op- 
 posite direction, this pallet is in its turn pressed upon and 
 accelerated by the wheel. 
 
 The crown-wheel escapement, now described, is the oldest 
 and the original form, and is still used in common watches, 
 where it answers sufficiently well ; but when applied to 
 clocks regulated by pendulums, it is exceedingly defective ; 
 for as it requires the vibration to be made in an arc of con- 
 siderable extent, the pendulum must of necessity be short 
 and light, and hence it becomes a very imperfect regulator. 
 In order to obviate these defects, Clement, a London watch- 
 maker, in 1680, invented the crutch or anchor escapement, 
 which was greatly improved upon by Graham about the 
 year 1700. Graham's escapement is represented in rig. 3. 
 O is the centre of the scape-wheel. B A C, 
 the crutch or anchor, consists of a heavy 
 piece of metal attached to the rod of the pen- 
 dulum with which it moves. A is its centre 
 of motion ; and in the original construction 
 of Graham, the distance of A from O was 
 equal to the diameter of the scape-wheel. The 
 extremities of the crutch form the pallets, the acting faces of 
 which are inclined planes ; while the parts on which the teeth 
 successively fall are cylindrical surfaces, the radii of which 
 are equal to O A. The tooth being received on this surface, 
 slides along it without tending to accelerate or retard the 
 pendulum, until the pendulum arrives near the middle of its 
 vibration, when the inclined plane comes to the exlremity 
 of the tooth, and the tooth then begins to act upon the plane, 
 and to turn the pallets, and consequently accelerate the 
 pendulum. By this arrangement the motion of the wheel 
 only continues during the short time the tooth is sliding 
 along the plane of the pallet, while during the rest of the 
 
 vibration the tooth rests on the cylindrical surface, and the 
 wheel stands still, or is dead ; whence this escapement is 
 called the dead beat, or the escapement of repose. In Hooke's 
 form, where the cylindrical surfaces are wanting, the im- 
 pulse given to one pallet carries the opposite with some force 
 against the approaching tooth, and drives the wheel back- 
 ward, or produces a recoil ; and this force being applied at 
 the extremities of the vibrations, tends greatly to disturb 
 their isochronism. By Graham's method there is no recoil : 
 the impetus is given while the pendulum is near the middle 
 of the vibration, and the velocity the greatest ; and during 
 the rest of the vibration the pendulum is nearly altogether 
 free of the action of the wheels. 
 
 Numerous other modifications of the crutch escapement 
 have been proposed, and some of them carried successfully 
 into effect ; but for their description we must refer to the 
 works in which the subject is technically treated. There 
 are two, however, which, by reason of the greater ingenuity 
 displayed in their contrivance, and their almost universal 
 application to the best kinds of pocket watches, require par- 
 ticular notice. These are the duplex and the detached es- 
 capement, the latter being that which is used in modern 
 chronometers. 
 
 Duplex Escapement. — This is represented in fig. 4. A A 
 is part of the scape-wheel, which is fur- 
 nished with two sets of teeth, whence 
 probably the name is derived. M N R 
 are the teeth of repose, lying in the plane 
 of the wheel ; mnr are the teeth of im- 
 pulse, and stand perpendicular to the ' 
 plane of the wheel. B C is the impulse pallet, fixed upon 
 the arbor of the balance just above the plane of the wheel, 
 so that its extremity C may be caught by the teeth m n r, 
 and receive the impulse from them, as they successively 
 pass. A small ruby roller is also placed upon the arbor, 
 behind the pallet, having a notch in one side of it for 
 receiving the teeth M is" It. When the tooth m has passed 
 the claw of the pallet, the tooth M falls upon the ruby 
 roller, where it rests until by the returning vibration of the 
 balance the notch is brought to the point of the tooth. 
 The tooth then falls into the notch, and thus passes the 
 roller ; and the next impulse tooth n comes up to the pal- 
 let, on the point of which it acts with great advantage 
 in consequence of the long lever. As the successive im- 
 pulses are all given in the same direction, the balance neces- 
 sarily makes two vibrations for each impulse given by the 
 upright tooth. The chief advantage of this construction 
 consists in there being only one pallet, and in the action 
 being independent of great accuracy in the execution of the 
 teeth of the scape-wheel, which is indispensable in the case 
 of the escapements already described, and also for the lever 
 escapement, which in fact is only a modification of the 
 crutch. 
 
 Detached Escapement. — The annexed diagram, fig. 5., rep- 
 resents Earnshaw's construction. A 
 is the main pallet projecting from 
 the verge or arbor of the balance, 
 concentric with which is another 
 small pallet, called the lifting pallet, 
 which, when the balance is vibra- 
 ting from A towards B, lifts a very 
 slender spring B, and with it the detent spring C, so as to 
 set at liberty or unlock the tooth D, the point of which rests 
 on a ruby pin projecting from the detent spring C, and form- 
 ing the detent. The point E of the principal pallet having 
 passed the tooth F, the wheel moves forward by the action 
 of the mainspring, until the next tooth G falls upon the ruby 
 pin and is locked. The screw H serves to adjust the posi- 
 tion of the detent and the strength of the locking. In the 
 return of the balance, the pallet A passes easily by the 
 detent spring by forcing back the slender spring B. As in 
 the case of the duplex, the balance here makes two vibra- 
 tions for each impulse. 
 
 Maintaining Power. — In order that a clock or watcli, 
 when perfectly regulated, may continue to indicate tru# 
 mean time, it is necessary that it have some contrivance for 
 continuing the action while it is wound up. Various methods 
 of accomplishing this have been devised. One of the sim- 
 plest consists in the interposition of a spring between the 
 fusee and the wheel impelled by it, a little inferior in force 
 to the main-spring (or weight), so as to remain always bent 
 until the pressure of the main-spring is removed by the ac- 
 tion of winding, when it begins to act upon a fixed point on 
 one side and the wheel of the fusee on the other, so as to 
 propel the work for a short time with a force nearly equal 
 to that of the main-spring. 
 
 Some of the other parts of the mechanism, .as the wheels 
 for moving the minute and second hands, the striking part 
 of a clock, and the repeating part of a watch, though they 
 form a considerable part of the bulk of the machine, require 
 no great refinement of invention or dexterity of construction, 
 and will be better understood from the inspection of a com 
 
 567
 
 HOROLOGY. 
 
 mon clock and repeating watch than from any description 
 mid be gh i a. 
 
 The history of the invention of clocks is very imperfectly 
 known. By some it has been ascribed to Paciticus, arch- 
 ■ i Verona, in the 9th century, and by others to 
 Boethius in the early part of the 6th. The Saracens are 
 supposed to have had clucks which wen' moved by weights 
 as early as the 11th century ; and as the term is applied by 
 Dante to a machine which struck the hunts, clocks must 
 have been known in Italy about the end of the t3th or be- 
 ginning of the 14th century. It is said that the first clock 
 made in England was furnished out of the proceeds of a fine 
 imposed upon the chief justice of the King's Bench in 1288, 
 and that it remained in its original situation, in old Palace 
 Yard, as late as the reign of Elizabeth. In the Feign of 
 Richard II. a large astronomical clock was made by Richard 
 ot Wallingford, abbot of St. Albans, which was regulated by 
 a fly. But the most ancient clock of which we possess any 
 certain account was erected in a tower of the palace of 
 Charles V., king of France, about the year 1304, by Henry 
 de YVyck orde Vick. a (Sermon artist. A clock was erected 
 at Strasburg about 1370, at Courtray about the same period, i 
 and at Spire in 1395. In the following century public 
 clocks appear to have existed in all the principal towns of 
 Europe, and private ones to have come into very general 
 use. 
 
 The earliest clocks were doubtless very rude and imper- 
 fect instruments, and their present state of excellence must 
 have been attained by slow and successive improvements. 
 Wheel-work, set in motion by springs and weights, was 
 known in the time of Archimedes ; and in order to have a 
 timepiece it was only necessary to apply some contrivance 
 to regulate the motion. For this purpose recourse w 'as first 
 had to a fly wheel ; but it would soon be found that the fly, 
 the action of which depends on the resistance of the air, 
 would form a very imperfect regulator. The clock of Henry 
 de YV'yck, above mentioned, was regulated by an alternating 
 balance, which was formed by suspending two heavy 
 weights from a horizontal bar fixed at right angles to an 
 upright arbor, and the movement was accelerated or retard- 
 ed by diminishing or increasing the distance of the weights 
 from the arbor. It had no regulating spring, and the action 
 may consequently be supposed to have been very irregular ; 
 nevertheless clocks regulated in this way were used for 
 astronomical purposes by Walther, Tycho Brahc, Mcestlin, 
 the landgrave of Hesse, and others. The capital improve- 
 ment of the pendulum dates from about the middle of the 
 I7th century ; but it is very uncertain by whom the appli- 
 cation was first made or proposed. Galileo was the first 
 who remarked, or at least the first who formally announced, 
 in his work on mechanics and motion, which was published 
 in 1039, the isochronal property of oscillating bodies sus- 
 pended by strings of the same length ; and it has been pre- 
 tended that he actually applied a pendulum to a clock for 
 the purpose of observing eclipses and determining longitudes. 
 There is, however, no proof of this fact, which has been 
 strongly disputed. Sanctorius, in his Commentary on fivi- 
 cenna, describes an instrument to which he had applied a 
 pendulum in 1612. Richard Harris is said to have con- 
 structed, in 1641, a pendulum clock in London for the church 
 of St. Paul's, Covent Garden. Vincenzo Galilei, a son of 
 Galileo, is stated, on the authority of the Academy del ( inn n- 
 fo, to have applied the pendulum in 1649. It was applied 
 by Huygcns in 1656; and by Hooke, for whom the invention 
 has in i a claimed, about 1670. But to whomsoever the 
 merit may belong of having first made the application, Huy- 
 gens is unquestionably the first who accurately explained 
 the theory of the pendulum; and hence, perhaps, the in- 
 ventim of the pendulum clock has been usually ascribed to 
 him. Huygens demonstrated that the vibrations in circular 
 arcs are not independent of the length of the arc, and that 
 in order to obtain perfect Isochronism, the ball of the pen- 
 dulum must move in the arc of a cycloid ; and, ingeniously 
 implying a propertj of the cycloid, of which he was the 
 discoverer, namely, that its involute is a curve similar to it 
 self, he procured the requisite motion by causing the pendu- 
 lum to vibrate between cycloidal cheeks about which the 
 upper and flexible part of the suspending rod wrapped itself 
 in its motion. Bui i: na found thai no practical advantage 
 
 COUld be obtained from this beautiful contrivance; and in 
 fact it was soon rendered unnecessary by the invention of 
 the anchor escapement, which gives the means of rendering 
 
 the arcs of vibration very small, in which ease the error 
 
 depending on the length of (he arc 1 
 
 The application of the spiral spring to the balance is the 
 
 undoubted invention of Hooke. 
 
 Another int ention, « hich marks an epoch In th 
 of horology, is that of a method of counteracting the effect 
 of changes of temperature on the pendulum rod and balance. 
 The mercurial compensation pendulum was invented by 
 
 Graham about the year 1715. Graham likewise: suggested 
 the method of effecting the compensation, by means of the 
 568 
 
 HOSPITALLER. 
 
 unequal expansions of different metals ; an idea which was 
 subsequently realized by Harrison in the construction of 
 the gridiron pendulum, which is now very generally used. 
 The compensating apparatus in the watch balance depends 
 upon the same principle, but the mechanical arrangement 
 lily very different See Balance. 
 
 For full information on this subject the reader is referred 
 to the following works: Berthoud, Essai sur V Horlogerie ; 
 Id., Histoire de la Misurt du Terns ; dimming' s Elements 
 of Clock and Watch- Work ; Derham's Artificial Clock- 
 maker ; Harrison's Principles of his Timekeeper; Earn- 
 shaw's Explanations of Timekeepers; Reid's Treatise on 
 Clock and Watch-making 1 ; the article "Horology" in the 
 Penny Cyclopedia, &c. 
 
 HORO'METRY. (Gr. wpa, and ptrpov, measure.) The 
 art of measuring hours. 
 
 HO'ROSCOPE. (Gr. S>pa, and oa-ottew, / observe.) A 
 representation of the aspect of the heavens and positions of 
 the celestial bodies at a particular moment, drawn according 
 to the rules of the imaginary science of astrology. Thus 
 the aspect of the heavens at the moment of the birth of an 
 individual is his horoscope, and supposed to indicate his 
 future destinies. See Astrology. 
 
 HO'RPOE. See Upupa. 
 
 HORRIPILA'TION. (Lat. horror, and pilus, a hair.) 
 The common expression of the " hair standing on end," 
 implies the shuddering sensation to which medical writers 
 often apply this term. 
 
 HORSE. SeeEqvvs. ■ 
 
 Horse. In Nautical aflairs, a foot rope to support the 
 feet of the seamen while leaning over a yard or boom to 
 furl the sail. Also, a rod or rope along which the edge or 
 the corner of a sail traverses by means of hanks. 
 
 HORSE POWER. This term, as applied to steam-en- 
 gines, refers to the weight which they are capable of raising 
 to a given height in a given time. Watt estimated a single 
 horse power at 32,000 pounds avoirdupois lifted to the height 
 of one foot per minute ; this is, however, nearly double the 
 work of a simile horse as usually applied to raising weights. 
 
 HORSE RA'DISH, the root of the Cochlearia armoracia, 
 which when scraped is often eaten as a condiment and an 
 ingredient in sauces, has a place in the .Materia Medica as 
 a stimulant, and a compound spirit and compound infusion 
 are directed in the Pharmacopoeia : the latter very soon 
 becomes putrid, and neither are useful. 
 
 HORSE SHOE. In Fortification, a work of a round or 
 oval form. 
 
 HORTICULTURE. (Lat. hortus, a garden, and colo, / 
 cultivate.) The culture of the kitchen garden and orchard. 
 In the kitchen garden are cultivated every description of 
 root, herb, flower, and fruit, used in cookery ; and in the 
 orchard the more hardy fruits used in cookery, and in the 
 dessert. The finer fruits are grown against espaliers, walls, 
 hot walls, or under glass. The chief difference between 
 horticulture and agriculture is, that in the former art the 
 culture is performed by manual labour in a comparatively 
 limited space called a garden ; while in the latter it is per- 
 formed jointly by human and animal labour in fields, or in 
 an extensive tract of ground called a farm. See Gardening, 
 Agriculture, and Farming. 
 
 HO'RTUS SICCUS. A collection of dried plants pre- 
 served in books or papers. 
 
 HOSA'NNA. (Heb.) An exclamation, signifying lite- 
 rally save now. This Hebrew word occurs only once in 
 the Old Test., viz. Psalm cxviii. 25. This psalm is the last 
 of those which compose the "great Hallcl. ;" and hence, 
 perhaps, this invocation was used by those who conducted 
 our Saviour into Jerusalem. (Matt, xxi., Mark xi., John xii.) 
 It was afterwards commonly adopted in the church. (Rid- 
 dle's Christian Antiquities, p. 335. ) 
 
 HOSIERY. See Woollen Manufacture. 
 
 HO'SPITAL. (Fr. hopital.) In Architecture, a building 
 raised and endowed for the reception of persons incapable 
 of supporting themselves and procuring medical .assistance, 
 
 or as o refuge for the unfortunate or needy. Many of the 
 
 charitable institutions in Great Britain are called hospitals; 
 and are incorporated bodies, possessed of greal wealth, 
 
 which is expended in the support of schools, &c. (See 
 M'Culloch's statistics; De Gcrando dc la Jiioifaisance 
 publique, vol. Iv., hook 3.) 
 
 HOSPITAL GANGRENE. A species of ulcerating gan- 
 grene, peculiarly characterized by its infectious nature, and 
 its tendency to attack wounds or ulcers in crowded hospi- 
 tals. 
 
 HO'SPITALLER, in its original acceptation, was applied 
 (0 certain religious bodies, who held it their duty to provide 
 
 lodging and entertal nl for those persons engaged in pil- 
 
 One of the most celebrated institutions of this 
 
 kind was that at Jerusalem, Which gave its mime and origin 
 
 to the Knights Hospitall e r s ■ a well-known religious body, 
 
 instituted about the end of the 1 1th or the beginning of the 
 12th century. They soon afterwards settled permanently 

 
 HOSPITIUM. 
 
 in England, and gradually attached a degree of wealth and 
 importance unequalled in the history' of similar bodies. 
 They followed the rule of St. Austin, and wore a black 
 habit with a white cross upon it At their original institu- 
 tion they were styled Knights of St. John of Jerusalem ; 
 afterwards Knights of Rhodes, and again Knights of Malta, 
 these two islands having been successfully conferred on 
 them by different monarcbs. See St. John of Jerusalem, 
 Knights of. 
 
 HOSPI'TIUM (Lat.), signifies in general a place or inn for 
 the reception of strangers, in which sense it is used by old 
 writers ; but it is in modern times almost wholly restricted 
 to the celebrated inns on St. Bernard and St. Gothard, in 
 Switzerland, to which travellers to and from Italy resort. 
 
 HO'SPODAR, or WOIWODE. The lieutenants appoint- 
 ed by the Porte to govern the two Christian provinces of 
 Moldavia and Wallachia are so called. By the treaty of 
 Adrianople between Prussia and Turkey (1829), these officers 
 are to hold their appointments for life, and to pay a fixed 
 annual tribute. 
 
 HOST (from the Latin hostia, a victim), is applied in 
 Theological language to the bread and wine under the ap- 
 pearance of which the Koman Catholics conceive the body 
 and blood of Christ to be present upon the altar. The ele- 
 vation of the Host is a ceremony prevalent in all Catholic 
 countries, in which the consecrated elements are raised aloft 
 and carried in procession through a church, or even through 
 the streets of a city. On these occasions the people fall on 
 their knees and worship the Host. The origin of the custom 
 is dated from the 12th century, when, it is said, it was thought 
 necessary to make this public and conspicuous declaration 
 of the Eucharist on the occasion of the promulgation of the 
 opinions of Berengarius against transnbstantiation. 
 
 HO'STAGE. (Lat. hospes, guest.) A person left as surety 
 for the performance of the articles of a treaty. The practice 
 of taking hostages is now almost unknown in the mutual 
 relations of civilized communities, but was formerly so com- 
 mon as to have given rise to many questions in the law of 
 nations. Hostages were divided into principal and accessa- 
 ry, the latter being where it is expressly stipulated by treaty 
 that the hostage shall be answerable for the event. One of 
 the points debated among civilians on this subject was, 
 whether such a hostage could lawfully stake his life, and 
 whether, in the event of his doing so, it was lawful to take it. 
 The affirmative was argued from the most ancient example 
 of hostageship on record— Reuben's words to Jacob, " slay 
 my two sons if I bring not Benjamin back." According to 
 Philip de Comines, the Liegois having given hostages to 
 Charles Duke of Burgundy, with express power to put them 
 to death in the event of an infraction of the treaty, and that 
 event having taken place, it was much debated in the coun- 
 cil whether the power should not be carried into execution ; 
 and after much discussion their lives were spared. It has 
 also been questioned whether a hostage can be delivered 
 up against his will : Grotius decides in the affirmative. The 
 extent of the rights of conquerors over hostages, the events 
 which may dissolve their obligation, the effect of their escape 
 upon the convention between the principals, and other points 
 of the subject, are treated at length by writers on national 
 law. 
 
 HOTCHPOT, in Law, is a blending or mixing together of 
 lands given in marriage with lands in fee falling by descent. 
 As if A. had two daughters, and gives a third part of his 
 lands in marriage with one of them to her husband, and 
 dies seised of the other two thirds : in order to acquire any 
 farther share of these lands, the married daughter must 
 bring the lands first given into hotchpot ; that is, she must 
 renounce the gift, and allow the land to be confovmded with 
 the rest, in order that she may inherit her whole share; 
 otherwise her sister will have the remaining two thirds of 
 the lands. There is also a rule of hotchpot with respect to 
 the distribution of personal property within the stat. 22 & 23 
 C. 2, c. 10 ; as, where a certain sum is to be raised and paid 
 to a daughter for her portion by a marriage settlement, if the 
 daughter would have any farther share of her father's per- 
 sonal estate she must bring this money into hotchpot, and 
 allow it to form part of the distributable residue. 
 
 HOTE'L (Fr.), signifies, in a general sense, a large inn for 
 the reception of strangers ; but in a particular sense, espe- 
 cially in France, it is applied to the residences of the king, 
 nobility, or other persons of rank: or it is used synon- 
 ymously with hospital, as the Hotel Dieu, Hotel des Inaa- 
 lides, &c. 
 
 HO'THOUSE. A general term for the glass structures 
 used in gardening, and including stoves, greenhouses, orange 
 ries, and conservatories. Pits and frames are garden struc- 
 tures with glass roofs, with the sides and ends of masonry 
 or wood ; but they are generally so low as not to admit of 
 being entered and walked in, and this seems to prevent them 
 from being included under the term hothouse. Sec Stove, 
 Greenhouse, Pits and Frames. 
 HOTVVALL. In Gardening, walls for the growth of 
 
 HOUSE. 
 
 fruit-trees, which arc built with flues or other contrivancef 
 for being heated in severe weather, so as to facilitate the 
 ripening of the wood or the maturity of the fruit. The most 
 common form of hotwalls is that in which flues or tunnels 
 are conducted through them, into which the smoke and 
 heated air from fires are made to ascend from a furnace at 
 the bottom of the wall to a chimney on the top; but in soma 
 cases hotwalls are formed by constructing the entire wall 
 hollow, tying the two sides together by cross-stones or bricks, 
 and introducing heat by means of pipes of metal containing 
 steam or hot water along the bottom of the vacuity, the heat 
 of which rises to the top of the wall, and heats every part 
 in its progress. In all climates north of the meridian of Lon- 
 don, hotwalls are of great use for ripening fruits and young 
 shoots, and preserving tender plants. See Wall. 
 
 HOUNDS. In Naval Architecture, the projecting parts 
 of the sides of the mast, near its head, which, like shoulder^ 
 support the rigging, &c. 
 
 HOUR, in its general acceptation, denotes the twenty- 
 fourth part of a mean solar day, or of the time in which the 
 earth makes a complete revolution in respect of the sun. 
 The division of the artificial day, or time from sunrise to 
 sunset, into twelve equal parts, belongs to the remotest ages 
 of antiquity (see Goguct, Origine des Loix, &c.) ; the divis- 
 ion of the night into the same number of parts was intro- 
 duced at Rome in the time of the Punic wars. The Italians 
 make the day commence at sunset, and reckon on to twenty- 
 four hours, or to the succeeding sunset Astronomers also 
 reckon twenty-four hours from midday to midday ; but in 
 the civil reckoning only twelve hours are counted, namely, 
 from midnight to midday, and from midday to midnight. 
 The hours which result from the division of the artificial 
 day into twelve parts are called temporary hours, from being 
 of unequal lengths at the different seasons of the vear. 
 
 HOUR CIRCLES, or HORARY CIRCLES. The same 
 as meridians ; being great circles of the sphere perpendicular 
 to the equator, and their planes making with each other an- 
 gles of fifteen degrees. 
 
 HOUR-GLASS. A species of chronometer or clepsydra, 
 measuring intervals of time by the running of water or sand 
 from one glass into another. 
 
 HOU'RIS. The name given by the Europeans to the 
 imaginary beings whose company in the Mohammedan 
 paradise is to form the principal felicity of the believers. 
 The name is derived from hur al oyun, signifying black-eyed. 
 They are represented in the Koran as most beautiful virgins, 
 with complexions like rubies and pearls, and possessed of 
 every intellectual and corporeal charm. They are not 
 created of clay, as mortal women, but of pure musk; and 
 are endowed with immortal youth, and immunity from the 
 diseases and defects of ordinary beings. (See Koran, chap. 
 55, 56, Sale's translation ; and the Prel. Discourse, s. 4.) 
 
 HOURS. (Gr. 'Slpai.) In Mythology, divinities regarded 
 in two points of view — as the goddesses of the seasons, and 
 hours of the day ; and their number is stated in different 
 ways accordingly. Their duty was to hold the gates of 
 heaven, which they opened to send forth the chariot of the 
 sun in the morning, and receive it again in the evening. No 
 classical poet has described them with greater beauty than 
 Shelley, in a celebrated passage of his Prometheus Unbound. 
 These goddesses are often depicted as forming the train of 
 Venus. (See Homer. Hymn, ad Ven^\A5\ Hes., Erg., vet. 
 75, and Hymn, ad Spoil., ver. 194 ; see also Gray's Ode on 
 the Spring.) 
 
 HOURS, CANONICAL. The seven hours of prayer. 
 observed, it is said, by the Catholic Church since the 5th 
 century : chiefly in monasteries. The number seems before 
 that time to have varied, although some peculiar seasons of 
 the day and night were always set apart for this observance. 
 They became finally fixed at seven by the rule of S'. Bene- 
 dict: a number, perhaps, recommended by the literal accep- 
 tation of the words of David (Psalm cxix.), " Seven times a 
 clay will I praise thee." These hours are termed, in the 
 language of the Latin Church, matins, prima, tertia, nona, 
 vespers, completa or completorium, which last takes place 
 at midnight. At the time of the Reformation the canonical 
 hours were reduced in the Lutheran Church to two, morning 
 and evening ; the " reformed" church never observed them. 
 (See Bingham's Ant. Keel., 5; Riddle's Christian Ant.; 
 Erseh and Gruber's Encycl., "Horae.") 
 
 HOUSE. (Germ, haus.) A human habitation, or place 
 of abode of a family. Among the Eastern nations, and those 
 to the south, houses are flat on the top. with the ascent to 
 the upper story bv steps on the outside. As we proceed 
 northward, a declivity of the roof becomes requisite to 
 throw off the rain and snow, which are of greater continu- 
 ance in higher latitudes. Among the ancient Greeks, Ro- 
 mans, and Jews, the houses usual Iv enclosed a quadrangular 
 area or court, open to the sky. This part of the house was 
 by the Romans called the imp/uvium, or cavirdium, and was 
 provided with channels to carry oft' the waters into the sew- 
 ers. Both the Roman and Greek house is described by 
 Mm* 569
 
 HOUSEHOLDER. 
 
 Vitruvius, to whose works we must refer the reader for far- 
 ther information on these heads. The word housr is a term 
 used in various ways; as in the phrase "a religious house," 
 oither the buildings of a monastery, or the community of per- 
 sons inhabiting them, may be designated. In the middle 
 ages, when a family retired to the lodge connected with the 
 mansion, or to their country-seat, it w;is called "keeping 
 their secret house." (See A. ,■//(« /«/-, rland Household Book?) 
 Every gradation of building for habitation, from the cottage 
 to the palace, Is embraced by the word bouse ; so that to give 
 a full account of the requisites of each would occupy more 
 space than could be devoted to the subject in this work: 
 indeed, to say more would be to write a treatise on domestic 
 architecture. 
 
 HOUSEHOLDER. In Law, the occupier of a house. 
 Where the right of voting for members of parliament is in 
 inhabitant householders, it has been settled by a current of 
 decisions that no one is to be considered as such who does 
 not possess the exclusive right to the use of the outward door 
 of the building, lie retains the character, however, although 
 by taking inmates he may for a time have relinquished the 
 exercise of that exclusive right. The " outward door," to 
 satisfy this description, need not be a door opening on the 
 public way; a room or set of rooms having a separate and 
 exclusive outward door (as chambers in one of the Inns of 
 Court) may in the eye of law constitute a house. The 
 same principle is followed in criminal law, where, to consti- 
 tute the offence of burglary, it is necessary that a "house" 
 shall have been broken and entered. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD, THE KING'S. The chief officers of the 
 king's household are: 1. The lord chamberlain; under 
 whom are the vice-chamberlain, groom of the stole, lords of 
 the bedchamber, gentlemen of the privy chamber, &c. 2. 
 The lord steward ; in whose office are the treasurer and 
 comptroller of the household, yeomen of the guard, gentle- 
 men pensioners, master of the horse, &c. 
 
 HOUSEHOLD TROOPS. See Guards. 
 
 HOUSE OF CORRECTION. A prison for the punish- 
 ment of idle and disorderly persons, vagrants, trespassers, 
 &c. They are regulated by 4 G. 4, c. 64, and other statutes. 
 See Bridewell, Prison. 
 
 HOU'SING. (From house.) In Architecture, the space 
 taken out of one solid to admit of the insertion of another. 
 
 HO'VEL. An open shed for sheltering cattle, for pro- 
 tecting produce or materials of different kinds from the 
 weather, or for performing various country operations during 
 heavv rains, falls of snow, or severe frosts. 
 
 HOWITZER. (Germ, haufen, to Jill up.) A species of 
 mortar, or piece of ordnance, of iron or brass. The iron 
 howitzers used in the British service are four or five feet 
 long, and eight or ten inches diameter. 
 
 HOY. A small vessel having generally one mast. 
 
 HUBERT, ORDER OF SAINT. The highest Bavarian 
 order of knighthood, founded in 1444. 
 
 HUE AND CRY. In Law, the common process of pur- 
 suing a felon. This custom is of ancient origin, and evi- 
 dently arose from the practice of pursuing the offender with 
 a loud outcry, that all might try to bring him to justice. 
 
 HU GUENOTS. In French History, a name given in 
 the sixteenth century to the Protestants or Calvinists of 
 France. The writers of that time were not acquainted with 
 the true derivation of ibis popular nickname, to which they 
 assigned various absurd etymologies; it is, undoubtedly, a 
 corruption of the German " Eidgenossen," signifying the 
 Swiss confederates. Geneva was the literary and ecclesias- 
 tical metropolis of the French reformed; and, consequently, 
 they were naturally confounded, in the eye of the Catholic 
 populace, with the Swiss, who supported that republic by 
 their alliance. After a long period, during which they in- 
 creased in numbers under occasional persecution (under 
 Francis I. and Henry II.), a large party of the Huguenots took 
 part in the conspiracy of Amboise in 1560; and although 
 the free exercise of their religion was secured to them by 
 the edict of January (1562), yet they were driven by the 
 violations of thai edict to take ap arms against the govern- 
 ment of Francis H. in the same year. At that period their 
 leaders were of the houses of Bourbon (King of Navarre 
 and Prince of Condi'-; and Chatillon (the Admiral Coll 
 They were powerful in numbers, and stHI more in wealth 
 and consequence. A verj large proportion of the higher 
 nobility ; of the middle nobility and gentry, especially in the 
 centrai and south-western parts of fiance; (he whole or 
 greater part of the population in some towns, as Rouen, La 
 Rochelle, Dieppe, nismes; finally, a large body among the 
 peasantry in some districts, especially of the south, where 
 the doctrines of the Alhigcois were never fully extinguish- 
 ed — these belonged to their party. But during the religious 
 wars of the 16th century they gradually lost ground under 
 the increasing zeal and fanaticism of the great Catholic 
 body; and after the conversion of Henry IV. most of their 
 duel's among the nobility successively abandoned the faith. 
 Tliey sustained two civil wars in the following century 
 570 
 
 HUNDRED. 
 
 against Louis XIII., which cost them the loss of the strong 
 places which they had held, and of many Of their privileges. 
 The history of the Protestant Church is "France then ceased 
 to be the history of a political party; and the name of Hu- 
 guenots, about the same time, began to pass out of ordinary 
 use. De Thou, Davila, D'Aubigny, Lanoue, are perhaps 
 the most valuable of the numerous cotemporary historians 
 
 of the 16th century. Of modem i ipilations, Smedlejfs 
 
 History of the Religious liars of Franc i ; Wrnxnll; Sis- 
 mondi, vols. xvi. to xx. ; Browning's History of the Jfugo- 
 nots from the Edict uf JVantes, a useful compendium, with 
 references to the best authorities, published in le'3'J. 
 
 HUI'SSIER. (Fr. from the old word huis, a door ; whence 
 our usher.) Executive officers in the French courts of jus- 
 tice, whose original function was to keep the door of the 
 tribunal. Such officers were styled by the Romans appari- 
 tores, col ioi tales, cxecutores, and by a variety of other names. 
 In France the huissiers were originally a •subdivision of the 
 general class of servientes, sergens ; but afterwards these 
 latter came to be called indiscriminately huissiers. Their 
 functions are now numerous and important. They give 
 notice on behalf of, and execute the processes of the courts 
 to which they are attached, both civil and criminal. Those 
 of the Court of Cassation are appointed by itself; those of 
 the Cours Royale on the recommendation of those courts ; 
 those of courts of commerce by the government. The officers 
 termed huissiers-priseurs, or commissaires-priseurs, arc em- 
 ployed as appraisers at public sale-. 
 
 HU'LFSTON. (Germ.) In Music, the secondary or su- 
 perior note in a shake. Sec Haupt Ton. 
 
 HULK. The name given to an old ship laid by as unfit 
 for farther service. The hulks near Woolwich consist of 
 old ships to which convicts are sent previously to their de- 
 parture from the country. 
 
 HULL. The body of a ship, exclusive of the masts, rig- 
 ging, &c. 
 
 Hull down, expresses that the hull of the ship is concealed 
 by the convexity of the sea. 
 
 HUMANITA'RIAN. A term sometimes applied to those 
 who deny the divinity of Christ, and assert him to have been 
 mere man. This, however, is more than the word exactly 
 signifies, and the term Psilanthropist, or mere Humanitarian, 
 has been suggested as conveying the idea more precisely. 
 Sec Socinian, Unitarian. 
 
 HUMANITIES. A word employed in modern Eu- 
 ropean schools nnd colleges of various nations, to signify 
 grammar, rhetoric, and poetry, including the study of the 
 ancient classics. It has the same sense with polite litera- 
 ture. A student in humanities (litera: humaniores) is term- 
 ed a humanist. 
 
 HUMBLE BEE. Sec Mellifera. 
 
 HU'MOBLDTINE. A native oxalate of the protoxide of 
 iron. It occurs crystalline and massive, and of a yellow 
 colour; the massive variety is earthy and greenish yellow. 
 
 HU'MBOLDTITE. A name given to a variety .of Dar 
 tholite, or borosilicate of lime. It occurs crystallized. These 
 minerals are named in honour of Humboldt, the celebrated 
 traveller. 
 
 HU'MERUS. (Lat.) The bone of the arm. The first 
 of the radiated system of bones of the anterior extremity, 
 articulated with the scapula in the vertebrated animals. In 
 Entomology, Mr. Kirby so calls the third joint of the anterior 
 pair of lees m Hexapod insects. 
 
 HU'MIFU'SUS (Lat. humus, the ground, and fundo, / 
 pour or spread out), in Botany, denotes the spreading of 
 plants over the surface of the ground: procumbent. 
 
 HUMIRIA'CE/E. (Huniirium, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of arborescent or shrubby Exogens, inhabiting 
 Brazil, but not very well understood. They differ from 
 
 Mcliaceai m their albuminous Beads and their slender em- 
 bryo; agreeing in the latter respect, and in their balsamic 
 wood, with Styracete. Humirium floribundum yields, on 
 being wounded, a liquid yellow balsam, called Balsam of 
 I'miri, resembling the properties of Copaiva and Balsam 
 ofTolu. 
 
 HTJ'MTTE. A mineral named in honour of Sir Abraham 
 Hume, in whose celebrated collection it was found. It oc- 
 curs in yellow brown or colourless crystals on Monte Som- 
 ma. It has not been analyzed. 
 
 HI ".M.MING BIRD. See Trocuilus. 
 
 HUMOUR. Set Wit. 
 
 HU'MOURS OF THE EYE. Sec Eye. 
 
 HUNDRED. A hundred is a territorial division, having 
 for il - Object the more convenient and efficient administration 
 of justice; anciently subsisting in other countries, particu- 
 larly France and Lombard} - , as well as in England, and 
 adopted in this country as the subdivision of a county. The 
 institution of the hundred, as well as that of the county and 
 tything, is. upon no precise authority, usually referred to the 
 reign of Alfred ; but it is probable that the division was of an 
 
 older date, and that it was not introduced into all parts of 
 England at the same time. It is certain, at any rate, that
 
 HUNDRED WEIGHT. 
 
 the term had not, in all parts, the same application ; for 
 the meaning usually given to it, namely, that of a district 
 containing a hundred free families, even if it be reconcilable 
 with what appears to have been in early times the state of 
 the population in the southern counties, is totally inconsistent 
 with any reasonable conjecture as to the population of the 
 north, where the hundred generally includes a much larger 
 district. It is probable, therefore, that the term, having 
 originated in the south with the meaning stated, was subse- 
 quently applied to the divisions previously established in the 
 northern counties under the name of Wapentakes. To each 
 hundred belonged a court baron, similar in the nature and 
 extent of its jurisdiction to the county court, and also a court 
 leet (see tit. Leet) ; both of which were usually, and by the 
 common law, held either by the sheriff, or by a deputy or 
 steward having authority under him. But in some cases 
 the jurisdiction of the court baron and court leet, or of one 
 of them, within the hundred, was by special grant of the 
 crown vested in private persons, and exercised by them or 
 their deputies. The essential use of the hundred was in the 
 liability of the hundreders, when offences were committed 
 within their district, either to produce the offender, or make 
 good the damage. This liability, much restricted by statute, 
 still subsists in certain cases of riotous and wilful mischief. 
 The division into hundreds is frequently used in acts of par- 
 liament as a convenient mode of reference. 
 
 HU'NDRED WEIGHT. A denomination of weight con- 
 taining 112 pounds. It is subdivided into 4 quarters, each 
 containing 28 pounds. See Weights. 
 
 HUNTERS. Venantes. A tribe of spiders are so called 
 which are incessantly running or leaping about in the vi- 
 cinity of their abode, to chase and seize their prey. 
 
 HU'RDLE. A frame usually made of wood, but some- 
 times of iron, for the purpose of forming temporary fences. 
 The frame consists of two perpendicular stakes, into which 
 are fixed five or six horizontal bars, and the whole is braced 
 together by one or two diagonal pieces. When a fence is 
 to be formed, the hurdles are put down end to end ; and 
 they are made fast to the ground by the insertion of the 
 lower end of the stakes into it, and to one another by a tie 
 fastened round their upper ends, or by a movable wooden 
 pin passed through them. 
 
 UURO'XIA. A name given by Mr. Charles Stokes to 
 certain radiated articulated bodies formerly referred to the 
 Polyparia, found in the transition limestone of Lake Huron. 
 (Geol. Trans., vol. i., New Series.) 
 
 HU'RRICANE. (Span, huracan.) A violent storm, 
 generally accompanied by thunder and lightning, and dis- 
 tinguished from every other kind of tempest by the vehe- 
 mence of the wind, and the sudden changes to which it is 
 subject. Hurricanes prevail chiefly in the East and West 
 Indies, the Isle of France, and in some parts of China. The 
 following graphic description of the usual phenomena at- 
 tending the West Indian hurricanes, from the pen of Edmund 
 Burke, may be interesting to the reader : " It is in the rainy 
 season, principally in the month of August, more rarely in 
 July and September, that they are assaulted by hurricanes, 
 the most terrible calamity to which they are subject from 
 the climate. This destroys at one stroke the labour of 
 many years, and frustrates the most exalted hopes of the 
 planter, and often just at the moment when he thinks him- 
 self out of the reach of fortune. It is a sudden and violent 
 storm of wind, rain, thunder, and lightning, attended with a 
 furious swelling of the sea, and sometimes with an earth- 
 quake ; in short, with even.' circumstance which the ele- 
 ments can assemble that is terrible and destructive. First 
 they see, as a prelude to the ensuing havoc, whole fields of 
 sugar-canes whirled into the air, and scattered over the face 
 of the country. The strongest trees of the forest are torn up 
 by the roots and driven about like stubble. Their wind- 
 mills are swept away in a moment. Their works, their 
 fixtures, the ponderous copper-boilers and stills of several 
 hundred weight, are w T renched from the ground and bat- 
 tered to pieces. Their houses are no protection ; the roofs 
 are torn off at one blast, while the rain, which in an hour 
 rises five feet, rushes in upon them with an irresistible vio- 
 lence. There are signs which the Indians of these islands 
 taught our planters, by which they can prognosticate the 
 approach of a hurricane. It comes on either in the quar- 
 ters, or at the full or change of the moon. If it will come 
 on at the full moon, you being at the change, observe these 
 signs. That day you will see the sky very turbulent. You 
 will observe the sun more red than at other times. You 
 will perceive a dead calm, and the hills clear of all those 
 clouds and mists which usually hover about them. In the 
 clefts of the earth, and in the wells, you will hear a hollow, 
 rumbling sound like the rushing of a great wind. At night 
 the stars seem much larger than usual, and surrounded with 
 a sort of burs. The north-west sky has a sort of menacing 
 look, and the sea emits a strong smell, and rises into vast 
 waves, often without any wind. The wind itself now for- 
 sakes its usually steady easterly stream, and shifts about to 
 
 HUSTINGS. 
 
 the west, from whence it sometimes blows with intermis- 
 sions violently and irregularly for about two hours at a 
 time. You have the same signs at the full of the moon. 
 The moon itself is surrounded with a great bur, and some- 
 times the sun has the same appearance." See Storms, 
 Tornado. 
 
 HURST. (Sax.) A wood ; hence the termination of the 
 names of several places in England, particularly in Kent 
 and Sussex. 
 
 HU'SBANDRY. A comparatively primitive term, in- 
 cluding both agriculture and gardening, or all those country 
 occupations which the father of a family is expected to per- 
 form in the country. The term is very commonly used as 
 synonymous with agriculture. The Berwickshire hus- 
 bandry, the convertible husbandry, are terms used in agri- 
 culture for certain systems of cropping, in which the land is 
 alternately kept under grass and tillage. 
 
 HUSSA'RS. A name given to some well-known eques- 
 trian troops, used in all the armies of Europe. The term is 
 of Hungarian origin (being derived from busz, twenty, and 
 ar, pay, every twenty houses furnishing one man), and was 
 first applied to the body of troops raised by the nobles of 
 Hungary on occasion of the appeal made to the latter in 
 1458 by Mathias Corvin. The equipments of such troops 
 are extremely light and elegant, and their arms consist of a 
 sabre, a carbine, and a pair of pistols. In the British cav- 
 alry there are five regiments of Hussars. 
 
 HU'SSITES. The followers of John Huss, a Bohemian 
 reformer and divine, who was convicted of heresy by the 
 Council of Constance, and burnt by order of the Emperor of 
 Germany, in 1415. The circumstances attending the origin 
 of this sect are interesting, inasmuch as while, on the one 
 hand, there is no doubt but that the writings of Huss and 
 Jerome of Prague were the source from which Luther drew 
 a great part of his opinions and views, it is ascertained at 
 the same time that it was from the books of Wiclif that 
 Huss was himself induced to institute his bold inquiries into 
 the faith and morals of the church. The errors which 
 were charged against him contain many of the opinions now 
 held by all Protestants; but several of these he himself 
 denied, and those for the assertion of which he ultimately 
 suffered have neither been universally held by reformers, 
 nor seem of very great importance. They were these: 1. 
 That Pope Sylvester and the Emperor Constantine did evil 
 to the church when they enriched it. 2. That if any eccle- 
 siastic be in a state of mortal sin, he is disqualified for the ad- 
 ministration of the sacraments. 3. That tithes are not dues, 
 but merely eleemosynary. On the other hand, he held the 
 Romish idea of transubstantiation ; and the opinion of the 
 necessity of communion in both kinds, which became after- 
 wards the most remarkable feature in the doctrines of the 
 Hussites, is not, in reality, to be ascribed to their founder. 
 The condemnation of Huss is also remarkable, as it is from 
 the circumstances attendant on it that the imputation of not 
 keeping faith with heretics is originally charged upon the 
 Roman Church. The Emperor Sigismund gave Huss a safe 
 conduct, to secure him from any ill consequences that he 
 might apprehend from delivering himself up voluntarily to 
 be examined by the council. Nor did the council assert 
 any right to condemn him. They handed him over to the 
 secular arm, to the emperor himself. But it is confidently 
 asserted that when the emperor scrupled to violate a promise 
 which was undoubtedly binding upon him, it was at the 
 pressing instance of the pope or cardinals that he allowed 
 the execution to take place. The apologists of the Roman 
 Catholics in this matter affirm that this safe conduct imported 
 only that Huss might go to Constance without being harmed ; 
 the Words of the original instrument, however, are reported 
 to be, ''Tranrfre, stare, morari, redire libere permittatis." 
 
 After the execution of Huss, and of his disciple Jerome in 
 the following year, there arose a violent insurrection among 
 their partisans in Bohemia, who maintained themselves for 
 many years by force of arms, and split into two sects, under 
 the denominations of the Calixtines and the Thaborites. The 
 former, so called from demanding the cup in the sacrament, 
 were finally reconciled to the church by the concession 
 which they required. The latter were so called from the 
 name they gave to the hill on which they pitched their 
 camp in the neighbourhood of Prague, and carried their 
 notions upon the authority of the church and its ministers, 
 ceremonies, and all the exterior of religion, to the length of 
 an extravagant simplicity. The Bohemian Brothers and 
 the Beghards, who gave so great an impulse to the reforma- • 
 tion, were the descendants of this branch of the Hussites. 
 (Cochlaeus, Historia Hussitarum ; Gieseler's Text-book, iii., 
 355, translation.) 
 
 HU'STINGS. (Either from the French hausser, to lift, 
 or Sax. hus, house, and ting, court or judgment.) The prin- 
 cipal court of the city of London, held before the lord-mayor 
 and aldermen: also, in common language, the booth or ele- 
 vated place on which candidates at a parliamentary election 
 are proposed, and address their constituents. 
 
 571
 
 HUTCHINSONIANS. 
 
 HUTCHINSO'NIANS. The name given to those who 
 embraced the opinions of John Hutchinson, a well-known 
 philosopher and naturalist of the 18th century. Though 
 the followers of Hutchinson have never constituted a sect, 
 they have reckoned among their number several distin- 
 guished divines both of the established churches of the 
 United Kingdom and of dissenting communities. The num- 
 ber of professed Hutchinsonians is rapidly decreasing, though 
 the principles and views of their founder are still entertained 
 by many. The chief characteristics of Hutchinson's phi- 
 losophy consist in his rejection of Newton's doctrine of 
 gravitation ; and in his maintaining the existence of a ple- 
 num on the authority of the Old Testament, which, accord- 
 ing to him, embraces a complete system of natural philoso- 
 phy as well as of religion. See his works, 12 vols., 8vo, 1748. 
 HY'ACINTH. (Or.) In Mineralogy, one of the names 
 given to the yellow or brown crystals of zircon. It occurs 
 in beds of streams and rivers, especially in Ceylon, along 
 with rubies, sapphires, &.c. Its most usual form, when in 
 crystals, is a four-sided prism terminated by four rhombic 
 planes. 
 
 HYACI'NTHUS. In Grecian Mythology, the son of 
 Amyclas king of Laconia, and of the muse Clio, accidentally 
 killed by Apollo while they were playing at quoits. The 
 story is thus related: Zephyr, enraged at the preference 
 displayed by Hyacinthus for Apollo, caused the wind of 
 which he was the god to turn from its course a quoit thrown 
 by Apollo, which hitting him on the forehead instantane- 
 ously caused his death. The latter immortalized his favour- 
 ite by causing the flower which still bears his name to spring 
 from his blood, and inscribed the word AI (Gr. ai, alas) on 
 its leaves, to indicate the deep grief of the god for his loss. 
 An annual festival, named Hyaeinthia, was celebrated at 
 Amyclffi in honour of Hyacinthus. (Athen., Deipn., iv., 
 p. 139.) 
 
 HYACY'NTHINE. A brown or greenish mineral in 
 eight-sided prisms, transparent and doubly refractive. 
 
 HY'ADES. (Gr. huv, to rain.) In Mythology, the name 
 given to the daughters of Atlas and Pleione, who, over- 
 whelmed with grief at the fate of their brother Hyas, who 
 was torn in pieces by a bull, are said to have wept so vio- 
 lently that tlie gods, in compassion, took them into heaven 
 and placed them in the Bull's forehead, where they still 
 continue to weep, and are thence supposed to presage rain. 
 They form a cluster of five stars in the face of Taurus. 
 Hyades. See Taurus. 
 
 HYjE'NA. (Gr. Yaiva.) A genus of digitigrade Carniv- 
 orous Mammals, separated by Storr from tire Canis of Lin- 
 nteus, from which it not only differs in dentition and other 
 important particulars, but, in general, manifests a closer 
 affinity with the Fiverridcr, between which and Felis the 
 genus Hyatva is placed by Cuvier. The characters of this 
 genus are, five molars above and four below on each side, 
 the three anterior molars being conical, smooth, and re- 
 markably large, adapted for breaking the bones of their 
 prey ; thie tongue has a broad patch of cuticular spines on 
 the anterior part of its dorsum ; the legs are each terminated 
 by four claws ; there is a peculiarly large perineal glandular 
 pouch ; and the neck and jaws are remarkable for the 
 strength of their muscles. The species of hy»na are noc- 
 turnal ; they prey on dead carcasses. An extinct species 
 (hyeena spelaia) was abundant in England and France ante- 
 rior to the glacier epoch, and has left its remains in many 
 caverns in both countries. 
 
 HYALjE'A. (Gr. iiaXoi, glass.) A genus of beautiful 
 Pteropodous Mollusks, remarkable for the delicacy and 
 transparency of the shell. This bears a close resemblance 
 to a bivalve, with the two valves unequal and soldered 
 together at the hinge. That portion of the shell which cor- 
 responds to the ventral aspect of the animal is convex ; the 
 dorsal plate is nearly flat, and is longer than the other ; the 
 hinder or closed margin of the shell is produced into three 
 sharp points. The inhabitant is provided with two large 
 wing like processes of the mantle, which it protrudes when 
 swimming, from the anterior open fissure of the shell. 
 The species are found floating in the Mediterranean and 
 tropical seas. 
 
 HY'ALITE. (Gr. tiaXo?, and XiOoj, a stone.) A yellow or 
 gray variety of uncleavable quartz or opal ; it is commonly 
 concretionary or chalcedonic, of a vitreous fracture and 
 lustre. It occurs in trap rocks in grains, filaments, and 
 rhomboidal masses: it is silica combined with about 6 per 
 cent, of water. 
 
 HY'ALOID. (Gr. 8(/Ao?, and citos.form.) A tern) ap- 
 plied to transparent membranes, and more particularly to 
 that which invests the vitreous humour of the eve. 
 
 HYBERBO'REANS. (Gr. {imp, beyond, and tloptas, the 
 north wind.) The name given by the ancients to the un- 
 known inhabitants of the most northern regions of the globe, 
 who, as their name implied, were supposed to be placed 
 beyond the influence of the north wind, and consequently 
 to enjoy a mild and delightful climate. The question of 
 572 
 
 HYBERNATION. 
 
 the existence and exact situation of the Hyberbnreans long 
 formed one of the most intricate in the whole compass of 
 ancient history ; but the general opinion now inclines to re- 
 gard them as synonymous with the Laplanders, Norwegians, 
 and some other nations of northern Europe. (See the Encyc. 
 des Gens du Monde.) 
 
 HYUERNA'CULUM. A term invented by Linna?us to 
 denote a leaf-bud, which he rightly considered the winter- 
 quarters of" the point of growth in a plant. 
 
 HYBERNATION. (Lat. hybemus, icintry.) The act 
 by, or the state in which certain animals exist during that 
 season of the year when excess of cold or of heat, or lack 
 of food, prevents their going abroad and performing their 
 customary functions. As the state is generally superinduced 
 by the rigours of winter, it has received its denomination 
 from that circumstance ; but in the tropics, the effects of the 
 hottest and driest weather, in reducing the numbers of the 
 insect world, are such as to render it necessary for many 
 reptiles and some insectivorous mammals, as the Tenrecs, 
 to pass into a state of inactivity or torpidity, in order to 
 maintain life until the recommencement of the rainy season. 
 The condition of hybernation is, in fact, less the alteration 
 of temperature than the abstraction of the means of sub- 
 sistence dependant thereon ; as, e. g., the disappearance of 
 insects in the winter season of our own climate. 
 
 Animals so highly organized as the warm-blooded and 
 quick-breathing mammalia cannot maintain their compli- 
 cated organic machinery in action without frequent supplies 
 of food : an interruption in this respect of a few days, or at 
 most a few weeks, is fatal. If, therefore, the phenomenon 
 of hybernation had been known only in the cold-blooded 
 classes, an insectivorous mammal in a climate where in- 
 sects could not subsist for several months in the year would 
 be inconceivable. The modification of the vital powers by 
 which a warm-blooded animal is made even temporarily to 
 assume the state and properties of a reptile, is perhaps one 
 of the most striking instances of special adaptations to meet 
 an exceptional case that the history of animals presents. 
 When the atmosphere becomes vacant of insect life, and 
 the bat, in its nocturnal flittings, would vainly traverse it in 
 search of food ; and when the few insects that survive the 
 winter have burrowed too deeply in the earth, or concealed 
 themselves in hiding-places too secure for the reach of the 
 hedgehog — these species, with starvation staring them in 
 the face, are preserved by the suspension of those functions, 
 the maintaining of which in a state of activity is essentially 
 dependant on an uninterrupted supply of nutriment. The 
 bat suspends itself in the innermost recesses of its cave, the 
 hedgehog creeps to its concealed nest and both resign them- 
 selves to deep repose ; but the breathing becomes gradually 
 slower than in ordinary sleep, the pulsations of the heart 
 diminish in force and frequency, the supply of stimulating 
 arterial blood to the muscles and the brain is progressively 
 reduced, relaxation of the muscular fibres is converted into 
 stiff inaction, and sleep sinks into stupor : at length respira- 
 tion entirely ceases, and with it those chemical changes in 
 the capillary circulation on which animal heat mainly de- 
 pends. The preservation of life, in its passive or latent 
 state, is now due to the irritable property of the heart's 
 fibre, which is excited to contract by the blood in its pres- 
 ent dark or carbonized state, and continues to propel it 
 slowly over the torpid frame during the whole period of 
 hybernation. This slow circulation of venous blood through 
 both the pulmonic and systemic vessels is the only recogni- 
 sable vital act during that period, and the material convey- 
 ed by the absorbents into the circulating fluid is sufficient to 
 counterbalance the slight waste thus occasioned. So long, 
 therefore, as the state of torpidity continues, the hedgehog 
 and bat are independent of supplies from without, hut they 
 purchase that independence by a temporary abrogation of 
 their vital faculties: cold, senseless, motionless, and asphyx- 
 iated, their entry into death's chamber is prevented only by 
 their being brought to his very door. 
 
 The hybernation of lizards, snakes, frogs, toads, and other 
 cold-blooded reptiles, is accompanied by analogous changes, 
 differing only in degree ; for as the heart in these animals 
 is at all times destined to propel blood imperfectly oxyge- 
 nated — as the respiratory or oxygenating apparatus is im- 
 perfect — and as the heat of the body in them rises anil falls 
 with the external temperature, a slight deterioration of these 
 lower conditions of the circulating and respiratory functions 
 induces torpidity, with the consequent loss of appetite and 
 independence of food. Some quadrupeds, as the dormouse 
 and squirrel, which subsist on articles of diet better adapted 
 to be laid up in store than insects, carry a winter provision 
 to their livbernatini: nests ; and their torpidity is more near- 
 ly allied to a profound but ordinary sleep: respiration is 
 never wholly suspended ; the waste of the organism is pro- 
 portionate to the degree of activity in the working of the 
 machine, and they occasionally rouse themselves and take 
 in the requisite supply from their provident store. Insectiv- 
 orous birds, being independent, through their power of trav-
 
 HYDRID. 
 
 ershig space, of the vicissitudes of climate and their conse- 
 quences, transport themselves, when their food fails in one 
 country, to latitudes favourable to its abundance : hence 
 the immigration of the cuckoo and swallow at the com- 
 mencement of the genial season, and their subsequent dis- 
 appearance. 
 
 HY'BRID. (Gr. v6pic, a mule.) The produce of a female 
 plant or animal which has been impregnated by a male of a 
 different variety, species, or genus. 
 
 The most common hybrids are those which result from 
 the connexion of different varieties of the same species, as 
 the produce of the wild boar and domestic sow ; the end- 
 less modifications which result from analogous interbreed- 
 ing from varieties of the rose and other ornamental or use- 
 ful plants are familiar examples of the principle among ve- 
 getables. 
 
 Specifical hybrids have been produced from the artificial 
 fertilization by Kcelreuter of the Nicotiana rustica with the 
 pollen of the Nicotiana parriculata ; and Schiek has dem- 
 onstrated, by numerous observations, that a multitude of 
 plants produce specifical hybrids in a state of nature. 
 
 Hybrids from different species of insects, under similar 
 circumstances, have been obtained ; as from the connexion 
 of Papiliojurtina with P.janira, of Chrysomela anea with 
 Chr. alni, of Phalangium cornutum with Ph. opilio. Specif- 
 ical hybrids have been obtained in the class of fishes by 
 artificial impregnation between the Cyprinus carpio and 
 Cypr. carassias, and between the Cypr. carpio and Cypr. 
 gibclio. In birds, hybrids have been bred between the gold- 
 finch and canary, between the reeves and the common 
 pheasant — the pheasant and the common fowl — the swan 
 {Anas olor, L.) and the goose (Anas anser, L.*) — between 
 the Tetrao letrix and Tetrao urogallus — between the Cor- 
 vus corone and Corvus comix, &c. Among Mammals, hy- 
 brids have been produced between the lion and tiger, the 
 dog and wolf, the dog and jackal, the dog and fox, the goat 
 and ibex, the horse and zebra, the zebra and ass, and the 
 horse and ass ; the produce of the two last species, as it is 
 the most common and useful of hybrids, being termed, par 
 excellence, "the mule." 
 
 But a fruitful connexion is not only possible between in- 
 dividuals of different varieties or of distinct species, but also 
 occasionally between animals of different genera. Generi- 
 cal hybrids have thus resulted from the union of the goat 
 (Capra hirens) with the antelope (Antilope rupricapra), of 
 the stag with the cow, and of the bull with the sheep, not- 
 withstanding their disparity of size. Among reptiles, be- 
 tween the toad (Bufo) and the frog (Ra7ia) ; among insects, 
 between Cantharis melanura and Elater niger, and be- 
 tween Melolontha agricola and Cetonia hirta. Experiment 
 alone can determine the amount of affinity beyond which 
 fertilization is impracticable, but at present it seems to be 
 restricted to individuals belonging to genera of the same nat- 
 ural group. 
 
 The tendency of all the natural phenomena relating to 
 hybridity is to prevent its taking place, and when it has oc- 
 curred, to arrest the propagation of varieties so produced, 
 and to limit their generative powers, so as to admit only of 
 reversion to the original specific forms. 
 
 It would seem that in most cases the fertilizing particles 
 had a specific power over the ova derived from the same 
 species, or were attracted by them in a peculiar manner ; 
 for the milt and roe of different species of fishes are not un- 
 frequently excluded in the same locality, yet hybrids are 
 not met with in consequence. Spallanzani was not able to 
 impregnate the ova of the frog with the semen of the newt, 
 nor to produce a fertile combination of those of the toad and 
 newt ; nor did the injection of the semen of the dog into the 
 vagina of the cat impregnate any of her ova. 
 
 The individuals of different species which produce a hy- 
 brid offspring do not voluntarily copulate. The salacious 
 mare must be blindfolded, or she will not receive the ass. 
 The stallion refuses to mount the she ass if a mare be in 
 sight. Hunter states that, being desirous " to have a she- 
 wolf lined by some dog, she would not allow any dog to 
 come near her, but was held while a greyhound lined her ; 
 while in conjunction she remained pretty quiet, but when at 
 liberty endeavoured to fly at the dog." Buffon reared puppies 
 of the wolf, fox, and dog together, to familiarize them with 
 each other ; but when they were in heat, the females of 
 each species exhibited an insurmountable repugnance to the 
 male of the others, and mortal combats ensued instead of 
 fertile union between the different sexes of the different 
 species. (Annates du Museum, t. xii., p. 119.) 
 
 In a few exceptional cases, serving only to establish the 
 rule of their infertility, specifical hybrids have been known 
 to propagate together, and produce a degenerate intermediate 
 lace, which soon becomes extinct : it more commonly hap- 
 pens that a hybrid is sterile, or propagates only with an indi- 
 vidual of pure breed. 
 
 On the assumption that a hybrid produced by two indi- 
 viduals of undoubtedly distinct species is sterile, expert- 
 
 HYDRARGO-CHLORIDES. 
 
 ments have been made on the breeding powers of hybrids, 
 to determine the nature of doubtful species. Thus Hunter 
 believed that he had obtained absolute proof of the jackal 
 being a dog, and to have equally made out the wolf to be of 
 the same species ; and he then proceeds to speculate wheth- 
 er the wolf is from the jackal, or the jackal from the wolf; 
 for he had obtained pups from the connexion of a female 
 hybrid jackal-dog and a male terrier, and between a female 
 hybrid dog-wolf and a male greyhound ; and he adds, in re- 
 spect of the latter fact, that " it would have equally proved 
 the same fact if she had been lined either by a wolf, a dog, 
 or one of the males of her own litter." (Hunter's Animal 
 (Economy, by Owen, 8vo, p. 323.) But this assertion, that 
 the fertility of a hybrid with an individual of a pure breed 
 proves the fact of the identity of two supposed distinct spe- 
 cies equally with the production of offspring from the con- 
 nexion of hybrid with hybrid, cannot be admitted. To 
 prove the identity of two supposed distinct species, on the 
 assumption that the fertility of the hybrids from the two 
 gives the proof required, it should be shown that such hy- 
 brids are fertile among themselves, and capable of propaga- 
 ting indefinitely an intermediate variety. Hunter's celebra- 
 ted experiments, however, only proved that two nearly al- 
 lied species will produce a hybrid offspring, and that such 
 hybrid may be impregnated by an individual of the pure 
 breed ; but this fact illustrates the general law by which the 
 reversion of the hybrid to the pure breed is provided for ; 
 while, on the other hand, the intermixture of distinct spe- 
 cies is guarded against by the aversion of two specifically 
 different individuals to sexual union. 
 
 HYDA'RTHRUS. (Gr.v5o>p, and apdpov, a joint.) The 
 white swelling : the joints most subject to it are the knee, 
 elbow, wrist, and ankle. It is distinguished from rheumatic 
 swelling of the joints by a fixed and wearing pain preceding 
 the tumefaction, and often existing for a long time before 
 any enlargement of the part is perceptible ; also by the gen- 
 eral state of the habit. 
 
 HYDA'TIDS, Hydatis. (Gr. vSarts, a bladder.) A term 
 somewhat vaguely applied both to morbid cysts and true 
 Entozoons of the order Cystica. Of the latter some are 
 globular, with a tunic composed of a double albuminous 
 membrane, between which the sporules or ova are develop- 
 ed. In the species developed in the human liver, the ova 
 are detached from the internal surface, and it is hence term- 
 ed Acephalo-cystis endogena. In a species infesting similar 
 organs in tire lower animals, the ova are detached from the 
 external surface, and it is called Acephalo-cystis exogena. 
 In a higher organized genus of Hydatids, a slender more or 
 less elongate process is continued from the cyst, and termi- 
 nates in an extremity provided with suckers and a coronet 
 of recurved booklets, like the head of a tape-worm : this 
 genus is termed Cysticercus. Another genus has numerous 
 similarly organized appendages attached to the cyst, and is 
 accordingly termed Canurus. It is a hydatid of the last ge- 
 nus which is developed in the brain of sheep, and produces 
 the " giddy sickness" or " staggers." 
 
 HYDE, or HIDE. A measure of land, common in Domes- 
 day Book and old English charters. Its derivation is ob- 
 scure. It is somewhat fancifully drawn from the ancient 
 fable (common to many nations) of the deceit practised by 
 a colonist in acquiring from the owner so much land as he 
 could cover with the hide of an ox, and then dividing it into 
 strips so as to make it extend over a large space. Its con- 
 tents are also uncertain, but are stated by some authorities to 
 amount to 100 Norman or 120 English acres. ( Warner's 
 Hist, of Hampshire ; Ellis's Introduction to Domesday.) 
 
 HY'DRA. In Mythology, a fabulous many-headed mon- 
 ster, which was said to infest the lake Lerna in Pelopon- 
 nesus. According to the fable, on one of its heads being 
 cut off it was immediately succeeded by another, unless the 
 wound was cauterized. It was one of the labours of Her- 
 cules to destroy this monster, which he is said to have ac- 
 complished by the constant application of firebrands to the 
 wounds as the heads were cut off. The term hydra is 
 sometimes used in a metaphorical sense for any manifold 
 evil. 
 
 Hy'dra. This once-dreaded name is restricted in mod- 
 ern Zoology to a genus of minute fresh-water Polyps. The 
 term Hydras was applied by Linnaeus to a genus of water- 
 snakes. 
 
 Hy'dra. One of the ancient constellations in the southern 
 hemisphere. 
 
 HYDRA'CIDS. Acids containing hydrogen as one of 
 their essential elements ; such as the hydrochloric or muri- 
 atic acid, the hydriodic acid, &c. 
 
 HY'DRAGOGUE. (Gr. Uuip, water, and ayu>, I expel.) 
 The term is generally applied to violent cathartics, which 
 bring away a large quantity of watery secretion from the 
 intestines. 
 
 HYDRA'RGO - CHLORIDES. Compounds of the bi- 
 chloride of mercury with other chlorides, forming a class of 
 haloid salts. _ 
 
 573
 
 HYDRARGYLLITE. 
 
 HYDRARGY'ELITE. (Gr. Hup, Lat. argilla, clay.) 
 A name given to the native phosphate of alumina, under 
 the erroneous idea that it consisted of alumina and water. 
 
 HYDRARGYRIA. (Gr. viup, and apyvpoc, silver.) An 
 eruptive disorder occasioned l>v the use of mercury. 
 
 HYDRA'RGY BUM. Uuicksilver. or mercury. 
 
 HY'DRATES. Compounds containing water as one of 
 their proximate elements, and in definite proportion. Caus- 
 tic potash is a hydrate of potassa, composed of 1 equivalent 
 of potassa = 48, and 1 of water =9. Slaked lime, which is 
 an apparently dry white powder, is a hydrate of lime. 
 
 HYDRAULIC RAM, or WATER RAM. An ingenious 
 hydraulic machine for raisin;; water by means of its own 
 impulse. The principle of its action and the mechanism of 
 its construction may be described as follows : 
 
 The water arriving at A from the reservoir with the ve- 
 locity due to the height of the fall, passes along the pipe A 
 B, which should have an Inclination of at least an inch for 
 every two yards, escapes through an orifice C, which may 
 be shut at pleasure by means of a valve. A reservoir, F, 
 filled with air, is attached by means of a cylinder, a b c d, to 
 the pipe A B D ; in the middle of the bottom of the reser- 
 voir F is a circular orifice, to which there is adapted a short 
 cylindrical tube, of which the extremity E is also furnished 
 with a valve. Another valve, S, serves to supply the air to 
 the space comprised between the cylinder abed and the 
 tube E. G I H is an ascensional tube rising from the reser- 
 voir F. The water which escapes at C is carried off by the 
 waste pipe K L. 
 
 The form of this apparatus (or perhaps its mode of ac- 
 tion) suggested the name it has received. The pipe ABC 
 is called the body of the ram ; and the extremity, where the 
 valves and the reservoir F are placed, is called its head. 
 Both valves I) and E are formed of hollow balls supported 
 on muzzles, and of such a thickness of metal that they 
 weigh about twice as much as the quantity of water they 
 displace. 
 
 We may now consider the effects of the engine when in 
 action. The water, flowing through the orifice C, acquires 
 the velocity duo to the height of the fall, and raises the ball 
 D from its support till it comes to the orifice C ; the extrem- 
 ity of this orifice is covered with leather, or with cloth filled 
 with pitch, so that when the ball is applied to it, the passage 
 of the water is effectually prevented. As soon as this ori- 
 fice is closed, the water raises the ball E which had shut 
 the orifice of the reservoir F, and a portion of it introduces 
 itself into this reservoir, and into the pipe G I H. It thus 
 loses the velocity which it had when the orifice C was shut, 
 and the balls D and E fall down in consequence, the one 
 on its support, and the other on the orifice at E. When this 
 takes place, everything is in the same state in which it was 
 at first. The water begins again to flow through the orifice 
 C ; the valve 1) is again shut ; and the same effects are re- 
 peated in an interval of time, which, for the same ram, un- 
 dergoes little variation. 
 
 Every time the impulse is renewed, a quantity of water is 
 forced up into the reservoir F and the tube H ; and as it is 
 prevented from returning by the action of the valve, it must 
 necessarily he delivered at the extremity of H. The use of 
 the air-vessel F is to keep up a continuous motion of the 
 ascending column of water. The communication with the 
 external atmosphere being cut off, the air within F is com- 
 pressed by a force proportional to the height of the surface 
 of the water in H above its surface in F ; and this com- 
 pressed air, acting by its elasticity on the water, maintains a 
 continuous flow through II. The air-vessel, however, 
 though it assists the action of the ram, is not an essential 
 part of it ; the continuity of the discharge of water may be 
 effected by means of two or more rams, of which the ascen- 
 sional pipes G I II all terminate in a single branch. On this 
 principle works have been erected at Marly, in France, 
 which raise water in a continuous jet to the height of 57 
 metres, or 187 English feet. 
 
 As the ascending column of water communicates with 
 the air in the reservoir 1\ this would soon be exhausted if a 
 fresh portion of air were not introduced at each stroke of the 
 ram. The little tube S, which is stopped by a valve open- 
 ing inwards, serves for this purpose. At the instant when 
 the orifice C is closed a recoil takes place, by which the 
 water is thrown back from the head of the ram towards the 
 574 
 
 HYDRAULICS. 
 
 cistern ; and a partial vacuum being thus produced within 
 the cylinder a b c d, the pressure of the external atmosphere 
 forces open the valve in the canal 8, and a portion of air 
 enters the cylinder, whence it is driven into the reservoir, 
 excepting the small part of it which lodges in the space be- 
 tween the cylinder abed and the tube E. (Hachette, Traitt 
 des Machines.) 
 
 The invention of the hydraulic ram, at least in the im- 
 proved form here described, belongs to Mostgolfier of Mont- 
 pelier. A machine, however, on the same principle had 
 previously been suggested, and even erected at Chester, by 
 our countryman Mr. Whitehurst, but much less perfect in 
 its mode of action ; for the orifice C, instead of being opened 
 and shut by the action of the water itself, required to be 
 opened and shut by the hand by means of a stop-cock. Ow- 
 ing to this circumstance, Whitehurst's machine was of little 
 utility, and appears to have soon been entirely forgotten. 
 
 HYDRAU'LICS (Gr. v6up, and ouAos, a pipe), is that 
 branch of natural philosophy which treats of the motions of 
 liquids, the laws by which they are regulated, and the ef- 
 fects which they produce. By some authors the term Hy- 
 drodynamics is usually applied to the general science of the 
 motions of fluids ; while Hydraulics is more particularly ap- 
 plied to the art of conducting, raising, and confining water, 
 and to the construction and performance of water-works. 
 
 There is no part of mechanical science which offers great- 
 er difficulties to the mathematician, or where the results of 
 theoretical investigation present so little agreement with ex- 
 perience. This arises from the excessively complicated na- 
 ture of the movements which take place among the panicles 
 of a liquid mass when its equilibrium has been disturbed, 
 and partly from the great number of disturbing causes by 
 which those movements are affected. 
 
 The first and principle problem of hydraulics is to deter- 
 mine the velocity with which a liquid Hows through an 
 
 in 
 
 (1) 
 
 aperture in the bottom or sides of the containing vessel 
 order to discover the law of this velocity, let 
 A B C D (fig. 1) be a vessel filled with water 
 to the height E F, and let O be a very small 
 opening in the side of the vessel ; while the 
 water stands at E F, it will issue from O with " 
 a certain velocity depending on the height E F 
 above O. Let it therefore be proposed to de- 
 termine to what height, G II, the vessel must E 
 be filled in order that the velocity of the efflux gjs] 
 through O may be doubled. From the prin — p^sggg 
 ciples of hydrostatics, it is shown that the force D 
 urging a particle of the liquid at O through the orifice is the 
 pressure due to the height of the vertical column above O. 
 Now we may consider, in the first place, that when the ve- 
 locity of a particle in motion is doubled, the momentum, or 
 moving force, must also be doubled ; and, in the second 
 place, that if the velocity of the efflux is doubled, twice the 
 number of particles will be put in motion in the same inter- 
 val of lime ; and, consequently, the momentum or moving 
 force must be doubled on this account also. Hence, when 
 the velocity of the discharge through O is doubled, the mo- 
 ving force, which in the present case is the pressure, must 
 be quadrupled. But the pressure is proportional to the 
 height of the fluid above O, hence the height must be quad- 
 rupled. By the same process of reasoning, we conclude 
 that to obtain a threefold velocity a ninefold depth would be 
 necessary, and so on ; and, generally, that the depths must 
 be increased as rapidly as the squares of the velocities; or, 
 in other words, the velocities are proportional to the square 
 roots of the depths of the orifice below the surface. 
 
 By means of this law, the absolute velocity with which 
 water issues from an orifice at any depth under the surface 
 may be ascertained, provided we can determine the velocity 
 for any particular depth. Now if we suppose the orifice O 
 to be on a level with the surface of the liquid, or if we sup- 
 pose O to be in the bottom of the vessel covered with an in- 
 finitely thin film, there would be no pressure on a particle at 
 O, which, therefore, would drop out merely by the effect of 
 its own weight, and consequently with the velocity of a 
 heavy body beginning to fall. But the velocity of a falling 
 body is proportional to the square root of the heisht from 
 which it has fallen : therefore, since it has been shown that 
 the velocity of Uie discharge through an orifice is also pro- 
 portional to the square root of the height of the liquid above 
 the orifice, and that the two velocities are the same in one 
 particular case, it follows that they must be the same in all 
 cases; and hence we have this important theorem: "The 
 velocity with which a liquid issues from an infinitely small 
 orifice in the bottom or side of a vessel that is kept full, is 
 equal to that which a heavy body would acquire by falling 
 from the level of the surface to the level of the orifice." 
 
 Several consequences follow immediately from this fun- 
 damental theorem. In the first place, if the aperture is en- 
 larged, each panicle of the liquid presenting itself there will 
 escape with the same celerity ; and hence the quantity of 
 water that issues through an orifice is as the area or section
 
 HYDRODYNAMICS. 
 
 of the orifice multiplied into the square root of the depth. 
 Again, if the water is thrown up in a perpendicular jet, it 
 ought to ascend to the height of the reservoir ; or, if several 
 orifices are made in the same vessel, each presented up- 
 wards, the jets escaping from each of them would all rise 
 to the same height. But, by reason of the resistance of the 
 air, the friction on the sides of the orifice, the mutual cohe- 
 sion of the liquid particles which impedes their separation 
 and escape, and trie action of opposing currents formed in 
 the interior of the liquid, these conclusions must be received 
 with considerable modifications. The effects of the dis- 
 turbing causes can only be determined by a comparison 
 with experiment. 
 
 Water issuing through a hole or pipe in the side of a ves- 
 sel kept full, like all other projectiles when the resistance 
 of the air is supposed to be withdrawn, describes a parabo- 
 la in a vertical plane. Let ABCD (fig. 2) be a cylindri- 
 ra s cal vessel filled with water, and E 
 
 1 ' an orifice in its side ; the water will 
 
 be projected from E with a veloci- 
 ty which would carry it horizon- 
 tally through double the space B E 
 in the same time that a body falls 
 from B to E. But from the instant 
 it escapes at E it begins to descend 
 with an accelerated motion to the 
 level of D C, while it continues its 
 uniform horizontal flight, and thus 
 describes a parabola meeting the ground in P. Now, by the 
 theory of projectiles, the velocity of a body moving in a 
 parabola is equal to that which is acquired by a body fall- 
 ing through half the parameter of the diameter, and it was 
 shown that the velocity at E is equal to 2 B E ; therefore 
 the directrix passes through B, and consequently 4 B E X 
 E C = C P2. On B C, as a diameter, let there be described 
 a semicircle BLC; then BExEC = EL2, and conse- 
 quently CP2 = 4EL2; whence CP = 2EL, or the hori- 
 zontal range is double the ordinate E L. The horizontal 
 range is therefore greatest when the aperture is at F, the 
 middle of B C, and is then C Q, which is equal to 2 F M, or 
 to the altitude B C. In all other cases there are two aper- 
 tures, E and G, equidistant from F, which give the same 
 range ; for by the nature of the circle there are two equal 
 ordinates, E L and G N. 
 
 There is a circumstance connected with the efflux of a 
 liquid through an orifice which requires particular attention. 
 While a liquid is flowing out in this manner, the particles 
 continue to descend in vertical lines till they reach within a 
 short distance of the orifice, as at C D (fig. 3), 
 when those not immediately above it change 
 the direction of their motion, and approach 
 the orifice with different degrees of obliquity, 
 converging, as it were, to a centre, the position 
 of which is somewhat without the orifice. In 
 consequence of this, the vein of water, as it is- 
 sues out, is contracted, its breadth at mn being less than the 
 width of the orifice. This contraction of the jet was first 
 noticed by Sir Isaac Newton, who gave it the name of the 
 vena contractu, or the contracted vein of the liquid. The 
 distance from the orifice at which the contraction is greatest 
 depends in some degree on the magnitude of the orifice, and 
 is equal to about half its diameter when the orifice is circu- 
 lar and small. The consequence of this contraction is, that 
 the discharge of water is not so great as the theory gives it, 
 but is reduced in the proportion of the breadth of the vein 
 where the contraction is greatest to that of the orifice. Ac- 
 cording to Newton, this proportion is 5 to 7 nearly ; and ac- 
 cording to Bossut, 5 to 8. 
 
 As the same quantity of liquid must evidently pass 
 through the orifice and the contracted vein in the same in- 
 terval of time, it follows that the velocity at the latter point 
 mast be greater; and therefore, in applying the theorem re- 
 specting the velocity of discharge, it is the velocity at the 
 contracted vein which must be regarded. 
 
 It is found by experience that if a short tube, about one or 
 two inches long, is inserted in the vessel, and the water be 
 allowed to flow through the tube, the contraction of the vein 
 is very considerably diminished, and the quantity of water 
 discharged through the tube is considerably greater in the 
 same time than through an orifice of equal diameter. Ven- 
 turi found that the discharge through a smooth hole in the 
 bottom of a reservoir of tin amounted to 64 quarts in 100 sec- 
 onds ; a short pipe of the same diameter being applied to the 
 bottom of the reservoir, so as to be flat and even with it, the 
 discharge was augmented to 82 quarts in the same time ; and 
 (4.) on giving the bottom of the vessel the 
 
 form here represented, leaving the 
 area of the orifice at A (fig. 4) the 
 same as before, the discharge was in- 
 creased to 98 quarts. By enlarging 
 the lower end of the pipe, and giving 
 it a curvature as B, the quantity of 
 
 water delivered in the same time received a still farther 
 augmentation. Such additional pipes are called adjutages. 
 
 The velocity and other circumstances relative to the mo- 
 tion of water in conduit pipes, and in open canals and rivers, 
 cannot be accurately determined from any theoretical princi- 
 ples ; but very numerous experiments have been made on 
 the subject, from which results have been deduced of great 
 value in directing the practice of the engineer. When water 
 flows from a reservoir in long horizontal pipes of the same 
 diameter, the discharges made in equal times are nearly in 
 the inverse ratio of the square roots of the lengths. But this 
 rule applies only within limits which are not very extended, 
 and is not admissible with respect to long pipes. It was 
 found by Bossut that water has its celerity diminished eight 
 times by passing through a tube of one inch in diameter and 
 204 feet long. In order to obtain the greatest discharge from 
 a pipe, it is necessary that the inside be smooth, the width 
 uniform, and sudden bendings avoided. The want of even- 
 ness of surface impedes the motion of the fluid, which is far- 
 ther obstructed by any violent change of celerity or direction. 
 Whether tbe channel be contracted or enlarged, the change 
 is unavoidably attended with a proportional loss of impul- 
 sion. Any sharp flexure of the pipe or conduit will occasion 
 a still greater waste of the inciting force. It is also found 
 that a curvilineal pipe discharges less water than a recti- 
 lineal one of the same length, and that when the flexures are 
 vertical the quantity discharged is less than when they are 
 horizontal. When a large pipe has a number of contrary 
 flexures, the air sometimes mixes with the water, and occu- 
 pies the highest parts of each flexure, by which means the 
 velocity of the fluid is greatly retarded, and the quantity dis- 
 charged much diminished. 
 
 When liquids flow through very small orifices, or capil- 
 lary tubes, the resistance is greatly augmented, and the rules 
 which apply to orifices or pipes of considerable diameter no 
 longer hold good. In this case the celerity depends very 
 considerably on the temperature of the liquid. Thus pure 
 water, at a temperature near the boiling point, is found to 
 flow through a capillary tube five times faster than when 
 the temperature is near the freezing point. Alcohol is found 
 to flow six times faster when the temperature is raised 124 
 degrees. Quicksilver is less affected, but it endures heat 
 through a wider range. 
 
 With respect to water running in open channels or in 
 rivers, the resisting forces are so numerous, and of so irregu- 
 lar a nature, that it is of little use to attempt to deduce their 
 effect from any general principles. In all cases the velocity 
 is increased by the depth of the stream and of the declivity 
 on which it runs to a certain limit; that is, till the resist- 
 ance, which increases with the velocity, becomes equal to 
 the acceleration, when the motion of the stream becomes 
 uniform. The resistance, of course, depends much upon the 
 evenness of the bottom and sides of the channel. The 
 greatest velocity of a river is at the surface and in the mid- 
 dle of the stream, from which it diminishes towards the 
 bottom and sides, where it is least. It has been found by ex- 
 periment, that if from the square root of the velocity in the 
 middle of the stream, expressed in inches per second, unity 
 be subtracted, the square of the remainder will be the veloci- 
 ty at the bottom. Thus, let v = the velocity at the surface 
 in the middle of the stream, then the velocity at the bottom 
 will be expressed by (y/v — l)2 = t> — S^/o + l. It has also 
 been found by experiment that the mean velocity (or that 
 with which, were the whole stream to move, the discharge 
 would be the same with the real discharge) is equal to half 
 the sum of the greatest and least velocities, as computed 
 by the above formula. The mean velocity is therefore 
 v — y/v-\-%. These formula 1 are deduced from the experi- 
 ments of Du Buat. (See Playfair's Elements of Natural 
 Philosophy.) 
 
 When the sections of a river vary, the quantity of water 
 remaining the same, the mean velocities are inversely as the 
 areas of the sections ; but when the river receives a perma- 
 nent addition, the velocity is immediately increased. The 
 effect of this is to augment the action on the sides and bot- 
 tom, in consequence of which the width is augmented, and 
 sometimes, though more rarely, the depth. This increase 
 of width, by multiplying the points of resistance, again re- 
 duces the velocity, till an equilibrium is established between 
 the velocity and resistance; after which the bed of the river 
 changes only by insensible degrees. See River. 
 
 The determination of the force with which a liquid in 
 motion strikes a solid at rest, and the force necessary to pro- 
 pel a solid immersed in a liquid, is another important part 
 of hydraulics; though, of the general principles hitherto de- 
 duced from theory, there are only a very small number 
 which afford a tolerable approximation to the results of ex- 
 periment. The force of a stream must be regarded as com- 
 pounded of the force of each particle and of the number of 
 particles that strike in a given time. Now the force of each 
 particle is proportional to the velocity with which it impin- 
 ges : and the number of particles that strike in a given time 
 
 575
 
 HYDRIODIC ACID. 
 
 is also proportional to the velocity of the stream, supposing 
 its section to remain the same; hence the whole force of 
 the stream is a^ the square of the velocity. It follows that 
 if the plane struck by a stream be Itself in motion, the im- 
 pulse will be as tile square of the difference of their veloci- 
 ties; and if a stream strike obliquely on a plane, its force is 
 less than if struck directly on the same plane in the ratio of 
 the cube of the sine of the obliquity to the cube of the ra- 
 dius. But it would appear from experiment that this last 
 consequence only holds true when the angle of inclination 
 ater than 60 degrees. It might seem (and it is agreea- 
 ble to theory to suppose) that a plane moving against a 
 liquid at rest with a given velocity, would receive the same 
 impulse as if the liquid were to move with that velocity and 
 the plane to remain at rest. This, however, is not confirmed 
 by experience, which proves that tin- resistance of a liquid 
 to a body in motion is considerably less than the percussion 
 of the liquid moving with the same velocity against the body 
 at rest. The difference arises from the action of the liquid 
 on the hinder part of the moving hotly, by which the resist- 
 ance is in some degree counteracted. But the resistance de- 
 pends very materially on the figure of the body, and the re- 
 lation of its length to its breadth. A conical-shaped body, 
 when its length is considerable, is more easily drawn through 
 the water with its broad than with its narrow end foremost. 
 In general, it is found that whatever tends to diminish the 
 adhesion of the body to the liquid tends also to diminish the 
 resistance. A wedge which has its sides rubbed with grease 
 is found to move more freely through the water ; hence the 
 great benefit derived from sheathing a ship's bottom with 
 copper. See Resistance. 
 
 The following are some of the best works on this subject: 
 Bossut, Traite Elementaire d' Hydrodynamique ; Belidor, Ar- 
 chitecture Hydraulique ; Du Buat, Principles d'Hydrau- 
 lique ; Prony, S"ouvellc Architecture Hydraulique, and Re- 
 cherches Physico-jMathematiques sur la Theorie des Eaux 
 courante ; Experimental Inquiry concerning the Motion of 
 Fluids, by J. B. Venturi, translated by W. Nicholson; Ency. 
 Brit., articles '■ Hvdrodynamics," "River," &c. 
 
 HYDRIO'DIC ACID. A gaseous compound of hydro- 
 gen and iodine, obtained by the mutual decomposition of 
 iodide of phosphorus and water. It is composed of 126 
 iodine + 1 hydrogen; and its equivalent, therefore, is 127. 
 The specific gravity of this gas is 4'4. One hundred cubic 
 inches weigh 136 grains. It is rapidly absorbed by water, 
 furnishing a sour, colourless, and dense liquid, which soon 
 becomes brown by exposure to air, in consequence of the 
 evolution of a little free iodine. It is instantly decomposed 
 by chlorine, which abstracts the hydrogen to form hydro- 
 chloric (muriatic) acid, and sets the iodine free. 
 
 HYDROBRO'MIC ACID. A gaseous acid composed of 
 78 bromine + 1 hydrogen. It is obtained by the mutual de- 
 composition of bromide of phosphorus and water. 
 
 HYDROCA'RBON. A term applied by chemists to com- 
 pounds of hydrogen and carbon. These elements unite in 
 several proportions, and form a variety of curious definite 
 combinations, which are commonlv called hydrocarburets. 
 
 HYDROCA'RBURETS. Compounds of hydrogen and 
 carbon. There appear to be several definite combinations 
 of these elements ; among them the following deserve es- 
 pecial notice: 1. Light carburetted hydrogen gas, which is 
 the firedamp of coal mines and of marshes : 100 cubic inches 
 weigh about 174 grains. It consists of 2 atoms of hydro- 
 gen =2, and 1 of carbon = 6; its equivalent is 8. It burns 
 with a pale blue flame. 2. Olefiant gas, which is formed 
 during the distillation of equal measures of alcohol and sul- 
 phuric acid : 100 cubic inches weigh 305 grains. It is com- 
 posed of 2 atoms of hydrogen = 2, and 2 of carbon =12 ; and 
 its equivalent, therefore, is 14. It bums with a bright white 
 flame. Coal gas consists of a mixture of these two hydro- 
 carbons. The term olefiant gas is derived from the action 
 of chlorine u|>on it, which, when mixed with the gas over 
 water, gradually condenses it into a liquid looking like oil, 
 which is a hydrochloride of carbon. 3. Quadricarburetted 
 hydrogen, which is produced during the destructive distilla- 
 tion of oil (Faraday, Annals of Philosophy, xxvii., 41), and 
 which is a vapour condensable at 0°, of which 100 cubic inch- 
 es weigh 61'- grains. It consists of 4 atoms of hydrogen = 4, 
 and 4 of carbon =24; and its equivalent is 28. It burns 
 with a dense and very smoky flame. This compound lias 
 also been called ethcrinc, 1 volume of the vapour of ether 
 being constituted of 1 volume of quadrihydrocarbon and 1 
 of water vapour. 4. Bicarburet of hydrogen, obtained, like 
 the last, from the volatile products fori 1 during the de- 
 structive distillation of whale oil. When the quadrihydro- 
 carbon has been distilled off from the more volatile portion, 
 that which remains yields a product which congeals at 0°. 
 It is a brittle white solid at that temperature: 100 cubic 
 inches of its vapour weigh 853 grains, and it consists of 3 
 atoms of hydrogen = 3, and 6 of carbon = 3l>; its equiva 
 lent, therefore, is 39. These are the principal forms of hy- 
 drocarbon which have been satisfactorily identified : they 
 576 
 
 HYDRODYNAMICS. 
 
 all afford carbonic acid and water when burned in a suffi- 
 cienc] of oxygen; and the proportions in which these are 
 formed, together with the specific gravities of their respect- 
 ive vapours, furnish the data upon which their composition 
 is estimated. See Naphtha and N'aphthalmi. 
 
 HYDDOCA'RMA. Dropsy of the pericardium. 
 
 1IYDROCEXE. (Gr. iSwp, and KvXn, a tumour.) A 
 collection of watery or serous fluid in the tunica vaginalis 
 testis. 
 
 HYDROCEPHALUS. (Gr. iowp, and K c r aXrj, the head.) 
 Dropsy of the brain, or water in the head. The acute form 
 of this disease is almost limited to childhood : it is marked 
 by febrile symptoms, pain of the head, and in very young 
 children enlargement of it. The eyes are irregularly direct- 
 ed and the pupil dilated. The eyes are not perfectly ci 
 in sleep, and there appears a degree of delirium, as far as 
 can be judged of in children : coma, convulsions, and paral- 
 ysis are frequent consequences. The ventricles of the brain 
 are the chief seat of the watery accumulation. Bleeding 
 from the temporal artery or jugular vein, cold applications to 
 the head, and brisk purgatives with calomel, are the leading 
 remedies. 
 
 HY'DROCHARA'CE^E. (Hydrocharis, one of the gene- 
 ra.) A natural order of floating Endogens, inhabiting Eu- 
 rope and some other places, known by their tripetaloideous 
 flowers with an inferior ovary. They agree with Alismaceo: 
 in habit and in want of albumen, but differ in their carpels 
 being definite in number. They are not of any known use, 
 but many of the species are handsome when in flower. 
 
 HYDROCHLORIC ACID. A gaseous compound of 1 
 atom of the chlorine = 36, and 1 atom of hydrogen = l ; the 
 equivalent, therefore, of the hydrochloric acid is = 37. See 
 Muriatic Acid. 
 
 HY'DROCO'RISjE. (Gr. Hup, and topic, a bug.) The 
 name of a tribe of Hemipterans, including the water-bugs ; 
 these differ from the Geocorisa?, or land-bugs, in Inning mi- 
 nute antenna; inserted beneath the eyes. This tribe in- 
 cludes the water-scorpions (Nepidce), and the boat-men 
 (JVotoneetu&B.) 
 
 HYDROCYA'NIC ACID. (Gr. ie)up, and tcvavoc, blue.) 
 This highly noxious compound was first discovered in Prus- 
 sian blue, and hence called Prussic acid. It is best obtain- 
 ed by gently heating in a small retort a mixture of three 
 parts of cyanuret of mercury and two of hydrochloric acid : 
 the evolved vapours should be passed through a tube con- 
 taining fragments of marble, in order to absorb any hydro- 
 chloric acid that may chance to distil over, and ultimately 
 condensed in a receiver immersed in a freezing mixture. 
 The hydrocyanic acid is a colourless acid, having a very 
 strong odour, resembling that of bitter almonds : its specific 
 gravity at 45° is 0-7. It boils at 80°, and freezes at 0°. Dis- 
 solved in a large quantity of water, it imparts to it the smell 
 and taste of laurel or bitter almond water: it is intensely 
 poisonous. It consists of 26 cyanogen 4-1 hydrogen, or of 
 14 nitrogen -4- 12 carbon + 1 hydrogen; and its equivalent 
 is** 
 
 HYDRODYNA'MICS (Gr. vSiop, and Svvautc, power), 
 is tyie science which applies the principles of dynamics to 
 determine the conditions of motion or rest in fluid bodies. It 
 is usually divided into two branches; namely, hydrostatics. 
 which explains the laws of the equilibrium, pressure, and 
 cohesion of fluids; and hydraulics, which explains the laws 
 of their motion, together with the machines in which they 
 are chiefly concerned. Though the term hydrodynamics is 
 sometimes applied generally to fluids fit" all kinds, it is more 
 usually restricted to the non-elastic or incompressible fluids, 
 as water, mercury, &c. ; in which case the science which 
 treats of the equilibrium of the compressible and elastic 
 fluids, like air, is called aerostatics, and that which treats 
 of their motion pneumatics. 
 
 Hydrodynamics, though a science of immense importance 
 in its applications to the various purposes of life, was not 
 cultivated to any extent by the ancients, all their knowledge 
 of the doctrine of fluids being limited to a few propositions 
 regarding the pressure and equilibrium of water. Arehimi- 
 des. indeed, established the general principles which serve 
 as the foundation of hydrostatics, in bis treatise Dc Jnsiden- 
 tibus Humido ; and Ctesibius and Hero, who flourished at 
 Alexandria about 120 years after Christ, invented the fount- 
 ain of compression, the siphon, and the forcing-pump. Ju- 
 lius Frontinus, who was inspector of the public fountains at 
 Rome in the reigns of NerVB and Trajan, wrote a work on 
 the Roman aqueducts, and the modes of distributing water 
 then in use : but he appears to have been unacquainted with 
 the law of the velocities of running water depending on the 
 depth. The first modem treatise on hydrodynamics was 
 published in 1639 by Castelli, a disciple of Galileo, entitled 
 Delia Misura dclV Acque Correnti, and contains a satisfac- 
 tory explanation of various phenomena in the motion of 
 fluids. Tonicelli discovered the important property that the 
 velocities of fluids issuing through an orifice are as the 
 square roots of the pressures ; Mariottc, in his Traite du
 
 HYDROFLUORIC ACID. 
 
 Mouvement des Earn, employed the principle of Torricelli, 
 and explained the discrepancy between theory and observa- 
 tion by ascribing it to the retardation of tile water's velocity 
 arising from friction. Guglielmini was the first who treated 
 of the motion of water in rivers and open canals. The sub- 
 ject of the oscillation of waves, one of the most difficult in 
 who determined the duration of the oscillations, and thence 
 the whole science, was first investigated by Sir Isaac Newton, 
 concluded that the velocities of waves formed on the surface 
 of water are in the subduplicate ratio of their size. He was 
 also the first who observed the contraction in the vein of a 
 fluid issuing through an orifice, and regarded the contracted 
 section as the true orifice, by which the theory was render- 
 ed more conformable to experience. The Hydrodynamica 
 of Daniel Bernoulli was published in 1738. His theory of 
 the motion of fluids consists in supposing, 1st, that the sur- 
 face of a fluid in a vessel, while emptying itself by an ori- 
 fice, remains always horizontal ; and, 2d, that if the fluid 
 mass is conceived to be divided into an infinite number of 
 horizontal strata, all the strata remain parallel, and descend 
 vertically with velocities inversely proportional to their 
 breadth, or to the horizontal sections of the reservoir. From 
 these suppositions, and by means of the application of the 
 principle of the conservation of living forces, he obtained so- 
 lutions of the principal problems of hydrodynamics. The 
 mathematical theory of the motion of fluids was farther in- 
 vestigated by John Bernoulli, Maclaurin, and the celebrated 
 D'Alembert; the latter of whom placed it in an entirely new 
 light by the application of Eider's calculus of partial dif- 
 ferences. One of the best treatises on hydrodynamics which 
 we possess is that of the Abbe Bossut, in which are given 
 the results of a very extensive set of experiments performed 
 with great judgment and accuracy. Similar experiments, 
 and more extensively varied, were afterwards undertaken 
 by Du Buat, whose Principes a" Hydrauliquc, in three vol- 
 umes, contains a theory founded solely on the results of ex- 
 periments. Du Buat was the first who determined experi- 
 mentally the influence of heat in promoting fluidity. Among 
 other experiments more recently undertaken for the purpose 
 of throwing light on this interesting and difficult subject, we 
 may mention those of Coulomb, of Eytelwein of Berlin, of 
 Bidone of Turin, of General Sabatier of Mctz, of Mr. George 
 Rennie, and of Mr. Jardine of Edinburgh, from which some 
 valuable results have been obtained relative to the discharge 
 of water from long pipes. 
 
 The analytical theory of hydrodynamics resolves itself 
 into the integration of equations of partial differences, a 
 branch of the calculus which we owe to the illustrious 
 Euler. Euler himself gave the general formula; for the 
 motion of fluids, founded on the laws of their equilibrium, 
 and thus reduced the whole mechanics of fluid bodies to 
 a single question of analysis. If these formula? could be in- 
 tegrated, we should be able to determine completely, in 
 every case, all the circumstances of the motion and action 
 of a fluid subjected to the influences of any forces what 
 ever; but such is the difficulty of the subject, that the in- 
 tegration, except in a few limited cases, has hitherto resisted 
 the efforts of the greatest mathematicians. Lagrange, in 
 his Mecanique, Analytique, has deduced the analytical for- 
 mula of the motion of fluids from the principle of virtual 
 velocities, and thus shown that dynamics and hydrody- 
 namics are only branches of one great principle, and results, 
 as it were, of a single general formula. Laplace, in the Me- 
 canique Celeste, has also given the general equations of 
 hydrodynamics, and applied them to the questions of the 
 figure of the earth and the tides. Since the days of those 
 illustrious mathematicians, the theory has been illustrated 
 with reference to applications to particular cases by Poisson, 
 Cauchy, Navier, Challis, and others; but it cannot be said 
 to have received any material extension. 
 
 Treatises on hydrodynamics are very numerous. Besides 
 the works of Lagrange and Laplace, and the others above 
 mentioned, we would refer the student to Bosstit's Hy- 
 drodynamique ; Poisson 1 s Mecanique ; Moscley's Element- 
 ary Treatise on Hydrostatics and Hydrodynamics. (See 
 Hydrostatics and Hydraulics.) 
 
 HYDROFLU'ORIC ACID. A highly corrosive and very 
 volatile liquid, obtained by distilling in leaden or silver ves- 
 sels a mixture of 1 part of pure fluor spar in fine powder 
 with 2 of sulphuric acid. This compound acts vehemently 
 upon glass and all silicious combinations: it is probably a 
 compound of 13 fluorine + 1 hydrogen. 
 
 HY'DROGEN. (Gr. ISwp, and ytvvaeiv, to generate.) 
 This important element is only known to us in the gaseous 
 or permanently elastic form. It was foimerly called in- 
 flammable air, and was sometimes considered as identical 
 with phlogiston, or the matter of heat. It is usually pro- 
 cured by the action of sulphuric acid and zinc or iron upon 
 water, or by passing the vapour of water over red-hot iron. 
 Pure hydrogen is a colourless, tasteless, and inodorous gas. 
 100 cubic inches at mean temperature and pressure weigh 
 2-13 grains; so that its specific gravity compared with air is 
 50 
 
 HYDROPERSULPHURIC ACID. 
 
 as C9 to 1000, and it is exactly 16 times lighter than oxygen. 
 It burns in contact with air with a pale blue flame ; and 
 when mixed with three or four times its volume of air, or 
 with half its volume of pure oxygen, and inflamed, it burns 
 rapidly, and in the latter case with violent explosion. The 
 only product of this combustion is water, which is thus 
 shown to consist of 1 part by weight of hydrogen with 8 of 
 oxygen ; so that upon this datum the number 8 becomes the 
 equivalent of oxygen, and 9 that of water. Hvdrogen ia 
 not absorbed by water, and animals soon die when confined 
 in it. 
 
 HYDRO'GRAPHY. (Gr. hgwp, and ypa(j>u), I write.) 
 The description of the waters which exist at the surface of 
 the earth, particularly Willi reference to the bearings of the 
 coasts, the depths, currents, and other circumstances re- 
 quired to be known for the purposes of navigation. This 
 term implies the same thing with regard to the sea that ge- 
 ography implies with regard to the land. Hydrographical 
 charts or maps are projections of some part of the ocean, in 
 which the rhumbs, meridians, parallels, &c, with the 
 coasts, capes, rocks, shallows, &c, are laid down for the 
 uses of navigation. 
 
 HYDRO'GURETS, or HY'DURETS. Compounds of 
 hydrogen with metals, &c. 
 
 HY'DROLEACEvE, are a small natural order of Mono- 
 petalous Exogens, resembling Boraginacea in some respects, 
 and Convolvulaceee in others ; not, however, climbing like 
 the latter. They chiefly inhabit watery places in tropical 
 climates, and have flowers of some beauly, usually belong- 
 ing to the Cyanic series. 
 
 HYDRO'LOGY. (Gr. iSup, and Aoyo?, discourse.) That 
 part of natural history which treats of water, and of its va- 
 rious properties and modes of existence in nature. 
 
 HY'DROMANCY. (Gr. Uwp, and uavrua, prophecy.) 
 Among the ancients, a method of divination by water. It 
 was performed in various ways. Its origin is ascribed by 
 Varro to the Persians ; and Numa is said to have had re- 
 course to it for instruction how he should settle the ceremo- 
 nies of religion. 
 
 HY'DROMEL. (Gr. iStop, and ui\t, honey.) Water 
 sweetened with honey, which, when fermented, forms mead. 
 
 HYDRO'METER. (Gr. vSo>p, and perpov, measure.) 
 An instrument for determining the specific gravities of li- 
 quids, and thence the strengths of spirituous liquors ; these 
 being inversely as their specific gravities. Various instru- 
 ments of different forms have been proposed for ascertain- 
 ing readily the specific gravities of fluids ; but as Sikes's 
 hydrometer is directed by act of parliament to be used in 
 collecting the revenue of the United Kingdom, it may be 
 considered as more deserving of description 
 than any of the others. This instrument is 
 represented in the annexed figure. A B is a 
 flat stem, divided on both sides into eleven 
 equal parts, each of which is again subdivi- 
 ded into two. The stem carries a hollow brass 
 ball B C, in which is fixed a conical stalk C 
 D, terminating in a pear-shaped bulb D. Eight 
 different weights of a circular form, and mark- 
 ed with the numbers 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 
 and 80, are cut in the manner represented at 
 W, so that they can be placed on the stalk C 
 D. When the strength of spirits is to be 
 measured, one of the circular weights is pla- 
 ced on C D, which is found by trial to be ca- 
 pable of sinking the ball so far that the sur- 
 face of the liquid cuts the stem at one of the 
 divisions between A and B. The number of 
 this division is then observed, and also the 
 temperature of the liquid ; and the corre- 
 sponding strength per cent, of the spirit is then found in a 
 table which accompanies the instrument. 
 
 Another easy method of determining the densities of dif- 
 ferent liquids, frequently practised, is by means of a set of 
 glass beads previously adjusted and numbered. Thrown 
 into any liquid, the heavier balls sink and the lighter float 
 at the surface ; but one of them approaching the density of 
 the liquid will be in a state of indifference as to buoyancy, 
 or will float under the surface. The number on this ball 
 indicates, in thousandth parts, the specific density of the 
 liquid. 
 
 HY'DKOMETRA. (Gr. vSuip, and pnrpa, the womb.) 
 Dropsy of the uterus. 
 
 HY'DROME'TRHLE. (Gr. viwp, and pijrpa, a birth- 
 place.) A family of Geocoristz, or land-bugs, but of aquatic 
 habits ; not, however, living in water, but frequenting the 
 surface. 
 
 HY'DROPE'RICA'RDTUM. (Gr. Map, and TrtpiKapiiov.) 
 Dropsy of, or an unnatural accumulation of watery fluid in, 
 the sac of the heart. 
 
 HY'DROPERSULPHU'RIC ACID, or BISULPHURET 
 OF HYDROGEN. A compound of 2 equivalents of sul- 
 phur and 1 of hydrogen : its equivalent is 33. 
 
 Ni 577
 
 HYDROPHANE. 
 
 HY'DROPHANE. (Gr. botop, and ijiatvu, I shine.) A 
 variety of opal, which is white and opaque when dry, but 
 becomes transparent in water. 
 
 HYDROTHIDES. (Gr. vSwp, and o<pif, a serpent.) A 
 name applied to the section ot* Ophidians, including the 
 water-snakes. These are principally distinguished by 
 having the tail compressed or flattened sideways, for the 
 purpose of swimming. They are armed with ponton fangs ; 
 but these are ot" small size, and are associated with a row 
 of non-veno mous maxillary teeth. 
 
 HYDltoTHILIDiE. (Gr. viu>p, and <pi\cw, I love.) A 
 family of Pentamerous Coleopterous, including those species 
 which have short clavate antenna', long and Blender palpi, 
 mandibles bidentate at the tips; body oval and convex; 
 and the hind legs often ciliated. The Hydrophilida, like 
 the Dyticidce, are aquatic beetles, and have wings by which 
 they can transport themselves from one piece of water to 
 another ; but they are vegetable-feeders, and are less active 
 in their movements than the predatory water-beetles. The 
 family includes many genera. The typical species, Hy- 
 dropliilus caraboides, is common in the stagnant ponds and 
 ditches of this country. 
 
 UY'DROPHO'BIA. (Gr. viuip, and <j>o6zouat, I fear.) 
 A disease remarkably characterized by alarm at the ap- 
 proach of water, and caused by the bite of a mad dog or 
 other rabid animal ; but it does not appear capable of being 
 communicated by the human subject. At some indefinite 
 period after the bite, and often long after all local injury 
 has healed, itching and pain in the bitten part, heaviness, 
 great restlessness and uneasiness, and mental alarm ensue, 
 followed by pains about the neck, sense of choking, and 
 great irritability and horror at any attempt to drink, al- 
 though solid food can generally be swallowed. Fever, 
 vomiting, excessive thirst, spitting of viscid saliva, and diffi- 
 cult respiration then come on, with irregular pulse and con- 
 vulsions, under which the sufferer sinks more or less rapid- 
 ly, according to the strength of his constitution. Delirium 
 sometimes precedes death, but not always ; in many in- 
 stances the judgment appears unaffected. It unfortunately 
 happens that nothing in the way of cure, and little even as 
 palliation, has been successfully effected in this disease; 
 but there appears little doubt that the timely application of 
 preventive measures has been successful, and of these the 
 amputation or excision of the bitten part, and the applica- 
 tion of caustics to it, or both united, are most to be relied 
 on ; and the sooner they are resorted to, the better the 
 chance of success ; but it appears that they may be effective 
 any time before the appearance of symptoms. Among 
 caustics, the nitric acid is perhaps the most effective. It 
 energetically acts upon and decomposes all animal matter, 
 and fluids more especially ; and if applied very soon after 
 the bite, can scarcely fail to be effective : it also penetrates 
 the wound, and forms a sloughing sore. The appearance 
 of madness in dogs, in its early stages at least, is unfortu- 
 nately not very well defined, nor always easily distinguish- 
 able from their other maladies : whether the bite is less 
 dangerous before they become evidently rabid than after- 
 wards, seems to be doubtful. In general, the animal is ob- 
 served to be unusually dull and unsociable, refuses food, 
 hangs his head, and appears drowsy : he flies at strangers, 
 but usually recognises his master, though with great com- 
 parative indifference. Afterwards his breathing is quick 
 and heavy ; frothy matter runs from his mouth ; he walks 
 slowly, but occasionally runs and starts forward ; at length 
 he forgets his master, often falls down, flies at everybody 
 in his way, grows furious, and in four-and-twenty or thirty- 
 hours dies. 
 
 HYDROPHYLLA'CE^E. (Hydrophyllum, one of the 
 genera.) A natural order of herbaceous Exogcns, inhabit- 
 ing America ; very near to Boraginacew, from which they 
 are known by their one-celled, many-seeded fruit, and many 
 other characters. Some Polcmoniacea; have the habit of 
 this order. Some of the species of Eutoca and Phacelia are 
 cultivated on account of their pretty flowers. 
 
 HT'DROPHYTES. (Gr. vcwp, and (pvrov, a plant.) 
 Plants which thrive in water: a name confined by botanists 
 to Algaceous plants found in fresh water. It has been re- 
 marked by .Mr. Lyell (Principles of Geology) that the 
 Dumber of hydrophytes is very considerable, and their sta- 
 tions more varied than could have been anticipated : for 
 while some plants are daily covered and uncovered by the 
 tide, others live in abysses of the ocean at the extraordinary 
 depth of 1000 feet; and although in such situations there 
 must reign darkness more profound than ninht, at least to 
 our organs, many of these vegetables are highly coloured. 
 
 HY'DROPS. (Gr. Mvp.) Dropsy. An unnatural ac- 
 cumulation of fluid in the cellular membrane or cavities of 
 the bod v. 
 
 HY'DROPTHA'LMIA. (Gr. hSup, and otfrOaXnoc, the 
 eye.) Dropsy of the eve. 
 
 HYDROR'.U.'HITIS. (Gr. lfu>p, and o, w , t/ic spine.) 
 A tumour upon the spine of infants ; at first of a blue col- 
 578 
 
 n 
 
 HYDROSTATICS. 
 
 our, but afterwards becoming translucent : it is attended 
 w ith paralysis of the lower limbs, and usually fatal in its 
 consequences. 
 
 HY'DRO-SALTS. Salts of the hydracids. 
 
 HY'DROSCOPE. (Gr. vopooicomoi; from vcuip and 
 BKontb), I view.) An instrument anciently used for meas- 
 uring time by means of the flowing of water through a 
 small orifice. It consisted of a cylindrical tube, conical at 
 the bottom. The cylinder was graduated ; and as the water 
 trickled out at the apex of the cone, its surface became sue 
 cessivcly contiguous to the divisions marked on the cone, 
 and thereby pointed out the hour. 
 
 HYDROSTA'TICA. (Gr. vduip, and craw, I stand.) 
 The name of an order of Jlcalephes, including those which 
 have one or more air-vessels appended to their body. 
 
 HYDROSTA'TIC BALANCE. A balance for weighing 
 substances in water, for the purpose of ascertaining their 
 specific gravities. See Ralance. 
 
 HYDROSTATIC BELLOWS. An apparatus for illus- 
 trating the hydrostatic paradox, or that peculiar property of 
 liquids in virtue of which they transmit pressure equally in 
 every direction. In the annexed fig- 
 ure B C and D E are two flat boards 
 united by leather or flexible cloth A, 
 water-tight. A short tube fitted with a 
 stop-cock communicates with the in- 
 terior of the bellows, by which the li- 
 quid may be discharged. From the 
 short tube a long tube T rises perpen- 
 dicularly, and terminates in a funnel 
 F. The upper board B C is loaded 
 with weights, which press it against 
 the lower board D E. On pouring 
 water into the funnel F, it will de- 
 scend through the tube T, and enter 
 between the boards ; and by continu- 
 ing the supply, a column will be form- 
 ed in the tube, the weight of which, transmitted through the 
 water in the bellows, will raise and support the weights on 
 the board. The load which may be thus raised is easily de- 
 termined. Every portion of the surface of the board B C, 
 equal in area to the section of the tube, is pressed upwards 
 by a force equal to the weight of the water in the tube above 
 the level of B C. Hence, if the section of the tube T is one 
 square inch, and the surface of the board B C is 1000 square 
 inches, then a column of water in T weighing one pound 
 will sustain a weight on the board of 1000 pounds. In this 
 manner a few ounces of water may be made to support any 
 weight, however great Sec Hydrostatics. 
 
 HYDROSTATIC PARADOX. A term frequently em- 
 ployed to designate that principle in hydrostatics according 
 to which any quantity of water, however small, may be 
 made to balance any weight, however great See Hydro- 
 static Bellows. 
 
 HYDROSTATIC PRESS, also cnlled the Hydraulic 
 Press, and sometimes, from the name of the engineer who 
 gave it the form under which it is now constructed, and 
 brought it into general use, Bramali's Press, is a machine 
 by means of which an enormous force of pressure is ob- 
 tained through the medium of water. The principle is the 
 same as that of the hydrostatic bellows ; from which, in- 
 deed, it only differs by the substitution of a strong forcing 
 ptunp for the long tube, and a barrel and piston for the 
 leather and boards. It consists of a short and very strong 
 
 pump-barrel A B, with a solid pis- , 
 
 ton C of proportionate strength, \ 
 
 which is pushed upwards against 
 
 the thing to be compressed by- 
 water driven into the barrel be- 
 neath it at F from the small for- 
 cing pump E. If the small pump 
 have only "tie thousandth of the 
 area of the large barrel, and if a 
 man, by means of its lever handle D, press its piston down 
 with a force of five hundred pounds, the piston of the great 
 barrel, in virtue of the hydrostatic principle of equal press- 
 ure in all directions, will rise with a force of a thousand 
 times live hundred pounds, or more than 200 tons. The hy- 
 drostatic press is applied to a great variety of useful pur- 
 poses ; for compressing bales of goods, as paper, cotton, 
 wool, tobacco, &c. ; for expressing oils from seeds, raising 
 wei ghts , uprooting trees, &c. 
 
 HYDEOSTATICS (Gr. bSup, and arata, I stand), is the 
 science which explains the properties of the equilibrium 
 and pressure of liquids. It is the application of statics to 
 the peculiar constitution of water or other bodies existing in 
 the perfectly liquid form. 
 
 The whole doctrine of the equilibrium and pressure of 
 liquids is deduced from the following fundamental law • 
 " When 8 liquid mass is in equilibrium under the action of 
 forces of any kind, every molecule of the mass sustains an 
 equal pressure in all directions." This law is derived from 
 
 \ o-cCT->
 
 HYDROSTATICS. 
 
 the very nature of a liquid body, which is such that all its 
 particles are independent of each other, and perfectly 
 movable in every direction ; whence if any particle sus- 
 tained a greater pressure in one direction than another, it 
 would necessarily, by reason of the absolute facility of mo- 
 tion with which it is endowed, give way and move towards 
 that part where the resistance is least, and consequently 
 there would not be equilibrium. 
 
 One of the most obvious consequences of the above law is, 
 that the surface of a liquid when at rest in an open vessel, 
 and acted upon by no other force than gravity, is horizontal, 
 or perpendicular to the direction of gravity. If the direc- 
 tions of gravity are parallel, the surface will consequently 
 be a plane ; if they converge to a point, the surface of the 
 liquid will be a portion of a sphere. Stagnant water at the 
 surface of the earth, therefore, assumes the spherical figure ; 
 but by reason of the magnitude of the sphere the curvature 
 of any small portion of it is insensible, and the surface may 
 be regarded as a plane. A ring surrounding the earth 
 would bend away from a perfectly straight line only eight 
 inches in a mile. 
 
 If a free communication is made between two or more 
 vessels containing a liquid by pipes or tubes, or otherwise, 
 the surface of the liquid when in equilibrium will always 
 stand at the same level. Let A B, 
 A' B' be two tubes, united by a third, 
 B B', placed in the horizontal position, 
 and suppose water to be poured into 
 one of the tubes at A ; it will pass 
 along the tube B B', and rise in B' A' and B A simultane- 
 ously, its surfaces at A and A' always remaining level, or at 
 equal vertical heights above B B'. This property is famil- 
 iarly illustrated in the case of a teapot, or any vessel hav- 
 ing a spout. 
 
 The liquid contained in a vessel being at rest, and sub- 
 jected to the action of gravity only, any particle of it is 
 pressed in all directions (vertically, horizontally, or oblique- 
 ly) by a force which is equal to the weight of the vertical 
 column of the liquid incumbent on it. This important prop- 
 osition may be demonstrated in the following manner : As 
 the pressure in all directions must necessarily be equal from 
 the supposition of equilibrium, we need attend only to the 
 vertical pressure. Now, suppose the whole mass of the fluid, 
 with the exception of the vertical column corresponding to 
 the particle in question, to become solid, without changing 
 its place or volume, the particle will obviously remain in the 
 same state of compression as before; but as the column 
 alone remains fluid, the only pressure on the particle is that 
 produced by the weight of the column. Hence the absolute 
 weight of the column forms the measure of the pressure 
 sustained by the particle in all directions when surrounded 
 by the liquid. 
 
 Instead of a particle of the liquid itself, we may consider 
 the column to rest on an indefinitely small portion of the 
 bottom or the sides of the vessel in which it is contained, 
 and it will follow that the pressure on an indefinitely small 
 portion of the area at any point of the bottoni or sides is per- 
 pendicular to the plane of that area, and equal to the weight 
 of a vertical column of the liquid standing on it as a base 
 and reaching to the surface. Hence the whole pressure 
 sustained by any finite portion of the bottom or sides of the 
 vessel Is equal to the weight of a column of the liquid hav- 
 ing for its base the surface pressed on (extended into a 
 plane if necessary), and for its altitude the distance of the 
 centre of gravity of '.hat surface from the surface of the 
 liquid. 
 
 From this proposition it obviously follows that the press- 
 ure on the bottom of the vessel depends only on the mag- 
 nitude of the bottom and the depth of the liquid, and is en- 
 tirely independent of the form of the sides and of the quan- 
 
 OPis 
 
 liquid in the vessel. Suppose the three vessels A, B, 
 to have the areas of their bottoms equal, and that the 
 fluid stands in each to the same depth ; then 
 the pressure on the bottom of each vessel is 
 the same, and equal to the weight of the 
 liquid which would be contained in a vessel 
 having an equal bottom and its sides perpen- 
 dicular. 
 
 This proposition gives rise to consequences 
 which at first view appear alwurd, and has 
 jsp hence been called the hydrostatic paradox. 
 c Let A B C D be a close vessel with a small 
 hole O in the top, into which a narrow tube 
 screwed water-tight. Let water be poured into the 
 
 tube till the vessel A B C D is filled, and the water stands 
 in the tube at the level P. According to the principle just 
 established, the pressure on the bottom C D is proportional 
 to the depth P II, or, in fact, equal to the weight of water 
 which would fill a vessel to the magnitude E D C F. Now 
 this is the case, however shallow the vessel A B C D, and 
 however narrow the tube P O may be ; and hence a very 
 small quantity of water may be made to exercise a pressure 
 of any amount, however great, on the bottom or sides of the 
 vessel containing it. 
 
 The whole pressure on the top A B of the vessel, and tend- 
 ing to raise it, is equal to the weight of the water in the tube 
 P O, increased in the ratio of the area of A B to the area of 
 a section of the tube. Suppose a section of the tube to be 
 one square inch, and the area of A B to be 100 square inches ; 
 then a column of water O P, whose weight is one pound, will 
 exert a pressure on A B equal to 100 pounds. It is obvious 
 that the pressure in the narrow tube P O mav be produced 
 not merely by the addition of water, but by the application 
 of any kind of force, such as the working of a piston, &c. ; 
 and if the bottom or lid of the vessel A B C D be made 
 movable, the pressure on either may be brought to bear on 
 one point of an external body, and produce an enormous 
 compression. It is on this principle that the very useful en- 
 gine, the hydrostatic press, is constructed. Sec Hydros- 
 tatic Press and Hydrostatic Bellows. 
 
 Many striking phenomena of the natural world are refer- 
 able to this principle, and it has extensive application in en- 
 gineering. If the smallest quantity of water should lodge 
 to a considerable height in the gravel, sand, or loose earth 
 behind a wall or embankment, it would exert a lateral press- 
 ure sufficient to push the solid materials from their base. 
 Hence a sudden shower often occasions great devastation. 
 The same principle also regulates the construction of pipes 
 for the supply of water to cities. The pressure acting on the 
 inner surface of the pipe, and tending to burst it, being pro- 
 portional to the depth below the level of the reservoir, the 
 parts of the pipe much below that level must have a greater 
 strength than is necessary at a higher situation. A pipe, 
 the diameter of whose bore is 4 inches, has an internal cir- 
 cumference of about 1 foot ; and the internal surface of 1 
 foot of such a pipe will be 1 square foot, or 144 square inch- 
 es. If such a pipe were 140 feet below the level of the res- 
 ervoir, it would sustain a bursting pressure amounting to 
 about 60 pounds on every square inch of its surface ; for a 
 column of water, the area of whose section is one square 
 inch, and of which the height is 27-727, or nearly 28 inches, 
 weighs one pound ; and 28 inches are contained 60 times in 
 140 feet. Hence a piece of the pipe 1 foot long will sustain 
 144 times this pressure, that is, a bursting pressure of 8640 
 pounds. This exceeds considerably that which is produced 
 in any high-pressure steam-engine. 
 
 Weight of Bodies immersed in Liquids. — A body immers- 
 ed in a liquid is pressed upwards by a force equal to the 
 weight of the liquid it displaces; and the difference be- 
 tween the absolute weight of a body and its weight when 
 entirely immersed, is the same with the weight of a quanti- 
 ty of the liquid equal in bulk to the body. This proposition, 
 which is capable of strict demonstration from the funda- 
 mental property of fluids, may be illustrated as follows: 
 Suppose any interior portion of a liquid to become solid ; it 
 would evidently remain in the same state of indifference or 
 equilibrium as before. It must, therefore, be borne up by 
 the vertical pressure of the liquid with a force just equal to 
 its weight, or, which is the same thing, to the weight of the 
 liquid whose place it occupies. And if we conceive this 
 congealed mass to have its weight augmented or diminished, 
 it will be pulled downwards or upwards by the difference be- 
 tween its new weight and the weight of an equal bulk of the 
 liquid. Substitute any solid body instead of this block of ice, 
 and the loss of weight it sustains by the immersion will be 
 equal to that of the volume of liquid it displaces. 
 
 On this principle is founded the method of ascertaining 
 the relative densities or specific gravities of different bodies. 
 The specific gravity of a body is the ratio of its weight to the 
 weight of an equal bulk of water. Let, therefore, W be the 
 weight of a body in air, and YV its weight in water ; then 
 W— W" is the weisht of a quantity of water equal in bulk 
 
 W 
 to the body, and is its specific gravity. The spe- 
 cific gravities of bodies are therefore found by weighing 
 them first in air and then in water. Sec Gravity, Spe- 
 cific. 
 
 Solid Bodies floating ore Liquids. — The equilibrium of 
 solid bodies floating on liquids, a subject discussed by Ar- 
 chimedes in his treatise De Humido Insidentibus. is an impor- 
 tant part of hydrostatics, in consequence of its relation to the 
 construction and stowage of ships. A body placed on a fluid 
 specifically heavier than itself, will sink so far that the 
 weight of the fluid displaced is equal to the whole weight of 
 the body ; and when it assumes the position of equilibrium, 
 the line which joins the centre of gravity of the body and 
 
 579
 
 HYDROSULPHATES. 
 
 (he centre of buoyancy (which is the same as the centre of 
 gravity of the immersed pan supposed to be homogeneous) 
 is perpendicular to the surface of tiio water, or the horizon. 
 The centre of gravity of a body is a fixed point relatively 
 to the bodj itself; but the centre of buoyancy, which de- 
 pends on the figure of the immersed part, will change Us 
 place when the figure or relative situation of the immersed 
 part undergoes any alteration. It is on the relative situa- 
 tions of the centres of gravity and of buoyancy that the char- 
 acter of the equilibrium of a Boating body depends; namely, 
 whether it is stable or unstable, or indifferent If the figure 
 and position of the body be such, that on pulling it a little 
 aside from the situation of rest, its centre of gravi 
 higher position, the body has n tendency to redress itself, and 
 the equilibrium is stable. On the contrary, if bj a slight 
 change of position the centre of gravity conies to occupy a 
 lower place, the body will not return to the position of equi- 
 librium, but will be overturned or upset. In this case the 
 equilibrium was unstable. But a body may be so constituted 
 (tbr example, a homogeneous sphere, or a cylinder floating 
 with its axis horizontal) that in every position the centres of 
 gravity and of buoyancy are in the same vertical line. In 
 the equilibrium cannot be disturbed, and is called 
 the equilibrium of in difference, the body having no tendency 
 to maintain one position more than another. 
 
 To illustrate this, and to show at the same time the cir- 
 cumstances on which the stability of the equilibrium de- 
 pends, let A H D K be a body 
 
 ,, t •>. 7, floating on water, and let II K be 
 
 , J , i the line of floatation ; also let G 
 
 be its centre of gravity, and B its 
 I centre of buoyancy, which will 
 ; be in the same vertical with G 
 when the body is at rest, and will 
 j obviously be below G. The body 
 now pressed down by its own 
 :ht collected at G, and push- 
 ed up in the opposite direction by an equal force at B. Sup- 
 pose it to be drawn aside from the position of rest till the 
 water line comes into the position h k ; the centre of buoy- 
 ancy B will now be transferred to B', and the line of support 
 will be a line passing through B', perpendicular to the sur- 
 face of the water. Let this line meet the principal axis A D 
 inM; then the equilibrium will be stable or unstable ac- 
 cording as M is alic. e or below (J, the centre of gravity. If 
 M is above G, the vertical thrust lends to redress the hody 
 and restore the equilibrium ; but if the vertical B' J! meets 
 the principal axis below G, the body will be pushed men 
 aside till it is overset. The point M possesses several re- 
 markable properties. Its position in the a_xis A D remains 
 unaltered when the body is drawn aside from the position of 
 equilibrium; audit limits the greatest elevation which the 
 centre of gravity can have in order that the equilibrium 
 may be stable. It was denominated by Bouguer the mcta- 
 ccntre, and its position may he determined in all cases where 
 the figure and specific gravity of the floating body are given. 
 As the stability of a floating body depends on the height 
 of the metacentre above the centre of gravity, the construc- 
 tion of a ship should be so regulated, and its cargo so ar- 
 ranged, that the centre of gravity of the whole mass should 
 be at the lowest possible point. Hence the heaviest part of 
 the cargo is stowed away nearest the ship's bottom ; and 
 vessels having discharged their cargo must be ballasted, 
 in order to give them requisite stability. When a vessel is 
 without a cargo and empty, the weight of the masts and 
 rigging raises the centre of gravity to such a height as to 
 render the equilibrium unstable, or at least renders its stabil- 
 ity so small that it cannot he safely subjected to the ordi- 
 nary pressure on the sails necessary to give motion, and con- 
 sequently would be altogether incapable of encountering a 
 gale or a heav\ sea. 
 
 Another important application of the theory of hydro- 
 statics is to the form that ought to be given to the several 
 parts of embankments, dams, the Hood gates of canals, and 
 other works constructed for the purpose of confining or op- 
 posing the course- i f wafer. This inquiry, which is purely 
 
 mathematical, is "main led on the principle that the pressure 
 in any legal point is direct!} proportional to its vertical depth 
 under the surface of the water. See Hydraulics and Hy- 
 drodynamics. 
 
 HY'DROSULPHATES, or HY'DROSU'LPHURETS. 
 Compounds of hydrosulphuric acid or sulphuretted hydrogen. 
 
 HY'DROSULPHl BJC vin. Sulphuretted hydrogen. 
 This compound was also called hydrothionic acid (from by 
 drogen, and fir. "-uoi sulphur). 
 
 HY'DROTHO'RAX (Gr.) Dropsy of the chest The 
 symptoms are, difficult breathing when in a recumbi nt po 
 
 tun-, |ialr-nev^, cough, thirsl, swelling of the legs and feel, 
 
 quick and often Irregular or intermitting pulse. 
 
 HY'DRUS. (Gr.M p,v>at r.) A. genus of water snakes, 
 characterized by a compressed or laterally flattened tail 
 adapted for swimming, and by having many maxillary 
 580 
 
 HYGROMETER. 
 
 teeth, like non-venomous serpents, but with the first larger 
 than the rest, and grooved for the transmission of a poi- 
 son-duct. 
 
 The species are confined to the seas of the warmer lati- 
 tudes. 
 
 Hv'drus. The Water Snake; a constellation in the 
 southern hemisphere formed by Lacaille. See Constel- 
 lation. 
 
 HYGEI'A. (Gr.lyuia, health.) The Goddess of Health, 
 in the Greek Mythology: daughter or wife of JEsculapius, 
 according to the different recitals of genealogists. Her stat- 
 ues (of which the most celebrated was at Sicyon) sometimes 
 represented her attended by a large serpent coiled round her 
 body, and elevating its head above her arm to drink of a cup 
 which she held in her hand. I sis, in Egyptian monuments, 
 appears sometimes in a similar attitude. The employment 
 of the serpent as a mythological symbol of life and health 
 has been bj Borne derived from the history contained in the 
 fust chapter of Genesis. 
 
 IIY'GELNE. That branch of medicine which relates to 
 the means of preserving public health. 
 
 llYtfRO'LOGY. (Gr. vypog, moist, and Xoyos, a dis- 
 course.) A medical term, implying the doctrine of the hu- 
 i fluids of the body. 
 
 HYGRO'METER. (Gr. vypos, and jxtrpov, measure.) 
 An instrument for measuring the degrees of moisture, or 
 dryness of the atmosphere. 
 
 Variations in the state of the atmosphere with respect to 
 moisture and dryness are manifested by a great variety of 
 phenomena, and, accordingly, numerous contrivances have 
 been proposed for ascertaining the amounts of those varia- 
 tions by referring them to some conventional scale. All 
 such contrivances are called hygrometers ; but though the 
 variety of form that may he given to them, or of substances 
 that may be employed, is endless, they may all be referred 
 to two classes; namely, 1st, those which act on the princi- 
 ple of absorption ; and, 2d, those which act on the principle 
 of condensation. 
 
 1. Hygrometers on the Principle of Msorption. — Many 
 substances in each of the three kingdoms of nature absorb 
 moisture from the atmosphere with greater or less avidity, 
 and thereby suffer some change in their dimensions, or 
 weight, or some of their physical properties. Animal fibre 
 is softened and relaxed, and consequently elongated, by the 
 absorption of moisture. Cords composed of twisted vegeta- 
 ble substances are swollen, and thereby shortened, when 
 penetrated by humidity; and the alternate expansion and 
 shrinking of most kinds of wood, especially when used in 
 cabinet-work, and after the natural sap has been f vaporated, 
 is a phenomenon with which every one is familiar. Many 
 mineral substances absorb moisture rapidly, and thereby ob- 
 tain an increase of weight. Now it is evident that any of 
 these changes, either of dimension or of weight, may be re- 
 garded as the measure of the quantity of moisture absorbed, 
 from which the quantity of water existing in the atmo- 
 sphere in the state of vapour is inferred ; but many, indeed 
 the far greater part of them, are so small in amount, or take 
 place so slowly, that they afford no certain indication of the 
 actual state of the atmosphere at any particular moment. 
 
 Of the different kinds of hygrometers whose construction 
 depends on change of dimensions arising from the absorption 
 of moisture, there are two deserving of notice on account of 
 their historical celebrity, though they are now seldom, if at 
 all, used where accurate meteorological observations are at- 
 tempted. One is the hair hygrometer of Saussure ; the oth- 
 er the whalebone hygrometer of He Luc. 
 
 Saussure's hygrometer consists of a human hair prepared 
 by boiling it in a caustic ley. One extremity of the hair is 
 fastened to a hook, or held by pincers ; the Other has a small 
 weight attached to it, by which it is kept stretched. The 
 hair is passed over a grooved wheel or pulley, the axis of 
 which carries an index which moves over a graduated arch. 
 Such is the essential part of the instrument, and it is easy to 
 how it acts. When the surrounding air becomes 
 more humid the hair absorbs an additional quantity of moist- 
 ure, and is elongated; the counterpoise consequently de- 
 scends, and turns the pulley, whereby the index is moved to- 
 v. ards the one hand or the other. I in the contrary, when the 
 ee drier the hair loses a part of its humidity, and is 
 shortened. The counterpoise is consequently drawn up, and 
 the index moves in the opposite direction. The accuracy of 
 ions of this instrument depends on the assumed 
 
 pan ion and contraction of the ban are 
 due to moisture alone, and are not affected by temperature 
 or other changes in the condition of the atmosphere. Ex- 
 iiat the influence of temperature is not very 
 gnat ; but after all precautions have been taken in prepa- 
 ring the instrument h is found to be exceedingly irregular in 
 
 its movements, and subject to great uncertainties. Besides, 
 
 ince is soon deteriorated, and will scarcely main- 
 tain its properties unimpaired during a single year. 
 The hygrometer of lie Luc consists of a very thin slip of
 
 HYGROMETER. 
 
 whalebone cut transversely or across the fibres, and stretch- 
 ed by means of a spring between two points. One end is 
 fixed to a bar, while the other acts on the shorter arm of the 
 index of a graduated scale. When the whalebone absorbs 
 moisture it swells, and its length is increased ; as it becomes 
 dry it contracts ; and the space over which the index moves 
 by the one or the other of these effects gives the measure of 
 the expansion or contraction, and the corresponding change 
 in the hygroruetric state of the atmosphere. The action of 
 this hygrometer appears to be more uncertain than that of 
 Saussure. 
 
 The hygrometers which have been proposed on the prin- 
 ciple of a change of weight arising from the absorption of 
 moisture, are liable to still greater objections. Changes of 
 weight may indeed be measured with greater accuracy by 
 the common or torsion balance : but in the present case they 
 are so small, that the particles of dust which are at all times 
 floating in the atmosphere may produce a great alteration in 
 the results. A great variety of substances which attract 
 moisture have been employed, such as sponge, cotton, bibu- 
 lous paper, caustic potash, the deliquescent salts, sulphuric 
 acid, &c. ; but the indications which they give are deserving 
 of very little credit. Changes of property indicated by the 
 torsion of cords formed of gut, hemp, cotton, &c, and the 
 torsion of certain vegetable fibres, are still more fallacious. 
 
 2. Hygrometers on the Principle of Condensation. — The 
 instruments of this class are of a far more refined nature 
 than those which we have been describing. In order to 
 give an idea of the general principle on which they depend, 
 iet us conceive a glass jar, having its sides perfectly clean 
 and transparent, to be filled with water, and placed on a 
 table in a room where the temperature is, for example, 60°, 
 the temperature of the water being the same as that of the 
 room. Let us next suppose pieces of ice, or a freezing mixture, 
 to be thrown into the water, whereby the water is gradually 
 cooled down to 55, 50, 45, &c, degrees. As the process of 
 cooling goes on, there is a certain instant at which the jar 
 loses its transparency, or becomes dim ; and on attentively 
 examining the phenomenon, it is found to be caused by a 
 very fine dew, or deposition of aqueous vapour on the exter- 
 nal surface of the vessel. The precise temperature of the 
 water, and, consequently, of the vessel, at the instant when 
 this deposition begins to be formed, is called the dew point, 
 and is capable of being noted with great precision. Now this 
 temperature is evidently that to which, if the air were cool- 
 ed down, under the same pressure, it would be completely 
 saturated with moisture, and ready to deposit dew on any 
 body in the least degree colder than itself. The difference, 
 therefore, between the temperature of the air, and the tem- 
 perature of the water in the vessel when the dew begins to 
 be formed, will afford an indication of the dryness of the 
 air, or of its remoteness from the state of complete saturation. 
 
 But the observation which has now been described is 
 capable of affording far more interesting and precise results 
 than a mere indication of the comparative dryness or moist- 
 ure of the atmosphere. With the help of tables of the elas- 
 tic force of aqueous vapour at different temperatures, it gives 
 the means of determining the absolute weight of the aqueous 
 vapour diffused through any given volume of air, the pro- 
 portion of vapour existing in that volume to the quantity 
 that would be required to saturate it, and of measuring the 
 force and amount of evaporation. 
 
 The elastic force of aqueous vapour at the boiling point 
 of water is evidently equal to the pressure of the atmosphere. 
 This may be assumed as corresponding to a column of mer- 
 cury 30 inches in height. Mr. Daltou, in the filth volume 
 of the Manchester Memoirs, has given the details of a most 
 valuable and beautiful set of experiments, by which he as- 
 certained the elastic force of vapour from water at every 
 degree between its freezing and boiling points in terms of 
 the column of mercury which it is capable of supporting. 
 As the same experiments have since been frequently re- 
 peated, and the different results present all the accordance 
 which can be expected in so delicate an investigation, the 
 tension of vapour at the different temperatures may be re- 
 garded as sufficiently well determined. Supposing, then, we 
 have a table exhibiting the elasticity or tension correspond- 
 ing to every degree of the thermometer, the weight of a 
 given volume of vapour, for example a cubic foot, may be 
 determined as follows : 
 
 Steam at 212°, and under a pressure of 30 inches of mer- 
 cury, is 1700 times lighter than an equal bulk of water at its 
 greatest density, or a temperature of about 40°, and a cubic 
 foot of water at that temperature weighs 437272 grains ; the 
 weight, therefore, of a cubic foot of steam at that tempera- 
 ture and pressure is 437272-^-1700=257-218 grains. Hence 
 we may find the weight of an equal bulk of vapour of the 
 same temperature under any other given pressure, suppose 
 0-56 of an inch : for the density being directly as the press- 
 ure, we have 30 in. : 0-56 in. : : 257218 grs. : 4801 grs., which 
 is the weight required. 
 
 Having found the weight of a cubic foot of vapour under a 
 
 pressure of 056 of an inch, and at the temperature 212°, we 
 may find its weight under the same pressure at any other 
 temperature, suppose 60°. It is ascertained by experiment 
 that all aeriform bodies, whether vapours or gases, expand 
 the l-480th part of their volume for every accession of tem- 
 perature equivalent to one degree of Fahrenheit's scale ; 
 therefore, reckoning a volume of gas at 32° as unity, its 
 
 c>g ion 
 
 volume at 60° is to its volume at 212° as 1 4- — - is to 1 -I • 
 
 ^480 ^480" 
 
 or as 1-058 : 1-375 ; and the density and weight being inverse- 
 ly as the volume, we have 
 
 1-058 : 1-375 : : 4-801 grs. : 6-222 grs. 
 for the weight of a cubic foot of vapour at temperature 60°, 
 and under a pressure of 056 of an inch of the mercurial 
 column. 
 
 The following table, abridged from DanieWs Meteorologi- 
 cal Essays, shows the force of tension, weight, and expan- 
 sion of aqueous vapour, at different temperatures on Fahren- 
 heit's scale: 
 
 Temp. 
 
 Force. 
 
 Weight ol" a Cubic 
 Foot. 
 
 Expansion. 
 
 
 
 •068 
 
 •866 
 
 •9334 
 
 
 •0S3 
 
 1034 
 
 ■9438 
 
 10 
 
 •093 
 
 1-208 
 
 •9542 
 
 15 
 
 •119 
 
 1-451 
 
 •9646 
 
 20 
 
 •140 
 
 1-668 
 
 9750 
 
 25 
 
 •170 
 
 2-028 
 
 •9855 
 
 30 
 
 •200 
 
 2-361 
 
 ■9959 
 
 35 
 
 •240 
 
 2-805 
 
 1-0062 
 
 40 
 
 •2S0 
 
 3-239 
 
 10166 
 
 45 
 
 •340 
 
 3-893 
 
 10270 
 
 50 
 
 •400 
 
 4-535 
 
 1-0375 
 
 
 •476 
 
 5 342 
 
 10479 
 
 eo 
 
 •560 
 
 6-222 
 
 1-0583 
 
 65 
 
 •657 
 
 7-230 
 
 1-0687 
 
 70 
 
 •770 
 
 8-302 
 
 1-0791 
 
 75 
 
 •906 
 
 9-780 
 
 1-0895 
 
 80 
 
 1-060 
 
 11-333 
 
 11000 
 
 85 
 
 1-235 
 
 13-081 
 
 11104 
 
 90 
 
 1-430 
 
 15005 
 
 1-1208 
 
 95 
 
 1-636 
 
 17-009 
 
 1-1312 
 
 [ 212 
 
 80-000 
 
 257-218 
 
 1 3749 
 
 Having thus explained the principle of the condensation 
 hygrometer, we will now describe one or two of the forms 
 under which it has been most frequently constructed. Dan- 
 iell's hygrometer is represented in the annexed figure, a 
 and b are two thin glass .. . 
 
 balls of li inch diame- 
 ter, connected together 
 by a tube having a bore 
 about |th of an inch. 
 The tube is bent at right 
 angles over the two balls, 
 and the arm b c contains 
 a small thermometer d 
 e, whose bulb, which 
 should be of a lengthened 
 form, descends into the 
 ball b. This ball having 
 been about two thirds 
 filled with ether, is heat- 
 ed over a lamp till the 
 fluid boils, and the va- 
 pour issues from the ca- 
 pillary tube / which ter- 
 minates the ball a. The 
 vapour having expelled 
 the air from both balls, 
 the capillary tube is her- 
 metically closed by the 
 flame of a lamp. The 
 other ball a is now to be covered with a piece of muslin. 
 The stand g h is of brass, and the transverse socket i is 
 made to hold the glass tube in the manner of a spring, al- 
 lowing it to turn and be taken out with little difficulty. A 
 small thermometer k I is inserted into the pillar of the stand- 
 The manner of using the instrument is this : After having 
 driven out all the ether into the ball b by the heat of the 
 hand, it is to be placed at an open window, or out of doors, 
 with the ball b so situated that the surface of the liquid may 
 be on a level with the eye of the observer. A little ether 
 is then to be dropped on the covered ball. Evaporation im- 
 mediately takes place, which producing cold upon the ball 
 a, causes a rapid and continuous condensation of the ethereal 
 vapour in the interior of the instrument. The consequent 
 evaporation from the included ether produces a depression 
 of temperature in the ball b, the degree of which is measured 
 by the thermometer d e. This action is almost instantaneous, 
 and the thermometer begins to fall in two seconds after the 
 ether has been dropped. A depression of 30 to 40 degrees 
 is easily produced, and the ether is sometimes observed to 
 boil and the thermometer to be driven below zero of Fah- 
 renheit's scale. The artificial cold thus produced causes a 
 condensation of the atmospheric vapour upon the ball b, 
 
 581
 
 HYGROMETRIC. 
 
 which first maki ; ce in a thin ring of dew coin- 
 
 cident with tin' surface of the ether. The degree at which 
 must be carefully noted. In Very damp or 
 windy weather the ether should be very slowlj dropped 
 upon the ball, otherwise the descent of the thermometer 
 will be so rapid as to i> mely dili'o all 
 
 tain of the degree. In dry weather, on the contrary, the ball 
 requires to be well wetted more than once, to produce the 
 requisite degreeof cold. {Darnell's Jffeteri 
 
 The instrument which lias now been described is ex- 
 tremely beautiful in principle ; but it may he doubted wheth- 
 er, even when the greatest caution Is observed, (he tempera 
 ture which it ind isely that at which 1 - 
 
 tioii of dew takes place. The depo ition first occurs In a 
 narrow ring on a level with the surface of the ether in the 
 ball b, thereby indicating that the ether is colder at the sur- 
 face than a little under it. But if the temperature is not uni- 
 form throughout the ball, i; is evident that only a small part 
 of the bulb of the thermometer can be placed in the point 
 where the greatest cold insequently the tempera- 
 
 ture indicated by the thermometer will be greater than is 
 necessary for producing the deposition of moisture: in other 
 wards, the dew point will be given too high. 
 
 Various attempts have been made to obviate the 
 of Daniell's hygrometer, but hitherto without much success. 
 The apparatus proposed by Pouilletmay be de- 
 scribed as follows : A small cup C C, formed 
 ~H of gold, and extremely thin, is fixed to a little 
 \( P-pl collar of ivory B B, supported on a stand. The 
 stem of an inverted thermometer T T descends 
 3 through a perforation in the bottom of the cup, 
 and is fitted closely into it and sealed, the ball 
 of the thermometer being placed at the cen- 
 tre of the cup. In order to prevent the mer- 
 cury from separating, a small portion of air is 
 left in the stem. When an observation is to be 
 made sulphuric ether is poured into the cup; 
 and in consequence of the rapid evaporation 
 which takes place a considerable degree of cold 
 is produced, and a deposition takes place on the 
 outside of the cup. The degree of the ther- 
 mometer at the instant the brightness of the 
 metal begins to be dimmed gives the dew point 
 The correctness of the indication depends on 
 the identity of temperature of the ether, the 
 metal of the cup, and the thermometer. Bright 
 gold is found to answer the purpose better than 
 any other metal. (Pouillet, Elimens de Physique.) 
 
 As the hygrometer is one of the principal instruments in 
 meteorological researches, its theory and the best form of its 
 construction have been the subject of frequent discussion in 
 the various scientific journals. 
 
 HY'GROME TEIC. This term is commonly applied to 
 substances which readily become moist aad dry with corre- 
 sponding changes in the state of the atmosphere, or which 
 readily absorb and retain moisture. Sea-weed, several saline 
 substances, porous clays, potash and its carbonate, chloride 
 of calcium, sulphuric acid, are in this sense of the term said 
 to be li 
 
 HY'GROSCOPE. (Gr. hypos, and cko-zcw, I view.) An 
 instrument by means of which changes in the condition of 
 the atmosphere with respect to moisture are observed. See 
 H ygr ometer, by which the same changes are measured, 
 
 HY'LiEOSAU'RUS. (Gr. BA17, a wood, and aavpos, a 
 lizard.) A name given by Dr. Mantel] to an extinct gigantic 
 genu- of reptiles, the fossil remains of which he ha 
 ed in tin- wealden strata of Sussex. 
 
 HTLO'BIUS. (Gr. SXti, and 0toc, life.) A genus of 
 Tetramerous Coleoptera, belonging to the Gurcultonida, or 
 
 family of weevils, and noted for the ravag 
 
 ulio (Metis and Curcvlio 
 pint of Linnsus) upon firs and larches, (specially in young 
 plantations. This insect varies from live to nine lines in 
 length, is of a pitchy black colour, with numeroij 
 
 ■DOtE on the elytra. It has been found in the pine woods of 
 
 Shropshire, the north of England, ami Scotland. 
 
 HYLOZO ISM. (Gr. BAij, wood, used by ancient philos- 
 opher- to Hgnifj die abstract idea of matter, and lu>;. life.) 
 In Philosophy, strictly the doctrine that matter li-, 1 
 writers have confined this name to the (enet of the animu 
 mundi. or soul of the world : others to the theory 
 liar life residing in the whole of nature, approaching, there- 
 lore, in its sense to pantheism, 'lie 
 ganic or actually sentient: the latter notion ha- i 
 
 called Hylopathism. (Seethe remarl onCudworl 
 
 lectual Sys'em in Bedlam's Literature of Europe, iv., 188; 
 
 and F.r.s/t and Oruber's I'neyelopwdia.) 
 
 Hi 'MEN. Among .ho ancients, the God of 
 The origin of the worship • .' tin- divinity is attributed to the 
 following story; A young Athenian, named Hyrrj 
 humble circumstances, having become enamoured 
 and noble lady, from whose presence he was debarred, at- 
 582 
 
 HYPALLAGE. 
 
 tired himself in female habiliments, and joined a religious 
 d 10 El'eusis, in which his mistress took part. On 
 their way thither the parties who composed it were attacked 
 by pirates, who carried them into captivity ; but 1!' 
 seized the opportunity when they were asleep of pie i 
 to death, and departing immediately for At:. 
 
 die ladies to their families on condition ol 
 tabling permission to marry the object of lii^ 
 Athenians consented; the nuptials of Hymensus were 
 crowned with happiness; and from that period the Greeks 
 instituted festivals in his honour, and invoked him at the cele- 
 bration of their marriages. The formula employed on these 
 was, "" Ihinenae Hymen, Hymen O Hymcnax'." 
 (Cat. Carm., 61, 02.) Hymeneal is used to signify a song or 
 celebration of a marriage. 
 
 HYME'NIUM, in describing fungi, denotes that part in 
 
 which the sporules immediately lie. It is commonly called 
 
 the sills in the genus Agaricus ; but in Boletus is a corky 
 
 substance pierced full of holes, and in other genera 
 
 presents a variety of peculiar appearances. 
 
 HYMENO'PTERANS, Jlymenoptera. (Gr. v/ojr, a mem- 
 brane, and irrtpor, a wing.) An order of mnndibulate in- 
 sects, comprehending those which have four membranous 
 wings with few nervures. Latreille divides this order into 
 the following sections and tribes: 
 
 1. Terebrantia : Abdomen of the females furnished with a 
 
 saw or borer. 
 
 a. Securifera : Abdomen sessile, furnished with a saw ; 
 
 larva with feet 
 
 b. Pupivora ; Abdomen pedunculated, furnished with a 
 
 borer ; larva; footless. 
 
 2. Jlculeata: Abdomen of the females armed with a sting. 
 
 a. Heterogyna : Females wingless. 
 
 b. Fossores : Females winged, wings not folded ; basal 
 
 joint of posterior tarsi simple. 
 
 r . Lliploptcra : Females winged, wings folded. 
 
 d. Mellifera : Females w inged, wings not folded ; pos- 
 terior tarsi enlarged and converted into a pollimgerous 
 organ. 
 (See the above terms ; and Apis and Formica.) 
 
 HYMN. (Gr. vpvos-) An ode in praise of the Deity, or 
 some divine personage. The earliest Greek hymns are those 
 attributed, probably without foundation, to Homer: imitated 
 by Callimachus. They are in heroic verse, except one of 
 Callimachus in hexameters and pentameters; and their con- 
 tents, t'oi the most part, are narrations of the events in the 
 mythological history of the respective gods and goddesses to 
 whom they are dedicated, related in an encomiastic strain. 
 The choric strains of some of the tragedians in honour of 
 deities, introduced into their dramas, appear also to have the 
 character of hymns ; especially as dramatic performances 
 among the Greeks, had something of a religious solemnity 
 attached to them. The Theurgic Hymns were strains of a 
 higher character, and intended only for those who were ini- 
 tialed into certain mysteries, supposed to have for their ob- 
 ject the diffusion of more exalted notions of the divinity. 
 Those which are falsely attributed to Orpheus, and pass by 
 his name, are said to be of this class; but, except from their 
 obscurity, it is difficult to say from what reason. Philosophi- 
 cal hymns, intended for the use of the followers of a still 
 higher species of worship, are mentioned in the division of 
 ancient hymns; but we have no genuine examples of such 
 compositions. In modern literature, hymns are pieces of 
 sacred poetrj intended to besting in churches, of which the 
 Psalms of David, the most ancient pieces of poetry, properly 
 so called, on record (except the book of Job), furnish the 
 chief example and model. St. Hilary, bishop of Poitiers, is 
 said to have been the first who composed hymns to be sung 
 in churches. The Latin hymns of the Roman Catholic 
 church are well Itnov n, from the exquisite musk to which 
 been united. (See A' ntiquities, 
 
 p. 'Si3. As to the classical hymns and hyinnogiaphers, sic 
 [nscr., vols. \ii. and xvi.) 
 CYA'MJ \. The active principle or alkaloid of 
 toe common henbane (Hyoseuamus n 
 
 HI P-iE'THRAL. (Gr. into, under, and atQnp, the air.) 
 
 In Architecture, a building or temple uncovered by a roof. 
 
 Tbe temples of this class tire arranged by Vitruvius under 
 
 01 order, having six columns in front and rear, and 
 
 surrounded by a dipteral or double portico. The famous 
 temple of Neptune al Paestum, still remaining, is an example 
 of building. 
 
 HYPA'LLAGE. (Gr. vzciWnaou, I change slightly.) In 
 Grammar and Rhetoric, a species of inversion, in which not 
 only tbe natural or customary succession of words is Changed, 
 but the si in which 
 
 are transferred from their proper subject to an- 
 other. Such examples as "gladium vagina vacuum," the 
 ibard, in nova fert animus mutatas 
 die ie formas corpora," where tbe adjective " new" is trans- 
 
 im •■ form" to " bodj ," pre en: Btril 
 this figure ; but although such deviations from the natural
 
 HYPANTHODIUM. 
 
 sense could not be admitted in modern language, similar 
 locutions are not wholly wanting among ourselves. 
 
 H FPANTHO'DIUM. A term given by Link to that form 
 of inflorescence where the receptacle is fleshy and covered 
 with minute flowers, but not enclosed within an involucrum ; 
 as in Dorstenia and Ficus. 
 
 HYPE'RBOLA. (Gr. vTrcp6o\>); from vircp, above, and 
 (3a\\<ii, I throw.) In Geometry, one of the conic sections, 
 formed by cutting a cone by a plane which is so inclined to 
 the axis that when produced it cuts also the opposite cone, or 
 the cone which is the continuation of the former on the op- 
 posite side of the vertex. The term hyperbola was given to 
 this curve by Apollonius, on account of its property, that the 
 square of any ordinate is greater than the rectangle under the 
 corresponding absciss and the parameter, or diners from that 
 rectangle in excess. 
 
 Like the ellipse and parabola, the hyperbola may be de- 
 fined in various ways, and all its properties investigated with- 
 out any reference to the cone, but considered entirely as a 
 plane curve. The definitions most usually adopted are the 
 following : — 
 
 If two points F and / be given in a plane, and a point D 
 be conceived to move around them in such a manner that 
 the difference between the two distances D F and D / is al- 
 ways constant, the point 
 D will describe on the 
 plane an hyperbola, D 
 A M. By assuming first 
 one of the given points 
 F, and then the other /, 
 as that to which the 
 moving point is nearest, 
 the difference of the 
 lines D F and D / in 
 both cases being the 
 same, two hyperbolas, 
 DAM and D' A' M' will be described opposite to each other ; 
 so that the curve consists of two branches. The points F 
 and / are the foci of the hyperbola; and C, which bisects 
 the distance between the foci, is its centre. The line A A' is 
 the major or transverse axis : and a straight line B B', pass- 
 ing through the centre, perpendicular to A A', and of such a 
 length that the square of its half C B or C B' is equal to the 
 difference between the squares of C F and C A, is the minor 
 or conjugate axis. The curve may be described mechani- 
 cally as' follows : Let one end of a string be fastened to F, 
 and the other to K, the extremity of a ruler / D K ; and let 
 the difference between the length of the ruler and of the string 
 be equal to A a. Let the other end of the ruler be fixed to 
 the point/, and let the ruler be made to revolve about/ as a 
 centre in the plane in which the axes are situated, while the 
 string is stretched by means of a pin D, so that the part of it 
 between K and D is applied close to the edge of the ruler : 
 the point of the pin will by its motion trace a curve line D A M 
 upon the plane, which is one of the hyperbolas required ; and 
 if the ruler be made to revolve about the other focus F, while 
 the end of the string is fastened to/, the opposite hyperbola 
 will be described by the pin D'. 
 
 2. The hyperbola may also be defined as follows : Let F 
 be a given point, and Pfti straight line given in position ; 
 if another point D move in the same plane, so that its dis- 
 tance D F from F shall have always to the perpendicular 
 D E, or its distance from the given line P Q, the constant 
 ratio of two given lines X and Y, of which X is greater than 
 Y, the locus of the point D will be a hyperbola. The line 
 P Q, is called the directrix, and its distance C G from the 
 centre C is such that C G is a third proportional to C F and 
 C A. It is obvious that F A is to A G in the given ratio of 
 XtoY. 
 
 3. Another distinguishing property of the hyperbola is, that 
 the rectangle under A H and H A' is to the square of the 
 ordinate H D in the ratio of the square of C A to the square 
 of CB. LetC A = o, CB = 1, CH = i, andHD = j; then 
 A H ■ H A' : H D 2 : : a 2 : J 2 , that is, (x — a)(x + a) : y? : : 
 a 2 : 6 2 , or x 2 — a l • y 2 • : <# ; J2 ; whence y 2 = — (z 2 — a 2 ), an 
 
 1. 
 
 equation which may be put under this form, _ — 7 -t 
 
 a? 62 
 
 4. Like the ellipse, the hyperbola may also be defined by 
 a polar equation. Let F D = r, C A = a, C F the eccen- 
 tricity = e, and the angle A F D = <f> ; then r = c a 
 
 a-\- e cos. 0' 
 
 The hyperbola has two infinite branches, and it has also 
 two asymptotes. Through A, one of the vertices of the 
 transverse axis, let a straight line II A h be drawn equal and 
 parallel to B *, the conjugate axis, and bisected at A ; the 
 straight lines C II, C h, drawn through the centre, and the 
 extremities of that parallel, are asymptotes, and if produced 
 indefinitely do not meet the curve, though their distance 
 from it becomes less than any assignable line. The asymp- 
 totes of two opposite hyperbolas are common to both ; and 
 
 HYPERICACE^E. 
 
 they are likewise the asymp- 
 totes of two other hyperbolas, 
 E B E', e b e', whose transverse 
 axis B b is the conjugate axis of tj^ 
 D A D', and whose conjugate 
 axis is the transverse axis of D 
 A D'. These two hyperbolas, 
 E B E' and e b e', are called 
 conjugate to the former pair; 
 and, in general, whatever pro- 
 perty belongs to the opposite 
 hyperbolas D AH', d a d', the 
 same belongs also to the con- 
 jugate hyperbolas EBE' and e b e'. 
 
 One of the most remarkable properties of the asymptotes 
 is the following: If one of the asymptotes C M be divided 
 in continued proportion in the 
 points D, E, G, &c, and straight 
 lines be drawn from the points 
 of section parallel to the other 
 asymptote, meeting the curve 
 in the points P, U, R, &c. ; the 
 spaces D P a E, E a R G, &c, 
 without the curve, are equal. 
 The hjberbolic sections C P Q., 
 CQR, &c, are also equal to 
 each other, and to the spaces D if^n 
 P E Q, E Q R G, &c. Hence, 
 from the nature of logarithms, the sectors CPQ,CPR, &c, 
 or the equal spaces D P Q. E, D P R G, &.C., represent the 
 logarithms of the ratios of C D to C E, to C G, &c. ; and if 
 C D represent the unit of the arithmetical scale, the sector 
 C P ft, or the space DPQE, will express the logarithm of 
 C E on any logarithmic system depending on the angle of the 
 asymptotes. From the points P, Q., R, &c, let P d, Q,e,Rg t 
 be drawn parallel to C M ; the ordinates C d, C e, C g, &c, 
 are also in geometrical progression decreasing ; and wherever 
 the points I), E, G, &c, are situated, all the parallelograms 
 CiiPD, CeQE, CgRG, &c, are equal. Hence if C M 
 be taken as the line of the abscissa, and the ordinates be 
 taken parallel to C N, and if we make at the same time 
 CE = j,Cc = i, the nature of the curve will be expressed 
 by this equation, xy = ab. See Conic Sections. 
 
 HYPE'RBOLE. In Rhetoric, a figure by which expres- 
 sions are used signifying more than it is intended to represent 
 to the hearer or reader ; as when thoughts and sentiments 
 are clothed in tumid language, or ideas are brought forward 
 which in themselves are incredible, in order to induce a be- 
 lief of something less than that which is offered. Exagge- 
 ration is hyperbole applied to narrative, when false asser 
 tions are added to hue, in order to increase the impression 
 made by them. 
 
 HYPERBO'LIC LOGARITHMS. A system of loga- 
 rithms; so called because the numbers express the areas 
 between the asymptote and curve of the hyperbola, those 
 areas being limited by ordinates parallel to the other asymp- 
 tote, and the ordinates decreasing in geometrical progression. 
 But as such areas may be made to denote any system of 
 logarithms whatever, the denomination is not correct. The 
 term Napierean logarithm (from the inventor of the loga- 
 rithms, Baron Napier), is more frequently used, at least by 
 the Continental writers, to denote the same thing. The hy- 
 perbolic logarithm of any number is to the common loga- 
 rithm of the same number in the ratio of 2-30258509 to 1, or 
 as 1 to -43429448. See Logarithm. 
 
 HYPE'RBOLOID, or HYPERBOLIC CONOID. (Gr. 
 vntp6o\n, and uiof, form.) A solid formed by the revolution 
 of an hyperbola about its axis. Hypcrboloids also denote 
 hyperbolas of the higher kind, defined, generally, by the 
 
 m n m-J-n m , , 
 equation x y = a ' . The asymptotic area of any hy- 
 perbola of which this is the equation is x y ; and it is 
 
 n — m 
 
 very remarkable that this space is always quadrible, except 
 in the case of the common hyperbola, in which m and n 
 being each 1 the denominator n — m becomes zero. 
 
 HYTERCATALE'CTIC. (Gr. bmp, above, and kutcc- 
 \r)KTiKo$, deficient.) In Greek and Latin poetry, a verse ex- 
 ceeding its proper length by one syllable. 
 
 HY'PERCRI'TICISM, consists in viewing the works of 
 an author in an ungenerous spirit, exaggerating minor de- 
 fects, and overlooking or undervaluing such merits or beau- 
 ties as might fairlv be considered to outweigh the former. 
 
 HY'PERICA'CEiE. (Hypericum, one of the genera. A 
 natural order of Exogenous plants, usually having yellow 
 flowers, with the petals wider on one side than the other, 
 and marked with black dots, while the leaves are in many 
 cases marked with transparent dots. They are usually 
 strong-scented and astringent. Some of them have coppery 
 red flowers, and yield a resinous substance resembling gam- 
 
 b0ge - 583
 
 HYPERION. 
 
 HYPE'RION. Sec Titan. 
 
 HYPE'ROCHE. (Gr. pre-eminence.) In Music, an inter- 
 val nearly equal to one comma and a half. 
 
 BYPEROXYMU' MATES. Combinations of the chloric 
 and perchloric acids were formerly so called : thus, chlorate 
 of potash was called hvperoxvmuriate of potash. 
 
 BY'PEESTHENE. " Labrador hornblende. It isa ferro- 
 silicate of magnesia, with traces of alumina and of lime. It 
 occurs crystalline and massive; it is resplendent, and of a 
 gray. (Teen, or reddish hue. 
 
 HY'PERTHYRUM. (Gr. bircp, upon, and Svpa, a door.) 
 In Architecture, the lintel of a doorway. 
 
 HYPE'RTROPHY. (Gr. brrcp, and rpoajrj, excess of nu- 
 trition.) A term frequently applied to the morbid enlarge- 
 ment of any part of the body. " This term ought to be re- 
 stricted to cases in which a part, though increased in bulk, 
 retains its natural organization and structure." — (Cooper's 
 Dictionary.) 
 
 HY'PHA, in describing Algce, denotes the filamentous, 
 fleshy, watery thallus of Byssacece. 
 
 HY'PHEN. (Gr. b(pcv, together with.) In Writing, a mark 
 or character thus (-), implying that two words or syllables 
 are to be connected. 
 
 H YPNO'TICS. (Gr. birvoc, sleep.) Medicines which in- 
 duce sleep. 
 
 HYPOCATJ'STUM. (Gr. biro,under, and K aio>, I burn.) 
 In Ancient Architecture, a vaulted apartment from which 
 the fire's heat is distributed to the rooms above by means of 
 earthern tubes. This method, first used in baths, was after- 
 wards adopted in private houses, and diffused an agreeable 
 and equable temperature throughout the different rooms. 
 
 HY'POCHONDRI'ASIS. (Gr. biro, under, and xovr5/>oc, 
 cartilage.) ■ Uneasiness about the region of the stomach and 
 liver, or of the hypochondriac region, is one of the symptoms 
 of this disease. Particular circumstances may induce this 
 disorder in any individual ; but it is most commonly met with 
 in persons of sallow or pale complexions, spare habit of body, 
 and dark hair and eyes. Its mental symptoms are low spirits, 
 a groundless apprehension of evil, imaginary local sensations, 
 and erroneous impressions respecting the opinions and senti- 
 ments of others, with a tendency to misconstrue their actions ; 
 aversion to society ; want of mental and bodily energy ; see- 
 ing persons and things and hearing conversations and noises 
 which are purely imaginary. The bodily symptoms are fla- 
 tulency and all the other concomitants of indigestion — cos- 
 tiveness, dimness of sight, noises in the ears, want of appetite 
 and sleep in most cases, in a few, voracity and drowsiness. 
 As this disease is usually connected with imperfect action of 
 the liver and debility of the stomach and bowels, mild ape- 
 rients, small doses of calomel or blue pill, and tonics are to 
 be prescribed; occasionally doses of more powerful purges, 
 such as calomel and jalap, orscammony with salts and senna, 
 must be resorted to where the bowels are foul and overload- 
 ed ; and where there is much headach a blister to the neck, 
 or the loss of a little blood by cupping, or from the arm, may 
 be of service. The regularity of the circulation is often 
 much disturbed, and it is generally necessary to keep the feet 
 warm. 
 
 Change of scene and of occupation, cheerful society, mo- 
 derate exercise of all kinds, and great kindness and attention 
 on the part of the medical adviser, are generally among the 
 essentials in the treatment of this diseased state. But every 
 amusement and relaxation must be carefully proposed and 
 pursued ; and though it is generally necessary firmly but 
 gently to remonstrate against the whims and caprices of 
 hypochondriacs, yet sometimes they must be conceded to. 
 When persons are full of evil forebodings and false alarms, 
 it is sometimes well to induce them to keep a diary of their 
 feelings, the perusal of which, as they recover, or in their 
 happier moments, is often comforting proof to them of the 
 utter want of foundation of some of their most inveterate 
 notions. Persons who are very irritable and over-anxious, 
 or who, after having been actively engaged in business, re- 
 tire to a life of ease and idleness, who take no interest in 
 study, amusement, or exercise ; and those, again, who have 
 kept bad hours, or who have led debauched lives, or who 
 have studied intensely, are those in whom some of the 
 worst forms of hypochondriasis occur. It is seldom, in the 
 most aggravated cases of this disorder, that well-grounded 
 hopes of recovery may not be held out, and that its recur 
 rence may not be prevented by timely and firm treatment ; 
 but if it be allowed to run its course, it often ends in melan- 
 choly. 
 
 HY'POCRATE'RIFORM. (Gr. biro, xparnp, a cup, and 
 ipoDjiri, shape.) That form of a corolla which Consists in a 
 cylindrical tube which is longer than the flat spreading limb, 
 as in the flowers of the genus Phlox. It is called in English, 
 salver-shaped. 
 
 HYPOG^E'OUS. (Gr. biro, and y n , the earth.) Literally, 
 subterranean. In Botany it denotes all parts in plants which 
 grow beneath the surface of the earth. 
 
 HY'POGENE. (Gr. biro, and yivopai, I am formed.) A 
 
 HYPOTHESIS. 
 
 class of rocks which have not assumed their present form 
 and structure at the surface of the earth, but are apparently 
 of igneous origin, and thrust up from below. .VccGeolooy. 
 
 HYPO'GYNOUS (Gr. biro, and yvvn, a female), in Botany, 
 in describing the situation of plants, denotes anything grow- 
 ing from below the base of the ovarium. 
 
 HY'POMO'CHLION (Gr. biro, and ^.oxXof, lever), in 
 Mechanics, is the fulcrum or support of a lever, or the point 
 against which the pressure is exerted. This term is only 
 met with in the old treatises on mechanics ; the equivalent 
 term fulcrum being now generally used. 
 
 HY'PONI'TROUS ACID. An acid intermediate be- 
 tween nitric oxide and nitrous acid, composed of 1 equivalent 
 of nitrogen = 14, and 3 of oxygen = 24, the equivalent of the 
 hyponitrous acid, upon the hydrogen scale, being =38. 
 
 HY'POPHO'SPIIOROUS ACID. An acid composed of 
 2 atoms of phosphorus and 1 of oxygen, or 32 phosphorus -j- 
 8 oxygen. 
 
 HYPOPHY'LLIUM. (Gr. biro, and <pv\\ov, a leaf.) A 
 term invented to denote a petiole that has the form of a 
 small sheath, is destitute of lamina, and surrounds the base 
 of certain small branches, having the appearance of leaves ; 
 as in asparagus. It is nothing but a rudimentary leaf. 
 
 HYPO'PIUM. (Gr. b to, and irvov, pus.) A disease of 
 the eye, in which there is an apparent collection of pus un- 
 der the transparent cornea; that is, in the chamber of the 
 aqueous humour. 
 
 HYPOSCE'NIUM. (Gr. biro, and aKnvr,, a. scene.) In 
 ancient Architecture, the front wall of a theatre facing the 
 orchestra from the stage. 
 
 HYPO'STASIS. (Gr. virocrraois, from viro and lorrjut, I 
 stand.) A term invented by the Greek fathers to express 
 the distinct personality of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 
 Upoodirov, in Latin, persona, whence our person, signifies 
 properly a face or mask. This term, however, is retained 
 by the Latin fathers, who, like ourselves, had no word which 
 could exactly represent hypostasis, which differs from ovala, 
 sabstance, inasmuch as the latter is used for the divine sub- 
 stance, essence, or being — that which is common to each of 
 the hypostases, persons, or individual substances which com- 
 pose the one Godhead. 
 
 HY'POSULPHU'RIC ACID. An acid intermediate be- 
 tween the sulphurous and sulphuric acids. It may be re- 
 garded as containing 2 atoms of sulphur (16 X 2 = 32), and 
 5 of oxygen (8X5 = 40) ; or as constituted of 1 atom of 
 sulphurous acid = 32, and 1 of sulphuric acid = 40. In 
 either case its equivalent is 72. 
 
 H YPOSULPH U'ROUS ACID. An acid constituted of 2 
 atoms of sulphur (10x2 = 32), and 2 of oxygen (8x2 = 
 16). It is necessary to take this view of composition, its 
 equivalent number being 48. 
 
 HYPO'THECA'TION. (Gr. biroQnur,, that which is sub- 
 ject to a pledge.) In the Civil Law, an engagement by which 
 the debtor assigns his goods in pledge to a creditor as a se- 
 curity for his debt, without parting with the immediate pos- 
 session; differing, in this last particular, from the simple 
 pledge. The term hypothecation is usually applied to things 
 immoveable only (*. e., according to the division of the Eng- 
 lish law, to things real, things personal savouring of the 
 reality, and choses in action), and not to things moveable 
 (i. e., things personal in possession). It answers, in general, 
 to the English mortgage. Sec Mortgage. 
 
 HYPO'THENUSE (Gr. biro, and tcivui, I stretch), in Ge- 
 ometry, denotes the longest side of a right-angled triangle, or 
 the side which subtends the right angle. The famous 47th 
 proposition of the First Book of Euclid, namely, that in any 
 right angled rectilinear triangle the square described on the 
 hypothenuse is equal to the sum of the squares described on 
 the two sides, is said to have been discovered by Pythagoras, 
 who was so much pleased with it that he sacrificed a heca- 
 tomb to the Muses, in gratitude. Camerer, in the Notes to 
 his edition of the first Six Books of Euclid, in Greek and 
 Latin, has collected no fewer than seventeen different de- 
 monstrations of this celebrated theorem, from the principles 
 of elementary geometry. 
 
 IIYPO'THESIS (Gr. viroOtou, from biro, and T t8nui. I 
 place), in Mathematical Science, is a supposition made with 
 a view to draw from it some consequence which establishes 
 the truth or falsehood of B proposition, or gives the solution 
 of a problem. In a mathematical proposition there are two 
 things to be considered — the hypothesis and the conclusion ; 
 the hypothesis being that which is granted or supposed, and 
 the conclusion that which follows from reasoning from the 
 data. In the following proposition, " If two triangles be equi- 
 angular, their homologous sides nre proportional ;" the first 
 part, if two triangles be equiangular, is the hy|>nthesis or 
 data from which we are to reason ; and the second part, the 
 homologous rides art proportional, is the conclusion or con- 
 sequence at which we arrive by reasoning from that hypo- 
 thesis. 
 
 In Physics, the term hypothesis denotes a gratuitous sup- 
 position to account for some phenomenon or appearance of
 
 HYPOTRACHELIUM. 
 
 the natural world. If the hypothesis serves to explain a 
 great number of the circumstances accompanying a pheno- 
 menon, it acquires a certain degree of probability ; and if 
 all the known circumstances can be deduced from it, the 
 probability becomes very great, and in the lapse of time 
 may amount to certainty. Thus the hypothesis of the di- 
 urnal rotation of the earth and its translation in the ecliptic, 
 imagined by Copernicus to explain the planetary phenome- 
 na, has acquired all the characters of certainty from continu- 
 al astronomical observation. In like manner, Kepler's hy- 
 pothesis that the planets move in elliptic orbits, has been so 
 fully confirmed by subsequent discoveries and computations, 
 that, however doubtful it might be at first, no one who is 
 capable of understanding the evidence can hesitate to re- 
 ceive it as an established law of nature. " A well-imagined 
 hypothesis," says Sir John Herschel, " if it have been sug- 
 gested by a fair inductive consideration of general laws, can 
 hardly fail at least of enabling us to generalize a step fur- 
 ther, and group together several such laws under a more 
 universal expression. But this is taking a very limited view 
 of the value and importance of hypotheses. It may hap- 
 pen (and it has happened in the case of the undulatory the- 
 ory of light) that such a weight of analogy and probability 
 may be accumulated on the side of an hypothesis, that we 
 are compelled to admit one of two things — either that it is 
 an actual statement of what really passes in nature ; or 
 that the reality, whatever it be, must run so close a parallel 
 with it as to admit some mode of expression common to 
 both, at least in so far as the phenomena actually known 
 are concerned. Now, this is a very great step, not only for 
 its own sake, as leading us to a high point in mathematical 
 speculation, but for its applications ; because whatever con- 
 clusions we deduce from an hypothesis so supported must 
 have at least a strong presumption in their favour ; and we 
 may be thus led to the trial of many curious experiments, 
 and to the imagining of many useful and important contri- 
 vances, which we would never otherwise have thought of, 
 and which, at all events, if verified in practice, are real ad- 
 ditions to our stock of knowledge and to the arts of life." 
 {Discourse on the Study of JVai. Philosophy.) 
 
 HY'POTRACHE'LIUM. (Greek biro, under, and rpaxn^i 
 the neck.) In architecture, the slenderest part of the shaft 
 of a column, being that immediately below the neck of the 
 capital. 
 
 HY'POTYPO'SIS. (Gr. vttotvttwcis, from tvtto?, a type), 
 in Rhetoric, signifies an animated representation of a scene 
 or event in descriptive language highly enriched with rhet- 
 orical figures. 
 
 HY'RAX. (Gr. 'ipa\, a shrew-mouse.) This term is now 
 applied to a genus of small Mammalia which ranks next the 
 rhinoceros in the order of their affinities, and are the most 
 diminutive representatives of the Pachydermatous order. 
 The two known species are found in hilly districts at the 
 Cape (Hyrax capensis), and in Syria (Hyrax Syriacus) : 
 the latter species is the "coney" of Scripture. 
 
 HVSTERA'NTHUS, in describing the duration of leaves, 
 denotes their appearance after the flowers ; as in the al- 
 mond. 
 
 HYSTE'RIA. (Gr. barepa the womb, with which it is 
 supposed that the disease is generally connected.) It gen- 
 erally attacks unmarried females between the ages of 15 
 and 35, coming on with low spirits and anxiety, sickness, 
 short breath, and palpitations ; sobbing, and a sense of dis- 
 tension of the bowels, which afterwards seems to concentre 
 itself in the stomach, and then rise like a ball into the throat, 
 where it produces gasping, stupor, convulsive motions, cry- 
 ing, laughing, hiccough, flow of saliva from the mouth, and 
 delirium ; at length the spasms abate, and the person gradu- 
 ally recovers, generally with the expulsion of wind from 
 the stomach. Some of these symptoms are often much 
 more prevalent than others, so that the disorder assumes 
 many forms ; it is also very variable in its duration, lasting 
 from an hour or two to one or two days. The treatment 
 varies extremely with the apparent causes of the disorder ; 
 sometimes bleeding and depletives, at others stimulants and 
 tonics are required ; in mild cases sprinkling with water 
 and applying nasal stimulants give relief. Great attention to 
 the exciting cause, exercise, moderate and judicious amuse- 
 ments and occupations, regular hours, and change of air and 
 scene, are among the best preventives of its recurrence. 
 
 HYSTERI'TIS. Inflammation of the womb. This dan- 
 gerous disease generally occurs the second or third day after 
 delivery ; it is attended by fever and pain of the part, and 
 requires active antiphlogistic treatment. 
 
 HYSTERO'LOGY, or HYSTERON PROTERON. (Gr. 
 vorcpos the latter of two, and ^oyos, speech.) In Rhetoric, a 
 figure by which the ordinary course of thought is inverted 
 in expression, and the last put first ; as, where objects sub- 
 sequent in order of time are presented before their antece- 
 dents, cause before effect, &c. Some comprehend the fig- 
 ure usually called anticlimax (see Climax) under the name 
 Hysterology. 
 
 IAMBICS. 
 
 HY'STRICI'D^E. (Gr. vorpi\, aporcupine.) The name 
 of the family of Rodent Quadrupeds, of wliich the porcu- 
 pine (Hystrix cristala) is the type. 
 
 I & J. 
 
 I, the ninth letter of the English and most European al- 
 phabets, represents two very different sounds in different 
 languages. In England it is equivalent to the French or 
 German sounds of the two letters a i, pronounced rapidly ; 
 and in the German and all other languages witli which we 
 are acquainted, it is identical with the sound of the long 
 English e. In the Greek language the letter t, is the simp- 
 lest of the alphabetical characters, being represented by a 
 single stroke, thus, i. It is also susceptible of various inter- 
 changes, more particularly in the Latin, Greek, and French 
 languages. When two i's followed in succession, the Ro- 
 mans used to contract them into a single long i, as Dl for 
 Dii, tibicen for tibiicen ; or made the letter larger than usu- 
 al, as Chlus. Shakspeare sometimes substitutes / for ay 
 or yes. 
 
 Did your letters pierce the queen ? 
 
 7, sir j she took 'em and read 'em in my presence. 
 
 According to Gebelin, the letter i in hieroglyphic writing 
 represents the human hand, the instrument of which man 
 avails himself in all his necessities, the seat of his power 
 and might. As a Roman numeral it denotes 1 ; and if placed 
 before V or X, it diminishes by a unit the number express- 
 ed by these two letters. The form of J was originally iden- 
 tical with that of I ; and it is only within the last century 
 that any distinction was made between them. In the Eng- 
 lish and French languages J has a sibilant sound, but the 
 Germans pronounce it exactly as the English y before a 
 vowel. The Latin sound of this letter is very ambiguous, 
 the question being usually decided by the parties who dis- 
 cuss it according to its pronunciation in the vernacular. In 
 the Spanish language J represents a guttural, and is fre- 
 quently substituted for X, which has the same sound. 
 
 IA'CCHUS. See Bacchus. 
 
 IA'MBICS. A species of verse used by the Greek and 
 Latin poets, and especially by the Greek tragic poets. The 
 derivation of the word has never been ascertained, but it 
 can boast of an origin nearly coeval with the Greek lan- 
 guage. The iambics of the Greek tragic poets consisted of 
 three entire metres of six feet, and were thence styled the 
 tragic trimeter acatalectic. They were composed originally, 
 as their name implies, of a succession of iambi (^ — ) ; but 
 at a later period, various other feet were admitted, of which 
 the subjoined table will convey an idea. 
 
 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 
 
 Hence it will be seen that a tribrachys may be introduced 
 into all the places except the last ; a spondee in the first, 
 third, and fifth places ; a dactyl in the first and third places ; 
 and an anapest in the first. It was, however, long a ques- 
 tion of great doubt among grammarians into what places 
 the anapest might be legitimately introduced. The discus- 
 sion at one period ran high, particularly between English 
 and German critics ; but it now seems to be universally ad- 
 mitted that this foot may be used in every odd place of the 
 verse except the last : with the general restriction, that in 
 the 3d and 5th places it should be contained in a proper 
 name, as Antigone, or in a preposition and the word which 
 it governs. The comic writers used much greater licence 
 in the iambic trimeter, admitting an anapest, even in com- 
 mon words, into every place but the last. For a full expo- 
 sition of this and the other iambic metres employed by the 
 Greek and Latin poets, the reader may consult Hermann's 
 Elcmenta Doctrinm Metrical ; Porson's editions of the 
 Tragedies of Euripides ; and the article " Iambic Verse" 
 in Recs's Cyclopedia. In most modern European languages, 
 the verse of five iambic feet is a favourite metre. In French 
 it is used almost entirely in lighter poetry, as by La Fon- 
 taine and similar writers, the heroic verse being the sixth 
 foot, or Alexandrine ; but in English, German, and Italian, 
 the former is the verse of ordinary use in serious composi 
 tion. The Italians divide it into — 1. The verso cadentc, in 
 which the line is decasyllabic, consisting of five iambi : e. g., 
 
 " E come albero in nave si levo." Dante. 
 
 This variety is very rarely admitted in serious composition, 
 and is ill suited to the character of the language. Poets 
 have, however, sometimes sportively attempted whole se- 
 ries of versi cadenti ; as in the set of sonnets of Casti call- 
 ed 1 tre Giuli. 2. The verso eroico, or hendecasyllabic, 
 which is the ordinary one, ending in a short syllable : 
 " Canto l'armi pietose, e 'I capitino." 
 
 Nn* S 85
 
 IBEX. 
 
 3. The verso sdrucciolo, which ends with two short sylla- 
 bles after the fifth iamb : 
 
 " Fassi oziosa, e di tua gloria immemore." 
 This also is rarely used in serious writing; ; but its occasion- 
 al employment adds a [>eculiar grace to lighter poetry. In 
 English, according to the genius of the language, the deca- 
 syllabic line is most common ; the hendecasyllabic occa- 
 sional, and more frequent in blank verse than in rhymes, 
 in consequence of the comparative rarity of trochaic rhymes ; 
 the sdrucciolo, also occasionally used by dramatic poets ; 
 e.g., 
 
 " What's Hecuba lo him, or he to Hecuba " 
 The licence is sometimes carried so far as to add three short 
 syllables to the last iamb : e. g., 
 
 " The senator shall bear contempt hereditary." 
 The German language is rich both in iambic and trochaic 
 terminations: consequently the decasyllabic and hendeca- 
 syllabic are more indiscriminately employed than in either 
 English or Italian ; and it is not uncommon to use the ele- 
 gant variety of alternate iambic and trochaic rhymes, like 
 the French masculine and feminine. 
 
 I'BEX. (Lat, a wild goat.) The name is restricted to a 
 species of goat ; the Capra Ibex of Linnaeus, Bouquetin of 
 ButTon and the French naturalists. It is characterized by 
 having large horns, with a flattened anterior surface, and 
 marked with prominent transverse ridges or knots. It in- 
 habits the summits of the highest mountain chains in the 
 continents of Europe, Africa, and Asia, but does not exist 
 in the New World. 
 
 I'CEBERG. (Germ, eis, ice, and berg, mountain.) The 
 name given to the masses of ice resembling mountains of- 
 ten found floating in the polar seas. They are sometimes 
 formed in the sea itself by the accumulation of ice and 
 snow ; at other times they seem to be glaciers which have 
 been piling up on shore till quite overgrown, and ultimate- 
 ly broken and launched into the ocean by their own weight. 
 Masses of this sort abound in Baffin's Bay, where they are 
 sometimes two miles long, and half or one third as broad. 
 Scoresby counted 500 of these bergs drifting along in lati- 
 tudes 69° and 70° N., which rose above the surface from 
 the height of 100 to -200 feet, and measured from a few yards 
 to a mile in circumference. (Voyage in 182*2, p. 233.) Many 
 of them were loaded with beds of earth and rocks, of such 
 thickness that the weight was conjectured to be from 50,000 
 to 100,000 tons ; and on closer examination the mass was 
 found to be composed, among other substances, of granite, 
 gneiss, mica, schist, clayslate, granular felspar, and green- 
 stone. Some idea may be formed of the immense depth to 
 which icebergs descend, from the fact that the mass of ice 
 below the level of the water is about eight times greater 
 than that above. Icebergs have been known to drift from 
 Baffin's Bay to the Azores, and from the South Pole to the 
 immediate neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope. (See 
 LyeWs Geology, book ii., c. 3; Murray's Encyc. of Geog- 
 raphy.) 
 
 ICELAND MOSS, Lichen Islandicus, Cetraria Islandi- 
 ca. This is a common lichen in the mountainous districts 
 of Europe. It contains a bitter principle, and a considera- 
 ble quantity of starchy matter ; it is tonic and nutritive, and 
 is often prescribed in disorders of debility, and in pulmona- 
 ry consumption. 
 
 ICELAND SPAR. A transparent rhomboidal variety of 
 calcspar, or carbonate of lime. This form of crystallized 
 carbonate of lime is particularly valuable for experiments 
 on the double refraction and polarization of light, 
 
 ICE SPAR. A variety of felspar, from Somma near Na- 
 ples. 
 
 ICH DIEN. (Germ.) Literally, I serve : the motto of 
 the Prince of Wales, which was originally adopted by Ed- 
 ward the Black Prince in proof of his subjection to his fa- 
 ther Edward III., and has been continued without interrup- 
 tion down to the present time. 
 
 [CHNEU'MON. (<;r. (xvevuwv, Pharaoh's rat, the de- 
 stroyer of crocodiles ; perhaps from txi'c6u>, because it track- 
 ed the foot-prints of the crocodile.) A name applied in zo- 
 ology, in a double sense, to a Viverrine genus of quadru- 
 peds, and to a family of Pupivorous Hymenoptera. As re- 
 gards the Mammalia the name is changed for Herpestes by 
 Illiger, and the latter has been generally adopted by BngHun 
 zoologists. (See IIerpestes for the generic characters.) 
 The ichneumon of the Nile (//< rpestet Pharaonis i n as me 
 of the sacred animals of the ancient Egyptians ; and al- 
 though many fabulous feats were narrated of it as the ene- 
 my of the crocodile, there is no doubt but that its Industri- 
 ous instinctive searching out of the eggs of die crocodile U 
 an article of food tends materially to diminish the number 
 of that destructive reptile. The ichneumon preys, how ev- 
 er, on the eggs and young of various species Of animals. 
 Mr. Bennett relates that on one occasion a grey Ichneumon 
 (Herpestcs griseus) killed no fewer than a dozen full-grown 
 rats, which were loosed to it in a room sixteen feet square, 
 586 
 
 ICHTHYOLOGY. 
 
 in less than a minute and a half. For an account of the in- 
 sect ichneumons, see Pupivora. 
 
 ICHNO'GRAPHY. (Gr. ixvos, a model, and ypa<pto, I 
 draic.) In Architecture, the representation of the ground 
 plot of a building. In perspective it is its representation in- 
 tersected by a horizontal plane at its base or ground floor. 
 
 I'CHOR. (Gr.) A thin watery discharge. By the 
 Greeks it was applied to the divine fluid that issued from 
 the wounds of the gods. 
 
 I'CIITHIOCO'LLA. (Gr. i X 0vs, a fish, and K o\\a, glue.) 
 See Isinglass. 
 
 ICHTHYO'LOGY. (Gr. i X 0uc, and Aoyoc, a discourse.) 
 The science which treats of the nature, uses, .and classifi- 
 cation of fishes. 
 
 Fishes are those oviparous vertebrate animals which 
 have a heart consisting of one auricle and one ventricle, 
 which breathe water, and have the nasal cavity communi- 
 cating with the external surface only. In a few species an 
 air-bladder is present, and so organized as to act the part of 
 a lung ; but the principal if not exclusive organ of respira- 
 tion consists, throughout the whole class, of branchia; or 
 gills. The gills are composed of rows of slender flattened 
 processes suspended by arches, attached in general to the 
 hyoid bone, and covered with a membrane or tissue of in- 
 numerable minute and close-set blood-vessels. The water 
 which the fish takes in by the mouth, instead of being 
 swallowed, passes through the interspaces of the gills, and 
 escapes by the fissures on each side of the head, called gill- 
 apertures. The air contained in the water, acts upon the 
 blood, which is minutely subdivided in the branchial ves- 
 sels ; and the bilocular heart serves exclusively to propel 
 the whole of the venous blood to the branchial arteries, and 
 is thus analogous in function to the pulmonary auricle and 
 ventricle of the warm-blooded classes. The blood having 
 been decarbonized in the gills is collected into the dorsal 
 arterial trunk or aorta, and is propelled, without the influ- 
 ence of a systematic heart, to all parts of the body ; whence 
 it is again returned by the veins to the branchial auricle and 
 ventricle. 
 
 The whole structure of a fish is as evidently adapted for 
 swimming as that of a bird for flight. Being suspended in 
 a fluid of nearly the same specific gravity as itself, it needs 
 not widely-expanded wings for its support. Many species, 
 moreover, have the air-bladder so organized and developed 
 as, by its contractions and dilatations, to vary the specific 
 gravity of the fish, and aid in its ascent to the surface, or 
 descent into the depths of the water. Ordinary progression 
 is effected by the motions of the tail, which, by the action 
 of powerful muscles, displaces the water alternately to the 
 right and left ; the gills, also, in expelling the water back- 
 wards, may contribute, by the reaction of the current, to 
 propel the fish forward. The ordinary extremities, there- 
 fore, being of little use, are reduced to a low or rudimental 
 condition ; they are chiefly remarkable for the number of 
 parts corresponding to the digital phalanges of the higher 
 classes, and which, from their disposition, are called " rays." 
 The pieces analogous to the bones of the arms and legs are 
 extremely shortened, and often quite concealed ; the mem- 
 brane supported by the diverging rays rudely represents the 
 hands and feet. The members thus constructed are called 
 "fins;" those which answer to the anterior extremities are 
 called the " pectoral fins ;" those which answer to the pos- 
 terior extremities are the " ventral fins." Other rays attach* 
 ed to peculiar bones above or between the extremities of the 
 spinous processes support the vertical fins, which are mesial 
 and single, either above the back, beneath the tail, or at the 
 extremity of the tail. The upper vertical fin or fins are 
 called the dorsal, the lower ones the anal, and the terminal 
 one the caudal fin. The fin-rays are of two kinds. Some 
 consist of a single bony piece, usually hard and pointed, 
 sometimes flexible and elastic, and divided longitudinally ; 
 they are called " bony or spinous rays :" the others are com- 
 posed of a vast number of little joints, generally branched 
 at the extremity; they are called "soft, Jointed, or branch- 
 ed rays." In genera] the fins, which are placed in pairs, 
 and correspond to the ordinary extremities, are four in num- 
 ber : but sometimes there are but two, and sometimes they 
 are entirely wanting. When both pectoral and ventral lins 
 are present, they may have the ordinary relative position , 
 i. e , the pectoral tins may be considerably in advance of the 
 ventrals — such fishes are said to be "abdominal" or the 
 Ventrals may be placed below, or on the same or nearly the 
 same transverse line as the pectOTals — such fishes are term- 
 ed "thoracic :" or the ventrals may be situated in advance 
 of the pectorals, under the throat of the fish — when the 
 species are called "jugular" fishes. The vertebra; of fish- 
 es, when completely ossified, are united, with very few ex- 
 ceptions, try opposite concave surfaces. Most fishes have 
 the body covered with scales. They are destitute of or- 
 gans of prehension, except the teeth. The imperfection 
 of the organ of touch is remedied in some by the develop- 
 ment of soft tentacles or feelers.
 
 ICHTHYOPHTHALMITE. 
 
 The teeth are very various as to their number, form, and 
 relative size. They are either anchylosed to the jaw-bones, 
 attached to ligaments, or implanted in sockets ; when the 
 latter, the tooth has always a single and simple fang. The 
 teeth may be placed on the maxillary, intermaxillary, or 
 lower jaw-bones ; upon the vomer or sphenoid bones ; upon 
 the palatine or pterygoid bones, the tongue, the branchial 
 arches, or the pharyngeal plates ; or they may be entirely 
 wanting. 
 
 Besides the branchial arches, the hyoid bone supports on 
 each side a number of rays, which support the branchial or 
 opercular membrane. This membrane is also generally far- 
 ther strengthened by three osseous plates called the " oper- 
 cular," subopercular," and " interopercular" bones: the kind 
 of door thus formed is joined to the tympanic bone, and plays 
 upon a piece called the " preopercular" bone. 
 
 With respect to the subdivision of the class of fishes into 
 orders, Cuvier admits the great difficulty which exists in de- 
 fining them by fixed and easily appreciable characters, and 
 after many attempts adopted the following classification. 
 
 He first divided the class into two sub-classes. 
 Sub-class I. Pisces ossei, or fishes properly so called. 
 
 II. Pisces cartilaginei, or Chondropterygians, car- 
 tilaginous fishes. 
 
 The first sub-class are arranged according to the modifica- 
 tions of their organs of locomotion. All the osseous fishes 
 which have the anterior part of the dorsal fin, or the first 
 dorsal where there are two, supported by bony rays, with 
 some bony rays in the anal fin, and at least one bony ray in 
 each of the ventials, are collected into an order, called Acan- 
 thoptcrygians. 
 
 All those osseous fishes in which, with the exception of 
 the anterior dorsal and pectoral rays, all the others are soft, 
 constitute the order Malacopterygians. 
 
 The Malacopterygii are subdivided, according to the rela- 
 tive position or absence of the ventral fins, into " abdomi- 
 nal," "jugular," or "sub-branchial," and "apodal" fishes. 
 
 Those fishes which have the branchia; in the form of 
 tufts constitute the order of Lophobranchii. 
 
 Those fishes in which the maxillary and palatine arches 
 are firmly united, or, as it were, soldered to the cranium, are 
 called the Plectognathi. 
 
 The Chondropterygian fishes are divided into the three or- 
 ders of, 
 
 Sturionians, 
 
 Selacians, and 
 
 Cyclostomes. (See those words.) 
 
 The chief modification in the arrangement of the class of 
 fishes has been the consequence of a study of the nature and 
 affinities of the numerous extinct forms, and a comparison 
 of these with existing species. 
 
 M. Agassiz has proved that certain species, which stand 
 out as exceptions to the ordinary form and structure of the 
 class among recent fishes, are the types of extensive orders 
 which peopled the seas of the ancient world, and now char- 
 acterize particular strata. This naturalist has likewise ob- 
 served more closely than his predecessors the relations which 
 subsist between the external scales and the internal struc- 
 ture ; and he accordingly proposes to arrange the class of 
 fishes according to the modifications of the scaly covering, 
 and divides them into four orders, each of which contains 
 fishes having a cartilaginous skeleton: and in each there 
 are both Acanthopterygian and Malacopterygian, Abdomi- 
 nal and Apodal genera. These orders are named Placoidcs, 
 Ganoides, Ctenoides, and Cycloides. (See those terms.) 
 
 I'CHTHYOPHTHA'LMiTE. (Gr. ix6v S , and o^Qai^oq, 
 the eye.) A species of zeolite of a peculiar pearly lustre, re- 
 sembling the eve of a fish (whence its name). 
 
 I'CHTHYOSAU'RUS. (Gr. i X 9»S, a fish, and aavpoq, a 
 lizard.) A genus of extinct marine animals, which com- 
 bined the characters of saurian reptiles and of fishes with 
 some of the peculiarities of the Cetaceous Mammalia. The 
 vertebra; of the back-bone of the Ichthyosauri resemble 
 those of fishes in having their bodies joined by opposite con- 
 cave surfaces ; but the superior arches remain permanently 
 detached, as in reptiles. The cranium resembles in struc- 
 ture that of the crocodiles, but is characterized by a peculi- 
 arly large orbit, in which a circular series of osseous sclerotic 
 plates, analogous to those of the crocodile and birds, but rel- 
 atively much larger, has been so frequently found as to 
 prove it to be a generic structure. The nostrils are situated, 
 not as in the crocodile, near the point of the snout, but close 
 to the anterior part of the orbit. 
 
 The teeth resemble in structure those of the crocodiles ; 
 but are lodged, as in some of the Lacertine Sauria, in a 
 groove, and not in distinct sockets. The locomotive ex- 
 tremities are similar in construction to the paddles of the 
 whale; but they are four instead of two in number, and the 
 anterior pnddles are connected by a broad coracoid, a com- 
 plete clavicle, and a supplementary coracoid bone to a strong 
 sternum ; the flattened phalangeal bones supporting the fin 
 are polygonal, and are relatively shorter and more numerous 
 
 ICTIDES. 
 
 than in the whale tribe. The hind paddles are smaller than 
 the fore, and are attached to a pelvis similar to that of the 
 crocodile. Small supplementary bones are wedged into the 
 lower part of the joint of the atlas and occiput, and a few 
 of the succeeding vertebral joints ; and the tail often presents 
 a fracture at a particular point, whence the existence of a 
 caudal fin has been inferred. From the form and position 
 of masses of crushed and apparently half-digested fish-bones 
 and scales in the abdominal cavity of the ichthyosaurus, it 
 is concluded that they preyed chiefly on fish ; that they had 
 a simple and capacious stomach, and an intestine provided 
 with a spiral valve. The geological range of the ichthyo- 
 saurus seems, says Dr. Buckland, to have begun with the 
 muschelchalk, and to have extended through the whole of 
 the oolitic period into the cretaceous formation. The most 
 recent stratum in which any remains of this genus have yet 
 been found is the chalk marl at Dover. The chief deposito- 
 ry of the bones of the Ichthyosauri occurs in the lias at 
 Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire, 
 
 ICHTHYOSIS. (Gr. i X 0vf.) A roughness and thick- 
 ening of the skin, portions of which become hard and scaly, 
 and occasionally corneous, with a tendency to excrescences. 
 Friction, warm bath, and occasionally stimulating ointments, 
 have been of service in mitigating the progress of this dis- 
 ease ; but it seldom yields permanently to any plan of treat- 
 ment. 
 
 I'CHTHYS. (Gr. ajish.) A word found on many seals, 
 rings, urns, tombstones, &c, belonging to the early times of 
 Christianity, and supposed to have a mystical meaning, 
 from each character forming an initial letter of the words 
 Irjaov; Xpto-Tos, Beov Yioj, Xuirnp ; i. e., Jesus Christ, the 
 Son of God, the Saviour. This interpretation is not unlike- 
 ly, when we consider at once the universal reverence with 
 which the fish was symbolically regarded among most an- 
 cient nations, and the many signs and ceremonies adopted 
 by the Christians, with some change of meaning, from the 
 religious rites of the surrounding nations. 
 
 ICO'NOCLASTS. (Gr. uku>v, an image, and K \au>, I 
 break.) Literally, breakers of images ; a title applied to 
 two of the Byzantine emperors, Leo the Isaurian and his 
 son Constantine Capronymus, who, during their reigns, 
 which extended from 726 to 795, persevered in overthrowing 
 the images in the Christian churches, and in extirpating their 
 worship. The 338 bishops, also, who attended a council at 
 Constantinople in the reign of the latter prince, and declared 
 themselves in favour of his views, were stigmatized by the 
 orthodox party under the same name. In the year 787, how- 
 ever, a general council was assembled at Nicsea by the em- 
 press Irene, who inclined towards the old superstition, and 
 the images were on this occasion restored to their former 
 honours. This council, the second of Nice, is the last re- 
 specting which the Greek and Latin churches coincide ; the 
 practice, however, of the Greek church makes a distinction 
 between the use of pictures, which it allows, and graven 
 images, which it studiously rejects. (Moshcim, Eccl. Hist., 
 vol. i., p. 262, transl.; Schlosser's History of the Iconoclast 
 Emperors, Frankfort, 1812; JVeander, parts 3 and 4.) 
 
 I'COSAE'DRON. (Gr. ukoci, twenty, and tipa, base.) 
 One of the five regular or Platonic bodies, bounded by 
 twenty equilateral and equal triangles. It may be regarded 
 as formed of twenty equal and similar triangular pyramids, 
 whose vertices all meet in the same point ; and hence the 
 content of one of these pyramids multiplied by twenty gives 
 the whole content of the icosaedron. Let the linear edge 
 of one of its faces be denoted by a ; then the surface of 
 the icosaedron is =: 5 a? y/"A = 8660254 a2 ; and the solidity 
 
 — 5 aS^/'Ltl^ — 2-181695 a?. (See Hutton's Mcnsura- 
 
 6 2 
 
 tion, or Sharpc's Geometry Improved.) 
 
 I'COSA'NDROUS. (Gr. cikooi, and avnp, a male.) Lit- 
 erally any flower having twenty stamens or thereabouts; 
 hut it is usually confined to those flowers in which these 
 stamens are inserted into the calyx. 
 
 I'CTERUS. (Gr. iKrcpoc.) The jaundice : so called 
 from its resemblance to the golden thrush, which the Latin 
 form of the word signifies. 
 
 I'CTIDES. (Gr. liens, a weasel, and ti$o<;, form.) A ge- 
 nus of nocturnal carnivorous Mammals, intermediate be- 
 tween the Plantigrade and Viverrine Digitigrade tribes, hav- 
 ing the plantigrade walk of the racoons and coatis, and the 
 slender conical snout of the civets and other Vivcrridas, 
 The dental formula of the genus is 
 
 T . 6 1.1. , 3. 3. 3. 3. 
 
 Incis. — ; can. -—— ; praemol. jr-v ; mol. — - = 38. 
 
 D 1.1. Z. Z. .(..I. 
 
 The teeth resemble those of the Paradoxurus, but are 
 thicker and more tuberculous ; and thus contribute, with 
 the plantigrade structure of the feet, to indicate the affinity 
 of the Ictides to the Plantigrade Fere. Three species of the 
 present genus are recorded ; they are all natives of Southern 
 Asia, and are called licnturongs. The common Indian 
 
 587
 
 IDEA. 
 
 species (Tctides albifrons) is of the size of a domestic cat : 
 but its body is longer and heavier, its legs shorter, and its 
 gait lower and more crouching. The tail Is extremely thick 
 at its commencement, and gradually tap remity, 
 
 where it curls upwards. The pupil of tlie rye contn 
 ring daylight into a vertical fissure. A benturong which 
 1 |>: in captivity many \ -ears was fed on a mixed diet 
 of animal and vegetable substances; and they most proba- 
 bly subsist on similar food in a state of nature. 
 
 IDE' A. (Gr. iSea, from tiav, to see.) Literally, the im- 
 age or resemblance of any object conceived by the mind. 
 There is no word in any language the definition of which, 
 from the obscurity of metaphysical writers, is attended with 
 such difficulty as the term idea : and the difficulty is enhan- 
 ced when we consider the vagueness with which its equiv- 
 alents are expressed in different languages, and the man] 
 metaphysical systems that have been constructed on their 
 several significations. Like many other terms of mental 
 philosophy, the word idea is derived from the most eminent 
 of the senses, that of sight, and in its most extended accep- 
 tation is employed to Indicate "every representation of out- 
 ward objects through the senses, and whatever is the object 
 of thought." To give even a cursory glance at the various 
 theories of the origin and nature of ideas would be to write 
 the history of mental philosophy from Plato to Kant, and 
 would far exceed our limits, even if the difficulty of the sub- 
 ject did not deter us from the attempt. The reader will 
 find the besl exposition of some of the theories alluded to in 
 Dugald Stewart's Phil. Essays, Appendix II. ; Kant's 
 Critik derreinen Vcrnunfl; Hitter's Gcschichte der Philo- 
 sophic; Hi id on t/ir Human Mind; and the Edin. Review, 
 Green's Hunterian Oration, 1840. 
 
 IDEAL (BEAU), or IDEAL BEAUTY. An expres- 
 sion in the Fine Arts, used to denote a selection lor a par 
 ticular object of the finest parts from different subjects, 
 united in that one so as to form a more perfect whole than 
 nature usually exhibits in a single specimen of the species; 
 or, in other words, the divesting nature of accident in the 
 representation of an individual. From the nature of the 
 expression and its definition, it is clear that it more immedi- 
 ately attaches to the arts of painting and sculpture: in ar- 
 chitecture it is susceptible of refinements dependant on the 
 selection of examples, upon which, however, a less univer- 
 sal agreement exists. **" 
 
 IDE'ALIS.M. (Or. ilea, form.) A term applied to sev- 
 eral metaphysical systems, varying in its signification ac- 
 cording to the meaning attached" in each particular scheme 
 to the word idea ; from which it is derived. In England the 
 best known system of idealism is that of Berkeley. In ref- 
 erence to this philosopher's doctrines, the word is used in its 
 empirical sense for the object of consciousness in sensation. 
 (See Perception.) In its Platonic or transcendental sense, 
 the term idealism has been applied to the doctrines of Kant 
 and Schelling; neither of whom is an idealist in the way in 
 which Berkeley may be so called. The system of Berkeley 
 may be thus expressed: The qualities of supposed objects 
 cannot be perceived distinct from the mind that perceives 
 them; and the-e qualities, it will be allowed, are all that 
 we can know of such objects. If, therefore, there were 
 external bodies, it is impossible we should ever know it; 
 and if there were not, we should have exactly the same 
 reason for believing there were as we have now. All, 
 therefore, which really exists is spirit, or the thinking prin- 
 ciple—ourselves, our fellow men, and God. What we call 
 ideas are presented to us by God in a certain order of suc- 
 cession, which order of successive presentation is what we 
 mean by the laws of nature. 
 
 inE'NTITV. PERSONAL, denotes the sameness of the 
 conscious subject, /, throughout all the various states of 
 which it is the subject The question, Wherein consists our 
 identity, and what is its evidence ! has been a source of 
 manifold controversy to modern metaphysicians. By philo- 
 sophers of the materialist school the doctrine has been 
 ejected, as incompatible with daily and obvious experience. 
 But independently of any hypothesis respecting the nature 
 
 of the scud in itself.it has been argued, and with 
 
 plausibility, tint a- all our knowledge of a substance j 
 rived from tin.' qualities or phenomena which it presents to 
 our senses, so that all we can mean by a Bubstance being 
 the same with itself is, thai it possesses the same qualities 
 which it previously did (for if not, the substance i- chan 
 ged) ; 6o all we can know of the sub in particu- 
 
 lar is derived from observation of the changes which it 
 undergoes. But we find tint what we conceive to be the 
 same individual does, at different periods, assume under the 
 same circumstances widely varying appearances. A man 
 shall laugh at w hat w hen he « as a child would ha\ e exci- 
 ted his angel or jealousy. This reasoning contains an evi 
 dent fallacy. I; does, in fact, like all other reasoning of the 
 
 same kind, imply that very doctrine which it meat 
 fute. Co erted, is the joint eflect of two 
 
 substances acting one on the other. How, then, can we af- 
 588 
 
 IDIOPATHIC. 
 
 firm that one of these substances is chanced, unless by assu- 
 ming that the other remains the same ? How can we show 
 thai the phenomenon laughter in the man is different from 
 the phenomenon jealousy or anger in the boy, unless we 
 admit that we who observe these phenomena — /. ■ .. by the 
 pr« noises, on whom these phenomena produce a git 
 - remain the same as we were when we were affected pre- 
 Viously in a different manner. A lump of sugar, as we take 
 it to be, no longer melts in what we take to be water. As- 
 suming that the water remains water, we may fairly infer 
 that the lump in question is not sugar, or vice versa ; not so 
 
 if we profess ourselves equally ignorant of the identity Of 
 both substances. This argument, it will be seen, applies 
 equally to the materialisl and non-materialist. .Such may 
 be said to be the negative evidence of our identity. Its pos- 
 itive evidence rests on the necessity and universality of its 
 belief, as implied in every act of memory. To remember is 
 to refer a past state of consciousness to the same subject 
 which now at the present moment recalls it. (Pec Bishop 
 Butler's Treatise on Pea '''/; Brown's Thil. of 
 
 Human .Mind. Led. 12, Kl, 14, &c. &.C.) 
 
 IIH.vrn'Y. SYSTEM OP. In Philosophy (otherwise 
 called Identism), a name which has been given to the meta- 
 physical theory of the German writer Sehelling. It rests on 
 the principle that the two elements of thought, the objects 
 respectively of understanding and reason, called by the vari- 
 ous terms of matter, and spirit, objective and subjective, 
 real and ideal, &c, are only relatively opposed to one an- 
 other as different forms of the one absolute or infinite; 
 hence sometimes called the two poles of the absolute. See 
 Sthelling, Philosophy of. 
 
 LDEOGRA'PHIC CHARACTERS. (Gr. tSta, an idea, 
 and i paipui, I write.) In Philology, characters used in wri- 
 ting which express figures or notions, instead of the arbitrary 
 signs of the alphabet. The Chinese characters are ideo- 
 graphic, although the symbols, at first intended to represent 
 distinct objects, have become by use merely conventional. 
 The hieroglyphical characters of the ancient Egyptians were 
 of the same description. Ideographical writing is opposed 
 to phonetic. See Phonetic. 
 
 IDEO'LOGY (Gr. tSea, and Aoyo?, a discourse), literally, 
 the science of mind, is the term applied by the later disciples 
 of Condillac to the history and evolutions of human ideas, 
 considered as so many successive modes of certain original 
 or transformed sensations. The writings of this school are 
 characterized by an unrivalled simplicity, boldness, and 
 subtlety ; and the different phases of iis doctrines are admi- 
 rably exhibited in the physiological researches ol'Cahanis, 
 
 the moral dissertations of Garat and Volney, and the roeta- 
 physical disquisitions of Destutt de Tracy. (Damiron, Hist. 
 de Phil, en France, ire. A-c.) 
 
 IDES. (Suppi I to be derived from the obsolete verb 
 iduare, to dii-ide.) One of the three epochs or divisions of 
 the ancient Roman month. The calends were the first days 
 of the different months; the ides, days near the middle of 
 the months ; and the nones, the ninth day before the ides. 
 In the months of March, May, July, and October, the ides 
 fell on the 15th ; in the other months on the 13th. The Ro- 
 mans used a very peculiar method of reckoning the days of 
 the month. Instead of employing the ordinal numbers first, 
 second, third, &c, they distinguished them by the number 
 Of days intervening between any given day and the next 
 following of the three fixed divisions. For example, as there 
 were always eight days between the nones and the ides the 
 day after the nones was called the eighth before the ides, 
 the next the seventh day before the ides, the next the sixth 
 day before the ides, and so on. In leap years, when Febru- 
 ary had twenty-nine days, the extra day was accounted for 
 by calling both the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth days of 
 that month the sixth day before the calends of March; 
 w bence the leap year got the name of bissextile (from bis, 
 d sextus, sixth. See Bissextile. 
 
 1'DIOM. (Gr. iStoc, peculiar.) In Philology, a mode of 
 speaking or writing foreign from the usages of universal 
 grammar or the general laws of language, and restricted to 
 the genius of some individual tongue. Thus, a sentence or 
 
 phrase consisting of words arranged in a particular manner 
 
 may be a Latin idiom; the same, arranged in a different 
 
 manner, an Engli b idiom, &c. The use of a particular in- 
 
 • fa wind may also be an idiom. We also use the 
 
 term idiom in a more general sense, to express the general 
 
 genius or character of a language, We have a number of 
 
 subordinate words to express the idioms of particular 
 
 thus, a Latin idi< m is a Larinism, a French idiom 
 
 lictem, &.c. The word idiom is also not uncommonly 
 
 but incorrectly, used in the same sense with the French 
 
 idiomi : a dialect or variety of language. Idiotisme is the 
 
 term < spresBing the correct signification of the Eng- 
 
 lish " idii in." 
 
 I'DIOF VTIMC. (Gr. lew, nod miOot. an affection.) A dis 
 
 ease which dees not depend upon any other disease.and which 
 is thus opposed to those diseases which are symptomatic.
 
 IDIOSYNCRASY. 
 
 FDIOSY'NCRASY. (Gr. tStos, aw, with, and upaaic, a. 
 temperament.) A state of constitution peculiarly suscepti- 
 ble of certain agents which, in general, produce no effect, or 
 one perfectly different. Thus honey and coffee act with 
 some few persons as violently aperient ; very minute doses 
 of antimony are occasionally followed by powerful emetic 
 effects, and of mercury by salivation, &c. 
 
 I'DIOT. (Gr. <<5<ii)rr/s, originally a private individual.) In 
 contemplation of Law, one who has been born totally defi- 
 cient in understanding, or has lost it by sickness, so as to 
 have no lucid intervals : lunatic, properly speaking, one who 
 has lucid intervals. The care of idiots and lunatics is a 
 branch of the prerogative of the crown, and exercised ordi- 
 narily by the chancellor. By the common law, persons were 
 found idiots or lunatics by verdict of a jury on a writ de idi- 
 ota or de lunatico inquirendo ; but in later times, by com- 
 missions issued, on petition from near relations, under the 
 great seal. Commissions are also frequently issued to de- 
 termine not specifically whether the party be an idiot, &c, 
 but whether he be under such imbecility as to require pro- 
 tection in the management of his affairs ; and such is now 
 the more ordinary course. The custody of an idiot's estate 
 is then entrusted to the committee of the estate. 
 
 IDIO'TICON. (Gr.) ' A word oF frequent use in Germa- 
 ny, signifying a dictionary confined to a particular dialect, 
 or containing words and phrases peculiar to one part of a 
 country. 
 
 I'DOCRASE. (Gr. idea, form, and Kfaag, mixture; in- 
 dicating that its forms are a mixture of the forms of certain 
 other minerals.) The volcanic garnet. It is of various col- 
 ours, and is sometimes called volcanic crysolite or hyacinth. 
 It occurs in the ejected masses of Vesuvius, and elsewhere. 
 It is an alumino-silicate of lime, with about 5 per cent, of 
 oxyde of iron. 
 
 I'DOL, IDO'LATRY. (Gr. f'«5wAoi<, a similitude, repre- 
 sentation, or image ; ^arpan, worship.) The figures of 
 metal, stone, or wood, by which Pagans for the most part 
 represent their divinities, are termed idols, and the worship 
 paid to them idolatry. This practice is expressly forbidden 
 by the second commandment of the Decalogue, which says, 
 "Thou shalt not make unto thyself any graven image : 
 Thou shalt not bow down to them nor worship them ;" 
 which must be interpreted to forbid the making of an image 
 for the purpose of worshipping it. The absurdity and crim- 
 inality of idolatry are also clearly pointed out by the light of 
 nature. Roman Catholics, however, are accused of idolatry, 
 upon the supposition of their performing acts of adoration to 
 the images of Christ, the Virgin, and Saints : the adoration 
 of the Host, or consecrated elements, is also made a charge 
 against them. The reply which thsy make, that " they 
 kneel not to the image, but to the spiritual being represented 
 by it," is the answer of every enlightened heathen in his 
 own case, but does not express the feelings of the multitude ; 
 nor was room allowed to the Jews for any such subterfuge 
 
 In a wider sense, the adoration of any visible objects, such 
 as the sun and the host of heaven (Sablanism), is idolatry; 
 and the adoration of animals by the Egyptians. But, in the 
 more restricted signification of the word, it denotes the ado- 
 ration by men of the works of their own hands ; properly as 
 images (£«5wAa), supposed to represent divine beings. Al- 
 though Grecian idolatry was dignified by all the charms 
 which art could throw around it, it appears that the most 
 popular idols were rude and almost formless images; tradi- 
 tionary representations of the divinities, to many of which 
 the vulgar notion attributed a divine origin, believing them 
 to have fallen from heaven. Such were the Hernia; of Ath- 
 ens; the image of Diana (iioircrrii) at Ephesus, mentioned 
 in the Acts; the sacred "Ancilia," or shields, of the Ro- 
 mans: which seem to have commanded more of the vener- 
 ation of the common people than the Pallas of the Parthe- 
 non or the Jupiter Olympius of Elis. (See Vossius, De Ori- 
 gine hlololatrim ; Graves on the Pentateuch ; Creuzer, Sym- 
 bolik der altin Voelker ; Spence's Polymetis ; Mem. de I' Ac. 
 des fnscr., vol. xxxviii.) 
 
 I'DRIALINE. A fusible inflammable substance, found 
 by Dumas in a mineral from the quicksilver mines of Idria, 
 in Carniola. 
 
 I'DYL. (Gr. f!i5uA>cn<, the diminutive of £?<5oc, form.) A 
 short pastoral poem. The Greek word is derived from afios, 
 form, or visible object ; and hence the object, or, at least, the 
 necessary accompaniment of this speeies of poem, has been 
 said to be a vivid and simple representation of ordinary ob- 
 jects in pastoral nature. But in common usage the significa- 
 tion of this word is hardly different from that of eclogue. 
 The poems of Theocritus are termed Idyls, those of Virgil 
 Eclogues; but it would be difficult to assign a distinction 
 between the two, except what arises from the greater sim- 
 plicity of language and thought which characterizes the for- 
 mer. Many critics, however, aver that the eclogue requires 
 something of epic or dramatic action ; the idyl only pictu- 
 resque representation, sentiment, or narrative. (See Ec- 
 logue, Bucolic.) In English poetry, among this class may 
 51 
 
 IGUANODON. 
 
 be ranked, The Seasons of Thomson, Shenstone\i Sckoolmis 
 tress, Burns' Cottager's Saturday JWgAJ, Goldsmith's D» 
 serted Village, &c, &c. 
 
 IGASU'RIC ACID. A name given by Pelletier and Cav- 
 cntou to an acid which is found combined with strychnia in 
 the Nuz vomica and St. Ignatius's bean. 
 
 IGNA'TIUS'S BEAN. The seed of the Ignatia amara, 
 used in the Philippine Islands as a cathartic and emetic. 
 See. Strychnia. 
 
 I'GNIS FA TUUS. (Lat. vain or foolish fire ; a transla- 
 tion of the Fr. feu follet.) A kind of luminous meteor, 
 which flits about in the air a little above the surface of the 
 earth, and appears chiefly in marshy places, or near stag- 
 nant waters, or in churchyards, during the nights of sum- 
 mer. There are many instances of travellers having been 
 decoyed by these lights into marshy places, where they per- 
 ished ; and hence the names Jack-with-a-lantcrn, IVill-with- 
 a-wisp : the people ascribing the appearance to the agency 
 of evil spirits, who take this mode of alluring men to their 
 destruction. The cause of the phenomenon does not seem 
 to be perfectly understood ; it is generally supposed to be 
 produced by the decomposition of animal or vegetable mat- 
 ters, or by the evolution of gases which spontaneously in- 
 flame in the atmosphere. 
 
 IGNI'TION. (Lat. ignis, fire.) The act of setting fire to, 
 or of taking fire ; as opposed to combustion or burning, which 
 is a consequence of ignition. The term spontaneous ignition 
 is applied to cases in which substances take fire without pre- 
 vious application of heat : thus spongy platinum is said to 
 become spontaneously ignited when introduced into a mix- 
 ture of oxygen and hydrogen gases, and to cause their com- 
 bustion. The particles of steel struck off by collision with 
 flint become ignited on passing through the air, and falling 
 upon gunpowder, ignite it, and combustion ensues. Iron 
 wire, when red hot, is also often said to be ignited, or in a 
 state of ignition ; and when in that state it is plunged into 
 oxygen gas, or into chlorine, it undergoes combustion, and 
 burns in those gases with the farther extrication of heat and 
 light. 
 
 IGNORA'MITS. (Lat. we are ignorant.) In Law, the 
 endorsement of a grand jury on a bill of indictment, equiva- 
 lent to " not found." The jury are said to ignore a bill 
 when they do not find the evidw&ce such as to make good 
 the presentment. 
 
 IGUA'NA. (Cuvier states, with reference to the deriva- 
 tion of this term, that it was originally a St. Domingo word, 
 where it was pronounced by the natives hiuana or igoana, 
 and quotes Hernandes and Scaliger as his authorities. He 
 then proceeds to say that Bonrius regards it as derived from 
 the Javanese word leguan. In this case the Portuguese or 
 Spaniards must have transported it to America, where they 
 transformed it into iguana. They apply this term to the 
 monitor as well as to the iguana. The leguan of Bontius 
 is a monitor. The best authorities in erpetology have 
 adopted the Latinized iguana as the generic name of the 
 reptiles under consideration.) A genus including certain 
 large and beautiful lizards common in the tropical parts of 
 America, some of which feed on vegetable substances, and 
 are esteemed delicious food. The common iguana (Iguana 
 tubcrculata, Laur.) has accordingly received the specific 
 names delicatissima and sapidissima. The generic name 
 iguana is now restricted to those species which present the 
 following characters : A large, thin fold of skin or dewlap 
 under the chin ; cephalic cuticular plates, polygonal, un- 
 equal in diameter, flat or carinated ; a double row of small 
 palatal teeth ; maxillary teeth, with their edges finely den- 
 tilated ; a crest on the back and tail ; toes long and unequal ; 
 a single row of femoral pores ; tail very long, slender, com- 
 pressed, covered with small, equal, imbricated carinated 
 
 IGUA'NIDjE. (From Iguana.) The family of lizard?, 
 of which the genus Iguana is the type, and which is divi- 
 ded, according to minor modifications of the leading charac- 
 ters of the Iguanas, into the subgenera Iguana proper, Cc~ 
 rythophones. Basiliscus, Moponotus, Amblyrhynrhvs. Meto- 
 poceros, Cyclura, Brachylophus, Knyalus, and Ophrymssa. 
 
 IGUA'NINjE. (From Iguana.) The Lezards iguaniena 
 of French erpetologists. This extensive tribe of Lacertino 
 Sauria is divided by MM. Diuneril and Bibron into two 
 groups, Pleuntdontes and Acrodontes. 
 
 The Pleurodontes include the families Iguanidw, Polij- 
 chrida:, Anoliidm, Tropidohpidida;. and Ophtriihe. 
 
 The Acrodont.es embrace the families Galcotidw, Agami- 
 dee, Phrynocephalida:, and Stcllionida. 
 
 A short and thick tongue, with base not retractable in a 
 sheath, and with the extremity free, mobile, and very 
 slightly cleft, is the general character of this extensive tribe. 
 
 fGUA'NODON. (From Iguana; and Gr. o6ovs,a tooth.) 
 An extinct genus of gigantic herbivorous reptiles, discover- 
 ed by Dr. Mantell in the wenklen fresh-water formation of 
 the South of England, in the localities of Tilgate Forest, 
 Isle of Wight, and Purbeck. The chief distinctive charac- 
 
 589
 
 ILEUM. 
 
 tcr of this genus is the form of the teeth, which are denti- 
 lated along the margin of the crown, as in the iguana ; but 
 thicker, .so as to present, when worn down, a broader grind- 
 ing surface. The structure by which these teeth were 
 adapted to the cropping of coarse and tough vegetable food, 
 such as the Clathrasite and similar fossil plants of the 
 wcalden strata, may be supposed to have afforded the igua- 
 ■nodan, is thus described by Dr. Buckland : " The teeth ex- 
 hibit two kinds of provisions to maintain sharp edges along 
 the cutting surface, from their first profusion until they 
 were worn down to the very stamp. The first of these is a 
 sharp and serrated edge, extending on eacli side downwards 
 from the point to the broadest portion of the body of the 
 tooth. The second provision is one of compensation for the 
 gradual destruction of this serrated edge, by substituting a 
 plate of thin enamel to maintain a cutting power in the an- 
 terior portion of the tooth until its entire substance was con- 
 sumed in the service. While the crown of the tooth was 
 thus gradually diminishing above, a simultaneous absorp- 
 tion of the root went on below, caused by the pressure of a 
 new tooth rising to replace the old one, until by this contin- 
 ual consumption at both extremities the middle portion of 
 the older tooth was reduced to a hollow stump, which fell 
 from the jaw to make room for a more efficient successor." 
 The anterior surface of the crown of the tooth, also, instead 
 of being flat and even, was traversed by alternate longitu- 
 dinal ridges and furrows, the latter serving " as ribs or but- 
 • strengthen and prevent the enamel from scaling 
 otf. and i her with the furrows, an edge slightly 
 
 wavy, and disposed in a series of minute gouges or fluted 
 chisels ; hence the tooth became an instrument of greater 
 power to cut tough vegetables under the action of the jaw 
 titan if the enamel had been a continuous straight line. By 
 these contrivances, also, it continued effective during every 
 stage through which it passed, from the serrated lancet point 
 of the new tooth to its final consumption." 
 
 l'r< :n the proportions which the hones of the iguanodon 
 bear to those of the iguana, this extinct monster of a former 
 world is calculated to have been 70 feet in length from the 
 snout to the end of the tail ; the length of the tail alone is 
 calculated to have been 5-2S feet, the circumference of the 
 body 1U. The thigh-bone of the full-sized irruanodon is 
 twenty times the size of that of the iguana. The snout of 
 the iguanodon was armed with a short but strong horn ; but 
 and powerful tail formed probably its most formi- 
 d: ble instrument of attack and defence. 
 
 IL'EUM. (Gr. u\tu, I turn about.) The last portion of 
 the small intestines, terminating at the valve of the caecum. 
 
 ['LIA. (Lat.) The flanks, or the part of the abdomen 
 which includes the small intestines. Tiie 6s ilium is the 
 haunch bone, the upper part of the os innominatum, which 
 supports the in'. 
 
 PLIAC PA'SSION. (Lat. ilia, the bowels.) A vomiting 
 of bilious and fecal matter in consequence of obstruction in 
 the intestinal canal. 
 
 I'LIAD. (Gr. iXirif.) The oldest epic poem in exist- 
 ence ; commonly attributed to Homer, but, according* to 
 some modern hypotheses, the work of several hands. The 
 theme of the poem is the siege of Ilium (whence its name) 
 or Troy ; or, more properly speaking, the quarrel of Achil- 
 les with Agamemnon, general of the Grecian army before 
 that. city. It consists of f. enty-four books. The first book 
 relates the origin of the quarrel ; and the residue of the poem 
 contains an account of the efforts made by Agamemnon and 
 the chiefs who adhered to his parly to conquer the Trojans 
 without the aid of Achilles, their defeat, the pacification of 
 Achilles, his resumption of arms in the common cause, and 
 the death of Hector by his hand. Neither the landing of 
 the chieftains, nor the conclusion of the war and capture 
 of Trov, come within its range. Sec Epic. 
 
 ILLATIVE CONVERSION, in Logic, is that in which 
 the truth of the converse follows from the truth of the ex- 
 posita or proposition given. Thus the proposition " no vir- 
 tuous man is a rebel," becomes, by illative conversion, "no 
 rebel is a virtuous man." "Some boasters arc cowards;" 
 therefore. a COnverso, "some cowards are boasters." 
 
 ILLCMINATI. or THE ENLIGHTENED. A secret 
 society formed in ITTii, chiefly under the direction of Adam 
 
 Weishaupt, professor of law at Ingolstadt, in Rivaria. Its 
 professed object was the attainment of a higher degree of 
 virtue and morality than that reached iii the ordinary course 
 of society. It numbered at one time 9000 members. It was 
 suppressed by the Bavarian government in 1784. It h;is 
 been supposed that this and some other secret societi'- were 
 actively engaged in preparing the way for the French revo 
 lotion; but of this no satisfactory proof has bei n adduced. 
 
 (See the Knrti. eon Ersch unJ Crubcr.) 
 
 ILLUSTRATION, in Rhetoric, appears to differ from 
 Comparison or Simile in this only, that the latter Is used 
 merely to give force to the expression ; the former to throw 
 light upon an argument. The term Illustration is, however, 
 sometimes used in a wider sense, in which it seems to com- 
 590 
 
 IMAGINARY ROOTS OF EQUATIONS. 
 
 prehend example, which is the recital of a particular fact or 
 instance evincing the truth of a general pro] oeilion laid 
 down in the argument; and parable, which is a species of 
 
 symbolical narrative, in which the actors and events ;.re in- 
 tended (0 represent certain other actors and events in a typi- 
 cal manner. Sec Parable. 
 
 ['MAGE. (Lat. imago.) In Rhetoric, a term somewhat 
 loosely used ; but which appears generally to denote a met- 
 aphor dilated, and rendered a more complete picture by the 
 assemblage of various ideas through which tiie same mi la- 
 phor continues to run, yet not sufficiently expanded to form 
 an allegory. 
 
 I'mage. A representation of the Deity in stone, wood, or 
 metal. (.Sec art. Idol.) The custom of representing 
 the Virgin, and the Saints by images in the churches, which 
 forms a principal feature of Roman Catholic worship, is an 
 ancient but not a primitive practice. For the principal 
 events in the lustory of Christian image worship, see art. 
 Iconoclasts. 
 
 I'mage, in Optics, is the spectrum or appearance of an 
 object made by reflection or refraction ; or the image of an 
 object may be more correctly defined as the locus of all tho 
 pencils of converging or diverging rays emanating from every 
 point of the object, and received on a surface. It is by means 
 of optical images that vision is effected. The eye is an as- 
 semblage of lenses which concentrate the rays emanating 
 from each point of the object on a tissue of very delicate 
 nerves called the retina, where an exact image or repre- 
 sentation of the object is formed ; and it is this image which 
 is perceived ox felt by the retina. 
 
 The brightness of an image depends evidently on the 
 quantity of light concentrated in each point. Setting aside 
 the effects of aberration, the brightness must therefore bo 
 proportional to the apparent magnitude (as seen from the 
 object) of the mirror or lens by which the rays are reflected 
 or refracted, multiplied by the area of the object and divided 
 by the area of the image. But the apparent magnitude of 
 the lens, as seen from the object, is proportional to the 
 square of the diameter of the lens divided by the square of 
 the distance of the object ; and the area of the object divided 
 by the area of the image is equal to the square of the dis- 
 tance of the object divided by the square of the distance of 
 the image from the lens : therefore the brightness of the 
 image is proportional to the square of the diameter of the 
 lens divided by the square of the distance of the image from 
 the lens ; that is to say, the brightness or degree of illumi- 
 nation of the image depends only on the apparent magni- 
 tude of the lens as seen from the image, and not in any way 
 on the distance of the object. When the object and its im- 
 age are only physical points, and have no apparent magni- 
 tude, as stars for example, the brightness of the image is 
 simply proportional to the magnitude of the lens, or to the 
 square of the diameter of the aperture of the telescope ; and 
 for this reason certain stars are rendered visible by large 
 telescopes, while their light is too feeble to be perceived by 
 smaller ones. 
 
 The hnages of external objects are painted on the retina 
 in a reversed position, and from the retina the impressions 
 are transmitted to the seusorium by tho optical nerves. See 
 Eye, Optics. 
 
 I'.MAGERY may be defined as the generic term for simi- 
 les, allegories, and metaphors, or such rhetorical figures as 
 denote similitude or comparison. 
 
 IMA'GINARY QUANTITIES, or IMPOSSIBLE 
 QUANTITIES, in Algebra, are the even roots of negative 
 quantities, or the imaginary results of some impossible op- 
 eration. The square root of any positive number may be 
 affected indifferently with the positive or negative sign ; 
 thus, ,/9a 2 = X3a ; because -)-3a or — 3a, raised to the 
 sipiare. equally produce 9u 2 . But if the number or quantity 
 is negative, the extraction Of its square root is impossible, 
 because the square of any quantity, whether positive or 
 negative, is essentially positive; that is to say, a negative 
 quantity cannot be the square of any real quantity whatev- 
 er. The symbolical expressions y/ — 9, y/—4a*, y/ — 5. indi- 
 cate operations which are impossible; and hence they are 
 designated imaginary impressions. But, though the quan- 
 tities denoted by these symbols have no real values, the 
 symbols themselves may have all the algebraic operations 
 performed on them which can be performed on real quanti- 
 ties. Thus, ,/^9 = ,/9 • ,/- 1=3,/— 1; and ^^ 
 
 N /4n- • y/ — 1 =2av/ — 1. Such expressions are of very fre- 
 quent occurrence in the higher analysis, and sometimes lead 
 to results of the greatest importance, which it would be dif- 
 ficult, if. indeed, possible, to obtain in another way. (See 
 Peacock's Ji/irrbra.) 
 
 IMAGINARY ROOTS OF EQUATIONS arc roots 
 which can only be indicated bv imaginary expressions. 
 D'AIembert first demonstrated thnt every imaginary root of 
 an equation can be reduced to the form a-\-by/ — I, where a
 
 IMAGINATION. 
 
 and 4 arc real quantities : and from this it is proved that if 
 an equation have a root of the form a-\-b^/ — 1, it has also 
 another of the form a — by/ — 1 ; so that imaginary roots al- 
 ways enter an equation by pairs, or their number is always 
 even. 
 
 IMAGINATION, in Metaphysics, may be said, in its 
 widest sense, to be synonymous with invention, denoting 
 that faculty of the mind by which it either " bodies forth the 
 forms of tilings unknown," or produces original thoughts or 
 new combinations of ideas from materials stored up in the 
 memory. It would be vain to enumerate the various defini- 
 tions of this term, or to attempt to give even an abstract of 
 the diversity of views entertained by philosophers respecting 
 the nature and extent of its operations. While some (and 
 among these Ried and Addison) limit the domain of this facul- 
 ty so far as to teach that it is nothing more than a lively con- 
 ception of the object of sight, differing from conception only 
 as a part from the whole ; others, like Dugald Stewart, place 
 it in the foremost rank of the mental faculties, attributing to 
 its operation the origination and development of the sub- 
 limest and boldest thoughts in all departments of human 
 knowledge. Dr. Ried's chapter on the Train of Thought in 
 the Mind gives a vivid though simple picture of the power 
 of the imagination; while, at the same time, it exhibits a 
 tolerably faithful specimen of the difficulty of treating this 
 subject, owing to a want of precision in the definition of the 
 term. In many philosophical disquisitions imagination is 
 used as nearly synonymous with fancy. But it should seem 
 that this is an erroneous application of the term ; for, as Du- 
 gald Stewart observes, the latter should rather be considered 
 as that peculiar habit of association which presents to our 
 choice all the different materials that are subservient to the 
 efforts of the former, and which may therefore be consider- 
 ed as forming its groundwork. See Association. Poetry. 
 IMA'N. An inferior order of ministers of religion in the 
 Turkish empire. The chief iman of each mosque (Imam'ul- 
 Haikh) performs the ordinary civil functions which in Europe 
 have been in most countries assigned to parish priests, as- 
 sisting at the circumcision, marriages, burials, &c. of his 
 parishioners. He presides over the assembly of the faithful 
 at the ordinary prayers ; but the solemn noon prayer of Fri- 
 day is under the superintendence of the Khatib, a higher 
 minister (who is also called from that circumstance the 
 Imam'ul Djumd, or Friday Iman). The legitimate successor 
 of Mahomet, in whom, in theory, the temporal and eccle- 
 siastical government of Islam should reside, is termed Imam 
 by way of pre-eminence : but the Mussulmans are not agreed 
 among themselves as to the character of this dignity, or as 
 to those who have rightfully borne it. The Persians reckon 
 twelve legitimate Imams, of whom they believe the last 
 (Mahadi) to be still living. (See Taylor's Hist, of Moham- 
 medanism, ch. viii.) 
 
 IM'BRICATED. In Botany, a term used in speaking of 
 the arrangement of bodies, to denote that their parts lie over 
 each other in regular order like the tiles upon the roof of a 
 house ; as the scales upon the cup of some acorns : also ap- 
 plied in speaking of the aestivation of petals or leaves, to de- 
 note that they overlap each other at the margin without any 
 involution. 
 
 IMBRO'GLIO. (A word borrowed from the Italian bro- 
 gliare, to confound or mix together; whence the French 
 brouiller and English embroil.) In literary language, the 
 plot of a romance or a drama, when much perplexed and 
 complicated, is said to be an " imbroglio." The small bur- 
 lesque theatrical pieces so termed by the Italians derive their 
 ludicrous character from a similar species of absurdity. 
 
 IMITA'TION. (Lat.) In Music, a species of composi- 
 tion in which each part is made to imitate the other. Some- 
 times the motion or figure of the notes is only imitated, and 
 frequently by a contrary motion, making what is called a 
 retrograde imitation, or imitations canchcrizante. Imitation, 
 according to M. Brossard, differs from a fugue in that the 
 repetition must be a second, third, sixth, seventh, or ninth ; 
 whereas in a fugue the repetition must be in the unison 
 fourth, fifth, or octave, and the intervals exactly the same in 
 the comes and guide. 
 
 IMME'RSION (Lat. immergo, / plunge, under), in As- 
 tronomy, denotes the disappearance of any celestial object 
 behind another or in its shadow. Thus in an eclipse of one 
 of Jupiter's satellites, the immersion takes place when the 
 satellite disappears behind the body of the planet, or enters 
 into the planet's shadow ; and in an occultation of a planet 
 or fixed star by the moon, the immersion is the disappearance 
 of the star or planet behind the body of the moon. In like 
 manner, the reappearance of the body is called its emersion. 
 The immersions and emersions of fixed stars occulted by the 
 moon, are phenomena of great importance for correcting the 
 lunar tables. 
 
 IMMERSION, BAPTISM BY, seems to have been the 
 most ancient mode adopted in the Christian church. The 
 trine immersion, in honour of the three persons of the Divini- 
 
 IMPEACHMENT. 
 
 ty, is mentioned by Tertullian, and prescribed in the Sncra- 
 mentary of Gregory the Great ; but single immersion was 
 held valid by that pope, and his decision was confirmed by 
 the fourth council of Toledo, A.D. 633. {Riddle's Christian 
 Antiquities, 402.) 
 
 IMMOLA TION. (Lat.) A ceremony used in the Ro- 
 man sacrifices, which consisted of throwing upon the head 
 of the victim some sort of corn or frankincense, together with 
 the moal, or salt cake, and a little wine. 
 
 IMMU'NITY. In Jurisprudence, legal freedom from any 
 legal obligation. Thus the phrase "ecclesiastical immuni- 
 ties" comprehends all that portion of the righ'.sof the Church, 
 in different countries, which consists in the freedom of its 
 members, or of its property, from burdens thrown by law ou 
 other classes. 
 
 I'MPACT. (Lat. impingo, / impinge on anything.) In 
 Mechanics, the instantaneous action of one body on another 
 to put it in motion. If the body moves in the direction of the 
 stroke, the impact was direct; if in a different direction, the 
 impact was oblique. 
 
 IMPA'GES. (Lat.) In Architecture, a word usually 
 taken to mean the rails of a door. 
 
 IMPA LEMENT. In Heraldry, the division of a shield 
 palewise, when the shield is said to be party per pale. Im- 
 palement per baron et feme is the division which lakes place 
 on marriage ; when the husband's coat is borne on the dex- 
 ter side of the pale, and the wife's on the sinister. Former- 
 ly, the husband's and wife's anus were impaled by dimidia- 
 tion ; that is, the dexter half of the husband's coat impaled 
 with the sinister half of the wife's ; and this inconvenient 
 mode of marshalling was pursued in French heraldry down 
 to the period of the Revolution. 
 
 Impalement. A species of punishment formerly in use 
 among the Turks and some barbarous nations, which con- 
 sisted in thrusting a stake through the body, and thus leav- 
 ing the victim to a lingering death. Instances are on record 
 of persons enduring this horrid torture for several days be- 
 fore death released them from agony. (See Shaw's Travels 
 in Barbary.) 
 
 IMPANA'TION, in Theology, otherwise termed Assump- 
 tion, signifies the substantial union of the body and blood of 
 Christ with the elements of the eucharist without a change 
 in their nature. The word appears to be first used in the 
 controversy about the real presence in the 11th century, 
 and to be applied, by the supporters of trnnsubslantiation, to 
 the less material doctrine of Berengarius and his followers. 
 It has since been objected, by Roman Catholics, to the Lu>- 
 theran theory, that it revived the old error of impanation. 
 The supporters of the opinion of Berengarius were some- 
 times termed Adcssenarii ; from the word adesse, to b* 
 present. 
 
 IMPA'RLANCE. (Fr. parler, to speak.) A mode of de- 
 laying proceedings in a civil action by petition to the court 
 for farther time. General imparlance was to the next term ; 
 special imparlance to a specified day, which might be in the 
 same term. The practice of imparlance appears to be abol- 
 ished by 2 W. 4, c. 39, except as to actions not commenced 
 under the process given bv that act. 
 
 IMPASTA'TION. In Sculpture, the mixture of different 
 matters bound together by means of cements capable of re- 
 sisting the action of fire or air. 
 
 IMPEA'CHMENT. (From the Latin impetere, to prose- 
 cute.) A species of process against persons accused of trea- 
 son, or high public crimes and misdemeanours of an inferior 
 description. The first regular instances of this proceeding 
 appear, according to Mr. Hatsell, on the rolls of parliament 
 in the latter end of the reign of Edward III. Before that 
 time the Lords seem to have exercised a high but irregular 
 jurisdiction over state offences, at the prayer of the crown 
 or of private persons. But in the case of Richard Lyon, 
 1376, we first find the Commons appearing in their public 
 capacity as prosecutors: and several similar instances occur 
 in the course of the following century. But from the reign 
 of Henry VI. to that of James I. impeachments seem to have 
 fallen into disuse ; bills of attainder, and prosecutions in the 
 Star Chamber, having been prosecuted in their stead. In 
 the seventeenth yea/ of James I. this form of proceeding 
 was revived against Sir Giles Mempesson for having pro- 
 cured illegal patents, and from that time to the present has 
 been the regular constitutional form of accusation for state 
 offences. The form of the accusation exhibited by the Com- 
 mons is styled the articles of impeachment. It is an undoubt- 
 ed right of the Commons to exhibit such articles against a 
 peer for treason, or anv other high crimes and misdemean- 
 ours ; but it has been doubted whether the Lords have juris- 
 diction in capital cases over a commoner in this proceeding. 
 In one instance (in 1681) they refused to do so, but have in 
 several other instances admitted their competency. Man- 
 agers are appointed bv the Commons to conduct the prose- 
 cution befoie the Lords. In caee of an impeachment of a 
 peer for treason, it is usual to address the crown to appoint 
 a lord high steward ; but the appointment of such an officer 
 
 001
 
 IMPENETRABILITY. 
 
 docs not stem essentia] to the conduct of an impeachment 
 By 12 ii. 13 W. :i. C 2, it is enacted that a pardon under the 
 great seal shall not be pleadable to an impeachment. This, 
 however, does not deprive the king of his prerogative of 
 pardoning aftet conviction. It was determined, on the im- 
 peachment of Warren Hastings, that tin^ proceeding m the 
 Lords is not put an end to by the prorogation or dissolution 
 of parliament; and an act was passed to prevent prorogation 
 or dissolution from having the effect of putting a stop to the 
 previous proceedings in the House ofComm ins. Judgment 
 on impeachment must proceed on the same evidence which 
 would be required in the ordinary courts of justice : in 
 which respect this proceeding differs from that by bill of at- 
 tainder. 
 
 IMPE'NETRAUl'I.ITY. la Physics, one of the essen- 
 tial properties of matter or body. It is a property inferred 
 from invariable experience, and resting on this incontroverti- 
 ble fact that ii- • two bodies ran occupj the same portion of 
 •space in the same instant of time. Impenetrability, as re- 
 spects solid bodies, requires no proof; it is obvious to the 
 touch. With regard to liquids, the property may be proved 
 by very simple experiments. Let a vessel be tilled to the 
 brim with water, and B solid incapable Of solution in water 
 be plunged into it; a portion of the water will overflow ex- 
 actly equal in bulk to the body immersed. If a cork be 
 rammed hard into the neck of a [dual full of water, the phial 
 will burst, while its neck remains entire. The disposition of 
 air to resist penetration may be illustrated in the following 
 way: Let a tall glass vessel be nearly filled With water, on 
 the surface of \\ Inch a lighted taper is set to float If over 
 this glass a smaller cylindrical vessel, likewise of glass, be 
 inverted and pressed downwards, the contained air maintain- 
 ing its place ; the internal body of the water will descend, 
 while the rest will rise up at the sides, and the taper will 
 continue to burn for some seconds, encompassed by the 
 whole mass of liquid. (Leslie's Elements of Natural Phi- 
 losopliy.) 
 
 EKPE'NNATES, Impennes. (Lat. in, and penna. a wing.) 
 The name of a tribe of swimming birds, having short wings 
 covered wit'.i feathers resembling scales. The penguin 
 {f/Sptenodytes) is a good example of this group. 
 
 IMPE'kATlVr. MOOD. (Lat. impero, / command.) 
 That form of the verb which denotes command, entreaty, 
 or, in general, desire. See Grammar. 
 
 IMPE'RFECT CADENCE. In Music. Sec Cadence. 
 
 1MPF/IUECT CONCORDS. In Music, such as are 
 liable to ehSHte from major to minor, or the contrary, as 
 are thirds an^Rixths ; still, however, not losing their con- 
 sonancy. 
 
 IMPE'RFECT NUMBER. A perfect number is one 
 whose aliquot parts, added together, make a sum etpial to 
 the number itself. An imperfect number, consequently, is 
 one such that the sum of its aliquot parts, or divisors, is not 
 equal to the number it-elf. Thus 12 is an imperfect num- 
 ber; for the sum of its divisors, 1, 2, 3, 4, ti, is 111, which is 
 greater than 12. 
 
 DIPE'B l'i:i T TENSE. In Grammar, that modification 
 of a verb whirl; expresses that the action or event of which 
 we speak was, at a cci tain time to which we refer, in an un- 
 finished state. This is in English designated by the auxiliary 
 "was," joined with the present participle. 
 
 IMPE'RIAL. (Fr.) In Architecture, a species of dome 
 whose profile is pointed towards the top and widens towards 
 the base, thus forming a curve cf contrary flexure. 
 
 IMPE'RSONAL VERBS, in Grammar, are those used 
 only in the third person ; as clean, licet, it is lawful. It is 
 quite clear that every verb, whether active or passive, must 
 have . to some noun, either expressed 
 
 or understood, for its nominative ; and hence the doctrine of 
 Impersonal verbs has been justly rejected by the best gram- 
 marians, both ancient and modern. Sir Grammar. 
 
 IMPKTI'Gi i. (Lat impetire, to infest.) An emption of 
 small pustules, sometimes called the moist tetter: the vesi- 
 cles discharge an acrid Ichor. Something of this kind is 
 often produced by particular trades, where irritating sub- 
 stances are applied to the skin. Cleanliness, cooling oint- 
 ments, and occasionally the nitrated mercurial ointment 
 much diluted, are useful. Hnrrowgate water and baths have 
 been recommended, and mild aperients. The eruption is 
 not contagious. 
 
 IMPETUS. (Lat. force.) In Mechanics, th'e same with 
 momentum or force. Impetus, in Gunnery, is the altitude 
 through which a heavy body musl fall to acquire a velocity 
 equal to that with which the ball is discharged from tie 
 piece. 
 
 I'MPLEMENTS, AGRICULTURAL. Almost all the 
 operations of agriculture may be performed by the plough, 
 the harrow, the scythe, and the Hail ; ami these are tie- aole 
 implements in the primitive agriculture of all countries. 
 With the progress of Improvement, however, many other 
 Implements have been introduced ; tit*? more remarkable of 
 which are the drill plough, the horee-hoe, the winnowing 
 5W2 
 
 IMPRIMATUR. 
 
 machine, the threshing machine, the hay-making machine 
 and the reaping machine. The object of all these imple- 
 ments and machines Is to abridge human labour, and to per- 
 form the different operations to which they are applied with 
 a greater degree of rapidity and in a more perfect manner 
 than before. 
 
 I'MPLEMENTS, HORTICU'LTURAL. The essential 
 implements of horticulture are the spade and the pruning 
 knife. The rake might be added, but it can be done with- 
 out; because if seed be sown on a rough surface, it may be 
 covered by beating that surface smooth with the spade; and 
 if on a smooth surface, it may lie covered by scattering with 
 the spade a very thin sprinkling of earth over it. Even the 
 pruning knife might be dispensed with; because culinary 
 vegetables might be pulled up by the roots, or cut off at the 
 surface of tne mound with the spade; and fruit trees will 
 produce crops without pruning ; as by disbudding and thin- 
 ning \\ itli the linger and thumb as large fruit may be grown 
 BI e\er will be produced by the use of the knife. It must 
 be confessed, however, that the knife and the rake are very 
 nearly essential instruments of horticulture. With the prog- 
 ress of horticulture a great number of implements, instru- 
 ments, utensils, and machines have been brought into use. 
 Of these may be mentioned the hoe for stirring the soil and 
 cutting up weeds; aDd this implement on a larger scale in 
 warm countries is used as a substitute for the spade. The 
 watering pot in modern gardening is an important utensil, 
 and the syringe a machine that can scarcely be dispensed 
 with. In the forcing department, we have the thermometer, 
 the hygrometer, and various contrivances for supplying and 
 regulating heat admitting or excluding air, and producing 
 artificial vapour or rain. 
 
 IMPLICATION. (Lat. implico. / evolve.) In Law, an 
 inference necessarily arising from something declared. Thus 
 contracts are said to be either express or implied. See Con- 
 tract. 
 
 IMPLU'VIUM. (Lat) In Ancient Architecture, the 
 outer part of the court of a house which was exposed to the 
 weather. In the summer lime it was the practice to stretch 
 an awning over it. 
 
 IMPONDERABLE SUBSTANCES. Heat light, elec- 
 tricity, and magnetism are so called, being supposed to de- 
 pend upon very subtile forms of matter of inappreciable 
 weight. 
 
 IMPORTS AND EXPORTS. The articles imported into 
 and exported from a country. See Commerce. 
 
 IMPOSING. (Fr. imposer), in Printing, is the arrange- 
 ment of the pages of a sheet upon the imposing stone in their 
 proper order, so that when printed and the sheet folded they 
 Will follow each other consecutively: putting the furniture 
 about them, with the chase ; and wedging them up, so as to 
 I be ready to print. 
 
 IMPOSITION OF HANDS. (Lat. impono, J place 
 upon), is maintained in the English and other churches, as 
 conformable to the apostolic practice and that of the earliest 
 ages, in which confirmation and the ordination of priests and 
 deacons are supposed to have been accompanied with the 
 performance of this ceremony. In Acts vi., the apostles lay 
 their hands on those appointed to be deacons; in Acts viii. 
 and xix., the converts who had been already baptized by 
 Philip and John are in the same manner confirmed by Paul 
 and the other apostles. 
 
 IMPOSSIBLE QUANTITY. See Imaginary Quan- 
 tity. 
 
 IMPOST. (Lat. impono, I lav on.) In Architecture, the 
 capital of a pier or pilaster which receives an arch. The 
 impost varies with the order whereto it is applied. Some- 
 times the whole of the entablature serves as an impost to 
 an arch. The term is applicable to any supporting piece. 
 Impost is also frequently used as synonymous with tax or 
 public burden. 
 
 [MPRE'SSION. (Lat imprimo, I press upon.) In the 
 line Arts, the sensation on the mind which is excited by a 
 work Of .art. The word is also used to denote a copy of an 
 engraving drawn off from the plate or block on which the 
 subject is engraved. 
 
 [MPRE'SSMENT. The forcible levying of mariners for 
 the king's service at sea. The power of impressment la a 
 branch of the king's prerogative. It is mentioned in the 
 statute 'J Richard 2, c. -1 as a recognised usage. Various 
 EUre exempted from it by particular stat- 
 utes. The officer impressing acts under an impress warrant 
 
 for that especial purpose; but the regularity of this instru- 
 ment is carefully watched by the courts, and criminal in- 
 formations have been also granted against officers guilty of 
 unnecessary severity or acts of private malice in carrying it 
 
 execution. (See, for arguments in favour of maintain- 
 ing tins practice, (Juart. ]<rv.,vo\. xliv., p. -I'.Hi. &.C ; against 
 of Motions, M-'Culloch's cd., note \ii.) 
 IMPRIMATUR. (Lat tat I (the book) be printed.) The 
 term applied to the privilege which, in countries subjected 
 to the censorship of the press, must be granted by a public
 
 IMPRINT. 
 
 functionary appointed for tlic purpose before any book can 
 be printed. This formula was much used in English books 
 printed in the 16th and 17th centuries ; and this permission is 
 even still vested in some of our own universities, especially 
 in Scotland, where it is nothing unusual to find on the title- 
 page of some works recommended to public favour by the 
 senatus academicus the "imprimatur" of the principal. 
 
 IMPRI'NT. (Fr. imprinter.) The designation of the 
 place where, by whom, and when a book is published, are 
 always placed at the bottom of the title. Among the early 
 printers it was inserted at the end of the book, and is styled 
 the colophon. By the 39 Geo. 3, c. 79, every printer is obli- 
 ged to affix his name and residence to each article he shall 
 print, and if it consist of more than one leaf, then upon the 
 first and last leaves, under a heavy penalty; but there are 
 some exceptions. 
 
 IMPRO'MPTU. (Lat. in readiness.) In Literature, any 
 short and pointed production supposed to be brought forth 
 on the spur of the moment; generally of an epigrammatic 
 character. 
 
 IMPRO'PER FRACTION, in Arithmetic and Algebra, is 
 a fraction whose numerator is equal to, or greater than, its 
 denominator. 
 
 IMPROPRIATION, in Law, is where the tithes, glebe, 
 or other ecclesiastic dues of a parish are in the hands of a 
 layman. The religious societies having at the time of the 
 Reformation, the property of many benefices in their hands, 
 clauses were inserted in the acts by which they were dis- 
 solved to give that property absolutely to the king, by whom 
 it was granted out to lay proprietors. In common language, 
 such benefices are said to be impropriated as are in the 
 hands of laymen ; such as are held by spiritual corporations, 
 sole or aggregate, are termed appropriated. 
 
 I'MPROVISATO'RE. (Lat. improviso, unforeseenly,un- 
 premeditatcdly.) An Italian word, signifying a person who 
 has the talent of composing and reciting a suite of verses on a 
 given subject immediately and without premeditation. This 
 peculiar talent, thus restricted, appears to belong, almost ex- 
 clusively, to the Italian language and people. Much, no doubt, 
 of the facility of these improvisatori, which appears almost 
 preternatural to one unaccustomed to hear them, arises from 
 the peculiar ease and flexibility of their language, and its 
 richness in rhymes. But this circumstance will not wholly 
 account for so singular a national faculty ; for, about the 
 time of the revival of letters, Italy possessed improvisatori in 
 Latin as well as Italian. Many poets have enjoyed consid- 
 erable celebrity in their day from their success in this mode 
 of composition ; but we are not aware that any of their po- 
 ems have acquired a permanent celebrity, although often 
 taken down from their recitation. Tuscany and the Vene- 
 tian States have been most famous for the production of im- 
 provisatori, especially Sienna and Verona ; in which latter 
 city the talent seems to have been perpetuated by succession. 
 The chevalier Bernardino Perfetti, the most famous of all 
 these reciters, was of Sienna: he flourished in the first half 
 of the 17th century. He is said to have possessed unbound- 
 ed erudition, and to have been able to pour fourth extempore 
 poetical essays on the most abstruse questions of science. 
 There have been many distinguished females possessed of 
 this talent (improvisatrici). Corilla, the most celebrated of 
 them, was of Pistoia in Tuscany. She was the original of 
 Madame de Steel's Corinne. She received in 1776 the lau- 
 reate crown at Rome, an honour which had also been ac- 
 corded to Perfetti. Germany is said to have produced one 
 noted improvisatrice, Anna Louisa Karsch. There appears 
 no reason why the term improvisation should not also be 
 applied to the deliver}- of unpremeditated discourses in 
 prose. It is the exertion of a very similar faculty, perfected 
 in the same manner by habits to a degree almost inconceiv- 
 able by those not accustomed to witness its exercise. It is, 
 however, much more general. The North American In- 
 dians are represented to possess it in a high degree. In Eu- 
 rope, it is most generally to be found in the pulpit. Public 
 secular oratory of this unpremeditated description is far 
 more common in England, and the power much more sedu- 
 lously cultivated, than in any Continental country. (See 
 Forsyth's Italy ; Ed. Rev., vol. xxii. j F.ncyc. Jlletr.) 
 
 INAU'GURA'TION (Lat. inaugurare,' to take omens), 
 was originally applied to the Roman ceremony of admission 
 to the college of augurs, or soothsayers, or to the selection 
 of a proper site for the erection of temple? or other national 
 edifices ; but it afterwards received a more extended signi- 
 fication, and is now used in a sense nearly synonymous with 
 the consecration of a prelate, or the coronation of a king or 
 emperor. It means also an introduction to any office with 
 certain ceremonies. 
 
 INCA, or VNCA. A name given by the Indians of an- 
 cient Peru to their kings and princes of the blood. The em- 
 pire of the Incas, founded, according to tradition, by the cel- 
 ebrated Manco Capac, extended over the table-land of the 
 Andes, from Pasto to the neighbourhood of Chili, as well as 
 the low lands on the coast. It was destroyed by the Span- 
 
 INCEPTIVE. 
 
 iards under Pizarro and Almagro. The blood royal of tile 
 Incas is preserved, or believed to be so, among the Indians 
 of the present day ; and Tupac Amaru, who carried on a 
 long and nearly successful insurrection against Spain in the 
 latter part of the last century, professed to be descended 
 from them. 
 
 IN (LENA DOMINI. (Lat. at the Lord's Supper.) The 
 name of a celebrated papal bull, containing a collection of 
 extracts from different constitutions of the pope, comprising 
 those rights which, since the lime of Gregory VII., have 
 been uninterruptedly claimed by the Roman see, and a proc- 
 lamation of anathema against all who violate them. It was 
 annually read on Holy Thursday, whence it receives its 
 name ; but lately on Easter Monday. The sects of heretics 
 are cursed in it by their several designations. A copy of the 
 bull is hung up at the door of the churches of St. Peter and 
 St. John Lateran : and all patriarchs, primates, bishops, 
 &c, are required to have it read once or more annually in 
 their churches. 
 
 INCANDE'SCENCE. (Lat. in, and candere. to be warm.) 
 The luminosity exhibited by a substance when heated up to 
 a certain point. 
 
 INCANTA'TION. (Lat. in, and canto, / sing.) A form 
 of words combined with certain ceremonies and mixtures of 
 heterogeneous substances used by the ancients for many su- 
 perstitious purposes. They were most commonly resorted 
 to by unsuccessful lovers ; in which case they were termed 
 love potions, or philtres, which see. 
 
 INCARCERATION. (Lat.) Literally, imprisonment. 
 In Surgery, this term is generally applied to ruptures or her- 
 nial, with the same meaning as strangulation ; but, accord- 
 ing to Scarpa, an incarcerated hernia is that in which the 
 course of the intestinal matter is interrupted without any 
 considerable injury of the bowel itself; whereas in strangu- 
 lated hernia the vitality of the bowel is affected, or there is 
 organic injury of its coats. The functions of the merely in- 
 carcerated intestine are healthily resumed upon its return 
 into the abdomen, which is not the case where true stran- 
 gulation has taken place. 
 
 INCARNATION. (Lat. cm o, flesh.) A word in com- 
 mon use among the theologians to express the union of the 
 Godhead with the Manhood in Jesus Christ. St. John 
 says, "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us;" 
 a text sufficiently explicit, when coupled with other ex- 
 pressions respecting the divine nature of the Word, to main- 
 tain the doctrine of the incarnation among tim vast major- 
 ity of the Christian world. But the subtle^Pbiries which 
 men have instituted into the manner and nature of this 
 union have given rise to many varieties of opinion, and to 
 many sects which have incurred the reproach of heresy. 
 Not the Socinians only, but the Arians and Sabellians also, 
 are led necessarily by their premises into heterodoxy upon 
 this point; the Nestorians, however, and Eutychians, may 
 be considered the principal sects which have joined an or- 
 thodox belief, as to the relations of the three persons of the 
 Trinity one to the other, with peculiar conceptions of the 
 manner of the union of the two natures in Jesus Christ. 
 (See the respective articles.) 
 
 The real manner of this union, or indwelling of the God 
 in the Man, is allowed to be a mystery such as cannot be 
 fully apprehended by the human intellect. It is easier to 
 point out the errors which beset its investigation than to ex- 
 press in words the true doctrine. The phrase, " The Word 
 was made flesh," cannot imply that the divinity was lost 
 and annihilated in becoming flesh ; nor that it changed its 
 own nature and was turned into humanity. In either of 
 these cases, Christ would cease to be a divine being while 
 on earth. Nor did the Godhead inspire the Manhood after 
 the manner in which the Prophets had been inspired In ear- 
 lier times ; for the terms applied to Christ are of a very dif- 
 ferent kind. Nor, on the other hand, could the humanity 
 be lost and absorbed in the divinity, which would seem to 
 destroy the sympathy with which the man Christ regarded 
 mankind, upon which so much of the superstructure of his 
 relision is raised. 
 
 INCE'NDIARY. (Lat. incendo, I burn.) Literally, one 
 who sets fire wilfully to a building or stores ; but it is used 
 also in a metaphorical sense for any political agitator who 
 seeks to inflame the minds of the people. Sec Arson. 
 
 INCENSE. See Frankincense. 
 
 INCE'PTIVE. (Lat. incipio, T begin.) A word used by 
 Dr. Wallis to express such moments or first principles as, 
 though possessed of no magnitude themselves, have yet the 
 power of producing it by being extended or enlarged. Thus 
 a point or a line, though the former has no proper magni- 
 tude and the latter no breadth, are both said to be inceptive 
 of enlargement. In the Latin language inceptive or inchoa- 
 tive verbs (the latter term being derived from the Lat. in- 
 choare, to begin) are those which, according to grammari- 
 ans, are characterized by the termination sco or scor added 
 to their primitives, and are expressive of a commencement 
 of increase or augmentation of the qualities indicated by the 
 Oo 593
 
 INCERTUM OPUS, 
 words from which they are derived : as augere, to increase ; 
 mugeseere, to begin to increase; paiUrc, to be pale ; palles- 
 cere, to crow pale. , . 
 
 INCE'RTUM O'PUS. (I.at.) In Ancient Architecture, 
 a species i i walling whose face exhibits an irregularly for- 
 med masonry, not laid in horizontal courses. 
 INCH. A measure of length : the twelfth part of a foot 
 Inch. A work used as a prefix to certain small Scottish 
 Islands, as lnch-Keith, Inch-Garvie. It is derived from the 
 old Irish or Gaelic word inis, signifying air island. 
 
 INCIDENCE. (Lat-incido, T fall upon.) The meeting 
 of one body with another. The term angle of incidence is 
 used by writers on mechanics and optics in different senses. 
 Thus, in the case of a body striking against a plane, the an- 
 cle of incidence is by some understood to signify the angle 
 formed by the line in which the body moved, with a straight 
 line perpendicular to the plane; while others use the term 
 to denote the angle which the line of incidence mokes with 
 the plane itself. When light or any elastic body is reflected 
 from a surface, the angle of incidence is equal to the angle 
 of reflection ; and in the case of refraction, the sine of the 
 angle of incidence has to the sine of the angle of refraction 
 a constant ratio. 
 
 I'NCIDENT. In Law, something necessarily appertain- 
 ing to and depending on another, which is termed the prin- 
 cipal. 
 
 LNt INERA'TION. (Lat. incinero, T reduce to ashes.) 
 The combustion of organic substances for the purpose of 
 obtaining their ashes or incombustible residue. 
 
 INCFSORS, Tncisores. (Lat. incido, I cut.) The teeth 
 implanted in the intermaxillary bones of the upper jaw, and 
 in the corresponding place in the lower jaw, and which are 
 generally shaped for the purpose of cutting or coarsely di- 
 viding the food. 
 
 INCLINATION. (Lat.) A term of frequent occur- 
 rence in geometry, mechanics, physics, and astronomy. It 
 i i.i all cases measured by an angle. Thus, the inclination 
 of the orbit of a planet is the angle between the plane of its 
 orbit, and the plane of the ecliptic. In the history of ge- 
 ometry, il\(\probl.em of inclinations is a subject that was 
 treated of by Apollonlus in two books, which are lost, but 
 of which a description has been given by Pappus. The 
 p oblem proposed was this: "To insert a straight line of a 
 given magnitude, and tending to a given point, between two 
 Which are given by position." The problem was re- 
 stored by Marinus Ghetaldus : and various other investiga- 
 tions have since been given by the method of the ancient- 
 nnalysls. 
 
 l\(_'Ll'NED PLANE. One of the five simple mechan- 
 ical powers. The theory of the inclined plane is easily de- 
 duced from the decomposition of forces. Let A C be the 
 position of the plane, B C its al ti- 
 ts -p. tmle, and A B the horizontal dis- 
 tance of the foot of the plane from 
 the perpendicular B C. Suppose a 
 load to be placed on the plane at D, 
 and let it be required to determine 
 the relation between its whole 
 weight and its tendency to descend 
 along the plane. Let D E denote the vertical pressure of the 
 weight, and decompose this into D F parallel to the plane, 
 and F E perpendicular to it ; and complete the parallelo- 
 gram P <;. Now the part F E is supported by the resistance 
 Of the plane; there remains, therefore, only the force rep- 
 resented by F D to urge the descent of the weight along the 
 plane. Hilt the triangle D F E is obviously similar to C B 
 A, and therefore D F is to D E as C B to C A ; that is, the 
 force of descent along the plane is to the whole weight of 
 the body as the height of the plane to its length, or as the 
 Sine of its elevation is to radius. The force, therefore, 
 Which is required to raise a body along the plane, is less 
 than that which Is required to raise it perpendicularly in the 
 name proportion. 
 
 This fundamental proposition was first demonstrated by 
 Stevinus of Bruges, but by a very different process of rea- 
 soning. He supposed a chain or choplet composed .if equal 
 links to be thrown over the triangle A B C, and the two 
 ends to be united a little below the base A B. It is evident 
 that this chain would remain at rest, for On altering its po- 
 : each link would be succeeded by a similar one in the 
 same Situation ; and if it began to move of itself it would 
 
 m ive forever, a supposition which is absurd. But the pari 
 
 Mow the base, being suspended equally at both extremities, 
 is evidently in a state of equilibrium ; therefore the part 
 
 which hangs along the perpendicular BC must balance the 
 part la\mg along the Inclined plane; and the weights of 
 these two parts being as their lengths, it follows that a 
 weight placed on the plane is to the force r. quired to sus- 
 tain it as the length of the plane to its height. 
 
 1 here are two properties connected with the motion ol 
 bodies on Inclined planes which deserve to be noticed. 
 The first is, that the velocity acquired by a body in descend- 
 504 
 
 INCOMBUSTIBLE CLOTH. 
 
 ing from any altitude to a horizontal plane is the same when 
 it reaches the horizontal plane, whether it has been allow- 
 ed to fall freely in the vertical, or been constrained to move 
 along an inclined plane at any angle of elevation. The 
 sim uiid is, that the times of descent through all chords of 
 the same circle to the lowest point are equal, and equal to 
 the time the body would take to fall through 
 a height equal to the diameter of the circle. 
 Thus, kt A B be the diameter, and C B, 1) B 
 and E B chords of a circle ; the time a heavy 
 body would consume in falling vertically 
 through the diameter is the same as that in s[ 
 which it would roll down the inclined plane 
 C B, or D B, or E B. In other words, bodies 
 placed at A, C, D, and E, and abandoned at 
 the same instant to the action of gravity, 
 would arrive at B at the same time. In 
 these proportions it is supposed, of course, that there is no 
 resistance from friction. 
 
 IN" LO'SURE. (Lat. includo, I shut up.) This term, in 
 a general sense, is one of the first acts of appropriation, since 
 in a new country when any portion of land is purchased, 01 
 taken possession of, it is inclosed ; that is, surrounded by 8 
 boundary line, indicated by certain objects, natural or arti- 
 ficial, or of both kinds. In a particular sense, to inclose 
 land is to divide it into fields, and may be devoted to a par 
 ticular description of culture. If nothing farther than the 
 cultivation of plants of different kinds were carried on in the 
 fields of a farm, their subdivision by fences would be alto- 
 gether unnecessary' ; but as in most cases fields are kept al- 
 ternately under tillage and pasture, it is desirable to have 
 fences to confine the pasturing animals to the field appropri- 
 ated for their use. 
 
 INCLU'SA. (Lat. includo, / inclose.) The name of a 
 tribe of shell-bearing Acephalous Mollusks in the system of 
 Cuvier, characterized by the closed stale of the mantle, 
 which everywhere surrounds and envelopes the body, leav- 
 ing only a narrow aperture for the passage of the foot, and 
 being prolonged posteriorly into two siphons projecting be- 
 yond the shell, which is always open at its two extremities. 
 The bivalves of this family are remarkable for their pow- 
 ers of burrowing and excavating clay, sand, wood, or even 
 stony rocks ; and many of the genera secrete, in addition to 
 the ordinary valves, a calcareous lining to their burrows, 
 which fornis a tube surrounding the valves themselves. 
 The relative proportions of the tube and valves well illus- 
 trate the so-called law of the " balance of organs," the 
 valves becoming diminished in size as the external sheath 
 is more developed. In the ship-borer (Teredo navalis), 
 which has the longest tube, the valves are of the smallest 
 size, being reduced to the office of mere boring Instruments, 
 instead of serving to protect the soft parts of the animal. 1 u 
 the watering-pot shell {JispergUlum, Lam.) they cease to bo 
 moveable organs, and are blended or confluent with the ex- 
 ternal tube; this is dilated at the anterior extremity, which 
 is surrounded with a projecting radiated ridge, and closed 
 by a convex plate, perforated like the mouth of a water- 
 
 '" LNCLU'SI, or RECLU'SI. (Lat. shut up.) In Ecclesi- 
 astical History, a class of religious persons who lived as her 
 mi's in single" cells, generallv attached to monasteries, som< - 
 times in the neighbourhood of villages and towns— under 
 the law of not leaving them unless in case of extreme at 
 ce-sily, and with the approbation of the bishop; whose 
 seal, or that of the abbot, was impressed on its door. The 
 cells are said to have been commonly twelve feet in length 
 and breadth. Nuns became sometimes, but more rarely, re- 
 cluses. , • . i ■ . • 
 
 INCn'GNITO (Ital. unknown), abbreviated into incogs 
 denotes the disguise resorted to by the great when the; 
 unwilling to be recognised. It consists either in assuming 
 a different name or title for the nonce, or in travelling fn m 
 one place to another without a retinue or other marks of 
 distinction. 
 
 INCOMBU'STIBLE CLOTH. This term was originally 
 applied to cloth with which asbestus was interwoven ; on 
 burning away the fibre, the incombustible mineral t( 
 remained. 
 
 More recently, cloth and other materials have been ren- 
 dered to a great extenl incombustible by impregnating them 
 
 with certain - aces, which, upon the .application 
 
 of lire, form a Bpecies of glaze upon the goods, and prevent 
 
 them burning with tin by protecting them from the ne- 
 
 ., access of air. (See Combustion.) Borax, alum, 
 
 and phosphate of so, la, or ammonia, are the most effectual 
 
 saps for this purpose ; and by properly applying them, with 
 
 starch. If to muslin dresses, curtains, or bed furniture, or 
 With Size to paper hangings and scenery, these several aril- 
 
 cles may be rendered incapable of burning with flame, and 
 thus serious accidents by fire prevented. Wood may also 
 be leaden d comparatively incombustible by soaking it in so- 
 lutions of the above salts. See Asbestus.
 
 INCOMMENSURABLE. 
 
 INCOMMENSURABLE. Two numbers or homogen- 
 eous quantities of any kind are said to be incommensurable 
 when tiicy have no common measure, or when no number 
 or quantity of the same kind can be found which will divide 
 them both without a remainder. Thus the numbers 21 and 
 22 are incommensurable. The side of a square and its di- 
 agonal are incommensurable lines, as is proved by Euclid in 
 his tenth book. Numbers are said to be incommensurable in 
 power when their squares or second powers are incommen- 
 surable ; as 2 and 3, the squares of which, 4 and 9, have no 
 common measure. It is owing to the incommensurability of 
 quantities, that it is found so difficult to explain the doctrine 
 of proportion in the elements of geometry. 
 
 INCOMPA'TIBLES. In Chemistry, salts and other sub- 
 stances are said to be incompatible which cannot exist 
 together in solution without mutual decomposition. Thus 
 the soluble salts of lead and of baryta are incompatible with 
 sulphuric acid and the sulphates, because the sulphates of 
 lead and of baryta are insoluble, and consequently thrown 
 down in the form of precipitates. 
 
 INCOMPRE'SSIBILITY. That quality of bodies in 
 virtue of which their volumes cannot be diminished. There 
 are no substances, perhaps, absolutely incompressible. Li- 
 quids, however, resist compression with great force ; but 
 tile experiments of Canton have proved that water has its 
 bulk sensibly enlarged by withdrawing the pressure of the 
 atmosphere. Nevertheless the extent to which the com- 
 pression can be carried is very small. On enclosing water 
 within an iron cannon, the sides of which were three inches 
 in thickness, and applying a very great force of pressure, 
 the cannon burst before the volume of water had been re- 
 duced to 19 20ths of its original dimensions. A pressure 
 equal to that of the atmosphere reduces the bulk of water 
 only about 48 parts in one million. 
 
 I'NCREMENT. (Lat. increase), in the higher Mathe- 
 matics, denotes a small but finite increase of a variable 
 quantity. It is the difference between two successive values 
 of the function of a quantity increasing according to a de- 
 terminate law. The method of increments was the name 
 given by Dr. Brook Taylor to a method of analysis invented 
 by him, and which has since been extensively cultivated 
 under the appellation of the calculus of finite differences. It 
 is of great use for the summation of series, and furnishes an 
 easy and rapid solution of a great variety of difficult prob- 
 lems to which other means of investigation would hardly 
 apply. Taylor's Methodus Incrementorum was published 
 in 1715, and contained the celebrated theorem which has 
 since been made the basis of the differential calculus. (See 
 Euler's Calcu'us Differentialis ; Bossut, Calcul Diffrentiel 
 et Integral; Lacroix's large work; and Sir J. Herschel's 
 Essay in the Appendix to the Cambridge translation of 
 Lacroix's Differential and Integral Calculus .) 
 
 Increment, in Rhetoric, is a species of climax rising 
 gradually from the lowest to the highest. See Climax. 
 
 IXCRUSTA'TION. (Fr.) In Architecture and Sculp- 
 ture, a work fixed with cement or cramp irons into notches 
 made to receive it ; such as inlaid work and mosaics, &x. 
 
 INCUBA'TION. (Lat. incumbo, I brood over.) Hatch- 
 ing, or the lying down of an animal upon her own or another's 
 eggs, communicating to them, and maintaining them at, her 
 own temperature : a condition essential to their development. 
 In many animals the development of the fuetus takes place 
 after the exclusion of the egg, and whilst it is maintained in 
 contact with the external surface of the parent's body, as in 
 crab and lobster tribes, beneath the caudal plates ; or 
 agglutinated to the surface of the abdomen as in certain 
 species of pipe-fish (Syngnathus) ; or concealed in cutaneous 
 marsupial cavities, as in other species of Syngyiathus, and 
 the Hippocampus ; but in these and other instances from 
 the cold-blooded animals, the protection of the ova seems to 
 be the object of their attachment to the parent, and not the 
 communication of warmth or any other influence essential 
 to their development. It is only in the Oviparous class 
 with warm blood, or birds, that true incubation takes place, 
 and in this class without any exception. Another charac- 
 teristic of true incubation is that the place of the eggs deter- 
 mines that of the incubator, which can only perform its 
 office by lying down upon the eggs ; while in most of the 
 examples of false incubation in the cold-blooded animals, 
 the eggs are retained by special contrivances in contact with 
 the parent, without occasioning any restraint upon her pos- 
 tures or movements. 
 
 That a due degree of warmth is the essential object of 
 incubation in birds, is proved by the ancient and well-known 
 practice of substituting artificial heat, by which fertile eggs 
 are hatched in the same period, and the excluded chick is 
 as fully and strongly developed, as when produced by natural 
 incubation. (See infra.) 
 
 The mean temperature of incubation is 100° Fah.; it may 
 vary from 95° to 105°, and towards the close of the process, 
 may be suspended for one or two hours, or for a longer pe- 
 riod, according to the degree of extraneous heat which the 
 
 INCUBUS. 
 
 eggs may derive from their situation, without fatal conse- 
 quences to the embryo. 
 
 The power of communicating the requisite degree of 
 warmth to their eggs arises out of the unusual development 
 of, and determination of blood to, a peculiar plexus of ves- 
 sels distributed over the skin of the abdomen, and which, in 
 most birds, is connected with a derivation of blood from the 
 internal organs of generation, after the subsidence of the 
 functional activity of the ovarium and oviduct, to the exter- 
 nal integuments. The vascular, hot, and sensitive condition 
 of the skin of the abdomen is the exciting cause of that un- 
 controllable propensity to incubate which the Greeks de- 
 nominated "storge," and which, with its associated phe- 
 nomena of patience, abstinence, and self-denial, forms so 
 remarkable a feature in the economy of birds. The egg of 
 the bird presents several peculiarities in relation to the cir- 
 cumstances under which it is to be developed : its oval form 
 permits a greater proportion of its surface to be in contact 
 with the heat-communicating skin of the parent than if it 
 had been a spherical body ; while the shell, by virtue of its 
 hard calcareous texture, and its arched disposition about the 
 soft contents, sufficiently defends them from the superin- 
 cumbent pressure. As warmth is the only essential influence 
 which the egg derives from the parent, the shell is porous, 
 and permeable to air, and the germ is surrounded by an 
 adequate store of nutritious matter. This matter is of two 
 kinds: the external, called the white of the egg, or albumen, 
 which wholly disappears during the process of incubation ; 
 and the internal part, or yolk; inclosed in a peculiar mem- 
 brane, and rendered lighter, and of an orange colour by the 
 admixture of a peculiar oil. The germ is situated at the 
 superficies of the yolk, beneath the vitelline membrane, in 
 the circular opaque white spot called the "cicatricula," or 
 "tread;" and a peculiar mechanism is superadded to the 
 yolk by means of which the germ-bearing surface of the 
 yolk is always kept uppermost and next the warmest surface 
 of the egg, and at the same time is relieved from the pres- 
 sure against the hard shell, to which it must have been 
 subject if the light yolk had not been restrained from rising 
 to absolute contact, with that surface. Both these purposea 
 are effected by the attachment of two cords of condensed 
 albumen, continued at one end from near the poles of the 
 yolk, but a little more distant from the germ-bearing side 
 than the line of the transverse axis, and expanding at the 
 opposite end, which is lost in the layers of albumen near 
 the poles of the egg. Thus by their presence and place of 
 attachment these cords, called the " chalazaV' restrain and 
 regulate the rising of the yolk ; so that whichever way an 
 egg be turned, the larger proportion of the light yolk always 
 rises above the attachment of the restraining cords, with 
 the cicatricula upon its summit. The period of incubation 
 is generally directly as the size of the bird, but the degree 
 of development which the chick attains prior to exclusion 
 varies. As a general rule, it is inferior in birds of flight, as 
 the Accipitrine and Passerine orders, than in the terrestrial, 
 wading, and swimming birds ; and the warmth and com- 
 plexity of the nest bears relation to this difference of devel- 
 opment. If the thrush had been forewarned that her young 
 would be excluded from the egg naked and helpless, she 
 could not have prepared beforehand a warmer and more 
 comfortable abode than her instinct had led her to construct 
 for their accommodation; and if with such a nest we con- 
 trast the rude recess of straw in which the hen deposits and 
 incubates her eggs, it might be imagined that she knew 
 beforehand that her chickens would come into the world 
 well clothed, and strong enough at once to run about and 
 pick up their own food. In this case, therefore, the nest 
 relates only to incubation ; in the other to incubation and 
 subsequent rearing of the young : and according to the degree 
 of development attained during incubation, and the asso- 
 ciated condition of the nest and habits of the parent, birds 
 have been divided into two great groups, the Aves altrices, 
 and Jives prweoces. See Avis. 
 
 Artificial incubation has been practised from a remote 
 period by the Egyptians and Chinese; the former, indeed, 
 have carried this process to such a high degree of perfection, 
 as in many instances to have entirely superseded the use of 
 the hen in hatching. It is effected either by means of an 
 oven, stove, or steam, the principles of which will be found 
 detailed in lire's Dictionary of Arts, Sec. This process 
 has received considerable attention from the French philoso- 
 phers ; but perhaps the best exemplification of its results 
 that has been witnessed in Europe is given by the Eccaleo- * 
 bion, which was lately exhibited in Pall Mall. This term, 
 recently invented to express the process of artificial incuba- 
 tion, is derived from the Gr. cKKaXtw, I call out or produce, 
 and (imc, life. 
 
 I'NCUBUS. (Lat. incubo, / lie upon ; because the suf- 
 ferer feels as if something pressed upon his chest.) The 
 nightmare. The name incubus is derived from imaginary 
 fiends or spectres, to whom strange powers are attributed by 
 the writers on demoniacal agency. Many noble families 
 
 59S
 
 INCUMBENT. 
 
 were supposed to have their origin from the connexion of 
 incubi with females, as in the well-known instance of Robert 
 of Normandy, called le Diable. (See Encyc. Metr.) 
 
 INCU'MBENT. (Lat. incumbo, I lie upon, or occupy.) 
 A tenn applied to the holder of an ecclesiastical benefice. 
 
 INCUNA BULA. (Lat a cradle.) In Bibliography, a 
 term applied to books printed during the early period of the 
 art : in general confined to those which appeared before the 
 year 1500. 
 
 INCU'RVED. (Lat. incurvo, / curve inwards.) In 
 Zoology, when a part is carved Inwards. 
 
 INDECLI'NABLE. In Grammar, a word admitting of 
 no declension or inflexion. Adverbs, prepositions, particles, 
 conjunctions, are all indeclinable. In classical languages, 
 indeclinable nouns are those few (chiefly borrowed by the 
 Greeks and Latins from foreign languages) of which the 
 termination is not altered in the several cases. 
 
 INDEFINITE. In Botany, when stamens are above 
 twenty in number : the word is applied to all other parts 
 when their number is greater than can be readily counted. 
 This term always refers in botany to number, and never to 
 form. 
 
 INDEFINITE PROPOSITION, in Logic, is one which 
 has for its subject a common term, without any sign to in- 
 dicate whether it is distributed or undistributed. See Propo- 
 sition. 
 
 INDEHI'SCEXT. (Lat. in, and dehisco, I gape), is said 
 of a fruit the pericarpium of which continues perfectly closed, 
 without ope ning in any degree when ripe. 
 
 INDE'MMTY. (Lat. in. without, and damnum, loss.) 
 In Politics and Jurisprudence, a word of various significa- 
 tions, but applied usually to laws passed to relieve individuals 
 from penalties to which they are liable in consequence of 
 acting in an illegal manner. The Act of Indemnity, annually 
 passed by the British parliament for many years prior to the 
 repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts in 1838, was a 
 measure for the relief of persons who had assumed any 
 office without qualifying themselves for it by taking the 
 oaths prescribed by those enactments. In Feudal Jurispru- 
 dence, the right of the lord to a certain duty payable by 
 religious establishments to compensate him for the loss of 
 those fines on alienation which would probably have accrued 
 from time to time had their property remained in lay bands, 
 was termed indemnity. In the language of modem politics, 
 compensations paid by a state to other states, corporations, 
 or individuals, for loses sustained through its acts, bear the 
 same name. Acts of indemnity are also sometimes passed 
 to relieve ministers from the responsibility of measures ex 
 ceeding their strict constitutional powers, taken by them 
 when parliament was sitting to meet some unforeseen pub- 
 lic emergency, or in ignorance, it may be. that they had ex- 
 ceeded tlie powers vested in them by the constitution. In 
 1825 a law of indemnity was passed in France to compensate 
 the losses sustained by the emigrants, their families, and 
 those of persons who had been condemned to death for 
 political offences in the course of the Revolution. The sum 
 allotted to this purpose was an annual amount of 30,000,000 
 francs (about £1,200,000). A special commission was ap- 
 pointed to carry it into execution ; but it appears that its 
 labours were broken off before their completion by the 
 political change? of 1830. 
 
 INDE'NTURE. In Law, a writing or deed comprising 
 some contract between two or more parties. The name is 
 derived from the ancient practice, according to which the 
 original and counterpart original (to be retained by each 
 party respectively) were written on the same skin of parch- 
 ment, and then the two parts were separated by n notched 
 or indented cut. so that when applied to each other they 
 would appear to match. [Set Deed.) 
 
 DTDEPE'NDENCE, DECLAB \TlON OF, in the History 
 of the United States of America. The "Declaration of 
 Rights" was adopted by the first general congress of the then 
 revolted colonies, which met at Philadelphia in September, 
 1775. In this declaration that assembly asserted the right 
 of internal legislation and taxation to be in the provincial 
 legislatures, and declared various acts of the mother country 
 to be infringements and violations of the right- of th 
 nists. The second congress, which met in Hay, 177l>. adopted 
 on July 4, of that year a declaration of independence; by 
 which, after again recapitulating tlie grievances complained 
 of in the former declaration, it declared the colonies to be 
 free and independent state-, absolved from all allegiance to 
 Great Britain. The first draught of tliis famous declaration 
 was prepared by a committee of Ave consisting of Ji 
 and Adams (both afterward- presidents), Franklin, and 
 Sherman and Livingston. Jelli-rson and Adams wen- after- 
 wards deputed as a sub committee to prepare the declaration 
 itself; but, in the shape in which it finally appeared, it was 
 in fact the work of the former. 
 
 INDEPF. NPL'NTS. A Protestant sect; BO called because 
 they maintain that every single congregation of Christians 
 which meet in any one place for public worship forms a 
 596 
 
 INDEPENDENTS. 
 
 church or independent religious society in itself, unconnected 
 With, and not amenable to, any other church or congregation. 
 They consequently condemn every tiling like a national es- 
 tablisbment of religion, whether episcopal or presbyterian ; 
 and insist that each congregation of Christians has inherent 
 and indefeasible power in itself to exercise ecclesiastical 
 government, to fix their own tenets and form of religious 
 worship, and to adopt their own standard of church disci- 
 pline, without being responsible to bishops, presbyteries, or 
 Is, or even to the state itself. The Independents were 
 not at any time, and are not at this day, remarkable for any 
 peculiarity of religious creed. They have always maintain- 
 ed, speaking generally, Calvinistic doctrines; their only 
 peculiarity consisting in their maintenance of independent 
 ecclesiastical government. 
 
 Of the history of this sect it may be proper to give a brief 
 account. On the reformation of religion in England, the 
 great body of Protestants adopted, under the auspices of the 
 government, the episcopal form of church polity, which was 
 in consequence established as the national religion. But 
 there were not a few who conscientiously thought that this 
 polity too nearly resembled that which had been supplanted ; 
 and objected, besides, to the vestments adopted by the clergy 
 in the celebration of divine worship, to the liturgy, and above 
 all to the sign of the cross used in baptism, as unscriptural 
 and erroneous. These non-conformists, or dissentients from 
 the established faith, are known in history under the name 
 of Puritans, as the followers of Novatinn had been denomi- 
 nated in the third century. They were evidently so called 
 in detision, in consequence of tlie superior purity and sanc- 
 tity they assumed, and of the greater deference they showed 
 to scripture authority, both as to doctrine and the form of 
 religious worship. But while tiny forsook the national 
 church, and condemned many of her tenets, they did not 
 agree among themselves. They were, in truth, unanimous 
 in nothing but in resisting the constitution of the predominant 
 hierarchy. Some of them were in favour of presbytery, or 
 ecclesiastical government vested in a gradation of church 
 courts, such as Calvin had established in Geneva, and as 
 Knox had introduced into Scotland. Others were against 
 every firm of state religion, or union of churches under the 
 ecclesiastical government; but regarded each congre- 
 gation of Christians as being jure divino a complete and in- 
 dependent church, competent to judge, decide, and act for 
 itself, without any external interference or responsibility 
 whatever. Of this latter opinion, which constitutes the 
 pure principle of English Independency, the author and 
 great advocate was Robert Brown, who was originally a 
 clergyman of the Protestant episcopal church, from which 
 he seceded, and avowed his new doctrines about the year 
 1580. (.Yial's Hist, of the Puritans, vol. i., ch. vi. London, 
 1822.) Brown is represented by Neal as a vehement and 
 popular declaimer, and insinuating in his manners ; and 
 hence he succeeded in detaching many from the episcopal 
 faith, and in establishing several separate churches. He not 
 only advocated the leading principles of Independency as 
 we have stated them above, but taught that the priesthood 
 was neither a distinct order in the Christian church, nor 
 conferred an indelible character; that every person regarded 
 by the majority of a congregation as qualified to teach might 
 be set apart for that office by the election of his brethren, 
 and by imposition of their hands ; in like manner, by their 
 authority, lie might be discharged from that function, and 
 reduced to the rank of a private Christian, He also main- 
 tained that the right of the pastors to preach was not pecu- 
 liar to them : on the contrary, that any member who thought 
 proper to exhort or instruct the brethren enjoyed the inherent 
 right of doing so, or of "prophesying" before the whole 
 assembly. Hence it happened that after the stated pastor 
 had flnisned his services, the ordinary members were allow- 
 ed to communicate in public their s. ntiments on any reli- 
 gious subject, (Ibid.; and Jloshcim's Ch. Hist. vol. v., 
 353-6. London, 1822.) But while Brown enforced these 
 views, and claimed liberty of conscience to himself, he was 
 not willing to allow similar privileges to other sect-, particu- 
 larly the Church of England. "The BrownistS," for so the 
 Puritans were now called, "did not differ from the Church 
 of England in any articles of faith : but were very rigid and 
 narrow in points of discipline. They denied the Church of 
 England to be a true church, and her ministers to be tightly 
 d. They maintained the discipline of the Church 
 of England to be popish and anti-Christian, and all her or- 
 dinances and sacraments invalid. Hence they forbade their 
 pe iple to join with them in prayer, in hearing, or in any 
 part of public worship; nay, they not only renounced com- 
 munion with the Church of England, but with all other 
 reformed churches, except such as should be of their own 
 model." (.V,«/, i„ 303.) 
 
 Brown and his followers, as they had imbibed such ex- 
 treme views, cannot be expected to have been allowed to 
 live undisturbed in the dark times to which we refer, lie, 
 in truth, suffered severely for his principles, both for some
 
 INDEPENDENTS. 
 
 works he published, and for the ecclesiastical doctrines 
 which he travelled throughout England in propagating. He 
 was committed, as he afterwards boasted, to no fewer than 
 thirty-two prisons in succession, in some of which he could 
 not see his hand at noonday. Nor were his adherents more 
 mercifully treated : many of them were fined and imprison- 
 ed, and some put to death. (Neal, i., 313.) Under these 
 circumstances, a body of the party, with Brown at their 
 head, fled to Holland, and founded churches at Middleburg, 
 Amsterdam, and Leyden. But these establishments were 
 neither solid nor lasting. When the Brownists were de- 
 livered from the hands of the bishops their oppressors, they 
 quarrelled among themselves ; and their leader, weary of 
 his oflice, returned to England in 1589, and not merely re- 
 nounced the opinions which he had suffered so much in 
 promulgating, but returned into the bosom of the church 
 which he had abandoned, and which he had so long and so 
 severelv calumniated. 
 
 The Brownists that still remained in Holland, now left to 
 their own discretion, and learning moderation from experi- 
 ence, were not unprepared to modify or reform the severity 
 of the discipline of their founder. This judicious change 
 was brought about by John Robinson of Norfolk, member 
 of the congregation at Leyden ; " a man who had much of 
 the solemn piety of the times, and who, perceiving the de- 
 fects that reigned in the discipline of Brown, and in the spirit 
 and temper of his followers, employed his zeal and dili- 
 gence in correcting them, and in modelling the society in 
 such a manner as to render it less odious to his adversaries, 
 and less liable to the just censure of those true Christians 
 who looked on charity as the end of the commandments." 
 (Mosheim, v., 359-60.) Hitherto the sect had been called 
 Brownists : they now renounced that name, and have since 
 been known under the title of Independents; and Robinson, 
 who wrote an " Apology" (Apologia justa et. necessaria pro 
 F.xulibus Anglis., qui Brown istwvulgo appcllantur. Lugd. 
 Batav., 1619, 8vo) for them, in which he gave a minute and 
 systematic exposition of their principles, was considered as 
 their founder. The Independents were much more com- 
 mendable than the Brownists, particularly in the moderation 
 of their sentiments and the order of their discipline. They 
 laid aside that hostility to other sects which Brown had in- 
 culcated. They agreed with the reformed churches gener- 
 ally in articles of faith. They wished to maintain commu- 
 nion with them. They differed with them only on the sub- 
 ject of church government. They were also much more at- 
 tentive than the Brownists had been to the establishment of 
 a regular ministry in their communities ; for, while the latter 
 promiscuously allowed all ranks and orders of men to tench 
 in public, and to perform the other pastoral functions, the 
 Independents had, and still have, a certain number of min- 
 isters chosen respectively by the congregations where they 
 are fixed. Nor is any person among them permitted to speak 
 in public till he has received the sanction of the congrega- 
 tion, (lb.; and Mosheim, ut supra.) 
 
 Independency, thus put on a more rational and Christian 
 footing in Holland, was introduced into England by Mr. 
 Henry Jacobs in 1616; an individual who established the 
 first Independent or (as it is not inappropriately called) Con- 
 gregational Church in this country. For some time, how- 
 ever, the sect made but slow progress in England. Its mem- 
 bers concealed their principles from public view, to avoid the 
 penal laws that were in existence against non-conformists. 
 But during the latter part of the reign of Charles I., when, 
 amid the shock of civil and religious discord, the authority 
 of the Episcopal Church began to decline, the Independents 
 assumed greater courage, and publicly avowed their princi- 
 ples with a degree of confidence not previously exhibited by 
 them. From this period their progress was rapid : a circum- 
 stance that may be imputed to a variety of causes, particu- 
 larly the learning of their teachers, the unpopularity and 
 declining state of episcopacy, and the support of Oliver Crom- 
 well, who espoused their cause and enrolled himself among 
 the list of their members. They probably were, during 
 Cromwell's lime, the most powerful and important religious 
 body in England ; though for a few years previous to the 
 death of Charles I. the Presbyterians may be said to have 
 had the ascendency. Indeed, presbytery had been establish- 
 ed by act of parliament as the national church ; and it was 
 chietlv owing to the growing influence of the Independents 
 that this art was rendered inoperative. (Murray's Life of 
 Samuel Rutherford, chap, viii., Edinburgh, 1628.) Notwith- 
 standing the " x\poIngy" written by Robinson, which was 
 regarded as containing the best summary of the principles 
 of the sect, the Independents, as a body, had not agreed on 
 any standard of faith and discipline: but in the year 1658, 
 their lendins members held a meeting in London, under the 
 sanction of the Protector, and passed " the Savoy Confession, 
 or a Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practised 
 by the Congregational Churches in England, agreed upon 
 and consented unto by the Elders and Messengers in their 
 Meeting at the Savoy, Oct. J2, 1658." This Confession, and 
 
 Robinson's "Apology," on which it is mainly founded, con- 
 tain a synopsis of their various tenets ; and from these it ap- 
 pears, as Mosheim remarks, "that they differed from the 
 Presbyterians or Calvinists in no single point of any conse- 
 quence except that of ecclesiastical government." (Adam's 
 Religious World Disp'ayed, ii., 312-13.) 
 
 Thus matters stood at the date which we have just speci- 
 fied. What might have been the issue of the struggle be- 
 tween the Independents and Presbyterians if Cromwell had 
 lived, or if the dynasty which he established had lasted, 
 cannot be told. But the restoration of Charles II., and with 
 him the Episcopal Church, put an end to the influence of 
 both sects. The Act of Uniformity was passed in 1662; the 
 object of which was to crush non-conformists, particularly 
 the Independents and Presbyterians. The Act required from 
 clergymen a direct recognition of the principle of episcopacy. 
 The effect of this was the retirement of about 2000 clergy- 
 men from their respective churches — Independents, Presbyte- 
 rians, and Baptists ; whom Dissenters still characterize in 
 history as " the illustrious two thousand," " the ejected mem- 
 bers," or " the Bartholomew worthies." The Independents, 
 however, though proscribed, still subsisted, but in a state 
 of persecution, dejection, and weakness. But the Revolu- 
 tion of 1688, and the Act of Toleration, which was passed 
 in the subsequent year, brought them pence and the free 
 exercise of their religion. They were now a small body as 
 compared with the Presbyterians ; but the two sects, hav- 
 ing much in common, and differing only as to church gov- 
 ernment, entered into an association with each other, under 
 certain heads of agreement, which tended to the mainte- 
 nance of their respective institutions. ( Winston's Memoirs 
 of his Life and Writings, vol. ii. ; Mosheim, v., 361-63.) 
 
 Since the period of the Revolution, the Independents have 
 greatly increased both in numbers and importance. Tho 
 extraordinary revival of religious zeal which took place 
 about the middle of last century, under the influence of the 
 two Wesleys and Whitfield, was of essential service to the 
 sect of which we are treating. Many other persons, awa- 
 kened to a deeper sense of religion, refusing to unite with 
 any of the three bodies of Methodists, the Wesleyan, the 
 Whitfieldian, or the Countess of Huntingdon's, joined the In- 
 dependents, and formed numerous churches in connexion 
 with that sect. The Independents have long ago with- 
 drawn from their association with the Presbyterians, or, in- 
 deed, with any body of Dissenters, and act by themselves. 
 They are distinguished from all other Protestant communi- 
 ties chiefly by the two following circums'ances : First, They 
 reject the use of all creeds and confessions (including the 
 Savoy Confession and Declaration) drawn up by fallible 
 men ; requiring of their teachers no other test of orthodoxy 
 than a declaration of their belief in the gospel of Jesus, and 
 their adherence to the Scriptures as the sole standard of 
 faith and practice. Second, They attribute no virtue what- 
 ever to the rile of ordination ; for they declare that the 
 qualifications which constitute a regular minister of the gos- 
 pel are a firm belief in the Bible, fervent piety, a desire for 
 the glory of God and the salvation of mankind, a competent 
 stock of knowledge, and an initiation to the pastoral charge 
 from some Christian congregation. These two circumstan- 
 ces constitute the distinguishing characteristics of the Inde- 
 pendent denomination. They do not believe, as may also 
 be mentioned, that an imposition of the hands of bishops or 
 presbyters at ordination confers any new power or pregroga- 
 tive ; though it is their custom to impose hands in inducting 
 a pastor to a particular charge as a token of recognition in a 
 new relation. In point of religious doctrine they vary from 
 the high Calvinism of the Savoy Confession ; though mod- 
 erate Calvinism is maintained, speaking generally, by both 
 pastors and people. The Independents teach that every 
 point both of doctrine and church discipline is vested exclu- 
 sively in the congregation, and that whatever is supported 
 by a majority must necessarily be law. They do not think it 
 imperative to assemble synods; yet if any such be held, 
 which they are periodically, they look on their resolutions 
 as prudential counsels, but not as decisions to which they 
 are obliged to conform. (Adams's Rel. World Displayed, ii., 
 314.) 
 
 Of the extent and influence of the Independents in Eng- 
 land a pretty correct idea may be formed from the number 
 of their colleges or academies, and of their chapels. These 
 colleges or academies are exclusively confined to the edu- 
 cation of ministers belonging to Iheir own denomination. 
 Some of these institutions are wealthy endowments : others 
 of them are supported by annual subscriptions. Their num- 
 ber is ten ; the oldest of which is at Honiei ton, Middlesex, 
 which was founded in 1730. The last established college is 
 at Manchester, which was instituted in 1837. The others 
 were founded at different intermediate dates. The number 
 of Independent chapels in England in 1829. according to the 
 Congregational Magazine for the year 1829, was 1683; but 
 that number is now understood to have been increased to 
 upwards of 1700. In Scotland the Independents have OS 
 
 597
 
 INDETERMINATE. 
 
 chapels, and in Inland about 30; but it is reckoned that 
 they have do fewei than 1000 congregations in the United 
 
 Stales. 
 
 1NDETE 'it Ml. NATE. In Mathematics, quantities which 
 change their values are said to be indcttrminatr, in oppo- 
 sition to those Whose values remain Bxed and invariable. 
 For example, in the equation of the ellipse blxl-\- anfi — 
 a2 fc2, the co-ordinates x and y are indeterminate, while the 
 axes a and 4 are constant, quantities. 
 
 INDETERMINATE. In Botany, when a stem is never ter- I 
 minuted by s flower, nor has its growth stopped by any other j 
 organic cause : example, Veronica arcensis. 
 
 INDETE'RMIXATE ANA LYSIS, is a branch of Alge- 
 bra which has for its object the investigation of problems 
 which admit of an infinite number of different solutions. 
 When the enunciation of a problem furnishes a less number 
 of equations than there are unknown quantities! the problem | 
 is indeterminate in this sense— that the equations may be | 
 satisfied bv assigning to the unknown quantities an infinity 
 of different values. It happens, however, in the greater 
 number of cases, that the nature of the question requires the 
 values of the unknown quantities to be expressed in whole 
 and positive numbers ; a condition which greatly restricts 
 the number of solutions. 
 
 As in the ordinary algebraic analysis, problems belong- 
 ing to the Indeterminate analysis are of the first or second 
 degree, according as the simple powers or squares of the un- 
 known quantities enter into the equations expressing their 
 conditions. Every equation of the first degree, containing 
 two unknown quantities, may be reduced to the form ax-\- 
 6y = c; and it is plain that if only one equation of this sort 
 is given, the values of z and y are wholly indeterminate, for 
 any value whatever may be given to one of these quantities, 
 and it will be easy to find a value of the second which will 
 satisfy the equation. In the indeterminate analysis, the ob- 
 ject is to find all the values which x and y can have in 
 whole numbers ; the constants a, b, and c denoting whole 
 numbers, either positive or negative. 
 
 For example, let it be proposed to divide the number 159 
 into two parts, one of which is divisible by 8, and the other 
 by 13. If we denote by x and y the quotients of the re- 
 quired parts, divided respectively by 8 and 13, these parts 
 themselves must be Sx and 13y ; consequently, the problem 
 is expressed by this equation, 
 
 81 + 13^ = 159 (1), 
 
 and it will be solved when x and y are expressed by whole 
 positive numbers. 
 
 159 — 13;/ 
 
 In the first place, this equation gives x = , or 
 
 o 
 
 7 5 y 
 
 e = 19 — y-\ -; but as x and y must be whole num- 
 
 bers, it is obviously necessary that 
 
 7 — 5y 
 
 be also a whole 
 
 7—5?/ 
 number. Suppose this to be n ; we have then — -— = n ; 
 
 whence 5y + 8n = 7 . . . . (2), 
 
 an equation of the same form with (1). The value of y 
 
 ... . 7 — 8n , 2 — 3,1 
 deduced from this is?/= — - — , or ?/ = ! — n-\ z 
 
 Now, precisely in the same manner as before, since y and 
 s are whole numbers, — ; — must necessarily be a whole 
 
 2 — 3n 
 number. Suppose this to be ri, and we have — _ — = n ; 
 
 whence 3 n + 5 ri = 2 . . 
 
 From this last equation wc get n 
 2— 2n' 
 
 3 
 2— 2n' 
 
 .(3.) 
 2 — 5ri 
 
 , om = — n' + 
 
 Continuing the same process, we now make 
 
 = 71" (where n" must be a whole number), whence 
 2n' + 3n" = 2 (4); 
 
 , 2 — 3n" , n" 
 
 from which we obtain n = — , or n== 1 — n — --• 
 
 Suppose, next, — =n'", and there results 
 
 n" = 2n'" (5). 
 
 Thus at last OH equation has been found which is satis- 
 fied by makinc *'" equal to any whole number whatever; 
 and, on attending to the different steps of the process, it w ill 
 readily be observed that x and y, and the indeterminate 
 quantities ". «'. »", ri", are connected by the following sys- 
 tem of equations: 
 598 
 
 INDEX EXPURGATORIUS. 
 
 i =19 — y -4-n 
 
 y = 1 — n -f-n' 
 
 * = — ri +n" 
 
 n' = 1 — n" — ri" 
 
 n"= 2ti'". 
 On deducing from these equations the values of i and o 
 in terms of ri", we find z = 15+13h'", and t/ = 3 — Sri . 
 Now, on making ri" successively equal to 0, 1, 2, 3, &c, or 
 equal to — 1, — 2, — 3, &c, these two equations will give all 
 the values of x and y in whole numbers, whether positive 
 or negative, by which the equation 8 1-4-137/ =159 can be 
 sati fled. But if, as the conditions of the problem require, 
 we take account only of the positive solutions, the values 
 of ?('" must be so assumed that the expressions 15-4- 13 ri" 
 and 3 — Bn'" are both positive; and it is manifest that this 
 can only be done by assuming ri ' = 0, or else n " ■=. — J. for 
 all other numbers substituted for ri" render the one or the 
 other of these two expressions negative. If we make ri' =0, 
 we obtain z = 15. y = 3 ; 
 
 and if we make n'" = — 1, 
 
 z = 2,j/ = ll; 
 and either of these two systems of values verifies the pro- 
 posed equation. 
 
 The preceding example will show, more distinctly than 
 perhaps any rule would do, the general methods employed 
 to solve indeterminate algebraic problems of the first de- 
 gree. With regard to equations of the second degree, the 
 difficulties of solution are infinitely greater, and, in fact, in- 
 volve some of the most abstruse theories of algebraic analy- 
 sis. The subject is discussed at length in Lcgendre's T/ieorit 
 ties Jfombrcs. 
 
 The oldest treatise on the subject of indeterminate analy- 
 sis is the Arithmetic of Diophantus of Alexandria, the best 
 edition of which is that of Toulouse, 1670; with a Comment- 
 ary by Bachet, and notes by the celebrated Fermat. On 
 the revival of the mathematical sciences, the subject was 
 extensively cultivated by Fermat, Descartes, Wallis, Lord 
 Brounker, and others. One of the most luminous elementa- 
 ry treatises on the subject is contained in the second volume 
 of y.ul, r's.ilgebra. 
 
 INDETERMINATE COEFFICIENTS. A method of 
 analysis invented by Descartes, and of very extensive appli- 
 cation in the higher mathematics. The principle of the 
 method of indeterminate coefficients consists in this, that if 
 we have an equation of this form, 
 
 A-f-Bx + Cz2-fDz3-f-&c. = 0, 
 in which the coefficients A, B, C are constant quantities, and 
 i a variable, which may be supposed as small as ever we 
 please, each of these coefficients, taken separately, is neces- 
 sarily equal to zero; that is to say. we must always have 
 A = 0, B = 0, C = 0, &.C., whatever may be the number of 
 terms of the given equation. 
 
 In fact, since z may be supposed as mall as we please, it 
 is always possible to render the sum of all the terms of the 
 given equation which have x for a factor as small as we 
 please; that is, the sum of all the terms following the first 
 may be rendered as small as we please. Hence the first 
 term differs from zero only by a quantity which may be less 
 than any assignable quantity ; but the first term A being 
 constant, its difference from zero cannot be any finite quan- 
 tity assumed at pleasure, for this would suppose it to be va- 
 riable. It follows, therefore, that A can be nothing else 
 than zero; that is, we must have A = 0, whence there re- 
 mains 
 
 Bz + Cz2 + Dz3-f &c. = 0. 
 Divide this last equation by z, and there results 
 
 B + Cz + Dz2-f&c. = 0; 
 and, for the same reason as before, it is manifest that we 
 must have B = 0. Proceeding in the same manner, wc find 
 successively C = 0, D = 0, &c. 
 
 The principle here explained is extremely fertile in ap- 
 plications, and in fact Live- the means of resolving by ordi- 
 nary algebra all the questions which are considered as be- 
 longing to the infinitesimal analysis. The respective pro- 
 i., lines of both methods, when properly simplified, are ab- 
 solutely the same: all the difference consists in the manner 
 of viewing the - 
 
 I'NDEX. In Bibliography, an alphabetical table, containing 
 tiie principal subjects of a work, or words employed in it, 
 with references to the part of the work in which they are to 
 be found. Many Indi pendent works, containing catalogues 
 of various kinds, have been also entitled index. 
 
 1 mpi\. (Lat. indico, I point out.) A term often applied 
 to the tore finger. 
 
 I'NDEX. In Mn-ie, the same as iJirert. which 9 B. 
 
 I'NDEX EXPURGATO'RIUS. A catalogue of works, 
 
 which the Church of Rome prohibits the faithful from read- 
 ing, or condemns as heretical. It is annually published at 
 Rome.
 
 INDEX OF A aUANTITY. 
 
 I'NDEX OF A QUANTITY, in Arithmetic and Alge- 
 bra, is used in the same sense with exponent. Thus, in 
 the expression (a + J)3, 3 is the index, and denotes that 
 the quantity a + J is to be raised to the third power, or 
 cube. The index of a logarithm, or its characteristic, is the 
 figure prefixed to the logarithm for the purpose of indicating 
 the unit's place in the corresponding number. See Loga- 
 rithm. 
 
 I'NDEX OF REFRACTION, in Optics, expresses the 
 constant ratio which exists between the sines of the angles 
 of incidence and refraction. Thus, with respect to a ray of 
 light falling obliquely on the surface of water, the sine of 
 the angle of incidence is found by experiment to be to the 
 sine of the angle of refraction in the constant ratio of 1*336 
 to 1. Hence 1*336 is the index of refraction in water. See 
 Refraction. 
 
 INDIAN ARCHITECTURE. See Architecture. 
 
 INDIAN INK. A species of ink used in Europe for the 
 lines and shadows of drawings. It is principally manufac- 
 tured in China, and there used for writing. From the ex- 
 periments of Dr. Lewis, it appears to be a compound of fine 
 lampblack and animal glue. See Ink. 
 
 I'NDIANITE. A mineral which occurs in granular 
 masses, associated with garnet, felspar, and hornblende. 
 It is hard enough to scratch glass, and of a white or gray 
 colour. 
 
 INDI'CATIVE MOOD. (Lat.indico, I point out.) That 
 form of a verb wnich expresses a simple or unconditional 
 judgment. Sec Grammar. 
 
 I'NDICATOR. (Lat. indico.) A genus of birds belong- 
 ing to the cuckoo tribe (Cuculidie), characterized by a 
 straight finch-like bill, with compressed sides and a triangu- 
 lar base, the culmen and gonys being equally inclined to- 
 wards the lip, and the gonys angulated ; wings lengthened, 
 pointed ; tail moderate, rounded ; feet short ; middle toe 
 much longer than the tarsus. 
 
 The species of Indicator are remarkable for their habit of 
 indicating the nests of bees, and of guiding men to them by 
 their motions and cries ; whence both their scientific name 
 and common appellation of honey guides. 
 
 Indica'tor. A muscle of the lower part of the forearm 
 which extends the forefinger. 
 
 INDICA VIT. (Lat. he has shown.) In Law, a species 
 of the writ of prohibition. It lies for a patron of a church, 
 whose incumbent is sued in the spiritual court by another 
 clergyman for tithes amounting to a fourth part of the profits 
 of the advowson ; and depends on stats. West. 2, c. 5 ; 13 
 Ed. I., st. 4. 
 
 INDI'CTION. (Lat. indictio, establishment, order, or de- 
 nunciation.) In Chronology, a cycle or period of fifteen 
 years, the origin of which is involved in obscurity. Unlike 
 other cycles, the indiction has no reference to any astronom- 
 ical phenomena, but is supposed to relate to certain judi- 
 cial acts, probably the publication of tariffs of the taxes, 
 which took place a#stated intervals under the Greek em- 
 perors. The Caesarean indiction fell on the 8th of the cal- 
 ends of October (24th of September) : the indiction of Con- 
 stantinople (beginning A.D. 312) on the 1st of September; 
 the pontifical indiction on the calends of January. It is a 
 date commonly employed in very ancient charters. The 
 commencement of this computation is generally referred to 
 the 1st of January of the year 313 of the common era ; 
 hence, by counting backwards, it will be found that the first 
 year of our era corresponded to the fourth of one of the cy- 
 cles of indiction. The year of indiction, corresponding to 
 any other year of our era, is found, therefore, by this rule : 
 Add 3 to the date, divide the sum by 15, and the remainder 
 is the year of the indiction. The remainder indicates the 
 15th of the cycle. Thus the year 1800 was the third of the 
 indiction. See as to the historical commencement of the 
 era of indictions, Gibbon's Decline and Fall, ii., 223, last 
 ed. Mem. dc I'Jlcad. des Inscr., vol. xli. 
 
 INDI'CTMENT, PROCESS BY. (Lat. indico, J pro- 
 claim against.) In Law, all persons, without exception, are 
 liable to be arrested on a warrant of a justice of peace, if 
 charged on suspicion with a crime ; and some officers, as 
 the sheriff or constable, have the power of apprehending 
 without a warrant on some occasions. When the party is 
 arrested and brought before a justice of peace, he is exam- 
 ined, and the information of those who came with him is 
 taken ; and the deposilions of the witnesses, if taken down 
 in the presence of the prisoner, are evidence against him on 
 the trial. If the offence be bailable, the justice must then 
 take sufficient bail on the part of the prisoner. It other- 
 wise, he commits him to prison ; and the witnesses are 
 bound over to attend and give evidence, the king being in 
 all cases the nominal prosecutor. The grand jury being 
 summoned by the sheriff (at every session of the peace, 
 commission of oyer and terminer, and jail delivery), con- 
 sisting of not fewer than twelve nor more than twenty-three 
 of the principal men of the county, receives the indictment 
 or presentment (as it is also termed) preferred againat the 
 
 INDIGO. 
 
 prisoner, and either finds or ignores it; returning it into 
 court, in the first case, endorsed a true bill ; in the latter, 
 not found. 
 
 An indictment may be found in the absence of the pris- 
 oner, but cannot be tried unless he personally appears. 
 The summons, when he is absent, in order to bring him into 
 court, is by capias ; and if he still abscond, he may be far- 
 ther pursued to outlawry. When the prisoner appears on 
 this process, or voluntarily, or is brought up in custody, he 
 is arraigned; that is, called before the bar to answer the 
 indictment. If the prisoner refuse to answer (in which 
 event he was subjected, in former days, to the famous peine 
 forte et dare, by which it was intended to torture him into 
 pleading, in order that the forfeiture of his goods might at- 
 tach), a plea of not guilty is now recorded, and the trial pro- 
 ceeds ; if he plead guilty, judgment is awarded. Otherwise 
 he may plead — 1. To the jurisdiction ; i. e., that the court 
 before which he is arraigned is not competent to try the of- 
 fence. 2. In abatement for misnomer ; but the advantage 
 of this plea is now taken away by 7 G. 4. 3. He may de- 
 mur to the sufficiency in law of parts of the indictment. 4. 
 He may plead one of the four special pleas in bar (former 
 acquittal, former conviction, former attainder, and pardon). 
 5. He may plead not guilty of the crime alleged. If the 
 prisoner plead not guilty, the fact of his guilt is forthwith 
 tried on examination of witnesses by the petty jury. The 
 nobility, it must be observed, are tried by their peers for 
 treason or felony, and misprision of these crimes, but in 
 other cases by a jury. The jurors are taken by the panel or 
 list returned by the sheriff; and criminal offences are tried 
 by the same common jurymen who try the issue of facts in 
 civil cases in which a special jury has not been demanded. 
 (See Jury.) The rules of evidence observed on the trial 
 are mostly the same with those which prevail in civil ac- 
 tions. (See Evidence.) One testimony, however, peculiar 
 to this branch of law, is that of an accomplice ; but it is 
 considered essential that his testimony should be confirmed 
 by other evidence. The verdict of the jury must in all ca- 
 ses be unanimous. After trial and conviction follows judg- 
 ment, unless arrested by motion for that purpose, which it 
 still may be on some exceptions to the indictment in point 
 of law. Benefit of clergy, as it was termed, was usually 
 prayed after conviction ; and was held, in cases where not 
 abolished by statute, to discharge the claimant from the 
 capital part of the punishment. But this ancient privilege, 
 which had long been founded on a mere fiction of law, waa 
 abolished by 7 G. 4, c. 36. Forfeiture of real property, ab- 
 solutely, is a consequence of judgment in cases of high trea- 
 son. The forfeiture of goods and chattels relates to, that is, 
 takes effect upon, conviction ; but fraudulent conveyances 
 without consideration, in order to escape the forfeiture by 
 the transfer of the property after or in contemplation of in- 
 dictment, are void as against the king. The sentence of 
 punishment pronounced or recorded on judgment is in some 
 cases fixed and stated, so that the judges cannot modify the 
 statutory penalty ; in others (as in all offences at common 
 law unregulated by statute), it is wholly or partly discre- 
 tionary. 
 
 A criminal judgment may be reversed by writ of error for 
 notorious mistakes and irregularities. A reprieve suspends 
 the execution of a judgment: a pardon avoids the judgment 
 altogether ; and a pardon may be conditional on the prison- 
 er's submitting to a substituted punishment, which is the 
 ordinary mode of mitigating the severity of the law in capi- 
 tal felonies. 
 
 INDIGE'STION. See Dyspepsia. 
 
 INDI'GETES. The title of a class of Latin divinities, 
 concerning the exact import of which there is some dispute ; 
 but it is probably most correctly referred to deified heroes, 
 who became tutelary deities after death, according to the 
 ancient mythology — as Romulus. The word is of very 
 doubtful etymology. 
 
 I'NDIGO. A blue substance much used as a dye-stuff. 
 The best indigo is obtained from an Asiatic and American 
 plant, the Indigofera. The plant is bruised and fermented 
 in vats of water, during which it deposits indigo in the form 
 of a blue powder, which is collected and dried, so as to form 
 the cubic cakes in which it usually occurs in commerce. 
 Indigo is quite insoluble in water; when heated it yields a 
 purple vapour, which condenses in the form of deep blue or 
 purple acicular crystals. When indigo is exposed to the ac- 
 tion of certain deoxidizing agents, it becomes soluble in al- 
 kaline solutions, losing its blue colour and forming a green 
 solution, from which it is precipitated by the acids white; 
 but it instantly becomes blue by exposure to air. This 
 white indigo has been termed indigogrnr, and indico ap- 
 pears to be its oxide. It is best obtained by mixing 3 parts 
 of finely powdered and pure indigo with 4 of green vitriol, 5 
 of slaked quicklime, and 100 of water, repeatedly shaking 
 the mixture. In about twenty-four hours the suprmntant 
 liquor, which is transparent, and of a green colour, is to be 
 decanted off, and poured into dilute muriatic acid, when the 
 
 599
 
 IND1G0LITE. 
 
 deoxidized indigo is thrown down ; but, in order to prevent 
 its absorbing oxygen and becoming blue, it must bo most 
 carefully excluded from the contact of air, which may be 
 effected by syphoning it off into the acid, collecting it in ves- 
 sels filled with hydrogen, and washing it With water depri 
 Ted of air and holding in solution a little sulphate of am- 
 monia. In this white state indigOgene absorbs between Jl 
 and 12 per cent, of oxygen to become blue indigo. It would 
 appear from Dumas's experiments that indigOgene is a com- 
 pound of 
 
 Atoms. Equivalents. 
 
 Carbon 45 = 271) 
 
 Hydrogen . . . . 15 = 15 
 
 Nitrogen 3 = 42 
 
 Oxygen 4 = 32 
 
 1 359 
 
 and that indigo consists of 1 atom of indlgogene = 359, and 
 2 of oxygen = 16. The chemical equivalent of indigo, 
 therefore, is 375. 
 
 When indigo is dissolved in concentrated sulphuric acid, 
 it forms a deep blue liquid, known to the dyers by the name 
 of Saxo7i blur. The great mart for indigo is Bengal, and the 
 other provinces subject to the presidency of that name, 
 from the 20th to the 30th deg. of N. lat. ; but it is also culti- 
 vated, though not nearly to the same extent, in the province 
 of Tinnevelly, under the Madras government in Java; in 
 Luconia, the chief of the Philippine Islands ; and in Guate- 
 mala and the Caraccas in Central America. The following 
 remarks, from the Commercial Dictionary, will exhibit the 
 history of this now indispensable commodity, and the diffi- 
 culties with which it had to contend before it obtained a 
 permanent footing in the commerce of Europe. " It appears 
 pretty certain that the culture of the indigo plant, and the 
 preparation of the drug, have been practised in India from a 
 very remote epoch. It has been questioned, indeed, wheth- 
 er the indicum mentioned by Pliny (Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv., 
 c. 6) was indigo; but, as it would seem, without any good 
 reason. Pliny states that it was brought from India ; that 
 when diluted it produced an admirable mixture of blue and 
 purple colours (in diluendo misturam purpura; emruleique 
 mirabi'rm reddit) ; and he gives tests by which the genuine 
 drug might be discriminated with sufficient precision. It is 
 true that Pliny is egregiously mistaken as to the mode in 
 which the drug was produced ; but there are many exam- 
 ples in modern as well as ancient times to prove that the 
 possession of an article brought from a distance implies no 
 accurate knowledge of its nature, or of the processes fol- 
 lowed in its manufacture. Beckmann (Hist, of Inventions, 
 vol. iv., art. 'Indigo') and Dr. Bancroft (Permanent Colours, 
 vol. i., p. 241-252) have each investigated this subject with 
 great learning and sagacity, and agree in the conclusion 
 that tli e indicum of Pliny was real indigo, and not, as has 
 been supposed, a drug prepared from the isatis or woad. 
 At all events, there can be no question that indigo was im- 
 ported into modern Europe, by way of Alexandria, previ- 
 ously to the discovery of the route to India by the Cape of 
 Good Hope. When first introduced, it was customary to 
 mix a little of it with woad to heighten and improve the 
 colour of the latter; but, by degrees, the quantity of indigo 
 was increased; and woad was, at last, entirely superseded. 
 It is worth while, however, to remark, that indigo did not 
 make its way into general use without encountering much 
 opposition. The growers of woad prevailed on several gov- 
 ernments to prohibit the use of indigo! In Germany, an 
 imperial edict was published in 1654, prohibiting the use of 
 indigo, or ' devil's dye,' and directing great care to be taken 
 to prevent its clandestine importation ; ' because,' says the 
 edict, 'the trade in woad is lessened, dyed articles injured, 
 and money carried out of the country !' The magistrates of 
 Nuremhurg went farther, and compelled the dyers of that 
 city to take an oath once a year not to use indigo, which 
 practice was continued down to a late period. In 1598, 
 upon an urgent representation of the states of Languedoc, 
 at the solicitation of the woad growers, the use of indigo 
 was prohibited in that province; and it was not till 17:)7 
 that the dyers of France were left at liberty to dye with 
 such articles, and in such a way, as they pleased." (Beck- 
 mann, vol. iv., p. 142.) 
 
 INDI'GOUTK. Blue tourmalin. 
 
 INDIGO'TIC ACID. An acid obtained by boiling indi- 
 go in nitric acid diluted with an equal weight of water. It 
 forms white crystals, very soluble in hot water, but very 
 sparingly soluble in cold water. It consists, in the lull parts. 
 of 4823 carbon, 2-70 hydrogen, 7-73 nitrogen, and tt'88 
 oxygen; or, according to Dumas, of I atom of indigog8ne= 
 359, and '.W atoms of oxygen = 240. 
 
 INDIVIDUAL. (Lat individuus.) In the Fine Arts, 
 that which is proper or peculiar to a single object of u 
 species. 
 
 INDIVISIBLES. Infinitely small quantities which ad 
 unt of no farther division. 
 600 
 
 INDUCTION. 
 
 In Algebra, the method of indivisibles is the name given 
 to a peculiar species of calculus, invented by Cavalieri, a 
 disciple of Galileo, and much used by mathematicians be- 
 fore the invention of the method of fluxions, or the differen- 
 tial and integral calculus; for which it prepared the way, 
 and of which, to a certain extent, it supplied the place. 
 
 In the method of indivisibles, lines are considered as 
 composed of an infinite number of points, surfaces as com- 
 posed of an infinite number of lines, and solids of an infi- 
 nite number of surfaces. These hypotheses are no doubt 
 inconsistent with the rigorous exactness of the ancient ge- 
 ometry, and, taken in the strict sense of the terms, absurd j 
 for lines, however they may he multiplied, can never com- 
 pose a surface, or anything else than linear magnitude; 
 nor can surfaces, however they may be .added together, 
 compose a solid, or anything but an area. Nevertheless, in- 
 accurate as these ideas are, the conclusions deduced from 
 them are strictly correct ; and they afford, in numerous ca- 
 ses, a means of obtaining readily and easily what could only 
 be found by a very long and troublesome process in follow- 
 ing the ancient and rigorous method of exhaustions. In 
 fact, the objections apply rather to the manner in which the 
 hypotheses are stated than to the method itself, which, in 
 reality, is merely a formula of abbreviation, extremely use- 
 ful as a means of avoiding the tediousness of the method of 
 exhaustion without diminishing in any way the accuracy of 
 the results. Its purpose is to give at once the result of an 
 infinite series of successive approximations; and, as is re- 
 marked by Professor Playfair, nothing, perhaps, more in- 
 genious, and certainly nothing more happy, ever was con- 
 trived, than to arrive at the conclusion of nil these approxi- 
 mations without going through the approximations them- 
 selves. 
 
 As an example — Let it be proposed to determine the vol- 
 ume of a cone. From A, the vertex of the cone, let a per- 
 pendicular, A II, be drawn to its base. 
 Conceive this perpendicular to be divi- 
 ded into an infinite number of equal 
 parts, and through each of the points of 
 division a plane to pass parallel to the 
 base of the cone ; according to the prin- 
 ciples of the method of indivisibles, 
 each of these planes, as b c, limited by 
 its intersection with the surface of the 
 cone, will be one of the elements of the 
 volume of the cone, and the whole vol- 
 ume will be the sum of all these elements. Now, by the 
 properties of the cone, these elements are to each other as 
 the squares of their distances from the vertex ; therefore, 
 taking A to represent the area of the base of the cone B C, 
 a the area of the plane b c, H the height A II, and A the 
 
 A 
 height A A, we have A : a : : H 2 : A 2 ; whence a = =j-A 2 . 
 
 Now if we make V=the sum of these elements, or the 
 volume of the cone, it is evident that we have V equal to 
 
 the constant jr, multiplied by the sum of the squares A2. 
 
 But the distances A increase as the series of natural num- 
 bers from nothing to H ; consequently, the quantities A 2 rep- 
 resent the squares of those numbers from to II . Now it 
 is known that the sum of the squares of the natural num- 
 bers, from to H 2 inclusive, is 
 
 2H3-f3H?-fH . 
 6 
 but in the present case, the number II being supposed infi- 
 nite, all the terms in the numerator after the first will be 
 infinitely small in comparison of the first, and ought there- 
 fore to be rejected ; whence the sum of all these squares is 
 reduced to i H3. Multiply, therefore, this value by the 
 
 constant =5 found above, we have for the volume of the 
 
 H 2 
 cone V = i A II ; that is to say, the volume of the cone is 
 equal to the product of its base by a third of its altitude. 
 
 In a similar manner, the arei sof innumerable curves, and 
 the cuhature of many solids, arc found without difficulty. 
 It was in this way that Torricclli, Or Roberval, found the 
 quadrature of the cycloid — a problem of great celebrity 
 among the early mathematicians. The work of Cavalieri, 
 Geometria Tndivisibilibus ctmtinuorum nova quadam rati- 
 onc promota. was published at Bologna in 1653; but he had 
 treated of the subject in a previous work, Ezercitationcs 
 OeometrietB Sex, published in 1(',!7. 
 
 INDU'CEMENT. In Law, a term used specially in va- 
 rious CBSes to signify a statement of facts alleged by way of 
 previous explanation or introduction to other material facts. 
 Averments which are mere inducement need not be proved 
 so precisely as others. 
 
 INDU CTION (Lat. in, and duco, / lead), the countcr- 
 proce-s hi scientific method to deduction, implies the raising 
 individuals into generals, and those into still higher gener-
 
 INDULGENCE. 
 
 ulities: deduction being the bringing down of universals to 
 lower genera or to individuals. Every deduction, therefore, 
 to be valid, must rest on a prior induction, which, in order 
 that we may obtain logical certainty, must be a complete in- 
 duction ; that is to say, must include all the individuals 
 which constitute the genus. This, it is evident, is impossi- 
 ble, so long as we assume the only power necessary to in- 
 duction to be the observation of particulars ; for these are 
 infinite in number : we can never be sure that we have ob- 
 served them all. We are therefore compelled, if we are to 
 admit the possibility of science properly so called, to allow 
 the necessity of some spontaneous action of the understand- 
 ing in every inductive process ; of a faculty, in short, which 
 takes occasion from experience to arrive at the knowledge 
 of truths not contained in that experience. Philosophers 
 differ widely in the language under which they convey 
 their belief of this truth. Had the thing itself, however, 
 been more distinctly bome in mind, we should have been 
 saved much useless obscurity ; in particular, we should 
 have escaped that altogether futile distinction made by lo- 
 gicians between "perfect and imperfect induction." All 
 the certainty that can be obtained in physics is a hypotheti- 
 cal certainty, founded on our belief that the course of na- 
 ture is uniform ; but as regards the form of our reasoning, 
 which is all that the logician contemplates, that remains 
 the same whether the certainty be real or assumed. (See 
 for valuable accounts of the Baconian system of induction, 
 Playfair's Introductory Essay to the Enc. Brit. ; and Hal- 
 lam on the Literature of Europe, vol. iii.) 
 
 Indu'ction. In Electricity, when one electrified sub- 
 stance is opposed to another, the latter acquires, under cer- 
 tain circumstances, an opposite electric state upon the surface 
 opposed to the inducing body, and is rendered electro-polar. 
 See Electricity. 
 
 INDU'LGENCE. (Lat.) A power claimed by the Roman 
 Catholic Church of granting to its contrite members remission 
 for a certain term, either on earth or in purgatory, of the 
 penalty incurred by their transgressions. The practice was 
 first instituted in the eleventh century by Popes Gregory VII., 
 Victor, and Urban II., as a recompense to those who em- 
 barked in the perilous enterprise of the Crusades ; but its 
 benefits in process of time extended to all who, either by 
 donations or other services, contributed to the wellbeing of 
 the church. It was the profligate sale of indulgences that 
 first excited Luther to commence his warfare against the see 
 of Rome ; and although the traffic in indulgences has been 
 reprobated by many councils, and some minor corruptions 
 have been partially reformed, still the Council of Trent 
 decreed the usefulness and validity of such instruments, and 
 left the whole control of their nature and manner of issuing 
 them entirely in the discretion of the pope for the time being. 
 (For an elaborate exposition of this subject, see the Biblio- 
 thenue S'acree, article " Indulgence ;" also Mosheim, iii., 83, 
 translation.) 
 
 INDUME'NTUM. (Lat. induo, / put on.) In Zoology, 
 the term is restricted in its signification to the plumage of 
 birds. This consists of the peculiar epidermic organs called 
 feathers and down, with sometimes a scanty admixture of 
 hair. (The description of the component parts of plumage 
 is given under the head of Feathers.) The plumage is 
 generally more than once changed before it attains that 
 state Which is characteristic of the fully mature bird. The 
 period during which these mutations are proceeding varies 
 from one to five years, and many birds rear a progeny before 
 they acquire the plumage of maturity. When the indu- 
 mentum of the male bird differs in colour from that of the 
 female, the young birds of both sexes resemble the latter in 
 their first plumage; but when both the adult male and fe- 
 male are of the same colour, the young have then a plumage 
 peculiar to themselves. In some species the adult birds 
 have a plumage during the breeding season decidedly differ- 
 ent in colour from that which they bear in winter: in these 
 cases the young birds differ in colour from both parents, and 
 have a plumage which is intermediate in its general tone to 
 that of the two periodical states of the parent birds, and 
 bearing indications of the colours to be afterwards attained 
 at either period. 
 
 The changes in the colour of the plumage of birds are 
 effected either by a total moult of the old and acquisition 
 of new feathers; or by a partial moult, and the admixture 
 of new feathers with a certain proportion of the previous 
 plumaee ; or on the bird's obtaining a certain number of 
 new feathers without shedding any of the old ones ; or, 
 lastly, by the ftillv-formed featlier itself becoming altered in 
 colour: the last two changes take place in the adult birds 
 at the approach of the breeding season. The change of 
 colour of a fully-developed featlier is produced either me- 
 chanically by the wearing away of the lighter-coloured tips, 
 which exposes the brighter tints of the plumage beneath, or 
 by some internal chemical or vital influence upon the colour- 
 ing matter of the feather itself: the latter change begins 
 at that part of the web nearest the body of the bird, and 
 
 INFANTICIDE. 
 
 gradually extends outwards till it pervades the wholn 
 feather. 
 
 INDU'SIAL LIMESTONE. A fresh-water limestone 
 found in Auvergne, abounding in the indusise or cases of the 
 larva; of Phrygania, great heaps of which have been in- 
 crusted by hard travertin and formed into rock. 
 
 INDU'SIUM. (Lat. induo.) A cup that surrounds the 
 stigma of Goodeniaceous and some other plants; it is also 
 the name of the membrane that covers the thecce in Dor- 
 siferous ferns. 
 
 INDU'VI^E. (Lat.) The withered remains of leaves 
 that, not being articulated with the stem, cannot fall off; the 
 part covered by them is said to be indue iatc. 
 
 LNEQUA'LITY, in Astronomy, is applied to any devia- 
 tion in the motion of u planet or satellite from its uniform 
 mean motion. 
 
 INE'RTES. (Lat. iners, slothful.) The name of an 
 *order of birds in the ornithological system of Temminck, 
 including the dodo and apteryx. 
 
 INE'RTIA. (Lat. iners.) This term is used to denote 
 the principle or law of the material world that all bodies are 
 absolutely passive or indilierent to a state of rest or motion, 
 and would continue forever at rest, or persevere in the 
 same uniform and rectilinear motion, unless disturbed by 
 the action of some extrinsic force. The ancients attributed 
 to matter a certain inaptitude, reluctance, or renitency to 
 motion ; but that a body in motion required the operation 
 of an extrinsic cause to bring it to rest was first discovered 
 by Galileo. Kepler, conceiving the disposition of a body to 
 maintain its motion as indicating an exertion of power, pre- 
 fixed ihi! word vis ; and the compound expression, vis iner- 
 tia, though less accurate, has been generally retained. Inertia 
 is one of the inherent properties of matter, and unceasingly 
 recalled to our observation in every incident of life. 
 
 INESCU'TCHEOX. In Heraldry, a species of ordi- 
 nary, being an escutcheon placed upon the fess point (see 
 Fess) ; and containing, it is said, the third part when 
 charged, the fifth when otherwise. All escutcheons borne 
 within escutcheons are by some heralds called by this 
 name. 
 
 IN ESSE. (Lat.) A term applied to things actually 
 existing. A difference is made by authors between in esse 
 and in posse : the latter being applied to things that are not, 
 but may be ; the former being said of things actually appa- 
 rent and visible. 
 
 I'NFANT. In Law, a person under twenty-one years of 
 age. He is not considered in law as having sufficient ability 
 to contract, and is protected from his own improvidence and 
 the artifices of designing persons by liis not being liable for 
 any engagements into which he may have entered, except 
 for necessaries suited to his condition in life. His contracts, 
 however, are not absolutely void, but only voidable ; and 
 though they cannot be enforced against him, yet he may, if 
 be do not choose to avoid them, enforce them against another, 
 and may always confirm them on the termination of his mi- 
 nority. He is, in general, responsible in damages for torts 
 committed by him, as for slander or assault. His responsi- 
 bility for crime varies according to his age and discretion : 
 under seven years of age he cannot be guilty of felony; 
 between seven and fourteen a presumption arises that he is 
 doli incapax ; but this presumption may be repelled by 
 proof that he could plainly distinguish between good and 
 evil, and he may then suffer death as a felon; and after 
 fourteen he is, in general, as amenable to punishment as a 
 person of full age. 
 
 His disabilities, many of which are in the nature of privi- 
 leges, and established for his protection, are numerous ; he 
 cannot fill any office connected with the administration of 
 justice, or sit in parliament ; he cannot be an executor, nor 
 appear in court by attorney. The consent of parents or 
 guardians, or of the Court of Ciiancery, is requisite to his 
 marriage. 
 
 I'NFANTE, INFANTA. The titles borne by the younger 
 sons and the daughters of a king of Spain, the eldest son 
 being styled Prince of Asturias. It is found in a docu- 
 ment of the year 999, applied to the sons of King Veremond 
 II. It appears, however, to have been anciently given 
 to all hidalgoes. (Quart. Rev., vol. lxii., p. 104, where 
 the reader is referred to the Ley de Partidas, 1, 2.) The 
 word "childe" was similarly used in England in the middle 
 ages. 
 
 INFA'NTICIDE, or CHILD-MURDER, by the law of 
 England is placed upon the same footing with other homi- 
 cide. By 9 G. 4, c. 41, s. 14, a woman indicted for murder 
 of her child may, if acquitted of the murder, be convicted 
 of the misdemeanour of secreting the body of the child to 
 conceal its birth. To administer poison, or use other means 
 to procure the miscarriage of a woman great with child, is 
 a capital felony by the same statute (c. 14). The exposure 
 of new-born infants, especially females, is a common prac- 
 tice among many savage nations at the present day, and 
 especially prevalent among the Chinese. According to Lord 
 Oo* 601
 
 INFANTRY. 
 
 Macartney, the number of infanticides committed In Pekin 
 ■lone exceeds 20,000 a year; but it is to be hoped that this 
 calculation is highly exaggerated. 
 
 I'NFANTRY. The general name for soldiers who serve 
 on foot. The term is in all probability derived from the 
 Italian word fante, signifying a child or young person ; ami 
 was originally conferred on the young Italian peasantry, 
 who served in the wars on foot, the nobles being usually 
 mounted. There are, however, various other accounts of 
 I i of the term. Among the ancient Greeks and 
 Romans, the infantry constituted the chief strength of an 
 army : ami. with the exception of that period in European 
 history during which the institutions of chivalry prevailed, 
 when" the tournament with its gay appendages engaged the 
 attention of all the powerful nobles and otherwise distm- 
 guished persons, who thus imparted to the cavalry a facti- 
 tious importance, it has generally been regarded as the 
 principal military arm. Since the institution of standing 
 armies this has been peculiarly the case. From the period 
 of the Conquest down to ihe reign of Henry VII., the in- 
 fantry of this country consisted of the interior vassals of the 
 feudal tenants, and from the cause above referred to was 
 neglected both in discipline and accoutrements; but the 
 connection of that monarch with Charles V. of Germany 
 and Francis I. of France, whose rivalry in arms had intro- 
 duced great improvements into this arm, was the means of 
 directing attention to the defects of the English infantry, 
 and paved the way for the introduction of that system of 
 discipline which after the lapse of three centuries has now 
 brought it to perfection. The British army comprises, ex- 
 clusively of the militia, artillery, engineers, and marines, 99 
 regiments of regular infantry, three regiments of foot guards ; 
 besides a rifle brigade, two West India regiments, and the 
 Ceylon rifle regiment. Sec Army, and the authorities there 
 referred to. 
 
 INFE'CTION. See Contagion. 
 
 LNFE'RLE. (Lat.) Sacrifices offered by the Greeks and 
 Romans to the Dii Manes, or the souls of deceased heroes, 
 or any person whose memory was held in veneration. These 
 sacrifices consisted of almost every kind of offering, and 
 were instituted on the ninth and thirtieth days after inter- 
 ment. They are supposed by some writers to have been 
 the origin of the exequies (quod vide) of the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church. 
 
 INFE'RIOR. A term given to a calyx that is distinct 
 
 the ovarium, as in silece ; or to an ovary that ad- 
 
 to the calyx, as in the myrtle. It is a bad expression, 
 
 though commonly employed, for which the French school 
 
 have substituted the words non-adherent and adherent. 
 
 I'NFERO-BRANCHIA'TA. (Lat. inferus, lower; Gr. 
 fiP-'YX'"' giUs.) An order of Gastropods, characterized by 
 the position of the gills, which are situated beneath the 
 produced margin of the mantle; they consist of two long 
 series of leaf- shaped vascular organs. This order compre- 
 hends, in the system of Cuvier, two genera, Phyllidia and 
 Diphyllidia. 
 
 I'NFIDEL. (Lat.) A term applied to such persons as 
 are not baptized, or do not believe in the Christian religion. 
 See Deist. 
 
 l'X FINITE. (Lat. infinitus, boundless.) In Geometry, 
 an infinite quantity is properly that which is greater than 
 any assignable magnitude ; and as no such quantities exist 
 in nature, it follows that an infinite quantity is merely an 
 abstraction of the mind, formed by excluding the idea of 
 limit or boundary. An infinitely small quantity is a quan- 
 tity considered as less than any assignable magnitude. There 
 Is, however, a peculiar signification attached to this expres 
 sion in mathematical language, which has frequently been 
 misunderstood. Infinitely small quantities arc not abso- 
 lutely zeros, ,,r even quantities actually less than certain 
 determinate magnitudes ; they are merely quantities which 
 the conditions of the proposed question permit to he re- 
 garded as variable until the calculation is entirely com- 
 pleted, and as diminishing continually until they become 
 as small as we please, without its being necessary to change 
 the values ofthose quantities of which the relation is sought. 
 
 It is in this circiimstnuci ly that the peculiar character 
 
 of what are called Infinitely small quantities consists, ami 
 not in the littleness which their denomination seems to 
 Imply, or in the absolute nullity which may be attributed 
 to them. 
 
 INFINITF'SIM \L. In Geometry and Analysis, an in 
 
 finitely small quantity; that is to say, a quantity which is 
 
 less than any assignable magnitude. The tiifiiu' 
 
 analysis is the art of employing infinitesimal quantities :is 
 
 auxiliaries, in order to discover the relations which exist 
 
 among the proposed quantities. It differs from the differ 
 
 cnlial calculus, or the method of fluxions, only in re<|iect of 
 its metaphysical principles; the analytical processes are 
 
 precisely the same in both. In the theory of infinitesimals, 
 a curve is regarded as a polygon of an infinite number of 
 
 sides, anv one of which represents the arc. Thus, let 1' U. 
 602 
 
 INFLEXION. 
 
 be one of those sides ; then P Q is the 
 hypothenuse of aright angled triangle, 
 or which the sides P R and R Q, are 
 the differentials of the co-ordinates A 
 M and M P, or of x and y. Hence, 
 making P Q, = d z, we have d i- = d 
 x- + d y~. On the same principle, if 
 a- denote the infinitely small element 
 of the area, or the space M P Q. N, 
 we shall have il w — y d i -f- A dy dx 
 (for M P 11 X = M P R N + P a R 
 = M P • M N -f £ U R • P R). But the second part of 
 this expression, namely, \dyd x, is an infinitesimal of the 
 second order, being the product of two infinitely small quan- 
 tities, and therefore infinitely smaller than y<lx, which is 
 an infinitesimal of the first order. The part hdyd x must 
 therefore be omitted, being of no value in comparison of the 
 quantity to which it is added, and we have consequently 
 ds — ydx. The elemental triangle P U 1! also shows at 
 once the difl'erential values of the trigonometrical lines. 
 Thus, supposing the curve A B to be a circle whose centre 
 is C, then the radius C P being unity, and the arc A P being 
 denoted by z, we have 1 : cos. r : : P Q. : Q, R : : d z : d sin. 
 : ; whence d sin. z = cos. z d z. Again, 1 : sin. :::PQ: 
 P R : : d z : — d cos. : ; therefore d cos. z = — sin. z d z. 
 
 The theory of infinitesimals affords very great facilities 
 in the application of the calculus to the higher geometry, 
 and especially in the doctrines of physics. Whatever view 
 may be taken of the principles, the results, if deduced by- 
 correct reasoning, are rigorously accurate; and the mathe- 
 matician will scarcely be restrained by metaphysical con- 
 siderations from attempting to reach bis object in the shortest 
 way, which, in very numerous applications of the calculus, 
 is by the infinitesimal method. 
 
 INFINITIVE MOOD. In Grammar, that inflexion of 
 the verb which expresses the conception merely, without 
 affirming or denying it, of any subject. Sec Grammar. 
 
 INFINITY. See Infinite. 
 
 IN1TRMARY. (Lat. infirmus, weak.) An hospital for 
 the reception of the sick poor, either supported by the pub- 
 lic, or endowed by benevolent persons with funds to defray 
 the necessary expense. Establishments bearing this name 
 are not uncommon in all considerable towns of the British 
 empire. See Hospital. 
 
 INFLAMMA'TION. In Pathology, this term is applied 
 to redness and heat of some part of the body, attended by 
 pain and swelling: the vascular action of the part is in 
 creased ; and if it does not subside or terminate in resolution 
 it produces three different effects, which, where they tak« 
 place healthily, follow each other in regular order. Thesi 
 are, 1, adhesion; 2, suppuration; :i, ulceration. 
 
 I'NFLEXED. (Lat. inflecto, / bend.) In Zoology, whei 
 a part is bent inwards. 
 
 INFLE'XION. In Grammar, in strictness of language 
 is any change which takes place in a word from a modifi 
 cation of its sense between the root and the termination 
 The inflexion must therefore not be confounded with th< 
 termination itself. Thus the syllable am is the root of at 
 the words employed in the conjugation of the Latin vert 
 amo, / love : in the imperfect tense, the inflexion is the syl 
 lable ab. The termination varies according to the person: 
 amabam, amabas, amabut. 
 
 Infle'xion. In Optics, the same as diffraction ; or that 
 property of light by reason of which, when it passes very 
 near the borders of an opaque body, it is turned from its 
 rectilinear course. See Diffraction and Lioiit. 
 
 Point of inflexion, in Geometry, is that point of a curve 
 line where the curvature in relation to the axis chances 
 from concave to convex, or from convex to concave. The 
 same point is also called the p< hit of contrary flexure ; and 
 if the direction changes suddenly with relation to the ordi- 
 nate as well as the absciss, the point becomes a point of re- 
 gression. Thus, let A P be a curve which from A to P is 
 concave towards the axis A B, and D 
 
 from P to I) convex towards the axis; 
 the point P, at which it passes from 
 concave to convex, is the poin' of inflex- 
 ion ; and if the curve at P is turned 
 backwards as p K, t li<- P is the point of 
 regression. The determination Of these 
 points is attended with no difficulty, 
 and the method of determining them 
 will be obvious from the following A u 
 
 considerations. When a curve is concave to the axis, the 
 differential of the ordinate (that of the absciss being su)>- 
 posed constant) decreases; consequently the second differ- 
 ential or d- y, is negative. On the contrary, when the curve 
 is convex to the axis, d y increases, and d" y is positive. At 
 the point, therefore, at which the curvature changes from 
 concave to convex, d 2 y changes its sign ; but us no variable 
 quantity can change its sign without becoming nothing or 
 Infinite in relation to its former magnitude, it follows that
 
 INFLORESCENCE. 
 
 at the point of inflexion, or regression, d 2 y = or infinity. 
 Hence to rind the point of inflexion in any given curve, it is 
 only necessary to find from the equation of the curve the 
 
 value of — ; this value, made equal to or infinity, will 
 d x- 
 
 give an equation hy which x is determined. This subject 
 is treated at length in the work of Cramer, Sur les Lignes 
 Courbes ; also in Lacroix's Caicul Dijfcrcntieljt Integral; 
 and noticed in almost every work on the Differential Cal- 
 culus. 
 
 INFLORE'SCENCE. (Lat. inflorescere, to flourish.) 
 The general arrangement of the flowers upon a stem or 
 branch. It consists of the following principal kinds : viz., 
 the spike, the raceme, the panicle, the capitulum, the um- 
 bel, and the cvme ; each of "which is mentioned in its place. 
 
 INFLUE'NZA. (As if produced by the influence of the 
 stars.) An epidemic catarrh, generally attended by lan- 
 guor, headache, quick pulse, and febrile symptoms, which 
 often run verv high, and assume a variety nf aspects, de- 
 pendant upon" the season and other causes. Vhe possibility 
 of the existence of some highly poisonous and irritating 
 vapour, though in very minute quantity, ns the exciting 
 cause of influenza, has been suggested by Dr. Prout. It 
 may possiblv be of volcanic origin ; and such a substance as 
 seleniuretted hydrogen, the effects of which, even in ex- 
 tremely minute quantity, are highly deleterious, might per- 
 haps account for some of the phenomena of this extraordi- 
 nary disease. 
 
 I.N FO'RMA PAU'PERIS. In Law, a person is said to 
 sue as a pauper, or in forma pauperis, when he takes ad- 
 vantage of the stat. 11 H. 7, c. 12, swearing himself not to 
 be worth five pounds ; in which case he is entitled to have 
 original writs and subpeenas gratis, and attorney and coun- 
 sel assigned him without fee, and is excused from paying 
 costs when plaintiff. By misconduct, and under certain 
 other circumstances, the party is dispaupered, and loses his 
 privilege. He is capable of recovering costs, although not 
 liable. 
 
 INFORMATION. In Law, an accusation exhibited 
 against a defendant for some criminal offence ; not on the 
 oath of jurors, but on the special allegation of an officer 
 empowered to exhibit it. Criminal informations are either 
 partly at the suit of the king and partly at that of a subject, 
 namely, such as are brought upon certain penal statutes at 
 the suit of common informers ; or wholly at the suit of the 
 king. These are of two sorts : 1, those filed ex officio by the 
 attorney-general, which is a proceeding resorted to in the 
 case of some particular misdemeanors of a public nature, 
 as libels and various other offences concerning the public 
 government; and 2, informations filed at the suit of the 
 master of the crown office, which lie for some gross and no- 
 torious misdemeanors, as riots, batteries, libels, &c, not 
 immediately tending to disturb the government. 
 
 INFO'RMED STARS (Informes Stella;), in Astronomy, 
 are stars not included in any of the constellations. See 
 Constellation. 
 
 I'NFRALAPSA'RIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, a 
 sect of Presbyterians who maintain that God has created 
 a certain number of human beings only to be damned, with- 
 out allowing them the opportunity of salvation even if they 
 chose to embrace it. They are thus designated because 
 they hold that the decrees of God were formed infra lapsum, 
 after his knowledge of the fall, and in consequence of it. 
 
 See Sr/PRALAPSARIANS. 
 
 INFUSO'RIA. (Lat. infundo, I pour in.) A name ap- 
 plied by Otho Fr. Midler to an assemblage of microscopic 
 animalcules which are for the most part developed in in- 
 fusions of decayed animal and vegetable substances. Some 
 of these minute organized beings were known to Linnteus, 
 and were placed by him at the end of the class Vermes, in a 
 genus which he denominated Chaos. Muller, who made 
 the Infusoria a subject of special study, discovered numer- 
 ous distinct genera and species, which he named and classi- 
 fied according to their outward form. Gmelin and Lamarck 
 introduced Midler's discoveries and classification of the In- 
 fusoria into their systems without any particular modifica- 
 tion. Cuvier, in 1829, observes, that " Naturalists usually 
 close the catalogue of the animal kingdom with beings so 
 extremely minute as to be invisible to the naked eye, and 
 which have been discovered only since the invention of the 
 microscope has unveiled to us, as it were, a new world. 
 Most of them present a gelatinous body of the greatest sim- 
 plicity, and for these this is undoubtedly the situation ; but 
 authors have placed among the Infusoria animals apparent- 
 ly much more complicated, and which only resemble them 
 in their minuteness and the dwelling in which they are 
 usually found." These higher-organized Infusoria were 
 placed by Cuvier at the head of the class in a distinct order, 
 under the name of Rotiferes or Rotifera, a name which has 
 subsequently been retained. Cuvier attributes to these ani- 
 malcules a mouth, a stomach, an intestine, and an anus ; 
 
 INHIBITION. 
 
 and notices the prominences on the anterior part of the 
 body, which some observers had regarded as eyes. The 
 anterior lobatcd organ and its vibratory denticulalions, the 
 mec wive action of which gives to the organ the appearance 
 of a swiftly rotating wheel, forms the main external charac- 
 ter of the order. Cuvier includes in the order Rotatoria the 
 genera Furcularia. Lam. ; Vaginicola, Lam. ; Tubicolaria, 
 Lam.; Brachionu.*, Muller. 
 
 The investigations of Ehrenbcrg, with the aid of a supe- 
 rior microscope to that of his predecessors, have brought to 
 light many additional organs and complexities of structure 
 in the Rotifera, besides several genera and species before 
 unknown; and since these researches naturalists have gen- 
 erally regarded the Rotifera as a distinct class of Invertt- 
 brata, which Professor Grant has placed in the Articulate 
 sub-kingdom, and Professor Owen in the Nematoneura, or 
 higher division of Cuvier's Radiata. For the character, 
 subdivision, and organization of the Rotifera, see that word. 
 The second order of Infusoria in Cuvier's system is de- 
 nominated Homogenea; a term sufficiently expressive of 
 the inadequate ideas current at that recent period respecting 
 their organization. Cuvier says, " The body of the Homo- 
 genea presents neither viscera nor other complication, and 
 is frequently destitute of even the appearance of a mouth." 
 Ehrenbcrg has since shown that they have not only really a 
 mouth, but that the greater part of the Homogenea of Cuvier 
 possess a digestive cavity complicated with many eweal 
 pouches or stomachs; and accordingly propose to name the 
 order Polygastrica. Cuvier includes in his second order of 
 Infusoria the genera Urceolaria, Lam. ; Trichoda. Lc-vcophra. 
 Kcrona.Himantopus, Cercaria, Furcocerca, Vibrio, Proteus, 
 Volvox, and Monas. As the polygastric structure has not 
 been detected in any species of Cercaria, but as, on the con- 
 trary, some species, as Cercaria lemnce, possess a simple ali- 
 mentary canal, this genus, together with the cercarial Sper- 
 matozoa, and the Vibrionida>, which all possess a straight 
 and simple alimentary canal, have been removed from the 
 Infusoria, and classed by Mr. Owen with the Entozoa. 
 
 Thus the animals of infusions, although of comparatively 
 simple organization, possessing neither a heart nor respira- 
 tory organs, vet manifest at least three distinct types of 
 structure, and are referable to three different classes of 
 animals. 
 
 Many genera of Infusoria are protected by an external 
 siliceous case. The observations which Ehrenberg had 
 made on the modifications of the form and surface of these 
 cases of the existing Infusoria led to his capital discovery 
 of their remains in a fossilized state. The mineral called Polir- 
 schcifer, used for a long period in the arts for polishing metals 
 and other substances, was first discovered to be composed of 
 myriads of the microscopic flinty cases of polygastric Infu- 
 soria belonging to the genera Grilloncella, Bacillaria, Dia- 
 torna^ &c. Whole strata of considerable extent and thick- 
 ness have since been found to consist almost exclusively of 
 the fossil remains of Infusoria. 
 
 INGLU'VIES. (Lat. a crop.) The crop or dilatation of 
 the oesophagus, in which the food is accumulated and macer- 
 ated, but not digested. It is largest in the Gallinaceous birds 
 and pigeons, but exists in certain birds of prey ; also in the 
 flamingo, and others. 
 
 I'NGOT. A word of doubtful origin, signifying chiefly the 
 small masses or bars of gold and silver intended either for 
 coining or exportation. 
 INGRO'SSING. See Engrossing, Forestalling. 
 INHA'BITANT. In Law, a word used in various tech- 
 nical senses. Thus a person having lands or tenements in 
 his own possession is an inhabitant for the purpose of repair 
 of bridges, wherever he may reside ; but for purposes of per- 
 sonal services the "inhabitant" must necessarily be a resi- 
 dent. For the purpose of the poor rate the word means a 
 person residing permanently and sleeping in the parish. 
 Where the right of voting is in "inhabitant" householders, a 
 variety of divisions in committees of the House of Commons, 
 in some instances conflicting, have taken place on the point. 
 But it appears to be generally understood that an inhabitant 
 is one who keeps a house in 'his own occupation, either per- 
 sonally residing in it, or having it occupied by servants and 
 ready for his residence ; having what is termed the " animus 
 levertendi." or intention to return. 
 
 INHARMO'NICAL RELATION. In Music, that in 
 which a dissonant sound is introduced. 
 
 INHERITANCE. In Law, an estate or real property 
 which a man has to himself and his heirs, or the heirs of his 
 bodv. &c. is termed a freehold of inheritance. 
 
 INHIBITION. (Lat. inhibeo, 7 restrain.) In Scottish 
 Law, a species of diligence ; i. e. process. It is a writ in the 
 kin»'s name, passing under the signet, whereby a debtor v. 
 prohibited from contracting any debt which may become a 
 burden on his heritable property in competition with the 
 creditor at whose instance the inhibition is taken out; and 
 from granting any deed of alienation, &c, to the prejudice 
 of the creditor. The heir of the debtor is not aflected by the
 
 INIS. 
 
 inhibition of his ancestor. Other species of inhibition are, 
 that of a lni-l>.-ii!<l against his wife, intended to signify that 
 her superintendence over domestic affairs has ceased, on 
 which his liability for domestic expenditure contracted by 
 iii r also ceases : and inhibition of tithes or sends. 
 
 Inhibition, la Ecclesiastical Law, a writ commonly 
 issuing out of a higher court Christian, to forbid an inferior 
 judge from further proceeding in a cause before him; being 
 analogous Co a prohibition issuing out of one of the Kind's 
 superior courts of justice. 
 
 INIS. An Irish word signifying island, used as a prefix to 
 
 the names of some islands on the coast of Ireland, and of 
 several towns situated on lakes or rivers in the same country ; 
 as Inisfallen, [niskilling, ice. 
 
 INITIATIVE. (Lot milium, a beginning.) la Politics. 
 In legislative assemblies constituted so as to comprise more 
 than one chamber, or more than one distinct and co-ordinate 
 power, that branch of the legislature to which belongs of 
 
 light the power to propose measures Of a particular class is 
 said to have the initiative with respect to those measures. 
 Thus in England till propositions for taxing the subject, 
 
 whether directly or indirectly, must begin In the Commons; 
 
 a usage which has been adopted in most modern constitu- 
 tions. On Che other hand, there are some private bills which 
 by custom originaie m the Lords; and one bill, that, namely, 
 for a general pardon, is proposed in the first instance by the 
 crown. In Prance, by the charter of 183!), the three branches 
 of the constitution enjoy like privileges in proposing laws; 
 but custom generally concedes the initiative to Che Chamber 
 of Peers, excepting in the case of money bills, which must, 
 as in England, originate with the Chamber of Deputies. 
 
 INJUNCTION, in Law, is 8 writ which issues under the 
 seal of a court of equity. It is granted in various cases, 
 where the court thinks fit to interfere on equitable grounds 
 with the acts of parties, or with the course of other jurisdic- 
 tions. Thus injunctions are granted under certain circum- 
 stances to stay proceedings at common law ; to restrain the 
 negotiation of notes and other securities; to restrain parties 
 from the commission of waste: to preserve property \\ inch 
 is in course of litigation, &c. Injunctions are also granted 
 lo direct parties to quit possession of hinds, fcc, alter a de- 
 cree. Disobedience lo an injunction is punishable as u con- 
 tempt of the court from which it issues. 
 
 INK. (Germ, dinte.) The colouring matter of common 
 writing ink is the tamiogallate of iron, which is suspended 
 in water by gum arabic: a little logwood is general!} added 
 to deepen and improve the colour. A good writing ink is 
 made as follows — Take six ounces of finely bruised galls, 
 four ounces of gum arabic, four onces of green vitriol, and 
 90X pints of soft water. Boil the galls in the water : then 
 add the other ingredients; and mixing the whole well to- 
 gether, keep it in a well-corked bottle, occasionally shaking 
 
 it. In two months' lime carefully pour oil' the ink from the 
 
 residue into gloss bottles, which should be well-corked ; a 
 
 few cloves ,ir a drop or two of creosote put into each bottle 
 prevents moulding. The addition of a little sugar to ink gives 
 it a gloss, and prevents its diving rapidly and perfectly; so 
 that it is generally used in what is called copying ink, from 
 the writing with which copies may be taken by pressure. 
 Indian ink is a compound of very tine lampblack and size. 
 It cannot, like common writing ink, be removed by acids ; 
 but as it does not bite or sink into the paper, it may generally 
 be wiped off with a moist sponge. Printing ink is made 
 with boiled linseed or nut oil and lampblack. Red ink is a 
 solution of alum coloured with brazil wood. Boil two ounces 
 of brazil wn.nl, half an ounce of gum arabic, and a quarter 
 of an ounce of alum in a pint of water for ten minutes; 
 rtrain the decoction, and set it aside to clear. Sympathetic 
 inks are compounds which when written with will remain 
 
 invisible till heated: solutions of cobalt thus become bine 
 or green, lemon juice turns brown, and averj dilute sulphuric 
 acid blackens. Marking ink is made as follows : — Dissolve 
 one drachm of lunar caustic (fused nitrate of silver) in half 
 mi ounce of water previously thickened with a little sap 
 
 preen: write with this upon the linen previously prepared 
 for its reception by tin- application of a weak solution of 
 carbonate of soda Chickened with a little gum arabic, aid 
 Buffered Co dry upon the linen. 
 
 INLI'D.WS, Inlidce. The name of a family of Myriapods, 
 
 hav'niL' the inlus or gally-wonn as die type. 
 
 I'NNOCENTS' DAY. in the Calendar, a festival cele 
 prated on the 28th of December, in commemoration of the 
 infants murdered by Herod. 
 
 INNO'MINATUM. (Lot. in, priv., and nomen, a nnmr ; 
 
 without a name.) Each of the lower bones of the pelvis is 
 called ns innominatum ; because the three bones of wbicb 
 itconsi-t-: originally, namely, the ischium, the ilium, and the 
 pubis, or the hi] i bone, Che haunch bone, ami che share inn, 
 grow afterwards together so as to form what appears to be a 
 
 Single bene, which is thUS left nameless. 
 
 INNS OF COURT, four corporate societies established 
 u. London. Every candidate for the rank of barrister al- 
 004 
 
 INQUISITION. 
 
 law is obliged to be admitted a member of one of these 
 societies, and submit to its regulations as a student. These 
 are — 1, the Inner Temple, to which three' Inns of Chancery 
 (Clifford's, Lyon's, and Clement's) belong; -J, the Middle 
 Temple, With Strand Inn (no longer existing) and New Inn 
 dependent on il ; 3. Lincoln's Inn (with I'urnival's and 
 Thavie's Inns), Gray's Inn (with Staple's inn and Bernard's 
 Inn). 
 
 INNUE'NDO. (Lat. innuo, / nod or beckon.) In Law. 
 In the old Latin forms of pleadings this term was used as 
 a word of reference, when in relating the words of another 
 party it was nccessarj to describe more particularly the 
 person or thing meant by that party; as, for instance, in a 
 declaration in action for slander, which is the most ordinary 
 modern case of the employment of the innuendo, the plain- 
 tiff avers that the defendant said that "he," innuendo 
 (meaning the plaintiff), wasa thief, &e. Hence the word 
 •' an innuendo" in ordinary language to signify a covert 
 allusion. 
 
 INO't I'LATION. The insertion of poisonous or infec 
 iioiis matter into any part of the body ; bit! in this country 
 the phrase is commonly used to signify the insertion of the 
 virus of the common smallpox, the insertion of the virus of 
 the cowpox being called lure i nut ion. Inoculation was in- 
 troduced into general notice' i>\ Lady Mary Wortley Mon- 
 tague, whose BOn was innOCUlaCed at Constantinople about 
 the year 1721, and whose daughter was the first who under- 
 went the operation in this country. A milder disease la 
 tints propagated than when it is received in the natural 
 way. Inoculation is performed by inserting the point of a 
 lancet tinned with proper matter just under the cuticle, ami 
 afterwards gently rubbing the armed part over the pricked 
 cuticle. Sei Vac i isa'i ION. 
 
 INO'CULATION or GRASS LANDS. The ordinary 
 method of turning a ploughed field into a meadow or pasture 
 is by sowing it with grass seeds ; imt as this part of agricul- 
 ture has hitherto been very ill understood, and the resulC 
 of sowing grass seeds has frequently no! answered the ex- 
 pectations of the sower, the practice of what is Called inocu- 
 lation has of hue years been invented, though practised in 
 but very few instances. This consists in preparing the soil 
 as if it were to be sown down with grass seeds ; but instead 
 of sowing these on the surface, there are distributed over it 
 small fragments of turf taken from the best old pasture 
 hind which the neighbourhood affords. These fragments 
 may be about two or three inches square, and they are laid 
 down on the surface at the rate of about one in every square 
 foot. After they ale deposited, grOSS seeds mixed With clover 
 
 tire scattered over the surface, and the field is rolled to press 
 down the turf and press in the seeds. In consequence of 
 the fragments of turf being placed on fresh soil, the u' 
 and other vegetables which they contain, if of the creeping 
 kind, grow luxuriantly, and their stems cover the intervals 
 between the fragments ; but if the grasses which the frag- 
 ments contain should not be of the creeping or stoloniferous 
 kinds, it is evident that the intervals between them must 
 chiefly depend for their grassy surface on the seeds which 
 have been sown. On the w hole, the inoculation of grass 
 land may be considered as a needlessly expensive process, 
 altogether unscientific, and unsuitable to the present ad- 
 vanced state of agriculture. 
 
 INO'RDLVATi: PROPORTION, in Geometry, is a pro- 
 portion in which the terms are placed out of the regular 
 order. 
 
 INOSCULATION. (Lat inosculatio.) The union of 
 vessels by conjunction of their extremities. This term 
 is sometimes limited to the communication of trunks or 
 large vessels with each other; and where the ramifications 
 which unite ore small or capillary, the vessels are said to 
 anastomose. 
 
 I'NQUEST. In Law, an inquisition of jurors in causes, 
 civil or criminal, when the facts are referred to their trial, 
 being empanelled by the sheriff for that purpose. Also the 
 persons to whom the trial of fact in any question, civil or 
 criminal, is committed. An inquest of otlice, or inquisition, 
 is on inquiry made by the king's officer, sheriff, coroner, etc., 
 by virtue of their office, or by writ sent them for that pur- 
 pose, or by persons acting under a special commission, to 
 inquire concerning any matter which entitles the king to the 
 
 DOE i ion ol lauds and tenements, or goods and chattels; 
 
 as forfeiture for offences, wreck, treasure-trove, &c. The 
 
 I. inn's title in i i.'il commences on office found. 
 
 INQUISITION. The title given to a court turned with 
 
 extensive criminal authority in various European countries; 
 especiall] instituted to inquire into offences against the estab- 
 lished religion. The first of these tribunals of faith was that 
 e tablisbi 3 In Che south of France after the conquest of the 
 AJbigeios in Che 13th century. They were established in 
 Spain in the middle of the same century, nol without much 
 
 Opposition On the |>:> rt of the bishops and secular clergy, w ho, 
 in Castile, long maintained their exclusive spiritual jurisdic- 
 tion. In 1840, the supreme general inquisition was founded
 
 INSANITY. 
 
 at Seville by Queen Isabella, with the aid of the Cardinal 
 Pedro Gonzalez de Mendoza. This great court, commonly 
 known by the name of the Holy Office, had far more exten- 
 sive authority than those local tribunals of the same name 
 which had previously been established. Thomas de Tor- 
 quemada, prior of a Dominican convent, was its first presi- 
 dent, with the title of inquisitor-general. The process of 
 the inquisition was widely different from that of all other 
 courts of justice. The kings named the grand inquisitor, 
 who appointed his assessors, some of whom were secular, 
 but the greater part regular ecclesiastics: the counsellors 
 were six or seven in number, of whom one, by the ordnance 
 of Philip III., must be a Dominican. A party who was 
 brought under cognizance of the court by secret accusation 
 was immediately seized by its officers (termed officials or 
 familiars), and his property put under sequestration. If the 
 accused was fortunate enough to absent himself, and did not 
 appear at the third summons, he was excommunicated, and 
 in some cases burnt in effigy. The subsequent process of 
 the court by imprisonment, secret examination, and torture, 
 is well known. Penitent offenders were subjected to im- 
 prisonment, scourging, confiscation, and legal infamy. Those 
 convicted, who were sentenced to death, were burnt at the 
 Autos da Fe, which usually take place on some Sunday 
 between Trinity and Advent. During the 18th century, the 
 chief officers of the inquisition were for the most part men 
 of intelligence and moderation, and its proceedings chieffy 
 directed against parties guilty of such offences against de- 
 cency or religion as would have been punishable in most 
 European countries, although not by an equally arbitrary 
 process. But there were exceptions to this general charac- 
 ter; and by the provincial courts of inquisition, of which 
 Spain contained sixteen, some acts of barbarous injustice 
 were committed. According to a common calculation, 340,000 
 persons had been punished by the inquisition from 1481 to 
 1808, of whom nearly 32,000 were burnt. In that year it 
 was abolished by Napoleon. It was afterwards re-estab- 
 lished by Ferdinand III. in 1814; but having been again 
 abrogated by the Cortes in 1820, it has not been since recon- 
 stituted. In Portugal, the supreme court of inquisition was 
 established in 1557. Its history in many respects resembles 
 that of the Spanish court; but in the eighteenth century its 
 power was greatly curtailed by ordinances which required a 
 certain degree of publicity in its procedure. It was abolish- 
 ed by the Cortes of 1821. There were courts of inquisition 
 in various southern provinces of France, the principal that 
 of Languedoc, established at Toulouse, which was first 
 founded after the war against the Albigeois ; but their power 
 was limited not long after their creation, and fell into desue- 
 tude long before their final abolition. In several Italian 
 states courts of inquisition have been established ; but the 
 institution has never taken much hold on the sentiments or 
 habits of the people of that country. It was restored at 
 Rome by Pius VII. after the expulsion of the French, but 
 had jurisdiction only over the faith and conduct of the cler- 
 gy. Several well-known histories of the inquisition have 
 been published, particularly that of Limbosch. The reader 
 may also consult Jlloskeim, vol. iii. ; PrescotVs Ferdinand 
 and Isabella ; Quart. Rev., vol. Iv. ; L/orentc's Hist, of the 
 Inquisition. 
 
 INSANITY. See Lunacy, Madness. 
 
 INSCRI'BED FI'GURE. In Geometry, a circle is said 
 to be inscribed in a triangle when it touches each of the 
 three sides of the triangle. In like manner, it is inscribed in 
 a polygon when it touches all the sides of the polygon. A 
 triangle or polygon is inscribed in a circle when each of the 
 angles of the figure stands on the periphery of the circle. It 
 is a very obvious but remarkable property, that the area of 
 a triangle is equal to the product of the radius of the inscri- 
 bed circle into half the perimeter of the triangle. 
 
 INSCRI'PTION. In Numismatics, words placed in the 
 middle of the reverse side of some coins and medals. See 
 Numismatics. 
 
 INSECTA. See Entomology. 
 
 INSECTI'VORA. (Lat. insecta, insects, and voro, I de- 
 vour.) The name of a tribe of Zoophagous Mammals, com- 
 prehending those which live wholly or chiefly on insects ; 
 also of an order of birds in the ornithological system of Tem- 
 minck. 
 
 INSE'RTED COLUMN. In Architecture, one standing, 
 or appearing to stand, partly in a wall. 
 
 INSE'RTION is a term employed in Botany to denote the 
 manner in which one part grows out of another. It was in- 
 vented at a time when the laws of vegetable structure were 
 unknown, and it was supposed that bodies that really grow 
 from each other were inserted into each other. Thus sta- 
 mens said to be inserted into a calyx are in reality stamens 
 that adhere to the sides of a calyx. 
 
 INSESSO'RES. (Lat. insideo, / sit.) A name by which 
 Mr. Vigors has designated his second order of birds, inclu- 
 ding the Passeres and Scansores of Cuvier; and which C. 
 Bonaparte applies to a primary division of birds in his Sys- 
 
 INSTITUTIONS. 
 
 tema Vertebrctorum, including the Passeres, Sca7isores, and 
 Jlccipitres of Cuvier. As the term signifies those birda 
 which perch, it is applicable to numerous species belonging 
 to Linnsan and Cuvierian orders not yet included by later 
 innovations under the term of Perchers or Inscssores. 
 
 INSOLA'TION, or SCORCHING. A local disease of 
 plants, attributable to exposure to too bright a light, which 
 causes an excessively rapid evaporation, the effect of which 
 is to kill the part in which the evaporation takes place. 
 
 INSO'LVENCY. In Law, the inability of an individual 
 not engaged in trade to pay his debts. The insolvency of a 
 trader is called Bankruptcy, which see. Several statutes 
 have been enacted successively for the relief of insolvent 
 debtors, by releasing them from imprisonment on surren- 
 der of the whole of their effects to their creditors. Their 
 provisions were consolidated in the last general insolvent 
 act (7 Geor. 4, c. 57), and are now materially modified 
 by the Act for abolishing Arrest on Mesne Process (1 & 
 2 Victor., c. 110). The Insolvent Court consists of four 
 commissioners and other officers ; and is a court of record, 
 with power to examine witnesses, compel attendance, &c. 
 The courthouse is in London (Portugal-street) ; but single 
 commissioners make circuits three times a year through 
 England and Wales. The court proceeds upon petition 
 from prisoners in actual custody ; or, if the prisoner do not 
 pray, on petition from a creditor. An order is then made 
 vesting the prisoner's estate and effects in the provisional 
 assignee of the court ; which, however, is void if the petition 
 be dismissed. The duty of the provisional assignee is to re- 
 ceive and dispose of the property, and account for the prod- 
 uce to the court. Other assignees are afterwards appointed 
 by the court, in whom the property vests, who must former- 
 ly have been creditors ; but this appears to be no longer ne- 
 cessary. The insolvent delivers into court a schedule, 
 which must contain a full account of his property. The pe- 
 tition is then heard ; and at the hearing, creditors may oppose 
 the discharge and compel a full investigation of the prison- 
 er's accounts. The court may order the discharge either 
 forthwith, or may remand him for a discretionary period, 
 but not exceeding three years, if any frauds or malpractices 
 on his part with reference to the state of his affairs should 
 be detected. The insolvent then executes a warrant of at- 
 torney for the amount of his debts which the distribution of 
 his property is inadequate to cover, and other modes are 
 provided by which his future property may be made availa- 
 ble for his creditors. It has long been proposed, and is now 
 under contemplation (1840), to unite the bankrupt and insol- 
 vent courts. 
 
 LNSPIRA'TION. (Lat. in, and spiro, / breathe.) The 
 act of drawing air into the lungs. See Respiration. 
 
 Inspira'tion. See. Revelation. 
 
 INSTALLATION. (Modern Lat. in, and stallum, a 
 seat.) A name applied to the ceremony of instating persons 
 in honours or dignities; as a knight of the Garter in the 
 chapel of St. George at Windsor; a chancellor in a univer- 
 sity; or a dean, prebendary, or other ecclesiastical dignitary 
 in the stall of the cathedral to which he belongs. 
 
 I'NSTANT. (Lat.) A part of time or duration in which 
 no succession is perceived. There are three kinds of in- 
 stants distinguished by the schoolmen ; a temporary, a natu- 
 ral, and a rational instant. The first is a part of time imme- 
 diately preceding another; the second is what is otherwise 
 termed a priority of nature, which obtains in things subordi- 
 nated in acting, as first and second causes, or causes and 
 their effects; and the third is not any real instant, but a 
 point which the understanding conceives to have existed 
 before some other instant, founded on the nature of the 
 tilings which cause it to be conceived. 
 
 INSTA'NTIjE CRUCIS. In Philosophy, crucial instan- 
 ces or examples ; a phrase invented by the fancy of Bacon. 
 The use of crucial examples or experiments is to facilitate 
 the process of induction. For example, A and B, two differ- 
 ent causes, may produce a certain number of similar effects; 
 find some effect which the one produces and the other does 
 not, and this will point out, as the direction-post at a point 
 where two highways meet (crux), which of these causes 
 may have been in operation in any particular instance. 
 Thus, for example, many of the symptoms of the Oriental 
 plague are common to other diseases ; but when the obser- 
 ver discovers the peculiar bubo or boil of the complaint, he 
 has an instantia crucis, which directs him immediately to 
 its discovery. (See, among other commentaries on Bacon, 
 Plaufnir's Introduction, and Ed. Rev., vol. xxxvi.) 
 
 INSTINCT. See Reason. 
 
 I'NSTITLTTE. The principal philosophical and literary 
 society of France, formed in 1795 by the union of four acad- 
 emies'. (.Sec Academy.) Institute is applied also to sev- 
 eral works imbodying the principles of Roman law ; of 
 these the chief are those of Justinian and Gaius. 
 
 INSTITU'TIONS. (Lat. instituo, / instruct.) In Liter- 
 ature, a term denoting originally a svstem of the elements or 
 rules of any art or science, but signifying in a more compre- 
 
 605
 
 INSTRUMENT, MUSICAL. 
 
 henstve sense all associations formed for the improvement 
 of society at large, ot the parties immediately concerned, by 
 whatever name they arc designated, t>r to whatever object 
 the labours of the members are directed. institutions form- 
 ed for tli'' promotion of learning or science have been dis- 
 tinguished by the name of academies or societies, ami ass.v- 
 
 etations constituted tor commercial purposes are usually 
 
 styled companies ; while those formed tor ether purposes 
 have various designations, or have some epithet prefixed 
 
 descriptive of their character. 
 
 I'NSTRUMENT, MUSICAL. A musical instrument is 
 one for the production of musical sounds, either by percus- 
 sion, wind, the drawing a how across strings, or the produc- 
 tion of sound from the vibration of the strings by pulling or 
 pinching them transversely, as in the harp or guitar. 
 
 I'NSULATED. (Lot insula, nti island.) In Architec- 
 ture, a term implying that the building to which it is applied 
 is detached from any other. Thus a church is said to he 
 insulated when it adjoins no other building; so also a col- 
 umn is said to he insulated when standing cut free from a 
 wall : hence the columns of peripteral temples are insulated. 
 
 INSULA'TIONT. A body is said to be insulated which, 
 containing a quantity of free caloric, or the electric fluid, is 
 surrounded by non-conductors, and the communication with 
 other bodies thereby cut oil'. See Electricity. 
 
 INSU'RANCE. A contract of indemnity, whereby the 
 insurer, in consideration of a certain premium, undertakes 
 to indemnify the insured against loss arising by the occur- 
 ring of a contingent event ; such as the destruction id' houses 
 by tire, the loss of ships at sea, the failure of crops through 
 the inclemency of the seasons. 
 
 Insurance is sometimes synonymously used with assu- 
 i hi the latter term is now more frequently applied 
 to one particular class of contracts, namely, those which 
 depend on the continuance or failure of human life, while 
 insurance is applied to risks of all other kinds. For the ex- 
 planation of the principles on which life assurances are cal- 
 culated, see Assikance. 
 
 In all cases of insurance, the first thing to he determined 
 is the degree of probability that the event under considera- 
 tion will take place: but it seldom if ever happens that this 
 is known with any moderate degree of precision. Even in 
 the commonest cases, it is perhaps altogether impossible to 
 procure the data necessary for the accurate determination 
 of this element Suppose, for example, an insurance is to 
 be effected on a ship bound on a voyage to China: in what 
 manner is the probability of its reaching its destination in 
 safety to he determined ? Even if an accurate account had 
 been kept of all the voyages made during a century, and 
 the number of successful as well as the number of unsue- 
 ■ < ful ones were precisely known, the data would still he 
 very insufficient for determining the risk of the loss of any 
 individual vessel. The loss of a ship is not a simple event 
 like the turning up of a number on the face of a die. The 
 greater or less prevalence of hurricanes at the season of the 
 year when the voyage is to be made; the strength of the 
 ship and sufficiency i i its erpiipment; the skill of the com- 
 monder, and the character and discipline of the crew — are 
 all elements materially affecting the risk, but which it is 
 impossible to reduce to numerical values and precise calcu- 
 lation. All, therefore, that can he done is to adopt certain 
 mean or average values, deduced from observations of the 
 fate of vessels in circumstances not indeed precisely the 
 same, but having some degree of similarity. To the insurer, 
 if he sufficiently multiplies his adventures, the result will 
 t»o the some in the long run as If he had a more accurate 
 appreciation of the separate influences of which the proba- 
 bility of the safe arrival of a vessel at a given port is com- 
 posed ; but the evil which results from this deficient knowl- 
 edge of facts is. that the owner of a good ship, by paying the 
 same premium for insurance as the owner of a bail one. is 
 
 charged for indemnification against a risk which be really 
 does not run : and hence the motives for improving the con- 
 struction of vessels are not only destroyed, but it even be- 
 comes an object of pecuniary interest to expend in their 
 equipment nothing beyond what is necessary to give them 
 
 that moderate degr f goodness or sea worthiness which 
 
 suffices to render them insurable on the ordinary terms. 
 This system, however much it is to be deprecated, is rather 
 
 advantageous than Otherwise to the underwriters or insu- 
 rers; because their premiums are charged in proportion and 
 it renders insurance more necessary : the pecuniary loss falls 
 ultimately on the million who consume the merchandise; 
 and as to the loss id' human lite, that consideration will 
 
 probably operate as a check to cupidity only m so far as it 
 may tend to raise the wages of seamen. 
 
 With respect to insurances against lire, the exact appro 
 elation of the risk is not less difficult than in the case oi' 
 
 marine insurances; but mathematical niielv on tins subject 
 is of little importance, for the amount of experience aflbrdt d 
 bj the general prevalence of the practice, and the competi- 
 tion which exists among Uie numerous rival companies, 
 606 
 
 INTEGRAL CALCULUS. 
 
 have probably had the effect of adjusting the premium to 
 the average risk with all the accuracy which is practically 
 
 attainable. 1 he premium charged bj "the London offices for 
 
 insuring property of the value of X'100 tor a year is one shil- 
 ling and sixpence, which corresponds to an average annual 
 loss of nearly one in 1300; but it is to be observed that the 
 sum which is charged as premium is proved to be sufficient 
 
 not only to cover the losses, but also to defray the expenses 
 of the establishment, and to afford an adequate interest on 
 the amount of the capital laid out or risked by the insurance 
 company. Notwithstanding the extent to which the prac- 
 tice of insuring is now carried, it is probable that it Would 
 be still more general were it not for the circumstance that 
 the government imposes a lax on the transaction of three 
 shillings per annum for each X'100 insured, which is double 
 the amount of the premium charged by the insurer. In 
 1837, the government duty on insurances amounted to 
 £863,106 12*. 'ill., which supposes the value of the property 
 insured in that year to have been upwards of .">?"> millions. 
 
 The characteristic property of insurances, of whatever 
 nature, is their tendency to reduce to a certain average val- 
 ue the prolils or advantages arising from all speculations of 
 the same kind, however great the number may be. The 
 gain which the insurer makes on his successful speculations 
 indemnifies him for the loss he sustains by those which are 
 unsuccessful ; and to the insured the result is the same as if 
 they had paid their premiums into a common fund, and 
 agreed to make good to each other their individual losses. 
 The insurers are only the intermediate agents of this sup- 
 posed association, ami their profits maj be regarded simply 
 as the salary of their functions. If other means exist of 
 dividing the risks, insurance becomes unnecessary. A mer- 
 cantile company employing a very great number of ships, or 
 taking part in a very great number of enterprises, would 
 derive no benefit from insurance. The loss on those which 
 are unsuccessful is compensated by the premiums saved on 
 the whole ; in fact the company acts as insurer to itself. 
 Oh this principle the government neither insures vessels be- 
 longing to the royal navy nor public buildings. 
 
 LN'TA'GLIO. (It. hitagliare, to cut in.) In Sculpture 
 ami Gem Sculpture, a stone or gem in which the subject is 
 hollowed out so that an impression from it would present 
 the appearance of a has relief. 
 
 ['NTEGER. ('-at. entire.) In Arithmetic, a whole 
 number, as opposed to a fractional number, or a mixed 
 number. 
 
 I'NTEGRAL CALCULUS. The branch of mathemati- 
 cal analysis which treats of the processes by which a func- 
 tion may he found such that its differential shall be a given 
 quantity. By English writers this function used to be de 
 nominated the fluent 01 flowing quantity ; and the method of 
 finding it was called the inverse method of fluxions. For- 
 eign mathematicians, who adopted tin- views and notation 
 of Leibnitz, have called it the integral or sum of the pro- 
 posed differential ; and this phraseology is now universally 
 adopted by the mathematicians of our own country. 
 
 The method by which the integral of a proposed differen- 
 tial quantity is to he found is, generally speaking, neither 
 obvious nor capable of being reduced to fixed and general 
 rules. When an integral is proposed, its differential may 
 always be found by general rules; but there is no direct 
 method of returning from the differentia] to the integral : the 
 analyst can only compare the differential expression which 
 is to be integrated with the differentials of known quantities, 
 and from such comparison infer the form of the correspond- 
 ing integral. The principal art employed in the Integral cal- 
 culus consists in transforming the proposed functions into 
 expressions which are known to be the differentials of given 
 quantities. 
 
 In order to denote the integral of a quantity, the symbol 
 
 / (originally S. the initial letter of the word sum) is em- 
 ployed. Thus / X d x denotes the integral of the differen- 
 tial' Xdx. J 
 
 I. To begin with the simplest cases — Let it he pro]>osed to 
 integrate the expression z'" d x, or to find the function deno- 
 ted by / x m d x. It has been shown, under the term Dif- 
 ferential Calculus, that the differential of a quantity xa 
 is n xo — I d x : thai is to say. d z*> = ?i x" — 1 d x. Let n 
 = m -f- 1, and this becomes i/'jin-j-lr (m -\- 1) x"> d x ; 
 d • xm-U i 
 
 w heme we have i» d x = ~ — I or, as the constant 
 
 m + 1 
 quantity (jn -f- 1) does not affect the differentiation, arm d i 
 
 2-ni -4- 1 
 
 = d • J—. But as the integral of an expression d ■ V is 
 
 in -\- I 
 
 evidently P, the equation gives, on integrating both members, 
 2-m -J- I 
 
 From this we derive the following 
 
 /- 
 
 i"iiii = ' 
 
 m -f- 1 
 general ru'e for integrating a differential of one term: In
 
 INTEGRAL CALCULUS. 
 
 crease Hie exponent of the variable quantity by unity, and 
 then divide by the new exponent and by d x. 
 
 It is necessary, however, to remark, that the integral thus 
 formed may either be the expression from which the differ- 
 ential xm d x was derived, or it may be that expression in- 
 creased or diminished by any constant quantity. For the 
 differential of a z5 being 5 a z4 d x, and of a x$ -4- b being 
 also 5 a x4 d x (b being any constant quantity whatever) ; it 
 follows that if we have to integrate the expression 5 a x± d 
 x, the integral will be incomplete, unless we add to it a 
 quantity which, though indeterminate, does not change its 
 value with the variation of x. We have, therefore, in gen- 
 
 /X"> X 1 
 z" d x — — , 1- C, where C is a quantity, posi- 
 m + 1 
 tive or negative, the particular value of which remains to 
 be determined by the nature of the problem under consider- 
 ation. This quantity, C, which is necessary in order to 
 complete the integral, was denominated by the older Eng- 
 lish writers the correction of the fluent; in the language of 
 modern analysts, it is the arbitrary constant. 
 
 2. The differential of a polynomial being composed of 
 the sum of the differentials of its terms taken separately, 
 the integral of a polymonial is in like manner formed by 
 adding into one sum the integrals of its component terms. 
 
 Thus, 
 f cin-l 
 / (a dx-\~b xdx — czndz) = az-f-£6 z 2 - -f- C ; 
 
 and one constant is only necessary, for the sum of the con- 
 stants which arise from the integration of the separate terms 
 may evidently be represented by a single letter. In the 
 same manner, the integral of a function having the form 
 (a + b x + c x 2 )n may be found when n is a whole positive 
 number, it being only necessary to raise the root to the power 
 denoted by n. 
 
 d x 
 
 3. By the differential calculus, d • log. x = — . When 
 
 x 
 any differential expression, therefore, can be reduced to 
 this form, its integral will be found by means of a loga- 
 rithm. Thus supposing it were required to find the integral 
 
 ad x d z 
 
 of , , . Suppose a 4- b x = z, and we have «i= -r. 
 
 a + bx lr ' b 
 
 Substitute this in the given expression, and we have — — — = 
 
 a-\-bx 
 adz _ /'adz a rd z a, . _ ... 
 
 .— . But/— — =7- / =-rloe. z 4- C ; which, on 
 
 b z J b z b J z b 
 
 writing for z its value, becomes - log. (a + b x) -\- C. 
 
 4. An extensive class of differential expressions, of very 
 frequent occurrence in the solution of problems, is integrated 
 by means of circular arcs. Let x be the sign of an arc z, we 
 have then i = sin. z ; and by the differential calculus d z = 
 
 d x 
 
 cos. zdz, whence d z = ■ . But, by the properties of the 
 
 cos. z 
 trigonometrical lines, cos. 2 z + sin. "z = 1 ; whence cos. z 
 — ,/l — sin. 2 z, or cos. z == y/1 — z 2 ; consequently (!: = 
 d x 
 
 2 . Transposing the terms of this equation and tor 
 
 n dx 
 tegrating, we find / / g = z -f- C, z being an arc of 
 
 which the sine is x. Whenever, therefore, an expression 
 d x 
 
 occurs of the form 
 
 vr 
 
 z we know that its integral, though 
 
 it cannot be expressed generally in numbers when a numer- 
 ical value is given to x, is represented by means of an arc 
 of a circle. 
 
 d x 
 
 =7 is reducible to the same form; 
 
 The expression ,~ 2 - 
 
 for, on dividing the numerator and denominator by a, or 
 d x d u 
 
 "z 5 y/l — u 2 ' 
 
 •v/a 2 , and making - = u, we get - — 
 a V>~ 
 
 and 
 
 ~ du 
 
 J -J\ — u-i~ 
 
 arc of which the sine is u, or -. The 
 
 constant C in the present case is zero, for the arc and its 
 sine both vanish together. 
 
 Let us suppose, in the second place, x = cos. z. By dif- 
 ferentiating, we find ii = — sin. zdz; whence d z = 
 dx 
 
 d x 
 
 d x 
 
 sin. z v^i — cos. 2 z v 1 - 
 
 d x 
 
 integrating as before, / - 
 
 — 2 . Transposing and 
 ; = z + C, z being the 
 
 arc whose cosine is x. In this case, the constant C must be 
 determined from this consideration that when the cosine of 
 
 an arc is 0, the arc itself is equal to a quadrant. Supposing, 
 
 then, z = 0, and consequently — - ==zzzzz — 0, and denoting 
 
 vl- z 2 
 the semicircumference as usual by tt, the integral becomes 
 = 4 t + C ; whence C = — \ tt. Substituting this value of 
 
 -, we get,/ — ^— — - = z — i tt = — (A tt — z). 
 
 Lastly, let us suppose z =s tang. z. The differential of 
 the tangent of an arc is equal to the differential of the arc 
 
 divided by the square of the cosine. Hence d x = dz ■ 
 
 cos. 2 z ' 
 
 and, therefore, d z = d x cos. 2 z. But cos. z = — -— ; 
 
 sec. z 
 , . dx d x dx 
 
 whence d z = — = — — — - = — . — -. Transpc- 
 
 sec. 2 z 1 + tan. 2 z 1 + x- 
 
 sing and passing to the integral, we have / = z + 
 
 J 1 + X' 
 
 C. In this case, as the arc and its tangent vanish together, 
 C = ; therefore / ■=— j- — -„ = arc whose tangent is x. 
 
 To this form we may reduce the expression / ., , — g. 
 
 Divide the terms by a 2 , and make - = u; it then become* 
 a 
 
 /l d u 1 f d u , r d x 1 
 
 - • rr i — 1» or — li— i — ^ ; whence 1-^—. — „ = - x arc 
 a l + u- ajl + u- J d* + x~ a. 
 
 , . x 
 
 whose tangent is - . 
 
 a 
 
 5. In transforming differentia, expressions into others of 
 which the integrals are known, it is frequently very con- 
 venient to employ an artifice which is usually termed inte- 
 gration by parts. This consists in making an integral of the 
 
 form J v d u depend on another of the form / u d v. 
 
 Thus, by the differential calculus, d(uv)=^udv-\-vdu; 
 
 transposing and integrating, we get / u d v =: u v — f v 
 
 d u, which is the formula by which the artifice in question in 
 accomplished. As an example, let it be proposed to find in 
 this manner the integral fx m d x. Make i™ = «, and d x 
 
 = d v ; we have then s = i,iu = iiiii = i»i-)-! l iiu=: 
 m x "> — 1 d x, and !)dii = mi"iiii. Substituting these 
 expressions in the formula / u dv — v. v — fvdu, it be- 
 comes / i»(ii = ini + I — / m x m d x; whence (since 
 / m xuidx = m f x^dz) we have by transposing (1 -f m) 
 
 hich 
 
 is the same expression as was given above. It may be re- 
 marked, that by the use of this artifice, the integral of the 
 pression x m d z has been found by differentiating x m , and 
 making the substitutions ordinarily employed in common al- 
 gebra. 
 
 Another method of integration consists in transforming 
 the given expression into a series, and taking the integrals 
 of the several terms separately. Let it be proposed, for ex- 
 ample, to integrate by the method of series the expression 
 
 dx 
 
 — 7— , which is the differential of the logarithm of (a + x). 
 a-f-i 
 
 d x 1 
 
 In the first place, — ; — = — r— X dx; but on expanding 
 o+ x a-j- x 
 
 into a series by division, we have 
 
 a + z 
 
 I 1 x . x- x 3 
 
 — r— = 5 + ~3 T + &C.; 
 
 a-\- x a a- a J o* 
 and multiplying both sides by d z, and integrating by the 
 rules already explained, we find 
 
 //• z m +' 
 
 zmdz = z™ + 1, and, therefore, / z"» d x = — — , w 
 J 1 + in 
 
 f dx 
 
 z3 
 
 tax x x'- . x° „ , _ 
 Ja-+-x=I-2a-2+^-^- + C ' 
 that is to say, 
 
 &c.+ C. 
 
 log. (a -4- z) : 
 
 _jr2 z3 
 
 2a2^3a3 
 
 In order to determine the constant, suppose z = 0, and the 
 expression becomes log. a = C ; whence, substituting Ihia 
 value of C. 
 
 log. (a + z) = log.a + ^-^- 2 + ^3-&c.; 
 
 a series by which the logarithm of one number may be found 
 from another, when the difference between them is small in 
 
 607
 
 INTEGRAL CALCULUS. 
 
 oomparison of the latter number; or, which is the same 
 thing, when the series converges with sufficient rapidity. 
 As a second example of this method, let the proposed dif- 
 dz 1 
 
 fcrenlial be — ; 1 or — — , X d x. 
 
 1 -j- 12 1 + x l 
 
 In this case we have ,— j — - = 1 — x^A-x* — z6 + &£m 
 1 -\- i* 
 
 whence, multiplying by d x and integrating the terms, 
 
 /• dx z3 , i5 z 7 
 
 dx 
 
 But . is the differential of the arc whose tangent is z ; 
 
 therefore, 
 
 arc. (tan. = z)=x-^+|-" + &c.+C. 
 
 and as the arc and its tangent both vanish together, the con- 
 stant C is in this case = 0. 
 
 The series which has now been found for the arc in 
 terms of the tangent converges only when the tangent is 
 less than radius, or when x is less than unit ; but it may be 
 put under a form which will be convergent when x is great- 
 er than unit, or the arc greater than 45°. Thus, the series 
 
 1 — x- + z 4 — z*+ & c - 
 was obtained by dividing 1 by 1 + x 2 ; but if instead of 
 dividing by 1 + x 2 , we divide by its equal z 2 + 1, we shall find 
 
 _>_=I_2 + i— I + fcc.; 
 x2 -f- 1 z2 z 4 z6 z& 
 whence 
 
 and on multiplying each term of the second member by d x 
 and integrating, 
 
 arc(tan. = z)=— I + -L _ J_ + & C . + C. 
 X JiJ 5 xi 
 In order to find the constant, we cannot in this case suppose 
 x — 0, for on this supposition the second member of the 
 equation is infinite; but if we suppose z = infinity, the arc 
 becomes a quadrant, or A t, and the equation becomes 
 
 i- = + C, or := — |ir + C; 
 and subtracting this equation from the former, 
 
 arc (tan. =i)=i* \- =—. — lr -_ + &.c. 
 
 x dx 3 5 xS 
 
 which converges the more rapidly the greater we assume 
 the value of z. 
 
 The preceding examples will give an idea of the method 
 by which the primitive function is obtained from its differ- 
 ential ; but the subject is of by far too extensive and abstruse 
 a nature to be entered into at any length in this place. We 
 shall, therefore, content ourselves with indicating some of 
 the applications of the integral calculus to geometry. 
 
 One of the first objects to which the new calculus was ap- 
 plied by its inventors was the finding of the quadratures, or 
 areas, of curve lines, and their rectification, or the determi- 
 nation of the lengths of their arcs. 
 Let A B be a curve referred to two rectangular co-ordi- 
 nates O X and O Y ; let E and F be 
 given points in it ; and let it be re- 
 quired to find the quadrature of the 
 curvilinear space between E G and F 
 H, the ordinates passing through E 
 and F. Through P any point of the 
 arc E F draw the ordinate P Q., and 
 also p q indefinitely near to P O. ; 
 then the space F Q, q p is the differen- 
 tial clement of the area G E P Q,, and 
 the area itself is equal to the sum of 
 all the differential elements taken between E G and F H. 
 But by the principles of the differential calculus the space 
 P G. g p is ultimately (that is, when U </ is less than any as- 
 signable quantity) equal to the rectangle under P G and Q, 
 q ; therefore, making as usual OQ = i, Pft = y, and s = 
 Lite area, we have ds=-y dx, and consequently the area = 
 
 t = / y d x. In order to apply this formula, it is necessary, 
 
 in the first place to determine y in terms of z by means of 
 the equation of the given curve. 
 
 Suppose the given curve to be the common Apollonian 
 parabola, the equation of which is y z =a z, a being a con- 
 stant. From this equation y = a- z~, and consequently ydx 
 = ch z£ d x ; whence, passing to the integral by means of 
 
 /im+l f l i 
 
 zdi d x = — pi + C, we obtain / a- x~ dx = 
 m -J- 1 ** 
 
 3 o- z^ + C, which, on substituting for a- its value in terms 
 of y, becomes §y x -f- C. 'Phis is the general expression for 
 the area of the parabola; to determine it between the pro- 
 posed limits we have only to substitute in it the values of z 
 
 and y at those limits. At the point E it becomes 3 O G • GE 
 + C : and at the point F it becomes J O H • HF-j-C. Sub 
 
 trading, therefore, the first of these from the second, we 
 have the space G E F II = 5(0 H ■ 11 F — O G • GE), the 
 indeterminate C being eliminated by the subtraction. 
 
 From this example it is easy to see that the space repre- 
 sented by the integral/ y dx is the increment which a cer- 
 tain area receives while the independent variable z passes 
 from one state of magnitude to another ; and that the abBO 
 lute magnitude which represents the integral cannot be 
 known before C is determined or eliminated as above. For 
 the purpose of expressing the limits within which the inte- 
 gral is to be taken, a particular notation is employed. Let 
 U G = k, and OH = /; then it is usual to write 
 
 area GE 
 
 FH = / 
 J I 
 
 ydx, 
 
 to express that the integral includes all values of z, from z = 
 k to x=zl. The one of these is the value of x at its com- 
 mencement, the other at its completion ; and the integral it- 
 self is an indeterminate quantity till the initial and final val- 
 ues of z are assigned. 
 
 The rectification of curve lines is another of the earliest 
 applications of the integral calculus. To rectify a curve, 
 signifies to find a straight line equal to its arc. According 
 to the principles of the differential calculus, if z denote the 
 arc of a curve, then d z = y/d z2 + dy*\ consequently, if 
 the value of d y 2 be found by means of the equation of any 
 curve in terms of z (or that of d x' 2 in terms of y) and substi- 
 tuted in this equation, the radical will contain only one va- 
 riable, and when the expression is capable of being integra- 
 ted, the curve is rectifiable. It is, however, only in a com 
 paratively small number of cases that the differential of the 
 arc of a curve can be integrated in finite terms. 
 
 As an example, let us take the circle, the equation of 
 
 which is xi + y2 = a 2 , reckoning the co-ordinates from the 
 
 centre. From this equation y = ^/a2 — z 2 , whence dy — 
 
 — zdx a 2 dx* , . adx „ 
 
 — , d r2 J- j ,f> — ,.anddz = — r— ■ This 
 
 expression cannot be integrated otherwise than by an infinite 
 series. We have already seen that is reducible to the form 
 
 z But the expression ,- expanded by the 
 
 VI — z2 Vl — x n - 
 
 binominal theorem, gives 
 
 whence, multiplying by d x and integrating the terms sep- 
 arately, 
 
 r dx z3 1-3*5 1-3-5 z7 
 
 J vT^7 2 = x + 'F3 + 2 7 4 7 5 + iFT^ + *°- 
 
 Now, if in this series we write —for x, and multiply the 
 
 whole by z, we shall have 
 adx , z3 
 
 1-3 z5 
 
 1 • 3 • 5 xl 
 
 &c. 
 
 Jy/aT^l2~ '"~ 1 ~2-3a2 ' 2-4 -5a< T 2'4- 6-7 a6 ' 
 for the length of the arc of the circle whose radius is a and 
 absciss z. Suppose z = o = 1 ; this series gives for the 
 length of the quadrant 
 
 1.1-3. 1-3-5 
 
 ! + „-, + , 
 
 .+:, 
 
 y= + fcC. 
 
 3 ' 2-4-5 ' 2-4-6-7 
 
 The quadrature and rectification of the circle are prob- 
 lem* which have exercised the ingenuity of mathematicians 
 ever since the invention of the science; but the solution 
 neither of the one nor the other can be obtained in finite 
 terms. 
 
 The application of the integral calculus to the determina- 
 tion of the volumes and surfaces of solids, is perfectly anal- 
 ogous to the determination of the areas and arcs of plane 
 curves. Supposing the solid to be generated by the revolu- 
 tion of a plane curve about its axis, the expression for its 
 
 volume bi I y2d z, where t, is the semicircumference of 
 the circle win si radius is unit. The expression for its sur- 
 face is 2 7r y y/d x 2 -f- d y-. In these expressions the values 
 Of 11-, n, and d ij- must be found in terms of 1 from the equa- 
 tion of the curve by the revolution of which the solid in 
 formed; and when the values thus found are substituted, 
 the formula; will contain no other variable than 1. 
 
 The integral calculus also affords the readiest, and, in 
 general, the only means of determining the centres of gravi- 
 ty, of oscillation, gyration, &.C. ; and is, in fact, the instru 
 ment by which mathematicians have succeeded in solving 
 the difficult and important questions of dynamics and phy.-i- 
 cal astronomy, and in ascertaining the laws which regulate 
 the motions of tho material world.
 
 INTEGRANT PARTS. 
 
 As the integral calculus, with its various applications, em- 
 bodies almost tiie whole of mathematical science, the trea- 
 tises which have been composed to explain or illustrate its 
 principles are by far too numerous to be mentioned in this 
 place. Almost all the improvements of the calculus were 
 first given in the form of Academical Memoirs. The great 
 repositories in which it is contained are the writings of New- 
 ton, Cotes, Demoivre, the Bemoullis, Maclaurin, Simpson, 
 Euler, D'Alembert, Lagrange, Laplace, Legendre, Monge, 
 Poisson, Gauss, Ivory, &c. The best systematic treatises 
 are Euler's Calculus Integrate, in 4 vols. 4to., now very 
 scarce ; and Lacroix's Traite du Calcul Differential ct du 
 Calcul Integral, in 3 vols. 4to. Of the minor works we 
 may mention Bossut's Calcul Differcntiel et Integral : Bou- 
 charlat; Lacroix's smaller treatise, translated by Babbage, 
 Herschel, and Peacock ; and the treatises which have re- 
 cently been published at Cambridge, particularly those of 
 Hymer, Peacock, Mvers, Hind, &c. 
 
 INTEGRANT PARTS, in the Corpuscular Philosophy, 
 are the small parts of a body, by the aggregation of which 
 it may he conceived to be formed. Integrant parts result 
 from the mechanical division of a body ; constituent parts 
 from its chemical decomposition. 
 
 I'NTELLECT. See Understanding. 
 
 INTE'NDANT. (Lat. intendo, / give my mind toany 
 thing.) A title in common use among the French, applied 
 to persons who have the conduct, inspection, and manage- 
 ment of any office or function ; as intendants of the marine, 
 of the finances, of provinces, buildings, houses, &c, which 
 are all self-explanatory terms. 
 
 INTE'NTIONS, FIRST AND SECOND. A distinction 
 drawn by the schoolmen between those acts of thought 
 which relate to an object out of the mind, and those which 
 consist in the mind's reflex action on its own states of con- 
 sciousness. Thus the generalizations animal, production, 
 are first intentions : such terms as abstraction, inference, 
 &c, are the expression of second intentions. It is to be re- 
 gretted that this distinction is disused by modern inquirers, 
 or misunderstood by them, as in particular by Whately. 
 Great ambiguity might be avoided in philosophical language 
 were it closely kept in view ; as in such terms ns cause and 
 effect, which may either allude to a connection between 
 natural phenomena in themselves, or to our mode of view- 
 ing them derived from the essential laws of the understand- 
 ing. The distinction was first revived in the present centu- 
 ry, in a learned and acute review of VVhately's Logic con- 
 tained in the 115th number of the Edinburgh Review. 
 
 INTE'RCALARY DAY. (Lat. calo, / call. See Cal- 
 endar.) In the Calendar, a day inserted out of the usual 
 order to preserve the account of time. Thus every fourth 
 year containing 366 days, while the other years contain only 
 365, one of the months in that year must have an addition- 
 al day, which is called the intercalary day. The additional 
 day was given to February, as being the shortest month, 
 anil in the ancient Roman calendar was inserted between 
 the 24th and 25th days. In the ecclesiastical calendar it 
 still retains that place ; but in the civil calendar it is the 
 29th. See Bissextile. 
 
 INTERCE'LLULAR PASSAGES, in Vegetable Anato- 
 my, are the spaces that exist between the cells, tubes, or 
 vessels of which the tissue of a plant consists. As the 
 cells are usually, and the tubes or vessels are always round, 
 it necessarily follows that when pressed together there will 
 be spaces left between their sides. 
 
 I'NTERCOLUMNIATION. (Lat. inter, between, and 
 eolumna, a column.) In Architecture, the distance between 
 two columns measured at the lower parts of their shafts. 
 It is one of the most important elements in architecture, 
 and on it depend the effect of the columns themselves, their 
 proportion, and the harmony of an edifice. Intercolumina- 
 tions are of five species, viz. Picnostylos, Systylos, Diasty- 
 los, Araostylos, and Eustylos ; under which several terms 
 in this work they are defined, and to them die reader is re- 
 ferred. 
 
 I'NTERCO'STAL. (Lat. inter, and costa, a rib.) A 
 term applied to muscles and vessels situated between the 
 ribs. 
 
 I'NTERDICT. (Lat.) In Ecclesiastical History, a spi- 
 ritual weajxm by which the Popes used in former times to 
 reduce individuals or whole states to the most abject sub- 
 mission to their power. In the middle ages it was the most 
 terrible blow which could be inflicted on the people or the 
 prince. When an interdict was laid on a kingdom all spi- 
 ritual services ceased ; the churches were shut up ; the sa- 
 craments were no longer administered ; no corpses were 
 buried with funeral rites ; and all the ministry of the church 
 which was then believed to be the only channel of salva- 
 tion was forbidden to be exercised. The first memorable 
 occasion on which this method of warfare was adopted 
 was the marriage of King Robert of France with Bertha 
 his cousin, when Gregory V. in 998 issued interdicts against 
 the whole country, and compelled the sovereign to dissolve 
 
 INTEREST. 
 
 his union. It had, however, been often used before by bish- 
 ops ; an instance is quoted by Moreri as early as A.D. 870. 
 (See Gicseler's Text Book, ii. 117, translation.) The ban 
 under which England was laid in the reign of John by In- 
 nocent III. is well known in the history of tliis country. 
 The latest pretensions to the exercise of this power were 
 assumed by Pius VII., when he issued an inefficient decree 
 against Napoleon in 1809. 
 
 Interdict. The technical term in Roman law for a de- 
 cree of the praetor concerning the acquisition, retention, or 
 recovery of property. For an elaborate article on this sub- 
 ject see the Penny Cyclopedia. 
 
 I'NTEREST. The premium or sum of money given for 
 the loan or use of another sum of money, generally estima- 
 ted at so much per cent., or per 100/. The sum lent, and 
 for which interest is paid, is called the principal, and the 
 sum charged as interest is called the rate. The rate will 
 evidently be proportional to the time ; for whatever interest 
 is paid for the use of 100/. for one year, twice that interest 
 will be required for the use of 100/. for two years. The 
 principal added to the interest, or the whole sum paid back 
 to the lender, is called the amount. 
 
 Interest is either simple or compound. Simple interest is 
 that which is reckoned and allowed upon the principal only 
 during the whole time of the loan ; compound interest is 
 reckoned not only on the principal sum lent, but also on the 
 interest as it becomes due. It is convenient to treat of these 
 separately. 
 
 1. Simple Interest.— Lei us assume 
 
 a = the amount, 
 
 p = the principal sum lent, 
 
 n = the number of years for which it is lent, 
 
 r = the rate, or interest of 1/. for one year. 
 Now, the interest of XI for one year being r, the interest 
 of p pounds for one year is p r, and for n years prn. The 
 amount, therefore, of p pounds for n years, at the rate r, is 
 p-\-prn; or, a=p (1 + rn). From this equation we may 
 determine any one of the four quantities in terms of the 
 others. The four equations are as follow :— 
 a—p (14-ra) =the amount, 
 
 = fhe principal, 
 
 i 
 
 ■ — the time in years, 
 . the rate of interest. 
 
 p n 
 
 These formulae suffice for the solution of all questions of 
 simple interest. It is only necessary to observe, that when 
 the time is less than a year, n is a fraction : for example, if 
 the time is seven months, n = y^ ; and if the time is 100 
 days, then n = \^x If the rate of interest be 4 per cent, 
 per annum, then r = -04 ; if the rate be 5 per cent, per an- 
 num, r = '05 ; and so on. 
 
 2. Compound Interest. — Though the law does not permit 
 money to be let at compound interest, yet in purchasing an- 
 nuities, reversions, leases, &c, or effecting assurances on 
 life, it is always allowed ; the subject is therefore of con- 
 siderable importance. 
 
 In order to show the manner in which any given sum in- 
 creases at compound interest, let us suppose .£100 to be lent 
 at the rate of 5 per cent, per annum. At the end of the first 
 year this will amount to j£105. Now this .£105 may be re- 
 garded as a new principal lent out the second year at the 
 same rate ; its interest will therefore be £5 5s. ; and conse- 
 quently the amount at the end of the second year is £110 5s. 
 This again may be regarded as a new principal ; and in the 
 same manner the amount at the end of the third year will 
 be jE115 15s. 3d., and so on for any longer period. At sim- 
 ple interest the amount at the end of any given time will be 
 greater, as the number of payments or times the interest is 
 added to the principal is greater. 
 As before, let 
 
 a = the amount, 
 p = the principal, 
 n = the number of years, 
 r = the rate of interest. 
 Therefore, since 1/. amounts to 1 + r at the end of the first 
 year, and as every other sum is increased in the same pro- 
 portion, we have 1 : 1 + r : : 1 + r : (1 + r) 2 = the amount 
 of £1 at the end of the second year. In like manner, we 
 have 1 : 1+r : : (1 + r) 2 : (l + r) 3 =the amount at the 
 end of the third year, and so on. In general, Die amount 
 of j£1 at the end 
 
 of the 1st year = 1 + r 
 2d = (l + r) 2 
 
 3d =(l + r) 3 
 
 4th =(l + r)* 
 
 nth =(l+r)n 
 
 The amount, therefore, of any principal p, at the end of 
 m years, is p ( 1 +r)n ; and from tliis we derive the follow - 
 
 P? 
 
 609
 
 INTERFERENCE. 
 
 ing formula: for finding any one of the four quantities when 
 the three others are given : 
 
 a = p (1 + r)n = the amount, 
 j = o (1 + '') — ■> = tlie principal, 
 log. a — log. p . 
 
 n = : = the number of years, 
 
 log. (1 + r) 
 
 r = ( — ) 1 = the rate of interest. 
 
 Vp/n 
 
 As an example, suppose it were required to find in how 
 many years a sum of money lent at compound interest, at 
 5 per cent, per annum, would double itself. Here the quan- 
 tity to be found is n, and we must apply the third formu- 
 la. We have in the present case a = 2p, and 1 + r =^ 
 log. 2 p — log. p log. 2 3010300 
 
 1-05; therefore, n = :— £ — ,— — = ; r^ — <v)na< vi 
 
 log. l-0o log. rOo IBUbB3 
 
 =14.2067 nearly ; therefore, at the rate of 5 per cent, per 
 annum, any sum of money doubles itself in 14£ years. 
 
 In the above formula; the interest is supposed to be paya- 
 ble yearly, and r denotes the Simple interest of £1 for one 
 year; but if the payments become due at different intervals 
 from a year, then r will not be the annual rate of interest ac- 
 tually yielded by the principal, but the nominal rate which 
 determines the amount of the first payment. For example, 
 suppose the payments due half-yearly, and the nominal in- 
 terest or simple interest for a year 5 percent.; jCIOO princi- 
 pal will produce £-2 10s. of interest the first half year. But 
 the interest the second half year being on £102 10s., will be 
 £2 lis. 3d. ; so that while the nominal interest is 5 per cent., 
 the interest actually made in a year on £100 is £5 Is. 3d. 
 
 The advantages arising from a sum of money put out to 
 compound interest for shorter periods than a year may be 
 determined as follows: Suppose the payments to be made 
 half-yearly ; then each payment being half of the annual 
 simple interest, the amount of It. at the end of the year will 
 ( r \ a r 2 
 
 be expressed by I 1 + — ) , which is equal to 1 -f- r + — . 
 
 But the amount at a yearly payment is 1 -f r ; the advan- 
 tage, therefore, of the half-yearly payment is 4,th of the 
 square of r. If the payments of interest be supposed to be 
 made quarterly, then the amount of £1 at the end of the 
 
 (r\* 3 r 2 j 1 
 1 + yy = 1 + »•-!- — |-tt: + 
 
 ..« 
 
 , which exceeds the amount, when the payment is year- 
 
 256 
 
 3r= 
 
 3r 2 r 3 r 4 
 tyt by -g- + — + ^- , or by — - nearly, the remaining terms 
 
 8 16 256 o 
 
 being very small, and of scarcely any sensible value. Gen- 
 erally, if the interest is payable m times a year (each pay- 
 ment being the mth part of the annual simple interest), the 
 amount of £1 at the end of the year will be expressed by 
 (m — 1) (m — 2) 
 
 (l + l) m =l + r+^pir 2 + i 
 
 (m — 1) (m — 2) (m— 3) 
 
 2 • 3 m 2 
 
 + 
 
 l +&c. 
 
 2-3- 4 m 3 
 
 As r is a small number, all the terms of this series multi- 
 plied by the cube and higher powers of r may be omitted, 
 
 and the amount becomes 1 + r -\ — r 2 , which exceeds 
 
 -1 
 
 If 
 
 2?» 
 
 the amount when the payment is yearly by 
 
 we suppose m to be infinitely great, or the interest to become 
 due and to be added to the principal momently, the series 
 becomes 
 
 _2 -J _i 
 
 l + r + 
 
 2 + l-2-3 + l-2-3-4 + &C ; 
 which is equal to the number whose Naplerean logarithm is 
 r, or the number whose logarithm is r X "4342945 in the 
 common tables. Suppose the rate to he 5 per cent., We have 
 •05 X "4342945= -0217147, the natural Dumber corresponding 
 to which is 105127 ; consequently the amount of £100 at 5 
 per cent., on the hypothesis of momently payments for a 
 year, is £105127= £105 2s. Gkd. nearly, exceeding the 
 amount at simple interest only by 2s. 6.W., which differs 
 very little from Jr 2 . 
 
 INTKRFE'RENCE. In Optics, a term first employed 
 by Dr. Young to express certain phenomena which result 
 from the mutual action of the rays of light on each other. 
 The phenomena in question are considered of very great 
 importance, and have accordingly been examined with great 
 care, on account of the proof which they are supposed to 
 give of the truth of the undulatory theory of light. 
 
 The phenomena may be thus explained: — Supine two 
 minute pencils of light, radiating from two different lumin- 
 ous points to fall on the same s|x>t of a screen or piece of 
 paper, and making a small angle with each other. If the 
 spot on which both pencils fall is at the same distance from 
 610 
 
 both foci or luminous points, the intensity of the illumina- 
 tion is greater than would have been produced by either 
 pencil alone. Now it has been found that there is a certain 
 difference between the lengths of the paths at which the in- 
 tensity of illumination produced by their concourse is the 
 same as when the paths are equal. Call this difference d ,' 
 then it is also found by experience that similar bright bands 
 or fringes are produced when the difference between the 
 lengths of the paths of the two pencils is 3d, or 3d, or id, 
 &c. But it is very remarkable that when the difference be- 
 tween the lengths of the two paths is £d, -ijrf. ?d, &.c, the 
 two pencils, instead of adding to each Other's intensity, de- 
 stroy one another, and produce a black spot or fringe. The 
 two pencils thus act on each other, increasing the effect in 
 one case and diminishing it in another ; and it is this mutu- 
 al action which is called interference. 
 
 In order to study the phenomena in detail, Dr. Young ad- 
 mitted a pencil of homogeneous light into a darkened chamber 
 through a hole made with a fine needle in a sheet of paper, and 
 observed at different distances the shadow of a thread or 
 opaque disc (the diameter of which did not exceed l-30thof 
 an inch) placed a little behind the opening. Having remarked 
 that the shadow received on a screen \\ 'as divided by paral- 
 lel bands, of which that in the middle was always white, he 
 proved that the bands were produced by the interference of 
 the rays passing by the two sides of the thread or disc. This 
 was demonstrated by intercepting the light which fell on one 
 of the sides of the disc by means of a screen placed between 
 the disc and shadow, and allowing it to pass freely by the 
 other side, as represented in the annexed 
 figure ; in which O is the hole, A B the 
 disc, E F its shadow, and C D the interpo- 
 sed screen, the border of which receives 
 the shadow of the side B of the disc. The 
 instant the screen is brought within the 
 shadow of A B, all the fringes of the shad- 
 ow immediately disappear, although the 
 light inflected by the side of the disc A 
 continues to follow the same route as be- 
 fore ; which necessarily supposes that it 
 receives some modification from the prox- 
 imity of that which passes by the side B. 
 
 The field of inquiry which had thus 
 been opened by the ingenuity of Dr. Young 
 was explored to a much greater extent by Arago and Fres- 
 nel. Instead of the screen C D, Arago introduced the edge 
 of a thin plate of glass into the shadow of the disc, and 
 found that the luminous fringes received various modifica- 
 tions, according as the plate of glass was more or less thick. 
 When the plate was of a certain thickness, the central fringe 
 M was brought nearer to F, and the first dark fringe on the 
 same side occupied the place which had before been occu- 
 pied by the second ; the second took the place of the third, 
 and so on. On the other side of M the appearance was the 
 reverse ; the third fringe took the place of the second, the 
 second of the first, and the first was brought into the middle 
 of the spectrum at M. On using glass a little thicker, the 
 displacement was doubled ; the first fringe fell upon the 
 place of the third, the second on that of the fourth, and so 
 on. This experiment of Arago proves that the mutual ac- 
 tion of the rays does not alone depend on a particular modi- 
 fication which the rays receive at the boundaries of a body 
 which they graze in their course, but also on the different 
 media which they traverse from their source to the point 
 where they interfere. 
 
 Fresnel adopted a still more ingenious method of per- 
 forming the experiment. Having placed two plane metallic 
 mirrors in a vertical position, and so as to make a very ob- 
 tuse angle with each other, he concentrated, by means of a 
 lens of small focal length, a pencil of homogeneous light di- 
 rected horizontally, at a point so situated before the mirrors 
 that part of the diverging cone fell upon the one mirror and 
 part of it upon the other. The rays of light reflected from 
 the two surfaces being rendered convergent by the position 
 Of the mirrors, again met each other at a small angle ; and 
 at the point of intersection produced alternations of brilliant 
 and dark fringes. These fringes are parallel to the line of 
 intersection of the two mirrors, and on screening one of the 
 mirrors they immediately disappear. 
 
 In the experiment of Dr. Young and Arago it mieht be 
 supposed that the fringes were produced by some physical 
 action of the interposed body on the light ; but in Fresnel's 
 experiment tin- light is reflected in the usual way, and no 
 question can he raised about the influence of the body by 
 the borders of which it passes. The fact is thus established 
 beyond all doubt, that two rays of light, issuing from n 
 Common source, anil alter pursuing a ditl'erent path meeting 
 agsiin under a small obliquity, exercise an influence on each 
 other to the extent of doubling the intensity of the light on 
 the one hand, or destroying it altogether on the other. The 
 phenomenon of the two rays of light neutralizing each other
 
 INTERFERENCE. 
 
 and producing their mutual extinction, is one of the most 
 remarkable in the whole range of physical science. Though 
 first explained by Dr. Young, and established by Arago 
 and Fresnel, it had formerly been observed and described by 
 Grimaldi. 
 
 The fact of the interference of the luminous rays having 
 been established, it was interesting to determine the con- 
 stant interval d, or difference between the lengths of the 
 paths of the two pencils at which the greatest effect is pro- 
 duced. This interval has been very carefully determined 
 both by Fresnel and by Fraunhofer, and is found to be dif- 
 ferent for the different colours. The following are values 
 of d found by Fraunhofer for the different colours of the 
 Bpectrum, expressed in decimals of an English inch : 
 Red - - - d— 0-00002582 
 
 Orange yellow - - =0-00002319 
 
 Green - - - =0-00002073 
 
 Blue - - - =000001912 
 
 Indigo - - - =0-00001692 
 
 Violet - - - =0-00001572 
 
 These values of d, being obtained by direct experiments, 
 are independent of any hypothesis respecting the propaga- 
 tion of light; they are equally real, whether light be sup- 
 posed to be emitted from a luminous body, or produced by 
 the vibrations of an elastic medium ; or rather they are nu- 
 merical conditions which must be satisfied by any theory of 
 light which may be adopted. But the phenomena of inter- 
 ference are scarcely susceptible of probable explanation by 
 the theory of emission ; whereas, if we adopt the undula- 
 tory hypothesis, their explanation is remarkably simple. 
 Indeed, they afford the most decisive reasons yet known 
 for adopting that theory in preference to the other. Accor- 
 ding to the undulatory system, the phenomena are thus ex- 
 plained : 
 
 If two luminous waves reach an ethereal molecule at the 
 same instant of time, it will receive two simultaneous im- 
 pulsions, and the resulting motions will be directed in the 
 diagonal of the parallelogram of which the two sides repre- 
 sent the impulsions ; consequently, if the component veloci- 
 ties are nearly in the same direction, the resultant will be 
 nearly equal to their sum ; and if they are in opposite di- 
 rections, equal to their difference. Let us now suppose, 1st, 
 that two vibratory movements, produced by a series of equal 
 and successive undulations indefinitely repeated in an elas- 
 tic medium, are simultaneously experienced at the same 
 point, situated at any distance from their common centre ; 
 2d, that after having followed different paths, their direc- 
 tions at this point are sensibly confounded ; 3d, that in con- 
 sequence of the unequal lengths of the two paths, or of 
 their unequal velocities, the time which a wave takes to ar- 
 rive at the point by the first path (A) is shorter than that 
 which it takes to arrive at the second path (B). These sup- 
 positions being made, it is evident that an ethereal molecule 
 situated at a point common to the two paths A and B will 
 begin to vibrate in consequence of the undulations propa- 
 gated along A before the undulation which comes by B 
 reaches it; and when this second undulation docs take ef- 
 fect, the motion of the ethereal particle will be increased or 
 diminished according as the new impulse conspires with or 
 opposes the former. Three cases may occur : 
 
 1. The difference of the lengths of the paths, or the dif- 
 ference of velocities, may be such that the wave coming by 
 the path B may reach the molecule at an interval of time 
 after it has been affected by the wave coming by A precisely 
 equal to that of a semi-vibration. In this case, the vibrating 
 molecule having reached its limit of excursion on one side, 
 and about to return to the point of repose, would at that in- 
 stant receive an impulse constraining it to move in the op- 
 posite direction with the same velocity. The coexistence of 
 the two systems of vibrations would therefore destroy the 
 motion, and the molecule would remain at rest. The same 
 thing will take place if the difference of the lengths of the 
 paths or velocities is such that vibrations propagated along 
 B arrive at the intersection of the paths precisely 3-2, 5-2, 
 7-2, &c, of a period of undulation after those which come 
 by A. 
 
 2. The undulations propagated along B may arrive at the 
 molecule after those coming by A at an interval of time ex- 
 actly equal to that of a complete vibration, or of several 
 vibrations ; in which case the molecules would receive the 
 impulse of two vibrations conspiring together, and conse- 
 quently the velocity and amplitude of its excursions would 
 be doubled instead of being destroyed. 
 
 3. The interval between the two impulses may be neither 
 an odd nor an even multiple of the time of a semi-vibra- 
 tion. In this ense, the molecule will vibrate with a velocity 
 less than the double of that which it would have if each 
 impulse took place independently of the other. (Herschcl's 
 Treatise on Light, in the Ency. Metropo/itana.) 
 
 It is a strong presumption in favour of the undulatory the- 
 ory of light, that it affords not only a complete and satisfac- 
 tory explanation of the whole of the phenomena of diffrac- 
 
 INTERMITTING SPRINGS. 
 
 tion, but also the means of submitting them to arithmetical 
 calculation. See Light. 
 
 I'NTERIM. (Lat. in the mean time.) In Modern Euro- 
 pean History, the name given to a decree of the Emperor 
 Charles V., after the overthrow of the Protestant League 
 of Smalcalde, in which he attempted to reduce to harmony 
 the conflicting opinions of the Protestants and Romanists. 
 The use of the cap, however, and the marriage of the cler- 
 gy, were the only points which he conceded to the Reform- 
 ers ; and it became a question among them, and gave rise 
 to many serious disputes, whether they could conscientiously 
 submit even to a temporary decree of such a nature. The 
 enactments of the interim were intended only to remain in 
 full force till some definitive settlement could be made; 
 whence it derives the name by which it is generally known. 
 It received the force of law at the Diet of Augsburgh, in 
 1548. Its provisions against the Protestants were, however, 
 in most respects set aside by the treaty of Passau, 1552. (See 
 JWoshcim, vol. iv.) 
 
 INTERJE'CTION. In Grammar, a part of speech ex- 
 pressing simple emotion, without involving any act of con- 
 ception. See Grammar. 
 
 INTERLO CUTOR. (Lat. inter, and loquor, / speak.) 
 In Literary phraseology, a person who is introduced as tak- 
 ing part in a dialogue ; in Dramatic literature, termed dra- 
 matis persona : the latter name, however, comprehends 
 such as appear on the stage but take no part in speaking, 
 termed by the Greeks mute personages. 
 
 INTERLO'CUTORY JUDGMENTS. In Law, such as 
 are given in the course of a cause upon any proceeding aris- 
 ing out of it, and do not finally determine it: as the judg- 
 ment in an action of damages upon which a writ of in- 
 quiry issues to assess such damages. So a decree in chan- 
 cery is either final or interlocutory. — In Scottish Law, a 
 judgment of the court of session, or lord in ordinary, which 
 if allowed to become final will be conclusive, is termed 
 interlocutor. 
 
 I'NTERLUDE. (Lat. inter, between, and ludo, J play.) 
 A short dramatic piece, generally accompanied with music : 
 properly, such as is represented or performed between the 
 acts of longer performances. 
 
 I'NTERMEDE, or INTERMEZZO. In Dramatic Lite- 
 rature, nearly the same with interlude. A short musical 
 piece, generally of a burlesque character; but many, not in- 
 tended merely for introduction between the acts of a more 
 serious performance, are comprised under these names by 
 the French and Italians. 
 
 INTERMITTENT. Any disease which ceases for a 
 time and again returns, so that the patient is free from it in 
 the intermediate intervals. See Ague. 
 
 INTERMITTING SPRINGS, are springs which after 
 having run for a certain time stop altogether, and after a 
 time begin to run again, and then stop, and so on alternately, 
 the flowings and intermissions generally succeeding each 
 other at pretty regular intervals. These phenomena, which 
 often excite wonder in the ignorant, and have sometimes 
 even been ascribed to the influence of witchcraft, are ex- 
 plained on the principle of the siphon. Let A be a cavem 
 in a mountain, and a b c a channel commu- 
 nicating with A, and terminating in the 
 side of the mountain or adjacent plain ; 
 and let us suppose the cavern to be fed by 
 small streamlets of water, of which the 
 united supply is less than can be discharged ^SJgM^Kf 
 by the channel a b c. Let the cavern be 
 supposed empty. The water from the rills or fissures by 
 which it is fed will collect at the bottom, and as it rises in 
 the cavern will also rise in the channel a b till it reaches the 
 highest level b, when it will begin to flow out through b c, 
 and by the property of the siphon will continue to flow till 
 the whole cavern is drained to the level of a. The cavern 
 then begins to fill anew, and the same series of phenomena 
 is repeated at intervals, of which the length depends on the 
 relative capacity of the cavern and channel, and the abun- 
 dance of the supply through the fissures. When the supply 
 is constant, the intervals of intermission will be equal. 
 Some springs of this kind do not cease altogether to flow, 
 but only discharge a much smaller quantity for a certain 
 time, and then a greater quantity. In this case they are 
 called variable, or reciprocating springs. They may be 
 caused by the circumstance of a smaller fissure connecting 
 the cavern with the lower part of the channel c, through 
 which a portion of water continues to flow while the main 
 discharge is stopped ; or there may be several siphons all 
 communicating with a common outlet. It is easy to imag- 
 ine a combination of circumstances by which the discharge 
 of water will be greatly increased by the elastic force of air 
 compressed at the top of the cavern A. This will take 
 place when the fissures which communicate with the exter- 
 nal atmosphere are filled with water, and there is in conse- 
 quence no opening by which the air in the cavern can es- 
 cape. The water will then be propelled through the chan- 
 
 611
 
 INTERMODILLION. 
 
 ipI with considerable force, or even raised in a jet, by the 
 very sa 1 11 1' principle as in the fountain of Hem. [See JfiM- 
 schenbrock, Introd., t. ii., $2379; Vesaguliers. F.iper. Phil, 
 vol. ii.. p. 173; Nicholson's I'liil. .hum. UXV., p. 178; Fer- 
 guson's Lectures on Select Subject*, by Brewster.) 
 
 ENTERMODI'LLION. (Lat. inter, between, and modil- 
 lion.) Ii. Vrchitecture, the space between two modillions, 
 which is equal throughout the entablature. 
 
 I'NTERNODE. (Lat. inter, and nodus, a knot.) In Bot- 
 any, the space that intervenes upon a branch between the 
 leaves. 
 
 INTERXr.NTirS, or INTERNUNCIO. An envoy of 
 the Pope, sent to small states and republics: distinguished 
 from tiie nuncio, who represents the Pope at the courts of 
 emperors and kings. Also a species of diplomatic officers, 
 who ranked, according to the old practice, between ambas 
 sadors and plenipotentiaries. Since the Congress of Vi- 
 enna, as no mention of internuncios is made in its rules. 
 they are considered on D level with plenipotentiaries. This 
 is (or lately was) the title of the Austrian envoy at Constan- 
 tinople. 
 
 INTEROSSEOUS MUSCLES. Small muscles between 
 the metacarpal bones of the hand and the metatarsal of the 
 foot ; tile former are concerned in moving the fingers, and 
 the latter the toes. 
 
 INTERPILA'STER. (Lat. inter, and pilaster.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, the space between two pilasters, which depends 
 entirely on the same rules as intercolumniation, and that 
 more especially if both are employed in the same building. 
 
 I.VTKKl'LE'ADER. In Law." A bill of interpleader, 
 in equity, is filed by a person who is under an obligation of 
 debt or rent to one of the parties to a suit in equity, but can- 
 not ascertain, until the determination of the suit to which 
 of the parties he is indebted ; and by this bill he desires 
 to interplead, in order that he may save himself harm- 
 less in the event of the success of either party. In tile 
 common law courts, by 1 & 2 W. 4, c. 58, relief can be 
 given in some cases against adverse claims made on sher- 
 iffs and other officers, and persons having no interest in 
 the subject of such claims, by a judge's order calling on 
 the third party to appear and maintain or relinquish his 
 claim. 
 
 INTERPOLATION. In Alge»ra and Astronomy, is a 
 method employed for filling up the intermediate terms of a 
 series of numbers or observations, by numbers which fol- 
 low the same law. The general problem to be resolved is 
 this: Given two series of numbers, the corresponding terms 
 of which have some determinate relation to each other. 
 and of which the first is called the series of roots, and the 
 second the series of functions ; to find the function corres- 
 ponding to any term in the series of roots from the numbers 
 in the series of functions which precede or follow that 
 which is required. Thus, supposing the series of roots to 
 be the natural numbers 101, 102, 104, 105, and the se- 
 ries of functions to be the logarithms of those numbers ; 
 then the question may be to find the logarithm of 103 by 
 means of the logarithms of 101, 102, 104, and 105. In the lan- 
 guage of algebraists, the problem is to determine the value 
 of Y x ^_ n in a function of the terms which precede or fol- 
 low Y z . 
 
 In Astronomy and Physics, interpolation signifies the 
 method of finding a mathematical law which will connect 
 together a number of observed facts. Thus, supposing 20 
 places of a comet have been determined by observation; 
 these places are said to be interpolated when a curve de- 
 fined by an analytical equation has been found which passes 
 throuah them all : for by means of this curve the place of 
 the comet at any intermediate time can be found. Accord- 
 ing tu this view of the subject, the problem of interpolation 
 i- altogether indeterminate : for an infinity of analytic curves 
 of different forms may be found which will pass through 20 
 given points : but in general the circumstances of the ques- 
 tion impose such restrictions OS render it determinate. In 
 the instance now given we know that the curve must be an 
 ellipse; and as an ellipse cannot be made to pass through 
 20 points taken any how, the question resolves itself into 
 
 this: To find the ellipse which will most near/; pass through 
 
 the given points, or represent the given observations. Anoth- 
 er question new arises— what conditions must be fulfilled in 
 order that the obsen ations may be represented must nearly ? 
 
 These conditions most be determined from other considera- 
 tions. Suppose the condition to he that the sum of the 
 squares of the errors of observation (that is, of the differ- 
 - between the i bserved places of the comet and the 
 corresponding places in the orbit to be found; shall be a 
 minimum: the problem is now quite determinate, thouf 
 solution may be sufficiently difficult and laborious. 
 
 The method of interpolation by differences wits first em- 
 ployed by BliggS in the calculation of logarithms; but was 
 aftcrwaid- treated in a more general way by Wallis, New- 
 ton, Cotes. Stirling, and others. In the fifth lemma of the 
 012 
 
 INTESTINALIA. 
 
 third book of the Principia, Newton has given a solution of 
 the problem of determining the curve which passes through 
 the extremities of any number of ordinates. By modern 
 writers the subject is treated as a branch of the calculus of 
 finite differences. It is discussed ;i t length by Laplace in 
 the 2d vol. of the Jfccanit/ue Celeste, and also in thvTheorie 
 Analitique des Probabi/ttes : by Lagrange, in the .lour/ml 
 de V Ecole Polytcchnique, &c. Sec also the Treatise on Dif- 
 ferences and Series by Sir John Herschel In the Appendix 
 to the English translation of Lacroix's Differential ami Inte- 
 gral Calculus, or the 3d vol. of Lacroix's large Ti. 
 
 INTERRE'GNUM. (Lat.) The period between the 
 death of one kins and the accession of another under the 
 Roman monarchy : or, under the republic, the space of time 
 when there were, by some accident, no curule magistrates 
 who could hold the public assemblies of the people (com- 
 itia), during which tin iuterrex was appointed. See Inter- 
 rex. 
 
 I WTERREX. A person appointed to discharge the royal 
 functions during a vacancy of the throne. The Romans 
 first elected an interrex after the death of Romulus, and the 
 custom was continued while the monarchy lasted. The 
 manner of their election was this: the senate chose ten 
 individuals out of its body, each of whom discharged the 
 functions of royalty for five days, in an order appointed by 
 lot. It has been supposed that these ten senators were not 
 elected, but they were the respective seniors of the ten de- 
 curies into which the original body of patricians was divided, 
 and that this office devolved on them by virtue of their 
 rank. An interrex was also appointed sometimes under the 
 republic, to preside over elections of magistrates, &.c, when 
 the consuls were absent, or their election declared void and 
 no dictator had been created. 
 
 INTERSCE'XDEXT. (Lat. inter, and scando, f climb.) 
 In Algebra, a term applied by Leibnitz to quantities when 
 the exponents of their powers are irrational. Such expres- 
 sions are called inter scendevt, as holding a mean as it were 
 between algebraic and transcendental quantities. 
 
 INTERSECTION. (Lat. inter, and seco, / cut.) In 
 Geometry, the meeting or concourse of lines or surfaces. 
 The intersection of two lines, or of a line and a surface, is 
 a point; and the intersection of two surfaces is a line. 
 
 l'XTERTIE. (Lat. inter, and tie.) In Architecture, a 
 horizontal piece of timber framed between two posts in 
 order to tie them together. 
 
 INTERVAL. (Lat. intervallum.) In Music, the ima- 
 ginary distance between two sounds as respects their acute- 
 ness and gravity, called by the ancients a diastein. Inter- 
 vals are divided into simple and compound ; the former be- 
 ins without parts or divisions, the latter consisting of seve- 
 ral smaller intervals. 
 
 INTERVENTION. (Lat. inter, and *enio, / come.) In 
 Politics, the interposition of one state in the domestic affairs 
 of another. The right of armed intervention is one of the 
 most contested portions of the public law of nations : as, 
 although practised frequently enough by the more powerful 
 with reference to the weak, it had never been regarded 
 otherwise than as a permitted abuse of power until the time 
 of the congresses of Vienna, Laybach, &c, when it was 
 publicly recognised by the leading cabinets of Europe. 
 
 IXTE'STACY. (Lat. in the sense of irithout, and testor, 
 / ti stifii.) In Law, the condition of a party who dies with- 
 out having made a will. Freehold lands and tenements iu 
 which he has an estate of inheritance descend to his heir, 
 subject to such charges as affect real estate ; copyhold lands 
 of inheritance to the heir, by the custom of the manor ; chat- 
 tels must be distributed (subject to debts), by the party who 
 takes out letters of administration to the deceased's estate 
 and effects according to the provisions of the Statute of Dis- 
 trib ution s. 
 
 INTESTINA'LIA. intestinal Worms. (Lat. intestina, an 
 intestine.) The name by which Linnaus and Cuvier have 
 designated the class of animals which infest the interior of 
 other animal bodies, and which indicates their most common 
 locality, viz. the intestinal tube. 
 
 The knowledge of the intestinal worms, as a distinct class 
 of invertebrate animals, is of a very late date. In the 
 twelfth edition of the Si/stcma JVatura, 1787-8, only eleven 
 species of true Entozou are enumerated, and of these only 
 all are placed anions the Intestina — Cur/ltus medinensis, As- 
 enris vermicularis, Jlscaris lumbricoidos, Fasciola hepatica. 
 Fas. intestinalis, and Fas. barbata ; the remaining specie-, 
 viz., Hydra hydatula, Tamia solium. Tan. vulgaris, Tan. 
 lata, and Tarn, canina, are ranged with the Zoophyta. 
 Hindi's Treatise on the Generation of Intestinal If'orms, 
 and the succeeding work of Goezc, entitled fersurb einer 
 Naturgrschiclilc i/er Kingeirciilrwurmer Thierischer Kbr 
 
 per, 1782, added largely to the number of the described 
 -, and led to the foundation of some accurately de- 
 fined groups, and better ideal of classification. Gmelin, 
 availing himself of the labours of these authors, and com- 
 bining with them the species described by Rcdi, Pallas,
 
 INTESTINALIA. 
 
 O. P. Miiller, and Werner, was enabled to give two hundred 
 and ninety-nine species of Intestinaiia, in the thirteenth 
 edition of /June's Systcma Natures : but of this labour it 
 has been justly remarked, "Gmelinus, auctorum plurimo- 
 rum observationes concessit, sed tarn judicio et experientia 
 quam solertia destitutus, plarima miscuit et implicuit, ut in 
 synonimis ab eodem perperam allegatis, extricandis, C. A. 
 Rudolphi et Zederus multiiiu desudaverint." 
 
 The first clear definition of the intestinal worms as a class, 
 and their distribution into a system of orders and genera, 
 are contained in the great work by Rudolphi, entitled Ento- 
 zoorum sea Vcrmium Inlcstinalium Historia Naturalis, 
 8vo' 1808-10. In this work, Rudolphi, after dividing the 
 great class Vermes, of Linnreus, into four classes, viz. Mo- 
 lusca, Gymnodela, Entotoa, and Phytozoa, characterizes the 
 third class as follows : " Entozoa ergo classem, aut si mavis 
 ordinem sistunt peeuliarem continentem, aids in animali- 
 bus obvia, oculis nudis con.ipicua, nereis carentia, partibus 
 internis dissimilibus instructa." Of the class of animals 
 thus characterized, Rudolphi enumerates, in a subsequent 
 work, Synopsis Entozoorum, 1819, upwards of eleven hun- 
 dred species. At the present time nearly double that num- 
 ber of Entozoa are known. 
 
 Rudolphi distributes the intestinal worms into five orders, 
 which are characterized as follows : 
 
 Order I. Nematoidea (Round- worms). — Char.: Body elon- 
 gated, rounded, elastic ; an intestinal canal, with a sepa- 
 rate mouth and vent ; sexes distinct. 
 Order II. Acanthocephala ( Hooked- worms). — Char.: Body 
 roundish, utricular, elastic ; head with a retractile pro- 
 boscis, armed with hooks or recurved spines ; sexes dis- 
 tinct. 
 Order III. Trematoda (Fluke-worms). — Char.: Body soft, 
 rounded, or flattened ; suctorial pores ; male and female 
 organs in the same individual. 
 Order IV. Cestoidca (Tape-worms).— Char.: Body elongated, 
 flattened, soft, continuous, or articulated; head either 
 simply labiated, or provided with pits (bothria), or suc- 
 torious orifices, either two or four in number ; male and 
 female organs in the same individual. 
 Order V. Cystica (Hydatids). — Char. : Body flattened or 
 rounded, continued posteriorly into a cyst, which is 
 sometimes common to many individuals ; head provided 
 with two or four pits, or with four suckers, and with a 
 circle of hooklets, or with four unarmed or uncinated 
 tentacles ; sexual organs hitherto indiscernible. 
 The Entozoa which are included in the last four orders 
 of Rudolphi have no distinct intestinal canal ; and Cuvier 
 considered the presence of this structure in the Nematoidea 
 of Rudolphi of sufficient importance to form the character 
 of a primary group, equivalent to all the remaining orders 
 combined ; and he observes that the orders thus distinguish- 
 ed might form two classes. 
 
 The first order Cuvier terms Cavitaires ; and he includes 
 in it not only the Nematoid Entozoa, but also the genus 
 Pentastoma of Rudolphi. and the Epizoa, or Vers rigidities, 
 of Lamarck. 
 
 The organization of the Pentastomala, which were defined, 
 prior to Rudolphi, by Froelich, under the name of Lingua- 
 tula, unquestionably entitles them to rank with the highest 
 organized Entozoa (see Zoological Trans., vol. i., p. 381, pi. 
 41) ; but, with respect to the Epizoa, or the external Ler- 
 nasan parasites of fishes, although they agree with the Nema- 
 toidea and all other Entozoa in the absence of distinct res- 
 piratory organs, yet the ciliated natatory extremities which 
 they possess in the young state, and the external ovarian 
 appendages of the adult, are characters which raise them 
 above the Entozoa, and indicate their intimate relations with 
 the Siphonostomous Crustaceans. 
 
 I have, therefore, combined the Nematoidea of Rudolphi 
 with the genera Linguatula, Porocephalus, and Syngamus, 
 &c, which, under the habit of Cestoid or Trematode worms, 
 mask a higher grade of organization, to form a class under 
 the name of Calclmintha. This class already embraces the 
 types of three different orders, of which one is formed by 
 the Nematoidea of Rudolphi; and a second has been estab- 
 lished by Diesing, for the Linguatula, and o her congeneric 
 species, under the name of Jicanthotheca. The remarkable 
 organization of the genus Syngamus, as described by Siebold, 
 clearly indicates the type of a third order of Cwlclmintha. 
 (See that word.) 
 
 The four orders of intestinal worms which have no dis- 
 tinct intestine, but in which the digestive function is carried 
 on in blind canals, excavated in the parenchymatous sub- 
 stance of the body, Cuvier combines into a group, which he 
 terms Vers intestinaux parenchymateux, and for which 1 
 have proposed the name of Stcrelmintha. (See that word.) 
 This group Cuvier subdivides into three families or or- 
 ders; the first corresponding to* the Jlcinthocephala of Ru- 
 dolphi, the second to the Trematoda, and the third being 
 equivalent to the Cestoidca and Cystica combined ; with the 
 exception of the genus Liguta of Bloch, of which Cuvier 
 53 
 
 INTRORSES. 
 
 makes a fourth order, restricting to it the application of Ru- 
 dolphi's term Cestoidca. To this distinction it must be ob- 
 jected that the passage from the Tainiee to the Ligulai is 
 rendered very gradual by the traces of bothria and of gen- 
 erative organs, which make their appearance in the higher- 
 organized Ligulai which infest the intestines of certain 
 aquatic birds, and respecting which Rudolphi hazards the 
 following ingenious hypothesis ; viz., that these species are 
 actually the more simple Ligulai of fishes, developed into a 
 higher grade of organization by virtue of the warmth and 
 abundant nutriment which they enjoy in the intestines of 
 the birds that have swallowed the fishes so infested. To 
 the conjunction of the hydatids with the tapeworms no 
 sound objection can be made ; the structure of the Tctrar- 
 hynchi and Anthocephali, on the contrary, shows how un- 
 natural is the separation of the Cestoid from the Cystic En- 
 tozoa. The Cysticercus fasciolaris may be regarded as the 
 point of transition, or of conjunction, between the two groups. 
 The head in Catnurus and Echinococcus presents the form 
 and structure of that of Tmni ; and the head of the Tetrar- 
 hynchus, the proboscis exempted, precisely resembles that 
 of the Echinococcus, although the Tetrarhynchi neither in- 
 habit a vesicle, nor terminate in a vesicle. The Cystica ap- 
 pear, in fact, to be incomplete Cestoidea ; both consist at 
 first of a simple cyst, like the Jlcephalocyst ; but both pro- 
 ceed to develope therefrom a suctorious and uncinated head, 
 from which the Cestoidea proceed to develope not only 
 ova, but generative organs, in successive segments, which in 
 some species, as the Sothriocephalus punctatus, seems to be 
 annually shed and reproduced. 
 
 Thus, the intestinal worms, as at present known, form two 
 classes, each divisible into three orders. 
 
 Class I. CtELELMINTHA. 
 
 Order 1. Nematoida. — Ex. : Filaria medinensis, Filoculi, 
 Fil. bronchialis, Jiscaris lumbricoides, JJsc. vermicu- 
 laris, Tricoccphalus dispar, Spiroptera hominis, Stron- 
 gylus gigas, Strong, spiniger, Trichina spiralis. 
 
 Order 2. Jicanthotheca. — Ex. : Linguatula tamioides. 
 
 Order 3. Syngamoidea. — Ex. : Syngamus trachealis. 
 
 Class II. Sterelmintha. 
 Order 1. Jlcanthocephala.-*-Y-.\. : Echinorhynchus gigas. 
 Order 2. Trematoda. — Ex. : Distoma hepaticum, Polystomtt 
 
 pinguicola 
 Order 3. Ttunioidea. — Ex. : Bothrioccphalus latus Tmnia 
 solium, Cysticercus cellulosce, Echinococcus hominis. 
 
 The examples quoted are species which infest man, with 
 the exception of those belonging to the orders, Jicanthotheca, 
 Syngamoidea, and Jicanthoccphala, which have no repre- 
 sentatives among the human internal parasites. For tho 
 parts of the body which these latter infest, the reader is re- 
 ferred to Entozoa. 
 
 INTE'STINE. The convoluted membranous and mus- 
 cular tube extending from the pylorus to the anus. It i9 
 distinguished into small and large intestines : the former in- 
 cluding the duodenum, the jejunum, and the ileum ; the lat- 
 ter the cacum, colon, and rectum. The small intestines have 
 internal membranous folds, called valvule? conniventes ; the 
 large have three parallel muscular bands upon their sur- 
 face. The intestines admit of separation into three coats : 
 the external, membranous or peritoneal ; the middle coat, 
 muscular; and the inner one, villous. They are attached 
 to the body by the mesentery. The structure of the intes- 
 tinal canal in different animals is wonderfully adapted to its 
 required functions, dependent upon the nature of their food 
 and other circumstances. Of these peculiarities the princi- 
 pal are adverted to under the titles of the animals in which 
 they occur. 
 
 INTONA'TION. (Lat. in, and tonus, a tone.) In Music, 
 the act of sounding with the voice the consecutive notes of 
 the scale, or in any other given intervals. To do this cor- 
 rectly is the first qualification of a good singer. It is scarce- 
 ly practicable without the assistance of a good ear, as well 
 as a reference to some common idea, such as the key or 
 mode wherein a piece is written. From the word tone, 
 sometimes used in a sense almost identical with that of key, 
 the word has its origin. The musical definition of this 
 word in Todd's edition of Johnson's Dictionary, is absurd- 
 ly given as "the act of singing together." 
 
 INTRA'DOS. The interior and lower line or curve of 
 an arch. The exterior or upper curve is called the eztrados. 
 See Arch. 
 
 INTRE NCHMENT. In Fortification, any work that 
 fortifies a post against the attack of an enemy. It most 
 usuallv denotes a ditch or trench with a rampart. 
 
 I'NTROIT. (Eat. introitus, entry.) In Ecclesiastical 
 Antiquities, the verses chaunted or repeated at the first en- 
 tering of the congregation into the church ; a custom as old 
 as the fourth century: called "ingressa" in the Ambrosian 
 Ritual. (Palmer, Origines Liturgicie, ii. 19.) 
 
 INTRO'RSES. (Eat. introrsum, inwards.) Turned in- 
 
 613
 
 INTRUSION. INVESTITURE. 
 
 wards A term used in describing the direction of bodies, to i time, how many men will be required to cut down 6 acres 
 denote their being turned towards the axis to which they | in the same time?" belongs to the direct rule, the quantity 
 anucrt ain ■ thus in most plants the anthers are introrse, be- | of work done being directly proportional to the number Of 
 lneturned towards the style. I men employed : but the question "if 20 men do a piece of 
 
 lug turned towards the styl 
 
 INTRI 'SION. (Lat. intrudo, f thrust upon.) In Law, 
 a species of injury to freehold property. It arises when a 
 ' intrudes between the death of tenant for life or 
 ■ i the entry of the heir of a remainder-man or rever- 
 sioner expectant on the estate for life or years, who had 
 died previous to the decease of such tenant for life or years. 
 Writ of intrusion lies only for a party who has the remainder 
 or reversion in fee: remainder-man in tail has remedy by 
 formedon. See Fee-Tail, Formedon. 
 
 INTUITION. (I>;tt. Intueor, / look into.) In Philoso- 
 phy, any act of the mind by which a truth is immediately 
 perceived, and as it were beheld, without any previous pro- 
 cess of analysis or ratiocination. Such, according to Kant, 
 are the fundamental propositions of geometry ; as that "two 
 straight lines cannot inclose a space," &c. 
 
 rNTUSSUSCE'PTION. (Lat. intus, within, and sus- 
 ceptio.) In Anatomy, a term applied to the folding or pass- 
 ing of one portion of intestinal canal into another. 
 
 1'NULIX. A white powder deposited by a decoction of 
 the roots of the Inula helenium or elecampane. In its 
 chemical properties it appears intermediate between gum 
 and starch. 
 
 INUNDATION. (Lat in, and unde, a wave.) In Agri- 
 culture, lands which are overflowed by water from natural 
 causes uncontrolled by art, are said to be Inundated: when 
 in consequence of the" exercise of art and skill, the result is 
 termed irrigation. 
 
 INVALFDS. (Lat. invalidus, weak.) Those soldiers or 
 sailors who, either on account of wounds or length of service, 
 are admitted into hospitals, and there maintained at the 
 public expense. The practice of making provision for sol- 
 diers worn out or disabled in the public service dates from 
 high antiquity. The liberality of Fisistratus to the Athenian 
 soldiers is known to every scholar; and the history of an- 
 cient Home is replete with instances of the veterans of the 
 legions being rewarded with grants of land. It must be ad- 
 mitted, however, that in ancient times such recompences 
 had not their origin in that high philanthropic feeling by 
 which the moderns are actuate^ in making provision for 
 military and naval invalids; for they were granted only 
 after victory, and emanated more from individual power or 
 favour than from any general or established principles of 
 benevolence. In modern times there is no civilized country' 
 ■without institutions for I he maintenance of invalids; hut the 
 most magnificent are. without question, the Greenwich and 
 Chelsea hospitals in England, and in France the Hotel des 
 Invalides. 
 
 INVE'NTION. (Lat. invenire, J find.) In the Fine, 
 Arts, the choice and production of such objects as are proper 
 to enter into the composition of a work of art. "Strictly 
 speaking," says Sir Joshua Reynolds, " invention is little 
 more than a new combination of those images which have 
 been previously gathered and deposited in the memory: 
 nothing can come of nothing: he who has laid up no ma- 
 terials can produce no combinations." Though there be 
 nothing new under the sun, yet novelty in art will be attain- 
 able till all the combinations of the same things are exhaust- 
 ed — a circumstance that can never come to pass. 
 
 INVE'NTION OF THE CROSS. A festival celebrated 
 May 3d, in the Roman Catholic church, in honour of the 
 finding of the cross on which our Saviour was executed. 
 The Bearch was instituted by order of St. Helena, mother 
 of the Emperor Constantino, A.D. 32(i ; anil the cross ac- 
 cording to St Cyril, was found among the ruins of Mount 
 Calvarj . 
 
 I'NVENTORY. (Lat invenio, I find.) A catalogue of 
 movables. S,r Executor. 
 
 I'NVERSE METHOD OF FLUXIONS. The method 
 of finding (be fluents of given tluxional expressions. It is 
 the same with the integral calculus. 
 
 ['NVERBE METHOD OF TANGENTS. The method 
 of finding the curve whose tangents arc lines drawn accord- 
 ing tO some determinate law, or which fulfil some given 
 condition. For example, suppose rays of light issuing from 
 
 a luminous point to fall on the concave surface of a sphere, 
 nnd to be thence reflected ; the problem may be proposed to 
 determine the nature of the curve to which all the reflected 
 rays in any given plane are tangents. Problems of th 
 require the application of the integral calcuhu : and hence 
 
 the method by which they are BOlved is called the j 
 
 method of tangents, as opposed to the direct method, viz., 
 that of finding the tangent to a curve which is performed by 
 the differential calculus. 
 I'NVERSE PROPORTION, In Algebra and Ari 
 
 Is the application of the rule of Hue.', or proportion In a re- 
 verse or contrary order. This is usually described by say- 
 ing that less requires more, or more requires less. Thus, 
 the question, " if 20 men cut down 3 acres of com in n given 
 
 014 
 
 work in 6 days, in what time will 40 men perform the 
 
 same ! " is one Of inverse proportion, for more men will do 
 the work in less time, or the number of men required is In- 
 versely as the time. The question may be slated in this 
 manner, A : J~ : : (i ; and the answer is 3. 
 
 I'.N V ERSE RATH ). The ratio of the reciprocals of two 
 members. See INVERSE Proportion. 
 
 INVE'RSION. (Lat.) In Rhetoric and Philology, the 
 transposition of words out of their natural order. Every 
 language has a customary arrangement of its own to regulate 
 the order of succession in which words forming part of tho 
 same sentence, member, or proposition follow each other. 
 On the other hand, there is undoubtedly a natural or philo- 
 sophical order of words following each other in the same 
 analytical succession in which ideas present themselves to 
 the mind, varied occasionally by that produced by the suc- 
 cession of sentiments or emotions; and as in every language 
 many customary phrases, if not the general arrangement of 
 the words, are contrary to this primitive order, every lan- 
 guage has customary inversions of its own. Deviations from 
 the customary order of words are more commonly called 
 transpositions ; but each word has, of course, a relative and 
 somewhat arbitrary signification. As an instance of ordinary 
 inversion, it may be observed that, according to the meta- 
 physical or analytical order, the subject of a proposition pre- 
 cedes the predicate, being the first idea which presents itself 
 to the mind. Thus, in the construction of a sentence con- 
 taining a proposition (see Logic), " Solon is wise," or 
 "Alexander reigns," we habitually follow the order of na- 
 ture. But when a substantive and adjective in connexion 
 form part of a sentence, i. e., a subject or predicate, or part 
 of either, the substantive is that which seems naturally to 
 present itself first to the mind ; whereas in most modern 
 languages it follows the adjective, while in the Greek and 
 Latin its ordinary although not its necessary place was be- 
 fore it: "Who is a wise man?" "Vir bonus est quis?" 
 "The end of a long silence." "Finis silentii diutunri." It 
 is in general to be observed, that modern languages admit 
 far less readily than ancient of transposition ; but there are 
 considerable differences in this respect between m 'dcrn lan- 
 guages themselves. German admits much latitude, French 
 verj little. In our own language we are frequently able to 
 vary the analytical order by following wha! may he termed 
 the order of emotion, where a French writer could not do 
 so: thiLs in the proposition "Great is Diana of the Ephe 
 sians," it would he impossible, in French, to give the forco 
 which is added to the expression by the transposition of tho 
 predicate to the beginning without violating the habitual 
 rules of construction. A similar instance of inversion is to 
 be found in the Swedish and some kindled languages, in 
 which the article follows instead of preceding the noun. 
 
 Inversion. In Music, the change of place between two 
 notes of an interval ; that is, placing the lower note an oc- 
 tave higher, or the higher note an octave lower. 
 
 INVE'RTEBRATES, Tnorrtebrata. (Lat. in, priv. ; ver- 
 tebra, a joint of the, back-bone.) The animals w Inch are de- 
 void of vertebrae, or an internal bony skeleton ; and which 
 include the Molluscous, Articulate, Nematoneurous, and 
 Acrite sub kingdoms. Lamark's primary division of the ani- 
 mal kingdom into Vertebrata and Tnvcrtebrata corresponds 
 with that proposed by Aristotle into Enaima and Jinaima. 
 It is, however, subject to the same objection OS applies to 
 most of the Dichotomous systems in Zoology ; viz., that the 
 two members of the division are not equivalent to each 
 other. The Tnvertebrata, for example, contain three if not 
 four primary divisions of the animal kingdom, each of which 
 are equivalent to the Vertebrata. 
 
 INVE'RTED ARCH. In Architecture, one wherein the 
 lowest stone or brick is the 
 keystone. It is used in U AJ. 
 foundations, to distribute 
 the weight of particular _ 
 points, such as A A A, over ^£JS=irri=rr±r^rr_ 
 ihc whole extent of the foundation, and hence its employ- 
 ment is frequently of the first importance in constructive 
 architecture. 
 
 INVE'STITURE. In Feudal Law, the deli very of a fief 
 by B lord to his vassal, accompanied by peculiar ceremonies. 
 
 I s ii i dai System.) The Investiture of a bishop was, 
 properly speaking, his endowmenl with the fiefs and tem- 
 poral les oi the see. Hence il become a subject of contest 
 between the popes and emperors, and one of the principal 
 grounds of the great quarrel of Guelfe and Ghibellines. It 
 was conceded by the emperors to the Roman see in 1122; 
 bui the question was raided by a substantial compromise, 
 which left Hit- nomination in reality, in the hands of tho 
 temporal prince in European monarchies under Ihe Roman 
 Catholic religion. (See llallam's Middle Ages ; Haumor's
 
 INVOCATION. 
 
 History of the Hohenstauffcn ; Gieseler's Text Book of Ec- 
 eiesiastical History, vol. ii. ; Mosheim's Eccl. History.) 
 
 INVOCA'TION (Lat. invoco, / cadi upon), in Literature, 
 signifies, in a general sense, an address at the commence- 
 ment of a poem, preferred to the Muses or some other Being 
 supposed capable of giving inspiration. Thus, while the an- 
 cient poets generally addressed their invocations to some 
 particular muse or divinity. Milton invokes the " Heavenly 
 Muse" and the "Holy Spirit;" and, in his Hcnriade, Vol- 
 taire calls to his aid "auguste Veritc." For the chief rules 
 of poetical invocation, see the Vict, dc Richelct, and the 
 Diet, dc 'a Conversation. 
 
 INVOCA'TION OF SAINTS. In Theology. Accord- 
 ing to Protestant writers, the veneration of saints and mar- 
 tyrs increased rapidly throughout the 4th century ; but their 
 invocation as intercessors with the Divinity did not general- 
 ly commence much before the 5th. (See Mosheim, ii., 32, 
 102, ed. 1820, transl. ; Gieseler, i., 283, transl.) The follow- 
 ers of Origen are said to have been the first " who apostro- 
 phised the martyrs in their sermons, and besought their in- 
 tercession." Prayers for the saints among other departed 
 spirits were discontinued about the 5th century, on the prin- 
 ciple laid down by Saint Augustine, " Injuria est pro mar- 
 tyre orare, etijus nos debemus orationibus commendari." 
 See Martyrs, Saints. 
 
 I'NVOICE. A list or account of goods or merchandise 
 Eent by merchants to their correspondents at home or abroad, 
 in which the peculiar marks of each package, with their 
 value, customs, provision, charges, and other particulars, 
 are set forth. (See Com. Diet.) 
 
 LN'VOLUCE'LLUM. (Lat.) In Botany, the secondary' 
 Involucrum surrounding one of the umbellules of an um- 
 belliferous flower, or the florets of a capitulum. 
 
 LNVOLU'CRUM. (Lat.) In Botany, a term having three 
 significations : 
 
 1. A ring of bracts surrounding one or many flowers. 
 
 2. In describing fens to denote the superincumbent cuticle 
 
 coveriug the son. 
 
 3. In describing Equisetacete, to denote the cases of re- 
 
 productive organs. 
 
 I'NVOLUTE, in the Higher Geometry, is a curve con- 
 ceived to be described by the extremity of a string unwind- 
 ing itself fn m the arc of another curve about which it has 
 been lapped. All curves, in which the curvature is neither 
 infinitely great nor infinitely small, may he generated in this 
 way by the evolution of a thread from another curve, which 
 is called the evolutt of the new curve. Sec Evolute. 
 
 The method of generating curves by evolution is a geo- 
 metrical theory invented by Huygens, and given in his 
 Horo/ogium Oscillatorium, where he shows that the invo- 
 lute of a cycloid is another cycloid equal to the original one ; 
 and he applies this property to the practical purpose of caus- 
 ing a pendulum to vibrate in the arc of a cycloid ; in which 
 case, by another remarkable property of that curve, the vi- 
 brations are performed in equal times, whether the arc of 
 vibration be ereat or small. 
 
 INVOLUTION, in Arithmetic and Algebra, is the meth- 
 od of finding any power of an assigned quantity ; and is the 
 reverse of evolution, which denotes the method of finding 
 the root of any quantity, which is considered as a power of 
 that root. 
 
 The successive powers of any quantity are found by the 
 continual multiplication of the quantity itself. Thus, taking 
 the number 5, we have 
 
 5=5', the first power or root, 
 
 5 X 5 = 52 or 25, the second power or square, 
 
 5X5X5 = 53 or 125, the third power or cube, 
 
 and so on ; whence we see that the number of multiplica- 
 tions required to raise a number to any power is one less 
 than the number of the index by which the power is ex- 
 pressed. 
 
 In algebra, simple quantities are involved by multiplying 
 the exponents of the symbols by the index of the power re- 
 quired, and racing the coefficients to the same power. 
 Thus the cube or third power of 2 a 2 x is 8 aG i3. Com- 
 pound quantities are involved in the same manner as num- 
 bers by a continual multiplication of the quantity itself, or 
 more generally and expeditiously by means of the binomial 
 theorem. 
 
 I'ODINE. (Gr. twSv<:, violet-coloured.) A substance dis- 
 covered in 1812 by M. Courtois of Paris. In this country it 
 is usually prepared from kelp, which is lixiviated with wa- 
 ter ; and when the crystallizable salts have been separated, 
 the mother liquors are mixed with sulphuric acid and black 
 oxide of manganese. On the application of heat the iodine 
 rises in the form of a dense violet-coloured vapour, which 
 by condensation forms steel-gray crystals looking like mica- 
 ceous iron. The specific gravity of iodine is between 4 and 
 5 ; when dry it fuses at 227°, and boils and evaporates in 
 purple fumes at 345°. When heated with water it distils 
 over at temperatures below 212°. The specific gravity of its 
 
 IONIC PHILOSOPHERS. 
 
 vapour is about 87, so that 100 cubic inches would weigh 
 nearly 270 grains. Iodine belongs to the electro-negative 
 supporters of c mbustion. It has an acrid taste, and a pecu- 
 liar odour somewhat like that of chlorine. It is an irritant 
 poison ; but in small doses, and cautiously administered, it 
 has occasionally been of great service in certain forms of 
 glandular disease. It is very sparingly soluble in waler, of 
 which it requires 7000 parts for its solution ; the colour of 
 the solution is brown; it dissolves copiously in alcohol and 
 in ether, and forms dark-brown liquids. It possesses strong 
 powers of combination, forming, with the metals, a class of 
 compounds called iodides ; with oxygen it forms the iodic 
 acid, and perhaps one or more oxides. Combined with hy- 
 drogen, it forms the hydriodic acid. Its equivalent number 
 is 126, and that of the hydriodic acid 127. Starch is a char- 
 acteristic test of the presence of free iodine, forming with it 
 a compound of a deep blue colour. It is so delicate that a 
 solution of starch dropped into water containing less than a 
 400,000th part of iodine, is ringed blue by it; but the solu- 
 tions must be cold, for the blue compound is soluble in hot 
 water. The great consumption of iodine is in medicine; it 
 is employed in its pure state, and in the form of iodide of 
 potassium, which is obtained by dissolving iodine in a solu- 
 tion of pure potash, evaporating to dryness, and fusing the 
 residue. This compound is sometimes called hydriodate of 
 potash. 
 
 I'OLITE. (Gr. tav, violet.) A mineral of a violet blue 
 by transmitted light; it occurs crystallized, and in small 
 grains and rolled masses. 
 
 IO'NTC DIALECT, the most euphonious of the four 
 written varieties of the Greek language, was spoken by the 
 inhabitants of the Ionian Islands, and in their colonial pos- 
 sessions in Asia Minor. It was originally the same as tha 
 Attic dialect, at least they boasted of a common origin ; but 
 from the extensive commercial intercourse of the Ionians 
 with the eastern nations, their language gradually imbibed 
 a portion of Asiatic erieminacy, which at length became its 
 chief characteristic, forming a striking contrast to that com- 
 bination of strength and harmony which distinguished tha 
 dialect of Attica. The chief writers in the Ionic dialect are 
 Herodotus, Hippocrates, and Galen : but it is in the wrir 
 tings of the first that the most complete specimen Is to be 
 found. fc 
 
 IO'NTC ORDER. On5 of the five orders of architecture, 
 whose distinguishing feature is the volute of its capital. 
 In the Grecian Ionic the volutes appear the same in tha 
 front and rear, being connected on the flanks by a baluster- 
 like form: through the external angles of the capitals of the 
 corner columns, however, a diagonal volute is introduced. 
 The Romans gave their Ionic four diagonal volutes, and 
 curved the sides of the abacus. The Greek volute contin- 
 ues the fillet of the spiral along the face of the abacus, 
 whereas in the Roman its origin is behind the ovolo. In 
 some Grecian specimens a 
 neck is added below the 
 echinus, sculptured with 
 flowers and leaves. The 
 height of the column is 
 about nine diameters, and 
 the base varies considera- 
 bly in different examples. 
 When a pedestal is used it 
 is somewhat higher and 
 more ornamental than the 
 Doric pedestal. The Greeks 
 usually made the entabla- 
 ture of this order very sim- 
 ple. The architrave has 
 two fascia?, the frieze plain, 
 and the cornice of few sub- 
 divisions ; but the modern 
 Ionic is seldom with less 
 than three fascis, the frieze 
 is often cushioned, and the 
 cornice is deeper and not 
 unfrequenlly modillioned, 
 its profile being much vari- 
 ed. The dentil is also much 
 used in the bed mouldings. 
 The shaft is cut with twen- 
 ty-four flutes separated by 
 fillets. Some of the most celebrated examples of the order 
 are the temple on the Ilyssus, of Minerva Polias at Athens 
 Priene, Bacchus at Teos, Apollo Didymanis at Miletus. For- 
 tuna Virilis and the Coliseum at Rome. The profile above 
 given is after Palladio. 
 
 IO'NIC PHILOSOPHERS. The earliest among the 
 Greek schools of philosophy. Speculation arose in Greece, 
 as elsewhere, in the attempt to discover the laws of outward 
 phenomena, and the origin and successive stages of the 
 world's development. Such an attempt, it is needless to 
 say, must at first have been extremely rude. To the student 
 
 615
 
 IPECACUANHA. 
 
 of philosophical literature, however, no such undertaking, 
 however unsuccessful, can possibly he otherwise than Inter- 
 esting; and in this instance in particular we are able to dis- 
 cover manifest traces of that liveliness of thought and sys- 
 tematic spirit which distinguish the later Greek speculations. 
 The fathers of the [onic school were Thales and his disci- 
 ple Anaximenes. They were succeeded in the same 1 line of 
 thought l>y Diogenes of Apol Ionia, and Heraclitus of Ephe- 
 sws. The characteristical mark which distinguishes the 
 speculations of these thinkers is the endeavour to refer all 
 Feasible things to one original principle in nature. The two 
 first named were satisfied with a very simple solution of the 
 problem. Water with the one, and air with the other, were 
 made the original materials out of which all things arose, 
 and into which they were finally resolved. In their suc- 
 cessors the germs of a more philosophical doctrine are appa- 
 rent. They retain, indeed, the simplicity of on original ele- 
 ment; but the otrof Diogenes and thejireof Heraclitus arc 
 apparently only sensible symbols, which they used only in 
 order to present more vividly to i)w imagination the energy 
 of the one vital principle which is the ground of all outward 
 appearances. It would indeed be a mistake to regard these 
 philosophers as materialists. The distinction between ob- 
 jective and subjective, between a law operating in the uni- 
 verse, and the corresponding apprehension of that law by 
 reason, however obvious it may seem at the present day. 
 seems to have required the deep meditation of numerous 
 powerful thinkers to bring it into clear consciousness. 
 
 That the two things were confounded by Heraclitus is ev- 
 ident from his attributing to this universal fire the attributes 
 of a universal reason — tlie source at once of the order in the 
 world, and of the insight into that order possessed by man. 
 Notwithstanding this confusion, the discovery is due to him 
 of the important truth, that " reason is common to all men ;" 
 that the ultimate principles of science derive their validity 
 from their universality ; n truth the value of which is net 
 diminished by our finding it combined with the physical hy- 
 pothesis to which we hive alluded. 
 
 The philosophers enumerated above may be considered as 
 forming one division of the Ionic school. They agree in re- 
 garding the universe as the result of the spontaneous evolu- 
 tion of a single principle or power; and all sensible things 
 as modifications of this principle, real only in referi 
 their ultimate ground. But we meet also with a class of 
 thinkers in whom the contrary tendency prevailed. Anax- 
 imander (B.C. 590) and Anaxagoras, the master of Pericles, 
 agree in this respect, that they consider the world to he made 
 up of numberless small particles, of different kinds and of 
 various shapes, by the change in whose relative position all 
 phenomena are to be accounted for. This hypothesis is 
 combined by Anaxagoras with a Supreme Reason, the au- 
 thor of all that is regular and harmonious in the disposition 
 of these elementary atoms. Anaxagoras may indeed be 
 considered as the first philosopher who clearly and broadly 
 stated the leading distinctions between mind and matter. 
 For a statement at once luminous and accurate of the lead- 
 ing peculiarities of this philosopher's doctrines, and those of 
 his predecessors, the reader is referred to Bishop Thirl wall's 
 admirable History of Greece, vol. ii., chap. IS. The stu- 
 dent who wishes for more minute information may consult 
 Brandis and Ritter's Histories of Philosophy, of the latter of 
 which a translation has appeared at Oxford. (See especi- 
 ally book iii.) See also a collection of the Fragments ,,f 
 Heraclitus in H'olf ami Jiutt man's .Museum of Antiquities, 
 Bd. I., stck. 3 ; and the .Mcmoircs de VAc. des Inscriptions, 
 vol. xvii. 
 
 IPK( A'CI A'XIIA. The root of the Cephne'is ipecacu- 
 anha. This important article of the .Materia .Medica is the 
 produce of South America; it is in short wrinkled pieces, 
 covered with a gray or brownish gray epidermis, and hav- 
 ing a central woody fibre, surrounded by a pale gray corti- 
 cal part, in which its virtue resides. It has a nauseous 
 odour, and a repulsive bitterish taste. It is difficultly redu- 
 cible to |K>wder, and the dust which it tbrnws off while un- 
 der the process of pulverization is apt to excite 1'reat irrita- 
 tion of the respiratory organs. Prom flfteen to tv 
 grains of powdered ipecacuanha tool taken in an ounce of 
 water is one of the Bafest ami surest emetics; in doses of 
 from one to three or four grains it is a navseant ; and in 
 smaller doses, repealed every four or six hours, as from a 
 fourth of a grata t" a gra rant and diaphoretic. 
 
 It contains from twelve to sixteen per cent, "t m 
 which its medical activity is referable. When long boiled 
 with water its emetic power is diminished, but the decoction 
 is aperient. There are several varieties ol Ipecacuanha, 
 some of which arise from modifications of soil and climate: 
 others appear to be the roots of distinct i 
 
 IRIDViri I. one of the genera.) A natural order 
 of berbace h habiting the ''ape and Bome other 
 
 places. It differs from Jimaryllidacea essentially in being 
 triandnus. with the anthers turned outwards; from Orchi- 
 dacece, in not being gynandrous ; and from Ztngiberatea 
 616 
 
 IRON. 
 
 and Marantacea, in having three perfect stamens. The 
 species are more remarkable for their beautiful flowers than 
 tor their utility. The substance called saffron is the dried 
 stigmata of the Crocus sativus. The various species of frit, 
 lua. Gladiolus, 'I'igridia, Crocus, &.C, are among the fa- 
 vourite flowers ot tiie gardener. 
 
 IIU'Dir.M. (Lat iris, the rainbow, in consequence of the 
 variety of colours exhibited by its solutions.) A metal dis- 
 covered by Dr. Wolluston. associated with the ore of plati- 
 num. It is gray, brittle, very infusible, and its specific grav- 
 ity is about 18-C. It forms several oxides and chlorides, and 
 combines readily with carbon. 
 
 [BIS. (Gr. !/>!$■.) In Grecian Mythology, the j>ersonifica- 
 tion of the rainbow. She also performed the duties of a 
 messenger to Jupiter and Juno. 
 
 Iris. A name for the rainbow. See Rainbow. 
 
 Iris. In Anatomy, the anterior part of the choroid coat 
 of the eye, with its central perforation, called the pupil; the 
 posterior part or hack of the iris is called the uvea. The 
 term iris is applied to that part of the eye on account of its 
 various colours. .Sec Eye. 
 
 IRI TIS. Inflammation of the iris of the eye. 
 
 l'RO.V A metal known from remotest antiquity, of a pe- 
 culiar gray colour, and possessing when polished much lus- 
 tre. It is not very malleable, but extremely ductile, and 
 very tenacious. At common temperatures it is hard and un- 
 yielding ; but at a red heat it is soft and pliable, and at a high 
 red heat it may be united to another piece equally heated 
 by hammering them together: this process is called weld- 
 ing. The specific gravity of pure iron is about ?•". Its tex- 
 ture is fibrous; it is wry difficult of fusion, requiring for 
 that purpose the highest temperature of a wind furnace. It 
 is attracted by the magnet, and is it-elf susceptible of being 
 rendered magnetic, a property possessed by no other metal 
 except nickel. Another remarkable circumstance in the 
 history of iron is, that it has only hitherto I" en found notice. 
 (that is, in its pure metallic state), in stones and masses ap- 
 parently of meU aric origin ; for the accounts of other forms 
 of native iron are doubtful. In combination with oxygen 
 and with sulphur, and occasionally with other substances, 
 it is very abundant in the mineral world, and is found in 
 small quantities in many animal and vegetable substances. 
 Those minerals which contain iron so combined as to be 
 employed as sources of the metal for the purposes of the arts 
 ami manufactures are more exclusively termed the ores of 
 iron ; and among them the different oxides of iron, and the 
 carbonate, either pure or in combination with various earthy 
 matters, forming the clay ironstone of our coal districts, are 
 the most important. The red oxide, and the black oxide 
 (ferrosoferric oxide of Berzelius), are also valuable ores. 
 The finest Swedish iron is chiefly procured from the purer 
 oxides, and especially from the native black oxide or mag- 
 nettc iron ore, and is reduced by charcoal ; in this country 
 clay ironstone is chiefly resorted to, and it is reduced by coke. 
 
 There are two kinds of iron, known in commerce under 
 the names of cast and wrought iron. There are also two 
 principal varieties of cast iron, distinguished by the terms 
 white and gray. The first is very hard and brittle, and 
 when broken of a radiated texture : gray iron is softer and 
 less brittle and may be bored and turned in the lathe. The 
 varieties of cast iron are also very different in their chemical 
 composition; some much purer than others; they often con- 
 tain traces of sulphur, phosphorus, silicium, calcium, man- 
 ganese, and always more or less oxide of iron and carbon. 
 The purer kinds of cast iron, which are chiefly carburets of 
 iron, may be converted into malleable iron by heating them, 
 surrounded by pure oxide of iron, by which the carbon is 
 gradually extracted in the form of carbonic oxide ; it is thus 
 that horse shoes, and oilier articles, ~ucli even as knives, 
 scissors, snuffers, See., are fashioned by casting, and after- 
 wards purified by the curious process just noticed. The 
 
 east iron manufactured in this country is converted into bar 
 or malleable iron, chiefly by process called puddling, which 
 consists iii subjecting it to the continued action of heat in a 
 reverberatory furnace, where, as soon as it melts.it is stirred 
 about till it gradually becomes Ie>s and less fusible, and at 
 length grows tough and pulverulent. During ibis part of 
 the process the miss heaves and emits a blue flame, in con- 
 sequence of the burning off of some of its impurities; the 
 fire is then so far increased as to agglutinate the metal into a 
 mass, which, intensely heated, is transferred to a powerful 
 rolling-mill ; as it pass, .^ successively through the roll i 
 large quantity of Impurities, chiefly it> earthy ingredient*, 
 in combination with oxide of iron, are squeezed out in the 
 form tit' a fluid slag, and the iron is extended into malleable 
 bars; tl into pieces, placed in parcels or faggots 
 
 in a very hoi furnace, and again hammered or rolled into 
 
 bars; they thus become more tough, flexible, and malleable, 
 
 but much less fusible, and may now be considered as nearly 
 pure iron. 
 
 When iron is heated red hot with the free access of air. it 
 undergoes a slow combustion ; that is, it combines with the
 
 IRON. 
 
 oxygen of the air, and is converted into a black fusible sub- 
 stance, as is seen when a bar of white-hot iron is beaten 
 upon the smith's anvil, the scales which rly off in brilliant 
 combustion producing the black oxide of iron. When a thin 
 piece of iron is introduced red-hot into oxygen gas, or when 
 a current of oxygen is directed upon it, it burns with great 
 splendour, throwing oft' brilliant sparks, and becoming rapid- 
 ly oxidized. When this black oxide, or when metallic iron is 
 exposed to air and moisture, or heated for a long time in con- 
 tact of air. it becomes converted into a brown oxide, famil- 
 iarly known as rust of iron. When iron is acted upon by 
 dilute sulphuric acid, it decomposes the water of the acid, 
 and becomes converted into a protoxide of iron, which is 
 taken up by the acid, and yields a green solution ; from 
 which, on evaporation, green crystals may be obtained of 
 protosulphate of iron, commonly known as green vitriol. 
 
 It appears from the analyses of these compounds that the 
 number 28 may be assumed as the equivalent of iron, and 
 that the protoxide (existing in green vitriol and in the pro- 
 tosalts of iron generally) is constituted of 1 atom of iron =; 
 23, and of 1 of oxygen := 8, and is consequently represented 
 by the equivalent number 28 -f- 8 = 36 ; that the brown or 
 red oxide, or peroxide of iron, consists of 28 iron and 12 ox- 
 ygen, and is represented by the equivalent 40; and that 
 many of the native oxides, and, generally speaking, the 
 scales of iron, are a definite combination of the above pro- 
 toxide and peroxide, containing 2 atoms of protoxide and 1 
 of peroxide. 
 
 The most efficient tests of the presence of iron in water, 
 and in solution generally, are the tincture of galls, which 
 produces a purple or dark blue tint in liquids containing 
 very minute proportions of iron, or a black precipitate where 
 the metal is more abundant ; and the ferrocyanate of potash, 
 which produces Prussian blue under similar circumstances. 
 
 Of the combinations of iron, steel is, perhaps, the most im- 
 portant. It is formed by heating pure iron in contact with 
 charcoal, and is a compound of iron with a small proportion 
 of carbon. See Steel. 
 
 The manifold uses of this valuable metal are too well 
 known to require being pointed out ; and no one can doubt 
 that its discovery has done more perhaps than anything else 
 to facilitate the advance of mankind in the career of im- 
 provement. " It accommodates itself," as Dr. Ure has ob- 
 served, " to all our wants, our desires, and even our caprices ; 
 it is equally serviceable to the arts, the sciences, to agricul- 
 ture and war ; the same ore furnishes the sword, the plough- 
 share, the pruning hook, the needle, the graver, the spring 
 of a watch or of a carnage, the chisel, the chain, the an- 
 chor, the compass, the cannon, and the bomb. It is a medi- 
 cine of much virtue, and the only metal friendly to the hu- 
 man frame. The ores of iron are scattered over the crust 
 of the globe with a beneficent profusion, proportioned to 
 the utility of the metal ; they are found under even,' latitude, 
 every zone, and in every mineral formation ; and they are 
 disseminated in every soil. But though iron is the most com- 
 mon of the metals, it is by far the most difficult to obtain in 
 a state fit for use ; and the discovery of the method of work- 
 ing it seems to have been posterior to the use of gold, silver, 
 and copper. It w ould be vain to attempt to investigate the 
 steps by which men were at fust led to practise the processes 
 required to fuse it, and render it malleable ; but th at the inven- 
 tion of these curious arts is of a very early date, is evident 
 from the fact that Tubal Cain, but a short time after the 
 creation, was " an instructor of every artifice in brass and 
 iron." In most instances, the profane historians of antiquity 
 have either attributed the discover}' of iron and its uses to 
 their divinities, or they have deified those to whom they 
 supposed they owed the blessings of so valuable a discovery. 
 
 At what period iron began to be made in this country there 
 is no means of ascertaining ; but there is authentic evidence 
 to show that iron works were established by the Romans in 
 the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire, and in other parts of 
 the kingdom. (Pennant's TVales, vol. i., p. 89, ed. 1810.) 
 They were also established at an early period in Kent and 
 Sussex ; but it was not till after the celebrated invention of 
 Lord Dudley in 1G19, by which pit coal was substituted for 
 timber in the smelting of iron ore, that a great impetus was 
 given to the working of this valuable mineral ; an invention 
 which, though interrupted and clogged for a time by the de- 
 vices of an ignorant rabble, at last established for itself a sure 
 footing both in this and in every other European country. 
 From 1740 (the period at which Lord Dudley's invention be- 
 came generally adopted) the progress of the manufacture has 
 exceeded the most sanguine expectations; and thoush we 
 have no means of ascertaining the exact quantity produced, 
 the subjoined estimates will show at once the value of the 
 manufacture, and the unexampled rapidity of its growth 
 during the last centurv. In 1740, the quantity amounted, in 
 England and Wales onlv, to 17,000 tons ; in i750, to 22.000; 
 in 1788, to 68,000 ; in 1796, to 12.1,000 ; in 1806, to 250,000 ; in 
 1820, to 400,000; in 1827, to 690,000; and in 18-10, to up- 
 wards of 1,000,000 tons. 
 
 IRREDUCIBLE CASE. 
 
 IRON TYRITES. Yellow sulphuret of Iron. A bi-sul- 
 phuret of iron, composed of 28 iron + 32 sulphur. It is a 
 very common and abundant ore of the metal; hitherto it 
 has only been used for the production of sulphate of iron, or 
 green vitriol ; but attention has lately been turned to it as a 
 source of sulphur. 
 
 I'RONY. (Gr. iipt&vsia ; from upiov, a dissembler.) In 
 Rhetoric, the quality of style and of sentiment which Arw 
 totle designates by the term hpuniua, is somewhat i 
 from that which bears the same title in modtrn phraseology, 
 being, in fact, only a subdivision of it. Eironeia, in his sense 
 of the word, is an artful representation of qualities or things 
 as less than they really are. Thus, among the vaiious char- 
 acters of the human mind as given by him, the hpwv (iron) 
 is one who affectedly conceals or depreciates his own got d 
 qualities. Quintilian gives to rhetorical irony a far moro 
 general sense, terming it diversiloquium, or the use of ex- 
 pressions contrary to the thoughts of the speaker. He also dis- 
 tinguishes it into two species, treating it as a trope or figure of 
 speech where the opposition of thought to language extends 
 only to a few words ; a figure of thought, where it extends to 
 a whole passage or discourse. The Socratic irony is em- 
 ployed in argument when one speaker affects to take the posi- 
 tions of the other for granted, in order adroitly to lead him 
 into self-contradiction or obvious absurdity. In the ordinary 
 sense, irony is a more delicate species of sarcasm, by which 
 praises are bestowed where it is intended to convey the op- 
 posite sense of disapprobation ; or assent is notified where the 
 real object is to express dissent. 
 
 IRRADIATION, in Physics and Astronomy, is the phe- 
 nomenon of the apparent enlargement of an object strongly 
 illuminated. The impression produced by light on the retina 
 appears to be extended, though to an extremely small dis- 
 tance, round the focus of the rays concentrated by the lenses 
 of the eye. Hence the image of a star is never a point, but 
 a disc having a sensible diameter, and larger in proportion as 
 the light is more intense ; and hence also the luminous part 
 of the moon at her first quarter appears larger than the 
 other. This effect, which is termed irradiation, results evi- 
 dently from the very nature of the organ of vision. 
 
 IRKA'TIONAL. In Arithmetic and algebra, a term ap- 
 plied to numbers or quantities of which the roots are incom- 
 mensurable with unity, and therefore cannot be accurately 
 extracted. Thus the root ,/2 is irrational, because it cannot 
 be expressed by any finite number. If the side of a square 
 = 1, then y/-2 is its diagonal ; and it is proved by elementary 
 geometry that the diagonal of a square is incommensurable 
 with its side. Irrational quantities are also called surds. 
 
 IRREDU'CIBLE CASE, in Algebra, is that particular 
 case in the solution of a cubic equation in which Cardan's 
 celebrated formula contains an imaginary expression, and 
 therefore fails in its application. This circumstance oc- 
 casioned great embarrassment to the early analysts, and 
 all the efforts of their successors to overcome the difficulty 
 in a direct way have proved unsuccessful. In order to 
 show in what it consists, let the proposed cubic equation 
 be x^-\-a z-\-c^=0; then, by Cardan's rule, we have x = 
 
 (— ic + ^\ a 3 + icl)h + (-Ac — vV~ a 3 + i^)£- 
 Now, if in this expression a is negative, and Jj» a? is greater 
 than ic2; then J^ a 3 + i c2 will be a negative quantity, 
 and consequently the extraction of its square root will ba 
 impossible, or the expression ^/-^^ a 3 + i c2 will be imagin- 
 ary. But it is known from the theory of equations that every 
 cubic equation must have at least one real root ; and it is a 
 circumstance not a little remarkable that those cubic equa- 
 tions in which this imaginary expression occurs have not 
 only one real root, but have ail the three roots real. 
 
 It is possible to disengage the expression for the value of 
 x from the imaginary quantities by expanding it by the bi- 
 nomial theorem ; for the imaginary quantities, which will be 
 the same in both the resulting series, will be positive in the 
 one series and negative in the other ; and therefore, on add- 
 ing the series together, they will be eliminated. But the 
 series which results from this addition will very rarely bj 
 convergent ; consequently this method is of no use whatever. 
 Various indirect methods of finding the roots have been pro- 
 posed ; the following is one of the simplest : 
 
 Let y% — ? y = c be the proposed equation. Find in the 
 trigonometrical tables an arc a whose natural cosine is 3 r 
 V 3 — 2 q y/ q ; then the three roots of the proposed equation 
 are, 
 
 y=2 v /^?X cos. $a, 
 
 y = -2V"£Vx sin. i (90° — a), 
 
 y — — 2Vi?Xsin. i (90° + n). 
 
 These formula apply, whether r be positive or negative ; 
 but when r is negative, it is more convenient to choose the 
 arc a such that its natural sine is 3 r J 3-H2 q J q, and the 
 three roots are then _._ 
 
 P p * C17
 
 IRREGULAR CADENCE. 
 
 y^Zy/lqXsin. Jo, 
 y=2 V 'i?XC0S.i(«P + *), 
 «=— Zy/ig X cos. J (9tP-(l). 
 Soe the article "Algebra," by Professor Wallace, in the 
 Enat. Britannica, . . 
 
 IRRE'GULAR CADENCE. In Music, one winch does 
 not end upon the essential chord of the mode in which a 
 piece is composed. SeeGuniNCK. 
 
 IRRIGA'TION. (Lat.) The art of watenng lands arti- 
 ficially and by means of surface drains or channels, as con 
 frosted witli watering by manual labour. In Britain, and in 
 analogous climates, irrigation is almost exclusively applied 
 to grass lands; but in warmer climates, such as those Of 
 Italy, Syria, India, &c, irrigation is considered as essentia 
 to the production of large crops in every description ot field 
 and garden culture. When any surface is to he irrigated, 
 the supnlv Of water which is to be used lor this purpose is 
 conducted to the highest part of that surface, and from thence 
 it is led over it in open gutters, so as to run very slowly, and 
 sink into the earth as it proceeds. As in general no very- 
 great extent of surface can be irrigated at once, different parts 
 of a held or farm are irrigated in succession; and in coun- 
 tries where this practice is universal, it often happens that 
 one source of supply is common to two or more forms, the 
 occupiers of which have it on alternate days. In the south 
 of France and Italy, abundant crops cannot be produced 
 without irrigation. "Even the potatoe crop and madder are 
 Irrigated in the neighbourhood of Avignon ; and in I uscany 
 wheat, maize, beans, turnips, and every other crop that can 
 be sown in drills in the fields, is watered from artificial chan- 
 nels The practice is as old as human civilization, and some 
 of the first machines which we read of in history are those 
 for raising water from the Nile for irrigating the lands on its 
 banks. Water, in short, is to the agriculture of warm cli- 
 mates, what manure is to the cultivator of temperate regions. 
 It is not altogether a substitute for manure ; but as in temper- 
 ate regions water without manure would be ot little use, so 
 in warm regions manure without water cannot be rendered 
 lit for being" taken up bv the roots of plants. 
 
 ISBRA'NIKI. In Ecclesiastical History, a name ot the 
 Russian sect of Raskolniks. 'Moshcim, vol. v.) 
 
 I'SCHIUM. (Gr. io X <S, the. loin.) So called from its 
 proximity to the loin, it js one of the bones ot the total 
 pelvis, ;l ncl a part of the OS innominatum in the adult. 
 
 ISCHU'RLA. (Gr. iox", I retain, mid ovpov, the urine.) 
 Retention of urine. . , 
 
 I'SINGLASS. A very pure form of gelatine, prepared 
 from certain parts of the entrails of several fish. The best 
 is derived from the sturgeon, and is almost exclusively im- 
 ported from Russia, twisted up in rolls or formed into cakes, 
 which are afterwards torn into shreds or cut into fine shav- 
 ings in this country. Good isinglass should he free lrom 
 Kiicll and taste, and" perfectly soluble in boiling water. 
 
 I'SIS. One of the chief deities in the Egyptian Mythology. 
 It is difficult amid the mass of contradictory assertions to as- 
 certain the real origin and attributes of this divinity; tor 
 whHe the Egyptians themselves are said to have confined 
 their worship chiefly to Isisond Osiris (quod vide), the (.reek 
 and Latin writers, though exceedingly discrepant in details, 
 assert broadly that these two divinities rrfbluded, under differ- 
 ent names, the whole pagan mythology. It would be futile 
 In this place to trace the attempt of the Greeks to identity 
 Isis with lo, the daughter of Inachus, whom they represent 
 to have hern introduced into Egypt under the form ot a cow, 
 and in that shape worshipped by the inhabitants ot the coun- 
 try. By the Egyptians themselves Isis was regarded as the 
 Bister or sister-wife of Osiris, who concurred with her in the 
 endeavour to polish and civilize their subjects, to teach them 
 agriculture, and several other necessary arts ot life. Among 
 the higher and more philosophical theologians, she was 
 made the symbol of Pantheistic divinity : see especinllj the 
 remarkable passage at the end of the Golden Ass oi Apu- 
 leius. By the people she was worshipped as the goddess ol 
 
 fecundity, and in her honour an annual festival was insti- 
 tuted which lasted seven days. The cow was sacred to her. 
 (she was represented variously, though most usually as a 
 woman with the horns of a cow, and sometimes with the 
 
 iOtOS on her head and the sistnim in her hand. Her priests 
 were bound to observe perpetual (-hastily ; but on her WOT 
 
 shin passing into foreign countries her rites ben, me merely 
 a clonk for sacerdotal licentiousness, which al last reached 
 such a pitch that the} were prohibited at Rome ; and ribenus, 
 in the hope of annihilating them forever, ordered tne images 
 of the "od. less to be thrown into the river. The worship ol 
 isis however, was afterwards revived, and furnished an am- 
 ple theme for the indignant pen of Juvenal. I he IsiacTa 
 He in the Turin Museum, which was BO long Blippo I A OJ 
 
 the learned to represent the mysteries pi bis, "has been 
 lodged by Champolllan to be the work of an (initiated artist 
 little acquainted with the worship of tlieBOddeBS, and proba- 
 bly of the age of Hadrian." (Owner's MijUiol. ; 1'lutarch s 
 018 
 
 ISOPERIMETRICAL FIGURES. 
 
 Treatise on his and Osiris, &c. &c. ; an Essay by De 
 Montfaucon, Hist, tie I'jIc. tlrs laser., vol. xvi., which con- 
 tains a summary of the Grecian learning on the subject; 
 Mem. dc VAc. des laser., xxxiv. ; and Quart. Rev., July, 
 1840.) 
 
 Isis. (Isidos proclamos, a marine plant, like coral, ac- 
 cording to Pliny.) The name of a genus of jointed coral, in 
 which the joints are composed of substance resembling horn. 
 I'SLAM, or ESLAM. The religion of Mohammed. Tho 
 body of the faithful, and the countries wherein it is profess- 
 ed are so termed by the Mohammedans. The original word 
 is iaid to Bignify submission to God. All those \\ ho profess- 
 ed the true religion and the unity of God, before the arrival 
 of Mohammed, are considered as comprised in the character 
 and privileges of lslamism. The Mufti of Constantinople, or 
 chief minister of religion in Turkey, bears the title of Sheikh- 
 ul Islam. „, . . 
 
 [SL \ND. (Eat. insula.) A tract of land encompassed 
 With water, whether of the sea, a river, or a lake ; in con- 
 tradistinction to continent or terra firma. 
 
 ISLANDS OF THE BLESSED. (Insula- Beatorum, 
 Fortunatic Insula?; Nijooi Mu/cupuu.) According to the 
 Grecian Mythology, the Happy Islands, supposed to lie west- 
 ward in the ocean, whither, after death, the souls ot the 
 virtuous were transported. In the early mythology of the 
 Greeks the Islands of the Blessed, the F.lysian fields, and the 
 infernal regions, were generally confounded with each other. 
 See Elysium. , , . , ., . 
 
 ISMAE'LIANS. A Mohammedan sect who derived their 
 name from maintaining the pretensions of Ishmail, the son 
 of Jaafar, to the rank of Imam, to the exclusion Ol Moussa, 
 who was adopted by that saint. They consequently rejected 
 the claims of Moussa and tin- live subsequent Imams. The 
 Ismaelians formed a secret association, founded in the 10th 
 century of the Christian era by Abdullah, a Persian. I rom 
 them originated the famous society ol the Assassins. ( Tay- 
 lor's Hist, of Mohammedanism, p. 225; Mem. de I Ac. des 
 Inscr., vol. xvii. ; " Secret Societies of the Middle Ages pub- 
 lished in the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, 1837.) 
 
 I'SOCHROMATIC. (Gr. taoi, equal, and \pi»na, col- 
 our ) Having the same colours. In certain experiments 
 with doublv refracting crystals, the decomposed light tonus 
 a double series of coloured rings or curves ot ditlerent tonus, 
 orroneed in a certain Order, each curve in the one series hav- 
 ing one corresponding to it both in form and colour in the 
 other The two curves or lines which have the same tint 
 are called isoehromotie. (See Herschel's Treatise on Light, 
 in the Enen- jMctropolilana.) „„„,_,„_ ,_ _ - 
 
 ISOCHRONAL or ISOCHRONOUS. (Gr. «toc, and 
 xpova, time ; performed in equal times) 1 wo pendulums 
 winch vibrate in the same time are isochronal ; or the vibra- 
 tions of a pendulum in the curve of a cycloid are SO, being 
 all performed in the same time, whether they are to be large 
 or small. Isochronal lines are those along which a heavy 
 body descends with a uniform velocity. 
 
 ISO'DOMUM. (Gr. taos, and &oun, structure.) In An- 
 cient Architecture, a species of walling, m whieh all the 
 courses were the same height. . 
 
 I'SOLATED (Fr. isole, from the Ital. isola, Lat. insula, 
 an island.) In Electrictity, a body is said to be isolated 
 when it is surrounded by non-conductors, or bodies to which 
 it cannot communicate its electric virtue, except by mductjon, 
 Bodiesmay be isolated in various ways; by suspending them 
 by meansof silken cords ; by placing them on a cake ot v, ax 
 resin, oi sulphur, or on a stand of glass or dry varnished 
 
 W TS6'MERISM. (Gr. icoq, and pspos , part.) Compounds 
 Which contain the same elements in the same ratio, and yet 
 exhibit distinct chemical qualities, are sa„l to be mn 
 Ti„. cyanic and ful.ninic acids are isomeric compounds of 
 
 nitron-,,, oxygen, and carbon. The distinctions thus arising 
 
 are probably referable to the different ways in which the 
 same elementary atoms are grouped in the compound. 
 
 ISOMORPHISM. (Gr. taos, and ,«»></»,, form.) Sun- 
 Btonces which resemble each other in their crystalline forms, 
 but differ in their component parts, ore said to be isomor- 
 vhous Thus tin- phosphate and biphosphate ol soda have 
 the same form, or are isomorphous, with the arsemote and 
 
 binarseniat ' soda; and in regard to other bases, such as 
 
 potash and ammonia, each arsenate has a corresponding 
 
 phosphate possessed of the same form. In these cases there 
 js ne'e- :, nl an analogy in the atomic constitution of he 
 
 ,,,„,,, ,„nds, which are observed to possess the same number 
 of equivalents of acid, alkali, and water oi crystallization, 
 and differ in nothing except thai die one series contains an 
 atom of arsenic, and the other an atom o phosphorus 
 
 'SOPE'RIMETRICAL FIGURES (Gr. ioo S , and irepi 
 „ rp „.,„•■« mf e. net ), are such as hove equal perimeters or 
 rencei. The term, isoperimetncal !»*>■»* «» 
 
 , lern analysis, designates n very extensive and difficult 
 
 clnssof problems, the solution o( which requires the uppll 
 cation of u peculiar analysis. The general problem is mis
 
 ISOPODA. 
 
 Among all curves having the same length, to determine that 
 of which some assigned property is a maximum or a mini- 
 mum ; for example, among all curves having the same peri- 
 meter, to find that which has the greatest area. This is the 
 simplest question of the kind, and the curve to which the 
 property belongs is proved by elementary geometry to be a 
 circle. 
 
 In all isoperiinetrical problems there are two conditions to 
 be fulfilled ; according to the first of which a certain proper- 
 ty is to remain constant, or to belong to all individuals of the 
 species ; and according to the second, another property is to be 
 the greatest or least possible. In the problems of this kind 
 which first attracted the particular attention of mathemati- 
 cians, the constant quantity was the perimeter of a certain 
 curve ; and hence the origin of the term, which is now applied 
 to all problems indifferently in which the question is to find 
 curves having a property of maximum or minimum, with or 
 without the condition of equality of perimeters. 
 
 James Bernoulli was the first who discovered the true prin- 
 ciples on which questions of this kind depend, and the cir- 
 cumstances which render the ordinary methods of maxima 
 and minima inapplicable to them. The immediate subject 
 of his researches was the problem of the Brachystochrone 
 (see the term), or curve of quickest descent, celebrated in the 
 early history of tile calculus on account of the controversy to 
 which it gave rise between the two brothers, .lames and John 
 Bernoulli. The analysis of the former, Jlnalysis magni 
 Problematis Isoperimctrici, was published at Basle in 1701, 
 and in the Eeipsic Acts of the same year. Solutions were 
 afterwards given by Taylor in his Mcthodus Incrementorum ; 
 by John Bernoulli in the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences 
 for 1718; and by Euler in the Petersburg- Memoirs. Euler 
 afterwards gave a complete and general solution of the 
 problem in his Mcthodus Inviendi Lineas Curvas Maximi 
 Minimive proprietatc gaudentes, a work of which Lagrange 
 has said that there is perhaps no other which can be of more 
 use to those who wish to exercise themselves in the integral 
 calculus. The method, however, which is followed in this 
 work has been superseded by the invention of the calculus 
 of variations by Lagrange ; a most important branch of 
 analysis, of which the subject of isoperimetrical problems is 
 one of the most obvious applications. (Lagrange, Lecons 
 sur le Calcul des Fonctions ; Wondhouse, On Isoperimetri- 
 cal Problems ; Lacroix, Traite du Calcul L> ijferentiel et In- 
 tegral ; Airy's Tracts, <$-c.) 
 
 ISO'PODA. (Gr. «ru?, and -ttouc, a foot.) The name of 
 an order of Crustaceans, comprehending those which have 
 the legs all alike, and adapted only for locomotion and pre- 
 hension. 
 
 I'SOPO'DIFORM. The larva; of Saprophagous Hexapods 
 are so called, which have an oblong bod) ■. a distinct thoracic 
 shield, and a vent provided with filaments or lamina;. 
 
 I'SOPYRE. (Gr. taos, and -nvp.fir^ In Mineralogy, a 
 silicate of alumina, lime, and peroxide of iron, found near 
 the granite of St. Just, near Penzance in Cornwall. It is a 
 black amorphous substance, occasionally variegated with 
 gray or red spots or streaks, slightly translucent. Its specific 
 gravity is about 3. 
 
 ISO'SCELES. (Gr. »<roc, and o-io/Aos, leg.) In Geome- 
 try, an isosceles triangle is that which has two equal sides. 
 Among the properties of isosceles triangles, one is that the 
 angles at the base are equal ; and as the demonstration whicli 
 is given of this proposition in Euclid's Elements, where it 
 stands at the very commencement, is somewhat intricate and 
 puzzling to beginners, the proposition has been called the 
 pons asinorum. 
 
 ISOSTE'MONOUS (Gr. ico?, and arnpuv, a stamen), in 
 Botany, in expressing the proportion that one part bears to 
 another, denotes that the stamens are equal in number to 
 the petals. 
 
 ISOTHERMAL. (Gr. woq, and Sip/tr,, heat.) In Physical 
 Geography, isothermal lines are those which pass through 
 those points on the surface of the earth at which the mean 
 annual temperature is the same. Isothermal zones are spaces 
 on opposite sides of the equator having the same mean tem- 
 perature, and bounded by corresponding isothermal lines. 
 On account of the irregular form and disposition of the con- 
 tinental masses, by which the climate of different places is 
 greatly influenced, the isothermal curves are not parallel to 
 the equator, excepting in the very low latitudes. According 
 to Humboldt, the isothermal line which corresponds to the 
 temperature of 32° of Fahrenheit, passes between Ulea in 
 Lapland, lat. 06°, and Table Bay on the coast of Labrador, 
 lat. 54°. The isothermal line of 41° passes near Stockholm, 
 lat. 594°, and St. George's Bay, Newfoundland, lat. 48°. 
 The line of 50° passes through the Netherlands, lat. 51°, 
 and near Boston in the United States, lat. 4'2 1 °; that of 5<J° 
 between Rome and Florence, lat. 43°, and Raleigh in North 
 Carolina, lat. 3G C . In all these cases wc see that the iso- 
 thermal lines, in passing from the western side of the conti- 
 nent of Europe to the eastern coast of America, deviate very 
 considerably towards the south ; the deviation, in one case, 
 
 ITCH. 
 
 amounting to ll.J° of latitude. In passing over tire American 
 continent, they again recede to the northward ; and in Cali- 
 fornia, and to the north of that peninsula, along the western 
 side of the continent, the annual temperature is nearly the 
 same as under similar latitudes in the west of Europe. From 
 the western to the eastern side of the old continent, the 
 flexure of the isothermal curves and the diminution of the 
 mean annual temperature under the same parallels, are not 
 less conspicuous. The isothermal line of 55° passes through 
 Nantes, lat. 47°, and Pekin, lat. 394°. Edinburgh and Kasan 
 (in the east of Russia) have the same latitude ; but the mean 
 annual temperature of the former is 48°, while that of the 
 second is below 38°. For the different causes which affect 
 the parallelism of the isothermal lines, or which produce the 
 differences of the mean annual temperature of places under 
 the same parallel of latitude, see Climate. 
 
 Humboldt gives the name of isotheral lines (tao;, and 
 S-epof, summer) to the curves passing through those places 
 at which the mean summer heat is the same ; and of isochi- 
 menal (oxof, and xn/iwi*, winter) to those which pass through 
 the places at which the mean temperature of winter is the 
 same. The isotheral and isochimenal curves deviate much 
 more from the parallels of latitude than the isothermal. The 
 latitudes of places having the same winter temperature some- 
 times differ so much as 18° or 20°. The winter of Scotland 
 is as mild as that of Milan. The mean temperature of the 
 winter months at Edinburgh is about 38A° ; of Kasan, under 
 the same parallel, only 2°. The winter of Pekin is as rigo- 
 rous as that of Stockholm. (Humboldt's Fragmens Asiati- 
 ques ; Murray's Geography, Introduction.) 
 
 I'SSUANT. In Heraldry, a charge represented as issuing 
 or coming up from another charge or bearing ; also, a lion 
 or other beast represented as rising from the bottom line of 
 a chief. 
 
 I'SSUE. In Law, in the most ordinary senses of the word, 
 1. The points in dispute in a suit at law between two parties, 
 ascertained by the pleadings, are termed the issues ; and are 
 either issues in law, to be determined by the court, or in fact, 
 to be ascertained by a jury. In each form of action (see 
 Action, Pleading) there was formerly a formal trasverse, 
 by which the whole or principal part of the allegations of the 
 plaintiff in his declaration might be denied: this was termed 
 the general issue. Since the adoption of the new rules of 
 pleading (1834), there is now, properly speaking, no general 
 issue; except in certain cases, where the privilege of giving 
 special matter in evidence under it is given by statute. A 
 feigned issue is a technical mode of trying some questions, 
 supposing an imaginary wager. In the Scottish practice of 
 trial by jury, it is usual to put printed copies of the issues into 
 the hands of the jurors. 2. The legitimate offspring of a 
 man. 
 
 Issue, in Surgery, is an artificial ulcer. It is commonly 
 made by wounding or cutting the skin, and placing a pea 
 upon it, which is pressed upon the part by a bandage. 
 
 1'STHMIAN GAMES. One of the four great national 
 festivals of Greece ; so called from their being celebrated on 
 the Isthmus of Corinth. They were common to all the 
 states, with the exception in this case of the Eleans, against 
 whom a curse had been pronounced should they ever pre- 
 sent themselves there. They were held near a temple of 
 Neptune, the god who presided over them ; and were cele- 
 brated every third year, according to some accounts, but 
 others assign them a period of one or four years. The con- 
 tests were the same as in the other sacred games (see Olym- 
 pic Games) : the victors were crowned with garlands of 
 pine leaves. (See Potter's Grecian Antiquities ; JVachs- 
 muth's Historical Antiquities, ii., 162, translation.) 
 
 I'STHMUS. In Geography, a narrow neck of land join- 
 ing two continents, or a continent and peninsula. Thus, the 
 Isthmus of Darien, joining North and South America ; the 
 Isthmus of Suez, connecting Africa with Asia. 
 
 ITALIAN ARCHITECTURE. See Architecture. 
 
 ITA'LIC SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, comprehends 
 properly the Pythagorean and Eleatic systems taken together ; 
 but sometimes it is used as synonymous merely with the 
 school of Pythagoras. Under the several heads will be 
 found the chief features of these philosophical systems, 
 which, comprising as they do all that can be said in reference 
 to the Italic school, it would seem unnecessary in this place 
 ! further to advert to. The Italic school has been so desig- 
 | nated because its founder, Pythagoras, taught in Italy, spread- 
 ing his doctrine among the people of Tarentum, Metapontum, 
 Heraclea, Naples, &c. * 
 
 ITCH. A disease of the skin, consisting in an eruption 
 of minute itching vesicles, which are commonly rendered 
 more inflamed and troublesome by scratching. They gene- 
 rally make their first appearance between the fingers, or 
 about the bend of the wrist and often spread to other parts 
 of the body, especially where cleanliness is neglected. The 
 itch is highly contagious, and is supposed to depend upon a 
 minute insect burrowing in the skin ; some have regarded 
 the insect as a consequence, and not the cause, of the disease. 
 
 619
 
 ITIHASAS. 
 
 The itch is cured by sulphur, which should be given Inter- 
 nuliy, ami applied externally In the form of ointment 
 
 ITIHA'SAS. The two great heroic poems, of the Hindoos, 
 the Ramayana and .Malta liharata, are so called. They are 
 of great antiquity; later, however, than the / edas. Si me, 
 indeed, have attributed the latter poem to a period later than 
 that of Alexander. 
 
 ITTNERARY. (Lat iter, a journey.) In Literature, a 
 work containing notices or descriptions of the pi. tee- and 
 stations to be met with in pursuing a particular line of road; 
 as, an Itinerary from Pans to Rome: or of the principal 
 places and s;.iti ins on the greal mads throughout a country ; 
 as, Itinerary of France, Italy, &c. The Latin Itineraries 
 which have been preserved to us consist merely of catalogues 
 of stations, and are principally valuable to us because they 
 contain the distance, in Roman miles, from one to another, 
 and thus furnish us with assistance towards determining the 
 actual site of each place mentioned. 
 
 ITIS. Tins termination added to the genitive case of the 
 Greek name of an organ or part of the body, implies inflam- 
 mation of that part ; as, gastritis, inflammation of the sto- 
 mach ; pleuritis, of the pleura, &c. 
 
 I'TTNERITE. -Named after Ittner. A rare mineral, 
 which occurs massive and in rhombic dodecaedrons, of a 
 gray or blueish colour. It consists chiefly of silica, alumina, 
 and soda, together with some hydrosulpburet. 
 
 IU'LUS. (Lat) A genus of Myriapodous insects, cha- 
 racterized as follows: Antenna' with seven joints, slightly 
 enlarged towards the end ; mandibles two, thick, without 
 palps, each divided into two by a middle joint; provided 
 with imbricated teeth ; an inferior lip formed by the conflu- 
 ence of two maxilla 1 ; feet attached in double pairs to most 
 of the joints ; body long, cylindrical, capable of being con- 
 tracted into a discoidal spire. The common gally-wonn 
 (lulus terrcstris) is an example of this genus. 
 
 I'VORY. The tusk of the male elephant. It is less brittle 
 than bone, and of a beautifully uniform texture, admitting 
 of turning in tint lathe and receiving a high polish. It con- 
 sistsof about 2-1 percent, animal matter resembling horn, and 
 66 of phosphate, with a trace of carbonate of lime. The 
 chief consumption of ivory in England is in the manufacture 
 of handles fur knives; hut it is also extensively used in 
 the manufacture of musical and mathematical instruments, 
 chess-men, billiard-balls, plates for miniatures, toys, &c. 
 Ivory articles are said to be manufactured to a greater ex- 
 tent, and with better success, at Dieppe, than in any other 
 place in Europe; but the preparation of this beautiful ma- 
 terial is much better understood by the Chinese than by any 
 other people. No European artist has hitherto succeeded in 
 cutting concentric balls after the manner of the Chinese ; and 
 their boxes, chess-men, and other ivory articles, are all far 
 superior to any that are to be met with anywhere else. 
 
 The western and eastern coasts of Africa, the Cape of Good 
 Hope, Ceylon, India, and the countries to the eastward of the 
 Straits of Malacca, are the great marts whence supplies of 
 ivory are derived; but the most esteemed come from Africa, 
 being of a closer texture, and less liable to turn yellow, than 
 those from the East Indies. The medium weight of a tusk 
 is about 60 lbs., and the average importation for the three 
 years ending 1838, was 5,752 cwt, yielding a duty of £5,752. 
 
 I'VORY BLACK. The mixture of charcoal and phos- 
 phate of lime obtained by burning bone, is sold under this 
 name, and, like other forms of animal charcoal, is very effec- 
 tive in depriving certain substances of their colour. 
 
 JABI'RX. The name of a Grallatorial or wading bird be- 
 longing to the genus Mycteria. See that word. 
 
 JACam.VR. Agenusof Scansorial birds. See Galbula. 
 
 JACA'NA. The wading birds of Uie genus Farra are so 
 called. Sir Parra. 
 
 JA'CCHUS. (Gr. tax»>, I cry aloud.) A genus of PI a- 
 tyrrhine (iuadrumnna, or South American monkeys, with 
 thumbs on the hind fool only; all the digits of the fore foot 
 having the same direction, and being armed with narrow, 
 curved, claw-like nails. The characters of the genus are: 
 
 upper middle incis IIS separated from and larger than the la- 
 teral ones; lower mil >r- elongated, narrow, ami vertical, 
 the lateral ones the longest ; upper canine teeth conical, and 
 of moderate size, but more developed than the lower ones. 
 The species of Jacchus are few in number, and nut very 
 clearly defined; the) an- all of small size. The Jacchus 
 penicillatus, which is remarkable for the radiated lull of 
 white hairs which projects in front of each ear, has hied in 
 captivity in this country. It is a very delicate little animal, 
 Busceptible <>t cold, ami provided with a Ions and bushy tail, 
 
 which it v ! its head and body when asleep or re- 
 
 quiring warmth, its fund is of a mixed nature; hut, in tin- 
 Wild state, Die banana is said to be its principal and favourite 
 nutriment 
 
 JACK. In Mechanics, an engine far raising heavy weights. 
 
 Jack is also the name given to a machine in common Use 
 for turning a spit. The common roasting jack, or worm jack, 
 consists of a double set of wheels ; a barrel, round which Die 
 620 
 
 JACOBINS. 
 
 chain attached to the weight or moving power is wound ; a 
 perp tual screw; ami a fly, which Becures a steady, uniform 
 motion. A multiplying wheel is usually added, in order that 
 [hi may he longer in running down. 
 
 The svwkt jack is used for the same purpose as the com- 
 mon jack, and is so called because it appears to he moved by 
 tin- smoke of the tire. It is in fact moved by the ascending 
 current of rarifled air, which acts on a fan properly placed 
 in the chimney. The motion may be Obtained by various 
 contrivances. Sometimes spiral livers coiled about a vertical 
 axis are employed, but more frequently a verticil wheel 
 with oblique leaves like the sails of a windmill. 
 
 Jack, in Nautical language, is a flag or colours used in 
 making signals. In the British navy, the Jack is a small 
 union flag, composed of red and white eros-es : in merchants* 
 .-hips, this union is bordered by a red field. 
 
 Jack. A common name for the pike. See Esox. 
 
 Jack, in Botany, is the name of the Tsjaca or Jlctocarpus 
 itUegrifolia, a species of the bread-fruit tree, found in the 
 Indian Archipelago. 
 
 JACKAL. (Ar. tschakkal ; Fr. chacal.) A wild species 
 of dog, the Canis aureus of Linnams; of gregarious habits; 
 hunting in packs; rarely attacking the larger quadrupeds, 
 but supposed to indicate their presence to the lion by the 
 piercing cries w liich the jackals set up in chorus while scent- 
 ing their tracks; feeding on the remnants of the lion's prey, 
 on dead carcasses, and the smaller animals anil poultry. 
 The jackal interbreeds with the common dog ; its period of 
 gestation is the same, and the hybrid progeny is fertile. The 
 wild jackal emits a highly offensive odour, which is scarcely 
 perceptible in the domesticated animal. Some are of opinion 
 that the 300 animals, called foxes, between whose tails 
 Samson is said to have put firebrands in order to destroy the 
 crops of the Philistines, were jackals. The Canis aureus is 
 abundant in the wanner parts of India and Africa, but is not 
 found in the New World. 
 
 JA'CKDAW, or DAW. (Corvus monedula, Lin.) A 
 common English bird, which frequents church steeples, old 
 towers, and ruins, in flocks, where they build their nests : the 
 female lays five or six eggs, paler and smaller than those of 
 the crow . The daw may be readily tamed, and taught to 
 imitate the sounds of words. Like other species of the crow 
 geiiiis. they have the singular habit of stealing and hiding 
 glittering and metallic substances. 
 
 JACKS. Wooden wedges used in coal mines. 
 
 JACK SINKERS. Parts of a stocking frame. 
 
 JACK TIMBERS. In Architecture, those in a bay of 
 timbers which, being intercepted by some other piece, aro 
 shorter than the rest; thus, in a hipped roof, each rafter 
 which is shorter than the side rafters is called a jack rafter. 
 
 JA'COBINS. In French History, a political club, which 
 bore a well-known part in the first revolution. It was first 
 formed by some distinguished members of the Firsl Assembly, 
 particularly from Brittany, where revolutionary sentiments 
 ran high. They took, at first, the name of Friends of the 
 Revolution : but as. at the end of 1789, thej held their meet- 
 ings in the hall of a. suppressed Jacobin monastery in the Rue 
 Saint Honor-, the name of Jacobins, at first familiarly given 
 them, was finally assumed by themselves. The history of 
 the Jacobin club is, in effect, the history of the Revolution. 
 It contained at one time more than 2,500 members, and cor- 
 responded with more than -100 affiliated societies in France. 
 The club of the Cordeliers, formed by B small and more vio- 
 lent party out of the general body of Jacobins, was reunited 
 with the parent society in June, 1791 : but continued to form 
 a separate section within its limits. The Jacobin club, which 
 had almost controlled the first assembly, was thus, during 
 the continuance of the second, itself divided between two 
 
 contending parties ; although the name of Jacobins, as a po- 
 litieal parry, is commonlj given to that section which op- 
 posed the Girondists or less moderate in the club no lesBthan 
 
 in the assembly. After the destruction of the latter under 
 the Convention, the club was again exclusively governed by 
 the more violent among its own members, until the dnwnfal 
 n!' Robespierre. After that period it became unpopular: and 
 
 its members having attempted an insurrection on behalf of 
 
 the subdued Terrorists. Nov. II. 1"'.I4. the n.eeling was dis- 
 persed b] lone, and the club finally suppressed. Some 
 writers, such as Barruel (Hist. du Jacobinisme), have M-i-n 
 in tin- fust formation of this and similar societies, the long- 
 concocted operations of a eon-piracy against legitimate gov- 
 ernment aid religion throughout Europe. The Jacobins mid 
 the other principal clubs of the Revolution, adopted all the 
 
 forms of a legislative assembly. In the constitution of 1792, 
 their legal existence was recognised. See the historians of the 
 Fri i ch Revolution, especially Carlyle, Mignet, and Thiers, 
 foi general views; .Messrs. Buchezet Rous, Histoirt I'arle- 
 1 < lire. Francaise, for the most complete Beries 
 of details respecting the Jacobins and their meetings which 
 has yet been made public. 
 
 Jai OBI1I8. In Ecclesiastical History, the religious of the 
 order of St Dominic were so called in France, from the situ-
 
 JACOBITES. 
 
 ation of the principal convent at Paris, near the Rue St 
 Jacques; also called Freres Precheurs. 
 
 J A'COBITES. In English History, that party which, after 
 the Revolution of 1688, adhered to the dethroned monarch 
 James I., and afterwards to his descendants. In Scotland 
 and Ireland, where the revolution was not effected except 
 with the assistance of arms,' the Jacobite party formed one 
 of the two great divisions of each nation ; and although 
 crushed in the latter country by conquest, they continued in 
 the former to comprise a large proportion of the population 
 until long after the last rebellion in 1745. But in England 
 the revolution was effected at first with the consent of all 
 parties ; the adherents to the exiled monarch were silenced : 
 yet, in a year or two, the Jacobite faction rose into strength, 
 and continued to harass the government of William through- 
 out his reign. " It seems undeniable," says Hallam (Consti- 
 tutional History of England, vol. iii., p. 149), " that the 
 strength of the Jacobite taction sprung from the want of ap- 
 parent necessity for the change of government." Its imme- 
 diate cause, however, was to be found in the refusal of a 
 portion of the bishops and clergy to take the oaths to the new 
 government (see Nonjurors), which gave, as it were, a cer- 
 tain consistency and tangible ground of opposition to the 
 friends of the dethroned monarch in general. At the same 
 time many of William's chief advisers and officers maintain- 
 ed a secret correspondence with James II. at the French 
 court, less from any attachment to his cause than with a 
 view to secure their own interest in case of his return. 
 After the death of James II. in France, and accession of 
 Anne in England, the efforts of the party languished for a 
 time ; but towards the close of her reign they revived, on the 
 prospect of a change in the succession. We have now un- 
 deniable proofs, from the French archives, of a fact which 
 had been long suspected, that Bolingbroke and Oxford, with 
 others of Anne's Tory ministers, were in treaty with the son 
 of James II., and either really or in pretence negotiating for 
 his return. In 1715, on the arrival of George I., broke out 
 the unsuccessful first rebellion in Scotland: its ill conduct 
 and failure proved a considerable check to the hopes of the 
 English Jacobites. Bishop Afterbury, the last of their bolder 
 intriguers and adherents, was banished in 1722 : after which 
 time it is probable that no extensive conspiracy took place 
 on their part. In Scotland, however, the party maintained 
 its strength unabated, until the second rebellion of 1745, by 
 its complete failure, put an end to its political existence. It 
 is said that some of the party maintained a correspondence 
 Willi Charles Edward, until his decease in 1787. The Car- 
 dinal of York, his brother, died in 1807 ; and it has been said 
 that, by his death, the adhesion of the Jacobites, if any ex- 
 isted, was transferred to the reigning family as his next heirs. 
 This, however, is a vulgar error ; the royal house of Sar- 
 dinia and other families intervening between the house of 
 Brunswick and the crown of England, according to the strict 
 rules of hereditary descent. 
 
 Jacobites. In Ecclesiastical History, the monophysite 
 Christians of Syria are so called, from Jacob Baradzi, who 
 revived their belief and form of worship in that country and 
 Mesopotamia, in the middle of the 6th century. Many un- 
 successful attempts have been made at various times to 
 unite them with the church of Rome. (Gieseler's Text 
 Book, trans., ii., 419; iii., 414, &c.) See Monophysites, Eu- 
 
 TYCHIA.NS. 
 
 JA'COB'S LADDER. In Naval affairs, a rope-ladder 
 with wooden steps or spokes. 
 
 JACOB'S STAFF. The same as cross-staff. An instru- 
 ment used by surveyors in measuring heights and distances 
 where expedition and little accuracy are required. 
 
 JACQ.UA'RD. A piece of mechanism applicable to silk 
 and muslin looms for the purpose of weaving figured goods. 
 The name is that of its inventor. (For a description of the 
 loom, see lire's Dictionary of Arts and Manufactures.) 
 
 JA'CQUERIE. In History, the name popularly given to 
 a revolt of the French peasantry against the nobility, which 
 took place while King John was a prisoner in England in 
 1350. Jacques Bonhommc was a term of derision applied 
 by the nobles to the peasants, from which the insurrection 
 took its name. It began in the Beauvoisis, under a chief of 
 the name of Caillet, and desolated Picardy, Artois, and 
 Brie, where savage reprisals were executed against the no- 
 bility for their oppressions. It was suppressed after some 
 weeks by the dauphin and Charles the Bad, king of Na- 
 varre. A similar spirit in England produced not many years 
 afterwards the rebellion of Watt Tyler. (See M. /.('ray, i., 
 838 ; Froissart ; Sismondi, Hist, des Francais, vol. x.) 
 
 JADE. In Mineralogy, a synonyme of nephrite. 
 
 JAGUA'R. (Felis onca, Linn.) The largest and most 
 formidable feline quadruped of the New World. It is 
 marked with large dark spots in the form of circles, with a 
 dark spot or pupil in the centre of each ; it is generally 
 pretty numerous in the neighbourhood of the large rivers 
 where the capibara abound?, and preys chiefly on those 
 large Rodents. 
 
 JANTHINA. 
 
 JA'LAP. So called from Xalapha in Mexico, whence it 
 originally came. The dried root of the Ipomaiajalapa. This 
 root occurs in irregular globular pieces, of a dense and resin- 
 ous texture : when reduced to powder it has a very peculiar 
 and nauseous odour and taste. In doses of from five to 
 twenty grains, jalap is a drastic purge : it is apt to gripe and 
 nauseate. 
 
 JAMB. A Sea term ; to squeeze tight. The opposite of 
 jamb, applied to a rope, is to render. 
 
 JAMBS. (Fr. jambes.) In Architecture, the side or 
 vertical pieces of any opening in a wall which bear the 
 piece that discharges the superincumbent weight of such 
 wall. 
 
 JA'MESONITE. A mineral named after Professor Jame- 
 son. It occurs crystallized and massive : it consists of sul- 
 phur, lead, and antimony. 
 
 JAMES, SAINT, ORDER OF THE SWORD OF. A 
 very ancient military order in Spain and Portugal. The 
 reigning kings are grand-masters in those countries respect 
 ivelv. The orders in the two countries were disunited in 
 1288. 
 
 JA'NISSARIES, or JA'NIZARIES. (A corruption of 
 the Turkish word yeni tscheri, new troops.) A celebrated 
 militia of the Ottoman empire. The establishment of this 
 corps has been usually attributed to Sultan Amurath I., in 
 1368; but the researches of Hammer (History of the Otto- 
 man Empire, vol. i., p. 92) carry it back to Orchan, the con- 
 queror of Nicrea (1326). This new corps was blessed by a 
 saint of that time, Hadji Bektash by name, who cut off a 
 sleeve of his fur mantle and gave it them as a token ; 
 whence was derived the fur cap that remained their dis- 
 tinguishing characteristic. This irregular infantry long re- 
 mained the chief military strength of the empire, and form- 
 ed a kind of warlike republic within its limits. It was long 
 supplied chiefly by the capture of young Christian slaves ; 
 and when under Mohammed IV. it began to be recruited 
 principally from the children of the soldiers themselves, its 
 power and importance gave signs of decay. Each regiment 
 or oda of the Janissaries had its own soup kettle, which, in. 
 process of time, acquired a sort of prescriptive sanctity, and 
 formed, as it were, the chief standard of the regiment ; and 
 the officers and other military functionaries drew their titles 
 from their various supposed employments as cooks or kitch- 
 en servants. The militia of the Janissaries continued to re- 
 tain a great influence in the empire itself long after it had 
 ceased to be serviceable in the field against the armies of 
 modern Europe. They controlled the sultans themselves, 
 and, as it is alleged, presented a serious obstacle to all im- 
 provement, until, in the year 1826, the late sultan, on the 
 occasion of a mutiny, dissolved the whole corps, after a 
 bloody struggle in his capital, in which 20,000 of them were 
 said to have perished ; but the number is now thought to 
 have been exaggerated. There was an official publication 
 relating to the destruction of the Janissaries, which was 
 translated into French (Paris, 1833). , See also Walsh's Res- 
 idence, at Constantinople; Duval, Deux Annies a Const. 
 (1828) ; Quarterly Review, vol. xli. ; and Ed. Rev., vol. 1.; 
 Slade's Travels in Germany, Turkey, ft-c. (1840). 
 
 JA'NSENISTS. A denomination of Roman Catholics in 
 France, who followed the opinions of Jansen, bishop of 
 Ypres, and formed a considerable party in the latter half of 
 the 17th century. The Jansenists were Calvinistic in many 
 of their sentiments, and in several respects approximated to 
 the Reformed opinions. They did not, however, separate 
 themselves from the Catholic church ; nor did they long 
 survive the decree of Alexander VII., by which certain 
 propositions extracted from their writings are condemned as 
 heretical. The Jansenists are chiefly celebrated for the con- 
 test they maintained with the Jesuits, by whom they were 
 at last overcome, and subjected to the enmity both of Louis 
 XIV. and the Pope. (See Leclerc, Bibl. Univ., vol. xiv. ; 
 Racine, Histoire clu Port Royal ; Fontaine, Memoires pour 
 servir a I' Hist, du P. R. ; Saint Simon's Memoirs ; Palmer, 
 Essa7js on the Church, i., 320, &c. ; Hallam on the Literature 
 of Europe, vol. iii. ; Schriikh, Kirchevireschichte seit der 
 Reformation, parts iv. and vii. ; Mosheim, translation, ed. 
 1790, vol. v., 208, &c.) 
 
 JANTHI'NA. (Gr. tavQov, violet colour.) A genus of 
 Gaslropodous Testaceous Mollusks, so denominated on ac- 
 count of the beautiful violet colour of the shell. There are 
 but a few species of this genus known, all of which are ma- 
 rine, and are generally met with floating on the surface of 
 the ocean in warm and tropical latitudes. The shell, as in 
 all floating pelagic Teslacea, is light and fragile, whence the 
 specific name of the most common species (Janthina fra- 
 gi'is) ; but, besides this relation of the shell to the habits and 
 sphere of existence of the animal, each species also pos- 
 sesses a peculiar organ, by which it can. as it were, suspend 
 itself to the surface of the water, and which has not hitherto 
 been observed in any other molluscous species : this organ 
 consists of a congeries of transparent vesicles filled with air, 
 the parietes of the bubble-like cells being composed of a 
 
 C21
 
 JANUARY. 
 
 thin colourless condensed mucus, and the whole being at- 
 tached to tin' posterior pari of the foot. On account of this 
 place of attachment, the vesicular Boat has been regarded 
 as the analogue of the operculum, which otherwise is want- 
 ing; but there is an important difference connected with the 
 float, viz.. the power which the animal has, ami frequently 
 exercises, of detaching ami reproducing it at will. Thus the 
 mucous air-vesicles are cast off when the animal desires to 
 sink: they are also made subservient to the reproductive 
 economy of the janthina, which attache, us egg cells to the 
 under surface of the float, and when it is thus Laden easts it 
 off. By this means the ova are preserved in a situation 
 where they may best receive the full influence of heat and 
 light; and the power which the parent possesses of repro- 
 ducing its float obviates the inconvenience which would 
 otherwise result from this contribution to the well-being of 
 its offspring. The following is the process by which the 
 janthina has been observed to repair a mutilation purposely 
 made in its float : The foot was advanced upon the remain- 
 ing vesicles until about two thirds of that part rose above 
 the surface of the water ; it was then expanded to the ut- 
 termost, and thrown back upon the water, like the foot of a 
 Lymnea when it begins to swim ; it next became contracted 
 at the edges, and was formed into the shape of a hood, en- 
 closing a globule of air, which was slowly applied to the 
 extremity of the float; there was now a vibratory movement 
 throughout the foot, and when it was again thrown back to 
 renew the process the globule was found enclosed in its new- 
 ly made envelope. From this it results that the membrane 
 enclosing the cells is secreted by the foot, and that there is 
 no attachment between the float and the animal other than 
 that arising from the nice adaptation and adjustment of the 
 adjoining surfaces. 
 
 The genus Janthina belongs to the Pectinibranchiate or- 
 der of Gastropods ; the branchial cavity is capacious, and 
 contains two pectinated gills. Cuvier places the genus be- 
 tween Pyramidella and Neritri ; M. Itoux considers it to be 
 intermediate to JlmpuUaria and Litiopa. 
 
 JA'NUARY. The first month of the year. By some the 
 name is derived from Janus, a Roman divinity ; by others 
 from janua, a gate. The months of January and February 
 were inserted in the Roman year by Numa Pompllius. The 
 Roman feast of the kalends of January seems to have been 
 converted in the Cth century into the Christian festival of 
 the circumcision. (Beugnot, JJcstr. du Paganisme en Occi- 
 dent, vol. ii.) 
 
 JA'Nl'S. A Latin deity, originally the same as the sun. 
 He was represented with two faces looking opposite ways, 
 and holding a key in one hand and a staff in the other. He 
 presided over the commencement of all undertakings, whence 
 the first month in the year was named after him. His tem- 
 ple at Rome was kept open in the time of war, and shut in 
 peace. The warlike disposition of the Romans is manifest 
 from the fact that this temple was only shut six times in 800 
 years: viz., once in the reign of Numa ; at the conclusion of 
 the first Punic war ; thrice in the reign of Augustus ; and 
 once again under Nero. 
 
 JAPA'NNING. The art of covering paper, wood, or 
 metal with a thick coat of a hard brilliant varnish : it on 
 ginated in Japan, whence articles so prepared were first 
 brought to Europe. The material, if of wood or papier -ma- 
 chee, is first sized, polished, and varnished ; it is then col- 
 oured or painted in various devices, and afterwards covered 
 with a highly transparent vnrnish or lacquer, which is ulti- 
 mately dried at a high temperature, and carefully polished. 
 
 JA'RGOON. In Mineralogy, one of the varieties of 
 zircon. 
 
 JARL. A word of Scandinavian extraction, signifying 
 noble ; applied in the early history of the northern European 
 kingdoms to the lieutenants or governors appointed over 
 each province. It appears to bear considerable analogy to 
 the Eneli=h earl (quod vide). 
 
 JAS.MINA'CE.K. (Jasminum, one of the genera.) A 
 small natural order of Exogenous plants, with mondpetalous 
 diandrous flowers of a regular figure. It contains few spe- 
 cies, chiefly Inhabiting the wanner parts of the world. The 
 only plants of any interest are the jasmines, well known for 
 their fragrance. 
 
 JA'SPER. A siliceous mineral of various colours; some- 
 times spotted, banded, or variegated. It takes a tine polish, 
 and the variety and richness of its colours render it useful in 
 the ornamental art*. 
 
 JAU'NIMCF.. A disease characterized by a vellow col- 
 our of the eyes and skin, deep-coloured urine, and pale evac- 
 uation from the bowels: it cones on with languor, loss of 
 appetite, dyspeptic symptoms, vomiting, bitter taste in the 
 mouth, and generally pain in the region of t!i" liver. It is 
 apparently caused either by obstruction of the duel that 
 conveys the bile into the intestine by a gall stone ; or by a 
 morbid and viscid slate of the bile, which prevents its flow- 
 ing freely; or by spasm of the gall ducts, or by some acci- 
 dental pressure : the consequence is, that the bile, instead of 
 
 JESUITS. 
 
 passing off by the bowels, is absorbed into the blood, and 
 becomes visible upon the skin, and especially in the more 
 delicate vessels. It is an occasional consequence of preg- 
 nancy. It sometimes affects infants Boon after birth; in 
 which ease it usually goes off in a few days, aided by gen- 
 tle aperients. The most common cases of jaundice an 
 probably occasioned by viscidity of bile. Aperii 
 small doses of blue pill, with tonics, are the most essential 
 
 remedies ; and where it ensues in sedentary habit-, moder- 
 ate walking and horse exercise are requisite, (t is often a 
 protracted and troublesome complaint, and then indicative 
 
 of Structural derangement. Jaundice & gall spines is 
 
 often attended by excruciating pain and vomiting, owing to 
 the passage of the stone. Opiates and such remedies as al- 
 lay the irritability of the stomach are to he had recourse to, 
 and the warm bath is useful. It is the beneficial influence 
 of saline aperients and diluents in this disorder, that has 
 given celebrity to the waters of Cheltenham and similar 
 mineral springs. 
 
 JA'VELJN. (Fr. javeline.) A sort of spear or missile, 
 anciently used both by horse and foot soldiers. It was about 
 live feet long, with an iron head hooked and jagged at the 
 end. The pilum of the Romans was of this description. 
 
 JAY. The native bird so called is a species of the genus 
 Owrralus, separated by Cuvier from the genus Corvus of 
 Linnaeus on account of the weaker mandibles terminating 
 in a sudden and nearly equal curve. The tail is cuneiform, 
 not long : and the slender feathors of the forehead can be 
 erected like a crest. The common jay (Corvus glandarius, 
 Linn.) nidificates in woods, and builds a simple nest of 
 sticks and slender twigs ; the female lays live or six eggs, 
 
 of a grayish ash colour mixed with green, and faintly spotted 
 
 with brown. The young associate with the parents till the 
 following spring, when they separate to form new pairs. 
 
 JEERS. Strong tackles for swaying vp or raising the 
 lower yards. 
 
 JE'FFERSONITE. In Mineralogy, a species of pyroxene. 
 It is found in New Jersey. 
 
 JEHO'VAH. The name by which the Deity is repre- 
 sented in the Hebrew Scriptures ; in which language it sig- 
 nifies the Self-existent, the / am. The word itself was 
 held in peculiar veneration by the Jews, n bo never allowed 
 themselves to pronounce it in the reading of their sacred 
 books, but substituted for it, whenever it occurred, the term 
 Adonai, or Lord. This practice is maintained even to this 
 day; nor will they write the word in perfect Hebrew let- 
 ters. And. agreeable to this scruple, they have left the 
 word Jehovah imperfectly written over the beautiful altar- 
 piece in the recently-erected synagogue in St. Helen's Place; 
 making it to resemble that word, but in reality to signify tka 
 Beloved. 
 
 JEJU'NUM. (Lat. jejunus, empty.) The second division 
 of the small intestines ; so termed because when examined 
 after death it is generally found empty or nearly so. 
 
 JELLY. See Gelatin. 
 
 JERBOA. See Diprs and Hklamys. 
 
 JE'SUATES OF SAINT JEROME. A religious order, 
 founded in 1363 by Giovanni Colombino, of Sienna ; of ex- 
 tremely ascetic habits ill its origin. It was suppressed by 
 Clement IX. in 1668. 
 
 JE'SUITES DE ROBE ; applied to secular persons of 
 high rank bound to the order of Jesuits by vows of obedi- 
 ence, without, however, having taken the spiritual vow. 
 
 JE'SUITS, or THE SOCIETY OF JESIS. The most 
 celebrated of all the Romish religious orders; founded by 
 Ignaliiis Loyola, a Spaniard, in the year 153-1, when he. with 
 Francis Xavier and four or five other students at the Uni- 
 versity of Paris, bound themselves to undertake the conver- 
 sion of unbelievers. The first principle of the society which 
 was then formed Was implicit submission to the commands 
 of the Holy See, in consideration of which their order was 
 confirmed, in 1540, by Pius HI.; and from that time to the 
 present, though with many alternations <>t' success and re- 
 verse, the Jesuits have been one of the main bulwarks of 
 the authority of Rome, and have exercised immense influ- 
 ence in the destinies of the Christian world. The zeal 
 which they manifested at the period immediately succeed- 
 ing the Reformation, when the Dominic ins ami other orders 
 which had been founded on similar principles, and had 
 faithfully executed thi u mission for many ages, had degen- 
 erated into luxury and indifference Becured for them the 
 the sovereigns and other political partisans of 
 Borne The\ s ion became installed in the confessionals of 
 
 all the Catholic kings of Europe, and throughout the 16th 
 and following century were, in foot, tin- directors of their 
 Counsels 111111 the rulers of their subjects. 
 
 Iii Protestant countries they acted as the emissaries and 
 
 spies of the Pope ; and in England, where, early in Eliza- 
 beth's reign, their landing upon OUT shores was made a cap- 
 ital crime, they persevered, nevertheless, in keeping aliva 
 the spirit of Roman Catholicism among the harassed rem- 
 nant of the old faith ; and passed and repassed the channel
 
 JESUITS. 
 
 year after year, devoting their lives, with almost a certainty 
 of eventually suffering, to the maintenance of an illegal, 
 and often a treasonable, correspondence with the court of 
 Rome and the enemies of the queen's government. At the 
 same time another division of their numerous body employ- 
 ed themselves with the most undaunted energy, and with an 
 apparent success such as has never crowned the efforts of 
 any other missionaries, in converting the heathens of Asia 
 and America. St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle, as he is call- 
 ed, of the Indies, planted Christianity in Hindostan and Ja- 
 pan ; and Ricci introduced it into China. In the course of 
 a few years the number of professing Christians in these 
 countries became very large ; although it cannot be denied 
 both that the means which the missionaries took to increase 
 the number of their conversions were little in accordance 
 with the spirit of their religion, and that the form of Chris- 
 tianity which they allowed to be propagated was more de- 
 graded and idolatrous than that of Rome itself. It should 
 be remarked, however, that the great secret of their success 
 seems to have been the address with which they obtained 
 the confidence of the ruling powers. In Japan and China 
 they became the intimate advisers of the sovereigns, and fre- 
 quently obtained the assistance of the civil power in the 
 furtherance of their missionary system. 
 
 The Jesuits obtained also, throughout Roman Catholic 
 Europe, the direction of the education of youth : they found- 
 ed many schools and colleges, not only for the instruction 
 of those who were designed for members of their own or- 
 der, but for that of the upper and lower classes generally, 
 in the education of both of which they were eminently suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 As a religious body, the Jesuits differ from their predeces- 
 sors, inasmuch as, their principle being to conform as much 
 as possible with the manners of the age, they have never 
 adopted the austere observances and exclusive spiritual 
 character upon which all earlier orders had grounded their 
 claims to notoriety. They are divided into different classes ; 
 of which only the professed take the religious vows of pov- 
 erty, chastity, and obedience to their superior. Among the 
 novices are frequently enrolled influential laymen, as was 
 Louis XIV. himself in his latter years ; and this is one of 
 the means which the order has employed to extend its 
 efficiency where it would be least liable to observation. 
 The Professed are of several ranks, the whole body being 
 under the absolute control of the General, whose abode is 
 fixed in Rome, and whose council consists of an admonitor 
 and five assistants or counsellors, who represent the five 
 principal Catholic states — Italy, Germany, France, Spain, 
 and Portugal. To Rome, as the central seat of the order, 
 are sent monthly communications from the superiors of the 
 different provinces through which its members are dis- 
 tributed. 
 
 The Pope has conceded to the Jesuits greater indulgence 
 than even to laymen, in exempting them from the religious 
 observances which are enjoined to all Roman Catholics, 
 and especially to the religious orders ; and hence it is that 
 they have been enabled to devote so great a portion of their 
 time not only to instruction, but to many branches of learn- 
 ing and practice, by means of which they have insinuated 
 themselves into the confidence and the concerns of the laity. 
 They are remarkable also for the worldly air which when 
 occasion serves they studiously assume — for the ease with 
 which they dispense with all the outward appearance of 
 their spiritual character in places where their objects seem 
 to be more attainable by a dilterent behaviour ; and they 
 have been reproached at all times with allowing themselves, 
 on the same principle, to make use of mental reservations 
 and other pious frauds in pursuance of the peculiar ends of 
 their society. Hence, even when their influence in Europe 
 was at its height, great distrust was manifested towards 
 them in many quarters. In France they were supposed to 
 be implicated in the plots by which Henry III. fell, and the 
 life of Henry IV. was attempted, and were, indeed, banished 
 from that country by royal decree before the end of the 16th 
 century : they were re-admitted, however, and continued in 
 the enjoyment of their full influence in spite of the strong 
 opposition of the Jansenists in the reign of Louis XIV. 
 They were banished, in the course of the 18th centurv, 
 from France, Spain, Portugal, and other Catholic states ; arid 
 in 1773 Clement XIV. issued a bull by which he decreed 
 the total abolition of the order. The invitation, however, 
 of Catherine II. into Russia, and the favour of the successor 
 of Clement, restored them in some degree ; and they still 
 exist and exercise considerable influence in Italy and Spain. 
 From Russia they are at the present moment entirely ban- 
 ished; nor has Portugal re-admitted them since their expul- 
 sion in 1759. In France and Germany their presence ap- 
 pears to be connived at, though they have never formally 
 been allowed to re-establish themselves in those countries. 
 In England they have been allowed to found and maintain 
 the Roman Catholic college at Stonyhurst. and their num- 
 bers in Ireland are supposed to be considerable. By the 
 
 JEZIDS. 
 
 Roman Catholic Relief Bill, natural-bom Jesuits resident in 
 the United Kingdom are required to register themselves' 
 with the clerk of the peace in every county : foreigners must 
 provide themselves with licences from a secretary of state. 
 
 The history of the order of Jesus has often been written ; 
 but wilh so much exaggeration both of fiiends and enemies, 
 that it is difficult to point out a fair account. The Historia 
 Jesuitica of Hospinian, a Protestant, carries it down to the 
 end of the 16th century. Or/andi and Sacchilti's History 
 of the Jesuits was proscribed by the parlement of Paris; a 
 5th part was added to it by Souvency. Coudrette, one of 
 the order, published a history of it just before its dispersion, 
 6 vols. l'Jmo., with Supplement, 1761-4. D'Alembert pub- 
 lished an account of the destruction of the order in France, 
 1765. See also Gear get's Memoires, Paris, 1817. The 
 celebrated Lettres Provinciates of Pascal contain a power- 
 ful exposure of the errors of the casuistical theologians of 
 the 16th and 17th centuries, of whom a large proportion 
 were Jesuits. (See also Moshcim, transl., ed. 1790, iv. 
 154.) The voluminous French collection, entitled Nouvelles 
 Ecclesiastiques, continued from the reign of Louis XIV. to 
 the Revolution, was under the management of Jansenists, 
 and contains every charge which hostility could suggest 
 against the Jesuits. Ranke's History of the Popes of the 
 \tith and \~lth Centuries contains much valuable matter 
 relative to that period. 
 
 JESUITS' BARK. See Cinchona, or Peruvian Bark. 
 
 JET. A bituminous carbon. Some varieties admit of 
 polish, and are used for ornamental purposes. 
 
 JET D'EAU. (Fr.) A fountain which throws up water 
 to some height in the air. According to the theory of hy- 
 drostatics, the velocity with which water issues from an 
 orifice is equal to that which would be acquired by a heavy 
 body in falling through a height equal to the difference be- 
 tween the levels of the orifice and the fountain head ; 
 whence, if the resistance of the air and other impediments 
 were removed, the height of the jet would be equal to that 
 of the surface of the leservoir. Among the causes which 
 prevent the jet from obtaining the height which theory 
 assigns to it, the following are the principal : 1st. The resist- 
 ance of the air, which is proportional nearly to the square 
 of the velocity. 2d. The friction against the sides of the 
 pipe and the orifice through which the water issues. 3d. 
 The velocity of the particles diminishing at every instant as 
 they ascend, the lower particles of the ascending column 
 press against those next above them ; and the pressure being 
 by the nature of fluids communicated in all directions, the 
 consequence is, that the column is enlarged and proportion- 
 ally shortened. 4th. The water at the top of the jet does 
 not fall oft' instantaneously when its velocity is destroyed ; it 
 rests for a moment at the top of the column, where its 
 weight opposes an obstacle to the particles next succeeding, 
 which retards their velocity, and this retardation is commu- 
 nicated to the whole column. This last obstacle may be 
 avoided by slightly inclining the jet from the vertical ; and 
 it is found by experience that a jet so inclined plays higher 
 than one quite upright, though the effect is thereby rendered 
 less pleasing. It is necessary that the diameter of the 
 adjutage or orifice be considerably less than that of the 
 pipe. (See Desagulier's Ezperimcntal Philosophy ; Mari- 
 otte, Mouvcment des Eaux.) 
 
 JE'TERUS. A disease of plants, where the system be- 
 comes affected with a general yellowness. 
 
 JEWS' HARP. An instrument of metal, with a flexible 
 vibratory thin metal tongue fixed to its circular base ; on 
 which tongue the breath, acting in different degrees of 
 force, produces something like a modulated air. Shaped 
 
 thus, 
 
 The outer bars are placed between the 
 
 teeth, and the central piece or tongue is set in vibration by 
 the action of the fingers. 
 
 JEW STONE. The fossil spine of a large egg-shaped 
 echinus. 
 
 JE'ZIDS, or DA'VASIN. A sect of religionists, long set- 
 tled in the mountainous country near Mosul : said to be 
 disciples of Yezid Ben Anisa, a Mohammedan doctor. 
 Their religion, however, is said to he a mixture of the an- 
 cient Manichean belief of those regions, with the tenets of 
 Mohammedanism and Zendism. They appear to be on 
 better terms with the Christians than with the neighbouring 
 Turks, by whom they are characterized as worshippers of 
 the Devil (Arab. Scheitan), whose name, it is said, no threats 
 of punishment will force them to pronounce, and whom 
 they only mention by periphrases, as "the great sliiikh," 
 or "he whom you know of." They live in villages, huts, 
 and tents, and are dreaded for their ferocity and robber-like 
 habits. They are noticed at length in a preliminary disser- 
 tation to Sylvcstre de Sacy's Description du I'acha'ik de 
 Bagdad, 1809 ; said to be the work of Father Garzoni, who 
 was eighteen years a missionary in Kurdistan. (Wee the art 
 " Jeziden" in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclopedia.) 
 
 623
 
 JIB. 
 
 JIB. A large triangular snil, between the fore-topmast 
 head ami the boom thence called jib-boom), which projects 
 beyond the bowsprit. 
 
 The effect of tins sail would soem to be to lift the ship's 
 head : >• 1 seamen find that as the wind freshens it causes 
 the ship, on the contrary, to plunge, and they either ease it 
 in (along the boom), or haul it down. This anomalous 
 effect may be explained as follows: 
 
 Let z and z be the horizontal and vertical co-ordinates of 
 the centre of effort, the centre of gravity of the vessel being 
 the origin: let P be the resultant of the pressures on the 
 sail. This may obviously be- resolved into three: r5 the 
 direct effort along x, A the lateral effort along y, and p the 
 vertical effort in i. The moment to raise the bow is x p — 
 t 5. If 2 6 exceed x p. the effect is negative, or tends to 
 depress the bow. In all vessels x > z, also <5 > p generally ; 
 hence the effect is not so decided as it may appeal at first 
 to be. 
 
 Let c be the angle which P makes with the horizon, and 
 d> be the angle between x and the horizontal projection of 
 Y ; then p = P sin. e, and 6 = P cos. t cos. <f> : hence the 
 effect is 
 
 P (i sin. t — 2 cos. e cos. (p). 
 
 When the wind is aft, = 0, and [ = 90 — k (the inclina- 
 tion of the jib-stay to the horizon nearly) ; and the effect is 
 
 P (i cos. k — z sin. k), 
 which, as k = 45°, is positive or lifting. 
 
 When the wind blows fresh, the vessel being close-hauled 
 and heeling over, the stay sags to leeward ; and the after- 
 leech being also slacker than the foot, the resultant P may 
 become horizontal, or c =0, or even negative ; in which last 
 case the effect is 
 
 — P (i sin. t + i cos. e cos. <p) 
 which is altogether depressing. If now the jib be eased in, 
 x and z are diminished. Hence, in general, the plunging 
 effect of the jib is owing to the heeling of the ship, and to 
 the sheet being too tlat aft. The like reasoning obviously 
 applies to stavsaiis. 
 
 JIB DOOR. (Derivation uncertain.) In Architecture, a 
 door so constructed that it stands (lush with the adjoining 
 face of the wall on both sides, and without dressings or 
 architraves. Thus it appears |>art of the wall, the intention 
 being to conceal even the appearance of a door. 
 
 JO'GGLED JOINTS. En Architecture, the joints of 
 
 I stones or other masses indented in such a way that the ntl- 
 j jacent stones fitting into the indentations, they are prevented 
 from being pushed away from each other by any force per- 
 pendicular to the pressures by which they are thus held 
 together. 
 
 JO'GGLE PIECE. (Perhaps from joug, a yoke.) In 
 Architecture, a truss post whose shoulders and sockets re- 
 ceive the lower ends of the struts. 
 
 JOHN HILL, the well-known collective name of the 
 English nation, was first used in Arbuthnot'.s satire, The 
 Historij of John Hull, usually published in Swift's works ; 
 hi which the French are designated as Lewis Baboon, the 
 Dutch as Nicholas Frog, &c. 
 
 JOI'NERY. (Fr. joindre.) In Architecture, the art of 
 framing wood-work for the finishing of houses, such as doors, 
 sashes, shutters, &.c. The term Carpentry is applied to the 
 rough timbering, in which tile only tools used are the axe, 
 adze, chisel, and saw. 
 
 JOINT STOCK COMPANY. In Mercantile Law, a 
 partnership (insisting of a large number of members, whose 
 rights and liabilities are defined by certain peculiar regula- 
 tions imposed by themselves, generally contained in an in- 
 strument termed a deed of settlement, and heretofore in an 
 act of parliament passed for the purpose ; but now, by 4 & 5 
 W. 4, c. 94, the king is enabled to grant the necessary powers 
 by letters patent. The deed constitutes trustees, directors, 
 and other officers ; contains the necessary covenants ; limits 
 the number of shores, &c, and details the rules to be 
 adopted in the management of the concern. By a clause 
 contained in this instrument the shares are rendered trans- 
 ferable by each partner without the consenl of the other 
 shareholders, subject, in general, to the approbation of the 
 directors. The act of parliament, or letters patent, enables 
 the company to sue ami be sued in the name of its secretary 
 or other officer, &.c. It concludes with the customary pro- 
 viso, that nothing therein contained shall be construed to 
 incorporate the partnership. 
 
 JOINT TE'NANCY, in Law, is where land-; and tene- 
 ments are granted to two or more persons to hold in fee- 
 aunple, fee toil, for life, for years, or at will. It is created 
 
 by particular words in a i\it-i\ or devise. Its properties are 
 said to be unity of interest, of title, of time, and of possession ; 
 and it is subject to the ri^'ht of survivorship in the C 
 estates for life. Joint tenancy may be severed by partition, 
 or by the alienation of any party. Personal chattels may 
 be the subjects of a joint tenancy. 
 GJ4 
 
 JUDGES. 
 
 JOI'NTURE. In Law, a settlement of lands and tene- 
 ments made on a woman in consideration I f maniBge: or- 
 dinarily an estate for life. A jointure was made a bar of 
 dower, it granted with certain requisites, by 27 H. 8, c. 10. 
 See .Makiuagk, Law op. 
 
 JOISTS. (Fr. joindre.) In Architecture, the timbers of 
 a floor whereto the boards or laths for the ceiling are nailed. 
 They either rest on the walls or on girders, or sometimes 
 on both. 
 
 Where only one tier of joists is used, it is called single 
 flooring (fig. 1 ), A A A being the joists ; 
 and In this sort of flooring such joists 
 should not exceed sixteen feel in length 
 or bearing, and even when the length is 
 more than eight feet they should have 
 stiffening pieces to prevent torsion. 
 
 When two sets of 
 joists are used, it is call- 
 ed double flooring (fig 
 ure 2) ; in which A A 
 are called the floor or 
 bridging joists, B B the 
 G C C the ceil- 
 ing joists. 
 
 If the binding joists be fra- 
 med into girders, the floor is 
 then properly called a double- 
 framed floor, of which the sub- 
 joined is a diagram (fig. 3); 
 wherein A is a girder, B a 
 binding joist, C C C are bridg- 
 ing joists, and D D D are ceiling joists, E being the floor boards. 
 of this floor it is manifest that the girders are the main sup- 
 port. 
 ! JOLLY BOAT. See Yawl. 
 
 JOU'RNAL. (Ital. giomale, i. e., diurnale.) Strictly a 
 j record or account of daily occurrences. It is more exten- 
 j sively employed to signify a narrative, periodically or occa- 
 | sionally published, of the transactions of a society, &c. ; as 
 by ourselves in the phrase "Journals of the Houses of Par- 
 liament," &c. It is also used as synonymous with Magazine, 
 or other periodical publications of that class. 
 ! JU'BA. (Lat. a mane.) The long and thick-set hairs 
 which adorn the neck, chest, or spine of certain quadrupeds. 
 JUBILATE. (Lat. rejoice.) A name given to the third 
 Sunday after Easter; so called because in the primitive 
 church divine service was commenced with the words of 
 the 66th Psalm, "Jubilate Deo, omnes terra?," "Sing to the 
 Lord, all ye lands." 
 
 JU'BILEE. (Lat. jubilo, I rejoice.) The name given 
 among the Jews to the grand sabbatical year, which w as 
 celebrated after every seven septennaries of years: whether 
 every' forty-ninth or fiftieth year is still a question among 
 the learned. The institution of this festival is recorded in 
 Lev. XXV., 8 — 17. This was a year of general release not 
 only of all debts, like the common sabbatical year, but of all 
 slaves, and of lands and possessions which had been aliena- 
 ted from their original owners. It has been commonly sup- 
 posed that the jubilee was intended to be typical of the 
 release and redemption of mankind under the Gospel dis- 
 pensation; and it was with this idea that Pope Boniface 
 VIII., at the end of the thirteenth century, proclaimed a 
 general indulgence to all Christians who should \i~it the 
 tombs of the Apostles at Rome in the secular year 1300. At 
 this peiiod it was intended that the same celebration should 
 take place only every hundredth year. In consequence, 
 however, of the enormous afflux of pilgrims which this pro- 
 clamation brought together, and the gain winch resulted 
 from it, Clement VI. abridged the interval to fifty years; 
 and the solemnity then received the name of the jubilee in 
 imitation of the Jewish custom. The second jubilee was 
 accordingly solemnized in 1350. In 1389, Urban V. reduced 
 the term to thirty-three years, the number of the life of our 
 Saviour: it was raised again by Nicholas V. to fifty; and 
 finally, in M7(i, fixed by Paul II. at twenty-five; and the 
 jubilee has ever since been solemnized every quarter of a 
 century, beginning on Christmas eve, when the Pope opens 
 with great pomp the door of St. Peter's, closed except on 
 that occasion. (Mosheim's Eccl. Hist., Transl., ed. 1790, 
 
 in , a63.j 
 
 .11 DAlSM. Attachments to the rites of the Jewish law. 
 The .Iiiilaizing spirit of many of the early Chiis:ians is a 
 subject of observation in many of Ht Paul's Bptettli 
 
 dally that to the Gelations), and continued for a long period 
 to exercise much influence on the character of the religion, 
 (See Mihimn's Hist, of Christianity, vol. i., 81, 451. &c.) 
 JU'DGES, (Lut. judex.) Certain supreme mnpistrntea 
 
 who presided aver the Israelites from the time of .lev bin to 
 the reign of Saul, a period of about 330 years. They were 
 so called because they formed at once the civil and the mili-
 
 JUDGMENT. 
 
 tary governors of the people. The dignity was retained for 
 life, though it was not always hereditary. 
 
 JU'DGMENT. (Lat. judicium.) In Law, the sentence 
 of the law pronounced by the court upon the matter con- 
 tained in the record. The term judgment, in English legal 
 language, is restricted to the decisions of a court of common 
 law : those of a court of equity are denominated decrees. 
 Judgments are said to be of four sorts : 1. Judgments in 
 law (on demurrer, where the facts are confessed upon the 
 pleading). 2. Judgments in fact (on the verdict of a jury). 
 3. Judgments by confession or default, i. e. where both facts 
 and law are admitted by the defendant 4. Judgments on a 
 nonsuit or retraxit, where both fact and law are admitted 
 by the plaintiff, who thereupon withdraws his claim. Judg- 
 ments are also said to be either interlocutory, on matter 
 arising in the course of the proceeding ; or final, on the 
 merits of the case. Judgments, when obtained, must be 
 signed by the proper officer, and entered of record, without 
 which they are not judgments. Arrest of judgment arises 
 from error appearing upon the face of the record ; but such 
 error must now be, generally speaking, in substantial matter 
 of law, and not on mere matter of form. 
 
 Ju'dgments, in Logic, is defined to be the second of the 
 three logical operations of the mind. It is the comparing 
 together two of the notions which are the subjects of simple 
 apprehension, and pronouncing that they agree or disagree 
 with each other. Judgment, therefore, is either affirmative 
 or negative ; and the subjects of judgment are propositions, 
 which are expressions of the agreement or disagreement of 
 one term with another. 
 
 Ju'dgment. In the Fine Arts, the faculty of selecting 
 that which is most suitable to the purpose. 
 
 JU'DICA. (Lat. judge.) The fifth Sunday after Lent 
 was so called, because the primitive church began the ser- 
 vice on that day with the words of the 43d Psalm, " Judica 
 me, Domine," " Judge me, O Lord." 
 
 JUDI'CIUM DEI. (Lat. judgment of God.) The term 
 formerly applied to all extraordinary trials of secret crimes, 
 as those by arms, single combat, ordeals, &c, in which it 
 was believed that Heaven would miraculously interfere to 
 clear the innocent and confound the guilty. (See Ordeal, 
 Question.) Full particulars of the ceremonies instituted 
 on such occasions will be found in Ducange. 
 
 JU'GAL BONE. (Lat. jugum, or Gr. {vyov. a yoke.) 
 The cheek bone ; so called because it has a yoke-like artic- 
 ulation to the bone of the upper jaw. 
 
 JUGA'TA. Two heads represented upon a medal, side 
 by side, or joining each other. 
 
 JU'GGERNAUT. See Vishnu. 
 
 JU'GGLERS. (Fr. jongleurs.) A general denomination 
 for those persons who practise the arts of legerdemain, or 
 who exhibit feats of uncommon strength or dexterity. The 
 reader will find in Beckman's History of Inventions a 
 learned and curious account of the origin and history of all 
 the feats of this kind exhibited both in ancient and modern 
 times. 
 
 JUGLANDA'CE/E. (Juglans, one of the genera.) A 
 small natural order of Exogenous trees, distributed through 
 the temperate parts of North America and Asia. The com- 
 mon walnut, Juglans regia, is well known for its agreeable 
 fruit, and the useful oil it yields by pressure. Hickory, a 
 very elastic kind of timber, is the wood of Carya alba. ; 
 and that of other species, especially Juglans nigra and 
 regia, is valuable for cabinetmakers' work and similar 
 purposes. 
 
 JU'GULARS, Jugulares. (Lat) The name under 
 which Linnaeus comprehended all those fishes which have 
 the ventral fins anterior to the pectorals. 
 
 JU'GULAR VEINS. (Lat. jugulum, the throat.) The 
 veins which bring the blood from the head, descending 
 upon the sides of the neck : they are divided into external 
 and internal. By their union with the subclavian vein 
 they form the superior vena cava, which terminates in the 
 superior part of the right auricle of the heart. 
 
 JU'GULUM. (Lat. the throat.) In Mammalogy, it is 
 restricted to the fore-part of the neck, which intervenes be- 
 tween the throat (aula) and the chest. The fossa jugu- 
 laris is the hollow in front of the sternum at the base of the 
 neck. 
 
 JUJU'BE. The fruit of the Rhamnus zizyphus : it re- 
 sembles a small plum, and is occasionally used as a sweet- 
 meat. What is sold under the name of jujube paste pro- 
 fesses to be the dried jelly of this fruit but is, in fact, a mix- 
 ture of gum arable ami sugar slightly coloured. 
 
 JU'LIAN JERA. The commencement of a period in- 
 vented to correspond with the cycles of the Julian year. It 
 coincides with the 710th year before the creation of the 
 world, according to common chronology. 
 
 JULIAN CALENDAR. The civil calendar introduced 
 
 at Rome by Julius Caesar, and used by all the Christian 
 
 countries of Europe till it was reformed by Pope Gregory 
 
 XUI. in 1582. Before the time of Julius Caesar, the Roman 
 
 54 
 
 JUMPING HARE. 
 
 year was lunisolar; and as the pontiff's, who had a discre 
 tionary power of adjusting the calendar, followed no certain 
 rule in their intercalations, but sometimes inserted a greater 
 or less number of days for the purpose of prolongjng or 
 shortening the period of a particular magistracy, the civil 
 year did not long correspond with the astronomical or the 
 course of the seasons, and the reckoning of time fell into 
 great confusion. With the advice of the astronomer Sosi • 
 genes, Caesar fixed the mean length of the year at 36a} 
 | days ; and in order that the year should always commence 
 with the commencement of a day, he decreed that three 
 successive years should contain 365 days, and the fourth 
 366, and so on forever. He also restored the vernal equi- 
 nox to the 25th of March, the place it occupied in the time 
 of Numa ; and thus fixed the correspondence of the civil 
 year with the seasons. 
 
 In distributing the days of the year among the twelve cal- 
 endar months, Caesar adopted a very commodious arrange- 
 ment which unfortunately was not long suffered to prevail. 
 He ordained that the odd months, viz., the first, third, fifth, 
 seventh, ninth, and eleventh, should have each 31 days, 
 and the even months 30 days ; with the exception of Febru- 
 ary, which in common years should have only 29, but in 
 the intercalary years 30 days. This was as simple and nat- 
 ural a disposition as, perhaps, it is possible to make ; but the 
 whole arrangement was soon thrown into disorder and con- 
 fusion, to gratify the frivolous vanity of Augustus, by giving 
 to the month which he had named after himself the same 
 number of days as July, which bore the name of the first 
 Caesar. A day was accordingly taken from February and 
 given to August; and in order that three months of 30 days 
 might not come together, September and November were 
 reduced to 30 days, and 31 given to October and December. 
 Such was the origin of the capricious arrangement which 
 has ever since been adhered to. See Calendar. 
 
 JULIAN EPOCH. In Chronology, the epoch or com- 
 mencement of the Julian Calendar. The first Julian year 
 commenced with the 1st of January of the 46th year before 
 the birth of Christ, and the 708th from the foundation of 
 Rome. 
 
 JULIAN PERIOD, in Chronology, is a period consisting 
 of 7980 Julian years. The number 7980 is formed by the 
 continual multiplication of the three numbers 28, 19, and 15 ; 
 that is, of the cycle of the sun, the cycle of the moon, and 
 the cycle of indiction. The first year of the Christian era 
 had 10 for its number in the cycle of the sun, 2 in the cycle 
 of the moon, and 4 in the indiction. Now the only number 
 less than 7980 which, on being divided successively by 28, 
 19, and 15, leaves the respective remainders 10, 2, and 4, is 
 4714. Hence the first year of the Christian era correspond- 
 ed with the year 4714 of the Julian period ; and hence also 
 the year of our era corresponding to any other year of the 
 period, or vice versa, is found by the following rule : 
 
 1. When the given year is anterior to the commencement 
 of the era, subtract the number of the year of the Julian 
 period from 4714, and the remainder is the year before 
 Christ: or subtract the year before Christ from 4714, and 
 the remainder is the corresponding year in the Julian pe- 
 riod. 
 
 2. When the given year is after Christ subtract 4713 
 from the year of the period, and the remainder is the year 
 of the era ; or add 4713 to the year in the era, and the sum 
 is the corresponding year of the Julian period. (Ency. 
 Brit., art. "Chronology.") 
 
 JU'LIAN YEAR. "The year adopted in the calendar of 
 Julius Caesar, and equal to 365^ days. The Julian year ex- 
 ceeds the mean solar year, as determined by the best astro- 
 nomical observations, by 11 minutes and 1035 seconds, 
 which amounts to a day in 129 years. In the course of a 
 few centuries this error would become very perceptible, as 
 the equinoxes and solstices would fall back towards the be- 
 ginning of the year. When the Julian calendar was intro- 
 duced by Caesar, the vernal equinox fell on the 25th of 
 March ; at the time of the Council of Nice, in 325, it fell on 
 the 21st ; and at the reformation of the calendar, in 1582, it 
 had retrograded to the 11th. This observation enabled Pope 
 Gregory to fix the length of the year more precisely, and 
 correct the intercalations. .See Calendar. 
 
 JU'LIS. (Lat. the name of a fish.) A genus of Labroid 
 fishes, distinguished by the following characters : Head 
 smooth; cheeks and gill-covers without scales; lateral line 
 bent suddenly downwards when opposite the end of the dor- 
 sal fin. The rainbow wrasse (Julis Mcditerranea) has been 
 taken on the coast of Cornwall. 
 
 JULY, so named by Mark Antony, in honour of Caius 
 Caesar, the dictator, whose gentile name was Julius, is at 
 present the seventh month of the year. In the Latin calen- 
 dar it was the fifth, and hence was termed Quintilis. The 
 Dog-days are supposed to commence on the 3d of this 
 month. 
 
 JU MPING HARE. A Rodent quadruped, the largest of 
 the family of the Jerboas (Dipodidte), and the type of the 
 Q, q 625
 
 JUNCACEjE. 
 
 genus Helamys, is so colled. It is a native of tlie Cape of 
 «;i h h! Hope, ond inhabits deep burrows. Set IIki.amys. 
 
 JUNCA'CEiE. (Juncus, one of the genera.) .\ small 
 ■ iii-i- ;i r«- natural order of Endogenous plants, in most respects 
 resemtfling Liliaeem, and differing cliiotly in their flowers 
 bei _ glumaceous; that is, thin, dry, and cither brown or 
 green in colour. There are, however, species intermediate 
 between the two orders in this respect. None of the Bpecies 
 are of any importance. The common rush is the usual type 
 of this order. 
 
 .11 \( '.VCl.VU'E.E. A small natural order of Endoge- 
 nous plants growing in marshes, with minute green flowers. 
 They are considered by botanists allied to .Iracea:, on ac- 
 count of the structure of the embryo; in their genera] aspect 
 they are something like little rushes. 
 
 JUNE; so named, according to some, either from the 
 Latin Junius, Juno, or Juniores (May. as was alleged, being 
 derived from Majores). At present the sixth month of the 
 year, but in the old Latin calendar the fourth. It consisted 
 originally of twenty-six days, to which Romulus is said to 
 have added four. Numa afterwards deprived it of one day; 
 which, however, was again restored by Julius Ca:sar, and it 
 has ever since remained unaltered. 
 
 JUNGEKMANNIAVK.E. (Jnngermannia, one of the 
 penera.) A very small natural order of Acrogenous or 
 Cryptogenic plants, resembling mosses in appearance, and, 
 like them, growing upon the hark of trees and in damp 
 ground in shady places. They hear their seeds in cases 
 containing spiral threads, which, by their elasticity, disperse 
 the former when ripe. Until lately they were considered to 
 form a part of Hrpatica. 
 
 JU'NIPER BERRIES. Tiie fruit of the Juniperus com- 
 munis. They are used in medicine as a diuretic ; but their 
 principal consumption is in flavouring gin. When distilled 
 with water they yield an essential oil, upon which their pe- 
 culiar flavour depends. The resin of this tree is called ju- 
 niper gum or sandarach, and is occasionally used in var- 
 nishes. When powdered it is used under the name of 
 pounce, to prevent ink sinking into paper from which wri- 
 ting has been erased. 
 
 JUNK. A large flat-bottomed vessel, with three masts, 
 and a short bowsprit placed on the starboard bow, used by 
 the Chinese. The masts are supported by two or three 
 
 shrouds, which at times are all carried on the windward 
 Fide; and the fore or main mast carries a sort of lug-sail of 
 cane or bamboo. 
 
 .IT NO. The Latin name of the divinity called by the 
 Greeks Hera ( Hpn). She was the sister and consort of Ju- 
 I iter, and was held to preside over marriage, and protect 
 married women. She wns represented as the model of ma- 
 jestic beauty, in royal attire, and attended by her favourite 
 bird the peacock. Her principal temples in Greece were at 
 Samoa and Argos. She was also the patroness of Veii, 
 whence she was invited to Rome on tlie occasion of the last 
 siege of the former city. 
 
 Ju'no. One of the four small extra-zodiacal planets 
 which circulate between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. 
 Juno was discovered by Professor Harding of Lilienthal 
 (near Bremen), on the 22d of Septemher, 1804; Ceres and 
 Pallas having been discovered previously. Juno appears 
 like a star of the eighth or ninth magnitude, and is of a 
 whitish colour, without nebulosity. This planet is distin- 
 guished by the great eccentricity of its orbit, exceeding that 
 of any other planet, and amounting to '2578, the semi-axis 
 major being taken as unit. The effect of this eccentricity 
 on the motion of the planet is such, that the half of the 
 orbit which is bisected by the perihelion is described in 
 about half the time in which the other half is described. 
 The sidereal revolution is performed in 1592-66 mean solar 
 davs. The inclination of the orbit to the ecliptic, is 13° 4' 
 10"; and the greatest equation of the centre 29° 4ti' 19". 
 The extreme smollness of the planet renders it impossible to 
 determine its apparent diameter, and consequently its mag- 
 nitude, with any degree of certainty. 
 
 JU'NTA. (Span, an assembly.) A grand Spanish coun- 
 cil of state. Resides the assembly of the stales or cortes, 
 there were two juntas: one which presided over the com 
 merce, the mint, and the mines; and the other forming a 
 board for regulating the tobacco monopoly. The assem- 
 bling of a junta by Napoleon in 1808, and the part they 
 subsequently played in Spanish history, are guflSi 
 known to the reader. In England the term juntn (evident- 
 ly of Spanish origin) is used almost synonymously with ca- 
 bal or faction. 
 
 JU'IMTF.It. Tn Mythology, the Latin name of the deity 
 called b\ the Greeks Zeus(Zfus) : " ' s derived from thai 
 
 word with the addition I'ater. Foliar. He WOS tin- son of 
 
 Saturn, whom be deposed from his throne, ami thence be- 
 came the supreme monarch of gods and men. He married 
 his sister Juno, by whom he had Vulcan ; I nt besides this 
 deity he had a large progeny of gods and demigods by bis 
 numerous divine and mortal paramours. Tlie most celc- 
 
 JUPITER. 
 
 brated of his children were, Minerva, who had no mother, 
 but sprung armed from her father's forehead.; Bacchus, tlie 
 Muses, Venus, Apollo and Diana, Mercury, Proserpine, 
 
 Hercules, Perseus, and Minos. The most celebrated Gre- 
 cian temple of this god was at ( >l\mpia in Klis, where every 
 fourth year the Olympian games were celebrated in his 
 honour: his most revered oracle was among the oak woods 
 of Dodona in Epirus. The Romans considered Jupiter as 
 especially the patron of their eity, in which he accordingly 
 had some splendid temples: that in the capitol was the 
 grandest. Of that dedicated to Jupitor Stator there are still 
 three columns standing, Jupiter was represented as the 
 model of dignity ; grave, but mild : he is seated on a throne 
 grasping his sceptre and a thunderbolt, and by his side 
 stands bis peculiar bird, the eagle. 
 
 It has been remarked that there is a striking similarity 
 between Jove (from Jovis, gen. of Jupiter), and the Hebrew 
 name of the Supreme Deity, Jehovah. 
 
 Jupiter. In Astronomy, one of the planets, and the lar- 
 gest in the system. The mean diameter of Jupiter is no 
 less than 87,(HH) miles, or about eleven times that of the 
 earth : consequently his hulk is about 1300 times greater 
 than that of the earth. The distance of Jupiter from the 
 sun is nearly 490 millions of miles, or about 5-J times the ra- 
 dius of the earth's orbit; and he performs his revolution in 
 respect of the stars in 4332 days, 14h. 2m. 8A sec, which is 
 nearly 12 years. The inclination of the orbit to the plane 
 of the ecliptic was 1° 18' 51" at the beginning of the pres- 
 ent century, and undergoes a diminution of about a fourth 
 of a second in a year. 
 
 "The disc of Jupiter is always observed to he crossed in 
 one certain direction by dark bands or belts. These belts 
 are. however, by no means alike at all times; they vary in 
 breadth and in situation on the disc (though never in their 
 general direction). They have even been seen broken up, 
 and distributed over the whole face of the planet; but this 
 phenomenon is extremely rare. Branches running out from 
 them, and subdivisions, as well as evident dark spots, like 
 strings of clouds, are by no means uncommon ; and from 
 these, attentively watched, it is concluded that the planet 
 revolves in the surprisingly short period of 9h. 55m. 50 sec. 
 (sid. time) on an axis perpendicular to the direction of the 
 
 belts. 
 
 The parallelism of the belts to the equator of Jupiter, 
 their occasional variations, and the appearances of spots 
 seen upon them, render it extremely probable that they sub- 
 sist in the atmosphere of the planet, forming tracts of com- 
 paratively clear sky, determined by currents analagous to 
 our trade winds, but of a much more steady and decided 
 character, as might indeed be expected from the immense 
 velocity of its rotation. That it is the comparatively darker 
 body of the planet which appears in the belts is evident 
 from this — that they do not come up in all their strength to 
 the edge of the disc, but fade gradually away before they 
 reach it." (HerscheVs Astronomy, Cabinet Cyclopaedia, p. 
 281.) 
 
 The radius of Jupiter being 11 times greater than that of 
 the earth, and the rotation on the axis being 24 times more 
 rapid, the space passed over by a point on the equator of the 
 planet will he 26 times greater than that described by a 
 point of the terrestrial equator in the same time. Hence 
 the centrifugal force is about 26 times greater, and we may, 
 therefore, conclude that its effect in impressing a flattened 
 form on the planet will be much greater than takes place 
 With regard to the earth. Now observation shows this to 
 he the case. The disc of Jupiter is evidently not circular, 
 but elliptic, being considerably flattened in the direction of 
 its axis of rotation ; and this appearance is no optical illu- 
 sion, but is authenticated by micrometrica] measures, which 
 nsML'ii 15 to 14 as the proportion of the equatorial and polar 
 diameters. This far exceeds the compression of the earth, 
 the ratio of the equatorial to the polar diameter of which is 
 302 to 301. 
 
 The annual parallax of Jupiter is less than 12°; conse- 
 quently the earth, as seen from Jupiter, will never appear at 
 a greater distance than 12° from- the sun. The digressions 
 of Mars will he 17°. those of Venus 8°, and those of Mer- 
 cury only 4° 16'. An inhabitant of Jupiter would therefore 
 probably be ignorant of the existence of Mercury, which 
 will be almost constantly plunged in the sun's rays, and 
 likewise diminished in splendour, on account of the greater 
 distance. 
 
 The density of Jupiter is very nearly the same as that of 
 the sun. and about one fourth of the mean density of the 
 earth. The moss of the planet, compared with that of the 
 sun taken as unity, is '000943; hut this is sufficient to pro- 
 duce a very sensible perturbation of the motions of some of 
 tlie i-i'm r planets. The proportion of light and heat receiv 
 ed by Jupiter (rem tlie sun, comjmred with that received by 
 the earth, is as (137 to 1. 
 
 Jupiter, through tlie telescope, is observed to be accom- 
 panied by four moons or satellites, which revolve ubout the
 
 JURISCONSULT. 
 
 planet nearly in the plane of its equator, exactly in the same 
 manner as the moon revolves about the earth. Their con- 
 figuration changes at every instant; they appear to oscillate 
 on each side of the planet, and their rank or order of dis- 
 tance is determined by the extent of their oscillations. In 
 coming between the sun and Jupiter, the satellites throw 
 their shadows on the planet, and produce eclipses of the 
 Bun ; and when they come to the side of the planet opposite 
 to the sun they are eclipsed in passing through the shadow. 
 The beginnings and endings of these eclipses can be ob- 
 served with great precision ; and their observation furnishes 
 the surest means of determining the sidereal and synodic 
 revolutions of the satellites. The same observations also 
 afford a means of determining terrestrial longitudes; and it 
 was by means of them that astronomers discovered and 
 measured the velocity of light. See Planet and Satellite. 
 
 JU'RISCONSU'LT. (Juris consultus, learned or skilled 
 in law.) A title given to a class of Roman lawyers, and 
 commonly denoted by the abbreviation ictus. From what 
 we know of the jurisconsults, they appear to have been a 
 different class from the advocati or causidici who conducted 
 causes, and to have confined themselves to the employment 
 of giving responsa or opinions on cases put to them. (See 
 Mem. de VAc. des fnscr., vol. xh.) From the recorded 
 opinions of the most learned jurisconsults the Digest, the 
 great work of Justinian, was chiefly compiled. See Advo- 
 cate. 
 
 JU'RISPRU'DENCE. The science of right. (From the 
 Latin words juris prudens, skilled in law.) The term civil 
 jurisprudence is sometimes restricted to the science of the 
 Roman or civil law. For a literally complete list of works 
 on this extensive subject, see Krug's Philosophisches Lexi- 
 con, art. " Rechtslehre." 
 
 JURY-MAST. In Naval affairs, a temporary mast erect- 
 ed in a ship in the room of one that has been carried away 
 by tempest or any other accident. Jury-masts are some- 
 times erected in a new ship to navigate her down a river, 
 or to a neighbouring port, where her proper masts are pre- 
 pared for her. 
 
 JURY, TRIAL BY. Of the origin and progress of this 
 institution, as far as it has been very imperfectly traced by 
 antiquarians, some account has been given in the historical 
 review of the Common Law. When issue has been taken 
 in fact in a civil suit (see Pleading), the cause stands ready 
 for trial at bar of the court itself (see Law, Superior 
 Courts), unless by the fiction of nisi prius (ib.) it is trans- 
 ferred to the sittings in London and Middlesex, or the as- 
 sizes in the country. (A trial at bar is now only granted on 
 application in some special cases.) The sheriff of the coun- 
 ty is directed by writ of venire facias to summon jurors to 
 attend at the assizes ; and by a farther compulsory process, 
 called a distringas, he is ordered to distrain them by their 
 lands and goods if they make default in appearance. On 
 motion of either the plaintiff or defendant, the court orders a 
 special jury to be summoned. The list of persons liable to 
 serve as common jurors is made out by the churchwardens 
 and overseers in each parish, and, after being considered by 
 justices at petty sessions, is copied into a book and deliver- 
 ed to the sheriff. On the return of the writs of venire fa- 
 cias, the sheriff annexes a panel or list of persons taken from 
 this book, in number from 48 to 72 ; and the judges are em- 
 powered to direct the same panel to attend both for the civil 
 and the criminal sides, amounting in all to 144. The twelve 
 jurors who are to try the cause are chosen by ballot out of 
 this list. The qualification of a common juror is, to be a 
 natural-born subject (unless on trial of an alien, in which 
 he may if he pleases have a jury de. medietate lingua, of 
 which one half consists of aliens), to be free from attaint of 
 an infamous crime, and to be between the ages of 21 and 
 60. All such persons (with certain privileged exceptions) 
 possessing £10 a year in freehold or copyhold lands and 
 tenements, or £20 a year in lands held on lease for 21 
 years, or rated as householders to the poor's rate in Middle- 
 sex for £30, elsewhere £20, or occupying a house with 15 
 windows, are liable to serve. In the city of London the 
 juror must be a householder or occupier within the city, 
 and have property, real or personal, to the amount of £100. 
 All persons described in the jurors' book as esquires or of a 
 higher degree, or as bankers or merchants, are qualified to 
 serve on special juries. If on a trial sufficient qualified ju- 
 rors are not in attendance, a tales may be prayed ; and by- 
 standers are called in to fill up the number. This seldom 
 occurs but in special jury cases; and in these the talesmen, 
 as they are vulgarly termed, are taken from the common 
 jury list. 
 
 The jury being summoned, the trial proceeds; unless 
 either party challenge the jurors. Challenges are either to 
 the array or to the polls. A challenge to the array is an 
 objection to the whole panel, and can only be on account 
 of default or partiality of the sheriff. Challenges to the 
 polls, i. e., to individual jurors, are said to be of four kinds ; 
 propter honoris respectum, propter defectum, propter affectum, 
 
 JUSTICES OF THE PEACE. 
 
 and propter delictum. 1. Where a party is exempted by 
 statute from serving, he may challenge himself. 2. Insuffi- 
 cient qualification is a ground of challenge by either party. 
 3. On supposed bias or partiality, as by reason of kindred. 
 Challenges to the favour are on a mere suspicion of partial- 
 ity. 4. Legal infamy is the fourth ground of challenge. In 
 8 criminal case the law of challenges is the same as in a 
 civil one; except that the prisoner for felony has the addi- 
 tional privilege of making peremptory challenges without 
 cause assigned to any number of jurors not exceeding twen 
 ty. Challenges for cause, if to the polls, are tried by the 
 court ; except those to the favour, which the court appoints 
 two jurors if sworn- If not, two indifferent persons, to try. 
 Challenges to the array are tried entirely at the discretion 
 of the court. 
 
 According to the common course of a trial at nisi prius, 
 the counsel for that party on which the affirmative of the 
 issue is thrown by the pleadings (that is, except in occa- 
 sional cases, the plaintiff) opens his case by a statement to 
 the jury, and then calls witnesses to prove it. The counsel 
 for the other party then replies ; and if he also calls wit- 
 nesses, the first speaker has a final reply. After the evi- 
 dence is given and the case closed, the jurors are kept 
 together to deliberate of their verdict. They must be with- 
 out meat, drink, or fire, unless otherwise ordered by the 
 judge ; and as unanimity is necessary to a verdict, it was 
 held at common law that if the jury could not agree, the 
 judge might cause them to be carried round the circuit 
 from town to town in a cart. In practice it is usual, when 
 they cannot be brought to agreement, to discharge the jury. 
 Although the jury in ordinary language are said to be judges 
 of the fact only, yet a general verdict in a civil or crimi- 
 nal case ordinarily decides both the facts, and whether the 
 law as stated by the judge is immediately applicable to 
 those facts: c. g., a verdict " guilty" on a charge of murder 
 implies both that the act was committed, and that it was 
 committed under circumstances amounting to murder. The 
 jury may, however, find under certain circumstances a spe- 
 cial verdict, that is, a verdict in which the facts of the case 
 are specially stated, and it is left to the court to apply the 
 law ; or they may find a general verdict, subject to a special 
 case as to a point of law. In cases of criminal prosecution 
 for libel, much difference of opinion formerly prevailed as 
 to the effect of a verdict. It was held by most lawyers that 
 the only questions for their consideration were the fact of 
 publication, and the truth of what is technically called the 
 innuendos, viz., that the passages of the libel cited did ap- 
 ply to such or such facts and individuals. But by 32 G. 3, c. 
 GO (passed through the influence of Mr. Fox), it was enact- 
 ed, that on every trial of an indictment or information for 
 libel, the jury may find a general verdict of guilty or not 
 guilty upon the whole matter in issue, thus deciding wheth- 
 er the matter published amounts to a libel or no. As to the 
 grand jury, see Law, Criminal. 
 
 JUST, or JOUST. (Ital. giostra.) A combat between 
 two persons with lances: properly, a mere amicable contest 
 or trial of strength. See Tournament. 
 
 JUSTE MILIEU. See Milieu Juste. 
 
 JU'STICES OF THE PEACE, in Law, are descended 
 from the ancient conservators of the peace, and are appoint- 
 ed to their office in every county by the lung's special com- 
 mission under the great seal ; which appoints them all, 
 jointly and separately, to keep the peace, and any two or 
 more of them to inquire of or determine felonies or misde- 
 meanors. Some justices, also, are so by act of parliament 
 (namely, a few high ecclesiastical officers) ; and some by 
 charter or grant, as the mayor and other magistrates in cor- 
 porate towns. Some justices are expressly nominated in 
 the commission, so that certain business cannot be transact- 
 ed without their presence ; these are said to be of the quo- 
 rum, and all the justices are now usually included in the 
 list. The qualification of a justice is to have an estate of 
 £100 a year free of incumbrance, or a reversion after one or 
 more lives of £300 a year; but many privileged persons 
 may act without qualification by estate. A justice intending 
 to act under this commission sues out a writ of dedimus po- 
 testatem from the clerk of the crown in chancer)', and takes 
 certain usual oaths. 
 
 The duties and powers of a justice of the peace are of 
 two kinds ; ministerial and judicial. 1. He acts in the for- 
 mer capacity in preserving the peace ; hearing charges 
 against offenders ; examining the informant and his witness- 
 es; binding over the parties to prosecute or give evidence; 
 and committing, or admitting to bail, according to the nature 
 of the offence, parties who are brought before him. The 
 stat. 7 & 8 Geo. 4, c. 64, requires justices to take the most 
 material part of the evidence on examinations before them 
 in writing, to be returned to the assizes, both in charges of 
 felony and misdemeanor. 2. An extensive jurisdiction, sum- 
 mary and formal, is now exercised by justices of the peace, 
 numerous branches of judicature, both criminal and civil, 
 having been gradually confided to their authority, either ex- 
 
 627
 
 JUSTICIARY, CHIEF. 
 
 ercised by them individually, or at the petty sessions and gen- 
 eral quarter sessions of the pence. The latter conn, by 34 
 Ed. 3, lias jurisdiction over all felonies and trespasses what- 
 ever: in practice, simple larcenies and many other felonies 
 and small misdemeanors are tried by a jury before it. It 
 has also, by various statutes, jurisdiction over several offen- 
 ces relating to highways and to game; it is an appellate 
 court from many decisions of individual magistrates; and it 
 has one large and exclusive power committed to its care by 
 the legislature, \>/.., the hearing and deciding appeals from 
 orders of magistrates relative to the imposition of the poor's 
 rate, and to the removal of paupers from one parish to an- 
 other in which they are shown to have a legal settlement. 
 (See Settlement.) Justices have, either singly or jointly, 
 summary jurisdiction in questions of contract between cer- 
 tain classes of masters and servants; in small illegal takings 
 of property, whether strictly personal, or in part connected 
 with the freehold, not exceeding j£5 in value ; and in com- 
 mon assaults and batteries not causing injury exceeding £5 
 (in the latter case two justices are required) ; and in certain 
 malicious injuries to property. The proceedings are in gen- 
 eral on a written charge, sometimes termed a complaint; 
 hut in proceedings for a penalty more generally an informa- 
 tion : on receiving which, the justice grants a summons to 
 cause the appearance of the party charged. An appeal to 
 the quarter sessions from the conviction or order of justices 
 is sustainable only where expressly given by statute ; and 
 the court of session, on hearing the case, is said either to 
 affirm or quash the conviction or order. And the proceed- 
 ings are farther removable in some cases into the superior 
 courts by certiorari. 
 
 Other summary remedies afforded by magistrates are, in 
 cases of forcible entry and detainer, and some that arise be- 
 tween landlord and tenant. 
 
 Justices of the peace are liable to actions at the suit of 
 parties injured by them wilfully in the exercise of their au- 
 thority. But it is provided by statute that they shall have 
 notice of any action commenced against them, and the cause 
 of such action, one month before the writ is sued out ; and 
 the action must lie commenced within six months after the 
 injury complained of. Persons recovering a verdict against 
 a justice for any wilful or malicious injury are entitled to 
 double costs. These magistrates are also punishable crimi- 
 nally by indictment or information. 
 
 The police justices of London and its vicinity are stipendi- 
 ary magistrates, created bv act of parliament. 
 
 JUSTICIARY, CHIEF. (Lat. magnus justiciarius, or 
 capitalis justiciarius totius Anglias. An officer of high pow- 
 er and dignity under the Norman kings of England, who 
 presided over all functionaries in the aula regia, or king's 
 court, so long as it followed the person of the king ; and 
 was, says Blackstone, by virtue of his office, guardian of 
 the realm in the king's absence. The formidable power of 
 the chief justiciary was curbed to some extent by the pro- 
 visions of the great charter, especially that which fixed the 
 trial of common pleas at Westminster; and became alto- 
 gether obsolete when the various branches of his jurisdiction 
 were broken into distinct courts of judicature under Ed- 
 ward I. (Bl. Corn., in., 3!>.l 
 
 JUSTI'CIARY, THE HIGH COURT OF, IN SCOT- 
 LAND, is composed of five of the Lords of Session, added 
 to the Justice-Clerk, the president of the court. It is the 
 supreme court of criminal justice; with the power of advo- 
 cating or suspending all sentences of inferior criminal judges. 
 It has circuit courts twice a year; and an additional circuit 
 is now held in Glasgow during the Christmas recess of the 
 Court of Session. The sinecure office of Lord Justice- 
 General was in 1831 merged in that of the Lord-President. 
 See Session, Coi:rt of. 
 
 JUSTI'CIES. In Law, a special writ empowering the 
 flheriff of a county to hold plea of an action in his court. 
 By means of this writ all personal and many real actions 
 mav be tried in the county courts. 
 
 JUSTIFICATION. I, at. transl. of the Greek word ^i- 
 Kai(oot$.) In Theology, men are said to be Justified when 
 accounted just or righteous in the sil'IiI of Coil, or placed in 
 a state of salvation. Justification is used of the state of 
 Christians in the present life only; as in Rom., v., "J, "Be- 
 ing justified by his blood, we shall lir saved from wrath 
 through him." The doctrine of justification through faith 
 or rather by faith (tit riirrcuK. Sta irtortv for or by rea 
 faith) is set out with peculiar distinctness in the whole 
 Epistle to the Romans. According to the eleventh article 
 of the Church of England, we are justified "by faith, and 
 not of our works or deservlngs." The twelfth declares, 
 that "although good works, which are the fruits of faith. 
 and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins and 
 endure the sevet iiy of God's judgment, yet are they pleasing 
 and acceptable to God in Christ, and spring aeces arily out 
 of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively 
 faith may be as evidently known as a tree is discerned by 
 the fruit." The first of theso articles is chiefly directed 
 
 KALEIDOSCOPE. 
 
 against the Romanist doctrine of meritorious works; the 
 d, based on the language of Sl Jiunes, that a "man is 
 justified by works, and not by faith only" (c. ii., 24), re- 
 gards faith and works as inseparably connected, and is 
 aimed principally against the doctrine of those who were 
 termed Antinomians or Solifidians. For a summary of the 
 opinions generally embraced by the best divines of the early 
 Church of England on this difficult subject, see Hoskin's 
 Sermon on .Justification; foi the views of what is called 
 the High Church body of the present day, Newman's lec- 
 tures on Justification. 
 
 K. | 
 
 K, a consonant used in most ancient and modem langua- 
 ges. It is derived from the Greek kappa, or the Hebrew 
 kiiph. It has the same sound as C before a, o, and u, and 
 hence it has often been pronounced superfluous. In Latin, 
 K occurs only in a few words, though it was frequently 
 used in the same language as an abbreviation for words be- 
 ginning with C ; as K.T. for capite tonsus, K.R.C. for cara 
 civitas, &c. &c. In the French alphabet, K is only used in 
 words derived from foreign languages. As a numeral, it 
 was employed to express 250 — 
 
 K quoque ducentos et quinquiginta docebit. 
 
 KA'ABA. Sec Caaba. 
 
 KA'KOXENE. (Gr. kukos, bad, and o\vs, sharp; so 
 called probably from the mischief it does to the iron.) A 
 mineral occurring in brown or red radiated crystals in the 
 ironstone of Zbiron in Bohemia ; when heated it emits a 
 green phosphoric light. It contains phosphoric and fluoric 
 acids, peroxide of iron, and silica. 
 
 KA'LAND. (Germ.) A lay fraternity instituted in Ger- 
 many in the 13th century for the purpose of doing honour to 
 deceased relatives and friends. The term is probably de- 
 rived from kalends, the first day of any month, as the mem- 
 bers of this society chose that day for the observance of 
 their ceremonies. These consisted originally of prayers, fol- 
 lowed by a slight repast, in which all the members partici- 
 pated ; but in process of time the religious purposes of the 
 society became wholly merged in the festivities, so that it 
 eventually was found necessary to abolish the fraternity on 
 account of its excesses. 
 
 KALEI'DOSCOPE. (Gr. ko\os. pretty ; tiSos, form ; and 
 oKo-ntii), I view.) An optical toy invented or revived by Sir 
 David Brewster, which, by a particular arrangement of re- 
 flecting surfaces, presents to the eye a series of symmetrical 
 images often remarkable for their beauty. 
 
 The kaleidoscope is formed by two plane mirrors or slips 
 of glass, from six to ten inches in length, and from an 
 inch to an inch and a half in breadth at the one end, though 
 somewhat narrower at the other, joined together along the 
 edges lengthwise, and inclined to each other in an angle, 
 which must be an even aliquot part (that is to say, the 
 sixth, eighth, tenth, &c.) of four right angles. The edges 
 of the mirrors are kept in contact by a strip of black silk 
 glued along the back of the plates, which, if formed of 
 glass, must be coated with black varnish or sealing wax, to 
 prevent reflexion from their posterior surfaces. The mirrors 
 being adjusted at the proper angle, are placed within a tin 
 tube, where they are kept in their proper position by pieces 
 of cork or wood wedged in between them and the tube. 
 One end of the tube has a small circular aperture in its cen- 
 tre, to which the eye is applied ; in the other end two plane 
 glasses are fixed parallel to each other, and perpendicular 
 to the axis of the tube, and about an eighth of an inch apart. 
 Between these glasses, which form a cell, the objects which 
 produce the images ate placed. Those which answer the 
 purpose best are small fragments of coloured glass, beads, 
 or other coloured diaphanous matters, of such a size that 
 when the tube is turned round they move freely within the 
 cell, and assume new positions. In order that the eye may 
 not be disturbed by objects without the tube, the outer glass 
 should he slightly ground, but the inner must be perfectly 
 transparent. 
 
 On applying the eye to the aperture of the tube the objects 
 within the cell at the other end are seen multiplied by re- 
 peated reflexions from the two mirrors, and a succession of 
 
 symmetrical Images presented, all arranged round a centre, 
 and combined Into a perfect whole. As the objects are 
 placed loosely in the cell, every motion of the tube changes 
 their relative positions, whereby an entirely new Image is 
 produced ; and it is this constant change and endleSB variety 
 of new combinations which create the pleasing effect 
 
 In order to show how this multiplication of the images is 
 produced, let A C represent one of the mirrors, and B C the 
 other, and suppose them to make with each other an angle 
 of C0°: let a also be an object placed between tin; planes 
 of the two mirrors, or one of the diaphanous bodies in the
 
 KALENDERS. 
 
 cell between the two parallel glasses 
 at the end of the tube. Now when an 
 object is seen reflected from a mirror, 
 the image always appears as far be- 
 hind the mirror (in a perpendicular 
 line) as the object itself is before it ; 
 and, with relation to a second mirror, 
 this image will have all the effect of 
 a real object. Let, therefore, a m and 
 a n be drawn perpendicular to A C and 
 8 C, and produced till m a = m a, and n a" = n a; then a' 
 and a" will be the two first images of the object a. Make 
 a' p perpendicular to B C, and a" q to A C, and let p ft' = 
 a' p, and q ft" = a" q ; then will A and b" be the images of a 
 formed by a second reflexion. Again, draw ft' r perpendicu- 
 lar to A C, and ft" s perpendicular to B C, and let r c' = ft' r 
 and s c" = ft" s ; then will c and c" be the images of a 
 formed by the third reflexion. But by the geometrical prop- 
 erties of the figure these two points c' and c" coincide, or the 
 two images are blended together, and the object will be seen 
 in six different places symmetrically arranged in a circular 
 field about the centre C. In like manner, if A B C had been 
 the 8th part of 360°, the object would appear in eight po- 
 sitions, and so on; but if the angle at C, which is the angle 
 of the mirrors, be the 7th or 9th, or any odd aliquot part of 
 360°, the images will not coincide, and the symmetrical ar- 
 rangement will not be produced. 
 
 The kaleidoscope here described was first made known 
 by Sir David Brewster, who took out a patent for it in the 
 year 1817 ; but by some means or other its properties were 
 discovered, and it had acquired great popularity as an agree- 
 able toy, and was in the hands of everybody before any 
 number of the patent kaleidoscopes could be prepared for 
 sale. It was also very soon remarked that the discovery 
 was by no means new, as an instrument on the same prin- 
 ciples had been described by Baptista Porta and Kircher; 
 and also in a work published in England in 1810, under the 
 title of Neic Improvements of Planting and Gardening, by 
 R. Bradley, in which it was recommended as useful for as- 
 sisting to form designs of garden plots and fortifications. In 
 fact, the principle, so far as the multiplication of images 
 and their general arrangement are concerned, had been long 
 known ; but in order to produce the symmetry which con- 
 stitutes the principal beauty of the kaleidoscope, it is also 
 necessary that the object and the eye have certain positions 
 with respect to the mirrors ; and the discovery of this condi- 
 tion seems to belong exclusively to Sir D. Brewster. See 
 Brewster's Treatise on the Kaleidoscope ; Harris's Treatise 
 on Optics ; Brewster's Optics, Cab. Cycl. ; the Ency. Brit., 
 
 &.C. 
 
 KA'LENDERS. (From an Arabic word signifying pure 
 gold.) Wandering dervises. (See Lane's Arabian Nights' 
 Entertainments .) 
 
 KA'LI. An Arabic word, signifying the ashes left after 
 the combustion of vegetable substances; hence the word 
 alkali. Potassa is frequently termed kali, and potassium 
 kalium. by the German chemists ; hence they use K as the 
 symbol for potassium. 
 
 KA'LMIA. (From Kalm, a traveller in North America.) 
 A genus of beautiful North American plants, with a mo- 
 nopetalous corolla, which confines ten stamens by their an- 
 thers in the same number of niches in its sides. The flowers 
 are white or pink, and the leaves evergreen; but the plants 
 are said to be deleterious. 
 
 KA'MI. Spirits or divinities, the belief in which appears 
 to have characterized the ancient religion of Japan before it 
 became intermingled with foreign doctrines, and still consti- 
 tutes its groundwork. These spirits are partly elemental, 
 subordinate to the gods of the sun and moon, and partly the 
 spirits of men; but, in fact, every natural agent or phenom- 
 enon has its spirit or genius. The human spirits survive the 
 body, and receive happiness or punishment for the actions 
 of the individual in life. Distinguished benefactors of their 
 species, or men renowned for purity of life, are deified ; and 
 their kami become objects of worship, like the heroes of an- 
 tiquity. The number of them is said at present to be above 
 3000. They are worshipped in temples in which no images 
 are retained, each particular divinity being merely typified 
 by a mirror, the emblem of purity ; and all the rites of the 
 worship appear to be symbolical of purification. The priests 
 of these temples are styled Kami-Nusi, i. e., ministers of the 
 spirits. {Klaproth, Jlnnals of Japan, 1834 ; Wiener Jahrbuch 
 for 1SJ7.) 
 
 KAMIC'III. The name of a Rassorial or Gallinaceous 
 bird, remarkable for having its wings armed with two strong 
 spurs, and its head with a long, slender, cylindrical, ami 
 nearly straight horn. See Palamedea. 
 
 KA'NGAROO. The native name of a large indigenous 
 quadruped of New Holland; it belongs to a genus charac- 
 terized by a strictly herbivorous modification of the marsu- 
 pial type of the dental organs, and by a remarkably long and 
 strong tail and hind legs. See Macropus and Mar =a-n alia. 
 
 KARMATHIANS. 
 
 KA'NTIAN PHILOSOPHY (known also by the name 
 of the Critical Philosophy.) A system which owes its ex- 
 istence to Immanuel Kant, professor of logic and metaphys- 
 ics in the university of KOnigsberg in the latter half of the 
 18th century. The promulgation of Kant's doctrines forms 
 ! a very marked era in the history of philosophy. Our limits 
 will prevent us from giving an explanation of this system in 
 j any degree adequate to its importance. We must confine 
 ourselves to a brief outline of its leading features. At the 
 time when Kant commenced his metaphysical labours the 
 ; philosophical world was divided between the sensualism of 
 the French followers of Locke on the one hand, and the 
 dogmatic rationalism of the disciples of Wolf and Leibnitz 
 on the other. The former, by a species of analytical leger- 
 demain, resolved all our mental powers into modifications 
 of sense; while the latter, in an equally indiscriminating 
 spirit, though with far more laudable intentions, sought to 
 construct a system of real truth out of the abstract concep- 
 ceptions of the understanding. Against both of these schools 
 Kant declared open warfare. Withdrawing himself from 
 all ontological speculation, he sought, by a stricter analysis 
 of our intellectual powers, to ascertain the possibility and to 
 determine the limits of human knowledge. He divides the 
 speculative part of our nature into three great provinces — 
 sense, understanding, and reason. Our perception of the 
 outward world is representative merely : of things as they 
 are in themselves it affords us no notices. In order to render 
 human experience possible, two ground-forms, under which 
 all sensible things are contemplated, are assumed — time and 
 space. To these he assigns a strictly subjective reality. 
 The truth of the fundamental axioms of geometry rests on 
 the necessity and universality of our intuitions of space in 
 its three dimensions — intuitions which are not derived from 
 any one of our senses, or from any combinations of them, 
 but lie at the ground and are the condition of all sensible 
 human experience. The understanding, or the faculty which 
 combines and classifies the materials yielded by sense, Kant 
 subjects to a similar analysis. All its operations are general- 
 ized into four fundamental modes or forms of conception ; 
 which, after the example of Aristotle, he names categories. 
 (See Category.) These are four in number : 1. Quantity, 
 including unity, multeity, totality ; 2. Quality, divided into 
 reality, negation, and limitation; 3. Relation, viz. substance 
 and accident, cause and effect, action and reaction ; and 
 4. Modality, also subdivided into possibility, existence, and 
 necessity. These form, as it were, the moulds in which the 
 rude material of the senses is shaped into conceptions, and 
 becomes knowledge properly so called. The categories in 
 themselves are the subject-matter of logic, which is so far 
 forth a pure science, determinable A priori. The third and 
 highest faculty, the reason, consists in the power of forming 
 ideas — pure forms of intelligence, to which the sensible 
 world has no adequate correspondents. Out of these ideas 
 no science can be formed ; they are to be regarded as regu- 
 lative only, not as constitutive. The existence of God, im- 
 mortality, freedom, are the objects after which the reason 
 is perpetually striving, but concerning which it can decide 
 nothing either one way or the other. Thus far Kant's sys- 
 tem may be regarded as one of pure skepticism. The de- 
 ficiencies of our speculative reason he conceives to be sup- 
 plied by the moral faculty, to which he has given the name 
 of practical reason, the object of which is to determine, not 
 what is, but what onaht to he. As the former determines the 
 form of our knowledge, so the latter prescribes the form of our 
 action. Obligation is not a mere feeling ; it has a pure form un- 
 der which the reason is compelled to regard human conduct. 
 The personality of man, which lies at the ground of specu- 
 lative knowledge becomes, in relation to action, freedom of 
 the will. It is in our moral nature that we must seek for 
 the only valid foundation of the belief in God, the immor- 
 tality of the soul, and a future state in which the demands 
 of the practical reason shall be realized. (See Eavt's Phi- 
 losophical Works ; Kritik dcr Rcinen Vernnnft : Kritik der 
 Practischen Vernnnft, &c.) 
 
 KA'OLIN. The Chinese name for porcelain clay. A 
 large tract of this useful substance occurs near St. Austin 
 in Cornwall, whence our potteries and porcelain manufacto- 
 ries are copiously supplied. Its essential component parts 
 are silica and alumina; the former usually preponderates. 
 The kaolin of Cornwall, and probably of other countries, 
 is derived from the decomposition of the felspar of granitie 
 rocks. 
 
 KA'RA. A Tartar word, signifying black, used in many 
 of the Eastern languages as a prefix to geographical names; 
 as Kriramania, the country of the black people. It has also 
 been employed in the same capacity to signify "tributary;" 
 as kara kalpacks, tributary kaJpacks. 
 
 KARMA'THIANS, or KARMATIANS. A Mohamme- 
 dan sect which arose in Irak during the 9th century of the 
 Christian era. It derived its name from Karmata, its foun- 
 der, a poor labourer, who assumed the rank of a prophet. 
 They maintained bloody ware with the caliphs for nearly a
 
 KARPHOLITE. 
 
 eentury. (.Taylor. Hist, of Mohammedanism, p. 203; Secret 
 Societies of the Middle .Iges, Lib. Knt. Kn. 1837.1 
 
 KAUPHOLITE. (Gr. K ap<pw, I dry or shrivel.) A min- 
 eral w Inch ocean in stellated crystals of a yellowish colour 
 and silky lustre: it is a hydrated silicate of alumina and 
 niangai 
 
 K ' lil'lHK-MlH'.'RITE. A mineralogical name of the 
 hydrntcil phosphate of iron of Labrador. 
 
 KEEL. (Probably from the Gr. koi\os, hollow.) The 
 principal piece Of limber of B ship, usually fust laid on the 
 blocks in building. If we compare the body of a stop to 
 the human skeleton, the keel seems to resemble the back 
 bone, and the timbers the ribs. It is generally composed 
 of several thick pieces of wood placed lengthways, which 
 after being scarfed together, arc bolted and clenched upon 
 the upper side. Keelage signifies the duty paid by a ship on 
 coming into port. 
 
 Keel. In Botany, a name applied in a figurative sense 
 to the two lowest petals of a Papilionaceous corolla, which, 
 together, have some resemblance to the keel of a boat. 
 
 KEEL-HAULING. A nautical punishment practised 
 chiefly in the Dutch navy, by which the culprit is let down 
 on one side of the ship, "and alter passing under the keel Is 
 hauled up on the other. The punishment was formerly not 
 altogether unknown in the British navy; but it is not now 
 resorted to. 
 
 KEE'LING. A name for the common cod (Moorhua 
 vulgaris, Cuv.). See Morrhua. and Gaous. 
 
 KEEP. (Anglo-Sax. kepan.) Applied in ancient Mili- 
 tary History to the Stronghold of a castle, to which in cases 
 of emergency the besieged inmates retreated, and there made 
 their last efforts of defence. It is almost synonymous with 
 donjon (which see). 
 
 KEE'PER OF THE GREAT SEAL, LORD, or LORD 
 KEEPER. An officer of hilh dignity in the Enilish consti- 
 tution, whose office is created by the delivery of the king's 
 great seal into his custody. He is prolocutor or speaker of 
 the House of Lords by prescription. By 5 Eliz., c. 18, the 
 offices of lord chancellor and lord keeper are declared to be 
 of exactly the same authority ; and when there is no chan- 
 cellor the great seal is ordinarily put in commission. (See 
 Chancellor, Seal. Bl. Com., hi. 47.) The keeper of" the 
 privv seal is styled lord privy seal. 
 
 KEEPING. (Ang. Sax. 'kepan, to keep.) In Painting, 
 the management of the lights, shadows, colours, and aerial 
 tints in such subordination to each other, that each object 
 may seem to stand rightly in the place that the linear per- 
 spective has assigned to it. Objects in the nearer parts or 
 foreground of a picture will necessarily receive the Strongest 
 lights and shadows: and as more air is interiwsed in nature 
 between the eye and the objects as they become more dis- 
 tant, so in the representations of them the colours must be 
 less brilliant as they recede from the eye towards the dis- 
 tance wherein they are lost. This word must not be con- 
 founded with the term effect, though effect is doubtless the 
 result of keeping in a picture, that word being more pecu- 
 liarly applicable to the sensation produced by the combina- 
 tion of accidental circumstances in the disposition of light 
 and shade. 
 
 KELP. A common term for sea weed or vraic, which 
 consists of different species of Fucus (Lin.). In a strut 
 sense, the term kelp is confined to the produce of sea weeds 
 when burned, which consists of alkaline ashes used in the 
 manufacture of class and soap. It has been recently found, 
 however, that the alkali required for these purposes ran be 
 obtained more abundantly from sea-salt, and kelp is at 
 present chiefly used as a manure. For this purpose it is 
 eagerly Bought after by all farmers on the sea coast, and es- 
 pecially by those who have dry soils, the salt contained in 
 the kelp beini a powerful absorbent of moisture from the 
 atmosphere. It has lately acquired much importance as a 
 Bource of iodine. 
 
 KE'NNEL. Applied literally to the house in which a 
 pack of hounds is lodged, but used metaphorically also for 
 the pack itself. It signifies also the spot to which the fox after 
 his nocturnal depredations retires about the dawn of day. 
 Hence, on being found by the hounds in drawing cover, he 
 is said to be unkennelled. 
 
 KKTI.EU'S LAWS, in Astronomy, are the laws of the 
 
 planetary motions, first di-r. .vend and demonstrated by 
 
 Kepler, and which form the basis of the whole theory of 
 gravitation and physical astronomy. They are three: 1. 
 That the planets describe ellipses, each of which has one of 
 its foci in the same point, namely, the centre of the sun. 
 2. That every planet moves so that the line drawn from it 
 to the sun describes about ih" sun areas proportional to the 
 
 times. ;). That the squares of the times of the revolutions 
 of the planets are as the cubes of their mean distal ces from 
 the sun. These three laws or general facts were discover- 
 ed by Kepler from a comparison of astronomical observa- 
 tions; and though it was by means of them that Newton es 
 tabUshed the more general law of attraction inversely as the 
 630 
 
 KERATONYXIS. 
 
 square of the distance, they are themselves direct conse 
 quences of that hypothesis. The first law, that of the ellip- 
 tic motion of the planets, was announced by Kepler in his 
 famous work, Physica Calcstis tradita (vmmentariis dc 
 Motibus Stella: Mortis, 1609. Kepler having computed from 
 the observations of Tycho Brahe the distance of Mars from 
 the sun at different points of his orbit, found that the orbit 
 was not circular, as had always been supposed by astrono- 
 mers till then, but elliptical ; and that the sun occupies one 
 of the foci of the ellipse. He afterwards discovered the 
 same tiling to be true of the earth's orbit ; and thence ex- 
 tended it by antilogy to till the other planets. Newton dem 
 onstrated in the I'rincipia that if a body projected in space 
 is acted upon by a central force varying inversely as the 
 square of the distance, the body will necessarily describe 
 one of the three conic sections; but whether the orbit will 
 be an ellipse, an hyperbola, or a parabola, depends on tile 
 intensity of the force with which it is projected. 
 
 Kepler was led to the discovery of his second law by a 
 comparison of the sectors formed by two contiguous radii 
 oectores and the angles included between them. The data 
 which he assumed were not rigorously exact; but Newton 
 afterwards demonstrated from the theory of dynamics that 
 the fact is necessarily true of all motions regulated by a 
 central force, whatever the law of that force maybe. 
 
 The history of the discovery of the third law is remarka- 
 ble, and detailed by Kepler himself in his Harmoniccs Mun- 
 di. lib. v. He had long been persuaded that some numeri- 
 cal relation must exist between the periodic times of the 
 planets and their distances from the sun. In order to dis- 
 cover this relation he tried successively numerous hypothe- 
 ses, each of which involved a mass of tedious calculation. 
 He began by comparinsr the intervals between the planetary 
 orbits with the five regular solids; and having failed in this 
 speculation as well as various others, he at length thought 
 of comparing the different roots and powers of the periods 
 and distances. After many attempts and failures, he at 
 last perceived the analogy of which he had been so long in 
 search. 
 
 " Sera quMem respexit inertem, 
 Respeiit tamen et longo post tempore ventt," 
 
 he exclaims ; and in the fulness of his delight he has re- 
 corded the year and day on which the discovery wns made. 
 It was the 15th of May, 1018; and, as Professor Play fair 
 has remarked, "perhaps philosophers will agree that there 
 are few days in the scientific history of the world which de- 
 serve so well to he remembered." (Dissertation, Kncy. 
 Brit. Hoe Kepler's ttarmonices Mundi, p. 189.) 
 
 KE'PLER'S PROBLEM. The discovery made by Ke- 
 pler, that the planetary orbits are ellipses having the sun in 
 the focus which is common to each ellipse, and that the 
 line which joins the centres of the sun and a planet passes 
 over equal areas in equal times, made it necessary to solve 
 a problem which transcended the geometry of that time: 
 Supposing the semitransverse axis of a planet's orbit to be 
 represented by 1, and the eccentricity by c ; also the mean 
 anomaly at any given instant of time by 2, and the eccen- 
 tric anomaly by x, both being reckoned from the perihelion. 
 Kepler found the relation between the angles x and 2 to be 
 expressed by the equation z=z — c sin. x. When 7. is 
 given, 2 is easily found from the triconometrical tables; 
 but there is no direct way, unless by infinite series, of find- 
 ing x when 2 is given, which is the case that occurs in as- 
 tronomy. The determination of x in terms of z constitutes 
 what is called Kepler's Problem. Solutions of this import- 
 ant problem are to be found in most works on astronomy. 
 They are generally tentative, depending on a combination 
 of geometrical and trigonometrical principles; but two very 
 elegant ones, purely analytical, are given by Professor 
 Wallace, in the Memoirs of the. Royal Jlstronomical So- 
 ciety, vol. ix., p. 185. The first of these solutions is as fol- 
 lows : 
 
 1. Find x', a first approximation to the eccentric anomaly 
 x, by this formula, 
 
 tan. (x — & 2) = r- 1 — ; tan. J z. 
 
 1 — e 
 
 2. Find 7/ such that 
 
 1-f-e 
 tan. (£z' + y)=, — tan. Jr'. 
 1 — e 
 
 3. Find c, a correction of x', so that 
 
 sin. »/ sin. 1" , 
 
 sin. (y — c) = - — — . ( x 
 
 sin. x e 
 
 •*)• 
 
 (Here r' — 1 must be expressed in seconds of a decree.) 
 •I. Then the eccentric anomaly, x = x' + c. The compu 
 
 tation of the eccentric anomaly by this method is extremely 
 
 simple. 
 
 KK'RATONY'XIS. (Gr. Ktpif. a horn, it(ij, punetvrr.) 
 
 A tei m applied by the German surgeons to tho operation of
 
 KERICHETIB. 
 
 couching, performed by introducing a needle through the 
 cornea 01 horny coat of the eye, and depressing or breaking 
 the opaque lens. 
 
 KERICHETIB. (Heb.) In Philology, the name given 
 to various readings in the Hebrew Bible. Keri signifies that 
 ■which is read, andChetib that which is written. When any 
 such various readings occur, the false reading or chetib is 
 written in the text, and the true reading or ken is written in 
 the margin, with n under it. These corrections, which are 
 
 about 1000 in number, have been generally attributed to 
 Ezra; but as several Keri-chetibs are found in the sacred 
 books the produce of his own pen, it is more probable that 
 they are of later date. (See Dr. KennicoWs Dissertatio 
 Generalis.) 
 
 KE'RMES. (Arab, little worm.) An insect found in 
 many parts of Asia and the south of Europe ; the Coccus 
 ilicis of LinnEeus. They were long taken for the seeds of 
 the tree on which they live, and hence called grains of 
 kermes. They are used as a red and scarlet dye, but very 
 inferior to cochineal. Previously to the introduction of 
 cochineal, by which it is now nearly wholly superseded, 
 kermes had been the most esteemed drug for dyeing scarlet 
 from a remote period of antiquity. Cloths dyed with ker- 
 mes are of a deep red colour ; and though much inferior in 
 brilliancy to the scarlet cloths dyed with real Mexican cochi- 
 neal, they retain the colour better and are less liable to stain. 
 The tapestries of Brussels and other parts of Flanders, 
 which have scarcely lost anything of their original brillian- 
 cy, even after a lapse of 200 years, were all dyed with ker- 
 mes. (See Beckmann's History of Inventions ; and Ban- 
 croft's Permanent Colours.) 
 
 KE'RMES MINERAL. A name given by the old che- 
 mists to the hydrosulphuret of antimony, in consequence of 
 its reddish colour. 
 
 KE'RODON. (Gr. kcoD, a heart, oSovc, a tooth.) A genus 
 
 4 • 4 
 of Herbivorous Rodents, characterized by - — - molar teeth, 
 
 4 • 4 
 each composed of two equal parts, of which the transverse 
 section presents a cordiform or heart-shaped figure ; the two 
 parts are united on the external side in the upper, and on the 
 internal side in the lower jaw. The incisors are two in 
 number in both jaws, and present the form common to the 
 Cavies, to which family the present genus belongs. The 
 species are small, scarcely equalling in size the Guinea-pig. 
 They are peculiar, with the other Cavies, to the South 
 American continent. 
 
 KE'RSEY. (Probably a corruption of Jersey, whence it 
 originally came.) A kind of coarse cloth, usually ribbed, 
 and woven from long wool. It is chiefly manufactured in 
 the North of England. Kerseymere, on the other hand, is a 
 thin stuff, generally woven plain from the finest wools ; and 
 hence it has been inferred that these two terms, whose 
 meaning is so distinct, cannot be referred to the same origin. 
 Kerseymere is said to have derived its appellation from 
 Cashmir, a country which produces the finest wool, and is 
 consequently most celebrated for the works of its looms. 
 In England it is principally manufactured in the Western 
 district. 
 
 KETCH. (Ital. caicchio.) An old English term applied 
 to a vessel equipped with two masts, and from 100 to 250 
 tons burden. It was nearly synonymous with the modern 
 term yacht, being used chiefly by ambassadors or other dis- 
 tinguished personages in voyages from one place to another, 
 and was furnished with all the apparatus necessary for de- 
 fence or aggression. 
 
 KE'TCHUP. The juice which exudes from salted mush- 
 rooms. 
 
 KEU'PER. A term applied by the German geologists to 
 the upper portion of the new, red sandstone formation. 
 
 KEY. (Sax. cEeze.) In Architecture, a piece of wood let 
 into the back of another in the contrary direction of the grain, 
 to preserve the last free of warping. 
 
 KEY, or KEY NOTE. In Music, the principal or funda- 
 mental note in a composition, on which frequent closes or 
 cadences are made. It is that in which the piece begins 
 and usually ends, and is, as it were, the musical subject to 
 which regard must be had in all the other combinations of 
 sounds in the composition, and under whose influence they 
 are. 
 
 KEY-BOARD. In Music, the series of levers in a keyed 
 instrument, as a piano-forte, organ, or harpsichord, upon 
 which the fingers press to produce percussion of the strings, 
 or in the organ the opening of valves. It consists of short 
 Mack and long white keys. 
 
 KEYSTONE. The middle voussoir in the arch of a 
 bridge, or the archstone in the crown or immediately over 
 the centre of the arch. The length of the keystone, or thick- 
 ness of the archivolt at top, is allowed to be about l-15th or 
 l-16th of the span bv the best architects. 
 
 KHALIFF. SeeCvLiPH. 
 
 KHAN. In Persia, properly speaking, the title of an offi- 
 
 KING. 
 
 cer or governor, added after his name. The sovereigns of 
 many independent states of northern Asia are styled Khans. 
 Khan is frequently used by our own countrymen to signify 
 an Eastern caravansera (which see) ; in which travellers 
 find a gratuitous lodging, provided their stay be limited to a 
 single night. 
 
 KHOH. A Persian word signifying bald, and used as a 
 prefix in many geographical terms. It has been suggested 
 that the name Caucasus has been derived from Khoh Kasp, 
 or bald mountain; i. e., having the summit without vegeta- 
 tion. But be this as it may, it is singular enough that the 
 same metaphorical expression has been introduced into two 
 modem languages, the French and the German ; in the for- 
 mer of which is found Chaumont, and in the latter Kohlen- 
 berg, both indicative of a mountain bald, or without vegeta- 
 tion. 
 
 KHO'TBAH (Arab.), denotes a peculiar form of prayer, 
 used in Mohammedan countries at the commencement of 
 public worship in the great mosques on Friday at noon. It 
 was originally performed by the Prophet himself, and by his 
 successors till the time of Mohammed VIII. ( A.D. 936), who 
 appointed special ministers for the purpose, on which foot- 
 ing it has continued to the present time. The khotbah is 
 chiefly a " confession of faith," and a general petition for 
 success to the Mohammedan religion. It is divided into 
 two distinct parts, between which the officiating khatib or 
 priest makes a considerable pause, and is regarded by the 
 Mussulmans as the most solemn and important part of their 
 worship. The insertion of his name in this prayer has al- 
 ways been considered one of the chief prerogatives of the 
 sultan of Turkey. 
 
 KIDNA'PPING. In Law, the forcible abduction of any 
 one from his own country into another. It is an offence at 
 common law. By the 11 and 12 W. 3, c. 7, penalties were 
 denounced against masters of vessels having aboard persons 
 who had been kidnapped against their will, which was prob- 
 ably occasioned by the practice, not uncommon in those 
 days, of carrying away by force or fraud labouring persons 
 to serve in the plantations in America. This clause is re- 
 pealed by 9 G. 4, c. 31, by which masters of vessels are made 
 punishable for leaving abroad any of their men against their 
 will, or refusing to take them back if in a condition to return. 
 The stealing of children away from persons having the law- 
 ful custody of them (popularly termed kidnapping) is felony 
 under the same statute. 
 
 KI'DNEYS. The organs in which the urine is secreted : 
 there is one on each side in the loins, near the first lumbar 
 vertebra, and behind the peritoneum. The pelvis of the 
 kidney terminates in the ureter, and is, divided into several 
 portions called calyces, into each of which a papilla pro- 
 jects, through the minute orifices of which the secreted urine 
 passes into the cavity called the pelvis, and thence by the 
 ureter into the bladder. 
 
 KI'LLAS. A provincial term, applied to the clay-slate 
 rocks of Cornwall. 
 
 KI'LLINITE. A mineral, sometimes described as a va- 
 riety of spodumene, from Killiney, near Dublin. It is a hy- 
 d rated silicate of alumina, containing potash and oxyde of 
 iron. 
 
 KILN. A term applied to various furnaces and stoves: 
 as brick and lime kilns, and hop and malt kilns. (See those 
 articles.) 
 
 KI'LOGRAM. A French measure of weight, equal to 2 
 lbs. 3 oz. 5 drs. avoirdupois. 
 
 KILT. A loose dress, extending from the belly to the 
 knee in the form of a petticoat; worn in the Highlands by 
 men, and by children in the Lowlands. The term is, ac- 
 cording to Jnmieson, unquestionably Gothic. The High- 
 landers designate the kilt as the filibeg. This singular na- 
 tional dress is fast hastening into disuse ; and but for a few 
 Highland regiments in which it is still maintained, it would 
 probably long ere now have been universally superseded by 
 the dress of the Lowlanders. 
 
 KING. A title of dignity in the languages, extinct and 
 living, of the Gothic and Teutonic races. The term has 
 long been considered of uncertain origin ; but there can be 
 little doubt that it is derived from the German word kiinnen, 
 to be able, thus in the very threshold giving an idea of supe- 
 rior power or ability. In its primary acceptation it denotes 
 a person in whom is vested the chief executive authority ; 
 but it is susceptible of as great a variety of shades of mean- 
 ing as there are states or nations to be governed. Thus it is 
 applied equally to the limited sovereign of England and the 
 absolute sovereign of Prussia ; to the chief magistrate of Po- 
 land in former times, who was elected, and to that of Eng- 
 land, who succeeds by hereditary right; to the head of a 
 savage tribe or barbarous horde, as well as to that of the 
 most refined and civilized nation. It is expressed in Greek 
 by the word Basileus, and in Latin and its cognate languages 
 by Rex ; but all the nations of Europe have adopted into 
 their respective languages the equivalent terms in use among 
 the people with whom they carry on intercourse. Thus we 
 
 631
 
 KING-AT-ARMS. 
 
 speak of the Shah of Persia, the Grand Sultan, the Pasha of 
 Egypt, the Dey of Algiers, &c. 
 
 In couiitrii ts where the kingly office is hereditary, bi me 
 form baa always been gone through on the accession of a 
 new kin<r. in winch there is a recognition on the part of the 
 people of bis right : a claim from them that he should pledge 
 himself to the performance of certain duties ; and generally 
 a religious ceremony performed, in which anoiniinii him with 
 oil, by which a certain sacrednees is thrown around his per- 
 son, and placing a crown upon his bead as a symbol of su- 
 premacy, are conspicuous acts. {Penny < )fclop.) The whole 
 solemnity is styled the coronation. Iu modern Europe the 
 Pope and the Emperor of Germany assumed as a joint pre- 
 rogative the riirlit of conferring the dignity of kin;:. Frederic 
 I. of Prussia was the first sovereign who assumed the title, 
 and had it acknowledged by the other states of Europe 
 without their authorization. 
 
 King. The sacred books of the Chinese, containing at 
 once the principles of their domestic and public morality 
 and the foundation of their historical traditions. According 
 to a learned dissertation by M. Frerct in vol. xv. of the Me- 
 moires dc Cslc. its Inscr. ct Belief Lettres, the original books 
 known properly under this title are only four in number ; but 
 those commonly so designated amount to thirteen, which are 
 published together. The first four contain the writings of 
 Confucius. (See, also, vols, xxxvi., xxxviii ; and Ersch and 
 Grubcrs Encyclopedia.) 
 
 KING-AT-ARMS. An officer of great antiquity, and for- 
 merly of great authority, whose business is to preside over 
 the chapters, and to direct the proceedings of heralds. The 
 origin of this office is involved in obscurity. There are three 
 kings-at-arms in England — Garter, Clarencieux, and Norroy ; 
 the first of whom is styled principal king-at-arms, and the 
 two latter provincial kings, because their duties are confined 
 to the provinces. The name Clarencieux is said to be deri- 
 ved from Clarence, brother of Henry V., first king-at-arms 
 for the south of England ; that of Norroy (Norman French 
 for northern king) is self explanatory. There is also a Lyon 
 king-at-arms for Scotland, as well as an lister king-at-arms 
 for Ireland, whose duties are nearly analogous to those of 
 England. (See Noble's History of the College of *1rms.) 
 
 KING. Tin.. I ii' ENGLAND, exercises the supreme ex- 
 ecutive power, together with a share in the legislative au- 
 thority jointly with the two Houses of Parliament. (For his 
 legislative functions, see Parliament.) The right to the 
 throne of England (now extended to Great Britain and Ire- 
 land) is hereditary, subject to the authority of parliament to 
 limit the succession. This was last done by the stat. 12 & 
 13 W. 3. when it was fixed in the heirs of the electress So- 
 phia of Hanover, being Protestants. The duties of the king, 
 according to the constitution, are unbodied in the coronation 
 oath fixed by stat. 1 W. & M. Incidental prerogatives are 
 legal exceptions in favour of the crown where its claims 
 clash with those of a subject ; relating to such matters as 
 descents of land, debts, &c. The direct prerogatives of the 
 crown are those which attach to his person in respect of his 
 political authority : such as the sanctity of his person ; his 
 prerogatives as head of the executive ; the power of making 
 war and peace ; treaties with foreign powers ; military and 
 naval command ; the supreme dispensation of justice through 
 his courts ; the power of erecting and disposing of offices and 
 honours; the power of issuing proclamations binding on the 
 subject in certain cases, with the advice of his privy coun- 
 cil; and, lastly, the supreme government of the National 
 Church. The king's revenue is of two sorts, ordinary and 
 extraordinary. The ordinary revenue or patrimony is such 
 a9 either has subsisted in the crown time out of mind, or has 
 been granted by parliament in exchange for such. (See I i\ 
 il List.) The extraordinary revenue consists of the sup- 
 plies annually granted by parliament. See Parliament, 
 Prerogative. 
 
 KING CRAB. ,s>f Limcli. 
 
 KING FISH. A name sometimes applied to the opah 
 (Lampris guttatus, Betz.). 
 
 KING I'i 1ST. In Architecture, the middle post of an as- 
 semblage of trussed framing for supporting, or, rather, sus- 
 pending, the tie beam at the middle and the lower ends of 
 the struts. 
 
 KING'S BENCH. COtJBT OF, in Law. originated in the 
 ancient Aula Begia, in which the king was accustomed (as 
 he BtjU is supposed in the Kirm's Bench by fiction of 
 sit in jterson, and which followed him in all his progress! B. 
 The judges of the court of King's Bench, as will as of the 
 other superior courts, formerly varied in number according 
 to the royal discretion. At a later period the] 
 to four; now increased, by stat. l \V. I. <•. 70, to live — the 
 chief-justice, who is the highest common law judge, and four 
 puisne or younrri r Judges, The court of King's Bench, i»- 
 
 sides those brandies of its jurisdiction which it has in com 
 mon with the other two superior common law courts (see 
 Courts, Superior), has also peculiar authority, or presents 
 more advantages in some particular proceedings. 
 632 
 
 KIT-CAT CLUB. 
 
 It is the preferable although not the only tribunal for dis- 
 charging prisoners under the Habeas Corpus Acts. It has 
 control over all inferior courts by means of the process called 
 certiorari, which is a writ sued out of this court, by virtue 
 of which proceedings may be removed into it out of such 
 inferior jurisdiction whether in criminal or civil cases. It 
 lias also an exclusive authority (except in a few cas> 
 compel all inferior courts and officers, and, in some instan- 
 ces, private persons, to perform acts of a public nature, and 
 connected with a public duty. By means of a prohibition it 
 can restrain all other courts from proceeding, where they 
 exceed or misuse their jurisdiction : this i writ 
 
 directed to the judge and the plaintiff in the inferior court 
 A writ of error in law from ail inf, rmr courts is, with cer- 
 tain exceptions, returnable in the King's Bench. This court 
 likewise hears and determines cases stated by courts of ses 
 sions. The greater proportion of these are questions on the 
 validity of poor's rates, or on parochial statements. When 
 a court of sessions entertains a doubt on a point of law ari- 
 sing in the argument, it will usually authorize the party 
 against which it decides to have the judgment thus review- 
 ed, the cases being stated in writing. The criminal jurisdic- 
 tion of the King's Bench is still extensive. It has, at com- 
 mon law, jurisdiction by indictment over every species of 
 criminal offence committed in Middlesex; and in practice 
 misdemeanors, as conspiracies or perjuries, committed in the 
 county, are still indicted in this court, and tried alter term 
 at nisi prius among the civil causes. Sometimes, also, trial 
 at bar, or by the full court, is granted on special application. 
 It has also jurisdiction by criminal information, which lies in 
 cases of misdemeanor only, a proceeding which supersedes 
 the necessity of an indictment found by a grand jury. An 
 information is filed either by the attorney-general, cz officio, 
 as it is termed ; a proceeding generally I ertain 
 
 misdemeanors of a public nature, or at the suit of a private 
 party by leave of the court. 
 
 An information in the nature of a quo warranto is in form 
 a criminal, but substantially a civil, proceeding. It is grant- 
 ed where any subject or body politic has assumed a fran- 
 chise or privilege not being legally entitled, and to the injury 
 of some other party or the public. Any indictment, present- 
 ment, &c., found in any part of England may be moved by 
 certiorari into this court ; as may be also all convictions or 
 orders of justices of the peace, unless where such appeal is 
 prevented by particular statutes. 
 
 KING'S EVIL. Scrofula attacking the glands, respect- 
 ins which a superstitious notion long existed that it was cu- 
 rable by the touch of royalty. 
 
 KI'NGSTON. A name sometimes given to the angel-fish 
 (Squ/itina angelus, Dunn.). See Sqiwi 1- . . 
 
 KLNG'S YELLOW. A pigment the basis of which is 
 orpiment. or yellow sulphuret of arsenic. 
 
 KI'NTC ACID. The acid with which quinia and cm- 
 chonia are combined in yellow and pale Peruvian bark. Its 
 ultimate elements are, according to Lubig. IS atoms of car- 
 bon, 9 of hydrogen, and 9 of oxygen. 
 
 Kl'NKAJOU. The native name of a Plantigrade quadru- 
 ped of South America, of arboreal habits, with a long, pre- 
 hensive tail, a short muzzle, and a thick coat of woolly hair. 
 It forms the type of the genus Potos of Cuvier, which name 
 Ille«:er changed to Cercoleptes. Only one species is well es- 
 tablished, the Cercoleptes caudivolrulus of Illiu'er. 
 
 KINo. An Indian word, applied to an astringent vege- 
 table extract, the source of which is doubtful ; it is probably 
 a name given to the products of different plants j n Africa, 
 and in the East and West Indies and America. The finest 
 kino is in brilliant fragments of a deep brownish-red colour, 
 ami highly astringent: it contains tannin, gum, and extract- 
 ive matter. 
 
 KIOSK. A Turkish word, signifying a kind of open pa- 
 vilion or summer-house, supported by pillars. These orna- 
 ments have of late years been introduced, to a considerable 
 extent, into tin- gardens of European countrii J. 
 
 KIRK. (Germ, kirche.) A Scottish term synonymous 
 with church, and used chiefly to designate the form of reli- 
 gion established in that country. .S'ccPresbyteriamsm. 
 
 KIKK SESSION. The lowest ecclesiastical court of fhe 
 
 Kirk of Scotland. It is composed of the minister of the par- 
 Mi. and of lav elders. It takes cognizance of cases of scan- 
 dal, of the poor's fund, and of matters of general ecclesiasti- 
 cal discipline. There is an appeal from its decisions to the 
 
 pre~li\ tiTV. 
 
 Kl KSCHWASSER. (Germ, cherry water.) An nlco- 
 
 liqnar, obtained by fermenting tbe small and Bweet 
 
 black cherry. The liquor produced is distilled. ;:u\ Often 
 
 Savoured with hydrocyanic acid, derived from the bruised 
 
 kernels of the fruit : this gives to kirschv. \ i ct- 
 
 ened, tin- character of noyau. 
 
 KIT (' \ T I 1.1 B. The name of a celebrated associa- 
 tion, instituted about 1688 by "some younc men of wit and 
 pleasure about town," originally for convivial purposes; but 
 as its most distinguished members were Whigs in politics, it
 
 KITE. 
 
 gradually assumed a political character, till in the reign of 
 Queen Anne it came to be regarded as exclusively political 
 in its objects. At that period it comprised above forty no- 
 blemen and gentlemen of the first rank and quality, merit 
 and fortune, firm friends to the Hanoverian succession ; 
 among whom were Addison, Steele, Marlborough, Walpole, 
 &c. &c. It was originally formed in Shire Lane, and deri- 
 ved its name from one Christopher (Kit) Kat, who supplied 
 the members with mutton pies. The fame of this club has 
 been transmitted chiefly by the collection of the portraits of 
 the members painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller, himself a mem- 
 ber, who was obliged to invent a new-sized canvass accom- 
 modated to the height of walls ; whence has originated the 
 application of the epithet kit-cat to any portrait about three 
 quarters in length. It was dissolved in the year 1720. 
 ( Quart. Rev., vol. xxvi.) 
 
 KITE. A well-known toy ; first employed by Romas in 
 France, and Dr. Franklin in America, to elevate a conductor 
 into a thunder-cloud, whereby the identity of lightning with 
 the electric spark was ascertained. It is formed of a slender 
 frame of wood and pack-thread, rounded at one end and 
 terminating in a point at the other, resembling, in some 
 measure, a cross-bow, and covered with paper. A long 
 string is attached to the frame, near its centre of gravity, by 
 which it is held in the hand. In order that the kite may be 
 capable of being raised, it is necessary that its flat surface 
 be presented obliquely to the direction of the wind ; a string 
 or tail, carrying some light substance, is therefore attached 
 to the sharp end of the frame, and serves, by means of its 
 gravity, to maintain the proper inclination. The force of the 
 wind, impinging obliquely on the surface, is resolved into 
 two parts; one perpendicular, and the other parallel to the 
 surface : the first of these parts is counterbalanced by the 
 tension of the string held in the hand, and the second is ex- 
 pended in elevating the kite. The position in which the 
 wind acts with the greatest effect is, when the perpendicular 
 to the surface is inclined to the direction of the wind (that 
 is, to the horizon) in an angle of about 54A degrees. 
 
 Kite. The native bird so called is a species of the genus 
 Milvus, separated by Bechstein from the genus Falco of 
 Linnaeus on account of the forked tail, length of wings, and 
 the short and weak beak and feet in proportion to the size 
 of the body. This deterioration of their destructive instru- 
 ments renders the kite the most cowardly of the birds of 
 prey. The common kite or glead (Milvus vulgaris) preys 
 chiefly on the smaller quadrupeds and birds, young chick- 
 ens, &.c. ; yet the courage of the mother hen renders her 
 more than a match for the robber, and she generally repels 
 his attacks on his favourite prey. The female lays two or 
 three eggs of a whitish colour, spotted with pale yellow, and 
 of a roundish form. 
 
 The term kite is applied in some places, as Devonshire 
 and Cornwall, to the brill (Rhombus vulgaris). 
 
 KI'VI-KIVI. The native name of the New Zealanders 
 for their singular bird the Jlpteryx australis. Sec Apteryx. 
 
 KNEE. (Sax. cneo.) In Architecture, a naturally or ar- 
 tificially bent piece of timber, on which another is received 
 to relieve a weight or strain. 
 
 KNEE PAN. A small, flat, heart-shaped bone placed at 
 the fore part of the knee joint. It is an important defence 
 to that large joint, and also serves to increase the powers of 
 the muscles which extend the leg. It is attached by a strong 
 ligament to the upper end of the tibia. 
 
 KNIGHT-ERRANT. In the language of Chivalry, a 
 knight wandering in search of adventures, sometimes under 
 vows, for a certain period. Knight-errantry was not alto- 
 gether a fiction of romance. It originated, as Mr. Turner 
 says, partly from the frequency of private war in feudal 
 times, which made military aid constantly acceptable to the 
 great barons; and as a knight had, for the most part, no 
 other tie to the soil than his duties towards his feudal supe- 
 rior, he was at liberty to follow his own bent whenever his 
 services were not needed by him. Such a mode of life pe- 
 culiarly suited the tastes of the men of that age, and in some 
 degree served the exigencies of society. " Knights, there- 
 fore, were perpetually errant, or travelling in quest of ad- 
 ventures or employment : some from the pleasure of the 
 expedition, and some for its expected profits. They often 
 met the oppressed or the unsuccessful ; and they cheerfully 
 engaged themselves to redress those wrongs which laws 
 were too feeble to remedy, and for redressing which, honour, 
 plunder, or rich donations became usually their compensa- 
 tion." (Turner's History of England during tlic Middle 
 Jlges, ch. xiii.) 
 
 KNIGHT, KNIGHTHOOD. The word knight is un- 
 doubtedly derived in its first origin from the root " to knit," 
 or connect ; from whence also the German knecht, slave or 
 servant. The Anglo-Saxon cnicht bore the same meaning; 
 and this etymology points to the primitive meaning of the 
 institution of knighthood. This may be found in the usage 
 recorded by Tacitus and other writers of the ancient Ger- 
 mans, among whom the kings and chiefs were attended in 
 
 KNIGHT. 
 
 war and peace by a select body of faithful companions. 
 Kings, and great thanes, and aldermen had each among the 
 Anglo-Saxons their attendant cnichts or military servants, 
 who owed them a species of fealty rather personal than 
 territorial. But the order of knighthood, in the more recent 
 sense of the word, was introduced among us from France. 
 Among the French and Germans, indeed, the order of 
 knights was designated by another name — chevalier or ritter, 
 from their serving on horseback in battle, and holding a 
 rank above the footmen. But the Norman chevalier so 
 completely answered to the Saxon cnicht in the peculiar 
 attribute of being personally attached to the military service 
 of some chieftain, that the English appellation was soon in 
 general use, as if to express the same meaning conveyed by 
 the French title, and by its Latin equivalent miles. The 
 Saxons appear, indeed, to have occasionally practised, long 
 before the Conquest, some ceremonies resembling those 
 which became usual in later times on the creation of a 
 knight; thus Alfred is said to have honoured Athelstan by 
 the gift of a belt and robe, and girding him with a sword. 
 
 Like most other inquiries into the ancient usages of 
 Europe, that into the origin of knighthood as an order — 
 that is, the period when the term miles or chevalier, instead 
 of merely denoting the higher class of military companions 
 of a chief, came to signify one enjoying a definite rank in 
 society and admitted by certain ceremonies — is altogether 
 inconclusive. It is said in general that knighthood had be- 
 come an established institution in the 11th century; but 
 that the characteristic which belonged to it in later times, 
 that of being restricted to men of noble birth, did not become 
 general until the fourteenth. The privilege of conferring 
 knighthood seems to have belonged originally to the sover- 
 eign, and to have been retained as his prerogative in all 
 European constitutions, although frequently delegated to 
 or usurped by high feudatories, generals of armies, &c. ; 
 although in later times, and when knighthood had assumed 
 its peculiar romantic character, the most distinguished and 
 valorous knights were allowed to confer it, and kings them- 
 selves sought for the distinction of knighthood at their hands. 
 It was a prerogative of high value and importance ; and we 
 frequently find the states and other authorities in feudal 
 sovereignties interfering to limit its exercise, especially 
 before usage had absolutely restricted it to those of noble 
 birth. 
 
 It was common to create knights on various occasions. 
 The most honourable species of knighthood was that con- 
 ferred on the field and after a battle ; but the more common 
 fashion, especially in France, the parent country of chival- i. 
 rous institutions, was to make knights when a battle was 
 expected. Five hundred were created at once in the French 
 army before the battle of Agincourt. Some inconvenience 
 attended this practice. For example, on one occasion in 
 Flanders, in the 14th century, when two armies were ranged 
 in battle order, on the eve of engagement, the French, ac- 
 cording to their usual practice, created a great number of 
 knights ; but on the following morning the forces separated 
 without coming to action. A hare having been seen cross- 
 ing the space between the armies, the French knights 
 made on that occasion received the nickname of Chevaliers 
 du Lievre. Knights were also created on other solemn 
 occasions ; as great festivals, coronations, princely mar- 
 riages, &c. 
 
 In describing the ordinances of knighthood as they existed 
 when that institution was brought to the point of imaginary 
 perfection, the period to which we must refer is the 14th 
 century ; and the countries chiefly France, Germany, and 
 England. In Italy and Spain, and generally in other parts 
 of Christendom, the chivalrous customs of the first-named 
 regions were imitated, but do not appear to have grown up 
 spontaneously as part of the popular usages. Before this 
 epoch, indeed, the Crusades had communicated to the insti- 
 tution much of its religious character ; and the poems of the 
 Troubadours and Trouveurs attest how much of gallantry 
 had already been fancifully interwoven with the military 
 habits of the age. But it was not, perhaps, until the epoch 
 alluded to, when the favourite fictions of romance had 
 begun to act strongly on the popular imagination, that the 
 ideal usages of chivalry were completely engrafted in prac- 
 tice on the substantial institution of knighthood. 
 
 The orders of chivalry were three. The future knight 
 was first educated, in general, as a page attached to the 
 family, and especially to the ladies of some noble house: 
 when of full age, he became a squire (ecuyer). The proper 
 office of the squire, in the theory of chivalry, was, as his 
 name of "shield bearer" denotes, to attend on the person of 
 a knight, to whom he was bound to render devoted and 
 faithful service. In this capacity he was a sort of apprentice 
 to knighthood ; but as many esquires never reached the 
 order of knighthood at all, but remained independent, the 
 rank of esquire, in ordinary usage, became an intervening 
 order between the knight and the simple gentleman : in 
 which sense it is still retained in England. The order of 
 Qq* 633
 
 KNIGHT. 
 
 knighthood followed this double probation. Knights, how- 
 ever, mere often made without having passed regularly 
 through the intervening stages; and even in the age of chiv- 
 alry, the honour was occasionally conferred on mere chil- 
 dren; although this was an evident abuse, and regarded as 
 such. When the order of knighthood was conferred with 
 full solemnity in the leisure of a court or city, imposing prc- 
 liminarv ceremonies were required of the candidate. He 
 prepared himself by prayer and fasting, watched Ins arms 
 all night in a chapel, and was then admitted with the per- 
 formance of religious rites. Knighthood was conferred by 
 the accolade, which, from the derivation of the name, should 
 appear to have been originally an embrace; but afterwards 
 consisted, as it still docs, in a blow of the flat of a sword on 
 the neck of the kneeling candidate. The oath of knighthood 
 was previously administered, which contained at different 
 times various fanciful clauses : in France there were twentj 
 vows comprised in it. (See on this subject, among many 
 other authorities, the Memoirs on Chivalry of the French 
 antiquary Sainte-Palaye.) 
 
 Knighthood was an institution which served in some 
 respects as a compensation for the inequalities of rank inci- 
 dent to the feudal system. All knights, from the king to 
 the lowest bachelor, were brethren of the same order ; and 
 when chivalry was in its most flourishing state, it may 
 almost be said that they were all of the same country. Na- 
 tional distinctions had little place between knights, who 
 were only enemies in time of warfare, from their feudal 
 duties, which attached them to the banner of a particular 
 king or suzerain. At tournaments, court festivals, &c, in 
 time of peace, knights of all nations were admitted indiffer- 
 ently ; and the candidate for knighthood sought that honour 
 at the hands of the most distinguished name in chivalry 
 rather than of a countryman. The chief distinction of rank 
 which subsisted between knights, in France and England, 
 was rather of a feudal than a chivalrous character ; it was 
 that of knights-bachelors and knights-bannerets. The knight- 
 bachelor was of the lower order. His name has been va- 
 riously derived. It is by some considered as a corruption of 
 " bas-chevalier;" but others deduce the name from the bar- 
 barous Latin word "baccalare," said to signify a small fief, 
 such as was originally considered as entitling its possessor 
 to the honour of knighthood. But in the more chivalrous 
 times (as in all later periods) this honour was conferred 
 without any reference to a qualification of property. Many 
 knights bachelors were, in fact, mere adventurers, uncon- 
 nected by feudal ties of any sort ; who offered their services 
 in war to any successful leader, and who found in their 
 sword a means of subsistence, not only by pay and plunder, 
 but by the regularly established system of ransom which 
 every knight taken in action paid for his liberty. The 
 "chevalier-banneret" was one who possessed fiefs to a 
 greater amount, was obliged to serve in war with a greater 
 attendance, and carried a banner. Under Charles VII. the 
 bannerets of France made remonstrances against the services 
 required of them, on the ground of their impoverishment by 
 the English wars; and it appears that this order fell af- 
 terwards into disuse in that country. In England the dis- 
 tinction appears to have been of a somewhat different char- 
 acter. The " knights' fees," into which England was divided 
 by the Conqueror, were such portions of land as could main- 
 tain a simple knight or bachelor ; and by a statute of Ed- 
 ward II. persons who had the amount of £20 a year in fee, 
 or for life, were obliged to take this order of knighthood. 
 This statute grew into disuse, except when occasionally put 
 in force, as it was for the last time under Charles I., as a 
 means of extorting money, by way of fines, for not taking up 
 the order. Bannerets, on the other hand, in England, ap- 
 pear to have been such knights as were made or promoted 
 from the lower degree on the field of battle. (See Ban- 
 neret.) The distinction in the field between the different 
 orders of chivalry was, at least at one period, the follow- 
 ing : — The esquire bore the pennoncel or triangular streamer ; 
 the knight-bachelor the pennon or forked streamer (swallow- 
 tailed), made by dividing the end of the pennoncel ; the 
 banneret a banner (which was, in strict usage, of an oblong 
 shape, barons being entitled to a square banner). Thus, 
 when a banneret was made on the field, the ceieinony was 
 accomplished by cutting off" the forked end of his pennon 
 and converting it into a banner. Common knights and 
 esquires were then under his command. 
 
 The confinement of the order of knighthood to men of 
 noble birth (on the Continent, for tin' strict line of demarca- 
 tion between nobility and commonalty was never accu- 
 rately drawn in England), although necessary in theory to 
 the completion of the chivalric system, tended in practice in 
 its decay. Knighthood, after the i-iih century, became more 
 and more an honorary distinction, to which birth alone gave 
 a title, and which was not considered to represent any ac 
 tual duty or service; .and finally, through various steps, it 
 became again a mere personal distinction, which it was pari 
 of the sovereign's prerogative to confer, either to military 
 634 
 
 KOBOLD. 
 
 persons or any others; and by the multiplication of orders, 
 into which nobility of birth was not always a necessary 
 qualification for admission, this peculiar property of the 
 knightly order became again effaced. There are, however, 
 in most Continental countries, several orders into which 
 nobility still constitutes a necessary title for admission. 
 
 Orders of knighthood are of two classes: either they are 
 associations or fraternities possessing property and rights of 
 their own as independent bodies, into which knights are 
 admitted as members into a religious foundation ; or they 
 are merely honorary associations, established by sovereigns 
 within their respective dominions, consisting of members 
 whose only common lie is the possession of the same titular 
 distinction. To the former class belonged the three cele- 
 brated religious orders founded during the Crusade, — Tem- 
 plars. Hospitallers, and Teutonic knights ; which were 
 societies, not belonging to any particular crown or realm, 
 possessed of extensive property, and acting in some respects 
 as independent republics. (See those articles.) Several (if 
 the Spanish and Portuguese orders of knighthood partake 
 of both characters: they were originally religious, hut have 
 become secular. The kings of those countries, as grand 
 masters, exercise the privilege of admission, and make use 
 of it as a means of conferring distinction ; but the knights, 
 as a body, form an independent society possessed of property 
 and privileges. {See Orders of Calatrava, Alcantara. 
 &.c.) The other class, consisting of orders merely titular, 
 embraces most of the European orders, including all those 
 of our country. These were probably founded in imitation 
 of the great military societies: although antiquarians have 
 traced real or imaginary orders of knighthood under the 
 reigns of princes of much more remote date, as Charles 
 Martel, Charlemagne, &c. Hut these accounts are apoc- 
 ryphal ; and no subsisting order of knighthood is of the date 
 of the Crusades, except a few of those in Spain and Portugal, 
 which, as we have said, were framed on the model of the 
 great societies first mentioned. (See as to foreign orders of 
 knighthood, the work of Carlisle, 1839.) 
 
 KMGIIT OF THE SHIRE, is the designation given to 
 the representative in Parliament of English counties at large, 
 as distinguished from such cities and towns as are counties 
 of themselves (which are seldom if ever called shires) ; and 
 the representatives of which, as well as the members for 
 other cities and towns, are called citizens or Burgesses. It 
 was formerly imperative on knights of a shire, as well 
 as their choosers, either to be resident or to have a house- 
 hold in the county ; but this regulation, which had long 
 fallen into disuse, was formally repealed bv 14 Geo. 3, c. 58. 
 
 KNIGHT SERVICE, Servitium Mi/it'nrc. The tenure 
 by which a knight held his land. See Feudal S\ 
 
 KNIGHT'S FEE, Feodum Militarr. In the language of 
 English feudal usage, a portion of land held by custom suffi- 
 cient to maintain a knight to do service as such for the king. 
 William the Conqueror by his military grants is said to have 
 created 60,000 such fees. But although William's vassals 
 were undoubtedly bound to follow him to war, it is doubted 
 by modem antiquarians whether feudal services, strictly so 
 called, were attached to these grants by the Conqueror, or 
 whether they were not peculiarities arising subsequently 
 when the feudal system grew into vigour, and attributed to 
 the Conqueror by the legists of later times. 
 
 KNOLL. A term used in many parts of England for the 
 pinnacle of a small hill, or for the hill itself. 
 
 KNO'PPERN. A species of gall-nut or excresence formed 
 by the puncture of an insect upon several kinds of oak. 
 They are flat, hard, and prickly : they abound in Croatia, 
 Styria, Sclavonia, and Natolia, and are used in Austria and 
 Germany for tanning and dyeing. 
 
 KNOT. See Log. 
 
 KNOUT, THE. An instrument used in the infliction of 
 a well-known Russian punishment The fi>I lowing descrip- 
 tion is by a writer in the New Monthly Magazine for 1830 
 (vol. xxv'iii., p. 128): "The handle may be two feet long, a 
 little more or less, to Which is fastened a flat leather thong 
 about twice the length of the handle, terminating with a 
 large cupper or brass ring; to this ring is affixed a strip of 
 hide about two inches broad at the ring, and terminating, at 
 the end of two feet, in a point. This is soaked in milk, and 
 dried in the sun to make it harder; and should it fall, in 
 Striking the culprit, on the edge, it would cut like a penknife. 
 Vteverj sixth stroke the tail is changed. In the hands of 
 a stranger it would be a most innocent weapon ; nor could I, 
 after a quarter of an hour's practice, make any considerable 
 Impression <in the BUOW, while the executioner will leave a 
 pretty fair mark on a deal plank." Notwithstanding the 
 assertion of Dr. Granville to the contrary {Travels to St, 
 Petersburgh, ii., 451), there is no doubt of the excessive 
 - I the punishment. 
 
 KOA'LA. The native name of a Marsupial quadruped 
 
 of New Holland. (See Piiasooi. .uteres.) The Mahrattas 
 apply the B Hoe irmie to the jackall. 
 k< >T.< )I,D. A German word signifying a spirit, or spec-
 
 KOLPODES. 
 
 tre, and corresponding to the English goblin, of which it is 
 probably the origin. In many parts of Germany there is 
 scarcely a house or a family to which kobolds are not said 
 to be attached ; and according to the superstitious notions 
 of the peasantry, they preside over all domestic operations, 
 many of which they perform. The name of the metal 
 cobalt is derived from the above. 
 
 KOLPO'DES, Kolpoda. (Gr. ko\tw$tis, sinuous.) The 
 name of a genus of Polygastric Infusories, characterized by 
 their flat and sinuous figures. 
 
 KO'RAN. See Alcoran. 
 
 KOSSACKS. See Cossacks. 
 
 KOUMISS, or KUMISS. A vinous liquid, obtained in 
 Tartarv by fermenting the whey of mare's milk. 
 
 KO'UPHOLITE. (Gr. kovQos, light, and h9oc, a stone.) 
 A species of zeolite or prehnite from the Pyrenees : it occurs 
 in small rhomboidal plates, of a pearly lustre, and of a yel- 
 lowish or green colour. 
 
 KRAAL. The name given to the villages of the Hot- 
 tentots. 
 
 KRA'KEN. A name applied in the fabulous epoch of 
 zoology to a marine monster of gigantic size. 
 
 KRAMERIA'CE^E (Krameria, one of the genera), is a" 
 small natural order of plants, allied to Polygalacem, and 
 chiefly remarkable for the extreme astringency of their roots ; 
 one of the species furnishing the rhatany or rhatanhia root 
 of the druggists, a substance notoriously used in the adulter- 
 ation of port wine. 
 
 KRAME'RIC ACED. An acid obtained from the root of 
 the Krameria triandria, or rhatany. 
 
 KREOSO'TE. See Creosote. 
 
 KRY'OLITE. (Gr. K pvo S , ice, and \t9oc, a stone.) A 
 hydrated filiate of alumina and soda. When heated it sud- 
 denly fuses ; hence its name. 
 
 KRY'STALLINE. A term applied by Unverdorben to 
 a salifiable base which forms crystallizable compounds with 
 the acids, and which he obtains from animal empyreu- 
 matic oil. 
 
 KU'FIC. An epithet given to the ancient Arabic charac- 
 ters : from Kufa, a town on the Euphrates. 
 
 KU'PFERNICKEL. (Germ.) An ore of nickel of a 
 copper colour. 
 
 KU'PFERSCHI'EFER. (Germ, copper slate.) A term 
 applied by German geologists to certain laminated rocks at 
 the base of the magnesian limestone formation of Thuringia: 
 they are impregnated with copper, and abound in fossil 
 remains of fishes. These rocks appear to correspond to the 
 marl slate of Durham and Northumberland. 
 
 KY'ANITE. (Gr. nvavos, blue.) A mineral which oc- 
 curs in long radiated crystals, and occasionally massive ; it 
 is the disthene of Hauy, and the sappare of some other min- 
 eralogists. See Cyanite. 
 
 KYRIOLO'GICAL, or CIVIC-LOGICAL. (Gr. Kvpioc, 
 proper; \oyo;, discourse.) A term applied by YVarburton, 
 in his Divine Legation (book ii., s. 4), to that class of Egyp- 
 tian hieroglyphics in which a part is conventionally put to 
 represent a whole — e. g., a pair of armed hands for a battle, 
 a scaling ladder for a siege, &c. ; distinguished from the 
 tropical, in which visible objects are used as emblems, or 
 figuratively. See Hieroglyphics. 
 
 L. The first of those letters in the English and most 
 other alphabets called liquids or semivowels; because, like 
 vowels, they can be pronounced for any length of time, 
 which is not the case with the consonants called mutes, as 
 p, d, &c. It is derived from the Greek lambda, or the He- 
 brew or Phoenician lamed, and is found in the languages of 
 almost all nations, excepting those of some Brazilian and 
 Japanese tribes. In the ancient Greek, Hebrew, Phoenician, 
 Celtic, and Latin languages, and in those derived from them, 
 the letter L consists invariably of two strokes, though in 
 every possible shape and combination. Thus, in the most 
 ancient Greek alphabets it is written A V A. in the Etrus- 
 can >, in the Celtic < V. in Hebrew L ), and in Latin L. 
 (For the interchanges which this letter has undergone, see 
 the Penny Cijclo.) L, as an abreviature, stands for Lucius, 
 L.L.D. Doctor of Laws, and L.L.S. for a sestertium. As 
 a numeral, L represented among the ancients, as at present, 
 the number 50, according to the line — 
 
 Quinquies L denos numero designat habendos. 
 
 LA. In Musi^. the syllable by which Guido denoted the 
 last sound in the hexachord. 
 
 LA'BADISTS, or LA'BBADISTS. A sect of religious 
 enthusiasts in the 17th century ; so called from Jean Laba- 
 die. a native of France domiciled in Holland, who was de- 
 posed from his preachership by the synod of Dort. They 
 endeavouied to introduce among Protestants similar notions 
 to those of the Quietiste in the Roman Catholic church (see 
 
 LABRUM. 
 
 that word), and were accused of similar perversities in prac- 
 tice. (See Moshcim, transl., ed. 1790, v., 511.) 
 
 LABARRA'UUE'S DISINFECTING LIQUID. A so- 
 lution of carbonate of soda impregnated with chlorine. 
 
 LA'BARUM. The standard of Constantine, which he 
 caused to be formed in commemoration of the vision of the 
 cross in the heavens. It is described as a long pike sur- 
 mounted by a golden crown inclosing a monogram which 
 contains the two first letters of the name of Christ, and is at 
 the same time a representation of the figure of the cross. 
 Ancient monuments exhibit the figure under two forms, 
 -g or ^ (sc. X7 p)- The silken banner which depended 
 from it was embroidered with the figure of Constantine and 
 his family. The labarum is engraved on some of his medals 
 with the famous inscription, 
 
 EN TOYTJ1I NIKA; 
 and it was preserved for a considerable time, and brought 
 forward at the head of the armies of the emperor on impor- 
 tant occasions, as the palladium or safeguard of the empire. 
 The origin of the word is still undecided. (See Beugnot, 
 Hist, de la Destruction du Paganisme en Occident, i~, 57 ; 
 Milman, Hist, of Christianity, ii., 152.) 
 
 LA'BDANUM, or LADANUM. The resin of the Cystus 
 Creticus. 
 
 LA'BEL. In Heraldry, a figure chiefly used by way of 
 distinction or difference in the coat-armour of an eldest son 
 during the life of the father ; in which case it has three 
 points ; five points when borne by the heir-presumptive of a 
 grandfather living, and so forth. 
 
 LABE'LLUM. (Lat.) A term given to a lower lip of 
 a labiate corolla. It is usually differently formed from the 
 other divisions of the corolla, and in the natural order Or- 
 chidacem assumes various grotesque appearances. 
 
 LA'BIALS. (Lat. labium, a lip.) The letters B, P, V, 
 F, M, are so called, on account of the organ chiefly employ- 
 ed in their pronunciation. 
 
 LA'BIA'T^E, or LAMIACE^E. A natural order of Mo- 
 nopetalous Exogenous plants, consisting of many hundred 
 species, inhabiting the more temperate regions of the earth. 
 A two-lipped monopetalous corolla, an irregular number of 
 stamens, and a four-lobed ovary, are the essential marks by 
 which it is known from all others. The species are gener- 
 ally herbaceous, with square stems ; a small number only 
 consists of shrubs. The flowers are all colours, but pure 
 blue is uncommon in the order. Many of the species are 
 valued for their fragrance, as lavender and thyme ; others 
 for their stimulating qualities, as mint and peppermint ; some 
 as aromatics, as sage, basil, and marjoram ; while a few are 
 regarded as febrifuges. Numerous species are objects of 
 great beauty, on which account the order is well known in 
 gardens. Among the most ornamental are various kinds of 
 sage, gardoquia, and dracocephalum. 
 
 LA'BIUM (Lat. labium, a lip), in Entomology, is a move- 
 able organ, often biarticulate, which, terminating the face 
 anteriorly, covers the mouth from beneath, and represents 
 the under lip. 
 
 LA'BORATORY. A place properly constructed and 
 fitted up for the purpose of carrying on chemical investiga- 
 tions. Those who are about to fit up a chemical laboratory 
 will do well to consult the first section of Mr. Farraday's 
 Chemical Manipulation. 
 
 LA'BOUR. (Lat. labor.) In Naval language, the action 
 of a ship in a heavy sea when she jerks or is uneasy. 
 
 La'bour. See Political Economy. 
 
 LA'BOURED. In the Fine Arts, a term applied to 
 w T orks of art wherein are apparent the marks of constraint 
 in the execution ; and used in opposition to the term, easy or 
 free. 
 
 LA'BRADORITE. Labrador spar. A beautiful variety 
 of opalescent felspar from the coast of Labrador: it exhibits 
 brilliant and mutable tints of blue, red, green, and yellow, 
 and is susceptible of a good polish. It is cut into small slabs, 
 and employed in ornamental jewellery. It is a silicate of 
 alumina, lime, and soda, with traces of oxide of iron. 
 
 LA'BRAX. (Lat.) A genus of Percoid fishes, dismem- 
 bered by Cuvier from the Linnsan Perca on account of cer- 
 tain modifications of the gill-covers and tongue ; the differ- 
 ences being that the opercula of the Labrax terminates in 
 two spines, and the tongue, instead of being smooth, is 
 roughened with many minute teeth. 
 
 LA'BRIDANS, LABRID^E, or LABROLDES. The 
 Bream tribe. A family of Acanthopterygii, having the 
 genus Labrus as the type. The fishes of this family may 
 be recognised by their oblong scaly body ; a single dorsal tin, 
 supported in front by spines, each of which is generally 
 furnished with membranous appendages: the jaws are 
 covered with fleshy lips, and the pharyngeal bones are 
 armed with numerous and strong teeth, disposed like a 
 pavement. 
 
 LA'BRUM (Lat labrum), in Entomology, is the usually 
 
 635
 
 LABRUS. 
 
 moveable part which, terminating the face anteriorly, covers 
 the mouth from above, and represents the upper lip. 
 
 LA'BRUS. (Lat. labium, a Up.) A genus of spiny-finned 
 fishes in the system of Cuvier, so called on account of their 
 well-developed double fleshy lips. The fishes of this genus 
 ore termed "breams;" and are further characterized by 
 their conical maxillary teeth, of which the middle and an- 
 terior are the longest, and by their cylindrical and obtuse 
 pharyngeal teeth, which are arranged like a pavement — 
 the upper ones on two large plates, the lower ones on a sin- 
 gle one, which correspond with the two others. 
 
 LA'BYRINTH. (Gr. Aa6ur«>'0oj.) Literally a place, 
 usually subterraneous, full of inextricable windings. An- 
 cient history gives an account of four celebrated labyrinths; 
 the Cretan, Egyptian, Lemnian, and Italian. The first was 
 built by Da-dalus at the instigation of Minos, to secure the 
 Minotaur ; the second is said to have been constructed by 
 Psammetichus, king of Egypt ; the third was on the island 
 of Lemnos, and was supported by columns of great beauty; 
 and the fourth was designed by Porsenna, king of Etruria, 
 as a tomb for himself and his successors. Of these laby- 
 rinths the Cretan is most celebrated in the historical and 
 mythological writings of antiquity ; but the Egyptian was 
 by far the most important, both in extent and magnificence. 
 The latter, which was built on the isle of Meroe, was a vast 
 edifice, composed of twelve palaces, all contained within 
 the compass of one wall, and communicating with each 
 other. It had only one entrance ; but the innumerable turn- 
 ings and windings of the terraces and rooms of which it con- 
 sisted rendered it impossible for those who had once entered 
 within its walls to get out without a guide. It is said to have 
 been designed either as a burial-place for the Egyptian kings, 
 or for the preservation of the sacred crocodiles, the chief 
 objects of Egyptian idolatry. It was partly demolished be- 
 tween the reigns of Augustus and Titus; but even at the 
 period of Pliny's visit, its ruins were magnificent. (Pliny, 
 lib. xxxv.) Pococke's History of the East (vol. i., p. 61, &c), 
 and Perry's View of the Levant (p. 381), contain a plan 
 and description of the modern state of this labyrinth. With 
 regard to the labyrinth of Crete, no doubt can now remain, 
 after the statements of Cockerell and Tournefort, that its 
 existence was a reality, and not merely a fabulous creation 
 of the Grecian imagination. According to these travellers 
 the island of Crete abounds even at the present day in ex- 
 tensive caverns, one of which, consisting principally of many 
 long windings and narrow passages that can only be safely 
 explored by means of a clue, exhibits a wonderful similarity 
 I in all essential particulars to the famous labyrinth of Didalus. 
 i It is impossible, at this distant period, to pronounce with 
 certainty on so difficult a question ; but the substantial coin- 
 cidences that exist between the ancient and modern laby- 
 rinths seem to leave little doubt as to their identity. (See 
 Geo. Diet., art. " Crete.") 
 
 La'byrinth. In Metallurgy, a series of troughs attached 
 to a stamping mill, through which a current of water passes 
 for the purpose of washing away the suspended pulverized 
 ore, and subsequently depositing it at different distances, de- 
 pending upon its state of comminution. 
 
 La'byrinth. A term applied by anatomists to the inter- 
 nal parts of the ear, from the intricacy of their winding pas- 
 sages. Sec Ear. 
 
 LABYRFNTHODON. (Gr. \a6vptv6oc, and olovs, a tooth.) 
 The name of an extinct genus of Reptiles, probably of the 
 Batrachian order, characterized by teeth of a peculiarly 
 complicated structure, the outer coat of enamel being inflect- 
 ed in complex wavy folds into the body of the tooth, and 
 alternating with corresponding wavy plates of dentine, which 
 give the appearance of a labyrinth to the transverse section 
 of the tooth. The remains of the reptiles of this genus 
 peculiarly characterize the Keuper formation of Germany, 
 and the corresponding sandstones, as that of Warwick in 
 England. 
 
 LAC. This substance flows from the Ficus indica, the 
 Khamnus jujuba, and some other trees, in the form of a 
 milky fluid, in consequence of punctures made upon their 
 branches by a small insect, the Coccus ficus. The commer- 
 cial varieties of lac are, stick lac, which is the substance in 
 its natural state, investing the small twigs of the tree; seed 
 lac, which is the same, broken off the twigs, and which 
 when melted and formed into thin cakes constitutes shell 
 lac. These varieties of lac have been examined by Mr. 
 Hatchett (Phil. Trans., 1804), with the following results :— 
 
 Resin 
 
 Colouring matter 
 
 Wax 
 
 Gluten 
 
 Foreign bodies - 
 
 Lon 
 
 Nick lac. 
 
 Seed lac. 
 
 8S-5 
 
 Shell lac 
 
 680 
 
 90-9 
 
 10-0 
 
 2 5 
 
 05 
 
 M 
 
 4-5 
 
 40 
 
 5-5 
 
 20 
 
 2-8 
 
 6 5 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 25 
 
 1-8 
 
 1000 
 
 100 
 
 100 
 
 The great consumption of lac is in the manufacture of 
 636 
 
 LACHRYMATORY. 
 
 dye stuffs, sealing wax, and of certain varnishes and lac- 
 quers. 
 
 LA'CCIC ACID. A peculiar acid separated from stick 
 lac by Dr. John. It is yellow, crystallizable ; and forms 
 soluble salts with potassa, soda, and lime, and insoluble 
 sails with the oxides of mercury and lead. It occasions no 
 precipitate in solution of baryta or of oxide of silver. 
 
 LACCINE. A substance discovered in shell lac by Un- 
 verdorben. It remains after all the soluble matters in water, 
 alcohol, and ether have been extracted. It is brittle, yellow, 
 translucent; and soluble in caustic potash, and in sulphuric 
 acid. 
 
 LAC DYE, LAC LAKE. These are two preparations 
 of lac imported in small cubic cakes from the East Indies, 
 and extensively used in the production of scarlet dye. They 
 are said to be prepared by digesting lac in an alkaline solu- 
 tion, which produces a deep pink liquid, the colouring mat 
 ter of which is thrown down in combination with alumina 
 by the addition of a solution of alum. 
 
 LACE. (Lat. lacinia, the hem of a garment.) An orna- 
 mental fabric of linen or cotton thread, formerly made by 
 hand (when it was called pillow or bone lace), but of late 
 years produced by machinery, and generally termed bobbin- 
 net. " This manufacture," says Dr. Ure, " may be said to 
 surpass every other branch of human industry in the com- 
 plex ingenuity of its machinery ; one of Fisher's spotting 
 frames being as much beyond the most curious chronometer 
 in the multiplicity of mechanical device, as that is beyond a 
 common roasting jack." 
 
 The costly and complicated machines by means of which 
 bobbin-net is produced are termed lace frames. They are 
 constantly undergoing improvements, and this beautiful 
 branch of manufacture is apparently destined to become 
 much more perfect than even at present. 
 
 A rack of lace is a certain number of meshes counted per- 
 pendicularly, and contains 240 meshes or holes ; and such 
 has already been the improvement in this manufacture, that 
 the cost of labour in making a rack, which was twenty 
 years ago three shillings and sixpence, is now reduced to one 
 penny. Formerly the wholesale price of a 24-rack piece, 
 five quarters broad, was 17/. sterling ; the same is now sold 
 for seven shillings. In the Commercial Dictionary will be 
 found full statistical details of the value of the lace manu- 
 facture in this country, together with a learned and curious 
 account of the origin and history of the fabric. 
 
 LACE'RNA. A long woollen military cloak, worn at 
 first only by the Roman soldiers, but which increased so much 
 in fashion that at the period of the triumvirate it became a 
 favourite piece of dress with all the higher classes of Ro- 
 man citizens, both civil and military, and remained so till 
 the times of the emperors Valentinian and Theodosius, 
 when the senators were prohibited from wearing them in 
 the city. Martial speaks of lacerna? which cost 10,000 ses- 
 terces (80/.) 
 
 LACE'RTA. (Lat.) The Lizard; a constellation of the 
 northern hemisphere, near Cepheus and Cassiopeia, formed 
 by Hevelius. 
 
 LACE'RTIANS, or LACERTINE SAURIA. A name 
 sometimes given to a primary division of the order Sauria 
 of Cuvier, including all those species which differ from the 
 Loricate or Crocodilian Sauria in having a direct communi- 
 cation between the ventricles of the heart, a double intromit- 
 tent organ, a tongue bifurcate or emarginate at the tip, an 
 ear-drum unprotected by an opercular fold, and a covering 
 of scales sometimes bony, without osseous plates or scutte. 
 
 LACE'RTIDiE. tLat. lacerta, a lizard.) A group of 
 the order Sauria, forming the second family in the Cuvierian 
 system, in which the characters are given as follows : 
 Tongue long, slender, extensible, and burficate at the ex- 
 tremity, as in the serpent tribe ; ear-drum membranous, on 
 a level with the surface of the head, or very slightly sunk ; 
 eyelids consisting of a production of the skin, with a longi- 
 tudinal slit, closed by a sphincter, and a rudimental nictita- 
 ting or third eye-lid ; body elongated ; feet wilh five toes 
 each; digits separate and unequal, particularly the hind 
 ones, all aimed with nails ; scales on the belly and round 
 the tail arranged in transverse and parallel hands. Cuvier 
 subdivides the Lacerlida into two great genera, Monitor and 
 Lacerta, each of which have been again subdivided. 
 
 LA'CHES. (Fr. lache, negligent.) In Law, slackness 
 or negligence. A term used to signify that degree of negli- 
 gence which throws on the party committing it the evil con- 
 sequences resulting to him from it. 
 
 LA'CHRYMAL. Relating to tears; as the lachrymal 
 glands, by which they are secreted. They are placed in a 
 depression of the frontal bone, above the external angle of 
 tin eye the tears pass from them to the eye by the lachry- 
 mal duels, which are six or eight in number. 
 
 LA'CHRYMATORY. A small vessel of glass or earth- 
 enwnre, which it was customary at Roman funerals to fill 
 with the tears of the mourners, and deposit them with the 
 ashes of the deceased in the sepulchre.
 
 LACK. 
 
 LACK. In Commerce, a word used in the East Indies, 
 to denote the sum of 100,000 rupees, or 12,000/. sterling. 
 
 LACI'NULA. In Botany, a term given to the abruptly 
 inflexed acumen of each of the petals of an umbelliferous 
 flower. 
 
 LACO'NICUM. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, an 
 apartment in the baths, which received its name from hav- 
 ing been first used in Laconia. 
 
 LA'CONISM. A short and pointed saying; so termed 
 from the celebrity which the Lacedaemonians enjoyed in 
 antiquity for their brief and sententious mode of expressing 
 themselves produced by the severe discipline of their institu- 
 tions, and the gravity which it engendered. When they 
 became famous for this quality, they appear to have begun 
 to aim at the exhibition of it in rather an affected manner, 
 of which some curious instances are contained in Herodotus. 
 None of the many Laconisms recorded in ancient history 
 are more noble than the expression of the Spartan mother to 
 her son, when presenting him with his buckler : r] rav h bn 
 rav — " either bring it back, or be brought home dead upon 
 it." There is an essay by Puteanus, De Laconismo. 
 
 LA'CQUER. A yellow varnish, consisting of a solution 
 of shell lac in alcohol, coloured by gamboge, saffron, annotto, 
 or other yellow, orange, or red colouring matters. Lacquers 
 are chiefly used for varnishing brass and some other metals, 
 in order to give them a golden colour and preserve their 
 lustre. 
 
 LACTA'RIUM. (Lat.) In Architecture, strictly a dairy 
 house. In Ancient Architecture, it was a place in the Ro- 
 man herb market, indicated by a column, called the Lacta- 
 ria Columna, where foundlings were fed and nourished. 
 
 LA'CTEALS. (Lat. lac, milk.) The absorbents of the 
 mesentery, which convey the milky fluid called chyle from 
 the small intestines to the thoracic ducts. 
 
 LA'CTIC ACID. (Lat. lac.) The acid of sour milk. 
 A similar acid is obtained from the fermented juice of the 
 beet root. It appears to consist of 6 atoms of carbon, 5 of 
 hydrogen, and 5 of oxygen, its equivalent being 81. 
 
 LACTO'METER. (Lat. lac, and metrum, a measure.) 
 A term applied to a glass tube for ascertaining the propor- 
 tion which the cream bears to the milk of any particular 
 cow, or of the produce of a whole dairy. The tube is about 
 half an inch in diameter, and a foot in height, with a grad- 
 uated scale marked on the outside. It is filled with milk 
 when newly drawn from the cow ; and as it cools, the cream 
 rises to the surface, and the proportion which it bears to the 
 milk is ascertained by counting the degrees opposite to each. 
 
 LACTU'CARIUM. The inspissated milky juice of the 
 Lactuca saliva, or common garden lettuce. It possesses 
 slight anodyne properties, and is sometimes used as a sub- 
 stitute for opium. 
 
 LACTU'CIC ACID. A peculiar acid, discovered by 
 Pfaff in the juice of the Lactuca virosa. It bears some 
 resemblance to oxalic acid ; but differs from it in giving a 
 green precipitate with the protosalts of iron, and a brown 
 precipitate with sulphate of copper. 
 
 LACU'NA. (Lat.) In Botany, a term applied in de- 
 scribing lichens, to denote one of the small hollows or pits 
 on the upper surface of the thallus. Also a name given 
 occasionally to the internal organ, commonly called an air- 
 cell, lying in the midst of the cellular tissue of plants. 
 
 LACU'NAR. (Lat.) In Architecture, the ceiling or un- 
 der surface of the member of an order. Also the under 
 side of the larmier or corona of a cornice. The under side 
 also of that part of the architrave between the capitals of 
 columns. The ceiling of any part in architecture only re- 
 ceives the name of lacunar when it consists of compart- 
 ments sunk or hollowed without spaces or bands between 
 the panels : if it is with bands, it is called laquear. 
 
 LACUNO'SE. (Lat. lacuna, a break.) In Zoology, 
 when a surface has a few scattered, irregular, broadish, but 
 shallow excavations. 
 
 LACU'STRINE. (Lat. lac-us, a lake.) Belonging to a 
 lake. The term lacustrine deposit is applied by geologists 
 to certain fresh-water formations which occur in the newer 
 rocks. See Geology. 
 
 LA'DDER. The sea term for the staircases between the 
 decks. Ladders are also made of rope. 
 
 LA'DY. A title said to be compounded of two Saxon 
 words, and to signify the giver or distributor of bread ; i. e., 
 the mistress of a family. It properly belongs to the daugh- 
 ters of all peers above the rank of a viscount; and is ex- 
 tended, by courtesy, to the wives of knights of every degree. 
 
 LA'DY DAY. In the Calendar, the 25th of March, be- 
 ing the annunciation of the Holy Virgin. It is one of the 
 immoveable festivals of the church, having relation to 
 Christmas, or the day of the nativity of Christ, which it pre- 
 cedes by nine months. 
 
 LiEMODI'PODS, Lamodipoda. (Gr. Xaif/os, throat, novs, 
 foot.) The name of an order of Crustaceans, in which the 
 head is confluent with the first segment of the thorax, and 
 supports the four anterior feet. The Ltemodipods are the 
 
 LAMA. 
 
 only Malacostracans with sessile eyes, and in which the pos- 
 terior extremity of the body exhibits no distinct branchiae 
 The females carry their ova beneath the second and third 
 segments of the body, in a pouch formed of approximated 
 scales. All the species are marine. 
 
 LA GOMYS. (Gr. Xayois, a hare; uvs, a mouse.) The 
 generic name of certain Rodents, called "rat-hares," now 
 peculiar to Siberia. They differ from the hares proper in 
 having moderate-sized ears, legs nearly equal, clavicles 
 nearly perfect, and no tail. The fossil Bones of a species 
 of Lagomys have been discovered in the osseous breccia 
 of Corsica. 
 
 LAGOO'N. (Lat. lacuna, a morass.) The name given 
 particularly to those creeks extending along the coast of the 
 Adriatic, and which are formed by water running up in the 
 land. In some places they are deep ; but generally they 
 are so shallow as to emit noxious exhalations. They con- 
 tain many islands, on sixty of which the city of Venice is 
 built. Towards the sea the islets are secured by dams, 
 either natural or artificial. 
 
 LAGO'PUS. (Gr. Xayus, a hare ; kovs, a foot.) The 
 generic name of those birds of the grouse tribe which have 
 a round or square tail, and whose toes are feathered as 
 well as the legs. See Ptarmigan. 
 
 LAGO'STOMA. (Gr. Xayus, and croua, the mouth.) The 
 harelip. 
 
 LA'GOTHRIX. (Gr. Xayuis ; Opil, a hair.) A genus of 
 South American or Platyrrhine monkeys, characterized by 
 their round head, a thumb on the anterior hand, and the tail 
 partly naked. The grison, or silver-haired monkey, is a spe- 
 cies of this genus. 
 
 LAGRIMO'SO. (Ital.) In Music, a direction to the per- 
 former, when appended to a piece of music, denoting that 
 it is to be performed in a weeping plaintive manner. 
 
 LAIRD. A Scottish term, applied, as Libb observes, to 
 " a landed gentleman under the degree of a knight ; but re- 
 garded by many philologists as originally equivalent to lord 
 (quod vide). Anciently the title of laird was given only to 
 those proprietors who held immediately of the crown ; and 
 this distinction is still preserved in the Highlands. The de- 
 signation tiern, corresponding to laird, and rendered by it, is 
 given to no one whose property is not worth two or three 
 hundred per annum, while it is withheld from another 
 whose rental extends to as many thousands ; because the 
 former acknowledges no superior under the king, while the 
 latter does. 
 
 LA'ITY. (Gr. Xaos, people.) The great body of the 
 faithful, as opposed to those who are set apart for the minis- 
 tration of the services and sacraments — the clergy. This 
 distinction is plainly observed in the writers of the thud 
 century- — Origen, Cyprian, and Tertullian ; and is generally 
 supposed to have prevailed from the first foundation of 
 Christianity. The word laity is properly a general name 
 for the people : in the writings of the Fathers piwnxoi, secu- 
 lars, iStuTai, private men, and Xaucoi, laymen, are used in- 
 differently to express this class. 
 
 LAKE. (Lat. Lacus.) In Geography, a collection of 
 water surrounded by land. Lakes are divided into four dis- 
 tinct classes : 1. Those which have no outlet, and receive 
 no running water. 2. those which have an outlet, but re- 
 ceive no superficial running water, and are consequently 
 fed by springs. 3. Those (by far the most numerous class) 
 which both receive and discharge streams of water. 4. 
 Those which receive streams of water, and which have no 
 visible outlet or communication with the sea. The Caspian 
 Sea, which receives the Wolga and several other large 
 rivers, and Lake Aral, which receives the Amoo, belong to 
 this class. It is a remarkable fact, that all lakes of this class 
 are salt. Some lakes present the curious phenomena of 
 disappearing and reappearing periodically, without regard 
 to the rainy season. Lake Chirtunitz in Illyria is of this 
 description. Some of them, as Loch Lomond in Scotland, 
 and Lake Wetter in Sweden, experience violent agita- 
 tions during severe weather. This may be supposed to pro- 
 ceed from an escape of subterraneous gasses, or winds 
 blown into some cavern with which they communicate; 
 though a coincidence of dates leaves ground to suppose that 
 the phenomenon was connected with earthquakes in distant 
 countries. 
 
 Lake. A compound of aluminous earth with the red 
 colouring matter of certain animal and vegetable substances ; 
 thus we have cochineal and lac lakes, madder lake, &c. 
 Sometimes the term lake is indiscriminately applied to all 
 compounds of alumina and colouring matter. 
 
 LALLA'TION. The imperfect pronunciation of the let- 
 ter r, which is made to sound like /; hence also the term 
 lambdacismus. The imperfect pronunciation of the letter r 
 is peculiar to the Chinese. 
 
 LA'MA. (Mother or pastor of souls.) Among the Mon- 
 gols a title given to priests in general ; among the Calmucks 
 to the higher classes of priests only. The Dalai-Lama 
 (i. e.. Great Lama) is honoured as the representative of di- 
 
 637
 
 LAMANTIN. 
 
 vinity, or rather as a real divinity dwelling on the earth, by 
 various tribes of Tartaric descent. This personage resides 
 at Lassa, in Thibet, and pilgrimages arc made to Ins resi- 
 dence by tlie inhabitantaof many distant regions of Tart ary. 
 He is now chiefly dependant, in a ixilitical sense, on tbe Chi- 
 nese empire. When the actual Dalai-Lama dies, his spirit 
 is supposed to seek another body in which to be born again ; 
 and the new Dalai-Lama can only be discovered by a cer- 
 tain favoured class among the priests. The worshippers of 
 the Dalai-Lama also pay peculiar reverence to two other 
 subordinate Lamas (Teeshoo and Taranaut Lama.) They 
 are distinguished by the title of Yettoto Caps: the Red 
 Caps, another sect in Tartary, are under three other Lamas, 
 styled the three S/iamonars. 
 
 Lama, Llama, or Glama. The name of a species of the 
 camel tribe, peculiar to South America. See Auchknia. 
 
 LAM A'NTLV The name given by French naturalists to 
 the manatee, or sea COW. See Manati 9. 
 
 LAMBDOI'DAL SUTURK. The union of the parietal 
 with the occipital bones ; shaped something like the Greek 
 letter A, or lambda. 
 
 LAME'LLA. In Botany, a term applied by some writers 
 to the foliaceous erect scales appended to the corolla of 
 many plants, as in silent. Also used in describing fungi, to 
 denote the gills forming the hymenium of an agaric. 
 
 LAMELLIBRA WCIHATES. J.amcllibranehiata. (Lat. 
 lamella, a thin platr ; hranchia;, g-ills.) An order of Ace- 
 phalous Mollusks, comprehending those which have the 
 gills in the form of large semicircular layers disposed sym- 
 metrically, two on each side. 
 
 LAME'LLICORNS. (Lat. lamella, a plate; cornu, a 
 horn.) The sixth and last section of Pentamerous Coleoptera 
 of the system of Latreille, in which the antennre are inserted 
 into a deep fossula under the lateral margin of the head : they 
 are always short, usually consist of nine or ten joints, and are 
 always terminated in a club, usually composed of the three 
 last, which are lamellar. Sometimes tlabelliform, or dis- 
 posed like the leaves of a book, opening and closing in a 
 similar way ; sometimes concentrically contorted and fitting 
 into each other, the first or inferior then being semi-infundi- 
 buliform and receiving the others, and sometimes arranged 
 perpendicular to the axis, and forming a sort of comb. 
 
 The body is generally ovoid or oval, and thick. The ex- 
 terior side of the two anterior tibia; is dentated ; and the 
 joints of the tarsi, with the exception of those of some 
 males, are entire, and without brush or pellet beneath. 
 
 The anterior extremity of the head most commonly pro- 
 jects, or is dilated in the manner of an epistome. The men- 
 Dim is usually large, covers the labrum, or is incorporated 
 with it, and bears the palpi. The mandibles of several 
 are membranous, a character observed in no other Coleopte- 
 rous insects. The males frequently differ from the females, 
 either by prominences on the thorax or head in the form of 
 horns or tubercles, or by the largeness of their mandibles. 
 
 This family is very numerous ; and with respect to the 
 Bize of the body, and the variety of forms exhibited in the 
 head and thorax, is one of the most beautiful of the order ; 
 and frequently, also, as regards the splendour of the metallic 
 colours which ornament those species feeding on living ve- 
 getables. The other species, however, feeding on decom- 
 posed vegetable matter, arc usually of one black or brown 
 hue. Some of the Coprophagi, however, do not yield even 
 in this respect to the former. They are all furnished with 
 win^s, and their gait is heavy. 
 
 The body of the larva is long, almost semicylindrical, 
 soft, frequently rugose, whitish, and divided into twelve an- 
 nuli, witb six squamous feet: the head is squamous, and 
 armed with stout mandibles. Each side of the body is fur- 
 nished with nine stigmata, or breathing pores. Its posterior 
 extremity is thicker, rounded, and almost always doubled 
 under it; so that the back being arcuated or convex, the 
 animal cannot extend itself in a straight line, crawls badly 
 on a level surface, and falls backwards or on its side every 
 instant. 
 
 Some of them require three or four years to hecome pups : 
 they construct in their place of residence an ovoid shell, or 
 one resembling an elongated ball, composed of earth or the 
 remains of substances they have gnawed, the particles of 
 which are cemented by a glutinous matter produced from 
 their body. Their aliment consists of the dung of various 
 animals, mould, and the roots of vegetables (frequently such 
 ns are necessary to man), of which they sometimes destroy 
 immense quantities, to the great loss of the cultivator of the 
 soil. 
 
 LAMELLIRO'STRALS, Lamellirostres. (Lat. lamella, 
 a tain platr ; rostrum, a beak.) A tribe of .swimming birds, 
 the fourth in tlie system of Cuvier, comprehending those in 
 which the margin of the beaks are furnished with numerous 
 lamella 1 or dental plates, arranged in a regular series, as in 
 the swan, goose, and duck. The birds comprised in this 
 family pass most of their time in the fresh waters. Some 
 tome on shore to graze ; others feed on aquatic plants, in- 
 
 LAMP. 
 
 sects, vermes, or small fish and reptiles, which their long 
 neck enables them to reach or seize witli facility. Some 
 of the species dive in quest of their prey, and can remain a 
 considerable lime under water. All the Laniellirosters of 
 Cuvier were comprised in the great genus Anas of Linnaeus. 
 LAMIA. (Gr. Aauia.) An imaginary being, concern- 
 ii!« which many superstitious notions were prevalent among 
 the Greeks and Romans; sometimes represented as a spe- 
 cies of monstrous animal, sometimes as a spectre or vam- 
 pire. The Lamia; of Pliny are animals, with the face and 
 head of a woman and tail of a serpent, inhabiting the des- 
 erts of Africa. According to mycologists, the first Lamia 
 w as daughter of Neptune, a malevolent goddess, who seizes 
 and devours new-born infants in their cradles: whence 
 Horace's caution to tragic writers against indulging in the 
 description of unnatural horrors : 
 
 Nee prans« Lamise vivum puerum extrahat aWo. 
 
 In the well-known story of Machates and Philemon, 
 (from which (locthe has borrowed his magnificent ballad of 
 the Bride of Corinth), a young man is represented as mar- 
 rying a Lamia, or Empusa, who sucks his blood at night. A 
 similar tale occurs in the Life of Jipollonius of Tyana, by 
 I'hilostratus. The Christian superstition of incubi, and the 
 ( Mental belief in vampires, seem to bear marks of the same 
 origin. 
 
 LAMI'DjE. (Lat. lamia, the name of an imaginary ani- 
 mal in Pliny.) The subdivision or family of l^amina, in 
 which the sides of the thorax are either smooth and round- 
 ed, or tuberculate, rugous, or spiny, but not furnished with 
 movable tubercles or spines. 
 
 LAMI'NjE. (Lat. lamia.) A tribe of Longicorn beetles, 
 distinguished, according to Latreille, by their vertical head ; 
 filiform palpi, whose terminal joint is more or less ovoid, and 
 tapers to a point ; maxilla; with the outer lobe slightly nar- 
 rowed at the end ; antenna; frequently setaceous and sim- 
 ple ; and thorax, exclusive of the lateral spines or tubercles, 
 nearly equal throughout. Some species are apterous, a 
 modification which occurs in no other tribe of Longicoru 
 beetles. 
 
 LA'MINARITES. A term applied by Brogniart to a 
 species of fossil fucies found in the secondary strata of Aix, 
 near La Rochelle. 
 
 LA'MMAS DAY. In the Calendar, the 1st of August. 
 Dr. Johnson supposes this term to be a corruption of Latter- 
 math, which signifies a second mowing of grass. Others 
 derive it from a custom which once prevailed in some parts 
 of England, of bringing a lamb alive on this day into the 
 church at high mass. Others again derive it from a Saxon 
 term signifying loaf-mass, so named as a feast of thanks- 
 giving for the first fruits of the com. 
 
 LAMP. (Gr. Xa^crac.) The general term for the well- 
 known contrivances used in producing artificial light from 
 the combustion of liquid or other inflammable bodies. The 
 peculiar applicability of oil to the production of artificial 
 light, which could not fail to be discovered ut a very early 
 period, rendered the use of lamps universal among the na- 
 tions of antiquity. The Egyptians, the Hebrews, Greeks, and 
 Romans, vied with each other in tlie construction of these 
 instruments ; and the specimens of some that have been 
 transmitted to our times display much taste and elegance of 
 external design. It would seem, however, that the ancients 
 had confined themselves merely to the external embellish- 
 ment of the lamp ; for it is a singular circumstance, that not- 
 w ithstanding the simplicity of the invention, and its obvious 
 capability of improvement, it is only within the last sixty 
 years that any material improvement has been effected in 
 its original construction. To give anything like a complete 
 View of the principles and structure of the numerous lamps 
 of which the present age has witnessed the invention, would 
 be quite impracticable without a multiplicity of illustrative 
 diagrams, which would be foreign to the purpose of this 
 work ; but a brief notice of the principle on which the action 
 of every lamp, both simple and complicated, depends, and 
 of some of the most celebrated improvements in their struc- 
 ture, may not be considered out of place. 
 
 The most simple lamp consists in a vessel of any shape 
 filled with oil or other inflammable liquid, and having n 
 short depression or spout on one side, in which lies a wick 
 composed of any fibrous substance, and capable of imbibing 
 the oil by it" capillary attraction. The oil thus raised and 
 diffused through the wick, when ignited, admits of being 
 heated to such a degree of temperature as is capable of vola 
 tili/.ing the oil, the vapour of which, in a state of combus- 
 tion, constitutes the flame of the lamp. The wick of a lamp 
 
 serves only tor the purpose of raising up the oil by capillary 
 attraction, and thus giving a constant and adequate supply 
 to the flame. It furnishes no part of the light by the com- 
 bustion of its own substance; for the quantity consumed is 
 too small to merit attention, and it is usually coated over 
 with a broad deposit of carbonaceous matter, which cannot 
 buru for want of the access of air, from which it is kept by
 
 LAMPADEPHORIA. 
 
 the flame. To render the air accessible to every part of the 
 flame in order to ensure the most perfect combustion of the 
 oil, is one of the most essential objects in the modern im- 
 provement of lamps ; and hence the texture, materials, and 
 dimensions of the wick are matters of much importance. If, 
 on the one hand, the wick be large, a great deal of carbon 
 vapour remains unbunit in the interior of the flame, and 
 breaks out in the form of smoke, producing a most disagree- 
 able smell ; and if, on the other hand, the wick be too small, 
 though the unconsumed carbon will naturally be less, and 
 the flame consequently clearer than those of the larger wick, 
 it will yield but very' little light, as the light diminishes with 
 the superficies of the flame. The inconvenience of a thick 
 wick had been long observed, and attempts were often made 
 to remove it ; in some instances by substituting two or more 
 small wicks for one large one, and in others by making the 
 wick flat instead of cylindrical. These experiments, though 
 limited in their operation, were no doubt beneficial ; and in 
 houses where economy more than elegance was studied, 
 they procured for the lamp a more extended use than it pre- 
 viously enjoyed. Still, however, the smoke and disagreeable 
 smell arising from the burning of oil in common lamps, and 
 the unsightly appearance of the whole process, had Ion? 
 banished the lamp from the apartments of the wealthy ; and 
 )t was not till the year 1780, when M. Argand invented the 
 well-known lamp which bears his name, that the instrument 
 came into general use. This invention embraces so many 
 improvements upon the common lamp, and has become so 
 general throughout Europe, that it may be justly regarded 
 us one of the greatest discoveries of the age. As a substi- 
 tute even for the best wax candles, it combines the advantage 
 of economy and convenience, with much greater brilliance ; 
 while even as a means of producing heat it is found to be of 
 most essential service in chemical operations. The great 
 principle on which the superiority of this lamp depends is the 
 admission of a quantity of air into the centre of the flame. 
 This Argand accomplished by making the wick of a circular 
 form, instead of a solid cylinder as before ; by which means 
 a current of air rushes through the hollow cylinder while 
 the wick is burning, thus admitting air into the centre of the 
 flame. Improving upon this invention, which was found 
 perfectly to succeed, he added a glass cylinder or chimney, 
 open at bottom, to surround the flame at a short distance ; 
 by which another current of air is made to pass upwards on 
 the exterior part of the flame, and between it and the glass. 
 Thus every part of the thin circular flame is between two 
 currents of air, which supply the combustion with such a 
 quantity of oxygen as to create a heat sufficient to convert 
 into a brilliant flame the smoke which escapes from an or- 
 dinary lamp. 
 
 Such is a brief account of the leading principles of Ar- 
 gand's invention. Various improvements have since been 
 made on the original by the Sinumbra, the French, the Iris 
 lamp (now in general use as a table-lamp), and a variety of 
 others, which it would be superfluous to enumerate; all of 
 which, however, may be regarded as improvements more of 
 detail than principle. Indeed, the great merit of Argand's 
 invention consists in the facility with which it can be in- 
 grafted on lamps of every variety of form and structure, 
 while not all the beauty of design and execution witnessed 
 in the endless diversity of the lamps at present in general 
 use would be sufficient to procure for them any considera 
 ble notice, if they were destitute of the Argand principle. 
 This facility of general application has recently been ex- 
 emplified in an ingenious invention, by which lamps on the 
 Argand principle have been made to burn the common fish 
 oil instead of spermaceti, which had hitherto been indis- 
 pensable. This improvement, which is so desirable in an 
 economical point of view, consists chiefly in an extension of 
 Argand's original principle ; viz., in supplying the flame with 
 a greater quantity of oxygen than had hitherto been effect- 
 ed. This is accomplished by means of apertures in the sides 
 of the lamp, and a cap with a deflector ; but in applying this 
 improvement to lamps on Argand's principle, a larger and 
 coarser kind of wick must be employed, and the tubes with 
 which the burners and the wick are supplied with oil must 
 also be enlarged. Lamps constructed on this principle are 
 designated solar lamps. The best account of lamps is to be 
 found in Peclet, Traite de I' Eclairage, Paris, 1827 ; and in 
 Kruniti's Encyclop., an. " Lampe." See also the Haus 
 Lexicon. 
 
 LAMPADEPHCRIA. (Gr. XaixnaSvpoph, a carrying 
 of torches.) A torch race, which it was customary to ex- 
 hibit at certain sacred festivals at Athens. The performers 
 were three young men, to one of whom, chosen by lot, was 
 given a lighted torch, which he was to carry to the goal un- 
 extinguished ; or if he failed, to deliver it to the second; 
 who, if he failed also, gave it to the third : whence a meta- 
 phor is sometimes derived by ancient writers, to be applied 
 to persons who anxiously wait for the deaths of others. If 
 the runners slackened their pace, they were driven on by 
 the blows of the spectators. This ancient usage is beauli- 
 
 LANCE. 
 
 I fully applied by Lucretius to the succession of human gen- 
 ! erations: 
 
 Et, quasi cursored, vitai lampada tradimt. 
 
 LAMPBLACK. Finely divided charcoal. It is the soot 
 obtained by the imperfect combustion of resin of turpentine ; 
 this is burned in chambers hung with old sacking, upon 
 which the smoke collects, and is from time to time scraped 
 off. It contains about -20 per cent, of peculiar resinous pro- 
 ducts, water, and saline matter. 
 
 LA'MPIC ACID. A term given by Mr. Daniell to the 
 acid produced by the slow combustion of the vapour of al- 
 cohol and etiier in the lamp without flame: he has since 
 ascertained that it is acetic acid modified by the presence of 
 a peculiar hydrocarbon. 
 
 LAMPOO'N. See Satire. 
 
 LAMP, SAFETY. See Safety Lamp. 
 
 LAMPY'RID^E. Glow-worms. (Gr. \apr>vpi<;, a glow- 
 worm.) A family of soft-skinned Serricorn beetles, of the 
 tribe Lampyrinm (which see), characterized by antenna? 
 closely approximated at their base ; head concealed beneath 
 the thorax, or produced in the form of a snout ; eyes of the 
 males large and globular; mouth small. In one division 
 the abdomen of the female is luminous ; and the male, which 
 is destined to be attracted by this luminosity, has his head 
 almost entirely occupied by his largely developed eyes, and 
 it is not produced in the form of a snout. The luminous 
 property of the glow-worm is confined to the two or three 
 terminal segments of the flattened abdomen, which differ in 
 colour from the rest, and are usually yellowish or whitish ; 
 this character is peculiar to the true glow-worms, and an- 
 nounces their phosphorescence. The light diffused by the 
 glow-worm is of a lambent, electric, greenish colour : the in- 
 sect can vary or suspend its luminosity at will. The light- 
 emitting segments preserve their peculiar property for some 
 time after being separated from the rest of the body, and 
 manifest it even in vacuo, or when immersed in gases which 
 are not supporters of combustion. 
 
 In a second division of Lampyrida the females are not 
 luminous, but are provided with wings; the head is exposed, 
 and is mostly produced in the shape of a snout; the thorax 
 is widened posteriorly, with pointed lateral angles. The 
 elytra, in several, expand posteriorly, where they are some- 
 times strongly dilated or rounded, especially in the females. 
 To this group belong the genera Lycus, Uictyoptcra, and 
 Omalisus. 
 
 LAMPY'RIX^E. (Gr. Xaprrvptc, a glow-icorm.) A Lin- 
 naan genus of Coleopterous insects, which constitutes the 
 type of the present tribe of the soft-skinned or Malacoderm- 
 ous Serricorns in the system of Latreille. This tribe is 
 characterized by the enlarged termination of the palpi, or at 
 least of the maxillary palpi; by their soft, straisht, depress- 
 ed, or but slightly convex body ; and by the thorax, some- 
 times semicircular, at others nearly square or trapezoidal, 
 and projecting over the head, which it either wholly or par- 
 tially covers. The mandibles are usually small, arid termi- 
 nate in a slender, arcuated, very acute point, which is gen- 
 erally entire. The penultimate joint of the tarsi is always 
 bilobate, and the terminal claws have neither dentations nor 
 appendages. 
 
 The females of some of the Lampyrine tribe are apterous, 
 or have but very short elytra, and are luminous. All the 
 Lampyrines, when seized, press their feet and antennae 
 against their body, and remain as motionless as if they were 
 dead. See Lampyrid^. 
 
 LA'NATE. (Lat. lana, wool.) In Zoology, when a part 
 is covered with fine, very long, flexible, and rather curling 
 hair, like wool. 
 
 LANCASTER, CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF. 
 The officer before whom, or his deputy, the court of the 
 Duchy-Chamber of Lancaster is held : which is a court 
 having special equitable jurisdiction as to lands holden of 
 the duchy. The office has long been a sinecure, and is one 
 of the most valuable at the disposal of the ministry' of the 
 day ; the salary is £4000 per annum. 
 
 LANCE. (Fr.) A weapon consisting of a long shaft 
 with a sharp point, much used by the nations of antiquity, 
 and also by the modems before the invention of gunpowder. 
 The Macedonian phalanx and the Roman infantry, as well 
 as the most barbarous nations, all considered the lance as 
 one of the most effective weapons; and even at the present 
 day it is still considered of great value, though it is now al- 
 most universally borne by cavalry. Almost all the armies 
 of Europe have now regiments of /<i?(c«-s, so called from the 
 lance being the chief offensive weapon with which they are 
 armed. The lances in use among the European cavalry 
 have a shaft of ash or beech wood, eight, twelve, or in some 
 cases even sixteen feet long, with a steel point eight or ten 
 inches in length, adorned by a small flag, the waving of 
 which is said to frighten the enemy's horses. The ancient 
 lances was a general term foi missile weapons or javelins : 
 the pilum is termed lancea in Lucan : 
 
 C39
 
 LANCEOLATE. 
 
 Cujns torta toinu commisit lancei bellum. (Lib. Tii.) 
 
 For a detailed description of the lances of knights in the 
 middle ages, see .Mem. dc I'Jic. des Inscr., vol. xx. From its 
 being the common knightly weapon, the force of the mount- 
 ed gendarmerie on its first institution in the 15th century 
 was usually numbered by "lances," each "lance" having 
 four or five attendants. The lance has become again a fa- 
 vourite cavalry weapon of late years, owing to the exploits 
 of Napoleon's Polish lancers and the Cossacks. 
 
 LA'NCEOLATE. (Lat. lancea, a lance.) In Zoology, 
 an animal or a part is so called when it is oblong and gradual- 
 ly tapering towards each extremity. 
 
 LAND (Germ.), in its widest acceptation is used to denote 
 the solid matter of which the globe is composed, in contra- 
 distinction to the liquid matter, or water; but in its most re- 
 stricted signification it is confined to arable ground. The 
 latter is the legal meaning of the term ; and in this sense it 
 is used in all original writs, and in all correct and formal 
 pleadings. 
 
 LA'NDAMMAN, in Switzerland, the president of the 
 diet of the Helvetic republic. The highest magistrate in ten 
 of the cantons also bears the title of landamman ; in the 
 others he is designated by various appellations. 
 
 LA'NDAU. The name given to a peculiar kind of carriage, 
 which opens and closes at the top ; so called from Landau 
 in Germany, where they were originally made. 
 
 LA'NDFALL. The first land seen after a voyage is so 
 called. A good landfall is when the land is seen as ex- 
 pected. 
 
 LA'NDGRAVE. A title taken by some German counts 
 in the twelfth century, who wished to distinguish themselves 
 from the inferior counts under their jurisdiction ; and thus 
 assumed the designation of land-graf, or count of the whole 
 country. This was the origin of the landgraves of Thurin- 
 gia, of Lower and Higher Alsace, the only three who were 
 princes of the empire. 
 
 LAND-LOCKED. A term applied to a harbour or piece 
 of water which is so environed by land on all sides as to 
 exclude the prospect of the sea, unless over some interve- 
 ning land. If a ship is at anchor in such a place, she is said 
 to ride land-locked, and is therefore considered to be safe 
 from the violence of winds and tides. 
 
 LA'NDMARK signifies, in a general sense, anything by 
 which the boundary of a property is defined. In ancient 
 times tho correct division of lands was an object of great im- 
 portance ; and various means were adopted to give distinct- 
 ness and permanency to the boundaries of every man's prop- 
 erty. Stones and hillocks were the most usual landmarks. 
 The importance of this subject, among the Israelites particu- 
 larly, may be judged of from the denunciation of Moses : 
 •' Cursed be he that removeth his neighbour's landmark." 
 In naval language, landmark is applied to any conspicuous 
 object which serves as a guide in entering a harbour or 
 avoiding a danger. 
 
 LANDREEVE. A subordinate officer on an extensive 
 estate, who acts as an assistant to the land steward. 
 
 LANDSCAPE. The scenery presented to the eye in the 
 country ; as also, in its more common acceptation, a picture 
 representing such scenery. A landscape in the latter sense 
 may, however, become allegorical and historical, in the 
 meaning applied by artists to those terms. The chief study 
 of the landscape painter is the vegetable world, air, water, 
 rocks, and buildings. To these he may impart an ideal 
 beauty, and thus elevate his art above mere topographical 
 painting ; which may be applied to his work, if he merely 
 copies without refinement what is presented to his eye. 
 
 LANDSCAPE GARDENING. The art of laying out 
 grounds so as to produce the effect of natural landscape. Its 
 principles are the same as those upon which the landscape 
 painter proceeds in composing a picture ; and though it is an 
 art of which, like many others, everybody thinks he is a 
 judge, it requires, to be properly practised, powers of a much 
 higher order than fall to the lot of most men. Mr. Brown, 
 commonly called Capability lirown, was the first who prac- 
 tised the art in this country so as to render himself worthy 
 the name of an artist. To lay down the principles of the 
 art would be quite Impossible in this article; but this general 
 observation contains the sum of them — let selected and 
 beautiful nature be constantly your model, and success must 
 follow. 
 
 LANDSLIP. A portion of land that has slid down in 
 consequence of disturbance by an earthquake, or from being 
 undermined by the action of water. 
 
 LAND SPRINGS. Land springs are sources of water 
 which only come into action after heavy rains ; while con- 
 stant springs, which derive their supplies from a more abun- 
 dant source, (low throughout the year. All springs owe 
 their origin to rains. In the case of land springs, the water, 
 when it sinks through the surface, is speedily interrupted by 
 a retentive stratum, and there accumulating, Boon bursts out 
 in a spring, which ceases to flow a short period after the 
 cause which gave it birth has ceased to operate ; but the 
 640 
 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 water which supplies constant springs sinks deeper into the 
 earth, and accumulates in rocky or gravelly strata, which 
 become saturated with the fluid. 
 
 LAND STEWARD. A person who has the care of a 
 landed estate, and whose duties vary in different countries 
 according to the mode in which landed property is managed. 
 In England, where the landlord very commonly undertakes 
 to keep the buildings and fences of his tenants in repair, the 
 duties of the land steward are constant and multifarious ; 
 while in Scotland, where the buildings and fences are kept 
 in repair by the tenant, the duties of the steward are limited 
 to receiving the rents, and seeing that the covenants of the 
 leases are duly fulfilled. In many parts of the Continent, 
 and particularly in Italy, where the landlord is a partner 
 with his tenant, and shares the produce with him, the du- 
 ties of the land steward, or fattore, as he is there called, 
 are much more onerous than in Britain. It is generally 
 considered, both by British and Continental writers on agri- 
 culture, that one principal cause of the retardation of this 
 art has been the employment of lawyers as land stewards; 
 and the truth of this can hardly be denied, more especially 
 in those countries where the tenant is bound down by his 
 lease to particular modes of cropping, or where there is a 
 discretionary power as to cropping on the part of the steward. 
 The objection to lawyers as stewards is founded on their 
 general habits of acting from precedent rather than from 
 principle ; and hence such a habit, exercised in the case of 
 an art that is calculated to be so rapidly progressive as agri- 
 culture, must materially impede its advancement. At the 
 same time, the convenience to a landed proprietor of having 
 a land steward who possesses legal knowledge is so great 
 as generally to overpower the objections that are made 
 against them by farmers and agricultural writers. 
 
 LA'NDWAITER. An officer of the customs, whose 
 duty it is, upon landing any merchandise, to taste, weigh, 
 measure, or otherwise examine the various articles, &c, and 
 to take an account of the same. 
 
 LA'NDWEHR. (Germ, land-guard.) The militia of 
 Prussia and Austria are so called. See Militia. 
 
 LA'NGREL. A particular kind of shot, formed of bolts, 
 nails, and other pieces of iron, tied together, and forming a 
 sort of cylinder which corresponds with the bore of the can- 
 non from which it is discharged. It is used chiefly to de- 
 stroy the masts and rigging of the enemy's ships. 
 
 LANGUAGE, (Lat. lingua, tongue), has been defined 
 " the expression of our ideas and their various relations by 
 certain articulate sounds, which are used as the signs of 
 those ideas and relations." 
 
 Whether language was originally given to man by his 
 Creator, or is the fruit of human invention, is a subject of 
 dispute, on which philosophy is scarcely capable of arriving 
 at satisfactory conclusions. Among those writers who have 
 maintained the latter thesis, three {Lord Monboddo on the 
 Origin and Progress of Language ; Jidam Smith's Con- 
 siderations on the Formation of languages ; and Stewart's 
 Philosophy of the Human Mind, part 3,) are particularly de- 
 serving of attention. The first of these, in his ingenious 
 speculation on the subject, mentions four ways in which he 
 conceives that ideas could have been communicated before 
 the invention of speech : viz., 1. Inarticulate cries, expressive 
 of sentiments and passions ; 2. Gestures, and the expression 
 of countenance ; 3. Imitative sounds, expressive of audible 
 things ; and, 4. Painting, by which visible sounds are repre- 
 sented. And he appears to consider language to have been 
 produced by gradual development out of the first of these. 
 
 Many, whether satisfied with Lord Monboddo's specula- 
 tions or not, are ready to condemn the supernatural theory 
 as "unphilosophical." But our views on this subject must 
 materially depend on those which we may take of the kin- 
 dred speculations respecting the origin of civilization. If we 
 are led to the conclusion — once commonly adopted, with 
 little inquiry, by philosophical writers — that the progress of 
 man from the lowest state of barbarism to refinement has 
 been gradual in all societies, we shall probably also believe 
 that the formation of language accompanied this develop- 
 ment in its course. But if we are more forcibly impressed 
 with the strength of the historical difficulties which oppose 
 this theory; that all our research only reveals to us the 
 story of one family of civilized men (in the proper sense of 
 that word) succeeding another; that the more barbarous 
 races appear to have lost civilization — to have fallen back 
 from some better condition, instead of being at the lowest or 
 commencing step (a notion strongly entertained by the gifted 
 historian Niebuhr, among many others) ; and that the lan- 
 guages of some of the most savage races (such as several of 
 the American Indians), instead of partaking in their want of 
 refinement in other respects, are remarkable for the number 
 and delicacy of their inflections, we shall probably arrive 
 at the conclusion that the more likely speculation is that 
 which coincides best with the faint indications afforded by 
 the inspired writings, and points out Revelation as the source 
 both of knowledge and of the primary laws of human society.
 
 LANGUAGE. 
 
 Considering the phenomenon of language as it now pre- 
 sents itself, the most interesting philosophical questions to 
 which it gives rise are those which concern the connexion 
 and relative antiquity of existing languages, and their com- 
 parative utility and beauty as modes of communicating ideas. 
 The first lead the mind to consider the history of language ; 
 the latter the principles of its structure. 
 
 The former of these subjects is one of those which may 
 be most emphatically pronounced peculiar to modern re- 
 search. The affinity of the great family of European and 
 Western Asiatic languages, those with which we are the 
 most familiar, was scarcely studied with serious attention 
 before the time of Adelung (whose great work, Mithridates, 
 appeared, we believe, in 1804). The affinities of the Semitic 
 and other oriental tongues had been, perhaps, earlier investi- 
 gated ; but their elucidation remains nevertheless still more 
 imperfect at the present day. On a topic now pursued with 
 great interest, especially by the learned men of Germany and 
 Britain, we must content ourselves with indicating a few- 
 simple rules for the guidance of the student. 
 
 The importance of the coincidence of single words, as a 
 proof of the connexion of languages, is rather under than 
 over estimated in common opinion. The late Dr. Young, 
 whose researches into this question are of such high value, 
 calculated that nothing could be inferred, as to the relation 
 of two languages, from their agreement in one word ; that 
 the odds are only three to two against their casual agree- 
 ment in two ; but that they rise so rapidly that there are 
 nearly 100,000 chances to one against their casual agreement 
 in eight. 
 
 But, again, nothing could be inferred as to the relationship 
 of languages from their agreement in particular words if the 
 nations which spoke them were neighbours, and the words 
 such as the one might easily borrow from the other by mu- 
 tual intercourse. The Latin word and the low German 
 word for wine are the same ; vinum, wyn, pronounced vecn. 
 But the Germans learned the use of the thing from the Ro- 
 mans, and along with it they doubtless borrowed the name. 
 JVo conclusion could therefore be drawn from this example 
 as to the connexion between German and Latin. The Greek 
 name for a lion, lis, is nearly the same with that used in a 
 very different family of languages, the Semitic (Hebrew, 
 laist; Arabic, laith). But the animal itself, although at one 
 time occasionally found in Greece, was probably a wanderer 
 from Asia ; and the fact of its name being common to both 
 tongues proves therefore nothing as to their relationship. 
 
 In examining the connexion of languages by their agree- 
 ment in words, two things are to be considered : the root, 
 and tile inflexions. The root is arrived at by striking oft' the 
 inflective part of the word. Thus the termination us (prop- 
 erly os or o) is the inflective part, in the nominative, of a 
 numerous order of masculine nouns in Latin as well as 
 Greek. The root of "equus" is equ, or ec ; the root of 
 " albus" (white), alb. It is in these roots that we are first 
 to look for the connexion of languages ; and in examining 
 them, it is necessary to acquire a knowledge of one of the 
 most important and most difficult to ascertain among the 
 primary facts relating to languages, the ordinary substitution 
 of letters, especially consonants, in different cognate lan- 
 guages of the same family. With reference to the great 
 class of languages already alluded to. commonly called the 
 '• Indo-European," these substitutions have been only of late 
 classified, and that as yet imperfectly. Thus it has been 
 found that the Greek aspirate is often represented in Latin 
 by s > Hi inra, sez, septan ; that the Greek - is frequently 
 represented in the Teutonic tongues by /, novs, rzarnp, foot, 
 father ; that the Greek and Latin d is often ; in German, 
 dens, digitus, decern — zahn, zehe, zehen. A good list of the 
 most common among these transformations will be found in 
 the Penny Clycloptedia, art. " Language," taken from Potts' 
 Etymologische Forschungen. 
 
 Correspondence in inflections is a still closer sign of rela- 
 tionship. That peculiar class of Greek verbs commonly 
 called in our grammars "verbs in mi," has a corresponding 
 class in the Sanskrit, Zend, and some Sclavonic tongues. 
 
 Greek. Sanskrit. Lithuanian. 
 
 I stand, ioTi7jui. Tisthami. Stowmi. 
 
 Thou standest, Jor^;. Tisthasi. Stowi. 
 
 He stands, icrncri. Tisthati. Stow. 
 
 I give, c*ifiu>ui. Dadami. Dudmi. 
 
 Thou givest, <5«5oj{. Dadasi. Dusi. 
 
 He gives, Itiwat. Dadato. Dusti. 
 
 In other cognate languages this mode of conjugation is 
 either lost or much altered. Here, therefore, is an indica- 
 tion (not, of course, a conclusive one) of a nearer connexion 
 between these than others of the same family ; Celtic and 
 Latin, for instance. 
 
 The connexion between languages being established, the 
 mind is next led to consider their derivation one from an- 
 other. And here historical assistance soon fails us. We 
 say that Spanish and Italian are derived from Latin, be- 
 
 cause we know the fact historically ; but at the earliest 
 period of which we have any authentic account, we find 
 several independent nations using different, but strongly re- 
 sembling varieties of speech, of whose historical connexion 
 we know nothing. We know little, for example, on the 
 question in what consisted the relationship between the 
 Latins and the Greeks ; and nothing whatever as to the con- 
 nexion of either with the Celts or the Sclavonians. And 
 hence it is easy to perceive the absurdity of the fashion, of 
 which we still constantly meet with examples in dictionaries 
 and works of reference, of speaking of words in cognate lan- 
 guages as " derived" from one another ; for example, a Latin 
 word as " derived" from the Greek, an English as " derived" 
 from the German. The Romans undoubtedly, in later 
 ages, borrowed a few words from the richer vocabulary of 
 Greece; e. g., historia, pocma ; and the English have bor- 
 rowed a very few from the Germans. But Greek and Latin, 
 Anglo-Saxon and German, are respectively only varieties, 
 derived alike from some ancient original which our inquiries 
 are unable to reach. 
 
 The distinction between a separate language and a dialect 
 is very arbitrary. We speak of Spanish and Portuguese, 
 Swedish and Danish, as distinct languages ; yet they resem- 
 ble each other quite as nearly as some varieties of French, 
 perhaps of Italian. The name seems appropriated, in ordi- 
 nary usage, to every variety of speech which is in national 
 use for purposes of government and literature. 
 
 The relative antiquity of languages is a subject involved 
 in obscurity, and on which our conclusions are little better 
 than conjectural. The theory that all languages are de- 
 rived from a common original is difficult to be maintained; 
 and yet there is no doubt that the tendency of modern re- 
 search is, by accurate classification, to reduce the number 
 of original tongues from which those in actual use are deriv- 
 ative varieties. 
 
 The following table of languages, divided into classes or 
 groups, is given by Dr. Young, in the art. "Language," in 
 the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
 f Chinese. 
 
 1. Monosyllabic class: { A \™ 
 
 [Tibetan. 
 f Sanskrit. 
 
 Zend (Median). 
 
 Semitic (Arabian, Syriae, 
 I Hebrew, &.c). 
 ! Lycian. 
 i Phrygian. 
 
 2. Indo-European class :{ Greek. 
 
 I Germanic. 
 | Celtic. 
 I Etruscan. 
 
 Latin. 
 I Cantabrian. 
 I Sclavic. 
 
 3. Tartaric class. 
 
 4. African class. 
 
 5. American class. 
 
 This classification, however, is rather geographical than 
 ethnographical, and in some respects apt to mislead. For 
 example, those great families of languages, the Sanskrit, 
 Greek, Latin, and Germanic, are all nearly connected with 
 one another. The Celtic and Sclavonic belong to the same 
 division, while the Semitic languages form a very peculiar 
 group apart, and should be excepted from the Indo-Eu- 
 ropean class. 
 
 Languages have also been classed in the following manner: 
 
 1. Languages composed of monosyllabic roots, without 
 any form of grammar. These have no inflections, and variety 
 of meaning is only shown by the position of words in a sen- 
 tence. To this order belong the languages which Dr. Young 
 terms monosyllabic. 
 
 2. Languages composed of monosyllabic roots with a 
 great abundance of grammatical forms. Of these the great 
 Indo-European family are an example. 
 
 3. Languages whose verbal roots consist, in their present 
 form, of two syllables, and require three consonants to ex- 
 press their fundamental meaning. This division appears to 
 comprehend the Semitic languages only, as far as at present 
 ascertained. 
 
 The comparative perfection of a language, as an instru- 
 ment for the communication of thought, depends mainly on 
 its copiousness. In order to estimate this, it must be borne 
 in mind that the classes of words employed in a language 
 are all reducible into two, which have been termed by some 
 notional and relational. The former express distinct ideas 
 or notions; the latter serve to display the relation, connexion, 
 and order of ideas. Nouns and verbs belong to the first 
 class; prepositions, adverbs, &c, and the signs denoting the 
 inflections of verbs and nouns, to the latter. With respect 
 to the former class, all languages, to be serviceable for the 
 purposes of life, must be sufficiently copious to express all 
 Re 641
 
 LANGUENTE. 
 
 distinct notions. But the comparative richness of a language 
 is mainly shown by the manner in which this is done. As 
 nations advance from barbarism towards civilization, new 
 notions, and new varieties of notions, are constantly requi- 
 ring utterance. In those in which this can easily be done by 
 composition (as in Greek and German), great facilities are 
 afforded for the easy expression of thought, comparatively 
 with those in which it can only be effected by the laborious 
 process of borrowing and adopting words from the vocabu- 
 laries of more advanced nations. 
 
 But it is in the relational words, or modes in which rela- 
 tions of ideas are expressed, that the genius of different lan- 
 guages most varies. The Chinese, in their singular and ob- 
 scure tongue, seem never to have reached beyond the pro- 
 cess of varying the collocation of their unchangeable roots 
 in the sentence, in order to express varieties of meaning. 
 The next process should appear to be that of using auxiliary 
 words. In many languages (our own among the number) 
 relations are almost wholly expressed in this manner. But 
 in others the auxiliary words have, in course of time, coa- 
 lesced with the principal ; so that many relations are ex- 
 pressed by varying the beginning, termination, &c, of the 
 principal word. This, at least, is the most probable origin 
 of those forms termed in grammar inflections, or forms of 
 declension and conjugation, in which Greek, Latin, Sans- 
 krit, German, and their derivative languages are more or 
 less rich ; the Greek, for example, being more copious than 
 the Latin or modern German, in having the dual form and 
 additional tenses (the aorists, and the paulo-post futurum). 
 And some languages (especially among the American In- 
 dians) are so curiously constructed as to carry the power of 
 inflection far beyond this point. A complex idea, which in Eng- 
 lish would require to be expressed by a pronoun, an adverb, 
 and an auxiliary verb (or, perhaps, a second auxiliary verb 
 also, e.g., "I desire," or" I abstain"), together with the prin- 
 cipal verb, would in some American languages be expressed 
 merely by a variety of the form of the principal verb itself. 
 
 As a general rule, the power of inflexion adds greatly to 
 the copiousness of a language ; and although some enthusi- 
 asts, in their admiration of our own, have maintained that the 
 process of conjugating or declining by auxiliary words and 
 particles is more convenient, and affords more variety and 
 harmony than that by changes in the termination of the 
 verb or noun, it is probable that few candid reasoners will 
 hold the same opinion. But there are distinctions in lan- 
 guage, arising out of relations simply imaginary, which may 
 be pronounced unnecessary and cumbersome. Such are the 
 genders, common to almost all languages of the Indo-Eu- 
 ropean family except our own, but for which it would be 
 ditficult to assign either utility or beauty. 
 
 Another and a more substantial disadvantage of language 
 rich in inflections, if the fact be true, is to be found in the 
 greater difficulty which common people are supposed to 
 have in framing their speech grammatically and accurately 
 under this system than the other. The greater the niceties 
 of a language, it has been urged, the greater the difference 
 must inevitably be between the variety spoken and written 
 by educated men and that in use among the uneducated ; 
 and it has been contended that in ancient Italy, for instance, 
 the rustic language was altogether different from the written 
 Latin. But the facts on which this reasoning rests may be 
 pronounced extremely controvertible. There are certainly 
 some grounds far the suspicion that there was an unusual 
 difference between the vulgar and the polished Roman 
 tongue, at least in the later times of the empire ; but if this 
 was always the case, it is singular that Plautus and Terence 
 should nowhere furnish us, by way of heightening the ludi- 
 crous, with instances of ungrammatical locution. The lan- 
 guage of ancient Greece was more refined and inflective than 
 that of Rome ; and there is no appearance that there was a 
 greater diversity between the speech of the peasant and the 
 philosopher and rhetorician than in any modern country. 
 In Attica the very reverse seems to have been the truth, 
 since its most elegant writers and orators appear carefully 
 to have modelled their language on the common dialect of 
 their countrymen. And, finally, the wild Indians of America 
 speak with purity a language often surpassing in variety of 
 inflections those of the most civilized and illustrious nations 
 of the Old World. 
 
 Among tile numerous and valuable works which may as- 
 sist the reader in acquiring a knowledge of the existing 
 varieties of spoken tongues, may be mentioned Voter's 
 IAnguarum. Totius Orbis Index .'llpkabcticus, 1815; Mars- 
 den's Catalogue of Dictionaries, A-c, 1796, and his .1// ,-, { 
 laneous Works (as to Oriental language*) ; .idrlung's Mith- 
 ridates, already cited ; the works of Dr. Prichara ; a very 
 valuable article in the Penny Cyclopedia, of which much 
 use has been made in the above pages. 
 
 LANGUE'NTE. (Ital.) In Music, a direction to the per- 
 former, when prefixed to a composition, denoting that it is to 
 be performed in a languishing or soft manner. 
 
 LA'NIARIES, Dentes Laniarii. (Lat. lanio, / rend.) 
 642 
 
 LAOCOON. 
 
 The long conical and sharp-pointed teeth which are placed 
 next behind the incisors. They are also called dentes canini 
 
 and cuspidati. They never exceed — in number in the 
 
 Ferine Mammalia. 
 
 LA'NIUS. (Lat. lanio.) A Linnsean genus of Passerine 
 birds, forming the typical family of the Dentirostral division 
 of that order in the system of Cuvier. The birds of the fam- 
 ily Laniadw, or shrikes, are characterized by a strong, com 
 pressed, conical beak, more or less hooked, and emarginate 
 near the point, as in the other Dentirostres. The shrikes live 
 In families, and fly irregularly and precipitately, uttering shrill 
 cries ; they build in trees, lay five or six eggs, and take great 
 care of their young. They have the habit of Imitating a 
 part of the songs of such birds as live in their vicinity. The 
 larger and stronger birds are predatory, and attack, slay, and 
 devour smaller birds. 
 
 LA'NSQUENETS, Lansknechts. The German infantry 
 first raised by the Emperor Maximilian to confront that of 
 the Swiss, in the end of the fifteenth century. The name is 
 derived from the German words landcs knecht, countryman 
 or country lad, and not, as is sometimes stated, from lanz, a 
 lance or pike. The lansknechts were very irregularly arm- 
 ed, tile greater part with pikes, but certain companies in 
 every division with muskets. They were raised by volun- 
 tary enlistment, and their leaders passed with little reluc- 
 tance into the service of any power which was willing to 
 pay them. This infantry played a conspicuous part in the 
 wars of Italy, in the first half of the sixteenth century', after 
 which the name fell into disuse. 
 
 LANTA'NIUM. (Gr. Xavdavctv, to conceal.) A metallic 
 substance discovered by Mosander in cerite ; it is associated 
 with, and concealed, as it were, by the oxide of cerium. 
 The oxide of lantanium is of a brick-red colour. 
 
 LANTERN. (Fr. lanterne.) In Architecture, a drum- 
 shaped erection, either square, circular, elliptical, or polyg- 
 onal, on the top of a dome, or on that of an apartment, to 
 give light. See Cupola. 
 
 LA'NTERN, MAGIC. See Magic Lantern. 
 
 LA'NTERN WHEEL. In Mechanics, a kind of pinion, 
 having, instead of leaves, cylindrical teeth or bars, called 
 trundles or spindles, on which the teeth of the main wheel 
 act. The ends of the trundles being fixed in two parallel 
 circular boards or plates, the lantem wheel has the form of 
 a box or lantem, whence the name. 
 
 LA'NYARD. The sea term for certain lashings, whether 
 fixed or temporary. 
 
 LAO'COON. In Fabulous History, the priest of Apollo 
 or Neptune during the Trojan war. While he was engaged 
 in sacrificing a bull to Neptune, two enormous serpents sent 
 by Minerva, in revenge for his having endeavoured to dte- 
 suade the Trojans from admitting the famous wooden horse 
 within their walls, issued from the sea ; and having fasten- 
 ed on his two sons, whom he vainly endeavoured to save, 
 at last attacked the father himself, and crushed him to death 
 in their complicated folds. Virgil has tints described the oc- 
 currence : 
 
 Et primum parca duorum 
 Corpora natorum strpens amplexus uterque 
 Implicit, et miseros niorsu depascilur artus: 
 Post, ipsum, auxiliis subeuntem ac tela terenteni 
 Corripiunt, spirisque ligant ingentibus : et jam 
 Bis medium aniplexi, bis collo squamea circum 
 Terga dati, superan! capile, et cervicibus altis. 
 
 This story has gained immortal celebrity from its forming 
 the subject of one of the most beautifid groups of sculpture 
 in the whole history of ancient art. The composition is 
 pyramidal, and represents Laocoon and his two sons writh- 
 ing and expiring in the convolutions of the serpents. Agony 
 in an intense degree is exhibited in the countenance and con- 
 vulsed body of Laocoon, who is attempting to disengage 
 himself from the serpents ; and the sons are represented as 
 Imploring assistance from their helpless parent. Some con- 
 noisseurs, who have ventured upon a criticism of the group, 
 have discovered that its complexity destroys it effect; but 
 we doubt the value of their criticism, and to counteract it 
 give the opinion of Fuseli (no mean judge), from his lectures 
 on Painting. " In the group of the Laocoon the frigid ec- 
 strwii s of German criticism have discovered pity like a va- 
 pour swimming on the father's eyes ; he is seen to suppress, 
 in the groan for his children, the shriek for himself; his nos- 
 trils are drawn up to express indignation at unworthy suffer- 
 ings, while he is said, at the same time, to implore celestial 
 help. To these are udded tile winged effects of the serpent 
 poison, the writhingsof the body, the spasms of the extremi- 
 ties. To the miraculous organization of such expression, 
 Agesander, the sculptor of the Laocoon, was too wise to lay 
 claim. His figure is a class; it characterizes every beauty 
 of virility verging on age: the prince, the priest, the father, 
 are visible; but, absorbed in the man, seem only to dignify 
 tin victim of one great expression. Though polled by the 
 artist, for us to apply the compass to the face of the Laocoon 
 is to measure the wave fluctuating in the storm : this tern-
 
 LAPIDARY STYLE. 
 
 pestuous front, this contracted nose, the immersion of these 
 eyes, and above all that long-drawn mouth, are, separated 
 and united, seats of convulsion — features of nature struggling 
 within the jaws of death." 
 
 Of this famous group of sculpture Pliny says, that it is 
 " opus omnibus pictures et statuare<e artis preferendum." 
 It was discovered at Home among the ruins of the palace 
 of Titus, at the beginning of the lCth century, and after- 
 wards placed in the Farnese palace, whence it found its way 
 to the Vatican. It was executed by Polydorus, Agesander, 
 Athenodorus, the three celebrated artists of Rhodes. The 
 Penny Cyclopaedia has an excellent article on this subject, 
 to which we beg to refer. 
 
 LAPIDARY STYLE (Lat. lapis, a stone), denotes the 
 style proper for monumental or other inscriptions, and is 
 thence sometimes used to express a terse, expressive style. 
 The rules of this style have been prescribed by Cicero : " Ac- 
 cedat oportet oratio varia, vehemens, plena spiritus. Om- 
 nium sententiarum gravitate, omnium verborum ponderibus 
 est utendum." 
 
 LAPI'LLI. (Lat. lapillus, a little stone.) Small volcanic 
 cinders. 
 
 LA'PIS. (Lat.) In Roman Antiquity, literally a stone ; 
 but used among the Romans to signify a mile, at the end of 
 which lapides or stones were erected with a mark thereon, 
 to show the distance from Rome. Hence the phrases " ter- 
 tius lapis," " centesimus lapis," &c, for 3, 100, &c, miles ; 
 and sometimes even the ordinal number was used, with 
 lapidem understood, as " ad duo decimum," twelve miles dis- 
 tant. The Roman practice of indicating the distance of one 
 place from another by the erection of stones has been bor- 
 rowed by almost all the nations of modern Europe. 
 LA'PIS CAUSTICUS. Caustic potash. 
 LA'PIS INFERNA'LIS. Fused nitrate of silver ; often 
 called lunar caustic. 
 
 LA'PIS LA'ZULI. A blue mineral found in masses or 
 nodules, consisting chiefly of silica and alumina, with about 
 twenty per cent, of soda, and some peculiar combination of 
 sulphur, to which it probably owes its colour ; it is often 
 sprinkled with yellow pyrites. It furnishes the valuable 
 pigment known under the name of ultra marine, and was 
 formerly much employed in ornamental inlaid work. Persia, 
 China, and Russia are its chief sources. 
 
 LA'PITH^E. In Ancient Geography, a people of Thes- 
 saly, chiefly known to us from their fabled contests with 
 the Centaurs. The battle between the Centaurs and the 
 Lapifhx has been described by Hesiod, and by Ovid with 
 great minuteness. (Met., xii.) To the Lapitha? has been 
 attributed the invention of bits and bridles for horses. 
 
 LAPSE (Lat. lapsus, a slip), in Ecclesiastical Law, is 
 the omission of a patron to present a clergyman to a benefice 
 within six months after its being void ; in which case the 
 benefice is said to be void, and the right of presentation is 
 lost to the patron. In England the right of presentation then 
 accrues to the bishop, and to the sovereign by the neglect of 
 these ; and in Scotland it devolves on the presbytery. 
 
 LA'PWING. The name of a native species of the genus 
 Vanellus, dismembered by Bechstein from the Tringa of 
 Linnaeus. (See Vanellus and Tringa.) The lapwing or 
 pee-wit ( Vanellus cristatus, Bechst.) is a constant inhabi- 
 tant of this country ; subsists chiefly on worms and the ani- 
 malcules of the sea-shore, which it frequents in great num- 
 bers. The female makes a simple nest by scraping together 
 a little dry grass, and deposits thereon four eggs, of a dirty 
 olive colour spotted with black. The young birds are cov- 
 ered with a thick down when hatched, and soon begin to run 
 about : at the approach of danger they squat down, and the 
 parent, by a curious instinct, endeavours to attract the atten- 
 tion of the intruder, and draw him away from the spot, by 
 fluttering about with cries of inquietude, or even running 
 along the ground as if lame. In October the lapwings are 
 fat, and in good condition for the table : their eggs are con- 
 sidered a great delicacy. 
 LA'OUEAR. In Architecture. See Lacunar. 
 LARA'RIUM. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, the apart- 
 ment in which the lares or household gods were deposited ; 
 it also frequently contained statues of the proprietor's an- 
 cestors. 
 
 LA'RBOARD. The left-hand side of a ship to a person 
 whose face is turned towards the head. The other side is 
 called the starboard. 
 
 LA'RCENY. (Lat. latrocenium, theft.) In Law, a spe- 
 cies of felony, distinguished, formerly, into simple and mixed : 
 the latter of which was the taking of goods and chattels from 
 the person or from the house, if above the value of twelve- 
 pence. But this distinction has been abolished by the statute 
 which consolidated the laws relative to this class of offences 
 (7 & 8 G. 4, c. 29). Larceny is the felonious and fraudulent 
 taking and carrying away of the goods and chattels of ano- 
 ther. Thefts of things affixed to the freehold, if forming 
 part of what is termed real property, are not larceny at com- 
 mon law ; but many offences of this description have been 
 
 LARVIPARA. 
 
 brought within the character of larceny by enactment. Rob- 
 bery, breaking into and stealing in a dwelling-house, if in the 
 daytime, piracy, &c, are species of mixed larceny. A re- 
 ceiver of stolen goods is indictable either for a substantive 
 felony, or as accessary to the theft or robbery. Many of the 
 offences under this class are still punishable by death ; but 
 in these, and all felonies except murder, sentence of death, 
 instead of being pronounced immediately, may be recorded, 
 to enable the judges to pronounce eventually a discretionary 
 sentence, according to the merits of the case. 
 
 LA'RES. (Lat.) Domestic deities of the Italians, who 
 were probably regarded as the souls of the deceased ances- 
 tors of a family. Their worship, however, was not confined 
 to private houses, as there were lares of the city, the coun- 
 try, roads, &c. See Penates. 
 
 LARGE. (Ital.) In Music, a character representing the 
 greatest measure of musical quantity ; one large containing 
 two longs, one long two breves, one breve two semibreves, 
 and so on in duple proportion. 
 
 LARGHE'TTO. (Ital. dimin. of largo.) In Music, a 
 movement a little quicker than largo. 
 LARGO. (Ital.) In Music. See Allegro. 
 L A'RHLE. A family of swimming birds, having the gull 
 (Larus) as the type. 
 
 LARK. The common name of the native species of the 
 genus Alauda of Linnasus ; of which one, the Alauda arven- 
 sis, is distinguished as the sky-lark or lavrock ; the other, 
 Alauda campestris, Linn., is called the field-lark. As the 
 species of the present genus differ from most other Insessorial 
 birds in resting habitually and sleeping upon the ground, their 
 feet present a singular but simple modification, which at the 
 same time beautifully adapts them to their office of support- 
 ing the superincumbent body on a flat surface : it consists in 
 the extreme elongation in an almost straight line of the claw 
 of the hinder toe, which is, at the same time, proportionally 
 robust ; thus the plane of support is extended at the expense 
 of the prehensile faculty, which the habits of the lark ren- 
 der of little or no value to it. 
 
 The sky-lark is universally admired for the power and 
 melody of its song, and for the beautiful associations inspired 
 by the circumstances under which its notes are most richly 
 poured forth — viz., while soaring aloft to greet the rising sun. 
 It ascends in the air almost perpendicularly, by successive 
 flights, to an elevation at which its song becomes inaudible : 
 its descent is generally oblique. The female builds her nest 
 on the ground, and lays four or five eggs, which are of a 
 grayish brown colour marked with darker spots: she sits 
 about fifteen days, and usually rears two broods in the year. 
 This prolific species is granivorous, and in the winter large 
 flocks congregate together ; they are very fat at this season, 
 and are captured in great numbers for the table. 
 
 L A'RMIER. (Fr.) In Architecture, the same as corona, 
 which see. 
 
 LA'RUS. (Gr. Aapu?, a gull.) A Linnsean genus of 
 aquatic birds belonging to the Longipennate division of Pal- 
 mipedes in the system of Cuvier, and now raised to the rank 
 of a family comprising several subgenera. The Laridm, or 
 gulls, are characterized by their compressed, elongated, point- 
 ed bill, of which the superior mandible is curved downwards 
 near the end, and the inferior forms a salient angle beneath. 
 The nostrils, placed near its middle, or a little more forwards, 
 are long, narrow, and form a complete transverse perfora- 
 tion ; the tail is ample, and sometimes pointed. (Lestris.) 
 The gulls are common and numerous on the sea-coast, and 
 feed on the different animal substances which are left on 
 shore or float down with the ebbing tide. The black-headed 
 gull (Larus rudibundus, Linn.) breeds on the marshy edges 
 of rivers or fens ; the female makes her nest, among the 
 reeds and rushes, of heath or dried grass, and lays three or 
 four eggs, of an olive brown colour spotted and streaked with 
 dusky red. When the young are able to accompany the 
 parents they all resort to the sea-shore. The other species 
 of gulls build for the most part in the sand or the clefts of 
 rocks. 
 
 LA'RVA. (Lat. larva, a mask.) A Metabolian insect in 
 its first stage after exclusion from the egg is so called, be- 
 cause its real form is, as it were, masked : the same term i9 
 also applied to those reptiles which undergo a metamorphosis, 
 as the frog, when at a corresponding period of existence. 
 
 Larva. Spectres of the deceased were so termed by the 
 Romans : mere empty forms or phantoms, as their name in- 
 dicates ; yet endowed with a sort of existence resembling 
 life, since they were to be propitiated by libation and sacri- » 
 rice. The larva of Caligula, according to Suetonius, was 
 often seen in his palace after his decease. The larva? are 
 described by Seneca, and often represented in paintings and 
 on gems under the figure of a skeleton ; sometimes under those 
 of old men, with shorn locks and long beards, carrying an 
 owl on their hands. 
 
 LARVI'PARA. (Lat. larva, and pario, / bring forth.) 
 Those insects are so called which bring forth larvae instead 
 of eggs, the latter being hatched in the oviduct. 
 
 643
 
 LARYNGITIS. 
 
 LARYNGITIS. Inflammation of the larynx. Thesymp- 
 toms are hoarseness, sense of sud'ocal'ion, great anxiety and 
 restlessness, anil spasmodic difficulty of deglutition. The 
 acute term of the disease sometimes terminates fatally in 94 
 hours. Chronic inflammation of the larynx is not an un- 
 common complaint, and often a very troublesome one ; it is 
 frequently met with among dram drinkers: low diet, absti- 
 nence from spirituous liquors, and astringent lozea 
 gargles, generally relieve it : the acute form of the disease 
 requires local and general bleeding, and a blister on the ex- 
 ternal throat. 
 
 LABYNGOTHONY. (Gr. \apvy\, and <pwvn, the voice.) 
 The sound of the voice as heard by applying the stethoscope 
 over the larynx. 
 
 LAEYNGOTOMY. (Gr. Xapvyl, and rqivu, leut.) The 
 operation of making an opening into the larynx. See Bron- 
 chotomy. 
 
 LARYNX. (Gr. Xapvy\.) The upper extremity of the 
 trachea. It is a cartilaginous cavity, the superior opening 
 of which is called the a-lottis. Its various parts, anatomi- 
 cally considered, are extremely complex and intricate, espe- 
 cially in reference to its construction and physiology as the 
 organ of voice. 
 
 LA'SCARS. The name given to the native Indian sailors, 
 many of whom are in the service of our mercantile navy. 
 
 LA'SER. A gum resin greatly esteemed by the ancients, 
 and obtained from the north of Africa. It is described by 
 Dioscoridcs (lib. iii., c. 48) ; and, under the name of silphion, 
 by Theophrastus. Different names were given to different 
 parts of the plant which affords it, the term laser or lasoorn 
 being exclusively applied to the inspissated juice. From the 
 representations of the plant, upon the coins of Cyrene, it ap- 
 pears to have been one of the Umbellifers. According to 
 Dr. Lindley (Flora Medica, p. 52), it was in all probability 
 obtained from Thapsia asclepium. 
 
 LAST. In Commerce, a measure of uncertain quantity, 
 varying in different countries, and with respect to different 
 articles. Generally, however, a last is estimated at 4000 lbs. 
 (See Commercial Dictionary.) 
 
 LATEE'N SAIL. A peculiar sail having a long yard 
 much inclined to the horizon, and used by polacres, kebecs, 
 and other vessels navigated in the Mediterranean. 
 
 LA'TENT HEAT. Heat insensible to the thermometer, 
 upon which the liquid and agriform states of bodies depend, 
 and which becomes sensible during the conversion of va- 
 pours into liquids and of liquids into solids. See He \t. 
 
 LA'TERAL OPERATION. A surgical term applied to 
 one of the methods of cutting for the stone. 
 
 LA'TERA.V A church at Rome, the Pope's see, and the 
 metropolitan of the whole world, dedicated to St. John La- 
 teran. The name is derived from the Roman family of the 
 Laterani, who possessed a palace on this spot, which was 
 seized by Nero, and became from his time an imperial resi- 
 dence. The Lateran palace was given by Constantine ti > the 
 popes (see .Milman's Hist, of Christianity, ii., 361), who con- 
 tinued to inhabit it until their retirement to Avignon, when 
 it was exchanged for the Vatican. The building was then 
 converted into a church. Eleven councils have been held 
 in the Basilica of this name (hence styled Lateran councils 
 in ecclesiastical history)* of which four are considered by 
 tlie Roman Catholics to be general. The last of these (or 
 the 12th General, according to the same computation) is the 
 mast celebrated. It was held in 1215 by Innocent III., and 
 is principally famous as establishing the Roman Catholic 
 doctrine of the Eucharist, using for the first time the term 
 transubstantiation for the change of the elements. This 
 council was convoked on the occasion of the heresy of the 
 Albigenses, and its exposition of the Catholic faith is direct- 
 ed principally against them. It established also some canons 
 for the maintenance of discipline among the clergy, and that 
 (omnia utriusque sexus) which enforces confession and com- 
 munion upon all the faithful at least once a vear. 
 
 LATEMTIOU8. (Lat. later, a brick.)' This term is 
 applied to the reddish sediment which is often deposited by 
 the urine. 
 
 LA'TEX. (Lat.) A term given to a peculiar fluid found 
 In certain vessels that have been discovered by Schultz to 
 be present in plants. It is as yet but little understood, but is 
 described by its discoverer as a peculiar secretion having a 
 rapid vital motion, and containing numerous granules of or- 
 ganizable matter. He supposes it to In- analogous to the 
 blood in cold-blooded animals. What is usually denomi- 
 nated the milk of plants appears to be latex. 
 
 LATH. (Sax. latta.) In Architecture, a thin cleft piece 
 of wood used in slating, tiling, and plastering. There are 
 two sorts of laths, single and double ; the former being barely 
 a quarter of an inch, whilst the latter arc three eighths of 
 an inch thick. Pantile laths are long square pieces of iir <>h 
 which the pantiles hang. 
 
 LATHE. A Saxon territorial division, of which the ety- 
 mology is uncertain. Kent is the only county divided into 
 lathes, each of which contains four or live hundreds. Each 
 644 
 
 LATITUDE. 
 
 was originally under the jurisdiction of a lathereeve, subor- 
 dinate to the sheriff of the county. Lathe is also the name 
 of a well-known instrument or engine used in turning wood, 
 ivorv, or other materials. 
 
 LATH FLOATED AND SET FAIR. In Architecture, 
 three-coat plasterer's work ; in which the first is called 
 pricking up, the second floating, the third or finishing is done 
 with fine .-lull". 
 
 LATH LAID AND SET. In Architecture, two-coated 
 plasterer's work ; except that the first is called laying-, and is 
 executed without scratching, unless with a broom. When 
 used on walls, this sort of work is generally coloured ; when 
 on ceilings, it is white. 
 
 LATH PLASTERED. SET, AND COLOURED. In 
 Architecture, the same as lath laid, set, and coloured. 
 
 LATH PRICKED IT, FLOATED, AND SET FOR 
 PAPER. The same as lath floated and set fair. 
 
 LA TICLAVE. (Lat. latus clavus.) The broad stripe 
 which Roman senators and patricians were privileged to 
 wear on their robe. 
 
 LATI'SSLMUS DORSI. A broad muscle of the back 
 which pulls the os humeri downwards and backwards, and 
 assists in its rotatory motion. 
 
 LA'TITUDE (Lat latitudo, breadth), in Geography, sig- 
 nifies the distance of a place from the equator, expressed in 
 degrees of the earth's circumference; or it is the angle which 
 a line perpendicular to the horizon of any place makes with 
 the plane of the earth's equator. In Astronomy, the term 
 latitude, as applied to a celestial body, has a different signi- 
 fication, and means the distance of the body from the eclip- 
 tic, or plane of the earth's orbit. The term declination is 
 applied to denote the angle corresponding to terrestrial lati- 
 tude : namely, the distance of a star or planet from the plane 
 of the earth's equator. This double signification of the term 
 is extremely unfortunate, as it tends to create a confusion of 
 ideas ; but having been introduced by the early astronomers, 
 and being ingrafted into every existing work on tile science, 
 it is now too late to remedy the evil. 
 
 Latitude and longitude being the co-ordinates by which 
 the positions of places on the terrestrial surface are defined, 
 their determination forms the most important application of 
 astronomy. 
 
 In order to give an idea of the methods of finding the lati- 
 tude of a place, or of a ship at sea, it is necessary to recall 
 some of the elementary' properties of the sphere. Let H H' 
 be the horizon of a spectator placed at 
 C ; C P the direction of the axis of the 
 earth's rotation ; and C Z the direction 
 of the zenith, or perpendicular to the / 
 horizon. Let C E be drawn perpen- « 
 dicular to C P, in the plane determined 
 by the straight lines C P and C Z, or the plane of the merid- 
 ian ; then C E is the intersection of the planes of the equator 
 and meridian ; the semidiameter of the earth being neglected 
 as infinitely small in comparison of the distances of the stars, 
 to which C P, C Z, and C E are supposed to be prolonged. 
 
 Now, by the definition, the angle ECZis the latitude of 
 C ; and it is this angle, therefore, which is to be determined. 
 The observer always knows his zenith by the direction of the 
 plumb-line; but there is no visible mark in the heavens by 
 which he can at all times determine the place of the equator, 
 or tile position of E in the meridian, or even the meridian 
 itself. But the angles E C P and Z C H being each right 
 angles, E C Z is equal to P C H ; that is to say, the latitude 
 of the place is equal to the height of the visible pole. Now 
 the pole is a fixed point in the heavens, and its position in 
 tile northern hemisphere) is indicated nearly by a star, called 
 the pole star, or polaris. which describes a small circle of 
 the sphere within 1° 40' of it. By observing, therefore, the 
 height of the pole star at anyplace, an approximation to the 
 latitude will be obtained within 1° 4C of its true value. But 
 this approximation is very far from being sufficient for any 
 useful purpose. 
 
 The places of the principal stars being given In the existing 
 catalogues, the observed altitude of any one of them at the 
 time it passes the meridian will give the latitude of the place. 
 Let S be a star on the meridian, and S P its polar distance in 
 the catalogue, and let its altitude H' S be observed ; then 
 H' S being known, S Z, the zenith distance, is also known ; 
 and S P being also known, we have SP — S Z = Z P, the 
 complement of the latitude. In like manner, the latitude 
 may be found by observing the meridional altitude of the sun, 
 or moon, or a planet, the declinations of all these bodies at 
 any tunc being known. But, though all the methods are 
 equally good in theory, they are not all equally practicable, 
 and some of them give- a result attended with much greater 
 uncertainty than others. The following are those which are 
 chiefly employed : 
 
 1. By observing the altitude, or, which comes to the same 
 thing, the zenith distance, of a star on the meridian. This 
 is the simplest in practice, requiring only a single observa- 
 tion, and no other correction than for refraction. It is, ac-
 
 LATITUDINARIANS. 
 
 cordingly, generally employed for common geographical pur- 
 poses. When the sun or planets are the bodies observed, 
 corrections must also be applied for the semidiameter of the 
 body and for the parallax. At sea the bodies selected are 
 the sun and moon, the observation of a star or planet being 
 difficult on account of the motion of the vessel. To know 
 when a heavenly body is on the meridian, it is necessary to 
 have a pretty accurate knowledge of the time ; but it may be 
 remarked that near the meridian the altitude varies very 
 slowly, and therefore a small error in respect of the time 
 does not much affect the result. 
 
 2. By the altitudes of the circumpolar stars (those which 
 never go below the horizon of the place) at their upper and 
 lower transits. If the altitude of a star on the meridian is 
 observed both above and below the pole, the sum of the two 
 altitudes is equal evidently to twice the height of the pole, 
 or twice the latitude. The only correction required is for 
 refraction, which is not the same in the two observations. 
 
 3. The latitude may also be found by observing the great- 
 est and least meridian altitudes of the sun in the course of a 
 year. The sum of the altitudes of the sun at the summer 
 and winter solstices is equal to twice the height of the equa- 
 tor, or twice the complement of the latitude ; but this method 
 requiring observations to be made at an interval of six months, 
 is seldom had recourse to excepting in fixed observatories. 
 
 4. All the preceding methods suppose the body observed 
 to be on the meridian ; but this condition, though it renders 
 some calculation unnecessary, is not indispensable. The 
 latitude may be determined by the observed altitude of a 
 body out of the meridian ; and, indeed, with more certainty, 
 because several observations may be made successively, the 
 mean of which will give a surer result than a single merid- 
 ional observation. Let P be the 
 pole, S the place of the star or planet, 
 and S Z its observed zenith distance, 
 or the complement of its observed 
 
 -^.p altitude. In the triangle P S Z, P S, 
 the polar distance of the star, is 
 known ; S Z is given by observation ; and the hour angle 
 Z P S is given, because the time of the observation is sup- 
 posed to be exactly known ; therefore P Z, the co-latitude, 
 may be found by the solution of a spherical triangle. This 
 method, however, can only be successfully applied by ob- 
 serving near the meridian, and some artifices of analysis are 
 required to adapt the trigonometrical formulseto calculation. 
 A method has lately been proposed by Professor Littrow, of 
 Vienna, for determining the latitude by means of observa- 
 tions of the pole star off the meridian, which is found to be 
 of great practical utility. 
 
 5. The last method which we shall notice for finding the 
 latitude is one that has been proposed by Bessel, and con- 
 sists in observing the eastern and western passages of a star 
 through the prime vertical ; that is, the vertical plane at 
 right angles to the meridian. When a transit instrument is 
 adjusted to move in this plane, and consequently has its hor- 
 izontal axis in the direction of the meridian, all the stars 
 which pass the meridian between the zenith and the equa- 
 tor will twice enter the field of the telescope. Now let t be 
 the time of the eastern transit, t' the time of the western 
 transit, 8 the declination of the star, <p the latitude, and P the 
 diurnal arc corresponding to the time £ (t — t') ; then the 
 formula by which the latitude is determined is 
 
 tan. & 
 
 tan. $ = b - 
 
 T cos. P 
 
 The advantages of this method are, that the observations 
 may be made with a portable instrument, which can easily 
 be oriented by means of the circumpolar stars ; a small error 
 in the adjustment will produce no sensible error in the re- 
 sult if the stars observed pass near the zenith ; the observa- 
 tions are altogether independent of errors in the division of 
 the instrument ; and in determining differences of latitude, 
 errors of declination are also eliminated by observing the 
 same stars at all the stations. It is therefore a very conve- 
 nient method for a trigonometrical survey. 
 
 LATITUDINA'RIANS. In Eccl. History, a class of 
 English divines in the reign of Charles II., opposed alike to 
 the high tenets of the ruling party in the church, and the 
 fanaticism which then distinguished so many of the Dis- 
 senters. They were, of course, the objects of much attack ; 
 and one of their number, Fowler, Bishop of Gloucester, ex- 
 plained their principles in his treatise entitled " The prin- 
 ciples and Practice of certain modern Divines of the Church 
 of England, vulgarly called Latitudinarians, truly repre- 
 sented and defended, by way of Dialogue. 1670." Henry 
 More, and the other Platonizing divines of the time, were 
 sometimes comprehended - under this appellation. (See 
 Mosheim, vol. v., p. 412, transl., ed. 1790.) The word has 
 been since very generally used to designate those who hold 
 opinions at variance with the more rigid interpretation of 
 Scripture and church traditions, or merely as a term of party 
 vituperation. 
 
 LAUREATE. 
 
 LA'TROBITE. A mineral found on the coast of Labra- 
 dor, and also in Finland. Jt is translucent, of a pale red 
 colour, and occurs both crystallized and massive. It is a 
 silicate of alumina with lime, potash, and oxide of manga- 
 nese. 
 
 LA'TTEN. (Fr.laiton.) Brass or bronze. Tinned iron 
 is also sometimes known under this name. 
 
 LA'TUS RE'CTUM. In the Conic Sections, the same 
 with parameter. Latus transversum, the same with the 
 transverse axis. See Conic Sections. 
 
 LAU'DANUM. (Supposed to be derived from Lat. laus, 
 praise.) Different preparations of opium have been so 
 termed : the tinctures used formerly to be called liquid 
 laudanum. 
 
 LAUDICOENI (Lat.), among the Romans, were per- 
 sons who (like the modern claqueurs in France, or the puffers 
 in England at auctions) attended the performance of plays 
 and the delivery of orations, in order to raise or to join in 
 the acclamation. The derivation of the word would indi- 
 cate that an entertainment was the chief, if not the only 
 reward, which they obtained for their services. 
 
 LAUDS. (Lat. laudes, praises.) In the Roman Catho- 
 lic Church, the prayers formerly used at daybreak, between 
 those of "matins" and "prime." In later times they have 
 become generally confounded with " matins." 
 
 LAU'MONITE. A variety of zeolite, named in honour 
 of its discoverer, Gillet-Laumont. It crumbles when exposed 
 to air in consequence of loss of water. It is a silicate of 
 alumina and lime with 16 per cent, of water. 
 
 LAUNCH. The putting of a new vessel into the water. 
 When the vessel is to be launched, a frame called cradle is 
 built under her, thus : At about one third of the extreme 
 half breadth are laid, on each side of the keel and parallel 
 to it, long pieces of timber, forming, as it were, two keels 
 under the principal portion of the vessel. On these are 
 placed vertical timbers meeting the ship's bottom, and main- 
 tained from slipping outwards by a strong plank or riband. 
 This apparatus, which is the cradle, rests on each side upon 
 a platform sloping to the water ; these platforms are called 
 t/ie ways, and are greased. The blocks on which the keel 
 was laid being removed with the' shores, the vessel rests on 
 the cradle, which Is kept from sliding down by a small piece 
 or bar of wood fixed to it, lying nearly horizontal, abutting 
 against a place in the ways called the dog shore, which, 
 being struck downwards, falls, and the vessel slides down 
 into the water. When afloat, she is rolled from side to side 
 by the persons on board to disengage the cradle. 
 
 Launch. A wide and flat boat, the largest carried by a , 
 man-of-war. 
 
 L AUR A'CE^E. (Laurus, one of the genera.) A natural 
 order of arborescent Exogens, inhabiting the cooler parts of 
 the tropics and some temperate countries. They are distin- 
 guished from all other incomplete apetalous Exogens, ex- 
 cepting Mherospermacea, by the peculiar dehiscence of the 
 anthers, which open in consequence of the face of the valves 
 rolling back ; and from that order by the ovules being 
 pendulous, not erect. The species are generally tonic and 
 stimulant. Cinnamon and cassia are the produce of some, 
 camphor of others, and the common sweet bay is a frequent 
 instance of the order in the northern form. A few are so 
 aromatic that their seeds have been used as substitutes for 
 nutmegs. 
 
 LAU'RE ATE. (Lat. laureatus.) Literally crowned with 
 laurels ; applied at present to a well-known officer in the 
 royal household. At the Certamina, or gymnastic and other 
 contests celebrated under the Roman emperors, especially 
 at the Quinquatria, or Feast of Minerva, poets also con- 
 tended, and the prize was a crown of oak or olive leaves. 
 But it was from some traditionary belief respecting the 
 coronation of Virgil and Horace with laurel in the Capitol 
 (of which, however, no record is extant) that the dignity of 
 poet laureate was invented in the 14th century, and con- 
 ferred on Petrarch at Rome by the senator or supreme 
 magistrate of the city. It was intended to confer the same 
 honour on Tasso, who, however, died on the night before 
 the proposed celebration. In 1725 and 1776 it was granted 
 to two celebrated improvisatori, the Signor Rufetti and the 
 Signora Morelli, better known by the name of Corilla (.see 
 Improvisatori). In most European countries the sovereign 
 has assumed the privilege of nominating a court poet with 
 various titles. In France and Spain these have never been 
 termed poets laureate ; but the imperial poet, or Poeta Ce- 
 sareo, in Germany, was invested with the laurel. This 
 crown, however, was customarily given at the universities 
 in the middle ages to such persons as took degrees in gram- 
 mar and rhetoric, of which poetry formed a branch ; whence, 
 according to some authors, the term Baccalaurcatus (quod 
 vide) has been derived. In England traces of a stipendiary 
 poet royal are found as early as Henry III., and of a poet 
 laureate by that name under Edward IV. Skelton, under 
 Hen. VII. and VIII., was created poet laureate by the 
 universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and appears to have 
 
 645
 
 LAURINE. 
 
 held the same dignity at court ; but the academical and 
 court honour were distinct until the extinction of the uni- 
 versity custom, of which Henry VIlI.'s reign exhibits the 
 last instance. 
 
 Royal poets laureate are supposed not to have begun to 
 write in English until after the Reformation. The office 
 was made patent by Charles L, and the salary fixed at £100 
 annually, and a tierce of Spanish Canary wine. Under 
 Queen Anne it was placed in the control of the lord-cham- 
 berlain. In the reign of George III. the annual tierce of 
 wine was commuted for an increase of salary, and at the 
 close of the same reign the custom of requiring annual odes 
 from the lord-chamberlain was discontinued. 
 
 LAURINE. A fatty matter of an acrid taste, contained 
 to the amount of about 1 per cent, in the berries of the com- 
 mon laurel. 
 
 LA'VA. The substances which flow in a melted state 
 from a volcano. They vary considerably in texture and 
 composition. See Geology. 
 
 LAVER. (Lat. lavo, to wash ; because washed by the 
 waters of the ocean.) A species of ulva which is eaten as 
 a delicacy. 
 
 LAW, in Latin Lex ; derived from the verb lego, I collect 
 or select. 
 
 Law, collective and particular. — We employ the term 
 " law" to denote a body of rules, or all the rules applicable 
 to a given subject ; e. g., the Roman Law, the Law of 
 Nature. We employ the term " a law" to denote an indi- 
 vidual rule. 
 
 The idea of law, in its strictest sense, comprehends the 
 notion of two parties ; a superior imposing it, and an inferior 
 obeying it. 
 
 Laws, improperly or metaphorically so called. — In com- 
 mon language it is usual to apply the word "law" to desig- 
 nate principles or properties which can only be thus named 
 by analogy. Whenever certain causes invariably or gen- 
 erally produce like effects, this consequence of effect upon 
 cause is popularly termed "a law." Thus we speak of the 
 law of nature with reference to inanimate or irrational sub- 
 jects ; of the law of gravitation, by which bodies are 
 mutually attracted to each other ; of the laws of motion ; of 
 the laws which regulate certain processes in animal and 
 vegetable economy, &c. In this sense, laws have been 
 defined to mean " the necessary relations resulting from the 
 nature of things." The analogy is nobly expounded in a 
 well-known passage of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity, at 
 the end of the first book. 
 
 Law defined. — Law, in its stricter sense, as applied to the 
 voluntary actions of man, comprises the notion of a com- 
 mand issued by a superior imposing an obligation on a 
 subject. 
 
 Laws, Divine and Human. — Laws are divided, according 
 to the superior who imposes them, into divine and human : 
 the law of God, and the law of man. 
 
 Divine Law. — The Author of our being has declared his 
 will to mankind at various times, through the instrumentality 
 of inspired prophets and teachers. There are also certain 
 rules of right and wrong commonly received, which are 
 generally supposed to have their origin in the nature of man, 
 and to subsist independently of God's revealed will. Thus 
 the term " divine" law signifies, 1. Revealed law ; 2. Natural 
 law. 
 
 Revealed Law. — God, as the Lawgiver of the Jewish 
 nation, dictated to Moses a code of laws for that people, 
 comprising both a confirmation of such laws as are com- 
 monly considered natural by specific sanctions, and also 
 various minute ceremonial and social observances,. Thus 
 the Jewish law is commonly said to consist of, 1. The 
 moral law; 2. The ceremonial law; 3. The civil or politi- 
 cal law. 
 
 Law of Christianity. — The second branch of revealed 
 law is that which is declared to us in the New Testament. 
 
 Law of Nature. — The law of nature, however extensive 
 in its philosophical meaning, is much more confined in that 
 sense in which alone it is within the province of jurispru- 
 dence. Regarding it as merely applicable to the relative 
 duties of men in a community, it is sufficient for practical 
 purposes to observe, with <;mtius, that its first principle is 
 the sociability of man ; and, consequently, that the conser- 
 vation of society in its actual state, u hither from the motive 
 of mutual distrust, as Hobbes maintained, or from innate 
 benevolence, as his adversaries contended, is the duty which 
 it imposes on every one. 
 
 Let us suppose, therefore, that in a community such as 
 our own there could occur at once a suspension of all civil 
 positive law, and that, at the same time, the sanctions of 
 God's revealed law could be withdrawn. Men would thus 
 be restored to a state of natural liberty. The natural law is 
 that code of duties which would then take the place of all 
 other legislation. Every act tending to injure our neighbour 
 in person and property, every act in any way tending to dis- 
 turb or impair the frame of society, would then be prohibited 
 640 
 
 LAW. 
 
 by natural law, as it now is prohibited by laws human and 
 divine. Undoubtedly the natural law, in the sense in which 
 it is commonly used, comprehends a far \\ ider range of ob- 
 jects. The duties of personal holiness, the relative duties 
 of the members of a family, the duties of active benevolence ; 
 all these are dictated to us by conscience, as much as absti- 
 nence from positive injustice. But the province of jurispru- 
 dence is too limited to admit of the consideration of these 
 higher parts of morality ; it is with political society only that 
 she is concerned. 
 
 Law of Nations. — The principle of natural law between 
 individuals in a community would thus be the maintenance 
 of the status quo, or actual condition of things, and the en- 
 suring to everyone the continuance of all his pose 
 This, therefore, is the elementary dogma of that only branch 
 of natural law which can be said to exist as a definite rule 
 of conduct, namely, the law of nations. Nations are in a 
 state of natural liberty with reference to other nations. For, 
 since they have no earthly superior to establish rules for 
 them, and since the decrees of Christianity, addressed as 
 they are directly to individuals, have been generally dis- 
 carded in the practice of collective bodies, the only maxims 
 which govern their intercourse are certain conventional 
 arrangements, the object of which is the maintenance of the 
 existing society and intercourse between the subjects of dis- 
 tinct sovereign states. All the rules of national law have 
 this for their ultimate end. The natural law of men, to use 
 the phrase of Hobbes, teaches the absolute duties subsisting 
 between men and men ; the natural law of nations, those 
 subsisting between men in societies : or (in a compendious 
 definition), national law is the law of nature applied to in- 
 dependent states as if they were individuals. 
 
 The law of nations, according to the comprehensive ar- 
 rangements of Mackintosh, comprises " the principles of 
 national independence, the intercourse of nations in peace, 
 the privileges of ambassadors and inferior ministers, the 
 commerce of private subjects, the grounds of just war, the 
 mutual duties of belligerent and neutral powers, the limits 
 of lawful hostility, the rights of conquest, the faith to be 
 observed in warfare, the force of an armistice, of safe con- 
 ducts and of passports, the nature and obligation of alliance*, 
 the means of negotiation, the authority and interpretation 
 of treaties of peace." 
 
 But the law of nations, in its practical sense, widely dif- 
 fers from this extensive and philosophical compendium of 
 international duties. Many of the maxims which relate to 
 the subjects here enumerated belong rather to the higher 
 province of morality than to that of jurisprudence. The 
 only punishment of which the sanction can be applied in 
 this species of law is the hostility of other states towards 
 that which violates it Whoever, therefore, is powerful 
 enough, whether from his own strength or from position and 
 alliances, to defy such punishment, is, in a certain sense, 
 above the law. Hence, although the law of nations, con- 
 sidered as a branch of that of nature, would lay down abso- 
 lute rules of conduct in the highest as well as the lowest 
 matters of policy within its reach, it may safely be said that 
 the law of nations as a body of recognised right extends only 
 to a portion, and that the least important, of these matters. 
 The only maxims which can be said to subsist as laws are 
 those which are never or rarely violated by European states, 
 because the inconvenience of their general neglect would 
 overbalance the particular inconvenience of adhering to 
 them in a given instance. Thus all will acknowledge that 
 there is a wide difference, in point of preciseness ;ind obliga- 
 tion, between the principles which forbid unjust B| 
 or severity towards the conquered, and those which prescribe 
 the privileges of ambassadors and the protection of |>eaceful 
 aliens. 
 
 The subjects to which national law is most strictly con- 
 fined are customary rules respected by the mutual consent 
 of nations, rarely infringed by the voluntary act of a sover- 
 eign power, and of which the infringement is considered to 
 require satisfaction and reparation. 
 
 It is to be observed, that although several of the maxims 
 of national law (such, for example, as the sanctity of the 
 persons of ambassadors) are usually held binding in trans- 
 actions with all nations of the globe, yet the great bulk of 
 its rules are only recognised and observed by the Christian 
 states of Europe and America in their dealings with each 
 other. 
 
 National law (from its defective sanction, and want of a 
 sovereign legislator as to its details) may, perhaps, be more 
 properly termed the custom than the law of nations. 
 
 The reduction of the law of nations to a system was first 
 made by Grotius, in a work which, as Sir J. Mackintosh 
 has well observed, though we now, indeed, justly deem II 
 imperfect, is perhaps the most complete that the world has 
 yet owed, at w> early a stage in the progress of BO] 
 to the genius and learning of one man. To him succeeded 
 Puftendorf ; who, avoiding the inconvenient and unscientific 
 method of Grotius, has, to use the words of the statesman
 
 LAW. 
 
 already quoted, without the genius of his master, and with 
 very inferior learning, yet treated the subject with sound 
 sense, with clear method, with extensive and accurate 
 knowledge, and with a copiousness of detail sometimes in- 
 deed tedious, but always instructive and satisfactory. But, 
 in addition to the works of these illustrious authors, the rules 
 of national law are to be found, first, in the treatises of 
 several other authors, who are usually regarded as authori- 
 ties, of whom Bynkerschoek (Opera Omnia, fol., Lug. Bat., 
 1767 ; Engl, trans., fol., 1749), Vattel, Wicquefort, Ruther- 
 forth (Institutes, 1779), Von Martens, and others, may be 
 cited : secondly, in the treaties which have been at different 
 times concluded between European states, especially those 
 of Westphalia, 1048; Utrecht, 1713; Aix-la-Chapelle, 1748; 
 Paris, 1763 ; and Vienna, 1814. A pretty complete summary 
 of the bibliography of this subject will be found in the intro- 
 ductory chapter of Mr. Manning's work on the Law of Na- 
 tions (1839). (See also Dr. Wheaton on International Law, 
 2 vols. 8vo., Lond., 1836.) 
 
 The language of conventions and treaties has frequently 
 given occasion to disputes. Subsequently to the revival of 
 letters, and until the peace of Nimeguen (1679), the state 
 language ordinarily used was the Latin ; but since that 
 period it has chiefly given way to the French, which is now 
 commonly used between nations employing different lan- 
 guages in their public acts. 
 
 Law, Positive or Municipal. — This is the term usually 
 employed to distinguish law, in its ordinary sense (the ex- 
 pression of the will of the supreme power in a state), from 
 all the other species of law (improperly so called) with 
 which we have hitherto been occupied. It is called positive 
 law, because established in the form of direct and definite 
 injunctions ; municipal, from the Latin municipium, a town 
 possessed of privileges and local laws. 
 
 Positive law is " a rule of civil conduct prescribed by the 
 supreme power in a state." Blackstone adds, "command- 
 ing what is right, and prohibiting what is wrong." But as 
 it is clear that the right commanded and the wrong prohibited 
 acquire the character of right and wrong only from being 
 so commanded and prohibited, the latter half of the defini- 
 tion is evidently comprehended in the first. A regulation or 
 body of regulations, usually adhered to by men in their 
 dealings with each other, but not commanded by the civil 
 power nor enforced by lawful punishment, is properly called 
 a custom ; but when such regulations, whether set by men 
 to each other on a footing of equality, or by subordinate 
 bodies within the state to individuals, can be enforced by 
 lawful punishment, the sovereign power allowing such 
 punishment, the sovereign power thereby adopts the regu- 
 lations, and they become laws in the strictest sense of the 
 word. 
 
 A law is also defined " a command of a political superior 
 obliging the subject to a particular course of conduct." This 
 definition comprehends most of the civil institutions with 
 which jurisprudence is concerned, but it appears to exclude 
 some which are nevertheless within the province of that 
 science. For example, 
 
 1. Many laws are enacted to explain former laws, and 
 also to repeal former laws. Neither of these can be said, in 
 strictness, to answer the definition of law which describes it 
 as a command, unless we consider them as re-enacting for- 
 mer commands. 2. The Roman jurists applied the term 
 " laws of imperfect obligation" to certain enactments of their 
 law prescribing particular conduct, but without any penalty 
 being expressed in the event of their violation. These were 
 not commands, not being enforced, and could not be said to 
 oblige the subject, who was at liberty to escape the obliga- 
 tion. Our laws recognise no such rules as these. If a statute 
 enjoins or prohibits an action without adding any express 
 penalty, the courts of justice presume that a violation of the 
 statute is punishable. Law, as the subject matter of juris- 
 prudence, is that which obliges the subject to a particular 
 course of conduct by general rules of action. This ex- 
 cludes — 
 
 1. Laws made to permit or restrain the acts of specified 
 individuals. Such were called by the Romans privilegia, 
 or, under the emperors, private rescripts ; in our law, private 
 acts of parliament. The sovereign body in the state, having 
 the power to repeal and modify its own enactments, can by 
 an expression of its will exempt particular persons from its 
 own injunctions, or can impose new duties on particular per- 
 sons. Such decrees have all the force of law, but they do 
 not form a part of the general law of the country. 
 
 2. Laws made to suit a particular emergency, occasional 
 or particular commands, which are distinguished from gen- 
 eral laws by their shorter duration. To exemplify this dif- 
 ference, it has been said that, should a sovereign command 
 all his subjects to wear black as their ordinary dress, such a 
 command would be a law ; but should he order a general 
 mourning for a stated time, such an order would not have 
 sufficient permanence to entitle it to that appellation. 
 
 Every command given by a political superior is a law in 
 
 point of force ; but it is necessary to establish some distinc- 
 tion between occasional and general commands, as other- 
 wise every direction of a public officer, every incidenta! 
 command of a military superior, must be considered as a 
 law. An act to suspend the collection of a duty for a given 
 time ; an order in council to admit bonded goods, or to issue 
 any temporary regulations respecting trade and commerce ; 
 royal proclamations ; all these are familiar instances of the 
 species of occasional or particular commands. 
 
 Municipal law is commonly divided into two branches ; 
 that which concerns the public duties of individuals with 
 reference to the state, and that which concerns the private 
 relations of individuals towards each other. The division 
 between these branches is not in all systems the same. Un- 
 der the old Germanic institutions, for example, most crimes 
 were considered as civil injuries only. 
 
 Laws, strictly so called, and forming the body of public 
 right in each separate state, are to be found either in codes 
 sanctioned by the authority of the state, or in decrees issued 
 and made public by such authority, or, finally, in certain 
 unwritten customs, to which that authority, by sanctioning 
 them, has given the force of law. 
 
 The code of law, under all Mohammedan governments, is 
 to be found wholly or in part in the Koran, which to Mo- 
 hammedans bears the character both of tevealed and civil 
 law. Those of the Hindoos, and many other nations, have 
 likewise the authority of an imaginary religious sanction. 
 
 In Western Europe, the laws in force in most of its coun- 
 tries, although modified and republished by their several le- 
 gislatures, are in great measure founded on what is termed 
 the Roman law. This body of law is principally declared 
 in the Pandects, Code, and Institutes of the Emperor Jus- 
 tinian ; but these contain only a digest of a small portion of 
 the laws which prevailed in the ancient Roman empire. 
 
 The Roman Law. — " Inasmuch," to use the words of our 
 own learned judge Lord Holt, " as the laws of all nations 
 are doubtless raised out of the civil law, as all governments 
 are sprung from the ruins of the Roman empire, it must be 
 owned that the principles of our law are borrowed from the 
 civil law, therefore grounded upon the same reason in many 
 things." The manner in which the Roman law has been 
 introduced into the jurisprudence of modern Europe may be 
 said to have been twofold : first, through the prevalence of 
 Roman usages, derived from the times of the empire, among 
 the population of various countries, especially that part of it 
 which was collected in towns ; secondly, through the efforts 
 of the ecclesiastics, who learned the civil law from the 
 Codex of Theodosius and from the works of Justinian, and 
 introduced it, as far as their authority extended, into such 
 branches of justice as they were permitted to administer, 
 and especially into their canon law, which the various prin- 
 ces of Europe permitted to be binding, to a different extent 
 in different countries, upon their lay as well as clerical sub- 
 jects. Thus the Roman law is, in one sense, the oldest and 
 fundamental part of public right in many countries; in an 
 other sense, it is a comparatively recent importation, altering 
 the character of their respective legislations. The Roman 
 law comprises what are termed the Institutes, Pandects, 
 Code, and Novella:. (See these terms.) These have been 
 collected and separately published under the title of Corpus 
 Juris Civilis ; the best editions being those of Amsterdam 
 (8vo, 1664) for the text, and of Gothofred (folio, Paris, 1628) 
 for the text and notes. The most elaborate modern work 
 on the history of the Roman law is that of Savigny. 
 
 It would be impossible, within our limits, to give the read- 
 er any useful bibliographical notice on a subject which in 
 foreign countries has necessarily received such abundant at- 
 tention and illustration ; and English treatise writers on the 
 civil law are few, and of no great value, that law having 
 only existed among ourselves, as we have seen, in certain 
 limited departments. 
 
 Civil Law in England. — In England, while in the way 
 of ancient custom there are fewer vestiges of the civil law 
 than in any other of the provinces of ancient Rome, yet in 
 the way of ecclesiastical jurisdiction it has been wider 
 spread and continued longer in force than almost anywhere 
 else. 
 
 Although Britain was a highly civilized province, possess- 
 ing 140 cities and towns in the time of the Romans, yet the 
 numbers and violence of her invaders, especially the Sax- 
 ons and the Danes, appear to have extinguished almost ev- 
 ery relic of her provincial customs and jurisprudence. It is 
 chiefly, therefore, to the clergy that we are to look for the 
 prevalence of the civil law in England, and it has been in- 
 troduced by them in several ways. 
 
 1. At the Norman invasion a considerable accession to 
 the numbers and influence of the spiritual body in England 
 took place. A century afterwards the discovery of the 
 Pandects rendered the study of jurisprudence familiar chiefly 
 among that body, who monopolized most of the learning and 
 intelligence of the age. They introduced it into England; 
 and, as the rude and simple justice of the Saxons was inad- 
 
 647
 
 LAW. 
 
 equate to meet the wants of the people, most of the early 
 lawyers, who were themselves chiefly ecclesiastics, sought 
 in the pages of their favourite works for principles to supply 
 the defects as they arose. Hence, in the works of Bracton, 
 Britton, and Fleta (written expressly on the common law 
 of England ; that is, the customary law of the Saxons modi- 
 fied by extensive introduction of Norman usages), we And 
 constant reference, not only in spirit, but in words, to the 
 civil. The time during which the study of this latter was 
 most in vogue among English lawyers appears to have been 
 between the reigns of Stephen and Edward III. During the 
 greater part of that period a constant struggle was carried 
 on between the ecclesiastical lawyers, supported in many 
 cases by the crown, and the popular party in favour of the 
 old customary right, which was defended by the temporal 
 nobility. The final victory of the common law, and its es- 
 tablishment as the rule of the lnnd, except in particular cases, 
 may be dated from the reign of Edward I. 
 
 2. The jurisdiction of the lord-chancellor of England is a 
 subject considered elsewhere. (See Chancery.) It is suf- 
 ficient here to observe that, as most of the chancellors un- 
 der the Plantagenet kings were ecclesiastics, and as the mat- 
 ters intrusted to their decision were such as the rules of the 
 common law did not apply to, they generally searched for 
 precedents in that of Rome, which has hence been largely 
 imported into one great branch of modern English law, 
 namely, Equity. 
 
 3. In some particular matters, the rules of the civil law 
 have always been allowed, by custom, to prevail in England. 
 These are, such as were taken cognizance of by the courts 
 of honour and chivalry, now fallen into disuse ; in the High 
 Court of Admiralty (see Admiralty) ; and in the courts of 
 the two Universities, which originally were ecclesiastical 
 bodies. 
 
 4. The chief influence of the civil law in England has 
 been through the canon law, which was founded upon it. 
 
 Law, Canon. — The rules which were framed by the 
 Christian Church for its own spiritual polity may be suppo- 
 sed to have had their origin in the very earliest periods of 
 Christianity itself; but all the authority and force which 
 they possessed could arise only from the mutual consent of 
 the faithful to be bound by them, until the establishment of 
 Christianity as a state religion entirely altered the character 
 of its spiritual constitution. The temporal jurisdiction, which 
 was then too liberally conceded to the bishops, together with 
 the legal force given by several emperors, Justinian in par- 
 ticular, to the canons of councils, gradually called into ex- 
 ; istence a new and independent body of legislation. 
 ' When the Western Empire had been overthrown, the 
 authority of the popes as temporal governors was by de- 
 grees confirmed in the city of Rome and the adjacent coun- 
 try. At the same time, the power of the ecclesiastical body 
 was increased and extended in other countries ; and the rev- 
 erence attached to their authority gave to the spiritual cen- 
 sures with which they visited particular offences a greater 
 force than to the sanctions of the national law. Thus, be- 
 sides matters of church government, which were at first the 
 particular subject of the pontifical law, it comprehended 
 within its purview numerous and important branches of the 
 civil law of persons and property. 
 
 About the year 1150, the various edicts then in force of the 
 several popes, together with the canons of councils, and the 
 authoritative declarations of fathers and doctors of the church, 
 were collected together by the monk Gratian, and reduced 
 into a volume called the Decretum, and considered as the 
 earliest authority in canon law. 
 
 In the next century, Pope Gregory IX. published five 
 books of Decretals, collected from the Decretal Epistles of 
 the Pope ; to which Boniface Vm. added a sixth book, about 
 the end of the same century. To these were added, at sub- 
 sequent periods, the Clementine Constitutions, a seventh 
 Book of Decretals, and a Book of Institutes. The whole of 
 these authorities were collated and published by Gregory 
 XIII. in 1580, under the title of Corpus Juris Canonici. 
 
 In matters of evidence, and as far as practicable in the 
 forms of proceeding, the compilers of the canon law founded 
 their system upon that of Rome, with which they were best 
 acquainted. In all such matters of civil jurisdiction as their 
 legislation embraced, they likewise assumed it as the basis 
 of their structure. By the practice of all ecclesiastical courts, 
 the civil law is allowed to come in aid of, and to supply the 
 canon law, in all such cases as are there omitted. The rob 
 jects of the canon law were, 1. The hierarchy and govern- 
 ment of the church ; 2. All things relating to pious uses; 3. 
 The wills of defuncts, the guardianship of orphans, and mat- 
 ters of marriage and divorce. But it was by no means per- 
 manently received, in most European countries, to its full 
 extent. Its jurisdiction only subsisted by the toleration of 
 princes, and therefore varied, according as the superstition 
 or piety of these sovereigns, or their jealousy of ecclesi.isti 
 cal usurpation, alternately predominated. But, upon the 
 whole, its authority became so deeply rooted, that even in 
 648 
 
 countries which have rejected in later times the authority 
 of the pope, its rules are still referred to, not merely in mat- 
 ters relating to church benefices, but also in some cases of 
 purely civil jurisdiction. 
 
 Nevertheless, although in early times its authority was 
 asserted by the popes on the ground of their temporal su- 
 periority over all earthly sovereigns, its force in every coun- 
 try must now be said to depend upon the will of the state, 
 which gives the force of law to its provisions. 
 
 It is supposed that the decrees and canons of tile Church 
 of Rome were adopted in this country so early as A.D. 605, 
 shortly after the introduction of Christianity among the Sax- 
 ons ; but they were not fully recognised by the state until 
 after the Norman conquest. The bishops, who had in Saxon 
 times sat with the sheriffs and landed proprietors in the 
 county courts, then withdrew from participation with the 
 execution in civil government. From that period the power 
 of the bishops made rapid strides, insomuch that they have 
 succeeded in retaining many branches of jurisdiction of 
 which in other countries the temporal power has deprived 
 them. In addition to the general canon law, we have in 
 England a particular provincial law — the constitutions of 
 the papal legates and councils of this country in 1237 and 
 1269 ; and a farther body of constitutions, framed in provin- 
 cial synods under the authority of successive archbishops of 
 Canterbury', from Stephen Langton in 1222, to Archbishop 
 Chichele in 1414, and adopted subsequently by the province 
 of York. These constitutions have been illustrated by the 
 commentaries of distinguished ecclesiastics, and principally 
 those of Lyndwood, who flourished in the reigns of Henry 
 V. and VI. The canons of the Protestant Church passed in 
 the Convocation of A.D. 1603, although ratified by King 
 James I. for himself and his successors, yet do not (as Lord 
 Mansfield finally decided) bind the laity, except so far as 
 they declare the older provisions of the law. The most 
 standard work on English Ecclesiastical Law is Gibson's 
 Codex Juris Anglicani. The best guides for the student 
 are the treatise of Dr. Burn, and the recent one of Mr. Rogers 
 (1840). 
 
 Law of England, Common Law. — This expression is used 
 in two different senses, according to the subject under con- 
 sideration. We speak of the common law in contradistinc- 
 tion to the civil law or to equity, meaning a certain portion 
 of our laws relating to a definite subject .matter, and admin- 
 istered in courts following particular rules of evidence and 
 modes of procedure. We also, by the common law, some- 
 times mean the unwritten or ancient customary law : in this 
 sense it is opposed to the statute law, which is of positive 
 enactment. 
 
 The constitution and laws of our Anglo-Saxon ancestors 
 have been the subject of innumerable theories and contra- 
 dictory systems since the ingenuity of modern times has 
 been applied to their investigation ; but all the efforts of the 
 learned have gone no farther than to establish the existence 
 of a few principles and customs, common, for the most part, 
 to the Germanic tribes in general. The leaders of the Sax- 
 ons emulated each other in assuming the kingly dignity in 
 every district of the island, and endeavoured, as far as the 
 independent spirit of their followers would allow, to adopt 
 the imperial style and legislative powers which the British 
 kings had derived from the provincial tyrants of the empire, 
 and these from the Cajsars. The vanquished population lost 
 its language and rights, and became bond to the invaders. 
 These divided the land among them as partitioners equal in 
 rights, on the system called allodial, or granted benefices to 
 their dependants ; and hence arose the principles of feudali- 
 ty. But for centuries England was one battle-field between 
 the several clans of Saxons who had usurped her dominion : 
 Mercia, Wessex, and Northumberland were divided in law 
 and custom scarce less than in government ; and when the 
 island had at last fallen under the dominion of a prevailing 
 Saxon dynasty, the invasion of the Danes again mixed and 
 adulterated her blood and her institutions. Edward the 
 Confessor reduced the customs of the country into some- 
 thing resembling a system of law ; and, although his enact- 
 ments are lost, it is to his reign that we must look for the 
 most authentic form of Saxon polity. The king was guided 
 and controlled in his deliberations by the witan, or chief 
 men, assembled in the gemote, or meeting ; but their relative 
 power and that of the sovereign varied according to the 
 strength or weakness of the latter. The body of landhold- 
 ers held their lands by an independent tenure, which cus- 
 tom, rather than law, hud rendered hereditary ; but there 
 were many who held benefices or enjoyed land under per- 
 sonal grants from the king, or from the great earls, who had 
 succeeded the aldermen of the early Saxon times, or from 
 the thanes or inferior nobility. Great part of the land was 
 cultivated in common by the people of hamlets and tythings. 
 Justice was administered in the county courts, where the 
 good men or land-owners assembled, and the bishop and 
 sherilT presided. Questions of property were decided by 
 ordeal, or by a tribunal of sworn witnesses. In criminal as
 
 LAW. 
 
 
 well as civil cases the defendant sometimes freed himself 
 by the oath of compurgators, or wager of law, as it was 
 called when adopted by the Normans. The inhabitants of 
 every district were mutual guarantees by the custom of 
 frankpledge, which was founded on two principles : the one, 
 the liability of the lord or superior for the appearance of his 
 vassals ; the other, the collective responsibility of the tything, 
 or hundred, for all its individual members ; which was not 
 prevalent in all England, and entirely unknown in the north- 
 ern shires. 
 
 By the Norman conquest, and the division of the better 
 portion of England between Norman proprietors holding in 
 chief of the crown, the feudal system of law, as regarded 
 land and its incidents, was early introduced into the country. 
 Other portions of Norman jurisprudence were imported at a 
 later period through the medium of the king's courts ; which, 
 being at first confined in jurisdiction to the domains of the 
 crown, gradually supplanted the old Saxon courts, although 
 these long continued to be governed by their national law. 
 
 The three great institutions in which English law diners 
 from that of other countries — the parliament ; the system of 
 tenures and their incidents, on which the law of real prop 
 erty is founded ; and the trial by jury — may perhaps be said 
 to have been founded on Norman jurisprudence, but to have 
 become prevalent, through their analog}-, to Saxon institu- 
 tions. See Parliament. 
 
 The first consequence of the invasion of the Normans 
 was, that different modes of trial were prevalent, according 
 to the nation to which the contending parties belonged. 
 Compurgation, or " wager of law," was the common mode 
 of decision between Englishmen. In criminal cases, it was 
 usually by the oath of eleven compurgators chosen out of 
 an array of fourteen. In civil suits, the amount of the com- 
 purgation required seems to have been regulated by the 
 value of the property claimed. To this peculiarly English 
 mode of trial was added the wager of battle, which is first 
 named in the lawsof the Conqueror, but which either French, 
 or English and French, might use. Inquest of witnesses was 
 a Norman mode of trial in civil cases, by which witnesses 
 were summoned from the neighbourhood in which the 
 quarrel arose, to declare on their oath the truth concerning 
 the matter in question. Finally, the ancient proof of ordeal 
 subsisted in criminal cases. 
 
 This diversity in the modes of trial was accompanied by 
 a diversity of judicature. The ancient comity courts receiv- 
 ed one blow by the withdrawal of the bishops, who ceased 
 to preside in them, becoming chiefly foreigners, and who 
 gradually established, as before shown, a separate jurisdic- 
 tion of their own. A still more important wound, in its 
 consequences, was inflicted by the increasing power and in- 
 fluence of the king's courts, at first only confined to causes 
 arising within the royal demesne, in which the Norman 
 law and modes of procedure were adopted, and in which 
 the machine of our own common law was gradually elabo- 
 rated by judicial ingenuity during successive centuries. 
 
 Henry the Second is commonly regarded as the founder 
 of the common law. His principal contribution towards it 
 consisted in his ordinance of the grand assize ; justices in 
 eyre, or circuit justices of the king's courts, being appointed 
 to try causes by inquest of twenty-four witnesses, at the option 
 of the tenant or demandant, if either party preferred to pur- 
 chase tills mode of trial instead of the ordinary trial by battle. 
 Shortly after his reign, the Fourth Council of Lateran. by 
 abolishing the ordeal (A.D. 1215), gave a new impulse to the 
 development of the jury system. Criminal cases were now 
 tried by a jury of witnesses de vicineto ; and the process by 
 which these witnesses, both in civil and criminal cases, be- 
 came converted into swom judges of the fact, has never been 
 distinctly traced ; but the intermediate steps had certainly 
 all been passed before the reign of Edward III., possibly be- 
 fore the death of the first monarch of that name. 
 
 If Henry the Second was the founder, Edward I. may 
 almost be regarded as the completer of the common law. 
 From his time to the present no change has taken place in 
 its general principles: all that subsequent reforms have ef- 
 fected has been to accommodate those principles to altered 
 circumstances. And long may the spirit of these institu- 
 tions remain unchanged amid the march of improvement 
 — holding together, as they now do, the mightiest commer- 
 cial community of the globe, with no less beneficial author- 
 ity than they exercised six hundred years ago over the 
 barons, peasants, and burghers of a small feudal monarchy ! 
 
 The system of real property may be said to have been 
 fixed by the statute Quia Emptores, 18 Edw. 1. Before 
 that time we may consider the lands of England as having 
 been subject, in general, to the unrestricted feudal law. 
 All land was held, mediately or immediately, of the king. 
 The two classes of free proprietors were those who held 
 by the military service (of Norman introduction), and those 
 who held by the old Saxon custom, their property in their 
 lands being retained by them, subject only to acknowledg- 
 ment or fealty to the sovereign — a less honourable, but 
 56 
 
 probably a less burdensome tenure. But either of these 
 tenants might, in his turn, create fresh tenants under him, 
 yielding the same homage to him which he yielded to the 
 sovereign. Below these, the only two classes of tenants 
 recognised by the law were those who held of the king, or 
 mesne lords, by pure villenage, or absolute and base ser- 
 vice ; and by villein socage, which was also a base service, 
 but restricted to certain specified duties. From the tenure 
 of pure villenage have sprung our present copyhold tenures ; 
 by which certain lands are held within manors (which are 
 the old estates held in early times directly of the king) by 
 the will of the lord, as it is expressed in their grant, although 
 by long usage the will of the lord is merely nominal, and 
 the obligations of the tenant consist only in certain specified 
 rents and services. 
 
 The object of the statute Quia Emptores was to restrain 
 the creation of fresh subordinate estates, by declaring that if 
 any one alienated his land by sale or feoffment (which pur- 
 ported to convey it in perpetuity) the feoffee should hold 
 the same, not of the feoffor, but of the feoffor's lord, wheth- 
 er a mesne lord or the king himself. Hence all manors 
 must have existed prior to the reign of Edward the First ; 
 as it is essential that there should be in them tenants who 
 hold of the lord, and such tenancies could not have been 
 created at a later period. 
 
 When alienation of lands and tenements was made in 
 early Norman times, the alienation was either to the donee 
 and his heirs forever — thus giving him an absolute unre- 
 stricted property, descendible to his heirs, whether male or 
 female, subject only to his homage to the donor ; in other 
 words, a fee-simple ; or it was upon condition — as, for in- 
 stance, a grant to a donee, provided he had issue ; under 
 which grant, if the donee died without issue, or his issue 
 came to fail, the land would revert to the donor. The con- 
 ditional donees had devised, with the assistance of the 
 king's judges, various ingenious methods of defeating these 
 provisions ; as by aliening as soon as they had issue, and 
 then repurchasing the fee-simple. It was to fix the law of 
 conditional gifts that the statute De Donis, 13 Edw. 1, was 
 passed ; by which such a donee was absolutely prevented 
 from aliening the tenements. Hence arose estates in fee- 
 tail : in other words, estates granted to a man and to certain 
 specified heirs ; for example, the heirs male of his body. In 
 after times, when the restraint on alienation which this 
 statute created began to be repugnant to the more liberal 
 feelings of the people, certain devices were invented (fines 
 and recoveries), whereby the donee in tail was enabled to 
 bar the entail and acquire the fee-simple, as he could have 
 done before this statute was passed. 
 
 Besides these famous statutes, we find the reign of Ed- 
 ward I. distinguished by the confirmation of Magna Charts 
 and the Charter of Forests. The first of these great consti- 
 tutional acts contains few provisions of much importance 
 in legal history, and was far more valuable as an evidence 
 of the spirit of the country in restraining arbitrary usurpa- 
 tions, than, as is commonly supposed, by establishing any 
 new franchises, or even confirming ancient ones. Perhaps 
 its most important legal effect was the fixing to the city of 
 Westminster the court of Common Pleas, which had for- 
 merly caused the suitors much inconvenience by following 
 the person of the king in his numerous progresses. 
 
 It is also to Edward the First's reign that we must refer 
 for the distinct definition of the province of that court, and 
 of the other two superior common law courts of record, the 
 King's Bench and Exchequer. The history of these three 
 courts is far too intricate, and requires too much explana- 
 tory statement, to find a place in these pages. It must suf- 
 fice to observe, that the King's Bench is the ancient Aula 
 Regia, in which the king was supposed, as by fiction of law 
 he still is, to sit in person, and which followed him in all 
 his progresses, insomuch that in the reign of Edward I. it 
 actually sat in Scotland. Its jurisdiction consequently ex- 
 tends to all matters which are of the lung's prerogative: it 
 took cognizance of criminal causes on the crown side, and 
 of civil causes ; at first those in the result of which the 
 king was interested, and by a fiction all personal actions 
 whatever. It was likewise a court of appeal from all in- 
 ferior courts of records. The court of Common Pleas, or 
 Common Bench, had, in strictness, jurisdiction in all civil 
 causes between subject and subject. In this court only real 
 actions, in which the right to land is tried — now nearly fall- 
 en into disuse (see Pleading), but anciently the most im- 
 portant part of judicial business — could be adjudicated. 
 The court of Exchequer was intended to recover the king's 
 debts, and ordinary revenues of the crown. It acquired in 
 process of time a jurisdiction over common personal actions, 
 by the fiction of the complaining party being a debtor to the 
 king ; and also an equitable jurisdiction, similar in form to 
 that of the chancellor's court. 
 
 The equitable jurisdiction of the chancellor had probably 
 commenced long before the reign of Edward I., (see Chan- 
 cery), and before his reign the original writs, by which ac- 
 Br* 649 

 
 LAW. 
 
 tions were commenced, had been sued out or obtained in 
 the chancery ; the Clerks of which, like Hie pontifical tra- 
 iners of the actunus among the Romans, had the monopoly 
 of drawing up these magical instruments. In the reign of 
 Edward I. (bj Statutt of Westminster the Second, 13 Edw. 
 I), an important change was made in this branch of law, 
 by authorizing the clerks to frame writs adapted to particu- 
 lar cases which the old forms did not adequately suit. 
 Hence originate our modern actions of trespass on the case. 
 Sm Pleading. 
 
 From the same statute the modem judges of assize and 
 nisi" prius (see Xisi Pants) are chiefly derived. These 
 were originally occasional commissioners, scat down into 
 the counties to deliver the jail of prisoners, or to try civil 
 causes. By this statute the commission was first directed 
 to he given to the king's justices, associated (as they still 
 are in form) with one or two discreet knights of the county. 
 The commission of assize is. strictly speaking, a commission 
 to try disputes respecting land wherein the writ of assize 
 (which dates, as before stated, from Henry II.) was brought 
 — now fallen into disuse. The commission of nisi prius 
 originates in what may now be called a legal fiction. When 
 the pleadings in an action in the superior courts (see Plead- 
 ing) are concluded, and an issue of fact is taken between 
 the parties, the issue is appointed, by the entry on the record 
 or written proceedings, to be tried by a jury from the county 
 in which the proceedings arise, at Westminster, unless before 
 the day appointed (nisi prius) the judges shall have come 
 to the county in question. Besides these commissions, the 
 same judges try criminal cases by virtue of a commission of 
 the peace, in which they are associated with the justices of 
 the county : a -commission at oyer <u>il ta miner, to hear and 
 determine all treasons, felonies, and misdemeanors ; and a 
 commission of general jail delivery, to try and deliver 
 every prisoner who shall be in the jail at their arrival in 
 the county. 
 
 Having referred to the reign of Edward I. as the period un- 
 der which a general sketch of our old common law might 
 be most advantageously presented, we proceed to notice 
 very briefly the chief alterations which mark its subsequent 
 history. These alterations can be easily ascertained where 
 they were caused by the highest legal authority — by the 
 parliament of the nation. Hut far greater changes have 
 been wrought by the silent course of the tribunals — by the 
 discretionary power which our judges have assumed to ex- 
 i ml the remedies, which fhey were authorized to admin- 
 ister, to cases unprovided for by earlier law. which either 
 the ingenuity of practitioners, or. in many more instances, 
 the increasing wants and more intricate relations of life 
 had called into existence. To trace such alterations is as 
 impossible as to note, day by day, the increase of stature by 
 which the child grows into the man. Often, in laboriously 
 investigating the history of our English jurisprudence, we 
 are surprised when wo look back, after perusing the events 
 of a generation or a century, to the state of things as it ex- 
 isted at the beginning of that epoch, and find that although 
 we cannot with all our diligence detect in its history the oc- 
 currence of any external changes in the subject on which 
 our minds are fixed, yet the same forms, the same modes 
 and circumstances present themselves to our eyes under a 
 totally different aspect and character. 
 
 The rei'_'n< of Henry II. and HI. are principally remarka- 
 ble for the gradual substitution of the king's justices of the 
 peace for the various elective magistrates who exercised 
 the several duties of that office before. It was in the reign 
 of the latter prince also that the parliament is supposed to 
 have finally acquired its present form. Under the success- 
 ors of the Edwards, and during the wars of the fifteenth 
 century, small accessions were made to the general bulk of 
 English law ; hut during those times very great changes 
 were silently taking place in the disposition of propertj by 
 means of the Invention of Uses, borrowed from the civil 
 law. This extensive and most important subject will he 
 
 found briefly treated of under the head of Chancery. 
 
 The laws of Henry VII. had principally in view the ben- 
 efit of his exchequer ; and hence various more compendious 
 modes of enforcing justice against delinquents who might 
 be liable to line, date from his reign — method-; which in un- 
 just times were oppressive and arbitrary, although now u-e 
 ful instruments in the hands of justice. Such was the pro- 
 ceeding by information, instead of indictment, in various 
 cases on behalf of the crown. The Statute of Pines, passed 
 in this reign, confirmed and extended a mode already in use 
 
 of barring entails. I'nder his BUCCeSBOT, whose reign forms 
 so important an epoch in political history, the laws of prop- 
 erty were very considerably modified by the two statutes of 
 Uses and Wills, (for the former, see CHANCERY.) The 
 latter rendered general the power of devising estates by 
 will. The system of bankrupt laws also had its commence 
 rnent under Henry VIII. His daughter Elizabeth did not 
 add much to the essential and valuable parts of our statute 
 book; but under her government the acta which restrained 
 650 
 
 the alienation of lands by ecclesiastical bodies were pnsaed, 
 and also the celebrated statute respecting the poor, of which 
 the policy forms, even at the present day, a subject of such 
 ardent controversy. In the succeeding" century, the reign 
 of Janus I. witnessed the tirst attempt to limit the period at 
 which actions and suits might be commenced ; and the first 
 statute of bankruptcy. Hut it is must remarkable for the 
 laborious attempt lo systematize our ancient law by Sir E. 
 i loke, one of the most acute, if not philosophical jurists of 
 any age or country. That of Charles II. forms the next 
 marked epoch in the history of our law, after those of Ed- 
 ward I. and Henry Vllf. liis restoration was distinguished 
 by the .abolition of feudal tenures and incidents, and the re- 
 duction of all the modes by which estates of inheritance 
 might be held (with few exceptions) to two only — freehold 
 and copyhold. Tiie Statute of Frauds, a necessary protec- 
 tion perhaps to unwary transactors of business, but a source 
 of endless litigation ; the statute which regulates the distri- 
 bution of the effects of intestates; and, finally, the celebra- 
 ted Habeas Corpus Act, which gave, or rather confirmed, 
 to every person imprisoned by any authority short of the 
 express and definite course of justice, the means of releasing 
 himself — tire all productions of this reign. 
 
 The eighteenth century', while it gave rise to new views 
 and widely extended discussions on jurisprudence, did not 
 in England produce much substantial alteration by statutory 
 enactment. It was rather a period of preparation for 
 change, in the political as well as the legal world, than of 
 actual reform. But it was distinguished by the learning 
 and acuteness of several judges who occupied the seats of 
 justice during many years, and introduced, by the slow ex- 
 ertion of their own authority, a new spirit into institutions 
 of which the forms were preserved. 
 
 Recent years have introduced some material changes, of 
 which the effect has not yet been fully tried. Lord Ellen- 
 borough and Lord Eldon had pursued the work of main- 
 taining and embellishing the old institutions; succeeding 
 judges have at last assumed in some degree the character 
 of reformers. Sir Robert Peel's criminal statutes conferred 
 a great benefit on the country, by removing many of the 
 technical difficulties incident to this branch of law. although 
 they did not materially affect its spirit, which, m the article 
 of capital punishments, has been gradually moderated by a 
 succession of enactments, from the beginning of the reign 
 of George III. until that of our present sovereign. Many of 
 the artificial distinctions, grounded on obsolete reasons, 
 which subsisted between the practice of the different com 
 mon law courts have been removed. The system of plead- 
 ing (see that article) has been very materially chanced. 
 And in consequence of the general feeling in favour of local 
 courts of justice to administer redress in trifling disputes be- 
 tween parties at a distance from London, some extension 
 has been given to the authority of the sheriff's court, and 
 some local tribunals have been constituted. Lastly, the an- 
 cient usage of imprisonment on mesne process has been 
 abolished, and much additional power given in lieu of it to 
 the Insolvent Conn over the property of debtors. 
 
 The term Common Law is ordinarily employed in two 
 different senses. In its legal signification it expresses the 
 old unwritten law, established by precedent and custom; 
 comprising, it has been said. " all recognised doctrines and 
 customs, however introduced, which are neither to be found 
 in the statute book, nor depend on the adjudication of courts 
 of equity." Fortius floating mass of legal principles our 
 ordinary sources arc precedents, or decisions of common 
 law judges, as contained in published reports. Where 
 these fail us, reference may sometimes be had to more un- 
 certain guides, the dicta of legal writers, or the general 
 principle and tendency of our laws, for authority in deci- 
 ding a particular dispute. 
 
 In its popular sense, common aw is opposed to equity 
 and ecclesiastical law; and thus comprises the whole of 
 that law, both criminal and civil, which is administered in 
 courts having trial by jury, and all the other subjects which 
 are within the purview of the common law courts of West 
 minster Hall, and of the various local jurisdictions of the 
 country (except so far as some of them exercise equitable 
 authority). It has been defined " the whole of that code, 
 
 whether founded on statute, usage, or precedent, which is 
 now administered in the common law courts of Westmin- 
 ster Hall;" and this definition will comprehend the law 
 administered in the various local courts in question, as 
 these are bound to act on the decisions of the Superior 
 courts. Its peculiar characteristic is, that questions of fact 
 arising out of its proceedings are submitted to the decision 
 of a jury. 
 
 It is, |ierhaps, not very easy to assign either the history or 
 the theoretical principles of the separation of equitv from 
 common law. The former was undoubtedly in the first in- 
 stance a jurisdiction of a remedial character, intended to 
 moderate, according to the conscience of the judge, the rig- 
 our of legal judgments ; but this is a peculiarity which can
 
 LAW, MARITIME. 
 
 scarcely be said to distinguish it in the present day. Its 
 rules are as accurately laid down by precedents as those of 
 the common law itself; but there are some subjects (as 
 trusts) which, having been created in frustration of the pro- 
 visions of the common law, are out of its cognizance. Over 
 these, courts of equity have an exclusive jurisdiction. There 
 are others over which both equity and law have concurrent 
 jurisdiction. But the remedies applied by law to injuries 
 committed are subject to certain inflexible rules. The pow- 
 er of a jury has limits from the very nature of the institu- 
 tion. It can award a debt sought to be recovered, or dama- 
 ges for an injury ; but it cannot modify the remedy accord- 
 ing to peculiar circumstances. Nor has it any means to en- 
 force a course of action other than by imposing damages for 
 neglecting it. To take a familiar instance : If A sues B at 
 law for breach of covenant, and judgment passes in favour 
 of A, all that a jury can do is to award damages to A for 
 the breach of contract; but equity can, by a process of its 
 own, compel B to a specific performance of the contract 
 under the penalties attached to a contempt of court. So, if 
 one of several joint contractors be liable, at law, for penal- 
 ties or debus incurred in respect of their joint undertaking, 
 his only legal remedy is by an action against each ; in equi- 
 ty, he can compel each of his partners to contribute to the 
 extent of their liability. 
 
 LAW, MARITIME. See Maritime Law. 
 
 LAW, MARTIAL, is proclaimed by authority of parlia- 
 ment, on an emergency of rebellion, invasion, and insurrrec- 
 tion. It is properly the putting under the cognizance of 
 courts martial a great variety of subjects which by ordinary 
 military law do not appertain to them, to be tried in a sum- 
 mary way. Where martial law is proclaimed all military 
 persons, under all circumstances, are placed within its ju- 
 risdiction : even their debts are subject to inquiry before a 
 military tribunal. It extends also to a variety of cases not 
 relating to the discipline of the army, and offences commit- 
 ted by non-military persons, as plots against the sovereign, 
 intelligence to the enemy, &c. The statute for putting into 
 execution martial law usually gives a power to arrest and 
 detain in custody all suspected persons, and to cause them 
 to be brought to trial in a summary manner by courts mar- 
 tial, and to execute the sentence of all such courts, wheth- 
 er of death or otherwise ; and declares, that no act done in 
 consequence of these powers shall be questioned in any of 
 the king's ordinary courts of law, and that all who act un- 
 der the statute shall be responsible for their conduct only to 
 such courts martial. 
 
 LAW, MILITARY, is, properly, that law which is ad- 
 ministered by courts martial, under the authority of parlia- 
 ment and the Mutiny Act, annually passed, together with 
 the Articles of War. Sec Courts Martial. 
 
 LAWN. (Fr. linon.) A fine variety of cambric, for- 
 merly exclusively manufactured in Flanders. Of late the 
 lawn manufacture of Scotland and of the north of Ireland 
 has been brought to rival that of the Flemish weavers. 
 
 Lawn. In Gardening, a surface of grass or turf in pleas- 
 ure grounds kept smoothly mown. 
 
 LA'XATIVE (Lat. laxare, to loosen), a gentle aperient 
 medicine; opposed to cathartics, which arc drastic pur- 
 gatives. 
 
 LAY. (Probably the same word with the German lied, 
 song.) The lyric poems of the old French minstrels, or 
 trouveres, were termed lais ; but the title appears, in mod- 
 em usage, to be peculiarly appropriate to narrative poems, 
 or serious subjects of moderate length in simple style and 
 light metre. 
 
 Lay. In .Agriculture. See Lea. 
 
 LAY BROTHERS. Persons received into convents of 
 monks, under the three vows, but not in holy orders. The 
 introduction of this class of devotees appears to have begun 
 in the 11th century. They are dressed somewhat different- 
 ly from the other monks or brothers of the choir, and often 
 employed in the manual exercises necessary for the uses of 
 the community. The Carthusian and Cistercian orders are 
 said to have first recognised the distinction, and their exam- 
 ple was followed by the other orders. The same distinction 
 exists in monasteries of females between the nuns properly 
 so called and the lay sisters, or sisters converse. 
 
 LAY ELDERS. In Presbyterian churches, ministers of 
 ecclesiastical jurisdiction, not ordained as clergymen, who 
 assist the pastor in each congregation. (S'ee Presbyte- 
 rians, Kirk.) The divines of that persuasion rest the ap- 
 pointment of lay elders in some measure on that of pres- 
 byters "in every city," by Paul and Barnabas, who, they 
 imagine, from the manner in which they are mentioned, 
 could not have been all preachers. (See Hooker, Reel. 
 Pol., b. vi.) 
 
 LAYERS. In Gardening, a mode of propagating plants 
 by laying down shoots, and covering a portion of them with 
 soil, so that the extremity of the shoot is left above ground. 
 and the shoot itself not detached from the plant. In order 
 to facilitate the rooting of such layers, the portion of the 
 
 LEAD. 
 
 shoot buried in the soil is fractured by twisting or bruising, 
 or cut with a knife immediately under a bud. This opera- 
 tion, by obstructing the return of the sap from the leaves, 
 occasions its accumulation at the wounded part, when 
 roots are there produced from the effort of nature to perpet- 
 uate life. 
 
 LAY'ING. In Architecture, the first coat on lath of 
 plasterer's two-coat work, the surface whereof is roughed by 
 sweeping it with a broom ; the difference between laying 
 and rendering being that the latter is the first coat upon brick. 
 
 LAYMAN. (Gr.Xaixos; from Xaos, people.) The appel- 
 lation by which the rest of the community are distinguished 
 from the clergy. (See Laity.) — Layman, or lay-figure, 
 among painters, signifies a small statue, whose joints are so 
 formed that it may be put into any attitude for the purpose 
 of adjusting the draperv of iisures. 
 
 LA'ZAR HOUSE, or LAZARETTO. (Ital.) A public 
 building in the southern European states, of the nature of 
 an hospital, for the reception of the poor and those afflicted 
 with contagious disorders. In some places lazarettoes are 
 set apart for the performance of quarantine ; in whicii case 
 only those are admitted who have arrived from countries 
 infested by the plague, or suspected of being so. Howard's 
 well-known account of the principal lazarettoes of Europe 
 furnishes the most detailed and interesting particulars of 
 these establishments, and to it we refer the reader for full 
 information. 
 
 LA'ZARISTS. In Ecclesiastical History, a body of mis- 
 sionaries founded by St. Vincent de Paule in 1632 ; so termed 
 from occupying the priory of St. Lazarus, at Paris, as their 
 head quarters. Their primary object was to dispense reli- 
 gious instruction and assistance among the poorer inhabit- 
 ants of the rural districts of France. They were dispersed 
 at the lime of the Revolution, but have since re-established 
 a congregation at Paris ; and the French government has 
 lately projected entrusting them with the spiritual care of 
 the colonv at Algiers. 
 
 LA'ZARUS, SAINT, ORDER OF. A military order 
 of religious persons, originally an association of knights, for 
 the purpose of maintaining lepers, &c, in lazar-houses or 
 hospitals, especially in the Holy Land. Being driven out 
 of Palestine in 1253, they followed St. Louis to France. In 
 1490, their order was suppressed by Pope Innocent VIII., 
 and united with that of St. John ; but the bull was not uni- 
 versally received. In 1572, they were united in Italy with 
 the order of St. Maurice ; in 1608, in France, with that of 
 Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The knights of these united 
 orders were allowed to inarrv. 
 
 LA'ZULITE. A blue mineral from Styria and the Tyrol, 
 composed of 66 alumina, 10 silica, 18 magnesia, 2 lime, 3 
 oxide of iron. 
 
 LAZZARO'NI. A name given to the poorer classes at 
 Naples, from the Hospital of St. Lazarus, which served as 
 a refuge for the destitute in that city. Forty years ago two 
 large sections of the people were generally comprehended 
 under this name— the fishermen ; and the lazzaroni, properly 
 so called, who lived in the streets, and performed no other 
 labour but that of errand porters and occasional servants. 
 These alone were estimated at 40,000. These Lazzaroni 
 formed a powerful community, which, under Masaniello, 
 accomplished the revolution of Naples ; and, in later times, 
 overthrew the popular government, under the influence of 
 Cardinal Ruil'o and the English party. But during the 
 French occupation of Naples they ceased to exist as a dis- 
 tinct class; and the name is now only used to designate, in 
 general language, the mob or populace of that great city. 
 
 LEA, in Agriculture, is a term applied to lands which are 
 kept under grass or pasturage for a short period. For exam- 
 ple, in a rotation of fallow, wheat, clover, and rye grass, for 
 three years. The ground, when under clover and rye grass, 
 is said to be in lea, in Scotland; or in England, in lay. 
 
 LEAD. A metal of a bluish-gray colour. Its specific 
 gravity is 11-38. It is very soft, flexible, and inelastic; and 
 though ductile and malleable, is possessed of very little 
 tenacity. It fuses at about 600° ; and if air be carefully ex- 
 cluded, it does not appear to be volatile at a white heat. 
 When melted in open vessels, it sewn changes into gray 
 powder, which upon further exposure to heat and air be- 
 comes yellow, and is called massicot; or, when partially 
 fused, so as to assume a scaly form, litharge. If massicot 
 be heated, and stirred to prevent fusion, it gradually absorb* 
 oxvgen, acquires a red colour, and is called red lead. When 
 red iead is heated in nitric acid, it is partially dissolved, and 
 partly converted into a brown powder, which is insoluble, 
 and is a peroxide of lead. Massicot, or the yellow oxide of 
 lead, is the protoxide, and that which forms the salts of this 
 metal : it is constituted of 1 atom of lead = 104, and 1 of 
 oxvgen = 8, and its equivalent is 112. The brown peroxide 
 consists of I atom of lead and 2 of oxygen ; and red lead is 
 intermediate between the two extremes, consisting, probably, 
 of an indefinite mixture of the two oxides. The protoxide 
 of lead is soluble in the greater number of the acids, and 
 
 651
 
 LEAD, BLACK. 
 
 forms a variety of salts; of these the carbonate and the ace- 
 tale arc the most important. Carbonate of lead, or, as it is 
 commonly colled, white lead, Ib the basis of white oil paint, 
 and consequently of a number of other colours: it may be 
 prepared by exposing sheet lead to the fames of vinegar, by 
 which it is gradually corroded, and its surface becomes 
 covered with an incrustation, which, when scraped oil' and 
 well levigated, is white lead. This article is also made by 
 precipitating a solution of acetate of lead by carbonate of 
 soda: ii consists of 112 oxide of lead and 23 carbonic acid. 
 .icetatc of lead is made by dissolving carbonate of lead in 
 acetic acid, for which purpose the pyroligneous vinegar is 
 chiefly used, it crystallizes in six-sided prisms, but is gen- 
 erally met with in confused crystalline masses. It is soluble 
 in about 4 parts of cold water, and the solution has a re- 
 markably sweet taste ; whence the term sugar of lead, 
 usually applied to this salt. It consists of 112 oxide of lead 
 and 51 acetic acid. The crystals include 3 atoms of water, 
 and are therefore represented by the equivalent 190; or 163 
 dry acetate and 27 water. When protoxide of lead is boiled 
 in distilled vinegar, or in a solution of acetate of lead, a 
 dense solution or subacetate or triacetate of lead is obtained : 
 it is difficultly crystallizable. This solution is often used in 
 the chemical laboratory as a test and precipitant: and it 
 forms the extract of lead, or Goulard's extract of phar- 
 macy. 
 
 The most important native combination, or ore of lead, is 
 the sulphurct, composed of 104 lead and 16 sulphur. It is 
 the galena of mineralogists, and from it the commercial de- 
 mands for lead are supplied : it is roasted to expel sulphur, 
 and the lead thus oxidized is reduced by heating with char- 
 coal. The action of water upon lead is curious and interest- 
 ing, in consequence of the universal use of cisterns lined 
 with this metal. Perfectly pure water, such as distilled 
 water, put into a clean leaden vessel and exposed to air, 
 soon oxidizes and corrodes it, and delicate tests discover 
 oxide of lead in solution in the water ; but river and spring 
 water exert no such solvent power: the carbonates and sul- 
 phates in such water, though in very minute quantities, 
 entirely prevent ils solvent power. Hence it is that leaden 
 cisterns are used with impunity for the preservation of com- 
 mon water, and that the crust which forms upon the metal 
 effectually prevents all further action. As this crust partly 
 consists of carbonate of lead, which is very poisonous, great 
 care should be taken to prevent is diffusion through the 
 water upon any occasion, as by scraping or cleaning the 
 cistern. There is another way in which leaden cisterns 
 sometimes prove injurious; and that is in consequence of 
 galvanic action, where iron or zinc pipes are soldered or let 
 into them : the lead is thus rendered electro-negative, alka- 
 line matter is evolved upon it, and small quantities of the 
 oxide or carbonate are thus rendered soluble. There are 
 several re-agents by which very minute quantities of lead 
 may be detected; among these, solution of sulphuretted 
 hydrogen is perhaps the most effective : it produces a brown 
 tint in water containing the minutest trace of lead, and it 
 similarly discolours the greater number of the insoluble sails 
 of the metal. A solution of sulphate of soda is also a sensi- 
 ble test of the presence of dissolved oxide of lead ; it forms 
 a white cloud in water containing the smallest traces of it: 
 a fragment of iodide of potassium dropped into such water 
 presently occasions in it a yellow tint, in consequence of the 
 formation of an iodide of lead. 
 
 LEAD, BLACK. See Plumbago. 
 
 LEAD, for Sounding. The common hand lead weighs 11 
 lbs. with about 20 fathoms of line. The leadsman stands j 
 somewhere on the side of the vessel, leaning against a band | 
 for the purpose : lets the lead descend near the water ; then, 
 swinging it over his head once, or twice, if the ship is going 
 fast, throws it forward. The line is marked at 5, 7, 10, 13, ; 
 17, and 20 fathoms. The numbers between are called deeps ; I 
 thus, •• by the mark 7," " bv the deep nine," indicates 7 and 
 it fathoms. 
 
 When the depth is great, the deep-sea lead of 28 lbs. is ! 
 used. The lead is dropped from the fore part of the vessel, 
 the line being passed outside all. It is generally necessary j 
 to heave the ship to. 
 
 LEADING NOTE. In Music, the sharp seventh of the 
 scale 
 
 LEADS, or SPACE LINES, are pieces of type metal I 
 cast to specific thicknesses and lengths, lower than t> pi 
 
 that they do not make any impression in printing, but leave 
 a white space where placed. Their genera] use is to lie 
 
 placed between the hues when a work is not closely printed, 
 which is considered to look belter than when punted solid, 
 and also to branch out the beads of pages and titles. 
 
 LEAF. (Sax.) An expansion of the liark at the base of 
 a leaf-bud, prior to which it i< developed ; its function being 
 at once that of respiration, digestion, and nutrition. It is a 
 
 plate of parenchyma, through which spiral vessels and 
 woody tissue ramify. Its surface is covered with stomates, 
 which communicate with minute hollow chambers in the 
 638 
 
 LEAP-YEAR. 
 
 [ interior. It is in the leaf that all the peculiar secretions of 
 a plant are prepared out of the under sap which the roots 
 obtain from the soil. 
 
 LEAF-BUDS. Rudiments of young branches, made up 
 Of scales imbricated over each other, the outermost being 
 the hardest and thickest, and surrounding a minute axis, 
 which is in direct communication with the woody and cel- 
 lular tissue of the stem. When stimulated by light and heat 
 they extend into branches ; or if artificially removed from 
 the plant that hears them, they are capable of multiplying 
 the individual from which they have been taken. 
 
 LEA'FLET. A small leaf formed by the petiole of a 
 leaf branching out, and separating the cellular tissue of the 
 lamina into more than one distinct portion, each of which 
 forms a perfect lamina of itself. 
 
 LEAGUE. A measure of length, used in reckoning dis- 
 tances by sea. The sea league is three nautical or geographi- 
 cal miles, or the l-20th of a degree, and consequently about 
 3-45 English miles. 
 
 The common land league is a well-known itinerary meas- 
 ure on the continent of Europe, chiefly in France. The 
 French, however, have two distinct leagues : the legal post- 
 ing league (lieue depostc), containing 2000 toises, and equal 
 to 2-42 English miles ; and a league of 25 to the degree 
 (anciently the lieue moyenne), or equal to about 2'76 English 
 miles. This last, however, can scarcely be regarded as a 
 definite measure ; and previous to the Revolution the league 
 was different in the different provinces. The word is said 
 to be derived from the Celtic leach, stone; the distances 
 having been marked by stones in the Roman provinces. In 
 Gaul alone of those provinces, they were marked in some 
 instances by leagues as well as miles. The Gaulish league 
 was considered by the Romans as equal to a mile and a half 
 of their own measure, or as containing 1500 Roman paces. 
 It is supposed that the league, or leuca, was introduced into 
 England by the Normans, where, at an early period, it came 
 to be reckoned as an equivalent to two miles of the time ; 
 this being the sense in which the term leuca is used by the 
 oldest law writers, and in most of the old English charters. 
 See Mile. 
 
 League, in Politics, appears to be, in strictness, an alliance 
 between two or more powers, in order to execute some com- 
 mon enterprise. It is therefore more active, and less dura- 
 ble, than an alliance or a confederacy ; both of which have 
 some permanent object, while neither necessarily requires 
 active co-operation. In the middle ages, the word league 
 was used nearly in the sense now attached to these latter 
 terms: hence we read of the Hanseatic league, and of the 
 three leagues still subsisting in the canton of the Grisons in 
 Switzerland; both of which were more properly confeder- 
 acies. The word is of Spanish origin ; and it has been said 
 that the period of its commonest use in political language 
 was commensurate with that during which the Spanish 
 government exercised the greatest influence among those of 
 Europe — the 16th and 17th centuries. 
 
 LEAGUE, SOLEMN. See Covenant. 
 
 LEAGUE, THE HOLY, or simply THE LEAGUE. In 
 French History, a political association formed by the Roman 
 Catholic party in France under the reign of Henry III. The 
 project of the League is said to have been framed by one 
 David, an advocate ; or, rather, he first conceived the idea 
 of uniting the separate associations of the Catholic party in 
 the provinces into one great confederacy. His written scheme 
 bears date 1575. It was ardently received, especially by the 
 municipality and citizens of Paris and other huge towns. 
 The object of the League was at first only the overthrow 
 of the Protestant power; hut the princes of the house of 
 Guise soon placed themselves at its head, and the leaders of 
 the party were not slow in adopting the project of changing 
 the succession, and placing the Duke of Guise on the throne. 
 In 1588, the citizens, under the Impulse of the League, drove 
 Henry III. from Paris on the day of tho Barricades, and 
 formed the revolutionary government of " the Sixteen." But 
 after the death both of the duke and the king, much division 
 arose in the head quarters of the League at Paris as to the 
 choice of a successor; and in 1591 the popular party, or that 
 of the Sixteen, was put down by the citizens: which event 
 in effect destroyed the power of this great association, 
 although it still continued to exist, even after the abjuration 
 of Henry IV. 
 
 LEAKAGE. In Commerce, an allowance in the customs, 
 granted to importers of wine for the waste and damage the 
 'nhiiI. are supposed to receive by keeping. 
 
 LEA'NTO. (Span.) In Architecture, a building whose 
 
 rafters pitch against or lean on another building. 
 
 LEAP-V EAR. or BISSEXTILE. A year containing 3G6 
 days. In the Gregorian calendar this occurs every fourth 
 ccepting years which complete centuries; in which 
 case the intercalary day is omitted, unless the number of 
 the year is divisible by four. The term is probably derived 
 from the leap or start occasioned by the insertion of tho 
 intercalary day, and would have been more appropriate if
 
 LEASE. 
 
 the year had been deficient by a day instead of being re- 
 dundant. See Calendar. 
 
 LEASE, in Law, is properly a conveyance of lands and 
 tenements (usually in consideration of rent or other annual 
 recompense), made for life, for years, or at will, but always 
 for a less time than the lessor or party letting has in the 
 premises. The usual words of operation are, " demise, 
 grant, and to farm let." The conveyance by a lessee of part 
 of his interest is properly an under-lease; of the whole, an 
 assignment. 
 
 LEASE AND RELEASE. In Law, a mode of convey- 
 ance appropriate to estates of freehold in lands, tenements, 
 or hereditaments. Before the Statute of Uses, 27 H. 8, c. 10, 
 it was customary to give lands to one person for the use of 
 another ; or to devise the use of land to one party, while the 
 common law right to the same land descended to another. 
 In a court of equity the legal owner of the fee was com- 
 pelled to cede to the cestuy que use, or proprietor of the use, 
 the enjoyment of the land ; and certain modes of convey- 
 ance were employed by which the use was conveyed inde- 
 pendent of the legal estate. By that statute uses were 
 declared to be executed ; i. e., that if land were conveyed 
 to one party to the use of another, the cestuy que -use became 
 seised of the legal estate. Hence a bargain and sale, i. e., 
 a deed in which for a recited pecuniary sum, technically 
 called a consideration, land was conveyed to A for the use 
 of himself or of D, became a good conveyance; because 
 the deed gave the use, and the statute immediately added 
 the legal estate. To prevent secret conveyances it was con- 
 sequently enacted, in the same reign, that no estate of in- 
 heritance or freehold should be conveyed by bargain and 
 sale, unless the deed was enrolled or registered in a certain 
 specified manner. But as this statute did not extend to hnr- 
 gains and sales for a less estate than of freehold, the inge- 
 nuity of lawyers soon devised a new method of secret con- 
 veyance : the land was made over to the purchaser by 
 bargain and sale for a year, and then the purchaser received 
 a release of all the vendor's remaining interest. Thus, by 
 these two deeds (which are now ordinarily comprised in 
 one), a perfect conveyance is created, which has almost 
 superseded, in general use, the older and more solemn 
 modes of alienation for estates in fee-simple. 
 
 LEA'THER. (Germ, leder.) The prepared skins of ani- 
 mals. The principal object of the art of converting skin into 
 leather is to render it strong and toush, durable, and often 
 water-proof, and to prevent its destruction by putrefaction. 
 The skins are first cleansed of hair and cuticle, and then 
 impregnated either with vegetable tan and extract, as in the 
 production of what is called tanned leather, or with alum 
 and other salts, as for tawed leather: these processes are 
 sometimes combined, and tanned leather often undergoes 
 the further operation of currying, or impregnation with oil. 
 As instances of these different results, thick sole leather is 
 tanned; white kid for gloves is tawed; the upper leather 
 for boots and shoes is tanned and curried; and fine Turkey 
 leather is tawed, and afterwards slightly tanned. 
 
 Tanned leather. — For thin skins which are afterwards 
 curried, the hide is cleansed, and soaked for a day or two in 
 water; it is then beamed, or stretched upon a solid half cyl- 
 inder of stone, where it is cleared of adhering fat or flesh ; 
 it is then soaked for several days in a pit of lime and water, 
 by which the hair and cuticle are so far loosened as to 
 admit of being scraped off upon the beam ; the hide is then 
 washed and put into the mastering pit, which is a mixture 
 of water and dung — that of hens, pigeons, or dogs is pre- 
 ferred, cow or horse dung not being sufficiently putrescible. 
 When the hide has here become soft and supple, it is again 
 thoroughly cleaned, and submitted to the tanning liquor 
 which is at first used very weak, and gradually strengthened 
 till the operation is complete : this requires from two to four 
 months for calf skins, and from twelve to eighteen months 
 for thick ox and boar hides, intended for strong sole leather ; 
 and the latter hides, instead of being limed and dunged, are 
 generally, after having been cleaned in water, placed in 
 neaps, where they begin to putrefy, and then the hair may 
 be removed without lime, which would he apt to render the 
 skin hard and harsh. The further opening of the texture. 
 so as to prepare it for tanning, is effected by immersion in a 
 sour liquor of fermented rye or barley, or in weak sulphuric 
 acid. The process is called raising, and immediately pre- 
 cedes the tanning. When fully tanned, the goods are 
 drained, stretched upon a convex piece of wood called a 
 horse, and beaten and smoothed; or the leather is some- 
 times passed between cylinders to make it more solid and 
 supple: it is lastly dried, by suspension in an airy covered 
 building. It will be obvious (see Tan and Gelatine) that 
 the principal change effected in this process depends upon 
 the combination of the gelatine of the skin with the tanning 
 of the oak bark, or other astringent material which is used, 
 and that great care is requisite to ensure the perfect pene- 
 tration of the hide (especially where it is thick) by the tan- 
 ning material : hence the necessity of using weak liquors at 
 
 LEAVEN. 
 
 I first, and gradually increasing their strength ; for if the hide 
 were in the first instance put into a strong infusion of bark, 
 I the exterior surfaces would become so perfectly tanned as 
 to be impe vious to the further action of the liquor, and the 
 centre would remain untaaned, and consequently soluble 
 and putrescible ; so that we judge of the completion of the 
 process by the leather, when cut through, being of a uni- 
 form brown throughout, anything like a white streak in the 
 centre announcing the imperfection just mentioned. 
 
 Tawed Leather, Src. — The skins are first soaked, scraped, 
 and hung in a warm room till they begin to exhale an am- 
 moniacal odour and the wool readily pulls oft"; they are then 
 scraped and soaked for some weeks in lime water, which 
 checks the putrefaction and hardens the texture ; the skin is 
 then again beamed, smoothed, and trimmed, and put into a 
 vat of bran and water, where it is kept for some weeks in a 
 state of gentle fermentation, and becomes thin and extensi- 
 ble, and fit for any subsequent operation: in this state it is 
 called a pelt. The method of bringing kid and goat skin to 
 the state of pelt is nearly the same as for lamb skin, except 
 that liming is used before the hair is taken off, which is only 
 sold to plasterers; whereas lambs' wool is more valuable, 
 and would be injured by the lime. If the pelts are to be 
 tawed, they are worked about in a solution of alum and salt 
 in warm water, which again makes them thick and tough ; 
 they are then washed, and again fermented in bran and 
 water till the thickening is reduced by the removal of some 
 of the salts ; lastly, they are stretched on hooks, and dried in 
 a stove room, when they become a tough flexible white 
 leather ; hut to give them gloss and suppleness they are 
 again soaked in water, and trodden in a large pail contain- 
 ing the yolks of eggs beat up with water ; they are then 
 dried in a loft, and smoothed with a warm iron. 
 
 Morocco leather, as it is called, is chiefly prepared from 
 sheep skins, which, after the action of lime water, are 
 brought down by a dung bath, and reduced to the state of 
 pelt. If intended to be dyed red, they are sewn up in the 
 fonn of a sack, with the grain side outward, and immersed 
 in a warm cochineal bath; the sac is then tanned in a bath 
 of sumach : the skins intended to he blacked are sumached 
 without any previous dyeing. The graining and polishing 
 are effected as follows: The skins are stretched upon a 
 smooth inclined board, and rubbed over with a little oil to 
 supple them. Those intended for black leather are previ- 
 ously brushed over with a solution of iron ; they are then 
 rubbed over with a glass ball cut into a polygonal surface 
 which polishes them, and makes them firm and compact; 
 lastly, the grained surface is given by rubbing the leather 
 with a grooved boxwood ball. Curried leather is tanned, 
 and then softened by soaking in water and rubbing ; it is 
 then pared with a broad sharp knife, rubbed with a polished 
 stone, and, while still wet, besmeared with fish oil, or a mix- 
 ture of this with tallow. As it dries the oil gradually pene- 
 trates in proportion as the moisture evaporates. The grain 
 side is blackened by iron liquor, but the flesh side with lamp- 
 black and oil. 
 
 Shammoy leather is generally sheep or doe skin, prepared 
 as already mentioned by dressing, liming, &.C., and dyed if 
 necessary, and then finished in oil. Russia leather acquires 
 its peculiar odour from birch tar. (There is an excellent 
 abstract of the manufacture of different kinds of leather in 
 JUkin's Dictionary of Chemistry, from which the above Is 
 chiefly abridged.) 
 
 The leather manufacture of Great Britain is of very great 
 importance, being inferior in point of value and extent only 
 to those of cotton, wool, and iron. ,- If we look abroad," 
 says Dr. Campbell, "on the instruments of husbandry, on 
 the implements used in most mechanic trades, on the struc- 
 ture of a multitude of emrines and machines', or if we con- 
 template at home the necessary parts of our clothing — 
 breeches, shoes, boots, gloves — or the furniture of our houses. 
 the books on our shelves, the harness of our horses, or even 
 the substance of our carriages, what do we see but instances 
 of human industry exerted upon leather'! What an apti- 
 tude has this single material in a variety of circumstances for 
 the relief of our necessities, and .supplying conveniences in 
 every state and stage of life 1 Without it, or even without 
 it in the plenty we have it, to what difficulties should we be 
 exposed?" (Polit. State of Great Britain, xi. 176.) The 
 number of persons engaged in all the various branches of the 
 leather manufacture in Great Britain is estimated at between 
 200,000 and 300,000, the total quantity of all sorts of leather 
 at 65,000,000 lbs., and the entire value of the manufacture at 
 £13,500,000. Leather was long subject to a dim-, which 
 necessarily placed the manufacture under the surveillance 
 of the excise ; but it was totally abolished in 1830 ; and as 
 the manufacture is now relieved' from every sort of trammel 
 and restraint, its rapid increase may be confidently expected 
 (See Commercial Dictionary.) 
 
 LEAVEN. (Lat. levare, to raise.) A piece of sour dough 
 used to ferment and render light a much greater quantity of 
 dough or paste. By the law of Moses leaven was strict}-. 
 
 ^ 053
 
 LEAVES. 
 
 forbidden daring the Passover; and the Jews, taught to re- 
 gard it from the vigil of the feast as unclean, with religious 
 ulosity purified their houses from the contaminating 
 influence. In its figurative sense, leaven is applied to any- 
 thing that powerfully, but gradually, deteriorates the quali- 
 ties of the mind or heart; in contradistinction to the expres- 
 i nleavened, which implies the qualities of sincerity and 
 truth. 
 
 LEAVES. (Sax lreaf.) In Architecture, ornaments imi- 
 tated from natural leaves; whereof the ancients used Iwo 
 natural and imaginary. The former were those of the 
 laurel, palm, acanthus, and olive; but in the representation 
 of all ot 'them they took great liberties. 
 
 LECTTCA. (Lot) A sort of couch used by the Ro- 
 mans for the same purpose as the sedan chair, or rather the 
 palanquin, is employed by the moderns, with this difference, 
 that the person carried on the lectica reclined. It was osed 
 also for the conveyance of dead bodies to the funeral pile. 
 The persons who carried the lectica were called Irrticarii, 
 whose number in the Lower Empire is said to have amount- 
 . d to 11.000. 
 
 LE'CTISTE'RNIUM. (Lat. lectus, a couch, and ster- 
 nere, to prepare.) A religious festival or ceremony among 
 the ancient Romans, celebrated during times of public ca- 
 lamity, and remarkable as a singular relic of barbarous su- 
 perstition, retaining the impression of a very rude age. In 
 this festival the gods themselves were invited to the enter- 
 tainment ; their statues were taken from their pedestals, laid 
 on couches with pillows and pedestals, and placed at the table, 
 while the servants used gravely to convey the viands to the 
 idols' lips. The first festival of this sort, according to Livy, 
 which took place, was held in the year of Rome 354, on the 
 occasion of a contagious disease which committed frightful 
 ravages among their cattle, and lasted for eight successive 
 days. On the celebration of this festival enemies were said 
 to forget their animosity, and all prisoners were liberated. 
 
 LErCTOR. In the early Church, a person set apart for 
 the purpose of reading parts of the Bible and other writings 
 of a religious character to the people. They were conse- 
 crated by prayers and ceremonies for this office, and in the 
 third century appear to have formed proper officers of the 
 church. It is probably from this institution that the order 
 of preachers in parish churches in England called lecturers 
 i^ derived, who hold a distinct office from the vicar, rector, 
 or other ecclesiastical functionaries ; they are chosen by the 
 vestry or chief inhabitants of the parish, supported by volun- 
 tary subscriptions and legacies, and usualh officiate on Sun- 
 day afternoon. 
 
 LE'CTURE (Lat. lego, / read), signifies generally a dis- 
 course read, as the derivation of the word implies, by a pro- 
 fessor to his pupils ; but it is applied in a more extended sense 
 to every species of instruction communicated vied voce. In 
 the Scotch and Continental universities, as well as in those 
 recently established in England, the great business of teach- 
 ing is carried on by means of public lectures, delivered at 
 stated periods, and embracing every subject included in the 
 curriculum of study ; but at the two great English universi- 
 ties, as is well known, a different system is adopted. There 
 the established mode of instruction is by private tutors; 
 and though a few lectureships have, from time to time, been 
 founded, and lectures are sometimes voluntarily given by 
 active members, still these are rather to be considered as 
 incidental appendages than as constituent parts of a regular 
 system. 
 
 Public lectures have been adopted from the earliest ages 
 as a convenient mode of teaching the elements of every 
 branch of human knowledge ; and it is perhaps true that if 
 they be properly compiled, and accompanied by strict and 
 regular examinations, few means seem better calculated to 
 awaken the attention of the student, to abridge his labours, 
 to guide his inquiries, and to impress upon his recollection 
 the first principles of science. The endless diversity of sub 
 jects on which lectures have been or may be given precludes, 
 of course, any attempt to lay down rules applicable in all 
 cases for the guidance of individual lecturers ; but there are, 
 notwithstanding, some great leading principles that should 
 in every case be kept steadily in view, first of all, it should 
 be borne in mind that, a lecture being an oral discourse, if 
 the meaning of the lecturer be at any time mistaken or not 
 perceived, the student or hearer cannot return, as he would 
 do to a book, for farther explanations, and the subsequent 
 nart of the lecture may in consequence be rendered nearly 
 useless. Hence /irrspiruity of statement is the first and Iiil;!i 
 est quality of a lecturer. Perspicuity, indeed, is indispensa- 
 ble to all good writing and sneaking ; but in by-tturipg 
 
 dally it is the one thing needful, and without it Other quali- 
 ties can avail little or nothing. To attain this essential 
 quality the subjects of the lecture should he so arranged that 
 they may follow each other naturally and easily ; the sen- 
 tences should be clear and distinct, neither too long nor too 
 short: the illustrations should he apposite, and of a kind 
 fitted to excite and keep awake the attention of the hearer ; 
 654 
 
 LEECH. 
 
 and the lecture so composed should be delivered in a plain, 
 distinct, and impressive manner. If a lecturer he deficient 
 in these qualities, he can be of little or no use as a teacher, 
 how well soever he may be acquainted with the subject on 
 which he prelects. Dr. Brown, of Edinburgh, is an instance 
 in point: bis views with respect to the philosophy of the 
 mind are often original, sometimes just, and always ingeni- 
 ous; but the stj le in w hich they air expounded is as had as 
 possible, even in a book made for the closet, and rendered 
 his lectures all but unintelligible to nine tenths of his stu- 
 dents. It has been the fashion among certain parties who 
 certainly do not owe much to the belles Icttres to depreciate 
 the lectures of Dr. Blair ; but they may be safely referred to 
 as all but perfect models of the style and manner in which 
 lectures should be written. 
 
 When lectures are prepared in the way now stated by par- 
 ties well versed in the subjects prelected upon, and when 
 they arc regularly followed up next day by a .searching ex- 
 amination of the students on the various subjects treated of, 
 and explanations are given of such difficulties as may have 
 occurred to them, they may, perhaps, as already stated, be 
 regarded as a pretty unexceptionable method of teaching. 
 But lectures got up, as they generally are, not to instruct the 
 hearer, but to exhibit the attainments or prejudices of the 
 lecturer, and unaccompanied either by examinations or ex- 
 ercises, are about the least profitable exhibitions at which a 
 student can be present. 
 
 LE'DGER. See Book-keeping. 
 
 LEDGER-LINE. (Dutch, leggen, to lie.) In JIusic, a line 
 either above or below the staff, when that is not sufficient 
 in extent to lay the notes upon. It is above the staff in 
 ascending progressions, and in descending progressions be 
 low it. 
 
 LE'DGERS. (Fr.) In Architecture, horizontal pieces 
 of timber used in scaffolding, lying parallel to the wall oppo- 
 site to which they are erected. 
 
 LEE, LEEWARD. Sea terms, denoting generally the 
 side or quarter not directly exposed to the wind. The lee- 
 side of a ship is the opposite to that on which the wind blows 
 when it crosses her course, and which is termed the weather 
 side. Leeward is on the lee-side; opposed to windward, or 
 the weather side. A lee-shore is the shore on the lee-sidc 
 of the ship, or the shore on which the wind blows; and a 
 ship is said to be under the Ice of the shore when the wind 
 blows from the shore, or when she is in some measure shel- 
 tered by the shore. The names Leeward and Windward,, 
 as applied to the West India Islands, were given to them 
 from their situation in a voyage from the ports of Spain to 
 Carthagena or Portobello. The islands which lie to leeward 
 extend from Portorico to Demerara. 
 
 LEE-BOARD. A small platform of planks, which being 
 let down into the water on the lee side of flat-bottomed 
 \ easels, opposes the action of the wind to drive them to lee- 
 ward. 
 
 LEECH. This name is given to those abranchiate red- 
 blooded worms, or anellidans, which are provided with a 
 sucker at both ends of the body {see Hirudo), and of which 
 we possess a few native species ; some frequenting the fresh 
 waters, as the horse leeches (Hamopis sanguisorba and II. 
 stagnorum) ; others the ocean, where they are parasitic 
 upon fishes, as the skate-sucker (Pontobdella mvricata). 
 The medicinal leech (Sanguis u^ra mcdicinalis) belongs to 
 that subdivision of the family llirudinida: which is charac- 
 terized by having the superior lip of the anterior cup or 
 sinker divided into several segments, and the oral aperture 
 transverse, triradiate, and surrounded by three cartilaginous 
 jaws, each armed with two rows of very fine teeth. This 
 apparatus enables the leech to penetrate the skin so as to en- 
 sure a ready flow without causing a dangerous wound. The 
 upper lip is marked with ten small points considered as eyes. 
 The specie : of the '-onus Sanguisuga, viz. .S. officinalis and 
 S. medicinalis, are most common in the south of France, 
 ce great numbers are exported to this country. The 
 leech-dealers of Bretagne drive horses and cows into the 
 ponds, that the leeches may fatten and propagate more 
 abundantly by sucking their blood. Children are employed 
 to catch them by the hand ; and the grown persons wade 
 into the shallow waters In Hie spring of the year, and catch 
 the leeches that adhere to their nak-il legs. They are also 
 taken by a sort Of net made of twigs and rushes, which is 
 used in the summer when the leeches retire into the deeper 
 waters. 
 
 The best method of preserving these valuable little am" 
 mals is stated by the author of the article "Leech" in the 
 Penny Oyclopadia to be that described by Fee. It is as fel- 
 lows: 
 
 Into a marble or stone trough a layer of seven inches of 
 a mixture of moss, turf, and charcoal is to be put. and some 
 small pebbles placed above it; at one extremity of the 
 trough, and midway between the bottom and the top, place 
 a thin plate of marble pierced with numerous small holes, 
 upon which there should rest a stratum of moss, or portions
 
 LEELITE. 
 
 of the Equisetum palustre, or horse-tail, firmly compressed 
 by a layer of pebbles. The trough to be filled with water 
 only so high that the moss and pebbles should be but slight- 
 ly moistened. A cloth is to be kept over the mouth of the 
 trough. This is imitating as nearly as possible their natural 
 condition ; and the charcoal not only aids in keeping the 
 water sweet, but appears to prevent the leeches being at- 
 tacked by parasitic animals, to which they are very liable. 
 The water should be changed about once a week, and more 
 frequently in warm weather. 
 
 The great importance of ascertaining the best method of 
 preserving the medicinal leech may be inferred from the ex- 
 tent to which the trade is carried on, and the consequent in- 
 creasing scarcity of these indispensable adjuncts to medi- 
 cine. Four onlv of the principal dealers in London import 
 7,200,000 annually. 
 
 LEE'LITE. A pink silico-aluminous mineral, tinged by 
 oxide of manganese. Named from Mr. Lee of Cambridge. 
 
 LEET. (Sax. leod ; Germ, leute, people.) The court 
 leet, or view of frankpledge, was an ancient Saxon institu- 
 tion answering a double purpose : 1. The administration of 
 justice in the trial of offences and the abatement of nuisan- 
 ces; 2. The preservation of the peace, and the prevention 
 of crime, by the reception and enrolment of the pledge 
 which each man was obliged to give by becoming a member 
 of some tything. The possession of a court leet was the 
 characteristic of the hundred, of which the proper leet was 
 distinct from, and subordinate to, that which was held by 
 the sheriff on his tourn. The court leet of the hundred was 
 usually held by a bailiff or steward of the sheriff; but it was 
 sometimes granted, as well as the leet of a smaller jurisdic- 
 tion, to private lords. A court leet also properly belonged 
 to a borough, which ranked as a hundred ; but such private 
 and borough leets were, like the leet of the hundred, subor- 
 dinate to the county leet of the tourn. 
 
 LEE-WAY, in Navigation, is the deviation of the course 
 actually run by a ship from the course steered upon ; or it 
 is the angle formed between the line of the ship's keel and 
 the line which she actually describes through the water. 
 In consequence of the action of the wind or currents, a ship 
 is generally impelled sideways as well as forward, whence 
 the direction of her motion is different from that of the keel. 
 Suppose the whole force urging the ship to be resolved into 
 j, two — one producing the motion 
 1 A B in the direction of the keel, 
 and the other the motion A C in 
 the same time at right angles to the former ; then the ship 
 will move in the direction of the diagonal A D, and the an- 
 gle DAB is the lee-way. To obviate the effects of this 
 lateral motion, the ship is laid on a course to the windward 
 of the point to which she is bound. 
 
 LEGACY. See Wills. (Lat. lego, / bequeath.) A gift 
 by will of personal property, as goods and chattels ; a testa- 
 mentary gift of real property being called a devise. Lega- 
 cies are general, such as a gift of a sum of money out of the 
 general estate of the deceased ; or specific, as a gift of a par- 
 ticular bank note or coin, or of any other individual chattel, 
 as a horse or a jewel ; or residuary, as a gift of the residue 
 of the estate remaining after all the debts of the deceased 
 and general and specific legacies have been satisfied. Gen- 
 eral legacies are subject to an equal rateable abatement, if 
 the estate is not sufficient for payment of them in full ; but a 
 specific legacy is not subject to abatement, unless it be ne- 
 cessary for the payment of debts. A specific legacy is, how- 
 ever, subject to what is called ademption, which is the con- 
 sequence of the subject matter of the legacy being one iden- 
 tical thing in specie : thus, if a testator bequeath a particu- 
 lar horse, which he afterwards disposes of in his lifetime, 
 the legacy is said to be adeemed, or taken away, because 
 the horse bequeathed has no longer any existence as part 
 of his property, and the legatee will not be entitled to anoth- 
 er horse of the testator's in lieu of it. This identity of cor- 
 pus is so inherent in the notion of a specific legacy, that if a 
 jEIOO in Consols were bequeathed, and the same sum were 
 afterwards transferred by the testator to another stock, the 
 transfer of itself would adeem the legacy. The mode of 
 compelling executors to pay a legacy is by suit in equity for 
 the administration of the testator's assets : courts of'law 
 have not, in general, any jurisdiction over such matters. 
 Executors cannot be compelled to pay a legacy until the 
 expiration of a year after the testator'sdeath : they are al- 
 lowed that period for ascertaining and discharging his debts ; 
 and even after a legacy has been paid the legatee must re- 
 fund, if it should be necessary, for the payment of creditors 
 who come in, although after the period abovementioned. 
 The party to whom a legacy is bequeathed is termed lega- 
 tee. For an account of the legacy duties, see art. "Taxa- 
 tion," F.ncyc. Britannica, (new edition). 
 
 LE'GATE. (Lat. legatus.) A high functionary, in gen- 
 eral a cardinal or bishop, whom the pope sends as ambassa- 
 dor to the courts of foreign powers. Legates are: 1. A La- 
 tere, who possess the highest degree of authority ; 2. De 
 
 LEGION. 
 
 Latere : the former arc such as the pope commissions to take 
 his place in councils. 3. Legates by office are such as en- 
 joy the titular distinction of legate by virtue of their dignity 
 and rank in the church, but have no special mission. 
 
 LEGATION. See Ambassador. Diplomacy. 
 
 LEGA'TO. (Ital. tied.) In Music, a term used to denote 
 the tying one note to another, which is done by placing these 
 marks ^ ^ above or below the notes intended to be so joined. 
 This is also known by the name of sycope. 
 
 LEGATU'RA. (Ital.) In Music. See Driving Notes. 
 
 LEGA'TUS. (Lat.) In Roman History, an officer who 
 acted as deputy under a commander-in-chief, and whose duty 
 it was to aid the proconsuls and proprators in the adminis- 
 tration of the Roman provinces. Of the number of the le- 
 gati nothing certain is known ; though the probability is, that 
 there was one to every legion. In the absence of the con- 
 suls and other magistrates entitled to the fasces, this honour 
 was conferred on the legati. 
 
 LE'GEND. (Lat. legenda, things to be read.) A book 
 originally used at divine service in the Romish churches, in 
 which are recorded the lives of saints and martyrs, portions 
 of which were selected and read for the edification of the 
 people. These legends, which contained many ridiculous 
 stories of the lives of the saints, were studiously perused in 
 the refectories of cloisters, and were earnestly recommended 
 to the perusal of the laity, as so many evidences of the truth 
 of the Roman Catholic faith. Among these the Golden Le- 
 gend (the work of Jacobus de Voragine, archbishop of 
 Genoa in the 13th century), which is a collection of the lives 
 of the saints, maintained its ground in the church for two 
 hundred years ; though, from the number of ridiculous stories 
 with which it teems, it has now sunk into merited oblivion. 
 But although many of the legends consist of tasteless and 
 unmeaning fictions, the offspring of a childish credulity, 
 which, indeed, they were intended to gratify, there are many 
 of them of a highly poetical and striking character ; and 
 hence it is not surprising that this species of literature has 
 often been regarded, even by persons of taste, as a verdant 
 oasis amid the desert of imaginative writings in the middle 
 ages. There are some sensible remarks as to the value of 
 the early Christian legends in Beugnot, Hist, de la Destruc- 
 tion du. Paganisme en Occident, i., 280. In a general sense 
 the term legend is used to denote any fictitious or doubtful 
 narrative ; such as the exploits of heroes of the middle ages, 
 or the history of a people or district in which truth is so 
 mixed with fable as to be inseparable from it. 
 
 Legend. In Numismatics, that which is written round 
 the field of a medal ; opposed to inscription, which is writ- 
 ten across it. See Numismatics. 
 
 LEGERDEMAIN. (Fr. light of hand.) A term given 
 to some deceptive or slight-of-hand performances, which de- 
 pend entirely on dexterity and address, or derive but a small 
 degree of aid from philosophical principles. See Magic. 
 
 LEGGIA'DRO. (Ital.) In Music, a direction to the per- 
 former that the music to which the word is appended is to 
 be performed gaily or briskly. 
 
 LE'GION. A division of the Roman army, comprising 
 ten cohorts, thirty maniples, or sixty centuries; so that if 
 there had always" been one hundred men in each century, 
 as its name imports, the legion would have consisted of six 
 thousand men. But the number was in fact variable. 
 
 There were usually three hundred cavalry joined to each 
 legion, which were divided into ten troops (turmaj), and 
 each of these troops into three bodies of ten men (decurtxe). 
 The defensive arms of the legionaries were an oblong shield, 
 a helmet, hauberk, and greaves ; their offensive weapons 
 were a sword and two long javelins. The legion was drawn 
 up in three lines ; the soldiers in each of which were distin- 
 guished by the names Hastati, Principes, and Triarii. The 
 Hastati, who formed the first line, were young men in the 
 flower of life, and originally used long spears, which were, 
 however, afterwards discarded. The Principes occupied the 
 second line, and were men in the prime of life. The Triarii 
 were veteran soldiers, and formed the third line. In each 
 legion there were six military tribunes, who commanded un- 
 der the consul, each in his turn, usually for about a month. 
 This was the early organization of the legion, as it is known 
 to us chiefly from'the description of Livy, at the time of the 
 great Latin war in the fifth century of the Republic. It was 
 materially changed in later times; and the three original 
 lines were discarded, probably about the time of the Punic 
 war. But it always retained its distinctive character of a 
 separate armv, as it were, provided with its complement of 
 cavalrv and iight infantry ; and it has been remarked, as a 
 striking proof of the military genius of the Romans, that after 
 so many ages of additional experience, recent captains, and 
 particularly Napoleon, have found it advantageous to divide 
 their armies into separate corps, each in a similar manner 
 complete, with its own cavalry and artillery; and these, in 
 the French imperial armies, usually averaged from 4000 to 
 6000 men, or about the number of a Roman legion. The 
 organization of the legion is explained in most works on 
 
 655
 
 LEGION OF HONOUR. 
 
 Roman antiquities, hut has been nowhere so thoroughly 
 treated as by M. Le Beau, in a long Beries of memoirs which 
 appeared from time to time In the Mem. de I'.ic.dcs Inscrip- 
 tions ct Belles Lettre*. See particularly vols. w\v.. \\\ui.. 
 mix. The reader may also now consult Dr. Arnold's 
 
 History of Kvuie. vol. ii. 
 
 LE'GION OF HONOUR. An order instituted by Na- 
 poleon, when first consul of France, for merit, both military 
 and civil. The order consisted, under the Empire, of grand 
 crosses, grand officers, commanders, officers, and leg 
 They were divided into sixteen cohorts, each of -KIT mem 
 bers ; but the total amount was afterwards much Increased. 
 Pensions, from 250 to 5000 trams per annum, were attached 
 In these distinctions. After the restoration of Louis \ \ III 
 the order underwent some modifications in its constitution, 
 and its members were limited on a smaller scale. See Hon- 
 our. 
 
 LEGISLATION. See Law. 
 
 LE'GISLATOR. (Lat.) One who frames or establishes 
 the laws and polity of a state or kingdom. The term is 
 chiefly applied to some distinguished persons of antiquity, 
 such as Moses among the Jews; Theseus, Draco, Si. Ion, 
 among the Athenians ; Lycurgus among the Spartans ; and 
 Noma among the Romans. 
 
 LEGISLATURE. The name given to the body or bodies 
 in a slate in whom is vested the power of making laws. 
 Thus the king, lords, and commons of Great Britain, whose 
 united consent is indispensable to the framing of a law, are 
 styled the legislature. 
 
 LEGITIMACY, in Polities, signifies, in its strictest sense, 
 the accordance of an action or an institution with the muni- 
 cipal law of the land. The principle of obedience to civil 
 authority, in whatever hands the law has placed it, is conse- 
 crated by religion as well as by sound philosophy. Resistance 
 to, or evasion of, the legal commands of a superior, is thus 
 an offence against the law of God as well as of man, in 
 things in themselves indifferent as well as in things com- 
 manded by the principles of morality. How far they must 
 be obeyed when against the conscience of the subject, is one 
 of those questions of casuistry which never can receive a 
 solution applicable to all cases and circumstances. In this 
 sense it is clear that the attribute of legitimacy belongs to 
 no particular form of government, but is equally inherent in 
 ail when lawfully established. But, looking at the subject 
 from a higher point of view, the question arises, when and 
 how shall a government be taken to he lawfully established ? 
 This can only be directly answered by two classes of political 
 philosophers. The first attribute the quality of legitimacy 
 only to hereditary monarchical government, which they 
 conceive to lie peculiarly of divine appointment, deriving it 
 from the patriarchal form of society. This theory has the 
 advantage of simplicity ; but its advocates have never been 
 able to show any real foundation for it in the language of 
 Scripture, and it is of course impossible to raise it on any 
 other basis. (See Divine Right. Non-resistance.) The 
 second class bases society on the abstract rights of man, at- 
 tributes all power to the people, and considers no govern- 
 ment legitimate except such as is founded on their consent. 
 This theory also is plain and clear in the abstract; but has 
 the defect of becoming impossible in application. For, 1. 
 The principle of the social contract, or implied consent of 
 the people, is a mere philosophical fiction. 2. The actual 
 consent of the people (i. c, the majority of it) to any existing 
 form of government has never been satisfactorily ascertained. 
 This is notoriously the case in every European country ; 
 and even the representative government of the United States 
 of America is chosen by a constituency from which slaves, 
 women, and persons under twenty-one years of age (that is, 
 in all, five sixths of the population) are excluded. Now the 
 exclusion of any one of these classes can only be justified on 
 grounds of expediency ; and similar grounds might equally 
 justify the adoption of other tests («. g., that of property, as 
 in England and other European countries) which wouldstill 
 farther reduce' the number of the constituency. '.',. Buppoe 
 ing a government established by the actual voices of a ma- 
 jority of the whole people, the question would still arise, 
 whether every subsequent act of thai government was legiti- 
 matized by that original validity. This question was much 
 debated in Prance at the period of the trial of Louis XVI.. 
 when the Convention, elected itself by a majority of the peo- 
 ple, was assuming the extraordinary [Miuer of judging that 
 monarch. The Cirondins, on that occasion, contended that 
 an appeal to the people (i. e., to Hie suifrages of a majority 
 of the constituents) was necessary in order to ratify the act ; 
 and in a greater or less degree it must always arise, when 
 ever an alteration in circumstances since the period of the 
 election of the representative body has called for the adoption 
 of extraordinary measures. Between these tun . 
 theoretical politicians, the greater number are content to hold. 
 that the only fundamental principle of government is ev 
 pediency ; and its only right, that given by municipal law or 
 peaceable possession. In their view, all government is 
 656 
 
 LEMISCATA. 
 
 equally legitimate so soon as it is fairly established ; while 
 they fully admit that a question, and often a very difficult 
 one, arises on every violent change of Institutions, as to how 
 s,kiu the new government de facto has acquired the charac- 
 ter of legitimacy. In the language of modern politics this 
 word has acquired a peculiar sense; chiefly from its em- 
 ployment about tile period of the Cong i, when 
 the old hereditary dynasties were terne, I i, gritunate in con- 
 tradistinction to those which the French revoluti >n and sub- 
 sequent wars had founded. Hence the principle of legiti- 
 macy has been, very incorrectly, opposed to that of repre- 
 sentative or popular government ; a mere abuse of terms, but 
 an importantone, from the powerful effect which words are 
 able M produce in political discussion. 
 
 Legitimacy. (Lat legitimus, lawful.) In Jurisprudence, 
 the stair of a child born in lawful wedlock. 
 
 LEGITIMATION. The act by which natural children 
 are rendered legitimate. See Gret.na Green Marriages, 
 Bastaro. 
 
 LEGU'MEN. (Lat.) In Botany, a one-celled, one or 
 many seeded, two-valved, superior fruit, dehiscing by a 
 suture along both its face and its back, and bearing its seeds 
 on the ventral suture only. It differs from the follicle only 
 in dehiscing by two valves. Sometimes it is indehiscent, as 
 in Cassia fistula, &c. ; but the line of dehiscence is in such 
 species indicated by the presence of sutures. It is very near 
 a drupe, into which it passes in many genera, such as Dip- 
 tcryx, fee. 
 
 LEGU'MINO'SJE. A very extensive natural order of 
 Polypetalous Exogenous plants found in all parts of the 
 world ; forming large trees and huge twiners in the Tropics, 
 and being herbaceous plants or small hushes, rarely trees, in 
 colder countries. The order contains a great variety of use- 
 ful and beautiful species, some of which, like clover, lucern, 
 saintfoin, and vetches, are cultivated for cattle; others, as 
 peas, beans, lentils, and various other kinds of pulse, form 
 part of the food of man. Indigo, logwood, and many others 
 are well known dying plants; several acacias produce gum 
 arabic; certain .Istragali yield tragacanth ; the tamarind 
 and others bear pods, whose interior is filled with an agree- 
 i la. or pulp; Cassia acutifolia and others yield sen- 
 na ; Qlyeyrrhiza the liquorice root; Ceratonia the wild lo- 
 cust fruits of Scripture ; finally, many are valuable tonics, 
 and some are dangerous narcotics, among which the com- 
 mon laburnum is to be named. The larger part of this order 
 consists of plants called Papilionaceous, because of a fancied 
 resemblance between their flowers and a butterfly. Such 
 plants have one large expanded petal, and four others much 
 smaller, which form alas and carina in front of the vexillum ; 
 but in others the more usual form of corolla is observed, and 
 there are even some wffiich, like Ceratonia, are apctalous. 
 The division of the order called Mimosa is remarkable for 
 having very small flowers with long stamens, and growing 
 in balls or spikes. 
 
 LE'MMA. (Gr. ^.tip/ia, from \aii6avw, I take or assume.) 
 In Geometry, a preliminary proposition, laid down for the 
 purpose of facilitating or rendering more i>erspicuous the 
 demonstration of a theorem, or the construction of a problem. 
 
 LE'MMING. A name given to a species of claviculate 
 Rodents (Georychus lemmus. III.), very abundant in the 
 north of Europe on the shores of the Arctic ocean. It is as 
 large as a rat, with black and yellow fur, and is remarkable 
 for its occasional migrations in innumerable bodies. At these 
 periods tin- lemmings are said to march in a straight line, re- 
 gardless of rivers and moimtains; and, unimpeded by any 
 obstacle, they devastate the country through which they 
 pass. Si . Geokychus. 
 
 LEMNI'SCATA. (Gr. Xi/hvickos, a riband.) In Geome- 
 try, the name given to a curve of the fourth degree, having 
 the form of the figure 8, and of which the equation is z--^- 
 2/2 = 0-^x2 — yi. There are many other curve* of thesame 
 order having a similar form, but their equations dlfler from 
 tlir above. The lemniscata, though a re-entering curve, is 
 susceptible of indefinite quadrature ; and its whole area is 
 equal t<. the square of its semi-axis. It is a remarkable prop- 
 erty of this curve that it is capable of being divided alge- 
 braic ally into equal though dissimilar portions. 
 
 The various properties of tins curve are most easily de- 
 rived from its polar equation. LetC P p 
 A— a, CQ= i, andP Q. = y; the /|^sp/ 
 equation of the curve is x2 -J- yl = „ A.[ — L- 
 
 v/i2 — 1/2. Now let CP = r, and 
 the angle PC Q= it, we shall have r = r cos. u, and y = r 
 sin. u. Substituting these values Of i and y in the equation 
 of the curve, it becomes, after reduction, r* = o* COB. 8 ?/. 
 But, by the general theory of curves, the differential of the 
 ana referred to polar co-ordinates is A r- il u : therefore in 
 the present case d area=; £ a 2 cos. 9 u d u, and, Integrating, 
 i ' /< P <i _ia ; sin. u cos. u. At the point C we have r 
 = 0; therefore cos.2u = 0, and consequently i< = 45°. At 
 this point, therefore, sin. u := y/ £, and cos. u =; ^ \ ; and at
 
 LEMONS, ESSENTIAL SALT OF. 
 
 the point A we have u = 0, therefore the area comprised 
 between C A and the curve AP/?C=|a2. Hence the 
 whole area bounded by both branches (the two brandies 
 being similar) is equal to a2, or tho square of A C, wliich is 
 £AB. 
 
 Let P be any point in the curve, and p another point re- 
 lated to P by the equation cos. AC P X cos. A Cp — ^/ £; 
 then the curvilinear arc A P is equal to C p, which is the 
 property above alluded to. A similar property, however, 
 belongs also to some other curves. (See Legendre, Exer- 
 cises de Calcul Integral, tome i.) 
 
 LE'MONS, ESSENTIAL SALT OF. The binoxalate 
 of potash is often sold under this name ; it is chiefly used for 
 removing iron-moulds and ink-stains from linen. 
 
 LE'MUR. (Lat, lemur, a ghost.) This term was ap- 
 plied in the Linnsean system to several of the lower Qua- 
 druinanous animals of different structure and habits; it is 
 now restricted to those which have the inferior incisors long, 
 compressed, straight, and sloping forwards, and the lower 
 canines approximated, and of similar form and direction, dif- 
 fering only in a slight increase of size, whence they have 
 usually been enumerated as incisors : the upper incisors are 
 straight, and the intermediate ones are separated from each 
 other. The long, pointed canines of the upper jaw are prin- 
 cipally opposed to the trenchant anterior false molars below. 
 Each of the four extremities is provided with an opposable 
 thumb ; but the index digit of the hinder hand has its nail 
 developed into a long, curved, sharp-pointed claw. The use 
 of this claw is to clean or dislodge vermin from the long and 
 thick woolly hair. The lemurs deviate from the typical 
 tiuadrumanes, and approximate to the ordinary quadruped 
 in their elongated, pointed head, and sharp, projecting muzzle ; 
 the posterior limbs are a little longer than the anterior ; the 
 tail is long, thick, and bushy. They are all natives of Mad- 
 agascar and of some of the smaller islands in its neighbour- 
 hood. To judge from the nature of their covering, it might 
 be supposed that the lemurs were natives of a cold climate 
 but their fur has relation to the season of their activity. 
 They sleep by day, and move about in the night season, du- 
 ring which time the air is often sufficiently cold in the tropi- 
 cal latitudes. Their nutriment is a mixed diet of fruits, in- 
 sects, and small birds ; the latter they surprise while at 
 roost. 
 
 LE'MURES. Male and female genii, or infernal gods, 
 believed by the ancient Romans to haunt solitary rooms and 
 silent places : they were propitiated by casting beans to them. 
 Their feast was celebrated under the name of Lemuria or 
 Lemuralia. 
 
 LE'MURIM:. (Lat. lemur, a ghost.) The family of 
 (iuadrumanous Mammals, of which the genus Lemur is the 
 type ; it includes the genera Tarsius, Otolicnus, Ste7iops, 
 IAchanotus, and Lemur proper: see those terms. 
 
 LENS. (Lat.) In Optics, a thin piece of glass or any 
 other transparent substance, bounded on both sides by polish- 
 ed spherical surfaces, or on the one side by a spherical and 
 on the other by a plane surface ; and having this property, 
 that parallel rays of light, in passing through it, have their 
 direction changed, so as to converge to a given point, called the 
 principal focus of the lens, or to diverge as if they proceeded 
 from that point. 
 
 Lenses receive different denominations according to their 
 different forms. Thus, 
 
 M — 
 
 D E 
 
 G 
 
 T~K 
 
 A spherical lens, shown at A, is a sphere or globule of 
 glass. 
 
 A double convex lens, shown at B, is a solid formed by two 
 convex spherical surfaces; and is equally convex or un- 
 equally convex, according as the radii of its two surfaces are 
 equal or unequal. 
 
 A plano-convex lens, C, is that of which one of the sur- 
 faces is plane and the other convex. 
 
 A double concave lens, D, is bounded by two concave 
 spherical surfaces, which have either the same or a differ- 
 ent curvature. 
 
 A plano-concave lens, E, has one surface plane, and the 
 other concave. 
 
 A meniscus, F (so called from its resemblance to a little 
 moon), is a lens of which one of the surfaces is convex and 
 the other concave, and which meet if continued. The 
 radius of the convex surface is consequently smaller than 
 the radius of the concave. 
 
 A concavo-convex lens, G, is that of which one of the sur- 
 faces is concave and the other convex ; but in this case the 
 surfaces will not meet though continued, the radius of the 
 concave surface being smaller than that of the convex one. 
 
 The straight line M N which passes through the centres 
 of all the curved surfaces, or is perpendicular to both sur- 
 
 LENS. 
 
 faces of the same lens, is called the axis of the lens ; and it 
 is in this line that the focus of the lens is situated. 
 
 It was observed, at an early period, that a transparent 
 body of a spherical form has the property of collecting at the 
 focus the parallel rays of light which fall on its surface. 
 But it was remarked, at the same time, that the illumination 
 at these foci was extremely feeble, in consequence of the 
 thickness of the glass which the light had to pass through. 
 This inconvenience is removed by taking only two small 
 segments instead of the entire sphere ; by which means, as 
 the retraction takes place only at the surfaces, and not in 
 the interior of the glass, the very same refraction of the 
 rays is produced as when the whole sphere is used ; and 
 the thickness of the glass being greatly diminished, the rays 
 pass through it in much greater number, and the intensity 
 of the light in the focus is much more considerable. 
 
 The rules for finding the focal distances of the different 
 sorts of lenses are the following. They depend in some 
 measure on the refracting power of the glass. We shall 
 here suppose the index of refraction to be 1-500. 
 
 1. Rays of light, R L, R L, falling on a convex lens in 
 directions parallel to the axis, , 
 are refracted into the point JJ- 
 F, which is called the prin- 
 cipal focus. In a double and 
 equally convex lens, the dis- 
 tance of F from C, the centre ^ 
 
 of the lens, is equal to the radius of the spherical surfaces. 
 If the lens is plano-convex, the focal distance is equal to twice 
 the radius of the spherical surface. If the lens is unequally 
 convex, its focal distance is found by this rule: Multiply 
 the two radii of its surfaces, and divide twice that product 
 by the sum of the radii ; the quotient will be the focal dis- 
 tance required. 
 
 2. When the rays falling on a convex lens, whose princi- 
 pal focus is F, converge Jt- 
 towards a point O, their 
 convergency will be has- 
 tened, and they will be It- 
 refracted into a point O', 
 which is nearer the lens ^_______— — 
 
 than the principal focus R 
 F. The two points O and O' are called conjugate foci ; and 
 they are related to each other in such a manner that C O' 
 is a fourth proportional to C O + C F, C O and C F. Hence, 
 when the point O is given, the conjugate focus O' will be 
 found by this rule : Multiply the principal focal distance 
 C F by C O, and divide the product by the sum of those 
 numbers. It is obvious that as the distance of O becomes 
 greater, O' approaches to F, and when O is at an infinite 
 distance, O' coincides with F. 
 
 3. Suppose diverging rays issuing from a point O to fall 
 on a double concave lens of which the principal focus is F. 
 In this case they will be refracted to a point O' ; and the 
 conjugate foci O and O' are so related that C O' is a fourth 
 
 proportional to C O — C F, C O and C F. Hence O' is found 
 by the following rule : Multiply the principal focal distance 
 C F by C O, and divide the product by the difference be- 
 tween C O and C F. As the point of divergence O recedes 
 from the lens, the point O' approaches nearer to F ; and 
 when O is at an infinite distance, O' coincides with F. As 
 O approaches the lens, O' recedes from it ; when O is at F' 
 (the focal distance), the refracted rays become parallel to 
 the axis ; and when O is between F' and C, as at M, the re- 
 fracted rays diverge in the directions L m, L m'. 
 
 4. The focal distance of a concave lens is the same as that 
 of a convex one whose surfaces have the same curvature, 
 and the rules for finding the conjugate foci are precisely the 
 same ; but the rays, instead of being collected, are scattered 
 by passing through a concave lens, and the principal focus 
 is on the same side as the point from which the rays pro- 
 ceed. Parallel rays R L, R C, R L, falling on the concave 
 lens L L in the direction of the axis, become divergent, as 
 if they proceeded from F' (the principal focus). When the 
 rays which fall on 
 a concave lens 
 converge towards 
 the point F, they 
 
 are refracted in H — r *S 
 
 the direction par- 
 allel to the axis. 
 When the inci- 
 dent rays converge 
 to a point O beyond F, the refracted rays diverge, as if they 
 Ss 657
 
 LENS-SHAPED, LENTICULAR. 
 
 proceeded from a conjugate point O', also farther from the 
 lens than F' ; and when the incident rays converge towards 
 a point M, between C and P, the refracted rays will be con- 
 vergent, and meet in a conjugate point M' on the same side 
 of the lens with M. These conjugate foci are determined 
 by the rules which have been given for convex lenses. 
 Lastly, when the incident rays diverge from a point <>', far- 
 ther from the lens than the principal focus, the refracted 
 rays will be more divergent, and proceed as if they ema- 
 nated from a point between the principal focus and the 
 lens. The rule is, in this case, also the same as for convex 
 Jenses. 
 
 5. The effect of a meniscus is the same as that of a con- 
 vex lens of the same focal distance ; and that of a concavo- 
 convex lens the same as that of a concave lens of the same 
 focal distance. The principal focal distance is found by this 
 rule: Divide twice the product of the two radii by the dif- 
 ference of the radii. 
 
 6. The above rules for finding the principal and conjugate 
 foci of the several kinds of lenses may be all expressed by 
 two simple algebraic formula;. Let It denote the radius of 
 the anterior surface (or that at which the light enters), S 
 that of the posterior surface, and let It and S be considered 
 as positive when the surfaces are convex, and negative 
 when concave. Also, let F denote the distance of the 
 principal focus, and ?j the index of refraction ; then, neglect- 
 ing the thickness of the lens as inconsiderable, the formula 
 which gives the principal focus is 
 
 *=(»-i)(i+|) a.) 
 
 For the conjugate foci of convergent and divergent rays, 
 let U be the distance C O of the focus of the enterings rays, 
 and V the distance C O' of the focus of the emerging rays ; 
 and let U be considered as negative when the entering rays 
 are divergent, and V negative when the emerging rays are 
 convergent ; then, 
 
 1,1 1 ., U F 
 
 u 
 
 U— F 
 
 (2.) 
 
 the point F being determined by the formula (1). 
 
 For the application of these formulae to the different cases, 
 and the correction to be made for the thickness of the lens, 
 see Codtlingto7i's Treatise on the Reflection and Refraction 
 of Light. 
 
 In deducing the above rules, it has heen assumed that the 
 focus into which the rays are refracted is a mathematical 
 point ; but this is not strictly true, unless the rays only fall 
 on the lens very near its centre, by reason of the spherical 
 aberration. (See Aberration.) For the correction of the 
 chromatic aberration, arising from the unequal refrangibility 
 of the luminous rays, see Achromatism. .See also Light, 
 Optics, and Refraction. 
 
 LENS-SHAPED, or LENTICULAR, or LENTIFORM. 
 A term used in describing the general figure of bodies, to 
 denote their resembling a double convex lens ; as the seeds 
 of Amaranthus. 
 
 LENT. A solemn time of fasting in the Christian Church ; 
 so called from the Anglo-Saxon signifying spring. The term 
 of Lent comprises the forty days before Easter, by which it 
 is determined. The period of time is intended to commemo- 
 rate the fasting of our Saviour in the wilderness. See 
 
 LE'NTE, or LENTO. (Ital.) In Music, a direction to 
 the performer that the music to which the word is prefixed 
 is to be performed slowly. 
 
 LE'NTIBULA'RIA'CE^E. A very small natural order 
 of Herbaceous Exogens, natives of the marshes and waters 
 of all parts of the world. They are nearly allied to Scro- 
 phulariacea, but are distinguished by their free central pla- 
 centa and minute exalbuminous embryo ; from Primulacca: 
 by their irregular tlowers, their stamens, and their ovary. 
 The beautiful Pinguicula, a wild plant in marshes, is one 
 of the genera, and Utricularia another. They are of no 
 known use. 
 
 LE'NTICELLES, or LENTICULAR GLANDS. A 
 term invented by De Candolle to denote certain minute 
 speck-like tubercles on stems. Notwithstanding the impor- 
 tance assigned them by this great botanist, his lenticelles 
 appear to be nothing more than the points of roots attempt- 
 ing to spring from the surface of bark. 
 
 LKNTPGO. A freckle of the skin; so named from its 
 resemblance to a lentil seed. 
 
 LE'NZINTTE. A hydrated silicate of alumina, found 
 at Eilield in Prussia; it is white, translucent, and falls into 
 small hard grains when put into water. 
 
 LE'O. (Eat. a lion.) One of the zodiacal constellations, 
 situated chiefly on the northern side of the ecliptic. The 
 star Rrgulus, called also Cor Lconis, belongs to this con- 
 stellation. 
 
 LE'O MI'NOR. The Little Eion : a constellation of the 
 northern hemisphere, between Leo and Ursa Major. This 
 658 
 
 LEPIDOPTERA. 
 
 constellation has been formed by the moderns, and is not 
 given in Ptolemy's catalogue. 
 
 LE'ONINE VERSES. Latin verses according to the 
 rules of ancient prosody, but rhymed. The name is said to 
 be derived from one of the popes Leo, or, more probably, 
 from a monk called Leoninus. The end rhymes to the mid- 
 dle, i. e., to the two last syllables before the cssura, in hex- 
 ameters ; in pentameters, the two divisions arc rhymed. 
 The following distich may serve as an example : 
 
 Daemon languebat, monachus tunc esse voleb.it j 
 Ast uhi couvaluit, mansil ut aute fuil. 
 
 LE'PADITES, Lepadila. (Gr. Acttos, a shell-fish.) Goose 
 barnacles ; an order of Cirripeds, comprehending tho: e which 
 have a long, flexible, contractile stem, fixed by its base to 
 some solid body, and supporting at its extremity the princi 
 pal parts of the animal, enclosed by a multivalve shell, or 
 coriaceous case. 
 
 LE'PADOGA'STER. (Gr. Aerac, and yacTvp, stomach.) 
 A genus of Discoholous Malacopterygian fishes, having the 
 following characters: pectoral fins expanded, with stouter 
 rays at their lower edges, which curve slightly forwards, 
 and unite with each other beneath the throat by means of a 
 transverse membrane directed forwards, constituting the 
 boundary of an adhesive disk, close to which there is a 
 second, formed by the union of the ventrals ; body smooth, 
 and without scales ; head broad and depressed ; snout salient 
 and protractile ; branchiae slightly cleft, and furnished with 
 four or five rays; dorsal fin single, and opposite to the anal, 
 which is near the tail. Of this genus we possess two native 
 species; one of which, called the Cornish sucker [Lepado- 
 gaster cornubiensis), was discovered by Dr. Borlase oil the 
 coast of Cornwall ; the other (Lepadogaster bimaculatus) has 
 heen taken on different parts of the South Weymouth coast. 
 Both species adhere by means of their ventral suckers to 
 rocks, stones, &c, whence the generic name: they feed 
 principally on Crustacea. 
 
 LE'PALS. A term invented to denote stamens that are 
 sterile. It is very rarely used. 
 
 LEPI'CENA. A term invented by Richard to denote tho 
 two empty bracts situated at the base of the locusta of a 
 grass, and usually called glumes. 
 
 LE'PIDOIDS. A family of extinct fossil fishes belonging 
 to the oolitic formation, remarkable for their lnrge rhom- 
 boidal bony scales. Figures of these scales are given in Dr. 
 Buckland's Bridgewater Treatise. 
 
 LE'PIDOLITE. (Gr. Acjtic, a scale, and AiOoc, stone.) A 
 mineral of granular and foliated texture, moderately hard, 
 of a pinkish colour. It contains lithia. 
 
 LEPIDO'PTERA. (Gr. A £ ;ric, and irrepov, a wing.) The 
 third order of insects in the system of Liniuius, and the 
 tenth in that of Latreille, who has given the following con- 
 cise and comprehensive description of the characters com- 
 mon to the insects of this most interesting, useful, and 
 beautiful group. 
 
 The wings are four, covered on both sides with minute 
 generally coloured scales, resembling farinaceous dust, which 
 are removed by merely coming in contact with the finger. 
 The oral apparatus consists principally of a proboscis, to 
 which the name of antlia has been given, which is rolled 
 spirally between two palpi, covered with scales or hairs. 
 This forms the most important part of the mouth, and is the 
 instrument with which these insects extract the nectar from 
 flowers, their only aliment. It is composed of two tubular 
 threads, representing the maxilla?, each bearing, near its ex- 
 ternal base, a very small superior palp, in the form of a 
 tubercle. The apparent (inferior) palpi, which form a sort 
 of sheath to the proboscis, replace the labial palpi of the 
 mandibulated insects : they are cylindrical or conical, usually 
 turned up, composed of three joints, and inserted in a fixed 
 labium, which completes that portion of the buccal cavity 
 inferior to the proboscis. Two little and scarcely distinct, 
 ComeOUS, And more or less ciliated pieces, situated, one on 
 each side, on the .anterior and superior margin of the front 
 of the head, near the eyes, seem to be vestiges of mandibles. 
 Finally, we observe, and under an equally small proportion, 
 the labrum or upper lip. 
 
 The antenna; vary, and were always multi-articulated. 
 Two ocelli are observable in several species, but concealed 
 between the scales. The three segments of which the 
 thorax is usually composed are united in one single body ; 
 the first is very short, and the two others are blended to- 
 gether. The scutellum is triangular, hut the apex is direct- 
 ed towards the head. The wings are simply veined, and 
 vary in size, figure, and position; in several the inferior 
 ones are plaited longitudinally near the inner margin. At 
 the base of each Of the superior Wings i8 a kind of epaulette, 
 prolonged posteriorly, which corresponds to the piece called 
 tegula in the llyuienoptera. The abdomen, composed of 
 from six to seven annuli, is attached to the thorax by a very 
 small portion of its diameter, and presents neither sting 
 nor ovipositor. In several females, however, as in Cos s us, 
 the last rings become narrowed and extended, to form an
 
 LEPIDOPUS. 
 
 oviduct resembling a pointed and retractile tail. The tarsi 
 always have five joints. There are never more than two 
 kinds of individuals, males and females. 
 
 The females usually deposit their ova, frequently very- 
 numerous, on the vegetable surfaces which are to nourish 
 their larva, and soon after perish. 
 
 The larva; of Lepidopterous insects are well known by 
 the name of caterpillars. They have six squamous or hook- 
 ed feet, which correspond to the legs of the perfect insect, 
 and from four to ten additional membranous ones, or pro- 
 pedes ; the two last of which are situated at the posterior 
 extremity of the body. Those caterpillars which have but 
 ten or twelve in all have been called, from their mode of 
 progression, geometry. Several of these geometers, when 
 at rest, remain fixed to the branches of plants by the hind 
 feet alone, whence in the form, colour, and directions of 
 their body, they resemble a twig. They can support them- 
 selves in this position for a long time without exhibiting the 
 slightest symptom of life. So fatiguing an attitude must 
 require prodigious muscular force; and, in fact, Lyonnet 
 counted 4041 muscles in the caterpillar of the Cossus lig- 
 nipcrda . 
 
 The body of these larva? is generally elongated, almost 
 cylindrical, soft, variously coloured ; sometimes naked, and 
 sometimes covered with hairs, tubercles, and spines. It is 
 composed of twelve segments or annuli, exclusive of the 
 bead, with nine stigmata on each side. Their head is in- 
 vested with a corneous or squamous dermis, and presents on 
 each side six shining granules, which appear to be ocelli ; 
 and it is furnished with two very short and conical antenna, 
 and a mouth composed of strong mandibles, two maxillae, a 
 labrum, and four small palpi. The silk which they use is 
 elaborated in two long and tortuous internal vessels, of which 
 the attenuated superior extremities terminate in the lip. A 
 tubular and conical mamilla forms the spinnaret through 
 which the threads are spun. 
 
 Most caterpillars feed on the leaves of plants ; some gnaw 
 their flowers, roots, buds, and seeds; others attack the lig- 
 neous or hardest part of trees, softening it by means of a 
 lluid which they disgorge. Certain species attack our wool- 
 lens and furs, thereby doing us much injury ; even our 
 leather, bacon, wax, and lard, are not spared by them. 
 Several confine themselves exclusively to a single article of 
 diet ; others are less delicate, and devour all sorts of organ- 
 ized matters. 
 
 Some of them form societies, and frequently live under a 
 silken tent, spun by them in common, which even shelters 
 them in winter. Several construct sheaths for themselves, 
 either fixed or portable; others make their abode in the 
 parenchyma of leaves, where they form galleries. The 
 greater number are diurnal : the others never issue forth but 
 at night. The severity of winter, so fatal to almost all insects, 
 does not affect certain Phaltena:, which only appear in that 
 season. 
 
 Caterpillars usually change their skin four times previous- 
 ly to passing into the state of a nymph or chrysalis. Most 
 of them spin a cocoon in which they enclose themselves. 
 A frequently reddish liquor, which Lepidopterous insects 
 eject at the moment of their metamorphosis, softens or 
 weakens the extremity of the cocoon, and facilitates their 
 exit : one of these extremities, also, is generally thinner than 
 the other, or presents a favourable issue by the peculiar dis- 
 position of the fibres. Other caterpillars are contented with 
 connecting leaves, particles of earth, or of the substances 
 on which they have lived, and thus forming a rude cocoon. 
 The nymphs of the diurnal Lepidoptera are ornamented with 
 golden spots, whence the term chrysalis applied to them : 
 they are naked, and fixed by the posterior extremity of the 
 body. The nymphs of all the Lepidoptera are swathed, or 
 resemble mummies. Those of several insects of this order, 
 particularly of the Diurnm, undergo their metamorphosis in 
 a few days; they even frequently produce two generations 
 in the course of the year. The caterpillars or chrysalides 
 of others, however, remain during the winter in one of these 
 states, and undergo their final transformation in the ensuing 
 spring. The Lepidoptera issue from their nymphal en- 
 velope through a slit, which is effected in the back of the 
 thorax. 
 
 LE'PITJOPUS. (Gr. Ac-if, and rrovg, a foot.) A genus 
 of Taenioid fishes, characterized by the reduction of the 
 ventral fins to the condition of small scaly plates. The thin 
 and elongated body is without scales : it is furnished with a 
 dorsal fin, which extends its whole length, and a narrow 
 anal fin ; it terminates in a well-formed caudal. The 
 branchiostegous rays are eight in number ; the head is point- 
 ed, with a ■ ingle row of laniary teeth in each jaw, the largest 
 above, and others, very' small, on the palatine and pharyn- 
 geal bones. Of this genus one native species is known, 
 called the Scabbard-fish (Lcpidopus argyreus). It is very 
 rare : only four examples are recorded by Mr. Yarrell, which 
 were taken on the southern shores. 
 
 LEPIDO'TUS. In Palaeontology, the name of a fossil fish, 
 
 LEPUS. 
 
 distinguished by its large, thick, rhomboidal, enamelled 
 scales, and its hemispherical or obtusely conical teeth : its 
 remains are widely diffused through the wealden formation. 
 
 Lepidotus. In Botany, Latin term for leprous. 
 
 LE'PIS. (Gr. Atx-i?, a scale.) A scale or scurf, consisting 
 of a thin transparent membrane attached by its middle, and, 
 owing to the imperfect union towards its circumference of 
 the cellular tissue of which it is composed, having a lacer- 
 ated irregular margin. It gives origin to the adjective Le- 
 pidote. 
 
 LEPI'SMA. (Gr. Xe-ic/ia, decortication.) A Linnaean 
 genus of Apterous insects, forming the first family of Thy- 
 sanourous insects in the system of Latreille. The body of 
 these apterans is elongated, and covered with small scales, 
 frequently silvery and brilliant : from which circumstance 
 the most common species has been compared to a little fish. 
 The antennae are setaceous, and usually very long. The feet 
 are short, and frequently have very large and strongly com- 
 pressed coxae, resembling scales. These insects run with 
 great velocity : some of them, by means of their caudal ap- 
 pendage, are enabled to leap. Several species conceal them- 
 selves in the cracks of the framework of windows, in ward- 
 robes, under damp boards, &c. : others hide beneath stones. 
 
 Lepisma. In Botany, a term sometimes applied to the 
 cup-shaped disk of Pazonia. and Aconitttm ; but seldom em- 
 ployed. 
 
 LEPI'SMIDiE. The family of Thysanourous insects, of 
 which the genus Lepisma is the type. It includes the genera 
 Lepisma proper, and Jlfachiles. See those words. 
 
 LEPO'RID^E. The hare tribe, or the family of Rodents, 
 of which the genus I.epus is the type. 
 
 LE'PRA. (Gr. Xe-npos, rough.) The leprosy; a disease 
 of the skin, characterized by scaly patches, nearly of a cir- 
 cular form. The cuticle becomes reddish and scaly ; at first 
 upon some one spot, often upon the knee, and thence grad- 
 ually spreads over the body, which becomes stiff and un- 
 comfortable, and most unseemly in appearance. Friction, 
 warm baths, sulphur baths, and afterwards slightly stimu- 
 lating ointments, such as pitch ointment, or weak citrine oint- 
 ment, with light and moderate diet, and careful abstinence 
 from wine and stimulants, are the principal means of cure. 
 This disease appears to have been of much more frequent 
 occurrence in ancient than in modem times; but it is gen- 
 erally believed that the lepers mentioned in the sacred and 
 profane authors were afflicted with a disease resembling 
 more that known bv the name of elephantiasis than leprosy. 
 
 LEPTOCE'PHALANS. Leptocephalidas. (Gr. Xtrrros, 
 slender ; KKp-iXn, a head.) The name of a family of fishes 
 characterized by the smallness of the head, of which the 
 genus Leptocephalus is the type. 
 
 LEPTOCE'PHALUS. A genus of Apodal Malncoptery- 
 gian fishes, in the system of Cuvier, characterized by a very 
 small and short head, and a remarkably compressed and 
 delicate body : the pectoral fins and branchial apertures are 
 very small ; the dorsal and anal fins are narrow, and united 
 at the point of the tail. One species of this rare and singu- 
 lar genus was discovered near Holyhead, and was described 
 by Gronovius under the generic name of Leptocephalus, in 
 reference to the diminutive size of the head. The Leptoce- 
 phali are more common in the seas of hot climates. 
 
 LEPTU'RA. (Gt.Xc-tos, slender ; ovpa,atail.) A Lin- 
 naean genus of Longicom beetles, now the type of an exten- 
 sive family (Lepturida), in which the eyes are rounded and 
 entire, or, if slightly emarginate, with the antennae inserted 
 before the emargination. The head is always inclined pos- 
 teriorly behind the eyes, oris abruptly contracted at its junc- 
 tion with the thorax, in the manner of a neck ; the thorax is 
 conical or trapezoidal, narrowed anteriorly ; the elytra be- 
 come gradually narrower. The term Leptura is now re- 
 stricted to those Lepturidans in which the head is abruptly 
 narrowed immediately behind the eyes ; the antennae insert- 
 ed near the anterior extremity of the internal emargination 
 of the eyes, the two eminences from which they rise being 
 almost confounded in one plane. The thorax is almost al- 
 ways smooth, or without lateral tubercles. 
 
 LE'PUS. (Lat. a hare.) A genus of Rodents peculiarly 
 distinguished by having their superior incisors double; i. e., 
 each of them has a smaller one behind it. The molar teeth 
 are also more numerous than in most other Rodentia, there 
 being six on each side of the upper jaw, and five on each 
 side of the lower jaw : the ears are very long, the tail short 
 and turned up. The species of this genus are called hares 
 and rabbits. The eyes are large and prominent, and, with 
 the well-developed ears, serve to announce to these timid 
 and defenceless animals remote objects and sounds of peril : 
 the strength and proportions of the limbs, of which the hind 
 pair is much longei than the fore, enable them to escape by 
 rapid flight. The smaller species, as the rabbit, add to their 
 means of safety by burrowing in the soil. Among the ana- 
 tomical characters of the genus Lrpus may be reckoned the 
 rudimental condition of the clavicles, and the reticulate bony 
 structure of the infra-orbital spaces. 
 
 659
 
 LERINLEIFORMES. 
 
 Lepus. The Hare. In Astronomy, one of the forty-eight 
 ancient constellations of Ptolemy, Blasted in the southern 
 hemisphere. 
 
 LERN.'EU'O'RMES. (Lat. lcrmra, a parasitic worm ; 
 forma, form.) The name of a family of Siphonostomous 
 Crustaceans, comprehending those with a long vermiform 
 body. 
 
 LERNE'A. (Gr. \epvai7j, a name of the hydra.) A Lin- 
 iia;u> genus of low-organized crustaceous animals, all Of 
 Which are external parasites of fishes, and constitute the class 
 Epiioa of modern systems. 
 
 LE ROI LE VEUT. (Fr. the sovereign wills it, or as- 
 sents.) A form of words by which the royal assent is inti- 
 mated by the clerk of parliament to the passing of public 
 bills. To private bills the royal assent is expressed by Soit 
 fait comme il est desire'. The dissent of the sovereign to the 
 passing of any measure is signified by the words JLe roi 
 s'aviscra. See Parliament. 
 
 LE'SSONS (Lat. lego, f read), are certain portions of the 
 scriptures read in most Christian churches during divine ser- 
 vice, tile performance of which in the ancient church de- 
 volved, among other duties, on the catechumen. In the 
 English Church, the course of lessons begins with the year 
 at the book of Genesis, and, with the omission of the two 
 books of Chronicles, continues through the Old Testament, 
 including portions of the Apocrypha. 
 
 In the second lessons, as they are called, the same course 
 is followed with the New Testament. In the Presbyterian 
 Church, the word lesson, in this sense, is unknown, though 
 the practice of reading a portion of scripture is almost uni- 
 versally adopted ; but the selection of the passage is left to 
 the choice of the officiating clergyman. 
 
 LESTRIS. (Lat. a robber.) A subgenus of Gulls, separ- 
 ated from the Larus proper on account of their large mem- 
 branous nostrils opening nearer the point and edge of the 
 beak, and their tail being pointed. They pursue the small 
 gulls with singular pertinacity and boldness to rob them of 
 their food ; and hence their name. 
 
 LE'THARGY. (Gr. \nOn,forgetfulness.) A heavy un- 
 natural slumber, somelimes bordering upon apoplexy, from 
 which persons are difficultly roused. It sometimes arises 
 from a plethoric slate of habit, in which case it requires de- 
 pletion; but it often also is a symptom of over fatigue of 
 mind, and then nervous remedies are indicated. 
 
 LE'THE. (Gr. \nOn.) In Greek Mythology, the River 
 of Oblivion : one of the streams of the infernal regions. Its 
 waters possessed the quality of causing those who drank 
 them to forget the whole of their former existence. In the 
 sixth book of Virgil's JEncid, the shades of the departed, 
 after fulfilling their various destinies in the infernal regions 
 during a thousand years, are brought to drink of the water 
 of Lethe, as a preparation for their transmigration into new 
 bodies. 
 
 Has omnes, ubi mille rotam volvere per annos, 
 Lethasum ad fiuvium deus evocat agmine magno ; 
 Scilicet immemnres supera ut convexa revisant, 
 Rursus et uicipiaut in corpora velle reverti. 
 
 The beautiful verses of Milton are well known: 
 
 Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, 
 Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls 
 Her watery labyrinth : whereof whoso drinks 
 Straightway his former sense and being forgets — 
 Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain. 
 
 Nor is the "slow and silent stream" less exquisitely de- 
 scribed by Dante : 
 
 Tutte Pacque, che son di la piu monde, 
 Parrieno avere in se mi.stura alcuna 
 Verso di quella. che nulla nasconde ; 
 Avvegnache ti muova bruna bruna 
 Sotlo lombra perpetua, che mai 
 Raggiar non tascia sole ivi, ne luna. 
 
 Geographers have placed the river Lethe (that is, its sup- 
 posed issue on the surface of the earth) in Bceotia, near Leb- 
 adca, in Crete, and on the coast of Africa. There was also 
 a river of oblivion (limia oblivionis) in Spain, now the Lima. 
 
 LETTER. (Eat. lilera.) A character used to expree 
 one of the Simple sot mils of the voice. Letters properly cunt 
 bined form the visible signs of those sounds by Which we 
 communicate our ideas. What letters were originally, who 
 first invented them, and among what people they were pri- 
 marily used, are still questions of profound obscurity. Philo, 
 says the F.ncy. Brit., attributes (ins great .'mil noble invert 
 tion to Abraham ; St. Ircmeiis and others to Enoch; Hibli- 
 anderto Adam ; Bnsebius, < Siemens Alezondrinus, ( lornellos 
 Agrippa, and others, to Moses; Pomponlus Mela, Herodlnn, 
 Rufns I'Ystus, Pliny, Lucan, and others, to the Phoenicians; 
 St. Cyprian to Saturn ; Plato and Tacitus to the Egyptians : 
 some U) the Ethiopians, and others to the Chinese, Who can 
 not possibly he entitled to this honour, since till their charac- 
 ters are the signs of simple ideas, and have nothing in com- 
 mon with letters. Various, also, are the conjectures run 
 ceming the different kinds of letters used in different lan- 
 guages. Thus, Moses is supposed by Crinitus to have invent- 
 (360 
 
 LEVEL. 
 
 ed the Hebrew letters ; Abraham the Syriac and Chaldaic ; 
 the Phoenicians those of Attica ; Nicostrata the Komun ; Isis 
 the Egyptian; and Vulfflns those of the Goths. All these 
 statements, however, are purely conjectural, and it would 
 be vain to examine the foundation on which they are based. 
 Letters are distinguished by grammarians into vowels, and 
 consonants (which latter are again subdivided it, to mutes 
 and liquids), and diphthongs, according to the organ employ- 
 ed in their pronunciation. See Alphabet, Language. 
 
 Letter, in Printing, is the usual term for an aggregate 
 quantity of types in a printing office; as when a work is put 
 in hand, and there happens to be a great quantity of type of 
 the proper sort unemployed, it is usual to say "there is plenty 
 of letter ;" and, on the contrary, "there is a scarcity of letter." 
 
 LETTER OF CREDIT. "A letter written by one mer- 
 chant or correspondent to another, requesting him to credit 
 the bearer with a certain sum of money. The bearet ahi mid 
 be described with as many particulars as possible, lest the 
 letter fall improperly into other hands. 
 
 LETTER OF LICENSE. An instrument by which cred- 
 itors allow a party who has failed in his trade, time for pay- 
 ment of debts and management of affairs. 
 
 LETTER OF ATTORNEY. A document by which a 
 party gives another, named therein, power to do certain law- 
 ful acts in his stead, the party so authorized being called his 
 attorney ; such as to give seisin of lands, sue, or receive 
 rents, debts, and dividends. 
 
 LE'TTERS OF MARQUE. Sec Marque. 
 
 LE'TTERS PATENT, or LETTERS OVERT, in Law, 
 are letters of the king, open, but sealed at the foot with the 
 great seal of England, conferring some privilege whereby a 
 party is enabled to do or enjoy that which otherwise he could 
 not. Such are letters patent to make denizens, to protect 
 inventions, &c. 
 
 LEU'CIN. (Gr. XcvKos, white.) A white pulverulent sub- 
 stance, obtained by the action of dilute sulphuric acid on 
 muscular fibre. It combines with nitric, acid, forming the 
 nitro-lcueic acid. 
 
 LEU'CITE. (Gr. acckoc.) A crystallized mineral of a 
 gray or white colour, generally opaque, and something resem- 
 bling the garnet in form. It usually occurs in lava, especially 
 in that of Vesuvius ; hence it is also termed Vesucian and 
 volcanic garnet. 
 
 LEUCO'MA. A white opacity of the cornea of the eye, 
 arising from inflammation. 
 
 LECCOPETRIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, the nam* 
 of a fanatical sect of Christians which sprang up in the Greek 
 and Eastern churches towards the close of the 12th century. 
 The tenets which they embraced were peculiarly strict; 
 while they rejected all the outward ceremonies of religion, 
 and spent their whole time in prayer and supplication to the 
 Deity. They derived their name and origin from an enthu- 
 siast, Leucopetrus, of whom little is known beyond his name. 
 
 LEU'COPHLEGMATIC. A pallid, flabby state of body. 
 
 LEVA'NT (It. levante, rising), in Geography, is applied 
 in a general sense to any country situated to the eastward of 
 us, or in the eastern part of any continent or country ; but, in 
 a more contracted signification, it is given to that part of the 
 Mediterranean Sea bounded by Asia Minor on the north, 
 Syria and Palestine on the east, Egypt and Barca on the 
 south, and by the island of Candia and the rest of the Medi- 
 terranean on the west. 
 
 LEVA'RI FACIAS. In Law, a writ of execution direct- 
 ed to the sheriff', whereby he is commanded to levy a sum 
 of money upon the lands and tenements, goods and chattels, 
 of a man who has forfeited his recognizances. It is super- 
 seded in practice by the writ of elegit, except in cases of out- 
 lawry. 
 
 LEVA'TOR MUSCLES. Those which lift the part to 
 which they are attached. 
 
 LE'VEE (Fr. lever, to rise), is the term used in court 
 language for the ceremonial visits which distinguished per- 
 sonages receive in the morning ; or, as the word implies, at 
 their rising. It is chiefly applied in this country to the Stated 
 public occasions on which her majesty receives visits from 
 such of her subjects as are entitled by rank or fortune to the 
 honour. The difference between a levee and a drairing-room 
 consists in this, that while, at the former, gentlemen alone 
 appear (with the exception of the chief ladies of the court), 
 both hniies and gentlemen are admitted to the latter. 
 
 I.KVKi: EN' MASSE. (Fr., literally a universal rising.) 
 
 A military expression for the rising of a whole people to de- 
 fend their country from invasion, in Germany it is styled 
 landsturm, in contradistinction to the landweiir or militia 
 (quod vide) : and there, as in Spain and Tyrol, its efforts 
 have often proved instrumental in rescuing the country from 
 foreign Invasion. 
 
 LE'VEL. An instrument which shows the direction of 
 a straight line parallel to the plane of the horizon. 
 
 The plane of the sensible horizon Is indicated In two ways : 
 by the direction of the plummet or plumb line, to which it is 
 perpendicular ; and by the surface of a fluid at rest. Ac
 
 LEVELLERS. 
 
 cordingly, levels are formed either by means of the plumb- 
 line, or by the agency of a fluid applied in some particular 
 manner. They all depend upon the same principle, namely, 
 the action of terrestrial gravity. 
 
 Levels in which the plumb-line forms the essential part 
 are those most usually employed for the common purposes 
 required by bricklayers, masons, carpenters, &e. They are 
 constructed under many different forms, but the genera! 
 principle is as follows : A frame or board is prepared, having 
 one edge perfectly straight, and a straight line is drawn on 
 the frame at right angles to the straight edge. To some point 
 of this straight line a thread carrying a plummet is attached ; 
 consequently, when the frame is placed in such a position 
 that the thread of the plummet, hanging freely, coincides 
 with the straight line, the straight edge of the frame, which 
 is perpendicular to it, must be horizontal. See Plummet. 
 
 The Artillery Foot Level, and the Gunner's Level., besides 
 the line and plummet, have a scale for showing the inclina- 
 tion of a straight line to the horizon. The former has two 
 equal legs or branches placed 
 at right angles ; and from their 
 point of junction a thread and 
 plummet hangs, and plays 
 over a quadrant divided into 
 twice 45° from the middle. 
 The plane or line on which 
 the two ends rest is horizontal when the thread falls 
 over the zero point of the scale ; and when it falls over any 
 other point, the degree marked on the scale indicates the in- 
 clination of the line to the horizon. The gunner's level is 
 on the same principle, though differently constructed ; the 
 thread or plummet being replaced by a solid piece of brass, 
 loaded at the lower end, and the legs, or rather the edges, 
 of the brass plate making an angle of 45°. It is used in the 
 same manner as the former. 
 
 Spirit Level. — By far the most convenient and also the 
 most accurate level is the spirit level, represented in the an- 
 nexed figure ; " which is nothing 
 more than a glass tube nearly 
 filled with a liquid (spirit of wine 
 being now generally used, on ac- 
 count of its mobility, and not being liable to freeze), the bub- 
 ble in which, when the tube is placed horizontally, would 
 rest indifferently in any part if the tube could be made math- 
 ematically straight; but that being impossible to execute, 
 Ttnd every tube having some slight curvature, if the convex 
 side be placed upwards the bubble will occupy the higher 
 part, as in the figure (where the curvature is purposely ex- 
 aggerated). Suppose such a tube as A B firmly fastened on 
 „ 2> a stra i? nt bar C D, and marked at 
 
 a b, two points distant by the length 
 of the bubble ; then, if the instru- 
 ment be so placed that the bubble 
 shall occupy this interval, it is clear that C D can have no 
 other than one definite inclination to the horizon ; because, 
 were it ever so little moved one way or oilier, the bubble 
 would shift its place, and run towards the elevated side. 
 Suppose now that we would ascertain whether any given 
 line P Q. be horizontal : let the base of the level C D be set 
 upon it, and note the points a b, between which the bubble 
 is exactly contained ; then turn the level end for end, so that 
 C shall rest on Q, and D on P : if then the bubble continue 
 to occupy the same. place between a and b, it is evident that 
 P Q. can be no otherwise than horizontal : if not, the side 
 towards which the bubble runs is highest, and must be 
 lowered. Astronomical levels are furnished with a divided 
 scale, by which the places of the ends of the bubble can be 
 nicely marked." (Herschel's Astronomy, p. 92.) 
 
 The accuracy of the indications of the level depends in a 
 considerable degree on the regularity of the interior surfaces 
 of the tube. They are commonly made of glass tubes in the 
 same state as they are obtained at the glass-house ; but 
 when very great accuracy is required, as in astronomical ob- 
 servations, the interior surfaces are sometimes ground so as 
 to give them a regular cylindrical, or rather spindle form, 
 with a slight spherical curvature. The tube and bubble 
 must be of considerable length. The larger the bubble, the 
 more freely it moves, and, consequently, the more sensible is 
 the level to a small inclination. With proper care they can 
 be executed, it is said, with such delicacy as to indicate a 
 single second of angular deviation from exact horizon- 
 tality. 
 
 LE'VELLERS. In English History, a party which arose 
 in the army of the Long Parliament, about the time when 
 it overawed that assembly, and transferred the king to Hamp- 
 ton Court, in 1647. The Levellers professed, what their name 
 implied, a determination to level all ranks, and establish an 
 equality in titles and estates throughout the kingdom. Sev- 
 eral of the officers belonging to this party were cashiered in 
 1649 ; and on Cromwell's departure for Ireland in the end 
 of that year, they raised mutinies in various quarters occu- 
 pied by the army, and were put down by Fairfax with some 
 57 
 
 LEVELLING. 
 
 bloodshed. John Lilbume, one of the chiefsof the faction— 
 of whom it was said that, " if none but he were left alive in 
 the world, John would quarrel with Lilbume"— published, 
 in 1649, his Manifestation from J. Lilbume and others, styled 
 Levellers. (See Clarendon, books x. and xii. ; Godwin's 
 History of the Commonwealth.) 
 
 LEVELLING STAVES. Instruments used with the 
 spirit level, for supporting a mark, and showing, at the same 
 time, its height above the ground. As constructed by 
 Troughton, they consist of three sliding rods of mahogany, 
 each about four feet long, and divided into feet and "hun- 
 dredths. They carry each a circular sliding vane, having 
 at the lower edge a square aperture, one side of which ia 
 levelled ; and a line on the levelled side 
 denotes the reading of the staff. The face 
 of the vane is made of white holly, with 
 an inlaid lozenge of ebony, forming at 
 once a conspicuous object, and one easy 
 of bisection. In levelling, the vane must 
 be moved up or down till the horizontal 
 wire of the telescope bisects the acute an- 
 gle of the lozenge, as shown in the figure. 
 As the line on the levelled edge at a de- 
 notes the reading of the staff, a piece 
 equal in length to the distance a A is cut 
 off from the bottom of the staff, or, rather, the divisions com- 
 mence at that number of inches above zero. (Simms's 
 Treatise on Mathematical Instruments, 1834.) 
 
 LEVELLING. A branch of surveying, which has for 
 its object to discover how much any assigned point is 
 higher than another assigned point above a level surface, 
 or such a surface as water would assume when perfectly 
 at rest. 
 
 In ordinary cases of levelling (for example, for canala, 
 railroads, &c.) the instruments commonly employed are a 
 spirit level attached to a telescope, and a pair of staves. 
 (See Levelling Staves.) Suppose that the difference of 
 level between A and B is to 
 be found : the staves are 
 placed successively at A, C, 
 &c. ; the intervals not ex- 
 ceeding 400 yards, on ac- 
 count of the curvature of 
 the earth, and the levelling instrument placed between, at 
 equal distances, to avoid corrections for refraction. It is 
 then directed backwards to the first staff, A D, and next for- 
 ward to the second, C E ; and, at each observation, the di- 
 vision on the staff, or the height at which the visual ray 
 meets it, is noted. The difference of the heights— that is, C 
 E, A D — is the height of the higher station above the lower. 
 The hindmost staff, and the levelling instrument, are now 
 carried forward to a new position, and the back and fore 
 observations repeated ; and so on till the operation is com- 
 pleted. Then the difference between the sum of the heights 
 measured in the back observations, and the sum of the 
 heights measured in the fore observations, will give the 
 height of the one extreme station above the other. 
 
 But, in extensive surveys, it is often necessary to place the 
 levelling staves at much greater distances from each other 
 than 300 or 400 yards, in which case allowance must be 
 
 made for the earth's curvature. Let D b A. h 
 
 A D' represent the arc of a great circle ~? 
 of the earth's surface, and A the place of / x 
 an observer. All the points in this arc ' 
 are in the same level ; but the line of 
 sight indicated by the level is a tangent c 
 
 to the circumference at A, and, consequently, objects B B', 
 in this line, will appear in the same level with A, though 
 they are really elevated above it by the distances B D, B' D', 
 intercepted on the radii between the arc and the tangent. 
 Now, from the nature of the circle A B2 = B D (2 C D+ B 
 D) ; but, in all cases of actual levelling, the arc A D is very 
 small in comparison of the whole circumference, conse- 
 quently the square of B D may be neglected, and the arc 
 substituted for the tangent : we have then, for the value of 
 
 A D- 
 B D, tins expression, B D = () — ; that is to say, the de- 
 pression of the true level below the apparent level is equal 
 to the square of the distance divided by twice the radius of 
 the curvature of the earth. Supposing the diameter of the 
 earth to be 7916 miles, and A D = 1 mile : we shall have B 
 D equal to the l-7916th of a mile, or 8-004 inches. At the 
 distance of 2 miles, the correcion will be four times this 
 quantity, or 32'016 inches ; and so on, increasing as the 
 square of the distance. It is most convenient to reckon both 
 the distances and the corresponding depressions in feet and 
 decimals of a foot ; in which case the correction becomes 
 
 79j0~x 5°80 A * )2 ' to be sut>tract ed from the apparent or 
 observed level, in order to obtain the true. The following 
 table shows the depression in feet and decimals of a fooT 
 
 661
 
 LEVER. 
 
 for the different distances therein stated, the mean diameter 
 of tlie earth being assumed =7916 miles: 
 
 
 
 
 
 Distance. 
 
 Depression. 
 
 Dislauce 
 
 Depression. 
 
 Yards. 
 
 ft I. 
 
 Afffct. 
 
 Fat. 
 
 100 
 
 0-00216 
 
 1 
 
 667 
 
 ZOO 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 609 
 
 300 
 
 001938 
 
 3 
 
 6 006 
 
 400 
 
 O'O.l.Ui 
 
 4 
 
 10-1.77 
 
 500 
 
 
 5 
 
 16-683 
 
 600 
 
 07752 
 
 6 
 
 24-024 
 
 700 
 
 0-10.51 
 
 7 
 
 32-699 
 
 HX> 
 
 0137-1 
 
 8 
 
 42709 
 
 900 
 
 17441 
 
 9 
 
 64-054 
 
 1000 
 
 0-21533 
 
 10 
 
 66-733 
 
 1100 
 
 0-26055 
 
 11 
 
 80-747 
 
 1200 
 
 0-3 008 
 
 12 
 
 9C095 
 
 1300 
 
 3S;»0 
 
 13 
 
 11! 779 
 
 1400 
 
 0-42205 
 
 14 
 
 130-796 
 
 1500 
 
 0-48449 
 
 15 
 
 
 1600 
 
 0-55124 
 
 16 
 
 170-836 
 
 LE'VER. In Mechanics, an inflexible rod movable about 
 a fulcrum or prop, and having forces applied to two or 
 more points in it. The lever is one of the mechanical 
 powers : and. being the simplest of them all, was the first 
 that was attempted to be explained. Its properties are treat- 
 ed of by Aristotle; but the first accurate explanation was 
 given by Archimedes, in his Treatise Dc Equipondcrantibus. 
 
 In treating of the lever, it is convenient to distinguish the 
 forces applied to it by different names. One is usually call- 
 ed the power, the other the iceiirht or resistance. 
 
 Levers are commonly divided into three kinds, according 
 (1-) (20 
 
 *" "wi J . J' 1 
 
 to the relative positions of the power, the weight, and the 
 (3.) fulcrum. In a lever of tlie first kind, 
 
 Pjn (fig. 1), the fulcrum F is between the 
 
 3| j, power P and the weight W. In a le- 
 *" ver of the second kind (fig. 2), the 
 weight W is between the fulcrum F 
 
 ~7 
 
 and the power P. In a lever of the third kind (fig. 3), the 
 power P is between the fulcrum F and the weight W. 
 
 The general principle of the lever is, that when the pow- 
 er and weight are in equilibrio, they are to each other in- 
 versely as their distances from the fulcrum. This property 
 is almost an obvious consequence from the principle of vir- 
 tual velocities; hut it may be deduced from more familiar 
 considerations. Let A B be a cylinder or bar of homogene- 
 ous matter. If supported from the middle, O, the two ends 
 would evidently balanee each other, and the pressure at O 
 would be the same as if the whole 
 matter of the bar were concentra- 
 A t, U c e „ teu in tnat P oint - Suppose it to 
 
 1gT~ f consist of two parts, A C and B C, 
 
 these again would be separately 
 supported at their middle points D and E; or the whole of 
 the matter in A C may be conceived to be concentrated at 
 D, and the whole of that in B C at E, and the equilibrium 
 would not be disturbed. Hence the weight of A C attached 
 at D, and tlie weight of B C attached at E, would balance 
 the inflexible line I> B, it' supported at n, the centre of the 
 whole bar A B. But O D= A O — A D=i A B — A A C 
 = iBC; andOE = OB — EB = J AB — JCB=UC; 
 consequently, « > I) is to O E as B C to A C ; or O D is to O 
 E as the weight concentrated at E to the weight concentra- 
 ted at I). This demonstration is commonly ascribed to Ar- 
 chimedes. (Maclaurin's . lecount of JVeieton's Principia.) 
 
 This proposition shows the advantage obtained by using 
 the lever as a mechanical engine. The arm I* F (fig. 1), is 
 commonly longer than W I-', and, consequently, when there 
 is equilibrium the weight exceeds the power. The propor- 
 tion in which the weight exceeds the power is called the 
 mechanical advantage, or purchase. Suppose I' P (figs. I 
 
 nnd 2) — 4 feet, and W F 1 foot; then a power of 1 lb. 
 acting at P will overcome a resistance of 4 lbs. at W. 
 
 Suppose tin- lexer witli the weight i' nnd w in turn round 
 the fulcrum, ' its to which 1' and W are attach- 
 
 ed will describe arcs proportional to the radii F I', r U ; 
 consequently, the power I' is to the weight W as the velo 
 city of the weight to the velocity of the power. Therefore 
 in this, as in all mechanical engines, when a small power 
 raises a great weight, the velocity of the power is much 
 greater than the velocity of the weight ; and what is gained 
 in force i aid to be lost in time. 
 
 When the power and the weight do not act on the lexer 
 
 indirections perpendicular to its length, or when the arms 
 
 of the lever are not in lie- Bnme Straight line, or no 
 then the power anil the weight are not to each other recip 
 rocally as the arms of the lever, but as the straight line-; 
 drawn from the fulcrum perpendicular to the respective di- 
 rections in which the power and the weight take effect. 
 
 ' 
 
 
 LEVIATHAN. 
 
 Examples of the application of the lever are of constant 
 Occurrence in the mechanical arts. The crowbar, the hand 
 spike, the poker, scissors, nippers, pincers, &.c, are levers of 
 the first kind; tin- toothed hammer is onlv a bent lever of 
 this kind. The second kind includes the" chipping knife, 
 nut-crackers, the common door, oars and rudders, the wheel- 
 barrow, &c. To levers of the third kind belong the sheep- 
 shears, the treddle of the turning lathe, tongs, flee. : these 
 have a mechanical disadvantage, hut admit of a proportion- 
 ally wider motion. The bones of animals are generally le- 
 vers of this sort. The socket of the bone is the fulcrum ; a 
 strong muscle attached to it near the socket is the power ; 
 and the weight of the limb, with whatever resistance is op- 
 posed to its motion, is the weight. A very moderate con- 
 traction of the muscle thus gives considerable motion to the 
 limb. 
 
 From the principle of the lever is deduced the distribution 
 of pressure in the case of a pole bearing an intermediate 
 weight. If the weight hang from the middle, the carriers 
 will share the burden alike; hut if a load is laid over the 
 pole, and a vertical from its centre of gravity divides the 
 length unequally, as will be the case on altering tin- inclina- 
 tion of the pole (for example, in climbing a hill), then the 
 bearer nearest to whom the vertical falls suffers a greater 
 strain than the other. 
 
 Universal Lever, is the name given to a machine formed 
 of a combination of the lever with the wheel and axle, the 
 object of which is to give a continued rectilinear motion to 
 a heavy body by means of the reciprocating motion of tlie 
 lever. F G H is a straight line, whose centre of motion is 
 at G. At the extremity of 
 its shorter arm hang two 
 bars, the former of which 
 has a hook to catch into the 
 teeth of the wheel A C I), 
 while the latter has its end 
 bent in order to slide over 
 the outer parts of those 
 teeth. Tlie axle A has a 
 cord wound round it, to the 
 end of which is attached 
 the weight W. Now sup- 
 pose the end II of the lever 
 to be raised from H to I, while the other end descends from 
 F to B; the bar F E will then push the tooth E of the 
 wheel to C, while the hook D slides over an equal space on 
 the other side of the wheel. On bringing down again the 
 end of the lever from I to H, the other extremity ascends 
 through B F, and the hook I) raises up the left band side of 
 the wheel through a space equal to F, ('. Thus the recip- 
 rocating motion of the lever is made to communicate a con- 
 tinued rotatory motion to the wheel, and, consequently, to 
 lift the weight W suspended from its axle by the cord. 
 The universal lever has long been employed in saw -mills, 
 for the purpose of drawing along the logs to the saw. 
 [Oregory's Mechanics, vol. ii.) 
 
 LEVIATHAN. The name of a great marine animal in 
 the Book of Job, described in chapter xli., which was cov- 
 ered with close-joined or confluent scales, and had the jaws, 
 or "doors of tlie face," armed with terrible teeth round 
 about. isYmie naturalists have supposed that the crocodile 
 might be the subject of the sacred poet's allusions; but the 
 " breath that kindleth coals" could scarcely be suggested 
 by the respiratory actions of a cold-blooded reptile. The 
 same objection applies to the opinion that the leviathan of 
 Job was the extinct megolosaums ; with this additional dif- 
 ficulty, that the megaloeauTtis was a terrestrial reptile, as 
 the large medullary cavities of its bones prove; while of 
 the leviathan it is said that "He maketb the deep to boil 
 like a pot ; he maketh the sea like a lKit of ointment ; he 
 maketh a path to shine after him : one would think the 
 deep to be hoary. Fpon earth there is not his like." 
 These expressions accord well with the violent and impetu- 
 ous exertions of a huge cetacean in his native element ; and 
 the verse, "Out of his nostrils goeth smoke, as out of a 
 seething-pot or cauldron," does not inaptly figure the 
 "Mowing" Of a whale. The teeth of either tin- cachalot 
 or grampus might well he termed terrible ; and their exter- 
 nal epidermic covering, if considered as analogous to the 
 Bcoles of fishes, would have its distinguishing peculiarities 
 correctly defined by the following expressions: " His scales 
 are his pride, shut up together as with a close seal. One is 
 
 so near another that no air can come between them. They 
 OXe joined one to another, thru sliil; together, tiny rannot be 
 
 sundered."— (Verses 15, Hi. 17.) Many persons must have 
 witnessed the phenomena of the luminosity ><( the sea on 
 
 our own COOStS, where it is usually feeble in comparison 
 with that produced in the warmer latitudes of the Mediter- 
 ranean, or in the tropes. The phenomena which natural- 
 ists and voyagers have described iis being produced by the 
 swimming and blowing of the cetaceous animals in a phos- 
 phorescent ocean, during the night, might likewise have
 
 LEVIGATION. 
 
 suggested the description of the fire and sparks that escape 
 from the mouth of the leviathan, and of the shining path 
 lhat he leaves behind him in the deep. 
 
 LEVIGA'TION. (Lat. lsevus, smooth,.) The process of 
 reducing substances to a state of fine mechanical division, 
 by mixing them, previously powdered, with water or some 
 other fluid, anil rubbing the paste upon a hard smooth slab, 
 with the flat face of a stone called the muller. The paste 
 is then often stirred into a large vessel of water, where the 
 coarser powder first falls, and the finer remains suspended, 
 and is afterwards collected by pouring it off with the water, 
 and suffering it slowly to subside. In this way, by repeated 
 subsidences, powders of very different degrees of fineness 
 are obtained. 
 
 LE' VITES. The descendants of Levi, one of the twelve 
 sons of Jacob, to whom no distinct territory was allotted in 
 the land of Canaan, as to the other tribes; but who were 
 set apart for the ministration of the religious services 
 throughout the country, and had forty cities, situated in va- 
 rious parts of Palestine, peculiarly appropriated to their res- 
 idence. The law of Moses commanded the tenth of the 
 vegetable produce of the land, and also of the cattle, to be 
 given to them ; of this a tenth was set apart for the priests, 
 whose assistants the Levites were. When God destroyed 
 the first-born of the Egyptians, he appointed that the first- 
 born males of the Israelites should be "set apart unto him- 
 self" (Exod. xiii.), in commemoration of the immunity from 
 that visitation which was vouchsafed to the chosen people. 
 Afterwards it is recorded that, upon the sons of Levi dis- 
 covering an extraordinary zeal against idolatry, in the case 
 of the golden calf (Exod. xxxii.), the religious offices of the 
 first-born were assigned as an honourable privilege to that 
 tribe. The priests were confined to the family of Aaron, 
 who, with Moses his brother, were both of the tribe of Levi. 
 For the classes of which the Levites were composed, their 
 offices, privileges, &c, see particularly Numb, iii., iv., viii. ; 
 also 1 Chron. xxiii.-xxvi. 
 
 LE'VYNE (so called from Levy, the crystallographer). 
 A crystallized mineral found in Ireland, Faroe, and else- 
 where, closely allied (o the zeolites. It is a hydrated alu- 
 mino-silicate of lime and soda. 
 
 LEXICO'LOGY, or LEXICOGRAPHY. (Gr. \i\ts, a 
 word or phrase, and Xoyoc, description.) A word used by 
 some writers to express that branch of philology which 
 treats of words aione, independently of their grammatical 
 and rhetorical uses ; considering their senses, their composi- 
 tion, and their etymology. (See Philology.) There are 
 two useful papers in the Quarterly Review on Greek lexi- 
 cography, vols, xxii., xliv. 
 
 LE'XICON. (Gr. \s\ig.) A dictionary of words, or vo- 
 cabulary, originally, and still usually, confined to diction- 
 aries of the Greek or Hebrew tongues. The oldest Greek 
 lexicon is the Onomasticon, which was written 180 years 
 before Christ : the oldest Hebrew lexicon belongs to the 'Jth 
 century. See Dictionary. 
 
 LEYDEN JAR. Sec Electricity. 
 
 LEZE-MAJESTY. In Jurisprudence, any crime com- 
 mitted against the sovereign power hi a state. The name is 
 derived from the Roman phrase, " crimen la:sa; majestatis," 
 which denoted a charge brought against a citizen for acts 
 of rebellion, usurpation of office, and general misdemean- 
 ours of a political character, which were comprehended un- 
 der the title of injuries to the " majesty of the Roman peo- 
 ple." The emperors transferred to all offences against 
 themselves the same criminal character ; and offences of 
 Eeze-majesty were multiplied under their arbitrary govern- 
 ments. 
 
 LI AS. A provincial name, adopted by geologists, for an 
 argillaceous limestone, which, together with its associated 
 beds, is characterized by peculiar fossils. See Geology. 
 
 LIBA'TION. (Lat libo, I pour.) The solemn pouring 
 of wine and other liquids in the religious ceremonies of an- 
 tiquity; in Greek, airev&uv. Libation appears (if our trans- 
 lation is correct) to have been used in the earliest recorded 
 sacrifice ; for Abel offered milk (Gen. iv., 4) : a daily liba- 
 tion of water was used by the Jews in the Feast of Taber- 
 nacles; the burnt offering instituted by Moses was of 
 wine. (Numb, vi., 7.) The Grecian libations, in like man- 
 ner, were of unmixed wine: but sacrifices to nymphs, Ce- 
 res, Proserpine, and some other deities, were attended by 
 libations of oil and wine, &c. The wine was poured be- 
 tween the horns of victims, on the altar or on the ground. 
 The ancients had also a well-known custom of pouring out 
 a small quantity of wine, by way of libation to the gods, at 
 the commencement of their banquets; and libation for the 
 emperors became common under imperial Rome. (See this 
 art. in the Enc. Met.) 
 
 Te muita prece, te prosequitur mero 
 
 Dtfuso pateris. Horace. 
 
 LIBA'VIUS'S FUMING LIQUOR. Bichloride of tin, 
 obtained by distilling a mixture of 1 part of tin filings with 3 
 
 LIBERTAS. 
 
 of corrosive sublimate. It emits dense white vapours when 
 exposed to air. 
 
 Ll'BEL. In the Spiritual Courts, the original declaration 
 in a civil action is so termed. See Law, Ecclesiastical. 
 
 Libel, in Law, signifies almost any malicious publication 
 by writing or printing, or by signs, pictures, &c. Whatever 
 tends to render a man odious or ridiculous, or to lower liim 
 in the esteem and opinion of the world, is a libel ; and may 
 either be made the subject of a civil action for compensation 
 in damages to the individual injured, or, as having a tendency 
 to excite his wrath, and provoke a breach of the peace, may 
 be proceeded against by indictment or criminal information. 
 Where it is sought to make a party responsible in damages 
 for a libellous publication, he may set up the truth of it as 
 an answer to the complaint; for the plaintiff, if really guilty 
 of the misconduct or other thing imputed to him, is not con- 
 sidered to sutler by its disclosure any private injury which 
 can be a legitimate ground of compensation to him; but 
 when the proceeding is by criminal prosecution, the truth is 
 no defence whatever, as being altogether immaterial ; for 
 the libellous matter may equally provoke a breach of the 
 peace, whether it be true or false. The court, however, 
 will, in general, before granting a rule for a criminal informa- 
 tion, which supersedes the usual practice of a presentment 
 by the grand jury, require the prosecutor to deny on affidavit 
 the truth of the matters charged against him. It will be 
 seen, however, that there is not in any case a legal founda- 
 tion for the maxim vulgarly ascribed to the law, " The 
 greater the truth the greater the libel." All publications 
 are libels, and criminally punishable as such, which have a 
 tendency to disturb the public peace, his majesty's govern- 
 ment, the established religion, public morals, or the admin- 
 istration of justice. Before the 32 Geo. 3, c. 60, (Fox's 
 Act), on a criminal trial for libel the jury were not allowed 
 to take the whole question into consideration, and return a 
 general verdict of guilty or not guilty ; but could only decide 
 upon the fact of publication, and whether the libel meant 
 that which it was alleged in the indictment to mean; the 
 court alone taking upon itself to determine the criminality or 
 innocence of such meaning. Now, however, in libel, as pre- 
 viously in all other criminal cases, it is competent to the jury 
 to apply their judgment to the whole question, and return a 
 general verdict of guilty or not guilty. 
 
 Libel is deemed in law a greater offence than slander, in- 
 asmuch as written defamation is commonly the result of 
 more deliberate malice than that which is merely spoken, 
 and frequently inflicts more extensive and permanent injury 
 on the object of its attack. Many words, such as "rogue," 
 " swindler," which are not actionable when spoken, are so 
 when written. 
 
 Libel may almost always be made the subject of an in- 
 dictment, although slander seldom can ; and, in an action 
 for libel, a verdict for a farthing damages formerly gave the 
 plaintiff his full costs, until the recent Act of Lord Deuman ; 
 whereas, in slander, if the damages are found under forty 
 shillings, the plaintiff is entitled to no more costs than dam- 
 ages. 
 
 LIBE'LLULINES. A genus of Neuropterous insects, of 
 which the dragon-fly, Libcllula, is the type. 
 
 LI'BER. (Lat. hark.) In Botany, the interior lining of 
 the bark of Exogenous plants. It consists of woody tissue 
 in great quantity, and very thick-sided, intermixed with 
 cellular tissue. It appears to be formed annually, at the 
 same time as the concentric zones of wood, and is intended 
 by nature to convey downwards the secretions elaborated 
 iii the bark and leaves. It is the principal seat of laticifer- 
 ous vessels. 
 
 Liber. In Roman Mythology, a surname of Bacchus, in 
 reference, perhaps, to the idea of his being a liberator or de- 
 liverer. Liber was originally an old divinity, who presided 
 over fertility, and who was worshipped in connexion with 
 Libera (a name of Proserpine, according to Cicero, De da- 
 tura J)corum) and Ceres. 
 
 LI'BERAL. In Politics, a cant name, which has been 
 applied since 1815 to the party in each country which ad- 
 vocates constitutional institutions where they do not exist, 
 or their extension into a more popular character where 
 they do. As a party name, this word has been definitely 
 adopted in Spain, where the party of the Cortes assumed the 
 title of Liberates, and nicknamed their adversaries by that of 
 Semites. 
 
 LIBERA'LIA. A sacred festival, with games ; so called 
 from Liber, a Latin name of Bacchus, in honour of which 
 god they were celebrated at Rome. It was on occasion of 
 this festival that the Roman youths who had attained the 
 age of seventeen assumed the manly dress, or toga. 
 
 LIBE'RTAS, in the mythology of the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans, was a goddess worshipped with peculiar veneration. 
 By the former she was invoked by the synonymous title 
 Eleutheria; and throughout all parts both of Greece and 
 Italy, statues, temples, and altars were erected in honour 
 of her. At Rome, her most famous temple, built by T. 
 
 663
 
 LIBERTINES. 
 
 Gracchus, was situated on the Aventine Mount. She was 
 represented under the figure of u woman, holding in one 
 hand a cap, the symbol erf Liberty, and two poniards in the 
 other. In modern times a cap is also used aa a symbol of 
 Liberty; thus, in France a red cap formed the badge of the 
 Jacobin club. In England a blue cap with a white border 
 i> used as a symbol of the constitutional freedom of the 
 nation, and Britannia sometimes bears it on the point of her 
 spear. 
 
 Ulir.KTIXHS. In Church History, a name given, in 
 England, to the early Anabaptists, about the middle of the 
 16th century. Moshcim, vol. iv., p. 430, transl., ed. 1790.) 
 Sec Anabaptists. 
 
 LTBERTT. In Philosophy. See Necessity. 
 
 LIBITTXA. An Italian goddess, patroness of funerals 
 And undertakers ; synonymous with the Venus Infera or 
 Rpithambia of tin- Greeks. She had a temple at Koine, in 
 which was deposited a small coin, called Libitinai ratio, fur 
 over) person who died. This custom, which originated in 
 the desire of tin- Boman authorities to procure a faithful 
 account of the number of deaths, may perhaps be regarded 
 as among the first attempts to obtain an accurate census of 
 the population. 
 
 Ll'BBA. (Lat. Vie balance.) One of the zodiacal con- 
 stellations, the seventh in order, beginning with Aries. Li- 
 bra is one of the forty-eight ancient constellations of Ptolemy. 
 
 Libra denotes also the ancient Roman pound. See 
 Weights. 
 
 LIBRARIES, ITINERATING. The name given to a 
 peculiar species of circulating library, instituted a few years 
 age at Haddington, in Scotland, by Mr. Samuel Brown. The 
 principle on which such libraries are formed consists, as the 
 epithet itinerating implies, in the books being sent from one 
 part or district of a country to another on the following plan : 
 The books nre formed into divisions, consisting each of a 
 certain number of volumes, and proportioned in number to 
 the extent of the country intended to be supplied. Each 
 division remains for a certain period (in some instances one 
 or two years) in the same place, when it is removed to an- 
 other locality, and succeeded by a new supply of books of 
 the same number ; by which means each locality has a fresh 
 supply of useful reading at short stated intervals. In Had- 
 dingtonshire, which may be called the headquarters of 
 itinerating libraries, the books consist of 43 divisions of 50 
 volumes each ; and on the principle above explained, each 
 volume, at an average of the 43 divisions, is read Jive times 
 during two years, the period at which the books are changed. 
 Tin- system of itinerating libraries has been extended to 
 various other parts of Scotland, to several districts of Eng- 
 land, to Ireland, Canada, South Africa, and Jamaica. The 
 use of the books is gratuitous, if so wished ; and never more 
 man \d. per annum has been systematically taken from any 
 reader. Voluntary contributions, however, either in books 
 or money, are received. (See Geo. Diet., art. "Hadding- 
 ton.") 
 
 LI'BRARY. (Lat. liber, book.) The name given either 
 to a collection of books, or to the aparunent or edifice in 
 which they are kept. The oldest public library- of anfiquily, 
 of which we have any credible account, is that founded by 
 Pisistratus at Athens, which was carried by Xerxes into 
 Persia, and recovered by Seleucus Nicanor. Whether this 
 was the same library which Sylla (according to Plutarch) 
 carried to Rome, and which was again restored by Hadrian, 
 is not clear; nor is its ultimate destiny known. According 
 to a well-known tradition, the Goths, when masters of 
 Athens, refused to bum the public libraries, which con- 
 tributed to the effeminacy of its citizens. The library of 
 Alexandria was the most famous of antiquity. Its history 
 has been written by Bonamy (Mem. de VAc. des fnscr., vol. 
 ii.), Keinhard (Gotting., 1792), and many others. It was first 
 
 LIBRATION. 
 
 formed by the Ptolemies, Soter, Lagides, Philadelphus, and 
 Buergetea, the last of whom resorted to very royal meas- 
 ures lor the accomplishment of so laudable an end, for he is 
 said to have seized on books imported from Greece, caused 
 them to be copied, and returned the copies to the proprietors, 
 keeping the orisinal for his library. The collection of Soter 
 is said to have been deposited in a suburb called liruchium, 
 which was burned by the troops in Cajsar's Egyptian war. 
 That of Philadelphus (the smaller of the two) was preserved 
 in the temple of Serapis, and became the nucleus of the later 
 library, which was augmented by the great library of Per- 
 gamus (said to have amounted to 200,000 volumes), presented 
 to it by Mark Antony. The narrative of the destruction of 
 this library by the fanatical Arabs, in A.l). 641, is among the 
 popular chapters of history ; and the most careful inquirers 
 are of opinion that it is substantially, if not literally, true, not- 
 withstanding the doubts thrown on it by Gibbon and others. 
 The lirst public library at Rome was founded by Asinius Pol- 
 lio, A.D. 716 ; the second, the Palatine, by Augustus, in 726 : 
 great part of it was consumed under Commodus, but much re- 
 mained even in the time of Constantine. Reusch (1734), Eck- 
 erman (1764), and Eckhart (1799), have published separate 
 dissertations on the libraries of the Romans. The ancient 
 libraries of the West must have wholly perished in the con- 
 vulsions which attended the overthrow of its empire. The 
 history of those of the East is not easy to investigate. Con- 
 stantinople certainly possessed, at the period of its capture, 
 extensive remains of ancient literature ; and many, but al- 
 most wholly fruitless investigations, have been made of late 
 years in the monastic libraries of modern Greece, particular- 
 ly of Mount Atlios, for valuable manuscripts. (See fValpole's 
 Oriental Memoirs ; Journal of Education, vol. ii.) The 
 best accounts of ancient libraries, to which we are able to 
 refer the reader, are contained in the work of Petit Radel, 
 Recherches sur les Bibliotheques Jlncicnncs ct Modcrncs ; 
 Heeren, History of the Study of Classical literature, vol. 
 i. ; Ersch and Grubcr's Encyclopedia, art. " Bibliotheken ;" 
 Taylor's History of the Transmission of ancient Books in 
 7nodern Times ; Enc. Brit., Suppl., " Library." 
 
 Of modem public libraries, the greatest and most cele- 
 brated is that of Paris (Bibl. Royale). It was commenced 
 by King John, in the middle of the 14th century, with ten 
 volumes; and has been augmented by subsequent kings to 
 the enormous number it now possesses. (Le Prince, Essai 
 Uistorigue sur la Bibl. du Hoi, Paris, 1787.) Next to that 
 of Paris in extent, and possibly in value, are the libraries 
 of St. Petersburg and Munich. In Italy, the Ambrosian 
 at Milan, and the Vatican at Rome, are peculiarly rich in 
 MSS. Of British libraries, the greatest are those of the 
 British Museum; of the two English universities, of which 
 that of Oxford (the Bodleian) is peculiarly rich in Oriental 
 manuscripts; that of the Advocates, at Edinburgh; and of 
 Trinity ( 'ollege, Dublin. Statements of the number of books 
 contained in public libraries will be found in many works, 
 but no statistical information is more imperfect and worth- 
 less. Some have not scrupled to say that there is no infor- 
 mation respecting the great foreign libraries, as to the num- 
 ber of printed books, which can be relied upon within one 
 half. Such skepticism may be exaggerated ; but that there 
 is some ground for it may be conjectured from the following 
 comparison, which we have made between different state- 
 ments. That of M. Panizzi is contained in the Appendix to 
 the Report on the Brit. Mus., 1838, vol. ii., No. 6. The 
 '* Returns" are those furnished by official persons to inquiries 
 addressed on the same occasion, and will be found in the 
 same work. We should premise that the number of print- 
 ed Imoks belonging to the library of the Brit. Mus. was ac- 
 tually returned in 1833 at 218,937, and is now probably 
 260,000; volumes of MSS. in 1833, 21,900. 
 
 Paris (Royale) . . 
 Munich .... 
 Petersburg . . . 
 Vienna .... 
 Gottingen .... 
 Dresden .... 
 Copenhagen . . . 
 
 Berlin 
 
 Vatican .... 
 Ambrosian . . . 
 Florence (Magliab.) 
 
 Returns, 1836. 
 
 Vols, MSS. 
 
 700,000 80,000 
 800,000 
 
 300,000 16,000 
 
 Panizzi, 1S36. 
 
 Vote, 
 
 650,000 
 500,000 
 
 300,000 
 200,000 
 
 ■J5I 1,000 
 100,000 
 320,000 
 
 100,000 
 140,000 
 
 MSS. 
 80,000 
 
 16,000 
 1,500 
 2,700 
 
 15,000 
 
 10,000 
 
 4,633 
 13,000 
 
 260,000 
 280,000 
 40,000 
 
 Conv. Lexicon, 
 
 Krsch and Gruber'a 
 
 1828. 
 
 Kncy., 
 
 IS>;1. 
 
 Vols. 
 
 MSS 
 
 Vols. 
 
 MSS. 
 
 350,000 
 
 70,000 
 
 350,000 
 
 70,000 
 
 400,000 
 
 9.000 
 
 300,000 
 
 9,000 
 
 300,000 
 
 11,000 
 
 
 
 300,000 
 
 12,000 
 
 300,000 
 
 12,000 
 
 300,000 
 
 - 
 
 200,000 
 
 
 •J'JO.IIOO 
 
 2,700 
 
 220,000 
 
 2,700 
 
 130,500 
 
 3,000 
 
 200,000 
 
 
 250,000 
 
 4,600 
 
 200,000 
 
 2,000 
 
 30,000 
 
 40,000 
 
 30.(KH) 
 
 40,000 
 
 60,000 
 
 15,000 
 
 60,000 
 
 15,000 
 
 150,000 
 
 9,000 
 
 120,000 
 
 8.000 
 
 LIBRA'TION. (Lat. libra, a balance.) In Astronomy, a 
 term applied to certain phenomena resulting from the moon's 
 motion, whereby the spots very near the border of the lunar 
 disk alternately disappear and become Visible, making stated 
 periodical oscillations, and indicating, as it were, a sort of 
 vibratory motion of the lunar globe. 
 
 The libratlon is of three kinds ; the libration in longitude, 
 664 
 
 the libration in latitude, and the diurnal libration. The 
 libration in longitude is occasioned by this circumstance, 
 that the rotatory motion of the moon about her .axis is not 
 always precisely equal to the angular velocity in her orbit. 
 
 If the n n's orbital motion were uniform, and performed 
 
 in the same time as her rotation about the axis, the radius 
 vector from the centre of the earth would always intersect
 
 LICENCE. 
 
 the lunar disk in the same point, or the moon would always 
 present exactly the same face to the earth. But the rotatory 
 motion is sensibly uniform ; while the orbital motion, being 
 performed in an ellipse, is sometimes slower and some- 
 times faster than its average amount. Hence the spots near 
 the eastern and western borders alternately disappear and 
 reappear. 
 
 The libration in latitude is occasioned by the incUnation 
 of the moon's axis of rotation to the plane of her orbit. Sup- 
 posing this axis 'always to have the same direction in space, 
 the angle which it makes with the radius vector of her orbit 
 will be acute during one part of her revolution and obtuse 
 in another. Hence the two poles of rotation, and the adja- 
 cent parts of the surface, are alternately visible from the earth. 
 
 The diurnal libration Is simply a consequence of the lunar 
 parallax The observer, being placed at the surface of the 
 earth, perceives points on the moon's disk at the time of her 
 rising, which disappear as her elevation is increased ; while 
 new ones on the opposite border, that were before invisible, 
 come into view as she descends towards the horizon. See 
 Moon. 
 
 The libration in latitude and diurnal vibration were dis- 
 covered by Galileo. Hevelius first observed and explained 
 the libration in longitude. 
 
 LI'CENCE. (Lat. licet, it is lawful.) In Law, a power 
 or authority given to a man to do some lawful act, and may 
 be by word or by deed. If a party give licence to another 
 to do acts on his ground, which without that licence would 
 •be trespass, and the party abuses his licence, he becomes a 
 trespasser ab initio. Licence is also commonly taken for 
 the admission of an individual, by proper authority, to the 
 right of doing particular acts, practising in professions, &c, 
 and also for the certificate of such admission. 
 
 LICE'NTIATE. A degree in some foreign universities ; 
 but not known in the universities of England, except in the 
 instance of the degree of licentiate in medicine, which is 
 granted at Cambridge. In the original sense of the word it 
 appears to have been only a title applied to such as had ob- 
 tained a licence to teach. It is said to be of Italian origin, 
 and first granted at the university of Bologna. Where the 
 degree of licentiate exists, it intervenes between that of 
 bachelor and that of doctor. 
 
 LI'CHEN. CGr. 'XaxWy a roughness of the skin.) In 
 Pathology, a papulous eruption oi' the skin, terminating in 
 scurfy exfoliations: it is generally symptomatic of disni;der- 
 <ed stomach and bowels. 
 
 LICHE'NIC ACID. The acid peculiar to some species 
 of lichens. It appears to be the malic acid. 
 
 LI'CHENIN. A substance closely allied to starch, ex- 
 tracted from the Cetraria is/andica, or Iceland moss. 
 
 LI'CHENS. Plants of a very low organization, which 
 grow on the bark of trees or rocks, when they form a kind 
 of incrustation ; or upon the ground, when they consist of 
 irregular lobes parallel with the earth's surface. Occasion- 
 ally, in all situations, they are found in a branched state ; but 
 their subdivisions are generally irregular and without order. 
 Their fructification consists of hard nuclei, called shields, 
 which break through the upper surface of the thallus or 
 main substance of the lichen, are of a peculiar colour and 
 texture, and contain the reproductive particles. Lichens 
 abound in the cold and temperate parts of the world. The 
 greater part are of no known use ; but some, as the reindeer 
 moss (Cenomijce rangiferina), the Iceland moss (Cetraria 
 islandica,) and various species of Gyrophora, are capable of 
 sustaining life, either in animals or man. The Iceland moss, 
 when deprived of its bitterness by boiling, becomes indeed a 
 diet recommended to invalids. Others are used as tonic 
 medicines, as Variolaria faginca, and Parmelia parietina. 
 Their principal use is, however, that of furnishing the dyer 
 with brilliant colours; orchall, cudbear, and perolle, with 
 many more, are thus employed. 
 
 LICKS. A term applied in North America to sandy tracts 
 of land, upon which common salt forms an efflorescence, 
 and which almost all graminivorous animals resort to for the 
 purpose of licking the surface. 
 
 LI'CTORS. (Lat. ligo, / bind.) Officers whose duty it 
 was to attend the principal Roman magistrates (such as the 
 consuls, master of the horse, and prators) and the vestal 
 virgins on their appearance in public, and to act as consta- 
 bles under their command. Their insignia were the fasces 
 or bunch of rods (originally encircling an axe, which was 
 removed by Publicola, used under the republic only by dic- 
 tators, and restored under the emperor), and the virga or 
 rod, which was used to touch the door of the magistrate on 
 returning home. The number of lictors in attendance varied 
 according to the rank of the magistrate; thus, the consuls 
 had twelve, the praters six, and dictators, according to some, 
 twenty four. 
 
 LIEGE. In the Latin of the middle ages ligeus, from 
 ligare, to bind. A liege lord, in feudal language' is a supe- 
 rior to whom allegiance is owed, and a liegeman he who 
 owes such allegiance. Hence all subjects are termed lieges 
 
 LIFE GUARDS. 
 
 of the king. Some writers derive the word liege from the 
 Teutonic word leude (modern German leute, people), which 
 was used in the sense of vassal. 
 
 Ll'EN. (Fr. lien, bond.) In Law, signifies the right 
 whicli a creditor has to retain the property of his debtor 
 until the debt has been paid ; and furnishes one of very few 
 instances in which a party is allowed to take the law, as it 
 were, into his own hands. Liens are either general or par 
 ticular. A general lien is the right to retain a thing for a 
 general balance of accounts, and not for those demands only 
 which arise in respect of the thing retained. This sort of 
 lien is said not to be favoured by law. A particular lien, 
 which the law is said to favour, is a right to retain a thing 
 when the claim against the owner of it arises out of the 
 thing retained itself; as, where a tailor has made the cloth 
 of his customer into a coat, the tailor is allowed to retain 
 the cloth until he is paid for his labour in making it into a 
 coat. The payment of a simple contract debt cannot be en- 
 forced by action after six years have elapsed from the time 
 the debt was incurred ; but a party who has a lien on prop- 
 erty may retain it for an unlimited period, until his claim 
 has been satisfied. 
 
 LIE-TO. See Lye-to. 
 
 LIEUTE'NANT. (Fr.) An officer, who, as the deriva- 
 tion of the word implies, supplies the place and discharges 
 the duty of a superior in his absence. 
 
 Lieutenant in the Army. The officer immediately 
 subordinate to the captain, in whose absence he takes the 
 command of his company. In the British service the lieu- 
 tenants of the Life Guards and Horse Guards, and of the 
 three regiments of Foot Guards, have the rank of captain. 
 In the artillery, engineers, marines, and rifle brigade, of the 
 British service, and in all the regiments of most of the 
 Continental nations, there being no cornets or ensigns, the 
 subaltern officers are distinguished as first and second lieu- 
 tenants. The pay of a lieutenant varies, according to the 
 regiment or branch of the service to which he belongs, from 
 10s. 4d. to 6s. tjd. ; and the price of his commission, accord- 
 ing to the present regulations, is, for the Life Guards, £1785 ; 
 Horse Guards, £1600 ; Cavalry, £1190 ; Foot Guards, £2050 ; 
 Infantry, £700. 
 
 Lieutenant in the Navy. The next rank to that of 
 commander, and co-ordinate with that of captain in the 
 army. The number of lieutenants appointed to ships of 
 war varies with their rate. A ship of the first rate carries 
 eight lieutenants, besides supernumeraries ; and those of the 
 second, third, fourth rates, &c. have respectively one less 
 than the number appointed to the preceding rate. The 
 monthly pay of a lieutenant in the British navy varies, 
 according to the ship and his duration of service, from £11 
 10s. to £9 4s. 
 
 LIEUTE'NANT-GENERAL OF THE KINGDOM. A 
 dignity equivalent to that of regent, which has been occa- 
 sionally held in France on temporary emergencies. The 
 Count d'Artois (afterwards Charles X.) took this title in 
 1814 on entering France, and held it until the arrival of his 
 brother, Louis XVIII. On the expulsion of Charles X., in 
 1830, the Duke of Orleans was constituted lieutenant- 
 general, both by an ordinance of that prince, and by the 
 provisory government of the Hotel de Ville, on July 29 ; 
 and retained the title until he was proclaimed king, on the 
 7th August following. 
 
 LIFE ANNUITY. See Annuity. 
 
 LIFE ASSURANCE. See Assurance. 
 
 LIFE BOAT. A boat originally made at Shields, in 
 1789, by Mr. Greathead, for saving the crews of shipwrecked 
 vessels. The following are the general principles: The 
 boat is wide and shallow ; the head and stem are alike, for 
 pulling in either direction, and raised, to meet the waves; it 
 pulls double-banked, the oars being fir, for lightness, nnd 
 fitted with thole pins and grummets, and is steered with an 
 oar. The boat is cased round inside, on the upper part, with 
 cork, in order to secure her buoyancy with as many persons 
 as she can carry, even though full of water ; the cork like 
 wise assists in maintaining, or, if overset, in recovering, the 
 position of stable equilibrium. The boat is painted white, 
 to be conspicuous in emerging from the hollow of the sea. 
 It is a curious fact that the smugglers paint their boat* 
 white for the contrary reason, because dark-coloured objects 
 alone are discernible in dark nights. 
 
 LIFE BUOY. A buoy, with a mast to render it con- 
 spicuous, thrown into the sea upon a man's falling over- 
 board. The life buoy invented by Lieut. Cooke, R. N., is 
 furnished with a composition which is fired by the act of 
 disengaging the buoy from its place, at night, and bums 
 with a strong light. 
 
 LIFE GUARDS. The cavalry tioo|>s composing the 
 body guard of a sovereign prince are so called. In England 
 they consist of two regiments, comprising each 32 officers, 
 53 non-commissioned officers, and 351 privates. In Ger- 
 many snch troops are styled the Icib garde (body guard) ; 
 and in France the garde du corj>s. See Guards. 
 
 S e * 065
 
 LIFE LINK. 
 
 LIFE LINE. In a Ship, any rope stretched along for 
 the safety of tin men, as is practised in bad weather. 
 
 LIFE, MEAN DURATION OF. See Expectation of 
 Life. 
 
 LIFE RENT. In Scottish Law, the right of enjoyment, 
 either of an heritage or a sum of money, for the life of the 
 life renter. The Buperior proprietor of the subject, or fee, in 
 which this rent subsists, is termed the flar. Terce («". e., 
 dower) and courtesy (analogous to the courtesy of England 
 in English law) are instances of legal life-rents. 
 
 LIFTING PUMP. SeePi-Mi-. 
 
 LIFTS. The ropes which support the ends of yards or 
 booms against the weight of the men upon them. 
 
 LI'GAMENTS. (Lat.ligo, rtrind.) Strong elastic mem- 
 branes connecting the extremities of the moveable bones. 
 When boiled in water they yield more or less gelatine, and 
 leave a portion of insoluble albumen. 
 
 LIGATURE. (Lat. ligo.) In Music, the tie which 
 binds several notes of like length together, by w-hich they 
 
 appear in groups. Thus LLL^ f °nr quavers, by means 
 of a ligature at the top or bottom, assume the form nTr , 
 
 the line connecting them being the ligature. 
 
 LIGHT. (Germ, licht.) The cause of those sensations 
 which we refer to the eyes, or that which produces the 
 sense of seeing. The phenomena of light and vision have 
 always been regarded as one of the most interesting branches 
 of natural science ; though it is only since the days of New- 
 ton that they have been examined with such care as to 
 afford grounds for any safe speculation respecting the nature 
 of light, and the mode of its propagation through space. 
 But the solution of these two questions is involved in very 
 great difficulty ; for notwithstanding the splendid discoveries 
 of that immortal philosopher, and the long train of interest- 
 ing and important facts which have been investigated since 
 his time, and more particularly since the beginning of the 
 present century', the true theory of light still remains an 
 enigma. This does not arise from any difficulty there is in 
 framing an hypothesis which shall afford a mechanical 
 explanation of the various phenomena, but from the cir- 
 cumstance that more hypotheses than one have been ima- 
 gined by which all the phenomena can be explained, not 
 merely in a general way, but with the precision of numeri- 
 cal calculation. 
 
 The knowledge of the laws which regulate the phe- 
 nomena of light constitutes the science of Optics, which is 
 divided into a number of subordinate branches. An account 
 of the principal phenomena will be found under the terms 
 Aberration, Chromatics, Interference, Optics, Po- 
 larization, Reflection, Refraction, &c. The present 
 article will be confined to a brief enumeration of some of 
 the principal properties of light, and a statement of the two 
 rival theories by which modern philosophers explain its 
 nature and propagation. 
 
 Properties of IAght. — Experiments of the simplest and 
 most familiar kind suffice to show that light is propagated 
 from luminous bodies in all directions. Provided nothing 
 intervenes to intercept the light, they are seen in all situa- 
 tions of the eye. Thus, the flame of a lamp is visible from 
 every part of the sphere of which it occupies the centre ; 
 and tin' same is the case with respect to a phosphorescent 
 body, an electric spark, a ball heated red hot, or light having 
 nny other source. The sun throws its light, not only on 
 the earth, but on the planets, and comets, and every other 
 body in the firmament. 
 
 Another property of light is, that in a homogeneous 
 medium it is always propagated in straight lines. This is 
 
 evident from various considerations. The forms of shadows 
 correctly represent the outlines of the objects which pro- 
 duce them, as seen from the luminous body, which could 
 not be unless the light proceeded in straight lines from the 
 extremities of the objects to the borders of the shallow. If 
 three plates of metal, each pierced with a small hole, are 
 placed at some distance behind each other, and in such 
 positions that the three holes are exactly in one straight 
 line, the light will pass freely through them; but if the 
 holes are not exactly in a. straight line, no light will pass. 
 In like manner, if a number of similar objects are placed 
 behind each other in a straight line, the first renders till tin- 
 others invisible to an eye placed in the same line. We 
 cannot see through a bent tube. 
 
 A third property of light is that it requires time lor its 
 propagation. The velocity with which it passes from One 
 l«)int to another is, however, so great, that, with respect to 
 any terrestrial distances, the passage may l«- COD lidered BS 
 instantaneous. Hut astronomy furnishes the means, not 
 
 only of detecting its propagation, but of measuring Its velocity 
 
 with great precision. Tin- eclipses and emersions of Jupi- 
 ter's satellites become visible about 1G mm. 28 sec. earlier 
 when the earth is at its least distance from Jupiter, than 
 666 
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 when it is at its greatest. Light therefore, occupies above 
 a quarter of an hour in passing through the diameter of the 
 earth's orbit. Now, the sun's distance from the earth being 
 nearly '.15,000,000 of miles, it follows that light must travel 
 through space with the prodigious, though finite, velocity of 
 192,500, or nearly 900,000 miles, in a second of time, and 
 consequently would pass round the earth in the eighth part 
 of a second. Astounding as this conclusion is, no resull of 
 science rests on more certain evidence. It is also proved, 
 by the phenomena of aberration, that the light of the sun, 
 planets, and all the fixed stars, travels with one and the 
 same velocity. 
 
 When light in its progress encounters an obstacle, or enters 
 a different medium, it undergoes certain modifications, de- 
 pending on tlie nature of the body on which it falls, or the 
 medium into which it enters. When it falls on a smooth 
 polished surface, a portion of it is regularly reflected ; lhat 
 is to say, it is returned from the surface at an angle equal to 
 the angle of incidence, and pursues its course in a Straight 
 line as before the reflection. The quantity of light thus re- 
 flected depends on the nature and polish of the surface, and 
 on the angle of incidence, being greatest when that angle is 
 small ; but it is calculated that even the brightest and most 
 opaque surfaces, mercury for example, do not reflect more 
 than three fourths of the incident light. Another portion 
 of it enters the medium, and there (if the medium is homo- 
 geneous) pursues a rectilinear course, but differing from its 
 former direction. In this case it is said to be refracted. 
 The angle of refraction depends on the nature of the medium, 
 each different medium having its own peculiar law of ac- 
 tion on light. In many media, comprehending the liquids 
 and most of the uncrystallized substances, the whole of the 
 refracted light is bent from its original direction at the same 
 angle. In many others, as in most crystallized media, part 
 of the refracted light follows one course, and another part 
 of it a different one ; the two portions acquiring at the same 
 time different physical properties. In this case the refraction 
 is said to be double. A third portion of the light falling on 
 a body is neither reflected nor refracted regularly, but is 
 scattered in all directions; and it is this portion which ren- 
 ders bodies visible. All bodies on which light falls absorb 
 a certain part of it ; more or less in proportion to their 
 opacity. In perfectly opake bodies the absorption is total, 
 ttfd the light does not penetrate to a sensible depth under 
 the surface. In others it penetrates farther ; but even in the 
 most transparent it is gradually stifled and lost. A depth 
 of only seven feet of pure water is required to extinguish 
 one half of the incident light. See Reflection. 
 
 Solar light, refracted by a prism or other body, is separated 
 into a multitude of rays of different colours, each of which 
 afterwards proceeds in its course independently of all the 
 others. These differently coloured rays possess different 
 physical properties, and different degrees of refrangibility. 
 It is to this dispersion or separation of light by refraction 
 that we owe all the pleasure derived from the variegated 
 hues of natural bodies. The investigation of the laws of 
 the dispersion of the coloured rays forms the subject of 
 chromatics. One of the principal facts connected with it is, 
 that the dispersion of the rays by different refracting sub- 
 stances is not proportioned to the refraction ; the dispersive 
 power of some substances being greater than that of others, 
 while their refracting power is less. This fact led to the 
 important discovery of the achromatic telescope. Sec Achro- 
 matic, Chromatics. 
 
 Light on being regularly reflected or refracted, undergoes 
 a modification termed polarization, in virtue of which it 
 presents, on encountering another medium, different phe- 
 nomena of reflection and refraction from those presented by 
 light which has not undergone such modification. When a 
 ray of li'.'ht, having acquired this modification, is made to 
 tail on a plane reflecting surface under a certain angle of 
 incidence, no portion of it will be reflected; the whole is 
 transmitted or absorbed. Hut, in the case of ordinary light, 
 some portion is always reflected from a polished surlace, 
 whatever be the angle of incidence ; the light has therefore 
 acquired the property of being acted upon in a particular 
 way: whence .Malm, who first Investigated this subject in 
 a philosophical manner, gave the phenomena the name of 
 polarization, from its analogy to the effect produced by a 
 magnet on a set ies of m edles. See Polarization. 
 
 The hist property of light which we shall notice, as im- 
 portant towards forming a theory of its propagation, is that 
 to which Dr. Young gave the name of interference. Under 
 certain circumstances, the rays of light exercise a mutual 
 influence on each other; Increasing, diminishing, or modi- 
 fying each other's effects according to certain laws. This 
 mutual action of the rays on each other gives rise to a great 
 number of the most intricate phenomenn of optics, and 
 aflords a sufficiently simple explanation of them, in nume- 
 rous cases where no other explanation has yet been found 
 on other hypotheses. The phenomenon is described under 
 the term Interference.
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 Theories of Light. — Two different theories have long 
 divided the opinion of philosophers respecting the nature 
 and propagation of light. One of these consists in supposing 
 it to be composed of particles of excessive minuteness, pro- 
 jected from the luminous body with a velocity equal to 
 nearly 200,000 miles in a second. This hypothesis was 
 adopted by Newton, and, till recently, has been acquiesced 
 in by the greater number of writers on optics. The other 
 hypothesis supposes light to be produced by the vibrations 
 or undulations of an ethereal fluid of great elasticity, which 
 pervades all space and penetrates all substances, and to 
 which the luminous body gives an impulse which is propa- 
 gated with inconceivable rapidity, in spherical superficies, by 
 a sort of tremor or undulation, as sound is conveyed through 
 the atmosphere, or a wave along the surface of water. 
 Both of these hypotheses are rendered probable by the great 
 number of phenomena of which they afford a mechanical 
 explanation ; but they are both, also, attended with very 
 great difficulties. Other theories have also been proposed ; 
 but they have not met with such general attention from 
 philosophers as to make it necessary to explain them in this 
 place. 
 
 Corpuscular Theory of Light. — Sir John Herschel, in his 
 admirable Essay on Light in the Encyclopedia Mitropoli- 
 tana, states the principles of the Newtonian or Corpuscular 
 theory as follows : 
 
 1. " That light consists of particles of matter possessed of 
 inertia, and endowed with attractive and repulsive forces, 
 and projected or emitted from all luminous bodies with 
 nearly the same velocity, about 200,000 miles per second. 
 
 2. "That these particles differ from each other by the in- 
 tensity of the attractive and repulsive forces which reside 
 in them ; and in their relations to the material world : and 
 also in their actual masses, or inertia. 
 
 3. " That these particles, impinging on the retina, stimu- 
 late and excite vision ; the particles whose inertia is greatest 
 producing the sensation of red, those of the least inertia of 
 violet, and those in which it is intermediate, the intermediate 
 colours. 
 
 4. " That the molecules of material bodies and those of 
 light exert a mutual action on each other, which consists in 
 attraction and repulsion, according to some law or function 
 of the distance between them ; that this law is such as to 
 admit, perhaps, of several alternations or ciianges from re- 
 pulsive to attractive force ; but that when the distance is 
 below a certain very small limit it is always attractive up 
 to actual contact; and that beyond this limit resides at least 
 one sphere of repulsion. This repulsive force is that which 
 causes the reflection of light at the external surfaces of dense 
 media ; and the interior attraction that which produces the 
 refraction and interior reflection of light. 
 
 5. "That these forces have different absolute values or 
 intensities, not only for all different material bodies, but for 
 every different species of the luminous molecules, being of 
 a nature analogous to chemical affinities or electric attrac- 
 tions ; and that hence arises the different refrangibilities of 
 the rays of light. 
 
 6. " That file motion of a particle of light, under the in- 
 fluence of these forces and its own velocity, is regulated by 
 the same mechanical laws which govern the motions of 
 ordinary matter ; and that therefore each particle describes 
 a trajectory, capable of strict calculation as soon as the forces 
 which act on it are assigned. 
 
 7. " That the distance between the molecules of material 
 bodies is exceedingly small in comparison with the extent 
 of their spheres of attraction and repulsion on the particles 
 of light. 
 
 8. "That the forces which produce the reflection and re- 
 fraction of light are, nevertheless, absolutely insensible at all 
 measurable or appreciable distances from the molecules 
 which exert them. 
 
 9. " That every luminous molecule, during the whole of 
 its progress through space, is continually passing through 
 certain periodically recurring states, called by Newton fits 
 of easy reflection and easy transmission, in virtue of which 
 they are more disposed, when in the former states or phases 
 of their periods, to obey the influence of the repulsive or re- 
 flective forces of the molecules of a medium ; and when in 
 the latter, of the attractive." 
 
 Such are the postulates on which the corpuscular theory 
 of light depends. Most of them may be admitted without 
 difficulty : and they afford data for the application of mathe- 
 matical reasoning to the phenomena, which may he investi- 
 gated by the same sort of analysis witli which mathemati- 
 cians are already familiar in the theories of heat, capillary., 
 attraction, and other molecular forces. 
 
 Undulatory Theory. — The principles of the undulatory 
 theory are thus stated by Sir J. Herschel : 
 
 1. "That an excessively rare, subtle, and elastic medium, 
 or ether, fills all space, and pervades all material bodies, 
 occupying the intervals between their molecules : and either 
 by passing freely among them, or by its extreme rarity, 
 
 offering no resistance to the motion of the earth, the plan- 
 ets, or comets, in their orbits, appreciable by the most deli- 
 cate astronomical observations ; and having" inertia, but not 
 gravity. 
 
 2. " That the molecules of the ether are susceptible of 
 being set in motion by the agitation of the particles of pon- 
 derable matter ; and that when any one is thus set in motion 
 it communicates a similar motion to those adjacent to it ■ 
 and thus the motion is propagated farther and farther in 
 all directions, accorSng to the same mechanical laws which 
 regulate the propagation of undulations in other elastic 
 media, as air, water, or solids, according to their respective 
 constitutions. 
 
 3. " That in the interior of refracting media the ether ex- 
 ists in a state of less elasticity, compared with its density, 
 than in vacuo (i. e., in space empty of all other matter) ; 
 and that the more refractive the medium, the less, relative- 
 ly speaking, is the elasticity of the ether in its interior. 
 
 4. " That vibrations communicated to the ether in free 
 space are propagated through refractive media by means of 
 the ether in their interior, but with a velocity corresponding 
 to its inferior degree of elasticity. 
 
 5. "That when regular vibratory motions of a proper 
 kind are propagated through the ether, and, passing through 
 our eyes, reach and agitate the nerves of our retina, they 
 produce in us the sensation of light, in a manner bearing a 
 more or less close analogy to that in which the vibrations 
 of the air affect our auditor}" nerves with that of sound. 
 
 0. " That as, in the doctrine of sound, the frequency of 
 the aerial pulses, or the number of excursions to and fro 
 from the point of rest made by each molecule of the air, de- 
 termines the pitch or note; so, in the theory of light, the 
 frequency of the pulses, or number of impulses made on our 
 nerves in a given time by the ethereal molecules next in 
 contact with them, determines the colour of the light : and 
 that as the absolute extent of the motion to and fro of the 
 particles of air determines the loudness of the sound, so the 
 amplitude or extent of the excursions of the ethereal mole- 
 cules from their points of rest determines the brightness or 
 intensity of the light." 
 
 Whichever theory we adopt to explain the phenomena 
 of light, we are led to conclusions which strike the mind 
 with astonishment. According to the corpuscular theory, 
 the molecules of light are supposed to be endowed with at- 
 tractive and repulsive forces, to have poles, to balance them- 
 selves about their centres of gravity, and to possess other 
 physical properties which we can only ascribe to ponderable 
 matter. In speaking of these properties, it is difficult to di- 
 vest one's self of the idea of sensible magnitude, or by any 
 strain of the imagination to conceive that particles to which 
 they belong can be so amazingly small as those of light de- 
 monstrably are. If a molecule of light weighed a single 
 grain, its momentum (by reason of the enormous velocity 
 with which it moves) would be such that its effect would 
 be equal to that of a cannon-ball of 150 pounds, projected 
 with a velocity of 1000 feet per second. How inconceivably 
 small must they, therefore, be, when millions of molecules, 
 collected by lenses or minors, have never been found to 
 produce the slightest effect on the most delicate apparatus 
 contrived expressly for the purpose of rendering their mate- 
 riality sensible. 
 
 If the corpuscular theory astonishes us by the extreme 
 minuteness and prodigious velocity of the luminous mole- 
 cules, the numerical results deduced from the undulatory 
 theory are not less overwhelming. The extreme smallness 
 of the amplitude of the vibrations, and the almost incon- 
 ceivable but still measurable rapidity with which they suc- 
 ceed each other, were computed by Dr. Young, and are ex- 
 hibited by Sir J. Herschel in the following table : 
 
 Colours. 
 
 Length of undu- 
 lation iu parts 
 of an inch. 
 
 Number of 
 
 undulations 
 iu an inch. 
 
 Number of undula- 
 tions per second. 
 
 Extreme Red . . 
 
 00000266 
 
 37640 
 
 458,000000X00000 
 
 Red 
 
 0-OOOO256 
 
 39 ISO 
 
 477.00O0O0.CO0000 
 
 Orange .... 
 
 0-0000340 
 
 41610 
 
 506,000000,000000 
 
 Yellow .... 
 
 00000227 
 
 4-1000 
 
 53n,OOOOO0,0C0O00 
 
 
 0O00O2H 
 
 47460 
 
 577,000000,000000 
 
 
 00000196 
 
 51110 
 
 622,000000.000000 
 
 Indigo 
 
 0-0000185 
 
 54070 
 
 65S000009.000000 
 
 
 0-0000174 
 
 57490 
 
 699,000000,000000 
 
 Extreme Violet . . 
 
 000G0167 
 
 59750 
 
 727,000000,000000 
 
 The velocity of light 
 being assumed at 
 192,000 miles per 
 second. 
 
 On a cursory view, it must appear singular that two hy- 
 potheses, founded on assumptions so essentially different, 
 should concur in affording the means of explaining so great 
 a number of facts with equal precision and almost equal fa- 
 cility. This, however, is the case with respect to the cor- 
 puscular and undulatory theories of light, from both of which 
 the mathematical laws to which the phenomena are subject 
 may be deduced, though not in all cases with the same de~ 
 
 667
 
 LIGHT. 
 
 {tree of facility. So far as the corpuscular doctrine is avail- 
 able for the purposes of deductive explanation, it possesses 
 all the characteristics of a good theory. It supposes theop- 
 eration of a force with which we are in some measure fa- 
 miliar. We are accustomed to contemplate the effects of 
 attraction in the grand phenomena of astronomy ; we per- 
 ceive them at every instant in the downward tendency of 
 all heavy bodies; and, though they disappear in the small 
 bodies of nature, they are reproduced in the phenomena of 
 electricity, magnetism, capillary attrition, electricity, and 
 various chemical actions, where they can be not only dis- 
 tinctly traced, but reduced to mathematical formula, and 
 submitted to accurate calculation. The nndulatory hypoth- 
 esis is not seized by the mind with the same facility ; yet it 
 also possesses some of the least equivocal characteristics of 
 philosophical truth. No phenomenon hasyel been discov- 
 ered decidedly at variance with any of its principles. On 
 the contrary, most of the phenomena follow from those 
 principles with remarkable ease ; and, in numerous instan- 
 ces, consequences deduced from the theory by a long atid 
 intricate analysis, and where no sagacity could possibly 
 have divined the result, have been found to be accurately 
 true when brought to the test of experiment. Hence this 
 hypothesis begins to be generally adopted by philosophers, 
 and, in recent times, by far the most illustrious names in 
 the annals of optical discovery are included iu the list of its 
 supporters. 
 
 That the sensation of light is produced by the vibrations 
 of an extremely rare and subtle fluid, is an idea that was 
 maintained by Descartes, Hooke, and some others ; but it is 
 to Huyghens that the honour solely belongs of having redu- 
 ced the hypothesis to a definite shape, and rendered it avail- 
 able to the purposes of mechanical explanation. Owing to 
 the great success of Newton in applying the corpuscular 
 theory to his splendid discoveries, the speculations of Huy- 
 ghens were long neglected ; indeed, the theory remained in 
 the same state in which it was left by him till" it was taken 
 up by our countryman, the late Dr. Young. By a train of 
 mechanical reasoning, which in point of ingenuity has sel- 
 dom been equalled, Dr. Young was conducted to some very- 
 remarkable numerical relations among some of the appa- 
 rently most dissimilar phenomena of optics to the general 
 laws of diffraction, and to the true principles of the colora- 
 tion of crystallized substances. Mains, so late as 1810, made 
 the important discovery of the polarization of light by re- 
 flection, and successfully explained the phenomenon by the 
 hypothesis of an undulatory propagation. The theory sub- 
 sequently received a great extension from the ingenious la- 
 bours of Fresnel ; and the still more recent researches of 
 Arago, Poisson, Herschel, Airy, and others, have conferred 
 on it so great a degree of probability that it may be almost 
 regarded as ranking in the class of demonstrated truths. " It 
 is a theory," says Herschel, " which, if not founded in na- 
 ture, is certainly one of the happiest fictions that the genius 
 of man has yet invented to group together natural phenome- 
 na, as well as the most fortunate in the support it has re- 
 ceived from whole classes of new phenomena, which at 
 their discovery seemed in irreconcilable opposition to it. It 
 is, in fact, in all its applications and details, one succession 
 of felicities ; insomuch that we may almost be induced to 
 say, if it be not true, it deserves to be so." (Enc. Metr., 
 " Light," § 595.) 
 
 Relations of Light and Heat. — Light and heat are so inti- 
 mately related to each other, that philosophers have doubt- 
 ed whether they are identical principles, or merely coexist- 
 ent in the luminous rays. They possess numerous proper- 
 ties in common; being reflected, refracted, and polarized 
 according to the same optical laws, and even exhibit the 
 same phenomena of interference. Most substances during 
 combustion give out both liL'ht and heat ; and all bodies, ex- 
 cepting the cases, when heated to a high temperature be- 
 come incandescent. Nevertheless, there are many circum- 
 stances in which they appear to differ. 
 
 A thin plate of transparent glass interposed between the 
 face ami a blazing tire intercepts no sensible portion of the 
 light, but most sensibl] diminishes the heat. Light and 
 beat are, therefore, not intercepted alike by the same sub 
 stances. Heat is also combined in different degrees with the 
 different rays of the solar Bpectnim. A v ery remarkable dls 
 covery on this subject was made by Sir William Herschel, 
 which would seem to establish tin- Independence of the 
 heating and illuminating effects of the solar rays. Having 
 placed thermometers in the several prismatic colours of the 
 solar spectrum, lie found the heating power of the ravs 
 gradually increased from the violet (where it was least) to 
 the extreme red, and that the maximum temperature existed 
 at some distance beyond the red, out of the visible part of 
 the spectrum. The experiment was soon after repeated 
 with great care by Berard, who confirmed Herschel's eon 
 
 elusions relatively to the augmentation of the calorific power 
 from the violet to the red ; but he found the maximum heat 
 existed at the extremity of the red, and not beyond the spec- 
 668 
 
 LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 trum. This discovery of the inequality of the heating power 
 of the different rays led to the inquiry whether the chemical 
 
 action produced by light on certain bodies was merely the ef- 
 fect of the heat accompanying it, or owing to some other cause. 
 By a series of delicate experiments, Berard found that this 
 
 action is not only independent of the healing power, but fol- 
 lows an entirely different law ; its intensity being greatest in 
 the violet ray, where the heating power is the bast, and 
 least in the red ray, where the healing power is greatest. 
 We are thus led to the conclusion that the solar rays pos 
 sess at least three distinct powers — those of heating, illumi- 
 nating, and effecting chemical combinations and decomposi- 
 tions; and these powers are distributed among the differ- 
 ently refrangible rays in such a manner as to show their 
 complete independence of each other. 
 
 Light acts a very important part in the vegetable economy. 
 The green colour of plants and the hue of (lowers entirely 
 depend on it ; and it is found even to influence the form of 
 their leaves. Its effects in developing the forms of some of 
 the lower classes of animals have also been proved by vari- 
 ous experiments ; and there are probably many other powers 
 resident in the same wonderful agent of which we can at 
 present form no adequate notion. (See Sir ./. HerscheTs 
 Treatise on Light ; .lirt/s Mathematical Tracts ; Brew- 
 ster'' s Optics ; Young's Lectures; Biot, Traite dc Physique ; 
 Pouillet, E'imcns de Physique.) 
 
 Light. In Painting, the medium by which objects are 
 discerned. In a picture it means the part the most illumi- 
 nated. This may happen from natural light, as the sun or 
 moon ; or from artificial light, as a fire, candle. &c. The 
 principal light is generally made to fall on the spot where 
 the principal figures are placed, and generally near the cen- 
 tre of the picture. A reflected light is that which a body 
 in shadow receives from a contiguous light object. 
 
 Light. The sea term for not laden. 
 
 LIGHTER. A strong vessel or barge for transporting 
 goods or stores, chieflv on rivers and canals. 
 
 LIGHTHOUSE. An establishment for the exhibition of 
 a light or landmark to direct the mariner. The use of lights 
 for such a purpose is of very high antiquity, but their early 
 history is involved in much obscurity. In the ancient 
 world, there were lighthouses at Ostea, Ravenna, Puteoli, 
 Gaprea, Rhodes, on the Thracian Bosphorus, &c. (Suctonii 
 < '/" ™, torn, i., p. 755) ; but by far the most celebrated light- 
 house in antiquity was that erected by Ptolemy Soter on the 
 small island of Pharos, opposite to Alexandria: " noctumiH 
 ignibus cursum navium regens." (Pliny, lib. v., c. 31.) Its 
 extraordinary height, which some authors have estimated 
 at 500 feet and upwards, procured for it a place among the 
 wonders of the world : and, according to Josephus, its 
 " beaming summit" could be seen at a distance of UOO stadia, 
 about 4-2 British miles. It is said to have cost 800 talents : 
 and its celebrity was such that Pharos rapidly became, and 
 still continues to be, in many countries a generic term equiv- 
 alent to lighthouse. 
 
 The most celebrated lighthouses of modern times are, the 
 Tour de Carduan, at the entrance of the Gironde. in France ; 
 the Eddystone lighthouse, opposite to Plymouth Sound ; and 
 that more recently constructed on the Bell Rock, opposite to 
 the Frith of Tav. The first of these was begun in 1 584, and 
 finished in 1611. It is 186i feet (English) in height ; and. 
 besides being of the highest importance to the sailor on so 
 dangerous and frequented a coast, it forms, at the same time, 
 a splendid specimen of architectural beauty. The Eddy- 
 stone lighthouse, constructed by the celebrated engineer 
 Smeaton, was completed in 1759, is regarded as a master- 
 piece of its kind, and, as has well been observed, bids fair to 
 be little less lasting than the rocks upon which it stands. 
 The Bell Rock lighthouse was built by Mr. Stevenson on 
 the model of the Eddystone. Numerous lighthouses, mark- 
 ing the most dangerous points, ami the entrance to the prin 
 cipal harbours, are now erected in most civilized maritime 
 countries. In the Baltic and tin Sound they are particu- 
 larly abundant ; the Dutch have 20 lights on their coast 
 and in the Zuyder Zee, and on the northern and western 
 coasts of France there are no fewer than B9 excellent lights. 
 (The Admiralty has lately published lists of all these lights.) 
 But the coasts id" no country are so well provided with light- 
 houses as those of the United Kingdom. For England they 
 are under the management of the Brethren of the Trinity 
 House; for Ireland, under that of the Board for the Im- 
 provement of the Port of Dublin ; and for Scotland, under 
 that of the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouse- meeting 
 al Edinburgh. It would swell our pages to too great an ex- 
 tent were we to attempt to give a complete list of the vari- 
 ous lighthouses of this country ; we must, therefore, beg to 
 refer the reader to the Commercial Dictionary for full par- 
 ticulars upon this subject, and shall devote what remains of 
 
 our limit- to a \ lew of the djflerenl principles adopted in the 
 
 construction of their important machinery. 
 
 The ancient mode of exhibiting lights as beacons to the 
 mariner consisted in burning wood or coal in a chauffer on
 
 LIGHTHOUSE. 
 
 the top of a tower ; and till the year 1807 the Eddystone light 
 was nothing better than the feeble blaze of a few tallow 
 candles, without any apparatus for concentrating the light 
 or giving it any particular direction. But as rays of light 
 proceeding from a luminous focus are equally dispersed over 
 the surface of the sphere which has the focus for its centre, 
 it is evident that without some means of giving the light a 
 horizontal direction, the greater part of it must be wholly 
 lost ; for only those rays which are directed in the plane of 
 the horizon, or, at least, which are depressed only a few 
 degrees below it, can be seen by a ship at a distance. Hence 
 the first object to be attained is to prevent the loss of light 
 by throwing the whole of it forward in the plane of the ho- 
 rizon, in order that its intensity may be increased in the 
 greatest possible degree. Now there are two principles on 
 which this may be accomplished — reflection and refraction. 
 The object is, accordingly, carried into effect by a catoptric 
 or dioptric apparatus. Sometimes both principles are com- 
 bined in the same apparatus. 
 
 Catoptric System. — The usual mode of applying the ca- 
 toptric principle is by burning an Argand lamp in the focus 
 of a parabolic mirror. This mode of illumination appears 
 to have been first carried into effect at the Carduan light- 
 house above-mentioned, under the direction of Borda, about 
 the year 1780. A few years later, reflecting mirrors were 
 placed in some of the English lighthouses, under the direc- 
 tion of the Trinity House ; and in 1786 the principle was 
 adopted in the only two beacons then existing on the coast 
 of Scotland, viz., the Isle of May, in the Frith of Forth, and 
 the Cumbrae Isle in the Clyde. Soon afterwards it was 
 adopted generally in this country. Borda's reflector was 
 fnmied of a sheet of copper plated with silver ; those ap- 
 plied in Scotland were formed of small facets of mirror- 
 glass, placed in hollow parabolic moulds of plaster. The 
 mirrors in general use in the British lighthouses at the pres- 
 ent time are of copper, lined with silver ; the focal length is 
 about 3 or 4 inches, and the diameter at the outer edge about 
 CI inches. 
 
 If the curvature of a reflector could be made truly para- 
 bolic, and if the light issued from a mathematical point, the 
 rays would be reflected from the mirror exactly parallel to 
 the axis of the generating curve, and the beam of projected 
 light would be a cylinder having a diameter equal to that 
 of the mirror. Such a form of the beam would render the 
 light nearly useless, on account of the small portion of the 
 horizon which would be illuminated ; and it is accordingly 
 necessary to give the rays a certain degree of divergence : 
 this is practically effected by the size of the flame. The 
 burner of the lamp is usually an inch in diameter; and the 
 origin of the luminous rays being thus at a small distance 
 from the focus, instead of being reflected parallel, they are 
 projected in a cone having a divergence of about 14°. The 
 curvature of the mirror may also be so adjusted as to in- 
 crease the divergence. 
 
 In order to produce a light of sufficient intensity, several 
 parabolic mirrors, sometimes as many as eight, are placed 
 on a frame, with their axes all parallel to each other, so 
 that the light reflected by all of them is blended together in 
 the same beam. To form a revolving light, the frame is at- 
 tached to a horizontal axis, which is turned by means of 
 clock machinery ; and in this manner the different quarters 
 of the horizon are successively illuminated. But as a rapid 
 motion would be inconvenient, the frame has usually three 
 or four sides, on each of which the same number of mirrors 
 and lights is placed, so that the illumination is repeated 
 three or four times in one revolution. To form a stationary 
 light, a number of reflectors are placed round a circular 
 frame, having their axes on the radii of the circle. This ar- 
 rangement has one obvious defect, namely, that the illumi- 
 nation will not be equally intense at all azimuths, but 
 strongest in the direction of the several axes, and feeblest in 
 the direction of lines bisecting the several angles formed by 
 <-ach pair of contiguous axes. The defecfis one which can- 
 not be entirely remedied in a stationary light on the catoptric 
 principle. 
 
 Dioptric System. — The introduction of lenses for the pur- 
 pose of giving the light a horizontal direction is of recent 
 date. A project for this purpose is, indeed, mentioned by 
 Smeaton in his account of the Eddystone lighthouse, and 
 about the end of the last century the method was tried at 
 some lighthouses in the south of England ; but from the 
 imperfect figure of the lenses, and the absorption of the light 
 caused by the great thickness of the glass, it did not succeed. 
 But the art of grinding spherical lenses having been since 
 brought to greater perfection, and a means of greatly dimin- 
 ishing the absorption, and also of constructing lenses of a 
 much greater size, having been found in the use of polyzo- 
 nal lenses (that is to say, lenses formed of several pieces 
 separately prepared and afterward united — see Polyzonal 
 Lens), the system has been revived of late years, and in 
 many instances carried successfully into execution. The 
 merit of first applying such lenses to lighthouses belongs to 
 
 the late Auguste Fresnel, of the Academy of Sciences of 
 Paris. The annular lenses, constructed under the direction 
 of Fresnel for the principal lighthouses in France, are plano- 
 convex, having a focal distance of about 3 feet ; and they 
 are formed of crown glass, as being less liable to stria; than 
 flint-glass. The effective divergence of the cone of light 
 projected by a lens is generally less than in the case of a 
 paraboloidal refractor, being only about 5° if. As the lu- 
 minous cone is formed of only that portion of the light which 
 falls on the surface of the lens, it might be supposed that an 
 apparatus of this kind would be far inferior in its effect to a 
 parabolic mirror ; but when it is considered that, owing to 
 the imperfections of the form and polish of the reflecting 
 surface, more than one half of the incident light is lost in 
 every case, and also that a larger and more intense flame 
 may be used for illuminating the lens than can be applied 
 to a parabolic reflector, it will easily appear that the supe- 
 riority may be on the side of the lens. In fact, a lens of the 
 largest size used in the French lighthouses projects a cone 
 of equal intensity to that of eight mirrors of the best kind. 
 
 The construction of a revolving dioptric apparatus of the 
 first order is usually as follows : The revolving frame which 
 carries the principal lenses has eight sides ; and there are 
 consequently eight large lenses, so arranged that their axes 
 are all in the same horizontal plane, and meet in the com- 
 mon focus, where the lamp is placed. This frame, with its 
 lenses, consequently forms an octagonal prism. For the 
 purpose of preventing the loss of the rays which fall above 
 and below the principal lenses, various methods are em- 
 ployed. One is to place above the first frame a second 
 frame, whose sides form the frustum of an octagonal pyra- 
 mid of 50° of inclination, in each of the sides of which is 
 placed a lens having its focus in the flame of the lamp. 
 The rays falling on these inclined lenses are refracted into 
 directions parallel to the axis of the lens, and are then re- 
 flected into the horizontal direction by plane mirrors placed 
 above the second frame. Another method is to place curved 
 reflectors above the frame containing the principal lenses. 
 But a third and still more elegant method, proposed by Fres- 
 nel, is to substitute for the upper lenses and mirrors a series 
 of triangular prisms, having their axes arranged in hori- 
 zontal planes, and so adjusted that the light falling on 
 the face next the flame is thrown upon the back of the 
 prism, where it suffers a total reflection ; and a second re- 
 fraction at the third side of the prism gives it the horizontal 
 direction. 
 
 For fixed lights on the dioptric system, it is necessary 
 to increase the number of the lenses, which in fact ought 
 to be infinite, or to form a true cylinder, in order to pro- ' 
 duce an equal diffusion over every point of the horizon. 
 In some of the French lighthouses the refracting appara- 
 tus consists of a polygonal belt of 32 lenses; but on es- 
 tablishing a dioptric apparatus at the Isle of May light- 
 house, in 1836, Mr. Alan Stevenson proposed to form a true 
 cylindric belt ; and the task, though attended with much 
 difficulty, was successfully executed at a glass-house in 
 Newcastle. 
 
 The dioptric system is peculiarly adapted for fixed lights ; 
 and its advantages are these: 1. A light of equal intensity 
 is distributed round every point of the horizon. 2. The con- 
 sumption of oil is less for the same intensity of light, and 
 consequently the expense of maintaining the light is less. 
 3. The trouble of attending it is less, as there is only one light 
 to trim, and the lenses are easily kept in order ; whereas the 
 reflecting surfaces require much care and attention. On 
 the other hand there is more risk from accident ; for the ac- 
 cidental extinction of the lamp leaves the whole horizon in 
 darkness ; whereas in a system of reflectors the light would 
 be extinguished over only a small portion of it. 
 
 Fresnel published his first memoir on the subject in 1822 ; 
 since that time the dioptric system has been generally 
 adopted for all the principal lighthouses of Fiance and Hol- 
 land. In this country it has been applied only at Inchkeith 
 and the Isle of May in the Frith of Forth, and at the Star 
 Point in Devonshire. 
 
 Lamps. — For the lights on the catoptric system the illu- 
 mination is usually produced by an Argand fountain lamp, 
 having a burner of an inch in diameter, and tipped with 
 silver, in order that it may the better withstand the effect of 
 the heat evolved. In the dioptric system a larger flame is 
 requisite ; and Fresnel invented a lamp the peculiarity of 
 which consists in its having a series of concentric burners. 
 For lights of the first class the number is four ; and they are 
 protected from tire effects of the excessive heat by a super- 
 abundant supply of oil, which is thrown up from a cistern 
 below bv a clock-work movement, and is kept constantly 
 overflow'ing the wicks. A tall chimney is necessary to 
 supply a sufficiency of air. In this country the lamp is fed 
 with spermaceti oil ; in France the oil of colza (expressed 
 from the seed of the wild cabbage) is used ; and in some 
 parts of the Mediterranean olive oil ; but the light obtained 
 from this is comparatively feeble. In a few instances coal
 
 LIGHTNESS. 
 
 gas has been used for dioptric lights. All attempts to apply 
 the Druinmond light, and Voltaic lights, have tailed by rea- 
 son of the great practical difficulties with which those 
 modes of illumination are attended. 
 
 Method of distinguishing Sea Lights. — An object of great 
 importance in the establishment of lighthouses is tovaij 
 the appearances of the different lights, so that each may 
 
 have some <lu tinctive character by which it may be readily 
 recognised, and the mariner be made aware of the part of 
 the coast he is approaching. Aiming the methods adopted 
 fortius purpose are the following: 1. The interposition of 
 
 coloured shades before the lenses of refractors, so as to give 
 a particular colour to the light: red is the only colour which 
 can be used, as shades of any other colour are found to ab- 
 sorb too much light. 2. The time of revolution, or the 
 length of the interval between the successive appearances of 
 the light: this is the only mode of distinguishing lights 
 adopted on the French coasts. 3. A flashing light ; that 
 is, a light of which the alternate flashes and eclipses succeed 
 each other so rapulU as to give the appearance of a succes- 
 sion of brilliant scintillations. -1. An intermittent light, 
 which consists of a lived light which is suddenly eclipsed, 
 and after a stated interval as suddenly revealed : the appear- 
 ance of this light is entirely different from that of any re- 
 volving light. 5. The exhibition of a double light, which 
 admits of other distinctions ; for the one light may be placed 
 vertically above the other, or in the same horizontal plane; 
 or one may be white and the other red. Sometimes three 
 lights are necessary to indicate the entrances to har- 
 bours, &c. 
 
 The average annual expense of maintaining a land light 
 in Great Britain is about .£500, and that of a floating light 
 about £1500. 
 
 (Encyc. Brit., art. "Sea Lights;" Smeaton, Narrative of 
 the Eddystone Lighthouse, 1793 ; Stevenson's Account of 
 the Bell Rock Lighthouse, 1824 ; Id., British Pharos, 1831 ; 
 Brewster's Treatise on Burning Instruments, 1812; The 
 Lighthouses of the British Islands, 1836; Report of Select 
 Committee of the House of Commons on Lighthouses, 1839 ; 
 Report of the Commissioners of the Northern Lighthouses, 
 by A. Stevenson, 1834 ; and on the Inchkeith Dioptric Light, 
 1836; Belidor, Architecture Hydrauliquc, tome iv. ; Peclet, 
 Traite d'Eclairage, Paris, 1827; Fresnel. Alemoire sur un 
 Nouveau Systeme d' Eclairage des }'hnres,lS-2H; A. Fresnel, 
 Description Sommairc des Fhares et Fanaux allumes sur les 
 Cotes dc France, 1837, &c.) 
 
 LIGHTNESS. (Teut. leicht.) In the Fine Arts, a qual- 
 ity indicating freedom from weight or clumsiness. 
 
 LI'GHTNING. An electric phenomenon, produced by 
 the passage of electricity between one cloud and another, 
 or between a cloud and the earth. 
 
 The identity of lightning with electricity, though it had 
 been previously suspected, was first directly demonstrated 
 by the celebrated Dr. Franklin, in the year 1749, by the ex- 
 periment of drawing sparks from the electric kite. Since that 
 time the science of electricity has been greatly advanced ; 
 nevertheless, the cause of some of the appearances con- 
 nected with lightning is not well explained even at the pres- 
 ent day. 
 
 There are three phenomena in particular for which theory 
 fails satisfactorily to account. The first is the form of the 
 flash, which is almost always zigzag, in broken lines, 
 making a greater or smaller angle with each other. The 
 second is the frequent repetition of the flashes from the 
 same cloud, which often follow one another in quick suc- 
 cession, contrary to what takes place in the case of electric 
 conductors, which generally recover their natural state or 
 discharge the whole of their electricity at a single stroke. 
 The third is the length of the flash, which sometimes ap- 
 pears to embrace a large extent of the sky. This phenome- 
 non can be best observed from the tops of mountains reach- 
 ing above the clouds from which the lightning proceeds; 
 and observers in such circumstances agree in stating that 
 they have seen flashes certainly extending several miles in 
 length. 
 
 The zigzag form of the flashes is common to lightning 
 and the electric spark : the game explanation should conse- 
 quently apply to both; but this the' theory has not yet been 
 able to give. With regard to the second phenomenon, the 
 repetition of the flashes, we may suppose that the mass of 
 vapours constituting an electric i loud is a les- perfect con- 
 ductor of electricity than metallic substances; and without 
 
 knowing bow electricity is distributed and arranged, BO as to 
 be in equilibrium over imperfect conductors, whose sur 
 faces, as in the case of the cloud-, often extend many miles, 
 it is easy to see that an instantaneous contact with the 
 ground, or with another .substance having an opposite elec 
 tricity, would not be sufficient to effect a complete discharge ; 
 and that, consequently, a single spars would not restore them 
 to their natural state. Tin- we may suppose to be the cause 
 why numerous flashes are darted from the same cloud. 
 With respect to the third phenomenon, the great length of 
 670 
 
 LIGULA. 
 
 the flash may also be a consequence of the feeble conduct- 
 ing power of the clouds, and of the mobility of their con- 
 stituent parts; or we may suppose parcels of vapour or air, 
 electrified by the influences of two clouds charged with op- 
 posite electricities, to be scattered at very small intervals be- 
 tween the clouds, and that, at a given instant, the equilibri- 
 um is destroyed, without a transference of the electricity 
 of the one cloud to the other, but merely from parcel to 
 parcel, along the whole extent of the line in which lite flash 
 appears. 
 The theory of an electric fluid, and the well-ascertained 
 
 - in the conducting power of different substances. 
 Suggested the idea of protecting buildings from the destruct- 
 
 - of lightning by metallic rods. It has been dis- 
 puted whether conductors ever have been or can be of use 
 in any case; and the question will not probably be satisfac- 
 torily answered until the cause and nature oi' electric action 
 are better understood. See Electricity, Tiwndbr. 
 
 LIGHT-ROOM. A small room from which the light is 
 afforded to the powder magazine of a ship. 
 
 LIGHTS, NORTHERN. See Aurora Bore.u-is. 
 
 LI'GNEOUS. (Lat. lignum, wood.) In Entomology, a 
 part is so called when it is composed of a hard inelastic 
 substance like wood. 
 
 LI'GNIN. (Lat. lignum.) The woody fibre. This most 
 important proximate principle of vegetables exhibits itself in 
 a variety of forms, constituting the different textures of hard 
 and soft wood ; and various fibrous products, such as hemp, 
 flax, cotton, &c. When by fine mechanical division it is 
 reduced to a pulpy state, it is formed into paper. When, by 
 different reagents, all the soluble matters are extracted from 
 wood, the insoluble residue is lignin: its ultimate compo- 
 nents are charcoal, oxygen, and hydrogen, the latter ele- 
 ments being in the same ratio as in water ; so that wood 
 may be considered as a compound of carbon and water, 
 and, according to Dr. Prout's experiments, almost exactly in 
 equal weights. Lignin is very imperishable ; but under cer- 
 tain circumstances it is attacked by dry rot, arising out of the 
 growth of a parasitic fungus, which causes its rapid decay. 
 Damp timber, in situations where air has not free access, 
 is particularly subject to its attacks; and when once it has 
 made its appearance, the well-seasoned limber in its neigh- 
 bourhood becomes liable to the same disease. The dry rot 
 may be prevented by impregnating the timber with certain 
 saline solutions, and of these a solution of corrosive subli- 
 mate has been found most effectual : the chloride combines 
 Chemically with the lignin, and the compound is very inde- 
 structible. (.See Dry Rot.) Lignin has also a strong at- 
 traction for alumine ; and hence linen, cotton, paper, and 
 other forms of this fibre, may be aluminized by steeping them 
 in hydrated alumine diffused through water ; or, more effec- 
 tively, by soaking them in certain aluminous solutions, (Irv- 
 ing them, and afterwards washing out the excess of the 
 salt. It is in this way that cotton goods are impregnated 
 with alumine for the purpose of dyeing and calico printing. 
 Other metallic oxides exhibit similar attractive powers, es- 
 pecially the oxide of iron. 
 
 The analogy that exists between the composition of sugar, 
 gum, starch, and even vinegar and lignin, suggests the possi- 
 bility of the conversion of those proximate elements into 
 each other ; and it has accordingly been found that by care- 
 fully roasting pure and fine sawdust, it is rendered partially 
 soluble in water, and that a part of it is converted into a nu- 
 tritious substance, probably intermediate between sugar and 
 starch; and which, when mixed with a little flower, yields 
 a palatabe bread, not very unlike that made by some of the 
 inhabitants of the northern parts of Europe of the bark of 
 trees. Mixed with sulphuric acid, lignin passes into gum ; 
 and from this sugar may be obtained by boiling it lor some 
 hours in a very dilute sulphuric acid : this sugar, when pu- 
 rified, much resembles grape OT honey sugar. By this pro- 
 cess rags may be converted into nearly their own weight of 
 this peculiar saccharine matter. 
 
 The production of vinegar by the destructive distillation of 
 wood was originally suggested, about the middle of the 17th 
 century, by Glauber, a celebrated German chemist of that 
 time: it has lately become a very Important branch of man- 
 ufacture in this country. Upon the whole, there are very 
 few natural products equally important with lignin in their 
 applications to the useful and ornamental arts. 
 
 LKjNIP'ERDOUS. (Lat. lignum, and perdo, I destroy.) 
 Insects whicb destroy wood. 
 
 LI'GNlTE. (Lat lignum, .and ignis, fire.) Wood con- 
 verted into a kind of coal. 
 
 LI'GULA. (Lat a tie.) In Botany, a membranous np 
 pendage at the apex of the sheathing petiole of grasses, and 
 analagous to the corona of some SUenaceous plants. The 
 term ligula is also applied to certain bodies proceeding from 
 the base, and alternate with the boms, of tile organ called 
 the orbieulus in Asclepiadaceous plants. 
 
 Li'giji.a. In Entomology, a name appled by Latriclle to 
 the lower lip of insects, or lalrrum of English entomologists.
 
 LIGURITE. 
 
 LI'GURITE. A mineral found in a talc rock on the 
 banks of the Stura in the Apennines ; it occurs in yellow- 
 green crystals, and, as a gem, resembles the chrysolite. 
 
 LLLIA'CEtE. A large natural order of Endogenous 
 plants, with hexapetaloid hexandrous flowers, a superior 
 ovary, and anthers which burst internally. They are fa- 
 miliarly known, in consequence of the asparagus, the lily, 
 the fritillary, the harebell, the star of Bethlehem, and many 
 other common plants, forming a part of the order ; which 
 differs from Melanthacea in having a single style, not three 
 styles, and in the anthers opening towards the style, not to- 
 wards the petals. The species are extremely varied : some, 
 like the dragon trees, form a tall, woody, perennial stem, 
 which emulates that of palm trees; others are small bul- 
 bous plants, whose stem only lives a few weeks. Almost 
 all the order is sought after by the cultivator of beautiful 
 plants ; and, in the case of the tulip and the hyacinth, innu- 
 merable varieties constitute the riches of the florist. It is the 
 general property of Liliaceous plants to secrete a little stim- 
 ulating principle, which, in different degrees of concentra- 
 tion and modification, gives their activity to onions, garlic, 
 chives, and similar garden productions, and their medical 
 value to aloes and squills. 
 
 LILIA'CEOUS. In Botany, a term invented by Link to 
 denote a corolla, the petals of which have their ungues 
 gradually dilating into a limb, and standing side by side. It 
 is rarely employed. 
 
 LI'MA. (Lat. a file.) A genus of Lamellibranchiate 
 Bivalves, of the tribe Ostracea, characterized by the length 
 of their shells as compared with those of the nearly allied 
 genus Pecten, and their more regular oval form. The 
 ridges of the shell are most of them relieved with scales. 
 The Lima swim with rapidity by means of their valves, 
 but in a young state they secure themselves by means of 
 a byssus. 
 
 LIMA'CID^E. See Limax. 
 
 LI'AIACI'NA. (Lat. dim. of limax, a slug.) A genus of 
 Testaceous Pteropodous Mollusks, existing in considerable 
 numbers in the northern seas, and forming, with the Clio 
 borealis, and other small marine animals, the food of the 
 whalebone whale. The body terminates in a spirally con- 
 voluted tail, and is lodged in a very thin shell, formed by 
 one whorl and a half, umbilicated on one side, and flattened 
 on the other. The animal uses its light shell as a boat, and 
 ;ts wing-like fins as oars, and thus navigates, in countless 
 fleets, the surface of the tranquil deep. 
 
 LI'MAX. (Lat. limax, a slug.) The name of a genus of 
 the Linnrean Vermes Mollusca, of which the common slug 
 is the type. The genus enters into the class Gasteropoda 
 and order Pulmonaria of the system pf Cuvier, and is now 
 raised to the rank of a family (Limacidm) which includes 
 Limax proper ; Arion, Fer. ; Stenopus, Guild. ; Vaginulus, 
 Fer. ; Testacrlla, Lara. ; Parmacella, Cuv., &c. Each of 
 these genera has a small scutiforni rudiinental shell de- 
 veloped in the substance of the mantle, and protecting the 
 heart. The orifice of respiration in the true slugs (Limax, 
 Cuv.) is on the right side, and not so far forward as in Arion. 
 The rudiinental shell is marked with fine and concentric 
 stria?, and is calcified internally. The species of this genus 
 are the pests of gardens and cultivated grounds. Young 
 plants may be protected from slugs by having a coarse horse- 
 hair rope coiled round their stems, or by being plentifully 
 sprinkled with soot; or they may be watered morning and 
 evening with strong and fresh lime water. 
 
 LIMB. In Astronomy, signifies the border or outermost 
 pdge of the sun or moon. Also the graduated edge of a 
 circle, or other astronomical instrument. 
 
 LI'MBERS. In Artillery, a sort of advanced train to 
 which the carriage of a cannon is attached on a march. It 
 is composed of two shafts, wide enough apart to receive a 
 horse between them, joined by two bars of wood and 
 mounted on a pair of wheels. 
 
 LI'MBO. (Lat. limbus, a hem or edge.) A region sup- 
 posed by some of the school theologians to lie on the edge 
 or neighbourhood of hell. This served as a receptacle for 
 the souls of just men, not admitted into purgatory or heaven. 
 Such were, according to some Christian writers, the patri- 
 archs and oilier pious ancients who died before the birth 
 of Christ: hence the limbo was called Limbus Patrum. 
 These, it was believed, would be liberated at Christ's sec- 
 ond coming, and admitted to the privileges of the blessed 
 in heaven. Though some have asserted that, when our 
 Saviour went down into hell, he liberated these souls, and 
 carried them away with him into heaven. This latter idea 
 is probably an adorned representation of the remarkable 
 passage in St. Peter's Epistle (i., 3, 19), where he says that 
 Christ preached to the spirits in prison ; and, being held by 
 certain of the later fathers, seems to have given some influ- 
 ence to the growing opinion in favour of a purgatory. The 
 limbus puerorum, or infantum, was a similar receptacle al- 
 lotted by some of the schoolmen to the souls of infants who 
 die unbaptized. Dante has fixed his limbo, in which the 
 
 LIME. 
 
 distinguished spirits of antiquity are confined, as the outer- 
 most of the circle of his hell. The use which Milton has 
 made of the same superstitious belief is well known. (Par 
 adisc Lost, book iii.) 
 
 LI'MBUS. A term applied to petals, to denote that por 
 tion which is supported by the unguis; it is the same organ 
 in a petal as the lamina in a leaf, and is what constitutes 
 the broad, thin, coloured part which renders many flowers 
 so beautiful. 
 
 LIME. (Germ, leim, glue.) This very useful earth is 
 obtained by exposing chalk and other kinds of limestone, or 
 carbonates of lime, to a red heat — an operation generally 
 conducted in kilns constructed for the purpose ; the carbonic 
 acid is thus expelled, and lime, more or less pure, according 
 to the original quality of the limestone, remains. In this 
 state it is usually called quicklime. When sprinkled with 
 water it becomes very hot, and crumbles down into a dry 
 powder, called slaked lime, or hydrate of lime. When ex- 
 posed for some weeks to the air it also falls into powder, in 
 consequence of the absorption of moisture, and of a portion 
 of carbonic acid ; so that, in this case, part of the lime grad- 
 ually reverts to the state of carbonate, and loses its caus- 
 ticity. Pure lime may be obtained by heating powdered 
 Carrara marble to whiteness in an open crucible. It is 
 white, very fusible, highly luminous when heated to full 
 redness, and of a specific gravity of about 23. It requires 
 for solution about 500 parts of water, and is somewhat 
 more soluble in cold than in hot water. But, weak as this 
 solution is, it acts powerfully alkaline upon vegetable col- 
 ours, and has an acrid taste ; hence the term alkaline earth 
 applied to lime. It absorbs carbonic acid by exposure to air, 
 and as carbonate of lime is insoluble in water, it becomes 
 milky in consequence ; so that, from this property, lime- 
 water is a useful test of the presence of carbonic acid. 
 The nature of lime was first demonstrated by Llavy in 1807 : 
 he showed that, like the other alkalies, it was a metallic 
 oxide. The metallic base of lime has been termed calcium : 
 its equivalent is 20, and lime, being a compound of one atom 
 of calcium, and one of oxygen, is represented by the equiv- 
 alent number 28 ; and hydrate of lime by 28 lime-)- 9 water 
 = 37. The salts of lime are generally obtained by dissolv- 
 ing carbonate of lime in the respective acids : several of them 
 exist native. Sulphate of lime, selenite, or gypsum, is an 
 abundant natural product, and may be formed artificially 
 by adding sulphuric acid, or the soluble sulphates, to so- 
 lutions of the salts of lime. It consists of 28 lime + 40 sul- 
 phuric acid, and its crystals include two atoms = 18 of water. 
 When these crystallized sulphates of lime are heated, they 
 part with their water and fall into a white powder, called 
 plaster of Paris; when this is mixed with water it again 
 combines with it, and concretes into a white mass ; hence 
 its use for casts, busts, &c. Sulphate of lime is often con- 
 tained in spring water, which is thus rendered hard and un- 
 fit for washing. These waters become turbid upon the ad- 
 dition of a spirituous solution of soap. Phosphate of lime 
 is found native, constituting the mineral called apatite : this 
 is a subphosphate, composed of 3 equivalents of lime = 84, 
 and 2 of phosphoric acid = 72. The earth of bones is also 
 chiefly a similar phosphate of lime. Oxalate of lime is very 
 insoluble, and is precipitated whenever oxalic acid or a so- 
 lution of oxalate is added to solutions containing lime; hence 
 it is that oxalate of ammonia is so valuable a test of the 
 presence of lime, and is frequently used for the purpose of 
 separating lime in analysis. When oxalate of lime is well 
 dried, at 500°, it is anhydrous, and consists of 28 lime -f- 36 
 oxalic acid = 64 oxalate of lime. This substance is occasion- 
 ally found in the human urine, and sometimes forms calculi : 
 these are often of a reddish brown colour and a rougli ex- 
 terior, whence they have been termed mulberry calculi. 
 When hydrate of lime is exposed to chlorine, the gas is ab- 
 sorbed, and a chloride of lime is obtained. This article is 
 manufactured upon an extensive scale, under the name of 
 bleaching powder. It evolves chlorine when acted upon by 
 acids ; and gives it out very slowly when exposed to air, in 
 consequence, probably, of the absorption of carbonic acid. 
 It is a most useful disinfecting material, and, when dissolved 
 in water, forms bleaching liquid. Carbonate of lime is 
 thrown down when alkaline carbonates are added to solu- 
 tions of the salts of lime. It is a most abundant natural 
 product, and is found pure in the varieties of calcareous 
 spar and statuary marble. Chalk and several varieties of 
 •imestone are also nearly pure carbonates of lime. It is 
 easily distinguished from other minerals by effervescing in 
 dilute muriatic acid, and by yielding quicklime when a frag- 
 ment is heated before the blowpipe. It is constituted of 28 
 lime-j-22 carbonic acid; the equivalent, therefore, of car- 
 bonate of lime is 50. 
 
 The uses of lime are very numerous. Its most important 
 application is in the manufacture of mortar and other ce- 
 ments used In building. It is also very extensively used in 
 this country, and in some parts of the Continent and North 
 America, as a manure to fertilize land. But it is a curious 
 
 671
 
 LIMESTONE. 
 
 fact that the use of lime as a manure is entirely a European 
 practice, Lte employment in this wa\ having been never so 
 
 much as dreamed of by the natives of Asia or Africa. (See 
 Commercial Diet.) 
 
 LTMESTONE. A generic term for those varieties of 
 carbonate of lime which are neither crystallized nor earthy ; 
 the former being calcareous spar, the latter chalk. When 
 burned they yield a quicklime. See Geology. 
 
 I.I'M IT, in Geometry, denotes a given or determinate 
 quantity lo which some other variable quantity continually 
 approaches in value. Imt which it can never exceed. Thus, 
 if we suppose a polygon to be inscribed in a circle, by in- 
 creasing the number of sides of the polygon its area is 
 increased. But the area can never exceed that of the circle 
 within which the polygon is inscribed ; and it is only when 
 the number of its sides is conceived to be infinitely great 
 that its area becomes equal to that of the circle. The cir- 
 cle is thus said to be the limit of the areas of the inscribed 
 polygon. 
 
 Method of Limits, the same with the method of prime 
 and ultimate ratios ; a peculiar method of analysis em- 
 ployed by Newton in the Principia, equivalent to fluxions 
 or the diferential calculus, but preserving the form of the 
 ancient geometry. 
 
 LIMITATION OF ACTIONS AT LAW. The period 
 beyond which personal actions of trespass, or debt on simple 
 contract, cannot be brought is defined by the stat. 21 J. 1, c. 
 16. They must be commenced within six years after the 
 cause of action ; with the exception of actions of assault, 
 menace, and imprisonment, which are limited to four. But 
 a right of action may be revived by an express acknowledg- 
 ment on the part of the debtor. 
 
 Penal actions for forfeitures made by statute must he sued 
 in general, according to the terms of the statutes, within two 
 years or one year. 
 
 By the recent statute 3 & 4 W. 4, c. 27, all process for the 
 recovery of land by entry and distress, or by action, whether 
 real or mixed, must be commenced within twenty years 
 after the right of action accrued. Persons under the disa- 
 bilities of infancy, coverture, idiotcy, lunacy, unsoundness 
 of mind, or absence beyond seas, are allowed ten years after 
 the termination of their disability; so that forty years be in 
 all cases the extreme limit. This statute extends both to 
 suits in equity and actions at law. No advowson can be 
 recovered afier one hundred years. Money charged upon 
 land, and legacies, are deemed satisfied at the end of twenty 
 years, unless there have been some receipt or acknowledg- 
 ment. Arrears of rent, or interest of money charged on land, 
 cannot be recovered after six years. lint it has been thought 
 that this limitation has been extended by the subsequent 
 statute 3 & 4 W. 4, c. 42, which enacts that actions of cove- 
 nant and debt for rent, &c, may be brought at any time 
 within twenty years after the cause of action has accrued. 
 
 The statutes of limitations apply to equitable remedies 
 directly, and by the plain import of the statutes, where the 
 equitable remedy is sought (as it may be in some cases) for 
 a right enforceable at law ; and they have been adopted by 
 analogy in those cases where a purely equitable right is the 
 counterpart of a legal one, as the right to mesne profits in 
 respect of an equitable ownership, or a debt payable in 
 equity but not in law. Where there is not this strict cor- 
 respondence between the equitable and legal claims, the 
 rule prevails that twenty years' adverse possession, which 
 is in law a bar to the possessory action for land, shall be a 
 bar to all equitable claim, whether the adverse right be 
 merely equitable also or equitable and legal ; such period 
 of limitation being, as al law, capable of extension from in- 
 fancy, absence, or disability. But time is not a bar to the 
 claim of cestui que trust against his trustee, where the trus- 
 teeship was in the origin direct and express, and not coupled 
 with any beneficial interest, as it is in the case of a mortgage ; 
 nor does a purchaser, with notice from a trustee, stand in a 
 better situation in respect to time than the trustee himself. 
 
 LI'MNEUS. (GT.Xiuin, apool.) A genus of fresh-water 
 snails; so named from their general location in ponds, 
 ditches, and other receptacles of stagnant water. Many 
 species of this u'euus are natives of Britain. 
 
 LI'MNING. The art of painting in water colours; in 
 which sense it is used to distinguish it from painting in oil 
 colours. 
 
 LIMO'SA. (Let limus, mud.) A genus of wading birds, 
 belonging lo the Longiroatnu tribe; and characterized by 
 a straight beak, longer than that of the snipes (Scolopax), 
 and sometimes slightly bent at the extremity ; the nasal 
 groove extends close to the tip, which is blunt and some- 
 what depressed ; there is no third groove or pnnctation on 
 its surface The external toes are pnlrainated at the base : 
 
 they are longer and -l< nderer than in the Snipes. The spe 
 eies of Ldmoaa which, with us, are vernacularly termed 
 Godwits. frequent salt marshes and the sea sbori 
 
 LTMULUS. (Let limus.) A genus of gigantic Ento- 
 mostracous Crustacea, in which the haunches of the first 
 672 
 
 LINEN. 
 
 six pairs of feet are beset with small spines, and are so 
 closely approximated about the mouth as to serve the office 
 of jaws. The resophagUS, instead of proceeding backwards, 
 is continued forwards for a short distance into the unterior 
 part of the shield before it enters the stomach : this cavity 
 is lined with a thick rugous cuticle, and terminates in the 
 intestine by a long muscular and valvular projection. The 
 heart is elongated, vasiform, and muscular; the branchiee 
 are supported on a series of closely-packed broad plates 
 beneath the post abdomen. The total number of feel is 
 twenty-two: the first ten, with the exception of the two 
 anterior ones in the males of some species, are terminated 
 by a didactyle forceps, and are inserted, with the two fol- 
 low ing pairs, beneath a large semilunar shield. The species 
 of this genus are found on the shores of the North American 
 and Asiatic continents: they are commonly known by the 
 names of king crabs, horse-shoe or mollusca crabs. The 
 tail is long, straight, sharp-pointed, and of sufficient strength 
 and size to be used as a spear-head or arrow-point by savages. 
 
 LINA'CE./E. (Linum, one of the genera.) A small 
 natural order of herbaceous Exogens, principally inhabiting 
 Europe and the north of Africa ; allied, according to De 
 Candolle, to Silenacem, Malvaceae, and Geraniaeea. Aug. 
 de St. 1 lila ire considers them to be a mere section of Oera- 
 niacca. The want of a gynobasic structure, the imbricate 
 calyx, the regular flowers, and the small quantity of albu- 
 men in the seeds, rather point out an affinity with Cistaccos 
 and its allies. Their chief characters are. the tenacity of 
 their fibre, the mucilage of their seeds, and the beauty of 
 their flowers. Common flax or lin (whence linseed) is the 
 most important plant of the order. 
 
 LINE, in Military Affairs, is a term used to distinguish 
 what may be called the regular infantry of Great Britain 
 from other military corps or establishments. Thus all num- 
 bered infantry or marching regiments, with the exception of 
 the Foot Guards, are designated by this term, in opposition 
 to the cavalry, the artillery, the engineers, the marines, the 
 militia, the yeomanry, &c. 
 
 Line, in Fortification, signifies any extended defence ; as 
 a ditch with its parapet, a row of gabions, &c. 
 
 Line, in Geography and Navigation, is used for the equa- t 
 tor ; as equinoctial line. ' 
 
 Line. In Geometry, a magnitude having only one dimen- 
 sion. Euclid defines it to be " that which has length without 
 breadth." 
 
 LI'NEAR. In Geometry, a linear problem is one that is 
 solved by the intersection of two straight lines, or by an 
 etpiation of the first degree, and which, consequently, admits 
 only of a single solution. 
 
 Linear Equations, hi the Integral Calculus, are those in 
 which the, unknown quantity is only of the first degree. 
 Thus A x -f- B = O is a linear equation, if A and B are not 
 functions of x; and Arfy + By-f C=0 is also a linear 
 equation, when A, B, and C do not contain y. 
 
 JAnear Perspective is that which regards only the posi- 
 tions, magnitudes, and forms of the objects delineated ; as 
 distinguished from aerial perspective, in which the variations 
 of the light colour, and shade of objects, according to their 
 different distances and the quantity of light that falls on 
 them, are also considered and represented. 
 
 LINEN. (Germ, leinwand.) A species of cloth woven 
 with the fibres of the flax plant (Linum vsitatissirnum). 
 The origin of the manufacture of linen is lost in its antiquity. 
 In the lime of Herodotus linen was an article of export from 
 Egypt where it had been used from time immemorial ; but 
 it is evident tiiat in ancient times its use was limited to the 
 noble and the rich. In modern times linen constitutes a 
 staple manufacture in almost all European countries; but 
 more especially in Germany, Russia, Switzerland, Flanders, 
 England, Scotland, and Ireland. In England it has been 
 prosecuted for a very long period : but until of late years its 
 progress has been inconsiderable, compared at least with 
 that made in other branches of manufacture, This seems 
 to be partly owing to the attempts to bolster up and eneour- 
 age the manufacture in Ireland, partly to the absurd restric- 
 iions that were for a lengthened period laid on the importa- 
 tion of foreign tin s and lump, and partly to the rapid growth 
 of the cotton maniifactiiri — fabrics of cotton having, to a 
 considerable extent, superseded those of linen. It is only 
 within the last fiftj years that any machinery has been used 
 in the production of linen cloth- the first mills for the spin- 
 ning of flax having been constructed at Darlington about 
 fbrty-eighl yean ago. (.Set Flax, Hemp.) The principal 
 seal of the manufacture is — in England, Leeds and its im- 
 mediate vicinity, and in Lancashire, Dorset, Durham, and 
 Salop; in Scotland, Dundee, which indeed may be regarded 
 chief seat of the British manufacture (see Oeo. Diet., 
 art. "Dundee"); and in Ireland, the province of Mister. 
 The entire value of the linen manufacture of Great Britain 
 and Ireland is estimated at X8.000.000, and the tolal number 
 of persons employed in it about 185,000. (Statist, of tlte 
 Brit. Empire, vol. i., 679.)
 
 LINE OP BATTLE* 
 
 LINE OF BATTLE, is the line formed by the ships of 
 the fleet when ranged ahead and astern of each other, at 
 equal distances, and close-hauled, or nearly so. It may be 
 formed, accordingly, upon either tack. The line is composed 
 of ships of not less than two decks, thence called Une-of- 
 battle-ships. The line is also called the line ahead. 
 
 LINE OF BEARING, THE, is formed by the ships of 
 the fleet when ranged on a line six points from the wind, at 
 equal distances, and with their heads in any direction what- 
 ever. The line is called by the name of that tack upon 
 which, if the ships were to haul to the wind together, they 
 would form the line ahead. For example : suppose the 
 wind N., and the ships in a line W.N.W. and E.S.E. of 
 each other: this is the starbeard line of bearing, whether 
 the ships are going free, or close-hauled upon the larboard 
 tack. 
 
 LINE OF DIP. In Geology, the strata which form the 
 crust of the globe are rarely horizontal, but incline to some 
 point of the horizon, and rise to the opposite point ; a line 
 drawn through these points is called the line of their dip. 
 
 LI'NGUA. (Lat. a tongue.) In Entomology, the name 
 of an organ situated within the labium or emerging from it, 
 by which insects, in many cases, collect their food and pass 
 it down the phnrynx, which is situated above its root. 
 
 LI'NGUA FRA'NCA. The dialect spoken chiefly along 
 the European and African coast of the Mediterranean. It 
 is a species of corrupt Italian, mingled with words of other 
 languages, and may be termed the Creole of the Mediter- 
 ranean. 
 
 LI'NGULA. (Lat.) A genus of Palliobranchiate Bi- 
 valves, with two nearly flat, smooth, oblong, triangular 
 valves, attached between the two apices to a long fleshy 
 pedicle. The arms, or labial appendages, are spirally con- 
 voluted, as in the rest of the class. 
 
 LrNIMENT. (Lat. lino, / anoint.) A semifluid oint- 
 ment, or a soapy application, to rub upon painful joints. 
 The term is also applied to spirituous and other stimulating 
 applications for external use. 
 
 LrNING. In Architecture, any covering of an interior 
 surface. The linings, for instance, or boxings of window 
 shutters, are the pieces forming the backs of the recesses 
 into which the shutters are folded. In doorways, they are 
 the facings on each side the aperture : to sashes, they are 
 the vertical pieces parallel with the surface of the walls. 
 
 LI'NTEL. (Span, lintel.) In Architecture, an horizon- 
 tal piece of timber or stone, over a door, window, or other 
 opening, to discharge the superincumbent weight. 
 
 LION. (Felis leo, Linn.) The largest, most formidable, 
 and most noble of the Carnivorous animals, though not the 
 most typical of the genus at which it stands at the head. It 
 is chiefly distinguished by the presence of a full, flowing 
 mane in the male, and by a tufted tail and the disappear- 
 ance of the feline markings in both sexes before they arrive 
 at maturity ; the colour then being a nearly uniform light 
 fulvous brown, with mane inclining to black, especially in 
 the Central and South African races. The mane is scantier 
 and lighter coloured in the Asiatic than in the African lions ; 
 and there exists a nameless variety in the eastern parts of 
 Hindostan. See Felis. 
 
 Lion, in Heraldry, a beast, of which the figure is very 
 commonly borne as a charge. The attitudes in which the 
 lion is represented are very various. (See Rampant, Pas- 
 sant, Regardant, Gardant, Couchant, Salient, Se- 
 jant.) A lion passant is termed, in French heraldric 
 language, a leopard; and hence the common notion that 
 the lions of Eneland were substituted for leopards. 
 
 LION OF ENGLAND. A lion passant or regardant 
 (being the bearing of England), is frequently thus termed 
 in heraldry. 
 
 LIP. A term applied to either of the two divisions of a 
 Monopetalous corolla, where one portion takes a direction 
 upwards and the remainder downwards, as in Labiala. It 
 is the same as labellum, which see. 
 
 LI'PARIS. (Gr. Xnrdpos, glistening.) The name of a 
 genus of Lepidopterous insects ; also applied by Pliny to a 
 genus of fishes. In Botany, it is the name of a genus of 
 plants of the Orchidaceous order. 
 
 LIPOGRAMMA'TIC WORKS or WRITINGS. (Gr. 
 Xeitw, / omit, and ypaftua. a letter.) Compositions in which 
 a particular letter is omitted throughout. The ancients 
 produced many ingenious trifles of this description. In the 
 Odyssey of Tryphiodorus there was no A in the first book, 
 no B in the second, and so on. There are other pieces of 
 modern invention, such as the Pugna Porcorum, in which 
 all the words begin with the letter P. Odes in Spanish, 
 containing only one of the vowels, are refinements on the 
 same invention. 
 
 LIPO'RNA. (Gr. \iiroc, fat.) A soft fatty tumor. 
 
 LIPPITU'DO. (Lat. lippus, blear-eyed.) The disease 
 commonly called bleared eyes, consisting in a puriform ex- 
 udation from the margin of the eyelids, which often causes ' 
 them to adhere together after sleep. 
 58 
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 LIOUEFA'CTION. (Lat. liquefactio.) The act of 
 melting or of fusion. This term is also used synonymously 
 with solution. 
 
 LI'QUIDS. In Grammar, the letters /, m, n, and r are so 
 called. 
 
 LI'QUOR SI'LICUM. Liquor of flints. A solution of 
 silicated potash. 
 
 LIRE'LLA. In Botany, a term used in describing lichens 
 to denote a linear shield, with a channel along its middle, 
 as found in Opegrapha. 
 
 LIST. The enclosed field or ground wherein the ancient 
 knights held their jousts and tournaments ; so called from 
 its being encircled with pales, barriers, or stakes, as with a 
 list. Some of these were double, one for each cavalier, 
 which kept them apart, and prevented them from coming 
 nearer each other than a spear's length. Hence the expres- 
 sion to enter the lists is synonymous with engaging in contest. 
 
 List. The name given to the border or selvage of a piece 
 of cloth, &c. 
 
 List, or Listel. In Architecture, the same as fillet or 
 annulet. 
 
 LIST, CIVIL. See Civil List. 
 
 LI'STING. (Fr. leziere.) In Architecture, the cutting 
 away the sappy part from the edge of a board. 
 
 LI'TANY (Gr. \travia, supplication), signifies a general 
 supplication ; and was applied by the Eastern Church in 
 early ages to a special form of prayer which was introduced 
 into the ritual, or used on particular occasions. The term 
 passed over into the Western Church, where the words ro- 
 gatio and supplicatio have been used in the same technical 
 sense. It is supposed by Palmer (jlntiq., i., 269) that the 
 change of term was occasioned by the frequency of proces- 
 sional supplications from the Eastern to the Western church- 
 es, beginning in the 4th century. It appears that some of 
 the Eastern litanies contain the supplication to saints which 
 forms a distinguishing feature of the Roman. This is suf- 
 ficient to justify the English Church, even on antiquarian 
 grounds, in rejecting these portions of the service. Our lita- 
 ny is mostly translated from the forms of the Western lita- 
 nies previously used in this country ; those of the breviary 
 of Salisbury and York. The direction in the Prayer Book 
 is, that the litany shall be read on Wednesdays, Fridays, and 
 Sundays: on the two former, as fastdays in the primitive 
 Church ; the one as the day in which Christ was sold by Ju- 
 das, the other as that of the crucifixion, and therefore peri- 
 ods of peculiar humiliation : on the Sunday, as the day ap- 
 pointed for the most complete and solemn service in the 
 week. (See Riddle's Christian Antiquities, p. 623, 1839 ; 
 Palmer's Origines Liturgicce, i., 264.) 
 
 LITERA'Tl (Lat.), denotes, in general, learned men ; but 
 is applied in China to such persons as are able to read and 
 write their own language, and also to a particular sect, con- 
 sisting chiefly of the most learned men of that country; 
 among whom it is called Jukiao, or learned. It is from the 
 class of the literati that the mandarins (quod vide) are alone 
 capable of being selected. 
 
 LI'TERATURE. (Lat. litera, letter), comprises, in the 
 general sense of the word, the entire results of knowledge 
 and fancy preserved in wTiting ; but, in the narrower use to 
 which ordinary custom restricts it, we draw a distinction 
 between literature and positive science, thus exempting from 
 the province of the former one extensive branch of our 
 studies and attainments. And, in a still more restricted 
 sense, the word literature is sometimes used as synony- 
 mous with polite literature, or the French belles lettres 
 (which see). 
 
 The history of literature is a peculiar and distinct sub- 
 ject, comprising several subdivisions, such as histories of 
 the literature of special ages or countries; or histories of 
 separate branches of literature, such as poetry. For its 
 complete execution it requires an union of bibliographical 
 knowledge with critical acumen. It should give the reader 
 a sufficient acquaintance with the titles, contents, and dates 
 of remarkable books, and with the general biography of re- 
 markable authors, together with a critical appreciation of 
 the characters and value both of authors and books, and of 
 the dependence, connection, and derivation of literature; 
 that is, the mode in which opinions, taste, and style have 
 been propagated or changed. This last, as it is the most 
 difficult part of the subject, so is it that of which the execu- 
 tion has been hitherto most imperfect. 
 
 Antiquity has left us no relics of this species of history ; 
 although the constant references of such writers as Cicero, 
 Pliny, and Quintilian, to earlier authors, accompanied by 
 critical appreciation of their merits, show that the taste and 
 materials for it were not wanting. A remarkable passage 
 of Velleius Paterculus, in which he shows, by historical in- 
 stances, how many of the great names of antiquity were 
 cotemporary with each other, in limited periods of time, 
 clustering, as it were, together in particular seasons and 
 places, is one of the earliest instances we have of that spirit 
 of generalization from literary phenomena which is now so 
 
 6 Tx 673
 
 LITERATURE. 
 
 common as to leave Utile room even for the display of origi- 
 nality. 
 
 In" the following brief notices of the principal works of 
 general literarj history which the student has it now in his 
 power to consult, we shall follow, in great measure, the 
 criticisms of Mr. llallaui. in the Preface to his Introduction 
 to tin Literature of Europe in tht Ftfteenth, Sixteenth, and 
 Seventeenth Centuries. The oldest work of this description 
 (if such it can he called) is that of Polydore Virgil, Vc In- 
 ventoribus 11, rum. 1489. Conrad Gesner, who has been 
 termed the " father of literary history," published his Bibli- 
 othcca Universalis at Zurich, 1545-55. Notwithstanding 
 these and a few other meagre attempts, Lord Bacon, says 
 Mr. Hallam, was justified in denying that, up to his time, 
 any real history of letters had been written : "and he com- 
 pares that of the world wanting this to a statue of Polyphe- 
 mus wanting his single eye." The next in order of time is 
 Lambuc's Prodrumus Histories Literaria, 1C59; a work 
 pursued on a great plan, but scarcely begun. But Morhof's 
 Polyhiator Literarrus, first published in 1688, and much en- 
 larged by subsequent editors, "is still found in every con- 
 siderable library." Andres, a Spanish Jesuit, published his 
 I Irigine, Progresso, c Stato Attuale d'ogni Lettcratura, from 
 1782 to 1799; a very extensive, and, in some respects, valua- 
 ble work, though without much display of taste, and no 
 signs of genius. In the present century, no writers, except 
 of Germany, have attempted a field which has become of 
 such enormous extent ; but Eichhorn's Literary History, in 
 six volumes, 1805, 1811, appears to be now, on the whole, 
 the most complete and valuable work of this kind extant. 
 Waehler's Manual of Literary History, in four volumes, 
 appeared at Leipsig in 1833. 
 
 But besides these general compendia, much assistance is 
 to be derived from general biographers. Of these the well- 
 known Dictionary of Bayle, first published in 1697, is the 
 earliest of any value. It is characterized by Hallam (p. xi.) 
 in a manner perhaps too depreciating. That of Niceron, 
 Memoires pour servir a r Histoire des Homines ittustres dc 
 la Republique des Lettres, 43 vols., 12mo, 1733, 17-15, is ex- 
 traordinarily copious and useful in biographical details, but 
 in other respects of no great value. The Biographic Vni- 
 Tersellc (of which the original edition was in 52 volumes, 
 and a supplement is now in course of publication which has 
 reached the letter H) stands incomparably first among this 
 class of works. Cha/mer's Biographical Dictionary scarce- 
 ly deserves mention as a literary work ; but its historical de- 
 tails are sometimes minute and useful, though not unfre- 
 quently most so in the obscurest names. 
 
 Of partial works on literary history some of the most re- 
 markable and useful are, 1. According to subjects — History 
 of Philosophy, Brucker, Buhle, Tennemann (abridged by 
 Victor Cousin). To these we may add, brief as they are, 
 the Introductory Essays of Stewart and Playfair to the Kn- 
 cyclopedia Britannica. Of Belles Lettres, generally, Bouter- 
 wek, 12 vols., 8vo. Poetry, Quadrio, Storia d'ogni Poesia ; 
 a work of remarkable industry, though strangely defect- 
 ive in point of critical taste. 2. According to countries — 
 French: Laharp, Cours de Litterature Franraise ; a per- 
 formance of considerable, but in parts superficial and showy, 
 talent. Italian: Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Ital- 
 iana ; a work of extraordinary value, in which the history 
 of Italian literature has been traced, with the greatest care 
 and the most elaborate research, from the earliest times 
 clown to the last century. It has been abridged, but with 
 some original criticism, by Ginguene, in his Histoire Litte- 
 raire de I'lta'ie ; Corniani, Scco/i delle Lettcratura Haliana 
 dopo il suo risorgimento, 1804, 1813. Sismondi's Litterature 
 de Midi dc V Europe is most valuable, also, in its Italian 
 chapters, although those on Spanish and Portuguese litera- 
 ture tomb on subjects less generally known. In England, 
 as Mr. Hallam observes, "we cannot claim for ourselves a 
 single attempt of the most superficial kind. If'arton's His- 
 tory of Poetry contains much that bears on our general 
 learning; but it leaves us about the accession of Elizabeth." 
 3. According to ages: The recent work of Mr. Hallam, 
 which comprehends the literary history of Europe from 
 1400 to 1700; a work almost approaching to universal in its 
 character. Its peculiar excellences are, a philosophical spirit, 
 manliness and candour of judirment, great honesty in the 
 execution, and a taste unusually cultivated and correct. 
 It is, however, as might be expected from a work of so com- 
 prehensive a character, unequal both m the space which it 
 allots to different subjects and authors, and in point of exe- 
 cution. 
 
 The love of literature is, perhaps, the most remarkable 
 and charncterictic form in which advancing civilization ex- 
 hibits itself. From being the absorbing pas-ion of the learn- 
 ed feu , it becomes, with the progress of education, the de- 
 light and favourite occupation of numbers: losing, perhaps, 
 in intensity what it gains in universality. For, without join 
 ing in the views of the indiscriminate culogisers of past 
 times, it cannot, we think, be fairly denied that lite engross- 
 674 
 
 lag devotion to study which characterized the learned men 
 of the first two centuries after the revival of knowledge, es- 
 pecially in the branches of philology and divinity, rarely 
 finds a counterpart at the present day. More diversified sub- 
 jects of interest now present themselves to the il 
 mind: objects in themselves of inferior character, such, foi 
 example, as the establishment of correct rules of classical 
 composition, are less appreciated, because we have daily 
 opportunities of discussing topics of much higher interest, 
 from which it is difficult to carry back the faculties to pur- 
 BUitS of special investigation. That all this has some disad- 
 vantages it were vain to deny. Some imagine that n.it only 
 extent and minuteness of knowledge, but real depth of learn- 
 ing and power of mind, are more rare among the literati of 
 the present day than heretofore ; that we have lost in pro- 
 fundity, to use the common expression, what we have gain- 
 ed in surface. Of that opinion we are not. But we imagine 
 ourselves to trace, both in the composition and tone of think 
 ing of the day, a want of finish and harmony of tone — a 
 want of those qualities which are the result of patience, and 
 of that complacent dwelling of the mind on some favourite 
 object of study which w;is so common in former ages. The 
 ]>owers of men of ability are too much dissipated, both by 
 the vast variety of subjects pressing on their attention, and 
 by the temptation to satisfy the cravings of the public by 
 hasty execution. 
 
 On the other hand, in the four literary countries of the 
 present day — France, Germany, England, Italy, and especi- 
 ally the three former — the number of persons to whom 
 literature furnishes the sole and beloved recreation, has in- 
 creased, within the last century, we may add the last gener- 
 ation, to an amount perfectly surprising. Were it possible 
 to calculate the number of individuals more than half of 
 whose waking hours are spent in reading, and writing on 
 literary subjects, the result woidd be startling. In Germany 
 the number of books published has nearly trebled since tin: 
 peace of 1815. The great bulk of the increase belongs to 
 literature specially so called. In France and England the 
 accumulation is scarcely less. And by the process, common 
 in all these countries, of circulating libraries, the same copy 
 of a book performs an infinitely greater quantity of service, 
 passing under the eyes of many more readers than hereto- 
 fore. It is curious, among ourselves, to trace the decline of 
 the favourite amusements of our ancestors. The theatres 
 are almost deserted by the ranks which used to frequent 
 them. The public assembly rooms of the rich, the suburban 
 places of resort for nightly entertainments, once so common 
 among the middle classes, are alike falling into comparative 
 disuse. Of the increased infrequency of play, or even games 
 of skill, in society, every one can judge. Of wine the con- 
 sumption has certainly not increased one half in a century, 
 while the number of consumers has probably been quintu- 
 pled or sextupled. All these tilings afforded a certain quan- 
 tity of occupation ; and the substitute for one and all has 
 been the same — literature. 
 
 It is plain, therefore, how far more important a part than 
 heretofore literature must perform in modelling the public 
 mind of nations. There have been times when it scarcely 
 represented the national disposition at all ; but merely 
 that of a class by which it was encouraged. Any one who 
 was to judge of the social state of England under Charles 
 II. by its literature, would pronounce that the nation com- 
 prised a learned class of great knowledge, but visionary and 
 unpractical habits of mind ; and a frivolous, coarse, de- 
 bauched community. Yet, in truth, the great bulk of the 
 nation was staid, sober, religious, and of a plain and business- 
 like character. The literature of the latter part of Louis 
 XrV.'s reitrn is grave, decorous, even rigorous in tone; be- 
 cause such was the affectation of the court. The people are 
 not represented in it at all. Such anomalies are now im- 
 possible. The floating literature of the day is and must he 
 the real expression of the popular mind. 
 
 Now the effect of literature on the moral habits of man is 
 Incalculable. It is the remark of a profound religious writer 
 of the present day, that we frequently read a literary work 
 without acquiring any positive knowledge at all, or forget- 
 ing it as soon as acquired ; but very rarely without receiving 
 some moral impression. And in this view we regard the 
 predominance of literary habits in a nation as advantageous. 
 For, unless public taste is very far corrupted indeed, the tone 
 of morality in the ordinary literature of the day, to meet ap- 
 proval, must be good : not solidly good perhaps — superficial, 
 it may be, and occasionally false; hut still more right than 
 WRing. And such a tone of literature, reacting on the minds 
 cd" the public, will tend to preserve and augment right feel- 
 ing! in the reading classes. The more special tendencies of 
 literary habits seem to be to soften the disposition — to melt 
 down rancorous feelings — to encourage benevolence of sen- 
 timent, and a read] sympathy With generous conduct. That 
 they serve essentially to promote self-denial and self devo- 
 tion, and virtue of the limber order, we do not contend ; but 
 we see no ground for the suspicion which some entertain
 
 LITHARGE. 
 
 that they are incompatible with the sterner stuff of these 
 more serious qualities, or tend to weaken the main springs 
 of thought and action. On the other band, although a 
 prevalence of literary habits may render the success of an 
 utterly corrupt style of literature "more improbable, yet, when 
 such success does occur, its effects must be infinitely more 
 noxious and destructive. Were such a taste as French 
 lighter literature has of late exhibited likely to obtain a real 
 ascendency in that country, there could not be a more pow- 
 erful cause, as well as decisive symptom, of national de- 
 generacy ; but, in truth, it will prove only a temporary ex- 
 travagance. 
 
 One more effect of the spread of literary habits remains 
 to be noticed— the enormously increased importance of what 
 may now be justly termed the literary profession. Such 
 fortunes as that of Sir Walter Scott are phenomena belong- 
 ing to this age alone. At this moment (November, 1840) the 
 two contending party leaders in France, on whom the eyes 
 of Europe are fixed, are writers by profession, who have 
 risen to their present eminence through literary distinction ; 
 and of the most noted public men on both sides, several be- 
 long to the same class. Spain has had a play-writer for her 
 prime minister. In Germany, when a national movement 
 is attempted against an alleged act of usurpation on the part 
 of a sovereign, those who assume the lead are the profes- 
 sors of an university. In England, the less excitable nature 
 of the people, and the great influence of wealth and aristo- 
 cratic distinction, have kept the great men of the press 
 hitherto in a state of comparative subordination. But a little 
 attention to the signs of the times will lead us to suspect 
 that, if the frame of our society were shaken by any sudden 
 impulse, men of this class would assume a more marked po- 
 sition than they have hitherto occupied. This is the bril- 
 liant side of the picture. On the other hand, the multiplica-' 
 tion of a body of men whose employment is essentially pre- 
 carious, their remuneration irregular, their education high, 
 their tastes luxurious, their wants numerous, their success 
 requiring a constant strain upon the spirits and activity of the 
 brain, is in some respects a thing to be regretted. In ill-gov- 
 erned and restless communities they form the most danger- 
 ous class; in orderly and flourishing ones they contribute 
 greatly to the brilliancy of society, but at the expense of 
 much of their own peace and happiness. We have outlived 
 the days when the ideas of poverty and learning were hab- 
 itually associated, and the custom of the humiliating depend- 
 ence of intellect on wealth, 
 
 Toil, envy, want, the patron and the gaol ; 
 
 but the young aspirant to literary distinction may be usefully 
 reminded of the words of a great writer of our day. " Nev- 
 er" (that is, with a free choice before you) " pursue litera- 
 ture as a profession. It would be a sort of irreligion, and 
 scarcely less than a libel on human nature, to believe that 
 there is any established and respectable profession or em- 
 ployment in which a man may not contrive to act with 
 honesty and honour ; and doubtless there is likewise none 
 which may not at times present temptations to the contrary. 
 But wofully will that man find himself mistaken who 
 imagines that the profession of literature, or, to speak 
 more plainly, the trade of authorship, besets its members 
 with fewer or with less insidious temptations than the 
 church, the law, or the different branches of commerce. Let 
 literature be an honourable augmentation to your arms, but 
 never fill the escutcheon." {Coleridge, Autobiographic/. 
 Litcraria.) 
 
 LITHA'RGE, Lythargyrum. (Gr. \idog, a stone, and 
 apyvpos, silver ; probably from its silvery appearance.) 
 Fused oxide of lead. See Lead. 
 
 LI'THIA. (Gr. A(0£io5, lapideous.) A rare alkaline sub- 
 stance, discovered, in 1818, by M. Arfwedson in a mineral 
 called petalite ; it has also been found in some other lapide- 
 ous bodies. It is distinguished from potassa and soda by the 
 difficult solubility of its carbonate ; from baryta, strontia, and 
 lime, by the solubility of its sulphate and oxalate; and from 
 magnesia by the alkalinity of its carbonate. It is the oxide 
 of a white metal which has been named lithium ; the equiv- 
 alent of which is 10, and that of lithia 18. 
 
 LITHI'ASiS. (Gr. Ai0jf, a stone.) The disease of stone 
 in the bladder or kidney. 
 
 L1THIC ACID. (Gr. XtBoc.) The substance generally 
 termed uric acid : it forms the commonest variety of urinary 
 calculus. 
 
 LITHODENDBON. (Gr. >,0, ? , and levfpov, a tree.) 
 Corals have been thus designated, from their frequent arbo- 
 rescent appearance. 
 
 LITHODE'RMIS. (Gr. hOoc, and Stpua, skin.) A ge- 
 nu- of Apodal Echinoderms, in the system of Cuvier ; char- 
 acterized by an oval body compressed posteriorlv, of which 
 the surface is covered with a layer of calcareous granules, 
 which form an extremelv indurated crust. 
 
 LI'THODOMES, Lithodoma. (Aifloj. and <5 £/ , w , I build.) 
 This term is applied to those bivalves which are found in 
 
 LITURGY. 
 
 rocks and stones, inhabiting cavities, which they form for 
 that purpose. A particular genus is called I.ythodomus. 
 
 LITHO'DOMI. (Gr. Aifos, and Lat. domus, a house.) 
 Molluscous animals which bore into rocks and lodge them- 
 selves in the holes. 
 LITHOGRAPHY. See Engraving. 
 LITHOLO'GICAL. (Gr. Xtdoi, and Xoyoc, a discourse.) 
 A term expressing the stony structure or character of a 
 mineral mass. We speak of the lithological character of a 
 structure, as distinguished from its zooloaical character. 
 
 LI'THOMANCY. (Gr. Aitfoj, and y.avTua, prophecy.) 
 A species of divination practised by the ancients. Their 
 oracular stones appear to have returned audible answers to 
 those who consulted them. Modem conjurors have another 
 species of lithomancy — the inspection of the surface of 
 smooth agates or crystals. Such was the divination of the 
 notorious Dr. Dee and his assistant Kelly in the reign of 
 Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 LI'THOMARGE. Stone-marrow. A variety of talc of 
 various colours, and generally associated with magnesian 
 minerals. 
 
 LI'THONTRI'PTICS. (Gr. A<0o?, and rpigo), / carry 
 away.) Remedies which are supposed to dissolve stone in 
 the bladder, or which prevent the deposition of calculous 
 matter in the urine. 
 
 LI'THONTRI'PTOR. (Gr. Xidos, and Spvirruv, to 
 break.) An instrument for breaking calculi in the bladder, 
 so as to reduce them to small particles which may admit of 
 being passed along with the urine, and thus render the 
 operation of lithotomy unnecessary. 
 
 LITHOTOMY. (Gr. Ai6V, and rtuvw, I cut.) The 
 operation of cutting into the bladder for the removal of a 
 stone. 
 
 LITHO'TRITY. (Gr. \idoc, and retpo). I break down.) 
 The operation of breaking a stone in the bladder into small 
 pieces capable of being voided by urine : it is effected by the 
 introduction of instruments by the urethra. 
 
 LI'TMUS. In Chemistry, a blue pigment obtained from 
 the lichen Roce/la, which grows in the Canary Islands: it 
 is often called turnsol, and yields the dye called archil. 
 Paper tinged blue by linn us is reddened by the feeblest acids, 
 and hence is used as a test of the presence of acids ; and 
 litmus paper which has been reddened by an acid has its 
 blue colour restored by an alkali. 
 
 LI'TOTES. (Gr. Xitotvs-) In Rhetoric, a figure, ac- 
 cording to the Greek and Latin rhetoricians, in which an 
 affirmative is expressed by the negative of the contrary ; it 
 is, therefore, a species of irony in the ancient sense of the 
 word (see Irony), in which less is expressed than what is 
 intended to be conveyed to the mind of the reader or hearer. 
 Thus, " a citizen of no mean city" means "of an illustrious 
 city." It is a figure constantly employed to soften what 
 might otherwise appear obnoxious in self-commendation. 
 
 LITRE. The French standard measure of capacity in 
 the decimal system. The litre is a cubic decimetre ; that is, 
 a cube, each of the sides of which are 3-937 English inches : 
 it contains 61 '028 English cubic inches, and is therefore 
 rather less than our quart. Four and a half litres are a 
 close approach to the English imperial gallon. 
 
 LITTLE. (Sax. litel.) In the Fine Arts, a term denot- 
 ing that a work is void of those qualities that tend to raise 
 the feelings of the spectator in contemplating a work of art. 
 It is a term always used in a condemnatory sense. 
 
 LITTORI'NA. (Lat. litus, the sea shore.) A genus of 
 Pectinibranchiate Mollusks of the tribe Trochoida ; charac- 
 terized by its thick shell, of which the aperture presents a 
 small angle, and is without a ridge. The common peri- 
 winkle of our coasts ( Turbo littoreus, Linn.) is a species of 
 the present genus. 
 
 LITURGY. (Gr. Xei-ovpyia.) An office at Athens, by 
 which persons of considerable property were bound to per- 
 form certain public duties, or supply the commonwealth 
 with necessaries at their own expense. The persons on 
 whom this office was imposed were usually among the rich- 
 est inhabitants ; and if any one selected to fill it could find 
 another more wealthy than himself who was exempt from 
 public duty, he could insist on being released from his 
 charge, which then devolved on the party denounced. This 
 obnoxious institution was abolished on the proposition of 
 Demosthenes. (See Boeckh's Public Economy of Athens.) 
 It is from this term that the English liturgy (quod vide), in 
 ecclesiastical meaning, has been derived; the sense having 
 been contracted from public ministry or service in general 
 to the ceremonies of religious worship. 
 
 Liturgy. The ritual according to which the religious 
 services of a church are performed. In the writings of the 
 ancients the name is restricted to the service of the Eucha- 
 rist, which afterwards came to be distinguished in the West- 
 ern Church bv the term missa, or mass. 
 
 There still "exist in Greek, Latin, and some Oriental lan- 
 gnages, various rituals by which the Eucharist was cele- 
 brated in very early ages. Some have supposed that all 
 
 675
 
 L1TUUS. 
 
 these may be referred to one original liturgy, which may 
 have been universally adopted in the primitive church, Pal- 
 mer, the latest English writer <>n this subject (j&ntiq., vol! i., 
 p. 8), conceives that the number of original liturgies ma} be 
 reduced to tour, but not lower. These be entitles the great 
 Oriental liturgy, the Alexandrian, the Roman, and the Gal- 
 ilean; each of which was extensively used from the apos- 
 tolic am- in the quarters from which he assigns them tlnir 
 names, and became the parents of many Other riiuals, such 
 as were used, with constantly diverging variations, in the 
 different patriarchates of the empire. 
 
 The earliest period at which any liturgical forms were con- 
 signed to writing is the end of the third or beginning of the 
 fourth century ; at least the liturgy called of St. Basil can he 
 traced as high as the latter period. This practice, also, 
 seems frequently to have been applied only to certain parts 
 ■ i tin service. We find, therefore, great differences in the 
 MSS. which now exist; and it becomes very difficult to as- 
 certain what the contents of the primitive rituals were, and 
 trace the periods at which many rites and ceremonies have 
 been introduced into the service. 
 
 The liturgy of the Church of England is a liturgy, in the 
 wider and more usual acceptation of the term, comprehend- 
 ing the whole of the various services used on ordinary and 
 extraordinary occasions throughout the year. For the his- 
 tory of tliis liturgy, see Common Prayer. See also Asse- 
 manni, Cuilez Liturgicus ; Muratori, IJturgia Romana 
 fetus ; Breff's Collection of Liturgies ; Palmer's Origines 
 lAturgicm ; Riddle's Christian Antiquities, p. 369, 377. 
 As to the reforms in the English liturgy, which were seri- 
 ously contemplated a few years ago by various classes of the 
 Church, see Quart. Review, vols, xlvii., 1. 
 
 L1TUUS. (Lat.) In the geometry of curve lines, the 
 name given by Cotes to a spiral, of which the characteristic 
 property is, that the squares of any two radii vectores are 
 reciprocally proportional to the angles which they respect- 
 ive]) make with a certain straight line given in position, and 
 which is an asymptote to the spiral. Let r and u denote 
 any two radii vectores drawn from the pole to the curve, and 
 let <j> and xp be the measures of the angles they respectively 
 make with the asymptote; then r2 : u 2 : : t// '. 0. If we take 
 the angle i|= 57-29578° (or such that the arc is equal to the 
 radius), and call a the corresponding value of u, the above 
 proportion becomes r% : a? : : 1 : $ ; whence we have for the 
 equation of the curve, r2 = <j2 0—1 
 
 Among the properties of the curve are the following: 1. 
 The radius vector is reciprocally proportional to the circular 
 arc intercepted between its extremity and the asymptote. 2. 
 The area included between the two radii vectores a and r 
 and the curve is equal to «2 log. {u-r-a) ; or proportional to 
 the logarithm of the ratio of u to a. 
 
 For the properties of the lituus see Varignon, Mem. Acad. 
 Paris, 1704; Cotes, Harmonia Mensurarum, p. 85; Pea- 
 eock's Examples to the Diff. and Integral Calculus, p. 183. 
 
 Lituus. Among the Romans, a crooked staff, resembling 
 a crozier, made use of by the augurs in quartering the 
 heavens. It is affirmed by Dr. E. D. Clarke, that the use of 
 the augural lituus, as it was called, is much posterior to that 
 of the regal or ijuirinal lituus, which was instituted by 
 Romulus, and used as a sceptre by the Roman kings; and 
 that tiny had nothing in common except the name. The 
 origin of the word is uncertain. (See Clarke's Observations 
 on the " Lituus," in the Jlrchaolog., six., p. 386.) 
 
 LI'VER. (Germ, leber.) The viscus in which bile is se- 
 creted. It is situated in the right hypochondriac region un- 
 der the diaphragm ; and in the human body is divided into 
 two lobes, of which the right lobe is the largest. There is 
 between them a smaller lobular process, called the Lobulus 
 Spigelii. The ultimate arrangement of the different blood- 
 vessels of the liver is very peculiar. It has been ably In- 
 vestigated by Mr. Kiernan, by whom it is described in the 
 Philosophical Transactions. 
 
 LI'VER OF SULPH1 ' R. Fused sulphuret of potassium ; 
 so called from its linr colour. 
 
 M Vl'.RY. (Pr. livree.) A word derived, probably, from 
 the clothes delivered by masters to their servants, in which 
 sense it still continues to lie used. At tournaments the cava- 
 liers used to distinguish themselves by wearing the livery or 
 badge of their mistresses; and persons of distinction former 
 ly gave liveries to persons unconnected with their own 
 household or family, to engaite them in their quarrels for 
 
 the time being. The Kverynu n of L Ion are a number of 
 
 men belonging to the freemen of the ninerj one companies, 
 which embrace the different trades of the metropolis ; and 
 are so called because they are entitled to wear the livery of 
 lh> ir respective Companies. By this body are elected the 
 COmmon-COUnCilmen, sheriffs, aldermen, and son ther su 
 
 perloT officers of the city ; and. down to the passing of the 
 Reform Bill In 1832, they had the exclusive pii\ ilege of vot- 
 ing at the election of members of parliament. 
 Ll'VERT OF SEISIN. In Law, a delivery of pa 
 
 in lands, tenemenls, and hereditaments, to one that has a 
 076 
 
 LOCK. 
 
 right to the same : a ceremony at common law used in the 
 conveyance of lands, whereby uu estate of freehold passes 
 by feoffment. Sec Feoffment. 
 
 LIVE STOCK. The quadrupeds and other animals kept 
 in a farm for the purpose of being employed in farm labours, 
 
 for breeding, for being fattened, or for other purposes of 
 
 profit. In the farming of Britain and similar Climates the 
 principal description Of live stuck are horses, cattle, sheep, 
 and swine; but to these are generally added poultry, and 
 sometimes goats, rabbits, fish, and bees. In warmer climates 
 the silkworm may he considered as part of the live BUM k ; 
 and under particular circumstances, both in England and on 
 the Continent, deer, and even hares and pheasants, are bred 
 for sale. 
 
 L1VIXG FORCE. See Force. 
 
 LI'VRE. (Lat. libra, a pound.) An ancient French coin, 
 which appears as early as rUU A.D. It was at first divided 
 into 20 solidos, and afterwards into 20 soma. At the French 
 revolution the franc was substituted for the livre. 
 
 LIXTVIUM. A term employed by the old chemists to 
 signify un alkaline ley or solution. 
 
 I, IZARD. See Lacerta. 
 
 LLOYD'S LIST. A well-known periodical publication, 
 which contains a full account of shipping intelligence. It 
 derives its name from Lloyd's coffee-house, so long cele- 
 brated as the resort of all classes connected either with the 
 mercantile or shipping interest ; and its importance in sup- 
 plying full, trustworthy, and early maritime Information can- 
 not be easily overrated. It has been in existence since 1716. 
 
 LOA'DSTONE. The same with magnet, which see. 
 
 LOA'MY SOIL, in the language OI practical agricultu- 
 rists and gardeners, is one in winch clay prevails: it is called 
 heavy or light, as the clay may be more or less abundant ; 
 and sandy, gravelly, or calcareous, according as these earths 
 predominate in the composition. In general, loamy soils are 
 more fertile than sand or chalk ; but the fertility of any soil 
 is til ways to a certain extent relative to the nature of the sub- 
 soil, and to the local climate. 
 
 LO BATE. (Lat. lobus, a lobe.) A term applied by Lin- 
 naeus to the feet of those birds, as the grebe, which were fur- 
 nished at their sides with broad-lobed membranes. 
 
 LO'BBY. (Ger. laube, an arbour.) In Architecture, a 
 hall or passage serving as an ante-apartment for communi- 
 cation to rooms. 
 
 LOBE'LIA INFLATA. Indian tobacco. The leaves of 
 this plant have been used in medicine as an expectorant and 
 emetic ; it quiets the action of the heart, and relaxes the 
 muscles. It has been found of great use in allaying the 
 paroxysms of spasmodic asthma, and as a relaxant in hoop- 
 ing-cough. 
 
 LO'CAL PROBLEM (Lat. locus), in the ancient Geome- 
 try, is a problem which admits of an infinite number of solu- 
 tions, or which can be solved not only by a single point, but 
 by all points situated in some line which may he found. See 
 Locus. 
 
 LOCH. The Scotch term for lake, which see. See also 
 Lough. 
 
 LOCK, in Internal Navigation, is a part of a canal includ- 
 ed between two floodgates, by means of which a vessel is 
 transferred from a higher to a lower level, or from a lower 
 to a higher. See Canal. 
 
 LOCK. (Saxon, loc.) An instrument composed of springs 
 and bolts, used to fasten doors, drawers, chests, &c. A good 
 lock is the masterpiece in smithery, and requires mucb art 
 and delicacy in contriving and varying the wards, springs, 
 bolts, and other parts whereof it is composed, so as to adjust 
 them to the places where they are serviceable, and to the 
 various occasions of their use. The structure of locks is so 
 varied, and the number of inventions of different sorts so ex- 
 tended, that we cannot attempt to enumerate them. Those 
 placed on outer doors are called stock locks, those on cham- 
 ber doors spring locks, and such as are bidden in the thick- 
 ness of the doors to which they are applied are called mor- 
 tise locks. The padlock is too well known to need descrip- 
 tion. We here add the conditions u huh, to .Mr. Nicholson, 
 appear necessary in a lock of the most perfect kind: 1. That 
 certain parts of the lock should he variable in position 
 through a great Dumber of combinations, one only of which 
 shall allow the lock to he o|iened or shut. 2. That this last- 
 mentioned combination should be variable at the pleasure of 
 the possessor. 3. That it should not be possible, alter the 
 lock is closed and the combination disturbed, for any one, 
 
 not even the maker of the lock, to discover, by any examina- 
 tion, what may be the propel situations of the pails required 
 to open the lock. 4. That trials of this kind shall not be 
 
 capable of injuring the works. 5. That it shall require no 
 key ; 6. And be as easily opened in the dark as in the light. 
 7. That the Opening and shutting should he done by a pro- 
 cess as simple as that of a common lock. 8. Thai it should 
 open without a key, or with one, at pleasure. 9. That the 
 keyhole be concealed, defended, or Inaccessible. 10. That 
 the key may be us. d by a stranger, without his knowing or
 
 LOCOFOCOS. 
 
 being able to discover the adopted combination. 11. That 
 the key be capable of adjustment to all the variations of the 
 lock, and yet he simple. 12. That the lock should not be 
 liable to be taken off and examined, whether the receptacle 
 be open or shut, except by one who knows the adopted com- 
 bination. These considerations involve a mechanical prob- 
 lem of great difficulty ; but much towards its accomplish- 
 ment has been effected in various inventions that have been 
 promulgated, and more especially in those of Bramah, 
 Chubbs, Taylor, &c. 
 
 LCCOPCCOS. The name by which the ultra demo- 
 cratical party in America has been distinguished since the 
 year 1834. The term originated in the following incident. 
 Some of that party having had a meeting at Tammany Hall, 
 in New- York, tlie lamps were accidentally extinguished; 
 and on the hall being relighted with lucifers (which in 
 America are termed locofocos, probably from the Lat. loco 
 foci, instead of a fire), the word was adopted as a distin- 
 guishing appellative, and is now of universal application. 
 
 LO'COMO'TION. (Lat. loci motio, change of place.) 
 Such motion as is attended by change of place in the body 
 which moves, in contradistinction to motions which a body 
 may have which is stationary. Thus, a clock, a mill, a lathe 
 moves ; but no change of place of the machine is produced : 
 such motion is not locomotion. A steam engine which, being 
 fixed in its position, impels others bodies, is a stationary en- 
 gine ; but one which travels with the bodies which it drives 
 is called a locomotive engine. 
 
 LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. Any engine which, being 
 employed to draw loads in transport overland, travels with 
 the load which it draws. 
 
 Since the improvement and extension of iron railways, this 
 term has been exclusively applied to the steam engine, by 
 which loads are drawn upon them. Although, strictly speak- 
 ing, the steam engine by which a ship is propelled is a loco- 
 motive engine, it is not usual to apply that term to it ; such 
 an engine is called a marine engine. (See Steam Naviga- 
 tion.) The term locomotive engine must, therefore, as at 
 present used, be understood to express the travelling steam 
 engine by which trains are drawn on railways. 
 
 History of the Locomotive Engine. — The first practical 
 application of the steam engine as a locomotive power took 
 place in 1804, on a railroad at Merthyr Tydvi), in South 
 Wales. The engine was constructed by Messrs. Trevethick 
 and Vivian, under a patent obtained by them two years 
 previously. This engine, in several respects, resembled in 
 its form and structure those which have been since used for 
 a like purpose. 
 
 The boiler was a cylinder, with flat circular ends placed 
 upon its side. A large tube entered it at one end, and, being 
 carried near the other, was there received and carried back 
 parallel to its first direction ; its course through the boiler re- 
 sembling the letter U. The two mouths or openings of this 
 tube were therefore placed at the same end of the boiler. 
 One of the mouths of this tube communicated with the 
 chimney, the base of which was flanged upon it, and the 
 other contained the grate and furnace. The flame and heat- 
 ed air were drawn through the curved tube, and up the 
 chimney. The engine was worked by high-pressure steam 
 without condensation ; the steam being admitted to the cyl- 
 inder, and withdrawn from it, by the well-known mechanical 
 contrivance called a four-way cock. The cylinder was placed 
 on its side ; and in one position of the cock a communication 
 was opened between the boiler and one end of the cylinder, 
 while another communication was opened between the 
 other end of the cylinder and a tube leading to the chimney. 
 Steam was thus admitted to act on one side of the piston, and 
 allowed to escape from the other side to the chimney. When 
 the piston attained the end of the stroke, the position of the 
 cock was reversed, and the steam which had just driven the 
 piston in one direction was allowed to escape to the chimney, 
 while steam from the boiler was admitted on the other side 
 of the piston, to impel it in the contrary direction ; and in 
 this manner the piston was continually driven backwards 
 and forwards, in a horizontal direction, and parallel to the 
 direction of the load. The piston rod was moved through a 
 hole, corresponding with it in magnitude, in the cover of the 
 cylinder, in which it was rendered steam-tight by a stuffing 
 box properly lubricated. This piston rod acted bv means of 
 a connecting rod on a crank, which it kept in revolution in 
 the same manner as the crank in a common double-acting 
 steam engine is moved. (See Steam Engine.) On the 
 axle of this crank was placed a cogged wheel, which, by 
 means of ordinary gearing, conveyed inotion to the axle of 
 the hind wheels of the engine, so as to keep that axle in 
 constant revolution. The wheels being keyed upon that 
 axle, so as not to be capable, like the wheels of a common 
 carriage, of turning upon it, were necessarily made to revolve 
 with it: and, so long as their pressure upon the road was 
 sufficient to prevent them from slipping, a progressive mo- 
 tion of the carriage was the necessary consequence of their 
 revolution. 
 
 LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. 
 
 The early projectors of locomotive engines were all im- 
 pressed with a notion that the adhesion of the driving wheels 
 with the rails must he insufficient to enable the power ap- 
 plied to these wheels to give progressive motion to the car- 
 riage; and, without thinking it necessary to ascertain by ac- 
 tual experiment, whether such were really the case or not, 
 they expended much ingenuity and capital in devising means 
 of overcoming this difficulty, which, after all, turned out to 
 be merely imaginary. Engineers were, in fact, impressed 
 with a notion that if any power compelled the wheels to re- 
 volve, they would merely slip upon the rails, and that the 
 carriage or engine would remain stationary. To provide 
 against this, Messrs. Trevethick and Vivian proposed to make 
 the external rims of the wheels intended for common roads 
 rough and uneven, by surrounding them with projecting 
 heads of nails or bolts, or by cutting tranverse grooves in 
 them. Seven years afterwards, Mr. Blinkensop, of Leeds, 
 obtained a patent for a method of surmounting his imaginary 
 difficulty, by the substitution of a rack rail for the ordinary 
 smooth rail, and constructing teeth on the driving wheels to 
 work in the teeth of this rack. Various other ingenious con- 
 trivances were subsequently produced for the same purpose, 
 until about the year 1814, when experience at length forced 
 upon engineers the knowledge of the fact, that the adhesion 
 of the tires of the wheels with the rails was amply suffi- 
 cient to propel the engine, even when drawing after it a 
 great load. 
 
 In 1814, an engine was constructed at Killingworth col- 
 liery, near Newcastle, having two cylinders with a cylindri- 
 cal boiler, and working two pair of wheels by cranks placed 
 at right angles, so that when one was in full operation, the 
 other was at its dead points. By these means the propelling 
 power was always in action. The cranks were maintained 
 in this position by an endless chain, which passed round 
 two cog wheels placed under the engine, and fixed on the 
 same axles on which the wheels were placed. The wheels 
 in this case were fixed on the axles, and turned with them. 
 
 In an engine subsequently constructed by Mr. Stevenson 
 for the same railway, the mode adopted of connecting the 
 wheels by an endless chain and cog wheels was abandoned, 
 and the same effect was produced by connecting the two 
 cranks by a straight rod. This method is still used in the 
 coupled engines which are applied to draw the trains of 
 merchandise on the present railways. 
 
 The next stimulus which the progress of this invention 
 received, arose from the project of constructing a railway 
 between Liverpool and Manchester, for the purposes of 
 general traffic. When this project was undertaken it was 
 not decided what moving power was most eligible — whether 
 horse power, stationary steam engines, or locomotive en- 
 gines ; but the first, for many obvious reasons, was soon 
 rejected, in favour of one or other of the last two. 
 
 The steam engine may be applied to move carriages on 
 a railway by two distinct methods. By one, the engine is 
 fixed and draws a train of carriages towards it by a rope ex- 
 tending the whole length of the road on which the engine 
 works. By this method the line of road is divided into a 
 number of short stages, at the extremity of each of which an 
 engine is placed. The wagons or carriages, when drawn by 
 any engine to its station, are detached, and connected with 
 the extremity of the rope-work by the next stationary engine, 
 and thus the journey is performed from station to station by 
 separate engines. For a more detailed account of this 
 method of working a railway, see Stationary Engine. 
 By the other method, each load transported along the line 
 is drawn by an engine which travels with it as horses travel 
 with a carriage on a common road. 
 
 To enable them to decide which of these two methods 
 of working the proposed railway it would be most advisa- 
 ble to adopt, the directors of the Liverpool and Manchester 
 line employed Messrs. Stevenson and Locke, and Messrs. 
 Walker and Rastrick, experienced engineers, to visit the 
 different railways then in operation, to obtain the results of 
 the experience which they afforded as to these two methods 
 of applying steam power to transport, and to report their 
 opinion on the relative merits of the two methods. After 
 an elaborate inquiry, the decision of the directors was given 
 in favour of locomotive power. 
 
 Until the period to which we now advert, railways had 
 been almost exclusively confined to the transport of mineral 
 products from the mines up to the places of shipment, and 
 to this purpose exclusively had the locomotive engine been 
 applied; but the ends to be attained by a railway of thirty 
 miles in length, connecting the largest manufacturing town, 
 in the greatest manufacturing country in the world, with 
 the greatest, most active, and most opulent commercial port, 
 were of a nature so much more extensive and important, 
 that it was considered that more than ordinary means should 
 be resorted to to obtain a moving power commensurate with 
 the traffic which might be expected under such circum- 
 stances. Prizes were therefore proposed to be given, un- 
 der certain stipulations, to those who would construct the 
 
 err
 
 LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. 
 
 ■i- live locomotive engines for the purposes of the road. 
 This proposal produced, as was anticipated, much compe- 
 tition ; and the spirit of emulation being roused, a trial was 
 appointed, which t< ><>k place on the railway in October, 
 1839. Engines of seven] tonus were produced; and the 
 prize was awarded to one. called the Rocket, constructed by 
 Mr. Robert Stevenson, the son of Mr. George Stevenson, the 
 engineer of the railway. In the first trial, this engine attain- 
 ed the then astonishing speed of twenty nine miles an hour ; 
 and when, unhappily, at the ceremony of the opening of the 
 railway, the accident occurred which deprived the coUntrj 
 of Mr. HustdsBon, his wounded body was conveyed, by the 
 same engine, a distance of about fifteen miles in twenty-five 
 
 being at the rate of thirty-six miles an hour. This 
 e igine, which involved in its construction all those mechan- 
 ical arrangements to Which the extraordinary speed and 
 power of the locomotive engine of the present day are due, 
 is represented in elevation in tig. 1 ; and a crosB section of 
 
 above mentioned, thfl-conaomption of fuel In the new engines 
 was reduced to 14 pound per Ion per mile. The position of 
 the cylinder was also advantageously changed. Instead of 
 being placed, as in the Rocket, OUtEide the boiler, and ex- 
 posed to the COld air. through which the engine passed with 
 mm U a velocity, they were now placed in that part of the 
 engine called the smoke bur, an enclosed space al the base 
 of the chimney, into which the (lame and heated air escap- 
 ing from the tubes passed. By this arrangement the cylin- 
 ders were always maintained as hot as tin. air which issued 
 
 from tin,' Hues, and all condensation of steam by their ex- 
 posure prevented. 
 
 The engine in this improved form, is represented in fig. 3. 
 As the cylinders were now placed between the wheels, 
 
 the boiler and furnace is represented in fig. 2. It is sup|x>rt- 
 ed on four wheels, the weight being 
 principally thrown on the larger pair 
 worked by the engine. The boiler is a 
 cylinder 6 feet long, having the chim- 
 ney at one end, and the fire box B at the 
 other. This box is surrounded with a 
 hollow casing, which communicates 
 with the bottom of the boiler by a tube 
 C, and with the top by a tube D. The 
 water in the boiler, therefore, flows into 
 the casing, and fills it to the same level 
 as that which it has in the boiler. When 
 the engine is at work, the boiler is kept about half filled with 
 water, and, consequently, the casing round the furnace is 
 completely filled. Steam is abundantly generated in this 
 casing, exposed as it is on every side to the radiant heat of the 
 fire : this steam rises in bubbles, and passes through the tube 
 T) into the boiler. The lower part of the boiler is traversed 
 by a number of copper tubes, the ends of which appear in 
 fig. 2. The flame and heated air proceeding from the burn- 
 ing fuel pass through these tubes, and, after traversing the 
 whole length of the boiler, escape into the chimney, impart- 
 ing, on their passage, heat to the water in the boiler. The 
 necessary draught through the furnace is maintained by 
 causing the cylinders to discharge the waste steam into a 
 pipe, which is presented up the chimney, and is called the 
 blast pipe. There are two cylinders placed outside the en- 
 gine, on either side of it, as represented in fig. 1 ; they are 
 placed in a diagonal position, and their rods move in guides ; 
 the end of the piston rod is connected with one of the spokes 
 of the wheels by a connecting rod, and the piston, as ft is 
 driven by the steam in each direction in the cylinder, causes 
 the wheels to revolve. 
 
 The circumstances in this mechanical arrangement, on 
 Which the rapid production of steam depends, are two-fold: 
 first, the extensive surface exposed in the radiant heat of the 
 fire, by the casing surrounding the fire box, and by the tubes, 
 twenty -five in number and only three inches in diameter, by 
 Which the flame and heated air are conducted through the 
 boiler from the lire box to the Chimney; and, secondly, by 
 the powerful draught maintained in the furnace by the cur- 
 rent of steam constantly discharged up the chimney. It has 
 been mainly by bringing these principles more fully into 
 operation, that all the improvements since made in the loco- 
 motive engine have been effected. 
 
 The railway was not lone in operation, when the arrange- 
 ment of the tidies in the boiler was improved ; their number 
 was increased from twenty live to one hundred and upwards, 
 and their diameters diminished from three Inches to an inch 
 and a half. This change alone produced an increased effi- 
 ciency of the fuel, in the proportion of nearly two to one ; 
 the consumption of coke in the Rocket having been very 
 nearly 2A pounds per ton per mile, while, by the change 
 078 
 
 their operation could not be effected in the same manner as 
 in the Rocket. The connecting rods were accordingly made 
 to act on two cranks, constructed upon the axle of the wheels, 
 plnced at right angles to each other, so that one may always 
 be at its dead point while the other was in full action. This 
 double-cranked axle was, from the weakness consequent 
 upon its form, liable at first to fracture ; but improved methods 
 of forging them subsequently gave them sufficient strength, 
 and now the fracture of a cranked axle rarely occurs. 
 
 The two chief improvements in the locomotive engine, 
 which succeeded those now explained, and which brought 
 that machine to its present state of efficiency, consisted, 
 first, in the substitution of brass for copper tubes; and, 
 secondly, in the addition of another pair of wheels to sup- 
 port the engine. It was found, by continued experience, 
 that the copper tubes, from some peculiar action of the fire 
 upon them, which lias never been explained or understood, 
 were subject to rapid decay ; and in the year 1833, after an 
 experience of about three years of the working of these en- 
 gines, it occurred to Mr. Dixon, then one of the superintend- 
 ents of the engineering department of the Liverpool and 
 Manchester railway, to try the effect of brass tubes. The 
 experiment was eminently successful ; they were found to 
 last sis or eight times as long as copper tubes of the same 
 dimensions. Having now brought down the history of the 
 locomotive engine to the present time, we shall give a de- 
 scription of one of these machines iri its most improved form. 
 
 Description of the most improved Locomotive Engine in 
 operation in 1840. — A longitudinal vertical section of a loco- 
 motive engine is represented in fig. 4 ; and a plan of the 
 
 working machinery, including the cylinders, pistons, eccen- 
 trics, fee, which are under the boiler, and by the operation 
 of which the engine is driven, is represented in fig. 5. These 
 and the other cuts referred to in the present article have 
 been taken, with the permission of the author and publish- 
 ers, from the 7th edition of Dr. Lnrdner's work on the 
 Steam Engine ; to which the reader is referred for a more 
 detailed account of Ihe history, the structure, and the oper- 
 ation of the locomotive engine, than the limits of the present 
 article « 111 allow ns to supply. 
 
 The boiler, as has been explained in the engines already 
 described, is u cylinder placed upon its side ; the fire bos
 
 LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. 
 
 consists of two casings of metal, one within the other, bolted 
 together by rivets, represented at k ; the fire grate is repre- 
 sented at D. The fire door is represented at g, opening 
 upon the platform where the engineer stands. It will be 
 perceived in the section fig. 4, as well as in the plan fig. 5, 
 
 that the fire box is on every side surrounded by the water 
 contained between the two casings, the level of the water 
 in the boiler being above the roof of the fire box. The tubes 
 by which the flame, and the products of combustion, are 
 drawn from the fire box into the smoke box are represented 
 at E. fig. 4. The smoke box containing the cylinders and 
 blast pipe, and supporting the chimney, is represented at F. 
 In the engine from which this drawing was taken, the boiler 
 is a cylinder 7£ feet long and 3£ feet diameter ; it is clothed 
 with a boarding of wood, represented at a, and bound round 
 by iron hoops screwed together at the bottom. Wood being 
 a slow conductor of heat, this covering has the effect of 
 keeping the boiler warm, and checking the condensation of 
 steam. 
 
 The external casing of the fire box, B B, is nearly square 
 in its plan, as seen in fig. 5, being 4 feet wide, and 3 feet 7i 
 inches long: it is constructed of wrought-iron plates, and 
 descends two feet below the boiler, as seen in fig. 4; the 
 top being semi-cylindrical, of a diameter greater than that 
 of the boiler, and concentrical with it. The inner casing, 
 it k, fig. 5, is similar in shape to the external ; but it is low- 
 er, and flat at the roof, as seen in fig. 4. The space between 
 the two casings is from 3 to 4 inches in width. This internal 
 fire box is made of copper plates. 
 
 As the top of the fire box would be liable to be destroyed 
 by the action of the fire if the level of the water in the boiler 
 were suffered to fall below it, so as to leave it uncovered, a 
 leaden plug m is inserted in it, which would melt out before 
 the copper would become injuriously heated, and the steam 
 rushing out at the aperture would cause the fire to be ex- 
 tinguished. The tubes E, which serve to conduct the flame 
 through the boiler to the smoke box, are made of the best 
 rolled brass, l-13th of an inch thick, and If of an inch in 
 external diameter; they are 124 in number, and the distance 
 between tube and tube is three quarters of an inch. The 
 number of these tubes is at present seldom less than 90, and 
 Varies between that and 150. The tubes act as stays, con- 
 necting the ends of the boiler to strengthen them ; but be- 
 sides these there are rods of wrought-iron, represented at o, 
 fig. 4, which extend from end to end of the boiler, above the 
 roof of the fire-box. The smoke box F, containing the cylin- 
 ders, steam pipe, and blast pipe, is 4 feet wide, and 2 feet 
 long: it is formed of wrought-iron plates, rivetted in the 
 same manner as those of the fire box. From the top of the 
 smoke box, which, like the fire box, is serni-cylindncal, rises 
 the chimney G, 15 inches diameter, made of |-inch iron 
 plates, rivetted and bound round by hoops. Near the bot- 
 tom of the smoke box the working cylinders are placed side 
 by side, in a horizontal position, with the slide valves up- 
 wards, as seen in fig. 5. 
 
 At the top of the external fire box, fig. 4, a circular aper- 
 ture is formed 15 inches in diameter ; and upon this aperture 
 is placed the steam dome T, 2 feet in height, and secured to 
 the aperture by nuts. The steam dome is made of brass, 
 nearly half an inch thick. A funnel-shaped tube d, with its 
 wide end upwards, is flanged upon the side of the great 
 steam pipe S, and is carried upward, so that its mouth is 
 near the top of the steam dome T. In order to pass into the 
 steam pipe S, the steam which fills the upper part of the 
 boiler A must ascend the steam dome and enter the funnel 
 d, as indicated by the bent arrow in fig. 4. This arrange- 
 ment prevents, in a great degree, the effect of priming, by 
 which word is expressed technically the spray of water 
 which rises from the water of the boiler, and is mixed with 
 the steam in the upper part of it : as the steam ascends the 
 steam dome this spray falls back, and nothing but pure 
 steam enters the funnel d. The wider part of the great 
 steam pipe S is flanged, and screwed at the hinder end to a 
 corresponding aperture in the back of the fire box, where the 
 engineer stands: this opening is covered by a circular plate, 
 secured by screws, having a stuffing box in its centre, of the 
 same kind as is used for the piston rods of steam cylinders. 
 Through this stuffing box the spindle or rod a of the regula- 
 tor passes ; and to its end is attached a winch h, by which 
 
 the spindle a' is capable of being turned. To the other end 
 of this spindle, at e, is attached a plate, which moves upon 
 apertures formed in the cover of the end of the great steam 
 pipe S ; so that, by turning the winch A more or less, this 
 plate e may be removed more or less from over the openings ; 
 and thus the steam may be allowed to enter the steam pipe 
 S from the steam dome T in greater or less quantity, or may 
 be shut off" altogether. The steam pipe S being enclosed 
 within the boiler, is maintained at the same temperature as 
 the steam in the boiler ; and therefore tiie steam, in passing 
 through it, is not liable to condensation. The steam pipe, 
 passing through the tube plate at the front of the boiler, 
 is turned down at right angles in the smoke box, where, 
 dividing into two branches, one is conducted to each of the 
 valve boxes of the cylinders. The lower ends of these 
 branches are flanged to the valve boxes at the ends of the 
 cylinders nearest to the boiler: by these pipes the steam is 
 conducted into the valve boxes, or steam chests, from which 
 it is admitted by slide valves to the cylinders to work the 
 pistons. On the upper sides of the cylinders are the steam 
 chests U, communicating with the passage ; m, tig. 5, lead- 
 ing to the top of the cylinder, n leading to the bottom, and o 
 leading through the side pipe P' to the blast pipe. These 
 openings are governed by a slide, so that, when steam is ad- 
 mitted through m, the communication shall be opened be- 
 tween n and o. Thus, when steam is admitted to the top 
 of the cylinder, the steam from the bottom will flow from 
 n, through o, into the blast pipe. When the piston reaches 
 the bottom of the cylinder, then the slide opens a communi- 
 cation between n and the steam pipe, and between m and o. 
 Thus steam will be admitted to the bottom of the cylinder, 
 while the steam from the top will escape from in, through 
 o, to the blast pipe. In this way, by the alternate shifting 
 of the slide, steam is admitted alternately to each end of the 
 cylinder, and allowed to escape from the other end, and the 
 alternate motion of the piston and the cylinder is thereby 
 maintained. The pistons used in locomotive engines are of 
 the kind called metallic pistons, and, from their horizontal 
 position, they have a tendency to wear unequally in the 
 cylinders, their weight pressing them on one side only ; but 
 from their small magnitude, this effect is found to be im- 
 perceptible in practice. The cross pipe P', which communi- 
 cates with the eduction passage o, in each of the valve 
 boxes, has an opening in the centre presented upward, as 
 seen in fig. 5. To this opening is flanged the base of the 
 blast pipe p, fig. 4, which rises in a direction slightly curved, 
 and has its mouth presented upward in the centre of the 
 chimney G. The steam which is discharged at each stroke 
 of the pistons from the cylinders passes through this pipe, 
 and escapes up the chimney by puffs. When an engine is 
 moving slowlv. these puffs are distinctly audible, resembling 
 the coughing "of a horse ; but when at full speed, they suc- 
 ceed each other so rapidly that the ear can scarcely distin- 
 guish their intervals. It is this stream of waste steam, con- 
 tinually rushing up the chimney, that maintains the necessary 
 draught in the fireplace ; the upper current thus produced 
 in the funnel causes a corresponding current into the smoke 
 box F, through the tubes E ; and there is this excellence in 
 the arrangement, that the force of the draught in the chim- 
 ney being proportional to the quantity of steam produced, it 
 must be therefore proportional to the quantity of fuel neces- 
 sary to be consumed. 
 
 The force of the steam thus impressed upon the pistons is 
 communicated by the piston rods Y, fig. 4, the cross heads 
 of which move in guides to the connecting rods B, which 
 are attached to the crank pins of the working (6.) 
 
 axle C ; so that, as the piston rods are driven 
 backwards and forwards in the cylinders, the 
 working axle is made to revolve. This axle, 
 with the two cranks formed upon it, is repre- 
 sented in fig. 6, where the two cranks must be 
 understood to be in a position at an angle of 45° 
 with the plane of the figure, and therefore at an i 
 angle of 90° with each other. As this axle is i 
 the instrament by which the impelling force is | 
 conveyed to the load, and as it has to support a 
 great portion of the weight of the engine, it is 
 constructed with great strength and precision. 
 Its length is 6£ feet, and its diameter 5 inches. 
 At the centre part A it is cylindrical, and is in- 
 creased to 5^ inches at C, where the cranks are 
 formed. The sides D of the cranks are 4 inches 
 thick ; and the crank pins B, which are truly 
 cylindrical, are 5 inches in diameter and 3 
 inches in length. Upon the parts F, which are 
 7£ inches long, the great driving wheels D, fig. 
 4, are firmly fastened, so as to be prevented 
 from turning or shaking upon the axle. Brass- 
 es are fixed on the outside frame of the engine, 
 which rest upon these projections G of the axle ; 
 and upon these brasses the weight of the en- 
 gine is supported.
 
 LOCOMOTIVE ENGINE. 
 
 The strength and accuracy of construction necessary for 
 these axles render them expensive: they cost about x">o 
 each. They arc sciil.un broken, but sometimes bent when 
 the engine escapes from the mils. 
 
 The method by which the slides arc made to govern the 
 
 admission and escape Of the steam to and frmn the cylinders 
 is nearly the same as in the steam engine used for the (.'en- 
 oral purposes of manufacture; and tor a general description 
 
 01" the method see Stkxm Engine. Meanwhile it may be 
 
 here briefly stated, that this is effected by two circular plates 
 called eccentrics, fixed at E E, fig. 5, on the great working 
 axle. These eccentrics are circular plates or rim:s. formed 
 upon or attached to the axle so as to revolve in their own 
 plane, forming, in effect, a part of the axle itself; hut they 
 BCed that their centres do not coincide with the cen- 
 tre of the axle, and, consequently, as they revolve with the 
 axle, their centres are alternately thrown backwards and 
 forwards, as they pass on the one side or the other of the 
 axle. These circular plates are surrounded by rim:s. w ithin 
 which they revolve, but which do not revolve with them. 
 These rings are alternately thrown backward and forward 
 by the play of the eccentrics; and to these rings are attach- 
 ed rods c e, which communicate motion to the arms which 
 drive the rods of the slides. Thus the alternate motions of 
 the eccentrics backward and forward proceeding from the 
 working axle, produce a corresponding backward and for- 
 ward motion in the slides, and thereby govern the admission 
 and escape of the steam to and from the cylinders. When 
 it is required to reverse the motion of the engine, or to make 
 i; move backwards, the motion of the slides, and therefore 
 the positions of the eccentrics on the working axle, must be 
 the contrary of that necessary to produce a progressive mo- 
 lion. Sometimes this is effected by shifting the position of 
 the eccentrics on the working axle; but more commonly it 
 is effected by a second pair of eccentrics, represented at F F, 
 fig. 5, placed on the axle in a position contrary to the others. 
 When the engine is driven backward, the eccentrics E E 
 are thrown out of gear, and the eccentrics F F are brought 
 into action. 
 
 As all the moving parts of the engine require to be con- 
 stantly lubricated with oil, to diminish the friction and keep 
 them cool, oil cups for this purpose are fixed upon them. In 
 some eiiL'ines these oil cups are attached separately to all the 
 moving parts: in others they are placed near each other in 
 a row on the side of the boiler, and communicate by small 
 tubes With the several parts to be lubricated. 
 
 The tender is a carriage attached behind the engine, and 
 close to it, carrying coke for the supply of the furnace, and 
 a tank containing water for the boiler. The feed for the 
 boiler is conducted through a curved pipe proceeding from 
 the tank, and carried first downwards, and afterwards in a 
 horizontal direction, as represented at K, fig. 4, under the 
 boiler. It communicates with a forcing pump, which is 
 worked by an arm driven by the cross head of the steam 
 piston. By this pump water is constantly forced into the 
 boiler, so long as the pump is kept in communication with 
 the tank ; but this communication may be opened and cut 
 off by a cock /. governed by the engineer. As the feed of 
 the boiler by the introduction of cold water checks the ac- 
 tivity of the evaporation, it is the custom not to feed the 
 boiler regularly and constantly, but to throw on the feed 
 when the work on the engine is light and the consumption 
 of stetun small, and to shut it off when much steam is re- 
 quired. The circumstances of a railway naturally suggest 
 this. When the engine is ascending an incline, all the steam 
 which tin' boiler is capable of producing is required, and 
 therefore the activity of the boiler is stimulated by shutting 
 off the feed : but in descending an incline less power is re- 
 quired, and the feed is put on. 
 
 Until within the last few years, locomotive engines were 
 Supported on only four wheels. It is now, however, tie' gen- 
 era! practice to place them on six, the driving wheels being 
 in the middle, as represented in fig. 4. To give greater se- 
 curity to the position of the engine between the rails, it is 
 
 usual to construct flanges on the tires of all the six wheels. 
 Mr. Stevenson, however, has been in the practice of con- 
 BtTUCting the driving wheels without flanges, and with tires 
 
 trulj cylindrical, depending on the flanges of the two pairs 
 
 ot' smaller wheels to maintain the engine between the rails. 
 The w heels ot' the engine represented in I'm. •), are construct- 
 ed in this manner. The driving Wheels l» are fixed 00 the 
 
 cranked axle C, and are constructed with cylindrical tires 
 without flanges. They are 5 feet in diameter. The w heels 
 L are 'J feel 6 In. in diameter, and have conical Urea with 
 flanges. They are placed Immediately behind the smoke 
 
 box. The wheels M are precisely similar to L, and arc 
 placed immediately behind the lire box. 
 
 When an engine is required for the transport of very heavj 
 
 loads, sue 1 1 as those of merchandise, the adhesion of one pair 
 of working wheels is insufficient; and. in such cases, one 
 
 of the two pairs of wheels I. or ,M is made of the same di- 
 ameter, as the driving wheels, and a bar is attached to points 
 080 
 
 on the outside of the wheels, at equal distances from their 
 eiutre, connecting them in such a manner that any force 
 applied to make one pair of wheels revolve must necessarily 
 impart the same motion to the other pair. By such means 
 the force of the steam is made to drive both pairs ot' wheels, 
 and consequently a proportionally increased adhesion is ob- 
 tained. 
 
 The speed which an engine is capable of imparting de- 
 pends on the rate at which the pistons are capable of being 
 moved in the cylinders. By every motion of each piston 
 backward and forward one revolution of the driving wheel 
 is produced ; and by each revolution of the driving wheels, 
 supposing them not to slip upon the mils, the load is driven 
 through a distance equal to their circumference. As the 
 two cylinders work together, it follows that a quantity of 
 steam sufficient to till four cylinders must be supplied by the 
 boiler to the engine, to move the train through a distance 
 equal to the circumference of the driving wheels; and in 
 accomplishing this each piston must move twice from end 
 to end of the cylinder, each cylinder must he twice filled 
 with steam from the boiler, and that steam must be twice 
 discharged from the blast pipe into the chimney. If the 
 driving wheels be 5 feet in diameter, their circumference 
 will be 15 feet 7 inches. To drive a train with a velocity of 
 30 miles an hour, it is necessary that the engine he propelled 
 through 45 feet per second; and to accomplish this with 5 
 feet wheels they must make nearly three revolutions per 
 second; and as each revolution requires two motions of the 
 piston in the cylinder, it follows that each piston must move 
 three times forward and three times backward in the cyl- 
 inder in a second ; that steam must be admitted six times per 
 second to each cylinder, and discharged twelve times per 
 second through the blast pipe : the motion of the slides and 
 other reciprocating parts of the machinery must consequent- 
 ly correspond. 
 
 This rapid reciprocating motion being injurious to the ma- 
 chinery, attempts have been made to diminish it by the 
 adoption of larger working wheels, and the driving wheels 
 on several of the great lines have been accordingly increased 
 to 5k and 6 feet in diameter. Such engines have not been 
 yet sufficiently long in use to afford a practical estimate of 
 the effects of this change. Experiments of a much bolder 
 kind have been tried on the Great Western Railway, where 
 driving wheels of 10 feet in diameter have been worked. 
 From a course of experiments, however, made by Dr. Lard- 
 ni r with those engines, it did not appear that they had any 
 advantage over those constructed with smaller and lighter 
 wheels. Experience appears to have since confirmed this, 
 as they are now for the most part abandoned. The pres- 
 sure of steam in the boiler is usually limited by two safety 
 valves — one represented at X, under the control of the en- 
 gineer ; and the other at O, which cannot be approached by 
 him. The safety valve at N is held down by a lever r, 
 which is attached to a spiral spring, and which may, by an 
 adjusting screw, be made to press on the valve with any re- 
 quired force. The second valve O is pressed by several 
 small elliptical springs, placed one above another over the 
 valve, and held down by a screw, which turns in a frame 
 fixed into the valve seat. By this screw the pressure on the 
 valve can be adjusted. 
 
 In order to give notice of the approach of the train, a steam 
 whistle Z, fig. 4, is placed immediately above the fire box at 
 the back of the engine. This is an apparatus composed of 
 two small hemispheres of brass, separated one from the other 
 by a small space. Steam is made to pass through a hollow 
 space formed in the lower hemisphere, and escapes from a 
 very narrow circular opening round the edge of that hemis- 
 phere. The edge of the upper hemisphere presented down- 
 wards encounters this steam, and an effect is produced simi- 
 lar to the action of air in organ pipes. A shrill whistle is 
 produced which can be heard at a grei t distance, and differ 
 ing from all ordinary sounds, never fails to give notice of the 
 approach of a train. 
 
 It is not usual to express the power of locomotives, in the 
 same manner as that of other engines, by the term horse 
 power. Indeed, until the actual amount of resistance en- 
 countered by these machines shall he more certainly ascer- 
 tained, it is impossible that their efficiency can be estimated. 
 The quantity of water evaporated supplies a major limit to 
 the power exerted; but even this necessary element is not 
 
 ascertained. Mr. Stevenson states thai an engine such as 
 
 that above described is capable of evaporating only 77 cubic 
 feet of water per hour; hut Dr. I.ardner found that the 
 mean evaporation obtained by a very accurately conducted 
 experiment over 200 miles of railway, with an engine called 
 
 the iieela, similar to the above, was 90 cubic feet per hour 
 very Dearly. 
 
 But a still greater evaporating power than this is found 
 among the large engines working on the (Jreai Western Rail- 
 way. In an experiment made by Dr. Lardner with the North 
 Star, drawing HOj tons gross, at 3(M miles an hour, the 
 evaporation was 'JOO cubic feet per hour. '
 
 LOCOMOTIVE POWER. 
 
 On the evaporating power of the engines, other things be- 
 ing the same, must ultimately depend the speed of railway 
 traffic. For it must be apparent tiiat no modification which 
 can be made in the mechanism of the engine, no change in 
 the magnitude of the driving wheels, nor any other expedient 
 of the same kind, can add anything to the real working 
 power of the machine. Mechanism is the means by which 
 power is modified and conveyed to the working points, not 
 the agent by which it is produced. The real and the only 
 source of power in the steam engine is to he found in the 
 phenomena which are evolved in the conversion of water 
 into vapour (for an account of which phenomena see 
 Steam) ; and therefore the limit of railway speed must al- 
 ways depend on the rate at which the locomotive boiler is 
 capable of evaporating water. The experiments above ex- 
 plained show the actual evaporating powers possessed by 
 the boilers now in use, and every addition to such evapo- 
 rating power will produce a corresponding, though not a pro- 
 portionate, augmentation of the speed of railway trains. 
 
 Nothing can be more absurdly exaggerated than the ac- 
 counts which have been put in circulation of the speed at- 
 tained on railways. No reliance whatever can or ought to 
 be placed on such reports, unless they are attested by com- 
 petent persons accustomed to that kind of inquiry, and who 
 have been themselves witnesses of them. In the extensive 
 courses of experiments which, for several years back, have 
 been conducted by Dr. Lardner, he has never in any instance, 
 even with an unloaded engine, exceeded a speed of 45 miles 
 an hour ; nor was that speed ever maintained for any con- 
 siderable distance. With the best and most powerful en- 
 gines on the Great Western Railway at their disposal, Mr. 
 Nicholas Wood and Dr. Lardner were unable to attain a 
 speed in their experiments exceeding 45 miles an hour. The 
 question, however, of most interest to the public is, not the 
 speed which can be obtained in experiments for short dis- 
 tances with engines put into racing order, but the average 
 speed which can be maintained in the general working of a 
 road. The returns of the railway companies, so far as they 
 have been made public, do not supply the means of deter- 
 mining this; but it is known that the first class trains be- 
 tween London and Birmingham, a distance of 112 miles, 
 cannot make the journey, under ordinary circumstances, in 
 less than 5£ hours: this would give an average speed, in- 
 cluding stoppages, of 20 miles an hour. On the Grand Junc- 
 tion line between Liverpool and Birmingham, the journey, 
 including stoppages, is usually made in 4$ hours, and the 
 distance is 97 miles : this again is at the rate of about 20 
 miles an hour. No other lines of railway have yet been con- 
 structed of sufficient length to afford a fair estimate of aver- 
 age speed ; and it may therefore be assumed that the present 
 rate of railway travelling, for long distances with first class 
 trains, stoppages included, is 20 miles an hour. 
 
 On the railway between Liverpool and Manchester the 
 average speed of first class trains is greater. The railway 
 is only 30 miles in length ; and there is but one^ stoppage, at 
 Newton, which is so arranged as to be attended with very 
 little loss of time. The journey is very frequently made in 
 an hour, and seldom exceeds 80 minutes ; the average speed 
 for the fastest trains on that line is therefore probably not 
 less than 25 miles an hour, including stoppages. (For far- 
 ther details respecting the locomotive engine, see Lardner 
 on the Steam Engine, 7th edit., 1840.) 
 
 LOCOMOTIVE POWER, in contradistinction to station- 
 ary power, is any kind of moving power applied to the trans- 
 port of loads on land which travels with the load which it 
 draws. Horses employed to draw carriages or carry loads 
 are locomotive powers. See Locomotive Engine. 
 
 LO'CULICI'DAL. In Botany, a term applied to the 
 dehiscence of a fruit when it takes place through the back 
 of the cells. It is what botanists formerly called a dehiscence 
 with the valves opposite the dissepiments. 
 
 LO'CUS. (Lat. place), in the Geometrical Analysis, is the 
 line traced by a point which varies its position acccording to 
 some determinate law. For example, let this problem be 
 proposed : To find a point P such 
 that its distances from two given 
 points, A and B, shall have a 
 given ratio. If the line joining 
 A and B be divided in E, so that 
 A E is to E B in the given ratio, 
 then a point is found which ful- 
 fils the conditions of the problem. 
 But this is not the only point 
 which has this property ; for let 
 F be taken in the prolongation of A B, so that A F is to B F 
 in the given ratio, and on E F as a diameter let a circle be 
 described ; then, if straight lines be drawn from A and B to 
 any point whatever, P, in the circumference of this circle, 
 A P will have to P B the same ratio as A E to E B, or as A F 
 to F B, that is, the ratio given. The circle E P F is hence 
 called the locus of the point P. 
 
 When the locus of the variable point is a straight line or 
 
 LOG, LOG-LINE. 
 
 a circle, it was called by the ancient geometers a plane 
 locus ; and when one of the conic sections, a solid locus. 
 
 The plane loci formed a branch of the ancient analysis, 
 which, according to the account of Pappus, was treated of 
 by Apollonius in two books which have been lost. They 
 were partly restored by Schooten, a Dutch geometer, who 
 flourished in the 17th century, and by Fermat ; but after- 
 wards in a complete manner by Dr. Simson of Glasgow, 
 whose treatise, He Locis Planis, published in 1749, is a 
 model of geometrical elegance. The principal propositions 
 may be found in Leslie's Geometrical Analysis. 
 
 The moderns distinguish the loci into orders, according to 
 the dimensions of the algebraic equations by which they 
 are represented. Thus the equation a x -f- b y-\- c = o is a 
 locus of the first order ; axl-\-by*-\-cxy-\-dx-\-ey-\-f 
 = o, a locus of the second order, and so on. The loci of all 
 equations of the second degree are conic sections or circles. 
 (See JUac/aurin's Algebra.) 
 
 LO'CUST. From the Latin word signifying a crayfish ; 
 but now the common name of a species of insects, forming 
 a group or subgenus of the Gryllus of Linnaeus. They 
 have coloured elytra, and large wings, disposed when at 
 rest in straight fan-like folds, as in other Orthoptera, and 
 frequently exhibiting bright blue, green, or red colours. The 
 thorax is capacious, to afford room for the powerful mus- 
 cles of the wings, and is marked in many species with one 
 or more crests or wart-like prominences. The locusts fly 
 by starts, but frequently rise to a considerable height. Cer- 
 tain species, called " migratory locusts," unite in incalcula- 
 ble numbers, and emigrate, resembling in their passage 
 through the air a dense cloud : wherever they alight all signs 
 of vegetation quickly disappear, and cultivated grounds are 
 left a desert. But the mischief does not end here ; for when 
 dead the mass of decomposing bodies is so great that the air 
 becomes poisoned by the fetid exhalations. The 2d chapter 
 of Joel gives a powerful description of the devastation com- 
 mitted by these destructive insects. 
 
 M. Miot, in his translation of Herodotus, has given it as 
 his opinion that the heaps of bodies of winged serpents 
 which that historian states that he saw in Egypt, were 
 nothing more than masses of this species of locust. These 
 insects are eaten in various parts of Africa, where the in- 
 habitants collect them both for home consumption and for 
 commerce. They take away their elytra and wings, and 
 preserve them in brine. One species (Acridium migratorium, 
 Latr.) occasionally commits devastations in the south of 
 Europe and Poland ; and stragglers have occasionally reach- 
 ed our own coasts. In the United States the term " locust" 
 is applied to a species of Cicada, which by their numbers 
 and voracity are almost as destructive as the true locusts of 
 the old world. 
 
 LOCU'STA. In Botany. If that form of inflorescence 
 called a spike consist of flowers destitute of calyx and corolla, 
 the place of which is occupied by bractese, the rachis is 
 flexuose and toothed, and does not fall to the ground with 
 the flowers, as happens in grasses, each part of the inflor- 
 escence so arranged is called a locusta, the structure of 
 which is as follows : At the base are two opposite empty 
 bractere called glumes, one of which is attached to the 
 rachis a little above the base of the other ; above the glumes 
 are several florets sitting in denticulations of the rachis ; 
 each of these consists of one bractea, sometimes with the 
 midrib quitting the lamina a little below the apex, and 
 elongated into a bristle ; and of another bractea, facing the 
 first, with its back to the rachis, bifid at the apex, with no 
 dorsal vein, but with its edges indexed, and a rib on each 
 side at the line of inflexion ; and, lastly, within these bractea? 
 are situated two extremely minute fleshy scales, which are 
 sometimes connate, and stand at the base of the sexual or- 
 gans. 
 
 LODE. A term used by miners, generally synonymously 
 with metallic or mineral vein. The lodes containing metal- 
 lic ores are said to be alive ; others which merely contain 
 lapideous matters are called dead lodes. 
 
 LODGE. (Fr. logis.) In Architecture, a small house 
 situated in a park or domain subordinate to the mansion ; 
 also, the cottage situated at the gate of the avenue that leads 
 to the mansion. 
 
 Lodge. See Freemasonry. 
 
 LODI'CULA. In Botany, a term given by Palisot de 
 Beauvois to the two minute, colourless, fleshy, hypogynous 
 scales which are situated beneath the ovary of grasses. 
 
 LOESS. A German geological term, applied to a tertiary 
 alluvial deposit which occurs in patches between Cologne 
 and Basle. The term is often used by English geologists in 
 reference to that peculiar yellow loam with calcareous con- 
 cretions. 
 
 LOG, LOG-LINE. In sea language, the log is a piece 
 of wood, in the form of a sector of a circle (usually a quad- 
 rant) of five or six inches radius. It is about a quarter of 
 an inch thick ; and so balanced, by means of a plate of lead 
 nailed to the circular part, as to swim perpendicularly in the 
 T t * 081
 
 LOGAN STONES. 
 
 water, with about two thirds immersed under the surface. 
 The log-line is a small cord, one end of which is fastened to 
 the log, while the other is wound round a reel in the gallery 
 
 Of the ship. The log thus poised, keeps its place in the 
 water, while the hue is unwound from the reel as the ship 
 mores through the water ; and the length of line unwound 
 in B sivcn time gives the rate of the ship's sailing. This is 
 calculated bj knots made on the line at certain distances, 
 while the time i* measured by a sand-glass of a certain 
 number Of seconds. In order to avoid calculation, the length 
 between the knots is so proportioned to the time of the glass 
 that the number of knots unwound while the glass runs 
 down, shows the number of miles the ship is sailing per 
 hour. Thus, suppose the glass to be a half-minute one, it 
 will run down 120 times in an hour. Now, distances by 
 sea are reckoned by nautical miles of 60 to a degree; so that 
 each mile contains about 6100 feet, the 120th part of which 
 is 51 feet. If, therefore, the knots (which are pieces of 
 coloured cloth) are fastened to the log line at distances of 
 51 feet, the number of knots unwound from the reel in half 
 a minute is the number of miles the ship runs in one hour. 
 It" the glass runs down in less than half a minute, the inter- 
 vals between the knots must he diminished in proportion. 
 The first knot is placed about five fathoms from the log, to 
 allow the latter to get clear of the ship before the reckoning 
 commences ; and the part of the line between the lead and 
 the first knot is called the stray-tine. 
 
 LO'GAX STONES. See Rocking Stones. 
 
 LO'GAIHTII.M. (Gr. \oyos, in the sense of a proportion, 
 and apiOfioi, number.) The logarithm of a number is the 
 exponent of the power to which another given invariable 
 number must be raised in order to produce the first number. 
 Thus, in the common system of logarithms, in whicli the 
 invariable number is 10, the logarithm of 1000 is 3, because 
 10 raised to the third power is 1000. In general, if a* = ?/, 
 in which equation a is a given invariable number, then x is 
 the logarithm of y. All absolute numbers, whether positive 
 or negative, whole or fractional, may be produced by raising 
 an invariable number to suitable powers. The invariable 
 number is called the base of the system of logarithms: it 
 maybe any number whatever greater or less than unity; 
 but, having bean once chosen, it must remain the same for 
 the formation of all numbers in the same system. What- 
 ever number may be selected for the base, the logarithm of 
 the base is 1, and the logarithm of 1 is 0. In fact, if in the 
 equation a* = y we make 1 = 1, we shall have a' = a, 
 whence, by the definition, log a = 1 ; and if we make x = 0, 
 we shall have a« = 1, whence log. 1 = 0. 
 
 From the nature of the exponential equation, by which 
 logarithms have been defined, it is easy to discover some of 
 the principal properties and uses of those artificial numbers. 
 Suppose that we have a series of numbers, y, y', y", y", &c, 
 to be multiplied together. Let a be the base of the system 
 of logarithms (supposed to be calculated), and let x, x', x", 
 x'", &.c. be the logarithms of y, y', y", y'", &c. respectively. 
 We have then, according to the definition, the series of 
 equations, 
 
 y = a*, y' = a*', y" = a*", y'" = o x '", &x. 
 Multiplying the corresponding members of these equations 
 into each other, we get, 
 
 y y' y" y" &c. = a* + *' +*" + *"' + &c- ; 
 
 whence log. y y y" y'" &c. = x -4- x' + x" + x'" -f- &c. = 
 log. y + big. y' + log. y" -4- log. y'" -f- &c. : whence we infer 
 this chief property of logarithms, namely, that the logarithm 
 of a product is equal to the sum of the logarithms of its 
 factors. 
 
 Again, let there be two numbers, y and y\ to be divided 
 the one by the other, and let x and ar be their logarithms. 
 We have, as before, the equations y ■=. a*, and y' = a*' ; 
 
 '/' y' 
 
 whence — = a* — *, and therefore log. — = x' — x = log. 
 
 y' — log. ;/; that is to say, the logarithm of the quotient of 
 a division is equal to the difference between the logarithm 
 
 of the dividend and the logarithm of the divisor. 
 
 These properties of logarithms areofvery great importance 
 
 in facilitating the arithmetical operations of multiplication 
 and division. For if a multiplication is to be effected, it is 
 only necessary to take from the logarithmic tables the logo 
 
 rithnis of the factors, and add them Into one sum, which 
 
 gives the logarithm of the required product ; and on finding 
 in the table the number corresponding to this nevt logarithm, 
 the product itself is obtained. Tim- by means of a table of 
 logarithms the operation of multiplication is performed by 
 
 simple addition. In like manner. If i Dumber Is W In- 
 divided by another, it Is only necessary to subtract the logs 
 
 rithm of the divisor from that of the dividend, and to Bad 
 in the table the number corresponding to this difference, 
 
 which number is the quotient required. Thus, the quolienl 
 
 of a division is obtained by simple subtraction. 
 Logarithms apply with equal advantage to the formation 
 682 
 
 LOGARKtx.vJL. 
 
 of powers and extraction of roots. Let y be a number to be 
 raised to the power m (in being any number, whole or frac- 
 tional, positive or negative). As before, we have ;/ = a* ; 
 and, on raising both sides of the equation to the power m, 
 
 ym — a <nx; whence, by the definition, log. ym = mx=«l 
 
 log. y ; that is, the logarithm of the power of a number is 
 equal to the product of the logarithm of the number by the 
 
 exponent of the power. 
 
 If in the equation of log. ym = m log. y we make m = — ' 
 
 1 
 
 - n ] 
 
 we shall have log. y 1 ' (or log. ^/ y) = - log. y ; that is to 
 
 say, the logarithm of any root of a number is equal to the 
 logarithm of the number divided by the index of the root. 
 
 From these two hist results it is obvious that by means of 
 a table of logarithms numbers may be raised to any power 
 by simple multiplication, and that the roots of numbers may 
 be extracted by simple division. 
 
 The properties which have now been demonstrated are 
 true of every system of logarithms which may be adopted ; 
 but their application to numerical computations supposes 
 the construction of a table, including on the one hand the 
 natural numbers, and on the other the logarithms of those 
 numbers calculated for a given base. The tables usually 
 employed are those of which the base is 10, and their con- 
 struction is equivalent to the solution of the algebraic equa- 
 tion 10x = ?/. Hence, making y successively equal to the 
 numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, &c, we have to resolve the equations, 
 10x = l, 10* = 2, 10* = 3, 10i = 4, &.c. 
 
 The labour of computing the tables is greatly abridged by 
 the circumstance that it is only necessary to calculate the 
 logarithms of the prime numbers; for, as all the other num- 
 bers may be obtained by the multiplication of prime numbers 
 into each other, their logarithms, according to what has 
 been already shown, may rwifound by the addition and sub- 
 traction of the logarithms of the prime numbers. Hence a 
 table containing merely the logarithms of the prime num- 
 bers is all that is strictly necessary for effecting computations 
 by logarithms. 
 
 When a table of logarithms has been calculated for any 
 given base, it is easy to find by means of it any other system 
 of logarithms corresponding to a different base, without 
 having again recourse to the solution of exponential equa- 
 tions. Thus, supposing a system of logarithms lias been 
 calculated of which the base is a, or, which is the same 
 tiling, that the value of x has been found for every different 
 value of y in the equation a* = y, and that it is required to 
 construct another table of which the base is A, or to find the 
 values of v corresponding to every different value of y in the 
 equation b v = y, we may proceed as follows : Taking tite 
 logarithms of both members of this last equation from the 
 table supposed already calculated, of which the base is a, 
 and recollecting that log. i v = v log. b, we have v log. 4 == log. 
 log. y 
 
 v ; whence v = , ;" But because bv = y, it follows that 
 
 3 log. o 
 
 v is the logarithm of y in the system of which the base is b ; 
 therefore, denoting the logarithms in this new system by 
 
 L, wehaveLw = ,— ^f - Hence it appears that, in order to 
 
 log. b 
 find the logarithm of any given number y in the new sys- 
 tem, it is only necessary to multiply its logarithm in the 
 
 system already calculated by the constant number -j -• 
 
 This constant number, by means of which we pass from 
 the one table to the other, is called the modulus of the new 
 table with reference to the old. 
 
 In the common system of logarithm- of which the base is 
 10, those numbers only which are perfect powers of 10 (that 
 is, mil, 1000, &c.) can have commensurable logarithms. 
 The logarithms of all other numbers are incommensurable, 
 and can only be obtained to a certain degree of approxima- 
 tion. In general, the approximation will be sufficient if 
 carried to the seventh decimal figure, and accordingly the 
 ordinary tables contain the logarithms only to seven places 
 Of decimals; but where very great accuracy is required, as 
 in some astronomical calculations, it may be necessary to 
 
 ii-.' logarithms exact to ten places. In Vlacq's tables they 
 are computed to this extent 
 
 The relation between a number and Its logarithm in tho 
 common system being 10« = y (where y is the natural num- 
 ber and ./ its Logarithm), if we make successive!) 
 
 x = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 n, 
 
 we shall have for the corresponding values of y 
 
 y = 1, 10, 100, 1000, 10000 10" ; 
 
 and if we make 
 
 wc shall have 
 
 1 = — 1 — 2 — 3—4.
 
 LOGARITHM. 
 
 »=1, 
 
 _L, _L-i i ... 1 . 
 
 10 100 ' 1000 10000 ' ' ' 10"' 
 From these series it is evident that the logarithms of all 
 numbers greater than unity are positive, and that the loga- 
 rithms of all fractions are negative. It is also evident that 
 the logarithm of every number between and 10 is a deci- 
 mal, of every number between 10 and 100 is 1 + a decimal, 
 of every number between 100 and 1000 is 2 + a decimal, 
 and so on. But the digits in any number between 10 and 
 100 are 2, between 100 and 1000 are 3, and so on ; therefore 
 the common logarithm of any number is expressed by the 
 number of its digits diminished by unity, with a certain 
 decimal fraction added. For example, the number 73594, 
 comprised between 10000 and 100000, or between 10* and 
 10 5 , has for its logarithm 4, with a decimal added. This in- 
 tegral part of the logarithm, which is common to all num- 
 bers between two successive powers of 10, is called the 
 characteristic, because it shows at once of how many digits 
 the natural number corresponding to the logarithm to which 
 it is prefixed is composed. If, then, we know the logarithm 
 of any number, we have only to add 1, 2, 3, &c. to its 
 characteristic, in order to have the logarithm of a number 
 10 times, 100 times, or 1000 times, &c. as great. Thus we 
 have 
 
 log. 73594 = 4-8668424 
 
 log. 7359-4 = 3-8668424 
 
 log. 73-594 = 1-8668424 
 
 log. 7-3594 =0-8668424 
 
 log. -73594 =T8668424 
 
 In this last example the negative sign is placed over the 
 characteristic, this only being negative. But it is more 
 usual and convenient to substitute for the negative charac- 
 teristics their arithmetical complements ; thus, 
 log. -73594 = 9-8668424 
 log. -073594 = 8-8668424 
 log. -0073594 sc 7-8663424 
 
 Regard must be had to this substitution in the final result ; 
 but no mistake is likely to arise, for its effect would be to 
 carry the decimal point 10 digits to the right or left of its 
 true place — an error which would at once be evident. In 
 modern tables the characteristic is properly omitted ; the 
 logarithm to which it would be prefixed belonging, in fact, 
 not only to one particular number, but also to all multiples 
 or sub-multiples of that number by 10. 
 
 The methods employed by the first computers of the 
 logarithmic tables were founded on the successive extrac- 
 tion of roots, and involved calculations of very great labour, 
 but analysts have since discovered series by which the com- 
 putations are rendered much more expeditious and easy. 
 Let it be required to find the logarithm of any number z by 
 means of a converging series. Assume log. (1 -f- z) = A z 
 
 + B x2 + C z3 + DiH«tc (1), in which A, B, C, D, 
 
 &c. are coefficients to be determined. Taking another num- 
 ber z, we shall have, in like manner, 
 
 log. (1 + 2) = A z + B z2 + C z3 + D z 4 + &.c. ... (2.) 
 Subtracting equation (2) from (1) we get 
 log. (1 + z)— log. (l + z) = A (i — z) + B(i2_ 2 2) + c 
 
 (x3 — z 3) + &c (3.) 
 
 But, by the nature of logarithms, log. (1 -f- z) — log. (1 -4- z) 
 
 = log. 
 
 l + x 
 
 1 + z 
 
 = log. (l + j-jT") ; and, on developing this 
 
 expression in the same manner as log. (1 -)- z) in the equa- 
 tion (1), we have 
 
 log . (l + *J=- Z )= A X ^+ B C-^V+ Cf-- Z f 
 ° V. ^l+z^ 1 + z^ Vl + zy ^ M + zV 
 
 +, &c. 
 Substituting this development for log. (1 + z) — log. (1 + z), 
 in the equation (3), and dividing both sides by (z — z) there 
 results 
 
 = A + B (z + z) + C (x2 + x z + 2 2) +, &c. 
 Now, as this equation is true independently of any particu- 
 lar values of x and z, let us suppose z = z, and it becomes 
 
 Aj-^— = A + 2Bz + 3Cz2+4Dz3 + & c . 
 which, on expanding the quantity j-^— by division, gives A 
 
 (1— z + z2 — z3 + z<— ,&c.) = A + 2Bz-f-3Cz2 + 4D 
 z3 +, & c . Therefore, by the theory of indeterminate coeffi- 
 cients, we must have the separate equations A = A A = 
 
 2 B, -f- A = 3 C, — A = 4 D, &c. ; and, on substituting the 
 resulting values of B, C, D, &c, in terms of A in equation 
 (1), we get 
 
 *2 
 
 log.(l + z)=A(|-| + 
 
 x* z5 
 
 — &c.) 
 
 z3 
 
 3" 4 ' 5 
 
 The quantity A, which is still indeterminate, is the modu- 
 lus; and on assigning to it a particular value, we character- 
 ize the system which we wish to consider. 
 
 Let us suppose A = 1, and denote the particular system 
 of logarithms resulting from this supposition by L ; we shall 
 then have 
 
 L (1 + z) = z — § z2 + £ X 3 _ J X i +, &c. 
 This series in its present form is unfit for the calculation of 
 the logarithms of whole numbers, for when x is greater than 
 unity it is divergent ; but it may be easily transformed into 
 others having the required properties. On substituting — z 
 for z, it becomes 
 
 L (1 — z)= — x — £z3 — Jz3 — £z4— , &c. 
 And on subtracting this from the former series, we have, 
 since L(l+ z) — L(l— z) =l(^ x )> 
 
 L i=z=<r+ 3+^+7+- & 4 
 
 1+ z , 1 
 
 Let us now suppose - — = l-\ — , or 
 
 1_ 
 
 2z+r 
 
 then, 
 
 l(_1-| — J = L- — = L(z+l) — Lz, the last series be- 
 
 comes, by substitution, L(z+1) — Lz 
 +,&c.) 
 
 V2z-J 
 
 z-f-1 ' 3(2z+l)> 
 
 + 
 
 5(2z+l) s 
 
 This series gives the difference between the logarithms of 
 two consecutive numbers, and it converges with sufficient 
 rapidity. Supposing, successively, z = 1, 2, 3, 4, &c, it gives 
 
 L2 = 2 W+3^+5^ + 7^+' &C ) 
 
 L3-L2 = 2(^ 3 4h- 5 4^+' &c ) 
 L4-L3= 2 (i+i + A r ^+, &c .) 
 
 It will be observed that as the values of z increase, the series 
 becomes much more rapidly convergent. Suppose, for ex- 
 ample, z = 100 ; we have then 
 
 L101 = L100+2(^ I l 3 , 2 1 013 l 5 , 2 1 Ql5 + , *c.) 
 
 The logarithm of 100 being supposed known, the first term 
 of this series will give the logarithm of 101 true to seven 
 places of decimals. 
 
 The series now found gives the logarithms of the particu- 
 lar system of which the modulus is 1, and which is called 
 the Napierian system., because it is that according to which 
 logarithms were first computed by their inventor, Baron Na- 
 pier. But, as has already been shown, when the logarithms 
 have been found in any one system, they may be transferred 
 into those of any other system by means of a constant factor. 
 In the common system the base is 10, and the Napierian log- 
 arithm of any number is consequently transformed into the 
 common logarithm of the same number by multiplying by 
 
 the modulus j~r^. This number, which is of great impor- 
 tance in the computation of the logarithmic tables, is found 
 to be 0-4342944819, &x., the Napierian logarithm of 10 being 
 2-30258509, &e. It may also be remarked that this modulus 
 04342944819 is the ordinary logarithm of the base of the Na- 
 pierian system ; for, calling e this base, we shall have e U ° 
 = 10, whence, taking the ordinary logarithm of both sides 
 of the equation LlOXlog. e = log. 10 = 1 ; therefore, log. e = 
 
 pj7j = 04342944819. On passing to numbers, we find e= 
 
 2^718281 8284. 
 
 The Napierian logarithms are sometimes called the nat- 
 ural logarithms, on account of the modulus of the system 
 being unity ; and, more frequently, hyperbolic logarithms, 
 because they represent the area of a rectangular hyperbola 
 between its asymptotes. 
 
 Logarithms were invented by Lord Napier, Baron of Mer- 
 chiston, in Scotland, and made known in a work published 
 by him in 1614, under the title De mirifici Logarithmorum 
 Canonis Constructione. Henry Briggs, a contemporary of 
 Napier, and professor of geometry in Gresham college, con- 
 structed another system, having for its base the number 10, 
 which, corresponding with our system of numeration, is 
 much more convenient for the ordinary purposes of calcula- 
 tion. Briggs calculated the logarithms to 14 places, besides 
 the index, of all numbers between 1 and 20,00(1, and between 
 90,000 and 100,000, and published them hi liis .'h-ithmetica 
 
 C83
 
 LOGARITHMIC CURVE. 
 
 Logarithmica in 1694. Adrian Vlarq. a native of Holland, 
 computed the logarithms <>t" the numbers from 20,000 to 
 <jiuhhi, and thus completed what had bean begun and partly 
 accomplished by Briggs; but he reduced the tallies to 10 de- 
 cimal places. Vlacq'a .Irithmetica Logarithmica was pub* 
 1isli.il at Gouda in 1628, and contained the logarithms of all 
 numbers from 1 to 100,000. calculated to 10 decimals; as 
 
 also the logarithms of the sines, tangents, and secants of ev- 
 ery minute of the quadrant. Vlacq afterward, in 1633, pub- 
 lished another most valuable work, his Trigonumetria .jrti- 
 
 ficiaJis, containing the logarithmic sines, cosines, tangents, 
 
 and cotangents for every ten seconds of the quadrant, calcu- 
 lated from the natural sines, &c, of the Opus I'alatinum Of 
 Kheticus. In the same year another work of the same kind, 
 the Trigonomctria Britannira, was published at Gouda, 
 containing the logarithmic sines and tangents for the 100th 
 part of every degree of the quadrant, together with a table 
 of natural sines, tangents, and secants. These had been 
 computed by Briggs. 
 
 Logarithms being of constant use in astronomical and trig- 
 onometrical calculations, the tables which have been pub- 
 lished are very numerous. The most complete are those of 
 Vlacq, already mentioned, to ten decimals ; but they are 
 very scarce, and can with difficulty be procured. There is 
 an edition of them by Vega, in 17'J7, also scarce. Gardiner's 
 Logarithms, printed in 1742, in 4to, and another edition of 
 them at Avignon, in France, in 1770, are to seven decimals. 
 Collet's Logarithms, in 8vo, like Gardiner's, contain the 
 logarithmic sines, &c, for every 10 seconds. Taylor's Log- 
 arithms, in 4to, and also Baguay's, have them to every sec- 
 ond. Hutton's Logarithms, and Babbage's Logarithms of 
 Numbers, are well known. The latter was carefully colla- 
 ted, and is very accurate and convenient. Hulssc's Samm- 
 lung JMathematischer Tafeln (8vo, Leipsig, 1840) deserves to 
 be mentioned as a very useful collection. The above (ex- 
 cepting Vlacq's and Vega's) are all to seven decimal figures; 
 but for many purposes logarithms to a less number of deci- 
 mals are sufficiently accurate. For navigation and survey- 
 ing, tables to six figures are the most convenient, as they 
 give, in general, the trigonometrical lines correct to single 
 seconds. The best tables of this kind are Farley's Tables 
 of six-figure Logarithms (12mo, 1840). For many auxiliary 
 computations in astronomy it is sufficient to have the loga- 
 rithms to five places. The reprint of Lalande's five-figure 
 Table by the Useful Knowledge Society (18mo, 1839) is con- 
 venient, and may he relied on for accuracy. 
 LOGARITHMIC or LOGISTIC CURVE. In the higher 
 / Geometry', 8 curve line hav- 
 ing this property, that its ab- 
 scissa are proportional to the 
 logarithms of the correspond- 
 ing ordinates. It is construct- 
 ed in the following manner: 
 t >n the straight line A D let 
 the parts A B, A C, A D, &c, 
 be taken in arithmetical pro 
 gression (or such that A B = 
 B C — C D = &c), and from 
 the several points A, B, C, D, &c, let the perpendiculars A L, 
 B M, C N, 1) O, &c, be erected, forming a geometrical pro- 
 gression, or such that AL:BM=:BM:CN = CN:DO = 
 &c; then their summits L, M, N, O, &c, will mark the log- 
 arithmic curve. The curve is ascending or descending, ac- 
 COTding as it is continued from L upwards towards M, or 
 downwards towards m. 
 
 The equation of the curve is x = a log. y ; and hence its 
 principal properties are easily deduced. Taking the differ- 
 ential of the equation, we get dx = a— ; whence u— = a. 
 V J dy 
 
 XT " X 
 
 Now, in any curve, y - is the expression of the subtangent: 
 
 therefore, the subtangents of the logarithmic at different 
 points are all equal. The constant a to which the subtan 
 gents are equal, is the modulus of the system of logarithms 
 represented bj the particular curve, when the subtangent 
 (B T, for example) is equal to A L, the primary ordinate 
 which represents unity, the curve will exhibit the natural or 
 
 Napierian logarithms. 
 
 iy 
 
 From the equation dx = a— we have ydx = ady ; but ydx 
 
 — the differential of the area, therefore the area=/ ady — 
 
 ay -f const. Making first y=zt)0, and then i/ = CN, we 
 have the area CN O D = a(D O — C N) ; that" is to say, the 
 area contained between two ordmates is equal to the rectan- 
 gle under their difference and the constant subtangent. 
 
 The logarithmic curve was proposed by Gregory, of St. 
 Vincent, soon after the discovery of logarithms, and its lead- 
 ing properties wire investigated by Huvgens and others. 
 Great use is made rif it in various applications of physical 
 science, and particularly in exhibiting the relations of elastic 
 684 
 
 LOGIC. 
 
 fluids. (See K'eiU's Tract on Logarithms ; F.ulcr's Introd, 
 in Anal. Inf., vol. ii. ; Leslie's Geometry of Curves. fee) 
 
 LOGARITHMIC SPIRAL, or LOGISTIC SPIRAL. A 
 curve line, which is generated as follows: Let the lines S T 
 revolve uniformly about a fixed point S, 
 while another point P advances or recedes 
 on S T with a velocity always proportional 
 to Its distance from the centre S ; then the 
 
 point p w ill trace out the logarithmic spirali 
 
 From this definition of the curve it fol- 
 low s that radiants S I., B M, S N, &c, ma- 
 king equal angles with each oilier, are con- 
 tinued proportionals; and that the angles 
 about the pole S are the logarithms of the ratios of the suc- 
 cessive radiants : whence the curve has its name. Let S L 
 = l,SM = j, the angle LSM^i; then z = a log. y, where 
 a is a constant quantity. The curve is, consequently, anal- 
 ogous to the common logarithmic, the difference being that 
 the abscissa are in the latter taken as straight lines, where- 
 as in the case of the spiral they may be conceived to be ta- 
 ken as the arcs of a circle. 
 
 The logarithmic spiral has many remarkable properties. 
 One of them is, that the curve intersects all its radiants at 
 the same angle; and this angle is the modulus of the sys- 
 tem of logarithms which the particular spiral represents. 
 Another of its properties is, that its involute and evolute are 
 the same curve with itself. Newton proved that if the 
 force of gravitation had been inversely as the cube of the 
 distance, instead" of the square, the planets would have shot 
 off from the sun in logarithmic spirals. (Principia, lib. i., 
 prop, ix.) 
 
 LOGEI'ON. (Gr. 'Xoycwv.) In ancient Architecture, the 
 Greek name for proscenium (which see). By the Romans 
 it was called the aulpitum. 
 
 LO'GIC (Gr. Xoyixv (fix* 7 !' understood); from \6yoc. speech, 
 discourse, or calculation), has been defined the science, and 
 also the art, of reasoning. It is a science, because it inves- 
 tigates those principles on which reasoning proceeds : it has 
 been termed an art, as furnishing rules whereby the formal 
 part of an argument may be constructed. Logic was highly 
 valued, perhaps overvalued, among ancient philosophers. 
 The Stoics, in particular, were celebrated for their applica- 
 tion of its principles to their own favourite metaphysical dis- 
 cussions. From the abuse of logical know ledge arose the 
 celebrated fallacies of the Sophists, who, according to the 
 satirical representations of Athenian writers, were hired to 
 furnish their pupils with the means of defending right or 
 wrong positions with equal facility. Zeno of Elea is called 
 the father of logic, or dialectics, according to the ancient 
 appellation of the science: but we are not well acquainted 
 With the discipline which he taught ; although it can hardly 
 have consisted, as more recent writers have represented, of 
 a mere manual of captious fallacies. But it is to the master 
 mind of Aristotle that the science owes, as far as we are 
 able to ascertain, not only its first exposition, but its com- 
 plete development; for, although logic has been extensively 
 interwoven in later times with the subtleties of metaphysics 
 and of rhetoric, yet, as far as the limited province of the pure 
 science extends, little has been done besides placing in a 
 clearer light the discoveries of the Stagyrite. When, in the 
 middle ages, the Aristotelian logic became the foundation 
 of the scholastic philosophy (which was little better than a 
 revival under another form of that of the Athenian sophists), 
 attempts were made, especially one by the famous Raymond 
 Lullius, to throw the science into a new form, but without 
 success. In consequence of the various misapplications and 
 perversions which the system had undergone in the hands 
 of later dialecticians, it fell into great disrepute in modern 
 times ; and many of our first metaphysical writers, as Locke, 
 for example, have treated it with very unmerited contempt. 
 Confined to that narrow limit to which alone its rules really 
 extend, it is a serviceable exercise for the mind, and affords 
 an accurate insight into the formal part or machinery of 
 reasoning. 
 
 However multifarious the subjects to which reasoning 
 may be applied, and however complicated its details may 
 become, the process 1>\ which ,",11 reasoning is conducted is 
 one and the same. Whoever seeks to prove that because 
 one thing is thus, therefore another thing is so, whether he 
 be a philosopher pursuing a recondite truth, or a labourer 
 commenting on the events of his daily life, cannot travel out 
 of the bounds of the Aristotelian syllogism. In analyzing 
 the process in question, we find, in the first place, that every 
 truth or apparent truth, arrived at by reasoning, technically 
 termed a conclusion, is deduced from tWO Other propositions, 
 
 technically termed premises, either both expressed, or one 
 
 expressed and the other implied. In many instances, it is at 
 once evident to the mind of one capable Of reasoning, that if 
 the two premises lie true, the conclusion must follow . Thus, 
 if I wish to prove tile mathematical truth, that every A is 
 Cfllial to B, I find a third quantity, C, Which is equal to both ; 
 
 and my argument then assumes the following shape : what-
 
 LOGIC. 
 
 ever is equal to C is equal to B ; but every A is equal to C, 
 therefore every A is equal to B. Here the connexion be- 
 tween the conclusion and the premises is at once evident 
 and true; but there are many cases in which there is an 
 apparent connexion which is in reality false : in other words, 
 from two premises a conclusion is deduced, which, admit- 
 ting the truth of those premises, does not, in reality, follow 
 from them. The following;, for example, is an instance of 
 a conclusion incorrectly deduced from its premises, which, 
 nevertheless, might at first sight pass current for reasoning: 
 " Every rational agent is accountable ; brutes are not ration- 
 al agents, therefore brutes are not accountable." To ex- 
 plain the reason why the first of these two arguments is 
 sound, and the latter unsound, requires not the examination 
 of truths in mathematics or in natural religion, but simply 
 of the common process of reasoning ; and it is the means of 
 making such an analytical investigation which are afforded 
 by logic. 
 
 The first of these arguments is a correct, the latter a false 
 or apparent, syllogism (see Syllogism) ; and the validity of 
 the first and invalidity of the latter depend upon the neces- 
 sary or unnecessary connexion between the premises and 
 the conclusion, the rules for ascertaining which will be 
 found compendiously given under the head Syllogism. A 
 single sentence may often be foimd to contain, elliptically 
 expressed, and compressed into a narrow compass, a whole 
 chain of separate syllogisms ; but every single conclusion 
 has been arrived at by this process, and by this only. 
 
 The principle of the syllogism is contained in the famous 
 maxim termed in the schools of the middle ages the " dic- 
 tum de omni et nullo," viz., that " whatever is predicated 
 («. e., affirmed or denied) universally of any class of things, 
 may be predicated, in like manner (i. e., affirmed or denied), 
 of anything comprehended in that class." Thus, for exam- 
 ple, in the instance previously given of a valid argument, if 
 it can be predicated of the whole class of things which are 
 equal to C, that they are also equal to B, if I find anything 
 equal to C, I may predicate of it that it is equal to B also. 
 Hence my second premise, A is equal to C, serves to bring 
 me, logically, to the required conclusion — that A is equal to 
 B. This, therefore, is the general principle on which that 
 process is conducted which takes place in every syllogism. 
 
 In order that reasoning may be contemplated simply as 
 reasoning, without any reference to the essential truth or 
 falsehood of the propositions contained in it, which have 
 nothing to do with the science we are now considering, and 
 also with a view of furnishing brief and expressive forms, 
 like those of algebra, instead of words at length, a set of ar- 
 bitrary symbols are employed in logic, to denote the quantity 
 and quality, as they are termed, of propositions. Every 
 proposition either affirms or denies a fact ; every proposition, 
 also, predicates (i. e., affirms or denies) that a certain attri- 
 bute belongs either to a whole class, or to some members of 
 a class, of objects: propositions are, therefore, in quality ei- 
 ther affirmative or negative ; in quantity, universal or par- 
 ticular. Thus the four symbols of propositions in logical 
 manuals are, A, universal affirmative; I, particular affirma- 
 tive; E, universal negative; O, particular negative. And 
 the form of a syllogism, according to the character of each 
 of its premises and of the conclusion, is expressed by three 
 of these letters. Thus the syllogism first given, consisting 
 of three universal affirmatives (for it will be found, on ex- 
 amination, that each proposition predicates a certain attri- 
 bute of all the members of a class), will be designated by 
 AAA; a syllogism termed in logical language barbara. 
 See Syllogism. 
 
 It is also found, on farther analysis, that a syllogism em- 
 braces three separate objects or notions, two of which are 
 compared with the third, and, in consequence of that com- 
 parison, pronounced to agreee or disagree with each other. 
 Thus, in the syllogism "No dishonest man is a good citizen : 
 Caius is a dishonest man ; therefore, Caius is not a good cit- 
 izen." The individual object, " Caius," and the class of 
 ohjects, "good citizens," being compared with a third class, 
 " dishonest men," are found, the one to agree, the other to 
 disagree, with that class; and hence it inevitably follows 
 that they disagree with each other ; i. e., the conclusion of 
 the syllogism is negative. These three objects or terms, as 
 they are called in logic, occur in every syllogism. The pred- 
 icate of the conclusion — i. e., that term which, in the conclu- 
 sion, is predicated of the other, in this instance " good citi- 
 zen" — is called the major term ; the subject of the conclu- 
 sion — i. e., that term of which the other is predicated (Caius) 
 — is the minor term ; and the term with which the other 
 two are respectively compared, " dishonest man," is the 
 middle term. 
 
 But every word, or combination of words, is not capable 
 of constituting a term ; i. e., something which may be predi- 
 cated of another thing, or of which another thing may be 
 predicated. In the first place, adverbs, prepositions, nouns 
 in any inflection from the nominative case, &c, can only 
 fonn parts of a term ; in logical phrase, they ore syncatego- 
 59 
 
 LOGOGRAPHY. 
 
 rematic : adjectives, also, have always, impliedly, a nomina- 
 tive subjoined, when employed as terms. Verbs are mixed 
 words, being resolvable into a term employed as a predicate, 
 united to the copula or auxiliary Verb (is or is not). Thus, 
 nouns in the nominative case alone are simple terms orcat- 
 egorematics; these, again, are eilher the name of an indi- 
 vidual or the name of the class : the former (singular terms) 
 may be subjects, but cannot be predicates ; the latter may 
 be either. Thus, in the proposition " Crassus is rich," the 
 singular term, " Crassus," is the subject of which it is predi- 
 cated that he is rich ; i. e., a rich man. 
 
 A common term, being a word equally applicable to a 
 number of individuals, expresses a notion formed by the 
 faculty of abstraction. When, for example, we contemplate 
 several individual oak trees, and abstract from each its sep- 
 arate peculiarities of height, growth, &c, we form the no- 
 tion of an oak. Contemplating a number of trees of mixed 
 species, and abstracting from each its specific peculiarities 
 of leaf, fruit, &c, we next arrive at the common notion tree. 
 These common notions or terms are, then, the predicables 
 which can be affirmed or denied of other objects. 
 
 Predicables are divided into several kinds, although the 
 division is, perhaps, strictly, rather appertaining to meta- 
 physical than logical science. Every predicable is said, ac- 
 cording to this division, to express either the genus, species, 
 difference, property, or accident, belonging to an individual. 
 (See these heads, and Predicable.) But it is to be re- 
 membered that a predicable may be referred to one or other 
 of these several kinds, according to the point of view from 
 which it is contemplated. If I say of Csesar that he is a 
 " man," I express his species, considering him in those re- 
 spects in which he differs from other animals. If I say that 
 he was " brave," I express a property. If I predicate of 
 him the several circumstances in which he absolutely dif- 
 fered from all other men, I express that property or that 
 bundle of united properties which forms his " difference." 
 Every predicable, with a little attention, may be ranged 
 under one or the other of these five classes, although it 
 must be confessed that the distinction seems occasionally 
 arbitrary and unphilosophical. 
 
 In this hasty outline of some leading features of the art 
 of logic, as taught at Oxford (where alone, we believe, pure 
 unapplied logic forms a branch of study), we have chiefly 
 made use of the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Whately's valu- 
 able Elements of Logic. 
 
 The following passage is cited by Mr. Hallam from the 
 Port Royal Logic, as giving a juster view of the value of 
 the Aristotelian method than its admirers are wont to enter- 
 tain : " Cette partie, que nous avons maintenant a traiter, 
 qui comprend les regies du raisonnement, est estimee la 
 plus importante de la logique, et c'est presque l'unique 
 qu'on y traite avec quelque soin ; mais il y a sujet de dou- 
 ter si elle est aussi utile qu'on se l'imagine. La plupart des 
 erreurs des homines viennent bien plus de ce qu'ils raison- 
 nent sur de faux principes, que de ce qu'ils raisonnent mal 
 suivant leurs principes. II arrive rarement qu'on se laisse 
 tromper par des raisonnemens qui ne soient faux, que parce- 
 que la consequence en est mal tiree ; et ceux que ne serai- 
 ent pas capables d'en reconnaitre la faussete par la seule 
 lumiere de la raison, ne le seraient pas ordinairement d'en- 
 tendre les regies que Ton en donne, et encore moins de les 
 appliquer. Neanmoins, quand on ne considereroit ces 
 regies que comme verites speculatives, elles serviraient 
 toujours a exercer l'esprit." (Esprit de Pcnser, part 3.) 
 " To represent this portion of logical science as the whole,' ' 
 adds the same writer, " appears to me almost like teaching 
 the scholar Euclid's axioms, and calling this the science of 
 geometry." (Introduction to the Literature of Europe, vol. 
 iii., p. 221.) All that can be said in answer is, that the 
 more general meaning of the term logic is undefined, and 
 that it is employed by various writers and schools in the 
 most arbitrary manner ; while this portion, though it may 
 be but a small one, is so clearly marked out, and forms so 
 distinct a body, that it has occupied in common language 
 the character of the whole science. 
 
 LOGO'GRAPHY. (Gr. yoyos, speech; ypacbo), I write.) 
 A system of taking down the words of an orator without 
 having recourse to short-hand, which was put in practice 
 during the French revolution. Twelve or fourteen report- 
 ers were seated round a table. Each had a long slip of pa- 
 per, numbered. The writer of No. 1 took down the first 
 three or four words, and as soon as they were spoken gave 
 notice to his neighbour by touching his elbow, or some oth- 
 er sign ; No. 2 passed the sign to No. 3, and so on, until the 
 first line of each slip was filled ; No. 1 then becan the sec- 
 ond line : thus all the 12 or 14 slips, when filled, being ar- 
 ranged parallel to each other, formed a single page. This 
 mode required great attention and quickness, and was not 
 found to answer well in practice. It was introduced in the 
 National Assembly in October, 1790, the expenses being 
 paid by the civil list ; and continued until the 10th August, 
 1792, when Louis XVI. and his family, taking refuge from 
 ' 085
 
 LOGOGRYPH. 
 
 insurrection in the assembly, occupied the box of the logo- 
 graphe. Alter that time it was not used. {Victionnairc dc 
 ta Conversation.) 
 
 Logography is also used to denote a method of printing 
 in which whole words in type are used instead of single 
 letters. This method was at one time introduced into the 
 printing of The Timet newspaper; but after a short trial 
 was abandoned as inconvenient. 
 
 LO'GOGRYPH. (Gr. Aoyoj, and ) p<«t>os, a mi.) A 
 i riddle proposed for solution, in order to exercise 
 the mind, is so called. The word is used by Ben Jonaon. 
 
 1,( it; WOOD. The wood of the HamaXoxvlon campechi- 
 anum. a tree growing in many parts of the West Indus and 
 on the adjoining continent. It is employed in dyeing and 
 calico-printing for the production of reds, blacks, drabs, and 
 several compound colours. Its colouring principle has been 
 termed kttmatine. An extract of logwood is used in medi- 
 cine as an astringent. The price of logwood varies from 
 Xo 10s. to j£7 per ton; and the quantity imported into 
 Great Britain in the three years ending 1839 averaged 15,000 
 tons. 
 
 LOI'MIC. (Gr. Xoipos, contagious matter.) Relating to 
 the plague or contagions disorders. 
 
 LOK. In Northern Mythology, the name of a malevo- 
 lent deity ; corresponding to the Ahriman of the Persians, 
 who is represented to be at war with both gods and men, 
 and originating all the evil with which the universe is deso- 
 lated. In the Kdda (the great poem of the Norwegian na- 
 tions) he is described as the great serpent which encircles 
 the earth (supposed to be emblematical of sin or corruption), 
 and as having given birth to Hela, or Death, the queen of 
 the infernal regions. 
 
 LO'LLARDS. A class of persons in Germany and the 
 Netherlands, who professed, in the 14th century, to under- 
 take spiritual offices in behalf of the sick and dead, and suc- 
 ceeded in attracting the attention and love of the mass of 
 the people when they were, in a great measure alienated 
 from tlie secular and regular clergy by their general indif- 
 ference and neglect. The origin of the name has been 
 much disputed ; but the inquiries of Mosheim seem to lead 
 to the result that it is compounded of the German words 
 lallen (identical with the lallare of the Romans, and the lull 
 of our own language, signifying to sing in a murmuring 
 strain) and hard, a common affix, as in the somewhat simi- 
 lar word beghard. A Lollard, therefore, meant one in the 
 habit of singing to the praise of God, or funeral dirges and 
 the like, as was the custom of the early professors of this 
 holy manner of life. The Lollards, however, were accused 
 — probably through the envy and spite of the mendicant 
 friars and others whose neglected duties they so zealously 
 performed — of holding many heretical opinions. It is not 
 impossible that there might have been some degree of en- 
 thusiasm mixed up with so ardent and unworldly a devo- 
 tion ; but the charges of violent reforming views, still more 
 those of practical vice, appear to rest upon no authentic 
 grounds. In process of time the term was applied by the 
 partisans of the church to the heretics and schismatics of 
 tbeday generally; and the followers of Wiclitfe in England 
 are frequently stigmatized under the name of Lollards. 
 (See Gieseler's Text-book, transl., vol. iii., p. 99, 128.) 
 
 LO'MBARD. A term anciently used in England for a 
 banker or money-lender. The name is derived from the 
 Italian merchants, the great usurers or money-lenders of 
 the middle ages, principally from the cities of Lombardy, 
 who are said to have settled in London in the middle of tlie 
 13th century, and to have taken up their residence in a 
 street in the city which still bears their name. Btowe, in 
 his Survey of London, says, " Then have ye Lombarde- 
 street, so called of the Longobards and other merchants, 
 strangers of diverse nations, assembling there twice every 
 day. The meeting of which merchants there continued 
 until the 22d of December, in the year 15G8 ; on the which 
 day the said merchants to make their meetings at the 
 Bursse, a place then new builded for that purpose in tin- 
 ward of Cornbill, and was since, by her majesty Queen 
 Elizabeth, named the Royal Exchange." (P. 202.) 
 
 LOME'NTUM. A fruit similar to a legume, excepting 
 that it is contracted in the spaces between each seed, and 
 there separates into distinct pieces ; or is Indehiscent, lint 
 divided by internal spurious dissepiments, whence it ap- 
 pears at maturity to consist of many articulations and divis- 
 ions. It occurs in the genera OrnMopus, Hedysarum, tec. 
 
 LONG. A musical character of this form p, whose 
 length in common time is equal to four semilireves, and 
 i onseqnently eight minims. 
 
 LO'NGICORNS, Longicomta, (Lat. longus, long; cor- 
 nu, a horn.) The fourth tribe of Coleopterous insect! in 
 the system of Latreille; so called on account of the length 
 of tlie anterin.T, which are rarely shorter than the body, 
 
 and commonly surpass it in length. But this conspicuous 
 
 character is not the only one which the Longicoro beetles 
 
 i common. In all of them the under part of the 
 
 LONGITUDE. 
 
 first three joints of the tarsi is furnished with a brash ; 
 lie second ami third are cordiforni ; the fourth is deeply 
 bilobate ; and there is a little nodule, resembling a joint, at 
 the hase of the last. The ligula, placed on a short ami 
 transversal incntum, is usually membranous, cordiform, 
 emarglnate, OT bifid ; but sometimes is corneous, and forms 
 the segment of a very short and transverse circle. The 
 antenna; are either filiform or setaceous: they are some- 
 times simple in both sexes, and sometimes serrate, pectin- 
 ate, or flabelliform in the males. The eyes in some species 
 are rounded and entire, or hut slightly emarginate, and in 
 these species the thorax is trapezoidal or narrowed anteri- 
 orly : hut in most of the Longicorns the eyes are renifonn 
 and surround the base of the antennte. 
 
 As the larvee of a very great proportion of the Longi- 
 corns live in the interior of trees, or under their bark, they 
 are destitute of feet, or have but very small ones. Their 
 body is soft, whitish, thickest anteriorly ; and the head 
 squamous, and provided with stout mandibles. They do 
 much injury to trees, the large ones particularly, perforating 
 them very deeply, and sometimes drilling them in every di- 
 rection. Some of them attack the roots of plants. 
 
 The abdomen of the female Longicorns is terminated by 
 a tubular and horny ovipositor. These insects produce a 
 small sharp sound, by rubbing the pedicle of the base of 
 their abdomen against the interior of the parietes of the 
 thorax. 
 
 LO'NGD?ALPS, Longipalpi. (Lat. longus, long; pal- 
 pus, feeder.) The name of a family of Brachelytrous Cole- 
 opterans, or short-winged beetles, which have the maxil- 
 lary feelers almost as long as the head. 
 
 LO'NGIPE'NNATEB, Longipcnnes. (Lat. longus, and 
 penna, a wing.) A family of swimming birds, compre- 
 hending those in which the wings reach as far as or be- 
 yond the tail ; as the tropic bird, albatross, &.c. They are 
 all denizens of tlie high seas, and from their powers of 
 flight are to be met with in various latitudes. The hind 
 toe is free or wanting. The beak is hooked or pointed at 
 the tip. 
 
 LONGIRO'STERS, Longirostrcs. (Lat. longus, and 
 rostrum, a beak.) The name of a tribe of Gralla?, or wading 
 birds, including those in which the beak is remarkable for 
 its length and tenuity, and by the high sensibility of its tip 
 is weli adapted for searching or probing in mud or sand for 
 worms or insects. The different gradations in the form of 
 the bill serve to divide the Longirosters into families and 
 genera. 
 
 LONGI'SSIMUS DORST. A muscle of the back, which 
 assists others in keeping the spinal column erect 
 
 LO'NGITUDE, in Astronomy, has two different significa- 
 tions, according as it is applied to a celestial or terrestrial 
 object. The longitude of a heavenly body is the arc of the 
 ecliptic intercepted between the vernal equinox and a great 
 circle perpendicular to the ecliptic passing through the body. 
 It is reckoned eastward all round the sphere, from Oto 360°. 
 The longitude and latitude of a celestial object, having ref- 
 erence to the ecliptic, and not to the plane of the earth's di- 
 urnal motion, cannot be directly observed. The elements 
 necessary for determining a star's place, which are given 
 directly by observation, are its right ascension and declina- 
 tion, from which the longitude and latitude must be calcu- 
 lated by the rules of spherical trigonometry. In the plane- 
 tary theory, however, it is convenient to refer the motion of 
 a planet to the plane of the earth's orbit, or to make the 
 longitude and latitude the co-ordinates of its motion. But 
 the places of the stars are always defined, by modem as- 
 tronomers, by means of their right ascensions and declina- 
 tions. 
 
 The longitude of a place on the earth is the arc of the 
 equator intercepted between the meridian of the place and 
 some conventional fixed meridian, which is regarded as the 
 origin from which the measures are reckoned. Terrestrial 
 longitudes and latitudes correspond to right ascensions and 
 declinations in the heavens: with this distinction, however, 
 that the right ascensions are always reckoned from the ver- 
 nal equinox, or point in which the equator intersects the 
 ecliptic; whereas the longitudes are reckoned by different 
 geographers from different points, selected for some local 
 reason, there being nothing connected with the earth's di- 
 urnal rotation which can render one point of the equator 
 more convenient than another. Right ascensions are also 
 reckoned in ihe same direction 'eastward) round the com- 
 plete circumference; while geographical longitudes are 
 reckoned both eastward and westward, 180° each way. 
 
 The parallels of latitude on the earth are distinctly mark- 
 ed out by the diurnal circles described hy the stars, and 
 consequently latitude can always he determined by direct 
 observation of the heavens: but the case is entirely differ- 
 ent with respect to longitude ; for to observers situated un- 
 der the same parallel of latitude, hut under different meridi- 
 ans, the heavens present exactly the same aspect, and there 
 is nothing whatever to indicate any difference of locality.
 
 LONGITUDE. 
 
 
 Longitude, therefore, cannot be measured by direct observa- 
 tion ; it can only be inferred from the measurement of inter- 
 vals of time to which it is proportional. In the course of a 
 sidereal day the rotation of the earth brings successively 
 every different meridian under the same star ; and, the ro- 
 tation of the earth being perfectly uniform, it follows that 
 the angular distance of any two meridians will be the same 
 part of 360° that the interval of time which elapses between 
 their coming to the same star is of twenty-four hours. For 
 example, if a star pass the meridian of a place A at a cer- 
 tain moment, and that of B exactly one hour of sidereal 
 time later ; then the difference of longitude between A and 
 B is the twenty-fourth part of 360°, or 15°, and the longitude 
 of B is 15° west of A. The determination of longitudes 
 consequently resolves itself into the measurement of time ; 
 and as the time, or the instant of mean noon, at any place 
 can always be found without difficulty, if an observer at one 
 place can by any means determine trie precise hour it is at 
 any other place at the same instant, he has then determined 
 the difference of longitude between the two places. 
 
 Of the various methods by which differences of longitude 
 may be determined, the simplest and most obvious is that 
 of transferring chronometers from one place to another. 
 Suppose two observers, at the distant stations A and B, 
 each to regulate his clock according to the true sidereal 
 time of his station ; and suppose a chronometer, also regu- 
 lated to true sidereal time, to be compared with the clock at 
 A, and then transported, without suffering any change of 
 rate to B — the difference of the two clocks would thus be 
 exhibited ; and this difference is exactly the time occupied 
 by the equinoctial point, or by any star in passing from the 
 meridian of A to that of B ; or it is the difference of longi- 
 tude of the two places expressed in sidereal hours, minutes, 
 and seconds. Were chronometers perfect, nothing more 
 complete and convenient could be desired ; but this, unfor- 
 tunately, is even now very far from being the case, and un- 
 til within a comparatively very recent time the practical de- 
 termination of the longitude by means of chronometers 
 could not be attempted. 
 
 Another method of determining the difference of longi- 
 tude between two places, independently of astronomical ob- 
 servations, is that by telegraphic signals. This method, 
 though, from its nature, of limited application, is susceptible 
 of great accuracy. The explosion of a rocket, the flash of 
 gunpowder in an open dish, the extinction of a bright light, 
 &c, are instantaneous phenomena which can be seen at 
 great distances and noted with the utmost precision. A sig- 
 nal of this kind, made at a station visible from two observa- 
 tories, must be seen at the same absolute instant of time 
 from both ; and the time marked by the clock of each ob- 
 servatory at this instant being noted, the difference of their 
 local times, and consequently the difference of their longi- 
 tudes, becomes known. This method is chiefly practised in 
 connexion with geodetical operations for measuring degrees 
 of longitude on the earth's surface, and is, perhaps, the best 
 that can be adopted for determining the difference of longi- 
 tude between two observatories situated at no very great 
 distance from each other. By means of intermediate sig- 
 nals, and observers suitably disposed between each, it may 
 also be applied to transfer the time from one place to 
 another, when the distance is too great to allow an artificial 
 signal of any kind to be seen from both. (See Phil. Trans., 
 1826.) 
 
 When the distance between two places is very considera- 
 ble, artificial signals cannot be employed, and it becomes 
 necessary to have recourse to the methods furnished by as- 
 tronomy. These are principally the following : 
 
 1. Eclipses of the Moon. — The instant of time at which 
 the moon's disk enters or quits the earth's shadow is inde- 
 pendent of the position of the observer ; and therefore, if the 
 phenomenon could be accurately observed, would give the 
 longitudes of all places from which the eclipse is visible. 
 But the penumbra of the earth renders it impossible to de- 
 termine the precise instant at which the disk enters into the 
 true shadow : the observation, in fact, is uncertain to the 
 amount of a minute of time, which corresponds to a quarter 
 of a degree of longitude ; and therefore this method, which 
 was proposed and employed by Ptolemy, is now altogether 
 abandoned. 
 
 2. Eclipses of Jupiter's Satellites. — These phenomena 
 also occur at the same instant of absolute time to all places 
 on the earth ; but they are not susceptible of being observed 
 with much exactness, for the same reason which renders 
 the lunar eclipses uncertain, namely, the penumbra of the 
 planet. The uncertainty is least in the case of the first sat- 
 ellite, on account of its quick motion ; and as the eclipses 
 of this satellite occur much more frequently than those of 
 the others, the observations are chiefly confined to it. The 
 tunes of the eclipses of the first three satellites are given in 
 the Nautical Almanac ; so that an observer at any part of 
 the world, who observes one of these eclipses, has only to 
 compare his local time with that assigned to the phenome- 
 
 non in the almanac in order to determine the distance of his 
 meridian from that of Greenwich. But, on account of the 
 uncertainty of the observation, the longitude obtained by 
 this method may be considerably in error. 
 
 3. Occultations of Fixed Stars by the Moon. — This meth- 
 od, which is one of the readiest and most useful on land, 
 though it can seldom be practised at sea, consists in observ- 
 ing accurately the time at which a certain fixed star disap- 
 pears behind the disk of the moon, or reappears after hav- 
 ing been occulted. The first of these phenomena is called 
 the immersion of the star, the second the emersion. But, 
 on account of the moon's parallax, the immersion or emer- 
 sion of a star behind her disk does not take place at the 
 same absolute instant to observers on different parts of the 
 earth ; a calculation is therefore necessary to clear the ob- 
 servation of parallax, or to determine the time at which the 
 phenomenon would have occurred if it had been seen from 
 the centre of the earth. This reduction being made, the 
 moon's apparent semidiameter at that instant must be cal- 
 culated ; by means of which, after applying the proper cor 
 rections for parallax, refraction, &c, the exact distance of 
 the star from the moon's centre at the moment of the im- 
 mersion becomes known. Now, suppose the same occulta- 
 tion to have been observed at another place, and the true 
 distance of the star from the centre of the moon computed 
 in the same manner ; or, without a corresponding observa- 
 tion, suppose the time at the second place (Greenwich, for 
 example) to be computed, for which the star's distance from 
 the moon was the same as observed at the first place, the 
 comparison of those times will show the difference of the 
 longitudes of the places. The length of the calculations by 
 which the longitude is deduced is a disadvantage which 
 attaches to this method. See Occdltation. 
 
 4. Eclipses of the Sun. — The longitude is deduced from 
 the observation of solar eclipses, In the same manner, and by 
 precisely the same sort of calculations, as from the oculta- 
 tion of fixed stars. An eclipse of the sun is, in fact, an oc- 
 cultation; but these phenomena occur so seldom at any 
 particular place that they afford little assistance in the deter- 
 mination of longitudes. It may be remarked that the irregu- 
 larities of the border of the moon's disk render the instant 
 of the commencement or end of a solar eclipse, as also of 
 the immersion or emersion of a fixed star, somewhat uncer- 
 tain. But this uncertainty is corrected, or rather avoided, 
 by measuring with a micrometer the distance between the 
 two cusps, which, shortly after the commencement of the 
 eclipse, appear as brilliant points, sharp and well defined. 
 Knowing the distance of the cusps, or length of the chord, 
 and also the semidiameters of the two bodies, the true dis- 
 tance of their centres at the instant the measure was taken 
 can be calculated without much difficulty. As this mea- 
 surement can be executed with much precision, and can also 
 be repeated frequently during the progress of the eclipse, the 
 phenomenon of a solar eclipse affords one of the most cer- 
 tain methods of determining a longitude which can be prac- 
 tised. See Eclipse. 
 
 5. Transits of the Moon. — This method is founded on the 
 moon's rapid change of place among the stars, which be- 
 comes very sensible even in short intervals of time. Sup- 
 pose an observer at the station A to determine the sidereal 
 time of the transit of the moon's centre over his meridian ; 
 and suppose another observer at B, to the west of A, also to 
 note the sidereal time of the same transit : if the moon's 
 right ascension had in the interval undergone no change, the 
 sidereal times marked by the two observers would have 
 been the same ; but as the right ascension has increased, 
 while the moon was passing from the meridian of A to tint 
 of B, the sidereal time of the transit at the latter place will 
 be increased ; and, supposing the change of right ascension 
 to be uniform, the difference of the times of the transit will 
 be proportional to the difference of meridians. The chief 
 objection to this method is, that any minute error in the ad- 
 justment of the transit instrument or rate of the clock is 
 thrown upon the longitude, on which it produces a very 
 sensible effect. The method can, therefore, only be safely 
 practised at fixed observatories with the best instruments. 
 
 6. Moon culminating Stars. — This method has been pro- 
 posed for the sake of eluding the effect of minute instru- 
 mental errors, which render the method last described so 
 difficult. A star is chosen which culminates (that is, comes 
 to the meridian) at nearly the same time with the moon, 
 and which has very nearly the same decimation ; so that it 
 may be seen in the field of view without altering the posi- 
 tion of the transit instrument. The transit of the star, as 
 well as the transit of the moon's limb, is observed at both 
 stations (or at least observed at the one station, and calcu- 
 lated for the other whose meridian is known), and the dif- 
 ference of sidereal time between the two transits noted at 
 each. This difference, in consequence of the moon's motion 
 in right ascension, is not the same at both stations ; and its 
 variation gives the difference of the longitude. By this 
 means any error of the position of the transit instrument af- 
 
 087 

 
 LONG US COLLI. 
 
 fects the star and the moon both alike: but it 1? erroneous 
 to suppose that the method is Independent of accuracy in 
 the adjustment i>t' th<- transit instrument; for if the instru- 
 ment is out of the meridian, the resulting longitude will be 
 In error by the amount of the moon's variation In right as- 
 cension during the corresponding interval. This method is 
 now much practised. 
 
 7. Lunar Distances. — None of the methods which have 
 yet been described (excepting that by chronometers) can he 
 applied to the very important problem of determining the 
 longitude of a ship at sea. In this case, no lived or meridian 
 Instrument can be employed; and the observer can only 
 measure the apparent distance of the moon's limb from a 
 fixed star or planet with a sextant, or some reflecting instru- 
 ment which can be held in the hand. For the purpose of 
 rendering this method available to seamen, the distance of 
 the moon from certain fixed stars is computed (several years 
 previously) for every three hours of Greenwich time, and 
 published in the Nautical .itmanac. The moon's distance 
 from one of these stars being observed on board a ship, and 
 corrected for refraction and parallax, and the apparent time 
 at the place and moment of observation being determined 
 in the usual manner by the altitude of the sun or a known 
 star, the difference between the apparent time of the obser- 
 vation and the apparent time at Greenwich corresponding 
 to the same distance, interpolated from the A'autical .ilmanac, 
 gives the longitude of the ship. See Lunar Method. 
 
 In the projection of maps and charts it is necessary to as- 
 sume a point of the equator as the origin of the longitudes. 
 The meridian passing through this point is called the first 
 meridian; and as its selection is perfectly arbitrary, it has 
 been placed by different geographers at various parts of the 
 earth : a circumstance which occasions some inconvenience 
 in consulting works of geography. Modern geographers 
 usually assume the meridian of the capital of their own 
 country- as the first meridian. English writers generaly 
 adopt the meridian of the Greenwich Observatory, for which 
 the Nautical .ilmanac is computed; the French that of the 
 Observatory of Paris. (See Meridian.) Ptolemy, and the 
 most celebrated of the ancient geographers, placed the first 
 meridian at the Fortunate Islands (now the Canaries), which 
 they conceived to be the utmost boundary' of the habitable 
 earth. The Arabian astronomers also counted the longitude 
 from the Fortunate Islands ; and many of the modern geo- 
 graphers have counted from the island of Ferro, one of the 
 most westerly of the Canaries. The reason for fixing on this 
 point was probably that as there was no land known to the 
 west of the first meridian, the longitudes of all places would 
 he reckoned in the same direction, or there would be no west 
 longitude. The discovery of America destroyed the force 
 of this reason. The inconvenience of counting in two di- 
 rections is not very great ; but it might be avoided by reck- 
 oning the longitude all round the circle to 360°, which would 
 undoubtedly be an improvement on the present method. 
 
 Degrees of Longitude. — The figure of the earth being 
 spherbdial, the degrees of longitude diminish as we proceed 
 1 Vc >m the equator towards either pole. For the law of their 
 variation, and their lengths on the different parallel circles, 
 see Degree. 
 
 Geocentric Longitude is the longitude of a planet as seen 
 from the earth : that is, the point of the ecliptic to which it 
 per|>endicularly corresponds as seen from the centre of the 
 earth. 
 
 Heliocentric Longitude is the longitude of a planet as 
 seen from the sun. See the terms Geocentric and Helio- 
 centric. 
 
 LO'NGUS CO'LLI. The name of a pair of muscles of 
 the neck: when one contracts, it moves the neck to one side; 
 when they both act, the neck is bent forwards. 
 
 LOOM. The will-known machine for producing cloth 
 by tin interweaving a series of parallel threads which run 
 lengthwise, called the warp or chain, with other threads 
 thrown transversely with the shuttle, called the w ...it' <>r 
 weft. Under the head Wkavino will be found a notice of 
 the history of the loom, and the numerous improvements 
 that have taken place in its construction, from the earliest 
 times down to the Invention of Jacquard. 
 
 l.ou'MIN'G. The indistinct and magnified appearance 
 of objects seen in particular states of the atmosphere. See 
 Mil! m;e. 
 
 Li KyPHOLBS. In Fortification, apertures formerly made 
 in the battlements, or in the walls of fortified plan- foi dls 
 charging arrows and javelins against the assailants. Since 
 the Invention of gunpowder, and the substitution of cannon 
 for such missiles, loopholes have necessarily been discon- 
 tinued in the construction of fortre--.-. the assailants of 
 Which are Aw sought to be driven back by guns tired 
 through apertures of a different character, designated em- 
 
 LO PHOBRA'NCHIATES, Lophcbraueku. 'Gr. Xo^os, 
 a tuft; Bpayxut, gills. An order of Osseous fishes, com 
 
 liiehcmlirig those in which the gills are in the form of small 
 
 LORE. 
 
 tufts, and disposed in pairs along the branchial arches ; as in 
 the pipe fish and hippocamp. 
 
 L0THOTE8. i.r.Aotfiof.) A genus of Tamioid fishes, 
 characterized by a short head, surmounted by a high osseous 
 
 crest, to the summit of which a long and stout spine is at- 
 tached, bordered behind with a membrane and a low fin, of 
 
 which the rays are nearly all simple, and which extends 
 from the occipital spine to the lw.int of the tail ; this is termi- 
 nated by a distinct but very small caudal riu. 
 
 LOPHY'ROPODS. Lo'phijropoda. (Gr.XoQvpoc, crested; 
 tovc, a foot.) The name of a section of Entomostracous 
 Crustaceans, comprehending those species with cylindrical 
 or conical ciliated or tutted feet. 
 
 LO'PPIXt.'. Cutting oil' all the branches of a tree for the 
 sake of the profit to be derived from them; as contrasted 
 with priming, by which some of the branches are cut off for 
 the sake of tlic tree. The lopping of a tree, however, does 
 not include the cutting off of the crop or leading shoot ; and 
 hence, when timber trees are sold, the purchaser bargains to 
 take them either with or without the lop and crop, as the 
 case may be. 
 
 LORANTHA'CEJS. (Loranthus, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of parasitical Exogens, principally inhabiting 
 the equinoctial regions of Asia and America. They are dis- 
 tinguished from Caprifoliacem and all other orders by their 
 parasitical habit, and by the stamens being opposite to the 
 petals. Brown suggests their relation to Proteacets; and, 
 upon the whole, the structure of this order appears to be 
 rather that of a polypetalous or apetalous than of a mono- 
 petalous order. Schleiden has lately made the startling as- 
 sertion that they are gymnospermous. The bark is usually 
 astringent. Their chief peculiarity is their power of rooting 
 in the wood of other plants. They effect this when they 
 first germinate, by fixing their root upon the bark, and then 
 by slow degrees introducing it into the tissue till they reach 
 the wood, between the wedges of which they slightly in- 
 sinuate themselves, thus placing their abortive roots m the 
 line of the current of ascending sap. They are generally 
 beautiful plants, but are scarcely capable of cultivation. 
 Misletoe is the most northern species of the order. 
 
 LORD. A title of honour ; said to be derived from two 
 Saxon words signifying a giver or distributor of bread. It 
 may be said to be either a title of hereditary dignity (as lord 
 of parliament) ; or a title expressing certain powers, as lord 
 of a manor, lord chancellor, lord of the treasury, &c. The 
 eldest sons of earls, and all the sons of dukes and marquises, 
 are stvled lords by courtesy. 
 
 LORD-ADVOCATE OF SCOTLAND. See Advocate. 
 
 LORD-KEEPER. See Keeper, Chancellor. 
 
 LORD-LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND. The chief exe- 
 cutive officer of the Irish government, representing in some 
 respects the person of the king. The first viceroy or lieu- 
 tenant of Ireland appears to have been appointed in the 
 reign of Henry II. ; and by acts of parliament passed in the 
 reigns of Richard III. and Henry VIII. provision was made 
 for the election of a governor by the chancellor, treasurer, 
 and other high officers of the government, on the death or 
 resignation of a lieutenant, until the king's pleasure were 
 known. The chief officer in Ireland has been variously 
 styled at different times ; as custos or keeper, justiciary, 
 warden, procurator, seneschal, constable, deputy, and lieu- 
 tenant. He is appointed by letters patent, durante bene 
 placito. He has a council, composed of the great officers of 
 the crown in Ireland, and others appointed by the crown- 
 He corresponds with the secretary for the home department ; 
 but the management of the affairs of the Irish government 
 in London is chiefly entrusted to the secretary for Ireland, 
 who is also chief secretary of the lord-lieutenant He has 
 also a household, consisting of a private secretary, steward, 
 comptroller, chamberlain, gentleman usher, master of the 
 burse, and subordinate officers. His salary has been usually 
 £20,000 per annum. 
 
 LORD-LIEDTENANTS of COUNTIES. In England 
 and Wales, officers appointed by the king, and entrusted by 
 
 parliament with full power and authority to call together, 
 arm, and array the militia, and cause them to be trained and 
 exercised once every year. Each may appoint twenty or 
 more deputy lieutenants, who must have X'-ini a year free- 
 hold estate; except in the Welch and some small English 
 Counties, where the qualification is only X150. The lord- 
 lieutenant also nominates officers in the militia and yeo- 
 manry: but the names both of deputy lieutenants and offi- 
 cers must I..- laid before the king ; and if he. within fourteen 
 days, expresses disapprobation, the commissions do not issue. 
 
 LORD PRIVY BE \l.. Set Bbix. 
 
 I.' IRDSHIP. Set I.ket. 
 
 LOB i" (Lat. loruin. a strap), in Ornithology, signifies the 
 
 tween the bill and the eye, which is ban- In some 
 
 birds, as the great crested grebe; but is generallj covered 
 
 with feathers. In Entomology the term is applied to a 
 
 corni b angular machine observable In the mouth of some 
 
 insects, upon the intermediate angle of which the tucutum
 
 LORICA. 
 
 sits, and on the lateral ones the cardines of the maxillare, 
 and by means of which the trophi are pushed forth or re- 
 tracted, as in the Hymenopterous insects. 
 
 LORI'CA. (Lat. lorum, a thong.) A cuirass or crest of 
 mail, made of leather and set with plates of metal in various 
 forms, chiefly in rings like a chain, used by the Roman sol- 
 diers. 
 
 LO'RICATES, Loricata. (Lat. lorica, a coat of mail.) 
 The name given by Merrem to an order of reptiles dismem- 
 bered from the Sauria of Cuvier, and including those species, 
 as the crocodile, which are protected by an armour of bony 
 plates. 
 
 LORICA'TION. (Lat. loricare, to crust over.) A term 
 of old chemistry, signifying the application of a lute or coat- 
 ing to glass and other vessels. 
 
 LORIS. See Stenops. 
 
 LOSS. In Geology. See Loess. 
 
 LOTE TREE (of the Ancients). Of this there were two 
 kinds: the one a small plant, from which the Lotophagi de- 
 rived their name ; the other a tree with cut leaves and very 
 hard wood. The former was the Zizyphus lotus, the latter 
 the Altis australis. In the Hindoo mythology, the lote tree 
 is regarded as the symbol of creation. See Lotophagi. 
 
 LO'THIAN. A name common to that part of Scotland 
 which stretches along a considerable part of the southern 
 shores of the Frith of Forth, and comprehends the three 
 counties, Haddingtonshire, Edinburghshire, and Linlithgow- 
 shire ; otherwise called East, Mid, and West Lothian. The 
 etymology of the name is doubtful. Lothian was taken pos- 
 session of by the Saxon invaders A.D. 450, and became the 
 scene of contest between the Saxon-Gaels and Scoto-Irish, 
 and was at length ceded to Malconi II. in 1020. Lothian was 
 considered as a country wholly distinct from Scotland in the 
 reign of David I., and the period of its incorporation with the 
 rest of the country is assigned to the 11th or 12th century. 
 
 LO'TION. (Lat. lotum, supine of lavare, to wash.) A 
 mixture of different ingredients, or a solution of various medi- 
 cinal substances, in water or other menstrua, designed for 
 external application. Indolent ulcers and tumours require 
 stimulating lotions ; whereas sedative and narcotic mixtures 
 are used to alleviate pain. 
 
 LOTO'PHAGI. (Gr. \wtos, and <payciv, to eat.) A name 
 given to a people of ancient Africa who inhabited the Regio 
 Syrtica (Iber. iv., 177) ; so called from the lotus berry form- 
 ing their principal food. They were represented as a mild, 
 hospitable race of men. The food with which they were 
 nourished, among other peculiar qualities, is said to have 
 had the power of obliterating all remembrance of one's 
 native country. 
 
 LO'TTERY (Germ, loos, lot), is defined as a game of 
 hazard, in which small sums are ventured for the chance 
 of obtaining a larger value, either in money or other articles. 
 Lotteries are formed on various plans; but in general they 
 consist of a certain number of tickets drawn at the same 
 time, with a corresponding number of blanks and prizes, by 
 which the fate of the tickets is determined. The invention 
 of lotteries has been ascribed to the Romans : by whom, 
 however, they seem to have been resorted to as a means 
 chiefly of amusing and gratifying the people. In modem 
 times this species of gaming has been sanctioned at different 
 periods by most of the European governments, as a means 
 of raising money for public purposes. It would be difficult 
 to give a complete account of the various changes which 
 have taken place in the regulation of lotteries in different 
 countries; but the subjoined summary of their history, from 
 their origin down to their suppression in England, may not 
 be uninteresting. The earliest English lottery of which there 
 is an authentic record was drawn in 1569, when 400,000 
 tickets were sold at 10 shillings each. The prizes consisted 
 chiefly of plate, and the net profits were intended to be ap- 
 propriated to repairing the harbours of the kingdom and 
 other public works. In the year 1612 a lottery was drawn 
 for the benefit of the English colonies ; and, in the course of 
 the same century, the desire for embarking in speculations 
 of this kind increased to such a degree, and gave rise to such 
 an infinity of piivate undertakings, many of which were 
 formed on the most delusive and fraudulent principles, that, 
 in the beginning of Queen Anne's reign, parliament found it 
 necessary to suppress private lotteries " as public nuisances." 
 The year 1709 saw the birth of the first state or parliament- 
 ary lottery, and from that time down to 1823 they were 
 annually licensed by act of parliament, under a variety of 
 regulations and modifications. In the very early part of last 
 century the prizes were paid in the form of terminable an- 
 nuities. Thus, in 1746, a loan of £3,000,000 was raised on 
 4 per cent, annuities, and a lottery of 50,000 tickets, at £10 
 each ; and in the following year £1,000,000 was raised by 
 the sale of 100,000 tickets, the prizes in which were founded 
 in perpetual annuities at the rate of 4 per cent, per annum. 
 During the same century government constantly availed 
 itself of this means to raise money for various public works, 
 of which the British Museum and Westminster Bridge are 
 
 LOUVRE. 
 
 well-known examples. But, at the commencement of the 
 present century, a great repugnance began to be manifested 
 in parliament to this method of raising any part of the public 
 revenue, in consequence of the spirit of gambling which it 
 tended to foster in the great body of the people ; and not- 
 withstanding the influence of the acts of 1778 and 1793, 
 which were confessedly attended with much good, the evils 
 to which it gave birth at last became so palpable that, in the 
 year 1823, the legislature at last consented to the entire abo- 
 lition both of state and private lotteries. It would be super ■ 
 fluous to enter into any argument to point out how preju- 
 dicial all such establishments must be to public morals, by 
 giving the countenance of government to systematic gam- 
 bling, no less than by diffusing a spirit of speculation by 
 which the mind is misled from habits of" continued industry 
 to delusive dreams of sudden and enormous wealth, which, 
 in the great majority of instances, must end in poverty and 
 ruin. Those who wish to see the melancholy results of this 
 system of finance exhibited in its true colours, will find ample 
 information in the two parliamentary reports presented to 
 the House of Commons on the subject of lotteries in 1808 ; 
 but we cannot refrain from inserting a paragraph from the 
 Wealth of Nations, which illustrates their principle and— 
 operation with great brevity and effect : 
 
 " The world neither ever saw, nor ever will see, a per- 
 fectly fair lottery, or one in which the whole gain compen- 
 sated the whole loss ; because the undertaker could make 
 nothing by it. In the state lotteries, the tickets are really 
 not worth the price which is paid by the original subscribers, 
 and yet commonly sell in the market for twenty, thirty, and 
 sometimes forty per cent, advance. The vain hope of gain- 
 ing some of the great prizes is the sole cause of this demand. 
 The soberest people scarce look upon it as a folly to pay 
 a small sum for the chance of gaining 10 or 20,000 pounds ; 
 though they know that even that small sum is perhaps 20 
 or 30 per cent, more than the chance is worth. In a lottery 
 in which no prize exceeded £20, though in other respects 
 it approached much nearer to a perfectly fair one than the 
 common state lotteries, there would not be the same demand 
 for tickets. In order to have a better chance for some of 
 the great prizes, some people purchase several tickets, and 
 others small shares in a still greater number. There is not, 
 however, a more certain proposition in mathematics, than 
 that the more tickets you adventure upon, the more likely 
 you are to be a loser. Adventure upon all the tickets in 
 the lottery, and you lose for certain ; and the greater the 
 number of your tickets, the nearer you approach to this 
 certainty." (See also Degerando's Bienfaisance Publique, 
 1. ii., ch. 6.) 
 
 State lotteries were abolished in France in 1836, along 
 with the gambling houses, from which a great revenue had 
 been derived. They still exist in several of the German 
 states. That of Hamburg is established on a compara- 
 tively fairer principle than was adopted either in France or 
 England; the whole money for which the tickets are sold 
 being distributed among the buyers, excepting a deduction 
 of 10 per cent, made from the amount of the prizes at the 
 time of their payment. See Penny Cyclo. 
 
 LOUGH. An Irish term, synonymous with the Scotch 
 loch, but not with the English lake ; for loch and lough are 
 applied to designate arms of the sea, as well as collections 
 of fresh water, which lake is not. 
 
 LOUIS D'OR. A gold coin under the old system of 
 France, first struck under Louis XIII., in 1641, from whom 
 they derived their name. The louis d'or, says Kelly, coined 
 before 1726, which passed then for 20 livres, were coined at 
 the rate of 36$ per French mark of gold 22 carats fine. From 
 the year 1726 to 1785 louis d'ors were coined at the rate of 
 30 to the mark of gold; and about this period all the gold 
 coins in France were ordered to be brought to the mint to be 
 melted down ; and a new coinage then took place, at the 
 rate of 32 louis d'ors to the mark of the same degree of 
 
 fineness, with a remedy of 15 grains in the weight, and L§ 
 
 of a carat in the alloy. The intrinsic value of this new 
 coin was 18s. 9$d. sterling. Louis d'ors were formerly re- 
 garded as a current coin in all parts of the Continent ; but 
 in England they are sold merely as merchandise, and their 
 value has fluctuated from 18s. 6<2. to 21s. sterling. The 
 term louis d'or is still given to the gold coinage of the pres- 
 ent dynasty of France, though they are also often called 
 20-franc pieces. 
 
 LOUIS, SAINT, OF FRANCE. A royal military order, 
 founded by Louis XIV. in 1693. The badge is a cross of 
 eight points, with fleur-de-lis, and bearing a circular shield 
 containing the effigy of Saint Louis. 
 
 LOU'VRE. One of the most ancient palaces of France. 
 It existed in the time of Dagobert as a hunting seat, the 
 woods then extending all over the actual site of the northern 
 portion of Paris down to the banks of the Seine. The origin 
 of its name has not been satisfactorily ascertained. It was 
 formed into a stronghold by Philip Augustus, who surrounded 
 Uu 689
 
 LOVE, FAMILY OF 
 
 it with towers and fosses, and converted it into a state prison 
 for confining the refractory vassals of the crown. It was 
 then without the walls of Pans; but, on their extension in 
 the latter part of the 14th century, it was included within 
 their circuit. Charles V. made additions to it. That part 
 of the palace now called the fieux Louort was commenced 
 under the reign of Francis I., after the designs of Pierre 
 L'Escot, abbot of Clugny. When Charles IX. resided in 
 the Louvre, he began the long gallery which connects it 
 with the Tuilleries, and in which is now deposited the cele- 
 brated collection of pictures. It was finished under Henry 
 IV. Lous XIV., from the designs of Lemercicr, erected the 
 peristyle which forms the entrance to the Vieux Louvre 
 from the side of the Tuilleries. That monarch also gave a 
 beginning to the remainder of the present modern edifice, 
 from the designs of < 'lande Perrault. The edifice has never 
 been finished ; though, under the reigns of succeeding mon- 
 nrchs, and especially during that of Napoleon, it has slowly 
 advanced towards completion. The eastern front, though 
 not finished even now, exhibits a facade of surpassing 
 beauty — perhaps, in its kind, never equalled. The quad- 
 rangle of the Louvre is a perfect square on the plan. Three 
 of its sides were from the designs of Perrault, alxwe men- 
 tioned. An immense expenditure will be necessary to con- 
 nect the Louvre with the Tuilleries, to which it is joined at 
 present only on the river side by the great gallery above 
 mentioned ; but preparations are in progress to effect this 
 object, and on the side next the Rue St. Honore about 1400 
 feet have been executed. Besides the gallery above ad- 
 verted to, which contains some of 'the finest pictures in the 
 world, the Louvre contains a museum of sculpture, antiqui- 
 ties, and other s|>ecimens of art, equally valuable. 
 
 LOVE, FAMILY OF. A sect of fanatics in the 16th 
 century, holding tenets resembling those of the early Ana- 
 baptists. There is a proclamation against them by Queen 
 Elizabeth, date<l from her manor of Richmond, 1580. 
 
 LOVE FEASTS. A species of religious ordinance held 
 quarterly by the Methodists, to which members of their 
 church alone are admitted, and that only on presenting a 
 ticket or a note from the superintendent. They are a relic 
 of the Agapie (which see) held by the early Christians. 
 
 LOWER CHALK AND GREENSAND. See Geology. 
 
 LOWER EMPIRE. The Roman empire, from the re- 
 moval of the imperial seat to Constantinople, and its suc- 
 cessor, the Byzantine empire, down to the capture of the 
 city by the Turks, are frequently joined together under this 
 name by modern historians. 
 
 LOW SUNDAY. In Ecclesiastical Antiquities, the 
 Sunday next after Easter has been popularly so called in 
 England ; perhaps by corruption for close (Pascha clausum, 
 close of Easter, one of the many names by which it was 
 known in the Christian church). [Riddle's Christ. Ant., 640.) 
 
 LO'XIA. (Gr.' Aoi-o?, crooked.) A genus of Conirostral 
 Passerine birds, characterized by having a compressed beak, 
 and the two mandibles so strongly curved that their points 
 cross each other, sometimes on one side, sometimes on the 
 other. The crossbill (Lozia curvirostra) is the type of this 
 genus. 
 
 LOXODRO'MIC CURVE or SPIRAL (Gr. Aojoc, oblique, 
 and tpouos, course), is a kind of logarithmic spiral traced on 
 the surface of a sphere : the meridians which it intersects all 
 under the same ancle being regarded as the radii of the 
 spiral. It is the path which a slrip sailing always on the 
 .same rhumb, or making the same angle with the meridians, 
 describee on the surface of the terrestrial sphere. The 
 properties of the curve are analagous to those of the com- 
 mon logarithmic spiral. It always approaches the pole, but 
 never reaches it; so that a ship, by following always the 
 
 same oblique course, would < tinually approach the pole 
 
 of the earth without arriving at it. To "find the equation of 
 the loxodromic, let <p be the arc. of the meridian intercepted 
 between any point of the curve and the pole, and A the lon- 
 gitude of that point; then the infinitely small arc of the 
 parallel of latitude corresponding to an Increment of the 
 curve is d A sin. <f>, and the differential of the co-latitude is 
 d <b ; but, because the curve cuts all the meridians under 
 the same angles, the variation of the parallel of latitude cor- 
 responding to an increment of the curve is proportional to 
 the variation of the co-latitude ; consequently a d X sin. </> _; 
 
 d<b 
 d d>, or a d A = . , . which is the differential equation of 
 
 T sin, <p 
 
 the loxodromic, a being a constant quantity. 
 
 LO'ZENGE. An oblique-angled parallelogram, or rhom- 
 bus, formed by constructing two equal isosceles triangles 
 upon opposite sides of the same straight line. 
 
 Lozknok. In Heraldry, a bearing in the shape of a par- 
 allelogram, with two obtuse and two acute angles. The 
 arms of maidens and widows are borne on shields of this 
 shape. 
 
 LOZEHOB. In Pharmacy, a medicinal substance made 
 up into a small cake gradually to be dissolved iu the mouth. 
 090 
 
 LUCERNARIA. 
 
 Sugar, gum, and starch are the usual inert parts of lozenges ; 
 and minute quantities of active substances are added, ac- 
 cording to the purposes for which they are intended: such 
 a- ipecacuanha or squills, for pectoral lozenges ; extract of 
 poppies or opium, for sedative lozenges; kyan pepper as a 
 stimulant; oil of peppermint as an antispasmodic, itc. 
 
 LUCA'NID.E. (Gr. \vko$, a wulf ; also the name of an 
 insect.) A family dismembered from the Linnson genus 
 I.urmius. and including those insects which, in addition to 
 the comprehensive characters of the original genus, present 
 antenna; strongly geniculate, glabrous, or but slightly pilose ; 
 the labrum very small, or confounded with tint epistome ; 
 maxilla- terminated by a membranous or coriaceous, silky, 
 pencilliform lobe ; edentate, or with one tooth ; and a ligula 
 either entirely concealed or incorporated with the lneiitum, 
 or divided into two narrow, elongated, silky lobes, extending 
 more or less beyond the mentum. The scutellum is situ- 
 ated between the elytra. The stag-beetle, Lucanus eerous, 
 &c., is the type of this family. The subgenera are (Esalus, 
 LiUin/irina, Stnodendrum, &c. 
 
 LUCA'NUS. (Gr. \vko(.) A Linnrean genus of Coleop- 
 tera, forming the type of a tribe of Lamellicom beetles 
 {Lucanina), in the system of Latreille, by whom it is thus 
 characterized : Antenna; composed of ten joints, the first of 
 which is usually much the longest ; the attennal club has 
 its leaflets or teeth arranged perpendicularly to its axis, in 
 the manner of a comb. The mandibles are always corne- 
 ous, and most commonly exhibit a sexual superiority of 
 developement and peculiarity of form in the males. The 
 maxilla? are generally terminated by a narrow, elongated, 
 and silky lobe; but sometimes are entirely corneous and 
 dentated. The ligula in most of the Lucanines is formed 
 of two small silky pencils, projecting more or less beyond 
 an almost semicircular or square mentum. The anterior 
 legs in the greater number are elongated, and their tibia 
 dentated along the whole of their outer side. The tarsi 
 terminate in two equal and simple hooks, with a little ap- 
 pendage with two seta; between them. The elytra cover 
 the whole of the upper part of the abdomen. The insects 
 thus characterized were first divided by the immediate suc- 
 cessors of Linnaus into two genera, Lucanus proper and 
 Passalus, both of which are now elevated to the rank of 
 families, and subdivided into numerous subgenera. See 
 Lucanid.* and Passalid*. 
 
 LU'CERES. (Lat.) In Roman antiquities, a body of 
 horse composed of Roman knights, first established by Rom- 
 ulus and Tatius. It is said to have received its name either 
 from an Etrurian, who aided the Romans against the Sa- 
 bines; or from the Lat. lucus, a grove, where Romulus had 
 instituted an asylum for all fugitives, slaves, and homi- 
 cides, in order that he might people his infant city : but it ia 
 difficult to account for the real origin of the word. 
 
 LUCE'RN. (Medicago tatioa.) A well-known plant of 
 the Linna-an class Diadelphia, and order Decandria, and of 
 the natural family of the Ijfguminosee. There are many 
 species of the Medicago, but of these the artificial grass, 
 called Lucem, is most deserving of notice. This plant was 
 in high estimation among tire ancients; and its nutritious 
 qualities, easy cultivation, rapid growth, and luxuriant prop- 
 erties, have placed it in the first rank of vegetable food for 
 cattle, even in the present times. Lucem, says an old 
 
 writer, is commended for an excellent fodder There 
 
 is not any pulse or other feeding which is more agreeable 
 or more precious for feeding beasts than lucerne : so that it 
 may seem to spring out of the earth ... as a more especial 
 favour from God, not only for nourishing and fattening 
 herds of cattle, but also to serve as ti phvsic, for beasts that 
 aresick. (Country Farm, 3d edit, foL 1616, p. 364.) Those 
 who wish to see the properties of this plant fully developed 
 at once from the author's personal experience, and the con- 
 current testimony of the best agricultural writers both an- 
 cient and modem, and its history traced from its discovery 
 during the Persian expedition under Darius to its subsequent 
 introduction successively into Greece, Italy, Spain, France, 
 Germany, and, in fact, wherever the art of husbandry has 
 made any progress, down to its arrival in England, will find 
 ample details in the learned Essays on Husbandry by tho 
 Rev. Walter Ham; | London, 177(1; to which we beg to refer. 
 The origin of the term lucem is involved in obscurity. Some 
 authors have derived it, naturally enough, from the canton 
 in Switzerland of that name; but from the account given 
 by Mr. Harte of the history of this plant, it does not appeal 
 either that Switzerland was particularly famous lor pro- 
 ducing it, or that the northern and western nations of Eu- 
 rope received it thence. 
 
 LUCERNA'RIA. (Lat. lucerna, a lamp.) A genus of 
 flesh] polypi ( Polypi carnosi) in the system of Cuvier, char- 
 acterized by a long and slender pedicle supporting a radiated 
 disk, which send- off numerous tentacula united in bundles. 
 The l.iitrrnaritr, Cuvier regards as being nearly allied to 
 the .irtiiinr or sea anemones; but their substance is softer. 
 Thej emit phosphorescent light.
 
 LUCIFER. 
 
 LU'CIFER. (Lat. lux, light , fero, I bring.) The morn- 
 ing star. A name given to the planet Venus, when she 
 appears in the morning before sunrise. When Venus fol- 
 lows the sun, or appears in the evening, she was called 
 Hesperus, the evening star. These names no longer occur 
 except in the old poets. 
 
 Lu'cifers. Matches tipped with a mixture of chlorate 
 of potash and sulphuret of antimony : they are inflamed by 
 friction upon a piece of emery paper. 
 
 LUCIFE'RIANS. The name of an ancient sect of here- 
 tics, so called from Lucifer, bishop of Cagliari, in the 4th 
 century, whose opinions they embraced. The Luciferians 
 considered the soul to be of a carnal nature and to be trans- 
 mitted from father to child ; but the chief occasion of the 
 schism of Lucifer arose from his refusal to hold any com- 
 munion with the clergy who had conformed to the Anan 
 doctrines, and whom a synod at Alexandria, A.D. 352, had 
 determined to re-admit into the church on condition of an 
 open acknowledgment of their errors. The number of this 
 sect was never considerable, and it was extinct in the time 
 of Theodoret; but it deserves notice from being considered 
 by the Roman Catholics as one of the greatest schisms in 
 their church. See Schism. 
 
 LUCI'NA. In Roman Mythology, the goddess who pre- 
 sided over the birth of children. Her name is derived either 
 from lucus or lux, according to Ovid's explanation, — 
 
 Gratia Lueina?, dedit bazc tibi oomina lucus j 
 Aut quia pnncipiuiu, tu, Dea. lucis babes. 
 
 She is said to be the daughter of Jupiter and Juno ; and has 
 frequently been confounded with Diana and Juno, both of 
 whom presided over childbirth. She was called Ilithya by 
 the Greeks. 
 
 LUCU'LLITE. A black limestone, often polished for 
 ornamental purposes, to which it is said first to have been 
 applied by Lucullus, the Roman consul. 
 
 LU'ES. (Lat.) A poison or pestilence ; a plague. 
 
 LUFF. The foremost edge or leach of a fore-and aft sail. 
 To luff, to brine the ship's head nearer the wind. 
 
 LU'FFER BOARDING. (Fr. louvre.) In Architecture, 
 boards in an aperture placed above each other at regular 
 distances, and inclined to the horizon at an angle of forty- 
 five degrees, so as to admit air without allowing the rain to 
 penetrate. 
 
 LUG-SAIL. A four-sided sail bent to a yard, which is 
 slung about one fourth from the lower end. 
 
 LU'MACHE'LLA. Shell marble; the fragments having 
 a pearlv lustre, it is sometimes termed fire marble. 
 
 LUMBA'GO. See Rheumatism. 
 
 LUM'BAR A'BSCESS. An abscess of the loins formed 
 upon the psoas muscle : it is frequently mistaken for ne- 
 phritic or rheumatic disease, and when it forms a swelling 
 iu the groin, for hemia. 
 
 LUMBRICAL MUSCLES. (Lat. lumbricus, an earth- 
 worm.) Small muscles of the hand which assist in bend- 
 ing the fingers. 
 
 LU'MBRICUS. (Lat.) A Linnsan genus of Vermes, 
 now the type of a family (Lumbricina) which ranks as the 
 first of the Setigerous Abranchian Anellidans in the system 
 of Cuvier. All the species of this family — the earthworms, 
 as they are commonly called — are characterized by a long 
 cylindrical body, divided by ruga? into a great number of 
 rings, and by an edentate mouth. The common earthworm 
 {Lumbricus terrestris, Linn.) attains nearly afoot in length, 
 and is composed of upwards of one hundred and twenty 
 rings. This species is extremely abundant : they traverse 
 the soil in ever} - direction, swallowing quantities of earth, 
 together with portions of roots and ligneous fibres, and other 
 organized substances, which they assimilate for their own 
 nutriment. Their castings constitute a rich soil. 
 
 LUNA. (Lat. the moon.) In Mythology, the daughter 
 of Hyperion and Terra, usually confounded with Diana, 
 which see. The heavenly bodies were favourite objects of 
 worship among the ancients; and as they considered the 
 sun to be sacred to Apollo, whom they worshipped as Sol, 
 so they consigned the moon to the guardianship of his sister 
 Diana, whom they worshipped under the name of Luna. 
 
 LU'XA CO'RXEA. Fused chloride of silver ; so called 
 from its horn-like appearance, luna being the term by which 
 the old chemists designated silver. 
 
 LU'XACY, in Law, is strictly the condition of an insane 
 person who has lucid intervals, which in former times 
 were supposed to depend on the phases of the moon ; whence 
 such persons were styled lunatici. But, for convenience, 
 the term is commonly used as embracing the condition of all 
 those who are under certain legal disabilities on account of 
 mental deficiency: such as idiots, fatuous persons, &c.; all, 
 in short, who are of unsound mind. The chief of these dis- 
 abilities are, incapacity to make contracts, either personal 
 or affecting the estate ; to sue or defend in courts of justice ; 
 to perform offices and duties ; to make devises or bequests. 
 By ancient legal maxim, the sovereign has the custody of 
 
 LUNAR METHOD. 
 
 ' lunatics. This is in practice delegated to the keeper of the 
 | great seal, by virtue of the sign manual, countersigned by 
 I two secretaries of state. Applications for a commission of 
 lunacy are consequently directed to him. When he deter- 
 | mines that such a commission is proper, it issues to certain 
 commissioners, appointed by the same authority. They 
 summon a jury to try the fact of lunacy. If the party is 
 found lunatic by its inquisition, the inquisition may still be 
 avoided by a traverse ; on which the record goes into the 
 King's Bench, which either gives judgment or grants a new 
 trial on it. If the lunatic recover, the inquisition may be 
 superseded. On the return of the inquisition, the custody 
 of the lunatic's person and estate devolves on the crown ; 
 and the chancellor, on petition, appoints committees to have 
 the custody of either or both. . These may be w 7 hoever the 
 chancellor thinks fit, although next of kin are ordinarily pre- 
 ferred. Lunatics are maintained by an allowance out of 
 their own estate : when they have none, by statute, in pub- 
 lic asylums. The custody of lunatics by private individuals 
 is under the control of the provisions of the stat. 3 At 4 W. 
 4, c. 36, by which visiters are empowered once a year to in- 
 spect their condition. Licensed houses for the reception of 
 lunatics, under the keeping of medical men, are within the 
 regulations of 2 and 3 W. 4, c. 107, under the inspection of 
 licensing commissioners. Persons of unsound minds who 
 are paupers, and those who have been tried for offences 
 and found insane, and also lunatic convicts, are usually con- 
 fined in county lunatic asylums, wherever these are estab- 
 lished. As to the statistics of lunatic hospitals or asylums, 
 see Degerando, de la Bienfaisance Publique, vol. iv., part 
 3, book 3. 
 
 The incapacity of a person of unsound mind to commit a 
 crime, depends, it is said, upon his irresponsibility, moral and 
 legal. The general mode of directing a jury has been to ac- 
 quit the prisoner, if satisfied that he was incapable of know- 
 ing right from wrong ; or, as some eminent judges have 
 worded it, if he was unconscious that the act was a crime 
 against the laws of God and nature. On acquittal taking 
 place on evidence of Iunacv, the jury are now required, by 
 39 & 40 G. 3, c. 94, to find specially whether the person 
 was insane at the time of committing the offence ; and on 
 that finding he is taken into public custodv. 
 
 LU'XAR BONE. One of the bones of the wrist 
 
 LU'XAR CAUSTIC. Fused nitrate of silver. 
 
 LU'XAR CYCLE. The period of time after which the 
 new moons return on the same days of the year. See 
 Cycle. 
 
 LU'XAR DI'STAXUE. In Navigation, the distance of 
 the moon from the sun, or from a fixed star or planet; by 
 means of which the longitude of a ship is found. 
 
 LU'XAR ME'THOD. In Astronomy and Navigation, 
 the method of determining the longitude of a place or ship 
 from the observation of lunar distances. This problem, 
 which is of the very highest importance, on account of its 
 being the only astronomical method of finding the longitude 
 practicable at sea, resolves itself into two parts. The first 
 is to ascertain the distance of the moon's centre from one 
 of the principal planets or fixed stars at a given moment ; 
 and the second, to find the Greenwich time to which, ac- 
 cording to the tables, that distance corresponds. The general 
 method of procedure maybe explained as follows: Six or 
 eight observations of the star's distance from the nearest 
 point of the moon's limb are taken with a sextant as quickly 
 in succession as possible, and the corresponding time at each 
 observation noted : the mean of the observed distances, at 
 the mean time, gives a single distance corresponding to a 
 known instant of time. The true apparent time is here sup- 
 posed to be given by the chronometer, the rate and error of 
 which are determined by observations of altitude. Contem- 
 poraneously with the observations of distance two assistants 
 are employed in taking the altitudes both of the moon 
 and star, for the purpose of applying the proper correction 
 for refraction. The remainder of the operation consists in 
 making the requisite calculations. In the first place, the 
 moon's semidiameter is added to the observed distance, 
 whereby the true apparent distance is found. In the next 
 place, the corrections are applied for refraction and parallax, 
 and the apparent distance reduced to the centre of the earth. 
 This part of the operation is technically called clearing the 
 distance. The computer then turns to the JVuutical Alma- 
 nac, in which the distances of the moon from some of the 
 principal stars and planets is given for every three hours. 
 Having found in the almanac the distances next less and 
 greater than the true distance deduced from the observa- 
 tions, their difference gives the change of distance in three 
 hours: whence, by interpolation, the Greenwich time is ob- 
 tained at which the distance was exactly the same, and con- 
 sequently the Greenwich time corresponding to the apparent 
 time at the instant of the observation. 
 
 This method of finding the longitude at sea was first pro- 
 posed by John Werner of X'uremberg so early as 1514, and 
 recommended by several other astronomers who lived during 
 
 691
 
 12 
 
 44 
 
 2-84 
 
 7 
 
 43 
 
 4-71 
 
 7 
 
 43 
 
 11-54 
 
 13 
 
 18 
 
 37-40 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 35-60 
 
 LUNAR MONTH. 
 
 the same century : but the theory of the lunar motions was 
 then, and for a long time after, by tar too Imperfect to allow 
 of its practical application. Besides, previously to the inven- 
 tion of Hadley's quadrant, there was no instrument by which. 
 the distances could be measured with the requisite precision. 
 The advancement of astronomy, and the perfection of in- 
 struments of observation, have obviated all difficulties; and 
 tlie method of lunar distances is now mainly relied on by the 
 mariners of all countries. 
 
 LUNAR MONTH. The time in which the moon com- 
 pletes a revolution about the earth, and returns to the same 
 position relatively to some celestial body, or point in space, 
 with which her motion is compared. But the moon's period 
 may be determined in relation to several objects — as the sun, 
 the equinoctial points, a fixed star, the pcrigree or nodes of 
 her orbit : and accordingly there are as many different lunar 
 months as tbere are assumed points of comparison, provided 
 these points have different motions in the heavens. 
 
 1. The proper lunar month is the same as the lunation or 
 synodic month, ami is the time which elapses between two 
 consecutive new or full moons, or in which the moon re- 
 turns to the same position relatively to the earth and sun. 
 
 2. The periodic month, or synodic month, is the revolution 
 with respect to the moveable equinox. 
 
 3. The .sidereal month is the interval hetween two succes- 
 sive conjunctions with the same fixed star. 
 
 4. The anomalistic month is the time in which the moon 
 returns to the same point (for example, the perigree or 
 apogee) of her moveable elliptic orbit. 
 
 5. The nodical month is the time in which the moon ac- 
 complishes a revolution with respect to her nodes, the line 
 of which is also moveable. 
 
 The exact mean lengths of these different lunar months 
 are as follows : 
 
 days. h. m. sec. 
 Svnodic month .... 29 
 Tropical month .... 27 
 Sidereal month .... 27 
 Anomalistic month ... 27 
 Nodical month .... 27 
 These mean motions are not uniform, but are subject to pe- 
 riodic and secular variations. Sec Moon. 
 
 LU'NAR YEAR, is the period of twelve synodic lunar 
 months, and consequently contains 354 days; the lunar 
 months in the calendar being alternately 29 and 30 days. 
 The exact period of 12 lunar months is 354 days, 8 hours, 48 
 niin. 34 sec. ; so that the lunar year of the calendar requires 
 to be adjusted by intercalation every third year. See Cal- 
 endar. 
 
 U'NA'TIOX. The period of a synodic revolution of 
 the moon, or the time from one new moon to the follow- 
 ing, being that in which the moon passes through all her 
 phases. 
 
 LUNE, orLU'NULA. A geometrical figure in form of a 
 crescent, hounded by two arcs of circles intersecting at its 
 extremities. The lunula of Hippocrates, of Chios, is cele- 
 brated on nccount of a remarkable property discovered by 
 that geometer ; namely, that it can be exactly squared, 
 though the quadrature of the whole circle has baffled the 
 ingenuity of mathematicians of all ages. Let ADB be a 
 ^ semicircle whose centre is at C, and A E B 
 
 a quadrant of another circle whose centre 
 is at F (C F being perpendicular to the di- 
 ameter A BJ : then the space contained 
 • b between A I) B and A E B is the lune of 
 Hippocrates; and it is equal to the area of 
 the triangle A F B. For the square of A F 
 being equal to the squares of A C and C F, 
 i? or twice the square of A C, and circles 
 
 being to one another as the squares of their radii, the whole 
 circle of Which A F is the radius is equal to twice the circle 
 of which A C is the radius; and consequently the area of 
 the quadrant A E B F is equal to the semicircle A I)B. Take 
 away the common space A E B A, and there remains the 
 triangle A I? F, equal to the lune. 
 LUNETTE. (Fr.) In Fortification, an enveloped coun- 
 
 terguard or elevation of earth, mode bej I the second ditch, 
 
 to the place of arms; differing from the ravelins 
 only in situation, tamettes are also works made on both 
 sides of a ravelin. See Fortification. 
 
 i.i \i ri k. In Architecture, an aperture for the admis- 
 sion of light in a concave ceiling; such are the upper lights 
 to the naves of St. Peter's at Rome and of St. Paul's at 
 1 iondon. 
 
 LUNGS. (Genu. lungenO The viscera by which respi- 
 ration is carried on. The right Inns is divided Into three 
 lobes, (he left Into two. They are, as it were, suspended In 
 (he chest by the traehea, and separated by (he mediastinum ; 
 they are also attached to the In-art by the pulmonary ves- 
 sels. They are nourished by the bronchial artery, which is 
 a branch of the aorta ; and the pulmonary artery carries the 
 vcdou* blood through them from the heart, to subject it to 
 
 m 
 
 LUSTRATION. 
 
 the action of the air in their cellular structure; the blood 
 when arterialized returns to the heart by the pulmonary 
 veins, the four trunks of which enter the left auricle. The 
 bronchial veins terminate in the vena a/.ygos. The nerves 
 of the lungs are from the eighth pair and great intercostal. 
 
 LU'NIBO'LAB. (Lat. lima, the mooii, and sol, the sun.) 
 Combining the motions of the sun and moon. A lunisolar 
 period is that after which the eclipses again return in the 
 same order. {See Cycle.) The Dyonysian period of 538 
 years, formed by multiplying together the solar and lunar 
 cycles of 28 and 19 years, has sometimes been called the lu- 
 DJselar year. 
 
 LCPERCA'LIA. A Roman festival in honour of Pan, 
 celebrated in February ; when the Luperci ran up and down 
 the city naked, having only a girdle of goat's skin round 
 their waist, and thongs of the same in their hands, with 
 which they struck those they met, particularly married 
 women, who were thence supposed to be rendered prolific. 
 The name is derived from lupus, a wolf; because Pan pro- 
 tected cattle from that animal. The indecencies and ex- 
 cesses attending the processions of the Lupercals, which 
 had degenerated from high religious rites to vulgar super- 
 stitions, provoked the indignation of Christians in the 4th and 
 5th centuries. It is commonly, but erroneously, supposed 
 that pope Gelasius caused them to be abolished. {Gibbon, 
 vol. vi.) Beugnot has shown the contrary. {Vest. du. Pa- 
 ganisme en Occident, book xix., ch. 2.) 
 
 LUPE'RCI. The Roman priests of Pan, and most an- 
 cient religious order in the state, having been instituted, ac- 
 cording to tradition, by Evander, king of l'allantiuin, a town 
 that occupied the Palatine Hill before Rome was built. 
 There were thTee companies of them ; viz. the Fabiani, 
 Quintiliani, and Julii — the last of whom were founded in 
 honour of Julius Ca'sar. For the derivation of the word see 
 Lfpercalia. 
 
 LU'PINITE. A bitter substance, extracted from the leaves 
 of the white lupin. 
 
 LU'PULIN. The active principle of the hop ; it is more 
 properly called lupulite. 
 
 LU'PUS. (Lat.) The wolf. One of the southern con- 
 stellations, situated on the south of Scorpio. 
 
 Lr'pus. In Pathology, a disease wliich eats away the 
 parts attacked by it with great rapidity. 
 
 LU'SIAD. The name given to the great epic poem of 
 Portugal, written by Camoens, and published in 1571. The 
 subject of this poem is the establishment of the Portuguese 
 empire in India; but whatever of chivalrous, great, betruti- 
 tiful, or noble, could be gathered from the traditions of his 
 country, has been interwoven into the story. Among all the 
 heroic poets, says Schlegel, either of ancient or modem 
 times, there has never, since Homer, been any one so in- 
 tensely national, or so loved or honoured by his countrymen, 
 as Camoens. It seems as if the national feelings of the Por- 
 tuguese had centered and reposed themselves in the person 
 of this poet, whom they consider as worthy to supply the 
 place of a whole host of poets, and as being in himself 
 a complete literature to his country. Of Camoens they 
 say, 
 
 Vertpre fas ; square nefas ; a-quabilis uni 
 Estsibi ; par nemo; nemo secundus erit. 
 
 The great defects of the Lusiad consists in its preposterous 
 mythological machinery, and its clumsy management; but 
 in all (he qualities of versification and beauty of language 
 it is perfect, and may be regarded as the "well, pure and 
 untleiiled," of the Portuguese language. 
 
 Few modern poems have been so frequently translated as 
 the Lusiad. Mr. Adamson, whose Memoirs of the Life and 
 Writings of Camoens must be familiar to the reader, notices 
 one Hebrew translation of it, five Latin, six Spanish, four 
 Italian, three French, four German, and two English. Of 
 the two English versions one is that of Sir R. Fanshawe, 
 written during Cromwell's usurpation, and distinguished for 
 it- fidelity to the original ; the other is (hat of Mickle, who, 
 unlike the former, took great liberties with the original, but 
 whose additions and alteration-; have met with great appro- 
 bation from all rritics — except, as indeed was to he e\pi cted, 
 from the Portuguese themselves. (See the Quarterly Hc- 
 l-ii ir. vol. xvvii.) 
 
 LUBTRATION. (Lat lustro, ■/ purify.) In Roman 
 Antiquities, a sacrifice by which the Romans purified their 
 cities, fields, armies, or people, defiled by any crime or im- 
 purity. There were various manners of performing this 
 
 ceremony, according t" the nature of the lustration. When 
 Bervius Tullius had numbered the Roman people, he puri- 
 fied them, as they were assembled m the Campus Martina, 
 by causing a young pi;:, a sheep, and a bull, just sacrificed, 
 to be paraded round them. Before the celebration of the 
 i.udi Beculares, which took place only once in a century, 
 the populace was purified by a little sulphur, bitumen, and 
 
 perfume, fixed to B piece of fur called ta l ila, which was 
 lighted, and which thus circulated the smoke around them 
 The army was purified by causing the soldiers to defile be
 
 LUSTRUM. 
 
 rween the two quivering halves of a victim, while the priest 
 offered up certain prayers. The lustration of a funeral pile 
 was effected by making the spectators march round it before 
 the fire was kindled. (See Memoires de I'Ac. des Inscrip- 
 tions, vol. xx.vvi.) See Ambarvalia. 
 
 LU'STRUM. (Lat.) In Roman Antiquities, a space of 
 about five years : at the end of which period the feast called 
 Lustralia was celebrated, in which the censor purified the 
 people by several sacrifices and ceremonies ; among others, 
 the suovetaurilia, or sacrifice of a hog, sheep, and goat. It 
 appears that rather more than five years usually elapsed be- 
 tween one lustralia and the next; but the word lustrum is 
 usually employed for the exact quinquennial period. The 
 derivation of the word is uncertain. Lustrare, in Latin, sig- 
 nifies to purify by a solemn ceremony : and many other lus- 
 tral ceremonies were in use; as, for example, the dies lus- 
 trales, or lustral days, being the fifth, or, according to some 
 writers, the eighth day after the birth of a child, on which 
 it was purified with certain solemnities, named, and placed 
 under the protection of the gods of the family ; the lustra- 
 tion of sheep in April, the crops in May, &c, of which so 
 many are continued in the Roman Catholic worship of mod- 
 ern times. Sea-water was the most ordinary article used in 
 lustrations. Varro derives the word lustrum from lucre, to 
 pay ; because, according to the custom ordained by Servius 
 Tullius, who first instituted the census (566 B.C.), the tribute 
 imposed by the censors was paid at the beginning of every 
 fifth year, the last of the lustrum. (See an Essay in the 
 Memoires de I' Ac. des Inscr., vol. xxxix. ; and Niebuhr's 
 History.) 
 
 LU'SUS NATURAE. (Lat. a sport of nature.) A term 
 applied to anything unnatural in the physical world. 
 
 LUTE. (It. liuto.) A musical stringed instrument of the 
 guitar species, and played in a similar way ; but in form 
 more resembling the section of a pear, with a back in ribs, 
 like those of a melon. 
 
 LUTES, in Chemistry, applications hy which the junc- 
 tions of vessels are rendered tight. A glass retort is said to 
 be luted when smeared over with clay, so as more perfectly 
 to resist the effects of heat, and to prevent its fusion. Com- 
 mon lute is a mixture of pipe-clay, linseed meal, and water, 
 and is spread upon paper and applied to the joinings of stills 
 and of retorts and receivers. Fat lute is a mixture of pipe- 
 clay and linseed oil. 
 
 LU'THERANS, or FOLLOWERS OF LUTHER. The 
 denomination of Christians whose religious system had its 
 origin in the preaching of Luther. This system, in some 
 respects, approaches nearer to Romanism than that of any 
 other of the reformed churches. The notions of Luther 
 upon the nature of the Eucharist are known under the name 
 of consubstantiation, or the coexistence of the body and 
 bread, the blood and the wine, at the same time. It en- 
 courages, also, the private confession of sins, makes use of 
 wafers in the administration of the Lord's Supper, and al- 
 lows of images in churches. It insists, however, very strong- 
 ly upon Luther's cardinal doctrine, the justification of man 
 by faith, and not by any merit in human actions. With re 
 spect to the divine decrees, it holds that God foreknows the 
 dispositions of men, whether they will be good or bad, and 
 predetermines their salvation or rejection accordingly ; dif- 
 fering therein from the tenet of the Calvinists, which repre- 
 sents the Supreme Being as making his decrees by his own 
 mere will. The dogmas of the Lutheran Church are care- 
 fully set forth in various symbolic books : the Confession of 
 Augsburg, the Articles of Smalcald, the Shorter and Larger 
 Catechisms of Luther, and the Form of Concord. The prin- 
 ciple, however, of this church, which considers Christians 
 as accountable to God alone for their religious opinions, al- 
 lows its teachers, at the present day, an unbounded liberty 
 of dissenting from these decisions. The Lutheran Church 
 predominates in the north of Germany, in Prussia, Norway, 
 Denmark, and Sweden : there are congregations also of the 
 same denomination in England, Holland, Russia, and Ameri- 
 ca. In the Prussian dominions it has been remodelled under 
 the late king, and is called the Evangelical Church. See 
 Christianity. 
 
 LU'THERN. (Fr.) In Architecture, the same as dor- 
 mer, which see. 
 
 LU'TRA. (Lat. an otter.) A genus dismembered by 
 Storr from the Linnaean Mustela, and now raised to the rank 
 of a family {Lutrida). 
 
 LUXA'TION. (Lat. luxare, to put out of joint.) A dis- 
 location of a bone. 
 
 LYCA'NTHROPY. (Gr. XvKog, a 7uolf, and avOo^og, a 
 man.) Herodotus relates that the Neurians, a Scythian 
 tribe, were supposed to be changed, for a certain number of 
 days every year, into wolves, and then to resume their for- 
 mer shape; and a similar superstition is noticed by Virgil in 
 his Eclogues, by Pliny, Pausanias, and other writers. The 
 same superstition, of the power possessed by men of convert- 
 ing themselves into wolves, remained in more modern times ; 
 but that which the classical ancients had believed to be ef- 
 
 LYMPHATICS. 
 
 fected by the power of herbs, or by innate powers, was hy 
 Christians considered as a species of sorcery. These human 
 wolves were called loup-garoux by the French, were-wolves 
 by the Anglo Saxons, wehrwolfe by the Germans: words 
 of the same derivation, and bespeaking that the superstition 
 in those countries was of Teutonic origin. They were be- 
 lieved to be extremely ferocious, and to devour not only 
 beasts, but human beings; but if they were pursued and 
 wounded, the spelt was frequently dissolved, and the sorcer- 
 ers were found mutilated in those limbs in which they had 
 received the wound in their wolfish shape. From the prev- 
 alence of these superstitions in the minds of an ignorant 
 peasantry originated the hideous species of madness termed 
 lycanthropy, in which the patient believed himself to be a 
 wolf, and frequently imitated the howl and actions of that 
 animal. In France, in the 16th century, numbers of these 
 unfortunate beings were executed, like witches, on their 
 own confession ; and in the avowals which they made, of 
 having killed and devoured mankind, they were probably 
 not always under a delusion. Some of these maniacs de- 
 clared that they were actually wolves, but that in them the 
 hair grew inside, or between the skin and the flesh. Oriba- 
 sius, who lived in the fifth century of our era, mentions ly- 
 canthropy by its true character as a species of madness, and 
 describes the symptoms and the cure. This species of in- 
 sanity seems to have gradually died away along with the 
 superstition which gave it birth. (See a curious article in 
 the Enc. Mctropolitana.) 
 
 LYCE'UM. An academy at Athens was so termed, from 
 its situation near the temple of Apollo Lyceus. It was fre- 
 quented, according to tradition, by Aristotle. Preparatory 
 schools for the universities, in which the Aristotelian philos- 
 ophy was formerly taught, hence received on the Continent 
 the name of Lyceum. 
 
 LY'CHNITES. An ancient name of marble ; from Aux* 
 vos, its quarries being worked by lamp-light. 
 
 LY'COPO'DI A'CEjE. (Lycopodium, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of Acrogens, inhabiting all parts of the 
 world, but abounding chiefly in hot, humid situations. They 
 are intermediate, as it were, between ferns and coniferae on 
 the one hand, and ferns and mosses upon the other. Lyco- 
 podium rubrum is a violent cathartic ; clavatum and selago 
 excite vomiting ; and the powder contained in the seed-ves- 
 sels of all the species is so highly inflammable as to be em- 
 ployed occasionally in the manufacture of fireworks. They 
 are propagated by spores formed in two-valved cases axillary 
 to the upper leaves. 
 
 LY'COPO'DIUM. A fine yellow dust or powder, being 
 the seed of the Lycopodium clavatum, or club moss : when 
 thrown into the flame of a candle, or of spirits of wine, it 
 burns with a bright flash. It is much sought after for pro- 
 ducing theatrical lightning, and is an excellent substance to 
 sprinkle upon pills to prevent their adhering. 
 
 LYCO'SA. (Gr. \vnos, a wolf.) A genus of spiders, in 
 which the eyes form a quadrilateral group, as long or longer 
 than it is wide ; the two posterior eyes not placed on an ele- 
 vation. The first pair of legs is evidently longer than the 
 second, but shorter than the fourth, which is the shortest of 
 all. The internal extremity of the jaws is obliquely trun- 
 cated. Almost all the Lycosce keep on the ground, where 
 they run with great swiftness. They inhabit holes in the 
 ground, which they line with silk, and enlarge in proportion 
 to their growth. Some establish their domicil in chinks and 
 cavities in walls, where they form a silken tube, covered ex- 
 ternally with particles of earth or sand. In these retreats 
 they change their tegument ; and, as it appears, after closing 
 the opening, pass the winter in a state of torpidity. The fe- 
 males, when they go abroad, carry with them their eggs en- 
 veloped in a cocoon attached to the abdomen by threads. 
 On issuing from the egg, the young ones cling to the body of 
 the mother, and remain there until they are able to provide 
 for themselves. The Lycosce are extremely voracious, and 
 courageously defend their dwelling. The famous Tarantula 
 spider is a species of this genus. 
 
 LY'DIAN STONE. A silicious slate, used by the an- 
 cients as a touchstone, from Lydia. 
 
 LY'ING PANELS. In Architecture, those in which the 
 fibres of the wood lie in a horizontal direction. 
 
 LYING-TO. A nautical term, denoting the state of the 
 ship when the sails are so disposed as to counteract each 
 other, and thereby retard or destroy the progressive motion 
 of the vessel. The fore and main staysails and mizen try- 
 sail serve very well for this purpose, as they cause but little 
 way, and have sufficient power to keep the ship heeled over, 
 and therefore steady, with her decks turned from the sea. 
 When the sea runs very high, the lower sails are liable to be 
 becalmed by the waves, and therefore to suffer the ship to 
 roll to windward ; the maintopsail is then used. 
 
 LYMPH. (Lat. lympha, water.) The liquid contained 
 in the lymphatics. 
 
 LYMPHA'TICS. Absorbent vessels, which carry lymph 
 from all parts of the body, and terminate in the thoracic duct
 
 LYNCH LAW. 
 
 LYNCH LAW. The irregular and revengeful species 
 of justice administered by the populaee ... Borne parts ot the 
 United States, is said to have been so-called from aVir- 
 ci m fanner of the name of Lynch, who took the law into 
 h hands on some occasion, by charing a thief, tj m, am to 
 a tree and flogging him with his own hands. Some ob- 
 servers have thought that this barbarous system was, to a 
 "e, .'min extent, palliated by the difficulty of enforcing regular 
 law which Captain Marryal {Diary in*** ncc I ^^ 
 With what justice we know not, to the inadequate pa> ot he 
 judicial establishment in the newly-settled districts, and the 
 ul character of many of the judges, raised to the bench by 
 etecttoneering politics. Lynch law may be called a demo- 
 
 ■ t ■ mutation of the old feudal Vehm-peric lite, or selt- 
 constituted tribunals in Westphalia and elsewhere, which 
 
 assumed the right of controlling the violent actions ot the 
 nobles, and have been the subject ot so much romantic fic- 
 
 U °LYNX. A constellation of the northern hemisphere, 
 
 *l£L* A natTgiven to the different species of a group 
 Of iheCats CiFWi&s), distinguished by short tails, and gen- 
 en lv tuf ed ears. The lynxes have been long famed for 
 the hs rp sWht-a quality which, in all probability, they 
 dVr ed '-ether with their name, from Lynceus, one of the 
 Son autef 'whom, on their perilous expedition, his quick 
 right was of essential service in enabling them to steer clear 
 of rocks and sand-banks. The lynx was consecrated to 
 
 B T Y' R \ (Lat.) The Harp : one of the forty-eight con- 
 stellations' of Ptolemy. It is situated in the northern hemi- 
 
 SP Lyr1 A portion of the brain, the medullary- fibres of 
 which "are so arranged as to give it somewhat the appear- 
 
 ai LYRE a l5 A musical instrument of the greatest antiquity 
 among the Egyptians and Greeks. Tradition attributes ; its 
 invention to the accident of finding on the banks of the Nto 
 a tortoise, whose flesh was entirely decomposed, but whose 
 tendons, laving been dried and stretched by the sun's rays, 
 were capable, on being struck, of yielding musical sounds. 
 Hermes, the finder of this tortoise, having made an instru- 
 ment in imitation of it, is supposed thus to be «*»£«*"* 
 the lvre The Greeks attribute the invention to their Hermes 
 (Mercury), the son of Jupiter and Maia. It is generally con- 
 sidered that the original Egyptian lyre was only of three 
 strings, and that the Greek Mercury improved upon the in- 
 vention ; that the Muses clubbed together to add one string, 
 Orpheus, Linus, and Thomyris adding one each, thus torm- 
 ineit altogether into a heptachord, or seven-stringed lyre. 
 At a later period the lyre consisted of eleven strings, which 
 were madefof the sinews of animals; its body was hollow 
 to increase the volume of tone ; and it was played with the 
 plectrum or lyre-stick of ivory or polished wood, and some- 
 times with die fingers, like the harp. It went by the diffei- 
 ent names of lyra, phorminx, chalys, barbitos, barbiton, 
 
 01 LYRE BIRD, or LYRE PHEASANT. See Menura. 
 
 LYRIC. See Ode. . 
 
 LYTHRA'CEiE. (Lythrum, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of Polvpetalous Exogenous plants, with long, 
 tubular, striated calyxes, in the orifice of which are inserted 
 the petals, while the stamens grow nearly at the base. 1 hey 
 are little known in cultivation ; but some of them, belonging 
 to the genera La<rerstra>,mia, Diplusodon, Lafoensta, &C, 
 are objects of striking beauty. The rosewood of the cabinet- 
 maker is the trunk of Physocalymna floribunda; and the 
 henna, employed in the toilet of Oriental ladies, is oblauied 
 from Lawsonia inermis. 
 
 M. 
 
 M. The labial letter of the liqiud series. It is susceptible 
 of various interchanges, more especially in the Greek and 
 Latin languages. (See Penny Cyclo.) In writing two M s 
 successively the Germans frequently drop one, and replace 
 it bv a stroke over that which they retain ; thus m. As an 
 abbreviation M stands for Marcus, Manlius, Martins, and 
 Mucius; M.A. tor M.-igister Artium, MS. lor Manuscript 
 and MSS. for Manuscripts. M, or, more properly, a symbol 
 somewhat resembling ... was used bj the Romans to denote 
 1000; and the moderns have also adopted that letter. 
 
 M \B The name given by the English poets ol the loth 
 and succeeding centuries to the imaginary queen o toe 
 fairies The passage In Romao and Juliet, m wtucn ner 
 qualities and attributes are so beautifully set forth, is lannliar 
 
 '"mAC A Scotch term, signifying son, prefixed to many 
 surnames, as Mac Donald, fcc. It is synonymous with. titi 
 In England, and U in Ireland. 
 0U4 
 
 MACHINE. 
 
 MACA'CUS. A genus of Catarrhine or Old World 
 monkeys, characterised by having a fifth tubercle on their 
 last molars; ischial callosities and cheek pouches; com- 
 paratively short and thick limbs; a projecting muzzle, and 
 prominent superciliary arches. They have generally a 
 pendant tail ; but in some it is short, as in the pig-tailed ba- 
 boon (Macacus rhesus). When they cry out, they inflate a 
 membranous sac, which communicates with the larynx 
 above the thyroid cartilage. 
 
 MACAEO'NIC VERSE. Verse in which the words of 
 a modern language are ludicrously distorted into Greek or 
 Latin inflections and metre. Theophilo Folengo, who w rote 
 under the name of Merlinus Coccaius, in Italy, in the loth 
 century, and calls himself the inventor of this sort of bur- 
 lesque composition, informs us that its name is derived from 
 the Italian macaroni, eatables composed of flour, cheese, and 
 butter • and that it expresses the gross and rustic characters 
 appropriate to its words and sentiments. JJrummond's 
 Polcmo Muldinia, a Scottish burlesque, is perhaps the best 
 known macaronic form of our language. 
 
 MACCABEES, BOOK OF THE. The two last books 
 in the arrangement of the Apocryphal writings enumerated 
 by our church. The first is a Greek translation (as is sup- 
 posed) from a Chaldaic original. The second appears to be 
 a compilation from various sources. The two books are not 
 connected: the former comprehends the events of Jewish 
 history for nearly 40 years, B.C. 176 to 139 ; the second be- 
 gins about B.C. 187, and extends over about 16 years. Nei- 
 ther has been reckoned by the Jews in their catalogue of 
 sacred writings; but they are received into the canon of 
 Scripture by the Church of Rome, with the title of 3d and 
 4th Chronicles. There are two other hooks, commonly call- 
 ed 3d and 4th Maccabees, which were never received by any 
 church. , .... 
 
 MACE. A word of doubtful etymology, signifying some- 
 times a club of metal, and sometimes a military weapon ap- 
 propriated to the cavalry- About the period of Edvyard II. 
 maces were generally used in England, both in battles and 
 tournaments ; and they remained so till the time ot Eliza- 
 beth when they were displaced by the pistol. Maces are 
 still used by the Turkish cavalry. The mace, as an ensign 
 of authority, is often borne before magistrates. By the old 
 English writers it is used synonymously with sceptre. 
 
 Mace the external envelope of the seed of the nutmeg, is a 
 particular form of what botanists call arillus. It is aromatic, 
 but less so than the nutmeg ; and is chiefly used in cookery 
 or in pickles, and not, like the latter, in confectionary. 
 
 MACEDONIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, a sect 
 which derives its name from a bishop of Constantinople, 
 who, in the 4th century, denied the distinct existence and 
 Godhead of the Holy Spirit, which he conceived to be mere- 
 ly "a divine energy diffused throughout the universe, 
 ''while the Father and Son together constitute the one exist- 
 ing Deity." These opinions were condemned at the second 
 general council held at Constantinople in 381. See Pneuma- 
 
 T °MACERA'TION. The steeping of substances in any 
 cold liquor. , s 
 
 MACHAIRODTJS. (Gr. uaxaifia, a sabre, and obovs, a 
 tooth.) An extinct mammal, allied to the hear. 
 
 MACHE'TES. (Gr. paxnm, a combatant.) The generic 
 name under which Cuvier has distinguished the ruffe ana 
 reeves from the sandpipers, godwits, and other allied brails;. 
 The ruffs have the bill and carriage of the genus Calulris ; 
 hut the membrane between their external toes is nearly as 
 extensive as in IJmosa. Our native species [Machetes pug- 
 nax Cuv.) is somewhat smaller than a snipe, and celebrated 
 for the furious combats that take place among the males in 
 their nuptial season. At this period the head ® partly 
 covered with a red papilla-; the neck is surrounded with a 
 thiek collar of feathers, which often varies in different mdi- 
 
 V "mVCHI AVELISM. A name given to the system of gov- 
 erning which is propounded in the general writings of 
 Machiavelli, and particularly in his treatise called I he 
 Prince The term is still used in a disparaging Benee, not- 
 withstanding the differenl construction which has ot late 
 been given to the motives and purposes tor which Macnia- 
 velli wrote his work. . 
 
 MVCHl'COLATED. (Fr. machicoulis.) In Gothic and 
 castellated Architecture, a building whose parapets project 
 
 l„. v I the faces of the walls, and are supported by arches 
 
 springing fr lame corbels or consoles. 
 
 MAClll'NE (Gr. ua X a;n), in a general sense, sign. he, 
 anything which serves to increase or regulate the eflect ot a 
 riven tone. Machines are either simple or compouna\ i he 
 simple machines, otherwise called the simple mechanical 
 powers, are usually reckoned six in number; namely, the 
 lever, the wheel and axle, the pulley, the wed/re, the screw, 
 and the funi, ular machine. See the respective terms. 
 
 Compound machines are formed by combining two or 
 more simple machines. They are classed under .dillerent
 
 MACHINERY. 
 
 denominations, according to forces by which they are put in 
 motion, as hydraulic machines, pneumatic machines, electri- 
 cal machines, &c. ; or the purposes they are intended to 
 serve, as military machines, architectural machines, &c. 
 
 Although there are no limits to the combinations and 
 adaptations of machinery, there are certain general princi- 
 ples which may be applied in estimating the effects of any 
 machine whatever. When a machine attains its state of 
 uniform motion, the momentum of the power is equal to that 
 of the resistance, and is the same that would be in equilibria 
 with the resistance if there were no motion at all. From this 
 principle, and from the consideration that in all machines the 
 work done is to be estimated not merely from the quantity of 
 resistance which is overcome, but from the quantity over- 
 come in a given time, we can ascertain the relation that 
 ought to subsist between the velocity and the load or resist- 
 ance in order that the effect of the machine may be a maxi- 
 mum. This maximum effect is produced when the two 
 following conditions are fulfilled: 1. When the load, or re- 
 sistance, is about, four ninths of that which the power, when 
 fully exerted, is just able to balance, or that which would 
 keep the machine at rest altogether ; and, 2, when the veloci- 
 ty of that part of the machine to which the power is applied 
 is one third of the greatest velocity of the power. These 
 conditions are deduced from the following empirical expres- 
 sion, which is adopted by Euler and other writers to repre- 
 sent the law of the moving power : Let P = the power ap- 
 plied (or weight which the power, when fully exerted, is 
 just able to overcome) ; R = the resistance, or load, or 
 weight to be overcome; c the greatest velocity, or that at 
 which the power ceases to act ; v — any other velocity : then 
 the law of the moving power is 
 
 R = p(l-0 2 
 
 The variables in this expression are R and v, and the 
 effect is represented by the product R v ; on making which 
 a maximum, the rules of the differential calculus give v = £ 
 c; whence the formula becomes R = |P. 
 
 From these expressions it follows, that when the moving 
 power and the resistance are both given, if a machine be so 
 constructed that the velocity of the part to which the power 
 is applied is to the velocity of the part to which the resistance 
 is applied in the ratio of 9 R to 4 P, the effect of the machine 
 will be a maximum, or it will work to the greatest possible 
 advantage. The above conditions apply equally to machines 
 impelled by animal force and the agents of nature, as run- 
 ning water, steam, the force of gravity, &c. An animal ex- 
 erts itself to the greatest advantage, or performs the greatest 
 quantity of work in the least time, when it moves with 
 about one third of the utmost speed with which it is capable 
 of moving, and is loaded with four ninths of the greatest load 
 which it is capable of putting in motion. It has been sup- 
 posed in the above remarks that the friction of the parts of the 
 machine is included in the resistance. (See Coriolis, De 
 l' Effet des Machines ; Navier, Lecons sur l' Application de la 
 Mecanique ; Belidor, Architecture Hydraulique ; Gregory's 
 Mechanics ; Moseley's Mechanics applied to the Arts, &x.) 
 
 MACHINERY. A general term by which the works of 
 the complex machines are designated. 
 
 MA'CIGNO. (Ital.) A hard silicious sandstone. 
 
 MA'CLE. A mineral ; called also chiastolite. It forms 
 prismatic crystals, white externally and gray within, which 
 are found imbedded in clay-slate. Its principal component 
 parts are silica and alumnia, with a little oxide of iron. 
 
 MACLU'REITE. A mineral named after Dr. Maclure, 
 from New- York and New-Jersey. It occurs in roundish 
 imbedded masses, imperfectly crystalline. It is a silicate of 
 magnesia, with traces of potash, oxide of iron, and fluorine. 
 
 M.U'MILLANITES. A religious sect in Scotland, the 
 successors and representatives of the Covenanters in the 17th 
 century, and more recently denominated the Reformed Pres- 
 bytery. On the first settlement of presbytery as the estab- 
 lished church of Scotland at the Revolution in 1688, a small 
 body of the people, the remnant of the Covenanters, con- 
 demned the principles on which that act was founded as 
 Erastian. They insisted not only that the church, though 
 endowed by the state, should be entirely independent of civil 
 authority, and uncontrollable and supreme in itself, but that 
 the revolution government should not be recognised, inas- 
 much as it was not founded on the Solemn League and 
 Covenant, and did not restore presbytery as it had obtained 
 during what thev called the " Second Reformation," or be- 
 tween 1638 and 1649, at the death of Charles I. Though re- 
 duced to a very small number at the era of the Revolution, 
 and deserted by their pastors, who, in 1689, gave in their ac- 
 cession to the judicatories of the established church, they 
 maintained their principles with unshaken firmness, and 
 would accept of no conditions of which these were not the 
 basis. They also continued zealously to maintain those 
 praying societies (hence they were sometimes called Society 
 
 MACROURANS. 
 
 people) which they had formed in the time of Charles II. 
 when deprived of religious ordinances from the paucity of 
 clergymen. A regular correspondence between these vari- 
 ous fraternities were maintained, in order to ascertain the 
 state of matters throughout the body at large, and to culti- 
 vate a closer acquaintance with each other. 
 
 Thus they remained without a pastor for sixteen years ; 
 and as they w T ere a small, so they were generally regarded 
 as a fanatical and illiberal sect, enemies equally to the eccle- 
 siastical and civil authorities. Meanwhile, Mr. John M'Mil- 
 lan, who had been ordained parochial minister of Balmaghie, 
 in the stewartry of Kirkcudbright, in 1701, adopted and 
 publicly avowed their principles, and was, in consequence, 
 deposed in 1704 from the office of the ministry. He did 
 not, however, renounce his ministerial character, but con- 
 tinued to officiate both among his former people, who almost 
 to a man adhered to him, and others who favoured his 
 views. In 1706, having received a unanimous call from 
 the scattered societies to be their minister, he accepted the 
 invitation ; and in a short time he was joined by Mr. John 
 M'Neil, a licentiate of the established church, who, like 
 himself, had been deprived of all connexion with that 
 church. The high veneration which Mr. M'Millan and Mr. 
 M'Neil entertained for presbyterian government prevented 
 any attempt being made to obtain ordination for the latter 
 in an irregular way. Neither would they compromise their 
 principles to gain the co-operation of other ministers who, 
 like themselves, but for somewhat different opinions, had 
 been expelled from the establishment. They renewed the 
 Covenant in 1712, and never ceased to bear public testimony 
 against what they regarded the defections and corruptions of 
 the church of Scotland. 
 
 On the death of Mr. M'Neil, which took place not long 
 afterwards, Mr. M'Millan was joined by the Rev. Thomas 
 Nairn, who had been driven from the church, and had for 
 some time been connected with the Secession. The pros- 
 pects of the M'Millanites, as this sect had long been called 
 in honour of their eminent leader, now began to brighten. 
 Their two clergymen and some lay elders (formerly ordain- 
 ed) constituted a presbytery, in 1743, at Braehead, nearCarn- 
 wath, Lanarkshire, and gave their body the name of the Re- 
 formed Presbytery — a designation which has superseded, in 
 a great measure, that of M'Millanites. They are also called 
 Mountain or Hill people; because, having at first no chap- 
 els, they conducted public worship, in imitation of their per- 
 secuted ancestors in the reigns of Charles II. and his brother, 
 in the open air, generally on the side of a hill. 
 
 From the time they were constituted into a presbytery, 
 their number has gradually but slowly increased. Li 1809 
 they had sixteen congregations, but their highest ecclesi- 
 astical court was a presbytery. They now form a synod, 
 consisting of six presbyteries, the number of congregations 
 being thirty-five. In the days of persecution, some of their 
 adherents took refuge in the north of Ireland ; and the M'Mil- 
 lanites there form four presbyteries, embracing twenty-one 
 congregations. The sect prevails also in the United States, 
 to the extent of eight or ten congregations. Some of their 
 congregations in Scotland are very small, and none of them 
 are large. They have a professor of divinity belonging to 
 their own body. In doctrine they profess the highest Cal- 
 vinism, and may be characterized as the strictest sect 
 of Presbyterians. They still hold substantially the same 
 sentiments as the alleged Erastianism of the established 
 church, or what they regard as her unscriptural subjection 
 to the civil power. Some of their extreme opinions, how- 
 ever, on the subjects of the covenant and presbytery, have 
 of late been somewhat modified. They generally, if not 
 universally, use public prayers for the sovereign and for 
 civil magistrates; an act which they from conscience avoid- 
 ed for about a century after their organization under Mr. 
 M'Millan. Wherever their numbers are sufficiently large, 
 they have built chapels ; and public worship, in any cir- 
 cumstances, rarely takes place out of doors. They have 
 not thought it expedient to renew the Covenant since 1745. 
 In short, they have become a comparatively liberal and en- 
 lightened sect of Christians, and are eminently character- 
 ized by pietv and moral strictness. (See Adam's Religious 
 World Displayed, vol. iii., 157-169; The Testimony of the 
 Reformed Presbyterian Church, Paisley, 1837; Historical 
 Part of the Testimony, Glasgow, 1839; A short Ace. of the 
 Old Presbyterian Dissenters, Glasgow, 1824 ; Acts of Gen. 
 Assembly apud Ann. 1704, 1708, 1715: also the articles 
 Cameronians and Covenanters in this work.) 
 
 MACRODA'CTYLI. Gr. uaitpos, long; S,iktv\oc, a fin- 
 ger.) A tribe of wading birds, comprehending those in 
 which the toes are remarkable for their extreme length ; as 
 the jacanas. 
 
 MA'CROPUS. (Gr. fiaicpoc, long ; T7ov;. foot.) The ge- 
 neric name of the kangaroo ; also applied to a genus of 
 beetles. 
 
 MACROU'RANS, Macroura. (Gr. iiak-poc, long, and 
 ovPa, a tail.) A section of Decapod Crustaceans, including 
 
 695
 
 MACULiE. 
 
 b!1 those which have the tail, or post abdomen, as long or 
 longer than the body. 
 
 MA Vt'L.E. (Lat. spots.) Dark spots on the surfaces 
 of the sun and moon, and on some of the planets. The so- 
 lar sp. as arc very variable as to form and continuance. 
 They were first observed by Galileo in Italy, and Harriot 
 in England, soon after the invention of the telescope, and 
 Unknown to each other. The spots on the moon are perma- 
 nent, and are caused by the shadows of its mountains, and 
 the unequally reflecting materials of which parts of it are 
 composed. The planets have some permanent macule, as 
 the belts of Jupiter ; and some variable, especially Mars and 
 Venus, and frequently, also, Jupiter. These macula have 
 led to many fanciful conjectures respecting the constitution 
 and atmospheres of the bodies of the solar system. See 
 StJH, -Moon. 
 
 MA DDER. The prepared root of the Jtubia tinctorum. 
 It is extensively used as a red dye stuff ; its infusion is of a 
 dirty red colour; but it is rendered bright and permanent by 
 an aluminous mordant. Its colouring principle has been 
 termed alizarine. 
 
 MADIA. (Gr. /lae'oc, bald.) A genus of Composite 
 plants, inhabiting South America and California, and im- 
 portant because of the utility of the fruit as a source of ve- 
 getable oil. From some German reports It appears that it is 
 the most productive of all oil plants. 
 
 MADO NNA. (Engl, my lady.) An Italian term ap- 
 plied to the Virgin Mary. Hence pictures of the Italian 
 school representing the Virgin are generally designated as 
 " Madonnas." 
 
 MA'DREPO'RA. (A hybrid compound of the French 
 madre, spotted, and the Latin porus, a pore.) The word ap- 
 pears to have been first used by Imperati to designate a genus 
 of Lithophytes, in which the calcareous axis has its whole 
 surface beset with small lamellate and stellate depressions. 
 
 The genus was adopted by Linnajus, who placed it 
 among his Vermes Zoophyta, and characterized it as fol- 
 lows: "Animal resembling a medusa; coral with lamellate 
 star-shaped cavities." It is scarcely necessary to observe 
 that the animal, especially in the larger madrepores, as the 
 Fun gin, most closely resembles the Actinia in its general 
 organization. Cuvier places the madrepores in the tribe 
 I.ithophyta, of the family of Polypi corticati. The Litho- 
 phytes having the common character of the Limuean ge- 
 nus are now subdivided into the genera Fungia, Lam.; 
 Turbinolia, Lam. ; Cyclolytbus, Lain. ; Caryophyllira, Lam. ; 
 Ociilina. Lam. ; Pacillopora, Lam. ; Serialopora, Lam. ; As- 
 tn a. F.xplanaria, Poritrs, Meandrina, Cuv. ; Pavo?iia, Cuv. ; 
 Hydrophora, Fischer ; Agaricina, Cuv. ; Sarcinula, Lam. ; 
 Stylina. Cuv. ; and Madrepora proper. 
 
 MA'DREPORITE. A species of columnar carbonate of 
 lime found in Norway and Greenland. 
 
 MA DRIER. In Military Engineering, a thick plank cov- 
 ered with plates of iron, and having a cavity sufficient to 
 receive the mouth of a petard, with which it is applied 
 against a gate, or any other obstacle intended to be broken 
 down. Also, the flat beams laid in the bottom of a moat or 
 ditch to support the wall. There are also madriers lined 
 with tin and covered with earth, to form roofs over certain 
 portions of military works, in order to afford protection 
 against fires in lodgments, &c. 
 
 MADRIGAL. One of the lesser kind of poems, usually 
 consisting of fewer verses than the sonnet or roundelay, iii 
 Its composition the fancy and convenience of the poet arc 
 not subjected to very strict rules, rhymes and verses of dif- 
 ferent species being often intermixed. The subjects are 
 mostly Of a tender and gallant nature; the character often 
 (piaint. the expressions marked with great simplicity. Some- 
 times, however, a loftier and sublimer train of thought finds 
 
 its way into tin 9e compositions, especially a ng those of 
 
 the English school, as in the following celebrated speel n, 
 
 set to music, and perhaps written, bv Orlando Gibbons, in 
 101-J: 
 
 Oh ! that the learned poets of this time, 
 
 Who in a lovesick line so Well can speak. 
 
 Would not consume good nil in hateful rhvme, 
 
 Jlu' with deep .ire i ime belter subject find; 
 
 For if their music nil ue ill Birth ■ 
 
 Bow would it sound if strung with heavenly strings ! 
 
 Of a lighter and more regular sort, the following may serve 
 for a specimen : 
 
 When Thoralis delights to walk, 
 
 The fairies do attend her; 
 They sweetly sing and sweetly talk, 
 
 And sweetly do commend her. 
 The satyrs leap and dance around. 
 And make their conges to the ground ; 
 An I evermore their song is this, 
 " Long may's! thou live, fair Thoralis!" 
 
 Grassineau. in his Musical Dictionary, describes the mad- 
 rigal as "a little piece of poetry, the verses whereof were 
 1 1 l BJ 'I easy, usually unequal : it borders on a sonnet and 
 an epigram, but has not the briskness of the one, nor the 
 poignancy of the other " 
 696 
 
 MAGAZINE. 
 
 It is extraordinary that the etymology of this word, though 
 introduced but little more than three "centuries ago. is now 
 altogether lost. We subjoin the conjectures that have been 
 
 raised upon it. Kengifo (Arte Poctica) savs that it is cor- 
 rupted from the word mandrial, a sheep/old. Cardinal Bem- 
 bo seems to think with the last-named author, and defines 
 it as a pastoral love-song; adding, moreover, that it is of Pro- 
 vencal origin, lluet brings it from Martegavz, the name 
 of a people of Provence. " Ces martegalles el inadiigaux," 
 he observes, "out pris leur noms des Marteirauv pcuple 
 Montagnards de Provence: de mesme que les Gavots, peu- 
 ple Blontagnards du pays de Gass, ont donne le nam ■ 
 que nous appellons gavotte." (Traitedcs Romans, p. YU.) 
 Covarruvitis ( Tresor de la Langue Castellan) derives it from 
 mandra. So that there is much testimony in favour of its 
 pastoral origin. But the most curious, perhaps, of all the 
 etymologies is that of Ferrari, in his Origine de la I.anguc 
 Italimne, who derives the word from the Spanish verb mad 
 rugar, (0 rise in the morning'; which Menage, in his Diet, 
 Ety., says is naught. This last-named author throws out a 
 suggestion that it may have had its origin in a town called 
 Madiigal (of which name, indeed, there are two in Old Cas 
 tile), in Spain ; as from Vallee de Vire has been formed 
 the word Vaudeville (p. 464). Others, supposing that the 
 earliest specimens of this sort of poetry' were addressed to 
 the Virgin (alia madre), have thence derived madrialle and 
 madi igale ; and go on to say that having afterwards been 
 applied to poems of love and gallantry, the original meaning 
 was lost. The words of a very large proportion of the mad- 
 rigals of the sixteenth century', a period when they were 
 most in favour, are certainly compositions indicating ad- 
 dresses to the mother of love and gallantry (alia madre ga- 
 lante) rather than to the Virgin. At this period, moreover, 
 the composers called their motels madrigali spirit uali. We 
 regret that we cannot guide the reader with any certainty 
 upon this subject, in which we must leave him to a choice 
 among the etymologies here set down, or to find one of his 
 own that he may think more germane to the matter. 
 
 We will now endeavour to define this word in a musical 
 sense ; and we do not think we can better accomplish that 
 object than in the quaint language of old Charles Butler 
 (Principles of Music, London, 1636). He says, "The mad- 
 rigal is a chromatic mode in distant, whose notes do often 
 exceed the number of the syllables of the ditty, sometimes in 
 duple, sometimes in triple proportion, with quick and sweet 
 reports and repeats, and all pleasing varieties of art, in four, 
 five, or six parts ; having in one or more of them one or more 
 rests, especially in the beginning, to bring in the points be- 
 gun in another part." Choron calls it a species of compo- 
 sition resembling the fugue, but the style of which, being 
 less dry, is susceptible of every kind of expression. The 
 simple madrigal is for voices only ; the accompanied madri- 
 gal, as its name imports, is with an accompaniment of one 
 or more instruments, mostly the organ. To Arcadelt, a 
 Flemish composer, has, but without foundation, been attrib- 
 uted the honour of composing the first madrigals. They, 
 however, exist by more ancient composers, even by those of 
 the Flemish school ; and to our readers who are at all con- 
 versant with the subject, the name of Adrian Willaert will 
 doubtless occur as one of the composers alluded to. The 
 fact is, that simple madrigals appeared about the beginning 
 of the sixteenth century, during which, and the whole of 
 that following, the style was particularly cultivated and en 
 couraged, and may be considered to have now passed away, 
 unless we are allowed to consider the English glee an offset 
 from it. The first madrigals were in a style of music very" 
 much resembling that of the church ; but they afterwards 
 assumed a character peculiar to themselves, which is stri- 
 kingly exemplified in those of Luca Marenzio soon after the 
 time that Palestrina flourished), and after him in the works 
 of Gesualdo, the Prince of Venosa, Monteverde, and Ma- 
 zocchi. It is in their madrigals that the restraints which 
 laboured counterpoint imposed were abandoned, to make 
 way for imitations, canons, and fugues. The style was In- 
 deed that of the age, but the subjects were free; and the 
 tender and impassioned poetry adopted was well expressed 
 
 in the affections of the harmonies employed. The original 
 character gradually became more free, and was carried to 
 
 its utmost limit in the compositions of the celebrated Ales- 
 sandro Scarlatti. In England, during the reign of Eliza- 
 beth, the composition of the madrigal attained a very high 
 degree of excellence, perhaps the highest. Our composers 
 were in no respect inferior to those of Italy and the Nether- 
 lands. It is hardly necessary to observe that among them 
 are to be found the names of Orlando, Gibbons, Dowland, 
 Wilbye, Ward. Bennett, and Morlev. 
 
 MAESTO'SO. (Itnl.) In Music, a direction to the per- 
 former that the music to which the word is prefixed is to be 
 performed slowly and with grandeur. 
 
 MAGAZINE. (Pr. magazln.) A receptacle for military 
 store-, hut especially for gunpowder, in a fortress. 
 
 Magazine. An apartment below, in the after part of the
 
 MAGELLANIC CLOUDS. 
 
 ship in which the powder is kept. As lights nre not allow- 
 ed to be burnt here, the light is received from another apart- 
 ment, called the light-room. 
 
 Maoazine. In Literature, the general designation for the 
 periodical literature of a country, exclusive of the newspa- 
 per and review- The peculiar province of the two latter 
 seems to be to communicate information — the one on politics 
 and passing events, the other on literary and scientific sub- 
 jects; while that of the magazine is of a more miscellane- 
 ous character, embracing all the features of the newspaper 
 and review, but at the same time containing, in the form of 
 tales, sketches, and poetry, &c, a great variety of what may 
 be peculiarly termed original matter, the introduction of 
 which would be foreign to the purposes of the others. The 
 earliest publication of this kind in England was the Gentle- 
 man's Magazine, which still exists. It appeared in 1731 ; 
 and the success which so deservedly followed its establish- 
 ment immediately called into the field a host of competitors, 
 which have so increased in number and variety as to form 
 an era in literarv history- See Periodicals, Review. 
 
 MAGELLANIC CLOUDS. Three nebula; in the south- 
 em hemisphere, first recorded by the navigator Magellan, 
 and named after him ; two of them about 12° or 13° from 
 the south pole, and the third more distant. Whether they 
 be resolvable into stars by means of the larger telescopes, 
 has not been yet ascertained ; but, from their distinctness as 
 nebula?, thev probably are. 
 
 MA'GIAN'S. The caste of priests (hereditary) among 
 the Persians and Medians are so termed by ancient Greek 
 historians. The name has been derived by modern ori- 
 entalists from mog or mag, signifying priest in the Pehlevi 
 language. Zoroaster is designated as the great reformer of 
 the order ; but the history and the very existence of that 
 celebrated character are enveloped in complete obscurity. 
 He is generally supposed to have lived at no long period be- 
 fore the age of Cyrus. The most remarkable feature of his 
 doctrine consisted in the two principles of Good and Evil 
 (Oromastes and Arimanes), who were held to divide the 
 dominion of the world, in alternate periods, during its whole 
 predestined duration of 1-2.000 years. The books termed the 
 Zendavesta, brought to Europe in the last century by An- 
 quetil du Perron, are supposed by some to contain the essen- 
 tial doctrines of this religion ; but their authenticity has been 
 the subject of much discussion. The fire-worshippers of Per- 
 sia and India still hold them in reverence. (.See Zendaves- 
 ta, GrEBRES.) Our amplest resources for the study of the 
 religion and character of the ancient magi are to be found in 
 the learned researches of Anquetil. (See especially Mi- 
 moires de I' Acad, des Inscriptions, vol. xxxiv.) 
 
 MAGIC. (Lat. ars magica, the art of the Magi; be- 
 cause those Persian philosophers were ranked by the Ro- 
 mans among the highest professors of supernatural powers, 
 through intercourse with the genii or intelligences with 
 which their universe was peopled.) Common as the su- 
 perstitious belief in the possession of such powers has been 
 among all nations hitherto discovered on the globe, the 
 Romans were, perhaps, the most superstitious in this and 
 other respects of all people. No American tribe has a more 
 implicit faith in its rude "medicines" or "mysteries," than 
 this great and civilized people had in its auguries and divi- 
 nations ; and it is a remarkable feature in their character, 
 that while their religion prescribed these rites, the popular 
 imagination was always searching after fresh excitement 
 from others, which were not only unauthorized, but con- 
 demned by their laws — the practices of the Thessalian 
 witches, the magi, the sorcerers of Egypt and Phrygia, and 
 the numberless other foreign nations with which their do- 
 minion brought them in contact. Against these the emper- 
 ors were continually renewing their ineffectual edicts ; and 
 it seems to have been mainly from this circumstance that 
 the idea of magic, as a black and forbidden art, became 
 rooted in the minds of the people of modern Europe. For 
 the northern conquerors held such supernatural power in 
 high respect; and in the East, the favourite land of sorcery 
 and magic, the professors have from time immemorial been 
 regarded rather as venerable than as hateful. As to ancient 
 magic, see Mem. de VAcad. des Inscr., vol. xxxix. Hence, if 
 run systematic account can be attempted of matters which 
 have their foundation in the strange caprices of popular cre- 
 dulity, it may be thought that, in the superstition of the 
 middle ages, white magic or celestial magic, according to 
 Cornelius Agrippa's division, originated in the North or 
 East : superstitious or diabolical magic, from Roman notions 
 ingrafted on Christianity ; while natural magic arose merely 
 from the disposition among the scientific of those days to take 
 advantage of the vulgar propensity to attribute everything 
 extraordinary to supernatural causes. It is to be observed 
 that among the crusaders, and other Christian warriors of 
 the middle ages, magic was regarded as a peculiar ally of 
 the eastern and northern infidels with whom they were in 
 contact. The inhospitable North was peopled by their ima- 
 gination with enchanted castles and spectral illusions (see 
 00 
 
 MAGIC LANTERN. 
 
 Scott's Damonology and Witchcraft, letter v.) ; and Frols- 
 sart gives a most picturesque account of the spells which 
 were resorted to by Mohammedan warriors in their conflicts 
 with the soldiers of the cross. In the romances founded 
 on these historical encounters there are usually a good ma- 
 gician or witch (not the degraded witch of vulgar supersti- 
 tion, but the French fee, Italian fata) enlisted in the Chris- 
 tian party; evil necromancers in that of the infidels. Thus, 
 in Ariesto, Malagigi and Melissa aid the one side, and Atlas 
 the other. The notion of white witches, or beneficent wiz- 
 ards, was assiduously kept up by those impostors who wish- 
 ed to profit by the public credulity, and yet avoid the pen- 
 alties awarded by the church ; and in the church itself there 
 was a contest continually maintained, whether magic, prac- 
 tised through laborious research and study of the celestial 
 influences or intermediate spirits, was lawful. But the pub- 
 lic opinion always inclined the other way ; and the magi- 
 cians of highest pretensions were always in danger of being 
 classed with the hated necromancers who derived their 
 power from compact with the devil. Among the earliest 
 fables respecting the higher order of European magicians is 
 that of Virgil, the Latin poet, turned into a wizard by popu- 
 lar belief, which dates as high as the 11th or 12th century. 
 Robert of Lincoln (Grossetete), Michael Scot, Albertus Mag- 
 nus, and the famous Roger Bacon, all lived in the 13th. Of 
 these the first was a church reformer, who seems to have 
 lain under the imputation of magic merely on account of the 
 displeasure with which he was regarded by the orthodox. 
 Michael Scot is almost wholly a traditional personage ; that 
 is, his real history is scarcely known : the European reputa- 
 tion which he had achieved as a wizard is proved by the 
 high mention of him in the Inferno of Dante, who condemns 
 all magicians indiscriminately to eternal punishment. It is 
 difficult to say that Roger Bacon ever gave any cause by 
 pretensions of his own, like so many other eminent natural 
 philosophers of early time, to those charges of magic to 
 which his high genius subjected him. Perhaps Sir F. Pal- 
 grave, in his amusing fiction {The Merchant and Friar), is 
 not far wrong in representing him as partly dazzled by an 
 inability to comprehend the real extent of those extraordinary 
 discoveries which were opening upon him, and partly owing 
 his magical reputation to the impostures practised by his 
 servants in his name. Albertus Magnus, a Dominican, and 
 a celebrated magician in his time, lies more justly open to 
 the charge of quackery. It seems to have been after this 
 time, about the 14th century, that magic rose for a season 
 into high repute as a lawful art, and sovereigns had profess- 
 ed magicians and astrologers attached to them. The ex- 
 traordinary tales related of some of these point evidently to 
 results effected by means of legerdemain : the feats of Zitto, 
 sorcerer to Wenceslas, king of Bohemia (Godwin, Lives of 
 the .Xecromancers, p. 273), are exactly a counterpart of what 
 Tavemier saw at the court of the Great Mogul. The higher 
 order of magicians maintained their pretensions with diffi- 
 culty after the revival of letters. Yet the three most famous 
 of all belong to the commencement of that era : Doctor 
 Faustus (if that personage be not altogether traditional), 
 Cornelius Agrippa, and Paracelsus. It will, however, be 
 evident, to any one who reads their history, that the belief 
 in celestial magic was with difficulty maintained in their 
 days, while that in necromancy and witchcraft was becoming 
 more prevalent than ever. There is a good deal of mystery 
 about the character of the famous Dr. Dee ; and it docs not 
 appear distinctly how far he pretended to those powers 
 which are ascribed to him in that dreary work, entitled A 
 True Relation of what passed between Dr. Dee and some 
 Spirits, published by Meric Casaubon, in 1659. In 1634, the 
 French curate, Urbain G randier, was burnt for sorcery at 
 Loudun : in 1640, the pretender, Dr. Lamb, was murdered by 
 the London mob : and these are nearly the latest instances of 
 distinguished magicians, while the degraded belief in witch- 
 craft lasted much longer. As to natural magic, or the pro- 
 duction of singular phenomena by natural means, see Brews- 
 ter's Letters on ~Yat. Magic ; Quart. Rev., vols, xlviii., lit. 
 MAGIC LANTERN. An optical instrument, by means 
 of which small figures, painted with transparent vamish on 
 slides of glass, are represented on a wall or screen consider- 
 ably magnified. It is generally used as a toy, and affords 
 amusement from the grotesque character of the figures ; but 
 is also employed to enlarge the diagrams employed in as- 
 tronomical lectures, so as to be seen by an audience: for 
 which purpose it is well adapted, both by its portability and 
 the small cost of the whole apparatus. The principle of its 
 construction is very simple. A lamp L, with a powerful 
 Argand burner, is placed within a closed lantern, and in the 
 focus of a concave mirror M N. At the opposite side of the 
 lantern is fixed a tube A B, containing a hemispherical illu- 
 minating lens A, and a convex lens B ; and between A and 
 B is a slit C D, through which the sliders of painted glass 
 are introduced. In this manner the picture is placed in the 
 axis of the tube, and strongly illuminated, in consequence of 
 the li"ht being concentratedupou it by the mirror. The pic- 
 Uo* 
 
 C97
 
 MAGIC SaUARE. 
 
 ture being also in one of the conjugate foci of the lens B. an 
 enlarged image of it is formed upon u wall or screen E F at 
 
 1 
 
 16 
 
 11 
 
 6 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 10 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 U 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 5 
 
 2 
 
 15 
 
 some distance behind. The tube A B is made to pull out, 
 go that the distance of the lens B from the slider can be in- 
 creased or diminished at pleasure, and consequently an image 
 formed of any size within moderate limits:. The magic 
 lantern was invented by Athanasius Kircber. 
 
 MAGIC SQUARE. A term used to denote a series of 
 numbers in arithmetical progression, arranged in the equal 
 cells of a square in such a manner that the vertical, hori- 
 zontal, and diagonal columns give the same sum. For exam- 
 ple, let the first sixteen numbers be arranged as in the an- 
 nexed table, and a magic square will be 
 produced ; for the numbers in each verti- 
 cal column, in each horizontal column, 
 and in the two diagonal columns, being 
 added together, give the same sum, 
 namely, 34. This is, however, only one 
 of a great number of ways in which the 
 same numbers may be arranged so as to 
 fulfil the conditions. Frenicle (Divers 
 Ourrages, Paris, 1693) has shown that 
 there are 878 such arrangements. Emanuel Moscopolus, a 
 Greek author of the 14th or 15th century, is the first who is 
 known to have treated of magic squares, and to have given 
 rules for their construction. The principal authors who have 
 written on the subject are Stifels, Leibnitz, Bachet, Poignard, 
 Lahire, Ozanam, Franklin, &c. For the history of the sub- 
 ject, see .Muntucla, vol. i., p. 346, or Hutton's Dictionary ; 
 and for the methods of constructing them, Ozanam' s or Hut- 
 ton's Mathematical Recreations. 
 
 MAGILP. When linseed oil and mastic varnish are 
 Mixed together, they produce a gelatinous compound known 
 under the above name, and used by artists as a vehicle for 
 colours'. 
 
 MA'GILUS. A name given by Montfort to a genus of 
 Tubulibranchiate Gastropods in the system of Cuvier. chiefly 
 remarkable for the form, length, and' solidity of their shell. 
 The modifications of this dermal production are due in the 
 present instance, in great measure, to the accidental circum- 
 stances of the locality in which the growth of the individual 
 proceeds. The young JMagi/us commences its career in a 
 bed of lithophytous coral, and during the early and rapid 
 stages of its development, secretes its calcareous covering in 
 the ordinary form of a spiral univalve ; but soon the growth 
 of the surrounding madrepore surpasses its own, and it is 
 compelled to bring its oral and respiratory orifices, by the 
 most direct route, to the level of the surrounding coral. 
 While 'his change of place is being effected, the mollusk 
 continues to secrete fresh layers of shell coextensive with its 
 own advance, and to fill up the deserted part of the shell 
 with a solid deposit of a dense, semivitreous, and subtrans- 
 parent carbonate of lime, and finally produces an elongated, 
 Slightly wavy, tubular shell, with the apex sculptured in the 
 form of a spiral univalve, and the opposite end excavated 
 for a certain depth for the lodgment of the animal. The 
 tube is characterized by being longitudinally carinated. 
 
 MAGI'STEB (contracted Mistcror Mr.). An appellation 
 given, in the middle ages, to those persons who had attain- 
 ed some degree of literary or scientific eminence — in scientia 
 aliquft preserttm literaria. It wasequivalent to the modem 
 title of doctor. 
 
 MAGISTBR EQT'ITVM. An officer among the Romans 
 subordinate to the dictator, by whom he was usually elected. 
 See Dictator. 
 
 MA GISTERY. The old chemists generally applied this 
 term to precipitates produced by the dilution of certain solu- 
 tions with water: such as magistery of bismuth, which is an 
 Insoluble subnitrate, obtained by pouring nitrate of bismuth 
 into water. 
 
 MA'GISTRATE. (Lat.) A general designation of those 
 public officers to whom the executive power >>t the law is 
 committed, either wholly or in part. It is almost Imprac- 
 ticable to give any definition of this term so comprehensive 
 as to include within it all the offices, both in ancient and 
 modem times, to which this appellation has been given. 
 Under the various heads, the reader will find a notice of the 
 principal magistrates of all ages and mw • 
 
 U \<;MA. (Gr. naccw, I blend together.) A thick oint- 
 ment or confection. 
 
 MAGNET, NATURAL. 
 
 M V GNA t'HARTA. See Charta, Magna. 
 
 U \ (..\ V1T.S. In Hungary at this day, and formerly 
 also in Poland, the title of the noble ertate' in the national 
 representation. (See States.) The Hungarian magnates 
 are divided into greater and lesser ; certain high state offi- 
 cers belonging to the first class, the counts and barous of the 
 kingdom to the second. The title is of Latin derivation, 
 
 MAGNESIA. A white, tasteless, earthy euhstar.ee. 
 usually obtained by exposing its hydrated carbonate to a 
 red heat. Its specific gravity is 2-3. It is almost insoluble; 
 lint win d moistened and put upon turmeric paper it reddens 
 it : this sometimes depends upon a trace of lime. It is an 
 oxide of a brilliant white metal, which has been called mag- 
 nesium, and which may be obtained by healing chloride of 
 magnesium with potassium : they act intensely upon each 
 other, chloride of potassium is formed, and magnesium 
 separatee: it may be washed with water and dried. Heat- 
 ed to redness in the air, it burns with great brilliancy into 
 magnesia. 1*2 parts of the metal combining with 8 of oxygen 
 to form 'JO of magnesia. In commerce, pure magnesia is 
 generally distinguished by the term calcined magnesia ; and 
 the hj drated carbonate of magnesia, obtained by precipita- 
 ting a solution of sulphate of magnesia by carbonate of soda, 
 and washing and drying the precipitate, goes by the name 
 of magnesia, or magnesia alba. The chief use of magnesia 
 and its carbonate is in medicine. Sulphate of magnesia is 
 obtained by evaporating the residue of sea-water after the 
 common salt has been separated, or by adding sulphuric 
 acid to bittern and evaporating, so as to obtain the resulting 
 sulphate of magnesia. This salt is also obtained by the ac- 
 tion of dilute sulphuric acid on magnesian limestone, and it is 
 not uncommon in mineral waters : it was formerly procured 
 from certain springs near Epsom, in Surrey, and was hence 
 termed Epsom salt. It crystallizes m four-sided prisms 
 with dihedral summits. Its crystals are soluble in their 
 weight of water at 60°, and in three fourths their weight at 
 212*5. They melt when heated, and gradually lose their 
 water of crystallization. They consist of 20 magnesia, 40 
 sulphuric acid, and 63 water. This salt is a useful purga- 
 tive in medicine, and is the chief source of the other forms 
 of magnesia. All the magnesian salts have a peculiar bit- 
 terish flavour. Magnesia is found native in the state of 
 hydrate and carbonate ; it exists as a component part of 
 several minerals, and many of them are soft or soapy to the 
 touch. 
 
 MAGNE'SIAN LIMESTONE. An extensive series of 
 beds lying in geological position immediately above the coal 
 measures ; so called because the limestone, which is the 
 principal member of the series, contains magnesia. See 
 Geology. 
 
 MAGNESITE. Native magnesia. 
 
 MAGNESIUM. The metallic base of magnesia; which 
 
 MAGNETIC COMPASSES. See Compass. 
 
 MAGNETIC COMPENSATOR. A contrivance devised 
 by Mr. Barlow for eliminating the influence of a ship's guns 
 and other iron in deranging the bearings of the compass. It 
 consists of a plate or combination of plates of iron placed 
 near the binnacle, so as to counteract, by an equal and op- 
 posite attraction, that of the rest of the iron on board the 
 vessel. Mr. Airy (Phil. Trans., 1839) has investigated the 
 law of disturbance in the case of vessels built of iron, and 
 shown that the disturbing force consists of a very large force 
 of permanent magnetism in the rolled and hardened plates 
 employed in the construction of the vessel, and a very small 
 force of induced magnetism, which changes with the place 
 of the ship, or rather with the varying circumstances of ter- 
 restrial magnetism by which it is produced. Mr. Airy has 
 given a set of practical rules for correcting the disturbing 
 forces by means of two powerful magnets placed at right 
 angles to each other below the compass, and a box of small 
 iron chain, which is used instead of Barlow's correcting 
 plate. 
 
 MA'GNET, NATURAL. One of the numerous oxides 
 of iron : possessed, however, of properties peculiar to itself, 
 if we except the metals nickel and cobalt, which possi 9B it 
 also in a very' slight degree. The magnet consists chiefly of 
 two oxides, together with a small portion of quartz and 
 alumine. Its colour varies in different specimens, accord- 
 Ing to minute differences in the ratios of the two oxides, and 
 the nature of the foreign substances with which they are 
 found united : but it is usually of a dark-gray hue, and has 
 a dull metallic lustre. It is found in considerable masses in 
 the iron mines Of Sweden and Norway : in the Isle of Elba ; 
 in different parts of Arabia, China, Siam, and the Philippine 
 Islands. Small magnets are also occasionally, though rarely 
 met with among the iron ores of this country - . The proper- 
 lies are. 
 
 1. It attracts iron in all its states except the oxides. 
 
 2. If formed into a bar, and suspended freely by a hair, 
 or on a pivot passing through its centre, it will turn itself 
 round, and, after a few pendulous vibrations, settle into some
 
 MAGNETIC NEEDLE. 
 
 one position ; which it will retain if left undisturbed, or if 
 disturbed will, after a few similar vibrations, return to it 
 again as before. 
 
 3. By rubbing on a bar of steel it will give the bar the same 
 properties', and a bar of soft iron will, while contiguous to 
 it, even when not touched by it, obtain the same properties, 
 which, however, the iron does not, like the steel, retain upon 
 removal. 
 
 4. The position of rest is different at different places, and 
 different at the same place at distant periods of time. 
 
 A great number of amusing toys have been formed of this 
 substance, and the phenomena are often at first sight very 
 surprising ; but its application to the purposes of navigation 
 renders it one of the most important discoveries ever made. 
 The earlier navigators believed that it pointed always to the 
 north pole of the world ; and that, therefore, by means of it 
 they could always at once tell the direction of their meridian, 
 and consequently in what direction they were sailing. It 
 was hence called the loadstone, or leading stone. 
 
 The employment of the loadstone itself for the purposes 
 of navigation has long been laid aside ; as artificial magnets 
 can be constructed having a much greater intensity of direc- 
 tive power. See Magnetism. 
 
 MAGNETIC NEEDLE. An instrument suspended by 
 its centre, and magnetized, which shows the direction of the 
 resultant of the magnetic forces at the place of observation. 
 See Compass and Dipping Needle. 
 
 MAGNETIC PYRITES. Native black sulphuret of 
 iron ; it attracts the magnetic needle. 
 
 MA'GNETISM. The science which investigates the phe- 
 nomena presented by natural and artificial magnets, and the 
 laws by which they are connected. The following brief ex- 
 planation of it under both aspects will serve to render the 
 subject generally intelligible; but it is impossible to give 
 more than the essential phenomena and the general laws, 
 without descending to the detail of particular cases. For 
 farther information, reference may be made to the excellent 
 compendium of Dr. Roget, in the Library of Useful Knowl- 
 edge; to Mr. Barlow's Magnetic Attractions (2d ed.), and 
 Treatise on Magnetism in the Encyclopedia Metropolitana ; 
 Sir D. Brewster's Treatise, on Magnetism in the Encyc. 
 Britannica; Gilbert, De Magncte, 1600, folio; Robison's 
 Mechanical Philosophy ; Biot., Traite de Physique, torn. iii. ; 
 Pouillet, Elemcns de Physique; Becquerel, Traite d' Elec- 
 tricity et du Magnetisme ; and various papers in the Trans- 
 actions of the Royal Society of London and Edinburgh. To 
 the work of Dr. Roget we have been under great obligations 
 in drawing up the present abstract. 
 
 Phenomena of Magnetism. — Phenomenon 1. If a nicely 
 balanced piece of steel be suspended from its middle by a 
 piece of untwisted silk, or allowed to rest upon a pivot, free 
 to turn in all directions, both horizontally and vertically ; 
 and if it be then magnetized by any of the methods hereafter 
 described, it will turn itself into one particular position, and 
 if disturbed by any means it will return invariably to the 
 same as its position of repose. The horizontal angle which 
 it makes with the meridian is called its variation or its de- 
 clination, and the vertical angle which it makes with the 
 horizon its dip or inclination. 
 
 Phenomenon 2. Both these angles (dip and variation) 
 continually change at the same place of observation ; some- 
 times the latter very rapidly; the former, so far as has yet 
 been observed, very slowly at all places. Tints, about 1639, 
 at London, the needle pointed in the direction of the geo- 
 graphical meridian : before that time it had pointed east- 
 ward of it ; but from that time till about 1818 it had con- 
 tinually made an angle more and more westward, till it ar- 
 rived at a variation of 244°. Since then its motion has 
 again been retrograde, and it is now little more than 23A° 
 west. (See Compass.) The dip has also undergone similar 
 variations : at London, in 1773, it was 72° 19', and in 1830 it 
 was 69° 38'. 
 
 Phenomenon 3. The observation of navigators shows that 
 there is a curve line on the surface of the earth, at every 
 point of which the needle will take a horizontal position. 
 This is called the magnetic equator. It seems to cross the 
 geographical equator in four points; and its form and posi- 
 tion are also undergoing continual changes. M. Morlet and 
 M. Hansteen have investigated this subject with great care ; 
 and the former thinks it changes only its position, not its 
 form, which is contrary to what theory would lead us to 
 expect. 
 
 The lines at which the dip is the same number of degrees 
 are called magnetic parallels of that degree, or, more prop- 
 erly, lines of equal dip ; and the points at which the needle 
 takes a vertical position the poles, poles of convergency, or 
 more properly, poles of verticity. The points at which the 
 variation is any given number of degrees constitute lines on 
 the earth's surface, called lines of equal variation, or (after 
 Dr. Halley, who made a considerable number of observa- 
 tions on them) Halleyan lines ; and the vertical circle whose 
 plane coincides with the needle in its free position at any 
 
 MAGNETISM. 
 
 place is called, though improperly, the magnetic meridian 
 of that place. 
 
 Phenomenon 4. If the same needle, whether compelled 
 by its form, or by loading one end of it with a weight sliding 
 as an armature to keep a horizontal position, or free to take 
 its own proper dip at each place successively, be made to 
 vibrate by being drawn from its natural position, and then 
 liberated, it will perform its vibrations more rapidly in some 
 places than in others, and in the same place at different dis- 
 tant periods. Its places of most rapid horizontal vibration 
 are not to be considered as those at which the most rapid 
 vibrations of the freely suspended needle take place. Han- 
 steen has very laboriously investigated, from observations 
 made by himself and others, the curves where the horizon- 
 tal vibrations are the same ; and he thinks there are four 
 poles at which it is more rapid than at any points imme- 
 diately near them. But the rate of vibration of the free 
 needle has as yet been observed at very few places with 
 sufficient care to justify any general conclusion respecting 
 such poles of vibration. The velocity of vibration indicates 
 the variation of the intensity of the vibrating force, the 
 needle itself acting as a pendulum. 
 
 Phenomenon 5. The intensity itself varies at different 
 times of the day, and under all variations of temperature in 
 the surrounding medium, the place of observation being 
 the same. This was first observed more than a century 
 ago ; but its laws and circumstances have been only recently 
 investigated by Mr. Christie, and subsequently by M. KCipffer. 
 (See Phil. Trans., 1824 ; Jinnales de Chimie, 1826 ; and 
 Mr. Christie's Report on the Present State of our Knowledge 
 respecting Terrestrial Magnetism, in the Reports of the 
 British Association.) The variation also undergoes similar 
 changes, and it is believed the dip also ; but this has not 
 been well established by observation. 
 
 It is the opinion of Mr. Christie, Sir David Brewster, and 
 others, that the places on the earth where the temperature 
 is lowest are precisely those where the magnetic intensity 
 is the greatest, accordant with what Mr. Christie's experi- 
 ments on the influences of temperature would lead us to 
 expect; but till we have more certain knowledge of the 
 stale of magnetic intensity at those places, we cannot affirm 
 this to be the case, probably as it may seem to be. 
 
 In the following phenomena the place is supposed to be 
 chosen, and the dip, variation, and intensity to be fixed 
 thereby. It may be any place whatever on the surface of 
 the earth. We shall suppose it to be London (and there 
 is comparatively little variation of these elements in the 
 British Isles). The point of the needle which dips below 
 the horizon, and points to the westward of the meridian, is 
 called the north pole of the needle, and the elevated one the 
 south pole. When the horizontal needle is used, the same 
 terms apply, the end which varies westward being the 
 north pole, and the other the south pole. 
 
 Phenomenon 6. If either pole of a magnet be brought 
 near any small piece of soft unmagnetized iron, it will be 
 found to attract it. Iron filings, for instance, are immediate- 
 ly collected together when a magnet is placed among them ; 
 and they adhere to it when lifted up, and more especially 
 about the poles of the magnet, in thick clusters. About the 
 intermediate parts the number that adhere is much less 
 than nearer the ends ; and in every magnet there is a part 
 to wiiich the filings have no tendency to adhere at all. It 
 thus appears that the magnetic forces, whatever he their 
 nature, are situated near the extremities of the magnet ; but 
 it has been long questioned whether they be resident in two 
 isolated points, or diffused for considerable distances round 
 those points, but in a state of less intensity as they recede 
 from those centres. 
 
 Phenomenon, 7. When, instead of fragments of iron, we 
 substitute a rectangular or cylindrical bar of soft unmagnet- 
 ized iron, the magnet and the iron will be mutually attract- 
 ed towards each other. The best mode of exhibiting this 
 is to suspend them by threads of untwisted silk at the ap- 
 propriate distances, as the friction they would undergo in 
 sliding on a table is thus removed. It will be found that the 
 ends which are nearest to each other will tend to coalesce; 
 and that the other ends will tend to coalesce or recede, ac- 
 cording as the remote end of the iron happens to be situated 
 with respect to the body of the magnet. 
 
 If another iron body be brought near the former in this 
 state of the apparatus, the first iron will be found to be con- 
 verted into a temporary magnet also ; and, in like manner, 
 the second piece of iron may be proved to have become also 
 a temporary magnet ; and then the third, and so on. The 
 intensity of attraction and repulsion is, however, weaker hi 
 each in succession, till it at length becomes insensible. This 
 is prettily exhibited by attaching a key to a magnet, a nail 
 to the key, a smaller nail to that, a sewing needle to the 
 smaller nail, and so on, as long as there is sufficient magnetic 
 force developed to sustain the concatenation in a stute of sus- 
 pension. Some magnets will sustain a considerable weight ; 
 ohers, of course, are capable of exerting very little force. 
 ' 699
 
 MAGNETISM. 
 
 The iron is said to be converted into a magnet ; or, more 
 briefly, to be magnetized hij induction ; or, to use the French 
 term, to be magnetized Itij influence. 
 
 Phenomenon 8. It two magnets be suspended, as in the 
 last experiment, it will be found that the two north poles 
 repel each other, and the two south poles repel each other: 
 but the north i>ole of the one and the south pole of the other 
 mutually attract each other. They will, in consequence of 
 this mutual action upon each other, take positions 
 different from those which they would each take in the ab- 
 sence of each other. 
 
 Phenomenon 9. If the poles of the successive induced 
 magnets, spoken of in Phen. 8, be examined as to their na- 
 ture, by means of their action on the poles of a small mag- 
 netic needle, it will be found that each of them is a distinct 
 magnet, each consecutive pair of them having their dissimi- 
 lar poles in contact. This is known at once by observing 
 which end of the needle is attracted before the next piece of 
 iron is put on, and which after it is added, the needle being 
 applied near the untouched end of the iron. 
 
 If, moreover, the pieces of iron be laid on a table, and not 
 in contact, the same phenomena will be observed on the ap- 
 plication of the trial needle near their extremities. 
 
 When two or more magnets are employed to act by in- 
 fluence on the same piece of iron, the phenomena become 
 more complex, and the operation is called complex induction. 
 The phenomena are very curious and interesting. 
 
 Phenomenon 10. If the iron be removed it instantly 
 ceases to be magnetic, and may have its position reversed 
 with precisely the same effect as before, each phenomenon 
 taking place now at the end opposite to that where it was 
 exhibited before ; and this will be the case, however long 
 the apparatus has been allowed to remain in the position 
 spoken of. If, however, pieces of steel be employed, the 
 inductive influence is less than in the iron: while, instead 
 of losing its magnetism instantaneously, as the iron did, it 
 retains a portion of it, and becomes itself a permanent mag- 
 net There are indeed few, if any. pieces of iron and steel 
 in which the magnetic force is wholly lost or wholly retain- 
 ed upon removal; but we here speak of the sensible and 
 approximate circumstances of the phenomena. 
 
 Phenomenon 11. If a magnet be broken or any way sev- 
 ered, it is converted into two separate magnets ; the two ends 
 of the fragments at which the fracture was made being of 
 opposite kinds to the two ends of the whole bar respectively, 
 as if they had been but two magnets united by opposite poles. 
 
 Phenomenon 12, If two magnets be brought near each 
 other, their intensity of action on the vibrations of a needle 
 are affected according to the relative positions of the poles, 
 indicating not only that the direction of the quiescent state 
 of the needle is affected (Phen. 8), but that the intensity of 
 the magnetic force is also altered. This shows that the 
 magnetized bar itself is affected by the inductive power of 
 the other bar, as soft iron is. 
 
 Phenomenon 13. If a mass of soft iron be brought into 
 the vicinity of a magnetic needle, the needle will he gener- 
 ally deflected from its natural position in various degrees 
 and directions, according to the form and position of the 
 needle and the mass. When an iron sphere is employed, as 
 a cannon ball, the investigation of the order of the phenom- 
 ena becomes more simple and easy ; and it was by remark- 
 ins that in this case there was a certain plane in any point 
 of which the needle may be placed with respect to the 
 sphere where the needle would not be at all deflected, that 
 Mr. Barlow was led to prosecute his celebrated experiments 
 on this subject. Mr. Christie remarked that this plane was 
 the plane passing through the centre of the hall, perpendicu- 
 lar to the natural direction of the needle itself. 
 
 There are alvi lines on the iron sphere in which if the 
 needle is placed the deflection will be a given quantity. 
 
 The same phenomena, however, are exhibited, whatever 
 be the form of the mass. .Mr. Barlow experimented on a 
 gun 58 cwt., and found it so. He also found that the action 
 did not depend upon the mass itself, but upon the surface of 
 the mass; as the same effects were produced by a ten-inch 
 ball, a ten-inch shell, and a globe of sheet iron of III. same 
 diameter. If, however, the sheet iron was loss than 1-lOih 
 of an inch in thickness, the effects were diminished ; but 
 Up to that degree of thinness the] did not seem to vary, 
 while after they varied very rapidly, and soon became in 
 sensible. 
 
 Phenomenon 14. If disks of various metals be put into 
 rapid rotation, they will also deflect the magnetic needle 
 from its natural position. That this is not owing to vibration 
 or voracity produced in the air is rendered evident \i\ the 
 
 same effects takinc place in a more intense degree in vai no 
 than in the open air. The phenomenon Itself u 
 served by Arago in Prance ; but it has been chiefly investi- 
 gated in this country by Mi-~rs. Herschel, Babbage, Christie, 
 Harlow, Faraday, and Mams, t,, u hose memoirs on the 
 Subject, in the Philosophical Transactions, the reader is es- 
 pecially referred. 
 700 
 
 Phenomenon 15. Bars that have long stood in a vertical 
 position, as iron railings, ate, are found to have become 
 permanently magnetic A bar of soft iron, placed in the 
 natural direction of the magnetic needle, acquires temporary 
 
 magnetism; and if a bar of steel !"■ left there for a sufficient 
 
 time, it becomes a permanent magnet These facts show 
 that the earth itself is a great magnet, and converts the 
 others into magnets by induction. This was observed so far 
 back as the time of Dr. Gilbert; and it is remarkable that, 
 while his L'reat cotemporary Lord Bacon was prei 
 urging the new organon in philosophy, Gilbert was actually 
 putting it into the most careful practice. The doctrine of 
 terrestrial induction, as taught by Gilbert, is the doctrine of 
 tin- present hour, and with scarcely a single improvement in 
 the whole range of the theory. 
 
 The foregoing contain the most important phenomena of 
 magnetism which depend upon terrestrial influence merely : 
 those which depend upon electrical influence will be found 
 under the head Electro-magnetism. 
 
 Laics of Magnetic Action. — Law 1. The intensity of the 
 attractive force exercised by the north pole of one magnet 
 on the south pole of another, and its repulsive force on the 
 north pole of the second, varies inversely as the square of 
 the distance of those poles ; and the like occurs when we 
 consider the action of the south pole of the first magnet on 
 the north and south poles respectively of the other. The 
 same law, precisely, holds with respect to the attraction of a 
 corpuscle of unmagnetized iron. 
 
 This is the fundamental law of the science, and may be 
 considered as the source from which the others flow by 
 mathematical reasonintr. It has been determined with great 
 care by several philosophers, but especially Michel! and 
 Coulomb, by means of the torsion balance. Other laws 
 were, in the earlier state of the science, conjectured to ob- 
 tain ; as. for instance, Newton supposed the forces to vary 
 as the cubes of the distances, and some recent inquirers have 
 contended for the simple inverse of the distances; but New- 
 ton's opinion was founded upon insufficient experiments, 
 and that of the authors referred to upon an oversight in their 
 mode of estimating the intensity of the forces. Not the 
 slightest doubt, however, now remains upon the minds of 
 those who are competent to form an opinion of the truth of 
 the law stated above. 
 
 Law J. When the needle is very short in comparison 
 with the distance and length of the magnet, and has its cen- 
 tre fixed immoveably, but is otherwise at liberty to take any 
 directive position, it will so arrange itself that its line of 
 direction will be in the plane drawn through the two poles 
 of the magnet and its own (the needle's) centre of rotation ; 
 and the line of the needle's direction, being produced to 
 meet the magnetic line (or line drawn through the poles), 
 will divide the latter into segments estimated from the poles, 
 which are in the ratios of the cubes of the distances of the 
 poles from the centre of the needle. When the needle is 
 not small in comparison, as above, the law becomes more 
 complicated. 
 
 Law 3. If two magnetic needles be made to vibrate, the 
 intensities of their magnetic forces are as the squares of 
 their number of vibrations made in the same lime. This is 
 true, whatever be the planes in which they vibrate, so far 
 as the force is effective in that plane ; but for a direct com- 
 parison of the ratio of the intensities without further com- 
 putation, the vibrations of both needles must, in both cases, 
 be made in the same plane. The planes most commonly 
 used for vibration are — the horizontal plane; the plane 
 which has been called the magnetic meridian, or that verti- 
 cal plane which passes through the natural direction of the 
 needle at the place of observation ; and the vertical plane 
 at right angles to this. 
 
 Law 4. If the needle be allowed to move vertically in 
 a plane making any angle with the magnetic meridian, the 
 dip in that case is equal to the dip in the magnetic meridian 
 
 multiplied by the cosine of the inclination of the two planes ; 
 and if two planes be taken at right angles, in which the dip 
 is observed, the square of the cotangenl of the natural dip 
 
 at that place is equal to the sum of the squares of the CO- 
 
 tangents of the observed dips. 
 
 Law .">. The intensity of the horizontal force is equal to 
 the intensity of the n hole force multiplied by the cosine of 
 
 the dip. If. therefore, the same needle hi' used in all the 
 
 experiments, and observations be made to determine the dip 
 
 and horizontal intensity at several ditferent places, the rela- 
 tive intensities of the terrestrial magnetic force can be de- 
 duced from those observations by the three last laws for 
 each of the pla 
 
 The laws according to which magnetic force is influenced 
 by temperature have been chiefly investigated by Coulomb, 
 Kupfler, Barlow, and Christie. It appears, generally, that 
 
 betwi I'll the temperature of — 3°and-f 18T°of Fahrenheit, 
 
 the intensity of magnets decreases as the temperature In- 
 creases; ami that at temperatures above 100° a part of the 
 power of the magnet is permanently destroyed. The effects
 
 produced oft soft iron by changes of temperature appear to 
 be directly the reverse of those produced on magnets, an in- 
 crease of temperature causing an increase of magnetic force. 
 On the Formation of Artificial Magnets.— I. ff a steel bar 
 be held in the natural direction of the needle, and two or 
 three smart blows be given at the upper end with a hammer, 
 it will become a permanent magnet. 
 
 2. If the end of a steel bar be placed in contact with one 
 of the poles of a magnet, it will become permanently mag- 
 netic by induction. A better plan is to place the needle in a 
 line between the opposite poles of two magnets of equal in- 
 tensity. 
 
 3. Lay the bar flat on a table, and draw another magnet 
 (placed upright upon it) several times from one end to the 
 other, always the same way. Or take two magnets, and 
 lay them horizontally upon the bar to be impregnated, hav- 
 ing their dissimilar ends in contact over its middle ; and slide 
 each towards the end of the bar. This must be repeated 
 several times. Or, again, instead of laying them horizon- 
 tally, hold them in any angle of inclination (each in the 
 same angle, estimated from the perpendicular to the middle 
 of the bar), and draw them several times along towards the 
 ends, without varying their inclinations. 
 
 The above methods were those originally employed ; but 
 when the principles of magnetic induction came to be better 
 understood, more complicated but more effective processes 
 were invented, for the explanation of which reference must 
 be made to works expressly on the subject. (See Brew- 
 ster's Treatise on Magnetism.) Those more complicated 
 processes may be greatly simplified by the substitution of a 
 magnet in the form of a horse-shoe for the compound mag- 
 nets. If placed at once in the middle of the needle to be 
 magnetized, with the poles turned in a direction the reverse 
 of the poles intended to be given to the needle, and then 
 moved backwards and forwards along the surface of the 
 needle, taking care to pass over each half of it an equal 
 number of times, and repeating the same operation on the 
 other side, the needle is speedily and effectually rendered 
 magnetic. This is by far the simplest mode of magnetizing ; 
 and it may be considered as a method by induction, the in- 
 duction being accelerated by the friction. 
 
 On the subject of terrestrial magnetism, which at the 
 present time is occupying so much of the attention of scien- 
 tific men, reference may be made, in addition to the works 
 above cited, to the foilowing : Hansteen, Untersuchungen 
 iiber der Mngnetismus der Erde, 4to. Christiana, 1817 ; Bar- 
 low, Phil. Trans. 1833; Allgemeine Theorie des Magneli- 
 schen Vereins im Jahre, 1838, by Gauss and Weber, Leipzig, 
 1839 (a translation of which will be found in Taylor's Sci- 
 entific Memoirs) ; Intensitas Vis Magneticai Terreslris ad 
 Mensuram Absolutam revocata, Auctore E. F. Gauss, Got- 
 tingir, 1833; Major Sabine's Report to the Seventh Meeting 
 of the British Association, 1838 ; The Report of the Presi- 
 dent and Counsel of the Royal Society on the Objects of Sci- 
 entific Inquiry, 1840 ; and to an excellent popular abstract 
 of the present state of our knowledge on the subject in the 
 Quarterly Review for June, 1840. 
 
 MAGNETISM, ANIMAL. This pretended influence, or 
 agent, had its origin in Vienna about the year 1776, when a 
 person of the name of Anthony Mesmer published a thesis 
 Ore the Influence of the Planets on the Human Body. About 
 the same time a Jesuit, called Father Hehl, imagined that 
 by the help of a loadstone and certain steel plates rendered 
 magnetic he had cured several diseases; and being struck 
 with the analogy of Mesmer's views to his own, they enter- 
 ed into a kind of partnership as joint practitioners, and at- 
 tracted considerable notice ; so that, although they soon 
 quarrelled, their system of treatment had acquired some 
 notoriety and many powerful advocates. Hehl continued 
 to practise this new and occult science in Germany; and 
 Mesmer, in 1778, went to Paris, and in the course of a short 
 time performed such wonderful cures, and took care to have 
 them so satisfactorily attested, that his apartments were 
 daily thronged with patients of all ranks, and fees and repu- 
 tation poured in from all quarters. He here, however, un- 
 luckily associated himself with a M. d'Eslon, a medical 
 man, who being more skilful in the art of pleasing patients 
 than his master, contrived to gain the ascendancy, and so to 
 disgust Mesmer that he was induced to quit Paris for Spa; 
 where he soon contrived, under the pretence of initiating 
 others in the secrets of his trade, to raise about 14,000/., with 
 which he retired to his native place (Mersburg in Suabia), 
 and left magnetism and the magnetizers to their own re- 
 sources. 
 
 As the jargon of Mesmer has been revived in our own 
 days, it may be worth while to give his own definition of his 
 art, which is quite as intelligible as some of the later versions 
 of it which have recently appeared in London ; for, in this 
 " hotbed of quackery," Mesmerism, as it is called, has oc- 
 casionally taken root, and at one time, but for an accident, 
 which we shall presently notice, threatened to thrive ai >d 
 prosper. 
 
 MAGNETISM. 
 
 "Animal magnetism," says Mesmer, "is a fluid univer- 
 sally diffused ; it is the medium of a mutual influence be- 
 tween the heavenly bodies, the earth, and animated bodies ; 
 it is continuous, so as to leave no void ; its subtility admits 
 of no comparison ; it is capable of receiving, propagating, 
 communicating, all the impressions of motion ; it is suscepti- 
 ble of flux and of reflux. The animal body experiences the 
 effects of this agent ; by insinuating itself into the substance 
 of the nerves, it affects them immediately. There are ob- 
 served, particularly in the human body, properties analogous 
 to those of the magnet ; and in it are discerned poles equally 
 different and opposite. The action and the virtues of ani- 
 mal magnetism may be communicated from one body to 
 other bodies, animate and inanimate. This action takes 
 place at a remote distance, without the aid of any interme- 
 diate body ; it is increased and reflected by mirrors ; com- 
 municated, propagated, augmented, by sound ; its. virtues 
 may be accumulated, concentrated, transported. Although 
 this fluid is universal, all animal bodies are not equally sus- 
 ceptible of it; there are even some, though a very small 
 number, which have properties so opposite that their very 
 presence destroys all the effects of this fluid on other bod- 
 
 " Animal magnetism is capable of healing diseases of the 
 nerves immediately, and others mediately. It perfects the 
 action of medicines ; it excites and directs salutary crises in 
 such a manner that the physician may render himself mas- 
 ter of them ; by its means he knows the state of health of 
 each individual, and judges with certainty of the origin, the 
 nature, and the progress of the most complicated diseases ; 
 he prevents their increase, and succeeds in healing them, 
 without at any time exposing his patient to dangerous ef- 
 fects or troublesome consequences, whatever be the age, the 
 temperament, and the sex. In animal magnetism nature 
 presents a universal method of healing and preserving man- 
 kind." ' 
 
 Many of our readers have probably witnessed the silly 
 and disgraceful exhibitions in this line of practice which 
 have lately been tolerated in London, and are therefore) 
 aware of the means by which the magnetized are brought 
 under the " influence." It is always necessary that the 
 magnetizer himself should be charged with the fluid, and 
 that the magnctizees should be susceptible of its influence, 
 which, be it observed, all persons are not ; nor can all per- 
 sons be magnetizers : some want power, and others faith ; 
 in short, there must be a due share of folly or of imposture, 
 or both, on the one hand, and of credulity, cunning, or mor- 
 bid irritability on the other, and then all goes right. The 
 magnetizer, with his wand of office, performs certain antics 
 before the patient ; and the patient either falls asleep or into 
 a fit, or is dumb, or deaf, or garrulous and painfully sensi- 
 tive to sounds, as the case may be. But it is by no means 
 necessary that the doctor and the person magnetized should 
 see each other : a skilful artist, well charged, can magnetize 
 a fit subject in another room, house, street, or town ; and 
 can, moreover, tell by his own sensations to what extent the 
 influence is communicated, and how the persons receive it. 
 
 Mesmer availed himself of certain aids which our modern 
 practitioners have rejected ; such as boxes of steel bars, mag- 
 netized water, and musical instruments imbued with the 
 magnetic influence : he also frequently tied his customers 
 together, or made them link their thumbs, when several 
 were to be magnetized at once. When patients are in the 
 crisis, or under the full influence of the power, they can be 
 immediately roused out of it by certain looks, gestures, and 
 touches of the adept. 
 
 To ascertain how far the pretensions of the animal mag- 
 netizers were entitled to any attention or support, the French 
 government very properly appointed a committee of scien- 
 tific and unprejudiced persons to investigate its merits, among 
 whom were Bailly, Franklin, and Lavoisier ; and it is curi- 
 ous that their report, which was translated into English, and 
 published here in 1785, is not more often quoted. " This 
 pretended agent," say they, "is not magnetism ; for, on ex- 
 amining the grand reservoir of the fluid by a needle and 
 electrometer, neither magnetism nor electricity could be de- 
 tected. We tried it upon ourselves and others without ef- 
 fect ; and on blindfolding those who professed great suscep- 
 tibility of its influence, all its ordinary effects were produced 
 when nothing was done but when they imagined they were 
 magnetized ; while none of its effects were produced when 
 they were really magnetized but imagined nothing was done. 
 So also when brought under a magnetized tree; nothing 
 happened if they thought they were at a distance from it, 
 while they immediately went into violent convulsions when 
 they thought thev were near the tree, though really not so. 
 The effects, therefore," say the commissioners, " are purely 
 imaginary; and although'they have wrought some cures, 
 thev are not without danger, for the convulsions sometimes 
 spread among the feeble of body and mind, and especially 
 among women. And, finally, there are parts of the opera- 
 tions which may readily be turned to vicious purposes ; and,
 
 MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY. 
 
 In fact, immoral practices have already actually grown out 
 of them." 
 
 Some year* ago a great animal magnetizer arose in this 
 country, called Perkins, Who invented what lie called "me- 
 tallic tractors, for collecting, condensing, and applying ani- 
 mal magnetism :" but Dr. Falconer and Mr. uaygartb of 
 liatli soon put an end to his pretensions, by performing all 
 manner of cures and wonders with a pair of wooden trac- 
 tors; and as those rases were well attested, they proved, as 
 every person of common sense before knew, that all Per- 
 kins's results were imaginary or assumed, and 90 animal 
 magnetism fell into oblivion. Within the last rive years. 
 some lamentable attempts have t>een made to revive it in 
 London; not by quacks and impostors, but by regular prac- 
 titioners, and even by persons who enjoyed no inconsidera- 
 ble share of public respect and favour. They have unfor- 
 tunately reaped the hitter fruits of their credulity and folly ; 
 and the mania has again subsided, and will now probably 
 remain dormant. 
 
 MAGNETO-ELECTRICITY. Under the term Elec- 
 tro magnetism will be found the description of certain 
 magnetic phenomena produced by electricity. It has been 
 demonstrated by Faraday that electric phenomena may be 
 produced by magnetism, and to these the term maa-ncto-elec- 
 a tricitij has been applied. Let a 
 
 K l * Vfffnff{ r fffl Tifl — I S represent a hollow helix of copper- 
 wire covered by silk, the ends b c 
 of which are connected with a del- 
 icate galvanometer ; and N S a 
 powerful bar magnet, which can easily be thrust into and 
 withdrawn from the spiral or helix : it will then be found 
 that every time the magnet is pushed into the helix the gal- 
 vanometer is deflected in one direction, and each time it is 
 ■withdrawn it is deflected in the opposite direction. On re- 
 peatedly threading the helix with the magnet, the deflection 
 also takes place. Now, as the deflection of the galvanome- 
 ter can only be produced by the motion of electricity in the 
 helix, it is obvious that an electric current is produced each 
 time that the magnet moves through it: hence as, on the 
 one hand, electricity in motion produces magnetism ; so, 
 here, magnetism in "motion produces electricity. By caus- 
 ing the pole of a powerful magnet to revolve before a coil 
 of wire, or, what amounts to the same thing, if the coil be 
 made to revolve opposite to the pole of a magnet, an electric 
 current will be established in the coil, which may be made 
 sensible bv sparks, shocks, and chemical effects. 
 
 MA'GXETO'METER. An instrument for measuring 
 the intensity of terrestrial magnetism. The three elements 
 sought to be deduced from magnetic observations are, the 
 declination, the inclination or dip, and the absolute intensity, 
 together with the variations to which they are subject ; and 
 each of these elements requires for its determination a pe- 
 culiar apparatus. A detailed account of the construction 
 and various adjustments of the instruments made use of in 
 the magnetic observatories recently established, and of the 
 methods of olwerving, will he found in the Report of the 
 President and Council nf the Royal Society on the Objects of 
 Scientific Inquini in Physics and Meteorology, 1840. The 
 firs! accurate measurements of magnetic force were made 
 by Coulomb will] the torsion balance; but the more precise 
 method which is now generally adopted, and which depends 
 on the dynamical principle of observing the number of vi- 
 brations made by a needle in a given time, was proposed by- 
 Graham so long ago as 17. K *. 
 
 MAGNETOMO"TOR. (Eat. lit. magnet-mover.) A term 
 applied to a voltaic series of two or more large plates, which, 
 producing a great quantity of electricity of low tension, is 
 well adapted to the exhibition of electro-magnetic phenom- 
 ena. 
 
 MA'GNITUDE. (Eat.) Size, extent, quantity. This 
 term was originally employed to designate the space occu- 
 pied by any figure ; or. in other words, it was applied to ob- 
 jects strictly termed geometrical, and of three dimensions — 
 length, breadth, and thickness : then it was extended to des- 
 ignate the quantity of any one of these, and also of angular 
 space, or the inclination of two lines to one another ; or, 
 again, the compound idea of a solid angle formed by any 
 number of planes meeting in a point. The amount of any 
 one of these, taken in reference to some standard of the' 
 same kind of quantity as that spoken of, \\ as called Its mag 
 nitude. The term was gradually enlarged in its significa- 
 tion, so as to apply to every kind of quantity that admits of 
 exhibition or mensuration, or of which greater or less can 
 be predicated ; and in this sense it was used bv Euclid. 
 
 MAGNITUDE, APPARENT. The angular space (plane 
 or solid) \inder which a body appears when viewed from 
 some distant point. The term is chiefly used in speaking 
 of the celestial bodies, and is then employed to express tin- 
 plane angle subtended by the diameter of the \isiinl disk of 
 the body. It Is also used in many branches of optical s< i 
 cure, but always with the same general meaning. 
 MAGNOLIA'CEiE. (Magnolia, one of the genera.) A 
 702 
 
 MAINTENANCE. 
 
 natural order of Exogenous plants, consisting of trees or 
 shrubs of great beauty, usually with evergreen leaves, and 
 
 huge fragrant Bowers. They inhabit the temperate parts 
 
 of America and Asia. , -is well as the tropics, and are univer- 
 sal objects of cultivation. The bark of the tulip-tree, and 
 of some of the true magnolias, has the reputation of being a 
 good febrifuge. 
 
 M \ GPIE. A common species of the (Vow tribe, Corrvs 
 pica, of Linmrus; now the type of a distinct genus. Pica 
 caudata. They continue in pairs throughout the year, and 
 prey on a variety of food, chiefly animal, as the young of 
 hares, rabbits and feathered game, young poultry, eggs, car- 
 rion, and insects ; lastly, fruit and grain. The magpie is 
 celebrated for its crafty instincts, its power of imitating 
 wor.ls, and the propensity which it has, in common with 
 other species of the crow tribe, to purloin and secrete glit- 
 tering articles. The nest of the magpie is admirably con- 
 structed for strength and warmth, and is commonly defend- 
 ed by a dome. It lays six or seven eggs early in spring, of 
 a yellowish-white, spotted with brown, and cineritious. In 
 winter, magpies will assemble in great numbers to roost in 
 some coppice towards the evening, but separate again on the 
 approach of day. 
 
 MAHA'HARATA. The name of one of the great Indian 
 epic poems, the subject of which is a long civil war between 
 two dynasties of ancient India, the Kurus and Pandus. This 
 poem embraces the whole circle of Indian mythology ; but 
 it is still more valuable as imbodying an immense number 
 of historical fragments, which will be of great importance to 
 the future historian of India. Many episodes from the Ma- 
 habarata have been ably translated by some of our most 
 celebrated Orientalists; and parts of the original have been 
 published at different periods in Germany. The period at 
 which the .Mahabaratn was written is wholly unknown, and 
 it has no less baffled all the researches of the learned to dis- 
 cover tire date at which it assumed its present methodical 
 form. The Penny Cyclopedia contains an able analysis of 
 this poem. See Ramayana. 
 
 MA'HADO. A name of one of the Indian deities, from 
 whom the sacred Ganges is fabled to spring. He is incor- 
 rectly used in Goethe's well-known poem, JDcr Gott und die 
 Bajadere, which begins " Mahado, du Herr der Erde" (Lord 
 of Earth), as synonymous with Siva. 
 
 MAHOMETaNISM. See Mohammedanism. 
 
 MAI'A. In Grecian Mythology ; 1. The daughter of At- 
 las and Pleione, one of the Pleiads, who became mother of 
 Mercury by Jupiter : 2. A daughter of the god Faunus, and 
 wife of Vulcan ; frequently confounded by mythologists 
 with the former personage. 
 
 MAI'D/E. A family of crabs (Brachyurous Crustaceans), 
 of which the genus Maia is the type The form of the shell 
 is ovoid : the manus and the preceding joint are nearly of the 
 same length. The species called Maia sqvinado is occa- 
 sionally taken on our ow-n coasts, as well as those of France 
 and of the Mediterranean : it is commonly called the " sea 
 spider." 
 
 MAI'DEX. The name given in Scotland to a sharp-edged 
 instrument, formerly used for the beheading of criminals. 
 It resembles in its construction the guillotine of the French. 
 See Guillotine. 
 
 MAIDEN' HAIR. The .Idianium capi/lus veneris: a 
 fern found in many parts of Europe on damp, shaded rocks. 
 It formed an ingredient in the syrup of capillaire of old 
 pharmacy. 
 
 MAIL." (Fr. mnille.) A small piece of metal or money, 
 but used collectively to defensive armour, formed of iron 
 rings or round meshes. Sec Hauberk. 
 
 Mail signified originally the bag which contains letters 
 forwarded by government for the public convenience ; but 
 it was soon afterwards extended to the letters themselves, 
 and it is now used also for the conveyance in which they 
 are forwarded. See Postopfiok. 
 
 MAILS, or MALLLS. In Scottish Law. the rents of an 
 estate. (Silver halfjience, in England, were anciently called 
 mailes.J In the northern counties of England, and in Scot- 
 land, payments made by the occupiers or owners of lands to 
 persons in league w it 1 1 the various classes of freebooters who 
 Infested the country were termed b/ark mail. To take it 
 w as made a capital felony by stat. 4)1 Eliz., c. 13. 
 
 MAIM, or MAYHEM. In old English Jurisprudence, a 
 w 011 ml by which any one was so disabled as to he less fit to 
 defend himself in tight, and therefore distinguished from an 
 injury which merely disfigured. Appeal of mayhem was 
 abolished, with other criminal appeals, by 50 G. 3, c. 46. 
 Cutting and stabbing, "with intent to murder," and with in- 
 tent to maim or disfigure, are now distinct offences, under !) 
 G. 4, e. 31, s. 11 and 12. The latter w -as thereby made a 
 capital felony only in such cases in which, If death had en- 
 sued, it would have been murder. 
 
 M \l'N"IT.\A.\rE. in Law. is defined to be an officious 
 intermeddling in a suit that in no wax belongs to one, by 
 maintaining and assisting either party with money or other-
 
 MAINTENANCE, CAP OF. 
 
 Wise to prosecute or defend it. The punishment by common 
 law is fine and imprisonment, and by 30 H. 8, c. 9, a forfeit- 
 ure of ten pounds. 
 
 MAINTENANCE, CAP OF. A cap of dignity, ancient- 
 ly belonging to the rank of a duke ; termed by the French 
 bonnet ducal. The lord-mayor's fur cap is also called a cap 
 of maintenance. 
 
 MAIZE (Mais, the American name), a kind of corn ex- 
 tensively cultivated for food, is the grain of the plant named 
 by Linnaeus Zea mays. Like other corn, it is a species of 
 grass, whose albumen is sufficiently large and farinaceous 
 to be ground into flour. In this plant the grains are unusu- 
 ally large, compressed, and packed closely in regular paral- 
 lel lines along the sides of a receptacle many inches long. 
 In the young state each grain is tipped with a long, slender 
 style as fine as a thread of silk ; and many hundreds of such 
 styles being collected together from each receptacle, the 
 whole resemble a silken tassel hanging down from the ori- 
 fice of the sheathing leaves in which the inflorescence is en- 
 wrapped. When ripe, the corn is still covered by the sheath- 
 ing leaves, and is only to be discovered when the latter are 
 stripped back. The male or barren flowers grow in a loose 
 panicle at the end of the stem. There are many varieties 
 of maize ; some with stems seven or eight feet high, others 
 not exceeding the stature of two feet ; some requiring a long 
 summer to ripen their grain, others coming to perfection in a 
 couple of months. The colour of the grain is also variable ; 
 chocolate-coloured, red, crimson, yellow, white, and varie- 
 gated, are all known to the American planter. This kind of 
 corn is not grown exclusively for the sake of the ripe grain ; 
 the young female inflorescence, which is sweet and tender, 
 is boiled or cooked in other ways as a delicate vegetable, and 
 the young stems are occasionally given to cattle. Many at- 
 tempts have been made to cultivate maize in England as a 
 field crop, but without sviccess. It does not thrive north of 
 the basin of the Mediterranean, and requires a higher sum- 
 mer heat than we experience in these islands. 
 
 MA'JESTY. This title of honour is derived from the 
 Romans, among whom it stood for the collective power and 
 dignity of the sovereign body ; as majestas populi Romani. 
 Hence treason was termed crimen lasses majestatis, an injury 
 offered to majesty. Majesty was the attribute of consuls, 
 praetors, &c, only as representing the public ; and hence, in 
 later times, when it was transferred to the emperors along 
 with the sovereign power, inferior magistrates were entitled, 
 in ceremonial language, by the appellation of dignitas. Ma- 
 jesty is now the conventional title. of European emperors 
 and kings. (The Sultan of Turkey has no more elevated 
 title in our ceremonial than Highness.) It appears to have 
 been first assumed by the German emperors, who were con- 
 sidered as representing the imperial dignity of Rome ; then 
 by the French king Henry II. : in England, by Elizabeth. 
 The Emperor of Austria has the title Majesty, with the pre- 
 fix K. K. (Kaiserliche, Konigliche; i. e., Imperial, Royal). 
 
 Apostolical Majesty. — A title bestowed on Stephen, duke 
 of Hungary, about A.D. 1000, by Pope Sylvester II. Re- 
 conferred on the empress queen, Maria Theresa, in 1758. 
 
 Catholic Majesty. — A title bestowed on Ferdinand and 
 Isabella of Spain by Pope Alexander VI. in 1491, in mem- 
 ory of the conquest of the Moors: it had, however, been 
 borne by earlier Spanish monarchs. 
 
 Most Christian Majesty. — A title borne by the kings of 
 France ; first solemnly conferred on Louis XI., in 1469, by 
 Pope Paul II. 
 
 Most Faithful Majesty. — The title of the kings of Portu- 
 gal ; bestowed by Benedict XIV. on John V. 
 
 MA'JOR. In the art Military, a field-officer next in rank 
 above a captain, and immediately inferior to a lieutenant- 
 colonel. His chief duties consist in superintending the exer- 
 cises of his regiment or battalion, and of putting in execution 
 the commands of his superior officer. This class of field- 
 officers did not exist till the beginning of the 17th century. 
 The prices of a major's commission and his pay in the Brit- 
 ish army are as follow : In the regiments of the line, £3200/ ; 
 pay, 16s. per diem : in the dragoons, £4575 ; pay, 19s. 3d. per 
 diem : in the life and royal horse guards, £5350 ; pay, £1 4s. 
 5d. per diem : and in the foot guards (with the rank of col- 
 onel), .£8300 ; pay, £1. 3s. This appellation of major does 
 not exist either in the artillery or engineers. Brigade-major 
 is a staff-officer, who performs for a brigade, or in a garrison, 
 duties equivalent to those of a major in a regiment or bat- 
 talion. Major-general is an officer next in rank below a 
 lieutenant-general, whose functions he has to discharge in 
 the absence of his superior officer. 
 
 MAJOR AND MINOR. In Music, terms applied to im- 
 perfect concords differing from each other by a semitone 
 minor. They are used in the same sense when applied to 
 discords. 
 
 MAJORA'T- In modern legal phraseology, as employed 
 by several Continental nations, the right of succession to 
 property according to age. It is defined " a fidei-commissum 
 gradual, successive, perpetual, indivisible, made with a view 
 
 MALACOLOGY. 
 
 to preserve the name, arms, and dignity of a family, and 
 destined forever to the eldest member of it." In the German 
 empire and in Spain this species of entails is of great anti- 
 quity. See Mayorazgo. 
 
 Majorat, in the French Law, expresses the property, 
 landed or funded, which by virtue of several decrees of the 
 empire might be reserved by individuals enjoying hereditary 
 titles of honour, and attached to the title so as to descend 
 with it. The German and Spanish laws of majorat had no 
 exact equivalent in old France ; but a species of majorat 
 existed in the case of the Duches-Pairies, abolished at the 
 Revolution, with other feudal institutions. The general rule 
 of French law, that children succeed equally to their pa- 
 rents' property, is only modified by the regulations respect- 
 ing what is termed a " portion disponible." {Cod. Civil, art. 
 913, &c.) A person who leaves one child only can dispose, 
 by will or donation, of half his property ; one who leaves 
 two, one third, and so on : a person who dies without de- 
 scendants, but leaving " ascendants," one half or three 
 fourths, according to certain rules ; if he leaves only collat- 
 erals, he may dispose of the whole. 
 
 MA'JOR DOMO. (Lat. major domus, greater officer of 
 the house.) In the courts of those kingdoms which were 
 formed out of the fragments of the Western Empire, three 
 different offices seem to be designated by this title: 1. The 
 maitre d'hotel, or chief officer of the prince's table, prae- 
 fectus mensas, architriclinus, dapifer, &c. ; 2. The mayor of 
 the palace (asconomus, steward) ; 3. The first minister, pre- 
 fect of the palace, count of the palace, &c. Charles Martel 
 is termed major domus by some ancient historians. This 
 title became in later times confounded with that of senes- 
 chal. In Germany, under the Othos and the house of 
 Swabia, the dapifer was an officer of high rank, who bore, 
 among other duties, the standard of his sovereign. The 
 count palatine was dapifer of the empire : the Elector of Ba- 
 varia, arch-dapifer. In England he was a personage of less 
 distinction, and his subscription generally appears last 
 among the attesting witnesses to ancient charters. 
 
 MAJO'RITY. In Politics, the age at which the sover- 
 eign, in hereditary monarchies, becomes capable of exerci- 
 sing supreme authority. See Minority, Regent. 
 
 MA'JOR TERM, in Logic, is, in a syllogism, the predi- 
 cate of the conclusion. The major premise is that which 
 contains the major term. In hypothetical syllogisms, the 
 hypothetical premise is called the major. 
 
 MAJU'SCUL^E, or CAPITALES LITERS. In Diplo- 
 matics, capital letters. The Latin manuscripts of the classi- 
 cal age which we possess (those found at Pompeii, and a 
 few parchment MSS. of very early date) are written in cap- 
 ital letters. Few instruments or books of a later date than 
 the sixth century are in capital letters. 
 
 MA'LACHlTE. (Gr. tia\axn, the mallow flower; or 
 //aXafco?, soft ; hence, also, called velvet copper ore.) The 
 blue and green carbonate of copper. 
 
 MALA'CIA. (Gr. uaXaKiov, a ravenous fish.) A depra- 
 ved appetite. 
 
 MA'LACODERMS, Malacodermi. (Gr. uaXaicos, and 
 lepua, skin.) The name of a tribe of Serricorn beetles, in- 
 cluding those with a soft and flexible body. 
 
 MA'LACOLITE. (Gr. uaXaKo;.) A variety of augite 
 of a dark -green colour. 
 
 MALACO'LOGY. (Gr. uaXaKta, the Aristotelian name 
 of the Mollusca of the moderns ; and Xoyos, a discourse.) 
 The science of the Mollusks. (See that word for their gen- 
 eral characters.) Cuvier, the great reviver of this branch of 
 natural history, divides the Mollusks into six classes. 
 
 I. Cephalopoda.— Mantle in form of a sac, open anterior- 
 ly, containing the branchiae and abdominal viscera ; 
 head protruding from the mantle, well developed, 
 and crowned by fleshy productions, by means of 
 which they crawl and seize various objects. 
 n. Pteropoda.— Mantle closed; appendages of the head 
 either wanting or extremely reduced. The principal 
 organs of locomotion are two membranous fins, like 
 wings, situated on the sides of the neck. 
 
 III. Gastropoda.— These crawl by means of a fleshy disk 
 
 on their belly. The mouth is supported by a head. 
 
 IV. Acephala. — The mantle encloses the branchia? and vis- 
 
 cera ; the mouth opens within its cavity, and is not 
 supported by a distinct head. The mantle may be 
 open throughout its length, at both ends, or at one ex- 
 tremity only. 
 V. Brachiopoda.— These are also enclosed in a mantle 
 without an apparent head ; but have a pair of long, 
 fleshy, ciliated arms, which are spiral when re- 
 tracted. 
 VI. Cirrhopoda.— This class Cuvier defines as being similar 
 to the other Mollusks in the mantle, branchiae, &c. ; 
 but as differing from them in having numerous horny 
 and articulated limbs, and a nervous system more 
 nearly resembling that of the Articulata. 
 Since the early form and metamorphoses of the 
 703
 
 MALACOLOGY. 
 
 Cirrhopoda, or, more properly, Cirripedia. were 
 known, most zoologists have regarded them as mem- 
 bers Of the Articulate sub-kingdom. 
 The classification of the Molluscs has been much per- 
 fected b\ those zoologists Who have been attracted to the 
 Study oi' tli is department Of the animal kingdom by the 
 beautiful ami diversified coverings of the testaceous species. 
 Among these, Lamarck ranks deservedly the clue!'; and 
 his system Is still that which mainly guides the concholo- 
 gist in the arrangement of his shells. 
 The follow tog is the outline of the Lamarckian system: 
 In the system of Lamarck, the natural primary group of 
 animals, to which the science of malacology relates, consti- 
 tutes the llth and 12th classes of his Invertebrate. The 
 first of these classes, under the name of Conchifera, is equiv- 
 alent to the Testaceous .icephala and Brachiopoda of Cuvier ; 
 and these low-organized, headless Molluscs have their ex- 
 ternal shelly defensive covering rendered the more complete 
 by way of compensation for the slight development of the 
 nervous centres to Which the impressions of external ob- 
 jects are referred, and from which the acts of volition em- 
 anate. Instead of one shell, they are therefore provided 
 With, and generally completely covered by, two shells, 
 Which are technically called -valves;" and the Conchifera 
 of Lamarck thus include the Mollusks with bivalve shells. 
 These are divided into two orders, Dimyaria and Mono- 
 myaria. 
 
 Class I. Conchifera. 
 
 Order 1. Conchifera Dimyaria.— Char. : Two muscles of 
 attachment at least ; shell internally with two muscular 
 impressions, which are separate and lateral. 
 (1.) Shell regular, generally equivalve. 
 (A.) Shell gaping in general at the lateral extremities, its 
 valves being approximated. 
 (*) Crassipede Conchifers. — Mantle with its lobes united 
 anteriorly, either entirely or partially; foot thick : 
 gape of the shell wide. 
 Family 1. Tubicolidir. — Shell either contained in a tubu- 
 lar sheath distinct from its valves, or entirely or par- 
 tially incrusted in the wall of its sheath, or projecting 
 externally. {.■Ispirgillum, Clanagclla, Teredo, &c.) 
 Family 2. Pholadidat.—SheU without a tubular sheath, 
 either furnished with accessory pieces or gaping very 
 much anteriorly. [Pholas, Gastrochcena.) 
 Family 3. Solemida. — Shell without accessory pieces, and 
 gaping at the lateral extremities only ; ligament exter- 
 nal. (Solen, Panopaa, Glycymeris.) 
 Family 4. Myida. — The same characters of the shell, 
 with the ligament internal. (J\lya, .flnatina.) 
 (**) Tcnuipede Conchifers.— -Mantle with its lobes not uni- 
 ted, or hardly united anteriorly; foot small, com- 
 pressed; gaping of the shell often considerable. 
 Family 5. Mactrida. 
 
 a. Ligament internal only. {Mactra, Crassatella, Enj- 
 
 cina, Lutraria.) 
 
 b. Ligament partly internal, partly external. (Unguli- 
 
 na, Solemya, . hnphidesma.) 
 
 Family 6. Corbulidw. — Shell inequivalve ; ligament in- 
 ternal. (Corbula, Pandora.) 
 
 Family 7. Lithopagida. — Ligament partly external, part- 
 ly internal ; shells without accessory pieces or any par- 
 ticular sheath, more or less gaping at their anterior 
 side. (Saricara, Petricola, I'tnerupis.) 
 
 Family 8. Nymphido. — Two cardinal teeth at most in the 
 same valve ; shell often gaping a little at the lateral ex- 
 tremities; ligament external; nymphs in general ga- 
 ping outwards. [Sanguinolaria, Psammobia, Tcllina, 
 Corbis, Lucina, Donax, Capsa, Crassma.) See Con- 
 
 CHOl.OGY. 
 
 (B.) Shell closed at the lateral extremities when the 
 
 valves are shut. 
 
 (***) Lamellipede ' mirhifcrs. — Foot flattened, lamelliform, 
 not posterior. 
 Family 9. Conchida. — Three cardinal teeth at least in one 
 valve, with as many or less in the other; lateral teeth 
 sometimes. 
 
 1. Fluviatile Qmchidm. — Shell with lateral teeth, and 
 
 covered with a false epiderm. (Cyclas, Cyrena, Ga- 
 lalhea.) 
 
 2. .Marine Conrhidtr. — No lateral teeth in the greater 
 
 number; rarely an epidermis, which covers the 
 
 whole shell except the umbones. (Cyprina, Cythe- 
 
 : mis. I'm, ri, uritia.) 
 
 Family 10. Cardiida. — Cardinal teeth Irregular either in 
 their form or situation, and accompanied in general by 
 one or two lateral teeth. (Cardium, Cardita, / 
 fcc.) 
 
 Family 11. Arcida. — Cardinal teeth small, numerous, in- 
 trant, and disposed In each valve on a line, which is 
 
 either straight, or arched, or broken. (Oucullaa, jlrca, 
 I'ii luuculus, NuctUa, Trigvnia, and CasLa.Uu.) 
 7W 
 
 Family 12. A'aiida. — Fluviatile shells, whose hinge la 
 sometimes furnished With an irregular cardinal tooth, 
 which is simple or divided, and with a longitudinal 
 tooth, which is prolonged under the corslet; and some- 
 times without any tooth at all, or is furnished along its 
 length with irregular granulous tubercles. UtnboneS 
 with the epidermis peeled off, and frequently eroded. 
 (Onto, Hyria, Jlnodon, and Indina.) 
 
 Family 13. Chamida. — Shell irregular, inequivalve; a 
 single cardinal tooth, oblique and subcrenate, inserted 
 into a little pit in the opposite valve ; muscular im- 
 pressions distant, lateral ; external ligament depressed. 
 (Dicras, Chama, F.theria.) 
 Order 2. — Conchifera JMonomyaria. — Only one muscle of at- 
 tachment, which seems to traverse their body. 
 Shell with an internal subcentral muscular impres- 
 sion. 
 (*) Ligament marginal, elongated on the border, sublinear. 
 
 Family 14. Tridacnida;. — Shell transverse, equivalve, 
 with an elongated muscular impression bordering the 
 upper limb. (Tridacna, Hippopus.) 
 
 Family 15. Mytilido:. — Shell longitudinal or subtrans- 
 verse, with a muscular impression contracted into an 
 isolated space without bordering the limb ; hinge with 
 a subinternal ligament, which is marginal, linear, very 
 entire. (JMadiola, Mytilus, Pinna.) 
 
 Family 16. Mallcida. — Ligament sublinear, cither inter- 
 rupted by serial teeth or simple ; shell suhinequivalve, 
 foliated. (Crcnatula, Perna, Malleus, Avicula.) 
 (**) Ligament not marginal, contracted into a short space 
 under the umbones, and not forming a tendinous 
 tube under the shell. 
 
 Family 17. Pcctinida. — Shell regular, compact, not foli- 
 ated. (Pedum, Lima, Plagiostoma, Pectcn, Plicatula^ 
 Spondylus, Podopsis.) 
 
 Family 18. Ostreida. 
 
 a. Ligament partly external ; shell foliated, but never- 
 
 theless often acquiring great thickness. (Grypha:a, 
 Ostrea, Vulsella.) 
 
 b. Ligament internal ; shell delicate, papyraceous. 
 
 (Placuna, Jlnomia.) 
 (***) Ligament cither wanting or represented by a tendi- 
 nous chord which sustains the shell. 
 Family 19. Rudista. — Shell very inequivalve. (Sphmru- 
 lites, Radiolites, Calccola, Birostrites, Discina, Crania.) 
 Family 20. Brachiopoda. — Shell adherent, either immedi- 
 ately or by a tendinous chord; mantle bilobate, the 
 lobes separated anteriorly, enveloping the body ; two 
 opposed, elongated, fringed arms near the mouth, roll- 
 ed spirally when retracted. {Orbicula, Tcrcbratula, 
 Lingula.) 
 
 Class II. Mollusca. 
 
 Order 1. Pterapoda. — Char. : No foot for creeping, nor arms 
 for progress or seizing the prey ; two fins, opposed and 
 similar, proper for natation ; body free and floating ; some 
 naked ; others with thin, semitransparent, symmetrical 
 shell. (Hyaleea, Clio, Cleodora, Limacina, Cymbulia, 
 Pneumodermon. 
 Order 2. Gasteropoda. — Animals with a straight body, 
 never spiral, nor enveloped in a shell which can contain 
 the entire body ; a foot or muscular disk along the whole 
 length of the under part of the body, serving for creeping; 
 some naked ; others protected by a dorsal shell not im- 
 bedded ; and others containing a shell more or less hid- 
 den in their mantle. 
 Section 1. Ifydrobranchiata. — Branchiae, whatever be their 
 position, developed either in the form of a network, in 
 lamina-, in a pectinated form, or in a riband-like shape. 
 The Gastropods of this section breathe water only. 
 Family 21. Tritonida. — Branchia' external, placed above 
 the mantle, cither on the hack or on the sides, and nut 
 being in any particular cavity. [Glaiicus, F.olis, Tri- 
 tonia, Scylhra, Trt/n/s, Doris.) 
 Family 22. Phytlididtr. — Branchia' placed under the bor- 
 der of the mantle, and disposed in a longitudinal series 
 around the body, or on one side only, not being in any 
 particular cavity. (I'hylUdia, C/iitomllus, Chiton, Pa- 
 tella.) 
 Family 23. Semiphyllidida. — Branchia? placed under the 
 border of the mantle, and disposed in a longitudinal 
 scries on the right side of the body only. (Plcurobran- 
 r/ius. Umbrella.) 
 Family 24. — Calyptraida. — Branchia- placed in a particu- 
 lar cavity upon the hack, situated anteriorly near the 
 neck ; shell always external, and covering the soft 
 parts. [Parmophorus, Emarginu/a, Fissure/la, Pilo- 
 
 opsis, Cn/ii/ilrira. Crrpidula, Jlneulus.) 
 
 Family 25. BuUida. — Branchia placed in a particular 
 
 cavity towards the posterior part of the hack, and cov- 
 ered either by the mantle or by an opercular escutch- 
 eon. (Bulla, Jlplysia, Dolabclla.)
 
 MALACOLOGY. 
 
 Section 2. Pneumobranchiata. — Branch ia: creeping, in the 
 form of a vascular network, on the wall of a particular 
 cavity, the aperture of which is small, and can be con- 
 tracted or dilated at will. The Gastropods of this section 
 breathe nothing but air. 
 Family Limacidoe. (See Limax.) 
 
 Order 3. Trachelipoda. — Body spiral in its posterior part, 
 which is separated from the foot, and always lodged in a 
 shell ; the foot free, flattened, attached to tie lower base 
 of the neck or to the anterior part of ttie body, and serv- 
 ing for creeping ; shell equivalve and sheathing. 
 
 Section 1. Phytiphaga.— Trachelipods without a projecting 
 siphon, and respiring in general by means of a hole ; the 
 greater part phytiphngous, and furnished with jaws ; shell 
 with the aperture entire, having at its base neither dorsal 
 subascending notch nor canal. 
 
 (*) Breathing air only ; shell spirivalve, unarmed, not dis- 
 tinctly nacreous. 
 Family 26. Helicidas. 
 
 a. Four tentacles. {Helix, Bulimus, Achatina, &c.) 
 
 b. Two tentacles. {Auricula, Cyclostoma.) 
 
 Family 27. Limnmidm. — Amphibious ; living in the wa- 
 ter, but coming to the surface to breathe ; shell with a 
 sharp edge to the lip. (Planorbis, Physa, Limncea.) 
 (**) Breathing water only ; branchiae projecting in form of 
 filaments, laminae, or tufts in the branchial cavity; 
 shell often nacreous, and often also having protu- 
 berant parts on the surface. 
 (a.) Shell fluviatile, operculated, the left border of which 
 
 does not resemble a demi-partition. 
 Family 28. Me'anidm. — Shell with disunited borders. 
 
 (Melania, Melanopsis, Pirena.) 
 Family 29. Peristomidm. — Shell with united borders. 
 
 (Valvata, Paludina, Ampullarice.) 
 (b.j Shell fluviatile or marine, the left border resembling 
 
 a demi-partition. 
 Family 30. Neritidoe. — Navicella, Neritina (fluviatile), 
 
 Nerita, Natica (marine), 
 (c.) Shell marine, the left border not resembling a demi- 
 partition. 
 Family 31. Janthinidm. — Shell floating at the surface of 
 
 the water. (Janthina.) 
 Family 32. Macrostomidm. — Shell not floating, having the 
 aperture very wide ; no columella. (Sigaretus, Stoma- 
 tella, Haliotis.) 
 Family 33. Plicacida. — Aperture of shell not very wide ; 
 
 plaits on the columella. (Tornatella, Pyramidella.) 
 Family 34. Scalaridce. — Borders of the aperture united 
 circularly; no plaits on the columella. (Vermctus, 
 Scalarim, Delphinula.) 
 Family 35. TurbinidtE. — Borders of the aperture disuni- 
 ted. (Solarium, Kotella, Trochus, Monodonta, Turbo, 
 Planaxis, Phasianella, Turritella.) 
 Section 2. Zoophaga. — Trachelipods with a projecting si- 
 phon, and which only breathe water, which reaches the 
 branchiae by means of this siphon. These feed on animal 
 substances only, are marine, have no jaws, and are fur- 
 nished with a retractile proboscis. Shell spirivalve, 
 sheathing the soft parts, with an aperture which is either 
 canaliculated, or notched, or turned up at its base. 
 (a.) Shell with a canal more or less long at the base of 
 its aperture, and the right border of whose lip does 
 not change with age. 
 Famliy 36. Canalifera. 
 
 1. No constant process on the right lip of the shell. 
 
 (Cerithium, Pleurotoma, Turbinclla, Cancellaria, 
 Fasciolaria, Fusus, Pyrula.) 
 
 2. A constant process on the right lip in all the species. 
 a. No processes on the spire. (Struthiolaria.) 
 
 j3 Processes on the spire. (Rane/la, Murex, Triton.) 
 
 (b.) Shell with a canal more or less long at the base of its 
 aperture, and the right border of whose lip changes 
 its form with age, and has a sinus inferiorly. 
 
 Family 37. Mala— Wing shells. (Rostellari'a, Ptcroce- 
 ras, Strombus.) 
 
 (c.) Shell with a short canal ascending posteriorly, or 
 with an oblique notch at the base of its aperture, this 
 demicanal being directed towards the back. 
 
 Family 38. Purpurifera. 
 
 1. Canal ascending or recurved towards the back. 
 
 (Cassis, Cassidaria.) 
 
 2. An oblique notch directed backwards. (Purpura, 
 
 Ricinuta, Monoccras, Concholepas, Harpa, Dolium, 
 Buccinum, Eburna, Terebra.) 
 (d.) No canal at the base of the aperture, but a subdorsal 
 
 notch, and plaits on the columella. 
 Family 39. Columellidts. — Columbella, Mitra, Voluta, 
 
 Marginella, Volvaria. 
 (e.) Shell without a canal, but having the base of its ap- 
 erture notched or versant, and the whorls of its spire 
 large, compressed, and enrolled in such a manner that 
 the last whorl nearly entirely covers the others. 
 
 MALIC ACID. 
 
 Family 40. Convolutidw.—Ovula, Cypraa, Terebellum, 
 Ancillaria, Oliva, Conus. 
 Order 4. Cephalopoda. — Mantle in form of a sac, containing 
 the lower part of the body ; head projecting from the sac, 
 surrounded by arms, which are not articulated [but fur- 
 nished with suckers, and which environ the mouth ; two 
 sessile eyes ; two horny mandibles to the mouth ; three 
 hearts*] ; sexes separate. 
 Division 1. Polythalamous Ccphalopods.— Shell multilocu- 
 lar, enveloped completely or partially, and which is en- 
 closed in the posterior part of the animal, often with ad- 
 herence. 
 
 Family 41. Ortkoccratida>. — Shell straight, or nearly so, 
 with simple or not sinuous chambers. (Belemnites, 
 Orthoceros, JVodosaria, Hippurites, Conilites. 
 Family 42. Lituolitida. — Shell partially spiral ; last whorl 
 continued in a straight line. (Spirula, Spirulina, Litu- 
 ola.) 
 Family 43. Cristacida. — Shell semidiscoid ; spire eccen- 
 tric. (Rcnulina, Cristellaria, Orbiculina.) 
 Family 44. Spherulida. — Shell globulose, spheroidal, or 
 oval, with enveloping whorls or partitions united en 
 tunique. (Jililiola, Gyrogona, Mclonia.) 
 Family 45. Radiolididw. — Shell discoid, with a central 
 spire, and partitions radiating from the centre to the cir- 
 cumference. (Rotalia, Lenticulina, Placentula.) 
 Family 46. JVautilida. — Shell discoid, with a central spire, 
 and partitions which do not extend from the centre to 
 the circumference. (Discorbis, Siderolites, Polys to- 
 mella, Vorticialis, Nummulites, Nautilus.) 
 Family 47. Ammonitidw. — Shell multilocular, with cham- 
 bers sinuous at the edges. (Ammonites, Orbulites, Am- 
 monoceras, Turrilites, Baculites.) 
 
 [From regard being only had to the characters af- 
 forded by the shell, the Polythalamous Cephalopods 
 of Lamarck form the least natural of his groups. 
 Many of the genera, especially the microscopic species, 
 belong to a different primary division of the animal 
 kingdom ; and one genus, Gyrogona, to another king- 
 dom of nature, it being a fossil seed. The genera 
 Belemnites and Spirula, which are true Cephalopods, 
 have been removed to the higher-organized or Dibran- 
 chiate order of Cephalopods.] 
 Division 2. Monothalamous Cephalopods. — Shell unilocular, 
 entirely external, and enveloping the animal. 
 Family 48. Genus Argonauta. 
 Division 3. Sepiary Cephalopods. — No shell, either internal 
 or external ; a solid, free, cretaceous or horny body, con- 
 tained in the interior of the greater part of the animals. 
 Family 49. Genera Octopus, Loligopsis, Loligo, Sepia. 
 Order 5. Hcteropoda. — Body free, elongated, swimming hori- 
 zontally ; head distinct ; two eyes ; no arms surrounding 
 the head; no feet under the belly or under the throat for 
 creeping ; one or more fins without any regular order, and 
 not disposed by pairs. 
 
 Family 50. Genera Carinaria, Pterotrachea, Phylliroe. 
 Modifications of more or less importance in the classifica- 
 tion of the Mollusca have been proposed by Oken (Natur- 
 geschichte, Jena, 1816), Ferussac (1819), De Blainville (1814 
 and 1825), J. E. Gray (London Medical Repository, 1821), 
 Des Hayes, Rang, and others. For an account of the struc- 
 ture and growth of shells, see Conchology. 
 
 MALACOPTERY'GIANS, Malacopterygii. (Gr. na\a- 
 /coc, and TTTipv\, a wing.) The name of a division of the 
 class of fishes comprehending all those which, with an in- 
 ternal osseous skeleton, have the rays supporting the fins 
 soft, except the first ray of the dorsal and pectoral fins. 
 
 MALACO'STRACANS. (Gr. fiaXaKOi, oarpaKov, a shell.) 
 The name of a division of the class Crustaceans, including 
 those which are covered with a crust softer than the shell 
 of the Mollusks, but firmer than the covering of the Ento- 
 mostracans. (See that word.) The term Malacostraca was 
 first applied by Aristotle to the Crustacea of the moderns, 
 being used by him in a comparative sense, as contrasted with 
 the Ostracoderma, which are the modern Testacea. 
 
 MALyEIC ACID. An acid obtained by distilling malic 
 acid at a temperature of about 400°. When malic acid is 
 exposed for a longer time to a moderate heat, it becomes 
 modified into varamal&ic acid. 
 
 MALA'GMA. (Gr. naXaaactv, to soften.) A poultice. 
 MALA'RIA. (Ital.mal' aria, a bad air.) The exhalation 
 of marshy districts, which produces intermittent fevers. This 
 term has now become of general application ; but it was long 
 restricted to that district of Italy extending from Leghorn to 
 Terracina in one direction, and from the sea to the Apen- 
 nines in another. Even in the time of Horace, Rome was 
 deserted two months in the year, on account of the dangers 
 of the malaria. 
 MA'LIC ACID. (Lat. malum, an apple.) A peculiar 
 
 * The character! included within brackets apply only to the 24 division 
 of Lamarck's order. 
 
 705
 
 MALICE. 
 
 ncid contained in the juice of the apple and several other 
 fruits : it may be obtained also from the berries of the Sorbus 
 aucuparia. or mountain ash, and has hence been called surbic 
 acid. 
 
 MALICE (Lat. malitia), in the English Law, does not 
 necessarily bear the signification of particular ill I 
 towards an individual, imt is a tenia directly importing 
 wickedness in the commission of an act, and excluding B 
 just cause or excuse. (Sec Murder.) Malicious injur) to 
 properly is in some instances a felony, in others a misde- 
 meanour ; punishable, in some, on summary conviction : the 
 law respecting which is consolidated in one of the statutes 
 commonly called reel's Acts (7& 8G.4, c. 30). By sect. 25 
 of this act it is expressly declared that the word malice, in 
 relation to these injuries, bears its legal and not its popular 
 signification; it being there declared" that the act applies, 
 'whether the offence shall be committed from malice con- 
 ceived against the owner of the property, or otherwise." In 
 civil actions for injuries to which malice is essential, e.g., 
 slander, libel, &c, the question of tbe existence of malice is 
 one, in general, for the jury ; but, under certain circumstan- 
 ces, it may be implied by the court from the absence of rea- 
 sonable and probable cause, as in actions for malicious pros- 
 ecution. 
 
 MALLEABI'LITY. (Lat. malleus, a hammer.) The 
 property of being susceptible of extension under the blows of 
 a hammer. It is especially characteristic of some of the 
 metals, and in this quality gold exceeds all the others: com- 
 mon gold leaf is not more than a two hundred thousandth 
 part of an inch in thickness; five grams may be thus extend- 
 ed so as to cover a surface of more than 270 square inches. 
 See Ductility. 
 
 MA'LLECS. (Lat. a hammer.) One of the small hones 
 of the internal ear, attached to the membrana tympani, some- 
 what in shape resembling a hammer. 
 
 Malleis. A genus of Ostracean Bivalves, characterized 
 by having, in addition to the simple pit for the ligament, a 
 notch on the side of the ligament for the passage of a byssus. 
 The species of this genus are called " hammer-oysters." 
 Tin must noted is the Ostrea malleus of Linnaeus, which has 
 the cardinal region of the shell forming something like the 
 head of a hammer, of which the elongated valves, extending 
 transversely, represent the handle. It is a native of the 
 Indian archipelago, and still ranks among the number of 
 rare and high-priced shells. 
 
 MA'LLOYV (Lat. malva), is a weed common by hedge- 
 rows and waysides in Europe. It has mucilaginous proper- 
 ties, and has been employed in the preparation of emollient 
 poultices, in the same way as the marsh mallow. Its fruit 
 is a depressed disk, and is called by the country people 
 "cheeses" (Fr. Fromageon). 
 
 M V LLUM. The public assembly or meeting of the 
 people according to the usage of the old Teutonic nations. 
 Under the Cariovingian monarchs, the mallum appears to 
 have been summoned by the missus, or deputy of the sover- 
 eign. There is a separate mallum for every leading state 
 or kingdom which composed the empire ; and it was attend- 
 ed by the notables of all the various races of inhabitants 
 (Roman, Frankish, Gothic, &c), and in some instances by 
 the Bcabini or Echevins, who represented the communities 
 of the towns. 
 
 MALMSEY. A strong and fine-flavoured sweet wine, 
 made in Madeira of grapes which have been allowed to 
 shrivel upon the vine: it is of a deep golden hue. It con- 
 tains between lti and 17 per cent, of alcohol. 
 
 MALT, is used to designate grain which has hecome 
 sweet in consequence of incipient germination. Malt forms 
 the principal ingredient in the manufacture of beer, and is 
 not used for any other purpose. Three different kinds arc 
 employed : 1. Pale or amber malt, which yields the saccha- 
 rine or fermentable extract ; 2. Brown or blown malt, which 
 is not fermentable, but is used to impart flavour; 3. Roasted 
 or black, or as it is sometimes called, patent malt, which is 
 employed instead of burnt Miliar merely as a colouring mat- 
 ter. The process followed in the manufacture of malt is 
 very simple, and has been carried on for a very long period 
 
 nearly in the same manner in which it is conducted at pres- 
 ent. (See Thomson's Chemistry.) 
 
 The manufacture of malt has been carried on in England 
 to a L'reat extent from a very early period ; but it is singular 
 thai, notwithstanding the products obtained from it have a] 
 ways formed the principal beverage of the great bulk of the 
 people, the consumption of malt varied very little from tbe 
 beginning of the last century till within the last half dozen 
 years! This extraordinary result, so different from what 
 
 would have been a priori anticipated, i- BSCrlbable partly to 
 tbe increased duties laid on malt, but still more to il 
 
 Increase of those laid on beer, its principal product .No 
 doubt, however, it has been partly, also, occasioned by the 
 Change that has taken place in the mode of living by the in 
 
 traduction ami universal n->- of tea, coffee, and other articles 
 
 substituted in the place of beer. But the increase that has , 
 700 
 
 MAMMALIA. 
 
 taken place in the consumption of malt since the reduction 
 of the duty on it in 1822, and the repeal of the beer duty in 
 1830, seems to prove that the duties were at least quite as 
 instrumental in checking the consumption as 'the introduc- 
 tion of the articles alluded to. Hall was first made to con- 
 tribute to the public revenue in England in Ki'.iT. in Scotland 
 in 1713, and in Ireland in 17S,"). From the period at which 
 the duty was first levied on malt down to the present lime, 
 
 it has been subject to numerous changes, a succinct account 
 
 of which will he found in the Penny Oyclopadia. The pres- 
 ent duty on malt from barley is 2s. ~d. per bushel, and from 
 bere or bigg, 2s. The quantity of malt charged with duty 
 in the United Kingdom during the three years ending 1838, 
 averaged 418,148,81 1 bushels; and the revenue derived from 
 it averaged, in the same period, £5,282,972. 
 
 MALTHA. A mineralogical term applied to mineral 
 pitch; an inflammable bituminous product, probably derived 
 from the exsiccation of mineral tar. A cement containing 
 mineral pitch was used by the ancients for plastering their 
 walls, and was composed of pitch, wax, plaster, and grease. 
 Another sort, with which the Romans used to plaster the 
 interior of their aqueducts, was made- of lime incorporated 
 with melted pitch. The various bituminous pavements 
 which have lately come into use are similar combinations. 
 
 MALVA'CE.'E. (Malva, one of the genera.) A natural 
 order of mucilaginous Exogenous plants, with polypetak>US 
 flowers and monadelphous stamens. The species are herbs, 
 bushes, or trees, and are found all over the temperate and 
 tropical parts of the world, especially the latter. Their 
 flowers are in many cases large and handsome ; but the or- 
 der is chiefly interesting from the Qossypium, or true cotton 
 plant, forming a part of it. Another species is the marsh 
 mallow, or *1ltha*a officinalis ; and some yield a fibre fit for 
 manufacture into cordage. 
 
 MA'MELUKE. (Arabic, memalik, a slave.) A name 
 applied to the male slaves imported from Circassia into Egypt 
 by the master of that country. In the 13th century, when 
 the countries in the vicinity of Mount Caucasus were rav- 
 aged by Genghis Khan, Nojmedden, sultan of Egypt, pur- 
 chased several thousands of the natives of those regions, 
 especially Turks, and formed them into an armed body of 
 guards. These guards, or Mamelukes, in the sequel, seized 
 on all the power of the country, murdered the sultan Touran 
 Shah, A.D. 1258, and made Ibeg, one of their own number, 
 his successor. After that period the Mamelukes, whose 
 numbers were continually enriched by importations from 
 their own country, governed Egypt 263 years. (See Gibbon, 
 vol. xi.) This military sovereignty was destroyed by Selim 
 I., the Turkish sultan, who took Cairo in 1517. Neverthe- 
 less, the Mamelukes, under their 24 beys, continued for 200 
 years more to exercise a power scarcely interior to that of 
 the Turkish pachas, whom, in the 18th century, they re- 
 duced to mere ciphers in the government. Their power was 
 again considerably broken by the French invasion under 
 Bonaparte, to which they offered a determined opposition. 
 After the abandonment of Egypt by the French, the struggle 
 between the beys and the pachas was renewed : finally, in 
 1811, the present pacha, Mohammed Ali, having invited the 
 principal leaders of the Mamelukes to a banquet, slew 470 
 of them by treachery, and compelled the remainder to sub- 
 mission. 
 
 MA'MERTINE PRISONS. See Prisons. 
 
 MAMMA'LIA. (Lat. mamma, a teat.) The most highly 
 organized class of animals, at the head of the great scale 
 of organized nature. They possess mammary glands, and 
 suckle their young: the foetus is developed in the womb. 
 Their external distinguishing marks are, a covering of hair, 
 and teats or nipples; but to the manifestation of these two 
 characters there are a few exceptions. The principal ana- 
 tomical character is the condition of the longs, which are 
 suspended freely in a thoracic cavity, separated by a perfect 
 diaphragm from the abdomen. The entire tissue of the 
 lungs Is Occupied by extremely minute air cells, with highly 
 vascular parietcs, so that the air Inspired is rapidly decom- 
 posed, and breathing can be safely suspended only for a 
 short time. The whole mass of circulating blood is trans- 
 mitted to the lungs i>> the mechanism of a pulmonary auri- 
 cle and ventricle, equally perfect, and inferior only in power 
 
 to the systemic auricle and ventricle, which subsequently 
 
 propel the aBrated blood to the general system: the heart 
 consequently consists of four distinct cavities. 
 
 The upper jaw of the Mammalia is fixed ; the two rami 
 of the lower jaw conslsteach of a single bony piece, and are 
 articulated by n convex or flat condyle to the base of the 
 zygomatic process, and not the tympanic element of the tem- 
 poral hone. With a few exceptions, the jaws of the Mam- 
 malia are armed with teeth : these are arranged in a single 
 row. are lodged in sockets, sometimes by two or more fangs, 
 and are never anchylosed to the substance of the jaw. A 
 deciduous tooth is never succeeded by more than one cor- 
 responding tooth in the vertical direction. The tongue is 
 fleshy, well developed, with the apex more or less free.
 
 MAMMALIA. 
 
 The posterior openings of the nasal passages are protected 
 by the "soft palate," and the larynx, or opening of the wind- 
 pipe, by an "epiglottis." The alimentary canal varies with 
 the nature of the food, but the "ccecum coli" is usually 
 single. The rectum commonly terminates by a distinct aper- 
 ture behind the urinary and generative orifices. 
 
 The bodies of the vertebra; have their articular surfaces 
 more or less flattened, and always joined together by a series 
 of concentric ligaments with interposed glairy fluid. The 
 cervical vertebrae, with one or two exceptions, are seven in 
 number. The atlas is articulated by two surfaces to two 
 occipital condvles, developed from the ex-occipital elements. 
 With two exceptions, the coracoid bone appears as a small 
 process or appendage of the scapula. The sternum is nar- 
 row, and consists of a simple longitudinal series of bones. 
 
 The brain presents its highest state of development in the 
 Mammalia : it consists of a cerebrum, which is generally 
 more or less convoluted, a cerebellum with lateral lobes, and 
 a medulla oblongata with a distinct " tuber annulare." The 
 optic lobes are solid, divided by a transverse fissure, and 
 hence called " bigeminal bodies :" they are situated on the 
 upper part of the crura cerebri, and are generally concealed 
 by the overlapping posterior cerebral lobes. The rudiment 
 of the "corpus callosum," or great cerebral commissure, 
 first begins to be distinctly recognisable in the Implacental 
 Mammalia ; and in a state of normal development, or where 
 it bears a direct proportion to the size of the corpora striata 
 or hemispheres of the brain, it is peculiar to the Placental 
 Mammalia. 
 
 The eyes of the Mammalia are never complicated with a 
 pecten or marsupium, a choroid gland, or sclerotic bony 
 plates. 
 
 The organ of hearing acquires in the Mammalia a fully 
 developed cochlea with a " lamina spiralis :" there are three 
 distinct ossicles in the tympanum ; the drum, or membrana 
 tympani, is usually concave towards the meatus, which 
 generally commences with a more or less complicated ex- 
 ternal ear, supported by a distinct fibro-cartilage. 
 
 The Mammalia, without exception, bring forth their young 
 alive ; hence they were termed by Aristotle Zootoca. This 
 phenomenon is, however, by no means peculiar to the pres- 
 ent class ; but it was supposed that they differed from other 
 viviparous animals, as the viper, in the development of the 
 germ by means of a placenta. Such, however, is not the 
 case with the marsupial animals, and probably not with the 
 Monotremes; and as the absence of the placenta is associa- 
 ted with several important modifications of structure in the 
 species so developed, by which they approximate to the char- 
 acters of the oviparous classes, the class Mammalia may 
 be primarily divided into two great sub-classes, called Pla- 
 centalia and Implacentalia. 
 
 Before, however, the subdivisions of these groups are char- 
 acterized, it may be advantageous to trace the principal 
 
 steps by which the present views of the affinities and clas* 
 sification of the Mammalia have been acquired. 
 
 Aristotle, although he has left no evidence of a systematic 
 arrangement of the Mammalia in which the succession and 
 subordination of the orders and families are methodically 
 laid down, was nevertheless the first who indicated the 
 larger groups into which the Mammalia resolved themselves, 
 according to their natural affinities. 
 
 We may infer, e. g., from one part of the Historic, Ani- 
 malium, that the Zootoca would be divided, according to the 
 nature of their locomotive organs, into three sections: 1st, 
 Dipoda, or bipeds ; 2d, Tetrapoda, or quadrupeds ; and, 3d, 
 Apoda, or impeds. Man is cited as the type of the first, and 
 the whale tribe is included in the last of these primary 
 groups ; the second embraces all the rest of the class, which, 
 in common language, are called quadrupeds. These Aris- 
 totle subdivides into two great natural groups, according to 
 the modifications of the organs of touch. In the first, a part 
 of the digits is left free for the exercise of the tactile faculty, 
 the nail or claw being placed upon one side only : in the sec- 
 ond group the extremities of the digits are enclosed in hoofs. 
 
 The first of these subdivisions is acknowledged to be nat- 
 ural, and has been retained by modern mammalogists under 
 the name of. Unguiculata. The following families were 
 characterized in it by Aristotle: 1st, those which have the 
 front teeth trenchant, and the back teeth flattened, as the 
 Pithecoida. or apes, and the Dcrmaptera, or bats ; 2d, those 
 with acuminated, trenchant, or carnivorous teeth, which 
 Aristotle calls Karcharadonta ; 3d, the Rodent quadrupeds, 
 which are indicated by a negative dental character. With 
 respect to the hoofed or "ungulate" quadrupeds, Aristotle 
 points out subordinate groups, and characterizes them by 
 modifications of the feet. Thus, the 1st are the Polyschidce, 
 or multungulate quadrupeds, as the elephant; the 2d are 
 the Dischidce, or bisulcate quadrupeds, as the Ruminants and 
 hog ; the 3d are the AschidcE, or solidungulate quadrupeds, 
 as the horse and ass. From the imperfect mode in which 
 the zoological writings of the Stagyrite have been handed 
 down, we have not the means of knowing whether Aristotle 
 viewed any of the groups thus defined in their relation of 
 subordination to each other, or in the spirit of modem classi- 
 fication ; for although they agree in relative value with those 
 termed Classes, Orders, Families, Genera, yet Aristotle ap- 
 plies to each of them the same denomination, viz., genos, or 
 genus. 
 
 The honour of having formed an original scheme for the 
 classification of quadrupeds, in which the subordination of 
 characters and of groups is attended to, is due to our great 
 countryman Ray. From Aristotle to his time the classifica- 
 tion of the Mammalia received no improvement worthy of 
 notice. Ray's arrangement is given in a tabular form in 
 his Synopsis Silethodica Animalium Quadrupedum, and is 
 as follows : 
 
 A Table of Viciparous four-footed Animals. 
 Viviparous hairy animals or quadrupeds are, 
 Ungulate ; and these either 
 
 f Solidipedous, as the Horse, Ass, Zebra. 
 Bisulcate, which are 
 
 {Ruminants with horns, that are 
 f Persistent, as in the Ox, Sheep, Goat ; 
 or < or 
 [ Deciduous, as in the Stag. 
 Not Ruminants, as the Hog. 
 Quadrisulcate, as the Rhinoceros, Hippopotamus. 
 I. Unguiculate, whose feet are either 
 
 i Bifid, as in the Camel, or 
 ( Multifid, which are 
 
 (With digits adhering together, and covered with a common integument, so that the 
 extremities alone are visible at the margin of the foot, and are covered with obtuse 
 nails, as in the Elephant. 
 With digits in some measure distinct, and separable from each other, the nails being 
 f Depressed, as in Apes ; 
 
 1 or 
 
 [ Compressed, where the incisor teeth are 
 
 (Many, in which group all the animals are carnivorous and 
 rapacious, or at least insectivorous, or subsist on 
 insects, with vegetable matter. 
 The larger ones with the 
 
 .Muzzle short, and head rounded, as the 
 
 Feline tribe : or with the 
 Muzzle long, as the Canine tribe. 
 The smaller ones with a long, slender body, and 
 short extremities, as the Weasel or Ver- 
 mine* tribe. 
 Tico very large, of which tribe all the species are phytivorous, 
 as the Hare. 
 
 " The anomalous species," he afterwards observes, I tamandua, the bat, and the sloth. The first five of these 
 "among the viviparous quadrupeds, with a multifid foot, species agree with the canine and vermine genera in their 
 are the hedgehog, the armadillo, the mole, the shrew, the | elongatedmuzzle, but differ from them in the form and dis- 
 
 # Geaus Vermineum, from their wonulilse form. 
 
 707
 
 MAMMALIA. 
 
 i.m of the teeth; the tamandua, indeed, is altogether 
 destitute of tcetli : the remaining two anomalous species 
 have the muzzle shortened." 
 Linmrus defines the class Mammalia as follows: Heart 
 
 With two auricles and tWO ventricles; blood wiinn ; lungs 
 respiring reciprocally (pulniones respirantcs reciproce) ; jaws 
 Incumbent, covered* armed with teeth in most; penis in- 
 trans ; generation viviparous, lactiferous ; si mm, tongue, 
 nostrils, eyes, ears, tactile papilla; ; covering, hairs few in 
 tropical, very sparing in aquatic, mammals; support, four 
 feet, except In those which are entirely aquatic, in which 
 the posterior feet are hound together in the tin of the tail ; a 
 tail in most. 
 
 Linnajus, like Aristotle and Ray, founds his primary di- 
 visions of the class Mammalia on tiie locomotive organs; 
 hut his secondary divisions or orders are taken chiefly from 
 modifications of the dentary system. The following is the 
 scheme of his arrangement : 
 
 Mammalia. 
 
 C Front teeth, none in either jaw Brata. 
 
 Thumi&mfitiim < Front teeth, cutters 2, laniaries Glires. 
 
 t- ngU'C"""' \ Front teelh, cutleri 4, laniaries I Primato. 
 
 ' Front teeth, piercerf (6, 2, 10), laniaries 1 . . Fern. 
 Jf-n^nnip 5 Front teeth, in both upper and lower jaw . . Jidlitir. 
 vnguuut . J Front iceth, nooe j n t he upper jiw .... Puma. 
 
 Muticatl . Teeth variable Ccte. 
 
 (From the Systema Nature ed. 16, Holmiae, p. 24.) 
 
 On comparing the three preceding systems, it will be found 
 that the most important errors of arrangement have been 
 committed, not by Aristotle, but by the modern naturalists. 
 Both Ray and Linnaus have mistaken the character of the 
 horny parts enveloping the toes of the elephant, which do 
 not defend the upper part merely, as is the case with claws, 
 but embrace the under parts also, forming a complete case or 
 hoof. 
 
 With respect to Linna?us, however, it must be observed, 
 that although he has followed Ray in placing the elephant 
 in the unguiculate group of quadrupeds, he has not over- 
 looked the great natural divisions which the latter naturalist 
 adopted front Aristotle, as is evident from the table above 
 quoted. He erred, perhaps, in not giving names to those 
 primary divisions. 
 
 From the manner in which Linnajus has arranged his or- 
 ders in this table, it would seem that he had the circular 
 progression of affinities in view. The walrus among Bruta 
 connects the commencement of the chain with Cetc, which 
 forms the last link; but whether or not he had perceived 
 the affinity of F.Irphas to the Glires, and intended it as the 
 transitional genus to that order, as Cuvier has subsequently 
 shown, is less certain. 
 
 Pallas, in his great posthumous work, entitled Zoographia 
 Rosso-Asiatiea, has given the following outline of a Syste- 
 ma Mammalium : 
 
 Ordo I. Ferte,.— 1. Felis; 2. Canis; 3. Ursus; 4. Meles; 5. 
 Viverra ; 6. Mustela ; 7. Phoca. 
 II. Semifere.-*-l. Simia; 2. Lemur; 3. Didelphys; 4. 
 Vespertilio ; 5. Talpa ; 6. Sorex ; 7. Erinaceus. 
 
 III. Glires.— I. Hystrix ; 2. Castor ; 3. Lepus ; 4. Arc- 
 
 tomys; 5. Spalax; 6. Cricetus; 7. Mus; 8. Myo- 
 da; 0. Myoxus; 10. Dipus ; 11. Sciurus. 
 
 IV. Ruminantia. — 1. Camelus; 2. Moschus; 3. Cer- 
 
 vus; 4. ^Egoceros; 5. Bos; 6. Antilopes. 
 V. Anomalopoda. — 1. Equus; 2. Sus; 3. Rhinoceros; 
 
 4. Hippopotamus. 
 VI. Bellum. — 1. Elephas; 2. Rosmarus. 
 VII. Cetacea. — 1. Manntus; 2. Delphinus; 3. Physeter; 
 4. BaUena ; 5. Ceratodon. 
 We shall now proceed to the arrangement of the Mam- 
 malia proposed by Cuvier in the last edition of the Regno 
 Animal ; ami tins is the more interesting, as, in giving the 
 outline of this method, Cuvier develops the principles on 
 which his divisions are founded. 
 
 "The characters by which Mammalia difTer most essen- 
 tially one from another are derived from the organs of 
 touch, from which results their degree of dexteritj ; and 
 from the organs of mastication, which determine the nature 
 of their food ; and upon these very closely depends not only 
 everything whicb is connected with the digestive functions, 
 but a variety of other circumstances relative even to their 
 degrees of intelligence. 
 
 "The perfection of the organs of touch is estimated by the 
 number and mobility of the digits, ami the extent of which 
 they are enclosed in a claw or in a hoof. A hoof which 
 Completely encloses that part of the (licit u Inch touches the 
 ground precludes the exercise of it as an organ of touch or 
 I"' tension. The opposite extreme is where the nail, in the 
 form of ;i simple lamina, covers only one side of the end of 
 the digit, leaving the other side in posses-ion of all its deli- 
 cacj of tact 
 
 "The kind of food is indicated by the molar teeth, to the 
 form of which the articulation of the jaws Invariably cone 
 sponds. 
 
 708 
 
 "For cutting flesh, the molar teeth must be trenchant and 
 seriated ; and the jaws tilted together, SO as to move like the 
 blades of a pair of scissors, simply opening and closing in 
 the vertictil direction. 
 
 "For bruising grains and roots, the molar teeth must have 
 flattened crowns, and the jaws a horizontal motion: and 
 farther, that the grinding surface maybe always unequal, 
 like a millstone, the teeth must lie composed of BUbstances 
 of different degrees of density, and Consequently wearing 
 down in different proportions. 
 
 "The ungulate quadrupeds are all, of necessity, herbivo- 
 rous, or with Mat crowned molares, because the conforma- 
 tion of their feet does not permit them to seize living prej . 
 
 "The unguiculate animals are susceptible of more varie- 
 ty. They are not limited to one kind of food ; and. besides 
 the consequent variation in the form of their molares, they 
 differ materially from each other in the mobility and sensi- 
 bility of their digits. There is, moreover, a characteristic 
 which prodigiously influences their dexterity, and gives va- 
 riety to their modes of action : it is the faculty of opposing 
 a thumb to the other fingers, eo as to seize the smallest ob- 
 jects, which constitutes a lianil, properly so called. This 
 faculty is carried to its highest degree of perfection in man, 
 in whom the whole anterior extremity is free, and can be 
 exclusively employed in prehension. These different com- 
 binations, which strictly determine the nature of the sever- 
 al raammiferous animals, have formed the grounds for their 
 distribution into the following orders: 
 
 "Among the unguiculate animals, the first is man, who, 
 in addition to his peculiar privileges in every respect, is dis- 
 tinguished, zoologically, by possessing hands on the anterior 
 extremities alone, the posterior extremities being destined 
 to sustain him in an erect position. 
 
 "The order which comes nearest to man — that termed 
 Quadrumana — has hands on the four extremities. 
 
 "Another order, termed Carnivora, has not the thumb 
 free and opposable on the anterior extremities. 
 
 "These three orders possess, likewise, severally, the three 
 kinds of teeth; viz., molars, laniaries, and incisors. 
 
 "The quadrupeds of the fourth order, viz., the Rodentia, 
 have the digits differing little from those of the Carnivora ; 
 but they want the laniary teeth, and have the incisors of a 
 form and disposition altogether peculiar to themselves. 
 
 "To these succeed the animals whose digits now become 
 much cramped, being sunk deep in large, and, most com- 
 monly, crooked claws. They are farther defective in the 
 absence of incisor teeth ; some of them even want the loni- 
 aries, and others are altogether destitute of dentary organs. 
 We shall comprehend them under the term Edentata. 
 
 "This distribution of unguiculate animals would be per- 
 fect, and would form a very regular chain, if New-Holland 
 had not lately furnished us with a small collateral chain, 
 composed of the Marsupial animals, all the genera of which, 
 while they are connected by a general similarity of organi- 
 zation, at the same time correspond, in their dentition and 
 diet, some to the Carnivora, others to the Rodentia, and a 
 third tribe to the Edentata. 
 
 "The ungulate animals are less numerous, and present 
 fewer variations of form. 
 
 "The Ruminantia, by their cloven feet, their want of up- 
 per incisors, and their complicated stomach, form a very dis- 
 tinct order. 
 
 "All the other quadrupeds with hoofs might be united 
 into a single order, which I would call Pachydermata or 
 Jumrnta; the elephant excepted, which might form an 
 order of itself, having some remote affinities to the order 
 Rodentia. 
 
 "Last of all come the Mammalia which have no hinder 
 extremities, and whose ti>h like form and aquatic life would 
 induce us to form them into a separate class, if their econo- 
 my was not in every other respect the same as in the class 
 in which we shall leave them. They are the warm blood- 
 ed fishes of the ancients, or the Cetacea, which, combining 
 the powers of other Mammalia with the advantage of being 
 sustained upon the watery element, include the most gigan- 
 tic forms to be found In the whole animal creation." (Regne 
 minimal, 2d ed., p. 65.) 
 
 The proofs that the small collateral rhain of mammals 
 which New Holland has principally furnished form a dis- 
 tinct primary group in that class, have been successively es- 
 tablished in the memoirs by Mr. Owen on the Generation, 
 the Structure of the lirain, the Osteology, and the Classifi- 
 cation of the Marsupial Animals, and on the Mammary 
 Glands, the < >viim. and the Voting of the Ornithorhynchus, 
 published in the Philosophical and Zoological Transactions. 
 In the latest classifications of the Mammalia (Charles Lii- 
 cieu Bonaparte, Systema Vertebratorum ; Martin, History 
 of Mammalia), the binary division of the class Mammalia, 
 founded on the anatomical and physiological facts detailed 
 in those memoirs, has been adopted. 
 
 The fust of these divisions, which we have proposed to 
 call subclass Place.ntaua, includes the following orders:
 
 MAMMALOGY. 
 
 I. Bimana. — Ex. : Man. 
 II. Quadrumana. — Ex. : Ape, Monkey, Lemur. 
 
 III. Cheiroptera. — Ex. : Bat. 
 
 IV. Jnsectivora.—Ex. : Shrew, Mole, Hedgehog. 
 
 V. Carnivora.— Ex. : Dog, Civet, Cat, Weasel, Bear, Seal. 
 VI. Cetacea. — Ex. : Porpoise, Whale. 
 VII. PacJiyderma. — Ex. : Manatee, Hippopotamus, Ele- 
 phant, Hog, Horse. 
 VIII. Ruminantia.—iZx. : Camel, Deer, Antilope, Ox. 
 IX. Edentata.— Ex. : Sloth, Anteater, Manis, Armadillo. 
 
 X. Rodentia.— Ex. : Rat. Squirrel, Rabbit, Guinea-pig. 
 
 The second division, or the subclass Implacentalia, in- 
 cludes the orders, 
 XI. Marsupiata.-^Ex.: Wombat, Kangaroo, Opossum. 
 XII. Monotremata.— Ex. : Omithorhynchus. 
 
 Besides the modification introduced into the Cuvierian 
 system in the binary subdivision of the class, there are a few 
 minor differences in the above classification on which some 
 explanation is requisite. 
 
 From Pallas's great group of Semifcrw, the families of 
 which he conceived to be linked together by an uninterrupt- 
 ed series of affinities, the Simim and Opossums are removed, 
 in the Cuvierian system, to form the types of two distinct 
 orders : we conceive that the modification of the locomotive 
 system, by which the bat is enabled to fly, is as cogent an 
 argument for regarding it as the type of an order, as the 
 hinder hands are in the case of the ape and lemur. The 
 Insectivera, also, in their continuous dental series, com- 
 paratively feeble canines, and generally perfect clavicles, 
 seem to claim equivalency of rank with the remaining Car- 
 nassiers of the Cuvierian system, which will thus corre- 
 spond with the Fcrm of Pallas. From the seals, with their 
 largely developed brains, acuminated teeth, and rudimental 
 hind fins, the transition seems more natural to the piscivo- 
 rous Cetacea. The herbivorous Cetacea, for reasons given 
 at length in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society, 1838, 
 we propose to remove to the Pachyderma, between which 
 and the true Cetacea they unquestionably form transitional 
 links. No linear arrangement of the orders of a class can 
 ever express more than a part of their mutual affinities. If 
 we were to place them according to their natural relations, 
 the Quadrumana would occupy the centre of the class, 
 as from these the greatest number and variety of affinities 
 seem to radiate. Thus, the genus Galeopithccus leads to 
 the Cheiroptera, the Lemur to the Carnivora, the Loris to 
 the sloths among the Edentata ; while with the Rodentia 
 the Lemurs claim close alliance through the Cheiromys or 
 Aye-aye. The Insectivora closely approach one extreme 
 of the implacental group, while the Edentata join the 
 other. The Rodentia approach still more closely to the 
 marsupial wombat. The Rodentia, again, by the Capybara 
 and the extinct Toxodon, evidently merge into the Pachy- 
 derma ; and the Patagonian hare seems to lead them to the 
 small musk-deer among the Ruminantia. The Edentata 
 have lost in the mailed Glyptodon a transitional step to the 
 thick and tubercular-hided rhinoceros. The twofold affin- 
 ity of the Cetacea to the seals on the one hand, and to the 
 manatee and the hippopotamus on the other, has been al- 
 ready alluded to. 
 
 In this reticulate interweaving of affinities, under which 
 image the true relations of the Mammalia, as at present 
 known, can alone be impartially and faithfully expressed, 
 it will be observed that, as the series diverge from the 
 Quadrumana, they likewise descend ; so that the scheme 
 may be likened to a cone, of which Man is the culminating 
 point. 
 
 From different points at the base of this cone the connex- 
 ion may be traced with the inferior classes: the most di- 
 rect transition appears to be made by the Monotremes to the 
 class of Reptiles. The extinct Enaliosauria once formed a 
 transition, perhaps not less close, from the crocodiles to the 
 Cetacea. The Pterodactyles seem to have connected the 
 Cheiroptera with the flying ovipara. The Mammalia which 
 present the closest relations to birds are the marsupial Pe- 
 taurists and the arboreal Rodents ; but the hiatus is great. 
 Between mammals and fishes, the reptiles interpose at all 
 points ; the extinct Ichthyosaurus seems to have been the 
 transitional step from the Cetacea to the true fishes. 
 
 MAMMA'LOGY. (Lat. mamma, a teat; Gr. \oyoc, a 
 discourse.) The science of Mammals : the doctrine of their 
 organization, habits, properties, and classification. See Mam- 
 malia. 
 
 MA'MMIFERS, Mammifera. (Lat. mamma, a teat ; fe- 
 ro, I bear.) A term synonymous with Mammals, or Mam- 
 malia. 
 
 MAMMI'LLARY. (Lat. dim. mammilla.) In Geology, 
 a surface studded over with rounded projections. 
 
 MA'MMON (Syr.), used in scripture to signify either 
 riches, or the god thereof. By poetic license Milton makes 
 Mammon one of the fallen angels, and has portrayed his 
 character in some admirable lines, which are too well 
 known to be cited here. 
 
 a 
 
 MAMMOTH. 
 
 MAMMOTH. A word of Tartar origin, applied in Sibe- 
 ria to burrowing animals. It is commonly applied to an 
 extinct species of elephant (Elephas primigenius, Blum.). 
 The remains of this animal occur pretty frequently in the 
 newer tertiary deposits in England, the continent of Europe, 
 and Asia. In Siberia an entire animal has been discovered, 
 with the soft parts preserved in the frozen soil of the banks 
 of a Siberian river. The particulars of this remarkable dis- 
 covery are as follow: In 1799, a Tungusian, named Schu- 
 marhotf, who generally went to hunt and fish at the penin- 
 sula at Tamut, after the fishing season of the Lena was 
 over had constructed for his wife some cabins on the banks 
 of the lake Opcoul, and had embarked to seek along the 
 coasts for mammoth boms (tusks). One day he saw among 
 the blocks of ice a shapeless mass, but did not then discover 
 what it was. In 1800 he perceived that this object was more 
 disengaged from the ice, and that it had two projecting parts ; 
 and, towards the end of the summer of 1801, the entire side 
 of the animal and one of his tusks were quite free from ice. 
 The summer of 1802 was cold ; but in 1803, part of the 
 ice between the earth and the mammoth, for such was the 
 object, having melted more rapidly than the rest, the plane 
 of its support became inclined, and the enormous mass fell 
 by its own weight on the bank of sand. In March, 1804, 
 Schumarhoff came to his mammoth, and, having cut off the 
 tusks, exchanged them with a merchant for goods of the 
 value of fifty rubles. Adams gives the following account 
 of this remarkable occurrence. " Two years afterwards, or 
 the seventh after the discovery of the mammoth, I fortu- 
 nately traversed these distant and desert regions, and I con- 
 gratulate myself in being able to prove a fact which appears 
 so improbable. I found the mammoth still in the same 
 place, but altogether mutilated. The prejudices being dissi- 
 pated, because the Tungusian chief had recovered, there 
 was no obstacle to prevent approach to the carcass of the 
 mammoth ; the proprietor was content with his profit from 
 the tusks, and the Jalutski of the neighbourhood had cut off 
 the flesh, with which they fed their dogs during the scarcity. 
 Wild beasts, such as white bears, wolves, wolverines, and 
 foxes, also fed upon it, and the traces of their footsteps were 
 seen around. The skeleton, almost entirely cleared of its 
 flesh, remained whole, with the exception of one fore-leg, 
 the spine, from the head to the os coccygis, one scapula : the 
 bones of the other three extremities were still held together 
 by the ligaments and by parts of the skin. The head was 
 covered with a dry skin : one of the ears, well preserved, 
 was furnished with a tuft of hairs. All these parts have 
 necessarily been injured in transporting them a distance of 
 11,000 wersts (7330 miles) ; yet the eyes have been pre- 
 served, and the pupil of the eye can still be distinguished. 
 This mammoth was a male, with a long mane on the neck, 
 but without tail or proboscis." (The places of the insertion, 
 of the muscles of the proboscis are, it is asserted, visible on 
 the scull ; and it was probably devoured, as well as the end 
 of the tail.) " The skin, of which 1 possess three fourths, is 
 of a dark gray colour, covered with a reddish wool and black 
 hairs. The dampness of the spot where the animal had lain 
 so long had in some degree destroyed the hair. The entire 
 carcass, of which I collected the bones on the spot, is 4 
 archines (9 feet 4 inches) high, and 7 archines (16 feet 4 
 inches) long, from the point of the nose to the end of the 
 tail, without including the tusks, which are a toise and a 
 half (9 feet 6 inches), measuring along the curve: the dis- 
 tance from the base or root of the tusk to the point is 3 feet 
 7 inches in length ; the two together weighed 360 lbs. avoir- 
 dupois ; the head alone, until the tusks, weighs 11 poods and 
 a half (414 lbs. avoirdupois). The principal object of my 
 care was to separate the bones, to arrange them, and put 
 them up safely, which was done with particular attention. 
 I had the satisfaction to find the other scapula, which had 
 remained not far off. I next detached the skin of the side 
 on which the animal had lain, which was well preserved. 
 This skin was of such extraordinary weight, that ten per- 
 sons found great difficulty in transporting it to the shore. After 
 this I dug the ground in various places, to ascertain whether 
 any of its bones were buried, but principally to collect all the 
 hairs which the white bears had trod into the ground while 
 devouring the flesh. Although this was difficult, from the 
 want of proper instruments, I succeeded in collecting more 
 than a pood (36 pounds) of hair. In a few days the task 
 was completed, and I found myself in possession of a treas- 
 ure which amply recompensed me for the fatigues and dan- 
 gers of the journey, and the considerable expenses of the en- 
 terprise. The place where I found the mammoth is about 
 60 paces distant from the shore, and nearly a hundred paces 
 from the escarpment of the ice from which it had fallen. 
 The escarpment occupies exactly the middle between the 
 two points of the peninsula, and is three wersts long (two 
 miles) ; and, in the place where the mammoth was found, 
 this rock has a perpendicular elevation of 30 or 40 toises. 
 Its substance is a clear, pure ice ; it inclines towards the sea , 
 its top is covered with a layer of moss and friable earth, half
 
 MAN. 
 
 on archlne (14 inches) in thickness. During the heat of the 
 month of July, a part of this crust is melted, but the rest re- 
 mains frozen. Curiosity induced me to ascend two Other 
 hills at some distance from the sea: they were of the same 
 substance, and less covered with moss. In various places 
 were seen enormous pieces of wood of all kinds produced in 
 Siberia; and also mammoths' horns (tasks), in great num- 
 bers, appeared between the hollows of tile rocks: they all 
 were of astonishing freshness. How ail these things could 
 become collected is as CUliOUS as difficult to resolve. The 
 inhabitants of the coast call this kind of wood adaineina, 
 and distinguish it from the Boating pieces of wood which are 
 broughtdown by the large rivers lo the ocean, and collect in 
 masses on the shores of the Frozen Sea : the latter are called 
 a. I have seen, when the ice melts, large lumps of 
 earth detached from the hills mix wilh the water, and form 
 thick, muddy torrents, which roll slowly towards the sea. 
 The earth forms wedues which till up the spaces between the 
 blocks of ice. The escarpment of the ice was 35 to 40 toises 
 high ; and. according to the report of the Tungusians, the ani- 
 mal was, when they first saw it, seven toises below the surface 
 of the Ice, &c. On arriving with the mammoth at Boschaya, 
 our tirst care was to separate the remaining flesh and liga- 
 ments from the bones, which were then packed up. When 
 I arrived at Jakutsk I had the good fortune to repurchase 
 the tusks, and from thence expedited them to St. Petersburg. 
 This skeleton is now in the museum of the academy, and 
 the skin still remains attached to the head and feet." A part 
 of the skin, and some of the hair of this animal, were sent by 
 Mr. Adams to Sir Joseph Banks, who presented them to the 
 museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. The hair is en- 
 tirely separated from the skin, excepting in one very small 
 part, where it still remains attached. It consists of two 
 sorts — common hair and bristles ; that remaining fixed on 
 the skin is of the colour of the camel, an inch and a half 
 long, very thick set, and curled in locks ; it is interspersed 
 with a few bristles, about three inches long, of a dark reddish 
 colour. The skin, when first brought to the museum, was 
 offensive ; it is now quite dry and hard, and where most 
 compact is half an inch thick. Its colour is the dull black 
 of the living elephant's skin. 
 
 MAN. (Germ, mann ; probably from the Lat hnimanua 
 or mens.) Uf all living beings on the surface of this planet, 
 the first is man; who, in addition to his peculiar privileges 
 in every other respect, is distinguished zoologically by pos- 
 sessing a hand on the anterior extremities only, the posterior 
 or lower limbs being destined to sustain him in an erect pi >si- 
 tion. He is, however, naked, and without natural defen- 
 sive or destructive weapons. It is the modifications of the 
 bones and muscles of the lower extremities, and especially 
 of the feet, that constitute the most striking anatomical 
 characters of the human species ; but with these are associ- 
 ated many other characteristic conditions of the general 
 framework of the body, which, as they have been nowhere so 
 accurately, truly, and eloquently set forth as in the lectures 
 of Professor Green, we shall take the liberty to give in the 
 words of that philosophic anatomist and accomplished writer. 
 " In a comparison of the frame and capabilities of man with 
 those of the inferior animals, if we take the human frame as 
 the ideal standard of form, it will be found that all others 
 present so many declensions from the idea by exaggeration or 
 defect ; and it will be found from this survey that man is 
 unquestionably endowed with that structure, the perfection 
 of which is revealed in such a balanced relation of the parts 
 to a whole as may best fit it for a being exercising intelligent 
 choice, and destined for moral freedom. It is not, therefore, 
 an absolute perfection of the constituents singly, but the pro- 
 portional development of all, and their harmonious constitu- 
 tion to One, for which we contend — a constitution which im- 
 plies in a far higher degree than in any other animal a bal- 
 anced relation of the living powers and faculties, and which 
 requires, therefore, in man pre-eminently the endowment of 
 rational will as necessary for the control and adjustment of 
 the balance. Han has not the quick hearing of the timid 
 herbivorous animals; but it was not intended that he should 
 catch the sound of distant danger, and be governed by his 
 fears: he has not the piercing sight of the eagle, nor the 
 keen scent of the beast of prey ; but neither was man intend 
 ed to be the fellow of the tiger, or a denizen of the forest. 
 Hence the departure from the perfect proportion of man 
 which we observe in the inferior animals may be regarded 
 as deformities by exaggeration or defect, dependant upon a 
 preponderance of a part that necessitates a particular use, 
 or the absence of a part that deprives the animal of a power, 
 and in both instances alike abrogates that freedom for which 
 provision is made in the balanced relation of the constitu- 
 ents of the human fabric, which permits the free choice of 
 means, and the adaptation to any purpose determined by an 
 intelligent free-will. Dilate the head, and you have a 
 symptom <>f disease; protrude the jaws, you have a vora 
 cious animal; lengthen the ears, timidity is expressed; let 
 the nose project, and the animal is governed by its scent ; en- 
 710 
 
 large the belly, and you are reminded of the animal appe- 
 tites ; long arms may lit him for an inhabitant of the trees, 
 anil a lit companion for the ape ; and predominant length of 
 legs are infallibly associated with the habits of the wading 
 or leaping animals. In all, regarding man's form with refer- 
 ence to his destination as the ideal standard, the means be- 
 come ends; deformity prevails, and becomes the badge of 
 unintelligent slavery to the mere animal nature. 
 
 "This may be farther illustrated by a general and brief 
 comparison of the components of the skeleton in the verte- 
 brated animals with that of man. In considering the scull, 
 it will be found that man, of all animals, has the largest and 
 roundest cranium. From the ape to the fish the brain-case 
 decreases in capacity, in correspondence with a proportion- 
 ably diminishing development: but in the same ratio the 
 parts allotted to the senses, and the parts merely subserx lent 
 to the preparation of the food, increase in size. In looking 
 at the head of the horse and the dog, it will be readily observed 
 how much the cranium recedes and the jaws protrude ; but 
 in birds, reptiles, and fish, the proportions are so altered by 
 the diminution of the cranium that the whole head appears 
 almost to consist of the jaws : witness the mandibles of the 
 stork and pelican, and the enormous jaws of the crocodile 
 and shark. And we may add, that man is the only animal 
 that has a prominent chin. This distinguishing character of 
 the human scull, found in the proportion of the brain-case 
 to the jaws when compared with the same in the inferior 
 animals, the ingenious Camper devised the method of more 
 accurately determining by means of what has been called 
 the ' facial angle.' It consists in drawing one line from the 
 most prominent part of the forehead to the sockets of the 
 upper incisor teeth, and a second, which describes the 
 ground plane of the cranium, through the external meatus 
 of the ear and lower edge of the nose, and which, cutting 
 the first on the upper jaw, forms with it a determinate angle ; 
 and it is evident that this angle will be greater in proportion 
 to the development of the forehead and recession of the su- 
 perior maxilla, less or more acute in proportion to the projec- 
 tion of the upper jaw and recession of the forehead. Ac- 
 cording to this mode of relative admeasurement, it appears 
 that the facial angle in the European exceeds that in the 
 negro ; and it is worthy of notice that the Greek sculptors, 
 who were careful to mark strongly, or even exaggerate 
 those circumstances which peculiarly mark the human 
 character, have often exceeded the right angle in the ideal 
 anatomy of their deities, though at the same time with the 
 discriminative taste which prevented them from exceeding 
 the limit beyond which the form would have become a 
 symptom of disease. It follows, then, that the size of the 
 brain-case in man, proportionate to the development of the 
 brain, indicates the predominance of this organ over those 
 of the senses, which may be regarded as the measure of the 
 subserviency of the animal to the outward excitants, and 
 over the organs for the preparation of the food, the pre- 
 ponderance of which marks the subjugation of the creature 
 to the mere animal needs — that the predominant develop- 
 ment of the cranium, I say, is the mark, symbol, and condi- 
 tion of man's characteristic excellence, as pre-eminently 
 gifted with mind." 
 
 "If we compare the lower limbs of man with the hinder 
 extremities of quadrupeds, we find the peculiar character 
 and perfection of the former in their adaptation and appropri- 
 ation to maintain the balance of the body in the erect pos- 
 ture. In some, indeed, the hinder limbs are so formed as to 
 permit the creature to obtain for a time the free use of the 
 fore extremities ; but the endowment serves but to mark, as 
 in the monkey, that it was intended for a climbing animal, 
 and the extraordinary length and strength of the legs of the 
 kangaroo show only its aptitude to leap. And if, in birds, 
 the support of the body is effected by two legs, it leaves the 
 interior extremities free only for the purpose of aiding in, 
 and of executing, a different mode of locomotion. In man 
 alone the lower extremities, providing wholly the means of 
 support and progression, leave the upper limbs as instru- 
 ments, the use of which is entirely at the choice of the agent. 
 And, in aid of this purpose, we find in man the most perfect 
 upper extremity. From the ape to the fish the different com- 
 ponents diminish in number, development, and variety of mo- 
 tion. This is especially noliceablein thehand; which, incon- 
 sequence of the length of the fingers, the number of articu- 
 lations, and tin- multiplicity of their movements, especially in 
 i onsi qui ace "i the capability of opposing the thumb to the 
 fingers, becomes an instrument fitted for the most delicate and 
 \ Bried operations directed by the skill and intellect of man. 
 Compare, in this respect, this flexible and modifiable appara- 
 tus with the single digit of the extremity of the horse, on the 
 horny tip of which the weight of the animal (by an admira- 
 ble mechanism indeed) Is supported and carried; or with 
 the abortive hand of the whale, sufficiently like the human 
 to be so called, but retracted, enveloped in skin, and degen- 
 erated into a fin, that merely serves as an oar in propelling 
 the animal through the water. It might be said, perhaps,
 
 MAN. 
 
 that the hand of the monkey claims the praise of as great 
 perfection as that of man ; but the dwindled thumb marks 
 its imperfection for handling and for touch : and the anus 
 even of the anthropoeidorang-outan, lengthened to deformity, 
 irresistibly prove their use to be little else than for grasping 
 and climbing. 
 
 "In the contemplation of the human skeleton, its most 
 striking characteristic, however, and that which contradis- 
 tinguishes it from the bony fabric of all other animals, is its 
 adaptation to the erect position ; an attribute not only pecu- 
 liar to man, but without which his structure could not corre- 
 spond to his spiritual endowments, since it is at once the need 
 and symbol of a being raised above the servile condition of 
 the mere animal nature. 
 
 "Thus the scull is poised, with only a slight preponderance 
 anteriorly, -at the top of the vertebral column ; and a plumb- 
 line dropped from the point of its support falls through the 
 centre of gravity between the feet, which present the base 
 of support to the whole towering fabric. We remark, how- 
 ever, that the supporting parts do not range with this line. 
 
 " The spine is bent like an italic S : it recedes at the chest, 
 in order to give room to its cavity, and, at the same time, is 
 harmoniously inflected forwards at the loins and neck, in 
 order to facilitate its balance over the points of support ; and 
 it cannot be doubted that these curves contribute to the capa- 
 bility of bending and changing the position of the trunk, 
 without endangering the loss of balance. But the balance 
 of the body is also greatly aided by the breadth of the hu- 
 man pelvis, which, supplying a broad base of support, per- 
 mits the inclinations of the trunk without the necessity of 
 altering the position of the lower limbs. The lateral breadth 
 of the pelvis, however, throws the heads of the thigh bones, 
 upon which the weight of the body is transmitted, to some 
 distance on each side of the line that falls through the cen- 
 tre of gravity, and, in order to provide a compensating ad- 
 justment, the thigh bones are placed obliquely, inclining to- 
 wards each other; so that in the upright posture, with the 
 feet together, they touch at the knees, and the weight is then 
 received upon the heads of the leg bones or tibia, which 
 stand perpendicularly under the centre of gravity : and these, 
 again, are planted upon the arch of the foot or instep, on 
 which the whole weight of the body securely rests. Then, 
 in order to secure in the foot the requisite firmness in stand- 
 ing, we find that it is articulated with the leg at right angles, 
 so that both the heel and toes touch the ground ; and the 
 joint is placed nearer the posterior than the anterior part of 
 the foot, so as to increase the base of support in that direction 
 towards which the body tends most to fall : besides which, 
 the weight is here received on the inner side of the foot, 
 where it is most arched, thereby offering not only the ad- 
 vantage of a strong support, but one which is highly elastic, 
 yielding without injury in alighting upon the feet, and acting 
 as a spring in progression. Thus the majestic column of the 
 human form is raised and built up upon its pedestal ; and 
 the living pillar, readily maintaining its equipoise, bears 
 aloft its capital, while the upper limbs are left free to ad- 
 libitive motion. Thus the place of the head, as the cor- 
 poreal representative of that which perceives and wills ; the 
 disposition of the senses therein as the media of intelligence, 
 and of the organs of speech as the interpreters of thought ; 
 and the arrangement of the upper limbs as instruments of 
 volition, no longer subservient to mere animal needs — all 
 impress us with the conviction that even the skeleton can- 
 not be intelligible to us without admitting that the human 
 bodily frame was designed for the instrument and dwelling 
 of a being contradistinguished from, and elevated above, all 
 other animals — 
 
 A creature, who, not prone 
 
 And brute as other creatures, but endued 
 
 With sauctity of reason, mi^ht erect 
 
 His stature, and upri^h', with front serene, 
 
 Govern the rest, self knowiDg. 
 
 " Man alone is erect. It is to this posture that the body of 
 a man owes the character, impressed on the whole frame, of 
 its emancipation from subserviency to the mere animal needs, 
 and becomes expressive of mind and of free and intelligent 
 action It will be seen that the lower limbs, answering the 
 purposes of support and locomotion, have alone any obvious 
 or necessitated utility ; while the upper extremities are, in 
 consequence, left at liberty, as the ready and facile instru- 
 ments of his will. Hence, too, the senses are best freed from 
 their servitude to the bodily wants, and the countenance is 
 raised as the expressive exponent of thoughts and feelings, 
 which the mouth declares and interprets by words. And 
 thus, as the stem bears the corolla, the head is carried on 
 high as the most noble part of the frame which it surmounts ; 
 all the rest of the body seems as if intended to carry it ; and 
 when considered in its fitness for expression, it may be said 
 to be the representative of the whole man. 
 
 "If, principally connected with erect posture, the body is 
 admirable, and acquires its human character, we shall no 
 less find, in directing our attention to the organs of motion 
 
 in man, the aptitude and capabilities of a being designed for 
 intelligent freedom. We find in man the organic structure 
 adapted for the greatest variety of motion. It is true, in- 
 deed, that many of the Mammalia are so constituted as 
 greatly to excel man in particular kinds of locomotion ; but 
 we shall in vain look for the same combination and mastery 
 of his powers which the erect posture implies. The monkey 
 climbs and jumps with a facility truly extraordinary ; but it 
 is with difficulty, or only for a short time, that he raises him- 
 self into the erect position. Dogs, horses, deer, excel man 
 in swiftness ; but they cannot climb nor walk erect. The 
 otter, the beaver, and the seal swim well ; but it is their only 
 boast above creatures of their own kind. And whales, or 
 other cetaceous animals, though admirably adapted for 
 swimming, have no other means of locomotion. Man, on 
 the other hand, stands and walks erect ; rims, jumps, climbs, 
 swims. Man alone can so modify his frame that it is in his 
 power to waive the high privilege of the harmony and bal- 
 ance of his faculties ; and, by concentring his volition to any 
 one property or perfection, we have reason to believe that 
 he might equal or excel the beast most characterized by that 
 perfection — outrun the deer, outwrestle the bear, climb with 
 the monkey. In short, man has the most modifiable organs 
 of motion, and is most capable of subjugating them to his will, 
 and of rendering them the instruments of his varied purposes. 
 
 "The capability of varied motion in man depends greatly 
 upon the facility with which the different parts of the body, 
 especially the limbs, move at the same time in opposite di- 
 rections — a power which not only permits variety of move- 
 ment, and confers an aptitude of expressive action, but like- 
 wise gives pre-eminently a character of suppleness, ease, and 
 freedom to the total motion. But it is the equipoise of his 
 body, in connexion with the erect position, which gives the 
 unity to any totality of movement, and determines the atti- 
 tude or carriage necessary to preserve its balance. In order 
 to balance the body, whether at rest or in motion, it is neces- 
 sary that the man should exert an imcomparably greater 
 number of muscles than the inferior animals ; and for the 
 same reason, a far greater effort of his volition is required 
 for adjusting the proportional action of each, and for com- 
 bining and harmonizing the actions of all ; in short, of all 
 animals, man must be the master of his own body. 
 
 " It is farther deserving of notice, mat the inflections of 
 the trunk, the motions of the limbs, and the play of the sev- 
 eral joints, all tend to the circular and curvilineal in their 
 movements ; a circumstance which mainly tends to confer 
 on human motion the character of beauty. And it may be 
 safely affirmed that, under all the varieties of expressive 
 movement, the very structure and mechanism of the body 
 tend to reduce its motions to the form of the beautiful, or 
 resolve them into grace ; a fact of which we may convince 
 ourselves in watching the sinuous movements of the dance, 
 wherein, aided by the totality of motion in the dancer, they 
 present a harmony by continuity — a problem of grace which 
 is ever solving and ever beginning anew. 
 
 " Beauty of attitude and grace of carriage are, however, 
 intimately connected with the maintenance and equipoise 
 of the body. No attitude can be beautiful in which the idea 
 of rest is not conveyed by that permanence and security 
 which result from a perfectly felt balance. 'Grace of car- 
 riage requires not only a perfect freedom of motion, but also 
 a firmness of step, arising from a constant bearing of the 
 centre of gravity over the base of support.' {Arnott's Phys- 
 ics, p. 128.) It includes ease and security. And in both, 
 whether it be motion becoming fixed as attitudes, or atti- 
 tudes presenting themselves in the shaping flow of motion, 
 beauty and grace reveal themselves in self-command, and 
 in freedom made manifest by self-control. In short, look at 
 the body in any position or attitude, in any of the incidental 
 or casual forms arising out of the free and unconstrained 
 movements of man, healthy in frame and unshackled by 
 conventional usages, and the truth will force itself on your 
 conviction. Pass in review the ponderous strength of the 
 Hercules, the agile Mercury, the graceful ease of the Anti- 
 nous, the reclining Ilyssus, all the animated forms of the 
 frieze of the Parthenon — whatever Greek art has signalized 
 or modern genius realized ; witness the sports of children, 
 or go even to the wild denizens of the American forest, and 
 proof will no longer be needed that grace and beauty are 
 inherent in, not accidents of, the human body, as the fit in- 
 strument of human freedom and intelligence, and the trans- 
 lucent medium, as it were, of man's proper and spiritual 
 being." (Green's Vital Dynamics, 1840, p. 60.) 
 
 The main points of internal anatomy in which man dif- 
 fers from or excels the lower animals are the following: 
 First of all in the magnitude of the brain, which is rela- 
 tively greater than the spinal chord and nerves in him than 
 in any other animal. This superiority is chiefly due to the 
 great' development of the hemispheres of the cerebrum, 
 which are likewise characterized in man by the number 
 and depth of the convolutions, by which the cineritious and 
 vascular surface is augmented. The parts which are most 
 
 711
 
 MAX. 
 
 evidently superadded to the human brain are the posterior 
 lobes of the cerebrum, the corresponding horn of the lateral 
 ventricle, and the lesser hi] pocampus 
 
 Of the external senses, that of smell is the least developed ; 
 but both this ami the other organs are well balanced, and in 
 their organisation most delicate and perfect The two eyes 
 are directed forward ; and thus, though man does not see on 
 - at once, like many quadrupeds, there is more unity 
 in the result oi' his vision, and he can concentrate his atten- 
 tion more closely on the objects of his scrutiny. The exter- 
 nal ear. having little mobility or extent, does not increase 
 the intensity of sounds: notwithstanding which. Cuvierwell 
 remarks that man best distinguishes their intonation. So 
 also with respect to the organ of smell: though moat am 
 mals excel man in their power of scent for particular objects, 
 there are none, perhaps, which can distinguish so many 
 varieties of, or which are so uniformly affected by, unpleas- 
 ant odours. In the discrimination and delicacy of taste 
 man has unquestionably the advantage over tho lower ani- 
 mals; and in no species is the hand so framed, or the tactile 
 extremities of the digits so expanded, or endowed with such 
 an exquisitely sensitive and discriminative integument, as 
 in man. 
 
 "Man," says Cuvier, "has a particular pre-eminence in 
 his organs of voice: he is the only mammal that can articu- 
 late sounds; probably on account of the form of his mouth 
 and the great mobility of his lips. Hence results his most 
 valuable mode of communication ; for of all signs that can 
 be conveniently employed for the transmission of ideas, 
 varied sounds are those which can be perceived at the 
 greatest distance, and in most directions simultaneously." 
 
 The position of the heart, which rests obliquely on the 
 diaphragm, and on which depends the absence of the azy- 
 gos lobe of the right lung, and of the thoracic inferior cava — 
 both of which exist in most of the inferior Mammalia — 
 relates to man's erect position. 
 
 The alimentary organs of man indicate his natural desti- 
 nation for a mixed diet of animal and vegetable substances ; 
 but the prehensile faculty of his hands, and the intelligence 
 which governs its application, permitted the teeth to remain 
 of such forms and proportions as might simply serve to di- 
 vide and crush the food which the hands carry to the mouth. 
 Thus the canine teeth, though present and with crowns 
 shaped for piercins, do not exceed the adjoining teeth in 
 size, and no Interval in the dental series of one jaw is re- 
 quired to receive a produced tusk of the opposite jaw when 
 the mouth is closed : thus the dental series in man is not 
 only equable, but unbroken. The fore teeth are framed for 
 dividing;* the hack teeth have flat and tuberculate crowns 
 for bruising : the short and but moderately strong jaws 
 hardly admit of the mastication of herbage, or the devour- 
 ing of flesh that has not been previously prepared by cook- 
 ing. 
 
 The orsans of disestion conform with those of manduca- 
 tion ; the stomach is simple; the intestinal canal of mean 
 length ; the small intestines are provided witli numerous 
 transverse folds of the secreting and absorbing mucous 
 membrane, called rali-ultp conniventes: the large intestines 
 are well marked ; they commence by a short and wide 
 ca-cuin, provided with a long, slender, and vermiform ap- 
 pendage. 
 
 The period of gestation is nine months : in general there 
 is only one child at a birth; twins are born once in about 
 five hundred cases of parturition, and more than that num- 
 ber is extremely rare. The foetus of seven months is eleven 
 inches in length ; that of nine months, eighteen inches. 
 Those which are born prior to the seventh month usually 
 din. The first, or milk-teeth, begin to appear a few months 
 after birth, commencing u ith the incisors ; at two years the 
 entire deciduous series, twenty in number, is attained. 
 These an- shed successively from about the seventh year, 
 to be replaced by others. The eight deciduous incisors are 
 succeeded by eight permanent ones: the four deciduous 
 canines by four permanent ones; the eight deciduous mo- 
 lares by the eight bicuspides. of the twelve true or poste- 
 rior molars, which are permanent, there arc four — one on 
 
 each -ide of both jaws— that make their appearance a: four 
 
 years and a half; four more at nine years; Hie last four 
 being frequently not cut until the twentieth year. The 
 fcetus presents one fourth of the adult Btature " Inn born ; it 
 
 has attained one half of it at tun years and a hall, and 
 
 three fourths at nine or ten \ears. Between the seventeenth 
 and twenty-first yean the growth almost entirely ceases. 
 Man rarely exceeds six feet, and seldom remains undt r ii\ ■■. 
 
 Woman is ordinarily some inches slioiter. When the full 
 stature is attained the body generally begins to 
 
 bulk; fat is accumulated in the cellular tissue ; afterwards 
 the BoUds become rigid; the fat Is commonly absorbed ; the 
 before smoothly-filled Integument falls in wrinkles; and old 
 
 * The intermaxillary Ixidcs in which the inciion an developed, are an* 
 
 cb) lov-d to 'lie nii-uUarira at an early period oi -stal existence. 
 
 712 
 
 age arrives, with decrepitude, decay, and death. Man rarely 
 lives beyond a hundred years; and most of the species, 
 either from disease, accidents, or men ly old age, perisli be- 
 fore that term. 
 
 "The child," says Cuvier, "needs the assistance of its 
 mother much longer than her milk; whence results an edu- 
 cation intellectual as well as physical, and a durable mutual 
 
 attachment. From the long period of infantile weakness 
 results domestic subordination, and, consequently, the order 
 of society at large, as the young persons u Inch compose the 
 new families continue to preserve with their parents those 
 tender nlations to which they have been so long accus- 
 tomed. Tins disposition to mutual assistance multiplies to 
 
 an almost unlimited extent those advantages previously de- 
 rived by isolated man from his intelligence : it has assisted 
 him to tame or repulse other animals, to defend himself 
 from the effects of climate, and thus enabled him to cover 
 the earth with his species. Circumstances, more or less 
 favourable, have restrained the social condition within lim- 
 ited degrees, or have promoted its development. The glacial 
 climates of the north of both continents, and the Impenetra- 
 ble forests of America, are still inhabited by the savage 
 hunter or fisherman : the immense sandy or salt plains of 
 Central Asia and Africa are covered with a pastoral people 
 and innumerable herds: these half-civilized hordes assem- 
 ble at the call of every enthusiastic chief, and overrun the 
 cultivated countries that surround them, in which they 
 establish themselves hut to become enervated, and to be sub- 
 jected in their turn to the next invaders. This is the true 
 cause of that despotism which, in every age, has crushed 
 the industry called forth under the fine climate of Persia, 
 India, and China. Mild climates, soils naturally irrigated; 
 and rich in vegetables, are the natural cradles of agriculture 
 and civilization ; and when their position is such as to atford 
 shelter from the incursions of barbarians, talents of every 
 kind are mutually excited. Such were formerly (the first 
 in Europe) Greece and Italy; and such is at present nearly 
 all the happy portion of the earth's surface.' 
 
 The influences of climate, and of the different habits and 
 social conditions thence resulting, are associated with differ- 
 ences of form, stature, features, and colour of the skin ; 
 not greater, however, than the corresponding difference 
 which indicate varieties of a species in the lower Mamma- 
 lia : and, accordingly, naturalists have distinguished, and 
 have characterized with more or less success, different races 
 or varieties of man. As the races and varieties of the do- 
 mesticated quadrupeds, so also those of the human species, 
 blend imperceptibly with each other; and the absence of 
 well-defined boundaries depends not only on the gradual 
 subsidence and change of those physical causes which prob- 
 ably gave rise to the original varieties, but also to the fac- 
 ulty common to the individuals of different varieties of tho 
 same species to produce, by their union, individuals capable 
 of propagating the intermediate variety. Hence has arisen 
 the difficulty of defining the primary races of man, and the 
 discrepancy which exists in the conclusions of those natu- 
 ralists who have devoted the greatest attention to this im- 
 portant and most interesting branch of zoology. Cuvier 
 considers that three varieties are eminently distinct — the 
 white, or Caucasian ; the yellow, or Mongolian ; the black, 
 or . 'Ethiopian. 
 
 "The Caucasian," he observes, "to which we belong, isj 
 distinguished by the beauty of the oval which forms the 
 head ; and it is this one which has given rise to the most 
 civilized nations — to those which have generally held the 
 rest in subjection: it varies in complexion and in the colour 
 of the hair. 
 
 "The Monsolian is known by his projecting cheek-bones, 
 flat visage, narrow and oblique eyebrows, scanty beard, and 
 Olive complexion. Great empires have been established by 
 this rare m China and Japan, and its conquests have 90me- 
 times extended to this side of the Great Desert, but its civil- 
 ization has always remained stationary. 
 
 Tin Negro or .(Ethiopian race is confined to the south- 
 ward of the Atlas chain of mountains: its colour is black, 
 its hair crisped, the cranium is contracted, and the nose flat- 
 tened. The projecting muzzle and thick lips evidently ap- 
 proximate it to the apes: the hordes of which it is composed 
 have always continued barbarous." 
 
 To the three primary races characterized by Cuvier, Blu- 
 menbacb adds the Malayan and American races. Of the 
 Malays, however, Cuvier asks, "('an they be clearly dis- 
 tinguished from their neighbours on both sides, the Cauco 
 
 sian Indians and the Mongolian Chinese?" And with 
 regard to the Americans, he states, "They have no precise 
 or constant character which can entitle them to be consid- 
 ered as a particular race. Their copper-coloured complex- 
 ion is not sufficient Their general black hair and scanty 
 beard would induce us to approximate them to the Mongols, 
 
 ii their defined features, their nose as projecting as ours, 
 
 their lart'e and open eyes, did not oppose such a Iheorv, and 
 correspond tl ith the features of the European." Dr. fritch-
 
 MANATEE. 
 
 ard, however, considers that there are seven classes of na- 
 tions which may be separated from each other by strongly- 
 marked lines. 
 
 The first class corresponds with Cuvier's Caucasian va- 
 riety, but which Dr. Pritchard prefers to call Iranian. 
 
 The second, which he terms Turanian, is equivalent to 
 the Mongolian variety. 
 
 The third class are the native American races, excluding 
 the Esquimaux and some tribes which resemble them more 
 than the majority of inhabitants of the new world. 
 
 The fourth, class comprises only the Hottentot and Bush- 
 man races. 
 
 A fifth class includes the Negroes. 
 
 The sixth class consists of the Papuans, or woolly-haired 
 natives of Polynesia. 
 
 The seventh class includes the Alfourou and Australian 
 races. 
 
 A study of the resemblances and differences of human 
 speech in various regions and various ages has added much 
 and will contribute more to the true knowledge and defini- 
 tion of the primitive races of the human species. It has 
 already led to the establishment of the following families 
 of languages : The Semitic, to which belong the Hebrew, 
 Arabic, Chaldean, Syrian, Phoenician, and Ethiopian; the 
 Indo- European, which includes Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, 
 Latin, German, and Celtic ; the Monosyllabic languages, as 
 Chinese, Thibetan, Birman, Siamese ; the Polysynthctic 
 languages, a class including most of the American Indian 
 dialects. The combination of zoological, anatomical, and 
 glossological characters is still wanting to establish the 
 exact characters and limits of the human races. 
 
 MANATE'E. A herbivorous Cetacean, forming the type 
 of a distict genus, Manatus. See that word. 
 
 MANA'TUS. (Lat. manus, a hand.) The name given 
 by Cuvier to a genus of his herbivorous Cetaceans, including 
 the species usually called sea-cows. They have an oblong 
 body, terminated by a lengthened oval fin ; their grinders, 
 which are eight on each side of both jaws, have square 
 crowns marked by two transverse ridges. There are no 
 incisors or canines in the adult, but when very young there 
 are two very small pointed teeth in the intermaxillary bones, 
 which soon disappear. Vestiges of nails are visible on the 
 edge of their swimming paws, which they employ with 
 some address in carrying their young ; hence the comparison 
 of these organs with hands, and the name Manatee and 
 Manatus applied to the animal. There are two species of 
 Manatee in America, and one in Africa; they inhabit the 
 mouths of the great rivers, and browse on the herbage that 
 clothes the banks. 
 
 MANCHINEEL. (Mancinella, the Spanish name.) A 
 tree inhabiting the West India islands, and celebrated for 
 its poisonous qualities. It is asserted that to sleep beneath 
 its shade is to poison ; and that the land-crabs found in the 
 groves of manchineel become poisonous from feeding on its 
 seeds. Although there is doubtless much exaggeration in 
 these stories, no doubt exists of the deadly effects of man- 
 chineel juice when introduced into the system. 
 
 MANDA'MUS. In Law, a prerogative writ, in the form 
 of a command, issuing from the Court of King's Bench, di- 
 rected to any person, corporation, or inferior court of judica- 
 ture within the king's dominions, requiring them to perform 
 various duties. It is grounded on the suggestion of a party 
 injured by the acts or omissions of such persons or bodies ; 
 and lies, for instance, to compel the admission or restoration 
 of a party applying to an office or franchise which has been 
 illegally withheld, for the production of public papers, to 
 compel the holding of courts, &c. 
 
 MANDARI'N. The Portuguese term for a member 
 of the official order of nobility in China. Mandarins are 
 either civil or military : of the former there are nine classes, 
 of the latter five. Although the mandarins are inferior in 
 dignity to the higher class of nobility, whose dignity par- 
 takes of a personal character, they form the effective minis- 
 try and magistracy of the country. The Chinese equiva- 
 lent of mandarin is kouon, which signifies literally a public 
 character. 
 
 MA'NDIBLE, Mandibula. (Lat. mandibula, a jaw.) In 
 zoology, this term is applied to the lower jaw of mammals, 
 and to both jaws of birds (except by Illiger, who restricts its 
 appellation to the lower jaw in this class also). In insects 
 it is applied to the upper or anterior pair of jaws. 
 
 MANDI'BULATES, Mandibulata. (Lat. mandibula, a 
 jaw.) The name of a grand section of insects, including all 
 those which preserve their organs of mastication in their last 
 or perfect stage of metamorphosis. 
 
 MA'NDISC. The American name of the plant which is 
 otherwise called cassava, and which is most extensively cul- 
 tivated within the tropics of America for the sake of the 
 nutritive frecula contained in its stems. It is the Jatro- 
 pha manihot of botanists. The substance called tapioca is 
 one of its products. In its raw state the whole plant is 
 poisonous; but by the preparation and torrefaction of the 
 
 MANGANESE. 
 
 fsecula, the poisonous principle, which is volatile, is driven 
 off. 
 
 MA'NDRAKE, or MANDRAGORA. A herb of fabu- 
 lous character, concerning which there existed many singu- 
 lar superstitions. The herb mentioned in Genesis, ch. xxx., 
 which our translation renders mandrake, was, probably, 
 some flower or root to which common belief attached value 
 as a philter. The mandrake of modern as well as classical 
 superstition is a herb supposed to have a resemblance to the 
 shape of a man. Those who tear it from the ground are 
 obliged to do so with peculiar ceremonials (according to 
 some, dogs must be employed to do so, which die instantly 
 after) : shrieks and groans are heard to issue from it, which 
 have the power of injuring the unwary person who hears 
 them. Its favourite habitat was believed to be the ground 
 under a gallows on which a criminal was hanging. When 
 plucked, it was said to be useful in conjurations, for the 
 transformation of men or beasts ; and was also believed to 
 enable the possessor to acquire riches at play, and to dis- 
 cover hidden treasures. (Encyc. Metropol.) 
 
 MA'NDREL. (Fr. mandrin.) In Machinery, a revolv- 
 ing shank to which turners affix their work in the lathe. 
 
 MA'NDRILL. (Eng. man, and drill.) A baboon. The 
 name of the Catarrhine monkeys of the genus Papio, Cuv. 
 They are the largest, most brutal, and ferocious of the ba- 
 boons. The mandrill proper is the great blue-faced baboon 
 of our menageries — Simia mormon and maimon of Linna'us. 
 It is of a grayish-brown, inclining to olive above, with the 
 cheeks blue and furrowed. The nose in the adult male 
 becomes red, and even inclines to a fine scarlet at the end. 
 It is difficult, says Cuvier, to imagine a more hideous or ex- 
 traordinary animal. The male attains the size of a man, 
 and is a terror to the negroes of Guinea and the other parts 
 of Africa, of which this species is a native. 
 
 MANE'GE (Fr. from the Ital. maneggio), is used in Eng- 
 land to signify either the art of horsemanship or of training 
 horses. 
 
 MA'NES. A word of uncertain etymology, applied gen- 
 erally by the Romans to souls separated from the dead. 
 There is some obscurity, however, about the precise mean- 
 ing of this term. According to Apuleius, the Manes were 
 originally called Lemures, and consisted of two classes — the 
 Lares and the Larvae ; the former of whom were the souls 
 of those who had led virtuous lives, and the latter of those 
 who had lived improperly ; and, at a later period, the term 
 Manes came to be a general designation for both. On the 
 other hand, St. Augustin maintains that Manes was, from 
 the first, a term applied to the spirits of deceased men when 
 no definite opinion could be formed of their merits : " Animas 
 hominum dsmones esse, et ex hominibus fieri Lares, si 
 meriti boni sint ; Lemures sive Larvas, si mali ; manes autem 
 cum incertum est bonorum eos, sive malorum esse rnerito- 
 rum." In the month of February, annually, the Manes 
 were propitiated at their sepulchres during twelve days. It 
 was the duty of the pontifex maximus to see that proper 
 ceremonies were observed. The stones in the Roman burial- 
 places, and their funeral urns, were generally inscribed with 
 the letters D. M. S. (Dis Manibus Sacrum). 
 
 MANGANE'SE. This name is generally given to a black 
 mineral, originally described in the year 1774, by Scheele, 
 as a peculiar earth, and which was afterwards shown by 
 Gahn to be the oxide of a metallic substance which he 
 called magnesium. This term, however, having been ap- 
 plied to the metallic base of magnesia, the word manganese 
 has been adopted to designate the metal, and the ore above 
 alluded to has been called black, or peroxide of, manga- 
 nese. The metal itself has a specific gravity of about 8. 
 It is gray, hard, brittle, and very difficult of fusion, and has 
 not been applied to any use. The black oxide, on the con- 
 trary, is largely employed as a soiuce of oxygen, and is es- 
 pecially important from the use which is made of it in the 
 decomposition of common salt for the production of chlorine. 
 Manganese may be represented by the equivalent 28 ; and 
 the black oxide, being a compound of 1 atom of manganese 
 and 2 of oxygen, has the equivalent 44 (28 -f- 16). There 
 is also a protoxide of manganese, composed of 28 metal + 8 
 oxygen, which is the basis of the salts of this metal. When 
 hydrate or carbonate of potassa, or nitre, are fused with 
 peroxide of manganese in an open vessel, a dark-coloured 
 compound is obtained, long known under the name of cha- 
 meleon mineral, in consequence of its yielding in cold water 
 a solution which is at first green, then blue, purple, red, 
 brown, and ultimately deposits a brown powder, and be- 
 comes colourless. This substance has since been termed 
 manganate of potash, and has been proved to contain a 
 compound of 1 atom of manganese and 3 of oxygen, which 
 has been called manganic acid, and is represented by the 
 equivalent 52. In the pink solution, which is produced at 
 once by the action of hot water, manganese exists in a still 
 higher state of oxidizement, forming the pir-manganic acid, 
 in which 2 atoms of manganese are combined with 7 of 
 oxygen. Both these compounds are very easy of decompo-
 
 MANGE. 
 
 eition. Some of the proto-salts of manganese have ateiy 
 been used in calico-priming as the source of brown colours, 
 and occasionally as deoxidizing agents. 
 
 MANGE. An eruptive disease which attacks several 
 domestic animals, especially the dog. Ii is said to resemble 
 the itch. and. like that disease, to be produced by a minute 
 mis which burrows beneath the cuticle, it is 
 stated that the mud discharged from the eruption of mange, 
 in horses and dogs, has produced the itch upon the human 
 skin. It is commonly produced by confinement and want 
 of cleanliness, and had or insufficient food. 
 
 M V'NGEL WURZEL. The root of the Beta hijbrida. 
 This German name is translated root of scarcity ; the root 
 being large, and used as a substitute for bread. It is culti- 
 vated for the food of cattle. 
 
 MA'NGER. The trough in which is placed the com or 
 other short food L'iven to live stock, and more especially to 
 8m Back, 
 
 M v soKR. The space near the hawse holes, bounded on 
 the upper side by a partition across the hows, called the 
 ■manger board, to receive the water while it enters the hawse 
 holes and prevent it from flooding the deck. 
 
 MA'XliO (Mangos marum. in the Tamul language of 
 India), is a very large fruit-tree, inhabiting the tropical parts 
 of Asia, throughout all which it is as extensively cultivated 
 as the apple and pear trees are in Europe. Old specimens 
 have been Been with a trunk from ten to fifteen feet in cir- 
 cumference. The fruit is something like a nectarine, but 
 more compressed, longer, and more curved. It contains a 
 large stone, covered with coarse fibres, which lose them- 
 selves in the succulent flesh. The wild and inferior varieties 
 of this fruit taste so strongly of turpentine as to be wholly 
 unfit for use by Europeans ; but in the fine varieties this 
 flavour is replaced by a rich sugary quality, which renders 
 it very delicious. In this country the mango has rarely 
 ripened its fruit, but it is common in the shops in a pickled 
 state. The fruit of the Mangifera Indica, a tree cultivated 
 in Asia, is also called mango. 
 
 MA'XCi >STEEN. The fruit of the Garcinia mangos- 
 tana, growing in Java and the Molucca Islands : it is of the 
 size of an orange, and of a delicious flavour. 
 
 M kNGROVE (probably an abbreviation of mangle grove, 
 the former being the Malay name), is a tree inhabiting the 
 shores of the tropical parts of the world in either hemi- 
 sphere, and well known to navigators on account of the 
 dense groves it forms even down into the water itself. It 
 belongs to the genus Rhisophora. and is principally remark- 
 able for its seeds germinating before they leave the case in 
 which they were generated on the branches. The young 
 radicle grows downwards through the humid air till it 
 reaches the mud, in which it fixes itself, and then the leaves 
 and new stem unfold at the opposite end. The white man- 
 grove, another shore plant of the tropics, is Avieennia to- 
 nuntosa, quite a different genus from the genuine plants of 
 that name. 
 
 M \ MA. (Gr. /xaivofiai, I rage.) Madness. It is de- 
 fined to be delirium, unattended by fever, in which both 
 judgment and memory are impaired, and the irritability of 
 the body diminished so as to resist many morbid causes. 
 There is a false perception of things, marked by incoherence 
 or raring, and resentment of restraint. It is divided into 
 melancholic and furious : the former marked by dejection 
 of spirits, the latter by violent exertion of strength, malice 
 to particular individuals, and repugnance to scenes and 
 places before agreeable. Dissection has shown that in cases 
 ot' madness there is usually effusion of water in the cavities 
 of the brain, or appearances of previous inflammation of its 
 membranes, or hardness of its substance, or peculiar thick- 
 ness of the scull ; and it has lately been stated that chemi- 
 cal analysis has shown an excess or deficiency of phospho- 
 rus in the composition of the brain in cases of madness and 
 idiotcv. 
 
 MANICHEISTS. The followers of Manes, an Oriental 
 heretic of the third century, who. having been ordained a 
 Christian presbyter, attempted to effect a combination be- 
 tween the religion which he was appointed to preach and 
 the current philosophical s\siim~ . . i" the Cast, lie pursued 
 herein the same course as the Valensnians, llasilidians, and 
 many others, whose leading idea- may he denominated 
 Gnostic. He maintained a dualism of principles governing 
 the world, and a succession of dualisms generated from 
 them, like the Gnostic eons. All things were effected by 
 the combination or repulsion of the good and the bad . nun 
 had a double soul, good and evil: even their boih, - were 
 
 supposed to be formed, the upper hall' by Cod, the lower by 
 the Devil. The Old Testament was referred to the inspira- 
 tion of the evil principle, the New to that of ttie good In 
 the latter, however. Manes proposed many alterations, ami 
 
 maintained also the authenticity of various apocryphal 
 
 scriptures. A great part of his s] Stem related to COSmogOnj 
 aud psychology, in which flelds of speculation he expatiated 
 With the most arbitrary freedom. Like most other Oriental 
 714 
 
 MANNA. 
 
 systems, the Manichean heresy was celebrated alike for 
 the austerities which it enjoined", and for the scandalous ex 
 
 cesses which were attributed to its most zealous votaries 
 The charge of ManicheiMii. which in later times becomes 
 scarcely intelligible, was frequently brought against the 
 early reforming sects, such as the Albigenees, U'aldenses, 
 Picards, fcc. [See Mosheim (transl.), ed. 1790, i., 30-3, etc.; 
 lieausohre. Hi*t. Oritiqiu de Mnniclue it du JHanicAiisme, 
 Amst, 1734 : Oieseler, vol. i.. 150 (transl.), ii., 151, hi., 340; 
 Milman, Hist of Christianity, ii., 332. 
 
 MANIFESTO. In Politics, a declaration of motives 
 publicly issued by a belligerent state, or by a general acting 
 with full powers, previously to the commencement of DOS 
 tilities. They are in the form of letters, with a superscrip- 
 tion or heading addressed to the public in general, and signed 
 with the name of the sovereign who sends them forth. 
 The usage of issuing manifestoes is said to date so far back 
 as tin; 14th century. The term is probably derived from 
 the Latin words •• manifestum est,'* with which such docu- 
 ments usually commenced. 
 
 MA'XTOC. The Indian name of amylaceous products 
 of the shrub called Jatropha manihot. 
 
 MAXITL'I.ATIOX, in Chemistry, embraces the manual 
 and mechanical operations of the laboratory ; and in the 
 delicate details of analysis, as well as in the exhibition of 
 class experiments, great skill and practice in manipulation 
 are required to ensure success. The processes of weighing, 
 measuring, filtering, distilling, precipitating, dissolving, using 
 the blowpipe, fcc, all come within the meaning of manipu- 
 lation. Mr. Faraday has published an excellent treatise 
 upon this subject. 
 
 MA. MP LEI'S. (Lat. manus, hand.) In Roman Mili- 
 tary - Antiquities, a subdivision of the cohort : so called from 
 the handful of grass, straw, fcc. which formed its original 
 standard. A maniple of triarii consisted of 60 men, one of 
 hastati and principes of 120, when the number of the legion 
 was 300. (See M. le Beau's Eighth Dissertation on the 
 Roman Legion, Mem. de I' Ac des Inscr., vol. xxxii.) 
 
 MA'XTS. The name of a genus of Edentate Mammals, 
 singularly characterized by being covered with large, strong, 
 imbricated, homy scales, like the Lacertine reptiles, and 
 hence commonly called scaly lizards, and figuring in old 
 zoological works among that class of animals. The manises, 
 or pangolins, are, however, true warm-blooded mammals, 
 and rank in the system of Cuvier among the Edentate order ; 
 of which they may be regarded as typical forms, being wholly 
 destitute of teeth, and provided with a tongue of extraordi- 
 nary length, with associated glands for preparing an abun- 
 dance of adhesive lubricous mucus. By this organization 
 they are peculiarly adapted to prey on ants, termites, fcc. ; 
 and certain of their claws are extraordinarily developed, to 
 enable them to break through the walls of the habitations 
 of these social insects. The manises are confined to the 
 warmest regions of Asia and Africa, where they play a cor- 
 responding part with that assigned to the true anteaters 
 {Myrecophaga) in South America. 
 
 MAXTl'KI XK. Maxtor uncus, in Entomology, is a term 
 given to the anterior segment of the trunk, iu which the 
 head inosculates, or on which it turns. 
 
 MY NNA. (Syrian rnano, a gift ; it being a term applied 
 to the food given by God to the children of Israel in the 
 wilderness.) What we now call manna is a saccharine 
 substance which exudes from the bark of the Frazuius 
 ornus, and some other species of ash, natives of the south 
 of Europe, especially Sicily and Calabria. Manna is used 
 in medicine as a mild aperient. It differs remarkably from 
 common sugar in not being susceptible of vinous fermenta- 
 tion ; so that, if mixed with common sugar and yeast, and 
 subjected to the process of fermentation, the sugar becomes 
 converted into alcohol, but the manna remains unaltered in 
 the liquor. When manna is dissolved in boiling alcohol, 
 the solution, as it cools, deposits it in flaky and acicular 
 crystals, often arranged in concentric groups. Manna, thus 
 purified, has been chemically designated by the term man- 
 nit e. 
 
 Various opinions have been entertained respecting the 
 precise nature of the manna on which the Israelites were 
 sustained, anil attempts have been made at various times to 
 account for its miraculous appearance on natural < BUS! - 
 but, in our opinion, w ithout any success. The Byriac won 
 mano means a rift, referring to this circumstance, and is no 
 doubt derived from the Hebrew manhu, the Scripture ex- 
 planation of which is certainly the best. The word asks a 
 question, and signifies " What is this?" "for they wist not 
 what it was.'' (Exodus, \\i., 15.) And if they did not 
 know thl ii " What it was." it is not likely we should know- 
 now. They could see that it was a little round grain, or 
 something like a grain, of the size of coriander-seed, ami 
 w Ion a- the hoar trust on the ground : bnt it had no com- 
 ponent parts such as they could describe. And even ad- 
 mitting, as has been frequently maintained, that it exuded 
 from the bark of the ash, or some other tree, it is incredible
 
 MANNER. 
 
 that it could be supplied in such abundance in the deserts of 
 Arabia as to give sustenance to 500,000 Israelites for 40 years, 
 without the miraculous intervention of Providence. 
 
 MANNER. (Fr. maniere.) In the Fine Arts, a pecu- 
 liarity of treating a subject, or of executing it, by which in- 
 dividual artists are distinguished : the latter arising out of a 
 particular mode of using the media and implements of art, 
 the former out of a singular method of observing nature. 
 (See Sir J. Reynolds's Sixth Discourse.) 
 
 MAN-OF-WAR, MERCHANT-MAN. The common 
 terms for ship-of-vvar, merchant-ship. 
 
 MANO'METER, or MA'NOSCOPE. (Gr. uavos, rare, 
 and fitrpov, a measure, or okottcw, I view.) An instrument 
 for measuring the density of the air, or rather its elastic force, 
 to which the density is supposed to be proportional. See 
 Pneumatics. 
 
 MA 'NOR (Lat. maneo, I reside ; from the residence of 
 the lord), signifies a district subject to the jurisdiction of a 
 court baron. In the feudal ages, a grant of lands from the 
 king carried with it a right of dominion ; and the grantee or 
 baron had power to make laws, and hold a court of justice 
 for his dependants within the territory, which was called a 
 manor. The baron might also, by subinfeudation, parcel 
 out the land so granted to others, to hold of him, as he held 
 of the king, by military service or other tenure. These, 
 again, farther subdivided the land by grants to others, and 
 so on, increasing manors by this process ad infinitum. The 
 services due to the lord of the fee were, in consequence, very 
 negligently performed ; and, to meet this inconvenience, the 
 statute of Ed. I., called Quia Emptores, was passed, which 
 enacted that the buyers of lands should hold them by the 
 same services, and of the same lord, as they were before 
 held by when in the hands of the seller. This put a stop 
 to the increase of manors ; and every manor, therefore, now 
 in existence, must have existed in the time of Ed. I., and 
 before the enactment above mentioned. 
 
 MA'NSARD ROOF. (So called from the name of its 
 inventor, a celebrated architect.) In Architecture, the same 
 as curb roof, which see. 
 
 MA'NTELET. A movable parapet, constructed of 
 boards covered with tin, iron, or leather, to serve as a pro- 
 tection to the miners in carrying a sap or a trench towards 
 a besieged place. Mantelets are of various forms, adapted 
 to the peculiar circumstances of the approach. 
 
 MA'NTIS. (Gr. /xavric; applied by Theocritus (Idyl, x., 
 18) to the cicada.) A Linnasan genus of Orthopterous in- 
 sects, characterized by having the head exposed, and the 
 body narrow and elongated ; the palpi short, and terminating 
 in a point ; the ligula quadrifld ; the tarsi five-jointed, and 
 the wings simply plaited longitudinally, and not ray-wise, 
 like a fan. The true mantises — sometimes called praying 
 insects, on account of the position of the anterior pair of legs, 
 which differ from the rest — are found only in tropical and 
 temperate climates : they are diurnal, and remain almost 
 stationary on plants and trees ; frequently resembling, in a 
 remarkable degree, their leaves and branches in both the 
 form and colour of the wings and body, and thus they de- 
 ceive the smaller insects on which they prey. Their eggs 
 are usually enclosed in a capsule formed of some glutinous 
 substance, which hardens by exposure to the air, and is 
 divided internally into several cells. It is curious to trace 
 the correspondence with the vegetable kingdom already 
 noticed in the wings and body continued into the form of 
 the egg-capsules, which in many species closely resemble a 
 seed receptacle of a plant, presenting regularly disposed 
 ridges and angles, or even being bristled with little spines. 
 The female attaches it by an adhesive secretion generally 
 to the stem of a plant. 
 
 A second group of mantises, characterized by having the 
 anterior legs like the following ones, now form a distinct 
 subgenus, Spectrum, and are generally called spectre insects : 
 they feed exclusively on vegetables, of which they singularly 
 resemble dried twigs. The progress of entomology has re- 
 quired farther subdivisions of both the above groups. 
 
 MANTI'SSA. The decimal part of a logarithm is some- 
 times called the mantissa of the significant digits, the inte- 
 gral part being the characteristic. Thus, in log. 900 == 
 295434, the characteristic of the logarithm of the number is 
 2, and 95424 is the mantissa, which belongs equally to the 
 numbers 9, 90, 900, -9, &c. 
 
 MA'NTLE. (Fr. manteau.) In Architecture, the piece 
 lying horizontally across from one jamb of a chimney to the 
 other. In Malacology, the external fold of the skin of the 
 mollusks. 
 
 MA'NUAL (Lat.manus, the hand), was applied originally 
 to the Roman Catholic service book, from its convenient 
 size (being such as might be carried in the hand) ; hut it 
 now signifies any small work used chiefly for the purpose 
 of reference. 
 
 MANUFACTURE. (Lat. manus, a hand, and facio, I 
 make.) In Political Economy, a term employed to designate 
 the changes or modifications made by art and industry in 
 
 MANUFACTURE. 
 
 j the form or substance of material articles, in the view of 
 rendering them capable of satisfying some want or desire of 
 \ man. Hence the perfection of manufacturing consists in 
 the being able to effect the vvished-for changes in the raw 
 material with the least expenditure of labour, or at the least 
 cost. 
 
 With the exception of fishing, hunting, mining, and such 
 branches of industry as have for their object to obtain pos- 
 session of material products in the state in which they are 
 fashioned by nature, all other branches may, in fact, he 
 comprised under the term manufacture. Generally, indeed, 
 it is applied only to those departments of industry in which 
 the raw material is fashioned into desirable articles by art 
 and labour without the aid of the soil. But there is no 
 really good foundation for any such limitation ; which, un- 
 less explained, is apt to make it be supposed that businesses 
 which are substantially identical not only differ from, but 
 are opposed to, each other. It is obvious, indeed, on the 
 slightest consideration, that agriculture is nothing but a 
 manufacture ; for the business of the agriculturist is so to 
 dispose of the soil, seed, manure, and other materials, that 
 they may supply him with other and more desirable products. 
 Manufacturing industry consists, in fact, in the application 
 of art, science, and labour to bring about certain changes or 
 modifications of already existing materials ; and its varieties 
 depend wholly on the modes in which this application is 
 made. The manufacture of any particular article usually 
 derives its name from the raw material manufactured, modi- 
 fied, or wrought up into a new shape. Thus the terms 
 woollen, cotton, and hardware manufacture, mean the work- 
 ing up of wool, cotton, or metals into useful or desirable 
 articles ; ship-building is the manufacture of timber and iron 
 into ships ; agriculture (ager and colo) is the production of 
 corn, beef, and other products, by the adaptation of the soil 
 and the vegetative powers of nature to their manufacture, 
 and so on. The knowledge of the means by which art and 
 labour may be most successfully employed in each of these 
 departments forms the peculiar business of the woollen, 
 cotton, and hardware manufacturers, ship-builders, agricul- 
 turists, &c. 
 
 It would far exceed our limits to attempt to enter into 
 any details with respect to the application of labour in the 
 separate departments of manufacturing industry ; but con- 
 sidering the vast importance of manufactures to mankind, 
 and especially to the British nation, we may, perhaps, be 
 excused for endeavouring shortly to state some of those con- 
 ditions and circumstances that seem, in a general point of 
 view, most essential to success in manufactures. 
 
 These are partly of a moral and political, and partly of a 
 physical description. Of the former class, the most im- 
 portant seem to be, the security and free disposal of proper- 
 ty ; the absence of monopolies, and the non-interference of 
 government in industrious undertakings ; the diffusion of 
 knowledge among the people; the cordial reception of 
 foreigners; and the emulation and energy inspired by in- 
 equality of fortune, and by the gradual increase of taxation. 
 Among the more prominent of the physical circumstances 
 conducive to the progress of manufactures are supplies of 
 the raw materials to be manufactured, with the command 
 of power ; that is, of coals, water-falls, &c. A good deal, 
 also, of the progress of manufactures seems to depend on the 
 advantageous situation of a country for commerce, and on 
 the nature of its climate. We shall briefly notice some of 
 the more prominent of these circumstances. 
 
 1. Moral Circumstances contributing to the Progress of 
 Manufactures— \. It is unnecessary to take up the reader's 
 time by enlarging on the necessity of security, and of the 
 free disposal of property, to success in manufacturing in- 
 dustry, or, indeed, in any laborious undertaking. Without 
 security there can be neither industry nor invention. No 
 man will engage in any employment, or exert either his 
 bodily or mental powers, unless he be well convinced that 
 he will be allowed to reap all the advantages accruing front 
 his labour, skill, or genius. Any doubt as to this is sure to 
 paralyze his exertions. And if, owing to the weakness or 
 ignorance of government, the prevalence of a revolutionary 
 spirit, or any other cause, the security of property were ma- 
 terially impaired, all sorts of industrious undertakings that 
 did not promise an immediate return would be forthwith 
 abandoned, and every person possessed of property would 
 endeavour to convey it out of the country. The want of se- 
 curity is, in fact, the greatest of public calamities. In its ab- 
 sence we find nothing hut the most abject poverty and bar- 
 barism ; and, supposing other things to be equal, the wealth 
 and civilization of nations will be pretty nearly proportioned 
 to the security of property they respectively enjoy. Every 
 other circumstance conducive to the advancement of in- 
 dustry may exist in a country ; but, without security, theso 
 can be of no material service. A high degree of security 
 will compensate for manv deficiencies, but nothing can make 
 up for its want; it is a sine qua non of manufacturing and 
 national prosperity.
 
 MANUFACTURE. 
 
 2. The absence of monopolies, and the non-interference 
 of government in industrious undertakings, undoubtedly 
 conduce in no ordinary degree to the progress of industry. 
 Every man is always Matting himself to lind out how lie 
 may iicst extend his command over the necessaries and con 
 venjences of life; and sound policy requires that he should, 
 so long as he does not Interfere with the tights and pri\ lieges 
 of others, be allowed to pursue his own interest in his own 
 way. That individuals are, generally speaking, the best 
 judges of what is must beneficial for themselves, is now 
 universally admitted to he the only print iple that can be Bafe- 
 ly relied on. It is the duty of governments to preserve order; 
 to prevent one individual from injuring another; to main- 
 tain, in short, the equal rights and privileges of all. But it 
 is not possible for them to go one step farther without re- 
 ceding from the principle of non-interference, and laying 
 themselves open to the charge of acting partially by some 
 and unjustly by others. 
 
 The most comprehensive experience corroborates the truth 
 of this statement Since the passing of the famous act of 
 James I. in ltiJ4, for the abolition of monopolies, full scope 
 has been given in Great Britain to the competition of the 
 home producers ; and though the various resources of talent 
 and genius have not been so fully perhaps, or at least so 
 early developed, as they would have been had there been 
 no restrictions on our intercourse with foreigners, they have 
 been stimulated in a degree unknown in most other coun- 
 tries. France, previously to the Revolution, was divided 
 into provinces, having each peculiar privileges and separate 
 codes of revenue laws ; and, in consequence, the intercourse 
 between theui was subject to the most oppressive restrictions. 
 In Germany and Spain the same miserable system prevail- 
 ed; so that they were not only deprived of the freedom of 
 foreign, but even of internal commerce. The inhabitants of 
 each province being in a great measure isolated from the 
 rest, there was comparatively little competition ; and, instead 
 of invention and active exertion, there was nothing but rou- 
 tine and sluggish indifference. Holland and the United 
 States have been almost the only countries that have enjoy- 
 ed the same degree of internal freedom as Great Britain; 
 and the former, notwithstanding the unfavourable physical 
 circumstances under which she is placed, has long been, 
 and still is, the richest country in Europe ; while the latter, 
 whose condition is in other respects more favourable, is ad- 
 vancing with giant steps in the career of improvement. 
 
 It is sometimes said that restrictions on industry and com- 
 merce cannot be so injurious as has been represented, seeing 
 the progress we have made notwithstanding they have al- 
 ways existed among us. The previous details show the 
 weight to be attached to this allegation. The restrictions re- 
 ferred to have been confined to some branches of foreign 
 trade; and, luckily, the freedom allowed to all sorts of in- 
 dustry at home would have insured our advance even had 
 our foreign trade been a good deal more fettered and restrain- 
 ed than it actually has been. But to imagine, as many have 
 done, that these restrictions contributed to accelerate our 
 progress, is the climax of folly. Their influence is, in every 
 case, distinctly and completely the reverse ; but though con- 
 siderable, even in Great Britain, it has been insufficient to 
 countervail the advantages resulting from the freedom we 
 otherwise enjoyed. 
 
 3. The ability to read, and the diffusion of instruction 
 among all ranks and orders of the people by the general cir- 
 culation of books and journals the establishment of me- 
 chanics' institutes, &.c, have had a material influence over 
 the advancement of arts and industry. They have had the 
 double advantage of multiplying the means and chances of 
 improvement, and of preventing any invention or discovery, 
 when made, from being lost or engrossed by a few. An un- 
 Instructed people, though surrounded by all the means and 
 
 - required tor the manufacture of commodities and 
 tin- accumulation of riches, being unable to apply them, are 
 > poor and destitute; but an intelligent people, 
 though placed in a comparatively unfavourable situation, 
 never fail, by availing themselves of the powers and ener- 
 gies of nature, and making them subservient to their pur- 
 pose-, tu attain to distinction as manufacturers, and so be- 
 come rich and prosperous. That "knowledge is power" is 
 true in manufactures as well as in morals. The more fa- 
 miliar our acquaintance with, and the more complete our 
 Command over natural agents, the greater, of COUItie must 
 be our ability to modify rude products, and to make them 
 minister to our wants and the gratification Of our de- 
 tail -■ In tracing the causes of our success in manufactures 
 anil industry, it is not possible to appropriate to each cir- 
 cumstance the portion belonging to it of a result which is 
 the joint effect of the whole; but if this could be done, it 
 would be found that do inconsiderable share is fairly ascriba 
 ble to the extraordinary diffusion among us of scientific in 
 formation. 
 
 I. For a lengthened period the reception given to foreign- 
 ers in England was anything but cordial. In most countries, 
 
 na 
 
 indeed, not in an advanced state of civilization, str.injrTs arc 
 uniformly the objects of popular dislike; and this feeling 
 seems at one time to have prevailed quite as much in Eng- 
 land as any where else. But notwithstanding the various 
 legal disabilities laid on foreigners, and the ill-treatment they 
 often experienced, their settlement here has been productive 
 of the most advantageous results. The Flemings, Invited 
 over and protected by Edward III., gave the first great im- 
 pulse to the woollen manufacture; and the Immigrations 
 from the Low Countries during the persecutions of the Duke 
 of Alva, and from France subsequently to the revocation of 
 the Edict of Nantes, materially forwarded our commerce 
 and many branches of manufactures. During the last cen- 
 tury the prejudice against aliens lost much of its force; and 
 several of the disabilities imder which they formerly labour- 
 ed have been removed. But in all that respects the treat- 
 ment of foreigners, our policy has been less liberal and en- 
 lightened than that of the Dutch. In Holland they have al- 
 ways been received with open arms ; and a short residence 
 in the country, and a small payment to the state, have en- 
 titled them to all the privileges enjoyed by natives. The 
 highest authorities agree that this was one of the main causes 
 of the extraordinary progress made by the republic in com- 
 merce and wealth. " It has always been our constant policy 
 to make Holland a perpetual, safe, and secure asylum for all 
 persecuted and oppressed strangers; no alliance, no treaty, 
 no regard for, nor any solicitation of, any potentate whatever 
 has at any time been able to weaken or destroy, or make 
 the state recede from protecting, those who have fled to it 
 for their own security and self-preservation. Throughout 
 the whole course of all the persecutions and oppressions 
 that have occurred in other countries, the steady adherence 
 of the republic to this fundamental law has been the cause 
 that many people have not only fled thither for refuge, with 
 their whole stock in ready cash, and their most valuable ef 
 fects, but have also settled and established many trades 
 fabrics, manufactures, arts, and sciences, in this country, 
 notwithstanding the first materials for the said fabrics and 
 manufactures were almost wholly wanting in it, and not to 
 be procured but at a great expense from foreign parts." 
 (Memorial by Dutch Merchants, presented to the Prince of 
 Orange in 1751.) 
 
 5. We incline to think that the great inequality of fortune 
 that has always prevailed in this country has powerfully 
 contributed to excite a spirit of invention and industry among 
 the less opulent classes. It is not always because a man is 
 absolutely poor that he is perseveringly industrious and 
 economical ; he may have already amassed considerable 
 wealth, but he continues with unabated energy to avail him- 
 self of every means by which he may hope to add to his for- 
 tune, that he may place himself on a level with the great 
 landed proprietors, and those who give the tone to society in 
 all that regards expense. No successful manufacturer or 
 merchant ever considers that he has enough till he be able 
 to live in something like the same style as the most opulent 
 landlords. Those immediately below the highest become, 
 as it were, a standard, to which the class next to them en- 
 deavour to elevate themselves; the impulse extending, in 
 this way, to the very lowest classes, individuals belonging to 
 which are always raising themselves by industry, address, 
 and good fortune to the highest places in society. Had there 
 been less inequality of fortune among us, there would have 
 been less emulation, and industry would not have been so 
 successfully prosecuted. It is true the desire to emulate the 
 great and the affluent, by embarking in a lavish course of ex- 
 penditure, is often prematurely indulged in, and carried to a 
 culpable excess; but the evils thence arising make but a 
 trifling deduction from the beneficial influence of that pow- 
 erful stimulus which it gives to the inventive faculties, and 
 to that desire to improve our condition and to mount in the 
 scale of society which is the source of all that is great and 
 elevated. Hence we should disapprove of any system, 
 which, like that of the law of equal inheritance established 
 in Franee, had any tendency artificially to equalize fortunes. 
 To the absence of any such law, and the prevalence of cus- 
 toms of a totally different character, we are inclined to at- 
 tribute a considerable portion of our superior manufactures, 
 wealth, and Industry. 
 
 li. We are also disposed to believe, how paradoxical so- 
 ever such a notion may appear, that the taxation to which 
 we are subject has hitherto at least been favourable to the 
 progress of industry. It is not enough that a man has tho 
 means of rising in the world within his command . he must 
 be placed in such B situation that unless he avail himself of 
 them, and put forth all his energies, he will be cast down to 
 a lower station. Now this is what our taxation has effect- 
 ed: to the desire of rising in the world, implanted in the 
 In. a-t nl every man, it superadded the fear of being thrown 
 down tu a low ei place in SOdety; anil the two prim- i pies com- 
 bined produced results that could not have been produced 
 
 by either separately. Bad taxation been carried be] i thw 
 
 bounds, it would not have had this effect. But though con-
 
 MANUFACTURE. 
 
 siderable, its increase was not such as to make the contribu- 
 tors despair of being able to meet the sacrifices it imposed 
 by increased skill and economy ; and the efforts they made 
 in this view were far more than sufficient for their object; 
 and consequently occasioned a large addition to the public 
 industry and wealth, that would not otherwise have existed. 
 II. Physical Circumstances contributing to the Progress 
 of Manufactures. — 1. Supplies of the raw material may be 
 classed among the more prominent of this description of cir- 
 cumstances. Those who reflect on the value and import- 
 ance of our manufactures of wool ; of the useful metals, 
 such as iron, tin, lead, copper, &c. ; of leather, flax, and so 
 on— will readily admit that our success in them has been 
 materallv facilitated by our possessing abundant supplies of 
 the raw 'material. It is of less consequence when the ma- 
 terial of a manufacture possesses considerable value in 
 small bulk, whether it be furnished from native sources or 
 be imported from abroad; though even in that case, the ad- 
 vantage of having an internal supply, which cannot be 
 withdrawn through the jealousy or hostility of others, is 
 far from immaterial. But no nation can make any consid- 
 erable progress in the manufacture of bulky and heavy arti- 
 cles, the conveyance of which to a distance necessarily occa- 
 sions a large expense, unless she have supplies of the raw 
 material within herself. Had we been destitute of iron ore, 
 lead, and tin, we could never have distinguished ourselves 
 by the magnitude and value of our manufactures of these 
 articles; and any one who reflects on the signal advantage 
 resulting to every branch of manufacturing industry from 
 being able to procure abundant supplies of iron at the cheap- 
 est rate, will be convinced that we are under anything but 
 slight obligations to our exhaustless stores of this mineral. 
 
 2. But of all the physical circumstances that have con- 
 tributed to our extraordinary progress in manufactures and 
 industry, none have had so much influence as our possession 
 of the most valuable coal mines. These have conferred ad- 
 vantages on us, not enjoyed in an equal degree by any other 
 country. Our extraordinary success in the manufacture of 
 iron, copper, &c, is not owing so much to our possessing the 
 ores, as to our possessing the coal by the aid of which they 
 have been smelted and refined. The paramount importance 
 of coal as a manufacturing agent has, however, been prin- 
 cipally manifested since the invention of the steam engine. 
 Without a cheap and abundant supply of fuel, the engine, 
 as now constructed, would be of comparatively little use. 
 It is, as it were, the hands by which the most gigantic re- 
 sults are effected ; but coal is the muscle by which the hands 
 are set in motion, and without which their all but illimitable 
 power and dexterity could not be called into action, or made 
 subservient to any useful purpose. Our coal mines may 
 thus, in truth, be regarded as vast magazines of hoarded or 
 warehoused power ; and unless some such radical change 
 should be made on the steam-engine as should very decided- 
 ly lessen the quantity of fuel required to keep it in motion, 
 or some equally serviceable machine, but moved by different 
 means, be introduced, it is not at all likely that any nation 
 should come into successful competition with us in those de- 
 partments of manufacturing industry in which steam-en- 
 gines, or machinery moved by steam, may be advantageous- 
 ly employed. 
 
 3. The advantageous situation of a country for commerce, 
 and the nature of its climate, have also a powerful influence 
 over manufacturing industry. Owing to the facilities afford- 
 ed by the insular situation of Great Britain for maintaining 
 an intercourse with all parts of the world, our manufacturers 
 have been able to obtain supplies of foreign raw materials 
 on the easiest terms, and to forward their own products 
 wherever there was a demand for them. Had we occupied 
 a central or internal situation in any quarter of the world, 
 our facilities for dealing with foreigners being so much the 
 less, our progress would have been comparatively slow ; but 
 being surrounded on all sides by the sea, that is, by the 
 great highway of nations, we have been able to deal with 
 the most distant as well as with the nearest people, and to 
 profit by the peculiar capacities of production enjoyed by 
 each. Under such circumstances, it would have been sin- 
 gular had we not shot ahead of most of our competitors in 
 the race of improvement ; and it will require some pow- 
 erful counteracting agency to neutralize or overcome these 
 advantages. 
 
 4. Our climate is peculiarly favourable for all sorts of ex- 
 ertion and enterprise; without being too severe, it is suffi- 
 ciently so to render comfortable clothing and lodging indis- 
 pensable ; and consequently gives rise to wants that are 
 either unknown, or less sensibly felt, in more genial regions. 
 Its inequality too, by requiring incessant care and attention 
 on the part of the husbandmen, or manufactures of com, 
 makes them vigilant and active, as well as industrious; and 
 the qualities that are thus naturally impressed on this great 
 class are, through their example, universally diffused. 
 
 The author of a valuable article on English statistics in 
 the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, when enumerating the causes 
 
 MANURES. 
 
 of our extraordinary success in manufactures, lays the great- 
 est stress on the superiority of our machinery, the magnitude 
 of our capital, and the extent to which the division of labour 
 is carried among us. But this is to mistake effects for 
 causes. These, in fact, are the means and instruments by 
 which manfacturing industry is immediately carried on ; 
 and the real inquiry is, what are the circumstances that have 
 rendered us so abundantly supplied with these means 1 We 
 have endeavoured briefly to answer this inquiry, by stating 
 what appear to be the most prominent causes of that ex- 
 traordinary accumulation of capital, and of that universal 
 employment of improved and powerful machinery and sub- 
 divided labour, which mark our eminence as a manufac- 
 turing people. Still, however, we are inclined to think that 
 a good deal must in these matters be ascribed to chance, or 
 to some lucky contingency, that could not d priori be look- 
 ed for. Had Hargreaves, Arkwright, Watt, or Wedgwood 
 not existed, or been born abroad, it is impossible to say how 
 much it might have affected the state of industry here ; but 
 there seems to be sufficient grounds for thinking that it would 
 have been, at this moment, materially different from what 
 it actually is. A good deal, too, depends on priority. A 
 country, town, or district, that has already established and 
 made a considerable progress in any manufacture, acquires, 
 in consequence, an advantage that may enable it success- 
 fully to contend with competitors placed under what are na- 
 turally more favourable circumstances ; its merchants are 
 already in possession of the markets ; its inhabitants, being 
 trained to the business, have acquired that peculiar sleight 
 of hand that is necessary to form expert workmen ; and they 
 are in this way frequently able to preserve their ascendency 
 for a lengthened period, and sometimes even to drive those 
 from the field who have a preponderance of natural advan- 
 tages on their side. 
 
 It seems to be the peculiar good fortune of England that, 
 as respects all the great branches of manufacture, she has 
 at once the advantages of priority and of acquired skill and 
 dexterity on her side, as well as the natural advantages al- 
 ready noticed, of abundant supplies of the raw material, of 
 inexhaustible beds of coal, and of situation. Cotton is not 
 an exception ; for though the raw material be the product 
 of other countries, the freight upon it is not very considera- 
 ble, and is but a trifling deduction from the other circum- 
 stances that seem to insure our superiority in this depart- 
 ment. To excel in machine-making is to excel in what is 
 certainly the most important branch of manufacturing in- 
 dustry. Superiority in any single branch, except this, may 
 exist "simultaneously with great inferiority in many others ; 
 but eminence in the manufacture of machinery is almost 
 sure to lead to eminence in every other department. 
 
 Considerable, though not, as it appears to us, too much 
 stress, has been laid on the practice, generally adopted in 
 Great Britain, of paying workmen, wherever it is practica- 
 ble, by the piece, or by the work done, and not by the day. 
 This system gives the workmen an interest in being indus- 
 trious, and makes them exert themselves to execute the 
 greatest quantity of work in the least space of time ; and in 
 consequence of its prevalence, this practice materially in- 
 fluences even the day labourers, who, to avoid invidious 
 comparisons, make exertions unknown in other countries. 
 Hence a given number of hands in Great Britain perform 
 much more work than is executed by the same number of 
 hands almost anywhere else ; in fact, if we regard wages in 
 their proper light, that is, if we look upon them as a com- 
 pensation for work done, and not for the time spent in doing 
 it, they will, we believe, be found to be cheaper in Great 
 Britain than in most other countries. (For farther particu- 
 lars, see the section on Manufactures in the Statistical Ac- 
 count of the British Empire, whence this article has been 
 partly abstracted.) 
 
 MANUMI'SSION, or ENFRANCHISEMENT. (Lat. 
 manus, and mitto, I send away.) The grant of liberty to a 
 slave. Ancient charters containing such grants were fre- 
 quently termed chartae ingenuitatis. (See a law of William 
 the Conqueror, Lamb. Jirchai., 126.) The term manumis- 
 sion is derived from a practice adopted by the ancient Ro- 
 mans in enfranchising their slaves. The master seized the 
 hand of the slave, and dismissed him with the words 
 "nunc hominem liberum esse volo." Among the Romans 
 there were two classes of manumission, called perfect and 
 imperfect ; the former of which were effected in three dif- 
 ferent ways. The enfranchisement was perfect — 1. Per 
 censum ; by which the name of the slave was, at the mas- 
 ter's request, placed in the register of free citizens. 2. Per 
 vindictam ; when the slave was led before the pra>tor, and, 
 the master having demanded his liberty, that magistrate laid 
 the vindicta (or rod of office) on his head, with the words 
 " aio te liberum esse more quiritium." 3. Per testamentum ; 
 by will. It was imperfect when the slave was enfranchised 
 at private entertainments, or by letter. See Client. 
 
 MANU'RES. Substances added to the soil, with a view 
 of accelerating vegetation, and increasing the production of 
 
 717
 
 MANUSCRIPTS. 
 
 the crop?. Animal, vegetable, and mineral substances are 
 used for this purpose. Decomposing animal matter of any 
 kind forma one of the most powerful manures, and in many 
 - accelerates the decay and decomposition of inert 
 vegetable matters mixed \\ ith it ; as in the mixture of 
 dune and straw which forms the common offal of stables. 
 All animal excrements are also powerful manures, and. 
 when duly applied 10 the soil, soon exhibit their influence 
 by the luxuriance of the crop. It, however, often hap- 
 pens in respect to esculent vegetables that their quality is 
 deteriorated, and that they acquire a coarse and rank fla- 
 vour, if over -manured ; as is the case with much of the 
 produce of the market gardens near London, where, in con- 
 sequence of the vicinity of the metropolis, manure is abun- 
 dant, and luxuriant and fine-looking vegetables in great re- 
 quest for the table. 
 
 In all cases where animal manures are used, care should 
 be taken that they are brought into action upon the soil as 
 soon as they begin to decompose, or as soon as possible af- 
 terwards, and not suffered to rot, and exhale their best con- 
 stituent parts while lying in the farm-yard. The drainings 
 and the exhalations of a common dung-heap contain its 
 most effective ingredients ; and these are often suffered to 
 go to waste, or to contaminate the air and collect in pools 
 of filth. The fresh and the old manure of this decomposi- 
 tion are known to fanners under the terms long and short 
 dung : the advantages and economy of the former, when 
 properly applied, cannot be doubted. Those animal ma- 
 nures which are slow of decomposition are most durable, 
 and generally most effective in their operation. Of these, 
 the best is ground bones, the animal part of which is very 
 gradually dissolved out by moisture ; so that their effect is 
 long-continued, and their earthy matter is also, probably, 
 beneficial, at least to many crops. Vegetable manures are 
 often very effective, especially as in the case of ploughing 
 in a green crop, where all the soluble matters are brought 
 into action ; and inert vegetable substances may be render- 
 ed active by mixture with those which easily putrefy, or 
 with animal matter. Some vegetables, such as cabbages 
 and many other cruciform plants, approximate to animal 
 matter in their composition, and are proportionately good 
 manures. Mineral manures act in two ways: either by 
 their causticity, as is the case with quicklime, by which 
 they decompose most organic bodies, such as roots, fibres, 
 &c, and render them soluble and nutritious to the growing 
 crop ; or they alter the texture of the soil. Thus, sand may 
 be called a manure for clayey lands, and clay and loam for 
 those that are sandy. Upon the same principle, stiff soils 
 are improved by paring and burning, by which a superficial 
 sandiness is produced, and the texture of the soil rendered 
 more appropriate for vegetation. 
 
 MA'BfUSCRIPTS. (Lat. manu scriptum, written by the 
 hand.) Literally writings of any kind, whether on paper 
 or any other material, in contradistinction to such as are 
 printed. Books were generally written upon vellum, after 
 the papyrus used in classical times had become obsolete, 
 until the general introduction of paper made from rags, 
 about the 15th century after Christ; and the finest and 
 whitest vellum is generally indicative of great age in a manu- 
 script. The dearness of this material gave rise to the prac- 
 tice of using old manuscript books on which the writing had 
 been erased (see Palimpsest), and also to that of abbrevia- 
 tions. These were carried to excess in the 12th century, 
 and from that time until the invention of printing ; and for 
 a long period subsequent to that invention, abbreviations 
 were still in common use: in Greek printing they were usu- 
 al until within the last fifty years. ( if Latin MSS., those 
 prior to the reign of Charlemagne (A.D. 800) are considered 
 ancient. Manuscripts of the early classical age were writ- 
 ten on sheets rolled together. Illuminated manuscripts are 
 Buch as are embellished with ornaments, drawings, em- 
 blematical figures, &c. illustrative of the text. This prac- 
 tice was introduced at a very early period : for we find the 
 works of Varro, Pomponius Aniens, and others adorned by 
 illuminations. But it was chiefly employed in the brevia- 
 ries and prayer book of the early Christian church. The 
 colours ni"st employed for (his purpose were gold and 
 azure. Illuminations were in a high Btate of perfection be- 
 tween the 5th and LOth centuries; after which thej Beem 
 to have partaken of the barbarism of the middle ages, 
 which threw their chilling influence over everj description 
 of art On the revival of the arts in the 15th and ll'ilh 
 
 centuries many excellent performances were produced i but 
 the art did not take deep root, and we believe tbi lasl Bpe 
 cimen of illumination executed in this country w as ( 'animal 
 - Leetionary, at Christ Church, Oxford. See Co- 
 dex, Diploma in s. Paleography. 
 
 HAP. i Lat. m.ippa.i A delineation of some portion of 
 
 the surface of the sphere (terrestrial or celestial) on a 
 plane. Terrestrial maps are geographic or hydrographies 
 
 : as the] denote a portion of the land or of the sea ; 
 the latter, however, are usually called charts. ($te Chart.) 
 
 718 
 
 MAP. 
 
 A map representing a small extent of country is called a 
 topographical map. 
 
 Tims trial Maps. — The object of a terrestrial map is to 
 exhibit the boundaries of countries and the relative posi- 
 tions of their several parts. A perfect representation of a 
 country should present all its parts, not only in their true 
 relative positions, but also in their just proportions. This 
 may be accurately done on a globe ; but as the earth's sur- 
 face is spherical, it is impossible to represent an] considera- 
 ble portion of it on a plane so that the distances of places 
 shall retain the same proportions which they have on the 
 sphere, and geographers have accordingly had recourse to 
 various methods of" delineations, all of which have their 
 peculiar advantages in particular cases. 
 
 ( mo method is to represent the points and lines of the 
 sphere according to the rules of perspective, or as they 
 would appear to the eye, having some assigned position rel- 
 atively to the sphere and the plane of representation. This 
 method gives rise to the different modes of projecting the 
 sphere, of which the three principal are the orthographic, 
 the stereograph ic, and the central. The method of projec- 
 tion answers very well when the surface to be represented 
 is small, and the eye is placed perpendicularly over it ; but 
 when it embraces a considerable portion of the sphere, the 
 parts near the extremities of the map are much distorted. 
 See Projection. 
 
 A second method is to suppose the surface to be repre- 
 sented to be a portion of the surface of a cone, whose vertex 
 is somewhere in the polar axis produced, and which either 
 touches the sphere at the middle latitude of the surface to 
 be represented, or falls within the sphere at the middle lati- 
 tude, and without it at tile extreme parallels. The conical 
 surface is then supposed to be dex'eloped on a plane (which 
 it admits of being) ; whence this method is called the meth- 
 od of development. Of this method there are various mod- 
 ifications : as that of Murdoch, who supposes the side of the 
 cone to be parallel to the tangent of the meridian at the 
 middle latitude, but to penetrate the surface of the sphere 
 between the middle latitude and the extremities of the pro- 
 jected arc ; that of De Lisle, who assumed the cone such as 
 to intersect the sphere in the two parallels equally distant 
 from the extreme and middle latitudes ; that of Euler, 
 who placed the apex of the cone at a determinate distanco 
 beyond the pole. 
 
 A third method is to lay down the points on the map ac- 
 cording to some assumed mathematical law, the condition 
 to be fulfilled being that the parts of the spherical surface 
 to be represented, and their representations on the map, 
 shall be similar in their small elements. Of such methods 
 the best known is .Mcrcator's Chart (which, however, may 
 be produced also by development), in which the meridians 
 are equidistant, parallel, straight lines, and the parallels of 
 latitude are also straight lines perpendicular to the meridi- 
 ans ; but of which fhe distances from each other increase 
 in going from the equator in such a proportion as always to 
 show the true bearings of places from one another. See 
 Mercator's Chart. 
 
 Celestial Maps. — For the construction of his maps of the 
 stars, the astronomer Flamsteed adopted the following 
 method : All the parallels on the sphere are represented by 
 straight lines, and likewise one of the meridians; namely, 
 that which passes through the middle of the map, as in the 
 annexed diagram. The parallels which are all perpendicu- 
 lar to this meridian have North. 
 the same relative lengths as 
 on the sphere, and conse- 
 quently the degrees of lon- 
 gitude are represented in 
 their just proportions ; that 
 is are proportional to the 
 cosine of the latitude. If, 
 therefore, the parallels be 
 each divided into the same 
 number of equal parts, a curve line drawn through the 
 points of division will represent the meridians. By Ibis 
 method, any distance in the direction of the parallels is 
 equal to the corresponding distance on the sphere ; but it is 
 evident that the map is much distorted towards the extrem- 
 ities, in consequence of the oblique directions of the meri- 
 dians. Fltunsteed's method is sometimes used in geography 
 for representing countries which lie on both Bides "I tli' 
 
 equator, In which case the distortion is less, A modification 
 of it. which consists in substituting arcs of circles for tho 
 Straight lines representing the meridians, whereby their 
 obliquity is diminished, is extensively employed in the con- 
 struction of maps. The Society for the Diffusion of Useful 
 Knowledge has adopted the gnomonk projection for laying 
 
 down tlnir maps of the stars. 
 
 Fur details respecting the genera] construction of maps, 
 we refer the reader to the work of Mr. Jamieson on the 
 subject; Malt* Bruit's Geography i Malte lirun's and 
 Balbi's Systems of Geography Abridged; .Murray's £»-
 
 MARANATHA. 
 
 eylepedia of Geography ; De Morgan's Explanation of the 
 Gnomonic Projection of the Sphere; and particularly the 
 Traite de Topographic d\irpentage et de Nioellcment of 
 Puissant. 
 
 MARANA'THA. (Syr.) A form of anathematizing 
 among the Jews, which was viewed as a tremendous de- 
 nunciation. (See 1 Cor., xvi., 22.) It signifies " the Lord 
 will come ;" i. e., to take vengeance. 
 
 MARANTA'CEjE (Maranta, one of the genera), form 
 the natural order of Endogenous plants, from which the 
 most genuine kind of arrow-root is prepared. This sub- 
 stance is the starch contained in the tubers of Maranta, 
 Arundinacea, and some other species, and of certain kinds 
 of canna. Marantacece are very nearly the same as Zingi- 
 beracece ; from which they differ in the flowers being more 
 irregular, and the anther having but one lobe instead of 
 two. 
 
 MARA'SMUS. (Gr. papaiva, I waste away.) Emacia- 
 tion ; atrophy. 
 
 MA'RBLE. (Fr. marbre.) A term limited by mineralo- 
 gists and geologists to the several varieties of carbonate of 
 lime which have more or less of a granular and crystal- 
 line texture. In sculpture, the term is applied to several 
 compact or granular kinds of stone susceptible of a very 
 fine polish. The varieties of it are extremely numerous. 
 The most valuable sorts used by the ancients were the 
 Pentclican, which was white, and obtained from Mount 
 Pentiles in Attica : the Parian, also called Marpessian, ob- 
 tained from the island of Paros, was of a white colour, as 
 was that from Mount Hymettus in Attica. Thasus and 
 Lesbos also produced white marbles, which were in much 
 repute. A place called Luna, in Etruria, produced a mar- 
 ble whose whiteness exceeded that from Paros. Of the 
 white marbles were those from Mount Phelleus ; from the 
 neighbourhood of Corallos, in Phrygia ; from Cyzicus, in 
 Asia Minor ; and the Marmor Phrygium, found near Syn- 
 nada in Phrygia. The black marbles most used were from 
 Taenarus, and the Numidian. The Chium Marmor, from 
 the island of Chios, was of a black, transparent, checkered 
 colour. The Obsidianum, procured from Ethiopia, was 
 black. The Proconesian marble was with black veins. 
 Mount Taygetes afforded the Marmor Laconicum, which 
 was green, and is better known by the name of Verde An- 
 tique. A marble of mingled green was obtained from 
 Carystus. The Atrician marble, from Mount Atrax in 
 Thessaly, was a mixture of black, white, blue, and green. 
 The Tiberian and Augustan marbles were green, and 
 brought from Egypt. The Marmor Memphites was green, 
 and is what we call serpentine. Corinth produced a yellow 
 marble. The Marmor Phengites was white, with yellow 
 spots; the Rhodian was marked with spots of a golden 
 colour, and that of Milos yellow. In modern times the 
 quarries of Carrara almost supply the world with white 
 marble. Of variegated marbles there are many sorts found 
 in this country of singular beauty. See Elgin Marbles : 
 see also Geology. 
 
 MARCH. The first month of the Roman year, and the 
 third of the English. In the ecclesiastical calendar, used in 
 England till the change of style in 1752, this was also the 
 first month, as it was in the Roman. It is named Martius, 
 in honour of Mars, the reputed father of Romulus. There 
 is an old proverb still prevalent in Scotland, which repre- 
 sents March as borrowing three days from April, which 
 have thence come to be designated the borrowed days. 
 They will be found noticed in the Complainte of Scotland. 
 Upon this subject Dr. Jamieson observes, " Those who are 
 much addicted to superstition will neither borrow nor lend 
 on any of these days. If any one would propose to borrow 
 of them, they would consider it as an evidence that the per- 
 son wished to employ the article for the purpose of witch- 
 craft against the lenders." 
 
 March. In Music, a military air, played by inflame and 
 pulsatile instruments, to regulate the steps and to animate 
 the minds of soldiers. The march, however, has long been 
 adapted to every species of musical instrument, and some 
 of the most celebrated compositions of the greatest masters 
 are in this style ; as the March of the Priests in Mozart's 
 Zauber-fiote, the Peasant's March in Weber's Freischutz, 
 and, above all, Beethoven's Funeral Marches. In the Sup- 
 plement to the First Edition of the Encyclopaedia, it is truly 
 said that a march should be always composed in common 
 time, with an odd crotchet or quaver at the beginning. It 
 is usually quick for ordinary marching, and slow for grand 
 occasions ; but no general rules can be laid down for its 
 composition. 
 
 March, in Military language, signifies the motion of a 
 body of troops from one place to another. It consists of 
 three measures: 1, ordinary time, in which about 75 paces 
 are taken in a minute ; 2, quick time, in which about 108 
 steps are taken in a minute ; 3, the quickest, or, as it is 
 called, wheeling time, at the rate of 300 feet in the same 
 space. 
 
 MARINES. 
 
 MA'RCHES. The name given to the borders or frontiers 
 of any district, but more especially applied to the boundaries 
 between England and Wales, and England and Scotland. 
 The term is derived from an old Anglo-Saxon word signify- 
 ing a mark, and is to be found in every language of Teutonic 
 descent. Several titles of dignity both in this and other 
 countries derive their origin from their possessors having 
 been appointed governors of the marches or frontiers of their 
 respective countries; of these, marquis in England and mark- 
 graf in Germany are the most prominent. The title Earl of 
 March, now enjoyed by the Duke of Richmond, was origi- 
 nally bestowed on Mortimer, a member of the family so 
 celebrated in English history, because he was the governor 
 or superintendent of the Welsh marches. In the middle 
 ages, the name marchers was given to the noblemen who 
 lived on the marches of Wales and Scotland. According 
 to Camden they had once their own laws, and even the 
 " power of life and death like petty kings ;" but these privi- 
 leges were abolished by Henry VIII. There was formerly 
 a court of the inarches of Wales in existence, where pleas 
 of debt, or damages not above the value of £5, were tried 
 and determined. 
 
 MA'RCIONITES. The followers of Marcion, a heretic 
 of the 2d century, who adopted the Oriental notion of the 
 two conflicting principles, and imagined that between them 
 there existed a third power, neither wholly good nor evil, 
 the Creator of the world and the God of the Jewish dispen- 
 sation. The object of the Good Principle, or Supreme God, 
 is to restrain the ambition of these two powers, which wage 
 a constant war against each other as well as himself. For 
 this purpose it was that he sent his son Jesus Christ to 
 destroy the Evil Principle on the one hand, and to counteract 
 and coerce the power of the Jewish Deity on the other. 
 The Marcionites were a branch of the great Gnostic heresy. 
 Their opinions are found in the writings of Irensus, Epipha- 
 nius, and Tertullian against them. 
 
 MARCO'SIANS. An early sect of Christians, a branch 
 of the Gnostics, who derived their name from an Egyptian 
 called Marcus, and reputed a magician. The Marcosians 
 had a great number of apocryphal books which they held to 
 be canonical ; and many of their fables are still in use and 
 credit among the Greek monks. 
 
 MA'REKANITE, is a variety of obsidian, found at Mare- 
 kan, in Siberia, in small spherules. 
 
 MARGA'RIC ACID. (Gr. txapyapirv, a pearl.) The 
 substance into which the margarine, or concrete portion of 
 certain oils, is converted by the action of alkalies. It has a 
 pearly lustre, and is insoluble in water; but readily soluble 
 in hot alcohol, which deposites it as the solution cools. It 
 fuses at 140°, and reddens litmus. It closely resembles 
 stearic acid. 
 
 MA'RGARINE. The solid, fatty matter of certain vege- 
 table oils has been thus termed by Lecanu, from its pearly 
 lustre. The purest margarine is obtained from the concrete 
 portion of olive oil. 
 
 MARGARl'TIC ACID. A distinctive term applied to 
 one of the fatty acids which result from the saponification 
 of castor oil. By the same process, this oil also yields the 
 ricinic and the elaiodic acids. 
 
 MARGARO'NE. When margaric acid is mixed with 
 quicklime and distilled, a peculiar fatty product, which 
 crystallizes in pearly scales, is obtained, which has been 
 distinguished by the above term from other analogous sub- 
 stances. 
 
 MA'RGIN (Fr. marge), in Printing, is the arrangement 
 of the pages in a sheet at proper distances from each other, 
 according to the size of the paper ; so that when the sheet 
 is printed and folded, the border of white paper round 
 them shall be regular and uniform in every leaf of the 
 book. 
 
 MA'RGIN OF A COURSE. In Architecture, that part 
 of the upper side of a course of slates which appears uncov- 
 ered bv the next superior course. 
 
 MARGI'TES. The title of a satirical poem attributed, 
 but with little probability of truth, to Homer ; if by him is 
 meant the author of the Iliad or Odyssey. The subject of 
 the poem, which has not come down to us, was the charac- 
 ter of a sillv, empty-headed man (fmpymis). 
 
 MA'RGRAVE, or, more properly, MARKGRAVE. A 
 title of rank formerly used in Germany, and equivalent to 
 the English marquis. Both words spring from a common 
 origin. See Marquess. 
 
 MARI'A THERESA, ORDER OF. A military order 
 of Austria, consisting of grand crosses, commanders, and 
 knights : founded in 1757. 
 
 MARI'NES. A corps of men enlisted to serve as soldiers 
 on board of ships-of-war in naval engagements, and on shore 
 under certain circumstances. They sometimes assist, par- 
 ticularly in the British service, in performing some naval 
 duties on board of ship. The period at which a distinct 
 corps was unbodied for this department of the British ser- 
 vice is unknown. In 1084 mention is made of the Duke of 
 
 719
 
 MARIOTTE'S LAW. 
 
 York's maritime regiment of foot ; and in the reign of Will. 
 Ml. several regiments were placed on the establishment: 
 these, however, were subsequently disbanded. In the be- 
 ginning of Queen Anne's reign, ail regfanents of maritime 
 soldiers were raised : and though these were again disband- 
 ed in IT-1'.I. six years afterwards 130 companies were raised, 
 
 on the recommendation of Lord Anson, consisting in all of 
 above 5000 men. Since the commencement of the presenl 
 
 century great additions have been made to this corps, and 
 at present its strength amounts to 9000 men. The men are 
 clothed anil armed in the same manner as the infantry of 
 the line. The corps is commanded by a lieutena 
 and a major-general, who are naval officers, holding, in ad- 
 dition to their rank as such, these military titles : there arc 
 also four colonels commandants of divisions, besides four 
 colonels and second commandants. No commissions in the 
 corps are obtained by purchase ; and the officers of marines 
 rise in it by seniority, without, however, being able to obtain 
 higher rank than that of colonels commandant. (See P< ninj 
 Ci/cloptedia.) 
 
 MARIOTTE'S LAW. In Pneumatics, a general prop- 
 erty of elastic fluids, first established by Mariotte, namely, 
 that the elasticity or pressure is directly proportional to the 
 density; or, which is the same thing, inversely proportional 
 to the space which the fluid occupies. See Pneumatii s. 
 
 MA'RITIME LAW, signifies the laws relating to har- 
 bours, ships, and sailors. It forms an important branch of 
 the commercial law of all trading nations, and embraces an 
 infinite variety of subjects, most of which have been defined 
 under their respective heads. The most celebrated codes 
 of maritime law have been, in classical times, that of Rhodes; 
 in modern times, the Consolato del .Marc, a compilation sup 
 posed to have been framed at Barcelona as early as the 9th 
 century ; the laws of the Isle of Oleron, in the time of Rich- 
 ard 1. of England ; the laws of Wisby, in the island of Goth- 
 land, to which some northern jurists have assigned an ear- 
 lier origin than the laws of Oleron, but which there can be 
 Utile doubt were merely a compilation from those above spe- 
 cified. But by far the most complete and well-digested sys- 
 tem . if maritime jurisprudence that has ever appeared is that 
 comprised in the Ordonnance dt la Marine, issued by Louis 
 XIV. in 1881, by which maritime law was elevated' to the 
 rank of a regular system, and has formed the basis of many 
 of the subsequent decisions of English, American, and other 
 foreign courts. This excellent code was compiled under the 
 direction of M. Colbert, by individuals of irreat talent and 
 learning, after a careful revision of all the ancient sea laws 
 of France and other countries, and upon consultation with 
 the different parliaments, the courts of admiralty, and the 
 chambers of commerce of the different towns, It combines 
 whatever experience and the wisdom of aces had shown to 
 be hist in the Roman laws, and in the institutions of the 
 modem maritime states of Europe. In the preface to his 
 treatise on the Law of Shipping, Lord Tenterden says, " If 
 the reader should be offended at the frequent references to 
 this ordinance, I must request him to recollect that those 
 references are made to the maritime code of a great com- 
 mercial nation, which has attributed much of its national 
 prosperity to that code: a code composed in the reign of a 
 politic prince ; under the auspices of a wise and enlightened 
 minister: by laborious and learned persons, who selected 
 the in.. -i valuable principles of all the maritime laws then 
 existing : and which, in matter, method, and style, is one of 
 the most finished acts of legislation that ever was promul- 
 gated." The ordinance.,!' 168] was published m 1760, Willi 
 a detailed and most elaborate commentary by M. Valin, in -2 
 vols. 4to. See Admiralty, Court of. "(See also the 
 ■ nil J)ict.) 
 
 MARK. An old coin current in England and Scotland, 
 valued at 13s. 4d. A piece of money so called is at present 
 used in Hamburgh; it is equal to l.,-. 4-/. sterling. 
 
 MA'RKET. Mod. Latmercheta,from merx.) InLaw, 
 the libertj or franchise whereb] a town is enabled to set up 
 
 and ope,, shops, &c, at a certain place within its limits, for 
 buying and selling, and better provision of such victuals as 
 
 the subject wanteth. The establishment of a market, with 
 the grant of the tolls thereunto belonging, Is one of the kind's 
 
 prerogatives, and can only be effected by virtue of the king's 
 grant, or supported on Ions and immemorial usage and pre- 
 scription which presuppose sue,', a grant The general rule 
 of law is. thai all sales and contracts of anything vendible 
 
 In fairs or markets o*en ■/.,.. open shall not onij beg I 
 
 between the partus, but v ,,|j,| against all claim by others 
 having any right or property in the subject 
 
 MA'RKING INK. An indelible ink used for marking 
 linen; it effectively resists washing, and almost all chemical 
 agents: its basis is oxide of silver, which has a ~tn,nL' ni- 
 hility for the fibre of linen and cotton, and acquires by ex- 
 posure a black colour. A good marking ink is prepared by 
 dissolving a drachm of fused nitrate of silver in half ;iii 
 ounce of distilled water, and colouring it with a little sap- 
 green ; but as this is apt to run if wrttten with upon the un- 
 720 
 
 MAROONS. 
 
 prepared linen, the place to be written upon is comtnonlv 
 prepared lor its reception by the previous application of 
 liquid pounce, which is made by dissolving two drachms of 
 carbonate of soda and two drachms of gum arable in four 
 
 ounces of water : this also effectively precipitates the 
 of silver upon the vegetable fibre, and prevents any injury 
 from the corrosive aeti.m of the salt ,.t' silver. \ solution 
 ,.f ammonio-nitrate of silver, thickened by a little gum, forms 
 a marking ink which may be used without any previous 
 preparation. 
 
 M VI! KING NUT, in Botany, is the seed or nut of the 
 ■juis anacardium, a tropical tree related tothecushew 
 nut. It derives its name from the juice contained in its 
 fruits staining linen of a dee)) and indelible black colour. 
 
 MARK, ORDER OF SAINT. A Venetian order of 
 knlghth 1 ; St. .Mark the Evangelist having been the pa- 
 tron of that republic. The knights were elected by the 
 doge and senate. 
 
 MAUL, is composed of carbonate of lime and clay in va- 
 rious proportions, and in different degrees of compactness 
 and friability. In some marls the proportion of clay is 
 small, in which case the marl, as a manure, acts on soils 
 much in the same manner as lime; but where clay is the 
 predominant ingredient of marl, it acts on the soil partly as 
 lime, but principally by altering the texture of the soil. 
 Hence all sandy soils are improved by marl, in consequence 
 of its increasing their compactness and capacity for rctain- 
 in<r moisture, while argillaceous marls applied to clays are 
 of little or no use. From these long-established facts has 
 arisen the old adage, 
 
 Who marls sand shall bury land, 
 Who marls clay throws all away. 
 
 Marl is found in almost every country ; not like limestone, 
 in protruding rocks, but, from its friable nature, which 
 moulders down into a comparatively earthy mass, under or 
 near the surface of the soil, whence it is dug out and spread 
 on the surface. Hence, while limestone is quarried, chalk 
 and marl are dug out of pits. Marl has been in use in Eu- 
 rope since the time of the Romans : it is very generally em- 
 ployed as a manure in France and Germany, and in England 
 it is most employed in Xorfolk. 
 
 MA'RLINGSPIKE. An iron bolt tapering to a point for 
 opening the strands of rope. 
 
 MA'RLY, MACHINE OF. A celebrated piece of mech- 
 anism, one of the most complex, perhaps, ever constructed, 
 for raising water from the Seine to supply the town of 
 Marly, us well as Versailles and Trianon. Its mean produce 
 was from 30.000 to 40,000 gallons per hour, and was attend- 
 ed with an expense of about a farthing for 15 gallons. It 
 
 was erected in 1682 by Runnequin, apon very unscientific 
 
 principles, but still with considerable skill in its details. It 
 was, as such complicated machines always are, often out 
 of repair; and Hachette reports of it that, after 1-2S years, it 
 fell into total ruin. Details of its construction may be seen 
 in Belidor, .Irch. Hydraulique ; Gregory's Mechanics, vol. 
 ii.. and other places. 
 
 MARMORATUM. (Lat) Tn Architecture, a cement 
 formed of pounded marble and lime well beaten together. 
 
 MA'RMOT. The Rodent animal so called is the type of 
 a genus (Jirctomys) nearly allied to the squirrels, being char- 
 acterized by having rive molar teeth on each side of the up- 
 per and four on each side of the lower jaw, all bristled with 
 points, and indicative of a somewhat mixed diet. The mar- 
 mots, however, in their general form are nearly the reverse 
 of the squirrels, beintr heavy, with short legs, a middle-sized 
 or short tail, and a barge, flat head. They pass the winter 
 in a stale of torpor, concealed in deep holes, the entrance of 
 which they close with a heap of dried grass. They are na- 
 tives of Europe and -North America, live in societies, and are 
 easily tamed. 
 
 MA'Ri INITF.S. The followers of Maro. inhabitants of 
 the mountains Libanus and Antilibanus in Syria, who adopt- 
 ed in the 7th century the opinions of the Monothelites; they 
 continued to form a separate sect until the 12th century, 
 when they became reconciled to the see of Rome. The 
 Maronite writers, however, have always maintained their 
 freedom from the errors imputed to them, and declare them- 
 Belvee to have been uniformly attached to the doctrines of 
 the Catholic Church. (See Monothelites. Muaheim, 
 transl., ed. 1790, ii.. 1%.) 
 
 \l \ li< >( i'NS. i Supposed to be derived from a word used 
 in Spanish America, signifying kog-hunters.) A name given 
 in Jamaica to runaway negroes. When Jamaica was con- 
 quered from the Spaniards, a number of negroes, abandoned 
 by their former masters, occupied some of the mountainous 
 parts of the island, and caused great trouble to the colonists. 
 
 About 1730 the] became extremely formidable ; but. after a 
 war of eight j ears, at length submitted to a capitulation, by 
 
 which they were allowed to retain their free settlements in 
 the heart of the island : in 1795 a portion of them again rose 
 in arms, but were speedily put down, and transported to a
 
 MARQ.UE, LETTER OP. 
 
 new settlement in Nova Scotia. (See Dallas's History of 
 the Maroons.) 
 
 MARQUE, LETTER OP. A commission granted in 
 time of war to a private person commanding a vessel to 
 cruise at sea and make prize of the enemy's ships and mer- 
 chandise : the ship so commissioned is sometimes called by 
 the same name. (See Reprisals, Letter of.) The word 
 is derived from mark (Germ, frontier), as being a right of 
 capturing property beyond the limits or frontiers of another 
 prince. 
 
 MA'ROUESS. (Germ, mark, a limit or frontier.) A ti- 
 tle of dignity in England, France, and Italy, next in rank to 
 that of duke. It is of German origin ; those military chief- 
 tains in the Teutonic kingdoms and empires which arose on 
 the fall of the Western empire, who were intrusted with the 
 defence of districts on the frontiers, having been styled mark- 
 grafen, counts of the marches or frontiers (in Latin, marchi- 
 ones). Many of these officers were appointed by Charle- 
 magne, although he was not, probably, the first creator of 
 the office. According to the ordinary cause of the develop- 
 ment of feudal institutions, these chiefs, from military gov- 
 ernors appointed for life, became territorial potentates, hold- 
 ing their lands by hereditary right ; and, on the decay of that 
 system, this honour, like others, became merely titular. In 
 England, the first marquess was Robert de Vere, earl of Ox- 
 ford, created by Richard II., in 1387, Marquess of Dublin for 
 life. The next creation was of John de Beaufort, earl of Som- 
 erset, raised to the rank of marquess in 1397; which dignity 
 he afterwards refused to bear, as a strange and novel one. 
 (See Nicolas, Introduction to the Peerage, Ixxvi.) After 
 that period the title fell into disuse, until the reign of Ed- 
 ward VI. 
 
 MA'RQUETRY. (Fr. marquetrie.) In Architecture, in- 
 laid work consisting of different pieces of divers coloured 
 woods of small thickness glued on to a ground usually of 
 oak or fir, well dried and seasoned, which, to prevent cast- 
 ing and warping, is composed of several thicknesses. The 
 early Italian builders used it in cabinet work, and John of 
 Vienna, and others of his period, by its means represented 
 figures and landscapes ; but in the present day it is chiefly 
 confined in its use to floors, in wiiich the various pieces of 
 wood are usually disposed in regular geometrical figures, 
 and are rarely of more than three or four species. 
 
 MA RRIAGE, LAW OF. Marriage, in its legal sense, is 
 a civil contract binding parties to certain reciprocal obliga- 
 tions ; and the general principle of law respecting this, as 
 well as other contracts, is, that it is to be held valid accord- 
 ing to the usage of the country wherein it is made. Thus a 
 marriage between English subjects in Scotland, according to 
 the formalities of Scottish law, is binding, and the children 
 of such parents are legitimate in England. A marriage be- 
 tween English subjects in France according to the ceremo- 
 nies in the Church of England would not be valid, according 
 to the principles of general law, unless registered before the 
 civil magistrate according to the provisions of the French 
 code. But, by the statute 4 G. 4, c. 91, marriages between 
 English subjects, solemnized abroad by ministers of the 
 Church of England in the chapel of a British ambassador or 
 British factory, are valid in the United Kingdom. 
 
 Previous to the passing of the first Marriage Act in 1754, 
 the law of England was governed by the canon law; and, 
 consequently, an agreement to marry, followed by consum- 
 mation, formed, as it now forms in Scotland, a sufficient 
 union. That statute first rendered necessary the prelimina- 
 ries of the publication of banns, or the obtaining a license. 
 It was amended by 4 G. 4, c. 17. But that act imposed so 
 many additional restrictions on parties wishing to become 
 husband and wife, that it was found necessary to repeal it 
 in all haste, and another statute was passed (4 G. 4, c. 76), 
 by which English marriages were next regulated. 
 
 By this act the banns of marriage are to be published three 
 Sundays in a parish church, or public chapel of the Estab- 
 lishment, in the parish wherein both, or the parish wherein 
 each, of the parties dwell. A license is a dispensation by 
 virtue of which marriage may be solemnized without the 
 publication of banns. It is granted by surrogates, or per- 
 sons having authority from the bishop. No license can 
 now be obtained, unless vipon affidavit that the parish or 
 district in which the marriage is to be solemnized has been 
 the usual place of residence of one of the parties for fifteen 
 days immediately preceding the granting of the license. The 
 affidavit must also declare that there is no impediment of 
 kindred or alliance, nor any other lawful cause of hinder- 
 ance. 
 
 A special license dispenses with all restrictions as to time 
 and place of marriage. By a regulation of Archbishop Seek- 
 er, it is not to be granted except to persons of a specified rank ; 
 but in practice the privilege is extended as a matter of fa- 
 vour. See Registrar. 
 
 The power of parents and guardians in restricting the mar- 
 riage of minors under their tutelage is now confined within 
 the following limits : The publication of banns is void, if the 
 61 
 
 MARRIAGE, LAW OP. 
 
 parent or guardian of either party declare, or cause to be de- 
 clared, their dissent in public at the time of the proclama- 
 tion. In case of marriage of a minor by license, the father 
 or guardian, or, if none, the mother, or the guardian appoint- 
 ed by the court of chancery, must give consent, and such 
 consent must be notified in the affidavit on application for 
 the license. If consent lie unreasonably withheld, the only 
 resource of lovers against the flinty hearts of parents or 
 guardians is by petition to the lord-chancellor, who mav, if 
 he pleases, interpose his judicial authority in favour of their 
 union. 
 
 Marriage is void if solemnized knowinely and wilfully (by 
 either party) in an unlawful place, or without banns or li- 
 cense, or by any person not in holy orders. So if the banns 
 be published, whether wilfully or accidentally, in a wrong 
 name, unless it be a name by which the party is generally 
 known. Marriages are also void where there" is a prior ex- 
 isting marriage, and in case of lunacy or incapacity. 
 
 But if the marriage of a minor be duly solemnized, but by 
 false oath or by fraud the necessary consent is dispensed 
 with, such marriage is not void ; but the party so offending 
 shall forfeit, upon complaint of the parent or guardian, all 
 property which might have accrued to such party by the 
 marriage. 
 
 Proof of a marriage is by the evidence of a party who was 
 present at the celebration ; or by production of "the parish, 
 register, and showing the identity of the parties. 
 
 The ecclesiastical courts have the direct cognizance of 
 questions respecting the legality of a marriage ; but as the 
 common law courts decide in questions of property, and oth- 
 ers in which the fact of marriage may be incidentally called 
 in question, they can require proof of it without resorting to 
 the assistance of the former. 
 
 Marriage is voidable by suit in the ecclesiastical court, 
 where such marriage has been contracted under a canonical 
 impediment, namely, consanguinity or affinity, or bodily in- 
 capacity of either of the parties. Marriages solemnized by 
 force are also voidable, and such as are contracted in error 
 under certain circumstances. A voidable marriage is good, 
 to all intents, until rendered void by a sentence of the court. 
 
 Other matrimonial causes in these courts are — 1. Jactita- 
 tion of marriage. When one party gives out or reports 
 that he or she is legally married to another, the person in- 
 jured may libel the other (see Ecclesiastical Courts, 
 under the head of Law) in the spiritual court ; and unless 
 the defendant proves marriage, silence is enjoined, which is 
 the only remedy the spiritual court can give. 
 
 1. Adultery, as a public crime, is left to the cognizance 
 of the spiritual courts: as a civil injury, it is pursued by tlte 
 husband in an action of trespass for damages against the 
 adulterer in those of common law. 
 
 2. In suits on the ground of adultery in the spiritual court 
 the remedy prayed is a separation, or divorce, a mensd et 
 thoro, from bed and board. And it may be obtained by 
 either party ; but will be refused in case the other party 
 recriminates and mutual unfaithfulness is proved, or in case 
 other circumstances are shown which, in the opinion of the 
 court, disentitle the complainant to the remedy he prays for. 
 
 A divorce o vinculo matrimonii, that is, the annulment 
 of marriage, can only be conferred by act of parliament. 
 Evidence must be given on applying for the bill that there 
 was judgment for the plaintiff on an action for damages 
 against the seducer; or sufficient cause shown why suck 
 action was not brought or such judgment obtained. 
 
 3. Another ground on which the spiritual courts will grant 
 a separation is cruelty ; buj the cruelty for which such re- 
 lief can be granted is only such as directly endangers the life 
 or health of the injured party. 
 
 4. A suit for restitution of conjugal rights is to compel 
 mutual cohabitation. And no deed of separation or mutual 
 agreement, nothing short of a sentence by the court, can bar 
 the complainant of his or her right to promote this suit ; but 
 cruelty or adultery may be pleaded in reply, as constituting 
 lawful grounds for separation. 
 
 5. Alimony is that legal proportion of the husband's estate 
 which, by the decree of the ecclesiastical court, is allotted 
 to the wife for her maintenance during the pendency of a 
 suit between them ; or after a sentence of divorce d mensd 
 et thoro by reason of the cruelty or adultery of the husband, 
 the permanent allowance to be paid to the wife during their 
 separation. The quantum of alimony is decided by the court 
 on a statement of the husband's projierty (called an allega- 
 tion of faculties) and his answer thereto. 
 
 Marriage, its Effect on Property. — The consideration of 
 the legal effect produced by marriage on the property of the 
 parties contracting it divides itself into, 
 
 1. The law of husband and wife, as it respects property 
 acquired by either before marriage. 
 
 2. As it respects property acquired by cither after mar- 
 riage. 
 
 3. As its dispositions are affected by separation or divorce. 
 (1, 2.) As to real property. If the wife is seised of lands 
 
 Yr 721
 
 MARRIAGE, LAW OF. 
 
 or tenements in an estate of inheritance, and dies having had 
 iiurii Living, the husband is entitled to the lands 01 
 tenements for his life, being tenant as it is termed, by the 
 courtesy of England : and this, whether the lands be held 
 by a legal or equitable title. 
 
 Dower is now. fine.' the statute 3 & 4 W. 4. c. 115, the 
 wife's right to one third part, for life, of all estates of in- 
 heritance which her husband dies entitled to or seised of in 
 possession. It formerly attached to all estates of inheritance 
 of which he was at any time possessed, bo that he could not 
 defeat her title by alienation, hut to legal estates only. 
 Since the 1st of Januarys 1834, the period on which the 
 abovementioned act came into operation, equitable estates 
 are also subject to it. It has long been customary to bar 
 this right to dower by various complicated processes, which 
 the law has permitted to defeat the wile's claim ; and espe- 
 cially by settlements before marriage, giving a jointure or 
 provision in lieu of dower. It may now he barred by the 
 husband's alienation in his lifetime; or by his will ; or by a 
 declaration in the deed of conveyance of the land to the 
 husband. Anciently a feme coeert could only alienate real 
 property by the public solemnity of a fine: now, by a deed 
 executed after her examination by commissioners, to show- 
 that no control is exercised by the husband. 
 
 All the personal property to which a woman is entitled 
 vests in her husband by marriage. Her chattels, real, that 
 is, leasehold property for a term of years, will revert to her 
 if she survive him ; and although the husband may alienate 
 them in his lifetime, he cannot dispose of them by will. But 
 should he survive her, they are his absolutely. Her chattels 
 personal — money and goods — are his without restriction, to 
 give or bequeath as he pleases even in her lifetime. Her 
 ckoses in action (that is, property of which there is no im- 
 mediate occupation, as debts due to her, money in the funds, 
 &c.), are the husband's property conditionally ; that is, if he 
 reduce them into possession by exercising his rights over 
 them during her life. If not, they survive to her absolutely ; 
 and should she die first, he only takes them as her adminis- 
 trator, which he is by right. 
 
 H" the husband die intestate, the wife is entitled to half 
 his personal property if there be no issue, and to one third if 
 there be issue. 
 
 The husband is liable for all his wife's debts and engage- 
 ments made while unmarried ; but not for such as she may- 
 have contracted during a former marriage. But he is re- 
 leased from his liability by her decease : and if he die first, 
 she only is responsible. For debts contracted by the wife 
 during marriage the husband is not liable unless they have 
 been contracted with his consent, express or implied ; and 
 this implied assent gives rise, as may well be supposed, to 
 numberless questions in courts of law. 
 
 As to tiie acts of husband and wife before marriage: The 
 will of a bachelor or widower not having children is re- 
 voked by his subsequent marriage and birth of issue. A 
 warrant of attorney given by an unmarried woman is re- 
 voked by her marriage. So is her will, in every case ; but 
 there are others of her acts — such as the grant of a lease at 
 will — which are not revoked, but merely revocable. 
 
 Settlements or articles, made in contemplation of mar- 
 riage, are contrivances to modify the effects which would be 
 produced by the mere act of law on the rights of the re- 
 spective parties; and also to ensure an alienable provision 
 for issue. It is usual to vest the property of both parties in 
 trustees; generally for the benefit of the husband during 
 their joint lives, then for the benefit of the survivor, after his 
 or her death for the benefit of the children, in such propor- 
 tions as the nature of the property or circumstances of the 
 family may dictate. But it is usual to give authority to the 
 parents by means of a power to vary these relative propor- 
 tions. A jointure, although, in the strict sense of the word, 
 a joint estate to husband and wife, is in practice a separate 
 estate to the wife in lands and tenements, to take effect 
 immediately on the husband's death, and to secure a com- 
 petent provision for her during her life at least: it is usually 
 provided by settlement, and bars dower. Pin-money is 
 an annual income settled gratuitously before marriage by 
 the husband on the intended wife; usually by means of 
 trustees. 
 
 But in other cases, and especially when the casualties of 
 a trade render it desirable to secure a certain protection, the 
 wife is provided for in the settlements by vesting her own 
 property, or a portion of it, in trustees for her sole and sep- 
 arate use. In this case the sums so secured arc \\ holly in- 
 dependent of her husband's control. Where bequests an- 
 made to a married woman for her separate use, and no 
 trustees are named to protect them, a court of equity will 
 Consider her husband a trustee for her. She may sue him, 
 or any other person, in those courts, in respect of such prop 
 erty. Her savings out of it are likewise hers in separate 
 right. But savings made by a wife out of an allow 
 her private expenditure are not in every case her separate 
 property. 
 
 722 
 
 MARSEILLAISE HYMN. 
 
 -V married woman has also a claim, in a court of equity, 
 to a provision out of her own propertv in several cases. 
 especially where the husband deserts or ill treats her, or 
 w here, being a ward of chancery, she is clandestinely mar- 
 ried. 
 
 (3.) On a divorce a vinculo matrimonii dower is gone; 
 and if such divorce be on account of pre-contract, consan- 
 guinity, or affinity, the children are illegitimate, and the 
 wife's property is restored to her. But a divorce i uunsd et 
 thvro does not bastardize the children or bar dower. 
 
 Adultery duriiiL' a voluntary separation entitles the ag- 
 grieved party to a divorce a maud it thoro as much as dur- 
 ing cohabit, liion ; and frees the husband from all debts of his 
 wife, or claims by reason of her. 
 
 A husband is not held liable for debts contracted by his 
 wife, even for necessaries, if he have turned her out of 
 doors for adultery ; or if, after being turned out, she commit 
 adultery; or if she depart from him without his consent ; or 
 if she elope with an adulterer; or if the husband and wife 
 separate by mutual agreement, in cases where the wife has 
 separate means, or is provided tor by separate maintenance. 
 Bigamy, or polygamy, is a felonious offence, punishable 
 by transportation for seven years ; and is now (since the 
 statute 9 G. 4, c. 31) equally punishable, although the 
 second marriage took place out of the jurisdiction of Eng- 
 lish law. 
 
 A wife committing any felony, except murder or man- 
 slaughter, in company with her husband, is not responsible 
 for the offence ; but she is indictable for high treason so 
 committed. 
 
 In both civil and criminal cases (with the exception of 
 treason), husband and wife are not allowed, except under 
 particular circumstances, to give evidence for or against each 
 other. 
 
 MARS. In the Solar System, one of the old planets, and 
 the fourth in the order of distance from the sun. The mean 
 distance of Mars from the sun is 1-5-236923, the mean dis- 
 tance of the earth from the sun being 1 : it is, consequently, 
 about 142,000,000 of miles. Mars performs his mean sidereal 
 revolution in 686-9796458 mean solar days, and his synodical 
 revolution (that is, returns to the same position in respect to 
 the earth and sun) in 779.936 days. His orbit, at the be- 
 ginning of the present century was inclined to the ecliptic in 
 an angle of 1° 51' 6" ; and its eccentricity is .093307, half the 
 major axis being unit. His apparent diameter varies from 
 36" at his greatest, to 18-28 at his least distance from 
 the earth. At his mean distance the apparent diameter is 
 6-29" ; whence the true diameter is found equal to 517, that 
 of the earth being unit, or about 4100 miles. Mars has a 
 rotation about his axis which is performed in 24 h. 39 m. 21 
 sec. The inclination of the axis to the ecliptic is 30° 18'. 
 When the opposition of Mars takes place at the time he is 
 near the aphelion of his orbit he is then at his least distance 
 from the earth, and presents an interesting appearance when 
 seen throinjh a powerful telescope. "In this planet," says 
 Sir John Herschel, " we discern, with perfect distinctness, 
 the outlines of what may be continents and seas. Of these 
 the former are distinguished by that ruddy colour which 
 characterizes the light of this planet (which always appears 
 red and fiery), and indicates, no doubt, an ochrey tinge in 
 the general soil, like what the red sandstone districts on the 
 earth may possibly offer to the inhabitants of Mars, only 
 more decided. Contrasted with this (by a general law in 
 optics) the seas, as we may call them, appear greenish. 
 These spots, however, are not always to be seen equally 
 distinct, though, when seen, they offer always the same ap- 
 pearance. This may arise from the planet not being entirely 
 destitute of atmosphere and clouds ; and what adds greatly 
 to the probability of this is the appearance of brilliant white 
 spots at its poles, which have been conjectured, with a great 
 deal of probability, to be snow; as they disappear when 
 they have been long exposed to the sun. and are greatest 
 when just emerging from the long night of their polar win- 
 ter." (.'lstrononni. Call. Cue) Set l'l.ANET. 
 
 MARS, or MAYORS. The Latin names of the deity 
 railed by the Greeks Aprjf. lie was fabled to be the son of 
 Juno, conceived by means of the virtue of a certain plant ; 
 and was worshipped as the God of War. At Rome he was 
 honoured as the progenitor of Romulus, the founder of the 
 city, of which he was held to be the protector; and it was 
 to the honour of this divinity that 'he Latin husbandmen 
 used to offer 1 1 1 1 a peculiar sacrifice, called suoretauri/ia, 
 which, a-- the derivation of the word implies, consisted of a 
 pig, a sheep, and a bull. The priests of Mars were called 
 talH, and to their care was intrusted the sacred shield 
 . which was said to have fallen from heaven during 
 the reign of Noma. Set Sw.u, \\cii.e. 
 
 M VJttSEILLAISE HYMN. The name popularly, though 
 erroneously, given to the national anthem of the French. 
 The origin of this song, which has played so important a 
 pan in the revolutions not only of France but of other conti- 
 nental states, was long involved in obscurity ; and we scarce-
 
 MARSH. 
 
 If think it will be considered out of place to embody in our 
 pages the following statement respecting it, which may be 
 relied on as authentic: The Marseillaise Hymn was the pro- 
 duction of Rouget de Lille, a French officer of engineers, 
 who was quartered at Strasburg in the year 1791, when 
 Marshal Luckner commanded the army, at that time entirely 
 composed of young conscripts. The marshal was to march 
 the following morning of a certain day ; and, late in the 
 evening previous, he inquired if there were any men of a 
 musical or poetical genius in the army who could compose a 
 soul-inspiring song to animate his young soldiers. Some one 
 mentioned Captain Rouget de Lille, who was immediately 
 ordered into the presence of the marshal to receive his com- 
 mands on the subject; which having been given, and a 
 promise made by lie Lille that a song would be ready the 
 following morning, he went to his quarters, and during the 
 night he not only wrote the song in question, but also set it 
 to music ; and next morning the army marched to its tune, 
 and carried every thing before it with an enthusiasm only 
 to be equalled by absolute phrensy. 
 
 The song is said to have been styled the Marseillaise 
 Hymn from a body of troops, on their march from Mar- 
 seilles, having entered Paris playing that tune at a time 
 when it was little known in the capital. The Original of 
 the Marseillaise is said to be in the possession of Louis 
 Philippe. 
 
 MARSH. A flat surface, the soil of which is so far 
 saturated with water throughout the year as to be unfit for 
 culture by the spade or plough ; but not so much as to pre- 
 vent it from producing coarse grasses, and other kinds of 
 herbage. Marshes are generally situated in bottoms, where 
 they are kept moist by the water which descends from the 
 surrounding lands: or along the banks of rivers or lakes, 
 where their humidity arises from their being nearly on the 
 same level with the adjoining water. Where a marsh is 
 situated so as to be occasionally overflowed by the sea, or 
 by a river up which the tide flows, it is called a salt marsh ; 
 and the herbage produced by such lands is found highly 
 conducive to the health of animals which pasture on them 
 for a certain portion of the year, from the alterative efl'ect 
 of its saline properties. 
 
 MA'RSH AL. A title of honour in many European coun- 
 tries, applied to various dignities and high offices. The 
 derivation of the word, and its early use, are extremely un- 
 certain. The title of Marshal of England is now hereditary 
 in the family of the Dukes of Norfolk. William Fitz-Osborn 
 and Roger de Montgomery are said to have been marshals 
 to William the Conqueror : their successors for some time 
 are not accurately known ; but the office was held in 1138, 
 in fee, by the family of Clare, and thence descended to the 
 Earls of Pembroke, and thence to Roger de Bigod, Earl of 
 Norfolk, who surrendered it to Edward I. After being grant- 
 ed for life, and during pleasure, to several successive mar- 
 shals, the dignity, with the title of Earl Marshal, was given 
 to Mowbray, afterwards Duke of Norfolk; in whose family 
 the dignity subsisted until it reverted to the crown in the 
 reign of Edward IV. Richard III. granted it to his favourite, 
 Howard. Duke of Norfolk ; after whose death and attainder 
 it passed through many hands ; but was by Charles I. grant- 
 ed for life to his descendant, Thomas Howard, Earl of 
 Arundel ; and finally his grandson, Henry Howard, Earl of 
 Norwich, was constituted hereditary earl marshal of Eng- 
 land in 1672, with remainder to the issue male of the Earl 
 of Arundel aforesaid ; in which latter line it now subsists. 
 The earl marshal is eighth in rank among the great officers 
 of state in England. He has the same jurisdiction over the 
 court of chivalry which was formerly exercised by the con- 
 stable and marshal jointly. 
 
 Marshal of the King's Household, or Knight Marshal. 
 An officer whose office is said to be to hear and determine 
 pleas of the crown, and suits between those of the king's 
 household and other persons within the verge. The mar- 
 shal of the King's Bench has the custody of the King's Bench 
 prison in South wark. 
 
 Marshal of France is the highest military rank in the 
 French army. This officer appears first in history under the 
 reign of Philip Augustus, as commander-in-chief of the royal 
 armies. The number of marshals was increased by several 
 successive sovereigns: in the reign of Henry IV. the states 
 of Blois limited it to four, but this restriction was not observ- 
 ed ; and, in the reign of Louis XIV., there were at one 
 period no less than twenty. In the same reign officers of 
 the navy as well as the army received the rank of marshal. 
 The marshals bore two batong or marshal's staffs — azure, 
 seines of fleur de-lys or saltier-wise— as the token of their 
 dignity. After the deposition of Louis XVI. the dignity of 
 marshal ceased; but was revived by Napoleon, with the 
 title of Marshal of the Empire. 
 
 MA'RSHALLING. In Heraldry, the arrangement and 
 distribution of coats in a shield so as to denote the several 
 matches and alliances of the family. See Blazonry. 
 
 MA'RSIIALSEA. In Law, the court or seat of a raar- 
 
 MARSUPIALS. 
 
 shal. The King's Bench prison, in Southwark, is said to be 
 so called because the marshal of the king's house was wont 
 to sit there, or to keep his prison. The Marshalsea, or 
 Knight-marshal's Court, commonly called the Palace Court, 
 was created by Charles I. ; and has jurisdiction of personal 
 actions within a circuit of twelve miles round Whitehall. 
 
 MARSH MIASMA. The infectious vapours which rise 
 from certain marshes and marshy soils, and which tend to 
 the production of intermittent and remittent fevers. 
 
 MARSU'PIALS, Marsupialia, or Marsupiata. (Lat. 
 marsupium, a pouch.) An order of Implacental Mammil'er- 
 ous quadrupeds, of which the females have a portion of the 
 abdominal integument folded inwards, forming either a de- 
 pression containing the mamma!, or a pouch serving also as 
 a temporary abode for the young ; and the males have a 
 corresponding portion of the abdominal integument extend- 
 ed outwards, forming a scrotum or pedunculate bag for the 
 testes. In both sexes two supplementary trochlear bones 
 are developed in the internal pillars of the abdominal rings, 
 and are articulated to the anterior part of the brim of the 
 pelvis, around which bones play the muscles supporting 
 and compressing the testes in the male, and the mammary 
 glands in the female: the trochlear ossicles, from their con- 
 nexion by means of these muscles with the pouch, are call- 
 ed "marsupial." 
 
 The quadrupeds associated together by the common ex- 
 ternal and osteological characters above defined so far re- 
 semble the oviparous animals that a placenta is not organ- 
 ized, and the chorion of the foetus contracts no adhesion 
 with the parietes of the uterus. The foetus is prematurely 
 born after a gestation of only thirty-eight days, in the great 
 kangaroo, in which it does not exceed an inch in length. 
 It is then received into the pouch, and adheres to the nipple 
 for many months before it quits the pouch. The generative 
 organs themselves, both male and female, offer several 
 striking peculiarities common to all the Marsupials, and 
 by which they differ from the ordinary Mammalia. Cuvier 
 accordingly, in 181G, separated the marsupial from the other 
 unguiculate quadrupeds, to form a distinct group, which he 
 describes as forming with the Monotremes a small collateral 
 chain ; all the genera of which, while they are connected 
 together by the peculiarities of the generative system, at the 
 same Lime correspond in their dentition and diet, some to the 
 Carnivora, others to the Rodentia, and a third tribe to the 
 Edentata. M. de Blainville, in the Tables of the Animal 
 Kingdom which he published in the same year, 1816, con- 
 stituted a distinct subclass of Cuvier's "small collateral 
 chain" of mammals, and gave to the subclass the name of 
 Didelphes, in antithesis to that of Monodclphes, by which he 
 distinguished the Placental Mammalia. 
 
 Many acute and sound-thinking naturalists refused their 
 assent to these views, which, as they were supported by a 
 knowledge of the conformity of organization of only the 
 generative system in the Marsupials, were unquestionably 
 defective in the evidence essential to enforce conviction. 
 The best arguments for returning to the older views of classi- 
 fication, and for distributing the marsupial genera, according 
 to the affinities indicated by their dental and locomotive 
 systems, among the different orders of the Placental Mam- 
 malia, were advanced by Mr. Bennett, the accomplished 
 author of The Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological So- 
 ciety delineated (vol. i., p. 265) ; and these have been re- 
 peated with approbation, and adopted by later classificators, 
 as Mr. Swainson. 
 
 The discover)' of the true affinities of the Marsupialia could 
 only flow from an insight into their whole organization; and 
 the question which Mr. Bennett proposes, with reference to 
 the genus Phascolomys, " What is there of importance in the 
 structure of the wombat, except this solitary character of the 
 marsupium, to separate it from the Rodent order V— a ques- 
 tion which he might, in 1831, have asked with equal force 
 in reference to any other marsupial genus — could only be 
 answered satisfactorily by the anatomist who had submitted 
 the Marsupialia in question to a thorough dissection. 
 
 Although the Marsupials present modifications of the dental 
 system corresponding with the carnivorous, omnivorous, and 
 herbivorous types, yet they agree with each other, and differ 
 from the analogous Placental Mammalia in having four in- 
 stead of three true molars, i. e., four molars which are not 
 displaced and succeeded by others, in the vertical direction. 
 
 In the locomotive organs it is true that we see some of the 
 Marsupials having a hinder thumb, like the Placental Quad- 
 rumana; others are digitigrade, with falculate claws, like 
 the Placental Ferai; a third, as the wombat, has the feet 
 adapted for burrowing; a fourth, like the Cheironectes, is 
 aquatic, and has webbed feet : yet all these Marsupials agree 
 with each other in having a rotatory movement of the hind 
 foot, analogous to the pronation and supination, which, in the 
 placental quadrupeds, are limited, when enjoyed at all, to 
 the fore feet ; and they manifest, moreover, a peculiar modi- 
 fication of the muscles of the hind leg and foot, in relation 
 to these rotatory movements. In those Marsupials, as the 
 
 723
 
 MART. 
 
 kangaroos, potoroos, and perami lee, in which the offices of 
 support and locomotion are devolved exclusively or in great 
 part upon the hind legs, these ore strengthened at the ex- 
 pense of the loss of the rotatory movements of the feet ; bat 
 in the enormous development of the tw o outer toes, and the 
 conversion of the two inner ones into onguiculate appi ad 
 ages, useful only in cleansing the fur, these Marsupials differ 
 from all Plocentals, whilst the Borne peculiar condition of 
 the toes may he traced through the Pedimanous group of 
 marsupials. Thus the locomotive organs, notwithstanding 
 their adaptation to different kinds of progression, testifj to the 
 unity of the Marsupial group in the two remarkable peculi- 
 arities of structure above cited. 
 
 The vascular system gives evidence to the same effect 
 All the Marsupials present the following peculiarities in the 
 structure of the heart, viz., the right auricle manifests no 
 trace of either fossa oralis or annul us oralis, and receives 
 the two vents cava supcriorcs by two separate inlets. This 
 generalization is, however, less urgent in the present ques- 
 tion than the preceding, because the modification, as regards 
 the separate entry of the superior ut nte cava- obtains in a few 
 placental species, as the elephant and certain Rodents ; but 
 
 MASCAGINiN. 
 as the first-cited cardiac character is common and peculiar 
 
 to the Marsupial Mammalia, and as the second, while ii is 
 universal In the Marsupials, occurs only as an exceptional 
 
 condition in the placental series, the arguments which they 
 nti'ord to the unity of the marsupial group cannot be over- 
 looked in a philosophical consideration of the affinities of 
 the Mammalia. 
 
 With respect to the nervous system, it has been shown 
 that, in the structure of the brain, the Marsupialia exhibit a 
 dose correspondence with the Ovipara in the rudimental 
 state of the corpus callo&urn : the difference which the most 
 
 closely analogous placental speries offer in this respect is 
 broadly marked. (Owen on the Brain of the Marsupial 
 Animate, mil. Trans. 1837, p. 89, pi. vi.) 
 
 These coincidences in the Marsupialia of important or 
 ganic modifications of the dental, locomotive, vascular, cere- 
 bral, ami reproductive systems, establish the fact that they 
 constitute a natural group, inferior, on the whole, in organi- 
 zation to ttie Placental Mammalia. 
 
 The following is a tabular view of the subordinate divi- 
 sions of the Marsupialia regarded as an order of the Impla- 
 cental subclass of Mammalia: 
 
 Tribes. 
 Sarcoi>haga. 
 
 Classification of the Marsupialia. 
 
 Families. 
 
 Three kinds of teeth ; canines long in both jaws ; a simple ( n . , 
 
 stomach; no intcstinum cecum. S - L,a *J" m <" 8 
 
 Extinct transitional forms ...... 
 
 Entomophaga. 
 Three kinds of teeth in both jaws; a simple stomach ; a? a„,i„7„,„„-„ 
 moderately long intcsUnum cecum. \ •*»»««*»■»« 
 
 Saltatoria 
 Scansoria 
 
 Sarcophaga. 
 
 Anterior incisors large and long in both jaws ; canines in- ) 
 constant ; stomach simple, or with a special gland ; a very > Phalangistidai 
 long inlcstinum ctscum. ) 
 
 POEPHAGA. 
 
 Fhascolarctidte 
 
 Anterior incisors large and long in both jaws ; canines ) 
 present in the upper jaw only, or wanting; a complex > Macropodidm 
 stomach ; a long intcstinum ctscum. > 
 
 RmZOPHAGA. 
 
 Two scalpriform incisors in both jaws; no canines; stom-1 
 ach with a special gland ; cecum short, wide, with a \ Phascolomyidts 
 vermiform appendage. ) 
 
 t Thylacinus. 
 < Dasyurus. 
 ( Phascogale. 
 \ Phaecolotherium 
 
 i Thylacotheriuiu 
 
 Myrmecobius. 
 
 I Chasropus. 
 ( Peraiueles. 
 
 Didelphys 
 
 C Phalangista 
 
 t Petaurus - 
 Phascolarctus. 
 
 ( Hypsiprymnus. 
 ( Macropus. 
 
 ST'hnscolomys. 
 Diprotodon 
 
 Subgenera. 
 
 Fossil. 
 
 \ Didelphys. 
 I Cheironectes. 
 
 ( Cuscus. 
 
 < Pseudocheirus. 
 ( Tapoa. 
 
 i Petaurista. 
 
 < Belidia. 
 
 f Acrobata. 
 
 Fossil. 
 
 MART. See Fair and Market. 
 
 MARTE'LLO TOWERS. The name given to the cir- 
 cular buildings of mas inry which were erected along different 
 parts of the British coasts at the commencement of the 
 present century, intended as a defence against the meditated 
 invasion of Napoleon. The origin of the name is usually 
 supposed to be derived from B fort in Mortella (Myrtle) Bay, 
 Corsica, which, after a determined resistance, was at last 
 captured by the British in 1794. These towers were pro- 
 vided with vaulted roofs, and consisted of two stories — the 
 lower for the reception of stores, the upper, which was shell- 
 proof, for Die cas, men! of troops; and the wall of the build- 
 in.' terminated in a parapet, which secured the men in 
 Working the pieces of artillery, which, besides, were con- 
 structed on moi in» pivots, so as to be fired in any direction. 
 In most places of England these towers have been dis- 
 mantled ; those that remain either serve as stations for the 
 use of the i oast bloi kade force, or, like that near Leith, are 
 not em ploye d for any purpose. 
 
 MARTIXKT. A cant phrase for a severe military dis- 
 ciplinarian; probably derived from a certain Colon,. I Marti 
 net, w ho s< r v < d in the 1 "n nch army under Louis XIV.. who 
 
 was the inventor of a peculiar whip, (ailed by his name, for 
 the purpose of military punishment, and also (if Voltaire 
 may be believed of the bo i 
 
 M \ i:tiv;.\i.i:. [n Naval afioira, a rope leading down- 
 wards from the jib-boom end, to keep the Jib-boom down 
 against the force of the sail and stay. In the menage, mar 
 ringale is applied tea thong of leather fastened at the end of 
 the girths under the belly of a horse, and at the other end to the 
 musrol, passing between the legs to keep him from rearing. 
 
 M I'RTLET. In Heraldry, a fanciful bird, shaped like a 
 martin or swallow, but depii ted with short tufts of feathers 
 in the place of legs. It is the difference or distinction of a 
 
 fourth 
 MA'RTVR. (Gr. paDTvp, or uaPros, witness: in which 
 724 
 
 sense the word is used by the writers of the N. Test. wh«n 
 speaking of themselves, in reference to the testimony they 
 bore to the actions of Christ.) When the members of the 
 Christian Church were subjected to persecution under the 
 Roman emperors, the persons accused were questioned as to 
 their belief; and, in undergoing punishments and death, 
 were said to bear witness of their Master before the world. 
 A distinction was also made between those who, although 
 they boldly asserted their belief, were yet not visited with 
 extreme punishment, who were designated under the name 
 of confessors, and those who actually suffered death, who 
 alone were dignified with the title or martyrs, and said to 
 obtain the crown of martyrdom. Martyr, in itsordman Big 
 nification, denotes a person who sutlers death or persecution 
 on account of his belief. (See Jtfoshtim's Feci. History 
 (transl.), ed. 1790, i., 77 ; Giestler (transl.), r. 8, U, 71, &c. 
 As to the intercession of mart] rs, lb. 109, 168.) 
 
 MA'RTYRO'LOGY. (Gr. uaprvs, and \oyos,a descrip- 
 tion.) The name given to that department of ecclesiastical 
 history which n lates to the acts and deaths of martyrs. It 
 also signifies a calendar or n gister kept in religious houses 
 wherein were inserted the names and donations of their 
 benefactors, and the days of till ir death. As specimens of 
 
 tins species of works, we may mention the Martyrology of 
 
 Eusebiufl, which was so celebrated in the early church, but 
 
 which is lost: and / ■',,'.. , ' /rs, the most valu- 
 
 able record of the sufferings of the English reformers. Many 
 accounts in the early martyrologies are purely fabu- 
 lous. Bee ft ni Hurt'., .ir'i Martyrum; Boronii, Martyro- 
 logvum Romanian : and Middieton's Free Inquiry. Gallo- 
 nius, l)r Sanctorum Martyrum Cruciatibus, 1598, and sub- 
 sequent editions, is a book which has had great popularity 
 
 On the Continent. 
 
 M ISC \ 'C \ I V. A mlneralogical name of the native sul- 
 phate of Bi mia of volcanic districts; named after Ma&- 
 
 cagni, who first discovered it.
 
 MASCLE. 
 
 MA'SCLE. In Heraldry, a bearing in t)ie form of a loz- 
 enge perforated ; supposed to represent the meshes of a net. 
 
 MA'SONRY. (Fr.) The science of combining and join- 
 ing stones for the formation of walls and other parts in con- 
 structing buildings. The science, when applied in the con- 
 struction of domes, groins, and circular arches, is difficult 
 and complicated, depending on a thorough knowledge of 
 descriptive geometry. Hence the various methods of obtain- 
 ing the requisite lines for the artificer would require a space 
 and diagrams which cannot be given here ; but the reader 
 who desires acquaintance with that part of the subject may 
 consult Rondelet, Traite Theorique et Pratique de VArt de 
 Butir, Paris, le'29-30, 4to, with the certainty of finding all 
 the information he requires. Vitruvius mentions several 
 kinds of masonry among the ancients, which were distin- 
 guished from each other by the different modes of arranging 
 the stones. The principal are, 1. The Reticulatum, whicli 
 is arranged in diagonal courses, like the meshes of a net; 
 whence its name. 2. The Incertum, wherein the rising 
 courses are so laid, without any certain sizes of the stones, 
 as that the vertical joint above always falls over the middle 
 of the joint below. The appearance of this work is not 
 perhaps so pleasing as that of the first, but the work itself is 
 stronger. 3. The Isodomum, in which all the courses are of 
 equal height, as its name imports. 4. The Pseudisodomum, 
 which received its name from the courses being unequal 
 in height. 5. The Emplcctum, in which the faces of the 
 work were wrought, and the centre of the wall filled up with 
 rubble work, in which species of work the Greeks employed 
 diatoni or bond stones, running in one piece through the 
 thickness of the wall to tie it together. The first principles 
 to be attended to in building stone walls are, that the vertical 
 joints in any course should not fall over the vertical joints 
 in the course immediately below it; and that where the 
 thickness of the wall consists of two or more pieces of stone, 
 bond stones or blocks which run through the whole wall 
 transversely, if possible in one piece, should be introduced as 
 frequently as possible for the purpose of binding the whole 
 mass together. The different species of masonry in present 
 use may be reduced to four : 1. Bond masonry, wherein the 
 stones of each succeeding course are laid so that the joint 
 that mounts and separates two stones always falls directly 
 over the middle of the stone below. 2. That of brickwork, 
 where the bodies and projections of the stones enclose square 
 spaces or panels, &c, formed with bricks. 3. That called 
 by the French demotion, or small work, wherein the courses 
 are equal, well squared, and their edges or beds rusticated. 
 4. That wherein the courses are unequal, and filled up in 
 the middle with small stones and mortar. 
 
 Masonry. See Freemasonry. 
 
 MASQUE, or MASK. A species of drama. It originated 
 from the custom in processions, and other solemn occasions, 
 of introducing personages in masks to represent imaginary 
 characters. Many of these characters, even in the religious 
 shows of Italy, &c, were of a grotesque description, and the 
 performance often intermixed with dancing and buffoonery. 
 By degrees, in England, something of a dramatic character 
 was added to these exhibitions. At first, as in the well- 
 known progresses of Queen Elizabeth, monologues or dia- 
 logues in verse were put into the mouths of the masked per- 
 formers ; and, in the reign of James I., they had ripened into 
 regular dramatic performances : sometimes, as in the Tem- 
 pest of Shakspeare, introduced by way of interlude in regu- 
 lar plays ; at other times acted as separate pieces, with much 
 machinery and decoration. Ben Johnson was the first, and 
 indeed almost the only classical English writer (with the 
 exception of Milton, in the solitary and noble specimen of 
 Comus) who devoted much, labour and taste to this depart- 
 ment of the drama. His masques were represented at court : 
 the queen of James I., and after her the accomplished Queen 
 Henrietta Maria, did not disdain to take part, at least as silent 
 dramatis persona;, in some of these pageants. The taste for 
 them died away in the reign of Charles I.; and after the 
 interraption given to the progress of dramatic art and litera- 
 ture by the civil wars, they were not again brought into 
 fashion. 
 
 MASQUERA'DE. (Ital. mascherata.) An amusement 
 practised in almost every civilized country of modern times, 
 consisting of a ball and other festivities, in which only those 
 who are masked or disguised can participate. This species 
 of amusement had its origin in Italy, where, according to 
 Hall's Chronicle, they had become fashionable so early as 
 the beginning of the 16th century. Of its introduction into 
 England, Hall thus speaks : " On the date of the Epiphaine, 
 at night (A.D. 1512-13), the king (Henry VIII.) with eleven 
 others, were disguised after the manner of Italie, called a 
 maske, a thing not seen afore in England ; they were apa- 
 reled in garmentes long and brode, wrought all with golde, 
 with visers and cappes of golde ; and after the banket doen, 
 these maskers came in with the six gentlemen disguised in 
 silk" (in all probability the domino of more recent times), 
 " barynge staffe torches, and desired the ladies to daunce ; 
 
 MAST. 
 
 some were content ; and some that knew the fashion of it 
 refused, because it was not a thing commonly seen. And 
 after thel daunced and commoned together, as the fashion 
 of the maskes is, thel tokc their leave and departed, and so 
 did the quene and all the ladies." The invention of mas- 
 querades is ascribed to Granacci, who died in 1543. 
 
 MASS. (Lat. missa.) The name by which the Roman 
 Catholics designate the celebration of tile Lord's Supper after 
 the forms of their church. The term is derived from the 
 phrase, "Ite, missa est, concio" (i. e., Go, the assembly is 
 dissolved) ; by which the priest, in the primitive ages, signi- 
 fied to the catechumens that all that part of the service of 
 the church was concluded whicli it was allowed to all be- 
 lievers indiscriminately to attend. The communion of the 
 eucharist was extended only to the higher class, ihefidcles, 
 who had completed the period of initiation and instruction : 
 and, after the pronunciation of these words, the offering of 
 the body and blood was made. It was to this offering itself 
 that the term missa came to be applied. The service of the 
 mass, as it is still retained throughout Catholic countries, 
 was the work of Gregory I., in the 6th century. It consists 
 of three parts : the onertorium, or offering of the elements 
 upon the altar; the consecration, by which they are sup- 
 posed to undergo the transubstantiation into the real body 
 and blood of Christ ; and the sumption, or actual participa- 
 tion in them by the communicants. These ceremonies are 
 accompanied by the recitation of various prayers; and the 
 priests go through numerous evolutions, which are supposed 
 to represent the circumstances attending the passion of our 
 Lord. High mass is the performance of this service accom- 
 panied with music. 
 
 Mass. (Germ, masse.) The quantity of matter of which 
 any body is composed. The mass is directly as the product 
 of the volume of the body into its density. The mass mul- 
 tiplied into the constant force of gravity constitutes the 
 weight ; and hence the mass of any body is rightly estimated 
 by its weight. See Mechanics. 
 
 Mass. In the Fine Arts, a large quantity of matter of 
 light or shade. It is generally applied in painting to light 
 and shade brought upon objects proper for their reception, 
 and grouped or arranged so as to give repose and pleasing 
 variety both of one and the other without being scattered. 
 
 MASSA'LIANS. Sec Euchites. 
 
 MA'SSETER (Gr. naaaaoiiai, I chew.) A short thick 
 muscle which raises the lower jaw, and assists in moving it 
 backwards and forwards in the act of chewing. 
 
 MA'SSICOT. Yellow oxide of lead. 
 
 MA'SSORA, or MASORA. A critical work among the 
 Jews, containing remarks on the verses, words, letters, and 
 vowel-points of the Hebrew text of the Bible. As the sa- 
 cred books were originally written without any breaks or 
 divisions into chapters or verses or even words, the Jews 
 found it necessary to establish a canon to fix and ascertain 
 the reading of the Hebrew text. This rule or canon is de- 
 signated Jilassora, or tradition, in which the verses, letters, 
 words, &c, are all numbered ; and by this means the slightest 
 variations can be detected. The Jewish rabbis who drew up 
 this work are styled Massorites. See Biblical History, &c. 
 
 MAST. A long piece or system of pieces of timber, 
 placed nearly perpendicular to the keel of a vessel to sup- 
 port the yards or gaffs on which the sails are extended. 
 When the mast is one entire piece, it is called a pole-mast ; 
 but in all larger vessels it is composed of several lengths, 
 called lower, top, and top-gallant masts : sometimes a fourth, 
 called a royal mast. 
 
 The method of supporting each mast on the one next be- 
 low it is peculiar. On the sides of the lower mast, some 
 feet below the head, are placed cheeks : on these are fixed 
 horizontally two short pieces of wood, fore and aft, called 
 trestle trees. Across these at right ungles are laid, before 
 and abaft the mast, two or more longer and lighter pieces, 
 called cross trees, which give the name to the entire system. 
 On the mast head itself is a cap. 
 
 The topmast being placed up and down, the fore side of 
 the lower mast is swayed up between the trestle trees, and 
 through the round or foremast hole in the cap. When 
 raised so high that the heel of the topmast is nearly up to the 
 surface of the cross trees, a piece of iron, called the fid, is 
 put through the hole in the heel for the purpose ; and on 
 this fid, of which the ends are supported on the trestle trees, 
 the topmast rests. When fidded, the topmast is stayed, 
 and the rigging or shrouds set up to the dead eyes in the 
 ends of the cross trees. These dead eyes pull from the 
 lower rigging below, and thus the cross trees serve merely 
 to extend the rigging. The topgallant is supported in the 
 same manner on the topmast. When the mast is to be 
 taken down, it is first raised to relieve the fid ; which being 
 drawn out, the mast is lowered. 
 
 The masts are supported by a strong rope, leading for- 
 ward called the stay; by others, leading aft on each side of 
 the ship, called, in general, backstays ; and by others abreast, 
 called s'ltrowds, and also breast backstays. 
 
 7*5
 
 MASTER. 
 
 Large lower masts rue composed of pieces, ami ha,e for 
 some years been made <>t' several lengths, about a foot or 
 - -'1:11V. ami the whole supported merely by hoops at in- 
 tervals. 
 
 linmast ^ near the middle of the vessel, the fore- 
 mast is that which is nearest the fore part, and the miien- 
 mast is abaft the mi inmost, 
 
 The old rule for the length of the main lower mast is to 
 take J the sum of the length of the lower deck and extreme 
 breadth: the foremast is 8-0thsof the mainmast, the mizen- 
 mast considerably smaller. The topmast is about 3-5ths of 
 the lower mast. These rules, as well as others for the 
 thicknesses, fee., are merely for convenience, based on no 
 
 mechanical principle, and are by no means strictly follow ed. 
 
 MA'STER. (Lot mngister] \ dtle frequent among 
 the Romans: as magister equitum (master of the horse, the 
 lieutenant or second in command to a dictator), magister 
 peditum, magister census, fee. Magister Militia; (master of 
 the army, or of military affairs) was a title under the later 
 Roman emperors. Grand master, in modern times is the 
 common title of the chief of the orders of knighthood, and 
 of some fraternities, as the Freemasons. The oldest sons 
 of some noble landed proprietors are designated as mas- 
 ters in Scotland ; as the master of Gray, master of Doug- 
 las, fee. 
 
 Master. In the Universities, a degree in arts; the most 
 ancient of all the academical titles. In the university of 
 Paris, where this as well as the other learned distinctions 
 appear to have originated, it was originally a mere title, be- 
 longing to those who taught in the schools (magistri, doc- 
 tores). Thus every master was. of necessity, a lecturer. In 
 process of time (and probably about the middle of the 13th 
 century) the title became a degree, attainable by all after a 
 certain amount of residence and proficiency: While the duty 
 of lecturing was confined only to a certain number of mas- 
 ters, termed regents. About the same period the separation 
 of the degrees of master and doctor took place. In the 
 English universities, the degree of master of arts follows 
 that of bachelor. A master becomes a regent after a short 
 period: and, according to the old academical constitution, 
 is supposed to read lectures during the year of his regency. 
 On becoming a regent, he becomes a member of the govern- 
 ing body of the university; having a vote in congregation 
 ami convocation at Oxford, in the senate at Cambridge. In 
 our universities the degree of master is the highest in the 
 faculty of arts: but subordinate to that of bachelor of di- 
 vinity. Elsewhere the faculty of arts is synonymous with 
 that of philosophy, in which the degree of doctorate is con- 
 ferred, superior to that of master. 
 
 Master, otherwise called Captain, in Commercial Navi- 
 gation, the person entrusted with the care and navigation of 
 a ship. His duties are very important. In some countries 
 no one can be appointed to this office who has not been de- 
 clared to fill it by a legally constituted board ; but in this 
 country the owners are left to their own discretion as to the 
 skill and honesty of the master ; and although he is bound 
 to make good any damage that may happen to the ship and 
 cargo by bis negligence or unskilfulness, he cannot be pun- 
 ished as a criminal for mere incompetence. No one is 
 qualified to he master of a British ship unless he be a natu- 
 ral-born British subject, or naturalized by act of parliament ; 
 or have become a subject to his majesty by conquest, cession, 
 &c., and have taken the oaths of allegiance; or a foreign 
 seaman who has served three years in time of war on board 
 of his majesty's ships. 
 
 Master. In the Royal Navy, the officer who has the 
 charge of the navigation of the ship, with other duties : bis 
 rank is next to lieutenant. 
 
 Master Attendant. The officer next in rank to the 
 superintendent of the royal dock yard. 
 
 Master at Arms. A petty officer of the navy, who Is, 
 in fact, the head of the police of the ship: his assistants 
 are called ship's corporals. 
 
 Master of the Ceremonies. An officer attached to 
 all European courts, whose duty consists in regulating all 
 matters of etiquette and state ceremony. {See Ceremo- 
 nies, &c.) The name is also applied to any individual who 
 
 is appointed by general consent to preside over the arrange 
 ments of a public ball, with the power of deciding all dis- 
 putes that may arise therein. 
 
 Master of the Horse. The third great officer in the 
 British court. When not put in commission, this office is 
 always filled by a nobleman, lie has the management of 
 all the royal stables and bred horses, with authority over 
 all the equerries and pages, coachmen, footmen, grooms, &.c. 
 In solemn cavalcades he rides ne\t the sovereign. Salary, 
 £1376 13s. id. per annum. The queen dowager s ' 
 hold has also a master of the horse and three equerries. 
 
 Master of the Household. An officer employed un- 
 der the treasurer of the household to survey accounts. 
 
 Master of ttie Mint. See Mint. 
 
 Master of tub Robes. An officer of the royal house- 
 720 
 
 MATERIALISM. 
 
 m. the lord chamberlain's department His salary fe 
 £800 per annum. 
 
 Master of the Rolls. See Masters in Chancery. 
 
 Masters in Chancery, are assistants to the lord chan- 
 cellor. The masters in ordinary are twelve in aumbei 
 win. m the master of the rolls is chief. To them are refer- 
 red interlocutory orders for stating accounts, computing 
 ages, fee They also administer oaths, take affidavits and 
 
 acknowledgments, and examine bids in chancery w ith refei 
 
 eni-e to their propriety. The masters are also employed by 
 the house of peers in carrying messages to the commons. 
 Masters extraordinary are appointed to act in the countrj be- 
 
 > i twenty miles from London By 3 fe 4 W. 4, c. 94, s. 
 
 in. the appointment of masters In ordinary is taken from the 
 lord chancellor, and vested in the crown. 
 
 MA'STER-SI'NGERB. A class of poets who flourished 
 in Germany during the L5th and part of the 16th Century. 
 
 They were confined to a few imperial towns, and their chief 
 
 seat was the city of Nuremberg. They were generally of 
 hurgher extraction ; and formed regular corporations, Into 
 which proficients were admitted by the ordinary course of 
 apprenticeship. Their poetry generally confined to devo- 
 tional or scriptural pieces, legendary tales, with some admix- 
 ture of satire and of amatory lyrics) was subjected to a pe- 
 culiar and pedantic code of laws, both composition and ver- 
 sification : and a board of judges (styled merker) assembled 
 to hear the poems recited, and mark the faults which might 
 be committed in either particular: he who had the fewest 
 faults received the prize. Hans Sachs, the famous cobbler 
 of Nuremberg, was a member of these societies ; although 
 his genius was of too independent a character to submit to 
 the trammels of their poetical regulations. 
 
 .MASTIC. (Gt. ixaoTiKi), a species of gum.) In Archi- 
 tecture, a cement of recent introduction into England, em- 
 ployed for plastering walls. It is used with a considerable 
 portion of linseed oil, and sets hard in a tew days. From 
 this latter circumstance, and from its being fit for the rendi- 
 tion of paint at an early period, it is much used in works 
 where great expedition is requisite. 
 
 M lstic, A peculiar resin which exudes from the Pista- 
 cia Icntiscns. Its chief use is in varnishes. 
 
 MA'STICOT. (Fr. massicot.) In Tainting, a yellow col- 
 our, being an oxkle of lead. 
 
 MASTI'TIS. (Gr. paoroc, tke breast.) Inflammation of 
 the breast in women : it commonly terminates in suppura- 
 tion. 
 
 MA'STODON. (Gr. paoros, a vipple. and oeouf, tooth.) 
 A genus of extinct fossil quadrupeds allied to the elephant : 
 so called from the conical projections upon the surfaces of 
 the molar teeth. 
 
 MA'STOID. (Gr. pacrTo;, and c«5of, form.) Certain 
 nipple like protuberances of the bones. 
 
 MASTOTHE'CA. (Gr. paeTOc, and ^ V Krj. a receptacle 
 A name sometimes used for Marsupiuui, and applied to the 
 abdominal pouch of tin' marsupial animals. 
 
 MATE. In a Merchant Ship, the deputy of the master, 
 taking in his absence the command. There are sometimes- 
 only one, and sometimes two, three, or four mates in a 
 merchantman, according to her size; denominated 1st, 2d, 
 3d, &c. mates. The law, however, recognizes only two 
 descriptions of persons in a merchantman — the master and 
 mariners; the mates being included in the latter, and the 
 captain being responsible for their proceedings. 
 
 In men-of-war, the officers immediate!} subordinate to 
 the captain are called lieutenants. But the master, or offi- 
 cer whose peculiar duty it is to take charge of the naviga- 
 tion (if the ship, has certain mates under him, selected from 
 the midshipmen. The boatswain, gunner, carpenter, fee, 
 have each their mates or deputies, taken from the crew. 
 
 The officers subordinate to the commander in the ships 
 belonging to the East India Company were called 1st. -Jd. 
 :id, ti.i\, offli ere. East [ndtamen bad no sailing masters, the 
 commanders performing that duty. {Falconer's Marine 
 Dictionary, &c) 
 
 Mate. The Paraguay name of a plant called Ilez para- 
 guensis by botanists, whose leaves are used extensively in 
 that country as a substitute for tea. It has the property of 
 turning milk blackish when mixed with it. 
 
 .MATE'KIAI,. Anything composed of matter, or pos- 
 sessing ihe fundamental properties of matter. 9m Matter. 
 
 MATERIALISM. That metaphysical theory which is 
 founded on tin- hypothesis that all existence may he resolv- 
 ed into a modification of matter, including, of course, the 
 conscious subject. .Materialists, of one sort or other, have 
 abounded in every stage of philosophical thought. They 
 
 have consisted, in the main, of persons accustomed to the 
 
 exclusive pursuit of merely physical or empirical science, 
 who have transferred the habits and prejudices thus engen- 
 dered to the higher sciences of metaphysics and physiology. 
 The most celebrated materialists were, among the ancients, 
 
 Democritus and his later disciples ; Epicurus and bis sect; 
 
 to whom may be added, though in a somewhat ditferent
 
 MATERIA MEDICA. 
 
 sense, the Stoics : among the moderns, Gassentli, Hobbes, 
 Hartley, and Dr. Priestley. Most schemes of materialism 
 rest on the assumption that all that is real in nature con- 
 sists in the minute particles from the juxtaposition of which 
 all sensible objects arise. This is what is variously desig- 
 nated as the atomic, the mechanical, or the mechanico-cor 
 puscular theory, and has met with supporters chiefly in 
 France. Among ourselves, in very recent times, Dr. Thomas 
 Brown has eloquently maintained that part of this system 
 which relates to physical phenomena ; though he has com- 
 batted, with the utmost subtlety and ingenuity, the portion 
 of it which includes the nature of the mind itself. (Com- 
 pare sect, v.-ix. with sect, xii.-xiv. See also Priestley's 
 Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit, 1776 ; and his Three 
 Dissertations on the Doctrine of Materialism and Philo- 
 sophical Necessity. Also, Price's Letters on Materialism 
 and Philosophical Necessity.) The latest and boldest de- 
 fence of materialism that has appeared in England is to be 
 found in the celebrated lectures of Mr. Lawrence, who 
 maintained that the brain is to be conceived as secreting 
 thought, in the same sense in which the liver secretes bile 
 or the stomach the gastric juice. 
 
 MATE'RIA MEDICA. This term implies tlie various 
 substances, natural and artificial, which are used in the 
 cure of disease, and which are usually called medicines. 
 They are frequently arranged into classes dependent upon 
 their virtues and effects, or upon their constituent parts; 
 but perhaps the most convenient arrangement is the alpha- 
 betical. 
 
 MATHEMA'TICS. (Gr. /ladtws, learning.) The sci- 
 ence which investigates the consequences which are logic- 
 ally deducible from any given or admitted relations between 
 magnitudes or numbers. It is usually divided into two parts : 
 pure, where geometrical magnitude or numbers are the 
 subject of investigation ; and mixed, where the deductions 
 thus made are from relations which are obtained by obser- 
 vation and experiment from the phenomena of material 
 nature, and which constitutes what is otherwise called 
 physics, or physical science. 
 
 The first object of mathematical science was geometry, 
 and this received its highest degree of cultivation among 
 the Greeks. Several of their works have come down to our 
 own times, but all have undergone more or less mutilation ; 
 and some of the most interesting are either wholly lost, as 
 the Porisms of Euclid, or only known to us through the 
 medium of Arabic translations, as the Sectio Hationis of 
 Apollonius. See Geometry. 
 
 The next object of research that comes under the denomi- 
 nation of pure mathematics is number, the science of which 
 constitutes arithmetic. By reason of their defective system 
 of notation, the Greek geometers were under the necessity 
 of employing very complicated methods for performing or- 
 dinary arithmetical calculations ; and for investigating the 
 more abstruse properties and relations of numbers they had 
 recourse to geometrical constructions. The modems have, 
 however, discovered a much more simple and direct system 
 of processes, constituting algebra ; and this has also been 
 applied with great success to the solution even of geomet- 
 rical problems and theorems, which by purely geometrical 
 methods had never been effected. The differential calculus 
 and the calculus of functions are also branches of algebra. 
 See Arithmetic and Algebra. 
 
 Of the various branches of the mixed mathematics, or 
 applied mathematics, astronomy is by far the most advanced 
 towards perfection ; and next to it the doctrine of optics, 
 which has been cultivated as subservient to astronomy. 
 This has depended chiefly on the simplicity of the laws 
 which connect the phenomena, and the consequent simpli- 
 city of the mathematical investigations which are necessary 
 for the development of their consequences. Nevertheless, 
 simple as those laws are, and relatively simple as the in- 
 vestigations to which they lead also are, their perfect de- 
 velopment is beyoud the present powers of mathematical 
 science, which in numerous cases can only furnish approxi- 
 mate results. 
 
 MA'TINS. In the Roman Catholic Church, the earliest 
 of the canonical hours of prayer. See Hours. 
 
 MA'TRASS. A chemical vessel employed in sublima- 
 tions, and in digesting solutions in a sand heat. It is super- 
 seded in the modern laboratory by a flask. 
 
 MATRI'CULA. (Lat. mater, mother.) A register kept 
 of the admission of persons into any body or society, of 
 which a list is made. In the Romish Church there was a ma- 
 tricula clericorum, a list or catalogue of the officiating cler- 
 gy ; and matricula pauperum, a list of poor persons to be 
 relieved. Hence, when a student is entered in the register 
 of the universities, he is said to be matriculated. 
 
 MA'TRIMONY. See Marriage. 
 
 MA'TRIX. (Lat.) In Metallurgy, the stony substance 
 in which crystalline minerals and metals are embedded is 
 frequently tenned their matrix or gangue. In dyesinking 
 the matrix is the indented mould from which impressions 
 
 MAUR, ST. CONGREGATION OF, 
 
 are taken in relief. Type-founders apply the term to the 
 iron moulds in which the letters are cast. 
 
 MA'TTER. (Lat. materies.) Substance. Of the inti- 
 mate nature of matter the human faculties cannot take cog- 
 nizance, nor can data be furnished, by observation or ex- 
 periment, on which to found an investigation of it. All we 
 know, or ever can know of matter, is its sensible properties. 
 Some of these are the foundation of physical science ; 
 others of the different subordinate sciences, as, for instance, 
 of chemistry. 
 
 Matter is divisible by abrasion, and other means, into 
 small fragments, which, when the division is carried to any 
 considerable extent, are called particles. It is supposed, 
 however, and many reasons appear to justify the hypothe- 
 sis, that it is capable of reduction into particles (called 
 atoms) of particular forms, and each class having its own 
 proper magnitude and peculiar properties ; that determinate 
 numbers of atoms of one kind admit of combination with 
 some determinate number of another kind, or of several 
 kinds, and of thereby forming compounded atoms, having 
 properties peculiar to that combination, and different from 
 the known properties of their elemental atoms. These so- 
 lutions and combinations result from properties inherent in 
 the atoms themselves; but whether the simple classes of 
 atoms that are believed to exist are themselves really pri- 
 mary and elemental is not known, and probably never can 
 be with certainty. 
 
 In larger masses, or in masses of aggregated atoms, so 
 classed that their peculiar properties are mutually neutral- 
 ized, phenomena are exhibited which bear a great resem- 
 blance to one another through considerable classes of such 
 compounds, whose elements we have reason to believe dif- 
 fer very considerably ; and other properties are found to 
 exist in all, and differing only in degree or intensity. These 
 last are the subjects of physical investigation : they are 
 called emphatically the properties of matter; and the laws 
 of their mutual influences are the foundation of mechanical 
 philosophy. These properties may be regarded as either es- 
 sential or contingent. The essential properties of matter 
 are usually reckoned the following : 
 
 1. Divisibility, or the property which every known sub- 
 stance possesses of being separable into parts, and these again 
 into smaller parts, and so on until the parts become inappre- 
 ciable to our senses ; nor can any limit be placed to the sub- 
 division. 
 
 2. Impenetrability, or a resistance exerted by every body 
 to the occupation of its place by another. This resistance is 
 of various degrees of intensity, dependent on the state and 
 atomic composition of the bodies ; but no two bodies can 
 simultaneously occupy the same place. 
 
 3. Porosity, or the separation of the particles or atoms 
 from each other by intervals or pores. Every substance 
 with which we are acquainted is more or less porous. 
 
 4. Compressibility, or the property in virtue of which the 
 volume of every body may be contracted into smaller dimen- 
 sions. 
 
 Among the essential properties of matter may also be in- 
 cluded extension and figure; but these belong also to space, 
 and form the subject of geometry. 
 
 The contingent properties of matter are mobility and 
 weight. Matter in every form is capable of being moved 
 from one place to another ; and every substance gravitates 
 towards the centre of the earth. But motion has reference 
 to space, and weight to the attraction of other matter. 
 
 The above are the general properties of matter, upon 
 which physical investigations depend. There are, however, 
 various other qualities belonging to particular substances, or 
 to matter in particular states, the consideration of which is 
 important in mechanical philosophy. Among these the 
 principal are elasticity, fluidity, hardness, rigidity, solidity 
 — for which see the respective terms. 
 
 MAU'NDRIL. In Coal Mines, a pick with two shanks. 
 
 MAUNDY THURSDAY. The Thursday preceding 
 Easter, on which the sovereign of England distributes alms 
 to a certain number of poor persons at Whitehall ; so named 
 from the maunds or baskets in which the gifts were former- 
 ly contained. (See Shere Thursday.) This custom is of 
 very great antiquity ; and, according to Ducange, it derives 
 its origin from St. Augustine. (See JVare's Glossary ; Fos- 
 brooke's Encyc. of Antiquities, p. 702. 
 
 MAUR, SAINT, CONGREGATION OF. A learned 
 body of religious of the Benedictine order ; so called from a 
 village near Paris, where they were established in 1618. On 
 the request of Louis XIII., Gregory XV. gave this order his 
 approval by an apostolical brief, dated 17th of May, 1621 ; 
 and it obtained new privileges from Urban VIH., by a bull 
 dated 21st of Jan., 1627. The fame of this body attracted the 
 attention of many other religious orders, several of which 
 were induced to submit to its rules ; and at last it munbered 
 upwards of a hundred religious houses. The literary world 
 owes to them a series of very valuable editions of ancient 
 Greek authors, chiefly fathers, during the 17th century. 
 
 727
 
 MAUSOLEUM. 
 
 Among the most eminent of its members during that period 
 may be mentioned Jean MabiUon, Thierri Ruinart, Hugh 
 Menard, and Bernard de Montfaucon, &c. &.c. (See Mo- 
 eheim, keel. Hist., vol. v.) 
 
 MAUSOLE'l M. A sepulchral building; so called from 
 Mausolus, king of Caria, to whose memory it was raised bj 
 his wife Artemisia, about 353, B.C. : hence all sepulchral 
 structures of importance have obtained the name ofmausolea. 
 Fmm iis extraordinary magnificence it was esteemed the 
 seventh wonder of the world. According to Pliny, it was 
 one hundred and eleven feet in circumference, and one 
 hundred and forty feet high. It is said to have been encom- 
 passed by thirtj six columns, and exceedingly enriched with 
 sculpture. 
 
 MAXI'LLA. (Lat. maxilla, a jaw.) In Anatomy, this 
 term is applied to the bones supporting the teeth of both jaws. 
 In Zoology, it is restricted to the upper jaw in Mammalia, 
 and to the inferior pair of horizontal aws in articulate ani- 
 mals. 
 
 MA'XIM. Synonymous with axiom, which see. 
 
 MA X1MA AM) Nil MM A. Terms employed in analysis 
 to signify not the absolute greatest and least values of a 
 variable quantity, but the values it has at the instant when 
 it ceases to increase and begins to decrease, or vice versd. A 
 variable quantity may therefore have several maxima and 
 minima. The theory of maxima and minima forms a part 
 of the differential calculus, and is accordingly given in all 
 works on that subject. 
 
 MAY. The tilth month of our year, but the third of the 
 Roman. The name is supposed to be derived from Maia, 
 the mother of Mercury, to whom the Romans offered sacri- 
 fices on the first day of the month ; but various other deri- 
 vations have been assigned to it. See Calendar. 
 
 MAY-DAY; The 1st of May is usually so called in Eng- 
 land, by way of eminence, in commemoration of the festivi- 
 ties which from a very early period were till recently, and 
 in many parts of the country are still observed on that day. 
 It would be out of place in this work to give any detailed ac- 
 count of them, as they are universally known ; but a few 
 words as to their origin may not he out of place. In looking 
 at the nature of these rites, which are, to a certain extent, 
 common to every place in which they are observed, it is evi- 
 dent that they had their origin in the heathen observances 
 practised in honour of the Latin goddess Flora; but it is im- 
 possible to fix with accuracy the precise period at which they 
 were introduced into England. The earliest notice of the 
 celebration of May-day may be traced to the Druids, who on 
 May-eve were accustomed to light large fires on eminences 
 in gratitude and joy for the return of spring. At a later 
 peril. (1 the observance of this day appears not to have been 
 peculiar to any dass of society, for trie most exalted as well 
 as the lowest persons took part in it. In his Court of Love 
 Chaucer says, that on this day "forth goeth all the court, 
 most ami least, to fetch the fiowres fresh, and braunch and 
 bloom ;"' and it is well known that Henry VIII. and Kath- 
 erine, and all the court partook in their diversion. The may- 
 pole, which is still visible in many of the English villages, 
 and .Jack in the green are still relics of this custom. (Some 
 interesting remarks on this subject are to be found in Grimm's 
 ]>, utsche Mythologie, p. 448-451.) 
 
 MAYOR. (Lat. major, meaning the first or senior alder- 
 man.) The title of the chief municipal officer of a borough, 
 to whom it appears to have been first given by charters 
 granted some lime alter the Conquest. But the title and 
 office of portreeve or boroughreeve still continued, in some 
 few places to the i sclusion of, and, in some others, in con- 
 junction wiili. that of mayor, until the passing of the Muni- 
 cipal Reform Hill, 5 & G\V. 4, by which the latter title was 
 applied universal]} and exclusively to every borough. The 
 chief magistrates of London and lJublin are" designated Lord 
 Mayor. 
 
 Mayor. (Main.) In France, the fust municipal officer 
 of each commune, according to a general system established 
 by the law of iiib Dec, i" -!i, « bich created municipalities. 
 Since 1831 tiny are a lected by the crown out of the muni- 
 cipal council, which is chosen by the electoral body. The 
 main- has one or more adjuncts or assessors, according to the 
 population of the commune, chosen in the same manner. 
 The maire keeps the registers of births, marriages, &<■. of the 
 commune; he acts as ;1 magistrate in the apprehension and 
 commitment of offenders; he has also a judicial power over 
 certain minor offences. He is also the principal agent of the 
 general administration for his commune, and the executive 
 authority to carry into effect the ordinances of the munici- 
 pal council. 
 
 MAYORA'ZGO. Span., from Lat. magistratus. See 
 Majorat.) Strictly, the right possessed by the eldest bom 
 in noble families to inherit certain property on condition of 
 transmitting it entire to those possessed of the same righl on 
 his decease. Five distinct species of mayorazgo, or ri^bt of 
 hereditary succession, are now- know n in Spanish law. Prop- 
 erly held in virtue of the right cannot be alienated or dia- 
 7SB 
 
 Measure. 
 
 posed of. The mischievous effects of this strict system of 
 entail on agriculture and national wealth, and on the charac- 
 ter of the higher classes of Spain, have been long insisted on 
 bv political philosophers. 
 
 'mayor OF THE PALACE. (Lat major domus regise.) 
 In early French History, the title of the chief officer of state 
 under the Merovingian kings. After the death of Dagobert 
 I., A.D. 638, and in the subsequent decay of the royal au- 
 thority, these functionaries by degrees usurped almost the 
 entire power of the state. The firstoftho.se mayors who 
 exercised this kind of sovereignty wasGrimoald, under Sigc- 
 bcrt III., king of Australia. Pepin, son of Charles Martel, 
 having succeeded his father in the office of mayor of the 
 palace, afterwards ascended the throne in 75'J ; after which 
 time the office lost its importance, or was altogether abolished. 
 (See Turner, Hist, of Engl, in the Middle Jlgcs, vol. i., p. 8.) 
 
 MEAD (Dutch, meede.) A vinous liquor made by dis- 
 solving one part of honey in three of boiling water, flavour- 
 ing it with spices, and adding a portion of ground malt and 
 a piece of toast dipped in yeast, and suffering the whole to 
 ferment. The Scandinavian mead is flavoured with prim- 
 rose blossoms. Mead formed the ancient, anil for centuries 
 the favourite beverage, of the northern nations. It is fre- 
 quently mentioned in Ossian. 
 
 MEA'DOW. A flat surface under grass, generally on the 
 banks of a river or lake , but so far above the surface of the 
 water as to be considerably drier than marsh hind, and, con- 
 sequently, to produce grass and herbage of a superior quali- 
 ty. The soil of meadow lands is generally alluvial, and 
 more or less mixed with sand ; and it is kep't in a state of 
 fertility by the depositions made on its surface, in conse- 
 quence of being occasionally overflowed by the adjoining 
 river or lake. The produce of meadows is generally made 
 into hay, which, though not equal in quality to that produced 
 on drier grass lands, is yet superior to what is obtained from 
 marshes. 
 
 MEAN. In Mathematics, a quantity having an intermedi- 
 ate value between several others which are formed accord- 
 ing to any assigned law of succession. 
 
 The arithmetical mean of several quantities is simply the 
 average formed by dividing the sum of all the quantities by 
 their number. In physical inquiries, where a great number 
 of values of a quantity have been determined by observa- 
 tion or experiments, of which the error is as likely to be in 
 excess as defect, the average or arithmetical mean is the 
 most probable result. 
 
 The geometrical mean between two quantities, or the mean 
 proportional, is a quantity which forms the middle term of 
 a duplicate ratio, or continued proportion of three terms: 
 viz., such that the first given term is to the quantity Bought 
 as that quantity is to the other given term. In arithmetic, it 
 is the square root of the product of the two given terms. 
 
 The harmonica! mean is such a number that, the first and 
 third terms being given, the first is to the third as the differ- 
 ence of the first and second is to the difference of the second 
 and third ; or, if a, b, c he the numbers, b being the mean — 
 
 , 2<zc 2 1,1 
 
 b = — r-, or .=-+-• 
 
 a-\-c b a c 
 
 ME'ASLES. See Rubeola. 
 
 MEASURE. (Lat. mensura.) In Geometry, a magnitude 
 or quantity taken as unit, and employed to express the rela- 
 tions of other magnitudes or quantites of the same kind. 
 Euclid defines the measure of a quantity to he that which, 
 
 being repeated a certain number of limes, bee is equal to 
 
 the quantity measured. Thus, in Arithmetic, the measure 
 of a number is any number which divides the given number 
 without leaving a remainder ; but this definition rather corre- 
 sponds to the notion of aliquot part. 
 
 In a genera] sense, the term measure is applied to that by 
 which anything is compared in respect of quantity. Thus, 
 we have measures of extension, of weight, time, force, re- 
 sistance, temperature, &.<-. ; in short, of everything of which 
 greater and less can he predicated; and it frequently hap- 
 pens that the unit or measure is not taken in the thing or 
 property which is the immediate subject of consideration, but 
 in something else which depends on it, or is proportional to 
 
 it. Angular space, for example, is measured by an arc of a 
 circle; time, by the rotation of the earth about its axis, or 
 its revolution about the sun ; force, by the quantity of mo- 
 tion il impresses on a body ; degrees Of beat, by the expan- 
 sion of metals or other substances; muscular strength, by 
 the resistance of a spring, &c. See Angle, Chronology, 
 Gravity, Thermometer, l>\ NAMOMETEB, &c. 
 
 By measure, in an absolute sense, is Understood the Unit 
 or standard by which we measure extension. We have, 
 
 therefore, measures of length, of Buperfices, and of volume 
 
 "r capacity ; but, as the two latter ma\ be deduced in all 
 Cases from the former, it is only necessary to establish a unit, 
 
 or standard of length. The choice of such a standard, and 
 the different multiples and pom of it taken for the uses of 
 society, form a metrical system, or system of metrology.
 
 MEASURE. 
 
 Standards of Measure.— As no precise notion can be 
 formed of the magnitude of a line in any other way than by 
 comparing it with another line of a known length, the ne- 
 cessity of having recourse, for the interchange of ideas, to 
 measures not entirely arbitrary, but fixed by nature, and in- 
 telligible alike to all mankind, seems to have been perceived 
 in the earliest ages. Hence originated the foot, the cubit, 
 the span, the fathom, the barleycorn, the hairbreadth, and 
 other denominations of measure, taken from parts of the hu- 
 man body, or from natural objects, which, though not of an 
 absolute and invariable length, have a certain mean value 
 suriicientlv definite to answer all the purposes required in a 
 rude state of society. But, as civilization advanced, the ne- 
 cessity of adopting more precise standards would be felt, and 
 the inadequacy of such measures as the foot, the cubit, &c. 
 (referred only to the human body) to convey accurate no- 
 tions, would be rendered most apparent in their application 
 to itinerary measures, or the estimation of great distances ; 
 where differences of the fundamental measure, of no account 
 when one or two units only are taken into consideration, 
 would amount, by repeated multiplication, to enormous quan- 
 tities. In order to avoid this inconvenience, recourse was 
 had to other methods of estimation, but which, in fact, 
 amounted only to descriptions more or less vague, and not 
 to measures. Thus, in ancient authors, we frequently read 
 of a day's journey, a day's sail, and so forth ; and in many 
 parts of the continent of Europe, even at the present time, it 
 is the custom of the peasantry to reckon itinerary distances 
 by hours. 
 
 " On looking among the objects of nature for a standard of 
 measure perfectly definite, and, at the same time, invariable 
 and accessible to all mankind, a very slender acquaintance 
 with geometry and natural philosophy will suffice to show 
 that the subject is beset with innumerable difficulties. In 
 fact, nature presents only two or three elements winch, with 
 the aid of profound science and a refined knowledge of the 
 arts, can be made subservient to the purpose, and none at 
 all which are applicable without such aid. The earth is 
 nearly a solid of revolution, and its form, and absolute mag- 
 nitude are presumed to remain the same in all ages: hence 
 the distance between the equator and the pole is an invari- 
 able quantity ; and any assigned part of that distance, as 
 the 90th, or a degree of the meridian, is constant, and will 
 furnish a precise and unalterable standard of measures, fit 
 for the purposes of metrology, provided we have the means 
 of comparing it with the rods or scales which must neces- 
 sarily be used in comparing distances, or the magnitudes of 
 bodies. The force of gravity at the earth's surface is con- 
 stant at any given place, and very nearly the same at all 
 places under the same parallel of latitude and at the same 
 height above the level of the sea; hence the length of a 
 pendulum which makes a given number of oscillations in a 
 day is also constant at a given place, and, with proper skill 
 and precautions, may be determined in terms of any assumed 
 scale. These two elements, the length of a degree of the 
 meridian, and the length of the seconds' pendulum, are the 
 only ones furnished by nature which have yet been used as 
 the basis of a system of measures. One or two others have 
 been suggested, as the height through which a heavy body 
 falls in a second of time, determined, like the length of the 
 pendulum, by the force of gravity ; or the perpendicular 
 height through which a barometer must be carried till the 
 mercurial column sinks a determinate part — for example, a 
 30th of its own length ; but, for reasons which it is unneces- 
 sary here to state, these distances are not so susceptible of 
 being accurately determined as the terrestrial degree, or the 
 length of the seconds' pendulum. 
 
 It has been supposed (Paucton, Mctrologie ; Bailly, His- 
 toire de V.fistronomie ancienne) that some ancient nations 
 referred their measures of length to a unit chosen from an 
 aliquot part of the earth's circumference, and that the differ- 
 ent stadia were only different aliquot parts of the same great 
 unit; but the supposition is altogether improbable, for the 
 ancients had no means of determining the magnitude of the 
 earth with any tolerable precision, and do not themselves 
 make any reference to such a standard. Mouton, an astron- 
 omer of Lyons, about 1670, proposed as a universal stand- 
 ard of measure a geometrical foot, of which a degree of the 
 earth's circumference should contain 600,000 ; and remarked 
 that a pendulum of this length would make 3959A vibrations 
 in a half hour. In 1671 Picard proposed a similar idea ; and 
 Huygens first suggested the pendulum as the unit or standard 
 of measures. Condamine, one of the French academicians 
 engaged in the measurement of the terrestrial arc in Peru, 
 proposed that the equatorial pendulum ought to be adopted, 
 as being the most natural measure, and independent of the 
 pretensions of different countries. No attempt, however, 
 was made to establish a regular system of measures on any 
 of these standards until the time of the French revolution, 
 when a system of weights and measures, referred to the 
 terrestrial degree, and accommodated to our arithmetical 
 scale, was adopted in that country. 
 
 English Standard Measures. — The unit of lineal measure 
 in this country is the yard, all other denominations being 
 either multiples or aliquot parts of the yard. But as this is 
 an entirely arbitrary measure, and, until the year 1824, was 
 never strictly defined by the legislature, great perplexity has 
 often arisen in attempting to ascertain the exact portion of 
 space it was meant to represent. For the purpose of pre- 
 serving some degree of uniformity among the ordinary 
 measures of the kingdom, certain standards were preserved 
 in the exchequer, with which all rods were required to be 
 compared before they were stamped as legal measures. The 
 oldest of these standards in existence dates from the reign 
 of Henry VII. ; but it has long been disused ; and that 
 which, till the year 1824, was considered as the legal stand- 
 ard, was a brass rod, of the breadth and thickness of about 
 half an inch, placed there in the time of Elizabeth. There 
 was another similar rod of the same date, called an ell. The 
 ell, however, does not appear ever to have been established 
 as a legal measure, but was conventionally considered aa 
 equal to a yard and a quarter. To these rods belonged a 
 brass bar, on one edge of which was a hollow bed or matrix 
 fitted to receive the square rod of a yard, and on another a 
 like bed fitted to receive that of an ell ; and into these beds 
 were fitted the yard and ell measures brought to be examined 
 and stamped with the standard marks. All rods so stamped 
 became standard measures. It is abundantly obvious that 
 measures determined in this coarse manner could have no 
 strict claim to be considered as accurate copies of the original 
 standard ; but it would seem that the standard itself was in- 
 capable of affording any definite or correct measure. It is 
 thus described by Mr. Baily, in his Report on the new 
 Standard Scale of the Royal Astronomical Society ; " I have 
 had an opportunity of seeing this curious instrument, of 
 which it is impossible, at the present day, to speak too much 
 in derision or contempt. A common kitchen poker, filed at 
 the ends in the rudest manner, by the most bungling work- 
 man, would make as good a standard. It has been broken 
 asunder, and the two pieces been dovetailed together, but 
 so badly that the joint is nearly as loose as that of a pair 
 of tongs ; and yet till within the last ten years, to the dis- 
 grace of this country, copies of this measure have been cir- 
 culated all over Europe and America, with a parchment 
 document accompanying them, certifying that they are true 
 copies of the English standard." (Memoirs Roy. Jlstr. Soc, 
 vol. ix.) 
 
 Such being the condition of the legal standard, it was ob- 
 viously impossible that any measure could be found in terms 
 of it, where great accuracy and minuteness were necessary ; 
 for instance, that of the seconds' pendulum, or a degree of 
 the meridian. In fact, it was utterly inapplicable to any 
 scientific purpose whatever. In the year 1742 some Fellows 
 of the Royal Society, and Members of the Academy of 
 Sciences at Paris, proposed to have accurate standards of 
 the measures and weights of both nations made and care- 
 fully examined, in order that a means might be provided of 
 comparing the results of scientific experiments in England 
 and France. The committee who undertook the matter, 
 besides the legal standard in the Exchequer, found some 
 others which were considered of good if not equal authority. 
 At Guildhall they found two standards of long measure, 
 which were only two beds or matrices, one of a yard, and 
 the other of an ell, cut out of the edges of a substantial brass 
 bar, like that at the Exchequer. Another, preserved in the 
 Tower of London, was a solid brass rod, about 7-10ths of 
 an inch square, and 41 inches long ; on one side of which 
 was the measure of a yard, divided into inches. Another, 
 belonging to the clockmakers' company, delivered to that 
 corporation by indenture from the Exchequer in 1671, was a 
 brass rod of eight sides, nearly half an inch thick, on which 
 the length of the yard was expressed by the distance betw-een 
 two upright pins, or small checks, filed away to the proper 
 quantity. The committee selected the standard in the 
 Tower, as being the best defined, and consequently the best 
 adapted to their purpose : and Mr. George Graham (a cele- 
 brated clockmaker), at their desire, laid off from it, with 
 great care, the length of the yard on two brass rods, which 
 were then sent to the Academy of Sciences at Paris, who in 
 like manner set off thereon the measure of the Paris half 
 toise. One of these was kept at Paris, the other was return- 
 ed to the Royal Society, where it still remains : but, unfor- 
 tunately, it was not stated at what temperature the toise 
 was set off; and, consequently, the comparison is now of 
 little or no value. 
 
 In 1758 a committee of the House of Commons was ap- 
 pointed to inquire into the original standards of weights and 
 measures in the kingdom. The committee entered very 
 fully into the subject, and presented to the house an elabo- 
 rate report, in which they recommended that a rod which, 
 at their order, had been made by Mr. Bird from that of the 
 Royal Socielv, and marked " Standard Yard, 1758," should 
 be "declared the legal standard of all measures of length. 
 This rod consisted of a solid brass bar, 1-01 inch square and 
 Y y * 739
 
 MEASURE. 
 
 3906 inches long. At about It inch from each end a gold 
 pin or stud is inserted : in which pins. at the- distance of 36 
 inches, are two points, intended to designate the length of 
 the yard. It was proposed that this rod should be carefully 
 laid up in safe custodyito be used only occasionally ; and, 
 for the ordinary sizing of yards, another rod was prepared 
 by the same artist, furnished with cheeks, and divided into 
 inches and parts, for the easier adjusting of any comparative 
 measure. 
 
 In the following year another committee was formed on 
 tin- subject It concurred in the recommendation of the 
 former committee, that Hird's standard yard should he the 
 only unit of lineal measure; and at the same time recom- 
 mended that a copy of it should he made, for security against 
 accidents, and deposited in some- public otiice. Accordingly, 
 a second standard was constructed by Bird, in 17(311, similar 
 
 to the former, of which, indeed, it was intended to be a copy. 
 
 This last standard (of 1760) w as declared by the act of 1824 
 to be the legal standard of the kingdom. 
 
 Notwithstanding these two parliamentary reports, no le- 
 gislative enactment was passed, and the subject remained for 
 a long time in the same state of uncertainty, in 179(3 a 
 scale was constructed by the celebrated Troughton, for Sir 
 George Shuckburgh, which has been much referred to in 
 scientific treatises, in consequence of its having been used 
 in the experiments made by Captain Kater for determining 
 the length of the pendulum; and also carefully compared 
 with all the other standards, and with the French metre. 
 Troughton at several times made various other measures ; 
 but, as they never possessed any legal authority, it is un- 
 necessary' to allude to them farther than to state that they 
 were all" copies, as nearly as could be made, of a scale that 
 had been constructed by Bird, and had belonged to Mr. 
 Harris, assay-master at the Mint. 
 
 In 1814 the subject of standard measures and weights 
 was again brought under the consideration of parliament ; 
 and a committee of the House of Commons made a report, 
 which, however, was attended by no result. In 1819 a 
 commission was named by the prince regent, consisting of 
 Sir Joseph Hanks, Sir George Clerk, Mr. Davies Gilbert, Dr. 
 Wollaston, Dr. Young, and Captain Kater, who first recom- 
 mended that, for the legal determination of the standard 
 yard, the yard which had been employed by General Roy, 
 in the measurement of a base on Hounslow Heath as a 
 foundation of the trigonometrical survey, should be adopted ; 
 but in a subsequent report, made the following year (1820), 
 they proposed the standard which had been made by Bird 
 in 1700, on account of its being, as they stated, " both laid 
 down in the most accurate manner, and as best agreeing 
 With the most extensive comparisons which have been hith- 
 erto executed by various observers and circulated throughout 
 Europe, and in particular with the scale employed by the 
 late Sir George Shuckburgh." This last report having been 
 approved by a committee of the Commons, an act was at 
 length passed, in June, 1824, in which the unit of measure 
 was for the first time defined, and in the following terms: 
 
 " The straight line or distance between the centres of the 
 two points in the gold studs in the brass rod, now in the 
 custody of the clerk of the House of Commons, whereon 
 the words and figures Standard Yard, 1700, are engraved, 
 shall be, and the same is hereby declared to be, the original 
 and genuine standard of that measure of length or lineal 
 extension called a yard ; and that the same straight line or 
 distance between the centres of the said two points in the 
 said gold studs in the said brass rod, the brass being at the 
 temperature of 62° of Fahrenheit's thermometer, shall be 
 and is hereby denominated the Imperial Standard Yard, 
 and shall be, and is hereby declared to be, the unit or only 
 Standard measure of extension." And the act further de- 
 clared, that if at any time hereafter the said imperial stan- 
 dard yard shall be lost, or shall be in any manner destroyed, 
 defaced, or otherwise; injured, it shall be restored by making, 
 under the directions of the lords of the treasury, a new 
 standard yard, bearing the proportion to a pendulum vibra- 
 tniL' seconds of mean tiine, in the latitude of London, in a 
 vacuum, and at the level of the sea, as 30 inches to 39-1393 
 inches. 
 
 The recommendation of the commissioners, on which this 
 enactment was founded, has been severely criticised; and, 
 in point of fact, so far as the exact length of the yard is 
 concerned, the subject remained in the- same doubtful slate 
 in which it was before the act was passed. That the stan- 
 dard which was adopted was not an original measure (it 
 
 was in fact, a copj of Bird's stain Ian I of 1758, Which was a 
 
 copj of that of the Royal Society, which again was a copy 
 of that in the Tower; was of little consequence, provided 
 the measure had been laid down on it with such precision 
 as to leave no doubt as to its exact length ; but so far was 
 
 this from being the case, that when it came to be compared 
 
 with a lieu standard scale made for the Royal Astronomical 
 
 Society, h was found to be utterly impossible to ascertain 
 
 the centres of the points in the gold studs within distances 
 730 
 
 perfectly appreciable by the methods of observation now 
 practised. Mr. Daily, in his report above cited, says the 
 mean diameter of each of the holes was nearly 100th of an 
 inch; and they by no means presented any thing like a cir- 
 cular shape. In fact, not only did different persons differ in 
 their estimate of the centres, hut the same persons also 
 differed at different times, according to the degree or direction 
 of tie' light that impinged on the sides of the holes. And 
 he adds, "How the legislature of the present day. when 
 the art of making mathematical instruments has arrived at 
 such a state of perfection, could have sanctioned the- adop- 
 tion of such an imperfect and undefinable measure as this 
 for a standard, must always be a matter ot' astonishment ; 
 more especially when we consider that the French had re- 
 cently set us a laudable example, in the great pains and 
 labour taken in the execution of a new set of standard 
 weights and measures of superior accuracy and precision." 
 {Mem. H.A. S., vol. vii.) 
 
 This scale was destroyed by the fire which consumed the 
 two houses of parliament in 1834 ; so that the country is at 
 the present time without a legal standard, for the provision 
 of the act relative to its restoration by comparison with the 
 seconds' pendulum is perfectly nugatory. Its restoration 
 could not be thus effected with any tolerable certainty. 
 The length of the seconds' pendulum is one of those con- 
 stants of nature which it is possible to determine only within 
 certain limits; very narrow indeed, but still too wide for the 
 purpose in question. Besides, the standard adopted by the 
 legislature had never been directly compared with the pen- 
 dulum ; and the relation between them assigned in the act, 
 namely, 36 to 39.1393, is now known to be incorrect, on ac- 
 count of the neglect of certain precautions in the determi- 
 nation of the length of the pendulum which subsequent 
 experiments have shown to be indispensable. Accident has, 
 however, given the means of effecting what the legislative 
 enactment would have failed to do. Early in the year 1834 
 a most laborious and minute comparison of the different 
 standard measures was made with a new scale constructed 
 for the Royal Astronomical Society. The length of the 
 legal standard, as nearly as it could be determined, is known 
 in terms of this scale, and may therefore be recovered ; but, 
 as a new act is necessary in any case, the legislature may 
 probably be advised to do now what ought to have been 
 done in the first instance, namely, cause a standard to be 
 made in a more skilful manner, and authenticated copies of 
 it, or rather other measures having ascertained relations to 
 it, to be deposited in several public places, and only to he 
 used in cases of emergency. The evil in this, as in many 
 other instances, has arisen from legislating too much. All 
 that is required is, that two very' fine points be struck in a 
 strong rod of platinum, or a block of cast iron, at any con- 
 venient distance ; and to declare that the distance between 
 those points, at a given temperature of the metal, shall be 
 the standard of measure, and that so many parts of this 
 standard shall constitute the yard or unit : all the rest may 
 he safely left to experimental philosophers and mathematical- 
 instrument makers. 
 
 English System of Lineal Measures. — The unit of mea- 
 sure, as already stated, is the yard. The yard is divided 
 into 3 feet, and the foot subdivided into 12 inches. The 
 multiples of the yard are the pole or perch, the furlong, and 
 the mile ; 5J yards being a pole, 40 poles a furlong, and 8 
 furlongs a mile. But the pole and furlong are now scarcely 
 ever used, itinerary distances being reckoned in miles and 
 yards. The relations of these different denominations are 
 exhibited in the following table : 
 
 
 In. 
 
 Feel. 
 
 Yards. 
 
 Poles. 
 
 Furlongs. 
 
 Miles. 
 
 1 
 
 00=3 
 
 0028 
 
 000505 
 
 0-00012626 
 
 00000I57S2S 
 
 12 
 
 1 
 
 333 
 
 006060 
 
 0-00151515 
 
 000018939 
 
 
 3 
 
 ] 
 
 ISIS 
 
 004545 
 
 0-00056S18 
 
 198 
 
 16 5 
 
 5-5 
 
 1 
 
 0.025 
 
 0-003125 
 
 7920 
 
 660 
 
 220 
 
 40 
 
 1 
 
 0-125 
 
 63360 
 
 S2S0 
 
 1700 
 
 320 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 Measures of Superficies. — In square measure the yard is 
 subdivided as in general measure into feet and inches : N4 
 square inches being equal to a square foot, and 9 square 
 feet to a square yard, for land measure the multiples of 
 the J aid are the pole, the rood, and the nrrr ; 3(1', (the square 
 of 5*) square yards being a pole, 40 poles a rood, and 4 roods 
 an acre. Very large surfaces, as of whole countries, are ex 
 pressed in square miles. The following are the relations 
 of square measure: 
 
 Bq leet 
 
 Sq. Yards. 
 
 Poles. 
 
 1(, .,;,. 
 
 Aero. | 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 272-25 
 
 IOSCO 
 43560 
 
 0.1111 
 
 1. 
 3025 
 1210 
 4840 
 
 (1-00307309 
 0-0330579 
 
 1 
 40 
 
 |i ji 
 
 0-000091827 
 
 - 
 
 4 
 
 00625 
 
 0-25 
 
 1 
 
 Measures of Volume.— Solids arc measured by cubic 
 yards, feet, and indies; 1728 cubic inches making a cubic 
 
 foot, and 27 cubic feet a cubic yard. For all sorts of liquids,
 
 MEASURE. 
 
 corn, and other dry goods, the standard measure is declared 
 by the act of 1824 to be the imperial gallon, the capacity of 
 which is determined immediately by weight, and remotely 
 by the standard of length, in the following manner: Accord- 
 ing to the act, the imperial standard gallon contains 10 
 pounds avoirdupois weight of distilled water, weighed in air 
 at the temperature of 62° Fahrenheit's thermometer, the 
 barometer being at 30 inches. The pound avoirdupois con- 
 tains 7000 troy grains ; and it is declared that a cubic inch 
 of distilled water (temperature 02°, barometer 30 inches) 
 weighs 252458 grains. Hence the contents of the imperial 
 standard gallon are 277-274 cubic inches. The parts of the 
 gallon are quarts and pints ; 2 pints being a quart, and 4 
 quarts a gallon. Its multiples are the peck, the bushel, and 
 the quarter ; the peck being 2 gallons, the bushel 4 pecks, 
 and the quarter 8 bushels. The following are the relations : 
 
 Pints. 
 
 Quarts. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Pecks. 
 
 ~0062S 
 
 Bushels. 
 
 Quarters. | 
 
 1 
 
 0-5 
 
 0-125 
 
 0-015625 
 
 0-001953125 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 025 
 
 0-123 
 
 0-03125 
 
 000390625 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 0-5 
 
 0125 
 
 015625 
 
 16 
 
 8 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 0-25 
 
 003125 
 
 64 
 
 32 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 0-125 
 
 512 
 
 256 
 
 61 
 
 32 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 For an account of the various other measures used in 
 commerce, see the Commercial Dictionary ; or Colonel Pas- 
 ley's Observations on the Measures, Weights, and Money 
 used in this Country (London, 1834), where a full description 
 is given. 
 
 h'renck System of Measures. — The French system of 
 measures, introduced during the Revolution, has for its 
 standard the length of a quadrant of the earth's meridian. 
 The unit of measures of length is the metre, which is a ten- 
 millionth part of the quadrant. This length, deduced from 
 the great trigonometrical measurement of the meridian from 
 Dunkirk to Barcelona, is marked by two very fine parallel 
 lines drawn on a bar of platinum, and preserved in the 
 archives of the Academy of Sciences. From a comparison 
 of the standards of this country with a copy of the metre in 
 the possession of the Royal Society, Captain Kater found the 
 length of the metre to be 39-37079 inches of the English 
 standard. (Phil. Trans. 1818.) Mr. Baily found the length 
 of the metre to be 393696780 inches of the Royal Astronomi- 
 cal Society's scale (Mem. R. A. S., vol. i.x., p. 133), from 
 which, by reducing to the imperial standard yard by the data 
 given in the same memoir, the true length of the metre is 
 39-370091 inches of the imperial yard. The comparison is, 
 however, attended with some degree of uncertainty, from 
 the circumstance that a reduction must be made for the ex- 
 pansion of the metals ; the standard temperature of the 
 English measures being 62° Fahrenheit, and that of the 
 French measures 32°, or the temperature of melting ice. 
 
 In the French system the unit of superficial measure is 
 the are, a surface of 10 metres each way, or 100 square 
 metres. The unit of measures of capacity is the litre, a 
 vessel containing the cube of a tenth part of the metre, and 
 equivalent to 0-220097 parts of the British imperial gallon. 
 The standard temperature is that of melting ice. All the 
 divisions and multiples of the units are decimal ; and the 
 principle of nomenclature adopted was to prefix the Greek 
 numerals to the decimal multiples, and the Roman numerals 
 to the decimal subdivisions. 
 The measures of length are, 
 
 Mvriametre = 10000 metres. 
 Kilometre = 1000 
 Hectometre = 100 
 
 
 Metre 
 Decimetre 
 Centimetre 
 Millimetre 
 
 = 
 
 0-1 
 
 o-ot 
 
 0001 
 
 The measures 
 
 of surface are, 
 
 
 Hectare 
 
 Are 
 
 Centiare 
 
 ~ 
 
 10000 sq. metres. 
 100 
 
 1 
 
 The measures 
 
 of capacity are, 
 
 
 Kilolitre 
 
 Hectolitre 
 
 Decalitre 
 
 Litre 
 
 Decilitre 
 
 Centilitre 
 
 = 
 
 1000 litres. 
 
 ioo 
 
 10 
 
 1 
 
 0-1 
 001 
 
 The unit of solid measure is the stere or cube of the me"tre, 
 equal to 35-31658 English cubic feet. 
 
 No system of metrology hitherto invented can be compared 
 with this of the French in a scientific point of view ■ never- 
 theless the decimal subdivisions have been found unsuited 
 to the purposes of retail traffic, to which, in fact, only a 
 binary system, or the division of the unit into halves and 
 quarters, seems applicable. Accordingly, it has been found 
 necessary to permit a modified system for such purposes • so 
 that there are, in fact, at present in France three different 
 systems of measures ; the ancient, which was never wholly 
 abandoned ; the decimal system ; and a binary system, or 
 systems usuel, having the decimal standards for its basis, 
 
 English foot. 
 = 1 
 
 = 1-065765 
 = 1-029722 
 = O957501 
 = 0-958333 
 = 0-929118 
 = 1-037128 
 
 MECHANICS, 
 
 with binary divisions, to which the names of the ancient 
 weights and measures are given, the word usuel being an- 
 nexed to prevent confusion. 
 
 Of the different measures of length used in European 
 countries, the foot is the most universally prevalent. We 
 subjoin the relation between the foot of different countries 
 and the English foot : 
 
 Russian foot 
 Paris foot 
 
 Prussian and Danish foot 
 Bavarian foot 
 Hanoverian foot 
 Saxon foot 
 Austrian foot 
 
 Comparative tables of the measures used in different coun- 
 tries are given in various works : one of the most complete 
 and convenient will be found in Hu/sse's Sammlung Mathe- 
 matischer Tafeln, Leipzig, 1840. For further information 
 on the subject of this article, see Paucton's Metrologie on 
 Traitedes Mesures, Paris, 1780; Kelly's Universal Cambist, 
 1821. See also League, Mile ; and on the subject of 
 weights, see Weight. 
 
 Mea'sure. In Music, the interval or space of time be- 
 tween raising and depressing the hand in a movement ; being 
 the same as bar. The measure is regulated according to 
 the different values of the notes of a piece, by which the 
 time assigned to each note is expressed. Semibreves, for 
 instance, occupy one rise and one fall, called a whole mea- 
 sure. 
 
 Mea'sures. In Geology, sometimes used as synonymous 
 with beds or strata ; as coal measures. 
 
 MECHA'NICAL CURVE. A curve of such a nature 
 that the relation between the absciss and the ordinate cannot 
 be expressed by an algebraic equation. Such curves are 
 now more commonly called transcendental curves. See 
 Curve. 
 
 MECHA'NICAL PHILOSOPHY. The science of me- 
 chanics applied to physical inquiries. 
 MECHA'NICAL POWERS. See Machine. 
 MECHA'NICAL SOLU'TION OF A GEOMETRI- 
 CAL PROBLEM. In the constructions of pure geometry 
 only the ruler and compasses are allowed to be used ; or, in 
 other words, the constructions are required to be effected by 
 means of straight lines and circles only. The ancient ge- 
 ometers soon discovered that there were many problems (as 
 the duplication of the cube and the trisection of an angle, 
 for instance) which could not be constructed by- these means. 
 They hence had recourse to other instruments (machines) to 
 effect this purpose ; and such solutions were distinguished 
 from the geometrical ones by the term mechanical. 
 
 MECHA'NICS (Gr. urixiivn, machine), in Natural Phi- 
 losophy, is the science which treats of forces and powers, 
 and their action on bodies, either directly or by the inter- 
 vention of machinery. 
 
 The theory of mechanics, which is a branch of mixed 
 mathematics, is founded on an axiom or principle called the 
 law of inertia, or Newton's first law of motion; namely, 
 that a body must remain forever in a state of rest, or in a 
 state of uniform and rectilineal motion, if it be not disturbed 
 by the action of an external cause. Theoretical mechanics 
 is therefore divided into two parts : statics, which treats of 
 the equilibrium of forces ; and dynamics, which is the sci- 
 ence of accelerating or retarding forces, and of the actions 
 they produce. When the bodies under consideration are in 
 the fluid state, these become respectively hydrostatics, and 
 hydrodynamics, which are comprehended" under hydraulics ; 
 and sometimes the terms arostatics and a-rodynamics are 
 used to denote the corresponding divisions of pneumatics ; 
 but all these divisions are more frequently included under 
 the general term mechanics. 
 
 Practical mechanics, or a knowledge of the effects of some 
 of the mechanical powers, must have existed to some extent 
 from the earliest ages of the world ; but of the machines 
 used by the ancients in their constructions, the oldest ac- 
 count which we possess is contained in the Architecture of 
 Vitruvius. Archimedes, in his Treatise De JEquiponderan- 
 tibus, first investigated theoretically the principles of equi- 
 librium ; and the same philosopher is celebrated for the 
 mechanical contrivances by which, in the siege of Syracuse, 
 he so long frustrated the efforts of the Roman army under 
 Mnrcellus. During the eighteen centuries which succeeded 
 the age of Archimedes, the theory of mechanics remained 
 in the same state. Galileo laid the foundations of modern 
 dynamics by his discovery of the law of accelerating forces, 
 and by reducing the propositions of that science to mathe- 
 matical formula?. In the hands of Newton mechanics as- 
 sumed a new form ; and the discovery of the new analysis 
 enabled mathematicians to complete what had been begun 
 by Galileo, and to express all the effects of the actions of 
 bodies on each other by analytical equations. 
 For points connected with the theory, see Acceleration! 
 
 731
 
 MECHANICS 1 INSTITUTES. 
 
 Dynamics. Force, Statics, Slc. ; and for details, Lever. 
 Pollby, Wehl and Axle, &c. The best treatise on the 
 subject is that ofPoisson, Traiti dc Micanique, 2d ed., 1833. 
 
 MECHA'NICS' INSTITUTES. Tlie name given to the 
 means by which instruction is communicated to tradesmen 
 and mechanics in large towns throughout the British empire. 
 These institutes may be safely said to owe their origin to 
 Dr. Birkbeck, who, in 1800, delivered a course of lectures on 
 natural philosophy and its application to the arts to an audi- 
 ence composed entirely of the mechanics of Glasgow ; though 
 it was not until after the lapse of twenty years that his idea 
 was followed up. Institutions of this sort are at present 
 established in almost every town in England whose popu- 
 lation amounts to 10,000, and in some of much smaller num- 
 ber. They are supported partly by contributions, and partly 
 by the subscription of the members. Short courses of lec- 
 tures, illustrated with experiments, are given on the most 
 popular and interesting branches of natural philosophy, and 
 occasionally on departments of literature, moral philosophy, 
 political economy, &c. Reading rooms are attached to the 
 greater number of these institutions, which, speaking gen- 
 erally, are well attended. On the whole, we believe these 
 establishments have been productive of considerable advan- 
 tage. The instruction they supply is, no doubt, very flimsy 
 and superficial ; but it notwithstanding serves to expand and 
 inform the minds of the auditors, and is probably the most 
 suitable for them. An Improvement in the system of school 
 education, by qualifying the members of mechanics' insti- 
 tutes the better to appreciate accurate scientific discussions, 
 would be the most likely, or rather, perhaps, the only means, 
 by which to improve the lectures given at the institutions in 
 question. (See Stat, of Brit. Empire, vol. ii., p. 359.) 
 
 ME'CH ANISTS. Those philosophers who refer all the 
 changes in the universe to the effect of merely mechanical 
 forces, such as impact, weight, and the like. They are op- 
 posed to the dynamical philosophers, or those who assume 
 a living and spontaneous power in nature, antecedent to 
 and different from the phenomena present to the senses. 
 See Materialism. 
 
 MECHLO'IC ACID. A compound of meconia and 
 chlorine. 
 
 M ECHO'ACAN. (From the province of Mexico, whence 
 it is brought.) The root of the Convolvulus mechoacauna : 
 it is a purgative, and was formerly used as a substitute for 
 jalap. 
 
 MECO'XTC ACLD. (Gr. mkuv, the poppy.) The pe- 
 culiar acid with which morphia is combined in opium. 
 When pure, it forms small white crystals. Its aqueous 
 solution forms a deep red colour with "the persalts of iron, 
 which, therefore, are good tests for it, both free and com- 
 bined. The salts of this acid are termed meconates ; those 
 of lime, baryta, lead, and silver are white, and souble in 
 nitric acid. Meconic acid is constituted of 7 atoms of car- 
 bon = 42, -2 of hydrogen = 2, and 7 of oxygen = 56 : its 
 equivalent therefore is 100. 
 
 ME'COXIX. (Gr. /iijkuiv.) A white fusible substance, 
 procured from opium, and supposed to be a distinct principle. 
 It is said that not more than from two to three grains of it 
 are contained in a pound of opium ; it seems doubtful 
 whether it be an educt or a product. 
 
 MECO'NIUM. {Gt. WW.) Opium. The term is also 
 applied to the excrement found in the lower part of the 
 foetal Intestines. 
 
 ME'DAL. (Fr. medaille.) A piece of metal, in the 
 shai>e of a coin, engraven with figures or devices, struck and 
 distributed in memory of some person or event. Ancient 
 coins, although intended for the purpose of circulation, are 
 also commonly termed medals. See Numismatics. 
 
 MEDA'LLION. (Fr.) In Numismatics, this name is 
 appropriated to coins struck in Rome, and the provinces 
 under the empire, which, in gold or silver, exceed in size the 
 largest coins of which the name and value are known in 
 those respective metals; viz., the aureus in gold, and the 
 denarius m silver. It lias been doubted whether they were 
 intended for the purpose of circulation, or merely struck, 
 like modem medals, to commemorate persons or events. See 
 Numismatics. 
 
 M K DALLURGY. (Fr. medaille, and Gr. cpyov, work.) 
 The art of making and striking medals and coins. See Nu- 
 mismatics. 
 
 ME'DLE. (Gr. ptSai, middle.) The three letters, b, g, 
 and d (beta, gama, delta) are so called in the Greek alpha- 
 bet, as holding respectively a middle place between their 
 several U nuts, p, k, t (pi, kappa, tau), and aspirates, ph, ch, 
 th (phi, chi. theta). 
 
 ME'DIANT. (I. at. medius.) In Music, the chord which 
 is a major or minor third higher than the key note, accord- 
 ing as the mode is major or minor. 
 
 ME'DIASTTNUM. The duplicature of the pleura, which 
 divides the cavity of the thorax into two parts. 
 
 ME'DIATISA'TTON. The annexation of the smaller 
 German sovereignties to larger contiguous states, which took 
 732 
 
 MEDUSA. 
 
 place, on a large scale, after the dissolution of the German 
 empire in 1800. The same thing had been done on various 
 ■ us during the continuance of the empire; and the 
 dominions so annexed were said to be mediatised, »'. c., made 
 mediately instead of immediately dependant on the empire. 
 The term was retained when the abolition of the German 
 union had rendered it in strictness inappropriate. A few- 
 more were mediatised after the peace of 1815. See Cono. 
 Lex.; and Hawkins's Germany, 1838, which contains a 
 chapter on tliis subject. 
 
 MEDIA'TOR. A term applied to Jesus Christ, as inter- 
 ceding between God and man, and obtaining for the latter 
 lh«' remission of the punishment due to original and con- 
 tracted sin. The divinity of our Saviour is argued from his 
 mediatorial character: it seeming impossible to conceive 
 that a mere man could efficaciously intercede by the sacrifice 
 of himself for the sins of his fellow men. Those reasoners. 
 therefore, who have arrived at the conclusion of the mere 
 humanity of Christ, either expressly deny or essentially 
 modify the idea of his mediatorial character. 
 
 ME'DIUM. In Physics, the substance or matter in which 
 bodies exist, or through which they move in passing from 
 one point to another. The resistance which different me- 
 diums oppose to bodies in motion is proportional to the 
 respective densities of the mediums. Xewton supposed the 
 existence of a universal medium, or ether, infinitely more 
 rare and subtle than air, and diffused through the whole 
 creation. The modern discoveries of the propagation of 
 light by undulation, and of the acceleration of some of the 
 small comets, give great probability to this supposition. 
 
 ME'DLAR. (Corruption of Mespilar 1) The fruit of the 
 Mespilus germanica, a plant found wild in several parts of 
 Central Europe. It is remarkable for the austerity of its 
 fruit when first gathered, and for its total loss of that qual- 
 ity after a few weeks, when it becomes soft, brown, and 
 sweet — a condition which the French call blessi. Of the 
 garden varieties the Dutch medlar is the finest as to size, and 
 the Nottingham the most delicate in flavour. In the eyes 
 of a botanist the medlar is only a hawthorn berry of large 
 
 MEDU'LLARY RAYS. (Lat. medulla, marrow.) The 
 vertical plates of cellular tissue which radiate from the 
 centre of the stem of Exogenous plants, through the wood 
 to the bark. They cause that appearance in timber which 
 carpenters call silver grain, or flower of the wood. 
 
 MEDULLARY SHEATH, is a thin layer of vessels 
 which surround the pulp of Exogenous plants, and thence 
 extend into the leaves and parts of fructification. 
 
 MEDU'LLARY SUBSTANCE. The interior white por- 
 tion of the brain. The medulla oblongata is a part of the 
 brain, lying upon the basiliary process of the occipital bone, 
 and formed by the junction of the crura of the brain and 
 cerebellum: it terminates in the spinal marrow. 
 
 MEDU'LLIX. That form of lignin which constitutes 
 the pith of certain plants, as the pith of the sunflower. 
 
 MEDU'SA. In Mythology, the chief of the Gorgons 
 (which see) ; according to Hesiod, the eldest daughter of 
 Celo and the sea-god Phorcus. Various stories are related 
 of this mythological personage ; but her chief peculiarity 
 was the power she possessed of turning all who looked upon 
 her into stone. She was slain by Perseus, who placed her 
 head in the shield of Minerva, where it continued to retain 
 the same petrifying power as before. 
 
 Medt/sa. In Zoology, a name given by Linnaeus to a 
 genus of marine animals, now forming an extensive tribe 
 (Medusaria) in the class Acalcphn of the Cuvierian system. 
 The body is in the form of a gelatinous disk, more or less 
 convex above, called the " umbel," from the centre of which, 
 and from the margin, there depend in most of the species 
 processes or filaments more or less numerous, and more or 
 less elongated : whence the resemblance to the fabled mon- 
 ster which sugffested the original eeneric term. The Medusa 
 are commonly known by the name of "sea-blubber," "jelly- 
 fish," &c. They have a stomach or digestive cavity exca- 
 vated in the centre of the disk, and opening externally either 
 by a central and inferior crucial mouth, or continued into 
 branched appendages, and receiving the nutriment by innu- 
 merable minute pores, analagous to the "stomata" of plants, 
 or those root-like appendages. The digested fluid is con- 
 veyed by vessels from the stomach to an exquisite network 
 or plexus situated on the under surface of the border of the 
 i\]-k. where it receives the influence of the atmosphere, and 
 is fitted for assimilation. Some species, as the Medusa 
 have also intestinal canals leading from the stomach 
 to separate anal outlets. Traces of a nervous system and 
 rudimental organs of vision have been discerned in some 
 of the Medusa. They swim by muscular contraction of 
 the margins of the disk. They are of distinct sexes, which 
 congregate together chiefly in the autumnal months. The 
 male and female organs much resemble each other, and are 
 situated in both sexes, in corresponding cavities, generally 
 four in number, on the under surface of the disk. The ova
 
 MEERSCHAUM. 
 
 are received when impregnated in marsupial sacs appended 
 to the arms (in Medusa aurita), whence they escape in the 
 form of ciliated infusoria, afterwards assume the structure 
 of eight-armed polypes, pass the winter in this state, and 
 undergo their final transformation in spring. Notwithstand- 
 ing the complication of the organic machinery, functions, 
 and generative economy of the Medusa, their solids form so 
 small a proportion of their frame that, of a Medusa of ten 
 pounds weight, what remains upon the filter through which 
 its fluid parts, chiefly sea-water, have escaped, does not 
 exceed two drachms. A great number of the Medusa are 
 phosphorescent, shining in the gloom of night like globes of 
 fire ; but the nature and the agents of this wonderful prop- 
 erty remain to be discovered. Most of the Medusai at cer- 
 tain seasons sting and inflame the hand that touches them ; 
 but the cause of this property is equally unknown. 
 
 MEERSCHAUM. (Germ, foam of the sea.) A silicated 
 magnesian mineral found in various parts of Europe, but 
 chiefly in some parts of Greece and Turkey. It is light and 
 soft, and is employed in the Turkish dominions as fuller's 
 earlh. In Germany it is extensively used in the manufac- 
 ture of tobacco pipes, which are prepared for sale by being 
 soaked first in tallow, then in wax, and finally by being pol- 
 ished with shave grass. Imitation meerschaum pipes are 
 sold in large quantities, and the greatest caution is neces- 
 sary to guard against deception. To the connoisseur, the 
 best criterion is the beautiful brown colour which the genu- 
 ine meerschaum assumes after being soaked some time. 
 
 MEGALE'SIAN GAMES. (Gr. ixiyag, great.) One of 
 the most magnificent of the Roman exhibitions of the circus ; 
 in honour of Cybele, the mother of the gods. 
 
 MEGALFCHTHYS. (Gr. ucyas, andixOws. a fish.) An 
 extinct genus of fishes, including species of great size ; one 
 of which, the Megalichthys Hibbcrti, has left its teeth and 
 other parts in the channel coal of Fifeshire, and the Edin- 
 burgh coalfield. 
 
 MEGALO'NYX. (Gr. utyas, and owl, « claw.) A large 
 fossil mammalian, the remains of which were found in a 
 cavern in the limestone of Virginia, in America. 
 
 MEGALO'PTERANS, Megaloptera. (Gr. ncyas, and 
 ■nTcpov, a wing.) A name given by Latreille to a family of 
 Planipennate Neuropterous insects, comprehending those 
 which have large wings horizontally folded. 
 
 MEGALOSAU'RUS. (Gr. ucyas, and aavpos, a lizard.) 
 The generic name applied by Dr. Buckland to an extinct 
 genus of gigantic Saurians, discovered by him in the oolitic 
 slate of Stonesfield, near Oxford. The species on which the 
 genus is founded included individuals measuring from forty 
 to fifty feet in length ; they partook of the structure of the 
 crocodile and monitor. The entire skeleton has not as yet 
 been found. The femur and tibia measure nearly three 
 feet each; and a metatarsal bone has been found of the 
 length of thirteen inches. The bones of the extremities 
 have large medullary cavities. The generic character is 
 principally founded on the teeth, which Dr. Buckland thus 
 graphically describes: "In the structure of these teeth we 
 find a combination of mechanical contrivances analagous 
 to those which are adopted in the construction of the knife, 
 the sabre, and tiie saw. When first protruded above the 
 gum, the apex of each tooth presented a double cutting edge 
 of serrated enamel. In this stage its position and line of ac- 
 lie.n were nearly vertical, and its form like that of the two- 
 edged point of a sabre, cutting equally on each side. As the 
 tooth advanced in growth, it became curved backwards, in 
 form of a pruning knife, and the edge of serrated enamel 
 was continued downwards to the base of the inner and cut- 
 ting side of the tooth; whilst on the outer side a similar 
 edge descended but to a short distance from the point, and 
 the convex portion of the tooth became blunt and thick, as 
 the back of a knife is made thick for the purpose of pro- 
 ducing strength. In a tooth thus formed for cutting along 
 its concave edge, each movement of the jaw combined the 
 power of the knife and saw; whilst the apex, in making the 
 first incision, acted like the two-edged sabre. The back- 
 ward curvature of the full-grown teeth enabled them to 
 retain, like barbs, the prey which they had penetrated." 
 {Bridgewater Treatise, i., p. 238.) These formidable teeth, 
 which sufficiently bespeak the carnivorous and predatory 
 nature of the extinct monster, were arranged in a pretty 
 close series, in sockets, along the alveolar border of the jaws. 
 MEGANY'CTERANS. (Gr. pxyai, and wicrcpis, a bat.) 
 The first division or tribe of the order Cheioptera, including 
 the largest species of bats, or " flying foxes ;" which, how- 
 ever, are exclusively vegetable feeders, living mostly on soft 
 fruits, and having the molar teeth adapted to that kind of 
 fond by their broad simple crowns. The tribe is also distin- 
 guished from the animal-feeding bats, whether bloodsuckers 
 or insect catchers, by having the two innermost fingers armed 
 with hook-shaped claws, and by the simple structure of the 
 nose and ears. The alimentary canal, and especially the 
 stomach of the great frugivorous bats, are likewise more 
 complicated than in the other tribes. The meganycterans 
 62 
 
 MELASOMES. 
 
 are distributed over the warmer parts of Asia, Africa, and 
 the Polynesian Isles, but do not exist in America. 
 
 MEGA'RIAN SCHOOL OF GREEK PHFEOSOPHY, 
 founded at Megara by the disciples of Socrates, who retired 
 thither after his death, and distinguished in later times by 
 its logical subtlety. Its most celebrated names were those 
 of Euclides, Eubulides, and Stilpo. 
 
 ME'GASCOPE. (Gr. ucyas, and okokcw, I view.) An 
 optical instrument proposed by M. Charles, of the French 
 Academy of Sciences, for the examination of bodies of con- 
 siderable dimensions. It is a modification of the solar mi- 
 croscope, and has been used for determining the curvature 
 of the different parts of the eye. See Microscope. 
 
 ME'GASTOMES, Megastoma. (Gr. ncyaq, and otouw, 
 mouth.) The name of a family of Univalve shells, com- 
 prehending those which are not symmetrical, and which 
 have a verv large aperture or mouth. 
 
 MEGATHE'RIUM. (Gr. ueyas, and Srjpwv, beast.) The 
 name given by Cuvier to a genus of extinct Edentate quad- 
 rupeds, including and represented by one of the most gigantic 
 of terrestrial mammalia. The haunches of the Megathe- 
 rium Cuvieri were more than five feet wide, and its body 
 twelve feet long and eight feet high ; its feet were a yard in 
 length, and terminated by formidable compressed claws of 
 immense size ; its tail was of great length, and probably 
 much larger than that of any other extinct or living terres- 
 trial mammal. The head of the megatherium was rela- 
 tively small : the cranium presents many of the peculiarities 
 of that of the sloth. The upper jaw was armed with five 
 teeth on each side, the lower jaw with four on each side : 
 all the eighteen teeth belong to the molar series. They 
 were perpetually growing, like the incisors of the Rodents; 
 but had their grinding surface traversed by two transverse 
 ridges, and their texture composed, as in the teeth of the 
 sloth, of a central body of coarse ivory, a thick outer coating 
 of caementum, and a thin intermediate layer of fine and 
 dense ivory, which forms the prominent terminating ridgea 
 of the crown. 
 
 Nothing certain is known of the nature of the integuments 
 of this singular and enormous animal; but the fossil bony 
 armour which has been conjectured to have appertained to 
 the megatherium unquestionably belongs to another species 
 of gigantic Edentate, more nearly allied to the armadillo. 
 See Glyptodon. 
 
 ME'GRIM. (Fr. migraine; probably from Gr. fou, half, 
 and KDaviov, the scull.) A violent intermitting pain affecting 
 one side of the head. 
 
 MEI'ONITE. A mineral found in grains or small shining 
 crystals, chiefly at Mount Somma, near Vesuvius. The 
 name is from petuiv, less ; implying the lowness of the ter- 
 minating pryramids of its crystals, and the consequent short- 
 ness of the axis of the primitive form. 
 
 MELjE'NA. (Gr. ue\a;, black,) The black vomit- 
 When blood is thrown up from the stomach it is generally 
 black, in consequence of the presence of acid. 
 
 ME'LAM. A substance formed during the distillation of 
 a mixture of sal-ammoniac and sulphocyanuret of potassium. 
 It is said to consist of 12 equivalents of carbon, 11 of nitrogen, 
 and 9 of hvdrogen. 
 
 ME'LANCHOLY. (Gr. nt'Xas, black, and %oXj;, bile.) A 
 disease of the mind, chiefly characterized by ungrounded 
 fear and apprehension of evil. 
 
 MELA'NIA. (Gr. /uAaf.) A genus of fluviatile Pec- 
 tinibranchiate Gastropods, having a moderately thick shell, 
 with an aperture longer than it is wide, enlarging opposite 
 the spire, and the columella without folds or umbilicus: the 
 length of the spire is various. They have long tentacula, 
 with the eyes on their external side, and at about the third 
 of their length from the base. 
 ME'LANITE. (Gr. u&ag.) The black gamet. 
 MELANO'SIS. (Gr. /^Xa? .) A malignant disease, char- 
 acterized by deposition of a black matter in various parts of 
 the body. 
 
 MELA'NTERITE. (Gr. ut\a;.) A mineralogical name 
 of the native sulphate of iron. 
 
 MELANTHA'CE^E. (Melanthium, one of the genera.) 
 An order of Endogenous plants, with a regular six-parted 
 inferior perianth, and six stamens with the anthers look- 
 ing outwards. The number of species included in it is in- 
 considerable ; but among them are the Veratrum, or white 
 hellebore, and Cohhicum, or meadow saffron, the poison- 
 ous qualities of which indicate the general properties of the 
 order. .,.„.. 
 
 ME'LAS. (Gr. u&as.) A disease endemial in Arabia: 
 it consists in the formation of dark brown or black spots upon 
 the skin. 
 
 MELAS'MA. (Gr. ue\a<;.) A disease of aged persons, m 
 which a black spot appears upon the skin, which soon forms 
 a foul ulcer. . 
 
 ME'LASOMES, Melasoma. (Gr. fuXm, and awua, body.) 
 A tribe of Heteromerous Coleopterous insects, comprising 
 those which are of a uniform black or gray colour.
 
 MELASTOMACEiE. 
 
 MELASTOMA'CE.E. (Melastoma, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of Exogenous plants, with polypetalous 
 flowers and strongly ribbed leaves, inhabiting tropica] coun- 
 tries in great numbers, but unknown in Europe in a wild 
 state, ami only occurring very sparingly in the temperate 
 parts of America. In the equatorial regions of this continent 
 they are extremely numerous ; and some of the species bear 
 berries, the juice of which stains the mouth black, whence 
 their name (pcAas, and oroua, a mouth). Their most char- 
 acteristic mark is to have the anthers bent downward and 
 prolonged into a horn, which is held fast in sockets of the 
 ovary Before the flower expands. Many of the species are 
 ornamental, none are useful. 
 
 MELCHl'SEDE'CIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, sev- 
 eral sects of early heretics have been so termed, from the 
 opinions entertained by them respecting the character and 
 office of Melchisedec, arising from the language of St. Paul 
 in the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Theodotians, in the 3d 
 century, are said to have regarded him as superior to Christ. 
 A sect of visionaries in Phrygia, who appear to have been 
 a branch of the Manicheans, are reported to have made 
 Melchisedec an object of adoration. Many divines of later 
 limes have entertained the belief that the Son of God ap- 
 peared to Abraham under the form of Melchisedec. (Cuneus, 
 lie Rep. Hebrworum.) 
 
 ME'LCHITES. (Syr. malek, king.) In Ecclesiastical 
 History, the Eulychians, when condemned by the council of 
 Chalcedon, gave this name (royalists, imperialists) to the 
 orthodox, who endeavoured to put the order of the Emper- 
 or Marcian into execution against them. Among Oriental 
 Christians it now designates, in a general manner, all those 
 who are neither Jacobites nor Nestorians, including the 
 Maronites, Catholic Greeks, and non-Catholic Greeks of 
 the three Eastern patriarchates. (Mosheim, Eccles. Hist., 
 vol. ii.) 
 
 MELEA'GRIS. (Gr. a guinea-hen.) A term employed 
 by Linnams to designate the genus of which the turkey is 
 the type. The head and upper part of the neck is invested 
 with a phuneless and carunculated skin : there is a cutaneous 
 appendage of a similar construction under the throat, and 
 another of a conical form on the forehead, which in the 
 male, when under excitement, can be distended and elon- 
 gated so as hang over the point of the heak. From the 
 lower part of the neck of the adult male hangs a tuft or tas- 
 sel of stitT hairs. The coverts of the tail are shorter and 
 stiffer than in the peacock, but can be erected and displayed 
 in the same way. The tarsi of the male are aimed with 
 weak spurs. The common turkey (Meleagris gallopavo, 
 L.) was introduced into Europe in the 16th century. Its 
 size, and the excellence of its flesh, led to its being culti- 
 vated with peculiar care : it is now common, and widely dis- 
 persed. Its wild original of the American woods is of a 
 greenish colour, with a copper gloss. A second, and much 
 more beautiful species (Meleagris ocellata, Cuvier), has been 
 discovered in Honduras: its domestication is greatly to be 
 desired. 
 
 MELES. (Lat. meles, a badger.) A genus separated by 
 Storr from the Linnrean Ursus, and characterized by Mr. 
 Hell as follows . Second incisor in the lower jaw placed be- 
 5—5 
 
 hind the others; molars 
 
 6—6' 
 
 arranged in an uninterrupted 
 
 series; feet plantigrade ; a glandular pouch underneath the 
 tail, having a transverse orifice. Since the extirpation of 
 the common bear, the badger, Ursus meles of Linnaeus, 
 which is a typical species of the present genus, is the sole 
 representative of the Ursine family in our indigenous zoolo- 
 gy. The habits of this quadruped are nocturnal, inoffensive, 
 and slothful ; its food consists of roots, earthnuts, fruits, the 
 eggs of birds, insects, reptiles, and the smaller quadrupeds: 
 its noxious qualities are consequently few and of slight mo- 
 in. lit. and by no means justify the exterminating war unin- 
 termittingly waged against it. The muscular strength of 
 the badger is great, its bite proverbially powerful; and a 
 dog musl betrained and encouraged to enter willingly into 
 a combat with this species. The long claws of the fore 
 feet enable the badger to dig with effect ; and he habitually 
 dwells in burrows, which he ilifis by choice in declivities 
 covered by thick coppice, or concealed in the recesses of 
 woods. The female prepares a nest of moss and grass, and 
 brings forth her litter of three or four blind young in the 
 summer season. 
 
 MELETIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, the partisans 
 of Meletius, bishop of Lycopolis in Egj pt, deposed in a synod 
 at Alexandria about 306, on the charge ofhaving sacrificed to 
 idols during the persecution by Diocletian. He was support- 
 ed by numerous adherents; and thus a schism began, winch 
 
 was partially concluded by the submission of Ai-enius, chief 
 
 of the party, to Athanasius in 333, but does no1 si em to have 
 been wholly extinct for 190 years. (Mo.'/uim, vol. i.) 
 
 MELICE'RIS. (Gr. /<rAi, honey, and icnpof, wax.) An 
 encysted tumour, the contents of which resemble honey. 
 
 MELIIiO'TUS. (Lat. mel, honey, and lotus, a Ugumin- 
 731 
 
 MELUSINE. 
 
 ous plant.) A honey-scented plant, with an erect stem and 
 long erect racemes of small yellow or white flowers, re- 
 sembling those of clover, of which it was formerly regarded 
 as a species. In some parts of Europe two or three species 
 are cultivated as annual fodder-plants. 
 
 MELITCE'A, or MEUNCEA. (From McXiraia, a state 
 in Thessaly ; or MtXivaia, a name of Venus, derived from 
 Ht\i, honey.) In Zoology, a genus of beautiful corals, and 
 also a genus of butterflies. 
 
 MELLI'PHAGANS, Melliphagidce. (Gr. ,/cXi, honey; 
 <pay<i>, I eat.) A family of Tenuirosters, comprising the 
 birds which feed on the nectar of flowers. 
 
 MELLITE, or MELILITE. (Gr.^eAt, and hOos, a stone.) 
 A yellow crystallized mineral, composed of mellitic acid 
 and alumine. It is very rare, and was first observed in the 
 beds of brown coal in Thuringia. The term melilite has also 
 been applied to a yellow mineral which occurs in very mi- 
 nute crystals in the fissures and cavities of lava. It fuses 
 into a glass before the blow-pipe, but its composition has not 
 been determined. 
 
 MELLI'TIC ACID. The peculiar acid of the mellite or 
 honeystone of Thuringia. According to Liebig, the ultimate 
 elements of this acid are 4 equivalents of carbon = 24, 4 of 
 oxygen = 32, and one of hydrogen = 1. 
 
 ME'LLON. A lemon-yellow substance, composed of 6 
 equivalents of carbon and 4 of nitrogen, obtained by heating 
 dry bisulphuret of cyanogen. 
 
 MELOCA'CTUS. ( Melon -cactus. ) Round-stemmed, 
 ribbed, succulent plants, covered with spines on the ridge 
 of the ribs, and producing the flowers among wool, on a 
 hairy head or cap, which is protruded from the top of the 
 stem. They were included by Linnoeus in his genus Cactus ; 
 and they are, in fact, scarcely distinguishable from those dis- 
 memberments of the genus to which the modern names of 
 Cereus and Echino cactus are applied. For the sake of their 
 grotesque form, they are often cultivated by persons curious 
 in collecting singular vegetables. 
 
 MELODRA'MA. (Gr. ncXos, song, and Spd/.ta, drama.) 
 A short drama in which music is introduced ; but differing 
 from the opera, as the greater part of the words are recited, 
 and not sung. In Germany, the melodrama is a short dra- 
 matic piece in lyrical verse ; hut among ourselves, and in 
 France, its character is chiefly that of being a vehicle for 
 gorgeous decoration and scenery, with an insignificant plot, 
 usually of a serious or romantic description. 
 
 ME'LODY. (Gr. pieXuSta ; from ueXos, a song.) In Mu- 
 sic, the arrangement in succession of different sounds for a 
 single voice or instrument, being distinguished from harmo- 
 ny, which is the result of the union of two or more concord- 
 ing musical sounds. 
 
 ME'LOE. (Gr. nn\n, a probe.) A genus of Coleopterous 
 insects, of the section Hetcromera, tribe Trachclides, and 
 family Cantharida, in the system of Latreille. In this genus 
 the antennae are composed of short and rounded joints, the 
 intermediate of which are the largest, and sometimes so dis- 
 posed that these organs present in this point, in several 
 males, an emargination or crescent. The wings are want- 
 ing; and the elytra, oval or triangular, with n portion of the 
 inner margin, crossing each other, only partially cover the 
 abdomen, particularly in the females, in which this segment 
 of the body is extremely voluminous. The meloes crawl 
 along the ground, or upon low plants, on the leaves of which 
 they feed. A yellowish or reddish oleaginous liquid exudes 
 from the articulations of their legs. In some districts of 
 Spain these insects are used in the place of the true blister- 
 flies (Cantharides) ; they are also employed by the farriers. 
 Latreille is of opinion that the modern meloes were the Bu- 
 prcstes of the ancients — insects to which they attributed 
 very noxious properties, supposing them to be fatal to the 
 oxen that swallowed them. 
 
 MELOLON'THIDANS, Melolonthidm. The family of 
 Coleopterous insects, of which the May-chaffer (Melolontha 
 vulgaris) is the type. 
 
 MELPOMENE. (Gr. ueXnopai, I sing.) Themusewho 
 presides over tragedy ; represented usually with a mask in 
 one hand, a club or dagger in the other, and with buskins on 
 her feet. 
 
 MELUSI'NE. In the medieval Mythology of France, a 
 beautiful nymph or fairy, whose history occupies a large 
 space In the popular superstitions of that country. She is 
 represented as the daughter of Ilelmas, king of Albania, and 
 the fairy Persine; and ns having married Raymond, count 
 of Toulouse, who hull! her (he magnificent castle of Lu»ig- 
 
 nan (originally called Eusineein, the anagram of Melusine). 
 
 Like most of the fairies of that period, she was doomed to a 
 periodical metamorphosis, during which the lower part of 
 her body assumed the form of a fish or a serpent. On these 
 occasions she exerted all her ingenuity to escape observa- 
 tion; hut Inning been once accidentally seen by her husband 
 in this condition, she BWOOned away, and soon afterwards 
 disappeared, none knew whither. Hut her form is said to 
 be seen from time to time on the tower of Lusignan, clad in
 
 MELYRIS. 
 
 mourning, and uttering deep lamentations ; and her appear- 
 ance is universally believed to indicate an impending calam- 
 ity to the roval family of France. 
 
 MELY'RIS. (Gr. pcXovpis, an insect mentioned by Ni- 
 cander.) A Fabrician genus of Coleopterous insects, belong- 
 ing to the section Pentamera, subsection Serricornes, tribe 
 Malacodermi, and constituting the family Melyrida in the 
 system of Latreille; in which it is characterized as follows; 
 Palpi commonly short and filiform ; mandibles emarginated 
 at the point; body usually narrow and elongated; head 
 covered at the base by a flat or slightly convex thorax ; joint 
 of the tarsi entire, and the terminal hooks unidentate or bor- 
 dered with a membrane ; antennae usually serrate, and in 
 the males of some species even pectinate. 
 
 MEMBRA'NA TVMPANI. Tbe membrane which sep- 
 arates the internal from the external ear. The drum of the 
 ear. 
 
 MEMBRANE. The expansion of any of the tissues of 
 the body into a thin layer. Anatomists generally enumerate 
 three kinds of membrane; namely, the mucous, the serous, 
 and the fibrous. The mucous membranes are those which 
 line the canals of the body which are exposed to the action 
 of air or foreign matters — such as the lining of the nose, 
 trachea, assophagus, stomach, intestines, &.c. The serous 
 membranes form the lining of the sacs or closed cavities, as 
 of the chest, abdomen, &c. The fibrous membranes are 
 tough, inelastic, and of a tendinous character ; such as the 
 dura mater, the pericardium, the capsules of joints, &.c. 
 
 ME'MNON. In Greek Mythology, a fabulous king of 
 Ethiopia, son of the goddess Aurora, who is said to have as- 
 sisted the Trojans in the siege of Troy, and to have been 
 slain by Achilles. Several Egyptian kings of this name are 
 also mentioned by different Greek writers. But the name 
 is, in fact, supposed to be a general appellation or epithet 
 (Mei-amun, beloved of Amnion) borrowed by the Greeks from 
 the Egyptian language, and erroneously applied by them to 
 particular individuals. The famous statue called by the 
 Greeks Memnon, at Thebes in Upper Egypt, which possess- 
 ed the real or imaginary property of emitting a sound like 
 that of a harp, at the rising of the sun, is supposed to have 
 been in the building called by M. Champollion the Rhames- 
 seion, from its founder Rhameses, or Sesostris, of which the 
 stupendous ruins are still seen between Medinet-Habou and 
 Koumah. (See Champollion, Lettres ecrites d' Egypte etde 
 JVubie, p. 261.) The statue of black granite in the British 
 Museum, already styled the brother of the younger Memnon, 
 was found in the Rhamesseion. The real Memnonium was, 
 however, probably the temple erected by Amenoph, or 
 Amenothph. (Champollion, ib., p. 303.) 
 
 MEMOIR. In Literature, two different species of com- 
 position are popularly designated by the terms Memoir and 
 Memoirs. A short biographical notice of an individual, or 
 a short essay on a particular subject (especially to accom- 
 pany and explain a map, view, facsimile, or other representa- 
 tion of a curious object in art, &c.) is called a Memoir. This 
 name is particularly appropriated to papers read before 
 scientific or literary societies. The account, by an individual, 
 of his own life, accompanied with narratives and remarks 
 respecting the personages and events of the rimes in which 
 he lived, is termed his Memoirs ; being supposed, as the 
 name denotes, to have been drawn up with the object of as- 
 sisting his memory in reflecting on past events. In modem 
 but incorrect diction the life of a person by another is also 
 termed his Memoirs, if drawn up with a somewhat less reg- 
 gular arrangement, and containing more matter not imme- 
 diately connected with the subject than the species of nar- 
 ration which we term a Life. The French were the earliest, 
 and have always been by far the most successful writers, in 
 this branch of literature. Their historical memoirs, partly 
 autobiographical, and partly the works of authors who had 
 access to the papers and memorials of those whose lives 
 they illustrated, form a complete series from the 10th cen- 
 tury to the present time, and throw the greatest light on some 
 portions of history ; while their memoirs of celebrated in- 
 dividuals in the ranks of literature and fashion are still more 
 numerous and interesting. In the last century this branch 
 of literature became so popular, that any distinguished indi- 
 vidual who did not leave authentic memoirs of himself was 
 sure to become the subject, after his death, of fabricated 
 memoirs, published under his name; and this species of 
 falsification, of which Voltaire then complained, appears to 
 be now carried on as extensively as at anv former period. 
 The collections of historical memoirs recently edited in Paris 
 contain three series of historical memoirs relating to French 
 history, and one of English memoirs, translated^illustratins 
 the period of our great civil war and revolution. The latter 
 undertake was conducted by M. Guizot. 
 
 MEMO'RIAL. In Diplomacy, a species of informal state 
 paper much used in negotiation. Memorials are said to be 
 of three classes. 1. Memorials in the form of letters, sub- 
 scribed by the writer, and speaking in the second person as 
 addressed to another. 2. Memorials proper, or written rep- 
 
 MENDICITY. 
 
 resentations, subscribed by the writer, and with an address, 
 but not speaking in the second person. 3. Notes, in which 
 there is neither subscription nor address. Species of the 
 first class of memorials are, circulars from the bureau of 
 foreign affairs sent to foreign agents; answers to the me- 
 morials of ambassadors ; and notes to foreign cabinets and 
 ambassadors. 
 
 ME'MORY (Lat. memini, / remember), is defined to be 
 the power or capacity of having what was once present to 
 the senses or the understanding suggested again to the mind, 
 accompanied by a distinct consciousness of past existence. 
 The term is also employed, though more rarely, to denote 
 the act or operation of remembering, or the peculiar state 
 of the mind when it exercises this faculty, in contradistinc- 
 tion to the faculty itself. Various opinions have been pro- 
 pounded by metaphysicians respecting the nature and origin 
 of the faculty of memory. Upon this point, however, it is 
 not our intention to enter into any details, as this question 
 is so mixed up with that of other faculties of the mind, such 
 as perception and association, and such metaphysical ques- 
 tions, as personal identity, &c, as to be inseparable from 
 thcru ; and to these heads we must refer the reader for in- 
 formation. We may, however, remark, that the ancient 
 Platonists and Peripatetics ascribed the faculty of memory 
 to the common theory of ideas ; that is, of images in the 
 brain, or in the mind, of all the objects of thought ; and in 
 this opinion they were supported, with slight modifications, 
 by many other philosophers of antiquity. But Dr. Reid, who 
 has examined this question with great acuteness, has satis- 
 factorily demonstrated the theory- of the ancients to be very 
 defective. The more modern theories of Locke, Hume, and 
 other philosophers, also meet with little consideration from 
 the same acute metaphysician, who, after exposing their 
 fallacies, sums up in these words: "Thus, when philoso- 
 phers have piled one supposition on another, as ihe giants 
 piled the mountains in order to scale the heavens, it is all to 
 no purpose — memory remains unaccountable ; and we know 
 as little how we remember things past as how we are con- 
 scious of the present." (Ried on the Human Mind, p. 15'J, 
 185.) 
 
 MENA'CHANITE. Ferruginous oxide of titanhun, found 
 in the vale of Menachan, in Cornwall. 
 
 MENDICANT FRIARS. See Orders, Mendicant. 
 
 MENDI'CITY. (Lat. mendico, J beg.) The condition 
 of habitual beggars. One of the greatest curses which can 
 afflict a civilized society is the prevalence of mendicity ; and 
 it is very much to be regretted that the prejudices of excel- 
 lent and humane persons have so constantly interposed, and 
 still interpose, difficulties in the way of the adoption and en- 
 forcement of correct principles on this subject. For there 
 are too many who persist in seeing in mendicity only the 
 natural expression of that indigence into which numbers are 
 unhappily thrown by the inequality of property and uncer- 
 tainty of employment prevailing in almost all communities ; 
 and who forget that the encouragement of it affords a pre- 
 mium to the idle, the artfid, the criminal — to all or any, in 
 short, except those really deserving sufferers whom it is the 
 object of true charity to relieve. (For the law of England, 
 past and present, respecting mendicity, see Vagrancy.) 
 Under the operation of this law, of the national provision of 
 the poor laws, and far more than either the activity of Eng- 
 lish industry, mendicity has long been less extensive and 
 public in England than perhaps in any other country. And, 
 owing to that very circumstance, it is, perhaps, worse in Eng- 
 land than in any other country ; that is, the established men- 
 dicants are more connected with the criminal part of the 
 population. (See the recent report of the Constabulary 
 Force Commission.) Ireland has long been unhappily cele- 
 brated for the prevalence of mendicity. The number of 
 " destitute persons" in the island was estimated by Mr. Stan- 
 ley in 1837 at about 80,000 {Mr. NichoWs Report on Poor 
 Laws in Ireland) ; the number of street mendicants in Dub- 
 lin at nearly 1000, or almost one ticentictk of the population. 
 Mr. Lewis, following the evidence adduced before the Irish 
 Poor Law Commission, divides the habitual mendicants 
 into — 1. Wandering beggars, chiefly cripples, blind, maimed, 
 &c. 2. Professional strolling beggars, who have no fixed 
 domicile, and live constantly by mendicancy. 3. Town beg- 
 gars, who live by mendicancy, but have a fixed domicile : 
 these, he says, " are generally known by those who relieve 
 them, and their character is not on the whole very bad." 
 4. Poor housekeepers, who are relieved by three or four 
 neighbours, to whom their wants are known, but who would 
 not resort to general becging. (On Local Disturbances in 
 Inland, 1835.) "Mendicancy and wretchedness." says Mr. 
 Nicholl, "have become too common to be disgraceful." 
 And he compares with truth the effects of indiscriminate 
 alms-giving in Ireland to those of indiscriminate legal relief 
 in England. What effect the new system of poor laws may 
 have on this and other evils of that country, time must show. 
 In France, depots de mendicite were first founded in 1767; a 
 kind of half way between prisons and hospitals for mendi- 
 
 735
 
 MENILITE. 
 
 cants. Their situation was rendered dependent on their 
 good behaviour. These receptacles held (5000 or 8000 per- 
 sons in 1789. in 1808, by a new law, "vagabonds," mere 
 vagrants, were distinguished from "beggars," i. e., disabled 
 persons, or other persons begging within their own arron- 
 dissement: the former were sent to "maisonsde detention." 
 There are now two gaol depots tor Paris, at St. Denis and 
 Villers Coterets. in 1838 the prefet of police reported that 
 they had manifestly diminished mendicity at Paris. (Ue- 
 gerando, L>e la Eienfaisance Publigue, iii.. part 3, b. 1.) 
 "The road to mendicity," says M. sismondi, "is now too 
 wide and too easj ; instead of calling on religion to smooth 
 it, we should multiply as tar as possible the resources of the 
 poor, in order to prevent their -being dragged into it." See 
 Poor Laws. 
 
 ME'JVILITE. A mineral somewhat resembling semi- 
 opal, found at Menil Montant, near Paris. 
 
 MENISCI'S. A lens convex on one side and concave 
 on the other. See Lens. 
 
 MENISPE'RMIC ACID. An acid contained in the ber- 
 ries of the Menispermum cocculus (Cocculus indicus), 
 where it exists in combination witli the vegetable alkali 
 called pieroto xia. 
 
 MEVNON1TES. The title by which the Anabaptists 
 of Holland came to be distinguished, after they had put 
 themselves under the guidance of Menno, a native of Fries- 
 land, who undertook to moderate the extraordinary fanati- 
 cism of those sectarians. (Mosheim, transl., ed. 1790. v. 
 490.) See Baptists, Anabaptists. 
 
 MENOBRA'NCHUS. (Gr. utvm, I remain, [Spayx'a, 
 gills.) A Perennibranchiate amphibian, which retains the 
 external gills. 
 
 ME'NOPOME, Menopoma. (Gr. uevio, and -nu>iia, a lid.) 
 A Perennibranchiate amphibian, which retains the opercu- 
 lar aperture, but not the external gills. 
 
 ME'NORHA'GIA. (Gr. /o/c, a month, and {tew, I flow.) 
 Flooding ; immoderate menstrual discharge ; haemorrhage 
 from the uterus. 
 
 ME'NSTRUUM (Lat. mensis, a month), signified, in the 
 language of the old chemists, some preparation or drug 
 which could only operate effectually at a particular period 
 of the moon or month ; but it is now used for any fluid sub- 
 stance which dissolves a solid body. 
 
 MENSURA'TION. Though this term literally signifies 
 the act of measuring, it is usually employed to denote the 
 branch of practical geometry which teaches the methods of 
 calculating the dimensions and areas of figures, the volumes 
 of solids, &.c, from the measurement of certain lines or 
 angles of the figures or solids, which supply the requisite 
 data. 
 
 Every rectilineal plane figure may be decomposed into 
 triangles ; and hence the mensuration of such figures re- 
 solves itself into the determination of the sides or area of a 
 triangle. (Sec Trigonometry.) Solids bounded by planes 
 may, in like manner, be resolved into pyramids, and their 
 contents consequently determined by the methods of ele- 
 mentary geometry. (See Pyramid.) The determination of 
 the lengths of curve lines, the areas of figures bounded by 
 curves, and of solids bounded by curve surfaces, requires 
 the application of the integral calculus. (See Quadra- 
 ture, Rectification.) For the areas and volumes of the 
 most usual geometrical figures, see the respective terms, as 
 Circle, Ellipse, &c. 
 
 MENTUM. (Lat. the chin.) In Mammalogy, the term 
 is restricted to the anterior and inferior margin of the man- 
 dible, or lower jaw. The mentum pruminitlum is that 
 which extends beyond the perpendicular line dropped from 
 the upper margin of the lower jaw ; the mentum abscondi- 
 tum is that which cannot be distinguished. 
 
 MENU, INSTITUTES OF. The name given to the 
 most celebrated code of Indian civil and religious law ; so 
 caileil from Menu, Menou, or Manu, the son of Brama, by 
 whom it is supposed to have been revealed. The Hindoos 
 themselves ascribe to this system the highest antiquity; and 
 many of the most learned Europeans are of opinion that of 
 
 all known works there i> none which carries with it more 
 convincing proofs of high antiquity and perfect integrity. 
 
 Sir W. .tones assigns the date of its origin somewhere be 
 tween Homer and the Twelve Tables of the Romans; and 
 Bchlegel asserts it as his belief that il was seen by Alex- 
 ander the Great in a state not materially different from that 
 in which we possess it. The Institutes of Menu are of a 
 most comprehensive nature: they embrace all that relates 
 to human life ; the history of the creation of the world and 
 man ; the nature of Cod and spirits; ami a complete sys- 
 tem of morals, government, and religion. The work, says 
 Sir \V. Jones, contains abundance or curious matter, Intei 
 esting both to speculative lawyers and antiquaries, with 
 many beauties which need not to be pointed out. and with 
 
 many blemishes which cannot be justified or palliated : it is 
 
 a system of despotism and priestcraft ; both, indeed, limited 
 by law, but artfully conspiring to give mutual support. 
 730 
 
 MERCATOR'S CHART. 
 
 But, notwithstanding these and other defects, as has fre- 
 quently been remarked, the most striking features by which 
 the code of Menu is distinguished are the rigour and purity 
 
 of its morals. Many of its maxims have all the sublimity 
 of the precepts of Christianity ; to winch, in fact, they bear 
 a close resemblance, not only in the style of thought but of 
 expression. Thus, "Let not a man complain, even though 
 in pain ; let him not injure another in deed or in thought ; 
 let him not even utter a word by which his fellow-creatures 
 may suffer uneasiness." Again, "Let him bear a reproach- 
 ful speech with patience ; let him speak reproachfully to no 
 man ; with an angry man let him not in return he angry : 
 abused, let him answer mildly." The inspired words of 
 the Psalmist, " The fool hath said in his heart there is no 
 God," are thus almost verbally rendered, "The wicked 
 have said in their hearts no one sees us : yes, the gods dis- 
 tinctly see them, and so does the spirit within their bn - 
 The Institutes of Menu have been translated into the Eng- 
 lish and French languages : into the former by Sir W. 
 Jones in 1794, the latter by Des Longchamps in 1830 (Stras- 
 burg). An edition of the original Sanscrit, together with 
 Sir W. Jones's translation, was published at Calcutta in 
 182-2-25 by Sir Graves Haughton. 
 
 MENU'RA. (Gr. i*tvos, strength, and ovpa, a tail.) A 
 name invented by Dr. Shaw for a genus of birds peculiar to 
 Australia, the true affinities of which have been the subject 
 of much discussion and diversity of opinion among ornithol- 
 ogists. Cuvier observes that the Mcr.nura>, or lvre-pheas- 
 ants, evidently belong to the order Passerine, and approach 
 the thrushes in their beak, which is triangular at the base, 
 elongated, slightly compressed, and emarginate at the point 
 Only one species is at present known, and this is chiefly pe- 
 culiar for an extraordinary sexual development of the tail 
 feathers of the male. Of these there are three kinds : the 
 twelve common ones, with very fine and widely separated 
 barbs ; two more in the middle, of which only one side is 
 furnished with thickly -set barbs ; and two external ones, 
 curved in the figure of an S, or like the arms of a lyre, 
 whose internal barbs, large and thickly set, form a kind of 
 broad riband, while the external ones are very short, be- 
 coming longer only near the tip. The female has only the 
 twelve ordinarv quills. 
 
 MENYA'NTHES. (Gr. /xevoc, and avQoc, flower.) A 
 genus of Gentianaceous plants with powerful tonic proper- 
 ties. The M. trifoliata, a wild aquatic plant with white 
 flowers densely crested with hairs, is employed in medicine 
 as a bitter, emetic, tonic, and diaphoretic. 
 
 MENY'NGES. (Gr. urjviy\, a membrane.) The mem- 
 branes which cover the brain are so called. 
 
 MEPHI'TIS. (Lat.) Any noxious exhalation ; but more 
 particularly applied to carbonic, acid gas. Mephitis was the 
 name of a Latin goddess who was invoked by the Romans 
 as their protectress against noxious vapours. 
 
 MERCA'PTAN. A liquid composed of sulphur, car- 
 bon, and hydrogen, which has received the above name 
 from its energetic action on mercury — corpus mercurium. 
 captans. (Zeise, Annates de Chimie et Physique, lv., 87.) 
 
 MERCA'TOR'S CHART, or PROJECTION. A repre- 
 sentation of the sphere on a plane, in which the meridians 
 are represented by equidistant parallel straight lines, and 
 the parallels of latitude also by straight lines perpendicular 
 to the meridians. This projection, which is universally 
 adopted for nautical charts, by reason of the facilities which 
 it affords in navigation from the circumstance that the 
 rhumb, or sailing course between two points, is represented 
 by a straight line, was invented by Gerard Mercatof (his 
 true name was Kavffman, of which MercatOT is the Latin 
 equivalent), a native of Rupelmonde, in East Flanders, 
 born in the year 1512. But, though Mercator gave his 
 name to the projection, it does not appear that he knew the 
 law according to which the distance of the parallels from 
 the equator increases. The true principles of the construc- 
 tion were found by Edward Wright, of Cains College, Cam- 
 bridge, who explained them in his treatise, entitled The 
 Correction of certain Errors in Navigation, published in 
 1599, and are as follows: Suppose one of the meridians on 
 the globe to bo divided into minutes of a degree; one of 
 th.se, taken at any parallel of latitude, will he to a minute 
 of longitude, taken on that parallel, as the radius of the- 
 equator to the radius of the parallel ; that is, as radius to 
 the cosine of the latitude, or as the secant of the latitude to 
 radius. This proportion holds true on the map in this 
 sense, that if a minute of the equator bn taken as the unit 
 
 nt a bi ale, and that unit be considered as the radius of the 
 
 tables, then the representation of a minute of latitude will 
 
 hi' expressed bj the number in the trigonometrical tables 
 
 Which i- the secant of that latitude. Hence, in the map, 
 while the degrees of longitude are all equal, the degrees of 
 
 latitude marked on the meridian form a scale of which the 
 distances go on increasing from (he equator towards the 
 poles, each being (approximately) the sum id' the secants of 
 all the minutes of latitude in the degree. The numbers re-
 
 MERCURIALE. 
 
 milting from the addition of the secants of the successive 
 minutes, reckoned from the equator, form a scale of meri- 
 dional parts, which is given in all books of navigation. 
 The very remarkable property of this projection, namely, 
 that the divisions of the meridian are analogous to the ex- 
 cesses of the logarithmic tangents of half the respective 
 latitudes augmented by 45°, above the logarithm of the ra- 
 dius, was discovered by Bond about the year 1645 ; but was 
 first demonstrated by James Gregory, in his Exercitationcs 
 Mathematics, published in 1668. (See the Scriptores Log- 
 arithmici, vols. ii. and iv.) 
 
 MERCURIA'LE. The first Wednesday after the great 
 vacation of the parliaments, under the old French regime. 
 On that day tliey met to discuss grievances and deficien- 
 cies, and to reprimand members for misconduct. Hence, 
 an harangue of reproof is popularly termed in French a 
 mercuriale. 
 
 ME'RCURY. (Probably from the Lat. merx, merchan- 
 dise.) The Latin name of the Grecian Hermes. He was 
 the son of Jupiter and Maia, and discharged the office of 
 the messenger of the gods. Part of his duty was also to 
 conduct the shades of the dead to the infernal regions. He 
 presides over eloquence, profit, good fortune, and theft ; in 
 which he was himself so great a proficient that, on the day 
 of his birth, he stole fifty kine from the herds of Apollo, 
 whom he repaid by the gift of his invention, the lyre. (See 
 the Hymn ascribed to Homer, with the beautiful translation 
 .il it by Shelley.) His attributes, exploits, and insignia are 
 briefly enumerated by Horace (Ode I., 10) : 
 
 Mercuri facunde, nepos Atlantis, 
 Qui feros cultos hominum recentum 
 Voce formasti catus, et decora 
 
 More palaestra, 
 Te canam, magni .Tovis et Deorum 
 Nuntium curvaeque lyra parentem 
 Calidum, quicquid placuit jocoso 
 
 Condere furto. 
 
 Between which passage and the lines of Ovid (Fasti, v. 663 
 -€69), a curious coincidence will be found. Mercury was 
 represented as a youth lightly clad, with the petasus, or 
 winged hat, and wings at his heels. In his hand he bears 
 the emblem of his herald's office, the caduceus, a rod with 
 two serpents twined about it. The more ancient statues of 
 Mercury were square blocks of stone, with a rudely carved 
 head ori them. They were set up in great numbers in the 
 streets of Athens. 
 
 Me'rccry. In the Solar System, the planet nearest the 
 sun. The mean distance of Mercury from the sun is 
 0-3870981, the radius of the earth's orbit being taken as unit ; 
 it is consequently little more than a third of the earth's dis- 
 tance, and equal to about 36,000,000 of miles. His mean 
 sidereal revolution is performed in 87-969258 mean solar 
 days, and his successive oppositions or conjunctions take 
 place at intervals of 115-877 mean solar days. The orbit is 
 inclined to the ecliptic in an angle of 7° 0' 9" ; and its ec- 
 centricity is greater than that of any other of the old plan- 
 ets, being 0205515, the major axis being unit. Mercury be' 
 ing an inferior planet always appears in the neighbourhood 
 of the sun ; his greatest elongation, or angular distance 
 from the sun, amounts only to 28° 48' ; so that he is very 
 seldom visible to the naked eye. His apparent diameter 
 varies from 5" at his superior conjunction when at his 
 greatest distance from the earth, to 12" at his inferior con- 
 junction when nearest the earth. At a distance equal to 
 the mean distance of the sun from the earth, the apparent 
 diameter is 69". His true diameter, compared with that of 
 the earth taken as unity, is -398, or about 3140 miles. On 
 account of the smallness of the planet and its proximity to 
 the sun, it is difficult to distinguish any variety on the sur- 
 face. The disk is round, and, in a good telescope, exhibits 
 phases; and the planet is supposed to revolve about its axis 
 in the space of 24 h. 5 m. 28 sec. Mercury is sometimes 
 seen to pass over the sun's disk. This can only happen 
 when he is in one of his nodes nearly at the same time that 
 he is at his inferior conjunction. The phenomena are of 
 more frequent occurrence than the transits of Venus, but of 
 far less astronomical importance. The five next transits 
 will be visible in this countrv, and will occur at the follow- 
 ing dates: 1845, May 8; 1848, Nov. 9; 1861, Nov. 11 ; 1868, 
 Nov. 4 ; 1878, May 6. See Planet. 
 
 Me'rchry. This metal is found chiefly in the state of 
 sulphuret, which is decomposed by distillation with iron or 
 lime. It is also found native. Mercury is the only metal 
 which is liquid at common temperatures ; it is white and 
 very brilliant. It freezes and assumes a crystalline texture 
 at 40° below zero. Its specific gravity is 135. It boils at 
 660°, and its vapour condenses upon cool surfaces in minute 
 brilliant globules. It is not altered by exposure to air at 
 common temperatures, but when kept in vessels to which 
 air has access, at a temperature near its boiling point, it 
 gradually becomes converted into a deep red crystalline 
 substance, which is the peroxide, or red oxide, of mercury. 
 
 MERGER. 
 
 When mercury is dissolved in cold dilute nitric acid, the 
 pure alkalis throw it down in the form of black protoxide. 
 The same oxide is also oh'ained by triturating calomel with 
 solution of caustic potash. These are the only definite ox- 
 ides of mercury. The equivalent of this metal* is about 200, 
 and the oxides, consisting respectively of 1 atom of mercury 
 and 1 of oxygen, and 1 and 2 are represented by 200 + 8 = 
 208, and 200 + 16 = 216. Mercury is represented in chemi- 
 cal formula? by hg., from the Latin hydrargyrum, literally 
 signifying water silver. The symbol of the protoxide will 
 then be (hg. +o.), and of the peroxide (hg.-\-2 o.). Each 
 of these oxides combines with the acids, and produces the 
 protosalts and persalts of mercury. 
 
 Mercury and Chlorine. — There are two chlorides of mer- 
 cury ; a protochloride or calomel, and a perchloridc or cor- 
 rosive sublimate. Calomel may be obtained by mixing 60 
 parts (1 equivalent) of common salt, or chloride of sodium, 
 with 248 parts (1 equivalent) of protosulphate of mercury, 
 and exposing the mixture in a proper subliming vessel to a 
 red heat ; the chlorine of the salt combines with the mer- 
 cury of the sulphate to form protochloride of mercury (con- 
 sisting of 200 mercury and 36 chlorine) ; and the sodium of 
 the salt, uniting with the oxygen of the oxide of mercury, 
 becomes soda, which, with the sulphuric acid, forms sul- 
 phate of soda. Calomel may also be obtained by mixing 
 200 parts of mercury with 272 of corrosive sublimate, and 
 subliming the mixture. When thoroughly washed and 
 levigated, calomel is a tasteless, white powder ; its specific 
 gravity is 7-2. When heated it acquires a yellow colour ; 
 and at a temperature below redness it rises in dense white 
 fumes, which are deposited in the form of a white powder 
 upon cold surfaces. It is insoluble in water. When has- 
 tily sublimed it often becomes a crystalline horny mass, 
 and occasionally forms beautiful prismatic crystals. It ia 
 sometimes found native ; forming, however, a very rare ore, 
 called, from its appearance, horn quicksilver. 
 
 Perchloride of mercury, or corrosive sublimate, is obtain- 
 ed by sublimation from a mixture of 120 parts of common 
 salt (or 2 equivalents), and 296 (or 1 equivalent) of persul- 
 phate of mercury. It rises in the form of a white crystal- 
 line substance, of an acrid metallic taste, highly poisonous, 
 soluble in 20 parts of cold and in 2 of boiling water. Its 
 specific gravity is 52. When heated it evaporates in acrid 
 fumes, at a temperature below that required for the volatil- 
 ization of calomel. Corrosive sublimate is a compound of 
 1 equivalent of mercury and 2 of chlorine. In the above 
 process for preparing it, the chlorine is furnished by the 
 chloride of sodium, and sulphate of soda is the other pro- 
 duct. 
 
 Bisulphuret of Mercury, known also by the name of cin- 
 nabar or vermilion, is prepared artificially by heating to- 
 gether 100 parts of mercury with about 20 of sulphur ; they 
 form a black compound, which, when strongly heated, rises 
 in the form of a deep crimson-coloured sublimate ; this, re- 
 duced by long trituration into a fine powder, acquires a 
 brilliant red colour. It is tasteless, and insoluble in water ; 
 it consists of 200 mercury and 32 sulphur, or (hg. + 2 s.) 
 A black protosulphuret of mercury (hg.-\-s.) is precipitated 
 by sulphuretted hydrogen from a solution of the protoni- 
 trate. When a mixture of equal weights of finely-powdered 
 peroxide of mercury and Prussian blue is boiled in water 
 till the blue colour disappears, the solution yields, when 
 filtered and evaporated, a crop of straw-coloured prismatic 
 crystals, which are bicyanuret of mercury : ( icy.-\-hg. 
 
 Mercury is found in various parts of the world. Among 
 the principal mines are those of Almaden, near Cordova, 
 in Spain; Idria, in Carniola; Wolfstein and Morsfield, in 
 the Palatinate; Guancavelica, in Peru. It is stated by Dr. 
 A. T. Thompson, in his Dispensatory, that most of the mer 
 cury used in this country is brought from Germany. But, 
 whatever may have been the case formerly, this is not cer- 
 tainly true at present. On the contrary, of 314,286 lbs. of 
 quicksilver imported in 1831, none was brought from Ger- 
 many: 269,558 lbs. were brought direct from Spain, and 
 13,714 lbs. from Gibraltar; of the latter a part was derived 
 from Carniola, and a part from Spain ; 31,014 lbs. were 
 brought from Italy. Only 192,310 lbs. were retained for 
 home consumption in 1831. (Pari. Paper, No. 550. Sess. 
 1833.) Quicksilver is produced in several of the provinces 
 of China. During the war, when the intercourse between 
 Europe and America was interrupted, the price of quicksil- 
 ver rose to such a height in the latter that it answered to 
 import it from China ; but since the peace it has been regu- 
 larlv exported to the latter. At an average of the 14 years 
 ending with 1828, the imports of quicksilver by the English 
 and Americans into Canton amounted to 648,085 II is. a year, 
 worth 340,262 dollars. (Lords' Report of 1831, p. 657.) 
 Besides its uses in medicine, mercury is extensively em- 
 ployed in the amalgamation of the noble metals, in water- 
 gilding, the making of vermilion, the silvering of looking- 
 glasses, the making of barometers and thermometers, &c. 
 
 ME'RGER, in Law, is the destruction of a lesser estate in 
 Zz 737
 
 MERGUS. 
 
 lands and tenements by (he acquisition of s greater estate in 
 the same immediate!] succeeding by th< same party and in 
 the same riirli t . Thus an estate for years is said to merge, 
 or sink, in an estate for life, If there be no other estate vesl 
 ed in another person Intervening between the two; and an 
 estate for life in an estate of inheritance. There is no mer- 
 ger of :ui estate tail. 
 
 ME'RGUS. (I,at. mergus, the name of a sea-bird, sup- 
 posed to apply to the cormorant.) A Linmean genus of An- 
 serine birds, characterized by a beak thinner and more cy- 
 lindrical than that of the ducks, and With each mandible 
 armed at its margins With small pointed teeth directed hack 
 wards, like those of a saw ; the upper mandible is curved 
 downwards at its extremity. The goosander (Mergus scr- 
 ratar) and the merganser [JWergns merganser) are exam- 
 ples of this genus. 
 
 MERI'DIAN. (Lat. meridies, mid-day.) In Astronomy, 
 a great circle of the sphere passing through the earth's axis 
 and the zenith of the spectator. It is the circle on which 
 the latitudes of places are reckoned, commencing from the 
 equator, which it intersects at right angles. The terrestrial 
 meridian is the great circle (or rather ellipse) formed by the 
 intersection of the surface of the earth with the plane pas- 
 sing through the poles and the place of the spectator. See 
 
 MERI'DIAN ALTITUDE. The altitude, or height above 
 the horizon, &c. in degrees, of any celestial object, when it 
 crosses the meridian of a place. 
 
 MERI'DIAN, FIRST. The meridian from which longi- 
 tudes are reckoned. The choice of the first meridian is en- 
 tirely arbitrary; and most nations reckon the longitudes 
 from their capital, or meridian passing through their princi- 
 pal observatories. Thus, in English works, the longitude is 
 reckoned from Greenwich; in French, from Paris; in Rus- 
 sian, from St. Petersburg, &c. Ptolemy employed the Ca- 
 nary Islands, the French formerly reckoned from Ferro, and 
 the Dutch from the Peak of Teneriffe. Mercator chose the 
 island Del Corvo. See Longitude. 
 
 MERIDIAN LINE. A line traced on the surface of the 
 earth, coinciding with the intersection of the meridian of the 
 place with the sensible horizon. 
 
 MERIDIAN OF A GLOBE, OR THE BRASS MERIDI- 
 AN, is a graduated circular ring, within which the globe is 
 suspended and revolves, and by means of which it is con- 
 nected with the frame bearing the horizontal scale. Meridi- 
 an lines are also traced on the globe itself, usually at 15° 
 distance, or a difference of longitude corresponding to an 
 hour of time. It is probable that these, with the parallels 
 of latitude, susigested to Descartes the idea of co-ordinates, 
 which he applied so successfully to connect algebra with 
 geometry. 
 
 MERI'NO SHEEP. A breed of sheep till lately peculiar 
 to Spain, but now reared in Saxony, England, and more par- 
 ticularly in Australia, chiefly for the superior fineness of 
 their wool. The word merino signifies an overseer of pas- 
 ture lands, and is applied to this breed of sheep, because, in 
 Spain, they are kept in immense flocks, under a system of 
 shepherds, with a chief as a head, and with a general right 
 of pasturage all over the kingdom. The best flocks of Span- 
 ish merinos are found in Leon and Castile : of the Saxon 
 variety, at Stolpen and Rochsberg; but merinoes are to be 
 found in North America, the Cape of Good Hope, and above 
 all in New South Wales, which promises to be one of the 
 principal woolgrowing countries in the world. See Sheep. 
 
 ME'RLON. In Fortification, the part of the parapet or 
 epaulement included between two embrasures. 
 
 MF/RMAID. (Germ, nicer, sea, and magd. maid.) A 
 fabulous creature; the fore part woman, the hinder half 
 fish. The species of actually existing animals that, viewed 
 at a distance in the sea, may have originated the idea of 
 mermen and mermaids, are the cetaceous dugong and sun- 
 ntee ; these have their fore fins rudely fashioned like arms 
 and hands, and terminate behind in a fish-like tail. The 
 nipples are pectoral ; and they are often seen ascending to 
 the surface to breathe, clasping their suckling young to the 
 breast. 
 
 MERO'PIDANS, Meropida. The family of Insessorial 
 birds, of which the bee-cater (JSIcrnps) is the type. 
 
 ME'ROS. (Gr.) In Architecture, the plane face between 
 the channels in the triglvphs of the Doric, order. 
 
 MERU'LIDANS, JUerulida. The family of Dentirostral 
 perchers, of which the thrush (Mrruln) is the type. 
 
 MESE'MBRYA'NTHEMUM (Gr. vzaot, the middle, (Ipvw, 
 I grow, and nvOoi, a flower), is a very lame genus of succu- 
 lent Cape plants, of which many species are conspicuous fur 
 
 the beauty of their flowers, which expand in sunshine, and 
 close up in gloomy weather. They are chiefly Interesting 
 on account Of the hygrometical quality of their fruit, which, 
 when wetted. Opens out into numerous radiating valves, and 
 when dry contracts with force into a compact and appa- 
 rently solid body. This fruit is sometimes called the fig- 
 marigold. 
 
 738 
 
 MESSIAH. 
 
 MESENTERY. (Gr. ptoos, and tvrcpov, an intestine' 
 Tlie membrane by which the intestines are attached to the 
 vertebra"; it is formed of a duplicative of the peritoneum, 
 and supports the nerves and vessels of the intestines. 
 
 MESMERISM. See Magnetism, Animal. 
 
 MESNE PROCESS. Such process as intervenes be- 
 tween the beginning and end of a suit. It is opposed to 
 final process, or that which takes place byway of execution 
 after judgment. Imprisonment for debt on mesne process 
 was effected by the bare affidavit of one person, stating 
 that another owes him £20. It is abolished under certain 
 exceptions, by 1 & 2 Vict., c. 110. See Arrest. 
 
 MESOCO'LON. (Gr. peaos, and ku\o S , the colon.) The 
 mysentery of the colon : it is an extensive duplicature of the 
 peritonaeum. 
 
 ME'SOLABE. (Gr. ptaoc, and XapGavfo, / take.) An 
 instrument employed by the ancients for finding two mean 
 proportionals between two given lines, which were required 
 in the problem of the duplication of the cube. (See Euto- 
 cius on the Works of Archimedes, and the 3d Book of Pap- 
 pus.) 
 
 ME'SOLYTE. (Gr. pcaoc, and \i9oc, a stone.) A hy- 
 drated silicate of alumina, lime, and soda. It is also called 
 needle-stone. 
 
 MESOPHY'LLUM (Gr. pctroc, and QvWov, a leaf), is the 
 parenchymatous tissue forming the fleshy part of a leaf be- 
 tween the upper and lower integuments. 
 
 MESOTHO'RAX (Gr. pecos, and $u>(>al, the chest), in 
 Entomology, is the posterior segment of the alitrunk, which 
 bears the posterior pair of wings and the third or posterior 
 pair of legs. 
 
 ME'SOTYPE. (Gr. firsro?, and twos, form.) A hydrated 
 silicate of alumina and soda. It has also been called natro- 
 lite. It occurs in trap rocks and in the ancient lava of 
 Vesuvius. 
 
 MESS, in Military Language, signifies the public dinner 
 prepared either for the officers of the same regiment, or for 
 those of different regiments, if in garrison, and to the support 
 of which they are bound to contribute a portion of their 
 pay. Generally speaking, only married officers are ex- 
 empted from contributing to, and dining at, the mess; the 
 rest preside over it in rotation, without respect to military 
 rank. 
 
 ME'SSENGER. In Naval Language, a hawser or small 
 cable of about sixty fathoms in length, wound round the 
 capstan, and having its two ends lashed together. When 
 the anchor is to be weighed this rope is attached to the ca- 
 ble by the nippers, and thus nets as an endless rope. Chain 
 messengers are sometimes emploved. 
 
 ME'SSENGERS, KING'S. Certain officers employed in 
 the secretary of state's department to convey despatches, 
 either at home or abroad. They were formerly employed 
 in serving the secretaries' warrants for the apprehension of 
 parties charged with high treason, or other grave offences ; 
 and in such cases it was not unusual for them to detain 
 their prisoners at their own houses. In the year 1713 the 
 ambassador of the emperor of Morocco was taken into cus- 
 tody by a king's messenger, and released only after a lapse 
 of six months. 
 
 MESSI'AD. The name given to the only modern epic 
 poem of Germany ; the subject of which is, as the name im- 
 plies, the sufferings and triumphs of the Messiah. It is 
 written in hexameter verse, for which, as we have else- 
 where observed, the German is better fitted than any mod- 
 ern language, and consists of 20 books. The publication of 
 this poem procured for its author unbounded reputation ; 
 but posterity does not appear to sanction the high award 
 pronounced on it by contemporaneous writers:. Sehlegel, 
 indeed, maintains that the modern literature of Germany 
 may be said to date from the Messiad ; but this high praise 
 must be understood as referring chiefly to its having been 
 among the first productions in which the power and re- 
 sources of the German language were developed, rather 
 than to its innate merits as an epic poem, or to the influence 
 it has exercised over the national poetry of Germany. The 
 reputation of Klopstock among his own countrymen rests 
 chiefly on his Odes; and it must be admitted that in all 
 those parts of his epic poem into which a lyric spirit could 
 be infused — in other words, whenever the feelings or the 
 sympathies were to be excited — there arc few poets, either 
 ancient or modem, to whom he deserves to be postponed ; 
 but, on the other hand, the dignity and sublimity of his 
 sentiments are not unfrerpientlv disfigured by the pedantry 
 and affectation of his style, and the tediousness of his epi- 
 sodes. 
 
 MESSI'AH. An old Hebrew word, signifying the anoint- 
 ed or sacred, corresponding with the Creek word ypinToi;; 
 and in this Sense applied to the Saviour, as it was anciently 
 applied by the .lews to their prophets, priests, and kings, it 
 being Customary to anoint all these high personages when 
 they assumed their office. We read in Psalm ii. 2, "The 
 kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord and
 
 MESSUAGE. 
 
 against his anointed" (i. e. his Messiah) ; and in Psalm xlv., 
 7, "Therefore God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with 
 the oil of gladness above thy fellows." This anointing, 
 therefore, was not a sensible unction with external oil or 
 ointment, but a symbol of it; a spiritual, an internal unction 
 of grace, given by the Holy Ghost — "And God gave not the 
 spirit by measure unto him." St. Luke tells us that our 
 Saviour applied this anointing to himself at the time when 
 he entered the synagogue of Nazareth. In the synagogue 
 service there is a pause for any one to speak or read who 
 can enlighten or instruct the people : when this period came, 
 our Saviour stepped forward, took up the Hebrew roll, and 
 opened it at the book of the prophet Isaiah, and read aloud 
 Uiis passage: "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because 
 he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor," &c. ; 
 and he closed the book, and gave it to the minister, and 
 sat down. The eyes of all them that were in the synagogue 
 were fastened on him ; and he said, "This day is this scrip- 
 ture fulfilled in your ears; and all bare him witness, and 
 wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his 
 mouth." (Luke, iv., 17, &c.) 
 
 ME'SSUAGE (modern Lat. messuagium), in Law, is said 
 to be properly a dwelling-house with a small portion of land 
 adjacent, or the site of the manor. It is now one of the 
 general words used in the legal description of dwelling- 
 houses with the land attached. 
 
 MESTI'NO. In Spanish America, the child of a Spaniard 
 or Creole and a native Indian. See Mulatto. 
 
 METABO'LIANS. (Gr. ncraSoXn, change.) A subclass 
 of insects, including all those vvliich undergo a metamor- 
 phosis. 
 
 METACA'RPAL. (Gr. ficra, between, and Kap-rro$, in the 
 sense of the wrist.) Belonging to the metacarpus, or that 
 part of the hand which is between the wrist and fingers. 
 
 METACE'NTRE. (Gr. fiera, and kcvtPov, centre.) A 
 term first applied by Bouguer to that part of a floating body 
 in which, when the body is disturbed from the position of 
 equilibrium, the vertical line passing through the centre of 
 
 METAMORPHOSIS. 
 
 buoyancy meets the line which, when the body is at rest, 
 passes through the centre of buoyancy and centre of gravity. 
 In order that the body may float with stability, the position 
 of the metacentre must be above that of the centre of gravi- 
 ty. See Hydrostatics. 
 
 METAGA'LLIC ACID. When gallic acid is rapidly heat- 
 ed up to about 480°, carbonic acid and water are evolved, 
 and a black product remains soluble in the alkalies, and 
 forming insoluble compounds with many of the metallic ox- 
 ides. This product has been termed metagallic acid; its 
 ultimate elements are 12 atoms of carbon =72, 3 atoms of 
 oxygen = 24, and 3 atoms of hydrogen = 3, making its equiv- 
 alent =99. 
 
 METALLOI'DS. (Gr. ptraAW, a metal, and ciio;, 
 form.) A term sometimes applied by chemists to the in- 
 flammable non-metallic bodies, such as sulphur, phospho- 
 rus, &c. The metallic bases of the fixed alkalies and alka- 
 line earths have also been by some called metalloids, in 
 consequence, probably, of their low specific gravity. 
 
 METALLURGY. (Gr. peraMov, and epyov, a work) 
 The art of separating metals from their ores. The principa. 
 metallurgic processes are described under the respective 
 metals. 
 
 ME'TALS (Gr. ptraWov), are distinguished by their very 
 peculiar lustre, arising out of their opacity and reflective 
 power in regard to light. They conduct electricity and heat ; 
 and they have not been resolved into other forms of matter, 
 so that they are regarded as simple or elementary sub- 
 stances. When their compounds are electrolysed the metals 
 appear at the negative surface, and are hence considered as 
 electro-positive bodies. They are enumerated in the fol- 
 lowing table, together with the names of the chemists by 
 whom they were discovered, the date of their discovery, 
 their specific gravities, melting points, equivalent or atomic 
 weights, and symbolic abbreviations. For their individual 
 distinctive characters, see the respective metals. Lantanum 
 is omitted, inasmuch as its properties and combining weight 
 have not been accurately examined. 
 
 
 Authors, and Dates of their 
 
 Specific 
 
 Melting 
 
 Equivalent 
 Weights. 
 
 Abbreviations 
 
 Names of Metals. 
 
 Discovery. 
 
 Gravity. 
 
 Points. 
 
 or Symbols. 
 
 1. Gold .... ©1 
 
 
 ' 19-25 
 
 Fahr. 
 
 201 6° 
 
 200 
 
 au. 
 
 2. Silver .... J) 
 
 3. Iron . . . . S 
 
 (Known to the ancients, and 
 
 10-47 
 
 1873 
 
 110 
 
 ag- 
 fe. 
 
 represented by the annex- 
 
 7-78 
 
 2800 ? s. {.* 
 
 28 
 
 4. Copper ... 9 I 
 
 5. Mercury ... 5 
 
 6. Lead . . . . ^ 
 
 ed planetary symbols, with 
 
 8-89 
 
 1996 
 
 64 
 
 cu. 
 
 which they were supposed 
 
 13-56 
 
 39 
 
 200 
 
 hg. 
 pi. 
 
 to be mysteriously connect- 
 
 11-35 
 
 612 
 
 104 
 
 7. Tin .... 4. 
 
 ed.) 
 
 k 7-29 
 
 442 
 
 58 
 
 sta. 
 
 8. Antimony .... 
 
 Basil Valentine . . 1490 
 
 6-70 
 
 
 65 
 
 an. 
 
 
 Agricola 1530 
 
 9-80 
 
 497 
 
 72 
 
 bi. 
 
 
 Paracelsus? .... 1530 
 
 700 
 
 773 
 
 32 
 
 zn. 
 
 11. Arsenic . . . . ) 
 
 
 ( 5-88 
 
 
 38 
 
 ar. 
 
 12. Cobalt .... J 
 
 
 ( 8-53 
 
 2810? 
 
 30 
 
 cob. 
 
 13. Platinum .... 
 
 Wood 1741 
 
 20-98 
 
 oh. bp.f 
 
 96 
 
 pi a. 
 
 14. Nickel 
 
 Cronstedt 1751 
 
 8-27 
 
 2810? 
 
 28 
 
 nic. 
 
 15. Manganese .... 
 
 Gahn 1774 
 
 6-85 
 
 s. f. 
 
 28 
 
 man. 
 
 16. Tungsten .... 
 
 D'Elhuiart .... 1781 
 
 17-60 
 
 
 100 
 
 tu. 
 
 17. Tellurium .... 
 
 
 611 
 
 620? 
 
 32 
 
 tel. 
 
 18. Molybdenum . . . 
 
 Hielm 1782 
 
 7-40 
 
 oh. bp. 
 
 48 
 
 mol. 
 
 19. Uranium .... 
 
 Klaproth 1789 
 
 900 
 
 oh. bp. 
 
 217 
 
 ur. 
 
 20. Titanium .... 
 
 Gregor 1791 
 
 5-30 
 
 oh. bp. 
 
 24 
 
 ti. 
 
 21. Chromium .... 
 
 Vauquelin .... 1797 
 
 
 oh. bp. 
 
 28 
 
 chr. 
 
 22. Columbium .... 
 
 
 
 oh. bp. 
 
 185 
 
 col. 
 
 23. Palladium . . . ) 
 
 24. Rhodium . . . \ 
 
 Wollaston .... 1803 
 
 < ' 11-50 
 
 oh. bp. 
 
 54 
 45 
 
 pal. 
 rh. 
 
 25. Iridium . . . . ) 
 
 26. Osmium .... J 
 
 Tennant 1803 
 
 |; ; 
 
 ( oh. bp. 
 ( oh. bp. 
 
 96 
 100 
 
 ir. 
 
 OS. 
 
 
 
 
 
 48 
 
 ce. 
 
 28. Potassium . . . ") 
 
 
 ( 0-86 
 
 136 
 
 40 
 
 po. 
 
 29. Sodium .... 
 
 
 0-97 
 
 190 
 
 24 
 
 so. 
 
 30. Barium ....}• 
 
 Davy 1807 
 
 V • 
 
 
 70 
 
 ba. 
 
 31. Strontium ... 
 
 
 1- • 
 
 
 44 
 
 str. 
 
 32. Calcium .... J 
 
 
 I. • 
 
 
 20 
 
 cal. 
 
 33. Cadmium .... 
 
 Stromeyer .... 1818 
 
 8-60 
 
 442 
 
 56 
 
 cad. 
 
 
 Arfwedson .... 1818 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 li. 
 
 35. Silicium . . . . ) 
 
 
 i '. '. 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 36. Zirconium . . . \ 
 
 
 1: : 
 
 
 30 
 
 zir. 
 
 37. Aluminum . . . i 
 
 
 i- 
 
 
 10 
 
 al. 
 
 38. Glucinum . . . \ 
 
 Wiihler 1828 
 
 \- • 
 
 
 18 
 
 gl- 
 
 39. Yttrium . . . . ) 
 
 
 I. ■ 
 
 
 32 
 
 yt 
 
 40. Thorium .... 
 
 
 
 
 60 
 
 th. 
 
 41. Magnesium .... 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 mag. 
 
 42. Vanadium .... 
 
 Seftstrom 1830 
 
 
 
 68 
 
 va. 
 
 METAMECO'NIC ACID, is produced by boiling the aque- 
 ous solution of meconic acid. It evolves carbonic acid, and 
 becomes brown. Two atoms of meconic acid are thus re- 
 
 solved into 1 of metameconic acid and 2 of carbonic acid. 
 It is represented bv 12 car. + 4 h. + 10 ox. 
 
 METAMO'RPHOSIS. (Gr. pera, indicating change, and 
 
 ' Smith's forge. 
 
 ( Oxyhydrogen blow-pipe. 
 
 739
 
 METAPHOR. 
 
 popQt), form.) Transformation. The heroic poem of Ovid, 
 in which he recounts the most celebrated mythological nar- 
 ratives respecting the gods of Greece and Rome, and the 
 changes of this description effected by their supernatural 
 power, is called (he Bn,>ks of MeUsmarjSnemea. 
 
 Mktamo'kpiiosis. In Entomology, the change of form 
 Which, the Metabolian insects and wine otter animals under- 
 go in passing from one stase of existence to another ; in each 
 of Which they manifest different habits, and have a different 
 organization. The three stages of a Lepidopterous insect 
 ore larva, pupa, and imago. 
 
 METAPHOR. (Gt. neraQipw, I transfer : indicating the 
 substitution of one word for another of similar meaning.) 
 J:i Rhetoric, a figure by which a word is transferred from 
 the subject to which it properly belongs, and applied to an- 
 other which has some similitude to its proper subject, with 
 a view to give energy to the expression of the former. A 
 comparison or simile (see Comparison) appear:, to be only 
 a metaphor with the addition of a sign denoting that it has 
 been thus transferred. Thus " the silver moon" is a meta- 
 phorical expression ; the "moon, bright as silver," a compar- 
 ison. As language advances from the mere indication of 
 sensible objects by names to the expression of the feelings 
 and wants of a complicated mode of life, it becomes more 
 and more metaphysical in character, until it is found that a 
 very laree proportion of the words in common use are either 
 metaphors, or are words derived from foreign languages, and 
 whose primary sense as derivatives is the same with their 
 secondary or metaphorical sense in the language from which 
 they came. Thus, the English word " character," used a 
 few lines above, is drawn from the metaphysical use of the 
 Greek \apuKT>jp, which, in its primary signification, denoted 
 something engraven on a hard substance. Metaphors have 
 been divided by writers on rhetoric into several classes ; 
 but the most appropriate are those which are termed analo- 
 gical, and which derive their force, not from any actual re- 
 semblance between two objects, but from a resemblance be- 
 tween the relations which they bear respectively to certain 
 other objects. Thus " the sea of life" is a common and ap- 
 propriate metaphor; not from any resemblance between the 
 idea of the visible sea and the complex notion of that ab- 
 straction which we term human life, but because there is a 
 fancied similarity between the position of navigators in an 
 uncertain voyage and that of human beings engaged in the 
 manifold scenes of life. 
 
 ME'TAPHOSPHO'RIC ACID. A term by which some 
 chemists designate the dry, flaky acid obtained by burning 
 phosphorus under a bell class of air or oxvgen. 
 
 METAPHY'SICS. (Gr. pera, after, and (pvtric, nature.) 
 A word employed, in popular usage, to denote all those in- 
 quiries which are conversant about objects other than mere- 
 ly physical and sensible. It is an observation of Sir James 
 Mackintosh, that " the term metaphysics affords a specimen 
 of all the faults which the name of a science can combine. 
 To those who know only their own language, it must, at 
 their entrance on the study, convey no meaning. It points 
 their attention to nothing. If they examine the language in 
 which its parts are significant, they will be misled into the 
 pernicious error of believing that it seeks something more 
 than the interpretation of nature. It is only by examining 
 the history of ancient philosophy that the probable origin 
 of this name will be found, in the application of it as the 
 running title of several essays of Aristotle, which were pla- 
 ced in a collection of the manuscripts of that great philoso- 
 pher after his treatise on physics." The censure thus con- 
 veyed we cannot, with all deference for so eminent an au- 
 thority, regard as more than partially correct. Though the 
 account of the origin of the word is, as far as it goes, the true 
 one, it does not comprehend the whole truth. 
 
 If Sir James Mackintosh had examined the contents of 
 those treatises of Aristotle to which he adverts, he would 
 have found that the title metaphysics was prefixed to them, 
 not, as his words imply, merely because they happened, ac- 
 cording to the arrangement of the compiler, to follow the 
 physical treatise; but also because there was the best possi- 
 ble reason tor their being so placed, in the fact that the in- 
 quiries which compose them were conceived by Aristotle 
 himself to admit of a general distinction from that depart- 
 ment of Inquiry which he included under the name of phj b- 
 ics. The first few chapters of the ra ncra rd <pvtriKii are 
 devoted to the elucidation of this very distinction, and to the 
 endeavour to clear up the popular contusions on the sub- 
 ject, by marking at once the objects of the highest philoso- 
 phy, ami the faculty whereby they were to be apprehended. 
 Admitting, therefore, as we most readily do. that great mis- 
 apprehensions are popularly entertained with regard to the 
 nature of metaphysics, we shall endeavour, as far as the 
 limits of the present article will permit us. to remove such 
 mist;i' gulshing the science of metaphysics from 
 
 other sciences, with which, as they are closely connected 
 with it, it has too frequently been confounded. 
 Metaphysics we understand to be the science which re- 
 74U 
 
 METAYER, 
 
 gards the ultimate grounds of being, as distinguished from 
 its phenomenal modifications. As a means of attaining this 
 end, it considers the correlative of being, knowledge; and 
 know ledge, not merely in reference to its form, as it is capa- 
 ble of law and regulation, for that is the province of logic— 
 nor in regard to its history, and the successive stages of its 
 ileveli ipment, which are the objects of psychology, or mental 
 philosophy— but knowledge as it is in relation "to being, or 
 objective reality. Philosophers have not been satisfied with 
 marking the resemblances of the appearances in nature, and 
 the order in which they succeed each other, whether those 
 appearances were outward and sensible, or internal and re- 
 vived by observation of their own mental processes : they 
 have not even been content with the discovery that their 
 knowledge of phenomena was self-consistent, and obeyed 
 certain determined or determinable canons or forms ; they 
 have felt that the highest end of science could then only be 
 attained when all knowledge was perceived to depend on a 
 one ultimate principle, which should demonstrate at once 
 its consistency with itself and its absolute foundation in re- 
 ality. That the science of this ultimate unity is that to 
 which the greatest philosophers have with more or less dis- 
 tinctness assigned the name of metaphysics, we may safely 
 appeal to the history of philosophy for a sufficient demon- 
 stration. 
 
 Whether the object thus proposed were one which the 
 human faculties are capable of reaching is itself the first 
 problem of metaphysics, and enters not, therefore, into that 
 with which we have at present to do — a definition of the 
 word. We may, indeed, with Hume and his followers, re- 
 ject all such attempts as chimerical, and endeavour to re- 
 solve the speculations to which they have led into the delu- 
 sions of association or caprice ; or we may, with Kant, con- 
 fine ourselves to the critique of our mental laws, and, as the 
 result of our investigation, pronounce that we possess no 
 faculty capable of reaching outward reality. In the first 
 case, if we have been careful to ascertain that our analysis 
 has at every step been legitimate, we are bound to admit, 
 not that metaphysics is an impossible science, but that it 
 does not yet exist as a science. In the second instance, we 
 are constrained to allow that all reality is subjective only, 
 and that we can only know things in relation to our own 
 modes of knowing ; and this is itself a metaphysical princi- 
 ple, preclusive of farther inquiry. In defiance, however, 
 alike of the sneers of the skeptic, and the yet profounder 
 skepticism of the critical philosophy, our own days have 
 witnessed the rise, in Germany and France, of more than 
 one professed system of metaphysical science. The fre- 
 quency of such endeavours as these, undertaken, as they 
 are, by men of such acknowledged acuteness and philosoph- 
 ical insight as Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, even if they in- 
 spire us with no hope of a nearer approximation to the ob- 
 jects which they pursue, may at least serve to convince us 
 that the propensity to such speculations constitutes an ina- 
 lienable and indestructible instinct of our intellectual and 
 moral nature. 
 
 ME'TAPLASM. (Gr. prep, utra, signifying change, and 
 ■tt\aaaw, I form.) In Grammar, a general term, compre- 
 hending all those figures of diction which consist in altera- 
 tions of the letters or syllables of a word ; taking place in 
 three ways — by augmentation, diminution, or immutation. 
 1. Augmentation at the beginning, prosthesis ; in the mid- 
 dle, epentkesis ; at the end, paragoge ; to which may be 
 added disresis, adding to the number of syllables by the 
 resolution of a diphthong. 2. Diminution at the beginning, 
 apharcsis ; in the middle, syncope ; at the end, apocope; by 
 contraction of two vowels, synceresis or crasis. 3. Immu- 
 tation, antithesis, signifying the change of one letter for an- 
 other ; metathesis, transposition of the order of letters. (See 
 those respective heads.) 
 
 META'STASIS. (Gr. /iera, and araoic, station.) The 
 transference or translation of a disease from one part of the 
 bodv to another. 
 
 M'ETATA'KSrS. (Gr. »tra, and rapaoc, heel.) The in- 
 step is -jo called bv surirical writers. 
 
 METATHESIS. (Gr. utra, and &ectc, position.) In 
 Grammar, the transposition of the letters of a word; a fig- 
 ure of uncommon occurrence in modern orthography, but 
 which very ordinarily takes place in the gradual formation 
 of the dialects of a language : e. g., German, ross ; English, 
 horse. See Metapi.vsm. 
 
 ME'TATOME. (Gr. utra, and rtuvu, I cut.) In Archi- 
 tecture, the space between one dentil and the next 
 
 META'YER. (Fr. ; in Italian, mezzaiuolo; Lat. colonus 
 medietarius.) In France and Italy, a farmer holding land 
 on condition of yielding half the produce to the proprietor, 
 from whom he receives tools and stock. Land thus occu- 
 pied is said to be held in metairir. The conditions of the 
 
 contract, however, vary essentially in different countries 
 
 .and districts. The antiquity Of this mode of letting land is 
 
 very great it i- probably the same which was called by the 
 ilomaas locativ in partilmt (see l'lin. Epist.) ; and the farmer
 
 METEMPSYCHOSIS. 
 
 thus holding was also termed colonus partiarius. It now 
 prevails extensively in the south and middle of France, 
 throughout Italy, in parts of Spain, and, it is said, in the 
 East. For a very valuable summary of the character and 
 effects of this agricultural system, the reader may be refer- 
 red to Mr. Jones's Essay on Wealth ; and for a highly-col- 
 oured view of the state of the peasantry under it in some 
 parts of Italy, to JI. Sismondi's Etudes sur C Economic Po- 
 litique. 
 
 METE'MPSYCHO'SIS. (Gr. p.tra, change, and ipv%V- 
 soul.) A Greek word denoting the migrations of the soul 
 through different successive bodies. The doctrine of the 
 transmigration of souls has existed in the belief of various 
 religious and philosophical sects from the remotest antiquity. 
 It formed the leading doctrine of one of the most celebrated 
 schools of philosophy in the whole heathen world (see 
 Pythagorean Philosophy) ; it was said, too, to have found 
 numerous adherents in Egypt ; but it is chiefly among the 
 Indians that this doctrine has taken deep and permanent 
 root. With them it appears to have been an article of faith 
 from the period at which we can first perceive any trace of 
 their existence as a nation ; and it is not going too far to say 
 that not only all the opinions, but even all the manners of 
 the Indians, are at this hour built upon this doctrine. The 
 Indian doctrine of metempsychosis rests on the supposition 
 that all beings derive their origin from God, and are placed 
 in this world in an altogether degraded condition, from 
 which they all, but more particularly the human race, must 
 either decline into still lower degradation, or rise gradually 
 to a higher state more accordant with their divine original, 
 according as they give ear to the vicious or the virtuous 
 suggestions of their nature. It must be remarked, however, 
 that the Indians make a wide distinction between the fu- 
 ture destiny of those who have passed through life tainted 
 by the usual vices and infirmities of human nature, and those 
 whose lives have been spent in the constant discharge of re- 
 ligious duties. In the latter case, the soul does not pass 
 through different stages of existence, " but proceeds directly 
 to reunion with the Supreme Being, with which it is identi- 
 fied, as a river at its confluence with the sea merges therein 
 altogether. His vital faculties, and the elements of which 
 his body consists, are absorbed completely and absolutely ; 
 both name and form cease ; and he becomes immortal, with- 
 out parts or members." (See Mr. Colebrooke's translation 
 of Extracts from the Brahma- Sutras, in the Transac. of the 
 Hoy. Ms. Soc. vol. ix.) 
 
 METEMPTO'SIS. See Proemptosis. 
 
 METEORO'LOGY. (Gr. nercupos, aerial, and \oyoc, 
 discourse.) The science of meteors, or the science which 
 explains the various phenomena which have their origin in 
 the atmosphere. Under the term meteorology, it is now 
 usual to include, not merely the observation of the accident- 
 al phenomena to which the name of meteor is applied, but 
 every terrestrial as well as atmospherical phenomenon, 
 whether accidental or permanent depending on the action of 
 heat, light, electricity, and magnetism. In this extended signi- 
 fication, meteorology comprehends climatology.and the great- 
 er part of physical geography; and its object is to determine 
 the diversified and incessantly changing influences of the 
 four great agents of nature now named, on land, in the sea, 
 and in the annosphere. See Atmosphere, Climate, and 
 the various terms referred to under Meteors. 
 
 ME'TEORS. (Gr. ptrewpa.) A name given to any phe- 
 nomena of a transitory nature which have their origin in the 
 atmosphere. Meteors are of various kinds. Some are pro- 
 duced simply by a disturbance of the equilibrium of the at- 
 mospheric fluid, and are called aerial meteors. (See Winds, 
 Whirlwinds.) A second class arise from the deposition 
 of the aqueous particles which the atmosphere holds in so- 
 lution, and which are precipitated in consequence of a dimi- 
 nution of pressure or temperature, sometimes in a fluid and 
 sometimes in a concrete form. These are called aqueous 
 meteors. (See Dew, Fogs, Hail, Rain, Snow, Vapour, 
 &c.) A third class of meteors, or atmospherical phenome- 
 na, are caused by the action of the aqueous particles dis- 
 persed in the atmosphere on the rays of licht. These are 
 called luminous meteors. (See Fata Morgana, Halo, 
 Mirage, Parhelia. Rainbow.) A fourth class are the ig- 
 neous meteors, comprehending those which present the phe- 
 nomena distinctive of combustion. See Aerolite, Aurora 
 Borealis, Fire Balls, Lightning, Shooting Stars, &c. 
 
 METHE'GLIN. (Germ, meth, mead.) A beverage made 
 of honev and water, fermented by the addition of yeast. 
 
 ME'THOD. From the Greek word pcdoSos, which sismi- 
 fies a journey undertaken in quest of anv object, or a way 
 of attaining any end : hence, in Logic, it denotes a mode of 
 investigating truth. Thus we have the dialectic method, 
 the inductive method, the analytical method, &c. See Dia- 
 lectics, Induction, Analysis. 
 
 ME'THODISTS. The body of Christians to whom this 
 name is chiefly applied are the followers of the late John 
 Wesley, the founder of this numerous sect ; hence called 
 
 METHODISTS. 
 
 Wesleyan Methodists. But the term bears a more exten- 
 sive meaning, being applied also to several bodies or sec- 
 tions of Christians who have seceded or withdrawn from 
 the Wesleyan denomination. 
 
 The origin of the Methodist Society took place at Oxford 
 in 1729. After the Revolution, when the principles of reli- 
 gious toleration were recognised amid the progress of free 
 inquiry, the clergy of the Established Church were thought 
 by some to have sunk into a state of comparative lukewarm- 
 ness and indifference. This alleged degeneracy was observ- 
 ed with pain by John Wesley and his brother Charles, when 
 students at the University of Oxford ; and being joined by a 
 few of their fellow-students who were intended for the min- 
 istry in the Established Church, they formed the most rigid 
 and severe rules for the regulation of their time and studies, 
 for reading the Scriptures, for self-examination, and other 
 religious exercises. The ardent piety and rigid observance 
 of system in everything connected with the new opinions 
 displayed by the Wesleys and their adherents, as well as in 
 their college studies, which they never neglected, attracted 
 the notice and excited the jeers of the various members of 
 the University, and gained for them the appellation of Meth- 
 odists ; in allusion to the methodici, a class of physicians at 
 Rome who practised only by theory. (Celsus, inPrefat.de 
 J\Iedicina.) 
 
 In the mean time Wesley took orders in the Established 
 Church, and acted for a few months as assistant to his fa- 
 ther, who was rector of Epworth, in Lincolnshire. After 
 the death of the latter, he was induced (1735), in company 
 with his brother Charles and two other friends, to accept of 
 an offer to go to Georgia, in North America, to preach the 
 gospel to the Indians. On his return to England in 1737, 
 Wesley officiated in several churches of the establishment. 
 But the higher ranks were offended at his declamatory and 
 enthusiastic mode of preaching ; and the clergy having dis- 
 claimed some of his doctrines, the churches in general were 
 soon shut against him. It was his desire, however, to be 
 allowed to officiate in the pulpit of his native church. His 
 object, in truth, was to effect a reformation in the church, 
 not to recede from connexion with it ; and the rules he ob- 
 served himself, and imposed upon his followers, were design- 
 ed as supplementary to the established ritual, not as super- 
 seding it. But the circumstances to which we have refer- 
 red threw his labours into a different, and ultimately an op- 
 posite channel ; and in short, without having at first intended 
 it, he became the founder of the most numerous class of 
 Dissenters in Great Britain. 
 
 Being thus virtually excluded from the Established Church, 
 he preached in Dissenting chapels in London and other pla- 
 ces where he could obtain admission. In course of time, 
 and owing to the vast multitudes that crowded to listen to 
 his ministrations, he adopted the expedient of officiating in 
 the open air, and commenced field-preacher. He first form- 
 ed his followers into a separate society in 1738, the year af- 
 ter his return from America, though he referred the estab- 
 lishment of Methodism to a prior date. (See Wesley's Eccl. 
 Hist., vol. iv., p. 175.) Wesley, from this date, devoted his 
 time and his great talents exclusively to the propagation of 
 what he regarded the doctrines of the Gospel, and to the 
 extension of that sect of which he was the founder. His 
 labours were chiefly confined to England ; but he also paid 
 visits to Scotland and Ireland, in the former of which his 
 success was inconsiderable. (Sir H. Moncreiff's Life of 
 Dr. Erskine, cap. vii.) But while he confined his own la- 
 bours to Great Britain and Ireland, he was not inattentive to 
 the spiritual necessities of other countries, and, by means of 
 a succession of missionaries, propagated his doctrines to a 
 very great extent in America and many of the West Lidia 
 islands. 
 
 The unparalleled success which attended his great mis- 
 sionary exertions was not gained without much obloquy and 
 persecution, particularly in the United Kingdom. Owing to 
 the intelligence and liberality of the age, neither himself nor 
 any of his missionaries were exposed to stripes and impris- 
 onment ; but all of them met with violent opposition on the 
 part, not merely of clergymen, both Established and Dissent- 
 ing, and the wealthier classes, but also of the people ; and 
 some of them were beset with mobs, assai'ed by showers 
 of stones and other missiles, and sometimes dragged through 
 the streets as raving enthusiasts and as disturbers of the 
 public peace. It must, at the same time, be confessed, that 
 the imprudence of some of his followers contributed some- 
 what to the reproach which they experienced. 
 
 Finding his societies rapidly increasing, and having been 
 refused assistance from the established clergy, Wesley was 
 induced to have recourse to lay preachers; an expedient 
 which he was at first exceedingly averse to adopt, but 
 which he afterwards found most efficient in promoting the 
 triumph of his views. He was thus enabled to exercise su- 
 perintendence over all his followers, and greatly to extend 
 his sphere of action. 
 
 Wesley objected to his adherents being called Dissenters, 
 
 741
 
 METHODISTS. 
 
 and required them to attend the Established Church when 
 they had no opportunity of bearing their own preachers. His 
 creed is Amiinian, and differs, therefore, from the system 
 of Calvin in regard to predestination, election, and the ex- 
 tent of the atonement, which he maintained was for all men. 
 He held that repentance preceded faith. He taught that, by 
 virtue of the blood of Christ, and the operation of the Holy 
 Spirit, it was the privilege of Christians to arrive at that 
 maturity in grace and participation of the Divine nature 
 which excludes sin from the Dealt, and tills it with perfect 
 love to God and men. [Wesley's Plain Ace. of Christian 
 Perfection.) These and other minor opinions, in which he 
 differed, or seemed to differ, from the creed of the Establish- 
 ed Church, are still retained by the- Methodists. (In addition 
 to Wesley's works, particularly his Sermons, see Unison's 
 Apology for the Methodists ; and Myles's Chronol. Hist, of 
 the MetJiodists.) Wesley and his followers, we may here ob- 
 serve, continued, long after their separation from the church, 
 to read the service of that church ; nay, the practice was 
 continued, in a few instances, after his death. The great 
 body of the Wesleyans, though they are now classed among 
 Dissenters, are in favour of a national establishment of reli- 
 gion, and give the benefit of their support to the Established 
 Church of England. There is, in truth, a pretty large body 
 who fluctuate between Methodism and the national creed. 
 
 But while this is the case, the Methodists have adopted a 
 system of church discipline and government quite distinct 
 from those of the establishment, and which seems to partake 
 as much of presbytery as of any other polity. Of this sys- 
 tem, which is considerably complicated, the following are 
 the leading features : 1. Each society or congregation is 
 divided into smaller bodies, called classes, each class em- 
 bracing from twelve to twenty persons, one of whom is 
 styled the leader. Each society has also a body of men 
 called stewards, whose office is similar to that of deacon in 
 the Established Church. The duties of leaders — namely, 
 visiting the sick, and holding religious intercourse with the 
 members belonging to their class — are, in many respects, 
 akin to those of lay-elders in the Presbyterian Church of 
 Scotland. The leaders, stewards, and minister meet once 
 a week (and this is called a leader's meeting), on the reli- 
 gious business of the society ; and to account for the funds 
 received from the members in support of schools or of the 
 gospel. 
 
 A number of these societies united constitutes a circuit, 
 which is large or small as the circumstances of each locality 
 require. One of the ministers within the district is termed 
 the superintendent. The ministers officiating in the circuit 
 meet all the classes quarterly, and speak personally to each 
 member. Those whose conduct is devoid of reproach re- 
 ceive a ticket, the chief use of which is to prevent impos- 
 ture. After the conference with the classes another meet- 
 ing (called a quarterly meeting) is held, consisting of all the 
 ministers, leaders, and stewards in the circuit. On this oc- 
 casion the stewards deliver their collections to a circuit 
 steward, and every thing relating to secular matters is 
 publicly settled. At this meeting, also, the candidates for 
 the ministry are proposed ; and the stewards, after a definite 
 period of service, are changed. 
 
 From five to ten or fifteen of the circuits, according to 
 their extent, form a district, the ministers in which meet 
 annually, the meeting being termed a district meeting. 
 This assembly has authority "to try and suspend ministers 
 who are found immoral, erroneous in doctrine, or deficient 
 in ability ; to decide concerning the building of chapels ; to 
 examine the demands from the circuits respecting the sup- 
 port of clergymen ; and to elect a representative to attend 
 and form a committee, four days before the meeting of the 
 annual conference, in order to prepare a draught of the sta- 
 tions for the ensuing year. (Myles, ut supra.) The circuit 
 stewards are present at this meeting during the settlement 
 of all financial matters. The judgment of the assembly is 
 conclusive until the meeting of the conference, to which an 
 appeal is allowed in all cases. 
 
 The conference, which is the supreme judicatory, and 
 whose decisions are final, consists, strictly speaking, only of 
 a hundred of the senior itinerant preachers, in terms of n 
 deed of declaration executed by Wesley and enrolled in 
 chancery. In this deed the meeting is termed "the Confer- 
 ence of the people called Methodists." Hut the conference 
 is generally composed of the preachers elected at the pre- 
 vious district meetings to be their representatives, of the 
 superintendents of the circuits, and of every minister who 
 chooses to attend ; all of tin m being allow . ■< i the game right 
 of voting as the hundred, ox legal conference. From this 
 body all authority emanates, and by them all regulations 
 to be observed throughout the whole Methodist connexion 
 are framed. In their name are levied all the funds required 
 for carrying on the operations of the body. Ministers are 
 by them appointed to the stations they are respectivel] t" 
 occupy; they nominate the superintendents of the various 
 districts; they decide on all cases of appeal ; and, generally 
 713 
 
 METONYMY. 
 
 speaking, the whole state of the connexion comes under 
 their review and control. All their deliberations are carried 
 on with closed doors, so that tin- people have no cheek ,, V er 
 their proceedings; but the results of their discussions are 
 annually published after each meeting, under the title of 
 Minutes of Conference, which imbody the laws of the so- 
 ciety. The gradation of courts, and the supreme authority 
 being vested in the conference, are somewhat similar in 
 spirit and operation to the various judicatories of the Church 
 01 Scotland, in which, like the conference of the Methodists, 
 the general assembly is supreme; the chief exception being 
 that the latter judicatory is composed of certain relative 
 proportions of lay elders and clergymen, while the Method- 
 Lit conference is confined exclusively to ministers. I 
 Rules of the Methodist Society; Adam's Religion 
 vol. hi., p. 113-119.) 
 
 At the death of Wesley in 1791, there were, in Great 
 Britain and Ireland, about 300 itinerant preachers in con- 
 nexion with the new sect, and 1000 of what are called local 
 preachers — some of them, however, having very small con 
 gregations — and 80,000 members. But the Wesleyan .Meth- 
 odists have established foreign stations in Australia, Van 
 Diemen's Land, Gibraltar, Malta, Germany, 6lc. ; and so 
 rapidly have they increased, that the number of Wesleyan 
 Methodists in 1840, both at home and abroad, amounted to 
 1,137,424 ; and the total number of preachers, regular and 
 supernumerary, was 5031. 
 
 Various offshoots have taken place from the Wesleyan 
 Methodists at various times : among the most important of 
 which may be reckoned the followers of Whitfield, for- 
 merly the coadjutor, and afterwards the most powerful and 
 eloquent opponent of Wesley, and supporter of Calvinism ; 
 the Methodists of Lady Huntingdon's connexion, in whose 
 chapels service is performed according to the ritual of the 
 Church of England ; the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists ; the 
 Primitive Methodists, or Ranters (which see) ; the New 
 Connexion Methodists (which see) ; the Independent Meth- 
 odists ; Bryanites, Warrenites, &c. Some of these sects, 
 particularly the Whitfieldians, are nearly allied in church 
 government and discipline to the Independents ; and it is not 
 unlikely that a coalition may take place between them and 
 this latter denomination. (In addition to the works already 
 quoted, see Journal of John Wesley; Lives of Wesley, by 
 Coke, More, Southey, &c. ; Nightingale's Portraiture of 
 Methodism ; Mosheim's Church History. For a full ac- 
 count of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United 
 States, see Dr. Bangs's History ; The Discipline of the 
 Church : Dr. Emory's Defence of our Fathers, &c. &.c.) 
 
 ME'THYLENE. (Gr. ueOv, wine and v\n, wood.) When 
 wood is subjected to destructive distillation, there is formed 
 along with the tar, acetic acid, and other products, a highly 
 volatile and inflammable liquid, which, when purified by 
 distillation off quicklime, was called spirit or alcohol of 
 wood, or pyroxilic spirit. The hydrocarbon which forms 
 the basis of this form of alcohol, and to whieli the term 
 methylene has been applied, is presumed to consist of 1 atom 
 of carbon == 0, and 1 atom of hydrogen = 1 : its density (in 
 reference to hydrogen) being just half that of olefiant gas, 
 or = 7. The alcohol of wood is a hydrate of this hydrocar- 
 bon, or a compound of 1 atom of methylene = 7, and 1 
 atom of water =: 9 : the equivalent, therefore, of the alcohol 
 of wood is 7 + 9 = 16. 
 
 ME'TOCHE. (Probably from uctcxw-, I partition.) In 
 Architecture, the space between two dentils. 
 
 METCE'CI. (Gr. uItoikoi, sojourners.) The resident 
 aliens, who formed a large class of the inhabitants of 
 Athens. They were distinguished from the few full citi- 
 zens by many disabilities and burdens. They had no share 
 in the administration of the state, and were precluded from 
 the power of possessing landed estates. Each was com- 
 pelled to purchase the shelter he received from the state by 
 the payment of a small annual sum {ptrdiKtov), and to place 
 himself under the guardianship of a citizen (Trpwrar^j), who 
 was his formal representative in the courts of law. They 
 were generally engaged in mercantile and mechanical busi- 
 ness. 
 
 METO'NIC CYCLE. So called from Meton, its inventor 
 (B.C. 432). A cycle of nineteen years, or, more accurately, 
 of G940 days; at the end of which time the new moons fall 
 On the same days of the year, and the eclipses return in 
 nearly the same order. The reason of this is, that in nine- 
 teen solar years there are 235 lunations (with a difference 
 ut' a tew hours), and very nearly one complete revolution 
 of the union's nodes. The cycle was corrected by Calippus. 
 See Caui-imc Period, Cycle. 
 
 M BT( I'M Y MY. (Gr. ixcToivvula ; derived from the prepo- 
 sition ucTn, change, and iivoua, n name.) In Rhetoric and 
 
 Composition, a limine by which tile name of an idea or thing 
 is substituted for that of another, to which it has a certain 
 relation. Thus, the effect is frequently substituted for the 
 cause — "gray hairs" stands for "old age;" the abstract for 
 the concrete—" What doth gravity" (t, e., the grave person)
 
 METOPA. 
 
 « out of his bed at midnight ?"— substance for quality, prece- 
 dent for subsequent, &c. 
 
 The term Metonomasia (of the same origin as metonomy) 
 was invented during the last century by the French to de- 
 signate a practice which prevailed to a great extent among 
 the literati of the Continent, viz., of adopting some name in 
 preference to their own. 
 
 METO'PA. (Gr. fitra, between, and o-n, a hole.) In 
 Architecture, the square space in tlie frieze between the 
 triglyphs of the Doric order. It is left either plain or deco- 
 rated, according to the taste of the architect. In the most 
 ancient examples of this order, the metopa was left quite 
 open, as is manifest from a passage alluded to in the art. 
 Architecture. 
 
 METOPO'SCOPY. (Gr. uirairov, a forehead, and cko- 
 wto), I view.) The art of divination by inspecting the fore- 
 head, treated of especially by the famous Cardanus. The 
 signs of the forehead are chiefly its lines ; but moles and 
 spots are also supposed to have their particular meaning. 
 The lines are under the dominion of their several planets. 
 
 ME'TRE. (Gr. hctPov, measure.) In the classical sense 
 of the word, a subdivision of a verse. The Greeks meas- 
 ured some species of verses (the dactylic, choriambic, anti- 
 spastic, Ionic, &c.) by considering each foot as a metre ; in 
 others (the iambic, trochaic, and anaprestic), each dipodia, or 
 two feet, formed a metre. Thus, the dactylic hexameter 
 (the heroic verse) contains six dactyls and spondees: the 
 iambic, anapaestic, and trochaic trimeter, six of those feet 
 respectively. A line is said to be acatalectic when the last 
 syllable of the last foot is wanting; brachycatalectic, when 
 two syllables are cut off in the same way ; hypercataleptic, 
 when there is one superfluous syllable. 
 
 ME'TRONOME. (Gr. utrpov, and vc-pos, a law.) An 
 instrument for measuring musical time. It is contrived on 
 the principle of a clock, having a short pendulum, whose 
 bob being movable up and down on the rod, is thus capa- 
 ble of increasing or decreasing the length of a note or bar as 
 required by the character of the music. The length or du- 
 ration of a note is often expressed at the head of a piece of 
 music by stating that a pendulum of a given length in inches 
 will vibrate a minim, crotchet, or other note, as the case 
 mav be. 
 
 METROPOLIS. (Gr. [i-mnp, mother, and TroAif, city, or 
 state.) 1. A parent state from which colonies have sprung, 
 in which sense the word is uniformly employed by ancient 
 Greek writers. 2. The chief city of a province in the later 
 ages of the Roman empire. The Christian Church having 
 adopted the secular division of the Roman empire into 
 provinces, the episcopal seat established in every such city, 
 and the bishop of it himself, were termed metropolitan. 3. 
 In modern usage, the chief or capital city of an independent 
 
 METROPOLITAN, in early Ecclesiastical History, was 
 a title applied to the archbishop, or chief ecclesiastical dig- 
 nitary, resident in a city. The establishment of metropoli- 
 tans took place at the end of the third century, and was 
 confirmed by the council of Nice. In some of the Protest- 
 ant states of Germany the title exists to the present time, 
 and the person in possession of it has rank equivalent to the 
 bishops of the English Church. 
 
 MEZZANINE. fLat. mezzano, middle.) In Architec- 
 ture, a story of small height introduced between two higher 
 ones. 
 
 ME'ZZO SOPRA'NO. (Ital.) In Music, a high counter- 
 tenor, having the C sol ut clef on the second line. 
 
 MEZZOTI'NTO. (Ital. half tinted.) A particular method 
 of engraving on copper. See Engraving. 
 
 MIA'SMA. (Gr. ixiaivoi, I infect.) Infectious or conta- 
 gious matter. The term is generally applied, under the 
 name of marsh miasma (malaria of the Italians), to the in- 
 fectious emanations from marshy lands and stagnant waters, 
 which are peculiarly characterized by producing various 
 forms of intermittent and remittent fevers. 
 
 MI'CA. (Lat. mico, I shine.) A mineral generally found 
 in thin clastic lamina;, soft, smooth, and of various colours 
 and degrees of transparency. Silica, alumina, potash, and 
 oxide of iron are its principal components. It is one of the 
 constituents of granite. In some parts of Siberia and else- 
 where it forms an article of trade, often known under the 
 name of Muscovy glass. 
 
 MI'CA SLATE. One of the lowest of the stratified 
 rocks, composed of quartz and mica. See Geology. 
 
 MI'CHAELMAS. The feast of St. Michael the Arch- 
 angel. It fails on the 29th of September, and is supposed 
 to have been established towards the close of the fifth cen- 
 tury ; Brady says in 487. In England, Michaelmas is one 
 of the regular periods for settling rents; and an old custom 
 is still in use of having a roast goose for dinner on that day, 
 probably because geese are at that period most plentiful, arid 
 in the highest perfection. (See Brand's Pop. Jintiq.) 
 
 MI'CHAEL, SAINT. A French order of knighthood, 
 instituted by Louis XI. in 1469, in honour of St. Michael, 
 
 MICROMETER. 
 
 the supposed ancient protector of France. The motto of 
 the order was " immensi tremor oceani." It was at first, and 
 for some time after its institution, in high repute : but under 
 Catharine of Medicis, who lavished it indiscriminately, it 
 came to be held of no account, from which state it never 
 recovered. 
 
 MI'CROCOSM. (Gr. uticpos kocuo;, little universe.) 
 Man has been called so by some fanciful writers on natural 
 philosophy and metaphysics, by reason of a supposed cor- 
 respondence between the different parts and qualities of his 
 nature and those of the universe. 
 
 MICRODA'CTYLUS. (Gr. utKpoc, and Ioktv^oc, a 
 digit.) A name proposed by M. Geoffrey for the short- 
 toed genus of wading birds, called by Illiger Dicholophus. 
 See that word. 
 
 MI'CRODON. (Gr. uiKpoc, and olovs, a tooth.) The 
 name of a genus of extinct fishes, belonging to the thick- 
 toothed or Pycnodont family, in the Ichthyological system 
 of Agassiz. 
 
 MICRO'METER. (Gr. niKpoc, and nerpov, measure.) 
 An instrument applied to telescopes and microscopes for 
 measuring very small distances, or the diameters of objects 
 which subtend very small angles. A great number of con- 
 trivances of various kinds, and depending on different prin- 
 ciples, have been employed for this purpose ; but it will be 
 sufficient to give a general description of some of the most 
 useful or remarkable ones. 
 
 Wire Micrometer. — This instrument, when placed in the 
 tube of a telescope, at the focus of the object glass, presents 
 the appearance represented in the annexed figure (fig. 1). 
 A a is a spider's web line, or very fine 
 wire fixed to the diaphragm ; and B 6 
 and C c are similar wires stretched 
 across two forks, each connected with 
 a milled-headed screw. By means of 
 these screws the two wires, B b and C 
 c, which are exactly parallel to each 
 other, are movable in the direction per- 
 pendicular to A a ; and, in order that the 
 wire A a may be placed in any direc- 
 tion relatively to the meridian, there is 
 an adjusting screw, which works into an interior toothed 
 wheel, and turns the apparatus round in its own plane per- 
 pendicular to the axis of the telescope. 
 
 The method of using the micrometer is as follows: Sup- 
 pose the object to be accomplished were the measurement 
 of the angle of position and distance of two very close stars ; 
 the telescope being set and kept on the objects, the microm- 
 eter is turned by its adjusting screw until the spider line A 
 a coincides with the line joining the two stars, or threads 
 them both at the same moment. The milled heads of the 
 screws, which carry the two movable wires, are then turned 
 until B b bisects one of the two stars, and C c bisects the 
 other. The observation is now completed, and it only re- 
 mains to ascertain the position and distance indicated by the 
 micrometer. For the first of these purposes, the circumfer- 
 ence of the micrometer is divided into degrees and minutes, 
 and read by two verniers : this reading gives the position of 
 A a in respect of the horizontal and vertical planes, and 
 consequently the angle of position of the two stars. To find 
 their distance, the head of the screw which carries one of 
 the movable wires, for instance C c, is turned until C c coin- 
 cides with B b ; and the number of revolutions, and parts of 
 a revolution, required to effect the coincidence, gives the dis- 
 tance of the stars when the value of the scale of the mi- 
 crometer is known ; that is to say, when the number of 
 seconds of space which correspond to one revolution of the 
 screw is known. The screws must be made with great 
 accuracy, and their heads are usually divided into 60 equal 
 parts, representing seconds. 
 
 The value of the scale, or of a revolution of the screw, is 
 obtained in the folk wing manner: Set tlie two wires, B b 
 and C c, apart to a certain number of revolutions, and place 
 them in the direction of the meridian. Observe the transits 
 of several stars of known declination over the wires ; then 
 multiply each interval of seconds by 15, and by the cosine 
 of the star's declination ; and, taking the mean, you have 
 the seconds of space which correspond to a known number 
 of revolutions of the screw. (See Appendix, by the Rev. R. 
 Sheepshanks, to Professor Be Morgan's Explanation of 
 the Gnomonic Projection of the Sphere.) 
 
 Circular Micrometer— -This instrument, which differs 
 entirely from the above, was first suggested by Boscovich, 
 in the Leipzic Acts for 1740, and used by Lacaille in ob- 
 serving a comet in 1742; but seems afterwards to have 
 fallen into disuse, until it was revived by Dr. 01 bers, about 
 1*98. The principle maybe explained as follows: If the 
 field of a telescope be perfectly circular (which may be 
 effected by means of a diaphragm turned in a lathe), and if 
 its diameter be determined from observation, the paths of ' 
 two celestial bodies across the field may be considered as 
 two parallel chords, which are given in terms of a circle of
 
 MICROMETER. 
 
 known diameter. The differences of the times at Which 
 two stars arrive at the middle of their paths will be their 
 ascensional differences ; and the distance between the chords, 
 which is readily computed from their lengths, gives the dif- 
 ference of the declinations of the two bodies. 
 
 The most approved construction of the annular micrometer 
 is that of the late Fraunhofer. It consists of a disk of parallel 
 plate glass (fig. 2), having in its centre a round hole of about 
 (2_) half an inch in diameter, to the edges of 
 
 which a ring of steel is cemented, and 
 afterwards truly turned in a lathe. The 
 disk being mounted in a brass tube, so 
 that it may be accurately adjusted in the 
 focus of the eye-piece, and applied to a 
 telescope, the steel ring is alone visible, 
 and appears as if suspended in the at- 
 mosphere, whence the instrument is call- 
 ed the suspended annular micrometer. 
 The advantage of this construction consists in the accuracy 
 u ith which the moment of ingress or egress is determined, 
 from the body being seen in the field of view before it comes 
 up to the edge of the steel ring. The annular micrometer is 
 conveniently used for comparing the place of a small star or 
 a comet with that of a known star in nearly the same paral- 
 lel of declination. (.Istronomische JVachrichten, b. iv.) 
 
 Divided Object Glass, or Double Image Micrometer. — 
 This instrument is formed by dividing the object glass of a 
 telescope or microscope into two halves, the straight edges 
 being ground smooth, so that they may easily slide by one 
 another. A double image of an object in the field of view 
 is produced by the separation of the segments ', and, by 
 bringing the opposite edges of the two images into contact, 
 a measure of the diameter of the object is obtained in terms 
 of the extent of the separation. From its being used to 
 measure the diameter of the sun, this is usually called the 
 heliometer (see Heliometer). Instead of a divided object 
 glass, Ramsden preferred a divided lens in the eye-tube, 
 which form of the instrument is called the dioptric microm- 
 eter. The double image micrometer was suggested by 
 Roemer, about 1678, but first brought into use by Bouguer, 
 about 1748. 
 
 Micrometer by Double Refraction. — The Abbe Rochon 
 conceived the ingenious idea of applying the principle of 
 double refraction to micrometrical measurement. Conceive 
 two prisms, ABC and BCD (fig. 3), formed of the same 
 
 (3.) 
 
 
 w 
 
 
 
 yv 
 
 I 
 
 
 ■R 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 
 / T 
 
 ■\r 
 
 
 U 
 
 X 
 
 
 n 
 
 
 p 
 
 
 s 
 
 crystal, and so disposed that the face A 
 B of the first is perpendicular to the axis 
 of the crystal, while, in the second, the 
 axis is parallel to the line of the inter- 
 section of the two faces C B and C D, so 
 that the axes of crystallization of the two 
 prisms are at right angles to each other. 
 The prisms are placed in perfect contact, 
 and cemented by mastic; and together 
 form a plate of which the opposite sides 
 are parallel. Now, suppose a ray of 
 light M I to fall perpendicularly on the 
 face A B, it will proceed through the 
 prism A C B, in the same straight line I 
 O, without being separated, because I O 
 is parallel to the axis of the crystal. But when it arrives at 
 O, and enters the second prism B C D, it will be separated 
 into two: the ordinary ray will continue to follow the same 
 direction I O N P, because the refracting powers of the two 
 prisms are the same ; but the extraordinary ray will take a 
 different direction O R (towards B D, if the crystal is attrac- 
 tive, as rock crystal ; but towards A C, if the crystal is re- 
 pulsive, as Iceland spar), and, on emerging from the prism 
 at R, will be refracted in the line R S. The angle P T S of 
 the inclination of the two rays after their emergence from 
 the prism is constant for the same crystal, and must be de- 
 termined by experiment. 
 
 Let us now conceive this apparatus to be placed in the 
 tube of a telescope, of which O (fig. 4) is the object glass 
 and F the focus, and the 
 telescope directed upon a 
 distant object at D (as a 
 planet), the diameter of 
 which, m n, is to be meas- 
 ured. Suppose the double 
 prism at T' : two images 
 will he formed ; the ordinary image at a, and the extraordi- 
 nary image at b'. By sliding the prisms along the tube to- 
 wards O the distance between the images will be increased ; 
 and by sliding them towards the focus F, it will be diminish- 
 ed; and if placed exactly in the focus, the two Images will 
 coincide. Let V denote the visual angle or apparent mag- 
 nitude of the object, / the focal distance F O of the tele- 
 scope, U the constant angle aT b depending on tin- i >ri -iti. 
 and D the distance FT: we shall then have the diameter 
 of the image=/ tan. V, and the distance oJ = D tan. U. 
 Now, if the apparatus be slid along the tube from T' to T, 
 744 
 
 MICROSCOPE. 
 
 where the two images are in contact, then the diameter of 
 the image will be equal to the distance ab; and we have, 
 consequently, / tan. V = D tan. U. Here the quantities / 
 and U are found by experiment; whence V, the angular 
 magnitude of the object, becomes known in terms of D. 
 
 The prism micrometer, when constructed in the manner 
 now described, has this important defect, that the extraordi- 
 nary image is accompanied by the prismatic colours, espe- 
 cially if the angle to be measured exceeds a few minutes; 
 and hence Rochon found that he could not use it for meas- 
 uring the diameters of the sun and moon. But this defect 
 has been ingeniously remedied by M. Arago, by simply al- 
 tering the arrangement of the apparatus, and giving the 
 double prism a fixed position out of the tube and before the 
 eye-glass. By this disposition two images are formed at the 
 focus, the centres of which are fixed points, whose distance; 
 depends on the refracting power of the crystal ; and the con- 
 tact of the images is produced by increasing or diminishing 
 tile magnifying power of the eye-glass, instead of altering the 
 position of the prism. The magnifying power thus becomes 
 the measure of the visual angle subtended by the diameter 
 of the observed object. 
 
 Various modificadons of the three principles now explained 
 have been proposed ; for details respecting which we refer 
 to Bretcster's Treatise on JVew Philosophical Instruments, 
 or to the article " Micrometer," in the Ency. Brit., by the 
 same author; and to Dr. Pearson's Introduction to Practi- 
 cal Astronomy. 
 
 The micrometer is an instrument of the utmost importance 
 in astronomy, and one, in fact, to which that science is as 
 much indebted as to the telescope itself. From a paper by 
 Mr. Townley, in the Phil. Trans, for 1667, it appears certain 
 that a micrometer with a moveable wire was first constructed 
 by our countryman Gascoigne about the year 1640, and used 
 by him for measuring the diameters of the moon and some 
 of the planets; but as Gascoigne, who was killed in the 
 civil wars in 1644, published no account of his invention, the 
 instrument was entirely forgotten, and the merit of reinvent- 
 ing it, and bringing it into general use, belongs to the French, 
 astronomer Azout, who published a description of it in 1667. 
 Huygens, a few years previously, had contrived to measure 
 the diameter of a planet by inserting in the tube of a tele- 
 scope, at the focus of the object-glass and eye-glass, a slip of 
 metal which covered exactly the image of the planet, and 
 then deducing the diameter from the breadth of the slip, 
 compared with the diameter of the field ; and Malvasia had 
 employed for the same purpose a reticle or network of fine 
 silver wires, crossing each other at right angles, and dividing 
 the field of the telescope into a number of equal squares. 
 (For the history of the invention and successive improve- 
 ments of the micrometer, see the notes by Mathieu to De- 
 lambrc's Histoire de I'Jlstronomia au Mine Steele, p. 616 and 
 645.) 
 
 MI'CROPHONE. (Gr. uiKpo;, and (buvn, a voice.) An 
 instrument for increasing the intensity of low sounds, by 
 subjecting a more sonorous body than that which emits the 
 sound to be affected by the vibrations of that body, and 
 thereby also sounding itself. 
 
 MI'CROPYLE (Gr. uiKpos, and 7ti>Aj;, a gate), in Botany, 
 is a perforation through the skin of a seed, over against the 
 apex of the nucleus. It is what was the foramen or exos- 
 tome of the ovule. 
 
 MI'CROSCOPE. (Gr. pUpoc, and cKomo), I view.) An 
 optical instrument which enables us to see and examine ob- 
 jects which are too minute to be seen by the naked eye. 
 Microscopes are single or compound, according to the nature 
 of their construction ; a single microscope being one through 
 which, whether it consists of a single lens or a combination 
 of lenses, the object is viewed directly ; and a compound 
 microscope one in which two or more lenses arc so arranged 
 that an enlarged image of the object formed by one of them 
 is magnified by the second, or by the others, if there are more 
 than two, and seen as if it were the object itself. 
 
 Single Microscope. — This instrument is, for the most part, 
 simply a lens or sphere of any transparent substance, which 
 refracts the rays of light issuing from a small body placed in 
 its focus, and gives them such a degree of convergency as is 
 necessary for distinct vision. In order that the rays of light 
 issuing from the several points of a very small body may 
 produce n sensible impression on the retina of the eye, it is 
 necessary that the object be brought very near the eye ; 
 but when this is done, the rays coming from its different 
 points are so divergent as to produce only a confused image. 
 .Now, if a convex lens be interposed between the object 
 and the eye, and so placed that its distance from the object 
 is a little less than its focal distance, the diverging rays issu- 
 iii'.' from the object are refracted by the lens, and enter the 
 eye placed behind it, cither parallel, or so nearly parallel as 
 to afford distinct vision. The object is then seen in the di- 
 i. i in of the refracted rays, and at the distance at which it 
 could be distinctly seen by the naked eye, and consequently 
 magnified in the ratio of the distance of distinct vision to the
 
 MICROSCOPE. 
 
 focal distance of the lens. This ratio is called the magnify- 
 ing power of the lens ; hence, for single microscopes, the 
 magnifying power is equal to the distance at which a small 
 object can be seen distinctly by the naked eye, divided by 
 the focal distance of the lens ; and, as the distance of dis- 
 tinct vision is constant (at least for the same individual), the 
 magnifying power is inversely as the focal distance. If we 
 suppose the distance which limits distinct vision, in respect 
 of minute objects, to be 5 inches (which is about the average 
 for good eyes), and the focal distance of the lens to be 1 
 inch, the object will be magnified 5 times in linear dimen- 
 sions, and 25 times in superficial. If the focal distance is one 
 tenth of an inch, the magnifying power will be 50 in linear 
 extent, and 2500 in superficial. 
 
 A single microscope may be obtained very easily by 
 piercing a small circular hole in a slip of metal, and intro- 
 ducing into it a drop of water, which Will assume a spheri- 
 cal form on each side of the metal. The substance com- 
 monly used for microscopic lenses is plate glass ; but they are 
 sometimes formed of rock crystal, which is better. Flint 
 glass, by reason of its great dispersive power, is unfitted for 
 the purpose. The precious stones, as the garnet, ruby, sap- 
 phire, and diamond, have been proposed ; but the numerous 
 and skilful attempts of Mr. Varley and Mr. Pritchard have 
 proved that the advantages arising from the greater refrac- 
 tive power of those substances are more than counter- 
 balanced by their colour, reflective power, double refraction, 
 and heterogenous structure. The crystalline lenses of min- 
 nows and other small fishes give a very perfect image of 
 minute objects. 
 
 When the object to be examined is of such magnitude as 
 to subtend an angle of some degrees, the requisite distinct- 
 ness cannot be given to its whole surface by an ordinary 
 lens, in consequence of the confusion occasioned by the 
 lateral rays ; unless, indeed, the rays are only permitted to 
 enter the lens through a very small aperture, whereby the 
 quantity of light is greatly diminished. In order to remedy 
 this inconvenience, Dr. Wollaston contrived a form of lens, 
 to which he gave the name of pcriscopic lens. Its construc- 
 tion is as follows : two plano-convex lenses or hemispheres 
 are ground to the same radius, and between their plane sur- 
 faces a thin plate of metal, with a circular aperture, is in- 
 troduced. The aperture which appeared to give the most 
 distinct image was about $fh of the focal length in diameter ; 
 and, when the aperture was well centered, the visible field 
 was as much as 20° in diameter. A lens of this kind pos- 
 sesses the double advantage of having a very short focal dis- 
 tance, and very little spherical aberration. Dr. Wollaston's 
 contrivance may, however, be improved upon in various 
 ways; for example, by filling up the central aperture with a 
 cement of the same refractive power as the lenses, whereby 
 the loss of light from the double number of surfaces is 
 avoided ; or by grinding away the equatorial parts of a 
 sphere of glass, so as to leave a deep groove all round it, in 
 the plane of a great circle perpendicular to the axis of vision, 
 and filling the groove with opake matter. This last construc- 
 tion is called the Coddington lens (from the name of its pro- 
 poser) ; and when executed in gamet, and used in homo- 
 geneous light, it is considered by Sir David Brewster to be 
 the most perfect of all lenses, either for single microscopes, 
 or the object lenses of compound ones. 
 
 In using a single lens as a magnifier, it is always necessary 
 that the light be made to pass through a very small aper- 
 ture, in order that the object may be seen distinctly and with- 
 out distortion. This necessity arises, both from the spherical 
 aberration and the chromatic dispersion of the light falling 
 on the surface of the lens under an angle of considerable 
 obliquity ; and the consequence is, that the quantity of light 
 admitted to the eye is so much diminished that the object 
 cannot be clearly seen. To remedy this inconvenience, Dr. 
 Wollaston proposed a combination of two lenses, called, in 
 consequence, a microscopic doublet, the optical part of which 
 may be described as follows: M and N (fig. 1) are two 
 plano-convex lenses, whose focal lengths 
 are in the ratio of 3 to 1, or nearly so, and 
 placed one over the other, so that their 
 plane sides are towards the object. The 
 adjustment of the distance between the 
 lenses is best accomplished by trial ; and 
 they must, accordingly, be mounted so that 
 the distance may be varied at pleasure. A 
 sTj B is a diaphragm or stop for limiting the 
 aperture. Though it does not appear that 
 the stop was contemplated by Dr. Wollas- 
 ton, who makes no allusion to it, the per- 
 formance of the microscope depends much on its nice adjust- 
 ment. It is obvious that as each of the pencils of light from 
 the extremities of the object is rendered eccentric by the 
 stop, and made to pass through the two lenses on opposite 
 sides of the common axis, they are affected by opposite er- 
 rors, which, in some degree, serve to counteract each other. 
 This doublet, when correctly made, is infinitely superior to 
 63 
 
 any single lens, and will transmit a pencil of from 35° to 50O 
 without any very sensible errors. The original description, 
 by Dr. Wollaston, is given in the Philosophical Transactions 
 for 1829. 
 
 The above construction has been improved upon by sub- 
 stituting two plano-convex lenses for N in the doublet, the 
 plane side of the one being in contact with the convex side 
 of the other, and the stop being retained between them and 
 the third. This combination is called a triplet; and its ad- 
 vantage is, that the errors of the doublet are still farther re- 
 duced by the greater approximation to the object, in conse- 
 quence of which the refractions take place nearer the axis. 
 
 Another form of doublet, proposed by Sir John Herschel, 
 is represented in the annexed figure (2). It ,a \ 
 
 consists of a double convex lens, whose 
 radii of curvature are as 1 to 6 ; and of a 
 plano-concave, whose focal length is to 
 that of the other as 13 to 5, placed in con- 
 tact with the flatter surface of the former, 
 and having its concavity turned towards 
 the object. Many other combinations have 
 been proposed, but those which have now been described 
 appear to be the most useful. 
 
 When the magnifying power of the lens is considerable, 
 and, consequently, its focal distance very small, it requires 
 to be placed at the proper distance from the object with great 
 precision ; and, as it cannot be held in the hand with suffi- 
 cient steadiness for any length of time, it requires to be 
 motmted in a frame having a rack and screw, by means of 
 which its distance from the object can be adjusted with ac- 
 curacy. Mirrors for collecting the light and throwing it 
 upon the object are also necessary for many puijwses. 
 
 Compound Microscope. — The simplest kind of compound 
 microscope is formed by the combination of two converging 
 lenses, whose axes are placed in the same straight line. The 
 arrangement of the lenses, 
 and the path of the rays, 
 will be readily understood 
 from the annexed dia- 
 gram (fig. 3). M N is the 
 object-glass, which has a 
 very short focal distance, 
 and P Q, the eye-glass. A 
 small object a b being 
 
 placed before the object- a" 
 
 glass, a little farther from it than the focus or parallel rays, 
 a reversed and enlarged image a' b' will be formed at some 
 distance behind M N. The lens P Q, is placed at such a 
 distance from M N that its principal focus is in the line at 
 a' b' ; consequently the rays of light from every point of the 
 image a' b' emerge nearly parallel from P Q, and to the eye 
 at E the image a' b' is magnified, as if it were a real object, 
 into a" b", and appears at a distance equal to the limits of 
 distinct vision, which, as stated above, is about 5 inches. 
 
 The magnifying power of this microscope, or the ratio of 
 a" b" to a b, is found as follows: In the first place, if we as- 
 sume d to denote the distance of the first image a' V from M 
 N, and / the distance of a A from M N, or the focal distance 
 of M N, we have this proportion, a! V :ab::d:f. In the sec- 
 ond place, if I denote the limit of distinct vision, or distance 
 of the second image a" b" from P CI, and/' the focal dis- 
 tance of Pft (or distance of a' V from P Q), we shall also 
 have a" b" :a'b'::l:f. These two proportions, being mul- 
 tiplied together, give — — =-— - ; which, therefore, is the 
 
 a b f'f 
 magnifying power of the microscope. It thus appears that 
 the magnifying power is inversely as the product of the focal 
 distances of the two lenses, and directly as the distance be- 
 tween them. The magnifying power will therefore be in- 
 creased by increasing the distance between the object-glass 
 and eye-glass ; but a limit is soon placed to this increase by 
 the indistinctness of the image, and, in practice, it is not ad- 
 visable to make the distance of a' b' from M N more than 
 from 5 to 7 inches. Suppose the focal distance of M N to 
 be ith of an inch, and the distance of a' b' from M N to be 
 5 inches, then a' b' will be 20 times greater than a b ; and if 
 the focal distance of P Q. be half an inch, and the distance 
 of a" b" from P Q, be 5 inches, then a" b" will be 10 times 
 greater than a' b', and, consequently, 200 times greater than 
 a b ; or the magnifying power is 200. 
 
 The great defects of the microscope, when constructed in 
 the manner now described, consist in the smallness of the 
 field of view, and want of achromatism in the object glass, 
 in consequence of which the images a' b' and a" b" are 
 fringed with the prismatic colours. For the sake of enlar- 
 ging the field of view, a third lens, larger than either of 
 the others, and called the field glass, is usually interposed 
 between the image a' V and the object-glass. 
 
 Reflecting Microscope.— The principle of the reflecting 
 microscope is very simple, and easily conceived. Suppose 
 M N (fig. 4) to be a concave speculum, and a small object 
 Z z * 745
 
 MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 (4.) 
 
 
 to be placed before it at /. A 
 reflected image of the object 
 will be formed at F, where the 
 rays issuing from each point of 
 the object intersect each other, 
 and magnified in the propor- 
 tion of F M to/M. If the image at F is viewed witli the 
 naked eye, the instrument is a single reflecting microscope; 
 but if ihe image is viewed through a refracting lens P Q (or 
 a combination of lenses forming an eye-piece), by which the 
 rays are made to converge towards the eye at E, it becomes 
 a compound reflecting microscope. 
 
 The reflecting microscope was first proposed by Sir Isaac 
 Newton in the form now described ; but, on account of the 
 impracticability of illuminating the object, it was long dis- 
 used. It has, however, been recently revived, under a modi- 
 fied form, by Professor Amici of Modena, who places the 
 object outside the tube of the microscope, below the line 
 A F ; and, in order that an image may be formed in the 
 speculum, the rays issuing from the object fall upon a small 
 plane mirror placed at /, inclined to the axis of the specuJum 
 in an angle of 45°, whereby they are thrown upon the spe- 
 culum in the same manner as if the object itself were placed 
 at /. By this means the object can be illuminated with 
 perfect facility. The concave speculum M N is ground into 
 an ellipsoidal surface; the diagonal mirror is placed at the 
 nearest focus /, and the image is consequently formed at the 
 other focus F. The image at F is viewed with a single or 
 double eye-piece, as in other microscopes. 
 
 Solar and Oxyhydrogen Microscopes. — The solar micros- 
 cope is composed essentially of a mirror and two converging 
 lenses. The plane metallic mirror, C D (fig. 5), reflects the 
 suu"s rays upon the lens M N, by which they are concen- 
 
 trated upon the object a b placed in its focus. The object, 
 being thus strongly illuminated, is placed before a second 
 lens P Q, (a little before the principal focus), by which the 
 rays are rendered still more convergent, and produce a mag- 
 nified image of the object upon a screen suitably placed at a 
 distance of some feet behind the lens. The object is here 
 supposed to be transparent ; if opaque, the light must be 
 thrown upon it in such a manner as to be reflected by it to 
 P Q.. The mirror and lens M N are placed in the hole of a 
 window-shutter in a darkened room ; and the mirror must 
 be moveable, in order that the sun's rays may always fall 
 upon it under a proper angle to be reflected to the lenses. 
 But the solar microscope is now almost entirely superseded 
 by the oxyhydrogen microscope ; so called because the il- 
 lumination, instead of being produced by the sun's rays, is 
 produced by burning a small piece of lime or marble in a 
 stream of oxyhydrogen gas. In this case the plane mirror 
 C D becomes unnecessary ; and instead of the lens M N a 
 concave speculum is employed, in frontof which the ball of 
 lime is placed, and an intense light thus thrown upon the 
 object a b, the rays from which are brought to foci upon the 
 screen by the lens P Q,. For full details respecting the 
 management of this apparatus, which forms a very popular 
 exhibition, the reader is referred to Goring and Pritchard's 
 Micographia. For descriptions of the various kinds of mi- 
 croscopes, see Brewster's Treatise on Mew Philosophical 
 Instruments ; or the Ency. Brit., art. " Microscope." 
 
 MI'DDLE AGES. (In French, moyen age.) A term 
 usually employed to denote, somewhat vaguely, a space of 
 several centuries in European annals, intervening between 
 what are called the ancient and modern periods of history. 
 The centuries between the ninth or tenth and the end of the 
 fifteenth after Christ, are generally comprehended under this 
 loose denomination. In the work of Mr. Ilallam on the 
 Middle Jiges, that historian has assumed as his period of 
 commencement the conquest of Gaul by the Franks, about 
 A.D. 500; and, for his conclusion, the invasion of Italy by 
 Charles VIII., about 1500; and with reference to the afiaJrs 
 of the Greeks and their oriental neighbours, be places, as the 
 most convenient limit between ancient and modem history, 
 the era of Mohammed. 
 
 MI'DDLE CADENCE. In Music. See Cadence. 
 
 MI'DDLE LATITUDE SAILING, in Navigation, la a 
 method of converting the departure (or diatance 'in the pa- 
 rallel) into difference of longitude, and the difference of lon- 
 gitude into departure, when the ship's course is oblique to 
 the meridian. It is founded on this principle, which, how- 
 ever, is only approximately true in any case, and not even 
 approximately in high latitudes, when there is also consider- 
 able difference between the latitudes left and arrived at ; 
 namely, that the departure may be accounted an arc of a 
 74G 
 
 MIGRATION. 
 
 parallel of latitude midway between the two extreme lati- 
 tudes. Its rules are, 
 
 radius : cos. middl. Iat. : : diff. longitude : departure, 
 cos. middl. Iat. : tan. course : : dill'. Iat. : dill", long. 
 See Navigation. 
 
 MI'DDLE RAIL. In Architecture, the rail of a door 
 level with the hand, on which the lock is usually fixed 
 
 MI'DDLE TERM of a Categorical Syllogism, in Logic, 
 is that with which the two extremes of the conclusion are 
 separately compared. See Syllogism. 
 
 MI'DSHIPMAN. In the Navy, the step next above volun- 
 teer of the first class, which is generally the commencement. 
 At nineteen years of age the midshipman passes one exam- 
 ination in seamanship, and another in navigation, when ho 
 becomes eligible for a lieutenant's commission. 
 
 MIDSHIPS. The middle of the ship, with reference to 
 length or breadth. 
 
 MI'EMITE. A magnesian carbonate of lime of a green 
 colour, from Miemo, in Tuscany. 
 
 MIGRATION. (Lat. migro, / migrate.) This word is 
 used in Zoology to signify the transit of a species of animals 
 from one locality or latitude to another. The passage is 
 usually to and fro between a temperate and a cold climate, 
 or a temperate and a warm climate ; and this periodical 
 change of abode is most general in the arctic species of ani- 
 mals, and least prevalent in the tropical species. The most 
 remarkable, rapid, and extensive migrations are performed 
 by birds, in virtue of their pre-eminent locomotive powers, 
 and of their ability to maintain a long and rapid flight through 
 a medium which oilers the least opposition to their progress. 
 The inequalities and alternations of land and water upon the 
 surface of the earth, and the presence of enemies and other 
 dangers, would appear to form insurmountable obstacles to 
 any general or extensive migration of quadrupeds ; yet the 
 musk-ox, the reindeer, the arctic fox, &c, are driven south- 
 ward by the rigours of the polar winter, and return to the 
 extreme latitudes in the summer season. Less regular, but 
 not less general migrations, take place among the quadrupeds 
 which range the tropical continents in seasons of unusual 
 drought. Countless herds of oxen, goaded by intolerable 
 thirst, are thus impelled in an irresistible course over vast 
 tracts of the South American Pampas in quest of water* 
 The valleys of the warmer parts of Africa are occasionally 
 traversed by numerous assemblages of the wild quadrupeds 
 of that continent, migrating under the same stimulus. Lions 
 and other carnivora have on these occasions been seen 
 mingled with, and absolutely hemmed in by, the countless 
 assemblage of antelopes, gnus, and other herbivorous species 
 which constitute their prey. The Scandinavian lemming, 
 however, is the species of quadruped that is most remarkable 
 for its migration. But the migratory periods are not regular ; 
 nor are the immense bodies that travel in a given direction 
 ever known to return. In this respect the migration of the 
 lemmings resembles rather that of the locusts among insects, 
 than the true and regular migration of birds. The ordinary 
 residence and breeding-place of the lemmings appear to be 
 the shores of the arctic ocean. Here, when their numbers 
 exceed the means of subsistence, they congregate together, 
 and commence a migratory course southward, moving in a 
 straight line, crossing rivers, climbing mountains ; and while 
 no insurmountable obstacle impedes their progress, they 
 devastate the country through which they pass. The migra- 
 tion of birds appears to be influenced mainly by the neces- 
 sity of providing sufficient food for their young, and by the 
 temporary continuance of such food in the climates best 
 suited for propagation. 
 
 The arctic and northern seas, which teem with life during 
 the long unbroken day that constitutes the summer season 
 of such latitudes, are resorted to by numerous aquatic birds 
 during the breeding season ; and these birds regularly mi- 
 grate southward when the severities of winter set in. In 
 temperate latitudes, as those of England, certain spring and 
 summer months are peculiarly favourable to the production 
 of insects in their different stages ; and our island is accord- 
 ingly frequented by many insectivorous birds, which leave 
 warmer latitudes during these months to breed and rear their 
 young with us. As a general rule, it may be stated that 
 birds migrate southward in the northern hemisphere for food 
 principally ; but that they migrate northward both to feed 
 and breed. The most remarkable summer immigrants that 
 visit England from the smith anil breed in this island, are 
 the swifts, swallows, cuckoo, nightingale, and many other 
 Insectivorous Passerine birds; and it is remarkable that the 
 males of the song birds always precede the other 6ex in their 
 vernal Bight 
 
 The winter immigrants from the north are the species of 
 wild swan; many species of wild duck; the smews, mer- 
 L'.'inser. anil < it he r aquatic birds; the woodcock, &C. It oc- 
 casionally happens thai a winter Immigrant remains with us 
 the whole summer, and breeds. Thus the woodcock's eggs 
 and young have occasionally been taken in our woods; but 
 Uii-tis. an exceptional or individual case. It is a rare occur-
 
 MILDEW. 
 
 rence when a summer immigrant prolongs its sojourn into 
 the winter months, as happens when by late hatching, or 
 debility produced by accident or disease, a swallow or martin 
 has been prevented from joining the main body of autumnal 
 emigrants of its own species, and is seen flying about when 
 an unusually mild day may have called some insects abroad 
 in the months of November or December. 
 
 The season of migration is that of association, both in birds 
 and other animals. The swifts congregate for their depart- 
 ure about the middle of August ; the swallows assemble 
 together for the same purpose in September. Their powers 
 of flight are more than equivalent to the extent of space they 
 have to traverse to reach the wanner latitudes, as the Medi- 
 terranean shores of Africa, where they have been seen in 
 those months when they have disappeared from us. Yet 
 there have not been wanting naturalists who have believed 
 that the life of the swallow was maintained during the 
 absence of its insect food in England, by the same torpidity 
 which enables the bat and hedgehog to exist through the 
 winter, and resume their vital functions in spring. The bur- 
 rows of the sand-martin have been explored in winter with 
 this view ; but neither there nor in any other hiding-place 
 has a torpid martin or swift been ever found. It was next 
 conjectured that these birds went under water in autumn, 
 and passed the winter not only torpid, but submerged. The 
 supporters of this theory, however, have neither explained 
 how the difference of specific gravity which makes the body 
 of a swallow float upon water was overcome, nor how the 
 extravascular plumage was preserved undecomposed and fit 
 for use after six months' soaking in water. 
 
 The short migrations of the cuckoo and nightingale are 
 unquestionable : why should the longer migrations of sum- 
 mer-breeding birds of greater powers of flight be doubted 1 
 The direct observation of swallows in the act of migrating, 
 and the slowly acquired hut certain knowledge of their 
 winter resort, have finally put to rest the skepticism as to the 
 migration of the swallow tribe, which only the authority of 
 such eminent naturalists as White of Selborne could have 
 60 long rendered excusable in works of Zoology. 
 
 MI'LDEW. This term is generally applied to a particular 
 mouldy appearance on the leaves of plants, which is pro- 
 duced by innumerable minute fungi, which, if not checked 
 in their growth, will occasion the decay and death of the 
 parts on which they grow, and sometimes of the entire plant. 
 In agriculture, this appearance is frequently termed rust, and 
 sometimes blight It is common on wheat, and on the hop ; 
 and, in gardens, on the leaves of the peach, the nectarine, 
 and other fruit trees. The causes favourable to the produc- 
 tion of mildew are a rich soil and a moist atmosphere, with- 
 out a free circulation of air or sunshine. In agriculture, this 
 parasitical disease is generally considered without remedy ; 
 but, in gardening, it may be checked by the application of 
 powdered sulphur to the leaves covered by the fungi, which 
 is found to destroy them without greatly injuring the leaf. 
 Dry-rot is only mildew of a more formidable kind. 
 
 MILE. (Lat. mille passuum, a thousand paces.) The 
 Roman pace being 5 feet, and a Roman foot being equal to 
 1162 modem English inches, it follows that the ancient 
 Roman mile was equivalent to 1614 English yards, or very 
 nearly ll-12fhsof an English statute mile. 
 
 The English statute mile was denned (incidentally, it 
 would seem) by an act passed in the 35th year of the reign 
 of Queen Elizabeth, by which persons were forbidden to 
 build within three miles of London; and the mile was 
 declared to be 8 furlongs of 40 perches of 16£ feet each. 
 The statute mile is, therefore, 1760 yards, or 5280 feet. See 
 Measures. 
 
 The mile is used as an itinerary measure in almost all 
 countries of Europe, particularly those which were formerly 
 under the sway of the Romans ; but it is very difficult to 
 conjecture the causes which have given rise to the great 
 diversity of its values. It has been supposed- that in some 
 countries the Roman mile was confounded with the ancient 
 Celtic league. 
 
 The following table, given on the authority of Kelly's 
 
 Cambist, shows the length of the modern mile, and also the 
 
 league, of various countries, and their relation to the English 
 
 statute mile : Yds. Stat. Miles. 
 
 Modern Roman mile . . . 1628 — -925 
 
 English statute mile . . . 1760 — 1000 
 
 Tuscan mile 1808 — 1-027 
 
 Ancient Scottish mile . . . 1984 — 1-127 
 
 Irish mile 2240 — 1-273 
 
 French posting league . . . 4263 — 2422 
 Spanish judicial league . . . 4635 — 2-634 
 Portugal league .... 6760 — 3841 
 German short mile .... 6859 — 3897 
 Flanders league .... 6864 — 3900 
 Spanish common league . . . 7416 — 4214 
 
 Prussian mile 8237 — 4680 
 
 Danish mile 8244 — 4684 
 
 Dantzicmile 8475 — 4-815 
 
 MILK. 
 
 Yds. Stat. Miles. 
 
 Hungarian mile . . . .9113 — 5-178 
 
 Swiss mile 9153 — 5201 
 
 German long mile .... 10126 — 5-753 
 
 Hanoverian mile .... 11559 — 6-568 
 
 Swedish mile 11700 — 6648 
 
 According to the same authority, the Arabian mile is 2148 
 yards, the Persian parasang 6086 vards, the Russian werst 
 1167 yards, and the Turkish berri 1826 yards. The English 
 geographical mile is l-60th of a degree of latitude, or about 
 2025 yards ; the geographical league of England and France 
 is 3 such miles, or 6075 yards ; and the German geographical 
 mile is equal to 4 English geographical miles, or 8100 yards. 
 See an excellent disquisition on the history of the English 
 mile in the Penny Cyclopedia. 
 
 MILIA'RIA. (Lat. milium, millet seed.) A disease at- 
 tended by an eruption resembling millet seed. Miliary fever. 
 
 MILIEU (JUSTE)— PARTY OF THE. A French party 
 nickname, arising, it is said, out of a casual expression of 
 King Louis Philippe, but which has obtained a notoriety 
 rather greater than such ephemeral phrases usually acquire. 
 It has served to denote the great party opposed to the Carlists, 
 or Legitimists, on the one hand, and to the extreme left sec- 
 tion of the Chamber of Deputies, with its allies the Republi- 
 cans, on the other. After the overthrow of the feeble ministry 
 of Lafitte, in March, 1831, Casimir Perier was authorized to 
 form a new cabinet ; and his administration seems to have 
 realized more than any other the ideal of a government of 
 the Juste Milieu. Under its rule the hereditary peerage was 
 abolished ; the continual street disturbances which had al- 
 most controlled the will of the previous ministry quelled ; 
 Ancona seized ; and the foundation of the successful interven- 
 tion of France in the Hollando-Belgic quarrel laid. Perier 
 died of cholera on the 16th of May, 1832. After a short 
 interval he was succeeded by Soult ; who has been perhaps, 
 since that time, more identified with the Juste Milieu party 
 than any other minister : Mole, Guizot, Dupin, Thiers, Barrot, 
 the most eminent statesmen of France, having each of thern 
 adopted a line and formed to a certain extent a party of his 
 own, alternately aided and opposed by the great body of the 
 partisans of the Juste Milieu. 
 
 MILI'OLA. (Lat. milium, a millet-seed.) The generic 
 name applied by Lamarck to an extinct mollusk, or zoophyte, 
 which has left its small forameniferous multilocular shell in 
 great numbers in the strata of many quarries in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Paris. 
 
 MILI'TIA. A body composed of citizens regularly en- 
 rolled, and trained to the exercises of war ; but not perma- 
 nently organized in time of peace, or, in general, liable to 
 serve out of the country in time of war. Such an establish- 
 ment exists in most European countries under different 
 names. (See Guard, National.) In Austria and Prussia 
 it is called landwehr ; and in the latter country receives full 
 pay during a certain part of every year when it is in exercise. 
 Various and unsuccessful efforts were made by German 
 sovereigns, during the wars of the last century, to organize 
 bodies of troops which should be as cheaply raised as militia, 
 and yet be serviceable in foreign war. Frederick the Great 
 used such troops for garrison service. The militia of England 
 and Scotland now consists of a certain number of men in 
 every county, drawn by lot to serve for five years, and liable 
 to be called out and embodied, on danger of rebellion or in- 
 vasion, by proclamation of the king in council, and with 
 notification to parliament, if that body is sitting. During the 
 late war, the militia was kept constantly on foot and might 
 be sent to any part of the kingdom ; so that it differed little 
 from the regular army, except that it could not be sent 
 abroad, and that it was recruited by ballot. But, in addition 
 to the above, a militia called local, or fencibles, in many 
 instances raised and supported entirely at the expense of 
 some great landed proprietor, was established in every 
 county. After the peace of 1815 the militia was disem- 
 bodied; but, as we remarked above, it is still liable, if it be 
 considered necessary, to be called out. In Prussia every 
 man who has served his three years, or a single year in cer- 
 tain cases, of lawful service in the standing army, belongs 
 to the first class of the landwehr until his thirtieth year ; and 
 from that time until his fortieth to the second class. 
 
 MILK. (Germ, milch.) A fluid secreted by peculiar 
 glands in the breasts of the class of animals called Mammalia, 
 and destined for the nourishment of their young. 
 
 The obvious components of milk are cream, curd, and 
 whey— 1000 parts of cream (of cow's milk), of the sp. gr. 
 10244, consist, according to Berzelius, of 
 
 Butter 45 
 
 Curd 35 
 
 Whey 920 
 
 1000 
 The remaining skimmed milk has a specific gravity of 
 about 1033, and consists of— 
 
 747
 
 MILK FEVER. 
 
 Water 8-29 
 
 Curd with a trace of butter 28 
 
 Sugar of milk 35 
 
 Lactic acid, lactate of potash, and a trace 
 
 bf lactate of iron .... 6 
 Muriate and phosphate of potash and 
 
 earthy phosphates .... 2 
 
 1000 
 
 If we subtract the curd, the remaining substances con- 
 stitute whey. The curd of milk, or caseous muttt r, partakes 
 in many of its chemical properties of the nature of albumen ; 
 in others it resembles vegetable gluten, more especially in 
 the fermentation which it undergoes when kept in a moist 
 state. Sugar of milk is obtained by evaporating whey. 
 When purified it has a sweet taste, and requires 7 of cold 
 and 4 of boiling water for solution, and is insoluble in alco- 
 hol : when digested with nitric acid it is partially converted 
 into mucous, or saccholactic acid, and not, like common 
 sugar, into oxalic acid. This, therefore, though an animal 
 product, closely resembles the vegetable proximate princi- 
 ples ; and milk may hence be considered as partaking of the 
 nature of vegetable as well as animal food. See Dairy. 
 
 MILK FEVER. See Puerperal Fever. 
 
 MILK TREE, so called from its trunk yielding a milky 
 fluid when wounded, is a name applied more particularly to 
 those species in which the fluid is harmless and fit for food ; 
 an uncommon circumstance among lactescent plants, whose 
 secretions are generally dangerous. In the Caraccas there 
 is one sort, the palo de vaca, or cow tree of Humboldt, whose 
 milk is a common article of diet among the natives ; this is 
 the Galactodendron utile. In that and other countries, 
 plants of the Sapotaceous order, especially species of Acho- 
 as, also furnish such a secretion. In Ceylon has been found 
 the Kiriaguni plant, or Taberntemontuna utilis, which is 
 used by the Cingalese in a similar manner. 
 
 MILK VESSELS, in Plants, are the anastomosing tubes 
 lying in the bark or near the surface of plants, in which a 
 white turbid fluid is secreted. They are one of the forms 
 of the vital veins of Schultz, which see. 
 
 MILKY WAY, or VIA LACTEA, or GALAXY. A 
 broad and irregular zone of stars that surrounds the heavens, 
 so distant that their united light gives but an indistinct and 
 undefined whitishness to the whole appearance — whence its 
 name. See Galaxy. 
 
 MILL. (Gr. nwXrj ; Lat mola.) This term seems to have 
 signified originally an engine for grinding corn, but it is now 
 used in a general sense to denote a great variety of machines, 
 whose action depends chiefly on circular motion. The par- 
 ticular purpose is usually indicated by a prefix ; thus, bark- 
 mill, cotton-mill, flour-mill, oil-mill, saw-mill, spinning- 
 mill, &.C. 
 
 The machinery by which it is necessary to accomplish 
 the ultimate objects of the mill must obviously vary almost 
 indefinitely. Many voluminous works on this subject have 
 been published, as well as separate accounts of particular 
 structures. See Brewster's edition of Ferguson's Lectures ; 
 Gray's Experienced Millwright ; Buchanan on Millwork, 
 byTredgold; Banks on Mills; The Repository of Arts, &x. 
 A catalogue of the principal works on the subject of mills is 
 given in Gregory's Mechanics, vol. ii. 
 
 MILL, BARKER'S. See Centrifugal Machine. 
 
 MLLLCNNlUM. (Lat. mille anni, a thousand years.) 
 The reign of Christ with his saints upon earth for the space 
 of a thousand years; an idea derived from a passage in the 
 20th chap, of the Apocalypse, and not uncommonly enter- 
 tained by Christians in all" ages, but especially in the times 
 of the primitive church. The opinion seems to be traced as 
 far back as to Papias, a fattier of the second century. It is 
 the subject of much discussion among the writers of that 
 and the succeeding ages ; was maintained by Justin Martyr. 
 Irena:us, Tertullian, and many others, and powerfully re- 
 futed by Origen. (See the work of .Mstedius, translated bj 
 Bruton, 1043; Gibbon, ch. xv., with Adman's notes; Ber 
 tholdt,Christologia Judaorum ; Eisenmenger, Das Entdcckte 
 Judenthum; Ltghtfoot; Mosheim, vol. i.) 
 
 MI'I.EEPORES, Mi'lrpora. (Lat. nnlle, a thousand, po- 
 ms, a pore.) A tribe of Lithophytous Polypes, including 
 those in which the calcareous axis is perforated by extreme 
 ly numerous pores. 
 
 MI'LLET. (Lat. milium ; Fr. millet.) A plant classed 
 by botanists among the grasses, though some of tie species 
 attain a height of from 16 to 20 feet in favourable situations. 
 There are many species of this plant: of which the princi- 
 pal are the Polish, the common or German, and the Indian 
 millet. In several parts of Europe it is cultivated as B grain, 
 
 and is sometimes employed as a substitute for rice or sago i>v 
 the poorer classes, but more frequently it is used for feeding 
 chickens and domestic animalB. It is cultivated to a con- 
 siderable extent in France. Switzerland, Southern Germany, 
 and most extensively in Egypt, Svria, Xubia, China, aiid 
 748 
 
 MINE. 
 
 Hindostan ; but the climate of England is not sufficiently dry 
 and warm to allow of its being cultivated here. 
 
 MI'LLION. A thousand thousand, or, as often defined, 
 ten hundred thousand. See Numeration. 
 
 MILLSTONE GRIT. A geological term applied to a 
 group of strata which occur between the mountain limestone 
 and the superincumbent coal formations; it is a coarse- 
 grained quartzose sandstone. 
 
 MI'LVINES, Mi/rini. A family of Raptorial birds, of 
 which the kite (Milvus) is the tyin.'. 
 
 MIME. (Lat. mimus; Gr. pi^tos, from mucouai, I imitate.) 
 The name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans at once 
 to a species of dramatic entertainment, and to the authors 
 and actors by whom it was respectively composed and per- 
 formed. It consisted chiefly of a rude representation of 
 common life, and resembled the modern farce or vaudeville 
 in its character and accompaniments. Sophron of Syracuse, 
 who lived about 400 years before the Christian era, is con- 
 sidered the inventor of this species of composition. His 
 pieces were read even with pleasure by Plato, who is said 
 to have introduced this kind of dramatic entertainment into 
 Athens. (The Museum Criticum, No. 7, contains several 
 fragments of mimes by Sophron.) At what period mimo- 
 graphy was first practised at Rome cannot be precisely ascer- 
 tained ; but in the time of the emperors, and even under 
 Augustus, this species of entertainment had attained a high 
 degree of popularity. Among the Romans, it was of a still 
 more farcical character than among the Greeks, from whom 
 it was borrowed, and bordered more upon such mountebank 
 representations as Punch and Judy among ourselves, and 
 the Fantoccini of the Italians. Mimes originally formed a 
 part of the usual theatrical exhibitions ; but they were soon 
 introduced by the wealthy Romans into their private enter- 
 tainments to divert their guests. At Rome they also held 
 a prominent place at funerals, on which occasions their duty 
 consisted in praising the virtues and exposing the defects of 
 the deceased. It is, however, very probable that less license 
 of caricature was then admissible ; but the highest rank was 
 not exempt from the practice. Thus, Suetonius tells us that 
 the archmime Favo was present at the funeral of Vespasian : 
 " Sedet in funere Favo archimimus, personam ejus ferens, 
 imitansque, ut mos est, facta et dicta vivi." 
 
 MI'MUS. (Lat. a mimic.) A genus of Passerine birds, 
 separated by Boie from the thrushes (Turdus of Linnaeus) 
 on account of the more elongated form of the body, and par- 
 ticularly of the tail, the shorter wings, and more curved 
 upper mandible. The type of this genus is the celebrated 
 mocking-bird. See that word. 
 
 Ml'XA. (Gr. Mi,7.) A weight and coin in use among 
 the Greeks, but which was different in different states. The 
 Attic mina, which is that most frequently mentioned, was 
 heavier than the Roman pound by about four drachms. 
 Each mina contained 100 drachma", and was itself contained 
 60 times in an Attic talent. The coin was worth a little 
 more than 3/. of our money. 
 
 MI'NARET. (Arab, menarah, a lantern.) A slender 
 and lofty turret in the mosques of Mohammedan countries, 
 used for the purpose of summoning the people to prayers, 
 and consequently answering the purpose of the belfry in 
 Christian churches. They are usually surrounded with pro 
 jecting balconies, and are crowned with spires surmounted 
 by a crescent. Before the hour of prayer the criers of the 
 mosques ascend the minarets, whence they summon the 
 people to prayers with the words. '• Come, ye people, to the 
 place of rest and integrity ; come to the asylum of safety." 
 
 MIXIfERE'RCS'S SPIRIT. Solution of acetate of am- 
 monia, first recommended as a febrifuge by Raymond Min- 
 dererus, a physician of Augsburg. 
 
 MIXE. Tiie name given generally to every system of 
 subterraneous work or excavation which has for its object 
 the discovery and extraction of the metallic ores or other 
 mineral produce. But in addition to the underground works 
 which constitute the mine properly so called, the term 
 usually comprehends also the ground on the surface, to- 
 gether with the numerous appendages which are required 
 there; as steam-engines, water wheels, and other machinery 
 for drainage, the extraction of the ores, and their mechani- 
 cal preparation, with various buildings and erections. The 
 subject of mines is one of the most important within the 
 whole range of human knowledge I their contents constitute 
 the main springs of civilization ; and the means employed to 
 obtain them are to be ranked among the most extraordinary 
 instances of human enterprise, patience, and ingenuity. 
 The art of mining has been practised from the earliest an- 
 tiquity, and has formed a branch of industry to the most 
 barbarous as well as the most civilized communities. It is 
 true that we COO scarcely dignify by the name of mining the 
 operation by which the savage merely collects crains of gold 
 in the Bonds of rivers, or extracts it by pounding, when me- 
 chanically combined with other substances; bill even this 
 simple operation becomes interesting when viewed as the 
 first link in the chain of those elaborate and scientific pro-
 
 MINE. 
 
 cesses now employed in the extraction of metallic and other 
 mineral substances from the bowels of the earth. In Eng- 
 land, mining had a very early origin, compared with the 
 progress of other arts in the country. It was, in all proba- 
 bility, the first source of trade to these islands ; and so cele- 
 brated was British tin over the whole of the then known 
 world, that the Phoenicians traded to Cornwall for this metal. 
 At that early period, however, and indeed for centuries after- 
 wards, the art of mining was necessarily in a comparatively 
 rude and imperfect state, arising from the want of an effect- 
 ive means of drainage and of blasting implements ; and it 
 was not until hydraulic machines were applied to raise the 
 waters which accumulated in mines of every description 
 that metals could be followed to any considerable depth, and 
 not until gunpowder had furnished the means of splitting Ihe 
 hardest rock that the miner was enabled to surmount the 
 obstacles which the most indurated strata opposed to his 
 progress. These inventions, therefore, may be regarded as 
 most important epochs in the history of mining : but the 
 present comparatively perfect state of the art is mainly ow- 
 ing to the invention of the steam engine and the improved 
 manufacture of iron, which took place in the latter part of 
 the last century. The former gave to the miner a power 
 capable of universal application, and of an effect that added, 
 as it were, new regions of subterranean country to his con- 
 trol ; while the latter has proved no less important in con- 
 tributing to the same result, by the improved machinery and 
 apparatus it has placed within his reach. 
 
 The art of mining embraces such an infinity of topics and 
 processes, differing from each other in proportion to the dif- 
 ference of the locality of the lodes, the habits of the popula- 
 tion, and the character and the resources of the country in 
 which it is practised, many of which, besides, are of so ab- 
 
 struse and complicated a nature as to be utterly unintelligi- 
 ble without the most lengthened details, and the introduction 
 of numerous diagrams that would have been foreign to the 
 object of this work, that we shall refrain from entering upon 
 a subject which it would be impossible for us to treat satis- 
 factorily in this place. We must therefore refer the reader 
 to lire's Diet, of Arts, S,-c, which contains full details upon 
 the numerous processes connected with this most important 
 art, and content ourselves with subjoining the following 
 tables : the one made up from the Geo. Diet., containing an 
 estimate of the mineral produce of Great Britain on an 
 average of years and prices ; the other being a Comparative 
 Table of celebrated Mines in Europe and America, which 
 we have borrowed from the Quarterly Mining Review for 
 July, 1835, p. CO. (The various mining terms, as shaft, lode, 
 &c, will be found defined under their respective heads ; and 
 the different metallurgical processes explained under the 
 separate metals.) 
 
 Estimate of the Mineral Produce of Great Britain, on an 
 
 Average of Years and Prices. 
 
 Quantity. 
 
 Silver . . 10,000 lbs. troy 
 
 Copper . . 13,000 tons 
 
 Tin . . 5,500 
 
 Lead . . 46,000 
 
 Iron . . 1,250,000 
 
 Coal . .32,000,000 
 
 Salt, alum, and other minor produce ) 
 
 more than ', 
 
 Total value probably exceeds 
 
 Value. 
 
 .£30,000 
 
 1,300,000 
 
 550,000 
 
 950,000 
 
 10,000,000 
 
 12,000,000 
 
 1,000,000 
 £25,830,000 
 
 Comparative Table of celebrated Mines in Europe and America. By J. Burr, Esq. 
 
 Situation . 
 Elevation 
 
 Nature cf the rock 
 
 Nature of the metalifer- 
 ous deposites 
 
 Produce of the ores . 
 
 (At present the richest 
 mines in Cornwall.) 
 
 Two miles east of Redruth, 
 
 Elevation of the surface above th> 
 level of the sea, from 200 to 300 
 feet. Depth of the bottom of 
 the mine below the level of the 
 sea, about 1370 feet. 
 
 Primary clay slate, resting imme 
 diately on granite, a short dis- 
 tance westward of the mines. 
 The clay slate is intersected by 
 numerous channels of porphyry, 
 which have nearly the sami 
 rection as the mineral veins, 
 and are often of considerable 
 width. The porphyry some- 
 times appears also to form large 
 irregular masses in the clay 
 slate. Both rocks are traversed 
 by veins of quartz and clay in. 
 tersectiug the metalliferous 
 veins. 
 
 tn the consolidated mines, the 
 eight following lodes are exten- 
 sively worked : Wheal Fortune 
 lode, Cusvea lode, Heebie's 
 lode, Old lode, Taylor's lode. 
 Tregonning's lode, Martin's 
 lode, and Glover's lode. In the 
 united mines, the principal 
 workings are upon the Old 
 lode, and about five or six oth- 
 ers are more or less productive. 
 Numerous smaller lodes or 
 u branches" occur also in both 
 mines. The principal lodes are 
 from 2 or 3 to 7 or 8 feet wide ; 
 the "branches" are generally 
 12 or IS inches wide. The di- 
 rection of the lodes varies from 
 nearly east and west to about 20 
 degrees north of east and south 
 of west. The underlie of the 
 principal lodes is from 2 to 3 
 feet per fathom north ; that of 
 the smaller ones about the same 
 south. 
 
 Chiefly copper ore, occasionally 
 native copper, blue and green 
 carbonate of copper. Tin, or 
 oxide of tin, also occurs, but 
 not in very great abundance. 
 
 9^ per cent, of fine copper ; aver- 
 age produce in 100 parts of 
 
 Veta Grande Mines. 
 
 (At present the richest 
 mines in Mexico.) 
 
 Four miles north of Zacatecas. 
 
 Elevation of the surface above the 
 level of the sea, supposed to be 
 about 6000 feet. Elevation of 
 the bottom of the mine above 
 the level of the sea, probably 
 near 5000 feet. 
 
 Transition clay slate, alternating 
 with dolomite, and occasionally 
 with greywacke. This clay 
 slate is sometimes decomposed 
 it rests on syenitic rocks, and 
 is in some places covered wilh 
 porphyry. 
 
 One principal vein (the Veta 
 Grande), which is generally 
 separated into 3 branches, and 
 sometimes into four. Wli 
 ramified, the width extends to 
 60 or 70 feet ; when united, 
 varies from 8 or 10 to 20 or 30 
 feet. The branches are gener- 
 ally about 10 or 12 feet wide, 
 and the upper one is most pro 
 ductive. The direction of the 
 Veta Grande is from 30 to 40 
 degrees Bouth of east, and north 
 of west, and its underlie, from 
 two to three feet per fathom 
 south. Other veins of less size 
 occur in the neighhbourhood of 
 the Veta Grande, which cross 
 it at an acute angle. One 
 these appears to heave the vein 
 for about 700 feet, being the 
 most remarkable derangement 
 of the kind on record. 
 
 Chiefly red silver, native silver, 
 sulphuret of silver, and argenti- 
 ferous pyrites. 
 
 3| ca. per quintal. 
 
 Mine of Vatenciana. 
 
 (Jtichest of the Mexican 
 
 mines at the beginning of 
 
 the present century.) 
 
 Mine of Himmelsfurst. 
 
 (Richest of the Saxon 
 
 mines at the beginning 
 
 of the present 
 
 century.) 
 
 One mile north of Guanaxuato. 
 
 Elevation of the surface above th 
 level of the sea, 7617 feet. Ele 
 vation of the bottom of the 
 mine above the level of the sea, 
 6730 feet. 
 
 The Veta Madre of Guanaxuato, 
 upon which this mine is work 
 ed, traverses both clay slate and 
 porphyry, but it is most produc- 
 tive in the former rock. The 
 clay slate is considered by 
 Humboldt to belong to the 
 transition class, but situate neai 
 the limits of primary forma 
 tions. This rock in depth pass^ 
 es into chlorite slate, and talc 
 slate. It contains subordinate 
 beds of syenite, hornblendi 
 slate, and serpentine. Th 
 porphyry rests upon the clay 
 slate, and is conformable to it, 
 both in direction and stratifica- 
 tion. 
 
 One Veta (the Veta Madre), 
 which is often separated into 
 three brauches, extending from 
 130 to 160 feet in width 
 When not ramified, its width 
 varies from 20 or 30 to 60 c 
 feet, but is more commonly 
 from 40 to 50 feet. The direc- 
 tion of the vein is north-west 
 and south-east; its underlie 
 south, and about 5 or 6 feet per 
 fathom. 
 
 Sulphuret of silver, native silver, 
 prismatic black silver, red sil- 
 ver, native gold, argentiferous 
 galena. 
 
 Four ounces of silver per quintal 
 of 100 lbs. Equivalent to 2i 
 parts of metal in 1000 of ore, or 
 V per cent. 
 
 Two miles south-east of 
 Freyberg. 
 
 Elevation of the surface 
 above the level of thi 
 sea, 1346 feet. Eleva 
 tion of the bottom of 
 the mine above the 
 level of the sea, 263 
 feet 
 
 The rock prevailing in 
 the neighbourhood of 
 Freyberg, in which 
 this and most of thi 
 other mines are situ 
 ate, is a formation of 
 primary gneiss. 
 
 There are five veins 
 worked in this mine. 
 The principal vein 
 (Teichflache) is from 
 1 foot 6 inches to 3 
 feet in width ; 
 others are from 6 to 12 
 inches wide. The di- 
 rection of this \( 
 nearly north and south; 
 its underlie is west, 
 and about 3 feet per 
 fathom. Some of tht 
 other veins intersect it 
 
 Argentiferous sulphuret 
 of lead, native silver, 
 sulphuret of silver, red 
 silver. 
 
 Six to seven ounces of 
 silver per quintal of 
 100 lbs- Equivalent to 
 from 3 J to 4 J parts of 
 metal in 101)0 of ore, 
 or from 3-Sths to near- 
 ly h per cent. 
 
 749
 
 MINE. 
 
 Table— c ontinur't. 
 
 Mineral substances ac 
 conipanyiug the ores 
 
 Depth of adit at the prin 
 cipal shafts . 
 
 Quantity of water 
 
 (At present the richest 
 miues in Cornwall.) 
 
 Power employed ii 
 drainage 
 
 Probable equivalent 
 actual horse-power 
 
 Average annual expense 
 drainage . 
 
 Quantity of ore annually 
 
 produced 
 Produce in metal . 
 
 Total returns, or value 
 
 of the above 
 Total costs of the mine 
 
 Clear profit to the pro- 
 prietors. 
 Amount of capital invest- 
 
 Number of men employ 
 ed 
 
 Wages of the miners per 
 
 day 
 Quantity and expense of 
 
 powder 
 Manner in which the 
 
 ores are disposed of 
 
 The ores are generally accompa 
 nied by " gossan"* in the backs 
 of the lodes, by blende, and by 
 iron, and arsenical pyritel in 
 depth. 
 
 tVuoIfs engine-shaft, 249 fath- 
 oms: Pearce's ttigitit-shajt, 
 275 fathoms. Some of the oth- 
 er engine-shafts are scarcely in- 
 ferior in depth. 
 
 At Woolf's engine-shaft, 13 fath- 
 oms. The average depth of the 
 adit at the other engine-shafts 
 is about 30 or 40 fathoms. 
 
 Varies from 2000 to 3000 gallons 
 per minute. 
 
 Vtta Grande Mints. 
 
 (At present the richest 
 mines in Mexico.) 
 
 Mine of Valenciana. 
 
 (Richest of the Mexican 
 
 mines at the beginning of 
 
 the present century.) 
 
 \M 
 
 Chiefly quartz, occasionally ame- Quartz, amethyst, carbonate of 
 thyst, carbonate of lime, and lime, pearlspar, and hornstone. 
 sulphate of barytes. 
 
 ire generally accompa- The ores are accompanied by 
 Died by blende, BulphuTet Of an< blenJe, spathose iron f copper 
 timouy, and iron pyrites. and iron pyrites. 
 
 Tiro General, 182 fathoms ; Gal- Tiro General, 310 fathoms. 
 lega shaft, 13S fathoms. 
 
 There is no adit to this mine. 
 
 About SO gallons per minute. 
 
 About 230 fathoms at the Consol- 
 idated Mines; at the United 
 Mines about 110 fathoms. 
 
 9 steam-engines j 3 of 90-inch 
 cylinder, 3 of S5, 1 of SO, and 2 
 of 65. A water wheel 48 feet 
 in diameter. 
 
 1500 constantly at work, or a total 
 number of above 4500. 
 
 12,700Z., taking the average" 
 of the last ten years. 
 
 16,400 tons of copper ore, a 
 
 tons of tin ore. 
 1517 tons of fine copper, a 
 
 little tin. 
 119,800/. 
 
 93,500/. exclusive of lord's 
 98,5001. including 
 
 lord's 
 
 21,000/. perc 
 
 75,000/. 
 
 80 per cent, after paying 
 back the original capital. 
 
 Costs exclusive of lord's dues, 
 78 per cent. 
 
 About 2500 persons, of whom 
 about 1450 are employed under 
 ground. 
 
 Probably about 3 shillings oi 
 average. 
 
 Sold to the smelting companies, 
 and smelted by them at Swan- 
 sea, in South Wales. 
 
 On an average about 150 fathoms, 
 Usually about 10 malacates.t 
 
 32 horses constantly work--^ 
 ing, or a total number of 
 about 100 horses. 
 
 20,000/. per annum. 
 
 21.3S0 tons of silver ore. 
 153,000 lbs. troy of silver 
 423,400/. per annum. 
 252,170/. per annum, 
 
 171,240/. per annum. 
 130,000/. 
 
 Nearly 700 per cent, after 
 paying back the original 
 capital. 
 
 About 59 J per cent. 
 
 Aboot 900, of whom nearly 600 
 are employed under ground. 
 
 About 8 or 9 shillings per day. 
 
 Chiefly reduced by the company 
 at the Hacienda of Sanceda, by 
 smelting and amalgamation. 
 
 Quartz, pearlspar, and 
 calcareous spar. 
 
 The ores are accompa- 
 nied by blende, spath- 
 ose iron, and a little 
 iron and arsenical py- 
 rites. 
 
 FrantenschachtylSQ fath- 
 oms. 
 
 There is no adit to this mine. 
 
 The Valenciana was a dry mine 
 from its commencement iu 1760 
 to 17S0, when it first became 
 troubled with water, in conse- 
 quence of some of the workings 
 being inadvertently communi- 
 cated with the adjoining mine 
 of Tepeyac ; which, although 
 upon the same vein, was ex- 
 tremely wet The quantity of 
 water raised during the late 
 working appears to have been 
 about HO gallons per minute, 
 but the regular influx was much 
 
 310 fathoms. 
 
 A stcam-cn^ine of 30-inch cylii 
 der, and 7 malacates. 
 
 About 40,000/. per annum. * 
 
 32,500 tons of silver ore. 
 221,900 lbs. troy silver. 
 About 600,000/. 
 197,900/. per annum. 
 
 of Himmelsfurst. 
 
 (Richest of the Saxon 
 
 mines at the beginning 
 
 of the present 
 
 century.) 
 
 The adit aH>.»<w r*\ 
 ed Fran 
 
 47 fathoms ui depth. 
 
 50 gallons per minute.. 
 
 ■t 
 
 118,750/. per annum. 
 
 CaDnot be ascertained, but 
 known to have been very 
 small. 
 
 Not known, but certainly 
 many hundred per cent. 
 
 Costs 60 per cent. In the 
 nine years following the 
 proportion was 80 per 
 cent. ; at the end of that 
 time the working of the 
 mine was stopped by the 
 revolution in the year IS09, 
 
 3100 Indians and Mestizoes 
 whom 1800 are employed under 
 ground. 
 
 From 4 to 5 shillings. 
 
 1420 cwt. ; value 15,830/. 
 
 Sold to the Rescatadores, and re- 
 duced by smelting and amalga- 
 mation at Haciendas, in the 
 neighbourhood of Guanaxua'o. 
 
 16 horses constantly "\ 
 at work, or a to- 
 tal number of 
 about 50. 
 
 Cannot be ascertain- 
 ed, but evidently 
 very small. 
 
 630 tons of silver 
 
 6160 lbs. troy of 
 About 18,000/. 
 9500/. per annum. 
 
 ? 
 
 3560!. per annum. 
 
 Cannot be ascertain* 
 ed, but probably 
 very small. 
 Not known, but 
 probably very 
 high. 
 Costs 73 per cent, j 
 
 700 miners, of whom 
 550 are employed i 
 der ground. 
 
 About Is. Sd. per day. 
 
 240 cwt. ; value 1070;. 
 
 ■ slivered to the Gov- 
 ernment, reduction 
 works in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Freyberg, 
 where they are partly 
 smelted, and partly 
 run;\ltrn mated. 
 
 * Gossan, or Gozzan ; oxide of iron and quartz. 
 
 Mines and Minerals, Law of. Bv the law of Eng- 
 land all minerals are part of the freehold of the soil under 
 which they are found, with the exception of gold and silver, 
 which are said to belong to the crown. But, hy 1 W. & 
 M., c. 50, no mine of copper or lead is adjudged a royal 
 mine, though silver be extracted. A lease of land, with 
 mines mentioned, conveys, it is said, the right to carry on 
 open mines only, and not open new ones, unless expressly 
 reserved ; but that, if there are no open mines, the lessee 
 may then dig new ouch, as otherwise the grant would he of 
 none effect. But, unless the lessee be authorized, to dig 
 mines is waste. Mines are not rateable to the relief of the 
 poor, with the exception of coal mines; the latter being ex- 
 pressed in the statute of Eliz., the former are held to be ex- 
 cluded by implication. But quarries are rateable; and the 
 
 t Malacate, a horse whim. 
 
 distinction between a mine and a quarry is taken to be, not 
 the nature of the mineral extracted, but the mode of work- 
 ing : thus, a mine of limestone worked by a shaft is not 
 rateable. The law of mines and minerals is subject to a 
 variety of local customs, of which those of Devon and Corn- 
 wall are the most remarkable. See Stannaries. 
 
 Mine. In Fortification, a subterraneous passage leading 
 to a chamber underneath any place intended to be blown up 
 by gunpowder. See Mutter's Art of War, and other worka 
 on military engineering of subsequent date. 
 
 MI'NERAL ADIPOCERE. A greasy bitumen, found 
 in tlic arL'illnrenus on-, of iron. .S'te IIatciietine. 
 
 MI'N'KRAr. CAOITCHOUC. The clastic bitumen 
 found at Castleton in Derbyshire. 
 
 MINERAL L'llAMi-ELEON. See Manganese. A
 
 MINERAL GREEN. 
 
 manganesate of potash, obtained by fusing a mixture of 
 nitre and black oxide of manganese. So called from the 
 variety of colours which its aqueous solution successive ly 
 exhibits. . 
 
 MI'NERAL GREEN. Carbonate of copper, obtained by 
 precipitating a hot solution of sulphate of copper by carbon- 
 ate of soda. 
 
 MINERALI'ZERS. The substances with which metals 
 are combined in their ores. Thus, in the native oxides, 
 oxygen is called the mineralizer ; sulphur is also a very 
 common mineralizer, as in the ores of copper, lead, &c. 
 
 MINERA'LOGY. A branch of physico-chemical sci- 
 ence, which teaches the properties, composition, and rela- 
 tions of mineral bodies, and the art of distinguishing and de- 
 scribing them. ; l 
 
 " There is no branch of science," says Sir J. Herschel, 
 " which presents so many points of contact with other de- 
 partments of physical research, and serves as the connect- 
 ing link between so many distant points of philosophical 
 speculation, as this. To the geologist, the chemist, the op- 
 tician, the crystallographer, it offers especially the very ele- 
 ments of their knowledge, and a field for many of their 
 most curious and important inquiries ; nor, with the excep- 
 tion of chemistry, is there any which has undergone more 
 revolutions, or been exhibited in a greater variety of forms. 
 To the ancients it could scarcely be said to be at all known ; 
 and, up to a comparatively recent period, nothing could be 
 more imperfect than its descriptions, or more inartificial and 
 unnatural than its classifications. The more important 
 minerals in the arts, indeed — those used for economical 
 purposes, and those from which metals were extracted — 
 had a certain degree of attention paid to them for the sake 
 of their utility and commercial value, and the precious 
 stones for that of ornament: but until their crystalline 
 forms were attentively observed, and shown to be determi- 
 nate characters, on which dependance could be placed, no 
 mineralogist could give any correct account of the real dis- 
 tinction between one mineral and another. It was only, 
 however, when chemical analysis had acquired a certain 
 degree of precision and universal applicability, that the im- 
 portance of mineralogy as a science began to be recognised, 
 and the connexion between the external characters of a stone 
 and its ingredient constituents brought into distinct notice." 
 
 In the above quotation, the two characters of minerals 
 upon which their classification is founded are adverted 
 to, namely, their structure and their composition ; and, pur- 
 suing these as their leading objects, mineralogists have of 
 late discarded a number of other qualities upon which 
 much stress was formerly laid, but which are so variable 
 and indefinite as to be really of little value ; such, for in- 
 stance, as weight, colour, touch, and other sensible quali- 
 ties, which often vary in different specimens of the same 
 mineral. 
 
 There are so many disadvantages belonging to any miner- 
 alogical arrangement founded exclusively on crystalline 
 form, or on chemical composition, that, for all practical 
 purposes, it is necessary to blend the two ; but since the 
 chemical theory of definite proportionals, or, as it is com- 
 monly called, the atomic theory, has been shown to be ap- 
 plicable to the greater number of mineral combinations, the 
 chemical arrangement of mineral substances has assumed a 
 new and important aspect : it being of course necessary, in 
 describing a mineral, that its crystalline form and modifica- 
 tions should in all cases form an essential part of such de- 
 scription, where at least it can be attained ; for it must be 
 recollected that there are many cases in which minerals do 
 not occur crystallized, and where that characteristic, there- 
 fore, would be totally at fault. It has been well observed 
 by Dr. Thomson (System of Chemistry, Part III., Introduc- 
 tion), " that if mineralogy were to be confined to mere crys- 
 tallized bodies, it would be divested of the greatest part of 
 its utility ; for a very great proportion of those minerals that 
 are of the greatest utility to man, and which, therefore, it is 
 peculiarly important to be able to distinguish from others, 
 are seldom found in the state of regular crystals. How 
 often do the ores of copper, tin, lead, and iron occur in an 
 amorphous state 1 And were a mineralogist incapable of 
 distinguishing them from each other, and from other miner- 
 als, except in the rare cases when they assume a regularly 
 crystallized form, his knowledge would be useless, as far 
 as the important arts of mining and metallurgy are con- 
 cerned." 
 
 Mineralogical analysis, as connected with the atomic 
 theory, has made no inconsiderable progress in the skilful 
 and industrious hands of Berzelius ; but it is still quite in its 
 infancy as regards the foundation of a mineral arrange- 
 ment ; and, before it can be successfully adopted as such, 
 many new analyses, and much laborious revision of for- 
 mer researches, will be requisite. One of the latest authors 
 on mineralogy, who has adopted an arrangement founded 
 upon the chemical composition of minerals, is Dr. Thomas 
 Thomson. He divides minerals into three classes : 
 
 MINERALOGY. 
 
 Class I. Acid Bases. (Those bodies which become acids 
 when combined with oxygen.) 
 
 Specie*. 
 
 Genus I. Carbon 11 
 
 n. Boron 1 
 
 III. Silicon 7 
 
 IV. Phosphorous. 
 
 V. Sulphur 1 
 
 VI. Selenium. 
 
 VII. Tellurium 1 
 
 VIII. Arsenic 5 
 
 IX. Antimony 5 
 
 X. Chromium. 
 
 XI. Molybdenum 1 
 
 XII. Tungstein. 
 
 XIII. Columbium. 
 
 XIV. Titanium. 
 
 XV. Vanadium. 
 
 Class II. Alkaline Bases 
 
 I. Ammonia 2 
 
 II. Potassium 1 
 
 HI. Sodium 7 
 
 IV. Lithium. 
 
 V. Barium 5 
 
 VI. Strontium 6 
 
 VII. Calcium 30 
 
 VIII. Magnesium 37 
 
 IX. Aluminum. 
 
 1. Pure, or combined with bases . 7 
 
 2. Simple salts 24 
 
 3. Double anhydrous salts ... 39 
 
 4. Double hydrous salts, soluble in wa- 
 
 ter 3 
 
 5. Double, insoluble in water, and 
 
 phosphates 4 
 
 6. Double hydrous aluminous silicates, 
 
 or zeolites 39 
 
 7. Triple aluminous salts ... 15 
 
 8. Quadruple aluminous salts . . 12 
 X. Glucinum 4 
 
 XI. Yttrium 6 
 
 XII. Cerium 8 
 
 XIII. Zirconium 5 
 
 XIV. Thorinum 1 
 
 XV. Iron. 
 
 1. Uncombined, or united to a simple 
 substance 13 
 
 2. Oxygen salts of iron ... 22 
 
 Double ditto 19 
 
 Triple ditto 6 
 
 3. Sulphur salts of iron ... 2 
 
 XVI. Manganese. 
 
 1. Combined with simple bodies . 11 
 
 2. Simple oxygen salts ... 5 
 
 3. Double oxygen salts ... 5 
 
 4. Triple oxygen salts .... 1 
 XVH. Nickel. 
 
 1. Combined with simple bodies . 5 
 
 2. Oxygen salts 1 
 
 3. Sulphur salts 2 
 
 XVHI. Cobalt. 
 
 1. Combined with simple bodies . 5 
 
 2. Oxygen salts 2 
 
 3. Sulphur salts 1 
 
 XIX. Zinc. 
 
 1. United to simple bodies ... 4 
 
 2. Oxygen salts 6 
 
 3. Sulphur salts 1 
 
 XX. Lead. 
 
 1. Native, or united to simple bodies 7 
 
 2. Oxygen salts of lead. 
 
 a Simple 7 
 
 ft Double 10 
 
 c Triple 2 
 
 3. Sulphur salts 5 
 
 XXI. Tin 2 
 
 XXH. Bismuth. 
 
 1. Native, or combined with simple 
 bodies 6 
 
 2. Oxygen salts 2 
 
 3. Sulphur salts 1 
 
 XXDJ. Copper. . 
 
 1. Native, or combined with simple 
 bodies 6 
 
 2. Oxygen salts 19 
 
 3. Chlorine salts 1 
 
 4. Sulphur salts 5 
 
 5. Selenium salts .... 1 
 XXIV. Mercury 5 
 
 XXV. Silver. ■ 
 
 1. Native, or combined with simple 
 
 bodies 10 
 
 751
 
 MINERALOGY. 
 
 Species. 
 
 2. Oxygen salts * 
 
 3. Sulphur salts 6 
 
 XXVI. Uranium •» 
 
 XXVII. Palladium » 
 
 Class HI. Neutral Bases. 
 
 I. Gold 8 
 
 II. Platinum J 
 
 III. Iridium 1 
 
 We have given the above as a specimen of a chemical 
 mineralogif al arrangement ; and except, perhaps, that the 
 la<t classes unnecessarily separated from the preceding, it is 
 sufficiently simple and explicit The individual characters 
 of each species, such as colour, fracture, hardness, specihe 
 gravity, and crystalline forms, constitute, of course, a neces- 
 sary part of their description. 
 
 One of the most useful practical works on Mineralogy, 
 and. in our language at least, the most available for the use 
 of the student, is Mr. Allan's edition of the Elementary In- 
 troduction to that science of the late Mr. William Phillips. 
 In this work the following order of arrangement is adopted ; 
 and the annexed tables give the distinctive constituents of 
 the respective species. 
 
 N.B.— The proportions are indicated by figures, where ascertained ; when 
 doabtful, are marked thus — . 
 
 EARTHY MINERALS. 
 
 Silica. 
 
 Silica 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Quarts . 
 
 100 
 
 Alu- 
 
 
 
 
 
 Opal 
 
 — 
 
 mina. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Flint . 
 
 98 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 Calecdony 
 
 84 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 Jaspar . • 
 Hornstone ■ * 
 
 71 
 
 16 
 
 Lime. 
 
 Water. 
 
 10 
 
 Man- 
 gan. 
 
 Leelite . 
 
 75 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Karpholite ( . 
 
 37 
 
 29 
 
 
 11 
 
 3 
 
 20 
 
 Alumo-calcite 
 
 86 
 
 3 
 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 Garnet . 
 
 43 
 
 16 
 
 20 
 
 
 21 
 
 
 Cinnamon-stone 
 
 40 
 
 23 
 
 32 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 Idocrase . . 
 
 40 
 
 33 
 
 22 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 Gehlenite 
 
 29 
 
 24 
 
 35 
 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 
 Prebnite 
 
 44 
 
 23 
 
 20 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 
 Stilbite . 
 
 68 
 
 17 
 
 9 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 Heulandite . 
 
 59 
 
 15 
 
 12 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 Dipyre . 
 
 62 
 
 25 
 
 11 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Davyne . 
 
 45 
 
 34 
 
 13 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 Laumonite 
 
 50 
 
 22 
 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 
 
 Zoisite . 
 
 43 
 
 31 
 
 22 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 Epidote 
 
 40 
 
 28 
 
 15 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 Axini'e 
 
 50 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 
 9 
 
 S 
 
 Isopyre . 
 Indianite 
 
 43 
 
 14 
 
 16 
 
 
 22 
 
 
 43 
 
 38 
 
 15 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 Xanthile . 
 
 35 
 
 14 
 
 38 
 
 
 13 
 
 Mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 Anthophyllite • 
 
 63 
 
 14 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 13 
 
 4 
 
 Amphodelite . 
 
 46 
 
 36 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 
 5 
 
 Smaragdite . 
 
 50 
 
 21 
 
 13 
 
 
 13 
 
 3 
 
 Anorthite 
 
 45 
 
 34 
 
 15 
 
 
 I 
 
 5 
 
 Clays . 
 
 75 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 Kerolite 
 
 39 
 
 13 
 
 
 31 
 
 
 17 
 
 Pyrophyllite . 
 
 60 
 
 30 
 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 Fahlunite 
 
 48 
 
 29 
 
 
 13 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 Chiastolite 
 
 67 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Iolite . 
 
 50 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 11 
 
 Sordawalite . 
 
 50 
 
 15 
 
 Bar. and 
 
 Strontia. 
 
 5 
 
 19 
 
 11 
 
 Harmotome . 
 
 47 
 
 IS 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 Brcwsterite . 
 
 54 
 
 17 
 
 15 
 
 Lithia. 
 
 13 
 
 1 
 
 
 Petalite . 
 
 78 
 
 17 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 gpodumene . . 
 
 66 
 
 25 
 
 8 
 Lime. 
 
 
 1 
 
 Man- 
 gan. 
 
 Jeffersonite . . 
 
 68 
 
 2 
 
 16 
 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 
 Tabular spar . 
 
 52 
 
 
 46 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 Okenite . 
 
 57 
 
 
 27 
 
 16 
 Titan. 
 
 
 Mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 Melinite 
 
 40 
 
 3 
 
 20 
 
 4 
 
 14 
 
 19 
 
 Gismondine . 
 
 43 
 
 3 
 
 48 
 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 
 Augite . 
 
 53 
 
 
 ■22 
 
 
 17 
 
 8 
 
 Piopside 
 
 58 
 
 
 17 
 
 
 6 
 
 19 
 
 Babingtonite. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bucklandite. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hornblende . . 
 
 59 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 7 
 
 20 
 
 Arfnedtonite. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hypersihcnc . 
 
 56 
 
 3 
 
 I 
 
 Water. 
 
 26 
 
 14 
 
 Schiller spar . 
 
 43 
 
 
 I 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 29 
 
 Bronzite 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 32 
 
 Thulite . 
 
 47 
 Alu- 
 
 23 
 Wa- 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Alumina. 
 
 miaa. 
 
 ter. 
 
 Silica. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 
 Corundum 
 
 9S 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Diaspnse 
 
 85 
 
 14 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Gibbsite 
 
 65 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 
 
 Calaile . 
 
 74 
 
 19 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 Hvdrate of alumina 
 
 45 
 
 40 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 
 Alluphane . 
 
 34 
 
 42 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 
 Scarbroite 
 
 43 
 
 48 
 
 8 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Hallonito 
 
 34 
 
 26 
 
 411 
 
 
 
 
 Worth ile 
 
 54 
 
 6 
 
 41 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 702 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 EARTHY MINERALS— amtmutd. 
 
 
 
 
 Alu- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alumina. 
 
 mina. 
 
 
 Silica. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 
 Fibrolite . 
 
 58 
 
 
 38 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 Sillimanite . 
 
 55 
 
 
 43 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Kayanite • 
 
 64 
 
 
 34 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Staurolite . 
 
 52 
 
 Mag. 
 
 nesia. 
 
 30 
 
 18 
 
 Fluor. 
 A. 
 
 Ox. of 
 Zinc. 
 
 Antomalite ■ 
 
 60 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 
 24 
 
 Fluellite 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 Topa2 . 
 
 68 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 Chrysoberyl . • 
 
 81 
 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 
 Spinel . . 
 
 74 
 
 S 
 
 15 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 Sappliinne ■ 
 
 64 
 
 17 
 
 15 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 Pleonaste • 
 
 67 
 
 14 
 
 8 
 
 16 
 
 
 Lime. 
 
 Turnerite 
 
 Mag- 
 
 Wa- 
 
 
 
 
 
 Magnesia. 
 
 nesia. 
 
 ter. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hydrate of magnesia 
 
 70 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 
 
 Chrysolite 
 
 43 
 
 
 33 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 Olivine 
 
 38 
 
 
 60 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 Ligairite. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Forsterite 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Condroditc . 
 
 56 
 
 
 38 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Humite. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tautolite 
 
 — 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Alu- 
 
 
 Serpentine 
 
 40 
 
 15 
 
 42 
 
 3 
 
 mina. 
 
 
 Soapstone • . 
 
 25 
 
 19 
 
 46 
 
 1 
 
 9 
 
 
 Steatite 
 
 32 
 
 7 
 
 59 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Potstone 
 
 30 
 
 3 
 
 49 
 
 12 
 
 6 
 
 
 Nephrite 
 
 31 
 
 3 
 
 50 
 
 6 
 
 10 
 
 
 Nemalite 
 
 52 
 
 29 
 
 13 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Marmolite 
 
 42 
 
 15 
 
 42 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Picrolite . 
 
 38 
 
 12 
 
 41 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 Picrosmine . 
 
 35 
 Zirco- 
 
 8 
 
 65 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Zirconia, 
 
 nia. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Zircon . . 
 
 69 
 
 
 29 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 Ostiaoite, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Glucina. 
 
 Glucina. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Euclase • 
 
 22 
 
 
 44 
 
 3 
 
 31 
 
 
 Emerald 
 
 15 
 
 Glu- 
 
 63 
 
 1 
 
 16 
 Ce- 
 
 
 Yttria. 
 
 Yttria. 
 
 cina. 
 
 
 
 rium. 
 
 
 Gadolinlte 
 
 38 
 
 5 
 
 25 
 
 16 
 Iron, 
 
 16 
 Wa- 
 
 
 77ioriruJ, 
 
 Thorina. 
 
 Lime. 
 
 
 &c. 
 
 ter. 
 
 
 Thorite . . 
 
 58 
 
 3 
 
 20 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 
 ALKALINO-EARTHY MINERALS. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alu- 
 
 
 Mag- 
 
 
 Potath. 
 
 Potash. 
 
 Silica. 
 
 mina. 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 ( 
 
 in 
 
 46 
 
 14 
 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 Mica . . > 
 
 8 
 
 48 
 
 25 
 
 4 
 
 Lime. 
 
 15 
 
 Rub.-ll.ine 
 
 10 
 
 45 
 
 in 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 Margarite . 
 
 2 
 
 40 
 
 42 
 
 1 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 Leucile • . 
 
 21 
 
 56 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 
 Herschellite. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Andalusite 
 
 4 
 
 36 
 
 55 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 Bucholzite 
 
 2 
 
 46 
 
 60 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Pbillipsite . 
 
 7 
 
 48 
 
 23 
 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 
 Apophyllite . 
 
 5 
 
 82 
 
 
 18 
 
 25 
 
 
 Dysctasite 
 
 2 
 
 55 
 
 
 14 
 
 26 
 
 Mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 
 Nacrite . . 
 
 IS 
 
 50 
 
 23 
 
 SuIph.A. 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 Hauyne . 
 
 16 
 
 38 
 
 19 
 
 13 
 Water. 
 
 12 
 
 2 
 
 Weissite . . 
 
 6 
 
 55 
 
 23 
 
 4 
 
 9 
 
 3 
 
 Peailstone 
 
 4 
 
 76 
 
 12 
 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 Gieseckite . ■ 
 
 7 
 
 48 
 
 36 
 
 6 
 
 
 4 
 
 Finite . 
 
 9 
 
 56 
 
 25 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 Pyrargylllte . 
 
 3 
 
 44 
 
 29 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 
 5 
 
 Felspar 
 
 14 
 
 67 
 
 19 
 
 
 Lime. 
 
 
 Latrobite . 
 
 7 
 
 45 
 
 37 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 
 Agalmatolite 
 
 7 
 
 56 
 
 29 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 Mag. 
 
 uesia. 
 
 1 
 
 Chlorite 
 
 7 
 
 52 
 
 10 
 
 6 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 Kllliuite 
 
 6 
 
 66 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 Lime. 
 
 3 
 
 Couzeranite ' i 
 
 10 
 
 53 
 
 24 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 Glaucolite . 
 
 6 
 
 62 
 
 29 
 
 and 
 Flu. A. 
 
 14 
 Li- 
 thia. 
 
 
 Lepidolite 
 
 9 
 
 50 
 
 29 
 
 6 
 
 6 
 
 2 
 
 Soda. 
 
 Soda. 
 
 
 
 Water. 
 
 Lime. 
 
 
 Mcsotype . 
 
 16 
 
 48 
 
 27 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 Thomsonite . 
 
 5 
 
 33 
 
 30 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 
 Mesole . 
 
 8 
 
 42 
 
 23 
 
 1 1 
 
 11 
 
 
 Needlestone . 
 
 6 
 
 47 
 
 26 
 
 12 
 
 9 
 
 
 Brcvlcite 
 
 10 
 
 44 
 
 29 
 
 10 
 
 7 
 
 
 Gmelinite 
 
 5 
 
 50 
 
 20 
 
 21 
 
 4 
 
 
 Comptonite, 
 
 
 
 Mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 
 
 Fhos. 
 
 A. 
 
 Ledererito 
 
 4 
 
 50 
 
 22 
 Alu- 
 mina. 
 
 9 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 Hypoetilbite . 
 
 2 
 
 63 
 
 IS 
 
 19 
 
 8 

 
 MINERALOGY. 
 
 ALKALINO-EARTHY MINERALS— confiiHMa'. 
 
 Soda. 
 
 Soda. 
 
 Epistilbite . 
 
 2 
 
 Spherostilbite 
 
 and 
 
 
 Potash 
 
 Erlamite 
 
 3 
 
 Humbrjldtilite 
 
 D 
 
 Lapis-lazuli . 
 
 9 
 
 Nephelioe 
 
 20 
 
 Itinerite 
 
 14 
 
 Elaolite 
 
 21 
 
 Nuttalite 
 
 8 
 
 
 Soda. 
 
 Sodalite 
 
 26 
 
 Cancrinite 
 
 26 
 
 Spinellane 
 
 IS 
 
 Pericline 
 
 10 
 
 Labradorite . 
 
 4 
 
 Albite . 
 
 11 
 
 1 Analcime 
 
 14 
 
 Sarcolite. 
 
 
 Pitchstone 
 
 3 
 
 Pumice 
 
 3 
 
 Obsidian 
 
 10 
 
 Spberulite 
 
 4 
 
 Saussurite . ■ 
 
 6 
 
 Scapolite 
 
 1 
 
 Ekebergite . 
 
 5 
 
 Pei/tolite 
 
 10 
 
 Chabasie . 
 
 2 
 
 Levyne. 
 
 
 Tourmaline . 
 
 3 
 
 Meionite 
 
 2 
 
 Edingtonite . 
 
 3 
 
 Krokydolite . 
 
 S 
 
 Achmite 
 
 11 
 
 Cummiogtonite 
 
 9 
 
 Eudvalite 
 
 14 
 
 Alu- 
 
 Magne- 
 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 2 
 
 17 
 
 3 
 
 14 
 
 4 
 
 34 
 
 19 
 
 10 
 
 
 Mag- 
 
 Bor. A. 
 
 nesia 
 
 Iron, 
 
 ACIDIFEROUS EARTHY MINERALS-conttwuerf. 
 
 
 
 ACIDS. 
 
 
 
 Sulphuri 
 Boracic 
 
 
 
 Sulphur. 
 
 40 
 
 Boron. 
 
 26 
 
 Oxygen. 
 60 
 
 Oxygen. 
 74 
 
 
 ACIDIFEROUS EARTHY MINERALS. 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 Alu- 
 
 
 
 
 
 \Alumma. 
 
 Sul. A. 
 
 mina. 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Subsulphate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 alumina 
 
 24 
 
 30 
 
 46 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sulphate of alu- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 mina 
 
 36 
 Phos. A. 
 
 16 
 
 4S 
 
 
 
 
 
 Wavellite . 
 
 35 
 
 37 
 
 28 
 
 Silica. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 
 Eakoxene . 
 
 IS 
 
 10 
 
 26 
 
 10 
 
 36 
 
 Lithia. 
 
 
 Amblvgonite 
 
 64 
 
 39 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 
 Childrenite 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Magne- 
 
 
 Azurite 
 
 43 
 
 35 
 
 6 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 10 
 
 
 Lima. 
 
 Carb. A. 
 
 Lime. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Carbonate of lime 
 
 44 
 
 56 
 
 
 
 
 Stron- 
 tia. 
 
 
 Arragonite 
 
 44 
 
 54 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 Magne- 
 
 
 Bitter spar . 
 
 50 
 
 34 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 
 Ankerite . 
 
 35 
 
 50 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 12 
 
 
 Plumbo-calcite . 
 
 43 
 
 Phos. A. 
 
 54 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 Apatite 
 
 44 
 
 56 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Herderite. 
 
 Fluor. 
 A. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Fluor spar . 
 
 2S 
 Sul. A. 
 
 72 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Anhydrite . 
 
 68 
 
 42 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gypsum 
 
 46 
 Nit. A. 
 
 33 
 
 21 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nitrate of lime . 
 
 66 
 Bor. A. 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Datholite . 
 
 22 
 
 Arsen. 
 
 A. 
 
 36 
 
 6 
 
 37 
 
 
 
 
 Pharmacolite 
 
 50 
 
 26 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 
 
 Haidingcrite 
 
 57 
 
 29 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tung. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tungstateoflime 
 
 80 
 
 | 20 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 Carb. 
 
 Magne- 
 
 
 
 
 Mapies ia. 
 
 A. 
 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 
 Carbonate of magnesia 
 
 50 
 
 48 
 
 2 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 Breunnerite . . 
 
 49 
 
 42 
 
 
 9 
 
 Lime. 
 
 Conite .... 
 
 49 
 Sul. A. 
 
 33 
 
 
 3 
 
 15 
 
 Sulphate of magnesia . 
 
 33 
 Nit. A. 
 
 16 
 
 51 
 
 
 
 Nitrate of magnesia 
 
 72 
 
 Phos. 
 
 A. 
 
 28 
 
 
 
 Fluor. 
 A. 
 
 Wagnerite . • 
 
 42 
 
 Borac. 
 
 A. 
 
 47 
 
 
 4 
 
 7 
 
 Boracite • 
 
 69 
 
 31 
 
 
 
 Lime. 
 
 Hydro-boracite 
 
 50 
 Carb. 
 
 11 
 
 26 
 
 
 13 
 
 Baryta. 
 
 A. 
 
 Baryta. 
 
 
 
 
 Witherite 
 
 22 
 
 78 
 
 
 
 
 Baryto-calcite 
 
 31 
 
 Sul. A. 
 
 51 
 
 
 
 18 
 
 " Barytes 
 
 34 
 Carb. 
 
 66 
 Stron- 
 
 
 
 
 S(ron(i'a. 
 
 A. 
 
 tia. 
 
 
 
 
 Strontites , . • 
 
 30 
 
 70 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sul. A. 
 
 Bary- 
 ta. 
 
 Lime, 
 &c. 
 
 Barystrontianite . 
 
 22 
 Sul. A. 
 
 48 
 
 9 
 
 IS 
 
 3 
 
 Celestine . , 
 
 44 
 Phos. 
 
 56 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 Yttria. 
 
 A. 
 
 Yttria. 
 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Phosphate of yttria 
 
 1 35 
 
 63 
 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 ACIDIFEROUS ALKALINE MINERALS. 
 
 Potash. 
 
 Nitric Acid. 
 
 Potash. 
 
 
 Nitrate of potash 
 
 54 
 Sulp. Acid. 
 
 46 
 
 
 Sulphate of potash . 
 
 46 
 
 64 
 
 
 Soda. 
 
 Carbon. Acid. 
 
 Soda. 
 
 Water. 
 
 Carbonate of soda 
 
 35 
 
 60 
 
 15 
 
 Trona .... 
 
 39 
 
 Sulph. A. 
 
 38 
 
 23 
 
 Sulphate of soda 
 
 45 
 Nitric A. 
 
 35 
 
 20 
 
 Nitrate of soda 
 
 63 
 
 Boracic A. 
 
 37 
 
 
 Borate of soda . 
 
 37 
 
 Muriatic A. 
 
 15 
 
 4S 
 
 Muriate of soda 
 
 47 
 
 63 
 
 
 Ammonia 
 
 Sulph. A. 
 
 Ammonia. 
 
 
 Sulphate of ammonia 
 
 53 
 Muriatic A. 
 
 23 
 
 24 
 
 Muriate of ammonia 
 
 51 
 
 1 32 
 
 17 
 
 ACIDIFEROUS ALKALI NO- EARTHY MINERALS. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Alu- 
 
 
 
 
 Potash. 
 
 Sul. A. 
 
 Potash. 
 
 mina. 
 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 Alum . 
 
 34 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 
 45 
 
 
 Alum-stone . 
 
 36 
 
 10 
 
 40 
 
 Lime. 
 
 14 
 
 Mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 Polyhallite . 
 
 53 
 Fluor. 
 
 15 
 
 
 19 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 Soda. 
 
 A. 
 
 Soda. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cryolite 
 
 44 
 Sul. A. 
 
 32 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 
 Glauberite . 
 
 57 
 
 22 
 Potash. 
 
 
 21 
 
 Mur. A. 
 
 
 Reussite • . 
 
 67 
 
 29 
 
 
 
 2 
 Water. 
 
 12 
 
 Soda-alum . 
 
 38 
 Carb. A. 
 
 8 
 
 12 
 
 
 42 
 
 
 Gaylussite . 
 
 29 
 
 20 
 
 1 
 
 IS 
 
 32 
 
 Iron, 
 
 Native carbonate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ate. 
 
 lime and soda . 
 
 37 
 
 9 
 
 
 39 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 Ammonia. 
 
 
 Ammo- 
 
 
 
 
 Mag- 
 
 Sulphate of alumina 
 
 Sul. A. 
 
 nia. 
 
 
 
 
 nesia. 
 
 and ammonia . 
 
 37 
 
 5 
 
 12 
 
 
 45 
 
 
 METALLIFEROUS MINERALS. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Sul- 
 phur. 
 
 
 
 
 Nickel. 
 
 Native iron 
 
 97 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Iron pyrites 
 
 47 
 
 63 
 
 
 
 
 
 White iron 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 pyrites 
 
 46 
 
 54 
 
 
 
 
 
 Magnetic 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iron pyrites 
 
 61 
 
 39 
 
 
 
 
 
 Arsenical 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Arsen. 
 
 iron 
 
 36 
 
 21 
 
 
 
 
 43 
 
 Oxydulated 
 
 72 
 
 Oxygen. 
 28 
 
 
 
 
 
 Specular 
 
 69 
 
 31 
 
 Water. 
 
 Silica. 
 
 Lime. 
 
 
 Red haematite 
 
 65 
 
 29 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 
 3A 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 VM 
 

 
 MINERALOGY. 
 
 METALLIFEROCS MINERALS— continued. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Oxvgen. 
 
 Water. 
 
 Silica. 
 
 Maiijcui. 
 
 Zinc. 
 
 Franklinite 
 
 46 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 14 
 
 Hydrous ox- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 'ide of iron 
 
 57 
 
 26 
 
 14 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 
 Goethite . 
 
 61 
 
 26 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 
 Brown he- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 matite 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Stilpnosider- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ite . 
 
 56 
 
 25 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 
 
 M>g- 
 Desia. 
 
 Cronstedtite 
 
 42 
 
 IS 
 
 II 
 
 22 
 
 2 
 
 5 
 
 Pinguite . 
 
 25 
 
 11 
 
 26 
 
 37 
 
 
 I 
 
 Anhydrous 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 silicate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 iron 
 
 51 
 
 19 
 
 
 29 
 
 1 
 
 Alu- 
 mina. 
 
 Chloropal . 
 
 24 
 
 11 
 
 16 
 
 44 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 CUamoisite 
 
 42 
 
 19 
 
 17 
 
 14 
 
 
 8 
 
 Siierochiso- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 lite . 
 
 53 
 
 20 
 
 7 
 
 16 
 
 
 4 
 
 Hisiagerite 
 
 37 
 
 15 
 
 12 
 
 29 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 Lime 
 
 Yenite 
 
 39 
 
 16 
 
 1 
 
 30 
 
 2 
 
 s t 
 
 12 
 Arsen. 
 
 Pitchy iron 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 ore . 
 
 24 
 
 11 
 
 29 
 
 
 ro 
 
 Mur. A. 
 
 26 
 Mangan. 
 
 Pyrosmalite 
 
 24 
 
 10 
 
 
 36 
 
 Carb. A 
 
 16 
 
 Spathose iron 
 
 46 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 40 
 
 
 Phosphate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 Phos. A. 
 
 
 iron 
 
 32 
 
 10 
 
 27 
 
 
 31 
 
 
 Heteposite . 
 
 32 
 
 11 
 
 — 
 
 
 43 
 
 9 
 
 Karphosider- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ite . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 ~ 
 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 
 Sulphate of 
 iron 
 
 19 
 
 7 
 
 45 
 
 
 A. 
 29 
 
 
 Botryogene 
 
 25 
 
 10 
 
 33 
 
 
 32 
 
 
 Misy . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 Arsen. 
 
 
 Arseniate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 
 iron 
 
 29 
 
 13 
 
 20 
 
 
 33 
 
 
 Oxalate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 Oxal. A. 
 
 
 iron 
 
 41 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 46 
 Tung. 
 
 
 Tungstate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 
 iron 
 
 14 
 
 9 
 
 
 2 
 
 71 
 
 4 
 
 Manganese. 
 
 Mangan. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Baryta. 
 
 Hausmannite 
 
 78 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 
 Braunite . 
 
 68 
 
 29 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Pyrolusite . 
 
 66 
 
 31 
 
 2 
 
 t 
 
 
 
 Gray oxide of 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 manganese 
 
 68 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 Psilomelane 
 
 55 
 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Silica. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 &c 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 Wad . 
 
 48 
 
 21 
 
 17 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 
 Cupreous 
 
 
 
 
 
 Copper. 
 
 
 mangan . 
 
 53 
 
 23 
 
 20 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 Iron. 
 
 Glucina. 
 
 Helrine . 
 
 34 
 
 S 
 
 5 
 
 33 
 
 6 
 
 9 
 
 Siliciferous 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 oxide of 
 
 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 
 
 manganese 
 
 36 
 
 17 
 
 8 
 
 40 
 
 4 
 
 
 Hydrosilicate 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 of manga- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 nese 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Knebelite . 
 
 27 
 
 15 
 
 
 33 
 
 25 
 
 Lime. 
 
 Bustamite . 
 
 23 
 
 S 
 
 
 49 
 
 
 15 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 
 
 Sulphur. 
 
 
 Carb. A. 
 
 manganese 
 
 66 
 
 IS 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 11 
 
 Carbonate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Lime. 
 
 manganese 
 
 39 
 
 17 
 
 
 1 
 
 38 
 
 6 
 
 Pelokonite . 
 
 
 
 ~ 
 
 
 
 Phos. A. 
 
 Huraulite . 
 
 24 
 
 14 
 
 16 
 
 
 8 
 
 33 
 
 Phosphate of 
 
 
 
 
 Lime. 
 
 
 
 manganese 
 
 25 
 
 14 
 
 
 2 
 
 25 
 
 34 
 
 Molybdma. 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 Molyhd. 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 
 
 
 
 molybdena 
 
 60 
 
 40 
 
 
 
 
 
 Oxide of mo- 
 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 
 
 
 
 lybdena . 
 
 85 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 Tin. 
 
 Tin. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Oxide of tin 
 
 79 
 
 21 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 tin . 
 
 36 
 
 Sulph. 
 26 
 
 Copper. 
 36 
 
 Iron. 
 2 
 
 
 
 Tungsten. 
 
 Ismgd 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Oxide of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 tungsten . 
 
 86 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 
 
 Titanium. 
 
 Titan. 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Silica. 
 
 
 
 Ana'ase 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 
 Rutile . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Iserine 
 
 45 
 
 16 
 
 36 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 Brookite 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 Crtchtonitc 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 Mangan. 
 
 Ilmenite 
 
 69 
 
 10 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 Mohsite 
 
 _ 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 Lime. 
 
 
 Spbene 
 
 ! 33 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 33 
 
 
 METALUFEROfS MINERALS— conti?iued. 
 
 Titan m 
 
 Tit. A. 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 Water. 
 
 Cerium. 
 
 Lmie. 
 
 Ino. 
 
 Pyrochlore 
 
 63 
 
 10 
 
 4 
 
 Iron, 4c. 
 
 5 
 
 13 
 
 5 
 Zircon. 
 
 iEscbynite . 
 
 36 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 an! 
 Yttria. 
 
 4 
 
 20 
 
 Polymignite 
 
 53 
 
 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 4 
 
 15 
 
 Cerium. 
 
 Cerium. 
 
 
 Silica. 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Cerile 
 
 54 
 
 15 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 Silicate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 cerium . 
 
 
 
 
 
 and 
 Alum. 
 
 
 All.mite . 
 
 19 
 
 15 
 
 33 
 
 3 
 
 26 
 
 4 
 
 Torrelite . 
 
 11 
 
 8 
 
 33 
 
 4 
 
 28 
 
 and 
 
 Yttria. 
 
 16 
 
 Orthite 
 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 36 
 
 8 
 
 24 
 
 10 
 
 and 
 
 Carbon. 
 
 Pyrorthite . 
 
 12 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 27 
 
 5 
 
 41 
 
 Carbonate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 Carb. A. 
 
 
 cerium . 
 
 60 
 
 16 
 
 Lime. 
 
 13 
 
 11 
 
 Fluor. 
 A. 
 
 Yttria. 
 
 Yttro- cerile 
 
 14 
 
 4 
 
 47 
 
 
 25 
 
 10 
 
 Fluate of ce- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 rium 
 
 66 
 
 17 
 
 
 
 16 
 
 1 
 
 Sulp. 
 Lead. 
 
 Uranium. 
 
 Cran. 
 
 
 Silica. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 Pitchblende 
 
 82 
 
 5 
 
 5 
 
 Lime. 
 &c 
 
 3 
 
 Water. 
 
 Phos. A. 
 
 Uranite 
 
 65 
 
 7 
 
 7 
 
 I 
 
 15 
 
 15 
 
 Chalkolite . 
 
 65 
 
 8 
 Carb. A. 
 
 
 Copper. 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 Carbonate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 uranium 
 
 
 Sulph. 
 A. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Johannite . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 
 Tantalum. 
 
 Tantal. 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 Mangan. 
 
 Yttria. 
 
 
 Tantalite 
 
 81 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 Lime. 
 
 Yttro tantalite 
 
 51 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 Cerium. 
 
 Tin, &c. 
 
 37 
 
 4 
 Zer- 
 
 conia. 
 
 Fergusonite 
 
 44 
 
 5 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 42 
 
 3 
 
 Chrtyme. 
 
 Chr. 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 
 
 Oxide of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 chrome . 
 
 70 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 
 Alu- 
 
 Chromate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 mina. 
 
 iron 
 
 39 
 
 28 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 Bismuth. 
 
 Bis- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Native bis* 
 
 muth. 
 
 Sulphur. 
 
 Copper. 
 
 Lead. 
 
 
 
 muth 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 bismuth . 
 
 81 
 
 19 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cupreous bis* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 muth 
 
 49 
 
 13 
 
 38 
 
 
 
 
 Needle ore 
 
 43 
 
 15 
 
 12 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 Oxide of bis- 
 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 90 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bismuth- 
 
 
 
 Silica. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 Phos. A. 
 
 blende 
 
 62 
 
 9 
 
 23 
 
 2 
 
 Sulphur 
 
 4 
 
 Telluric bis- 
 
 
 
 
 Tellur. 
 
 & Selen. 
 
 Silver. 
 
 muth 
 
 64 
 
 
 
 31 
 
 3 
 
 2 
 
 Arsenic 
 
 Arsenic. 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 
 Anti- 
 
 Native ar- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 mony. 
 
 senic 
 
 96 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Oxide of ar- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 senic 
 
 76 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 70 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 
 
 Arsenical py- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Nickel. 
 
 rites 
 
 65 
 
 5 
 
 28 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 Cobalt. 
 
 Cobalt. 
 
 Arsenic 
 
 Sulphur. 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 Bright white 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 cobalt . 
 
 34 
 
 44 
 
 20 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 Tin white 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 cobalt . 
 
 22 
 
 75 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Bis- 
 
 Bismuth co- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 muth. 
 
 balt ore . 
 
 10 
 
 78 
 
 3 
 
 
 5 
 
 4 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Copper. 
 
 cobalt 
 
 44 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 39 
 
 Water. 
 
 4 
 
 13 
 
 Earthy cobalt 
 
 61 
 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Arsen. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 
 
 
 Cobalt bloom 
 
 31 
 
 9 
 
 33 
 
 22 
 
 Lime. 
 
 Mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 Roselite 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 Sulphate of 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 
 
 
 cobalt . 
 
 23 
 
 6 
 
 30 
 
 41 
 
 
 
 Nickel. 
 
 Nickel. 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 nickel 
 
 65 
 
 35 
 
 Anti- 
 
 
 
 
 Antimnnial 
 
 
 
 rnonv. 
 
 
 
 
 nickel 
 
 23 
 
 16 
 
 56 
 
 
 
 I
 
 MINERALOGY. 
 
 METALLIFEROUS MINERALS— continued. 
 
 Nickel. 
 
 
 
 
 
 ArseDical 
 
 Nickel. 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 Arsenic. 
 
 
 nickel . 
 
 44 
 
 1 
 Oxygen 
 
 55 
 
 Aran. 
 
 A. 
 
 Water 
 
 Nickel ochre 
 
 30 
 
 s 
 
 37 
 
 Silica. 
 
 25 
 
 Fimelite 
 
 13 
 
 3 
 
 35 
 
 38 
 
 Silver. 
 
 Silver. 
 
 
 
 
 Native silver 
 
 100 
 
 
 Anti- 
 
 
 Antimouial 
 
 
 
 mony. 
 
 
 silver 
 
 S4 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 Telluric sil- 
 
 
 
 Tellur. 
 
 
 ver 
 
 63 
 
 
 37 
 
 
 SulphuTel of 
 
 
 Sulphur. 
 
 
 
 silver 
 
 87 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 Flexible sul- 
 
 
 
 
 
 phuret of 
 
 
 
 
 Iron. 
 
 silver 
 
 
 
 
 
 Sternbergite 
 
 33 
 
 33 
 
 
 34 
 
 Brittle sul- 
 
 
 
 
 
 phuret of 
 
 
 
 Antim. 
 
 
 silver . 
 
 68 
 
 16 
 
 14 
 
 2 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 
 
 
 silver and 
 
 
 
 
 
 antimony. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Polybasite . 
 
 65 
 
 17 
 
 5 
 
 
 Red silver * 
 
 60 
 
 23 
 20 
 
 17 
 
 
 Miargyrite 
 
 37 
 
 22 
 
 40 
 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 
 
 
 silver and 
 
 
 
 
 
 copper . 
 
 53 
 
 16 
 
 Bis. 
 
 
 Bismuthic 
 
 
 
 muth. 
 
 
 silver . 
 
 15 
 
 17 
 Sele- 
 
 28 
 
 6 
 
 Seleniuret of 
 
 
 nium. 
 
 
 
 silver 
 
 69 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 Seleniuret of 
 
 
 
 
 
 silver and 
 
 
 
 
 
 copper . 
 
 39 
 
 28 
 Iodine. 
 
 
 
 Iodic silver 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Anti- 
 
 
 Carbonate of 
 
 
 
 mony. 
 
 
 Bilver 
 
 73 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 Muriate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 silver 
 
 72 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 Gansekothig- 
 
 
 
 
 
 er2 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 Copper. 
 
 Copper. 
 
 
 
 
 Native cop- 
 
 
 
 
 
 per 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 Sulphur. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 copper . 
 
 78 
 
 19 
 
 3 
 
 
 Kupferindig 
 
 65 
 
 33 
 
 2 
 
 
 Bi-sulphuret 
 
 
 
 
 
 of copper 
 
 67 
 
 33 
 
 
 
 Purple cop- 
 
 
 
 
 
 per 
 
 62 
 
 23 
 
 15 
 
 Arsenic 
 
 Grey copper 
 
 48 
 
 13 
 
 25 
 
 14 
 
 Copper py- 
 
 
 
 
 
 rites 
 
 33 
 
 36 
 
 31 
 
 Selen. 
 
 Seleniuret of 
 
 
 
 
 
 copper . 
 
 60 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 
 40 
 
 Red oxide of 
 
 
 
 
 
 copper • 
 
 69 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 Black copper 
 
 80 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 Blue carbo- 
 
 
 
 
 
 nate of cop- 
 
 
 
 
 Carh. A. 
 
 per . 
 
 55 
 
 14 
 
 
 26 
 
 Green carbo- 
 
 
 
 
 
 nate of cop- 
 
 
 
 
 
 per . 
 
 57 
 
 15 
 
 
 19 
 
 Chrysocolla 
 
 35 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 Dioptase 
 
 38 
 
 11 
 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 Sulphate of 
 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 copper . 
 
 25 
 
 7 
 
 
 32 
 
 Brochantite 
 
 53 
 
 15 
 
 
 17 
 
 Kupfer- 
 
 
 
 
 
 sammterz 
 
 
 
 
 
 Muriate of 
 
 
 
 
 Vlur. A. 
 
 copper . 
 
 57 
 
 15 
 
 
 11 
 
 Phosphate of 
 
 
 
 
 Phos. A. 
 
 copper . 
 
 51 
 
 14 
 
 
 23 
 
 Hydrous 
 
 
 
 
 
 phosphate 
 
 
 
 
 
 of copper 
 
 50 
 
 13 
 
 
 22 
 
 Arseniate of 
 
 
 
 
 A. ' 
 
 copper . 
 
 2D 
 
 S 
 
 
 28 
 
 Euchroite . 
 
 38 
 
 10 
 
 
 33 
 
 Kupfer- 
 
 
 
 
 
 schaum . 
 
 37 
 
 9 
 
 
 26 
 
 F.rinite 
 
 47 
 
 12 
 
 
 34 
 
 Skorodite . 
 
 18 
 
 10 
 
 21 
 
 32 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 
 
 
 Native gold 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 
 Alu- 
 mina. 
 6 
 
 Copper. 
 
 METALLIFEROUS MINERALS-ctmfi>iu«*. 
 
 
 Plat via. 
 
 Platiua. 
 
 
 
 
 Native pla- 
 tina 
 
 100 
 Palla- 
 
 
 
 Lime, 
 
 Palladium. 
 
 dium. 
 
 
 
 &c. 
 
 Native pal- 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 ladium . 
 
 Iridium. 
 
 Native iri- 
 dium 
 
 100 
 
 Iridium. 
 
 100 
 
 
 Rho- 
 
 
 Iridium and 
 
 
 Osmium. 
 
 dium. 
 
 
 osmium . 
 
 47 
 Tellu- 
 
 49 
 
 3 
 
 
 Tellurium. 
 
 rium. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 Silver. 
 
 
 Native tel- 
 
 
 
 
 
 lurium . 
 
 92 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 Graphic tel- 
 
 
 
 
 
 lurium . 
 
 53 
 
 28 
 
 12 
 
 
 Yellow tel- 
 
 
 
 
 
 lurium . 
 
 45 
 
 27 
 
 8 
 
 
 Black tel- 
 
 
 
 
 
 lurium i 
 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 
 Arsenic. 
 
 
 Anti- 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 Antimony. 
 Native an- 
 
 mony. 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 15 
 
 timony . 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 
 Berthierite 
 
 53 
 
 31 
 
 16 
 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 
 
 
 antimony 
 
 74 
 
 26 
 
 
 
 Jamesonite 
 
 35 
 
 23 
 
 2 
 
 
 Plagionite . 
 
 33 
 
 2Z 
 
 
 Lead. 
 
 Zinkenite . 
 
 45 
 
 23 
 
 
 34 
 
 Red antimo- 
 
 
 
 
 
 ny . 
 
 75 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 Oxide of an- 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 timony . 
 
 84 
 
 
 
 Carb. 
 
 Antimonial 
 
 
 
 
 A. &c. 
 
 ochre 
 
 
 
 
 
 9 
 
 Antimon- 
 phyllite . 
 
 _ 
 
 
 
 Carb. 
 
 Lead. 
 
 Lead. 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 Native lead. 
 
 
 
 
 12 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 
 
 
 
 
 lead 
 
 S4 
 
 16 
 
 
 Mur. A. 
 
 
 
 
 
 22 
 
 Bournonite 
 
 41 
 
 20 
 
 
 Arsen. 
 
 
 
 
 
 A. 
 
 Prism, cop- 
 
 
 
 
 
 per glance 
 Native mi- 
 nium. 
 Seleniuret of 
 
 33 
 
 10 
 
 Selen. 
 
 
 
 lead 
 
 70 
 
 28 
 
 
 
 Plomb- 
 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 gomme . 
 
 40 
 
 3 
 
 19 
 
 
 Carbonate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 lead . 
 
 74 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 Sulphato- 
 
 
 
 
 
 carbonate 
 
 
 
 
 
 of lead 
 
 82 
 
 
 
 
 Sulphato-tri- 
 
 
 
 
 
 carbonate 
 
 
 
 
 
 of lead . 
 
 S3 
 
 
 
 
 Cup. sul. 
 
 
 
 
 
 carbonate 
 
 
 
 
 
 of lead . 
 
 72 
 
 
 
 
 Muriate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 lead 
 
 
 
 
 
 Cotunnite . 
 
 
 
 
 
 Murio-car- 
 
 
 
 
 
 bonate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 lead 
 
 80 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Phosphate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 lead 
 
 76 
 
 6 
 
 
 Silica. 
 36 
 
 37 
 
 
 
 
 
 Polyspharite 
 
 - 
 
 - 
 
 _ 
 
 
 Arseniate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 lead 
 
 72 
 
 6 
 
 
 Tin, &c. 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 Sulphate of 
 
 
 
 
 Zinc. 
 
 lead 
 
 65 
 
 7 
 
 2 
 
 
 Cupreous 
 sulphate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 lead , 
 
 66 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 Molybdateof 
 
 
 
 
 
 lead 
 
 57 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 Chromate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 lead . 
 
 63 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 Melano- 
 
 
 
 
 
 chroite . 
 
 71 
 
 6 
 6 
 
 
 
 Vauquelinite 
 
 57 
 
 
 Carb. of 
 
 Lime. 
 
 10 
 
 Tungstate of 
 lead 
 
 44 
 
 4 
 
 
 Alu- 
 mina. 
 
 Vanadiate of 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 lead 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 Zinc. 
 
 Zinc. 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 Sulphuret of 
 zinc 
 
 63 
 
 33 
 
 4 
 
 Copper 
 
 Copper. 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 Copper. 
 
 Mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 Molyb. 
 
 Tung. 
 
 755
 
 MINERAL PITCH. 
 
 METALLIFEROUS MINERALS-«mlmt«d. 
 
 SSinc. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Red oxide of 
 
 Zinc. 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 Iron. 
 
 
 
 
 zinc 
 
 74 
 
 IS 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 
 Siliceous ox- 
 
 
 
 
 Silica. 
 
 
 
 ide of erne 
 
 54 
 
 13 
 
 
 25 
 
 8 
 
 
 Carbonate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 zinc 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 Carb. 
 
 
 
 Willelmine 
 
 52 
 
 13 
 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 Sulphate of 
 
 
 
 
 Sulph. 
 
 
 
 zinc 
 
 22 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 42 
 
 
 Hopeite 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 M emery. 
 
 Mer- 
 cury. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Native quick- 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Native amal- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 gam 
 
 85 
 
 Chlo- 
 rine. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Muriate of 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 mercury 
 
 85 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 
 
 Iodic mercu- 
 
 
 Iodine. 
 
 
 
 
 
 ry . .1 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 
 
 MINIATURE. 
 
 COMBUSTIBLE MINERALS. 
 
 
 sulphur. 
 
 
 
 
 Sulphur . , 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 
 Diamond 
 
 100 
 
 
 
 
 Plumbago . 
 Anthracite 
 
 92 
 72 
 
 S 
 4 
 
 Hydrogen. 
 
 Silica. 
 24 
 
 
 
 83 
 
 12 
 
 Oxygen. 
 
 
 Bitumen 
 
 Coal ... 
 
 53 
 
 75 
 
 7 
 6 
 
 Azote. 
 14 
 
 Dysodjle . . 
 
 
 
 
 Amber . . . 
 
 81 
 
 12 
 
 
 
 Halchetine . 
 
 
 
 
 
 Schererite 
 
 76 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 Ozokerile 
 
 
 
 
 
 Mellite . . . | 
 
 Mel. A. 
 41 
 
 Alumin. 
 
 Water. 
 
 
 Ketinaspbalt. 
 
 
 
 
 
 frossil copil. 
 
 I 
 
 
 
 
 MI'NERAL PITCH, Maltha. A solid, sottish bitumen. 
 Sp. gr. about 1-5. 
 
 MI'NERAL TAR. The bituminous substance called pe- 
 troleum. It is brown, viscid, and unctuous. Its specific 
 gravity is 0-88. It is found in Britain, and on the continent of 
 Europe, in the West Indies (Barbadoes tar), and in Persia. It 
 may be resolved bv distillation into naphtha and petroleum. 
 
 MI'NERAL WATERS. This term is applied to certain 
 spring waters containing so large a proportion of foreign 
 matter as to be unfit for ordinary use. 
 
 Mineral waters may, in most cases, be artificially prepared 
 by the skilful application of the knowledge derived from 
 
 analyses, with such precision as to imitate very closely the 
 native springs. When the various earthy or metallic con- 
 stituents are held in solution by carbonic acid or sulphuret- 
 ted, they should be placed along with their due proportions 
 of water in the receiver of the aerating machine, and then 
 the proper quantity of gas should be injected into the water. 
 Sufficient agitation will be given by the action of the for- 
 cing-pump to promote their solution. (See Ure's Vict of 
 Arts, eye.) 
 
 The following table, and the one on the opposite page, 
 show the composition of several of the principal mineral 
 springs of Europe. 
 
 Tabular View of the Composition of the Principal Mineral Waters of England. 
 One Pint (Wine Measure) contains the following Ingredients: 
 
 Sulphurous. 
 Harrowgate . . • 
 
 Moffat 
 
 Cheltenham sulphur 
 spring 
 
 Saline. 
 Cheltenham pure sa- 
 line 
 
 Bristol 
 
 Buxton 
 
 Bath 
 
 Scarborough . . . 
 
 Kilburn 
 
 Leamington New Bath 
 Leamington Old Bath 
 
 Chalybeate. 
 Tunbridge .... 
 Cheltenham chaly- 
 beate 
 
 Brighton .... 
 
 Go 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 &~ 
 
 'go 
 
 ia 
 
 S- 
 
 « 
 
 o^ 
 
 0-8 
 
 i- 
 
 0-5 
 
 0-6 
 
 
 3 : 5 
 
 0-2 
 
 
 
 1-2 
 
 
 3-5 
 
 tl-4 
 
 a trace 
 
 U-3 
 
 
 0-59 
 
 1- 
 
 
 2-5 
 
 
 2-2 
 
 I a trace of I 
 i oxygen ( 
 
 Sulphates. 
 
 Muriates. 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 Oxide 
 of 
 Iron. 
 
 i 
 
 gj 
 
 S 
 
 If 
 
 I" 
 
 Is 
 
 : 5 
 33 
 
 p.. 
 
 77- 
 
 gr'. 
 
 1-5 
 
 
 
 cold 
 
 94- 
 
 4-5 
 
 
 
 
 
 do. 
 
 4-5 
 
 35- 
 
 
 
 03 
 
 
 do. 
 
 65- 
 
 60- 
 
 
 
 
 
 do. 
 
 80-5 
 
 0-5 
 
 1- 
 
 
 
 
 74" 
 
 6- 
 
 0-2 
 
 
 
 0-3 
 
 
 82 u 
 
 1-83 
 
 3 3 
 
 
 
 a trace 
 ditto 
 
 IH! 
 
 116° 
 
 COM 
 
 14-6 
 2-9 
 
 2-5 
 
 5-5 
 
 0-8 
 
 ditto 
 
 
 do. 
 
 64 2 
 
 53- 
 
 1-5 
 
 
 0-8 
 
 
 do. 
 
 88.3 
 
 41- 
 
 
 
 
 
 do. 
 
 73-5 
 
 0-30 
 
 003 
 
 0-06 
 
 0-28 
 
 
 da 
 
 0-56 
 
 41-3 
 
 
 
 0-8 
 
 
 .]". 
 
 73-8 
 
 3- 
 
 0.75 
 
 
 1-4 1 014 
 
 do. 
 
 929 
 
 Authority. 
 
 Parkes & Brande 
 
 Dilto. 
 
 Carrick. 
 
 Pearson. 
 
 Phillips. 
 
 Saunders. 
 
 Schmeisser. 
 
 Lambe. 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 MI'NERAL YELLOW, or PATENT YELLOW. A 
 compound of oxide and chloride of lead, obtained by di- 
 gesting powdered litharge in a solution of common salt, 
 washing, drying, and fusing the product. It is used as a pig- 
 ment. 
 
 MINE'RVA. The Latin goddess corresponding to, and 
 confounded with, the Grecian Pallas (ILiAAuc), or Athena 
 (A'Onvn). She was fabled to have sprung in full armour 
 from the forehead of her father Jupiter. Minerva was wor- 
 shipped as the goddess of wisdom, and the patroness "i in 
 dustry and the arts. Athens, the city to which she gave 
 name, was her favourite spot; and thero her worship was 
 celebrated with great splendour, and the magnificent temple, 
 the Parthenon, erected to her honour. But she was also 
 worshipped at Rome with peculiar veneration. There she 
 had three temples: one on the Capitol, which she shared 
 with Jupiter and Juno; a second on the Avertible; and a 
 third on the Ctelian mount, in which she was worshipped as 
 Minerva Capta, an epithet said to have been applied when 
 her statue was transported from Falerii, after the capture of 
 that city by Camillas. At Rome there were also two great 
 festivals celebrated annually in her honour: the one called 
 756 
 
 Quinquatrus or Quinquatria, the other Quinquatria Minora. 
 (See these words.) The origin of the name of Minerva has 
 long puzzled etymologists. Cicero says she is called "Mi- 
 nerva, quia miniiit or minatur;" but it has been also fancied 
 that the word is a shortened form of Meminerva (from me- 
 mini, / remember), she being the goddess of memory. It ia 
 possibly from the same root as the Lat. mens, mind, which 
 is expressed so clearly in many languages wholly unalhed, 
 of which the Germ, mann (whence the English man), and 
 the Hindostan menn, may serve as examples. But the Tus- 
 can name of the goddess is Menrfa, which seems the im- 
 mediate source. She was represented as a young woman, 
 with a grave and noble countenance, clothed in armour. 
 see Pallas. 
 
 MI'NIATURE. (Fr.) A reprn.,— •:-., r-r n »n, r p on a 
 very small scale. Miniature Painting !>,,*...>......., executed 
 
 on ivory ; and is, as to composition, drawing, and finishing, 
 subject to the same laws as Painting (which see). The out- 
 line is traced upon the ivory with a silver point or pencil, 
 Bud must be extremely light and delicate. This is after- 
 wards drawn in with thin carmine as correctly as possible; 
 the corrections being made with finely powdered pumice-
 
 MINIM. 
 
 Tabular View of the Composition of the 
 
 MINNEHOFE, 
 
 Principal Mineral Waters of Germany. 
 
 Ingredients found in 16 
 
 oz. of Water in a dry 
 
 state, in grains. 
 
 Carisbad. 
 
 Ems. 
 
 Marienbad. 
 Kreutzbr. 
 
 Auschowitz. 
 Ferdinands, 
 brunnen. 
 
 1 <. E ° er - 
 Franzensbr. 
 
 Pyrmont. 
 
 Spa. 
 
 Geilnau 
 
 Setters. 
 
 Seidschutz 
 
 Pullna. 
 
 Carbonate of soda . . 
 
 9-695 
 
 10-750 
 
 826 
 
 6-197 
 
 5-00 
 
 0-7375 
 
 66210 
 
 6-155 
 
 
 
 Sulphate of soda . . 
 
 19-895 
 
 
 39-72 
 
 22-544 
 
 25-50 
 
 2 14566 
 
 I/-037. 
 
 00420 
 
 
 23-4960 
 
 123-3 
 
 Muriate of soda . . 
 
 7-975 
 
 7-634 
 
 1245 
 
 8-996 
 
 7-95 
 
 
 0-44948 
 
 0-5430 
 
 17.292 
 
 
 
 Sulphate of potash . . 
 
 
 0-540 
 
 0-93 
 
 
 0-93 
 
 0-04194 
 
 U07D09 
 
 0-2872 
 
 0-397 
 
 4-8940 
 
 4-8 
 
 Muriate of potash . . 
 
 
 0-045 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Carbonate of lime . . 
 
 2-37 
 
 11407 
 
 4-1S00 
 
 4-016 
 
 1-847 
 
 5-98824 
 
 0-9850 
 
 2-9705 
 
 2-1870 
 
 6-8060 
 
 077 
 
 Sulphate of lime . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7-22 U2 
 
 
 
 
 1-5050 
 
 2-6 
 
 Sub phosphate of lime 
 
 00017 
 
 
 
 
 0014 
 
 
 001366 
 
 
 
 00156 
 
 00035 
 
 Finite of lime . . 
 
 0024 
 
 0-0019-2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 0-0018 
 
 
 
 Carbonate of magnesia 
 
 1-369 
 
 0-7SS7 
 
 30560 
 
 2-4 
 
 0-600 
 
 0-32352 
 
 1-1227S 
 
 2-1709 
 
 1-3780 
 
 1-0980 
 
 6405 
 
 Sulphate of magnesia . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2-69752 
 
 
 
 
 83-ISS0 
 
 93-^80- 
 
 Muriate of magnesia . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 112664 
 
 
 
 
 1-6300 
 
 19 666 
 
 Nitrate of magnesia . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7-9070 
 
 
 Alumina .... 
 
 
 
 0-0075 
 
 
 
 
 
 0.0247 
 
 
 
 
 Sub-phosphate of alum 
 
 0-0024 
 
 0-00 IS 
 
 
 
 
 0-01478 
 
 0-0085! 
 
 
 00027 
 
 0*0117 
 
 
 Carbonate of strontian 
 
 0-007 
 
 00107 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 0-0192 
 
 
 
 Sulphate of strootian . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 0-02063 
 
 
 
 
 0-0468 
 
 
 Carbonate of barytes . 
 
 
 0-0029 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 0-0019 
 
 
 
 
 0-577 
 
 0-4139 
 
 0-8800 
 
 0-669 
 
 0-56S 
 
 0-49689 
 
 0-49S5 
 
 0-2695 
 
 0302 
 
 0-1200 
 
 17S 
 
 Carbonate of iron . . 
 
 0-0278 
 
 0026 
 
 0-1760 
 
 0-4 
 
 0-350 
 
 0-42846 
 
 0-3751 
 
 
 
 00127 
 
 
 Carbonate of manga* 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 uese 
 
 Total .... 
 
 Carbonic acid gas in 1 
 100 cubic inches . \ 
 
 0-006 
 
 0-0037 
 
 0-0065 
 
 0-09-2 
 45-3 1~4 
 
 0-006 
 42-775 
 
 004852 
 20-55412 
 
 0-0519 
 4-35903 
 
 
 
 0-0042 
 
 
 41-9239 
 
 21-35932 
 
 69-616 
 
 12-92SS 
 
 2S-0946 
 
 130 6845 
 
 251 3075 
 
 58 
 
 51 
 
 125 
 
 149-56 
 
 154 
 
 160 
 
 13 
 
 163-3 
 
 130 
 
 64 
 
 6-9 
 
 ( Sprud. 165" 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Temperature (Fahr.) . j 
 
 ) Neub. 138° 
 1 Muhl. 128° 
 
 Kess. 117° 1 
 Kran. 84= 
 
 > 53° 
 
 4S° 
 
 53° 
 
 56° 
 
 SO" 51° 
 
 58° 
 
 58=- 
 
 58° 
 
 Analyzed by . . . | 
 
 I Tber. 122° 
 
 
 » 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Bcrzelius. 1 
 
 Struve. 1 
 
 Struve. | 
 
 Steinmann. 
 
 Struve. 
 
 Struve. 
 
 Struve.! Struve. 
 
 Vr.ve. 
 
 Siruve. 
 
 Struve. 
 
 stone, rubbed on with a paper or leather stump. The dead 
 colouring then proceeds, wherein the shadows are left deli- 
 cate and the lights strong, the full effect being afterwards 
 produced by dotting. The artist usually begins the shades 
 with Vermillion and carmine, giving the strongest touches to 
 the most prominent parts, and to those where separations 
 are marked out in shades that are obscure. Indigo is after- 
 wards used for the bluish shades on such parts as recede 
 from the light. Yellow tints, composed of ochre and ver- 
 milion, are usually employed on the sides of the nose to- 
 wards the bottom, under the eyebrows, underneath the 
 cheeks, and on other parts rising towards the light. The 
 backgrounds, if dark, are commonly composed of bistre, um- 
 ber, or Cologne earth, with black and white; others of a 
 yellow cast by the use of ochre. The gray back-grounds 
 are formed by black, white, and a little indigo. When of a 
 green or olive hue, Dutch pink, white, and Mack are the in- 
 gredients. The back-grounds are formed in two coats, first 
 laying on a light thin tint, and afterwards a darker one of 
 the same colour, evenly and smooth. The dotting is per- 
 formed by separate dots, or by short notching strokes crossing 
 each other every way so as to have the appearance of being 
 dotted. 
 
 MI'NIM. (Lat. minimus.) In Music, a character Q 
 equal in duration to two crotchets, or half a semibreve. 
 
 Mi'nim. The smallest liquid measure, generally regarded 
 as about equal to one drop. The fluid drachm is divided 
 into sixty minims. 
 
 MI'NIMS, or MINIMI, ORDER OF THE. A religious 
 order instituted by Sir Francis De Paulo in the fifteenth cen- 
 tury. The name is derived from the Lat. minimus, the 
 least ; by which the founder meant to indicate that humili- 
 ty should be the distinguishing feature of the order. In con- 
 formity with this design the rules he prescribes were of the 
 strictest kind. Besides the three usual vows of poverty, 
 continence, and obedience, the most rigid abstinence was 
 inculcated. Except in cases of illness, the members were 
 prohibited not only from touching animal food, but even 
 butter, milk, or cheese, or indeed any kind of sustenance in 
 the composition of which such materials were used. Their 
 dress was of the coarsest and meanest kind ; the colour 
 being black, like that of the Franciscans. Long before the 
 death of its founder, this order had attained so high a de- 
 gree of celebrity for sanctity that it could boast ot monas- 
 teries in Italy, France, Spain, and Germany ; and at no very 
 distant period it counted no fewer than 450 religious houses 
 scattered throughout Europe and Asia. (See the Diet, de la 
 Conversation.) 
 
 MINISTER. In Politics, a servant of the sovereign exe- 
 cutive power in a state : generally speaking, the head of a 
 department or branch of government. Usage, in different 
 countries, fixes very differently the limits of that higher class 
 of servants to which the term is applied. In the British 
 •empire, none but the heads of administrative departments 
 are termed ministers : part of whom belong to the cabinet, 
 and part are not included in it. The cabinet ministers have 
 varied under different administrations ; and as our govern- 
 ment is of mixed organization, partly to serve the actual 
 necessities of state, and partly retaining ancient distinctions 
 of office founded on usage only, some of the ministers hold 
 merely sinecure appointments. In France, where the forms 
 €4 
 
 of government are established more on the principle of 
 utility, there are eight ministers so called : 1, of the interior ; 
 2, of finance; 3, of justice ; 4, of public instruction and 
 ecclesiastical affairs; 5, of commerce and public works; 6, 
 of the marine and colonies ; 7, of war ; 8, of foreign affairs. 
 In England, ministers sit and vote in either house of parlia- 
 ment — by hereditary right, if peers ; as representatives only, 
 if commoners. In France, the same regulation prevails ; 
 but ministers have also, by virtue of their office, a right to 
 Bit and take part in the debates in either chamber. In the 
 United States, no minister (or secretary, in the language of 
 that government) can be chosen either representative or 
 senator. In some European countries (as Russia), a distinc- 
 tion is established between the private affairs of the sove- 
 reign and foreign affairs, on the one hand, which form the 
 combined duties of the cabinet ministers ; and the affairs of 
 the interior, which are entrusted to ministers of state. There 
 are also in some governments honorary or conference minis- 
 ters, without any real department of duty. The representa- 
 tives of minor sovereigns at foreign courts are usually styled 
 ministers, instead of ambassadors. The term minister is 
 also frequently used in a sense synonymous with clergyman. 
 
 MI'NIUM. (Lat.) In Painting, a red colour, being a 
 calx of lead : according to Pliny it was the common red lead. 
 See Lead. 
 
 MINNE'HOFE. (Germ. ; literally courts of love.) The 
 name given by the Germans to the cours d'amour, so famous 
 in the history of chivalry. The subjects brought before 
 these courts were chiefly connected with the Romantic gal- 
 lantry of (he period, and consisted either of questions pro- 
 posed with the view to entrap the judges into some awkward 
 decision ; or of serious complaints, resulting from affaires du 
 creur, which were discussed and decided upon with all the 
 formality of a court of law. These minnehofe were for a 
 long period looked upon as forming an indispensable part 
 in all chivalrous exercises. Knights, ladies, and poets par- 
 ticipated alike in their proceedings; and large collections 
 of their decisions are still extant. A certain number of 
 ladies, remarkable at once for personal and mental attrac- 
 tions, acted as judges in these courts: the fair sex also 
 conducted the proceedings as counsel, attorneys-general, and 
 solicitors-general, &c. ; and they were attended by a nume- 
 rous train of nobles, knights, and others, who were invested 
 by the court with gradations of rank and precedency analo- 
 gous to those conferred by the sovereign. These courts 
 were held periodically at Signes, Avignon, Lille, and Pierre- 
 feu. The last regular court of this kind was celebrated by 
 Charles VI. and his wife Isabella of Bavaria ; but they were 
 now and then renewed at irregular intervals, and the last 
 on record took place as late as the reign of Louis XIV. at 
 Ruefie, at which the princess Maria of Gonzaga presided, 
 and Mademoiselle de Soudey represented the advocate- 
 general. We subjoin a few specimens of the questions pro- 
 posed in these courts for debate and decision ; from which 
 it will be evident that although at the present day there 
 would be little difficulty in deciding upon them, they could 
 not fail at that romantic era to excite considerable discussion. 
 1. Which is harder to bear — the infidelity or the death of 
 the beloved 1 2. Whether does a man whose wife, or a lover 
 whose betrothed is unfaithful, suffer most 1 3. Who is more 
 culpable— the man who boasts of favours from a lady which
 
 MINNESINGERS. 
 
 he never received, or he who, having really received them, 
 makes it known ? (See the Damen Lexicon, Adorf, 1837.) 
 Ml'XN'ES.ENGERS. Tlie most ancient school of Ger- 
 man poets, whose name is derived from the old German 
 word minne {love). The songs and fame of the Provencal 
 troubadours appear to bave penetrated into Germany under 
 the first emperors of the house of Hohenstaufien ; in whose 
 time the crusades and the frequent Italian wars combined 
 to bring their nation, seated as it is in the centre of Europe, 
 in closer communication with those surrounding it. The 
 minnescengers imitated in German the strains of those early 
 ad, like them, made love their principal subject; 
 which was celebrated with much of pedantry and false 
 conceits, but, at the same time, not without generous and 
 chivalric feeling. The verses of the minnesingers are in 
 the old Swabian dialect of the high German, which, under 
 the Hohenstauffens, themselves of Swabian race, was the 
 court language. As was the case with the troubadours, the 
 minnesangers belonged to two different classes: there were 
 among thein many knights, princes, and even sovereigns ; 
 while there was also another class of more professional 
 poets — wandering minstrels, who attached themselves to 
 the persons of distinguished chiefs, or wandered from court 
 to court. The oldest of the minnesaengers known to us is 
 Henry of Veldeck, about 1170. During the remainder of 
 the 12th and first half of the 13th century, this school of poets 
 flourished ; afterwards it gradually declined, and was suc- 
 ceeded by the less chivalrous and homelier school of the 
 master-singers. We possess the names of more than 300 
 poets, and pieces of the composition of a large proportion of 
 them, who sang during the short period in question. The 
 German amatory poets had their high and low minne, like 
 the celestial and popular Venus of the ancients ; the former 
 an abstract and chivalric devotion to a beloved object, the 
 latter a less elevated passion. The ancient German national 
 epic, called the Niebelungen-Licd, and the heroic poetry of 
 the Heldenbuch, belong to the same period and dialect, and 
 were works of the same race of poets ; as were also other 
 poetical romances, founded on the foreign traditions of 
 France, Brittanv, and classical antiquitv. 
 
 MTNNOW, or MINIM. (Lat. minimus, least.) The 
 name of a species of Cyprinoid fish (Leuciscus phozinus, 
 Cuv.), and the smallest of the British species of that family. 
 It inhabits many of the fresh-water streams and canals in 
 England, and spawns in June, when each female is attended 
 by two males. 
 MINOR. In Music. See Major. 
 
 MINORITY". In Politics, the period during which the 
 sovereign in an hereditary monarchy is incapacitated from 
 exercising the supreme authority, by reason of not having 
 attained the age prescribed by law ; also the state of such 
 incapacity. The royal authority, in hereditary monarchies, 
 never dies ; and when a sovereign deceases leaving a suc- 
 cessor below age, it passes immediately to the person or 
 persons whom the constitution has invested with the au- 
 thority of regent ; as it also does when a king becomes 
 subject to any other incapacity. The term of royal minority 
 is variously regulated by the constitution of different coun- 
 tries. The legal majority of a king of France was fixed at 
 fourteen by an ordinance of Charles V., which has been 
 since followed in that country ; but, as a year commenced 
 is reckoned as accomplished, the actual period at which a 
 king of France begms to govern is the age of thirteen years 
 and a day. The same period is fixed by the laws of Spain 
 and Portugal. By the constitution of Great Britain, the 
 sovereign is of full age at eighteen years, as far as can be 
 collected from the statutes passed at several times to em- 
 power the king to name a regent whenever it has been 
 apprehended that the crown was in danger of devolving on 
 a prince under age. 
 
 Minority. In Law, the state of an individual of either 
 sex who has not attained the age prescribed by law at 
 which civil rights can be exercised. In England and in 
 France majority is attained an the completion of the 21st 
 year ; in Germany on the 2oih. The distinctions made by 
 the Roman law between different periods of minority are 
 unknown to our law. 
 
 MINOR TERM, of a Categorical Syllogism, in Logic, is 
 the subject of the conclusion. The minor premise is thai 
 which contains the minor term. In hypothetical syllogisms, 
 the categorical premise is called the minor. 
 
 MINOS, in Mythological History, was son of Jupiter and 
 Europa, and king of Crete, and so celebrated as a lawgiver 
 on earth that after his death he was appointed judge of the 
 infernal regions, in which office he was associated with 
 JSacus and Uhadamantlius. 
 
 MI'NOTAUR. (Gr. Mumj, and mi'/>os, abull.) A fabled 
 monster of classical antiquity, half man and half bull, fre- 
 quently mentioned by t Ik- poets, lie was said to he the son 
 of l'a.-iphae. wife of Minos II., king of Crete, by a bull 
 (ravpoc) ; hence the term Minotaur. He lived on human 
 flesh ; hence Minos shut him up in the famous labyrinth of 
 75d 
 
 MINT. 
 
 Dadalus, feeding him with criminal.', and afterwards with 
 youths and maidens sent from Athens. As is well known, 
 
 I In aeus, by the assistance of Ariadne, succeeded in destroy- 
 ing him, and thereby rescued the Athenians from the obli- 
 gation of sending their chddren to be devoured. The Diet. 
 tie la Conversation gives an ingenious explanation of this 
 mythological story. See also Schuenk's .Mythologisehe An- 
 deutungen, p. 65. 
 
 MTNSTER (Germ.), was anciently applied only to the 
 church of a monastery or convent ; and forms the termina- 
 tion of the name of many places in England in which such 
 churches formerly existed, as Westminster, Leominster, &.c. 
 It is sometimes, but incorrectly, used in common language 
 to signify a cathedral church. 
 
 MINSTRELS. (Fr. minestral.orold Germ, minne, love.) 
 Defined by Percy as an order of men in the middle ages who 
 subsisted by the arts of poetry and music, and sang to the 
 harp verses composed by themselves or others. They ap- 
 pear to have been the successors of the minnesamgers, 
 scalds, and bards of different European nations, who, even 
 after the age of chivalry had passed, attempted to gain a 
 subsistence by practising those arts which at an earlier 
 period had procured fame and honour for their predecessors. 
 The origin, character, and decline of the minstrels, are thus 
 ably traced in vol. lxxiii. of the Edinburgh Review. In the 
 piping times of peace, the minstrel, " omnis luxuries inter- 
 pres," as Pliny said of Menander, sang of mimic war to the 
 dull barons of dungeon castles, who had ears, although they 
 could not read ; who, doubly steeped in the ennui of wealth 
 and want of occupation, listened greedily, like other great 
 men, to their own praises. Minstrelsy supplied the lack of 
 a more refined intellectual entertainment and of rational 
 conversation, as professional gentlemen do now at civic ban- 
 quets : their harpings lulled the rude Sauls to sleep, which. 
 is now done by quarto epics. The person of the minstrel 
 was sacred ; his profession was a passport ; he was " high 
 placed in hall a welcome guest ;" the assumption of his 
 character became the disguise of lovers of adventure. These 
 advantages raised pseudo-laureates, " idle vagabonds," ac- 
 cording to the act of Edward L, " who went about the 
 country under the colour of minstrelsy ;" men who cared 
 more about the supper than the song ; who, for base lucre, 
 divorced the arts of writing and reciting, and stole other 
 men's thunder. Their social degeneracy may be traced in 
 the dictionary : the chanter of the gests of kings — " gesta 
 ducum regiomque" — dwindled into a " gesticulator," a jester ; 
 the honoured joglar of Provence into the mountebank, the 
 
 juggler, "the jockie," or doggrel ballad-monger. 
 
 Beggars they are by one consent, 
 And roguee by act of parliament 
 
 They descended by the usual stages of things of mere 
 fashion : at first the observed of all observers, and therefore 
 then imitated, until they became common — vulgar ; which 
 is but one step, and the test at once of merit, universal 
 acceptance, and the forerunner of disgrace : no sooner taken 
 up by the bi ttoXAoi, than rejected by the exclusive. In 
 Spain, particularly, this occurred very soon. The really 
 good clergy were shocked at their abuses, while the interest- 
 ed grudged the money earned by rivals who interfered with 
 their monopoly of instructing the people in pious prose, or 
 of amusing them with alexandrine legends. Their Latin 
 synonyme for ''scald rhymers" — scurra mimus, &c. — will 
 outlive their sculptured caricatures ; when mendicant monks, 
 minstrels, fools, monkeys, and beasties are pilloried on pin- 
 nacle and gargoyle, in cloister and cathedral. The itinerant 
 monks and mountebanks repaid all this, like Falstaff, by 
 showing up the irregularities of regulars and seculars, " in 
 ballads to be sung to filthy tones." They undermined their 
 influence. Preachings and songs take part in all national 
 changes; for doctrines precede actions. They were the 
 popular press of the time ; opposed by the privileged orders, 
 and watched by statesmen, as Burleigh afterwards employ- 
 ed agents to listen to street songs — the thermometer of the 
 people's temper. In all these alterations for the worse, the 
 primitive principle "to entertain" remained unchanged. To 
 this the original ballad was sacrificed ; passing from one to 
 another, each minstrel begged, borrowed, or stole from all 
 quarters. The originals were corrupted and remodelled; 
 Ihey got their bread by pleasing. " magister artis ingenii 
 que largitor venter." .\< late as the beginning of last cen- 
 tury, the houses of man) leading families, especial!] in the 
 northern parts of the empire were provided with minstrels, 
 w ho were employed in various duties; all of them, however, 
 in some degree connected with their original occupation. 
 Se< Bard, Bi u.d. Minnks.£nokrs, Bali.au. 
 
 MINT. Gi Tin. muntze.) The place in which the coin 
 of the realm is manufactured. The whole of the British 
 coin is issued from, or manufactured in, the Royal Mint in 
 London. The general details of the business of the Mint 
 are briefly stated under the article Coinage. 
 
 The Royal Mint received its constitution of superior officers
 
 MINT, MASTER OF THE. 
 
 in the 18th year of the reign of Edward II., and continued 
 nearly as then established to carry on its operations within 
 the Tower of London. 
 
 Between the years 1810 and 1815 the present magnificent 
 and commodious building was erected on Tower Hill, at the 
 suggestion of a committee of the king's privy council, ap- 
 pointed in 1798 " to take into consideration the state of the 
 coins of the kingdom, and the establishment and constitution 
 of the Mint ;" and in 1815 a new constitution was introduced, 
 founded upon a report drawn up by the present Lord Mary- 
 borough, who was then master. The chief officers of the 
 mint are the master, the deputy master, the comptroller, the 
 king's (or queen's) assay masters, the clerk of the papers, 
 and the clerk of the irons and superintendent of machinery : 
 these constitute "the mint board," and meet every Wednes- 
 day, or as often as may be required, to transact all the 
 general business of the establishment. The manufacture 
 of the coin is carried on under the direction of the company 
 of mi ineyers. The other officers are the master's assayer, 
 the melter, the chief engraver, the weigher and teller, the 
 surveyor of the meltings, and the solicitor. The duties of 
 these officers are fully set forth in the " mint indenture." 
 As relates to the general history of the coinage, the reader 
 is referred to the new edition of Ruding's Annals of the 
 Coinage. The article " Coinage," in the Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica, gives an abstract of the duties of the respective 
 officers, and is especially valuable as containing the only 
 extant account, illustrated by engravings, of the machinery 
 employed in the mint : this account, though scanty and im- 
 perfect, is tolerably correct. A mass of valuable informa- 
 tion, and details respecting the whole establishment, will be 
 found in the Parliamentary Report of the Select Committee 
 on the Royal Mint, and its Appendix, published by order of 
 the House of Commons, 30th June, 1837. 
 
 Mint. (Lat. mentha.) A name given to several herba- 
 ceous aromatic plants belonging to the natural order Labials, 
 and genus Mentha. Spearmint, or Mentha viridis, is that 
 which is so generally used in this country, mixed with vine- 
 gar and sugar, as a sauce. Peppermint, or Mentha piperita, 
 yields the stimulating oil of the same name. Horsemint and 
 others are also species of the same genus. 
 
 MINT, MASTER OF THE. An officer in the English 
 administration, generally removable with a change of min- 
 istry. His salary is £2000 a year. See Mint. 
 
 MI'NUET. (Fr.) A species of dance, performed in slow 
 time and with measured steps, formerly of great celebrity, 
 but now rarely, if ever, met with. 
 
 MI'NUTE. (Lat. minutum.) The sixtieth part of an 
 hour of time, and the sixtieth part of a degree of angular 
 space. In modern astronomical works minutes of time are 
 denoted by the initial letter m, and minutes of space by the 
 dash or acute accent, winch was first used by Ptolemy. 
 
 Minute. In Architecture, the sixtieth part of the diameter 
 of a column ; by which subdivision architects measure the 
 smaller parts of an order. 
 
 MINUTE GUNS. Guns fired at intervals of a minute, 
 as a signal from a vessel in distress. Also in mourning for 
 great persons. 
 
 MI'NUTES. Originally the rough draught of a public in- 
 strument drawn up by a notary ; so termed because usually 
 written in a smaller character than the instrument itself. 
 The term is now applied to a brief report of the proceedings 
 of a society drawn up by the clerk or secretary : in which 
 sense it is nearly synonymous with protocol, which see. 
 
 MI'OCENE. (Gr. jjciuv, minor, and koivoc, recent.) A 
 term applied by Mr. Lyell, in his Elements of Geology, to 
 geological formations containing a minority of fossil shells 
 of recent species. 
 
 MI'QUELETS. In Modern History, a species of partisan 
 troops raised in the north of Spain, and chiefly in Catalonia. 
 The Miquelets became first known in the wars between 
 Spain and France in the 17th century. At several periods 
 (in 1689, 1789, and again in the wars of Napoleon) the 
 French have endeavoured to organize similar corps, to op- 
 pose to the Miquelets in the mountain warfare of those dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 MI'RACLE. (Lat. miror, I wonder.) According to the 
 definition of Dr. Johnson, "something beyond human pow- 
 er;" which, though in itself evidently vague and insuf- 
 ficient, may be explained by the addition of " a deviation 
 from the established laws of nature." A miracle must be 
 not only superhuman, but preternatural. Some writers add 
 the " immediate interference of God" as another condition 
 of a miracle ; but this assumes a point which is open to 
 controversy, inasmuch as it precludes the agency of evil 
 spirits in such interruptions of the course of nature, which 
 is still a question among theologians. With respect to the 
 credibility of miracles, the most popular argument against 
 them is that of Hume, who considers no weight of particular 
 testimony credible when balanced against our universal ex- 
 perience of the constancy of the laws of nature. " No testi- 
 mony," he says, " is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless 
 
 MISDEMEANOR. 
 
 the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be 
 more miraculous than the fact it endeavours to establish." 
 If the words incredible or contrary to experience be substi- 
 tuted for miraculous in this passage, the startling effect of 
 this statement of the argument, in which its efficacy resides, 
 will disappear, and the question will be left upon the very 
 grounds which the believer would choose for his own posi- 
 tion. Hume was answered by Dr. Campbell, in his Disser- 
 tation on Miracles. (See also Rutherford's Discourse, 
 1757 ; Douglas's Criterion ; Locke's Discourse on Mira- 
 cles ; Lardner's Credibility ; Middleton's Free Inquiry ; 
 Price's JVature of Miracles ; some very valuable remarks 
 of Paley, in his Evidences of Christianity ; Hooker's Ecct. 
 Polity, b. vii., " on Miracles as the Tests of a Supernatural 
 mission ;" Bentham's Rationale of Evidence.) 
 
 MIRA'GE. (Fr.) An optical illusion very common at 
 sea, and especially in high latitudes, and sometimes also 
 witnessed on land, particularly in Egypt and Persia, and on 
 the margin of rivers and lakes, or on the sea-shore. It 
 arises from unequal refraction in the lower strata of the at- 
 mosphere, and causes remote objects to be seen double, as 
 if reflected in a mirror, or to appear as if suspended in the 
 air. When the effect is confined to apparent elevation, the 
 English sailors call it looming ; when inverted images are 
 formed, the Italians give it the name of Fata Morgana (see 
 the term). Ships in the whale fisheries are often descried, 
 and sometimes known, by means of the mirage, at consid- 
 erable distances. Captain Scoresby recognised his father's 
 ship at the distance of more than 30 miles, and consequently 
 when below the horizon, by its inverted image in the air, 
 though he did not previously know that it was cruising in 
 that part of the fishery. The mathematical theory of the 
 phenomenon is given by Biot, in the Memoires de I'lnstitut 
 for 1809. (See also Caddington's Optics ; Biot's Traite de 
 Physique, tome Hi.; Brewster's Optics, Cabinet Cyclopedia.) 
 
 MI'RROR. (Fr. miroir.) A speculum or looking-glass, 
 or any other polished body capable of reflecting the images 
 of objects, rays of light from which fall upon them. Silver 
 is considered to be the most powerful reflector; but the 
 speculum metal, as now prepared, is scarcely inferior, if at 
 all so, and in some cases even better. In the very early 
 ages of the world, polished metallic specula were employed 
 as mirrors by the Jewish and Egyptian women, especially 
 of brass ; but in modern times, quicksilvered plates of glass 
 are alone used as mirrors. 
 
 Concave Mirrors are used to concentrate the rays of the 
 sun in a single point, and thereby produce intense heat. 
 The surfaces formed by the revolution of the ellipse, para- 
 bola, and hyperbola, are such as reflect them accurately to 
 one point ; provided they emanate from one point, are parallel 
 to one another (as the solar rays), or would converge to a 
 more remote point than it is desirable to use. The great 
 difficulty of constructing these has led to the employment 
 of spherical segments, which, though not accurate, yet, un- 
 der proper restrictions, are approximately so. For the math- 
 ematical theory, see Reflection ; see also Burning Glass, 
 Speculum Telescope. 
 
 MIRZA. (A corruption of the Persian title Emir-Zadeh, 
 sons of the prince.) The common style of honour in Per- 
 sia, when it precedes the surname of an individual. When 
 appended to the surname it signifies prince. 
 
 MISA'NTHROPY (Gr. uiaoc, hatred, and avOptovoc, a 
 man), signifies a general dislike or aversion to man and man- 
 kind ; in contradistinction to philanthropy, which means the 
 love of our species. 
 
 Ml'SCELLANY. (Lat. misceo, / mix.) A word usu- 
 ally applied to a collection of literary works or treatises. 
 The most celebrated collection of works known by this 
 name is Constable's Miscellany. 
 
 MI'SCHNA. The text of the Jewish Talmud, on which 
 the Oemara, or second part, is a commentary. It consists 
 of traditions and explanations of scripture. The former 
 are supposed by the Jews to have been delivered to Moses 
 on the mount, and from him to have passed, through the 
 keeping of a succession of prophets and sages, to Rabbi 
 Juda of Tiberias, who committed them to writing. Their 
 compilation is supposed by modern commentators to have 
 taken place about A.C. 150 or 190. See Prideaux, Connex- 
 ion, vol. ii. ; and Lardner, Collection of Jewish and Heathen 
 Testimonies, vol. i.) 
 
 MISDEMEA'NOR, in Law, is any offence which is the 
 subject of indictment and punishment, not of a felonious 
 character ; such are seditious acts, perjury, battery, libels, 
 conspiracies, attempts, and solicitations to commit felonies, 
 &c. Over these offences the justices of the peace at quar- 
 ter sessions have a general jurisdiction, although they may 
 be removed by certiorari to the King's Bench ; and in the 
 trial the defendant has had for a long period of time one re- 
 markable privilege, viz., that his counsel might address the 
 jury, which was equally the case in treason, but not until 
 the year 1837 in any sort of felony. The ordinary punish- 
 ment of misdemeanors are by fine aiul imprisonments ; some- 
 
 759
 
 MISELTOE. 
 
 times by statute, transportation. Misdemeanors have been 
 sometimes termed misprisions; although this word, in its 
 more restricted signification, is applied to concealments of 
 
 l'elony, or treason. 
 
 MISELTOE, or MISSELTO. A parasitical plant in- 
 habiting the brunches of many kinds of trees in the north 
 of Europe. It is the Viscum album of botanists. Its con- 
 nexion with Druidical ceremonies is well known ; but, us 
 tradition tells us that the priests of that superstition only 
 employed the miseltoe of the oak, some doubt has been en- 
 tertained of the plant now so called being really that of our 
 ancient chronicles, because it had not been found upon the 
 oak for many centuries. It has, however, been recently 
 discovered upon that tree in the west of England ; and this 
 leaves no doubt upon the subject. The powder of the leaves 
 or shoots of the miseltoe has been used in epilepsy. 
 
 MISERE'RE. The 50th Psalm, 4th of the Penitential 
 Psalms, is that designated by the Roman Catholic Church 
 under this word, on account of its first words (in the Vul- 
 gate translation, " miserere mei Deus, secundum magnam 
 lniserieordium main"). It is the usual psalm appointed for 
 acts of penitence and mortification. 
 MI'SERE'RE MEI. A name given to the iliac passion. 
 Ml SE1UCO KDIA. A narrow bladed dagger ; so termed 
 in the middle ages because it was the weapon used by a 
 knight against a dismounted adversary when he enforced 
 him to cry for mercy. 
 
 MISNO'MER. In Law, the description of a person by a 
 wrong name. In grants by deed such mistakes may, in some 
 instances, be corrected by the courts, if the party be suffi- 
 ciently pointed out in the instrument itself. In grants by 
 will such construction will be more liberally exercised. It 
 is said that the law is not so precise as to surnames as with 
 respect to Christian names. The proper mode for the de- 
 fendant to avail himself of a misnomer in an action was 
 formerly by plea of abatement; but now the court will 
 amend on motion (3& 4 W. 4, c. 42). In criminal cases, the 
 court had the power to amend still earlier (0 G. 4, c. 64) 
 where the defendant was misnamed. But if the prosecu- 
 tor be misnamed in an indictment, tire variance is fatal, and 
 the defendant must be acquitted. It is to be observed that 
 mere misspelling is no misnomer, if the name have the 
 same sound with the real one. 
 
 MISPRISION. (From the Fr. mespris, contempt, or neg- 
 ligence.) In Criminal Law, in its larger sense, it is used to 
 signify every considerable misdemeanor which has not a 
 certain name given to it in the law ; and it is said that the 
 offence of misprision is involved in every treason or felony 
 whatsoever. Generally, however, by the word misprision 
 is understood the contempt or neglect, that is, the non-dis- 
 closure or concealment, of any treason or felony, committed 
 or to be committed, which a man is cognizant of, but has 
 never assented to ; for if he expressly assented, this makes 
 him, in a case of treason, a principal, and in a case of felo- 
 ny, either a principal or accessory, according to circum- 
 stances. Misprision of treason is punished by loss of the 
 profits of lands during life, forfeiture of goods, and impris- 
 onment for life. Misprision of felony in a public officer is 
 punished by imprisonment for a year and a day ; in a com- 
 mon person, by imprisonment for a less discretionary time ; 
 and in both by fine. 
 
 Ml'SSAL. The book containing the ritual for the cele- 
 bration of the various masses of the Roman communion. 
 The missals in use in different churches are not identical in 
 all respects ; but the most important part of them, the canon 
 of the mass, as delivered in the Sacramentary of Gregory 
 the Great, winch was taken from that of Pope Gelasius in 
 the 5fh century, and which is affirmed by Roman Catholics 
 to be a faithful representation of the ritual of the primitive 
 church, is common to all. 
 
 MTSSft INARIES. In ordinary language, ministers who 
 go abroad to preach the gospel to infidel nations. The fol- 
 lowing table of the present condition of some of the more 
 remarkable missionary societies now existing in England 
 is taken from the Penny Cyclopaedia : 1. Society for the 
 Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts: receipts, 1837, 
 £43,000; expenditure, £56,000; subscribers, about 12,000. 
 This society is conducted on the principles of the Church of 
 England, and was Incorporated In L701, chiefly with a view 
 to our then American possessions. 'J. Ilaptist Missionary 
 Society, founded 1780: receipts, 1837-8, £22,000 ; expendi- 
 ture, £20,000. The operations of this society are chiefly 
 carried OD in the East and West Indies. 3. Loudon Mission- 
 ary Bociaty, founded 1795, now chiefly supported bj the hi 
 dependents: receipts, 1838, £70,000; expenditure, £77,000. 
 
 Much connected with the East Indies and the South Seas. 
 
 4. Church MiBgionar} Society, founded 1804, "for Africa 
 .•mil the East;" but which has recently sent out missionaries 
 extensively to New Zealand: receipts, £72,000; expendi 
 
 ture, £91,000. .',. Weslevan MUsionan Society, founded 
 1817: receipts, £85,000; expenditure, L" 11(0,000. Itsnmstcx 
 tensive field of labour is in the West Indies. C. Missions of 
 760 
 
 MITRE. 
 
 I the Church of Scotland: chiefly India. 7. Missions of the 
 I United Brethren, or Moravians, who have been distinguished 
 in this line of exertion since 1731. The Danish missions are 
 among the oldest Protestant; those of the United States are 
 now among the most extensive. The history of Roman 
 Catholic missions iii the East is detailed in many works. 
 See Duhatde, for China. The rise and fall of Christianity 
 in Japan is narrated by Charlevoix (1715) ; those in Ameri- 
 ca are slightly noticed in the article immediately following 
 
 MISSIONS. Stations of missionaries in infidel countries. 
 In Geography, the extensive districts formerly under the 
 control of missionaries of the Church of Rome, on the bor- 
 ders of the Spanish and Portuguese settlements in America, 
 were so called. These missionaries chiefly belonged to the 
 orders of the Capuchins, Dominicans, and Jesuits ; but the 
 latter were the most celebrated and the most successful. 
 Their settlements in Paraguay comprehended a vast prov- 
 ince, which they governed with independent authority : in 
 Brazil they had also extensive districts under their control. 
 The downfall of the order was followed by the destruction 
 of these settlements : those of Paraguay were wholly ruined ; 
 those of Brazil, by regulations of the Marquis de Pombal, 
 taken from their spiritual governors and placed on a new 
 footing. The missions of the other orders still continue to 
 subsist on the banks of the Upper Amazon and Orinoco, and 
 in California; but they have undergone severe losses from 
 the revolutionary wars. The success of the experiment of 
 governing the American Indians by missionaries has been 
 the subject of much controversy. It is certain that the 
 Jesuits succeeded better than any other governors have done 
 in rendering them industrious, and subjecting them to disci- 
 pline. But it is contended that this was only effected by an 
 artificial system, which rendered them servile and childish 
 dependants of their spiritual masters, and that this slavish 
 state was injurious to them, not only in a moral, but a phys- 
 ical point of view, inducing premature decay; insomuch 
 that, it is said, the population of all the missions was con- 
 tinually decreasing, although endeavours were made to keep 
 it up by violent seizures of free natives, who were brought 
 by force within their boundaries. See Charlevoix, Hist, du 
 Paraguay ; the Lettres Edijiantcs ; Raynal, Histoire des 
 Jndes ; and Southey's History of Brazil : the two last wri- 
 ters especially for philosophical views on the subject, al- 
 though the latter is perhaps too favourable ; Humboldt's 
 Personal JVarrative, for those on the Orinoco ; Forbes's Cali- 
 fornia, for a very unfavourable view of the condition of 
 those in the latter country. American missionaries have 
 established a government in some of the South Sea Islands. 
 See Ellis's Polynesian Researches ; the Voyages of Capt. 
 Beechey, Capt. Fitzroy, and others. 
 
 MITES. A tribe of minute Acaridan Condylopes, which 
 do not suck their food. See Acaris. 
 
 MI'THRAS. The grand deity of the Persians, supposed 
 to be the sun or the god of fire, to which they paid adora- 
 tion as the purest emblem of the divine essence. The Ro- 
 mans also raised altars to the honour of this divinity, with 
 the inscriptions Deo Soli Mithra, or Soli Deo invicto Mi- 
 thrm. As to the introduction of this Oriental worship in 
 Rome, see Mem. dc I'Jic. des Inscr., vol. xvi., p. 270. It 
 was one of those which resisted Christianity the longest. 
 See Beugnot, Destruction du Paganisme en Occident; Mil- 
 man's Hist, of Christianity. 
 
 MI'THRIDATE. A celebrated medicinal confection, in- 
 vented by Damocrates, physician to Mithridates, king of 
 Pontus, and supposed to be an antidote to all effects of poison 
 and contagion ; its active ingredient was opium. 
 
 MI'TRAL VALVES. The valves of the left ventricle 
 of the heart. 
 
 METRE. (Gr. pirpa, a head band, or diadem.) The pon- 
 tifical ornament worn on the he:.d by the pope, cardinals, 
 and in some instances by abbots, in the Roman Catholic 
 Church, and in the Protestant Episcopal Church by arch- 
 bishops and bishops, upon solemn occasions. It appears to 
 have been a hierarchal head-covering from the earliest 
 ages of antiquity. Pellerin saj s it was that worn by the 
 reiral pontiffs of the Hebrews, and, with a few slight modi- 
 fications, was afterwards adopted by the Oriental kings and 
 pagan high priests under the name of cidaris. Among the 
 Romans the mitre was originally a sort of head-dress worn 
 by ladies; and Servius makes it a matter of reproach to 
 the Phrygians that they were dressed like women, inas- 
 much as they wore mitres. There is every reason for sup- 
 posing that in England the mitre was worn by the bishops 
 on the first introduction of Christianity into the island; and 
 It Is supposed in Gaugh's Sepulchral Monuments (vol. i., p. 
 153) that the practice was borrowed from the apex or tutu 
 Ins of the I'lamen Dialis in ancient Koine. As an heral- 
 dic ornament, the mitre of a bishop is surrounded by a fillet 
 set with precious stones: the archbishop's mitre, on the 
 other hand, Issues from a ducal coronet. 
 Mitrk. In Architecture, a junction of two pieces of
 
 MITTIMUS. 
 
 wood or other material at an interior or exterior angle by 
 diagon.nl fitting. 
 
 MITTIMUS. (Lat. we send.) In Law— 1, a writ for 
 transferring records from one court to another ; 2, a pre- 
 cept under the hand and seal of a justice of peace commit- 
 ting an offender to his charge. See Commitment. 
 
 MIXED CADENCE. In Music. See Cadence. 
 
 MIXED FEVER. A fever intermediate between inflam- 
 matory and low or typhus fever. 
 
 MI'ZZEN MAST. The name given to the mast which 
 supports the after sails, being nearest the stern of the ship. 
 
 MNEMO'NICS. (Gr. nvi/p, memory.) The art of re- 
 freshing the memory of particular things by artificial aids. 
 The common process of tying a knot in a handkerchief, 
 &c, will exemplify the simplest species of mnemonics, in 
 which we endeavour to connect certain arbitrary acts with 
 peculiar associations, so that the memory of the former may 
 call up the latter. Some persons have taken the precaution, 
 before delivering an address by heart, of entering the room 
 in which it was to be spoken, and connecting in their own 
 minds particular portions of their intended language with 
 certain visible objects in the room. The well-known solem- 
 nities observed on the perambulation of parish boundaries, 
 &c, form another instance of practical mnemonics, the ob- 
 ject being to fix the memoiy of particular spots in the mind 
 of those present. For the purpose of facilitating the remem- 
 brance of dates, names, &c, various methods have been 
 devised by different writers (especially Feinagle and Gray in 
 England) under the names of Memoria Technica, or Arti- 
 ficial Memory. 
 
 MNEMO'SYNE. (Gr. nvrinouvvrj.) In Classical Mythol- 
 ogy, the goddess of memory : daughter, according to the 
 genealogists, of Uranus (Heaven) and Gaia (Earth), and 
 mother, by Jupiter, of the Nine Muses. Her statues usu- 
 ally have the figure enveloped in long and ample drapery, 
 and the right hand raised towards the chin. 
 
 MOAT. A ditch made round the old castles, and filled 
 with water. In some cases this still remains, as at Lick- 
 hill Castle ; whilst in others they are drained and planted, 
 as at the palace of the Black Prince at Eltham. For the 
 most part, however, all traces of them have disappeared. 
 
 The moat surrounding a military fortress of modem con- 
 struction (or the ditch) is left dry ; but where it is capable 
 of inundation at pleasure, this circumstance is considered 
 an advantage to the system of defence. 
 
 MOBI'LITY. (Lat. moveo, I move.) One of the gen- 
 eral properties of matter, in virtue of which every body at 
 rest can be put in motion by the action of a force adequate 
 to overcome its inertia. See Matter. 
 
 MOCHA STONE. A species of agate. 
 
 MO'CKING BIRD. A name given to one of the family 
 of thrushes, the Turdus polyglottus of Linnceus, on account 
 of the surprising facility and accuracy with which it can 
 imitate almost any sound ; it is also the finest of natural 
 song-birds, and the vocal organs, w-hich are well developed 
 in all the thrush tribe, find their highest perfection and com- 
 plication in the mocking bird. 
 
 This species, in modern ornithological systems, forms the 
 type of a genus (Mimus of Boie) : it includes other spe- 
 cies besides the M. polyglottus, all of which are natives of 
 America. 
 
 MODE. (Lat. modus.) A term used by Locke to denote 
 "such complex ideas, which, however compounded, contain 
 not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but 
 are considered as dependences on, or affections of, sub- 
 stances." Of these modes there are two kinds, simple and 
 mixed. Simple modes are "only variations or different 
 combinations of the same simple idea, without the mixture 
 of any other, as a dozen or a score, which are nothing but 
 the ideas of so many distinct units added together." Mixed 
 modes are those " compounded of simple ideas of several 
 kinds put together to make one complex one — e. g., beauty ; 
 and consisting of a certain composition of colour and figure, 
 causing delight in the beholder." It need hardly be said 
 that this distinction is founded on a very imperfect and false 
 analysis. The term is now universally laid aside by writers 
 on mental philosophy. 
 
 Mode. In Music, the melodious constitution of the oc- 
 tave, as consisting of seven essential and natural sounds be- 
 sides the key or fundamental. It is not any single note or 
 sound, but the order of the concinous degrees of an octave, 
 the fundamental note whereof may, in another sense, be 
 called the key, as it signifies the principal note which regu- 
 lates the rest. The difference between a mode and a key is, 
 that an octave with its natural concinous degrees is called 
 a mode with respect to the manner of dividing it, whilst as 
 regards its place in the scale of music or pitch it is called a 
 key. 
 
 MO'DEL. (Lat. modulus.) In Mechanics, a small or 
 miniature representation of the structure of a machine, so 
 as to exhibit its mode of working, &c. Owing to the effect 
 of increased mass in making the machine itself, the results 
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 obtained from the model exceed those of the machine in a 
 greater ratio than the linear dimensions of the two works. 
 
 Model. In the Fine Arts, that which is an object of imi- 
 tation. In Painting and Sculpture, it is the individual whom 
 the artist procures for getting up his proportions, details, 
 play of the muscles, &c. Also in Sculpture, it is the term 
 applied to the small sketch in wax or clay for a work of 
 art. In Architecture, it is a small pattern in relief, either of 
 wood, plaster, or other material, of the building proposed to 
 be executed. 
 
 MO'DELLING. In the Fine Arts, the art of making a 
 mould from which works in plaster are to be cast ; also used 
 for the forming in clay of the design itself. 
 
 MODERA'TORS, SENIOR and JUNIOR. In the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge, two public officers appointed annually 
 to perform various duties. They are ex officio examiners in 
 the senate-house. Their name is derived from another of 
 their duties, viz., that of moderating or presiding in the op- 
 ponemies, or exercises publicly performed in the schools be- 
 tween under-graduates candidates for the degree of bachelor 
 of arts. These disputations, relics of the old university sys- 
 tem, are now reduced to little more than matters of form. 
 Moderator is also the name applied to the president, for the 
 time being, of the General Assembly of the Church of Scot- 
 land, and of the other inferior church courts, the synods, and 
 presbvteries. 
 
 MODI'LLION. (Fr. modillion.) In Architecture, an 
 ornament sometimes square on its profile, and sometimes 
 
 scroll-shaped, thus fonts' , w hh the intervention of one 
 or two small horizontal members placed at intervals under 
 the corona in the richer orders. They should stand cen- 
 trally over columns when the latter are employed. They 
 are simplest in the Ionic and Composite orders, more carv- 
 ing being bestowed on them in the Corinthian order. The 
 mutule of the Doric order, which should always stand over 
 the centre of a triglyph, is the same sort of thing, and occu- 
 pies the same place in the entablature as the modillion. 
 
 MO'DULATION. (Lat. modulor.) In Music, the act 
 of moving through the sounds in the harmony of any par- 
 ticular key to those of another, or the transition from one 
 key to another. 
 
 MO'DULES. (Lat. modulus.) In Architecture, a meas- 
 ure equal to the semi-diameter of a Doric column. It is a 
 term only applied in the Doric order, and consists of thirty 
 minutes. 
 
 MO'DULUS. In Analysis, the constant coefficient or 
 multiplier in a function of a variable quantity, by means of 
 which the function is accommodated to a particular system 
 or base. Thus, in the theory of logarithms, it is the num- 
 ber by which all the logarithms in one scale of notation 
 must be multiplied to adapt them to the same number in 
 another scale. The only scales or bases actually used in 
 calculation are those of the hyperbolic (or Napierean) and of 
 the common logarithms ; and the modulus of conversion is 
 043429448. For modulus of elasticity, see Elasticity. 
 
 MO'DUS (Modus decimandi, or special manner of ti- 
 thing), in Law, is when lands, tenements, or some certain 
 annual sum or other profit hath been given, time out of 
 mind, to a parson and his successors in full satisfaction and 
 discharge of all tithes in kind. It is in some cases a pecu- 
 niary compensation, in others compensation in work and la- 
 bour. See Tithes. 
 
 MOGRA'BIANS, or MEN OF THE WEST. A name 
 formerly given to a species of Turkish infantry, composed 
 of the peasants of the northern parts of Africa, who sought 
 to ameliorate their condition by entering into foreign service. 
 
 MOG'UL, GREAT. The name by which the chief of the 
 empire so called, founded in Hindostan by Baber in the 15th 
 century, was known in Europe. The last person to whom 
 this title of right belonged was Shah Allum ; and the Mogul 
 empire having terminated at his death in 1806, his vast pos- 
 sessions fell chiefly into the hands of the East India Com- 
 pany. 
 
 MOHAIR. (Gr. mohr ; Fr. moire ; It. moerro ; Sp. mue, 
 muer.) The hair of a variety of the common goat, famous 
 for being soft and fine as silk, and of a silvery whiteness. It 
 is not produced anywhere but in the vicinity of Angora, in 
 Asia Minor. The exportation of this valuable and beautiful 
 article, unless in the shape of yarn, was formerly prohibit- 
 ed ; but it may now be exported unspun. The production, 
 preparation, and sale of mohair have long engrossed the 
 principal attention of the inhabitants of Angora ; and it used 
 to form an important article of Venetian commerce. It is- 
 manufactured into camlets and other expensive stuffs. 
 Hitherto but little has been imported into England. 
 
 MOHA'MMEDANISM. One of the most celebrated sys- 
 tems of religion in the world ; so called from Mohammed, 
 its author and founder, who was born at Mecca, in Arabia, 
 in May, 571. This founder of a new religion, and of a polit- 
 ical power, which, even in his lifetime, extended over his 
 native country, and which, under his successors, threatened 
 3 A * 761
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 to embrace the empire of the world, traced his ggnealogj in 
 ;i direct line through eleven descents from Koreish, the 
 founder of the powerful tribe that bore his name, and who 
 again was affirmed to be in direct descent from Ishmael, the 
 son of Abraham 'i'he future prophet sprung, therefore, 
 from the noblest tribe of the Ishmaelitish Arabs ; and his 
 grandfather was at the time of his birth sovereign of Mecca, 
 and guardian of the Caaba (which from time immemorial 
 had been identified in the minds of the Arabs with every 
 sacred feeling) : consequently, from the sanctity of his terri- 
 tory and Ins utlice, a prince of great power and influence. 
 But, though descended from so powerful a family, Moham- 
 med's early life was spent in comparative dependence. His 
 lather was a younger son of Abdol Motalleb : and having in 
 his early infancy lost both his parents, his only inheritance 
 was five camels and a female slave. < >n his paternal grand- 
 father was devolved the guardianship of the future prophet ; 
 hut of this protector he was deprived by death when only 
 eight years of age. In a dying charge, Motalleb confided 
 this tender plant of the ancient stock of the Koreish to the 
 hands of Abu Taleb, his eldest son, and tile successor of his 
 authority, who amply redeemed the trust reposed in him 
 by continuing throughout life the steadfast friend of his 
 ward amid all the difficulties and dangers to which the lat- 
 ter was exposed in the promulgation of his doctrines. His 
 education, however, is said to have been extremely scanty ; 
 and at the early age of thirteen, being intended for a com- 
 mercial life, he accompanied his uncle's trading caravan 
 into Syria. He afterwards entered into the service of Khadi- 
 jah. a ricli widow of Mecca, to whom his skill in commerce 
 or his other accomplishments so far endeared him that, at 
 the end of three years, she bestowed upon him her hand and 
 fortune, an alliance whicli restored him to the station of his 
 family. At this period he was twenty-five, and bis wife 
 forty years of age. 
 
 During the first thirteen years of bis marriage little or no- 
 thing is known of his history ; but at the termination of that 
 period he withdrew from society, resorted to a cave in the 
 neighbourhood of Mecca, where he gave himself up to con- 
 templation, and laid the foundation of that bold and hazard- 
 ous project which afterward raised him to glory and domin- 
 ion. It was in this retirement he gave out that for two 
 years he was in daiiy communication with the Deity. 
 
 In his 40th year he assumed the prophetic office, and dis- 
 played his views and principles to his domestic circle. His 
 first convert was Khadijab, whom he always retarded with 
 affection, and even reverence, and whom he placed, after 
 her death, among the only four perfect women the world 
 ever saw ; the other three being Miriam, the sister of Moses : 
 the Virgin Mary ; and Fatima, the youngest of his own 
 daughters. The progress of the new sect was at first very 
 slow. Three years were silently employed in the conver- 
 sion of fourteen (some say nine) proselytes ; but in the fourth 
 year he extended the theatre of his preaching, and proclaim- 
 ed his doctrines publicly to his fellow-citizens. The faith 
 which, under the name of Islam (i. <?., salvation), he preach- 
 ed, was compounded substantially of two great principles, 
 which, as Gibbon says, involves an eternal truth and a ne- 
 cessary fiction, namely, that " there is only one God. and 
 that Mohammed is his prophet — the last and greatest of the 
 prophets." He did not, however, aim so much at founding 
 a new religion as reforming the old, as declared by the for- 
 mer prophets, Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, aiid Christ, 
 by putting an end to those superstitions and idolatries by 
 Which the true faith had been corrupted. Being urged to 
 confirm the reality of his divine mission by miracles, he 
 wisely declined the attempt, appealing to the internal evi- 
 dence of his doctrines, and declaring that miracles would 
 depreciate the merit of faith. The only miracle which he- 
 professed to have accomplished is a nocturnal journey from 
 Mecca to Jerusalem, and thence through the heavens, on an 
 imaginary animal called Borack, i. «., lightning ; but the 
 words of the Koran are often regarded as figurative and al- 
 legorical. He persevered with assiduity in the public exer- 
 cise of his mission. The citizens of Mecca listened to the 
 exposition of his principles with patience till he attacked the 
 idols of the Caaba. This, however, raised such a storm 
 against him, particularly on the part of the- Koreishites, that, 
 notwithstanding the protection of Abu Taleb, who. though 
 not converted to Mainism, continued the warm and stead- 
 fast protector of his nephew: many of his followers Bed to 
 other countries, chieliy to Kthiopia. Tins happened in the 
 sixth vear of liis mission, and is called the firjt Skein, or 
 flight. 
 
 In the tenth year of his mission he lost both his wile 
 Khadijab and his uncle Abu Taleb. Tin death of the lat- 
 ter being the severest blow that the new faith had \el ma 
 tained, this year is known in the Mohammedan annals as 
 " the year of mourning.'' The death of Abu Taleb remov ed 
 the only check to the virulent enmity of the Koreishifes; 
 and a stranger having succeeded to the sovereigntj <>r Me. 
 ca, after a troubled residence vi three years, marked, how- , 
 762 
 
 ever, by the accession of many proselytes, Mohammed, en 
 tlie in\ itation of a deputation (ram Medina, fled to that city 
 anil instantly, as if by magic, the proscribed and condemned 
 exile became a powerful, and, as it soon appeared, an all 
 but invincible monarch. The flight from Mecca to Medina, 
 which is called the second Hegira, or, par excellence, Thb 
 Hegira, is the epoch from which the Mohammedans date 
 their .tra. It occurred in the 53d year of Mohammed's age, 
 ami 13th of his mission, and coincides with the ltith July, 
 A.D. 6*1. 
 
 Hitherto Mohammed had used only the mild words of 
 persuasion and argument in propagating his religion. 
 Throughout the eighty-five chapters of tlie Koran, pub- 
 lished at Mecca, so far from the use of any species of coer- 
 cion being recommended to be employed in support of his 
 faith, he exhorts his followers to bear with meekness the 
 injuries to whicli their principles might expose them, decla- 
 ring that he had no authority to compel any one to embrace 
 his creed. In the eighteen chapters published at -Medina, 
 on the contrary, he taught a very different doctrine, and an- 
 nounced that God had commanded him to extirpate idolatry 
 by force of arms, and to force universal submission to his 
 authority. The enjoyments of paradise were promised to 
 " those who tight for the cause of God, whether they be 
 slain or not." (Sur. 11, 4, 9.) Nor were these mere words 
 of course ; they were soon reduced to practice. Moham- 
 med, soon after his arrival in Medina, assumed the exercise 
 both of the sacerdotal and regal office. The option of friend- 
 ship, or submission, or battle, was proposed to the enemies 
 of Islamism. His petty excursions for the defence or attack 
 of a caravan prepared his troops for tlie conquest of Arabia. 
 But what established his power, and laid the foundation of 
 future conquests, was the issue of the battle of Bedr, near 
 Medina, fought in the second year of tlie Hegira, between 
 the troops of Abu Sophian, the new sovereign of Mecca, and 
 his own, in which the latter, though only a third of the 
 number of the enemy, gained a complete victory, with the 
 loss of only forty men. From this period the progress of 
 Mohammed, if not a complete triumph (for he sustained 
 some defeats), affords an example of perhaps the most rapid 
 success on record ; and at the lapse of six years, in the eighth 
 Hegira, his victorious troops entered the city of Mecca — an 
 epoch from which may be dated the final establishment of 
 the Mohammedan faith in Arabia. The tew contests that 
 followed were merely tlie last struggles of an expiring op- 
 position, and were mostly terminated by Mohammed's gen- 
 erals while the prophet himself was employed in destroy- 
 ing the idols enshrined in tlie Caaba, and in conseerating 
 the temple to the worship of the sole God. The year fol- 
 lowing is known in Mussulman history as tlie "year of em- 
 bassies ;" because missions were sent to the prophet from a 
 majority of the Arabian tribes, give g in their adhesion to 
 his creed, and recognising his authority, both sacred and 
 civil. 
 
 But while his religion was thus triumphant, and was des- 
 tined still farther to spread, and to remain, the prophet's 
 own days were drawing to a close. About three years be- 
 fore his death his health had been declining, in consequence 
 of poison that had been administered to him by a Jewess of 
 Chaibor, hi order to test the validity of his Divine knowl- 
 edge. But his death was occasioned by a fever of fourteen 
 days, on the 6th of June, 63J, in the 16th Hegira, in the 63u 
 year of his age. His remains were buried in Medina, in the 
 very room in which he breathed his last : and though the 
 house itself has long since disappeared, a simple unadorned 
 monument marks the spot where his body reposes. The 
 pilgrim, on his way to Mecca, increases the worth of his pil- 
 grimage if he turn aside to visit also the city which contains 
 the ashes oi Mohammed. 
 
 During the life of Khadijab. Mohammed did not avail 
 himself of the right of polygamy: after her death, however, 
 the restraints which poliC] or conjugal affection had impo- 
 sed on him were laid aside, and the utmost license! marked 
 his subsequent career. While be limited the number of 
 wives to four in the case of others, he claimed an exemp- 
 tion to himself on Divine authority, and married no fewer 
 than seventeen according to some authorities, and nine ac- 
 cording to others: strangely enough, all widows except one, 
 he daughter of Abu Beker. By Khadijah he had 
 four sons and as many daughters, and b] an Egyptian con- 
 cubine a fifth son : but his sons all died in infancy ; and of 
 ten daughters none survived him except Fatima, who was 
 married to her cousin Ali. From this marriage sprang an 
 illustrious ofispring, the ancestors of the numerous existing. 
 scherifs, or sons of tiie prophet. 
 
 The religion of the supposititious prophet is contained in 
 the h'rr.in i. , .. book), tin- coiitenis of which, according to 
 Mohammedan belief, are uncreated and eternal, subsisting 
 B 'In- c ssi I ity. and inscribed wftfa a pen of light 
 
 on the table of ihe everlasting decrees, and communicated 
 at different limes to Mohammed b\ the angel Gabriel. The 
 Koran, Which k> written iD the purest Arabic, is, with some
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 
 
 exceptions, a work characterized by great richness and sub- 
 limity. To the beauty of its style, indeed, its author appeals 
 as a proof of its inspiration ; but Gibbon has remarked, that 
 " his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of 
 the book of Job" (chap. iv.). Its boldest nights, and its 
 general scope, are borrowed from the sacred volume. In- 
 deed, the object of Mohammed seems to have been to recall 
 the inhabitants of the populous country of Arabia to the 
 worship of the only God, and to unite idolaters, Jews, and 
 Christians in the same creed. He taught that the chain of 
 inspiration was prolonged from Adam to the promulgation 
 of the Koran ; that Christ did not die on the cross, but that 
 a phantom, or a criminal, was substituted in his place, and 
 that he was translated to the seventh heaven ; that Christ 
 rejoiced in the assurance of a future prophet more illustri- 
 ous than himself; and that the promise of the Paraclete, or 
 Holy Ghost, was prefigured in the name, and accomplished 
 in the person, of Mohammed, the last and greatest of the 
 prophets. He taught the existence of angels, good and bad, 
 and of the Devil or Eblis ; describing the latter as having 
 been expelled from heaven, without hope of recovery, for 
 refusing to pay homage to Adam at the divine command. 
 As to the inspired writings, he acknowledged the Penta- 
 teuch, the Psalms, and the Gospel. The doctrine of the 
 resurrection and the day of judgment formed part of his 
 faith. He taught that every man shall be judged according 
 to his works ; but that the believers in Islamism shall not 
 be subjected (like the wicked idolaters or infidels) to eternal 
 condemnation, but that, after undergoing a purifying punish- 
 ment, they shall be translated into the regions of bliss. He 
 inculcated the absolute and unalterable predestination of all 
 things. He called prayer " the pillar of religion" and "the 
 key of Paradise ;" and he prescribed five different stated 
 periods of prayer daily, accompanied with as many ablu- 
 tions or purifications of the body. During prayer he first in- 
 sisted that the face should be turned to Jerusalem, in com- 
 pliment to the Jews ; but afterward bestowed that honour 
 Mecca. Alms, fasting, and pilgrimage to Mecca, are the 
 remaining duties of practical religion enjoined on all good 
 Mussulmans. Of the last the most holy was that of Rama- 
 dan, instituted in honour of the month in which Gabriel ap- 
 peared to him in Mecca. Friday was ordained as the Mos- 
 lem sabbath, because it was on that day he made his flight 
 to Medina. He continued the rite of circumcision in com- 
 pliment to the prejudices of his countrymen. He condemn- 
 ed usury, and forbade the drinking of wine. 
 
 The grossly sensual character of Mohammed's paradise 
 constitutes, perhaps, the greatest blemish in his religious 
 system, and has exerted a debasing influence over all the 
 countries where it has acquired an ascendency. 
 
 To the history of Islamism after the death of its illustri- 
 ous founder we canno* do more than allude. The rival 
 pretensions of Abu Beker and Ali, the latter of whom called 
 himself " the first believer," to succeed Mohammed in the 
 empire he had founded, both gave a temporary check to the 
 progress of the religion, and produced a schism which ex- 
 ists till the present day. See Sonnites, Schiites. 
 
 Notwithstanding the high pretensions of his competitor, 
 Abu Beker was elected to the office of supreme head of the 
 Mussulman religion and power, under the title of " Caliph," 
 or "Khaltf;" i. e., successor to the prophet. Under his 
 sway, and that of his two immediate successors, the most 
 brilliant success attended the Arab amis. Indeed, by the 
 20th Hegira, or within ten years of the death of the prophet, 
 Syria, Persia, and Egypt, being conquered, adopted the new 
 faith. Ali was chosen the fourth khalif, but achieved no- 
 thing very memorable. At his death, which took place by 
 the hands of an assassin, the throne was usurped by a son 
 of Abu Sophian, whose descendants are called the Omay- 
 zade race of khalif s. They held the sovereignty for nearly 
 100 years, during which time the whole of Africa was over- 
 run, and so far colonized by tribes of Bedouins that it has 
 since remained, as to language, manners, and religion, an 
 Arab country. The Islam faith prospered nearly as rapidly 
 in the East ; at least, within 80 years from Mohammed's 
 death it embraced all the countries between the Indus and 
 the Atlantic, and from the Indian Ocean to the steppes of 
 Central Asia. It has since penetrated even into China, and 
 found its way into many of the islands in the Indian Archi- 
 pelago. Spain was taken in 711. The Arabs were, for a 
 short time, masters of the south of France, but were finally 
 driven across the Pyrenees in 732. The Omayzade khalifs 
 were, in the 133d Hegira (A.D. 750), superseded by the de- 
 scendants of Abbas, one of the uncles of Mohammed. This 
 last dynasty is known in history as that of the Abbasside 
 khalifs. 
 
 Meanwhile the seat of the khalifat was removed from 
 Medina to Damascus, and latterly to Bagdad. Nor was the 
 khalifate itself of very long standing. It had been tottering 
 for years ; but it fell in the 656lh Hegira (A.D. 1258) ; a Tar- 
 tar army having taken Bagdad, and put an end to the nom- 
 inal, sacerdotal, and regal power of the khalifs, the real 
 
 MOLE. 
 
 power having for a long time resided in the Turkish sultans 
 of Asia Minor. The title of khalif is now recognised as one 
 of the attributes of the grand signior as successor of Mo- 
 hammed, and of the sophi of Persia as successor of Ali ; but 
 it no longer implies the discharge of any religious functions. 
 But neither the foreign conquests of the Mussulmans, nor 
 the downfall of the khalifat, made any essential change in 
 the political state of Arabia. The people adhere to Mo- 
 hammedanism as the true faith, but otherwise are divided 
 into petty tribes and communities, as before the birth of the 
 pretended prophet. Of two attempts made in Arabia to 
 reform the Moslem faith, all traces of the first (A.D. 890), 
 the object of which was to rescind the prohibition of wine, 
 and to prevent the pilgrimages to the holy ashes, have dis- 
 appeared. The other took place in more recent times, 
 namely, in the beginning of the last century. It was made 
 by Addul Waheb, who proclaimed himself a prophet sent 
 by God to reform the abuses which gradually had been in- 
 grafted on the religion of Mohammed. The chief of the 
 Wahabee doctrines, so called from their author, was, that 
 God was to be worshipped in the strictest unity ; and that 
 no adoration should be paid to Mohammed, or any created 
 being. (See Wahabeeism.) But while these doctrines 
 were rapidly spreading, and while the cities of Mecca and 
 Medina had fallen into the hands of the new sect, Mehemet 
 Ali, in the name of the sultan, gave an effectual check (1813) 
 to their farther progress, and restored the holy cities to the 
 nominal authority of the Porte. The Wahabee tenets have 
 since been at a stand, or are on the decline, even in Nedsjed, 
 the native province of the founder. (See Abulfeda, in vita 
 Mohammed ; Prideaux' Life of Mohammed, 8vo, 1710 ; Ad- 
 am' s Religious World Displayed ; D'Herbelot, Bibliotheque 
 Orient. ; Green's Life of Mahomet ; the Travels of Nie- 
 buhr and others ; Burckhardfs Notes on Bedouins and TVa- 
 habees ; Rycaufs Present State of the Ottoman Empire; 
 Lives of Mohammed by Boulainvillier and Gagnicr ; Mill's 
 Hist, of Moham. ; Forster's Moham. Unveiled; and espe- 
 cially M'Culloch's Geog. Diet., art. "Arabia.") 
 MOIDORE. A Portuguese gold coin, value 27s. sterling. 
 MOI'NEAU. (Fr.) A small flat bastion, raised in front 
 of an intended fortification to defend it from approaches by 
 means of small arms. 
 
 MOIRE'E METALLIQUE, called in this country crys- 
 tallized tin-plate, is a variegated primrose appearance, pro- 
 duced upon the surface of tin-plate by applying to it in a 
 heated state some dilute nitro-muriatic acid for a few sec- 
 onds, then washing it with water, drying, and coating it 
 with lacquer. The figures are more or less beautiful and 
 diversified, according to the degree of heat and relative dilu- 
 tion of the acid. This mode of ornamenting tin-plate is much 
 less in vogue now than it was a few years ago. (Tire's 
 Diet, of Arts, ire.) 
 
 MO'LARS, Molares. (Lat. mola, a mill.) Teeth gen- 
 erally having a flattened triturating surface, and situated be- 
 hind the incisors, and laniaries when these are also present. 
 In some Mammals, as the Cape ant-eater, all the teeth are 
 molars. They are generally of two kinds ; viz., those which 
 are liable to be displaced and succeeded by others in the 
 vertical direction, and those which are succeeded, and some- 
 times, as in the elephant and kangaroo, displaced by others 1 
 developed at the back of the mouth, and advancing forwards 
 horizontally : the first are termed false molars, the second 
 kind true molars. 
 
 MOLA'SSE. A provincial name used in Switzerland for 
 a soft, green standstone belonging to the Miocene tertiary 
 period. See Geology. 
 
 MOLA'SSES. (Port, melasses.) A brown, viscid, un- 
 crystallizable sugar. (See Sugar.) It is sometimes used in 
 England in preparing the coarser sort of preserves, and on 
 the Continent extensively in the manufacture of tobacco. It 
 has a burned but not a disagreeable taste. 
 
 MOLE. A species of the genus Talpa (which see), com- 
 mon in this country and other parts of Europe. This quad- 
 ruped exhibits in perfection that modification of structure by 
 which the Mammiferous animal is adapted to a subterranean 
 life. Its head is long, conical, and tapering to the snout, 
 which is strengthened by a bone, and by strong gristles 
 worked by powerful muscles. The body is almost cylindrical, 
 thickest behind the head, and gradually diminishes to the 
 tail. There is no outward indication of a neck, that part 
 being enlarged to the size of the chest by the massive mus- 
 cles which act upon the head and fore legs. These, which 
 are the principal instruments by which the mole excavates 
 its long and intricate burrows, are the shortest, broadest, and 
 strongest, in proportion to the size of the animal, which are 
 to be met with in the Mammiferous class. The rapidity 
 with which the mole can make its way through a favour- 
 able soil is such, that it may be said to swim m the earth ; 
 and, since it must displace matter so much denser than 
 water, so do its fore-limbs display a mechanism correspond- 
 in"lv superior in strength to the analogous extremities or 
 pertoral fins of the dolphin. The food of the mole consists
 
 MOLECULE. 
 
 of worms and insects: its voracity is great, and it soon per- 
 ishes if food be scarce or wanting. The ardour of the sex- 
 ual appetite is not less Intense and characteristic of this 
 curious quadruped. The sense of sight is very feeble, the 
 eyes being minute and rudimental; but the other faculties 
 of smell ami hearing, as being more serviceable in its dark 
 retreat, are extremely acute. 
 
 The female prepares a nest of dry herbage, roots, and 
 leaves, in a chamber commonly formed by excavating and 
 enlarging the point of intersection of three or four passages. 
 The young are brought forth to the number of four or five in 
 April, and sometimes later. 
 
 The farmer views the operations of the mole as destruc- 
 tive to his crops by exposing and destroying their roots, or 
 by overthrowing the plants in the construction of the mole- 
 hills; his borrows, moreover, become the haunts and hiding- 
 places of the field-mouse and other noxious animals. The 
 moli> is also accused of carrying off quantities of young corn 
 to form its nest. Hence every means are devised to capture 
 and destroy it, and men gain a livelihood exclusively by this 
 occupation. Some naturalists, however, plead that the in- 
 jury which it perpetrates is slight, and that it is more than 
 counterbalanced by the benefit which it produces by turning 
 up and lightening the soil, and especially by its immense de- 
 struction of earth worms, and many other noxious animals 
 which inhabit the superficial layer of the ground, and oc- 
 casion great injury to the roots of grass, corn, and many 
 other plants. The soundest practical conclusion lies proba- 
 bly in the mean of these opinions ; and the enlightened agri- 
 culturist, while he takes prompt measures to prevent the 
 undue increase of the mole, would do well to reflect on the 
 disadvantages which might follow its total extermination. 
 
 Mole. In Engineering, a massive work formed of large 
 stones placed in the sea by means of cotfer-dams, extended 
 either in a right line or an arch of a circle before a port, 
 which it serves to close, and to defend the vessels in it from 
 the impetuosity of the waves, &.C. It is sometimes used 
 synonymously with harbour. 
 
 MOLECULE. (Lat. molecula.) A corpuscle or atom, 
 single or compound. Molecules are the elementary particles 
 Into which all bodies are supposed to be resolvable. 
 
 MO'LLNISM. In Roman Catholic Theology, a system 
 of opinions on the subjects of grace and predestination some- 
 what resembling that advocated by the Arminian party 
 among Protestants. It derived its name from the Jesuit 
 Louis Molina, professor of theology in the university of 
 Evora in Portugal, who laid down a series of propositions 
 on these debated questions in his work, entitled Liberi arbi- 
 trii cum gratia donis, eW\, concordia, which appeared in 
 1588. He was attacked by the Dominicans on the charge 
 of having advocated in it Pelagian or Semi-Pelagian senti- 
 ments, and accused before the Inquisition : he appealed to 
 Rome, and the cause was debated for twenty years in the 
 congregations, and left at last undecided by a decree of Paul 
 V. in 1687. Since that period Molinism has been taught as 
 an opinion which believers are free to embrace in Roman 
 Catholic schools, and generally supported by the Jesuit and 
 attacked by the Jansenist party. It must not be confounded 
 with Molinosism : a name which the doctrine of the Quiet- 
 ists has received from the work of a Spanish enthusiast 
 (Molinosi on Mystical Life, condemned in 1687 by Innocent 
 XI. The French fluietiets professed to abjure and oppose 
 the errors of Molinos. (Mosheim, 17th Cent., 14, 2, part i.) 
 St e Q.1 iktists. 
 
 Mi IXISITE. A mineralogical name of the crystallized 
 thaniate of iron of Dauphiny. 
 
 MO'LLAH. The title of the higher order of judges in 
 the Turkish empire. After the three first magistrates of the 
 empire [the two cadil-askers of Roumi and Anatolia, and 
 the istambol-cadissy, or chief ordinary judge of the capital) 
 follow fourteen mollahs, who preside over the fourteen 
 principal seats of justice in the empire; among these, the 
 mollahs of Mecca and .Medina have the highest rank. The 
 place Of mollah, like all others in the Turkish empire, is 
 held only at the will of the sovereign, and is now granted 
 annually (see D'Ohsson, Tableau de l' Empire Ottoman, vol. 
 iv.) ; bat displaced moll ahs preserve their rank in the Qlema 
 above their successors. The Turkish mollah must not be 
 confounded with the Tartar mulla, which see. 
 
 Ml i I.I.I'.. (Ital.) In Music, a sound that is flat as com- 
 pared to another half a tone higher, thence called sharp. 
 
 Mi >LLUSKS, Mallusca. (I. at. mollis, toft.) The name 
 applied by Cuvier to the great primary division of the ani- 
 mal kingdom which includes all those species having a gan- 
 gliateil nervous system, with the ganglions or medullary 
 masses dispersed more or less irregularl] in different parts of 
 the body, winch is soft and inarticulate. The pulmonarj or 
 branchial circulation Is separate and distinct, but Is aided by 
 the direct propulsion of a heart In one class only. There is 
 always a heart tor the systematic circulation, and it mostly 
 
 Consists of one ventricle and one auricle. Some of the oioi 
 tusks breathe air. but the greater part respire through the 
 764 
 
 MOMENT. 
 
 medium of salt or fresh water. The blood of the molltisfcg 
 Is white or bluish. In one class only is there a rudiment 
 Of an internal skeleton giving attachment to a part of the 
 muscular system ; in the rest it is absent, and the muscles 
 are attached to various points of the skin. Their contrac- 
 tions produce inflections and extensions of 'heir different 
 parts, and, alternating with relaxations, enable the species 
 to creep, climb, swim, burrow, and seize upon various ob- 
 jects, according as the form of these parts may permit ; but 
 as the locomotive organs are not supported by articulated 
 and solid levers, the niollusks cannot leap or advance rapid- 
 ly on dry land. Many of the aquatic species are encumbered 
 with a heavy shell. Nearly all tire niollusks have an ex- 
 tensive fold of the skin reflected over their body, which it 
 covers like a mantle ; it is sometimes produced into a breath- 
 ing-pipe, or extended and divided in the form of fins. When 
 the mantle is simply membranous or fleshy, or when a horny 
 or testaceous rudiment of a shell is developed, but remains 
 concealed in the substance of the mantle, the moUusk is said 
 to be naked. When the shell is so much enlarged that the 
 contracted animal finds shelter beneath or within it, the 
 species is said to be testaceous. (SeeCoNcuoLOOY.) The mas- 
 ticatory or oral organs present all the various modifications 
 for predatory, omnivorous, or herbivorous habits ; and the 
 stomach may be simple, multiple, or complicated with a 
 peculiar armature. Some of the niollusks are unisexual, 
 others androgynous, a few dicecious. 
 
 With few exceptions, their habits and economy present 
 comparatively little variety or interest, and they are only 
 preserved by their fecundity and vital tenacity. See Mala- 
 cology. 
 
 MO'LOCH. The name of the chief god of the Phoeni- 
 cians, frequently mentioned in Scripture as the God of the 
 Ammonites, and probably the same as the Saturn of the 
 Syrians and Carthaginians. Human sacrifices were offered 
 at the shrine of this divinity ; and it was chiefly in the valley 
 of Tophet, to the east of Jerusalem, that this "brutal idolatry 
 was perpetrated. Solomon built a temple to Moloch upon 
 the Mount of Olives, and Manasseh long after imitated his 
 impiety by making his son pass through the fire kindled in 
 honour of this horrid king. 
 
 Milton has described the character of Moloch in the fol- 
 lowing well-known lines: 
 
 First Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood 
 
 Of human sacrifice and parents' tears: 
 
 Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud 
 
 Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire 
 
 To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite 
 
 Worshipped in Rabba and her water}- plain, 
 
 In Argnb and in Basan, to the stream 
 
 Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such 
 
 Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart 
 
 Of Solomon he led bv fraud to build 
 
 His temple right against the temple of God, 
 
 On that opprobrious hill ; and made his grove 
 
 The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence 
 
 And black Gehenna call'd, the type of Hell. 
 
 MOLO'SSUS. In Greek and Latin poetry, a foot consist- 
 ing of three long syllables, as xaiptfi'rnt, regnabant. It is 
 said to derive its name either from a favourite dance of the 
 Molossi, a people of Epirus, or from Jupiter Molossus, in 
 whose honour odes were composed in which this foot had a 
 great share. 
 
 MOLYBDE'NUM. (Gr. /(oXi'Scoc, lead.) This name was 
 originally applied to the native sulphuret of molybdenum, 
 which was considered to be an ore of lead; it was after- 
 wards shown to be the ore of a peculiar metal, to which the 
 name molybdenum was given. It is white, brittle, very In- 
 fusible, and of a specific gravity about 8'6. It forms two ox- 
 ides and an acid. The equivalent of the metal is about 48 ; 
 and the molybdic acid consists of 1 atom of molybdenum and 
 3 of oxygen, and is represented by the equivalent 72. The 
 Compounds of this acid are called molybdatcs. The molyb- 
 date of lead has been found native. 
 
 MOMENT, (l.at. inovere, to move.) A small but in- 
 definite period of time. Sometimes the word instant is used 
 synonymously with moment. 
 
 Moment, Momentum. These terms have been used by 
 writers on mechanics in various senses. Galileo, in his 
 Dialogues, uses the phrase momentum of a power, or of a 
 weight, applied to a machine, to denote the action, energy, 
 or impetus of the power to move the machine; so that an 
 equilibrium subsists between two powers when their mo- 
 ments to move the machine in opposite directions are equal : 
 and he shows that the momentum is proportional to the 
 power multiplied into the virtual velocity. This notion of 
 momentum was also adopted by Wallls, in his Mechanics, 
 published in lli(ii) ; and when the term is used with respect 
 to a weight, it is synonymous with the phrase quantity of 
 
 mnl ni ii, that is, the product of the mass bj the velocity. 
 
 The product of tin. mass by the square of the velocity, or 
 the living force {see Force), Is sometimes called the mom ni 
 of the moving force, or the moment of activity ; and the pro- 
 duct of the hklss by the velocity and by a line (or, which is
 
 MOMIERS. 
 
 the same, by the square of the velocity and by a time) is 
 called the moment of the quantity of motion, or quantity of 
 action. (Cainot, Principes de V Equilibre et du Mouvement.) 
 
 Modern writers use the phrase moment of a force with re- 
 spect to a point, to denote the product of the force into the 
 perpendicular let fall from the point upon the line of its di- 
 rection; and moment of a force with respect to a plane, to 
 denote the product of the force into the perpendicular drawn 
 from its point of application to the plane. These two mo- 
 ments are entirely distinct. The first depends upon the di- 
 rection of the force, and is independent of its point of appli- 
 cation; the latter depends upon the point of application, and 
 is independent of the direction. (See Poisson, Traite de 
 JUecanique.) 
 
 Moment of Inertia, in Dynamics, denotes the sum of the 
 products of all the material elements of a revolving body, 
 each multiplied into the square of its distance from the axis 
 of rotation. It is the integral of the expression frf d m ; in 
 which d m is the element of the mass, and r its distance from 
 the axis. See Rotation. 
 
 MO'MIERS. (From the Fr. momerie, Ang. mummery.) 
 The name by which certain religionists of the so-called 
 Evangelical party have been designated in Switzerland, and 
 some parts of France and Germany, since 1818. They ap- 
 pear originally to have borne a considerable resemblance to 
 the Methodists of our own country ; for, like the latter, they 
 at first embraced no tenets distinct from those of the Estab- 
 lished Church, and were only distinguished from its members 
 by a more habitual indulgence in devotional contemplation 
 and religious exercises. But they did not long continue to 
 harmonize with the preachers of the establishment. One 
 of the most vehement of the party, in a pamphlet published 
 in 1818, accused the latter of denying the divinity of our Sa- 
 viour, and of a thorough backsliding from the doctrines of 
 Calvinism ; and the Geneva clergy (la venerable compagnie) 
 having, in the view of allaying asperities, passed a resolution 
 prohibiting any theories of the doctrinal points of religion 
 from being propounded in the pulpit, and having counselled 
 the clergy to avoid disputed points as much as possible in 
 their discourses, the smouldering embers of their hostility 
 to the Established Church burst into a flame. They now be- 
 gan to attack the clergy in the pulpit and in pamphlets, ac- 
 cusing them of having abandoned all gospel truth, and deny- 
 ing their right to be regarded as ministers of the establish- 
 ment. But all their efforts to bring the latter into contempt 
 were unsuccessful : the Genevese remained faithful to their 
 pastors ; and in the year 1835 the Momiers possessed only 
 about 200 adherents. 
 
 In other parts of Switzerland, however, and more espe- 
 cially in the canton de Vaud, the zeal of these sectaries was 
 attended with more success. After a few years' toleration of 
 their preaching and proselytizing, during which it was al- 
 leged the Momiers had sown the greatest discord and dis- 
 content among the inhabitants of the canton, the government 
 at last saw the necessity of interference, and in the year 
 1824 promulgated some vigorous ordinances to put them 
 down. These enactments, as might have been expected, 
 failed of their effect. The enthusiasm of the Momiers was 
 redoubled : they were now surrounded with the glory of 
 martyrdom ; and many who before had viewed their zeal 
 ■with indifference or contempt, now deeply sympathized in 
 what they could not but regard as an undisguised attack 
 upon the liberty of conscience. In consequence of the gen- 
 eral disgust that ensued on their promulgation, these ordi- 
 nances were at first gradually relaxed, then suffered to lie 
 dormant, and at last repealed in 1831. Since that period the 
 number of the Momiers has gradually diminished ; and in 
 1839, the clergy of this canton resolved by a large majority 
 to revert to the ancient regime of the church. (See the 
 Conversations Lexicon der Gegenwart. See also the Edin. 
 Review, vol. xlii., which contains an interesting account of 
 the rigorous enactments passed against this sect, with some 
 severe remarks on their violence and absurdity.) 
 
 MO'MUS. (Gr. fi&iioi, derision.) The god of raillery 
 and ridicule, and said by Hesiod to have been the progeny 
 of light. 
 
 MO'NACHISM, MONK, MONASTERY. (All derived 
 from the Gr. ^oVoc, alone.) Words indicative of certain im- 
 portant features in ecclesiastical history. Monachus, or 
 monk, properly signifies one who lives a solitary life, and 
 was applied in the first instance to the numerous individuals 
 who began in the second and third centuries to retire from 
 the occupations of the world, and devote themselves in the 
 deserts of Egypt and Syria to a contemplative and religious 
 life. It was not till the middle of the third century that the 
 monkish system, properly so called, was established, by 
 which many persons were congregated together, and bound 
 by vows to the performance of various religious duties and 
 abstinence from worldly enjoyments. These monks are dis- 
 tinguished by the appellation of Crenobites, or Associates, 
 from the ascetics, anchorites, and hermits, who lived apart, 
 not from the world only, but from each other. The monk- 
 
 MONEY. 
 
 ish system originated in Egypt, where St. Anthony founded 
 several associations of this kind. The inmates of the primi- 
 tive monasteries were bound by the profession of four ob- 
 jects : solitude, labour, fasting, and prayers. They renounced 
 all temporal possessions, and supported themselves entirely 
 with their own hands. Fasting was practised in moderation 
 only ; nor do the early monks appear to have affected piety 
 or regularity by the extravagant austerities of later times. 
 For a useful list of books on the subject, see this article in 
 the Penny Cyclopedia. 
 
 For an account of the progress of this practice, and the 
 rules to which the professors of Monachism were subjected 
 in later times, see Orders (Religious). 
 
 MO'NAD. (Gr. jiovac, a unit.) In Metaphysics, this 
 word has been used by Leibnitz and his followers, partisans 
 of what has been called the Monadic Theory. " After stud- 
 ying," says Stewart, "with all possible diligence what Leib- 
 nitz has said of his monads in different parts of his works, I 
 find myself quite incompetent to annex any precise idea to 
 the word as he employed it." He then quotes the follow- 
 ing as " some of his most intelligible attempts to explain his 
 meaning*' "A simple substance has no parts: a compound 
 substance is an aggregate of simple substances, or of mon- 
 ads." " Monads, having no parts, are neither extended, fig- 
 ured, nor divisible. They are the real atoms of nature ; in 
 other words, the elements of things." " Every monad is a 
 living mirror, representing the universe, according to its par- 
 ticular point of view, and subject to no regular laws, as the 
 universe itself." " Every monad with a particular body 
 makes a living substance." (Enc. Brit., Preliminary Dis- 
 sertation, note c. c.) The groundwork of the monadic the- 
 ory is to be found in the different philosophical systems of 
 Zeno, Leucippus, Democritus, and Epicurus : but Leibnitz 
 was the first who reduced it to a system, and its chief sup- 
 porters since his death have been M. Wolf and Madame 
 Duchatelet. 
 
 MONADE'LPHONS. (Gr. novoc, and aSe^(a, a frater- 
 nity.) A botanical term applied to stamens, the filaments 
 of which are combined into a single mass, as in the common 
 mallow. It is the name of some of the classes in the Lin- 
 n«an svstem. 
 
 MONA'NDROUS (Gr. novoc, and avnp, a man), is a flow- 
 er having but one stamen. It is the name of the first class 
 in the Linnsan system. 
 
 MO'NARCHY. (Gr. uovapxia ; derived from n6voc, sin- 
 gle, and up%tiv, t0 rule.) The government of a single per- 
 son. Monarch and monarchy are equivalent in common 
 speech to king and kingdom ; so that we often read of the 
 Spartan monarchs, &c, although the government of Sparta 
 was under a double race of kings reigning at the same time. 
 Monarchies are usually said to be of four kinds — absolute, 
 limited, hereditary, and elective, which are self-explanatory 
 terms. The only elective monarchy in Europe was that of 
 Poland. All absolute and limited monarchies have adopted 
 the hereditary principle. 
 
 MO'NAS. (Gr. uovac.) A genus of extremely minute 
 polvsastric Infusores. 
 
 MO'NASTERY. (Gr. povic.) The general name for 
 those religious houses appropriated to the reception and 
 maintenance of monks and nuns, but especially of the for- 
 mer. (See Nunnery.) For an account of the origin and 
 object of monasteries, see Monachism, and the authorities 
 there referred to ; and for the habits, rules, and peculiarities 
 of the different orders of monks and nuns, see the respective 
 articles, but more especially Orders (Religious). The 
 English term monastery was variously rendered by the 
 Greek fathers ; thus we find it expressed not only by novaa- 
 rnpiov and uovn, but by cinvtwv, a holy place, (iavlpn, an en- 
 closure, (ppovTiarnpiov, a place of meditation, &c. The sup- 
 pression of monasteries was one of the first consequences 
 of the Reformation in all the countries that abandoned the 
 Popish faith. But even in Roman Catholic states, with the 
 exception of Italy, they have long been on the decline ; and 
 though, since the relaxation of the penal laws, several nun- 
 neries have been established in various parts of Great Brit- 
 ain, there is no reason to suppose that these establishments 
 will ever attain even an approximation to their pristine vig- 
 our. 
 
 MO'NDAY. The second day of the week is so called, 
 and means, literally, the day of the moon. Its equivalents 
 in Fr. and Germ, are respectively Lundi and Montag, signi- 
 fying also day of the moon. 
 
 MO NEY.* In Political Economy, the name given to the 
 commodity adopted to serve as the marchandise bannale, or 
 universal equivalent of all other commodities, and for which 
 individuals readily exchange their surplus products or servi- 
 ces. 
 
 * Etvmologists differ respecting the derivation of the word money. Some 
 contend that it conies from monere (to admonish, to inform), because the 
 stamp impressed on coins indicates their weight and fineness. Others con- 
 tend that it originates in the circumstance of silver being originally coined at 
 Rome, iii the temple of admonishing Juno, or Juno Montta. 
 
 765
 
 MONEY. 
 
 Without the use of money of some sort or other, exchan- 
 gee must have been greatly embarrassed, and the division 
 
 of employments never could have been carried to any con- 
 siderable extent. Innumerable difficulties would occur in 
 attempting to carry on trade by barter. A., fot example, has 
 
 a quantity <'f corn which he wishes to exchange lor cloth 
 belonging to B. ; but the latter being already sufficiently sup- 
 plied with com, no exchange can take place between them. 
 A. must therefore, if he continue anxious to get possession 
 of the cloth, learn what commodity B. will accept in ex- 
 change for it ; and having learned this, he must seek out 
 siime third person willing to part with the equivalent de- 
 manded by B. in exchange for corn. It might not, perhaps, 
 be possible for A. to get his purpose effected so easily as has 
 here been supposed, or without negotiating several subsidia- 
 ry exchanges ; but what has now been stated is sufficient to 
 evince the extreme difficulty of carrying on commerce in 
 this way. 
 
 Individuals so placed would naturally endeavour, in seek- 
 ing their own advantage, to obviate, in as far as practicable, 
 such inconveniences ; and it would require but little sagacity 
 to perceive that the best way of accomplishing this would 
 be to acquire some portion of that article, whatever it might 
 be, which was observed to be most in demand, or which 
 passed most readily from hand to hand in exchange for oth- 
 ers ; because, when possessed of it, one would be able, with 
 comparatively little difficulty, to get whatever else he want- 
 ed. Now, this generally desirable article, whether it be 
 corn, salt, cowries, hides, or whatever else, is, in fact, mon- 
 ey. But, though this grand instrument of exchange may be 
 one thing in one country and one state of society, and an- 
 other thing in another country and another state of society, 
 it is never the result of invention or contrivance. It origi- 
 nates in the circumstances natural to society, and is chan- 
 ged, improved, and perfected, according as experience serves 
 to make individuals better acquainted with its nature and 
 functions. 
 
 An article that has been adopted from a sense of its suit- 
 ableness to serve as the ordinary equivalent for other things, 
 or as the common medium of exchange, comes, in the 
 course of time, to be used also as a measure of value, or as 
 a standard by which to compare and estimate the values of 
 other things. Thus, instead of saying that an individual is 
 worth 1000 sheep, 1000 quarters of wheat, or 1000 acres of 
 land, these are rated or estimated at their value in money ; 
 and it is said that their owners are worth certain amounts 
 of the latter. Not only, therefore, does the introduction of 
 money contribute in the most effectual manner to the facili- 
 tating of exchanges, but it also gives precision to statements 
 as to values that would otherwise be all but unintelligible. 
 The statement, for example, that an individual was worth 
 1000 head of cattle, or 1000 packs of wool, would convey no 
 clear idea even to dealers in these articles, as their qualities 
 differ so very' widely ; and supposing these to be ascertained, 
 there are very few individuals who know anything of the 
 value either of cattle or wool. But by rating them in mon- 
 ey, all these difficulties and ambiguities vanish in an in- 
 stant ; reference is then made to a measure with which 
 everybody is familiar, and every one has a distinct idea and 
 full knowledge of the value of the articles, or wealth of the 
 parties referred to. 
 
 Qualities required in a Commodity fitted to serve as Mon- 
 ey. — An immense variety of commodities have been adopted 
 to serve as money in different countries and states of socie- 
 ty ; but, in the course of no very long period, it is ascertain- 
 ed that no commodity can be advantageously employed as 
 money unless it possess certain properties. First, it should 
 be easj of transportation, and, therefore, should possess 
 great value in small hulk : 2d, it should admit of being rub- 
 bed and carried about without losiiiL' much from the wear, 
 and it should admit of being hoarded or kept for an indefi- 
 nite period without loss: 3d, as the products to be exchan- 
 ged for money are of very different value, it should also 
 admit of being divided into the smallest portions without in- 
 jury : 4th. the commodity used as money should be perfectly 
 homogenous ; that i-. a riven quantity of money in London 
 should be precisel) identical with the same quantity in Ed- 
 inburgh, Dublin, ami everywhere else: and, 5th, the value 
 of money, or its power of exchanging for or buying other 
 things, should be as invariable as possible, or should Change 
 
 only by slow degrees. Tins,, seem to in- the qualities mosl 
 essential to any commodity adopted to serve as money; and 
 the money of any country may he said to he good or had ac- 
 cording to the degree in which it possesses or wants these 
 qualities. 
 
 Now it will be found that the precious metals possess all 
 the qualities enumerated above in a far higher degree than 
 any other products with which we are acquainted, ami this 
 has doubtless formed the irresistible reason that ha- Led all 
 
 civilized communities to adopt them as money. The cost 
 
 of their production, especially of gold, is so very considers 
 ble, that they possess great value in small bulk; their lirm 
 70G 
 
 and compact texture makes them difficult to wear, and they 
 may be kept for any length of time without deteriorating ; 
 they are divisible into any number of parts, and have the 
 valuable property of being easily reunited by means of fu- 
 sion without loss; they are perfectly identical, the physical 
 qualities of an ounce of pure gold or silver taken from the 
 mines in any part of the world being precisely the same 
 with those of an ounce taken from the mines in any other 
 quarter; and though their value be not invariable, it chan- 
 ges, speaking generally, only by slow degrees, and is less 
 susceptible of fluctuation than that of most oilier articles. 
 No wonder, therefore, when almost all the qualities neces- 
 sary to constitute money are possessed in so eminent a de- 
 gree by the precious metals, that they have been used as 
 such in civilized societies from a very remote a-ra. They 
 became universally money, to use the words of Mr. Tn I l'i >t, 
 "not in consequence of any arbitrary agreement among 
 men, or of the intervention of any law, but by the nature 
 and force of tilings." 
 
 Introduction of Coined Money. — When first brought to 
 market, gold and silver, like copper, iron, or any other met- 
 al, were in the shape of bars or ingots, and were exchanged 
 or bartered for other commodities exactly as these would 
 have been bartered for anything else. The parties having 
 agreed upon the quantity of the precious metals to be given 
 for certain goods, the quantity was next delivered by weight. 
 Nor is this a mere conjectural statement, advanced in a later 
 age to explain appearances, and resting on probability only. 
 Aristotle (Polit., lib. i., cap. 9) and Pliny (Hist, /fat., lib. 
 xxxiii., cap. 3) tell us that such was. in fact, the method by 
 which the precious metals were originally exchanged for 
 other things in Greece and Italy; and the sacred writings 
 furnish a striking example of the prevalence of the same 
 primitive practice in the East. It is there stated that Abra- 
 ham weighed 400 shekels of silver, and gave them in ex- 
 change for a piece of ground he had purchased from the 
 sons of Heth. (Genesis, xxiii., 16.) It is also mentioned 
 that this silver was " current money with the merchant," an 
 expression which evidently refers to its quality only ; for, 
 had the silver been coined, it would have been unnecessary 
 to have weighed it. But the weighing of gold and silver 
 whenever they happened to be exchanged for commodities, 
 and their adjustment to the agreed on weight, must have 
 been a very difficult and troublesome process. There can, 
 however, be no doubt that the greatest obstacle to the use 
 of the precious metals as money would at first be found in 
 the difficulty of determining their purity or fineness with 
 sufficient facility and accuracy. It is, indeed, most probable, 
 that when they originally began to be used as money, their 
 quality would be inferred from their weight and colour. But 
 the extreme inexactness of the conclusions derived from such 
 loose and unsatisfactory data would soon become obvious ; 
 and the devising of some method by which the weighing of 
 the metals in exchanges might be dispensed with, and their 
 quality be easily and accurately determined, would be seen 
 to be indispensable to their general use as money. Luckily, 
 such a method was not long a desideratum. It was early 
 discovered that to ascertain its purity, and to obviate the 
 trouble and expense of weighing the metal, all that was ne- 
 cessary was to form it into coins ; that is, to mark each piece 
 with a public stamp or authoritative impress declaring its 
 weight and fineness. Such appear to have been the steps 
 that led to the formation and introduction of gold and silver 
 coins (Ooguet, De VOrigine des Loix. i., 209, 4to ed.) ; the 
 employment of which has been of the very greatest utility, 
 and has, perhaps, contributed more than anything else to fa- 
 cilitate commerce, and to accelerate the progress of civiliza- 
 tion and the arts.* 
 
 " Without some article of known exchangeable value, 
 such as coin, readily received as an equivalent for other 
 things, the interchange of commodities must have bean wry 
 limited, and consequently the divisions of labour very im- 
 perfectly established. Now money obviates these e\ ils, ami 
 by a twofold operation augments production. In the first 
 place, it saves all that time and labour which, while the in- 
 tercourse between man ami man is carried on by barter, 
 must frequently Intervene before a person can be supplied 
 w it ii the quantity of the commodity which be wants ■ in the 
 second place, and in consequence of its savins the time and 
 labour which must otherwise be spent in etlecting exchanges, 
 it multiplies the transactions of mercantile Industry, and thus 
 allows the divisions of employment to be more thoroughly 
 
 * 'I'll.' Roman Jnristl luvc iriven a clear and conci*e account of the cir- 
 v.and of its Function! I "Of 
 . ■ pennatationibufl crcpit : Ohm enim nun ita erat nun nm- ; 
 ml pretium vocabatur ; sed unusqnisque secundum ne- 
 ar rerum, utilibus inutilia pennntabat, quando plerum- 
 ■ quod ilterl roperasl altei I 
 cite concambat, uf rum lu habere* quod epo desiderarem, invicem lot. rem 
 quod h] accipere vtlles. electa materia est, cujus publica ac perpetua xstima- 
 'io difficullalibu* permutationum .rqualitate quantitatis subvenirel * eaque 
 materia forma publica percuasa, uaum dominiumque. non tarn ea 
 prybet quam ex quantiiate ; nee ultra men utrumque, sed alterum pretium. 
 vocatur." (Dij-al, lib. iviii., tit i., de Coutr. Einpt.)
 
 MONEY. 
 
 established. By the first operation it disengages a very con- 
 siderable portion of labour from an unproductive occupation, 
 and enables it to receive a more useful direction ; by the 
 second it increases in a very high degree the productive 
 powers of the labour already usefully employed. It assists 
 every man in availing himself of the skill and dexterity 
 which he may have acquired in any particular calling, and 
 promotes cultivation in a manner suitable to the climate and 
 soil of different districts and different countries. And by 
 both these operations coins increase to an extent, not easy to 
 be calculated, the wealth of civilized communities." (Tor- 
 Tens on the Production of Wealth, p. 305.) 
 
 But, however great and obvious the advantages attending 
 the use of the precious metals in the shape of coin, it is ne- 
 cessary to bear in mind that the nature of exchanges, and 
 the principle on which they are made, are not thereby at all 
 affected. Equivalents are still given for equivalents. The 
 exchange of a quarter of corn for an ounce of pure, unfash- 
 ioned gold bullion, is as much a barter as if it were exchan- 
 ged for an ox or a barrel of beer; and, supposing the metal 
 to be formed into a coin, or marked with a stamp declaring 
 its weight and fineness, that circumstance could, it is obvi- 
 ous, make no change in the terms of the barter. The coin- 
 age would save the trouble of weighing and assaying the 
 bullion, but it would do nothing more. A coin is merely a 
 piece of metal of a known weight and fineness, and the 
 commodities exchanged for it are uniformly held by the 
 parties to be of equal value ; and yet these obvious consid- 
 erations have been very generally overlooked. The notion 
 was long entertained that coins were merely the signs of 
 values ! But it is clear that they have no more claim to 
 this designation than bars of iron or copper, sacks of wheat, 
 or any other article. Coins exchange for other things be- 
 cause they are desirable articles, which, having been produ- 
 ced by an expenditure of capital and labour, possess real in- 
 trinsic worth. A draught, check, or bill may not improperly, 
 perhaps, be regarded as the sign of the money or coin to be 
 given for it ; but that coin is itself a valuable commodity. 
 A sovereign is not a sign ; it is the thing signified. 
 
 Privilege of Coin ing. Legal Tender. — In order to obviate 
 the endless confusion and inconvenience that could not fail 
 to arise were individuals permitted to coin money, from the 
 circulation of coins of all weights and degrees of purity, the 
 government of every civilized country has prohibited the 
 issue of coins by private parties, and ha"s itself supplied those 
 in circulation. Generally, also, very severe penalties have 
 been inflicted on the forgers of coin, or on those who fabri- 
 cate counterfeit coins, or coins of less weight than the stand- 
 ard, or made up in whole or in part of some baser or less 
 valuable metal. It is obvious, indeed, that the extensive 
 practice of this offence, by necessarily generating a feeling 
 of insecurity and suspicion, would check the circulation 
 even of genuine coins, and would consequently in so far de- 
 prive society of the advantages resulting from their employ- 
 ment. It is found, however, that the improvement of the 
 fabric of the coins, by the perfecting of the dies and other- 
 wise, is a more effectual means than even the utmost sever- 
 ity of punishment for the prevention of forgery ; though 
 some very considerable degree of the latter is, of course, al- 
 ways indispensable. 
 
 Where the use of coins has once been adopted, all values 
 in contracts and other engagements are rated or estimated in 
 money ; and it is usual in almost all countries to enact that 
 coins of the legal or standard weight and puritv shall be le- 
 gal tender, and to declare that no legal proceedings of any 
 kind shall be instituted on account of any debt or pecuniary 
 obligation against any individual who has offered to liqui- 
 date the same by payment of an equivalent amount of the 
 recognised coin of the country. A pound troy, or 12 oz. of 
 the metal of which English silver coins are made, contains 
 11 oz. 2 dwts. pure silver, and 18 dwts. alloy. This pound 
 is coined into CO shillings; so that each shilling contains 
 80- 727 grains fine silver, and 8727 grains standard silver; 
 and the money pound, consisting of 20 shillings, contains 
 1614-545 grains pure silver, and 1745-454 grains standard sil- 
 ver. From 1000 down to 1816, the pound weight of stand- 
 ard silver bullion was coined into 62 shillings. All the 
 English silver coins have been coined out of silver of 11 oz. 
 2 dwts. fine, from the Conquest to this moment, except for 
 the short period of sixteen years from the 34th Henrv VIII 
 to the 2d Elizabeth. J 
 
 The fineness of gold is estimated by carat grains equiva- 
 lent to 2i dwts. troy ; gold of the highest degree of fineness 
 or pure, being said to be 24 carats fine. The puritv of our 
 present gold coins is 11 parts fine gold and one part allov 
 The sovereign, or twenty-shilling piece, contains 113-001 
 grains fine gold, and 123-274 grains standard gold. The 
 pound troy of standard gold is coined into 46 sovereigns and 
 ^^ths of a sovereign, or into £46 14s. 6rf. The mint or 
 standard price of gold is therefore said to be £46 14s 6d 
 per pound troy, or £3 17s. 10W. an ounce. The alloy in 
 
 coins is reckoned of no value ; it is allowed in order to save 
 the trouble and expense that would be incurred in refining 
 the metals to their highest degree of puritv, and because, 
 when its quantity is small, it renders the coins harder, and 
 less liable to be worn or rubbed. Were the quantitv of alloy 
 considerable, it would lessen the splendour and ductility of 
 the metals, and would add too much to the weight of the 
 coins. 
 
 Before the art of metallurgy was well understood, the ba- 
 ser metals were frequently used as money. Iron was the 
 primitive money of the Lacedaemonians, and copper of the 
 Romans. But both iron and copper deteriorate by being kept ; 
 and, besides this defect, the rapid improvement of the arts, 
 by lowering their price, rendered their bulk too great in pro- 
 portion to their value to permit of their continuing to be 
 used as money. Copper, indeed, is still used in the form of 
 tokens, convertible into silver in very small payments. In 
 this country, copper pence and halfpence are rated at about 
 72 per cent, above their real value ; but as their issue is ex- 
 clusively in the hands of government, and as they are only 
 legal tender to the extent of one shilling in any one pay- 
 ment, this overvaluation is not productive of any bad effect. 
 The use of copper in other countries is limited in much the 
 same way, gold and silver being everywhere the only met- 
 als made use of in the manufacture of the coins used in 
 considerable payments. 
 
 Variations of the Standard. — The value of all sorts of 
 property being estimated, and the stipulations in almost all 
 contracts for its purchase, sale, or hire being made in mon- 
 ey or coins, it is plain that no change can take place in the 
 value of such money or coins without virtually subverting 
 these estimates and contracts, and enriching the debtor por- 
 tion of society at the expense of the creditor portion, or 
 vice versa. As the cost of producing all commodities is lia- 
 ble to vary from improvements in the arts, the exhaustion 
 of the present or the discovery of new sources of supply, 
 none can be selected to serve as money or coin that may 
 not vary in its cost or real value. It is' believed, however, 
 that the precious metals vary less than any material that 
 could be suggested ; and, with the exception of the extraor- 
 dinary fall in their value caused by the discovery of the 
 American mines, it seems to have been remarkably con- 
 stant at other periods. 
 
 But, in addition to the fluctuations naturally inherent in 
 the value of coins, arising from variations in the cost of the 
 metal of which they are made, their standard has been re- 
 peatedly changed. Notwithstanding that money or coin, 
 from its being universally used as a scale by which to com- 
 pute the value of all commodities, and as the equivalent for 
 i which they are commonly exchanged, is by far the most 
 important of all the measures used in society, and should, 
 consequently, be preserved as invariable as "possible, there 
 is none that has been so frequently altered. The necessi- 
 ties or extravagance of governments have forced them to 
 borrow ; and, to relieve themselves of the encumbrances 
 thus contracted, they have almost universally had recourse 
 to the disgraceful expedient of degrading the coin ; that is, 
 of cheating those who lent thern money to the extent of the 
 degradation, and of enabling every other debtor in their do- 
 minions to do the same. 
 
 The ignorance of the public in remote ages facilitated this 
 species of fraud. Had the names of the coins been changed 
 when the quantity of metal contained in them was dimin- 
 ished, there would have been no room for misapprehension. 
 But, although the weight of the coins was undergoing per- 
 petual, and their purity occasional reductions, their ancient 
 denominations were almost uniformly preserved ; and the 
 people who saw the same names still remaining after the 
 substance was diminished — who saw coins of a certain 
 weight and fineness circulate under the names of florins, 
 livres, dollars, and pounds— and who saw them continue to 
 circulate as such after both their weight and the degree of 
 their fineness had been lessened, began to think that they 
 derived their value more from the stamp affixed to them by 
 authority of government than from the quantity of the pre- 
 cious metals they contained. This was long a very preva- 
 lent opinion ; but the rise of prices which invariablv follow- 
 ed every reduction of the standard, and the derangement 
 that was thereby occasioned in every pecuniary transaction, 
 undeceived the public, and taught them and their rulers the 
 expediency of preserving the standard of money inviolate. 
 
 The standard may be reduced by simply raising the de- 
 nomination of the coin ; by ordering, for example, that a 
 half sovereign should pass for a sovereign, and the latter 
 for a double sovereign, &c. If injustice be resolved upon, 
 this is the least mischievous way in which it can be perpe- 
 trated, inasmuch as it saves all the trouble and expense of a 
 recoinage. But as it renders the fraud obvious and glaring, 
 it has rarely been resorted to ; and most reductions have 
 been effected either by diminishing the weight of the coins, 
 or by increasing the proportion of alloy in the metal of 
 which they are made, or both. 
 
 767
 
 money. 
 
 Ori-nnally the coins of ail countries seem to have had the 
 same "denominations as the weights commonly used in 
 them, and contained the exact quantity of the precious 
 metals indicated bv their name. Thus, the talent was a 
 wweht used in the earliest period by the Greeks, the as or 
 pond* bv the Romans, the Hers by the French, and the 
 pound bv the English and Scotch ; and the coins originally 
 in use hi Greece, Italy, France, and England bore the same 
 nanus, and weighed precisely a talent, a pondo, a hvre, 
 and a pound. The standard has not, however, been pre- 
 served inviolate, either in modern or ancient times. It has 
 been less degraded in England than anywhere else ; but 
 even here the quantity of silver in a pound sterling is less 
 than the third part of a pound weight, the quantity it con- 
 tained in 1300. In France, the livre current mliW con- 
 tained less than one sirtn-siith part of the silver implied in 
 its name, and which it had actually contained previously to 
 1103. In Spain and some other countries, the degradation 
 has been carried still farther. . .. . 
 From 1296 to 1355 the coins of England and Scotland 
 were of the same weieht and purity ; but at the last-men- 
 tioned epoch the standard of Scotch money was, tor the 
 first time, sunk below that of England; and by successive 
 degradations, the value of Scotch money, at the union ol the 
 crowns in 1600, was only a twelfth part of the value of the 
 English money of the same denomination. It remained at 
 this point till the union of the kingdoms cancelled the sep- 
 arate coinage of Scotland. 
 
 The gold and silver coins of Ireland have been for a con- 
 siderable period the same as those of Great Britain; out 
 until 1825 they were nominally rated 8£ per cent, higher. 
 This difference of valuation, which was attended with con- 
 siderable inconveniences, was put an end to by the act b 
 Geo. 4, c. 79, which assimilated the currency throughout 
 the empire. _ .. , _., „ . 
 
 Mint or Government Valuation of Gold and Silver Coins. 
 —If both gold and silver coins be made legal tender, it is 
 obviously indispensable that their value with respect to 
 each other should be fixed by authority, or that it should 
 be declared that individuals shall be entitled to discharge 
 the claims upon them by payments either of gold or silver 
 coins, according to some regulated proportion— a practice 
 which was long adopted in England. ,.,-,, ,„ 
 
 But the value of each of the precious metals is liable to 
 perpetual changes: and hence, how accurately soever their 
 proportional value, as fixed by the mint regulations, may 
 correspond with the proportion which they actually bear to 
 each other in the market when the regulation is made, the 
 chances are ten to one that it will speedily cease to express 
 their relation to each other. The moment, however, that 
 such a change takes place, it becomes the obvious interest 
 of even' one who has a payment to make, to make it in the 
 overvalued metal ; which, consequently, becomes the sole, 
 or nearly the sole, currency of the country. Hence the rea- 
 son why the coins of some countries are almost wholly ot 
 silver, and others almost wholly of gold. It is estimated, 
 for example, that when it was fixed, in 1717, that the guinea 
 should exchange for 21 shillings, gold was overvalued as 
 compared with silver to the extent of lif- per cent. (Liv- 
 erpool on Coins, p. 85) ; and as the real value of silver with 
 respect to gold continued to increase during the greater part 
 of last century, the advantage of paying in gold in prefer- 
 ence to silver became more decided, and ultimately led to 
 the universal use of gold in all large payments, and to the 
 fusion or exportation of all silver coins of full weight. 
 (Liverpool, loco cit.) 
 
 In France a different valuation of the metals has had a 
 different effect. Previously to the recoinage in 1785, the 
 Louis d'or was rated in the mint proportion at only 24 
 livres, when it was really worth 25 livres 10 sols. Those, 
 therefore, who should have discharged the obligations they 
 had contracted by payments of gold coin instead of silver, 
 would plainly have lost 1 livre 10 sols on every sum of 24 
 iivres. In consequence, very few such payments were 
 made ; gold was almost entirely banished from circulation, 
 and silver became almost the only species of metallic mon- 
 ey used in France. (Say, Traite d'Economie Politique, torn, 
 i., p. 393., . 
 
 In 1816 a new system was adopted in this country, it be- 
 ing then enacted (56 Geo. 3, c. 68) that gold coins only 
 should be legal tender in all payments of more than 40 shil- 
 lings- The pound of silver bullion that had previously been 
 coined into 82 shillings was then also coined into «>«> shil- 
 lings, the additional four shillings being retained by govern- 
 ment as a seignorage or duty (amounting to 6^- per cent.) 
 upon the coinage. To prevent the silver coins from be 
 coming redundant, government has retained the power to 
 Issue them in its own hands. Under these regulations, sil- 
 ver has reased to be a standard of value, and forms merely 
 a subordinate or subsidiary species of currency, or change, 
 occupying the same place in relation to gold that copper oc- 
 768 
 
 cupies in relation to itself. This system has been found 10 
 answer exceedingly well. 
 
 A good deal of difference of opinion has existed as to 
 whether gold or silver coins are best fitted for being made a 
 legal tender. It does not seem that the one possesses any 
 very striking advantage over the other ; none, certainly, 
 that would justify a change, after a selection has been 
 made and acted upon for any considerable period. 
 
 Down to 1626, a seignorage or duty upon the coinage was 
 usually charged upon the gold and silver coins issued by 
 the mint ; and it may be easily shown that the imposition 
 of such a duty, when It is not carried to an undue height, is 
 advantageous. A coin is more useful than a piece of un- 
 coined bullion of the same weight and purity ; the coinage 
 nttin° it for being used as money, while it does not unfit it 
 for being used for any other purpose. When, therefore, a 
 duty or seignorage is laid upon coin equal to the expense of 
 coinage it circulates at its real value ; but when this charge 
 is defrayed by the public, it circulates at less than its real 
 value and is consequently either melted down or exported 
 whenever there is anv demand for bullion in the arts, or 
 any fall in the exchange. It is, indeed, true, that were a 
 seignorage to be laid on gold coins, it would be necessary, to 
 prevent an enhancement of the value of the currency, that 
 their weight should be proportionally reduced ; and it is on 
 this account better, perhaps, to let them remain on the pres- 
 ent footing. But when a seignorage was laid on the silver 
 coins in 1816, it was not necessary to take the circumstance 
 now alluded to into consideration ; for as they were made 
 subordinate to gold, and were intended to serve as change 
 merely, its imposition had no tendency to raise the value of 
 the currency, at the same time that it was calculated effect- 
 ually to prevent the fusion of the coins, and to yield a small 
 revenue to government. 
 
 The exportation and importation of gold and silver coins 
 was formerly prohibited, but in 1819 it was enacted (59 
 Geo 3, c. 49) that they might be freely exported and im- 
 ported, without being liable to any charge or duty what- 
 ever ; and they may be imported without being either re- 
 ported or entered at the custom-house. This regulation has 
 rendered it next to impossible to ascertain the value of the 
 bullion imported. 
 
 Paper Money.— But, how great soever the advantages re- 
 sulting from the employment of gold and silver as money, 
 we are not to suppose that these are obtained gratuitously. 
 The use of a metallic currency is accompanied by a heavy 
 expense ; and there is a much greater difficulty in effecting 
 payments by the agency of coins than one might, at first be 
 disposed to believe. If the currency of the United Kingdom 
 consisted wholly of gold, it would certainly amount to at 
 least 60 millions sterling ; the expense of which, allowing 
 ith per cent, for the wear and tear, and loss of coins, could 
 hardly be estimated at less than three millions a year. But 
 this heavy expense is really a far less serious obstacle to 
 the exclusive use of the precious metals as money than 
 their weight, and the trouble and expense attending the 
 carrying them about. The weight of 1000 sovereigns ex- 
 ceeds 21 lbs. troy, so that it would be necessary to employ 
 a wagon to make a large payment even in gold It is also 
 very difficult to employ it in the making of ana 1 Payments, 
 provided thev have to be made at any considerable distance, 
 Inasmuch as'the expense of sending gold by post, and the 
 premium to guarantee it against loss, amount to a consider- 
 able "urn. Hence it is that all commercial nations endeav- 
 our to fabricate a portion of their money of some less valu- 
 able and more portable material than bul ion ; and hence, 
 also, the origin of bills of exchange, checks, and other de- 
 vices for economizing the use of money. !»«,_-* „e 
 Of the substitutes that have been resorted to instead of 
 gold and silver coins, paper notes, payable on demand, have 
 been by far the most generally adopted, and are in all re- 
 ',, "ts the most eligible. Intrinsically they are almost des- 
 i , e o fva ue, so that their employment and the,r loss costs 
 ext to nothing;* and thev may be carried about or trans- 
 it, , bv p'ir with the utmost facility. But though m 
 lese respects, the employment of pieces of paper instead of 
 ( „i„s leaves nothing to be desired, it is plain that, having no 
 value in themselves, their value must depend entirely on 
 artificial means or regulations. They are commonly issued 
 as a substitute for or representative of coin, the issuer being 
 bound to pay their value, or the sums they profess to repre- 
 sent, in .('in of the standard weight and purity, the moment 
 it is demanded ; and so long as this regulation is really and 
 bond fide complied with, no inconvenience can result from 
 their employment. Practically, however it is found no easy 
 matter to carry these regulations into effect; and this and 
 indeed every country in which paper money has been 
 slued, has repeatedly sustained the greatest injury from its 
 
 rtolo-ofanot, i«ao*^t«w^l^^^>*|^"«^-»5 
 
 an eouivalent amount of coin ; but as (he issuer of the note is benented ny 
 "STtoTtaSne extent .hi. .he holder ,. injured, the society ,. ptaialy 
 neither tbe better nor the worse for the occurrenoi
 
 MONEY. 
 
 being issued in excess or on unsound principles. Paper 
 money, in fact, can never be either securely or beneficially 
 employed, unless the quantity of it in circulation vary ex- 
 actly as the quantify of gold or silver coins to be substituted 
 in its stead would do were it withdrawn. But having else- 
 
 where inquired into the means by which this identity be- 
 tween the value of coins and paper notes may be ' best 
 maintained, we beg to refer the reader to the article Banks 
 in this Dictionary for a farther discussion of this important 
 branch of the subject. 
 
 f. English Coins. — Account of the English Silver and Gold Coins ; showing their Value, the Seignora»e or Profit 
 upon the Coinage, and the Price of the Pound Troy of Standard Gold and Silver from' the Conquest^to the pre- 
 sent Time, 
 
 
 
 Silver. 
 
 Gold. 
 
 
 1. 
 
 2. 
 
 
 
 3. 
 
 
 4. 
 
 
 5. 
 
 6. 
 
 
 _ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Equal to the 
 Mint Price 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Equal to the 
 
 
 
 
 Fineness of 
 
 Pound 
 
 . 
 
 Profii 
 
 for Standard 
 
 Fineness of 
 
 Pounc 
 
 
 
 
 
 AD. 
 
 Anno Regni. 
 
 the Silver 
 
 Weight or 
 
 
 iguo 
 
 rage 
 
 Silver of 
 
 the Gold in 
 
 Weizht of 
 
 
 Gold of 22 
 
 
 in the Coins. 
 
 such Si 
 
 ver 
 
 DD 
 
 the Coin- 
 
 11 or. 2dwts. 
 
 the Coins. 
 
 such Gold 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 coined into 
 
 
 age. 
 
 fine, Troy 
 
 
 
 coined i 
 
 QtO 
 
 
 
 Troy 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Weitht. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Weight. 
 
 
 
 Oz. 
 
 diets. 
 
 £. s. 
 
 ti. 
 
 £ 
 
 s 
 
 d. 
 
 £. 5. d. 
 
 Crte. 
 
 grs. 
 
 £. s. 
 
 d 
 
 £. s. 
 
 ri 
 
 £. S. d. 
 
 1066 
 
 Conquest . . , 
 
 11 
 
 <at 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1280 
 
 8 Edward I. . 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 3i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1300 
 
 28 . . 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 2i 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1344 
 
 18 Edward III. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 1 3i 
 
 23 
 
 3* 
 
 13 3 
 
 4 
 
 8 
 
 4 
 
 12 10 8 
 
 1349 
 
 23 . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 2 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 12 8 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 8 
 
 13 3 9 
 
 1356 
 
 30 . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 1 5 9j 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 H 
 
 14 8 4 
 
 1394 
 
 18 Richard II. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 1 5 9i 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 14 9 11 
 
 1401 
 
 3 Henry IV. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 
 1 5 9} 
 
 
 
 
 
 15 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 ii 
 
 14 9 11 
 
 1421 
 
 9 Henry V. . . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 i io m 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 13 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 16 2 9 
 
 1425 
 
 4 Henry VI. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 10 Hi 
 
 
 
 
 
 16 13 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 1(1 
 
 16 1 11 
 
 1464 
 
 4 Edward IV. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 17 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 1 15 2i 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 20 16 
 
 fi 
 
 2 10 
 
 
 
 18 5 
 
 1465 
 
 5 . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 17 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 1 15 2i 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 22 10 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 HI 
 
 21 1 10 
 
 1470 
 
 49 Henry VI. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 17 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 iJ 
 
 
 
 1 17 10£ 
 
 
 
 
 
 22 10 
 
 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 21 9 7 
 
 1482 
 
 22 Edward IV. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 17 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 1 18 4J 
 
 
 
 
 
 22 10 
 
 n 
 
 7 
 
 ft 
 
 21 15 
 
 1483 
 
 1 Richard III. . 
 
 
 — 
 
 1 17 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 1 18 4J 
 
 — 
 
 
 
 22 10 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 fi 
 
 21 15 
 
 1435 
 
 1 Henry VH. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 17 
 
 « 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 1 18 1% 
 
 
 
 
 
 22 10 
 
 n 
 
 7 
 
 ft 
 
 21 15 
 
 1509 
 
 1 Henry VIII. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 1 17 
 
 ft 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 18 Hi 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 22 10 
 
 n 
 
 2 
 
 ft 
 
 22 
 
 *1527 
 
 18 . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 2 
 2 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 F 
 
 1 18 Hi 
 
 2 4 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 24 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 ^ 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 
 
 " 
 
 n~5 
 
 27 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ( 
 
 25 2 
 
 r> 
 
 3 
 
 I) 
 
 24 19 6 
 
 1543 
 
 34 . 
 
 10 
 
 
 
 2 8 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 2 4 4J 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 28 16 
 
 
 
 1 4 
 
 n 
 
 26 8 
 
 1545 
 
 36 . 
 
 <> 
 
 
 
 2 8 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 11 9i 
 
 oo 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 2 10 
 
 n 
 
 27 10 
 
 LJUi 
 
 37 . 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 2 8 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 II 
 
 2 15 6 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 27 10 
 
 1547 
 
 1 Edward VI. . 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 2 8 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 2 15 6 
 
 20 
 
 
 
 30 
 
 n 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 31 7 
 
 1549 
 
 3 — ■ . 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 3 12 
 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 19 2£ 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 34 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 33 
 
 1551 
 
 5 — ■ 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 3 12 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 23 
 22 
 
 o ) 
 
 36 
 33 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1552 
 
 6 
 
 11 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 2 19 3i 
 
 23 
 
 3£) 
 f 
 
 36 
 33 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 32 17 8 
 
 1553 
 
 IMary . . • 
 
 11 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 
 2 19 6J 
 
 23 
 
 :u 
 
 36 
 
 
 
 6 3 
 
 
 
 33 8 
 
 1560 
 
 2 Elizabeth • 
 
 11 
 
 o 
 
 3 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 2 18 6 
 
 23 
 
 3i) 
 0") 
 
 36 
 33 
 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 32 16 
 
 1600 
 
 43 . • 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 23 
 
 22 
 
 ?i 
 
 36 10 
 33 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 10 
 10 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1604 
 
 2 James I. . , 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 2 
 
 ft 
 
 2 19 6 
 
 22 
 
 
 
 37 4 
 
 
 
 1 10 
 
 
 
 35 14 
 
 1626 
 
 2 Charles I. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 4} 
 
 
 
 3 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 41 
 
 
 
 1 1 
 
 5 
 
 39 18 7 
 
 ri666 
 
 18 Charles II. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 II 
 
 
 
 3 2 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 44 10 
 
 n 
 
 
 
 44 10 
 
 1717 
 
 3 George I. . . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 2 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3 2 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 40 14 
 
 ft 
 
 
 
 46 14 6 
 
 1816 
 
 56 George III. . 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 3 6 
 
 
 
 1) 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 — 
 
 46 14 
 
 G 
 
 
 
 46 14 6 J 
 
 II. Account of the Contents or Weight, and of the Value 
 in Sterling, of the principal Gold Coins of different 
 Countries. 
 
 Austrian Dominions. 
 
 Sonverain . 
 
 Double ducat 
 Bavaria. 
 
 Max d'or, or Maximilian 
 
 Ducat .... 
 Cologne. 
 
 Ducat . 
 
 Denmark. 
 
 Christian d'or . 
 England, 
 
 Sovereign .... 
 
 Half sovereign . 
 France. 
 
 Louis, or piece of 20 francs 
 Hamburgh. 
 
 Ducat (double in proportion) 
 Hanover. 
 
 George d'or 
 
 Ducat 
 
 Holland. 
 
 . 
 Malta. 
 
 Louis 
 
 78-6 
 1064 
 
 52-8 
 
 52-6 
 
 933 
 
 1131 
 56' 55 
 
 69-7 
 
 52-9 
 
 Value in 
 Sterling. 
 
 s. d. 
 13 1092 
 18 997 
 
 9 3-70 
 16 6-14 
 
 15 10-5 
 9 435 
 
 9 413 
 19 1-37 
 
 GOLD COINS— Continued. 
 
 Coins. 
 
 Milan. 
 
 Sequin 
 
 Doppia or pis'ole 
 
 40 Lire piece of 1S0S 
 
 Naples. 
 
 Six ducat piece of 17S3 .... 
 
 Three ducat piece, or oncetta, of 1818 
 Netherlands. 
 
 Gold lion, or 14 florin piece 
 
 Ten florin piece (1S20) .... 
 Portugal. 
 
 Dnbraon of 24,000 rees .... 
 
 Dobia of 12,SO0 rees 
 
 Moidore or Lisbonnine (1, &c, in proportion) 
 Prussia. 
 
 Frederic (double) of 1800 .... 
 
 Frederic (single) of 1800 .... 
 Rome. 
 
 Scudo 
 
 Russia. 
 
 Ducat 
 
 Imperial 
 
 Sardinia. 
 
 Carlino (J in proportiou) 
 
 Saxony. 
 
 Ducat ... . 
 
 Content 
 in pure 
 Gold. 
 
 Sterling. 
 
 9 4 9S 
 15 7-74 
 13 9-64 
 
 134 3-96 
 71 0-70 
 26 11-24 
 
 53-2 
 181-9 
 
 9 
 
 3J 
 
 4-99 
 2-31 
 
 219-8 
 
 30 
 
 810 
 
 529 
 
 9 
 
 A 34 
 
 * 1527— Henry VIII.] The Saxon or Tower pound was used at the mint up to this time, when the pound trov was substituted in its stead. The 
 Tower pound was but It oz. Sdwts., troy ; so that, from the Conquest to the 2S Edward I., 20 shilling in tale were exactly a pound in weight. 
 
 t 1666—13 Charles II.] The seignr.rage on the coinage was at tbis time given up, and the gold bullion brought to the mint has ever since beeD coined 
 free of expense. A sei^iorage of 6 — per cent, was imposed on the coinage of silver by 56 Geo. 3. 
 
 65 3 B "69
 
 MONEY. 
 
 GOLD COINS-Cmirmutti. 
 
 Spain. 
 
 Pistols 
 
 Sweden. 
 
 Ducat 
 
 Switzerland. 
 
 Pistole 
 
 Tuscany. 
 
 Zecchino or sequin 
 
 United Stales. 
 
 * Eagle (J and 4; in proportion) 
 Venice. 
 
 Zecchino or sequin (J and J in proportion) 
 East Indies. 
 
 Mohur of 1770 
 
 Mohur, half (1787), $ in proportion . 
 
 Mohur Sicca of Bengal .... 
 
 Rupee, Bombay (1818) .... 
 
 Rupee of Madras (ISIS) .... 
 
 Pagoda star 
 
 51-9 
 105-9 
 
 536 
 246-1 
 
 53-6 
 
 186-8 
 94- 
 
 Sterling. 
 
 9 222 
 
 18 8-91 
 
 9 SS3 
 
 43 6-66 
 
 9 5S3 
 
 33 072 
 
 16 7-64 
 
 30 1-04 
 
 29 1-78 
 
 29 2-42 
 
 7 4-77 
 
 III. Account of the Contents or Weight, and of the \alue 
 in British Standard Silver at 5s. id. an ounce, of the 
 principal Silver Coins of different Countries. 
 
 Coins. 
 
 Justna. 
 
 Rixdollar, or florin, Convention 
 Copftsuck, or 20 creutzer piece .... 
 Halbe copf, or 10 creutzer piece 
 Baden. 
 
 Rixdollar 
 
 Bavaria. 
 
 Rixdollar of 1S00(» in proportion) . 
 
 Copftsuck 
 
 Brunswick. 
 
 Rixdollar, Convention 
 
 Half rixdollar 
 
 Denmark. 
 
 Rvksdaler 
 
 Half ryksdaler 
 
 Mark,' specie, or k ryksdaler . . . . 
 England. 
 
 Crown (old) 
 
 Halfcrown 
 
 Shilling 
 
 Sixpence 
 
 Crown (new) 
 
 Half crown 
 
 Shilling 
 
 Sixpence 
 
 France. 
 
 Franc 
 
 Demi franc 
 
 Genoa. 
 
 Scudo, of 8 lire 
 
 Hamburgh. 
 
 Rixdollar, specie i . 
 
 Double mark, or 32 schilling piece (single in 
 
 proportion) 
 
 Piece of 8 schillings 
 
 Hanover. 
 
 Rixdollar, Constitution 
 
 Florin, or piece of 2, fine . . • . 
 Holland. 
 
 Florin or guilder (i in proportion) . 
 
 12 Stiver piece 
 
 Florin of Batavia 
 
 Lulxc. 
 
 Rixdollar, specie 
 
 Mark 
 
 Lucca. 
 
 Scudo 
 
 Malta. 
 
 Ounce of 30 tari of Emmanuel Pinto 
 
 2 Tari piece 
 
 Milan. 
 
 Scudo of 6 lire (A in proportion) 
 
 Lira ... 
 
 Modena* 
 
 Scudo 
 
 Naples. 
 
 Ducat, new (Jin proportion) . . . . 
 
 Piece of lOCarlim 
 
 Netherlands. 
 
 Florin 
 
 Half florin (with divisions in proportion) . 
 Poland. 
 
 Florin, or gulden 
 
 Portugal. 
 
 New crusado (1809) 
 
 Seis vintems, or piece of 120 rees 
 
 Testoon 
 
 Tres vintems, or piece of 60 rees (1802) - 
 
 Half ti-stoon (1802) 
 
 Portuguese Colonies. 
 
 Piece of 8 macules, of Portuguese Africa . 
 
 Ditto of 4 ditto 
 
 Prussia. 
 
 Rixdollar, Conucnd'on 
 
 Florin, or piece of j 
 
 Rome. 
 
 Scndo, or crown 
 
 Mezzo scudo, or half crown 
 
 Paolo 
 
 Contentsl Va , ue ia 
 
 grains. 
 179-6 
 59-4 
 
 429-7 
 214-S 
 85-9 
 42-9 
 403-6 
 201-8 
 80-7 
 40 3 
 
 34-7 
 457-4 
 397-5 
 
 1468 
 92-4 
 141-6 
 
 84- 
 
 198-2 
 46-6 
 42-5 
 233 
 20-4 
 
 371-5 
 185-7 
 37-2 
 
 6-23 
 3-11 
 7-59 
 
 2 4-18 
 11-27 
 5-63 
 
 5 3-87 
 4 7-49 
 
 11-72 
 
 2 4-67 
 
 6-50 
 
 5-93 
 
 3-25 
 
 284 
 
 4 387 
 2 1-93 
 519 
 
 * This value of the American eagle is taken from average assays of the 
 coins of twelve years. 
 770 
 
 SILVER COINS-Confi'nwa*. 
 
 Coins. 
 
 Russia. 
 
 Rouble 
 
 Rouble of Alexander (1S05) . . . . 
 
 20 Copeck piece (1767) 
 
 5 Copeck piece 
 
 Sardinia. 
 
 Scudo, or crown (i and +. in proportion) . 
 Saxony. 
 
 Rixdollar, Convention (% and 4 in proportion) 
 Sicily. 
 
 Scudo 
 
 Spain. 
 
 * Dollar, of late coinage 
 
 Half dollar, ditto 
 
 Sweden. 
 
 Rixdollar 
 
 Switzerland 
 
 Eucu of 4 franken 
 
 Turkey. 
 
 Piastre (1818) 
 
 Tusrany. 
 
 United States. 
 
 Dollar 
 
 JVirtemberg 
 
 Rixdollar, specie 
 
 Copftsuck * 
 
 East Indies. 
 
 Rupee Sicca, coined by the East India Company 
 
 at Calcutta 
 
 Calcutta (ISIS) 
 
 Bombav, new, or Surat (ISIS) 
 
 Company's rup. (1S35) 
 
 Fanam, Cananore 
 
 Bombay, old 
 
 Pondicherry 
 
 Ditto, double 
 
 Gulden of the Dutch E. I. Company (1820) 
 
 grams, 
 
 312 I 
 
 278- 1 
 
 626 
 
 15-3 
 
 324-7 
 
 358-2 
 
 348-2 
 
 370-9 
 185-4 
 
 3S8-5 
 
 407-6 
 
 67-7 
 
 53 4 
 
 3701 
 
 3 7-58 
 
 3 2S3 
 
 S-74 
 
 2-13 
 
 3 9-34 
 
 4 2 01 
 
 4 062 
 
 4 3-79 
 
 2 I *s 
 
 4 6-28 
 
 4 918 
 
 9-45 
 
 7-45 
 
 4 3-68 
 
 2 0-54 
 
 2 5b 
 
 1 11-01 
 
 1 11 
 
 4-5 
 
 48S 
 
 3-IS 
 
 5-44 
 
 1 872 
 
 Ancient Coins. — We subjoin, for the convenience of such 
 of our readers as may have occasion to consult works in 
 which reference is made to ancient coins, the following ta- 
 bles of those that were principally current among the Jews, 
 Greeks, and Romans. They were calculated by Dr. Ar- 
 buthnot (Tables of Ancient Coins, Weights, &c, 4to ed., 
 Lond., 1754), and do not differ materially from the tables 
 of Paucton, whose Jtfetrologie (4to, Paris, 1780) is the most 
 complete and elaborate work that has ever been published 
 with respect to ancient moneys, weights, and measures. At 
 the same time, we confess we should not be disposed to place 
 much reliance on these tables, and we have elsewhere sta- 
 ted our reasons for holding this opinion. — (Art. " Money," 
 New Edit. Encyc. Britannica.) 
 
 Jewish Coins. 
 
 Names and Proportions. 
 Gerah .... 
 Bekah . 
 
 Shekel 
 
 1200 
 
 120 
 
 50 
 
 60,000 6000 3000 60 Talent 
 
 Maneh } 
 
 Mina Hebraica ) 
 
 Value in Sterling. 
 L. s. d. 
 
 ° 'feir 
 o i ij| 
 
 2 3f 
 5 14 0$ 
 
 Solidus aureus, or sextula, worth 12 Oi 
 
 Siclus aureus, worth 116 6 
 
 A talent of gold, worth 6475 
 
 Grecian Coins. 
 
 *. d. qrs. 
 
 LeP>°» ° ° °35V 
 
 Chalcus 03 1 
 
 Dichalcus . 
 
 Hemiobolum 
 Obolus 
 
 96 48 
 112 96 
 384 120 
 
 24 | 12 6 
 
 30 I 15 I 7* 
 
 Drachma : 
 Didrachma 
 
 u v '24" 
 
 2JL 
 
 1 \i 
 
 2 2J 
 
 5 0§ 
 
 7 3 
 
 1 3 2 
 
 2 Tetradrachma 2 7 
 
 Of these, the drachma and didrachma were of silver ; the 
 rest, for the most part, of brass. 
 The drachma is here, with the generality of authors, sup- 
 
 * Thi> is the coin which is universally circulated under the name of the 
 Spanish dollar.
 
 MONEYERS, COMPANY OF. 
 
 posed equal to the denarius, though there is reason to believe 
 that the drachma was somewhat the weightier. 
 
 Value in Sterling. 
 I. t. d. 
 The Grecian gold coin was the stater aureus, weighing 2 At- 
 tic drachmas, or half of the stater argenteus ; aud exchan 
 lly for 25 Attic drachmas of silver 
 
 gingi 
 
 16 \% 
 But according to our proportion of gold to silver it was ^ g 
 
 worth , • • • . ' c a. 
 
 There were likewise the stater Cyzicenus, exchanging tor *• 
 
 Attic drachmas, or . . ■'••.> " "f«,l 
 The stater Philippicus and stater Alexandrmus were of the 
 
 Stater Daricus', according to Josephus, worth 50 Attic drach- 
 
 mas, or 
 
 Stater Croesius of the same value. 
 
 Value and Proportion of the Roman Coins. 
 
 Sterling. 
 «. d. qr'- 
 
 n 0— 1 ^ 
 U " U 1 
 
 1 M 
 
 Teruncius 
 
 Sembetla 
 
 Libella { 
 As i 
 
 10 
 
 "Too" 
 3-1 
 
 1 
 
 1 3} 
 
 la "us > 3 3i 
 
 nnatus \ 
 
 Denarius 7 3 
 
 L. s. d. 
 The Roman gold coin, or aureus, weighed generally double 
 
 thedenarius; its value, according to the proportion of gold 
 
 to silver mentioned by Pliny, was 14 3^ 
 
 According to the proportion that now obtains among us .10 9 
 According to the decuple proportion mentioned by Livy and 
 
 Julius Pollux 12 11 
 
 According to the proportion mentioned by Tacitus, by which 
 
 the aureus exchanged for 25 denarii, its value . . .0)6 1^ 
 
 MO'NEYERS, COMPANY OF. This company, which 
 is of very ancient origin, are officers of the Royal Mint, un- 
 der whose superintendence and responsibility the various 
 moneys of the realm are manufactured. They receive the 
 bars of standard metal from the melter, and under their di- 
 rection these are rolled down, cut into blanks, and coined: 
 these processes are described under the word Coinage. 
 The connexion of the Company of Moneyers with the other 
 officers of the mint will be evident from the duties of the 
 other officers, which are stated under the word Mint. (See 
 also Mr. Atkinson's account of the origin and constitution 
 of the Company of Moneyers, in the Parliamentary Report 
 of the Select Committee on the Royal Mint, 1837, p. 119.) 
 
 MONOCA'RPONS (Gr. uovoi, single, and Kapnos, fruit), 
 is a term invented by De Candolle to designate what gar- 
 deners call annual plants, and a few others which, like the 
 American aloe, although they may live for many years, yet 
 perish as soon as they have once borne fruit. 
 
 MO'NOCHORD. (Gr. jiovo$, and %opir], string.) In 
 Music, an instrument consisting of a single string stretched 
 between two bridges standing on a graduated rule, for the 
 purpose of measuring the variety and proportion of musical 
 sounds. The monochord is called the harmonical canon, or 
 the canonical rule. 
 
 MONOCHROMATIC LAMP. When a solution of com- 
 mon salt is added to spirit of wine, the mixture burns with 
 a flame in which yellow predominates almost to the exclu- 
 sion of the other coloured rays ; the consequence is, that 
 objects viewed by this light are all either yellow or black, 
 and deficient in the tints which they exhibit when seen by 
 solar light, or by that of our ordinary combustibles. (See 
 Sir David Brewster, in the volume of the Family Library 
 on "Natural Magic") The term Monochromatic is of the 
 same origin as 
 
 MO'NOCHROME. (Gr. uovos, and %puu.a, colour.) A 
 painting executed in a single colour. See Painting. 
 
 MO'NOCOTYLE'DONS. (Gr. povos, and KarvXySuyv, a 
 lobe.) A class of plants having but one cotyledon or seed- 
 lobe in the embryo. They are now more generally called 
 Endogens, which see. 
 
 MO'NODELPHS, Monodelphi. (Gr. powfi and St>(pvc, a 
 womb.) A name given by De Blainville to the first sub-class 
 in his binary division of Mammalia, comprehending those 
 which have no supplementary external pouch or marsupium, 
 but which bring forth the young in a state sufficiently ma- 
 ture not to require such additional protection. It is anti- 
 thetical to Didelphs. 
 
 MO'NODON. (Gr. povoc, and or5ouc, a tooth.) The gen- 
 eric name of the narwhal, signifying its supposed peculiarity 
 of having but one tooth, which projects like a horn from the 
 forepart of the head : a second tooth, however, is always to 
 be found concealed in the adjoining jaw, where it remains 
 in a rudimental state. In the female both tusks are rudi- 
 mental. 
 
 MO'NODY. (Gr. pdiw, and Mn, a song.) A species of 
 poem of a mournful character, in which a single mourner 
 
 MONOMANIA. 
 
 is supposed to bewail himself: thus distinguished from those 
 pastoral elegies (like the Daphnis of Virgil) which are in 
 the form of dialogues. 
 
 MONCE'CIA. (Gr. novo;, and ot/roc, a house.) In Bota- 
 ny, the twenty-first class in the system of Linmeus, com- 
 prising the Androgynous plants, or those whose structure is 
 both male and female. 
 
 MO'NOGRAM. (Gr. povog, and ypdppa, letter, or wri- 
 ting.) An abbreviation of a name by means of a cipher 
 composed of two or more letters intertwined with each oth- 
 er. Monograms were used on coins in very ancient times, 
 being found on Greek medals of the age of Philip and Alex- 
 ander of Macedon. The Greek monogram of the name of 
 Christ, which resembles P placed perpendicularly in the 
 
 middle of an X, thus "Sp. ' s found on coins of the age of 
 
 Constantine. By far the greater number of the ancient 
 monograms are still unintelligible, though the labour and 
 research which have been expended in endeavouring to de- 
 cipher their meaning have in many instances been rewarded 
 with success. Among others whose researches on the an- 
 cient monograms may be consulted with advantage, are, 
 Montfaucon, Paloeographia Grteca ; Froelich, Annal. Reg. 
 Syr. ; Combe, Museum Hunterianum ; Torremuzza, De- 
 scription des Monnaies de Sidle; Pellerin, Recueil des Vil- 
 les, des Peuples, et des Rois ; Mionnet, Traite de la Numis- 
 matique. Monograms are frequently found on coins and 
 maps of the middle ages, and they are also to be met with 
 as a substitute for the signature of the princes of that period. 
 This class of monograms is of great importance in illustra- 
 ting the monuments of antiquity, and their investigation con- 
 stitutes a distinct and peculiar branch of diplomatics. In 
 later times, monograms were frequently employed by print- 
 ers and engravers to record their names at the end or on the 
 title-page of a book, or in some portion of an engraving. A 
 great deal of attention has likewise been bestowed upon this 
 branch of monogrammatic writing, and with considerably 
 more success. The Abbe de Marolles, in 1667, was the first 
 who directed attention to this subject ; and to him succeeded 
 Florent Lecomte (Cabinet des Singularity d' Architecture, 
 &c.) ; Orlandi (Abecedario Pittorico) ; Fr. Chriit (Anzeige 
 und Auslegung der Monogrammatum) ; De Virloy (Diction- 
 naire d' Architecture) ; and Bartsch (Peintregraveur, a work 
 of great accuracy and research). But the most complete 
 and accurate information on this class of monograms is to 
 be found in the editio optima of Brulliot (Dictionnaire des 
 Monogrammes, &c, avec lesquels les Peintres, &c, ont de- 
 signe leurs JVoms, 2 torn., 4to, Munich, 1832 ; a work which 
 is founded on the principle of considering the first letter of 
 the monogram as the key to its explanation. 
 
 A monogram is said to be perfect when it contains all the 
 letters of the word it is intended to represent. (Diet, de la 
 Conversation, Src.) 
 
 MO'NOGR APH (Gr. povos, and y/>«'0u> / write.) A trea- 
 tise or memoir on a single subject of a limited description. 
 Such, for example, are the greater part of the memoirs which 
 are read before learned societies. 
 
 MONOGY'NIA. (Gr. povog, and yvvn, a female.) In 
 Botany, the name given by Linnreus in his system to the first 
 order or subdivision in each of the first thirteen classes of 
 plants, comprising such as have one pistil or stigma only in 
 a flower. 
 
 MO'NOLITH. (Fr. monolithe ; from Gr. povog, and AitJoc, 
 a stone.) A term recently introduced into England, to sig- 
 nify a pillar or other large substance consisting of a single 
 stone. Herodotus speaks of a huge rock of this sort in front 
 of the temple of Minerva at Sais, which was scooped out, 
 and contained an apartment 18 cubits in length, 12 in breadth, 
 and 5 in height. It was said to have been transported from 
 the town of Elephantine by order of King Amasis, and to 
 have occupied 3000 men for three years in conveying it. 
 Some remarkable monoliths have been found in Egypt ; of 
 these, the zodiac of Denderah, and the obelisk of the Luxor, 
 both of which have been removed to Paris, are well-known 
 examples. ,. , 
 
 MO'NOLOGUE (Gr. povog, and Xoyoc, a discourse), or 
 SOLILOQUY (Lat. solus, alone, and loquor, I speak), is, as 
 its name imports, a speech uttered by one of the dramatis 
 persona; of a play when alone, or, as it is vulgarly termed, 
 speaking to himself. The introduction of the soliloquy is 
 obviouslv a very unnatural contrivance in the dramatic art, 
 yet its obvious necessity reconciles the spectator to it. Jn 
 the drama of ancient Greece soliloquies are rare; for the 
 passages at the commencement, or "prologues of plays, 
 where the first actor comes forward and explains his own 
 character and something of the subject of the piece to the 
 audience, can hardly be termed soliloquies. The speech of 
 Aiax before his death is a celebrated exception. 
 
 MO'NOMA'NIA. (Gr. povog, and paivopm, I rage.) In- 
 sanity upon one particular subject, the mind being in a sound 
 state' in reference to other matters.
 
 MONOME. 
 
 MO'NOHE, or MONOMIAL. (Gr. uovos, and vojiij, a 
 part.) In Algebra, an expression composed 1 f a single term, 
 or a series <>t factors, all which axe single terms. 
 
 MONOME'RANS, Monomera. {Gt. novo;, and fi>;/5os, a 
 limb.) A section of Coleopterous insects, including those in 
 which the tarsi were supposed to be formed ofo single joint 
 
 M< ' Ni >M V ARIES, Motwmyaria. (Gr. ;<oio.„ and ftviav, 
 muscle.) All those bivalves or conchifers which have only 
 one adductor muscle, and consequently but one muscular 
 impression on each valve. 
 
 MONO.Vl'.r it.WS, Jifononev.ro. (Gr. novos ; vevpov, 
 nerve.) A term applied by Budolphi to the series or primary 
 division comprehending the animals which he believed to 
 have only the ganglionic system of nerves, as the Mollusks 
 and Insects. 
 
 Mi i.VOl'E'TALOUS (Gr. uovos, and irera^oi: a petal), in 
 Botany, is applied to a corolla, the petals of which cohere 
 by their contiguous margins, so as to form a tube. 
 
 MOXOPHY'LLUS (Gr. ^0105, and <pv\Xov, a leaf), in 
 Botany, is applied to a calyx, the petals of which cohere by 
 their contiguous edges into a kind of tube or cup. 
 
 MONO'PHYSITES. (Gr. novo;, and <pvci;, nature.) A 
 name given in the 5th century to certain heretics who, in 
 the language of the Athanasian Creed, " confounded the sub- 
 stance," that is, the divine and human substance, which are 
 united in Christ, but neither absorbed into the other. Sec 
 Incarnation, Edtychians, Nsstorians. (Mosheim, Eccl. 
 Mist., vol. ii.) 
 
 Mn XOPLEU'ROBRA'XCHIAXS. (Gr. uoi'oy, and 
 irXcvpa, a side, jlpayxia, gills.) A name given by De Blain- 
 ville to an order of his class Paraccphalopkora, comprehend- 
 ing those species which leave the branchiae more or less 
 completely covered by a part of the mantle, and situated on 
 the right side of the body. 
 
 MONO'POLY (Gi. novo;, and ttwXcui, I sell), in Law, is 
 defined by Sir E. Coke (3 Inst., 181, c. 5) " an institution or 
 allowance by the king, by his grant, commission, or other- 
 w ise, to any person or persons, bodies politic and corporate, 
 of or for the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using 
 of anything, whereby any person or persons, bodies politic 
 or corporate, are sought to be restrained of any freedom or 
 liberty that they had before, or hindered in their lawful 
 trade." The practice of granting monopolies, giving to one 
 or a few individuals the sole privilege of producing, import- 
 ing, or dealing in certain articles, has been acted on to a 
 greater or less extent in all countries, and was carried to an 
 oppressive and ruinous extent in England in the reign of 
 Elizabeth and the earlier part of that of James I. At length 
 the grievance became quite insupportable; and notwith- 
 standing the strenuous opposition of the crown, it was final- 
 ly abolished by the famous statute of the 21 Jas. 1, cap. 3. 
 Its provisions did not extend to patents for new inventions, 
 nor to grants by act of parliament to corporations, &c, but 
 it suppressed all private monopolies; and by giving full 
 freedom to industry and invention, contributed more, per- 
 haps, to accelerate the progress of improvement than any 
 other act in the statute book. 
 
 MOXOPO'LYLOGUE. (Gr. novo?, t:o\v;, many, and 
 Xo) of, a discourse.) A term recently invented to designate 
 an entertainment in which a single actor sustains many 
 characters. 
 
 MOXO'PTERAL. (Gr. novo?, and wrtpov, a wing.) In 
 Architecture, a temple or circular enclosure of columns with- 
 out a cell. 
 
 MO'NORHYME. (Gr. novo;, and pvOno;, measure.) A 
 composition in verse, in which all the lines end with the 
 6ame rhyme. This species of composition is said to owe its 
 invention to Benin, who wrote in Latin, and dedicated his 
 monorhymee to Pope Alexander III. 
 
 MONCSTOMA. (Gr. pun <k, and otouo, a mouth.) The 
 name of a genus of Trematode Entozoa, including those 
 Which have only a single pore, serving at once for nutrition 
 and adhi 
 
 MONOTH \ I. \M INS. fc, T . novo;, and SaXaj/oc, a cham- 
 ber.) This term is applied to those univalve shells which 
 have only one chamber. 
 
 MO'NOTHEISM. (Gr. novo;, and $to;, a god.) The 
 doctrine of, or the belief in, the existence of one (oid; in 
 contradistinction to Polytheism, tie- belief in a plurality of 
 Gods. The Jewish, Christian, ami Mohammedan systems 
 of religion are the only pun- specimens of Monotheism in ex- 
 istence, it has often been supposed that the Jews alone, of 
 all the nations of antiquity, had conceived the truth of there 
 being only one (; ml ; but there can be little doubt that there 
 are no well-founded reasons for this opinion. In the arcane 
 theology of Egypt t only was tin- unity of the Deity ac- 
 knowledged, hut be was even ailoreil. not as the God Of any 
 particular religion, but as the eternal and omnipotent Gov- 
 ernor of the universe. In support of this assertion the tea 
 timony of various heathen writers mi<_'lit he cited; but tile 
 
 I lllOWing passage from .Inblonski may supersede the nice-, 
 sity of adducing any other authority "Those men," he ob- 
 772 
 
 MONSTER. 
 
 serve?, " who were most distinguished for wisdom among 
 the Egyptians, acknowledged God to be a certain unbegotten 
 Eternal Spirit, prior to all things which exist; who ere 
 preserves, contains, pervades, and vivifies everything; who 
 is the Spirit of the Universe, but the Guardian and Protector 
 
 1 it" 111. 11." That many of the priests, and poets, ami philoso- 
 phers of Greece were not ignorant of the same truth, is not 
 less evident. In one of the Orphic Eragnu nts, pit servi d by 
 Proclus, we find it expressly declared that "there is One 
 Power, One Deity, the greal Governor of all things." The 
 verses which, according to Bishop Warburton. were sung in 
 the Eleusinian Mysteries, contained the following passage: 
 "Pursue thy path rightly, and contemplate the King of the 
 world: He is One, and of himself alone, and to that Due all 
 tilings have owed their being. He encompasses them. No 
 mortal hath beheld him; but he sees everything." In Mime 
 verses which have been often cited by the fathers from a 
 tragedy now lost, Sophocles has said, "There is, in reality, 
 only one God, who made the heavens and the remote earth, 
 the blue waves of the ocean and the strength of the winds." 
 That Pythagoras admitted the unity of the Deity must be 
 evident to all who have considered his philosophy; and his 
 monotheism is farther attested not only by the eclectic phi- 
 losophy, but in distinct terms by St. Justin and St. Cyril. 
 Euclid of Megara and Socrates were both Monotheists : 
 Plato was in all probability one likewise. His Trinity, like 
 that of the Magi and the Egyptians, was not a trinity of be- 
 ings, but of modes of being in the Divine Nature. " When," 
 says he, "I speak fairly in my epistles, I commence with 
 God ; when I do not, my letters begin with gods." But if 
 any farther proof were wanting in support of this opinion, 
 the following passage from Origen must be held to be con- 
 clusive: "Many of the old philosophers have said that there 
 is one God, who created all things ; and in this they agree 
 with the law : but some say, in addition, that God hath made 
 and governs all tilings by his Word, and that it is the Won! 
 of God by which all tilings are regulated. In this they write 
 consonantly not only with the law, but with the Gospel." 
 (Edin. Review, vol.'vii., p. 97, 98.) 
 
 MOXO'THELITES. (Gr. .novo;, and StXw, / will.) A 
 sect of heretics, who, while they avoided the error of the 
 Eutychians, and allowed the two natures of Christ to co- 
 exist distinctly in the unity of the person, conceived the in- 
 fluence of the divine will so to predominate over the human 
 substance as to leave to the latter no action or efficiency of 
 its own. 
 
 The origin of this doctrine is ascribed to the Emperor He- 
 raclius, who, in the year 630, attempted to reconcile the 
 Eutychians or Monophysites to the Catholic Church by a 
 middle course of this nature, and published an edict inn], 1 
 the advice of some theologians of the day in assertion of it. 
 This opinion was condemned by some provincial and one 
 general council ; and, on the other hand, was maintained by 
 the edict of several succeeding emperors. Nor was the 
 question finally settled, though silence was frequently com- 
 manded upon it, until it was forgotten in the louder disputes 
 of the Iconoclasts and their opponents. (Combefils, JUuno- 
 iheiit. Hist.. -J torn., 1648.) 
 
 MOXO'TOXY. (Gr. novo;, and twos, a sound.) An irk- 
 some sameness either in speaking or composition. 
 
 MOXOTRE MES, Jilonotrema. (Gr. novo;, and rprjna, a 
 hole.) A tribe of ovo-viviparous Mammalia, of which only 
 two genera are known to exist; viz., the Platypus or Orni- 
 thorhynchus. and the Echidna, both peculiar to Australia. 
 The term is indicative of the common cloacal outlet for the 
 excremental and generative products. 
 
 MO'XOTRI'GEYPH. (Gr. novo;, and T/XyXiraroc, thrice 
 cut.) Li Architecture, such an intercolumniation in the 
 Doric order as brings only one triglyph over it. 
 
 MONSEIG'NEUR. A title of courtesy in France, which 
 was prefixed to the titles of dukes and peers, archbishops, 
 bishops, and some other exalted personages, and used in ad- 
 dressing them. Monsriirneur simply was, before the Revo- 
 lution, the title given to the dauphin. Monsieur is now the 
 common title of courtesy and respect in France; and pre- 
 viously to the revolution in 183(1, Monsieur simply was the 
 title of the eldest brother of the king. 
 
 MOXSOO'XS. From a Malayan word signifying sea- 
 sons.) In Physical Geography, thi' name given to a certain 
 mollification or disturbance of the regular course of the trade 
 winds which take place in the Arabian and Indian seas. 
 Between the parallels of 10° and 30° south latitude the 
 eastern trade wind blows regularly; but from the former 
 parallel northwards the course is reversed for half the year, 
 and from April to October the wind blows constantly from 
 the south west, hilling the other six months of the year 
 the regular northeast trade wind prevails. The south- 
 west monsoon is supposed to he occasioned by the great 
 rarefaction of the atmosphere over the extensive regions of 
 Eastern Asia during the summer months. See Trade 
 
 \\ I NO-. 
 
 MCNSTER. (Lat. monstrum.) Anything out of the
 
 MONSTERS. 
 
 common order of nature is occasionally designated by this 
 term ; but it is physiologically employed under a more limit- 
 ed acceptation, and applied to animals in which one or more 
 parts of the body present some congenital malformation. 
 This is sometimes apparent externally, and then must amount 
 to something exceeding any ordinary deformity ; or it may be 
 confined to internal organs." Buffon, Bluinenbach, and Meckle 
 have treated on monstrosity, classifying its modifications un- 
 der three heads ; the first including cases in which parts of the 
 body are increased in number ; the second those where certain 
 organs are deficient; and the third including cases in which 
 size, situation, and structure are concerned. Other writers, 
 such as Geoffrey St. Hilaire (Histoire des Anomalies), have 
 adopted more comprehensive arrangements; arising, how- 
 ever, out of the general subdivision of monsters into simple 
 and compound: the former including all cases in which the 
 elements of a single individual only are concerned ; the lat- 
 ter those in which the constituent parts of two or more in- 
 dividuals are united. Simple monsters have again been dis- 
 tributed into three classes. The first including such varie- 
 ties of malformation as chiefly affect one organ or system 
 of organs, without materially interfering with any vital func- 
 tion: these anomalies are extremely numerous, and have 
 been farther subdivided into cases where size, form, or struc- 
 ture is affected, and those in which the malformation affects 
 the arrangement, connexion, or number of parts. The sec- 
 ond class in this arrangement includes cases of extensive 
 malformation, attended by great deformity and by disturb- 
 ance of vital functions. The third class is limited to mal- 
 formations of the organs of generation, including among 
 others the various cases miscalled hermaphrodites. The 
 history of individual cases of monstrosity would be here 
 misplaced ; several of the most remarkable are detailed in 
 various volumes of the Philosophical Transactions ; in the 
 Transactions of the Medico- Chirurgical Society ; and in the 
 Penny Cyclopedia, art. " Monster." 
 
 MO'NSTERS, or CHIMERICAL FIGURES. In Herald- 
 ry, a species of bearings, of which some are very common in 
 English coats of arms, and others common in foreign, al- 
 though not often used in our own. The sagittary or centaur, 
 man-tiger, sphinx, harpy, triton, and mermaid, are monsters 
 compounded of the human and bestial shape. Of monstrous 
 beasts, the most common in armorial bearings are the dragon, 
 the griffin (a compound of the eagle and the lion), the wyvem 
 (a two-legged dragon) : besides these, there are the unicorn, 
 the heraldic antelope, tiger, and ibex (which are chimerical 
 figures, but representing the natural beast), the musimon (an 
 animal between the goat and the sheep), and the salamander. 
 Monstrous birds are the phoenix, cannet, martlet, allerion, 
 cockatrice, &c. 
 
 MONTA'NISTS. Heretics of the second century, who 
 derive their name from their founder Montanus, a Phrygian, 
 who pretended to inspiration, and declared himself to be a 
 prophet sent from God to complete the Christian scheme, 
 and advance it to its highest state of perfection. He affirm- 
 ed himself to be the Paraclete or Comforter, whose mission 
 was supposed by various sectarians of the early centuries to 
 be distinct from that of the Holy Spirit, which was promised 
 to the apostles, and was expected to put the finishing stroke 
 to the revelation of Jesus Christ. The characteristics of this 
 sect were similar to those which are known by the general 
 name of Gnostic, and consisted principally in great austerity 
 of manners, and a belief in the possibility of an advance from 
 the obvious and literal interpretation of the word of God to 
 a state of interior and spiritual knowledge coincident with a 
 participation in the divine nature itself. 
 
 MO'NTANT. (Fr.) In Architecture, any upright piece 
 in a system of framing. 
 
 MONT DE PIETE. (Ital. Monte di Pieta.) Thename 
 given on some parts of the Continent to certain benevolent 
 institutions, established for the purpose of lending money to 
 the poor at a moderate rate of interest. They originated 
 under the papal government in the loth century, and were 
 intended to countervail the exorbitant usurious practices of 
 the Jews, who formed at that period the great money-lenders 
 of Europe. These institutions were afterwards introduced 
 into many of the Continental states ; and similar establish- 
 ments existed, and in some cases still exist, at Paris, Madrid, 
 Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, &c. Monti frumcntarii are pub- 
 lic granaries, from which corn is sold to the necessitous 
 Italians on a principle somewhat analogous to that on 
 which sums are lent by the Mont de Piete. 
 
 MO'NTEM. The name given to an ancient custom still 
 prevalent among the scholars of Eton, which consists in 
 their proceeding every third year on Whit Tuesday to a 
 tumulus (Lat. ad montem, whence the name), near the Bath 
 road, and exacting money for salt, as it is called, from all 
 persons present or passers-by. The sum so collected is given 
 to the captain, or senior scholar of the school, and is intend- 
 ed to assist in defraying the expenses of his residence at the 
 university, to which he is about to proceed. The origin of 
 this ceremony dates from the establishment of the founda- 
 
 MOON. 
 
 tion of Eton College ; but it was at first held on the 6th of 
 December, the festival of St. Nicholas, the patron of children ; 
 and it is only since 1759 that the present was substituted for 
 the original period of its celebration. It has been the almost 
 invariable practice of the sovereign, the court, and a large 
 portion of the nobility, to honour this festivity with their 
 presence ; and so liberal have been their contributions, that 
 the salt money has been known to approach nearly j£1000. 
 (See HuggetVs MS. Collections for a history of Windsor 
 and Eton colleges, in the British Museum ; and Brand's 
 Popular Antiquities.) 
 
 MONTH. (Germ, monat.) The twelfth part of our cal- 
 endar year. It is so called from its being the period of the 
 moon's revolution round the earth. See Calendar. 
 
 MO'NUMENT. (Lat.) A memorial for perpetuating the 
 remembrance of an event ; also a cenotaph in memory of 
 the dead. The productions of architecture and sculpture in- 
 tended to transmit to posterity the memory of individuals 
 and events are most generally called monuments. Among 
 those in honour of individuals are tombs and sepulchral 
 edifices or columns. The most ancient are the obelisks and 
 pyramids of Egypt ; and perhaps, contemporary with these, 
 the tombs of the Persian kings, still visible in the ruins of 
 Persepolis. Greece abounded with monuments of this na- 
 ture. Buildings in that country were frequently raised in 
 commemoration of distinguished persons or events ; and of 
 this class were the Choragic monuments, in honour of those 
 who had received the prize as choragi in the theatrical and 
 musical games. Of these the most splendid is the choragic 
 monument of Lysicrates, vulgarly called the Lantern of De- 
 mosthenes. Among the monuments of this class of the Ro- 
 mans, the triumphal arches are in the first rank. The column 
 called the Monument of London, and the Duke of York's 
 monument, illustrate respectively the definition above given. 
 
 MOOD. (Lat. modus.) In Grammar, the designation by 
 the form of the verb of the manner of our conception of an 
 event, or fact ; whether as certain, contingent, possible, de- 
 sirable, or the like. See Grammar. 
 
 MOOD OF A CATEGORICAL SYLLOGISM, in Logic, 
 is the designation of its three propositions in the order in 
 which they stand, according to their quantity and quality. 
 
 MOON. (Gr. ixrjvr), Germ, mond.) The satellite of the 
 earth. The moon, after the sun, is not only the most con- 
 spicuous, but, in an astronomical point of view, the most in- 
 teresting of the celestial bodies. The variety of her phases, 
 her eclipses, and the rapidity with which she changes her 
 place among the fixed stars, drew the attention of the earliest 
 observers of the heavens ; and in modern times, the impor- 
 tant application of the theory of her motions to navigation 
 and the determination of terrestrial longitudes has given the 
 Lunar Theory the first rank among the objects of astro- 
 nomical science. 
 
 Phases of the Moon.— The different phases of the moon 
 were probably the first celestial phenomena that received a 
 correct explanation. By observing them attentively during 
 the course of a single revolution, it would be inferred that 
 they are occasioned by the reflection of the sun's light from 
 the spherical surface of the moon ; and accordingly the fact 
 had been recognised by the earliest astronomers. Let T be 
 the place of the earth, and ABC ,, 
 
 DEFGH successive portions of 
 the moon in her orbit, the sun be- 
 ing supposed to be situated in the 
 straight line T A, and at so great 
 a distance that lines drawn from 
 it to every part of the moon's or- 
 bit may be regarded as parallel. 
 When the moon is at A, she is in 
 conjunction with the sun, and 
 passes the meridian at the same 
 time; and her illuminated hemi- 
 sphere being then turned directly away frora the earth, no 
 portion of her disk is visible. A few days after the conjunc- 
 tion the moon begins to appear on the eastern side of the sun 
 at B, having the form of a crescent, the horns of which are 
 turned away from the sun. When she arrives at C, or 90° 
 from her conjunction, the earth is in the plane of the great 
 circle of her orb, which forms the boundary between her 
 dark and illuminated hemispheres, and consequently half 
 the disk is visible. The moon is then in her first quarter. 
 At D more of the illuminated hemisphere is turned towards 
 the earth, and she appears gibbous. At E she is in opposi- 
 tion to the sun ; the illuminated side is turned directly to the 
 earth, and the disk appears round or full. After passing E 
 the disk begins to wane, and from E to G appears gibbous. 
 When at G, or 270° from the conjunction, she is in the third 
 quarter. From this point to the conjunction the moon again 
 appears as a crescent, becoming narrower as she approaches 
 to A ; but the horns of the erescent are now turned west- 
 ward, that is, away from the sun. The straight line which 
 joins A and E is called the line of the syzygics ; that which 
 joins C G is the line of quadratures ; and the points B D F 
 
 773
 
 MOON. 
 
 II. situated at equal distances from those lines, are called 
 the octants. The magnitude of the illuminated portion of 
 ; sk is thus seen to depend on the position of the moon 
 relatively to the run and the earth, and is easily determined 
 by a geometrical construction. The mean period of time in 
 
 which a revolution of the phases is completed, or in which 
 she passes from our conjunction to the following, i- 29 davs, 
 IS h.. 44 m., 2-8 see. 
 
 Distanci and Magnitude of the Moon. — The moon's dis- 
 tance from the eartli is found from her horizontal parallax, 
 Which may he determined either by simultaneous observa- 
 tions at stations very distant from each other, or by means 
 of the occupations of fixed stars by the moon. From such 
 Observations it is found that the amount of the parallax varies 
 considerably at different times. Its mean value gives the 
 average distance of the moon from the eartli. equal to 59-9 
 of the earth's equatorial semidiameters, or about -J:<7,oii0 
 miles, which is upwards of 400 rimes less than the distance 
 of the sun. Combining this result with the apparent magni- 
 tude (31' -26") of the moon's diameter, when at her mean 
 distance, it results that the diameter of the moon is to that 
 of the earth in the proportion nearly of 3 to 11 : whence the 
 volume of the moon is only about l-49th of the volume of 
 the earth. 
 
 Inclination and .Voiles of the Lunar Orbit. — The moon's 
 orbit is inclined to the ecliptic under an angle of 5° 8' 47-9" ; 
 hut the line in which it intersects the ecliptic, or the line of 
 the nodes, does not maintain a fixed position on the plane of 
 the ecliptic. It is observed that the moon passes from one 
 of the nodes to the opposite one in less time than is required 
 to pass through 180° of longitude ; hence the line of the 
 nodes has a retrograde motion on the ecliptic ; and its mo- 
 tion is so considerable that it completes a revolution, or re- 
 turns to its former position, in a period of 6798-28 days, or 
 about 18-6 years. This period is remarkable, as being that 
 after which the eclipses of the sun and moon again return 
 nearly in the same order. The cause of the regression of 
 the line of the nodes is the attractive power of the sun, 
 which is always tending to draw the moon into the plane of 
 the ecliptic, and which would at length cause her orbit to 
 coincide with that plane, were the tendency not counteract- 
 ed by the angular motion of the moon round the earth. By 
 reason of the angular motion the mean inclination remain's 
 the same, and the resulting effect is the retrograde motion 
 of the nodes. But as the sun's distance from the earth 
 is a variable quantity, the effect of the solar action in dis- 
 placing the moon's orbit is also variable. Hence, and also 
 on various other accounts, the motion of the nodes, and 
 the inclination of the lunar orbit to the ecliptic, are subject 
 to certain periodical changes, all which must be accurately 
 appreciated and computed in the formation of the lunar ta- 
 bles. See Fertl ikbaitohs. 
 
 Eccentricity of the Lunar Orbit. — The eeneral orbit of 
 the moon is an ellipse, having the earth at one of its foci ; but 
 oc account of the disturbing force of the sun, and the differ- 
 ence of the intensities of this force when the moon is differ- 
 ently situated relatively to the earth and sun, the ellipse is 
 constantly changing its form and position on the plane of 
 the orbit, and hence the numerical values assigned to all 
 its elements are to be considered only as average or mean 
 values. The distance of the moon from the earth when in 
 apogee, or at her greatest distance, is 03842 semidiameters 
 of the earth : and when in perigee, or at her least distance, 
 55-916 semidiameters; whence the eccentricity, or distance 
 of the focus from the centre, is about 0.066. half the major 
 avis rx m» taken as unity. According to the best tables, it is 
 0-0548442. On comparing the positions of the major axis, 
 which is called the line of the apsides, at different times, in 
 respect of the fixed stars, it is found to have a rapid motion 
 eastward, completing a whole circuit in 323257 mean solar 
 days, or nearly nine years. But this mean motion is subject 
 to inequalities of considerable magnitude. The different 
 situations of the line of the apsides with respect to the line 
 of the syzygies gives rise to the inequality of the lunar mo- 
 tion, called the erection. See Evm HON. 
 
 Different Species of Lunar Months.— As the principal 
 points of the lunar orbit— the syzygies, the nodes, the apsides 
 — are in a state of rotation with different velocities, and in 
 different directions, it follows, that the period of time in 
 which the moon completes a revolution with respect to any 
 of these points, or to the fixed stars, n ill be different in each 
 case. These periods, which are called lunar months, may 
 be explained as follows: Let E be the 
 centre of the earth, a s b t the orbit 
 of the moon, a b the transverse axis 
 or line of the apsides, .« r the line of 
 the syzygies, ?i m the line of the nodes, 
 ■'■<. and A SUN the great circle of the 
 \/S \, / sphere in the plane of the ecliptic. 
 Also, let P be a fixed point on this 
 circle; and suppose the moon to be at 
 l>, or seen in the direction E F. The 
 
 time which elapses while the moon passes from p, and fe 
 turns to the same point of the ecliptic, is called the (/>/'" o 
 revolution, and differs only about seven seconds from the 
 time in which the moon returns to the same fixed star, or 
 performs a sidereal revolution. Suppose now the moon to 
 be ■<; ■.-. in the line of the syzygies; when the moon advan- 
 cing from s, in the direction m b n. has again come round to 
 the same point of the ecliptic, she will not now be in con- 
 junction; for. in the interval, the sun has advanced from 9 
 to S' (nearly a twelfth of the circumference), and conse- 
 quently the moon must goon to s', till she overtakes the sun, 
 before she returns to her conjunction. The interval from a in- 
 junction to conjunction is the synodic period, and exceeds the 
 tropical period by two days and about five hours. Next, sup- 
 pose the moon to be at her perigee a. or seen in the direction 
 E A : while the moon, after leaving a. is describing her orbit, 
 the line of the apsides E A revolves through the angle A E 
 A', and consequently the moon, after coming into the line E 
 A, must continue to advance till she comes to a' before she 
 arrives again at her perigee. The interval from perigee to 
 perigee is called the anomalistic period ; and it is also longer 
 than the tropical period, though much shorter than the 
 synodic, inasmuch as the line of the apsides requires about 
 nine years to complete its revolution, while that of the syzy- 
 gies is completed in one year. Lastly, suppose the moon at 
 n in the line of the nodes. While the moon is advancing 
 round her orbit, the line of the nodes, E X, moves backward 
 into the direction E X' ; consequently, the moon will have 
 come up to her node at n' before she has completed a revo- 
 lution on the ecliptic. The interval from node to node is 
 called the nodical period, and is shorter than any of the 
 other periods. The following table exhibits, in mean solar 
 days, the mean lengths of the different lunar periods or 
 months : 
 
 * Dava. 
 
 Synodic revolution .... 2953059 
 
 Sidereal 27-32166 
 
 Tropical 27-32158 
 
 Anomalistic 27-55460 
 
 Xodical 27-21222 
 
 .Acceleration of the Moon's mean Motion. — On comparing 
 observations of the moon made at distant times, it has been 
 discovered that her mean motion has been undergoing a con- 
 stant acceleration since the earliest times. This acceleration 
 is, however, extremely small, amounting only to 10" in a cen- 
 tury, and therefore is insensible for any moderate interval of 
 time, though it becomes discernible after a few centuries. Be- 
 ing measured by centuries, it is called the secular acceleration 
 of the mean motion. Its physical cause was found by L;i]>- 
 lace to be a diminution of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit. 
 F.c'ipses of the Moon. — The diameter of the sun being 
 much greater than that of the earth, the earth must project 
 behind it in space a conical shadow, the axis of v\ hirh is in 
 the plane of the ecliptic, and in the straight line joining the 
 earth and sun. On computing from the relative magnitudes 
 of the earth and sun and the distance of the two bodies the 
 length of this shadow, it is found that it reaches to about 
 216 times the radius of the earth, and consequently far be- 
 yond the orbit of the moon. It is found also that the ap- 
 parent diameter of the conical shadow, at the mean distance 
 of the moon, is about 1° 23'. But the greatest apparent di- 
 ameter of the moon being only 33' 31", or about a third of 
 this distance, it follows that if the moon happens to be sit- 
 uated in the plane of the ecliptic when she is full, or in op- 
 position with the sun, the whole lunar disk will be enveloped 
 in the earth's shadow; and as the moon requires about an 
 hour to pass over a space equal to her own breadth, the 
 whole disk may be involved in the shadow, and the moon 
 remain invisible during a space of about two hours. This 
 phenomenon is a total eclipse of the moon ; and it is evident 
 that if the moon's orbit coincided With the ecliptic, a total 
 eclipse would take place every lunation. In consequei i •>•. 
 however, of the inclination of the orbit to the ecliptic, the 
 moon, at the time of her opposition, is in general so far from 
 the ecliptic that her disk does not come into contact with the 
 earth's shadow, and consequently no eclipse takes place. 
 The occurrence of the eclipse, therefore, depends on the dis- 
 tance of the moon from her node at the time of the .,; 
 tion; and it results, from the computation of the different 
 circumstances influencing the phenomenon, that the eclipse 
 man take place if the moan is within about 12° of her node, 
 and must take if the distance from the node is not greater 
 than 7°. 
 
 Eclipses of the Sun by the Moon. — A solar eclipse is OC- 
 
 casioned by the moon's body coming between the spectator 
 
 and the sun. and thereby intercepting the rays cominL' from 
 the whole or a part of his visible disk. This phenomenon, 
 like an eclipse of the moon, can only happen when the 
 moon is near one of her nodes; but a total obscuration 
 not necessarily take place, even when the moon is in the 
 ecliptic at the time of her conjunction; for the magnitude 
 and distance of the moon are so related that the apex of her
 
 MOON. 
 
 Conical shadow sometimes falls short of the earth's surface, 
 though at other times it would reach as far as the earth's 
 centre. When the umbra extends beyond the earth's sur- 
 face, its intersection with the surface marks out a circular 
 spot, within which no part of the sun's disk is visible, and 
 there is a total eclipse. For some distance around this spot, 
 that is to say, within the penumbra, a part only of the sun 
 Will be visible, or there will be a partial eclipse. When the 
 apex of the shadow does not extend to the earth, there will 
 be no total eclipse at any part of the earth ; but a spectator sit- 
 uated in or nearly in the prolongation of the axis of the cone, 
 will see the whole of the moon on the sun, though not large 
 enough to cover it ; that is to say, he will witness an annular 
 eclipse. For the method of calculating eclipses of the sun 
 and moon, see Eclipse. 
 
 Rotation and Libration of the Moon. — From the observa- 
 tion of the lunar spots, it is ascertained that the moon has 
 a motion of rotation about an axis nearly perpendicular to 
 the plane of her orbit; and, what is very remarkable, the 
 period of rotation is ezactly equal to that of her sidereal rev- 
 olution about the earth. Hence the same hemisphere of 
 the moon is always turned towards the earth ; but as the 
 rotation is uniform, while the motion of revolution about 
 the earth is sometimes faster and sometimes slower than the 
 mean, the line which joins the centres of the earth and moon 
 does not intersect the lunar surface always at the same point, 
 but fluctuates a little to the eastward and westward of its 
 mean place, whence the spots near the eastern and western 
 borders of the disk alternately disappear and are brought 
 into view. This phenomena is called the libration in longi- 
 tude. Moreover, as the moon's orbit is inclined to the eclip- 
 tic in an angle of 5° 8' 47 - 9", while the plane of her equator 
 makes with the ecliptic an angle of only 1° 30', the axis of 
 rotation is not exactly perpendicular to the plane of the or- 
 bit, whence her poles come alternately into view for a small 
 space round the northern and southern borders of the disk. 
 This is the libration in latitude. There is also a diurnal li- 
 bration, occasioned by the moon's being seen from the sur- 
 face instead of the centre of the earth. See Libration. 
 
 Appearance and Physical Constitution of the jMoon. — On 
 looking at the moon with the naked eye, her disk appears 
 diversified by dark and bright patches, which, on being ex- 
 amined with a good telescope, are discovered to be moun- 
 tains and valleys. That the whole surface of the moon is 
 covered by such inequalities is evident from the circumstance 
 that the line of separation between the illuminated and dark 
 hemispheres, which, if the surface were even, would be a 
 sharply-defined ellipse, is at all times extremely ragged, and 
 indented with deep recesses and prominent points. The 
 mountains near this line cast behind them long black shad- 
 ows (like mountains on the earth when the sun is in the 
 horizon), from the micrometrical measurement of which the 
 height of the mountains may be calculated. According to 
 Sir J. Herschel, some of the highest of them exceed 1 J Eng- 
 lish miles in perpendicular altitude. Tycho, the bright 
 spot in the south-east quarter from which the rays seem to 
 run, is apparently a volcanic crater, 50 miles in diameter and 
 16,000 feet deep, surrounded by broad terraces within, and 
 with a central mountain about 5000 feet high. Schroeter 
 has estimated the average height of the lunar mountains to 
 be upwards of 5 English miles ; but it is easy to see that the 
 measurement is not susceptible of much accuracy. 
 
 "The generality of the lunar mountains," says Sir J. Her- 
 schel, " present a striking uniformity and singularity of as- 
 pect. They are wonderfully numerous, occupying by far 
 the larger portion of the surface, and almost universally of 
 an exactly circular or cup-shaped form, fore-shortened, how- 
 ever, into ellipses towards the limb ; but the larger have for 
 the most part flat bottoms within, from which rises central- 
 ly a small, steep conical hill. They offer, in short, in its 
 highest perfection, the true volcanic character, as it may be 
 seen in the crater of Vesuvius ; and, in some of the princi- 
 pal ones, decisive marks of volcanic stratification, arising 
 from successive deposits of ejected matter, may be clearly 
 traced with powerful telescopes. What is, moreover, ex- 
 tremely singular in the geology of the moon is, that although 
 nothing having the character of seas can be traced (for the 
 dusky spots which are commonly called seas, when closely 
 examined, present appearances incompatible with the sup- 
 position of deep water), yet there are large regions perfect- 
 ly level, and apparently of a decided alluvial character." 
 (" Astronomy," Cabinet Cyclopaedia, p. 229.) 
 
 The moon has no atmosphere, or at least none of suffi- 
 cient density to refract the rays of light in their passage 
 through it. There is consequently no water on her surface ; 
 and no animal similarly constituted to those which inhabit 
 the earth could subsist there. Her surface presents no ap- 
 pearance of vegetation, or of variation which can be ascribed 
 to a change of seasons. Everything appears solid, desolate, 
 and unfit for the support of animal or vegetable life. Wheth- 
 er the materials of which the lunar substance is composed 
 are of the same nature as those which compose the earth, 
 
 MORDELLA. 
 
 there are no means of knowing. From the effect of the 
 moon's gravitation in producing the nutation of the earth's 
 axis, the mass of the moon is determined to be very nearly 
 l-80th of the mass of the earth ; whence, as her volume is 
 only l-49th of the earth's volume, it results that her density, 
 as compared with the mean density of the earth, is -615, or a 
 little more than one half. 
 
 MOO'NSTONE. A variety of adularia, or resplendent 
 felspar ; it occurs massive and crystallized. Select speci- 
 mens are sometimes cut into ring and brooch stones. 
 
 MOOR. An uncultivated surface without trees, and with 
 few grasses or other herbage fit for pasture, and generally 
 containing scattered plants of heath, with a dark peaty soil. 
 Moor lands are generally the least fitted for culture of any 
 description of surface not rocky or mountainous. Moors are 
 covered with a very thin layer of soft, black, sterile soil ; and 
 the subsoil is generally gravel, or retentive ferruginous clay. 
 By the destruction of the heath or other bad herbage, and 
 by sowing down with grass seeds, they may be improved. 
 In many cases, also, trees will grow on drained moors ; in 
 which case the soil ultimately becomes ameliorated by the 
 fall and decay of the leaves. 
 
 Moor, in Navigation, signifies generally to fix a vessel by 
 two anchors in nearly opposite directions, so that she rides 
 by either in certain winds, or partly by both in other winds. 
 Also to secure a vessel to weights or chains sunk in har- 
 bours for the purpose. These weights are called mooring 
 blocks, and the whole apparatus moorings. 
 
 MOO'RISH ARCHITECTURE. See Architecture. 
 
 MO'PLAHS. The Mohammedan inhabitants of Malabar, 
 descended from Moors and Arabians who have settled on 
 that coast and married Malabar women. They are said to 
 form a fourth of the population. They are commercial and 
 industrious on the coast, but a furious race in the interior. 
 (Forbes, Oriental Meinoirs, p. 258.) 
 
 MORAI'N'E. The name given in Switzerland and Savoy 
 to the longitudinal deposits of stony detritus which are found 
 at the bases and along the edges of all the great glaciers. 
 The formation of these deposits are explained by Professor 
 Agassiz as follows: The glaciers, it is well known, are con- 
 tinually moving downward, in consequence, probably, of the 
 introduction of water into their fissures, which, in freezing, 
 expands the mass ; and the ice being thus loosened or de- 
 tached from the rocks below, is continually pressed forward 
 by its own weight. In consequence of this motion, the gravel 
 and fragments of rocks which fall upon the glaciers from 
 the sides of the adjacent mountains are accumulated in lon- 
 gitudinal ridges, or moraines. From the existence of such 
 deposits in many places where there are now no glaciers, 
 combined with the polished appearance of the surfaces of 
 the rocks on the sides of valleys, supposed to have been pro- 
 duced by the friction of moving glaciers, Professor Agassiz 
 infers that the extent of glaciers was formerly much greater 
 than it now is, and that they covered the great valley of 
 Switzerland, with the whole chain of the Jura. (Agassiz, 
 Etudes snr les Glaciers de la Suisse ; Reports of the British 
 Association for 1840.) 
 
 MORALS. See Ethics. 
 
 MORA'NA. The old Bohemian goddess of winter and 
 of death : the Maryana of Scandinavia. A grand yearly 
 festival was celebrated in honour of this goddess in the 
 month of March. Her image was conveyed solemnly to the 
 nearest brook or rivulet, and thrown into it amid the rejoi- 
 cings of the people. This festival was called " Das Joden- 
 Austreiben, das Sommer gewinnen ;" and, as the words im- 
 ply, was intended to be symbolical of the end of winter and 
 the return of spring. (See Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, 
 p. 446.) 
 
 MORA'SS. Moor lands saturated with water to such an 
 extent as not to bear the tread of cattle. A morass is to a 
 moor what a marsh is to a meadow. It is evident that the 
 drainage of morasses and moors, by lessening the evapora- 
 tion of water from their surfaces, must tend to improve the 
 local climate. 
 
 MORAVIAN BROTHERS. See HERRNHfT. 
 
 MORBIDE'ZZA. (Ital.) In Painting, a softness and 
 delicacy of style. Its opposite is a style whose lines are 
 harsh and angular. 
 
 MO'RDANT. A substance used to fix colouring matters 
 upon different stuff's. (See Dyeing.) Alumina and oxWe 
 of iron are the most important mordants. 
 
 MORDE'LLA. (Lat. mordeo, I bite.) A Linnsan genus 
 of Coleopterous insects, the type of a family (jMordellidie) 
 of Latreille's Heteromerans, "distinguished by the general 
 form of the body, which is elevated and arched ; with the 
 head low ; the thorax trapezoid or semicircular ; the elytra 
 very short, or narrow and pointed at the tips, as well as the 
 abdomen. They are distinguished from their nearest con- 
 geners, as the Pyrochroida. by their extreme agility, the firm 
 texture of their integuments, and their tenacious and pain- 
 ful bite. The sub-genera of the Mordellida are Ripiphorus, 
 Myodites, Peheotoma, Anaspis, and Mordclla proper: to the 
 
 775
 
 MORDENTE. 
 
 last sub-genus arc now restricted the species of the present 
 family, which have the antenna; of equal thickness through- 
 out, niul slightly seriated in the males; the eyes not emar- 
 ginate. ami the abdomen terminated by a long point. 
 
 MOEDE'NTE. (ltal.) [a Music, a grace in use by the 
 Italian school, which is effected by turning upon a note 
 without using the note below. 
 
 MO'REL. ~ (Germ, morchel.) The Morchella esculnita 
 is one of the few fungi found in this country which may be 
 used as food with safety. It occasionally occurs in woods 
 ami orchards, whence it rinds its way to the markets; but it 
 is of comparatively rare occurrence. It has a hollow stalk 
 an inch or two high, and a yellowish or grayish ribbed head 
 two or three inches deep. 
 
 MORE'SOUE. (Fr.) In Painting, a species of orna- 
 mental painting, in which foliage, fruits, flowers, &c. are 
 combined, by springing out of each other, without the intro- 
 duction of the human figure, or that of any animals; and 
 receiving its name from having been much used by the 
 Moors, who. however, were not the inventors of it. 
 
 MORGANATIC MARRIAGE, or LEFT-HANDED 
 MARRIAGE. (Said to be derived from the Gothic word 
 morgjan, to shorten.) A marriage between a man of supe- 
 rior and a woman of inferior rank, in which it is stipulated 
 that the latter and her children shall not enjoy the rank or 
 inherit the possessions of her husband. Such marriages are 
 not uncommon in the families of sovereign princes, and of 
 the higher nobility in Germany; but they are restricted to 
 personages of these exalted classes. 
 
 MORGUE. (Fr.) The name given to a place in many 
 French towns where the bodies of persons found dead are 
 exposed in order to be recognised and owned by their friends. 
 The clothes in which they were found are placed near the 
 bodies, for their better identification. The Parisian morgue 
 is built on the left bank of the Seine, in one of the most 
 populous neighbourhoods of the city, and presents one of 
 the most disgusting spectacles than can be witnessed any- 
 where. 
 
 MO'RMON. (Gr. popixuv, a mask.) The generic name 
 for the short-winged, web-footed birds usually called Puf- 
 fins, the singular beak of which gives the head the appear- 
 ance of a grotesque mask. The depth of the base of the bill 
 equals that of the entire head, and frequently the length of 
 the bill itself: the mandibles are compressed, arched, ob- 
 liquely channelled, and notched towards the tip. The eggs 
 and young birds are sought after and taken in great numbers 
 in the I irkneys and Faroe Isles. 
 
 MORMY'RlJS. (Gr. pdpitvpoc, a name given by the 
 Greeks to a shore-frequenting fish of a variegated colour, 
 probably the Sparus mormyrus of Linnams.) The name 
 was applied by Linmeus to a genus of abdominal fishes 
 placed in the Malacopterygian order, between the Lucioid 
 and Siluroid families in the system of Cuvier. The Mor- 
 myri differ from the pikes in little else save in the small size 
 of their mouth, of which the angles are formed by the max- 
 illary bones; and a corresponding modification of the ali- 
 mentary canal, the intestines being longer, and complicated 
 by two ca;ca. The Mormyri are confined to the rivers of 
 Africa, and are reckoned the best-flavoured fishes that are 
 caught in the Nile. 
 
 MORO'CCO. (Fr. maroquin.) A species of goatskin 
 leather, originally imported from the Levant and Barbary 
 states. It is extensively used in the binding of books. See 
 Leather. 
 
 MO'EOXITE. (Lat. moras, the mulberry tree.) A min- 
 eralogical name applied to one of the varieties of native 
 phosphate of lime of a mulberry colour. 
 
 Mi >li( i.\ VLIC ACID. An acid discovered by Klaproth, 
 combined with lime, in the bark of the Jllorus alba, or white 
 mulberry tree. 
 
 Mi )' ItPHEUS. In Ancient Mythology, the god of dreams ; 
 the son of 'Y-n-voi; or Somnus, who presided over sleep, with 
 whom In is frequently confounded. The chief distinction 
 in tween them appears to be this: Morpheus had the power 
 of assuming only the human shape, while the transforma- 
 tions of Somnus were unlimited. He is generally repre- 
 sented as a beautiful youth, with a hunch of poppies in his 
 hand. 
 
 MO'RPHIA. (Lat Morpheus, the s<»\ of dreams.) The 
 narcotic principle of opium. It may be separated from opi 
 urn in the form of white prismatic crystals almost insoluble 
 in water, but soluble in boiling alcohol ; it combines with 
 the acids and forms salts, all of which are powerful seda- 
 tives, and have proved of great value as medicines, (if 
 these the muriate of morphia is perhaps the best. It is com- 
 posed of about '2.-W morphia (which is its equivalent) and 37 
 muriatic acid. One of the most characteristic chemical 
 properties of morphia and its salts is, that they decompose 
 [Qdic acid, and consequently immediately discolour it- aque 
 ons solution. The ultimate elements of morphia are carbon, 
 oxygen, hydrogen, and nitrogen. 
 
 MO'RI'FIXUS. (Gr. ixo'ptivos, a name applied by Aristotle 
 776 
 
 MORTALITY, LAW OP. 
 
 to the osprey.) This term is restricted by Cuvier to a genus 
 of Jlccipitres called eagle-hawks, having wings shorter than 
 the tail, but with long and slender tarsi, and comparatively 
 feeble toes. Some species have the tarsi naked and scutella- 
 ted, as the JUorphmu gvitmsneis. 
 
 MORPHO'LOGY. (Gr. poptpi), form, and Xojoj, descrip- 
 tion.) That department or division of the science of botany 
 which treats of the metamorphosis of organs. It appears, 
 from the comparison of one kind of organ with another, that 
 notwithstanding the differences between them, there are so 
 many close analogies, and so much identity of structure, as 
 to render it probable that they are all formed upon one com- 
 mon plan, modified according to the purposes for which 
 they are severally destined. The leaf, which is the most 
 universal of the external organs, is taken as the best repre- 
 sentation of this type ; and with the more reason, because 
 all the other parts are found to have a tendency to assume 
 the organization of a leaf when any disturbing cause inter- 
 feres with their development. According to morphological 
 writers, the scale of a leaf-bud is a rudimentary leaf; the 
 petal is a leaf reduced in size, and thinned or coloured, or 
 both ; the stamen is a leaf, whose petiole is represented by 
 the filament, while the two lobes of the anther are the two 
 sides of its lamina ; and the pollen is the disintegrated meso- 
 phyll, and so on. These conclusions were for a long time 
 ridiculed by many writers ; but they gradually gained ground 
 with philosophical botanists, and are now the foundation of 
 comparative anatomy in plants. At the present day the 
 question is indeed no longer speculative, but is decided by 
 the evidence of our eyes ; for all those transformations, the 
 necessity of which morphologists assumed by mere force of 
 reasoning, have now been witnessed by Schleiden and many 
 others, who have traced the development of the organs of 
 plants from their earliest condition, through all their modifi- 
 cations, up to the period of complete development, and have 
 found that they are all deviations from a common type sub- 
 sequent to the first stage of their growth. 
 
 MO'RRIS DANCE. A peculiar kind of dance practised 
 in the middle ages. It is supposed to have been first intro- 
 duced into England from Spain by Edward III., when John 
 of Gaunt returned from that country ; but few traces of it 
 are found earlier than the times of Henry VIII. ; and it is 
 more probable that it was borrowed either from the French 
 or the Flemings. In the morris dance bells were fixed to 
 the feet of the performer, and the great art consisted ir 
 moving the feet as to produce something like concord 
 the various bells. 
 
 MORS. In Ancient Mythology, the daughter of 
 without a father, and goddess of death. The most s' 
 representation of death personified is to be found in t! 
 dise Lost. 
 
 MORTA'LITY, BILLS OF. Bills of Mortal 
 tracts from parish registers, showing the numbers 
 died in some fixed period of time, as a year, a m 
 week ; and hence they are called yearly, monthly, or vcti..- 
 ly bills. In general, they also contain the number of bap- 
 tisms, and sometimes the number of marriages. 
 
 The keeping of parish registers was begun in England in 
 the year 1538, in consequence of an injunction issued by 
 Lord Cromwell, the king's vicegerent in ecclesiastical af- 
 fairs, after the abolition of the papal authority in the king- 
 dom. In Germany they appear to have been introduced at 
 a somewhat earlier period, for Sussmilch has given extracts 
 from the Augsburg bills which go back to the year 1501 ; 
 and they were established in most countries of Europe about 
 the beginning of the seventeenth century. 
 
 The London bills, containing the records of the baptisms 
 and deaths, were begun in the year 15 l JiJ, but were not kept 
 regularly till after the plague which prevailed in 1603; since 
 which time they have continued weekly, and an annual 
 bill lias been also regularly published. Their value, how- 
 ever, was very little understood ; nor do they seem to have 
 attracted much notice until JGti-2, when Graunt published 
 Ins .Yntural and Political Observations mi the Hills of Mor- 
 tality, a work of great merit, considering the time at which 
 it was written. The ages at which the deaths took place 
 were not inserted in the bills till 17.18. Throughout the 
 country the registers were kept, generally speaking, with 
 very little care ; but the recent act for the registration of 
 births, marriage^, and deaths, which came into operation in 
 1836, has introduced an Incomparably better system ; and, as 
 the sex, ages, and causes of death tire now recorded, the public 
 Will soon be in possession of far more authentic information 
 than has yet existed on some of the most interesting ques- 
 tions of social statistics. (See article "Mortality," in the 
 I n, in-. V.rii. ; Preface to the Population Returns fur 1831 ; 
 . Innual Reports if the Registrar Qeneralof Births, Deaths, 
 ami Marriages in England, 1830, ct seq.) 
 
 AH HI T.Y'I.ITY, LAW OF. By this term is usually un- 
 derstood a mathematical relation subsisting among the num- 
 bers ii\' persons living at the different ages of life ; such that, 
 having given the number of persons living at any assigned
 
 MORTALITY, LAW OF. 
 
 age, the number of them who remain alive at every subse- 
 quent age, and consequently the mortality which takes 
 place in the interval, will be expressible by that relation. 
 It must be obvious that, in speaking of a law of this kind, 
 we can only have regard to the averages of large numbers. 
 In respect of a single individual, or a small number of per- 
 sons, the uncertainty of the duration of life is proverbial ; 
 but the case is entirely changed when multitudes are con- 
 cerned ; and there are few classes of contingent events of 
 which the results can be predicted with so little risk of de- 
 parture from the truth as the average age to which the lives 
 of a considerable number of persons will be prolonged. 
 
 Tile circumstances which affect the mean duration of 
 human life depend upon a great number of different causes ; 
 as climate, the facility of obtaining subsistence, the state of 
 civilization, the manner of living:, progress of medical sci- 
 ence, &c, all of which vary in different countries and at dif- 
 ferent times. The law of mortality, therefore, must vary 
 with these circumstances ; and consequently, if expressible 
 by any mathematical function, it must be one affected by 
 numarical coefficients depending on the particular circum- 
 stances, and of which the values can only be determined by 
 observation. The simplest expression which has been pro- 
 posed for representing the course of mortality is that which 
 is derived from the celebrated hypothesis of Demoivre ; 
 namely, that, if a number of individuals be taken in any 
 given year of age, the number of deaths which take place 
 among them will be the same every year until the whole 
 are extinct. In this hypothesis only one numerical quantity 
 requires to be determined, which is the average extreme age. 
 Demoivre adopted 86; and his hypothesis may therefore be 
 simply enunciated as follows : Out of 86 infants born, 85 will 
 be alive at the end of the first year, 84 at the end of the 
 second, and so on to the extremity of life, the decrement 
 being one In each year. For a considerable number of 
 years, about the middle ages of life, this hypothesis of equal 
 decrements represents the observed facts with tolerable ac- 
 curacy ; and, as it affords considerable facilities in various 
 calculations, it was formerly much used in the computation 
 of life contingencies. 
 
 If we suppose a straight line to be divided into a number 
 of equal parts, representing the ages of human life, and per- 
 pendiculars to be drawn through the points of division pro- 
 portional to the number of survivers at each age out of a 
 given number taken at a previous age, a curve line drawn 
 through the extremities of all those perpendiculars will rep- 
 resent the law of mortality as indicated by the observations, 
 and the equation of the curve will be the relation between 
 the age and the mortality. Now it is possible to draw an 
 algebraic curve through any number of points , but, in the 
 present case, this method of proceeding is attended with no 
 advantage ; for if the number of points be great, as it ne- 
 cessarily must, the equation is of a high order, and its nu- 
 merical computation impracticable. Lambert, of Berlin, 
 who appears to have been the first who exhibited the law 
 of mortality by a curve line, constructed a somewhat com- 
 plicated empirical formula, which represented the mortality 
 observed in London during some part of the last century 
 with considerable accuracy, and which may be adapted to 
 any other set of observations by giving suitable values to its 
 numerical coefficients. But the most ingenious attempt 
 which has been made to deduce a formula from a priori 
 considerations is contained in a paper by Mr. Benjamin 
 Gompertz, published in the Pkilosophical Transactions for 
 1825. Mr. Gompertz assumes as a principle that there is a 
 power in human life to resist the effects of disease, or op- 
 pose destruction, which loses equal proportions of its in- 
 tensity in successive equal small intervals of time ; and from 
 this he derives an expression which gives the number of 
 survivers (y) of any number of individuals, taken at any given 
 age, at the end of any number of years (i) counted from 
 that age, in terms of three constants, which may be de- 
 termined from observations. The formula may be given 
 under this form : 
 
 log. # = log. I ^No. whose log. is (log. p + x log. g), 
 
 /, p. and q being the constants to be determined. On assu- 
 ming three ages, and taking the corresponding values of x and 
 ij from the Carlisle table, and determining the constants by 
 means of the three equations so formed, the formula is 
 found to agree with the table through all the ages, within 
 limits which may be fairly supposed not to exceed the errors 
 of the observations. 
 
 On account of the multitude of causes which influence 
 the rate of mortality among the inhabitants of a country, it 
 is plain that any formula deduced from a priori considera- 
 tions can only be trusted so far as it is found to agree with 
 experience ; and therefore, for all practical purposes, re- 
 course is had to a table showing for each year of asze the 
 number of deaths which are observed to take place out of a 
 large number of persons who enter upon that age. The 
 ratio of those two numbers is the measure of the probability 
 
 that an individual entering upon that age will not survive 
 the year, and may be assumed as the law of mortality in 
 respect of that age. The table may be exhibited under dif- 
 ferent forms : the most usual is a table of decrements, which 
 is constructed by supposing a large number of persons, as 
 10,00(1, for example, to start together in the same year of 
 age (the year of birth is usually assumed), and to write 
 down in the same column the number of them who remain 
 alive at the end of each successive year. From this the 
 number who die in each year, and the chances of sur- 
 viving a year, or any number of years, are easily found. 
 For some purposes, a table of the probabilities of living over 
 a year at each age, or of dying in the course of the year, is 
 more convenient ; but either form can be readily reduced to 
 the other. 
 
 The oldest table of mortality we possess is published in 
 the Philosophical Transactions for 1693, and was construct- 
 ed by Halley from the mortuary registers of the town of 
 Breslaw, in Silesia. This town was selected, because the 
 number of births having been nearly equal to the number 
 of deaths for some years, it might be assumed that the popu- 
 lation had remained in a nearly stationary state during that 
 time : an assumption which affords the means of determin- 
 ing the ratio of the number who die at each age to the num- 
 ber who entered upon that age ; for it is evident that in a place 
 so circumstanced, and supposing also there is no migration, 
 the number who survive or complete any year of age within 
 a given period is equal to the sum of the deaths at all the 
 greater ages during the same period. For the sake of facili- 
 tating calculations from the table, he reduced the numbers 
 proportionally to 1000, by which number he represented the 
 infants of one year of age. 
 
 This method of determining the mortality from the mor- 
 tuary registers, or bills of mortality, has been frequently 
 adopted, particularly by Dr. Smart, in the formation of a 
 table showing the mortality in the city of London about the 
 middle of the last century ; by St. Maur, in respect of Paris ; 
 and by Dr. Price, for the celebrated Northampton table, 
 presently to be described. But it is evident that as the popu- 
 lation of a large town or district of country can never be ab- 
 solutely stationary, and as migration must be constantly 
 taking pluce to a greater or less extent, the method is not 
 absolutely correct ; and, in fact, the results to which it leads 
 must be attended with great uncertainty. In order to ob- 
 tain accurate results, it is necessary to know the numbers 
 who actually enter upon each year of age, as well as the 
 numbers who die in that age, during the period included in 
 the observation ; and hence, in addition to the mortuary re- 
 gister, an enumeration in each year, or at short intervals, 
 of the community in the several ages of life, is requisite for 
 the accurate solution of the problem. But, although great 
 attention has been given of late years to the statistics of life 
 in various countries of Europe, it is only in a very few in- 
 stances that sufficiently accurate data for the construction 
 of a mortality table have been obtained from observations 
 embracing indiscriminately all the different classes of the 
 inhabitants. Of these few, the principal (if not the only) 
 instances are the observations made in Sweden and Nor- 
 way ; those of Dr. Heysham, at Carlisle ; and more recently 
 by Dr. Cleland, at Glasgow. 
 
 In consequence of the migration which is constantly go- 
 ing on among the inhabitants, it is very difficult to obtain 
 with certainty the data necessary for determining the mor- 
 tality of any town or district, even where the registers of 
 births and deaths are accurately kept ; but there are various 
 associations of individuals with respect to which precise 
 data exist. Such, for example, are the religious houses in 
 Catholic countries ; the tontines which were established in 
 different countries of Europe during the last century , the 
 annuitants of the British government ; and especially the 
 assurance companies, which are now become so numerous. 
 In all such associations, the numbers who enter upon and 
 die in each year of age can be ascertained with precision 
 from the records of the association, which, therefore, afford 
 the data requisite for determining the rate of mortality at 
 the different ages, without hypothesis of any kind. Tables 
 were thus constructed by Kersseboom, from Dutch registers 
 of annuitants ; by De Parcieux, from the lists of the nomi- 
 nees in the French tontines, chiefly of 1689 and 1696, and 
 from the mortuary registers of the Benedictines, and of the 
 nuns in several convents in Paris ; and by Mr. Finlaison, 
 from six different classes of annuitants in English and Irish 
 tontines. Of the assurance offices, the Equitable Society is 
 the only one which has as yet published its experience ; 
 but there is little doubt that several of the others have ac- 
 cumulated valuable masses of observations. 
 
 We shall now give a comparative view of the mean du- 
 ration of life at the different ages, computed from some of 
 the best-known tables, premising a short account of each 
 table. For the method of making the computation, see Ex- 
 pectation of Life. 
 
 1. Northampton Table. — This table, which, perhaps, ia 
 
 777
 
 MORTALITY, LAW OF. 
 
 better known in this country than any other, on account of 
 its having been adopted by the greater number of the as- 
 surance offices as the basis of their tables of premiums, was 
 constructed by Dr. Price, from the bills of mortality from 
 1735 to 1780 of the parish of All Saints, in the city of North- 
 ampton. It cannot be considered as possessing much au- 
 thority, either on account of the accuracy of the data, or 
 the number of lives of which it embraces the history ; and 
 the hypotheses made use of in its formation — namely, that 
 the number of the inhabitants, and the number of annual 
 deaths, remained the same during the forty-six years inclu- 
 ded in the observations, and also that the migrations all 
 took place at the age of twenty years — tend farther to ren- 
 der it of doubtful value. It differs from the other tables in 
 giving a much lower expectation of life at the younger and 
 middle ages; and although this may be in part owing to 
 an increase in the average duration of life since the middle 
 of the last century, it is probably owing, in a much greater 
 degree, to the inaccuracy of the observations. For the his- 
 tory of this table, see Price on Reversionary Payments, 4th 
 ed., 1783. 
 
 2. Carlisle Table.— This was constructed by Mr. Milne, 
 from registers kept by Dr. Heysham of the births and deaths 
 which took place in the city of Carlisle and its environs in 
 the nine years from 1779 to 1787, the number of inhabitants 
 having been determined by two enumerations which were 
 made during that interval. On account of the accuracy of 
 the data, and the skilful manner in which they were made 
 use of, this table is of great value, and probably gives the 
 most correct view of the mortality among the inhabitants of 
 England generally which has yet been obtained. (JHilne's 
 Treatise on Annuities, $-<;., 1815.) 
 
 3. Gorernmrnt Tables. — These tables, as already men- 
 tioned, were computed by Mr. Finlaison, from observations of 
 the mortality among the nominees of life annuities granted 
 by the British government. Mr. Finlaison has given twenty- 
 one tables of the probabilities of life ; but the recorded facts 
 are contained in only six of them, the others being formed 
 by combinations of these six. The two columns in the sub- 
 joined table, for males and females respectively, are dedu- 
 ced from the rate of mortality adopted by the government 
 for determining the values of life annuities. (Finlaison's 
 Report to the Lords of the Treasury, published by order of 
 the House of Commons, 1829.) 
 
 4. Equitable Society's Table. — This table, which was pre- 
 pared by Mr. Arthur Morgan, and published in 1834, e.vhil>- 
 its the mortality which took place in the society from its es- 
 tablishment in 1760 to the end of the year 1829. By reason 
 of the great number of lives contained in it, and the certainty 
 of the data, this is a document of great importance. It will 
 be seen from the subjoined table that, for ages under fifty, it 
 gives a rather more favourable expectation of life than the 
 government table for males, and agrees nearly with the 
 Carlisle table ; but for ages above fifty it gives a less favour- 
 able expectation than either of those tables. The observa- 
 tions commence at the age of ten. 
 
 5. The Friendly Society's Table. — This table was prepa- 
 red by Mr. Ansell, from materials collected by the Society 
 for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge. It may be consid- 
 ered as representing the mortality of the labouring classes 
 in England. The observations were from 1823 to 1828. 
 (jinsell's Treatise on Friendly Societies, 1835.) 
 
 For the sake of avoiding decimal points, the numbers in 
 the subjoined table show the mean duration of life for ten 
 individuals, or the number of years enjoyed by ten individu- 
 als collectively. In respect of a single individual, the mean 
 duration of life is the tenth part of the number given in the 
 table. 
 
 
 a 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6 
 
 J 
 
 a 
 O 
 
 1 t 
 
 || 
 
 
 a 
 
 252 
 
 .1-7 
 
 502 
 
 555 
 
 
 
 s 
 
 403 
 
 513 
 
 ia 
 
 542 
 
 
 
 111 
 
 393 
 
 4" 
 
 456 
 
 511 
 
 483 
 
 
 15 
 
 36', 
 
 450 
 
 418 
 
 (8 
 
 450 
 
 413 
 
 M 
 
 334 
 
 415 
 
 3-1 
 
 440 
 
 417 
 
 376 
 
 25 
 
 309 
 
 379 
 
 359 
 
 403 
 
 3-1 
 
 342 
 
 30 
 
 2*3 
 
 313 
 
 332 
 
 376 
 
 3-1.5 
 
 309 
 
 85 
 
 257 
 
 310 
 
 302 
 
 343 
 
 309 
 
 276 
 
 
 231 
 
 276 
 
 270 
 
 311 
 
 r i 
 
 246 
 
 4, 
 
 205 
 
 245 
 
 238 
 
 27s 
 
 239 
 
 216 
 
 90 
 
 180 
 
 211 
 
 KM 
 
 244 
 
 J"4 
 
 1S7 
 
 .-. 
 
 156 
 
 176 
 
 172 
 
 20S 
 
 170 
 
 159 
 
 ty. 
 
 132 
 
 143 
 
 144 
 
 173 
 
 130 
 
 133 
 
 '.-, 
 
 109 
 
 lis 
 
 116 
 
 110 
 
 III 
 
 1H9 
 
 .' 
 
 
 92 
 
 92 
 
 no 
 
 -" 
 
 86 
 
 
 65 
 
 70 
 
 71 
 
 85 
 
 66 
 
 65 
 
 HI 
 
 48 
 
 55 
 
 49 
 
 66 
 
 48 
 
 48 
 
 -'. 
 
 34 
 
 41 
 
 31 
 
 48 
 
 34 
 
 34 
 
 a 
 
 24 
 
 33 
 
 20 
 
 28 
 
 26 
 
 
 % 
 
 8 
 
 35 
 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 11 
 
 S 
 
 There are many questions of great interest respecting the 
 778 
 
 MORTGAGE. 
 
 law of mortality which cannot yet be satisfactorily answer- 
 ed, from the want of sufficient data. The Carlisle table 
 gives only an indication of local mortality ; but it may be 
 asked, whether the mortality is the same in different parts 
 even of the same country, or the same in cities as in rural 
 districts 1 Now, the government annuitants resided in all 
 different parts of the kingdom ; and the same may be said 
 of the members of the Equitable Society, though perhaps a 
 majority of the latter were resident in London. But the 
 three tables — namely, the Carlisle table, the table computed 
 from the government male annuitants, and the Equitable 
 Society's table — present a remarkable agreement ; and, so 
 far as their evidence goes, we cannot draw any positive con- 
 clusion, either in favour of a particular district or a select 
 class of individuals. 
 
 It seems to be established beyond doubt that the rate of 
 mortality, at least in England, has undergone a very sensible 
 diminution within a contury, especially in respect of children 
 and aged people. This may be ascribed, in some degree, to 
 the discovery of vaccination, but more especially to the gen- 
 eral diffusion of comfort, and the improved mode of living, 
 among the labouring classes of the community. 
 
 Another question of great importance is, whether the law 
 of mortality is the same for both sexes 1 In the above table 
 it will be seen that there is a remarkable disparity between 
 the male and female annuitants in favour of the latter. 
 This indication of the greater longevity of females is con- 
 tinued by the observations of De Parcieux on the monks 
 and nuns in the French convents ; of Kerssebooni, on the 
 Dutch annuitants ; of Dr. Price, on the mortality of Chester ; 
 and also by the tables constructed from the mortality in 
 Sweden, at Montpellier in France, and in the cities of Am- 
 sterdam and Brussels. It is still, however, open to doubt, 
 whether the superiority shown in the above instances holds 
 generally true. Over the whole population of Belgium, the 
 greater part consisting of peasantry and labourers, it is found 
 that the lives of females are shorter than those of males, 
 while in the towns the advantage is on the side of the fe- 
 males. We believe the experience of some of the assu- 
 rance offices shows no superiority in the duration of female 
 life. 
 
 The following table, showing the proportion of deaths to 
 the population in the principal states of Europe, according to 
 the latest observations, is extracted from a paper in the Re- 
 vue Encyclopediquc for July and August, 1833. We can- 
 not vouch for its accuracy, but it is probably not far from 
 the truth. 
 
 Countries. 
 
 Periods or 
 Epochs. 
 
 Ratio of Mortality] 
 to Population. 
 
 Sweden and Norway 
 
 1*21—1825 
 
 1 in 47 
 
 Denmark . • 
 
 1819 
 
 
 European Russia . ■ 
 
 1626 
 
 t 44 
 
 Kingdom of Poland 
 
 1S29 
 
 
 British Islands 
 
 1818— 1521 
 
 1 66 
 
 
 1-J7-1-J- 
 
 1 33 
 
 Germany Proper . 
 
 1825— 1523 
 
 1 45 
 
 
 
 
 Austrian Empire . 
 
 182S 
 
 1 40 
 
 
 1-25— 1527 
 
 
 Switzerland . 
 
 1827—1888 
 
 1 40 
 
 Portugal 
 
 1515—1819 
 
 1 40 
 
 
 1801—1526 
 
 1 40 
 
 Ialy . 
 
 1-22-1S2S 
 
 1 30 
 
 Greece .... 
 
 1823 
 
 1 30 
 
 Turkey in Europe 
 Northern Europe . 
 
 1S2S 
 
 1 30 
 
 1 44 
 
 Southern Europe . 
 The whole of Europe . 
 
 
 1 36 
 
 1 40 
 
 For an accurate description of the various mortality tables 
 which have hitherto been published, the reader is referred 
 to the excellent article on the subject, by Mr. Milne, in the 
 F.nni. Rmtannica. 
 
 MO'RTAE. (Dut. mortar.) In Architecture, a cement 
 for the junction of stones and bricks, made of lime, sand, 
 and water. In the composition of it stone lime is prefer- 
 able to that bumed from chalk, and river to pit or road 
 sand. 
 
 Mortar. A short, wide piece of ordnance for throwing 
 shells, bombs, grape-shot, &c. It is the most ancient kind 
 of cannon. 
 
 Mortar. In Pharmacy, a vessel made either of iron, 
 ■tone ■« are, or class, &.C., according to the use to which il is 
 applied, in which substances are either pulverized or dis- 
 solved by means of a pestle. In fine chemical processes 
 
 r< urse is often had to mortars made of agate, flint, or 
 
 porphyry. 
 
 MO'RTGAGE. In Law, n mortcace-dred is in effect a 
 Conveyance, by which a party grants his interest or a por- 
 liun of it t" another, with a condition that if a sum of mon- 
 
 ej is paid bj a stipulated day the grant shall be void. Thus 
 the grantee has a conditional estate, whether of tee simple 
 or otherwise, according to the terms of the conveyance. 
 
 During the continuance of this estate, the mortgagor, though
 
 MORTIER. 
 
 in possession, is, in contemplation of law, only tenant-at- 
 vvill to the mortgagee ; and, on failure of payment, the es- 
 tate of the mortgagee would become absolute at law. But 
 in equity, the mortgagee's estate is subject to an equity of 
 redemption, or right to redeem on the part of the mortgagor ; 
 and a mortgage is thus redeemable so long as the relation 
 of debtor or creditor appears to subsist between the parties, 
 and for twenty years after the last acknowledgment of 
 that relation by the mortgagee, unless, upon his application, 
 the right be previously foreclosed by a decree of the court. 
 
 MORTIER. (Fr.) The name given to a cap of state of 
 great antiquity, worn by the first kings of France, and the 
 form of which is still preserved in the cap worn by the pres- 
 ident de la cour of Paris. 
 
 MORTIFICA'TION. (Lat. mors, death, and facio, / 
 cause.) Local death, gangrene. When any portion of the 
 body loses its vitality, a process of separation takes place 
 between it and the living parts that surround it; and when 
 this happens in certain parts or organs, it is necessarily fatal. 
 The symptoms that attend mortification of the viscera are 
 generally loss of pain, diminution of fever, small, sinking 
 pulse, hiccough, delirium, cold sweat, and fainting, which 
 precedes death. 
 
 Mortification, in Scottish Law, is nearly synonymous 
 with mortmain in English. By an act of 1587, land vested 
 in the church was declared to be given for superstitious 
 purposes, and to belong to the crown ; and thus the spolia- 
 tion of the richly-endowed ch urch of that country, prior to 
 the Reformation, was finally legalized. 
 
 MO'RTISE (Fr. mortaise), in Architecture, is the junc- 
 tion of two pieces of wood or other material, the cavity cut 
 in one piece being the receiving correspondent portion of the 
 wood of the other, which is called a tenon. 
 
 MO'RTMAIN. In Law, an alienation of lands, tene- 
 ments, or hereditaments, to any corporation, sole or aggre- 
 gate, guild, or fraternity. The foundation of the statutes of 
 mortmain is Magna Charta ; by which it was rendered un- 
 lawful for any one to give his lands to a religious house, &c. 
 in order to take them back again to hold of the same house ; 
 which was extended, by interpretation, so as to annul gifts 
 of lands which religious houses did not give back to the 
 donor to his own use, but kept in their own hands after ta- 
 king. A great number of statutes were afterwards passed in 
 order to restrict alienations to religious persons and houses, 
 and various devices formed for the purpose of eluding them ; 
 of which the system of uses, which has become, in some 
 sort, the foundation of our law of real property, was one. 
 (See Real Property, Trust.) But during the whole of 
 this time the king had the power of dispensing with the 
 statutes of mortmain by granting licenses of alienation ; and 
 this power was confirmed to the crown by stat. 7 & 8 W. 3, 
 c. 37. Alienation to charitable uses are exempted from the 
 statutes of mortmain ; but they are subjected to particular 
 forms and solemnities by the last mortmain act, 9 G. 2, c. 
 36. The term mortmain is derived from the Latin words 
 mortua manus (dead hand), because the lands so alienated 
 are said to fall into a dead hand, i. e., one incapable of per- 
 forming the usual services required of tenants. 
 
 MO'RTUARY. In Law, a fee paid to the incumbent of 
 a parish, by custom peculiar to some places, on the death of 
 a parishioner. It appears to have been a very ancient usage 
 to present the priest, on the solemnization of a funeral, with 
 some personal chattel of the deceased, or a sum of money 
 in lieu of it : under the various titles of pecunia sepulchra- 
 lis, sedatium ; in Saxon, soul-shot, &c. It had become a le- 
 gal custom as early as the reign of Henry III., when the 
 reservation of a mortuary appears to have been essential to 
 the validity of a testament of chattels. The amount was 
 fixed by 21 H. 8, c. 6, according to an ad valorem taxation of 
 the goods of the deceased. Mortuaries (where due by cus- 
 tom) are recoverable in the ecclesiastical courts ; and it 
 should appear, since the statute, at common law, although 
 such actions have not hitherto been brought. 
 
 MO'RUS (Lat. the mulberry tree ; Celtic, mor, black), is a 
 small genus of plants, containing some species valuable for 
 their foliage, and others for their fruit. The latter is our 
 mulberry tree, Morus nigra, whose well-known black, juicy 
 berries are a favourite autumn production ; the former are 
 J\I. alba, philippensis, and others, which constitute the best 
 of all food for silk-worms. The latter are found occasion- 
 ally in plantations ; but they are too tender to bear our cli- 
 mate well, and cannot be usefully cultivated even in the 
 midland country of England. 
 
 MOSAIC, or MUSAlC. (Gr. fiovaaiKov, polished, ele- 
 gant ; from fiovaa, as being fine or ingenious ?) In Paint- 
 ing, a species of representation of objects by means of very 
 minute pieces of stones or pebbles of different colours, care- 
 fully inlaid upon a ground generally of metal. In St. 
 Peter's at Rome are to be seen some works of this sort on a 
 magnificent scale. This art was practised at a very early 
 period, and was re-introduced to Italy by the Byzantine 
 Greeks. 
 
 MOTHER OP PEARL. 
 
 MOSA'IC GOLD. Bisulphuret of tin ; a yellow, flaky 
 substance, sometimes employed in ornamental japan work. 
 This term has lately been applied to a superior kind of brass, 
 and to a yellow alloy of copper, zinc, and gold. 
 
 MOSA IC WORK. In Architecture, the inlaying pave- 
 ments, walls, &c. with small dies of different coloured 
 stones or glass, in regular figures, or to represent historical 
 or other subjects. 
 
 MOSLEM. See Mussulman. 
 
 MOSOUE. (Arab, medsched.) A Mohammedan place 
 of religious worship. The principal interior decoration of 
 mosques consists in the lamps, which are numerous, and 
 singularly disposed ; the floor is covered with carpets : the 
 direction of Mecca is denoted by a niche, or by a tablet in- 
 scribed with verses of the Koran, called the Kebla. The 
 principal Arabian and Syrian mosques are most remarkable 
 for their vast quadrangles, surrounded with numerous col- 
 umns ; those of the Turks for the elegance of their cupolas. 
 The original places of worship of the Arabians were the 
 temples dedicated to the religion of the different nations 
 whom they subdued : such, for instance, as the temple of 
 Jerusalem, the temple of Minerva at Athens, and innumer- 
 able others in Spain, Asia and Egypt. It was not until they 
 had consolidated their power that the Arabians devoted 
 themselves to the cultivation of the arts, and gave any indi- 
 cation of that original architectural genius which afterwards 
 displayed itself in the structure of mosques. At the en- 
 trance of almost every mosque there is a large court plant- 
 ed with bushy trees, in the centre of which, or under a ves- 
 tibule paved with marble, are fountains for the prescribed 
 ablutions of the Mussulmans ; and to these courts is usually 
 attached a small gallery, on which the apartments of the 
 ministers of religion, &c. abut. But besides mosques for 
 public worship, there are others set apart for the instruction 
 of young men in the science of legislation and the doctrines 
 of the Koran ; and to this class belong the so-called royal 
 mosques, or jamis, of Constantinople. Most of these 
 mosques have hospitals for the poor, sick, or deranged per- 
 sons attached to them. Their revenues are often consider- 
 able, and are derived chiefly from endowments in landed 
 property. The term mosque is found, with slight variation, 
 in all European languages. The Turkish equivalent is 
 meschil, which is supposed to be derived from the Arabic 
 mesgiad, a place of adoration ; and from this are derived 
 respectively the Fr. mosquee, the Germ, moschee, the Span, 
 mequita, the Ital. mascheta, and the Eng. mosque. See 
 Minaret. 
 
 MO'SSES, in common language, are any minute, small- 
 leaved Cryptogamic plants. Thus club moss is a lycopo- 
 dium ; Iceland and reindeer mosses are lichens ; and the 
 numerous species of Jungermannia are all comprehended 
 under the same term. But in systematical botany no plants 
 are considered mosses except such as belong to the natural 
 order Bryacem or Musci. Such plants are simple-leaved ; 
 without spiral vessels or stomates; with a distinct axis of 
 growth ; and with the spores or reproductive matter enclo- 
 sed in cases, called sporangia or thecae, covered by a cup or 
 calyptra. The structure of the sporangia is as complex as 
 that of the stems and leaves is simple. Each sporangium is 
 closed by a lid or operculum ; below which is a transverse 
 membrane, closing up the urn left after the fall of the oper- 
 culum. The edge of the urn is furnished with one or more 
 rows of teeth, in all cases some multiple of 4 ; in the centre 
 is a columella or column, and between the latter and the 
 sides of the urn are the spores. It is not a little singular 
 that such plants should have cases called staminidia, con- 
 taining powdery matter ; among which are found animal- 
 cules, not distinguishable from such as are called spermatic, 
 and which swim about freely in water. None of the moss- 
 es are of any known use. 
 
 MOSS LAND. Land abounding in peat moss, but not 
 so much saturated with water as to become peat bog, or 
 morass. 
 
 MOSS-TROOPERS. In English and Scottish History, 
 those inhabitants of the borders of the respective countries 
 who were banded together in clans, and lived by rapine, re- 
 ceived this denomination, from the character of the country 
 over which they " trooped" in their excursions. These ban- 
 ditti were little heard of after the union of the two crowns, 
 but not absolutely suppressed until the union of the king- 
 doms a century afterwards. 
 
 MOTES, among the Anglo-Saxons, were public courts or 
 conventions of the people assembled for municipal or legis- 
 lative purposes. They were of various kinds; asWittenage- 
 mote, Folkmote, Burgemote, &c. (See these separate arti- 
 cles.) Moteer was a customary service or payment at the 
 mote or court of the lord, from which certain persons alone 
 were exempted by charter or other privilege. 
 
 MOTE'T. (Ital. motetto.) In Music, a composition con- 
 sisting of from one to eight parts, of a sacred character. 
 
 MO'THER OF PEARL (Fr. nacre de perles; Germ. 
 perlen-mutter), is the hard, silvery, brilliant internal layer 
 
 779
 
 MOTHER WATER. 
 
 of ecvcr.il kinds of shells, particularly oysters, which is often 
 variegated with changing purple and azure colours. The 
 large oysters of the Indian seas alone secrete this coat of 
 sufficient thickness to render their shells available to the 
 purposes of manufactures. The genus of shellfish called 
 Pentadinm furnishes the finest pearls, as well as mother of 
 pearl ; it is found in greater inflection round the coast of 
 Ceylon, near Ormus in the Persian Gulf, at Cape Comorin, 
 and among some of the Australian seas. The brilliant hues 
 of mother of pearl do not depend upon the nature of the 
 substance, but upon its structure. The microscopic wrinkles 
 or furrows which run across the surface of every slice act 
 upon the reflected light in such a way as to produce the 
 chromatic effect ; for Sir David Brewster has shown, thnt if 
 we take, with very fine black wax. or with the fusible alloy 
 of D'Arcet, an impression of mother of pearl, it will possess 
 the iridescent appearance. Mother of pearl is very delicate 
 to work; but it may be fashioned by saws, files, and drills, 
 with the aid sometimes of a corrosive acid, such as the dilute 
 sulphuric or muriatic ; and it is polished by colcothar of 
 vitriol. ( Ure's Dictionary of Arts, <$-c.) 
 
 MO'THER WATER. A term applied by chemists to 
 saline solutions from which crystals have been deposited, 
 and which, when poured off and re-evaporated, furnish a 
 second crop. 
 
 MOTION. (Lat. motio.) In Mechanical Philosophy, 
 motion is the change of place ; that is, of the part of space 
 which the body occupies, or in which it is extended. Motion 
 is real or absolute when the moving body changes its place 
 in absolute space ; it is relative when the body changes its 
 place only with relation to surrounding bodies ; and it is ap- 
 parent when the body changes its situation with respect to 
 other bodies that appear to us to be at rest. All the phe- 
 nomena of motion are derived by mathematical deductions 
 from the three following laws of motion of Newton : 
 
 1. A body must continue forever in a state of rest, or of 
 uniform motion in a straight line, if it be not disturbed by 
 the action of an external cause. 
 
 2. Every change of motion produced by any external force 
 is proportional to the force impressed, and in the direction 
 of the straight line in which the force acts. 
 
 3. Action and reaction are equal and in contrary direc- 
 tions; that is, equal and contrary changes of motion are 
 produced on bodies which mutually act on each other. 
 
 For the formulae which express the relations between the 
 moving force, the spaces passed over, and the times when 
 bodies move in straight lines or curves, with uniform or ac- 
 celerated velocities, see Force and Velocity. For element- 
 ary illustrations of the above three laws, we refer to Mac- 
 laurin's Account of JVeicton's Principia. 
 
 Motion. (Lat. motio.) In Painting and Sculpture, the 
 change of place or position which from certain attitudes a 
 figure seems to be making in its representation in a picture. 
 It can be only implied from the attitude which prepares the 
 animal for the given change, and differs from action, which 
 see. Upon motion, in art, depends that life which seems to 
 pervade a picture when executed by a master. 
 
 Motion. In Music, the manner of beating the measure 
 so as to hasten or retard the pronunciation of the words or 
 notes. 
 
 .Mi >'TK)N IN COURT. In Law, an occasional applica- 
 tion to the court, by the parties or their counsel, for the pur- 
 pose of obtaining some rule or order of court which becomes 
 necessary in the progress of a cause. Motions are either of 
 a criminal nature, as motions for an attachment for a mis- 
 behaviour; or of a civil nature. A motion in the courts of 
 common law is either for a rule absolute, i. e., to take effect 
 immediately ; or it is for what is termed a rule nisi, or a rule 
 to show cause — i. e., a rule to take effect, unless cause be 
 shown against it by a certain day, when, if no cause be 
 shown, the rule is made absolute on a second morion. Mo- 
 tions are accompanied by affidavits statin;; the facts on which 
 tin y are grounded, and generally preceded by a notice to the 
 opposite party. 
 
 MOTIO.V'urAXTITY OF. This term is used by wri- 
 ters on mechanics to denote the product of the mass or mo- 
 ving hody by the velocitv. Sec Mo.menti m. 
 
 MOTIVE FORCE. The force which tends to produce 
 motion. It is the same with momentum. 
 
 MO'TOR, MOVER. A term applied by anatomists to 
 certain muscles, &c. 
 
 MO'TTO (Ital.), is used to signify a word or sentence ad- 
 ded to a device; and when put upon a scroll, it is commonly 
 employed as an external ornament of coat armour. The 
 use of mottoes for this purpose is very ancient. The term 
 motto is also applied as a sentence or quotation prefixed to 
 any writing or publication. 
 
 MOULD. Soil composed of decayed vegetable matter in 
 a state of minute division, more or less mixed with garden 
 earth. The kinds of mould most in use in horticulture are 
 leaf-mould, formed from the decayed leaves of tries, rich 
 mould, formed of thoroughly decayed stable dung ; heulh- 
 780 
 
 MOUNTAIN. 
 
 mould, found on the surface of heath lands ; and pent -mould, 
 formed of thoroughly decomposed peat. In general, moulds 
 
 are distinguished from smis by containing a much greater 
 portion of vegetable matters than of earths. 
 
 Mm i.D. (Span, molde.) In Sculpture, the matrix or hol- 
 lowed wrought form into which the liquid or plaster, wax 
 or metal, is run in casting works of art. 
 
 MOU'LDING. (Fr. moule.) In Architecture, the mem- 
 bers of an order, which are shaped into various curved or 
 flat forms, of which there are eight sorts. The fillet, which 
 is square in profile (1) ; the astragal (2) ; the torus (3), being 
 
 _J 
 
 J 
 
 r 
 
 3L 
 
 T 
 
 larger than the astragal ; the scotia (4) ; the echinus (5), or 
 quarter round ; the inverted cyma, talon, or ogee (6) ; the 
 cymn, cyma recta, or cymatium (7) ; and the cavetto or 
 hollow (8.) 
 
 MOULD LOFT. A large room in a dockyard in which 
 the several parts of the ship are drawn out in their proper 
 dimensions. 
 
 MOULTING. The fall of the plumage of birds. It may 
 be either partial or total : the complete moult generally 
 takes place annually ; the partial moult occurs at the change 
 of plumage to which some species of birds are subject at 
 the breeding season. The moult is always accompanied by 
 the development of a new plumage, which may be of a 
 different colour from that which is lost. See Indumentum. 
 
 MOU'NTAIN LIMESTONE. A series of limestone 
 strata, the geological position of which is immediately below 
 the coal measures, with which they also sometimes alter- 
 nate. See Geology. 
 
 MOU'NTAIN MILK. A very soft, spongy variety of 
 carbonate of lime. 
 
 MOUNTAIN. (Lat. mons.) In Geography, the term 
 applied to designate the principal elevations on the earth's 
 surface. Mountains and hills, says Bakewell, are relative 
 terms with respect to each other, the highest elevations be- 
 ing denominated mountains, and the lower hills. In the 
 vicinity of Mont Blanc and Mont Rosa, which are more than 
 . r >(l(MI yards high, the mountains in Cumberland and North 
 Wales would be called hills, though Bnowdon rises more 
 than 1100 yards, and Skiddaw and Hclvellyn more than 1000 
 above the level of the sea. In England, if hills rise abrupt- 
 ly, and are more than 400 yards above the surrounding 
 country, they are generally called mountains. See Geology. 
 
 Arrangement of Mountains. — Mountains are seldom found 
 insulated or detached: sometimes, though rarely, they exist 
 in aggregate groups, branching from a common ccntro, and 
 not externally connected ; but most commonly they are ex- 
 tended in ranges or mountain chains, traversing extensive 
 regions. A single continuous chain is of rare occurrence : 
 in general, a number of chains is associated ; though there 
 does not, seem to be any predominating form of aggregation 
 or direction, at least with reference to the whole surface of 
 the globe. In some instances there is a principal or central 
 chain, with secondary groups branching off from it : in others, 
 several chains are associated, to no one of which the rest 
 can be said to be subordinate ; and in others again, as the 
 Cordilleras, a series of chains succeed each other, all run- 
 ning in one constant direction. It has been surmised that 
 the direction of the principal mountain chains is that of the 
 line of greatest length of the continent or region to which 
 they belong ; but this idea, though rendered plausible by 
 some remarkable instances, can scarcely be said to be borne 
 out by the facts. In a very general view, it may be stated 
 that the predominating direction of the great mountain chains 
 of the old world is from west to east, while those of Ameri- 
 ca range from north to south. See Geography. 
 
 Another generalization, which seems to be liable to fewer 
 exceptions, is, that mountain chains or ranges present the 
 steepest acclivities on the sides nearest the sea. This ar- 
 rangement is particularly observable on the shores of the 
 Mediterranean : the mountains of Armenia present their 
 precipitous sides to the Euxine, and those of Caucasus and 
 Mn/.anderan to the Caspian. The western Ghauts face the 
 Indian Ocean ; and the whole range of the Cordilleras, with 
 I li< ir prolongation to the Arctic Ocean, presents its escarp- 
 ments to the great Pacific. On the hypothesis that the con- 
 tinents and mountain masses have been upheaved by a 
 force acting in the inferior of the earth, these peculiarities 
 of configuration afford scope for curious speculation respect- 
 ing the prodigious efficacy of the subterranean agencies 
 through which the crust of the earth has assumed its actual 
 form. 
 
 .l/titude of Mountains. — On taking a general view of the 
 surface of the earth, the elevation of the loftiest mountain 
 chains, enormous as it appears to be, is insignificant in com- 
 paiison of the dimensions of the globe. The radius of the 
 earth is nearly 4000 miles; while the height of the highest
 
 MOURNING. 
 
 peaks above the mean level scarcely exceeds five miles : the 
 ratio is accordingly 1 to 800 ; so that on a 16-inch globe the 
 corresponding inequality would only amount to the hun- 
 dredth part of an inch. Mountains, however, exercise a 
 very great influence on the climate of a country, and hence 
 it is of great importance in geography to ascertain their alti- 
 tude and configuration. The methods by which the meas- 
 urement is effected have been explained under the term 
 Heights, Measurement of. 
 
 The following are the altitudes of a few of the most ele- 
 vated peaks in the four quarters of the world. The most 
 extensive list which we have seen is given in Gehler's Physi- 
 calisches Lexicon, art. " Hohenpunckte," where the authori- 
 ties for the different measures are also stated. 
 
 Europe.— Mont Blanc, Alps, 15,781 ft. ; Mont Rosa, 15,555 
 ft. ; Ortler Spitze, Tyrol, 15,430 ft. ; Jungfrauhom, 13,720 
 ft. ; St. Gothard Pass, 9975 ft. ; Hospice, Great St. Bernard, 
 8040ft.; Mont Perdu, Pyrenees, 11,283 ft.; Le Pic Blanc, 
 do., 10,205 ft. ; Monte Corno, Appenines, 9523 ft. ; Lomnitz, 
 Peak of Carpathians, 8640 ft. ; Parnassus, 8000 ft. ; Mula- 
 uacen, Sierra Nevada, Spain, 11,673 ft. ; iEtna, Sicily, 10,963 
 ft.; Sneehattan, Norway, 8115 ft.; Snaefell, Iceland, 6860 
 ft.; Helvellyn, England, 3055 ft.; Ben Macdui, Scotland, 
 4418 ft. ; Macgillicuddy's Reeks, Ireland, 3410 ft. 
 
 Asia. — Dhawala-giri, Himalaya, 26,862 ft. : Jamautri, do., 
 25,500 ft. ; Elburz, Caucasus, 18,500 ft. ; Mouna Kaah, Sand- 
 wich Islands, 18,400 ft.; Demavend, Mazanderan, 14,700ft. ; 
 Soomoonang, Thibet, 14,500 ft. ; Ophir, Sumatra, 13,842 ft. ; 
 Italitzkoi, Altai, 10,735 ft. ; Ararat, Armenia, 9500 ft. ; Leb- 
 anon, 9520 ft. ; Sinai, 5000 ft. ; Tangai, Ural, 4912 ft. 
 
 Africa.— Mountains of Geesh, 15,000 ft. ; Peak of Tene- 
 rifte, 12,236 ft. ; Atlas, 11,400 ft. ; Niewveldt, Cape of Good 
 Hope, 10,000 ft. ; Gros Nome, Isle of Bourbon, 9600 ft. ; Tri- 
 go, Canaries, 7400 ft. ; Tuivo, Madeira, 5162 ft. 
 
 America. — Sorata, Bolivia, 25,000 ft. ; Illimani, Peru, 
 24,450 ft.; Chimborazo, Andes, 21,440 ft.; Antisana, 19,150 
 ft. ; Catopaxi, 18,890 ft. ; Volcan de Popocateptl, Mexico, 
 17,716 ft. ; Potosi, 16,000 ft. ; Nevado de Mexico, 15,700 ft. ; 
 Lake of Titicaca, 12,000 ft. ; City of Rio Bamba, 10,800 ft. ; 
 White Mountains, New-Hampshire, 6230 ft. 
 
 MOU'RNING, may be denned generally as an external 
 indication or manifestation of grief for the death of a friend 
 or relative. Certain usages in regard to mourning have been 
 in force among all nations, barbarous and civilized, from the 
 earliest ages; but except in the grief of which they are in- 
 tended to be the symbol, no customs exhibit fewer marks of 
 uniformity. Tims, the Chinese mourn in white ; the Turks 
 in blue or in violet ; the Egyptians in yellow ; the Ethiopians 
 in gray. In ancient Rome and Laceda:mon the ladies mourn- 
 ed in white. In Eastern countries it was regarded as a pe- 
 culiar mark of affliction to cut the hair; and at Rome, on 
 the contrary, to let it grow. The Greeks adopted the East- 
 ern practice, and bestrewed the tombs of those for whom 
 they mourned with their hair. The peculiarities of the an- 
 cient Jews in time of mourning are well known ; and the 
 various customs, of which so minute an account is contained 
 in the Pentateuch, are still maintained on these occasions by 
 their descendants. From the commencement of the Christian 
 era, the general colour adopted for mourning throughout Eu- 
 rope has been, with very few exceptions, black. The kings 
 of France mourn in violet. The duration of the period of 
 mourning differs in different countries, but in all is usually 
 regulated by the nearness of relationship between the survi- 
 vers and the deceased. Thus, in France, the period pre- 
 scribed by usage is, for a husband, one year and six weeks ; 
 for a father, mother, wife, or child, six months ; for a grand- 
 child, four months and a half; for a brother or sister, two 
 months; for an uncle or aunt, three weeks; for a cousin- 
 german, fifteen days, &c. The rules lhat determine the forms 
 and duration of court mourning emanate from the sovereign, 
 but these do not extend beyond the CQurt ; and though, on the 
 demise of the crown or a relation, it is expected, in the lan- 
 guage of the Gazette, that the people "put themselves into 
 decent mourning," this is seldom generally complied with, 
 except when the character of the deceased has been such 
 88 to secure wide popularity. (The art. "Deuil," in the 
 Encyclopedic des Gens du Monde, gives a very complete 
 view of the chief modes of mourning in use in ancient and 
 modern times.) See Sepulture, Rites of. 
 
 MOUSE. (Lat. mus ; probably from the Gr. pvciv. to hide.) 
 The pretty but annoying little Rodent quadruped which in- 
 fests human dwellings and granaries is usually understood 
 by this word ; the other small species of the genus Mus be- 
 ing distinguished by some prefix, as harvest-mouse, field- 
 mouse; and the larger species of the same genus being 
 termed " rats." (For the generic character of the mouse, see 
 Mus.) The common mouse, like the rest of the genus, and 
 indeed the whole of its order, is remarkable for its fecundi- 
 ty ; it produces ordinarily five or six young ones at a birth, 
 and this several times in the course of the year. In a fort- 
 night the young are able to leave the mother and assume an 
 independent existence, and these are soon again able to re- 
 66 
 
 MUCUS. 
 
 produce. The harvest-mouse ( Mus messorius) is the small- 
 est of known mammals ; the length of the head and body i9 
 two inches and a half. Its nest is beautifully and elaborate- 
 ly constructed of the panicles and leaves of three stems of 
 the common reed interwoven together, and forming a round- 
 ish ball, suspended on the living plants at a height of about 
 five inches from the ground. The field-mouse is about the 
 size of the house-mouse, but is distinguished by its larger 
 eyes and ears. Many small mouse-like quadrupeds are 
 commonly termed "mice" which really belong to a different 
 genus, or even order, as the dormouse, the field vole, the 
 shrew, &c. 
 
 Mouse. In Naval Affairs, a hump or knot worked on a 
 rope, to prevent a noose from slipping. 
 
 MOUTH. (Sax. mudt.) In Architecture, the salne as 
 cavetto, which see. 
 
 MO'VABLE FEASTS. Certain festivals held in com- 
 memoration of differents events recorded in the Gospels and 
 the Acts of the Apostles, and connected with the personal 
 circumstances of Christ during the last year of his earthly 
 life, and after his death. As they are reckoned backward 
 and forward from his resurrection, and as the celebration 
 of that day depends on the time of new moon, which varies 
 at different times through the space of a month, these de- 
 pendant festivals also vary in the same way. Easter is 
 always the first Sunday after the first new moon after the 
 21st of March ; and from this all the others are reckoned for 
 each year. 
 
 MOVEMENT. The train of wheel-work of a clock or 
 watch. See Horology. 
 
 Movement. In Politics, an expression that has been 
 adopted of late years into the political vocabulary of most 
 European nations, signifying that party in a state whose 
 principles consist in a restless endeavour to obtain such con- 
 cessions in favour of popular rights as will ultimately place 
 the chief functions of government in the hands of the peo- 
 ple. It is opposed to the Conservative party, or the parti de 
 resistance. 
 
 MOW. A mass of com in the sheaf, built up in one end 
 of the barn preparatory to being threshed. 
 
 MOWING. The act of cutting down grass, herbage, 
 or corn with a scythe. Mown grass, or herbage, is either 
 given to horses and cattle in a green state, or dried and 
 stacked for winter use. When corn or pulse are mown, 
 they are dried and stacked till a convenient season occurs 
 for separating the corn or pulse from the straw or haum by 
 threshing. 
 
 MO'XA. A soft woolly substance, made in Japan from 
 the leaves of the Artemisia Chinensis, or Chinese magworts. 
 It is used as an actual cautery, by placing a small cone of it 
 upon the skin and setting fire to it, when it burns down to 
 the part and makes a sore, which is kept open if requisite. 
 
 MOYA. Mud poured out from volcanoes. 
 
 MUCI'VORA. (Lat. mucus, slime, voro, / devour.) A 
 name applied to a family of Dipterous insects, comprehend- 
 ing those which feed on the mucus or other juices of plants, 
 or of decomposinc animal bodies. 
 
 MUCK, RUNNING A. A phrase which has been adopt- 
 ed into the English language to signify an indiscriminate 
 attack upon friends and enemies ; as in the well-known 
 verse, 
 
 "Who runs a rnuck, and tilts at all be meets. 
 This expression is derived from the Javan word amok, 
 which means to kill ; the inhabitants of Java, and many 
 other of the Asiatic islands, being remarkable for an irre- 
 sistible phrensy resulting from a desire of vengeance, which 
 leads them to aim at indiscriminate destruction, and thus to 
 subject themselves to be treated like wild beasts which it is 
 impossible to take alive. These fits of desperation were long 
 considered peculiar to the class of slaves in the islands above 
 mentioned ; but there are many instances on record where 
 whole villages, and even armies, have, under the influence 
 of a mok, devoted themselves to inevitable destruction to 
 avenge an injury or an insult. The accounts of the wars 
 of the Javans, says Raffles, in his History of Java, as well 
 as of the Malayus, abound with instances of warriors run- 
 ning amok ; of combatants, giving up all idea of preserving 
 their own lives, rushing on the enemy, committing indis- 
 criminate slaughter, and never surrendering themselves 
 alive. The cause of these fits of desperation has been at- 
 tributed to an intemperate indulgence in opium-eating. 
 
 MU'COUS MEMBRANE. The membranous lining of 
 the canals and cavities of the body which are exposed to 
 the contact of air or other inorganic substances. The basis 
 of this membrane is compact cellular tissue, not gelatinous 
 or adipose, and having a peculiar cuticular covering, beset 
 in some cases with abundant nervous papilla;, in others with 
 the orifices of secretory glands. 
 
 MU'CUS. (Lat.) The secretion of the mucous mem- 
 branes, the most characteristic of which is that from the 
 nasal membrane. Mucus is viscid, and acquires apparent 
 fluidity in water without being actually dissolved, but gives
 
 MUDAR. 
 
 a ropbiess to it when present to a less amount than 1 per 
 cent. With pure water of the temperature of 95°, this ap- 
 pearance ensues in a few hours; but if the apparent solu- 
 tion be filtered, the mucus remains upon the paper anil 
 gradually thickens. It may be repeatedly dried and moist- 
 ened without material change of properties ; it, however, 
 becomes less transparent, yellow, and at length has a puru- 
 lent appearance. When boiled in water, it does not harden 
 and shrink, but becomes tough, and on cooling is found to 
 retain its former characters. When dried it is yellow and 
 translucent ; and subjected to distillation, it yields carbonate 
 of ammonia and empyreumatic oil, and phosphate and car- 
 honate of lime, and carbonate of soda are found In the ash. 
 It is soluble in dilute sulphuric acid, and blackened by the 
 concentrated acid ; it is not soluble in acetic acid, but yields 
 but a trace of albumen. According to Henlc, mucus con- 
 sists of the scales of the epithelium which covers the open 
 cavities of the body. This epithelium or cuticle consists of 
 minute cells of various forms, which are continually wear- 
 ing oil" and being renovated ; it thus yields scales which mix 
 with the watery' secretion, and constitute mucus. 
 
 MU'DAR. The Indian name of Caiotropis gigantea, a 
 plant of the Asclepiadaceous order ; a substance used medi- 
 cinally in that country, with great etfect in scrofulous cases, 
 but not admitted into the Materia Medica of Europe. It 
 gives its name to mudarine, a peculiar chemical principle, 
 having the singular property of softening by cold and hard- 
 ening by heat. 
 
 MUE'ZZIN, in Mohammedan countries, is the general 
 appellation of those officers, or clerks of the mosques, whose 
 duty it is to proclaim the ezam or summons to prayers at the 
 five canonical hours, viz., at dawn, noon, 4 o'clock P.M., 
 sunset, and nightfall. 
 
 MUFFLE. An arched vessel with a flat bottom, in which 
 substances may be exposed to a red heat without coming 
 into contact with the fuel. See Assaying. 
 
 MU'FTI. The Turkish title of a doctor of the law of the 
 Koran ; derived from fetvas, a rescript or answer to a ques- 
 tion of law addressed to the competent authority ; which 
 fetvas it is the province of the mufti to issue. The mufti of 
 Constantinople, or Sheikh-ul-Islam, is the chief functionary 
 of the Turkish church, and represents the sultan in spiritual 
 matters, as the grand vizier does in temporal. 
 
 MUGGLETO'NIANS. A sect of Christians who sprung 
 tip in England in 1561, and derived their name from one 
 Muggleton, a tailor, who, together with an associate called 
 Reeves, gave themselves out for the two last and greatest 
 prophets of Jesus Christ, and asserted that they had power 
 to save or to ruin in a future state whomsoever they pleased. 
 Notwithstanding the absurdity of their pretensions, they ob- 
 tained many adherents ; and the belief in their inspiration 
 has been maintained, though by a comparatively insignifi- 
 cant number, from the period of their first promulgating 
 their opinions down to the present time. A collection of 
 the writings of Muggleton and Reeves, together with other 
 Muggletonian tracts, was published in 3 vols. 4to in 1832, in 
 which the reader will find the singular doctrines of this sect 
 fully, but, as appears to us, not very intelligibly set forth. 
 In the religious controversy to which the promulgation of 
 their doctrines gave rise, their chief opponents were the 
 Quakers, and among these were George Fox and William 
 Penn. 
 
 MU'GILOIDS. (Lat. mugil, a mullet.) A family of 
 Acanthopterygian fishes in the system of Cuvier, character- 
 ized by having an almost cylindrical body covered with 
 large scales, and furnished with two separate dorsals, the 
 first of which has but four spinous rays. The mouth is ei- 
 ther edentulous, or is provided with teeth of extremely 
 minute size. This family includes the genera Mugil, Tc- 
 tragonurus, and Mherina : it is included in the Cycloid 
 order in the system of Agassiz. 
 
 MULATTO. A term in general use in American coun- 
 tries, in which there exists a mixed population of different 
 races and colours, for the offspring of a union between a 
 white and a negro. 
 
 In our West Indian possessions the offspring of a white 
 and mulatto is called a quadroon, or one quarter black ; of a 
 white and quadroon, a muster, or one eighth black; of a 
 white and muster, a mustafina, or one sixteenth black; after 
 which they are said to be whitewashed, ami are considered 
 as Europeans. On the other hand, the offspring of a mu- 
 latto and a negro is called a cabre ; of a cabre and negro, a 
 griffe ; and, generally speaking, after Ibis there is no dis 
 tinctive appellation but negro. All this is sufficiently sim- 
 ple; but in the Spanish and Portuguese colonial possessions, 
 the intermixture of Europeans with negroes, mulattoes, fee., 
 and these, again, with other classes, has given rise to a mul- 
 tiplicity of denominations sufficiently vague and Indefinite 
 even in these languages, but wholly untranslatable into 
 English. It must be admitted, however, that great ingenuity 
 has been displayed in tracing the amount of European and 
 negro blood that (lows in the veins of the mixed races, as 
 782 
 
 MULTINOMIAL. 
 
 the following list of terms (which might be considerably 
 augmented) will prove: Zambi, quatralvi, tresalvi, salta 
 tras, coyote, zambaigi, cambusos, giveros, puchuelas, alba- 
 rassados, barrinos, &c. All these, again, may be multiplied 
 in arithmetical progression, thus forming a host of mollifica- 
 tions, each, however, retaining more or less his original 
 characteristics, in proportion to the relation in which he 
 stands lo his original Stock. 
 
 In Spain, the term Mulatto has been employed to desig- 
 nate persons having a tincture of Moorish blood. 
 
 MCLBERRY. The so-called paper mulberry is the 
 Broussonetia papyrifera, and not a morus ; its tenacious, 
 pliable inner bark furnishing a valuable material for the 
 dress of the South Sea Islanders and Chinese. The yellow 
 dyewood called fustic is the produce of another species of 
 this genus, the Broussonetia tinctoria. See Mouus. 
 
 MI'LBERRY CA'LCULUS. A urinary concretion, 
 consisting chiefly or entirely of oxalate of lime. Many of 
 these calculi, in form and colour, somewhat resemble the 
 fruit of the mulberry. 
 
 MULCH. Straw or litter half rotten. In Horticulture, 
 when this material is applied round the roots or stems of 
 plants to protect them from the drought or from frost, they 
 are said to be mulched. 
 
 MULL. A term used in Scotland almost synonymously 
 with Cape, which see ; and applied to various projecting 
 portions of the island, as the Mull of Galloway, of Cautyre, 
 &c. 
 
 MULL AS. The priests of Tartary are so called. They 
 form one of the three grand classes into which the Tartars 
 are divided ; the other two being the munas or nobility, and 
 the peasantry. Their chief duty consists in reading the Ko- 
 ran ; but their stock of knowledge is generally so scanty, 
 that they are seldom able to interpret the Arabic in which 
 the office of the mosque is performed. The village mullas 
 are generally decently-behaved and respectable men; "a 
 little too much given to sell charms for the ague, but living, 
 for the most part, among their neighbours a quiet and chari- 
 table life, the arbitrators as well as curates of their seques- 
 tered valleys ; and frequently possessing, in addition to these 
 weighty charges, the sinecure office of parish schoolmaster." 
 (Quart. Rev., vol. xxix., p. 129.) The Tartar mulla and the 
 Persian mollak (which see) have evidently a common ori- 
 gin, but their rank and offices are wholly distinct. 
 
 MU'LLET, in Heraldry, represents the rowel of a spur. 
 In English blazonry it is depicted of five points, in French 
 of six. It is used as the filial distinction of the third son. 
 See Difference. 
 
 Mullet. The name of the fishes of the genus Mugil, 
 which, in addition to the family characters of the ofugiloids, 
 have the middle of the under jaw produced into an elevated 
 angular point, adapted, when the mouth is closed, to a cor- 
 responding groove in the upper jaw ; the number of the 
 branchiostegous rays is six. Of this genus there are three 
 British species, viz., the gray mullet (Mugil capito, Cuv.) ; 
 the thick-lipped mullet (Mugil chelo, Cuv.) ; and the short 
 mullet (Mugil curtus, Yarrell) : of these the first species is 
 the least rare. The red mullets (Mullus surmulctus, Cuv., 
 and Mullus barbatus, Linn.) belong to a different family of 
 fishes : the former of these species was the fish so greatly 
 esteemed by the ancient Romans, and for which such ex- 
 travagant prices were given when it had attained an unu- 
 sually large size. 
 
 MU'LLION, or MANNON. In Architecture, the upright 
 post or bar dividing two lights in a window. 
 
 MULTA'NGULAR FIGURES, MULTILATERAL 
 FIGURES, or POLYGONS. Rectilineal figures of more 
 than four sides, and each specially denoted by the number 
 of its angular points ; as a pentagon, hexagon, decagon, <Stc, 
 which have five, six, ten sides or angles respectively. 
 
 MU'LTIARTTCULATE (Lat multus ; articulus, a 
 joint), in Zoology, is applied to the antenna; of insects, and 
 to the legs of Crustaceans and Cirripeds, when they are 
 composed of a great number of joints; also to bivalve shells 
 which have numerous teeth in the hinge. 
 
 MULTICARI'NATE (Lat. mullus, carina, <i keel), in 
 Conchology, is applied to a shell which is traversed by 
 many keel like riil^-s ; as the h'usus multicarinatus, Tcre- 
 bratula multicarinata. 
 
 MULTIDE'NTATE. (Lot multus ; dens, a tooth.) In 
 Zoology, "lien a part is armed with many teeth or tooth- 
 like processes. A family of Nereids is hence termed Multi- 
 dentata by De Illainville, on account of the structure of 
 their bomy jaws. 
 
 MDliTUiO'CULAE. (Lat. multus; loculus, a lodge.) 
 In Conchology, this term is applied to those shells which, 
 like the nautilus, have their cavity divided into many cham- 
 bers. 
 
 MlLTIXii'MIAL. (Lat. multus; nomen, name.) In 
 Algebra, an expression consisting of several terms (more 
 than two , u bich are connected by the signs of addition or 
 subtraction, + or — . Sometimes it is called a polynomial ;
 
 MULTINOMIAL THEOREM. 
 
 and in modern works, after the French writers, a poly- 
 nome. 
 
 MULTINOMIAL THEOREM. A theorem discovered 
 by Demoivre for forming the numeral coefficients which 
 arise in raising any multinomial to any given power without 
 the trouble of actual involution. The binomial theorem of 
 Newton is a particular case of this, viz., that in which the 
 number of terms is only two. 
 
 MULTIPLE. (Lat. multiplex.) Any quantity which 
 contains another an exact number of times without a re- 
 mainder is a multiple of the latter, and the latter is a sub- 
 multiple or part of the former. 
 
 MULTIPLE POINTS. In Analytical Geometry, when 
 two or more branches of a curve pass through the same 
 point, it Is called a multiple point. 
 
 MULTIPLE VALUES, in Algebra, signify symbols 
 which fulfil the algebraical conditions of a problem when 
 several different values are given them ; as the roots of an 
 equation, certain functions of an arc or angle, &.c. 
 
 MULTIPLICAND, in Multiplication, is the number or 
 quantity that is to be repeated the number of times denoted 
 by the multiplier. 
 
 MULTIPLICATION. In Arithmetic, an abbreviated 
 process by which, when a number is to be repeated several 
 times, a result equal to the sum arising from all the repeti- 
 tions is obtained. (See Arithmetic, and Fractions.) A 
 considerable abbreviation of this is effected by the use of 
 logarithms (see Logarithms) ; and other methods of short- 
 ening the work or lessening the degree of attention requisite 
 in performing it have at different times been devised, as 
 Napier's rods, and the logarithmic slide rule of Gunter. See 
 Napier's Rods. 
 
 MULTISPI'RAL. (Lat. multus; spira, a spiral turn.) 
 In Conchology, this tenn is applied to those opercula of uni 
 valve shells which exhibit very numerous and narrow spiral 
 coils round a submedian centre. 
 
 MULTISTRl'ATE. (Lat. multus ; stria, a streak.) In 
 Zoology, when an animal or part is marked with many 
 streaks. 
 
 MULTIVA'LVE. (Lat. multus; valva, a valve.) In 
 Conchology, when a shell consists of several calcareous 
 pieces, as that of the chiton or barnacle. 
 
 MULTO'CA. The name given to the code of laws by 
 which the Turkish empire is governed, consisting of the 
 precepts contained in the Koran, the oral injunctions of Mo- 
 hammed, and the decisions of the early caliphs and doctors. 
 It relates to every subject of life, and comprises various mat- 
 ters appertaining to government, the sultan being the sole 
 judge of its application to particular cases. (See Sultan, 
 Vizir. See also Edinb. Review, vol. x., p. 259.) 
 
 MULTU'NGULATE. (Lat. multus; ungula, a hoof.) 
 In Mammalogy, when a quadruped has the hoof divided 
 into more than two parts, corresponding with three or more 
 digits, as the elephant, rhinoceros, &c. Ray so denomina- 
 ted a family of hoofed quadrupeds corresponding with the 
 PolyschiiLtz of Aristotle. 
 
 MU'MMIFORM. (Lat. mumia, a mummy ; forma, form.) 
 In Entomology, the nymphs of certain Lepidoptera are so 
 called which resemble an Egyptian mummy. 
 
 MU'MMY. (Arab, mumia ; from mum, wax.) The name 
 given to the dead bodies of men or animals which are by 
 any means preserved in a dry state from the process of pu- 
 trefaction. Mummies have usually been divided into two 
 classes, natural and artificial ; the former arising from pe- 
 culiar conditions of soil and atmosphere, which permit the 
 drying of the animal tissues to be effected with such rapidity 
 that the body is preserved ; the latter embracing the various 
 means that have been employed from the earliest ages to 
 preserve dead bodies from corruption. Of the former, or 
 natural class of mummies, some well-known instances are 
 to be found in the vaults of several Continental churches, 
 particularly at Strasburg, Toulouse, and Bordeaux. 
 
 The art of embalming owes its origin to the extreme ven- 
 eration with which the ancient Egyptians regarded the 
 corpses of their relatives, and was practised with such suc- 
 cess that, at the lapse of 3000 years, the mummies found in 
 the numerous catacombs of Egypt are still objects of admi- 
 ration. But it was not to the dead bodies of the human 
 species alone that the ancient Egyptians restricted their rev- 
 erence ; they practised embalming also on all the animals 
 which their religion held sacred, and of these upwards of 
 fifty different species have been found embalmed. 
 
 The art of embalming was practised also, to a considera- 
 ble extent, by the ancient Jews, Greeks, and Romans, thoush 
 it never attained such celebrity or perfection among them as 
 among the people from whom it was borrowed. It was also 
 adopted as a national custom by the Guanches, the ancient 
 inhabitants of the Canary Islands, a full account of which 
 is to be found in the Essai sur les Isles Fortuities, by M. 
 Bory de St. Vincent. 
 
 The account which Herodotus has left us of the Egyptian 
 process of embalming is so minute, and has, besides, been so 
 
 MUMMY. 
 
 amply confirmed in the most essential particulars, not only 
 by the subsequent writers of antiquity, but in still more re- 
 cent times (see the Memoir of M. de Rouyer), that we can- 
 not refrain from imbodying it in our pages. There are, says 
 he, persons resident in Egypt who make this art their pro- 
 fession. When a dead body is brought to them, they show 
 the bearers three wooden models of mummies imitated in 
 painting, the most elaborate of which are said to be of him 
 (Osiris) whose name I do not think it right to mention on 
 this occasion. The second which they show is simpler and 
 less expensive ; and the third is the cheapest of all. They 
 then demand of the bearers which model they wish to be 
 adopted ; and the latter having decided upon the price, de- 
 part. The most expensive preparation is as follows : First, 
 they extract the brain through the nostrils by means of a 
 hooked iron instrument, partly by pulling it out, and partly 
 by the infusion of drugs. They then, with a sharp ^Ethio- 
 pian stone, make an incision in the side in order to extract 
 all the viscera, which they wash with palm wine and purify 
 with pulverized perfumes. Having next filled the belly with 
 pure ground myrrh, cassia, and all other odoriferous herbs 
 except frankincense, they sow it up, and, rubbing the whole 
 corpse with natron, bury it for 70 days — a longer period not 
 being admissible. At the expiration of the 70 days they 
 wrap the whole corpse in bandages of fine linen, and smear 
 it all over with gum, which the Egyptians are in the habit 
 of using instead of glue. The friends of the deceased, on 
 again receiving the body, have a wooden case made in the 
 form of a human figure, in which they place it ; and having 
 shut it up, deposite it in a sepulchral building, setting it up- 
 right against the wall. 
 
 For those again who, on account of the great expense of 
 this mode of embalming, adopt the middle course, the bodies 
 are thus prepared : They fill all the intestines with cedar 
 oil, without either cutting into the body or extracting the 
 viscera ; and, taking means to prevent the egress of the in- 
 jected liquid, they salt the body for the prescribed number 
 of days. The cedar oil is then taken out ; and such is the 
 power with which it operates, that it brings with it the bow- 
 els and all the viscera in a state of dissolution. The natron 
 also destroys the flesh of the body, leaving only the skin and 
 the bones. The body is then returned. 
 
 The third mode of embalming is that practised on the 
 poor. In this case they inject into the body a mixture of 
 salt and water, wrap it up in natron for 70 days, and then 
 deliver it to the relatives. (Herod., b. 2, c. 186.) 
 
 It was long a matter of uncertainty what became of the 
 intestines after they had been removed from the body of 
 those embalmed according to the first process. Porphyry 
 and Plutarch have both asserted that they were thrown into 
 the Nile ; but modern discoveries in the tombs leave no 
 doubt of the fact that they were embalmed separately, and 
 deposited in four vases in the coffin. (See Sir G. Wilkin- 
 son's Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyptians, vol. 
 ii., p. 467, 2d series.) 
 
 Diodorus mentions three different classes of persons who 
 assisted in preparing the body for the funeral : the scribe, 
 who regulated the incision in the side; the paraschistes,* 
 or cutter ; and the embalmers. To these may be added the 
 undertakers, who wrapped the body in bandages, and who 
 had workmen in their employment to make the cases in 
 which it was deposited. Many different trades and branches 
 of art were constantly called upon to supply the undertakers 
 with those things required for funereal purposes : as the 
 painters of mummy cases ; those who made images of stone, 
 porcelain, wood, and other materials; the manufacturers of 
 alabaster, earthenware, and bronze vases ; those who worked 
 in ivory ; the leather cutters, and many others. 
 
 With regard to the question, when the custom of em- 
 balming the body ceased in Egypt, some are of opinion that 
 it ceased at an early time, when Egypt became a Roman 
 province. But this lias been fully disproved by modern dis- 
 coveries ; and it not only appears that the early Christians 
 embalmed their dead, biit, according to St. Augustine, mum- 
 mies were made in his time, at the end of the 5th century. 
 The origin of this opinion is perhaps to be sought for in the 
 circumstance that at the period of the Roman invasion of 
 Eevpt the custom may not have been universal ; and Sir G. 
 Wilkinson maintains that it in all probability gradually fell 
 into disuse, rather than that it was suddenly abandoned from 
 any accidental cause connected with change of custom or 
 from religious scruple. 
 
 Since the commencement of the present century, the at- 
 tention of the learned in the chief countries of Europe has 
 
 # The office otparaschista, or dissector, was held in infamy. "As soon," 
 savs Diodorus. "as the paraschistes has made his incision, he runs away, 
 being pursued by those who are present, who throw s'ones at him amid bit- 
 ter execrations, as if to cist upon him all the odium of this necessary act.' 1 
 For the Egyptians look upon even- one who has offered violence to, or in* 
 flicted a wound or any other injury upon a human body, to be hateful ; but 
 the embalmers, on the contrary, are held in the CTealest consideration and 
 respect, beini the associates of the priests, and permitted free access to the 
 temples as sacred persons. 
 
 v 783
 
 MUMPS. 
 
 been particularly directed to the subject of embalming the 
 dead : and the researches of numerous travellers, from Bcl- 
 Bonl downwards to Bit G. Wilkinson, aided by the scientific 
 manipulations of I'cttigrexx and others have cleared up 
 many points that were formerly obscure id reference to this 
 art. which was so general in ancient, though wholly un- 
 known in modern Egypt. The following observations, bor- 
 rowed from Dr. JfuttaH's Classical and JlrtkmologiccH Dic- 
 tionary. &-c, will at once exhibit briefly the slate in which 
 the mummies are found at the present day. and serve as an 
 appropriate commentary on the description of the process 
 Of embalming, as detailed above. The practice of embalm- 
 ing upon the immense scale of the population of a country 
 such as Egypt involves a problem of the highest interest 
 If to those numberless pits and catacombs of human corpses 
 are also conjoined the mummies of the ibis, dog. ape, cat, 
 and crocodile; the bull Mnevis, Apis, and Isis; the ram, the 
 fox, and homed asp ; in short, of every reptile of the land — 
 we are lost in surprise and amazement how such a process 
 could be established ; and it' by resins, drugs, or spices, from 
 whence such profuse quantities could be procured and sup- 
 plied. These bodies, also, are often enveloped in silks and 
 bandages of stained linen of surprising brightness (and some- 
 times measuring 1000 yards in length — Sir G. Wilkinson) ; 
 they are ornamented with gilding as fresh as when first laid 
 on : with pieces of coloured glass imitative of the finest gems, 
 evidencing their knowledge of staining and cutting them in 
 a manner which merits notice, as well as their enamels 
 also. All these ornaments found around the mummies are 
 highly preserved, and, as well as the sycamore chests, resist 
 all the injuries of time, and subsist fresh and perfect for the 
 examination of the curious. They usually have the Nubian 
 cast of countenance ; the outline figure traced in black ; and 
 the colours, four in number — blue, red, yellow, and green — 
 laid on without any mixture of shading, but altogether form- 
 ing a composition of very considerable interest. These 
 chests usually have within them small scarabsi, or the idols 
 of Isis and other deities, in clay, and coloured glass, and 
 beautiful enamels. One scarabeus, mentioned in Greaves's 
 Pyramidographia, was of magnet, which, although 3000 
 years since it was taken from the rock, its natural bed, still 
 retained its attractive magnetic virtue. The recent discov- 
 eries of M. Belzoni add also to our stock of information 
 upon the articles of the wrappers, and prove in this, also, the 
 science and the labour of their embalming, by evincing that 
 there were distinct modes of preservation and of envelopes 
 for every caste — that of the priesthood particularly, with a 
 scrupulosity of minute detail that astonishes and marks their 
 high privileges. Upon examining mummies that have been 
 brought to Europe, a decided similarity of ornament is ob- 
 servable: the better-conditioned being covered with glass 
 ornaments, cut as precious stones, and disposed with the 
 same arrangement of colours, and offering the same con- 
 struction as the other mummies that are painted ; testifying 
 that the ornaments which were costly were preserved for 
 principal personages, while the inferior classes contented 
 themselves with tracing the decorations in paintings. 
 
 It has frequently been maintained that the doctrine of 
 metempsychosis formed part of the ancient Egyptian creed ; 
 but it would seem that the practice of embalming the dead 
 is wholly irreconcilable with such a doctrine. Others have 
 explained this Egyptian usage as if it proceeded from a be- 
 lief in materialism; but it can surely never be argued that 
 unbelievers in the immortality of the soul would be most 
 anxious to guard against the dissoluion of the body. On the 
 contrary, as Schlegel has well observed, this usage seems 
 rather to set forth an indistinct feeling that this apparently 
 dead matter is still important — some mistaken and imper- 
 fect presentiment that the bond between the soul and matter 
 is not altogether dissolved, and shall yet one day be restored 
 —and that even this matter shall have its portion in Immor- 
 tality, .'mil It again animated and awakened. 
 
 HUMPS. This term is generally applied to inflammation 
 Of the parotid glands. It is seldom attended by fever or 
 constitutional symptoms, but is occasionallv translated to 
 other glandular parts. A gentle dose of physic, and the ap- 
 plication of a piece of flannel dipped in warm salt water, or 
 in solution of acetate of ammonia, is generally all the treat- 
 ment required. From the way in which ibis complaint 
 sometimes .spreads in families or schools, there is some rea- 
 son to believe it to be contagious or infectious. 
 
 MU'NDIC. A Cornish name tor iron pyrites. 
 
 MUNDI'FICANT. 'Lit. mandare, to cleanse.) A term 
 applied In old pharmacy to certain healing and cleansing 
 Ointments and plasters. 
 
 MUNI'CIPAJL, MUNICIPALITY. The word ,„„„>.,,,.■. 
 
 in the language of early Koman jurisprudence, sil'm ili.-l a 
 person capable of holding an office or dignity (from mnnns 
 or ronnlnm, an office, and capio, / take). It was appropii 
 Bted in its more particular meaning to those who, by the 
 constitution of Rome, were admissible to certain privileges 
 and honours, but not to the right of suffrage or magistracy, 
 
 MURAL CIRCLE. 
 
 in consequence of not being full citizens. These were the 
 strangers who in various ways became incorporated with 
 the Roman people without acquiring the right of citizenship. 
 The jurisconsult Paulus (as cited by Festus) notices three 
 sorts of niunicipes: 1. Free strangers settled in Home; 2. 
 Citizens of commonwealths which became absorbed in that 
 of Rome by conquest or submission (quarum civitas universal 
 in civitatem Koiuanam venit) : such were Alicia. Cere, 
 Anngnia ; 3. Citizens of allied commonwealths, who retained 
 their citizenship at home while at the same time they be- 
 came municipes of Rome: such were Tibur, Pisa, Arpinum. 
 It is plain that this last is the sense in which the citizen of 
 one state was said to lie niunicipes of another. Towns of 
 the last two descriptions (if the passage of Paulus is cor- 
 rectly understood) were probably comprehended by the 
 Romans under the title of municipia; i. e., towns which 
 possessed their own rights, and the burgesses of which were 
 also niunicipes of Rome. Such burgesses often acquired 
 full Roman citizenship and even dignity, but seem to have 
 been always (in the republican times) regarded as of recent 
 and comparatively ignoble franchise: as in the passage of 
 Juvenal respecting Cicero (ignobilis et modo Roma; muni- 
 cipalis eques), a. e., one coming from the inunicipium of 
 Arpinum. By later writers, municipia are sometimes con- 
 founded with colonies. The word municipal and its de- 
 rivatives have passed into modern usage in two different 
 senses: 1. The local government of a small district, espe- 
 cially of a town, and particularly if elective, is termed a 
 municipality: such are municipal corporations in England; 
 '2. Every Latin inunicipium had its own customary law 
 (jus municipale). Hence with later jurists municipal law 
 came to signify the law of particular towns, districts, and 
 provinces. In this latter sense the customs of the French 
 cities and provinces were called municipal laws ; and 
 among modern publicists the word has received a still 
 greater extension, the positive law of a country (in opposi- 
 tion both to natural or moral law and to the law of nations) 
 being often called its municipal law. The same term is also 
 sometimes used rather vaguely in contradistinction to the 
 constitutional or political law of a state, as where crimes 
 are divided into offences against the state and municipal 
 offences. 
 
 MUNIMENTS. A common name, in legal phraseology, 
 for deeds, charters, &c, chiefly those belonging to public 
 bodies: great ecclesiastical corporations have generally a 
 "muniment-room" in which these are kept. Derived from 
 Lai munio, I defend ; because, as it is said, these evidences 
 serve to defend the title. 
 
 MURiE'NOIDS. (Lat. mura?na, a species of eel.) The 
 name of a family of Apodal fishes, including the true eels 
 {rfnguilla), and the eels without pectoral fins (j1/i;r<rna). 
 The fishes of the latter genus are more voracious, and have 
 their jaws armed with more formidable teeth than the .in- 
 guilla). One species (jMurwna Helena) was much esteemed 
 by the ancients, who fattened it in ponds expressly con- 
 structed for the purpose. The history of Vaedius Pollio, 
 who caused his transgressing slaves to be flung into these 
 ponds as food for the Mur&na, is well known. 
 
 MU'RAL ARC, or ARCH (Lat. murus, a wall), is a seg- 
 ment of a large circle fixed in the meridian against the wall 
 of an observatory, for the measurement of the meridian alti- 
 tudes or zenith distances of the heavenlv bodies. 
 
 MU'RAL CIRCLE, MURAL QUADRANT, in Astron- 
 omy, is an instrument, generally of large size, attached to a 
 stone wall or pier of solid masonry, and fixed in the merid- 
 ian for the purpose of measuring the distances of stars from 
 the pole or the zenith. The first mural quadrant, or rather 
 arch, used at Greenwich, was erected by Flamsteed in 1689, 
 and divided by Abraham Sharp. There are still two quad- 
 rants in the observatory, each about eight feet radius : one 
 of them was erected by Graham in !7i5, for the observations 
 of Halley, and was redivided by Bird in 1753; the other was 
 constructed by Bird in 1750, and is the instrument with 
 which Bradley and Maskelyne made their most important 
 observations. Experience having shown that entire circles 
 are susceptible of much more accurate division, and much 
 less liable to derangement than quadrants, a mural circle 
 was Constructed by Troughton, and placed in the observa- 
 tory iii 1812. Since that time the advantages of this con- 
 struction have been fully appreciated, and a mural circle is 
 now regarded as the principal fixed instrument in all the 
 great public observatories. 
 
 Troughton's mural circle is six feet in diameter. It isi 
 formed of hrass. ami lived by means of sixteen conical radii. 
 concentric to and at right angles with a conical axis nearly 
 four feet lon». seven inches in diameter at the extremity at 
 which the circle is fixed, but only half as much at the other 
 extremity. The axis rests and turns in two collars, one 
 towards each end of the cone, fixed at the front and back 
 of a stone pier about four feet in depth. The degrees are 
 
 cut into fne spaces, on a narrow ring of white metal com- 
 posed of gold and palladium. The divisions are read by
 
 MURCHISONITE. 
 
 six micrometers, placed at equal distances round the circle, 
 and securely fixed to the stone pier. The telescope is fixed 
 at right angles to the axis which works within the conical 
 axis of the circle. It consequently moves in the plane of 
 the circle, and can be clamped in any position, so that the 
 readings may be made on different parts of the circle. In 
 order that the circle may move easily round its axis, and 
 that the lower side of the front socket may be relieved from 
 the load of the instrument, two large friction wheels are 
 suspended in front of the pier from the arms of two levers, 
 which, by means of counterpoises, may be made to support 
 the whole or any part of the weight. The details of con- 
 struction, however, admit of being varied in many different 
 ways. 
 
 The use of the mural circle is to measure angular dis- 
 tances in the meridian. The axis must therefore be placed 
 exactly horizontal, and the plane of the circle vertical and 
 in the meridian, and the line of sight at right angles to the 
 axis, and parallel to the plane of the circle. Small errors, 
 however, in the adjustments, scarcely affect the results. 
 The advantages of the mural above all other astronomical 
 circles consist in the permanence of the microscopes, and 
 the facilities for observing stars by reflection. (For a de- 
 tailed description of this instrument, see Pearson's Practical 
 Astronomy ; also Dr. Robinson's Description of the Mural 
 Gircle of the Armagh Observatory, in vol. ix. of the Memoirs 
 of the Royal Astron. Society.) 
 
 MU'RCHISONITE. A variety of crystallized felspar 
 found in the new red sandstone near Exeter: its component 
 parts are silica 686; potash 148; alumina 166: so called 
 from its discoverer, Mr. Murchison. 
 
 MURDER, in the English law, is defined to be the killing 
 any person under the king's peace, with malice prepense or 
 aforethought, either express or implied by law. The word 
 is of the same origin with the German mord, Fr. meurtre ; in 
 law Latin, murdrare — to which word, in an indictment, an 
 exception was taken by a prisoner in the reign of W. 3, as 
 not being of good Latinity, which was overruled with con- 
 tempt. The malice prepense is the chief characteristic 
 which distinguishes murder from other species of homicide ; 
 and it is the great office of the jury to determine whether or 
 not such malice has been shown : either express, as evinced 
 by outward circumstances, or implied, as where one delib- 
 erately kills another without provocation, the law implies 
 malice. Malice is also implied where persons having au- 
 thority to arrest or imprison, using the proper means for that 
 purpose, are resisted in so doing, and killed, which offence 
 is murder. Killing in the prosecution of an unlawful act, 
 when that act is done deliberately and with intention of 
 mischief, either indiscriminately or to particular individuals, 
 is likewise murder, whether or not there was a premeditated 
 design of killing the individual slain. So where particular 
 malice against an individual is wreaked, by mistake, against 
 another. Whenever, also, death ensues on an unlawful act 
 done in prosecution of a felonious intention, it is murder; as 
 where a man is killed by a shot discharged at an animal 
 with intent to kill and steal it, or where the intent is only 
 to do some great bodily harm, and death ensues. When 
 several assemble to commit a breach of the peace forcefully, 
 and happen to kill a man in the prosecution of such inten- 
 tion, they are all guilty of murder. In some cases, also, 
 murder may be the consequence of a lawful act criminally 
 or improperly performed, as by duress in a jail. 
 
 The execution in cases of murder, by 25 G. 2, c. 37, was 
 to take place the next day but one after sentence, unless 
 stayed by the discretion of the judge ; with an exception for 
 Sunday, by 9 G. 4, c. 31 : and it was usual to sentence on 
 Friday, in order that the Siuiday might intervene before 
 execution. But by 6 &. 7 W. 4, c. 30, the time before exe- 
 cution was made the same as in other capital offences. It 
 happened, at a trial for murder at the Devonshire assizes, 
 only a few days after the passing of this act, when two men 
 were convicted, that during the interval which elapsed suffi- 
 cient doubt was raised as to the identity of one of the pris- 
 oners to prevent the execution. 
 
 By the French code penal of 1810, the several kinds of 
 homicide are accurately defined; and the crimes of "assas- 
 sinat, parricide, infanticide, and empoisonnement" are cap- 
 ital. But the power given to the jury by the code of 1808, 
 of pronouncing under what circumstances a criminal act has 
 been committed, materially modifies the severity of the law. 
 If extenuating circumstances are found by the jury, the pun- 
 ishment is diminished. 
 
 MU'REX. (Lat. murex, a shell-fish.) A name applied 
 by Linnsus to a genus of the Vermes Testacea having a 
 univalve spiral shell, with an oval aperture ending in an 
 entire, straight, or slightly ascending canal. The Mollusks 
 thus characterized form a family {Muricidm, or rock-shells) 
 in the Buccinoid tribe of Pectinibranchiate Gastropods of 
 the system of Cuvier, and include the following genera: 
 Murex proper, Brontis, Montf. ; Typhis, Montf. ; Chicoracea, 
 Montf. ; Aquilla, Montf. ; Lotorium, Mart. ; Tritonium, 
 
 MURRAIN. 
 
 Montf. ; Trophona, Montf. ; Ranclla, Lam. ; Jlpolles, Montf. ', 
 Fusus, Lam. ; Lathira, Mart. ; Utruthiolaria, Lam. ; Pleu- 
 rotoma, Lam.; Clavatula, Lam.; Pyrula, Lam.; Fulgur, 
 Montf. ; Fasciolaria, Lam. ; Turbinella, Lam. 
 
 MU'RIACITE. An anhydrous sulphate of lime, contain- 
 ing a little common salt. 
 
 MURIA'TIC ACID, or HYDROCHLORIC ACID. This 
 acid was originally discovered by Glauber, and called by 
 him spirit of salt. In its pure or gaseous form it was first 
 obtained by Priestley in 1744; and its true composition was 
 shown by Davy in 1809, who proved it to be a compound 
 of hydrogen and chlorine ; hence it has been termed hydro- 
 chloric acid. Muriatic acid gas is procured by acting upon 
 common salt (which is a chloride of sodium) by concen- 
 trated sulphuric acid : the water of the acid is decomposed, 
 and its hydrogen combines with the chlorine of the salt to 
 form muriatic acid; while the oxygen is transferred to the 
 sodium, which is thus converted into soda, and this unites 
 to the sulphuric acid to form sulphate of soda. 60 parts of 
 common salt, and 49 parts of concentrated sulphuric acid, 
 afford, by this mutual action, 37 parts of muriatic acid, and 
 72 of sulphate of soda. Muriatic acid gas may also be formed 
 bypassing an electric spark through a mixture of equal vol- 
 umes of chlorine and hydrogen ; or by exposing such mix- 
 ture to the sun's rays, or inflaming them by a taper, they 
 burn with explosion, and form a volume of muriatic acid 
 equal to the united volumes of the gases. As the specific 
 gravity of hydrogen is to that of chlorine as 1 to 36, the spe- 
 cific gravity of the resulting muriatic acid gas compared 
 with hydrogen will be 185, and 100 cubic inches of it will 
 weigh 393 grains. Muriatic acid gas is rendered liquid un- 
 der a pressure of 40 atmospheres of the temperature of 50° ; 
 it extinguishes flame, and is intensely sour, powerfully red- 
 dening vegetable blues. Water absorbs it with much vio- 
 lence, taking up about 480 times its volume. This is the 
 state in which muriatic acid is generally used. Its specific 
 gravity is about 119, and it is commonly obtained by distil- 
 ling a mixture of equal weights of salt, sulphuric acid, and 
 water. When muriatic acid acts upon metallic oxides, it 
 generally happens that a mutual decomposition of the oxide 
 and acid ensues ; the oxygen of the oxide unites to the hy- 
 drogen of the acid to form water, and the metal to the chlo- 
 rine to form a metallic chloride. Thus it is that soda and 
 muriatic acid form a chloride of sodium or common salt. 
 The most effective test of the presence of muriatic acid is 
 nitrate of silver, which forms an insoluble chloride of silver 
 in all solutions containing muriatic acid or muriates. 
 
 MU'RICATE. (Lat. muricatus, thorny.) In Zoology, 
 where a surface is armed with short, but not close-set cones, 
 having a sharp apex. 
 
 MURl'D^E. (Lat. mus, a mouse.) The family of Ro- 
 dents of which the genus Mus is the type : by some natural- 
 ists it is restricted to the genera Mus, Hesperomys, Den- 
 dromys, Gerbillus, Hydromys, Hapalotis, and Pseudomys ; 
 by other naturalists it is extended to include the Jerboida, 
 Myoxidce, and Castorida. 
 
 MU'RINES. (Lat. mus, a mouse.) The name of a tribe 
 of Rodent quadrupeds, of which the genus Mus is the type : 
 it includes the families Muridce, Aroicolidw, and Sciuridm, 
 and is the most widely distributed of all the Rodent tribes. 
 
 MURRA'IN (Fr.), is the popular term of a malignant 
 epizootic influenza to which cattle are subject, and which 
 has at various times made terrible havoc among them. It 
 appears to have been long known; and, from the accounts 
 handed down, does not seem to have changed its characters 
 materially. 
 
 This disease extensively raged on the Continent from 1710 
 to 1746 (Lancisi, Disputatio Historica de Bovilla Peste), 
 and serious visitations of the malady were also witnessed 
 during the years 1730 and 1731, and from 1744 to 1746: at 
 that time many written descriptions were produced of this 
 pest, among which the work of Sauvages, the celebrated 
 professor of medicine at Montpellier, stands pre-eminent. It 
 produced, in 1757, an extreme fatality among the cattle of 
 this country, an account of which was published in an ex- 
 cellent work by Dr. Layard, a physician of London. 
 
 This disease, as it is met with in England, may be char- 
 acterized as an extremely malignant inflammatory oedema, 
 attacking, and, indeed, confining itself, for the most part, to 
 one of the hind quarters of the animal. It is most common 
 in the seasons of spring and autumn, and affects principally 
 young cows. The most prominent features are tumefaction 
 and a discolouring of the side affected, with consequent 
 lameness and inability to move ; a peculiar emphysema of 
 different parts of the body, but particularly over the region 
 of the spine; and all the symptoms of putrid fever present 
 in diseases of a typhoid character. It speedily runs on to 
 gangrene, and few animals survive an attack of this kind 
 more than ten or a dozen hours. 
 
 Although the English murrain is somewhat modified in its 
 virulence by season, locality, and the condition of the suf- 
 ferer, it is, nevertheless, generally looked upon as incurable. 
 3C "»5
 
 MURRHINE. 
 
 When, however, remedial measures are had recourse to, 
 extensive scarification, or, rattier, incisions of the affected 
 side, fomentations, and purgatives are most likely to etfect 
 the desired object 
 
 It may he necessary also to remark, that this malady is 
 known to fanners and others in the different counties of 
 England by a variety of terms, none of which are either 
 elegant or expressive ; and. on the other hand, that diseases 
 different altogether from the one under consideration have 
 received the same name: indeed, the word murrain is often 
 used to denote any epizootic affection in cattle. The one 
 just described may, however, be looked upon as the true 
 murrain of this country. 
 
 The murrain which broke out in England about two years 
 ago, and has ever since committed such havoc among the 
 cattle, is travelling steadily northwards ; but the disease has 
 lost much of its original virulence, as almost always hap- 
 pens in the case of epidemics travelling from one country to 
 another. Accidental circumstances aggravate the com- 
 plaint, but in a general way it runs its course now in a few 
 days ; and to all appearance, condition lessened, or " taking- 
 on" stayed, exceeds not from a fortnight to three weeks. 
 Much depends upon the condition of the animal, and in nu- 
 merous instances the distemper touches rather than skaithes. 
 The doctoring process has been generally discontinued ; and 
 the best of all recipes is the warmth communicated by shel- 
 tered fields or sheds, rest, and the absence of disturbing in- 
 fluences. 
 
 The prevention of this disease is even perhaps more im- 
 portant than the medical treatment, and consists in allowing 
 a free access of air to all the buildings, stalls, &c., with daily 
 fumigation of them by chlorine or chloride of lime. Care 
 should be taken to examine three or four times a day the 
 cattle on every farm, so as to remove as speedily as possible 
 the healthy ones from those that are affected. 
 
 MU'RRHINE. (Lat. mm-rhinavasa.Gr. u.oppivoc.) Mur- 
 riiine vases were a species of ware often mentioned by writers 
 of the Roman empire, the material of which has been much 
 disputed by modern antiquaries. They came from the East, 
 and, according to Pliny, were made of some precious stone 
 found chiefly in Partiiia ; but some have conjectured that 
 this was an erroneous opinion prevalent among the Romans, 
 and that they were in reality of porcelain, of which the man- 
 ufacture was unknown to the western nations. (See Plin., 
 Hist. Nat., lib. 37 ; and a memoir in the 43d vol. of the Mem. 
 de VAc. des lnscr.; and Maurice's Indian Antiquities, vol. 
 vii.) 
 
 MU'RRY, or SANGUINE. In Heraldry, a dark red; 
 ene of the colours or tinctures employed in blazonry. It is 
 expressed in engraving by opposite diagonal lines crossing 
 each other : reckoned a dishonourable colour ; rarely to be 
 met with in English coats of arms. 
 
 MUTtZAS. The name given to the hereditary nobility 
 of the Tartars, or, more strictly, perhaps, to the second class 
 of their nobility, the first or principal class being designated 
 beys. This titular appellation is also sometimes conferred 
 on the descendants of public officers ; but the latter are look- 
 ed upon as upstarts by the older nobility, and regarded as an 
 inferior race. The Murzas have from the earliest ages been 
 distinguished for their bold and refractory character, and 
 the peculiar privileges they formerly possessed supplied them 
 with the means of giving effect to their turbulent disposi- 
 tions. Since the conquest of Tartary they have sunk into 
 comparative insignificance, though many of them retain a 
 large share of their former property, and have considerable 
 influence among their own countrvmen. (See Quart. Rev., 
 TOl. xxix.. p. 128.) The Tartar murza is evidently of the 
 some origin with the Persian mirza ; with which, however, 
 it must not be confounded. See Mirza. 
 
 MUS A'CEiE (Musa, one of the genera), constitute a small 
 but very important natural order of plants, related to the or- 
 ders \\> Ming ginger, arrow-root, and similar substances, hut 
 differing in having several stamens instead of one only. The 
 plantain (Musa snpicntum), the most valuable product of 
 the vegetable kingdom in hot countries, in consequence of 
 the abundance of nutritious food yielded by its fruit, anil the 
 application of its leaves to the purposes of thatching, and of 
 thread obtained from its petioles in the manufacture of the 
 finest muslins, is the representative of the order. Another 
 species is the Musa paradisiaea, or banana , and the singu- 
 lar plants called Strelitzias, with their orange ami blue 
 flowers, are also members of Musacrw. 
 
 MU'SCA. (Lat. a fly.) A Linna-an genus of Dipterous 
 insects, now expanded into a family (Muscidir) of the fifth 
 tribe (Athericera), of the order Viptera in Latrcille's system. 
 It i» distinguished by a proboscis always very apparent, mem- 
 branous, and bilabiate, generally bearing two palpi, and ca- 
 pable of being entirely withdrawn into the oral cavity : and 
 a sucker of two pieces. The antennae always terminate In 
 a plate with a lateral seta;. The Muscida are divided into 
 the subfamilies Creopliiltr, which includes the meat-fly 
 {Musca vomituria), and the common house fly (Musca dv- 
 786 
 
 MUSES. 
 
 mestica) ; the Anthorny-tr, the Hudrornyza, the Scalornyzcf, 
 the Volieliocera. the J., jitopuditw, the Cajirorny-.u', the (iym- 
 nor/iimr. and the Hypocera. 
 
 MU'SCHEL KAL.K (German), signifies shell limestone. 
 This name is applied by some English geologists to a lime- 
 stone formation belonging to the red saudstone group : it has 
 not yet been found in England. 
 
 MUSCI. See Mosses. 
 
 MUSCI'CAPA. (Lat. musca, a fly ; capio, I take.) A 
 genus of Dentirostral Passerine birds, characterized by a de- 
 pressed beak, furnished with hairs at its base, and with the 
 point more or less hooked and cmarginate. The genus is 
 now split into various subgenera ; as Tyrannus, Gymnoce- 
 phalus, Muscipeta, and Muscicapa proper, fee., included in 
 the family name of Muscicapidw. Their general habits are 
 cruel and predatory, like those of the shrikes ; and, accord- 
 ing to their size and strength, they live on small birds or in- 
 sects. The smallest and weakest of the MuscicapiiUe grad- 
 ually approach the form of the wagtails. 
 
 MUSCTDvE. The family of Dipterous insects, of which 
 the fly (Musca) is the type. 
 
 MUSCIlt )'RMES. (Eat. musca, a fly ; forma, form.) 
 The name of a tribe of Tipulida, or crane-flies, comprehend- 
 ing those which have a stout body and short legs, resembling 
 the common flies. 
 
 MU'SCLE BAND. In Coal-mines, the black shale con- 
 taining imbedded muscle shells. 
 
 MU'SCLE. (Lat. musculus, diminutive of mas, a mouse, 
 from its resemblance to a flayed mouse.) Fleshy fibres sus- 
 ceptible of contractions and relaxations. Some of the mus- 
 cles are obedient to the will, and therefore called volun- 
 tary ; others, such as the heart are independent of the will, 
 or involuntary ; and others, as the diaphragm and muscles 
 of respiration generally, have a viiied action, being to a cer- 
 tain extent only dependant upon the will. Muscles are ag- 
 gregates of minute muscular fibres, which appear to be com- 
 posed of small globules ; but we are, in fact, ignorant of the 
 ultimate structure of the muscles, and of the causes on 
 which their wonderful powers depend. They are envel- 
 oped in and penetrated by cellular membrane, and abun- 
 dantly supplied by nerves, bloodvessels, and lymphatics. 
 
 Their principal constituent or proximate elementary struc- 
 ture consists of albumen, besides which gelatin and fat are 
 derived from their cellular membrane ; and hsmatosin, os- 
 niazonie, and other constituents of the blood are also found 
 in them: they therefore constitute the mist nutritious spe- 
 cies of animal food. .See Aibimen and C*:LATtN. 
 
 AH the muscles are under the immediate influence of the 
 brain and nerves ; and consequently,, when this influence ia 
 abstracted, as by the division of the nervous trunks by which 
 they are supplied, the powers and functions of the muscles, 
 whether voluntary or involuntary, are in the first instance 
 disturbed, and afterwards cease altogether. Electricity is ca- 
 pable, to a certain extent of recalling the action of the mus- 
 cles, provided it be applied before rigidity ensues ; hence the 
 supposed identity of that power of matter and certain prop- 
 erties of the nerves. The arrangement of the fibres of mus- 
 cles is infinitely various, and adapted to the particular pur- 
 poses which each has to fulfil. In the voluntary muscled 
 the fibres are generally parallel, or nearly so, but in the in- 
 voluntary muscles they are more or less interwoven and in- 
 terlaced. When muscles contract they become shorter, 
 harder, and thicker, and their bundles of fibres are thrown 
 into undulated lines, with a tremulous or vibratory motion, 
 most rapid where the contraction is most powerful, and pro- 
 ducing a distinct sound, which may be most easily heard 
 when the tip of the finger is put into the ear ; it occasions a 
 noise like that of carriages rumbling over a distant pave 
 ment. (Wollaston, PhUor. Trans., 1809.) The number of 
 these vibrations amount to between twenty or thirty in a 
 second: these muscular sounds tire Importantly concerned 
 in the diagnosis of certain diseases through the medium of 
 the st. thoscope. 
 
 MUSCO VA'DO. The name given to unrefined or moist 
 sugar. 
 
 MU'SEB. (Gr. Moecrat, Lat. Muss.) In the Greek and 
 Roman Mythology, nymphs or interior divinities, distinguish- 
 ed as the peculiar protectresses of poetry, painting, rhetoric, 
 music, and generally of the belles lettres and liberal arts, 
 with which, indeed, they are sometimes identified : Qui* est 
 omnium, qui modo cum Musis, id est cum humanitatc et cum 
 doctrina. habrat nliqund eommcrcium. qui, &c. (Cicero, Tus- 
 culan., lib. v., cap. 23.) Helicon and the region round Par- 
 nassus was the favourite seat of the Muses, v\ here they were 
 supposed, under the presidency of Apollo, to be perpetually 
 engaged in song ana dance, and in elevating the Style and 
 conceptions of their favoured votaries. It appears probable 
 that the early Grecian poets, struck with the beauty and 
 sublimity of ihe scenery in this part of Greece, ascribed the 
 humanizing influence it was so well fitted to exercise over 
 the mind to the agency of the nymphs and other tutelary 
 deities of the place, to whom they gave the name of 51 uses.
 
 MUSETTE. 
 
 Originally there appear to have been only three of these 
 divinities r* and their names — Mneme. Melete, and Aa.de, or 
 Memory, Reflection, and Song — sufficiently show the nature 
 of the faculties over which they were supposed to preside. 
 According as the fine and liberal arts were cultivated and 
 expanded, the province of each muse seems to have been 
 more restricted ; and additions were made to their number, 
 which ultimately was fixed at nine. Their names and func- 
 tions are succinctly stated in the following verses of Auso- 
 nius: 
 
 Clio gesta canens, transacts tempora reddit. 
 Melpomene tragico proclamat mcesta boatu. 
 Comica lascivo gaudet sermone Thalia. 
 Dulciloquos calamos Euterpe flatibus urget. 
 Terpsichore affectus cithans movet, imperat, auget. 
 Plectra gereDs Erato, saltat pede, carmine, vultu. 
 Carmina Calliope libris heroica mandat. 
 Urania cceli niolus scrutatur, et astra. 
 Signat cuncta manu. loquitur Polyhymnia gestu. 
 Mentis Apol!me.e vis bas niovet undique Musas. 
 Id medio resideus complectilur omnia Phcebus. 
 
 Edyll. 20. 
 
 MUSE'TTE. A name sometimes given by the Continent- 
 al nations to the bagpipe. The itinerant performers on the 
 musette, who were formerly very numerous in many Euro- 
 pean countries, were called musars. 
 
 MUSE'UM. (Gr. nouatov ; from jxovoa, a muse.) A col- 
 lection of curious objects in nature and art, but, in most in- 
 stances, the former. The name denotes a temple or place 
 sacred to the Muses, and is said to have been first given by 
 Ptolemy Philadelphus to that part of the royal palace at 
 Alexandria in which he placed the famous library. In Eng- 
 land, the museum at Oxford is the most ancient institution 
 bearing the name. It was founded in 1679, and enriched, 
 in the first instance, chiefly by the contributions of Elias 
 Ashmole ; but want of room and of funds has prevented it 
 from affording an adequate exhibition of the various classes 
 of objects for which it was originally destined, and which 
 modern discoveries have so greatly augmented. The foun- 
 dation of the British Museum, in London, was laid by Sir 
 Richard Cotton's presenting to it his collection of manu- 
 scripts. Since that period the library has been increased by 
 the addition of the Harleian, Lansdowne, Egerton, and sev- 
 eral other collections of MSS. ; by extensive purchases out 
 of funds afforded by government ; by the deposit of copies 
 of newly published works, according to the legal right con- 
 ferred on this institution ; and by the donations of George 
 III. and IV., the latter of whom presented to it his father's 
 library. In sculpture, the British Museum possesses the col- 
 lection of marbles brought by Lord Elgin from Greece, to- 
 gether with that called the Townley marbles, and a fine as- 
 semblage of Egyptian works of art. It contains also the 
 Hamilton vases, and the famous Barberini or Portland vase. 
 In several departments of natural history, especially in min- 
 eralogy, it is extremely rich. It was founded by Sir Hans 
 Sloane in 1733, and fills the mansion known by the name 
 of Montague House, together with adjoining buildings more 
 recently erected. The most celebrated museum in Italy is 
 the Vatican, at Rome ; next to it, that of Florence ; and the 
 Museo Borbonico, at Naples. In France, as well as in Italy, 
 galleries of pictures are considered as within the meaning 
 of the general term " musee ;" and the museum of the Lou- 
 vre is chiefly remarkable for its contents of this description. 
 MU'SHROOM (Fr. mousseron, a kind of agaric used in 
 sauces), is, properly speaking, the Jigaricus compositis, or 
 eatable agaric : a species common in pastures, and well 
 known for its excellence as an ingredient in sauces ; but the 
 term is generally used in a more extended sense, and applied 
 indiscriminately to all firm, fleshy species of the genus Jiga- 
 ricus, whether eatable or not. 
 
 MUSIC. (Gr. ixovatKn.) The art of combining sounds 
 agreeable to the ear. This art becomes a profound science 
 when we investigate the principles on which its combina- 
 tions are founded, and the causes of the emotions it produces. 
 Hebrew Music. — Notwithstanding the great labours of the 
 early fathers of the church, and of many other learned men, 
 there are few materials, even in the Scriptures themselves, 
 for a very satisfactory account of the music of the Jewish 
 nation, whose restricted intercourse with other nations pre- 
 vents our receiving any illustration of it from contemporary 
 writers. All that can be done is to cite a few passages from 
 holy writ relative to the first ages of the world, from which 
 it will be seen that, from a very early period, the art con- 
 stantly ministered to the religious ceremonies of the He- 
 brews. Moses ( Gen., iv., 21) tells us that Jubal, sixth in de- 
 scent from Cain, was " the father of all such as handle the 
 harp and organ." The organ here mentioned, according to 
 the commentators, was the syrinx, or a species of Pan's 
 pipes. This must have been but a short period after the 
 deluge. Six hundred years after this period Laban re- 
 proaches Jacob thus: "Wherefore didst thou flee away se- 
 cretly, and steal away from me 1 and didst not tell me, that 
 
 * Cicero says four (De Nat. Deorum, iii., cap. 21) ; but in this he is at 
 variance with the Greek authorities. (Pausanias, lib. ix.) 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 I might have sent thee away with mirth and with song, 
 with tabret and with harp 1" So that at this time vocal and 
 instrumental music was not unusual. For two hundred and 
 fifty years after this period nothing occurs relative to music, 
 when we find Moses, after the passage of the Red Sea, sing- 
 ing with the Israelites on the occasion. Miriam, Aaron's 
 sister, " took a timbrel in her hand ; and all the women went 
 out after her with timbrels and with dances." There seems 
 ground for conjecturing that Miriam, by birth Egyptian, and 
 educated in Egypt, might have learned the use of the tim- 
 brel and the dance in that country. The instruments men- 
 tioned during the administration of Moses appear to have 
 been confined to the trumpet and tambourine. After the 
 siege of Jericho, where the rams' horns that were blown 
 were rather military signals than instruments of music, w r e 
 have no record of music till the appearance of the canticle 
 of Barak and Deborah, which seems to have been sung in 
 dialogue without instruments, excepting the timbrel and the 
 trumpet before mentioned. From several passages music 
 appears to have been united with prophecy. Samuel (b. 1, 
 en. x., v. 5) says to Saul, "Thou shalt meet a company of 
 prophets coming down from the high place, with a psaltery, 
 and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp before them." These 
 prophets were doubtless poets or psalmodists, improvisators 
 of verses which they sung to the accompaniment of an in- 
 strument ; and many of the fathers have supposed that the 
 Jews had a college or school of prophets, which was also a 
 school of music, for they almost universally accompanied 
 themselves, or were accompanied by others, with musical 
 instruments. David, who had cultivated music from his in- 
 fancy, seems to have been destined by his family to the pro- 
 fession of a prophet ; and Saint Ambrose says that he waa 
 chosen by God, above all the other prophets, to compose the 
 Psalms. The power that the harp of David had upon Saul, 
 when he was tormented with the evil spirit, is an example, 
 among many others, of the influence of music on the mala- 
 dies of the mind, and especially in cases of melancholy. 
 Under the reign of David music was much esteemed. He 
 appointed a great corps of musicians for the celebration of 
 the religious ceremonies, and his patronage necessarily ex- 
 tended its influence. David, on all occasions, seems to have 
 been interested in the solemnities of his time : we find him 
 continually dancing and playing before the Lord, with songs, 
 harps, psalteries, timbrels, cymbals, cornets, and trumpets. 
 As in Egypt, the musicians were confined to one family, 
 that of Levi, which was exclusively consecrated to the ser- 
 vice of the Lord and the cultivation of music. When Solo- 
 mon was made king, four thousand were the number " which 
 praised the Lord with instruments." Dr. Burney calls the 
 reign of Solomon the Augustan age of the Jews ; and though 
 Solomon, unlike his father, was not himself a performer, and 
 ranked " men-singers and women-singers, and the delights of 
 the sons of men, such as musical instruments," among the 
 vanities of the world, yet he continued the priests and Levites 
 in his employ. In the reign of Jehoshaphat, the Levites 
 were useful in the field of battle, and were, by their songs, the 
 cause of the victory that was gained ; and, indeed, this waa 
 not the only instance in which they were similarly service- 
 able. Some time before the destruction of the temple and 
 the first Babylonish captivity, music and the sacred rites had 
 met with interruption, both on account of war, and by their 
 intercourse with foreign nations. The captivity was a mor- 
 tal blow to the endeavours they had made to recover their 
 music ; and sixty-six years, the period of its duration, waa 
 sufficient to efface all from their remembrance. This ob- 
 livion is feelingly deplored in the 137th Psalm: "How shall 
 we sing the Lord's song in a strange land ?' Re-establish- 
 ed, but soon afterwards captives a second time ; again de- 
 livered, and then conquered by the Egyptians, Persians, and 
 Romans successively, the unfortunate Jews had no leisure 
 to cultivate the arts ; and it appears probable that their mu- 
 sic, which scarcely deserved the name till the reign of David, 
 even at its best epoch, depended for effect more upon the 
 number of the performers than upon any refined knowledge 
 of the art. 
 
 Among the modern Jews, instrumental as well as vocal 
 music was excluded from the synagogue from the time of 
 the destruction of Jerusalem. The singing they allow at 
 the present day is a modern innovation ; for, according to a 
 passage of their prophets, the Jews consider it contrary to 
 their law, or at least improper, to sing or rejoice until the 
 coming of the Messiah. The German are the only Jews in 
 the present day who have a regular musical establishment 
 in their synagogues. They sing in parts, and have preserved 
 traditional melodies, which are considered very ancient. 
 At Prague an organ is used to accompany the singing. 
 
 Egyptian Music— The opinion of the ancients was pretty 
 genera] that Pythagoras was indebted to the lessons of the 
 Egyptian priests for nearly all the science he possessed, and 
 especially that of music. Though Diodorus Siculus assures 
 us that the Egyptians were not allowed to cultivate music, 
 and that they considered it useless and even injurious to so- 
 
 787
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 siety, and the cause of effeminacy ; vet Tlnto, who had 
 Visited Bgypt, observes, in one of ids Dialogues, that none 
 but excellent music was allowed where the youth were as- 
 sembled. Though he admits others of theijr habits were 
 bad, be excepts tin; music. Strabo tells us that the youth 
 were instructed at the earliest age in music, that the songs 
 Were fixed by law, and that the sort of music used was 
 established by the government exclusive of every other sort. 
 The Greeks even attributed the invention of some of their 
 musical instruments to the Egyptians; such as the tri- 
 angular lyre, the single flute, the drum, and the systrum. 
 Herodotus says the Dorians were of Egyptian extraction ; 
 and as the three most ancient modes of Grecian music were 
 the Dorian, the Phrygian, and the Lydian, it is probable 
 that the Egyptian colony that peopled that province carried 
 thither the music and instruments of their country. Like all 
 other professions in Egypt, that of music was hereditary. 
 A similar custom, as we have above stated, prevailed among 
 the Jews ; and Herodotus tells us that the inhabitants of 
 Laceda'inonia, who were Dorians, resembled their ancestors, 
 the Egyptians, in this, that their musicians were all of the 
 same family ; and that their priests, like those of Egypt, were 
 taught medicine, and the art of playing upon stringed instru- 
 ments, when they were initiated into the mysteries of reli- 
 gion. The same author mentions that in the processions of 
 Osiris, the Egyptians carried statues of the god, singing his 
 praises, and were preceded by a flute. There is a singular 
 proof of the antiquity of this art to be met with at Rome, on 
 the Guglia Rotta, which Augustus brought to Rome, being 
 one of the largest obelisks that was removed from Egypt, 
 and which was thrown down and broken at the sacking of 
 the city in 1527, by the Constable of Bourbon. It is, among 
 other hieroglyphics, the representation of an instrument, as 
 here given, very like the colacsione (a species of guitar) still 
 
 Oin use in Naples. From the pegs 
 it is evident two strings were em- 
 ployed ; and the length of the lin- 
 ger board, if the strings were tuned 
 at a great interval from each other, 
 would afford a very considerable scale of notes. This instru- 
 ment alone proves to what extent music was cultivated in 
 Egypt, and that its inhabitants were acquainted with the 
 method of repeating the scale. Hermes, Toth, or the an- 
 cient Mercury Trismegistus, to whom is ascribed the inven- 
 tion of writing, astronomy, religious rites and ceremonies, 
 has the credit also of having invented the lyre with three 
 strings, which, it is pleasantly said, were types of the three 
 seasons of the year, there being a fourth season neither in 
 Egypt nor among the ancient Greeks. The lowest chord, 
 say they, was the type of winter, the middle one of spring, 
 and the highest of summer. The following, according to 
 Apollodorus, was the origin of the invention: The Nile, 
 after its inundation on one occasion, left, on retiring, a quan- 
 tity of dead animals, and among the rest a tortoise. The 
 flesh soon perished and dried up, from the heat of the sun ; 
 nothing but the shell and the cartilages were left, and from 
 their contraction they had become sonorous. Mercury, 
 strolling on the banks of the river, struck his foot against 
 this tortoise-shell, and was agreeably surprised by the sound 
 it produced ; and this furnished him with the first idea of a 
 lyre. He gave his instrument the general form of the shell, 
 and strune it with the dried tendons of animals, resembling 
 the gut-strings of the present day. The single flute, how- 
 ever, monauloa, also invented in Egypt, seems to have 
 greater claims to antiquity than the lyre itself. It was called 
 photinx, or curved flute, by the Egyptians, its form being 
 something like that of a bullock's horn. 
 
 Apuleius, describing the mysteriesof Isis, tells us the form 
 of this instrument, as well as the manner in which it was 
 held; and all the representations of it show that it resem- 
 bled the bullock's horn. Indeed, there can be no doubt that, 
 in the remotest period, the horns themselves were made use 
 of. But it is certain that the Egyptians had instruments 
 much more susceptible of inflection than those whereof we 
 have been speaking; for on the ceilings and walls of the 
 chambers of the tomb of ( >symandvns, at Thebes, Which are 
 described very circumstantial- 
 ly by Diodorus, are, among 
 other decorations, several rep- 
 resentations of musical instru- 
 ments: one of which, from 
 Denon, we hero subjoin, for 
 the purpose of showing the 
 reader thai the harp of the 
 present day is in general form 
 not very dissimilar to thai then 
 in Egyptian use, and that per- 
 formance upon it must have 
 required considerable skill. 
 Other representations of harps 
 occur; one has been given by 
 Dr. Butney. There is one ut 
 
 rtolemais, a city built by Ptolemy Plilladelpinis, with fifteen 
 strings, or two complete octaves: this, however, is more 
 triangular in shape, and much more similar to the modern 
 harp. The instruments in Abyssinia were found by Mr. 
 Bruce to have a close resemblance to those of Egypt The 
 arts which flourished in this nation at so early a period 
 would doubtless have continued to do so under their own 
 kings; but after the subjugation of the nation by CambyseS, 
 525 years before Christ, the arts and sciences under a foreign 
 yoke disappeared, or, rather, ceased to be indigenous in 
 Egypt. The Ptolemies, indeed, encouraged them : but un- 
 der their reigns the professors of the arts were chiefly Gre- 
 cian. The Egyptians had degenerated from the knowledge 
 of their ancestors, whose hieroglyphics they themselves no 
 longer understood. It is probable, however, that music was 
 cultivated under these princes ; for at a least of Bacchus, 
 given by Ptolemy Philadelphus, Athenams says thai the 
 choir was composed of six hundred musicians, and of that 
 number one half were performers on the cithara. Accord- 
 ing to the same author, under the seventh Ptolemy, Egypt 
 abounded with musicians; and at this period the practice 
 of music was so common in the country, that there was not 
 a peasant or labourer in the vicinity of Alexandria that was 
 unable to play on the lyre and flule. The father of Cleo- 
 patra, who was the last of the Ptolemies, from his skill on 
 the flute took the title of Auletes, that is, player upon the 
 flute. Strabo says, that notwithstanding the debauched life 
 he led, he found time to apply himself particularly to the 
 practice of this instrument. He thought so highly of his 
 talent in this respect, that he established musical competi- 
 tions in his palace, and himself disputed the prize with the 
 first musicians of the day. Such was the flourishing state 
 of the art in Egypt up to the time of Cleopatra's misfor- 
 tunes — an event which ends the history of the empire, and 
 that of the Egyptians. Among the modern Egyptians no 
 remains or traces of the ancient state of the art are now to 
 be found. Still, they are passionately fond of music; and 
 there are, according to Savary, to be found among them both 
 male and female musicians who sing and accompany them- 
 selves. This author describes them as most successful in 
 their plaintive music; to which, he says, even the Turks 
 themselves, the enemies of art, will pass whole nights in 
 listening. 
 
 Grecian Music. — The fables of mythology are so mixed 
 up with the ancient history of all the arts, that it is difficult 
 to separate fact from fiction. Hence the most celebrated 
 authors of the history of music, after delivering faithfully 
 what the ancients have recorded on the subject, have left 
 the reader to shift for himself in analyzing the mass. Bur- 
 ney, of whose history in the two previous articles we have 
 largely availed ourselves, we propose to follow in the follow- 
 ing short account of Grecian music. The Phoenicians came 
 into Greece with Cadmus, the son of Agenor: among them 
 were a class of men well versed in the arts and sciences of 
 their country, who were called Curetes. These established 
 themselves in Phrygia, where they were called Corybantes; 
 in Crete, where they received the name of Dactyli : they 
 spread also into Rhodes, Samothracia, and other places. In 
 these places, writing and music were the arts principally 
 taught by them. Cadmus, in Samothracia, took to wife 
 Harmonia (sister of Jasius and Dardanus), who was so 
 skilled in music that the Greeks gave her name to the art. 
 Diodorus, in describing the marriage feast of the parties, 
 makes the gods themselves guests. Mercury came with his 
 lyre, Apollo brought a similar instrument, Minerva assisted 
 with a flute, and the Muses also brought their flutes; Elec- 
 tra, the mother of the bride, celebrated the mysteries of 
 Cybele with dancing, tambourines, and cymbals. How 
 Diodorus was informed of these particulars he does not con- 
 descend to tell his readers; but it seems probable that the 
 story was founded on ceremonies which the priests, at cer- 
 tain festivals, performed in honour of Harmonia and Cad- 
 mus. Jupiter, they say, was bom at the epoch of the arrival 
 of the Phoenicians ; and the Curetes, it appears, brought him 
 up. At that time they were not acquainted with any musi- 
 cal instruments save those of percussion: they could not, 
 therefore, have taught the Greeks more than the use of 
 these, and they could convey no musical notions except 
 (hose Of rhythm. The inferior divinities — Minerva, Mer- 
 cury, Apollo, and the Muses — afterwards became the pro- 
 tectors of the art, and invented wind and stringed instru- 
 ments. 
 
 These two circumstances are, as the reader will perceive, 
 irreconcilable; and Diodorus committed an anachronism, 
 which may he accounted for If bis description was taken 
 from some religious spectacle. The flule with boles, by 
 Stopping Which many mites were produced, was certainly a 
 more Ingenious instrument than the pipes of Pan. This was 
 
 the Invention of Minerva, who performed upon ii until she 
 was derided by Juno and Venus for the grimace and wry 
 faces consequent on playing it, when she renounced it in 
 favour of the lyre. The employments assigned to Mercury
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 by the Greeks may be learned from the pleasantry of Lu- 
 cian. The same personage as the Hermes of the Egyptians, 
 he had the credit of having invented music, and in those 
 days its principal instrument, the lyre. In Greece, the lyre 
 he invented had seven strings, whereas that which he gave 
 the Egyptians had three only. Apollo was another of the 
 Grecian deities whose origin was in Egypt. He was a per- 
 former on the lyre ; and there is no necessity to repeat in 
 this place the contest with Pan, and the decision of Midas, 
 under whose form the silly king of Phrygia was represented 
 by some neglected poet. Marsyas was another of Apollo's 
 unfortunate victims ; upon him he wreaked his vengeance 
 with such cruelty that he himself was afterwards ashamed 
 of his conduct, and actually threw aside his lyre for a con- 
 siderable period, which, it is said, retarded the progress and 
 perfection of that instrument. Fortunio Liceti, a modem 
 writer, thus explains the story of the flaying Marsyas alive 
 by Apollo. Before the invention of the lyre, the flute was 
 considered the most important instrument, and its practice 
 enriched the performers on it. As soon as the lyre was 
 heard, it was so captivating that nobody listened to flute- 
 players, and they fell into discredit and were ruined. Now 
 the money of those days, being made from leather hides, 
 gave rise to the story that Apollo had stripped Marsyas of 
 his hide. The priestess of Apollo at Delphi delivered, says 
 Plutarch, her oracles to the sound of the flute. Afterwards, 
 when her oracle was in the greatest renown, there were at- 
 tendant choirs and instruments, and dancing and singing. 
 At first the Muses were nothing more than a band of sing- 
 ers and musicians in the service of Osiris, or the Egyptian 
 Bacchus, under the superintendence of his son Osiris. The 
 Greeks made them the daughters of Mnemosyne by Jupiter. 
 Those who make them the daughters of Pierus, king of 
 Thrace, do not alter the first account ; for the female musi- 
 cians of Osiris, before they were taken into his service, had 
 been celebrated in Thrace under the name of Muses, and 
 the daughters of that Pierus who initiated them became cele- 
 brated under the same name. Bacchus has been so cele- 
 brated in the musical world that we cannot leave him out. 
 Diodorus makes him the inventor of theatrical representa- 
 tions and schools of music, in which those who excelled 
 were exempt from military service. Hence the author says 
 that musical societies have since enjoyed many privileges. 
 Certain it is that the Dithyrambi, who originated dramatic 
 representations, were as ancient as the worship of Bacchus. 
 In Athens and in Rome, all persons who appeared on the 
 stage, singing, dancing, or reciting verses for the amusement 
 of the people, were called servants of Bacchus ; and at all 
 the processions, triumphs, and ceremonies instituted by the 
 ancients in honour of the god, music entered largely into the 
 programme. This is constantly seen in the bas-reliefs that 
 have come down to us ; for wherever there are fauns, satyrs, 
 and bacchanals, we always find a certain set of musicians 
 of some sort in attendance. 
 
 Pan seems to enjoy the first rank in the second class of 
 divinities who patronised music. The Egyptians, however, 
 ranked him higher than did the Greeks. Pan, say some, 
 was the inventor of the flute called the syrinx. The fable 
 is pretty which gave rise to the invention. Syrinx, a nymph, 
 being pursued by Pan, flies to the banks of a river, whose 
 nymphs she implores to save her. Pan thinks to catch her, 
 but embraces only the reeds. Under this new form, Syrinx, 
 shaken by the winds, emits certain melodious tones. The 
 god, pleased with the sound, makes an instrument from the 
 reeds, to which he gives the name of Syrinx. Pan is the 
 companion and counsellor of Bacchus. Shepherd, musician, 
 dancer, hunter, and warrior, he directs the movements of 
 the bacchanals ; but the perfection with which he plays the 
 flute is such that Bacchus is never happy without him. The 
 satyrs follow in Pan's train. Silenus was the inventor of 
 several instruments. Like Marsyas, he was bold enough to 
 challenge Apollo; with better fortune, however, as regards 
 the result. 
 
 Such was the state of music in Greece under the gods and 
 demi-gods ; that is to say, in those primitive times when 
 every one who had signalized himself by a useful invention 
 was deified after his death, and considered the protector of 
 the art he had invented. The heroic age followed this; 
 and, divesting the subject of fable as much as possible, we 
 shall now proceed to the music of that period. Amphion, 
 Chiron, Orpheus, Linus, were at once the first poets and the 
 first civilizers of Greece. Amphion is the first Theban mu- 
 sician mentioned in the history of the art. Homer, how- 
 ever, is silent on his wonderful skill in music, and of his 
 having erected the walls of Thebes by the aid of the lyre. 
 Pausanias thinks his musical reputation was acquired by 
 his alliance with Niobe, and Pliny is of the same opinion. 
 Both of them allege that Amphion learned the art in Lydia, 
 and that, having brought it into Greece, he was thence ac- 
 counted the inventor of the Lydian mode. Chiron, whom 
 Plutarch calls the wise centaur, accounted the son of Saturn 
 and Philyra, was born among the centaurs in Thessaly ; 
 
 that is, among the people of Greece who first trained and 
 rode the horse. With the reputation of inventor of medicine, 
 botany, and surgery, he lived at the foot of Mount Pelion, in 
 a cavern, which his science made the principal and most 
 frequented school of Greece. Plutarch makes him the in- 
 structer of Hercules in music, medicine, and law, though 
 Diodorus says that Linus was his master : and here let it 
 be observed, that ancient authors always considered music 
 among the indispensable accomplishments of their heroes. 
 "Nee fides didicit nee natare" was anciently a reproach to 
 any one above the commonest class. Achilles was the most 
 renowned pupil of Chiron, who bestowed much of his time 
 to instruct him in this art, as the means of not only softening 
 the impetuosity of his character, but of exciting him to he- 
 roic actions. One of the most beautiful paintings of Hercu- 
 laneum represents Chiron teaching the young Achilles to 
 play upon the lyre. After Chiron, Linus and Orpheus ap- 
 pear to have been the first poets and musicians of Greece, 
 but it is difficult to decide which was the pupil of the other. 
 Diodorus says that Linus has the priority, and that he added 
 the chord lichanos to the lyre of Mercury, and invented 
 rhythm and melody. The majority of the ancients make 
 him the instructer of Hercules, whom, say they, he found so 
 stupid and obstinate, that having on one occasion given him 
 a blow, the young hero seized his preceptor's instrument 
 and beat his brains out with it. Orpheus, however, whether 
 before or after Linus, acquired the greatest name in Greece. 
 His reputation was fully established at the time of the Ar- 
 gonautic expedition, in which he was one of the adventurers. 
 Apollonius Rhodius observes, that he not only excited his 
 comrades by the sound of his lyre, but that he also silenced 
 the syrens by the superiority of his singing. The fables uni- 
 versally say that Orpheus travelled in Egypt, where he was 
 instructed in the mysteries of religion, theology, and poetry, 
 and that he was the first who transplanted them to the Gre- 
 cian shores. According to the custom of the time, he united 
 with the knowledge of music that of the sublime sciences. 
 Preferring the lyre to all other instruments, of which, before 
 him, the flute seems to have been the principal, those who 
 followed were content to be his imitators. We pass over the 
 story of his losing Eurydice, his wife, the effect his lyre had 
 upon Cerberus and the god of the infernal regions, as known 
 to every reader. The instrument that produced these effects 
 was but a seven-stringed lyre ; two strings having been add- 
 ed by himself, by which addition the second tetrachord was 
 completed. 
 
 Obloquitur cumero septem discrimina vocum. — Virg. 
 From the -little power which such an instrument possessed, 
 compared with those of modem times, we may infer that 
 it must have been the novelty of the art or the beauty of 
 the poetry which produced such extraordinary impressions, 
 or perhaps both acted upon a very susceptible race of people. 
 The mastery which Orpheus possessed over the Thracians 
 made the women of that country jealous of him ; and by 
 them, history relates, he was massacred. In the time of 
 Plutarch, the females of Thrace continued to be reproached 
 with this barbarity. The fable says that his lyre, at the 
 time of his murder, fell into the river Hebrus, down which 
 it floated to Lesbos, where it was deposited in the temple of 
 Apollo. Neanthus, who afterwards purchased it of the 
 priests of the temple, thought, like the nobleman who 
 bought Punchinello, that the possession of it would inspire 
 him : no sooner had he begun to use it than the dogs of his 
 neighbourhood tore him to pieces. After the Argonautic 
 expedition, the most important event in Grecian history is 
 that of the siege of Troy. Homer, who sang three centuries 
 after this period, is the only historian from whom we can 
 extract knowledge respecting the art. He has preserved 
 the names of several musicians, and these are the only 
 ones known from the time of Orpheus up to the time of 
 celebrating the Olympic games. 
 
 The instruments mentioned by Homer, in the Iliad and 
 Odyssey, are the lyre, the flute, the syrinx, or Pan's pipes. 
 The lyre is by him called tpopnf, I, K&apa, and x^i'f ! Aris- 
 tophanes being the first Greek poet who calls it ^vpa. 
 Though Homer speaks of the trumpet, it is thought that this 
 instrument, though common in his time, was unknown to 
 the Greeks at the siege of Troy. With Homer music and 
 poetry are inseparable: aoifos, a singer, is the word used 
 by him to express a poet. By him Achilles and Paris are 
 both exhibited as playing the lyre ; but the former does it to 
 console himself for the insult that had been offered to him, 
 whilst the latter exercises his skill to forget the disgrace of 
 having sought safety in flight. Achilles sings the deeds of 
 heroes. The song of Paris was more " to the lascivious pleas- 
 ing of the lute," in recounting tales of love. The earliest 
 poet who united music with his art was Tiresias: he was 
 also gifted with prophecy, and was a priest. Thamyris re- 
 ceives from Homer the appellation KiO.iptorn;. one who sang 
 to the lyre. Plutarch, in his Dialogue on Music, says that 
 he was born in Thrace, the country of Orpheus ; that bis 
 
 789
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 voice, though loud, possessed the quality of softness, but 
 that he was punished with blindness for daring to contend 
 With ilie Muses in poetry and singing ; and that to this pun- 
 ishment was also added the loss of voice, and the talent of 
 touching the lyre. This circumstance is mentioned in the 
 catalogue of the ships. (Lib. ii., v. 594.) According to Di- 
 odorus, Thann ris was of the school of Linus, and Suidas 
 places him eighth of the epic poets who preceded Homer. 
 Clemens of Alexandria says he was the inventor of the Do- 
 rian mode ; but he is probably Wrong, Inasmuch as this had, 
 before his time, been imported into Greece by the Eg} ptians, 
 Who Invaded that part of Greece which bore the name of 
 Doria. In the eighth book of the Odyssey, Homer gives an 
 eminent place to Demodocus, whom he describes in his char- 
 acter of poet and singer as the glory of the human race. 
 Some have thought that under this name the poet was 
 painting his own portrait. He places him on a throne, a 
 herald announces him, and he has a private table, and in 
 every circustance speaks of the honours that were paid to 
 him. Like Tiresias and Thamyris he paints him blind, 
 which it will be recollected was his own case. The blind- 
 ness of these great poets did not escape Milton, who likens 
 himself to them in this respect, and the coincidence is cer- 
 tainly very singular. The last musician celebrated by Ho- 
 mer is Phemius, who, according to Eustathius, had been 
 his master. He is immortalized in the Odyssey. The po- 
 ets and musicians of Greece appear to have much resem- 
 bled the Celtic bards. They wandered about, singing their 
 works in great cities, and usually found admission to the 
 palaces of princes, where they were treated as though en- 
 dued with inspiration. Hyagnis and Olympus were also 
 celebrated, before the time of Homer, for their musical tal- 
 ents: the first, according to the Arundelian marbles, flour- 
 ished 1506 years B.C. He was the inventor of the Phrygi- 
 an flute, and the airs or nomes that were sung to the mother 
 of tile gods, to Pan, Bacchus, and other divinities of the 
 country. The second is honourably mentioned by the Greek 
 writers. Two musicians of antiquity bore the name of 
 Olympus. The most ancient was the most celebrated. He 
 was a native of Mysia, and the disciple of Marsyas. Bur- 
 ner, in speaking of him, remarks that religion only can im- 
 part permanence to any system of music ; and he conjec- 
 tures that the airs which were sung in the temples in the 
 time of Plutarch were then of the same relative antiquity as 
 to us is the plain chant of the beautiful hymns of the Catho- 
 lic Church. Plato, Porphyry, Athenams, and the scholiast 
 of Pindar, speak highly of the talents of Thaletas of Crete, 
 the next poet and musician after Hesiod and Homer. There 
 were two of this name, of the same country too. If we 
 are to credit Plutarch, Archilochus contributed more than 
 any other to the advancement of poetry and music. Herod- 
 otus makes him the cotemporary of Candaules, and of Gy- 
 ges, king of Lydia, 724 years before Christ; but modem 
 chronologists place him much later. He was a native of 
 Paros. 
 
 Without entering into particulars, it is sufficient to men- 
 tion that at this period melody was strictly confined by the 
 measure of the verse. A different set of feet in a verse 
 necessarily required new airs in the music. Hexameter 
 was the most ancient species of measure, and so continued 
 till the introduction of lyric poetry. If Archilochus was 
 the inventor of music different to that which suited the hex- 
 ameter verse, he was indeed the inventor of lyric poetry, 
 Which after his time became a species of versification totally 
 distinct from that of the heroic. Archilochus is generally 
 allowed to have been one of the first conquerors at the 
 Pythian games. Tvrtn-us, who was a soldier as well as 
 musician, was particularly celebrated for his military songs 
 or airs. The scholiast of Horace makes the Lacedaemoni- 
 ans indebted to him for a victory gained by them, in which 
 he led them on to the sound of the military flute, for which 
 they rewarded him with the rights of citizenship. The au- 
 thors who have written on the progressive state of the Gre- 
 cian music unanimously celebrate the talents of Terpander; 
 
 but neither the evict time of his appearance, nor the place 
 of his birth, can be ascertained. According to the Arunde- 
 lian marbles, the former was 671 years before Christ. Many 
 have given him the credit of having added the three -irniL's 
 to the lyre: it, however, appears clear that lie was the first 
 
 who used the seven-stringed lyre among the Lacedaunoni 
 ana, by which in- gave great offence to the people. The 
 Spartans disliked innovation, and Plutarch relates that the 
 Ephori fined him for his invention. The Arundelian mar- 
 bles state that he obtained the first prize in music at the 
 game- instituted at Sparta to avert the anger of Apollo for 
 the murder of one of his priests by tin Dorians. Plutarch 
 says that no other proof of his skill could he wanting, seeing 
 
 that his name appears four ti <nn the register Of the Pj th 
 
 ian games, where he carried nil' successively four of the 
 prizes, It the Grecian games music formed a principal pan 
 of the ceremony: the combats were to the sound of music. 
 In tlte dramatic representations, the declamation wasaecom- 
 790 
 
 panied by an orchestra, and there were, moreover, particular 
 prizes allotted to the profess, ,rs of the art. The Olympic 
 
 games were established in honour of Jupiter Olyrnpi us, from 
 
 which, or from their being celebrated near the temple of 
 Olympia, they took their name. They were not at first cele- 
 brated at stated intervals, but, after the year 77ti B.C., on the 
 second month after the expiration of every fourth year. At 
 first music had but little share in them, hut at a later period 
 prizes were given to successful competitors in this art. It is 
 well authenticated that, at a comparatively late period, Nero 
 appeared at them, and of course carried off the prize. The 
 Pythian games, founded for preserving the remembrance of 
 Apollo's victory over the serpent Python, were at first con- 
 fined to poetical and lyrical contests; but in these music 
 was afterwards admitted to her share of the prizes ; and, in 
 the year 559 before Christ, a crown was decreed to the best 
 performer on the lyre, or, rather, on an instrument with 
 strings. The prize was nothing more than a laurel crown, 
 in memory of the love of Apollo for Daphne; though after- 
 wards the apple, a fruit consecrated to Apollo, was added. 
 At these games a peculiar musical composition was per- 
 formed, of considerable length, in allusion to the contest of 
 the god with the serpent: it was composed by Sacadas, and 
 sung for the first time by him at Delphi. The other mu- 
 sicians and poets who distinguished themselves at these 
 games were Alcman of Sardis; Alceus of Mitylene, the 
 cotemporary of Sappho (to the latter of whom Aristoxenus 
 and Plutarch attribute the invention of the Mixolydian 
 mode, of which Plato, the advocate of simplicity in music, 
 much complains); Mimnermus, famous for his perform- 
 ances on the flute, in the 6th century before the Christian 
 era ; Hesichorus (a sobriquet), whose right name was Tisias ; 
 Simonides, born at Ceos 538 B.C., the master of Pindar ; 
 Pindar himself, born at Thebes, in Bceotia, about 520 years 
 before our era ; Myitis, and Astinous. The Pythian games 
 were held at Miletus, Magnesia, and other places, as well 
 as at Delphi, and music and poetry were the chief subjects 
 of contest in them. The Nema;an games, which took their 
 name from Nemasa, a village in Arcadia, were of such 
 high antiquity- that their true origin was unknown even to 
 the ancients. The contests were somewhat similar to those 
 at the Olympic games, and it is known that those in music 
 formed a portion. It was at these games that the musician 
 Pylades, of Megalopolis, sang, accompanied by the lyre, an 
 air composed by Timotheus, in which the words were so 
 suited to the circumstances of the battle of Mantinea, that 
 the audience immediately turned their eyes to Philopcemen, 
 who was present, and interrupted the singer by shouts and 
 acclamations of applnuse. Timotheus, born at Miletus 1 46 
 B.C., was one of the most celebrated poets and musicians 
 of antiquity. Pausanius tells us that to the seven strings 
 of the lyre he added four more ; though Suidas saya that he 
 added but two, the tenth and the eleventh : the consequence 
 whereof was, that for the innovation he was banished from 
 Sparta, and ordered to cut off the additional strings, that he 
 might not corrupt the ears of the youth with too great a va- 
 riety of notes. We have above stated that the Spartans 
 behaved in an equally barbarous manner to Terpander. 
 This Timotheus, who died two years before the birth of 
 Alexander, must not be confounded with the celebrated 
 flute-player who was so great a favourite with that prince, 
 and whose tones animated him to arms. The Isthmian 
 did not differ from the games already described : they receiv- 
 ed their name from being celebrated on the Isthmus of Co- 
 rinth. Other games existed in different cities, as. for instance, 
 the Panathenaic at Athens. Music was cultivated at all, 
 and held in much esteem. 
 
 At Athens, in the time of Pericles, music was considered 
 so necessary a part of education, that not to understand it 
 nor play any instrument was considered a disgrace. Peri- 
 cles was especially zealous in his patronage of music. Be- 
 sides regulating the form and Increasing the Dumber of mu- 
 sical competitions at the Panathenaic festivals, he built an 
 edifice called the Odeum, for the express purpose of re- 
 hearsals previous to performance in the theatre. It was 
 during his era that Antitronides and Dorion, the two most 
 eminent flute players, flourished. So great appears to have 
 been the passion for flute-playing, that as much as three 
 talents (upwards of £600) were given for a single flute; 
 fortunes were realized in manufacturing them ; and the per- 
 formers lived in a splendid and magnificent style. Even 
 the women were performers on the flute. Of these the 
 most renowned was Lamia, to whom, for the benefits she 
 had prevailed on Demetrius to confer upon the city, the 
 Athenians rendered divine honours, and dedicated a temple 
 
 to her undet the i ame of Venus Lamia. It seems that ex- 
 ecution on this instrument was carried to a [.'real extent ; for 
 Irlstotle cries out against the difficult passages that used to 
 
 he practised, and even against music generally. The people, 
 how ever, who. as a mass, are never disposed to give up the 
 pleasures of sense for those of the mind, continued to en- 
 courage- these novelties and their authors ; and, from being
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 the handmaid, music became the mistress of poetry. The 
 justice of the complaints of Plato and Aristotle on this point 
 is confirmed by Aristoxenus, himself well skilled in the art ; 
 and Plutarch frequently laments that the theatre had ruined 
 music: though what the latter says must be taken with 
 some allowance, seeing that he was a priest of Apollo, and 
 anxious, doubtless, to confine music to the service of religion. 
 After the complete subjugation of the Greeks, like the rest 
 of the arts, music fell to decay. They continued, indeed, to 
 cultivate music under the Roman emperors, and under their 
 own : even afterwards, under the Turks, it was one of their 
 amusements; but so barbarous is it in the present day, that 
 it is dilhcu'.t to conceive that the same nation ever possessed 
 a music which drew down the admiring plaudits of thou- 
 sands. To form any idea of the ancient Greek music is 
 now past all hope : materials upon which we could judge 
 have long since passed away; but we will add, in conclu- 
 sion to this section, the opinion of M. Ginguene on the sub- 
 ject. " We see in the poetical works of the Greeks the va- 
 riety and liveliness of their passions, and these same pas- 
 sions could not be expressed in music without an equal va- 
 riety of air and modulation. I do not mean by that to say 
 that Greek music was entirely similar to our own : to decide 
 that point it would be necessary to hear and compare the 
 one with the other. I maintain only that Greek music was 
 full of harmony ; that it admitted that variety of modula- 
 tion which alone can give pleasure to cultivated minds ; and 
 that to suppose that the Greeks were pleased with a music 
 that comprehended but four notes is one of the greatest fol- 
 lies that can be imagined." 
 
 Roman Music. — It is scarcely possible for any nation to 
 exist without some sort of music; and it appears that, at a 
 very remote period, such was not the case with the Ro- 
 mans. At its commencement rude and barbarous, their in- 
 tercourse with the Etruscans, who w r ere much farther ad- 
 vanced in the arts than themselves, would soon have had 
 effect upon it. Strabo and Livy affirm that public music, 
 as used at sacrifices, was especially learnt by this nation of 
 the Etruscans. Servius Tullius, 600 years before Christ, in 
 his division of the people into classes or centuries, directed 
 that two entire centuries should consist of trumpeters, horn- 
 players, and those who sounded the charge, which proves 
 at least the number of military musicians. One hundred 
 and fifty years afterwards, the marshal at funerals was, by 
 the laws of the twelve tables, directed to provide six flute- 
 players. Among the Romans, as was also the case with the 
 Greek music (see above), music and the drama were insep- 
 arable. In the end these exhibitions became offensive ; but 
 the further notice of these is unnecessary in this place. 
 Music, however, was for a long period confined to sacred 
 uses; and it was only after the defeat of Antiochus the 
 Great that the Asiatic custom was introduced of having fe- 
 male musicians — psaltriaz — to play at festivals and private 
 banquets. The Etruscan music, which we have already 
 slightly mentioned, was cultivated with success; for all the 
 instruments of the Greeks, which are known to us from their 
 bass-reliefs, are to be found in paintings on Etruscan vases ; 
 so that it may be safely assumed that the Romans were ac- 
 customed to the best music that the age afforded. Under 
 Augustus, who was not a great patron of the art, music was 
 not much esteeemed : it is possible he might not have had 
 much taste for it; and yet, when he was getting into years, 
 he engaged a musician to regulate the intonation of his 
 voice. Tiberias banished musicians from the city, which 
 under him became as sad as in the days of Augustus it had 
 been lively. Caligula, however, recalled them. Claudius, 
 though he patronized gladiatorial fights in preference to 
 music, still encouraged the art; but under Nero it shone in 
 all its ancient splendour. Such was this emperor's delight 
 in it, that he passed a great portion of his time in taking 
 lessons of Torpus, the most skilful harpist and lyrist of his 
 day. We have before stated his ardour in the pursuit of the 
 art to have been so great that he contended at the Grecian 
 games. Nero's successors were patrons of the public games, 
 and of dramatic and musical exhibitions throughout the em- 
 pire. Adrian had always been attached to the arts of 
 Greece. He instituted new games, which his successor 
 Antonine continued. Commodus, whose disposition was 
 similar to Nero's in cruelty, resembled him also in an in- 
 tense passion for the stage, on which he delighted to appear 
 as a singer and dancer. The fall of the empire necessarily 
 induced the fall of the arts, and music, of course, anions 
 the rest: in short, it disappeared with them— with them to 
 spring into new life and surpass all its former glory, after 
 centuries had passed away, and all art seemed to have been 
 lost forever. 
 
 Italian Music— Italy has been to the rest of Europe in 
 modern times what ancient Greece was to Rome. Though 
 we cannot so well trace the art of music in its early resto- 
 ration as we can the arts of design, we know that to the re- 
 ligion and church which brought them forward we are in- 
 debted for the foundation of all that is good in the musical 
 
 art. The plain chant of the Catholic Church, the founda- 
 tion to which we allude, is said to owe its origin to Ambro- 
 sius, archbishop of Milan, in the fourth century. He, it i9 
 generally understood, brought it into form and based it up- 
 on rules. Two centuries afterwards Pope Gregory carried 
 it to such perfection that, up to the present hour, it has 
 needed no improvement, indeed seems incapable of im- 
 provement, and remains one of the noblest monuments that 
 the art has produced. The music of Italy, aided by a lan- 
 guage which Metastasio called musica stessa, notwithstand- 
 ing the revolutions it at first underwent, at length became 
 the guide for the rest of Europe. Even out of the church, 
 as early as the 13th century, music was cultivated ; for 
 Prince Conrad, in 1-268, went out against Charles I. of Sicily 
 with a female choir singing, accompanied by cymbals, drums, 
 flutes, violins, and other instruments; and it is known that 
 all the courts of Italy were filled wiih musicians, for the 
 amusement of their sovereigns. At Florence is still in ex- 
 istence a manuscript collection of sacred songs, entitled Law- 
 di Hpirituali, in honour of God, the Virgin, saints, and mar- 
 tyrs, which, as early as 1310, used to be sung by a society 
 called the Laudisti. A society of this sort existed when 
 Dr. Burney was at Florence in 1770 ; and he states that he 
 often heard them singing about the streets in three parts, 
 accompanied by a portable organ. When Petrarch was 
 crowned with laurel at Rome, in 1341, music was intro- 
 duced to grace the ceremony : and from the account of that 
 ceremony, printed at Padua in 1549, it appears that it con- 
 sisted of instrumental as well as vocal music. To return 
 back a little, it appears that, in 102-2, Guido, a Benedictine 
 monk of Arezzo, was the first. who imagined the scheme of 
 designating by points, distributed upon lines and spaces, the 
 different sounds of the octave. The French have claimed 
 for Hubald and Odo the credit of this invention, a century 
 before the time of Guido, but we do not think the claim 
 established. 
 
 Guido gave to the notes the names ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, 
 taking them from the first syllables of the hymn of St. John 
 the Baptist, in which they are certainly found : 
 
 Ut queant Iaxis resonare fibris, 
 JVftra gestorum /amuli tuoruia, 
 Solve palluti Zabii reatum. 
 
 The syllable si was afterwards added by a musician called 
 lie Maire. From a manuscript in the Vatican dedicated to 
 Charles, king of Sicily, above mentioned, it appears that 
 Marchetto of Padua had improved the art ; for the MS. 
 proves that he was acquainted with dissonances and chro- 
 matic counterpoint. That the science was making vast 
 strides from the old plain chant, is clear from the bull of 
 Pope John XXII., in the early part of the 14th century, 
 wherein complaint is made of what he is pleased to call the 
 abuse of descant, whereby the principles of the antiphonal 
 and gradual had fallen into such contempt that the singers 
 could no longer recognise the foundations upon which mel- 
 odies were established, and that it exceeded the bounds 
 which the ecclesiastical tones prescribed. Without particu- 
 larizing the steps by which it continued to advance, the Ars 
 contrapuncti of John de Muris, in 1330, laid down laws of 
 harmony, some of which are observed in composition at the 
 present hour. He says that, in the scale of the octave, 
 tiiere are six species of consonances — three perfect and three 
 imperfect. Of the first sort are the unison, the octave, and 
 the fifth ; of the second sort, the two-thirds, major and mi- 
 nor, and the sixth major. It is curious that he did not place 
 the minor sixth among the number of consonances, since it 
 is but an inversion of the major third, which he admits to 
 be a consonance. Prosdoscimus, in 1412, speaks of the 
 fourth of which no mention is made by De Muris, and treats 
 it as a dissonance ; though, he says, it is less so than the 
 second and the seventh, and that it may be placed in a mid- 
 dle class, between consonances and dissonances. Advanced, 
 however, as the science became at this period, it was not 
 until the middle of the 15th century that the laws of har- 
 mony were fixed on that foundation that still bears the su- 
 perstructure of the refined combinations of even modern 
 music. The first treatise on music that was printed in Italy 
 was towards the end of the 15th century, by John Tine- 
 tor; but that published a few years afterwards, by Franchi- 
 no Gafforio (printed in 1496 at Milan), excelled its precur- 
 sor. The claim of the Italians to the invention of counter- 
 point has been disputed in favour of the Flemings, and also 
 of the English. There is no doubt that the former contrib- 
 uted much to its advancement and perfection ; but the works 
 that are extant, if we are to judge from them, satisfy us that 
 the claim cannot be maintained. In the compositions of 
 this period there is a want of melody which all the display 
 of science and curious combinations they contain could not 
 atone for ; but in the 16th century melody and counterpoint 
 were united by the splended genius of Palestrina, and some 
 of his cotemporaries and disciples; and the art was en- 
 riched by the treatises of Peter Aaron, Zarlino, Artusi of 
 Bolo"na, the Venetian Zacconi, and many others, which 
 
 791
 
 music. 
 
 Epiead throughout Europe, and left scarcely more to be de- 
 sired on the first principles of music as a science. Pales- 
 brina, the principal cause of this revolution, began his ca- 
 reer by a diligent study of the masters who had preceded 
 him, making himself familiar with their difficulties and 
 with their styles. Applying himself to the simplification 
 and purification of harmony, and to the discovery of more 
 flowing and natural melodies, he nevertheless paid a de- 
 gree of homage to the preceding school, whose pedantry 
 and obscurity he knew how to correct. 
 
 The Gothic style of composing masses and motetts on a 
 canto fermo, which he practised in his earlv compositions, 
 he entirely abandoned after 1570. His style, upon which 
 he was continually refining, became at last the model of the 
 age; and after his time, for a considerable period, the bed 
 ecclesiastical compositions were honoured by being i 
 alia Pale/'rina. Xanino. his fellow student and intimate 
 friend, Cifra, his disciple, Luca Marenzio, and many other 
 masters of the Roman school, gloried to tread in his" steps: 
 while Zarlino at Venice, Coslanzo Porta at Padua. Orazio 
 Vecchi and Monteverde at Mantua, Bottrigari and Orturi at 
 Bologna, endeavoured, and with considerable success, to 
 build their counterpoint with the clearness, purity, and ele- 
 gance of the great master of modem music. Among these. 
 Monteverde is particularly to be noticed, for his passing be- 
 yond the master whom he followed. He was the first who 
 used double discords, such as the ninth and fourth, the 
 seventh and ninth, and the seventh and second ; as also the 
 unprepared false fifth and seventh. This at the time cre- 
 ated great disputes in the republic of music. Monteverde, 
 in prefaces and letters, defended his practice ; but his best 
 defence was to be found in the progress he made. The li- 
 cences he took, far from being offensive to the ear, were 
 soon adopted by others who had abused them. The passion 
 for fugues, canons, and other difficult compositions of that 
 nature, requiring the highest degree of science, continued in 
 the 17th century, which produced many learned physicians. 
 One of the most extraordinary' of these was Francesco Sori- 
 ano, who published 110 canons upon the hymn Are Maria 
 Stella, for four, five, six, seven, and eight voices: but Pietro 
 Valentini went far beyond him, and has left, it is to be ap- 
 prehended, all future canonists in a hopeless condition. He 
 wrote one to the words lllos tuos miscricordt.-; ocu/us, &c. 
 resolved in more than two hundred different ways, for two, 
 three, four, and five voices; another for ninety-six voices ; a 
 third for twenty voices only, but with four different subjects 
 going at the same time. Other masters employed themselves 
 in a similar manner. Of the Roman school, "also, Luca Ma- 
 renzio merits special mention here: though great in church 
 music, he is best known and admired in the exquisite madri- 
 gals he composed, which still continue to be performed in 
 this country. Marenzio died at Rome in 1599. At the head 
 of the Venetian school, the Italians themselves place Adri- 
 an U'illacrt. a Fleming. To him Zarlino attributes the in- 
 vention of composition for more than one choir. He was 
 maestro di capella of the church of St. Mark at Venice. The 
 works he left are voluminous : his disciples were Cipriano 
 Rore, Zarlino, and Costanzo Porta. The Neapolitan school 
 was one of the most celebrated in Italy, and was established 
 in the 15th century, under the reign of Ferdinand of Arragon, 
 a great patron of all the arts. It was at Naples that Gaff ,rio 
 and Tinctor, whom we have before alluded to, Guarnerio. 
 and many others, distinguished themselves. Church and 
 madrigal music there flourished. In the latter branch, Carlo 
 Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa, showed in an eminent degree 
 the powers of that style of writing. The Lombard school 
 registers the names of Costanzo Porta, its head : Gastoldi, 
 Guiseppe Biffi. and Paola Citna, of Milan; Pietro Ponzio of 
 Parma; Orazk) Vecchi of Modena; and Claudia Monte- 
 verde, before alluded to. The most celebrated disciples of 
 Porta were Balbi and Piccioli. Orazio Vecchi was anion" 
 the first composers of dramatic music, and for a considerable 
 lime maestro di capella at Mantua. The Bolognese school 
 comprises few writers in the Ifith century, though in that 
 following, its professors equalled those of the first rank 
 throughout Europe. Andrea Rota maybe considered the 
 head of it. Florence, in music, seems to take no distinguish- 
 ed place: we know of Alessandro Btriggio and Francisco 
 Cortuccia only who enjoyed much reputation. 
 
 Dramatic music appeared in Italy in the 15th century, a 
 musical tragedy having been acted at Rome in 1480; but 
 the real epoch of the music of the drama can scarcely be 
 dated before 1597, and its first appearance was at Florence. 
 Ottavio Binucdni is recorded as the poet, and Peri as the 
 musician, both Florentines, and the name of tin 
 Tiaphne. This priority is, however, disputed in favour of 
 
 Vincenzo Galil the father of the celebrated astronomer, 
 
 who, desirous of recovering the musical declamation of tin- 
 Greeks, imagined a recitative applied to the episode of CJgo 
 lino in Dante. I'p to the middle of the seventeenth century 
 the drama was principally recitative, when, in 1648, Cavalli 
 began to introduce more airs than had hitherto been used, 
 792 ' 
 
 which practice was farther extended in the Doria of I 
 composed in ltit;:t: after which, for some time, it degener- 
 ated so much into spectacle, that, in the works represented 
 about the end of the 17th century, neither poet, composer, 
 nor singers are recorded, but the machinist and decorator 
 only. Among the composers were, however, men of great 
 knowledge and genius, such as Gasparini, Perti. Colonna, 
 
 Lottl, and Alexander Scarlatti, who is said to have been the 
 inventor of the obligato recitative. Great improvements 
 were introduced in the beginning of the \t"M century by the 
 pupils of Scarlatti: viz. Leo. Vinci. Sarro. Basse, Corpora, 
 Feo, Abos, and particularly Pergolese. About the middle 
 of the century appeared Jomelli, Piccini, Sacchini, Gugliel- 
 mi, Traetta, Anfossi, and others, whose names are not less 
 celebrated than their predecessors, and the century closes 
 with Paisiello and Cimarosa. It remained, however, for a 
 Bohemian, Gluck, to accomplish the revolution which has 
 brought the opera to its present state in Europe. The great 
 improvement in instrumental music towards the end of the 
 last century induced operatic accompaniments with all the 
 richness of the symphony, which, under Haydn, Mozart, 
 Cherubini, Spohr. Weber, and many others, seems to have 
 reached almost the height of power and effect that music 
 can give. 
 
 Europe is as much indebted to Italy for the introduction 
 of instrumental as for that of vocal music : the Italians have 
 been the instructors in both. Violin music was cultivated 
 by Corelli and Tartini. and their pupils, before other nations 
 had thought of it; and the same may be said of the harpsi- 
 chord, from Frescobaldi to Clementi. So, in concerted pie- 
 ces. Boceherini introduced the quintett ; and, indeed, short 
 of the symphony, which we owe to the Germans, their early 
 superiority cannot be disputed. In our time a sensible decay- 
 is visible in Italian music ; the art seems to have left its an- 
 cient seat to abide in Germany, where it has been cultivated 
 with an ardour and success perfectly astonishing. 
 
 German Music. — Like all other nations, the Germans owe 
 their music to the Italians. They received the Gregorian 
 chant from Italy ; and. though they may not have equalled 
 their masters in vocal melody, they have greatly surpassed 
 them in instrumental music. It is certain that, at the be- 
 ginning of the 17th century, the music of Germany was 
 greatly inferior to that of Italy ; and it was not till the end 
 of this century that the Germans began to evince high and 
 successful talent for the art. We are not acquainted with 
 any of the earlier music of the German Church — similar in 
 character, we mean, to that produced by the school of Pal- 
 estrina in Italy: but in later times the writings for that 
 church, by Graun. Haydn, and Mozart, have never been sur- 
 passed nor equalled : and though these very much partake 
 of the symphony and drama, there is a pathos of sublimity 
 about them calculated in the highest degree to inspire devo- 
 tion. In the madrigal style we believe they exhibit no spe- 
 cimens, which is the more remarkable, from the circum- 
 stance of the German school having been considered by 
 some to have been of as early an origin as the Flemish. 
 Their oratorios possess the greatest beauties : we need only 
 name the Ascension and the Israelites, by Bach ; the Death 
 of Jesus, by Graun ; and the Messiah, by Handel. Though 
 not so old as that of Italy, the German theatre is neverthe- 
 less of early origin ; but until Keyser appeared to compose 
 for the theatre at Hamburg, about the end of the 17th cen- 
 tury, it was without celebrity. During the whole of the 
 last century, the German composers bred in the Neapolitan 
 school carried their Style into Germany, where it became 
 predominant, and the model of the country. John Adol- 
 phus Hasse had the principal share in the transference of 
 this style, which, improved by Graun. Neumann, Gluck, 
 and carried still farther by Haydn and Mozart, has travelled 
 back to Italy, to shine second-hand in Rossini and others, 
 but without the lustre of the Germans. Gluck, of whom 
 we have spoken above, though by birth a German, belongs 
 properly to France ; for, strange to sa\ . he was not properly 
 appreciated by bis own countrymen, though in later years 
 they found out their error, and acknowledge it still by the 
 rapture with which his works are now received. Germany 
 derives its greatest reputation from the success with which 
 it has cultivated instrumental music. In harpsichord and 
 pianoforte music, it may be safely said they have surpassed 
 all other nations ; for it would he difficult to place names in 
 that respect of equal reputation by those of J. S. Bach and 
 his children, of Haydn, Kolebech, Mozart, Dussek, Cramer, 
 and a host of Others. The music of wind instruments seems 
 to belong now almost exclusively to Germany: their organ- 
 ists are excellent, and their orchestras well regulated. In 
 musical literature they are superior to every other nation: 
 witness the works of Fux, Mattheson, Marpurg. Kirberger, 
 E. Bach, Albrechtsberger, Forkel, Koch, and a host of 
 others, most of them of the 18th century. In the present 
 day. it is by no means surprising that the success of the 
 Germans should be so extraordinary, seeing that there is no 
 school for the education of youth in the country at which
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 BltlsiC is not tatight and cultivated, even down to those 
 where children receive gratuitous instruction. 
 
 Flemish Music. — The Flemish have been frequently con- 
 founded with French musicians; so that it is rather difficult 
 to separate, at times, the one from the other. Louis Guic- 
 ciardini {Descrhione di tutti i paesi bas.si, published 1556) 
 gives a list of all the musicians born in the Low Countries, 
 who were then dispersed in different parts of Europe, which 
 robs the French catalogue of some of its most distinguished 
 names. From the 15th century Flanders, from its com- 
 merce, and wealth, and superfluous riches, was enabled to 
 patronise the fine arts ; and most especially was that the case 
 in the times of Charles V. and Francis I. Upon these mon- 
 archs, who lived less in their own capitals than elsewhere, 
 the arts seem everywhere to have been attendant ; and 
 when we recollect their frequent sojourn at Brussels, An- 
 twerp, and other cities of Flanders, we are not surprised at 
 the number of excellent musicians that Flanders produced. 
 The John Tinctor, of whom we have heretofore spoken, 
 flourished about 1474: he was a native of Flanders, and 
 maestro di capelli to Ferdinand of Arragon, King of Sicily 
 and Naples. He is the earliest theoretician whose name 
 has reached us. Soon after, or contemporary with him, 
 was John Okenheim, the first composer of music in parts. 
 From the fragments which have been preserved by Glarea- 
 nus, he appears to have been a learned writer, whose works 
 seem more calculated to please the eye than the ear; and 
 from the authors of the following century who notice him, 
 we learn that he was the writer of a motett in 36 parts. 
 Josquin, or as the Italians call him, Josquino del Prato, was 
 Okenheim's most celebrated scholar. The laws and diffi- 
 culties of canon, fugue, augmentation, diminution, inversion, 
 and other practices of church music, were by him observed 
 and overcome in the most felicitous manner; and he has by 
 some been dignified with the title of father of modern har- 
 mony, inasmuch as his era is nearly a century before that 
 of Palestrina, Orlando di Lasso, &c. It is proper to state 
 that Guicciardini claims Josquin as an Italian ; and, at least, 
 there can be no doubt he was educated in Italy, inasmuch 
 as he was a singer in the chapel of Sextus IV. His compo- 
 sitions were extremely numerous, and as often executed in 
 the beginning of the 16th century as those of Handel were 
 in England fifty or sixty years ago. His death took place at 
 Brussels ; and his monument is still to be seen in the church 
 of St. Gudula. Hobrect, or Obrect, was a good composer of 
 this period, and adds to his talent the honour of having been 
 selected by Erasmus to instruct him in the principles of his 
 art. We must pass shortly over the names of Pierre de la 
 Rue, or Petrus Platensis, as he was sometimes called, Jean 
 Mouton, Verdelot, Nicolas Gambert, maestro di capella of 
 Charles V., Jacques de Wert, Pevernage, Lupi, Waelrent 
 or Wraelrent, Verdonk, Arkadelt, and others, many of 
 whom are still known to the musical antiquary by their 
 madrigal compositions, though they were called only songs 
 for parts in Flanders. Between 1544 and 1555 there were 
 more than twenty collections of these chansons or madrigals 
 published at Antwerp and Louvain, by Tylman, Susaro, 
 and Pierre Phalaise, who were themselves good composers ; 
 as were, in the same century, the publishers Rhau at Wit- 
 tenberg, Gardano and Scotto at Venice, Ballard in France, 
 and Tallis and Bird in England. After Clemens (non 
 papa), an elegant and exquisite, though not voluminous 
 writer, and Cypriano Rore, a pupil of Adrian Willaert, 
 must be recorded the name of Orlando di Lasso, one of the 
 most diligent and celebrated writers of the 16th century. 
 He was born at Mons in 1520, and died at Munich in 1593. 
 Living to a great age, the number of his works exceed those 
 even of Palestrina. Fifty collections of his different works 
 are still extant, consisting of masses, motetts, passions, 
 psalms, and songs of madrigals, printed in Italy, Germany, 
 France, and the Low Countries. Such was his reputation, 
 that the following verse was written for his epitaph : 
 Hie ille Orlandus Lassum, qui recreat orbem. 
 
 M. Ginguene, to whom we are much indebted for the ac- 
 count of the restoration of music, speaking of Cipriano 
 Rore and Orlando di Lasso, says, "These two Flemings, 
 having passed the greater portion of their lives in the courts 
 of princes, had acquired a lighter style, and a species of 
 melody more appropriate to secular music, than that of 
 "Palestrina, who, residing at Rome, and writing principally 
 for the church, exhibits in all his productions a gravity be- 
 longing to the species." And again, "They were two mas- 
 ters of harmony ; and, the church excepted, they prepared 
 the colours and set the palettes of musicians with many 
 new tints of harmony and modulation, which were exceed- 
 ingly serviceable to those who came after them." These 
 were the two first masters who ventured upon chromatic 
 passages, and upon accidental flats and sharps. From the 
 epoch of these men Flanders ceased to have a school of 
 music especially belonging to itself. 
 'French Music— We have stated, in another place, that 
 67 
 
 Hubald de St. Amand and Eudes de Cluni have been named 
 by the French writers as having preceded Guido in the 
 knowledge of the scale; but, as we are not in a condition to 
 decide between the claimants, we shall content ourselves 
 with the declaration of our conviction, from all that we 
 have read, that France, as respects the art and science of 
 music, was much advanced at a very early period, and that 
 the country certainly boasted of many church musicians be- 
 tween the 8th and 11th centuries; for, besides the two we 
 have named, we have Remi, a monk of St. Germain d'Aux- 
 erre, Gerbert le Scholastique, and others whose knowledge 
 is well authenticated. In the 14th century Philippe de 
 Vitry, archbishop of Meaux, applied himself to music and 
 poetry with considerable success. A manuscript preserved 
 in the Vatican proves him to have been well informed upon 
 counterpoint, as far as it was then known and practised : he 
 not only applied himself to church music, but wrote mo- 
 tetts ; but these are lost, and perhaps would, if we had them, 
 be now difficult to decipher. Belonging to this century, 
 also, we have, by the assiduity of the Abbe le Bceuf, the ac- 
 count of a manuscript by Guillaume de Machau. This MS. 
 consists of two volumes of French and Latin poems, and a 
 great number of lays, virelays, ballades, and rondeauz, all 
 set to music ; some for a single voice, others in three and 
 four parts — triplum, tenor, contra-tenor, and a part without 
 title. In the second volume is an entire mass, including the 
 Credo, in four parts, which it is believed was sung at the 
 coronation of Charles V. in 1364. 
 
 During the 15th and 16th centuries, the art made but little 
 progress in France. Under Francis the First not near so 
 many musicians were to be found in France as in Italy, 
 Germany, England, and the Low Countries. The works of 
 Claude de Jeune, who probably ought to be placed with the 
 Flemish school, and of Orlando di Lasso, seem to have been 
 admired and performed at this period in the country in 
 which Josquin was also a favourite. The dearth of writers 
 on the science at this period, by Clement Jaunequin, entitled 
 La Bataille ou Defaite des Suisses a la Journee de Marig- 
 nan, in which imitations of the sounds of battle occur. He 
 published a collection in 1544, called Inventions Musicales 
 a quartre et cinq Parties. The masters about this period 
 were Didier Lupi, Guillaume Belleu, Philibert Jambe-de-fer, 
 Sauterne, and Noe Faignent. It is extraordinary that some 
 of the bloodiest tyrants have been great patrons of music 
 and its professors : to Nero and our Henry VIII. may be 
 added, for France, Charles EX., about whom were constant- 
 ly good musicians. Of them, Claude Gondimel did not es- 
 cape in the massacre of the Protestants at Lyons in 1572. 
 At the end of the 16th century were some minor artists, such 
 as Jean de Castra, Louis Bisson, Nicholas Duchemin, Fran- 
 cois Roussel, Jean Peroin, and others, by whom are collec- 
 tions of madrigals. Francois Eustache de Caurroy, born in 
 1549, called, by his contemporaries, " le prince des profes- 
 seurs de musique," was maestro di capella to Charles IX., 
 Henry III., and Henry IV., and enjoyed considerable reputa- 
 tion ; his works, however, are but little above mediocrity. 
 Jacques Mauduit was a similar instance of mediocrity rising 
 into celebrity. He composed the requiem for the funeral 
 of the celebrated Ronsard, which was afterwards performed 
 at that of Henry IV., whose reign was too short to allow 
 the arts of peace to make much progress in France. Hia 
 son, who came to the throne at the early age of six years, 
 was a great friend to music, and appears to have kept 
 up what might be called a considerable band for that pe- 
 riod. During the reign of Louis XIII., Jean Baptiste Boes- 
 set wrote several part songs, as they were called. About 
 the middle of the 17th century Michael Lambert, who died 
 in 1696, appears to have attracted many scholars by his skill 
 in composition. Dramatic music was introduced into France 
 about 1645. In 1660, at the celebration of the marriage of 
 Louis XIV., the opera of Ercole Amanti was produced, and 
 the foundation of the French opera was thus laid. At this 
 period Lulli, of Florentine birth, had been patronised by the 
 Chevalier de Guise, through whose offices he was put under 
 the best masters of the time. Till the year 1686, in which 
 his last opera was brought out, he seems to have been the 
 idol of the court, and to have been considered in France the 
 ne plus ultra of composers. Compared, however, with the 
 Italian opera of the same epoch, his compositions are not far 
 behind, though it was a misfortune for the country that, for 
 so long a period, everything which was not an imitation of 
 the style of Lulli was considered an inferior production. In- 
 strumental music made but little progress in the 17th cen- 
 tury. The most distinguished organists were the three 
 Bournonvilles, and the three Couperins ; Charbonieres, who 
 died in 1670 ; Dumont, a good composer of church music, 
 who first introduced violin accompaniments into France; 
 the Abbe de la Barre; and, lastly, Lalande, the most cele- 
 brated French composer of ecclesiastical music, at the end 
 of the 17th and beginning of the 18th century. Rameau, 
 born at Dijon in 1683, was destined to rouse the French na- 
 tion, which seemed to have slept since their loss of Lulli. 
 3C* 793
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 In the space of twenty-seven years after 1733 he produced 
 29 operas, and became so great a favourite with the people 
 that it was dangerous to criticise hi? works. The time has, 
 however, passed in which his operas would be listened to; 
 and but for his theoretical works, the only solid base of his 
 glory, he would long since have been forgotten. Rameau 
 died in 1767. His school lasted till about 1775. though since 
 1750 the comic opera has been on the Italian model. Under 
 this, with Dauvergne, le Borde, Floquet, J. J. Rousseau, 
 Duni, and Philidor, French melody has regenerated : and 
 Monsigny, Gossec, and Gretry completed its improvements. 
 The reform thus effected prepared the French for the recep- 
 tion of the Iphivenie of Gluck, in 1774. at which time lie 
 had Piccini and Lucchini for rivals. These musicians bare 
 been succeeded by a school which comprises the names of 
 Berton, Mehul. Boildieu, Kreutzer, and others ; and among 
 the Italians who joined their ranks are found those of Che- 
 rubini, Spontini. and Winter. In instrumental composition 
 the French have not been so original, though latterly they 
 have considerably advanced. France is considered deficient 
 in musical literature, and does not attend to its cultivation 
 with that ardour that is so manifest in Italy and Germa- 
 ny. Their conservator}', however, is an establishment like- 
 ly to do honour to the" nation ; and the work of Choron — 
 entitled Principcs de Composition des Ecoles d' Italie, adoptes 
 par le Gouvernement Fran^ais. pour serrir a ['Instruction 
 des E'cvcs des Maltrises de Cathedrales. Ouvrage clas- 
 sique, forme de la Reunion des Modeles les plus parfaites 
 en tout genre, in 3 vols, fol., is alone sufficient to redeem the 
 French from the accusation of wanting musical literature. 
 
 English .Music. — We are not acquainted with writers in 
 this country of earlier date than those of Italy ; but, for the 
 honour of this country*, however much we may have been 
 behind Italy in the restoration of other arts, in that of mu- 
 sic we were formerly quite on a par with the Continent : 
 and it is singular that in later years we should have lost 
 our character, and, we fear, deservedly, among other na- 
 tions. It is certain that England can boast masses in four, 
 live, and six parts, written by natives, as ancient as those of 
 the Italians themselves; we have also secular music in two 
 and three parts, and in good counterpoint, in the latter end 
 of the 15th and beginning of the 16th century, about which 
 period, to the English musician, the names of William of 
 Newark, Sheiyngham, Turges, Tudor, Banester, Browne, 
 and others, are familiar. The first named was one of the 
 musicians of Henry VI. ; and the compositions of Tudor are 
 known from Prince Henry's (Hen. VIII.) music-book. Hen- 
 ry VIII. is known as a composer from a beautiful anthem in 
 Hoyce's collection of cathedral music; and his patronage of 
 Christopher Tye, the composer of Laudate JVomen Domini, 
 a motett frequently sung at madrigal meetings in the present 
 day, shows that good music was then first esteemed as it 
 ought to be. Marbeck, in 1550, published the whole of the 
 reformed cathedral service to musical notes, and for his ex- 
 ertions as a reformer he had nearly been brought to the 
 stake. During the reign of Elizabeth the talents displayed 
 by our countrymen appear to ha%'e been surpassed in no 
 other country, and music here was then indeed in its palmy 
 state. Tallis, Bird, Morley, Dowland, and Bull were the 
 principal composers of the reign : Elizabeth herself could 
 have been no mean performer, if she was able to play the 
 pieces in her virginal book. Though it does not appear that 
 James I. took much delight in music, it nevertheless con- 
 tinued to prosper during his sway ; indeed, the compositions 
 of Gibbons were, as pieces of church music, perhaps never 
 surpassed in any age or nation : neither are his secular 
 pieces of inferior character. This reign as well as the pre- 
 ceding was fruitfid in madrigal writers as well as compo- 
 sers for the church ; among the former of whom were 
 Michael and Thomas Este, Bateson. Ward, Litchfield, l'il- 
 kmgton, Wilbye, Bennett, Farmer, Ford, and others; ami 
 among the last Tomkins, Elway Bevin, and Dr. Nathaniel 
 Gyles. In the time of Charles I. instrumental music was 
 coming into vogue ; the monarch was a pupil of Cooper 
 (who was wont to be called Coperario , and used to practise 
 the viol-di-gamba. He had a band of performers, eighteen 
 of whom are known. Including Nicholas Laniere, v. b 
 the master of it. The most celebrated men of this reign 
 were Dr. Wilson, William and Henry Lawes, and Dr. Child, 
 who died in 1697, aged 90, after having been organist of St. 
 George's chapel, Windsor, diirins the extraordinary period 
 of sixty-five years. So intent was Charles upon advancing 
 music, that he granted a charter to the most eminent musl 
 rians of that day, with many great privileges. The an bad 
 been sinking for some years, but its fall was accelerated by 
 the suppression of the cathedral service in 1643; and the 
 only persons of whom we hear during the time of I 
 well were William and Henry Lawes. Though these men 
 794 
 
 were favourites of Milton, and the subject of some of his 
 verses, they were sadly inferior to Tallis, Bird, and Gib- 
 bons. During the interregnum the musical flame was 
 chiefly fed at Oxford ; but even there, from the vear 1646, in 
 which the king was forced to leave the city, after the battle 
 of Naseby, until 1656, it was nearlv extinguished. At the 
 Restoration it appeared again to flourish : Child. Christo- 
 pher Gibbons, Rogers, and Wilson, were made doctors of 
 Oxford; the choirs again obtained good masters; and the 
 organs, which had been destroyed by the fiend-like rage of 
 the Puritans, were again set up. though with difficulty, from 
 the scanty supply of organ builders. Among the musicians 
 who were attached to the court of Charles II. was Henry 
 Purcell, of whom Dr. Burney says, that he, " during a short 
 life, and in an age almost barbarous for every species of 
 music but that of the church, manifested more original 
 genius than any musician under similar circumstances, that 
 any inquiries into the history of the art have yet discovered 
 in any part of Europe." This truly great man died Nov. 
 21, 1695, in the thirty-seventh year of his age ; his principal 
 contemporaries were Dr. Blow, his master, Pelham Humph- 
 reys, and John Weldon. After Purcell's death some skilful 
 men appeared as amateurs in the service of the church ; 
 namely. Doctors Holder, Aldrich, and Creyghton : among 
 the professors were Jeremiah Clarke, Goldwin, and Doctors 
 Croft, Green, Boyce, and N' ares. Croft of all these was un- 
 doubtedly the greatest ; he, like Purcell, was a disciple of 
 Blow : always elegant and simple in his strains, frequently 
 grand and masterly, he has not left a composition that does 
 not exhibit great learning. His death occurred in 17-27. in 
 the fiftieth year of his age. Dr. Boyce occupied the void 
 which Croft's death had created ; he was a good musician, 
 always pleasing, but rarely grand in his compositions. His 
 contemporary, Jonathan Battishill, wrote some fine compo- 
 sitions for the church, and prepared the way in glee writing 
 for a race of English musicians who are an honour to their 
 country. The reader will recognise the truth of this asser- 
 tion when he glances at the names of Alcock, Arne, Att- 
 wood, W. Beale, Callcott, Dr. Cooke, Robert Cooke, Crotch, 
 Danby, James Elliott, Harington, Horslev, Thomas Linley, 
 the Earl of Mornington, Shield, Stafford Smith, Spofforth, 
 the Wesleys, &c. In dramatic and symphony writing, we 
 regret to say, England is still in her infancy. 
 
 Chinese Music. — The Chinese have had a system of mu- 
 sic from a most remote period, and in its scale it seems to 
 have more resemblance to the Grecian than any other to 
 which it could be compared. From the time of Yao and 
 Chun, which their chronology would carryback two-and- 
 twenty centuries before Christ, they have had what they 
 call eight species of sounds : 1st. The sound of dried skins, 
 such as drums ; 2d. The sound emanating from stone, called 
 king; 3d. That of metal, as bells; 4th. That of baked 
 earth, called hiven ; 5th. That from silk, called kin and 
 che ; 6th. That from wood, called ya and tihov ; 7th. That 
 from bamboo, such as flutes, called koan ; 8th. That from 
 the gourd, called cheng. Their scale consists of 14 notes, of 
 which the seven middle notes correspond to our gamut from 
 / upwards. They seem unacquainted with harmony, and 
 we ought, perhaps, to apologize for saying so much of it. 
 
 Hungarian Music. — About the 9th century the Hungari- 
 ans left Asia to settle in Europe, when they conquered the 
 country that bears their name. Like all the Asiatics, they 
 were attached to music, and at first, doubtless, used only 
 Asiatic instruments ; these were nearly all wind instru- 
 ments, and consisted of the trumpet, the flute, Ihe cymbal, 
 and several others. Till the time of Mathias Corvin it was 
 in a state of mediocrity ; he incited the Hungarians to vie 
 with other nations in sciences and arts, of which he himself 
 was particularly fond. Under Ladislas and Louis II. mu- 
 sic was cultivated with great can- ; their national songs 
 were, however, the only vocal music thoy possessed till the 
 time of Stephen, king of Hungary, when the ecclesiastical 
 chant appears to have been introduced. In a diploma of 
 Bela III.. A. It. 1193, it appears that prince sent an envoy to 
 Paris to be instructed in melody ; perhaps induced to do so 
 hv bis second wife Margaret, who was daughter of Louis 
 VII. .it" Trance. 
 
 All musical ideas are expressed by means of notes on a 
 staff; that is, five equidistant horizontal lines, on or be- 
 tween which the notes are placed. The gamut is a table 
 whereon these notes are placed; and their relative situa- 
 tions as to acuteness or gravity of tone is ascertained by 
 clefs. The n aim a of the notes, which are six in number, 
 are nt, re, mi. fa, snl, In, the lowest of these being the gam- 
 ma of thescaie. Modern musicians have used as equiva- 
 lents the first -even letters of the alphabet. The arranger 
 men! In question is exhibited in the diagram following, a note 
 having been added by the modems to complete the octave.
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 la 
 sol 
 fa 
 
 la 
 sol 
 fa 
 fcjmi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 la 
 
 mi 
 
 re 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 sol 
 
 re 
 
 ut 
 
 
 
 
 la 
 
 la 
 
 sol 
 
 fa 
 
 re 
 
 ut 
 
 
 
 
 
 sol 
 
 fa 
 
 ut 
 
 
 
 • or < 
 
 
 la 
 
 sul 
 
 fa 
 re 
 
 fcjmi 
 
 re 
 
 Ul 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 fa 
 
 ut 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 la 
 
 b|mi 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 fol 
 fa 
 mi 
 re 
 
 re 
 ut 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 Hr-o-^5^- 
 
 (Gamma.) 
 
 From this diagram it will be seen that the bass clef, also 
 called the F fa ut clef, on whatever lines placed, makes the 
 notes on the line between the dots ;o F or fa ut, whence 
 reckoning is made upwards or downwards ; that the tenor, 
 or C sol fa ut, clef makes all the notes on the line between 
 the cross or horizontal bars -£-©- or sol fa ut ; and that 
 the treble or G sol re ut clef makes all the notes on the line 
 
 round which the character turns - jfo - o ■ G sol re ut ; and it 
 
 is to be observed that these several clefs may be put on any 
 lines of the staff notes, which then take the names, F, C, or 
 G, as the case may be. Thus, 
 
 One of the most important ends gained by the use of these 
 clefs is the avoidance of notes running off the staff, which 
 they otherwise would do, and what are called ledger lines 
 
 G A B C D E F 
 
 ■ B. *X ff S B 5 
 
 m 
 
 G A * 
 
 ZZ^ 
 
 would be wanted ; thus, 
 
 where 
 
 the ledger lines are those upon which the notes out of the 
 staff are placed. The lines of a staff are reckoned upwards; 
 thus the lowest line is called the first, the lowest but one 
 the second, and so on. When the F clef is placed on the 
 third line, it is called the barytone clef; when on the fourth, 
 the bass clef. When the C clef is placed on the first line, 
 it takes the name of the soprano clef ; when on the second, 
 the mezzo soprano ; when on the third, the alto or counter- 
 tenor clef; and when on the fourth, the tenor clef. The G 
 clef is rarely or never now placed on any but the second 
 line, and is then called the treble clef. It may be some- 
 times seen in old books placed on the first line ; when so 
 found, it is called the high treble clef. In keyed instru- 
 ments, the C nearest the middle of the instrument is the 
 note of the tenor or C clef; the G above it to the right is 
 the treble or G clef; and the F below to the left is the F or 
 bass clef note. When to the seven primary notes (see dia- 
 gram) another is added above, the arrangement is called an 
 
 octave ; thus, 
 
 ^ 
 
 After which, 
 
 cdefgabc 
 
 if more be added, either upwards or downwards, it will be 
 but a return to similar notes either more acute or more grave 
 in pitch ; that is, an octave above or below them respect- 
 ively. This, which is called the scale, has between its notes 
 seven intervals, of which those between c and d, d and e, / 
 and g, g and a, and a and b are equal, and are called tones 
 or whole tones ; while those between e and /, and b and c 
 are semitones. To inquire how nature has implanted on 
 the ear dissatisfaction from any other position of these 
 semitones in the scale of the octave, is not the object of this 
 treatise. That it i3 so is certain, and the most uneducated 
 whistler could not avoid it without exertion. The scale is 
 also divided into two tetrachords, from c to/ and from a to 
 c : each of these consists of two tones and a semitone. 
 There is not a strict mathematical equality between these 
 fourths, but for our purpose here — and the difference, in- 
 deed, is imperceptible, except to the finest ear — that equality 
 may be assumed. As all melody or air, which is an artful 
 succession of tones, depends on a right perception of the 
 
 c D E F 
 
 M B g. 
 
 places of the semitones, the above preliminaries must be 
 well understood by the student. 
 
 By the particular form of a note, its duration, or length of 
 time it is to be held on, is known. There are nine of these 
 forms, which are exhibited in the subjoined table, in which 
 the first two are now rarely used, though in old ecclesiasti- 
 cal music they are constantly met with. 
 
 The large . . . |. | equal to two longs 
 
 The long 
 
 The breve 
 
 The semibreve 
 
 The minim 
 
 The crotchet . 
 
 The quaver . 
 
 The semiquaver 
 
 The demisemiquaver 
 
 The notes with hooks appended to their tails are fre- 
 quently grouped together ; this does not alter their value, 
 but it assists the eye in reading off the proportions of the 
 
 notes. Thus, 
 
 1=1 _ 
 
 1=1 ~ 
 
 O - 
 
 °[ ~ 
 
 P - 
 
 t - 
 
 I - 
 
 two breves 
 two semibreves 
 two minims . 
 two crotchets . 
 two quavers . 
 two semiquavers 
 two demisemiquavers j 
 
 Detached. Grouped. Detached. Grouped. 
 If a dot be added to the right hand of any note, thus <\ •, it 
 increases its duration exactly one half. The duration of 
 a note is measured by the musician from habit, and is 
 regulated by beating time ; that is, by the elevation and 
 depression of the hand or foot quicker or slower ac- 
 cording to the nature of the music performed. A mu- 
 sical piece is divided into measures, which are equal 
 portions of time ; and the vertical lines which so divide it 
 are called bars, single lines taking merely that name ; 
 and the two thick ones at the end of a strain double bars. 
 
 Every measure must contain 
 
 a certain number of notes according to the time marked at 
 the beginning of the movement ; and that time is of two 
 sorts — common time and triple time — in which two all others 
 originate. The first is of two sorts : 1st, that in which each 
 bar is equal to a semibreve in duration ; 2d, that in which a 
 minim in duration is equal to a bar. Those common times 
 in which a semibreve is the measure are marked by a C af- 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 — 
 
 ter the clef at the beginning of the staff; thus, -/SE^EEEE. 
 
 When the C has a bar through it, thus 7S 
 
 ; , it denotes 
 
 a quicker measure, thus 
 
 w 
 
 £=^=h3m 
 
 and is called alia breve, but it is now usually written by di- 
 viding the breve into halves. There is another sort of 
 movement now very rarely used ; it is very quick, and it is 
 
 thus marked, ~ 
 
 The other characters of common 
 
 ; signifying that there are two crotch- 
 795
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 ets in the bar, of which (the denominator) four make a semi- 
 breve. Triple time is so celled from the ban being divisible 
 into three parts: it is beat with the hand down at the begin 
 ning of the bar, raised a little in the middle, and quite up at 
 the close of it. In this time the denominator of the figures 
 placed at the beginning of the staff is a measure of a seini- 
 breve: thus, if 2 lie the denominator, the measure is a min- 
 im, because two minims make a semibreve : if 4, the meas- 
 
 ure is a crotchet ; and so on. Hence 
 =2fc 
 
 signifies three 
 
 - three crotchets; ~~B~ three qua- 
 
 minlms in a bar ; 
 vers. So again with multiples of 3 for the numerator: 
 three crotchets : ^W^ sL\ quavers ; ;jv^ 
 
 nine quavers ; 
 
 nine semiquavers ; 
 
 twelve 
 
 quavers. Others sorts of triple time are used ; but if the 
 reader keep in mind that the denominator always expresses 
 the division of the semibreve, and the numerator the num- 
 ber of those divisions in each bar, no mistake can ever arise. 
 There is a certain stress laid on some part or parts of ev- 
 ery bar, which is called accent ; hence each bar or measure 
 is divided into accented and unaccented parts : the accented 
 are the principal, and those on which the pathos and spirit 
 mainly depend. The beginning and the middle, or the be- 
 ginning of the first half of the bar and the beginning of the 
 latter half, in common time, and the beginning or first of 
 three notes in triple time, are universally accented parts of 
 the measure ; so the first and third crotchet of the bar are 
 on the accented part of the measure in common time. In 
 triple time, where the notes, as we have explained, go by 
 threes, the note in the middle is unaccented, and the first 
 and last accented ; the accent, however, on the first is so 
 preponderant, that the last is almost accounted as though it 
 had none. It is on account of accent that it is frequently 
 necessary to begin a movement with only part of a measure. 
 Thus, in the Welsh tune Griffith ap Cwnan, 
 (As wntten.) 
 
 W0^ 
 
 if will immediately be seen that the alteration of the accent 
 entirely changes 
 
 (As changed in accent.) 
 
 ppgSHIi 
 
 the character of the air. When the last note of a bar (as 
 in the last bar of the lower example) is connected with the 
 first of the following bar, so as to make only one note of 
 both, it is called syncopation. This is also sometimes used 
 in the middle of a measure; also when a note of one pnrt 
 ends in the middle of a note of the other: the latter, how- 
 ever, is called binding or legature. 
 
 A rest is a pause or interval inserted when silence is re- 
 quired in the part to which it is written, which silence is to 
 be preserved during the time denoted by the species of rest 
 used. The following are the rests that are used : 
 
 m 
 
 i 
 
 -3— I 1 
 
 Crotchet. Quaver. Semiquaver. Demisemiquaver. 
 
 It has been already noticed that in the ascent of a note to 
 an octave there are, between the third and the fourth note, 
 and between the seventh and the octave, semitones instead 
 of whole tones ; and this is what is called the ilintonic scale. 
 It must, therefore, he evident from this inequality that, sup- 
 posing it were necessary, for the sake of the voice's compass 
 or any other cause, to commence a piece of music higher or 
 lower than it was originally written, the mere shifting the 
 notes higher or lower on the lines and spaces would not 
 
 represent the same relative proportions in all the intervals ; 
 because the places of the semitones would remain the Bame 
 on the staff while their position with respect to the notes 
 would be altered. An expedient is. therefore, wanted by 
 which tin- places of the notes may be raised or depressed 
 the value of a semitone. The former, thai is raising them, 
 
 is effected by placing sharps before them, thus, jJ ; and the 
 
 latter b] means of flats, thus, [>. If we want to restore an) 
 
 note that has been thus treated to its original place, it i- ef 
 fected by means of B natural, thus, ; . Two other charac 
 ten are also used : the double sharp, thus, "><, which raises 
 a note two semitones, and the double Hat \) b, which equal 
 7% 
 
 ly depresses it. Upon keyed instruments, such as the piano- 
 forte and organ, these sharps and thus are represented by 
 short black keys, and there is no distinction between D# 
 and Kb, and such want of distinction is an imperfection in 
 the instrument; for, as we have before hinted, there is not a 
 strict mathematical equality between the semitones of the 
 diatonic scale. The number of these fiats and sharps at the 
 beginning of a staff affect all the notes of the line or space 
 on which they are placed, and are termed the signature. 
 If, in addition to these, in the course of a movement any 
 other occur, they are termed accidental, and only affect the 
 notes which they immediately precede, and those also in the 
 same bar; hut if in the same bar any note, after having been 
 accidentally raised, on being repeated, is preceded by a nat- 
 ural, such natural restores it to its original place. 
 
 The ornaments of musical melody are called graces ; the 
 principal of which are the appoggiatura, the shake, the 
 turn, and the beat ; with the mordente, beat, slide, and 
 spring peculiar to the Germans : those of musical harmo- 
 ny are the arpeggio, the tremando, &c. The appoggia- 
 tura, which always occurs on the accented part of the 
 measure, is a small note placed before a large one of longer 
 duration, which it usually deprives of half its value ; thus, 
 
 ^Q4-^[^ =ft±£=%: ' wherein *** 
 
 small notes 
 
 are appoggiaturas. Occasionally, the appoggiatura is only 
 one quarter of the note it precedes. The shake is a quick al- 
 ternate repetition of a note with the note above it, the mark 
 tir being placed on the lower, and the upper one not express- 
 /r> 
 
 ed ; thus 
 
 ilil- 
 
 performed 
 
 When there are a series of ascending or descending shakes, 
 the Italians call it una catena di trilli. What the Ger- 
 mans call the passing shake is thus marked ^5? over the 
 
 note where it is intended, thus 
 
 performed 
 
 H • The mordente of the Italian school 
 
 mii h Ir 
 
 is used similarly ; thus T - 1 -f- f f f-^ , performed 
 The turn employs the note aoove 
 and that below in the following way, r^y^Z l^^pj- ; 
 
 performed 
 
 The inverted turn, thus 
 
 marked i-<, turns from the note below that marked instead 
 of above it. Turns on dotted notes are very frequently 
 
 used ; they are written as follows TSSrjBHzErE 
 
 performed qj 
 
 id. The beat 
 
 is the reverse of the shake Without the turn, and is generally 
 made at the distance of the semitone below ; hence all the 
 natural notes, except C and F, require the note below them to 
 
 . W vV 
 be accidentally sharpened for the beat; thus ^ 
 
 N ]]-,;}} -^ ^'r'-ff^ E ■ The half-beat is most 
 
 frequently used in the bass, and is very similar to the aeci- 
 acatura of the Italians. The inferior note is struck only 
 once, and at the same time with the principal note, but is 
 
 immediately quitted, as EaJ_|i— $]• The Italians use 
 
 the degree above. The German mordent.' is a heat com- 
 menoing with the note itself, and is either long or short; 
 
 This differs from the 
 
 (Ions) (short) 
 
 mordente wc have already described by being made with
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 the next degree below. The Italians use the degree above. 
 The German beat consists of two small notes, forming a skip, 
 descending one degree upon the principal note; written thus, 
 
 apfe^p 
 
 performed 3 
 
 Naumberger calls this grace a double appoggiatura. The 
 German slide consists of two small notes, which move by 
 
 degrees; written thus 
 formed 
 
 
 per- 
 
 _. The German spring, like 
 
 the Italian mordente, consists of two small notes, sound- 
 i i i 
 
 ed distinctly ; thus, z 
 
 performed 
 
 It is the practice of the compo- 
 
 ser to mark, where necessary, the occasional alteration of 
 these graces by sharps, flats, or naturals. The graces that 
 belong to harmony are, the tremolo, or reiteration of one of 
 a chord; the tremando, or general trembling of the whole 
 chord ; and the arpeggio, which is an imitation of the harp, 
 the notes of the chord being struck in quick and repeated 
 succession. The following characters are also used in .Mu- 
 sic: the pause ^T\ which, placed over a note, signifies that 
 a long continuance of the sound is to be made on that part 
 of the measure, and is equally effective when placed over a 
 
 rest; the repeat :Sy, which is a sign placed to show where 
 
 the performer must return to repeat the passage : the Italians 
 call it il segno ; the direct w, always placed at the end of 
 the staff on the line or space which the following note occu- 
 pies. The dots which are found in the inner side of bars 
 show that the measures or bars included by them are to be 
 
 repeated ; thus, F^ 
 
 ^km 
 
 , shows that these two bars 
 
 are to be played twice over, the same object being some- 
 times effected by writing the word bis over them. 
 
 We have already mentioned the single and double bar; 
 all that we have to add on them here is, that, as every bar 
 or measure contains a certain number of notes, so every 
 strain consists of a certain number of measures, which are 
 terminated by the double bar. 
 
 Expression, in music, is indicated by the following marks : 
 The tye, which is a convex line over ~~~ or a concave line 
 under *_, two notes on the same line or space, uniting them 
 into one. It is also used to express syncopated notes where 
 the bar divides them. The slur is a similar line, used over 
 notes not on the same lines or spaces, showing that such 
 notes are to be played smoothly ; and in vocal music it also 
 means that all the notes connected by it are to be sung to the 
 same syllable. The dash is a small vertical stroke | placed 
 over notes that are to be distinctly marked. Sometimes, in- 
 stead of this, the point is used, though it is mostly employed 
 to distinguish those notes from which an intermediate effect 
 between the slur and dash is wanted, yet uniting the one 
 
 and the other ; thus, 
 
 The other marks of 
 
 expression are the crescendo <[, by which the sound is to be 
 increased from soft to loud ; the diminuendo >, which is 
 exactly the converse of the last, the union of these two<> 
 indicating that the first part is gradually increased from soft 
 to loud in the middle, and then to soft again ; and the rin- 
 forzando, for which smaller marks of the same sort are 
 used > <, which increase or diminish the sound so mark- 
 ed. In order to save time in writing and copying music, 
 the following abbreviations are used : A single stroke placed 
 over or under a semibreve, or through the stem of a minim 
 or crotchet, divides it into quavers, a double stroke into semi- 
 quavers, and a triple stroke into demisemiquavers ; thus, 
 
 The other kind of abbreviation is 
 much used in modern music, and is effected by grouping the 
 
 stems of minims like those of quavers ; thus zzEzzS, per- 
 
 formed —Fez 
 
 ^m- 
 
 Melody, which will be perhaps better understood hy the 
 term a tune, is a particular succession of sounds in a single 
 
 part, and is produced by the voice or an instrument. The 
 artful manner of introducing the notes of different lengths, 
 and succeeding one another at intervals pleasing to the ear, 
 is one of the desiderata of the musician ; the other being 
 the successful accompaniment of these single sounds by 
 others, according to the laws of harmony. As respects 
 tune or air, melody has two motions, either by degrees or 
 by skips : by the former when it moves to the line or space 
 immediately above or below it, and by skips when one or 
 more degrees are omitted between the preceding and fol- 
 lowing note. The following example shows each motion 
 
 JftEjplh^: Jtffi -^ pEp^: : The distance be- 
 
 tween any two notes is called an interval, and it is cus- 
 tomary to measure it from the lower of the two notes, 
 which by their names indicate the number of degrees 
 whereof the interval consists, remembering that in the di- 
 atonic scale whole tones are divisible into semitones. It 
 may be as well to explain here the term diatonic. It is de- 
 rived from two Greek words, Sia, through, and tovos, a tone ; 
 because, through the majority of notes in this scale, it pro- 
 ceeds by whole tones, five out of the seven being of that 
 description, and the other two being semitones. And again, 
 that the notion of an interval between sounds may be prop- 
 erly acquired and felt, we would hint that it may be com- 
 prehended by stretching a string between two fixed points, 
 so that upon being struck its vibrations are free and will 
 yield a sound. Now a string half the length similarly 
 stretched will yield a sound exactly one octave higher ; 
 the intermediate lengths, therefore, between 1, which we 
 will assume the first string to have been, and £, the length 
 of the second at a certain place, according to a certain ra- 
 tio, will yield the different sounds of the octave : thus we 
 may acquire a distinct notion of intervals of sound by ab- 
 solute intervals of length. To return, then, to different in- 
 tervals in the octave. If we count from the lower note to 
 its octave, there will be found the following intervals : 
 First, the unison, which in harmony is accounted an inter- 
 val, though it be the same identical sound. Second, the 
 minor second, sometimes called the flat second, is the inter- 
 val formed by two sounds at the distance of a diatonic 
 semitone from each other. Third, the major second, con- 
 sisting of a whole tone. Fourth, the minor third, contain- 
 ing a whole tone and a diatonic semitone. Fifth, the ma- 
 jor third, consisting of two whole tones. Sixth, the per- 
 fect fourth, containing two tones and a diatonic semitone. 
 Seventh, the sharp fourth, containing three whole tones, 
 and called thence by the ancients the tritonus. Eighth, 
 the flat fifth, containing two tones and two semitones ; 
 which, however, are not equal to three whole tones, but 
 rather to two minor thirds. Ninth, the perfect fifth, con- 
 taining three tones and one semitone, equal to a major and 
 a minor third. Tenth, the minor sixth, consisting of three 
 tones and two semitones. Eleventh, the major sixth, 
 which consists of four tones and one semitone. Twelfth, 
 the minor seventh, containing four tones and two semi- 
 tones, or ten semitones. Thirteenth, the major or sharp 
 seventh, composed of five tones and one semitone, or eleven 
 semitones. Fourteenth and last, the octave, consisting of 
 eight degrees. The above fourteen intervals are given in 
 the following synopsis : 
 
 -c — ©- 
 
 Unisons. Minor 2d. Major 2d Minor 3 L Major 3d. 
 
 ^zzzz=^zzzzztzzzzz=[zzzzz^z^ 
 
 Perfect 4th. Sharp 4th, Flat 5th. Perfect 5th. 
 [or Tritonus.] 
 
 u , 
 
 
 
 
 fl — 
 
 — Q- 
 
 | G — , 
 
 r*t 
 
 
 tv 
 
 
 -&- 
 
 ^~a ' 
 
 '-» 
 
 
 Major 6th. Minor 7th. Major 7th. Octave. 
 By inserting the semitones between these intervals, the 
 number which we have above stated in each will be easily 
 discovered. When the lower note of any interval is placed 
 an octave higher, or the liigher note an octave lower, it is 
 called inversion. Thus 
 
 
 
 a 2d 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 a 3d 
 
 1 ^ — 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 
 a 4th 
 
 c— 
 
 is converted into a 7th 
 a 6th 
 a 5th 
 
 797
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 By this operation major are converted into minor Inter- 
 vals, and the converse ; for instance, the sharp tomtit be 
 cmii.'s a Mat tit'th. ami the unison becomes an octave. We 
 will here mention an ancient division of melodies, which at 
 
 least ought to he understood hy a Student, namely, into that 
 of auttitntir and plaglU melodies. The former are those 
 whose principal notes are between the key note and its oc- 
 tave, Of which the following is the example given by Cai- 
 cott, in his Grammar, from Handel's Aphtha, 
 
 (Waft her, angels.) 
 
 The latter, on the contrary, have their principal notes con- 
 tained between the fifth of the key and its octave, or tweltth ; 
 
 mmmmm 
 
 (Streams of pleasure.) 
 from Handel's Tlieodora. 
 
 There are three scales occasionally used in music ; the 
 diatonic, which lias already been explained ; the chromatic ; 
 and the enharmonic. The chromatic, which, according to 
 some, takes its name from the Greek word xP"V a ' colour, 
 because they suppose the Greeks distinguished it by differ- 
 ent-coloured characters ; according to others, because, hold- 
 ing the mean place between the diatonic and enharmonic 
 system, it was like colour between black and white; or, as 
 others say, because, like colours in painting, it embellishes 
 the diatonic by its semitones — usually ascends by sharps and 
 descends by fiats, as follows : 
 
 iipaa^ 
 
 ^^g jiiii 
 
 From this it appears that the chromatic scale consists of 
 thirteen tones, w ith twelve intervals between them, where- 
 of we have already, among the diatonic intervals, described 
 seven ; the other five form a distinct species of intervals 
 called chromatic. First, the chromatic semitone is the inter- 
 val between any note and the same depressed hy a flat or 
 raised by a sharp. Second, the extreme sharp second, which 
 consists of a tone and a chromatic semitone, being composed 
 of two degrees. Third, the extreme flat third, which con- 
 tains two diatonic semitones, consisting of three degrees; or 
 it is the minor third diminished by a chromatic semitone. 
 Fourth, the extreme flat fourth, containing a tone and two 
 diatonic semitones, and consisting of four degrees ; or it is 
 the perfect fourth diminished by the chromatic semitone. 
 Fifth, the extreme sharp fifth, which is the perfect rillh in- 
 creased by the chromatic semitone. Sixth, the extreme 
 sharp sixth, or the major sixth increased by the chromatic 
 semitone, consisting of five degrees ; it is divisible into a 
 major third and a sharp fourth. Seventh, the extreme flat 
 seventh, or the minor seventh diminished by a chromatic 
 semitone ; it is composed of four tones and two diatonic 
 semitones, and is divisible into three minor thirds. Eighth, 
 the extreme flat eighth, or octave diminished by the chro- 
 matic semitone. This is never used in melody. The above 
 intervals are exhibited in the subjoined synopsis. 
 
 T 
 
 J£=z± 
 
 -ryA-Cr- 
 
 t 
 
 te 
 
 drzzz 
 
 C/irw.. f&naLXSO& 2 W '' 1 JExhvme \) :i rd E~xc'b -I™ 
 
 3BEE]E^E 
 
 Hj « \f ^ 
 
 EZt.lcS'*" JZjcI.#6' M JSxl.bt"*- JEXI.\>8 IA 
 The enharmonic scale, so called from the augment a>, and 
 signifying extremely harmonious, or well knit together, is a 
 series formed by uniting the ascending and descending scale 
 of the chromatic genus. It contains Intervals smaller than 
 the semitone: not, indeed, exactly half the semitone; but, 
 from their near approximation to it, called the diesis, a Greek 
 word signifying a dirision. We have before hinted that 
 there is not a strict mathematical equality between the tones 
 in an octave, Our limits do not permit to pursue that 
 •piestion farther than to say, that that tone which is be- 
 tween the fourth and fifth of the scale i9 divided into nine 
 small parts, called commas; while that between the fifth 
 and sixth of the major scale contains only eight commas. 
 The diatonic semitone contains five commas ; and the chro- 
 matic semitone three nr lour, according to the magnitude of 
 the lone. Now the enharmonic scale divides each tune [ntO 
 riaiii- semitones and a quarter tone ; but we subjoin 
 a diagram of it 
 796 
 
 h^^y^^ p^\m^E^rS^o^k- S '-" 
 
 ^^^Jt-e-MyaJL^ 
 
 In this scale we have inserted the intervals E£> and E#; 
 alsoCfr and II js; but they do not properly belong to the 
 scale, :is their distance is less than a quarter tone. We 
 have omitted above to state that there is another interval, 
 which, by calculation, is found to be a comma and a half, 
 and is called hypcroche, or an excess. 
 
 As in oratory there is a principal subject whereon the 
 speaker constantly dwells, and to which, after diverging 
 from it, he always returns; so in music there is one Bound 
 in which the peice begins and ends, w Inch regulates the rest, 
 and to which regard must be had in all the other sounds of 
 the piece ; and this sound is called the key, and the princi- 
 pal note the key vote, or tonic. From the diatonic scale we 
 have seen that the semitones lie between E and F, and B 
 and C ; the key note being C. Now if we wish to make G the 
 key note, it is clear that without some contrivance the wri- 
 ting the notes from G to its octave will throw one of the 
 semitones out of its place ; namely, that betn een E and F, 
 which, instead of being, as it ought to be, between the 
 seventh and the octave, is between the sixth and the seventh. 
 It is obvious, then, if we raise the natural F a semitone by 
 means of a #, we shall restore the semitone to a situation 
 similar to that which it held in the key of C. By comparing 
 the subjoined scales, this will be more distinctly seen. 
 
 Key of C Z 
 
 Key of G 
 
 SevUlbM Semitone 
 Now if D be taken as the key note, we shall find it will 
 be necessary to sharpen the C as well as the F, in order to 
 bring the semitones into the places they ought to occupy in 
 the octave ; and we shall have two sharps. In order to 
 save the constant repetition of these sharps, it is usual to 
 put them at the beginning of the staff, where they are called 
 signatures ; thus, 
 
 r^K^H^H^^ 
 
 In the same way the keys bearing flats are marked, saving 
 that the seventh of the original key bears the first flat, as 
 follows : 
 
 Besides these scales, which are all constructed with the 
 major third, and are therefore called major keys, there is a 
 scale constructed from the natural notes whose third ia 
 minor ; thus, 
 
 Ess) 
 
 -C--g; 
 
 In which it must be observed, first, that the places of the 
 semitones are different ; and, second, that the ascending 
 scale always requires the seventh to be sharpened, though 
 it is not sharpened in the descending scale. The sharp in 
 question is, however, always omitted in the signature, and 
 marked accidentally where the melon' requires it. It must 
 be here noted, that between the F 5 and V,-z a harsh chro- 
 matic interval, called an extreme sharp second, occurs; to 
 avoid which the sixth is sharpened, by which the scale of 
 the minor mode has two notes different from the signature; 
 but in the descending scale no accidentals are required. 
 The minor modes, whether proceeding by sharps or flats, 
 have exactly the same signatures as the major mode. Thus 
 by sharps we have 
 
 ^H^ ^S^^t^feN^ 
 
 and bv flats 
 
 
 
 b '■ 
 
 %EE3k 
 
 ^S^T 
 
 Major and minor scales which have the same signatures ar. 
 denominated relative. Thus die relative minor keys of A i> 
 
 B£ ; in which 1 ase the tonic or key note of the minor ie 
 
 is found to be the sixth note ascending of the major scale 
 bearing the signature ; and the ionics are always one degn 1 
 below the last sharp of the signature, DU1 in flat signature* 
 always the third degree above the last flat.
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 The change of a melody from its original to a higher or | 
 lower pitch is called transposition, and this may be effected 
 by altering the signature according to the pitch of the new 
 tonic or key note. This alteration may be also accomplish- 
 ed in everv minor melody. If a melody is performed in the 
 relative or" tonic minor, being originally major, the change is 
 not called transposition, but variation. Modulation is the 
 motion of the melody on the key in which it has commen- 
 ced, and the alteration by new flats and sharps of the orig- 
 inal scale. Modulation comprehends the regular progression 
 of several parts through the sounds that are in the harmony 
 of any particular kev, as well as the proceeding naturally 
 and regularly from one key to another. Every scale is im- 
 mediately connected with two others ; one on the fitth 
 above, which adds a sharp to the signature ; the other on 
 the fifth below or fourth above, by which a new flat is added 
 to the signature. These were called by Dr. Boyce attendant 
 keys. Minor scales have, in like manner, their attendant 
 keys. 
 
 We here subjoin, from the late Dr. Calcott's excellent 
 Musical Grammar, the names given to certain notes in the 
 scale as peculiarly marking their character, though we do 
 not intend to use them in the following part of this short 
 essay. 1st. The tonic, or key note, is the chief sound upon 
 which all regular melodies depend, and with which they all 
 terminate. All its octaves, above and below, are called by 
 the same name. 2d. The dominant, or fifth above the key 
 note, is that sound which, from its immediate connexion 
 with the tonic, is said to govern it ; that is, to require the 
 tonic to be heard after it, at the final cadence in the bass. 
 3d. The sub- dominant, or fifth below the key note, is also a 
 species of governing note, as it requires the tonic to be heard 
 after it in the plagal cadence. It is the fourth in the regular 
 ascending scale of seven notes, and is a tone below the 
 dominant ; but the term arises from its relation to the tonic, 
 as the fifth below. These three principal sounds are the 
 radical parts of every scale, of the minor as well as the 
 major ; and all melodies are derived from them. 4th. The 
 leading note, or sharp seventh of the scale, is, in Germany, 
 called *« subsemitone of the mode ; it is always the major 
 third above the dominant, and therefore in the minor scales 
 requires an accidental sharp or natural whenever it occurs. 
 5th. The mediant, or middle note between the tonic and the 
 dominant ascending, varies according to the mode ; being the 
 greater third in the major scale, and the lesser third in the 
 minor scale. 6th. The submediant, or middle note between 
 the tonic and subdominant descending, varies also according 
 to the mode ; being the greater sixth in the major scale, and 
 the lesser sixth in the minor scale. 7th. The supertonic, or 
 second above the key note, has seldom been distinguished in 
 England by this or any other appellation. In theory it is con- 
 sidered as a variable sound, being a comma higher in the 
 major scale than when the mode changes to the relative 
 minor. 
 
 Harmony consists in the combination of two or more 
 sounds or melodies heard at the same momeut, the intervals 
 between such sounds having been already defined. A con- 
 cord is an agreeable relation of two sounds as respects the 
 ear, such sounds which are agreeable compounds singly 
 being agreeable also in succession, subject to certain laws. 
 Concord is, therefore, included under the term harmony, 
 though more properly applied to the agreeable effect of two 
 sounds in consonance ; whereas harmony involves the agree- 
 ment of a greater number of sounds than two. When two 
 sounds either in consonance or succession are disagreeable to 
 the ear, the relation between them is called a discord. The 
 concord then may be called a harmonical interval, and the 
 discord an inharmonical one ; yet by the proper interposi- 
 tion of discords the harmonies of a passage receive a lustre 
 and value from the contrast. They must, however, as we 
 shall presently show, be properly prepared and resolved, as 
 it is technically called. The union of any sound with its 
 third (major or minor) and its perfect fifth is called a com- 
 mon chord ; to which, if the octave to the sound be added, 
 we have a combination of four sounds in the harmony ; 
 thus, 
 
 Major. Minor. 
 
 So long as in these chords the C or the A remain the lower 
 note, the chord is called the common chord of C or A re- 
 spectively ; but the moment the position of the lower note 
 is changed, the name of the chord also changes. Thus if E 
 of the common chord of C be used as the lowest or bass 
 
 because the key note is then the interval of a sixth upwards 
 from the bass note, and that sixth has for its accompaniment 
 a minor third from E to G. 
 If G be now placed at the bottom and used as the bass 
 
 the key note is an interval 
 
 of a fourth above the bass, and the chord is called a. fourth 
 and, as the example shows, is accompanied by a sixth. Frora 
 this it is manifest that the sixth and fourth are no more than 
 inversions of the common chord, having the same note C 
 for their expressed or understood bass, which is called the 
 fundamental bass, because it is that on which they are 
 founded ; and the same arrangement equally exists in the 
 common chord with a minor third. The common chord is 
 
 35 8 
 expressed shortly thus, 5 8, or 3 : but they are frequently 
 
 83 5 
 omitted. The second example, or chord of the sixth, is 
 merely figured with a sixth ; and the third example, where 
 
 G is the lowest note, is denoted by the figures .. 
 
 Of discords, the most simple is the minor seventh, or, as- 
 some call it, the dominant seventh ; because it occurs only 
 on the fifth or dominant of the key, and requires that part in 
 which it occurs always to descend one degree. We here give 
 
 its full accompaniment of four real parts jtjrjf 
 
 As in the common chord either of these four sounds may he 
 placed as the bass or lower note of the chord, yet as 
 with C in the common chord the fundamental note of it 
 will be G; B being a third, D a perfect fifth, and F a minor 
 
 note, thus 
 
 the chord is called a sixth ; 
 
 seventh ; thus, 
 
 ; in each of which 
 
 cases it would carry the figure 7 below it. Sometimes, how- 
 ;) 7 :» :i 
 
 E CO *f 
 
 ever, it is figured below, -375! suca positions containing 
 
 8 
 the tenth, twelfth, and fourteenth of the root, when the 
 octave is removed. When B becomes the bass note, as 
 
 the chord by inversion consists of a minor 
 
 6 
 5 
 
 third, an imperfect flat or false fifth, and a minor sixth, and 
 
 is, as in the example, figured -. If D be next taken as the 
 
 bass note, thus 
 
 the chord consists of a minor 
 
 third, perfect fourth, and major sixth, and is, as in the ex- 
 ample, figured thereunder 3. If F be used for the lower or 
 
 „, the chord is composed of 3 
 
 major second, sharp fourth, and major sixth, and is fig- 
 
 4 
 ured . 
 
 From these observations it appears, therefore, that the 
 three last chords are properly called derivatives nt the minor 
 seventh when accompanied with a major third and perfect 
 fifth Bv some authors these three chords are called the 
 svneopated fifth, the syncopated third, and the syncopated 
 second respectively. Besides the chords within the com- 
 pass of the octave, there is the ninth, which is usually ac-
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 Companied with a third and fifth ; thus, 5a y-X— ' ! • When 
 
 used in a composition of four parts, and marked by a single 
 9, it has the accompaniment of a third and fifth ; thus, 
 
 Eli 
 
 fe 
 
 n 
 
 . Frequently, however, it is acccom- 
 
 6 9 8 
 
 panted by a fourth and fifth, and then is marked with a 
 
 double row of figures; thus, 
 
 
 £h! 
 
 6 9 8 
 5 4 3 
 
 the composition is in only three parts, the fifth is not used. 
 With the third and fifth as an accompaniment, the ninth be- 
 comes then an appoggiatura, continued in the place of the 
 eighth. The ninth has two inversions: one of them figured 
 with a seventh on the third of the fundamental note ; the 
 other figured with a fifth and a sixth on the fifth of the fun- 
 damental note. 
 
 When the figures 4 and 6 are dashed, thus 1 * "6-, it indicates 
 that they represent a sharp fourth and a sharp sixth. It 
 will perhaps be useful, in this place, to place before the 
 reader a synopsis of all the discords : from the seventh up- 
 wards they are all inversions of the seventh sharp or fiat, 
 with major or minor thirds. 
 
 (I.) (II.) (m.) (IV.) 
 
 #7 #7 7 7 7 7 
 
 44556622 
 2 2 4 4 4 4 
 
 2 2 2 2 
 
 In the above table, I. is the second, and it is the lower 
 note which is the discord ; II. contains four real parts with- 
 
 6 fi 
 out octaves or unisons, and its use is to retard the 4 or ? ; 
 
 3 s 
 IV. is also with four real parts, three of which form a com- 
 mon chord above the bass, which note is the discord ; VI. 
 is the imperfect common chord, with a whole tone added 
 below ; VII. is the major second, perfect fourth, and minor 
 seventh, and is used to retard the common chord by an ap- 
 poggiatura In the ban; X. is called the chord of the eleventh, 
 of whi< li the figure 4 is the representation, sometimes called 
 the sharp seventh ; XI. is the chord of the thirteenth — the 
 sixth may be either major or minor; in XII. the fifth must 
 be perfect, the second either major or minor, and cither the 
 one or the other may be doubled. The above is a concise 
 view of the figured or thorough bass ; called by the Italians 
 basso continuo ; and the reader will recollect that all chords 
 may be reduced to the fundamental bass by bringing them 
 to the form of the perfect chord, or to that of the seventh. 
 Chords are called rclative,or irrelative, according as a boui d 
 
 is or is not common to both. Thus in 
 
 these two chords, which are irrelative, it will be seen that 
 there is no sound in cither that is common to both ; in the 
 
 chords 
 
 the G being found in both chords, 
 
 they arc relative. If, in proceeding from one chord to an- 
 800 
 
 other, any note of the previous chord is kept in that which 
 follows, the process will produce correct harmony. The 
 discords, where they appear, must, of course, be prepared 
 and reso/red, whereof we shall hereafter speak ; and care 
 must be taken to avoid progressions of fifths and octaves be- 
 tween the extreme parts when both move the same way. 
 Before leaving this part of the subject, we subjoin, as proper- 
 ly belonging to it, what is called the harmony of th 
 that is. the accompaniment which it carries in ascending and 
 descending : 
 
 JE fFS^^ EgEkg 
 
 ^2cd 
 
 m 
 
 m 
 
 6 #6 8 6 6 6 
 
 53454 3 45 
 
 3 5 3 2 3 3 
 
 Composition is the art of joining and combining concords 
 and discords in such a manner that their succession and 
 progression may be agreeable to the ear. It may be here 
 mentioned, that melody being chiefly the business of the 
 imagination, its rules serve only to prescribe limits to it ; be- 
 yond which the imagination in searching out the variety and 
 beauty of the airs ought not to go. But harmony is the work 
 of the judgment ; and its rules are more certain and exten- 
 sive, and more difficult in practice. A person, indeed, un- 
 skilled in music may by chance make a piece of good melody ; 
 but a person of judgment does it with certainty. In harmony, 
 the invention has not so much to do ; for the composition is 
 conducted from a nice observation of its rules, assisted also 
 by the imagination. It is not to be expected that in the com- 
 pass of this article space can be afforded for a complete 
 treatise on this part of the subject ; all that we propose is to 
 present to the reader some of the leading rules of the science. 
 
 The different motions of the parts which constitute har- 
 mony are direct and contrary. In the former the parts move 
 the same way, ascending or descending. There is also a 
 third motion, according to some, called the oblique motion; 
 but that may be classed under contrary motion. In direct mo- 
 tion, the parts move the same way, ascending or descending. 
 
 -f-Ei-H 1 - 
 
 In contrary motion, one of the 
 
 parts rises while the other falls, 
 
 T~ rf r ? 
 
 The 
 
 use of these motions enables the composer to avoid harmoni- 
 cal irregularities in the use of octaves and ril'ths, and in 
 other points. The following are the leading rules of har- 
 mony, as regards the motions and successions of concords : 
 First, octaves and fifths must not be consecutive in direct 
 
 motion. For instance, 
 
 where tho 
 
 motion is direct, may be avoided by giving the passage con- 
 trary motion ; thus, }|f^ q \ r^_q_^_zj . Second, un- 
 
 necessary and distant skips must be avoided as much as pos- 
 sible, and the chords should be kept as close and as much 
 connected as may be. Third, false relations, such as the 
 extreme sharp second, must be avoided, unless the same be 
 required for the purpose of expressing some particular effect. 
 Fourth, the regular motion ot the different parts in harmony 
 must be observed : sharp intervals should ascend after the 
 sharp, while minor or flat intervals hum descend alter tin: 
 flat In observing this rule, however, that of avoiding con- 
 secutive octaves and fifths must, nevertheless, be i 
 neither is to be strictly observed where certain effects are re- 
 quired. It Is customary for compositions to begin with one 
 of the perfect concords of its key note, namely the octave or 
 fifth; and it should end in the key note with its common 
 chord for the harmony. It should not begin or end with a 
 sixth, tlioiiL'li it sometimes may with a third. To these we 
 may add, that you must not go from an imperfect concord to 
 a perfect concord by similar motion ; such passages being
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 gaifl to contain hidden octaves or fifths, which will be seen 
 by filling up the diatonic degrees through which one of the 
 parts is conceived to pass. With these prefatory remarks, 
 we shall now proceed to some few details ot the laws ot 
 harmony. In proceeding from the unison, when both parts 
 move, it is better to go from it to the third minor than the 
 third major. We may go to the minor either by oblique or 
 
 contrary motion, 
 
 ; but to the major it 
 
 must be by oblique or by similar motion, the first being the 
 
 best, 
 
 fc=?M. A fifth after a unison 
 
 by similar motion must be avoided : it is good in oblique mo- 
 tion, and is allowed in contrary motion, one part moving a sin- 
 
 S 
 
 gle degree, 
 
 From the unison we may go 
 
 to die sixth minor by contrary motion 
 
 it is not good by the other motions, because of the large leap. 
 But from the unison to the sixth major is forbidden. An 
 octave after a unison, except by oblique motion, must be 
 avoided, inasmuch as in two unisions or two octaves it is 
 but the division of a large note into smaller. 
 
 In the second, the lowest note is the discord. It may 
 be prepared in any concord, and resolved in any but the 
 eighth ; it must therefore descend to the resolution, 
 
 "Vl?r 5 r 4 3 
 
 The preparation of a discord is effected by taking care that 
 the note which is the discord is heard in the preceding har- 
 mony, its resolution being its descent either a tone or a semi- 
 tone, according to the mode, after it has been struck. Those 
 seconds are called transient which are introduced with- 
 out preparation on the accented part of the bar, thus 
 
 fe^ ; and if these transient seconds be re- 
 
 1.2 I 
 
 moved to the accented part of the bar, they then become ap- 
 poggiaturas. When the second is attended by a fifth and 
 
 6 f- 
 
 third, it becomes a chord of 4 or the - ; and if the third be 
 
 3 
 sharp, the minor mode is indicated, 
 
 385 34 
 
 2 23 
 
 A chord is saiu to have four real parts, when it contains four 
 sounds without octaves or unisons : a concord can only have 
 three real parts. When the second is attended by the fourth 
 and fifth, either the fifth or the fourth must be prepared ; 
 and it becomes the chord of the fifth and sixth at the resolu- 
 tion of the second by the bass. 
 4- 
 
 pp^Ipipl 
 
 ^m&£m&££&Emi 
 
 6 
 
 4 5 
 2 
 
 The second, accompanied with the sixth and fourth, is a 
 chord of four real parts, three of them forming a common 
 chord above the bass, which, being the discord, must be re- 
 solved by a descent to the next degree: the sharp fourth 
 usually ascends, but it sometimes remains stationary, 
 
 "• i T . This chord, with the minor second, per- 
 6 
 4 
 2 
 feet fourth, and minor sixth, is produced by adding a minor 
 
 semitone below any common chord with a major third ; and 
 also by placing a note one tone below the imperfect common 
 chord* a major second, perfect fourth, and minor sixth ; but 
 in all these the second is resolved by descent. The extreme 
 sharp second with the sharp fourth and major sixth is a tone 
 and major semitone below the imperfect common chord. 
 The second major with a perfect fourth and minor seventh 
 retards the common chord with a major third by an appog- 
 
 giatura in the bass; thus, 
 
 The minor 
 
 second, perfect fourth, and minor seventh retard the com- 
 mon chord with a minor third in a similar manner, 
 
 . The second is also accompanied with 
 
 the fourth and sharp seventh, which, when introduced upon 
 a resting bass, allow all the intervals when struck to ascend, 
 
 =ttt 
 
 mM 
 
 When, however, the bass moves, it is 
 
 3 4 3 
 
 usual to prepare the upper parts, t — {—*— sT% • The 
 
 fourth mav, indeed, be used without preparation, but it falls 
 to the reso'lution. Both the major and minor sixth are used 
 in the chord with or without preparation ; but they fall to 
 the fifth, by which the common chord preserves its fulness, 
 
 The second may, or may not fill 
 
 up the chord. If the fifth is taken in the chord for the fifth 
 part, it is suspended, and may or may not be in the prece- 
 ding chord. You obtain the last sixth perfect by it, and retain 
 four single parts in the places where the second is omitted, 
 
 The second, accompanied with the 
 
 fourth, fifth, and seventh, I 
 
 : , by some is called the 
 
 chord of the eleventh, the fourth being the representative 
 of that interval, which is always perfect, as well as the 
 fifth ; but the second and seventh are major. Accompanied 
 by the seventh, sixth, and fourth, the second is called the 
 chord of the thirteenth, in which the thirteenth is figured 
 
 "9"E|E 
 
 by the sixth, which may be either major or minor, _— . 
 
 -©- 
 
 When the second is accompanied by the fifth, — ^^— ^o — , 
 
 the latter must be always perfect ; but the second may be 
 either major or minor. 
 
 The third major or minor ffi y" 1 ^ " jh=: , is an agree- 
 able concord ; of which it is to be noted that two minor 
 thirds in succession are better than two majors, but mixed 
 thirds in succession are most pleasant to the ear ; indeed an 
 octave of major thirds is extremely unpleasant. It is best 
 to begin a regular ascent with a major third, and a descent 
 
 with a minor, 
 
 ; and in two parts 
 
 it is not well to end in a third above the key note. The 
 third is accompanied by a fourth and sixth, E("D± = g'±r > and 
 
 is generally called the small sixth. That species of it 
 wherein the third is minor, the fourth perfect, and the sixth 
 major, is elegant in effect, as the seventh, from which it is 
 derived. The following is an example: 
 
 3D 801
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 The tliird is also accompanied by the fourth and sev- 
 enth ; but when the tliird or the tenth is at the top of the 
 
 9 
 chord, it is generally followed by the ", which fourth, sev- 
 enth, and ninth ought all to descend to the resolution ; 
 
 thus, 
 
 The third accompanied by the 
 
 10 10 9 8 
 8 7 7 6 
 
 5 4 4 3 
 
 sixth and seventh is generally followed by the chord of the 
 seventh ; hence the sixth is the only interval wanting prep- 
 aration. 
 
 
 The fourth should not be used alone : it should be asso- 
 
 ciated with the sixth and octave ; thus, 
 
 Accompanied by the fifth, the fourth is a discord much 
 used. When introduced on a resting bass, it resolves into 
 the third; and its effect is so similar to that of the ninth, 
 that they are frequently introduced alternately. 
 
 4 3 
 
 9 3 4 3 9 8 4T3 6^7 ' 
 4 3 
 
 The chord of the fourth accompanied by the sixth is of 
 great use in harmonical progressions; and when preceded 
 by the common chords to the key note and fourth of the 
 key, and succeeded by the common chords to the fifth of 
 the key and the key note, forms one of the terminations to 
 a musical period called the fourth and sixth cadence ; thus, 
 
 „ 5 
 
 4 3 4 8 
 
 When the seventh accompanies the fourth, and that is fol- 
 lowed by the chord of the third, fifth, and seventh, either 
 the fourth or seventh, or both, should be in some part of the 
 chord preceding it. In the follow ing example both the fourth 
 and seventh are prepared and resolved: 
 
 When, however, the 
 
 chord of the fourth and seventh is followed by the fourth 
 sixth, and eighth, it is frequently used without preparation 
 In either of the positions. The fourth and seventh descend 
 to the resolution, and generally resolve after each other. 
 
 The interval of the sharp fourth, which has been before 
 
 mentioned, is a minor semitone more than the perfect 
 
 fourth, and a major semitone less than the perfect fifth. 
 
 Its natural resolution is that the base shall fall a degree, 
 
 802 
 
 and the upper part rise one, by which the two parts meet 
 in a minor sixth. It is of very great use in modulation, 
 as you can, by introducing it upon the key note, always 
 change the mode you are in, as in the follow ing examples; 
 
 
 In four parts the sixth 
 
 and second are taken with it. 
 
 The interval of the imperfect fifth is a minor semitone 
 less than the imperfect fifth, and a major semitone more 
 than the perfect fourth. In using this chord the highest 
 note falls and the lowest one rises, so that they meet in 
 
 a major tliird ; thus, 
 
 *^^- 
 
 In four parts it is 
 
 accompanied by a third and sixth, 
 
 The fifth is the next interval which we have to consider; 
 of this we have already said that two fifths cannot follow 
 each other, except by contrary motion. From the fifth to 
 the unison is good by oblique motion, and also by contrary 
 motion, one part moving a single degree ; but by similar 
 motion it is bad. From a fifth to either of the thirds is al- 
 lowed by all the motions, but it is best by the oblique ; next 
 to the oblique, the best way to the third minor is by con- 
 trary motion, and to the third major by similar motion and 
 both by single degrees. A false fifth may succeed a perfect 
 fifth, provided it be also immediately succeeded by a third 
 
 and by contrary motion 
 
 From the fifth to 
 
 either sixth it is best by oblique motion ; but it is allowed by 
 similar motion if one part move a single degree: it is also 
 allowed ascending, but not descending, to go by leap from 
 the fifth to the sixth minor, but not to the major. 
 
 
 In passing from the fith to the octave through a sixth, 
 the sixth must be major, never minor ; and it must be by 
 
 contrary motion, 
 
 An octave 
 
 after a fifth by leap in similar motion must be avoided. By 
 oblique and contrary motion, it is good and allowable by 
 similar motion, one part moving a single degree, as follows: 
 
 #£n#^igifeii 
 
 When a third or a sixth moves to a fifth in similar motion, 
 there is said to be a hidden fifth in the passage. The reader 
 will, in the following example, see bv the dots where these lie. 
 
 Tn a rccular ascent, it is common for a fifth to be succeeded 
 by a sixth, as in a descent it is for the seventh to be suc- 
 ceeded by a sixth. Of both these, which are termed se- 
 quences, the following are examples : 
 
 iSgi^ 
 
 g^g 
 
 T -i i P T i 
 
 06 7676 76~T§~1'6
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 The chord of the extreme sharp fifth, which consists of two 
 major thirds placed above each other, is generally preceded 
 and succeeded by a common chord, or that of the sixth, as 
 in the following examples : 
 
 SSSS' 
 
 3 # « * 
 
 It is here seen that the extreme sharp fifth to the bass, 
 whether it be in the middle or at the top of the chord, 
 always rises to the resolution. It is called a transient 
 chord. 
 
 The sixth, by inversion, becomes a third ; and it often 
 happens that the bass which accompanies sixths will har- 
 monize equally well with thirds. When accompanied with 
 the fifth, the fifth is treated as a discord ; which we will 
 illustrate by two or three instances. 
 
 Some have fffven the name of the great sixth to this chord 
 when the sixth is major and the fifth perfect. If the fifth 
 is imperfect and the sixth minor, it is called the chord of 
 the false fifth. It will be seen above that the chord of the 
 great sixth is used on bass notes which ascend a tone to 
 the perfect chord, and that of the false fifth to those which 
 
 ascend a semitone, 
 
 The species of this 
 
 chord chiefly used in minor keys consists of a perfect fifth, 
 an extreme sharp sixth, and major third ; and the base of 
 
 it generally descends, 
 
 The minor sev- 
 
 enth accompanied with a third major and perfect fifth is 
 one of the most agreeable of the discords ; it should be 
 heard in the chord which precedes it when used with 
 
 ffc* 
 
 a minor third and perfect fifth, 
 
 psgi 
 
 By raising the lower note of a minor seventh a minor semi 
 tone, the chord of the diminished or extreme flat seventh, 
 
 also called the equiv 
 
 ;ocal chord, is produced,/^— ^— r^^5 
 
 Minor 7th. Diminished 7th' 
 This is called the equivocal chord, from the uncertainty 
 of the key note into which it may lead. The preparation 
 of a major seventh is a third, a fifth, a sixth, or an eighth ; 
 its resolution is a third, a sixth, and a fifth from the con- 
 cords in which it is prepared. The ninth major consists 
 of a whole tone, and the minor ninth a semitone major 
 above the octave. The major ninth is prepared by a third, 
 a fifth, and occasionally by a sixth, never by an eighth ; 
 and is resolved by a third, a sixth, or an eighth from each 
 of the concords in which it is prepared. When the ninth 
 is used in four parts, the third and fifth must be taken with 
 it. Besides the above resolutions of the ninth, it may be 
 resolved by the fifth if the base rise a fourth or fall a fifth 
 when the tipper part falls one degree for its resolution. It 
 must be accompanied at the resolution by an eighth, if the 
 piece be in four parts. We subjoin a few examples : 
 
 ^li^l^^l 
 
 gill 
 
 3EB 
 
 6 98 
 43 
 
 * g* * y% 
 
 ^^tt^ 
 
 =3=t=^iEasi=p^ 
 
 ti 
 
 £ & 
 
 tf 
 
 9 * 
 
 7 
 
 9 
 
 H 
 
 s 
 
 c a 
 
 .? 
 
 7 6 
 
 7 
 
 5 
 
 
 4 9 
 
 
 4 
 
 
 b 
 
 a 
 
 The minor ninth is prepared in the third only, and resolved 
 in the eighth if the bass hold on till the resolution is 
 made ; but it is resolved in the third if the bass descend a 
 
 third on the resolution, 
 
 1TH 
 
 The ninth may have other discords mixed with it, as the 
 fourth ; in which case the fourth must be prepared and 
 resolved as a discord. The seventh may be also mixed 
 with it ; in which case the seventh must be also separately 
 prepared and resolved. 
 
 We have before defined the word modulation : our inten- 
 tion here is to add a few observations on the mode in which 
 it is accomplished, premising that the laws of modulation 
 are dependent on those of harmony. If you desire to keep 
 in the key, you are to use all the sounds of the scale as much 
 as possible, uniting them in good melody, and dwelling 
 chiefly on those which carry the essential chords; that is, 
 the chords of the seventh and key notes will be frequently 
 wanted, varied so as to avoid monotomy. You must take 
 cadences or pauses on these two chords only, or at farthest 
 on that of the fourth of the key. You are never to alter the 
 scale, because the introduction of a flat or a sharp not be- 
 longing to it indicates that the key is abandoned. To modu- 
 late into other keys formal cadences are not required ; if 
 they are, they are usually made at the end or in the middle 
 of a piece. We subjoin the methods for passing from one 
 key to another, which are five in number for the major and 
 four for the minor keys ; and these alone can be considered 
 legitimate, unless through the medium of enharmonic modu- 
 lation : leaving the major key of C, 
 
 leaving the minor key of A, 
 
 slgi h 17 w 
 
 Our limits prevent extending this part of the subject to greater 
 length : those who would learn more on this point are re- 
 commended to Frike's Guide to Harmony, Lond., 1793. 
 
 A fugue consists in the repetition of a melody in the dif- 
 ferent parts at different intervals of time, each repeating, ac- 
 cording to certain rules, what the preceding one has per- 
 formed; the part which leads being called the guide, and 
 that which repeats the answer. The answer is conducted 
 by the same intervals as the guide. 
 
 Imitation differs from fugue, says Brossard, because in 
 the former the repetition must be a second, third, sixth, 
 seventh, or ninth, or, indeed, any interval above or below 
 the first voice or guide ; whereas in fugue the repetition 
 must be in the unison, fourth, fifth, or octave : 
 
 &tea 
 
 The principal rules in writing fugues are— First, to prefer 
 the key note and its fifth before any other for the first and 
 last no'tes of the fugue ; in which case the melody is to be 
 contained within the octave to the key. Second, if one part 
 begin or end with the key note, the other begins and ends 
 with the fifth, taking care that the different relative inter 
 vals between the notes be regularly preserved. Thirdly, as 
 
 803
 
 
 MUSIC. 
 
 In diatonic progression either ascending or descending from 
 ti,o key note to its fifth, and the converse, there is one note 
 difference, you are at liberty to make one ol those two notes 
 in conjoint degree of that progression that contains the mater 
 number to agree with the progression which is oraradaUy 
 used, wherein there is one note loss, and hat in tin -ii.ul.lk 
 of the melody. These are the leading rules ot the fugue. 
 
 The canon is a species of fugue, which may be m tniu > 
 repeated ■ it is taken up at the fifth, and at the lourth. 
 When this is done, the whole of the melody must he ar- 
 ranged, and accidental sharps and flats added to those notes 
 whlre the use of the natural degrees would prevent the; air 
 from being exactly similar ; whence its difficulty. 1 he Well' 
 known canon of JV<» Nobis Domine is a fine specimen ot 
 
 canon composition. , 
 
 Rhythm, in music, is the accommodation of the long anil 
 short notes to the syllables to which the music is set in such 
 a manner as to separate the words properly, and to make 
 the accented syllables of each word so conspicuous that 
 what is sung may be clearly comprehended. In lnstiti- 
 mental music, it is the adaptation of the expresdon to the 
 sentiment. It is mostly used to signify the duration ot sev- 
 eral sounds heard in succession, whether musical by voices 
 and instruments, or without inflexion ol tone, as by the heat- 
 ing of a drum, &c. Here we have only to speak ot that 
 which is connected with musical melody. Rhythm depends 
 on accent principally, the musical phrase, section, and period. 
 Of accent we have before spoken at nearly the beginning of 
 this article, and we do not think it necessary to add to it in 
 this place, farther than to state that in the heating ot time 
 by the hand or foot, as there mentioned, the elevation of the 
 hand is called by the technical name arsis a Greek word 
 sienifying a lifting up ; and the depression of it by the name 
 thesis, signifying the action of laying down expressions- 
 which are also applicable in another sense, as for instance, 
 when a point or passage is inverted or mined, that is, rises 
 in one part and falls in another, or the converse, it is said to 
 move per arsin ct thcsin. Emphasis is frequently obtained 
 for particular expressions by throwing the accent on the 
 weak part of the measure, or by the different grouping of the 
 quavers, semiquavers, &c, and also by the mark of em- 
 phasis, RF (signifying rinforzando), placed over a note where 
 lie composer is desirous of marking the weak parted a meas- 
 ure with more than its share of importance. Of this the fol- 
 lowing passage from a favourite symphony of Haydn is an 
 example 
 
 MusauiTo. 
 
 S^f^^g ^^^ 
 
 (Emphasis.) 
 
 on the note marked with a dash over it. Dr. Calcott thus 
 distinguishes between accent and emphasis: 'Accent al- 
 ways requires pressure (on a pianoforte) immediately atter 
 the" note is struck, and emphasis requires force at the very- 
 time of striking the note." A phrase is a short melody, 
 usually formed' of two measures in simple time |, though 
 with the ancient writers it is often contained within the 
 bar. Of the common phrase the following is an example : 
 
 Andante. Phrase. rhrase. 
 
 Phrases in melody are formed by air ■ in harmony they are 
 formed by sequences of chords and discords terminating 
 with a cadence, which is more or less perfect as the pas- 
 E tse Is more or less finished. The well weaving together 
 of the phrases whereof a strain is composed, so that their 
 proportions may be symmetrical and form a beautiful whole, 
 is our of the tests of a fine composer. Though musical 
 punctuation, unlike that in writing, is without visible char- 
 acters m mark the ends Of phrases, and the periods whereof 
 phrases are composed, yet such division does actually ex- 
 tot; and as an example of punctuation will better than 
 
 Words assist the reader in understanding it. we present to 
 his notice the following well-known passage from the opera 
 of Don Giovanni, by Mozart ■ 
 
 
 ^^^f@p 
 
 In the four distinct parts into which this melody is divided 
 three of them belong to the chord of the dominant or tilth 
 of the key ; and the other, which is the last, to the tonic 
 804 
 
 01 key note. The seventh of the dominant is upon the 
 three first parts ; but to avoid monotony, and yet to punctu- 
 ate the first part, he has only got the A in the bass at the 
 end of the second part. In the other two he has a pedal 
 point (or holding en of the bass) of the key note, on which 
 the chord of the seventh of the dominant is struck. A pas 
 sage consisting oftwo regular phrases, the last ending with a 
 cadence, is called a section; and one or more of these sec- 
 tions constitutes a period. When a period or more than 
 one is terminated by a double bar, the whole is called a 
 strain. We close this article with a synoptical view {see 
 opposite page) of the different pitches of the instruments of 
 an orchestra, and of the human voice, from Choron's cele- 
 brated work, to which our acknowledgments are due; as 
 well as to Calcott's Musical Grammar; the admirable art. 
 "Music," by Momigny, in the Encyc. Mcthodique; and to 
 Shield's Introduction to Harmony. 
 
 Mi'SK'AL GLASSES. A musical Instrument consist- 
 ing of a number of glass goblets, resembling finger glasses, 
 which are tuned by filling them more or less with water, 
 and played upon with the end of a finger damped. There 
 are few" persons at a dinner table who have not tried their 
 skill in producing the sound which the vibration of a finger 
 glass will yield in the way above described. The less the 
 quantity of water in glasses of similar forms and equal ca- 
 pacity the lower will be the tone of the scale ; hence the 
 facility of forming a complete scale by the quantity of wa- 
 ter contained in each. 
 
 The skill, or rather knack, of operating upon the sets ot 
 glasses for the production of melodies and harmonies, is 
 that of procuring instantly the required vibration by a gen- 
 tle and rapid action of the finger upon their adges, and so 
 quickly from one to another as to be able to inTroduce har- 
 monies to the sounds of the air or melody before the vibra- 
 tions of its glasses have ceased. A touch ot the finger on 
 the edge of a glass puts of course a stop to its vibration, and 
 thus prevents confusion. 
 
 MUSK. A peculiar concrete substance, the produce of 
 the Moschus moschiferus, or musk deer, an animal which 
 inhabits the mountains of eastern Asia. Behind the naval 
 is a bag, which in the adult animal is filled with musk- 
 These bags are imported from China, Bengal, and Russia. 
 Musk is originally a viscid fluid, but dries into a brown 
 pulverulent substance, of a strong, peculiar, and highly dif- 
 fusible odour. Its chief use is as a perfume : it has been 
 employed in medicine as a stimulant antispasmodic but 
 much 'difference of opinion exists as to its efficacy, and its 
 high price and extreme liability to adulteration are circum- 
 stances against its use. 
 
 MUSKAT. A rich sweet wine made in the south ot 
 France of over-ripe muscadine grapes. 
 
 MUSK DEER. (Moschus moschiferus, Linn.) 1 he type 
 of a distinct genus of Ruminants, with canine teeth and 
 without horns. This species is especially remarkable for 
 the large preputial glandular pouch which secretes the 
 well-known substance called musk. 
 
 MUSKET (Fr. mousquet.) The fire-arm used by the 
 regiments of the line. (See Gun.) A great number of very 
 curious ones, of various dates and countries, from the ear- 
 liest period of their use, may be seen in the repository of 
 the Royal Artillery at Woolwich. 
 
 MU'SKETOON. A species of musket, shorter, but thick- 
 er and wider in the bore, than the ordinary musket. '1 he 
 musketoon, or mousquetoon, was of French invention, and is 
 described by De Gaya, in 1G88 (Traite des Jlrmcs). , as dif- 
 fering from the carabine in being furnished with a nre-IocK 
 instead of a wheel-lock. . , , 
 
 MU'SLIN. A fine thin kind of cotton cloth with a downy 
 nap on the surface. The name is derived from the town 
 M. sul, in Asia, where it was originally manufactured. 1 he 
 fist muslin was imported from India into England in 16,0; 
 and twenty years afterwards it was manufactured in con- 
 ierable quantities both in France and England. Muslins 
 are now manufactured in immense quantities at Manchester 
 and Giaseow, '» Fiance, Germany, and Switzerland, ol a 
 fineness and durability that rival those of India, at the same 
 time that they are considerably cheaper. The fineness of 
 some Indian 'muslins is such that when laid on the grass 
 upon which a little dew has fallen, they are scarcely visible. 
 See Cotton. , . - .- 
 
 MUSO'PHAGA. (Gr. piovaa, the generic name of the 
 banana, and Aavui, / eat.) A genus of Scansonal birds, 
 characterized by the base of the beak forming n disk which 
 partly covers the forehead. The species of this genus are 
 called "plantain eaters," because their principal food is the 
 fruit of the banana. . , - 
 
 MUSQUTTO. The American name for the species 01 
 mat (Oult '■)■ They abound in damp situations, both in the 
 warmer climates and during the summer months in high 
 northern latitudes. They pierce the skin with a lancetted 
 nroboscis, and discharge a venomous Ilquortoto the wouno, 
 hey can only be guarded ngainst at night by enclosing the
 
 MUSSEL. MUSTER-ROLL. 
 
 Synoptical View of the different Pitches of the Instruments of an Orchestra, and of the Human Voice. 
 
 Diatonic Scale through 
 eight octaves. 
 
 s 
 
 Trombone, Alto - 
 
 Tenor 
 
 Bass 
 
 Serpent.... ....... . 
 
 Trumpet 
 
 Horns in E. . - 
 
 in D 
 
 iaC.»w 
 
 Clarionet , 
 
 Bassoon 
 
 Oboe 
 
 Flageolet 
 
 Octave flute....... 
 
 Flute 
 
 Violin 
 
 Tenor violin — 
 
 Violoncello.. ... ................. 
 
 Double bass 
 
 First treble 
 
 Second treble. ........ ........... 
 
 Counter tenor 
 
 Tenor 
 
 Barytone 
 
 Bass 
 
 Guitar 
 
 Pianoforte 
 
 Harp 
 
 Organ pipe 
 
 :=^» 
 
 32/eef, 
 I. 
 
 S** 1 ! 
 
 -i — $< 
 
 u. 
 
 -«•!•: 
 
 ++-H€- 
 
 ■*6-t- 
 
 &*^ 
 
 -H ticl j ' l ■ ; 
 
 ;~-H-o^Jj. 
 
 Kr-4- 
 
 III. 
 
 „*tr 
 
 IV. 
 
 2 feet 
 V. 
 
 H j i 
 
 SM-H 
 
 VI. 
 
 VII. 
 
 VIH. 
 
 bed with a musquito curtain. The Laplanders drive them 
 away by fire, and by coating the naked parts of the body 
 with grease. 
 
 MUSSEL. See Mytilus. 
 
 MU'SSITE. A pale green mineral from Mussa in Pied- 
 mont ; it is a variety of augite. 
 
 MU'SSULMAN. The general appellation for all who em- 
 brace the faith of Mohammed. The term signifies "re- 
 signed to God ;" and is the dual number of the singular 
 moslem, of which muslimim is the plural. The appellation 
 is said to have been first given to the Saracens. 
 
 MUST. The expressed juice of the grape before its con- 
 version into wine by the process of fermentation. 
 
 MU'STARD. (Fr. moutarde.) The seed of the Sinapis 
 alba and nigra, ground into powder, and freed from the 
 husks : it is the well-known condiment of the shops, or at 
 least a part of it ; for, in order to reduce the strength of the 
 pure mustard, there is generally a considerable quantity of 
 wheaten flour added. Brown mustard should be the flour 
 of Sinapis nigra exclusively, which is much more pungent 
 than the other. A desert spoonful of coarsely powdered 
 
 mustard-seed, taken in a glass of water, generally operates 
 as an emetic ; it is also aperient. A mustard poultice, or 
 sinapism, is sometimes a useful stimulant. 
 
 MUSTE'LA. (Lat. mustela, a weasel.) The generic 
 name under which Linnaeus comprehended the Vermine 
 or Vermiform quadrupeds of Ray, or the carnivorous Mam- 
 malia, which are distinguished by the length and slender- 
 ness of their bodies, and are thus enabled to wind, like 
 worms, into very small crevices and openings, whither they 
 easily follow the little animals that serve them for food. 
 The otters, skunks, polecats, and weasels were included 
 in this genus, and still constitute the natural family Musle- 
 lidce ; and the genus Mustela is now restricted to the true 
 weasels, which differ from the polecats in having an ad- 
 ditional false molar above and below, and in the existence 
 of a small internal tubercle on the lower " carnassial" or 
 sectorial tooth; two characters which, Cuvier observes, 
 somewhat diminish the cruelty of their nature. 
 
 MUSTER-ROLL. A specific list of the officers and men 
 in every regiment, troop, or company, made out by the 
 adjutant, and delivered to the inspecting field-officer or pay- 
 
 803
 
 MUTE. 
 
 master. &c, by which they are paid, and their strength and 
 condition known. 
 
 MUTE. In Grammar, a vowel (or consonant) is said to 
 be mute when written but not pronounced; as the vowel 
 e at the end of many English words, in some of which it 
 effects a change in the pronunciation of the preceding 
 vowel, as in icifc, lift:, place, &c, rendering it long; in 
 others it has no effect, as after a diphthong — house, pro- 
 nounce. In old English, the mute e was very generally 
 added at the end of words, especially nouns; and in ver- 
 sification the e often ceased to be inute, as is constantly the 
 case in the poems of Chaucer. 
 
 Mute, in Law, is said of a person who refuses to plead 
 to an indictment for felony, &c. By stat. IS Geo. 3, c. 20, 
 such a person is to be considered as pleading guilty, and to 
 be punished as upon conviction ; but formerly a plea was 
 extorted from him by the inhuman and disgusting process 
 peine forte et dure, which see. 
 
 Mute. A dumb officer of the Seraglio, whose duty it is 
 to act as executioner of persons of exalted rank who have 
 incurred the grand seignior's displeasure. The term mute 
 is also applied to persons employed by undertakers to stand 
 before the door of a house in which there is a corpse, for a 
 short time previously to the funeral. 
 
 MUTI'CA. (Lat. muticus, maimed.) A name applied 
 by Linnasus to the third of his primary divisions of Mam- 
 malia, including the whale tribe, as being maimed, or de- 
 prived of the hinder pair of extremities ; also given by 
 Storr to an order of quadrupeds comprehending those 
 which want either a certain kind of teeth, or are wholly 
 edentulous. 
 
 MU TINY, in Law, is the offence, in a person under 
 military or naval authority, of resisting or refusing obedi- 
 ence to that authority. The Mutiny Act is a statute annu- 
 ally passed since the reign of William and Mary (April, 
 1689), by which the crown is vested with power to form 
 articles of war, and to constitute military courts martial. 
 See Courts Martial. 
 
 MUTULE. See Modillion. 
 
 MU'ZARAB. Christians living under the government 
 of the Moors in Spain ; so called, it is said, from an Arabic 
 word signifying imitators or followers of the Arabs. The 
 denomination is now chiefly remembered in consequence 
 of the celebrated disputes between the supporters of the 
 Muzarabic liturgy, which was preserved by the Christians 
 of Spain during their subjection to the Mohammedans, and 
 those of the Roman, introduced by the see of Rome about 
 the 10th century. During the following age this dispute 
 was warmly carried on, and well-known legendary tales 
 of miracles operated in favour of the ancient ritual were 
 k>ng current in Spain. It was, however, gradually super- 
 seded by the Catholics. It is said that mass is still cele- 
 brated according to the Muzarabic ritual in one chapel at 
 Toledo. A brief but excellent account of the different 
 phases of the Muzarabic controversy is to be found in the 
 Diet, de la Conversation. See also the Penny Cyclopaedia, 
 and the authorities there referred to. 
 
 MU'ZZLE LASHING. The lashing by which the muzzle 
 of a gun in a ship is secured to the upper part of the port. 
 
 MY'A. (Gr. nvmv, a muscle.) A name applied by Lin- 
 nseus to a genus of the Vermes tcstacea, including those 
 having a bivalve shell, characterized by a hinge with broad, 
 thick, and strong teeth, seldom more than one, and not in- 
 serted into the opposite valve ; shell generally gaping at 
 one end. The Mollusks thus characterized form the first 
 family (JWyacea) of the tribe Inclusa, among the Acepha- 
 lous Testacea of Cuvier. They have been subdivided into 
 the genera Mya proper, Lutraria, Lam., Jlnatina, Lam., 
 Solemya, Lam., Olydmeris, Lam., Panopasa, Lam., Pando- 
 ra, Lam. The true Mya; include that species of the genus 
 Vnio, llru^., which is celebrated by Tacitus for producing 
 pearls, and which is indigenous in some of the rivers of 
 Scotland and England. 
 
 MYCE'LIA. {V.r. hvkiis, afunipis.) The young floccu- 
 lent filaments of fungi. 
 
 MYDRIASIS. (Gr.) A paralytic affection of the iris 
 of the eye. 
 
 MY'ELENCE'PHALA. (Gr. t wc\6s, marrow, and cy*c- 
 f*>n\ov, brain.) The name indicative of the condition of 
 the nervous system of the primary division of" animals, 
 comprehending those which have a brain and spinal chord ; 
 it is synonymous with Vertebrata. 
 
 MY KLONEU'RA. (Gr. pucXd;, marroie, anil vcvpov, 
 nerve.) A name given by Rudolphi to a group of animals 
 corresponding to the Artirulata of Cuvier, viz. Crustacea, 
 Insects, and Anellides, which have a gangliated nervous 
 system, forming a chord considered to be analagous to the 
 *pin»l marrow of Vertebrates. 
 
 MY'LO. (Gr. ptJXij, a grinder tooth.) Names compound 
 ed of this word are applied to certain muscles attached 
 near the grinder teeth, as mytuhyjidcus, mylopharyngc- 
 *s, &c. 
 
 806 
 
 MYRTACE.E. 
 
 MYO'LOGY. (Gr. nvwv, a muscle ; \oyoe, a discoursed 
 The doctrine of the muscles. In the Fine Arts, the term 
 is applied to a description of the muscles of animals. 
 
 MY'OPS. (Gr. [tvwip; from fivw, J wink, and u\p, the 
 eye.) A person who is purblind or near-sighted. This de- 
 fect usually arises from too great convexity of the cornea, 
 causing the rays to come to a focus before they arrive at 
 the retina. It is corrected by the use of glasses which in- 
 crease the divergency of the rays before they enter the 
 comea, and thereby throw their focus farther back, so as 
 to fall on the retina. 
 
 MY'RIAD. (Gr. /xvpiag.) Ten thousand. Often used 
 as expressive of an indefinite multitude. 
 
 MYRIAME'TRE. A French measure equal to ten thou- 
 sand meters ; it is the equivalent of two leagues of the old 
 measure. See Measures. 
 
 MY'RIAPODS, Jilyriapoda. (Gr. pvpiac, ten thousand, 
 and ttovc, foot.) The name of a class of Articulate ani- 
 mals, including those which have an indeterminate num- 
 ber of jointed feet, equalling that of the articulations of the 
 body. 
 
 MYRI'CIN. That portion of was which is insoluble in 
 alcohol. The wax of the Myrica cerifera affords it. 
 
 MYRIOLI'TRE. A French measure of capacity equal 
 to ten thousand litres, or 610,280 cubic inches. 
 
 MYRISTICA'CE^E. (M}Tistica, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of arborescent Exogens inhabiting the trop- 
 ics. This has been placed, on account of its apetalous 
 flowers, in Lauracete ; from which it is distinguished by 
 the structure of the calyx, anthers, and fruit. Brown places 
 it betweenProteacfa; and Lauracecc ; but the order appears 
 rather to be an apetalous form of Annonacea:, with which 
 the trimerous flowers, arillate seed, runcinated albumen, 
 minute embryo, and peculiar properties almost identify it. 
 The bark generally abounds in an acrid juice, which is 
 viscid and stains red. The rind of the fruit is caustic ; the 
 aril and albumen of Myristica moschata, the former known 
 under the name of mace and the latter of nutmeg, are im- 
 portant aromatics, abounding in a fixed oil of a consistence 
 analogous to fat, which, in a species called Virola sebifera, 
 is so copious as to be extracted easily by immersing the 
 seeds in hot water. 
 
 MYRMECO'BIUS. (Gr. uvpunl ant; /3<Aj, life.) A 
 gens of Marsupial quadrupeds which feed on ants. The 
 only known species, Myrmccobius fasciatus, is a native of 
 Australia. 
 
 MYRMECO'PHAGA. (Gr. uvpuvl, and d>ayu>, I eat.) 
 The name of a genus of Edentate quadrupeds which feed 
 on ants, and are called ant-eaters. They are peculiar to 
 the continent of South America. 
 
 MYRMELEO'NIDES. (Gr. pvpuvl. &n d *£<•»', tan.) 
 The family of insects commonly called ant-lions, having 
 the genus Myrmeleon as the type. 
 
 MY'RMIDONS. In Classical Mythology, a people on 
 the southern borders of Thesealy, who accompanied Achil- 
 les to the Trojan war. Their name is derived by the my- 
 cologists from fivpii>il, an ant ; and they were said to have 
 arisen from ants, or pismires, in answer to a prayer of 
 CEacus, king of the country, to Jupiter, after his kingdom 
 had been depopulated by a pestilence. 
 
 MYRMILLO'NES. In Roman Antiquity, a species of 
 gladiators, who fought completely armed against the Ecti- 
 arii. Their arms consisted of a sword, headpiece, and 
 shield. On the top of the headpiece they wore a fish em- 
 bossed, called fiipfivpoc, whence, in all probability, their 
 name is derived. The Myrmillones were also termed 
 Galli, from their wearing Gallic armour ; and Scutatorcs, 
 from the shield by which they were defended. 
 
 MYRO'BALANS. (Gr. /ivpoc, an ointment, and 0a\avoc, 
 a nut; because formerly used in the preparation of un- 
 guents.) A bitterish austere fruit, brought from India, the 
 produce of several species of JMyrobalanus. Myrobalans 
 are used by the Hindoos in calico printing and medicine ; 
 they were also formerly employed in Europe (though to a 
 comparatively trifling extent) in the arts and pharmacy. 
 
 MYRRH. This gum resin is imported from Turkey: it 
 is in regular tears and lumps, of a reddish brown colour, a 
 fragrant odour, and a warm but bitter taste. It is probably 
 the produce of a species of Jlmyris, said to be a native of 
 Abyssinia and Arabia Felix. It is a good stimulating tonic 
 medicine, and is given in doses of from five to twenty 
 L'niiiis. 
 
 M Y HTA'CE./E (Lat. myrtus), are an important natural 
 order of Polypetalous Exogenous plants, of a woody tex- 
 ture, and frequently forming small trees, found in all tropi- 
 cal and temperate countries, where they are often culti- 
 vated for the sake of their valuable aromatic properties. 
 The spices cloves and pimento are produced by some spe- 
 cies; the agreeable fruits called guava, jamrosaiie, and rose- 
 apples are yielded by others; while the enormous gum- 
 trees, or Eucalypti, of New Holland, and the Mclmuca, 
 w bJch furnishes the siLmulalijig green oil of cajeput, also
 
 MYRTLE. 
 
 belong to the order. Myrtacem are nearly related to the 
 Onagraceous order, from which they differ in having an 
 indefinite number of stamens ; and to Melastomacea, which 
 have rostrate inflected anthers and ribbed leaves. Their 
 most essential characters are to have polypetalous, calyci- 
 floral flowers, indefinite stamens, round erect anthers, in- 
 ferior fruit, and dotted leaves with an intra-marginal vein. 
 
 MYRTLE. (Mart, the Persian name, whence fivproi.) 
 An evergreen fragrant bush, inhabiting all the warmer 
 parts of the basin of the Mediterranean and of the west of 
 Asia. It was considered sacred to Venus, and is at this 
 day regarded with superstitious reverence by the Persian 
 peasant. In the latitude of London the myrtle will en- 
 dure the climate only in the warmest and most sheltered 
 spots. 
 
 MYSTACI'NEjE. (Gr. ftvaral, moustache.) The name 
 of a family of Infusories of the tribe Trichoda, including 
 those which have superficial cilia, or fine, hair-like pro- 
 cesses, disposed in groups. Many species of animals de- 
 rive their trivial name from the same root, as the Vesper- 
 tilio mystacinus, or whiskered bat ; the Caprimulgus mys- 
 ticalis, or bearded goat-sucker ; the Cypselus mystaceus, or 
 bearded swift, &c. 
 
 MYSTERIES, SACRED. (The word mystery has been 
 by some traced to the Hebrew *ir\Di t0 hide, whence mys- 
 tar, a thing concealed ; formed from which is the Gr. 
 pvarnpiov, old French mestiei — English mystery, and old 
 English mistar, a trade or craft, the learning of which was 
 something occult and mysterious ; but the more direct deri- 
 vation appears to be from the Gr. fivcw.) The word mystery 
 is primarily used in speaking of certain truths set forth in 
 the Old and New Testament, to the full understanding of 
 which human reason cannot attain. Thus all the Old 
 Testament figures and prophecies were mysteries to the 
 greater part of the Jews, until they received their accom- 
 plishment in Christ. Among the mysteries set forth in the 
 New Testament the most prominent are, the doctrine of 
 the satisfaction of Christ, the forgiveness of sins for the 
 sake of his sufferings, and eternal life in a future world ; 
 the spiritual union between Christ and his church; the 
 grace of Jesus Christ in its operation on our hearts ; and 
 the resurrection from the dead. 
 
 But the greatest of sacred or scripture mysteries is, doubt- 
 less, the incarnation of the Son of God : the advent of 
 Christ in the fulness of time, of the seed of Israel, and his 
 participation in our nature, according to the flesh ; " being 
 in the likeness of man," and "found in fashion as a man," 
 but " very God of very God," " God over all, blessed for- 
 ever." "The Word was with God and teas God-," says 
 John ; " and the Word was made flesh." This is the 
 mystery, and, " without controversy, great is the mystery 
 of godliness" (or God-likeness), God, manifest in the flesh," 
 or " God was manifest in the flesh," as the most correct 
 reading is held to be — Otoe ctpavepMtx cv caput. 
 
 These are some of the numerous mysteries scattered 
 throughout the Old and New Testaments, and which right- 
 ly come under the denomination of sacred mysteries. For 
 an account of profane mysteries, see infra. 
 
 MYS'TERIES, PROFANE. In the religions of Pagan 
 antiquity, the secret rites and ceremonies performed by a 
 select few in honour of some divinity were so called. 
 " Each of the Pagan gods," says Bishop Warburton, " had, 
 besides the public and open, a secret worship paid them, 
 into which none were admitted but those who had been 
 selected by preparatory ceremonies, called initiation ; and 
 this secret worship was termed the mysteries." The first 
 mysteries of which we have any account were those of 
 Isis and Osiris in Egypt ; whence they were introduced 
 into Greece and Italy, and in process of time disseminated 
 through the northern and western nations of Europe. 
 
 A very clear and concise account of the Egyptian myste- 
 ries has been given by Sir G. Wilkinson, in his Manners 
 and Customs of the Jincient Egyptians, of which the fol- 
 lowing abstract will convey their peculiarities and import- 
 ance : " The Egyptian mysteries consisted of two degrees, 
 denominated greater and less ; and to become qualified for 
 admission into the higher class the aspirant must have 
 passed through those of the inferior degree. The priests 
 alone could arrive at a thorough knowledge of the greater 
 mysteries ; but so sacred were these secrets held that many 
 members of the sacerdotal order were not admitted to a 
 participation in them at all, and those alone were selected 
 for initiation who had proved themselves virtuous and de- 
 serving of the honour." " The Egyptians," says Clement of 
 Alexandria, " neither intrusted their mysteries to every 
 one, nor degraded the secrets of divine matters by disclo- 
 sinc them to the profane, reserving them for the heir-ap- 
 parent* of the throne, and for such of the priests as excel- 
 
 * The kings of Egypt were the hi»h priests of the nation, and by virtue of 
 this office were partakers of these secrets ; but if previously to ascending the 
 throne they bad been, which was frequently the case, members of the mili- 
 
 MYSTERIES, PROFANE. 
 
 led in virtue and wisdom." But there can be little doubt 
 that at a later period the same liberality as to the admis- 
 sion of the laity which characterized the Eleusinian and 
 other mysteries prevailed in Egypt, and that many laymen, 
 and even some foreigners, were admitted to the lesser mys- 
 teries. 
 
 Of the origin of the Orphean and Eleusinian mysteries 
 we have already spoken briefly, under their respective 
 heads ; but it has occmred to us that a more detailed ac- 
 count of the nature and ceremonies of the latter, more es- 
 pecially as with a few modifications, arising from the dif- 
 ferent habits of different nations, they constitute the great 
 models on which all succeeding mysteries were formed, 
 might not be considered out of place. These festivals 
 were instituted at Eleusis, in honour of Ceres and Proser- 
 pine ; the former of whom was believed to have taught 
 the inhabitants the art of agriculture and the holy doctrine 
 —a doctrine which was said not only to purify the heart 
 from sin, and expel ignorance from the mind, but to insure 
 also the favour of the gods, and to open the gates of im- 
 mortal felicity to the initiated. The mysteries, like those 
 of Egypt, were of two kinds— the less and the greater — 
 held at two different periods of the year, and at two dif- 
 ferent places : the lesser, which were introductory to the 
 greater, being celebrated at Agra, on the banks of the 
 Ilyssus ; the greater at Eleusis. The celebration of the 
 greater mysteries occupied nine days, chiefly devoted to 
 sacrifices, processions, and other acts of worship; and 
 during this period the judicial tribunals were closed ; an 
 armistice was proclaimed ; private enmities were hushed ; 
 and death was decreed by the Athenian senate against any 
 one, how high soever in rank, who should disturb the 
 sanctity of the rites. The ceremonies of initiation into 
 both the lesser and greater mysteries were conducted by 
 four priests of the most illustrious families of Greece, 
 called Hierophant, Dadouchos, Hierokeryx, and Epidomias : 
 and these again were assisted by numerous inferior function- 
 aries, to whom various appellations were given indicative 
 of their several duties. The examination of those who had 
 been purified by the lesser mysteries, and who were pre- 
 paring for the greater, was apparently rigorous. All foreign- 
 ers, all who had even involuntarily committed homicide, 
 who had been declared infamous by the laws, or had been 
 guilty of a notorious crime, were excluded ; but these regu- 
 lations were not immutable ; for various instances might 
 be produced to show that homicides and robbers were 
 sometimes initiated.* Women and children were admissi- 
 ble ; and a child, styled the child of holiness, whose inno- 
 cence, it was believed, of itself endowed him with capaci- 
 ty to fulfil the requirements of the mysteries, was selected 
 to conciliate the deity in the name of the initiated. 
 
 Of the ceremonies which attended the initiation we 
 know little ; since every postulant was required, under the 
 most dreadful oaths, to conceal whatever he saw or heard 
 within the hallowed precincts ; and he who violated the 
 oaths was not only put to death, but devoted to the exe- 
 cration of all posterity. Yet the priests of ancient, like 
 the Freemasons of modern times, could not prevent the dis- 
 closure of some facts. Crowned with myrtle, and enveloped 
 in robes, which from this day were preserved as sacred 
 relics, the novices were conducted beyond the boundary 
 impassable to the rest of men. The hierophant, with his 
 symbols of supreme deity, and his three assistants, repre- 
 senting the three other gods, were carefully visible. Lest 
 any should have been introduced not sufficiently prepared for 
 the rites, the herald exclaimed, " Far from hence the pro- 
 fane, the impious, all who are polluted by sin !" If any 
 such were present, and did not instantly depart, death was 
 the never-failing doom. The skins of new-slain victims 
 were now placed under the feet of the novices, the ritual 
 of initiation w r as read, and hymns were chanted in honour 
 of Ceres. The novices moved on, while a deep sound 
 rose from beneath as if the earth itself were complaining ; 
 the thunder pealed ; the lightning flashed ; and spectres 
 glided through the vast obscurity, moaning, sighing, and 
 groaning. Mysterious shades, the messengers of the in- 
 fernal deities — Anguish, Madness, Famine, Disease, and 
 Death — flitted around ; and the explanations of the hiero- 
 phant, delivered in a solemn voice, added to the horrors of 
 the scene. This was intended as a representation of the 
 infernal regions, where misery had its seat. As they ad- 
 vanced, amidst the groans which issued from the darkness 
 were distinguished those of the suicides — thus punished for 
 
 tary class (one of the four great castes into which the Egyptians, like the 
 Hindoos, were divided), they were required by the law to be admitted into the 
 sacerdotal order, and instructed in all the secret learning of the priests, pre- 
 viously to exercising their priestly office. 
 
 * It has been said that the division of the Elusinlan Mysteries into the lesser 
 and great arose from the expiatory ablutions and other ceremonies which 
 were imposed upon Hercules, when he asrjired to initiation after killing the 
 centaurs; but it is more probable that this division, which, as we have re- 
 marked above, was common with them to the Egyptian mysteries, was coe- 
 val with their introduction into Greece. 
 
 807
 
 MYSTERIES, PROFANE. 
 
 cowardly deserting the post which the gods had assigned 
 them in this world. But the scenes which the novices had 
 hitherto beheld seemed to be a sort of purgatory, where 
 penal fires and dire anguish, and the unutterable horrors 
 of darkness, were believed, after countless ages of sutler- 
 ing, tu purity from the guilt acquired in this mortal life. 
 Suddenly the bursting open of two vast gates, with a ter- 
 rific sound, dimly displayed to their sight, and faintly bore 
 to their ears, the torments of those whose state was ever- 
 lasting — who had passed the bounds beyond which there is 
 no hope. On the horrors of this abode of anguish and 
 despair a curtain may be dropped ; the subject is unuttera- 
 ble. Onwards proceeded the novices, and were soon con- 
 ducted into another region ; that of everlasting bliss, the 
 sojourn of the just — of those whose hearts had been puri- 
 fied and whose minds had been enlightened by " the holy 
 doctrine." This was Elysium — the joys of which were 
 equally unutterable, equally incomprehensible, to mortals 
 not admitted into these mysteries. Here a veil was in 
 like manner thrown over this scene. (Cabinet Cyclopedia, 
 vol.61. 
 
 Like most other questions of this nature, the origin and 
 purpose of these religious institutions are involved in the 
 deepest obscurity; and all the efforts of the learned that 
 have been directed to the elucidation of this question in all 
 ages, but more particularly in modern times, have ended 
 only in unprofitable conjecture. Referring to the disserta- 
 tions of Bishop Warburton and Dr. Leland for the chief 
 views that have been entertained respecting them, we may 
 here briefly observe, that though the mysteries seem to have 
 been instituted for the purpose of enlightening the initiated 
 as to the hidden meaning of religious doctrines and usages 
 of which the great mass of the people were kept in igno- 
 rance, there are no means of approximating even to a con- 
 jecture as to the real nature of the doctrine taught in the 
 mysteries, or the advantages of initiation. Were this the 
 place for such discussions, we think it might be satisfactorily 
 proved that mysteries must form an indispensable part in 
 the religious ceremonies of every people who have attained 
 to a certain degree of civilization. The mythological sys- 
 tems of antiquity were too gross, and the fables of which 
 they were composed too senseless, to be believed by any one 
 into whose mind the light of philosophy had dawned ; and 
 accordingly we find that many of the most distinguished 
 persons embraced and inculcated in private (see Mono- 
 theism) the most heterodoxical opinions respecting the na- 
 tional faith. These opinions were well known to the priests, 
 many of whom were too enlightened to credit the delusions 
 of which they were the ministers, and who might well 
 tremble for the farther spread of doctrines which must 
 inevitably prove fatal to their influence. It became, there- 
 fore, a matter of state policy to divert into nnother channel 
 those feelings of religious infidelity which, if communicated 
 to the vulgar, might have ended in popular disturbances ; 
 and hence, in all probability, mysteries were instituted, 
 which, while they ministered to the pride and vanity of 
 human reason by elevating the initiated above the preju- 
 dices of ordinary persons, and gave as it were the sanction 
 of the state to the entertainment of heterodoxical opinions, 
 no less gratified the vulgar by the splendid shows and cere- 
 monies of which they were the vehicle, at the same time 
 that they held out the prospect of initiation to all who might 
 be deemed worthy of the honour. (In addition to the works 
 already quoted, see Sir G. Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, 
 vol. ii. p. 322-332., 2d Series; and the authorities there 
 referred to.) 
 
 My'steries. In Modern Literature, a species of dramatic 
 composition, with characters and events drawn from sacred 
 history. Saint Gregory Nazianzen composed the earliest 
 sacred dramas extant, on the model of the Greek tragedies, 
 but with Christian hymns substituted for the ancient chorus. 
 The mysteries of the middle ages are thought by some to 
 have been first introduced by pilgrims returning from the 
 Holy Land. Tiny originated among, and were probably 
 first performed by, ecclesiastics. However serious and 
 solemn the events which were represented in these sin- 
 gular compositions, there were invariably, in the later mys- 
 teries, two characters introduced to make sport tor tin mul- 
 titude: namely, the Devil and the Vice — a personage ac- 
 coutred in a long jerkin, a cap with ass's ears, anil a 
 dagger of lath. He is now best remembered by the allu- 
 sions to his character and ollice in the plays of Shaks 
 peare. Miracles, or miracle-plays, were a species of mys 
 tery: they are usually said to have represented the martyr- 
 dom of saints. In the 16th century, the mysteries were 
 succeeded by moralities; which were much in vogue 
 about the time when the Reformation made its chief pro- 
 gross in England. The characters in moralities were 
 allegorical personages. Several of these performances, 
 some by no me;ins destitute of poetical merit, remain t" 
 us. They may be considered as the last step in the pro- 
 gress made by the dramatic art in modern Europe, before 
 808 
 
 NABULUM. 
 
 it reached the station and character which it has ever 
 since retained. 
 
 MYSTICISM. In Religion, a word of verv %-ague sig- 
 nification, applied, for the most part, indiscriminately to all 
 those views or tendencies in religion which aspire towards 
 a more direct communication between man and God, not 
 through the medium of the senses, but tlrrough the in- 
 ward perception of the mind, than that which is afforded 
 us through revelation. Thus, the Pantheism of the an- 
 cient philosophers and many modern religionists, which 
 supposed a God existing in all space and matter, and re- 
 vealed to us in the outward manifestations of things ; the 
 Quietism of Madame Guyon, Fenelon, &c, who sought 
 for direct revelation from the Divinity to the believer in a 
 species of ecstasy ; the Pietism of Molinos, &c. ; the doc- 
 trines of the Illuminati in Germany; the visions of Swe- 
 denborg; and some of the notions prevalent among the 
 Methodists and other sects among ourselves — all approx- 
 imate to mysticism. See, as to the early Christian mys- 
 tics of the East, the first volume of Mosheim ; as to those 
 of the West, the third (transl.) ed., 1790, p. 352. 
 
 MYTHO'LOGY. (Gr. uvt)oi, fable, and \6yo;, discourse.) 
 By the mythology of a people, we understand the collect- 
 ive body of its traditions respecting its gods and other 
 fabulous preternatural beings. The classical mythology, 
 i.e., that of ancient Greece and Rome, being the best 
 known, is most frequently intended, when the word is 
 used without a distinctive addition ; but the mythologies 
 of the ancient Egyptians, of the Hindoos, and of the north- 
 ern nations of Europe, have also been sedulously examined. 
 by modern scholars, and reduced into systems pretty gener- 
 ally known. The learned although singular work of 
 Bryant, Analysis of Ancient Mythology, is a rich repertory 
 of traditions aud doctrines, though arranged with a view 
 to the author's own far-fetched theory. Keightley's My- 
 thology of Ancient Greece and Italy is, perhaps, the most 
 useful manual of those subjects. The work of Creuzer, 
 Symbolik der Allen Vblker, besonders der Griechen, may be 
 considered among the most erudite and valuable of all the 
 books on classical antiquities. An outline of the chief 
 mythological systems of antiquity will be found under the 
 article Polytheism, to which we beg to refer ; and the 
 chief mythological personages are noticed under their 
 particular heads. 
 
 MYTILA'CEANS, Mytilacca. (Gr. hvti\o$, a mussel.) 
 The name of the family of Lamellibranchiate Mollusks, 
 having the genus Mytilus, or common mussel, for its type, 
 and characterized by the mantle being open anteriorly, and 
 by having a foot either sufficiently developed for the office 
 of progressive motion, or serving to draw out, direct, and 
 fix the byssns. 
 
 MY'TILUS. (Gr. ixvtiXoc, a mussel.) A name applied 
 by Linn:eus to all those testaceous Vermes having a bivalve 
 shell, rough, and generally affixed by a byssus, with a hinge, 
 mostly without teeth, generally with a subulate, excavated, 
 longitudinal line. The species comprehended under the 
 above phrase are placed by Cuvier in the Testaceous 
 order of Acephalous Mollusks, and have been subdivided 
 into the genus Mytilus proper, of which the common 
 edible mussel (Mytilus edulis) is an example ; Modiolus, 
 Lam. ; Lithodoinus, Cuv. ; Anodonta, Brug. ; Avicula, Brug. ; 
 Meleagrina, Lam., which produces the most precious 
 pearls. Extensive establishments are maintained at Cey- 
 lon, and other places, for the express purpose of collecting 
 the Meleagrina margaritifera, or pearl oyster. 
 
 MY'XINE. (Gr. iivi,a, mucus.) The name of a genus 
 of Cyclostomous fishes, remarkable for their mucous slip- 
 pery integument : the species called glutinous hag (Myxine 
 glutinosa) is a native of the British seas. Its habits are 
 parasitic, and it is most commonly met with in the interior 
 of a cod upon whose flesh it has been preying. 
 
 N. 
 
 N. One of the liquid series of letters. It is common 
 to all known languages, and is interchangeable, more par- 
 ticularly in the Latin and (ireck languages and those de- 
 rived from them, with a variety of letters. As an abbre- 
 viation X is used tor mirth, niimrro. &c. ; N. B. for vota 
 bene; N. L. for non liquet, (i. c., the cause is not clear 
 enough to pass sentence on) ; N. P. for notarius publicus, 
 &c. 
 
 NA'BLUM. One of the most famous musical instru- 
 ments among the lb-brews; but one whose form and na- 
 ture ;irc so little known that Cilmet thinks it was a harp, 
 Kircher a psaltery or stringed instrument of percussion 
 played on by sticks, and Harmer (Observations on Scrip- 
 ture) hints at its being a bagpipe. By timer (I.yra) says 
 the in In I 03^ was like a leathern bottle, explaining his 
 meaning to be that it bore a resemblance to the ancient
 
 NABOB. 
 
 Greek and Roman lyre, whose body was made of the shell 
 of the tortoise. The authority of Josephus (.int. Jiid., 
 lib. vii., c. 12), if to be relied upon, distinctly shows it 
 with the fingers : his words are, "Hee vaSXa faScica <p6oy- 
 povi exovaa, raiq &aK.7v\oit; Kfoverai. Its having twelve 
 sounds, without telling how those sounds were produced, 
 whether by strings or wind, leaves the matter so doubtful 
 that the reader must decide for himself. 
 
 NABO'B. (A corruption of nawab, from naib, a deputy.) 
 The title of the governor of a province or commander of 
 an army, in India, under the domination of the Moguls. 
 The nabob was, properly speaking, a subordinate provin- 
 cial governor under the subahdar ; i. e., governor of a 
 subah, or larger province. In the decay of the Mogul 
 empire, many of the nabobs became virtually independent, 
 until their dominions were reduced by the English. The 
 term nabob is vulgarly applied to those Europeans who 
 have amassed a large fortune in the East Indies, and live 
 in eastern splendour. 
 
 NA'CARAT. (Span, nacar, mother of pearl.) A term 
 applied to a pale red colour with an orange cast. The 
 ■nacarat of Portugal is a crape of fine linen fabric, dyed 
 fugitively of this tint, which is used by ladies to give their 
 countenances a roseate hue. The brightest red crapes 
 of this kind are manufactured by the Turks of Constan- 
 tinople. (Ure's Dictionary of Arts.) See Rouge. 
 
 NA'CREOUS. (Fr. nacre, pearl.) In Zoology, when 
 the surface of a shell or other part reflects iridescent light 
 
 NA'CRITE. (Fr. nacre.) A mineral of a pearly lustre, 
 found crystallized in granite. It is a silicate of alumina 
 and potassa. 
 
 NA'DIR. (Arab, nazeer, opposite.) In Astronomy and 
 Geography, the point of the heavens diametrically oppo- 
 site to the zenith. The zenith and nadir are the two 
 poles of the horizon. 
 
 NjE'NIA. In Roman Antiquities, a funeral dirge sung 
 to the music of flutes. It is also the name of the Roman 
 goddess who presided over lamentations. 
 
 N.-E'VL'S. A natural spot or mark upon the skin of 
 children at birth. 
 
 NAI'ADS. (Gr. vaiw, I inhabit, or raw, I flow.) In the 
 ancient Roman and Greek Mythology, female deities who 
 presided over fountains, rivers, brooks, &.C. The number 
 of these goddesses was indefinite. In his Georgics (book 
 iv.) Virgil enumerates 16 ; and Ovid, in his Elegies (book 
 iii., 64) speaks of at least 100 in the river Anio. The most 
 beautiful of the Naiads is said to have been Aigle ( Virg., 
 Ec. 6). Many of the Homeric heroes are represented to 
 have been the offspring of these deities. 
 
 NAILS. (Germ, nagel.) This term is given to the 
 terminal horny appendages of the fingers and toes when 
 they are in the form of flattened. or depressed plates, 
 serving to support a broad tactile surface, as in the human 
 fingers. When these appendages are compressed, curved, 
 pointed, and extended beyond the digit, they are called 
 "talons," or "claws;" when they encase the extremity 
 of a digit like a box, they are called " hoofs." 
 
 NA'IS. (Gr. vaias, a naiad.) The name of a genus of 
 minute Abranchiate Anellides, or red-blooded worms, 
 remarkable for their powers of reproducing parts of the 
 body when mutilated ; and for procreating their kind by 
 spontaneous separation of the hinder segments of the trunk. 
 
 NAl'VETE (Fr.), is applied to a certain indescribable 
 grace in the female character, resulting from a union of 
 great natural shrewdness, unaffected simplicity, and, to a 
 certain extent, a disregard of the conventional forms and 
 usages of societv. 
 
 NA'KED FLOORING. In Architecture, the timber work 
 of a floor, which supports the boarding or ceiling, or both. 
 
 NAME. (Lat. nomen ; Germ, nome ; Fr. nom.) The 
 designation by which any individual is known. The cus- 
 tom adopted in personal nomenclature has been based on 
 some uniform principle since the earliest ages ; modified, 
 however, by the varying circumstances of different coun- 
 tries, and according to the more or less advanced state of 
 civilization of every people. Thus, in the early state of 
 society of the Jews, Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, 
 Germans, Gauls, Britons, and indeed of every nation, no 
 individual had more than one name ; but in a more ad- 
 vanced or refined period, one or more additional names 
 were given, in order to mark the different families to 
 which individuals belonged, as well as to distinguish 
 members of the same family from each other. To effect 
 these objects the ancient Romans, at least those of good 
 family, generally used three names— the pranomen, the 
 ■nomen, and the cognomen ; the first, which was given on 
 the assumption of the toga r iritis, marked the individual, 
 like our Christian name; the second distinguished the 
 gens (which see;, and the third the familia (which see), 
 to which he belonged. To these, however, was some- 
 times added a fourth name, called the agnomen, which 
 was derived from some distinguishing peculiarities in each 
 
 NAPIER'S RODS. 
 
 individual's character or condition ; thus Publius Cornelius 
 Scipio was named .Ifricanus from his exploits in Africa. 
 The mode of designation adopted in all the countries of 
 modern Europe is founded on a principle somewhat ana- 
 logous to that of ancient Rome; with this prominent dif- 
 ference, that in the former no nomen or clan appellation 
 intervenes between the prunomen (or Christian name) and 
 the cognomen (or surname). It would be difficult to give 
 any satisfactory reasons for the adoption of the Christian 
 and surnames most commonly met with among ourselves. 
 Those who are inclined to prosecute inquiry into this com- 
 paratively untouched subject, will find some ingenious 
 hints for their guidance in the Penny Cyclopaedia (art 
 " Names, Proper"), to which we beg to refer. See Sur- 
 name. 
 
 NA'NDU. The name of the American ostrich (Rhea 
 Americana.) See Rhea. 
 
 NANKEE'N. A yellowish or buff-coloured cotton cloth, 
 largely manufactured at Nankin, in China. Its colour is 
 that of the cotton wool of which it is manufactured. They 
 are sometimes bleached, and then they are called white 
 nankeens. Imitation nankeens are manufactured at Man- 
 chester ; but it is admitted these are of an inferior quality 
 to the Chinese, neither lasting so long, nor holding their 
 colour so well. 
 
 NANTES, EDICT OF. See Edict. 
 
 NA'OS, or NAVE. (Gr. vads, a temple, or vav;, a vessel.) 
 In Architecture, that part of a temple enclosed by the 
 walls. The part in front of it was called pronaos, and 
 that in the rear posticum. In modern architecture, it is 
 the middle part or alley of a church, between the aisles or 
 wings. 
 
 NA'PHTHA. A limpid bitumen, which exudes from 
 the earth upon the shores of the Caspian and some other 
 eastern countries. Near the village of Amiano, in the 
 state of Parma, there exists a spring which yields this 
 substance in sufficient quantity to illuminate the city of 
 Genoa, for which purpose it is employed. It has a peculiar 
 odour, and generally a yellow colour, but may be rendered 
 colourless by distillation. Its specific gravity is about 0.75. 
 It boils at about 160°. It is highly inflammable, burning 
 with a white smoky flame. It appears to be a compound 
 of 36 of carbon with 5 of hydrogen, and is therefore a pure 
 hydro-carbon. A liquid very similar to mineral naphtha 
 is* obtained by the distillation of coal tar. It has sometimes 
 been used in lamps, but is apt to smoke. This variety of 
 naphtha is in great request as a solvent for caoutchouc. 
 
 NA'PHTHA'LAMIDE. A compound obtained by dis- 
 tilling napthalate of ammonia. 
 
 NAPHTHA'LIC ACID. A crystalline product, resem- 
 bling in appearance benzoic acid, obtained by Laurent from 
 naphthaline. 
 
 NATHTHALIXE. A substance formed during the de- 
 structive distillation of pit-coal for the production of gas. 
 It is obtained by re-distilling the coal tar. It is a white 
 crystalline substance, heavier than water, and of a peculiar 
 aromatic odour. It is extremely volatile, fusing at 180°, and 
 its vapour condenses in large white flaky crystals. It burns 
 with much smoke, and dissolves in alchohol and ether. It 
 consists of 60 carbon, 4 hydrogen, and is therefore a hydro- 
 carbon. It combines with sulphuric acid to form the svi- 
 pho-naphthalic acid. 
 
 NAPIER'S RODS, or BONES. An instrument contrived 
 by the celebrated Lord Napier, the inventor of the loga- 
 rithms, for the purpose of performing mechanically the arith- 
 metical operations of multiplication and division. Napier's 
 rods consist of small squared pieces of bone or ivory, box 
 or silver, about 3 inches long, and 3-10ths of an inch in 
 breadth, the faces of which are divided into nine little 
 squares or cells, each of which is parted by a diagonal into 
 two triangles. Thus :
 
 NAPLES YELLOW. 
 
 On these cells are engraved the successive columns of 
 the common multiplication table, in such a manner that the 
 units, or right-hand figures, are found in the right-hand tri- 
 angle, and the tens, or left-hand figmes, in the left-hand tri- 
 angle. 
 As an example of the manner in which the rods are used, 
 let it he required to multiply the 
 5 numbers of 6195 by 4676. Select 
 the rods which have the figures 
 of the multiplicand inscribed at 
 9_ the top, and place them in their 
 order, with the index rod before 
 them, when they will stand as in 
 the table annexed. Then, oppo- 
 site to the several figures of the 
 multiplier, 4876, on the index, but 
 proceeding backwards, take the 
 numbers in each horizontal co- 
 lumn ; add the pair of digits in 
 each rhombus formed by the ad- 
 jacent triangles of two contiguous 
 cells ; and finally, collect into one 
 sum the rows of the products cor- 
 responding to each digit of the 
 multiplier, transcribed and pro- 
 perly disposed, as under : — 
 
 40770 
 475G5 
 54360 
 27180 
 
 331324-20 
 
 Here, opposite to 6, the last digit of the multiplier, and 
 proceeding from the right along the horizontal column, there 
 occur the figures — first, 0, then 3 and 4, or 7 ; 5 and 2, or 7 ; 
 4 and 6, or 10; and lastly, writing down the cipher, and 
 carrying 1 to 3, we get 4. These collected together give 
 40 i/O for the product of 6795 by 6. In the same manner 
 the other rows are formed, which, being added in the usual 
 manner, the product of the two given numbers is obtained. 
 It is obvious that this method of calculation is much too 
 tedious to be of any real use. 
 
 NA'PLES YELLOW. A celebrated yellow pigment, 
 formerly made by a secret process at Naples, and used not 
 only in oil painting, but as an enamel colour; it is said to 
 be a mixture of the oxides of antimony, lead, and zinc. 
 
 NAPOLEON, CODE OF. It was in 1802, during the 
 temporary calm of the peace of Amiens, that Napoleon, 
 then First Consul, undertook the great task of forming a 
 civil code. It was entrusted to a commission of the coun- 
 sel of state ; of which Tronchet, Rcederer, Portalis, Thibau- 
 deau, Cambaceres, Lebnin, were the leading members. 
 "Tronchet" (said Napoleon himself to Las Casas) "was 
 the soul of the code." (Memoirs, part 3, 234.) And Por- 
 talis has also the credit of a very important share in its 
 composition. But Napoleon himself took a great interest in 
 the subject, and mingled eagerly in the discussions of the 
 commission, as appears by the proces-verbal of these dis- 
 cussions. After all allowances made for the unparalleled 
 flatteries of the Napoleonists, his observations are said to 
 show great intuitive sagacity, much readiness, and a pecu- 
 liarly inquiring disposition, which often led him to the prin- 
 ciples of things, while men of less natural power and trained 
 in a different school were busying themselves unprofitably 
 with the matters on the surface. " I had at first fancied," 
 he says, " it would be possible to reduce all laws to simple 
 geometrical demonstrations, so that every man who could 
 read and conned his ideas together would be able to decide 
 for himself; but 1 became convinced almost immediately 
 after that this idea was absurd." (Las Casas. Mem., part 
 6, 263.) Still, according to himself, he continued to cherish 
 the scarcely less absurd idea, that no other laws might be 
 necessary than those inserted in the code. The second 
 volume of the work of Thibaudeau (Sur le Consulat et I' 
 Empire) is, perhaps, the most useful to consult for the his- 
 tory of these discussions. According to him, the secretary 
 Locre did not in any degree Improve the speeches of the 
 First Consul in bis re|Hjrt. Although the ideas of Napoleon 
 
 himself are said to have entered hugely into the < i] w.si - 
 
 tion of the code, it dors not appear clearly in what Impor- 
 tant particulars this was the case, except in one singular 
 instance, that of the law of divorce (book 1, title 6), the li- 
 berty of which he is said to have greatly promoted. The 
 Code Civil is composed of a great number ot laws, dated 
 from the "14Ventose, anil" (March, 1803), to -I Ventose, 
 an 12 (March, 1804), in which latter month they were unit- 
 ed in a sintrle code ; and which was republished under the 
 empire in 1807. The " Code de Procedure Civile" was put 
 
 in force on the 1st January, 1807; the Code of (' i< rce 
 
 dates from the same year ; the " Code d'Instructlor Crimi- 
 nelle" from November, 1808: the 'Code Penal" from 
 810 
 
 NASAL. 
 
 February, 1310 ; which last is a revision of the "Code Pe- 
 nal" and "Code des Dl lits et des Peines" of the Revolu- 
 tion. But the "Code Civil" is that to which the term 
 '• Code Napoleon" is in common language particularly ap- 
 plied. It consists of three books: the first ot' "persona," 
 subdivided under eleven titles ; the second " of goods (biens) 
 and the different modifications of property," comprising four 
 titles ; the third " of the different manners in which property 
 is acquired," with twenty titles. These last are again sub- 
 divided into chapters and sections ; and the whole code 
 consists of articles numbered in arithmetical order through 
 the whole, in all 2281. The most important provisions of 
 the code as to the civil state of persons are those relating to 
 marriage and divorce. With regard to property, its funda- 
 mental law is that of equal succession by heir, the abolition 
 of most distinctions between landed and moveable projierty, 
 and the restraint imposed by it on the testamentary power : 
 making in all a system " fundamentally at variance with that 
 of all the other states of Europe, and of which the ultimate 
 consequences are destined to be more important than any 
 of the other changes brought about by the Revolution." 
 Ui/lison's History of the French Revolution, vol. vi.) But 
 in this respect the Code Napoleon merely consolidated the 
 revolutionary laws already existing. Sec Code. 
 
 NA'POLITE. A blue mineral from Vesuvius. 
 
 NARCE'IA. (Gr. vapxrj, torpor.) A vegeto-alkaline 
 base contained in opium, and discovered by Pelletier in 
 1832. Its salts have the peculiarity of being blue in a cer- 
 tain degree of concentration, and on adding successive quan- 
 tities of water to them the colour changes to violet and red, 
 and lastly disappears. By this character, and by its easy 
 fusibility (at 198°), it is distinguished from the other prin- 
 ciples with which it is associated. Its medical virtues have 
 not been ascertained, nor has its equivalent number beeu 
 determined. 
 
 NARCISSI'S. In Mythology, the beautiful son of Cephe- 
 sus and the nymph Liriope, whose history formed one of the 
 most favourite topics with the poets of classical antiquity. 
 Though beloved by all the Grecian nymphs, he treated 
 them with contemptuous indifference ; but having acciden- 
 tally seen his own image reflected in a fountain, he became 
 so enamoured of it that he languished till he died, and thus 
 realized the prophecy of Tiresias, that he should live until 
 he saw himself. After his death the gods, moved with 
 compassion for his fate, changed him into the flower which 
 bears his name. 
 
 Narcissus. In Botany, a genus of Endogens, belonging 
 to the natural order of Jlmarylliilacea, "among which it is 
 known by its flowers growing upon a scape, and having a 
 cup at their mouth," the stamens opposite the sepals being 
 longer than the others. The species are very numerous ; 
 and from their delicate shape, soft and various colour, and 
 sweet scent, have long been favourite objects of cultivation, 
 especially the daffodils, jonquils, and tazzettas. Some of 
 the more hardy species grow wild in our woods and under 
 our hedges ; but the finer sorts are natives of more southern 
 latitudes. 
 
 NARCOTICS. (Gr. vapxn, torpor.) Medicines which 
 produce drowsiness, sleep, and stupor. They appear, in the 
 first instance, to act as stimulants, quickening the pulse, and 
 rousing the energy of the nervous system, and, in very small 
 doses, this is their most obvious operation. In larger doses 
 these effects are followed by a tranquil state of mind, tor- 
 por, and even coma. Considerable skill and experience are 
 required in the successful administration of these medi- 
 cines, both as regards the cases in which they are to be 
 prescribed, the doses in which they are to be given, and the 
 peculiarities of habit which often interfere with and modify 
 their usual effects. They are to be distinguished from sc- 
 datives, which do not produce preliminary excitement. Opi- 
 um is a narcotic, henbane a sedative. 
 
 NARCO'TINE. (Gr. vapxn.) A crystallized substance, 
 obtained by digesting the aqueous extract of opium in ether, 
 and evaporating the ethereal solution. It was discovered in 
 1803 by Derosne, and supposed to be the narcotic principle 
 of opium ; but this has since been shown to reside more 
 exclusively in morphia, and narcotine is possessed rather of 
 stimulant qualities, and is the cause, perhaps, of the excite- 
 ment which opiui sessions. It consists of 65 carbon, 5'50 
 
 hydrogen, 55*50 nitrogen, and 27 oxygen. 
 
 NARRATION. (Lat. narro, / tell.) In Rhetoric, the 
 term usually applied to the second division of on oratorical 
 discourse, in which the tacts of the case are set forth from 
 which the orator intends to draw his conclusions. This part 
 of a discourse should be characterized by the greatest sim- 
 plicity of style, as well as by absence of all rhetorical orna- 
 ments. 
 
 NARWHAL. The common name of the species of Ce- 
 tacean v. huh has a single long protruded tusk. See Mono- 
 DOK. 
 
 \ \ r S \ 1.. (Lat. nasus, nose.) A nasal pronunciation is 
 given in some languages to particular letters, as in French
 
 NASALIS. 
 
 to the letters n and m in certain positions. The only sound 
 approaching to nasal in English is that of the double con- 
 sonant n g ; as in thing, ring, &lc. 
 
 NASALIS. See Semnopitherus. 
 
 NA'SCENT STATE. Chemists generally apply this 
 term to gaseous bodies at the moment of their evolution, as 
 it were, from liquids or solids, and before they have assumed 
 the aeriform state. There are numerous cases in which 
 bodies having no tendency to combine under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances readily unite when presented to each other in 
 their nascent states. Hydrogen and nitrogen gases, for in- 
 stance, when mixed together, show no disposition to com- 
 bine ; but when certain organic bodies containing those ele- 
 ments are heated, they are evolved in their nascent states, 
 and combine so as to form ammonia ; it is in this way that 
 ammonia is abundantly produced during the destructive dis- 
 tillation of many kinds of animal matter, and of pit coal. 
 
 NESI'LUM (Lat.), among the ancient Romans signified 
 freight, whence it was used for a piece of money put into 
 the mouths of deceased persons to enable them to pay 
 Charon for ferrying them over the Styx. A similar custom 
 prevailed among the Greeks. 
 
 NA'SUA. (Lat. nasus, a nose.) A genus of Plantigrade 
 Mammalia, so called from the remarkable elongation and 
 upward curve of the nose. The species of this genus, JV. 
 rufa, or red coati, and N.fusca, or brown coati, are both na- 
 tives of South America. They climb trees in pursuit of 
 birds, and to rob their nests ; they burrow for shelter at the 
 foot of large trees, and often undermine them to such an 
 extent that they are liable to be overturned even by a slight 
 wind. 
 
 N A'SUTA. (Lat. nasus.) A term in Zoology, signifying 
 the prolongation of the muzzle into the form of a nose, as 
 in the Perameles nasuta, Pleuronectes nasutus, Truxalis 
 nasulus ; or the developemeni of the integument of the 
 face above the muzzle, forming a true nose, as in the pro- 
 boscis monkey, Simla nasuta. Illiger called a family of 
 Multungulate quadrupeds with the nose prolonged beyond 
 the jaws, and moveable, as in the tapir, Nasuta. 
 
 NATA'LIS DIES, Birthday. A day celebrated with 
 much ceremony by the ancients. Of these there were four, 
 which all Roman citizens were bound to observe ; viz. 
 those of the gods, of their emperors, of distinguished per- 
 sons, and their own. On such occasions every Roman was 
 arrayed in white, and in all his ornaments ; among which 
 a ring, called by way of eminence the annulus natalis, was 
 conspicuous. Sacrifices were offered to the genius (which 
 see) of the person ; and the day concluded with a sumptu- 
 ous entertainment, to which friends and kindred were in- 
 vited. 
 
 NATATO'RES. (Lat. nato, I swim.) Swimming birds. 
 The name of the order of birds including those in which 
 the toes are united by a membrane, whence the order is 
 also termed Palmipedes. The legs are placed behind the 
 equilibrium, and the body is covered with a thick coat of 
 down beneath the feathers. 
 
 NA'TATORY. (Lat. nato.) In Zoology when a loco- 
 motive extremity, or other part, is provided with a mem- 
 brane, or with close-set hairs, by which it is adapted for 
 displacing water. 
 
 NA'TION. (Lat.) A collective appellation for a people 
 inhabiting a certain extent of territory under the same go- 
 vernment. The word is also used in some universities by 
 way of distinguishing students of different districts or coun- 
 tries, as the case may be. This latter meaning is borrowed 
 from the custom that was adopted in the University of Pa- 
 ris previously to the institution of faculties, when those who 
 resorted to it from different countries lived under the same 
 institutions and masters, a common country, however, being 
 the only bond of union. 
 
 NATIONAL DEBT. In Political Economy and Finance, 
 the amount of the sums or obligations owing by a nation or 
 state. 
 
 In modern times, it has been customary, in most countries, 
 on the occurrence of any circumstances that occasioned any 
 considerable increase of expense, to borrow either the whole 
 or some portion thereof, paying a certain stipulated interest 
 for the same. In this country, the practice of borrowing 
 money, in order to defray part of the war expenditure, was 
 introduced in the reign of William III. And how much 
 soever opinions may differ as to the policy of borrowing or 
 funding in ordinary times, it could not, at its introduction 
 into Great Britain, be dispensed with. The Revolution in- 
 volved us in a bloody and expensive contest with Louis 
 XIV., then in the zenith of his power, who espoused the 
 cause of the exiled family of Stuart. But, though great and 
 imminent, the danger from without was inferior to that from 
 within. A numerous and powerful party were favorable to 
 the views of the Pretender ; and the imposition of such ad- 
 ditional taxes as would have been required to defray the 
 heavy cost of the contest we were forced to wage for our 
 liberties and religion, would have given a violent shock to 
 
 NATIONAL DEBT. 
 
 industry, and afforded the Jacobites the means of traducing 
 the new government, fomenting popular discontent, and 
 most probably of overturning the revolutionary establish- 
 ment. Under such circumstances, the contraction of a debt 
 was not really a matter of choice, but of necessity. The 
 error, if there have been any, consisted in continuing the 
 system of loans after the new government was firmly es- 
 tablished, and when either the whole or a larger portion of 
 the war expenditure might have been defrayed by taxes 
 raised within the year. 
 
 In the infancy of the funding system, it was customary to 
 borrow upon the security of some tax, or portion of a tax, 
 set apart as a fund for discharging the principal and interest 
 of the sum borrowed. This discharge was, however, very 
 rarely effected. The public exigencies still continuing, the 
 loans were, in most cases, either continued, or the taxes 
 were again mortgaged for fresh ones. At length the prac- 
 tice of borrowing for a fixed period, or, as it is commonly 
 called, upon terminable annuities, was almost entirely aban- 
 doned, and most loans were made upon interminable annui- 
 ties ; that is, government undertake to pay the lenders of 
 any given sum a certain annuity in all time to come, or till 
 they find it convenient to pay off the principal ; but the lend- 
 ers have no right or title to demand payment of the latter, 
 that being a matter entirely at the option of government, 
 who may either pay it or not, as they think fit. 
 
 In the beginning of the funding system, the term fund 
 meant the taxes or funds appropriated to the discharge of 
 the principal and interest of loans ; those who held govern- 
 ment securities, and sold them to others, selling, of course, 
 a corresponding claim upon some special fund. But after the 
 debt began to grow large, and the practice of borrowing up- 
 on interminable annuities had been introduced, the meaning 
 attached to the term fund was gradually changed ; and in- 
 stead of signifying the security upon which loans were ad- 
 vanced, it has for a long time signified the principal of the 
 loans themselves. 
 
 During the reigns of William HI. and Anne, the interest 
 stipulated for loans was very various. But in the reign 
 of George II. a different practice was adopted. Instead 
 of varying the interest upon the loan according to the state 
 of the money market at the time, the rate of interest was 
 generally fixed at 3 or 3<' per cent.; the necessary variation 
 being made in the principal funded. Thus, suppose the go- 
 vernment were anxious to borrow, that they preferred bor- 
 rowing in a 3 per cent, stock, and that they could not nego- 
 tiate a loan for less than 4J per cent., they effected their 
 object by giving the lender in return for every £100 advanced, 
 .£150 of £3 per cent, stock ; that is, they bound the country 
 to pay him or his assignees £4 10s. a year in all time to 
 come, or otherwise to extinguish the debt by a payment of 
 £150. In consequence of the prevalence of this practice, the 
 principal of the debt now existing amounts to nearly 2-5ths 
 more than the sum actually advanced by the lenders. 
 
 This system of funding has been in the last degree in- 
 jurious, though some advantages are either derivable or 
 supposed to be derivable from it. No doubt it renders the 
 management of debt, and its transfer, more simple and 
 commodious than it would be, did it consist of a number 
 of funds bearing different rates of interest ; and it is con- 
 tended that the' greater field for speculation afforded to the 
 dealers in stocks bearing a low rate of interest has enabled 
 government to borrow, by funding additional capitals, for a 
 considerably less payment on account of interest, than 
 would have been necessary had such increase of eapital 
 not been made. 
 
 In point of fact, however, these advantages are incon- 
 siderable, while the disadvantages inseparable from the 
 practice of funding a large amount of stock at a low rate 
 of interest are great and signal. During war, especially if 
 any considerable portion of its expenditure be defrayed by 
 means of loans, the rate of interest uniformly rises, and is 
 usually much higher than during peace. If, therefore, 
 loans were funded in stocks bearing a rate of interest 
 equivalent to the market rate when they were contracted 
 for, the charge on their account might be reduced soon 
 after the return of peace, according to the fall in the rate 
 of interest ; whereas, when loans are funded in stocks 
 bearing a low rate of interest, with a corresponding in- 
 crease of capital, it becomes impossible to take advantage 
 of the fall of interest at the return of peace, and the coun- 
 try is burdened with the war interest in all time to come ! 
 It is not easy to exaggerate the injury we have sustained 
 by overlooking this plain principle. In 1815, to specify 
 only one of many similar instances, government bargained 
 for a loan of £27,000,000, it being stipulated that every 
 subscriber of £100 should be entitled to £174 3 per cent, 
 stock, and £10 4 per cent, stock, making the interest paid 
 on the loan £5 12*. id. per cent. The great improvidence 
 of this transaction is obvious. Had from £5 15s. to £6 per 
 cent, of interest been paid for the loan, it might have been 
 obtained without funding any additional capital ; and had 
 
 811
 
 NATIONAL DEBT. 
 
 that been done, we should have been able, within two or 
 three years, in consequence of the fall of interest after the 
 peace, to reduce the charge on account of the loan to 3 or 
 3J per cent. ; but. owing to the way in which the contract 
 was made, we have not had, and will not have, any means 
 of reducing the exorbitant charge on account of this loan, 
 so long as the market rate of interest is above 3 per cent., 
 except by paying XI 74 for every £100 originally received, 
 exclusive of the £10 of 4 per cent, stock ! But this, 
 as already stated, is only one instance out of many of the 
 same sort. We believe, indeed, that we are within the 
 mark, when we affirm that, owing to this erroneous method 
 of funding, the country is at present paying from £6,000,000 
 to £7,000.000 a year on account of the public debt more 
 than it would have had to pay had the same sums been 
 borrowed and funded without any increase of capital. 
 
 We have said that an interest of from £5 15s. to £6 per 
 cent., instead of the stipulated interest of £5 12s. Ad. per 
 cent., would have enabled the loan of 1815 to be funded 
 without any increase of capital. Now, this is not a hypo- 
 thetical statement. In the year in question, £11,000,000 
 of exchequer bills were funded in a 5 per cent, stock, at 
 the rate of £117 stock for every £100 exchequer bills. 
 This was equivalent to an interest of £5 17s. per cent., 
 being only 4s. 8d. more than the interest paid on the loan, 
 though the subscribers to the latter had £84 of artificial 
 capital created for every £100 advanced, and the holders 
 of the bills only £17 of artificial capital. But, in point of 
 fact, the differences in the rates of interest, after allowing 
 for certain circumstances connected with the loans, 
 amounted to only 2s. 2d. per cent. This shows how little 
 the saving in the charge on account of interest, by funding 
 increased capitals, deserves to be considered as at all de- 
 tracting from the great public loss occasioned by indulging 
 In so wasteful a practice. (For a farther and full dis- 
 cussion of this subject, see the Edinburgh Review, No. 93, 
 art. iii.) 
 
 That this improvident system should have been so ex- 
 tensively acted upon by our finance ministers during the 
 American and French war is the more surprising, seeing 
 that experience had already demonstrated the advantages 
 of funding limited capitals at a comparatively high rate of 
 interest. Owing partly to the scarcity of capital, but much 
 more to the supposed instability of the revolutionary es- 
 tablishment, the loans during the reigns of William III. 
 and Anne were mostly contracted at a very high rate of 
 Interest. The stock created was the exact amount of the 
 loans, the interest on it being increased according to the 
 supposed insecurity of the government, the scarcity of 
 floating capital, &c. Now, mark the consequences of this : 
 so early as 1716, Sir Robert Walpole, availing himself of 
 the greater facility with which money was procured after 
 the treaty of Utrecht, and of the greater stability of the 
 government, was able, by offering to pay off the creditors, 
 to reduce the charge on account of the debt from £1,598,602 
 to £1,274,146, being a saving of £324,456, or about one 
 fifth part of the entire charge. And in 1749, during the 
 administration of Mr. Pelham, the interest was again re- 
 duced from 4 to 3 per cent. ; a measure which produced a 
 fresh saving of £565,000 a year. 
 
 Happily the practice of funding in a 5 per cent, stock 
 was not entirely abandoned during the late war. In 1822, 
 the total British and Irish 5 per cent, stock amounted to 
 about £150,000,000 ; and, by offering to pay it off, a reduc- 
 tion of interest was then effected to the extent of about 
 £1,200,000 a year. And since that period, farther savings 
 have been effected by the reduction of the interest on the 
 4 and Ah per cent, stock. But, unfortunately, the far great- 
 est proportion of the debt created during the late war, and 
 that with the American colonies, was funded in the 3 per 
 cents. ; and, as already stated, the charge on that portion 
 has, in consequence, been hitherto, and will most probably 
 continue to be, unsusceptible of diminution. 
 
 Payment of National Debt. Sinking Fund.— The pay- 
 ment of the national debt can be effected only by applying 
 to that purpose such surplus revenues as the treasury may 
 have to dispose of. But it was contended by the founders 
 of the sinking fund, established In 17I0. and still more 
 strongly by Dr. Price and Mr. Pitt, the founders of the 
 sinking fund of 1786, that if a sinking fund were formed, 
 by applying a certain amount of revenue to buy up stock, 
 
 and if the dividends on the stock so bought up were after- 
 wards uniformly applied to the same object such sinking 
 fund would Increase at compound interest, so that the lar- 
 gest amount of debt might be defrayed almost without an 
 effort. Dr. Price illustrated the operation of this principle 
 by calculating the number of globes of gold to which a 
 
 penny, laid out at coin] nd interest at the birth Of JestlS 
 
 Christ, would now SO Qtto! But though a calculation 
 
 of this sort be theoretically true, it is practically false and 
 absurd. The truth is. that no sinking fund, even though it 
 consisted of a clear surplus revenue, ever really operates 
 812 
 
 at compound interest. It is true that, by constantly apply- 
 ing the same original amount of free revenue and the div- 
 idends accruing on the stock purchased by it to buy up 
 fresh stock, the reduction of the debt is effected in the 
 same icay as if the free surplus revenue had been increas- 
 ing, by an inherent energy of its own, at compound inter- 
 est ; but it is essential to know that though the modus op- 
 erandi be the same, the means are radically and totally 
 different. The debt is reduced because a portion of the 
 produce of the taxes is systematically applied to pay it off, 
 and it can never be reduced by any other means. To 
 make capital increase at compound interest, it must be 
 employed in some sort of productive industry ; and the 
 profits, instead of being consumed as income, must be reg- 
 ularly added to the principal, to form a new: capital. It is 
 unnecessary to say that no such sinking fund has ever ex- 
 isted. Those that have been set on foot in this and other 
 countries have all been supported either by loans or by the 
 produce of taxes, and have never paid off a single farthing 
 of debt by their own agency. 
 
 It is clear, from this statement, that when there is no 
 surplus revenue, there can be no sinking fund. Dr. Price, 
 however, did not scruple to lay it down broadly, that to 
 suspend the sinking fund during war, though the expendi- 
 ture might then greatly exceed the income, would be the 
 greatest imaginable folly. (Appeal to the Public on the 
 Subject of the National Debt, p. 17, ed. 1774.) And incon- 
 ceivable as it may now appear, all parties in parliament 
 concurred in the soundness of this opinion, and approved 
 the policy of keeping up the sinking fund machinery du- 
 ring the whole of last war. Hence the loans for the ser- 
 vice of the year had to be increased by the entire amount 
 of the sums placed at the disposal of the sinking fund 
 commissioners ; so that for every shilling's worth of stock 
 transferred to them by this futile proceeding, an equal 
 amount of new debt had to be contracted, exclusive of the 
 loss incurred through the expense of management, &c. 
 
 For upwards of twenty years this contemptible juggle 
 was kept up ; parliament and the nation believing, not- 
 withstanding the most decisive experience to the contrary, 
 that it was rapidly diminishing the public debt. Dr. Ham- 
 ilton, of Aberdeen, has the merit of having dissipated this 
 delusion, the grossest, certainly, that ever imposed on any 
 people. He showed, in his work on the National Debt, 
 published in 1813, that the sinking fund, instead of dimm- 
 ing, had really added to the debt ; and he proved to dem- 
 onstration that the excess of revenue above expenditure is 
 the only sinking fund by which any part of the national 
 debt can be discharged. "The increase of revenue," he 
 observes, " or the diminution of expense, are the only 
 means by which the sinking fund cau be enlarged, and its 
 operations rendered more effectual ; and all the schemes 
 for discharging the national debt, by sinking funds opera- 
 ting at compound interest, or in any other manner, unless 
 in so far as they are founded upon this principle, are com- 
 pletely illusory." 
 
 The entire amount of the debt contracted from 1792 to 
 1816, both inclusive, amounted to £584,874,557 ; but of this 
 no less than £188,522,350 was made over to the commis- 
 sioners of the sinking fund to be laid out in the paying off 
 debt. But it must not be supposed that the influence of 
 the sinking fund was negative merely, or that it was con- 
 fined to the futile operation of making money be borrowed 
 with the one hand that it might be paid off with the other. 
 It is clear that a process of this sort could not take an atom 
 from the public debt ; but, in point of fact, it added consid- 
 erably to its amount. Had the sinking fund not existed, 
 the amount of the loans contracted during the w r ar would 
 have been fully a third less than they really were ; and, 
 as the rate of interest is always greater on large than ou 
 smaller loans, it follows, had this miserable juggle not been 
 kept up, that the money borrowed from 1792 to 1816 would 
 have been obtained at a reduced charge, at the same time 
 that the expenses of its management would have been 
 saved. The sinking fund has, therefore, been a costly as 
 well as a delusive piece of quackery. The loss it entailed 
 on the country during the war has been estimated, appa- 
 rently on reasonable grounds, at above £600,000. 
 
 At length the folly of contracting debt, for no other pur- 
 pose but to pay it off, became Obvious to everyone; and 
 the nominal amount of the sinking fund began to be di- 
 minished after the close of the war. In 1819, it was at- 
 tempted to form a real sinking fund of £5,000,000 ; that is, 
 to maintain a real surplus revenue of that extent. But as 
 this could not always be done, after various modifications 
 an end was put to the entire system in 1829; the act 10 
 Geo. 4, c. 27, having enacted that the sum applicable in 
 future to the reduction of the national debt should be the 
 surplus. If any, of the total revenue beyond the total ex- 
 penditure of the kingdom. 
 
 Distribution of the Dividends, or Interest on the National 
 Ddt.—ll appears from the subjoined account of the nuui-
 
 NATIONAL DEBT. 
 
 ber of dividend warrants issued during the half year ending 
 the 5th of Januarv, 1833, that they amounted in all to 
 about 230,000, and 'the number has not materially varied in 
 the interval. The large number (87,176) of holders of 
 stock not producing above £o of half yearly dividend is 
 principally, we believe, ascribable to the circumstance of 
 the Bank of England and the London private banks not al- 
 lowing interest on deposits. 
 
 We may observe, by the way, that the number of per- 
 sons having a direct interest in the funds is much greater 
 than it would appear to be from this account. The divi- 
 dends upon the funded property belonging to the Bank of 
 England and other banks, to the Equitable and other in- 
 surance companies, &c, are paid upon single warrants, as 
 if they were due to so many private individuals, whereas 
 
 they are really paid to these individuals only because they 
 act as factors or trustees for a vast number more. It is, 
 consequently, quite absurd to pretend, as is sometimes 
 done, that any interference with funded property would 
 atl'ect only 281,000 individuals out of a population of 
 25,000,000. Any attack upon the dividends would really 
 be destructive, not merely of the interests of those to 
 whom dividend warrants are issued, but of all who depend 
 on them : it would destroy our whole system of banking 
 and insurance, and overspread the country with bank- 
 ruptcy and ruin. Not only, therefore, is every proposal for 
 an invasion of the property of the fundholders bottomed on 
 injustice and robbery, but it would, were it acted upon, be 
 little less ruinous to the community than to the peculiar 
 class intended to be plundered. 
 
 I. State of the Public Funded and Unfunded Debt of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Charge thereon, 
 
 on the 5th January, 1841. 
 
 Great Britain. 
 Debt due to the South Sea 
 
 Company, at 3 per cent. 
 Old South Sea Annuities, at 3 
 
 per cent. 
 New South Sea Annuities, at 
 
 3 per cent. 
 South Sea Annuities, 1751, at 
 
 3 per cent. 
 Debt due to the Bank of Eng- 
 land, at 3 per cent. . 
 Bank Annuities created in 
 
 1726 .... 
 Consolidated Annuities, at 3 
 
 per cent. 
 Reduced Annuities, at 3 per 
 
 cent 
 
 Total at 3 per cent. . 
 
 Annuities at 3j per cent. 
 anno 18IS 
 
 Reduced 3J per cent. Annu- 
 ities .... 
 
 New 3^ per cent. Annuities, 
 
 New 5 per cent. Annuities, 
 Total, Great Britain 
 In Ireland. 
 
 Irish Consolidated Annuities, 
 at 3 per cent. . 
 
 Irish Reduced Annuities, at 
 3 per cent. 
 
 £. 3.^ per ct. Debentures and 
 Stock .... 
 
 Reduced 31 per cent. Annu- 
 
 New 3^ per cent. Annuities, 
 Debt due to the Bank of Ire- 
 land, at 4 per cent. 
 New 5 per cent. Annuities, 
 Debt due to the Bank of Ire- 
 land, at 5 per cent. . 
 
 Total, Ireland 
 Total, United Kingdom . 
 Exchequer Bills outstanding 
 
 5th Jan., 1841 
 Total funded and Unfund- 
 -ed Debt, 5th January 
 1841 . 
 
 nd-1 
 
 3,662,784 8 
 
 3,497,870 2 
 
 2,460,830 2 
 
 523,100 
 
 11,015,100 
 
 825,251 19 
 
 362,542,977 8 
 
 125,861,030 7 J 
 
 il0,3SS,944 S 
 
 10,159,721 17 1 
 
 66.256,849 12 9 
 
 145.225.S65 13 2 
 
 428,076 15 4 
 
 r32,462,45S 7 l| 
 
 3,272,607 7 1 
 
 115,197 10 10 
 
 1 4,567, 562 7 2 
 
 926.633 7 3 
 12,390,823 18 10 
 
 1,615,384 12 4 
 5,672 19 
 
 1.015.384 12 4 
 
 33,909,266 14 10 
 
 '66,371,725 1 
 22.076375 1 
 
 "3 
 
 rSS,447,900 3 3«> 
 
 ANNUAL CHARGE. 
 
 Due to the Public Creditor. 
 Annual Interest on Unredeemed Cap- 
 ital 
 
 Long Annuities, expire 1860 . 
 
 Annuities per 4 Geo. 4, c 22, expire 
 1867 
 
 Annuities for a limited term of years, 
 per 59 Geo. 3, c. 34, 10 Geo. 4, c. 
 24, and 3 Will. 4, c. 14, which ex- 
 pire at various periods, viz., 
 
 Granted up to 5th 
 Jan., 1811 . £.1,607,829 IS 6 
 
 Deduct, expired and 
 unclaimed up to 
 ditto, including 
 106,1001., Water- 
 loo Annuities, 59 
 Geo. 3, c. 34 
 
 In Great Britain. 
 
 23,090,662 9 41 
 1,294,140 16 2 
 
 585,740 
 
 292.901 19 3 
 
 Payable at the National Debt 
 
 Office. 
 
 Life Annuities, per 48 Geo. 3, c. 142, 
 
 10 Geo. 4, c 24, and 3 Will. 4, c. 
 
 14, viz., 
 Granted up to 5th 
 
 Jan., 1841 . £.1,631,709 3 ( 
 Deduct, expired and 
 
 unclaimed up to 
 
 ditto . . 823,852 8 ( 
 
 Tontine and other Life 
 Annuities, per various 
 Acts 
 
 ■ ife {"Fn^sh 
 ™$ Irish . 
 
 Management .... 
 
 Annual Charge on account of Public 
 Funded Debt 
 
 Interest on Exeheq. Bills, (1840) . 
 
 Total Annual Charge, exclusive of 'i 
 48,364/. Hj. lid, the Annual ■ 
 Charge on Capitals and Long 
 Annuities standiug in the Names 
 of the Commissioners on ac- 
 count of Stock unclaimed 10 
 years or upwards, and of un- 
 claimed Dividends, and also on 
 account of Donations and Be- 
 quests 
 
 1,314,927 19 3 
 
 657,856 15 
 19.969 14 
 31,230 S 
 
 1,193,278 1 11$ 
 332 2 10 
 
 6,823 7 3 
 
 1,200,433 12 L>1 
 
 r.355,891 
 642,?97 
 
 7 1,200,433 12 01 
 
 1 Q "> 
 
 Total Ann ual 
 
 Charge. 
 
 27,998,888 14 9 
 
 1 ,200,433 12 0? 
 
 19,199,322 6 91 
 
 II. Account of the Principal and Annual Charge of the Public Debt at different Periods since the Revolution.* 
 
 
 Principal, 
 Funded and 
 Unfunded. 
 
 Interest and 
 Management. 
 
 £ 
 
 664.263 
 15,730.439 
 
 £ 
 
 39.855 
 1,271,087 
 
 16.394,702 
 37,750,661 
 
 1.310,942 
 2,040.416 
 
 
 54.145.363 
 2.053.125 
 
 3.351. 358 
 1,133,'07 
 
 
 52,092,233 
 86.773.192 
 
 2,217,551 
 2.634.500 
 
 Debt enntraded from the accession of Georze n. till the peace of Paris in 1763, three Years after the accession 
 
 
 138.865,430 
 10.2S1.795 
 
 4.852.051 
 380.480 
 
 
 Debt at the commencement of the American war, in 1775 
 
 128,583.635 
 121.267.9f3 
 
 4.471.571 
 
 4.98'.2'.'l 
 
 Debt at the conclusion of the American war, in 17S4 . 
 
 Debt at the commencement of the French war, in 1792 
 
 249.851.62j 
 10,501.380 
 
 9.451.7-2 
 243.277 
 
 239.350.148 
 601,500.343 
 
 9.20S.495 
 22.829,679 
 
 
 Total funded and unfunded debt on the 1st of Febraary, 1S17, when the EDglish and Irish exchequers were 
 
 840.350.491 
 
 32.038.174 
 
 52,402,591 
 
 2.-38.852 
 
 788.447.900 
 
 29,199.322 
 
 * This account has been made op partly from the table in Dr. Hamilton's work on the National Debt (3d ed., p. 100) ; partly from the Pari. Paper, No. 
 165, Sess. 1S34; and partly from the Annual Finance Booh for the year ending 5th of Januarys 1841, p. 105, &c. 
 
 813
 
 NATIONS, LAW OF. 
 
 NAVAL ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 HI. Ax Account of the Tot.il Number of Person* to whom a Half Year's Dividend was due at the last Half-yearly 
 Payment thereof) on each Description of Public Stock, and on each Description of Terminable Annuities ; distinguish- 
 in': the number respectively of those whose Dividends for the Half Year did not exceed £5, £10 £50 £100 £-'00 
 £300, £500, £1000, £2000, £3000, £4000, £5000, and the Number of those whose Dividends exceed £5000: alstta- 
 
 guishing also, in those above £1000, the Dividends due to anv Public Company, or to more than a single Name 
 
 (Pari. Paper, No. 202, Sess. 1833.) 
 
 Number to whom dividends were payable 
 
 Not exceeding 
 
 ~~ ii 
 
 3 
 
 nil 
 
 ml 
 
 2 
 
 21 
 
 ail 
 
 9 
 
 nil 
 
 B 
 
 60 
 
 Total. 
 
 5L 
 
 101. 
 
 SOI. 
 
 1001. 
 
 200/. 
 
 300Z. 
 
 5001. 
 
 lOOOf. 
 
 3 
 4 
 4 
 4 
 
 153 
 
 nil 
 28 
 1 
 1 
 
 Is 
 -; : 
 
 -< 
 
 21 
 
 21 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 nil 
 
 16 
 
 ail 
 
 20 
 
 nil 
 
 nil 
 
 161 
 
 9 
 5 
 
 nil 
 2 
 1 
 2 
 
 In 
 
 nil 
 
 4 
 oil 
 
 1 
 40 1 
 
 £ = 
 
 -i. 
 
 6 
 4 
 
 nil 
 1 
 1 
 
 nil 
 20 
 
 nil 
 1 
 
 nil 
 3 
 
 35 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 nil 
 nil 
 nil 
 
 nil 
 
 7 
 uil 
 
 2 
 nil 
 
 ■i ; 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 nil 
 
 nil 
 
 13 
 nil 
 
 4 
 nil 
 
 24 
 
 On 31. per cent, reduced annuities . . "\ 
 On 31. 10s. per cent, reduced annuities . 
 On 3(. 10*. per cent, annuities, IS18 . 1 
 On 4f. per cent, annuities, 1S2S . . | 
 
 On annuities for terms of years . . J 
 On 3/. per cent, consolidated annuities . "| 
 On 31. per cent, annuities, 1726 
 On new 31. 10*. per cent, annuities . . > 
 On new 51. per cent annuities . • ,1 
 On annuities for terms of years . . J 
 
 10,347 
 
 7. HI9 
 
 * I9S 
 
 1,601 
 
 9.07S 
 
 1,519 
 
 28,721 
 
 1 120 
 
 26, SSI 
 
 35 
 
 1.6SG 
 
 S7.I76 
 
 4,745 
 
 4 .» J 
 
 162 
 
 993 
 4,212 
 
 787 
 13,749 
 74 
 14,6'HS 
 31 
 £33 
 
 11,681 
 
 10,173 
 
 399 
 
 2,1141 
 
 8,361 
 
 1,632 
 
 32,61 >l 
 
 180 
 
 29,370 
 
 107 
 
 1.757 
 
 9S,3"5 
 
 3,473 
 2,909 
 
 211 
 
 512 
 1,516 
 
 351 
 
 9,612 
 
 40 
 
 6,648 
 
 36 
 
 333 
 
 2,175 
 
 1,561 
 127 
 312 
 725 
 178 
 
 6.2S6 
 27 
 
 3,129 
 20 
 161 
 
 742 
 
 411 
 
 57 
 
 92 
 
 187 
 
 56 
 
 2,141 
 
 4 
 
 765 
 
 3 
 
 37 
 
 453 
 
 251 
 
 3S 
 
 69 
 
 99 
 
 32 
 
 1,424 
 
 2 
 
 431 
 
 4 
 
 34 
 
 231 
 
 112 
 
 30 
 
 15 
 
 34 
 
 20 
 
 709 
 
 nil 
 
 204 
 
 nil 
 
 12 
 
 33.95- 
 
 1,232 
 5.630 
 24.221 
 4.5-3 
 95,555 
 447 
 82,194 
 237 
 4.S39 
 
 Totals 
 
 44.64S 
 
 25,641 
 
 14,701 
 
 4.495 
 
 2,s27 
 
 1.367 
 
 2-;k. 
 
 279.571 
 
 * Dividends payable 10th of October, 
 
 NATIONS, LAW OF. See Law. 
 
 NATI'VITV. A word used, by way of eminence, to sig- 
 nify the birthday of our Saviour, and of saints and other 
 canonized persons. In Astrology, the word nativity is sy- 
 nonymous with horoscope, which see. 
 
 NA'TRIX. The subgenus of the Linnsan Colubri, of 
 which our common harmless snake, Coluber natrix, Linn., 
 is the type. 
 
 N ATROLITE. A mineral which occurs in small round- 
 ed fibrous masses of a yellowish colour ; it is by some call- 
 ed prismatic zeolite. It is chiefly found in Suabia in amyg- 
 daloidal basalt. It is a hydrated silicate of soda and alu- 
 mina. 
 
 NA'TRON. The German name applied to soda ; hence, 
 also, the German chemists call sodium natrium. It is prob- 
 ably from the ancient term virpav, nitron, or fossil alkali ; 
 hence nitre. It is found in sandy soils of various coun- 
 tries, but more especially in Egypt, where it was anciently 
 employed, to a great extent, in the art of embalming. See 
 Mummy. 
 
 NATTRAL. In Music, a character marked thus fc), 
 whose office is to contradict the flats or sharps placed at 
 the beginning of a stave or elsewhere, and by the use of 
 which the note to which it is prefixed returns to the diato- 
 nic scale. 
 
 NATURALIZATION. In Law, the process by which 
 an alien is placed in the same civil condition as if he had 
 been born under the dominion of the state. In England, 
 this can only take place by act of parliament ; and it is 
 provided by stat. 1 G. 1, c. 4, that no bill for naturalization 
 can be received without certain clauses incapacitating the 
 party from sitting in parliament, or being a member of the 
 privy council, &c. See Alien. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY, may be defined to be the history 
 and description of the natural products of the earth, wheth- 
 er minerals, vegetables, or animals, together with a scien- 
 tific development of their causes and effects. The reader 
 will find all the branches of this wide and interesting sub- 
 ject treated at considerable length under their respective 
 heads. 
 
 NATURAL ORDERS OF PLANTS, are groups of gen- 
 era which are supposed to bear a greater resemblance to 
 each other than to anything else. They may be said to be 
 coeval with our knowledge of plants ; for the old ideas of 
 grasses, trees, herbs, corn, and fruit-trees indicate a natural 
 perception of the existence of some such groups. When 
 systematical botany first assumed the semblance of sci- 
 ence, we find the Umbelliferous, Leguminous, Liliaceous, 
 Labiate, and Composite orders, more or less distinctly de- 
 fined. It is. however, chiefly by the labours of botanists 
 posterior to the days of Linnaeus, especially to .lussieu and 
 his followers, that the present improved limitation of nat- 
 ural orders is owing. It must, however, be confessed that 
 they are still in great need of regulation, which can scarce- 
 ly, however, be anticipated until something precise shall 
 have been settled concerning the relative value of differ- 
 ences in organization. The most complete account of them 
 in English is that in IAndley's JVatural System of Botany, 
 ed. 2, in which 289 natural orders are enu merated. 
 
 N i/TURAL PHILOSO'PHY, or PHYSICS, is the sci- 
 ence which treats of the properties of natural bodies, and 
 tin ir anions on each other. See Physics. 
 
 NATCRE, LAW OF. See Law. 
 
 NAU'CA. In Botany, a seed in which the scar of the 
 helum occupies one third part of the external surface, as 
 in the hone chestnut 
 
 NAU.MA'CIIIA. (Gr. vavs, a ship, and paxi, a fght.) 
 814 
 
 t Dividends payable on 5th of January. 
 
 Among the Romans, a representation of a naval engage- 
 ment, which took place most usually in theatres (called, 
 also, naumachia;) made especially for the purpose. These 
 exhibitions were originally instituted for purposes of naval 
 discipline ; but, in process of time, only malefactors or cap- 
 tives whose lives had been forfeited participated in them. 
 They appear to have been conducted on a scale of such 
 magnificence as almost to exceed belief. Within the pla- 
 ces set apart for them whole fleets went through their evo- 
 lutions without inconvenience or confusion, and all the 
 appliances of human ingenuity were put in play to give an 
 air of reality to the representation. We are told by Sueto- 
 nius that in an exhibition of this sort, given by Nero, sea- 
 monsters were seen swimming about in the artificial lake ; 
 and in the sea-fight on the lake Fucinus, given by Claudius, 
 there are said to have been no fewer than 19,000 combat- 
 ants. Julius Ctesar appears to have first given a naumachia 
 on an extensive scale : his example was followed by many 
 of his successors on the imperial throne ; and at last they 
 were frequently exhibited at the expense of private individ- 
 uals, as a means of increasing their popularity. The seats 
 for the convenience of spectators were arranged in a man- 
 ner somewhat similar to those in the amphitheatres. See 
 Amphitheatre. 
 
 NAU'SEA. (Gr. vavs, a ship.) A sensation of sickness, 
 similar to that produced by the motion of a ship at sea. An 
 inclination to vomit. 
 
 NAUTILI'D/E. (Gr. vavnAos, the name of the argonaut 
 in Aristotle.) The family of Cephalopods with siphonifer- 
 ous shells, of which the nautilus is the type. 
 
 NAUTILUS. (Gr. yntmXo?.) The name of a genus 
 of Tetrabranchiate Cephalopods, including those which 
 have a chambered shell with simple septa, perforated in 
 the centre, concave towards the outlet of the shell, and 
 with the last chamber the largest, and containing the body 
 of the animal. 
 
 NA'VAL ARCHITECTURE. In the small space we 
 can assign to this subject we shall merely endeavour to 
 convey a general notion of the principles and process of 
 construction. 
 
 Ships are built in different forms, according to the service 
 they are intended for and the burdens they have to carry. 
 It is men-of-war, which, besides possessing in an eminent 
 degree the general qualities of a ship, have to support a 
 heavy armament of cannon, and which are destined to se- 
 vere and long-continued service, that the principles of con- 
 struction have been carried to the greatest perfection. The 
 form of the ship, her strength, or the scantling necessary 
 for the services required of her. are, from our imperfect 
 knowledge of hydrodynamics, the results of experience 
 alone. 
 
 When a ship is to be built, her form is projected in three 
 different plane* perpendicular to each other. 
 
 1st. The sheer draught, which is the side view, or pro- 
 jection on the plane of the keel. On this are laid off the 
 length, the heights of all the parts from the keel, the posi- 
 tion and rake of the stem and sternpost, the principal 
 frames or timbers of the sides, the parts, decks, channels, 
 place of the greatest breadth or midship frame, stations or 
 the masts, tec. 
 
 The frames before the midship frame arc distinguished 
 by letters ; abaft it, by numliers. 
 
 The midship frame is not exactly in the middle of the 
 length, but rather before it. 
 
 2d. The body plan, or end view. This shows the con- 
 tour of the sides of the ship at certain points of her length ; 
 and since the two sides are exactly alike, the left half rep-
 
 NAVAL ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 resents the vertical sections in the after part of the body, 
 and the right-hand half those in the fore part. The base of 
 the projection is the midship, or largest section, called also 
 the dead flat, within which the other sections are delinea- 
 ted. On this are exhibited also the beams of the decks. 
 
 3d. The horizontal or floor plane, called also the half 
 breadth plan. The base of this is the section made by the 
 horizontal surface of the water and the outside surface of 
 the ship, and is called the upper water line, or load water 
 line. If the ship now be supposed to be lightened uni- 
 formly, she will exhibit another water line, and thus any 
 number of like parallel sections at equal distances down to 
 the keel. 
 
 On this projection the water lines appear as curves, on 
 the sheer draught as straight lines parallel to the keel. 
 
 These three sections correspond to each other upon the 
 same scale, and any point in one is immediately referable 
 to the other two projections. 
 
 The several parts are drawn from these plans in their 
 full size on the floor of the mould-loft, and worked from 
 the moulds or model so taken. 
 
 The place in which the ship is built is called a slip. In 
 the middle, and leading to the water, is a row of piles of 
 stout pieces of wood called the blocks, having a declivity 
 tow arils the water of about one inch in one foot. On these 
 the keel, which is of elm, is laid, and its component lengths 
 scarfed together. Under the keel is placed the false keel 
 for defence. At the end farthest from the water is raised 
 the stem, which is, in fact, the keel continued upwards. 
 Inside the stem, and just above the keel, is the apron, a 
 curved timber connecting both. On each side of the upper 
 part of the stem is fixed an upright timber ; these are called 
 the knight heads, and the bowsprit lies between them. At 
 the other end of the keel is the sternpost, at which the 
 planking finishes abaft, and on which the rudder is hung. 
 Inside (or before this) are the inner post and other pieces 
 for strength. Upon the keel is fixed a layer of timber of 
 the same breadth, and rising forward and aft, called the 
 dead wood; on this are placed the floor timbers : these con- 
 sist of one which crosses the keel to which it is coaked, 
 and the two parts of a like timber firmly joining it, and 
 projecting beyond its ends. The several pieces are got 
 into their places by shifting shears. 
 
 The frames consist of pairs of timbers composed of pieces 
 of different lengths, joining the floor timbers, and carried 
 upwards. The length joining the floors is called the first 
 futtock, the next the second futtock, and so on, ending in 
 the top timbers. The pairs are bolted by iron bolts, and of 
 late adjacent pairs have been thus connected. The frames 
 are supported temporarily by being fixed to the cross spalls, 
 long fir planks laid horizontally about the height of the 
 gun deck. 
 
 Those frames whose planes are perpendicular to the keel 
 are called square frames ; at the head and stern these 
 planes incline towards the extremities, and are called cant 
 frames. These divisions of the ship are called, according- 
 ly, square and cant bodies. 
 
 When the framing has assumed its form the ribands are 
 fixed ; these are thick, narrow planks at wide intervals, ex- 
 tending the length of the vessel, marking the direction of 
 the planks ; they are firmly shored, and removed when the 
 planking comes on. The riband lines appear on the half 
 breadth plan as diagonal lines. 
 
 Upon the keel, and over the floor timbers, to which it is 
 scored, is laid the kelson, which is, in fact, a second keel 
 over the first. 
 
 The stern of square-sterned ships is formed upon the 
 wing transom, the uppermost of the horizontal pieces of 
 timber, called transoms, crossing the sternpost inside. 
 
 The wing transom is securedlto the timbers of the side 
 by a strong horizontal knee. 
 
 When the framing is complete, the outside planking is 
 laid on. The wales, thick planks above the water, are first 
 secured to the ribs. The clamps are thick planks inside, to 
 support the ends of the beams of the decks. 
 
 The beams support the decks, rest on the clamps, and are 
 secured to the side by knees. 
 
 The breast hooks are strong curved pieces of timber cross- 
 ing the stem, and joining the bows. The deck hooks are 
 the same, being at the decks. The crutches answer a like 
 purpose below in the after part. 
 
 The port sills are the upper and lower edges of the ports. 
 
 The spirketting is the plank of the side between the 
 water way and the port sill. 
 
 The chain wales are thick planks of the outside to re- 
 ceive the chains and preventer-bolts for the support of the 
 rigging. 
 
 The foot waling, or ceiling, is the plank lining the inside 
 of the ship below. 
 
 The limber boards are short, thick pieces of wood restin" 
 against the kelson for the convenience of keepin" a clear 
 passage to the well. 
 
 ; and „\V vf\ 
 isaf- \\ \\\ 
 
 The knee of the head, also called the cutwater, is the pro- 
 jecting part of the head ; it is secured to the bows by knees 
 called cheeks. 
 
 In order to bend wood into the necessary curvature, it is 
 steamed in places for the purpose. When the planking is 
 all complete, the ship is caulked and painted. 
 
 The fastenings of timber are effected by bolts, treenails, 
 or coaks. The present method of framing ships-of-war is 
 chiefly due to Sir Robert Seppings. We shall describe it 
 here generally : for particulars, see the Phil. Trans., 1814, 
 and the published reports on the subject. 
 
 As the timbers or ribs cannot be procured entire, or of 
 the proper curvature, various methods have 
 been used for joining the several pieces to- 
 gether. A method used till lately consist- 
 ed of an angular chock C, fastened by tree- 
 nails to the ends A B of the timbers. By 
 this plan all stress upon the joint, in what- 
 ever direction, falls on the treenails ; 
 when the chock decays, no support 
 forded in any sense whatever. 
 
 At present the square ends, A' B', are brought together, 
 w 7 hile a coak C, or small oak cylinder, is let into each. 
 
 By this plan the two faces resist any effort by pressure 
 from without to close the timbers, and the coak itself re- 
 sists the effort (perpendicular to this last) to make one 
 timber slide past the other by the whole force necessary 
 to cut it off flush with the section. In the single case of 
 lifting one face exactly perpendicularly off the other, the 
 coak offers no resistance ; this effort, which is that pro- 
 duced by the strain of the rigging on the sides, is opposed 
 by other numerous connections. The method is very an- 
 cient, being used in the construction of the pillars in the 
 temple at Balbec ; the advantages of its application to ship 
 building is seen in the frames, which undergo no change 
 of form while hoisting into their places. The efficiency of 
 the plan, however, does not appear in a single length, but 
 in the system of frames, each joining of which is placed 
 near the middle of the next piece. 
 
 A shelf piece, coaked and bolted to the timbers or ribs, 
 and resting on short vertical pieces of timber ■ 
 called chocks, and sometimes scored to the / J 
 ribs, is carried like a hoop entirely round the ! ' 
 ship. On this the beam ends are coaked ; and 
 over these again is laid a strong water way- 
 scored to the beams, and coaked. Besides 
 these the beam end is clasped by two arms of 
 an iron knee, of which the third, which is vertical, is 
 bolted to the chock. 
 
 The shelf binds firmly the ends and sides of the ship 
 together, and resists like an arch all external pressure. 
 
 The spaces between the timbers below are filled up by 
 dry wood driven in tight, and caulked, thus rendering the 
 bottom solid and water-tight, independently of the planking. 
 
 One of the most important improvements is the diagonal 
 framework below. Instead of the former planking in the 
 hold are placed braces, crossing the ribs, to which they are 
 coaked, at an angle of 45° ; those in the fore body incline 
 (or rake) aft, and those in the after body forward. They 
 butt against the kelson, and extend nearly to the water ; 
 they are in general placed under every other beam, but 
 closer at the extremities. 
 
 Longitudinal pieces of timbers are laid nearly parallel to 
 the keel over the heads or joinings of the timbers, and 
 bolted through ; these, crossing the diagonals, form a series 
 of rhomboidal figures, across which, inside, are firmly driven 
 trusses, lying the opposite way from the diagonals : these 
 are bolted through, and, when necessary, are further tight- 
 ened by driving in thin iron plates at the ends. The diag- 
 onals act by the tension of the fibres, the trusses by the 
 thrust, and the whole thus resists every effort to change 
 the figure of the ship. 
 
 The system was first put into complete practice in the 
 Tremendous, 74, in 1810 ; which ship evinced, in several 
 severe trials, a firmness and dryness not known before. 
 
 M. C. Dupin has shown (Phil. Trans., 1817) that the 
 principal of diagonal framing had suggested itself, and been 
 tried by several French engineers, but as often abandoned. 
 The merit, therefore, of Sir R. Seppings, in reducing to 
 practice a system which to others had been attended with 
 insuperable" difficulties, more than compensates the want 
 of novelty in the idea itself. 
 
 The ancient square, massive, but weak sterns, have been 
 replaced bv Sir R. Seppings by round sterns, corresponding 
 in construction, and therefore in strength, to the bow. 
 These have again undergone various alterations, tending 
 to combine the strength of the new with the imposing ap- 
 pearance of the former stern. 
 
 It is only now by contrasting the solid and immovable 
 frame with the former weak and unconnected structure, 
 that we can fully perceive the inefficiency of the ancient 
 construction. The timbers, instead of forming an inde- 
 
 815
 
 NAVAL CROWN. 
 
 pendent system, were often supported in part by the plank- 
 ing itself, as is the case in boats. The masts, resting only 
 upon their steps, instead of strong platforms which diffuse 
 the pressure on all sides, and pressed downwards by their 
 weight, and by the enormous strain of the rigging, arising 
 from the wind on the sails, forced the keel down, and 
 made the ship leaky. The timbers and framework, being 
 at right angles, without mutual support, the whole stress 
 of the ship came on the fastenings; and, lastly, the safety 
 of the ship depended entirely upon that of the outside 
 plank, the part most exposed to injury. 
 
 The planks of the decks have also sometimes been placed 
 diagonally ; and lately iron diagonal straps have been added 
 to the upper works inside. 
 
 The extremities being unsupported below by the water 
 droop, or the ship hogs, a three-decker formerly drooped 
 at once, on being launched, 9 inches at each end, which 
 increased with her length of service ; at present, such a 
 ship droops only 3J inches, which, when the materials are 
 set, suffers little or no increase. 
 
 Within the last few years considerable changes have 
 been made by Sir W. Symonds in increasing the beam of 
 the ships, and therefore their stability, and otherwise in 
 the forms. Several improvements have also been intro- 
 duced by Sir O. Lang. 
 
 Exposure to moisture being a cause of the decay of tim- 
 ber, building under cover has long been practised. This 
 also protects the men from the weather. 
 
 The wood usually employed in ship-building is oak. 
 Elm, which does not split readily, is employed for the keel, 
 and for the caps. East India teak, a very heavy durable 
 wood, which does not shrink, nor is liable to splinter from 
 shot, is now very much used. African teak is also much 
 used. Fir is used for light works, masts, &c. 
 
 The bottoms of ships are liable to become covered with 
 weeds and shells, and to be eaten through by worms. To 
 prevent these evils, the bottoms were formerly covered 
 with a thin sheathing of wood, which was replaced when 
 worn. Lead has also been used. Ships are now sheathed 
 almost universally with thin sheets of copper. 
 
 For further information on this subject, reference may 
 be made to the following works : Bouguer, Traiti du JVa- 
 vire; Clairbois, Traite Eiementaire,&-c. ; Chapman's Naval 
 Archit., with Notes by Dr. Inman ; Steel's Elements, with 
 an Appendix by J. Knowles, F. R. S. ; Fincham's Outlines 
 of Ship-building ; the article " Ship-building" in the new 
 edition of the Ency. Britannica. 
 
 NAVAL CROWN. Among the Romans, a crown of 
 gold or silver, resembling the prow of a ship, awarded to 
 him who first boarded a hostile vessel. See Crown. 
 NAVE. See Naos. 
 
 Nave. In Mechanics, the middle part of the wheel, 
 from which the spokes radiate. 
 
 NAVIGA'TION. (Lat, navis, a ship), is that branch of 
 science by which the mariner is taught to conduct his ship 
 from one part or place to another. 
 
 To understand the principles of navigation, and their 
 practical application, it is necessary that the mariner should 
 be acquainted with the form and magnitude of the earth, 
 the relative situations of the lines conceived to be drawn 
 on its surface, and have charts of the coasts and maps of 
 the harbours which he may have occasion to visit. He 
 must also understand the use of the instruments by which 
 the direction in which a ship is steered and the distance 
 which she sails are ascertained ; and be able to deduce 
 from the data supplied by such instruments the situation 
 of his ship at any time, and to find the direction and dis- 
 tance of any place to which it may be required that the 
 ship should be taken. 
 
 A curve passing through any two places on the earth, 
 and cutting every intervening meridian at the same angle, 
 is called a rhumb line ; the angle which such a curve 
 makes with each meridian is called the course between 
 any two places through which the curve passes ; and the 
 arc of that curve Intercepted between any two places is 
 called their nautical distance. This distance is more than 
 that measured on the arc of a great circle passing through 
 the two places, unless both places are on the same merid- 
 ian, or both on the equator, when the rhumb line and great 
 circle coincide. 
 
 The difference nf latitude between anv two places is an 
 arc of a meridian intercepted between the parallels of lati- 
 tude on which the places are situated ■ and the difference 
 of longitude is the arc of the equator, or the angle at the 
 pole included between the meridians of the places. Hence, 
 when the latitudes or the longitudes of two places are of 
 the same denomination with respect to north or south, tail 
 or west, the difference is found by subtracting the less from 
 the greater; but when of different denominations, what is 
 called their difference is found by taking their sum. See 
 Latitude, Longitude. 
 When a ship has sailed on a rhumb line from one merid- 
 
 f& 
 
 NAVIGATION. 
 
 ian to another, the arc of the pairallel at which the ship 
 has arrived, intercepted between the two meridians, is 
 called the meridian distance which the ship has made; 
 and the sum of all the intermediate meridian distances, 
 computed on the supposition that the distance sailed on 
 the rhumb line is divided indefinitely into small equal parts, 
 is called the departure. 
 
 In the annexed diagram, let P represent the north pole ; 
 D E an arc of the equator ; P D, P F, P G, 
 and P E meridians, and A B a rhumb line 
 passing through A and B ; A S, K H, L I, 
 and B C, arcs of parallels of latitude at the 
 points A, II, I, and B respectively ; and let 
 A H, H I, I B, &c, be so small and so nu- 
 merous that neither they nor A K, K H, H 
 O, I O, &c, may differ sensibly from straight 
 lines. Then if a ship sail from A to B, B C is called the 
 meridian distance ; if from B to A, A S is called the me- 
 ridian distance ; and in either case the sum of K H, O I, N 
 B, is called the departure ; and AK + OH + IN, &c, 
 which is always equal to A C or B S, is the difference of 
 latitude. 
 
 Now, A K II, O II I, N I B, sec., may be considered as 
 identical right-angled plane triangles; and if in the an- 
 nexed plane triangle, right-angled at C, A' B' be taken 
 equal to A B in the preceding figure, A' C 
 to A C, or to its equal AK + HO + IN, 
 and the angle B' A' C'toBA C, or O H I, 
 or N I B, then C B' in this figure would ac- 
 curately represent KH + OI + NB, &c, 
 in the preceding one. That is, in the plane 
 triangle A' B' C, right-angled at C, if A' 
 represent the course from one place to another, A' B' the 
 distance of the two places measured on the rhumb line 
 passing through them ; then A' C will be their difference 
 of latitude, and C B' the departure made in sailing from 
 the one to the other. 
 
 On these principles depend what is called plane sailing ; 
 and it is evident that if any two of the four elements, 
 course, distance, difference of latitude, and departure, be 
 given, the others may be found by the resolution of a right- 
 angled plane triangle. The formulae are, 
 
 dep. = dist. X sin. course, 
 
 diff. lat. = dist. X cos. course, 
 
 dist. = dep. X cosec. course, 
 
 dist. = diff. lat. X sec. course, 
 dep. 
 
 tan. course = 
 
 diff. lat. 
 
 When a ship sails on a meridian, the diff. lat. is the 
 same as the nautical distance, and the latitude only, not 
 the longitude, is changed ; and when a ship sails on a par- 
 allel of latitude, the departure is the same as the nautical 
 distance, and the longitude only, not the latitude, is 
 changed : but in sailing in any other direction, both the 
 latitude and longitude are changed. 
 
 For finding the change of latitude corresponding to any 
 course and distance, the principles of plane sailing, already 
 explained, are sufficient ; but to find the change of longi- 
 tude corresponding to any given change of place requires 
 considerations of a different kind. 
 
 Let a ship sail on a parallel of latitude, as from C to D, 
 and let P C A, P D B, be two meridians pass- p 
 
 ing through C and D, and meeting the equator 
 in A and B ; then A B, or the angle A P B, is 
 the difference of longitude, corresponding to 
 the distance C D sailed on the parallel in the 
 latitude A C or D B. And if F be the centre 
 of the sphere, A F B, C E D, portions of the 
 planes of the equator and parallel respect- 
 ively, we have, by similar sectors, CD:AB::DE:B 
 F : : cos. lat. : rad. : : 1 : secant of lat. ; therefore A B = C 
 D sec. lat. 
 
 Hence, again, if in the annexed plane triangle 
 M N O, right-angled at N, the angle M be 
 made equal to the number of degrees and min- 
 utes of the latitude of the parallel on which 
 the ship is sailing, and M N be equal to C D, 
 M O in this figure will be equal to the arc A B u 
 in the preceding one, and will consequently represent the 
 difference of longitude ; for 
 
 MO = MN sec. M = C D sec. lat. 
 
 Therefore, in sailing on a parallel, the properties which 
 connect the latitude of the parallel, the distance sailed 
 upon it, and the corresponding diff. long, are all found in 
 a right-angled plane triangle; the base representing the 
 distance sailed on the parallel, the hypotenuse the diff. 
 lonjj;, and the included angle the latitude of the parallel. 
 
 When a ship sails on an oblique rhumb, two methods 
 have been proposed for connecting the other elements 
 with the diff. long. : one called the middle latitude method ;
 
 NAVIGATION. 
 
 and the other, from the name of its inventor, Mercator's 
 sailing. 
 
 Middle latitude sailing is a compound of plane and par- 
 allel sailing. Referring to the first figure in this article, it 
 is evident that K H is greater than C M, but less than A 
 Q ; that O I is greater than M N, but less than Q, R ; and 
 that KH + OI + NB will not differ greatly from the me- 
 ridian distance midway between the parallels C B and A S. 
 
 The departure corresponding to course c, and distance d, 
 being therefore found from dep. = d sin. c, and this being 
 taken as a meridian distance in the latitude £ (I + 0> tn e 
 middle latitude between the latitude I sailed from and that 
 I arrived at, the diff. long, is found approximately from the 
 principles of parallel sailing, from the formula, 
 diff. long. = dep. sec. h (I + V). 
 
 From this, and from the first and last of the formula; 
 (A.), we immediately deduce the following for middle lati- 
 tude sailing, viz. : 
 
 _ dist. X sin, course 
 
 rr\a mid laf 
 
 diff. long. X cos. mid. lat 
 
 tan. course = - ,.„ ■ , . ' 
 
 diff. lat. 
 
 (B.) 
 
 dep. = diff. long. X cos. mid. lat. 
 In Mercator's sailing the globe is conceived to be ex- 
 tended from the equator towards the poles, so as to form a 
 cylinder whose diameter is that of the equator ; the cor- 
 responding elementary parts of the meridians and parallels, 
 as projected on the cylindric surface, bearing the same pro- 
 portion to each other as the like corresponding parts do on 
 the spherical surface ; the projected rhumb lines being 
 straight lines, and the poles vanishing in infinite distance. 
 Such a cylinder, unrolled on a plane, is called a Mercator's 
 chart. Now, considering the earth as a sphere, the merid- 
 ians and the equator are equal great circles, and therefore 
 any small portion of a parallel is to a like portion of the 
 meridian in the same proportion as the radius of the paral- 
 lel to the radius of the equator ; that is, as the cosine of 
 the latitude to the radius of the tables, or as radius to the 
 secant of the latitude. If, therefore, m represent the length 
 of an elementary portion of the meridian at latitude I, and 
 m' be the projection of m on Mercator's chart ; then, gen- 
 erally, in' = m sec. /. 
 
 It follows from this that in Mercator's projection the 
 degrees of latitude, which at the equator are equal to those 
 of longitude, increase with the distance of the parallel from 
 the equator proportionally to the secants of the latitudes. 
 The parts of the meridian thus increased are called merid- 
 ional parts ; and it is a property of the projection that the 
 meridional parts of any given latitude are equal to the sum 
 of the secants of the minutes in that latitude. (See Mer- 
 cator's Chart.) The sum of the secants being computed 
 for every minute up to any latitude Z, and tabulated, forms 
 what is called a table of meridional parts ; and the differ- 
 ence, or the sum of the meridional parts corresponding to 
 the latitudes of any two places, is called the meridional diff. 
 lat. of those places, the difference being taken when the 
 latitudes are of the same, and the sum when of different 
 denominations. 
 
 It is likewise a remarkable property of Mercator's pro- 
 jection, that any small triangle on the sphere is represented 
 on the chart by a similar triangle, the angles of the original 
 triangle and its representation being equal. Hence the 
 ship's path on the sphere and its projection on the chart 
 cut the meridians under the same angle. If, therefore, A 
 B C be a triangle on the sphere, A C being a portion of the 
 meridian, and A B' C its projection, then A B' and A C 
 will be in the same direction with A B and A C, and B' C 
 will be parallel to B C. In these triangles, 
 therefore, the course A is an angle common to 
 both ; A C is the diff. lat., A C the meridional 
 diff. lat., C B the departure, C B' the diff. long., 
 A B the distance run, and A B' the distance as 
 projected on the chart, the same scale being 
 used for measuring all the lines in the diagram. 
 Hence from such parts of these triangles as may 
 be determined by observation, or taken from tables, the 
 others may be computed. 
 
 The following formula? are obvious consequences of this 
 construction : 
 
 dep. X mer. diff. lat. 
 
 " diff. lat. 
 _ diff. long. (C.) 
 
 mer. diff. lat. 
 distance = diff. lat. X sec. course. 
 The course of a ship at sea is determined by the compass 
 (for the description of which see Compass). The needle 
 generally rests in a position pointing northerly and south- 
 erly; and the angle which its direction makes with the 
 true north and south line is called the variation of the com- 
 pass, the variation being denominated easterly or westerly, 
 
 diff. long. = • 
 
 tan. course : 
 
 according as the north end of the needle is to the east or 
 west of the true north. The amount of this deviation 
 differs greatly in different situations ; and it is by no means 
 a constant quantity even at the same place. There are, 
 however, simple astronomical means of finding it at any 
 place ; so that, by applying a correction for the variation, 
 either the true course may be gained from an observed 
 compass one, or the compass course from a computed true 
 one. 
 
 Besides the general variation to which we have here 
 adverted, it is found that in ships which have large masses 
 of iron on board, the compass is sensibly attracted, and the 
 effect varies with the direction of the ship's head. Mr. 
 Barlow has devised a remedy for this cause of derange- 
 ment, which consists in placing a small disk of iron in such 
 a situation behind the compass that its single effect exactly 
 counterbalances the combined force of the more distant 
 masses. See Magnetic Compensator. 
 
 The velocity of the ship, or the rate of sailing, is deter- 
 mined experimentally, at the end of every hour, by heaving 
 the log. (Seehoa.) For changes of velocity between the 
 times of heaving the log, the officer on duty makes the best 
 estimate he can. 
 
 When the wind is adverse or changeable, it is often 
 requisite to sail on different courses ; and the crooked line 
 which the ship then describes is called a traverse; and 
 the method of finding a single course and distance equiva- 
 lent to such a compound one is called resolving a traverse. 
 This may be done by a geometrical projection, but it is 
 generally effected in practice by the aid of the traverse ta- 
 ble. From this table the diff. lat. and dep. corresponding to 
 each course and distance is taken, and entered in an appro- 
 priate table, having columns headed N. S. E. W. ; namely, 
 N. and S. for diff. lat., and E. W. for departure. The dif- 
 ference between the sums under N. and S. shows the diff. 
 lat., as does the difference between the sums under E. and 
 W. the departure ; and in either case the difference is of 
 the same denomination as the larger sum. The course and 
 distance required are then either found by inspection in a 
 traverse table, or by the formulae (A.). 
 
 When a ship makes considerable way through the wa- 
 ter, and the wind is on the beam, abaft it, or even a little 
 before it, she generally moves forward in the direction of 
 the fore and aft line ; "but in rough weather, with the wind 
 forward, she will generally be driven more or less to lee- 
 ward, as will be shown by the direction of the wake, or the 
 ripple formed by the waves closing behind her. The an- 
 gle which this ripple makes with the direction of the keel 
 is called the leeway ; and it must be applied as a correc- 
 tion to the course shown by the compass, and always al- 
 lowed from the wind— that is, to the left, if the wind is on 
 the right-hand side of the ship, and to the right, if on the 
 left. See Leeway. 
 
 All matters relating to the navigation of a ship are en- 
 tered in a systematically ruled book, called the log-book ; 
 and what, day after day, is so recorded is called the ship's 
 journal. The principal columns in the log-book are for the 
 hour of the day, the course, rate of sailing, leeway, and 
 winds ; one for general remark, and for entering the par- 
 ticulars and results of celestial observations, for notes on 
 the weather, and memoranda as to all important points of 
 duty in the ship, the sails set, and the manner in which 
 the crew are employed. To this is daily appended the lati- 
 tude and longitude of the ship at noon, both as deduced 
 from celestial observations, and as computed from the 
 course and distance since the time when the place was last 
 ascertained. The place determined from the course and 
 distance is called the place by dead reckoning. The bear- 
 ing and distance of the land first expected to be seen, and 
 the course and distance made on the whole, during the day, 
 are also added. 
 
 If the course and distance could always be accurately de- 
 termined, the place of the ship could be computed with 
 corresponding exactness from the principles of which we 
 have above given a concise account. But these data can 
 only be obtained in a roughly approximative form. The ef- 
 fect of unknown currents, unavoidable imperfections in 
 steering, and numberless other sources of error, render the 
 place of the ship, as estimated from the reckoning, very 
 doubtful ; and, in fact, when the mariner is obliged to rely 
 for several days on these data only, he often finds that his 
 expected and his true place are considerably distant from 
 each other. , . • 
 
 In the modern practice of navigation, therefore, the course 
 and distance are only used to enable the seamen to assign 
 approximately the place of his ship between the times at 
 which it is determined, independently, by celestial observa- 
 
 This branch of nautical knowledge, which is generally 
 and properly included in every system of navigation, is call- 
 ed nautical astronomy ; and the improvements which have 
 been introduced in its modern application constitute the 
 3£ 817
 
 NAVIGATION. 
 
 chief difference between navigation as practised in our own 
 and former times. 
 
 For a minute explanation of the processes by which the 
 place of a ship on the wide ocean may be determined, from 
 the observed situation of celestial objects with respect to 
 each other and to the horizon, we must refer to works ex- 
 pressly devoted to the subject. But we shall jive B short ac- 
 count of the most useful practical methods of finding the lat- 
 itude, the longitude, and the variation of the compass, which 
 are the three principal problems in nautical astronomy. 
 
 Reduction of Altitudes. — Before the altitudes of celestial 
 objects as observed at sea can be employed in the solution 
 of astronomical problems, they must be corrected for the 
 effects of dip and parallax ; and for semidiameter, when the 
 altitude of the upper or lower border, instead of that of the 
 central, has been observed, as in the case of the sun or moon. 
 If A =: the altitude of the upper or lower border, s = the 
 semidiameter, d the dip of the horizon (that is, the angle 
 through which the sea horizon appears depressed in con- 
 sequence of the elevation of the observer), r the refraction 
 corresponding to the alt. A, and p the horizontal parallax 
 taken from the Nautical Almanac for the time of observa- 
 tion, and A' = the true altitude : then 
 
 A' = A — d^f s + p cos. (A — d ^ s) — r. 
 In practice, the corrections to be applied to A to obtain 
 A' are taken from tables, and the process of reduction is 
 short and simple. 
 
 To find the latitude from the observed meridian altitude of 
 a known celestial object : 
 
 Let z be the complement of the true altitude, as deduced 
 from the observed one, D the object's declination, and L 
 the latitude ; and call 2 north when the zenith is north, 
 and south when it is south of the object : then L = z ^ 
 D ; a formula in which D is + when 2 and D are of the 
 same, and — when of different denominations, and L is of 
 the same denomination as the greater of 2 and D. 
 
 To find the latitude from two observed altitudes of the sun, 
 with the time elapsed between the observations : 
 
 Let t = the half elapsed time in degrees, p the sun's 
 polar distance at the middle instant between the observa- 
 tions, s = half the sun, and d = half the difference of the 
 two corrected altitudes ; then compute the angles A, B, C, 
 D, and E, in succession, from the following formula : 
 sin. A = sin. t • sin. p. 
 cos. B = sec. A ■ cos. p. 
 sin. C = cosec. A ■ cos. 5 ■ sin. d. 
 cos D = sin. A • sin. s • cos. d • sec. C. 
 E = B-fD. 
 And the expression for the latitude is, 
 sin. lat. = cos. D ■ cos. E. 
 There are many other methods by which the latitude 
 may be found, but the two which we have given are those 
 most generally used by seamen. 
 
 We pass on to a consideration of the principles on which 
 the methods of finding the longitude astronomically at sea 
 are founded. 
 
 The longitude is found by comparing the time at the first 
 meridian with the time of the same denomination at the 
 place of observation, allowing 15° of longitude for every 
 hour in the difference of the times. 
 In the annexed diagram, let P A represent the meridian 
 passing over the first point of Jiries, P 
 S that passing over the true and P M 
 that passing over the mean place of 
 the sun, and P X that passing over 
 any other celestial object X. Let 
 also P G be the meridian of Green- 
 wich, P N a meridian in west longi- 
 tude, and P O a meridian in east longi- 
 tude. 
 
 Then, for that instant of absolute time, A P G represents 
 the sidereal, SPG the apparent, and M P G the mean time 
 at Greenwich ; twenty-four hours of time being represent- 
 ed by four right angles. A P N, S P N, and INI P N, are the 
 sidereal, apparent, and mean time at the meridian P N ; and 
 A P O, S P O, and M P O, the like times at the meridian 
 PO. 
 
 NowN P G, the longitude of the meridian P X, = A P G 
 — A P N = S P G — S P N = M P G — M 1' \ : and G I> 
 O, the longitude ofPO, = APO, — APG = SPO — S 
 P G = M P O — M P G. 
 
 Therefore, the longitude of any place represented in time 
 is equal to the difference of the relative times at the first 
 meridian and the meridian of the place; the times being 
 lx)th sidereal, both apparent, or both mean time, and both 
 reckoned from the same noon — west when the Greenwich 
 time is greater, and east when it is less than the time at 
 the place of observation. 
 
 The angle X P G, reckoned westerly from P 6, is called 
 the meridian dimmer of the object X from the meridian p 
 G, and X P N its meridian distance from the meridian P N. 
 818 
 
 NAVIGATION ACTS. 
 
 A P X is its right ascension, APS the right ascension of 
 the sun, and SPM the equation of time, or the difference 
 between mean and apparent time. 
 
 Now, If a be the altitude of an object X. as observed in a 
 given latitude /, say on the meridian 1" \, and p — P X, 
 its polar distance ; then, if we put 8 r£ A (a -f- / -)- P)< 'he 
 angle X P N may be determined from" this expression, 
 sin. 2 i (X P N) = ,/ [sin. (s — a) • cos. s • sec. / • cosec. »]. 
 And X P N + A P X — A P S ± S P M — M P N, the 
 mean time at the meridian P N. 
 
 P X, A P X, A P S, and S P M, are furnished by the 
 Nautical Almanac ; and it is evident, therefore, that from 
 an observed altitude of a celestial object, with the data >u\>- 
 plicd by the Nautical Almanac, the mean time at the place 
 of observation may be found. 
 
 With respect to the corresponding Greenwich time, it 
 may be found by means of a chronometer, whose error and 
 rate are ascertained before it is taken to sea. For example, 
 if on May 4th the chronometer be 4 m. fast for Greenwich 
 time, and on May 14th 4 m. 50 s. fast for Greenwich time ; 
 then, if on May 30th, at sea, an altitude be observed to de- 
 termine time at the place of observation, when this chron- 
 ometer shows 5 h. 40 m. 12 s., then the true mean time at 
 Greenwich is 5 h. 40 in. 2 s. ; and if the mean time at the 
 place deduced from the observation be 3 h. 57 m. 48 s. the 
 longitude of the place will be 5 h. 40 m. 2 s. — 3 h. 57 m. 
 48 s. = 1 h. 42 m. 14 s. = 25° 33' 30" west. 
 
 The Greenwich time may also be found by considering 
 the moon in the heavens as the pointer of a Greenwich 
 clock, and her distances from the sun and certain stars as 
 indicating the Greenwich times to which they correspond. 
 These distances are computed, and published beforehand 
 in the Nautical Almanac, for every third hour of Green- 
 wich time ; so that if at any moment we ascertain the 
 moon's distance from some such celestial object, the Green- 
 wich time may be found by comparing that distance with 
 those in the Nautical Almanac. 
 
 The distances there given, however, are the distances of 
 the objects as seen from the centre of the earth ; and, there- 
 fore, before a distance observed on the surface can be made 
 available for finding the Greenwich time, it must be re- 
 duced to what it would have been if the observation had 
 been made at the centre. Many formuhe have been de- 
 vised, and numerous and extensive collections of tables 
 have been formed, to assist in making this reduction ; but 
 perhaps the following is as convenient as any other that 
 has been proposed. 
 
 Let m be the moon's app. zenith dist., .9 the sun's ; M the 
 moon's true zenith dist., S the sun's ; d the app. dist. of the 
 centres of the objects, and D the required or the true dis- 
 tance, and put 
 
 A J (M + S), B = J (m + s + d) — d, 
 
 sin. X = v' (cosec. s ■ cosec. m • sin.M ■ sin. S ■ sin. A • sin. B) 
 
 then sin. *D = y/ [sin. (A + X) sin. (A — X)]. 
 
 To compute the bearing of the sun, the altitude, polar dis- 
 tance, and latitude being known : 
 
 Let a = the altitude, ^ = the latitude, p = the polar dis- 
 tance, S = 4 (<i + I + p), and B the required bearing, or 
 azimuth — estimated from the south when the latitude is 
 north, and from the north when the latitude is south ; to- 
 wards the east when the altitude is increasing, and towards 
 the west when it is decreasing, then 
 
 sin. A B = -v/ [sec. a ■ sec. I • cos. S • cos. (S — p)]. 
 
 If the compass bearing of the object be observed when 
 the altitude is taken, the variation of the compass may 
 hence be found; for let B' = the compass bearing; then 
 the variation is B + B' or B — B', the sign + being used 
 when one bearing is eastward and the other westward, and 
 — when both are on the same side of the meridian; and 
 the variation is west when B is to the left, and eastward 
 when it is to the right of B\ 
 
 For an account of the history of navigation, the reader 
 is referred to the Introduction to Robertson's Elements of 
 Navigation. Of modern works on this subject in general 
 use among British seamen, we may notice those by Hr. In- 
 man ; and particularly those of Mr. Riddle and of Lieut. 
 Baper, treating both of the theory and practice. The Epit- 
 omes of Moore, Uackay, and Norie are also very useful 
 compilations, and have long had an extensive circulation. 
 
 NAVIGATION ACTS. Several statutes of our early 
 kiriL's were passed with a view to confine particular branches 
 of the English carrying trade to English merchants : but as 
 they were generally enacted merely for some temporary ob- 
 ject, they produced little effect. In 1050 the tir^t naviga- 
 tion act was framed under the republican g o v ern ment ; 
 partly with a view to punish the inhabitants of ibe sugar 
 islands, who were chiefly loyalists, partly in hostility to the 
 Dutch. It prohibited foreign vessels from trading to the 
 English colonies (a prohibition extended, in 1651, to the 
 mother country), without a licence from the council of 
 state. In 10CO the government of Charles 11. re-enacted
 
 NAVIRE. 
 
 these prohibitions on a more extended scale. The chief 
 articles of the act 12 Car. 2, c. 18, are, that no goods be car- 
 ried to or from any English colonies but in vessels built 
 within the English dominions, or really the property of 
 Englishmen, and whose masters, and at least three fourths 
 of the crew, are English; that no goods of foreign growth 
 or manufacture (with specified exceptions), be imported in 
 English vessels, except from the country where they are 
 grown and manufactured; that sugar, tobacco, and other 
 colonial commodities (thence called in trade enumerated), 
 be imported into no part of Europe but England and her 
 dominions. The history of these acts, so much extolled by 
 British politicians, and termed by some the charta maritima 
 of England, and of the modifications which their provisions 
 have since undergone, especially by Mr. Huskisson's act, 6 
 Geo. 4, c. 109, is succinctly traced in note xi. of M'Culloch's 
 edition of the Wealth of Nations. 
 
 NAVI'RE. (F.) An order of knighthood instituted by 
 St. Louis, king of France, in 1269, to encourage the lords of 
 France to undertake the expedition to the Holy Land. Af- 
 ter having fallen into desuetude, it was again revived, with 
 renewed lustre, in 1448, under the name of the order of the 
 crescent. This order derived its name either from the cir- 
 cumstance that the collars of the knights belonging to it 
 had a ship pendent from them, or because the knights were 
 allowed to bear in their arms a ship argent in chief. 
 
 NA'VY (Lat. navis, a ship), in its most extended signifi- 
 cation is applied both to the mercantile and military marine 
 of a nation ; but it is more commonly restricted to vessels 
 of war only, all others being said to belong to the merchant 
 service. In treating of the navy, it is usual to consider it 
 under two distinct heads, the materiel and personnel : the 
 former comprising all that relates to the construction, arma- 
 ment, and equipment of ships ; the latter including all who 
 receive rank, pay, or emolument in the service of the navy, 
 and whatever concerns the appointment, station, and du- 
 ties of officers, sailors, and marines. Under the different 
 heads the reader will find a notice of the chief subjects in- 
 cluded in the materiel of the navy ; and we shall in the 
 present article restrict ourselves to some general remarks 
 respecting its history, management, and present state, which 
 may serve to give a coup d'ceil of the whole subject, and 
 which could not well be comprised under separate heads. 
 
 The naval history of England is usually divided into 
 three eras ; the first comprising all the period that preceded 
 the reign of Henry VIII. ; the second ending with the res- 
 toration of Charless II. ; and the third from the Restoration 
 down to the present time. Omitting all that period of Eng- 
 lish naval history that intervened between the Conquest 
 and the reign of Henry VIH. as too unimportant to be dwelt 
 upon in a sketch of this nature, we may state, before pass- 
 ing to the second period, that the first ship, properly so call- 
 ed, of the British navy, was built by Henry VII. in the third 
 year of his reign. She was called " The Great Harry," had 
 three masts,* carried 80 guns, measured 138 feet in length, 
 and 36 feet in breadth from outside to outside, and cost up- 
 wards of .£14.000. This ship constituted the most noble 
 monument of Henry VII.'s regard for the navy ; but his de- 
 signs were matured and perfected by his son Henry VIII., 
 in whose reign England may be said to have first possessed 
 a permanent navy. Previously to his reign our sovereigns 
 had but few ships ; when they wished to transport an army 
 to France, or to undertake any considerable naval enter- 
 prise, it was usually effected by requisitions of ships and 
 seamen from the different seaport towns of the kingdom, or 
 by hiring them from the merchants of Hamburgh, Lubeck, 
 Genoa, &.c. ; which were dismissed as soon as the occasion 
 for their service was over. But Henry, whose naval force, 
 as in the preceding reigns, was chiefly dependent on foreign 
 auxiliaries, caused several "shippes royall" to be construct- 
 ed for the service of the state ; one of which, the " Regent," 
 measured 1000 tons burthen, and another, the " Maria 
 Rose," measured 500 tons burthen, and carried 700 men. 
 At the conclusion of his reign in Jan. 1547, the verified list 
 of the navy amounted to seventy-one ships and vessels of 
 all sorts, measuring 11,268 tons. During the succeeding 
 reigns of Edward VI. and Mary, the naval force of England 
 diminished considerably, and at the demise of the latter in 
 1558 amounted only to twenty-six vessels, measuring 7,110 
 tons burthen. During the long and prosperous reign of 
 Elizabeth which ensued, the navy was greatly encouraged. 
 The naval force collected to oppose the Armada, which 
 consisted of 150 ships with nearly 30,000 men, amounted to 
 176 sail equipped with about 15,000 men ; of these 34 ships 
 with 6,225 men, a larger royal armament than had ever be- 
 fore assembled together, belonged to the crown, the re- 
 mainder being made up from London, Bristol, Yarmouth, 
 the Cinque Ports, &c. During the last twenty-five years 
 of Elizabeth's reign the navy almost doubled its number ; 
 
 * Down to the year 1545, the "Great Harry" was the only ship of that de- 
 scription in the British fleet. She was accidentally burned at Woolwich in 
 ber sixty-fifth yea/. 
 
 NAVY. 
 
 and at her death, in 1603, it amounted to forty-two ships, 
 measuring 17,055 tons, and carrying 8,346 seamen. The 
 reign of James I. was remarkable for the first able and 
 scientific naval architect, Phineas Pett, to whom the art of 
 shipbuilding was indebted for many improvements. "In 
 my own time," says Raleigh, " the shape of our English 
 ships hath been greatly bettered ; in extremity we carry our 
 ordnance better than we were wont ; we have added crosse- 
 pillars in our royall shippes to strengthen them ; we have 
 given longer floares to our shippes than in olden times, and 
 better bearing under water." The striking of topmasts 
 was also invented in this reign ; and besides the improved 
 shape of the vessels, Raleigh mentions various minor im- 
 provements, adding, " to the courses we have devised stud- 
 dingsails, spritsails, and topsails ; the weighing of the 
 capstan is also new, and the chain-pump and bonnet; we 
 have fallen into consideration of the length of cables, and 
 by it we resist the malice of the greatest winds that can 
 blow." At the death of James I. in 1625, the royal navy 
 consisted of thirty-three ships, measuring 19,400 tons. The 
 navy was first divided into rates and classes under Charles 
 I., vvho built several new ships in the beginning of his reign, 
 and among others the "Sovereign of the Seas," a larger 
 ship than had ever been built in England, carrying 100 guns, 
 and measuring 1683 tons. But in 1648 Prince Rupert car- 
 ried oft' twenty-five ships, none of which ever returned to 
 England ; and so reduced was the navy at the commence- 
 ment of Cromwell's government, that he could muster only 
 fourteen men-of-war, some of them carrying only forty guns. 
 But his vigorous administration speedily raised the navy to 
 a magnitude and power formerly unknown ; and under the 
 command of Blake, it became not merely equal but superior 
 to that of the Dutch, then the greatest maritime power of 
 Europe. It was during the Protectorate that the classes 
 into which Charles I. had first divided the navy were clear- 
 ly denned, and a regular system established, which has, 
 with little alteration, remained in force down to the present 
 time. At the death of Cromwell in 1658, the navy amount- 
 ed to one hundred and fifty-seven ships, measuring 21,910 
 tons, and earning 50,000 men. 
 
 At the restoration of Charles II. in 1660 (from which ia 
 dated the third period of English naval history) the whole 
 fleet amounted to only sixty-five ships ; but under the able 
 administration of the Duke of York, the royal fleet soon 
 augmented to a fine armament ; and though the retirement 
 of the latter, in consequence of his inability to take the Test 
 Act, and the subsequent extravagance of the king, caused 
 the navy to decay ; yet such prompt and effective measures 
 were afterwards taken by the Duke, on his recall to office, 
 for its restoration, that at the demise of Charles II. the na- 
 vy amounted to 179 vessels, measuring 103,558 tons. During 
 the foregoing reign, a remarkable change had taken place 
 in scientific and mechanical operations, and the art of ship- 
 building, so long practised on vague and imperfect principles, 
 began to be more highly and extensively developed ; for not 
 only were the proportions and qualities of vessels improved, 
 but the mind of the designer was directed to theoretical in- 
 vestigation ; and thus, coeval with the third period of naval 
 history', may be justly reckoned the full development of the 
 science of naval architecture. On his accession to the throne 
 James II. continued to evince the same warm interest which, 
 as lord high admiral, he had always manifested for the 
 welfare of the navy. He suspended the navy board, and 
 appointed a new commission, with which he joined Sir An- 
 thony Deane, the best naval architect of the time ; four 
 hundred thousand pounds were annually set apart for na- 
 val purposes ; and so diligent were the commissioners in 
 the discharge of their duty, that on the abdication of 
 James, in 1688, the navy amounted to 173 sail, measuring 
 101,892 tons, and carrying 6930 guns and 42,003 men. Un- 
 der the administration of William and Mary, vvho made 
 little alteration in the system adopted by their predecessor, 
 99 new ships were added to the fleet ; and the eelebrated 
 engagement off Cape la Hogue, in 1692, gave the British 
 navy an ascendency over that of France, which it has 
 ever since preserved. Queen Anne at her accession found 
 the navy to consist of 272 vessels, measuring 159.020 tons ; 
 but in the third year of her reign a most destructive storm 
 visited this country and the adjacent coasts, by vv hich the 
 navy sustained great damage and loss. No fewer than ten 
 men-of-war were totally lost, and many more were driven 
 on shore and damaged. All measures adding to the 
 strength and efficiency of the navy were exceedingly popu- 
 lar during this reign, and everv plan compatible with finan- 
 cial economy was adopted for its benefit ; so that though 
 the number of ships was less at the end of Anne s reign, 
 1714 than at its commencement, the tonnage had increased 
 8199 tons During the first four years of George L, large 
 sums were voted for the extraordinary repairs which were 
 required after the long war. A general survey was made 
 of the dockyards and sea-stores ; new dimensions for sev- 
 eral classes of ships were established ; and at the death
 
 NAVY. 
 
 of (his monarch, in 1727, the navy consisted of 233 sin;*, 
 measuring 170,803 tons. The navy remained stationarj for 
 the first twelve years of the reign of George 11.: baton 
 hostilities breaking out with Spain, in 173U, the navj was 
 considerably augmented, and a scale of increased dimen- 
 sions WBS established in 1742. In the wars of 1744 and 
 1755, our naval enterprises were crowned with the most 
 Bignal success; and at the demise of George II., in 1760, 
 the navy consisted of 412 ships, measuring 321,104 tons, 
 the vote fir the naval service of that J ear being X'.i.iil 1 ,508, 
 51,645 seamen, and 18,355 marines. ' The unprecedented 
 progress of the navy during the long reign of George III. 
 
 is familiar to all. It may be sufficient, therefore, to ob- 
 serve, that though the combined fleets Of frame ami Spain 
 appeared to have an ascendency during the American war, 
 the victories of Rodney restored our previous superiority. 
 The nature of the struggle with revolutionary France, trie 
 bitterness with which it was carried mi. and the fleets re- 
 quired not merely for the protection of our own shores, 
 hut for that of our mercantile shipping and of our numer- 
 ous colonies in all parts of the world, led to an immense 
 increase of our naval force ; and while our navy was thus 
 progressively augmented, the decisive victory of the first of 
 June, 1794, followed by those of St. Vincent, Camperdown, 
 the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, almost destroyed 
 every fleet that could be opposed to it, leaving us the un- 
 disputed masters of the ocean. 
 
 From the commencement of hostilities in 1793 to the 
 peace of Amiens, the following table will show the losses 
 sustained both by the English and their enemies, includ- 
 ing the ships surrendered to be held in trust : 
 
 Loss sustained by the English. 
 Ships of the line . . .5 
 
 Frigates 13 
 
 Sloops and smaller vessels . 41 
 
 Captured from the Enemy. 
 Ships of the line ... 86 
 Frigates . . . .209 
 
 Sloops and smaller vessels . 275 
 
 Total 
 
 59 
 
 Total 
 
 57U 
 
 From the declaration of war in Mav, IS03, to the general 
 p ace concluded in 1815, the number of ships and vessels 
 ol war captured and destroyed by the British, with the 
 amount of loss sustained by our fleets during the same pe- 
 riod, will be found in the following abstract : 
 
 Captured. Destroyed. 
 French, Dutch, Spanish, S ships of the line . . 65 14 
 
 Turkish, Danish, American ( frigates 79 23 
 
 Total . . 80 17 
 
 In the last seven years of the war the British naval 
 force averaged one hundred and forty ships of the line in 
 Commission, and five hundred and eighty frigates, sloops, 
 and smaller vessels ; those in harbour, ordinary, and build- 
 ing, being estimated at three hundred during the same pe- 
 riod. Since the peace of 1815 great improvements have 
 taken place in every department of naval architecture ; 
 masts, rigging, sails, ordnance, implements, and instru- 
 ments, have all undergone revision ; alterations, not only 
 in the form and magnitude of British ships, but even in the 
 arrangement of the materials composing them, have been 
 effected ; and it is perhaps not going too far to assert, that 
 never at any former period was our navy in a condition 
 better calculated to maintain its long undisputed sover- 
 eignty of the ocean. 
 
 The following table will show the force of the British 
 Navy at five distinct periods : viz. the year after the break- 
 ing out of the French revolutionary war ; in 1830, five years 
 subsequently to the peace ; in 1830, on the accession of 
 William IV. ; on the accession of her present Majesty, in 
 1837 ; and in 1840, the date of the last official list : 
 
 
 1798. 
 
 1820. 
 
 1830. 
 
 1837. 
 
 1840. 
 
 ,5 
 
 
 
 
 
 £ 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 z 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Ships, &c. 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 = 
 
 JE 
 
 u 
 
 E 
 
 Tons. 
 
 S 
 
 £. 
 
 I 
 
 fS 
 
 Tons. 
 
 a 
 
 a 
 
 
 I 
 
 £ 
 
 Tons. 
 
 
 § 
 
 7 
 
 | r 
 
 3 
 
 H 
 
 Tons. 
 
 j 
 E 
 5 
 
 J 
 
 I 
 
 fS 
 
 Tons. 
 
 
 u 
 
 
 
 
 
 u 
 
 O 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 O 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Of the Line 
 
 26 
 
 B4 
 
 12 
 
 122 
 
 
 14 
 
 113 
 
 22 
 
 1-1" 
 
 
 14 
 
 75 
 
 1- 
 
 107 
 
 
 .M 
 
 60 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 n 
 
 51 
 
 .'.! 
 
 105 
 
 
 Under \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 small 5 
 
 108 
 
 62 
 
 8 
 
 ISA 
 
 
 its 
 
 255 
 
 D5 
 
 464 
 
 
 148 
 
 202 
 
 H 
 
 469 
 
 
 UjR 
 
 m 
 
 13 
 
 436 
 
 
 L4S 
 
 220 
 
 :ll 
 
 4--. 
 
 
 vessels ) 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Steamers . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7 
 
 4 1 
 
 12 
 
 
 4: 
 
 11 
 
 1 
 
 :>4 
 
 
 65 
 
 15 
 
 7 
 
 87 
 
 
 Grand total 
 
 135 
 
 166 
 
 2:i 
 
 331 
 
 402,555 
 
 127 
 
 368 
 
 117 
 
 BIS 
 
 605.527 
 
 164 
 
 341 183 
 
 588 
 
 544,416 
 
 229 
 
 289 
 
 i8 
 
 57'. 
 
 467.765 
 
 21: 
 
 989 
 
 w 
 
 m 
 
 50(1,232 
 
 To be employed 
 in the fleet 
 
 The parliamentary vote for the service of the navy 
 1841-42, is as follow-s : 
 
 Seamen (including officers) . 30,500 
 
 Marines (ditto) . . . 6,500 
 
 . Boys 2,000 
 
 In service on ) M . . „„„ 
 
 shore . , "«W .... 4,000 
 
 Half pay and re- ) Naval officers . . . 4,845 
 
 tired . . ) Marine officers ... 470 
 
 Grand total . . 48,315 
 
 For the effective service .... 
 For the non-effective service . 
 For freight on account of the army and ord- 
 nance departments 
 
 £4,931,005 
 1,415,002 
 
 . 267,249 
 Total . £6,614,156 
 Classes n)ii7 Rates. — It is of great importance, in order to 
 insure union in the movements of a fleet, and to facilitate 
 the fittin" out and repair of ships, that those of the same 
 rate or class should not differ materially in size or build 
 from each other. Until the Restoration vessels appear to 
 have been "rated" from the complement assigned to each, 
 without any reference to the ordnance they carried : but mi 
 the recommendation of a committee appointed in 1745 this 
 method was superseded by classification according to nuns. 
 In 1793 our ships, which, in consequence of the previous 
 wars, had outgrown their establishments of ordnance, 
 were rated anew at so many nuns ami upwards; but the 
 latitude of the term "and upwards" giving rise in ureat ir- 
 regularities, an investigation took pin e in 1816, when by 
 an order in council the rule which existed previously tn 
 1793 was revived, ami ships were ordered to be rated 
 thenceforth from the number of guns and carronadei acta* 
 ally carried, and not n< icordlng to the erroneous denomina- 
 tions Which had latterly grown into use. His late Majesty 
 William IV. made some alteration in this mode of rating 
 ships, but not sin h as material!} to interfere with the ar- 
 rangement introduced by liis predecessor. The royal navy, 
 
 as at present constituted, comprises three principal classes : 
 1. Rated ships and yachts, including razees, frigates, and 
 corvettes. 2. Ships and bomb vessels, including vessels 
 corvette-built or otherwise. 3. AH smaller vessels, includ- 
 ing brigs, ketches, brigantines, schooners, cutters, tenders, 
 &c. Ships of the first class are commanded by captains ; 
 of the second class, by commanders; of the third class, by 
 lieutenants and subordinate officers. 
 
 By the regulations of 1833, the following rates were es- 
 tablished : First rate : all three-decked ships. Second rate : 
 one of her Majesty's yachts, and all two-decked ships 
 whose war complements consist of 700 men and upwards. 
 Third rale: the other royal yachts, and all yachts bearing 
 the flag or pendant of an admiral or captain superintend- 
 ent of a dock-yard; and all ships whose complements are 
 under 700 and not less than 600. Fourth rate : ships whose 
 complements are under 600 and not less than 400. Fifth 
 rate : ships whose complements are under 400 and not 
 less than 250. Sixth rate : ships whose complements are 
 under 250. 
 
 Steam vessels are assigned a rate at the discretion of 
 the lords of the admiralty. Ships or vessels fitted as 
 troopships, surveying ships, tire ships, store ships, or ves- 
 sels used on any temporary service, are also given a rate 
 not above the fourth. Ships of the 1st rate carry 100 guns 
 anil upwards; those of the 2d rate ,-tl and upwards; the 
 
 :fil rata 6 Til to B0; the 4th rate from 50 to 70 ; the 5th 
 
 rate from 38 to 50; and the 6th rate from M to 36. (For 
 the chief of these details we are indebted to an able and 
 beautiful little work recently published, entitled an F.pit- 
 ihr Royal Naval Sandet «f England, by .Mr. .Miles.) 
 Qovernment of the Navy. — The general direction and 
 control of all altairs connected with the navy is intrusted, 
 under her [Majesty, to the lord hiL'li admiral, or to the com- 
 missioners for discharging the functions of that ollicer. 
 The duties of the lord high admiral were formerly judicial 
 as well as administrative; he havinc not merely to govern 
 the navy, but to pres'nle over a court for adjudging all nau- 
 tical cases, and for taking cognizance of all offences com-
 
 NAVY. 
 
 mitted on the high seas. But the judicial are now sepa- 
 rated from the other duties of this high functionary, being 
 devolved upon the judge of the Admiralty Court. See Ad- 
 miralty, Court of. 
 
 From the reign of Queen Anne down to the present time, 
 with the exception of the short period during which Wil- 
 liam IV., when Duke of Clarence, held the office, the du- 
 ties of the lord high admiral have been discharged by com- 
 missioners. These have consisted generally of a first lord, 
 and of four or six junior lords. Civilians may be appoint- 
 ed to these offices ; but at least two of the lords are al- 
 ways professional men. But, though assisted by junior 
 lords practically, all the power and authority of the board 
 is vested in the first lord. The powers exercised by the 
 Board of Admiralty are very extensive and important. By 
 their orders ships are built, repaired, fitted for sea, or laid 
 up in ordinary, broken up, or sold ; put in commission, or 
 out of commission ; armed, stored, and provisioned ; em- 
 ployed on the home or on foreign stations. All appoint- 
 ments or removals of commission and warrant officers are 
 made by them, and all instructions issued for the guidance 
 of their commanders ; all promotions in the several ranks 
 emanate from them ; all honours bestowed for and without 
 services, and all pensions, gratuities, and superannuations 
 for wounds, infirmities, and long services, are granted on 
 their recommendation. All returns from the fleet are sent 
 to the Board of Admiralty, and every thing that relates to 
 the discipline and good order of every ship. All orders for 
 the payment of naval moneys are issued by the lords com- 
 missioners of the admiralty ; and the annual estimate of 
 the expenses of the navy, prepared by them, is laid before 
 parliament for its sanction. All new inventions and ex- 
 periments are submitted to them before being introduced 
 into the service : all draughts of ships must have their ap- 
 proval ; all repairs, alterations, and improvements in the 
 dock-yards, and all new buildings, of every description, 
 must be decided upon by them before they are undertaken. 
 (Sup. to Encyc. Britan., art. "Navy.") 
 
 Under the superintendence of the lords commissioners, 
 the civil departments of the admiralty are directed by a 
 surveyor of the navy, an accountant-general, a store-keep- 
 er-general, a comptroller of victualling, and a physician- 
 general. 
 
 There are three gradations of admirals, viz., admirals, 
 vice-admirals, and rear admirals ; and each of these dig- 
 nities consists of three divisions, distinguished by the col- 
 our of their flags. Thus, there are admirals of the red, 
 the white, and the blue squadrons, bearing their respective 
 flags at the main-top-gallant-mast head ; vice-admirals of 
 the red, the white, and the blue squadrons, bearing their 
 respective flags at the fore-top-gallant-mast head ; and 
 rear-admirals of the red, the white, and the blue squad- 
 rons, bearing their respective flags at the mizzen-top-gal- 
 lant-mast head. All admirals, whatever be their rank, 
 take the common title of flag officers. 
 
 Admirals rank with generals in the army, vice-admirals 
 with lieutenant-generals, and rear-admirals with major- 
 generals. The command of each ship is entrusted to a 
 captain, or to a commander, who has under him a certain 
 number of lieutenants, according to the size of the ship, 
 with a master, purser, midshipmen, gunners, &c. A cap- 
 tain of three years' standing ranks with a colonel in the 
 army, and a captain of less than three years' standing with 
 a lieutenant-colonel ; a commander ranks with a major, 
 and a lieutenant with a captain. The captain is responsi- 
 ble for the discipline and efficiency of the crew, and the 
 good order of the ship. Notwithstanding he is furnished 
 with minute instructions for his guidance in every particu- 
 lar, much must always necessarily depend on his conduct 
 and character. He has power to order punishment to be 
 inflicted ; but it must be done in the presence of all the 
 officers and ship's company. An account, stating all the 
 circumstances, must also be entered in the ship's log, an 
 abstract of which is forwarded each quarter to the admi- 
 ralty. This regulation has tended to repress hasty and in- 
 considerate punishment ; and has done much to improve 
 the conduct of the officers, as well as to promote the proper 
 discipline of the navy. 
 
 Composition of the Navy. — The navy is composed of 
 two bodies of men — seamen and marines (see Marines! ; 
 and the officers under whose command it is placed are di- 
 vided into three classes, viz., commissioned, warrant, and 
 petty officers. Commissioned officers comprise flag officers 
 (see supra), commodores, captains, commanders, and lieu- 
 tenants, appointed by commission from the lords commis- 
 sioners of the admiralty, or by a commander-in-chief hav- 
 ing authority in cases of vacancies by death or the decis- 
 ions of courts martial abroad to make such appointments. 
 Warrant officers are those who hold their appointment by 
 warrant from the lords commissioners of the admiralty ; 
 to this class belong masters, secretaries, physicians, sur- 
 geons, &c. Petty officers are divided into two classes, 
 
 NEAP TIDES. 
 
 quarter-deck and working ; the former, comprising mid- 
 shipmen, master's assistants, volunteers, &x., are entered 
 by order of the lords commissioners, or by a commander- 
 in-chief abroad ; the latter, including captains of the main- 
 top, foretop, &c. &c, are appointed by the captain or com- 
 mander of the ship or vessel to which they belong. 
 
 Any person may enter the navy as a common seamen, 
 on application to .the commanding officer of any of her 
 majesty's ships in commission, provided he be approved by 
 the examining surgeon, and have not previously been " dis- 
 charged from the service with disgrace. Persons who 
 have never been at sea are rated as landsmen, and sea- 
 faring men are rated as " ordinary" or " able" seamen, be- 
 sides numerous gradations of petty officers, to which they 
 are rated at the discretion of the commanding officer. Sea- 
 men are also obtained for the navy, at the breaking out of 
 a war or any other emergency, by the practice of impress- 
 ment. The antiquity and legality of this practice cannot 
 be questioned ; but very great and serious doubts have been 
 and may be entertained as to its expediency. Foreigners are 
 the only persons exempted at common law from impress- 
 ment ; but exemptions have been created by acts of parlia- 
 ment in favour of various classes, as landsmen, apprentices, 
 seamen employed in the fisheries, watermen in the ser- 
 vice of fire insurance companies, &c. See Impressment. 
 
 Young gentlemen enter the service as volunteers of the 
 first class ; and every officer commissioning a ship is al- 
 lowed to make one fresh entry. A volunteer must remain 
 two complete years in that capacity, and attain the age of 
 fourteen, before he can be rated a midshipman ; when he 
 has completed six years' service, and attained the age of 
 nineteen he may be examined in seamanship, and also in 
 navigation, for the rank of lieutenant ; and should he pass 
 such examinations, he is eligible to hold a warrant as mate, 
 if his conduct be satisfactory to his captain. 
 
 No person can receive a commission as lieutenant un- 
 less he have passed both the above examinations ; but hav- 
 ing done so, he is eligible for promotion to that rank. A 
 lieutenant is not eligible for a commander's commission, 
 till he have served two years at sea in a ship of war as 
 lieutenant ; nor is a commander eligible for a captain's 
 commission till he have served one complete year at sea 
 in a ship of war as commander. 
 
 In 1830 a temporary restriction was placed on promo- 
 tions by a minute of the Admiralty Board. This limited 
 the promotion of officers to the rank of captain, and all 
 below that rank to filling up one in three vacancies on 
 the list, with the exception, viz., 1st, of death vacancies 
 on foreign stations, which the commanders-in-chief have 
 authority to fill up ; 2d, the reservation to the admiralty 
 of power to promote for special or brilliant services ; 3d, 
 of the occasion of a commander-in-chief striking his flag ; 
 and 4th, on the recommendation of the Board of Customs 
 for services in the coast guard. 
 
 Captains and admirals are promoted by seniority, on 
 what is termed a " flag promotion" taking place ; but a 
 captain must have served as under, in command of a 
 rated ship, before he can obtain his flag ; viz. 
 
 In war ------ 4 years. 
 
 In war and peace combined - - 5 — 
 In peace - - - -'- -6 — 
 
 All other classes of officers, as was remarked above, are 
 promoted at the discretion of the Board of Admiralty. For 
 the various important subjects connected with the pay, 
 pension, discipline, &c. of the navy, see the Navy List. 
 See, also, Statistics of the British Empire ; and the valu- 
 able little work above referred to, Epitome of the Royal 
 Naval Service of England, London, 1841. For other par- 
 ticulars relating to the navy, see Naval Architecture, 
 Ship, and other naval articles, which will be found under 
 their respective heads in this work. 
 
 NA'ZARITE. (Heb. nazar, to separate), signified, ia 
 the Jewish dispensation, one separated to the Lord by a 
 vow. (Numbers, chap, vi.) The chief observances of the 
 Nazarites were, to refrain from drinking wine, to suffer 
 the hair to grow, and to avoid coming in contact with a 
 corpse. This word must be distinguished from Nazarene, 
 which signified a native of Nazareth, and was applied in 
 contempt to the early Christians, inasmuch as they were 
 followers of Jesus of Nazareth. 
 
 In some Eastern countries, some Christian communities 
 are still to be met with which have retained the appella- 
 tion of Nazarenes. The sect of Nazarenes, which sprung 
 up in Palestine in the second century, endeavoured to en- 
 graft the rites and observances of the Jews on the religion 
 of Jesus Christ ; in this respect they bore a considerable 
 resemblance to the Ebionites, whose contemporaries they 
 were, but with whom they must not be confounded. No 
 traces of them existed in the 5th century. 
 
 NEAP, or NEEP TIDES, are the lowest tides, being 
 those which are produced when the attractions of the sun 
 and moon on the waters of the ocean are eserted in direc- 
 
 821
 
 NEAT. 
 
 tions perpendicular to each other. When the two forces 
 act in the same <>r exactly opposite directions, the spring 
 
 or highest tiiles are produced. The neap tides take place 
 about four or five days before the new and full moons. 
 See TlSE8< 
 
 NEAT. A term applied to cattle : neat's foot oil is the 
 fat obtained by boiling calves' feet. 
 
 NE'BUL.E. (Lat. nebula, a cloud.) In Astronomy, the 
 name given, on account of their general cloudy appearance, 
 to a very numerous class of celestial objects, being, how- 
 ever, for by far the greater part, telescopic, and only visible 
 in telescopes of considerable power. 
 
 It is to :~ir William Herschel that astronomy is indebted 
 for the first examination and analysis of these remarkable 
 objects. A few of them have indeed been known since 
 the discovery of the telescope, and one or two of them are 
 visible to the naked eye ; but his powerful telescopes first 
 disclosed the fact of their existence in immense numbers, 
 and in all quarters of the heavens, not indeed distributed 
 uniformly, but, generally speaking, with a marked pre- 
 ference to a broad zone, crossing the milky-way nearly at 
 right angles, and whose general direction is not very re- 
 mote from that of the hour circle of Oh and 12h. 
 
 Nebula; are divided by sir W. Herschel into the follow- 
 ing classes : — 1st, Clusters of stars, in which the stars are 
 clearly distinguishable ; 2d, Resolvable nebula?, or such as 
 excite a suspicion that they consist of stars, and which 
 any increase of the optical power of the telescope might 
 be expected to resolve into distinct stars ; 3d, Nebula;, pro- 
 perly so called, in which there is no appearance whatever 
 of stars ; 4th, Planetary nebula; ; 5th, Stellar nebula; ; and, 
 6th, Nebulous stars. 
 
 Clusters of Stars. — These are either globular or of an 
 irregular figure, forming bright isolated patches, which 
 attract attention, as if they were brought together by some 
 general cause. The Pleiades is a cluster of this sort ; the 
 naked eye can distinctly perceive six or seven stars in it, 
 and may catch occasional glimpses of a great many more ; 
 but the telescope shows fifty or sixty crowded together, in 
 a very moderate space, and insulated from the rest of the 
 heavens. A luminous spot, called Pr&sepc, or the Beehive, 
 in the constellation Cancer, is resolved entirely into stars 
 by an ordinary telescope. In the sword-handle of Perseus 
 is another such spot, crowded with stars, but not so easily 
 resolved. There are a great number of less distinct nebu- 
 lous specks of the same kind, which in ordinary telescopes 
 have much the appearance of comets without toils, and 
 have frequently been mistaken for such ; when, however, 
 they are examined with instruments of great power, such 
 as reflectors of J8 inches, two feet, or more in aperture, 
 any such idea is completely destroyed. They are then, 
 for the most part, perceived to consist entirely of stars, 
 crowded together so as to occupy almost a definite outline, 
 and to run up to a blaze oflight in the centre, where their 
 condensation is usually the greatest. Many of them are of 
 an exactly round figure. Others, again, are of an irregular 
 form, and less definite in their outline, so that it is not easy 
 to say where they terminate. In some of them the stars 
 are nearly all of a size, in others extremely different; and 
 it is no uncommon thing to find a very red star, much 
 brighter than the rest, occupying a conspicuous situation in 
 the group. Sir W. Herschel regards these as globular 
 clusters in a less advanced state of condensation ; conceiv- 
 ing all such groups as approaching, by their mutual attrac- 
 tion, to the globular figure, and assembling themselves to- 
 gether from all the surrounding region. 
 
 Resolrablr nebula: are considered as objects of the same 
 nature as the preceding ; but as being either too remote, or 
 consistiiiL' of stars too taint, to affect us by their individual 
 light. They are universally round or oval ; their irregu- 
 larities of form being extinguished by the distance, and only 
 the genera! figure of the condensed parts being discernible. 
 In telescopes Of insufficient optical power, all the great 
 globular clusters exhibit themselves under this appearance. 
 
 fifebvia, properly so called, present a great variety of ap- 
 pearances. One of the most remarkable is in the constella- 
 tion Orion : and its appearance is very different from what 
 might be supposed to arise from the aggregation Of an im- 
 mense collection of small stars. It is formed of little tlocky 
 masses, like wisps of cloud ; and such u laps seem to adhere 
 to many small stars at its outskirts, ami especial]; to one 
 considerable star, which it envelopes with a nebulous at- 
 mosphere of considerable extent and singular figure. This 
 nebula was discovered by Huygens in 1('>.">I>, who gave 
 figures representing |IS appearance in ins telescope. On 
 comparing these with its present oppeeranoe, several astro- 
 nomers have concluded that it has undergone a perceptible 
 change ; but the evidence of such change is by no means to 
 be relied on. There is a nebula in the constellation of 
 Andromeda Visible to the naked eve. and often mistaken 
 for a comet. Its appearance is described by Simon Marius 
 a. that of a candle sliining through horn. Its form is a 
 822 
 
 NECESSITY, DOCTRINE OF. 
 
 pretty long oval, increasing by insensible gradations of 
 brightness, at first very gradually, but at last more rapidly, 
 up to a central point, which, though very much brighter 
 than the rest, is yet evidently not stellar, but only nebulous 
 matter in a high state of condensation. It has in it a few 
 small stars; but they are obviously casual ; and the nebula 
 itself offers not the slightest appearance to give ground for 
 a suspicion of its consisting of stars. It is nearly half a 
 degree long, and fifteen or twenty minutes broad. Like 
 that last described, a very numerous class of nebula; are of 
 a round or oval figure, increasing more or less in density 
 towards the central point. In this respect, however, they 
 differ extremely ; in some the condensation being slight and 
 gradual, in others great ami sudden. They also present 
 great diversity of appearance, in respect of deviation from 
 the spherical form. Some are only slightly elliptic, others 
 much extended in length ; and in some the extension is so 
 great as to give the nebula the character of a long, narrow, 
 spindle-shaped ray, tapering away at both ends to points. 
 Some nebula; are annular ; but these are among the rarest 
 objects in the heavens. The most conspicuous is situated 
 half way between the stars j3 and y Lyra;, and may be seen 
 with a telescope of moderate power. It is small, and par- 
 ticularly well defined, so as to have, in fact, much more the 
 appearance of a flat oval solid ring than of a nebula. 
 
 Planetary nebula: have exactly the appearance of planets 
 — round or slightly oval disks, in some instances quite sharply 
 terminated, in others a little hazy at the borders, and of a 
 light exactly equable, or only a little mottled, which, in 
 some of them, approaches in vividness to that of actual 
 planets. Whatever the nature of these objects may be, 
 they must be of enormous magnitude. One in Aquarius 
 presents a diameter of 20" ; another in Andromeda, has a 
 visible disk of 12", perfectly defined and round. Granting 
 them to be equally distant from us with the stars, their 
 real dimensions must be such as would fill, on the lowest 
 computation, the whole orbit of Uranus. Their intrinsic 
 splendour must also be immeasurably inferior to that of the 
 sun's; for a circular portion of the sun's disk, subtending 
 an angle of 20", would give a light equal to 100 full moons, 
 whereas the nebula; in question are hardly discernible with 
 the naked eye. 
 
 Stellar nebula are those in which the condensation of 
 the nebulous matter towards the centre is great and sud- 
 den ; so sudden, indeed, as to present the appearance of a 
 dull and blotted star, or a star with a slight burr round it. 
 The nebulous stars present the beautiful and striking phe- 
 nomenon of a sharp and brilliant star, surrounded by a per- 
 fectly circular disk or atmosphere of faint light: in some 
 cases dying away on all sides by insensible gradations, in 
 others almost suddenly terminated. A very fine example 
 of such a star is 55 Andromeda', K. A. lh 43m, N. P. D. 
 50° 7'. 
 
 "The nebulae," says Sir J. Herschel, "furnish, in every 
 point of view, an inexhaustible field of speculation and con- 
 jecture. That by far the largest of them consist of stars 
 there can be little doubt; and in the interminable range of 
 system upon system, and firmament upon firmament, which 
 we thus catch a glimpse of, the imagination is bewildered 
 and lost. On the other hand, if it be true, as, to say the 
 least, it seems extremely probable, that a phosphorescent or 
 self-luminous matter also exists, disseminated through ex- 
 tensive regions of space, in the manner of a cloud or fog, 
 now assuming capricious shapes, like actual clouds drifted 
 by the wind, and now concentrating itself like a cometic 
 atmosphere around particular stars, what, we naturally 
 ask, is the nature and distinction of this nebulous matter T 
 Is it absorbed by the stars in whose neighbourhood it is 
 found, to furnish, by its condensation, their supply of light 
 and heat 1 or is it progressively concentrating itself, by the 
 effect of its own gravity, into masses, and so laying the 
 inundations of new sidereal systems, or insulated stars ? It 
 is easier to propound such questions than to offer any pro- 
 bable reply to them." (See Hcrschel's Treatise on Astro- 
 nomy, Cabinet Cyclopedia, from which the preceding de- 
 scription is abridg ed. 
 
 NECF/SSrn . lit ICTRINE OF. That scheme which 
 represents all human actions and feelings as links in a 
 chain of causation, determined by laws in every respect 
 analogous to those by which the physical universe is gov- 
 erned. This doctrine has been attacked and defended with 
 great zeal, in almost every period of speculative Enquiry 
 since the Reformation. The inductive method of research, 
 applied by liacon and his contemporaries to the phenomena 
 of mature, led very soon to the adoption of a similar method 
 in reference to the phenomena of mind. The discovery, or 
 rather the lii-imc t re-assertion of the law of association, by 
 Ilohbps, and the ready solution which it appeared to furnish 
 of states of consciousness, which, without it, would have 
 I l mod capricious and unaccountable, encouraged many 
 philosophers to attempt its application to every province of 
 the human mind. It is only in connection with this fact
 
 NECK OP A CAPITAL. 
 
 that the prevalence of necessarian views in modern times 
 can be adequately explained. Without venturing an opin- 
 ion on the merits of the question at issue, between the ad- 
 vocates of free will and of necessity, we are sufficiently 
 assured of the historical fact, that the distinction between 
 man and nature, between the actions of a self-conscious 
 agent and the workings of blind unintelligent powers, was 
 considered by the great philosophers of antiquity as the 
 groundwork of their systems of morality, and as involved in 
 Uie very conception of moral science. It was natural that 
 this distinction should be felt to be a barrier to the progress 
 of the exclusively empirical psychology to which we have 
 alluded. To the historians of man's nature, the necessity 
 of his actions appeared in the light of an hypothesis which 
 lay at the very foundation of their inquiries, precisely as 
 the natural philosopher is compelled to assume the regular 
 recurrence of the same outward phenomena under the same 
 circumstances. The psychologist considers the states of 
 which he is conscious, merely as they are related to each 
 other in time ; and, thus considered, it seems to him a mere 
 identical proposition to assert that all that can be known of 
 them is the order of their succession. If their succession 
 were arbitary or uncertain, nothing could be known of it, 
 and the science which he professes could no longer have an 
 existence. It is in this consideration, rather than in the 
 dialectic subtleties by which the doctrine has been some- 
 times defended, that the real strength of the necessarian 
 lies. So long as he can maintain the merely phenomenal 
 character of human knowledge, he can reduce his oppo- 
 nents to the dilemma of either denying the possibility of 
 mental science altogether, or of admitting the existence of 
 those uniform laws which are its only object. In its rela- 
 tion to morality, the doctrine of necessity has been naturally 
 considered to involve dangerous consequences. Attempts 
 have been made by modern necessarians to rescue it from 
 this imputation. Sir James Mackintosh, in particular, has 
 devoted some portion of his Dissertation to the explanation 
 of the principal ethical terms, on the necessarian hypo- 
 thesis. (General Remarks, sec. vii. p. 393. of the reprint.) 
 Notwithstanding the ingenuity of this effort, the stu- 
 dent will probably find, on careful examination, that the 
 great question at issue is left much in the same state as 
 before. 
 
 NECK OP A CAPITAL. In Architecture, the space 
 above the shaft of a column, between the annulet of lhe 
 capital above and the astragal at the top of the shaft be- 
 low. 
 
 NECRO'LOGY. (Gr. viKpos, dead, and \Syog, discourse.) 
 A collection of biographical notices of deceased persons, 
 published shortly after their death, is commonly called 
 a necrology. The list of deceased benefactors to a mon- 
 astery, cathedral, &c, was also termed its necrology. 
 
 NE'CROMANCY. (Gr. vUpog, and n&vTtia, prophecy.) 
 Divination by consulting the spirits of the dead. Necro- 
 mancy is prohibited in Deuteronomy ; and the passage in 
 the first book of Samuel respecting the witch of Endor — 
 whether it be understood of an actual evocation, or of a 
 deception practised by a soothsayer — shows that necro- 
 mancy, real or pretended, was among the usages of very 
 distant times. In Homer, the portion of the Odyssey termed 
 the Necyomanteia exhibits the superstition in a very pecu- 
 liar form. Ulysses performs a sacrifice with peculiar so- 
 lemnities, and pours the sacrificial blood into a ditch : the 
 spectres of the dead rush wildly from the infernal regions 
 to taste the blood ; and, discovering that of Tiresias, of 
 which he was in search, he compels it to answer his ques- 
 tions. The rest of the book, in which Ulysses appears 
 actually to descend to the shades, and to see the punish- 
 ments of celebrated criminals, is suspected by some com- 
 mentators to have been an interpolation of later times. 
 Similar customs, in practising the art of necromancy, seem 
 to have been followed for a long period in Greece and Italy. 
 Horace mentions the pouring of the blood of a sacrificed 
 sheep into a ditch, in order to attract the manes from be- 
 neath. But in Thessaly, the most celebrated of classical 
 regions for its proficiency in the art of magic, peculiar hor- 
 rors seem to have attended the exercise of necromancy. 
 Erichtho, Lucan's Thessalian witch, reanimates the corpse 
 of a soldier slain in battle, and compels him to answer her 
 questions respecting futurity. But the tpvxaywyoi, or pro- 
 fessed evokers of spirits, in Thessaly, seem to have per- 
 formed their rites, whether as impostors or as fanatics, with 
 the sacrifices of human beings, and various other enormi- 
 ties. Modern necromancy, like most branches of divina- 
 tion in modern superstition, has been chiefly accomplished 
 by the agency of devils, who, either voluntarily or by com- 
 pulsion, act at the behest of the magician. See Magic, 
 Witch. 
 
 NE'CROLITE. (Gr. vcicpog, and \,6og, a stone.) A 
 mineral which is found in small nodules in the limestone 
 of Baltimore, and which when struck exhales a fetid odour 
 resembling that of putrid flesh. 
 
 NEGATIVE SIGN. 
 
 NECRO'PHAGANS, JYccrophaga. (Gr. vacpog, and 
 (payw, I eat.) The name of a family of Clavicorn beetles, 
 comprehending those which feed on dead and decomposing 
 animal substances. 
 
 NECRO'SIS. (Gr. vcupociv, to destroy.) This term is 
 applied in surgery to the mortification of parts of bones. 
 
 Necrosis, or Spotting. In Botany, a disease of plants, 
 chiefly found upon the leaves and soft parenchymatous- 
 parts of vegetables. It consists of small black spots, below 
 which the substance of the plant decays. 
 
 NE'CTAR, in the Mythology of the Greeks and Romans, 
 was the supposed drink of the immortal gods (ambrosia 
 being their food), and was fabled to contribute largely to 
 their immortality. If we believe the accounts of the poets, 
 the qualities of this liquor must have been of a most deli- 
 cious character. It imparted youth, bloom, and vigour to 
 the body, and possessed the power of repairing all the de- 
 fects and injuries of the mental constitution. 
 
 NECTA'RIUM. (Lat. nectar, honey.) Any part of a 
 flower that secretes a honey-like substance. It is variously 
 applied to modifications of the petals, stamens, and disk, 
 and is now not much employed. 
 
 NEE'DLE, MAGNETICAL. A slender magnetized bar 
 of steel, which, when suspended freely on a pivot or centre, 
 arranges itself in the direction of the magnetic force of the 
 earth. See Compass, Magnetism, Variation. 
 
 NEEDLE ORE. (From the acicular form of its crystals.) 
 A native sulphuret of bismuth, copper, and lead : it occurs 
 in the gold mine of Schlangenberg, in Siberia. 
 
 NEEDLE STONE. A species of acicular zeolite found 
 in Iceland. 
 
 NE EXEAT REGNO. In Law, a writ to detain a per- 
 son from going out of the kingdom without the king's 
 license, directed to the sheriff", or to the party himself. The 
 use of the writ is to prevent a party from withdrawing his 
 person and property from the jurisdiction of the courts in 
 England ; but this purpose was served at common law, be- 
 fore the late Insolvent Act, by arrest and bail obtained. 
 This writ lies, therefore, where there is a suit in equity for 
 a demand for which the plaintiff could not arrest at law ; 
 and is always granted upon a bill just filed in equity. 
 
 NE'GATiVE, in Logic, denotes the quality of a propo- 
 sition which denies the agreement between the subject and 
 predicate. 
 
 NE'GATIVE SIGN. In Algebra, the sign of subtract- 
 ion, — . Any quantity to which this sign is prefixed is 
 called a negative quantity. 
 
 The doctrine of negative quantities is attended with con- 
 siderable difficulties, and has given rise to much discussion. 
 When a negative quantity is preceded by a positive quan- 
 tity greater than itself, nothing is simpler than the accu- 
 rate notion of its signification. For instance, in the ex- 
 pression a — *, where a is greater than b, no difficulty can 
 arise about the nature of the operation which is indicated. 
 But in algebra quantities are constantly occurring of the 
 form a — b, where b is greater than a ; or of the form — o, 
 where the negative quantity stands by itself; and it is often 
 no easy matter, if, indeed, it be possible, to discover any 
 exact principle by which such expressions are to be inter- 
 preted. 
 
 The definitions usually given by writers on algebra of 
 isolated negative quantities are reducible to two : 1st, that 
 negative quantities are less than nothing ; and, 2d, that 
 they are of the same nature as positive quantities, but 
 taken in a contrary sense, or opposite direction. The first 
 of these de#nitions, which, indeed, presents itself the most 
 naturally, was adopted by Newton in the Jlrithmetica Uni- 
 versalis, and also by Euler, in his Introductio in Analysin 
 Jvfinitorum. The second definition has been generally 
 adopted by writers on the application of algebra to geom- 
 etry and mechanics. But it has been shown by D'Alem- 
 bert, and more particularly by Carnot, in his Geometrie 
 de Position, that both definitions lead to inaccurate no- 
 tions. 
 
 With regard to the first definition, D'Alembert reasons in 
 this manner : Let there be the proportion 1 : — 1 : : — 1:1, 
 which is true, because the product of the extremes is equal 
 to the product of the means. Now, if — 1 be less than no- 
 thing, much more will it be less than 1 ; therefore, the 
 second term is less than the first ; consequently the fourth 
 must be less than the third : that is to say, 1 must be less 
 than — 1 ; therefore —1 is both less than 1 and greater 
 than 1, which is absurd. Carnot farther remarks, that a 
 multitude of paradoxes, or, rather, absurdities, arise from 
 the notion that negative quantities are less than ; for ex- 
 ample, — 3 must be less than 2, yet (—3)2 would be greater 
 than 22, because (— 3)2 is 9, and 22 is 4 ; that is to say, of 
 two unequal quantities, 2 and — 3, the square of the greater 
 would be less than the square of the smaller, which is con- 
 trary to any clear and distinct notions that can be formed 
 of the nature of quantity. 
 
 The principle that negative quantities are quantities 
 
 823
 
 
 NEGLIGENCE. 
 
 taken in a different sense, or opposite di- 
 rection to positive quantities, is shown 
 by Carnot to lead to error by the fol- 
 lowing example : Let A C B D be a 
 B circle, of which O is the centre, and A 
 B a diameter: we have then A B = A 
 O + O B. Through the centre O draw 
 C D perpendicular to A B, and through 
 any point in the circle E draw the 
 chord E F parallel to C D, meeting A B in G. Let A be 
 the origin of the abscissa ; and make AG = i, and GE = j; 
 then, putting a— the radius of the circle, we have the 
 equation y2 = 2 a x — x2. The solution of this quadratic 
 gives y = I *J 2 a x — x*, which, according to the theory 
 under consideration, shows that y has two values equal and 
 directly opposite to each other; namely, G E represented 
 by the positive root, and the other, G F, represented by the 
 
 D 
 
 negative root ; that is to say, we have GE^+v/im-ii, 
 and G F = — ,/ 2 a j: — *->, equations which ought to be 
 true, whatever he the value of A G or x. Let us, there- 
 fore, suppose AG = AO = fGE will then become O C, 
 and G F will become O D ; therefore, the two equations 
 will become G E = -f- a, and G F = — a, and, consequently, 
 G E + G F = ; that is, A B = 0, which is absurd, although 
 rigorously deduced from the theory. The theory, there- 
 fore, is false. It may be possible, Carnot remarks, to op- 
 pose metaphysical subtleties to this conclusion; but he 
 thinks that no clear and satisfactory answer can be given 
 to the argument. 
 
 Without entering into metaphysical subtleties, we may 
 remark that there is an evident fallacy sn the above con- 
 clusion, which arises from first assuming the signs + and 
 — to be symbols of interpretation, and then considering 
 them as symbols of operation, without regard to their di- 
 rective signification. On making z = a, the two roots of the 
 above quadratic are + a and — a, and the signs are by the 
 theory assumed to signify opposition or contrariety of direc- 
 tion. But in the equation -f- x — a = o (from which GE-j- 
 GF = o is derived), the directive signification is entirely 
 lost sight of; the signs are regarded as merely symbols of 
 operation ; and the equation being interpreted in the usual 
 way, simply affirms that the difference between the two 
 roots, in respect of absolute magnitude, is nothing. 
 
 Having shown that the usually received notions respect- 
 ing negative quantities are obscure and inaccurate, Carnot 
 proceeds to establish the true principles of their theory. 
 He concludes, 1st, That an isolated negative quantity is a 
 mere creation of the mind, and that those which result 
 from the operations of the calculus are nothing more than 
 simple algebraic forms, incapable of representing any real 
 and effective quantity whatever. 2d, That each of these 
 forms, taken without reference to its sign, is nothing more 
 than the difference of two other absolute quantities, of 
 which the one that was the greater in the case on which 
 the reasoning was founded, becomes the less in the case 
 to which the results of the calculus producing that form is 
 applicable. 
 
 According to this theory, the true meaning to be attached 
 to the expression negative quantity is this: An absolute 
 quantity, which does not belong to the system on which 
 the reasoning has been established, but to another system 
 related to the former in such a manner that in order to 
 render the formula; for the first system applicable to it, the 
 sisrn which precedes it must be changed from -f- to — , or 
 lrom — to -(-. For example, if y represent th# difference 
 between the two quantities a and z, it does not follow that, 
 by substituting — y for +y, the quantity represented by y 
 becomes negative ; but merely that, of the two quantities 
 a and 2, the one which was the greater in the case in 
 which y has the sign + becomes the smaller when the 
 sign of y is changed into — . The preceding remarks will 
 suffice to give a notion of the nature of the difficulties 
 which attend the rigorous interpretation of the negative 
 sign in symbolical algebra, For full information on this ab- 
 struse subject, the reader is referred to the following u orks ; 
 Carnot, Geometrie de Position ; Maseres on the Use of the 
 Negative Sif.ni ; II arren on the Geometrical Representation 
 of the Square Roots of Negative Quantities, 1828; Peacock's 
 Algebra ; Id., Report of the British Association for 1834 ; 
 J a Morgan's Trigonometry; Young's Mathematical Sis- 
 Bertations ; and the articles connected with the subject in 
 the Penny Cyclopaedia. 
 
 NE'GLIGENCE. (Lat. negUgo, to neglect.) In the Fine 
 Arts, a want of observance of admitted rules and principles 
 In the several parls of the work; such as in costume, in 
 the disposition of the light and shade, &c. 
 
 NE'GKOES. The Ethiopian or fourth variety of the 
 
 human rare, accordim.' to the division of Ithiinenbacb and 
 his followers, widely spread over the surface of the earth; 
 Occupying almost the whole of Africa south of that great 
 belt of desert which extends, in the latitude of the tropic 
 824 
 
 NEGROES. 
 
 of Cancer, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. The distinc- 
 tions of this race are marked and peculiar; but they are 
 not universal, or everywhere the same. Thus, the colour 
 varies, although less so, perhaps, than that of anv other 
 of the great varieties of mankind ; the Hottentots, and 
 various southern tribes belonging to the Ethiopian race, are 
 in this and other respects widely different from their 
 brethren. The woolly hair, dark j^'t colour, and some ex- 
 ternal peculiarities of conformation, seem chiefly to belong 
 to those numerous tribes which inhabit the west coast of 
 Africa, between the equator and the tropic of Cancer. But, 
 even within that region, some tribes are to be found whose 
 physiognomy is very different from that which we are ac- 
 customed to regard as representing the Negro type. South 
 of the equator many of the tribes are inferior in strength 
 and stature, and very different in appearance : from this re- 
 gion many of the Brazilian negroes are imported. In New 
 Guinea, off the south-eastern extremity of Asia, a native 
 population is found with most of the characteristics of the 
 African negro. 
 
 The Negro race appears to have been subjected to the 
 tribute of furnishing slaves to its more powerful and intelli- 
 gent neighbours from a very remote period of antiquity. 
 Many ages before the first European slave ship had visited 
 the coasts of Africa, the Arabs bore off slaves in their cara- 
 vans, across the Sahara, to the northern coasts of the con- 
 tinent ; and even in classical writers (Terence, for exam- 
 ple), we find mention made of black or Ethiopian slaves. 
 See Slave Trade. 
 
 By the mixture of the Negro and white races the mulatto 
 is produced ; the Sambo is the offspring of a Negro and an 
 American Indian. The numerous varieties of these mixed 
 races, according to the proportion of Negro, European, or 
 Indian blood in each, are classed and denohiinated accu- 
 rately in the West Indies. It may, probably, be estimated 
 that there are now on the continent and islands of Ameri- 
 ca, including Negroes, Mulattoes, but excluding those mixed 
 races which have a larger proportion of European blood, 
 about ten million individuals of African descent; viz., 
 
 In the United States .... 3,500,000 
 
 British colonies 900,000 
 
 Hayti 700,000 
 
 Spanish, French, &c, West Indies . 1,200,000 
 
 Brazil 2,500,000 
 
 The free states of continental America, ) , nnf> ftnn 
 formerly Spanish colonies . . . \ i ' u u "' uuu 
 
 9,800,000 
 
 Of whom five or six millions are now in a state of slavery ; 
 the remainder, except in Hayti. forming an inferior and 
 generally an oppressed class of free Inhabitants. The ulti- 
 mate destiny of this multitude of human beings is a matter 
 of very anxious speculation. Hayti, peopled by the slaves 
 of the French colony of St. Domingo, who threw off the 
 yoke at the period of the French revolution, is the only re- 
 gion in which they have as yet established an independent 
 community; and the progress of that community in civiliz- 
 ation is not such as to encourage the sanguine hopes of the 
 philanthropist. 
 
 It has long been a favourite theory of many philosophers 
 that the negro races are naturally inferior in point of in- 
 tellect, and do not possess the same capacity for improve- 
 ment as the Europeans, or people of the Caucasian variety. 
 This supposition has, however, been vehemently denied ; 
 and it has been contended, over and over again, that the 
 peculiar circumstances under which they have been placed 
 sufficiently account for the condition of the Africans — for 
 their want of a literature and their low civilization. That 
 great weight should be attached to the considerations now 
 mentioned is trvie ; but still we do not think that they are 
 sufficient wholly to account for the existing state of things. 
 Egypt was, at a very remote period, the principal seat of 
 science and of art; and various nations of Africa were in 
 contact with, and had a pretty extensive intercourse with, 
 the Egyptians, and also with the Phoenicians, and after- 
 wards the Romans, lint they seem to have profited little 
 or nothing by this association. And while the people of 
 Greece, Asia Minor, and Magna Grecia raised themselves 
 in a comparatively brief period to the highest pitch of 
 civilization and refinement, the nations of Africa continue, 
 without a solitary exception, down even to the present day, 
 immersed in the grossest barbarism. Surely, however, 
 during the space of 30IMI or 4000 5 ears, opportunities must 
 have been allorded to some of them to make some ad- 
 vances. But if so, not one has had sagacity to profit by 
 them. Africa, in fact, does not seem to have produced a 
 single great man. She has had no Hercules, no Minos, no 
 Theseus, no Confucius, no Manco Capac. Among all the 
 varieties of superstition that exist in it. we look in vain for 
 
 hero worship -fol the divine honours paid in rude hut Im- 
 proving nations in other parts of the world, by the public
 
 NEHALLENIA. 
 
 gratitude to departed heroes, legislators, and authors of im- 
 portant discoveries in the arts. 
 
 With the exception of that of the ancient Egyptians and 
 Ethiopians, whose descent is involved In the greatest un- 
 certainty, almost all the civilization that exists in Africa 
 seems to be of foreign origin. The introduction of Moham- 
 medanism, though in a debased form, has gone far to ban- 
 ish cannibalism from many countries ; and some of them 
 have also adopted the letters and literature of Arabia. But 
 the progress they have hitherto made is not such as to lead 
 to any very sanguine anticipations as to their future ad- 
 vancement ; and it would not, indeed, be very philosophical 
 to suppose that those who have been wholly unable to 
 produce anything original should attain to much eminence 
 in the practice of foreign arts and sciences. 
 
 It is unnecessary to enter into any examination of the 
 vexata questio whether the varieties of the human race in 
 Africa originally sprung from different sources, or whether 
 they all belong to the same stock, but changed to the state 
 in which we find them by the influence of circumstances 
 in the lapse of ages. Whatever conclusion may be come 
 to on tiiis point cannot m anywise affect the question as to 
 the comparative intelligence of the African people. The 
 same circumstances that are supposed by those who con- 
 tend for the original identity of the races to have so greatly 
 affected their appearance and physical capacities, could 
 hardly fail to have an equally powerful influence over their 
 mental faculties. This, in fact, is substantially admitted by 
 Dr. Pritchard, who has ably contended for their common 
 origin, and the equality of their intellect with that of the 
 other races. " The tribes," says he, " in whose prevalent 
 conformation the negro type is discernible in an exaggerated 
 degree, are uniformly in the lowest stage of human society ; 
 they are either ferocious savages, or stupid, sensual, and 
 indolent. Such are the Papals, Bulloms, and other rude 
 hordes on the coast of Western Guinea, and many tribes 
 near the Slave coast, and in the Bight of Benin ; countries 
 where the slave trade has been carried on to the greatest 
 extent, and has exercised its usually baneful influence. 
 On the other hand, wherever we hear of a Negro state, the 
 inhabitants of which have attained any considerable de- 
 gree of improvement in their social condition, we constant- 
 ly find that their physical characters deviate considerably 
 from the strongly marked or exaggerated type of the Negro. 
 The Ashantee, the Sulema, the Dahomans, are exemplifi- 
 cations of this remark. The Negroes of Guber and Hausa, 
 where a considerable degree of civilization has long ex- 
 isted, are, perhaps, the finest race of genuine Negroes in 
 the whole continent, unless the Jolofs are to be excepted. 
 The Jolofs have been a comparatively civilized people from 
 the sera of their first discovery by the Portuguese." {Re- 
 searches into the History of Man, ii., 338, 3d ed.) 
 
 Here we have it distinctly laid down that the existence 
 of the distinguishing features of the Negro race in a strong- 
 ly marked degree is uniformly associated with the lowest 
 state of barbarism ; and that as they recede from this 
 strongly marked type, we find a greater degree of civiliza- 
 tion and improvement. The inevitable conclusion is, that 
 every variety of the Negro type, which comprises the in- 
 habitants of almost all central Africa, is indicative of men- 
 tal inferiority ; and that ferocity and stupidity are the char- 
 acteristics of those tribes in which the peculiar Negro fea- 
 tures are found most developed. We believe that this is a 
 perfectly correct statement ; and we do not know that any- 
 thing that can be said could show more conclusively the 
 radical inferiority of the great bulk of the African people. 
 But we do not form our opinion as to their inferiority on 
 their configuration and appearance, but on the fact, that 
 while numberless European and Asiatic nations have at- 
 tained to a high state of civilization, they continue, with 
 few exceptions, in nearly primeval barbarism. It is in vain 
 to pretend that this is the result of the unfavourable cir- 
 cumstances under which they have been placed. An in- 
 telligent, enterprising people contend against unfavourable 
 circumstances, and make them become favourable ; but the 
 Africans, with the questionable exception of the ancient 
 inhabitants of the valley of the Nile, have never discovered 
 any considerable degree of enterprise or invention, or any 
 wish to distinguish themselves either in arts or arms. 
 From the remotest antiquity down to the present day they 
 have been hewers of wood and drawers of water for others, 
 and have made little or no progress ; and the only legiti- 
 mate inference from this lengthened induction seems to be, 
 that they are incapable of making it ; that civilization will 
 not spring up spontaneously among them ; and that if it 
 ever grow up it must be introduced from abroad and foster- 
 ed and matured under foreign auspices. (For full informa- 
 tion on this subject, see the elaborate article on Africa in 
 the Geographical Dictionary.) 
 
 NEHALLE'NIA. The name of an ancient Dutch and 
 Flemish divinity who presided over commerce and naviga- 
 tion. Her origin and general character are unknown, and 
 
 NEOMENIA. 
 
 even her name suggests only forced and unsatisfactory as- 
 sociations ; but the sixteen altars whereon her image and 
 name were represented, which were found in the island 
 Walcheren in 1647, leave no doubt of her former influence. 
 (See Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, and the authorities 
 there cited.) 
 
 NEITH. One of the most ancient Egyptian deities, sup- 
 posed to be identified with the Grecian Minerva or Rhea. 
 Her name, according to Jablonski, indicates old or harmoni- 
 ous. She was regarded as an incarnation of nature, and as 
 the patroness of all the arts. Her most celebrated temple 
 was at Sais, where she was worshipped with peculiar 
 veneration, and where stood the veiled image so famous in 
 the mythology of Egypt, the rash inspection of which cost 
 the adventurer either his life or his reason. (See Schiller's 
 poem, " Das vcrschleierte Bild zu Sais.") 
 
 NEMATOI'DEANS, JYematoidea. (Gr. vti/ia, a filament, 
 and ciSos, form.) The name of an order of Cwlelmintha, or 
 cavitary intestinal worms, comprehending those which are 
 diaxious, and have a round, filiform, elongated body. 
 
 NE'MATONEU'RA. (Gr. vrnia, and vtvpov, nerve.) A 
 name proposed for that division of the Radiata of Cuvier, 
 including animals in which nervous filaments are distinctly 
 traceable, and the alimentary canal floats loosely in a dis- 
 tinct abdominal cavity. 
 
 NEM. CON. A contraction for nemine contradicente, 
 signifying no one contradicting : nem. diss., contracted for 
 (Lat.) nemine dissentiente, signifies no one dissenting. 
 
 NE'MEAN GAMES. One of the four great national 
 festivals of Greece, in which all the states participated. 
 (See Games.) They were celebrated at Nemaea (whence 
 their name), a village in the north-eastern part of Argolis. 
 By some they are said to have been established by the 
 Epigoni, children of the warriors who besieged Thebes, in 
 memory of Ophaltes ; but others relate that they were first 
 instituted by Hercules, in honour of Jupiter, after his vic- 
 tory over the Nemean lion. They were held every third 
 year, under the presidency of citizens chosen by lot from 
 the states of Argos, Corinth, and Cleona;. The games were 
 the same as those of Olympia. The victorious combatants 
 were crowned with parsley. See especially Wachsmuth's 
 Historical Antiquities of Greece, Oxf. translation, vol. ii., 
 162; and a memoir by Villoison, in the 38th volume of the 
 Memoires de I'Ac. des Inscriptions. 
 
 NE'MESIS. A Greek divinity, worshipped as the god- 
 dess of vengeance. According to Hesiod, she was the 
 daughter of Night, and was represented as pursuing with 
 inflexible hatred the proud and insolent. The reluctance 
 of the Greeks to speak boastfully of their good fortune, 
 lest they should incur a reverse, is well known ; and from 
 various passages in the Anthologia, and other ancient 
 writings, it is clear that this feeling originated in a desire 
 to propitiate this divinity. The worship of this goddess 
 was very extensive. Temples were erected to her honour, 
 not only in Greece, but throughout the Roman empire. 
 Nowhere, however, was her worship so pompously cele- 
 brated as at Rhamnus, a town of Attica, where she had a 
 statue 10 cubits high of a single stone, and so exquisitely 
 beautiful as to equal even the finest productions of Phidias. 
 A fragment, supposed to be the head of this statue, was 
 presented to the British Museum in 1820, where it may 
 still be seen. 
 
 NEMO'CERA. (Gr. vripia, a thread, and Kcpa;, horn.) 
 The name of a family of Dipterous insects, including those 
 which have long filiform antennae. 
 
 NEMOGLOSSA'TA. (Gr. v^a, and y\waoa, a tongue.) 
 The name of a tribe of Hymenopterous insects, including 
 those which have a long filiform tongue, as the bee tribe. 
 
 NEO'CORUS. (Gr. vews, temple, and Koptu), I take care 
 of.) In Grecian antiquities, the title of officers employed as 
 guardians of temples and their treasures. (See Mem. de l' 
 Ac. des laser., vol. xviii., 140.) 
 
 NE'OLOGISM, NE'OLOGY. (Gr. veoc, new, and Xoyof, 
 word.) A new phrase or word introduced into a language, 
 or any innovation on ordinary modes of expression. Most 
 European tongues have their classical diction fixed by pre- 
 cedent and authority ; and words introduced by bold or care- 
 less writers, since this standard was established, go by the 
 name of neologisms until usage has added them at last to the 
 received national vocabulary. Neologij, in the last century, 
 was the name given by orthodox divines in Germany to the 
 novel system of interpretation which then began to be ap- 
 plied by many to the records of revealed religion. See Ra- 
 tionalist. 
 
 NEOME'NIA. (Gr. veo;, new, and ur)v, a month.) A 
 festival observed by the Greeks at the beginning of every 
 lunar month in honour of all the gods, but more especially 
 of Apollo, thence called TScon>p>os, as being the author of all 
 light, and the grand luminary from which all time receives 
 its distinctions and divisions. At these solemnities the Atheni- 
 ans offered up prayers and sacrifices, in the temple of Erech- 
 theus, for the prosperity of their city during the month that 
 3E* 825
 
 NEOPHYTE. 
 
 had commenced. Games were also instituted doling their 
 celebration, and grand entertainments given by the richer to 
 the poorer citizens. 
 
 NE'OPHYTE. (Gr. vcos, young; <pvroc, planted.) In the 
 primitive church newly converted Christians were so termed; 
 and the same appellation is still given, in the Roman Catho- 
 lic church, to converts made by missionaries among the hea- 
 then, to any person entering on the priestly office, and to 
 those persons newly received into the communion of the 
 church. 
 
 .\E OPLATONI'CIANS, or NEOPLATONISTS. In 
 Ancient Literature, the mystical philosophers of the Bchool 
 of Ammonius Saccas and Plotinus are commonly so called, 
 who mixed some tenets of ancient Platonism with others de- 
 rived from a variety of sources, and particularly from the 
 demonology of the East. They flourished in the 4th and 
 5th centuries of the Christian era. Some, however, have 
 contended that this title is more properly applicable to the 
 eclectic Platonists, or school of Antiochus and Philo. (See 
 Platonists, Eclectics.) For a singular view of the doc- 
 trines and tendency of the Neoplatonists, the reader may 
 consult the Quart. Jit v. July, 1840. 
 
 NEPENTHE. (Gr. vn, priv., and rnOos, sorrow.) A 
 species of magic potion, mentioned by the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans, which was supposed to have the power of oblitera- 
 ting all pain and sorrow from the memory of those who par- 
 took of it. It is now used figuratively to express any efficient 
 remedy in giving rest and consolation to an afflicted mind. 
 
 NEPHA'LIA. (Gr. vnQaXios, sober.) Grecian festivals 
 or sacrifices instituted in honour of various deities, as Au- 
 rora, Venus, &.c. They were so called because no wine 
 was offered during their celebration. It was chiefly at Athens 
 that these festivals were observed. 
 
 NE'PHELINE. (Gr. vc<pi\v, a- cloud.) A mineral from 
 Somma, near Vesuvius, and Capo di Bovo, near Rome; in 
 nitric acid its transparent fragments become cloudy. It is a 
 double silicate of alumina and soda. It is also known by 
 the name of sommite. 
 
 NE'PHRITE. A hard tough mineral composed chiefly 
 of silica, with lime, soda, and potash. It is difficult to break, 
 cut, or polish ; it is slightly translucent, and usually of a 
 greenish colour. It is occasionally manufactured into sword 
 end knife handles, and has even been cut into the form of a 
 chain, which, from its extreme toughness, is not easily bro- 
 ken. Little plates of it were formerly suspended from the 
 neck for the cure of nephritic complaints, whence its name. 
 The Chinese are celebrated for articles composed of it. Its 
 essential components are silica, alumina, and magnesia. 
 
 NEPHRITIS. (Gr. ve<pl>os, a kidney.) Inflammation of 
 the kidney. This disease is attended by pain in the affec- 
 ted part, extending along the ureter, and increased on walk- 
 ing, or in the upright posture ; nausea and vomiting are 
 common attendants, and the appearance of the urine is gen- 
 erally far from healthy. Bleeding, warm baths, sudorifics, 
 and aperients, with opiates and diluents, are the principal 
 remedies resorted to. 
 
 NEPHROTOMY. (Gr. vt^/Jo;, and rtixvto, I cut.) The 
 operation of extracting a stone from the kidney. 
 
 NE'POTISM. A word invented to express a peculiar 
 characteristic of many high ecclesiastics in Roman Catho- 
 lic countries, and more particularly of popes : a propensity, 
 namely, to ag«randize their family by exorbitant grants and 
 favours conferred on members of it ; literally, on nephews 
 (nepotes). Many of the highest and wealthiest families of 
 the Roman nobility owe their elevation entirely to this spe- 
 cies of patronage. 
 
 NE'PTUNE. The Italian name of the deity called by the 
 Greeks Poseidon {lloaaowv). He was brother of Jupiter, 
 and, in the partition of empire after the death of Saturn, the 
 sea fell to his share, hut in subservience to the former His 
 queen was Amphitrite, and his paramours nearly as nume- 
 rous as those of his brother; but their progeny was not so 
 celebrated, with the exception of the hero Pelops. 
 
 Hi- most famous temples were at the Corinthian isthmus, 
 Helice, Tnezen, and the promontories of Sunium and Tama- 
 rus; to which may be added the magnificent temple of 
 Pa>stnm, in Italy, still in existence. -Neptune was -aid to 
 preside over horses and tin- manger. He is represented sim- 
 ilar in appearance to Jupiter, but his symbols are a trident 
 and the dolphin. Jfcptunalia were festivals celebrated by 
 the Romans during the months of July, in honour of Nep- 
 tune. There were other festivals in honour of Neptune in 
 his capacity of presiding over horses, called consualia ; hut 
 the former were instituted to him in his character of god of 
 the sea. During the solemnity It was customary to live in 
 booths erected on the banks of the Tiber, 
 
 NEPTU'NIAN THEORY. The geological theory of 
 Werner, which refers the formation of all rocks and strata 
 to an aqueous origin. 
 
 NI'.KI'.riii: \.\S. JVereidea. The name of the family of 
 Doratbranchiate Annellidans of which the genus JVV reu is 
 the type. The characters are, an even number of tentacula 
 
 NERVOUS SYSTEM. 
 
 attached to the sides of the base of the head, and a little 
 farther forwards, two others which are biarticulate, between 
 which are two simple ones. Their branchiie consist of 
 small lamina-, between which is spread a net-work of ves- 
 sels ; each foot is also furnished with two tubercles, two 
 packets of bristles, one cirrus above and another beneath. 
 
 NEREIDES. (Gr. N>ipciSes.) The daughters of Nereus 
 and nymphs of the sea. I'hey were originally conceived to 
 be of a beautiful form, but later fictions degraded them to 
 the idea of a mermaid. The nereids are said by most an- 
 cient writers to have been fifty in number, but Propertius 
 makes them a hundred. Among the most famous of these 
 goddesses were Amphitrite, Galateae, Dido, Thetis, &c. 
 Their worship was almost invariably connected with that 
 of Neptune. 
 
 NE'REUS. (Gr. ISnpevs.) A marine Grecian deity, son 
 of Ocean and Earth. He possessed the gift of prophecy, and 
 was distinguished for his knowledge and love of truth and 
 justice. 
 
 NERI'TA. (Lat. Jferita, the name of a shell -fish in 
 Pliny.) This term was applied by Linnams to a genus of 
 his Vermes Testacea, characterized by having a shell with 
 the columella in a straight line, which renders the aperture 
 of a semicircular form: this aperture is always closed by an 
 operculum. The genus is ranked by Cuvier among his 
 Pectinibranchiate Gastropods, and is subdivided into the 
 subgenera JVatica, Lam., JVerita, Voluta, and JYcritina, Lam- 
 JVerita proper is a marine shell, while ~Ytritina is an inhabi- 
 tant of fresh waters. Examples of both genera are found 
 fossil in the strata of the Paris basin. 
 
 NE'ROLI. The name given by perfumers to the essen- 
 tial oil of orange flowers. It is procured by distillation with 
 water in the same way as the other volatile oils. 
 
 XE'RVIXE. A medicine resorted to in nervous affec- 
 tions. 
 
 NE'RVOUS FEVER. A low fever in which nervous 
 symptoms, or sensorial debility, are especially prevalent : the 
 treatment consists in allaying nervous irritation and support- 
 ing the strength. 
 
 NERVOUS SYSTEM. In Physiology. The nerves are 
 fibrous chords io direct or indirect connexion with the brain, 
 and extending their ramifications into every part of the bo- 
 dy : their ultimate structure is filamentous, and they consist 
 of a peculiar grey substance, their size depending upon the 
 number of filaments enclosed in the common sheath. They 
 are often so interwoven as to form a kind of network or 
 plexus ; and some of them have what are termed ganglia, 
 or rounded masses of nervous matter, not fibrous, but appa- 
 rently composed of globules disseminated through a vascu- 
 lar network. 
 
 There are two distinct systems of nerves ; one of which is 
 connected with the brain and with the spinal chord, and are 
 media of sensation and of voluntary motion : they are termed 
 the nerves of animal life, or the cerebrospinal nerves. The 
 other system is only in communication with the brain and 
 spinal chord, or with the cerebrospinal nerves, by very small 
 filaments, and they have numerous ganglions throughout 
 their course ; they preside over the nutritive functions, upon 
 which the mind has no direct influence : these are the nerves 
 of organic life, or ganglionic or great sympathetic nerves. 
 
 The cerebro-spinal nerves convey impressions from their 
 extremities to the brain, and they also convey the influence 
 of the will from the brain to the voluntary muscles ; these 
 passing and repassing, or receptive and emissive influences, 
 are conveyed by distinct sets of nervous filaments, which, 
 however, are generally enclosed in the same sheath, and 
 therefore appear toformasingle nerve: the terms centripetal 
 and centrifugal filaments have been distinctively applied to 
 them. 
 
 The history of the nervous system in nil its details forms 
 an extended and complicated, but a highly important part of 
 anatomy and physiology, the investigations connected with 
 which have led to many useful practical results, which, 
 however, have thrown but little light upon the cause of the 
 phenomena, or the ultimate nature of the nervous influence. 
 The works of Sir Charles Dell, Dr. Marshall Hall, and Dr. 
 Wilson Philip must be consulted in reference to the func- 
 tions of the different classes of norves; there is a good gen- 
 eral account of the subject in Baly's translation of .Mullcr's 
 Physiologic. 
 
 NERVOUS System. In Comp. Anat. In some of the 
 lowest organized animals tin' nervous system has been de- 
 tected in the form of simple filaments ; these are afterwards 
 found connected with a nervous ring surrounding the ceso- 
 
 phagus. \s organization advances, nervous matter begins 
 
 to be acciimulati d upon the ring, forming a brain ] and upon 
 
 different parts of the radiating filaments, forming ganglions. 
 
 When the principal gangUated filaments are not parallel, 
 or not symmetrical in their course, they are associated with 
 the type of organization which characterizes the molluscous 
 or HetCTOgangliaU division of animals. When the sangli- 
 atcd filaments are two in number, symmetrical, and run
 
 NERVURES. 
 
 parallel with each other along the ventral aspect of the body, 
 they are associated with, and bespeak the type of organiza- 
 tion characteristic of the articulate or homogangliate division. 
 When the brain ceases to present the form of a ring, and 
 sends down the back a prolongation of its substance, called 
 the spinal marrow, the rest of the organization is that which 
 characterizes the vertebrate or myelencephalous sub-kingdom, 
 or primary division of animals. In the vertebrate and arti- 
 culate animals the superficial tract of the spinal or ventral 
 chords is "sensitive," the deeper seated tract " motive." 
 
 NERVU'RES, in Entomology, are corneous tubes for ex- 
 panding the wing and keeping it tense, and to afford protec- 
 tion to the air vessels: they are termed costal, post-costal, 
 mediastinal, externo-median, interno-median, anal, axillary, 
 &c., according to their relative positions. In Botany ner- 
 vures are the veins of leaves. 
 
 NESS. The termination of several names of places in 
 Great Britain where there is a headland or promontory, as 
 Inverness, Sheerness. The word is probably derived from 
 the Fr. nez, or the Germ, nase, nose. 
 
 NESTO'RIANS. The followers of Nestorius, patriarch 
 of Constantinople, in the first half of the fifth century. This 
 prelate agitated the Christian world, after the Arian contro- 
 versy had been quietly settled, by the introduction of certain 
 subtle disputations concerning the incarnation of our Lord, 
 from whence debates and contentions arose which harassed 
 the church for the space of more than two centuries. He 
 affected to distinguish with peculiar precision between the 
 divine and human natures united in Christ ; and, in guard- 
 ing over carefully against the propensity which he discov- 
 ered in the Christians of his own day to confuse the two, 
 and look upon them as absorbed into one compound sub- 
 stance, he forbade men to entertain any combined notion at 
 all, and kept constantly before their eyes both the god and 
 the man. He insisted, for instance, that the Virgin should 
 not be entitled Mother of God, but Mother of Christ, or of 
 Man, the human nature being essentially distinct from, and 
 only inhabited by, the divine, as a temple by its divinity. 
 The opinions of the Nestorians were, indeed, little more 
 than subtle logical refinements upon mysteries which will 
 not bear the application of such tests ; and it was the habit 
 of mind which they engendered that chiefly rendered them 
 pernicious, and the fierce passions with which they were 
 combined that gave them their celebrity and widely extend- 
 ed influence. Nestorius himself was condemned by the 
 third general council held at Ephesus, in the year 431 : his 
 principal adversary being the president of the assembly, 
 Cyril, the learned patriarch of Alexandria. The heretical 
 prelate was deposed, and banished by the emperor to an 
 oasis in Upper Egypt, where he died. His opinions, how- 
 ever, spread throughout Asia, and appear to have been car- 
 ried along with the advancing stream of Christianity, to the 
 furthest parts of India and China. In more central regions, 
 they were soon afterwards counteracted by the spread of 
 the opposite heresy of Eutyches. For notices of the opin- 
 ions which sprang out of these rival dogmatists, see Incar- 
 nation, Eutychians, Monophysites, Monothelites. Be- 
 sides the well-known authorities, the reader may consult 
 Doucin, Hist, du Nestorianisme, 1698 ; Jlssemanri's Biblioth. 
 Orientalis ; and Grant's residence among the Nestorian 
 Christians, 8vo, 1841. 
 
 NESTS, ESCULENT. A species of nests built by swal- 
 lows peculiar to the Indian islands, and very much esteemed 
 in China and other parts of the world. These nests resemble 
 in form those of other swallows ; they are formed of a vis- 
 cid substance, and in external appearance as well as consis- 
 tence are not unlike fibrate ill-concocted isinglass. Esculent 
 nests are principally found in Java, in caverns usually sit- 
 uated on the sea-coast. Nothing satisfactory is known as 
 to the substance of which these nests are composed. (See 
 the Commercial Diet., art. "Birds' Nests.") 
 
 NET, or NEAT. In Commerce, something pure and un- 
 adulterated with any foreign mixture. Thus, wines are 
 said to be net when not falsified ; and coffee, rice, &c, to be 
 so, when the filth and ordures are separated from them. The 
 word net is also used for what remains after the tare has 
 been taken out of any merchandise ; i. e.. when it is weighed 
 clear of all package. (.See Tare.) Net Produce (Ital. netto 
 proceduto) is used in mercantile language to express what 
 any commodity has yielded, after all tare and charges have 
 been deducted. 
 
 NET (Germ, netz), is a textile fabric of knotted meshes 
 for catching fish, and other purposes. Each mesh should be 
 so secured as to be incapable of enlargement or diminution. 
 The French government offered in 1802 a prize of 10,000 
 francs to the person who should invent a machine for mak- 
 ing nets upon automatic principles, and adjudged it to M. 
 Buron, who presented his mechanical invention to the Con- 
 servatoire des Arts et Metiers. It does not appear, however, 
 that this machine has accomplished the object in view ; for 
 no establishment was ever mounted to carry it into execu- 
 tion. Nets are usually made by the fishermen and their fam- 
 
 NEW CONNEXION METHODISTS. 
 
 ilies during periods of leisure. The formation of a mesh 
 is too simple a matter to require description in this dic- 
 tionarv. 
 
 NE'THINIMS. Among the Jews, the servants of the 
 priests and Levites, employed in the lowest and meanest 
 offices about the temple. They were, as the Scripture ex- 
 presses it, " the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the 
 house of God." To this office the descendants of the Gibe- 
 onites were originally condemned by Joshua ; but at a later 
 period the same duties were assigned to the Canaanites, who 
 had surrendered themselves and were spared. 
 
 NE'TTINGS. Nets of small rope placed in a ship for 
 various purposes, as stowage, or defence against accidents ; 
 also against boarding. 
 
 NE'TTLERASH. An eruption upon the skin much re- 
 sembling the sting of a nettle. It usually lasts for a few 
 hours, and then disappears or changes its place ; it is relieved 
 by bathing the affected part with a mixture of one part of 
 vinegar and eight or ten of water, and by mild aperient me- 
 dicines. 
 
 NEURA'LGIA. (Gr. vevpov, a nerve, and aXyof, pain.) 
 An acute painful affection in the course of the nerves, gene- 
 rally subject to intermission. One of the most distressing 
 forms of this disease is the tic douleureux. 
 
 NEURO'LOGY. (Gr. vevpov, and \oyos, a description.) 
 The doctrine of the nerves. .See Nervous System. 
 
 NEURO'MA. (Gr. vevpov.) A tumour formed in or upon 
 a nervous trunk. 
 
 NEURO'PTERANS, Ncuroptera. (Gr. vevpov, a nerve, 
 ■mipov, a wing.) The order of Tetrapterous Mandibulate 
 insects, including those in which the nervures of the wings 
 are so disposed as to form a more or less regular network. 
 They are distinguished from the Coleopterous, Orthopterous, 
 and Hemipterous orders of four-winged insects, by the first 
 or anterior pair of wings being membranous, diaphanous, and 
 resembling the second pair in texture and properties. The 
 abdomen is unprovided with a sting. The antenna? are us- 
 ually setaceous. Some neuropterans merely pass through a 
 semi-metamorphosis, the rest a complete one ; the larvs have 
 always six hooked feet. Many of these insects are carnivo- 
 rous in their first state and their last. The dragon-fly may 
 be regarded as the type of this order. 
 
 NEUROTOMY. (Gr. vevpov, and reuvo), I cut.) The 
 cutting of a nerve. 
 
 NEU'TER (Lat. neither), in Grammar, signifies that gen- 
 der which nouns possess that are neither masculine nor fem- 
 inine. Neuter or intransitive verbs are those which repre- 
 sent the properties of a state or process, as / rest, I fall, I 
 grow, &c. .Sec Grammar. 
 
 Neuter was the first name given to the "labourers" of the 
 hive-bee before it was discovered that they were essentially 
 females, though infertile. 
 
 NEUTRA'LITY. In International Law, the condition 
 of a state which does not take part in a war between other 
 states. A neutral nation has the right of furnishing to either 
 of the contending parties all supplies which do not fall with- 
 in the description of contraband of war (see Contraband or 
 War), and to conclude treaties with either unconnected 
 with the subject of the war. It appears to have been the 
 old principle with regard to the maritime trade of a neutral 
 nation, that the property of an owner belonging to the hos- 
 tile country might be seized by a belligerent on board a neu- 
 tral power's vessel : but the general rule now asserted is 
 that the flag covers the cargo ; by which means the right of 
 search, except for specific purposes, is rendered unnecessary. 
 But this rule is in effect set aside, according to the will 
 or necessities of the most powerful belligerent, as it was 
 during the late wars between England and the Continental 
 powers. 
 
 NEUTRALIZATION. (Latin neuter, neither.) In 
 Chemistry, the combination of an acid and alkali in such 
 proportions that the peculiar properties of each are render- 
 ed inert. 
 
 NEU'TRAL SALTS. Combinations of acids and bases 
 which are neither acid nor alkaline, but in which the acid 
 is exactlv neutralized by the base. 
 
 NEUVAI'NES. (Fr. neuf, nine.) In the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church, prayers offered up for nine successive days, in 
 order to obtain the favour of Heaven. (See the Diet, de la 
 Conversation.) „„„.,» 
 
 NEW CONNEXION METHODISTS, or KILHAM- 
 ITES ; so called from Mr. Alexander Kilham, who was 
 the immediate means of their separation from the Wesley- 
 ans, and withdrew from this body on the ground of the al- 
 most irresponsible power exercised by the Conference. 
 Having petitioned this convocation that the people might 
 have a voice in the formation of the laws by which they 
 were to be regulated, the choice of their own pastors and 
 other officers, and the disposal of their own property, and 
 those demands having been refused, the petitioners re- 
 ceded and formed (1793) a distinct party, on a more liberal 
 basis.' The members of this body do not exceed 13,000. 
 
 827
 
 NEWEL. 
 
 (Life ofKUham, by Thorn and Grundel ; General Rules of 
 the JVotD Connexion Jlethodists.) 
 
 NE'WEL. (Pr. noyau.) In Architecture, the space, 
 either solid or open, round which the steps of a staircase 
 are turned about. 
 
 NEW RED SANDSTONE. The sandstone immedi- 
 ately above the coal measures. See Geology. 
 
 NEWS. (Germ, neues, Lat. novus. (Jr. vsoc.) Literally 
 fresh information. This word has been fancifully derived 
 from the initial letters of the four cardinal points of the 
 compass, north, east, (rest, and south. 
 
 NEWSPAPERS. Publications in numbers, consisting 
 commonly of single sheets, and published at short and sui- 
 ted intervals, conveying intelligence of passing events, in 
 Rome, under the government of the emperors, periodical 
 notices of passing events (diurna, acta diurna) were com- 
 piled and distributed for general reading ; but our accounts 
 of these ancient newspapers, derived from classical sources, 
 are somewhat obscure and uncertain. In modern Europe, 
 the earliest occasional sheets of daily intelligence seem to 
 have appeared at Venice, during the war of 1563 against 
 the Turks {see Gazette) ; and the earliest regular paper 
 to have been a monthly one. published in the same city by 
 the state : but these were distributed in manuscript, and, 
 owing to the jealousy of the government, continued to be 
 so down to very late times. Extraordinary gazettes are 
 said to have been published in England by authority, du- 
 ring the time when the arrival of the Spanish Armada 
 was apprehended ; but the specimens preserved in the 
 British Museum, and so long regarded as authentic, seem 
 now to be demonstrated forgeries. The Mercuries, Intel- 
 ligencers, &c. of the civil wars, seem to have been the 
 first English papers which appeared regularly. The Ga- 
 zette de France appeared regularly from 1631 to 1792, form- 
 ing a collection of 163 volumes ; it was continued, also, 
 but with some interruptions, through the period of the 
 Revolution ; and the name still exists, the journal so called 
 being at present one of the organs of the Carlist party. 
 From their first imperfect beginning, newspapers have 
 gradually increased in number, matter, and consequence, 
 until they form, in many European countries, one of the 
 most important features in the social economy of the peo- 
 ple ; exercising a marked influence on domestic manners, 
 literature, and usages, but more especially powerful as a 
 great political instrument. In France, newspapers are 
 generally undertaken in shares. The editors and principal 
 writers are more responsible and more generally known 
 than in England : this is either a cause or an effect of the 
 general prejudice in that country against anonymous wri- 
 ting, which is by no means so common as among our- 
 selves ; but, perhaps, one of its consequences is, that 
 newspapers are more notoriously under the control of par- 
 ticular sections of the political world, or of powerful indi- 
 viduals. Political newspapers have their subsidiary arti- 
 cles on subjects of theatrical or literary criticism added in 
 the shape technically termed feuilleton, a subdivision of 
 the page. This custom was introduced about 1800 in the 
 most influential paper of that period, and has since been 
 generally followed. The periodical press of France was 
 under strict control during the empire : the censorship was 
 continued until 1819, and re-established in 1820, but again 
 abolished in 1881. At that period a law was passed com- 
 pelling the proprietors to give security for the good conduct 
 of their journals, under a penalty of 10,000 francs in Paris, 
 and various lesser sums in the departments. The censor- 
 ship was, however, again instituted, and again abolished 
 in 1827. By the famous ordinances of 1830 the liberty of 
 the periodical press was suspended. Since the revolution 
 of that year there has been no attempt at re-establishing 
 the censorship, although, in 1835, laws of a very severe 
 character were passed, to subject the proprietors of journals 
 to easier conviction, and heavier punishment, in case of 
 transgressing the existing laws of libel against government 
 nr individuals, and extending and multiplying the provis- 
 ions of that law. There were published in Paris, in 1839, 
 309 journals of all sorts, political, literary, scientific, &c. 
 
 In Great Britain, newspapers are subjected to several 
 statutory enactments. By 38 G. 3, c. 78, no person can 
 print or publish any newspaper until an affidavit has been 
 delivered at the stamp office, stating the name and places 
 of abode of the printer, publisher, and proprietor; specify- 
 ing the amount of shares in the undertaking, the title of 
 the paper, and description of the building in which it is in- 
 tended that the paper shall be printed. A copy of even 
 newspaper is to be delivered, within six days after publi- 
 cation, to the commissioners of stamps, under a penalty of 
 £100. Persons publishing newspapers without the name 
 and place of abode of the printer affixed may be appre- 
 hended and carried before a magistrate ; and peace- officers, 
 by virtue of a warrant from a justice of the peace, inav 
 enter any place to make search, &c. By 60 G. 3, c. 9, 
 every periodical pamphlet or paper, published at intervals 
 828 
 
 NEWSPAPER REPORTING. 
 
 not exceeding 26 days, containing public news or intelli- 
 gence, or any remarks thereon, or on any matter in church 
 or state, not containing more than two sheets, or published 
 
 at a less price than sixpence, shall be deemed new spapers, 
 
 and subject to the same regulations and stamp duties. By 
 1 W. 4, c. 73, securities may be demanded, to the amount 
 at £486 or £300, from both principal and sureties, when it 
 is intended to publish a newspaper or pamphlet of the de- 
 scription mentioned in 60 G. 3, c. 9. These securities are 
 intended to secure payment of damages or costs which 
 may be incurred in an action for libel against the conduct- 
 or of the paper. The laws respecting the stamp duties on 
 newspapers have been recently placed on a new footing 
 (in 1836). The effect of these restrictive provisions, and 
 of the heavy rate of duty imposed on newspapers in Eng- 
 land, is to create, especially in London, great monopolies, 
 and to diminish the number of periodical papers, at the 
 same time that their importance, and, according to the de- 
 fenders of the system, their respectability and usefulness, 
 is increased. There have rarely been more than five or six 
 daily morning papers iii London, and about as many evening. 
 Of one of the former (The Times) the net profits have been 
 estimated, in some years, at X24,000. A morning paper in 
 considerable circulation generally employs an editor, a sub- 
 editor, from ten to fourteen regular reporters (see Newspa- 
 per Reporting), from thirty to thirty-five compositors, 
 &c. ; while the power and rapidity of the machinery which 
 produces these huge sheets has been greatly increased of 
 late years by the application of the steam engine. The 
 evening newspapers, the apparatus of which is in other 
 respects less costly, go to an enormous expense in procur- 
 ing rapid intelligence from distant quarters. The irregular 
 or occasional reporters are a numerous class : they multi- 
 ply copies of the pieces of intelligence which they collect 
 by means of polygraphs, and send them round to different 
 newspapers to take the chance of their insertion. 
 
 The following calculation was formed, in 1827, of the 
 number of periodical papers appearing in various countries, 
 since which period it is probable that there has been a 
 considerable increase — Great Britain and Ireland, 483; 
 France, 490; Russia, 288; Netherlands (Holland and Bel- 
 gium), 160 : German Confederation, excluding Austria and 
 Prussia, 305 ; Sweden, 82 ; Denmark, 80 ; States of the 
 Church, 6 only. It is obvious that without an approxima- 
 tion to the amount of copies of each newspaper, this calcu- 
 lation furnishes no grounds whatever for speculating on 
 the proportion between the demand and supply of news- 
 papers and the population in these respective countries ; 
 and wherever (as in England) newspapers are subjected to 
 a heavy duty, each individual paper must necessarily sell 
 a greater number of copies than elsewhere, in order to af- 
 ford a profit ; but the circulation of some French newspa- 
 pers is said to exceed that of any among ourselves. The 
 United States, at the same time, had 800 newspapers, and 
 have at present upwards of 1000: about fifty of these ai>- 
 pear daily. (See, among other antiquarian authorities as 
 to early newspapers, D' Israeli's Curiosities of Literature, 
 vol. i. ; Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman : and the Conv. Lex- 
 icon, art. " Zeitung." See also the Commercial Dictionary.) 
 
 NEWSPAPER REPORTING. The name given to that 
 system whereby the parliamentary debates and speeches 
 delivered at public meetings, &c. are promulgated through- 
 out the country. As it is contrary to the rules of both 
 Houses that any stranger should be present, the publica- 
 tion of the debates is held to be a breach of privilege ; but 
 this regulation has always been defeated, either, asMn for- 
 mer times, by the moans adopted by Dr. Johnson and oth- 
 ers of publishing the speeches of the different members 
 under fictitious names, or, as at present, by the Houses 
 themselves tacitly giving their sanction to the practice. 
 The foundation of the present system of parliamentary re- 
 porting may be fairly ascribed to the late Mr. William 
 woodfltll, whose retentive memory enabled him, after 
 having listened to the debates, daily to communicate to 
 the public, in what he called .'I hasty Sketch of the Pro- 
 ceedings in Parliament Inst Jfight, a full and most accurate 
 account of the different speeches. Secret deliberations, 
 however, have been so long renounced, that the right of 
 the public to be present, through their agents, the report- 
 ers, is as clearly established now as if no theoretical pri- 
 vacy had ever existed ; but if any member were repeatedly 
 to insist upon the exclusion of " straneers," as all are call- 
 ed who neither are members nor officers of the house, 
 there can be no doubt that this abuse of the privilege must 
 lead to such a modification of the standing order as would 
 deprive individual members of any control over a matter 
 so interesting to the nation. The process of parliamentary 
 reporting, and the qualifications of those by whom the 
 
 task is performed, cannot be adequately described within 
 
 the narrow limits (if this article j but it is hoped that the 
 reader may be enabled to form some idea of both from the 
 following brief outline. Every publication not copying
 
 NEW STYLE. 
 
 ttom, or abridging any other, but giving original reports, 
 keeps one of a series of reporters constantly in the gallery 
 of the Lords, and another in the Commons. These, like 
 sentinels, are at slated periods relieved by their colleagues, 
 when they take advantage of the interval to transcribe 
 their notes, in order to be ready again to resume the duty 
 of note-taking, and afterwards that of transcription for the 
 press. A succession of reporters for each establishment is 
 thus maintained, and the process of writing from their 
 notes never interrupted till an account of the whole de- 
 bates of the evening has been committed to the hands of 
 the printer. There are only seven publications for which 
 a reporter is constantly in attendance ; and these include 
 the London morning newspapers, from which all others 
 that give debates are under the necessity of copying or 
 abridging them. The number of reporters maintained by 
 each varies from ten or eleven to seventeen or eighteen. 
 They are, for the most part, gentlemen of liberal educa- 
 tion — many having graduated at the Universities of Oxford, 
 Cambridge, Edinburgh, Glasgow, or Dublin ; and they must 
 all possess a competent knowledge of the multifarious sub- 
 jects which come under the consideration of parliament. 
 The expedition and ability with which their duties are per- 
 formed must be admitted by every one who attends a de- 
 bate and afterwards reads a newspaper, while the correct- 
 ness and rapidity with which their manuscript is put in 
 type and printed has long been a subject of surprise and 
 admiration. (See the Parliamentary Companion, a valua- 
 ble brochure.) 
 
 NEW STYLE. In Chronology. See Style. 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT. The name given to that portion 
 of the Bible which comprises the writings of the apostles 
 and their immediate disciples. It consists of five historical 
 books, viz., the respective Gospels of Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, and John, and the Acts of the Apostles (attributed 
 to Luke ; of twenty-one apostolical epistles, of which the 
 early fathers have unanimously ascribed fourteen to St. 
 Paul, three to St. John, two to St. Peter, one to St. James, 
 and one to St. Jude ; and of the book known by the name 
 of the Apocalypse or the Revelation of St. John. See Bi- 
 ble, Epistle, Evangelists. 
 
 NEWTO'NIAN PHILOSOPHY. This term is used in 
 various senses. Sometimes it is used to denote the doc- 
 trine of the universe as delivered by Sir Isaac Newton in 
 the Principia : sometimes the corpuscular, or modern, or 
 experimental philosophy, as opposed to the theories of 
 Descartes and others ; but most frequently, perhaps, the 
 mathematical theory of universal gravitation. See Gravi- 
 tation, Physics. 
 
 NEW YEAR'S DAY. The celebration of the com- 
 mencement of the new year dates from high antiquity. 
 The Jews regarded it as the anniversary of Adam's birth- 
 day, and celebrated it with splendid entertainments — a 
 practice which they have continued down to the present 
 time. The Romans also made this a holyday, and dedi- 
 cated it to Janus with rich and numerous sacrifices ; the 
 newly-elected magistracy entered upon their duties on this 
 day ; all undertakings then commenced were considered 
 sure to terminate favourably ; the people made each other 
 presents of gilt dates, figs, and plums ; and even the em- 
 perors received from their subjects new year's gifts, which 
 at a later period it became compulsory to bestow. From 
 the Romans the custom of making presents on New Year's 
 Day was borrowed by the Christians, by whom it was long 
 retained ; but even in those countries where it lingered 
 longest, in France and Scotland for instance, it is falling 
 rapidly into desuetude, and congratulatory wishes are now 
 almost universally substituted for the more substantial 
 presents that were formerly conferred, on this day, as marks 
 of affection and esteem. 
 
 NEX'I. (Lat. necto, I bind.) In Roman Antiquities, per- 
 sons freebom, who, for debt, were delivered bound to a 
 creditor, and obliged to serve him until they could dis- 
 charge it. 
 
 NIBELUNGEN, LAY OF THE. The name given to 
 the most ancient existing monument of German epic poetry. 
 The origin of this poem is veiled in great obscurity ; it is 
 supposed to have existed, in substance at least, two centu- 
 ries before the reign of Charlemagne, and, like the early 
 compositions of poets in all ages, to have consisted origi- 
 nally of detached ballads and poems, which were after- 
 wards gradually collected, and at length moulded into the 
 complete form in which they at present exist. The last of 
 the modifications which it underwent took place towards 
 the end of the 12th century, and is attributed to the Min- 
 nesaenger Henrich von Ofterdingen. The story turns upon 
 the adventures of Chrimhold of Burgundy, who is first won 
 by the valiant Siegfried, and after he is treacherously mur- 
 dered gives her hand to Attila, king of the Huns, chiefly in 
 the hope that through his power and influence she may be 
 revenged on the murderers of her former lord. The assas- 
 sins, accordingly, and all their kin, are induced to visit At- 
 70 
 
 NICE, COUNCIL OP. 
 
 tila, when, by the instigation of the queen, a deadly feud 
 arises, in the course of which almost the whole army on 
 both sides is cruelly slaughtered. By the powerful but re- 
 luctant aid of Diederich of Bern, however, the murderer of 
 Siegfried is at last vanquished and brought bound to the 
 feet of the queen, who relentlessly raises the sword of the 
 departed hero, and with her own hand strikes off" the head 
 of his enemy. The famous Hildebrand, whose exploits 
 are depicted on the Heldcn-Buch, instantly avenged the 
 atrocious and inhospitable act by stabbing the queen, who 
 falls exulting on the body of her hated victim. The work 
 is divided into thirty-eight books. The Nibelungcn Lied 
 formed for many centuries the chief traditionary record of 
 the romantic deeds and sentiments of the German nation, 
 but at the era of the Reformation it sank wholly into obliv- 
 ion ; from which, however, it has within the last thirty 
 years been rescued, and permanently placed by the labours 
 and commentaries of Hagen, Zeune, Simrock, and Schlegel, 
 among the most conspicuous monuments of human genius. 
 All the questions relating to its origin, nature, and charac- 
 teristics are discussed with great interest by the German 
 literati, to many of whom, indeed, it forms a distinct branch 
 of study ; and we cannot refrain from inserting in our pages 
 Schlegel's notice of this poem which, whatever interest it 
 has excited in Germany, is still comparatively unknown in 
 England. 
 
 Among the heroic poems of those nations which, in con- 
 tradistinction to those of the Greeks and Romans, whose 
 skilful unfolding of incidents and dramatic vividness of 
 representation were peculiar and unrivalled, have remain- 
 ed satisfied with a more simple mode of poetry, the Nibel- 
 ungen Lied claims a very high place — perhaps among all 
 the heroic chivalrous poems of modern Europe, it is enti- 
 tled to the first. It is peculiarly distinguished by its unity 
 of plan ; or rather it is a series of pictures, each naturally 
 following the other, and all delineated with great boldness 
 and simplicity and a total disregard of all superfluities. 
 The German language appears in this work in a state of 
 perfection to which, in the subsequent periods of its early 
 history, it had no pretensions. In addition to all its natu- 
 ral liveliness and strength, it seems at that time to have 
 possessed great flexibility, which soon afterwards gave 
 place to a style of affectation, roughness, and indistinctness. 
 The heroic legends of all nations have a great deal in com- 
 mon, so far as their essence and purpose are concerned ; 
 their variety is only produced by their being imbued with 
 the peculiar feelings and composed in the peculiar meas- 
 ures of different nations. In the Nibelungen Lied, in the 
 same manner as in the legends of Troy and of Iceland, the 
 interest turns on the fate of a youthful hero, who is repre- 
 sented as invested with all the attributes of beauty, mag- 
 nanimity, and triumph, but dearly purchasing all these 
 perishable glories by the certainty of an early and predict- 
 ed death. In his person, as is usual, we have a living type 
 both of the splendour and the decline of the heroic world. 
 The poem closes with the description of a great catastro- 
 phe borrowed from a half-historical incident in the early 
 traditions of the north. In this respect also, as in many 
 others, we cannot fail to perceive a resemblance to the 
 Iliad. If the last catastrophe of the German poem be one 
 more tragical, bloody, and litanic than anything in Homer, 
 the death of the German hero, on the other hand, has in it 
 more solemnity and stillness, and is withal depicted with 
 more exquisite touches of tenderness than any similar 
 scene in any heroic poem with which we are acquainted. 
 The Nibelungen Lied is, moreover, a poem abounding in 
 variety ; in it, both sides of human life, the joyful as well 
 as the sorrowful, are depicted in all their reality. The 
 promise of the opening stanza is fulfilled : 
 
 Von Freuden und Festes Zeileo, von Weinen und von Klagen, 
 Von kuhner Helden Streiten, mogt Ihr nun Wunder horen sagen. 
 
 (Schlegel's History of Literature, Edin., 1818, vol. i., p. 270, 
 272.) See, for farther information, the Conversations-Lexi- 
 con, and the works there referred to. 
 
 NICARA'GUA WOOD. The wood of the Cmsalpina 
 echinata, a tree growing in Nicaragua ; it is a species of 
 Brazil wood. It is used with solution of tin as a mordant 
 to dye a bright but fugitive red. Nicaragua woods differ 
 greatly in their quality as well as price ; one sort being so 
 deficient in colouring matter that six pounds of it will only 
 dye as much wool or cloth as one pound of Brazil wood, 
 while another variety of it will produce nearly half the ef- 
 fect of an equal quantity of Brazil wood, and will sell pro- 
 portionally dear. (Bancroft on Colours, vol. ii., p. 332.) 
 
 NICE, COUNCIL OF. The first, and, according to most 
 writers, the most important, oecumenical council held in 
 the Christian Church. It was convened, A.D. 325, at Ni- 
 csa, by the emperor Constantine, in order to settle the dif- 
 ferences that had arisen in the Christian Church in respect 
 to the doctrines of Arius. This council was attended by 
 upwards of 250 bishops, of whom a great majority came 
 
 829
 
 NICENE CREED. 
 
 from the East, by presbyters, deacons, and others from all 
 parts of the Christian world. The chief question, as was 
 remarked above, was the Arian heresy ; and the council 
 issued in the excommunication of Arius. (NYr Arians.) The 
 decision of this council had not the effect of restoring tran- 
 quillity to the Eastern Church, for the Arian controversy 
 was still warmly carried on; but it has supplied that mode 
 of Stating the doctrine of the Divinity (as tar as relates to 
 the Father and Bon] in which it has ever since been re- 
 ceived by the orthodox. .See NlCIM Crecd. Corse tl» 
 
 NICE'XE CREED. The confession of faith in which 
 the consnbstantjality of the Father and Son is asserted 
 against the Arians. (See art. Arians.) This creed was 
 commenced by the council of Nice, A.D. 3-i>, and completed 
 by the second general council of Constantinople, A.D. 381. 
 But the words "and the Son," alter those " who proceed- 
 ed! from the Father," were added by the Latin Church (cer- 
 tainly before A.D. 411), expressing a point of doctrine in 
 which it differs from the Greek. The Nicene creed was 
 generally used by the Eastern churches in the administra- 
 tion of baptism ; but was not inserted in their daily service 
 till the fifth century. In the service of the Church of Rome 
 it was inscribed A.D. 1014. 
 
 NICHE. (Fr. niche.) In Architecture, a square or cy- 
 lindrical recess in a wall, usually made for the reception of 
 a statue. 
 
 NICKEL. A white metal, ductile, malleable, attracted 
 by the magnet, and which, like iron, may be rendered mag- 
 netic. Its specific gravity when hammered is about 9. It 
 is rather more fusible than pure iron ; is not altered by ex- 
 posure to air and moisture at common temperatures, hut is 
 slowly oxidized at a red heat. It is found in all meteoric 
 iron ; but its principal ore is a copper-coloured mineral found 
 in Westphalia, and called kupfemickel, nickel being a term 
 of detraction used by the German miners, who expected 
 from the colour of the ore to find that it contained copper. 
 The salifiable oxide of nickel consists of 30 nickel + 8 oxy- 
 gen. Its salts are mostly of a grass-green colour, and the 
 ammoniacal solution of its oxide is deep blue, like that of 
 copper. Ferrocyanate of potassa precipitates it of a white 
 or very pale green colour. 
 
 Since the manufacture of German silver, or argentane, 
 became an object of commercial importance, the extraction 
 of nickel has been undertaken upon a considerable scale. 
 The cobalt ores are its most fruitful sources, and they are 
 now treated by the method of Wohler to effect the separa- 
 tion of the two metals. The arsenic is expelled by roast- 
 ing the powdered speise first by itself, next with the addition 
 of charcoal powder, till the garlic smell be no longer per- 
 ceived. The residuum is to be mixed with three parts of 
 sulphur and one of potash, melted in a crucible with a gen- 
 tle heat, and the product being edulcorated with water 
 leaves a powder of metallic lu-tre. which is a sulphuret of 
 nickel free from arsenic ; while the arsenic associated with 
 the sulphur, and combined with the resulting sulphuret of 
 potassium, remains dissolved. Should any arsenic still be 
 found in the sulphuret, as may happen if the first roasting 
 heat was too great, the above process must be repeated. 
 The sulphuret must be finally washed, dissolved in concen- 
 trated sulphuric acid, with the addition of a little nitric ; the 
 metal must be precipitated by a carbonated alkali, and the 
 carbonate reduced with charcoal. 
 
 In operating upon kupfemickel, or speise, in which nick- 
 el predominates, after the arsenic, iron, and copper have 
 been separated, ammonia is to be digested upon the mixed 
 oxides of cobalt and nickel, which will dissolve them into 
 .a blue liquor. This being diluted with distilled water de- 
 prived of its air by boiling, is to be decomposed by caustic 
 potash till the blue colour disappears, when the whole is to 
 be put into a bottle tightly stoppered, and set aside to settle. 
 The green precipitate of oxide of nickel, which slowly 
 forms, being freed by decantation from the supernatant red 
 solution of oxide of cobalt, is to be edulcorated and reduced 
 to the metallic state in a crucible containing crown glass. 
 Pure nickel in the form of a metallic powder is readil] ob 
 tained by exposing its oxalate to moderate ignition. (Ure's 
 Diet, of Arts, <$-c.) 
 
 NICOLAI'TANS. One of the earliest Christian sects, 
 mentioned in the Revelations of St. John, where the angel 
 of God reproaches the church of Pergamoa u itli harbouring 
 persons of this denomination. They are there characterized 
 as inclining to the licentious and pagan practices of the Gen- 
 tiles; but the fathers have also accused them of partaking 
 in a great measure of the Gnostic opinions. It is doubtful, 
 however, whether on this point there be not some confu- 
 sion between the Nicolaitans of the first and the followers 
 of Nicolaus of the second century. (See Mosheim (transl. 
 1790), i., 143. (Itisclcr's Text Book (transl.), i., 89. 
 
 Xl< i ill \ \. A poisonous alkaline base, extracted from 
 the leaves and seed of the Nicotiana taliacum. or common 
 tobacco. It derives its name from Nieot, a Frenchman, 
 who, about 1560. first sent tobacco into France. 
 830 
 
 NIGRINE. 
 
 NICTITATION. (Lat. nicto, I wink.) Winking of the 
 eyes. This is generally a nervous affection, and very fre- 
 quently becomes a trick or habit. Where it arises from any 
 local irritating cause, bathing the eyes with warm water 
 affords relief. 
 
 NIDDUI. A sort of minor excommunication among the 
 Hebrews, which continued usually about a month, u not 
 removed within that period, it was prolonged tor sixty or 
 even ninety days. If during this term satisfaction was not 
 made, the excommunicated person fell into the cherem, 
 which was the second species of excommunication ; and 
 afierwards into the scammatha, which was the most dread- 
 ful of all. 
 
 NID1FICATIOX. (Lat. nidus, a nest ; facio, / make.) 
 The process by which birds construct their nests. 
 
 NIELLO. (Ital.) A method of engraving on plate. See 
 art. Engraving, where the process is described. 
 
 NIGHT. (Lat. nox, Ger. nacht.) The part of the natu- 
 ral day during which the sun is below the horizon. 
 
 NIGHT HERON. See Ardka. 
 
 NIGHTINGALE. A migratory species of Passerines, 
 and the sweetest of song-birds ; the type of the subgenus 
 J.urima. which is more closely allied, according to Mr. 
 Blythe, to the thrush family, than to the fauveltes (Curru- 
 cidte), among which it is placed by Cuvier. The males of 
 the nightingale reach the southern counties of England 
 sometimes in April, but more commonly not till the begin- 
 ning of May: the females do not arrive till a week or ten 
 days after the males. Migrating from the south, they visit 
 this country for the purpose of breeding, and the famed 
 song of the male is his " love chant," and ceases when his 
 mate has hatched her brood. " Vigilance, anxiety, and cau- 
 tion now succeed to harmony ; and his croak is the hush, 
 the warning of danger, and suspicion, to the infant charge 
 and the mother bird." If by accident his mate be killed, 
 the male resumes his song ; and will continue to chant very 
 late in summer unless he can attract, as he commonly soon 
 does, another female. The nightingale feeds chiefly on the 
 larvte of insects, which abound at the season of its arrival in 
 this country. The nest is built near the ground ; the eggs 
 are four or five in number, of a uniform dark brown colour : 
 the young are excluded in the month of June, and are ready 
 to accompany the parents in their southward migration in 
 the month of August. 
 
 NIGHT-JAB. The name of a remarkable British bird, 
 the type of the genus Caprimvigus, distinguished by the 
 wide gape of its beak, whence perhaps has arisen the popu- 
 lar idea of its sucking the teats of cattle, and its other com- 
 mon name "goat-sucker," the equivalent of which it has 
 received in most European languages, and which Linnaeus 
 has continued in its generic designation. It is scarcely ne- 
 cessary to observe that the structure of the bill renders the 
 act of sucking impracticable in the night jar or any other 
 bird. The genus Caprimulgus is characterized by a \\ uie 
 and deeply-cleft beak, armed with strong bristles, and capa- 
 ble of engulphing the larger insects ; the nostrils placed at 
 its base are like small tubes; the wings are lengthened; 
 the feet short, feathered to the toes, which are connected 
 together by a membrane at their base ; the claw of the mid- 
 dle toe is commonly pectinated at the base. The night-jars 
 are most active and hunt their prey in the dusk ; they have 
 the same light and soft plumage as other nocturnal birds. 
 ( >ur common species (Capr. Europaus) is remarkable for 
 the loud sound it emits, like the burr or jarring of a spin- 
 ning-wheel. 
 
 NIGHTMARE. An oppressive sensation anil struggle 
 during sleep, otherwise called incubus (which see) ; pro- 
 duced usually by indigestion. 
 
 Nl GHTSHADE. See Dulcamara and Belladonna 
 
 NIGHT WATCH. A period ofth? night as distinguish- 
 ed by a change of the watch. Among the Romans the 
 night was divided into tour watches, each of three hours' 
 duration, and styled first, second, third, and fourth watches, 
 according to the military usage, by which the guard u as re- 
 lieved tour times dnrini; the night. The first watch began 
 at six in the evening and lasted till nine, according to our 
 mode of computing time; the second lasted from nine till 
 twelve or midnight ; the third from midnight till three in 
 the morning (called cock-crowing) ; and the fourth com- 
 menced at three and ended at six, thus completing the 
 twelve hours. The Jews originally divided the night into 
 three watches; bul a! a later period, and previously to the 
 
 appearance of our Saviour, they adopted the Roman divis 
 ion of the night, which is frequently alluded to in the New 
 Testament In the Roman mythology, .Nox was the god- 
 dess who presided over the night. She is represented 
 
 Clothed with a tunic thickly set with stars; and in her hon- 
 our the Romans sacrificed a cock during the night. 
 Noc'e de» Nocti cristalus caedttur ales. 
 Quod tepidum vigili provocet ore diem. Ovid. 
 
 NI'GRINE. (Lat. niger, black.) Silico-calcnreous ox- 
 ide of titanium. It occurs in Ceylon and Transylvania.
 
 NIMBUS. 
 
 NI'MBUS. (Lat.) In Painting and Sculpture, a cir- 
 cular disk round the heads of divinities, and sovereigns and 
 saints. 
 
 NIMBUS CLOUD. In Meteorology. See Cloud. 
 
 NI XSIN ROOT. A bitter root, possessed of the me- 
 dicinal qualities of ginseng. It is the root of the Stum 
 ninii. 
 
 NfNTH. In Music, one of the dissonant intervals in mu- 
 sic, being, properlv, the second double. 
 
 NI'OBE. In Classical Mythology, daughter of Tantalus, 
 and one of the Pleiades, married to Ampbjon, king of The- 
 bes. Proud of her numerous and flourishing offspring, she 
 provoked the anger of Apollo and Diana, who slew them 
 all: she was herself changed by Jupiter, in Phrygia, into a 
 rock, from which a rivulet, fed by her tears, continually 
 pours. The subject of Xiobe and her children was a great 
 favourite with the poets of antiquity. Besides the beautiful 
 story in Ovid {Met. vi., 146), there are numerous epigrams 
 in the Greek Anthology, which appear to be descriptive 
 either of the group of figures to which we refer below, or 
 to some similar group. See more especially that begin- 
 ning, 
 
 TavraXt km Nio/Jo kAu' epav (pariv ayyc\ov arac. 
 
 This fable has also afforded a subject for art, and particu- 
 larly for the sculptor of the beautiful group in the tribune at 
 Florence, known by the name of Xiobe and her Children. 
 Some antiquaries attribute it to Scopas: Winkelman in- 
 clines to believe it the workmanship of Praxiteles. It is 
 beautifully characterized by Hazlitt, in his "Treatise on 
 Art," in the Ency. Britannica. 
 
 NTPPERS. In Sea language, small ropes or selvages for 
 attaching the messenger to the cable. 
 
 NI'SI PRIUS. In Law, a term originating in a legal 
 fiction, when the pleadings in a cause in one of the superior 
 courts of common law (see Pleading) are concluded, and 
 an issue of fact is raised between the parties. The issue 
 is appointed, by the entry on the record, or written proceed- 
 ings, to be tried by a jury from the county, of which the 
 proceedings are dated, at Westminster, unless before the day 
 appointed (nisi prius) the judges shall have come to the 
 county in question. The judges of assize, by virtue of their 
 commission of nisi prius, try the causes thus appointed on 
 their several circuits, unless they are dated of London or 
 Middlesex ; in which case they are tried in London or West- 
 minster, at the sittings during or after term. See Courts, 
 Superior; and Term. 
 
 NITRATES. Salts of the nitric acid; thus nitrate of 
 potassa is a compound of one atom of nitric acid and one 
 atom of potassa. See Nitre. 
 
 Nl'TRE, Nitrate of Potassa, Saltpetre. This salt con- 
 sists of 54 nitric acid + 48 potassa ; its equivalent, therefore, 
 is 102. It is spontaneously generated in the soil, and crys- 
 tallizes upon its surface in several parts of the world, espe- 
 cially in India, whence nearly the whole of the nitre used 
 in Britain is derived. It has occasionally been produced 
 artificially in nitre beds, formed of a mixture of calcareous 
 soil with animal matter ; in these nitrate of lime is slowly 
 formed, which is extracted by lixiviation, and carbonate of 
 potash added to the solution, which, by double decompo- 
 sition, gives rise to the formation of nitrate of potash and 
 carbonate of lime: the latter is precipitated; the former re- 
 mains in solution, and is obtained in crystals by evaporation. 
 Nitre crystallizes in six-sided prisms, soluble in seven parts 
 of cold water, and in less than its weight of boiling water. 
 It has a cooling saline taste, and is anhydrous. At 616° it 
 fuses, and at a red heat is decomposed. Its great use is in the 
 manufacture of gunpowder, and in the production of nitric 
 acid. It is also employed in the preservation of meat. 
 
 Nitrate of soda crystallizes in rhombic crystals ; hence 
 termed cubic nitre. It is found plentifully in Peru, and 
 is imported into England from America. It is used as a 
 manure and as a source of nitric acid, but, being slightly de- 
 liquescent, it cannot be employed in the manufacture of 
 gunpowder. 
 
 Nitre has sometimes been mistaken for Glauber's salt, 
 and, when taken in the quantity of half an ounce or an 
 ounce, it acts as a powerful poison. In such cases the stom- 
 ach should be evacuated as rapidly as possible, and the 
 symptoms of spasm relieved by opiates. In doses of 5 to 15 
 grains it is diuretic and diaphoretic. 
 
 NITRIC ACID. This acid is a compound of 1 atom or 
 equivalent of nitrogen = 14, and 5 of oxygen (8 X 5) = 40; 
 hence its equivalent in the dry or anhydrous state, as it ex- 
 ists, for instance, in nitre, is 14 + 40 = 54. As it usually 
 occurs in the liquid state, it is a compound of 1 equivalent 
 of dry acid, 54, and 2 of water (9 X 2), 18 ; hence the equiv- 
 alent of the liquid acid is 72. It is commonly known in 
 commerce under the name of aqua fortis, and is prepared 
 by distilling a mixture of sulphuric acid and nitre. It is 
 commonly yellow, or even deep oramre coloured ; but it may 
 be deprived of nitric oxide, which occasions this colour, by 
 
 NIZAM. 
 
 heat, and is then colourless. It is intensely corrosive and 
 sour, fumes when exposed to air, and has a specific gravity 
 of 1*50 when in its utmost state of concentration. It boils 
 at 248°, and freezes at — 50°. It is a most powerfully ox- 
 idizing agents and is decomposed with more or less rapidity 
 by almost all the metals. 
 
 The salts which it forms are called nitrates ; they are all 
 soluble in water; they are decomposed by heat, and, when 
 mixed and gently heated with sulphuric acid, they evolve 
 nitric or nitrous acid. 
 
 NI'TRIC OXIDE, or NITROUS GAS. This gas was 
 discovered by Hales, and more accurately studied by Priest- 
 ley. It is obtained during the action of nitric acid diluted 
 with about two parts of water upon metallic copper; it is 
 copiously evolved, and may be collected over water. 100 
 cubical inches of this gas weigh between 32 and 33 grains ; 
 its density, therefore, compared with air, is 1037. It is at 
 once easily recognised by forming orange-coloured fumes 
 whenever it escapes into the air or comes into contact with 
 oxygen, so that this gas and oxygen are excellent tests of 
 each other's presence. It consists of equal volumes of ni- 
 trogen and oxygen, or of 1 equivalent of nitrogen and 2 of 
 oxygen ; hence it is termed a binoxide or deutoxide of nitro- 
 gen. The respective weight of its components, therefore, 
 are 14 nitrogen + 16 oxvgen, and the equivalent of the gas 
 is 30. 
 
 NITRITES. Salts of the nitrous acid; thus nitrite of 
 potassa is a compound of 1 atom of nitrous acid and 1 atom 
 of potassa, &c. 
 
 XITROGEX. (Gr. virpov, and ycvvasiv, to produce.) A 
 simple gaseous body which forms a constituent part of ni- 
 tric acid, and which, being unrespirable, has also been term- 
 ed azote : from a, privative, and iojf/, life. It was identified 
 as a peculiar gas by Dr. Rutherford in 1774, and shown to 
 be one of the components of atmospheric air by Lavoisier 
 in 1774. It is generally obtained by burning a piece of phos- 
 phorus in n jar full of air inverted over water. The phos- 
 phorus during its combustion combines with the oxygen of 
 the air to form phosphoric acid, which is dissolved by the 
 water, and the remaining element of the air, namely, the 
 nitrogen, remains. Nitrogen is a colourless, inodorous, and 
 tasteless gas, not absorbed by water, and having no action 
 on vegetable colours. It extinguishes all burning bodies, and 
 is itself uninflammable. It is a little lighter than atmospheric 
 air, 100 cubic inches weighing 3016 grains. Its equivalent 
 is 14, and it combines with oxygen in 5 proportions, giving 
 rise to the following compounds : 
 
 By volume. By weight Equiv. Symbols. 
 N. O. N. O. 
 
 1. Nitrous oxide 100 + 50 =14+ 8 = 22 = w + o. 
 
 2. Nitrous oxide 100 + 100=14 + 16 = 30 = 7i + 2o. 
 
 3. Hvponitrous acid 100 + 150 = 14 + 24 = 38= n + 3o. 
 
 4. Nitrous acid 100 + 200 = 14 + 32 = 46 = h + 4o. 
 
 5. Nitric acid 100 + 250 = 14 + 40 = 54 = n + 5 o. 
 NITROMURIATIC ACID. Xitrohydrochloric acid of 
 
 modern nomenclature. The mixture of nitric and of muri- 
 atic (or hydrochloric) acid ; formerly called aqua regia, 
 from its solvent power over gold, the king of the metals. 
 
 XITROXA'PTHALASE. A compound resulting from 
 the action of nitric acid on napthalin: a modification of it 
 has been termed nitronapthalese. 
 
 NITROSA'CCHARIC ACID. By the action of sulphu- 
 ric acid on gelatine a peculiar saccharine matter is formed, 
 which combines with nitric acid, and forms a crystallized 
 acid designated as above. 
 
 NITROSULPHU'RIC ACID. An acid resulting from 
 the mixture of one part of nitre with eight or ten parts of 
 sulphuric acid. It was originally proposed by Mr. Keir as 
 a useful agent for separating the silver from the copper of 
 old plated goods. At the temperature of about 200° it dis- 
 solves silver, while it scarcely acts upon copper or lead, 
 unless diluted, or at higher temperatures. 
 
 NITROUS ACID. When two volumes of nitric oxide 
 and one of oxvgen are mingled in an exhausted glass globe 
 they form a dense orange-coloured vapour, which may be 
 liquefied by cold, and which is nitrous acid. Its elements 
 are so condensed that 1 volume of nitrogen and 2 of oxygen 
 form 1 volume of nitrous acid vapour, the specific gravity 
 of which is 3-17. The presence of this vapour renders nitric 
 acid red and fuming, in which state it is commonly termed 
 nitrous acid. 
 
 NITROUS OXIDE. Protoxide of nitrogen ; a gas ob- 
 tained by heating nitrate of ammonia, which salt is thus 
 resolved "into nitrous oxide gas and water. When nitrous 
 oxide is respired, it produces effects somewhat similar to 
 those of intoxication ; hence it has been called laughing gas. 
 
 N I Z \ M. The title of one of the native sovereigns of 
 India, between whom and the East India Company many 
 subsidiary treaties exist. This title is derived from Xizam- 
 ul-Mulk, who, in the beginning of last century, obtained pos- 
 session of the Mohammedan conquests in the Deccan ; his 
 successors in the sovereignty having assumed his name. 
 
 831
 
 NOBILISSIMUS. 
 
 as their title of dignity, which they have retained to this 
 day. 
 
 NOBILISSIMUS, was a title of dignity given to the 
 princes of the imperial family of Rome. It is said by Don 
 cine to have originated with Justin, but others hold it to be 
 of much more ancient date. 
 
 NOBI'LITV. The general appellation for a distinguished 
 Bidet of society which exists in every civilized country, 
 with the exception of the United Stales and Norway. (See 
 Peerage.) In Roman antiquity persons were not noble by 
 birtli. but in consequence of the public offices held by their 
 ancestors, who had the sole right to bequeath their images 
 to their descendants (Jus imaginum). (See Heraldry.) 
 Originally the patricians were the only nobles, they alone 
 being eligible to the magistracy : but when the equites, and 
 even the plcbs were admissible, the great body of the nobles 
 hegantobe formed. The first in any family who was raised to 
 a curule dignity was styled narus homo. See Novi Homines. 
 
 NO'BLE, an English coin of the middle ages, value 6s. 
 8d., current in the reign of Edward III. According to Knigh- 
 ton, the rose noble was a gold coin in use about the year 1344. 
 
 NOCTHORA. .See Saoouin. 
 
 NOCTILU'CA. A term applied by Boyle and some of 
 the older chemical philosophers to phosphorus. 
 
 NOCTU'RN. (Lat. nox, night.) An office consisting of 
 psalms and prayers, celebrated in the Roman Catholic 
 Church at midnight, after the example of David (Ps. 118). 
 It was said to have been introduced into the West by St. 
 Ambrose. It now forms part of the service of matins. 
 
 NOCTU'RNALS. Nocturna. (Lat. nox, night.) A tribe 
 of Raptorial birds, including those which fly by night, and 
 have the eyes directed forwards ; also a family of Lepidop- 
 terous insects, which, in like manner, are active chiefly in 
 the night season. 
 
 NODE, in Surgery, is a hard tumour upon a bone, which 
 creates considerable pain, and often is attended by caries or 
 necrosis. They are most common upon the tibia and bones 
 of the head and fore-arm, where they are thinly covered 
 by flesh. 
 
 NODES, in Astronomy, are the two points in which the 
 orbit of a planet intersects the plane of the ecliptic. The 
 point in which the centre of a planet passes from the south 
 to the north side of the ecliptic is called the ascending node, 
 and in astronomical computations is usually indicated by 
 the symbol il ; the opposite point, or that in which the 
 planet passes to the south side of the ecliptic, is called the 
 descending node, and is indicated by 7J. The straight line 
 which joins these two points, formed by the intersection of 
 the plane of the planet's orbit with the plane of the eclip- 
 tic, is called the line of the nodes. The nodes of the lunar 
 orbit were anciently called the head and tail of the dragon. 
 
 The position of the nodes on the ecliptic is one of the 
 elements by which the situation of the plane of an orbit in 
 space is defined : in fact, it is easy to see that, if the position 
 of the line of the nodes, and also the inclination of the orbit 
 to the ecliptic, be known, the position of the plane of the 
 orbit is entirely determined. The two nodes being distant 
 180°, it is only necessary to indicate the position of one of 
 them : the longitude of the ascending node, or its distance 
 from the first point of Aries, is the element used by astron- 
 omers. In all the planetary orbits the line of the nodes is 
 variable, having a retrograde motion from east to west in 
 respect of the fixed stars, but so slow that it amounts only 
 to a few seconds in a year. The regression of the moon's 
 nodes is very considerable, as it completes a revolution in 
 about lit years. (Sec Moon.) The retrograde motion of 
 the nodes of all the planets is a necessary consequence of 
 their mutual attractions. For the positions and variations 
 of the nodes of the different planets, see Planet. 
 
 NODULE. (Eat. nodus, a knot.) Rounded irregular 
 lumps or masses. 
 
 NO'DUS. In Botany, a point situated upon the axis of a 
 plant, whence a Leaf or leaf-bad originates. 
 
 NOEL. The French name of Christmas Day, derived 
 either from dies natalia (I. at. birthday), OS from an abbrevi- 
 ation of the word Emmanuel. 
 
 NOETIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, a sect so called 
 from Noetus, an Ephesian, the master of Sabellius. They 
 
 acknowledged only our person in the divinity; and, COnse 
 
 quently, were accused of maintaining that God the Father 
 had suffered on the cross. See Patkii'assians. 
 
 NO'GGIN'G. In Architecture, brickwork carried up be- 
 tween upright pieces or quarters. 
 
 NO'CGING PIECES. In Architecture, the horizontal 
 pieces of timber fitting in between the quarters, to which 
 they are nailed in a brick-nogged partition, which the} 
 serve to steady and strengthen. 
 
 NO i.l ME TA'NGERE, in Surgery, is a disease of the 
 skin, commencing with small ulcerations which destroy 
 tin' part. They sometimes afTect the cartilage of the nose, 
 which is destroyed by their progress; almost all appllca 
 tions rather increase the progress than allay it. 
 832 
 
 NOMOCA.NON. 
 
 NOLLE PRO'SEQUl. In Law, an acknowledgment 
 
 or agreement by the plaintiff in a suit that he will not far- 
 ther prosecute it, either as to the whole or a part of the 
 cause of action (as, for instance, where, on the defendant's 
 demurring to one count in a declaration, the plaintiff enters 
 a nolle prosequi as to that count, and proceeds to trial on 
 the other counts) ; or as to one or more out of several de- 
 fendants. 
 
 NO'MADES. (Gr. vonaSes ; from vojioc, pasture.) Tribes 
 of men without fixed habitation. The nomades of classi- 
 cal times were generally tribes devoted to pastoral pursuits ; 
 for the ancients knew of no races of savages subsisting 
 wholly by the chase. The principal nomadic tribes of an- 
 tiquity were those of southern Russia and the interior of 
 Asia, from whom sprung, in the decline of the Roman em- 
 pire, many of the tribes which overran western Europe ; 
 and, at a later era, those which conquered empires in wes- 
 tern and southern Asia. 
 
 NOME. (Gr. vofioi ; from vtfiw, I divide.) The Greek 
 names for the provinces into which Egypt was divided from 
 the most remote antiquity. According to Diodorus Siculus, 
 the division into nomes was performed by Sesostris, whom 
 some modem writers consider as identical with the Remeses 
 II. of the monuments ; but it is supposed to have subsisted 
 from the time of the earliest Pharaohs. There were 36 
 nomes, which, in the time of Strabo, were thus divided : 
 10 in the Thebaid, 16 in the Heptanomis, or intermediate 
 district (which, according to its name, probably consisted in 
 earlier times of 7 only), 10 in the Delta. This division 
 was not materially altered until the latest age of the Ro- 
 man government. (See D'Anville, JUemoires sur V Egypt ; 
 Wilkinson' s Manners and Customs of the Ancient Egyp- 
 tians, vol. ii.) 
 
 NO'MENCLA'TOR. An officer employed by the candi- 
 dates for the great state offices of Rome, to accompany 
 them through the streets and whisper them the names of 
 such citizens as they might meet, in order that they might 
 then address them by name, and canvass their votes. It is 
 derived from Lat. nomen, and the old word calo, J call. 
 
 NO'MENCLA'TURE, was originally applied to a cata- 
 logue of the most ordinary words in any language, with 
 their significations, tec, drawn up for the purpose of facili- 
 tating their use and retention to those who are endeavour- 
 ing to acquire a language. But, in a more general sense, 
 this term is employed to denote the language peculiar to 
 any science or art: thus we speak of the nomenclature of 
 chemistry, botany, &.c. 
 
 NO'MINALISTS. A term originally applied to a scho- 
 lastic sect which arose in the 11th century. Its founder 
 was John Roscelin, a churchman of Compiegne, who as- 
 serted that general terms have no corresponding reality 
 either in or out of our minds, being, in truth, words, and) 
 nothing more (flatus vocis). This doctrine naturally ex- 
 cited great consternation among the schoolmen, with 
 whom, hitherto, all that was real in nature was conceived 
 to depend on these general notions or essences. Its promul- 
 gator underwent much persecution for his opinions, and 
 was ultimately compelled to retract them, as inconsistent 
 with the doctrine of the Trinity as it was then stated. He 
 found, however, an able successor in the person of Peter 
 Abelard, who attracted numerous disciples by his dialecti- 
 cal skill and eloquence, and, with his followers, W horn he 
 led in a body to Paris, was the occasion of founding the 
 celebrated university of that city. After his death, the an- 
 cient realism was restored to its supremacy; nor do we 
 meet with a nominalist until the 13th century, when Wil- 
 liam of Occam revived his doctrines under some modifica- 
 tions. The last-mentioned philosopher may, in fact, with 
 greater justice, be styled a coneeptualist ; as lie distinctly 
 stated the formation of general te-uis to depend on the 
 conditions of thought, and hence to possess a species of sub- 
 jective reality, as the sign or indication of an actual process 
 of thought, though not either distinct objects of conscious- 
 ness or realities in nature. Those who hold either of the 
 latter theories arc realists. The controversy is one which 
 has excited great attention among modern philosophers, 
 among whom llohhes and I herald Stewart may be considered 
 strict nominalists, while Locke and Dr. Thomas Brown style 
 themselves conceptUOllStS. There are, however, expressions 
 in Locke's Writings which would rather stamp him as a real- 
 ist, under the former of the tuo modifications which we 
 have given above. (See articles Scholastic: Philosophy, 
 Thomists, Scotists.) There are very profound observa- 
 tions on the subject of this controversy in the first volume 
 of Hnlliun'.i Literature of the Miildle Ages. See also 
 Brucker's Histqria Critica PhiloBophia. 
 
 No'Mi.wriVi: case, in Grammar, that form of a 
 noun which names or designates a substance absolutely, or 
 without relation to any other substance. 
 
 NOMO'CANON. (Gr. vonoc. law ; Kavwv, canon or rule.) 
 In Ecclesiastical Law, a work in which canons of the 
 Church, and imperial laws touching the same subject, are
 
 NOMOPHYLACES. 
 
 collected and compared. The first was made by Joannes 
 Scliolasticus (A.D. 551). The most celebrated was that of 
 Photius, patriarch of Constantinople. 
 
 NO'MOPHY'LACES. (Gr. vou.o;, the law, and <pv\aices, 
 guardians.) Among the Athenians, magistrates or legal 
 officers, whose business it was to see that neither the privi- 
 leged citizens nor the lower classes made any innovation 
 upon the laws. They held seats in all the public assem- 
 blies, and during the public games and festivals had chairs 
 erected for them opposite to those of the arcbons. This was 
 also the appellation of those officers appointed to communi- 
 cate to the combatants the laws of the Olympic games. 
 
 NOMO'THET^E. (Gr. vouos, law, and ridriui, J lay 
 down.) A body of citizens at Athens, chosen by lot out of 
 such as had been judges in the court Helia;a, to the number 
 of a thousand. Their office seems to have been a sort of in- 
 spectorship of existing laws, with the duty of proposing 
 amendments. 
 
 NO'N^E ET DECIM.E. In Ecclesiastical Law, the con- 
 tributions of tenants of the Church were anciently so called : 
 the nonae, or ninth part, standing for a species of rent, the 
 J. 'nihil' for the tithe due to the Church. 
 
 NO'NAGE. In Law. See Infant, Minority. 
 
 NONAGE'SIMAL (Lat. nonagesiraus, the ninetieth), 
 jn Astronomy, is the ninetieth degree of the ecliptic, reckon- 
 ed from either of the points in which it is intersected by the 
 .horizon. It is therefore the highest point of the ecliptic at 
 any instant, and its altitude is equal to the distance of the 
 pole from the zenith. The nonagesimal is used in calcu- 
 lating the parallaxes of the moon. 
 
 NO'NAGON. (Lat. novem, and ywvia, angle.) In 
 Geometry, a plane figure having nine angles, and, conse- 
 quently, nine sides. The area of a regular nonagon is = 
 | tan. 70° = 6-1818242, the side being L 
 
 NON COMPOS MENTIS. (Lat.) In Law, a general 
 term for those afflieted with mental incapacity. See Luna- 
 cy, Idiot. 
 
 NQ'NCONDUCTOR. This term is generally limited to 
 certain phenomena connected with the transfer of heat and 
 electricity through bodies ; those substances which resist the 
 direct passage of those influences (and occasionally also of 
 sound) are called nonconductors. 
 
 NONCONFORMISTS. A genera! term under which all 
 the religious communities which do not conform to the 
 liturgy of the church established in England may be com- 
 prehended. It belongs more properly to the large body of 
 clergy who, at the Restoration, refused to subscribe to the 
 Act of Uniformity, and were, in consequence, ejected from 
 their benefices on St. Bartholomew's day, 16G2. This act 
 was first promulgated by Elizabeth, and required all the 
 clergy to use the Book of Gemmen Prayer, and inflicted se- 
 vere penalties upon any one who should be convicted of 
 speaking or preaching against it. The act of Charles II. con- 
 tained still stricter provisions, enjoining every beneficed per- 
 son not only to use the book, but to declare his assent and 
 consent to every part of it: and enacting that, unless this 
 was done on a certain day, he should be, ipso facto, ejected. 
 Other declarations were also to be subscribed, as, "That it 
 is unlawful to take arms against the king on any pretence 
 whatsoever ;" " That no obligation from the covenant lies 
 upon himself or any other person." It is said that two 
 thousand persons resigned their preferments in consequence ; 
 and even after this their party was subjected to the farther 
 infliction of the conventicle acts, which forbade more than 
 five persons besides the family to assemble together in any 
 house for religious worship; and the five mile act, which 
 subjected to penalties and imprisonment any nonconformist 
 clergyman who should take up his residence within five 
 miles of any corporate town, or other place where he had 
 been minister. See Dissenters. 
 
 NONES. (Lat. novem, nine.) In the Calendar, one of 
 the three divisions of the Roman month, and so called be- 
 cause they fell on the ninth day, reckoned inclusively, be- 
 fore the ides. In the months of March, May, July, and Oc- 
 tober, the ides fell on the 15th day of the month, and the 
 nones, consequently, on the 7th. In the other months, the 
 ides were on the 13th day, and the nones on the 5th. See 
 ■Calendar, Calends, Ides. 
 
 NON EST INVENTUS. (He is not found.) In Law, 
 the formal Latin words anciently used in the sheriff's re- 
 turn to a writ of eapias, that the defendant was not to be 
 found within kis bailiwick. 
 
 NO'NIdS. A name frequently given to that useful con- 
 trivance, the vernier, for subdividing the divisions of gradu- 
 ated arcs or scales into minute parts, from its invention hav- 
 ing been erroneously ascribed to Pedro Nunez, or Nonius, a 
 Portuguese, who lived in the early part of the 16th century. 
 The contrivance employed by Nonius was widely different 
 from the vernier now universally used. It consisted in de- 
 scribing within the same quadrant 45 concentric arcs, di- 
 viding the outermost into 90 equal parts, the next into 89, the 
 
 NON-RESISTANCE, DOCTRINE OF. 
 
 next into 88, and so on, the innermost being consequently 
 divided into 46 only. With this instrument the observed al- 
 titude of an object could be read off on the outermost arc 
 only to degrees, but the fractions were obtained in the fol- 
 lowing manner: The plumb-line, or movable index, must 
 intersect one of the concentric arcs at, or very near a point 
 of division. Now, it is evident that the number of parts 
 read off at this point must be in the same proportion to the 
 degrees and fractions of a degree intercepted on the outer- 
 most arc, as the number of parts into which the arc con- 
 taining the point is divided, is to 90°. The division read off 
 being therefore multiplied by 90, and divided by the number 
 of parts in the arc, gives the observed altitude to fractions 
 of a degree. Thus, if the plumb-line intercept 25 parts ex- 
 actly on the arc in which the number of parts is 78, the an- 
 gle measured will be 28846°: the fraction is easily con- 
 verted into minutes and seconds. Nonius supposed that 
 this artifice was known to Ptolemy. It was adopted by 
 Tycho Brahe, but soon abandoned by him for the method 
 of diagonal divisions, in consequence of the difficulty of di- 
 viding accurately the different arcs. (Robin's Mathemati- 
 cal Tracts, vol. ii.) See Vernier. 
 
 NON-JU'RORS. In English History, that party among 
 the clergy of the national church who refused to take the 
 oath of allegiance to the new government after the Revolu- 
 tion. As many of these clergy, at the same time that they 
 opposed a conscientious resistance to the usurpations of 
 James II., had, nevertheless, continued to preach submission 
 to his authority, on the principle of his divine right by here- 
 ditary succession to the obedience of his subjects, it became 
 impossible for them with consistency to submit to a mon- 
 arch crowned only by authority of parliament. It was 
 therefore much desired by many friends of the new govern- 
 ment to make some exception in their favour, and relieve 
 them from the necessity of taking the oaths : but an amend- 
 ment made by the House of Lords in the act requiring this 
 oath, which purposed to excuse the clergy from taking it 
 unless called on by the privy council, was rejected by the 
 Commons. Eight bishops, including the primate Sancroft, 
 with about four hundred clergy, were, in consequence, ex- 
 cluded from their sees and benefices. The original non- 
 jurors were peaceable and honest men for the most part ; 
 but many of them soon became implicated in all the vio- 
 lence of the Jacobite faction. See Jacobites, Pretender. 
 
 NON-NA'TURALS. A term applied by the old physi- 
 cians to certain matters which are necessary to life, but do 
 not form a part of the living body ; such as air, food, excre- 
 tions, sleep, &c. 
 
 NONPARE'IL. See Printing. 
 
 NON-RESISTANCE, THE DOCTRINE OF, in Politics, 
 is that which inculcates the unlawfulness, on religious 
 grounds, of resistance by force to the commands of a prince 
 or magistrate. This is strongly laid down by the inspired 
 writers, and especially by St. Paul, in the 13th chapter of his 
 Epistle to the Romans. In the ordinary acceptation of the 
 doctrine, it is taken to enforce the duty of obedience to the 
 lawful commands of magistrates. But, in that peculiar 
 sense which is attached to it in English constitutional his- 
 tory, it means unqualified obedience to every command, 
 especially of the prince or supreme magistrate, whether law- 
 ful or not ; and, consequently, condemns all forcible opposi- 
 tion even to tyranny or usurpation. But the advocates of 
 non-resistance, in this extended sense, do not appear to 
 have ever contended that it applied to commands of inferior 
 magistrates in the same sense and degree as to those of the 
 highest: they therefore supposed a peculiar sanctity in the 
 person and office of the ruler which no other officer possess- 
 ed ; and thus combined the doctrine of divine right with 
 that of passive obedience or non-resistance. These doc- 
 trines are plainly laid down in the homilies of the Church 
 of England; in which, in the phrase of Bolingbroke (State 
 of Parties), they skulked until the reign of James I. (See 
 especially that On Wilful Disobedience and Rebellion.) But 
 in that reign they were more generally avowed by the 
 learned and loyal; and, in 1622, the University of Oxford 
 sanciioned them by a solemn decree. The events which led 
 to and followed the great rebellion, naturally led men's 
 minds to pay greater attention to the speculative part of 
 politics ; and, while Hobbes was framing a theory of abso- 
 lute monarchy on the principle of the social contract, a 
 different class of reasoners arrived at the same result 
 through a peculiar interpretation of Scripture. Sir Robert 
 Filmer (especially in his Patriarcha), Bishop Sanderson, 
 and others, made the regal power originate in the patriar- 
 chal ; and endeavoured to prove that all other forms of gov- 
 ernment, being unrecognised by Scripture, were usurpations. 
 Dean Sherlock, the ablest writer of the school of divine 
 ri»ht (see his Case of Resistance to Supreme Powers, 1684) 
 endeavoured to prove the absurdity of" the theory of the social 
 contract, and to show from Scripture the unlawfulness of re- 
 sisting any command, even of a usurping power. It is in an- 
 swer to these reasoners that Locke's Essay on Government 
 3F 833
 
 NONSUIT. 
 
 was written. In it he confutes the arguments for unqualified 
 non-resistance, by showing that Scripture and reason make 
 no distinction between inferior and superior magistrates, 
 and reducing his opponents to the absurdity of affirming 
 that any command, however extravagant, of the lowest 
 magistrate, must be obeyed. In 1683, the University of Ox- 
 ford pronounced its second decree in favour of the tenets of 
 divine right and non-resistance. But the current of court 
 opinion changed at the Revolution. The doctrine of non- 
 resistanre was almost proscribed ; but maintained by the 
 non-jurors, who professed to obey the usurping government, 
 while they refused to recog-nise it. In 1709 it was preached 
 by Sacheverell, with the apparently inconsistent result of a 
 riot. His sermon, together with the Oxford decree, were 
 burned by order of the House of Lords. But the doctrine is 
 at this day frequently asserted by the high church party. 
 (See Dr. Pusey's Sermon on the ath of November, 1838.) 
 
 NO'NSUIT, in Law. is the renunciation of a suit by the 
 plaintiff. It is either adjudged, in consequence of certain 
 neglects or delays in the prosecution of the suit, or it is 
 voluntarily elected by the plaintiff. It is usual to call on 
 the plaintiff, when he is unable to make out a case to sup- 
 port his pleadings for default of the necessary evidence, 
 and the jury are about to give their verdict, to elect, if he 
 pleases, to abandon his prosecution and submit to a nonsuit, 
 upon payment of costs. The effect of which is, that as a 
 nonsuit is not, except in certain cases, a peremptory bar, he is 
 able to bring another action afterwards for the same cause. 
 
 Judgment as in case of a nonsuit, arises from the stat- 
 ute 14 G. 2, c. 17, which enacts that where any issue is 
 joined in an action in the courts of record at Westminster, 
 and the plaintiff has neglected to bring the issue to be 
 tried, the court may, unless it sees reason for allowing the 
 plaintiff farther time, give judgment for the defendant as 
 in case of a nonsuit, which has the same force as a non- 
 suit, both as to costs and as to its effects on the action. 
 
 NOOTH'S APPARATUS. A series of three glass ves- 
 sels, placed vertically, for the purpose of impregnating wa- 
 ter with carbonic acid gas. The lower vessel contains the 
 marble and muriatic acid for the evolution of the gas ; the 
 central vessel holds the water through which it is made 
 to pass, under the pressure of the column of water in the 
 third or upper vessel, which is closed by a conical stopper, 
 which serves as a safety valve. 
 
 No'PAL. The Cactus opuntia. The plant upon which 
 the cochineal insect chiefly breeds. 
 
 NORFOLK CRAG. A' tertiary formation which rests 
 on London clay or chalk, and includes marine shells. A 
 line drawn from Cromer on the northern coast of Norfolk 
 to Waybum, about six miles west, and thence extending 
 southerly about eighteen miles towards Norwich, includes 
 all the regular beds of this rock. See Geology. 
 
 NORMAL. (Lat. norma, a rule.) An adjective signify- 
 ing that the ordinary structure peculiar to a family, a ge- 
 nus, or a species, is in no wise departed from. 
 
 Normal. A term sometimes used for perpendicular. In 
 the geometry of curve lines, the normal to a curve at any 
 point is a straight line perpendicular to the tangent at that 
 point, and included between the curve and the axis of the 
 abscissa. 
 
 NORMAN ARCHITECTURE. See Architecture, 
 and English Architecture. 
 
 NORNS. In Scandinavian Mythology, the three fates, 
 equivalent to the Moirai of the Greeks. Their names were 
 Urd, Worand, and Sculd ; or Past, Present, and Future. 
 They were represented as endowed with great beauty, 
 but of a melancholy and sombre disposition; thev were 
 consulted even by the gods, and their decrees were sure 
 and irrevocable. 
 
 NO'RROY. SeeKnra at Arms, Herald. 
 
 NORTH. (Germ, nord.) In Geography, one of the four 
 cardinal points of the horizon ; that which in European lat- 
 itudes is opposite the sun at mid-day. 
 
 N< (RTHERN LIGHTS. The name popularly given to 
 the aurora borealis. 
 
 NORTHING, in Navigation, is the difference of lati- 
 tude made by a ship in sailing northwards. 
 
 NOSING OF A STEP. In Architecture, the projecting 
 rounded edges of tin- tread of a sup. 
 
 NOSOLOGY. (Gr. vooo?, a disease, and Aoyo?, a dis- 
 course.) The doctrine of diseases. The term is generally 
 applied to the classification and nomenclature of diseases, 
 and to their general methodical arrangement. See Disease. 
 
 NOSTA'LGIA. (Gr. vootcui, I return, and oAyo?, grief. 
 A species of melancholy, resulting from absence from 
 home and country. 
 
 NOSTRUM. (Lat.) Literally, our own; applied to 
 quack medicines retained for profit in the hands of tin in 
 ventor or discoverer, or of his assignee. 
 
 NO'TABLES. In French history, the deputies of the 
 states under the old regime, appointed and convoked on 
 curtain occasions by the king. In 17B0' this assembly was 
 834 
 
 NOTATION. 
 
 i summoned, 1G0 years after its last meeting, and proposed 
 various reforms in different branches of the government: 
 it again met, for the last time, in 1788. 
 
 NO TACA'NTHA. (Gr. vuroi, the back, and aicavOa, a 
 spine.) The name of a family of Dipterous insects, com- 
 prehending those in which the upper part of the thorax or 
 scutellum is armed with teeth or spines. 
 
 NOTARIES, APOSTOLICAL AM) IMPERIAL. Pub- 
 lic Notaries appointed by the popes and emperors, in virtue 
 of their supposed jurisdiction over other powers, to exer- 
 cise their functions in foreign states. Edward II. forbade 
 the imperial notaries to practise in England. Charles VI II. 
 of France, in 1490, abolished both these classes of notaries, 
 and forbade his lay subjects to employ them. 
 
 NOTARY, or NOTARY PUBLIC. In English Law, one 
 who publicly attests documents or writings, chiefly in mer- 
 cantile matters, to make them authentic in a foreign country ; 
 protests foreign bills of exchange, and the like. The stat- 
 utes 41 G. 3, c. 79, and 3 & 4 W. 4, c. 70, regulate the admis- 
 sion of notaries in England. In London, they must have been 
 apprenticed seven years to a notary before such admission. 
 
 The name notary, among the Romans, appears to have 
 signified a short-hand writer, and to have denoted origi- 
 nally the persons who acted in that capacity, especially at 
 meetings of the senate. Afterwards the notarii were sec- 
 retaries to courts, officers, &c. In modern Europe the no- 
 tary is an officer whose attestation is necessary to the va- 
 lidity of certain instruments, and his duties are more or 
 less important in different countries. In France the no- 
 tary is the necessary maker of all contracts, &.c, where 
 the subject matter exceeds 150 francs ; and his instru- 
 ments, which are preserved and registered by himself, are 
 the originals, the parties retaining only copies. The pres- 
 ence and administration of a notary is also essential to the 
 division of lands or goods of inheritance. 
 
 NOTATION (Lat. notatio), is defined by Dr. Johnson 
 to be " the act or practice of recording any thing by marks, 
 as by figures or letters." 
 
 Mathematical notation embraces two distinct subjects ; 
 namely, symbols of number and quantity, and symbols of 
 operation. The system of numerical notation adopted in 
 all European countries depends on the very refined idea 
 of giving to each symbol a local as well as an absolute 
 value. A refinement of this sort could only have been 
 adopted by a people considerably advanced in the arts of 
 civilization ; but though the present system has been 
 traced to the Hindus, among whom it appears to have Ijcen 
 in use two thousand years ago, the epoch and country of 
 its origin are entirely unknown. It is probable that the 
 first numeral characters consisted simply of strokes or 
 straight lines, which could be easily cut in wood or stone, 
 and would be alike intelligible to all nations. Such charac- 
 ters are, in fact, preserved in the Roman notation with 
 very little change. Thus, assuming a perpendicular line | 
 to signify one, two lines j | would express turo, the addi- 
 tion of a third | | | three, and so on till the reckoner had 
 reached ten, which completed the first series of the numeri- 
 cal scale. He might then be supposed to throw a dash 
 across the last stroke or unit to mark the completion of 
 the series ; and thus X would come to signify ten. The con- 
 tinued repetition of this mark would denote twenty, thirty, 
 and so forth, till he arrived at a hundred, or ten tens, which 
 completes the second series, and might be denoted by add- 
 ing another dash to the mark for ten, or by merely connect- 
 ing three strokes, thus |~. The repetition of this symbol 
 would in like manner indicate the successive hundreds, 
 the tenth of which would be marked by the addition of 
 another stroke, so that four combined strokes /\A would 
 express a thousand. Such were the symbols originally 
 employed in the Roman notation ; in process of time it 
 would be perceived that the inconvenience in writing, aris- 
 ing from so many repetitions of the same character, might 
 be avoided, by adopting symbols for the intermediate num- 
 bers ; and those were furnished by the division of the sym- 
 bols already in use. Thus, having parted in the middle 
 the two strokes X, either the under half /\, or the upper 
 half V- was employed to signify five. Next, the mark |~ 
 
 for a hundred was divided into f or L. either of which 
 represented fifty. Again, the four combined strokes having 
 come, in the progress of the arts, to assume a round shape 
 PO, was frequently expressed thus ( | ) ; and this last form, 
 by partition, gave the two portions ( | , or | ),to represent 
 fire humirrd. (Leslie's Philosophy of Arithmetic, Introd.) 
 
 The numeral notation of the Greeks, though far less 
 convenient than that now in use, was formed on a per- 
 fectly regular and scientific plan, and could l>e used with 
 tolerable effect as an instrument of calculation, to which 
 the Roman system was totally inapplicable. They divided 
 the twenty four letters of their alphabet into three clashes, 
 and, by adding another symbol to each class, they had 
 character] to represent the units, tens, and hundreds. 
 
 Thus, instead of the digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 7, 8, 9, they rep-
 
 NOTATION. 
 
 resented the units by the letters a, /J, y, i, t, j, Z,, >?, &'■ the 
 tens were denoted by t, k, A, n, v, \, o, n, $ ; and the hun- 
 dreds by p, a, r, v, p, x* '/'i w, ^. 
 
 To represent the thousands they employed the first se- 
 ries with the iota subscribed, a, /3, v, <5, t, j, C, n, 8. With 
 
 these symbols they could express any number under 10,000 ; 
 thus 6 J) $9, denoted 9999; v \y, denoted 8033; ia, 4001, 
 
 and so with the others. To denote the myriads they made 
 use of the initial letter M, writing the number over it. 
 
 a Y 
 Thus, M, M, M, &c, corresponded respectively to 10,000, 
 
 An 
 
 30,000, 30,000, &c. M expressed thirty-eight myriads, or 
 
 Sto0 
 380,000 ; ' M was equal to 43,720,000 ; so that the letter M 
 placed under any number produced the same effect as is 
 produced in our system by writing four ciphers to the right 
 of the number. Diophantus and Pappus expressed the 
 myriads more simply by a point after the number: thus, 
 iTofrijKt denoted 43,728,025 ; and in this manner they pro- 
 ceeded to 9999-9999, or to any number under 100,000,000, 
 which was the extent of their notation before the time of 
 Archimedes, who showed how it might be extended indef- 
 initely. By assuming 100,000,000, or the square of the 
 myriad, as a new unit, and taking this any number of 
 times capable of being expressed by the previous notation, 
 he could represent any number which is expressed in the 
 modern notation by sixteen digits. Assuming, again, the 
 number which in our system is denoteed by 1 with sixteen 
 zeroes as a second new unit, he was enabled to express 
 any number consisting of twenty-four digits. This method 
 can obviously be continued to any length. A great improve- 
 ment was afterwards introduced by Apollonius, who pro- 
 posed the simple myriad, instead of its square, for the root 
 of the system; and thus any large number was constituted 
 of periods of four characters, the first of which, on the right 
 hand, represented units, the next, towards the left, the num- 
 ber of myriads, the third the square of the myriads, and so 
 on to infinity. The different periods were distinguished by 
 breaks or blanks. In this manner a local value was given 
 to the symbols, and a single step only was wanting to as- 
 similate this notation entirely to our own. It only required 
 that to be done for the simple tens which had been done 
 for the myriads or tens of thousands. (For an account of 
 the Greek notation and arithmetic, see Delambre, Astron- 
 omic Ancienne, tome ii.) 
 
 From an inspection of the manuscripts preserved in pub- 
 lic libraries, it appears that the Arabians had not generally 
 adopted the denary numerals before the beginning of the 
 13th century of our era. For several ages after the forma- 
 tion of their empire, they hired Christian scribes to keep 
 their accounts ; and though, like most other oriental na- 
 tions, they wrote from right to left, yet they implicitly fol- 
 lowed the Greek mode of ranging the numerals and per- 
 forming the calculations. It is probable that they derived 
 their knowledge of the Indian digits through the medium 
 of the Persians, but the subject is involved in much obscu- 
 rity. The epoch at which the denary numerals were in- 
 troduced into Europe is also uncertain ; but it appears to 
 have followed, at no great interval, the Saracen conquests 
 in Spain. Vossius places this epoch about the year 1250 ; 
 Du Cange thinks they were unknown before the 14th cen- 
 tury ; and they are very rarely to be found in the dates of 
 any writings before the year i400. They appear to have 
 been first used by astronomers, and afterwards circulated 
 over Europe in the almanacs. 
 
 Symbols of quantity are entirely arbitrary ; but the letters 
 of the alphabet may be said to be exclusively adopted by 
 mathematicians. When the quantities belonging to any 
 investigation are numerous, it may be necessary to have 
 recourse to different alphabets ; and it is always of very 
 great importance to select such symbols as will most read- 
 ily suggest the thing signified, as the initial letter of a 
 word, or letters which have acquired a sort of conventional 
 right to be applied to particular purposes. It is unfortunate 
 that so little attention has been paid to this subject, and 
 that some general principles have not been adopted by 
 mathematicians to regulate the choice of symbols, inas- 
 much as the diversity of notation renders it often a trouble- 
 some task to compare with one another different investiga- 
 tions of the same problem, or the results of different meth- 
 ods of analysis. There are, however, a few rules, which, 
 though altogether arbitrary, seem to be recognised by all 
 modern writers of any authority. Thus, in algebra, the 
 letters at the beginning of the alphabet are the symbols of 
 quantities supposed to be known, and those at the end of 
 the quantities sought. In analytical geometry and mechan- 
 
 NOTTURNO. 
 
 lcs, x, y, and 2 are always used to denote the rectangular 
 co-ordinates of a point in space. In trigonometry, the sides 
 of a triangle are usually denoted by a, b, and c, and the an- 
 gles opposite by A, B, and C respectively. In astronomy, 
 the Greek letters are most frequently used to represent an- 
 gles. Indices are usually employed when it is desirable 
 to retain the same letters for the same class of quantities. 
 
 Sy?nbols of operation are equally arbitrary with those of 
 quantity, but there is much less diversity in the manner of 
 employing them. The signs + and — , universally used to 
 signify addition and subtraction, seem to have been intro- 
 duced by Stifelius, a German, as the oldest work in which 
 they are found is his Arithmetica Integra, published at Nu- 
 remberg in 1544. Stifelius also introduced the character */, 
 originally r, the initial letter of radix (root), to denote the 
 root of a quantity. The sign of equality == was intro- 
 duced by Robert Recorde, and he gives as a reason that 
 "noe 2 thynges can be moare equalle," namely than the 
 two parallel lines. In the modern calculus the letters of 
 the alphabet are used as symbols of operation ; thus, d for 
 the differential and / for the integral of a quantity. Finite 
 differences and sums are denoted by the corresponding 
 Greek letters A and S. The fluxional notation introduced 
 by Newton, and which continued to be used in this country 
 till foreign books began to be more freely imported, after 
 the last war, has at length been entirely abandoned for the 
 differential notation of Leibnitz and the Bernoullis. The 
 former is, in fact, utterly incapable of representing the ex- 
 tremely general processes of modern analysis. (See notes 
 to the English translation of Eacroiz's Elem. Treatise on 
 the Diff. and Integral Calculus ; Lubbock on Notation, in 
 the Memoirs Roy. Astr. Soc, vol iv. ; art. " Notation," Ed- 
 inburgh Encyclopedia.) 
 
 NOTCHBOARD. (It. nocchia.) In Architecture, the 
 board which receives the ends of the steps in a staircase ; 
 so called because it is notched out to receive the ends of 
 the steps. 
 
 NOTE. (Lat. nota.) In Music, a character by which 
 the elevations and depressions of sound are marked, as well 
 as the swiftness or slowness of their motions. 
 
 NOTES (Lat. notre), in Literature, were originally 
 marks affixed by the critics, who reviewed the works of an 
 author, to those places which they considered to be spurious 
 or faulty, or which on any other account were worthy of re- 
 mark. In modern times the meaning of the term has been 
 enlarged, being now used as synonymous with annotation 
 or commentary. Among the Romans praiseworthy pas- 
 sages were usually marked with LL. (»'. e., laudabiles loci) ; 
 and faulty passages indicated by 6, a contraction, or, more 
 properly, a symbol for adcrriocv. (Per., Sat. iv., 12.) 
 Among the Greeks, good passages with the letter X, signi- 
 nifying xpnarov, excellent, and against those which were 
 condemned the word axpnarov, was written, which Gelli- 
 us calls ad notamentum culpa. 
 
 Notes, in printing, are — shoulder notes : these are at 
 the top of the page in the outer margin, and contain the 
 book, chapter, or date, or both of them ; side notes or mar- 
 ginal notes, which give an abstract of the text, as \u acts 
 of parliament ; or parallel passages, and different readings,- 
 as in the Bible ; and bottom notes, or foot notes, which are 
 placed at the bottom of the page, and generally contain 
 commentaries and explanatory annotations. 
 
 NOTHING. (JVo thing, the negation of being.) In 
 Mathematical language, the term nothing is of frequent oc- 
 currence, and denotes either the absence of magnitude in 
 circumstances in which magnitude might have existed, as 
 when equals are taken from equals, or it denotes the limit 
 to which a variable magnitude approaches by continual 
 diminution ; as when it is said that a magnitude is suscep- 
 tible of all values between nothing and infinity. 
 
 NOTICE, in Law, is that by which a party is supposed 
 to communicate, or to receive, that presumed or real knowl- 
 edge which is necessary to affect the receiver with legal 
 liabilities. For instance, when a party proceeds to recover 
 premises by ejectment, notice must be served by him, ac- 
 cording to certain prescribed formalities, on the tenant in 
 possession, in order to compel him to come in and defend 
 the action. This is an instance of actual notice. Con- 
 structive notice is that which is presumed to arise from 
 certain facts: as, for instance, in equity, a purchaser is 
 presumed to have notice of a suit pending which may af- 
 fect the subject matter of the sale, except where, by a late 
 enactment (2 Vict., c. 11), express notice was rendered 
 necessary. 
 
 NOTODO'NTA. (Gr. vutroc, back; ddovc, tooth.) The 
 name of a genus of Lepidopterous insects. 
 
 NO'TONECTIDjE. (Gr. vwro?; vcktui, I sicim.) The 
 family of Hemipterous insects of which the water- boatman 
 (JVotonecta) is the type. 
 
 NOTTU'RNO. In Music, originally synonymous with 
 serenade (which see) ; but applied at present to a piece of 
 music in which the emotions chiefly of love and tenderness 
 
 835
 
 NOUN. 
 
 are developed. Of modern composers Chopin, Field, and 
 Herg are the most distinguished in this department. 
 
 Ni MX. ! Lat. nomen, a name.) In Grammar, that part 
 of speech which denotes a conception ; in contradistinction 
 to an affirmation or judgment, which is expressed by a prrb. 
 Nouns are divided into substantives and adjectives ; the 
 first denoting real or supposed substance*, the second quali- 
 ties or properties conceived as belonging to substances. See 
 Grammar. 
 
 NOVA'CULITE. (Lat. novacula, a razor.) The stone 
 of w Inch hones are made for sharpening razors. It is of B 
 slaty structure, and owes its quality of giving an edge to the 
 metal to the tine silicious particles which it contains. 
 
 N< >V A'TIANS. The followers of Novation, a presbyter 
 of Rome, who was stigmatized as a schismatic and heretic, 
 and founded a sect of this name in the 3d century, which 
 continued to flourish to the end of the 5th. The aim of 
 Novatian was to deny readmission into the church to all 
 persons who, in time of persecution, or on other accounts, 
 had once lapsed from the faith. In this extreme severity of 
 sentiment he was opposed by the greater number of the 
 clergy of Rome, and especially by one Cornelius, upon 
 whose election to the see, Novatian, who was a disappoint- 
 ed candidate, withdrew from the communion of the majori- 
 ty, and established a society of which he became himself 
 the first bishop. This sect was also known by the title of 
 Cathari, or Puritans, which they assumed to express the 
 high sense they entertained of the excellence attainable by, 
 ajid necessary to, all professors of Christianity. 
 
 NO'VEL. (From the Italian novella, derived ftom the 
 Latin novus, new.) A species of prose fictitious composition. 
 
 The Italian novella, of which the best and earliest speci- 
 mens are those contained in the Decameron of Boccaccio, 
 was rather a short tale, turning on an event, or on a series 
 of adventures of humour, pathos, or intrigue, than a novel 
 in the modern acceptation of the term. In its present sig- 
 nification in the English language it seems to express a spe- 
 cies of fictitious narrative somewhat different from a ro- 
 mance ; yet it would be difficult to assign the exact distinc- 
 tion, and, in the French language, the same name (roman) 
 is used for both ; while it differs from a tale merely in the 
 circumstance that a certain degree of length is necessary to 
 constitute a novel. 
 
 Although, in fact, the terms novel and romance are often 
 used indifferently, yet they have also often been treated as 
 distinct classes of composition in English literature. Per- 
 haps, if we seek to draw the distinction with as much of 
 accuracy as the subject will admit, we may say that the 
 proper object of a novel is the delineation of social manners, 
 or the development of a story founded on the incidents of 
 ordinary life, or both together. Thus will be excluded from 
 the class of novels, on the one hand, tales of which the in- 
 cidents are not merely improbable (for this may be the case 
 in a novel), but occurring out of the common course of life, 
 and such as are founded on imaginary times and imaginary 
 manners, tales of supernatural incidents, chivalrous ro- 
 mances, pastoral romances, &c. ; and, on the other hand, 
 we must exclude from the same class fictitious narratives, in 
 which the author's principal object is neither the story nor 
 the costume, but which are obviously written with an ul- 
 terior view, although their incidents and character may 
 perhaps, in other respects, fall under the definition suggested 
 above. Thus, political, philosophical, and satirical fictions 
 are clearly not to be ranked as novels. But it is obvious that 
 no definition can be drawn which shall, on this subject, en- 
 tirely satisfy the caprices of popular language. 
 
 Of the novel, in this confined sense, the works of Richard- 
 son, and those of Fielding and Smollet, afforded, perhaps, 
 the first examples in English literature. The first of these 
 authors gave birth to the sentimental novel, the latter two 
 to the comic or humorous. Marivaux, Prevost, fee., spread 
 the former style of composition in France; where, as well 
 as on the Continent generally, it attained a high degree of 
 vogue. The novel of manners, whether comic or serious, 
 has, perhaps, been always a more popular species of fiction 
 in England. It may be doubted whether the historical fic- 
 tion, to which Sir Walter Scott has given such universal 
 popularity, belongs strictly to the class of novel or romance. 
 By aiming at the delineation of real, although past manners, 
 and by the general turn of the story, it seems to resemble the 
 former; while the romantic character of many of its inci- 
 dents seems to assimulate it to the latter. 
 
 For the general history of prose fictitious composition, see 
 Romam K. 
 
 NO'VELS. (Lat. novella; constitutiones, new eotutitu 
 tions.) In the Roman Law, supplementary constitutions of 
 some emperors, so called because they appeared after Ihe 
 authentic publications of law made by them. Those of 
 Justinian are the best known, and arc commonly Understood 
 when the general term is used. The Novels, together with 
 the ( •»/' and Digest, form the whole body of law which 
 passes under the name of that emperor. 
 836 
 
 NUMBER. 
 
 NOVE'MBER. (Lnt. novem, nine.) The eleventh 
 month of the Julian year ; but the ninth month in the old 
 Roman year, which began with March. See Calendar, 
 Year. 
 
 NOVEMSILES. The name given by Romulus to the 
 gods of the Sabines, whom he adopted after the conquest of 
 that people. The term was afterwards applied to those 
 heroes or demigods who, in consequence of their power or 
 virtues, were deified after death. 
 
 NO VENNALIA (Lat. novem, nine, and annus, a year), 
 among the Romans, signified, as the derivation of the term 
 implies, festivals held in honour of the dead every nine 
 years. 
 
 NO' VICE. (Lat. novitius.) A person admitted into a re- 
 ligious community as an inmate, for the purpose of prepara- 
 tion for becoming a member. The state of preparation is 
 termed novitiate. The custom of giving novices the religious 
 dress did not begin until the 12th century. The age of pro- 
 fession is fixed by the Council of Trent at sixteen years. 
 During the period of the novitiate the novice is still at liber- 
 ty to relinquish his intention. The term novice was applied 
 to recruits in the ancient Roman soldiery ; from which cir- 
 cumstance it appears to have been borrowed in ecclesiastical 
 usage. 
 
 NOVI HOMINES, among the Romans, were such per- 
 sons as, by their own personal merit, had raised themselves 
 to curule dignities without the aid of family connexionst 
 This reproach, as is well known, was addressed by Catiline 
 to Cicero. 
 
 NOX. (Lat.) In Mythology, the goddess of night. In 
 the Grecian mythology, she was the daughter of Chaos, the 
 sister of El pen and Erebus, and the mother of iEther, He- 
 mera, Manatas, Momus, the Fates, fee., fee.; which were 
 all personifications of the natural phenomena life, sleep, 
 death, &c. 
 
 NOYADES. (Fr. noyer.) The name given to a peculiar 
 punishment resorted to in the first French revolution. The 
 noyades were effected by drawing out a plug inserted in the 
 bottom of a boat in which the wretched victims were launch- 
 ed. The genius of iniquity, says a writer in the Edin. Re- 
 vino, often displays itself in the same invention. It will be 
 remembered that when Nero was desirous of despatching 
 his mother, and found himself at a loss for an expedient, 
 Anicatus proposed to him "the model of a ship upon a new 
 construction, framed in such a manner that a part might be 
 withdrawn, and the unsuspecting passenger committed to 
 the waves." (Tac. Jinn., lib. xiv., ar. 3.) 
 
 NOYAU. (Fr.) A delightful liqueur; it is flavoured 
 with bitter almonds, or the kernels of peach stones, and con- 
 tains prussic acid. 
 
 NU'CLEUS. (Lat.) Literally, anything round which 
 matter has accumulated, or to which it is affixed. In Bot- 
 any, it is used in various significations : 1. The central fleshy 
 pulpy mass of an ovule. 2. That part of a seed contained 
 within the testa, and consisting of either the embryo and albu- 
 men, or of the embryo only. 3. In lichens, the disk of the 
 shield, which contains the sporules and their cases. 4. In the 
 language of the older botanists what is now termed by garden- 
 ers a clove ; that is, the secondary bulb of a bulbous plant. 
 
 Nucleus. In Astronomy, the solid part or body of a 
 comet, as distinguished from its nebulosity. .Sec Comet. 
 
 NU'CULA. (Lat. nux, a nut.) Either the fruit, called 
 otherwise a gland or acorn, or any small, hard, one-seeded 
 pericarp; or the female organ of the plant Chara. 
 
 NU'DIBRA'NCHIANS, Jfudibranehiata. -(Lat. nudus, 
 naked; branchia, gills.) The name of an order of herma- 
 phodite Gastropodous Mollusks which have the branchise 
 exposed on some part of the back. 
 
 NU'DIPEDA'LIA. (Lnt. nudus, naked, and pes, a foot.) 
 A religious ceremony among the Greeks Romans, and other 
 nations, observed on account of some public calamity, as 
 famine, drought, pestilence; in the celebration of which (as 
 the word imports) the votaries appeared with the feet un- 
 covered. In various other religions observances this prac- 
 tice was adopted ; thus, the Roman matrons, when they of- 
 fered ii|> supplications to the goddess Vesta, always walked 
 to her temple barefooted : 
 
 Hue pedo matrunam nudo descendcre vidi. — Ovid. 
 
 A similar ceremony existed among the Jews. 
 
 Nl "D1T1ES. (Lat. nuditas, nakedness.) In the Fine 
 Arts, figures entirely divested of drapery. 
 
 NU'ISANCES, in Law, are of two kinds: public or com- 
 mon, which annoy the king's subjects in general ; and pri- 
 y.ile, which are defined "anything done to the hurt or an- 
 noyance of the lands, tenements, or hereditaments of an- 
 other." The general remedy for public nuisances, by action 
 on the case tor damages. 
 
 NU'LLIPORES, Nullipara. (Lat. nullus, no, poms, a 
 pore.) The name of a family of Lithopbv tons Polypes, the 
 axis of which presents no visible pores on its surface. 
 
 NU'MBER (Lat. numerus), is defined by Euclid to be an
 
 NUMBERS, BOOK OP. 
 
 assemblage or collection of units or things of the same spe- 
 cies. This definition excludes the unit itself, or 1. Newton 
 defines number as the abstract ratio of one quantity to an- 
 other quantity of the same species; and hence there are 
 three kinds of numbers, namely, integers, fractions, and 
 surds. Number, abstractedly considered, conveys merely 
 the notion of times or repetitions. 
 
 Mathematicians consider numbers, under different points 
 Of view, or with relation to different properties ; and hence 
 arise the various distinctions which have been introduced, 
 as even or odd, whole or fractional, rational or irrational, 
 perfect or imperfect, prime or composite, abundant or de- 
 fective. &c. Numbers also acquire various denominations 
 from the manner in which they are composed ; as triangular 
 numbers, pyramidal numbers, polygonal numbers, &c. (See 
 the respective adjectives.) 
 
 The theory of numbers forms one of the most subtle parts 
 of the algebraic analysis. Judging from the fragments which 
 have been preserved, the ancient mathematicians had push- 
 ed their researches into the properties of numbers to a con- 
 siderable extent; but until the invention of algebra, and the 
 introduction of a more convenient notation, the difficulties 
 of the subject could only be partially overcome. The most 
 ancient existing work on algebra is that of Diophantus, and 
 it is devoted entirely to numbers. From the time of Dio- 
 phantus, who lived in the 3d century, to that of Vieta, Ba- 
 chet, and Fermat, who flourished in the 16th, no advance- 
 ment was made in the theory ; but the discoveries of these 
 illustrious mathematicians carried it far beyond its ancient 
 limits. Euler was the next from whom it received any con- 
 siderable extension : he was followed by Lagrange, who 
 added many important theories ; and it has received its latest 
 perfection from the hands of Gauss and Legendre. The 
 theory of numbers may be studied in the following works : 
 the Arithmetic of Diophantus, with a Commentary by Ba- 
 chet, and notes by Fermat, Toulouse, 1670; Waring' s Med- 
 itationes Algeb. ; Euler, Introd. in Anal. Infinitorum, Opus- 
 cula Analytica, and various papers in the Petersburg Me- 
 moirs ; Lagrange, in the Berlin Memoirs ; Gauss TJisqttis i- 
 tiones Arithmetical or the French translation : Leeendre, 
 Essai stir la Theorie des .Vontbres, 2d edit., 1808. For the 
 mystical properties of numbers the curious reader may con- 
 sult D. S. Boetii Arithmetica, Parisiis, 1521 ; P. Bungi JVu- 
 merorum Mysteria, 1591 ; Taylor's Theoretic Arithmetic, 
 1816. 
 NUMBERS, BOOK OF. See Pentateuch. 
 NUME'NIA. (Gr. veoc, new, and fii/v, a month.) Grecian 
 festivals celebrated at the commencement of every lunar 
 month, in honour of all the gods, demigods, and heroes of 
 antiquity. They were observed with games and public en- 
 tertainments, the expense of which was defrayed by the 
 wealthy citizens. See Neomenia. 
 
 N I ) M ETJTUS. The name under which Cuvier separated 
 the curlews, as a distinct genus, from the other Scolopaces 
 of LinnEeus. They have a beak arcuated like that of the 
 ibis, but it is more slender, and is cylindrical throughout; 
 the tip of the upper mandible extends beyond the end of the 
 lower one, and projects a little downward in front of it. 
 The toes are palmated at the base. 
 
 NUMERALS. The symbols or characters by which 
 numbers are expressed. .See Notation. 
 
 NUMERATION, is the art of classing and expressing 
 numbers. Though the mode of reckoning numbers by tens 
 or decads has prevailed among all civilized nations, and has 
 become incorporated with the very structure of language, 
 there is nothing in the nature of the subject which rendered 
 its adoption a matter of necessity. Any other number might 
 have been chosen for the root of the numerical scale; and, 
 in fact, if a scale were now to be selected by mathemati- 
 cians familiar with the properties of numbers, there are sev- 
 eral considerations which would lead them to adopt twelve, 
 in preference to ten. The selection often, therefore, which 
 has been almost universal, implies the influence of some 
 common determining principle ; and it is easy to see that it 
 arose from the practice, so familiar in the early stages of 
 society, of counting by the fingers on both hands. In various 
 languages, however, traces are found of an earlier and sim- 
 pler mode of reckoning. We may suppose the earliest of 
 all to be that of combining units in pairs. It is still familiar 
 among sportsmen, who reckon by braces or couples. To 
 count by threes was another step, and has been preserved 
 by the same class of men under the term leash, meaning the 
 strings by which three dogs, and no more, can be held at 
 once in the hand. The numbering by fours has had a more 
 extensive application: it was evidently suggested by the 
 custom of taking, in the rapid tale of objects, a pair in each 
 hand. Our fishermen, who generally count in this way, call 
 every double pair (of herrings, for instance) a throw or cast ; 
 and the term warp which has exactly the same import, is 
 employed to denote four, in various articles of trade. It is 
 alleged that the Gnaranis and Lulos, two of the lowest races 
 of savages inhabiting the forests of South America, count 
 
 NUMISMATICS. 
 
 only by fours ; at least they express the number. five by four 
 and one, sii by four and two, and so forth. The quinary 
 system, which reckons by fives or pentads, has its founda- 
 tion in nature, being evidently derived from the practice of 
 counting over the fingers of one hand. It appears, from the 
 relations of travellers, to have been adopted by various sav- 
 age nations of America; and we learn from Mungo Park 
 that it is practised by the Yolofs and Foulahs of Africa, who 
 designate 10 by two hands, 15 by three hands, and so pro- 
 gressively. It is even partially used in this country among 
 wholesale traders. In reckoning articles delivered at the 
 warehouse the person who takes charge of the tale, having 
 traced a long horizontal line, continues to draw, alternately 
 above and below it, a warp, or four vertical strokes, each set 
 of which he crosses by an oblique score, and calls out tally 
 as often as the number five is completed. (Leslie's Philoso- 
 phy of Arithmetic.) 
 
 The mode of reckoning by twelves or dozens may be sup- 
 posed to have had its origin in the observation of the celes- 
 tial phenomena ; there being twelve months or lunations 
 commonly reckoned in a solar year. It appears in the sub- 
 division of weights and measures, as twelve ounces to a 
 pound, twelve inches to a foot ; and is still very generally 
 employed in wholesale business, extending to the second 
 and even the third term of the progression. Thus twelve 
 dozen, or 144, make the long hundred of the northern na- 
 tions, or the gross of traders, and twelve times this again, or 
 1728, make the double gross. Traces of reckoning by twen- 
 ties or scores remain in our own and other European idioms. 
 The expression threescore and ten is familiar. The French 
 language has no terms for the numbers in the second series 
 of the denary scale above soizante, or sixty. Eighty is ex- 
 pressed by quatre-vingts and ninety by quatre-vingts et dix, 
 four twenties and ten. The inhabitants of Biscay are said 
 still to reckon by the powers of twenty, or the terms of 
 progressive scores; and, according to Humboldt, the same 
 mode of numeration was employed by the Mexicans. See 
 Arithmetic, Binary, Duodecimals, Sexagesimals. 
 
 The primary object of numeration is to find names for the 
 different numbers ; and, as there are an infinity of numbers, 
 while the number of words is limited, it became necessary 
 to devise some systematic method of combining a few words, 
 so as to express by means of them any number whatever. 
 It is obvious that when large numbers are to be expressed, 
 the lower scales, as the binary, ternary, &c, would be ex- 
 ceedingly inconvenient, on account of the multitude of words 
 that would be required. On the other hand, as a name is 
 required for at least every unit in the scale, a very high 
 scale would be no less inconvenient. In the denary scale, 
 the nomenclature is sufficiently convenient, and in our lan- 
 guage almost perfectly regular. A name is given to the 9 
 units of the first order; the unit of the second order is ten ; 
 and, by the different combinations of this word, all numbers 
 are named to 99: eleven and twelve are only apparent ex- 
 ceptions. A new appellation is wanted for the unit of the 
 third order, or hundred. This suffices till we reach the 
 fourth order, or thousands ; and might even have sufficed 
 to a hundred hundreds, or ten thousand. A thousand thou- 
 sands is called a million, and a million millions a billion; 
 farther continuation is useless. 
 
 The second object of numeration is to express the nomen- 
 clature thus formed by the combinations of a small number 
 of written symbols. This is most conveniently effected by 
 the very refined artifice of giving to each symbol a local as 
 well as an absolute value. So that the same symbol, 3 for 
 example, is made to express not only 3 units, but 3 tens, 3 
 hundreds, 3 thousands, &c. ; or 3 tenth parts, 3 hundredth 
 parts, &c., according to its distance towards the left or right 
 from the unit's place in any combination of symbols. See 
 Notation. 
 
 NUMERATOR, in Arithmetic, is that part of the nu- 
 merical expression of a fraction which indie js how many 
 of those parts into which the unit is supposeu to be divided 
 are expressed. Thus, in the fraction ~, the lower number 
 12 is the denominator, and shows thatthe unit is divided 
 into 12 parts ; 7 is the numerator, and shows how many of 
 those parts are to he taken. 
 
 NUMISMA'TICS. (From the Greek xiawua, Latin 
 nummus, a coin.) The science of coins and medals. The 
 distinction between these classes of objects is, in modem 
 times, that the coin is struck for the purpose of circulation as 
 money ; the medal not as a piece of money, but as a token 
 commemorative of some person or event. But ancient coins 
 are often termed, in common language, medals. The parts 
 of a coin or medal are. the obverse or face, containing gen- 
 erally' the head, bust, or figure of the sovereign or person in 
 whose honour the medal was struck, or some emblematic 
 figure in the coins of commonwealths : and the reverse, con- 
 taining various figures or words. The words around the 
 border of the coin form what is termed the legend, those in 
 the middle the inscription ; when occupying the lower ex- 
 
 837
 
 NUMISMATICS. 
 
 tremity of the pieces, and separated from the rest by a hori- 
 zontal line, they are termed the exergue. 
 
 The earliest Grecian coins which we possess appear to 
 have been nearly of a spherical shape: they contain, on 
 the obverse, some emblems of the particular cities which 
 struck them ; and on the reverse, deep indentations made 
 by the puncheon in which the metal was held while the 
 obverse was struck. These marks, or the die, wen' soon 
 brought into a more regular shape, sometimes fanning a 
 neat square, sometimes a circle. Types were afterwards 
 introduced on both surfaces of the coin by inserting same 
 small object in one compartment of the die. Ancient coins 
 have been divided into various historical series, as exhibit- 
 ed in the following table : 
 
 '1. Consular. 
 
 C Of Grapcia Propria and the Islands. 
 ] . Civic. < Of Greek colonies. 
 
 ( Of Gra-co-Asiatic cities. 
 
 f Kings of Macedon. 
 Kings of states formed out of the 
 Macedonian conquesta: Syria, 
 Egypt, &c, &c, and the inde- 
 pendent princes of Epirus and 
 Syracuse. 
 \ Roman asses. 
 ) Coins of the families. 
 C Roman. 
 Roman. < 2. Imperial. < Grecian : Provinces, Colonies, 
 ( and Municipia. 
 
 13. Medallions.)^- 
 
 i 1. European ; of Thrace, &c. 
 Barbarian. < 2. Asiatic; of Persia, &c. 
 f 3. African. 
 
 The objects on Grecian civic coins are either, 1, the em- 
 blems of the cities ; 2, figures of deities, and their attri- 
 butes ; 3, miscellaneous or general symbols, usurped by 
 many states and cities, usually consisting of warlike ob- 
 jects. The legends on Greek republican coins are either 
 the name of the city or its initial letters ; or monograms, 
 i. «., figures forming a portion of the name, in which the 
 characters are so interlaced that a limb of one applies to 
 many. 
 
 The earliest coins which bore the heads of princes were 
 those of Macedon, commencing with Alexander the Great, 
 and closing with the extinction of the dynasty of the Lagi- 
 da° in the Augustan age. Four principal series of Grecian 
 monarchical coins (either of Greek states, or such as adopt- 
 ed the Greek language and customs) have been formed : 1. 
 Of Macedon; 2. Of Sicily, Carta, Cyprus, Heraclea, Pontus ; 
 3. Of Egypt, Syria, the Cimmerian Bosphorus, Thrace, &c, 
 &c, from the era of Alexander the Great down to that of 
 Christ; 4. Of dynasties which flourished subsequently to 
 the latter era ; including some kings of Thrace, Bosphorus, 
 and Parthia, with those of Comagene, Edessa, and Juda>a; 
 to which may be added some lines of Romanized monarchs] 
 as those of Mauritania. The most beautiful monarchic se- 
 ries are those of the Seleucidte in Syria, and Ptolemies in 
 Egypt The unit of the Grecian silver coinage, in point of 
 value, may be considered as the drachma, which is of a 
 size between our sixpence and shilling; the smallest silver 
 coin is the dichalcos, only i-th of the drachma ; the largest, 
 the tetradrachma, containing four drachmae. The common- 
 est gold coin is the didrachma, weighing two silver drach- 
 ma?, and in value 20, or 15s. sterling. Grecian copper coins 
 are generally small. 
 
 The Roman coinage differs from the Grecian in many re- 
 spects ; the greater size of the copper coins in earlv times 
 and their superior workmanship in later, the prevailing 
 simplicity of devices, &c, form characteristic marks of dif- 
 ference. In the first period of the republic they were cast. 
 The consular copper coins have separate symbols for the 
 pieces, according to their respective value ; as the head of 
 Janus for the as, Jupiter for the semis, &c. The as also 
 bore the impress 1, to denote its quality of unity as a meas- 
 ure of value. The name family coins, applied to many 
 coins of the republic, arose from the custom of inserting 
 the name of some distinguished family in the field of the 
 coins. A silver coinage was first introduced into Rome 206 
 B.C. The oldest coin was the denarius, equivalent to ten 
 asses: the earliest of these have the head of Janus, lor 
 Which that of Koine was afterwards substituted on the Ob- 
 verse, With a variety of symbols 09 the reverse. Tin coin- 
 age of gold was introduced into Rome sixty years after that 
 Of silver: the pieces were, the scrupiilum." one third of the 
 denarius in weight; a coin weighing two thirds, and an- 
 other weighing a whole denarius. Afterwards the chief 
 gold coin was the aureus (twice the weisht of the denari- 
 us), and its parts. The imperial Roman coins form by far 
 the most complete and varied series which we |»>ssess of 
 ancient or modern times. The symbols on the reverse 
 have been arranged under four heads : as relating to reli- 
 838 
 
 NURSERY. 
 
 pinn. war. games, and the embellishments of the city, un- 
 der the numerous subdivisions of these subjects. The ob- 
 verses contain the portraits of emperors and empresses. 
 The characters on the reverses of the coins are, generally 
 speaking, explanatory of the type; expressing, in a few 
 brief words, the history of some occurrence Immediately 
 after which the coin was struck, &.c. The legends on the 
 obverse mostly contain titles annexed to the imperial dig- 
 nity, often expressed in abbreviations productive of not a 
 little obscurity. 
 
 Not less than three hundred portraits are preserved in 
 the series of Roman imperial coins. The term medallion 
 is applied to those productions of the Roman or provincial 
 mints which, in gold, exceed the size of the aureus ; in sil- 
 ver, of the denarius ; in copper, of the largest copper coin 
 of ascertained value. It is doubtful whether they were in- 
 tended for circulation as coins, or struck, like medals among 
 ourselves, as commemorative tokens. 
 
 Modern coins present so wide a variety as to render It 
 impossible to include any classification of them within the 
 limits of the present notice. In England, Roman coins 
 were current until the arrival of the Saxons: we have the 
 coins of five out of the seven kingdoms of the heptarchy ; 
 among them some small copper coins, the only specimens 
 of that metal coined before the reign of Elizabeth. Coins 
 struck prior to the reign of Charles II. had their devices 
 impressed by the blows of a hammer. The system of let- 
 tering on the edges, which was succeeded by graining, was 
 invented in order to obviate the fraudulent practice of clip- 
 ping and filing the current coin. 
 
 NCMMULI'TES. (Lat. nummus, money, and Gr. hOoc, 
 a stone.) An extinct genus of the order of Molluscous ani- 
 mals called Cephalopoda, of a thin lenticular shape, divided 
 internally into small chambers. These occur so abundantly 
 in some parts of the chalk formation, that the name of nuin- 
 mulite limestone is given to the strata so characterized. 
 
 NUNCIO. An envoy of the pope to the court of an em- 
 peror or king to negotiate ecclesiastical affairs. (See Leo- 
 ate.) Previously to the council of Trent the papal nuncios 
 acted as judges, in the first instance, of matters which lay 
 within ecclesiastical jurisdiction ; but since that time they 
 have formed a kind of court of appeal from the decisions 
 of the respective bishops. This jurisdiction, however, holds 
 good only in those countries which still hold themselves 
 subject to the decretals and discipline of the council of 
 Trent ; for in other kingdoms and states, such as France, 
 Austria, Tuscany, &c, which, though Roman Catholic, hold 
 themselves independent of the Roman pontiff in matters of 
 discipline, the papal nuncio has no jurisdiction whatever, 
 and is invested merely with a diplomatic character, like the 
 ambassadors of any secular power. The term nuncio is the 
 Italian form of the Lat. nuntius. 
 
 NUNCUPATIVE WILL. (Lat. nuncupo, I name.) In 
 Law, a will orally delivered by the testator. See Will. 
 
 NU'NDIN^E. (Lat. nonus, ninth, and dies, a day.) The 
 market-days or fairs at Rome were so called, because they 
 recurred every ninth day. On this day the people from the 
 country and neighbouring towns flocked to Rome with the 
 produce of their farms or industry. On that day, also, all 
 public proclamations were made, causes heard, witnesses 
 cited, and judgments given. The nundinar were originally 
 considered as dies nefasti, on which no other business could 
 be done ; but, for the convenience of the country people, 
 this prohibition was removed by the J.n Hortensia. 
 
 NUNS. Female devotees among the Roman Catholics, 
 who. like the monks of the other sex, seclude themselves 
 in religious communities, and make profession of perpetual 
 chastity. SceMoNAcinsM. 
 
 The origin of this institution is commonly ascribed to St 
 Syncletica, the contemporary of St. Anthony. Among nuns, 
 as among monks, there are various orders : some abandon- 
 ing themselves entirely to contemplation and spiritual ex- 
 ercises, but many others to the more active duties of private 
 and public charity. 
 
 NU'RSI'.RV. In Gardening, a plot of ground, or an en- 
 tire garden, set apart for the propagation of plants, more 
 particularly trees and shrubs. The situation ought to be 
 open and airy, and the soil of an average quality, neither 
 too heavy nor too light, so as to be adapted to the majority 
 of plants ; but in a complete nursery there ought also to be 
 shady borders for plants requiring shade, and beds or com- 
 partments of peat soil, or other peculiar soils, for such plants 
 as are not readily propagated and grown in ordinary soils. 
 Where tender plants are propagated, or where hardy plants 
 are to be raised from seeds or struck from cuttings which 
 are not easily germinated or rooted in the open ground and 
 in the ordinary manner, hotbeds, frames, and hand-glasses 
 are also requisite. Every private garden of any evtent re- 
 quires a nursery to hum' and brii.2 forward young plants as 
 a reserve for supplying failures by disease or accident in 
 the general garden ; and in every country where private 
 gardens or plantations of trees are frequent, public or com- 

 
 NUTATION. 
 
 mercial nurseries are formed by persons who adopt nursery 
 gardening as a business. 
 
 NUTA'TION. In Astronomy, the name given to a small 
 gyratory movement of the earth's axis, in virtue of which, 
 if it subsisted alone, without the precession of the equinox- 
 es, the pole of the equator would describe among the stars, 
 in a period of about nineteen years, a small ellipse, having 
 its longer axis equal to 18-5", and its shorter to 13-74" ; the 
 longer being directed to the pole of the ecliptic, and the 
 shorter, of course, at right angles to the longer. 
 
 In order to understand the nature of this phenomenon, it 
 is necessary to consider it in connexion with that of pre- 
 cession, both depending on the same physical cause, and 
 forming, in fact, essential constituent parts of one and the 
 same great phenomenon. The action of the sun and moon 
 on the protuberant mass about the earth's equator tends 
 constantly to draw the plane of the equator towards that 
 of the ecliptic, or to diminish the angle between them. In 
 consequence of the earth's rapid rotation about its axis, the 
 inclination of the two planes is not permanently altered, 
 but a motion is communicated to the plane of the equator, 
 of such a kind that its axis revolves with a slow conical 
 motion about the axis of the ecliptic ; or, which is the same 
 thing, the pole of the equator describes a circle in the heav- 
 ens about the pole of the ecliptic as a centre, keeping con- 
 stantly at the same mean distance of about 23° 28' from it. 
 The direction of this motion is from east to west, and its 
 velocity amounts only to 50-1" annually, so that the whole 
 circle requires for its description a period of 25,868 years. 
 
 Let us now consider what would be the effect of the 
 moon's action independently of that of the sun. The lunar 
 orbit does not coincide with the ecliptic ; it is inclined to it 
 in an angle of about 5° 9" ; and the position of the line in 
 which the two planes intersect, that is, the line of the 
 nodes, goes back on the ecliptic with a motion which car- 
 ries it through a complete revolution in about eighteen 
 years and seven months. The axis of the lunar orbit, 
 therefore, also describes a conical motion about that of the 
 ecliptic, or its pole describes a small circle in the heavens 
 about the pole of the ecliptic, at the distance of 5° 9', and 
 in the same period of about eighteen years and seven 
 months. Now, the effect of the moon's attraction on the 
 parts of the terrestrial spheroid exterior to the inscribed 
 sphere is to produce a slow conical motion of the earth's 
 axis, not about the pole of the ecliptic, but about the pole 
 of the lunar orbit, which is itself in a state of comparatively 
 rapid motion about the pole of the ecliptic. The point, 
 therefore, in the sphere of the heavens round which the 
 pole of the earth's equator revolves, being in a state of con- 
 tinual circulation round the pole of the ecliptic, the path 
 which the pole of the equator describes is not a circle, but 
 a sort of epicycloidal curve, or gently undulated ring. This 
 will be rendered evident by the annexed figure. Let P be 
 the pole of the ecliptic, which is supposed to be fixed ; A 
 the pole of the moon's orbit, moving 
 round the small circle A B C D in the 
 space of nearly nineteen years ; a the 
 pole of the earth's equator, which at 
 each moment moves in a direction 
 perpendicular to the varying position 
 of the line A a, and with a velocity 
 varying with the intensity of the act- 
 ing forces during the revolution of the 
 moon's nodes, but, on the whole, so 
 *■ >> <• slow as to carry it round only in 
 
 25,868 years. When, therefore, A arrives successively at 
 B, C, D, and E, the line A a will take the positions B b, C c, 
 D d, E e: the earth's pole will thus, in one tropical revolu- 
 tion of A, have arrived at e ; and its direction having been 
 always perpendicular to B b, C c, &c, the path which it 
 will have described will be of the form abode. The same 
 thing will be repeated at each succeeding revolution of the 
 moon's node; and it is this alternate increase and diminu- 
 tion of the distances P a, P c, and P e which constitute the 
 phenomenon of the nutation. 
 
 As the effect of the sun or moon in giving the earth a 
 motion about its centre of gravity varies with the distance 
 of the attracting body from the plane of the equator, it is 
 evident that the effect of the sun is greatest at the solstices, 
 and is reduced to nothing at the equinoxes. On this ac- 
 count, the obliquity of the ecliptic is subject to a small 
 semi-annual variation, depending on the sun alone. This 
 is called the solar nutation. Its existence is, however, only 
 a deduction from the theory of attraction ; for its amount, 
 which is less than half a second, is too small to be sensible 
 to observation. The result produced by the combined ac- 
 tion of the sun and moon is called the luni-solar nutation ; 
 though the sensible part of it is produced only by the moon, 
 and follows exactly the period of the moon's nodes. 
 
 The uranographical effect of the nutation is to produce a 
 periodical fluctuation of the apparent obliquity of the eclip- 
 tic, and of the velocity of the regression of the equinoctial 
 
 NUTRIA. 
 
 points. Hence arises the distinction between apparent and 
 mean right ascension and declination ; the former being 
 given by direct observation, and the latter being the results 
 obtained when the observed places of objects have been 
 cleared of the periodical fluctuations arising from nutation. 
 Formula? and tables, for the reduction of observations to a 
 common epoch, are given in all works on practical astron- 
 omy. 
 
 The discovery of the nutation of the terrestrial axis be- 
 longs to Bradley, and was a consequence of his other great 
 discovery, the aberration of light. In prosecuting his ob- 
 servations with a zenith sector, with a view to establish his 
 theory of the aberration, he found a greater apparent change 
 in the declinations of stars near the equinoctial colure than 
 could arise from a precession of 50" in a year, and at the 
 same time exactly the reverse effect in the case of stars 
 near the solstitial colure. In the course of five years, the 
 changes in question amounted, in some instances, to 9" or 
 10" ; and as it was evident that they could not be explained 
 by any alteration of the quantity of precession, Bradley re- 
 verted to an idea which had previously occurred to him in 
 attempting to account for the phenomenon of aberration. 
 "I suspected," says he, "that the moon's action upon the 
 equatorial parts of the earth might produce these effects. 
 For if the precession of the equinoxes be, according to Sir 
 Isaac Newton's principles, caused by the action of the sun 
 and moon upon those parts, the plane of the moon's orbit 
 being at one time nbove ten degrees more inclined to the 
 equator than at another, it was reasonable to conclude that 
 the part of the whole annual precession which arises from 
 her action would, in different years, be varied in its quan- 
 tity ; whereas the plane of the ecliptic wherein the sun ap- 
 pears keeping nearly always the same inclination to the 
 equator, that part of the precession which is owing to the 
 sun's action may be the same every year ; and from hence 
 it would follow that although the mean annual precession 
 proceeding from the joint actions of the sun and moon were 
 50", yet the apparent annual precession might sometimes 
 exceed and sometimes fall short of that mean quantity, ac- 
 cording to the various situations of the nodes of the moon's 
 orbit." 
 
 A long series of observations on stars situated in different 
 parts of the heavens proved the correctness of this theory ; 
 and it was found that all the phenomena were capable of 
 being explained on the hypothesis that the pole of the equa- 
 tor describes a small circle about its mean place, contrary 
 to the order of the signs, and in the same period as that of 
 the revolution of the moon's nodes. Bradley himself after- 
 wards remarked that they would be still more accurately 
 represented by supposing the curve described by the pole 
 about its mean place to be an ellipse instead of a circle. 
 This is confirmed by accurately calculating, from theory, 
 the amount of all the forces which tend to displace the ter- 
 restrial equator. The result shows the path of the pole to 
 be an ellipse, and gives nearly the same values of its semi- 
 transverse and conjugate axes as are given by observation. 
 These values were found by Von Lindenau from a series of 
 810 observations, embracing three complete revolutions of 
 the moon's nodes, to be 80-977" and 6682" respee lively. 
 The value of the semiaxis major of the small ellipse ima- 
 gined by Bradley is called the constant of nutation, and en- 
 ters as an element into all reductions of astronomical ob- 
 servations. Von Lindenau's determination, above stated, is 
 adopted by the German astronomers. The value generally 
 used by British astronomers is 9-25", which was deduced 
 by Dr. Brinkley, bishop of Cloyne, from his own observa- 
 tions with the Dublin circle. Very recently, this important 
 astronomical element has been investigated by Dr. Robin- 
 son, of Armagh, from the Greenwich observations with the 
 mural circle from 1812 to 1835, and the result at which he 
 arrives is 9-23913". (Memoirs Roy. Ast. Soc, vol. xi., 1840 ; 
 Airy's Math. Tracts ; HerscheVs Astronomy.) See Pre- 
 cession. 
 
 NU'THATCH. The name of a shy and solitary bird of 
 the genus Sitta (S. Europ&a). It frequents woods, and feeds 
 on insects chiefly ; but also eats the kernel of the hazelnut, 
 which it cracks by fixing it in a chink, and striking it from 
 above with all its force. The nuthatch lays her eggs in 
 holes of trees, and hisses like a snake when disturbed. 
 
 NUT OF A SCREW. In Architecture, a piece of wood, 
 iron, or other metal, pierced cylindrically, wherein is cut a 
 spiral groove, adapted to an external cylindrical spiral cut 
 on a bolt. Its use is to screw two bodies together, a head 
 being placed on one end of the bolt to counteract the action 
 of the nut. Two bodies are thus held together by com- 
 pression, the bolt between the head and the nut being a tie. 
 
 NUTRIA, or NEUTRIA. The commercial name for 
 the skins of Mtjopotamus Bonariensis (Commerson), the 
 Coypou of Molina, and the Quoiija of D'Azara. In France 
 the skins were, and perhaps still are, sold under the name 
 of racoonda ; but in England they are imported as nutria 
 skins—deriving their appellation, most probably, from some 
 
 "839
 
 NUTRITION. 
 
 supposed similarity of the animal which produces them, in 
 appearance and habits, to the otter, the Spanish name for 
 which is nutria. Indeed, Molina speaks of the coypou as a 
 species of water-rat of the size and colour of the otter. 
 
 .Nutria fur is largely used in the hat manufacture; and 
 has become, W ithin the last 15 or 20 years, an article of very 
 considerable commercial importance. The Imports fluctu- 
 ate considerably. In 1823, they amounted to 1,570,103 
 6kins; but they have not, in any other year, been much 
 more than half that number. In 1826, they were only 
 60,871. In 1837 and 1838, the imports were, at an average, 
 358,280 skins a year. Those entered for home consumption 
 pay a duty of lid. a skin. They are principally brought 
 from the Rio de la Plata. Nutria skins are very extensively 
 used on the continent. Geoffrey mentions* that, in certain 
 years, a single French furrier (M. Bechem) has received 
 from 15,000 to 20,000 skins. 
 
 Like the beaver, the coypou is furnished with two kinds 
 of fur; viz. the long ruddy hair, which gives the tone of 
 colour, and the brownish ash-coloured fur at its base, which, 
 like the down of the beaver, is of much importance in hat 
 making, and the cause of the animal's commercial value. 
 
 The habits of the coypou are much like those of most of 
 the other aquatic Rodent animals. Its principal food, in a 
 state of nature, is vegetable. It affects the neighbourhood 
 of water, swims perfectly well, and burrows in the ground. 
 The female brings forth from five to seven at a time; and 
 the young always accompany her. 
 
 The coypou is easily domesticated, and its manners in 
 captivity are very mild. (See Martin in the Proceedings 
 of the Zoological Society, 1835). 
 
 NU TRITION. See Food, Digestion. 
 
 NUTMEG. The fruit of the Myristica moschata, a beau- 
 tiful tree of the family of the Laurineoz of Jussieu, which 
 grows in the Molucca islands. All the parts of this tree 
 are very aromatic ; but only those portions of the fruit call- 
 ed mace and nutmeg are sent into the market. The entire 
 fruit is a species of drupa, of an ovoid form, of the size of a 
 peach, and furrowed longitudinally. The nutmeg is the 
 innermost kernel or seed, contained in a thin shell, which is 
 surrounded by the mace ; and this again is inclosed in a 
 tough fleshy skin, which, opening at the tip, separates into 
 two valves. The nutmeg-tree yields three crops annually ; 
 one in April, which is the best ; one in August ; and one in 
 December. 
 
 Good nutmegs should be dense, and feel heavy in the 
 hand. When they have been perforated by worms, they 
 feel light; and though the holes have been fraudulently 
 stopped, the unsound ones may be easily detected by this 
 criterion. 
 
 Nutmegs afford two oily products. 1. Butter of nutmeg, 
 vulgarly called oil of mace, is obtained in the Moluccas, 
 by expression, from the fresh nutmegs, to the amount of 
 50 per cent, of their weight. It is a reddish-yellow butter- 
 like substance, interspersed with light and dark streaks, 
 and possesses the agreeable smell and taste of the nutmeg, 
 from the presence of a volatile oil. It consists of two fats ; 
 one reddish and soft, soluble in cold alcohol ; another 
 white and solid, soluble in hot alcohol. 2. The volatile oil 
 is solid, or a stereoptene, and has been styled myristicine. 
 (Ure's Diet, of Arts, be.) 
 
 NUTS. (Lat. nux.) The fruit of different species of 
 Coryli or hazels. The kernels have a mild farinaceous 
 oily taste, agreeable to most palates ; a kind of chocolate 
 has been prepared from them, and they have sometimes 
 been made into bread. The expressed oil of hazel nuts is 
 little inferior to that of almonds. Besides those raised at 
 home, nuts are imported from different parts of France, 
 Portugal, and Spain, but chiefly from the latter. The 
 Spanish nuts in highest estimation, though sold by the 
 name of Barcelona nuts, are not shipi>ed from thence, but 
 from Tarragona, whence the average annual export is esti- 
 mated at from 25,000 to 30,000 bags, four to the ton. The 
 annual entries of nuts for home consumption amount to 
 from 100,00(1 to 125,000 bushel's; the duty of 2s. a bushel 
 yielding from £10,000 to £12,000 nett. (Commercial Diet). 
 
 NTJ TTALITE. A mineral associated with calcspar, 
 from Bolton, in Massachusetts: it occurs in prismatic 
 Crystals, and appears, from Dr. Thomson's analysis, to be 
 an alumino-silicate of lime, potash, and iron. 
 
 NUX. A kind of fruit, hard, dry, not splitting, and con- 
 taining only one seed ; it is also extended by some writers 
 to any similar fruit, whether it contains one cell or more 
 than one. See Nuts. 
 
 NUX VOMICA. (Lat.) The fruit of a species of 
 strychnos growing in the East Indies. It produces the 
 alkaloid salts, strychnia, and bruchia, and is a very viru- 
 lent poison. 
 
 .NYVTALOPS. (Gr. vn$, night, and onropat, I see.) 
 
 * Annate* du Mwttum, vol. vi., p. S2. The figure given is. generally 
 speaking, good ; but the tail is too hairy, and contradicts the description. 
 840 
 
 OAK. 
 
 One who only sees distinctly in twilight, or the dusk of 
 evening. 
 
 NYMPH, Xympha. (Gr. vvp<j>n, a nymph.) The Me- 
 tabolian insects are so called when in the second stage 
 of their metamorphosis, especially when they possess the 
 power of locomotion. See Pcpa. 
 
 NYMPH^E'A, was the name given to some public, baths 
 at Rome consecrated to the nymphs, with whose statues 
 they were adorned. 
 
 NYMPHA'CEA. In Zoology, a name given by Lamarck 
 to a family of Bivalves. 
 
 NYMPIIiEA'CE^E. (Nymphea, one of the genera.) In 
 Botany, a natural order of plants, containing the water- 
 lilies of various parts of the world ; they are Polypetalous 
 Polyandrous Exogens, with the sides of the cells of the 
 fruit covered with numerous seeds. Their stems burrow 
 among the mud of the places where they grow, and have 
 slightly astringent narcotic properties. The species are 
 most valued for the beauty of their flowers, which in Vic- 
 toria regia, are the largest in nature, measuring as much 
 as four feet in circumference. 
 
 NYMPHA'LIS. A genus of diurnal Lepidopterous in- 
 sects, now the type of a family. 
 
 NYMPHI'PARA. (Gr. vvu<t>n, a nymph; pario, I pro- 
 duce.) A hybrid name applied by Reaumur to a family of 
 Dipterous insects, and changed by Latreille into Pupipara. 
 See that word. 
 
 NYMPHS. (Gr. vv/Kpai.) Female beings, in Grecian 
 Mythology, partaking of the nature of gods and men. They 
 peopled all the regions of earth and water, and were va- 
 riously designated, according to the places of their abode. 
 Thus, the Naiades inhabited the streams, the Oreiades the 
 mountains, the Dryades the woods, the Hamadryades trees, 
 with which they were born and died. They tire represent- 
 ed as very beautiful ; they constituted the attendants of 
 various of the higher female divinities, especially Diana, 
 and were also considered as having been the nurses of many 
 of the gods, as Jupiter and Pan. See Naiads, Nereids. 
 
 NYSTA'GMUS. (Gr. vvaraypoc.) A winking of the 
 eyes, as observed in a drowsy person. 
 
 o. 
 
 O. A letter of the vowel series, which, if arranged ac- 
 cording to the nature of the sound, occupies a position 
 between a and u. It is susceptible of numerous inter- 
 changes, for which the reader is referred to the Penny 
 Cyclopedia. The Greeks had two forms of this letter, o 
 (outKOov, or little 0), and u> (opcya, or large o) ; the former 
 of which was equivalent to the short, and the hitter to 
 the long pronunciation of this letter in other countries. 
 Among the Irish, the letter O prefixed to a name was 
 originally considered as a mark of family dignity ; it is 
 now, however, we believe, considered to be merely equiva- 
 lent to Fiti in England and Mac in Scotland, indicating son. 
 
 O. In Music, the O, circle, or double C, or semicircle, is 
 a note which we call a semibreve, and the Italians circolo ; 
 used by them to mark what they call tempo perfctto, and 
 what we call triple time. 
 
 OAK. (Genu, eiche.) The general name of a well- 
 known hard-wooded forest tree, much cultivated for the 
 purposes of timber, particularly in shipbuilding, and in 
 other cases when much exposure to the weather is required. 
 There are several varieties of this valuable tree; but the 
 common English oak (Quercus robur) claims precedence 
 of every other. The oak timber imported from America is 
 very inferior to that of this country: the oak from the 
 central parts of Europe is also inferior, especially in com- 
 pactness and resistance of cleavage. The knotty oak of 
 England, the " unwedgeable and gnarled oak," as Shak- 
 speare called it, when cut down at a proper age (from 50 to 
 70 years), is the best timber known. Some timber is harder, 
 some more difficult to rend, and some less capable of being 
 broken across ; but none contains all the three qualities in 
 so great and equal proportions; and thus, for at once sup- 
 porting a weight, resisting a strain, and not splintering by a 
 cannon shot, the timber of the oak is superior to every 
 other. 
 
 A fine oak is one of the most picturesque of trees : it con- 
 veys to the mind associations of strength and duration 
 which are very impressive. The oak stands up against the 
 blast, and does not take, like other trees, a twisted form 
 from the action of the winds. Except the cedar of Lebanon, 
 no tree is so remarkable for the stoutness of its limbs ; they 
 do not exactly spring from the trunk, but divide from it; 
 and thus it is sometimes difficult to know which is stem 
 and which is branch. The twisted branches of the 0:1k, 
 too, add greatly to its beauty: and the horizontal direction 
 of its boughs, spreading over a large surface, completes the 
 idea of its sovereignty over all the trees of the forest.
 
 OAKUM. 
 
 The oak is raised from acorns, sown either where the 
 oak is to stand, or in a nursery whence the young trees are 
 transplanted. 
 
 The colour of oak wood is a fine brown, and is familiar 
 to every one: it is of ditferent shades; that inclined to red 
 is the most inferior kind of wood. The larger transverse 
 septa are in general very distinct, producing beautiful flowers 
 when cut obliquely. Where the septa are small, and not 
 very distinct, the wood is much the strongest. The texture 
 is alternately compact and porous ; the compact part of the 
 annual ring being of the darkest colour, and in irregular 
 dots, surrounded by open pores, producing beautiful dark 
 veins in some kinds, particularly pollard oaks. Oak timber 
 has a particular smell, and the taste is slightly astringent. 
 It contains gallic acid, and is blackened by contact with 
 iron when it is damp. The young wood of English oak is 
 very tough, often cross-grained, and difficult to work. Fo- 
 reign wood, and that of old trees, is more brittle and work- 
 able. Oak warps and twists much in drying ; and, in sea- 
 soning, shrinks about ^Ld of its width. 
 
 Oak of a good quality is more durable than any other 
 wood that attains a like size. Vitruvius says it is of eternal 
 duration when driven into the earth : it is extremely durable 
 in water ; and in a dry state it has been known to last near- 
 ly 1000 years. The more compact it is, and the smaller the 
 pores are, the longer it will last ; but the open, porous, and 
 foxy-coloured oak, which grows in Lincolnshire and some 
 other places, is not near so durable. 
 
 Besides the common British oak (Quercus robur), the 
 sessile-fruited bay oak (Quercus sessilifiora) is pretty 
 abundant in several parts of England, particularly in the 
 north. The wood of this species is said by Tredgold to be 
 darker, heavier, harder, and more elastic than the common 
 oak; tough, and difficult to work; and very subject to warp 
 and split in seasoning. Mr. Tredgold seems disposed to re- 
 gard this species as superior to the common oak for ship- 
 building. But other, and also very high authorities, are 
 opposed to him on this point; and, on the whole, we should 
 think that it is sufficiently well established that for all the 
 great practical purposes to which oak timber is applied, and 
 especially for ship-building, the wood of the common oak 
 deserves to be preferred to every other species. A well- 
 informed writer in the Quarterly Review, has the following 
 remarks on the point in question : 
 
 " We may here notice a fact long known to botanists, 
 but of which our planters and purveyors of timber appear 
 to have had no suspicion, that there are two distinct species 
 of oak in England — the Quercus robur, and the Quercus 
 sessilifiora ; the former of which affords a close grained, 
 firm, solid timber, rarely subject to rot; the other more 
 loose and sappy, very liable to rot, and not half so durable. 
 This difference was noted so early as the time of Ray ; and 
 Martyn in his Flora Rustica, and Sir James Smith in his 
 Flora Britannica, have added their testimonies to the fact. 
 The second species is supposed to have been introduced 
 some two or three years ago from the continent, where the 
 oaks are chiefly of this latter species, especially in the Ger- 
 man forests, the timber of which is known to be very 
 worthless. But what is of more importance to us is, that 
 de facto the imposture abounds, and is propagated vigor- 
 ously in the New Forest and other parts of Hampshire, in 
 Norfolk and the northern counties, and about London; and 
 there is but too much reason to believe that the numerous 
 complaints that were heard about our ships being infected 
 with what was called, improperly enough, dry rot, were 
 owing to the introduction of this species of oak into the 
 naval dock-yards, where, we understand, the distinction 
 was not even suspected. It may thus be discriminated 
 from the true old English oak : The acorn stalks of the 
 robur are long, and its leaves short ; whereas the sessili- 
 fiora has the acorn stalks short, and the leaves long : the 
 acorns of the former grow singly, or seldom two on the 
 same footstalk ; those of the latter in clusters of two or 
 three close to the stem of the branch. We believe the 
 Russian ships of the Baltic that are not of larch or fir are 
 built of this species of oak ; but if this were not the case, 
 their exposure on the stocks, without cover, to the heat of 
 summer, which, though short, is excessive, and the rifts 
 and chinks which fill up with ice and snow in the long 
 winter, are enough to destroy the stoutest oak, and quite 
 sufficient to account for their short-lived duration. 
 
 OA'KUM. The yarns of which rope is composed when 
 twisted into fibre. When mingled with pitch it is used for 
 stopping leaks. 
 
 OA'NNES. In ancient Mythology, the most celebrated 
 divinity of the Babylonians. He was represented as a 
 sea-monster, with human feet and hands ; and was said 
 to dwell in the abysses of the Red Sea, whence he was in 
 the habit of issuing daily, and proceeding to Babylon, where 
 he communicated instruction on religion, the science of 
 government, and the useful arts. It has been generally 
 supposed that Oannes was identical with the god Dagon, 
 
 OATH. 
 
 Sea monster, upward man, 
 And downward flsh j 
 
 and it is certain that the worship of marine animals con- 
 stituted a leading feature in the religious observances of 
 the Syrians and the adjacent nations. See Dagon. 
 
 OAR. In .Nautical Affairs, a long piece of timber, flat at 
 one end, and round or square at the other, by which a boat, 
 barge, or galley, &c. is propelled through the water. The 
 flat part dipped into the water is called the blade; the other 
 other end is the loom, which terminates in the handle. The 
 fulcrum of the oar is the hole in the gunwale called the 
 rowlock, or between two pins called thole pins, or one thole 
 pin with a loose strap for confining the oar. There are 
 various nautical phrases contingent upon this term, a few 
 of which may not, perhaps, be out of place here. To boat 
 the oars, signifies to lay them in from rowing ; to feather the 
 oar, to hold the blade horizontally, so as not to catch wind ; 
 to lie on the oars, to suspend rowing for any interval ; this 
 is also the salute given to persons of distinction in passing ; 
 to ship and unship the oars, respectively to fix them and 
 throw them out of the rowlocks. 
 
 OA'SIS. (Derived from the Coptic ouah, Arab, wah.) 
 The name given to those fertile spots, watered by springs 
 and covered with verdure, which are scattered about the 
 great sandy deserts of Africa. The most noted are situated 
 in the Lybian desert. The oases of Egypt are nothing more 
 than valleys or depressions of the lofty plain which forms 
 the extensive table-land of eastern Africa. They bear, in 
 many respects, a similarity to a portion of the valley of 
 Egypt, being surrounded by steep cliffs of limestone at some 
 distance from the cultivated land, which vary in height in 
 the different oases, those rising from the southern oases 
 being the highest ; neither do they present a continuation 
 of cultivable soil, all of them being intersected by patches 
 of desert. They no doubt owe their origin to the springs 
 with which they abound, the decay of the vegetation thence 
 arising having produced the soil with which they are now 
 covered. Their fertility has been deservedly celebrated; 
 but the glowing eulogiums of travellers on their surpassing 
 beauty are probably, in a great measure, to be ascribed to 
 the striking contrast they present to the deserts of burning 
 sand with which they are surrounded. It may appear con- 
 tradictory, considering the high opinion the ancients enter- 
 tained of the fertility and beauty of the oases, that they 
 should have selected them for places of banishment ; but 
 that such was the case, at least under the Romans, is cer- 
 tain. A law of the Digest, lib. 48, tit. 22, refers to this 
 practice; and it has been supposed that the poet Juvenal 
 was one of those who suffered a temporary banishment 
 (relegatio) to the oases, though the evidence of this is by 
 no means clear. (Biographie Universelle, art. Juvenal.) 
 But the fact of their being selected as places of banishment 
 is not in anywise inconsistent with the received opinions as 
 to their salubrity and fertility. They were selected, not be- 
 cause of their being naturally noxious or disagreeable, but 
 because of their being, as it were, out of the world, and 
 from the extreme difficulty of escaping from them. The 
 larger oases have some fine remnants of antiquity; the 
 most celebrated of which is the temple of Jupiter Amnion, 
 at Siwah. (See the Geo. Diet., art. "Egypt," and the au- 
 thorities there referred to.) See Desert. 
 
 OAST. The term applied to a kiln for drying hops, and 
 which differs from a kiln for drying corn chiefly in being 
 heated by a stove with flues, instead of an open fire, the 
 smoke and heat of which passes up through the corn. 
 
 OAT FIELD. See Open Field Land. 
 
 OAT GALLS. See Gall Ntjts. 
 
 OATH, is defined by Paley " the calling on God to wit- 
 ness, i. e., take notice of what we say ; and invoking his 
 vengeance, or renouncing his favour, if what we say be 
 false, or if what we promise be not performed." By the 
 jurisprudence of nearly all known nations it has been ad- 
 mitted, in one form or another, as the solemn test of truth 
 in judicial proceedings. Thus, as a general rule, all evi- 
 dence in such proceedings must be given on oath by English 
 law ; and the having taken such oath subjects the witness 
 to the penalties of perjury if his testimony be false. The 
 only exceptions are, 1. In favour of Quakers, Moravians, 
 and Separatists, whose " affirmation" is now admissible in 
 all judicial proceedings, whether civil or criminal. The 
 1 & 2 Vic, c. 77, extends this privilege to persons who have 
 been Quakers or Moravians, but have left those commu- 
 nities, retaining their objections. 2. Persons entitled to 
 privilege of peerage give in their answers, in chancery, 
 '• upon their honour," instead of an oath ; and corporations 
 put in answers under the great seal. Oaths are administer- 
 ed publicly in court, where the witness is about to give his 
 evidence viva voce ; and, by competent authority, where 
 the evidence is reduced into writing, the attestation of the 
 witness being termed his " affidavit." 
 
 Any believer in a definite form of religion can be a wit- 
 ness, and the oath may be administered " according to such 
 3F* 841
 
 OATS. 
 
 form-; and ceremonies as he may declare to be binding." 
 (1 &. - Vic, c 108.) Hut persons who cannot take an oath 
 are incapable of being witnesses ; such, therefore, as will 
 not declare their belief in God. in a future state of rewards 
 and punishments, and that perjury will be punished by the 
 Deity, are excluded ; as well as those who, from their 
 years or ignorance, are incapable of comprehending the na- 
 ture of an oath. 
 
 Oaths are still required by law on many occasions be- 
 sides the giving evidence in judicial proceedings, and were 
 formerly in a still greater number, until the 5 & 6 VV. 4, c 
 62, which substituted declarations in a great variety of ca- 
 ses, especially relating to the customs, excises, and post- 
 office. Besides the Quakers and Moravians, several small 
 sects of Christians profess conscientious objections to oaths, 
 grounded on the express language of the scriptures. The 
 Church of England, in common with the Catholic Church 
 in all ages, and with most varieties of Christians, considers 
 judicial oaths lawful, and declares them so by her 39th ar- 
 ticle. They have also been held mischievous or unneces- 
 sary by some philosophical writers, especially Bentham, in 
 his Rationale of Evidence. The only answer to his rea- 
 soning appears to be that, however unreasonable the be- 
 lief that the duty of truth is rendered more imperative by 
 the formality of an oath, still, while such belief is a preva- 
 lent one, or while the imagination of witnesses in general 
 is impressed by its solemnity, the convenience of retaining 
 the practice overbalances the disadvantages. 
 
 OATS. See Avena. 
 
 OBE'DIENCE, PASSIVE, in Politics, signifies the un- 
 qualified obedience which, according to some political phi- 
 losophers, is due from subjects to the supreme power in the 
 state ; insomuch that not only its lawful, but its unlawful 
 commands, may not be forcibly resisted without sin. The 
 doctrine of passive obedience or non-resistance was strong- 
 ly professed by the church of England in the time of King 
 James I. ; much commented on by writers, both for and 
 against it, under Charles and James II. ; and condemned 
 at the Revolution. See Non-resistance and Divine 
 Rioht. 
 
 O'BELISK. (Gr. oPi\wkoc, dim. from o/JrAo<, Lat. obe- 
 lus, a needle, or dart.) A lofty quadrangular monolithic 
 column, "diminishing upwards, with the sides gently in- 
 clined, but not so as to terminate in an apex at the top ; 
 neither is it truncated or cut orl'at the summit, but the sides 
 are sloped otf so as to form a Saltish pyramidal figure, by 
 which the whole is suitably finished off and brought to a 
 point, without the upper part being so contracted as to ap- 
 pear insignificant." Egypt was, properly speaking, the 
 land of obelisks ; and they are unquestionably to be reck- 
 oned among the most ancient monuments of that extraor- 
 dinary people. Much learning and ingenuity has been ex- 
 pended in endeavouring to ascertain their origin, and the 
 purposes for which they were erected ; but it does not ap- 
 pear that any satisfactory solution of the problem has hith- 
 erto been given. It has been frequently asserted that obe- 
 lisks were originally erected in honour of the sun, of which 
 they were said to be symbolical, and that they served the 
 purposes of a gnome or sun-dial ; but this opinion is now 
 almost totally rejected, and it is generally believed that 
 obelisks were nothing more than monumental structures, 
 serving as ornaments to the open squares in which they 
 were generally built, or intended to celebrate some impor- 
 tant event and to perpetuate its remembrance. They were 
 usually adorned with hieroglyphics ; and we learn from 
 the testimony of Diodorus and Strabo that the inscriptions 
 with which they were charged declared the amount of 
 gold and silver, the number of troops, and the quantity of 
 ivory, perfumes, and corn which all the countries subject to 
 Egypt were required to furnish. The two largest obelisks 
 were erected by Sesostris in Heliopolis. They were form- 
 ed of a single block of granite, and measured 180 feet in 
 height. When Egj pt became a Roman province, Augustus 
 
 re veil these obelisks to his own capital; anil this prac- 
 tice found numerous imitators both in some of his succes- 
 sors to the Imperial throne, and, at a much later |>eriod. in 
 many of the Roman pontiffs, from the Kith century down 
 to the present times. Of these obelisks that of the Late- 
 ran, which is the largest now known, being lOo feet in 
 height exclusive of the pedestal, and weighing 110 tons, 
 was brought by < 'onstantine from Heliopolis to Alexandria, 
 and thence by Constantius his son to Rome, where it was 
 erected in the Circus Maximus. The obelisk next in size 
 to that of the Lateral] was placed originally in the Vatican 
 cirrus by Caligula, but it now stands in the piazza of St. 
 
 Peter's; its entire height is 132 feet, Including tin' pedestal, 
 &c. The obelisks most generally known, at least in Dame, 
 are the Luxor, which was removed to Paris in 1833; and 
 the two monoliths called Cleopatra's Needles, of which 
 
 one is standing, and the other on the ground ; but these are 
 smaller than those we have adverted to, the LuiOI being 
 76 feet in height, and the Needle of Cleopatra, which still 
 842 
 
 OBJECT-GLASS. 
 
 stands, being about 63 feet in height, exclusive of the ped- 
 estal, &c. A full consideration of the Egyptian obelisks) 
 would involve us in the discussion of several most impor- 
 tant questions, on which our limits preclude us from enter- 
 ing. Of these, perhaps the most extraordinary is the won- 
 derful knowledge of mechanical power which the Egyp- 
 tians evinced in erecting and removing such gigantic struc- 
 tures — a feat which it would require the greatest skill and 
 ingenuity of modern engineers, even in the present com- 
 paratively perfect state of mechanical science, to accom- 
 plish. (See the learned treatise of Zoega on Obelisks ; see 
 also Sir O. Wilkinson's Egyptians, vol. 111., passim, which 
 contains some excellent illustrations of the ditierent meth- 
 ods adopted by that people for removing their huge struc- 
 tures from place to place.) 
 
 O'BELUS. In Diplomatics, a mark so called from its re- 
 semblance to a needle (Gr. oStXos) ; usually thus — or thus 
 -f- in ancient MSS. It was used by Origen, in his Hezapla, 
 to mark the passages where something is found in the Sep- 
 tuagint which is not in the Hebrew. The common use of 
 the line — in modern writing is to mark the place of a 
 break in the sense, where it is suspended, or where there is 
 an ungrammatical transition ; but a paragraph introduced 
 where the sense is suspended, is more properly marked by 
 the sign of a parenthesis. 
 
 O'BERON. In Mediaeval Mythology, the King of the 
 Fairies. Wieland's beautiful poem, and Weber's romantic 
 opera of this name, the Midsummer Night's Dream, and 
 innumerable other poems and tales of which he is the hero, 
 have made the name of Oberon so familiar, that it will be 
 unnecessary to do more in this place than to state the origin 
 of the fable. The name Oberon first appears in the old 
 French fabliaux of Huon of Bordeaux ; it is identical with 
 Auberon, or Alberon, the first syllable of which is nothing 
 more than the old German word Alb, elf or fairy, which, in 
 the Helden-Buch and other old German poems, is expressed 
 variously by Alberich or Alban. (.See Grimm's Deutsche 
 Mythologie, p. 256-) He was represented as endowed with 
 magic powers, and with the qualities of a good and upright 
 monarch, rewarding those who practised truth and honesty, 
 and punishing those who acted otherwise. His wife's name 
 was Titania, or Mab, whose powers have been so beautiful- 
 ly depicted in Romeo and Juliet. 
 
 OBE'SITY. (Lat. obesus, fat.) Unhealthy fatness. 
 The tendency to the formation of fat is often so excessive as 
 to constitute a disease, and it occasionally prevails in par- 
 ticular habits, so as to cause a most unsightly bulk of body, 
 and to be independent of diet. The celebrated Lambert, 
 who exhibited himself some years ago, was a remarkable 
 specimen of this disease. He died in the fortieth year of 
 his age, and weighed, a little before his death, 739 pounds. 
 There is an account, in the Philosophical Transactions for 
 1813, of a girl, only four years old, who weighed 256 pounds 
 from accumulation of fat. 
 
 When obesity is limited to the abdomen, arising from ex- 
 cessive deposition of fat in the omentum, and producing 
 what is called a pot-belly, or where it is the result of indo- 
 lence and indulgence in luxurious diet, a slow and prudent 
 change from a full to a spare diet, and the judicious use of 
 purgatives and of appropriate modes of exercise, have oc- 
 casionally effected remarkable cures. 
 
 O'BIT. (Lat. obitus, death.) In the Roman Catholic 
 liturgy, a service performed for the repose of a departed 
 soul. 
 
 OBI'TUARY. (Lat. ohitarium.) A register in which 
 are enrolled the names of deceased persons for whom obits 
 are to be performed, and the days of their funeral. It is 
 also used for the book containing the foundation or institu- 
 tion of the several obits in a church or monastery. In the 
 former sense it is synonymous with necrology, in the later 
 with martyr ology. 
 
 OBJECT-GLASS (of a refracting telescope or micro- 
 scope). The lens which first receives the ravs of light 
 coming directly from the object, and collects them into a 
 focus, where they form un image which is viewed through 
 the eye-glass. 
 
 Tin- excellence of an object glass depends on the distinct- 
 ness of the image which it forms. On account of the un- 
 equal refrangibllity of the rays of light, it is necessary, in 
 
 order to procure n distinct image, to employ an aehr alic 
 
 combination of lenses, formed of substances having ditierent 
 dispersive powers, and of such figures that the aberration of 
 the one may be corrected by that of the other. The sub- 
 stances chiefly used are crown-glass and dint-glass ; the 
 dispersive powers of which are respectively as 3 to 5. By 
 combining a convex lens of crown-glass with a conenve lens 
 Of flint glass, having their focal distances in that proportion, 
 an image would be formed lice from colour, but it would 
 not be free from aberration. The determination of the 
 form of the compound lens which shall give the least possi- 
 ble aberration for parallel ravs is a problem which admits 
 of exact calculation. The following are the dimensions
 
 OBJECT, OBJECTIVE. 
 
 found by Sir John Herschel for an object-glass of thirty 
 inches focal length, of the form shown in the annexed fig- 
 ure, where A B is the convex lens of crown-glass on the 
 outside towards the object, and D the concave 
 lens of flint-glass placed on the inside towards the 
 eye : radius of the exterior surface o of the crown 
 lens, 200364 inches ; radius of the exterior sur- 
 face b of the flint lens, 4I/1687 inches ; radii of the 
 interior surfaces c, 101604 and 10-1613 inches. 
 (Encyc. Metr., art. "Light," £ 471.) When the 
 lenses have the forms here indicated, the focal 
 lengths of each, separately, are in the direct ratio 
 of their dispersive powers; and the two inside surfaces 
 have so nearly the same curvature that they may be ground 
 on the same tool, and united by a cement to prevent the 
 loss of light at the two surfaces. 
 
 Such are the forms indicated by theory ; but the practical 
 difficulties of forming a good achromatic object-glass, for a 
 telescope of large size, are so great that it often costs more 
 than all the rest of the instrument. This, however, princi- 
 pally arises from the extreme difficulty of procuring disks of 
 flint-glass, above a certain size, sufficiently free from veins 
 and imperfections as to be fit for the purpose. No object- 
 glasses of a larger size than seven inches diameter have 
 been made of glass manufactured in this country ; and, not- 
 withstanding the success of Fraunhofer at Munich, and of 
 Guinand in Switzerland, the procuring of flint-glass fit for 
 object-lenses of a larger size seems to be still, in a consider- 
 able degree, a matter of accident. Fraunhofer executed a 
 telescope for the Russian observatory at Dorpat, having an 
 object glass of 9 inches diameter. Another was prepared 
 by him for the King of Bavaria, of 12 inches diameter. 
 The object-glass of Sir James South's large telescope at the 
 Campden Hill observatory is nearly 13 inches in diameter, 
 and was executed in Paris of glass manufactured by Gui- 
 nand. 
 
 In the fine telescopes formerly constructed by DoIIond, the 
 object-glasses were composed of three lenses, the two ex- 
 J.-PC terior ones, A B and C D, being of crown-glass, 
 "/r — T\ and convex, and the interior, E F, of flint, and 
 l\l\ concave. This combination gives a more perfect 
 J correction of the spherical aberration ; but the ad- 
 I I 1 I vantage is more than balanced by the greater com- 
 y U plexity of their construction, the risk of imperfect 
 Bfd centering, and the loss of light at the six surfaces. 
 They have accordingly been disused. 
 Various attempts have been made to dispense with the 
 concave flint lens, by the substitution of some other refract- 
 ive substance. Dr. Blair found that the dispersion of 
 crown-glass was corrected by a fluid lens, composed of a 
 mixture of solutions of ammoniacal and mercurial salts. 
 He succeeded in making object-glasses in his manner, which 
 at first gave promise of answering well ; but it soon appear- 
 ed that they were not durable, the fluid undergoing some 
 chemical change which entirely destroyed its virtue. Pro- 
 fessor Barlow, of Woolwich, has also made numerous ex- 
 periments on this subject. His correcting lens is formed of 
 the liquid sulphuret of carbon, inclosed between two disks 
 of glass, and a ring of the same material, the fluid being in- 
 troduced at a high temperature. A telescope which he 
 made on this principle had a single object-lens of 7-8 inch- 
 es, and the fluid lens was placed at the distance of 40 inches 
 behind it. The performance of this telescope was, however, 
 far inferior to an ordinary one of the same dimensions, with 
 the common double achromatic object-glass. See Ach- 
 romatism, Lens, Telescope. 
 
 O'BJECT, OBJECTIVE. In Philosophy, opposed to 
 subjective. See Subject, Subjective. 
 
 O'BLATE. (Lat. oblatus, offered.) In Ecclesiastical 
 Antiquities, 1. A person who, on embracing the monastic 
 state, had made a donation of all his goods to the commu- 
 nity. 2. One dedicated to a religious order by his parents 
 from an early period of his life. 3. A layman residing as 
 an inmate in a regular community to which he had assign- 
 ed his property either in perpetuity or for the period of his 
 residence. 4. A layman who had made donation, not only 
 of his property, but his person, as bondsman to a monastic 
 community. In France the king possessed, in ancient 
 times, a privilege of recommending a certain number of ob- 
 lati, chiefly invalided soldiers, to monasteries, whom they 
 were bound to maintain. 
 
 Oblate, in Geometry, signifies flattened at the poles. 
 Thus, an oblate spheriod is a spheriod of the same form as 
 that which is produced by the revolution of an ellipse about 
 its shorter axis. Such is the figure of the earth. See De- 
 gree, Earth. 
 
 OBLA'TION (Lat. oblatio, an offering), means, properly, 
 an offering presented to the church. This practice com- 
 menced at an early period in the history of the church, for 
 originally the Christian priesthood had no other mainte- 
 nance or allowance than the free gifts or oblations of the 
 people. In the middle ages, oblations were of various 
 
 OBSERVATORY. 
 
 kinds, and were known by different names, according to the 
 purposes for which they were presented. (See Palmer, 
 Orig. Liturg., ii., 67.) 
 
 OBLIGATION. (Lat. obligo, I bind.) In the most gen- 
 eral sense, a duty imposed by law, to the fulfilment of which 
 one party is bound towards another. Obligations, according 
 to the civil law, are said to arise in four ways ; out of con- 
 tracts, quasi-contracts, delicts, or quasi-delicts. A principal 
 obligation is that by which a debtor is bound to his creditor ; 
 an accessory obligation, that by which one is bound to 
 another to satisfy the contract of a third party. The Ro- 
 man jurisconsults divided obligations into natural, civil, and 
 mixed, and also into civil and praetorian. An obligation, by 
 the law of England, is a bond with penalty and condition ; 
 it may also be by statute or recognisance. He who enters 
 into an obligation is styled obligor ; he towards whom it is 
 entered into, obligee. 
 
 OBLIGA'TO. (Ital.) In Music, a term applied to a 
 movement or composition written for a particular instru- 
 ment. It sometimes means that a movement is restrained 
 by certain rules, to give particular expression to a passage, 
 action. &c. 
 
 OBLI'OUE. (Lat. obliquus.) Not direct, deviating from 
 the perpendicular. Thus, oblique angle, in Geometry, is an 
 angle greater or less than a right angle. Oblique circle, in 
 the Stereographic Projection, is any circle oblique to the 
 line of projection. Oblique planes, in Dialling, are such as 
 recline from the zenith. Oblique projection, in Mechanics, 
 is where a body is projected in a line, making an oblique 
 angle with the horizontal line. Oblique sailing, in Navi- 
 gation, is that which includes the calculation of oblique- 
 angled triangles. Oblique sphere, in Geography, is that in 
 which the axis of the world is inclined to the horizon of the 
 place. 
 
 OBLIOUE MOTION. In Music, that wherein one of 
 the parts holds on a sound, while the other rises or falls on 
 anv note whatsoever. 
 
 OBLI'QUITY OF THE ECLIPTIC. In Astronomy, 
 the inclination of the plane of the earth's equator to the 
 plane of the ecliptic, or the angle formed by those two 
 planes, on which the phenomena of the seasons depend. 
 See Ecliptic. 
 
 O'BLONG. In Elementary Geometry, a rectangle, or 
 right-angled parallelogram, whose length is greater than its 
 breadth. An oblong spheriod is generated by the revolution 
 of an ellipse about its longer axis, and therefore elongated 
 at the poles ; hence the term is used in contradistinction to 
 oblate spheroid, which denotes a spheroid flattened at the 
 poles. The oblong spheroid is otherwise called the prolate 
 spheroid. 
 
 O'BOE. (Ital.) A musical wind instrument, sounded 
 through a reed. It is shaped somewhat like a clarionet, 
 being slender in the upper part, but spreading out conically 
 at the bottom, and consists of three joints or pieces, besides 
 the reed. Its compass is generally two octaves and a fifth, 
 from C, below the treble clef, to G, the fourth line above 
 the staff. The ancient name of oboe was wayght, which is 
 still visible in the modern word wait (see Waits) ; and in 
 this form the oboe was in use as far back as the reign of 
 Edward III. It is only since the beginning of the present 
 century that the Italian form of this word came into gener- 
 al use ; previously to that period the French name, hautbois, 
 was universally current. 
 
 O'BOLUS. (Gr. i/3oXo?.) An Athenian silver coin of 
 very small dimensions ; being only equal in value to about 
 Hd. of our money, or less, nccording to some computations. 
 Seven of them were equal to an Attic drachma. 
 
 OBRI'NE. The name of a military order, instituted in 
 the 13th century by Conrad, duke of Mazovia, in Poland ; 
 styled also the order of Jesus Christ. It was instituted to 
 levy war aeainst the Russians. 
 
 OBSCU RANTS, OBSCURA'NTISM. A kind of phil- 
 osophical nickname, commonly applied, in Germany, to 
 those who endeavoured in their writings to oppose the prog- 
 ress of modern enlightenment (Aufklarung) and their doc- 
 trines. (See Conv. Lex.) 
 
 O'BSEQUIES (Lat. obsequium, complaisance), were so- 
 lemnities performed at the burials of eminent persons. The 
 term is now used for the funeral itself. 
 
 OBSE'RVANTS, otherwise RECOLLECTS. A branch 
 of the Franciscan order. See Recollects. 
 
 OBSE'RVATORY. A place or building destined for the 
 purpose of making astronomical or physical observations, 
 and furnished with appropriate instruments. 
 
 Astronomical observatories appear to have been erected 
 in very early times, the tower of Babel being supposed to 
 have been an edifice of this kind ; and the tomb of Osman- 
 dias is celebrated in the history of ancient Egypt as having 
 had a similar destination. The Indians and Chinese have 
 also traditions of observatories which existed in the remo- 
 test ages of their histories. In fact, as the observation of 
 the relative positions of the celestial bodies requires instru- 
 
 843
 
 OBSERVATORY. 
 
 mcnts of some son, and as instruments must have a locali- 
 ty, the existence of observatories must have been coeval 
 Willi the first progress made in practical astronomy. (See 
 Bailly, HwtHra rfe /'Astronomic Ancirnne.) 
 
 According to Weidler, the first regular observatory in Eu- 
 rope was erected at Cassel, in 1561, by William, landgrave 
 of Hesse. That of Tycho Brahe, in the island of Huen, was 
 founded in 1576. From this time private observatories began 
 to be multiplied; and some ot' them, as that of Hcvelius at 
 Jlantzic, produced results which materially contributed to 
 the progress of astronomy ; but it was only In the following 
 century that they came to be regarded, in the principal coun- 
 tries of Europe, as important and necessary public estab- 
 lishments. The royal observatory of Paris was built in 1667, 
 that of Greenwich in 1675 ; the latter being professedly for 
 the benefit of navigation. 
 
 The principal use of astronomical observatories is to con- 
 tain the instruments by which the observations are made 
 that are requisite tor forming catalogues of the stars, and ta- 
 bles of the sun, moon, and planets. These observations 
 requiring great precision can only be made with instruments 
 of considerable size, firmly supported, and capable of being 
 accurately placed and maintained in certain determinate 
 positions. In the present state of astronomy, no observation 
 can be regarded as useful for the purposes just named unless 
 made with an instrument fixed in the meridian. The in- 
 struments, therefore, which must be considered as essen- 
 tially necessary to an observatory are a transit instrument 
 and sidereal clock, for the purpose of observing right as- 
 censions; a circle, for observing polar distances; and a ba- 
 rometer and thermometer, for the purpose of ascertaining 
 the state of the atmosphere, in order to determine the cor- 
 rections to be applied for refraction. Furnished with this 
 apparatus, the astronomer is in a condition to obtain all the 
 data requisite for the formation of catalogues and tables, and 
 for establishing or perfecting the theories of the celestial 
 motions and physical astronomy. Another instrument, 
 though of secondary importance, is also wanted for the ob- 
 servation of phenomenon out of the meridian, as eclipses, 
 occupations, comets, &c. The most convenient instrument 
 for this purpose is the equatorial (see the term) ; and if the 
 astronomer carries his views to the exploring of the sidereal 
 spaces, to observe the forms of nebula;, ami watch the 
 motions of double and multiple stars, the equatorial must be 
 furnished with a telescope of the largest kind ; or a powerful 
 reflecting telescope, suspended so as to have a free motion in 
 azimuth, may be employed instead of it. In this depart- 
 ment of astronomy all depends on the goodness of the teles- 
 cope, the objects to be examined being, in fact, only limited 
 by the power of seeing them. But as these researches have 
 DO immediate practical application, they are not considered as 
 included among the purposes for which public observatories 
 are established, and are therefore left to the zeal of individ- 
 uals. 
 
 Public observatories are now established and maintained 
 by the governments of almost every civilized country, and 
 the means provided of publishing the observations, and ren- 
 dering their results immediately available to the progress of 
 astronomical science. The number of private observatories, 
 particularly in this country, is very considerable, and several 
 of them, in regard to the the sumptuousness of their instru- 
 ments vie with, and even excel, the first and best appointed 
 public institutions. The following is a list of the principal 
 public observatories, with their latitudes and longitudes (in 
 time) from that of Greenwich, as given in the Nautical Al- 
 manac for 1843 : 
 
 Alio (Finland) 
 Allnna . 
 Armagh 
 Berlin . 
 Bremen 
 Cambridge . 
 
 * .'««1 Hope 
 Copenhagen 
 IWpat (Russia) . 
 Dublin 
 E Imburgh . 
 
 
 
 Konigsberg (Prussia) 
 
 Mi 
 
 ill.-s 
 
 Munich .... 
 Oiford .... 
 Palermo .... 
 
 Paramatta (New Sonlh Wales) 
 
 Pan. 
 
 Pe'ersburg .... 
 
 51 Fernando (near Cadiz) 
 
 Latilude. 
 
 60 2S 57 N. 
 
 53 32 45 N. 
 
 54 21 12-7 N. 
 
 52 31 13-5 N. 
 
 53 4 36 N. 
 52 12 51 8 N. 
 33 W 3 s 
 5'. 40 63 N. 
 
 53 23 13 N. 
 55 57 23 2 V 
 46 II 59 4 N. 
 5! 31 48 
 
 51 28 39 N. 
 
 54 42 60 N. 
 13 4 9-2 N. 
 43 17 60-1 N. 
 4S 8 46 N. 
 51 45 40 N. 
 3* 6 44 N. 
 33 43 49-8 S. 
 48 50 13 N. 
 59 56 31 N. 
 41 53 52 N. 
 36 27 45 N. 
 45 4 6 N. 
 48 12 35 N. 
 
 Longitude 
 
 h. m sec. 
 
 1 29 8-8 E. 
 
 39 46 fi E. 
 
 26 35-5 VV. 
 
 53 35-5 E. 
 
 35 15 fl E. 
 
 23 5 E. 
 
 1 13 55 E. 
 
 60 10 s E, 
 
 1 46 55 E. 
 25 22 W. 
 12 436 W. 
 I) 21 37 5 E. 
 39 465 E. 
 
 
 
 1 22 0-5 E. 
 5 21 3-8 E. 
 21 29 E. 
 46 26-5 E. 
 
 4 H- !5 E 
 
 9 21-1 E. 
 
 i Iim: 
 
 49 54-7 E. 
 
 2i 491 W. 
 
 30 48 4 E, 
 
 Ml 
 
 OCCULTATIONS. 
 
 OBSE'SSION. (Lat. obsideo, / besiege.) The state ctf 
 a person vexed or besieged by an evil spirit. In the language 
 of exorcists, demoniacal obsession dirtered from demoniacal 
 possession : in the latter, the demon had possession of the 
 patient internally; in the former, he attacks him from with- 
 out. Thus, the state of Sara, the bride of Tobias, whose 
 bridegrooms were killed by an evil spirit haunting her (Tob. 
 iii. 8), was one of obsession. Well-known marks of obses- 
 sion were the being miraculously hoisted or elevated in the 
 air, speaking languages of which the patient had no know- 
 ledge, aversion to the offices of religion, and so forth. See 
 Possession, Demoniac ; Exorcism. 
 
 OBSI'DIAN. So named, according to Pliny, from Obsi- 
 dius. who first found it In Ethiopia. A glassy lava. Vol- 
 canic glass. It is of various colours, but usually black, and 
 nearly opaque. In Mexico and Peru it is occasionally man- 
 ufactured into cutting instruments, or cut into ringstones. It 
 consists of silica and alumina, with a little potash and oxide 
 of iron. 
 
 OBSI'DIONAL CROWN. (Lat. obsideo, / besiege.) In 
 Roman Antiquities, a crown granted by the state to Sie gen- 
 eral who raised the siege of a beleaguered place. It was 
 formed of grass growing on the rampart. Obsidional coins, 
 in Numismatics, are pieces struck in besieged places to sup- 
 ply the place of current money. They are of various base 
 metals, and of different shapes. Some of the oldest known 
 are those which were struck at the siege of Pavia, under 
 Francis I. 
 
 O'BSOLETE. (Lat. obsoletus.) In Zoology, the term 
 implies that a part, or a spot, or other character, is scarcely 
 discoverable. 
 
 OBSTE'TRICS. (Lat. ars obstetricia, from obstare, U> 
 stand so as to give assistance.) The name frequently given 
 to the science of midwifery. 
 
 OBTE'MPER. (Lat. obtempero, I obey.) In Scotch Law, 
 to obey or complv with a judgment of a court. 
 
 OBTU'NDENTS. (Lat. obtundo.) Mucilaginous, oily, 
 and other bland medicines, supposed to sheathe parts from 
 acrimonv, and to blunt that of certain morbid secretions. 
 
 OBTURA'TOE MUSCLES. (Lat. obturare, to close up.) 
 Certain muscles which fill up openings in bones. 
 
 O'B VERSE, or FACE. In Numismatics, the side of the 
 coin which contains the principal symbol : usually, in the 
 coins of monarchical states, ancient and modern, the face in 
 profile of the sovereign ; in some instances, the full or half 
 length figure. See Numismatics. 
 
 OCCASIONALISM, or the System of Occasional Causes. 
 In Metaphysics, a name which has been given to certain 
 theories of the Cartesian school of philosophers, especially 
 Arnold Geulinx, of Antwerp, by which they accounted for the 
 apparent action of the soul on the body ; e.g. in the phenome- 
 na of voluntary motion. According to these theories (which 
 were more or less clearly developed by different writers), 
 the will was not the cause of the action of the body ; but 
 whenever the will required a motion, God caused the body 
 to move in the required direction. See Harmony, Pre-es- 
 tablished. 
 
 OCCIDE'NTAL. (Lat. occidens, setting.) In Gem 
 Sculpture, a term applied to those precious stones which 
 possess an inferior degree of hardness and beauty. 
 
 OCCIPITAL BONE. (Lat occiput, the hindhead.) The 
 irregularly shaped bone which forms the posterior and in- 
 terior part of the scull. 
 
 OCCULTA TIONS. (Lat. occulto, I conceal), sometimes 
 called Lunar Occultations, or Occultations of Stars by the 
 Moon, are those phenomena in which a star or planet be- 
 comes hidden from our view by the intervening passage of 
 the moon. By analogy, a total eclipse of the tun might be 
 called an occultation of the sun by the moon. 
 
 As the motion of the moon in her orbit is from west to 
 east, it is obvious that, when she is about to pass over a 
 star, the first contact, or the immersion, musl occur on her 
 eastern limb; and the emersion, or reappearance of the 
 star, must take place on her western limb. It should, how- 
 ever, be observed, that some slight exceptions to this rule 
 may be found, where the moon has considerable motion ill 
 declination, and where the star is only grazed over by a 
 small portion of the northern or southern limb. In these 
 low exceptional cases, the disappearance and re-appearance 
 of the star may both occur either on the eastern or the west- 
 ern side of the limb. 
 
 An occultation, like a solar eclipse, is presented only to a 
 portion of the terrestrial globe. For suppose an observer to 
 be stationed at the star, with the moon between him ami 
 the earth: that he could perceive the moon's disk projected 
 on that of the earth ; then he would observe that the moon, 
 in her passage ovei the earth, only covered a portion of the 
 
 terrestrial disk, and it is evident that the phenomenon of (he 
 occultation of the star could only be presented to a portion 
 oi our globe. 
 
 The principles which enter into the calculation of occul- 
 tations are just the same as for eclipses of the sun ; the only
 
 OCCULT SCIENCES. 
 
 difference consists in the star having neither motion, paral- 
 lax, nor semidiameter, so that the moon's motion and paral- 
 lax are to be employed in place of the relative motion and 
 the relative parallax. For the mode of conducting the 
 calculation, it will therefore be sufficient to refer to the 
 article Eclipses, page 381 ; and to observe that the consid- 
 eration may perhaps be simplified by giving to the star a 
 motion contrary and equal to that of the moon, and then 
 supposing the moon herself to be stationary. 
 
 In the case of a planet, it may be necessary to take into 
 account its motion and parallax, and perhaps its semidiame- 
 ter, if greater nicety is to be observed. 
 
 For minute details, in reference to the calculation of eclip- 
 ses and occultations in all their varieties, the reader will do 
 well to consult the Appendix to the Nautical Almanac for 
 the vear 1836. 
 
 OCCU'LT SCIENCES. (Lat. occultus, hid.) A term 
 applied to the imaginary sciences of the middle ages — ma- 
 gic, alchymy, astrology, especially the former. 
 
 O'CCUPANCY. In Law, the taking possession by any 
 one of a thing of which there is no owner, and the right ac- 
 quired by such taking possession. Anciently, when a man 
 held land pur auter vie (for the life of another), and died 
 before that other, as this estate could not descend to his 
 heir, nor revert to the donor until the determination of the 
 life upon it, it was considered to belong of right to the first 
 who took possession of it, for the remainder of the life, 
 which was termed general occupancy. And, when the gift 
 was to one and his heirs for the life of another, the heir was 
 said to take as special occupant. By the Stat, of Frauds 
 (29 C. 2, c. 3, sec. 12) a man is enabled to devise lands held 
 by him pur auter vie ; and if no such devise be made, and 
 there be no special occupant, it goes to his executors and 
 administrators. 
 
 O'CEAN. (Gr. (oiccavos.) In Geography, the vast body 
 of water which surrounds the continents, and is the recep- 
 tacle of all their running waters. It is divided by geogra- 
 phers into five great basins, viz., the Pacific Ocean (so called 
 by reason of its comparative stillness), which separates Asia 
 from America, and is the largest of all the basins ; 2, the At- 
 lantic Ocean, which has Europe and Africa on its eastern 
 shore, and America on its western; 3, the Indian Ocean, 
 which washes the south of Asia, and the south-eastern 
 coast of Africa; 4th, the Arctic Ocean, which surrounds 
 the north pole ; and 5, the Antarctic, which surrounds the 
 south pole. Other smaller portions of the great connected 
 body of water are called seas, of which the Mediterranean, 
 the German, the Baltic, and Black seas, are the most con- 
 siderable. The superficial extent of the several great basins 
 is not known with any certainty, nor, indeed, can their lim- 
 its be exactly defined. From the nearest estimation that 
 can be made of the extent of the continents and principal 
 islands, it is supposed that nearly three fourths of the whole 
 surface of the globe are covered by water. The Pacific 
 Ocean alone exceeds the whole surface of the dry land. 
 
 Depth of the Ocean. — If the superficial extent of the ocean 
 cannot be easily ascertained, it will readily be supposed 
 that its depth is a problem of much greater difficulty. The 
 bottom appears, wherever it has been reached by the sound- 
 ing line, to have similar inequalities to those of the surface 
 of the land : hence the depth must be extremely various ; 
 and it might be supposed from analogy that the greatest 
 depth of the ocean is at least equal to the height of the 
 highest mountains above its surface. Lord Mulgrave found 
 no bottom in the North Atlantic Ocean with a sounding line 
 of 4G80 feet ; and Mr. Scoresby sounded to the depth of 7200 
 feet, without the lead touching the ground. These experi- 
 ments are not altogether to be depended on for the determi- 
 nation of such great depths ; for, the pressure becoming very 
 great, the lead may be drawn out of the perpendicular di- 
 rection by currents, of which it may encounter more than 
 one, flowing in different directions. Over a great, portion of 
 the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans no bottom has been found. 
 The depth of the ocean, in general, and the form of the bed 
 on which it rolls, cannot, therefore, be determined by ex- 
 periment. The mathematical theory of the oscillations of 
 fluids has, however, thrown some light on the subject. La- 
 place demonstrated that the difference which is indicated 
 by observation between the height of two consecutive tides 
 depends on the law of the depth of the sea, and that, but for 
 the influence of accessory circumstances, it would disappear 
 altogether if the depth were constant. It follows, therefore, 
 that, since the difference between the consecutive tides is 
 extremely small, the depth of the sea, taking in a large ex- 
 tent of ocean, must be nearly uniform ; that is to say, there 
 must be a certain mean depth from which the variations 
 are not considerable. ( Mec. Celeste, book xiii.) 
 
 Level of the Ocean. — Were it not for the disturbing ac- 
 tions of the sun and moon, and of the winds, the level of 
 the ocean would be everywhere the same, and its surface 
 would have the form determined by the attraction of the 
 whole mass of the earth, combined with the centrifugal 
 
 OCEANUS. 
 
 force belonging to its velocity of rotation ; that is to say, the 
 surface would be that of an oblate spheroid of revolution. 
 This uniformity, however, can never be established. The 
 tide at every instant is at different heights in different parts 
 of the ocean ; and therefore the form of the surface, within 
 the limits of the rise and fall of the tides, is variable. But 
 even if we neglect the alternate rise and fall of the water 
 which constitutes the tides, and take the surface of the 
 ocean at its mean height, it is found by accurate levelling 
 that all its parts do not coincide with the surface of the 
 same spheroid. Gulfs and inland seas, which communicate 
 with the ocean by narrow openings, are affected according 
 to their position with regard to the prevailing winds. The 
 level of the Red Sea was found, by the French engineers in 
 Egypt, to be 32A feet higher than that of the Mediterranean, 
 which is supposed to be a little lower than the ocean. Hum- 
 boldt concluded, from observations made on the Isthmus of 
 Panama, that the waters of the Gulf of Mexico are about 2 
 feet higher than those of the Pacific Ocean. The Baltic 
 and Black seas rise in spring from the great quantity of river 
 water poured into them, and are lowered in summer by the 
 joint effects of a small supply and increased evaporation. 
 
 Colour of the Ocean. — The usual colour of the ocean is a 
 bluish-green, of a dnrker tint at a distance from land, and 
 clearer towards the shores. According to Mr. Scoresby, the 
 hue of the Greenland sea varies from ultramarine blue to 
 olive green, and from the purest transparency to great opa- 
 city. The surface of the Mediterranean, in its upper part, 
 is said to have at times a purple tint. In the Gulf of Guinea 
 the sea sometimes appears white ; about the Maldive Islands 
 black ; and near California it has a reddish appearance. 
 Various causes co-operate to produce this diversity of tint. 
 The prevailing blue colour may be ascribed to the greater 
 refrangibility of the blue rays of light, which, by reason of 
 that property, pass in greatest abundance through the wa- 
 ter. The other colours are ascribed to the existence of vast 
 numbers of minute animalcula; ; to marine vegetables at or 
 near the surface ; to the colour of the soil, the infusion of 
 earthy substances ; and very frequently the tint is modified 
 by the aspect of the sky. The phosphorescent or shining 
 appearance of the ocean, which is a common phenomenon, 
 is also ascribed to animalcule, and to semiputrescent mat- 
 ter diffused through the water. 
 
 Temperature of the Ocean. — Water being a slow conduct- 
 or of heat, the temperature of the ocean is much more uni- 
 form than that of the atmosphere. At a certain distance 
 from the equator, it follows, though not very closely, the 
 mean temperature of the corresponding latitudes, the solar 
 action being greatly modified by the existence of currents 
 which convey the temperature of one region to another; so 
 that at any place the temperature of the water depends, in 
 some measure, on the direction of the currents. Within 
 the tropics the mean temperature at the surface is about 
 80° of Fahrenheit, and generally ranges between 77° and 
 84°. At great depths the temperature is probably nearly 
 the same under every latitude. In the torrid zone it is 
 found to diminish with the depth ; in the polar seas it in- 
 creases with the depth ; and about the latitude of 70° it is 
 nearly constant at all depths. But the small number of 
 observations which have yet been made on this subject do 
 not indicate any uniform law, according to which the vari- 
 ations of temperature at different depths is regulated. 
 
 Saltness of the Ocean. — The ocean holds in solution a va- 
 riety of saline matters, of which by far the most abundant 
 is common salt, constituting, in general, about two thirds of 
 the whole. The saltness of sea-water at particular places 
 is influenced by temporary causes — storms, for example ; as 
 well as by the neighbourhood of large rivers, and perma- 
 nent accumulations of ice. A series of experiments on this 
 subject were made some years ago by the late Dr. Marcet, 
 and the following are the general conclusions which he 
 deduced from them: 1. That the Southern Ocean contains 
 more salt than the Northern Ocean, in the ratio of 1-02919 
 to 1-02757. 2. That the mean specific gravity of sea-water 
 near the equator is 1-02777. 3. That there is no notable 
 difference between sea-water under different meridians. 4. 
 That there is no satisfactory evidence that the sea at great 
 depths is more salt than at the surface. 5. That the sea, in 
 general, contains more salt where it is deepest, and that its 
 saltness is always diminished in the vicinity of large masses 
 of ice. 6. That small inland seas, though communicating 
 with the ocean, are much less salt than the ocean. 7. That 
 the Mediterranean contains rather larger proportions of salt 
 than the ocean. (Phil. Trans., 1819 ; Prout's Bridgewater 
 Treatise.) 
 
 The peculiar bitter taste of sea-water does not appear to 
 belong to it beyond a certain depth, and is ascribed to the 
 vegetable and animal matter held in a state of decomposi- 
 tion near the surface. See Tides. 
 
 OCE'ANUS. In Greek Mythology, the oldest of the Ti- 
 tans : according to some, the son of Ouranos and Gaia. Hla 
 consort was Tethys, his daughters the Oceanides. In Ho- 
 
 845
 
 OCHLOCRACY. 
 
 mer, the word ocean merely designates the "river," or 
 stream, which, according to his notion, encompassed the 
 earth. 
 
 OCHLO'CRACY. (Gr. o"xAo{, a crowd, and Kpare'tv, to 
 govern.) A word coined to express the condition of a state 
 in which the populace have acquired an immediate illegal 
 control over the government ; and, by a figure commonly 
 used in the exaggeration of political speakers and writers, a 
 government in which the power of the lower classes pre- 
 dominates, either for a time or permanently. 
 
 O'CHRE. (Gr. u\p,i.) In Painting, a colour prepared 
 from a species of earth. It is of various hues, as yellow, 
 red, green, blue, and black. The colouring matter of ochre 
 is almost always oxide of iron. 
 
 O'CHREA. (Lat. a boot.) A name applied to stipules 
 that are membranous, and surround the stem like a vagina 
 or sheath, cohering by their anterior margins, as in Polygo- 
 num. 
 
 OCHRE OF IRON. A hydrated oxide of iron. 
 
 O'CHROITE. A name given by Klaproth to an earth 
 supposed to exist in the mineral since called cerite. 
 
 O'CRE^E (Lat.), in Roman Antiquities, were a sort of 
 military boots made of tin, and ornamented with gold and 
 silver. They were equivalent to the Kin/plies of the Greeks, 
 and the greaves of the English. See Greaves. 
 
 OCTAE'DRITE. See Octoedrite. 
 
 OCTAETE'RIS. (Gr. oktui, eight, and croc, a year.) A 
 cycle or period of eight years, at the lapse of which three 
 lunar months were added. This cycle was in use till Me- 
 lon's invention of the golden number, or cycle of nineteen 
 years. 
 
 O'CTAGON. (Gr. oktu,, and yuivia, angle.) In Geome- 
 try, a plane figure contained by eight sides, and consequent- 
 ly having eight angles. When the sides and angles are 
 equal, it is a regular octagon. If a denote the side of a 
 regular octagon, the area is a 2 X~ tan. 672° = a 2 X 4828427. 
 
 Octagon. In Fortification, a place which has eight sides 
 or bastions. 
 
 OCTA'NDRIA. (Gr. oktu,, and avvP, a male.) In Bota- 
 ny, that class of plants which has eight stamens. 
 
 OCTANS. In Astronomy, Octans Hadlcianus (Hadley's 
 Octant) one of the constellations formed by Lacaille in the 
 southern hemisphere. See Constellation. 
 
 O'CTANT. In Geometry, the eighth part of a circle. In 
 astronomy, octant denotes a position or aspect ; thus the 
 moon is in her octants when she is in the positions inter- 
 mediate between Iter syzygies and quarters, or at 45°, 135°, 
 225°, and 315° from her conjunction. 
 
 OCTA'NUS. A fever which returns every eighth day. 
 
 OCTASTY'LOS. (Gr. oktui, eight, and otuAoj, a column.) 
 In Architecture, a temple or other building having eight 
 columns in front. 
 
 O'CTAVE. (Lat. octavus.) In Music, an harmonical in- 
 terval, containing five tones and two semitones, called, by 
 the ancient authors, diapason. 
 
 Octave, in Ecclesiastical Antiquities, signified the eighth 
 day after a feast, the feast day itself included. Thus, the 
 first Sunday after Easter is the octave of Easter, styled oc- 
 tava infantium, and by other names. The Circumcision 
 (Jan. 1) is the octave natalis domini, the octave of Christ- 
 mas. The introduction of octaves is said to have been 
 founded on and borrowed from the Jewish ritual. The oc- 
 tave of a feast is sometimes called the Vtas, or "the Utas- 
 day :" thus, " Wrytyn at Norwich on the Utas-day of Peter 
 and Powll." (Paston Letters, vol. iii., p. 189.) 
 
 OCTA'VO. (Lat.) Usually contracted 8vo ; that which, 
 by a peculiar folding, has eight leaves to a sheet. 
 
 OCTO BER. (Lat. octo.) The eighth month of the old 
 Roman year, which began with March. The commence- 
 ment of the year was transferred by Numa Pompilius to the 
 lat Of January, bat the months retained their names. Octo- 
 ber is now the tenth month. See Calendar. 
 
 OCTOE'DUITE. A mineralogical name applied to the 
 (k tin ilral oxide of titanium. 
 
 OCTOIIE'DRnX. (Gr. oktu, eight, amWpov,side.) In 
 Geometry, one of the five regular Bolids, or 1'latonic. bodies, 
 contained under eight equal and equilateral triangles. Let 
 A = the linear edge or side, 
 B = the whole surface, 
 C = the solid content, 
 R= radius of circumscribed sphere, 
 r = radius of inscribed sphere ; 
 then 
 
 A = V6 = RV2 = v/(i 8^/3) = V2 <V2), 
 
 B = 12rV3 = 4R V3 = 2A V3, 
 
 C = 41-3^3 = « R3 = i A3,/2, 
 
 R = r,/3 = \ A v/2 = k VB J\ = yj C, 
 
 r = i Ry3 = | A^e = I v/( B ^3) . 
 
 O'CTOPODS, Octopoda. (Gr. oktu,, eight ; rove, afoot.) 
 The name of a tribe of Dibranchialu Cephalopods, including 
 846 
 
 ODORIN. 
 
 those which have only eight feet or cephalic tentacular «,*►• 
 pendages; also of a sub-order of Apterous insects, Including 
 those which have eight feet, as the Tracheary Arachnidana, 
 
 OCY'THOE. (Gr. uikvc, swift, and £ £ u>, / run.) The 
 name applied by Rafinesque to a naked Cephalopod, supposed 
 to be that which inhabits and constructs the argonaut shell. 
 
 O'DALISQUES, properly ODALIKS. (Turkish, oda, a 
 chamber.) Female slaves employed in domestic service 
 about the persons of the wives, female relatives, &c, of the 
 sultan. 
 
 ODD NUMBER. In Arithmetic, any number not divisi- 
 ble by 2 without remainder ; the series of odd numbers is 1, 
 3, 5, 7, 9, &c, and the algebraic form by which they are ex- 
 pressed is 2/t-f-l. Every prime number, excepting 2, is an 
 odd number. The differences of the successive terms of the 
 series of square numbers produce the odd numbers. 
 
 ODE (Gr. uiin, a song), among the Greeks and Romans, 
 was a short lyric composition, usually intended to be sung, 
 and accompanied by some musical instrument, generally 
 the lyre ; hence the expression lyric verse. In the modern 
 sense of the word, the ode appears to be distinguished from 
 the song by greater length and variety, and by not being ne- 
 cessarily adapted to music. It is distinguished also from 
 the ballad, and other species of lyric poetry, by its being 
 confined to the expression of sentiment, or of imaginative 
 thought, on a given subject, not admitting of narrative, ex- 
 cept incidentally. The odes of Pindar, Anacreon, and Hor- 
 ace, .ire, in fact, the models on which the modern notion of 
 the ode is formed, and which have been imitated in similar 
 compositions In modern times. Until the science of Greek 
 metres was so accurately explored as it has recently been, 
 the Pindaric ode was supposed to admit of an excessive ir- 
 regularity in the length and measure of lines ; and hence 
 the Pindaric odes of the last and preceding century are con- 
 structed on a system of absolute license in this respect. In 
 point of fact, however, a scheme of perfect metrical regu- 
 larity pervaded the Greek ode, both in Pindar and in the 
 dramatic choruses, in which a strophe, or succession of lines 
 in varied metre, is exactly answered in the antistrophe or 
 corresponding series. On the other hand, the Anacreontic 
 ode consists of a number of lines of the same metrical length 
 and arrangement. The Horatian ode, again, is generally 
 constructed on a different system, of which we have only a 
 few instances in Greek, in the Fragments of Alca'us and 
 Sappho: it consists of an indefinite number of stanzas, pre- 
 cisely similar to each other, each forming a complete metri- 
 cal whole. (See Metre.) The Dithyranibic ode (quod 
 vide) was a bacchanalian song ; and as, from the attributes 
 of the divinity to which it was dedicated, it admitted great 
 irregularity and license: the name has been transferred in 
 modern times to all odes partaking of a wild and impetuous 
 character. 
 
 O'DERITE. A variety of black mica from Sweden is so 
 
 ODE'UM, or ODEON. (Gr. uSrj, a song.) In ancient 
 Architecture, a building wherein the poets and musicians 
 contended for the prizes, both in vocal and instrumental mu- 
 sic. Pericles, who was the first person to erect one of these 
 buildings at Athens, instituted it for the choragi of the dif- 
 ferent tribes to rehearse their performances ; but these build- 
 ings in the end were used for far different purposes from 
 those for which they were originally destined. An odeum 
 was to be found in all the principal cities of antiquity. The 
 word odeon lias been preserved in most modern languages: 
 thus, there is an odeon in Paris, appropriated to theatrical 
 and other similar purposes; and in Munich there is a con- 
 cert-room with this name. 
 
 O'DIN. A Scandinavian deity, who seems, like the Ju- 
 piter of the Greeks, to have formed the connecting link be- 
 tween the ancient and more recent systems of their mythol- 
 ogy. The conqueror Odin appears to have been a chieftain 
 who led the Asi (the Goths) from the confines of Asia to 
 northern Europe. But, when deified by public adoration, 
 the attributes of an earlier deity seem to have been transfer- 
 red to him. Odin is the chief of the gods ; by his wife Freya 
 he has two Chief sons, Thor and Balder: the death of the 
 latter (for the Scandinavian gods are not all immortal) fur- 
 nishes many legends to the northern mythology, and is 
 known to English readers by Gray's translation, The Descent 
 of (iilin. (See this article in the Conv. Lex., and in the En- 
 cyel. of Ersch and Grnber.) The more ancient Odin, among 
 the Romans, was regarded as the representative of their god 
 Mercury. See \\'i otan. 
 
 ODOMLTER. (Gr. Woe, a road, and ueTpov, measure.) 
 An instrument attached to the wheel of a carriage by which 
 
 the distance passed mer Is measured. See Peraubtjlatok. 
 
 ODONTA'LGIA. (Gr. o6ovs, a tooth, and a\yo$, pain.) 
 The toothai he. 
 
 ODONTO' l.nr.Y (Gr. ofovc, and Aoyoc, a discourse.) 
 The branch of anatomical science which treats of the teeth. 
 See Dintzs. 
 
 O'DORIN. One of the products of tho redistillation of
 
 ODYSSEY. 
 
 the volatile oil obtained by distilling bone ; it has a very 
 concentrated and diffusible empyreumatic odour, and is re- 
 garded by Unverdorben as a peculiar salifiable base. 
 
 O'DYSSEY. (Gr. OSvaacia.) An epic poem, attributed, 
 in general, to Homer, but, according to some modern hypoth- 
 eses, not by the hand of the author of the Iliad. The sub- 
 ject of the poem is the return of Ulysses (Oovaaeus) from 
 Troy to his native island, Ithaca. 
 
 CECO'XOM Y. (Gr. oikos, a house, and vipu, I distribute.) 
 In Architecture, the harmonious and skilful combination of 
 the parts of a building, which renders them suitable to their 
 several purposes, and tends to connect them conveniently 
 With each other. 
 
 CECUME'XICAL. (Gr. 6iKovuevrj, scil. y>h the inhabited 
 earth : used in the New Testament.) In the Greek lan- 
 guage applied to ecclesiastical matters in the sense of uni- 
 versal. Several patriarchs of Constantinople and Rome as- 
 sumed the title of oecumenical (particularly John, A.D. 590, 
 and Cyril, his successor), apparently in opposition to the 
 pretensions of the bishop of Rome. Oecumenical councils 
 are those to which prelates resorted from every part of 
 Christendom under the jurisdiction of the Roman empire. 
 (Palmer, Church of Christ, vol. ii., p. 150.) See Council. 
 
 CE CUS. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, an apartment 
 adjoining a dining-room. 
 
 CEDE'MA. (Gr. odaio, I swell.) A puffiness or swelling 
 of parts, arising from water collecting in the cellular mem- 
 branes. 
 
 CE'DIPUS. A personage renowned in the early or myth- 
 ological stage of Grecian history, the son of Laius and Jo- 
 casta. An oracle had warned Laius that he should be kill- 
 ed by his son ; in consequence of which he caused the child 
 to be exposed, with one of its feet pierced and fastened with 
 a thong (his name was accordingly derived from the swell- 
 ing of the foot). The slave intrusted with him carried the 
 child to Polybus, king of Corinth, and deceived Laius with 
 a false report. CEdipus, when grown up, slew, in ignorance, 
 his father Laius ; acquired the sovereignty of Thebes, after 
 conquering the Sphynx, and married his mother Jocasta. 
 On becoming acquainted with their fatal destiny, Jocasta 
 killed herself, and QSdipus deprived himself of sight. Such 
 is the outline of the story familiar to us by the noblest ef- 
 forts of the Greek tragedians. The tale of"03dipus himself 
 affords the subject of two tragedies of Sophocles : the first 
 (CEdipus Tyrannus), the most perfect example of dramatic 
 skill which antiquity has left us; the second (CEdipus at 
 Colonus), perhaps the most beautiful of ancient dramatic 
 poems. The fate of his offspring is portrayed in several of 
 the remaining dramas of the three great tragedians. The 
 miseries inflicted on QDdipus seem to us to be wholly unde- 
 served, and of a kind that it is impossible to approve. He 
 was a mere passive instrument in the hands of Fate or Des- 
 tiny, and was not morally culpable for the death of his fa- 
 ther or the marriage of his mother. The acts, in fact, were 
 the acts of the gods, and not of OEdipus. In themselves 
 they were bad; but, as he was totally ignorant of, and did 
 not intend them, he is no more to be blamed than a dasrger 
 in the hand of an assassin is to be blamed for the murder. 
 And hence there can be no real sympathy with the miseries 
 inflicted on OZdipus, and still less with those entailed on his 
 offspring, who are made to suffer without cause or reason of 
 any kind. 
 
 CEXA'XTHE CROCA'TA. In Botany, the name given 
 to the hemlock dropwort, a poisonous plant, growing in 
 Pembrokeshire. It is called by the inhabitants of the coun- 
 try fine-fingered root, and has some reputation as a remedy 
 in diseases of the skin. 
 
 CE'NOMANCY. (Gr. otvoc, wine, and uavTiia, prophecy .) 
 A mode of divination among the Greeks, from the colour, 
 sound, &c, of wine poured out in libations. 
 
 OSXOTHIO'XIC ACID. (Gr. otvoc, and $uov, sulphur.) 
 The acid which is formed during the action of sulphuric 
 acid upon alcohol. Sertuerner gave it the above name: it 
 is the sulphovinic acid of Vogcl and other chemical writers. 
 OISO'PHAGUS. (Obs. Gr. otav, to carry, and (payw, 1 
 eat.) The tube by which food is conveyed from the poste- 
 rior part of the mouth, or pharynx, to the stomach. The 
 gullet. 
 
 03'STRUS. (Gr. oicrpac. a gad-fly.) The name of a ge- 
 nus of Dipterous insects, some of which lay their eggs in the 
 skin of quadrupeds, which they pierce for that purpose ; 
 others near the nose, up which the larvae creep to the front- 
 al sinuses. The flies of an allied genus (Oastcrophilus) at- 
 tach their eggs to the hairs in situations where they can be 
 licked off and swallowed; when, their vitality protecting 
 them from the action of the gastric juice, they are hatched 
 in the stomach, and the larvae attach themselves to the inner 
 membrane, forming what are called " bots" in the horse. 
 
 O'FFERIXGS. Literally, gifts presented at the altar in 
 token of acknowledgment of the Divine goodness. Offer- 
 ings constituted a large portion of the Jewish worship. They 
 consisted chiefly of bread salt, fruits, wine, and oil, and hail 
 
 OIL GAS. 
 
 different names according to the purposes for which they 
 w<jre employed. A distinction has often been made between 
 offerings and sacrifices (see Sacrifice) ; the former being 
 said to refer only to the fruits of the earth, the latter to ani- 
 mals ; but this can scarcely have been the case, for both the 
 burnt and the sin offering required animals to be sacrificed. 
 Among the Greeks, Romans, and other nations, the same 
 practice prevailed of offering at their altars wheat, flour, and 
 bread. In a modern sense, the term offering is applied to 
 certain dues payable by custom to the Church, as the Easter 
 offerings, &c. This latter custom has obtained from the 
 first period of Christianity, when those who officiated at the 
 altar had no other maintenance or allowance than the free 
 gifts or offerings (ublationes) of the people. 
 
 O'FFERTORY. The first part of the Mass, in which 
 the priest prepares the elements for consecration. In the 
 English communion service, it denotes the sentences which 
 are delivered by the officiating priest while the people are 
 making their oblations or offerings. (See Palmer, Orig. 
 Liturgical.) 
 
 OFFICE FOUND. In English Law, an inquiry execu- 
 ted by some officers of the crown, when certain events have 
 occurred in consequence of which the crown becomes enti- 
 tled to take possession of real or personal property. Such 
 are the finding of treasure under certain circumstances, the 
 intestacy of a bastard, &c. The verdict of a coroner's jury 
 of " felo de se" is an instance of office found, on which the 
 crown is entitled to take possession of the effects of the de- 
 ceased. 
 
 O'FFICER, is used generally to signify any person in the 
 enjoyment of a post or office, whether civil or military, un- 
 der the crown. Under their different heads will be found a 
 notice of the chief civil and military officers; to these the 
 reader is referred. 
 
 OFFI'CIAL. In the Canon Law, the deputy or lieuten- 
 ant of a bishop, abbot, &c, or an ecclesiastical judge ap- 
 pointed by them. The principal official of the bishop is his 
 chancellor, whose jurisdiction is coextensive with the dio- 
 cese. An officialis foraneus (styled in English law commis- 
 sary") is appointed to part of a diocess when large. The 
 court of the official is styled in the canon law his officiality. 
 
 O'FFICI'NAL. In Pharmacy, such medicines as are di- 
 rected by the Pharmacopaeia to be kept ready for use in the 
 apothecaries' shops. 
 
 O'FFIXG. A Nautical term, denoting a part of the sea 
 at a considerable distance from the shore where there is 
 deep water. 
 
 O'FFSET. In Architecture, the superior surface left un- 
 covered by the continuation upwards of a wall where the 
 thickness diminishes, forming a ledge. 
 
 O'FFSETS, in Surveying, are short distances from the 
 chain-line, usually measured with a rod, called an offset- 
 staff" the most convenient length for which is 6 feet 7-2 
 inches, being equal to 10 links of the surveying chain. See 
 Surveying. 
 
 Offsets. In Gardening, young radical bulbs, when sep- 
 arated or taken off from the parent roots, are so called. One 
 of the chief methods of propagating plants is by offsets. See 
 Propagation of Plants. 
 
 O'GEE. In Architecture, the same as cyma reversa: see 
 that art., and Moulding. 
 
 O'GHAMS. A peculiar kind of short-hand writing in use 
 among the ancient Irish. It consisted of certain lines and 
 marks which derived their power from their situation and 
 position as they stood in relation to one horizontal principal 
 line, over or under which they were placed, or through 
 which they were drawn ; the characters or marks, accord- 
 ing to their position, standing in the place of vowels, conso- 
 nants, diphthongs, &c. (See the elaborate article in Hees's 
 Cyclopedia.) 
 
 OGIVE. (Etym. uncertain.) In Architecture, the term 
 used by the French for the pointed arch. 
 
 O'GRES. (Fr.) The well-known name of those imagi- 
 nary monsters with which the nursery tales of England 
 abound. They are usually represented as cannibals of ma- 
 lignant dispositions, and as endowed with gigantic height 
 and power. It is difficult to speak with certainty of the ori- 
 gin of these fabulous creations ; but it is probable that the 
 term ogre is derived from Oegir, one of the giants in the 
 Scandinavian mythology (see Grimm's Deutsche Mytholo- 
 gie, p. 146) ; though it has been alleged, with perhaps more 
 probability, that it has been borrowed from the Ogurs, or 
 Onogurs, "a desperate and savage Asiatic horde, which over- 
 ran part of Europe about the middle of the 5th century. 
 
 OGY'GIAN DELUGE. The name given to a great in- 
 undation mentioned in fabulous history, supposed to have 
 taken place in the reign of Ogyges in Attica, whose death is 
 fixed, in Blair's Clironological Tables, in the year 1764 be- 
 fore Christ. See Deluge. 
 
 OIL GAS. The inflammable gases and vapours (chiefly 
 hydrocarbons) which are obtained by passing fixed oils 
 through red-hot tubes, and which may be used as coal gas, 
 
 &47
 
 OIL OF BRICKS. 
 
 for the purposes of illumination ; it yields a more brilliant 
 lisht than the latter, but is too expensive to be general!) 
 adopted, The apparatus tor the production of oil gas is de- 
 scribed in the Quarterly Journal, vol. viii. A gallon of com- 
 mon u hale oil J ields from 90 to 100 cubical feet of gas ; and 
 an Argand burner, giving the light of six or seven wax can- 
 9Umes from Ik to 2 cubical feet per hour; whereas, 
 to produce the same light, from 5 to cubic feet of coal gas 
 are required. 
 
 OIL OF BRICKS. A term applied by the old chemists 
 to the cmpyreuinatic oil obtained by subjecting a brick Which 
 has been soaked in oil to the process of distillation at a high 
 temperature. The oil is used by lapidaries as a vehicle for 
 the emery bv whi ch stones and gems are sawn or cut. 
 
 OIL OF VlTKloL. See Sulphuric Acid. 
 
 OIL-PAINTING. Pointing In which the medium for 
 using the colours is oil. It is said to have been unknown to 
 the ancients, and not used earlier than the 14th century ; its 
 invention being attributed to John Van Eyck. sometimes 
 called John of Bruges. By him it was supposed to have 
 been imparted to one Antonio do Messina, who first brought 
 it to Venice. Giovanni Bellini, by a stratagem, got posses- 
 sion of the secret from him, and then made it publicly known. 
 Oil-painting, has the advantages, above all other modes, of 
 affording great delicacy of execution, a union and insensible 
 blending of the colours, and, above all, that of imparting 
 great force to its effects. The various colours chiefly used 
 in oil-painting are, white lead, Creninitz white, chrome, 
 king's yellow, Naples and patent yellow, the ochres, Dutch 
 pink, terra da Sienna, yellow lake, Vermillion, red lead, In- 
 dian and Venetian red, the several sorts of lake, brown pink, 
 Vandyke brown, burned and unburned umber, ultramarine, 
 Prussian and Antwerp blue, ivory black, blue black, asphal- 
 tum. The principal oils are those extracted from the poppy, 
 nut, and Unseed. With the latter driers are introduced. 
 
 OILS. (Germ, oehle.) The term oil is applied to two 
 dissimilar and distinct organic products, which are usually 
 called fiied oils and volatile oils. The fixed or fat oils are 
 either of vegetable or animal origin ; they are compounds of 
 carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen ; the relative proportions vary 
 but little in the several species. The following analyses of 
 olive and spermaceti oil may be assumed as types of the 
 rest : 
 
 Olive Oil. Spermaceti Oil. 
 
 Carbon 772 7S0 
 
 Hvdrogen 133 118 
 
 Oxygen ( J5 _102 
 
 1000 1000 
 
 The fixed oils abound in the fruit and seed of certain 
 plants ; they are lighter than water, unctuous, and insipid, 
 or nearly so ; some of these require a low temperature for 
 their congelation, such as linseed oil ; others, such as olive 
 oil, concrete at a temperature higher than the freezing point 
 of water ; some are solid at common temperatures, such as 
 cocoa-nut oil. Some of these oils when exposed to air ab- 
 sorb oxygen, and gradually harden, forming a kind of var- 
 nish ; tiiese are called drying oils, and are the basis of 
 paints, such as linseed oil ; others become rancid, as almond 
 oil. All these oils, like the different kinds of fat, consist of 
 two proximate principles, called stearine and elaine : the 
 former is the fatty portion, which first concretes on cooling 
 the oil, and from which the elaine, or oily portion, may be 
 separated by pressure. These oils cannot be volatilized 
 without decomposition. At a red heat they are resolved into 
 volatile and gaseous products, among which carburetted hy- 
 drogen, in several of its forms, predominates; hence the use 
 of these oils, when volatilized and burned by the aid of a 
 wick, as sources of artificial light. The action of the alkali 
 an the fat oils is highly important, as forming soap. 
 
 The tolatilt oils are generaU] obtained by distilling the 
 vegetable.-, which afford them, with water : they fluctuate in 
 density a little on either side of water: they are sparingly 
 soluble in water, forming the perfumed or medicated u ateife, 
 such as rose and peppermint water ; they are mostly soluble 
 in alcohol, forming essences. A few of them, such as oil of 
 turpentine, of lemon peel, of copi\ i balsam, fcc., are hydro- 
 carbons, til at is, consist of carbon and hydrogen only; the 
 greater number, however, contain oxygen as one of their ul- 
 timate elements. They are chiefly used in medicine and in 
 perfumery, and a few of them are extensively employed in 
 the arts as vehicles for colours, and in the manufacture of 
 varnishes: this is especially the case with oil of turpentine. 
 OrSANITE. An ore of titanium, from the department 
 of Otoe. 
 
 OLD MAN OF T1IK MOUNTAIN The chii f of the 
 band Assassins* who established themselves in the moun- 
 
 OLIVA. 
 
 tainous district of Kohistan in Persia, in the lltli century, 
 W8S BO called. See Assassins. 
 
 OLD RED BANDST4 >NE. A series of rocks interposed 
 between the mountain limestone and slates. [Set Geology.) 
 
 It is included in J)Iurchison's Devonian System of Hocks. 
 
 OLD TL'STA.MENT. The name given to thai part of 
 Scripture which contains the collected works of the inspired 
 Writers pre\ iously to the advent of our Saviour. The period 
 of their being collected is unknown. Some of them were in 
 existence before the Babylonish captivity (600 years B.C.) ; 
 others were collected at a later period ; and the collection, 
 as it at present stands, was completed in the second century 
 before Christ. The Jews divided the Old Testament into 
 the Law. the Prophets, and other writings known by the 
 name Ilagiographa, of which the Psalms were at tile head. 
 The contents of the Old Testament may be conveniently di- 
 vided into the Historical Books, of which there are 17; the 
 Poetical, of which there are 5; and the Prophetical, of which 
 there are l(i, distinguished into the books of 4 greater and 12 
 minor prophets. The Historical Books include the Penta- 
 teuch, the Book of Joshua, Judges, Ruth, 2 Books of Samuel, 
 2 Books of Kings. 2 Books of Chronicles, the Book of Ezra, 
 of Nehemiah, and of Esther; the Poetical Books include the 
 Book of Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the 
 Song of Solomon : and the Prophetical comprise (of the 
 greater) Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel, and (of the 
 minor) Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah. Mieah. Nahum, 
 Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Maiachi. 
 See Bible, Testament, Prophets, Psalms, &C 
 
 OLEA'CE^E. (Olea, one of the genera.) The natural 
 order of plants which contains the olive tree and the ash ; 
 it consists of trees or shrubs inhabiting the temperate parts 
 of the world, and distinguished from others by their flowers 
 being monopetalous and diandrous with a valvate activation. 
 See Olive. 
 
 OLECRA'NON. (Gr. o)\evy, the ■ulna, and Kpavav, the 
 head.) The head of the ulna. The process of the ulna 
 which forms the elbow. 
 
 OLE'FIANT GAS. This variety of carburetted hydro- 
 gen is obtained by heating a mixture of two measures of sul- 
 phuric acid and one of alcohol. It is of somewhat less 
 specific gravity than atmospheric air, 100 cubic inches weigh- 
 ing 30 - o grains. It burns with a bright white flame, and pro- 
 duces during combustion such proportions of carbonic acid 
 and water as show that 1 volume of the gas is constituted 
 of 2 atoms or volumes of hydrogen and 2 atoms of carbon; 
 hence the equivalent of defiant gas is (2 h -+- 12 car.) = 14. 
 When two volumes of chlorine are mixed with 1 of olefiant 
 sas, and inflamed, hydrocholoric acid is formed, and the 
 charcoal of the gas makes its appearance in the form of 
 dense black soot. If the mixture, instead of being kindled, 
 be left standing over water, it soon condenses into a liquid 
 looking like oil (hence the term oltfiant gas), which is a hy- 
 drochloride of carbon. It has an aromatic odour, not un- 
 like that of oil of carawa\ S. 
 
 O'LEIC ACID. The product resulting from the action 
 of alkalies upon the elaine, or liquid part of oils and fata, 
 O'LEIN. See Elain. 
 
 O'LEON. A peculiar liquid obtained by the distillation 
 of a mixture of oleic acid and lime. 
 O'LERON. LAWS OF. See Maritime Law. 
 OLFA'CTi >KY NERVES. [Lat oleo, I smell, and facio, 
 I cause.) The nerves of smell. The first pair of nerves. 
 They arise from the part of the brain called the corpora 
 striata, and, perforating the ethmoid bone, are distributed 
 over the mucous membrane of the nose. 
 
 OLI'BANLTM. A gam re>iu. Imported from the Levant, 
 in yellowish-white and nearly opaque drops or tears ; it has 
 a bitterish flavour, and has been used in medicine. When 
 burned it exhales rather an agreeable odour, and is some- 
 times called frankincense. It is either the produce of the 
 Juniperus lycia, or of the Bosvellia sirrata. 
 
 OLIGARCHY. (Gr. SXiyot, few, and Spxeiv, to govern.) 
 A state in which the sovereign power is lodged in the hands 
 of a small, exclusive class, is so called. It differs from aris- 
 tocracy, in that the latter term appears to designate a govern- 
 ment in which the whole of a particular class or interest, e.g., 
 (he noble, the wealthy, &.c share directly or indirectly m 
 the management of public affairs; while, in an oligarchy, it 
 is a party or section formed out of one of these classes which 
 enjoys the advantages of government 
 
 OLPVA. I. at. oliva, on olive.) A genus of Pectinf- 
 branchiate Gastropods, dismembered from the Volutes of 
 Linneus, and so called on account of the long and elliptical 
 shape of the shell. The aperture is narrow, long, and notch- 
 ed o|,|«...ite to the spire, which is short: the folds of the 
 columella are numerous, and resemble stria-. The animal 
 
 * There are few words whose etymology has exercised, and at the nine 
 time batflrd Ihe ingenuity of the learned, more than this. Perhaps the 
 following may not be very remote from the truth. Throughout all the East 
 •n of hemp is universally used to exhilarate the spirits by a luxu* 
 xious species of intoxication. This is known to the Orientals by the name of 
 laJcAun, and those wbo are addicted to it are called haKhu'chxn and hat- 
 040. 
 
 duuehin : two expressions, as Dr. Sacv remarks, which explain why the Is- 
 roaelians have been called by the hixonansof the crusades at one time At- 
 tiumi. and at another .iitaitini. So tha', instead of "a secret murderer," 
 asxusin implies, in point of fact, "a habitual drunkard." (Quart. Rev. 
 vol. 24.)
 
 OLIVE. 
 
 has a large foot, the anterior portion of which is marked off 
 by an incision on each side. The horns or tentacula are 
 slender, and the eyes are on the middle of their outer side. 
 The proboscis and the breathing tube are tolerably long ; 
 there is no operculum. The species of Oliva rival the cow- 
 ries in beauty. 
 
 G'LIVE. {Lat. olea.) A genus of trees belonging to the 
 Diandria Monagynia class of plants. The Olea Europwa 
 has an upright stem, with numerous branches, grows to the 
 height of twenty or thirty feet, and differs from most trees in 
 yielding a fixed oil from the pericarp instead of from the 
 seed. The olive tree has in all ages been held in peculiar 
 estimation ; and some authors have styled it a " mine upon 
 earth." It was sacred to Minerva. Olive wreaths were 
 used by the Greeks and Romans to crown the brows of vic- 
 tors; and it is still universally regarded as emblematic of 
 peace. The olive flourishes only in warm and comparative- 
 ly dry parts of the world, as the south of France and Spain ; 
 in Italy, Syria, and the north of Africa ; and though it has 
 been raised in the open air in this country, its fruit did not 
 ripen. The fruit is a smooth oval plum, about three quar- 
 ters of an inch in length, and half an inch in diameter ; of a 
 deep violet colour when ripe ; whitish and fleshy within ; 
 bitter and nauseous, but replete with a bland oil. Olives in- 
 tended for preservation are gathered before they are ripe. 
 In pickling, the object is to remove and to preserve them 
 green by impregnating them with a brine of aromatized sea 
 salt; and for this purpose various methods are employed. 
 But it is chiefly for the sake of its oil that the olive tree is 
 cultivated. Olive oil is pale yellow; its density is - 910. 
 When fresh, and of fine quality, it is almost tasteless, having 
 only a very slight and agreeable nutty flavour. It is less apt 
 than most other fixed oils to become viscid by exposure, and 
 hence is preferred for greasing clock and watch-work. It is 
 largely used as an article of food. It is the principal article 
 of export from the kingdom of Naples. Of 2,791,057 gallons 
 imported in 1330, 2,034,237 were from Italy, 639,468 from 
 Spain, 52,004 from Malta, 21.467 from Turkey, 11,300 from 
 the Ionian Islands, and about 30,000 (at second-hand) from 
 Germany and the Netherlands. There is a duty of eight 
 guineas a ton on olive oil. (See Diet, of Commerce, <$-«.) 
 
 O'LIVILE. A peculiar anylnceous or crystalline sub- 
 stance, obtained from the gum of the olive tree. 
 
 O'LIVINE. A variety of chrysolite containing oxide of 
 iron, of an olive green colour. It is sometimes found associ- 
 ated with meteoric iron. 
 
 O'LLA PODRI'DA. (Span, putrid mixture.) The name 
 given to a favourite dish of all classes in Spain ; consisting 
 of a mixture of all kinds of meat cut into small pieces, and 
 stewed with various kinds of vegetables. The epithet 
 podrida is applied to this dish, in consequence of the poorer 
 classes being obliged to serve it up so often that the odour 
 arising from long keeping is far from agreeable. The phrase 
 olia podrida is often used metaphorically in England for any 
 incongruous melange. 
 
 OLY'MPIAD. (Gr. oXvitvtac.) In Chronology, a Grecian 
 epoch of four years, being the interval between the celebra- 
 tion of the Olympic games. 
 
 The Olympic games, so famous in Grecian history, were 
 said to have been instituted about 1354 years before the 
 Christian era ; but, having fallen into disuse, they were re- 
 vived by lpbitus, king of Elis, 844 years, B.C. About a 
 hundred years later, the practice was introduced of desig- 
 nating the Olympic period by the name of the victor. The 
 first who received the honour was Coreebus, and the com- 
 mencement of the Olympiad of Conebus forms the principal 
 era of Grecian chronology. The games in which he was 
 victor were celebrated about the time of the summer solstice, 
 776 years before the era of the incarnation, in the 3938th of 
 the Julian period, and 23 years, according to the reckoning 
 of Varro, before the foundation of Rome. Before the intro- 
 duction of the Metonic cycle, the Olympic year began some- 
 times with the full moon which followed, sometimes with 
 that which preceded the summer solstice. Subsequent to 
 the introduction of that cycle, the year always commenced 
 with the eleventh day of the moon which followed the sol- 
 stice, and it is usually regarded as beginning on the first day 
 of July. It is necessary to observe, in the comparison of 
 dates, that as the Olympiads begin about the 1st of July, the 
 first six months of a year of our era correspond to one Olym- 
 pic year, and the second to another. The first year of the 
 first Olympiad began 776 years and six months before our 
 era ; hence, in order to reduce the date by Olympiads to our 
 era, the rule is this : Multiply the number of the past Olym- 
 piad by four, and add the odd years ; subtract the sum from 
 777, if before Christ, or subtract 776 from the sum, if after 
 Christ : the remainder will lie the year before Christ or after 
 Christ, if the event happened in the first six months of the 
 Olympic year, that is, between July and January ; but if the 
 event happened in the last six months of the Oiympic year, 
 or between January and July, the remainder, in either case, 
 niust be diminished by one. For example, the foundation 
 
 OMENTUM. 
 
 of Rome (according to Varro) was laid in the 3d year of the 
 6th Olympiad, and 10th month of that year; required the 
 date? Here 5 complete periods are elapsed; therefore, 5-f- 
 4 + 3=23; and 777 — 23=754, which, being diminished by 
 one, gives 753 B.C. for the date. The month corresponds to 
 April. 
 
 The method of computing time by Olympiads did not come 
 into use till after the death of Alexander, and first appears 
 in the Parian Chronicle, which was engraved about sixty 
 years after that event. The first historian who used it was 
 Timaeus Siculus, who wrote a few years later. About 200 
 years B.C., Eratosthenes of Alexandria digested a chrono- 
 logical table of the Olympiads. 
 
 OLY'MPIC GAMES. The greatest of the national festi- 
 vals of Greece, celebrated once every four years at Olympia, 
 or Pisa, in Elis, in honour of Olympian Jupiter. Their in- 
 stitution is variously attributed to Jupiter, Pelops, and Hercu- 
 les; but it appears that they had fallen into disuse for some 
 time, till they were revived by Iphitus, 776 B.C. From this 
 period it is that the Olympiads are reckoned. Like the other 
 public festivals, the Olympian games might be attended by 
 all who bore the Hellenic name ; and such was their uni- 
 versal celebrity, that spectators quatemially crowded to wit- 
 ness them, not only from all parts of Greece itself, but from 
 every Grecian colony in Europe, Asia, and Africa. In these 
 games, none were allowed to contend but those who could 
 prove that they were freemen of genuine Hellenic origin, 
 and unstained by crime or immorality. The superintendence 
 of these games belonged sometimes to the Pisans, but for 
 the most part to the Eleans, by whom the Pisans were de- 
 stroyed. On one occasion, in the 104th Olympiad, the man- 
 agement was forcibly seized on by the Arcadians. The con- 
 tests at these games consisted in the athletic exercises, and 
 also in those of music and poetry. The orators were 
 crowned with garlands of wild olive. (See West's Pindar ; 
 ThirlwalVs Greece, vol. i., 384 ; and the other authorities.) 
 The place where these renowned games were celebrated is 
 a plain, now called Anti-Lalla, opposite the little town of 
 Lalla. They commenced a little after the summer solstice, 
 on the 14th of the Attic month Hecatombseon. 
 
 O'MBRIA. (Gr. oufipos, rain.) A name formerly applied 
 to certain fossil Echini, under the supposition of their hav- 
 ing fallen from the clouds. 
 
 OMBRO'METER. (Gr. ou6pos, rain, and /xtrpov, meas- 
 ure.) A name sometimes given to the rain-gauge. See 
 Rain-gauge. 
 
 O'MELET. A pancake or fritter made of eggs, common 
 in Spain, France, and Germany. 
 
 O'MENS. Casual indications, from which men believe 
 themselves enabled to conjecture or foretel future events. 
 The essential characteristic of all omens is their happening 
 by accident ; and it is this which distinguishes them from all 
 other modes of divination. This branch of superstition 
 seems nearly as ancient as the world itself; and in none do 
 we find such remarkable indications of sameness of origin. 
 Many external circumstances appear to be received in almost 
 all countries as ominous. One of the most remarkable in- 
 stances of this coincidence is mentioned in a recent number 
 of the Edinburgh Review. The omens in which the Thugs, 
 or secret murderers of India, believe with peculiar devotion, 
 are almost the very same which an ancient Roman would 
 have observed with equal attention ; especially the appear- 
 ance of animals on the right or left hand. In classical an- 
 tiquity, however, omens appear to have multiplied, and to 
 have been the subjects of more curious superstition in later 
 than in earlier ages. There are numberless omens in Homer ; 
 but they are generally of the simplest description — thunder 
 and lightning ; the appearance of some sacred birds, espe- 
 cially, as some critics have observed, those which have the 
 highest flight, and might be supposed to have arrived imme- 
 diately from the throne of Jove himself. Omens, among the 
 Greeks (and, we may add, among almost all nations in peri- 
 ods of ignorance, and among the vulgar of the present day), 
 may be divided into three classes : those derived from natural 
 occurrences, relating to inanimate objects, lightning, earth- 
 quakes, phosphoric appearances, &c. ; those derived from 
 animals, especially birds, the region of their appearance, 
 their voices, &c. ; and those which the individual drew from 
 sudden sensations of his own. Sneezing, in most times and 
 countries, has been a peculiarly ominous occurrence. The 
 Romans, as is well known, carried the science of omens to 
 a very profound depth : the flight of birds was the main ele- 
 ment in augury ; the omens afforded by the entrails of sacri- 
 ficed animals, in the learning uf eMispicium. One remark- 
 able variety between Greek and Roman divination has often 
 been noticed : the right hand in the former generally denoted 
 good luck, and the left the contrary. Among the Romans 
 this rule was reversed, although their writers in later times 
 often adopt the Greek mode of expression. See Augurs. 
 
 OME'NTUM. (So called from Lat. omen, because the 
 soothsayers prophesied from its ins|)ection.) The membrane 
 is formed of a duplicature of the peritoneum, and encloses 
 3G 849
 
 OMNIBUS. 
 
 more or less fat. It is attached to the stomach, and lies on 
 the anterior surface of the intestines. 
 
 « i M.N IBIS. ( Lai. far all.) The name given to a pecu- 
 liar kind of public carriage, too well known to require to be 
 described, which takes a number of passengers at a cheap 
 common rate. They were first introduced into Paris in 18-25, 
 whence ihev were introduced into London in 18SS ; and 
 they are now to be met with iu almost every large town both 
 of this country and the Continent. 
 
 OMNIUM. In Finance, a term used at the Stock Ex- 
 change to express the aggregate value of the different stocks 
 in which a loan is now usually funded. (See Dictionary 
 of Commerce.) 
 
 O MN1YORES. (Lat. omnia, all, and voro, I eat.) The 
 name given by Temminck to an order of birds, including 
 those Insessoral species which feed on both animal and 
 vegetable substances; as the starling. 
 
 oMoHYOl'DEUS. A muscle which pulls the oshyoides 
 obliquely downward: it is sometimes called the coracohy- 
 oideus : it arises from the superior costa of the scapula, and 
 is inserted into the base of the os hyoides. 
 
 OMPHALO'DIl'M. (Gr. ouQaboc, the navel.) The cen- 
 tre of the liilum of a seed, through which the nourishing 
 vessels pass from the placenta into tile seminal integuments. 
 
 OMPHALOTOMY. (Gr. ou<pa\o$, and renvoi, I cut.) 
 The division of the navel string. 
 
 ONAGRA'CEjE. (Onagra, an old name for the genus 
 JEnothera.) An extensive natural order of Polypetalous 
 Exogenous plants, very common in gardens, where they are 
 much valued for the beauty of their flowers. They are 
 known bv all the parts of their flowers being arranged in 
 fours. The genera Fuchsia, LEnothera, and Epilobium are 
 common illustrations of the order. 
 
 ONE'IROCRITICS, or ONEIROCRITICAL SCIENCE. 
 (Gr. ovupoi, and k/><vu>, J judge.) The science of interpreting 
 dreams: treated of by Artemidorus, Macrobius, and other 
 classical writers ; by Thomas Aquinas, and others of the 
 schoolmen ; and, among many other moderns, by Cardanus, 
 and Maio. a Neapolitan philosopher. According to all these 
 writers, the secret of oneirocritical science consists in the re- 
 lation supposed to exist between the dream and the thing 
 signified ; but they are far from keeping to the relations of 
 agreement and similitude, and they frequently have recourse 
 to others of dissimilitude and contrariety. 
 
 ONEIRODYNIA. (Gr. ovctpos, and ocvvn, pain.) Dis- 
 turbed dreams, including the nightmare and somnambulism. 
 
 ONISCI'DjE. The name of a family of Isopodous Crus- 
 taceans, of which the wood-louse ' timsrus) is the type. 
 
 O'NOMANCY, or ONO'MOMA'NCY. (Gr. ovoua, a 
 name, and uavrua, prophecy. A species of divination from 
 the letters of a person's name. Many fancies of this sort 
 were current among the ancients ; such as that names in 
 which the numeral letters amounted to the highest sum 
 were most luckv. 
 
 ONOMA'STICON. (Gr. ovoua.) A work containing 
 words or names, with their explanation, arranged in alpha- 
 betical or other order ; a dictionary, commonplace book, &c. 
 The best known work under tbis title is the Onom. of Julius 
 Pollux, in ten books, a valuable repertory of ancient philo- 
 logical learning. 
 
 ONOMATOPOZ'IA. (Gr. 6voua, name ; rouai, / make.) 
 Literally, the making or manufacture of names ; a word ex- 
 pressing by its sound the thing represented. In most lan- 
 guages the cries of animals are thus expressed ; and the line 
 of Aristophanes, 
 
 'O i r/\<0ioj wvrrcp xpoflarov flr) (3f) \£ywv fia&Kfi, 
 shows that the modem Greeks have not correctly retained 
 the sound of the eta (which they pronounce like our e), as 
 the sound imitated from nature would not be thus represent- 
 ed. Ennius imitated the sound of a trumpet by the word 
 taratantara ; and, to represent the croaking of frogs, Aris- 
 tophanes used l3pcKCKCKtl, noal Koal- (Frogs, i., 209.) Greek 
 and German arc peculiarly rich in words of this description. 
 M. Charles Nodier has published a dictionary of those in 
 French. (Dictionaire des Onomatopees Franfaises.) 
 
 ONTO'LOGY. (Gr. t6 ov, being, and Ao')'o$, discourse.) 
 The science of being in Itself, or its ultimate grounds and 
 conditions. Sec Metaphysics. 
 
 ONYCHIA. (Gr. owl the nail.) A whitlow. 
 
 ONT'CHOTEUTHIS. (Gr. m [, a claw ; revdoc, a cola- 
 mary.) The name of the genus of Calamaries, in which 
 the suckers of the cephalic appendages are armed with a 
 hook. 
 
 <• 'NYX. A regularly banded agate, much prized for 
 cameos, especially where the colours are very distinct and 
 opposed. Any stone exhibiting layers of two or more colours 
 strongly contrasted is called an onyx. 
 
 O'syv. In Surgery, an abscess of the cornea of the eye; 
 so called from its resemblance to the stone termed an onyx. 
 
 O'OLITE. (Gr. isov, an egg, and AiOoj, a stone.) A 
 granular variety of carbonate ot lime, frequently called roe- 
 850 
 
 OPERA. 
 
 stone. The frequency of the occurrence of this particular 
 form of limestone in a great series of deposits, lying between 
 the subcretaceous formations and the new red sandstone, 
 h;is caused English geologists to give the whole series the 
 name of oolitic. It is largely developed in England and 
 France. See Geology. 
 
 OOZO'A. (Gr. uov, an egg, ^mov, animal.) A name ap- 
 plied by Ficinus and Carus to a primary division of the ani- 
 mal kingdom, including those in which the nervous and 
 sanguiferous systems are incompletely developed, and in 
 which the organization resembles the simple condition of the 
 ovum of the higher classes. This division corresponds to 
 the dcrita. 
 
 OPA'CITY. (Lat. opacus, dark.) In Optics, that quality 
 of bodies which renders them opaque, or incapable of trans 
 mining light. According to the Newtonian theory of light, 
 opacity in natural bodies arises from the multitude of rerlec 
 tions caused in their internal parts. Newton thought it 
 probable that the molecules of opaque and coloured bodies 
 are separated by minute pores, either entirely void, or filled 
 with some subtle matter of a different density from the body. 
 If light enters such a body, and experience proves that it does 
 penetrate the surfaces of opaque bodies, it will be reflected on 
 encountering a molecule ; and, if the molecules are extreme- 
 ly minute (in comparison of those of transparent bodies), the 
 number of reflections may become so great that no part of 
 the light will again escajie from the surface. On this hy- 
 pothesis, Sir J. Herschel remarks, that unless we admit a 
 cause of opacity in Stoma different from that which causes 
 it in their aggregates, the atoms cannot be otherwise than 
 absolutely pellucid, since no reflections can take place where 
 there are no intervals, and no change of medium. Of the 
 sufficiency of this cause, either in natural bodies or atoms, 
 there does appear, he adds, some room for doubt, as it seems 
 difficult so to conceive their internal reflections that the rays 
 subjected to them shall be all and forever retained, entangled, 
 as it were, and running their rounds from atom to atom, with- 
 out a possibility of reaching the surface and escaping ; which, 
 were they to do, it is evident that every body so constituted 
 receiving a beam of light would in fact only disperse it in all 
 directions in the manner of a self-luminous one. {Ency. 
 JUetr., art. " Light.") 
 
 O'PAL. A beautiful mineral characterized by its irides- 
 cent reflection of light : it is very brittle. It consists of silica, 
 with about 10 per cent, of water. Common opal in some of 
 its characters resembles the preceding ; but it has no play 
 of colours, and is abundant, the former beim; a very rare 
 mineral. Opal is found in different parts of Europe, but 
 particularly in Hungary : in the East Indies. &.c. | For some 
 curious details as to this stone, see Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. 37, 
 c. 6.) 
 
 OPALI'ZED WOOD. Wood petrified by silica and ac- 
 quiring a structure resembling common opal. 
 
 O'PEN FIELD LAND. Arable lands unenclosed by 
 hedges or other fences, and in the occupation of different in- 
 dividuals, or under different crops. In former times, only 
 those parts of a farm which lay around the farmyard were 
 enclosed, while the more distant parts were open, and called 
 open fields, or out fields. 
 
 O'PENINGS. In Architecture, the piercings or unfilled 
 parts in a wall, left for the purpose of admitting light, air. &c. 
 O'PERA. (Ital. work.) A musical drama, in which the 
 music forms an essential part, and not merely an accompani- 
 ment. The whole dramatic art of the ancients possessed 
 much of an operatic character. The choric parts were 
 sung; and if the dialogue was not carried on in the musical 
 tone termed recitative in modern times, it was certainly de- 
 livered in an artificially raised and sustained key, very dif- 
 ferent from the ordinary or oratorical speech. The first 
 operas in modern times were performed in Italy, aboat the 
 end of the 15th century. The Orpkeo of PoMriano has been 
 cited as the first complete piece of this sort. Jean Antoine 
 Baif introduced the o|>era into France, where the earliest 
 representation of this kind is said to have taken place at the 
 marriage of the Due de Joyeuse, in 1582. In 1707, the opera 
 of .Irsinue. consistine of English words adapted to Italian 
 airs, was performed at Drury Lane, and a succession of en- 
 tertainments of this kind terminated in the Italian opera. 
 The first attempt at a wholly Knglisb opera was made by 
 Sir William D'Avenant, in 1056. The opera was divided 
 into seria and buffa, according to the subjects and the char- 
 acter 1 4 the music ; and between the limits of both there la a 
 third BpeClea, or wr::» ttUo, not very accurately definable. 
 The opera, property speaking, admits only of singing and ro- 
 eitatkm, although, in some of the German operas. ili.-iL ><ruo 
 i- also introduced. The romantic opera, which is consider- 
 ed as a German invention, is a compound between the two 
 Italian s|>ecies. Metn.st.isio in Italy, and Goethe in Germany, 
 hare both written for the opera ; but these are splendid ex- 
 ceptions, and the poetry lias, m most instances, been held 
 entirely subservient to the music. At the beginning of last 
 century the opera, on its more general introduction into
 
 OPERA-GLASS. 
 
 France and England, was attacked as an absurdity by al- 
 most all the wits and critics of the day. There were not, 
 however, wanting defenders of this favourite child of the 
 pay and fashionable world ; and foremost among them was 
 Voltaire, to whose apology for the opera, in the preface to 
 his tragedy of (Edipe, we take leave to refer the reader. 
 
 OPERA-GLASS. A small telescope used in theatres, 
 whence it has its name. 
 
 The common opera-glass is nothing else than the Galilean 
 telescope, invented by Galileo in 1609, which was the first 
 ever employed for the purpose of exploring the heavens. A 
 section of the instrument is represented in the annexed fig- 
 ure. It consists of 
 an object glass A B, 
 the focal length of 
 which is usually 
 from 4 to 8 inches. 
 The eye-glass, C D, 
 is a double concave 
 or plano-concave 
 lens, from half an inch to 2 inches focus ; the distance be- 
 tween the two lenses is equal to the difference of their focal 
 lengths; and the magnifying power is in the ratio of those 
 lengths. Rays of light, R R, falling on the object glass, are 
 refracted towards the axis X Y, and proceed to meet in the 
 focus of the lens at F. But before they reach that point 
 they are intercepted by the concave lens C D, the focus of 
 which is also at F, and by which they are restored to their 
 parallelism. The rays, therefore, proceeding from the ob- 
 ject enter the eye, which is applied to the luns C D, with- 
 out crossing each other, or forming an image ; and hence 
 the distinctness of the Galilean exceeds that of all other 
 telescopes ; hence, also, there is no inversion of the image, 
 and, as there are only two glasses, the loss of light is incon- 
 siderable. 
 
 The lens A B may be either single or compound. If a 
 single lens of plate-glass is used, it should be nearly con- 
 vexo-plane; if a convex of plate and a concave of flint be 
 combined to form the compound lens, the former should be 
 nearly convexo-plane, and the latter concavo- plane. As to 
 the eye glass, it is always single ; and the plano-concave 
 form is perhaps better than the double concave, the eye be- 
 ing, in fact, never placed in actual contact with it. For any 
 magnifying power above 3 or 4, it ought to be limited to an 
 aperture rather less than that of the pupil of the eye ; and 
 where distinct vision is desired, the eye should be placed as 
 accurately as possible on the axis of the instrument. (Cod- 
 dington , s Optics.) 
 
 The area or field of view of this instrument is very limit- 
 ed, and for this reason it cannot be used with any high mag- 
 nifying power. See Telescope. 
 
 OPE'RCULUM. (Lat. operio, I cover.) The lid of any- 
 thing: applied by botanists to the cap of the pitcher of Ne- 
 penthes, to the loose apex of such fruits as that of Lccythis, 
 to the conical limb of the calyx of Eucalyptus, and to the 
 body which closes up the theca of a moss. 
 
 Operculum. In Zoology, this term is applied to the ap- 
 paratus supported by four bones which protects the gills of 
 fishes ; also to the horny or calcareous plate which closes 
 the aperture of univalve shells ; and to the four calcareous 
 pieces which defend the entrance to the tube of Balanites 
 or bell-barnacles. 
 
 OPHICLEI'DE. (Gr. o<Ji;, a serpent, and k\uc, a key.) 
 The largest brass wind instrument used in the orchestra of 
 the trumpet species, and forming the bass to that class of 
 instruments : its compass is from double B b to A b above the 
 line, in the bass clef, being three octaves. 
 
 OPHI'DIANS, Ophidia. (Gr. o0i?, and uSoi, form.) The 
 name of the order of reptiles which includes all the serpenti- 
 form species of that class, corresponding to the Amphibia 
 serpentes of Linnaeus. 
 
 O'PHIOMANCY. (Gr. o$i?, and uavraa, prophecy.) 
 
 The art of divination from serpents. Thus, the seven coils 
 
 of the serpent seen on the tomb of Anchises were held to 
 
 indicate the number of years of ^Eneas's future wanderings : 
 
 Septem etenim gyros, septena volumina traxit. 
 
 O'PIIITES. (Gr. o0<?.) The name of an early sect of 
 Christian heretics, who emanated from the Gnostics, so call- 
 ed from their worshipping the serpent that tempted Eve. 
 They considered the serpent as the father of all the sciences, 
 which, but for the temptation of our first parents, would 
 never have been known. (Mosheim, Keel. Hist., vol. i.) 
 
 OPIIIU'CHUS, or OPHIU'CUS ; also called Serpentarius. 
 One of the constellations of the northern hemisphere 
 
 OPHTHA'LMIA, or OPHTHALMI'TIS. (Gr. o 0OaX/<o?, 
 the eye.) Inflammation of the eye. This term is applied to 
 diseased action of various parts of the eye. In common cases 
 its seat is the conjunctiva membrane, and 1t is relieved by 
 fomentations of warm water or of decoction of poppy-heads, 
 by leeches, cupping, purging; and, in violent cases, these 
 depletive measures must sometimes be carried to a consider- 
 
 OPIUM. 
 
 able extent, and aided by blisters to the temple or nape of 
 the neck. Emetics have sometimes been of service. When 
 all inflammatory symptoms have subsided, local astringents, 
 and mild strengthening eye-waters, may be resorted to ; but 
 so long as any inflammation remains they should be most 
 cautiously applied. Sometimes the iris is the seat of in- 
 flammation. This is attended with fever, great intolerance 
 of light, and pain, and requires the same treatment. It 
 sometimes terminates in a small abscess, which discharges 
 its contents into the interior chamber of the eye, and the 
 sight is destroyed by the permanent damage done to the 
 part. 
 
 There is another form of ophthalmia in which the con- 
 junctiva and inner membrane of the eyelids becomes in- 
 flamed and purulent, as in the Egyptian ophthalmia, which 
 form of the disease is highly contagious. The swelling and 
 purulent inflammation of the eyelids is so great as to close 
 or distort them, and the ulceration sometimes extends over 
 the cornea; the humours escape, the whole organ is fright-' 
 fully disorganized, and the agony that attends the whole 
 progress of the worst form of the malady is indescribable. 
 The treatment originally resorted to consisted in bleeding 
 and purging: the plan afterwards adopted was to give nau- 
 seating doses of tartar emetic, to remove the granulations by 
 the scissors or knife, and afterwards to apply solutions of 
 nitrate of silver or alum to prevent their reproduction. 
 
 There is a variety of ophthalmia called metastatic, caused 
 by the translation of some other disease, such as gout, or by 
 the application of some morbid poison to the part. Its treat- 
 ment depends upon its origin. 
 
 The purulent opthalmia of new-born infants generally 
 yields to the skilful application of mild astringent eye-wa- 
 ters, and to gentle aperients. 
 
 After the smallpox and measles, and some fevers, espe- 
 cially in scrofulous habits, the glands of the eyelids form 
 a morbid secretion, which irritates and glues together the 
 parts. This disease has been termed psorophthalmia ; it 
 frequently yields to fomentation with warm water, to a drop 
 of vinous tincture of opium into the eye at bedtime, and to 
 the application of the ointment of nitrate of mercury or red 
 precipitate. 
 
 O'PIATE. (Gr. oiros, juice.) A medicine producing 
 sleep. See Anodyne. 
 
 OPISTHO'GRAPHUM. (Gr. oviaOtv, behind, and ypaQa, 
 I write.) In Classical Antiquity, a set of tickets, or roll of 
 parchment or paper, answering the purpose of a memoran- 
 dum book, or commonplace book, to enter notes and other 
 extemporary matters to be revised afterwards; so called 
 from being written over both on the front and back. Any 
 ordinary MS. in which the transcriber had employed both 
 the front and back of the papyrus was indeed an opistho- 
 graph, strictly so called; a practice to which allusion is 
 made in the well-known verse of Juvenal : 
 
 Scriptus et in tergo, nee dum finitus Orestes. 
 
 OPISTHOTONOS. (Gr. omo-dev, backwards, and reiva, 
 I draw.) A spasmodic action of the muscles, by which the 
 body is bent backwards. 
 
 O'PIUM. (Gr. oiro;, juice.) The inspissated juice of the 
 poppy, obtained by wounding the unripe seed capsules of 
 the Papaver somniferum, collecting the milky juice which 
 exudes and dries in the sun, and kneading it into cakes. 
 The cakes of the best opium are covered externally with 
 pieces of dried leaves and the seed capsules of some species 
 of Rumex. It should be of a rich brown colour, tough con- 
 sistency, and smooth uniform texture ; its peculiar narcotic 
 smell should be strong and fresh ; its taste bitter, warm, and 
 somewhat acrid. The chemical analysis of opium has ren- 
 dered it probable that its activity as a medicine depends 
 upon the presence of a peculiar alkaline base called morphia, 
 in combination with an acid which has been termed meconic 
 acid. Opium also contains narcotine, narceine, codein, gum 
 resin, extractive matter, and small portions of other proxi- 
 mate principles. 
 
 The chief countries in which opium is prepared are India, 
 Egypt, Turkey, and other parts of Asia ; it is even cultivated 
 in Italy, France, and England, but the climate of Europe 
 seems to be too uncertain to allow of its regular production. 
 Opium is pretty extensively used, both as a masticatory and 
 m smoking, in Turkey and India; but its great consumption 
 is in China and the surrounding countries, where the habit 
 of smoking it has become all but universal. The supplies 
 for the Chinese market are derived from India and Turkey, 
 but chiefly from the former. Indian opium is distinguished 
 into three kinds : the Patna or that grown in the province of 
 Bahar, the Bernares, and the Malwa; of which the first is 
 in the highest repute. The cultivation of opium in India is 
 a strict government monopoly. Every one who chooses 
 may, within the prescribed regulations, engage in the opium 
 cultivation ; but the drug, when prepared, must all be sold 
 to the government at a fixed price, which is said to be so far 
 from remunerating the growers that, were it not for the 
 
 851
 
 OPOBALSAM. 
 
 advances which government are obliged to make to ena- | 
 ble them to carry on the business, the cultivation of opi- 
 um would be discontinued in the greater portion of India. 
 This monopoly bas sometimes yielded a nett revenue of 
 .£1,000,000 a year. This revenue has, however, of late 
 years materially decreased, owing to the introduction into 
 China of large supplies of opium from Turkey, into which 
 it is found impossible to extend the monopoly. The East 
 India opium is exported in chests of 159$ lbs. each. The in- 
 troduction of opium into China was a legitimate branch of 
 traffic down to the close of the last century. Ever since 
 that period, however, the trade has been contraband ; but 
 though the Chinese government has issued edict upon edict 
 prohibiting the importation of the drug, the consumption of 
 Indian opium in China has, in little more than forty yean, 
 risen from 1000 to about 27,000 chests per annum. Such an 
 extraordinary increase in a trade prohibited by law is at- 
 tributable only to the corruption of the Chinese authorities. 
 At first the trade was carried on at Whampoa, fifteen miles 
 below Canton ; and next at Macao, whence it was driven 
 by the exactions of the Portuguese ; and the principal en- 
 trepflt was, till the recent outbreak of hostilities between the 
 British and Chinese, in the bay of Lintin. The opium is 
 kept on board ships, commonly called receiving ships, of 
 which there are often ten or twelve lying together at anchor. 
 The sales are mostly effected by the English and American 
 agents in Canton, who give orders for the delivery of the 
 opium ; which, on the order being produced, is handed over 
 to the Chinese smuggler, who comes alongside at night to 
 receive it. Frequently, however, the smuggler purchases 
 the opium on his own account, paying for it on the spot 
 in silver, it being a rule of the trade never violated that the 
 money must be paid before the opium is delivered. When 
 the drug is landed, the laws are equally set at defiance in 
 its progress through the country, smoking houses being, it is 
 said, everywhere established. During the first ten years of 
 the present century, the exports from India to China were 
 about 2500 chests.' In 1821-1822, after the introduction of 
 Malwa opium into the markets of Bombay and Calcutta, the 
 exports increased to 4028 chests ; and owing no doubt to the 
 greatly increased supply and lower price of the article, the 
 exports in 1831-1832 exceeded 20,000 chests, worth more than 
 13,000,000 dollars ; and in 1837-1838 exceeded 30,000 chests, 
 worth 20,000,000 dollars. In the beginning of 1839 the 
 Chinese authorities resorted to decided measures to put a 
 stop to opium smuggling ; but the hostilities that consequent- 
 ly ensued between the two nations not having yet been com- 
 posed, we shall not venture to enter upon so intricate a ques- 
 tion, but shall merely observe, that whatever may be the re- 
 sult of the negotiations now pending, no system of restriction, 
 how rigorous soever, will, in all probability, ever be able to 
 check the smuggling of opium into China, where the popular 
 tastes and habits are so decidedly in its favour. The opium 
 consumed in England is derived chiefly from Turkey ; but 
 the supply is liable to great fluctuations. Thus, in 1830, the 
 quantity imported from Turkey amounted to 192,136 lbs. ; 
 in the following year, to 8,184 lbs. ; in 1833, to 72,020 lbs. ; 
 and in 1834, to 12,438 lbs. This remark is applicable to all 
 the other places whence opium is imported into England, as 
 well as to the quantity annually re-exported from England. 
 Previously to 1828, the duty upon opium was 9s. per lb. ; 
 but in that year it was reduced to 4s. ; and again in 1836 to 
 1«., where it has since remained. 
 
 O'POBA'l.SA.M. (Gr. or.oc, juice, and ($a\aauov, bal- 
 sam.) Balsam or balm of Gilead. A compound of resin 
 and essential oil of a peculiar fragrancy. It exudes from a 
 species of .Imyris. 
 
 OPODE'LDOC. A term invented and formerly applied 
 by Paracelsus to a plaster for all external injuries ; but in 
 modern usage it signifies a liniment made by dissolving soap 
 in alcohol, with the addition of camphor and volatile oils. 
 
 OPO POXAX. A gum resin, having a peculiar and 
 rather disagreeable odour, formerly used in medicine. It is 
 the produce of the Pastinaea opoponar. 
 
 OPO'SSUM. The common name of the Marsupial quad- 
 rupeds of the genus Didelphis, characterized by three kinds 
 of teeth, viz. incisors, canines, and molars ; by hinder hands, 
 and a prehensile tail. With this organization the opossums, 
 as might be expected, arc arboreal in their habits; .and feed 
 on a mixed diet, in which animal food preponderates. The 
 larger specie! have a well-developed nbdominal pouch, in 
 which the young are received at a singularly early stnee of 
 development. In some of the smaller opossums the cha- 
 racteristic pouch is nearly rudimentary, and the young are 
 carried by the parent on the back, where they cling to the 
 fur, and likewise hold on by entwining their little prehensile 
 tails round that of the mother: the name Didelphis iorsi- 
 gera is on this account given to one of the species. The 
 true opossums are now limited to the American continent; 
 but during the Eocene period, there were species of Vidil- 
 phi< in both France and England. 
 
 OrPO.-MTIoX. ;Lat. oppositio.) In a general sense, 
 652 
 
 OPTICS. 
 
 the fact of being in a state of contrary action or dwarree- 
 m. ut. In Politics, the name given in Great Britain to the 
 party in parliament opposed to the administration for the 
 time being, and which would most likely succeed to powef 
 were it displaced. A party in parliament which, though 
 opposed to government has no chance of succeeding to 
 power were ministers dismissed, is not usually characterized 
 by the term Opposition. 
 
 Opposition, in Astronomy, denotes the aspect of two 
 bodies when diametrically opposite to each other. Thus, 
 the moon, or a planet, is said to be in opposition with the 
 sun when it passes the meridian at midnight. 
 Opposition. In the Fine Arts, contrast ; which see. 
 OPS. In Mythology, the Latin appellation of the Grecian 
 goddess Rhea or Cybele; which see. 
 
 OPSIO'METER". (Gr. 6\pts, sight, and ucrpov, measure.) 
 An instrument for measuring the extent of the limits of dis- 
 tinct vision in different individuals, and consequently for 
 determining the focal length of lenses necessary to correct 
 imperfections of the eye. A contrivance for this purpose, 
 by M. Lehot, is described in the Annates des Sciences d' Ob- 
 servation for June 1829, and in the X'otes by M. Quetelet to 
 the French translation of Uerschel's Treatise on Light. 
 Its principle depends on the appearance presented by a 
 straight line placed very near the eye, in the direction of 
 its axis ; and the principle is carried into practice by placing 
 a thread of white silk on a narrow rule covered with black 
 velvet, and furnished with a suitable apparatus for marking 
 the exact points at which the thread begins and ceases to 
 be distinctly seen, when held in a certain position with 
 respect to the eye. An instrument for the same purpose, on 
 a different principle, had formerly been suggested by Dr. 
 Young. 
 OPTATIVE MOOD. See Grammar. 
 OPTIC XERYES. The second pair of nerves. They 
 arise from the tha/ami nervorum opticorum, and, perforating 
 the bulb of the eye, form the retina. 
 
 O'PTICS. (Gr. o-nTouai, I see.) That branch of physical 
 science which treats of light and vision. 
 
 The theory of light and the different hypotheses respect- 
 ing its propagation, having been explained under the term 
 Light, and its most remarkable properties being described 
 under their respective heads (Chromatics. Diffraction, 
 Interference, Polarization, Reflexion, Refraction, 
 &c), we shall here confine ourselves to the explanation of 
 the phenomena and laws of vision, and the formation of 
 images; and this, in fact, comprehends all that is meant by 
 Optics, in the strict sense of the word. 
 
 Description of the Eye. — The human eye is of a spherical 
 form, having a slight projection in front. 
 The annexed figure represents a hori- 
 zontal section of it through its axis. It 
 consists of three principal chambers, 
 filled with different humours, or trans- 
 parent media of different refractive pow- 
 ers. The first of these media, occupy- 
 ing the anterior chamber A, is called 
 the aqueous humour, and consists al- 
 most entirely of pure water. The cell 
 in which the aqueous humour is contained is bounded on 
 its anterior side by a strong horny transparent substance, 
 called the cornea, the figure of which is an ellipsis of revo- 
 lution about its major axis. The posterior side of the cell ia 
 formed by the iris, a kind of circular, opaque screen, con- 
 sisting of muscular fibres by the contraction or expansion of 
 which an aperture in its centre, called the pupil, is increased 
 or diminished according to the illumination, in order to pro- 
 tect the eye and preserve its sensibility by equalizing the 
 quantity of light admitted into it. The second biunour, 
 called the crystalline lens, B, enclosed in its capsule, lies 
 immediately behind the pupil. Its figure is a solid of revo- 
 lution, having its anterior surface much less curved than 
 the posterior; and both surfaces are ellipsoids of revolu- 
 tion about their lesser axes. The crystalline is somewhat 
 denser towards the centre than at the outside; the increase 
 Of density serving to correct the aberration, by shortening 
 the focus of the rays near the centre. The third or vitreous 
 humour, C, fills the posterior chamber of the eye. This 
 fluid scarcely differs from the aqueous humour, either in 
 specific gravity, or chemical composition, or refractive 
 power. 
 
 The following are the refractive powers of the different 
 humours of the eye, according to Sir David Brewster, the 
 ray of light being incident on them from air: — 
 
 Vi'reouj 
 Ituniour. 
 
 1-3394 
 
 Aqueoul 
 Humour. 
 1-336 
 
 Crystalline Lens. 
 Surface. Centre. Mean. 
 
 1-3767 1-3990 13879 
 
 Rut as the rays refracted by the aqueous humour pass into 
 the crystalline, and from the crystalline into the vitreous 
 humour, the indices of refraction "of the separating surfaces 
 of these humours will bo —
 
 OPTICS. 
 
 Prom aqueous humour to outer coat of crystalline - V0466 
 From ditto to crystalline, using the mean index - T0353 
 From viterous to crystalline outer coat - ru445 
 
 From ditto to ditto, using the mean index - - L0332 
 (" Optics," Cab. Cyclopedia.) 
 
 The posterior surface of the cell of the vitreous humour 
 Is covered by the retina, d, a network of inconceivably deli- 
 cate nerves, all branching from tile optic nerve, O, which 
 enters the eye obliquely at the inner side of the orbit, next 
 the nose. The retina lines the whole of the cavity C from 
 r to r, at which points the capsule of the crystalline com- 
 mences. Its nerves are immersed in the pigmentum nigrum, 
 a very black velvety matter which covers the choroid mem- 
 brane, and the use of whicli is to absorb and stifle all the 
 light which enters the eye as soon as it has done its office 
 of exciting the retina; thus preventing internal reflections, 
 and consequent confusion of vision. The whole of these 
 humours and membranes are contained in a thick tough 
 coat, called the sclerotica, which unites with the cornea, 
 and forms what is commonly called the white of the eye. 
 The spot at which the optic nerve, O, enters the eye is 
 totally insensible to the stimulus of light, and is therefore 
 called the punctum cecum. (Herschel on Light, Ency. 
 Metr.) 
 
 From this description of the eye it is evident that light, 
 in passing through it, must undergo a series of refractions, 
 in the same manner as in passing through a system of 
 lenses. When a pencil of luminous rays, proceeding from 
 an exterior point, passes through the transparent cornea, 
 and penetrates the aqueous humour, the divergence of the 
 rays is diminished by this first refraction. The rays which 
 pass through the pupil undergo a second refraction at the 
 anterior surface of the crystalline, which renders them fur- 
 ther convergent ; and, on leaving the crystalline and pass- 
 ing into the vitreous humour, they acquire their final degree 
 of convergence, and proceed to form an image at a focus on 
 the retina, or very near that membrane. Experience and 
 calculation prove that when vision takes place with the 
 least effort, the luminous point (or any very small object on 
 which the eye is fixed) is at such a distance from the eye 
 that the rays enter the eye with precisely that degree of 
 divergence which is required, in order that after suffering 
 the several refractions they may be brought to meet in a 
 point on the retina itself. Hence it has been concluded that 
 the sensation of sight is caused by the impression made by 
 light on the retina, when it is concentrated on it in a single 
 point or within a very small space. 
 The image of an object on the retina is evidently inverted 
 with respect to the position of 
 the object itself; for the ray pro- 
 ceeding from the upper extre- 
 mity of an object, a, falls on the 
 lower extremity a' of the image 
 on the retina. Writers on optics 
 have often puzzled themselves 
 ■with attempts to explain the cause of erect vision from an 
 inverted image ; the subject, however, is not worth the dis- 
 cussion which has been expended on it. "Erect," says Sir 
 J. Herschel, "means nothing more than having the head 
 farther from the ground, and the feet nearer than any other 
 part. Now the earth, and the objects which stand on it, 
 preserve the same relative situation in the picture on the 
 retina that they do in nature. In that picture, it is true, 
 men stand with their heads downwards, but then, at the 
 same time, heavy bodies fall upwards; and the mind, or 
 its deputy the nerve, which is present in every part of the 
 picture, judges only of the relations of its parts to one an- 
 other. How these parts are related to external objects is 
 known only by experience, and judged of at the instant only 
 by habit." 
 
 Another circumstance, the cause of which has also been 
 much discussed, is, that although an image of each object 
 at which we look is formed on the retina of both eyes, the 
 object appears single. Single vision with two eyes is at- 
 tributed, by Dr. Smith, to the habit of referring the two im- 
 pressions made on corresponding points of the two retinas 
 to the same object ; and, in fact, if we press slightly on the 
 cornea of one eye, so as to derange its optical axis, the two 
 images, being no longer on parts of the retina which habit- 
 ually correspond, will appear double. Those who have 
 had one eye distorted by a blow, see double till habit has 
 taught them anew to see single, though the distortion re- 
 mains. (For a review of the various theories that have 
 been proposed to account for this phenomenon, the reader 
 may be referred to a paper on the Physiology of Vision, by 
 Professor Wheatstone, in the Phil. Trans, for 1838). 
 
 Straight lines drawn from the extremities of an object a J 
 meet in a point c, nearly in the centre of the pupil, in the 
 plane of the iris, which point is called the optical centre of 
 the eye, and form the angle act, which is called the visual 
 angle. On leaving the crystalline and entering the vitreous 
 humour, the rays are slightly refracted, and form another 
 72 
 
 angle, a'cb', the base of which is the magnitude of the 
 image on the retina. These two angles are not perfectly 
 equal ; so that a' b', the magnitude of the image on the 
 retina, or the apparent magnitude, is not exactly propor- 
 tional to the real magnitude, ab, for a given distance. But 
 the difference is so small that it may in general be neglected, 
 and then the visual angle becomes the measure of the ap- 
 parent magnitude ; or the apparent magnitude of an object 
 is proportional to its linear magnitude divided by its distance 
 from the eye. 
 
 As the judgment which we form of the real magnitude 
 of a distant object depends not only on the apparent magni- 
 tude, but also on our estimation of its distance, an erroneous 
 estimate of the distance will necessarily produce an illusion 
 with respect to the magnitude. Such illusions are frequent 
 in the night time, when the darkness prevents us from 
 distinguishing the real places of objects and their rela- 
 tive positions. An unusual increase or deficiency of the 
 transparency of the atmosphere produces the same effect ; 
 and at sea, where little assistance can be derived from the 
 appearance of intervening objects, it requires a particular 
 training of the eye to judge correctly of distances. 
 
 The effect of light on the eye has a sensible duration after 
 the eye is shut, or the luminous object removed. Dunng 
 the twinkling of the eye, we never lose sight of the object 
 on which we are looking; and if a burning stick be attach- 
 ed to the extremity of a string, and whirled rapidly round, 
 a complete circle of light appears. This persistence of light 
 on the retina gives rise to a great number of illusions ; such 
 as the apparent augmentation of volume of a musical chord 
 when in rapid vibration, the train of light which appears 
 to accompany falling meteors, &c. It was estimated by 
 D'Arcy that the light of a live coal, whirled round at the 
 distance of 165 feet, maintained its impression during the 
 seventh part of a second. Experiments, however, of a 
 more accurate kind, have shown that this time is not con- 
 stant, but is influenced by several circumstances. Light 
 must act on the eye for some continuance of time in order 
 to produce a complete impression ; and it is found that the 
 time during which the impression that has been produced 
 can preserve an equal intensity after the action of light has 
 ceased, is greater in proportion as the impression is less 
 intense. On the contrary, the whole duration of the im- 
 pression is greater as the light is more intense. If the im- 
 pression has been made by a strongly illuminated object, as 
 the setting sun, it often passes through a series of different 
 colours ; in other circumstances, it disappears, and is renew- 
 ed after some seconds ; disappears again, and so on several 
 times in succession. 
 
 The eye possesses considerable power of adjusting its 
 parts so as to give distinct vision for all distances within 
 certain limits. The first of these limits is the least distance 
 from the eye at which small objects, as the print of a book, 
 can be seen without effort ; and the second, the distance at 
 which the image of the object becomes confused. The 
 space between these limits is the field of vision ; but both 
 its extent and distance from the eye vary considerably with 
 respect to different individuals, and sometimes even with 
 respect to the two eyes of the same individual. From the 
 known dimensions of the eye, and the refractive powers of 
 its different substances, it is found by calculation that the 
 focal distances of two luminous points, situated at the two 
 limits of the field of vision, differ by about one sixth part of 
 the diameter of the eye. 
 
 All the refractions which take place in the interior of the 
 eye are in the same direction ; consequently the eye, regard- 
 ed as an optical instrument, is not achromatic. The ab- 
 sence of colour about the images formed on the retina, ex- 
 cepting in very particular cases, is to be ascribed in part to 
 the small breadth of the pencil of luminous rays which 
 passes through the pupil, but principally to the small focal 
 distance of the eye; in consequence of which the unequally 
 refrangible rays can never be much separated from each 
 other. It has also been surmised (Coddington's Optics) that 
 a compensation takes place between the refractions at the 
 cornea and the crystalline, a ray which is less refracted by 
 the former being more refracted by the latter, in conse- 
 quence of its passing through it at a greater distance from 
 the axis. 
 
 Distinct vision depending on the convergence of the lu- 
 minous rays which proceed from an object to a focus on 
 the retina, it follows that if, from any defect in the original 
 structure of the eye, or any deterioration of its form or 
 powers, the rays which enter the pupil are not rendered 
 sufficiently convergent to meet at the retinn, or are rendered 
 too much so, and thereby brought to a focus before they 
 reach the retina, an imperfect and indistinct image will be 
 produced. It happens with most persons, between the ages 
 of thirty and fifty, that the crystalline lens begins to undergo 
 a change, by which not only its form, but also its density 
 and refractive power, are altered in such a manner as to 
 leave it capable of affording distinct vision only of very 
 
 853
 
 OPTIMATES. 
 
 remote objects. This defect is remedied by a convex lens, 
 which makes up for the flatness of the crystalline, anil ren- 
 ders parallel rays slightly convergent before entering the 
 eye. Let a b be an object, c the lens, and e the centre of the 
 eye, and suppose the object to be placed at the focal distance 
 of the lens. Since the object is at the focus, the rays of a 
 pencil diverging from any point a in it will emerge parallel 
 to each other and tone; they will therefore, after refraction 
 in the eye, he brought 
 to converge on the re- 
 tina at a point a', such 
 that en' is parallel to 
 ac. Similarly, rays 
 from b, after refrac- 
 tion through the lens 
 and the eye, will con- 
 verge to the point b', such that e b' Is parallel to be. Thus, 
 a distinct image a' b' will be formed on the retina, and the 
 apparent angular magnitude of the object seen through the 
 lens will be the angle a' e b', which is equal to a c b, the angle 
 subtended by the object at the centre of the lens, and there- 
 fore greater than the angle subtended by the object at e, 
 the centre of the eye. Hence the image appears enlarged; 
 but the nearer the lens is to the eye, the less will be the 
 difference between the apparent magnitudes of the image 
 as seen with and without the lens. When such lenses are 
 employed in the form of spectacles, the enlargement of the 
 Image (which in this case is not intended) is hardly sen- 
 sible, because the lens is commonly of low power, and be- 
 cause the person who must use it, to see distinctly, cannot 
 easily make a comparison between the appearance of an 
 object seen with or without the lens. The lenses of spec- 
 tacles ought to be of the meniscus form (see Lens), in order 
 to refract, without much indistinctness, pencils coming to 
 the eye with any degree of obliquity. Such spectacles are 
 called prriscopic, and their advantage was first pointed out 
 by Dr. Wollaston. 
 
 Sometimes the eye is so formed that its power of giving 
 convergence is too great, and the rays are brought to a 
 focus before they reach the retina. Persons having this 
 defect are called shortsighted, from their inability to see 
 distant objects distinctly. It arises from an increase of 
 density in the central part of the crystalline ; and its incon- 
 venience is obviated by a concave lens, which increases 
 the divergence of the rays before they enter the eye. For 
 the same reason as mentioned above, the lens should be of 
 the convexo-concave form, that is, convex on the outer 
 side, and concave on the inner side, the curvature of the 
 latter being greater than that of the former. This lens 
 diminishes the apparent magnitude of objects, but the effect 
 is scarcely sensible. (Smith's Optics; HerschePs Treatise 
 on Light, Ency. Mctropolitana ; Brewster's Optics, Cabinet 
 Cyclo. ; Coddington's Optics ; Lame, Course dc Physique.) 
 For optical instruments, see Lens, Microscope, Tele- 
 scope, &.C. 
 
 V OPTIMATES. (Lat.) A word sometimes used to de- 
 note the Roman nobility, in contradistinction to the ple- 
 beians, or populares. 
 
 O'PTIMISM. In Moral Philosophy and Theology, the 
 system which regards physical and moral evil as elements 
 of the universal order of things ; so that everything is good, 
 viewed in relation to the whole ; or, in the ordinary phrase, 
 in which the doctrine is expressed, "all is for the best." 
 This system was justified, with philosophical inductions, by 
 Leibnitz, in his Theodiceai (which see), and is popularly 
 illustrated by Pope, in his Essay on Man; but it is best 
 known (as far as the name is concerned) by the irony of 
 Voltaire, in his celebrated romance of Candide. The opti- 
 mism of Leibnitz was based on the following trilemma : 
 If this world be not the best possible, God must either — 1, not 
 have known how to make a better; Q, not have been able; 
 3, not have chosen. The first position contradicts his om- 
 niscience, the second bis omnipotence, the third his benevo- 
 lence. (See Creuier ; Leibnitui Uoctrina de Mundo Opti- 
 mo. Lips. I7'.l. r ).j 
 
 O'PTIMUS MAXIMUS. Epithets assigned to Jupiter by 
 the ancient Romans to indicate his superlative greatness and 
 
 go ullir-s. 
 
 O'PTION. (Lat. opto, / icish, or r hoose.) In Ecclesias- 
 tical Law, a prerogative of the archbishops of the church 
 of England. Every bishop is bound, immediately after bis 
 confirmation, to make a legal conveyance to the archbishop 
 of the next avoidance of any one benefice or dignity belong 
 Ing to his sec which the archbishop may choose (whence 
 the name). If the archbishop die before the avoidance hap- 
 pens, the right of filling it up passes to his executors or ad- 
 ministrators. 
 
 Option, at the Stock Exchange, signifies a per centage 
 given for "the option" of putting or calling, «'. e., selling or 
 buying, shirk in time bargain* at a certain price. 
 
 OPU'NTIA. In Botany, the name given to those Cacta- 
 ceous plants commonly called Indian figs. Their stems 
 854 
 
 ORACLES. 
 
 consist of flat joints, broader at the upper than at the lower 
 end, becoming, however, eventually both continuous and 
 cylindrical. Their native country is South America ; hut in 
 some places the lava of Mount Etna is covered wiih them, 
 and the large purple juicy fruits which they yield find con- 
 siderable sale in the Sicilian markets. The cochineal in- 
 sect (Opuntia cochenillifcra) is fed on one of the varieties 
 of Opuntia. 
 
 OR. (Fr. gold.) In Heraldry, one of the metals employ- 
 ed in blazonry. It is equivalent to topaz among precious 
 stones, and Sol among planets. In engraving, it is represent- 
 ed by a surface sprinkled with equidistant dots. 
 
 ORA. An old Saxon coin, valued at sixteen pence, and 
 sometimes, according to variation of the standard, at twenty 
 pence. The word is of frequent occurrence in Domesday 
 Booh, and in the old records of the kingdom. 
 
 O'RACLE. (Lat. oraculum; from os, a mouth.) The 
 name primarily given to the response delivered by the an- 
 cient heathen divinities to those who consulted them re- 
 specting the future, but afterwards npplied both to the place 
 where responses were given as well as to the divinities from 
 whom the responses were supposed to proceed. To the de- 
 sire so natural to man to obtain a glimpse into futurity, 
 coupled with the ennobling belief that his destiny was pre- 
 determined in a higher sphere, is doubtless to be traced the 
 origin of the art of divination, which has in all, but more 
 especially in the earlier stages of society, exercised so pow- 
 erful an influence over the human mind. But, of all the 
 modes of divination, that by consulting the oracle was the 
 most popular. In other cases, as the interpretation of events 
 depended on man alone, there might be mistake or decep- 
 tion ; but in the oracle, when the deity was believed to pro- 
 nounce either in his own voice or in that of a consecrated 
 agent, it was supposed there could be none. Hence oracles 
 obtained such credit and celebrity in antiquity, but more es- 
 pecially among the Greeks, that they were resorted to on 
 every occasion of doubt and emergency, both by princes and 
 states, as well as by private individuals. 
 
 The general characteristics of oracles were ambiguity, 
 obscurity, and convertibility ; so that one answer would 
 agree with several various and sometimes directly opposite 
 events. Thus, when Crcesus was on the point of invading 
 the Medes, he consulted the oracle of Delphi as to the suc- 
 cess of the enterprise, and received for answer*, that by 
 passing the river Halys he would ruin a great empire. But 
 whether it was his own empire or that of his enemies that 
 was destined to be ruined was not intimated ; and, in either 
 case, the oracle could not fail to be right. The answer of 
 tile oracle to Pyrrhus is another well-known instance of 
 this sort of ambiguity, 
 
 Aio, te, JEacida, Romanes vincere posse, 
 
 as it might either be interpreted in favour of or against 
 Pyrrhus. This ambiguity and equivocation was not, how- 
 ever, the worst feature that characterized the oracles of an- 
 tiquity. They were at once ambiguous and venal. A rich 
 or a powerful individual seldom found much difficulty in ob- 
 taining a response favourable to his projects, how unjust or 
 objectionable soever. Such, for instance, were unquestion- 
 ably the motives that dictated the favourable responses of 
 the Pythia at Delphi to Philip of Macedon, which drew from 
 Demosthenes the famous declaration, that the goddess Pkil- 
 ippiscd. But such and so powerful is the influence of su- 
 perstition, that this system of fraud and imposture maintain- 
 ed a lengthened ascendency, and the interested responses i if 
 the oracles frequently sufficed to excite bloody wars, and to 
 spread desolation through extensive states. 
 
 The first oracles had their origin in the East, at a period 
 to which the monuments of profane history do not ascend. 
 The most ancient oracle is supposed to be that of Meroe ; to 
 which were afterwards added those of Thebes and Amnion, 
 in all of which places the worship of Jupiter Amnion pre- 
 vailed. From the Egyptians the use of oracles, along with 
 a knowledge of many arts and sciences, passed to the Greeks, 
 who soon surpassed every other nation both in the number 
 and celebrity of their oracles. It has been affirmed that no 
 fewer than three hundred oracles were established in differ- 
 ent parts of Greece; but of those the oracles of Jupiter at 
 Dodona, of Apollo at Delphi, and of Trophonius near Leba- 
 deia (see these articles), may be mentioned as having en- 
 joyed the highest reputation. f The oracles of antiquity had 
 many leading features in common ; but there were also sev- 
 eral peculiarities about them, of which the variety of modes 
 
 * The Greek Terse is, 
 
 Kpotooc AXvv iiafiac pcyaXriv apxw Kara^vcci. 
 Thus renden d it Latin, 
 
 Croesus Halyn superans ma^narum evertet opum vim. 
 t It does not appear th»t the Romans »»cr had regularly established orv 
 rtrs anion* themselves j but on various inipnriint niu-rseneies they had re- 
 course to those of Greece, and cspecia' y to that of Delphi. (Liv. v., 
 13, lie.)
 
 ORAL. 
 
 in which the oracular responses were delivered is one of the 
 most striking. At Delphi responses were delivered by the 
 Pythia, at Amnion by the priests, and at Dodona they issued 
 from the hollow of an oak. Sometimes the response was 
 communicated by letter, sometimes the desired information 
 could only be obtained by casting lots ; and sometimes the 
 divinities chose to announce their will by dreams, visions, 
 and preternatural voices. 
 
 Among the Jews there were several sorts of oracles : of 
 these the Urim and Thummim (which see) bore a striking 
 analogy to the heathen oracles; and the oracle of Bath-Kol, 
 or Daughter of the Voice (mentioned in the Talmud, and 
 other Jewish works), which originated after the time of 
 Malachi, may be regarded as completely identical with them. 
 The Old Testament teems with instances of the other spe- 
 cies of oracles, in which supernatural revelations were made 
 by means of dreams and visions ; but every rational mind, 
 even apart from scriptural authority, can at once perceive 
 the wide distinction between the divine revelations vouch- 
 safed in this manner to the Jews in ancient times, and the 
 jugglery practised on the Gentile nations by the avarice and 
 cunning of the priests. There are two points respecting ora- 
 cles which have given rise to much controversy : viz. 
 w r hether oracular responses ought to be ascribed to mere 
 human ingenuity or to diabolical agency ; and at what time 
 responses ceased altogether to be given. With regard to the 
 first point, most of the Christian fathers were of opinion that 
 they ought to be attributed to diabolical machinations; but 
 those who wish to see these arguments satisfactorily disposed 
 of may consult, among others, the treatises of Ant. Van 
 Dale, De Oraculis Ethnicorum, 1683, and of Fontenelle, 
 Histoire des Oracles, 1669. With regard to the other ques- 
 tion, at what time the oracles ceased to give responses, it 
 has been frequently asserted that they became silent ever 
 after the birth of Christ. Eusebius was the first who main- 
 tained this opinion ; and many writers of great celebrity, 
 anxious to do homage to the great Author of Christianity, 
 have supported his views. In the Hymn of the Nativity, the 
 most beautiful of his minor poems, Milton, in allusion to this 
 theory, says, 
 
 The oracles are dumb, 
 
 No i 
 
 ■ hide 
 
 ugh the arched roof in words deceiving. 
 Apollo from his shrine 
 Can no more divine, 
 
 With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaviDg. 
 No nightly trance or breathed spell 
 Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell. 
 
 It appears, however, from the edicts of the emperors 
 Theodosius, Gratian, and Valentinian, that oracles existed, 
 and were occasionally at least consulted, down to A.D. 328. 
 For several centuries previously they had been gradually 
 sinking in public esteem, but at that period they entirely 
 ceased ; and there can be little doubt that this desirable con- 
 summation was mainly effected by the enlightening power 
 of Christianity, and by the influence which even at so early 
 a period it had acquired over a large portion of the then 
 civilized world. (In addition to the works already quoted, 
 see MCulloch's Geo. Diet., art. "Delphi;" Clavier, Mem. 
 sur les Oracles des Jlnciens, 1819, &c.) 
 
 O'RAL, Oralis. (Lat. os, a mouth.) This term is applied 
 to the various parts which form or relate to the mouth of 
 animals. 
 
 ORA'NG, in the Malay language, signifies man ; orang- 
 utan is the man of the woods. It is by this term that we 
 commonly designate the Indian or red orang. (Simia saty- 
 rus, Linn.) This species inhabits the great islands of Bor- 
 neo and Sumatra, and attains the height of from four to five 
 feet, measured in a straight line from the vertex to the heel. 
 It has neither tail, cheek-pouches, nor ischial callosites; 
 but has an appendix to the ccecum coli, as in man. It wants 
 the ligament of the hip joint, and acquires an enormous 
 laryngeal pouch when full grown. See Chimpanzee. 
 
 O'RANGE. The well-known fruit of the orange tree, the 
 Citrus aurnntium of botanists. India and China are the 
 native countries of the orange ; and the Portuguese are en- 
 titled to the honour of having transferred the plant to other 
 countries. The principal varieties of the orange tree are the 
 orange, the lime, the lemon, and the citron, fruits which 
 have now become so common as to give a tropical charac- 
 ter to the dessert. The orange is not considered to have 
 been grown in Europe till the 14th century; and in England 
 they have been cultivated in conservatories since 1492. 
 They are propagated either by seeds, by cuttings, bv layers, 
 by grafting, or by inoculation ; but the plants grown from 
 seeds require so long to come to perfection that they are 
 seldom so propagated in England. Oranges are imported 
 into this country in chests and boxes packed separately in 
 paper. The best are brought from the Azores and Spain ;'but 
 very good ones also come from Portugal, Italy, Malta, and 
 other places. The orange trade carried on by this country 
 is of considerable value and importance. Not only is the 
 fruit held in high estimation, but, from the extreme pro- 
 
 ORATORIO. 
 
 i ductiveness of the tree, it is sold at a price little more, and 
 sometimes even less, expensive than our ordinary domestic 
 fruits. The entries for home consumption at an average of 
 the three years ending 1838, amounted to about 260,000 
 boxes ; each box containing about 700 lemons and oranges ; 
 the duty amounted to about £60,000 a year. The peel of 
 the orange when preserved is a well-known article of con- 
 fectionary ; its flowers yield an essential oil scarcely less es- 
 teemed as a perfume than the celebrated ottar of roses ; 
 while, as if nature had intended every part of it for the use 
 of man, the wood of the tree is susceptible of the highest 
 polish, and is extensively employed in the arts. 
 
 O'RANGEMEN. The name given to the society insti- 
 tuted in Ireland in 1795 to uphold the Protestant religion and 
 ascendancy, and for the discouragement of Catholicism. It 
 had office-bearers, a secret organization, distinctive or orange 
 colours, and occasional processions. It was at length sup- 
 pressed by act of parliament in 1836. 
 
 ORANGERY. A kind of gallery, in a garden or parterre, 
 to preserve orange trees in during the winter season. For 
 trees in large boxes a proportionably large and lofty house 
 is requisite ; it may be opaque on the north side, with a 
 glass roof, front, and ends, of any convenient or desired 
 length, width, and height. For one of moderate size, the 
 height at the back wall may be fifteen feet, at front ten feet, 
 and the width of the house fifteen feet. The floor may be 
 either perfectly level, and the boxes placed on it, the largest 
 behind, so as their tops may form a slope to the front glass, 
 as in the conservatory of Prince Borghese at Rome ; or if 
 the trees are young, a stage may be erected for a few years, 
 in order to raise the plants to the light: but if the trees are 
 of a considerable size, the best way is to have square pits in 
 the floor at regular distances, somewhat larger than each 
 box, and in these to sink the boxes, covering them with 
 mould, sand, or moss, nearly to the level of the pavement, 
 so that each tree so placed and dressed will appear as if 
 placed in a small compartment of earth. Such is the plan 
 of the large conservatory in the royal gardens at Monza. 
 The walk, unless where a stage is adopted, should be in the 
 middle of the house, with corresponding doors in each end ; 
 but where the trees are young, and placed on a stage, like 
 greenhouse plants, the walk should be in front, as in no 
 other situation could the eye of the spectator meet the foli- 
 age of the plants. Where the walk is in the middle, and a 
 double row of trees on each side, as at Monza, the effect in 
 winter is truly magnificent and gratifying. 
 
 Where the trees are to be planted as standards in the bor- 
 ders or floor of the house, it is essentially requisite to the 
 health and beauty of the plants that the building be glazed 
 on all sides. Showers might be supplied in Loddiges's man- 
 ner ; heat by steam, hot water, or flues ; and in winter the 
 beds might be covered with turf, strowed with daisies, vio- 
 lets, and primroses: these would come early into flower; 
 and if the turf were kept very short about the roots of the 
 flowering plants, and the trees in excellent condition, only 
 those who have seen the first-rate regularly planted stand- 
 ard orange groves of Nervi could form an idea of the enect, 
 which, by contrast with the external winter, would be felt as 
 luxurious, and as anticipating real spring. An orangery is 
 distinguished from a conservatory by its having an opaque 
 roof, while that of the latter is glazed. The orangery at 
 Versailles is the most magnificent that ever was built. 
 
 ORATO'RIO. (Ital., from Lat. oratorium, a small chapel; 
 which again is derived from orare, to pray.) A sacred mu- 
 sical composition, consisting of airs, recitatives, duets, trios, 
 choruses, &c, the subject of which is generally taken from 
 scripture. The text is usually in a dramatic form, as in 
 Handel's Samson ; but it sometimes takes the form of a 
 narrative, as in Israel in Egypt; occasionally it is of a 
 mixed character, as in Haydn's Creation ; and sometimes it 
 consists merely of detached passages from scripture, as in 
 the Messiah. The origin of oratorios has been variously as- 
 scribed ; but the most prevalent opinion regards them as 
 originally founded upon the spiritual songs and dialogues 
 which were sung or recited by the priests of the oratory. 
 (See Oratory.) The more recent introduction of this spe- 
 cies of musical drama is on all sides attributed to St. Phi- 
 lippo Neri, about the middle of the 16th century; but ora- 
 torios, properly so called, were not produced till about a 
 century afterwards. At first the persons introduced were 
 sometimes ideal, sometimes parabolical, and sometimes, as 
 in the latter oratorios, taken from sacred history ; but this 
 species of drama soon assumed a more regular form, and 
 oratorios became great favourites in Italy, where they were 
 constantly performed during the Carnival ; and they have 
 since given birth to some of the noblest and most elaborate 
 compositions of the great masters both of that and other 
 countries. Oratorios were first introduced into England by 
 the great Handel in 1720, though they were not publicly 
 performed till 1732 ; and such was their success that in 1737 
 they began to be performed twice a week during the season 
 of Lent; a custom which, under the able management of 
 
 855
 
 ORATORY. 
 
 T. C. Smith. Linley, and Arnold, &c, successively, was 
 regularly continued down to a very recent period, when, in 
 consequence of the introduction of profane music and other 
 irregularities during the management of Mr. Ashley, they 
 began to degenerate, and were at length discontinued'. 
 
 Within the last two or three years similar performances, 
 though not entitled oratorios, have been again revived al 
 Exeter Hall by the Sacred Harmonic Society, on a scale of 
 magnificence previously unknown. 
 
 O'RATORY, signifies, commonly, a room in a private 
 house set apart for prayer. It differs from a chapel, inas- 
 much as it does not contain an altar, nor may mass be cele- 
 brated in it. 
 
 O'ratort. See Eloquence, Rhetoric. 
 
 O'RATORY, PRIESTS OF THE. Various congrega- 
 tions of ecclesiastical persons living in community, without 
 being bound by any special vow, have assumed this title. 
 The first congregation of the Oratory was founded by St. 
 Philippo Neri, at Rome, in the beginning of the 16th'cen- 
 tury. Similar societies were soon formed in Italy and the 
 Low Countries, hut without any mutual connexion. The 
 congregation of the oratory at Paris was founded by the 
 cardinal Pierre de Berulle in 1611, and had several houses 
 in different parts of the country. It produced many men 
 of celebrity ; among others, Malebranche and Massillon. 
 There can be no doubt that its chief object was to counter- 
 balance the increasing influence of the Jesuits. (See JUo- 
 shcim's F.ccl. Hist., vol. iv.) 
 
 ORB (Lat. orbis), in the language of the old astrono- 
 mers, usually signifies a hollow sphere; and they supposed 
 the heavens to consist of such orbs or spheres, enclosing one 
 another, and carrying with them in their revolutions the 
 different planets. The orbis maximus, or great orb, was 
 that in which the sun is placed. As the orbs were concen- 
 tric, and their number equal to that of the known planets, 
 with one for the moon and another for the fixed stars, it was 
 necessary to suppose them to be transparent or crystalline. 
 Orb also denotes any round or circular body, and sometimes 
 it is used svnonvmouslv with orbit. 
 
 ORBI'CrLATES, Orbiculata. A tribe of Brachyurous 
 Crustaceans, including those which have an oblong ovoid 
 carapace. 
 
 ORBI'CULUS. In Botany, the whole mass of that part 
 of a flower called the corona in the genus Stapelia; also, a 
 round flat hymenium contained within the peridium of some 
 genera of fungi. 
 
 ORBIT. (Lat. orbis, a circle.) In Astronomv, the path 
 which any celestial body describes by its proper motion. 
 The orbits of all the planets and satellites are ellipses ; and 
 recent discoveries seem to show that the orbits of double 
 stars, which revolve about each other, are curves of the 
 same kind. Some comets have been supposed to move in 
 hyperbolic orbits. For the magnitudes and eccentricities of 
 the planetary orbits, See Planets. See also Moon, Satel- 
 lite, Star. 
 
 Orbit. In Ornithology, the term is applied to the skin 
 which surrounds the eye : this is generally the base of feath- 
 ers, for the facility of its movements, but especially so in 
 the parrot tribe and the heron. 
 
 Orbit. In Osteology, the bony cavitv in which the eve- 
 ball is imbeded. Each orbit is formed bv seven bones— the 
 frontal, maxillary, jngal, lachrymal, ethmoid, palatine, and 
 sphenoid. 
 
 O'RCHARD. (Gr. opxaroq.) An enclosure devoted to 
 the culture of fruit trees. The most productive orchards 
 are generally such as are situated on declivities open to the 
 south or south-east, and sheltered from the north, north-east, 
 and west. The most suitable soil is a calcareous loam with 
 a dry subsoil. The climate of orchards so situated is al- 
 ways wann.r than any other kind of situation which this 
 Country affords, and the subsoil is more certain of being dry. 
 The surface of the soil, in the case of orchards so situated, 
 is generally kept under pasture ; which, while it prevents 
 the earth from being wasted away by rains, is favorable to 
 the running of the roots immediately under the surface, bv 
 which they are sooner called into action by heat in spring, 
 and sooner thrown into a torpid state by cold in autumn. 
 The principal fruits grown in orchards of this description in 
 Great Britain are the apple, the pear, the plum, and the 
 cherry: and. wherever wheat ran he ripened ii: the plains, 
 these fruits will arrive at perfection on declivities such as 
 we have mentioned. 
 
 i I '111 IIESTRA. (Gr. bfixnorpa, Uomdpxi'ioOm, to dance.) 
 In Architecture, that part in the interior of a theatre situate 
 immediately between the stage and the place assigned to 
 the audience. In the Creek and Roman theatres it n as the 
 
 part appropriated to the chorus and its evolutions, and was 
 almost level with the stage. In the theatres of the moderns. 
 it is the place appropriated to the musicians. The word 
 is also applied to any erection for the performers in a concert 
 
 ORCHIDA'CEjE. 'Orchis, one of their. ra. \ aatu 
 
 ral order of Herbaceous Endogcns, Inhabi ting all parts of 
 &56 
 
 ORDEAL. 
 
 the world excepting those climates situated upon the verge 
 of the frozen zone, or remarkable for their exceeding dry- 
 ness. They are well known for the singular form of their 
 flowers. Some of them grow in the earth, other- inhabit 
 rocks and the branches of trees, and a few appear to he true 
 parasites. They all belong to the class Oynandria o{ Linnffi- 
 us ; are often very agreeably scented ; and sometimes produce 
 an aromatic fleshy fruit, as in the case of vanilla, which 
 contains a large quantity of benzoic acid. The nutritious 
 substance called salep is prepared from the amylaceous 
 roots of several terrestrial species. 
 
 ORCHIL. See Archil. 
 
 O'BCIN. A erystallizable colouring matter or principle, 
 obtained from a species of lichen {Variolaria orcina). 
 
 O'RDEAL. (In modern Latin, ordalium ; from the Ger- 
 man urtheil, judgment.) The practice of referring litigated 
 questions, and the guilt or innocence of parties under accu- 
 sation to the judgment of God (testified, in popular belief, 
 either by the event of lots, or by the success or failure of 
 certain experiments), is of very ancient date ; and was trans- 
 ferred, with other relics of their Pagan institutions, by the 
 Teutonic nations, when settled in the provinces of ancient 
 Rome, to their new bodies of jurisprudence. The ordeal 
 was awarded in various cases ; either arbitrarily by the 
 court, or at the request of a party accused, who was anxii ills 
 to clear himself; either as an alternative for trial by compur- 
 gation or by battle, or as the regular mode of deciding an is- 
 sue. In the earlier ages of modern European history, the 
 ordeal was under the peculiar protection of the clergy, who 
 afterwards discountenanced it; and its gradual suppression 
 must be mainly attributed to the decrees of popes and coun- 
 cils, of which several were pronounced against it in the 
 course of the thirteenth century, beginning with the decree 
 of the fourth Lateran council tn 1215. Among the various 
 forms of ordeal in use among different nations, the following 
 are some of the most remarkable. The trial of the eucha- 
 rist was used chiefly among the clergy ; the accused party 
 took the sacrament in attestation of his innocence, and it was 
 believed that if he were guilty he would be immediately 
 visited with punishment for the sacrilege. Of the same de- 
 scription was the corsnedd, or trial by the consecrated piece 
 of bread or cheese, so much in use among the Anglo-Saxons. 
 The trial of the cross was used, both in civil and criminal 
 questions, in many European countries. See the supple- 
 mentary formulae to those of Marculfus, cited by Meyer, In- 
 stitutions Judiciaires, liv. ii., c. 6. It appears that the liti- 
 gants, or the accuser and accused, were to stand upright be- 
 fore a cross, and that he who fell or changed his position 
 first was cast or condemned. This popular mode of ordeal 
 was abolished by the capitulary of 816, in the reign of Louis 
 le Debonnaire, as irreverent towards the mystery of the 
 cross; but the abolition seems only to have been carried in- 
 to effect in Italy and the provinces adjoining the seat of em- 
 pire. The ordeal of hot water, in which the accused party 
 plunged his hand into a vessel of boiling water, was used 
 by the Salian Franks, when pagans, as early as the fifth 
 century. It was afterwards extensively practised. In what 
 was called the expurgatio simplex, the accused party plunged 
 his arm to the wrist; in the triple ordeal, to the elbow. 
 Trials by burning iron were of various sorts : carrying a red- 
 hot bar in the hand, and walking barefoot over heated 
 ploughshares, mentioned in the imperial capitulary of 803, 
 and adopted in England, as is well known from the cele- 
 brated example of Queen Emma. Among the Saxons, the 
 iron was awarded to freemen, the water to those of inferior 
 conditions. There can be no doubt that, in these severer 
 forms of ordeal, some precaution was occasionally used by 
 the clergy, under whose inspection and management the 
 trial took place, to preserve parties whom it was wished to 
 clear from suspicion from the ordinary consequences of such 
 exposure. There were also ordeals by lot, as by the casual 
 choice between a pair of dice, one marked with a cross and 
 the other blank, mentioned in the laws of the Prisons. The 
 famous trial of the bier, in which the supposed perpetrator 
 was required to touch the body of a murdered |mtsou, and 
 was pronounced guilty if the blood Bowed, may be regarded 
 asa specie* of ordeal, although founded more on usage than 
 legal enactment ; list this form of superstition did not become 
 prevalent until later times, when ordeals were no longer a 
 recognised part of the law. To the same head may he re- 
 ferred the various absurd and cruel methods u Inch were 
 adopted in different countries to try suspected witches. One 
 of the most remarkable instances of the solemn application 
 of the ordeal In later times took place in 1498, when the 
 truth of the doctrines preached by Savonarola, a celebrated 
 monk at Florence, was put to the test by a challenge be- 
 tween one of liis disciples and a Franciscan friar to walk 
 through a burning pile. This, however, may be rather re- 
 garded as the appeal of an enthusiast to the divine judg- 
 ment than as an example of a recognised usage. Ordeals 
 are of common use in the judicial practice of various 
 heathen nation-, especially of the Hindoos.
 
 ORDER. 
 
 By the Anglo-Saxon laws, an option was given to the cul- 
 prit, in ordinary cases, when presented of a crime by the 
 neighbourhood, or appealed against by the injured party, of 
 defending himself by compurgation, or by the ordeal (of 
 hot water or hot iron). If, being a villain, he could procure 
 the testimony of his lord in favour of his character, the or- 
 deal was simple; if otherwise, threefold. In the laws of 
 William the Conqueror, we find that accusations between 
 an Englishman and a Frenchman were decided, either by 
 the Roman mode of trial by inquest, by battle, or by the or- 
 deal. In general, it may be considered, as Sir F. Palgrave 
 remarks, rather as having afforded a last chance of escape 
 to the accused party, than as an ordinary mode of deciding 
 on guilt or innocence ; since it does not appear to have been 
 resorted to in general, unless where the accused failed in 
 clearing himself by the testimony of the neighbourhood to 
 his character, or to the fact. Thus it stood in the same 
 place as torture in the civil law, which, according to prin- 
 ciple, was only applied where the evidence was sufficient to 
 warrant a conviction, and the defendant refused to confess, 
 when, however, the old form of trial by compurgation was 
 abolished in England by the assizes of Hen. II., the trial by 
 ordeal became more important than before. It appears that, 
 in presentment by the inquest (whence originated the grand 
 jury), the culprit was immediately adjudged, without option, 
 to clear himself by ordeal ; that, if he escaped this test, he 
 was still condemned to abjure the country ; so that the pre- 
 sentment became in some sort equivalent to a final trial. 
 The second inquest or jury trial, at this period, is thought to 
 have been only awarded as a matter of special favour. But 
 when ordeal had been forbidden by the 18th canon of the 
 fourth Lateran council, in 1215, as before mentioned, it was 
 immediately disused in England; and hence, after a con- 
 siderable interval, during which the practice of criminal 
 law seems to have remained in a very uncertain state, the 
 practice of trial by the second inquest, or petty jury, from 
 being the exception gradually became the general rule. (See 
 as to the early ordeals, Mem. de VAc. des Jnscr., vol. xv.) 
 
 O'RDER. (Lat. ordo.) In the Fine Arts, the regular 
 disposition of the parts of a work, so that neither confusion 
 nor jarring effects may prevail. 
 
 Order. In Architecture, a system or assemblage of parts 
 subject to certain uniform established proportions, regulated 
 by the office each part has to perform. An order may be 
 said to be the genus, whereof the species are Tuscan, Do- 
 ric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite ; and consists of two 
 n\ essential parts — a column, A (see fig. 1), and 
 
 an entablature, B. These are subdivided : 
 the first into three parts, namely, the base C, 
 the shaft D, and the capital E ; the second 
 also into three parts — namely, the archi- 
 trave, or chief beam, F, which stands imme- 
 diately on the column ; the frieze G, which 
 lies on the architrave ; and the cornice H, 
 which is the crowning or uppermost mem- 
 ber of an order. In the subdivisions certain 
 horizontal members are used, which, from 
 the curved form of their edges, are called 
 mouldings. These are the ovolo, the talon, 
 the cyma, the cavetto, the torus, the astra- 
 gal, the scotia, and the fillet, which are defined under their 
 several names in this work. The character of an order is 
 displayed, not only in its column, but in its general forms 
 and detail, whereof the column is, as it were, the regulator ; 
 the expression being of strength, grace, elegance, lightness, 
 or richness. Though a building be without columns, it is, 
 nevertheless, said to be of an order, if its details be regu- 
 lated according to the method prescribed for such order. 
 
 In setting up, or, as it is more technically expressed, in 
 profiling an order, it is usual to make the entablature of the 
 height of one fifth of the entire order. The height of the 
 column is measured in terms of its lower diameter, which is 
 divided into sixty parts, called minutes, used as a scale for 
 the different subdivisions. In the Doric order the semidi- 
 ameter of the column is called a module : it is, however, 
 divided into thirty parts; so that there is, in fact, no essen- 
 tial difference between the scale of this and the other or- 
 ders. The columns vary from seven to ten diameters in 
 height in the different orders. The height of the entabla- 
 ture is usually divided into ten parts, whereof three are as- 
 signed to the architrave, three to the frieze, and four to the 
 cornice ; except in the Doric order, in which the height is 
 divided into eight parts, whereof the architrave has only 
 two, the frieze and cornice each three. 
 
 The rule above given for regulating the relative heights 
 of the column and entablature is founded upon the practice 
 of the ancients, who rarely exceeded or fell short of the 
 proportion it establishes. Whether this practice; of assign- 
 ing one fifth of the height of the whole order to its entabla- 
 ture was arbitrary or empirical is worth an inquiry, which, 
 we are inclined to think, has not been bestowed upon it in 
 any architectural work, at least not in any one which has 
 
 m 
 
 fallen under our notice : though the principles devoloped in 
 a work by Le Brun, entitled, Theorie de V Architecture 
 Orecque et Romaine, deduites de V Analyse des Monument 
 Antiques (fol., Paris, 1807), if carried through correctly, 
 seems to point to the reason of the practice. One of the 
 most obvious principles of proportion in respect of loads and 
 supports, and one apparently founded on nature herself, is, 
 that a support should not be loaded with a greater mass than 
 itself; or, in other words, that there should be an equality 
 between the weights and supports ; that is, in this case be- 
 tween the entablature and column. In respect of the voids 
 left between the columns or supports below the entablature, 
 there seems to have been a great diversity of practice ; for we 
 find them varying from 1-03 to 218, unity being the measure 
 of the supports. Le Brun makes the areas of the supports, 
 weights, and voids equal to one another ; and in the monu- 
 mental specimens of the Doric order, such as the Parthenon, 
 &c, he seems borne out in the law he endeavours to estab- 
 lish: but in lighter specimens, such as the temple of Bac- 
 chus, at Teos, where the supports are to the voids, as 1 to 
 205, and in the temple of Minerva Polias, where the ratio 
 is 1 : 2-18, he can hardly be considered correct. Indeed, 
 there scarcely seems a necessity for such a limitation of the 
 voids as he prescribes, seeing that, without relation sepa- 
 rately to the weight and support, stability would be obtained 
 so long as the centre of gravity of the load fell within the 
 external face of the support. If, then, it be admitted that, 
 as in the two examples above mentioned, the voids should 
 be equal to the weights and supports jointly, we have the 
 key to the rule ; and, instead of being surprised at the appar- 
 ently strange law of making the entablature one fourth of 
 the height of the column, we shall find that none but the 
 result assumed can flow from the investigation. 
 
 (2.) 
 6 Diam. 
 
 (3.) 
 
 8 Diam. 
 
 ^* 
 
 (4.) 
 10 Diam. 
 
 \m 
 
 In the fig. 2, let A B he the height of the column, and let 
 the distance between the columns be one third of the height 
 of the column = C D. Now, if A B be subdivided into four 
 equal parts, at a, b, and c, and the horizontal lines ad, be, 
 cf, be drawn; also, if CD be divided horizontally into four 
 equal parts, and lines be drawn perpendicularly upwards, 
 intersecting the former ones ; the void will be divided into 
 16 equal parallelograms, one half whereof are to be the 
 measure of the two semi-supports. B C and D E being 
 made equal then to one fourth of C D, it will be manifest, 
 from inspection, that the two semi-supports will jointly be 
 equal to 8 of the parallelograms above mentioned, or one 
 half of the void. We have now to place the weight or en- 
 tablature, AG H I, upon the supports or columns and equal 
 to them in mass. Set up from A to F another row of paral- 
 lelograms, each equal to those above mentioned, A F K I. 
 These will not be equal to the supports by two whole par- 
 allelograms, being in number 6 only instead of 8: dividing, 
 therefore, 8, the number in the support, by. 6, the number 
 already obtained, we have 1-333, &c, which is the height 
 A G must be that the weights may equal the supports, ex- 
 ceeding one quarter the height of the column by only —^ 
 of such quarter, a coincidence singularly corroborative of 
 the rule laid down. From inspection of figures 2, 3, and 4, 
 it is evident, that, when the void is ^d of the height of the 
 columns in width, the columns will be 6 diameters in 
 height; when $th of their height, they will be 8 diameters 
 high ; and when $th of their height, (5.) 
 
 they will be 10 diameters high ; al- ^. 
 
 so, that the intercolumniation call- 
 
 ed systylos, or of two diameters, is $•■ 
 
 constant by the arrangement. Let fljfl 
 us now try the principle in another 
 way : Fig. 5 is the general form of 
 a tetrastyle temple, wherein the col- 
 umns are assumed at pleasure eight w 
 diameters high : then 4 X 8 =: 32, 
 the area of the supports ; and as, to 
 fulfil the conditions, the three voids X- 
 
 are to equal twice that area, or 04, they must, in all, be 
 3 G * 857
 
 ORDER. 
 
 equal to 8 diameters, for \* = 8; and the whole extent, 
 therefore will be IS diameters of a column. To obtain the 
 height of the entablature, so that its mass may equal that 
 of tin- supports, as the measures are in diameters, we have 
 onlv to divide 38, the columns, by 12, the whole extent of 
 the facade, and we bave two diameters and two thirds of a 
 diameter for the height of the entablature ; making it a little 
 more than one quarter the height of the column, and again 
 agreeing in terms of the diameter with many of tin- finest 
 examples of antiquity, or very nearly so. If the pediment 
 be employed, it is evident, the dotted lines A C, C B, being 
 bisected in a and b respectively, that the triangles A E a, 
 b B F, are equal to a D C and 
 D C b, and the loading or 
 Weight will not be changed. 
 Similar results are obtained 
 in tig. 6, where the height is 
 10 diameters, the number of 
 columns 6; the whole, there- 
 fore, 180, the supports being 
 60. Here y| = 3£ diameters 
 will he the height of the en- 
 tablature 
 
 We cannot leave the subject without adverting to the 
 rules given by Vitruvius (chap, ii., book iii.)— rules which 
 were not his own only, but the result of the practice of the 
 time in which he lived, and which, within small fractions, are 
 most singularly corroborative of the assumed hypothesis of 
 making the voids equal to twice the supports. Speaking of 
 the five species of temples, after naming the different inter- 
 colunmiations, and recommending the eustylos as the most 
 beautiful, he thus directs the formation of temples with that 
 interval between the columns. The rule for designing them 
 is as follows : " The extent of the front being given, it is, it 
 tetrastylos, to be divided into eleven parts and a half, not in- 
 cluding the projections of the base and plinth at each end ; 
 if hexastylos, into eighteen parts ; if octastylos, into twenty- 
 four parts and a half. One of either of these parts, ac- 
 cording to the case, whether tetrastylos, hexastylos, or oc- 
 tastylos, will be a measure equal to the diameter of one of 
 the columns. The heights of the columns will be eight 
 parts and a half. Thus, the intercolumniations and the 
 heights of the columns will have proper proportions." Far- 
 ther on in the same chapter he gives directions on arrco- 
 style, diastyle, and systile temples, on which it is unneces- 
 sary here farther to enlarge. Let the above rules be exam- 
 ined. The tetrastylos is 1 1 . V parts wide, and 8A high: the 
 area, therefore, of its whole front, will be 11* X 8A = 97$. 
 The four columns will be 4 X 8£ = 34, or a very little more 
 than one third of the whole area ; the remaining two thirds, 
 speaking in round numbers, being given to the intercolumns 
 or voids. The hexastylos, is eighteen parts long, and eight 
 and a half high : the whole area, therefore, is 18 + 8* = 
 153. The six columns will be 6 X 8£ = 51, or exactly one 
 third of the whole area ; the voids or intercolumns occupy- 
 ing the remaining two thirds. The octastylos is 24A parts in 
 extent, and 8J in height : 24.V X 8J = 208$. The eight col- 
 umns will be" 8 X 8A = 68, or very little less than one third 
 of the area, and the voids or intercolumns about double, be- 
 ing the remaining two thirds. 
 The average of the intercolumniations in the first case 
 
 1U — 4 
 3 
 
 18-6 
 
 ~T~ — f- 
 
 In the third case — ^ = 2 T 3 6 5 oV 
 
 As, in our opinion, a discrepance between practice and 
 theory will not shake the principle, we are not fearful of 
 candidly submitting a sj aoptical view of some of the most 
 celebrated examples of antiquity in which a comparison is 
 exhibited between the voids and supports, as follows: 
 
 will be 
 
 In the second case 
 
 : 2A diameters. 
 
 
 
 - i 
 
 
 » 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■H 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 O 
 
 X - 
 
 1 00 
 
 1 
 
 > 
 
 Temple of Jupner Ncmatus 
 
 Doric 
 
 6 
 
 79 
 
 103 
 
 Par henon .... 
 
 — 
 
 8 
 
 too 
 
 107 
 
 1-04 
 
 Temple at Bas*ae 
 
 — 
 
 a 
 
 1 ell 
 
 114 
 
 lie 
 
 of Mm, rva. at Sunium ■ 
 
 
 
 100 
 
 1-40 
 
 1.17 
 
 r>f Tli'vus. at A'luns . 
 
 — 
 
 u 
 
 too 
 
 113 
 
 1 -21 
 
 of Jupiter I .iiilii-ll, [nil-, 
 
 — 
 
 6 
 
 too 
 
 1-45 
 
 1-36 
 
 Temple of Erecthem 
 
 Ionic 
 
 6 
 
 1 00 
 
 ora 
 
 1 24 
 
 of Furtuna Virilis 
 
 
 4 
 
 1 00 
 
 115 
 
 1-71 
 
 on the II v. mis 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 10(1 
 
 096 
 
 172 
 
 of Bacchus, at Tcos 
 
 — 
 
 8 
 
 Mill 
 
 1-35 
 
 2-05 
 
 of Minerva Poliu 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 1 00 
 
 1-01 
 
 2-IS 
 
 Portico of Septimiua Severus 
 
 Corinth. 
 
 6 
 
 too 
 
 0-93 
 
 1-37 
 
 D C.aiTee .... 
 
 — 
 
 6 
 
 l-lfl 
 
 93 
 
 1-59 
 
 Temple a! Jackly 
 
 — 
 
 1 6 
 
 too 
 
 90 
 
 1 1,2 
 
 ri 
 
 — 
 
 
 1 t.oo 
 
 1 1 43 
 
 I'M 
 
 0127 
 0118 
 0100 
 0129 
 
 858 
 
 ORDERS, RELIGIOUS. 
 
 certain it is, that in every case the former exceed the latter, 
 and that, in the early Dorics, the ratio between them near- 
 ly approached equality. In comparing, however, the sup- 
 ports with the weights, there is every appearance of that 
 portion of the theory being strictly true ; for, in taking a mean 
 of the six examples of the Doric order, the supports are to 
 the weights as 1 : I'M; in the five of the Ionic order, as 1 : 
 105; and in the four of the Corinthian order, as 1 : 1'04 ; a 
 coincidence so remarkable that it must be attributed to some- 
 thing more than accident, and deserving much more extend- 
 ed consideration than our limits here admit. 
 
 We close this short inquiry by adverting to a curious 
 fact connected with it ; viz., the area of the points of sup- 
 port for the edifice which such an arrangement affords. In 
 fig. 7, the hatched squares represent the quarter piers or 
 columns in a series of intercolumniations 
 every way, such intercolumniations being 
 2 diameters, or 4 semidiameters ; these, 
 added to the 2 quarter piers, will make 6, 
 whose square, 36, therefore, is the area 
 to be covered with the weight ; the 4 quar- 
 ter piers or columns = 4 ; hence the points 
 of support are j 4 g- of the area = 0'lll. 
 Now, in twenty-five of the principal 
 buildings in Europe (see Points of Sip- 
 port), the ratio will be seen to be 0-168 on the mean, differ- 
 ing only 0.057 from the result here given ; but if we take the 
 subjoined buildings, the mean will be found to differ much 
 less, viz : 
 
 Temple of Peace 
 
 S. Paolo fuori le Mura 
 
 St. Sabino .... 
 
 S. Felippo Neri 
 
 ORDER OF SUPERPOSITION. A Geological term, 
 implying the regular succession of arrangements which the 
 strata forming the exterior crust of our globe invariably fol- 
 low. (See Geology.) Although certain strata or forma- 
 tions are occasionally wanting, they never depart from a 
 constant order of superposition. 
 
 ORDER OF THE DAY. In Parliamentary usage, one 
 method of superseding a question already proposed to the 
 House is by moving " for the order of the day to be read." 
 This motion, to entitle it to precedence, must be for the or- 
 der generally, and not for any particular order : and, if this 
 is carried, the orders must be read and proceeded on in the 
 course in which they stand. But it can be in its turn super- 
 seded by a motion " lo adjourn." See HatselVs Free. Pari., 
 vol. ii., who says that the first instance he has met with of 
 this proceeding was on the first of April, 1747. 
 
 OR'DERS, HOLY. A term, properly speaking, applied 
 to the different ranks of ecclesiastical persons ; but, in ordi- 
 nary language, used to indicate the character of such per- 
 sons. The Roman Catholic Church admits of seven or- 
 ders: four minor, secular, or petty, of doorkeeper, exorcist, 
 reader, and acolyth : three major, of deacon, priest, and 
 bishop. The first are mere formalities, and generally con- 
 ferred on the same day; the admission to the latter consti- 
 tutes the sixth sacrament of Romanism : the Reformed 
 churches acknowledge only the three latter orders. (See 
 Episcopacy). The Greek church rejects the four minor, 
 but has the additional one of sub-deacon. Sec Ordina- 
 tion. 
 
 OR'DEBS, RELIGIOUS, are of three kinds; I. Monas- 
 tic: II. Military; III. Mendicant. 
 
 I. The monastic orders were distinguished by the rules to 
 which they were subjected by their respective founders. 
 Of these the principal are the Basilian, the Benedictine, ami 
 the Augustinian. 
 
 1. The earliest comprehension of a number of conventual 
 societies under one rule was effected by St. Basil, archbishop 
 of Ca:sarea, in Asia Minor, who united the hermits and cen- 
 oiiites already established in his diocess, and prescribed a 
 uniform constitution for them, in which he strongly recom- 
 mended the obligation of a TOW upon admission. This rec- 
 ommendation was a novelty in the monastic system, which 
 had existed up to that time (A.D. :i70) without an] such 
 imposition. This institution prevailed throughout tin east- 
 ern districts of Christendom, and has subsisted in the Greek 
 church up to the present tune with little variation. 
 
 2. In the West, the first order of monks was founded by 
 Benedict of Nursta (A.D. 529). He conceived that the 
 ends of monastic Seclusion might be better attained by a 
 milder discipline, uniformly imposed, than by the fanatical 
 and arbitrary austerities of many of the European communi- 
 ties. While other reformers of the monkish system have 
 
 aimed at repairing its laxity and degeneracy by the infusion 
 of greater strictness and severity, he alone seems to have 
 adopted a contrary course, and to have provided for the at- 
 tainment of more real excellence by the imposition ut milder 
 
 Obligations, lie insisted, moreover, very strongly, upon the 
 duties of manual labour and reading, as well as of prayer ; 

 
 ORDINAL. 
 
 tmd gnve, as was the custom with other founders, minute di- 
 rections for the employment of the day. This rule was re- 
 vised three centuries later by another Benedict, a native of 
 Ariane, in the south of France. 
 
 From this remodelled system, which was more severe 
 than its predecessor, and was soon adopted throughout the 
 Benedictine monasteries, already exceedingly numerous, 
 arose various branches, all more or less famous in ecclesias- 
 tical history. The order of Cluni, the Cistercians, the Char- 
 treux, the Cnmaldulenses, Pnemonstratenses, &c, are dis- 
 tinct offshoots from this main trunk, and for many centu- 
 ries have covered the face of Catholic Europe. 
 
 3. The original inhabitants of the monasteries were lay- 
 men ; the spiritual duties of the institution being performed 
 by the pastor of a neighbouring Village, or by one or two 
 resident ecclesisastics. St. Augustin set the example of a 
 clerical society, by living, in common with his inferior cler- 
 gy, under certain instructions which he drew up for their 
 direction. His authority was widely followed in later times ; 
 and the order of Augustinian canons, consisting expressly 
 of persons ordained or destined to the sacred profession, 
 claims a place among the three principal monastic institu- 
 tions. These canons were afterward divided into the regu- 
 lar and secular, according as they observed what tradition 
 affirmed to be rule prescribed by the founder himself, or 
 those of certain bishops, who, in later times, had reorgan- 
 ized the system. 
 
 II. 1. The Military orders form also an important feature 
 in ecclesiastical and political history. The necessity which 
 the monks were under, in unsettled times, of assuming 
 arms themselves to defend the possessions which they had 
 accumulated, may have suggested the first idea of uniting 
 the military with the religious profession. 
 
 The earliest order, however, of this kind — that of St. 
 John of Jerusalem, or the Knights of the Hospital — arose, 
 in the 11 tli century, out of a religious community, to which 
 the care of a hospital in Jerusalem had been consigned. 
 The Hospitallers were afterwards better known under the 
 titles of Knights of Rhodes, and, still later, of Malta. 
 
 2. The Knights Templars also received their appellation 
 from Jerusalem, the place of their origin and early abode. 
 They were founded in 1118; and to them certain military 
 duties were from the first prescribed, as the defence of Pal- 
 estine, and the protection of pilgrims in the Holy Land. 
 After the expulsion of the Christian arms from that region, 
 they spread over Europe, and became a very numerous and 
 powerful body ; until, having excited the fears or avarice of 
 popes and princes, they were condemned by a council as- 
 sembled at Vienna, and exterminated by a vigorous and 
 cruel persecution. 
 
 3. The third Military order is the Teutonic. This insti- 
 tution, again, was an offspring of the crusades, and a native 
 of Palestine ; originating in the officer of a hospital at the 
 siege of Acre. On the termination of the holy wars, these 
 knights became established in Germany, and distinguished 
 themselves by the conquest and conversion of Prussia and 
 Pomerania. Their order only ceased to exist when, at the 
 Reformation, its members abandoned the cause of the papa- 
 cy, and embraced the prevalent opinions of the north of 
 Germany. To these may be added various inferior military 
 orders, especially those of Spain and Portugal. See Cala- 
 trava and Alcantara, Orders of. 
 
 III. 1. The Mendicant orders were the creation of the pa- 
 pacy, for the advancement of its own political purposes. It 
 was in the 12th century that the apprehensions of the holy- 
 see were first excited by the rise and spread of heretical 
 opinions ; nor, at that period, were either the secular or the 
 regular clergy disposed to rouse themselves from their in- 
 dolence and vice to combat with these active assailants. 
 The counteracting force, also, which the monks had sup- 
 plied, in earlier ages, to the independent spirit of the sec- 
 ular priesthood, had lost much of its efficacy, and, in some 
 measure, been turned against the central authority of Rome. 
 A new ally was required, and was furnished in the order of 
 St. Dominic, which, after completins its first mission in the 
 extinction of the heresy of the Albigenses, was placed upon 
 a permanent footing by a bull of Honorius III. 
 
 2. The Franciscan friars were of eotemporary institution, 
 and avowed the same principles of poverty and mendicity. 
 Our limits allow us merely to mention — "3. The Carmel- 
 ites (who derived their name from Mount Carmel, in Syria, 
 where the order originated) : 4. The Augustinian*. who 
 complete the number of the Mendicant orders ; and 5. The 
 Jesuits. .See Jesuits. 
 
 O'RDINAL, or ORDER. The name given in England to 
 an old work containing the ritual or religious ceremonies ne- 
 cessary to be performed before the ordination of a priest. It 
 was composed in the reign of Edward VI., and revised by 
 the English clenry in 1552. 
 
 O'RDINANCE. An obsolete word, signifying a decree or 
 enactment. After the time of Philip le Bel (1227), the laws 
 made by French kings were generally termed ordinances 
 
 ORDINATION. 
 
 (ordonnance) ; a term which, in its most comprehensive 
 sense, included also their edicts, declarations, and letters 
 patent. The right to issue ordinances for the execution of 
 the laws (equivalent to proclamations and orders in council) 
 is conferred on the monarch by the French charters ; and it 
 was on an ambiguity of language in the clause conferring 
 this right in that of 1814, that a defence was attempted for 
 the illegal proceedings of the ministers of Charles X. in 1830. 
 The best collection of the Ordonnances des Rois de France 
 is that begun by order of Louis XIV., of which the first 
 volume appeared in 1723: it extends to 12 vols., folio. 
 
 The Self-denying Ordinance, in English History, was a 
 resolution of the Long Parliament, in 1644, by which its 
 members bound themselves not to take certain executive of- 
 fices, particularly commands in the army ; the effect of 
 which, as is well known, was the transference of power, 
 first in the army, and then in the state, from the Presbyterian 
 to the Independent party. 
 
 O'RDINAND. (Lat. ordinandus.) In Ecclesiastical An- 
 tiquities, one about to receive orders. — Ordinant, a prelate 
 conferring orders. 
 
 O RDINARY. A term of the Civil Law for any judge 
 who has authority to take cognizance of causes in his own 
 right, and not by delegation ; used, in Englsh law, with ref- 
 erence to ecclesiastical judges only. Thus, a bishop is ordi- 
 nary in his own diocess; an archbishop, for the purpose of 
 appeals, in his province. 
 
 Ordinary. In the Court of Session in Scotland, a single 
 judge (by courtesy styled lord), who decides with or with- 
 out a jury, as the case may be. There are five such judges : 
 their decisions may be brought by appeal under review of 
 the divisions of the court to which they respectively belong. 
 See Session, Court or. 
 
 Ordinary. In the Navy, the establishment of the ship- 
 pins not in actual service. 
 
 Ordinary, in Heraldry, is a portion of the escutcheon 
 comprised between straight or other lines. It is the simplest 
 species of charge : and many of the most ancient escutch- 
 eons known contain no other bearing, although in others, 
 also of great antiquity, the ordinary' itself is charged with 
 other bearings. An ordinary should, it is said, comprise 
 the fifth of the shield. The number of ordinaries in com- 
 mon use is considerable ; among the chief are the pale, fess, 
 bend, bar, saltier, chevron, cross (which see). Each of 
 these is usually bounded by straight lines; hut the lines may 
 be also diversified in various manners. Thus, an ordinary 
 bounded by serrated lines is said to be indented; bounded 
 by undulating lines, wavy ; and there are many other devia- 
 tions from the straight iine, as irrrrailed, inverted, nebuly, 
 ragnly, rayonny, danretty, embattled or crenelly, battled em- 
 battled, pa/issy, angled, levelled, escartely, nowy, dovetail, po- 
 tency. When an ordinary has two sides, and is only varied 
 on the upper, it is said to be snperin<rrailed, superinvccted, 
 &c ; if only on the lower, subingrailed, &c. 
 
 Ordinary, of Newgate. The clergyman who officiates 
 in this prison is so called, whose duties consist in preaching 
 and reading prayers to the prisoners, preparing condemned 
 criminals to meet their fate, and in accompanying such to 
 the place of execution. 
 
 O'RDINATE. (Lat. ordir.o, / arrange.) In Geometry, 
 a straight line drawn from any point in a curve perpendicu- 
 larly to another straisht line, which is called the absciss. 
 (See Absciss.) The absciss and ordinate together are called 
 the co-ordinates of the point. The situation of a point in a 
 plane is determined when its distances from two straight 
 lines in the same plane are known ; and, when a series of 
 points are so situated in respect of each other that the co- 
 ordinates of each have the same mathematical relation, 
 these points form a curve, the nature of which is expressed 
 by the relation of the co-ordinates. See Co-ordinates. 
 
 ORDINA'TION. The ceremony of conferring orders in 
 the church, which is derived, by all communities that ad- 
 mit a regular commission and succession in the ministry 
 from the time of the apostles, from the authority of Jesus 
 Christ; of whom it is said, in St. John's Gospel (xx., 21), 
 that, after his resurrection, he said, " As my father has sent 
 me, even so send I vou:" and then he breathed upon them, 
 and said to them, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost : whose so- 
 ever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them, and whose- 
 soever sins ve retain they are retained." Prayer and the 
 imposition of hands are also mentioned as forming part of 
 the ceremony of ordination of deacons in the Acts ; and or- 
 dination is even now conferred under similar forms in most 
 Christian churches. 
 
 The Romish Church holds ordination to he the sixth of 
 its seven sacraments, as hein» an institution of Christ con- 
 ferring a special grace. The Protestants show that it differs 
 from a sacrament, according to the received definition of 
 such, as containing no matter, like the water in baptism, or 
 the elements in the eucharist. They deny that the vessels 
 which are delivered to the newly-ordained person according 
 to the Romish rite, can be taken as the matter of a Eacra- 
 
 859
 
 ORDNANCE. 
 
 ment, not being recommended by any Scripture authority, 
 nor, indeed, known in the church till the tenth or eleventh 
 century. (Sec Hooker's Eccl. Pol., books vii. and viii.) 
 
 In the Presbyterian church the term ordination has a 
 meaning wholly distinct from that in which it is received by 
 other Christian churches; being applied exclusively to that 
 solemn act l>y u huh a licensed preacher or probationer is in- 
 ducted into the charge of a particular parish or congrega- 
 tion, and not, as is sometimes erroneously asserted, to the 
 act by which he is entitled to preach the Gospel, or, in oth- 
 er word*, to tin' ceremony by Which " orders" are conferred 
 in the English Church. In the English Church a clergyman 
 can be ordained but once ; in the Scotch Church he is said 
 to be ordained as often as he leaves one parish to be induct- 
 ed into the charge of another. 
 
 0'RDNA>;CE. A Military term, applied generally to all 
 Borts of great guns used in war, as cannons, mortars, howit- 
 zer-, carronadea, &c. See the respective terms. 
 
 ORDNANCE, BOARD OF. The name given to the 
 board which provides the troops of the line, the regiments 
 of artillery and engineers, the militia, volunteers, and the 
 navy, with guns, ammunition, and arms of every descrip- 
 tion. The Board of Ordnance also superintends the affairs 
 of the regiments of artillery and engineers, the provision of 
 forage for the whole of the troops at home, and the erection 
 of fortifications and military works at home and abroad, &c. 
 At the head of this board is placed an officer, called the 
 Blaster-general of the ordnance, who has the military com- 
 mand of the artillery, and of the corps of royal engineers 
 and sappers and miners. Besides the Master-general, the 
 other chief officers connected with the ordnance are the 
 Surveyor-general, the Clerk of the ordnance, and the Store- 
 keeper of the ordnance, which are self-explanatory terms. 
 
 O'RDONNANCE. (Fr.) In Architecture, the right as- 
 signment, for convenience and propriety, of the measure of 
 the several apartments, that they be neither too large nor too 
 small for the purposes of the building, and that they be 
 conveniently distributed and lighted. 
 
 O'READS. (Gr. tipos, mountain.) In Greek Mythology, 
 nymphs of the mountains, companions of Diana, and usually 
 invoked along with that goddess. 
 
 ORES. (Germ, erze.) The mineral bodies from which 
 metals are extracted. Metals exist in the ores in one or the 
 other of the four following states: 1. In a metallic state, 
 and either solitary or combined with each other; in the 
 latter case forming alloys. 2. Combined with sulphur, 
 forming sulphurets. 3. Combined with oxygen, forming 
 oxides. 4. Combined with acids, forming carbonates, phos- 
 phates, &c, which generally go by the name of metallic 
 salts. 
 
 Certain ores which contain the metals most indispensable 
 to human necessities have been treasured up by the Creator 
 in very bountiful deposits, constituting either great masses 
 in rocks of different kinds, or distributed in lodes, veins, 
 nests, concretions, or beds with stony and earthy admixtures ; 
 the whole of which become the objects of mineral explora- 
 tion. These precious stores occur in different stages of the 
 geological formations; but their main portion, after having 
 existed abundantly in the several orders of the primary 
 strata, suddenly cease to be found towards the middle of 
 the secondary. Iron ores are the only ones which continue 
 among the more modern deposits, even so high as the beds 
 immediately beneath the chalk, when they also disappear, 
 or exist merely as colouring matters of the tertiary earthy 
 beds. 
 
 The strata of gneiss and mica-slate constitute in Europe 
 the grand metallic domain. There is hardly any kind of 
 ore which does not occur there in sufficient abundance to 
 become the object of mining operations, and many are found 
 nowhere else. The transition rocks, and the lower part of 
 the secondary ones, are not so rich, neither do they contain 
 the same variety of ores. lint this order of things, which is 
 presented bj Great Britain, Germany, France, Sweden, and 
 Norway, is far from forming a general law; since in 
 equinoctial America the gneiss is but little metalliferous; 
 while the superior strata, such as the clay-schists the 
 Bienihc porphyries, tin- limestones, which complete the 
 transition series, as also several secondary deposits, include 
 the greater portion of the immense mineral wealth of that 
 legion of the "lobe. 
 
 All the substances of which the ordinary metals form the 
 basis, are not equally abundant in nature; a great propor- 
 tion of the numerous mineral species which (inure in our 
 Classifications are mere varieties scattered up and down in 
 
 the cavities of the great masses or lodes. The workable 
 ores are few in number, being mostly sulphurets, some 
 oxides, and carbonates. These occasionally form of them 
 selves very large masses, but more frequently they are 
 blended with lumps of cptarlz, felspar, and carbonate of 
 lime, which I'onii the main hod) of the deposit ; as happens 
 always In proper lodes. The Ores In that case are arranged 
 In layers parallel to the strata of the formation, or in veins 
 800 
 
 ORES. 
 
 Which traverse the rock in all directions, or in nests or eon- 
 cretions stationed irregularly, or finally disseminated in 
 hardly visible particles. These deposits sometimes contain 
 apparently only one species of ore, sometimes several,. 
 which must be mined together, as they seem to be of con- 
 temporaneous formation ; whilst, In other cases, they are 
 separable, having been probably formed at different epochsu 
 Under the particular metals will be found an account of the 
 localities of ores, tec. ; but the following general observations 
 may prove useful in presenting a condensed res' nit of the 
 whole subject. 
 
 1. Tin exists principally in primitive rocks, appearing 
 either in interlaced masses in beds, or as a constituent part 
 of the rock itself, and more rarely in distinct veins. Tin 
 ore is found indeed sometimes in alluvial land, filling up 
 low situations between lofty mountains. 
 
 2. Oold occurs either in beds or in veins, frequently in 
 primitive rocks; though it is also found in other formations, 
 and particularly in alluvial earth. When this metal exists 
 In the bosom of primitive rocks, it is particularly in schists 
 it is not found in serpentine, but it is met with in greywacke 
 in Transylvania. The gold of alluvial districts, called gold 
 of washing or transport, occurs, as well as alluvial tin, 
 among the debris of the more ancient rocks. 
 
 3. Silver is found, particularly in veins and beds, in 
 primitive and transition formations ; though some veins of 
 this metal occur in secondary strata. The rocks richest in 
 it are gneiss, mica-slate, clay-slate, greywacke, and old 
 alpine limestone. Localities of silver-ore its-elf are not 
 numerous, at least in Europe, among secondary formations ; 
 but it occurs in combination with the ores of copper or of 
 lead. 
 
 4. Copper exists in the three mineral epochas: 1. In 
 primitive rocks, principally in the state of pyritous copper, 
 in beds, in masses, or in veins ; 2. In transition districts, 
 sometimes in masses, sometimes in veins of copper pyrites ; 
 3. In secondary strata, especially in beds of cupreous schist. 
 
 5. Lead occurs also in each of the three mineral epochas ; 
 ahounding particularly in primitive and transition grounds, 
 where it usually constitutes veins, and occasionally beds of 
 sulphuretted lead (galena). The same ore is found in strata 
 or in veins among secondary rocks, associated now and then 
 with ochreous iron-oxide and calamine (carbonate of zinc) ; 
 and it is sometimes disseminated in grains through more 
 recent strata. 
 
 6. Iron is met with in four different mineral eras, but in 
 different ores. Among primitive rocks magnetic iron ore 
 and specular iron ore occur chiefly in beds, sometimes of 
 enormous size: the ores of red or brown oxide of iron 
 (haematite) are found generally in veins, or occasionally in 
 masses with sparry iron, both in primitive and transition 
 rocks ; as also sometimes in secondary strata ; but more 
 frequently in the coal-measure strata, as beds of clay- 
 ironstone, of globular iron oxide, and carbonate of iron. In 
 alluvial districts, we find ores of clay-ironstone, granular 
 iron-ore, bog- ore, swamp-ore, and meadow-ore. The iron 
 ores which belong to the primitive period have almost always 
 the metallic aspect, with a richness amounting even to 80 
 per cent, of iron, while the ores in the posterior formations 
 become, in general, more and more earth)', down to those in 
 alluvial soils, some of which present the appearance of a 
 common stone, and afford not more than 20 per cent, of 
 metal, though its quality is often excellent. 
 
 7. Mercury, as a sulphuret, occurs principally among 
 secondary strata in disseminated masses, along with com- 
 bustible substances ; though the metal is met with occa- 
 sionally in primitive countries. 
 
 8. Cobalt belongs to the three mineral epochas ; its most 
 abundant deposits are veins in primitive rocks ; small veins 
 containing this metal are found, however, in secondary 
 strata. 
 
 9. Jlntimovy occurs in veins or beds among primitive and 
 transition rocks. 
 
 10. 11. Bismuth and nickel do not appear to constitute 
 the predominating substance of any mineral deposits ; but 
 they often accompany cobalt 
 
 12. Zinc occurs in the three several formations ; namely, 
 as sulphuret, or blende, particularly in primitive and tran- 
 sition rocks; as calamine, in secondary strata, usually 
 along with oxide of iron, and sometimes with sulphuret of 
 lead. 
 
 In the analysis of ores, it is impossible to lay down any 
 general rule, so numerous are the ores themselves, and so 
 diversified the means necessary to be adopted in the various 
 analytic processes. Under each particular metal will be 
 found an account of its most important ores, and we shall 
 here restrict ourselves to a few general remarks on the 
 theory of smelting ores. 
 
 It is probable that the coaly matter employed in that pro- 
 cess is not the immediate, agent of their reduction ; but the 
 charcoal seems first of all to be transformed by the atmo- 
 spherical oxygen into the oxide of carbon which gaseous
 
 OREXIS. 
 
 product then surrounds and penetrates the interior substance 
 of the oxides, with the effect of decomposing them, and 
 carrying off their oxygen. That this is the true mode of 
 action, is evident from the well-known facts that bars of 
 iron, stratified with pounded charcoal, in the steel-cementa- 
 tion chest, most readily absorb the carbonaceous principle 
 to their innermost centre, while their surfaces get blistered 
 by the expansion of carburetted gases formed within ; and 
 that an yitermixture of ores and charcoal is not always 
 necessary to reduction, but merely an interstratification of 
 the two, without intimate contact of the panicles. In this 
 case, the carbonic acid which is generated at the lower 
 surfaces of contact of the strata, rising up through the first 
 bed of ignited charcoal, becomes converted into carbonic 
 oxide ; and this gaseous matter, passing up through the next 
 layer of ore, seizes its oxygen, reduces it to metal, and is 
 itself thereby transformed once more into carbonic acid ; 
 and so on in continual alternation. It may be laid down, 
 however, as a general rule, that the reduction is the more 
 rapid and complete the more intimate the mixture of the 
 charcoal and the metallic oxide has been, because the for- 
 mation of both the carbonic acid and carbonic oxide becomes 
 thereby more easy and direct. Indeed the cementation of 
 iron bars into steel will not succeed, unless the charcoal be 
 so porous as to contain, interspersed, enough of air to favour 
 the commencement of its conversion into the gaseous oxide ; 
 thus acting like a ferment in brewing. Hence, also, finely 
 pulverized charcoal does not answer well, unless a quantity 
 of ground iron cinder or oxide of manganese be blended 
 with it, to afford enough of oxygen to begin the generation 
 of carbonic oxide gas ; whereby the successive transforma- 
 tions into acid and oxide are put in train. (For these obser- 
 vations we are indebted chiefly to Ure's Diet, of Arts, 8rc, 
 arts. "Mine" and " Ores.") See also the art. Geology in 
 this work. 
 
 ORE'XIS. (Gr. op cyo^ai, I labour.) A term applied hi 
 medicine to the appetite, or a sense of hunger. 
 
 O'RFRAIES. (Fr. orfrois, broad welts of gold.) A species 
 of embroidered cloth of gold, worn anciently by the kings 
 and nobles of England. The name was also given to the 
 clothes worn by the king's guards, which were also em- 
 broidered with gold. 
 
 O'RGAN. (Gr. opyavov, an instrument.) In Music, a 
 wind instrument ; so called by way of eminence, being in- 
 deed perhaps less an instrument than a machine containing 
 a collection of instruments, or, in other words, a mechanical 
 orchestra, under the command of a single performer's fin- 
 gers on the keyboard. This instrument was invented at an 
 early period, though until the eighth century it was proba- 
 bly but little used. The Greeks appear to have been ac- 
 quainted with it; and, in the tenth book of his Architecture, 
 Vitruvius describes an hydraulic organ which was played, 
 or rather blown, by the fall of water, but in what precise 
 manner is not now known. The emperor Julian eulogises 
 this instrument in an epigram ; and St. Jerome speaks of 
 one, with twelve pair of bellows, which might be heard at 
 the distance of a thousand paces ; and of another, at 
 Jerusalem, which might be heard at the Mount of Olives. 
 Its invention is attributed to Ctesibius, a barber of Alexandria. 
 
 The size of an organ is usually expressed by the length of 
 its largest pipes; thus an organ of 32 feet, of 16 feet, &c, is 
 one whose lowest bass pipes are of those respective lengths. 
 Church organs consist of two parts ; viz. the great organ, 
 which comprises the main body ; and the chair, or choir 
 organ, a smaller one, commonly placed before the other. 
 The organ is provided with at least one set of keys ; and 
 when it has a chair organ and a swell organ, with two, 
 three, or even more. Besides these there are pedals for the 
 lowest pipes, and composition pedals, which change the 
 stops as required at one pressure ; both of these are acted 
 upon by the feet. There is another pedal to open the swell 
 organ with the right foot. The key boards of organs vary 
 in extent : the York has 6 octaves from C C C (16 feet) to 
 C in alt ; the Birmingham 5i octaves ; but the compass 
 now in general use, here and on the Continent, is from C C 
 (8 feet) to F in alt, 4£ octaves ; the lower notes from C C 
 to C C C (16 feet) being placed on the pedal organ. The 
 G G compass is gradually falling into disuse, a compass 
 which never prevailed on the Continent. Each key, being 
 pressed down with the finger, opens a valve or plug, cor : 
 responding lengthwise with as many holes as there are rows 
 of pipes on the sound board ; and" the holes of each row 
 are opened and shut by a register or ruler pierced with holes 
 equal in number to the keys. By drawing the register the 
 holes of one row are opened, because they correspond with 
 those of the sound board ; so that, by opening a valve, the 
 wind brought to the sound board by means of bellows finds 
 its passage into the pipes which correspond to the open holes 
 of the sound board. By pushing the register or stop, the 
 holes therein not answering to any of those of the sound 
 board, the row of pipes answering to the register so pushed 
 is shut. It is obvious, therefore, by drawing several of these 
 73 
 
 ORGAN. 
 
 registers or stops, correspondent rows of pipes are opened : 
 hence the rows of pipes become simple or compound ; the 
 former when only one row answers to one register, the lat- 
 ter when several do so. Organists call a row compound 
 when several pipes play upon pressing one stop. 
 
 Organ pipes are of two sorts, mouth pipes and reed pipes, 
 of each of which there are several species. The first, called 
 pipes of mutation, consist, first, of a foot, which is a hollow 
 cone, and receives the wind that sounds the pipe ; second, 
 the body of the pipe, which is fastened to the foot. Between 
 the foot and the body of the pipe is a diaphragm or partition, 
 having a little long narrow aperture to let out the wind ; 
 over this aperture is the mouth, whose upper lip, being 
 horizontal, cuts the wind as it escapes through the aperture. 
 The pipes are made either of pewter, of lead mixed with a 
 certain portion of tin, or of wood. The tin pipes are always 
 open at their extremities, are of very small diameter, and 
 clear and shrill in their sound. Those of lead and tin mixed 
 are larger, the shortest open, and the longest quite stopped ; 
 the medium ones are partly stopped, and have besides a 
 little ear on each side of the mouth, drawn close or set 
 farther apart, for the purpose of raising or lowering the 
 sound. The wooden pipes are made square on the plane, 
 and their extremities are stopped with a valve or tompoin 
 covered with leather, so as to be air-tight. The sound of 
 these is very soft. The large pipes stopped are usually of 
 wood, the small ones of lead. Of course the longest yield 
 the gravest, the shortest the most acute sounds. Their 
 lengths and widths are in the reciprocal ratio of their 
 sounds ; and the divisions regulated by their rule, which is 
 called the diapason. The pipes, however, which are shut 
 have the same length as those that are open, which give 
 the same sound. 
 
 The reed pipes consist of a foot to carry the wind into the 
 shallot or reed, a hollow half cylinder, whose extremity is 
 fitted into a kind of mould by a wooden tompion. Its other 
 extremity is at liberty ; so that the wind, entering the shal- 
 lot, causes it to vibrate or shake against the reed ; and the 
 longer that part of the tongue which is at liberty is made, 
 the deeper the sound. The mould serving to fix the shallot 
 or reed, the tongue, tompion, &c. serves also to stop the foot 
 of the pipe, and to compel the wind to escape wholly at the 
 reed. In the mould, the part called the tube is soldered, 
 the inward opening whereof is a continuation of the reed. 
 The form of the tube varies in different ranks of pipes. 
 The acuteness and gravity of a reed pipe depends on the 
 length of the tongue, and of that of the pipe, taken from 
 the extremity of the shallot to the extremity of the tube. 
 The quality of the sound depends on the width of the reed, 
 the tongue, and the tube ; and also on the thickness of the 
 tongue, the figure of the tube, and the quantity of wind. To 
 vary the character of the sound of the pipes a valve or 
 portvent is added, which introduces the wind by fits and 
 shakes. 
 
 At Ulm, there is an organ in the cathedral 93 feet high 
 and 28 broad ; its largest pipe is 13 inches in diameter, and 
 it is supplied with sixteen pair of bellows. This organ, 
 however, is surpassed by the famous one at Haarlem, wliich 
 is 103 feet high and 50 feet broad, and was made in 1738 
 by Christian Muller. The great organ, or manual contains 
 sixteen stops or voices ; the upper manual fifteen stops ; the 
 chair organ fourteen stops ; and to the pedals, of which the 
 deepest pipe is 38 feet long, and 15 inches in diameter, there 
 are fifteen stops ; being, in all, sixty voices or stops, two 
 tremblans, two accouplemens, and nearly five thousand 
 pipes. The bellows are each 9 feet long and 5 feet broad. 
 The organ at Rotterdam is also on a very large scale, and 
 not greatly inferior to that just described ; its reed stops, ia- 
 deed, are allowed to be superior. 
 
 At the period of the restoration of Charles n. the organs 
 of this country had fallen much into decay, and the art of 
 building them was then renewed here by the celebrated 
 Bernard Schmidt, who, to distinguish him from his nephews, 
 Gerard and Bernard, by whom he was accompanied, ob- 
 tained the name of Father Smith ; and by Harris, from 
 France. The celebrated organ at the Temple church was 
 built by the first-named person. 
 
 The science of organ-building has of late years again re- 
 vived in this country, and indeed in other parts of Europe. 
 The three largest organs in England are in York Minster, 
 the Town Hall, Birmingham, and Christ Church, London. 
 The first-named, by Messrs. Elliot and Hill, has a compass 
 from C C C to C in alt, that is, 6 octaves. The great organ 
 has 24 stops, 4 open diapasons 16 feet, four 16 feet reeds. 
 The choir has 10 stops, from C C C to C in alt. The com- 
 pass of the swell is from C C lo C in alt, and it contains 12 
 stops. The pedal organ has 10 stops compass; 2 octaves 
 32 feet to 8 feet, 32 feet open diapason metal, do. wood, and 
 do. trumpet; three 16 feet reed stops, four 16 feet diapasons 
 to 4 feet. There are in all 56 stops, 6 couples, and 7 com- 
 position pedals to shift the stops. There are 4089 pipes in 
 50 ranks. 
 
 861
 
 ORGAN POINT. 
 
 The nr2in at the Town Hall in Birmingham, which was 
 built by Sir. Hill, has a compass from C C C to F in alt. 
 There "are 4 rows of keys, and 2 octaves of keys, to play the 
 double pedal-pipes With the Sogers, on the bass side of the 
 movements. The great organ contains the following stops : 
 3 open diapasons to 16 feet C, double diapason, and stopped 
 diapason ; - principals of metal, and 2 of wood ; a twelfth 
 and 2 fifteenths of metal, 1 of wood; a reed fifteenth 4 feet, 
 posaune on a large scale (10 feet), trumpet 10 feet, clarion 
 8 feet, sesquialtra 4 ranks, mixture 3 ranks ; two octaves of 
 German pedals ; thirty-two feet metal open diapason to 8 
 feet C; thirty-two feet wood open diapason to 8 feet C; 
 two octaves of pedal trumpets 16 feet to 8 feet C. The 
 3- feet pipe with the remainder of the 2 octaves of dou- 
 ble pedal pipes are in front. The choir organ from C C C 
 (16 feet) to F in alt, has open and stopped diapasons, princi- 
 pal, harmonia, llute, fifteenths, Cremona, and bassoon, open 
 diapason wood, and dulciana. SweJl descends to C C, and 
 has open, double, and stopped diapason, principal, fifteenth, 
 harmonica, horn, trumpet, hautboy, and clarion. 
 
 The ophicleide, or tuba mirabilis, on the swell manual 
 from C C to F, the same compass as the swell, but separate 
 from it, forms its prominent feature, having power equal to 
 the whole of tbe great organ, with a full, line, and smooth 
 tone. This magnificent reed is unparalleled in Europe ; 
 and the Birmingham and Liverpool organs are the only in- 
 struments which can boast of its powers. 
 
 The first clavier is the choir, the second the great organ, 
 the third the swell ; the fourth clavier takes any single 
 stop, or all of them, in either choir or swell, without affect- 
 ing either, or, in other words, the performer may play the 
 choir and swell in the usual manner, without at all affect- 
 ing the fourth clavier. To accomplish the mechanical 
 movement requires more draw stops than real stops of 
 pipes, although the same object is gained by the fourth 
 clavier as by a fourth separate organ. The collected 
 lengths of the trackers, or wood rods, which communicate 
 from the keys to the sound boards, would extend four miles 
 and a half. The 32 feet C is 1 foot 8A inches in diameter : 
 the same note, in wood, 3 feet by 2 feet 6 inches, arid would 
 hold 12 pipes and 13 gallons of wine. There are two oc- 
 taves and a half of bells. The pedal pipes are played with 
 the fingers, as easily as the great organ, by a newly-invent- 
 ed valve* which resists the pressure of wind. There are 
 at present 63 draw stops in this organ, including the tuba 
 mirabilis, recently inserted, and including coupler stops. 
 The choir and swell have 2 draw stops to each row of 
 pipes, as the fourth clavier may require. 
 
 The Christ Church organ, "in Newgate-street, London, 
 which is yet in progress, will be the largest manual organ 
 in Europe, containing 71 stops ; 24 in the great organ, 17 in 
 the choir, 11 in the swell, 10 in the pedal organ, and 8 cop- 
 ulas. This was commenced by Mr. Hill in 1840. The two 
 largest swell organs in Europe have been erected by Mr. 
 Hill during the present year. The one is in St. Peter's 
 Church, Cornhill, and contains 19 stops ; the other is in the 
 new Independent Chapel, Liverpool, and contains 20 stops. 
 These swell organs are about double the size of those in 
 the York and Birmingham organs, and contain many new 
 stops ; such as the wold flute, suabe flute, oboe flute, echo 
 dulciana cornet, piccolo, and other qualities of tone hitherto 
 unknown in this country. 
 
 ORGAN POINT. In Music, a succession of chords, in 
 some of which the harmony of the fifth is taken unpre- 
 pared on the bass as a holding note, whether preceded by 
 the tonic or by the harmony of the fourth of the key. 
 
 ORGA'NICAL DESCRIPTION OF CURVES, in Ge- 
 ometry, signifies the description of curves on a plane by 
 means of instruments ; as the circle is described by a pair 
 of compasses, the ellipse by means of a thread passing 
 round two pins in the foci, the epicycloids by the revolution 
 of circles on the circumferences of other circles, the con- 
 choid by means of the trammel, the cissoid by the motion of 
 a rectangular ruler, &c. See Schootcn's Ezercitationcs 
 Mathematics 1 ; JVcicton's Arith. Universalis ; jMacluurin's 
 Gcomctria Organica, &c. 
 
 ORGANIC DISEASE. A disease in which the struc- 
 ture of an organ is morbidly altered ; opposed to functional 
 disease, in which the secretions or functions only are deran- 
 ged, Without any apparent change of organization. Tuber- 
 cul.ited induration of the liver is an organic or structural 
 disease of that visens: the secretion of viscid, unhealthy 
 bilo is a functional derangement of it. 
 
 ORGA'NIC LAWS. In Modern Political Phraseology, 
 the name given to laws directly concerning the fundamen- 
 tal parts of the constitution of a state. According to the 
 distinction taken by some French writers, fundamental laws 
 nre merely declaratory, containing the principles or theory 
 of government. Organic laws arc those which apply those 
 
 * For thit vilve Mr. Hill had Ihe tilvcr mid.il awarded to him by Uic 
 £ocje!y for Promoting Art! ind Commerce. May 31it. lui. 
 8C2 
 
 ORIFLAMME, 
 
 principles to the actual condition of society by positive en- 
 actment, and add the sanction of punishment. 
 
 t iRG.VNlC REMAINS. The organized bodies, whether 
 of animals or vegetables, found in a fossil state, are so call- 
 ed. See Geolooy. 
 
 ORGANISTS. The old name given in the Roman Cath- 
 olic Church to those priests who organized or sang in pans. 
 The name organists of the hallelujah was applied in the 
 13th century to certain priests who assisted in the perform- 
 ance of the mass. They were generally four in number, 
 and derived their name from singing in parts, or organizing 
 the melody appropriated to the word hallelujah. 
 
 ORGANIZATION. (Lat.) The processes by which 
 an organized body is formed : also the totality of the parts 
 which constitute, and of the laws which regulate, an or- 
 ganized body. 
 
 olIGANO'GRAPHY. (Gr. opyavov, a tool or instrument, 
 and ypaipm, I describe.) A term usually applied to an ac- 
 count of the structure of plants. It comprises all that re- 
 lates to the various forms of tissue of which plants are an- 
 atomically constructed ; explains the exact organization of 
 all those parts through which the vital functions are per- 
 formed ; and teaches the relation which one part bears to 
 another, with the dependance of the whole upon the com- 
 mon system. See Botany. 
 
 O'RGANON. (Gr. opyavov.) In Philosophical language, 
 nearly synonymous with method, and implying a body of 
 rules and canons for the direction of the scientific faculty, 
 either generally or in reference to some particular depart- 
 ment. For an account of the Organon of Aristotle and 
 that of Bacon, see articles Aristotelian and Baconian 
 Philosophy respectively. 
 
 O'RGIES. (Gr. dpyia.) In Mythology, the mysteries of 
 Bacchus, as solemnized among the Greeks and Thracians. 
 Writers derive the name from the word opy>/, anger, from 
 the fury and excitement of the Bacchanals, or from the 
 wrath of Ceres against Jupiter. (Clem. Mez.) But these 
 fanciful etymologies, after the manner of the Greeks, seem 
 to show that the word was really of foreign origin, and 
 adopted by them together with the thing itself. The author 
 of the article " Mysteries" in the Encijc. Brit, would derive 
 it from Hebr. argoz, a chest, from the casket containing tho 
 secret symbols of the god. According to his view, the or- 
 gies were the mysteries of Osiris, the Egyptian Bacchus, 
 and from Egypt transplanted to Greece, where (hey became 
 mingled with the gross corruptions peculiar to the worship 
 of the Bacchus of Thebes. Others imagine their origin to 
 have been in Thrace. The frantic solemnities of theso 
 rites are most poetically described in the Bacchee of Euripi- 
 des. The mysteries which they enveloped are extremely 
 obscure. 
 
 ORGUES. In Fortification, long and thick pieces of 
 wood shod with iron, and suspended each by a separato 
 rope over a gate so as to be ready to be let fall and stop it 
 up upon the approach of an enemy. The term also denotes 
 a machine composed of arquebuses, or musket-barrels, link- 
 ed together so that they may be discharged all at once, and 
 used to defend breaches. 
 
 ORGY'IA. (Gr. opeyui, I stretch out, and yyiov, a limb.) A 
 name applied by Ochsenheimer to a genus of Lepidopterans. 
 
 ORICHA'LCUM. (Gr. opo;, a mountain, and x a ^ K °St 
 brass.) Literally, mountain brass. This was the name 
 given to a peculiar kind of mixed metal in general use 
 among the ancient Greeks and Romans. It is proved to 
 have been made on much the same basis as brass ; but 
 various opinions have been entertained respectine the pre- 
 cise nature of the ingredients employed in its composition, 
 and no definite conclusion has been arrived at on the subject. 
 
 O'RIEL. (Etym. uncertain.) In Gothic Architecture, a 
 bay window. According to some passages in earl}' writers, 
 it seems also to signify a recess ; but the former is the sig- 
 Blficatiorj now usually attached to it. 
 
 O'KIENT. (Lat. orior, / rise.) The east, or eastern 
 part of the horizon. In Surveying, to orient a plan signifies 
 to mark its situation or bearing with respect to the four 
 cardinal points. 
 
 O'RIFLA.MME. The ancient royal standard of France. 
 It was the banner of the abbey of St. Dennis, which was 
 presented by the abbot to the lord-protector of the convent, 
 whenever engaged in the field on its behalf. This protect- 
 orship was attached to the countship of Vexin ; and when 
 that county was added to the possessions of the crown by 
 Philip I., this banner, which he bore in consequence, be- 
 came, in time, the great standard of the monarchy. By 
 some it is said to have been lost at Agincoiirt. but, accord- 
 ing to others, its last display in the field was in the reign of 
 Charles VII. Its derivation is uncertain: according to 
 some, "quasi nuri flamrna." According to Count de Gebe- 
 lin, the last syllable is the same with " fanon" (Germ, 
 fahnc). Felibien says it was still to be seen, in 1535, in an 
 abbey, almost devoured by moths. (Sec Mem. de I'.ic. da 
 Inter., vol. xiii.)
 
 ORIGANUM, OIL OF. 
 
 ORI'GANUM, OIL OF. The distilled or volatile oil of 
 the wild marjoram. It is imported from the south of Eu- 
 rope, and used in liniments and embrocations as a stim- 
 ulant. 
 
 ORIGENISTS. An earl}' Christian sect, who pretended 
 to draw their opinions from the writings of the celebrated 
 Origen. They maintained that Christ was the Son of God 
 only by adoption ; and denied eternity of punishments. 
 They existed in considerable numbers In the fourth, fifth, 
 and sixth centuries, and their tenets spread among the 
 monks of Egypt. This sect of Christians must by no means 
 be confounded with the Origenarians, who sprang up at a 
 somewhat later period than the former, and whose tenets 
 surpassed in abomination even those of the Gnostics. (See 
 Moshcim, transl., ed. 1790, i., 392.) 
 
 ORI'GINAL. (Lat. originalis.) In Law, where the sev- 
 eral pans of an indenture are interchangeably executed be- 
 tween the parties, that part which is executed by the 
 grantor is commonly called the original, the others counter- 
 parts. (See Indenture, Counterpart.) But, when all 
 the parties execute every part, all are originals. The ori- 
 ginal of any deed or document is the best evidence ; and 
 a copy not admitted until reasonable proof has been given 
 that the former is destroyed, lost, &c, or that it is in the 
 possession of the adverse party, who has been duly warned 
 to produce it. (See Evidence.) The writ which a plain- 
 tiff sued out of chancery, in order to commence a suit, was 
 formerly called an " original writ ;" the use of it is abolish- 
 ed, in personal actions, by 2 W. 4., c. 39. See Pleading. 
 
 Original. In the Fine Arts, a work not copied from 
 another, but the work of the artist himself. When an art- 
 ist copies his own work, it is called a duplicate. A certain 
 freedom and ease are always discernible in an original, 
 which in a copy are looked for in vain ; though copies have 
 sometimes been executed which it is almost impossible to 
 detect, and which have deceived even excellent judges. 
 
 ORI'GINAL SIN, in Theology, to use the language of 
 the English church in her ninth article, " standeth not in 
 the following of Adam . . . but is the fault and corruption of 
 the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the 
 offspring of Adam ; whereby man is very far gone from 
 original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to 
 evil," and it "deserveth God's wrath and damnation." By 
 the following of Adam is here meant the imitation of Adam ; 
 the Pelagians, against whom this article is directed, having 
 held that the words of Scripture, " in Adam have all sin- 
 ned," related not to any inherent vice in the race of 
 Adam, but to the propensity of mankind to imitate his trans- 
 gression. (August., De JVat. ct Gratia.) With this excep- 
 tion, the original depravity of man's nature, and the conse- 
 quent necessity of " a new birth unto righteousness," have 
 been commonly held by all sects of Christians. But a great 
 and important difference has prevailed as to the character 
 and cause of that depravity. The belief of St. Augustine is 
 thus expressed by Bishop Burnet : " That a covenant was 
 made with all mankind in Adam as their first parent ; that 
 he was a person constituted by God to represent them all ; 
 and that the covenant was made by him so, that if he had 
 obeyed, all his posterity would have been happy through 
 his obedience ; but by his disobedience they were all to be 
 esteemed to have sinned in him, his acts being imputed and 
 transferred to them all." This doctrine of imputed guilt 
 has been held by many of the stricter sects and varieties of 
 Christians, both in and out of the Church of Rome; it is 
 said by some to be the most consonant to the words of our 
 article, as no doubt it is to the views of the framers of it, 
 whose sentiments were deeply tinctured with Calvinism. 
 But it may be questioned whether those words are not as 
 easily applicable to what is, undoubtedly, the more common 
 opinion among Protestant Christians — that original sin is 
 not the sin of Adam imputed to his descendants, but is that 
 actual depravity and tendency to evil which philosophy, no 
 less than religion, recognises as existing in the human 
 mind, and developed with its growth in each individual 
 subject ; the source of which, or its permission by the Di- 
 vine Author of Good, is involved in the inevitable obscurity 
 which surrounds the great question of the origin of evil. 
 
 ORI'LLON. In Fortification, a mass of earth lined with 
 a wall, raised on the shoulder of a bastion for the purpose 
 of covering the retired flank. 
 
 ORI'ON. One of the forty-eight ancient constellation* 
 formed by Ptolemy. It is situated in the southern hemi- 
 sphere with respect to the ecliptic, but the equinoctial passes 
 nearly across its middle. Orion is one of the most remark- 
 able constellations in the heavens. It contains seven stars, 
 which are very conspicuous to the naked eye ; four of them 
 form a square, and the three others are situated in the mid- 
 dle of it in a straight line. Two of the four are stars of the 
 first magnitude ; namely, Rigel in the left foot, and Betel- 
 guese in the right shoulder. The three stars in the middle 
 of the square are of the second magnitude, and form what 
 is called the belt of Orion. They are also popularly called 
 
 ORNITHOLOGY. 
 
 Jacob's staff, and the Yard-wand. This constellation is 
 represented by the figure of a man with a sword by his 
 side. The name Orion is of great antiquity, and occurs in 
 the books of Job, Amos, and Isaiah. Orion contains a re- 
 markable nebula, and thousands of small stars which are 
 only visible in powerful telescopes. 
 
 Orion. In Greek Mythology, the son of Hyrieus ; ac- 
 cording to Homer, a youth slain by Diana, on account of 
 the love borne to him by Aurora ; but according to others, a 
 king and a mighty hunter. Antiquity is full of contradic- 
 tions respecting the origin, character, and fate of this myth- 
 ological personage, and the only point in which it agrees 
 respecting him is his elevation to the stars after his death. 
 Those who wish to see all the circumstances of his history 
 philosophically investigated should consult the dissertation 
 of the late Prof. Muller of Gottingen, Ubcr Orion, which 
 appeared in the Rhein, Jtfus. Phi/ol., ii., 12. 
 
 ORISMO'LOGY. (Gr. opiano;, a term, and \oyo{, a dis- 
 course.) That branch of natural history which relates to 
 the explanation of the technical terms of the science. It is 
 also called Glossology and Terminology. 
 
 O'RLO. (Ital. a hem or edge.) In Architecture, the 
 plinth to the base of a column or a pedestal. 
 
 O'RLOP DECK. The lowest deck, or, rather, partial 
 deck of a ship, below the water, on wliich the cables are 
 coiled, the sails, &c, stowed. 
 
 ORMOLU. (Fr.) Bronze or copper, gilt, usually goes 
 under this name. The French are celebrated in this branch 
 of manufacture. 
 
 O'RNAMENT. (Lat. ornamentum.) In the Fine Arts. 
 See Decoration. 
 
 ORNITHI'CNITES. (Gr. opvic, a bird, txvoc, a trace.) 
 The footmarks of birds which occur in different strata. 
 Some of these are very remarkable, as proving the existence 
 of birds at very remote periods ; for instance, at the early 
 epoch of the new red sandstone formation. An account of 
 these, as occurring in the red sandstone of Connecticut, is 
 given by Professor Hitchcock in the American Journal of 
 Science ami the Arts . 
 
 ORNI'THOLITES. (Gr. opvic, and \i6oc, a stone.) The 
 name given to fossil birds. 
 
 ORNITHO'LOGY. (Gr. opvic, a bird, and Xoyoc, a de- 
 scription.) The science which teaches the natural history 
 and arrangement of birds. (See Aves for the general or- 
 ganical characters of the class, and the modifications of the 
 feet by which the five orders of the Quinary arrangement 
 are characterized.) 
 
 The subdivision of the class of birds is by no means so 
 clearly indicated by either external or anatomical charac- 
 ters as that of Mammals, and the systems of Ornithology 
 present, in consequence, greater discrepancy than the Mam- 
 malogical ones. It is not without interest to observe that, 
 if conditions of the procreative function be taken as guides 
 to the primary division of the class, such division will pre- 
 sent the binary character, as in the class of Mammals and of 
 Reptiles ; for example, birds may be divided into two great 
 groups, in one of which the young are able to run about or 
 swim and provide food for themselves the moment they 
 quit the shell ; while in the other, the young are excluded 
 feeble, naked, blind, and dependant on their parents for 
 support. The species comprised in the first of these groups 
 have been termed Aves prcecoccs, those of the second Aves 
 Altrices. 
 
 Professor Nitzsch divided the feathered tribes into three 
 grand primary groups, corresponding with the three great 
 divisions of the matter of our planet, as air, earth, and wa- 
 ter, which constitute respectively the principal theatres of 
 their vital actions. 
 
 This first order consists of the Raptorial and Passerine 
 birds, the birds of flight par excellence, which he accordingly 
 terms " Luft-vbgeln," or Aves aerem. The second order 
 embraces the birds of the earth, " Erd-vtigeln," Aves terres- 
 tres, represented by the ostrich and common fowl. The 
 third great division includes the birds which frequent the 
 waters, Aves aquaticm (Wasser-vogeln), typified by the 
 heron and the gull. 
 
 Sandewall's ornithological system has four primary 
 groups or cohorts. 
 
 In the Quinary arrangement of birds proposed by Mr. 
 Vigors, there may be traced a similar principle to that 
 which guided Nitzsch in his ternary classification. Thus, 
 the first order (Raptores, Virg.) includes the birds which 
 soar in the upper regions of the air, which build their nests 
 and rear their young on the highest rocks and loftiest trees. 
 The second order (Insessores) includes the birds which af- 
 fect the lower regions of the air, and which are peculiarly 
 arboreal in their habits ; whence the name of Perchers. 
 The third order corresponds with Nitzsch's Aves terrestres 
 and is termed, as in the system of Illiger, Rasores. If the 
 aquatic birds of Nitzsch be divided into those which fre- 
 quent the fresh waters, and are restricted to wading into 
 rivers, lakes, &c, in search of their food, and those which 
 
 863
 
 ORNITHOLOGY. 
 
 have the power of swimming or diving, and for the most 
 part frequent the great ocean, we shall then have the two 
 remaining orders of the Quinary arrangement, viz., Gral- 
 latorcs and Natatorcs. The chief merit of this arrange- 
 ment is its aim to express the natural affinities, and their 
 circular progression in the whole and in the several parts. 
 
 Linnams and Cuvier have six orders of birds, which are 
 characterized as follows by the latter naturalist : 
 
 " Of all classes of animals, that of birds is the most 
 strongly characterized — that in which the species bear the 
 greatest mutual resemblance, and which is separated from 
 all others by the widest interval. Their systematic ar- 
 rangement is based, as in the Mammalia, on the organs of 
 manducation, or the beak, and in those of prehension, which 
 are again the beak, and more particularly the feet. 
 
 " One is first struck by the character of webbed feet, or 
 those wherein the toes are connected by membranes that 
 distinguish all swimming birds. The backward position of 
 their feet, the elongation of the sternum, the neck, often 
 longer than the legs, to enable them to reach below them, 
 the close, glossy plumage impervious to water, altogether 
 concur with the feet to make good navigators of the Pal- 
 mipedes. 
 
 " In other birds, which have also most frequently some 
 small web to their feet, at least between the two external 
 toes, we observe elevated tarsi ; legs denuded of feathers 
 above the heel-joint; a slender shape; in fine, all the 
 requisites for wading in shallow waters in search of 
 nourishment. Such, in fact, is the source of food of the 
 greater number; and although some of them resort exclu- 
 sively to dry places, they are nevertheless termed 'shore- 
 birds' or 'waders' {Grallai). 
 
 "Among the true land birds, the Gallinacea have, like 
 our domestic cock, a heavy carriage, a short flight, the beak 
 moderate, its upper mandible vaulted, the nostrils partly 
 covered by a soft and tumid scale, and always the edges of 
 the toes indented, with short membranes between the bases 
 of those in front. They subsist chiefly on grain. 
 
 "Birds of prey (Accipitres) have a crooked beak, with 
 its point sharp and curving downward, and the nostrils 
 pierced in a membrane that invests its base: their feet are 
 tinned with strong talons. They live on flesh and pursue 
 other birds; their flight accordingly is mostly powerful. 
 The greater number still retain a slight web betwixt their 
 external toes. 
 
 " The Passerine birds (Passeres) comprise many more 
 species than all the other families; but their organization 
 presents so many analogies that they cannot be separated, 
 although they vary much in size and strength. 
 
 "Finally, the name of Climbers (Scansores) is applied to 
 those birds in which the external toe is directed backwards 
 like the thumb, because the greater number of them avail 
 themselves of a conformation so favourable for a vertical 
 position to climb the trunks of trees." 
 
 Anterior to Cuvier, but subsequently in the order of pub- 
 lication, is Pallas's modification of the ornithological system 
 of Linnaus. It is contained in his great posthumous work, 
 entitled Zoographia Rosso-Asiatica. lie also divides the 
 class of birds into six orders : 
 
 1. Prespetes, having the characters of the Accipitres, with 
 
 which it is synonymous. 
 
 2. Oscincs, including the genus Columba, with the Piece and 
 
 certain Passeres of Linnants. 
 
 3. Fringi/la>, corresponding with the Crassirostres, Gra- 
 
 nivoriB, Enucleatrices of Ray. 
 
 4. Pulvi ratriees, having the characters of the Qallinm. 
 
 5. Grallce. This order commences with the genus Otis, 
 
 and includes, as in the system of Cuvier, the Struthi- 
 ous birds with the true waders. 
 C. Jlydrophiles. The characters of this order corresponds 
 With that of the Palmipedes, with which it is equiva- 
 lent As an example of the views entertained and 
 expressed by Pallas of relations of analogy, the follow- 
 ing passage may be taken from his exposition of the 
 nature of his Hydrophila: " Rostra in hoc ordine ad- 
 modum variant, at Dallas ordinis character inde desumi 
 possit, et quasi reliquos ordines amulari videntur ut 
 Diomedca et Catarracta, Bapaces, Lari, xirrrxr, Alecs, 
 Cepphi et Colymbi, Oscines ; Dries, Pulveratriees, /.nu- 
 des, Passeres, et tandem Serratirostria genera Phoeni- 
 copterum et Plataleam inter Grallas referant." 
 The primary division of the class of birds adopted by the 
 author of the article " Aves," in the Cyclopedia of Anatomy 
 and Physiology, includes seven orders ; the Struthlous birds, 
 by virtue of their remarkable anatomical peculiarities, be- 
 inu' separated from the Grallie of Linnoms and Cuvier. 
 The following are the orders : 
 
 3. Raptorks, Accipitres, Linn. Cuv. Birds of prey. 
 'J 1ns!:ssores, Passeres, Cuv. Perchers. 
 
 3. Scansores, Cuv. Climbers. 
 
 4. Kasorks, Gultina. Linn. Cuv. Scratchers. 
 
 804 
 
 ORRERY. 
 
 5. CfRsoREs, III ig. Coursers. 
 0. Grallatores, Grallis, Linn. Waders. 
 7. Natatores, Palmipedes, Cuv.; Anseres, Linn. Swim- 
 mers. 
 
 Scopoli and Latham have divided birds into nine orders ; 
 Temminck has sixteen orders ; Brisson has twenty-eight, 
 and Lacepede has thirty-eight orders ; but the principles 
 and the characters on which a classification of birds is most 
 philosophically founded, appear to be sufficiently illustrated 
 in the systems that have been already explained. 
 
 ORNl'THOMAiNCY. (Gr. opvis, u<nrua, divination.) 
 Divination by the flight of birds. The Etruscans were the 
 most celebrated practisers of it. See Augurs. 
 
 ORNI'THORHY'NCHUS. (Gr. opvis, j>vy%oc, a beak.) 
 The name of the genus of Monotrematous Mammals, cha- 
 racterized by the form of the mouth, which resembles the 
 bill of a duck. It is peculiar to the fresh-water rivers and 
 lakes of Australia and Van Dicmen's Land. 
 
 OROMA'SDES. In Persian Mythology, the principle of 
 Good, created by the will of the great eternal spirit Ze- 
 ruane Akherene, simultaneously with Ahriman, the princi- 
 ple of Evil, with whom he is in perpetual conflict. Oro- 
 masdes is the creator of the earth, sun, moon, and stars, to 
 which he originally assigned each its proper place, and 
 whose various movements he continues to regulate. Ac- 
 cording to the Persian myths, the world which is to last 
 152,000 years, during which the war between the Good and 
 Evil Principle is to go on increasing, is at length to be con- 
 sumed, the Evil Principle exterminated, and a new world 
 created in its room, over which Oromasdes is to reign as the 
 sole and supreme monarch. The great apostle of the 
 Persians, Zoroaster, was the prophet of Oromasdes ; and 
 there is an old prophecy extant that after the lapse of ages 
 a descendant of Zoroaster shall be sent by Oromasdes to 
 redeem the world. Here we cannot fail to perceive how 
 striking a resemblance exists between the old Persian myth 
 and that grand scheme of redemption communicated by the 
 Almighty to the Jews, and which was consummated by 
 the advent of Jesus Christ.. See Ahriman, Polytheism. 
 
 O'RPHEAN MYSTERIES. The mysteries of which 
 Orpheus was the founder were so called. These myste- 
 ries were at a remote period in the highest estimation, and 
 exercised an important influence over the intellectual de- 
 velopment of mankind. Orpheus is said to have been 
 taught his mysteries by the Ida>an Dactyli; and to have in- 
 troduced them into Thrace, whence they were gradually 
 propagated throughout all Greece by his initiated followers. 
 The nature of these mysteries is involved in an impenetra- 
 ble veil of obscurity ; but there can be no doubt that they 
 partook of the general character of all mysteries, inculca- 
 ting a purer knowledge of religion than was compatible 
 with the superstitious observances then prevalent. On the 
 union of these mysteries with the Bacchanalian orgies 
 they fell into merited contempt, and were at length gradu- 
 ally disused. (Sec Mysteries.) The initiated in these 
 mysteries, as well as the persons employed to initiate can- 
 didates in them, were called, in some cases, Orphrote/estie. 
 
 O'RPHEIJS. A mythological personage ; according to 
 the common story, a son of the Thracian river .Eagrus and 
 the muse Calliope. His power of moving inanimate things 
 by music, the share he bore in the Argonautic expedition, 
 his descent into the Shades to recover bis wife Eurydice, 
 and his death by the violence of the Thracian women, are 
 well-known circumstances in ancient romantic fable. Mo- 
 derns have imagined that his name is a general mythic 
 designation for the earliest bards, who came with their art 
 from Thrace to Greece. Whether any fragments of poetry, 
 either of the real Orpheus or of this supposed school, ex- 
 isted in Grecian classical ages, has been doubted. What 
 passed as the poetry of Orpheus in the time of Aristotle 
 seems to have been decidedly supposititious, as much so as 
 the poems which we possess under the same name, some 
 of which are thought to be as recent as the 4th century 
 after Christ. According to modern theories, the Orphic 
 poetry of ancient times contained the whole body of Gre- 
 cian esoterical religion and import of the Mysteries. (See 
 Lobeck's Aglaophamus ; Bode's Orpheus; Tiedemann, Ini- 
 tia Philosophies Grata : the History of the Literature of 
 Greece, Lib. I 1 . K. p. '2:11 : .Mem. de V. Icad.des Sci., vol. xii.) 
 
 O'RPIMENT. (Lat. auripii'inentum.) Yellow stilphu- 
 *rct of arsenic; it forms the basis of the yellow paint, 
 called king's yellow. The solution oforplment in ammonia 
 ha- been used as a yellow dye. 
 
 O'RPIN. (Pr.) In Painting, a yellow colour of various 
 degrees of intensity, approaching also to red. 
 
 O'BPINE. The English name for the succulent herba- 
 ceous plant called by botanists Sedum telephium, which see. 
 
 O'BBEBY. A machine for representing to children the 
 motions anil relate S magnitudes and distance- of the bodies 
 COmposinL' the -olar system. As these machines are often 
 procured by Well-meaning but ignorant people at considera- 
 ble expense, it may be useful to quote un authority that 

 
 ORRIS ROOT. 
 
 will not be called in question. " As to getting correct no- 
 tions on this subject" (the magnitudes and distances of the 
 planets), says Sir John Herschel, " by drawing circles on 
 paper, or, still worse, from those very childish toys called 
 orreries, it is out of the question." {Astronomy, Cab. Cyc, 
 p. 287. For the description of an orrery, see Ferguson's 
 Astronomy, by Brewster.) 
 
 O'RRIS ROOT. The root of the Iris Florentine It 
 has an agreeable odour, much like violets, and is sometimes 
 used in perfumed powders ; it is also turned into little balls 
 for issues, called orris peas. 
 
 O'RTHITE. (Gr. opdos, straight.) A mineral which 
 occurs in straight rays or layers in Scandinavian granite. 
 It contains cerium and yttria. 
 
 ORTHO'CERATES, Orthocerata. (Gr. opOos, and Kcpas, 
 a horn.) The name of a family of Cephalopods with 
 chambered siphoniferous shells, which are straight, or are 
 continued straight after commencing with a greater or less 
 curvature, thus resembling a horn. 
 
 O'RTHODOX, or ORTHODOXY. (Gr. opQos, and So^a, 
 opinion.) These terms are restricted in application to right 
 judgments in matters of religious faith ; and although every 
 sect maintains of course the exclusive correctness of its 
 own views, yet the title of orthodoxy is appropriated by 
 ecclesiastical historians to the standard maintained by the 
 Catholic or universal church. The term orthodox is gene- 
 rally restricted also to those principal tenets which have 
 been always held by the great mass of professing Chris- 
 tians: large bodies of dissenters in England are allowed by 
 the church to be orthodox, inasmuch as they hold the three 
 creeds, and therefore profess the principal articles of the 
 Christian faith in common with those who differ from them 
 in matters of church authority and discipline. 
 
 ORTHODROMICS (Gr. opQos, and ipouos, course), in 
 Navigation, is sailing on a right course, or on the arc of a 
 great circle, which is the shortest distance between two 
 points on the sphere. 
 
 O'RTHOEPY. (Gr. op9os, and ciroc, a word), in Gram- 
 mar, signifies, literally, the right use of words; but it is 
 applied, at least by modern writers, to signify that part of 
 prosody which treats of the manner of uttering words, or 
 of pronunciation in its limited sense. See Pronunciation. 
 ORTHO'GONAL. (Gr. opOos, and yuvia, angle.) In 
 Geometry, the same as rectangular or right-angled. 
 
 ORTHOGRA'PHIC PROJECTION. The projection of 
 points on a plane by straight lines at right angles to the 
 plane. See Projection. 
 
 ORTHO'GRAPHY. (Gr. opOog, and ypcKpu, I write.) 
 That part of grammar which relates to the method of de- 
 noting sounds by visible signs, to the different kinds of 
 letters, and their combination into syllables and words. 
 
 Orthography. In Architecture, a geometrical repre- 
 sentation of an elevation or section of a building. 
 
 O'RTHOPNCG'A. (Gr. opOo?, and -vorj, breathing.) A 
 difficulty of breathing, which is increased by any deviation 
 from the erect posture. 
 
 ORTHO'PTERANS, Orthoptera. (Gr. op8os, and -nrcpov, 
 a wing.) An order of insects, including all those species 
 which have the wings disposed when at rest in straight 
 longitudinal folds. Latreille characterizes the insects of 
 this order as having the body generally less firm in texture 
 than in the Coleoptera, and covered by soft semi-membra- 
 nous elytra furnished with nervures, which, in the greater 
 Eumber, do not join at the suture in a straight line. Their 
 wings are folded longitudinally, most frequently in the 
 manner of a fan, and divided by membranous nervures 
 tunning in the same direction. The maxillae are always 
 terminated by a dentated and horny piece covered with a 
 galea, an appendage corresponding to the exterior division 
 of the maxilla; of the Coleoptera. They have also a sort 
 ©f tongue. 
 
 The Ortkoptera undergo a semi-metamorphosis, of which 
 all the mutations are reduced to the growth and develop- 
 ment of the elytra and wings, that are always visible in a 
 rudimental state in the nymph. As both this nymph, or 
 semi-nymph, and the larva are otherwise similar to the 
 perfect insect, they walk and feed in the same way. 
 
 The mouth of the Orthoptera consists of a labium, two 
 mandibles, as many maxilla?, and four palpi : those of the 
 jaws always have five joints ; whilst the labial palpi, as 
 in the Coleoptera, present but three. The mandibles are 
 always very strong and corneous, and the ligula is constantly 
 divided into two or four thongs. The form of the antennas 
 varies less than in the Coleoptera, but they are usually 
 composed of a greater number of joints. Several, besides 
 their reticulated eyes, have two or three ocelli. The infe- 
 rior surface of the first joints of the tarsi is frequently 
 fleshy or membranous. Many females are furnished with a 
 true perforater formed of two blades, frequently enclosed in 
 a common envelop, by means of which they deposit their 
 eggs. The posterior extremity of the body, in most of them, 
 is provided with appendages. 
 73 
 
 ORYZA. 
 
 All the known Orthoptera, without exception, are terres- 
 trial, even in their two first states of existence. Some are 
 carnivorous, or omnivorous, but the greater number feed on 
 living plants. 
 
 O'RTIVE. (Lat. ortus, a rising.) In astronomy, hav- 
 ing reference to the rising of a star or planet; thus, ortive 
 amplitude, or eastern amplitude, is the arc of the horizon 
 intercepted between the point where a star rises and the 
 east point. 
 
 O'RTOLAN. The name given in France and England 
 to a species of Frangillidm greatly esteemed for the delicacy 
 of its flesh when in season. It is the ortolano of the Ital- 
 ians, and the fettammer of the Germans. The ortolan is a 
 native of northern Africa ; but in the summer and autumnal 
 months it resorts to southern Europe, and frequently mi- 
 grates to the central and even the northern parts. There 
 are large establishments in Italy and in the south of France 
 for feeding these birds, the flesh of which is styled by 
 Prince Musignano came squisita. 
 
 O'RUS, or HORUS. An Egyptian god, son of Isis and 
 Osiris, according to Herodotus (ii. 144) ; answering to the 
 Greek Apollo. He frequently appears in Egyptian paintings 
 sitting on the lap of Isis. (See Egyptian Antiquities, Lon- 
 don, 1836, vol. ii.) 
 
 ORVl'ETAN. An antidote to poison, said to have been 
 invented by a mountebank of Orvieta in Italy. 
 
 ORY'CTEROPE. (Gr. opvaau, I dig, and nov;, a foot.) 
 A genus of Edentate Mammals peculiar to the African 
 continent, and provided with feet and claws well adapted 
 for digging; from which circumstance, and the heavy 
 shapeless form of the only known species of this genus, it 
 is commonly called at the Cape of Good Hope the ground- 
 hog. The principal food of the orycterope is the termite 
 and other species of ants, which it dislodges by its strong 
 and sharp claws, and entraps by means of a long extensi- 
 ble and glutinous tongue. It differs from the true ant-eat- 
 ers principally in having molar teeth. The orycterope is 
 about the size of a hog, stands low, has short hair, and is of 
 grayish-brown colour. It has four toes before and five be- 
 hind, and inhabits burrows. Its flesh is eaten. 
 
 ORYCTO'GNO'SY, or ORYCTO'LOGY. (Gr. opvtcroc, 
 fossil, and \oyos, a discourse.) The branch of zoological 
 science which treats of fossil organic remains. These 
 terms are sometimes used to denote those parts of mineral- 
 ogy which have for their object the classification of mine- 
 rals, their description, nomenclature, and arrangement. 
 
 ORY'ZA. (Arab, aruz.) The name by which rice was 
 known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and which has 
 been adopted by modern botanists as the generic name of 
 the plant yielding that invaluable grain. The genus Oryza 
 belongs to the class Hezandria, order Dygynia ; and has 
 ten glumes to a single flower, and two halea, nearly equal, 
 adhering to the seed. It affords many varieties, of which 
 the most common is the Oryza sativa, or the English rice. 
 This plant is raised in immense quantities in India, China, 
 and most eastern countries; in the West Indies, Central 
 America, and the United States; and in some of the south- 
 ern countries of Europe. It, in fact, occupies the same 
 place in most intertropical regions as wheat in the warmer 
 parts of Europe, and oats and rye in those more to the 
 north. Forming, as it does, the principal part of the food 
 of the most civilized and populous eastern nations, it is 
 more extensively consumed than any other species of grain. 
 It is light and wholesome, but it is said to contain less of the 
 nutritive principle than wheat. When rough, or in its na- 
 tural state in the husk, it is called paddy. There is an 
 immense variety in the qualities of rice. That which is 
 principally exported from Bengal has received the name of 
 cargo rice. It is of a coarse reddish cast, but is sweet and 
 large-grained, and is preferred by the natives to every other 
 sort. It is not kiln-dried, but is parboiled in earthen pots or 
 caldrons, partly to destroy the vegetative principle, so that 
 it may keep better, and partly to facilitate the process of 
 husking. Patna rice is more esteemed in Europe than any 
 other sort of rice imported from the East. It is small- 
 grained, rather long and wiry, and remarkably white. But 
 the rice raised on the low marshy grounds of Carolina is 
 unquestionably very superior to any brought from any part 
 of India. 
 
 The produce of lands naturally or artificially irrigated is, 
 as far as rice is concerned, from 5 to 10 times greater than 
 that of dry land having no command of water ; and hence 
 the vast importance of irrigation in all countries where this 
 grain is cultivated. But it is worthy of remark, that owing 
 to the not unfrequent occurrence of severe droughts, there 
 is a greater variation in the crops of rice than in those of 
 any other species of grain. Those who, like the Hindoos, 
 depend almost entirely on it for subsistence, are conse- 
 quently placed in a very precarious situation. There can 
 be no doubt that famines are at once more frequent and se- 
 vere in Hindostan than in any other quarter. 
 A few vears ago, England was principally supplied with 
 3H 805
 
 OSCHOPHORIA. 
 
 cleaned rice from Carolina. Latterly, however, the imports 
 of Carolina rice have been much reduced. An improved 
 method of separating the husk, which throws out the grain 
 dean and unbroken, has recently been practised in this 
 country ; and as the grain when in the husk is found to pre- 
 serve its flavour and sweetness better during a long voyage 
 than u lien shelled, large quantities are now imported rough 
 from Bengal ami the united states. Unquestionably, how- 
 ever, the oppressive discriminating duty of 145. a cwt. on 
 American and other foreign cleaned rice has done more 
 than anything else to increase the imports of rough grain ; 
 and the fact of the duty on paddy from Bengal being only 
 id. per quarter, while that on paddy from Carolina is 2s. 
 {>,/. a bushel, sufficiently accounts for the increased imports 
 from the former. (See Com. Diet., art. "Rice.") 
 
 OSCHOPHO'RIA. A celebrated festival observed by 
 the Athenians; for full information respecting which the 
 reader is referred to Plutarch's Life of Theseus, by whom 
 it was instituted. The name is derived from a-o tov (pepcif 
 rac oo\ac, from carrying o<7,\"<> '■ e -> boughs hung up with 
 grapes. 
 
 OSCrLLA'TION. (Lat. oscillatio.) In Mechanics, the 
 vibration or alternate ascent and descent of a pendulous 
 liody. (See Pendulum.) The centre of oscillation is a 
 point in the oscillating body, such that if all the matter of 
 the body were there collected the oscillations would be 
 performed in the same time. (See Centre of Oscilla- 
 tion.) The axis of oscillation is a straight line passing 
 through the point of suspension parallel to the horizon, or 
 perpendicular to the plane in which the oscillation is made. 
 Oscillations in small arcs of a circle, or in cycloidal arcs of 
 any length, are isochronal, or performed in equal times. Sec 
 Cycloid. 
 
 OSCILLATO'RIA. Minute filamentous organized beings, 
 which have the faculty of exercising oscillatory movements. 
 OSCULATING CIRCLE. See Osculation. 
 OSCULATION. (Lat. osculare, to embrace.) In Geo- 
 metry, one curve is said to osculate another when the two 
 curves are in contact in such a manner that the number of 
 points common to both is the greatest possible. Let A B 
 be a curve, of which A C is the cvolute ; from P any part 
 in A B draw P C, to touch AC in C. 
 With C as a centre, and a radius C P, 
 describe a circle mn; then the circle 
 mn osculates the curve AB at the 
 point P. From the theory of the evo- 
 lution of curve lines, the curvature of 
 A B at the point P is equal to that 
 of the circle ; in fact, it is obvious 
 from the development that the curva- 
 ture of the involute at any point be- 
 tween A and P is greater than that 
 of the circle, and at any point beyond P it is less than that 
 of the circle, consequently at P it is exactly the same as 
 that of the circle described with the radius CP. The circle 
 mn lias, therefore, a more intimate contact witli A B than 
 any other circle which passes through P. 
 
 The theory of osculating curves in general is most easily 
 explained by the methods of the differential calculus. Let 
 y=fz and y = Fx be the equations of two curves; sup- 
 pose x to become i-f-A, and let the functions /(x-f-A), 
 F(z + A), be developed by Taylor's theorem; then, if all 
 the terms of the first development are respectively equal to 
 the corresponding terms of the second, the curves are the 
 same in every respect, or coincide. If the first terms only 
 are equal, the two curves have only one common point ; 
 if the two first terms of the one development are respect- 
 ively equal to the two first of the other, then two contiguous 
 points coincide, or are common to both curves ; if the three 
 first terms in each are respectively equal, the curves have 
 three common points, and so on. Now the number of 
 terms «f the first development which can be made equal to 
 the corresponding terms of the second depends on the num- 
 ber of constants in the function f z. (supposing F x to contain 
 more constants than fx). The equations of a straight line 
 being y=.ax-\- b, contains two constants; the straight line 
 can thus be made to coincide with two contiguous points 
 of a curve: it then becomes a tangent, and the contact is 
 said to be of the first order. The general equation of the 
 circle is (y — ft)2-4-(z — a) 2 = r2, and contains three con- 
 stants; a circle can therefore be determined which shall 
 have three common points with n curve: it then osculates 
 the curve, and the contact is said to be of the second order. 
 In general, if the equation of the osculating curve, is of the 
 order », it may have a contact of the same order with the 
 curve which it osculates ; and it is a consequence of this 
 theory that no osculating curve of an inferior order can he 
 made to pass between (WO curves having a contact of a 
 hiylier order: for example, no straight line can be drawn 
 through P between the curve AP and its osculating circle 
 mPn. (Lagrange, Theorie ihs Functions Analytiquie; 
 Lacroix, Traiti du. Calcul JJiffircntitl U Integral.) 
 
 OSSEOUS BRECCIA. 
 
 OSIA'NDRIANS. In Ecclesiastical Historv, a sect 
 among the Lutherans; so called from their founder Osi- 
 ander. a celebrated divine. They differed from the fol- 
 lowers of Luther and Calvin as "to the efficient cause of 
 justification. 
 
 O'SIER. The name given to various species of willow 
 or salix, chiefly employed in basket-making on account of 
 their tough flexible shoots. (See Loudon's Jlrbi/retum 
 Britannicum, p. 1490, which contains full information on 
 all the points relative to osiers.) 
 
 OSI'RIS. In Mythology, one of the chief Egyptian di- 
 vinities, the brother and husband of Isis. and, together with 
 her, the greatest benefactor of Egypt, into which he intro- 
 duced a knowledge of religion, laws, and the arts and 
 sciences. After having accomplished great reformations at 
 home, he visited the greater part of Europe and Asia, where 
 he enlightened the minds of men by teaching them the 
 worship of the gods and the arts of civilization ; but, on his 
 return, he found his own subjects excited to rebellion by 
 his brother Typhon, by whose hand he was ultimately 
 assassinated. Both ancient and modern writers have dif- 
 fered considerably respecting the powers and attributes of 
 Osiris.* His principal office, as an Egyptian deity, was to 
 judge the dead, and to rule over that kingdom into which 
 the souls of the good were admitted to eternal felicity. The 
 characters of Osiris, like those of Isis, who was thence 
 called Myrionymus, or " with 10,000 names," were numer- 
 ous. He was that attribute of the deity which signified the 
 divine goodness; and in his most mysterious and sacred 
 office, as an avatar, or manifestation of the divinity on 
 earth, he was superior to any even of the Egyptian gods; 
 for, as Herodotus observes, though all the Egyptians did not 
 worship the same gods with equal reverence, the adoration 
 paid to Osiris and Isis was universal. He was styled " the 
 Manifester of Good ;" and to this title he had an undisputed 
 right, for he appeared on earth to benefit mankind ; and 
 after having performed the duties he had come to fulfil, 
 and fallen a sacrifice to Typhon the evil principle (which 
 was at length overcome by his influence after his leaving 
 the world), he " rose again to a new life," and became the 
 "judge of mankind in a future state." Other titles of Osiris 
 were, "President of the West," "Lord of the East," "Lord 
 of Lords," "Eternal Ruler," "King of the Gods," &c. These, 
 with many others, are commonly found in the hieroglyphic 
 legends accompanying his figure ; and the Papyri frequently 
 present a list of 49 names of Osiris in the funeral rituals. 
 Osiris has been identified with many of the Grecian divini- 
 ties; but more especially with Jupiter, Pluto, and with 
 Bacchus, on account of his reputed conquest of India. 
 Osiris was particularly worshipped at Philae and Abvdus: 
 so sacred was the former that no one was permitted to visit 
 it without express permission ; and the latter was regarded 
 with such veneration that persons living at a distance from 
 it sought, and with difficulty obtained, permission to possess 
 a sepulchre within its necropolis. The worship of Osiris 
 was at a later period introduced into Rome ; but the prurient 
 imagination of the Romans soon converted the rites and 
 mysteries of this deity into a means for practising the most 
 unbounded licentiousness, which at length reached such a 
 height that his worship was prohibited by law. Osiris was 
 venerated under the form of the sacred bulls Apis and 
 Mnevis; or as a human figure with a bull's head, distin- 
 guished by the name Apis-Osiris. He is usually represented 
 as clad in pure white; and his usual attributes are the bigh 
 cap of Upper Egypt, a crosier, a flageilum, and sometimes a 
 spotted skin, an emblem supposed to connect him with the 
 Grecian Bacchus. (For full particulars respecting the sup- 
 posed history of Osiris, together with explanations thereof, 
 we beg to refer to Plutarch's Treatise on Isis and Osiris ; 
 and for a resume of the whole subject illustrated with 
 ingenious observations, the reader may consult Sir O. 
 U ilkinson's Manners and Customs of the Jlncient Egyjt- 
 tians.) See Isis. 
 
 O'SMAZOME. (Gr. ov/in, odour, and r ui^oe, broth.) 
 The extractive matter of muscular fibre, which gives the 
 peculiar smell to boiled meat, and flavour to broth and 
 soup. 
 
 O'SMIUM. A metallic substance found associated with 
 the ore of platinum; its peroxide is extremely volatile, nnd 
 has a peculiar pungent odour, which suggested the name 
 of the metal : from 00707, odour. Neither osmium nor its 
 compounds have been applied to any use, and it is a rare 
 substance. 
 
 O'SSEANS, OSSEI, or PISCES OSSEL In Ichthy- 
 ology, a primary division of the class of fishes, including 
 all those Which have a true bony skeleton. 
 
 OSSEOUS BRECCIA. The cemented mass of bone 
 found in certain caverns and fissures of rocks. 
 
 * So cautious were those initiated into the wnr-hip of Oailit. tint they 
 made a scruple even of mentioning him; ami cjerodotus, wherever he 
 reli'es anylhmg concerning Ibis deity, excuses himself from altering his 
 name.
 
 OSSIAN'S POEMS. 
 
 O' SSI AX'S POEMS. The name given to a colleciinn 
 of poems, alleged to have been the production of Ossian, 
 the son of Fingal, a Scottish bard, who lived in the third 
 century. They were first given to the world in an English 
 version t>y James M'Pherson, Esq., in 1760, with the assur- 
 ance that they were translations made by himself from 
 ancient Erse manuscripts which he had collected in the 
 Highlands of Scotland; and such was the enthusiasm 
 which their appearance excited, that they may be almost 
 said to have given a new tone to poetry throughout all 
 Europe. There were not, however, wanting many dis- 
 tinguished persons who, from the first, denied their authen- 
 ticity; foremost among whom was Dr. Johnson, who boldly 
 pronounced the whole of the poems ascribed to Ossian to 
 be forgeries; and his opinion was corroborated by Hume, 
 Gibbon, and many others, who defied M'Pherson to pro- 
 duce a manuscript of any Erse poem of earlier date than 
 the sixteenth century. On the other hand, M'Pherson's 
 assertions as to the genuineness of the poems found warm 
 supporters in Dr. Blair (see his Critical Dissertation on the 
 Poems of Ossian), Dr. Henry, Lord Kaimes, and many other 
 distinguished names, and almost to a man in the whole body 
 of the Highlanders. In this unsettled state the controversy 
 remained till the year 1800, when Malcolm Laing, so well 
 known for his historical labours, in a Dissertation ap- 
 pended to the second volume of his History of Scotland, 
 endeavoured to establish, from historical and internal evi- 
 dence, that the so called poems of Ossian are absolutely 
 and totally spurious. The sensation created by this Disser- 
 tation was unprecedented. Many converts were made to 
 the opinions therein set forth ; but the general disbelief in 
 the authenticity of the poems was not complete till 1805, 
 when a committee of the Highland Society of Edinburgh, 
 which had been appointed in 1797 to inquire into their 
 nature and authenticity, reported to the effect "that they 
 had not been able to obtain any one poem the same in title 
 and tenor with the poems of Ossian." Since that period 
 the controversy, so far as it regards their translation from 
 Erse manuscripts, may be said to be terminated. But al- 
 though these poems had never been committed to writing, 
 or rather have not been handed down in writing, there can 
 be, we believe, but little doubt that many of them still 
 exist in the Highlands of Scotland, in a dress not very dif- 
 ferent from that in which they were rendered by M'Pherson 
 Into English, having been committed to memory, and trans- 
 mitted from one bard or storyteller to another in regular 
 succession; and consequently their pretensions to be re- 
 garded as historical authority on many points can scarcely 
 be denied. Their scene is sometimes laid in Scotland, but 
 more frequently in Ireland ; and they may be justly con- 
 sidered the Iliad and Odyssey of the Celtic race of the two 
 islands, handed down by tradition only — what the poems 
 of Homer were, in all likelihood, to the Greeks themselves 
 before they were acquainted with the art of writing. " The 
 value of Ossian," says Mr. Skene, "as an historical poet, 
 must stand in the highest rank; while, whether the chief 
 part of these poems are of ancient or of modern composi- 
 tion, there can remain little doubt that in him we possess 
 the oldest record of the history of a very remote age." 
 (The Highlanders of Scotland, their Origin, History, and 
 Antiquities, vol. i., p. 215.) Those who wish to see this 
 subject exhibited in all its bearings, though, perhaps, with a 
 slight prejudice against M'Pherson, may consult the elabo- 
 rate article in the Edin. Review, vol. vi. 
 
 O'SSIFIC ATION. The formation of bone. The change 
 of any soft solid of the body into bone. 
 
 OSTA'RA. An ancient German and Celtic divinity, 
 worshipped with peculiar veneration by the Anglo-Saxons. 
 Many writers regard her as identical with the Phoenician 
 goddess Astarte ; but, be this as it may, she was regarded 
 as the queen of spring and of the morning ; and from her 
 name is derived the German Ostern, (Angiice, Easter), 
 which period of the year the ancient Germans were in the 
 habit of celebrating with fires and festivals, in gratitude 
 for the advent of spring. '(See Grimm's Deutsche Mytho- 
 logie, p. 181.) The town Osterode on the Hartz is said to 
 have been named from this goddess. 
 
 OS'TEOCO'LLA. (Gr. omtov, a bone, and KoWa, glue.) 
 An old mineralogical term for encrusting carbonate of lime, 
 to which the property of uniting a fractured bone has been 
 attributed. 
 
 OSTEO'GEXY. (Gr. ocrtov, a bone, and yevvau), I gene- 
 rate.) The formation or growth of bone. 
 
 OSTEO'LOGY. (Gr. oareov, a bone, and \oyoc, a dis- 
 course.) The doctrine or history of the bones. See Ana- 
 tomy, Bone. 
 
 Osteology. In Painting and Sculpture, a description 
 of the bones of animals. 
 
 OSTRA'CEANS, Ostracea. The family of Bivalves 
 of which the oyster (Ostrea) is the type; and which is 
 characterized by the mantle being widely open, without 
 special orifices. 
 
 OTTAVA RIMA. 
 
 OSTRA'CIOX. (Gr. ocrpaKov, a shell.) A genus of 
 fishes of the order Scleroderma or rough-skinned, in the 
 system of Cuvier. It is characterized by the armour of 
 regular bony plates soldered together, with which the 
 body is invested; the only movable parts being the tail, 
 fins, mouth, and a small gill-flap, which pass, as it were, 
 through holes in the coat of mail. The body generally 
 presents a quadrangular form, whence the name of trunk- 
 fish, commonly given to the species of this genus. 
 
 O'STRACISM. (Gr. oaipaKiapos.) A form of condem- 
 nation at Athens, by which persons who, from their wealth 
 or influence, were considered dangerous to the state were 
 banished for ten years, with leave to enjoy their estates and 
 return after that period. It was not inflicted as a punish- 
 ment, but merely as a precautionary measure to preserve 
 the democracy. The process in this condemnation was 
 as follows : The people being assembled, each man wrote 
 the name of the person he wished to banish on a shell 
 (bcTfaKov, whence the name darpaKianoc), and delivered it 
 to the archons, who counted the numbers. Only one indi- 
 vidual could be subjected to the ostracism at the same 
 meeting, and 6000 hostile votes were necessary to the in- 
 fliction of this condemnation. Hence if 6000 votes and up- 
 wards were recorded against one or more individuals, the 
 one was banished against whom the greatest number of 
 votes had been given. (See Mem. de VJlcad. des Inscr., 
 vol. xvi.) 
 
 O'STRACODES, Ostracoda. (Gr. ocTpawv, a shell, 
 etlog, form.) The name of a family of Entomostracans. 
 comprehending those which have the shell folded in two, 
 so as to resemble the shell of a bivalve mollusk. 
 
 O'STRICH. The largest known bird, and the type of 
 the Cursorial or Struthious order. It is distinguished not 
 only from its immediate congeners the Cassowaries and 
 Apteryz, but from all other birds, by having only two toes, 
 which correspond with the two outermost toes in the rest 
 of the class. The wings are furnished with loose and 
 flexible plumes, but are long enough to increase its speed in 
 running. The elegance of these feathers, arising from their 
 slender stems and the disunited barbs, has occasioned them 
 to be prized in all ages, and they still constitute a valuable 
 article of commerce. The beak of the ostrich is depressed, 
 of a moderate length, and blunt at the end ; the tongue is 
 extremely short ; the eye is large, and the lid fringed with 
 short simple feathers like eyelashes. The legs are of pro- 
 digious strength, and the tarsi very long. The ostrich has 
 a capacious crop ; a strong gizzard; voluminous intestines, 
 with two long caeca, complicated each with a spiral valve, 
 and succeeded by a very long intestinum rectum, with in- 
 ternal connivent valves, which latter structure is unique in 
 the class of birds. It is likewise remarkable in this class 
 for its large urinary receptacle. The ostrich abounds in the 
 sandy deserts of Arabia and Africa. It attains the height 
 of seven or eight feet ; is gregarious in favourable locali- 
 ties ; lays eggs of three pounds weight, which are incubated 
 by the male principally, and defended courageously. The 
 ostrich feeds on grain, grass, &c, to aid in digesting which 
 many pebbles are taken into the gizzard ; so obtuse is its 
 taste that it will swallow pieces of metal, wood, &c. When 
 pursued, it dashes stones behind it with great violence, and 
 exceeds in swiftness all other terrestrial animals ; it is only 
 the comparatively limited power of sustaining its course, 
 that enables the mounted Arab to run it down. 
 
 OTA'LGIA. (Gr. ovc, the ear, and aXyoi, pain.) The 
 ear-ache. 
 
 OTA'RIA. (Gr. ovc.) The name of the genus of seals 
 characterized by having projecting external ears, and by the 
 double cutting edge of the four middle upper incisors, a 
 structure unknown in other animals : the molar teeth are 
 simply conical, and with a single fang. These seals are 
 principally confined to the southern hemisphere. 
 
 OTI'TIS. (Gr. ovc.) Inflammation of any part of the 
 organ of hearing. 
 
 O'TTAR, or OTTAR OF ROSES. The volatile or 
 odorous oil of the rose ; it is of a soft, buttery consistence, 
 and deposits, when fluid, a crystallizable portion, which is 
 sparingly soluble in alcohol : it is much used as a perfume- 
 The finest ottar of roses is prepared at Ghazedpore in India. 
 
 OTTA'VA RI'MA. (Eighth or octuple rhyme.) An 
 Italian form of versification, consisting of stanzas of two 
 alternate triplets and a couplet at the end ; the verses being, 
 in the proper Italian metre, the heroic of eleven syllables. 
 It is the form peculiarly adopted and embellished by the 
 poets termed Romanzieri, from Pulci to Forliguerra. {See 
 Romanzieri.) It is a happy metre, in the hands of an able 
 versifier, for the expression of feelings varying from the sub- 
 lime and pathetic to the humorous : although rather defi- 
 cient in variety, and possessing too little repose and solem- 
 nity for the sustained majesty of epic poetry. It has been 
 adopted by the Germans, who have given to it something 
 of an elegiac turn; and, of late, by English poets, of whom 
 the most distinguished is Lord Byron, who has employed it 
 
 867
 
 OTTER. 
 
 in his Beppo and Don Juan, works belonging to a mixed 
 ass of poetry, between the serious and the burlesque. 
 OTTER. A quadruped adapted to amphibious habits 
 by its short, strong, flexible, palmated feet, which serve as 
 oars to propel it through the water, and by its long and 
 strong tail, which acts as a powerful rudder, and enables 
 the animal to change its course with great ease and rapidity. 
 The teeth, which consist, in each jaw, of six pointed in- 
 cisors, two strong and sharp canines, and ten trenchant and 
 cuspidated molars, determine the piscivorous diet and pre- 
 datory habits of the species. The otter used to be met with 
 in most of the British rivers and lakes ; but the increase of 
 population, and the unintermitting hostility which its de- 
 struction of the valuable fish of its native streams have 
 called down upon it, have greatly thinned its numbers, and 
 have exterminated it from many of the localities where it 
 was formerly common ; so that the otter, as a captive in our 
 menageries, is now regarded with almost the same interest 
 which an exotic species usually excites. 
 
 The otter selects for its retreat some convenient excava- 
 tion concealed by the overhanging roots of the trees which 
 grow from the banks of rivers, or other natural screen. The 
 female goes with yoimg nine weeks, and produces from 
 three to rive cubs iii March or April. The usual weight of 
 a full-grown male is from twenty to twenty-four pounds. 
 The fur of the otter is remarkably fine and close. It con- 
 sists of two kinds of hair ; the longer and stifler shining 
 hairs, which are greyish at the base and a rich brown at the 
 point, concealing an extremely fine and soft fur of a whitish 
 gray colour, brown at the tip. The hair and fur of the 
 under part of the body, the cheeks, and the inner parts of 
 the legs, is of a brownish gray throughout. 
 
 The otter is hunted in many parts of England, and espe- 
 cially in Wales, with dogs especially trained for this kind 
 of sport, with all the form and circumstance of the chase. 
 "When the otter is found," says Mr. Bell, "the scene be- 
 comes exceedingly animated. He instantly takes the water 
 and dives, remaining a long time underneath it, and rising at 
 a considerable distance from the place at which he dived. 
 Then the anxious watch that is kept of his rising to 'vent,' 
 the steady purpose with which the dogs follow and bait him 
 as he swims, the attempts of the cunning beast to drown his 
 assailants by diving while they have fastened on him, the 
 baying of the hounds, the cries of the hunters, and the fierce 
 and dogged resolution with which the poor, hopeless quarry 
 holds his pursuers at bay, inflicting severe, sometimes fatal 
 ■wounds, and holding on with unflinching pertinacity even to 
 the last, must altogether form a scene as animated and ex- 
 citing as the veriest epicure in hunting could desire." {Brit- 
 ish Quadrupeds, p. 133.) 
 
 The few species of otter which have been recognised in 
 distant parts of the world do not greatly differ from the Lutra 
 vulgaris of Europe. The sea-otter is an animal of larger 
 size, and presents such modfications of its palmated feet, and 
 of its teeth, as to form the type of a distinct subgenus {En- 
 hydras), which connects the otter with the seal. 
 
 O'TTOMAN. An epithet given to the Turkish empire, 
 from Othman I., who ascended the throne in the 14th cen- 
 tury. It is also applied to a peculiar kind of sofa much in 
 use in Turkey, and which has been imitated both here and 
 on the Continent. 
 
 OUNCE. (Lat. uncia.) A denomination of weight. In 
 troy weight the ounce is the 12th part of the pound, and 
 weighs 480 grains. In avoirdupois weight the ounce is the 
 lfith part of the pound, and equal to 437£ grains troy. See 
 Wkioht. 
 
 OURANO'GRAPHY. (Gr. ovpavo<, heaven, and ypaipw, 
 I describe.) A term frequently used to signify a description 
 of the heavens and the heavenly bodies. 
 
 OURO'LOGY, or OURO'SCOPY. (Gr. ovOov, \cyo>, I 
 speak, and okotcuo, I view.) The judgment of diseases from 
 an examination of the urine. 
 
 OU'TCROP. A Geological term, implying the exposure 
 of a stratum at the earth's surface. 
 
 OU'TLA WRY, in Criminal Law, is a punishment inflicted 
 for a contempt in refusing to be amenable to the jurisdiction 
 of a competent court. The act 2 W. 4, c. 39, gives a pro- 
 vision for more expeditious and less expensive proceeding to 
 outlawry in civil cases on mesne process than had previous- 
 ly prevailed. It is issued against a defendant after he has 
 been five times proclaimed at a county court ; but if the de- 
 fendant has previously left the kingdom, he can set it aside 
 by writ of error, or even on motion. The effect of out- 
 lawry in civil cases is a forfeiture of personal goods and 
 chattels immediately upon the outlawry, and his chattels 
 real and the profits of his lands when found on inquisition. 
 
 OUTLIER. In Geology, a portion of a rock or stratum 
 detached and at some distance from the principal mass. 
 OUTLINE. In the Fine Arte. See CONTOUR. 
 OUTPOSTS. In a Military sense, a body of men posted 
 beyond the main guard ; so called as being the bounds or 
 limits of the camp. 
 80S 
 
 OVERT ACT. 
 
 OUTRE. (Fr.) In the Fine Arts, anything exaggerated 
 or overstrained. 
 
 OU'TKIGGER. The Sea term for any projecting spar or 
 piece of timber for extending ropes, sails, or other temporary 
 purposes. 
 
 OUTWORKS. In Fortification, works raised on the out- 
 side of the ditch of a fortified place, for the purpose of cov- 
 ering the place, or keeping the besiegers at a distance. Set 
 Fortification. 
 
 O'VAL. (Lat. ovum, an egg.) A popular name for any 
 curve figure resembling an ellipse, or the transverse section 
 of an egg. The carpenter's oval is made up of four circular 
 arcs, joined so as to leave no angular appearance, or present 
 any rapid change of curvature. It may be described as fol- 
 lows : Let A B and C D be the length and breadth of the 
 proposed oval, and let these lines 
 be placed at right angles, and bi- 
 secting each other at E. With C 
 as a centre, and a radius equal to 
 A E, describe an arc intersecting 
 A B in F and G ; with F and G 
 as centres, and a radius equal to 
 A F or B G, describe the small " 
 
 arcs m A m' and n B n' for the ends of the oval ; and with 
 C and D as centres (or centres near those points), and C D 
 as a radius, describe the arcs to C n and m' D n'. It may be 
 remarked, that the construction will fail when the breadth C 
 D is not greater than half the length A B ; but in this case 
 C D may be produced, and points found in it by trial for the 
 centres of the required arcs. 
 
 The Ovals of Descartes are a species of geometrical 
 curves, proposed by that philosopher as the figures which 
 give, by their revolution about an axis, the true surfaces 
 which should separate two media of different densities, in 
 order that all the rays which proceed from the same point, 
 or converge towards one, may be refracted towards another 
 point, or rendered parallel or divergent. They may be de- 
 fined as the locus of the vertex of a triangle on a given base, 
 one of whose sides has a given ratio to the sum or difference 
 of a given line and the other side. Their generation has 
 thus some resemblance to that of the ellipse and hyperbola, 
 which are the loci of a triangle on a given base whose sides 
 in the case of the ellipse have a given sum, and in the case 
 of the hyperbola a given difference. (See the Second Book 
 of Descartes' Geometry.) 
 
 Ovals are also produced by the construction of many equa- 
 tions of the higher orders, particularly those in which the 
 dimensions are even, as the fourth, sixth, &c. 
 
 OVALBU'MEN. The albumen or white of egg ; a term 
 adopted in order to distinguish it from the albumen of the 
 serum of the blood, which may be called seralbumen. 
 
 OVA'RIA. The two organs which contain the female 
 ova. 
 
 OVA'RIUM. In Plants, a hollow case, enclosing ovules 
 or young seeds, containing one or more cells, and ultimately 
 becoming the fruit ; it is always situated in the centre of the 
 flower, and, together with the style and stigma, constitute 
 the female system of the vegetable kingdom. When it is 
 united to the calyx, it is called inferior ; when separate from 
 it, it is termed superior. 
 
 OVATION. An inferior kind of triumph, which, accord- 
 ing to the ancient Roman custom, was granted to distin- 
 guished military leaders. The name is said to be derived 
 either from ovare {to cry O!), the cry of the soldiers; or 
 from ovis, a sheep, the animal sacrificed on such occasions 
 instead of bullocks. According to Dionysius of Halicarnas- 
 sus, the first ovation was celebrated by P. Posthumius Tu- 
 berfus (A.C. 503), some years after the expuision of the 
 kings. Some antiquaries imagine the distinction between the 
 triumph and the ovation to have originally consisted, no.t in 
 the greater or less degree of honour, but in the latter being 
 strictly appropriated to successes by which peace was ob- 
 tained, or to distinguish brilliant achievements in time of 
 peace. Thus we find that ovations were permitted, though 
 triumphs were not, in civil wars. An ovation was celebrated 
 by Mark Antony and Octavius to solemnize their reconcilia- 
 tion. 
 
 OVERHANG. In Architecture. See Batter. 
 
 O'VERSEERS OF THE POOR. Officers annually ap- 
 pointed in every parish, under the hand and seal of two jus- 
 tices, under the statute of 43 Eliz. Their number, by that 
 statute, is four, three, or two, for each parish. By subse- 
 quent statutes any place maintaining its own poor, whether 
 a parish or not. has overseers. Assistant overseers, with a 
 salary, may be elected by the inhabitants of parishes, under 
 58 G. 3. See Poor Laws. 
 
 OVERSHOT WHEEL. In Mechanics, a water-wheel 
 to which the water is conveyed over the top of the u heel 
 and applied above the axle. In this case, the water arts 
 nen l\ l.\ its weight, and not by the impulse of the stream. 
 
 n VKUT ACT. (Fr. ouvert, open.) In Law, an open 01 
 manifest act from whence criminality is implied. No in-
 
 OVERTURE. 
 
 dlctment for high treason is good unless some overt act is al- 
 leged in it. 
 
 O'VERTURE. (Fr. ouverture.) The introductory piece 
 of music prefixed to an opera or oratorio. Its movements in 
 works of the modern school generally contain snatches of 
 the more prominent and leading airs in the opera, and intro- 
 duce the audience to a general notion of the emotions which 
 it is the desire of the author to excite. 
 
 The word overture also signifies a proposal; in which 
 sense it is always used in the Presbyterian church to indi- 
 cate those resolutions proposed by presbyteries and synods, 
 and afterwards laid before the General Assembly, either for 
 Its sanction or rejection* 
 
 O'VIDUCT, Ociductus. (Lat. ovum, an egg; duco, I 
 conduct.) The tube which conducts the ovum from the 
 ovary either to the uterus or to an external outlet. In Mam- 
 mals this part is termed the Fallopian tube, from the cir- 
 cumstance of its having been first described by Fallopius, 
 about the year 1560, in the human subject, in which this 
 tube or canal passes from each side of the fundus of the 
 Uterus to the ovarium. See Fallopian Tube. 
 
 OVI'FEROUS and OVTGEROUS. (Lat. ovum, fero 
 and gero, / bear.) In Zoology, certain receptacles, in which 
 the eggs are received after having been excluded from the 
 ordinary formative organs of the ovum, are so called, its the 
 long pouches appended to the hinder part of the body in 
 many of the Entomostracous and Parasitic Crustaceans. 
 Likewise the ciliated plates (beneath the tail of the higher 
 Crustaceans, as the crab and lobster), to which the eggs are 
 attached after having quitted the oviducts, are called 
 ovigerous. 
 
 dVI'PAROUS. (Lat. ovum, and pario, I produce.) The 
 mode of generation by the exclusion of the germ in the form 
 and condition of an egg, the development of which takes 
 place out of the body either with or without incubation. 
 Fishes, reptiles, and birds are called Oviparous Vertebrata, 
 although some of both the former classes hatch the egg 
 within the body and bring forth their young alive, as the 
 viper and dog-fish. 
 
 O'VIS. (Lat. a sheep.) The name by which Linnaeus 
 and Cuvier distinguish the sheep as a genus from the goats 
 and antelopes. The character assigned by Cuvier to the 
 genus Ovis is as follows: "Horns directed backwards, and 
 then inclining spirally more or less forwards; the profile or 
 chaufrein more or less convex, and no beard :" to this may 
 be added an interdigital sebaceous sac on the fore part of 
 each foot. The Mouflons or Musmons of Africa and Sar- 
 dinia, from which it is generally believed our domestic races 
 of sheep are derived, form the species Ovis ammon of Lin- 
 naeus, and Ovis musimon of Schreber. The coat of these 
 wild sheep consists of coarse, stiff, long, and nearly straight 
 hairs ; but they possess the same character, that of an im- 
 bricated surface, which gives to the shorter and finer wool 
 of the domestic races the felting property on which its pecu- 
 liar utility depends. See Hair. 
 
 Of the domestic animals belonging to Great Britain sheep 
 are, with the exception perhaps of horses and cattle, by far 
 the most important. They can be reared in situations and 
 upon soils where other animals would not live. They afford 
 a large supply of food, and one of the principal materials of 
 clothing. Wool has long been a staple commodity of this 
 country, and its manufacture employs an immense number 
 of people. "The skin, dressed, forms different parts of our 
 apparel, and is used for covers of books. The entrails, 
 properly prepared and twisted, serve for strings for various 
 musical instruments. The bones, calcined (like other bones 
 in general), form materials for tests for the refiner. The 
 milk is thicker than that of cows, and, consequently, yields 
 a greater quantity of butter and cheese : and, in some places, 
 is so rich that it will not produce the cheese without a mix- 
 ture of water to make it part from the whey. The dung is 
 a remarkably rich manure, insomuch that the folding of 
 sheep is become too useful a branch of husbandry for the 
 farmer to neglect. To conclude, whether we consider the 
 advantages that result from this animal to individuals in 
 particular, or to these kingdoms in general, we may, with 
 Columella, consider this, in one sense, as the first of the do- 
 mestic quadrupeds. ' Post majores quadrupedes ovillipccoris 
 secunda ratio est; qua prima sit si ad utilitatis magnitudi- 
 nem referas. Jx'arn id prtecipue contra frigoris violent iarn 
 protegit, corporibusque nostris liberaliora prmbet velamina; 
 ct etiam elegantium mensas jucundis et numerosis dapibus 
 exornat.' " (De Re Rustica, lib. vii., cap. 2.) And, in ad- 
 dition to what Mr. Pennant has so forcibly stated, sheep are 
 particularly deserving the attention of the agriculturist, both 
 from the influence of improvements on the breed, and from 
 their generally affording larger profits than can be obtained 
 from the rearing and feeding of cattle. {Statistics of the 
 Brit. Empire, vol. i., p. 492.) 
 
 The principal varieties of the English sheep are the large 
 Lincolnshire, the Dorset breed, the South-down, and the 
 Cheviot. 
 
 OVIPOSITOR. 
 
 The Lincolnshire sheep are of a large size, big-boned, and 
 afford a great quantity of wool, owing to the rich marshes 
 on which they feed; but their flesh is coarser, leaner, and 
 less finely flavoured than that of the smaller breeds. 
 
 The Dorset sheep are mostly white-faced ; their horns are 
 finely curved, their fleece clear and white ; but many of 
 them are without wool upon their bellies ; their legs are long 
 and small, and their general form handsome and well-pro- 
 portioned. This breed is prolific, and is principally esteemed 
 for producing lambs at an earlier period than other varieties. 
 " Great numbers of these premature victims to luxury are 
 yearly sent to the London markets, where they fetch the 
 price of 10s. 6d. to 15*. per quarter. The manner of rearing 
 the lambs is curious : they are imprisoned in little dark 
 cabins ; the ewes are fed on oil-cakes, hay, com, turnips, or 
 cabbages, which are given them in a field contiguous to the 
 apartments where the lambs are kept; and at proper inter- 
 vals the nurses are brought in to give suck to their young 
 ones, while the attendants at the same time make their lodg- 
 ings perfectly clean, and litter them with fresh straw. 
 Great attention is paid to this, as much of the success of rear- 
 ing these unseasonable productions depends upon warmth 
 and cleanliness." 
 
 The South-down sheep have dun or black faces, and are 
 of the same hardy nature as the Cheviot breed, being able 
 to live and thrive on the barest chalk hills. Their wool is 
 fine and their mutton well-flavoured. They have of late 
 years, in consequence of these valuable qualities, extended 
 to most parts of England, and have been introduced into De- 
 land. The Cheviot breed have no horns, and are mostly 
 white-faced and white-legged ; the body is long, with fine, 
 clean, small-boned legs : the mutton is highly esteemed for 
 its flavour. They are valuable as mountain sheep, on ac- 
 count of their hardiness and the superior value of their 
 wool. There is a singular variety of sheep in the northern 
 climates of Europe, in which the monstrosity of super- 
 numerary horns has become hereditary : these are called 
 many-homed sheep, and have from four to eight horns 
 growing irregularly from the head. 
 
 It is not possible to form any accurate estimate either of 
 the number of sheep or of the quantity of wool annually 
 produced in this country. With the exception of Mr. Luc- 
 cock's, most of the statements put forth with respect to both 
 these points seem xery much exaggerated. But Mr. L.'s 
 estimate, which is considerably under any that had previous- 
 ly appeared, was drawn up with great care, and is supposed 
 to approach nearer to accuracy. 
 
 According to Mr. Luccock, the 
 Xumber of long-woolled sheep in i 
 
 England and Wales, in 1800, was | 
 Of short-woolled, ditto, . 
 
 Total number shorn 
 Slaughter of short-woolled sheep per | 
 
 annum | 
 
 Carrion of ditto .... 
 Slaughter of long-woolled ditto 
 Carrion of ditto .... 
 
 Slaughter of lambs .... 
 Carrion of ditto .... 
 
 4,153,308 
 14,854,299 
 
 19,007,607 
 
 4,221,748 
 
 211,087 
 
 1,180,413 
 
 59,020 
 
 1,400,560 
 
 70,028 
 
 Total number of sheep and lambs . 26,148,463 
 
 In some parts of England there has been an increase in 
 the number of sheep since 1800 ; but in others there has 
 been a decrease. But we have been assured by competent 
 judges that, on the whole, the number has not sensibly 
 varied in the interval. 
 
 In the General Report of Scotland (vol. Hi., Appendix, p. 
 6) the number of sheep is estimated at 2,850,000; and. al- 
 lowing for the increase that has taken place since 1814, 
 they may now be estimated at about 3,500,000. Hence the 
 total number of sheep in Great Britain will be 39.648,000. It 
 is not supposed that there are 2.000,000 of sheep in Deland. 
 (Statistics of the British Empire, vol. i., p. 496.) 
 
 The foreign breeds of sheep are exceedingly numerous; 
 but of these, perhaps, the Asiatic variety is the most singular. 
 In India, the sheep is long-tailed ; and in Persia. Tartary, 
 and China, &c, the tail is not only elongated, but loaded 
 with a mass of fat, in some instances weighing ten pounds. 
 The power which this animal possesses to accommodate it- 
 self to different climates seems almost unlimited : in the hot 
 plains of Asia its covering becomes coarse and scanty, while 
 in the frozen regions of Thibet its thick wool has an under 
 lining of the finest kind, forming an important article in 
 manufactures and commerce. (See the Geo. Diet., art. 
 " Asia," and the authorites there cited.) 
 
 O'VISAC, Ovisaccus. (Lat. ovum, an egg, and saccus, a 
 sack.) The cavity in the ovary which immediately con- 
 tains the ovum. In Mammals, it forms, after the ovum is 
 expelled, the corpus luteum. 
 
 OVIPO'SITOR (Lat. ovum, and pono, / place), in En- 
 tomology, is the instrument by which an insect conducts its 
 
 869
 
 OVOLO. 
 
 cess to their appropriate nidus, and often bores a way to it; 
 the same instrument is, in some eenera, used as a weapon 
 of offence, when it is called the " aculeus." 
 
 O'YOLO. (Ital.) In Architecture, a moulding whose 
 profile 13 the quadrant of a circle ; though in Grecian archi- 
 tecture there is a deviation from that exact form, which is 
 most apparent at the upper portion, where it resembles the 
 form of an ess. whence this moulding derives its name. 
 
 OVOVIYITAROUS. (Lat. ovum, an egg ; vivo, /lire; 
 and pario, /produce.) The mode of generation by the ex- 
 clusion of a living fuetus more or less extricated from the 
 egg-coverings, which has been developed within the body 
 ot the parent without any vascular or placental adhesions 
 between the ovum and the womb. The marsupial animals 
 among the Mammalia, the viper and salamander among 
 Reptiles, the blenny and dog-fish among fishes, the Paludina 
 viripara ami many bivalves among Mollusks, the scorpion 
 and flesh-fly among insects, the earth-worm, and many of 
 the intestinal worms, are examples of ovoviviparous animals. 
 
 O'VULUM. (Lat. ovum, an egg.) The name of a genus 
 of Pectinibranchiate Gastropods, characterized by having a 
 shell of an oval form, and with a long and narrow aperture, 
 without furrows or teeth, on the side of the columella; the 
 spire is concealed, and the two extremities of the aperture 
 are equally prolonged into a canal. 
 
 This diminutive is also applied to the Ovum of the Mam- 
 malia on account of its relatively minute size : it is, how- 
 ever, a true ovum, having all the essential parts, as the 
 germinal spot, germinal membrane, vitellus, vitelline mem- 
 brane, and Chorion. See Ovum. 
 
 Ovilum. In Botany, a small pellucid pulpy body, borne 
 by the placenta of a plant, and gradually changing into a 
 seed: it consists of a central nucleus, enclosed within a 
 definite number of coats, varying from one to two, and fur- 
 nished with an aperture or foramen, through which im- 
 pregnation takes place. 
 
 <>VUM. (Lat. an egg.) In Anatomy, the body formed 
 by the female in which, after impregnation, the develop- 
 ment of the foetus takes place. It is generally formed in a 
 Bpecial organ, called the ovarium : but in some of the sim- 
 plest animals, as the Polypes, the common cellular paren- 
 chynie of the body seems to have the unlimited faculty of 
 producing the ova. The essential, and, apparently, first- 
 formed, part of an ovum, is a minute pellucid cell, called the 
 "germinal vesicle," which is characterized by an opaque 
 speck or nucleus called the " germinal spot." The vesicle 
 is immediately surrounded by a stratum of granules or nu- 
 cleated cells, which form the "germinal disk." These 
 parts float in a greater or less quantity of fluid and granules, 
 called the yolk, which is generally of some well-marked 
 colour, as yellow, green, violet, red, through the presence 
 of a minutely diffused oil. The yolk is inclosed in a thin, 
 delicate, structureless coat, called the " vitelline mem- 
 brane," and this is finally surrounded by an outer tunic, 
 called the " chorion." Between the chorion and vitelline 
 membrane there is commonly a greater or less quantity of 
 albumen. In the birds, this fluid, which is called the 
 " white," and the "yolk," is in great quantity ; the chorion 
 is laminated, and the outer layer is combined with earthy 
 salts to give due firmness, and preserve the shape of the 
 eg2 while subject to the weight of the parent during incu- 
 bation. Two twisted strings of firm albumen called "cha- 
 laza;," are continued from each end of the yolk, a little 
 below the poles, and serve to keep uppermost the " cicatric- 
 ula" or "tread," formed by the impregnated germinal ves- 
 icle and disk. A space intercepted between two of the lay- 
 ers of the chorion, or " membrana putaminis," at the great 
 end of the egg, contains a small quantity of gas, containing 
 more oxygen than atmospheric air : this space is called the 
 " vesica aerea." For the chemical properties of ovum, see 
 Eoo.) 
 
 ( rvimc. In Architecture, the same as Ovolo ; which see. 
 
 OWL. .SV« No< tirnai.s and Strix. 
 
 OW'LIXG. In Law, so called from its being generally 
 committed during the night. An offence consisting in con- 
 veying sheep or wool to the sea side in order to export 
 them. This offence was formerly capital, particularly if 
 the offenders neglected to surrender after proclamation 
 made for that purpose : it is now punishable with seven 
 years' banishment. 
 
 OWL, THE. Among the ancients, generally was con- 
 sidered as an omen of misfortune or death. As, however, 
 according to Philostratus. the Egyptians represented Miner 
 va under the form of an owl, the Athenians, so peculiarly 
 under the care of this goddess, looked u|x>n the appearance 
 of this bird as a favourable omen. From this circumstance 
 it formed, apon ancient coins, the symbol of Athens and 
 her foreign possessions. 
 
 OX. Synonymous with the generic name Bos, which 
 see ; in a more restricted sense it signifies the castrated 
 male of the domestic variety. 
 
 OXALA.MIDE. Sec Oxamide. 
 870 
 
 OXYGEN. 
 
 O'XALATES. Salts of the oxalic acid. 
 
 OXA'LIC ACID. A vegetable acid, first discovered in 
 the juice of the Oxa/is acetosella ; it was afterwards as- 
 certained that the same acid might be produced artificially 
 by the action of the nitric acid upon sugar : this process 
 yields it in slender prismatic crystals, intensely sour, and 
 soluble in about ten parts of cold water. These crystals 
 consist of 1 atom of real acid and 3 of water: the equiva- 
 lent of the acid is 36 ; and in its anhydrous state, as it exists 
 in the dry oxalates, it is constituted of 2 atoms of carbon 
 (6X2) = 12, and 3 of oxygen (8 X 3) = 24 : so that it may 
 be represented by an atom of carbonic acid and one of car- 
 bonic oxide. Solutions of oxalic acid, or of soluble oxa- 
 lates, yield an insoluble precipitate in solutions containing 
 lime and its salts: hence its use in the laboratory as a test 
 of the presence of that earth. The solution of oxalate of 
 ammonia is generally used for the purpose. Oxalic acid is 
 a powerful poison, and, from its resemblance to Epsom salt, 
 it has sometimes been sold and mistaken for that harmless 
 aperient. In such cases, the best antidote is a mixture of 
 chalk and water, and where it is immediately administered 
 it generally prevents the accession of fatal symptoms ; it 
 forms an insoluble oxalate of lime, which is inert. 
 
 OXALIDA'CE^E. (Oxalis, one of the genera.) A nat- 
 ural order of herbaceous or shrubby Exogens, inhabiting the 
 hotter and temperate parts of the world. Their foliage is 
 generally acid, and fit to supply the place of sorrel. Oxalig 
 acetosella contains pure oxalic acid, and many are used in 
 Brazil against malignant fevers. 
 
 O'XAMIDE. A white substance produced during the 
 destructive distillation of oxalate of ammonia : hence its 
 name, compounded ofozalis and ammonia. It is a compound 
 of nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon, in such propor- 
 tions as to form oxalate of ammonia by the addition of one 
 atom of water. (See Dumas, Thcorie des Amides, Chim, 
 App. auz Arts, v. 84.) 
 
 OX'GAXG (Germ, ochs, an ox, and gang, a walk), in 
 English Antiquities, was used to signify as much land as a 
 single ox could ear or plough in a season. The oxgang was 
 contracted or expanded according to the quality of the land ; 
 forty acres constituting the maximum and six the minimum 
 of the measure. 
 
 OXIDATION or OXIDIZEMENT. The act of combi- 
 nation with oxygen. 
 
 O'XIDE. (Gr. o\v;, acid, and eic"oj, form.) Compounds 
 containing oxygen, but which are not acid, have been term- 
 ed oxides. The metallic oxides are a most important class 
 of bodies. To designate the different oxides of one base we 
 generally use the first syllable of the Greek ordinal numer- 
 als, designating the first, second, third, &c, oxides by the 
 terms protoxide, deutoxide, tritoxide, &.C. ; and when the 
 base is saturated with oxygen (still not acid) it is termed a 
 peroxide. Compounds of bases with one atom and a half 
 oxygen, or of two base and three oxygen, are now general- 
 ly distinguished by the term sesquioxides. 
 
 O'XYGEN. (Gr. o^vs, and yeuvaetr, to generate.) This 
 important element was discovered in 1774, by Dr. Priestley. 
 It has been termed dcphlogisticatcd air, vital air, and empy- 
 real air. As it forms a component part of many of the 
 acids, it was termed, at the framing of the new nomencla- 
 ture, oxygen gas. There are several compounds of oxygen 
 which, when exposed to heat, are decomposed, and yield 
 the gas in a state of purity : of these the best is chlorate of 
 potash; but as that salt is expensive, we generally resort 
 to black oxide of manganese, which, at a dull-red heat, 
 gives out a considerable quantity of tolerably pure oxygen 
 gas. 
 
 Oxygen gas is colourless, tasteless, and inodorous ; it is 
 electro-negative, and therefore, when compounds containing 
 it are electrically decomposed, it always appears at the pos- 
 itive surface. It is a little heavier than atmospheric air, in 
 the proportion, that is, of 11 to 10 ; 100 cubical inches 
 weighing 340 grains. It is not absorbed by water, and is 
 neither acid nor alkaline. It has a powerful attraction for 
 most of the simple substances, especially for the electro- 
 positive bodies : the act of combining with it is called oxida- 
 tion. The compounds thus formed are divided into acids 
 and oxides : among the latter are the alkalis, and almost all 
 salifiable bases. Oxidation is often attended with the ev- 
 olution of heat and light, as in all processes of combustion 
 in atmospheric air: sometimes it is slow, and unattended 
 with such phenomena, as in the gradual rusting of metals. 
 Oxygen is a most powerful supporter of combustion : it con- 
 stitutes one fifth of the bulk of the atmosphere, and is the 
 principle which enables combustible bodies to burn in it. 
 The product of combustion, that is, the oxide or acid, is 
 sometimes itself gaseous, as when charcoal, by burning, is 
 converted into carbonic acid ; or it is Liquid, as hydrogen, by 
 combustion, produces water; or it is solid, as when iron, by 
 burning, produces oxide of iron. Oxygen gas is nl.-o essen- 
 tial to respiration ; that is, to the evolution of carbonic acid 
 from the blood.
 
 OXYGONE. 
 
 OXY'GOXE. (Gr. oi-iis, and yuria, angle.) In Geom- 
 etry, a term applied to figures in which all the angles are 
 
 OXYHY'DROGEN BLOWPIPE. When a mixture of 
 one volume of oxygen and two of hydrogen are burned 
 while issuing from a small aperture, they produce intense 
 heat; and instruments under the above name have been 
 contrived for their safe combustion, so as to avoid the risk 
 of explosion. 
 
 O'XYMEL. (Gr. o\vs, and ue\i, honey). A mixture of 
 honey and vinegar. It is sometimes made the vehicle of 
 medicines, as oxymel of squills, &c. 
 
 OXYMU'RIATE OF LIME. The valuable bleaching 
 compound obtained by exposing siaked quicklime to the ac- 
 tion of chlorine is commonly so termed ; it is, however, a 
 chloride of lime. 
 
 O'XVMURIA'TIC ACID. This name was originally 
 applied to chlorine, under the idea that it consisted of mu- 
 riatic acid and oxygen. The fallacy of that opinion was 
 first demonstrated by Davy, who showed that, in all the ap- 
 parent cases of the evolution of oxygen from chlorine, its 
 source was referable to the presence of water or of an ox- 
 ide. Chlorine possesses a stronger attraction for bases 
 than oxygen ; so that, when metallic oxides are exposed to 
 Its action, the chlorine combines with the metal to form a 
 chloride (formerly called a muriate), and the oxygen is 
 evolved. 
 
 OXYO'PIA. (Gr. o\vs, and u^, the eye.) Preternatural- 
 ly acute vision. 
 
 OXYU'RES, Oxyuri. (Gr. o^uj, and ovpa, a tail.) The 
 name of a family of pupivorous Hymenopterans, compre- 
 hending those which have a sort of tail, or terminal ap- 
 pendage, produced by an external ovipositor or borer. A 
 genus of intestinal worms (Calelininthans) is also called 
 Oxyurus. 
 
 OYER. From the Norman French oyer, to hear.) In 
 Law, when an action is brought on a bond or other spe- 
 cialty the defendant, previously to pleading in bar, may 
 crave oyer of the instrument on which the action is 
 brought^ that is, to have it read to him ; which prayer in- 
 cludes that of a copy also. Whenever offer of a deed is 
 necessarily made by the party relying on it (by what is 
 termed a profert in curia), the other party may crave oyer. 
 Oyer, is not, in strictness, demandable of a record, or of an 
 act of Parliament. 
 
 OYER AND TERMINER. (Fr. to hear and determine.) 
 In Law, a commission directed to the judges, and other 
 gentlemen of the courts to which it is issued, by virtue of 
 which they have power, as the terms imply, to hear and de- 
 termine certain specified offences. 
 
 OYEZ. (Plur. imperative of the same verb.) " Hear 
 ye." The cry of ushers in Norman courts of justice, met- 
 amorphosed into the English " O yes." 
 OYSANITE. See Oisamte. 
 
 OYSTER. (Lat. ostrea, an oyster.) This name is gen- 
 erally understood to signify the species of Ostracean bivalve 
 called Ostrea edulis, which is one of a numerous genus, 
 characterized by an inequivalve shell, composed of two ir- 
 regular lamellated valves, of which the convex or under 
 one adheres to rocks, piles, or to the shell of another indi- 
 vidual. The animal is unprovided with either a byssus or 
 a foot ; it is the best flavoured of its class, and has, con- 
 sequently, been always much esteemed. Vast beds of oys- 
 ers are artificially formed, and attended to with great care, 
 at the estuary of the Thames and many other localities, 
 where the temperature of the water is somewhat raised by 
 a mixture of salt and fresh water, in which they best thrive. 
 Certain restrictions and regulations are enforced in refer- 
 ence to the sale of oysters in the metropolis, in order to fa- 
 vour the multiplication and rearing of this valuable bivalve. 
 They are permitted to be sold from August to May, the 
 close months being May, June, and July. They cast their 
 spat or spawn in May, when they are said to be sick ; but 
 begin to recover in June and July, and in August they are 
 perfectly well. Oysters differ in quality, according to the 
 different nature of the soil or bed. Trie best British ovs- 
 ters are found at Purfleet ; the worst near Liverpool. The 
 nursing and feeding of oysters is almost exclusively carried 
 on at Colchester, and other places in Essex. The oysters 
 are brought from the coast of Hampshire, Dorset, and oth- 
 er maritime counties, even as far as Scotland, and laid on 
 beds or layings in creeks along the shore, where they 
 grow, in two or three years, to a considerable size, anil 
 have their flavour improved. There are said to be about 
 200 vessels, from 12 to 40 or 50 tons burden, immediately 
 employed in dredging for oysters, having from 400 to 500 
 men and boys attached to them. The quantity of oysters 
 bred and taken in Essex, and consumed mostly in London, 
 is supposed to amount to 14,000 or 15,000 bushels a year. 
 Supp. to Ency. Brit., art. " Fisheries.") Oysters formed a 
 great luxury among the Romans, and, as in France, were 
 served at the commencement of a repast. The largest and 
 
 PACKET. 
 
 best of Italy were caught on the shores of the Lucrine ; 
 but the Romans used to send vessels even to the coast of 
 Britain in quest of this luxury, the British oysters being 
 then, as now, in the highest estimation. 
 
 OZi£'NA. (Gr. oyi), / smell.) An ulcer in the nose, 
 which discharges a foetid purulent matter, and is some- 
 times symptomatic of caries of the bones. 
 
 P. 
 
 P. A consonant of the labial series. As was to be ex- 
 pected from the approximation of this letter in sound to 
 b. it is susceptible of interchange with the latter in nearly 
 all the languages of which we have any knowledge, but 
 more especially in the German. Both in this country 
 and on the Continent there are whole districts in which 
 not only is the ear of the natives insensible to the differ- 
 ence between the sound of the letters, but, %vith a tenden- 
 cy to error of which it would be vain to investigate the 
 cause, they are almost invariably confounded in pronuncia- 
 tion. Of this peculiarity several counties of Wales among 
 ourselves, and the whole of Lower Saxony in Germany, 
 present noted examples. For the most usual abbreviations 
 of this letter, see Abbreviation. 
 
 P. In Music, an abbreviation of the Italian word piano, 
 soft, denoting that the force of the voice or instrument is to 
 be diminished. P.P. means piu piano, or more soft ; and 
 P.P.P. pianissimo, as soft as possible. 
 
 PACE. (Fr. pas.) A denomination of linear measure, 
 of uncertain extent ; assumed by some to be 5 feet, by oth- 
 ers 4-4. It is the quantity supposed to be measured by the 
 foot from the place where it is taken up to that where it is 
 set down. The ancient Roman pace, considered as the 
 thousandth part of a mile, was five Roman feet, and each 
 foot contained between 11-60 and 1164 modern English 
 inches ; hence the pace was about 58 - l English inches, and 
 the Roman mile, the millepassus, equal to 1614 yards. See 
 Mile. 
 
 PA'CHA. (Pronounced pasha ; contracted from the Per- 
 sian padi shah, foot of the shah.) A title of honour, given, 
 in the origin of the Turkish empire, to the ministers and 
 chief assistants of the sultan, whether military or learned. 
 (See Von Homer's History of the Turkish Empire, vol. i., 
 p. 137.) In process of time attributed particularly to the 
 governors of provinces, styled pacha'iks. The well-known 
 distinction of ranks between the two classes of pachas con- 
 sists in the number of horse-tails which are carried before 
 them as standards, the higher having three and the lower 
 two. There were until recently 25 pachaliks, subdivided 
 into sangiacates, besides various independent jurisdictions 
 scattered over the empire. 
 
 PA'CHACA'MAC. The name given by the idolaters of 
 Peru to the being whom they worshipped as the creator of 
 the universe; this divinity was held in the highest venera- 
 tion. In the fruitful valley of Pachacama (whence the 
 name) the incas dedicated to his honour a temple of such 
 splendour and wealth, that notwithstanding the rapacity of 
 the Spanish soldiers, by whom it was plundered previously 
 to the arrival of Pizarro, that general is said to have drawn 
 from it treasures to the amount of 900,000 ducats. The 
 ruins of this temple which still remain, furnish a high no- 
 tion of its former maenificence. 
 
 PA'CHYDE'RMATA. (Gr. va%v?, thick, and Itp/ia, 
 skin.) An order of quadrupeds, including the elephant, 
 horse, pig, &c, distinguished by the thickness of their hides. 
 
 PACHYGLOSSATES, Pachyglossi. (Gr. xa X vs, and 
 yXwcaa, a tongue.) The name of a family of parrots 
 (Psittacini), comprehending those which have a thick pro- 
 tractile tongue. 
 
 PACHYO'TES, Pachyoti. (Gr. ra^w?, and cuf, an ear.) 
 The name of a family of bats ( Cheiroptera), including those 
 which have thick external ears. 
 
 PACI'FIC. The name given by Magalhaens, the first 
 European who traversed it, to the ocean which extends 
 between America on the east and Asia and Australia on 
 the west, in consequence of his enjoying fair weather on 
 entering it, after having previously experienced a track of 
 bad weather and tempestuous gales in the straits which 
 bear his name. The Pacific is the greatest expanse of wa- 
 ter on the globe. 
 
 PACIFICA'TION, EDICTS OF. The term usually ap- 
 plied to the edicts issued by the French monarchs in favour 
 of their Protestant subjects, in the view of allaying the 
 commotions occasioned by their previous persecutions. The 
 first edict of this nature was promulgated by Charles IX. 
 in 1562 ; but the most celebrated was the edict of Nantes 
 (which' see), issued by Henry IV. in 1598, and revoked by 
 Louis XIV. in 1685. 
 
 PA'CKET, in Navigation, meant originally a vessel ap- 
 pointed by government to carry the mails between the 
 
 671
 
 PACKFONG. 
 
 mother country and foreign countries or her own dependen- 
 cies. It is now used as nearly synonymous with an ordi- 
 nary vessel, chiefly of small burden, that freights goods or 
 passengers. 
 
 PA'CKFONG. The Chinese name of the alloy of nick- 
 el and copper commonly called German silver. It is an al- 
 loy of 7 parts of zinc, '.'-5 copper, and 6'5 nickel. 
 
 PACK'HORSE. A horse employed to carry goods on its 
 back in bundles, called packages or packs. In countries 
 not yet intersected by regular roads this is the only mode 
 of transporting goods from one part to another. In Britain, 
 horses were formerly employed for this purpose, but for 
 these, carts and wagons are now substituted. In Spain, 
 mules and asses are still so employed, and in Asia and Afri- 
 ca, camels and dromedaries. 
 
 P A'COS. The Peruvian name of an earthy-looking ore, 
 which consists of brown oxide of iron, with imperceptible 
 particles of native silver disseminated through it. (See 
 Ure's Dictionary of *1rts, <$-e.) 
 
 PA'DDING, in Calico-printing, is the impregnation of the 
 cloth with a mordant. 
 
 PA'DDLE. A kind of oar used by savage nations in nav- 
 igating their canoes. The paddle is broader at the end than 
 the common oar; and being employed at the stern of the 
 canoe, not only impels her forwards, but regulates her course 
 exactly like a rudder. See Sculling. 
 
 PADDLES. See Steam Navigation. 
 
 PA'DDOCK. This term was formerly applied to a strip 
 of ground in a park, paled round, for hounds to run matches 
 in ; but at present it is chiefly used to denote a small en- 
 closure under pasture, immediately adjoining the stables of 
 a domain, for turning in a sick horse, a mare and foal, or 
 any similar purpose. 
 
 PADI'SHA. (From pad, protector or throne, and shah, 
 prince.) A title of the Turkish sultan and Persian shah. 
 Formerly the Turkish emperor conferred this title upon the 
 kings of France alone among the European sovereigns, but 
 we believe that the honour is now likewise shared by the 
 emperors of Austria and Russia. See Pacha. 
 
 PA'DUAN COINS. In the Fine Arts, coins forged by 
 the celebrated Paduans, Cavino and Bassiano; who were 
 also the artists employed on the pope's medals, from Julius 
 III. to Gregory XI II. ( 1571 ) . These coins hold the first rank 
 in imitations of ancient medals for their masterly execution. 
 M. Beauvais says of them, "that they are seldom thinner 
 than the ancient coins themselves; that they seldom appear 
 as worn or damaged, while others very frequently do, espe- 
 cially in the reverse, which sometimes, as in many Othos, 
 appear half consumed by time ; and while (he observes) 
 counterfeit medals are very commonly of as irregular a form 
 as the real, those of the Paduan masters are generally cir- 
 cular." Still more modern forgers, who were without the 
 talents which these Paduans possessed to engrave dies, have 
 been content to mould them from their productions ; but 
 these are cast coins, which it requires no very extraordinary 
 knowledge to detect. The marks of the file upon their edges 
 are mostly a sure sign of the imposition ; those, however, 
 who collect these objects of art should be constantly on their 
 guard. 
 
 PjE'AN. (Gr. Ilaia't'O Among the Greeks, properly a 
 hymn in honour of Apollo, who was also called Paean. Also 
 a war song before or after battle : in the first case in honour 
 of Mars, in the second as a thanksgiving to Apollo. 
 
 P.ean. In Ancient Poetry, a foot consisting of four sylla- 
 bles, of which there are four kinds ; the Paean primus, se- 
 cundus. &c. See Foot. 
 
 PjE'DOBA'PTISTS. (Gr. irate, a child, and /Jairrtfw, I 
 baptize.) Those who hold that baptism should be admin- 
 istered during infancy. The great majority of Christian 
 churches which allow the baptism of infants are thus de- 
 nominated from that circumstance, and are thereby distin- 
 guished from the Antiptedobaptists, i. e., those who deny the 
 validity of infant baptism. See Baptists. 
 
 PA'GAN (LaL paganus; from pagtis, a village), among 
 the Romans, was, as the term imports, applied to all who 
 lived in villages, in contradistinction to the inhabitants of 
 cities. In its present signification it is the opposite of Chris- 
 tian, being synonymous with heathen, gentile, and idolater; 
 and was originally so applied because the inhabitants of 
 villages continued to adhere to their idolatrous practices 
 after Christianity had been introduced into towns and nties-. 
 The precise period when the term pagan was first used 
 in its present acceptation has not been ascertained. See 
 Heathen. 
 
 PAGANA'LIA. (Eat.) Festivals held in each Roman 
 village in honour of the local tutelary divinities. They were 
 Instituted by Senilis Tulllus, who commanded every In- 
 habitant of each pagus, or village, to assemble annually on 
 B Certain day. and Ofler public sacrifices. In instituting tiiese 
 festivals Servius bad both a political and religious object in 
 view; for, as every inhabitant was compelled to bring a 
 small coin, varying with the age and sex of the bearer, he 
 872 
 
 PAGANISM. 
 
 was annually acquainted with the strength of each district, 
 and consequently with that of the kingdom. 
 
 PA GANISM. A general appellation for the religious 
 worship of the whole human race, except of that portion 
 which has embraced Christianity, Judaism, or Mohamme- 
 danism, Under the head Polytheism, we have given a 
 brief outline of the different kinds of pagan worship, and we 
 shall in this place confine our remarks to the origin of the 
 system. 
 
 That in the most ancient times one God, sole, eternal, in- 
 divisible, the creator of the universe, was acknowledged and 
 worshipped, has been proved by the most profound investi- 
 gators of antiquity. The existence of this belief may not 
 only be traced in the tradition of all people, but is expressly 
 affirmed by some of the greatest philosophers of the heathen 
 world. Nothing, indeed, could exceed the contempt with 
 which some of them regarded the gods of the vulgar, though 
 fear of danger or some other cause often taught them to con- 
 ceal the sentiment. 
 
 The causes of idolatry were manifold, and were mostly 
 of oriental growth. A great king regarded it as below his 
 dignity to enter into the minute details of administration : he 
 placed vicars or ministers over provinces and cities, over the 
 great departments of national polity. If the onerous charge 
 was inapplicable to an earthly, it was still more so to the 
 celestial Sovereign : hence the subordinate deities which 
 we perceive in the religious systems of all nations — tile pre- 
 siding genii of the Chaldaeans, the numerous gods of Greece 
 and Rome. The worship due to the Supreme alone was 
 soon transferred to those imaginary entities, which, from 
 functionaries, were transferred into so many independent 
 chiefs, until the simple primeval notion of the divine unity 
 was lost. The other causes of idolatry are foreign to our 
 purpose: the one already assigned, which is Indisputably 
 the most ancient and the most obvious, is of itself sufficient 
 to account for the fact. 
 
 In its origin paganism, as a system, was simple. A few 
 great divinities were placed in heaven to guide the affairs of 
 the visible and invisible worlds. By degrees each great 
 planet, each law of nature, each region and city, nay each 
 river, fountain, wood, tree, mineral, had its tutelary divinity. 
 The laws of nature were often inexplicable ; what more ob- 
 vious than to infer that each was subject to a superior pow- 
 er 1 As the ideas of men became more precise and refined, 
 gods were placed over human faculties and passions : thus 
 the understanding and the will, love and revenge, were the 
 offspring of certain deities. Mere abstractions were similar- 
 ly personified ; until the empire of reason, of sentiment, and 
 of morals, was as much pervaded as earth, air, and ocean 
 with these visionary beings. But might not men themselves 
 attain to that mysterious dignity ? might they not become at 
 least a sort of demigods — a distinction earned by some un- 
 common merit 1 In all countries we find instances of deifi- 
 cation. Nor need this surprise. The human mind is na- 
 turally prone to exaggeration — the human heart to be led 
 astray by the intensity of its own feelings. Thus he who, 
 during life, proved himself a benefactor to his countrymen, 
 who taught them useful arts, or freed them from some im- 
 pending evil, would be regarded with affectionate admira- 
 tion by his contemporaries ; and time, which so constantly 
 increases every object, would convert a great exploit, a 
 shining virtue, into a divine effort. But it not unfrequently 
 happened that men were often deified for brute strength, un- 
 accompanied by those elevated mental qualities which form 
 the noblest distinction of the hero. It may, however, be ob- 
 served, that in such cases men were always reverenced for 
 the quality most wanted in a state. If a district were infest- 
 ed by wild beasts, or by predatory savages, a Hercules arose 
 to free it. If a country required laws, a Minos established 
 them. If the culture of the grape was unknown, a Bacchus 
 appeared to teach it. Such benefactors, it was believed, de- 
 served, as they certainly obtained, the peculiar favour of 
 heaven — rewards which far transcended those bestowed on 
 other men. In most cases, however, each was held to be a 
 divinity, or at least the offspring of one. As the generation 
 of the gods was a received tenet, and their union with mor- 
 tals of constant occurrence, imagination had little difficulty 
 in the filiation of a benefactor. Must nations were eager to 
 proclaim a god as their founder; and when one laid claim 
 to the honour, the example was speedily followed by others 
 with equal appearance of justice. Hence the prodigious 
 number of divinities; heaven and hell, the earth and the 
 planets, air ami ocean, the whole frame of nature, every 
 part of the universe, visible and invisible, even the realms 
 of imagination, being pervaded by them j and hence idolatry 
 became a complicated system, endless in its forms of worship 
 us in its objects. 
 
 It lias indeed been contended that even in the most unen- 
 lightened times, men — except, perhaps, the grossest in com- 
 prehension — were never so absurd as to receive this almost 
 Infinite plurality of deities; that each derived it^ name from 
 its being a distinct manifestation of the divine energy ; that
 
 PAGE. 
 
 the Neptune of the sea, the Apollo of the sun, the Minerva 
 of the understanding, the Jove of the thunder, were mere 
 denominations, founded on the distinct modes in which the 
 Supreme manifests himself to the world : in short, that those 
 denominations were but so many imaginative terms for the 
 emanations of the all-pervading Deity ; and that under each 
 distinct emanation this deity might be worshipped without 
 the charge of idolatry. But this hypothesis is too refined to 
 be just, and is contrary to experience. The known progress 
 of the human mind is from sensual to ideal, not from the 
 ideal to the sensual ; philosophy is the end, not the begin- 
 ning of knowledge. If that great patriarchal truth, the uni- 
 ty of the Godhead, was obscured by successive ages of ig- 
 norance, it could be regained only by an opposite and equal- 
 ly laborious process of the intellect ; and even when thus 
 recovered, it could not be communicated without danger to 
 the multitude. (Cab. Cyc. ; Arts, <S-c, of the Greeks and 
 Romans, vol. ii.) See Monotheism. 
 
 PAGE. (Modern Latin pagius, of uncertain derivation ; 
 according to some, from pagus, village.) In high life, a 
 youth attached to the service of a royal or noble personage. 
 In the ancient Persian court (which has been not ill termed 
 the archetype of all courts), we find the usage of employing 
 a number of youths of the noblest families of the empire in 
 personal attendance on the sovereign. Among the Greeks 
 and Romans (to whom monarchical institutions, strictly so 
 called, were unknown), no analogous custom appears to have 
 prevailed. Among the northern nations, on the other hand, 
 personal service of this sort was common. The name pages, 
 however, appears confined to slaves and attendants of an in- 
 ferior description, in modern Europe, until the reigns of 
 Charles VI. and VII. of France. (Fauchet's Origine des 
 Chevaliers.) As chivalric institutions prevailed, the office, 
 by whatever name called, became of importance ; courts 
 and castles were the schools in which the young noble pass- 
 ed through the degree of page, in order to reach the farther 
 steps of esquire and knight, when he became " hors de 
 page." In the 16th century the chivalrous character had 
 become much adulterated ; but the custom of bringing up 
 sons as pages at courts continued until the disorder and 
 licence of the age rendered the service so dangerous that it 
 was no longer sought by the better classes as a mode of edu- 
 cation for their children. Pages then became, as they are 
 now, mere relics of feudal custom: from some courts (the 
 Prussian, for instance) they have entirely disappeared ; and 
 the young noblemen of the cadet school perform the office 
 of pages on solemn occasions. (See Sainte Palaye, Me- 
 moires sur la Chevalrie ; Mem. de VAc. des Inscr., vol. xx.) 
 Page. In Printing, one side of the leaf of a book. A folio 
 volume contains 4 pages in every sheet; a quarto 8, an oc- 
 tavo 16, a duodecimo 24, and an octodecimo (18mo.) 36 pages. 
 PA'GEANT, in its general sense, a public representation 
 or exhibition of a showy and splendid character. It was a 
 very early custom in the middle ages, both in England and 
 on the Continent, to celebrate festive occasions of a public 
 nature, as royal visits, marriages, &c, by some ornamental 
 show in the public streets of cities. During the period of 
 chivalry these shows began to be exhibited with the addi- 
 tion of masked figures, representing allegorical personages, 
 with appropriate scenery ; and as, in process of time, speeches 
 in verse or prose were put into the mouths of these figures, 
 and sometimes a kind of dramatic entertainment performed 
 between them, the pageant consequently holds a place in 
 our early literature. The earliest speaking pageant of which 
 we have any account was presented on the triumphal entry 
 of Henry VI. into London, in 1432; and the poetical part of 
 it is conjectured to have been supplied by Lydgate. The 
 reign of Henry VIII. was fertile in pageants of an extraor- 
 dinary magnificence and splendour; but in that of queen 
 Elizabeth they assumed a different form, and were both de- 
 vised and enacted, with much more elegance : partly from 
 the tincture of romantic gallantry which distinguished the 
 court of the maiden queen, and was perceptible in all the 
 homage rendered to her by her subjects, and partly from the 
 sudden developement of the poetical genius of the nation. 
 The pageants gradually became more dramatic, and thus 
 approximated more nearly to the more elegant character of 
 the masque (see Masque), which, under her successor, be- 
 came the fashionable court entertainment. Pageants, how- 
 ever, were still presented by the city of London, which re- 
 tained a poet laureat of its own for the purpose of inditing 
 the spoken part of them, down to the year 1700, or there- 
 abouts; and the lord mayor's procession still retains some 
 characteristics of these ancient entertainments. The deriva- 
 tion of this word is wholly unknown, and has afforded much 
 scope to the fancy of etymologists. 
 PA'GINA. (Lat.) In Botany, the surface of a leaf. 
 PAGO'DA. (Pers. poutghad, a house of an idol.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, the East Indian name for a temple containing an 
 idol. Sometimes it signifies the idol itself. The pagoda is 
 generally of three subdivisions. First, an apartment whose 
 ceiling is a dome resting on columns of stone or marble ; this 
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 part is open to all persons. Second, an apartment forbidden 
 to all but Brahmins. Third and last, the cell which contains 
 the statue of the deity, enclosed with a massy gate. 
 
 Pagoda, is also the name of a gold coin, value from 8a. to 
 9s. current in several parts of India. It is also the name of 
 a silver coin of the same value, on which are stamped im- 
 ages of the Hindoo gods. 
 
 PA'GODITE. A species of steatite or serpentine, which 
 the Chinese carve into figures. 
 
 PAGU'RIANS, Paguridm. (Lat. pagurus, hermit-crabs.) 
 The name of a tribe of Macrurous Decapod Crustaceans, of 
 which the genus Pagurus is the type. Most of the species 
 of this family inhabit, parasitically, the deserted shells of 
 univalves. 
 
 PAI'NIM. A poetical expression used by English writers 
 for pagan. 
 
 PAINS AND PENALTIES, BILL OF. A species of 
 process employed to inflict punishment on state offenders 
 out of the ordinary course of justice. Every bill brought 
 into parliament for the purpose of inflicting such punishment 
 is a bill of pains and penalties, of which bills of attainder 
 (see Attainder) are, properly speaking, a species; but the 
 term is more commonly confined to bills introduced to in- 
 flict specified penalties for particular acts. The latest in- 
 stance of this extraordinary proceeding was the bill of pains 
 and penalties against 0_ueen Caroline (1820), introduced into 
 the House of Lords, and passed by them, but which was not 
 carried into the Commons. 
 
 PAINTER. In Naval language, a rope used to fasten a 
 boat either alongside of the ship to which it belongs, or to 
 some wharf, quay, &c, as occasion requires. 
 
 PAI'NTERS' COLIC. The peculiar disease, which 
 usually terminates in palsy and mental imbecility, to which 
 painters and others subject to lead poisons are subject. It is 
 also called colic of Poitou and Devonshire colic ; the miners 
 employed in lead-works being also liable to its attacks. See 
 Colic. 
 
 PAI'NTING (Fr. peinture, Lat. pictura), strictly defined, 
 is an art which, by means of lines and eolours, represents on 
 a plane surface all objects presented to the eye or to the im- 
 agination. The etymology of the word (ypatyuv) used to ex- 
 press painting among the Greeks, being the same as that 
 employed for writing, seems to identify the tools with which 
 it was performed among that people : viz., a style or pen of 
 wood, used on a levigated plane of wood, metal, or some 
 other prepared ground'; the mode, letters or lines. Until its 
 operations became founded on the faithful representations 
 of visible objects of nature, undisfigured by mannerism and 
 modification from the fashion and habits of a country, such, 
 for instance, as we meet with in the Indian, Egyptian, and 
 Chinese representations of the human form, it is scarcely 
 entitled to the appellation of art; hence we shall, in this 
 article, dismiss, with very few remarks, its appearance in 
 those countries where traces of it in that condition are to be 
 found, reserving the principal part of this article for that de- 
 velopment, simplicity of end, and uniformity of pursuits, 
 which enabled the Greeks, the great arbiters of form, to 
 carry it to a degree of excellence which no subsequent age 
 or nation has been able to reach, or even rival. 
 
 It seems probable that drawing and recorded language 
 were coeval in invention. In Greek we have mentioned 
 that the same word (ypafetv) expressed the act of perform- 
 ing one as well as the other. Goguet, in his Origine des 
 Loiz, says that the first essay of the art of writing, using the 
 expression in its most general sense, was by means of the 
 representation of corporeal objects. Its invention would 
 thus be carried hack to a period almost as remote as that 
 of the existence itself of the human race. The earliest peo- 
 ple, he says, naturally used this method for exhibiting their 
 thoughts, and commenced by representing to the eye the ob- 
 jects they wished to impress on the mind. The origin, how- 
 ever, of painting, properly so called, involved as it is in the 
 greatest obscurity, presents one of the most difficult ques- 
 tions in the history of the arts ; and opinions are very much 
 divided as to the country that gave birth to it. Some au- 
 thors have assigned its invention to a period antecedent to 
 the siege of Troy. (Plin., 1. vii.) Others, to one long after. 
 (Plin., 1. xxxv.) Pliny says, that the Egyptians boasted of 
 being acquainted with the art six thousand years before the 
 Grecians; but his words are, "Affirmant, vana praedica- 
 tione, ut palum est." Profane no less than sacred history 
 rejects such a chimsra. But, though such a period of an- 
 tiquity be fabulous, it is quite certain that painting was much 
 used by them at a very early period. It is argued by Goguet 
 that, as much as it was in his power, Cambyses destroyed 
 the monuments of art he found in Egypt. Hence may be 
 considered as posterior to his invasion such of the monu- 
 ments as display specimens of the art. The epoch whereof 
 we are speaking is 52o B.C. This, however, is an argument 
 far from satisfactory, where all is conjecture. The speci- 
 mens of Egyptian paintings now extant exhibit a collection 
 of representations of human and other figures which indi- 
 3H* 873
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 cate extremely slender advances in the art. They arc all 
 rudely and falsely drawn: no notion of grouping, as we un- 
 derstand it, nor sentiment, appears in any of their produc- 
 tions. As the Phoenicians were an early cultivated people, 
 and have the credit of the invention of letters, they may, 
 perhaps, have a claim to the invention equal to that of any 
 other nation. In the time of Solomon, 992 B.C., they were 
 so well skilled in the arts that that king employed thetu in 
 
 building the temple. The Scriptures record the magnificence 
 
 and splendour of their buildings, abounding with decorated 
 apartments and sculptured ornaments; and we know, from 
 the coins of the Phoenicians that have reached us, that in 
 the design and execution of their coinage they were not far 
 behind the Greeks. 
 
 "Thou, also, son of man, take thee a tile, and lay it be- 
 fore thee, and portray upon it the city, even Jerusalem," 
 are the words with which the fourth chapter of Ezekiel 
 commences ; the words in the Septuagint being iiaypA^lUi 
 z-' uvriji ndAlv t>)i' 'lipovtra'Siift. This is about 590 !!.('., and 
 would tend to show that the art was practised by the Jews 
 so early as that period. The commandment, "Thou shalt 
 not make to thyself any graven image," which some sects, 
 even in the present day, construe into a prohibition against 
 all art, was merely a prohibition of the worship of idols; for 
 we find Moses himself, by the command of God, employing 
 sculpture for the sanctuary. The employment of art of this 
 nature is found, also, in many other passages of Scripture, 
 which will doubtless occur to the reader. 
 
 The Persians, the Arabians, and the Parthians, from the 
 peculiar opinions they entertained, could have no claims 
 either to the origin or improvement of the art of painting. 
 With them the representation of the human figure in a state 
 of nudity was considered almost as indecorous as the ap- 
 pearance before them of a naked man himself. Their fig- 
 ures are clothed almost invariably with drapery, falling in 
 clumsy folds profusely plaited. Worshippers of fire, they 
 used no representations of the Deity ; and it is curious that, 
 in their successful invasion of Egypt, they imbibed no taste 
 for the arts and religion of that polytheistic country — not 
 that they had, perhaps, in the former, much to acquire. 
 
 The art of painting in China, if we may judge of it from 
 the time it first became known in this country, has remain- 
 ed the same time immemorial. It has never exceeded the 
 hounds of imitation, and even in that respect it is devoid of 
 taste and truth. The human figure with the Chinese is a 
 distorted misrepresentation, and their perspective is attained 
 by piling one object on the top of another till the picture is 
 all earth and no sky. Invention and imagination were nev- 
 er known among them ; and though in many respects inge- 
 nious in manipulation, their dexterity is exhausted in paint- 
 ing the fins of a fish, or the petals of a plant. In such a 
 country it would be vain to look for the origin or progress 
 of the art. 
 
 Etruscan art is known to almost every person by the 
 vases that bear that name. In the article Architecture 
 we have touched upon the perfection, at a remote period of 
 time, of the arts of Etruria ; a country which, in its ancient 
 state, was the most powerful and civilized in Italy. Diodo- 
 rus speaks of the rich and powerful cities in their territo- 
 ries, and of the uncontrolled sway which their fleets exer- 
 cised on the seas encircling the peninsula. Though the 
 history of this nation is involved in obscurity, though the 
 Romans strove to remove all the memorials of their ancient 
 fam . sufficient information has reached us to demonstrate 
 the height of perfection to which they carried the fine arts. 
 About twelve miles from the town of Civita Vecchia stood 
 the ancient Etruscan city of Tarquinia, near which are 
 found a considerable number of sepulchral grottos, whereof 
 some are decorated with paintings and figures much in the 
 style of those on the Etruscan vases. These antiquities 
 have been published, with a detailed description and plates, 
 by the late Mr. Bj res. Some of the pictures represent com 
 bats, and in others the subjects are dances of females, all 
 executed with considerable spirit. The pottery, however, 
 which we have above noticed, appears to afford the greatest 
 
 n lier of their specimens of the arts of design: the forms 
 
 displayed in the contours of the vases, no less than the paint- 
 ings with which they are decorated, evince a wonderful at- 
 tainment of elegance In design, purity of form, and ingenui- 
 ty in its delineation. The power over line, and the facility 
 Of execution they reached, maybe easily conceived from the 
 i nature' of the material upon which they wrought. 
 No retouching was possible; but the whole must have been 
 completely arranged in the mind before it coidd be struck 
 Off by the artist. Pliny states that, in his day, the town of 
 Ardea, an ancient city of Etruria, contains some paintings 
 which be ascribes to a period anterior to the foundation of 
 Rome, and mentions with surprise their then perfect state of 
 preservation. At Lacnvium, also, he describes some pic- 
 tures of At alanta and Helen, which were simply painted on 
 the wall, and exhibited great merit in e.xecuiion. These 
 Caligula, after a fruitless attempt, failed in removing. Cere, 
 874 
 
 another Etruscan city, boasted some paintings of an early 
 date. All these specimens are doubtless of a remote epoch ; 
 but attempts to fix it with precision would not be likely to 
 bdng us to the exact or even proximate period of their exe- 
 cution. The history of painting, however, can only be told 
 under the head of Grecian art, to which we shall now pro- 
 ceed, premising that in our account we shall use most freely 
 the Lectures on Painting- of the late Henry Euseli, professor 
 of painting of the Royal Academy, who, whatever may be 
 thought of his pictures, was an enthusiastic lover of his art, 
 a scholar, and a critic of the highest order. 
 
 The vocabulary Of the technical expressions, nature, beau- 
 ty, grace, taste, copy, imitation, genius, and talent, is ex- 
 plained as follows: By nature is meant the general and per- 
 manent principles of visible objects, neither disfigured by 
 accident nor distempered by disease, neither modified by 
 fashion nor local habits. Beauty is that harmonious whole 
 of the human frame, that unison of parts to one end, which 
 enchants us. It is the result of the standard set by the great 
 masters of the art, the ancients, and confirmed by modern 
 imitation. Grace is an artless balance of motion and re- 
 pose, springing from character, founded on propriety, and 
 neither falling short of the demands nor overleaping the 
 modesty of nature. Applied to execution, it is that dexter- 
 ous power which hides the means by which it is attained. 
 By taste is meant not crudely the knowledge of what is 
 right in art, but an estimation of the degrees of excellence 
 by comparison, proceeding from justice to refinement. Copy, 
 though generally confounded with imitation, is essentially 
 different in operation and meaning. Precision of eye and 
 obedience of hand are the requisites of the former, without 
 pretence to choice or selection ; whereas choice, directed by 
 judgment or taste, is the essence of imitation. " Of genius 
 I shall speak with reserve," says the professor; "for no 
 word has been more indiscriminately confounded :" by ge- 
 nius is meant the power which enlarges the circle of human 
 knowledge, which discovers new materials of nature, or 
 combines the known with novelty ; whilst talent arranges, 
 cultivates, and polishes the discoveries of genius. 
 
 Religion was the motive of Greek art ; it was therefore 
 natural that they should endeavour to invest their own au- 
 thors, for they considered themselves of divine origin, with 
 the most perfect form ; and as man possessed that exclu- 
 sively, they completely and intellectually studied his ele- 
 ments and constitution. The climate that was favourable 
 to the development of that form, the establishment of exer- 
 cises by their civil and political institutions, created models 
 in nature which raised Greek art to the highest excellence. 
 
 Skiagrams, or simple shaded outlines, similar to those 
 known under the name of silhouettes, were the first essays 
 of the art. They had no addition of character or feature 
 but what the profile of the object thus delineated could af- 
 ford. "Greek art had her infancy; but the Graces rocked 
 the cradle, and Love taught her to speak. If ever legend 
 deserved our belief, the amorous tale of the Corinthian 
 maid, who traced the shade of her departing lover by the 
 secret lamp, appeals to our sympathy to grant it." 
 
 The next step of the art was the monogram, which is the 
 outline of figures without light or shade, with the addition, 
 however, of parts within the outline. From this to the mo- 
 nochrom, or painting of a single colour on a tablet primed 
 with white, then covered with what was called punic wax, 
 first amalgamated with a resinous pigment, generally of a 
 red, sometimes of a dark brown or black colour, was the 
 next advance. Through this inky ground the outlines were 
 traced with a firm though pliant style, called a ccstrum : 
 the line could be altered with the finger or a sponge, and 
 easily replaced by a fresh one. When the whole was set- 
 tled it was suffered to dry, and covered with a brown en- 
 caustic varnish ; the lights were worked over again, and 
 rendered more brilliant with a more delicate point, accord- 
 ing to the gradual advance from mere outlines to some indi- 
 cation, and at last to masses of light and shade: thence to 
 the superinduction of different colours, or the invention of 
 the polychrom, which, by the addition of the pencil to the 
 style, raised the stained drawing to a legitimate picture, and 
 at length produced that vaunted harmony, the magic scale 
 of Grecian colour. If these conjectures be founded in fact, 
 tin- supposed momentaneous productions on the Etruscan 
 vases, which we have above noticed, would be no longer 
 matter of iistoiiishmnt ; and, indeed, it appears much more 
 likely that such should have been the case, than that the 
 figures so drawn should have been "the magic produce of 
 a winded pencil," rather than "the result of gradual im- 
 provement by exquisitely finished monoehroms." 
 
 The period at which the pencil supplanted the cestrum 
 cannot be ascertained. Apollodorus. in the 93d Olympiad, 
 and Zenxis, m the B4tb, are said to have used it with free- 
 dom and power; I'arrhasius painted the battle of the La- 
 pithie and Centaurs on the shield of the Minerva of Phidias, 
 to enable Mys to chase it ; but this was most probably a mc- 
 nochrom, designed with the cestrum for greater accuracy.
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 It was nearly a century after this that Apelles and Proto- I Timanthes was the immolation of Iphigenia. Iphigenia 
 
 genes had a competition in drawing lines with the pencil, in was the principal figure ; and her form, her resignation, or 
 
 which delicacy and evanescent subtlety being the charac- her anguish, was the painter's principal task: the figure of 
 
 teristic, some notion of their mechanical skill may be form- Agamemnon, however important, is merely accessory, and 
 
 ed. Of the encaustic method used by the ancients no ac- no more necessary to make the subject a completely tragic 
 
 count can be given on which reliance may be placed. " The one than that of Clytemnestra, the mother ; no more than 
 
 most probable account," says Fuseli, "is, that it bore some that of Priam, to impress us with sympathy at the death 
 
 resemblance to our oil painting; and that the name was of Polyxena." Again, "They ascribe to impotence what 
 
 adopted to denote the use of the materials inflammable or was the forbearance of judgment. Timanthes felt like a 
 
 prepared by tire, the supposed durability of which, whether father; he did not hide the face of Agamemnon because it 
 
 applied hot or cold, authorized the terms ive/cavcc and 
 inussit." 
 
 Polygnotus is the first great name that appears on record 
 at a period when some satisfactory history of the art might 
 be commenced. He flourished about 400 years B.C. So 
 great was his success in the Precile at Athens, and the 
 Lesche or public hall at Delphi, that, in a general council 
 of the Amphictyons, it was solemnly decreed that his ex- 
 penses, whenever he travelled in Greece, should be borne at 
 the public charge. From the description of his pictures by 
 Pausanias, it would seem that composition in painting, as 
 we now understand that term, was not at all understood, 
 inasmuch as that author begins his description at one end 
 of the picture and finishes at the opposite extremity, which 
 indicates pretty plainly that there could be no central group 
 or figure to which the rest were subordinate. Aristotle says 
 that Polygnotus improved his model ; and it would be un- 
 just to pronounce, considering the variety of powers by which 
 the parts of his pictures were distinguished, that the primi- 
 tive arrangement we have just mentioned arose from want 
 of comprehension in the artist. 
 
 After Aglaophon, Phidias, Pananus, Colotes and Evenor, 
 the father of Parrhasius, came Apollodorus, the Athenian. 
 "This painter applied the essential principles of Polygnotus 
 to the delineation of the species, by investigating the leading 
 forms that discriminate the various classes of human quali- 
 ties and passions. The acuteness of his taste led him to 
 discover that as all men were connected by one general 
 form, so they were separated each by some predominant 
 power which fixed character and bound them to a class." 
 Pliny and Plutarch considered Apollodorus as the first 
 colourist of his age. It is probable from their descriptions 
 that he was the inventor of local colour and tone, which 
 received from the former the term splendour. Zeuxis suc- 
 ceeded to Apollodorus, and, by uniting in one figure the 
 most perfect parts of many models, produced an ideal form, 
 which, in his opinion, constituted the supreme degree of 
 human beauty. Lucian describes a picture he exhibited 
 at the Olympic games as remarkable for its invention. It 
 was the representation of a female Centaur suckling her 
 young, and the account is to be found in the memoir in- 
 scribed with the name of Zeuxis. This artist used but few 
 colours ; but he seems to have understood the extension 
 of light to masses, from the circumstance of his painting 
 monochroms on a black ground, adding the lights in white. 
 "Pinxit et monochromata ex albo," says Pliny. 
 
 Parrhasius, a native of Ephesus, but a citizen of Athens, 
 was the son and disciple of Evenor, and cotemporary of 
 Zeuxis. By his subtle examination of outline, he "estab- 
 lished that standard of divine and heroic form which 
 raised him to the authority of a legislator from whose de- 
 cisions there was no appeal. That he was a thorough 
 master of allegory is evident from his embodying by signs, 
 universally understood, the Athenian people (AHMOX), in 
 which he expressed at once its contradictory qualities. 
 " Perhaps," observes Fuseli, " he traced the jarring branch- 
 es to their source, the aboriginal moral principle of the 
 Athenian character, which he made intuitive. This sup- 
 position alone can shed a dawn of possibility on what else 
 appears impossible." In his competition with Timanthes 
 the Cythnian, or, as some say, of Sicyon, he had the mor- 
 tification to have been declared by a majority of votes in- 
 ferior to him. The subject of the competition in which he 
 was thus defeated was the contest of Ajax and Ulysses for 
 the arms of Achilles. 
 
 No picture of antiquity has acquired so much celebrity 
 as the sacrifice of Iphigenia in Aulis by Timanthes. Q.uin- 
 tilian informs us that it was painted in contest with Colo- 
 tes of Teos, an artist from the school of Phidias, and crown- 
 ed with victory at its rival exhibition. This picture, which 
 has been the subject of the unlimited praise of critics of an- 
 tiquity, has, in modern times, been the subject of criticism, 
 from the circumstance of Timanthes hiding the face of the 
 father (Agamemnon) of the victim to be immolated in his 
 mantle, unable by his art to express the intensity and agony 
 of his grief. Upon this Sir Joshua Reynolds observes, in his 
 Eighth Discourse, "If difficulties overcome make a great 
 part of the merit of art, difficulties evaded can deserve but 
 little commendation." The French critic, Falconet, has 
 not been less unsparing than the president in his condem- 
 nation of the artifice. The answer of Fuseli to these crit- 
 ics appears to us satisfactory. He says, "The subject of 
 
 was beyond the power of his art — not because it was be- 
 yond the possibility, but because it was beyond the dignity 
 of expression ; because the inspiring feature of paternal af- 
 fection at that moment, and the action which of necessity 
 must have accompanied it, would either have destroyed 
 the grandeur of the character and the solemnity of the 
 scene, or subject the painter with the majority of his 
 judges to the imputation of insensibility." The same ex- 
 pedient to express grief was adopted by Michael Angelo in 
 the figure of Abijam, and by Raphael in the Expulsion 
 from Paradise, borrowed from Masaccio. These were the 
 artists who formed the second school of art, and establish- 
 ed its end and limits. On it was founded the third period 
 of style, in which refinement induced a grace and beauty 
 to forms not to be surpassed. The masters of this period 
 were Apelles, Protogenes, Aristides, Euphranor, Pausias, 
 and the pupils of Pamphilus and his master Eupompus. 
 This last-named artist was of Sicyon ; and his authority 
 was so great that out of the Asiatic and Grecian schools of 
 painting he formed a third, by dividing the last into the 
 Attic and the Sicyonian. When consulted by Lysippus 
 (Pliny, 1. xxxv.) on a standard of imitation in art, he point- 
 ed to the crowd passing by ; observing, that nature, not an 
 artist, should be the object of imitation. Pamphilus, a 
 Macedonian, the master of Apelles, and the most scientific 
 artist of his day, adopted the doctrines of Eupompus. To 
 the art of painting he joined the study of mathematics, and 
 held the opinion that without the aid of geometry no painter 
 could ever arrive at perfection- In Apelles of Cos, or, accord- 
 ing to Lucian, of Ephesus, we are told by Pliny unrivalled 
 excellence was found. Grace was his powerful and pecu- 
 liar faculty, in which, and in knowing where to stop, he 
 surpassed all that preceded him, and left not his equal in 
 the world. The story of the lines which were drawn by 
 himself and Protogenes in competition with each other is 
 not a legendary tale, but a well-attested fact: into the na- 
 ture of them, however, it would be now useless and una- 
 vailing to inquire. Aristides of Thebes, and cotemporary 
 of Apelles, was the first who, by the rules of art, attained 
 a perfect knowledge of expressing the passions and affec- 
 tions of the mind. The history we have of the picture 
 which Alexander, at the sacking of Thebes, sent to Pella, 
 proves his power of infusing the passions into his works. 
 In it were expressed the anguish of maternal affection and 
 the pangs of death. Euphranor, the Isthmian and pupil 
 of Aristides, is said to have carried still farther the refine- 
 ments of that expression so powerful in the hands of his 
 master. Skilled in sculpture as well as painting, his con- 
 ceptions were noble and elevated, his style masculine and 
 bold ; and he was the first who distinguished himself by 
 imparting majesty to his heroes. 
 
 Asclepiodorus, the Athenian sculptor as well as painter, 
 was, as the latter, celebrated for the beauties of a correct 
 style and the truth of his proportions. Apelles allowed 
 himself to be, in these respects, as much inferior to this ar- 
 tist, as he was to Amphion in the good ordering and dispo- 
 sition of his figures. About this period appeared Xichoma- 
 chus, Nicophanes, Pyreicus, and others. Nicias, an Athe- 
 nian, 322 B.C., was in great repute for the great variety and 
 noble choice of his subjects, for the mode of distributing his 
 lights and shadows, and for consummate skill in the repre- 
 sentation of quadrupeds. In Rome, about 301 B.C., Fabius, 
 a noble Roman, painted the Temple of Health, and gloried 
 so much in the art that he assumed the surname of Pictor. 
 Without a farther enumeration of masters we may add, 
 that for a long period after the reigns of Vespasian and his 
 son Titus, painting as well as sculpture continued to flourish 
 in Italy. Even under their successors, Domitian, Nerva, 
 and Trajan, they met with as much encouragement as in 
 the most palmy state of the arts in Greece. Under Adrian, 
 Antonine, Alexander Severus, Constantine, and Valentini- 
 an, the art of painting continued to be an object of interest ; 
 but at length, in the reign of Phocus, with the fall of the 
 empire, with the rest of the noble arts and sciences, it was 
 involved in the common heap of ruins. 
 
 Painting in Italy owes the dawn of its restoration to the fee- 
 ble rays that emanated from the pencil of Giovanni Cimabue, 
 who was nobly descended, and born at Florence in the middle 
 of the thirteenth century. He was the disciple of some in- 
 different painters, who had been brought from Greece by 
 the government of Florence : these he soon surpassed both 
 in drawing and colouring. Without the art of managing 
 
 875
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 his lights and shadows, and but slenderly acquainted with 
 the rules of perspective, he nevertheless laid so firm a 
 foundation for the future Improvement of the art, as to en- 
 title him to the name of the father of the first age of modern 
 painting. His death took place in the year 1300 at Florence, 
 where, and at Pisa, some of his productions are still to be 
 seen. Giotto, his pupil, also a Florentine, was a more able 
 painter, than his master. He divested Himself" of the 
 shackles in which the system of the Greek art of that age 
 had bound his master, adding somewhat of grace to his 
 figures and nature to his colouring. Of a picture which he 
 painted in the Church D'Ogni Santi at Florence, represent- 
 ing the death of the Virgin with the Apostles about her, 
 Vasari related that M. Angelo da Buonaroti vised to say that 
 the truth could not be nearer approached than in it, " Non 
 potere essere piu simile al vero di quello, ch' era." He was 
 the friend of Dante and Petrarch, and painted the portrait 
 of the former. On his decease, in 1336, the city of Florence 
 erected his statue in marble over his tomb. 
 
 In the year 1410, thirty years before the invention of 
 printing by Gutemburg, John Van Eyck, born in the Low 
 Countries in 1370, is understood to have invented the art of 
 painting in oil, which he taught to Antonello of Messina, 
 who visited Flanders to become acquainted with the se- 
 cret; he it was who first practised and taught it in Italy. 
 The principal masters who flourished in this first period of 
 the resuscitation of the arts were Andrea Orgagna, so cele- 
 brated for his Loggia in the great square at Florence, Pie- 
 tro, Cavallino, Stefano, Bonamico, BufFalmacco, Pietro, 
 Laurati, Lippo, Spinello, Casentino, Pisano, &c. The art 
 did advance, though but slowly, gathering little strength 
 till the appearance of Masaccio. " Sculpture had already 
 produced respectable specimens of its reviving powers in 
 the bassi-relievi of Lorenzo Ghiberti, some works of Dona- 
 to, and the Christ of Phillippo Brunelleschi, when the first 
 symptoms of imitation appeared in the frescos of Tommaso 
 da San Giovanni, commonly called Masaccio, from the total 
 neglect of his appearance and person. Masaccio first con- 
 ceived that parts are to constitute a whole ; that compo- 
 sition oueht to have a centre, expression truth, and execu- 
 tion unity : his line deserves attention, though his subjects 
 led him not to investigation of form ; and the shortness of 
 his life forbade his extendinn those elements which Ra- 
 phael, nearly a century afterwards, carried to perfection." 
 Masaccio, who was born in Tuscany in 1417, is considered 
 the father of the second or middle age of painting. His 
 death, caused, it is supposed, by poison, occurred in 1443. 
 Andrea Montegna, born at Padua in 1431, was a disciple 
 of Jacopo Squarcione. Though correct in his drawing, 
 well versed in perspective, and apparently acquainted with 
 the antique, albeit the best antique statues had not then 
 come to light, his neglect of nature induced a crudeness of 
 taste and grotesqneness of fancy. He died in 1517, having 
 been the first who practised the art of engraving in Italy. 
 In this place we must not forget the master of so great a 
 man as Leonardo da Vinci, Andrea Verocchio, a Floren- 
 tine, born in 143-2. He was well skilled in geometry, op- 
 tics, music, architecture, sculpture, and painting; the last 
 whereof he is said to have abandoned, because, in a pic- 
 ture whereon he was engaged of the baptism of our Sa- 
 viour, his pupil, Leonardo, had, under his order, painted in 
 an angel, holding up some part of our Saviour's garment, so 
 far excelling Andrea's own figures that, enraged at being 
 outdone by a youth, he resolved never again to wield the 
 pencil. It was said he was the first who preserved indi- 
 vidual likeness by moulding the face in plaster of Paris. 
 Leonardo da Vinci, of noble descent, and born about 1445 
 in a castle so named, near Florence, surpassed all his pre- 
 decessors. His powers seem to have been unlimited: he 
 was an admirable sculptor and architect, a skilful musician, 
 an excellent poet, expert in anatomy and chemistry, and 
 well versed in all parts of the mathematics. Itubens had 
 a very high opinion of his works, and especially of his Ce- 
 nacolo, in the refectory of the Dominicans at Milan, which 
 "he abandoned without finishing the head of Christ, ex- 
 hausted by a wild chase after models for the heads anil 
 hand< of the apostles: had he been able to conceive the 
 centre, the radii would have followed of course." He was 
 many yean director of the academy of painting at Milan, 
 which city he much benefitted by bis contrivance of the 
 canal that supplies it with water from the river Adda. 
 He had the honour of expiring in the arms of Francis I. — 
 an honour by which destiny atoned to that monarch for 
 Ills future disaster at Paviu, when be became a captive. 
 His death took place in 1520. The last master of tbis pe- 
 riod was Bartolomeo della Porta. Though not endowed 
 
 with the comprehension of Leonardo, he First gave grade 
 
 tion to colour, form and masses to drapery, and dignity to 
 execution. Fra Bartolomeo, us he was called, being a 
 member of a religious order. Has a native of SaviiMiano. a 
 village about ten miles from Florence, and was born in 
 1460. Nudities were scarcely ever represented bv him, 
 876 
 
 though he was a perfect master of drawing the human 
 figure. Fuseli says of him, " He was the true master of 
 Raphael, whom his tuition weaned from the meanness of 
 Pietro Perugino, and prepared for the mighty style of 
 Michael Angelo Buonaroti." Of this master, the greatest 
 beyond comparison that ever appeared, we cannot refrain 
 from again quoting the same author at considerable length, 
 to which, if necessary, might be added the testimony of 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, whose parting wish, when he took 
 leave of the Royal Academy, was, that the last words he 
 might pronounce within its walls might be the name of this 
 wonder of mankind. "Sublimity of conception, grandeur 
 of form, and breadth of manner, are the elements of 
 Michael Angelo's style. By these principles, he selected 
 or rejected the objects of imitation. As painter, as sculp- 
 tor, as architect, he attempted, and, above any other man, 
 succeeded, to unite magnificence of plan, and endless va- 
 riety of subordinate parts, with the utmost simplicity and 
 breadth. His line is uniformly grand ; character and beau- 
 ty were admitted only as far as they could be made sub- 
 servient to grandeur. The child, the female, meanness, 
 deformity, were by him indiscriminately stamped with 
 grandeur. A beggar rose from his hand the patriarch of 
 poverty ; the hump of his dwarf is impressed with dignity ; 
 his women are moulds of generation ; his infants teem 
 with the man ; his men are a race of giants." Again, 
 "He is the inventor of epic painting, in that sublime circle 
 of the Sistine Chapel, which exhibits the origin, the pro- 
 gress, and the final dispensations of theocracy." Michael 
 Angelo was of noble family, and born at Castel Caprese, 
 near Florence, in 1474. His master was Domenico Ghir- 
 landaio. He died in great wealth, at Rome, in 1564 ; from 
 thence his remains were removed to Florence, and there 
 honourably interred. His principal disciples were Marcello 
 Venusti, II Rosso, Giorgio Vasari, and Fra Bastiano. Ra- 
 phael Sanzio d'Urbino was born on Good Friday in the 
 year 1483, and died on Good Friday in the year 1520. The 
 grace and mild genius of Raphael were, perhaps, much 
 more capable of exciting our sympathies than the burst of 
 inspiration which the works of the last-named master uni- 
 versally exliibited. As Michael Angelo was the father of 
 epic painting, so was Raphael that of dramatic painting. 
 " If, separately taken, the line of Raphael has been ex- 
 celled in corrections, elegance, and energy, his colour far 
 surpassed in tone, and truth, and harmony : his masses in 
 roundness, and his chiaro-oscuro in effect: considered as 
 instruments of pathos, his pictures have never been equal- 
 led ; and in composition, invention, expression, and the 
 power of telling a story, he has never been approached." 
 Gitilio Romano was his greatest pupil. His conceptions 
 were more extraordinary, more profound, and more elevated 
 than even those of the master himself. His style was 
 drier and harder than any of Raphael's school, and he was 
 frequently harsh and ungraceful. He died at the age of 
 fifty-four, in the year 1546. 
 
 Giorgio del Castel Franco, called, because of his size and 
 beauty, Giorgione, andTiziano Vecelli, combined to form the 
 alluring and fascinating charm of colour. Born in the Vene- 
 tian States, and in the same year, 1477, they laid the foun- 
 dation of the Venetian school. Of the latter, our professor 
 says, " he penetrated the essence and the general principle of 
 the substances before him, and on these established his the- 
 ory of colour. He invented that breadth of local tint which 
 no imitation has attained ; and first expressed the negative 
 nature of shade: his are the charms of glazing, and the 
 mystery of reflexes, by which he detached, rounded, con- 
 nected, or enriched his objects. His harmony is less indebted 
 to the force of light and shade, or the artifices of contrast, 
 than to aduc balance of colour, equally remote from mono- 
 tony and spots. His backgrounds seem to be dictated by na- 
 ture. Landscape, whether it be considered as tbe transcript 
 of a spot, or the rich combination of congenial objects, or as 
 the scene of a phenomenon, dates its origin from him : he is 
 the father of portrait painting, of resemblance with form, 
 
 character with dignity, and costume with subordination." 
 Antonio Lati, or Allegri, called < iorreggio, from the place of 
 his birth, in the duchy of Modeiia, Completed the charms of 
 colouring and chiaro-oscuro. Giulio Romano, when he saw 
 the l.eila and Venus he had painted for Frederic duke of 
 Minima, declared he thought it impossible for colouring to 
 be carried farther. His chief works are tit Modena and Par- 
 ma ; at which last place he passed the greater portion of his 
 life, and died at the age of forty, in the year 1534. Though 
 the power of Correggio'a colouring was great, still greater 
 was that of his chiaro-oscuro. "The bland centra] light of 
 
 a globe, imperceptibly gliding through lucid demi tints into 
 
 rich reflected shades, composes the speii of Correggio, and 
 affects us with the soft emotions of a delicious dream." The 
 merits of Raphael are pathos and character; the power of 
 Titian was his colour, and of Correggio his harmony. We 
 have not space to dwell on the lively genius of Pordinone, 
 who disputed the superiority of Titian, the meagre style of
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 Andrea Vannuchi, surnamed del Sarto, nor the extraordin- 
 ary vigour and puerile imbecility of conception of Pellegrino 
 Tibaldi ; but we must not pass without notice the name of 
 Sebastiano del Piombo, a Venetian, who died at the age of 
 62, in 1547. His name, Del Piombo, is derived from an of- 
 fice he held in the management of the lead mines, given him 
 by pope Clement VII. For some time he practised the 
 science of music, to which he was bred; but the fascina- 
 tions of painting drew him aside from his original pursuit, 
 and he became a disciple of old Gio-Balino, continued his 
 studies under Giorgione, and having attained considerable 
 perfection in colouring, went to Home. Here he so ingra- 
 tiated himself with Michael Angelo, by joining the party 
 against Raphael, that he was assisted in his designs by that 
 great master, and especially in that wonderful picture, now 
 in the National Gallery here, of the Raising of Lazarus, 
 which gained the universal applause of Rome, and was 
 even put on a par with the celebrated picture of the Trans- 
 figuration, by Raphael. Equally favoured by Michael An- 
 gelo was Daniel Ricciarelli of Volterra, in whose picture of 
 Christ and the Women, in the Descent from the Cross, as 
 well as in that of Sebastian's just mentioned, the master hand 
 that directed them is manifest. The depravation of the style 
 of Michael Angelo is sufficiently visible in the works of 
 Giorgio Vasari, born at Arezzo in 1514, to whom the world 
 is more indebted for the labours of his pen, in the History of 
 the Lives of the most celebrated Painters, Sculptors, and 
 Architects, first published at Florence, in 1550, than those 
 of his pencil : him Fuseli describes as the most superficial 
 artist, and the most abandoned mannerist of his time. " He 
 overwhelmed the palaces of the Medici and of the popes, 
 the convents and churches of Italy, with a deluge of medio- 
 crity, commended by rapidity and shameless bravura of hand : 
 he alone did more work than all the artists of Tuscany to- 
 gether; and to him may be truly applied, what he had the 
 insolence to say of Tintoretto, that he turned the art into a 
 boy's toy." Felibien has taxed him with the flattery of the 
 masters of his time, and partiality to those of his own coun- 
 try ; but his work is, nevertheless, a valuable record of the 
 lives of men to whom the world is much beholden ; and 
 contains many interesting anecdotes, which, but for him, 
 would have been lost forever. His death happened in 1578. 
 Primaticcio, the scholar of Giulio Romano, made abbe of 
 St. Martin de Troyes by Francis the First, studied and 
 spread the style of his master in France, where he decorat- 
 ed the palaces of that king with mythology and allegory, in 
 which he was assisted by his pupil, Nicolo del l'Abbate, an 
 excellent artist. Primaticcio continued in France from the 
 period of his first establishment there ; lived in great pomp 
 and state, more like a nobleman than a painter, through four 
 several reigns, and died at the age of 80, in the year 1570. 
 After Polidoro da Caravaggio, whose abilities were wasted 
 on the representations of Roman military basso-relievos, the 
 Roman school scarcely deserves notice till the appearance 
 of Nicolas Poussin of Andilly, a town in Normandy, who 
 was born in 1594. He was descended of a noble family of 
 Picardy ; but that his productions have shed a ray of lustre 
 on the family which no nobility of blood could have effect- 
 ed, his designation by the name of the French Raphael suf- 
 ficiently testifies. Nicolas was the disciple of Simon Varin, 
 a French painter of mediocrity, and afterwards studied in 
 the academy of Domenichino, and also in company with the 
 famous sculptor Francesco Fiammingo, who was born in the 
 same year, and bred in the same house with him. After a stay 
 of more than 16 years in Rome, he was invited, by a letter un- 
 der the hand of Louis XIII. himself, to return to his native 
 country, where he was received with every honour, and de- 
 clared first painter to the king, and had a considerable pen- 
 sion conferred upon him. Upon the death of this king, and 
 that of the cardinal Richelieu, he returned to Italy, to settle 
 his atfairs and return with his family ; but on his arrival in 
 Rome, he entirely laid aside his intention of returning, and 
 ended his days in Rome, at the age of 71 years. "Such 
 was his attachment to the ancients, that it may be said he 
 less imitated their spirit than copied their relics and painted 
 sculpture. The costume, the mythology, the rites of anti- 
 quity, were his element ; his scenery, his landscape, are pure 
 classic ground. His eye, though impressed with the tint, 
 and breadth, and imitation of Tiziano, seldom inspired him 
 to charm with colour ; crudity and patches frequently de- 
 form his effects." The mantle of Correggio seemed to have 
 fallen on Parmegiano, though he possessed not the mode of 
 expressing that expanse of harmony which no other eye 
 than that of Correggio has conceived. Francesco Mazzuoli, 
 called from Parma, the place of his birth, Parmegiano, was 
 born in 1504, and died at the early age of thirty-six. "That 
 disengaged play of delicate forms, the ' Sveltezza' of the 
 Italians, is the prerogative of Parmegiano, though nearly 
 always obtained at the expense of proportion. His grandeur, 
 as conscious as his grace, sacrifices the motive to the mode, 
 simplicity to contrast. His St. John loses the fervour of the 
 apostle in the orator ; his Moses the dignity of the lawgiver 
 74 
 
 in the savage. With incredible force of chiaro-oscuro, he 
 united bland effects and fascinating hues ; but their frequent 
 ruins teach the important lesson, that the mixtures which 
 anticipate the beauties of time, are big with the seeds of 
 premature decay. 
 
 Towards the end of the sixteenth century, Lodovico Car- 
 acci, with his cousins Annibale and Agostino, founded a 
 school at Bologna, in which it was proposed to select the 
 beauties, correct the faults, supply the defects, and avoid the 
 extremes of the different styles, and so attempt to form a. 
 perfect system. The recipe of ingredients for the formation 
 of a perfect painter are contained in a sonnet by Agostino, 
 well known to artists ; they are as follows: — Roman design, 
 Venetian motion and shade, Lombardy's dignified tone of 
 colour, the fierce style of Michael Angelo, Raphael's sym- 
 metry, Titian's truth to nature, and CorTeggio's sovereign 
 purity : add to these the decorum and solidity of Tibaldi, the 
 learned invention of Primaticcio, and a little of Parmegiano's 
 grace ; or, to save all this trouble, imitate the works of our 
 dear Nicolo. This was empiricism unworthy of such men 
 as the Caracci, whose talents were splendid, and of a very 
 high order. Lodovico was " the sworn pupil of nature." 
 "Agostino, with a singular modesty, which prompted him 
 rather to propagate the fame of others by his graver, than by 
 steady exertion to rely on his own power for perpetuity of 
 name, combined with some learning a cultivated taste, cor- 
 rectness, though not elegance of form, and a Corieggiesque 
 colour." Annibal, whose taste was unequal to both of 
 these, though his power of execution was far superior, was 
 born at Bologna, in 1560, and was the disciple of his cousin 
 Lodovico. His great work was the Farnese Palace, in 
 which, whilst we admire the vigour of the execution, we 
 cannot help lamenting the choice of subject, which is "a 
 chaotic series of trite fable and bacchanalian revelry, with- 
 out allegory, void of illusion, merely to gratify the puerile 
 ostentation of dauntless execution and academic vigour." 
 Such was the veneration of Annibal Caracci for the genius 
 of Raphael, that his deathbed request was to be buried in 
 the same tomb with him, which request was complied 
 with, in the Pantheon at Rome, 1609. This eclectic Bolog- 
 nese school did not last long; its scholars soon followed 
 each his own peculiar taste. Its principal eleves were 
 Schidone, Guido, Lanfranco, Albani, Zampieri, called Do- 
 menichino, and Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino. The 
 merits of these are summed up as follows, by the admirable 
 critic we have so often quoted in this article : — " Schidone, 
 whose mind was in his eye, embraced and often applied the 
 harmony and colour of Correggio ; whilst Lanfranco strove 
 without success to follow him through the expanse of his 
 creation and masses. Grace attracted Guido, but it was the 
 studied grace of theatres ; his female forms are abstracts of 
 antique beauty, attended by languishing attitudes, and ar- 
 rayed by voluptuous fashions. His male forms, transcripts 
 of models found in a genial climate, are sometimes charac- 
 teristic of dignified manhood, or apostolic fervour, some- 
 times stately, courteous, insipid." " His Aurora deserved 
 to precede a more majestic Sun, and Hours less clumsy." 
 His colour is occasionally bland and harmonious, some- 
 times vigorous, and sometimes insipid. Albani formed Ne- 
 reids on plump Venetian models, and contrasted their 
 pearly hues with the rosy tints of Loves, the juicy brown 
 of fauns and satyrs of rich marine or sylvan scenery. Do- 
 menichino aimed at the beauty of the antique, the expres- 
 sion of Raphael, the vigour of Annibal Caracci, the colour 
 of Lodovico ; and, mixing something of each, fell short of 
 all ; whilst Guercino broke through all academic rules, sac- 
 rificing mind, form, and costume to effects of colour, fierce- 
 ness of chiaro-oscuro, and intrepidity of hand. From this 
 period the art declined rapidly in Italy ; it was, indeed, held 
 up for a short period by the exertions of Nicolas Poussin, 
 of whom we have already spoken. Pietro da Cortona and 
 Luca Giordano possessed very considerable talents ; but 
 they were much abused in their exercise by the implicit 
 obedience to the tasteless commissions of their employers. 
 Germany, though without much apparent intercourse at 
 the time with Italy, had profited by the progress of the 
 arts ; therefore, towards the end of the fifteenth century, 
 we find the works of Albert Durer had succeeded the rude 
 and uncouth productions of Schon, Wolgemuth, and Altor- 
 fer. Albert Durer was born at Nuremberg on Good Friday, 
 1471. Notwithstanding his style was crude and ungraceful, 
 his prints were esteemed throughout Italy, copied at Ve- 
 nice by the celebrated Marc Antonio, and so much admired 
 by even Raphael himself that he decorated his own cham- 
 ber with them, and often lamented that such a man had 
 been educated in a country where the want of models 
 and works of art must have so retarded his progress. 
 His principal works were painted at Prague, for the Em- 
 peror Maximilian I. He died in 1528. Fuseli says of him, 
 " Albert Durer was, in my opinion, a man of great ingenu- 
 ity, without being a genius. He studied, and as far as his 
 penetration reached, established certain proportions of the 
 
 877
 
 PAINTING. 
 
 human frame, but he did not invent a style : every work of 
 his is ;i proof that he wanted the power of invention, of 
 concluding from what he saw to what he did not see ; that 
 he copied rather than selected the forms that surrounded 
 him, and. s;uis remorse, tacked deformity and meagreness 
 to fulness, and sometimes to beauty." Lucas of Leyden 
 was but a clumsy imitator of Albert. Aldegraver, Beheim, 
 and George Pentz, from the study of Raphael, known to 
 them through the medium of Marc Antonio's prints, and 
 from the style of Michael Angelo, distilled through prints 
 from Tibaldi's pictures, seem to have made some advances 
 in the art. The knowledge, however, of its state in Italy, 
 attracted hosts of German, Dutch, and Flemish students, 
 who, " though content to feed on the husks of Tuscan de- 
 sign, imbibed the colour of Venice, and spread the elements 
 of that excellence which distinguished the succeeding 
 schools of Flanders and of Holland." 
 
 Peter Paul Rubens, born in Cologne in 1578, and Rem- 
 brandt Van Rhyn, born near Leyden in 1606, by their extra- 
 ordinary powers showed that Italy was not the only spot 
 in which the art could take root, but that Flanders and Hol- 
 land afforded a soil in which it could flourish. The former 
 of these, bred at Antwerp under the instructions of Otho 
 Van Veen, had, previous to his journey to Italy, acquired 
 an unbounded power over the instruments of his art, and 
 on his arrival was the successful competitor for fame with 
 those masters whom he selected as objects of emulation. 
 Venice was the centre of attraction for him ; and there, 
 from the splendour of Paulo Veronese, and the glow of Tin- 
 toretto, he compounded " that florid system of mannered 
 magnificence which is the element of his art, and the prin- 
 ciple of his school." His scholars saw through the eye of 
 their master instead of seeing though that of nature ; but 
 from this censure must be excluded the illustrious name of 
 Vandyck, and that of Abraham Diepenbeck. Of the por- 
 traits of Vandyck no mention is here necessary to enhance 
 the esteem in which they are held. " The fancy of Diepen- 
 beck, though not so exuberant, excelled in sublimity the 
 imagination of Rubens ; his Bellerophon, Hippolitus, Ixion, 
 Sisyphus, fear no competitor among the productions of his 
 master." Rembrandt, except in what relates to form, was 
 a genius of the highest order. " In spite of the most por- 
 tentous deformity, and without considering the spell of his 
 chiaro-oscuro, such were his powers of nature, such the 
 grandeur, pathos, or simplicity of his composition, from the 
 most elevated or extensive arrangement to the meanest and 
 most homely, that the best cultivated eye, the purest sensi- 
 bility, and the most refined taste dwell on them equally en- 
 thralled. His followers, if such they deserve to be called, 
 were a race of "colourists, content to tip the cottage, the 
 hamlet, the boor, the ale-pot, the shambles, and the haze of 
 winter with orient hues or the glow of setting summer suns. 
 
 Switzerland rests its title to distinction on the names of 
 Hans Holhein and Francesco Mola ; the former of Basil, 
 born in 1498, died in London at the age of 46 ; the latter, 
 the scholar of Giuseppe d'Artino and Francesco Albani, 
 was born at the village of Coldre in 16-21, and died in Rome 
 in 1666. The Swiss school exhibited a style poised between 
 the emaciated dryness of Albert Durer and the bloated cor- 
 pulence of Goltzius. 
 
 The school of the Caracci seems to have taken its deepest 
 root in France, which, with few exceptions, has not pro- 
 duced artists greatly above mediocrity. The exceptions, 
 however, which are to be named are, Nicolas Poussin, who 
 has already been mentioned : to this must be added those 
 of Eustache Le Sueur, Charles Le Brun, Sebastian Bour- 
 don, and Pierre Mignard. "The Seven Works of Charity, 
 by S. Bourdon, teem with surprisingly pathetic and always 
 novel images ; and in the Plague of David, by Pierre Mignard, 
 our sympathy is roused by energies of terror and combina- 
 tions of woe which escaped Poussin and Raphael himself." 
 
 From what cause may be difficult to say, but the labours 
 of the Spanish school were confined almost within the nar- 
 row limits of indi vifffal imitation. The degree of perfection 
 Id this respect was, indeed, great, though the means pursued 
 were very different; and the works of Diego Velauquez, 
 Joseph Ribcra, and Murillo, though never approaching the 
 great style of art, impress us with respect lor their powers, 
 and deservedly received the homage of the Spanish nation. 
 
 In this country, Henry VIII. was the first monarch who 
 seems to have taken any interest in the art. He invited 
 Titian to England, and patronised Holbein and Torregiano. 
 But thi^ patronage, very unlike that bestowed by Francis I. 
 on Andrea del Sarto, Primaticcin, Nicola, Cellini, and others, 
 was so restricted in the choice of subjects, that neither 
 Henry nor his daughter Elizabeth deserve our veneration 
 for the assistance they rendered to the arts of the country. 
 In the court of Henry's father n profligate Flemish painter, 
 of the name of Malaise, had indeed been employed ; but it 
 is not known whether he came here at that kind's solicita- 
 tion or driven by his own distresses. The pencil of Holbein 
 among its other employments, was of course employed to 
 ti7H 
 
 portray the beauties of Henry's wives, or of those he fft- 
 tended to make so ; sometimes, indeed, to obtain a just report 
 of the latter he was despatched io the Continent ; and in 
 the case of Anne of Cleves, through his faithless pencil 
 Cromwell, the minister, lost his head. If painting was at 
 this period likely to have taken root and flourished here, 
 the Reformation, and the worse than absurd edicts passed 
 by Edward VI. and Elizabeth, forbidding statues and pic- 
 tures in churches, were nipping frosts that destroyed its 
 growth. Charles was the first real patron of the arts that 
 governed this country. By him was Rubens Invited to the 
 country ; but the unfortunate fate of the monarch inter- 
 cepted the progress that art then seemed likely to make. 
 " His son, in possession of the cartoons of Raphael, and 
 with the magnificence of Whitehall before his eyes, suffered 
 Verrio to contaminate the walls of his palaces, or degraded 
 Lely to paint the Cymons and Iphigenias of his court ; 
 whilst the manner of Kneller swept away completely what 
 yet might be left of taste under his successors." The slate 
 of art continued extremely low in this country till the ap- 
 pearance of Reynolds. Walpole says, that in the commence- 
 ment of the reign of George I. the arts of England were 
 sunk almost to the lowest ebb. The names of Reynolds, 
 Hogarth, Gainsborough, and Wilson, in their lime, entitled 
 this nation to some rank in the art ; though we have as yet 
 had no indication of that great style of art whose history 
 has occupied a considerable portion of the preceding pages. 
 The names we have mentioned have been succeeded by 
 others, and some now living, which have, perhaps, not only 
 prevented the accusation of a retrograde movement, but 
 liave raised the art generally in the country higher than it 
 was ever known in a preceding period — yet much remains 
 to be done. The genius of the nation seems bound up in 
 commerce and politics; total ignorance of the first principles 
 of art seems still to pervade those who only are capable of 
 affording patronage ; and many a collector, on whose walls 
 hang the most splendid specimens of the Roman and 
 Florentine schools, must, if he will speak the truth, admit 
 that his admiration of the tobacco pipes, pewter pots, and 
 vulgar boors of the Dutch school, a school of low ideas and 
 good painting, is more profound than of the sublime concep- 
 tions of Raphael and Michael Angelo. 
 
 Practice of Painting: — The nature of this work precludes 
 a very enlarged notice of the theory and practice of painting : 
 we shall, however, subjoin a few leading observations on 
 the subject. One of the principal requisites for its success- 
 ful practice is anatomy. It is obvious that to represent suc- 
 cessfully the human form, its construction in the skeleton, 
 and the tendons and muscles by which the bones of the 
 skeleton are connected and move, is knowledge that must 
 be acquired, inasmuch as they appear more or less through 
 the integuments with which they are covered. Without 
 this knowledge the living model becomes useless to him ; 
 for that, after a very short period of standing, sinks into 
 languor, which an acquaintance with the origin and insertion 
 of muscles enables the painter to correct, and thus animate 
 the work. It was the constant observation of the youth in 
 their gymnastic games that enabled the Grecians so success- 
 fully to display and develop the muscular system in their 
 sculpture; these afforded models of the most perfect nature. 
 Comparative anatomy is another of the requisites to he ac- 
 quired by the artist; since the painting of animals must 
 necessarily involve a want of the same information as is 
 requisite for the human figure. Symmetry, which results 
 from the relative proportion of the parts to each other, fol- 
 lows from the knowledge of anatomy. It is by the knowl- 
 edge of this that the length of a linger may be made to 
 measure the height of a figure. Without the most thorough 
 acquaintance of the rules of perspective, no objects can be 
 placed properly in a picture. Some have said that though 
 it is a science of the first importance to a painter, yet he is 
 not to be too strictly confined to its rules, but to endeavour 
 to render them subservient to his own purposes. We con- 
 fess that such is not our opinion ; nor can we conceive how 
 any violation of truth, which any infraction of the rules of 
 perspective would be, can be made agreeable in a picture. 
 The rules, too, of perspective are so simple, and their piac- 
 tice so easily acquired, that no excuse can be admitted tor 
 the neglect of so indispensable an accomplishment The 
 science of optics is so far necessary as to enable the artist to 
 determine how the reflexes against the sides of surfaces In 
 shade would affect the intensity of them. This is called 
 chiaro-oscuro. The determination of shadows, and the 
 direction in which they would fall, depends upon the science 
 of optics combined with that of perspective. As perfect 
 form is produced by leaving out peculiarities, and retaining 
 only general ideas, so this principle, extended in the other 
 branches of the art, gives what is called the grand style to 
 invention, to composition, to expression, and even to colour- 
 ing and drapery. Invention in painting is not the same as 
 in poetry, inasmuch as that the subject is supplied by the 
 poet or historian. The subject should be general, and kept
 
 PAIRING. 
 
 free from all that might tend to embarrass or divide the at- 
 tention of the spectator. " Whenever," observes Sir Joshua 
 Reynolds, in his Fourth Discourse, "a story is related, every 
 man forms a picture in his mind of the action and expression 
 of the persons employed. The power of representing this 
 mental picture on canvass is what we call invention in a 
 painter ; and as in the conception of this ideal picture the 
 mind does not enter into the minute particularities of the 
 dress, furniture, or scene of action, so, when the painter 
 comes to represent it, he contrives those little necessary 
 concomitant circumstances in such a manner that they shall 
 strike the spectator no more than they did himself in his 
 first conception of the story." The painter may deviate 
 from strict historical truth in pursuing the grandeur of his 
 design, such being but poetical licence. " A painter of por- 
 traits retains the individual likeness; a painter of history 
 6hows the man by showing his actions. He has but one 
 sentence to utter, but one moment to exhibit." Expression, 
 which in painting signifies the representation of the emotions 
 and passions of the mind, must, like invention, not descend 
 to peculiarities. Thus Bernini, in representing David casting 
 the stone from his sling, mistook accident for generality 
 when he made him bite his under lip. Colouring, also, has 
 its laws, and in this the same general principle must be at- 
 tended to. "All trifling or artful play of little lights, or an 
 attention to a variety of tints, is to be avoided ; a quietness 
 and simplicity must reign over the whole work, to which a 
 breadth of uniform and simple colour will very much con- 
 tribute. Grandeur of effect is produced by two different 
 ways, which seem entirely opposed to each other. One is 
 by reducing the colours to little more than chiaro-oscuro, 
 which w r as often the practice of the Bolognese schools; and 
 the other by making the colours very distinct and forcible, 
 such as we see in those of Rome and Florence; but still 
 the presiding principle of both those manners is simplicity." 
 Drapery, again, is managed by the same general laws : 
 minute attention to the minor details of drapery injure the 
 general effect ; the folds should communicate easily, and be 
 so cast as to have the appearance of accident ; they must 
 also be so contrived as to give the greatest effect to the figure. 
 Artifice is as much as possible to be avoided. 
 
 Annibal Caracci considered twelve figures sufficient for 
 any story ; more than that, he thought, could only be em- 
 ployed to fill up space, or, as he expressed himself, they 
 would be figures to be let. 
 
 Painting is divided into twelve branches, which their 
 names sufficiently explain ; viz. history, which comprises 
 mystery and allegory ; grotesque, such as the celebrated 
 Loggia at the Vatican : portrait, fancy, animals, fruits and 
 flowers, battle pieces, landscape, sea views ; still life, which 
 comprises all inanimate objects, but is chiefly applied to 
 household furniture, and instruments and architecture. 
 
 PAI'RING. In Parliamentary language, that practice by 
 ■which two members of the House of Commons, of opposite 
 political opinions, agree to absent themselves from divisions 
 of the house during a stated period. See Parliament. 
 
 PA'LACE. (Lat. palatium, whose etymology is not pre- 
 cisely ascertained.) In Architecture, a word generally used 
 to denote the residence of kings and princes. On the Conti- 
 nent, however, the term is used with a much more extended 
 signification : and even in this country the residences of 
 bishops, and of some noblemen, are so called. 
 
 PA'LACE COURT. A court of justice erected by 
 Charles I., and made a court of record, with power to try- 
 personal actions between party and party within a liberty 
 extending to the distance of twelve miles round Whitehall. 
 The judges are, the steward of the king's household and 
 knight-marshal for the time being, and the steward of the 
 court or his deputy. 
 
 PA'LADIN. In the Romances of the Middle Ages, a 
 term derived from the Roman Palatinus (from palatium, a 
 palace), having its origin in the customs of the Byzantine 
 court, by which the officers of the palace (palatini, comites 
 palatii) were regarded as the highest dignitaries of the coun- 
 try ; hence palasin, or paladin, in the early French romances, 
 for a lord or chieftain ; and the name was thence appro- 
 priated by the Italian romantic poets to the heroes of their 
 legends, the warriors of Charlemagne. 
 
 PAL^EO'GRAPHY. (Gr. TtaXaios, ancient, and ypa(pu>, 
 I write.) The science or art of deciphering ancient inscrip- 
 tions, including the knowledge of the various characters 
 used at different periods by the writers and sculptors of i 
 different nations and languages, their usual abbreviations, 
 initials, &c. The science termed diplomatics is, in effect, a 
 branch of palaeography. (See Diplomatics.) Among many 
 other modern authorities on this subject, the reader may be 
 referred to Mr. Ottley's remarkable paper in the Archieologia, 
 vol. xxvi., on an ancient MS. of Aratus ; Champollion, 1 
 Traite d ' Jircheologie ; the publications of the Ecole des I 
 Chartes, under the directions of M. Champollion. at the [ 
 Royal Library at Paris ; Kopp, Bilder und Schrifte.n der i 
 Vorieit, 1819 ; Paleeo-Critica, 1817. The most valuable I 
 
 PALE, WITHIN THE. 
 
 compilation of palneographical knowledge is to be found in 
 the Traite de Diplomatique of the Benedictines of St. Maur, 
 6 vols., 4to, 1748. See also Maffei, Istoria Diplomatica, 
 1727 ; Trombelli, Arte di Conoscere r Eta de' Codici, 1778. 
 But, as Mr. Oltley truly observes, "nothing is more fallacious 
 than the idea of being able to determine the ages of ancient 
 inscriptions from the particular forms of their characters; 
 and it is mere folly upon such grounds to attempt to build 
 any solid argument." 
 
 PAL^EONTO'LOGY. (Gr. na\aioc ; ov, being ; Uyoc, 
 a discourse.) The branch of zoological science which 
 treats of fossil organic remains. 
 
 PAL^EOTHE'RIUM. (Gr. iraXaws, and $npiov, beast.) 
 The name of a genus of extinct Pachyderms. It was 
 characterized by having twenty -eight complex molar teeth, 
 four canines, and twelve incisors, four in each jaw. Cuvier 
 concludes that the pala;otheres, like the tapirs, had also a 
 short fleshy proboscis. Their remains characterize the 
 gypsum quarries belonging to the eocene tertiary formations 
 near Paris. They have also been found in the corresponding 
 strata of the Isle of Wight. About twelve species of this 
 extinct genus are already known. 
 
 PALvE'STRA. (Gr. rraXaiarpa.) Properly, a wrestling 
 place or school (iraXtj, wrestling) ; and hence the place 
 where public games of strength were performed, and, by 
 metaphor, such games themselves (studium palmstree, 
 Horace). In Architecture, the palastra was a part of the 
 gymnasium (see Pausan., vi. 21, 2, and 23, 4), especially 
 appropriated to the athletes. The art of wrestling was 
 termed pala;strice (KuXaioTpucn). 
 
 PALANO.UFN. A sort of chair or chaise used by the 
 Chinese, and in most parts of the East, as a vehicle of con- 
 veyance from one place to another. They are furnished 
 with cushions and curtains ; many of them are fitted up in 
 the most costly style, and are usually borne by eight men, 
 who relieve each other at intervals. 
 
 PA'LATALS. (Lat. palatum, the palate.) The letters 
 d, g, soft and hard,,;', k, I, n, and q, are so called, from the 
 organ chiefly employed in their pronunciation. 
 
 PA'LATE. (Lat. palatum.) In Anatomy, the roof of 
 the mouth. That part which is formed by the lower por- 
 tions of the superior maxillary and palatine bones is called 
 the "hard palate ;" that which is due to the extension of 
 membranous and muscular substance unsupported by bone 
 is termed the "soft palate." In Zoology, the modifications 
 of the bony palate, and the "palatal ridges," and other 
 inequalities of the soft parts, are of use in the discrimination 
 of the species of Mammalia. 
 
 Palate, in a flower, is the convex base of the lower lip 
 of a personate corolla. 
 
 PALA'TINATE. The name formerly given to two 
 states of Germany, which were designated, by way of dis- 
 tinction, the Upper and Lower Palatinate, and, though not 
 contiguous, were under the control of the same sovereign 
 till 1620. At that period they underwent great changes, 
 which it would be out of place here to indicate ; but since 
 the wars of the first French revolution, which contributed 
 more than any event on record to unsettle the ancient land- 
 marks, they have been divided among different German 
 sovereigns, and their very name has disappeared from the 
 maps of Germany. The word Palatinate is of feudal origin, 
 and signifies, in a more restricted sense, the province or 
 seigniory of a palatine ; i. e., of a high dignitary during the 
 middle ages, who originally held office in the court of the 
 sovereign, and was designated the comes palatii, but who 
 afterwards obtained the privilege of exercising the same 
 power, rank, and jurisdiction, within his own province or 
 district, as the comes palatii exercised in the palace. 
 
 PALATINE, COUNTY. See County. 
 
 PALATO-PHARYNGEUS. A muscle which arises at 
 the root of the uvula and soft palate, and is inserted into 
 the upper and back part of the thyroid cartilage ; it draws 
 the uvula and soft palate downwards and backwards, and 
 pulls the thyroid cartilage and pharynx upwards. 
 
 PALE. (Lat. palus, a stake.) In Heraldry, the first and 
 simplest kind of ordinary. It is bounded by two vertical 
 lines, at equal distances from the sides of the escutcheon, 
 of which it encloses one third. It seldom contains more 
 than three charges. The pallet, when bome by itself, is 
 one half of the pale ; but sometimes as many as three pal- 
 lets are borne together. A coat bisected by a vertical line, 
 with a different field on each side of it, is said to be party 
 (or divided) per pale. The pale is a very ancient and hon- 
 ourable bearing. 
 
 PALE, WITHIN THE. An expression well known in 
 Irish history, applied to that portion of Ireland to which for 
 some centuries after its invasion by the English, under 
 Henry II. in 1172, the dominion of the latter was confined. 
 The Limits of the pale seldom extended beyond the modern 
 province of Leinster, and were frequently much less 
 considerable. (Statistics of the British. Empire, vol. i., p. 
 429.) 
 
 879
 
 PALEiE. 
 
 PA'LEjE. (Lat. palea, chaff.) A name given to the 
 bracts that are stationed upon the receptacle of Composite 
 between the florets, and having generally a membranous 
 texture and no colour ; also the interior bracts of the 
 flowers of grasses. 
 
 PA'LES. The Italian goddess presiding over cattle, 
 who was worshipped with great solemnity. Her festivals, 
 called Palilia, were celebrated on the 21st of April, the 
 day upon which, according to tradition, the foundations of 
 Rome were laid by Romulus — the dies natalis urbis Roma; 
 — as a great rustic holiday. On this day the shepherds 
 purified their flocks by making them pass round a great fire 
 made of laurel, pine, and olive branches, sprinkled with 
 sulphur. An offering of wine, milk, and millet was then 
 placed on the altar of the goddess, who was entreated to 
 bless the earth and the flocks with fecundity, and to avert 
 injury from them both. The term palilia is frequently 
 written parilia in the ancient MSS. ; but no doubt can be 
 entertained as to the correctness of the former. 
 
 PALE'TTE. (Fr.) In Painting, the light board held 
 by a painter while at work, on which the colours are ar- 
 ranged in their various tints. 
 
 PA'LFREY. A word seldom used, except in novels 
 and romances to signify a small or gentle horse, such as is 
 fit for a lady's use. It is also used by the old poetical 
 writers for a horse used by kings or noblemen, or on state 
 occasions. 
 
 PALI'CI. In Grecian Mythology, twin divinities, wor- 
 shipped in Sicily, and especially in the neighbourhood of 
 Etna ; sons, according to some, of Jupiter and Thalia, the 
 daughter of Vulcan ; according to others, of Vulcan and 
 jEtna, daughter of Ocean. Their heads appear on coins 
 of Catania. Their name is said to be derived from return- 
 ing (jraAiv iKco-Oat) out of the earth, under which their 
 mother had borne them. (JEschyl. JEtna, apud Macrob. 
 Saturn, v. J9.) Their celebrated Sicilian temple is men- 
 tioned by Virgil : — 
 
 Pinguis ubi et placabilis ira Palici.— JEn., ix., 5S5. 
 
 PALI'LLOGY, or PALILOGY. (Gr. na\iv, again, and 
 Xtyco, / speak.) In Rhetoric, the repetition of a word, or 
 fragment of a sentence, for the sake of greater energy : also, 
 epanalepsis and epizeuxis. Thus, Cicero (pro Cac, ix., 24), 
 " Ferro, inquit, ferro, te rejeci ;" " The living, the living, 
 shall praise thee" (Psalms). A peculiar species of palilogy, 
 also called deutcrologia, or anadiplosis, is where the last 
 word of a verse, or of a paragraph in prose, is repeated at 
 the beginning of the next : 
 
 Supervenit £!gle— 
 jEgle naiadum puicnerrima.— Virg. Edog., vi., 20. 
 
 The innocent sleep — 
 Sleep that knits up the ravell'd brow of care.— MacUtK 
 
 PA'LIMPSEST. (Gr. iraAiv, again, and i^oid, / rub or 
 efface.) The name given to a sort of parchment, from which 
 whatever was written thereon might be erased, so as to ad- 
 mit of its being written on anew. The term means literally 
 twice-rubbed (membrana iterum abrasa, charta deletilis), not 
 as the glossary of Ducange would seem to denote, because 
 the parchment had twice undergone erasure, or the writing 
 been twice obliterated ; but because it had been twice pre- 
 pared for writing, which was principally effected by rubbing 
 it with pumice, first in the course of manufacture after the 
 skin had been cured, and again by the same process after 
 the original writing had been taken away by washing or in 
 any other manner. The strict and precise sense of palimp- 
 sest is, therefore, " twice prepared for writing ;" the repeti- 
 tion of such preparation being the prevailing idea in the 
 etymology, and not erasure, as some have erroneously sup- 
 posed. The great antiquity of the practice of making pa- 
 limpsests may lie gathered from an extract from a letter from 
 Cicero to Trebatius : "TJt ad epistolaa tuns redeam, cetera 
 belle, &c; nam quod in palimpsesto, laudo equidem parsi- 
 moniam ; sed mirror quid in ilia cbartula fuerit, quod delere 
 malueris quam ha>c non scribere ; ni-i forte tuas formulas. 
 Non enim puto te meas epistolaa delere, lit reponas tuas. 
 An hoc significas, nihil fieri 7 Frigere te? Ne chartam 
 quidem tibi suppeditare ?" (Cic. ad Fam., 1. 7, c. 18.) But 
 while there can be no doubt as to the antiquity of this prac- 
 tice, the attention of the learned was first directed to the 
 subject in modern times by Montfaucon, in a curious essay 
 entitled Dissertation sur la Plante appellee Papi/rus, &c, 
 which appeared in the Mem. de I'Jlcad. Fran., vol. vi., and 
 in which the origin of the Palimpsest MSS. is briefly and 
 plainly described in the following words : 
 
 " Cela (le papier bombycin) vint fort a propos dans un 
 temps, ou il paroit qu'il y avoit grande disette de parche- 
 min ; ce qui nous a fait perdre plusieurs nncicns auteurs : 
 voicy comment. Depuis le 12e siecle, les Grecs, plongez 
 dans l'ignorance, s'aviserent de racier les ecritures del an 
 ciens MSS. en pnrcheinin, et d'en 6ter,nutant quilt pouvol 
 ent, toutes les traces, pour y emre des livres d'EgUse ce 
 fut ainsi qii'au grand prejudice de la republiquc des lettrcs, 
 880 
 
 PALLADIUM. 
 
 les Polybes, les Dions, les Diodores de Sicile, et d'antres 
 auteurs que nous n'avons plus, furenl metamorphosez en 
 Triodions, en Pentecostaires, en Homelies, et en d'autres 
 livres d'Eglise. Apres une exacte recherche, je puis assu- 
 rer que des livres ecrits sur du parchemin depuis le 12e sie- 
 cle, j'en ay plus trouve dont on avoit racle l'ancienne ecri- 
 ture, que d'autres. Mais comme tons les copietes n'estoient 
 pas egalement habiles a effacer ainsi ces premiers auteurs, 
 il s'en trouve quelques-uns ou Ton peut lire au moins une 
 partie de ce qu'on avoit voulu raturer." 
 
 We have already seen that the practice of which Mont- 
 faucon speaks had a much more ancient date than that 
 which he assigned to it ; although it was in all probability 
 most frequent during the middle ages, when, in consequence 
 of the scarcity and expense of parchment, and the growing 
 demand for the writings of the fathers and of books of de- 
 votion, the monks were induced to efface the writings of the 
 ancient authors to make room for their own. Our limits 
 preclude us from entering at length into the means adopted 
 by the monks of effacing the original writing, or of that still 
 more interesting process by which in recent times the ori- 
 ginal writing has been again brought to light, and which has 
 thus put us in possession of some most valuable works and 
 fragments of the classic authors which had been given up 
 as lost. On these points we beg to refer the reader to an 
 able article in the Edin. Rev., vol. xlviii., in which all that 
 has been done in the restoration of ancient MSS. is set forth 
 with great clearness and brevity, and shall content ourselves 
 with observing that the most important of these discoveries 
 are the treatise of Cicero, De Hepublica, which was found 
 in the Vatican library at Rome, in a MS. which had been 
 rewritten, with a Commentary of St. Augustin on the 
 Psalms ; and the Institutions of Oaius, found also in the 
 same place. For the restitution of the former the learn- 
 ed world is indebted to Angelo Maio, the principal libra- 
 rian of the Vatican library at Rome, who may, indeed, be 
 regarded as the hero of palimpsests ; and for the latter to 
 the labours of Bluhm and Goeschen, who were sent to 
 Rome for the purpose of examining MSS. by the Royal 
 Academy of Sciences at Berlin. 
 
 PALI'NDROMUS. (Gr. jraAii-, and tpopoc, a course.) 
 A verse or line which was the same when read backwards 
 or forwards. The well-known verse which has been put 
 into the mouth of the devil may serve for an example : 
 
 Signa te, iigna, temere me tangis et angis. 
 
 PALINGENE'SIA. (Gr. irftXiV, and ytvcoic, birth.) In 
 Philosophy, a new or second birth — regeneration. The doc- 
 trine of the destruction and reproduction of worlds and liv- 
 ing beings is Oriental ; but the word in question appears to 
 be of Stoical origin. (Diog. Laert., vii., 72.) The Stoics 
 are said to have held that the demiurgus, or Creator, had 
 absorbed all being in himself, and reproduced it out of him- 
 self. In the language of the New Testament, it is used for 
 moral regeneration. (Titus, Hi., 5.) 
 
 PA LINODE. (Gr. iraXiv, again, and <5<fy, song.) In 
 Poetry, a recantation : properly, a piece in which the poet 
 retracts the invectives contained in a former satire. (See 
 Mem. dc I'Jlcad. des Inscr., vol. xii.) 
 
 PALINU'RUS. The steersman of the vessel of .lEneas, 
 drowned, according to Virgil, oft the coast of Italy (JEn., v.), 
 and afterwards met with by the Trojan hero in the shades. 
 A promontory on the coast received his name. 
 
 PA'LISADES, or PALISADOS. In Fortification, stakes 
 driven into the ground, and sharpened at the top, for the 
 purpose of defence against the surprise of an enemy. They 
 are usually 9 or 10 feet long, and planted so as to make an 
 angle inclining outwards from the work. 
 
 PA'LLA. In Latin, the long outer garment appropriate 
 to Roman females of respectable rank. A part of it was 
 thrown over the left shoulder, and hung down from the 
 arm. It is particularly described by Apuleius (Met., xi.). 
 The palla was not worn by men, except some effeminate 
 persons : although the long robes of barbarians are some- 
 times called by its name by Latin writers. There seems 
 to have been a shorter palla. (Martial, i., 93.) 
 
 PALLA'DIUM. (fir. IldWdStov.) A wooden statue of 
 Minerva or Pallas, which was said to have fallen from the 
 skies as a sign to Ilus, the founder of Troy, to convince him 
 he was under the guidance of Jupiter. On its preservation 
 depended the safety of Troy ; and, accordingly, Ulysses and 
 Diomed were commissioned to steal it, and performed the 
 enterprise. According to other accounts, the palladium was 
 conveyed from Troy to Italy by .(Eneas, and was afterwards 
 preserved With great care in the temple of Vesta at Rome. 
 The word palladium passed into European languages, in 
 which it signifies that particular law or privilege which is 
 regarded as the safeguard of the people's liberties. The 
 trial by jury and the freedom of the press are each called 
 the palladium of the British constitution. 
 
 Palladium. A metal discovered in 180.1 by Wollaston, 
 associated with the ore of platinum. It resembles platinum
 
 PALLAS. 
 
 In colour and lustre, and it is ductile and malleable, but very 
 hard. Its specific gravity is 11-8. Its fusibility is interme- 
 diate between gold and platinum ; it is oxidized and dissolv- 
 ed by nitric acid : its oxide forms red salts. 
 
 PA'LLAS, or, more properly, PALLAS ATHE NE. In 
 Mythology, the Grecian goddess of wisdom, identified at a 
 later period with the Roman Minerva, to whom were as- 
 signed ail the attributes of her Grecian sister. The term is 
 probably derived from the Gr. TruAAeiv, to brandish a spear. 
 See Minerva. 
 
 Pallas. One of the four small planets which revolve 
 between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, discovered by Dr. 
 Olbers, of Bremen, on the 28th of March, 1802. Its symbol 
 is a lance &. On account of the minuteness of this planet, 
 and the nebulous appearance by which it is surrounded, it 
 is extremely difficult to arrive at any certain conclusion re- 
 specting its real magnitude. Sir W. Herschel estimated its 
 diameter at eighty miles, and Schroeter at 2099 miles, or 
 nearly the size of Mercury ; but astronomers prefer the for- 
 mer measure. The light of the planet undergoes consider- 
 able variations, the cause of which is unknown. The fol- 
 lowing are the elements of the orbit given by Encke, in the 
 Berlin Astronomisches Jahrbuch for 1831 : 
 
 Semi-axis majors 2-77263, 
 
 Eccentricity = 0-24199, 
 
 Period of revolutions 1686-25 days, 
 
 Inclinations 34° 35' 49-1", 
 
 Longitude of ascending node = 172° 38 1 29-8", 
 
 Longitude of perihelion = 121° 5' 0-5". 
 
 The motion of the planet in its orbit is greatly disturbed 
 by the powerful attraction of Jupiter. See Planet. 
 
 PA'LLETS, in Clock and Watch-work, are the pieces 
 connected with the pendulum or balance which receive 
 trie immediate impulse of the swing-wheel, or balance- 
 wheel. They are of various forms and constructions, ac- 
 cording to the kind of escapement employed. 
 
 PALLIOBRA'NCHIATES, Palliobranchiata.) Lat. pal- 
 lium, a mantle, and branchia, gills.) The name of an order 
 of Acephalous Mollusks, including those in which the gills 
 are situated on the internal surface of the lobes of the man- 
 tle. 
 
 PA'LLIUM. (Lat. a cloak.) A vestment which, by an- 
 cient usage, is sent from Rome to all archbishops of the 
 Roman Catholic Church, and to the four Latin patriarchs 
 of the East, on their accession. The history of this usage, 
 and the gradual submission of the Western patriarchs to it, 
 thereby acknowledging in the end the complete authority 
 of the see of Rome, is carefully traced by M. Rheinwald, in 
 the new Encyclopedia of Ersch and Gruber, art. " Pallium." 
 It is now a short white cloak, with a red cross, encircling 
 the neck and shoulders, and falling on the back. It was 
 the custom, at the period of the greatest power of the Ro- 
 man see (introduced by Gregory VII. himself), for the 
 archbishops to come to Rome for the purpose of receiving 
 It : it is now delivered as a mandatory, or merely by a dele- 
 gate from Rome. Some simple bishops receive the pallium 
 as a mark of honour. The cloth of which the pallium is 
 made is woven from the wool of ten white lambs, blessed 
 at Rome on the festival of St. Agnes, and deposited on the 
 tomb of St. Peter during the eve of his festival. 
 
 PALM. (Lat. palma, the hand.) An ancient measure 
 of length taken from the extent of the hand. There were 
 two different palms ; one corresponding to the length of the 
 hand, and the other to the breadth. The Roman palm was 
 about 8J English inches. The English palm is understood 
 to be 3 inches. 
 
 PALMA' RES. (Lat. palma, the hand.) Muscles be- 
 longing to the hand. The palmaris brevis is situate be- 
 tween the wrist and little finger, and assists in contracting 
 the palm of the hand ; the palmaris longus is situate on 
 the forearm, and bends the hand. 
 
 PA'LMER. In Ecclesiastical History, a name popularly 
 given to crusaders returned from the holy war, or pilgrims 
 from Palestine, from the branch of palm-tree which they 
 were wont to carry with them as a staff in commemoration 
 of their journey. 
 
 PA'LMIPEDS, Palmipedes. (Lat. palma, a palm, and 
 pes, a foot.) The name given by Cuvier and Temminck 
 to an order of birds corresponding to the Anseres of Lin- 
 naeus, and the Natatores, or swimming-birds, of Illiger. 
 
 PA'LMISTRY. (Lat. palma, the hand.) A species of 
 divination, which foretold future events from the inspec- 
 tion of the lines and marks on the hands and fingers. See 
 Chiromancy. 
 
 PALM OIL. An article imported from the west coast 
 of Africa : it is solid, and of a reddish-yellow colour. It is 
 used in the manufacture of soap : candles have been made 
 of its stearine, and it is sometimes burned in lamps, and 
 made into ointments. It is chiefly the produce of the Ela- 
 ine Ouinmnsis. 
 PALM, ORDER OF THE FRUITFUL. A society 
 
 PAN. 
 
 formed in 1617 In Germany, and connected by a species of 
 chivalrous institution, for the preservation and culture of 
 the German language. Lewis, prince of Anhalt, was the 
 first head of the order. This body is said to have done 
 much for the German language, but to have ended by at 
 tempting too much in the way of refinement and innova- 
 tion. It was dissolved in 1680. (Ersch and Oruber's En- 
 cyclopaedia.) 
 
 PALMS, called by Linnaeus, from their noble and stately 
 appearance, the princes of the vegetable kingdom, are a 
 natural order of Arborescent Endogens, chiefly inhabiting 
 the tropics, distinguished by their fleshy, colourless, six- 
 parted flowers, enclosed within spathes ; their minute em- 
 bryo, lying in the midst of albumen, and remote from the 
 hilum ; and rigid, plaited or pinnated inarticulated leaves, 
 sometimes called fronds. Wine, oil, flax, flour, sugar, and 
 salt, says Humboldt, are the produce of this tribe ; to which 
 Von Martius adds thread, utensils, weapons, food, and hab- 
 itations. The most common species is the cocoa-nut. Their 
 wounded stems, or spathes, yield in abundance a saccha- 
 rine fluid, known in India by the name of toddy. The suc- 
 culent rind of the date is a most nutritious as well as agree- 
 able fruit. Sago is yielded by the interior of the trunks of 
 nearly all, except Areca catechu, the well-known pisang, or 
 betel-nut : the fruit of the latter species is remarkable for 
 its narcotic or intoxicating power. The common canes or 
 rattans of the shops are the flexible stems of species of the 
 genus Calamvs. 
 
 PALM-SUNDAY (Dominica Palmarum, Pascha Flori- 
 dum), the Sunday before Easter, is the day of celebration 
 of the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem. But the 
 custom of carrying palm branches on particular days of fes- 
 tivity (|3i<io0o/na) was an older Jewish observance. The 
 feast of Palm-Sunday appears to have been observed all 
 along in the Eastern Church, but is said to have been revi- 
 ved in the West by Gregory the Great. The earliest known 
 Latin homily for the day is by the Venerable Bede. 
 
 PALP. (Lat. palpus, a feeler.) A jointed sensiferous 
 organ, attached in pairs to the labium and maxilla of in- 
 sects, and termed respectively "labial" and "maxillary" 
 palpi, or feelers. 
 
 PALPA'TORS, Palpatores. The name of a family of 
 Clavicorn beetles, including those which have very long 
 maxillarv feelers, or palps. 
 PALSY. See Paralysis. 
 
 PALU'DAME'NTUM. The peculiar military dress of a 
 Roman general (imperator), in the times of the republic 
 (Apul. Apologia), afterwards adopted by the emperors. It 
 was worn only in the campaign, and exchanged for the toga 
 in Rome. Vitellius, according to Tacitus, was advised not 
 to enter the city in it, as it would be making it look like a 
 city taken by storm. (Hist., ii., 89. See Mem. de VAcad. 
 des Inscr., vol. xxi.) 
 
 PALUDI'NA. (Lat. palus, a marsh.) A genus of fresh- 
 water or marsh snails ; so called from their location in 
 marshes, ditches, and slow streams. Many species are 
 common in Great Britain; a beautiful example, called the 
 agate marsh-shell (Paludina achatina, Lam.), may be found 
 in the smaller tributaries of the Thames. 
 
 PA'MPAS. The name given to one of the great systems 
 of South American plains, which can scarcely, with pro- 
 priety, be called deserts, inasmuch as they are covered with 
 luxuriant herbage, and inhabited by vast herds of wild cat- 
 tle and droves of horses. The region of the Pampas forms 
 the basins of the Paraguay and La Plata, and includes the 
 vast plains of Buenos Ayres, extending from the foot of the 
 eastern ridge of the Andes to the " sea-like Plata," and 
 stretching southward into the deserts of Patagonia. 
 ( Traill's Physical Geography.) 
 
 PA'MPHLET. A word for which various etymologies 
 have been suggested ; as, for instance, pagina filata, a 
 threaded page, i. e., leaves stitched together with a thread ; 
 while others consider it to be derived simply from pampier, 
 or papier, paper. It signifies a short treatise or essay, gen- 
 erally speaking on some subjects of temporary interest, 
 which excites public attention at the time of its appear- 
 ance. We commonly understand by the word pamphlet a 
 production of the above character when it comes from the 
 publishers merely stitched together in sheets, and not 
 bound. The word is of considerable antiquity, being used 
 by Chaucer. Pamphlets became of common use in politi- 
 cal and religious controversy about the middle of the 16th 
 century; in England, under the reign of Elizabeth; in 
 France, during the wars of religion. 
 
 PA'MPRE. (Fr. ; from Lat. pampinus, a cluster.) In 
 Sculpture, ornaments consisting of vine leaves and grapes. 
 PAN. (Gr. nrfv.) The chief rural divinity of the 
 Greeks, who presided over flocks and herds. He was said 
 by some to be the son of Mercury ; and his birthplace was 
 Arcadia, to which province his worship seems to have been 
 confined in early times. The introduction of his worship 
 into the other Grecian states is thus accounted for. When 
 3 1 881
 
 PANACEA. 
 
 Philippides, an Athenian courtier, was traversing Mount 
 Parthenius, above Tegea, a short time before the battle of 
 Marathon, he was encountered by Pan, who commanded 
 him to ask the Athenians why they paid no respect to a 
 divinity who had ever been friendly to them, and was still 
 ready to promote their welfare ; and in consequence of this 
 remonstance, the Athenians, after the defeat of the Per- 
 si ins, dedicated a temple to this divinity beneath the 
 Acropolis, and propitiated his favour by annual sacrifices 
 and torch races. He was represented with the head and 
 breast of an elderly man, while his lower parts were like 
 the hind quarters of a goat, whose horns he likewise bore 
 on his forehead. His emblems were the shepherd's crook 
 and pipe of seven reeds, his own invention. The name 
 Pan is derived probably from the Gr. rtaav, to tend flocks, 
 which, as being the most general mode of life in primitive 
 times, has led to the belief that this god was a symbol of 
 Universal Nature, an idea to which Milton alludes in the 
 beautiful lines, 
 
 While Universal Pan, 
 
 Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, 
 
 Led on the eternal spring. 
 
 PANACE'A (Gr. nav, all, and axcouai, I cure) signifies 
 a remedy which professes the power of curing all sorts of 
 diseases. The word is said to be derived from Panacea, a 
 daughter of Esculapius, the goddess of health, to whom, in 
 conjunction with her better known sister, Hygeia, the pow- 
 er of healing all diseases was ascribed. 
 
 PA'NATHENiE'A. (Gr. lluva0ijva«a ; from irav, all, 
 and KQrjvaioi, Athenian.) The great national festival of 
 the inhabitants of Attica, celebrated in honour of Minerva. 
 There were two solemnities of this name, the great and lit- 
 tle. The former were celebrated once in every five years; 
 the latter in every third year, or, as some think, every 
 year. The exhibitions at these festivals were torch races, 
 gymnastic, and musical, and poetical contests, with sacrifi- 
 ces and feasts ; and, at the great Panathenrea, the sacred 
 stole (ttinXoi), decorated by the hands of chosen virgins 
 with embroidery representing the deeds of heroes and pa- 
 triots, was hung like a sail on a machine in the form of a 
 ship, and thus conveyed up to the Acropolis in a procession, 
 and placed on the statue of Minerva. 
 
 PANCA'RTES, or PANCHARTjE. In Diplomatics, 
 royal charters, in which the enjoyment of all his posses- 
 sions (enumerated in the instrument) is confirmed to a 
 subject. The word, however, is used in other and looser 
 significations. 
 
 PANCRATIUM. (Gr. mtvKpariov ; from irav, all, and 
 ttparetv, to subdue.) A kind of athletic contest practised 
 by the Greeks, which combined wrestling and boxing to- 
 gether. 
 
 PA'NCREAS. (Gr. irav, and icptas, flesh, from its fleshy- 
 consistence.) A glandular viscus of the abdomen, situated 
 under and behind the stomach ; its duct enters the duo- 
 denum, into which it conveys a fluid very like the saliva. 
 It use appears to dilute the bile, and render il more mis- 
 cible with the food. It is commonly called the sweetbread 
 in animals. 
 
 PAND^EMO'NIUM. (Gr. jrav, and Saiuav, a demon.) 
 The general appellation bestowed by Milton on 
 
 The hi»h capital ■ 
 Of Satan and his peers. — Par. Lost, i. 81. 
 
 PANDANA'CE^E. (Pandanus, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of Arborescent Endogens inhabiting the 
 Indian Archipelago, and most of the tropical islands of the 
 old world. They have the aspect of gigantic pine-apples, 
 bearing the flowers of a sparganium ; and are remarkable 
 among arborescent Monocotyledons for their constant ten- 
 dency to branch, which is always effected in a dichotomous 
 manner ; and also for their leaves being arranged so dis- 
 tinctly in a spiral manner that they have acquired the 
 common name of screw pines. The seeds of Pandanus are 
 eatable. 
 
 PA'NDECTS, or DIGEST. (Gr. navoacra ; from irav, 
 everything; and Stxouai, I receive.) The great compila- 
 tion of the Roman law published by the Emperor Justinian. 
 See Digest. 
 
 PANDO'RA. (Gr. irav, and Supav, a gift.) Literally 
 the all-gifted. In Grecian Mythology, the name given to 
 the first mortal female, according to Hesiod, that ever 
 lived. She was formed of clay by Vulcan, at the request 
 of Jupiter, and was created for the purpose of punishing 
 Prometheus (see Prometheus) for his numerous impieties. 
 All the gods vied in making her presents: thus, from 
 Venus she received beauty, from the Graces the power 
 of captivating; Mercury taught her eloquence, and Mi- 
 nerva wisdom ; but Jupiter gave her a box filled with in- 
 numerable evils, which she was desired to give to the man 
 who married her. She was then conducted to Prometheus, 
 who, sensible of the deceit, would not accept of the pre- 
 sent ; but his brother Epimetheus. not gifted with the 
 same prudence, fell a victim to Pandora's charms, accept- 
 
 PANORAMA. 
 
 ed the box, from which, on its being opened, there issned 
 all the ills and diseases which have since continued 10 
 afflict the human race. Hope alone remained at the 
 bottom of the box, as the only consolation of the troubles 
 of mankind. 
 
 PANDOU'RS. A kind of light infantry, formerly or- 
 ganized as separate corps in the Austrian service ; raised 
 from the Servian and Rascian inhabitants of the Turkish 
 frontier, and originally undet leaders of their own, styled 
 Harumbachas. Since 1755, they have been included in 
 the regular army. 
 
 PANDURIFORM. Literally, fiddle-shaped; applied by 
 botanists to the leaves of some plants. 
 
 PANEGY'RIC. (Gr. Xoyos iravnyvpiicos, a speech ad- 
 dressed to a general assembly, and iravnyvpis, panegyric.) 
 In Oratory, an eulogy or harangue, written or sponen, in 
 praise of an individual or body of men. Among the an- 
 cients, orations were recited in praise of the departed on 
 various occasions, before solemn assemblies: hence the 
 name. Among the later Romans, the baser practice pre- 
 vailed of reciting panegyrical orations on distinguished 
 living persons in their presence. Among the moderns, 
 panegyrical oratory has been chiefly confined to funeral 
 discourses from the pulpit. In France, however, the eloges 
 or orations, pronounced in some literary and scientific so- 
 cieties on the decease of a member, bear something of the 
 character of classical panegyrics. 
 
 PA'NEL. In Law, said by Sir H. Spelman to mean 
 "schedula," or "pagina," as a panel of parchment, &c. 
 It commonly designates the roll containing the names of 
 jurors whom the sheriff" returns to pass on a trial. In 
 Scottish law, the accused person in a criminal action, from 
 the time of his appearance, is styled the " pannel." 
 
 PA'NIC (Lat. Pan), is usually applied to a sudden and 
 groundless alarm. The word originated in the stratagem 
 which Pan had recourse to, during the Indian expedition 
 of Bacchus, on being surrounded by a numerous army ; viz. 
 ordering his men suddenly to raise a simultaneous shout, 
 which, favoured by the echoes of a rocky valley, had the 
 appearance of so augmenting their numbers that the enemy 
 were inspired by terror, and instantly took to flight. 
 
 PA'NICLE. A form of inflorescence in which the 
 primary axis develops secondary axes, which themselves 
 produce tertiary ; or, in other words, a raceme bearing 
 branches of flowers in place of simple ones. 
 
 PA'NNEL, or PANEL. (Fr. panneau.) In Architec- 
 ture, an area sunk from the general face of the surrounding 
 work. In Joinery, it is a tympanum, or thin piece of wood, 
 framed or received in a grove by two mounters or upright 
 pieces, and two traverses or cross pieces. 
 
 PA'NOPLY. (Gr. irav, and birSov, armour.) Literally 
 all the armour that can be worn for defence : complete 
 armour. 
 
 PANO'PTICON. (Gr. irav, and orrrouai, I see.) A term 
 coined by Jeremy Bentham to denote the plan of the prison 
 which he designed and recommended for adoption in his 
 Theory of Punishments. This building was distinguished 
 by three leading properties, for an account of which the 
 reader is referred to vol. xxii. of the Edin. Review, p. 19, 
 20 ; but its greatest peculiarity consisted in its form, and in 
 the disposition of its cells, which were so constructed that 
 the inspector could see each prisoner, at all limes, without 
 himself being seen; and hence the origin of the term. 
 
 PANORA'MA. (Gr. -rrav, all, and bow, I see.) A pic- 
 ture in which all the objects of nature that are visible from 
 a single point are represented on the interior surface of a 
 round or cylindrical wall, the point of view being in the 
 axis of the cylinder. The rules according to which the 
 different objects are represented in perspective are easily 
 deduced from the consideration that thn lines on the pano- 
 rama are the intersections of the cylindrical surface of the 
 picture, with one or more conical surfaces having their 
 summits at the point of view, and of which the bases are 
 the lines of nature which the artist proposes to represent. 
 In executing this kind of perspective, the artist divides the 
 horizon Into a considerable number of parts, twenty, for 
 example, and draws, in the ordinary way, on a plane sur- 
 face, a perspective view of all the objects comprised in each 
 of these portions of the horizon. He then paints on a can- 
 vass, representing the development of the cylindrical sur- 
 face, the twenty drawings, in as many vertical and parallel 
 stripes ; and the picture is completed by stretching the can- 
 vass on the cylindrical wall of the rotunda which is to con- 
 tain the panorama. When a painting of this kind is well 
 executed, its truth is such as to produce a complete Illusion, 
 No other method of representing objects is so well calcu- 
 lated to give an exact idea of the general aspect and appear- 
 ance of a country as seen all round from a given point. 
 
 The first panorama exhibited in London was painted by 
 Barker in 1793; it represented the objects about Portsmouth 
 and the Isle of Wight. A panorama of London was the 
 first that was introduced into Germany, in 1800. Since
 
 PANSTEREORAMA. 
 
 ttat time they have become common in all the principal 
 cities of Europe. 
 
 PANSTE'REORA'MA. (Gr. nav; arcptoi, solid, and 
 bpdu, I see.) In Relievo, a model of a town or country in 
 cork, wood, pasteboard, or other substances. 
 
 PA'NSY. (Fr. pensee, a thought.) A term applied 
 chiefly to the garden varieties of Viola tricolor, and others 
 which are usually cultivated under the name of heart's 
 ease. See Viola. 
 
 PA'NTAGRAPH. (Gr. nav, and ypatpa, / write.) Fre- 
 quently, but improperly, written Pentagraph. An instru- 
 ment for copying, reducing, or enlarging plans. It consists 
 of a jointed rhombus, A B C D, made of wood or brass, and 
 having the two sides B A and B C 
 extended to double their length. 
 The side A D and branch A E are 
 graduated from A, in such a man- 
 ner that if O and T be correspond- 
 ing divisions, A O is to B O in the 
 same ratio as A T to B E or B F. 
 Small sliding boxes for holding a 
 pencil or tracing point, are brought 
 to the corresponding graduations, 
 and fixed in their positions by 
 screws, and a third is fixed at the 
 point F. Now, since in every po- 
 sition of the instrument the two 
 sides A D and B F are parallel, and the points O and T are 
 so taken that O A : A T : : O B : B F, the three points O, T, 
 and F, must necessarily range in a straight line; conse- 
 quently, if any one of these three points be taken as the 
 centre of motion, and another of them be carried along the 
 boundaries of any figure, the third will trace out a similar 
 figure, reduced or enlarged according as it is nearer to or 
 farther from the centre of motion than the point which is 
 carried along the figure to be copied. Suppose the point O 
 to be made the centre of motion, the tracer to be fixed at 
 F, and the crayon or drawing point at T, the division of 
 A D corresponding to O ; then, while F is carried along any 
 figure, T will describe a similar figure reduced in the pro- 
 portion of O T to O F, or of O A to O B. But if the tracer 
 be fixed at T, and the drawing point at F, the copy will be 
 enlarged in the proportion of O B to O A ; or, if the fulcrum 
 be placed at T, the tracer at O, and the crayon at F, the 
 figure delineated will be enlarged in the proportion of OT 
 to TF. If the points O and T be brought to coincide with 
 E and D, and the fulcrum be placed at D ; then, the dis- 
 tance E D and D F being equal, the original figure will be 
 transferred into a copy of exactly the same dimensions. 
 The pantagraph was invented by the Jesuit Christopher 
 Scheiner in 1G03, and is described by him in a tract entitled 
 Pantographice sive Ars Delineandi, be., published at Rome 
 in 1623. A more perfect instrument for accomplishing the 
 same objects has recently been invented by Professor Wal- 
 lace, of Edinburgh, who has given it the name of Eido 
 graph : for a description of which, see the Transactions of 
 the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. xiii. ; or Wallace's 
 Geometrical Theorems and -Analytical Formula, 1839. Both 
 instruments may be so modified as to produce a reversed 
 representation of the figure to be copied ; an application 
 which is extremely useful for the purposes of copper-plate 
 engraving and lithography. 
 
 PA'NTALOON. One of the chief characters in all 
 pantomimic representations. He was originally dressed 
 in a manner similar to that from which a well-known 
 article of modern dress has derived its name. His name 
 is said by antiquarians to be derived from the Italian 
 words " Pianta-leone," as it were the " lion-planter," in 
 allusion to the boastful language of the Venetians. (See 
 Ixird Byron's Childc Harold, canto iv.) The pantaloon of 
 the original Italian pantomime was a Venetian burgher. 
 
 PANTE'CHNICON. (Gr. nav, and rtxvi, art), signifies 
 a place in which, as the term imports, every species of 
 workmanship is collected and exposed for sale. The large 
 building near Belgrave-square is an excellent specimen of 
 this modern invention. 
 
 PA'NTHEISM. (Gr. Tlav, and Geo?, God.) In Meta- 
 physical Theology, the theory which identifies nature, or 
 the to Tray, the universe in its totality, with God. This 
 doctrine differs from atheism in the greater distinctness 
 with which it asserts the unity and essential vitality of 
 nature, parts of which all animated beings are. The 
 most ancient Greek philosophers were pantheists in this 
 sense, Anaxagoras being the first who distinctly stated 
 the coexistence with nature of a reasonable creator—" a 
 mind, the principle of all things." In this sense, too, 
 Spinoza may be called a pantheist. The pantheism of 
 Schelling, and many modern German philosophers, is of 
 a different stamp. According to these thinkers, God is 
 conceived as the absolute and original Being, revealing 
 himself variously in outward nature, and in human intelli- 
 gence and freedom. It is not easy to see how pantheism 
 
 PAPACY. 
 
 in this sense differs from the Christian view of Go-1, as ex- 
 pressed in the sublime language of St. Paul, " In whom we 
 live, and move, and have our being." The world is, indeed, 
 conceived to be animated by the presence and agency of 
 the Deity ; but his distinctness and independent subsistence 
 are definitely laid down as the condition and ground of all 
 phenomenal existence, and of reason itself. God may exist 
 without the world, but the world is inconceivable without 
 God. (See this article in Ersch and Gruber's Encyclo- 
 pedia.) It must, however, be remarked, that many pseudo- 
 philosophers of modern times assume the name of Pan- 
 theists as a convenient medium for the dissemination of 
 atheistical opinions, which they have not the courage boldly 
 to avow. 
 
 PANTHEI'STIC. (Gr. nav, and Otoe, God.) In Sculp- 
 ture, a term applied to statues and figures which bear the 
 symbols of several deities together, the meaning of which 
 has been a subject of much dispute among antiquaries. 
 
 PANTHE'ON. (Gr. ndvdeov ; from nav, all, and &coc, a 
 god.) A temple dedicated to all the gods. Two magni- 
 ficent structures of this kind existed in antiquity ; one at 
 Athens, the other at Rome. The latter, which still exists, 
 though comparatively in ruins, is one of the most splendid 
 remains of the ancients. The foundation of this building 
 is generally ascribed to Agrippa, the son- in-law of Augustus. 
 It now forms a Christian church, dedicated to the Virgin 
 Mary and All Saints, and generally called the Rotunda. 
 The form is circular, and its roof a hemispherical dome 
 144 feet diameter, its height being the same from the pave- 
 ment to the top of the dome. It has a noble Corinthian 
 portico, consisting of sixteen granite columns of the Co- 
 rinthian order, of which eight stand in front. Pliny ranked 
 this edifice as one of the wonders of the world. Since its 
 erection it has been grievously spoiled of its ornaments. 
 The term pantheon has been applied to places of public 
 exhibition in which every variety of amusement is found. 
 It is also used for a work containing a view of the mytho- 
 logy, or all the gods of the ancients (as the term imports) ; 
 as in Tooke's Pantheon. 
 
 PANTOCHRONO'METER. (Gr. Trav, xpovos, time, and 
 ucrpov, a measure.) A term recently invented and applied 
 to an instrument which is a combination of the compass, 
 the sun-dial, and the universal time-dial, and performing 
 the offices of all three. 
 
 PANTOLO'GIA. (Gr. nav, and boyoc.) A work of 
 universal instruction or science ; equivalent to dictionary 
 or encyclopaedia, which see. 
 
 PA'NTOMIME. (Gr. nav, and ntuew, I imitate.) A 
 species of theatrical entertainment, in which, according to 
 the derivation of the word, the whole action of the piece 
 should be represented by gesticulation, without the use of 
 words: also, a theatrical performer skilled in mimicry. 
 The English pantomime is an amusement peculiar to our 
 theatre. A class of actors in vogue at Rome, who per- 
 formed pieces in dumb show, expressing everything by 
 their dancing and gestures, were also called pantomimes, 
 and were, in all probability, the archetypes of this species 
 of amusement among ourselves. (See the Conversations- 
 Lexicon; and as to ancient pantomimes, Mem. de VAc. 
 des [user., vol. xxiii.) See Mimes. 
 
 PA'PACY. The office of pope, or, historically, the suc- 
 cession of popes in the see of Rome. The origin of the 
 term is oriental. The word papas was used" in lower 
 Greek, with the signification of father, and is still applied 
 by the Greek Church to the priests of that communion. 
 In the Western Church, the title was not uncommonly 
 given to bishops in general, and was not confined to the 
 Roman pontiff for several centuries. In this article it will 
 be our endeavour to trace, with the conciseness which our 
 limits demand, the steps by which the bishops of Rome 
 attained to the vast religious and political importance 
 which they once possessed, and of which they still retain 
 the shadow. 
 
 1. It is generally agreed that a certain degree of defer- 
 ence was paid to the church of Rome by the Christian 
 societies dispersed throughout the empire in the primitive 
 age. As St. Peter appears to have held a certain pro- 
 minency among the apostles, so was his see looked up to, 
 and its advice occasionally resorted to, by the other metro- 
 politan churches, which, though its equal in rank, might 
 allow to it some moral superiority. But, as the other 
 apostles did not hesitate to rebuke St. Peter, when his con- 
 duct appeared to their judgment to deserve it, nor to take 
 the lead and initiative when he paused in the career which 
 the Holy Spirit pointed out, so we find Irenams of Lyons 
 interfering to check the dogmatism of Victor of Rome, and 
 Cyprian maintaining the validity of heretical baptism, in 
 concert with the Asiatic church, and in opposition to the 
 Roman. ■ 
 
 2. It is in the fourth century that the first dawn of sub- 
 stantial power appears in the Roman see. Upon the recog- 
 nition of Christianity by the civil government, the bishop 
 
 983
 
 PAPACY. 
 
 of Rome is found in the enjoyment of precedence among 
 the prelates of the empire. The patriarch of Constan- 
 tinople is expressly exalted hy Theodosius (A. D. 381) to 
 the second rank. The canons of the council of Sardis, 347 
 (the genuineness, however, of which is suspected), allow 
 bishops in certain cases an appeal to the Roman pontiff. 
 Even the removal of the seat of government to Constan- 
 tinople, although the very fact of its residence at Rome had 
 undoubtedly contributed to the pre-eminence of its bishop 
 in earlier times, seems to have favoured the pretensions 
 which the popes began now openly to maintain. Rome 
 was no longer under the immediate eye of the emperor. 
 The patriarch of Constantinople, although he enjoyed the 
 imperial favour up to a certain point, was not allowed to 
 outstep it, and was subject to be deposed if he forgot for a 
 moment the relative position in which he stood. The em- 
 perors of the West, on the other hand, took up their abode 
 at Milan, or Ravenna ; and when they had been overturned, 
 and the barbarians began to found new dynasties upon the 
 ruins of the Italian provinces, the popes were among their 
 most useful instruments in civilizing and consolidating the 
 fragments of their power. 
 
 Again, the nearer contact which thus took place between 
 the Italian clergy and the children of the pagans of the 
 north, afforded the popes an opportunity of diffusing the 
 idea of their own supremacy, at the same time that they 
 extended the limits of Christianity; and while Antioch 
 and Alexandria were trembling before the birth of Moham- 
 medanism, and Constantinople was losing, one by one, its 
 fairest provinces and strongest partisans, the dominion of 
 the Western primacy was acquiring daily a wider basis 
 and a more devoted people. 
 
 3. With Gregory I., at the end of the sixth century, com- 
 menced one of the most important epochs in the papal 
 history. The system of aggrandizement, of which he laid 
 the foundations, consisted in the conversion of the heathen, 
 upon the principle above mentioned, and the connexion of 
 the monastic orders with the Roman see, by releasing them 
 from the immediate jurisdiction of their own diocesans. 
 
 4. The next important step in our history is the famous 
 donation of Pepin, by which the Italian provinces which 
 the French king had conquered from the Lombards, were 
 transferred by him, not to his own dominions, nor to the 
 Greek emperor, who had the ancient hereditary claim, but 
 in temporal sovereignty to the pope. But even this political 
 power, thus acquired, was not in itself pregnant with such 
 important consequences, as the principle which was sanc- 
 tioned by the immediate occasion of the donation ; for 
 Pepin had taken counsel with pope Zachary, whether he 
 should be justified in overturning the throne of the im- 
 becile prince whose servant he was, and had been formally 
 authorized so to do. However, the possessions which thus 
 came into the hands of the Roman bishops, confirmed and 
 enlarged by the addition of the territory of Rome itself, by 
 Charlemagne, at the close of the eighth century, have con- 
 tinued up to this day, with little extension or diminution, 
 to form the temporal patrimony of St. Peter. It is to be 
 observed, that the nature and extent of the power accorded 
 to the popes by Charlemagne, has given rise to much dis- 
 pute ; and the partisans of the Roman see have been 
 charged with giving to it a false and exaggerated colouring. 
 "The most probable account of the matter," says Mosheim, 
 " seems to "be this, that the Roman pontiff possessed the 
 city of Rome and its territory, by the same right that he 
 held the exarchate of Ravenna, and the other lands which 
 he received from Charlemagne ; that is to say, that he 
 possessed Rome as a feudal tenure, though charged with 
 less marks of dependence than other fiefs generally are, 
 on account of the lustre and dignity of the city, which had 
 so long been the capital of the empire." (Cent. FIJI., pt. 2, 
 cap. 2. note.) 
 
 5. The dissensions which took place among the succes- 
 sors of Charlemagne in the Oth century afforded a tempting 
 opportunity for political encroachment on the part of the 
 Roman bishops. In 879, Charles the Bald was proclaimed 
 emperor by Pope John VIII., and his immediate successors 
 received their nomination nlso from the same source. It 
 was in the same century that the forgery of the decretal 
 epistles gave a colour and authority to many temporal 
 claims of the Roman see. 
 
 fi. It was not, however, till the pontificate of Gregory 
 VII. (1073-1086), that the principle of temporal aggrandize- 
 ment, which we have been tracing, received a systematic 
 development. The grand project which that prelate enter- 
 tained was, to reduce the whole territory of Christendom to 
 a feudal subjection to the holy see. He assumed the right 
 of appointment to all the crowns of Europe ; and with such 
 success that when his principal opponent, Henry IV. of 
 Germany, had succeeded in dispossessing him of his pontifi- 
 cal chair, and placing therein the nntipope, Clement III., 
 the victorious monarch continued to recognise, in the crea- 
 ture whom he had thus installed in the papal prerogatives, 
 
 PAPER. 
 
 the very same authority which Gregory had claimed over 
 him, and received from his hands his own imperial crown. 
 A main feature in this political scheme was the reduction 
 of the whole body of the clergy into immediate dependants 
 upon the papal throne. In order to effect this, the law of 
 celibacy was strictly enforced ; the elections of bishops by 
 their diocesan clergy discouraged and almost abolished ; 
 and their investiture by their national sovereigns, in itself a 
 monarchical usurpation, became the great subject of conten- 
 tion between the pope and the emperor ; in which, though 
 the former was finally unsuccessful, yet principles were 
 advanced during its progress, and claims bequeathed to pos- 
 terity, which smoothed the way for the more fortunate ag- 
 gressions of later pontiffs, and exalted the power of the pa- 
 pacy to its greatest height under Innocent III., at the begin- 
 ning of the 13th century. 
 
 7. The power of excommunication had long been exer- 
 cised and wantonly abused before the time of Gregory ; the 
 interdict, by which a whole state was laid under a spir- 
 itual ban, was not adopted till about that period. This 
 weapon was unsparingly wielded by Innocent III. ; and 
 the degradation to which John of England was sub- 
 jected by him through these means is one of the strongest 
 instances of the extent to which the papal power was ad- 
 vanced. But Innocent, although his clergy were better 
 disciplined subjects, and his pretensions invested with 
 the superior efficacy of prescription, had new and greater 
 difficulties to contend with than his famous predecessors. 
 At this time the tide of human opinion was already on the 
 turn. Numerous reforming sects arose and threatened to 
 undermine the fidelity of the lower classes ; the princes 
 were more conscious of the yoke which had been imposed 
 upon them, and more anxious to avail themselves of an op- 
 portunity to cast it off": the clergy also, the main stay of the 
 papal cause, were beginning to excite general murmurs by 
 their corruption of manners. It is between Gregory and 
 Innocent, therefore, that the period of the substantial great- 
 ness of the Roman see must be placed by the historian who 
 contemplates both eras from a distance, and observes the 
 seeds of decay which began to manifest themselves in the 
 latter. The violence, however, and assumption of power, 
 which had increased up to this time, continued to grow un- 
 der the successors of Innocent, who appear not to have felt, 
 even up to the Reformation itself, that the foundations of 
 their authority were slipping rapidly from under them. But 
 the same causes which we have enumerated as counteract- 
 ing the apparent glory of Innocent's pontificate continued to 
 work steadily against his successors ; and at length when 
 Luther arose to combine the force resulting from the three, 
 the papacy, though relaxing nothing from its extravagant 
 pretensions, found itself suddenly shorn of one third of its 
 subjects entirely, and deprived of a great proportion of its 
 authority over the rest. From that time to the present, the 
 power of the papacy has continued to retrograde, even in 
 spiritual matters. It has been forced to concede a certain 
 degree of independence to the clergy of France, and to enter 
 into disadvantageous concordats with Napoleon and some 
 of the German princes. It has even encouraged its writers 
 in disclaiming the schemes of its earlier pontiffs, and allows 1 
 them to assert the interference of the church between the 
 prince and the subject to be tyrannical and unchristian. 
 Its spiritual influence, however, although harassed on all 
 sides by the free and discursive opinions of the day, con- 
 tinues still, from its combined pressure and elasticity, to 
 be the most remarkable feature of modem history ; its 
 share in the recent political events of Europe has been very 
 great, while the number of its subjects is probably at this 
 moment much greater than at the times of Gregory or In- 
 nocent. 
 
 PAPA'VERA'CEjE. (Papaver, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of narcotic plants, belonging to the Polypcta- 
 lous division of the Exogenous class, and nearly related to 
 Ranunculatetr, with which it corresponds in habit and the 
 structure of the seeds, but differs in having parietal pla- 
 centa" and a calyx of only two pieces. The common poppy, 
 the horned poppy, arpemone, and some other genera, are 
 well-known species, either cultivated for the sake of their 
 flowers, or destroyed as showy but troublesome weeds. 
 Opium is the inspissated juice of Papaver somnifcrvm. 
 
 PA'PER. (Gr. Trd-ri'poi ; Fr. papier.) A thin and flexi- 
 ble substance of various colours, but most commonly white, 
 used for writing and printing on, and for various other pur- 
 poses. It is manufactured of vegetable matter, reduced to 
 a pulp by means of water and grinding ; and is made up 
 into sheet.*, quires, and reams, each quire consisting of 
 twenty-four sheets, and each ream of twenty quires. 
 
 For the chief purposes to which paper is applied in mod- 
 em times the ancients had recourse to a variety of materi- 
 als ; stone, tnblets of wood, plates of lead, skins, parch- 
 ment linen, layers of wax, tablets of ivory, and, above all, 
 the papyrus. The ability to write, created a necessity for 
 some material on which to inscribe ; and ail these various
 
 PAPER. 
 
 materials were resorted to in succession, as the ineligibility 
 of each induced a fresh endeavour to discover some more 
 desirable substitute. 
 
 As our present object is to trace the process of paper, rath- 
 er than to enter into a minute account of those materials 
 which were employed antecedent to its manufacture, it 
 will not be necessary to dwell upon the other substances, 
 which are as diversified as human ingenuity could devise ; 
 but pass on to the papyrus, the immediate precursor of pa- 
 per, and the article from which it was first manufactured. 
 Egypt has the honour of the invention ; and Isidore even 
 fixes the locality at Memphis ; the date remains in some 
 obscurity, although it has been warmly disputed. Varro 
 the Roman, ascribes it to the time of Alexander the Great, 
 after the founding of Alexandria ; but we find in Pliny the 
 recital of a passage, extracted from the writings of Cassius 
 Hemina, an ancient annalist, in which he speaks of some 
 books, found in the tomb of Numa when it was opened, 
 535 years after his decease, and asserts that these books 
 were of paper, and had been interred with him. As Numa 
 preceded Alexander 300 years, this circumstance, if ad- 
 mitted, would carry back the date of the invention anterior 
 to that time. However, the antiquity of such a date is 
 much doubted ; but as Pliny gives an account of the man- 
 ner of making the papyrus paper, and it seems to have 
 been in high reputation in the time of Alexander the Great, 
 it is probable that such improvements were made during 
 his reign as to enhance the value and increase the manu- 
 facture. 
 
 It is true that papyrus continued in use long after the in- 
 vention of paper ; and this is the argument by which it is 
 contended that the manufacture was of more modern date, 
 although the only fair inference seems to be that it was only 
 rare or expensive. It appears, however, that after this time 
 papyrus paper was chiefly manufactured at Alexandria, and 
 continued a source of profit to that city up to the fifth cen- 
 tury, to the close of which it remained in general use 
 throughout Europe ; Italy retained it to the eleventh, and 
 France even so late as the twelfth century. 
 
 We have thought it but right thus briefly to narrate the 
 differences of opinion which have prevailed respecting the 
 origin of paper. Our own belief is, that the transition of 
 the use of the papyrus in its natural state to that in its 
 manufactured was so gradual, that it does not leave room 
 to fix on any precise point at which to say that the papyrus 
 became paper. Probably the first step arose from the per- 
 ception that the leaf was not strong enough for its purpo- 
 ses ; and then how simply came the remedy of placing the 
 leaves together, the waters of the Nile, amid which the 
 plants grew, serving to cement them ; afterwards came a 
 pressure to flatten the transverse leaves ; and this simple 
 process seems to give the origin of paper. We believe that 
 many an invention for which the learned have contended, 
 has advanced by steps as simple and as gradual, leaving it 
 impossible to decide at what point invention began, since it 
 was only improvement that was taking place. 
 
 The next improvement in paper was its manufacture 
 from cotton. It is supposed that the Chinese and Persians 
 were acquainted with this material for its production, and 
 that the Arabians learned it from their conquest in Tartary. 
 The ancient paper bears no marks of the wire through 
 which the water is drained in modern paper-making ; and 
 it is therefore inferred that a different process was employ- 
 ed. Paper made from cotton was in use earlier with the 
 Greeks than with the Romans. The manufacture of paper 
 from cotton cannot be traced farther back than to the tenth 
 century ; and the oldest manuscript document written on 
 this cotton paper is dated 1050. 
 
 When or by whom linen paper was invented seems un- 
 certain : some give the credit to Germany, some to Italy, 
 some to Greece ; but the Chinese appear to have the best 
 pretensions. The Rev. Dr. Dibdin, in his Typographical 
 Antiquities, says that " the art of paper-making with linen 
 rags is supposed to have been discovered in the eleventh 
 century ; though Father Mabillon thinks it was in the 
 twelfth. Montfaucon acknowledges that he has not been 
 able to meet with a single leaf of paper with a date an- 
 terior to the death of St. Louis in 1270." Its introduction 
 into England took place about the year 1342, in the re'gn of 
 Edward III., although some have supposed it as early as 
 1320. France had it in 1314, and Italy in 1367. The Ger- 
 mans possess a specimen bearing the date of 1308, although 
 it has been surmised that this single instance may have 
 been a mixture of linen with cotton. 
 
 In the Preface to the Kalendars of the Exchequer, pub- 
 lished by the Record Commission, it is stated that " some of 
 the letters addressed to Hugh le Despencer. from Gascony 
 (at various periods in the reign of Edward II.), are written 
 on very stout and beautiful vellum ; others on paper, of a 
 sound and strong fabric, well-sized, and such as may alto- 
 gether be called a good article. And although, in the Tow- 
 er, there are a few letters upon cotton paper, yet parch- 
 
 ment or vellum was generally used ; and these are among 
 the earliest examples of any continued correspondence upon 
 the more commodious material, which in England was 
 very rarely employed. It is highly probable that, in the 
 south of France, the supply was received from the Moorish 
 merchants or manufacturers of Spain." " The original re- 
 gister of the privy seal of Edward the Black Prince, from 
 July, 20 Edw. HI., to January, 21 Edw. HI., forming one 
 volume, is on paper. 
 
 It is a commonly received opinion that the first paper- 
 mill was erected in England during the reign of Elizabeth ; 
 though it has been asserted that the first mill was set up 
 in Charles the First's reign, by a German of the name of 
 John Spilman, or Spielman ; that the king granted him a 
 patent, and a salary of £200 a year. Both these opinions 
 are proved to be erroneous by an entry in the privy-purse 
 expenses of Henry VII., dated May 25th, 1498, published in 
 the Ezcerpta Historica. " For a re%varde yeven at the pa- 
 per mylne, 16.?. 8d.," which establishes with certainty an 
 anterior date of full fifty years. Dr. Dibdin gives this ac- 
 count of Spilman, on the authority of Dr. Harris ; but the 
 statement is invalidated by Mr. Nicholls, in his Progresses 
 of Queen Elizabeth, who has reprinted in that work a poem 
 of the date 1588, of which the following is the title: A De- 
 scription and playne Discourse of Paper, and the whole 
 Bencfttts that Paper brings, with Rehearsal!, and setting 
 foorth in Verse a Paper-myll built near Darthford, by an 
 high Germaine, called Master Spilman, Jeweller to the 
 Queene's Majestic. 1588. Perhaps no other manufacture 
 ever remained so long nearly stationary ; though within the 
 last fifty years such great and ropid improvements have 
 been made in it, as to equal, if not to surpass, any other 
 branch of manufacturing industry. 
 
 The application of paper to the purposes of writing and 
 printing, and the fact of its being indispensable to the prose- 
 cution of the latter, render its manufacture of the highest 
 utility and importance. But, even in a commercial point of 
 view, its value is very considerable. France, Holland, and 
 Genoa had, for a lengthened period, a decided superiority 
 in this department. The finest and best paper being made 
 of linen rags, its quality may be supposed to depend, in a 
 considerable degree, on the sort of linen usually worn in 
 the country where it is manufactured ; and this circum- 
 stance is said to account for the greater whiteness of the 
 Dutch and Belgian papers as compared with those of the 
 French and Italians, and, still more, of the Germans. The 
 rags used in the manufacture of writing-paper in Great 
 Britain, are collected at home ; but those used in the manu- 
 facture of the best printing-paper are imported principally 
 from Italy, Hamburgh, and the Austrian states, by way of 
 Trieste. 
 
 We believe, however, that it was owing rather to the 
 want of skill than, as has sometimes been supposed, to the 
 inferior quality of the linen of this country, that the manu- 
 facture of paper was not carried on with much success in 
 England till a comparatively recent period. During the 17lh 
 century, most part of our supply was imported from the 
 Continent, especially from France. The manufacture is 
 said to have been considerably improved by the French ref- 
 ugees who fled to this country in 1685. But it is distinctly 
 stated in the British Merchant (vol. ii., p. 266), that hardly 
 any sort of paper, except brown, was made here previously 
 to the Revolution. In 1690, however, the manufacture of 
 white paper was attempted ; and, within a few years, most 
 branches were much improved. In 1721 it is supposed that 
 there were about 300.000 reams of paper annually produced 
 in Great Britain, which was equal to about two thirds of 
 the whole consumption. In 1783 the value of the paper 
 annually manufactured was estimated at £780.000. At 
 present, besides making a sufficient quantity of most sorts 
 of paper for our own use, we annually export about £100,000 
 worth of books. We still, however, continue to import cer- 
 tain descriptions of paper for engravings from France, and 
 a small supply of paper-hangings. The duty on both 
 amounts to about £2800 a year. 
 
 In 1813, Dr. Colquhoun estimated the value of paper an- 
 nually produced in Great Britain at £2,000.000; but Mr. 
 Stevenson, an incomparably better authority upon such 
 subjects, estimated it at only half this sum. From informa- 
 tion obtained from those engaged in the trade, we incline to 
 think that the total annual value of the paper manufacture 
 in the United Kingdom, exclusive of the Arty, mav at 
 present amount to about £1,200,000 or £1.300,000. There 
 are about 700 paper-mills in England, and from 70 to 80 in 
 Scotland. The number in Ireland is but inconsiderable. 
 About 27.000 individuals are supposed to be directly en- 
 gaged in the trade ; and, besides the workmen employed in 
 the mills, the paper manufacture creates a considerable 
 demand for the labour of millwrights, machinists, smiths, 
 carpenters, iron and brass-founders, wire-workers, woollen 
 manufacturers, and others in the machinery and apparatus 
 of the mills. Some parts of these are very powerful, and 
 
 885
 
 PAPER. 
 
 Subject to severe strain ; and other parts are complicated 
 and delicate, and require continual renovation. Owing to 
 this, the manufacture is of much greater importance, as a 
 source of employment, than might at first be supposed, or 
 than it would seem to be considered by government, who 
 have loaded it with an excise duty amounting to more than 
 three times as much as the total wages of the work-people 
 employed ! 
 
 We pass on from this brief account of the history and 
 statistics of paper to the mechanical process of its pro- 
 duction ; only remarking, that many articles have been 
 resorted to in its manufacture — the tendrils of the vine, the 
 stalks of the nettle, the thistle, and mallow ;* the bark of 
 the willow, the hawthorn, the beech, the aspen, and the 
 lime. Some patents have been obtained for making it of 
 straw ; and the bine of the hop, it is presumed, might fur- 
 nish material for the supply of paper to all England; but, 
 leaving these inferior substitutes, vre shall confine our- 
 selves to the description of paper made from linen rags, 
 that being the staple of the manufacture. 
 
 The rags in the London market are sold to the manu- 
 facturers according to their respective quality, under the 
 terms fine, '2d, 3d English rags ; and SPFF, SPF, FF, &c. 
 foreign rags : fine, being wholly linen, and of the best 
 quality, is used for the finest writing-paper, and so in their 
 gradation down to the commonest, which is coarse, often 
 canvass, and can only be made into an inferior printing- 
 paper when it has been thoroughly bleached. In these 
 inferior papers some cotton is mixed. There are also the 
 strong, coarse bags in which the rags are packed, and the 
 coloured rags, only fit for the most common papers ; though 
 out of these the blue are usually sorted for the purpose of 
 making blue paper. It is necessary that these rags should 
 be dusted ; and, to accomplish this, they are either placed 
 in a cylinder formed of wire net, turning on pivots at each 
 end, and enclosed in a box which receives the dust as it 
 falls through the net-work, or else their sorting takes place 
 over a table frame covered with wire net, through which 
 the dust falls into a box beneath as the workwoman pro- 
 ceeds in her labours. The first of these modes, however. 
 is a great preservation of the health of those employed in 
 the work. The rags are then cut into pieces not exceeding 
 three or four inches square, the parts that have seams be- 
 ing thrown into a separate heap, or the sewing-thread might 
 make filaments in the paper. In this process the rags are 
 scrupulously sorted according to their texture and degree 
 of strength, not according to their colour ; for, were they 
 not carefully arranged by this rule, the fine in texture 
 would be reduced to a pulp long before the coarse, and be 
 lost in the preparation ; or, if preserved, when reduced to 
 pulp, would not be found of the same consistency as the 
 coarser sorts, and the paper, when manufactured, would 
 necessarily be clouded and inferior. It is for these reasons 
 that this part of the process is important. When carefully 
 sorted, and the different degrees of texture having, by a 
 longer or shorter process, been reduced to a pulp of similar 
 consistency, they may then be mixed together ; but this 
 cannot be previously done. While in this state the rags 
 often appear so dirty and discoloured as to preclude all 
 hope, to an inexperienced eye, that they can ever assume 
 the purity of that beautiful fabric so valuable to the artist 
 and the scribe. This purification used formerly to be ef- 
 fected by water running through a receptacle filled with 
 the rags, which in its passage eventually carried off their 
 soil ; but the present more expeditious process is that of 
 boiling them, mixed up with lime, in a species of chest, so 
 perforated as to allow the admission of steam ; and by this 
 means they are partially bleached. It is but due to the 
 superior cleanliness of our own country to state, that the 
 rags collected in England require little bleaching; but, as 
 these form a small proportion of the quantity used in our 
 extensive manufactories, bleaching takes an important 
 place in the process. The superfluous moisture is squeezed 
 from the rags, and they are placed in a sort of chamber or 
 receiver, which is air-tight, and pipes are conducted into it 
 from a retort, which convey chlorine, formed, by the ap- 
 plication of heat, from manganese, common salt, and sul- 
 phuric acid. This part requires much care ; for if carried 
 beyond its due point, it proves most injurious to the dura- 
 bility of the fabric. The rags when taken from this cham- 
 ber are strongly imbued with a most nauseous smell, and 
 
 * The work* of the Marquis de Villette, puhlished in London. 1766, in 
 S4mo, are printed nn paper made of marehniatlow ; and at the end are spe- 
 cimens, in single leaves, of paper mads of the nettle, hops, moss, reed, three 
 of three species of conferva, couch crass, spindle trees, wayfaring tree, elm, 
 lime tree, yellow willow, sallow willow, poplar, oak, two of burdock, colts- 
 toot, and thistle. 
 _ The Chinese make their paper in large sheets of ths raw vegetable male- 
 rial ; it has all the appearance of the pulp having been laid on a smooth, flat 
 surface w,ih a Lru.h, «im:lar to painting, having one side smooth, and the 
 : -he marks of i he brush nn it. It is unequalled in its quality of 
 receiving a fine and delicate impression of engravings, either from copper or 
 wood. 
 
 require profuse and frequent washings. After this pro- 
 cess they are put into the beating engines, and pass 
 through a sort of trituration, which reduces them to a 
 coarse and imperfect pulp, which is called half stuff or first 
 stuff, and this is again levigated until it assumes the ap- 
 pearance of cream. 
 
 The state and quality of this pulp is of the utmost im- 
 portance to the final perfection of the paper. If, in the levi- 
 gation, the fibre should have been so entirely destroyed as 
 to reduce it to jelly, the paper will inevitably prove liable 
 to break, moulder away, and be rotten ; and this must re- 
 sult whatever the previous excellence of the material. A 
 fibre is absolutely necessary to the production of a service- 
 able paper. Mr. Murray, in a little work on the subject full 
 of practical science, recommends that a small proportion 
 of unbleached flax should be added to the half staff— an 
 expedient that would doubtless much increase the strength 
 and durability of our manufacture. But, unfortunately, so 
 far from means being taken to improve its consistency, 
 others are resorted to, for the sake of an increased profit, 
 which deteriorate almost to destruction : we mean the in- 
 troduction of plaster of Paris, or other earthy substances, 
 into the pulp ; and this can never be done without ensuring 
 brittleness and want of cohesion as the result. While the 
 pulp is in this state, the size, made from sheep-skins and 
 other animal substances, together with a solution of alum, 
 is introduced, excepting only in the manufacture of writing 
 paper, and then the sheets are most generally sized after 
 their formation. 
 
 Having described the preparation of the material, we 
 shall pass on to its formation into paper. 
 
 The fine pulp, or stuff, as it is technically called, is 
 transferred into a chest or large tub with a revolving agi- 
 tator ; from thence into a vat, usually about 5 feet in 
 diameter, and 2J feet in depth, and sustained at a proper 
 temperature by means of a fire ; and it is generally arranged 
 for this vat to be placed against a wall of the room, that 
 the fuel to the fire may be supplied at an aperture external- 
 ly, to prevent any injury from smoke. During the whole 
 of the subsequent process it is requisite that the pulp in 
 the vat should be stirred up at short intervals, to keep it 
 of an equal consistency. There are three workmen em- 
 ployed in this stage of the operation, called the dipper, the 
 eoucher, and the lifter. The dipper is provided with a 
 mould, formed of well-seasoned mahogany, across which 
 parallel wires are stretched close together, a few other 
 stronger ones being also placed at right angles with them, 
 and at some distance from each other. The lines formed 
 in the paper by these wires are called water-marks ; but, 
 in the modern improvement of wove paper, these are 
 avoided by using wire cloth woven in a loom, which, being 
 tightly stretched over the frame, produces no water-mark. 
 This mould is provided with another frame, called a 
 deckle, which fits it exactly, and forms a boundary line to 
 the sheet of paper, which would otherwise have a rough 
 and jagged edge. This contrivance, by supplying an edge 
 to the mould, gives it the character of a sieve, which en- 
 ables the dipper, after he has dipped the mould into the 
 vat, and taken in a sufficient quantity of the pulp, and 
 given it a gentle motion to equalize its thickness, to drain 
 the water away ; he then removes the deckle, replaces it 
 on another mould, and proceeds as before ; while the sec- 
 ond workman, the eoucher, removes the sheet of paper 
 thus made on to a felt, being a piece of woollen cloth, and 
 then returns the mould to the dipper, who, in the mean- 
 time, has been operating with another mould, and forming 
 another sheet ; they thus exchange the moulds, the one 
 dipping, and the other couching, until they have completed 
 six quires of paper, which is called a post. When this 
 quantity is completed, the heap is conveyed to the vat 
 press, and subjected to heavy pressure. These six quires 
 remain in the vat press until the dipper and the eoucher 
 have perfected another post, when they are removed to 
 give place to it ; and then the office of the third workman, 
 the lifter, commences. He separates the sheets of paper 
 from the felts, and forms them into a pile, which is again 
 subjected to a second press, which detaches from them a 
 great quantity of moisture. Here it remains until the 
 workmen are prepared to replace it with a similar quantity, 
 when it is taken to the drying rooms, and hung upon lines 
 to dry- These lines are carefully covered with wax, both 
 to prevent adhesion and contraction; and the opening of 
 the windows should be strictly attended to, that the drying 
 may not proceed too rapidly. This being accomplished, it 
 is taken down, shaken, to make the dust fall out, ;ind to 
 separate the sheets from each other, and laid up in heaps, 
 ready to be sized. The size is prepared of a due consistence, 
 twice altered, and S |>ortion of alum added. The workman 
 dips a handful of the sheets, holding them open at the 
 edges, that they may more equally imbibe the moisture, and 
 after this process they are again subjected to the press. 
 They are afterwards dried, sorted, brought under repeated
 
 PAPER. 
 
 and excessive pressure, and, finally, made up Into quires 
 and reams. 
 
 But as the process of paper-making must necessarily be 
 comparatively slow when practised by hand, machinery 
 has been resorted to, which has nearly supplanted the old 
 method. We believe France has the honour of the inven- 
 tion, although it has been greatly improved in England by 
 Messrs. Donkin and Co. That in most general use here is 
 after Fourdrinier, who invented the endless web of wire. 
 One of these machines can produce 25 superficial feet of 
 paper per minute ; and it is this which enables us to enter 
 into competition with the foreign market, which we could 
 not otherwise do, on account of the difference in the value 
 of manual labour. In the old method, it took three months 
 after receiving the rags into ths mill to complete the paper : 
 by the machine, they can receive the rags on one day, and 
 deliver the paper made from them on the next. 
 
 The stuff, having been prepared and bleached in an ex- 
 peditious manner by machinery, is emptied into the chest 
 or tub, as before, and from thence is delivered gradually 
 into the vat, where it is kept in continual motion by means 
 of revolving fans, called hogs. Nearly at the top of the vat 
 there is a gate, which can be raised or lowered at pleasure, 
 by means of which the flow of stuff is regulated on to the 
 lip or trough, from which it falls upon the endless web of 
 fine wire, which is kept continually moving in a horizontal 
 direction over a series of revolving rollers, and is placed 
 immediately under the hanging lip of the trough, so that 
 the pulp may have the shortest distance possible to fall. 
 These revolving rollers prevent the wire web from falling 
 in or bagging, and keep it level ; and as it is preserved at a 
 due tension from side to side, it has all the appearance of 
 a table. A leather strap, or ledge of wood, on each side, 
 forms the boundary line of the paper, answering the pur- 
 pose of the deckle in the hand-making process ; these are 
 movable, according to the intended width of the paper. 
 The long cascade or continuous stream of pulp, regulated 
 with reference to the proposed thickness of the paper to be 
 made, thus gently descends on this moving wire plane, 
 which is perpetually travelling onward and onward ; and, 
 for its more perfect equalization, a second movement is re- 
 sorted to, by means of a sort of crank, which gives the web 
 a jerking motion at short intervals, and diffuses the liquid 
 pulp unvaryingly over the surface. At the end nearest to 
 the trough the pulp is, of course, perfectly fluid ; but, as the 
 web travels on, the moisture partially sinks through the 
 fine apertures of the webbing, and the material coagulates. 
 There has been a fashion prevalent of late years of having 
 paper barred or ribbed: this appearance is given at this 
 juncture. While yet moist, just before passing from the 
 wire webbing, it is subjected to the pressure of a wire roller, 
 which gives the indentations of the stripes or lines; this 
 cylinder is called a dandy ; from this it travels to a web of 
 cloth or felt, during which advance it is subjected to heavy 
 pressures, from passing between rollers covered with felt, 
 and called the pressing rollers. This process answers to 
 the wet press in the hand-made paper ; and formerly this 
 was the termination of the labours of the machines, the re- 
 maining work of drying, &c, being accomplished by hand. 
 But an incalculable improvement took place in the addition 
 of the drying rollers. These are three cylinders of polished 
 metal, which effect in a few moments the perfect drying of 
 the paper : while yet moist it passes over the first moderate- 
 ly warm ; again over the second, of larger diameter, of 
 greater warmth ; and again over the third with an aug- 
 mented heat. The paper is now perfectly dry, and any 
 casual inequalities are removed from its surface. The final 
 action of this wonderful machine is to wind the paper 
 round a last roller or reel, which, when full, is exchanged 
 for another, and so on successively. 
 
 Here the work of the machine is finished ; and the paper, 
 being in long webs of many yards, requires to be cut into 
 sheets. After different methods had been tried, a supple- 
 mentary machine has been invented, which receives the 
 web from off the reel on to a drum, cuts it into sheets of 
 proper length with a circular knife, continually revolving, 
 while the divided web proceeds ; and these sheets are re- 
 ceived and placed in regular heaps by children. 
 
 Mr. Dickinson has recently made great improvements in 
 the machine, which has consequently been followed by a 
 corresponding improvement in the paper manufactured by 
 the house of Messrs. John Dickinson & Co., which has long 
 been celebrated for producing paper of a superior quality. 
 
 The manufacture of the paper being thus completed, the 
 sheets are separately examined, and every knot or blemish 
 carefully removed, the torn or damaged ones being laid 
 apart. In this state they are subjected to the action of a 
 powerful press, in the full and open size of the sheet: fhey 
 are afterwards cut round the edge, and then counted into 
 quires of twenty-four sheets, which are folded in the mid- 
 dle, and put into reams, each ream containing twenty 
 quires, of which the two on the outside are made up of 
 
 PAPIER-MACHE. 
 
 twenty sheets each from the damaged sheets that were 
 thrown out. In this state they are again pressed, and finally 
 tied up in wrappers. These wrappers are stamped by the 
 exciseman ; and by the act 6 &. 7 Will. 4, c. 52, the paper 
 is charged with an excise duty of three halfpence a pound. 
 When the duty on paper was charged according to the 
 size, the makers were obliged to be particular in the dimen- 
 sions. The following table shows the exact size of the dif- 
 ferent writing, drawing, and printing papers, as enforced by 
 the excise under the powers vested in them by act of par- 
 liament. 
 
 Double Atlas . 
 Grind Eagle, or Dou- 
 ble Elephant . 
 Double Demy 
 Columbier 
 Alia 
 
 small . • 
 Imperial . . 
 
 Double Crown . 
 Elephant 
 
 Super Royal , . 
 Long Royal . 
 Royal . 
 Ditto 
 
 Double Pott . 
 Large Fan 
 Small Fan 
 Medium 
 
 Extra Large Post . 
 Thick and Thin Post 
 Small Post 
 Demy, single 
 Ditto 
 
 Demy . . 
 Short Demy . . 
 Copy, or Bastard 
 
 Single Crown 
 Foolscap 
 Lil'riss Foolscap 
 Pott 
 
 First Table. Sicend Table. Third Table. 
 
 Printing. 
 Inches. 
 
 30$ by 22 ' 
 
 Z7j ' 194: 
 24 ' 194. 
 
 22| 
 19-i 
 
 15A 
 
 16$ 13J 
 iij ' I2J 
 
 55 by 31 i 
 
 34£ 23-V 
 
 34 26$ 
 
 31 25* 
 
 30i 22 
 
 27* 
 
 194 
 
 23i ' 20| 
 22| 13| 
 
 20i 
 
 on** 
 
 16 % 
 
 \1i 
 
 ■si 
 
 3S£ by 26 
 
 24i 
 25 4 
 
 v.d 
 
 19$ 
 
 It will be seen, by the preceding table, that the largest 
 sheet of hand-made paper is 4 feet 7 inches in length by 2 
 feet 7 inches and a half in breadth ; while machine-made 
 paper is of the width of 5 feet, and appears to be unlimited 
 as to its length. 
 
 PAPER HANGINGS. This important and elegant sub- 
 stitute for the ancient " hangings" of tapestry or cloth came 
 into use about 200 years ago: the manufacture has under- 
 gone a gradual succession of improvements, and has now 
 reached a high state of beauty and perfection. The patterns 
 on these papers are sometimes produced by stencil plates, 
 but more commonly by blocks, each colour being laid on by 
 a separate block cut in wood or metal upon a plain or tinted 
 ground. The patterns are sometimes printed in varnish or 
 size, and gilt or copper leaf applied ; or bisulphurate of tin 
 {aurum musinum) is dusted over so as to adhere to the pat- 
 tern ; and in what are calledjlock papers, dyed wools minced 
 into powder are similarly applied. Powdered steatite, or 
 French chalk, is used to produce the peculiar gloss known 
 under the name of satin. Striped papers are sometimes 
 made by passing the paper rapidly under a trough, which 
 has parallel slits in its bottom through which the colour is 
 delivered ; and a number of other very ingenious and beau- 
 tiful contrivances have lately been applied in this important 
 branch of art. The invention of the paper machine, by 
 which any length of paper may be obtained, effected a 
 great change in paper hangings, which could formerly only 
 be printed upon separate sheets, and were much more in- 
 convenient to print as well as to apply to the walls. A 
 plausible suggestion upon the subject of " intellectual paper 
 hangings," will be found in No. 504 of the Penny Maga- 
 zine. The reduction of the duty on paper, and the repeal 
 of that on paper hangings, not only create a greater demand 
 for, but are likely to lead to farther improvements in this 
 manufacture. 
 
 PAPER MONEY. See Banks. 
 
 PAPER SAILOR, or PAPER NAUTILUS. See Ar- 
 gonaut. 
 
 PAPIER-MACHE. A name given to articles manufac- 
 tured of the pulp of paper, or of old paper ground up into a 
 pulp, bleached, if necessary, and moulded into various 
 forms. This article has lately been used upon an exten- 
 sive scale for the manufacture of mouldings, rosettes, and 
 other architectural ornaments ; pilasters, capitals, and 
 even figures as large as life, have also been made of it. It 
 is lighter, more durable, and less brittle and liable to dam- 
 age than plaster, and admits of being coloured, gilt, or 
 otherwise ornamented. Another article sometimes goes 
 under the same name which is more like pasteboard, con- 
 sisting of sheets of paper pasted or glued and powerfully 
 pressed together, so as to acquire, when dry, the hardness 
 
 887
 
 PAPILIONACEiE. 
 
 of board, and yet to admit, while moist, of curvature and 
 flexure : tea-trays, waiters, snuff-boxes, and similar articles 
 are thus prepared, and afterwards carefully covered by 
 japan or other varnishes, and often beautifully ornamented 
 b\ figures or landscapes and other devices, &c, occasion- 
 ally inlaid with mother of pearl. A mixture of sulphate 
 of iron, quicklime, and glue, or white of egg, with the pulp 
 for papier-mache, renders it to a greater extent water- 
 proof; and the farther addition of borax and phosphate of 
 soda contributes to make it almost fire-proof. The chief 
 papier-mache manufactory in England is that of Bielefeld, 
 in Wellington street, Strand, who has recently published 
 a concise history of the manufacture, embellished with 
 numerous illustrations. 
 PAPILIONACEvE. See Leocminace*. 
 PAPILION'A'CEOUS. A name given to the corolla of 
 leguminous plants, from its fancied resemblance to the fig- 
 ure of a butterfly : it is that of the garden pea and bean, 
 and consists of a large upper petal or vexillum, two lateral 
 petals called als, and two intermediate petals forming a 
 carina. 
 
 PAPILIO'NITLE. (Lat. papilio, a butterfly.) The name 
 of a family of Lepidopterous insects, of which the genus 
 Papilio is the type. See Diurnals. 
 
 PAPIST. (Lat. papa, the pope.) A word in common 
 use to designate a member of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 It has a shade of meaning somewhat different from Roman- 
 ist, being employed generally with a certain degree of 
 prejudice and obloquy attached to it. 
 
 PA'PPUS. A name given to the calyx of Composite, 
 which exists in the rudimentary condition of a cap or mem- 
 branous coronet, or of slender hairs, or in some other simi- 
 lar condition. 
 
 PAPY'RI. The name given to the written scrolls, made 
 of the papyrus, which have been found in various places, 
 but more especially in Egypt and Herculaneum. The pro- 
 cess of making papyri was as follows : The interior of the 
 stalks of the plant, after the rind had been removed, was 
 cut into thin slices in the direction of their length ; these 
 being laid on a flat board in succession, similar slices were 
 placed over them at right angles ; and their surfaces being 
 cemented together by a sort of glue, and subjected to a 
 proper degree of pressure, and well dried, the papyrus was 
 completed. The length of the slices depended, of course, 
 on the breadth of the intended sheet, as that of the sheet 
 on the number of slices placed in succession beside each 
 other ; so that though the breadth was limited, the papyrus 
 might be extended to an indefinite length. Many of the 
 papyri which have been preserved, vary greatly in their 
 texture and appearance : they are generally fragile and 
 difficult to unrol until rendered pliable by gradual exposure 
 to steam or the damp of an English climate ; and some are 
 so brittle that they appear to have been dried by artificial 
 means. (Sir G. fVilkinson's Manners and Customs of the 
 Ancient Egyptians, vol. iii., p. 147-8.) Much interest was 
 excited by the discovery of the papyri rolls at Herculaneum, 
 and great expectations were entertained by archaeologists 
 that many of the valuable remains of antiquity would be 
 restored to the world ; but " after all the trouble that has 
 been taken, and all the ingenuity that has been displayed 
 in unrolling and deciphering many of them, little or nothing 
 has been found worthy of the pains. They consist chiefly 
 of Greek sophists and rhetoricians ; works on music, medi- 
 cine, and the arts ; and some on natural and moral philos- 
 ophy," &c. All the deciphered papyri are contained in the 
 work Hcrculaniensium Voluminum qua supersunt, publish- 
 ed at Naples, 1827. 
 
 PAPY'RUS. In Botany, a Cyperaceous plant found in the 
 districts of many tropical countries, but especially in the 
 valley of the Nile, and whose soft cellular flower-stein af- 
 forded the most ancient material from which paper was 
 made. Among the ancients the term papyrus formed the 
 general appellation for all the different plants of the genus 
 Cyperus, which was extensively used for making mats, 
 baskets, boats, and many other purposes; the species con- 
 fined to the manufacture of paper being usually designated 
 Cyperus papyrus, or Byblos. The latter was particularly 
 cultivated in the Sebennytic nome ; though other parts of 
 the Delta also produced it, and probably even some districts 
 in Upper Egypt. The paper made from it differed in qual- 
 ity, being dependant upon the growth of the plant and the 
 part of the stalk whence it was taken. The process of the 
 manufacture is minutely described by Pliny in his Hist. 
 Jfat. xiii., 11, 12. The period at which paper began to be 
 manufactured from the papyrus Is involved in great obscu- 
 rity ; but there can be little doubt that Pliny was greatly in 
 error when he assigned it a date posterior to the reign of 
 Alexander the Great; fur we meet with papyri (see above) 
 of the most remote Pharaonic i>eriods, the same mode of 
 writing on which is shown from the sculptures to have been 
 common in the age of Supliis or Cheops, the builder of the 
 great pyramid, more than 2000 years before the Christian 
 
 "X 
 
 PARABOLA. 
 
 era. The manufacture of paper from the papyrus contin- 
 ued in general use down to the end of the Till century, 
 when it WM superseded by parchment (which see). 
 
 PAR OF EXCHANGE. See Exchange. 
 
 PA'RABLE. (Gr. napa66Xn; from vupa6a\\<o, I com- 
 pare.) In Rhetoric, in the original sense, a comparison ; 
 hut the word has become, in modern language, appropriate 
 in a particular meaning. The parables of the New Testa- 
 ment are illustrations, in the form of short titles, after the 
 oriental manner, in each of which not only a moral or reli- 
 gious truth is conveyed, but the objects contained in the 
 hidden sense are distinctly represented by parallel object* 
 or types in the external narrative. 
 
 PARA'BOLA. In Geometry, one of the conic sections ; 
 formed by the intersection of the cone with a plane parallel 
 to one of its sides. Considered as a plane curve, the para- 
 bola may be defined as follows : A point F, and a Straight 
 line B B', being given by position in a plane, let another 
 point D be supposed to move in such a manner that its dis- 
 tance D F from the given point 
 is always equal to its distance 
 D H from the given straight line ; 
 the point D will trace out the 
 parabola. 
 
 The given line B B' is called 
 the directrix of the parabola ; 
 the given point F is the focus ; 
 the straight line F C, drawn 
 
 through F perpendicular to the directrix, is the axis ; any 
 straight line parallel to C F is a diameter; the point in 
 which the diameter meets the curve is the vertex of the 
 diameter; and a straight line, quadruple the distance be- 
 tween the vertex of any diameter and the directrix, is called 
 the latus rectum or parameter of that diameter. 
 
 From the preceding definition of the curve its algebraic 
 equation is easily found. Let A be the origin of the rect- 
 angular co-ordinates, A K = x, K D = v, and AF = AC 
 = a; we have D K 2 or y2 = DF 2 — F K 2 ; but D F = D H 
 = CK = i + a, and F K = A K — AF = i- a ; therefore 
 y 2 = (r + a)2— (i — a) 2 , whence y 2 = 4az ; or, if we as- 
 sumep = 4a (= the parameter of the axis), the equation 
 becomes y 2 = p i ; that is, the square of the ordinate is 
 equal to the rectangle under the absciss and the parame- 
 ter. This property holds true of every other diameter as 
 well as of the axis, the ordinate being taken parallel to the 
 tangent at the vertex of the diameter. It was on account 
 of this property that the curve received its name. 
 
 Let F D = r, and the angle A F D — (p ; then F K = 
 — r cos. 6, and consequently C K = 2 a — r cos. 0. But 
 by the definition of the curve, CK = FD = r; there- 
 
 fore r = 2 o — r cos. <t>, whence r = ^ — j -. This 
 
 r 1 -J- cos. <p 
 
 is the polar equation of the parabola. 
 
 Let T t be a tangent to the parabola through D ; it is a 
 property of the curve that the angle H D T, and conse- 
 quently the vertical angle A D t, is equal to F D T. A ray 
 of light, therefore, falling on the curve in the direction h 
 D, and being reflected by it, would pass through the point 
 F ; and as this takes place with regard to every ray parallel 
 to the axis, it follows that the concave surface formed by 
 the revolution of a parabola about its axis is that by which 
 all the parallel rays of light are collected into a single 
 point. Hence the point F is called the focus, or burning 
 point. 
 
 Another remarkable property of the parabola is the fol- 
 lowing : Let P A be a tangent to the curve at P, and from 
 A and B, points in the tangent, let 
 A C and B D be drawn parallel to 
 the diameter P M N ; then A C : 
 BD::PA2:PBi. For, making C 
 M and D N parallel to P B, and as- . 
 suming p = the parameter of the 
 diameter P N, we have, from a 
 property already mentioned, M C 2 = ;>- P M, and N D 2 = p* 
 ? N ; therefore M C 2 : N D 2 : : P M : P N, or P A 2 : P B* : . 
 A C: B D. Hence the parabola is the curve described by a 
 projectile in a vacuum ; for a body projected from P in the 
 direction P A. and not resisted, would pass over spaces in 
 that direction proportional to the times; and", in conse- 
 quence of the accelerating force of gravity, it falls through 
 spaces A C and B I) in the perpendicular direction propor- 
 tional to the squares of the times, or proportional to the 
 squares of P A and P B. See Ginnery, Projectile. 
 
 The parabola is remarkable, as being the first curve of 
 which the indefinite quadrature was found. Let P N be a 
 diameter, and P B a tangent at its vertex, and B D and D N 
 respectively parallel to P N und P B ; it was demonstrated 
 by Archimedes that the area contained by P N, N I), and 
 the parabolic arc P C D, is equal to two thirds of the par- 
 allelogram P B I) N. 
 
 The curve which has now been described is called the 
 conical or Apollonian parabola; but the term parabola is
 
 PARABOLIC CONOID. 
 
 also applied to all algebraic curves of a higher order de- 
 termined by an equation of the form y m + n — a m x a . The 
 curve whose equation is y 3 =s a 2 x is called the cubical par- 
 abola ; and that which has for its equation y 3 = a x 2 , the 
 Bcmicubical parabola. This latter curve is celebrated in 
 the history of the algebraic analysis as being the first curve 
 that was rectified, or found equal in length to an assignable 
 straight line ; and the honour of the discovery belongs to an 
 Englishman, William Neil, who died in 1670 at the early 
 age of thirty-three. The same discovery was made nearly 
 at the same time by Van Heuraet in Holland : till then it 
 had been supposed by geometers impossible to assign a 
 straight line equal to the arc of any algebraic curve (the 
 rectification of the cycloid had been found by Sir Christo- 
 pher Wren) ; but the discovery of the method of fluxions 
 soon showed that there are innumerable classes of curves 
 susceptible of indefinite rectification. In fact, all parabolas 
 of this form y 2n + ' = a z 2 ", where n is any number what- 
 ever, may be rectified. (Montucla, Histoire dcs Mathema- 
 tiqucs, torn, ii., p. 151.) See Conic Sections. 
 
 PARABO'LIC CONOID. The solid generated by the 
 rotation of a parabola about its axis. It is equal in content 
 to J the circumscribed cylinder, and to ^ of the cone having 
 the same base and altitude. 
 
 PARABO'LIC CURVE. A curve of which the equa- 
 tion is of the form y = a-\-b x + c z 2 + d x 3 -f- &c. Curves 
 of this kind are frequently employed for the purpose of re- 
 presenting a number of observations, or for approximating 
 to the areas of other curves ; for it is always possible to 
 cause a parabolic curve to pass through any number of 
 points in a given curve, by making as many of the coef- 
 ficients, a, b, c, &c. indeterminate, as there are points given ; 
 and the curve thus described will differ less from the given 
 curve according as the number of points is greater. But 
 the area of the parabolic curve can always be determined ; 
 therefore that of the other curve may be found to any re- 
 quired degree of approximation. 
 
 PARABO'LIC SPINDLE. The solid conceived to be 
 formed by the rotation of a parabola about its base, or 
 double ordinate. 
 
 PARABO'LOID, is sometimes used to denote the para- 
 bolas of the higher orders ; and sometimes the solid formed 
 by the rotation of a parabola about its axis, or the parabo- 
 lic conoid. 
 
 PARACE'LSISTS. Followers of the school of Para- 
 celsus in medicine, physics, and mystical science. The 
 founder of this school may perhaps be called with justice 
 the most distinguished quack who ever made a figure in 
 the world. He practised medicine " with the boldness of a 
 wandering empiric," and established a successful opposi- 
 tion to the traditionary doctrines of the so-called schools 
 of Hippocrates and Aristotle. He mingled his medical and 
 chemical knowledge with the speculations of the Cabbala, 
 and with a theosophy of his own. He died in 1541. His 
 followers continued to influence the schools of Germany 
 for more than a century. (See Hallam's Introduction to 
 the Literature of the Middle Jiges, i., 541,639 ; ii., 70, &c. ; 
 and Mosheim, vol. iv.) 
 
 PARACENTESIS. (Gr. napKcvrtu, 1 perforate.) The 
 operation of tapping any of the cavities of the body for 
 the purpose of withdrawing a contained fluid. 
 
 PARACE'NTRIC. (Gr. napa, and Ktvrpov, centre.) In 
 the higher Geometry, the name given to a curve line hav- 
 ing this property, that a heavy body descending along it 
 by the force of gravity will approach to, or recede from a 
 centre or fixed point, by equal distances in equal times. 
 
 PARACENTRIC MOTION, in Astronomy, denotes the 
 rate at which a planet approaches nearer to, or recedes 
 farther from the sun or centre of attraction, in a given 
 interval. 
 
 PARACE'PHALOPHO'RES. (Gr. vapa, beside Kt<Pa\n, 
 head, and 0/ pw, I carry.) A name given by M. De Blain- 
 ville to a class of Mollusks, comprehending those in which 
 the head is but little distinct from the body, but always 
 provided with some of the organs of sense, 
 
 PARACHU'TE. (Fr. parer, to ward off, and chute, fall ; 
 a guard against falling.) An apparatus resembling the 
 common umbrella, but of far greater extent, intended to 
 enable an aeronaut, in case of alarm, to drop from his bal- 
 loon to the ground without sustaining injury. This is ef- 
 fected by means of the resistance of the atmosphere. 
 When the parachute is detached from the balloon, and 
 abandoned with its load in the air, it must proceed at first, 
 from the continued action of gravity, with an accelerated 
 motion, until the increased velocity produces a resistance 
 equal to the force of attraction, or the weight of the appa- 
 ratus with its load. After this equilibrium has been at- 
 tained, the parachute will descend with a nearly uniform 
 velocity. According to theory, this terminal velocity, sup- 
 posing the surface of the parachute to be flat, is equal 
 to that which a heavy body would acquire in falling through 
 
 PARADISE. 
 
 the altitude of a column of air incumbent on that surface, 
 and having the same Weight as the whole apparatus. A 
 circular parachute having a diameter of 30 feet, and weigh- 
 ing with its load 225 pounds, Would acquire a terminal ve- 
 locity of about 13 feet per second ; and a person descending 
 with it at this rate would receive the same shock on reach- 
 ing the ground as if he dropped freely from a height of 2| 
 feet. (For the method of solving this problem, see Hut- 
 ton's Mathematical Tracts, vol. iii., p. 316.) The actual re- 
 sistance of the air is, however, greater than is given by 
 theory, and is, besides, augmented by the concavity of the 
 parachute, which occasions an accumulation of the fluid ; 
 but, on account of the action of the wind, the axis of the 
 parachute will probably become inclined to the vertical, in 
 which case the resistance will suffer a diminution. 
 
 One of the most remarkable instances of descent from 
 a great height with a parachute is that of Garnerin, a 
 Frenchman, who ascended in a balloon from an enclosure, 
 near North Audley Street, in London, on the 2d of Sep- 
 tember, 1802. After hovering seven or eight minutes in 
 the atmosphere, he cut the cord by which his parachute 
 was attached to the balloon. It instantly expanded, and 
 for some seconds descended with an accelerating velocity, 
 till it became tossed extremely, and took such wide oscilla- 
 tions that the basket or car was at times thrown almost 
 into a horizontal position. The intrepid aeronaut narrowly 
 escaped destruction by being precipitated on the houses in 
 St. Pancras, and at last fortunately came to the ground in 
 a neighbouring field. He seemed to be much agitated, and 
 trembled exceedingly at the moment he was released from 
 the car. (Ency. Brit., u Aeronautics.") 
 
 A recent experiment of this kind, made by Mr. Cocking, 
 was attended with fatal consequences. Having conceived 
 a notion that the vibration might be avoided by giving the 
 machine a different form, this projector constructed one in 
 the form of an inverted umbrella, that is, having the con- 
 cave side uppermost, and bound to a strong wooden hoop 
 to prevent its collapse in the descent. The diameter of the 
 hoop was 34 feet ; and there was also a hole of 6 feet in 
 diameter in the middle of the parachute, which, it was 
 supposed, would also contribute to give greater steadiness. 
 Having attached himself to thi9 machine, he ascended 
 from Vauxhall Gardens on the 24th of July, 1837. On 
 being cut away from the balloon the parachute descended 
 rapidly, and with violent oscillations : the hoop broke, and 
 the unfortunate projector fell, dreadfully mangled, at Lee, 
 near Blackheath. The persons in the car of the balloon 
 were also placed in great danger, having narrowly escaped 
 suffocation from the quantity of gas expelled in conse- 
 quence of the great velocity with which the balloon darted 
 upwards immediately on being liberated from the para- 
 chute. They suffered extreme pain, and for a time were 
 deprived of sight ; but fortunately they had carried up with 
 them a large bag filled with atmospheric air, by means of 
 which they were enabled to breathe. Without this, they 
 would probablv have perished. 
 
 PA'RACLETE. (Gr. TrupaKXnTos, advocate.) A name 
 attached to the Holy Spirit, as an advocate, intercessor, or 
 comforter of mankind ; such as he is represented, John, 
 xiv., 16, 26; Rom. viii., 26. It was not an uncommon opin- 
 ion of the early heretics, that the Paraclete, whose mission 
 was promised by Christ, was to appear corporeally upon 
 the earth, and complete the dispensation announced by our 
 Lord and the apostles ; and they drew a distinction between 
 the person of the Comforter and the effusion of his grace 
 upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost. Accordingly, 
 several of them, Simon Magus, Manes, and others, gave 
 themselves out as this expected Paraclete ; and Teitullian 
 himself was at one period infatuated by the claims ad- 
 vanced by Montanus to this personification. 
 
 PARACRO'STIC. A poetical composition in which the 
 first verse contains, in order, all the letters which commence 
 the remaining verses of the poem or division. According to 
 Cicero {De Divinatione, ii., 54), the original Sibylline verses 
 were paracrostics. See Acrostic. 
 
 PARACY A'NOGEN. When cyanuret of mercury is de- 
 composed by heat, a brown solid matter remains, having the 
 same composition as cyanogen, hence designated as above. 
 PARA'DE. (Fr.) The place where troops draw up to 
 do duty, mount guard, &c. The original meaning of the 
 word is show or ostentation ; and it is used as above, be- 
 cause, on these occasions, officers and men are expected to 
 be in full uniform, or completely equipped. 
 
 PA'RADIGM. (Gr. KaPaSuypa, am example.) In Rheto- 
 ric, a general term, used by Greek writers in the sense of 
 " example," or " illustration," of which " parable" and " fa- 
 ble" are species. (Quintilian,v.2.) Hence, in early the- 
 ology, those writers who narrated the lives of religious 
 persons, by way of examples of Christian holiness, were 
 styled Paradigmatics. 
 
 PA'RADISE. (Gr. -xapaSaooc : said to be derived from 
 a Persian or Chaldaic word, or from the Arabic firdauz, a 
 3 l * 889
 
 PARADOX. 
 
 fruitful ratify.) This name, of oriental origin, was used 
 by the Greek historians to denote the extensive parks or 
 pleasure grounds of the Persian monarchs. (Xenophon, 
 Cyrop. and (Eeonom. ; Dwd. sic. xvi., 41; xviiu 36; de- 
 Bcribed by Quinttu Curtius. viii., 1, who does not use the 
 word. Bee also .lulus (tellius, ii., 30.) The Septoaginta 
 have employed the word in their translation of Genesis, ii., 
 8, to signify the abode in which Adam and Eve were 
 placed by their Creator. It also occurs in other pans of 
 their translation. (Numbers, xxiv., 6; Genesis, xiii., 10; 
 Ez., xxviii., 13; xxxi., 8.) It is used in the N. T.. in the me- 
 morable passage, Luke, xxiii., 43. The speculations into 
 which thi< mysterious passage has led learned and pious 
 men, in all ages of the church, form too extensive a subject 
 to be entered upon here. The mythologies of many nations 
 contain similar ideas, whether derived from the ancient 
 tradition of a paradise, or formed out of the inherent sense 
 of man of his own imperfection and longing after a better 
 state, from which he imagines himself to have fallen. 
 (See, especially, the first part of Buttmann's Mythologus, 
 and Bryant's Mythology.) The rabbis have formed, as 
 usual, a strange collection of legendary tales out of the 
 simple narrative of Scripture. According to them, there is 
 an upper or heavenly, and a lower or earthly paradise. 
 The lower is situated somewhere under the terrestrial equa- 
 tor. Each is divided into seven dwellings, and each of 
 these is twelve times 10.000 miles in length and breadth. 
 A column ascends from the lower to the upper heaven, by 
 which the souls of the blessed mount after a temporary 
 sojourn in the former. A wall of partition divides paradise 
 from hell ; and this will fall when the Redeemer comes, 
 and all Israel be gathered together in blessedness. 
 
 The celestial paradise is generally referred to as identical 
 with heaven, or the place of bliss hereafter. Some critics, 
 who weigh very nicely our Lord's expression in addressing 
 the penitent thief, "To-day shalt thou be with me in para- 
 dise," have imagined the existence of a distinct abode for 
 the souls of the just before the final judgment. When we 
 consider, however, that, upon the authority of another pas- 
 sage in Scripture, we affirm that our Saviour went down 
 into hell between his death and resurrection, it will be bet- 
 ter, perhaps, not to affix too definite a meaning either to the 
 one expression or the other. 
 
 The local situation of the terrestrial paradise has been a 
 favourite subject of speculation, both with the fathers of 
 the church and with later inquirers. The reader may con- 
 sult, if he will, the first volume of the compilation called 
 the .Indent Universal History, where the matter is seri- 
 ously discussed at great length ; he will also find it treated 
 in an entertaining article of the F.nc. Metropolitana. (See 
 also Schulthess, Das Paradise, Zurich, 1810.) The most 
 ordinary opinion has placed it on the Euphrates and Tigris. 
 Josephus regards the Pison mentioned in Genesis as the 
 Ganges, the Gihon as the Nile. Hardouin places his in 
 Palestine. Huet (De la Situatioii du Paradis Tcrrestre, 
 1601) enumerates a variety of these theories. The para- 
 dise of the Moslems is termed in the Koran Gannath, or 
 the Happy Gardens ; and its description is evidently bor- 
 rowed from the notions of the rabbis and oriental Chris- 
 tians. See, chiefly, chapters lv., lvi. ; but these passages, 
 although flowery enough, contain a very small part of the 
 extravagances, chiefly drawn from tradition, which make 
 up the vulgar Mohammedan notion of paradise. (See, in 
 addition to the authorities already cited, a learned article 
 in the unfinished Encyclopedia of Ersch and Gruber.) 
 
 PA'RADOX. (Or. nnpaioifli, contrary to received opin- 
 ion.) A term applied to any proposition which seems to 
 be absurd, or at variance with common sense, or to contra- 
 dict some previously ascertained truth ; though, when prop- 
 erly investigated, it may be found to be perfectly well 
 founded. The reader will find in Bishop Horsley's 19th 
 sermon the nature of a paradox, and the points wherein it 
 differs from a contradiction, clearly illustrated. 
 
 PARADOXUS. [Gt. impaSoios, wonderful.) A name 
 devised to express the obscure nature of a genus of Trilo- 
 bites (fossil Crustaceans), to which it is attached, and 
 which is characterized by the absence or indistinct nature 
 of the prominent, even-formed eyes which are borne on 
 the shield of all other Trilobites. The segments extend 
 beyond the sides of the body, and are free al their lateral 
 extremity. It serves also as a specific name for obscure 
 and anomalous animals; as the Ornithorhynchus paradox- 
 us. I.epidiisirrn paradnra. Sre. 
 
 PA'RAFINE. A substance contained in the products 
 of the distillation of the tar of beech wood. It is , 
 less inodorous fatty matter, fusible at 113°, and resists |he 
 action of acids and alkalis. It appears to be a hydro rar- 
 bon. Its name is compounded of parum, little, and atTinis. 
 akin, to denote the remarkable chemical Indifference which 
 is its characteristic feature. A similar substance has been 
 obtained by Dr. ChrisfJson from the petroleum of Rangoon. 
 PARA'GIUM. (Lai. par, equal.) In Feudal Jurispru- 
 890 
 
 PARALLAX. 
 
 dence. the hody of nobles (peerage) was so termed ; the 
 word likewise expressed equality Of condition in various 
 legal relations, as, for example, between the lords in part- 
 nership of a fief. Parage was also a custom by which the 
 elder of several coheirs of a fief rendered homage for the 
 whole, and thereby guaranteed the enjoyment of it to his 
 coheirs as well as himself; in the same manner, one of sev- 
 eral copurchasers might be admitted to a similar privilege. 
 
 PARAGO'GE. (Gr. T<:pa, by the side of. and d) w, / bring.) 
 In Grammar, a figure by which one or more letters are 
 added at the end of a word ; e. g., in the ordinary forma- 
 tion of diminutives in most languages. See Mktaplasm. 
 
 PARAGO'GIC LETTERS. (Gr. napaywyn, an addi- 
 tion.) In the Semitic languages, letters which, by their 
 addition to the ordinary form of the word, import additional 
 emphasis, or some peculiar inflexion into the sense. Their 
 real meaning and authority have been much debated among 
 Hebrew scholars. 
 
 PARAGRAPH (Gr. TapaypaQos), ordinarily signifies a 
 small subdivision of a connected discourse, and is indicated 
 by the sign 1f in modern orthography. 
 
 Paragraphs as used by Greek rhetorical writers, is n po- 
 etical figure employed when the writer sums up in a few 
 words the substance of a previous passage, by way of tran- 
 sition to a new one. It was probably so called by analogy. 
 (Kustathius on Horn. II., i., 304.) 
 
 PARALEl'PSIS. (Gr-TO/JuAnro), Iomit) In Rhetoric, 
 the artificially exhibited omission or slight mention of some 
 important point, in order to impress the hearers with indig- 
 nation, pity, &c, called by the Latins praueritio, omissio, 
 &c. ; as in the famous lines — 
 
 Occidat ilia dies aevo, nee postera credant 
 Saecuta : nos eerie, taceamus, et obrula multa 
 Nocte tegi nostras patiamur crimina geotis. 
 
 The passage, Hebr., xii., 33, may be given as another In- 
 stance ; or the following from Cicero : " Pra:tereo ilium ne- 
 farium conatum tuum," &c. (Cone. c. .intonium.) 
 
 PARALIPO'MENA. (Gr. r.„pi\entoptva, things left out 
 or aside.) A term applied, in Bibliography, to works of a 
 supplementary character. The two books of the Old Tes- 
 tament, called by us, after St. Jerome, the Chronicles, are 
 also termed Paralipomena. 
 
 PARALLACTIC INSTRUMENT. An astronomical 
 instrument for determining the moon's parallax, described 
 by Ptolemy in his .ilmagest, and usually called Ptolemy's 
 Rules. The term parallactic is sometimes applied to the 
 equatorial ; but in this sense the proper word would seem 
 to be parallactic, as derived not from parallax, but from 
 parallel, the instrument being constructed for the purpose 
 of following the stars in their diurnal parallels, I, alai.de, 
 .istronomie, §3378.) 
 
 PARALLAX. (Gr. ■znpa'Malic, change.) A change of 
 place or of aspect. The term is used in astronomy to de- 
 note the difference between the apparent place of a celes- 
 tial object and its true place, or that in which it would be 
 seen if the observer were placed at the centre to which the 
 motion is referred. When the point of reference is the 
 centre of the earth, the change or aspect is called the diur- 
 nal parallax ; when it is the centre of the earth's orbit, 
 the change is called the annual parallax. 
 
 Diurnal parallax.— Let C be the centre of the earth, A 
 the place of the observer, Z his 
 zenith, and S a celestial body. 
 On observing the body from A, 
 it will be seen in the direction A 
 S, making the angle Z A S with 
 the zenith. Hut if tin- observer 
 could be placed at O, he would 
 see the body in the direction C S, 
 making the angle Z (' S with the 
 zenith. The difference between 
 these two angles Z A S and Z C 
 S is the parallax of S, which, 
 therefore, is equal to the angle A S C. Hence it appears 
 that the parallax of a celestial body is the angle comprised 
 between two lines drawn from the body, the one to the 
 centre of the earth, and the other to a point on its surface. 
 On account of the immense distance of the fixed stars, the 
 diurnal parallax is altogether insensible Willi regard to 
 
 them. It may amount to a degree in respect of the moon; 
 but the greatest parallax of the nearest planet does not ex- 
 reed 30". 
 
 It is evident, from the inspection of the fisrure. that although 
 the distance of the object S remain the same, the angle 
 j A S C is not a constant quantity, but is greatest when S is 
 seen in the direction of the horizon A H, and diminishes as 
 the altitude of S increases, until it vanishes altogether at 
 the zenith, where the two lines A S and C S merge into 
 the line (' Z. In order to discover the law of this varia- 
 tion, let n CA, the somidiametcr of the earth ; </= OS, 
 the distance of the observed object from the centre ; Z = 
 Z A S, the apparent zenith distance ; and P = A S C, the 

 
 PARALLAX. 
 
 parallax. Now, the sides of a triangle being in the same 
 proportion as the sines of their opposite angles, we have 
 
 d : a : : sin. Z : sin. P, Whence sin. P =s % sin. Z. But as P 
 
 a 
 Is always a very small angle, the arc may be substituted 
 for the sine without sensible error, and the formula becomes 
 
 P = - sin. Z ; that is to say, the parallax is proportional to the 
 
 a 
 sine of the zenith distance. At the horizon Z is a right an- 
 gle, and sin. Z^l: In this case, therefore, the expression 
 
 for the parallax becomes P = ^ . This is called the hori- 
 zontal parallax; and when its amount has been determined 
 by any means with respect to a celestial body, the parallax 
 of the body at any altitude is found by multiplying the hori- 
 zontal parallax by the cosine of the altitude, or sine of the 
 zenith distance. 
 
 Since the parallax of a body is given in terms of its dis- 
 tance and the earth's semidiameter, it follows, reciprocally, 
 that the distance of the body is given in terms of its paral- 
 lax. The determination of the parallaxes of the different 
 bodies of the solar system is therefore a problem of great 
 importance in astronomy ; but it is attended with considera- 
 ble difficulty in practice, although the principle on which it 
 depends is extremely simple. It may be described as fol 
 lows : Let two observers be station- 
 ed at the points O and O', of which 
 the latitudes are supposed to be 
 known, and which are both situa- 
 ted on the same meridian, and let 
 them simultaneously observe the 
 zenith distances of the body M 
 (suppose the moon). These obser- 
 vations will give the angles Z O M 
 and Z' O' M, and, consequentlv, M 
 OCandMO'C. The angle O C O' 
 is also known, being the difference 
 or the sum of their latitudes, according as they are on the same 
 or opposite sides of the equator. But the two sides C O and 
 C O of the quadrilateral M O C O', being radii of the earth, 
 are also supposed to be known ; hence the quadrilateral is 
 determined, and its diagonal C M may easily be computed 
 by the rules of plane trigonometry. But when C M is found, 
 the horizontal parallax is also determined, being equal, by 
 what has been already shown, to the quotient obtained by 
 dividing the radius C O by the distance C M. In this man- 
 ner the horizontal parallax of the moon was determined by 
 Lacaille and Lalande ; the former observing at the Cape of 
 Good Hope, and the latter simultaneously at Berlin. There 
 are methods, however, by which the lunar parallax may be 
 determined by observations made at a single place. 
 
 The moon's mean horizontal parallax amounts to 57' 
 4 - 17", or -95116 of a degree. In respect of all the other 
 bodies of the solar system the parallax is an extremely 
 small quantity, and, excepting perhaps in the case of Mars, 
 cannot be determined by the method now described with 
 sufficient precision and certainty. That of the sun, the 
 most important of all, is most accurately found by observa- 
 tions of the transits of Venus over his disk, as was first 
 suggested by James Gregory, in his Optica Promota. It 
 amounts only to 8.6" ; whence we infer that the mean dis- 
 tance of the sun from the earth is '23984 times the length 
 of the earth's radius, or about 95,000,000 miles. (See Sun.) 
 This determination suffices for finding the parallaxes and 
 distances of all the planets in the system ; for in conse- 
 quence of the relation established by Kepler's third law be- 
 tween the distances and periodic times, when the distance 
 of any one planet from the sun is known, that of even' other 
 can be deduced from the times of revolution. (See Kep- 
 ler's Laws.) 
 
 When the parallax of a celestial body has been deter- 
 mined, we can find not only the distance of the body, but 
 also its diameter and real magnitude. For the apparent di- 
 ameter being found by observation, the true magnitude is 
 given by this proportion : The horizontal parallax is to the 
 apparent radius, as the radius of the earth to the true radi- 
 us of the body. 
 
 The effect of parallax is to depress the observed bodv in 
 the verticle circle, or to increase its zenith distance. If the 
 body at the time of the observation is on the meridian, the 
 parallax only affects its declination ; but if it is not on the 
 meridian, the observed risht ascension and declination are 
 both altered, and the effect on each of these co-ordinates 
 must be computed from the previously known horizontal 
 parallax by the rules of spherical trigonometry. The com- 
 putation, in the case of the moon, is considerably compli- 
 cated by the earth's ellipticity. 
 
 Annual Parallax.— In what has yet been said the centre 
 of the earth has been taken as the point of reference, and 
 therefore regard has only been had to the difference of ap- 
 
 PARALLEL LINES. 
 
 parent situation occasioned by the eccentric position of the 
 observer at the surface of the earth. But the sun, and not 
 the earth, may be regarded as the centre to which the mo- 
 tion is referred ; and the position of any celestial body of 
 which the distance from the sun is not bo great as to be in- 
 comparable with thesemidiame er of the earth's orbit, would 
 be different if viewed from the sun from what it is when 
 viewed from the earth. This difference is called the annual 
 parallax, or parallax of the great orb. It is the angle under 
 which the semidiameter of the earth's orbit would be seen 
 from a superior planet, or from a fixed star. Such, how- 
 ever, is the enormous distance even of the nearest fixed 
 stars, that excepting two or three instances, which perhaps 
 may be still regarded as doubtful, not one of them has yet 
 been discovered to be sensibly affected by annual parallax ; 
 though observations have been carried to such nicety that 
 did the quantity in question amount to a single second, it 
 could not possibly have escaped detection. 
 
 From observations of right ascension and declination, Pi- 
 azzi deduced a parallax of 4" for Sirius, and of 5-7" forPro- 
 cyon, and Calandrelli one of 4" for a Lyra ; but these de- 
 terminations have been proved to be erroneous. Dr. Brink- 
 ley conceived that his observations with the Dublin circle 
 indicated a sensible parallax in the three stars, a Lyra?, a 
 Cygni, and a Aquilffi; but Mr. Pond showed that no sensi- 
 ble parallax in any of these stars could be deduced from 
 the Greenwich observations, and Mr. Airy has confirmed 
 this conclusion in respect of a Lyra?. Mr. Henderson, how- 
 ever, has found a probable parallax in the star a Centauri 
 from his observations made at the Cape of Good Hope. Sir 
 William Herschel first pointed out the micrometrical meas- 
 urements of the distances of two stars very close to each 
 other, or nearly in the same line of vision, as a likely meth- 
 od of detecting parallax ; for the apparent distance between 
 two such stars, if either has a sensible parallax, must vary 
 at different times of the year; and this method has very 
 recently been applied by Struve, at Dorpat to a Lyra, and 
 bv Bessel, at Konigsberg, to the double star 61 Cygni. The 
 results obtained by the latter are the most unequivocal By 
 a series of observations with the heliometer, continued from 
 August, 1838, to March, 1840, Bessel obtained the value of 
 the parallax = 0348", a little more than the third of a sec- 
 ond of space. Assuming this determination, and astrono- 
 mers seem to regard it as established within certain small 
 limits, the distance of the star from the earth must be 519,200 
 times the sun's distance — a distance so enormous that light, 
 which travels at the rate of 192.000 miles in a second, would 
 require 9J years to pass through it. (Monthly Notices of 
 the R. Astr. Soc. for May, 1840. For the history of re- 
 searches on the subject of the annual parallax, see Mem. 
 R. Astr. Soc. vol. xii.) See Star. 
 
 PARALLE'LEPIPED (GLTapaWnX-tm-ndov), frequent- 
 ly, but incorrectlv, written Parallelopiped. A solid con- 
 tained by six planes, three of which are parallel to the 
 other three. The content of this solid is found by multiply- 
 ing the area of one of its faces by its distance from the op- 
 posite face. Consequently, parallelepipeds on equal bases, 
 and of the same height, are equal. 
 
 PA'RALLEL LINES, in Geometry, are defined by Eu- 
 clid to be "straight lines which are in the same plane, and 
 being produced ever so far both ways, do not meet." 
 
 The subject of parallel lines is one of the most difficult in 
 the elements of geometry, and has accordingly given rise to 
 much learned discussion. The difficulty consists in demon- 
 strating that two parallel lines, when they meet a third 
 line, are equally inclined to it, or make the alternate angles 
 with it equal. In order to demonstrate this proposition, 
 Euclid assumes as an axiom that "If a straight line meet 
 two straight lines, so as to make the interior angles on the 
 same side of it less than two right angles, these straight 
 lines, being continually produced, will at length meet on 
 the side on which the aneles are which are less than two 
 rieht angles." But this is not a self-evident truth : it is, in 
 fact, a proposition which requires to be demonstrated ; and 
 the converse of it namely, that two straight lines which 
 meet one another make with any third line the interior an- 
 gles less than two right ancles, forms the 17ih proposition 
 of Euclid's first book. Geometers have attempted in many 
 different ways, but without complete success, to remove 
 this blemish from the Elements. The methods which they 
 have employed for this purpose are of three kinds: 1. By 
 adopting a new definition of parallel lines; 2. By introdu- 
 cing a new axiom ; 3. Bv reasoning merely from the defini- 
 tion of parallel lines and the properties of lines already 
 demonstrated. 
 
 Some geometers, among whom are Wolfius, Boscovich, 
 and Thomas Simpson, have adopted the following as the 
 definition of parallel lines; namely, that "straight lines are 
 parallel which preserve always the same distance from 
 each other;" but this, like Euclid's definition, as remarked 
 by D'Alembert, is begging the question. The correct defi- 
 nition would be, that "two straight lines are parallel when 
 
 891
 
 PARALLELOGRAM. 
 
 there are two points in the one from which the perpendicu- 
 lars drawn to the other, and on the same side of it, are 
 equal." The difficulty then consists in demonstrating that 
 all the perpendiculars drawn from the one of these lines to 
 the other are equal. Another definition, which has been 
 adopted by Varignon, Bezout, and others, is, that "parallel 
 lines are those which make equal angles with a third line 
 towards the same parts, or make the exterior angle equal 
 to the interior and opposite." When this definition is 
 adopted, the difficulty consists in proving that straight lines 
 Which are equally inclined to one given straight line must 
 be equally inclined to all the other straight lines which fall 
 upon them. 
 
 Of the new axioms which have been substituted in place 
 of Euclid's, we shall merely notice that given by Thomas 
 Simpson, in the second edition of Elements ; namely, that 
 " If two points in a straight line are posited at unequal dis- 
 tances from another straight line in the same plane, those 
 two lines, being indefinitely produced on the side of the 
 least distance, will meet one another." By help of this 
 axiom he proves that if two straight lines are parallel, the 
 perpendiculars to the one terminated by the other are equal, 
 and also perpendicular to the other parallel; and thence 
 the proposition from which all the rest follows, namely, 
 that if a straight line fall on two parallel lines, it makes the 
 alternate angles equal. Playfair remarks on this method, 
 that it is extremely plain and concise, and perhaps as good 
 as any that can be followed when a new axiom, is assumed. 
 
 Legendre, in his Elements of Geometry, has attempted to 
 overcome the difficulty of parallel lines by previously dem- 
 onstrating that all the angles of a triangle are equal to two 
 right angles, from which proposition it is easy to prove every 
 thing with respect to parallels. His demonstration how- 
 ever, is of too refined and subtle a kind to be admissible 
 into the Elements. (See the Notes to Playfair's Euclid, 
 Legendre's Geometry, and Leslie's Geometry. But the 
 reader who wishes to have a complete view of what has 
 been written on this subject should consult a learned excur- 
 sus to the first book of Camerer's Euclid, Berlin, 1825; and 
 also Colonel P. Thomson's Geometry without Jlzioms.) 
 
 It may be remarked that the whole of the difficulty which 
 exists with respect to the doctrine of parallel lines is of a 
 metaphysical rather than a mathematical kind ; and the 
 learner need not perplex himself about subtleties which can 
 hardly be considered as affecting the rigour of geometrical 
 truth. 
 
 PARALLE'LOGRAM. (Gr. ira pallor pauixa.) A 
 plane four-sided figure, of which the opposite sides are pa- 
 rallel. The area of a parallelogram is found by multiply- 
 ing the length of one of its sides by that of the perpendicular 
 let fall upon it from the opposite side. Hence parallelograms 
 on equal bases, and of the same altitudes, are equal. 
 
 PARALLEL PLANES, are such as never meet, though 
 Indefinitely produced. 
 
 PARALLEL RULER. A mathematical instrument, 
 formed of two equal rulers connected by two cross bars or 
 blades moveable about joints, so that, while the distance 
 between the two rulers is increased or diminished, their 
 edges always remain parallel ; and consequently if the edge 
 of one of the rulers be applied to a straight line, a parallel 
 straight line may be drawn along the edge of the other 
 ruler. 
 
 PARALLEL SAILING, in Navigation, is sailing on a 
 parallel of latitude, or circle parallel to the equator. See 
 Navigation. 
 
 PARALLELS OF ALTITUDE, in Geography, are 
 email circles of the sphere parallel to the horizon ; also cal- 
 led almaeantara. 
 
 PARALLELS OF DECLINATION. In Astronomy, 
 small circles of the sphere parallel to the equator. 
 
 PARALLELS OF LATITUDE, on the Terrestrial 
 Sphere, are small circles parallel to the equator ; but in the 
 Celestial Sphere, they are parallel to the ecliptic. 
 
 PARALLEL SPHERE, in Geography, is that position of 
 the sphere in which the equator coincides with the hori- 
 zon, and the poles are in the zenith and nadir. This is the 
 appearance which the sphere would have to a spectator 
 placed at the pole. The stars neither rise nor set, but move 
 constantly in circles parallel to the horizon; and the sun 
 rises and sets only once a year. 
 
 PARA'LOCISM. (Gr. napa, beside, and \6yo$, reason.) 
 In Logic and Rhetoric, a reasoning which is false in point 
 of form ; ;'. e., in which a conclusion is drawn from premises 
 which do not logically warrant it. It is the opposite to a 
 Syllogism or correct logical deduction. See Syllogism. 
 
 PAKA'LYSIS. (Gr. n>pi\vu>, 1 weaken.) Palsy. A di- 
 minution or loss of power of any part of the body. In gene 
 ral one side only is affected, or the upper or lower extremi- 
 ties. Whatever debilitates the system may produce palsy ; 
 it is also produced by pressure upon certain parts of the 
 brain and spinal marrow, and occasionally by poisons, by 
 local injuries, and by the sudden suppression of certain 
 892 
 
 PARASITE. 
 
 evacuations. It frequently produces a distortion of fha 
 mouth or eye, the speech becoming indistinct, and the 
 judgment often impaired. The treatment of palsy depends 
 upon a careful consideration of its cause ; more or less de- 
 pletion is generally required, together with purges and ner- 
 vine stimulants, such as ammonia, &c, and blisters to the 
 head and neck. 
 
 PARA'METER. In Geometry, a constant straight line, 
 belonging to each of the three conic sections : otherwise 
 called the latus rectum. In the parabola, the parameter is 
 a third proportional to the absciss and its corresponding or- 
 dinate ; in the ellipse and hyperbola, the parameter of a 
 diameter is a third proportional to that diameter and its 
 conjugate. The term is also used in a general sense, to 
 denote the constant quantity which enters into the equa- 
 tion of a curve. 
 
 PARA'MO. (Sometimes rendered, though incorrectly, 
 by desert or heath.) The name given in South America to 
 a mountainous district covered with stunted trees, exposed 
 to the winds, and in which a damp cold perpetually pre- 
 vails. Under the torrid zone, the Paramos are generally 
 from 10,000 to 12,000 feet in height. Snow often falls on 
 them, but remains only a few hours ; in which respect they 
 are distinguished from the JVevadvs, which enter the limits 
 of perpetual snow. The Paramos are almost constanly en- 
 veloped in a cold thick fog ; so that when a thick small rain 
 falls, accompanied with a depression of the temperature, 
 they say at Bogota, or at Mexico, cae un paramito. Hence 
 has been formed the provincial word emparamarse — to be 
 as cold as if one were on a paramo. (Humb. Pers. JVor., ii., 
 p. 252.) 
 
 PA'RANA'PHTHALINE. A substance so termed from 
 Gr. napa, near to, because it closely resembles naphthaline. 
 It appears to be a mixture of paraffine and naphthaline. 
 
 PARA'NTHINE. A rare mineral, so named by Haiiy; 
 the same as Scapolite. 
 
 PA'RANYMPH. (Gr. napavvu<poc.) A bridesman. It 
 is translated in our version of the Scriptures by " master of 
 the feast." 
 
 PA'RAPET, or BREAST-WORK. (Ital. parapetto, 
 breast-work.) In Fortification, a wall or screen raised on 
 the extreme edge of a rampart or other work, through 
 which embrasures or openings are cut for the canons to fire 
 through. The solid parts of the parapet, between the em- 
 brasures, are called the merlons. In common language, a 
 parapet is a breast-wall, raised on the edges of bridges, 
 quays, &c. to prevent people from falling over. 
 
 PA'RAPH. (Gr. -napa, and anrui, I touch.) In Diploma- 
 tics, the figure formed by a flourish of the pen at the con- 
 clusion of a signature. This formed, in the middle ages, 
 a sort of rude provision against forgery, like the flourishes 
 in the plates of bank notes. In some countries (as in 
 Spain), the paraph is still a usual addition to a signature. 
 
 PA'RAPHERNA'LIA. (Gr. <t>epvn< a dowry.) In the 
 Civil Law, the apparel, jewels, &.c. of a wife, which are 
 held to belong to her as a species of separate property. The 
 husband may dispose of them in her lifetime, but cannot 
 bequeath them away from her; and if he have not parted 
 with them before his death, she may retain them against 
 his executors and all other persons, except his creditors, 
 where his other funds are not sufficient to satisfy their 
 claims. 
 
 PARAPHO'NIA. (Gr. -napa, and <pwv>], voice.) Altera- 
 tion of voice. 
 
 PA'RAPHRASE. (Gr. nap a, beside, and <ppa\b>, I speak.) 
 In Rhetoric, the rendering of a passage or portion of writ- 
 ing in other phraseology, more distinct and easier of explan- 
 ation, and therefore usually at greater length. A loose 
 translation, or one in which a new series of ideas and illus- 
 trations conveying the same general meaning with those 
 of the original is substituted for them, is also termed a pa- 
 raphrase, although not with strict propriety. 
 
 PARAPHY'SES. (Gr. napa, and <pvitf, nature.) A 
 term used in describing mosses, to denote the sessile ovate 
 abortive bodies placed below the theca. 
 
 PARAPLE'GIA. (Gr. napan^navti), I strike inharmoni- 
 oxialy.) Palsy of the upper or of the lower half of the 
 body. 
 
 PA'RASANG. (Gr.) A Persian measure of length ; ac- 
 cording to Herodotus, equal to 30 stadia, and (reckoning 8 
 stadia to the English mile) equal to 3$ English miles. The 
 length of the parasang was reckoned differently by different 
 authors; and such are the discrepant estimates of the an- 
 cients that some have assigned it the length of 00 stadia. 
 The word is supposed to be derived from the Persian seng, 
 signifying a stone. 
 
 PARASCE'NIUM. (Gr. ifapa, and own, a scene.) In 
 Antiquities, called also postscenium, the back part of a 
 theatre beyond the stage, or the room to which actors 
 withdrew on quitting the stage. It was equivalent to the mo- 
 dern green room. 
 
 PA'RASITE. (Gr. napa, at hand, and airos,food.) Origi-
 
 PARASITES. 
 
 fcally, according to Crates in Athenteus, a term of honour, 
 being the appellation of certain ministers at sacrifices, 
 whose office is not distinctly ascertained. (See Mem. de 
 I'Acad. dcs Jnscr., vol. xxxi.) The habits of a luxurious age 
 produced the race of poor companions, ready guests at the 
 table of a patron, who formed a standing character in the 
 later Greek comedy. Some attribute the first conception of 
 the dramatic personage to Araros, the son of Aristophanes. 
 Diphilus, according to Athenteus, gave the most complete 
 portrait of it in his comedy of Tclesias. Our notions of the 
 ancient parasite are now derived chiefly from the Latin 
 comic poets. Ingenious writers have divided parasites into 
 four classes: l.'The poor confidential friend, whose ser- 
 vices to his patron are sometimes rendered with a mixture 
 of real attachment, as in the character of Ergasilus in the 
 Captives of Plautus. 2. The guest who is invited with a 
 view to make him pay for his reception by the exertion of 
 his powers of entertainment (Anglice diner-out), the "ri- 
 diculi" and "derisores" of Plautus, and who alone are de- 
 scribed under the name of parasites by Julius Pollux : Vibi- 
 dius and Balatro, the two umbra of Maecenas at the supper 
 of Nasidienus, seem to have partaken of this quality. 
 These degenerated, thirdly, into the class of mere buftbons. 
 who were invited to play tricks and undergo practical jokes, 
 under pain, as Ergasilus complains, in the play already 
 cited, if they refused to lend themselves to the manual 
 pleasantries of their guests, of " taking up their beggar's 
 wallet and marching." The fourth and worst class, koXokis, 
 were the attendant flatterers of their patron. Such is Ar- 
 totrogus, or Loaf-eater, the humble companion of Pyrgo- 
 Polinices in the Miles Gloriosus of Plautus ; and the best 
 known of all parasites, Gnatho, in the Eunuch of Ter- 
 rence. 
 
 PA'RASITES. In Zoology, this term, as designative of 
 a group of animals, is variously applied by different natural- 
 ists. Lamarck includes under it a family of antennated 
 Arachnidans ; Cuvier, Latreille, and Kirby apply the term 
 to an order of Apterous insects ; Straus to a tribe of Crus- 
 taceans : but all the sections include animals of parasitic 
 habits. 
 
 PARASITl'CAL PLANTS, are those which grow into 
 the tissue of other species, and feed upon their juices. Of 
 this kind are themisletoe, the broom rape (Orobanc/ie), the 
 JLathrea ; and among exotics, the monstrous Rafflesia. 
 Such species have no proper roots. The term parasitical 
 is, however, often applied to mosses, Orchidaceous plants, 
 Tillandsias, and the like, which are mostly Epiphytes, 
 growing upon the bark of trees, but deriving their food from 
 the air bv means of their own roots. 
 
 PARA'STAT^E. (Gr. rapu, from, and iVriiiii, T stand.) 
 In Architecture, pilasters, or rather square pillars, which 
 stand insulated. See Anta. 
 
 PA'RATA'XIS. (Gr. -rrnparacati), I arrange side by side.) 
 In Grammar, opposed to Syntax. The mere ranging of pro- 
 positions one after another, as the corresponding judgments 
 present themselves to our mind, without marking their 
 dependence on each other by way of consequence or the 
 like. 
 
 PA'RBUCKLE. In Naval language, to roll a cask or 
 any cylindrical body by pulling upon ropes fastened to- 
 wards the place where the cask is to go, and laid along the 
 ground or an inclined plane, and then over the ends or 
 quarters. 
 
 PA'RCiE. The Latin name of the Fates. According to 
 Klausen (art. "Pares," in the Encyclopedia of Ersch and 
 Gruber), the original Roman Parca (the harsh or avaricious 
 goddess) was equivalent to Mors, the goddess of death, the 
 third of the Fates. It was not until the Augustan age, 
 when the Greek and Roman mythology became mingled, 
 that the Pares became plural, (Virg., Ec. iv., 47), and ac- 
 quired their similarity to the Greek Moirai, Clotho, Lache- 
 sis, and Atropos. 
 
 PARCEL A ROPE. In Naval language, to cover it 
 smoothly with tarred canvass, which is then bound over 
 with spun-yarn. 
 PARCENERS. In Law. See Coparceners. 
 PA'RCIIMENT. (Fr. parchemin.) A material formed 
 of the prepared skins chiefly of sheep and goats, when in- 
 tended to be written upon. A similar preparation of calves', 
 kids', and lambs' skins is called vellum. The skins are first 
 prepared as for tanning ; then shaved down and pumiced ; 
 and lastly stretched and carefully dried. The parchment of 
 drums is made of the skins of asses, calves, and wolves; ass 
 skin is used for battledores ; and goat skin is preferred for 
 sieves. For some kinds of bookbinding, parchment is dyed 
 green by verdigrease. (See lire's Dictionary of Jlrts.) 
 
 Parchment was known at a very early period. It was 
 used for writing as early as the year 250 before the Chris- 
 tian era, by Eumenes, king of Pergamus ; who, desirous of 
 collecting a library which should vie with that of Alexan- 
 dria, but prevented by the jealousy of the Ptolomies from 
 obtaining a sufficient quantity of papyrus, had recourse to 
 
 PARHELION. 
 
 this substitute; and its invention at Pergamus claimed and 
 secured to it the lasting name of Pergamena : whence 
 parchment. (Sir O. Wilkinson's Manners and Customs of 
 the Ancient Egyptians, iii., 151.) In the beginning of the 
 eighth century, the use of papyrus was almost entirely su- 
 perseded by parchment, on which we find that all the pub- 
 lic documents under Charlemagne and his dynasty were 
 written. When the different kinds of parchment came into 
 use for the purposes of writing, they were rolled up before 
 they could be sealed : hence the word volumen, from Lat. 
 volvere, to roll. And as parties wrote to the very bottom of 
 the parchment, i. e., to the place where the cord used for the 
 folding was fastened, we may account for the well-known 
 expression, opus ad umbilicum perductum. 
 
 PA'RDON. In Law, it is a part of the prerogative of the 
 crown to pardon all offences merely against the crown or 
 the public, excepting the offence of committing any person 
 to prison out of the realm, which, by the Habeas Corpus 
 Act, is made a prsmunire, unpardonable even by the king : 
 and excepting those offences in the prosecution of which 
 private justice is in some measure concerned, as nuisances 
 and offences against a popular or penal statute, after infor- 
 mation ; for thereupon the informer has a private property 
 in his part of the penalty. Pardon is granted under the 
 great seal, or by warrant under the sign manual, counter- 
 signed by one of the principal secretaries of state ; or by act 
 of parliament. Its effect is, in almost all cases, to make the 
 offender a new man, and to discharge him from all the pe- 
 nal consequences attached to his offence. 
 
 PARE'CBASIS. (Gr. xupa, and t/cSwvw, T go out of.) 
 The word used by Greek authors to signify what by the 
 Latins is called digression ; by Qitintilian (iv. 14,) termed 
 " aliens ret, sed ad utilitatem causs pertinentis, extra ordi- 
 nem occurrens tractatio." 
 
 PAREGO'RIC. (Gr. napnyopco), I assuage.) That 
 which allays pain. Paregoric elixir is a camphorated tinc- 
 ture of opium flavoured by oil of aniseed. 
 
 PAREI'RA BRA'VA. The root of the Cissampelos pa- 
 reira, brought from South America. It has a sweetish and 
 a bitter flavour, and has been used in nephritic complaints 
 and some affections of the bladder. 
 
 PARE'LLA. In Botany, a kind of lichen; the Lecanora 
 paralla, found on rocks in mountainous countries, especially 
 in the north of Europe. It is the Perelle of Auvergne, where 
 it is extensively used by the dyer, and is found equal to or- 
 chil (Rocalla tinctoria). 
 
 PARE'MBOLE. (Gr. izapa, and t/<SaAAw, / throw in.) 
 In Rhetorick, a figure by which a paragraph is inserted in 
 the middle of a sentence with which it does not grammati- 
 cally cohere, by way of explaining something. It is also 
 called paremptosis, and is a species of parenthesis. 
 
 PARENCHY'MA. (Gr. iraptyxveiv, to strain through.) 
 The spongy and cellular tissue of animals and vegetables. 
 The old physiologists supposed that the crude juices under- 
 went a kind of filtration in the cellular substance. 
 
 PARENCHYMATOUS ENTOZOONS, Parenchyma- 
 tosa. (Gr. irapeyxvui-) An order of Entozoa, including 
 those which have their nutrient canals simply excavated in 
 the parenchymatous tissue of which their entire body is 
 composed. See Sterelmintha. 
 
 PARE'NTHESIS. (Gr. irapa and iv, and the verb ridnfit, 
 I place.) In Rhetoric, a figure by which a series of words 
 is inserted in a sentence, having no grammatical connexion 
 with those which precede or follow, with the object of ex- 
 plaining some detached portion of the sentence. In ancient 
 authors, a parenthetical form of writing is even more com- 
 mon than among moderns ; because much which a Greek 
 or Roman author would have conveyed by way of parenthe- 
 sis is now inserted in separate explanatory notes. 
 
 PA'RGASITE. A variety of actinolite, from Pargas, in 
 Finland. 
 
 PA'RGET. (Etymology uncertain.) In Architecture, 
 the plaster formed of lime, hair, and cow-dung, used for 
 coating the flue of a chrmnev. 
 
 PARHE'LION, or MOCK SUN. (Gr. r.apa, and f,\ioc, 
 the sun.) A meteor which consists in the simultaneous ap- 
 pearance of several suns, " fantastic images of the true one." 
 These images appear at the same height above the horizon 
 as the true sun, and they are always connected with one 
 another by a white horizontal circle or halo, of which the 
 pole is at the zenith, and the apparent semidiameter equal 
 to the sun's distance from the zenith. The images or mock 
 suns, which appear on the same side of this circle with 
 the true sun, are tinted with the prismatic colours, and 
 sometimes a part of the circle itself contiguous to them ap- 
 pears coloured. But those which appear on the circumfer- 
 ence opposite to the sun are always without colour ; whence 
 it may be conjectured that those (as well as the lumin- 
 ous ring itself) are produced by reflection, and the others 
 by refraction. In general when these phenomena are pro- 
 duced, the sun is surrounded by one or more concentric 
 circular coronte which exhibit the colours of the rainbow; 
 
 893
 
 PARIAN CHRONICLE. 
 
 and sometimes arcs of circles, or even entire circles, appear 
 touching the corona". These also are coloured, and contain 
 Other parhelia. The phenomenon has been described by 
 Aristotle, Pliny, Schemer, Descartes, and many others; but 
 the most perfect apparition yet recorded is that which was 
 observed by Heveiius at Dantzic, ou the 20th of February, 
 1661. It is represented in the annexed figure. Parhelia 
 have continued visible for two, three, or 
 four hours. In general two, but some- 
 times four, and even six or seven are visi- 
 ble together. 
 
 No very satisfactory explanation of the 
 cause of these curious but rare phenome- 
 na has yet been given. Huygens supposed 
 them to be produced partly by the reflec- 
 tion and partly by the refraction of the 
 sun's rays, falling on an infinite number of small cylinders 
 of ice suspended vertically in the atmosphere, and having 
 certain determinate positions relative to the sun and the ob- 
 server. This theory is explained at length in the second 
 volume of his Opera Posthuma. (See also Smith's Optics ; 
 Priestley on Light ; Blot, Traite de Physique, torn, iii.) 
 
 Fraunhofer, in a memoir on halos and parhelia, published 
 in Schiunacher's Astronomische Abhand/uiigen, p. iii., has 
 attempted to explain these phenomena on a different prin- 
 ciple. On looking at the sun through a horizontal grating 
 of very fine wires, two images of the sun appear, one above 
 and the other below the true sun ; and, if there is some in- 
 equality in the distances between the wires, the images ap- 
 pear slightly coloured, and a vertical streak of light is seen. 
 Fraunhofer thinks that this affords a clue fo the theory of 
 the parhelia; for if the small spherules of moisture floating 
 in the atmosphere are disposed in horizontal parallel lines 
 with tolerable regularity, two vertical parhelia (but this is 
 a very rare phenomenon) will be seen ; and if they are dis- 
 posed in vertical lines, the more common phenomena of 
 horizontal parhelia with the luminous circles may be pro- 
 duced. It must be confessed, however, that even when 
 this arrangement of the particles of vapour in parallel lines 
 is admitted, several circumstances attending the phenomena 
 will still remain unexplained. 
 
 Paraselene, or images of the moon, are also seen under 
 similar circumstances as parhelia : the same theory will of 
 course applv to both. 
 
 PA'RIAN CHRONICLE. (So called from the island of 
 Paros, where it was originally found.) The name given to 
 one of the celebrated marbles imported into England with 
 the rest of the collection known by the name of the Arun- 
 delian. In its perfect state it contained a chronological re- 
 gister of the principal events in the history of ancient 
 Greece during a series of 1318 years, beginning with the 
 reign of Cecrops, the first king of Athens, B.C. IMS, and 
 ending with the archonship of Diognetus ; but the last 
 ninety years are nearly obliterated by the injuries of time, 
 so that the part which now remains ends at the archonship 
 of Diotimus, B.C. 354. 
 
 The marble on which the chronicle is engraved is 5 inches 
 in thickness, and measured, when Selden viewed it, 3 feet 
 7 inches by 2 feet 7 ; but one corner had been broken off. 
 It contained originally about 100 lines, each consisting on 
 an average of 16 words, or 130 letters ; so that the whole 
 might have been comprised in six octavo pages. 
 
 This venerable monument was purchased at Smyrna, 
 with many others, by Mr. W. Petty, who was employed by 
 the Earl of Arundel, in the year 1624, for the purpose of 
 collecting marbles, books, statues, and other curiosities in 
 Italy, Greece, and Asia Minor. When brought to England, 
 in 1627, it was placed in the gardens belonging to Arundel 
 House, the site of which is now occupied by Arundel, 
 Norfolk, Surrey, and Howard streets, in the Strand ; and 
 early on the following day it was examined, with eager 
 curiosity, by some of the most distinguished literati of 
 that time ; among whom were Sir R. Cotton, Seidell, Pat- 
 rick Young, and Richard James. After much labour it 
 was deciphered, and a copy of it published by Selden in the 
 year 1628, accompanied with a Latin translation and com- 
 mentary. 
 
 During the civil wars, and the subsequent usurpation of 
 Cromwell, the Parian Chronicle, was unfortunately broken 
 into smaller fragments, and almost entirely defaced. The 
 upper part, containing nearly half the original tablet, is 
 said to have been used in repairing a chimneypiece or 
 hearth in Arundel House; but luckily the inscription, or 
 at least as much of as it could be made out, was pre 
 served in the copy which Selden had previously taken and 
 published. In the year 1667 the remaining fragments were 
 presented by the Hon. Henry Howard, grandson of the first 
 collector, to the University of Oxford, where they arc now 
 deposited. 
 
 The genuineness of this valuable relic of antiquity was 
 universally acknowledged throughout Europe as soon as its 
 contents were made known. Its authority was considered 
 894 
 
 PARING AND BURNING. 
 
 as equal, if not superior, to any other ; writers of the first 
 eminence derived the greatest advantage from it in their 
 historical and chronological researches ; and it was not till 
 the year 1788, when the Rev. John Robertson, a gentleman 
 of considerable learning and industry, published an elabor- 
 ate volume called A Dissertation on the Authenticity of the 
 Parian Chronicle, in which he maintained it to be a fabrica- 
 tion of modern times, that its authenticity was impeached. 
 The doubts and objections of Mr. R. were founded on the 
 following considerations: 
 
 1. The characters have no certain or unequivocal marks 
 of antiquity. 2. It is not probable that the chronicle was 
 engraved for private use. 3. It does not appear to have 
 been engraved by public authority. 4. The Greek and Ro- 
 man writers, for a long time after the date of this work, 
 complain that they had no chronological account of the af- 
 fairs of ancient Greece. 5. This chronicle is not once men- 
 tioned by any writer of antiquity. 6. Some of the facts 
 seem to have been taken from authors of a later date. 7. 
 Parachronisms appear in some of the epochas, which we 
 can scarcely suppose a Greek chronologer, in the 129th 
 Olympiad, would be liable to commit. 8. The history of 
 the discovery of the marbles is obscure and unsatisfactory ; 
 and, 9. The literary world has been frequently imposed upon 
 by spurious books and inscriptions, and therefore we should 
 be extremely cautious with regard to what we receive un- 
 der the venerable name of antiquity. 
 
 These observations were made the subject of separate 
 chapters and disquisitions, and were illustrated with such 
 candour and extensive erudition that for a short time the 
 credit of the Parian Chronicle was shaken in the public 
 opinion. Early, however, in the following year, the objec- 
 tions of Mr. Robertson were replied to by Mr. Hewlett, in a 
 pamphlet entitled A Vindication of the Authenticity of the 
 Parian Chronicle, Lond., 1789; by Mr. Gough, in the ninth 
 vol. of the Archaiologia ; and by Porson, in the Monthly Re- 
 view ; and the result of their inquiries, coupled with the 
 defence of Wagner (Giitt., 1790), and the more recent in- 
 vestigations of Hales in his Chronology, and of Boeckh in 
 the second volume of his Corpus Inscriptionum, leave no 
 doubt respecting the authenticity and antiquity of the Parian 
 Chronicle. It is impossible within our limits to give a de- 
 tailed account of the manner in which these different 
 writers have disposed of the arguments of Mr. Robertson ; 
 suffice it to say, that they have established satisfactorily 
 that the Parian Chronicle is written in pure and classical 
 Greek ; that the characters bear several marks of antiquity ; 
 that the events it recounts are infinitely too minute and de- 
 tailed to have been forged ; and lastly, that the silence of 
 classical writers respecting it (which is perhaps the strong- 
 est argument against its antiquity) may be easily accounted 
 for from the retired and insular situation of Paros. (The 
 reader will find in vol. i. of Hale's Analysis of Chronology, 
 an examination of the dates assigned to the different events 
 recorded in the Parian Chronicle. See also the Penny 
 Cyclop.) 
 
 PARIAN MARBLE. See Marble. 
 
 PA'RIAS. The lowest class of the inhabitants of some 
 parts of Hindostan, who have, properly speaking, no caste, 
 and are supposed to be descended from original races of oc- 
 cupiers long since conquered by foreign invaders. In the 
 widest sense, the term appears to comprehend all the differ- 
 ent classes of distinct non-Hindoo tribes, and degraded or 
 foreign races, not comprised in the four Hindoo castes; 
 forming, probably, nine tenths of the whole population, ex- 
 clusively of the Mussulmans. 
 
 PAKI'ETAIi. (Lat. paries, a wal'.) In Botany, any 
 organ which grows from the sides of another. Those 
 ovaries are parietal which grow from the sides of a calyx ; 
 and placenta; or ovules have this name when they proceed 
 from the sides of the ovary. 
 
 PARIETAL BONES. Two arched and irregularly 
 square bones, one on each side of the superior part of the 
 skull. So called from paries, a wall, because they protect 
 the brain like walls. 
 
 PAB I.MPAI!. Among the Romans, the game of even or 
 odd. The game was played exactly as it is at present among 
 the children of our own country. 
 
 PA'RING AND BURNINH. The operation of paring 
 off the surface of worn-out grass land, or lands covered with 
 coarse herbage, and burning it for the sake of the ashes, and 
 ("or the destruction of weeds, seeds, insects, &c. Agricul- 
 turists differ as to the value of this mode of improving land ; 
 the greater number preferring a naked fallow even for one 
 or two years, alleging that more injury is done by the vege- 
 table matter lost in burning, than benefit obtained by the 
 ashes produced. Where the object is to bring land abound- 
 ing in coarse herbage immediately into a state of good cul- 
 ture, paring and burning is evidently the most rapid mode 
 that can be employed; and if the soil contains calcareous 
 matter, burning will have nearly the same effect on it as 
 if a dressing of quicklime had been applied. Much, how-
 
 PARISH. 
 
 ever, depends on the mode in which the land is treated af- 
 terwards. 
 
 PA'RISH. (Or. irapoiKta, a neighbourhood.) Properly, 
 an ecclesiastical division of a town or district subject to the 
 ministry of one pastor. In the earliest ages of the church, 
 the parochia was the district placed under the superintend- 
 ence of the bishop, and was equivalent to the diocess. It 
 denoted, says Bingham, not only what we now call a parish 
 church, but a city with its adjacent towns or country re- 
 gions. It was not until the Christians became sufficiently 
 numerous to present distinct congregations in the smaller 
 towns and villages that the bishop appointed his presbyters 
 to reside among them, and thus subdivided his diocess into 
 several parishes. This constitution is recognised in sev- 
 eral councils and other monuments of the fifth century. It 
 is, indeed, probable that in many cities there existed more 
 than one church and congregation even in the time of the 
 apostles ; but it does not appear whether these deserved 
 the name of parishes, as being each under the distinct 
 superintendence of its respective pastor. But although 
 parishes were originally ecclesiastical divisions, they may 
 now be more properly considered as coming under the class 
 of civil divisions; and consequently claim our attention un- 
 der this head. It is not easy to determine the era of the 
 division of England into parishes; they are mentioned in 
 the laws of King Edgar so early as 970, when the whole 
 kingdom seems to have been divided into parishes ; but it 
 is probable that the division was not made at once, but by 
 degrees. It is, according to Blackstone, pretty clear and 
 certain that the boundaries of parishes were originally as- 
 certained by those of manors; for it very seldom happens 
 that a manor extends itself over more parishes than one, 
 though there are often many manors in one parish. The 
 parochial division of England was nearly the same in the 
 reign of Edward I. (1-27-2-1307) as at present. 
 
 Parishes are frequently intermixed with one another. 
 This seems to have arisen from the lord of the manor hav- 
 ing had a parcel of land detached from the main part of his 
 estate, but not sufficient to form a parish of itself. It was 
 natural for him to endow the church which he had erected 
 upon his principal estate with the tithes of these disjointed 
 lands; especially if it happened that there was no church 
 in any lordship adjoining to them. 
 
 The boundaries of parishes depend on immemorial cus- 
 tom; but it is probable that they were not settled with 
 very minute precision till the introduction of the poor laws, 
 when, in consequence of the claim for relief upon their 
 particular parishes given to the poor, it became a mat- 
 ter of consequence to define exactly the limits of each 
 parish. They cannot now be altered but by legislative en- 
 actment. 
 
 In the northern counties, where the parishes sometimes 
 embrace thirty or forty square miles, the ponr laws, the due 
 administration of which must always depend on an intimate 
 knowledge of the situation and character of every one ap- 
 plying for relief, could not be properly carried into effect. 
 To remedy this inconvenience, an act was passed in the 
 13th of Charles II. permitting townships and villages, 
 though not entire parishes, severally and distinctly to main- 
 tain their own poor. Hence townships in the north of Eng- 
 land may be regarded as divisions subordinate to parishes; 
 and are, in practice, as distinctly limited as if they were 
 separate parishes. 
 
 Towns originally contained but one parish ; but, from the 
 increase of inhabitants, many of them are now divided into 
 several parishes. 
 
 Besides parishes, or townships, there are places which 
 are deemed extra-parochial, or not within the limits of any 
 parish. These were formerly the site of religious houses, 
 or of castles, the owners of which would not permit any in- 
 terference with their rights. At present they enjoy some 
 most valuable privileges ; among others, a virtual exemp- 
 tion from the poor's rate, because there is no overseer on 
 whom the order of a magistrate may be served — from the 
 militia laws, because there is no constable to make the re- 
 turn — and from repairing the highways, because there is no 
 surveyor. Their tithes are, by immemorial custom, paya- 
 ble to the king instead of the bishop. The number of such 
 places is not inconsiderable, amounting to more than 200. 
 It seems highly inexpedient that any part of the country' 
 should enjoy such an exemption from burdens imposed for 
 the benefit of the community. Extra-parochial wastes and 
 marsh lands, when improved and drained, are assessed to 
 all parochial rates in the parish next adjoining. In some 
 counties, liberties interrupt the general course of law as af- 
 fecting hundreds, in the same manner as extra-parochial 
 places do with regard to parishes. This inconvenience is 
 particularly felt in Dorsetshire. The number of parishes 
 and parochial chapelries in England and Wales is not ex- 
 actly ascertained ; but there are not many doubtful cases, 
 and for any general purpose they may safely be taken at 
 10,700. About 550 parishes extend into two counties, or 
 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 into more than one hundred or other divisions. (Black- 
 stoiie's Commentaries, Introd., § 4; and Preliminary Re- 
 marks to Census of 1831, p. 14-18.) 
 
 The parishes of Scotland are purely ecclesiastical : for an 
 account of the system on which they are divided, we must 
 refer the reader to the article Presbytery. 
 
 PARISH CLERK. The name of one of the lowest func- 
 tionaries of the English Church. Parish clerks are regard- 
 ed by the common law as persons having freeholds in their 
 office ; and consequently, though they may be punished, 
 they cannot be deprived, by ecclesiastical censures. In 
 former times parish clerks were frequently in orders, and 
 even at present this is sometimes the case. They are gen- 
 erally appointed by the incumbent, but by custom may be 
 chosen by the inhabitants. 
 
 PARK. A considerable extent of pasture and wood land 
 surrounding or adjoining the country residence of a man of 
 wealth, devoted to purposes of recreation or enjoyment, but 
 chiefly to the support of a herd of deer, though sometimes 
 to cattle and sheep. Parks were originally nothing more 
 than portions of forest scenery appropriated by the lord of 
 the soil for the exclusive use of animals of the chase ; but 
 this is now become in many cases a secondary considera- 
 tion, and the chief uses of a park are as indications of 
 wealth and extent of territory, and as grazing ground for 
 domesticated animals. 
 
 PARK OF ARTILLERY. An assemblage of the heavy 
 ordnance belonging to an army, with its carriages, ammuni- 
 tion wagons, and stores, on ground contiguous to that oc- 
 cupied by the troops when encamped. See Artillery 
 Park. 
 
 PA'RLIAMENT. (In modern Latin parliamentum, in 
 French parlement ; from the Fr. parler, to speak.) The su- 
 preme legislative assembly of Great Britain and Ireland. 
 
 Origin of Parliament. — By the principles of the feudal 
 system, every sovereign and every great feudatory had his 
 council, composed of his greater and lesser vassals, which 
 occasionally assembled to assist him both in judicial and 
 legislative matters ; and which was held in theory to be 
 permanent, so that its assent was necessary to the validity 
 of his acts. And it was also an ancient custom, in several 
 of the western kingdoms of Europe, for such potentates to 
 hold assemblies of their barons at the great festivals of the 
 year, termed cours plenieres and parlemens ; principally, 
 however, if not entirely, for the mere purpose of show and 
 magnificence. But occasionally such special assemblies 
 were summoned for more important purposes ; and the 
 meeting in 1146, at which the crusade of Saint Louis was 
 undertaken, is said to furnish the first occasion in which 
 the word parliament is used for a deliberative assembly. 
 In France, however, the word was afterwards transfer- 
 red to signify the principal judicial courts of that county. 
 (See Parliament.) The only realms in which it ap- 
 pears to have become appropriated to the great legisla- 
 tive assemblies are England, Scotland, and the Norman 
 kingdom of Sicily. The parliament of the latter country 
 consisted, in the 13th century, of spiritual and temporal 
 barons, summoned by the king's writ ; and occasionally, 
 but not uniformly, of deputies from the towns similarly 
 summoned. 
 
 All the extensive and laborious researches which have 
 been made, of late years, towards dispelling the obscurity 
 which rests over the commencement and early constitution 
 of our parliaments, have only shown that little new infor- 
 mation is attainable on the subject. We can, indeed, con- 
 jecture pretty accurately the process by which meetings of 
 delegates for the purpose of apportioning taxation became 
 gradually assemblies, granting or refusing supplies with ab- 
 solute authority ; and that by which a convention sum- 
 moned for the object of representing grievances to the sov- 
 ereign, and giving their approbation to his acts, became a 
 sovereign legislative body. But to investigate the internal 
 changes in the assembly itself, the mode by which it be- 
 came divided into distinct chambers, the manner in which 
 the peerage was formed as a distinct body out of the free 
 baronage of the country, and that in which the lower house 
 acquired the features of a regular representative body, 
 may be safely pronounced, with our present knowledge, 
 impossible. 
 
 The Norman and Plantagenet kings had two councils— 
 the great council of the kingdom, and the lesser or privy 
 council ; and it may be freely stated, after making all de- 
 ductions from the principle on the score of arbitrary powers 
 occasionally exercised by the sovereign, that, ever since the 
 Norman conquest, the supreme legislative power in Eng- 
 land has been placed in the king and great council conjoint- 
 ly. It was, moreover, in early times, a court of criminal 
 judicature also, and aided the sovereign in all the more im- 
 portant transactions of his government. It interfered even 
 in matters of ecclesiastical discipline ; in questions of peace 
 and war. of grace and justice ; and, by war of advice, in 
 the appointment to vacant offices, civil om ecclesiastical. 
 
 895
 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The meetings of the great council were at stated festivals 
 under the Norman kings; but alter the civil wars in the 
 reign of Stephen they were summoned at irregular periods. 
 The inferior or privy council, which, as well as the great 
 council, is indifferently termed curia regis in early writers, 
 w as composed of members named by the king, and con- 
 stantly attended <>n his person ; and this inferior body usurp- 
 ed, during the decadence of the great council, and before 
 the full establishment of parliament, many of the legisla- 
 tive functions of the former: but by Magna Charta all aids 
 and scutages were to be assessed by the great council ; 
 which thus, in principle at least, possessed a control over 
 the extraordinary revenues of the crown. Any meeting of 
 the great council, or of a portion of it, went by the ordinary 
 name of a " parliament," or colloquy. 
 
 But of the constituent parts of this assembly, and the 
 changes which took place in it, no writers give a satis- 
 factory account. All we know is, that it was supposed 
 to consist of all the tenants in chief of the crown ; but, 
 by the charter of King John, the archbishops, bishops, 
 abbots, earls, and greater barons, were to be summoned 
 personally ; the other tenants in chief by the sheriffs and 
 bailiffs. From this distinction is supposed to have arisen 
 the institution of the peerage as a separate body from the 
 lesser nobility, which so peculiarly distinguishes the con- 
 stitution of England from those of all other feudal mon- 
 archies. 
 
 From these mixed assemblies to a representative body the 
 change proceeded by steps, which it is impossible wholly 
 to trace. The first vestiges, perhaps, of representation, ap- 
 pear in the 15th year of King John, when, for a particular 
 purpose, writs were issued to the sheriffs, commanding them 
 to return four knights for each county, " ad loquendum cum 
 rege de negotio regni," at Oxford. But the better known 
 and more distinct evidence of the beginning of the system 
 is found in the Earl of Leicester's parliament after the bat- 
 tle of Lewes, in 48 Hen. 3, when four knights for every 
 county (except nine) were summoned to attend with the 
 barons, probably as representatives of the inferior nobility 
 or lesser barons ; and in the following years were issued 
 the earliest writs of summons to parliament. These were 
 to archbishops, bishops, and abbots ; to certain earls and 
 barons of the party of the Earl of Leicester; and to the 
 sheriffs of counties and boroughs, to return two knights and 
 burgesses, besides four from each of the Cinque Ports. And 
 although no subsequent writs directed to the sheriffs for the 
 purpose of county elections are in existence earlier than 18 
 Edw. I., nor of borough elections earlier than the 23d of the 
 same reign, yet it is at least highly probable that the exam- 
 ple set by the rebellious Earl of Leicester was ever after 
 substantially followed, and that the representatives of coun- 
 ties and towns were occasionally summoned to parliament, 
 as well for the purpose of assessing tallage and other aids 
 demanded, as tor that of giving their counsel respecting 
 oilier affairs of the government. Edw. I. usually held four 
 parliaments in a year; nor does it appear that these were 
 legislative assemblies : they were rather supreme courts of 
 justice, chiefly attended by the ordinary or privy council- 
 lors of the king; while the legislative assembly, certainly 
 composed, after the 23d of this reign, of lords spiritual anil 
 temporal and representatives of the commons, was sum 
 moned to meet the king occasionally during one of these 
 parliaments. 
 
 The constitutional law of the country, whatever it may- 
 have been in practice, was first declared by the statute 15 
 Edw. 2, which annulled the award against the king's fa- 
 vourites, the Despencers. In tins net the legislative au- 
 thority was declared to reside in the king, with tin' assent 
 of the prelates, earls, barons, and commons, assembled in 
 parliament; and from that time the real existence of that 
 body, and of the form of government which has ever since 
 subsisted, has been uninterrupted, except only during the 
 period of the Commonwealth. 
 
 The division of parliament into two houses took place at 
 a period which it is not possible to ascertain : but it is prob- 
 able that the three orders met in separate conventions for 
 the purpose of assessing taxation, and that the representar 
 lives of the commons were at no period admitted to sit in 
 
 the same chamber with the earls and barons at'ter these 
 were expressly summoned by the kins. Although the 
 numbers of both houses have varied materially, no funda- 
 mental alteration in their constitution took place from this 
 time until the union with Scotland. (See the Report of 
 the Lords' Committee on the Dignity of a Peer; Hallam's 
 Ctmstitt '.ional History of England.) 
 
 Hoi bi 01 I. onus. — 1. Temporal Peers. — The origin of 
 the F.ngltan peerage is involved in the same obscurity which 
 rests on other parts of our early constitutional history. 
 The greater barons, as before stated, appear under the tir-t 
 Plantagenet kings to have been those who were personally 
 summoned to (he council, while inferior tenants in capita 
 were summoned together by a general comnellnMnn hnt at 
 
 what period their dignity became strictly hereditary is rai- 
 knon n. 
 
 Baronies are either by tenure, by writ, or by patent 
 The first were the original feudal titles, in which dignity 
 was invariably attached to the possession of laud. The 
 greater barons, who sat of right in the great council, are 
 supposed, up to the reign of Henry III., to have been those 
 who were in the possession of entire baronies. But from 
 the date of 22 Edw. 1, it appears that the possessors of en 
 tire baronies ceased, of right, to be summoned to parlia- 
 ment ; and it is therefore generally held that no barony by 
 tenure subsists at the present day, although some recent ef- 
 forts have been made to establish a title to this peculiar dig- 
 nity ; the latest claim having been made on the barony of 
 Berkeley, by virtue of possession of the castle oPthat name. 
 Baronies by writ were created by writ of summons to par- 
 liament, which constituted an individual so addressed by 
 name, baron of the realm, and, it is supposed, also made 
 that dignity hereditary. The earliest writ of this descrip- 
 tion was issued 49 Hen. 3 ; and two now existing baronies 
 (Despencer and Roos) are considered to have been created 
 by it. In the case of a barony by writ, the dignity is not 
 conferred until the person so summoned has actually sat 
 in parliament. Baronies by writ descend in fee to all the 
 heirs of the body of the person first created. If there be 
 no son, and more daughters than one, the title falls into 
 abeyance until only one daughter, or the sole heir of only 
 one daughter, survives. 
 
 Baronies by patent are created by letters patent, under 
 the great seal, conferring the dignity on the donee ; in 
 which are inserted words of limitation. These are usually 
 to the heirs male of the body of the donee ; and where 
 there are no words of limitation in letters patent, it is held 
 that the dignity will pass in the same course. Otherwise, 
 the limitation is to other classes of heirs, or to specified 
 persons, and their heirs by way of remainder. See Re- 
 mainder. 
 
 yiscountcies are always created by letters patent. This 
 is the most modern of English titles of peerage ; and was 
 first conferred on John Viscount Beaumont, 18 Hen. 6. The 
 title vice-comes, or vice-earl, had been long employed to 
 denote the sheriff of a county. 
 
 Earldoms were introduced into England by the Xormans 
 at the Conquest. The dignity of an earl seems to have 
 been originally attached to the possession of a particular 
 tract of land ; but in the reign of Edward IU. it began to be 
 conferred by charters or letters patent, with an express lim- 
 itation either to heirs general or heirs male of the body of 
 the grantee. The word earl is of Saxon origin ; but an- 
 swers in dignity to the count (comes), in languages of Latin 
 descent. 
 
 Of Marquisates, the first was that of Dublin, conferred 
 on Robert De Vere, Earl of Oxford, for life, by Richard 
 II. The term marquis is derived from the Latin marchio, 
 signifying a military officer, governor of the mark or fron- 
 tier. This dignity has been always conferred by letters 
 patent. 
 
 Dukedoms are the highest titles of the English peerage. 
 The first was created 2 Edw. 3, when Edward the Black 
 Prince was made Duke of Cornwall. It has been a ques- 
 tion whether the duchies of Cornwall and Lancaster wire 
 not duchies by tenure ; but every other dukedom is a mere 
 personal honour, and conferred by charter or letters patent. 
 The term duke is derived from the Latin dux, Irathr of an 
 army; answering to the German herzog, which has the 
 same signification. 
 
 All peerages are forfeited by attainder for high treason ; 
 and attainder is consequent either on judgment or on out- 
 lawry, upon an Indictment for that offence. Nothing but a 
 reversal of such act of attainder by parliament can restore 
 an attainted person, or his posterity, to the lost dignity. 
 Hut where a peerage is vested in a person in tail male, with 
 remainder over to another in tail male, if the first be at- 
 tainted the peerage is forfeited as to him and I; 
 male; but, failing such issue male, the dignity becomes 
 vested in the remainderman, or his descendant 
 
 Peerages by writ are also forfeited by attainder for fel- 
 ony ; but not peerages by charter or letters patent. 
 
 By the twenty-second and twenty-third articles of the 
 Union between England and Scotland, sixteen re| 
 atives are elected by the Scots peers to serve in every par- 
 liament of the United Kingdom. The eldest sons of Scot- 
 tish peers were rendered, by a decision of the House of 
 Commons shortly after the union, incapable of sitting in 
 parliami nt, It was held for a long time that a Scottish 
 ]>ccr could not sit in the House of Lords if he became a 
 peer of Great Britain ; but the point was decided the other 
 way in 17-0. 
 
 By tin' Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland 
 (39 it 40 G. 3, c liT . twenty eight lords temporal are elect- 
 ed for life bj the peers of Ireland. Peers of Ireland, who 
 :• re members of 'he House of Commons, are not pH«*Mb *a
 
 PARLIAMENT, 
 
 serve as peers while they continue members of the former 
 house. 
 
 2. Lords Spiritual— -The right of the two archbishops 
 and twenty-four bishops of England and Wales to sit and 
 vote in parliament as members of the House of Lords, is 
 generally said to belong to them as barons of the realm. 
 It is undoubtedly probable that at the period of the Con- 
 quest a change took place in the tenure of the lands which 
 were held bv bishops and the high regular clergy ; and 
 that the Norman tenure by barony, tlren introduced for 
 the first time, was made to comprehend both spiritual and 
 temporal possessions, which under the Saxon kings had 
 been regarded in a different light. But it is most probable 
 that the dignitaries of the church were constituent mem- 
 bers of the great council of the realm, by the English as 
 well as all other feudal constitutions, independent of their 
 quality as barons (see Hallam, Middle ~1ges, c. viii-, part3) ; 
 but that the place which was assigned them in the House 
 of Lords, when the two houses became separate, was in 
 virtue of their baronial character. Under the Plantagenet 
 kings theclergy were summoned to meet by their represent- 
 atives, as well as the laity, when subsidies were required; 
 and under Edward I. (see Ltiders on Parliaments, chap, 
 iii.) attempts were made to unite them and the laity togeth- 
 er in Parliament: but they were always resisted by the 
 clergy, and at last they ceased altogether to attend in any 
 capacity, retaining their own assemblies. (See Convoca- 
 tion.) At the period of the dissolution of monasteries by 
 Henry YIH., the spiritual lords consisted of the then arch- 
 bishops and bishops, and of twenty-six mitred abbots, and 
 two priors, all of whom were then removed on the dissolu- 
 tion of their houses. The present spiritual lords have the 
 same rights and privileges in every respect as the temporal, 
 except that it is still a disputed point in constitutional law 
 whether they have a right, on charge of treason and felony, 
 to a trial by the peers ; and it is also doubted whether they 
 have judicial power, as peers, in capital cases. 
 
 By the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland, 
 four lords spiritual from among the archbishops and bish- 
 ops of that country sit in the House of Lords by rotation of 
 session. 
 
 House of Commons. — I. Persons qualified to serve in it. 
 — Persons incompetent to sit as members of parliament 
 are, first, those labouring under the incapacities of alien- 
 ■ship, attaint, outlawry in criminal proceedings, minority, 
 lunacy, &c; next, those who are disqualified by the pos- 
 session of certain offices, or by certain other temporary 
 causes. Clergymen, peers, Scotch peers, Irish peers for 
 places in Ireland, the eldest sons of Scotch peers for places 
 in Scotland, the fifteen judges of England, the Scotch judg- 
 es and barons of the Scotch exchequer, are ineligible. 
 Where the influence of government is supposed to have a 
 direct control over the party, a disqualification has been 
 created by various statutes. Persons concerned in the man- 
 agement of the revenues, with some few exceptions, are 
 ineligible. So are persons holding new offices under the 
 crown created since 1705, together with other persons men- 
 tioned in 6 Anne, c. 7. So pensioners during pleasure or 
 for a term years, police magistrates, government contractors, 
 and placemen in public offices, specified in 15 G. 2, c. 22. 
 There are also offices connected with the excise and cus- 
 toms which only disqualify the holder from sitting and vo- 
 ting, but not from being elected. Persons returned on a 
 ■double return are not competent to sit until the return is de- 
 cided by a committee. 
 
 The acceptance of any office of profit from the crown by 
 a member vacates his seat, by 6 Anne, c. 7. And there are 
 two places of no profit, the acceptance of which is consid- 
 ered to vacate a seat: viz., the stewardship of the Chiltern 
 Hundreds, and the stewardship of the manor of East Hun- 
 dred. Officers of the army and navy receiving new com- 
 missions are excepted from this statute : so are those who 
 accept a foreign employment, as ambassadors. 
 
 A member becoming a bankrupt is incapable of sitting and 
 voting for a year, unless within that time the commission 
 is superseded, or the creditors paid ; if this be not done 
 within the year, the seat of the member is vacated. 
 
 Whether a resolution of the house can render a person 
 ineligible, may still be considered an undecided question. 
 
 II. Electoral Franchise. — Since the Acts of Union with 
 Scotland and Ireland, and the changes introduced by the 
 Reform Act, the House of Commons consists of 658 mem- 
 bers— 500 English and Welsh ; 53 Scotch ; 105 Irish— divi- 
 ded as follows: 
 
 English and Welsh. Scotch. Iri«h. 
 
 Counties .... 159 30 64 
 
 Boroughs . 337 23 39 
 
 Universities — Oxford . . 2 Dublin 2 
 
 Cambridge . 2 
 
 500 53 ""l05 
 
 AH persons are competent to vote in the election of mem- 
 
 bers of parliament, except infants, women., aliens (unless 
 made denizens by letters patent or naturalized by act of par- 
 liament), persons convicted of felony and certain other in- 
 famous crimes, peers ; Irish peers, unless themselves mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons ; and persons holding va- 
 rious employments under government not freehold offices. 
 There are also some temporary disqualifications, arising 
 out of employment in particular characters at elections, 
 and the receipt of public alms. They must, however, 
 possess a certain qualification, which (except in the uni- 
 versities, in which the right of voting belongs to all such 
 as have attained certain academical degrees) is one of 
 property. 
 
 1. In English and Welsh counties, the right of voting be- 
 longs to all such as possess a freehold estate in lands, 
 tenements, or hereditaments, of the value of 40s. per an- 
 num above reprises; or who are seised of lands or ten- 
 ements in copyhold, or any other non-freehold tenure for 
 life, or for a larger estate of the value of 10/. per annum ; 
 or entitled as lessee or assignee to lands or tenements for the 
 unexpired residue of a term of not less than sixty years of 
 the same value, or of a term of not less than twenty years 
 of the value of 50/. per annum ; and occupiers of lands and 
 tenements at a bond fide rent of 501. or more per annum. 
 But freehold tenements for life, if under the value of KM. 
 per annum, do not confer a vote, unless the party is in the ac- 
 tual occupation of them, or unless they have come to him by 
 devise, marriage, &c and not by gift or sale. And in the case 
 of freeholds and copyholds, possession for six months before 
 the last day of July in the year in which the voter is regis- 
 tered is a necessary condition ; in that of leaseholds, &c, 
 twelve months. 
 
 2. The qualifications of voters in cities and boroughs, in 
 England, were, under the law as it stood before the Reform 
 Act, extremely various, and depending more on the local 
 law of every place than on the general custom of the coun- 
 try. The principal franchises were — 1. In respect of prop- 
 erty ; thus freeholders to the amount of 40s. voted in many 
 towns and cities which were counties of themselves ; lease- 
 holders, copyholders, &c, in other places ; and burgage, 
 tenants. The franchise of burgage tenure, which existed in 
 some towns, depended on the possession of certain ancient 
 tenements, which conferred a right to vote. 2. In respect of 
 corporate privileges. Freemen or burgesses, and in London 
 liverymen (see Corporation), enjoyed, by virtue of their 
 privilege, a right of voting in corporate towns. 3. In re- 
 spect of inhabitancy. Voters in this respect were of four 
 sorts : inhabitants paying scot and lot ; inhabitants house- 
 holders, housekeepers, pot-wallers (i. e., pot boilers), legally 
 settled ; inhabitants householders resiant ; inhabitants gen- 
 erally. In many towns, several of these qualifications 
 were recognised at the same time as conferring a right to 
 vote. 
 
 The alterations introduced into the system of borough 
 qualifications by the English Reform Act were twofold. In 
 the first place, a new franchise is created which is every- 
 where the same. Even* capable person who occupies with- 
 in the limits of a borough any house or building falling 
 within the specifications of the act, which is either separ- 
 ately or jointly with land held within the same borough as 
 owner, or of the same landlord, of the clear yearly value 
 of 10/.. is entitled to vote ; provided he has occupied such 
 premises for twelve months previous to the last day of July 
 in the year in which he is registered ; and provided he has 
 been rated, and paid all rates for the relief of the poor due up 
 to the 6th of April next preceding, and also all assessed tax- 
 es. In the next place, former franchises are modified as fol- 
 lows : Freemen, and, in cities being counties of them- 
 selves, freeholders and burgage tenants, are to retain their 
 qualification. But no one can claim to be registered as a 
 burgess or freeman who was admitted since the 1st of 
 March, 1831, except he derive his title through birth or ser- 
 vitude ; or for a freehold or burgage tenement for an estate 
 acquired since that day. All other borough franchises are 
 abolished, saving their rights to individuals possessed of 
 them at the passing of the Reform Act. 
 
 Finally, the act requires that every person, in order to be 
 registered as a voter for a city or borough, must have resi- 
 ded for six calendar months next previously to the last day 
 of Julv in that year within such city or borough, or within 
 seven "miles of it. And it is also provided, that no tenement 
 situate within a borough, and capable of conferring a qual- 
 ification on its occupier to vote within the borough, shall 
 give a vote for the county. 
 
 Several boroughs in Wales, as well as in Scotland, are 
 contributory ; several towns being joined in one for the pur- 
 pose of returning members to Parliament. 
 
 The system of registration of voters, in England and 
 Wales, w'as framed by the Reform Act. In counties, the re- 
 gister is formed by the overseers of the poor in every parish 
 or township making the list by inserting all persons who 
 have delivered to them, before the 20th of July in each year, 
 3K S97
 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 a claim to vote in respect of property situate within their 
 district. The lists thus drawn up by the overseers, accord- 
 ing to a form specified in the act, are delivered to the high 
 constable, and by him to the clerk of the peace for the coun- 
 ty. The overseers are empowered to object to any person 
 on their list whom they conceive not entitled to vote. They 
 are also to receive written notices of objection by third par- 
 ties, who are themselves voters or claimants, duly delivered 
 to them, and to mark the names of all parties so objected to 
 on the list. The lists thus formed are revised by the bar- 
 rister or barristers appointed for that purpose. These offi- 
 cers are nominated by the senior judge of assize travelling 
 the summer circuit within his district; and by the chief jus- 
 tice of the King's Bench in the metropolitan county and 
 boroughs. Their courts, for the purpose of revising the 
 lists and deciding on claims and objections, must be held 
 between the 15th September and 25th October in every 
 year. The lists revised by then) form the register for the 
 county, which is the authentic list of voters until the next 
 registration. Any person having his name and qualification 
 once inserted in the register is not bound to make a claim 
 another year. 
 
 In cities and boroughs the course is somewhat different. 
 On or before the last day of July in every year the over- 
 seers are to make out an alphabetical list of persons entitled 
 to vote under this act ; and another of persons entitled to 
 vote in respect of ancient rights (except freemen, the list 
 of whom is to be made by the town clerk, and in London 
 by the clerks of the several companies). Any person 
 whose name has been omitted in either of these lists is to 
 give notice of a claim, in writing, to the overseer or town 
 clerk. Objections are to be made, in boroughs, only by par- 
 ties whose names are inserted in the list. The lists are re- 
 vised by the barristers in the same manner as those for the 
 counties, and delivered to the returning officer. 
 
 3. In Scotland, the right of voting in counties is declared 
 by the Scotch Reform Act, 2 & 3 W. 4, c. 65, to be in the 
 owners of ancient rights (termed superiorities) not acquired 
 since 1831 : in such persons as have been owners for six 
 months previous to the last day of July of " any lands, feu 
 duties, or other heritable subjects," of the annual value of 
 10/. after deductions. Where two or more parties are in- 
 terested in any subject to which a right of voting is for the 
 first time attached by the act, as life-renter and as fiar, the 
 right shall be in the former. The right is also extended to 
 tenants for life, or on lease of fifty-seven years or more, 
 at £10 per annum ; tenants on lease of nineteen years or 
 more, or occupants at £50 per annum ; and tenants who 
 have paid for their interest a price of .£300. 
 
 4. In Scottish boroughs, the right of voting is in occupiers 
 of houses, &c. (as in the English Reform Act) of the year- 
 ly value of £10. Claims by qualified persons to vote for 
 counties are to be lodged with the schoolmaster, and he is 
 to make out the lists of claimants and objections. Claims 
 for votes in boroughs are given in to the town clerk, and the 
 lists made out by him. The sheriff holds courts to decide 
 on questions relative to the registration : his powers and du- 
 ties are analagous to those of the revising barrister in Eng- 
 land. 
 
 5. In Ireland, the right of voting in counties is in free- 
 holders at £10 per annum (by the act 10 G. 4, c. 8, which 
 abolished the old 40s. qualification) ; and by 2 & 3 W. 4, c. 
 88, in leaseholders for sixty years at £10 per annum, for 
 fourteen years at £20 ; and in copyholders at £10 per annum. 
 
 6. In counties of cities and counties of towns in Ireland, 
 the franchise is in £10 freeholders, £20 leaseholders, £10 
 householders, and in the 40s-. freeholders entitled under 4 
 G. 4, c. 55 ; but not in any persons acquiring such freeholds 
 since 1H31, except by descent, marriage, &c. ; and in £10 
 occupiers who have occupied for six months : in all other 
 boroughs, in £10 occupiers (the franchise being the same as 
 in England, with the exception that the words " or other 
 building" are omitted) who have occupied for six months. 
 The existing rights of freemen, &c, are saved. Registra- 
 tion in Ireland takes place at a special session, before the 
 assistant barrister or chairman of each county ; parties 
 desirous to be put on the register, whether for counties 
 or boroughs, having previously given notice to the clerk 
 of the peace, his deputy, or the high constable. Persons 
 declared by the assistant barrister to be entitled, verify 
 their title by affidavit, which is filed of record. An appeal 
 is given to the judges of assize. A certificate of registry 
 is given to each registered voter. Freeholders at £50 per 
 annum may be registered at assizes, or before a judge in 
 Dublin. 
 
 III. Mode of F.lection. — 1. In England and Wales, when 
 the sheriff" receives the writ commanding him to return a 
 knight or knight of the shire, or division of the shire, he 
 makes proclamation, within two days after rereh inu' the 
 writ, at the place where the election is to be holden : that 
 is, the principal |>olling place. Counties and divisions are 
 subdivided into convenient districts, with a polling place 
 
 in each. On the day fixed, after the Bribery Act has been 
 read, the candidates are proposed ; and the election pro- 
 ceeds. In boroughs, the sheriff (or other officer to whom 
 the writ is directed) sends his precept to the returning 
 officer, who acts in the same manner as the sheriff in the 
 county ; and boroughs are similarly divided into polling 
 districts. 
 
 When a candidate is proposed, he may be called on by 
 any other candidate, or any two of the electors, to swear 
 to his qualification. The qualification required by 9 Anne, 
 c. 5, is, for a knight of the shire £600 per annum in lands 
 and tenements, freehold or copyhold, for his own life, or a 
 greater estate; for burgesses, £300 per annum of similar 
 property. Eldest sons of peers, or of persons qualified to 
 sit as knights of the shire, are themselves qualified. Mem- 
 bers for the universities are not required to possess any 
 qualification. 
 
 It is still questionable whether the returning officer can 
 refuse to return a candidate who refuses to take the quali- 
 fication oath before the poll. After the election, and 
 before he takes his seat, each member must deliver to the 
 clerk of the house a paper signed by himself containing a 
 description of his estate of qualification, and is sworn to its 
 value at the same time at which he takes the other oaths. 
 His qualification may then be questioned in a petition 
 against his election. 
 
 When more candidates are proposed than the number to 
 be returned, the election is decided by the sheriffs de- 
 claring the majority on view (by calling on them to hold 
 up their hands). But a poll may be demanded by a candi- 
 date or elector, either before or after such declaration by 
 the sherirf. 
 
 The poll must commence on the day on which it is de- 
 manded, or on the day after. By the Reform Act (s. 58), 
 three questions only can be asked of any person offering to 
 vote as to his right — whether he is the same person whose 
 name appears on the register, whether he has already voted, 
 whether he has the same qualification for which his name 
 was inserted on the register ; and he may be required to 
 take the oath specified in the act as to his person and quali- 
 fication. Besides this, the oaths of allegiance, and supre- 
 macy, and abjuration, may be put to an elector at the 
 request of any candidate, unless the elector be a Roman 
 Catholic, in which case he may be required to take the 
 oath specified in 10 G. 4, c. 7 : all the foregoing oaths are 
 to be taken before commissioners. The briber)- oath may 
 also be administered at the poll by the returning officer. 
 There are also certain local oaths, required by act of par- 
 liament to be taken at the election for particular bo- 
 roughs. 
 
 By the Reform Act the poll was limited, in England and 
 Wales, to two days' duration, both in counties and bo- 
 roughs. And now, by a recent enactment, the poll is de- 
 clared, in counties, the day next but one after its close ; in 
 boroughs, the day after its close. By 5 & 6 W. 4, c. 1, the 
 duration of the poll in boroughs was further limited to a 
 single day. The return is made, in counties, by tacking 
 the names of the persons chosen to the writ ; in boroughs, 
 by tacking them to the precepts and returning them to the 
 sheriff, who then tacks them to the writ, and forwards the 
 whole together to the clerk of the crown in chancery. 
 Where the votes are equal, it is the practice to make double 
 returns. 
 
 2. In Scotland, the sheriff fixes the day for a county 
 election at not less than ten or more than sixteen days 
 after the writ is received : the counties are divided into 
 polling districts, not exceeding fifteen in number : and the 
 poll lasts two days. In boroughs similar regulations are 
 adopted to those in England ; but the sheriff, or his substi- 
 tute, superintends the poll, which may last three days. 
 The sheriff is the returning officer. 
 
 3. In Ireland, the sheriff proclaims the time and place 
 of a county election five days after receiving the writ ; and 
 from ten to sixteen days after such proclamation the election 
 is held. In boroughs, the sheriff of a county of a city or 
 town, the mayor, sovereign, or other returning officer, holds 
 the election, not later than eight days after receipt of the 
 precept from the sheriff. The poll shall commence on the 
 day on which it is demanded, and continue five days, but 
 may be closed on any day on which not more than twenty 
 persons have polled. 
 
 IV. Flection Committees. — In the first parliament of 
 James I. a committee of privileges and returns was ap- 
 pointed, to which the trial of every petition against an 
 election was referred which was not heard before the 
 House of Commons. A similar committee was appointed 
 at the commencement of every session, until the present 
 practice of trying such petitions before select committees 
 began. This practice is founded on a variety of statutes, 
 beginning with HI G. 3, c. 16, commonly called the Gren- 
 ville Act, consolidated by 9 G. 4, c. 22. 
 
 There are six sorts of petitions referred to a select com-
 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 miltee : 1. Complaining of undue election. 2. Of undue 
 return. 3. That no return has been made to the writ in 
 due time, &c. 4. That ttie return is not according to the 
 requisition of the writ ; or complaining of special matters 
 contained in it (as double returns or special returns). 5. 
 To oppose the right of election, or of appointing returning 
 officers, determined by a select committee, and repeated to 
 the house. 0. To defend such right. The four first may 
 be subscribed by any candidate or person claiming a right 
 to vote ; the two last by a* persons. A petition to be ad- 
 mitted as a party to defend such return, or oppose the 
 prayer of such petition, is addressed to the house, and not 
 referred to a committee. An election petition is presented 
 to the house by a member within a certain time limited by 
 the house. No proceedings will be had on petitions com- 
 plaining of an undue election or return, &c, unless the 
 subscriber, within fourteen days after its presentation, or 
 farther time limited by the house, enter into certain recog- 
 nizances for the payment of costs and compliance with 
 other conditions. 
 
 When such a petition is presented, a day and hour are 
 appointed by the house for taking it into consideration. At 
 that time, under the Grenville Act, if 100 members were 
 present, the parties and agents nttending, thirty-three were 
 selected by ballot; which number, on each party striking 
 off one alternately, was reduced to eleven. If more than 
 one petition is to be taken into consideration on the same 
 day, successive lists of thirty-three were formed, two, three, 
 or more, according to the number of members present in 
 the house. Voters, petitioners, members against whom 
 petitions are presented, and those whose return has not 
 been brought in, were disqualified from serving, and their 
 names, if drawn, were set aside. If no party appeared to 
 oppose the petition, the clerk of the house and the peti- 
 tioner reduced the list to eleven. This system was con- 
 siderably altered by the provisions of 2 & 3 Vict., c. 38, 
 an act introduced by Sir Robert Peel. Under it a gener- 
 al committee of elections is appointed by the speaker at 
 the beginning of every session. This general committee 
 chooses six members and a chairman to form a select com- 
 mittee to try an election petition, out of the whole list of 
 members, divided and corrected in the manner therein spe- 
 cified. 
 
 The same nicety, it is said, is not required in election 
 petitions, as to their form, as in pleadings at law; but it is 
 now decided, by a series of precedents, that it is necessary 
 that the matter intended to be proved should be sufficiently 
 set forth in the allegations of the petition ; and that, on 
 the hearing of the petition, it will not be competent to the 
 party to go into evidence in proof of facts not distinctly 
 alleged therein. But there is considerable variety in the 
 decisions as to what is sufficiency of allegation. An 
 election petition, when once presented, can only be with- 
 drawn by permission of the house : to which jurisdiction 
 in this respect is still left by the Grenville Act. The 
 house will therefore require to be satisfied that there is no 
 fraud or conceit in the withdrawal. Supplemental election 
 petitions may be presented, on the discovery of new mat- 
 ter after the presentation of the first petition. 
 
 In petitions of the first four classes, parties (if the elec- 
 tion is defended) are required to send in to the clerk of the 
 House of Commons lists of the votes to which they intend 
 to object. 
 
 Select committees sit every day ; but with power to ad- 
 journ for twenty-four hours on their own authority, and 
 for a longer period on leave obtained from the house on 
 motion. Members may only absent themselves by leave, 
 or on excuse to be allowed by the house : if any are absent 
 otherwise, the committee cannot sit. Committees are not 
 dissolved by prorogation of parliament, but adjourned to 
 the next time of meeting. 
 
 In the first four classes of petitions, the committee have 
 to try the merits of the election ; and to determine, by 
 their votes, whether the petitioners, or the sitting mem- 
 bers, or either of them, were duly returned ; or whether 
 the election is void, and a new writ ought to issue. The 
 fifth class raises the question as to the right of election, 
 or of nominating returning officers, &c. The determina- 
 tion of the committee is in each case final and conclusive; 
 and is embodied in its report to the house at the conclu- 
 sion of its sittings. A committee has also the power, if it 
 pleases, of making a special report, instead of deciding 
 generally on the merits ; in which case the house makes 
 such order on the report as may seem proper. An exami- 
 nation into the bad votes given on each side is termed a 
 scrutiny ; and the effect of it is, that if on balancing the 
 number of good votes retained after such examination the 
 petitioner has the majority, it is reported that he ought to 
 have been returned. Where an incapacitated person has 
 been elected, the principle of parliamentary law is, that if 
 his disqualification was sufficiently known to the electors 
 at the time they returned him, their votes are considered 
 
 as lost ; and it is reported that the next on the poll ought 
 to have been returned. If the fact of his disqualification 
 was not known, the election is simply void. It appears, 
 however, not to be absolutely decided whether the incapa- 
 city which renders the votes thrown away must be an in- 
 herent or contingent incapacity ; as, for example, where it 
 was publicly known that a candidate was disqualified by 
 reason of having been guilty of acts of bribery with refer- 
 ence to the election. In this case it has been argued that 
 the election is not void, but that the votes given for the 
 person so disqualified are thrown away. In other cases, 
 bribery, treating, undue interference, &.c, have the effect 
 of avoiding elections ; and the report is, that a new writ 
 ought to issue. 
 
 Finally, an election committee has the power of de- 
 claring either the petition, or the opposition to it, " frivo- 
 lous and vexatious" in its report ; the effect of which is to 
 fix the party against whom such declaration is made with 
 the payment of costs. These costs are ascertained by 
 application to the speaker, who directs two persons to tax 
 them, and then grants a certificate ; on production of 
 which in a superior court judgment may be entered up for 
 the amount. 
 
 V. Mode of Assembling Parliament. — Parliament can 
 only be convened by the authority of the king ; and, by 6 
 W. & M., c. 2, must be held at least once every threa 
 years ; but, in point of fact, as the Mutiny Act, Land Tax, 
 and Malt Act are only passed for a single year, the sittings 
 of parliament are of necessity annual. The same order by 
 the king in council which commands the lord chancellor 
 to cause the great seal to be affixed to a proclamation for 
 dissolving parliament, is accompanied with a warrant to 
 issue writs for a new one. Writs for the return of mem- 
 bers of the House of Commons are directed to the sheriffs 
 of counties, with certain exceptions : viz. the returning 
 officers of places counties in themselves, the Bishop of 
 Durham, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the 
 Chamberlain of the County Palatine of Chester, the 
 Constable of Dover, and the Warden of the Cinque Ports. 
 On a vacancy during the sitting of parliament, the writ 
 issues under warrant of the speaker by the authority of 
 the house itself. • 
 
 VI. Meeting of Parliament. Preliminary Proceedings. — 
 The new parliament meets on the return day of the writ, 
 unless prorogued by writ of prorogation ; but when it is 
 intended that it should meet for the actual despatch of 
 business on the day to which it is prorogued, notice to that 
 effect is given by proclamation forty days before ; and the 
 parliament begins only on the day to which it is prorogued. 
 The acts of meeting and passing a statute constitute to- 
 gether a session. Upon the assembling of parliament the 
 king meets it in person, or by representation, and explains 
 in his speech the reasons of convening it. In modern 
 times, the speech is not delivered until the commons have 
 chosen a speaker, which they receive a command from the 
 king to do. 
 
 The first occasion on which this important officer is ex- 
 pressly named occurs in the parliament 51 Edw. 3. His 
 duties are — to act entirely as the servant of the house 
 which appoints him. He takes the chair, which he can- 
 not do unless forty members are present ; maintains order, 
 by naming (if necessary) members who are disorderly ; 
 explains and informs on questions of order or practice, if 
 he is referred to. He can neither speak nor vote unless in 
 case of equality of votes ; or in committees of the whole 
 house, where, as soon as the chair is taken, he is reduced 
 to the footing of an ordinary member. 
 
 On the first day of the meeting of every new parliament 
 certain oaths are administered to the members by the 
 Lord Steward of the King's Household : these are the 
 oaths of allegiance, supremacy, and abjuration ; but, by 
 the Roman Catholic Relief Act, members professing that 
 religion take, instead of these oaths, a declaration substi- 
 tuted for them. By 33 G. 2, c. 20, they are also required 
 to make oath that they are qualified, and deliver in their 
 qualification at the table. But, previous to being sworn, 
 every person returned is to all intents and purposes a 
 member of the house, except as to the right of voting only. 
 Before the king's speech is taken into consideration, it is 
 usual to read a bill as a matter of form. The king's speech 
 being then reported to the house, an address of thanks, as 
 moved or as amended, is returned. The usual committees 
 are then appointed : of these the committee of privilege is 
 the only one of which the duties are at present of a prac- 
 tical kind. 
 
 The method of proceeding in making laws is, for the 
 most part, similar in the two houses ; but different in pub- 
 lic and private bills. 
 
 VII. Method of Proceeding on Bills in general. — Statutes 
 are divided into public and private ; and the distinction, in 
 a parliamentary sense, is merely derived from the payment 
 of fees, which are due on private and not on public acts. 
 
 899
 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 Constitutionally, public acts arc, in general, such as relate 
 to the kingdom at large ; private acts, to Individuals and 
 classes. Many acts, however, which immediately concern 
 classes only are within the category of public acts; as, for 
 instance, acts concerning all spiritual persons, or all lords 
 of manors. Judicially the distinction between the classes 
 is, that the courts of justice are officially bound to notice 
 public acts : but private acts must be formally shown or 
 pleaded. This rule, however, admits of certain technical 
 exceptions. 
 
 All private bills affecting the peerage must begin with 
 the lords; all bills which, directly or Indirectly, impose a 
 charge on the people must begin with the commons. This 
 class, therefore, includes all bills under which tolls may 
 be levied for private benefit ; such as bills for making 
 roads, canals, railways, bridges, inclosure bills, and bills 
 containing clauses inflicting pecuniary penalties for offences 
 against private property, &c. 
 
 All other private bills may begin with either house in- 
 differently ; but, in practice, one large class of private 
 enactments — viz. estate bills, which enlarge or alter the 
 power of individuals in disposing of their proprerty ; divorce 
 bills ; bills to enable parties, under statutable restrictions, 
 to alienate, &c, begin in the lords ; that house, from its 
 judicial character, being best fitted for the discussion of 
 similar subjects. On the other hand, bills concerning the 
 parliamentary rights, &c. of particular places, usually com- 
 mence, by custom, in the commons. There is one instance 
 of a bill which begins with neither house, but with the 
 crown ; viz. a bill for a general pardon. Bills are always 
 read in each house, after leave has been given to bring 
 them in, three times before they are passed (with the ex- 
 ception of bills of grace, such as for a general pardon, which 
 are passed on the first reading). General petitions against 
 a bill are usually ordered to lie on the table until the second 
 reading ; on which occasion counsel are heard against a bill, 
 whenever leave is given for their introduction. The second 
 reading affords the legitimate period for discussion on the 
 principle of the bill ; and the bill is then (as indeed it is, 
 on principle, in every stage) open to the proposal of amend- 
 ments. If a bill be rejected, either on the first or second 
 reading, it cannot be again proposed that session. After 
 the second reading, the bill is committed ; i. e., referred 
 either to a select committee, or, if the bill be of importance, 
 to a committee of the whole house. Such a committee 
 requires, in the commons, the presence only of forty mem- 
 bers ; in the lords, of all members in attendance. In com- 
 mittee the bill is debated clause by clause, with the advan- 
 tage that members are not restricted, as in a debate of the 
 house, to speaking once. The proper province of the com- 
 mittee is to consider the bill in its details. When the bill 
 has gone through the committee, the chairman reports it to 
 the house, with such amendments as the committee may 
 have made. The house can then agree or disagree with 
 the amendments of the committee. (See Amendment.) 
 The bill is then engrossed, and afterwards read a third time. 
 In the commons, it is usual to read a bill which originates 
 with the lords the third time on the same day on which it 
 is reported. A new clause added to a bill on the third 
 reading is termed a rider. A bill thrice read, and passed, 
 admits of no farther alteration, except for clerical errors. 
 A bill sent from the commons to the lords is usually read 
 the first time in the latter house on the day on which it is 
 brought; and, when It has passed through the different 
 stages, is sent back to the commons, with the amendments, 
 if any have been made, with which the commons then 
 agree or disagree ; the same process, substantially, being 
 followed, vice versa, where the bill originates with the 
 lords. The amendments returned with a bill from one 
 house to another are token into separate consideration ; and 
 the amendments, if agreed to, are always considered as 
 proceeding from that house in which the bill first originated. 
 If one house cannot agree to the amendments proposed by 
 the other, a conference is usually held between membere 
 deputed by each bouse, who can only make use of the in- 
 structions delivered by the house in their arguments, the 
 conference being desired by that house which disagrees 
 with the amendments in question. If the house which 
 amends is not satisfied at the first conference with the 
 reasons alleged fur its disagreement by the other, it desires 
 another conference ; if this too is unsuccessful, what is 
 termed a free conference may be demanded, in which the 
 managers of the conference are not under the same re- 
 strictions as to instructions, but may urge their own argu- 
 ments. If one or more free conferences fail of producing 
 unanimity, the bill is dropped. It is necessary to observe, 
 that in bills of supply (which originate in the commons) 
 the lords cannot make any except verbal amendments ; 
 they must either admit or reject altogether. When a bill 
 has passed both houses, it is deposited in the House of 
 I.nnjs, to wait fur the royal assent icxcept in the cam at a 
 bill of supply, which, is presented by the speaker to the 
 900 
 
 throne). The royal assent is given either in person, or by 
 letter patent under the great seal, notified by commission. 
 The bill then becomes a statute, is transcribed into a roll 
 by the clerk of the parliament, delivered into chancery, 
 and by usage, although not necessarily, printed at the king's 
 press. 
 
 VIII. Method of Proceeding- on Private Bills. — Petitions 
 for private bills must be presented in the Commons within 
 fourteen days after the first Friday in the session ; and, on 
 being presented by a member, are referred to a committee, 
 which is then named, consisting of five members selected 
 by the committee clerk. The committee on the petition 
 ascertains whether or not the standing orders applicable to 
 the case have been complied with, in which case they 
 make their report, accordingly, to the house : leave is then 
 given to bring in a bill, unless, as in some cases, it is expe- 
 dient first to re-commit the report. The bill having been 
 read a first time, after an interval, which is varied in prac- 
 tice according to the nature of its subject, the House pro- 
 ceeds to the second reading ; on which occasion objections 
 to the principle of the bill are usually made, specific objec- 
 tions to its provisions being more properly reserved to a la- 
 ter stage. A member may, individually, oppose a private 
 bill in any stage, or he may present a petition against it. 
 On the bill being read a second time, it is referred to a 
 committee, which is formed in the same manner as the 
 first committee on the petition. In the committee on the 
 bill all the blanks left on its first introduction are filled up, 
 and amendments introduced, and, if unopposed, the bill is 
 reported. Opposition to a private bill, in a committee of the 
 House of Commons, is conducted as follows : The petition 
 against the bill, having been referred to the committee, is 
 read there ; if the parties supporting it appear, the promo- 
 ters of the bill first state their case, and produce and sum 
 up their evidence in support of its preamble ; the opponents 
 next state their case, and produce and sum up their evi- 
 dence against it ; the promoters then reply, and the com- 
 mittee vote. If the committee resolve that the preamble 
 is proved, the clauses are read, and the opponents are at 
 liberty to make objections to each successively, the promo- 
 ters not being called upon otherwise to offer evidence in 
 support of them. The presence of five members of the 
 committee is necessary to any proceeding. A committee 
 cannot dissolve itself, and consequently its existence con- 
 tinues until it has reported to the House ; although by ad- 
 journing indefinitely, or by voting the chairman out of the 
 chair, they might in effect entirely release themselves from 
 the duty imposed on them ; but the House, in similar cases, 
 has exereised the power of ordering the committee to pro- 
 ceed forthwith. 
 
 When the report is brought up and read, as in the case 
 of other bills, it is ordered to lie on the table. After seven 
 days, the amendments having been read and agreed to, it 
 is ordered to be engrossed; after which it is competent to 
 any member to move the third reading of it. Additional 
 clauses added at this time are termed riders. When pass- 
 ed, the member who presented the petition, with seven 
 others, takes it to the House of Lords, and delivers it to the 
 lord-chancellor. If the lords make amendments, the con- 
 currence of the Commons to these amendments is moved 
 by the same member. Should the lord's amendments not 
 be agreed to (a rare occurrence in private bills), a confer- 
 ence is held by a deputation from both Houses ; and, should 
 the disagreement continue, the bill is finally withdrawn, or, 
 rather, dropped. 
 
 IX. Standing Orders of the House of Commons. — These 
 are a series of regulations, adopted by way of resolutions of 
 the House at various periods, from 1685 to the present time, 
 relating partly to the internal order, &c, of the House, 
 partly to certain preliminaries and forms required on the 
 introduction of particular bills, both public and private, and 
 to the promulgation of statutes. The most numerous of 
 these relate to private bills, and specify the mode of sign- 
 ing and presenting, the time for delivering notices and their 
 necessary contents, the formalities to be required respect- 
 ing instruments, and a variety of other particulars. When 
 a resolution is made which is intended to he permanent, it 
 is usual to add the form, " Ordered that the said resolutions 
 be standing orders of the House." Standing orders on pri- 
 vate bills are sometimes (but only on special application) 
 dispensed with by the House, or farther time, &c, given 
 for complying with them. 
 
 X. Rules of Business in the two Houses. — In the Com- 
 mons, a house for the transaction of business consists of 
 forty members, by an order of the year 1(>40 ; and, if a less 
 number he present, the speaker will not take the chair. 
 This rule extends to committees of the whole House. Tho 
 s|waker of the Mouse of Commons cannot speak in the 
 Mouse ; the speaker of the Mouse of Lords may. A call of 
 the House of Commons is an expedient to secure attendance 
 for an important occasion : when it is made, members ab- 
 sent without leave may be ordered to be taken into custody.
 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 No member can be present on the debate of a bill or other 
 business concerning himself. The order " for the sergeant- 
 at-arms to take into custody strangers that are in the gallery 
 of the house" is repeated every year, the first instance hav- 
 ing been in 1705 ; so that the House of Commons is suppo- 
 sed to sit with closed doors, although the order is partly 
 permitted to be infringed. When the speaker's mace lies 
 upon the table of the House of Commons, it is a house ; 
 when under, a committee ; when out of the house, no busi- 
 ness can be done ; when in the hands of the sergeant at the 
 bar, no motion can be made. 
 
 With regard to the manner of speaking and voting in the 
 Commons, motions are made, and petitions presented, by a 
 member in his place ; the readings of bills, &c, are moved 
 at the table. The member who moves a motion puts it in 
 writing, and delivers it to the speaker, who, when it has 
 been seconded, puts it to the house ; it cannot then be 
 Withdrawn except by leave of the house. The motion to 
 adjourn is put in order to supersede a motion of which the 
 house is already in possession. The motion for reading 
 the order of the day has equally the effect of superseding 
 the existing question. The motion for the previous question 
 has been commonly but mistakenly attributed to Sir Harry 
 Vane, as its inventor. It can take place only in a house, 
 and not in a committee ; in which latter the equivalent 
 motion is, that the chairman do now leave the chair. The 
 speaker names the member whom he first perceives to rise 
 in order to speak, but the house is not bound by the speak- 
 er's decision. It is understood to be the rule that a member 
 may speak even after the question put, if the affirmative 
 voice only has been given, and the negative not yet given. 
 The effect of the speaker's " naming a member," on the 
 occasion of disorder in the house, is that such member, af- 
 ter being heard, if he pleases, is directed to withdraw, and 
 the house then considers what penalty to inflict. In the 
 commons, votes are given by aye and no ; if a division is 
 demanded, the speaker (by a resolution of 1603) appoints 
 two tellers on each side to count. Strangers are directed 
 to withdraw, and the doors closed before the question is 
 put. On a division one party leaves the body of the 
 house, the other remains ; and the general rule is, that 
 the side which is for the innovation goes out; thus, on the 
 question on a bill, the affirmative voices go out : but this 
 rule is governed in its application by various special 
 usages. On a division in a committee of the whole house, 
 the ayes go on one side, and the noes on the other. The 
 speaker has the casting vote in a house, the chairman in a 
 committee. 
 
 In the House of Lords. — The general rules of proceeding 
 in the House of Lords vary little in material points from 
 those adopted by the commons. The speaker can debate 
 as well as vote. Votes are given seriatim, the youngest 
 baron voting first. The privilege of the lords to vote by 
 proxy is only by license from the king. Proxies from spirit- 
 ual lords are only to spiritual ; proxies from temporal only 
 to temporal. No lord can hold more than two proxies. 
 The lord-chancellor is ex officio speaker of the House of 
 Lords ; and, as he is able to speak and vote, he has no 
 casting vote : the rule, therefore, in case of equality of 
 voices, always is that the presumption is in favour of the 
 negative side. 
 
 With regard to messages between the two houses, those 
 from the commons to the lords are sent by one member, 
 but will not be received unless eight, at least, attend in all. 
 Messages from lords to commons are sent by two masters 
 in chancery ; or, on special occasions, by two judges. Mes- 
 sages from the king are of various sorts : those to the com- 
 mons, to desire any proceeding on their part, are usually 
 written in the king's own hand ; those which are sent 
 when a member of the house is put under arrest on ac- 
 count of the public service, are verbal, and delivered by a 
 minister of the department of service concerned. (See 
 HatselVs Precedents in Parliament.) 
 
 XI. Jurisdiction of Parliament as a Court of Justice. — 1. 
 For the trial of a peer, indicted for treason or felony, or for 
 misprision of either, the lords spiritual and temporal sit as 
 the court of the lord high steward of England, an office 
 which is, in general, created pro hdc vice by a commission 
 under the great seal. But, if the trial should occur during 
 the sitting of Parliament, it is said to be before the same 
 court " of our lord the king in Parliament ;" in which case 
 the high-steward is only, as it were, pro tempore speaker 
 of the house, and has a vote with the other peers ; where- 
 as in his own courts, held in the recess of parliament, he is 
 judge of the court, and, like any other judge, sole arbiter on 
 the question of law. 
 
 2. The House of Lords has also a twofold jurisdiction : 
 first, in criminal cases ; second, in civil cases. 1. The first 
 is for the trial of high crimes and misdemeanors by the 
 method of parliamentary impeachment by the House of 
 Commons. (Sec Impeachment.) The proceeding on a bill 
 of attainder, or of pains and penalties, is, in fact, a legisla- 
 76 
 
 tive act, and not a judicial one. (See Attainder, Pains 
 and Penalties, Bill of.) 2. The jurisdiction of the House 
 of Lords, in civil cases, is divided by Lord Hale into their 
 jurisdiction in the first instance, and in the second instance 
 as a court of appeal ; but the former, which consisted in 
 special powers of interference, occasionally exercised for 
 particular purposes, is now obsolete. In the last instance, 
 the House of Lords is the supreme court of judicature in the 
 kingdom. Appeal lies to it, by writ of error, from the Court 
 of King's Bench, and from the subordinate court of appeal 
 of the Exchequer Chamber; and appeal from the High 
 Court of Chancery also, not only in order to obtain the re- 
 versal of a decree, but also on any interlocutory matter. 
 On writs of error, the House of Lords pronounces the judg- 
 ment ; on appeals, it gives directions to the court below to 
 rectify its own decree. 
 
 XU. Privilege of Parliament, in the ordinary sense of 
 the words, denotes the privileges of individual members of 
 either house, enjoyed by virtue of their seats. These pri- 
 vileges are partly limited by known precedent, or by statute ; 
 but they are to a great extent customary, and the houses 
 themselves constitute the only tribunals before which the 
 inquiry whether their privileges have been violated or not 
 can be instituted. 
 
 The first privilege is freedom of speech in debates : this 
 claim is sanctioned by the statute 2 W. & M. 2, which de- 
 clares the liberties of the people. This privilege does not 
 extend to the publication of what is spoken : if a member 
 publish his speech without the authority of the house, he 
 is liable to the common legal tribunals for its contents. An 
 exception to the privilege also is to be found in the juris- 
 diction of the house itself; which has the power of com- 
 mitting, expelling, or fining (the latter not exercised since 
 the reign of Elizabeth) a member for a libel or contempt 
 against the dignity of the house. 
 
 The next privilege, of freedom from arrest in civil suits, 
 is probably as old as parliament itself. Privilege of parlia- 
 ment was formerly supposed to exempt peers and members 
 of the House of Commons from civil actions as well as ar- 
 rests ; but this was finally abolished by 10 G. 3. This is 
 the privilege of peerage, not of parliament ; consequently it 
 extends to Scotch and Irish peers. The exemption does not 
 extend to criminal cases, or breaches of the peace ; or to 
 attachments in case of contempt by the superior court. 
 And, by a peculiar process enacted by 10 G. 3, a member 
 of parliament may be made a bankrupt. Unless the com- 
 mission is superseded within twelve months from its being 
 issued, he vacates his seat. The liberation of parties im- 
 properly arrested is effected either by the authority of the 
 houses themselves, or, when parliament is not sitting, or (in 
 the case of peers) when it is dissolved, by writ of privilege, 
 or on motion in the superior courts. The duration of the 
 privilege, in the case of members of the lower house, is not 
 exactly defined. It is the general opinion that it extends 
 forty days after every prorogation, and forty days before the 
 next appointed meeting. Members of parliament are not 
 liable to be called on to serve as jurors during sitting or ad- 
 journment. 
 
 The old privilege of franking was fixed, by 4 G. 3, c. 24, 
 to continue during the same period which is mentioned as 
 that of freedom from arrest. By 35 G. 3, c. 53, it was re- 
 strained to letters within an ounce in weight, and the num- 
 ber to ten sent and fifteen received. It is now altogether 
 abolished. 
 
 The general or " ancient and just" privileges of the houses 
 are, as has been said, undefined. " The law of parliament," 
 says Hallam, " as determined by regular custom, is incorpo- 
 rated into our constitution ; but not so as to warrant an in- 
 definite uncontrollable assumption of power in any case, 
 least of all in judicial proceedings, where the form and es- 
 sence of justice are inseparable from each other." 
 
 Besides the general privilege of parliament, we may here 
 briefly notice the privileges claimed by the two houses, or 
 by members of them, with respect to the conduct of their 
 legislative proceedings. 
 
 Two privileges peculiar to the House of Lords are, 1. 
 That possessed by every peer of giving his vote by proxy. 
 (See ante, Rules of business in the two Houses.) 2. That 
 which he possesses of entering on the journals of the house 
 his dissent from a vote of the house, together with his rea- 
 sons for it, which is styled his protest. The first protests, 
 with reasons annexed, are said by Lord Clarendon to have 
 been made in 1641. 
 
 Of the peculiar privileges of the House of Commons, the 
 most important is that of originating all money bills; and 
 this, in principle, is a very ancient part of the constitution. 
 But it was not before 1690 that it was fully established that 
 the lords could not alter, any more than originate, any rate 
 or tax granted by the commons. This privilege is now un- 
 derstood under the following limitations : In bills of aid 
 and supply, the lords can neither originate them nor make 
 any alterations beyond verbal amendments. In bills which 
 
 901
 
 PARLIAMENT. 
 
 impose pecuniary burdens ns a collateral object — such, for 
 example, as bills for turnpike roads and canals, or for the 
 management of the poor — the lords may make amend- 
 ments, but not such as affect the quantity, disposition, or 
 collection of the rate. No amendments may be made by 
 the lords which appear likely, in their consequences, to 
 bring a charge on the people ; nor can they insert or alter 
 pecuniary penalties and forfeitures in a bill. 
 
 By a resolution bearing date 1667, and now strictly ad- 
 hered to, any proposition for taxing the subject must be first 
 examined by a committee of the whole house, and their 
 opinion reported. The effect of this rule is, that subjects 
 on which frequent speaking by the same member, and other 
 departures from regular proceedings are desirable, are dis- 
 cussed in a meeting unfettered by some of the special rules 
 of the house. 
 
 When a bill of supply has received the concurrence of 
 the lords, it is returned to the commons, and by them pre- 
 sented to the throne. 
 
 XIII. Adjournment. — An adjournment is a continuance 
 of the session from one day to another. This is done by 
 each house for itself, either from day to day, or over a re- 
 cess, as at Christmas and Easter. In neither house can the 
 speaker adjourn unless upon motion of the house. The 
 king can signify his desire of an adjournment ; but has no 
 further power. 
 
 XIV. Prorogation of Parliament. — A prorogation is the 
 continuance of parliament from one session to another: 
 and is made by the royal authority, either expressed by the 
 lord chancellor in the king's presence, or by writ under the 
 great seal, or by commission. In the proclamation for pro- 
 rogation, if it is intended that parliament, when next it 
 meets, shall proceed to the despatch of business, notice is 
 given of that purpose ; and such notice bears date usually 
 forty days at least before the day appointed for meeting ; 
 but, in time of rebellion or danger of invasion, the king is 
 empowered to call together parliament with fourteen days 
 notice only. 
 
 XV. Dissolution of Parliament is effected either, 1. By 
 the king's will, which is the exercise of one of his highest 
 prerogatives : this is usually done by proclamation after 
 parliament has been prorogued. 2. By the demise of the 
 crown ; but, by 7 & 8 W. 3, the existing parliament con- 
 tinues six months after that event; assembles immediately, 
 if under prorogation or adjournment ; and if there be no 
 parliament at the time, the members of the last parliament 
 are empowered to reassemble themselves. 3. By efflux of 
 time ; viz : at the end of every seventh year, if not sooner 
 dissolved by the Septennial Act, 1 G. 1, s. 2, c. 38. The 
 seven years are counted from the day on which parliament 
 was appointed to meet in the writ of summons. 
 
 Pa'rliament, or Parlement. (Fr. parlement.) The 
 title of certain high courts of justice under the old French 
 monarchy. The French parliament, like those of England 
 nnd Naples, was, in its origin, a convocation of the great 
 vassals of the crown, who treated of judicial as well as 
 political matters in their assemblies. Saint Louis was the 
 king who first introduced into this body counsellors of In- 
 ferior rank, chiefly ecclesiastics, as legal assistants ; and 
 the earliest registers of the proceedings of the parliament, 
 which afterwards became fixed at Paris, are of the date of 
 1254. The important step of rendering that court perma- 
 nent, and fixing its seat in the capital city, is generally at- 
 tributed to Philip the Fair (1304) : from that time the great 
 barons gradually discontinued their attendance, and the 
 lawyers occupied the higher places and more important 
 functions of the court. The twelve peers of France, how- 
 ever, remained constant members of the parliament, after 
 the other great vassals had, by disuse, ceased to be consid- 
 ered as members of it (although they, likewise, in process 
 of time, ceased to take part in its judicial business). The 
 parliament of Paris henceforward remained the chief tri- 
 bunal of the country until the revolution, with the excep- 
 tion of the short period of its suppression by Louis XV., in 
 1771 ; but as the great fiefs of the French monarchy were 
 successively united to the crown, the supreme feudal court 
 of each was invested with the title and attributes of a par- 
 liament. These were fixed at Toulouse, Grenoble, Bor- 
 deaux, Dijon, Besancon, Kouen, Aix, Pau, Rennes, Metz, 
 Pouay, Nancy. The most remarkable prerogative exercised 
 by the parliaments is one of which the origin lias not been 
 satisfactorily accounted for; that of registering theedictsof 
 the sovereign, and thereby giving them the force of law. 
 M. Meyer (institutions Jiidiciaira, liv. iv., ch. 9,) supposes 
 that it arose from the character of the parliament! as the 
 court of the feudal lord of each province : thus, the edict 
 of the king of France was referred to the parliament of 
 Bordeaux, to examine whether it interfered with the special 
 rights and duties of the same sovereign as duke of Guienne, 
 &c. It appears, however, to have been the received doc- 
 trine, by the end of the 14th century, that this formality of 
 registration was essential to the validity of an edict in every 
 003 
 
 PARR. 
 
 province. Hence the important part which the parliament*, 
 and especially that of Paris, so often enacted in French 
 history, in modifying the otherwise absolute power of the 
 inonarchs. (See Bed of Jubtice.) It was usual for the 
 parliament of Paris, and undoubtedly legal, although not 
 customary, for the other parliaments, to convey remon- 
 strances to the king on the subject of his edicts. But 
 Louis XIV., ordained that these remonstrances should 
 always be presented after they had testified their obedience 
 by registering them. The parliaments had also a power of 
 a legislative character, that of pronouncing arrets tie regle- 
 ment, by which they gave authoritative decisions on legal 
 questions, not only binding on present but in future cases. 
 The counsellors of parliament were, by a law of Louis XL, 
 immoveable except in case of legal forfeiture ; but the place 
 of counsellors and presidents early became purchasable, 
 and afterwards transmissible by hereditary descent. Hence, 
 in part, the powerful esprit de corps which distinguished 
 those bodies. As a high court of appeal, the parliament of 
 Paris was divided into five chambers ; one termed the great 
 chamber, three des enquetes, one des requites. Besides 
 these, the chambre de la tournel'e, in which criminal cases 
 were tried, was a fluctuating court, in which members of 
 all the regular chambers sat in turn. 
 
 PA'RLOUR (Fr. parler, to speak), signified, originally, 
 the little room in which, in former times, the nuns and 
 monks used to give interviews to their visiters; or in which 
 the novices used to converse together at the hours of re- 
 creation. 
 
 PARME'NIANISTS. In Ecclesiastical History, a name 
 given to the Donatists (see that article), from Parmenianus, 
 Bishop of Carthage, one of their chief leaders, and an 
 antagonist of Augustine. 
 
 PARNA'SSUS. In Mythology, a celebrated mountain 
 in ancient Greece, sacred to Apollo and the Muses, and, 
 from the numerous objects of classical interest of which it 
 formed the theatre, considered "holy" by the Greeks. On 
 its side stood the city of Delphi, near which flowed the 
 Castalian spring, the grand source of ancient inspiration ; 
 and from this circumstance, in metaphorical language, the 
 word Parnassus has come to signify poetry itself. A good 
 collection of the Italian poets, printed at Milan, bears the 
 title // Parnasso Ilaliano. 
 
 PA'RODY. (Gr. uapa, and u>Srj, "■ song.) A species of 
 composition in which the form and expressions of portions 
 or passages of grave or serious writings are closely imi- 
 tated in similar passages of a ridiculous character. Parody 
 is a species of burlesque (see Burlesque) ; but the imita- 
 tion is more close and exact than in ordinary burlesque 
 composition. Antiquity has left us no complete works of 
 this species, although some fragments are preserved by 
 Athena?us and other writers. The Batrachomyomachia, 
 the authorship of which is attributed to Homer, though a 
 very ingenious specimen of the burlesque, is not, in the 
 modern sense of the word, a parody. The French critics 
 do not seem to draw an adequate distinction between the 
 nature of a parody and a travestie. 
 
 PAR'O'L. (Fr. parole.) In Law, word of mouth. Thus, 
 a parol agreement is contrasted with one in writing, parol 
 with written evidence, &c. For the legal principles bear- 
 ing on this distinction in different cases, see Agreement, 
 Contract, Evidence. 
 
 PARO'LE. In Military matters, the allowing of prisoners 
 to enjoy certain indulgences, on their giving their word of 
 honour (parole, d'honneur) that they will not serve, during 
 the continuance of the war, against the country by which 
 they are liberated, or upon their pledging their word to 
 abide by such other conditions as may be stipulated. 
 
 PA'RONOMA'SIA. (Gr. mipa, and ovo/mi, a name.) In 
 Rhetoric, a figure by which the same word is used in dif- 
 ferent senses, or words similar in sound are set in opposition 
 to each other ; so as to give a kind of antithetical force to 
 the expression. 
 
 PARONY'CHIA. (Gr. jrapa, and ovv\, the nail.) A 
 whitlow. 
 
 PARO'NYMOUS. (Gr. ovoua, name.) In Grammar, 
 words of similar derivation, or principal words with their 
 derivation: e.g., equus, eques, equito ; man, manhood, man- 
 kind. 
 
 PARO'TID GLAND. (Gr. vapa, and ovc, the ear.) A 
 large gland situated under the ear, between the maxillary 
 process of the temple-bone and the angle of the lower jaw. 
 It secretes saliva, which is carried into the mouth by the 
 Stcnonian duct. 
 
 PA ROTI'TIS. Inflammation of the parotid gland. The 
 mumps. 
 
 PA'ROXYSM. (Gr. itnpa, and o\v<;, sharp.) In Medi- 
 cine, the periodical exacerbation of a disease. 
 
 PARK. This name is applied in most parts of England 
 and Scotland to the young of the salmon (Salmo salar, 
 Linn.) up to near the end of their second year, when they 
 lose their dark lateral bars by the superaddition of a silvery
 
 PARREL. 
 
 pigment, and congregate together for their seaward migra- 
 tion. From the circumstance of the milt and roe being 
 developed at this immature period, a precocious condition 
 by no means uncommon in the cold-blooded tribes, the parr 
 has been regarded by some ichthyologists as a distinct 
 species, and was described as such by Willoughby and Ray, 
 under the name of Salmo salmuiu-s. See Salmon. 
 
 PA'RREL. In Naval language, the collar of greased 
 rope, or trucks, by which the yard is confined to the mast, 
 while it slides up and down it. 
 
 PA'RRICIDE. (Lat. pater, a father, and csdo, / kill), 
 implies, properly, the murder or murderer of a father. But 
 the term is also extended to the murder of any near rela- 
 tive, as a husband, wife, mother, &c. ; and even to that 
 of distinguished or sacred persons, as a king, archbishop, 
 &c. The Athenians had no law against parricides, from 
 an opinion that human atrocity could never reach to 
 the guilt of parricide. This was also originally the case 
 at Rome ; but at a later period parricide was punished by 
 the Roman law with greater severity than any other kind 
 of homicide. The delinquent, after being scourged, was 
 sewn up in a leathern sack, with a live dog, a cock, a 
 viper, and an ape, and so cast into the Tiber. The Eng- 
 lish laws treat this crime only as simple murder ; but in 
 some of the German states the criminal convicted of par- 
 ricide is put to death with exquisite torture, the penalty be- 
 ing that such persons shall be beaten to death with iron 
 clubs, beginning with the feet, and gradually ascending to 
 the head. 
 
 PA'RSEE. (Pers. parsi.) The name given by English 
 writers to the Persian refugees, driven from their country 
 by the persecutions of the Mussulmans, who now inhabit 
 various parts of India. Their principal emigration to 
 Baroach, Surat, and the neighbouring coast, is supposed 
 to have taken place about the end of the eighth century. 
 The sacred fire, the emblem of their religion (seeGuEBREs), 
 called behrem, is believed by them to have been brought by 
 the first emigrants from Persia, and, after many changes 
 of place, is now preserved at Odisari and Nausari, near 
 Surat, and at Bombay. In this latter city, under the pro- 
 tection of the British government, they have grown into a 
 colony of considerable numbers and of great opulence. 
 They have become particularly distinguished in the art 
 of shipbuilding, and the dock-yard of Bombay is now al- 
 most exclusively in their hands. Their character is vari- 
 ously estimated by different observers ; but all agree in 
 attributing to them industry and economy, and attachment 
 to their religion, and to those of the higher class strong 
 sentiments of honour and honesty. Their number is said 
 to equal 700,000 ; and at Bombay, according to late calcula- 
 tions, at least 20,000. 
 
 PA'RSING. The art of resolving a sentence into its 
 grammatical elements or parts. 
 
 PA'RSON. (Lat. persona ecclesia?.) In Law, one that 
 has full possession of all the rights of a parochial church. 
 His title is derived from the Latin persona, because in his 
 person the church itself which he occupies is represented ; 
 and he is a corporation sole. A parson, or rector, has the 
 freehold of the parsonage-house, the glebe, the tithes, and 
 other dues, during his life. Four requisites are necessary 
 to constitute a parson : holy orders, presentation, institu- 
 tion, and induction. See these terms. In common lan- 
 guage, parson is a vulgar term for a clergyman of any 
 kind. 
 
 PART. (Lat. pars.) In Music, a single piece of the 
 score or partition, being one set of the successions of sounds 
 which constitute the harmony. 
 
 PARTE'RRE. (Fr.) A system of beds of different 
 shapes and sizes in which flowers are cultivated, connected 
 together, with intervening spaces of gravel or turf, for 
 walking on. The form of the beds may vary according to 
 the taste of the designer; but their breadth should never 
 be greater than will admit of the spectator who wishes to 
 gather flowers, or the gardener who is to cultivate them, 
 reaching the middle. Where the object is chiefly to pro- 
 duce a display of flowers, the beds should be of simple 
 shapes, with few acute angles, as these can never be com- 
 pletely covered with plants ; but where the object is to dis- 
 play a curious figure, to be seen from a point considerably 
 above the level of the parterre, the beds may be formed of 
 arabesque shapes, or like the figures used in embroidery 
 and lace-work. Figures of this description are generally 
 planted with dwarf box, kept low by clipping, with only 
 here and there a flowering plant, or a small shrub, placed 
 in the broadest parts of the beds or scroll-work. Parterres 
 of this description were in use during the time of the Ro- 
 mans, as appears by the description of Pliny's own garden, 
 by himself, in which the letters composing his name were 
 planted of box, kept regularly dipt, a practice not uncom- 
 mon in Rome and its neighbourhood at the present day. 
 Embroidered parterres, however, were brought to the high- 
 est degree of perfection in the time of Louis XIV., when 
 
 PARTIDAS, LAS SIETE. 
 
 the arabesque style of ornament was introduced into every 
 thing. The flowers and flowering shrubs in culture in those 
 days were comparatively few ; and hence the leading fea- 
 tures of the parterre were beds of turf, always an object 
 of luxury, and requiring to be kept up at considerable ex- 
 pense of watering in the climate of France, and scroll-work 
 of box. This description of parterre was imitated in Eng- 
 land ; but smooth green turf not being here an object of 
 luxury, beds of flowers became more frequently substituted 
 in its stead ; and, as the number of foreign flowers intro- 
 duced increased, the number of turf beds and scroll-work 
 diminished, till, at the present time, the latter is rarely to 
 be met with. In this manner has gradually arisen the mo- 
 dern English flower-garden, which consists of small beds, 
 more or less orbiculate, and scattered over a surface of 
 smooth turf, so as to combine into groups, which are plant- 
 ed with flowers, or low flowering shrubs : sometimes in 
 masses of only one kind in a bed, and at other times of 
 several kinds mixed together. 
 
 Parterre. In French, the pit of a theatre. 
 
 PA'RTHENON. (Tlupdcvwv.) The magnificent temple 
 of Minerva in the Acropolis of Athens, so called in honour 
 of the virginity of that goddess (from -napQivos, a virgin.) 
 It was a peripteral octostyle of the Doric order, with seven- 
 teen columns on the sides, each 6ft. 2 in. in diameter at 
 the base, and 34 ft. in height, elevated on three steps. Its 
 height, from the base of the pediments, was 65 ft., and the 
 dimensions of the area 233 ft. by 102 ft. The eastern pedi- 
 ment was adorned with two groups of statues, one of which 
 represented the birth of Minerva, the other the contest of 
 Minerva with Neptune for the government of Athens. On 
 the metopes was sculptured the battle of the Centaurs with 
 the Lapithae ; and the frieze contained a representation of 
 the Panalhenaic festivals. Ictinus, Callicrates, and Car- 
 pion were the architects of this temple ; Phidias was the 
 artist; and its entire cost has been estimated at li million 
 sterling. Of this building, eight columns of the eastern 
 front, and several of the lateral colonnades are still stand- 
 ing. Of the frontispiece, which represented the contest of 
 Neptune and Minerva, nothing remains but the head of a 
 sea-horse, and the figures of two women without heads. 
 The combafof the Centaurs and the Lapitha; is in better 
 preservation ; but of the numerous statues with which this 
 temple was enriched, that of Adrian alone remains. The 
 Parthenon, however, dilapidated as it is, still retains an 
 air of inexpressible grandeur and sublimity ; and it forms 
 at once the highest point in Athens, and the centre of the 
 Acropolis. It is hardly necessary to inform the render that 
 the chief portion of the sculpture of the Parthenon is now 
 placed in the British Museum, where it forms, with some 
 additions, the collection of the Elgin Marbles. See Elgin 
 Marbles. 
 
 PARTICIPANTS. A semi-religious order of knight- 
 hood, founded by Pope Sextus V., in 1586, in honour of 
 Our Lady of Loretto. The members of this order were 
 allowed to marry. The order was soon extinguished; and 
 the title of Knights of Loretto is now conferred on some 
 civil servants of the pope. 
 
 PA'RTICIPLES. (Lat. parricipium.) A part of speech 
 which partakes of the properties both of a verb and an ad- 
 jective. It may be described either as a verb without 
 affirmation, or as an adjective with the addition of the 
 notion of time. (See Grammar.) 
 
 PA'RTICLE. (Lat. particula, little part.) In Grammar, 
 a general term to express the subordinate or secondary 
 parts of speech — the adverb, the preposition, and the con- 
 junction. But it is more in accordance with grammatical 
 precision to apply this term to those minor words to be met 
 with in all languages, which serve apparently to give clear- 
 ness and precision to a sentence, but respecting whose 
 exact use Grammarians are not agreed. To this class be- 
 long the Gr. yt, apa, rot, in, &-C. ; the Germ, ja, wohl, &c. ; 
 and the English now, then, truly, &c The term particle is 
 also applied by grammarians to those words or enclitics (as 
 they are called, from Gr. ev and k>ii/u>, / lean) which can- 
 not be used separately, but must form part of the preceding 
 word, as in virumque. 
 
 Particle, in Physics, denotes the minutest parts into 
 which a body can be mechanically divided. It is, in general, 
 used synonymously with molecule, corpuscle, atom ; but 
 sometimes these terms are distinguished. 
 
 PARTI'CULARISTS. In Theology-, those among the 
 Reformed who have held the doctrine of God's particular 
 decrees of salvation and reprobation. As a party name, it 
 seems to date from the Synod of Dort. That branch of the 
 Baptists attached to high Calvinistic opinions is still called 
 the church of the Particular Baptists. 
 
 PARTI'DAS, LAS SIETE. (Span, the seven parts.) 
 A celebrated ancient Spanish code of laws, drawn up in 
 the reign of Alphonso X. of Castile (about 1260), so call- 
 ed from the number of principal parts into which it is 
 divided. This famous collection did not acquire the obli- 
 
 903
 
 PARTITION. 
 
 gatory virtue of a code until 1338, when sanctioned by 
 Alphonso XI. 
 
 PARTITION. (Lat. partitio.) In Music, the arrange- 
 ment of the several parts of a composition on the same 
 page or pases, ranged methodically above and under each 
 other, so that they may be all under the eye of the per- 
 former or conductor, and sung or played jointly or sepa- 
 rately as the composer intended. It is commonly called a 
 score. 
 
 Partition. In Architecture, the vertical assemblage 
 of materials which divides one apartment from another. 
 It is usually, however, employed to denote such division 
 when constructed of vertical pieces of timber called quar- 
 ter*. 
 
 Partition. In Politics, the division of the states of a 
 sovereign or prince, after his decease, among his heirs, as 
 was the custom in some of the princely families in the 
 ancient German empire; or among other powers, such as 
 that of the states of the king of Spain, which was in 
 contemplation (against all justice) between William III., 
 Louis XIV., and the Dutch, by the treaties of 1698 and 
 1609, when Charles IT., the reigning monarch, was with- 
 out near heirs. But the most celebrated partitions in his- 
 tory, to which the name has become almost exclusively 
 attached, were those of Poland, by Russia, Prussia, and 
 Austria. The first of these took place in 1772, when vari- 
 ous provinces were wrested from the republic in pretended 
 satisfaction of ancient claims, and the old and vicious con- 
 stitution guaranteed by the three powers. The second was 
 submitted to by Stanislas in 1793, when Russia obtained 
 the remainder of Lithuania, and Prussia Dantzic, Thorn, 
 and an extensive district. This partition was followed by 
 the insurrection under Kosciusko, which brought about the 
 third and last partition in 1795, when the remnant of the 
 country was dismembered. It was organized in 1807, alter- 
 ed in 1815 ; but the conditions under which Poland was 
 then annexed to Russia, as a separate kingdom, were en- 
 tirely set aside after the Polish insurrection of 1830, and it is 
 now substantially and in fact a province of Russia. These 
 partitions overturned the ancient balance of power in Eu- 
 rope, and prepared the way for the violent changes which 
 followed the French revolution. (See Koch, Revolutions 
 de V Europe ; Rulhieres, Histoire de V Anarchic de Pologne ; 
 Ferrand, Histoire, des Trois Demembremens de Pologne, 
 3 vols., Paris, 18-20 ; Ed. Rev., vol. xxxvii., p. 462.) 
 
 PARTNERSHIP. A relation established between two 
 or more persons, by an agreement to combine property or 
 labour in furtherance of a common undertaking, and for the 
 acquisition of a common profit. A community of profit be- 
 tween the parties is the true criterion of a partnership ; 
 for one partner may stipulate to be free from loss, and this 
 stipulation would be effectual as between himself and his 
 partners, though he would be liable equally with them to 
 the world at large. A dormant partner, that is, one who 
 in point of fact participates in the profits of a firm, but is 
 not held out as a member of it, will nevertheless be liable 
 for its engagements, because he takes part of that fund 
 which is a security to creditors for payment of their debts. 
 There is no particular form necessary to the constitution 
 of a partnership, nor is it necessary that the contract should 
 be in writing. It may be dissolved at the individual plea- 
 sure of any one partner, if no stated period has been fixed 
 for its continuance ; and, even if such a period has been 
 fixed, it will be dissolved, in the absence of any proviso to 
 the contrary, by his bankruptcy, attainder, or death, or by 
 marriage, in the case of a female. Courts of equity, also, 
 will put an end to it by decree, on proof of lunacy or gross 
 misconduct. A partnership is by any of the above matters 
 terminated as between the partners themselves ; but, to 
 prevent a continuing liability to strangers, public notice of 
 the dissolution is necessary. One partner cannot sue an- 
 other at law in respect of the partnership account, unless 
 a balance has been struck, the remedy being in equity, 
 which affords a machinery better adapted to the investiga- 
 tion of accounts. As regards the rights of third persons 
 against the partnership, it is a general rule that it will be 
 bound by the engagements of any one partner acting with 
 reference to the joint business, either by his simple con- 
 tracts on the purchase and sale of goods, or by negotiable 
 instruments circulated on its behalf. 
 
 PA'ftTNERS I H' THE M U3T8. The woodwork round 
 the mast at the deck, to strengthen and support the deck 
 against the pressure of the mast. The term is also ap- 
 plied to the similar supports round the capstan and pumps. 
 
 PA'RTRIDGE Wool). A variegated wood imported 
 from Martinique : it is said to be the produce of the Hcis- 
 teria eoi ■ 
 
 PA'RTY. In Politics, a body of men united under dif- 
 ferent leaders for promoting, liy their joint endeavours, the 
 national interest, upon some particular principle in which 
 they are all agreed. The origin of party may be traced to 
 that law of the human mind which is founded in our 
 904 
 
 PASQUINADE. 
 
 natural desire nf sympathy, and our disposition to afford it 
 From the earliest ages down to the present time, the prin- 
 ciple of mutual co-operation has been adopted with suc- 
 cess in executing favourite designs, and in aiming at the 
 accomplishment of certain ends. Among the ancient Ro- 
 mans, for example, " idem sentire dc republica" formed a 
 principal ground of friendship and attachment ; and the 
 same feeling, modified by different forms of government 
 and other circumstances, is at present in full operation in 
 all the civilized states of Europe and America. The bene- 
 fits of party may be briefly stated to be, increased energy 
 in pursuit of a common object, regular co-operation, mutual 
 control and regulation, and an advantageous division of 
 labour. But, though party or combination may in this 
 manner be productive of good results, like every other 
 principle and feeling in our nature, it is liable to be abused, 
 and there can be no doubt that it is frequently attended 
 with such evil consequences as greatly to countervail its 
 admitted benefits. It involves a frequent sacrifice of in- 
 dividual notions of what is just and proper, and tempts 
 bodies of men to act in a way that would often be deemed 
 discreditable in individuals. Perhaps the worst effect of 
 party is its tendency to generate narrow, false, and illiberal 
 prejudices, by teaching the adherents of one party to regard 
 those that belong to an opposing party as unworthy of con- 
 fidence ; and in making them oppose good measures be- 
 cause they happen to be proposed by a different party, and 
 support bad measures, because they are pioposed or sup- 
 ported by their own party. A thorough-going party ad- 
 herent is, in fact, a political slave ; a person who allows 
 others on all occasions to think for him ; who, as far as 
 politics is concerned, has no principle or rule of action, save 
 that of slavish adherence and blind obedience to the dicta- 
 tion of the leader of his party. (The uses and abuses of 
 Party are discussed with great ability in vol. xxx. of the 
 Edin. Review). The different parties, both of England 
 and other countries, will be found under their respective 
 heads. 
 
 Party. In Heraldry — as party per pale, fess, &c. ; terms 
 used to signify the division of a shield by a line running in 
 the direction of either of these ordinaries. 
 
 PARTY WALL. In Architecture, the wall separating 
 two buildings belonging to different owners or occupiers. 
 The regulations relative to the thickness of party walls in the 
 metropolis have been the subject of several statutes, begin- 
 ning with one passed 19 Car. 2, and ending with the 14 Geo. 
 3, better known by the name of the Building Act. This last 
 governs the thickness of all party and external walls to be 
 built after 24th day of June, 1774. 
 
 PARULIS. (Gr. irapa, and ov\ov, the gum.) A gumboil. 
 
 PA'RUS. (Lat. parus, a titmouse.) A genus of Coniros- 
 tral Passerine birds allied to the crows, characterized by 
 having the conical beak straight and rather slender, with 
 few hairs at its base ; nostrils round, and covered by reflected 
 bristly feathers ; the hind toe is strong, and armed with a 
 long hooked claw. To this genus belong the native birds 
 commonly called tits or titmice, of which the tomtit (Parus 
 cceruleus, Ray) is the best known species. The great tit 
 (Parus major), the marsh tit (Parus palustris), the cole tit 
 (Parus ater), and the crested tit (Parus cristatus), have the 
 bill longer and more pointed ; the last-named species is rare 
 in this country. They are active little birds, continually 
 flitting from spray to spray, and suspending themselves in 
 all kinds of attitudes, rending apart the seeds on which they 
 feed, devouring insects, and not even sparing small birds 
 when they happen to find them sick and are able to destroy 
 them. They store up provisions of grain, build their nests 
 in the holes of trees, and produce more eggs than is usual 
 among the Passerine birds. 
 
 PA'SCH AL CYCLE. The name given to the cycle which 
 serves to ascertain when Easter occurs. It is formed by 
 multiplying by each other the cycle of the sun, which con- 
 sists of 28, and the cycle of the moon, which consists of 19 
 years. See Passover. 
 
 PA'SCHAL FLOWER. The Anemone Pulsatilla; so 
 called from it-s flowering about Easter. 
 
 PASI'GRAPHY. In Literature. (Gr. was, universal, 
 and ■} pa<ptjj, I write.) The imaginary universal language, 
 to be spoken and written by all nations, the invention of 
 which has exercised the ingenuity of so many learned men, 
 has been denoted by this word. Leibnitz seems to have 
 been one of the first who conceived this to be possible. 
 Many writers in Germany (where the name was invented) 
 have followed him in the endeavour to devise schemes for 
 this fanciful object. In England, Bishop Wilkins, in the 
 reign of Charles II., invented a scheme for a universal lan- 
 guage, grammar, and character. 
 
 I'ASwriWDE. (Ital. pasquinata.) A satirical writing 
 directed against one or more individuals. A mutilated an- 
 cient statue of a gladiator dug up at Rome about 300 years 
 ago, which now lies in the court of the Capitol, was popular- 
 ly termed, by the Romans, "Pasquino," from the name, it is
 
 PASS. 
 
 Ba!d, of a barber of eccentric and well-known character, op- 
 posite to whose house it was originally set up. This statue, 
 and another, called by the populace Marforio, which was 
 situated near it, were used for the purpose of bearing satiri- 
 cal placards, often reflecting on the court and Church of 
 Rome, which were affixed to them at night, not unfrequent- 
 Iy in the form of a dialogue between the two statues. 80 
 annoying did Pasquin often become to the government, that 
 on one occasion a serious design was entertained of throw- 
 ing him into the river ; but the ministers of the reigning pon- 
 tiff are said to have dissuaded him from it, representing that 
 if this were done " the frogs in the Tiber would croak louder 
 than ever Pasquin had spoken." He has, however, lost his 
 public spirit, and rarely or never ventures to attack the 
 powers that be. But his statue is still the occasional recep- 
 tacle of jocose comments on private matters. M. Matthews 
 (Diary of an Invalid) mentions an instance which occurred 
 during his stay at Rome. A man of the name of Caesar 
 (common among the townsfolk there) had married a girl of 
 the name of Roma. Pasquin was placarded with " Cave, 
 Caesar, ne tua Roma respublica fiat." The man replied by 
 Marforio, " Caesar imperat." To which the retort was " Ergo 
 coronabitur." Hence Pnsquinata and Pasquilles became, in 
 Italy, conventional words to signify writings of that descrip- 
 tion, and have been naturalized in other languages. In 
 French and German they have been used in the legal 
 vocabulary for libel. 
 
 PASS, in a military sense, signifies a strait or narrow de- 
 file which shuts up the entrance into a country. 
 
 PASSAGE. (Lat. passus, a step.) In Architecture, the 
 part of a building allotted for giving access to the different 
 apartments. 
 
 Passage. In Music, a portion of an air or tune consisting 
 of one, two, or three measures. 
 
 PASSAGE, BIRDS OF. See Migration. 
 
 PASSANT. In Heraldry, a term used to describe a beast 
 when represented in a walking position. Passant guardant, 
 Walking with the full face turned towards the spectator. 
 
 PASSEPARTOU'T. In Engraving, a plate or wood 
 block, whose centre part is entirely cut out round the outer 
 part, whereof a border or ornamental design is engraved, 
 serving as a frame to what may be placed in the centre. 
 
 PA'SSERINES, Passcres, or Passerinw. (Lat. passer, a 
 sparrow.) The name given by Linnaeus and Cuvier to the 
 typical order of birds, including those which neither mani- 
 fest the violence of birds of prey, nor have the fixed regimen 
 of the terrestrial birds, but which feed on insects, fruit, or 
 grain, according to the slenderness or strength of their beak ; 
 some, with sharp and toothed mandibles, pursue and feed on 
 small birds. All the Passerines have short and slender legs, 
 with three toes before and one behind ; the two external toes 
 being united by a very short membrane. They form the 
 most extensive and varied order of birds, and are the least 
 readily recognisable by distinctive characters common to the 
 whole group. Their feet, being more especially adapted to 
 the delicate labours of nidification, have neither the webbed 
 structure of those of the swimmers, nor the robust strength 
 and destructive talons which characterize the feet of the 
 bird of rapine, nor yet the extended toes which enable the 
 wader to walk safely over marshy soils, and tread lightly on 
 the floating leaves of aquatic plants; but the toes are slen- 
 der, flexible, and moderately elongated, with long, pointed, 
 and slightly curved claws. 
 
 The Passerines in general have the females smaller and 
 less brilliant in their plumage than the males ; they always 
 live in pairs, build in trees, and display the greatest art in 
 the construction of their nests. The young are excluded in 
 a blind and naked state, and wholly depend for subsistence, 
 during a certain period, on parental care. The brain arrives 
 in this order at its greatest proportional size ; the organ of 
 voice here attains its utmost complexity ; and all the charac- 
 teristics of the bird, as power of flight, melody of voice, and 
 beauty of plumage, are enjoyed in the highest perfection 
 by one or other of the groups of this extensive and varied 
 order. 
 
 The beak of the Passerines varies in form according to 
 the nature of their food, which may be small or young birds, 
 carrion, insects, fruit, seeds, vegetable juices, or of a mixed 
 kind. The modifications of the rostrum have therefore 
 afforded convenient characters for the tribes or subdivisions 
 of the order : these are termed, 1. Dentirostres ; 2. Coniros- 
 tres ; 3. Tenuirostres ; 4. Fissirostres. See those words. 
 
 PASSIFLORA'CE^E. (Passiflora, or Flos passionis, one 
 of the genera.) A natural order of twining plants with very 
 showy flowers, furnished with numerous rays of brilliant 
 colours between the corolla and the stamens. They chiefly 
 inhabit the hotter parts of the world, and bear a fruit not 
 unlike that of the gourd, to which natural order they are re- 
 lated. Inde]>endently of the beauty of their flowers, some 
 yield fruits, eaten under the name of granadilla and water 
 lemon; and others have a hard, black wood, not unlike 
 ebony. 
 
 PASSPORT. 
 
 PASSING NOTES. In Music, graces wherein two notes 
 are connected by smaller intervening notes. 
 
 PA'SSION. (Lat. patior, I suffer.) The sufferings of our 
 Lord, which is described as having endured between the 
 Last Supper and the moment of his death. Passion-week is 
 that in the course of which these sufferings took place ; 
 namely, that ipimediately preceding Easter. (See as to its 
 solemn ceremonial in the Romish Church, this article in the 
 Encyclopedia of Ersch and Gruber.) It was variously called 
 Hebdomada luctuosa, inofficiosa, panosa, indulgentice, nigra, 
 sancta, ultima. 
 
 PA'SSIONS. The name popularly given to the different 
 emotions of the mind, as love, anger, &c. Various ingenious 
 speculations have been instituted to ascertain whether the 
 precise situation of the impetus of the passions be in the 
 spiritual or material part of man. Some philosophers, and 
 among these Des Cartes, consider them wholly seated in the 
 corporeal system. Mallebranche regards them as those 
 agitations of the soul which proceed from uncommon influ- 
 ence and motion in the blood and animal spirits. " Though 
 the passions," says Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, 
 " dwell between the confines of sense and reason, yet they 
 rather follow sense than reason, because they are drowned 
 in corporeal organs of sense. They are commonly reduced 
 into two inclinations, irascible and concnpiscible. The 
 Thomists subdivide them into eleven, six in the coveting- and 
 five in the invading. Aristotle reduceth all to pleasure and 
 pain. Plato to love and hatred. Vives to good and bad. 
 If good, it is present, and then we absolutely joy and love; 
 or to come, and then we desire and hope for it ; if evil, we 
 absolutely hate it ; if present, it is sorrow ; if to come, fear. 
 . . . All other passions are subordinate unto these four, or six, 
 as some will — love, joy, desire, hatred, sorrow, fear. The rest, 
 as anger, envy, emulation, pride, jealousie, anxiety, miserie, 
 shame, discontent, despair, ambition, avarice, &c, are re- 
 ducible unto the first" (i. e., the irascible). With several 
 writers it has been a question whether the passions be each 
 a distinct innate disposition, or merely modifications of those 
 dispositions which are common to ail mankind. The theo- 
 ries and conjectures of philosophers upon this subject are al- 
 most boundless ; but to pursue them would be of little ad- 
 vantage, even if our limits permitted, and we shall merely 
 refer the reader for ample particulars to the works of Hume, 
 Reid, Hartley, Locke, Lord Karnes. &c. (See also Maass's 
 Versuch Uber die Leidenschnften, 2 thle. Halle, 1805.) 
 
 Passions. In Painting and Sculpture, the representation 
 in the countenance and other parts, of the violent emotions 
 of the mind, produced by anger, fear, grief, &c. The ex- 
 pression of the passions is a language without which the 
 painter can never hope for success ; it is in this that he has 
 the means of appealing to the sympathy of the spectator. 
 The close observation of nature under similar circumstances 
 is the onlv mode by which his aim can be accomplished. 
 
 PA'SSOVER, or PASCHA. A festival among the Jews, 
 which derives its English name from God's passing over the 
 houses of the Israelites, and sparing their first born, when 
 those of the Egyptians were put to death. The name of 
 passover or paschal lamb was likewise given to the lamb 
 slain in memory of that deliverance. The festival lasted 
 seven days, beginning on the evening of the 14th of the 
 month Nisan, and commenced with killing the lamb. The 
 regulations appointed for this festival are detailed in Exod. 
 xii. 
 
 That the passover had a typical reference to our Saviour 
 has been the universal belief of the Christian world in all 
 ages, and is mainly grounded on passages in St. John and 
 St. Paul. (John, xix., 36 ; 1 Cor., v., 7.) Christ is said to be 
 our passover; his blood being shed to protect mankind from 
 the divine justice, as the blood of the paschal lamb, which 
 was sprinkled upon the door-posts of the Israelites' houses, 
 preserved them from the visitation of the angel of the Lord. 
 
 PA'SSPORT. A warrant of protection and authority to 
 travel, granted to persons moving from place to place by the 
 competent officer. The word appears to be derived from 
 the maritime usage of some continental countries, of giving 
 similar authorities from the admiral of a naval station to 
 vessels leaving harbours within his jurisdiction. As pass- 
 ports are not required in our own country, the only species 
 known to British travellers is that of foreign passports, which, 
 for an Englishman travelling on the continent of Europe, 
 are usually made out by the resident minister or consul of 
 the country he intends first to visit, in London, or at one of 
 the ports. They are also granted by the Foreign Office on 
 payment of fees, which now (1841) amount in all to j£2 7s. 
 They are subject to visa or inspection by the proper au- 
 thorities at the place where the traveller disembarks, and 
 also at other places where he may reach, according to the 
 police regulations of each particular country, and on passing 
 the frontiers of states. Austria is, we believe, the only Eu- 
 ropean state which at this time requires absolutely the visa 
 of an ambassador or minister of her own for travellers en- 
 tering her domains by land. In France, and in mnny conti- 
 3 K * 905
 
 PASTE. 
 
 nentnl countries, home passports are necessary for the native 
 traveller. According to the letter of the French law (since 
 ITilGj, a Frenchman cannot pa.-,* the limits of the canton in 
 which he is domiciled without a passport; but in practice it 
 is not required within the extent of the department. Legal- 
 ly speaking, the strict formalities of an internal passport, in 
 France, require the direction of a journey to be specified, and 
 its exact execution attested by the visas and signatures of 
 the police authorities at every place mentioned in it; and 
 these laws are, from their severity, so incapable of complete 
 execution, that it is a common saying, that no man but a 
 rogue is ever entirely en regie with respect to his passport, 
 suspicious characters being usually the most particular in 
 their attention to formalities, for fear of detention. A French- 
 man travelling without a properly authenticated passport is 
 liable to arrest and detention for a period not exceeding a 
 month. The fees fixed in France are two francs for a pass- 
 port to travel at home, and ten to go abroad. 
 
 PASTE. (Fr. pale.) In Gem Sculpture a preparation 
 of glass, calcined crystal, lead, and other ingredients, for imi- 
 tating gems. This art was well known to the ancients, and, 
 after being long lost, was restored, at the end of the fifteenth 
 century, by a .Milanese painter. 
 
 Some modern artists have succeeded in obtaining a com- 
 position possessing a hard, fine, and brilliant lustre or ap- 
 pearance ; but pastes, or mock diamonds, as they are called, 
 depend most for brilliancy on the art displayed in setting the 
 foil or tinsel behind them. Several recipes have been given 
 by M. Fontanien ; but the most useful, and that generally 
 employed for the production of artificial diamonds, is the 
 following: Take of litharge 20 parts, of silex 12, of nitre 4, 
 of borax 4, and of white arsenic 2 parts. These ingredients 
 are to be well mixed together in a crucible and melted ; the 
 fused metal is thrown into water ; and should any of the 
 lead employed be reduced to the metallic state, it becomes 
 separated by this process, and the glass is remelted for use. 
 For the finer kinds rock crystal is used instead of flint or 
 sand, as it occurs in a much purer state ; i. e., more free 
 from the admixture of metallic oxides, which give to vitre- 
 ous compounds their different colours. In place of the above, 
 Loysel recommends the following ingredients to form a a im- 
 pound, having the same specific gravity as the oriental dia- 
 mond, and on this account considered superior, as it more 
 nearly approaches the gem with regard to its refractive and 
 dispersive powers ; but, like the former, it requires to be kept 
 for some two or three days in a fused state, in order to expel 
 the superabundant alkali and to perfect the refining. A 
 moderate degree of heat fuses it. The following is its com- 
 position : Take of white sand purified by being washed, first 
 in muriatic acid and afterwards in pure water, until all 
 traces of acid are removed, 100 parts ; red oxide of lead 
 (minium) 150 parts ; calcined potash 30 to 35 parts ; calcined 
 borax 10; and oxide of arsenic 1 part. (See the Polytechnic 
 Journal for July, 1841.) 
 
 The term paste is also applied to the earthy mixture for 
 pottery and porcelain ; also to dough, and to the solution of 
 starch or wheat flour, made by first mixing it with a proper 
 portion of cold water, and then adding boiling water under 
 constant stirring, so as to form an even solution. Alum is 
 often added to paste to strengthen it. 
 
 PA'STEL. (LaX. pastillus.) In Painting, a crayon formed 
 with any colour and gum water, for painting on paper or 
 parchment. The great defect of this mode of painting is its 
 want of durability. See ("rayon. 
 
 1' A STERN. The part of the horse's foot under the fet- 
 lock to the heel. 
 
 PASTICCIO. (It.) In Painting, a picture painted by a 
 ma-ter In a style dissimilar to that in which he generally 
 painted. David Teniers could, for instance, imitate, with 
 surprising exactness, the styles of many of the first masters 
 of Italy and Flanders. The same may be affirmed of Luca 
 Giordano, a Neapolitan artist. 
 
 PASTl'L. In Pharmacy, a kind of lozenge. Acompound 
 of charcoal with odoriferous substances, which diffuses an 
 agreeable perfume during its slow combustion. 
 PA'STORAL. See EcLootTB, Bucolic, Idyl. 
 PA'STOUREAUX. (Old Fr. shepherds.) Insurgent pea- 
 sants, who took up arms in France during the absence of 
 King Louis IX. on his crusade. The) were led by an apos- 
 tate Cistercian monk, who took the name of "Jacob, Master 
 of Hungary," who seduced them to follow him in various 
 fanatical extravagances. They committed various excesses, 
 from the frontier of Flanders, on which they first assembled, 
 to Bourses, where their leader was killed in a tumult, and 
 his horde dispersed. 
 
 PASTURE. Land under a particular description of 
 grasses and herbage, which is eaten on the spot by horses, 
 cattle, &c. Hill pasture is a term applied to hilly and 
 mountainous lands, which are kept perpetually under the 
 natural grasses and herbage which spring upon them ; while 
 artificial pastures are such as are sown by art on lands which 
 are occasionally subjected to the plough. In all artificial 
 SOS 
 
 PATHETIC NERVES. 
 
 pastures the principal grass is rye grass, and the principal 
 herbage plant the white clover. Perpetual pastures are 
 such as are never subjected to the plough, and never receive 
 any other manure than what is left on them by the pasturing 
 animals; but artificial pastures are occasionally mown, and 
 sometimes receive a top dressing of dung, or some mixture 
 of dung and earth, lime, &.c. 
 
 rATAVI'NITY. A term in use among critics to denote 
 a provincial idiom in speech; so named after that of I, ivy, 
 the historian, from his being born at Padavium, a provincial 
 town of the Roman empire. Wherein the alleged defect of 
 Livy's writings consists has never been distinctly pointed 
 out by any critic, ancient or modern. 
 
 PATE. In Fortification, a kind of platform encompassed 
 with a parapet, and having nothing to flank it. 
 
 PATEE, or PATTEE. (Fr.) In Heraldry, a sort of cross, 
 small at the centre and widening towards the ends, which 
 are very broad. 
 
 PATE'LLA. The small, flat, and somewhat heart- 
 shaped bone, which is placed at the fore part of the knee 
 joint, and commonly called the kneepan. 
 
 PATELLOI'DS, Patelloidca. The name of a family of 
 Cyclobranchiate Gastropods, having the limpet (Patella) as 
 the type. 
 
 PATEN. (Lat. patina.) In Ecclesiastical usage, the 
 stand or saucer on which the chalice rests. It was fre- 
 quently highly ornamented by artists in the 15th and 16th 
 centuries. In the administration of the Eucharist in 
 England, the paten is the vessel on which the bread is 
 placed. 
 
 PA'TENT, in Commercial Law, is defined a privilege 
 from the crown granted by letters patent, conveying to the 
 persons specified therein the sole right to make, use, or dis- 
 pose of some new invention or discovery, for a limited pe- 
 riod. This power is said to be inherent in the crown ; but 
 was first defined by stat. 21 J. 1, c. 3, which gives the term 
 of fourteen years or under, " so they be not contrary to the 
 law, nor mischievous to the state, by raising prices of com- 
 modities at home, or hurt of trade, or generally inconve- 
 nient." Ever since the reign of Anne it has been a con- 
 dition in patents, that the inventor should, by an instru- 
 ment technically called a "specification," particularly de- 
 scribe and ascertain the nature of his invention ; on failure 
 of which the patent becomes void. These letters are ob- 
 tained on petition to the crown, and are granted on the 
 recommendation of the attorney qr solicitor general. An 
 injunction may be obtained, or an action brought, for 
 the infringement of a patent; but it is necessary to show 
 the novelty and utility of the invention, and that it is of 
 something capable of being turned immediately to account 
 in commerce ; no patent will be good for a mere philo- 
 sophical principle neither organized nor capable of being 
 so. It is now held that a new process or method, as well 
 as an article, may be the subject of a patent. A party who 
 believes himself to have discovered an invention, but has 
 not yet been able to reduce it to practice, may enter a 
 caveat; that is, an instrument by which notice is desired 
 to be given by any one who may seek a patent for a simi- 
 lar invention. The law of patents has been recently 
 amended by 5 & 6 W. 4, c. 77, and some difficulties under 
 which inventors were placed, particularly as to the strict- 
 ness of the specification, removed ; but the policy of some 
 of the clauses is questioned. 
 
 The phrase letters patent is also frequently applied to the 
 state documents or ordinances of the German sovereigns: 
 in which sense it is equivalent to the bulls of the pope, or 
 the ukases of the czar. 
 
 PATENT YELLOW*. A pigment obtained by fusing a 
 mixture of oxide and chloride of lead. 
 
 PATERA. (Lat. patere, to be open.) In Roman Anti- 
 quities, a large open goblet or cup of gold, silver, marble, 
 or earth, &C, used in offering libations to the gods. 
 
 Patera. In Architecture, the representation of a cup, 
 usually in bas relief, and employed to decorate friezes, fas- 
 cise, ini|>o*t<, &c. 
 
 PATEUl'NI. One of the names by which the Pauli- 
 cians, a sect which appeared in Italy in the 11th century, 
 were eery commonly known. The origin of the term is 
 obscure, as is also the connexion of the sect with the 
 Manicheans of the Last. (See Fabcr on the Church of the 
 Waldeitset and Jllbigenses.) 
 
 PATERNOSTER. The Latin expression for Our Fa- 
 ther, signihing the Lord's Prayer. See Rosary. 
 
 PATER PATRATUS. In Roman Classical Antiqui- 
 ties, the chief of the fecials or herals ; specially named for 
 the performance of certain solemn acts, such as declara- 
 tions of war. 
 
 PATHE'TIC. (Gr. TnOcTiKor, from xdoxo, I suffer.) In 
 Tainting and Sculpture, the expression of the softer or more 
 sorrowful passions. Its tendency is to depress and com- 
 pose the feelings of the spectator. 
 PATHETIC NERVES. A pair of small nerves, which
 
 PATHOGNOMONIC. 
 
 Influence the expression of the face. They rise in the 
 brain, and supply the trochear muscle of the eye. 
 
 PATHOGNOMONIC. (Gr. TraOos, a disease, and yvio/jLt], 
 opinion.) Symptoms which are peculiar to particular dis- 
 eases, and by which they are recognised, are termed par- 
 thognomonic symptoms. 
 
 PATHO'LOGY. (Gr. mOos, and Aoyoj, a discourse.) 
 Literally, the doctrine of disease. As physiology teaches 
 the nature of the functions of the body in a state of health, 
 so pathology relates to the various derangements of these 
 functions which constitute disease. Its objects, therefore, 
 are to ascertain the various symptoms which characterize 
 the disorders of each organ of the body, and especially the 
 diagnostic and pathognomic symptoms, which afford the 
 means of discrimination between diseases that resemble 
 one another; to determine the causes, both predisposing 
 and exciting, by which diseases are induced ; to point out 
 the tendency and probable issue of each disease from the 
 varying appearance of the symptoms ; and finally to ex- 
 plain the symptoms of recovery, and the nature and opera- 
 tion of the remedies adapted to the various circumstances 
 and periods of diseases. (Conversations Lexicon.) 
 
 PA'THOS (Gr. iru8os, suffering-), is applied in literary 
 language to any composition calculated to excite all, but 
 chietiy the tender, emotions of the mind. In France, this 
 term is generally used in a somewhat disparaging sense, 
 being applied to that species of composition which indulges 
 in strained and unnatural declamation. 
 
 PA'TINA. (Gr. iraTavn, a disk.) In Numismatics, the 
 fine rust with which coins become covered by lying in pe- 
 culiar soils, which, like varnish, is at once preservative 
 and ornamental. It is, says Mr. Pinkerton, a natural var- 
 nish, not imitable by any effort of human art ; sometimes 
 of delicate blue, like that of a turquoise ; sometimes of a 
 bronze brown, equal to that observable in ancient statues 
 of bronze ; sometimes of an exquisite green, a little on the 
 azure hue, which last is the most beautiful of all. It is 
 also found of a fine purple, of olive, and of a cream colour, 
 or pale yellow, which last is exquisite. The Neapolitan 
 patina is of a light green ; and, when free from excrescence 
 or blemish, is very beautiful. Sometimes the purple pati- 
 na gleams through an upper coat of another colour, with 
 as fine effect as a variegated silk or gem. In a few in- 
 stances a rust of deeper green is found, and it is sometimes 
 spotted with the red or bronze shade, which gives it the 
 appearance of the East Indian stone called bloodstone. 
 These rusts are all, when the real product of time, as hard 
 as the metal itself, and preserve it much better than any 
 artificial varnish could have done ; concealing, at the same 
 time, not the most minute particle of the impression of the 
 coin. Gold admits no rust but iron-mould, when lying in a 
 soil impregnated with iron. Silver takes many kinds, but 
 chiefly green and red, which yield to vinegar ; for in this 
 metal the rust is prejudicial. 
 
 PATOIS. (Supposed to be derived from Lat. pater, a 
 father.) A word in general use in most European coun- 
 tries, signifying the dialect peculiar to the lower classes. 
 
 PATRES CONSCRIPTI. See Conscript Fathers. 
 
 PA'TRIARCH. (A compound of rrarrip, father, and 
 ap%ti>, I govern.) The title given by the sacred writers to 
 the earliest heads of families recorded in Scripture, from 
 Adam to Jacob and his sons. This title was assumed also 
 in the early ages of the church by the bishops of the prin- 
 cipal cities of the empire, as Rome, Constantinople, Anti- 
 och, &c. The name was adopted from the practice of the 
 Jews ; who, after the dispersion, subjected themselves to 
 the spiritual superintendence of the patriarchs resident at 
 Tiberias and Babylon. The first mention of a Christian 
 patriarch occurs about 440. They were, for the most part, 
 superior to archbishops or metropolitans, being set over 
 several provinces. This, however, was not always the 
 case. The patriarchs of Ephesus and Cajsarea, for in- 
 stance, were subject to the bishop of Constantinople, and 
 were only on a par with diocesan prelates. (See Hooker, 
 Eccles. Polity, 6, 7; Mosheim, vol. i., pp. 179, 349, trans., 
 1790.) 
 
 PATRI'CIANS. (Lat. ]ntres, fathers.) The first order 
 or nobility of the Roman people. When the constitution 
 of Rome was monarchial, they elected the king; and after 
 the expulsion of theTarquins all the great officers of state, 
 as consuls, praters, &c, were chosen from their body for 
 many generations. Of the patricians, also, the senate was 
 composed; but, in after times, both this and the great 
 magistracies were thrown open to the plebeians. The sub- 
 divisions of this order were as follow : First, they were 
 classed into three tribes, called Ramnenses, Titienses, and 
 Luceres ; of which the first contained the original patri- 
 cians of Romulus, the two latter being probably admitted to 
 their privilege at different subsequent times. Each of these 
 tribes again was divided into ten curies, and each curia 
 again contained ten clans, or gentes. The general assem- 
 bly of the patrician houses, who constituted the populus, 
 
 PAULICIANS. 
 
 in contradistinction to the plebs, or plebeian citizens, was 
 Called comitia curiata, because they voted therein by cu- 
 ries ; and this, in the earliest times, was the Roman popu- 
 lar assembly, to which plebeians were not admitted. 
 
 PA'TRICK, SAINT, ORDER OF. An Irish order of 
 knighthood, instituted by George III. in 1783, composed of 
 the sovereign, a prince of the blood royal, a grand master, 
 and fifteen knights ; the lord-lieutenant of Ireland for the 
 time being is grand master. 
 
 PATRIPA'SSIANS. (Lat. pater, father, and passio, 
 suffering), are persons who, by overlooking the distinction 
 between the persons of the Trinity, are reduced to allow 
 that the Father himself suffered on the cross. This argu- 
 ment has been advanced against heretics of various de- 
 nominations, and the title has, in consequence, been ap- 
 plied to many such. It is the Sabellians, however, who 
 considered the Father, Son, and Spirit as three modes or 
 representations of the one God, that are generally oppro- 
 briouslv designated by this term. See Sabellians. (See 
 also Mosheim, vol. i., cent. 4.) 
 
 PATRI'STIC. (Lat. pater, father.) In Theology, of or 
 belonging to the fathers of the church ; as patristic theolo- 
 gv, literature, study. 
 
 " PATRO'LE. (Fr. patrouille.) In Military language, >. 
 detachment, ordinarily of from tour to eight men, under j. 
 corporal, charged to march in a given circuit, through the 
 streets of a garrison town, in order to repress disorder. 
 The patroles are drawn from the posts of the city, and 
 set out at an hour fixed by the commandant. They are 
 usually accompanied, in Continental towns, by an officer 
 of police. 
 
 PA'TRON. (Lat. patronus ; from pater, father.) The 
 relation of patron and client, in Ancient Rome, has been 
 explained under the head Client. After the extinction 
 of republican sentiments and usages, the term patron was 
 still applied to advocates who defended causes for hire. 
 But the right of patronage, analagous to that which had 
 subsisted under the commonwealth, may be said only to 
 have existed in the relation between masters and freed- 
 men, the latter of whom were placed under various obliga- 
 tions to their former owners. In the usage of the Roman 
 Catholic church, a patron saint is the peculiar protector of 
 each country, community, profession, &c, or of individuals. 
 The prime minister of the pope is termed the cardinal- 
 patron. (As to the Roman patrons, see Mem. de VAcad. 
 des Inscr., vol. xii.) 
 
 PA'TRONAGE. In the Church of Scotland, the right 
 of presentation to livings in lay patrons was recognised by 
 the old practice of the church, with the exception of the 
 period from 1690 to 1712 ; during which lay patronage was 
 abolished, and the right of presentation lodged in the heri- 
 tors (land owners) and members of the kirk session. In 
 1712, lay patronage was restored ; but still under the con- 
 trol of the parishioners, whose call (as it was termed) was 
 necessary to ratify the presentation. But the call gradu- 
 ally became a mere nominal ceremony; and disregard to 
 the expressed wishes of the parishioners in one or two in- 
 stances was the cause of the great secession from the Scot- 
 tish kirk. (See Burghers.) In 1834, by an act of Assem- 
 bly (see Veto Act), the right of the parishioners was fully 
 revived ; it being expressly enacted that the disapproval of 
 a majority should invalidate the presentation. This act of 
 the General Assembly, however, is found by the courts of 
 law not to be efficient. The abolition of patronage is de- 
 sired by a large portion of the Scottish public ; and it is 
 highly probable, unless some legislative arrangement be 
 come to on the subject, that the present disputes in the 
 Scotch church will terminate in a new secession. 
 
 PATRONY'MIC. (Gr. itarnp, and ovoua, a name.) A 
 name which designates a person by alluding to some of his 
 ancestors, either immediate or remote ; as Pelides, i. e., 
 Achilles, the son of Peleus ; jEacides, i. e., Achilles, the 
 grandson of jEacus. Patronymics were chiefly employed 
 by the classical poets of antiquity. 
 
 PA'ULIANISTS. A sect of heretics who embraced the 
 Sabellian doctrines of Paulus of Samosata, a bishop of An- 
 tioch in the third century, from whom they derived their 
 name. See Sabellians, Patripassians. 
 
 PAULI'CIANS. A sect of heretics, whose history is in- 
 terwoven with that of the Greek church in the 9th and 
 10th centuries, who appear to have arisen in considerable 
 numbers in Armenia, and to have adopted the name by 
 which they are distinguished, from Paulus, one of their 
 leaders, in order to avoid the imputation of connexion with 
 the Manicheans, with which they were generally charged. 
 Their opinions are to be collected only from the allegations 
 of their enemies, who accused them of holding the doctrine 
 of the two principles, and denying the inspiration of the 
 Old Testament to have proceeded from the Supreme God. 
 At the same time, the charges which were brought against 
 them, alleging their contempt for the worship of the Virgin 
 and of the cross, seem to point them out as in some respects 
 
 907
 
 PAUPER. 
 
 genuine reformers in doctrinal points, and to have led their 
 bigotted enemies to invent other and more scandalous Im- 
 putations against tin m, liir the sake of more effectually 
 blackening tlieir character. In the Bast, they underwent a 
 series of persecutions for two centuries: a remnant, how- 
 ever, survived in the country of their birth. A colony of 
 Paulicians was transplanted to Bulgaria and Thrace, from 
 whence, in the 11th century, they spread themselves over 
 the West, Where they were known under the names of 
 Calhari. Patcrini, fcc, and have been supposed to have 
 been connected with the Albigenses of the south of France. 
 (See Jloshtim, vol. ii.; Fabcr on the Churches of the IVai- 
 d' n J< .-• and . llbigi mat s, 1838.) 
 
 PAUPER. See Poor Laws. 
 
 PAUSE, (Gr. iruvu), I stop.) In Music, a character de- 
 noting silence in a part for a certain time, according to the 
 sort of pause marked. 
 
 PAVAX. (I. at. pavo, a peacock.) A slow and stately 
 dance, formerly practised in England, but now confined to 
 the Spaniards. It derived its name from the peculiarity 
 of the dresses of those who engaged in it, the motion of 
 which produced a fancied resemblance to the peacock's 
 tail. 
 
 PAVEMENT. (Lat. pavimentum.) In Architecture, a 
 causeway or floor paved with stone, brick, or other hard 
 material, for greater convenience of walking. See Roads. 
 
 P A VESE. orPAVOIS. A large shield, used in the war- 
 fare of the middle ages to cover assailants advancing to the 
 walls of a fortress. 
 
 PAVI'LIOX. (Fr. pavilion.) In Architecture, a project- 
 ing apartment on the flank of a building, usually higher than 
 the rest of it. Summer houses in gardens are sometimes 
 called by this name, but improperly. The term pavilion is 
 also used to signify a military tent. 
 
 PA'VO. (Lat. a pea-fowl.) The name given by Linnae- 
 us to the genus of Gallinaceous birds, of which the splendid 
 Lidian peacock (Pavo indicus, Linn.) is the type. Thev 
 are characterized by a crest of peculiar form, and by the 
 tail coverts of the male extending far beyond the quills, and 
 being capable of erection into a broad and gorgeous disk. 
 The shining, lax, and silky barbs of these feathers, and the 
 eye-like spots which decorate their extremities, are known 
 to every one. The Indian pea-fowl exist wild in the north 
 of India, whence they were introduced into Europe by Alex- 
 ander the Great. A distinct species of pea-fowl exists in 
 the Isle of Java. 
 
 PAWNBROKER. A species of banker, who advances 
 money at a certain rate of interest upon the security of 
 goods deposited in his hands ; having power to sell the goods 
 if the principal sum, and the interest thereon, be not paid 
 within a specified time. The practice of advancing money 
 to the poor, either with or without interest, seems to have 
 been occasionally adopted in ancient times ; but the first 
 public establishments of this kind were founded in Italy, 
 under the name of Monti di Fieta, in the 14th and 15th cen- 
 turies, and were intended to countervail the exorbitant usu- 
 rious practices of the Jews, who formed at that period the 
 great money lenders of Europe. From Italy these establish- 
 ments gradually spread over the Continent, in manv parts 
 of which they still exist. [See Mont de Piete.) For a 
 view of the advantages and disadvantages of pawnbroking, 
 and the law as to pawnbrokers, &c, see the Commercial 
 
 JJirt. 
 
 PAX. An allegorical divinity anions the ancients, wor- 
 shipped as the goddess of peace. She had a celebrated tem- 
 ple at Home, which was built hv Vespasian, and was con- 
 sumed by fire in the reign of Commodus. This term is 
 some times applied to a small image of Christ, because, in 
 former times. me kjgg which the people gave it before leav- 
 ing church was called the kiss of peace. But the common 
 pax, or oeculalorium, was a metallic plate with a crucifix 
 engraved on it. It is now disused, (See Ducange. Oscular 
 torium ; Milner. in the Jlrchaolagia, vol. xx.. p. 534.1 
 
 PATMASTER-GENERAL OF THE FORCES. This 
 office was formerly extremely lucrative, from the interest on 
 the large sum of money which remained for a long time im 
 I --ion of the paymaster, la 1782 it was deprived 
 of these extraordinary emoluments, and the salary fixed at 
 X4IHH) a year. The paymaster is constituted by letters 
 patent under the great seal ; he is, ex officio, of the privy 
 council, sometimes of the cabinet. In the Pay I tffice there 
 are under him a deputy paymaster, accountant-general, 
 cashier, and various assistants. 
 
 PAYMASTER OF THE imisEHOLD. An officer in 
 the lord steward's department. This office has superseded 
 that of the ancient cofferers. It has a salary of £450 per 
 annum. 
 
 PEACE, JUSTICES OF. See Justices. 
 
 PEAK. In Naval language, the name given to the upper 
 comer of those sails which are extended by a gatf, or by a 
 yard crossing the mast obliquely ; as the tuizzen yard of a 
 ship, &.c. 
 
 908 
 
 PEAT. 
 
 PEARLASII. Impure carbonate of potash. See Pot- 
 ash. 
 
 PEARLS. These arc substances formed by certain bi- 
 valve Mollusks. consisting of concentric lave'rs of a tine 
 compact nacre, or substance identical with that which lines 
 the inside of the shell ; they are sometimes found free and 
 detached within the lobes of the mantle, but most common- 
 ly adherent to the nacrous coat of the shell, which on that 
 account is termed "mother of pearl." The species of bi- 
 valve which produces the most valuable pearls is the pearl 
 oyster of Ceylon, Mcleagrina margarittfera, Lam. A pore 
 pearl is generally spherical, and has a white, or bluish, or 
 yellowish white colour, with a peculiar lustre and irides- 
 cence, and consists of alternating concentric layers of mem- 
 brane and carbonate of lime. When steeped in dilute mu- 
 riatic acid, the carbonate is decomposed with effervescence, 
 and films of membrane remain undissolved. 
 
 Pearls were In the highest possible estimation in ancient 
 Rome, and bore an enormous price. Principium culmenque 
 omnium rerum pretii, marirarita: tcnent. (Plin. Hist. Nat., 
 lib. ix., c. 35.) Their price in modern times has very much 
 declined ; partly, no doubt, from changes of manners and 
 fashions, but more, probably, from the admirable imitations 
 of pearls that may be obtained at a very low price. Ac- 
 cording to Mr. Milburn, a handsome necklace of Ceylon 
 pearls, smaller than a large pea, cost from .£170 to £300 ; 
 but one of pearls about the size of peppercorns may be had 
 for £15: the pearls in the former sell at a guinea each, and 
 those in the latter at about Is. 6d. When the pearls dwin- 
 dle to the size of a small shot, they are denominated seed 
 pearls, and are of little value. They are mostly sent to 
 China. One of the most remarkable pearls of which we 
 have any authentic account was bought by Tavernier, at 
 Catifa, in Arabia, a fishery famous in the days of Pliny, for 
 the enormous sum of £10,000 ! It is pear-shaped, regular, 
 and without blemish. The diameter is -63 inch at the larg- 
 est part, and the length from 2 to 3 inches. It is in the posr 
 session of the shah of Persia. 
 
 The pearl oyster is fished in various parts of the world, 
 particularly on the west coast of Ceylon ; at Tuticoreen, 
 in the province of Tinnevelley, on the coast of Coroman- 
 del ; at the Bahrein Islands, in the Gulf of Persia ; at the 
 Sooloo Islands ; off the coast of Algiers ; off St. Margarita, 
 or Pearl Islands, in the West Indies, and other places on 
 the coast of Colombia ; and in the Bay of Panama, in the 
 South Sea. Pearls have sometimes been found on the 
 Scotch coast, and in various other places. 
 
 The pearl fishery of Tuticoreen is monopolized by the 
 East India Company, and that of Ceylon by government. 
 But these monopolies are of no value ; as in neither case 
 does the sum for which the fishery is let equal the ex- 
 penses incurred in guarding, surveying, and managing the 
 banks. It is therefore sufficiently obvious that this system 
 ought to be abolished, and every one allowed to fish on 
 paying a moderate licence duty. The fear of exhausting 
 the hanks is quite ludicrous. The fishery would be aban- 
 doned as unprofitable long before the breed of oysters had 
 been injuriously diminished, and in a few years it would 
 be as productive as ever. Besides giving fresh life to the 
 fishery, the abolition of the monopoly would put an end to 
 some very oppressive regulations enacted by the Dutch 
 more than a century ago. (For full details respecting the 
 pearl fishery, see the Commercial Diet.) 
 
 PEARLSINTER. In Mineralogy, a siliceous mineral 
 found in volcanic tufa : it is also called ./lon'fc. 
 
 PEARLSTOXE. A variety of obsidian, a volcanic pro- 
 duct of a pearly lustre : it is a silicate of alumina. 
 
 PEASTONE, or PISOLPTE. A variety of limestone 
 composed of globular concretions of the size of a pea. 
 
 PEAT. The natural accumulation of vegetable matter 
 on the surface of lands not in a state of cultivation ; al- 
 ways more or less saturated with water, and generally 
 abounding in modifications of extractive matter, varying 
 with the nature of the plants of which the peat is com- 
 posed. 
 
 Peat is generally of a black or dark brown colour, or, 
 when recently formed, of a yellowish brown : it is soft, 
 and of a viscid consistence ; but it becomes hard and dark- 
 er by exposure to the air. It is generally more or less 
 mixed with earthy substances. When steeped in water it 
 gives out a brown liquor, more or less dark. When thor- 
 oughly dried it may be set fire to, and burns slowly, giving 
 out a gentle heat without much smoke. This smoke com- 
 municates a peculiar flavour to all the articles with which 
 it comes in contact ; and this flavour is considered a char- 
 acteristic of spirits which have been distilled in \e--els 
 heated by this kind of fuel, and also of malt. corn, and fish 
 which have been dried by it. Peat abounds in every part 
 of the world, but more especially in the cold moist climates 
 of temperate regions. It covers many thousand 
 Ireland, and in the Highlands and western counties of the 
 Lowlands of Scotland, and In the western counties of
 
 PEATS. 
 
 England ; but all these bogs are rapidly disappearing, in 
 consequence of being drained, and having their surfaces 
 slightly covered with earth, and stirred and sown with 
 grass seeds. 
 
 When peaty matter accumulates on the sides of declivi- 
 ties it is generally comparatively dry, and is then called 
 hill-peat , but when peat accumulates on hollow places, or 
 on flat surfaces, it is generally thoroughly saturated with 
 water, and is then called peat-bog. In most cases the prin- 
 cipal plant which forms the peatty matter is the Spkag- 
 num palustre of Linnsus ; a moss which is common on all 
 moist, peaty surfaces throughout Europe, and is frequent 
 in many parts of North America. This moss continues 
 growing upwards from the points of the shoots, while de- 
 cay is advancing in a similar manner from their lower ex- 
 tremities ; thus forming a thick, close mass of vegetable 
 matter, which rots below as it increases in height. The 
 rotten part is frequently dug out and dried, to be used as 
 fuel, or to be mixed with dung or lime and rotted into 
 manure. 
 
 When peaty matter accumulates on a surface which 
 abounds in springs, the water sometimes oozes out beneath 
 the peat, and between it and the natural soil, in such 
 quantities as to raise up the layer of peat, and float it off to 
 a distance; sometimes carrying everything before it, and 
 ending by burying under it lands in a state of culture. 
 About the middle of the 18th century, a remarkable irrup- 
 tion of this kind took place near Annan in Dumfries-shire ; 
 and such irruptions are frequent in Ireland. The circum- 
 stances favourable to the growth of peat are a soil abound- 
 ing in springs, a flat surface or hollow surrounded by hills, 
 and a moist climate. Hence peat-bogs are more abundant 
 in Ireland, and in the western counties of Scotland, than 
 in any other part of the British empire. 
 
 When an accumulation of peat has taken place in a 
 level situation, or on a declivity not abounding in springs, 
 the matter accumulated is comparatively dry, and is then 
 called peat moss. One of the most remarkable peat moss- 
 es in Britain is the Flanders Moss, in Stirlingshire. It 
 rests on a flat surface of excellent alluvial soil, of which it 
 covers about 4000 acres. Great part of this peat moss, be- 
 ing quite light, has been cut into small pieces, and floated 
 off, by means of a stream of water, to the sea ; thus expo- 
 sin™ the natural soil, and rendering it fit for culture. This 
 operation was commenced at Blair Drummond, towards 
 the end of the last century, by the celebrated Lord Karnes, 
 and is still continued by his son, Mr. Drummond. 
 
 PEATS. Peat bo;* cut out in small square or rectangu- 
 lar pieces, and dried for being used as fuel. These pieces 
 are cut out with light spades in the summer season, spread 
 abroad to dry, and afterwards carted home and put up in 
 stacks or heaps, which are thatched to exclude the rain. 
 These peats are afterwards used as fuel, not only for do- 
 mestic purposes, but for burning lime, and for heating kilns 
 for drying corn, &c. To facilitate the drying of peat, the 
 water is sometimes pressed out of the square pieces after 
 they are cut, and thrown out of the bog, by a compressing 
 machine, which also renders the material more compact 
 and durable in the fire. Peats are also sometimes charred 
 by a smothered combustion, so as to be rendered better 
 adapted to serve as a substitute for pit-coal, coke, or char- 
 coal, in smelting iron or other metals, in generating steam, 
 &c. Attempts have been made to separate astringent mat- 
 ter from peat, and to use it in tanning leather. 
 
 PEAT SOIL. Peat in a state of decomposition, on which 
 corn or other agricultural crops may be grown. The pro- 
 cess of turning living peat into peat soil is greatly facilita- 
 ted by draining, and by laying earth or lime on its surface, 
 and afterwards mixing the earthy matter with the peat 
 by ploughing or digging. In this manner every kind of 
 peaty surface may be rendered available for agricultural 
 purposes; and accordingly, in Ireland, in Lancashire, and 
 in Ayrshire, good crops of corn, potatoes, and artificial 
 grasses are produced on the surface of peat lands, which 
 consist of a layer of peat from five to twenty feet in depth. 
 The plants which thrive best on the surface of beds of 
 peat of this description are those which extend their roots 
 immediately under the surface. Hence few trees will 
 thrive in such soils, with the exception of the spruce fir, 
 the silver fir, the birch, and two or three kinds of willows. 
 Peaty soil is extensively used in gardening, in the culture 
 of plants which are found growing on this soil in a wild 
 state. 
 
 Peat from wood, or woody peat, is a composition of the 
 branches, trunks, and roots of trees, with their leaves, and 
 the shrubs and plants which have grown up among them, 
 which have lain so long in water as to have decayed into 
 a mass soft enough to be cut with a spade. The colour is 
 a blackish brown, like that of mossy peat ; and it may be 
 used as manure, for fuel, and for the growth of plants. 
 Peat of this description is found in some parts of Holland, 
 and also in the Vale of Kennett, in Berkshire ; but is most 
 75 
 
 PECTINIBRANCHIATES. 
 
 abundant in North America, where it forms the soil in 
 which many of the plants and trees of that country thrive 
 with the greatest vigour. Wherever it can be found, it is 
 the most suitable of all kinds of peat for garden purposes. 
 This kind of peat is frequently burned for its ashes, both 
 in Britain and Holland ; and these, from the alkali they 
 contain, are found an excellent manure. 
 
 Peat, sandy, or sandy peat, is mossy peat in a state of de- 
 cay or mould, naturally mixed with sand brought over it, 
 from soil lying above its level, or by the overflowings of 
 rivers. It is used in gardening for the same purposes as 
 heath soil. 
 
 PE'BBLES. A term applied to rounded nodules, espe- 
 cially of siliceous minerals, such as rock-crystal, agates, 
 &c. Among opticians the term pebble generally means the 
 transparent and colourless rock-crystal or quartz (pure 
 silica), which is used as a substitute for glass in spectacles : 
 its extreme hardness renders it more durable, and little apt 
 to be scratched. 
 
 PE'CC ARI. A Pachydermatous quadruped allied to the 
 hog ; but generally distinguished by the absence of the 
 outer toe of the hind foot, and the presence of a peculiar 
 gland, which exudes its secretion by an orifice situated on 
 the back ; whence Cuvier devised the name Dicotyles 
 (two navels) for the genus. The incisor and molar teeth 
 resemble those of the hog, but the canines do not project 
 from the mouth. The metacarpal and metatarsal bones of 
 their two middle and largest toes are confluent, as in the 
 Ruminants ; with which their stomach also, divided into 
 three compartments with ca?cal appendages, presents a 
 marked analogy. Two species of peccari are known, both 
 natives of South America ; viz., the collared peccari 
 {Dicotyles torquatus), and the white-lipped peccari (Die. 
 labialus, Cuv.). 
 
 PECHBLEND, or PITCHBLENDE. An ore of ura- 
 nium. 
 
 PECK. A measure of capacity containing two gallons, 
 or the fourth part of a bushel. The imperial peck con- 
 tains 55455 cubic inches. See Measure. 
 
 PE'CORA. (Lat. pecus, a sheep.) The name given by 
 Linnteus to an order of Mammals corresponding with the 
 Ruminantia of Cuvier. 
 
 P'ECTEN (Lat. a comb), in Comparative Anatomy, is 
 the vascular membrane, in structure resembling the cho- 
 roid, plicated with parallel folds like the teeth of a comb, 
 and extending, in the eyes of birds, from the back of the 
 retina through the vitreous humour to, or near to, the crys- 
 talline lens, where it mostly terminates in a point. This 
 organ resembles a flattened conical bag, whence it is also 
 termed " marsupium." 
 
 In Zoology, the name is applied to the genus of bivalve 
 shells commonly called " clams." They have a hinge like 
 that of the oyster ; but have been removed on account of 
 their shell being inequivalve, semicircular, always regu- 
 larly marked with ribs, which radiate from the summit of 
 each valve to the circumference, and furnished with two 
 angular productions, called " ears," which widen the sides 
 of the hinge. 
 
 The animal is chiefly remarkable for the little dark 
 green metallic globule which terminates most of the ten- 
 tacles of the exterior row of those at the circumference of 
 the mantle. These specks are conjectured to be rudimen- 
 tal organs of vision, whence Poli was induced to call the 
 soft parts of the pecten "argus." 
 
 PE'CTIN. (Gr. TrnKTos, coagulated.) Also termed Pec- 
 tic Acid. The gelatinizing principle of certain vegetables, 
 such as currants, apples, &c. It may be abundantly ob- 
 tained from some of the esculent roots, especially carrots, 
 whence their excellence as an ingredient in soup. To ob- 
 tain it from this source the carrots are rasped, and the 
 pulp strongly pressed, so as to render it as dry as possible ; 
 in this state it is washed in repeated portions of cold soft 
 water, till all soluble matters are removed from it. The 
 pulp thus prepared is then boiled with 5 parts of bicarbon- 
 ate of potash to every 100 of the washed pulp ; the decoc- 
 tion is filtered, and chloride of calcium added to it, which 
 forms a bulky precipitate of pectate of lime; this is well- 
 washed, and the lime removed by very weak muriatic 
 acid. Pectin, or pectic acid, thus obtained, is in the form 
 of a jelly, which forms insoluble compounds with the 
 earths and several of the other metallic oxides. It seems 
 doubtful whether this jelly is not a product, resulting from 
 the action of the alkaline carbonate of the lignin of the 
 carrot. It must, however, be easily formed ; for when 
 carrots are stewed or boiled for a length of time, they be- 
 come very gelatinous. When pectic acid is boiled in a 
 stron" solution of potassa, oxalate of potassa is produced. 
 
 PEC'TINA'TUM TECTUM. (Lat. pecten, a comb.) In 
 Architecture, a roof which has obtained this name from 
 its shape resembling that of a comb, and contrived to 
 throw oft' the rain water in two ways. 
 
 PECTINIBRANCHIATES, Pectinibranchiata. (Latin, 
 
 909
 
 PECTORALS. 
 
 pecten, and bronchia, gills.) The name given by Cuvic r 
 to his sixth order of Gastropods. It is the most extensive 
 division of that class, since it includes almost all the spiral 
 Univalve shells, as well as several which are merely coni- 
 cal. The order is thus characterized by Cuvier: "The 
 branchiae, composed of numerous leaflets or fringes, rnnged 
 parallel like the teeth of a comb, are affixed in two or 
 three lines (according to the genera) to the floor of the 
 respiratory cavity which occupies the last whorl of the 
 shell, and which communicates outwards by a wide aper- 
 ture between the margin of the cloak and the body. Two 
 genera only — Cijc/ustoma and Helicina — have, instead of 
 branchia'. a vascular network clothing the ceiling of the 
 cavity, in all respects the same as that of the order ; and 
 they are the only ones which respire the atmosphere, wa- 
 ter being the medium of respiration to all the rest." 
 
 All the Pectinibranchiates have two tentacula and two 
 eyes, raised sometimes on pedicles ; a mouth in the form 
 of a proboscis, more or less lengthened ; and separate sex- 
 es. The penis of the male, attached to the right side of 
 the neck, cannot, in general, be drawn within the body, but 
 is reflected into the branchial cavity ; it is sometimes very 
 large. The Paludina alone has the organ concealed, and 
 it comes out through a hole pierced in the right tentacu- 
 lum ; the rectum and the oviduct of the female also creep 
 along the right side of the branchial cavity ; and there is 
 between them and the branchia: a peculiar organ, com- 
 posed of cells filled with a very viscous fluid, the use of 
 which is to form a common envelop for the enclosure of 
 the eggs, and which the animal deposits within them. 
 The form of that envelop is often very complicated and 
 very remarkable. 
 
 The tongue is armed with little hooks (or curved spi- 
 nules), and wears down the hardest botUes by slow and oft- 
 repeated frictions. 
 
 The grand difference between these animals lies in the 
 presence or absence of the canal formed by the prolonga- 
 tion of the margin of the branchial cavity on the left side, 
 and which passes along a similar canal or sinus in the 
 shell, to enable the animal to breathe without leaving its 
 shell. There is also this distinction between the genera, 
 that some want the operculum; and the species vary in 
 the filaments, fringes, and other ornaments that deck the 
 head, the foot, or the cloak. 
 
 PE'CTORALS, or PECTORAL FINS. (Lat. pectus, 
 the breast.) The anterior and lateral pair of fins, which 
 represent, in fishes, the fore legs or anterior members of 
 Other vertebrate animals. 
 
 PECULA'TION. (Lat. peculium.) A term of the Ro- 
 man law, rendered in that of France by concussion. The 
 embezzlement by a public officer of public money. Pecu- 
 lation, in the Roman law, also comprehended offences re- 
 lating to the coin. 
 
 PECU'LIAR. In Ecclesiastical Law, an exempt juris- 
 diction, which is not under the ordinary of the dioccss, 
 but has one of its own. They are — royal, of which the 
 king is ordinary ; peculiars of archbishops, bishops, deans, 
 chapters, prebendaries, and the like ; to which were for- 
 merly added peculiars of monasteries, the jurisdiction over 
 which, by 31 H. 8, c. 13, was granted to the ordinary 
 within whose diocess they were situate, or to such per- 
 sons as the king should appoint. 
 
 PE'CULIUM. (Lat.) In the Roman Law, the proper- 
 ty which a slave might acquire independent of the con- 
 trol of his master. This property was frequently permit- 
 ted to accumulate, so as to enable the slave to purchase 
 his freedom. The son being, on the principles of the Ro- 
 man law, unemancipated during the lifetime of his father, 
 whatever property he might acquire appertained in strict- 
 ness to the latter ; but, by degrees, certain species of prop- 
 erty acquired by the child obtained the title and character 
 of peculia. Of these, however, the only one which was 
 absolutely the child's was that which the son acquired in 
 military service (peculium castrense), or in public service 
 of any kind, which, by a legal fiction, was regarded as 
 equivalent to military. 
 
 PE'DAGOGUE. "(Gr. naiSayuiyos; from vaic, Joy, and 
 ayiayoc, leader.) Among the ancient Greeks, a slave 
 charged with the personal care of a boy from the earliest 
 age after infancy (from the milk, in the loose phrase of 
 Plutarch ; from about the age of seven, as it is more ac- 
 curately stated by yEschines) until he became a youth 
 (uupaKiov), i. e., until the seventeenth or twentieth year. 
 The pedagogue's duty was to attend his charge on all oc- 
 casions when he left his father's house; to the lecture- 
 rooms of masters, the theatre, &c. (See especially Plato, 
 Sympot.) He was also entrusted with the duty of in- 
 structing and disciplining the child in inferior branches of 
 education and ordinary manners. He was, consequently, 
 of a very superior order of common slaves, and must be un- 
 derstood as excepted when Aristotle recommends that a 
 ■child should be left to converse as little as possible with 
 910 
 
 PEER. 
 
 persons of the servile class. (Politic., vii., 156.) The cus- 
 tom of entrusting children to slaves in this manner was 
 common in other Grecian states ; the Romans also em- 
 ployed a slave for similar purposes, with the title of ctte- 
 tos or magister. 
 
 In modern times, and especially in Germany, the word 
 pedagogic is used to signify the science or art of education. 
 
 PEDAL HARMONIES. In Music, the same as Organ 
 Point, which see. 
 
 PEDALMA SCHI. A Turkish officer, whose duty con- 
 sists in looking after the interests of the Sultan in cases of 
 legacies. The Ottoman treasury receives through this 
 officer a tithe of all bequests made to heirs male. 
 
 PE'DALS (Lat. pes, afoot), in such musical instruments 
 as the organ, harp, and pianoforte, are either keys acted 
 on by the feet of the performer (whence the name), to 
 modify the tone of these respective instruments, or levers 
 acting on the swell of the organ, and on the stops. The 
 invention of the pedals or foot-keys of the organ is attribu- 
 ted to a German named Dernhard, who lived in the 15th 
 century. It was long, however, before their utility and 
 importance were acknowledged by other nations ; and it 
 is a singular fact that though England was the first to in- 
 troduce the organ generally into the church, she was the 
 last to adopt this invention. Within the last twenty years 
 many improvements have been made in the construction 
 of pedals, and few organs, except those of small dimen- 
 sions, are now built without them. See Oroan. 
 
 PE'DATE. In Botany, a palmate leaf with the two 
 lateral lobes themselves divided into smaller segments, the 
 midribs of which do not run directly into the common cen- 
 tral point; as in the leaf of Jirum dracunculus. 
 
 PE'DESTAL. (Lat. pes, a foot.) In Architecture, the 
 substruction to a column or wall. The component parts 
 of a pedestal are three ; the base, the die, and the cornice. 
 The whole height of a pedestal is from one quarter to one 
 third of the height of the column, with its entablature. 
 
 PE'DICEL. (Lat. pes.) One of the ramifications of 
 that part of a flower called the peduncle. 
 
 PEDICE'LLATES, Pedicellata. (Lat. pes.) The name 
 of an order of Echinoderms, comprehending those which 
 have the vesicular pedicellate organs, which are termed 
 feet in this class, but which project from various parts of 
 the surface of the body. 
 
 PE'DIMANES, Pedimani. (Lat. pes, and manus, a hand.) 
 The name of a family of Marsupial animals, of which the 
 opossum (Didelphis) is the type; they are distinguished by 
 the opposable property of the hinder thumb, or hallux, the 
 fore feet being organized like those of ordinary Unguiculate 
 quadrupeds. 
 
 PE'DIMENT. (Lat. pes.) In Architecture, the low 
 triangular mass representing the gable of a roof over the 
 front of a building, portico, door, window, &c. ; though 
 sometimes these ornaments are terminated upwards by seg- 
 ments of circles. A pediment is frequently ornamented 
 with sculpture. The heights of pediments are seldom more 
 than two nitlths of their width. 
 
 PE'DIPALPS, Pcdipalpi. (Lat. pes; and palpo, I feel.) 
 A name given to a tribe of pulmonary Arachnidans, com- 
 prehending those which have the feelers in the form of 
 pincers, or armed with a didactyle claw ; as the scorpions. 
 
 PEDLAR. See Hawker. 
 
 PEDO'METER, or PODOMETER. (Gr. mvc, the foot, 
 and fitTpui', measure.) An instrument for the purpose of 
 registering the number of paces taken by a man in travel- 
 ling or walking, whence the distance is ascertained. It is 
 usually in the form of a watch, and receives its movement 
 from the motion of the body, so that it advances one divi- 
 sion at each step. The number of divisions may be noted 
 by an index or hand, In the same manner as the number of 
 vibrations of a watch-balance. The best construction, or 
 rather the only one now used in this country, is that of Mr. 
 Payne, watchmaker, of Bond Street. See I'krambulator. 
 
 PEDU'NCULATES, Pedunculate. The name of an order 
 of Cirripeds, comprehending those which have the body 
 supported by a flexible tubular stem. 
 
 PEDTJ'NCULUS. (Lat. pes, afoot.) That part of a 
 branch or stem that immediately bears the flowers. 
 
 I'KLP <>' DAY HOYS. The well-known appellation of 
 certain insurgents who appeared In Ireland in 1784. They 
 Obtained this name from visiting the houses of their antag- 
 onists, called defenders, at break of day in search of arms. 
 
 PEER. (From the Latin par, French pair.) Equal, 
 which meaning it still retains in the language of the com- 
 mon law, as trial by jury is said to be by the peers, or 
 equals, of the defendant In this sense, the name remains 
 as a relic of feudal institutions, according to which every 
 rank of society formed an association for tile purpose of 
 mutual defence and the derision of disputes ; as the tenants 
 of a lord paramount or inferior, who met as equals ("pares 
 curitc) in the court over which he presided. Hence, in the 
 French monarchy, the highest vassals of the crown formed
 
 PEGASUS. 
 
 a rank apart, and were called pares or peers with reference 
 to each other ; and the designation became a title of honour. 
 The peers of France differed in number at different periods 
 of the early French monarchy, as their domains became 
 United to the crown ; but, according to heraldic theory, there 
 are six temporal — the Dukes of Burgundy, Aquitaine, and 
 Normandy, and Counts of Flanders, Toulouse, and Cham- 
 pagne; and six spiritual— the Archbishop of Itheims, and 
 the Bishops of Laon, Beauvais, Noyon, Chalons, and Lan- 
 gres. In later times new peerages were created, as the 
 duchy of Britany and counties of Artois and Anjou. At 
 last the title remained as a simple dignity ; and Louis XIV. 
 increased the number of dukes and peers (dues et pairs) 
 until at last they amounted to thirty-seven. They had no 
 privileges except precedence, and a seat in the parliaments. 
 On the restoration of Louis XVIII., hereditary peerage was 
 established in France on the model of that of England, but 
 was abolished in 1831 ; and the members of the present 
 chamber of peers are nominated for life by the people. For 
 the history and privileges of the English peerage, see Par- 
 liament. There is a curious analysis of the English peer- 
 age in the Quart. Review, vol. 41. 
 
 PE'GASUS. In Greek mythology, a winged horse, pro- 
 duced by Neptune ; or, according to some authors, which 
 sprung from the blood of Medusa when Perseus cut off her 
 head. See Bellerophon. 
 
 Pegasus. This name is applied, in Zoology, to a genus 
 of Lophobranchiate fishes with large pectoral fins, by means 
 of which they are enabled to take short saltatory flights 
 through the air. 
 
 Pegasus. One of the 48 ancient constellations of Ptol- 
 emy, situated in the northern hemisphere. 
 
 PELA'GIANISM. The religious system promulgated by 
 Pelagius, a British monk of the fifth century, who, after 
 attaining to considerable notoriety in his own day by first 
 eliciting the discussion of the great questions respecting 
 grace and predestination, has succeeded in bequeathing his 
 name as a designation in all after ages for those who have 
 held the extreme opinions by which he was distinguished. 
 His tenets are thus clearly stated by a modern writer: — " 1. 
 That the sins of our first parents are imputed to themselves 
 alone, and not to their posterity ; that we derive no corrup- 
 tion from their fate ; that we inherit no depravity from our 
 origin, but enter into the world as pure and unspotted as 
 Adam at his creation. It was a necessary inference from 
 this doctrine that infant baptism is not a sign or seal of the 
 remission of sins, but only a mark of admission into the 
 kingdom of Christ. 2. That our own powers are sufficient 
 for our own justification; that as by our own free will we 
 run into sin, so by the same voluntary exercise of our facul- 
 ties we are able to repent and reform, and raise ourselves to 
 the highest degree of virtue and piety ; that we are indeed 
 assisted by that external grace of God which has taught us 
 the truths of revelation, which opens to us our prospects, 
 and enlightens our understanding, and animates our exer- 
 tions after holiness; that the internal or immediate opera- 
 tion of the Holy Spirit is not necessary either to awaken us 
 to religious feeling, or to further us in our progress towards 
 holiness ; in short, that man, by the unassisted agency of 
 his natural perfections, under the guidance of his own free 
 will, is enabled to work out his own salvation." (Wad- 
 dington's Hist, of the church.) These opinions were for- 
 mally condemned by a decree of Pope Zosimus, about 418, 
 and again by the council of Ephesus, in 431. Their prin- 
 cipal opponent was the famous Augustin, who, in the 
 course of his arguments against them, advanced an expla- 
 nation of the questions involved in the discussion, which 
 has been stigmatized as leading directly to the opposite ex- 
 treme of fatalism. (See Mosheim, vol. ii., cent. 5.) The 
 Pelagian opinions respecting original sin are condemned in 
 the 9th article of the English church. 
 
 PELECA'XHLE. The name of a family of swimming 
 birds, of which the pelican (Pelicanus) is the type. 
 
 PELLA'GRA. (Lat. pellis, the skin, and seger, sick.) A 
 disease of the skin somewhat resembling elephantiasis, and 
 occasionally producing great constitutional derangement. 
 It is endemic in certain districts of Italy, especially in the 
 Milanese. 
 
 PE'LLICLE. (Lat. pellis.) A thin membrane. In 
 Chemistry, the term is applied to the film of salt or other 
 substances which forms upon the surface of solutions dur- 
 ing evaporation. 
 
 PE'LLITORY OF SPAIN. The root of the Jlnthemis 
 pyrethrum. It has a pungent flavour, and when chewed 
 promotes the flow of saliva, and is often useful in toothache. 
 
 PE'LTA. (Lat. a shield.) In Botany, a term used in 
 describing lichens to denote a flat shield without any elevated 
 rim, as in the genus Peltidea. 
 
 PELTA'STJ3. Light-armed infantry were so named 
 among the Greeks, from carrying the pelta or target. (See 
 Mem. de VAc. des laser., vol. xxxii.) 
 
 PE LTATE. (Lat. pelta, a shield.) A leaf or any other 
 
 PENDULUM. 
 
 organ which is fixed to the stalk by the centre, or by some 
 point distinctly within the margin, as in the Tropceolum. 
 
 PE'LTRY. (Germ, peltz, from Lat. pellis, a skin.) The 
 name given to the skins of different kinds of wild animals 
 found in high northern latitudes, particularly in America; 
 such as the beaver, sable, wolf, bear, &c. When the skins 
 of such animals have received no preparation, they are 
 termed peltry; but when the inner side has been tanned 
 by an aluminous process, they are denominated furs. 
 
 PE'LVIS. (Gr. juAu?, a basin.) The inferior part of the 
 abdomen, the bony circumference of which is formed by the 
 two ossa innominati, the sacrum, and the os coccygis. It 
 contains the rectum, the urinary bladder, and internal or- 
 gans of generation. 
 
 PE'MPHIGUS. (Gr. izix<pil, a vesicle.) A fever attended 
 by almond-shaped vesicular eruptions. 
 
 PE'NALTY. (Lat. poena, punishment), is of three kinds, 
 says Lord Coke ; pxna pecuniaria, pmna corporalis, and 
 pmna exilii. Where anything is prohibited by statute under 
 a penalty, if the penalty, or part of it, be not appointed by 
 the statute to the informer, it goes to the crown. Penal 
 statutes are to be construed strictly. See Statute. 
 
 PE'NANCE. See Penitence. 
 
 PENA'TES. The household gods of the ancient Ital- 
 ians, who presided over families, and were worshipped in 
 the interior of each dwelling. The term is derived from 
 penitus, within. Penates is, in fact, a generic term, compri- 
 sing in its strict sense all the gods worshipped in the interior 
 of the house, and consequently including the Lares, with 
 whom they are continually mentioned in conjunction. The 
 number and names of the Penates were indeterminate. As 
 there were public as well as domestic Lares, so there were 
 public Penates, who exercised a general influence over the 
 destinies of the whole Roman people. Thus Tacitus re- 
 lates, that " delubrum Vests cum Penatibus populi Romani" 
 was consumed, along with other very ancient temples, in 
 the great fire during the reign of Nero. But the term may, 
 perhaps, be considered as belonging to the rhetorical style 
 of that author, and to signify merely the tutelary god of the 
 republic. 
 
 The subject of the domestic deities of the Romans, the 
 Lares and Penates, is involved in great obscurity, from the 
 conflicting statements of the classic authors respecting them. 
 Those who wish to see the question investigated in all its 
 bearings may consult Mutter's Etruscans, vol. ii., p. 00, &c. ; 
 Jaekel, De Diis Domesticis ; Hartung, Religion der Rbmer, 
 &c. (See also the notes by Prof. Ramsay, of Glasgow, ap- 
 pended to his valuable little work entitled Elegiac Extracts 
 from Tibul'us and Ovid, with English Introductions and 
 Motes, 12mo, 1840.) 
 
 PE'NCIL. (Lat. penicillum.) In Painting, Drawing, 
 &c, the instrument wherewith the colours are applied. 
 Pencils are of various sorts, sizes, and materials, suited to 
 the nature of the work. The black lead pencil is made of 
 long slips of black lead (plumbago or graphite), inclosed in 
 cylindrical pieces of cedar, and is too well known to need 
 farther description. 
 
 PEXCIL OF LIGHT, in Optics, is a collection of the 
 rays or evanescent streams of light converging to a point, 
 as the focus of a lens or mirror. 
 
 PE'NDANT. (Lat. pendo, / hang.) In Gothic Archi- 
 tecture, an ornamented polygonal piece of stone or timber 
 hanging down from the vault or roof of a building. Of stone 
 pendants some exquisite examples may be seen in Henry 
 VII.'s Chapel at Westminster. In ancient writers the 
 springers of arches, which rest on shafts or corbels, are 
 called pendants. 
 
 Pendants of a Ship, are those streamers or long colours 
 which are split or divided into two parts ending in points, 
 and hang at the mast-head or at the yard-arm ends. 
 
 Pe'ndant. In Painting, &c, a picture or print which, 
 from uniformity of size and subject, seems to hang up as a 
 companion to another. The term may also be applied to 
 bassi rilievi of similar sizes. 
 
 Pendant is also the general term for all kinds of orna- 
 ments worn in the ears by both sexes in savage, and by fe- 
 males, chiefly, in civilized countries ; usually termed ear- 
 rings, which see. 
 
 PENDE'NTIVE. (Lat. pendo, / hang.) In Architec- 
 ture, the portion of a vault between 
 the arches under a dome, called by 
 the French fourche, or panache, let- 
 tered a in the diagram, by which it 
 will be seen that it falls at its supe- 
 rior part into a circle inscribed in the square formed on the 
 plan of the four arches. Hence it is obvious that a dome 
 may be formed by means of pendentives over any regular 
 polygon. 
 
 PE'NDULUM. (Lat. pendulus ; from pendo, / hang.) 
 If any heavy body, suspended by an inflexible rod from a 
 fixed point, be drawn aside from the vertical position, and 
 then let fall, it will descend in the arc of a circle of which 
 
 911
 
 PENDULUM. 
 
 the point of suspension is the centre. On reaching the ver- 
 tical position it will have acquired a velocity equal to that 
 which it would have acquired by falling vertically through 
 the versed sine of the arc it has described, in consequence 
 of which it will continue to move in the same arc until the 
 whole velocity is destroyed; and, if no other force than 
 gravity acted, this would take place when the body reach- 
 ed a height on the opposite side of the vertical equal to the 
 height from which it fell. Having reached this height it 
 would again descend, and so continue to vibrate forever; 
 but in consequence of the friction of the axis, and the re- 
 sistance of the air, each successive excursion will be dimin- 
 ished, and the body soon be brought to rest in the vertical 
 position. A body thus suspended, and caused to vibrate, is 
 called a pendulum ; and the passage from the greatest dis- 
 tance from the vertical on the one side to the greatest dis- 
 tance on the other is called an oscillation. 
 
 In order to investigate the circumstances of the motion, 
 the body must be regarded as a gravitating point, and the 
 indexible rod as devoid of weight. This is denominated the 
 simple pendulum, and the problem to be resolved is to deter- 
 mine the motion of a point constrained to move in a cir- 
 cular arc in virtue of the accelerating force of terrestrial 
 gravity. 
 Let C be the fixed point, A D B the arc described by the 
 pendulum, C D the vertical, and P the place 
 of the pendulum at a given instant. Draw 
 P E perpendicular to C D, and put D E = z, 
 E F — y, the arc D P = s, D H (the versed 
 sine of the arc D A) =A, and the radius C D 
 = I ; also, let v = the velocity at P, and t := 
 D the time of descent through A P. 
 The equation of the circle being y~ = 2/x — x 3 , we have 
 Idx 
 the differential equation ds = / ;i> 2 . ; and, by the 
 
 doctrine of falling bodies, the velocity at P is that which a 
 body would acquire in falling through H E, or equal to 
 y/2gHE (g being the accelerating force of gravity) : there- 
 
 : ds 
 
 fore » = v /2n\A — x). But </r= — : therefore, on substitu- 
 ting the values of ds and v above given, we get the equation 
 
 , _ ± dx 
 
 ~" y/~S ' V[(h— x)(2/x— i 2 )]' 
 This equation, being developed and integrated, gives the 
 time of descent from A to D, or the time of a semi-oscilla- 
 tion, as follows (77 being the ratio of the circumference to 
 the diameter, or = 3-14159) : 
 
 H[i+Q)XS)"(r+,*.] 
 
 When the arc of vibration is small, it is only necessary 
 to take account of the first two terms of the series ; whence 
 the time of a whole oscillation from A to B, which we shall 
 denote by T, is given by the formula, 
 
 T=ffy £ x ( 1+ *). 
 
 and if the arc is so small that A (its versed sine) becomes 
 
 / I 
 evanescent in comparison of 8', we have simply T = rr v ~~ ■ 
 
 g 
 Whence it appears that the time of an oscillation in an in- 
 finitely small arc is directly as the square root of the length 
 of the pendulum, and inversely as the square root of the 
 accelerating force of gravity. 
 
 Suppose gravity to be constant force (as it is at any giv- 
 en place on the earth's surface), the time of oscillation is 
 proportional to the square root of the length of the pendu- 
 lum ; consequently, if 'I" denote the time of oscillation of a 
 seconds pendulum, and V its length, we have T : T' : : y/l : 
 y/l'. Now, let N be the number of oscillations the first pen- 
 dulum makes in a given time, and N' the number the sec- 
 ond makes in the sa time ; then, the number of oscilla- 
 tions being evidently in the Inverse ratio of the tunes, we 
 have N : N' : : T' : T ; or N : N' : : JV : J I, whence I — 
 N' 2 
 j^-l' ; so that, if the length of one pendulum be known, we 
 
 can compute the length of another pendulum by observing 
 the number of oscillations that each makes in any given 
 time : for example, an hour. 
 
 In like manner, if we suppose the same pendulum to In- 
 transported to different parts of the earth (in which ease / 
 is constant and g variable), and assume that the values of 
 JN' and g at the first station become respectively V and g' 
 
 at the second, we shall have T : T' : : .— :.—.: whence g' 
 
 •Jg vV 
 
 = tvS5''' or s' = tf» g- So that the force of gravih at 
 different places ma} be compared by observing the number 
 of oscillations \\ bleb a pendulum makes at each place in a 
 given time. Or, if we suppose the times of oscillation con- 
 912 
 
 stant (that is, if we suppose two pendulums so adjusted as 
 to beat seconds at two different stations), and / and g varia- 
 ble ; then, since T^wv/-, and T' = ir\/— , we shall 
 g S 
 
 11' g 
 
 have — = — „or/ — /— ; whence the length of the scc- 
 
 g g g 
 
 onds' pendulum at any place is directly proportional to the 
 intensity of gravity at that place. 
 
 According to the theory of falling bodies (see Gravity), 
 the time t in which a body falls through the space a, by the 
 accelerating force of gravity, is given by the equation t = 
 
 ,2s / / 
 
 V — • Let 2s — I; then t = V ~ • But the time T, of the 
 g g 
 
 oscillation of a pendulum whose length is I, is T= 7r v/ — I 
 
 g 
 therefore T : t I : : it : 1 ; consequently the time of the oscilla- 
 tion of a pendulum is to the time that a heavy body would 
 fall freely by the force of gravity through half its length, as 
 the circumference of a circle to its diameter. 
 
 If we suppose the time to be expressed in seconds, and 
 make T = l, we shall haveg=ir*l. Now, Captain Kilter 
 found the length of the simple pendulum at London to bo 
 39-13929 inches, and we know that 7r 2 = 9-8696; therefore 
 ^ = 9-8696 x 39-139 = 38629 inches, or^ = 322 feet. It 
 follows, therefore, that the space through which a body 
 falls freely at London in a second of time is 16'1 feet. 
 
 Compound Pendulum. — The simple pendulum, as above 
 defined, is only a theoretical abstraction ; for the oscillating 
 body can neither be so small that it may be regarded as a 
 mathematical point, nor can the rod be entirely devoid of 
 weight. When the body has a sensible magnitude, and tiie 
 suspending-rod a sensible magnitude and weight as they 
 must have in all actual constructions, the apparatus is 
 called a compound pendulum ; and instead of being support- 
 ed by a single point it is supported by an axis, or by a scries 
 of points situated in the same straight line. According to 
 this definition, any heavy body oscillating about an axis of 
 suspension is a compound pendulum. 
 
 In every compound pendulum there is necessarily a cer- 
 tain point at which if all the matter of the pendulum were 
 collected the oscillations would be performed in exactly the 
 same time. This point is the centre of oscillation. (See 
 Centre of Oscillation.) It is situated in the vertical 
 plane passing through the centre of gravity of the pendu- 
 lum, and at a distance from the axis of suspension (the axis 
 being always supposed horizontal), which is determined by 
 the following formula : Let d m be tbe element of the mass 
 of the compound pendulum, r its distance from the axis of 
 rotation, and x the distance of the centre of oscillation from 
 the same axis ; then 
 
 z=-jr 2 dm-T-lrdm; 
 
 that is, the distance of the centre of oscillation from the 
 axis of suspension is equal to the moment of inertia of the 
 oscillating body divided by its moment of rotation. This 
 value of x is the length of the isochronous simple pendu- 
 lum, and is what is always to be understood by the term 
 length of a pendulum. 
 
 The centre of oscillation possesses a very remarkable 
 property, which was discovered by Huygens; namely, that 
 if the body be suspended from this point, or a horizontal 
 axis passing through it parallel to the former axis of suspen- 
 sion, its oscillations will be performed in the same time as 
 before; in other words, the axis of suspension and oscilla- 
 tion are Interchangeable. Tliis property furnishes an easy 
 practical method of determining the centre of oscillation, 
 and thence the length of a compound pendulum. 
 
 Applications of the Pendulum. — The most important ap- 
 plication that has been made of the pendulum is to the 
 measurement of time. It is said that Galileo, while a 
 young man, having had his attention drawn to the oscilla- 
 tions of a lamp suspended from the roof of a church in Pisa, 
 perceived that, although their extent was gradually dimin- 
 ished, they continued to be made in equal times, and thence 
 conceived the idea of employing a pendulum as a means of 
 
 measuring small intervals of time in astronomical observa- 
 tions. But though a pendulous body, by the isochronism 
 of its oscillations, furnishes a means of dividing time into 
 equal portions, it could obviousl] be of no great use until a 
 
 method was devised of continuing the motion, and register- 
 ing the number Of oscUlations. The application of clock- 
 work to tins purpose has been claimed for carious individ- 
 uals. Imt is generally and deservedly ascribed to Huygens; 
 and the invention, one of the 1110-t important that ever was 
 made in reference to practical astronomy, dates from the 
 j car 1656. 
 
 Huygens' researches on the subject of the oscillations of 
 the pendulum are contained in his admirable work entitled 
 'inn Oscillatorivm. He soon found that the oscilla- 
 tions in Circular arcs of different amplitudes are not equal, 
 the wider requiring rather a longer time than the narrow-
 
 PENDULUM. 
 
 er; and, with a view to remedy this defect, he undertook to 
 Investigate the nature of the curve in which the oscillations 
 would be performed in equal times, whatever might be the 
 extent of the arc described. The curve possessing this re- 
 markable property was found to be the cycloid. (See Cy- 
 cloid.) The next object was to devise a means of causing 
 a pendulum to vibrate in such a manner that its centre of 
 oscillation shall describe the arc of a cycloid. This was 
 also effected by Huygens by the following construction, 
 which depends on another property of the cycloid, namely, 
 that its evolute is a similar curve : If A C 
 and B C be two semicycloids, or semicy- 
 cloidal cheeks, each equal to the half of 
 7B A V B, touching A B in A and B, and 
 / meeting one another in C ; and if there be 
 fixed at C a pendulum P, hanging by a 
 thread P C, equal in length to the semi- 
 cycloid ; then P, in its oscillations, will describe the cy- 
 cloidal arc A V B. Nothing more simple or beautiful in 
 point of theory could be conceived than this construction ; 
 but, on attempting to reduce it to practice, it was soon 
 found to possess no advantage, in consequence of the me- 
 chanical difficulty of making the cycloidal cheeks with the 
 requisite accuracy, and the impossibility of obtaining a 
 flexible string of invariable length. Huygens himself show- 
 ed that the error of a hundredth of an inch in the form of 
 the curve would cause a greater irregularity than a circular 
 vibration of 10 or 12 degrees. Accordingly, the use of cy- 
 cloidal cheeks was abandoned, and the attention of artists 
 directed to the means whereby the oscillations might be 
 confined within very small circular arcs, in which case any 
 inequality in the lengths of the arcs becomes insensible. 
 In clocks of the best construction the arc of vibration is 
 very small; and the pendulum is made very heavy, in or- 
 der that, by possessing a great momentum, it may be less 
 affected by the imperfections of the machinery. 
 
 Compensation Pendulum. — The value of the pendulum as 
 a regulator of timepieces depends on the isochronism of its 
 oscillations; which, in its turn, depends on the invariability 
 of the distance between the points of suspension and oscil- 
 lation. But, as every known substance expands with heat 
 and contracts with cold, the length of the pendulum will 
 vary with every alteration of temperature, and the rate of 
 the clock consequently undergo a corresponding change. To 
 counteract this variation, numerous contrivances have been 
 employed. The principle is, however, the same in all ; 
 and consists in combining two substances, whose rates of 
 expansion are unequal, in such a manner that the expan- 
 sion of the one counteracts that of the other, and keeps the 
 centre of oscillation of the compound body always at the 
 same distance from the axis of suspension. A brief descrip- 
 tion of the two compensation pendulums in most common 
 Use — the Mercurial Pendulum and the Gridiron Pendulum 
 — Will sufficiently explain the means by which compensa- 
 tion is obtained. 
 
 Mercurial Pendulum. — This was the invention of Mr. 
 George Graham, a celebrated watchmaker, who subjected 
 it to the test of experiment in the year 1721. The rod of 
 the pendulum is made of steel, and may be either a flat bar 
 or a cylinder. The bob or weight is formed by a cylindrical 
 glass vessel, about 8 inches in length and 2 inches in di- 
 ameter, which is filled with mercury to the depth of about 
 6J inches. The cylinder is supported and embraced by a 
 stirrup, formed also of steel, through the top of which the 
 lower extremity of the rod passes, and to which it is firmly 
 fixed by a not and screw on the end of the rod. Now the 
 effect of an increase of temperature on this apparatus is 
 evidently as follows : In the first place, the rod expands, 
 and the distance between the axis of suspension and the 
 bottom of the stirrup is increased. In the second place, by 
 the expansion of the mercury in the cylinder, its column is 
 lengthened, and the distance of its centre of gravity from 
 the bottom of the stirrup consequently increased. But, as 
 the expansion of mercury is about sixteen times greater than 
 that of steel, the height of the mercurial column may be so 
 adjusted by trial that the expansion of the rod and stirrup 
 shall be exactly compensated by that of the mercury, and 
 the centre of oscillation of the whole suffer no change. 
 This pendulum is, perhaps, the most perfect of all compen- 
 sators; Jmt, as its adjustments are attended with consider- 
 able difficulty, it is seldom used excepting in astronomical 
 observatories. 
 
 Gridiron Pendulum.— This was contrived by Mr. Har- 
 rison, the inventor of the chronometer. It consists of a 
 frame of nine parallel bars of steel and brass, arranged and 
 connected as in the annexed figure. The liars marked 5 are 
 of steel; the four marked b are of brass; the centre rod of 
 steel, is fixed at top to the cross bar connecting the two 
 middle brass rods, but slides freely through the two lower 
 bars, and bears the bob B. The remaining rods are fastened 
 to the cross pieces at both ends, and the uppermost cross 
 piece is attached to the axis of suspension. It is easy to 
 
 see, from the mere inspection of the figure, that 
 the expansion of the steel rods tends to~lengthen 
 the pendulum, while that of the brass rods'tends 
 to shorten it; consequently, if the two expan- 
 sions exactly counteract each other, the length 
 of the pendulum will remain unchanged. The 
 relative lengths of the brass and steel bars are 
 determined by the expansions of the two met- 
 als, which are found by experiment to be, in 
 general, nearly as 100 to 61. If, then, the 
 lengths of all the five steel bars added to- 
 gether be 100 inches, the sum of the lengths 
 of the four brass bars ought to be 61 inches. 
 When the compensation is found on trial not to 
 be perfect, an adjustment is made by shifting 
 one or more of the cross pieces higher on the 
 bars. 
 
 Harrison's pendulum has been greatly im- 
 proved by Troughton, who substituted for the two pair of 
 brass rods two cylinders of brass, sliding the one within the 
 other, to which the steel rods are attached. For a descrip- 
 tion of this, and various other modes of compensation, we 
 refer the reader to an excellent chapter on the subject by 
 the late Captain Kater, in the volume of Mechanics in the 
 Cabinet Cyclopaedia. 
 
 Application of the Pendulum to the Determination of the 
 relative Force of Gravity at different Places. — There are 
 two methods of determining the relative intensity of gravity 
 by means of the pendulum. According to the first, the ab- 
 solute length of the simple pendulum which makes a cer- 
 tain number of oscillations in a given time is accurately as- 
 certained at each of the places, and the comparative force 
 
 of gravity is then given by the formula g' = — g. Accord- 
 ing to the other method, an invariable pendulum is swung 
 at the different places, and the number of its oscillations 
 noted at each, when the relative gravity is given by the for- 
 
 mula g = rrj- g. Each of these methods has been follow- 
 ed in the delicate experiments which have been made for 
 the purpose of determining the figure of the earth ; but 
 though the results of both appear to be nearly equal in point 
 of accuracy, the latter method, on account of its affording 
 greater facilities in practice, is now generally adopted. 
 
 It will readily be conceived that a pendulum would be 
 altogether unfit for the purpose of determining the minute 
 variations of gravity if it were attached to a clock, or any 
 machinery by which its motions could be influenced. It 
 must be suspended from a very firm support, to which it can 
 communicate no vibratory motion; and the most delicate 
 precautions are necessary to avoid the effects of friction, and 
 other disturbing causes, by which the experiment may be 
 influenced. The method followed by the French astrono- 
 mers, in their operations connected with the measurement 
 of the meridian, was this: The pendulum was composed of 
 a sphere of platinum, suspended by a slender iron wire from 
 a knife edge of hardened steel resting on plane surfaces of 
 polished agate. It was placed in front of a well-regulated 
 astronomical clock, with which its oscillations were com- 
 pared, and the distance between its centres of suspension 
 and oscillation determined by calculation from the length 
 of the wire and the diameter of the sphere, ascertained by 
 actual measurement. A different, and in many respects 
 preferable mode of measuring the lengths of the seconds' 
 pendulum, was adopted by Captain Kater, grounded on the 
 property of oscillating bodies discovered by Huygens ; name- 
 ly, that the centres of suspension and oscillation are con- 
 vertible. From this property it follows that if two knife 
 edges, turned in opposite directions, are inserted in the same 
 pendulum, and the mass be so adjusted, by means of a 
 movable weight sliding on the rod, that the oscillations are 
 performed in exactly equal times when the pendulum is 
 suspended from either knife edge, then the distance between 
 the knife edges is the true length of the isochronous simple 
 pendulum. In this manner the measurement is effected 
 more directly, and no calculation is required for finding the 
 centre of oscillation. A third method, lately put in practice 
 by the celebrated astronomer Bessel, consists in suspending 
 a ball and wire first from the upper end and then from the 
 lower end of a rod of a given length, the ball being in both 
 cases at the same distance below the rod. From the differ- 
 ence of the times of oscillation of the two pendulums thus 
 formed, the length of the simple pendulum can be computed 
 in terms of the rod, which is the difference of their lengths. 
 The French method is described, with all the requisite de- 
 tails, in the third volume of Base Metrique, in Delambre's 
 Astronomic, tome iii. ; and in the Recucil a" Observations 
 Geodesiques, <S-c, by Biot and Arago, Paris, 1821. Captain 
 Kater's pendulum is described in the Phil. Trans, for 1818 ; 
 and Bessel's in his Untrrsuchungrn uber die Lange des ein- 
 facken Sccundenpendels, Berlin, 1828. 
 
 3L 913
 
 PENDULUM. 
 
 Captain Rater's pendulum was formed of a very thin bar 
 of plute brass, with a heavy bob and moveable weight, by 
 means of which the isochronism was obtained when the 
 suspension was made from the opposite knife edges. But a 
 much simpler modification Ins been adopted in the recent 
 experiments. The experimental pendulums of the 
 J Royal Astronomical Society consist merely of a 
 5-^ plain straight bar of iron or copper, 2 inches wide, 
 half an inch thick, and about 62* inches long. At 
 the distance of 5 inches from one end of the bar is 
 placed the apex of one of the knife edges, A ; and at 
 the distance of 39-4 inches therefrom the apex of the 
 other knife edge, B ; and the required adjustment to 
 synchronism is produced by filing away one of the 
 ends of the pendulum until the vibrations are found 
 by trial to be equal in both positions of the pendulum. 
 It is obvious that, for the purpose of merely ascer- 
 taining the variations of gravity, a bar of this form 
 with a single knife edge would equally answer the 
 purpose ; but the advantage of the double suspension 
 is this, that besides having two distinct and indepen- 
 dent pendulums, each of which is a check upon the 
 other, it furnishes the means of ascertaining whether 
 the pendulum has sustained any accidental injury, which 
 would be immediately discoverable from the inequality of 
 the number of vibrations between the two knife edges. 
 
 Corrections. — In order that the results of different sets of 
 experiments may be exactly comparable with each other, 
 several corrections must be applied. The first of these is on 
 account of the length of the arc of vibration, which, being 
 of a finite and variable extent, the duration of the oscilla- 
 tions is consequently unequal, but always greater than in 
 the case of an infinitely small arc. The number of oscilla- 
 tions is reduced to the case of an infinitely small arc by the 
 formula. 
 
 NX 
 
 M sin. (A + o) sin. (A — a) 
 
 32 (log. sin. A — log. sin. a) 
 
 where N is the number observed, M the logarithmic modu- 
 lus = -4312945, A the initial, and a the final arc of vibration ; 
 and as the arcs are always small, the computation may be 
 shortened by using the arcs instead of the sines. 
 
 In the second place, all the experiments must be reduced 
 to a common standard of temperature, which, in this coun- 
 try, is assumed at 62° of Fahrenheit. Let e denote the rate 
 of expansion of the metal, t the mean height of the ther- 
 mometer at the time of the experiment ; then the correction 
 of the number of vibrations on account of the temperature 
 isN X Je(t — 62°). 
 
 A third correction is required on account of the atmo- 
 spheric pressure. The effect of the pressure of the atmo- 
 spere on the pendulum is to diminish the force of gravity in 
 the ratio of the specific gravity of the pendulum to that of 
 the air ; and on this principle the correction was formerly 
 applied, regard being had to the height of the barometer. 
 But it was recently remarked by Bessel that the pendulum 
 drags with it a certain portion of air, the amount of which 
 depends on the form of the pendulum ; and, consequently, 
 the specific gravity of the actually moving mass cannot be 
 previously computed, but must be ascertained for each pen- 
 dulum by actual experiments in air and in a vacuum. See 
 a paper on this subject by Mr. Baily, in the Phil. Trans. 
 for 1832. Also Memoirs of the Royal Jlstr. Soc, vol. vii. 
 
 Application of the Pendulum to the Determination of the 
 Figure of the Earth. — The ellipticity of the earth is deduced 
 from the observed number of oscillations made by an in- 
 variable pendulum at different latitudes, by means of the 
 following theorem: Let N = the number of oscillations 
 made by a pendulum at the equator in a mean solar day, 
 N' = the number of oscillations made by the same pendu- 
 lum at the latitude Z, G = the furce of gravity at the equa- 
 tor, and g = the same force at the latitude /; then, sup- 
 posing the figure of the earth to be that of an oblate spheroid 
 of revolution, we have g = G (1 + n sin. 2/). But, by the 
 property of the pendulum, g : G : : N'2 : N* ; therefore, 
 N'2 =. N T 2 (1 -f- n sin. 11). In this equation the quantity n 
 depends upon the centrifugal force of rotation at the equa- 
 tor, and the ellipticity ; and, according to a theorem discov- 
 
 5 
 ered by Clairaut, its value is - m — e, m being the ratio of 
 
 the centrifugal force to gravity, and e the ellipticity. Newton 
 
 1 5 
 
 showed that m = — , whence n =s — e ; therefore, 
 
 as N'2 is given by observation, the only unknown quantities 
 in the equation N'2 = N2 (1 -j- n sm - 2 ') are N 2 and n : so 
 that, by combining the results at two different latitudes, we 
 can determine these quantities, and, consequently, e. The 
 length of the seconds' pendulum being also proportional to 
 the intensity of gravity, it is obvious that the lengths might 
 be substituted in the above equation for N'2 and N 2 . 
 The seventh volume of the Memoirs of the Royal Jlstr. 
 914 
 
 PENITENCE. 
 
 Society contains the results of experiments made with the 
 Invariable pendulum at 79 different latitudes. The values 
 of JS'2 and n, deduced from the whole of these results, axe, 
 respectively, 
 
 N2 = 7441625711, n = -00514491 ; 
 
 whence the ellipticity deduced from the whole is . • 
 
 It is remarkable that all the pendulum experiments agree 
 in giving a greater ellipticity to the earth than is found by 
 the comparison of measured arcs of meridian. 
 
 As the force of gravity varies inversely as the square of 
 the distance from the centre of the earth, a correction is ob- 
 viously required for the differences of altitude of the sta- 
 tions where the observations are made. Accordingly, the 
 results at every station are reduced to what they would have 
 been if the observations had been made at the level of the 
 sea. Let h = the height of the station above that level, 
 and R = the radius of the earth ; g = the force of gravity 
 at the station, and g' the same force of the level of the sea ; 
 then g : / : : R2 : (R -f A)2 ; whence, expanding the quan- 
 tity (R-4-A) 2 , and leaving out ^ as insensible, we have 
 
 g* =g ( 1 + s - ) i in which we may substitute for g 1 and g 
 
 either the lengths of the seconds' pendulum, or the square 
 of the number of its oscillations at the station and the level 
 of the sea. The result, however, is modified by the local 
 attraction of the mass of ground surrounding the station, and 
 Dr. Young assumes that the formula should be multiplied 
 by the fraction -6. 
 
 The following table, from Mr. Airy's treatise on the Fig- 
 ure of the Earth (Ency. Metrop.), shows the length of the 
 seconds' pendulum in English inches at a few of the sta- 
 tions, where it has been actually determined. It is to be 
 remarked, however, that some degree of uncertainty attends 
 all the results, on account of the error in the correction for 
 the density of the air, which may amount to about -0018 for 
 each. 
 
 Station. 
 
 Latitude. 
 
 Length of 
 Pendulum. 
 
 Observers. 
 
 
 o ' 
 
 Inchet. 
 
 
 Spitzbergen 
 Unst . 
 
 79 50 N. 
 
 39-21469 
 
 Sabine. 
 
 60 45 
 
 39-17162 
 
 Biot and Kater. 
 
 Leith Fort . 
 
 55 59 
 
 39- 15546 
 
 Biot and Kaler. 
 
 London 
 
 51 31 
 
 39- 13929 
 
 Kater. 
 
 Pari! . 
 
 46 50 
 
 3912R51 
 
 ) Borda Biot, and 
 t Sabine (mean). 
 
 Bordeaux 
 
 44 50 
 
 3911296 
 
 Biot. 
 
 New York . 
 
 40 43 
 
 39-10120 
 
 Sabine. 
 
 Formentera . 
 
 33 40 
 
 3909510 
 
 Biot (twice). 
 
 Sandwich Isles 
 
 20 52 
 
 39-04690 
 
 Freycinet. 
 
 Trinidad 
 
 10 39 
 
 3901*88 
 
 Sabine. 
 
 St. Thomas . 
 
 25 
 
 39-02074 
 
 Sabine. 
 
 Bahia . 
 
 12 59 S. 
 
 39 02433 
 
 Sabine. 
 
 Isle of France 
 
 20 10 
 
 3904684 
 
 Freycinet & Duperry. 
 
 Cape of Good Hope 
 
 35 55 
 
 39-07S00 
 
 Freycinet Sl Fallows. 
 
 PENICI'LLATE. (Lat. penicillum, a pencil.) In Zoolo- 
 gy, when a part supports one or more small bundles of di- 
 verging hairs. 
 
 PENI'NSULA. (Lat. pene, almost, and insula, an isl- 
 and.) A portion of land, as the term implies, nearly 
 surrounded by water ; as Africa, the Morea, California. In 
 common parlance, the term Peninsula is usually applied to 
 Spain and Portugal ; and the struggle so long maintained 
 between these countries, aided by the British, and the 
 French, at the commencement of the present century, is 
 called the Peninsular war. 
 
 PENITENCE, or PENANCE, in the Roman Catholic 
 Church, is one of the seven sacraments. Priestly orders 
 give the power to confer this sacrament; but, as a matter 
 of discipline, their power is not exercised without authority 
 from the Ordinary, either general or special, except in cases 
 of necessity. The terms penitence and penance are like- 
 wise used for the good works commanded by a priest to a 
 penitent, to be performed in satisfaction of the sins of which 
 he absolves him. Public penance, in the earlier times of 
 the church, was imposed for great offences committed after 
 baptism. It consisted in exclusion from the church, solitude, 
 prayer, and fasting, and the readmission was only gradual ; 
 the penitent being first allowed to approach the doors of 
 the church ; then to attend at sermons and readings, but 
 not at prayers; then to pray, kneeling, &c. The time of 
 penance varied according to different usages : St. Basil 
 mentions two years for theft, seven for sensuality, fifteen 
 for adultery, twenty for homicide, and the whole life for 
 apOStacy. Public penance for secret sins was generally 
 remitted about the 7th century ; and its commutation for 
 the repetition of prayers and bestowing of alms began in the 
 next. These alms were frequently applied by the penitent 
 Co the purchase of masses for himself or others. Afterwards 
 the usage of pilgrimage as a mode of penance became 
 general ; and, finally, indulgences began to be sold in the 
 12th century.
 
 PENITENTIARY. 
 
 PENITE'NTIARY, A prison in which convicted of- 
 fenders are placed and subjected to a course of instruction 
 and discipline, with a view to their reformation. Imprison- 
 ment after conviction is of two kinds : the simply repressive 
 and penal, and that which is at the same time reformatory. 
 But it is obvious that there is no advantage in attempting 
 to produce the latter effect in those short imprisonments ot 
 a year or a few months, which form the ordinary punish- 
 ments of our law for smaller offences. Crimes of a higher 
 order are with us usually punished by transportation ; and 
 hence there is less room for the development of the peni- 
 tentiary system among ourselves than in other European 
 countries, and in the United States of America. At Genoa, 
 the convict is only subjected to the penitentiary system at 
 the end of the first year of his imprisonment ; some writers 
 on the subject recommend two years as a more appropriate 
 limit for the commencement of this species of discipline. 
 In England, the first act for the establishment of peniten- 
 tiaries was passed in 1776, at the suggestion of the philan- 
 thropist Howard and judge Blackstone ; and attempts were 
 made in consequence, at Gloucester and other places, with 
 little success. In 1812 the act was passed under which the 
 Milbank prison was erected as a general penitentiary for 
 England and Wales. It is now adapted to contain 800 
 male and 400 female prisoners. The chief object in peni- 
 tentiaries, besides conferring moral and religious instruction 
 on the prisoners, is to employ them in some useful labour ; 
 but tbere is always considerable difficulty in carrying into 
 effect this part of the system, especially so as to reconcile 
 it with the necessity of keeping prisoners separate as far as 
 possible. At Milbank, tailoring forms the principal occu- 
 pation of a large proportion of the inmates. See Prisons. 
 
 PENITE'NTIARY, GRAND. An officer of the Roman 
 Catholic church, usually a cardinal, appointed by the pope 
 to grant absolution in cases reserved for the papal authority, 
 dispensations for marriage, &c. In like manner, bishops 
 appoint penitentiaries to perform the like office in such 
 cases as are reserved for espiscopal absolution. Briefs 
 granted by the grand penitentiary are at the present time 
 entirely gratuitous, and headed with the words " pro Deo." 
 PE'NlTENTS. A name given in Roman Catholic coun- 
 tries to certain religious fraternities, distinguished by their 
 particoloured garments. Of these there were a great 
 variety in France, Spain, and Portugal, &c. ; but the most 
 extraordinary were the White Penitents, a body of fanatics, 
 who appeared in the north of Italy in 1399, clothed in 
 white, and bearing crucifixes, under the guidance of a 
 priest, whose real history seems unknown, but concerning 
 whom many strange stories were told ; among others, that 
 he professed to be the prophet Elias, and that his mission 
 was to announce the immediate destruction of the world. 
 The contagion of this outburst of religious feeling extended 
 to Tuscany, and thence over the whole of Italy ; and was 
 accompanied by a general cessation of violence and private 
 war. But it lasted only a few months. (Waddington, 
 Hist, of the Church., p. 546, and the authors there referred 
 to.) 
 
 PENNATULA'RLE. (Lat. penna, a feather.) The 
 name of a family of Polypes, of which the sea-pen (Pen- 
 natula) is the type. 
 
 PE'NNON. A term sometimes poetically used for a 
 streamer or banner ; but restricted in the middle ages to the 
 banner of a knight, baronet, or esquire. 
 
 PENNY. The twelfth part of a shilling. The penny 
 was formerly a silver coin, first struck in England by the 
 Saxons. It contained the 240th part of their pound, and its 
 weight was about 22A grains. Till the time of Edward the 
 First the English penny was struck with a cross so deeply 
 sunk in it that it might, on occasion, be easily broken and 
 parted into halves, thence called halfpenny ; or in four 
 parts, thence called fourthings, or farthings. Edward the 
 First also reduced the weight of the penny to a standard ; 
 ordering that it should weigh the 20th part of an ounce. 
 It afterwards suffered successive diminutions, till, in the 
 reign of Elizabeth, its value was reduced to the 62d part of 
 an ounce of silver. This proportion is still observed. 
 
 PENNYWEIGHT. A weight equal to twenty-four 
 grains, or the 20th part of an ounce trov. This was the 
 weight of the silver penny in the time of Edward the First. 
 See Pen\y. 
 
 PENS. (Lat. penna, a feather.) Well-known instru- 
 ments for writing, usually formed of the quills of the goose, 
 swan, or some other bird. Metallic pens have been occa- 
 sionally employed for a lengthened period ; but it is only 
 within these few years that they have been extensively 
 introduced. They first began to be largely manufactured 
 by Mr. John Perry, of London. Mr. P. having succeeded 
 in giving to his pens a greater degree of softness and elasti- 
 city than was possessed by any metallic pens previously in 
 use, they speedily obtained a very extensive sale. This 
 success brought crowds of rivals into the field ; so that 
 metallic pens are now manufactured in vast quantities, 
 
 PENTAMETER. 
 
 and of an immense variety of forms. But though they have 
 superseded to a very considerable extent the use of quills, 
 and have some peculiar advantages, it does not appear 
 possible to give them the elasticity of the quill, nor fit tliem 
 so well for quick and easy writing. In the manufacture of 
 steel pens the best metal, made from Dannemora or hoop (l) 
 iron, is employed. It is laminated into slips about 3 feet 
 long and 4 inches broad, of a thickness corresponding to the 
 desired stiffness and flexibility of the pens. These slips are 
 subjected to the action of a stamping-press, somewhat similar 
 to that for making buttons. The point destined for the nib 
 is next introduced into an appropriate gauged hole of a little 
 machine, and pressed into the semicylindrical shape ; where 
 it is also pierced with the middle slit, and the lateral ones, 
 provided the latter are to be given. The pens are now 
 cleaned, by being tossed about among each other, in a tin 
 cylinder about 3 feet long, and 9 inches in diameter ; which 
 is suspended at each end upon joints to two cranks, formed 
 one on each of two shafts. The cylinder, by the rotation 
 of a fly-wheel acting upon the crank-shafts, is made to de- 
 scribe such revolutions as agitate the pens in all directions, 
 and polish them by mutual attrition. In the course of four 
 hours several thousand pens may be finished upon this 
 machine. (See Commercial Diet., and Ure's Diet, of Arts, 
 Src.) 
 
 PE'NSIONARY, THE GRAND, of Holland, was the 
 prime minister of the states of the province of Holland. He 
 proposed the measures to be discussed in the assembly of 
 the states. He also transacted business with foreign minis- 
 ters, and fulfilled other important functions. His term of 
 service was five years, and he was capable of re-election. 
 
 PENSIONER. Literally, one who receives a pension or 
 allowance. At the universities of Cambridge, however, 
 and Dublin, this term has a peculiar meaning, being applied 
 to those students who live at their own expense, i. e., without 
 any support from the beneficent foundations of the re- 
 spective colleges. In this sense it is synonymous with com- 
 moner, at Oxford. 
 
 PENTA'CRINITES. (Gr. TtcvTi,five, and xpivov, lily.) 
 The name of a tribe of Echinoderms, comprehending those 
 in which the animal consists of an angular, jointed, flexible 
 column, fixed at the base, and supporting on its free ex- 
 tremity a concave disc or body, terminating in five dichoto- 
 mizing, jointed, semicylindrical arms. Most of the species 
 and genera of this tribe are extinct. 
 
 PENTADO'RON. (Gr. ttcvtc, and iuipov, a palm.) In 
 Ancient Architecture, a brick of five palms in length, used 
 by the Greeks in the construction of their public edifices. 
 
 PE'NTAGON. (Gr. -Kevre, and ymvta, angle.) In 
 Geometry, a plane figure, having five angles, or contained 
 by five sides. It is a regular pentagon when the sides and 
 angles are equal, and is consequently inscribable in a circle. 
 The length of the side of a regular pentagon is equal to 
 twice the sine of 36°, radius being unit ; and its area = 5 
 sin. 36° X cos. 36° ; or, making the side = s, the area = J 
 si X tan. 54°. It is a remarkable property of the regular 
 pentagon, that the square of its side is equal to the sum of 
 the squares of the sides of the hexagon and decagon in- 
 scribed in the same circle. 
 PENTAGRAPH. See Pantagraph. 
 PENTAME'RANS, Pentamera. (Gr. jrevre, and uvpos, 
 a joint.) The name of a section of Coleopterous insects, 
 including those which have five joints on the tarsus of each 
 leg. 
 
 PENTA'METER. (Gr. veins, and ucrpov, measure.) A 
 species of verse consist'ng of five feet or measures (whence 
 the name), and which when subjoined to a hexameter verse 
 constituted what is denominated elegiac. The scheme of 
 the pentameter is as follows : 
 
 Or more properly thus, 
 
 It must be observed, that the caesural pause at the third 
 foot must always terminate a word ; and, as a general rule, 
 the last word of the verse must consist of two syllables, 
 although a quadrisyllable, especially in proper names, is 
 sometimes admitted. 
 
 The first Greek elegiac writers were Callinus and Tyrtseus, 
 who were followed by Mimnermus, Theognis, and Solon, 
 in their own country ; and by Catullus, Propertius, Tibullus, 
 and Ovid, in Rome. The variety of themes sung by these 
 different writers proves the capacity of this measure for 
 adaptation to every subject, whether mournful, as the term 
 elegiac would imply ; or political and warlike, like the 
 strains of Tyrtreus and Callinus ; or erotic, like those of 
 Propertius, Tibullus, and Ovid ; or historical and mythologi- 
 cal, like the Fasti of the last. The pentameter has not 
 been generally introduced into any modern language with 
 which we are acquainted : though Goethe and Schiller 
 have left us some excellent specimens of the facility with 
 which it might be engrafted on the German language. The 
 
 915
 
 PENTAPOLIS. 
 
 hexameter ami pentameter distich is beautifully described 
 in tbe following lines of Schiller : 
 
 Im Hexameter sieijt des SpriDgquells flussige Saule; 
 Iin Pentameter drauf fallt sie melodisch herab. 
 
 Thus admirably rendered by Coleridge, who was long con- 
 sidered as the original author: 
 
 In 'he hextmeler rises the fountain's silvery column: 
 In the pen ameter aye falling in melody back. 
 
 Every page of Ovid's Heroides, or Tristia, illustrates the 
 manner in which the hexameter breaks, ns it were, and 
 falls back in the pentameter, thereby adding a most exquisite 
 grace to the rhythm : indeed the secret genius of the metre 
 appears to consist in this play. The following instant es, 
 taken from Penelope's letter to Ulysses, will illustrate the 
 truth of this observation : 
 
 Again, 
 
 7Yo;ajacet certe. D.inais invisa puellis: 
 Vn I riunu tanli totaque Troja fuit. 
 
 Sive quis Jntilochum narrabat ab Hectore viclum : 
 Jlntilochus nostri causa tmioris erat. 
 
 Besides this peculiarity in the pentameter, grammarians 
 have pointed out several others, an observance of which is 
 necessary to constitute a perfect pentameter. Of these per- 
 haps the most important is the avium, that although either 
 a spondee or a dactyl may be used at pleasure in the first 
 two feet of the verse, a dactyl should be preferred to a 
 spondee whenever practicable ; and a comparison of the 
 ancient authors will show, that on the frequent use of the 
 former much of the beauty of this elegant measure depends. 
 See Hexameter. 
 
 PENTA'POLIS. (Gr. TTtvTt, and tto\is, a city.) A name 
 given by the ancient Greeks to certain countries which were 
 remarkable for having five distinguished cities : tints there 
 was the Pentapolis of Lybia, Italy, and Asia Minor: but 
 the most celebrated was the Pentapolis Cyrenaica (or of 
 Egypt), whose five cities were Berenice, Arsinoe, Ptolemais, 
 Cvrene, and Apollonia. 
 
 PE'NTASTYLE. (Gr. itcvtc, and tmiXoc, a column.) 
 In Architecture, a building having five columns in front. 
 
 PENTATEUCH. (Gr. -n-„m'\ov; from rort, and 
 tcvxov, an instrument), signifies the five volumes of the 
 books of Moses ; viz. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, 
 and Deuteronomy. 
 
 1. The book of Genesis (as the term implies) gives an 
 account of the creation of the world and of man ; the fall 
 of man; the flood; and the history of the Jewish patriarchs, 
 Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, down to Joseph (1750 B.C.). 
 This book was looked upon with great veneration by the 
 Jews, as comprising the history of their venerable founder 
 Abraham, and his nearest descendants, around whom many 
 of their peculiar customs and laws were intertwined ; but 
 it is no less valuable to the Christian world, both from its 
 venerable antiquity, and from its furnishing rich materials 
 for historical, geographical, and antiquarian investigations. 
 It contains, besides, numerous subjects for moral and reli- 
 gious reflections, which are referred to in manv other later 
 portions of the Old and New Testament. 2. The book of 
 F.mdus (Gr. t\, and Woe, a way), narrates the fortunes of 
 the descendants of Abraham after their migration to Egypt ; 
 the birth of Moses, and his endeavours to emancipate the 
 Jewish nation from Egyptian bondage; their escape from 
 Egypt ; their journey through the wilderness ; and the de- 
 liver)' of the law to Moses. This book, besides being pecu- 
 liarly valuable in a religious point of view, possesses also 
 great interest from marking the transition of the Jewish 
 
 people ft the pastoral or nomadic to the agricultural or 
 
 fixed mode of life. 3. The book of Leviticus (so called 
 from Levi, a priest), consists chiefly of the law and ordi- 
 nances of the Jewish priesthood, or regulations as to the 
 different kinds of sacrifices to be offered up; the duties of 
 masters towards their slaves; regulations as to marriage, 
 &c. It is replete with interesting antiquarian matter. 4. 
 The book of Numbers (so called from its giving an account 
 of the numbering of the people), contains besides an enu- 
 meration of many civil and ceremonial ordinances; and 
 embraces an historical period of 118 years, chiefly relating to 
 
 the captivity and the wilderness. 5. The book of Dealer 
 
 onomy (Gr. erurrpoc, second, and roping, law), contains chiefly 
 (as the origin of the term implies) a condensed summary of 
 the laws and ordinances delivered in the three preceding 
 books. 
 
 There are two ancient and authentic copies of the Penta- 
 teuch : the otic written in Samaritan or Phoenician charac- 
 ters; the other in Chaldean, which was adopted by tin' 
 Jews, in preference to the former, after their return from 
 Babylon. The differences between tin- two are represented 
 
 as not material ; but it is imagined that some alterations and 
 
 additions have been made in the Samaritan text, in order to 
 
 favour the peculiar prejudices and claims of thai people. 
 
 The Pentateuch was, down to a recent period, universally 
 
 attributed to Moses ; but some German theologians hu\e at- 
 91G 
 
 PERAMBULATOR. 
 
 tempted to prove, in our opinion with but little success, that 
 Moses was not the author. There are no doubt several 
 passages, especially in Deuteronomy, which could not possi 
 lily have been written by Moses; 'but these can easily be 
 accounted for as interpolations of a copyist, and do not 
 affect the authenticity of the whole Pentateuch. Tbe chief 
 arguments for the genuineness of the Pentateuch are ably 
 given in the Penny Cyclopedia, to which we beg to refer 
 the reader. 
 
 PENTATHLTCM. (Gr. Trjvrr.and a0\o;, a contest ) A 
 general appellation given by the Greeks to their five chief 
 bodily exercises ; viz. running, leaping, throwing the quoit 
 or discus, hurling the javelin, and wrestling. These five 
 exercises were termed Quinquectium by the Romans. 
 
 PE'NTECOST. (Gr. 7T£vn;Koa,oc, fiftieth.) A Jewish 
 festival ; so called because it was observed on the fiftieth 
 day after the feast of unleavened bread ; i. e., the fifteenth of 
 the month Nisan, and next day after the Feast of the Pass- 
 over. Being celebrated seven weeks after this latter, it 
 also obtained the name of the Feast of Weeks. It occurred 
 about the beginning of the harvest, and seems to have been 
 instituted as an acknowledgment of the goodness of God in 
 giving the fruits of the earth. It also commemorated the 
 giving of the law on Mount ^inat upon that day. The dif- 
 fusion of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles upon the same 
 day, as recorded in Acts ii., has occasioned its observance 
 to be continued among Christians. In England it is known 
 by the name of Whit Sunday ; and in Germany by that of 
 Pfina-sten. 
 
 PENTELA'SMIDjE. (Gr. -tvrc, and t\aciia, a layer.) 
 The family of Pedunculate Cirripeds, of which the common 
 barnacle (Pentelasmis crocea) is the type. The principal 
 organs of the body are protected bv five shelly plates. 
 
 PENTE'LICAN MARBLE. Sec Marble. 
 
 PE'NULT, or PENU'LTIMA. (Lat. pene ultima, almost 
 last.) hi Grammar and Prosody, the last syllable of a word 
 but one. 
 
 PENU'MBRA. (Lat. pene, almost, and vmbra. shadow.) 
 Xjvjmperfect shadow. The penumbra of the earth is 
 occasioned by the apparent magnitude of the sun's disk, 
 and is that portion of space behind the earth within which 
 a body will be illuminated by a part only, and not by the 
 whole of the disk. It is thus distinguished from the umbra, 
 or perfect shadow, which is the conical space within which 
 no part of the disk is visible. Let S be the sun, E the earth, 
 A D the orbit of the moon ; and let a A, a C, d B, d D, be 
 tangents to S and E. As soon as the moon passes the point 
 A, a portion of the sun's disk at a will be intercepted, and 
 the visible portion will become f / y 
 less and less until the moon 
 reaches B, where total darkness 
 begins. From A to B, therefore, 
 the moon is in the penumbra. 
 The umbra extends from B to C. 
 When the moon passes C, it will again receive the light 
 from the border of the solar disk at a, and will be in the pe- 
 numbra from C to D. The whole penumbra thus forms a 
 cone, of which the apex is at O, and the angle at the apex 
 equal to A O D. As the obscurity evidently becomes 
 greater in proportion as more of the solar disk is concealed, 
 and insensibly merges into total shade, it is extremely diffi- 
 cult in eclipses of the moon to determine by observation 
 the exact time at which the moon's limb passes the point B 
 or C, and the eclipse begins or ends. 
 
 In solar eclipses those parts of the earth which are cover- 
 ed by the penumbra of the moon are only partially deprived 
 of the sun's light. Let E be the moon, and A I) part of the 
 earth's orbit. To a spectator on the earth, placed between 
 A and B, a part of the sun's disk is concealed, and the sun 
 is partially eclipsed. The limits are calculated from the 
 known magnitudes and positions of the sun and moon, and 
 their respective distances from the earth. See El i.ipse. 
 
 Pemmbra. In Painting, &.C.. the boundary of shade and 
 light where the one blends with Lite other, the gradation 
 beinsr almost Imperceptible. 
 
 PEPERI'NO. An Italian name for a particular kind of 
 volcanic rock, formed by the cementing together of sand, 
 cinders, &r. 
 
 PE'PLUM. An upper garment anciently worn by the 
 
 ian, and especially by the Athenian females: it was 
 
 without sleeves, and fastened by n clasp on the arm or 
 
 shoulder. The celebrated peplum of Minerva was carried 
 
 every year, in the Panathenaic processions of Minerva, from 
 
 the CeramiCUS to the temple of Ceres, and thence to the 
 Parthenon, where it was offered to the goddess. The an- 
 tiquity of this kind of ceremony is evinced by the passage 
 in the Iliad (book v.) where the Trojan women offer a simi- 
 lar robe. 
 
 PEPPER. See Pipbsacex, Pimento. 
 
 PE'PTIC, relate]" to digestion. See Dyspepsia. 
 
 PERAMBULATOR, (Lat. arnbulo, I walk.) A ma- 
 chine for measuring distances on roads; also called odome-
 
 PERCEPTION. 
 
 Itr and surveying wheel. Various sorts of machines have 
 been constructed for this purpose, both in ancient and mod- 
 ern times. One is described by Vitruvius in his work De 
 Architecture lib. x., c. 14. The machine commonly em- 
 ployed consists of a wheel, to which a sort of double pole is 
 attached, carrying an apparatus of clock-work, which is set 
 in motion by the revolution of the wheel, and shows the 
 number of miles, furlongs, &c, passed over by an index and 
 dial. The apparatus may be drawn along by a person on 
 foot, or by a carriage, to which it is more usually attached. 
 For the sake of facility in reckoning, the circumference of 
 the measuring wheel is made equal to an aliquot part of a 
 mile ; usually half a pole or 99 inches. (See the Repository 
 of Arts, vi., 249.) 
 
 PERUE'PTION. (Lat.) In Mental Philosophy, that 
 power, act, or state of the mind, which has a conscious 
 reference to external objects. Various theories of percep- 
 tion have arisen among philosophers, differing as this refer- 
 ence is supposed to be more or less immediate, or as the ob- 
 jects to which it refers are conceived to possess an independ- 
 ent reality or not. These theories are designated by the 
 terms idealism and realism ; which latter is subdivided into 
 natural or positive, and relative or negative realism. The 
 best known system of idealism is that of Bishop Berkeley. 
 See Idealism. 
 
 According to the scheme of negative or relative realism, 
 all that we can know of an object is the feeling which it 
 excites in our minds. The cause of this*feeling we neces- 
 sarily judge to be something external to ourselves ; but 
 what it is in itself we have no means of knowing. This is 
 the view adopted by the great majority of philosophers, from 
 Plato and Aristotle down to Kant and Brown. 
 
 The theory of natural realism is the one supported by Dr. 
 Eeid under the name of the common-sense system. This 
 philosopher conceives the object in perception to be in some 
 way immediately present to our consciousness; its qualities 
 are not merely felt by us, but discovered in it. We derive 
 a certain sensation from the whiteness or roundness of «n 
 object; but it is the object itself and not our minds that are 
 white or round. This doctrine, which was also that of the 
 ancient Stoics, and expressed by them in nearly the same 
 words as those used by Reid (see Cicero, Acad. Quast.), is 
 in fact rather a statement than an explanation of the prob- 
 lem. It has been recently supported with great acuteness 
 by a learned writer in the Edin. Review, No. 113, to which 
 we refer our readers for a full account of all possible theo- 
 ries of perception. 
 
 PERCH, in Land Measure, is the fortieth part of a rood, 
 or equal to 30^ square yards. Perch is also sometimes 
 used as a denomination of long measure, when it signi- 
 fies the same thing as a rod or pole, being 5£ yards, or 16£ 
 feet. 
 
 PERCHERS. The name of an order of birds including 
 the Scansores and Passeres of Cuvier. See Insessores. 
 
 PERCHLO'RIC ACID. When sulphuric acid is poured 
 upon chlorate of potash, gaseous oxide of chlorine is evolv- 
 ed, and the saline matter which remains is a mixture of bi- 
 sulphate of potash and perchlorate of potash ; by washing 
 it with cold water the former salt is dissolved, but the latter 
 remains in the form of a white powder. When this is mixed 
 with half its weight of sulphuric acid, diluted with one third 
 of water, and heat applied, white vapours rise, which con- 
 dense as a colourless liquid in the receiver. This is a solu- 
 tion of perchloric acid, which consists of one equivalent 
 of chlorine = 36, and 7 equivalents of oxygen (8 X 7) = 56 ; 
 the equivalent of the perchloric acid, therefore, is (36 + 56) 
 = 92. Perchlorate of potash requires 65 parts of water at 
 60= for solution. 
 
 PE'RCOIDS, Percoida. (Lat. perca, a perch.) The name 
 of the tribe of Acanthopterygian fishes of which the genus 
 Perca is the tvpe. 
 
 PERCU'SSION. (Lat.) In Mechanics, the striking of 
 one body against another, or the shock arising from the col- 
 lision of two bodies. See Collision. 
 
 PERCUSSION CAPS. See Gun. 
 
 PERCUSSION, CENTRE OF. That point in a solid 
 body revolving on an axis at which, if an obstacle were there 
 applied sufficient to resist the rotation of the system, no mo- 
 tion would be communicated to the axis; or, which is the 
 same thing, if the axis were not fixed the system would ac- 
 quire no tendency to revolve through the shock applied at 
 that point. The centre of percussion is in the straight line 
 passing through the centre of gravity perpendicular to the 
 axis; and its distance from the axis is expressed by the for- 
 mula / r^dm-i- f rdm, where d m is the element of the 
 mass, and r the distance of dm from the axis. See Cen- 
 
 PERCUSSiON OF FLUIDS. See Hydrodynamics. 
 
 PEREDI'OLA. (Gr. irtpihtuj, I bind round.) The mem- 
 brane by which the sporules of Algaceous plants are im- 
 mediately covered. 
 
 PERIBOLOS. 
 
 PER'ENNIALS. (Lat. perennis, lasting throughout the 
 year.) In Botany, those plants whose roots remain alive 
 more years than two, but whose steins flower and perish 
 annually. Gardeners generally call them herbaceous plants. 
 They differ from annuals and biennials not only in the lime 
 of their duration ; but also in this, that the two former per- 
 ish as soon as they have flowered, the act of reproduction 
 exhausting their vital energies. Notwithstanding this dis- 
 tinction, it is not at all times easy to say whether a plant is 
 a perennial one or not ; as, for instance, in the Agave Ameri- 
 cana, commonly called the American aloe. This plant is her- 
 baceous, and lives for many years ; but when it flowers it 
 dies: so that in one respect it is annual, its whole life being 
 regarded as only one season of growth; in another respect 
 it is truly perennial. Such perennials are called by De Can- 
 doll e monocarpic. 
 
 PERE'NNIBRANCHIATES. Perennibranchiata. (Lat. 
 perennis ; branchia, gills.) The name of that division of 
 Batrachian reptiles including the species which preserve 
 the external branchia;, or branchial apertures, throughout 
 life ; as the Siren, Proteus, and Menopome. 
 
 PE'RFECT CADENCE. In Music. See Cadence. 
 
 PERFECTIBI'LITV. The capability of arriving at per- 
 fection. This word, which is entirely modern, and scarcely 
 as yet admitted in our language on classical English au- 
 thority, is commonly used in reasoning on the social con- 
 dition of mankind. The theory of the indefinite perfecti- 
 bility of the human faculties, which constitutes the basis 
 of many modern systems, is perhaps nowhere so plainly de- 
 veloped as in the Preface to the Tableau Historiquc de I'En- 
 tendement Humain of Condorcet. 
 
 PE'RFECT NUMBER. In Arithmetic, a number equal 
 to the sum of all its divisors. Thus 6 is a perfect number, 
 for its divisors are 1, 2, and 3 ; and 1 +2 + 3 = 6. In like 
 manner, 28 is a perfect number, for its divisors are 1, 2, 4, 
 7, 14 ; the sum of which = 28. 
 
 In general, every number of the form 2 n—1 (2 n — 1), the 
 latter factor being a prime, is a perfect number, the sum of 
 its divisors being equal to the number itself. The difficulty, 
 therefore, of finding perfect numbers arises from that of 
 finding primes of the form 2n — 1, which is very laborious. 
 The only values of n yet discovered which make 2 n — la 
 prime number are 2, 3, 5, 7, 13, 17, 19, and 31. Substituting 
 these values of n successively in the formula of the perfect 
 number, we shall obtain the following results: 
 
 If n — 2, then 2 (22 — 1) = 6 
 ra = 3, 22 (23 — 1) = 28 
 
 7i = 5, 21 (25 — 1)=496 
 
 n = 7, 26 (27 — 1)=8128 
 
 n = 13, 2'2 (213 — 1) — 33550336 
 n = 17, 2'6 (217 — 1) — 8589869056 
 ji=19, 218(219 — 1) = 137438691338 
 n = 31, 23D (231 — l) = 2305843008139952128 
 all which are perfect numbers. 
 
 PE'RFECT TENSE. That form of the verb denoted 
 in English by the auxiliary have, which designates an ac- 
 tion finished at the time when we speak of it. Also termed 
 the preterite tense, from Lat. pneteritum, past. 
 
 PERFU'ME. (Fr. parfum.) A term used to denote the 
 volatile effluvia from any body affecting the organ of smel- 
 ling, or the substance emitting those effluvia. Perfumes 
 were in general use among the ancients (see the Quart. 
 Rev., vol. xxiii.) ; and in France, Germany, Spain, and Por- 
 tugal, and even, though not to so considerable an extent, in 
 England, they are regarded almost as necessaries. In gen- 
 eral they are made of musk, ambergris, civet, rose, and cedar 
 woods, orange flowers, jessamines, jonquils, tuberoses, and 
 other odoriferous flowers. Aromatic drugs, such as storax, 
 frankincense, benzoin, cloves, &c. &c, enter into the com- 
 position of a perfume ; and many perfumes are composed of 
 aromatic herbs or leaves, as lavender, marjoram, sage, 
 thyme, &c. &c. (See the article "Perfumery" in Ure's 
 Diet, of Arts, frc.) 
 
 PERGAME'NEOUS. (Lat. pergamena, parchment.) In 
 Entomology, when a part consists of a thin, tough, semi- 
 transparent substance, somewhat resembling parchment. 
 
 PE'RGULA. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, a sort of 
 gallery in a house. It is used by Plautus to signify a bal- 
 cony, in which the courtezans placed themselves to catch 
 the attention of passengers. By Winckelman it is thought 
 to be an arbour in a garden, or a terrace overhanging one. 
 
 PERIA'NTHIUM. (Gr. vepi, around, and avtioc, a flow- 
 er.) A calyx and corolla, the limits of which are undefined, 
 so that they cannot be satisfactorily distinguished from each 
 other; as in many Monocotyledonous plants. 
 
 PERI'BOLOS. (Gr. ncpi, and /^<AAw, / cast.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, a court or enclosure entirely round a temple, 
 surrounded by a wall. One of the most extraordinary ex- 
 amples of a peribolos is at Palmyra, where the great temple 
 is surrounded by a wall with two rows of interior columns, 
 each side whereof is from 700 to 800 feet long. 
 
 917
 
 PERICARDITIS. 
 
 PERICARDITIS. Inflammation of the pericardium. It 
 is of the same origin as 
 
 PERICA'KDIUM. (Gr. rcpi, about; icapdia, the heart.) 
 The membranous sac which surrounds the heart. 
 
 PERICA'RPIUM. (Gr. zept, and xapiroi, fruit.) Every 
 part of a ripe fruit on the outer side of the placenta. 
 
 PERIC1KETIAL. (Gr. *c/>(, and x<«™7. a bristle.) The 
 leaves situated at the base of the sets of mosses. 
 
 PERI'COI'E. (Gr. Kepi, and ko-tw, J cut ; something 
 cut out, an extract.) A word used by theologians to signify 
 a passage of the Bible extracted for the purpose of reading 
 in the communion service and other portions of the ritual ; 
 or as a text tor a sermon or homily. 
 
 PEERKA Ml .M. (Gr. -tpi, and xpaviov, the skull.) 
 The membrane of the bones of the skull. 
 
 PERIDOT. In Mineralogy, the prismatic chrysolite. 
 
 PE'RIDROME. (Gr. Ktpt, and ipouoc, a course.) In 
 Ancient Architecture, the space in a peripteral temple be- 
 tween the walls of the cell and the columns. It is a term 
 that may be applied to any gallery of communication round 
 an edifice. 
 
 PE'RIGEE. (Gr. repi, and yn, the earth.) In Astrono- 
 my, that point of the moon's orbit which is nearest to the 
 earth. Anciently the term perigee was applied to the or- 
 bits of the sun and planets, as well as the moon, because 
 they were supposed to circulate round the earth. Since 
 the true centre of motion has been discovered, the term peri- 
 helion is used to denote the corresponding points. 
 
 PERIGO'NIUM. (Gr. ntpi, and yetvonai, 1 grow.) A 
 svnonvm of the word perianth. 
 
 PERIGYNIUM. (Gr. TTtpi, and yinr}, a female.) The 
 Urceolate body formed in the genus Carez by two bracteae, 
 which become confluent at their edges, and enclose the pis- 
 tillum, leaving a passage for the stigmata at their apex. 
 Also used occasionally to denote that organ commonly 
 called the disk. 
 
 PERI'GYNOUS. A term applied to stamens which 
 originate from the sides of a calyx. 
 
 PERIHELION. (Gr. mpi, and frios, the sun.) In As- 
 tronomy, the point in the orbit of a planet or comet which 
 is nearest the sun. It is the extremity of the major axis of 
 the orbit nearest to that focus in which the sun is placed ; 
 and its position, or longitude, is one of the elements by which 
 the orbit is determined. See Planet. 
 
 PERI'METER. (Gr. Kepi, and ucrpov, measure.) In 
 Geometry, the circuit or boundary of any plane figure. In 
 round figures it is the equivalent to circumference, or peri- 
 phery; but the term is more frequently applied to figures 
 bounded by straight lines. 
 
 PE RIOD (Gr. irtpioios), in Astronomy and Chronology, 
 denotes at interval of time at the end of which the same 
 phenomenon again takes place. The period of a planet is 
 the time in which it performs a revolution in its orbit. For 
 chronological periods, see Cycle. The term is also used 
 in arithmetic, to denote the recurrence of a series of digits 
 or numbers in the same order, as in circulating decimal 
 fractions. 
 
 Period, or Sentence, in Rhetoric, has been defined "a 
 passage, i. e., series of words, developed in properly connect- 
 ed parts." In a stricter sense, a period is a sentence so 
 framed that the grammatical construction will not admit a 
 close, and the meaning remains suspended until the end of 
 it. A sentence in which the sense would permit of a stop 
 before its completion is, in this sense, not a period. The 
 Greek and Latin languages were much more periodic than 
 most modern tongues; that is, they admitted of the con- 
 struction of sentences so that a single grammatical connex- 
 ion should run through a great series of words, while a 
 similar series, in a modern languge, would be so arranged 
 as to form several distinct grammatical wholes. 
 
 Period, the Julian. In Chronology. See Julian Pe- 
 riod. 
 
 PERIO'DIC ACLD. An acid analogous in composition 
 to the perchloric, consisting of 1 equivalent of iodine +7 
 equivalents of oxygen. 
 
 PERIO'DICALS. In Literature, strictly publications 
 continued in numbers, appearing at regular intervals. But 
 papers of the same description appearing at uncertain in- 
 tervals (especially in Germany), are often comprehended 
 under this general name. The first periodical in the char- 
 acter of a review was the Journal des Savans, begun in 1063. 
 
 PERICE'CI, or PERICECIANS. (Gr. nipt, about, and 
 oiKtio, I diccll), in Geography, is used to denote those in- 
 habitants of the globe who live under the same parallel of 
 latitude, but on opposite meridians; that is, in pi ires u hlch 
 have the same latitude, but differ in longitude bj 180 . 
 They have their sprimr, summer, winter, and autumn in 
 the same months of the year ; but when it is noon with the 
 one it is midnistht with the other. 
 
 PEBJO'STEUM. (Gr. «/>«, and oortov, a bone.) The 
 membrane which invests the bones. It is of a fibrous tex- 
 ture, and vascular. 
 918 
 
 PERISTALTIC. 
 
 PERIO'STRACUM. (Gr. sepi, and oorpaxov, a ghell) 
 The layer of animal substance, or cuticle, wim -h covers the 
 outer surface of shells, and which the French concholo- 
 gists term drop marin. 
 
 PERIPATETICS. That school of ancient philosophers 
 which derived its origin from Aristotle. The name was 
 given from the Gr. Trepixaroi or walks in the Lyceum, the 
 scene of Aristotle's instruction. (For the doctrines of the 
 Peripatetics, see Aristotelian Philosophy.) The imme- 
 diate successors of Aristotle in the peripatetic doctrine were 
 Theophrastus, Eudemus the Rhodian (from whom is de- 
 rived the title of the Eudemian Ethics), Dica;archus of 
 Messana, Aristoxenus of Tarentum, and Strato of Lampsa- 
 cus; among the later Peripatetics are preserved the names 
 of Glycon of Troas, Hieronymus of Rhodes, &c. It would 
 be unreasonable to expect that so elaborate a system as 
 that of Aristotle should have received any important ad- 
 dition to its leading doctrines at the hands of his followers. 
 They contented themselves either with defending and in- 
 terpreting their master's doctrines, or with applying his 
 method to the explanation of natural philosophy. Under 
 their hands his system seems to have degenerated into a 
 species of empirical materialism, a scheme as widely at 
 variance with his genuine doctrines, as was the dry scho- 
 lastic formalism which in the dark ages passed for the phi- 
 losophy of Aristotle. (For notices of the later Peripatetics, 
 see Cicero, Acad. Quest., and De Finibus, c. 5; Lactnnt. 
 He Ira Dei, c. 10 ; Plutarch, De Solertid, &c.) The Peri- 
 patetic school produced no men of note after its great found- 
 er, which is attributable to the current of free speculation 
 being shackled by the authority of Aristotle, whose dogmas 
 it was content to illustrate without daring ever to impugn ; 
 and in this respect its spirit was remarkably contrasted with 
 the scepticism of the new Academy. (See Hitter's Hist. 
 of .inc. Philosophy, book ix., ch. i.) 
 
 PERLPETEI'A, or REVOLUTION. (Gr. rcpiirhtia.) 
 According to Aristotle, in his Art of Poetry, a necessary 
 condition or circumstance of the drama ; being a change of 
 fortune from happiness to misery, or the reverse, which 
 takes place in the situation of the principal personage. See 
 Catastrophe, Drama. 
 
 PERI'PHERY. (Gr. Trtpt, and <bepw, I carry.) In Ge- 
 ometry, the circumference of a circle or ellipse, or of any 
 other curvilinear figure. 
 
 PERI'PHRASIS, or CIRCUMLOCUTION. (Gr. irtpi, 
 and ippd^ui, I speak.) In Rhetoric, the use of several words 
 to express the sense of one, or of a more involved and pro- 
 lix form of expression to convey a meaning which might 
 be adequately denoted by a shorter phrase. 
 
 PE'RIPLUS. (Gr. irtpi, and n\ovs, sailing.) A circum- 
 navigation. The word is only used as the title of some 
 fragments which remain to us of narratives of voyages of 
 the classical ancients. The Periplus of Hanno is a Greek 
 translation (real or supposititious) of an inscription said to 
 have been erected at Carthage in memory of a voyage 
 along the western coast of Africa, respecting which much 
 discussion has arisen among modern geographers. The 
 date of this voyage is uncertain, but generally fixed by con- 
 jecture at 400 or 500 years before Christ. The Periplus of 
 Scylax, which is supposed to belong to the age of Augus- 
 tus, contains a succinct account of some journeys along the 
 coasts of Europe and Asia. Two works bearing the same 
 title pass under the name of Arrian, who wrote in the sec- 
 ond century after Christ; the first contains a description of 
 the Euxine, the second of the Erythraean Sea (Persian 
 Gulf). 
 
 PERIPNEU'MON Y. (Gr. Tttpi, and rveo), I breathe.) In- 
 flammation of the lungs. See Pneumonia. 
 
 PERI'PTERY, Peripteral. (Gr. 7rr/>i, and irrepov, a 
 wing.) In Architecture, a building surrounded with a 
 wing, aisle, or passage. The word peripteral characterizes 
 one of the species of Greek temples, in which the cell is 
 surrounded by a single row of columns, to distinguish it 
 frotn the word dipteral, which designates a temple with 
 twoTanks of columns. 
 
 PE'RIS, in the Persian Mythology, are a class of imagi- 
 nary beings closely allied to the elves or fairies of more 
 northern latitudes, supposed to be the descendants of the 
 fallen angels, and excluded from Paradise till they have 
 made atonement for their sins. (See Moore's beautiful 
 poem, " Paradise and the Peri," in Lalla Rookh.) 
 
 PERI'SCII. (Gr. TTcpi, and oKia, shadow.) A name ap- 
 plied by the ancient geographers to the inhabitants within 
 the arctic and antarctic circles, because, as the sun at cer- 
 tain times of the year does not set to them in the course of 
 his diurnal revolution, their shadows describe an entire 
 circumference. 
 
 PE'RISPERM. (Gr. wcpi, and airtpua, a seed.) A term 
 used by some to denote the testa, and by others the albu- 
 men of a seed. 
 
 PERISTA'LTIC. (Gr. ircpiare\>u), /contract.) A term 
 applied to the peculiar motion of the intestines, by which
 
 PERISTOMES. 
 
 their contents are gradually propelled from one end of the 
 canal to the other. 
 
 PERISTOMES, Peristomidw. (Gr. ntpt, and awpia, a 
 mouth.) The name of a family of Pectinibranchiate Gas- 
 tropods, including those species in which the shells have 
 the margin of the aperture or mouth unbroken and con- 
 tinuous. 
 
 PE'RISTYLIUM. (Gr. -rrtpi, and orvXoc, a column.) In 
 Architecture, a court, square, or cloister, with columns on 
 three sides : hence improperly so called. In peristylia with 
 columns on each of the four sides, that towards the south 
 was frequently higher than the rest. This species was 
 called a Rhodian peristylium. 
 
 PERITHE'RIDES. (Gr.) In Architecture. See An- 
 
 OONES. 
 
 PERITONEUM. (Gr. irtptruvia, T extend round.) The 
 membrane which envelops the abdominal viscera, and lines 
 the cavity of the abdomen. Hence also peritonitis, or in- 
 flammation of the peritoneal membrane. 
 
 PERITRO'CHIUM. (Gr. nepirpoxeu), I run about.) In 
 Mechanics, a wheel or circular frame of wood fixed upon 
 a cylinder or axle, round which a rope is wound ; and the 
 wheel and cylinder being moveable about a common axis 
 a power applied to the wheel will raise a weight attached 
 to the rope with so much the greater advantage as the cir- 
 cumference of the wheel is greater than that of the cylin- 
 der. This mechanical power is called the axis in peritro- 
 chio ; the windlass and capstan are constructed on the same 
 principle. 
 
 PERJURY (Lat pejero), in Law, is a wilful false oath 
 taken in a court ot justice, by a witness lawfully required 
 to depose the truth in a matter of some consequence to 
 the point in question. A false oath, therefore, taken be- 
 fore no court, or before a court incompetent to try the issue 
 in question, does not constitute the offence of perjury Per- 
 jury is a misdemeanor at common law, and bv several stat- 
 utes punishable by fine and imprisonment, and by transpor- 
 tation for a term not exceeding seven years. 
 
 PERKUNOS. One of the chief divinities of ancient 
 Prussia, who together with R.kollos and Potrimpos, formed 
 the sacred Trinity of the Slavonic and the adjoining na- 
 tions. He was regarded as the god of the elements f and 
 his worship extended even to Russia, Poland, and Bohemia 
 where there were numerous temples erected to his honour' 
 (See Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie.) 
 
 - J > *V I ^ IIT ' . An orde l or writt ^ n Permission from an offi- 
 cer of the customs, authorizing the removal of goods sub- 
 ject to excise duties from one place to another 
 
 PERMUTATION, in Algebra, denotes the arrangement 
 of any determinate number of things or letters in all possi- 
 ble orders one after the other. For example, two letters 
 a ft, give the two permutations aft and ft a; and three let- 
 * ■? /' f Ve ^ 8iX P erm, ' tati °rw a be, aeb. bac, be a, 
 c a A, and eft a. Permutation is effected by placing the let- 
 ! e /,V n all ,l ,ossi , ble o r ders - so that all the letters enter into 
 each result, and each enters into it only once ; and is, there- 
 fore, distinguished from combination, which implies that the 
 arrangements are so made that any two of them differ in 
 respect of one at least of the letters which enter into tie 
 results without regard to the order of the arrangement 
 
 To find the number of permutations that can be made 
 upon any number of letters n, taken together, we may rea 
 son in this way : Suppose the total number of permutations 
 &*? H e h m n e °r U ~ l ' etters tobe known, and let it be 
 f h f U-e. f Sjft Let US . C T ider one of ,he Wen letters, 
 If In s"PPose it to be placed on the right of each 
 
 t ,i ™ a e " n,ltatl0ns ? ive " ^ the other n-1 letters ; there 
 will result O permutations of™ letters, each ending with/. 
 But as each of the „ letters may be considered separately 
 in the same manner as/, it follows that the total number 
 of permutations of the „ letters is equal to Q X „. Let™ = 
 2, Q then denotes the number of permutations of one let- 
 ter ; whence Q = 1, and dX n = 1 X 2. Let n = 3 ; Q then 
 denotes the number of permutations of two letters which 
 is just found equal to 1 X 2. Therefore, Qx» = lx "x3 
 
 thUZy' a ,h i en denotes the numb er of permutations 
 that can be made on three letters, or 1x2- X3 There- 
 fore, QXn = 1X2X3X4. mere 
 In general, the number of permutations that can be made 
 SSVid'SS""' tak6n t0gether ' " -P-ssed a b y C tlie be contt- 
 
 1X2X3X . . . . (n— l)x?i 
 For example, the number of changes that Vor, t,„ . 
 
 Sbf* is ^^^^BwTSSE 
 
 PERNIO. See Chilblain. 
 
 PERORATION. (Lat. per, and os, mo uth ) The con 
 eluding part of an oration, in which e the "the areuments 
 and representations of the speech are briefly ™itutated 
 or a short and comprehensive conclusion delude 1 from 
 2fS aud a ie b ^c e e f . aPPea, *»** '° the -^-ntstpassiZs 
 
 PERPETUITY. 
 
 PERO'XIDE. The highest degree of oxidizement of 
 which a metal or other substance is susceptible without 
 becoming an acid. 
 
 PERPENDI'CULAR. In Geometry, a straight line is 
 said to be perpendicular to another straight line when the 
 adjacent angles formed by their intersection are equal and 
 consequently, each is a right angle. A straight line is per- 
 pendicular to a curve at a given point when it is perpen- 
 dicular to the tangent to the curve at that point. In this 
 case the perpendicular is usually called a normal to the 
 curve. (Dee Normal.) A straight line is perpendicular to 
 a plane when it is at right angles with every straight line 
 m the plane passing through the point of intersection. A 
 plane is perpendicular to a plane when any straight line in 
 the first which is perpendicular to the common intersec- 
 tion of the two planes is also perpendicular to the second 
 plane. • 
 
 PERPETUAL MOTION. In Mechanics, a machine 
 which, when set in motion, would continue to move for- 
 ever, or, at least, until destroyed by the friction of its parts 
 without the aid of any exterior cause. The discovery of 
 the perpetual motion has always been a celebrated problem 
 in mechanics, on which many ingenious, though in gen- 
 eral ill-instructed, persons have consumed their time; but 
 all the labour bestowed on it has proved abortive In fact 
 the impossibility of its existence has been so fully demon- 
 strated from the known laws of matter, that it is rather an 
 insult than a praise to say of any one that he has occupied 
 himself with the research. Nevertheless, the pursuit of the 
 chimera has been the cause of many useful inventions. 
 
 In speaking of" the perpetual motion, it is to be under- 
 stood that from among the forces by which motion may be 
 produced we are to exclude not only air and water but 
 other natural agents, as heat, atmospheric changes,' &c. 
 The only admissible agents are the inertia of matter and 
 its attractive forces, which may all be considered of the 
 same kind as gravitation. 
 
 It is an admitted principle in philosophy that action and 
 reaction are equal, and that, when motion is communicated 
 from one body to another, the first loses just as much as is 
 gained by the second. But every moving body is contin- 
 ually retarded by two passive forces, the resistance of the 
 air and friction. In order, therefore, that motion may be 
 continued without diminution, one of two things is neces- 
 sary—either that it be maintained by an exterior force (in 
 which case it would cease to be what we understand by a 
 perpetual motion), or that the resistance of the air and fric- 
 tion be annihilated, which is physically impossible. The 
 motion cannot be perpetuated till these retarding forces are 
 compensated, and they can only be compensated by an ex- 
 terior force ; for the force communicated to any body cannot 
 be greater than the generating force, and this is only suffi- 
 cient to continue the same quantity of morion when there is 
 no resistance. To find the perpetual motion is, therefore a 
 proposition equivalent to this— to find a force (either an at- 
 tractive force like that of gravitation or magnetism, or an 
 elastic force, that of a spring, for example) greater than it- 
 self. 
 
 But it may he argued that, by some arrangement or com- 
 bination of mechanical powers, a force may be gained equal 
 to that which is lost in overcoming friction and atmospheric 
 resistance. This motion at first mention appears plausible, 
 and is, in fact, that by which most spectators have been led 
 astray. It is, however, entirely erroneous ; for by no mul- 
 tiplication of forces or powers by mechanical agents can the 
 quantity of motion be increased. Whatever is gained in 
 power is lost in lime ; the quantity of motion transmitted by 
 the machine remains unaltered. 
 
 Although the perpetual motion has been demonstrated 
 again and again to be impossible on any known principle 
 ot mechanics, projectors have not thereby been deterred 
 from the pursuit. In 1795 the Academy of Sciences at 
 Paris resolved not to consider or admit into their Memoirs 
 any future proposal for the discovery of the perpetual mo- 
 tion ; yet such appears to be the seductive nature of the 
 subject, that innumerable schemes, designs, and projects 
 for accomplishing it have since been, and even to the pres- 
 ent time continue to be, put forward ; and there are very 
 recent instances of men of no common attainments and rep- 
 utation, and well versed, moreover, in the principles of me- 
 chanical science, who have been deceived by the ingenious 
 frauds of charlatans and impostors into a belief of its actual 
 discovery. (Montucla, Hist, des Math., tome iii., p. 813 ; 
 Repertory of .Arts, vols, vii., and xiv. ; London Journal of 
 Arts, May, 1827; Airy, Trans, of the Cambridge Phil. Soc, 
 vol. iii., part 2; Poppe, IVunder der Mcchanik, 1832; and 
 various papers in the earlier volumes of the Memoires de 
 I'Acad. des Sciences, and the Philosophical Transactions.) 
 
 PERPETUITY, in the doctrine of Annuities, is the sum 
 of money which will purchase a certain annuity to continue 
 forever. This is equal to the product of the annuity into 
 the number of years in which the simple interest of any 
 
 919
 
 PERRY. 
 
 ram will equal the principal. For example, if the rate of 
 interest be 4 per cent., the simple interest of any sum will 
 amount to a sum equal to the principal in twenty-rive years. 
 The value, therefore, of the perpetuity of XI 00 per annum 
 is £2500. The number of years is equal to unit divided by 
 tile rate of interest, or 100 divided by the rate per cent. 
 
 PE'RRY. (Lat. pirum, a pear.) A fermented liquor 
 made from pears, in the same manner as cider from apples. 
 The pears best fitted for producing perry are exceedingly 
 harsh and tart ; but it is itself pleasant and wholesome. 
 
 PERSECUTIONS. The name by which several periods 
 in the history of the Christian Church are historically dis- 
 tinguished. Of these by far the most sanguinary occurred 
 in the tirst centuries of the Christian era, and originated in 
 the desire of the Gentile nations to extirpate the followers 
 of the Christian faith. On the accession of Constantine to 
 the throne of the Western world, these Gentile persecutions 
 ceased ; and the subsequent history of the Church is disfig- 
 ured by persecutions raised by the more powerful against 
 the weaker of the Christian sects. 
 
 PERSEUS. Son of Jupiter and Danae, one of the most 
 distinguished heroes of the Grecian mythology. His history 
 is too well known to be recapitulated here. His chief ex- 
 ploit was the conquest of Medusa (which see). 
 
 Perseus. One of the forty-eight ancient constellations, 
 situated in the northern hemisphere. 
 
 PERSEVE'RANCE.or FINAL PERSEVERANCE. In 
 Theology, the continuance of the elect in a state of grace to 
 the end of their lives, which, according to some theologians, 
 must always be the case with him who has once been truly 
 called into such a state. Since God is represented as the 
 image of perfection and immutability in himself, so, it is ar- 
 gued, having once begun the preparation of a human being 
 for a blessed eternity, he will not leave his work unfinish- 
 ed ; but the person concerned must necessarily persevere to 
 the end in a state of acceptance, under the absolute decree 
 of which he was originally elected unto life. 
 
 PE'RSIAN WHEEL. In Mechanics, a contrivance for 
 raising water to some height above the level of a stream. 
 In the rim of a wheel turned by the stream a number of 
 strong pins are fixed, from which buckets are suspended. 
 As the wheel turns, the buckets on one side go down into 
 the stream, where they are filled, and return up full on the 
 other side till they reach the top. Here an obstacle is pla- 
 ced in such a position that the buckets successively strike 
 against it and are overset, and the water emptied into a 
 trough. As the water can never be raised by this means 
 higher than the diameter of the wheel, it is obvious that 
 this rude machine is capable of only a very limited applica- 
 tion. Sometimes the wheel is made to raise the water only 
 to the height of the axis. In this case, instead of buckets, 
 the spokes are made hollow, and bent into such a form that 
 when they dip into the water it runs into them, and is thus 
 conveyed to a box on the axle, whence it is emptied into a 
 cistern. Such wheels are in common use on the banks of 
 the Nile, and elsewhere. 
 
 I'Ut.-^lSTENCE (Lat. per, through; sisto, / remain), in 
 Optics, signifies the duration of the impression of light on 
 the retina after the luminous object has disappeared. Thus, 
 if a lighted torch is whirled round rapidly, a continuous cir- 
 cle of light is seen. A great number of illusions of the same 
 kind, as the augmentation of the apparent volume of a mu- 
 sical chord when in vibration, the luminous train accompa- 
 nying a falling meteor, &c, are explained by this property 
 of vision ; and it has been ingeniously applied by Professor 
 Wheatstone to measure the velocity of electric light. 
 
 PERSON. See Grammar. 
 
 PE'RSONAL PROPERTY, according to the division 
 recognised by our law, is best defined negatively, as inclu- 
 ding everything which may be made the subject of proper- 
 ty, and which is not legally considered as appertaining to 
 land. The original distinction was undoubtedly between 
 things moveable and immoveable. But, on the one hand, a 
 personal interest may be acquired in things immoveable, 
 i. e., in land by lease for years (chatlels real) ; while, on the 
 other hand, some things not affixed to the soil, and gome 
 bare rights and privileges are considered as fieehold. The 
 distinction, therefore, is scarcely maintained with philo- 
 sophical accuracy, although we may still consider that ev- 
 er) thing which is of a freehold nature Is either obviously or 
 constructively connected with the enjoyment of land, or, in 
 technical language, savours of the realty; while everything 
 
 wholly unconnected with land falls under the denomina- 
 tion of chattels personal. The term chattel is derived from 
 the barbarous Latin word eatallum. 
 
 Besides chattels real, already adverted to, personal prop- 
 erty is said to be cither fa possession or in action. The 
 fir-t class of objects includes everything comprehended un- 
 der goods and chattels, ready money and stock, or such ani- 
 mals as arc tin- subjects of property: the second class are 
 legally termed chases <>r tilings jn action, and are defined to 
 be things to which a man has a bare right without any oc- 
 830 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 cupation, the possession whereof may be recovered by a 
 suit or action at law. Of this class, therefore, are all debts, 
 and the securities for them, unless these securities attach 
 on land. Sums of money due on bond, on bills ot exchange, 
 and promissory notes, property in the funds, nil fall within 
 this comprehensive class, which, originally so trifling as to 
 lie hardly noticed in early jurisprudence, now comprehends 
 by far the greater part in value of the moveable property of 
 our commercial community. 
 
 PERSONIFICATION, or PROSOPOPOEIA. In Rheto- 
 ric and Composition, a figure of speech, being a species of 
 metaphor (see Metaphor), by which inanimate objects, or 
 abstract notions, are represented as endued with life and 
 action: sometimes by being addressed as living agents (see 
 Apostrophe) : at other times, by being coupled with attri- 
 butes which belong only to living agents. 
 
 PERSPECTIVE. (Lat. perspicio, / look through.) In 
 the Fine Arts, the art of delineating on a given transparent 
 plane or superficies objects as they appear to an eye placed 
 at a given height and distance. From the definition, it is 
 evident that, to delineate the true appearance of an object 
 on a plane surface, it becomes necessary to know the laws 
 according to which the apparent linear dimensions of an ob- 
 ject increase or decrease; and they are these generally : 1. 
 The visual angle, or the apparent magnitude of a line, will 
 be less the greater the distance, and the converse ; 2. It will 
 be less the more obliquely a line is viewed ; 3. The law of 
 diminution will be nearly in proportion to the obliquity and 
 distance conjointly. In the following diagram, let the eye 
 
 of the spectator be at I, and let E F G H be the plane on 
 which the appearance of objects is observed. This is called 
 the perspective plane, or plane of the picture. Now the ap- 
 pearance of every object to be delineated will vary accord- 
 ing to the plane in which it stands, considered with respect 
 to the perspective plane ; hence the particular situations of 
 object-planes are the main points for consideration. It is 
 manifest that any plane passing through the eye can only 
 be seen on the perspective plane as a line : for the eye, hav- 
 ing neither elevation above nor depression below such plane, 
 can see no part of its surface, its edge being all that is visi- 
 ble to the eye. Of such planes two are of primary impor- 
 tance in perspective, viz., the horizontal plane, O K L M, 
 parallel to the horizon ; and the vertical plane, ftPRN, 
 perpendicular to the last. The first intersects the perspect- 
 ive plane in the line L K, called the horizontal line ; and the 
 last in the line Q, P, called the vertical line. Planes not 
 passing through the eye must have a direct or an oblique 
 situation relative thereto. If the former, it must be paral- 
 lel to the perspective plane, which is supposed to be placed 
 directly before the eye ; thus, the plane A B C D is a direct 
 one, and parallel to the perspective plane G E. Of the 
 planes situated obliquely to the eye, the most considerable 
 is A E H D, which is called the ground plane, and is paral- 
 lel to that of the horizon. From the foregoing observations, 
 then, it appears that objects in the surfaces of the horizon- 
 tal and vertical planes cannot be seen by the eye at I, and 
 therefore cannot be represented on the perspective plane. 
 If O B be an object in the direct plane, and from the ex- 
 treme points O and B the visual rays O 1, It I be drawn to 
 the eye at I, they will pass through the perspective plane in 
 the points o and b, .and by joining them the right line o b 
 will be the representation of the line or object O B on the 
 perspective plane. In like manner, the representation of 
 O A is o a, and b r and a n will be the representation of B 
 R and A N, ami consequently r b an of R B A N, &c., &c. 
 So all lines parallel to A B or C D in the object-plane will 
 have their perspective lines parallel to a 4 and c d in the 
 
 picture on the perspective plane; and, however the object- 
 plane A C may be divided, their representations on the per- 
 spective plane or planes of the picture will divide that in a 
 similar manner. Any point B in a direct plane has the 
 same ratio of distance from the horizontal and vertical 
 planes as its perspective has from the horizontal and verti- 
 cal planes, viz., that of the distances of the planes from the 
 eye, from the nature of similar triangles: hence the forms 
 of objects on the perspective plane, when tiny are present- 
 ed in a direct view, may be drawn with facility. The last 
 species of plane whereon it i j supposed we may mow the 
 
 natural object is that of the ground itself, as A 1) II E, above 
 which the eye has more or less an elevation ; as i P, equal
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 to I Y. This is hence called the ground plane, and its in- 
 tersection, H E, with the perspective plane is called the 
 ground line. It is more important than all others, as being 
 the common table, as it were, on which everything is pla- 
 ced. In respect to this horizontal plane, we have seen that 
 the two remote angles thereof, A and D, are represented by 
 by a and d in the perspective plane ; the other two angles, 
 E and H, are in the same plane also, as being common to 
 both ; therefore, by drawing the lines a E and d H, there 
 will be formed the figure E and H on the perspective plane, 
 which will be the correct perspective appearance of the 
 ground plane A D H E. Thus, a E is the perspective of 
 A E, » P of N P, and d H of D H ; and lines that are paral- 
 lel in the ground plane and perpendicular to the perspect- 
 ive plane are not so in their perspective picture, but con- 
 verge to a point i, called the point of sight, in the perspect- 
 ive plane, because exactly opposite to the eye, or the point 
 in which a perpendicular from the eye falls on the plane. 
 In the ground plane draw V W parallel to A D; its per- 
 spective v w will be parallel to a d in the picture, and ad wv 
 will be the perspective of the part A D W V in the original 
 plane. We shall now proceed to a demonstration of what 
 relates to forming the perspective appearance or picture of 
 the ground plane and objects upon it. Let A B C D, in the 
 following diagram, be a right-lined figure on the ground 
 
 | '0 
 
 ^£ 
 
 plane V G K C, contiguous to, and at right angles with, the 
 perspective plane YZ9R. F H is the distance of the plane, 
 and H I the height of the eye at I. H E is parallel to G B 
 or C K, and bisects A D and B C in the points F and E. On 
 the point E raise the perpendicular E M, equal to II I, and 
 draw the lines B M, C M, G I, and K I. Draw the visual 
 lines I A, I B, and I M, which is called the principal ray, 
 and is perpendicular to the perspective plane in the point i. 
 Now it is evident that the plane I G B M intersects the 
 perspective plane in the line A i, and the ray B I, being in 
 the said plane G M, must intersect the line A i in some 
 point b, which is, therefore, the perspective of the point B : 
 hence A b is the perspective of the line A B. Also, as the 
 plane I K C M intersects the perspective plane K Z in the 
 line D i, and the ray I C is in that plane, and intersects the 
 line i D in the point c, that point will be the perspective of 
 the point C, and D c that of the line D C. Joining the 
 points b c, the line b c will be the perspective of the line B C 
 in the ground plane. Let A B equal D C, then B C will be 
 parallel to AD; and as in this case A b is equal to D c, b c 
 will be parallel to A D also. From this it is manifest that 
 all right lines, as B C in the ground plane, which are paral- 
 lel to the ground line A D, will also be parallel to the same 
 in their representations on the perspective plane. It is, more- 
 over, evident that the representations A b, F e, D c, of all 
 lines A B, F E, D C, perpendicular to the ground line A D, 
 converge or tend to the point of sight i in the perspective 
 plane. If the line A B be carried out infinitely in the direc- 
 tion of V, then, supposing the point B to move along that 
 line continually, the visual ray B I will keep rising on the 
 plane I G B M towards I M, making the angle B I M less 
 and less, till the point B being at an infinite distance the ray 
 I B will coincide with I M, and consequently the line A i 
 will be the perspective of A B continued infinitely. So Di 
 will be the representation of the line D C continued infi- 
 nitely. Hence the triangle A i'D will, on the perspective 
 plane, be the true representation of the plane A B C D car- 
 ried out infinitely on the plane of the horizon. Hence, also, 
 the line Y i Z is the perspective of the horizon or boundary 
 of the sight at an infinite distance ; and therefore all ob- 
 jects on the plane of the horizon will, in their representa- 
 tions, be seen to rise from the ground line towards the point 
 of sight, and lessen in appearance as thev grow more dis- 
 tant, till at last they vanish in the horizontal line Y Z. We 
 now come to lines which lie oblique to, or make an angle 
 with, the ground line A D, or any other parallel to it. Make 
 A L equal to A G or I i, and draw A p to make any angle 
 p A R or p A D with the base A D, acute or obtuse. Then 
 in the horizontal line Y Z take i X, equal to Lp, and draw 
 p X and (' X ; the plane I X p A will intersect the perspect- 
 ive plane in the line A X. Draw the visual ray lp, which, 
 being in the plane I X/> A, must go through the perspective 
 plane somewhere in the line A X, which suppose at r. 
 Then is the point r the perspective of p ; and, since the 
 point p is supposed to pass from A to p, in describing the 
 
 line A p its perspective r will move in the plane A Z from 
 A to r, and describe the line A r, which, therefore, will be 
 the representation of the line A p. If A p be carried out 
 infinitely, and the point p supposed to move constantly 
 therein, its representation r will appear to move towards 
 X, till at length the point p being at an infinite distance, r 
 arrives at and coincides with X in the horizontal line. A X 
 is, therefore, the representation of the line A p infinitely 
 continued; and X is called the accidental point, to which 
 the representations of all lines parallel to A? tend. Let 
 L P be taken equal to A L, and i Z equal to i I ; then, join- 
 ing A P and i Z, the triangles A P L and :ZI are equal. 
 Then will the plane i A P Z intersect the perspective plane 
 in the line A Z, which will be the representation of the line 
 A P carried to an infinite distance. But, since A L is equal 
 to L P, and L P is parallel to A D, therefore A P is the diag- 
 onal of a square, and contains an angle D A P of forty-five 
 degrees with the ground line A D ; hence the point of dis- 
 tance Z is that to which all rays parallel to A P tend in 
 the perspective plane. Let A B equal A D ; then is A B C D 
 a geometrical square, and its diagonal A C, whereof the 
 representation is A c; and the point c is, therefore, that in 
 which the perspective diagonal A Z intersects the ray or 
 radial line i D. Make i Y equal i Z, or i I, and join D Y, 
 and it will be the perspective diagonal of D B (the other 
 diagonal of the square A C) infinitely continued, and D b 
 the representation of the diagonal D B, determined by the 
 intersection of the lines D Y and A i, as before. Thus it is 
 demonstrated that A b c D on the perspective plane A S Z Y 
 is the true picture or perspective representation of the ori- 
 ginal square A B C D on the ground plane, as required. 
 
 From the above principles are deduced the common 
 rules of perspective, of which we shall give two or three 
 examples. A B C D is a ground plane, whereon are seated 
 the objects O and O'. The line A B is the plan of the 
 plane of the picture, or its intersection with the ground 
 plane ; and C D Y Z is the plane of the picture, or the 
 perspective plane, as we have before called it. It will be 
 observed, that one of the objects, O, lies obliquely towards 
 the perspective plane, and the other is parallel to it or 
 direct. We will first deal with the former. From the 
 sration of the eye, £, parallel to ae and eb, two of the 
 sides of the object, draw the lines E A and E B, cutting 
 the plane of the picture in A and B. Then will A be the 
 vanishing point of all lines parallel to a c, as will be B of 
 all lines parallel to eb. E' is the place of the eye at the 
 intersection of the ground plane with the picture, being a 
 perpendicular from A B to E'. If H H' be the horizontal 
 line, then H E", equal to A E', is the place of the eye on 
 the perspective plane. From the different points of the 
 object a e b draw towards E, as a centre, the visual rays 
 ac, ed, bf, intersecting A B in c, d, and /; and from them 
 continue upwards indefinitely the verticals c c', d d', ff, 
 
 li" 
 
 Which will be the boundaries of the sides ae and eb re- 
 spectively. On the plan continue one of the sides ae till 
 it intersects the picture in h. and make C h' on the perspec- 
 tive plane equal to A A on the plan ; and draw the vertical 
 A' A", which will be the line of heights on which they are 
 to be set out. Then, if h' p be the height of the object O, 
 lines drawn from A' and p to the vanishing point H will 
 intersect the verticals in q and r and s' and t' . In like 
 manner, lines drawn from t! and r' towards the vanishing 
 point H will give the representation of the other side. 
 Lines drawn in opposite directions at the top of the fisure 
 (dotted in the diagram), will enable the draftsman to draw 
 diagonals from whose intersection a vertical uiev be raised 
 3 L * 921
 
 PERSPECTIVE. 
 
 for crowning the object with a pyramid or other figure. In 
 respect of the object O', which on the plan is a square 
 circumscribing a circle, the object being direct or parallel 
 to the picture, all those lines parallel to it will be hori- 
 zontal, and the vanishing point of the returning sides p i, 
 qy will be found in E' (or E" in the picture), which, as in 
 the former case, is found by a line from E parallel to those 
 sides intersecting the picture. Similarly, a line from E 
 parallel to xq. intersecting the picture in 6, will be the 
 vanishing point of all diagonals of a square in that direc- 
 tion. The visual rays tending to E, shown at gkl, &c, 
 are to be transferred to the picture by verticals as before. 
 In this object, hh'h" will be seen to be the line of heights, 
 on which all heights are to be set out. The perspective 
 extent of a circle is easily obtained by lines bounding its 
 convexity, transferred by the visual rays s ft rn to the pic- 
 ture, which, aided by the diameters, will give the form 
 required. To give the reader a general notion of the com- 
 mon mode of proceeding in perspective representations of 
 buildings, we present the following diagrams. B is the 
 plan of a building to be thrown into perspective, inclined 
 
 to the plane of the picture at any angle v h a. The vanish- 
 ing points of all lines parallel to a A are found by a line 
 from the eye parallel to a b, cutting the picture in V. Si- 
 milarly, V is found to be the vanishing point of all lines 
 parallel to cd. If ni be continued to h, it gives the place 
 of the line II II', whereon the heights of the different parts 
 of the elevation A may be set according to their several al- 
 titudes. The place of the horizontal line is chosen so as 
 to afford the most agreeable representation of the object ; its 
 height depending, of course, on that at which the eye 
 would most probably be placed, or might be supposed to 
 be. The visual rays to the eyes are shown by the dotted 
 lines. Having thus prepared the geometrical plan and 
 elevation of the object, the plane of the picture is set out 
 as under; and tin; reader must observe that the whole ex- 
 tent of it horizontally must not take in an angle of more 
 
 than sixty decrees, that being as great as the eye can take 
 in without turning the head, though, in internal views, 
 a greater extent is generally tolerated. It is to be Observed, 
 that in this diagram the representation, for the sake of 
 greater distinctness, |g doubled in dimensions from the plan. 
 The place of H H' is transferred to the picture and the 
 height carried down from it to the vertical lines, whose 
 places have been found by the visual rays above men 
 
 tioned. The vanishing points V and V are transferred to 
 the horizontal line V V". and the horlzonal lines in (he sides 
 tend thereto. It is obvious that a similar process enables 
 9-22 
 
 PERTURBATION. 
 
 the draftsman to make internal representations, the prin- 
 ciples whereon they are conducted being precisely the 
 same. It is needless to expatiate on the importance of 
 perspective to the painter; and, though Fresnoy has ad- 
 vised that " the com passes should be rather in his eyes than 
 in his hands," it is clear that without a knowledge of its 
 laws he can never hope to succeed. 
 
 That perspective was unknown to the ancients, as some 
 have supposed, is a mistake. What has led to such an 
 error has been, perhaps, the violation of its rules in basso 
 relievo, and particularly in those on the Trajan column, 
 where attention to them would have been impossible, if not 
 improper. Another ground for the supposition is the igno- 
 rance of perspective displayed in the paintings of Hercu- 
 laneum and Pompeii. But such examples are no proof. 
 How many painters of our own days, some of them even 
 possessing a certain sort of reputation, are sadly ignorant 
 upon the subject. The truth is, that the ancients were not 
 only eminent for their success in painting walls with archi- 
 tectural subjects, but they were also known to have re- 
 quired the practice of this branch of the arts in the decora- 
 tions of their theatres. To such a point of perfection was it 
 carried, if we may rely on Pliny, that in the decorations of 
 the theatre of Claudius Pulcher the imitations were so 
 striking that the birds attempted to alight on the tiles of the 
 roofs. This probably, however, is but a figurative descrip- 
 tion of the work, and that it was so intended ; for otherwise 
 it would be drawing rather too largely on our credulity. 
 Vitruvius tells us, in the Preface to his seventh Book, that 
 perspective was well understood at a very early period. 
 His words are, " Agathasius, at the time when ^Eschylus 
 taught at Athens the rules of tragic poetry, was the first who 
 contrived scenery, upon which subject he left a treatise. 
 This led Democritus and Anaxagoras, who wrote thereon, 
 to explain how the points of sight and distance ought to 
 guide the lines, as in nature, to a centre ; so that, by means 
 of pictorial deception, the real appearances of buildings ap 1 
 pear on the scene, which, painted on a flat vertical surface, 
 seem nevertheless to advance and recede." Neither was 
 the practice of perspective confined to the representations 
 just mentioned. Its knowledge was considered equally 
 necessary in pictures. The painter Pamphilus, whose cele- 
 brated school of design was at Sicyon, taught perspective 
 publicly, and carried his opinions on this head to such an 
 extent that he considered no perfect painting could be exe- 
 cuted without a knowledge of geometry. " Omnibus letteris 
 eruditus precipue arithmetical et geometria?, sine quibus 
 negabat artem perfici posse." 
 
 The earliest authors on the subject, whose works have 
 reached us, are Bartolomeo Bramantino of Milan, whose 
 work, Regole di Prospettiva e JWsttre delle Jlntichitit di 
 Lombardia, appeared in 1440 ; and Pietro del Borgo, who, 
 as he died in 1443, probably wrote earlier. Baltazzare 
 Peru/.zi, improving on the methods of Pietro, whom he had 
 carefully studied, very considerably advanced the science. 
 Guido fjbaldi followed him ; and, publishing his work at 
 Pesaro, in 1600, established its principles on a basis which 
 left little to be done by our countryman Dr. Brook Taylor, 
 the first Englishman who wrote scientifically on the subject. 
 The works on the subject are in every language very 
 abundant; but, in our own, the work of Thomas Malton, 
 published in folio, London, 1776, entitled, A complete Treat- 
 ise on Perspective, in Theory and Practice, on the Principles 
 of Dr. Brook Taylor, is the most valuable to the student, 
 and should be in the hands of every one who has a desire 
 to be thoroughlv acquainted with the subject. 
 
 PERSPECTIVE AERIAL. See Aerial. 
 
 PERSPIRATION. (Lat. perspiratio.; The vapour se- 
 creted by the ramification of the cuticular arteries over the 
 surface of the body. In the healthy state it is slightly acid 
 ami saline. According to Lavoisier and Seguin, the great- 
 est amount of perspiration exceeds six pounds in the twenty- 
 four hours, and the smallest two pounds ; it is at its maxi- 
 mum immediately after taking food, and decreases during 
 digestion. Whatever quantity of food is taken, or whatever 
 are the variations of the atmosphere, the same person, after 
 having increased in weight by all the food he has taken, re- 
 turns in twenty four hours nearly to the same weight he was 
 tho day before, provided lie is not growing and has not in- 
 dulged in any excess. 
 
 The substances perspired are water, carbonic acid, saline 
 substances, lactic acid, and some organic matter. In cer- 
 tain cases of disease, the perspiration is not only greatly 
 modified ns to quantity, but often as to quality. 
 
 PERTURBATION. In Astronomy, the deviation of a 
 celestial body from the elliptic orbit which it would describe 
 if acted upon by no other attractive force than that of the 
 -mi. or i entral body about which it revolves. If the planets 
 exercised no attraction on each other, the orbit described by 
 each of them would be accurately an ellipse, having the 
 sun in one of its foci ; and the law of the motion such that 
 the area described by a straight line joining the centre of
 
 PERTURBATION. 
 
 the sun and the planet would describe equal areas in equal 
 times. But in consequence of the universal gravitation of 
 matter, every body in the system is more or less affected by 
 the attractive influence of all the others, and is, consequent- 
 ly, forced to deviate from the path it would describe in vir- 
 tue of the central force acting alone. The forces which 
 cause these deviations are called the perturbing forces ; and 
 the determination of their effect on each orbit is the great 
 problem of physical astronomy. 
 
 The simplest case of the problem is a system in which 
 there are only three bodies— a central body and two revolv- 
 ing bodies, disturbing the motions of each other. Such, for 
 example, would be the case of the sun, the earth, and the 
 moon, if all the other planets were conceived to be annihi- 
 lated, or at so great a distance that their disturbing force 
 was rendered insensible. For the sake of perspicuity, let 
 one of the revolving bodies be called the disturbed, and the 
 other the disturbing body. Now it is by no means difficult 
 to obtain a general idea of the effects that must be produced 
 by the disturbing force. It is easy to see, for example, that 
 in certain positions of its orbit the motion of the disturbed 
 body must be accelerated, and in others retarded ; that in 
 one case it may be drawn above, and in another depressed 
 below the plane of the orbit it would describe about the 
 central body. But a far more difficult problem remains — 
 namely, that of determining the ultimate effect of the re- 
 ciprocal action of the revolving bodies after an infinite num- 
 ber of revolutions. When the masses and distances of the 
 bodies are supposed to be given, this is a problem of pure 
 mathematics ; but such is its difficulty, that even when re- 
 stricted to three bodies, its general solution transcends the 
 power of analysis ; and it is only in a particular case 'that, 
 however, which is presented by nature), namely, when the 
 mass of the disturbing body is very small in comparison of 
 the central one, that mathematicians have succeeded in in- 
 tegrating the equations of motion, and determining the final 
 results. 
 
 It is easy to conceive that if the problem presents great 
 difficulties when only three bodies are taken into considera- 
 tion, these difficulties must be infinitely increased when it 
 is attempted to investigate the reciprocal actions of all the 
 individuals composing the solar system. To determine the 
 circumstances of the motions of about ihirty bodies projected 
 in space and abandoned to their mutual attractions, is a 
 problem, indeed, which far transcends the power of any 
 known calculus. Nevertheless, there are circumstances in 
 the peculiar constitution of the solar system which enable 
 us not only to foresee the general effect, but to determine 
 the form, and dimensions, and position of an orbit, and the 
 place of the body in it, at any given time, past or future, with 
 all the precision which astronomical observations admit of. 
 These circumstances are the following: In the first place, 
 by reason of the immensely preponderating attraction of the 
 sun, the force by which any planet is attracted by another 
 is extremely feeble in comparison of that by which it is re- 
 tained in the orbit it would describe if there was no other 
 body than itself and the sun. Hence the deviations from 
 that orbit are small, and the disturbing action of each planet 
 admits of being computed independently of the others. In 
 the second place, all the large planets are confined. to a 
 zone of a few degrees in breadth, and therefore can exert 
 only a comparatively feeble influence in drawing one an- 
 other from the planes of their orbits. In the third place, 
 the system is broken up into subordinate and partial sys- 
 tems, which are almost independent of one another. Thus, 
 for example, the Sun, Jupiter, and Saturn form a system, in 
 which the two planets exert a very sensible action on each 
 other, but are very little affected by the influence of any 
 other body ; and the same is the case, though in a less de- 
 gree, with Venus and the Earth. By reason of these cir- 
 cumstances, mathematicians have been enabled to accom- 
 plish what would otherwise have been impossible, and to 
 express the disturbing forces of the several bodies of the 
 system by algebraic equations, from which the positions of 
 all the planets and the principal satellites are computed for 
 several years to come, and reduced into tables for the pur- 
 poses of navigation. 
 
 The inequalities produced in the motions of the planets 
 by their reciprocal actions are divided into two kinds. The 
 first depend on the configurations of the planets, that is, the 
 relative positions they have with regard to each other ; and, 
 as the inequalities depending on this cause increase, dimin- 
 ish, and disappear after certain intervals of time, they are 
 called periodic inequalities. Those of the second kind are 
 independent of the relative positions of the planets: they 
 are also periodic, but their periods are incomparably longer 
 than those of the first kind ; hence they are called secular 
 inequalities, as if their periods were not to be reckoned by 
 years, but by centuries. It is by the discovery of the peri- 
 odic* nature and ultimate compensation of all the inequali- 
 ties of tioth kinds, occasioned by the perturbing forces, that 
 the permanent stability of the system is demonstrated. 
 
 In order to assure the stability of the planetary orbits, 
 three elements must remain constant,' or be subject only to 
 small periodic fluctuations. These are, 1. The major axis 
 of the orbit, or the planet's mean distance from the sun ; 2. 
 The inclination of its orbit to a fixed plane ; and, 3. The ec- 
 centricity of the orbit. Now, with respect to the major ax- 
 es, it has been demonstrated by Lagrange that they are 
 exempted altogether from secular inequalities, and are sub- 
 ject only to periodical changes depending on the configura- 
 tions of the planets. They are therefore restored to their 
 former values when the planets resume the same relative 
 positions ; and their mean values, and, consequently, the 
 mean motions which depend upon them, remain unalter- 
 ably the same. With regard to the inclinations and eccen- 
 tricities, they are affected both by periodic and secular in- 
 equalities ; but their secular changes are confined within 
 very small limits, and ultimately work out a. compensation. 
 Besides, the inclinations and eccentricities of the different 
 orbits are connected with each other in such a manner, that 
 whatever any one orbit gains in either of these respects is 
 lost among the others. These relations are defined by the 
 two following theorems discovered by Lagrange, than which 
 analysis has furnished no more remarkable or beautiful re- 
 sults : 
 
 1. If the mass of every planet be multiplied by the square 
 root of the major axis of its orbit, and the product by the 
 square of the tangent of its inclination to a fixed plane, 
 the sum of all these products will be constantly the same 
 under the influence of their mutual attraction. 
 
 2. If the mass of each planet be multiplied by the square 
 root of the axis of its orbit, and the product by the square 
 of the eccentricity, the sum of all such products throughout 
 the system is invariable. 
 
 From the periodic nature of the changes produced in the 
 three elements mentioned above, it follows that the whole 
 effect of the perturbing forces is to cause the system to 
 oscillate about a mean state, and that the inequalities of the 
 planetary motions are all compensated in the long run ; 
 and that, consequently, the system contains within itself no 
 element of destruction, but is calculated to endure forever, 
 unless an external force be introduced. These results of 
 theory are, in a speculative point of view, by far the most 
 interesting in the whole range of astronomical discovery. 
 They are not deduced, however, from the solution of the 
 general problem of the motion of bodies mutually attracting 
 each other, but are founded on certain conditions which be- 
 long to the individual system ; viz., 1. That the eccentrici- 
 ties of the orbits are inconsiderable ; 2. That the inclina- 
 tions to the plane of the ecliptic are small ; and, 3. That all 
 the planets, primary and secondary, move in the same di- 
 rection. Now these conditions are not necessary conse- 
 quences of gravitation. For anything that has been proved 
 to the contrary, a system might exist under the Newtonian 
 law of gravitation in which not one of them would be satis- 
 fied. Of their final causes, however, we are, and may ever 
 remain, entirely ignorant ; but the fact of their existence 
 (for the chances are almost as infinity to one that they are 
 not accidental) proves clearly enough that the primitive im- 
 pulse which determined the directions of the different mo- 
 tions must have been communicated to all the planets and 
 satellites by the same mechanical cause. 
 
 The history of the problem of the perturbations datea 
 from the discovery of universal gravitation. Newton him- 
 self pointed out the general effects whicli the mutual attrac- 
 tions of the planets must have in disturbing the motions of 
 each other, and applied his theory to the investigation of the 
 precession of the equinoxes, and the inequalities of the 
 moon. The problem of three bodies was solved by Clairaut, 
 D'Alembert, and Euler, about the middle of the last century. 
 Euler first pointed out the periodic nature of the variations 
 of the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn occasioned by their mutual 
 perturbations. Laplace remarked, that on taking account 
 of some of the first terms of the analytical development of 
 the expressions of the perturbed orbits, those on which the 
 secular inequalities depend are capable of increase only 
 within certain limits ; and Lagrange demonstrated generally, 
 that no secular inequality, or term proportional to the time, 
 can possibly enter into the expression of the greater axis of 
 the orbit, or the mean motion which depends on it. It may 
 be said that the discoveries of these two great mathemati- 
 cians completed the theory of gravitation, inasmuch as every 
 inequality in the system not previously accounted for was 
 by them referred to its proximate cause, and its analytical 
 expression assigned. The labours of all succeeding mathe- 
 maticians in the department of physical astronomy have 
 been confined to the extension and simplification of their 
 theories. 
 
 For a popular account of this subject, the reader may con- 
 sult Laplace's Systeme du Monde ; Sir J. HersrhcVs Trea- 
 tise on Astronomy; &n&Jiirifs Gravitation. The mathe- 
 matical theory is contained in the Mecanique Celeste, and 
 other works on physical astronomy. (See, also, Playfair's 
 
 923
 
 PERTUSSIS. 
 
 PEUTINGERIAN MAP. 
 
 Outlines of JVot. Phil.; WoodhouseS Astronomy, Vol. U. | 
 
 fficomant TheorU Analytic dnSyst 
 
 Gautier. Rss u Hist rnque sur It Problem* des Trots Corps.) 
 
 PERTU'SSIS. The whooping cough. 
 
 PERU'VI YX B ^LS VM. The produce of the Jtyroxy- 
 tonPeruvianum : a tree which crows in the warmest parts 
 of Sout An.,-ric,. It is obtained by boiling the twigs to 
 water It is a thick brown liquid, of a fragrant odour, and 
 a pungent anil bitterish flavour. 
 
 PERCVl YX BARK. See Cinchona.. 
 PERVIGILIUM. (Lat from vigil, watchful; a watch 
 lasting through the night) The nocturnal festivals to some 
 lei' e" were' so styled bv the Romans. The Perv,g,l,um 
 ™e«erts,a beautiful reli"c of Latin poetry, is attributed by 
 some critics to Catullus. , . . 
 
 PESTILENCE, [hat. pestia.) Any contagious or infec- 
 tious disease which is endemic or epidemic, and mortal. 
 The term is also used in a moral sense. See Plagie. 
 
 PE'tTlISM. (Or. «r«Xov, a leaf.) In Antiquity, a 
 form of condemnation practised at Syracuse, by which per- 
 sons who. from their wealth or influence, were considered 
 dan4r us to the state, were banished for five years, with 
 le™vc to onjnv their estates and to return after that period 
 It was. in f.ui. only another form oi the Athenian ostra c m 
 (see Ostracism) with this difference, that in the latter 
 Se condemnation was written on shells and lasted for ten 
 years, whereas in petalism leaves were made use of, and 
 the condemnation lasted only five years. r ,,., 
 
 PE'T ALITE A Swedish mineral of a gray or reddish 
 colour and a foliated texture. It is a silicate of alumina and 
 lithia, and contains between five and six per cent, ot the 
 latter alkali. \ . _ ;„„<•• 
 
 PET YLO'CERAXS, Petalocera. (Gr. ttctoXov, a lea} , 
 Was, a horn.) A tribe of Coleopterous insects, including 
 those which have antenna; terminated by a foliated mass. 
 
 PETALOI'DEUS. (Gr. iztraXov. and eiios, like.) A 
 term applied by botanists to any organ the texture and col- 
 our of which resemble a petal. . 
 PETALS. (Gr. vcraUv.) In Botany, the divisions of 
 the corolla of a plant. . i___»i, 
 PET Y'RD. (Fr.) In Artillery, an engine formerly much 
 used for breaking down gates, barricades, fee. The petard 
 had some resemblance to a high-crowned hat. It was 
 formed of gun metal, was about seven inches deep, and 
 five inches' in diameter at the mouth, and held from nine 
 to twenty pounds of gunpowder. When about to be rod 
 it was screwed to a thick plank, and suspended before the 
 gate to be burst open. Petards were first used by the 
 French Hugonots at the siege of Cahors in 1579. Their 
 use is now discontinued; and it has been discovered that 
 gunpowder in loose bags is equally efficacious. 
 
 PET YSUS Gr ) A broad-brimmed hat used on jour- 
 neys by the classical ancients ; hence a petasus with wings 
 attached to it is the emblem of the celestial traveller Mer- 
 
 CU PET \URIST, Petaurus. (Gr. -craw, I expand, and qvpa, 
 a tail ) The name of a genus of Marsupial animals which 
 have the power of taking extensive leaps through the air, 
 like the flying squirrel, bv means of outstretched tegumen- 
 tary folds between the fore and hind extremities, aided by 
 an expanded tail. , , 
 
 PETE'CHI.E. (Ital. petichia.) Small red spots produced 
 by the effusion of drops of blood in the skin, immediately 
 under the cuticle. They resemble flea-bites, and usually 
 indicate an altered and impure state of the blood. 
 
 PETER-PENCE. The popular name of an impost, 
 otherwise termed " the fee of Rome," or, in the Anglo- 
 Saxon "Romescot:" originally a voluntary offering by the 
 faithful to the see of Rome ; afterwards a due levied in 
 various amounts froifi every house or family in a country. 
 Peter-pence were paid in Trance. Poland, and other realms. 
 In England this tax is recognised by the .Norman laws oi 
 Wuliamthi Edward in. discontinued the pay- 
 
 ment when the pope, resided at Avignon : but it was after- 
 wards revived, and finallj ce wed in the reign oi Henry \ 111. 
 PETIOLE. That portion of a leal that connects the 
 lamina with the -tern of a plant; the footstalk. 
 
 PETITION (Lat peto, J ask), signifies generally a sup- 
 plication preferred by one person to another, who is sup- 
 posed to be capable of granting the request T he right oi 
 the British subject to petition either house ol parliament, 
 or the kin,, is tounded on the Uil..,!- K,,.,t. .■««--< 
 is not considered as having repealed 13 C-fcrtat^ I.e.: 5, by 
 
 which it is criminal to solicit or procure the putting tin 
 hands of more than twenty persons to a petition tor altera- 
 tions in church or slate, unless by consent ol three or more 
 
 justices, or a majority of the grand jury at assizes or sessions, 
 
 fee.- and repairing*) the kin" or parliament to dehver such 
 
 petition with above the number of ten persons Is also ren- 
 dered criminal. . .. , ,„„„ j 
 
 PETITION. In Law. an application hi Writing, ^dressed 
 
 to the Lord Chancellor, the Master of the Rolls, or to trie 
 09 1 
 
 equitv side of the Court of Exchequer, in which certain 
 facts "are set forth as the ground on which the petitioner 
 rests his prayer for the order and direction ol these respect- 
 ive courts. Petitions are of two kinds— cause petitions, and 
 export* petitions. The former are those in regard to mat- 
 ters of which the court is already in possession, by virtue 
 of there being a suit concerning their substance (the peti- 
 tioner in this case being either generally a party to such 
 suit or in some way or other possessing an interest therein) ; 
 the latter (rrparte petitions) are so called when there is no 
 suit existing about the matter of the petition. Both these 
 kinds of petitions are susceptible of numerous subdivisions. 
 PETITIO PRIXCI'PII. (Lat. a dema mi uj the principle.) 
 In Logic, a popular designation for a species of vicious rea- 
 soning which consists in tacitly assuming the proposition 
 to be proved as a premise of the syllogism by which it is to 
 be proved; vulgo, begging the question. 
 
 PETOXG. The Chinese white copper ; it is an alloy ol 
 copper and nickel. See Pakfong. 
 PETRELS. In Ornithology. See Procellari*. 
 PETRIF VCTIOXS. (Lat. petra, a stone, and facio, I 
 make.) A general term bv which naturalists designate the 
 conversion of vegetable or animal materials into a stony 
 substance. The word is equivalent with such expressions 
 as "organized fossils, organic remains," &.C. ; which, how- 
 ever, are all liable to exception on the ground ot not dis- 
 tinctly explaining what they are meant to define; and 
 though the term petrifaction is itself open to censure on the 
 same score, it does not seem that any other word more ac- 
 ceptable to the naturalist has hitherto been found to super- 
 sede it The branch of science which treats more peculiar- 
 ly of substances in a petrified state is usually denominated 
 bmctolosit, which see. 
 
 PETR' >BRC S1ANS. The followers of Peter de Bruys 
 a aeretic or reformer of the 12th century, who declaimed 
 with great success against the vices of the clergy, and 
 fathered around him considerable numbers ot adherents in 
 the south of France. The exact opinions which he ad- 
 vinced are onlv to be collected from the assertions of his 
 e,h ersaries, who, at a time when the lower classes through- 
 out Europe were listening eagerly to violent and, perhaps 
 fanatical oppungers of the dominant church, did not tail to 
 exaggerate and discolour their doctrines to suit their own 
 purposes. Besides the vague charge ot Manicheism which 
 made against most of these sectarians, the imputations 
 cast upon them chiefly refer to their contempt for he ordi- 
 nances of the church ; in which it is very probable that, 
 I ,* with the real abuses of the day, the cruc.hxe^ i.na- 
 ^ ami relics, the ignorant multitude may have included 
 The sacraments and other purer ceremonies in one : indis- 
 criminate abhorrence. A treatise was composed against 
 them by St. Bernard. (See Faber's Mbigenscs and Wai- 
 ZZs: Haddington's History of the Church, ch. xym.) 
 
 PFTIK CLEUM. A brown liquid bitumen, found in sev- 
 eral parts of Europe, in Persia, and in the West Indies. 
 It is often termed Barbadocs tar. 
 
 PE'TROLLNE. A substance obtained by distilling me 
 netrolenm of Rangoon ; analogous to paraffine. 
 
 PETROSI'LEX. A variety of flint or hornstone. xlie 
 term is sometimes applied to compact felspar. 
 
 PETU'NTZE. -Chinese.) A decomposing variety of 
 felspar, used in China in the manufacture ol porcelain. 
 
 PETW< >RTB .MARBLE, called also Sussex Marble. It 
 is a variously coloured limestone, occurring '^weald- 
 clay, and composed of the remains ot fjesh-water shells. 
 
 S PEUTWGE'RI YX MAP or TABLE. (Oerm.Peutinger 
 
 Tate! ; socalled from Conrad Peutinger, a native lOi Aag£ 
 
 hWh who was the first to make it generally known) 1 he 
 
 nam '"We W a map of the roads of the ancient Roman 
 
 worUl. = wr,t,en on pa'rchment. and supposed to have been 
 
 constxTicted about the time ol Alexandei Severus, A.n. ,«. 
 
 T e r ' mal, which is 21 feet in length, and only 1 loot m 
 
 Width, is deposited in the imperial library at \ lenna ; but 
 
 ' of it are to be found in the Ptolemy of Bertius; in 
 
 Horne Orbis Delineate . to Bergier, Historians desGrands 
 
 Chemins 2 Empir, Remain; and part ot it >n Murray s 
 
 Encyclopied.a 7oeography. Combined With « he celebra- 
 
 which it serves admirably to illus- 
 
 Sb it differs from the latter in several eseentwJ 
 
 m rtinttors. the IVuUngerian Table may be justly regarded 
 
 atoneofth )st valuable bequests of ancien l 
 
 , modern tunes. In .his table the high road which traver- 
 se, he i: „, empire in the general direct,,,,, ol eatf ami 
 
 W^t is made the first meridian, and to this every part s 
 s nbiece.l The objects along this line are iii.iiutcl) and 
 fa'thfullv exhibited; but of those lying to the north and 
 BOUth of it onlv some general not.on can be conveyed. 1 rem 
 
 SeWe and peculiar construction of the table, even "'•- 
 c ,s of cur-!, enormously extended in lengih and I reduced 
 G breadth. (See Manners Introduetum to Ins new edi- 
 tion of the Pcutingcrian Table, Lcipsic, lc-1.;
 
 PEWTER. 
 
 PEWTER. An alloy of tin with lead and antimony 
 frequently bears this name; but the best pewter was for- 
 merly made of 12 parts of tin with 1 of antimony, and a 
 very small addition of copper. A fine pewter is made, ac- 
 cording to Aiken, by fusing together 100 parts of tin, 8 of 
 antimony, 1 of bismuth, and 4 of copper. The use of these 
 additions to tin is to harden it and preserve its colour ; and 
 a good pewter, when clean and polished, has a silvery lus- 
 tre, and does not readily tarnish. Common pewter, of which 
 measures and pewter pots are made, is an alloy of lead and 
 tin. 
 
 PHAETON. (Gr. (patduv, shining.) In Mythology, the 
 son of Apollo and Clymenes, one of the Oceanides, accord- 
 ing to most writers. The fable of his adventures is well 
 known. Taunted with his doubtful origin, he asked his 
 father to lend him the chariot of the sun for a day, as a 
 proof of his filial rights. Unable to guide the fiery steeds, 
 he was dashed to the ground by Jupiter with a thunder- 
 bolt, to prevent his consuming the heavens and earth. The 
 best known narrative is that in Ovid's Metamorphoses. 
 
 PHAGEDENIC. (Gr. (payctv, to eat.) A term applied to 
 ulcers which rapidly corrode and destroy the parts which 
 they attack. 
 
 PHALA'NGER, Phalangista. (Gr. 0nXay£, a phalanx.) 
 The name of a genus of Marsupial animals, including those 
 in which the second and third toes of each hind foot are 
 united together as far as the last phalanx in a common cu- 
 taneous sheath, and which have a hinder thumb, but no 
 lateral cutaneous parachute. 
 
 PHALA'NGES. In Anatomy, the small bones of the 
 fingers and toes. 
 
 PHALA'NGIUM, or Shepherd Spider. The name of a 
 genus of Arachnidans, including those in which all the legs 
 are very long and slender ; the tarsi sometimes consisting of 
 more than fifty joints. 
 
 PHA'LANX. (Gr. <pa\ay\.) The close order of battle, 
 in which the heavy armed troops of a Grecian army were 
 usually drawn up. There were several different arrange- 
 ments of the phalanx peculiar to different states ; but the 
 most celebrated was that invented by Philip of Macedon. 
 The men stood close together, sometimes with their shields 
 locked, in ranks of several men in depth, displaying in 
 front a row of long-extended spears. The phalanx, whose 
 charge was irresistible in a smooth plain by a lighter body, 
 was found to be overmatched by the combined strength and 
 activity of the Roman legion, which was able to take ad- 
 vantage of any inequality of ground, and charge in flank 
 and rear ; and when once an accident offered an opening in 
 tie unwieldy mass of the enemy, their confusion was inevi- 
 table, and rally hopeless. The phalanx is described in most 
 works on Grecian antiquities ; but see especially the Mem. 
 de V Ac. des Inscr., vol. xxiv., xxv., and the Essay in vol. xli. 
 by M. de Maignal. 
 
 PHA'LERA. In Roman Military Antiquities, various 
 kinds of ornaments were so called, chiefly, but not exclusive- 
 ly, appropriated to the equipment of horse soldiers ; it was 
 also applied to the frontlets of the horses themselves. It is 
 evidently, however, as the ornament of the man, and not 
 the horse, that Virgil uses the word in the lines — 
 
 Euryalus phaleras Ramnetis et aurea bulHs 
 Cin^ula . . . humeris nequicquam fortibus aptat. 
 
 (See the 3d and 22d Memoirs of M. le Beau on the Roman 
 Legion, in Mem. de I'.icad. des Inscr., vols, xxviii. and xxxix.) 
 
 PHA'LEROPE, Phaieropus. (Gr. <pa\cpoc, scolloped, and 
 rouf, a foot.) The name of a wading bird, with the toes 
 provided with scolloped membranes. 
 
 PHA'NERONEURANS, Phaneroneura. (Gr. <f>avepoc, 
 and vevpov, a nerve.) A name applied by Rudolphi to all 
 those animals in which the nerves are distinctly eliminated. 
 
 PHATA'SMAGO'RIA. (Gr. tpavTaiyyui, appearance, spec- 
 tre, and ayop'iofiai, I collect.) An optical apparatus, by 
 means of which the images of objects can be magnified or 
 diminished at pleasure, and motion given to them whereby 
 a strong illusion is produced. The apparatus is, in fact, 
 nothing more than a magic lantern, in which the images are 
 received on a transparent screen, and the sliders on which 
 the figures are drawn rendered perfectly opake, excepting 
 in the figures themselves ; so that all light is excluded, ex- 
 cepting that which is transmitted*throu2h the image. The 
 lantern, mounted on wheels, is made to recede from or ap- 
 proach to the screen, by which the enlargement or diminu- 
 tion of the image is effected; and in order to preserve dis- 
 tinctness in the picture, the tube in the side of the lantern 
 which carries the lens is, by a particular mechanism, drawn 
 out or pushed in, so as to increase or diminish the distance 
 between the lens and the slider, according as the lantern 
 approaches to or recedes from the screen. The phantasma- 
 goria affords a very popular exhibition in lecture rooms. 
 (See Hutton's Dictionary ; Young's Natural Philosophy ; 
 Halle's JVatiirl. Magie.) 
 
 PHARISEES. A sect among the Jews, whose name is 
 derived from Pharas, a Hebrew word signifying separated 
 76 
 
 PHASIANIOE. 
 
 or set apart ; because they separated themselves from the 
 rest of the nation, and pretended to the distinction of pecu- 
 liar holiness. The time of their origin is not accurately de- 
 termined ; but they are referred to by Josephus as a consi- 
 derable sect, B.C. 110. In the time of our Saviour they 
 constituted the most influential party among the Jews. 
 Though their rivals the Sadducees numbered among them- 
 selves some individuals of the highest rank, and those who 
 affected to be conversant with the manners and philosophy 
 of the Greeks and Romans, the Pharisees embraced a greater 
 proportion of the upper classes, and were supported by the 
 admiration of the people, and the national feeling in favour 
 of the opinions and habits of their ancestors. Besides being 
 strict interpreters of the written law, their sect superinduced 
 upon it what they called the traditions of the elders, and 
 asserted that Moses delivered an oral law as a supplement 
 to that of the Scriptures. They are frequently reproached 
 by our Saviour with explaining the latter by the former, so 
 as in effect frequently to destroy the validity of the written 
 law. They also attached a mistaken importance to many 
 outward ceremonies of human invention, which they ob- 
 served with a studied ostentation which gained for them 
 the esteem and veneration of the multitude. They main- 
 tained, in opposition to the Sadducees, the popular doctrine 
 of the resurrection ; which, however, they appear to have 
 corrupted with some vague notions touching the transmi- 
 gration of souls. 
 
 PHARMACOLOGY. (Gr. (papuaKov, a medicine, and 
 \oyoc.) The historv of the properties and uses of drugs. 
 
 PHARMACOPOEIA. (Gr. Qapnanov, and ttvuiv, to 
 make.) A book containing directions for the preparation 
 of medicines. 
 
 PHA'RMACY. (Gr. Qapnatcov.) The branch of know- 
 ledge which relates to .the medical and chemical history of 
 the different articles of the Materia Medica ; to the mode 
 of prescribing them, their effects, and composition. 
 
 PHARMA KOLITE. In Mineralogy, a term applied to 
 the native arseniate of lime. 
 
 PH A'ROS. Properly the name of an island at the mouth 
 of the harbour of Alexandria, on which a lighthouse was 
 erected ; whence it came to be applied as a common name 
 for all lighthouses. See Lighthouse. 
 
 PHARYNGO'TOMY. (Gr. <papvyl, and Tcpvu, I cut.) 
 The operation of making an external opening into the wind- 
 pipe, necessary in certain cases of suffocation. 
 
 PHA'RYNX. (Gr. Qepeiv, to convey; because the food 
 is conveyed by it into the oesophagus and stomach.) The 
 back part of the mouth : it is somewhat funnel-shaped, at- 
 tached to the fauces behind the larynx, and terminating in 
 the oesophagus. 
 
 PHASCOLA'RCTOS. (Gr. <t>a<r>co)\o<;. a pouch, and 
 apxToc, a bear.) The name of a genus of Marsupial ani- 
 mals, of which the koala is the type : its dentition is like 
 that of the kangaroo rats; but it has no tail, and has short 
 hind legs. 
 
 PHA'SCOLOME, Phascolomys. (Gr. ^ao-KwXoj, and nvs, 
 a mouse,) The name of a Marsupial quadruped, commonly 
 called the wombat, which has the teeth of a Rodent ani- 
 mal, with the exception of an additional true molar on each 
 side of both jaws. 
 
 PHASE (Gr. (pact;, appearance), in Astronomy, denotes the 
 different appearances of the moon or inferior planets, accord- 
 ing as a greater or smaller portion of the hemisphere il- 
 luminated by the sun is visible to the observer. The phases 
 of the moon sometimes denote in particular the new moons, 
 the full moons, and the quarters, these being the principal 
 phases. 
 
 Phase, in Natural Philosophy, denotes the particular 
 state, at any given instant, of a phenomenon which under- 
 goes a periodic-change, or increases to a given point, and 
 then diminishes in a regular gradation. Thus we speak of 
 the phase of a tide, the phase of an eclipse, &c. 
 
 PHASIA'NIDiE. (Gr. (baoiavoc, a pheasant.) The name 
 of a family of Gallinaceous birds of which the genus Pha- 
 sianus is the type. The pheasant is a native of warmer 
 and drier climates than England, as the Linna?an specific 
 name (Phasianus colchicus) implies. Cuvier states that it 
 was brousht from the banks of the Phasis by the Argo- 
 nauts, and subsequently became diffused over all temperate 
 Europe. It is consequently a matter of difficulty to pre- 
 serve the species in this country ; and were it not for the 
 assistance which the common fowl affords in hatching the 
 eggs of the pheasant, the breed would probably soon be- 
 come extinct ; for although the female produces a great 
 many eggs in the artificial preserves of the wealthy sports- 
 man, yet she soon forsakes the task of incubation, when 
 disturbed, as is too often the case, by the male. 
 
 When roused the pheasant will not unfrequently perch 
 upon the first tree ; and seems more intent upon the dogs 
 than the approach of the sportsman ; they betray them- 
 selves likewise by the habit which they have of crowing 
 or making a chuckling noise at the time when they peich 
 
 935
 
 PHENECIN. 
 
 Foxes destroy many pheasants ; and as these are commonly 
 females engaged in Incubation, the tendency to diminution 
 of the race from this cause is increased. Bat the chief 
 loss of the pheasant-breeder is caused by the mortality of 
 the young birds, about the time of changing their nestling 
 feathers, produced by the development of great numbers 
 of a peculiar species of Entozoon (Si/ngamus traehcalis) 
 in the windpipe. This accumulation occasions a difficulty 
 of breathing; and the convulsive attempt to gasp the air, 
 or expel the worms, has occasioned the name of " the 
 gapes" to be given to this disease. 
 
 The best remedy is a preventive treatment, by due atten- 
 tion on the part of the keepers to the young pheasants in 
 keeping them clean, and administering plenty and variety 
 of rood. When the disease is far advanced, obliging the 
 birds to breathe air strongly Impregnated with fumes of to- 
 bacco, carefully watching its effects, is the best remedy. 
 
 The male pheasant is distinguished, like most Gallinacea, 
 by its superiority in size and brilliancy of plumage from the 
 female ; and the dependency of this difference on the gene- 
 rative function is proved by the remarkable instances of as- 
 sumption on the part of the female of more or less of the 
 male livery, consequent upon the abrogation of that func- 
 tion in her either by age, or by injury or disease of the fe- 
 male organs. The food of the pheasant varies according to 
 the season : in winter it consists chiefly of grain and seeds ; 
 in spring and summer of insects and nutritive bulbous roots, 
 as that of the "crow-foot" (Ranunculus bulbosus). 
 
 The pure breed of Phasianus colckicus is distinguished 
 by the absence of the white ring round the neck, and the 
 reddish copper tint of the croup. Another species, from 
 China, with a white ring round the neck, and a greener 
 cast of colour, especially upon the croup, has also been im- 
 ported, and turned wild. It seems to have produced a pro- 
 lific race of hybrids with the common pheasant. 
 
 China produces several other species, which are re- 
 markable for their superb and brilliant plumage ; as the 
 golden pheasant (Ph. pictus), Amherst's pheasant (Ph. 
 Jlmhcrstii) ; both of which have a gorgeous ruff round the 
 neck, and the latter is remarkable for its exceedingly long 
 tail. A like appendage characterizes the magnificent 
 Reeve's pheasant (Ph. Reevesii). The silver pheasant 
 (Ph. mucthemcrus) from China, anil the Phasianus lincatus 
 from the mountains of Thibet, approach nearer in their 
 carriage to the common fowl. 
 
 PHE'NECIN, (Gr. Qoivtl, purple.) The purple powder 
 which is precipitated when sulphuric solution of indigo is 
 diluted with water. It appears to be a hydrate of indigo. 
 PHENGI'TES MARBLE. See Marble. 
 PHENOMENON; plural, Phenomena. (Gr. 0<i<vw, / 
 shine.) In Natural Philosophy, this tennis usually applied 
 to those appearances of nature of which the cause is not 
 immediately obvious : such as the phenomena of light, of 
 the magnet, of electricity, &c, produced by physical experi- 
 ments ; or unusual natural appearances, as meteors, co- 
 mets, earthquakes, &c, which occur without the interven- 
 tion of human agency. 
 
 PHIGA'LIAN MARBLES (so called from having been 
 discovered near the site of Phigalia, a town of Arcadia), 
 the name given to a series of sculptures in alto relievo, now 
 deposited in the British Museum, where they form part of 
 the collection known by the name of the Elgin Marbles. 
 They originally formed ihe fringe round the interior of the 
 eella of the temple dedicated to Apollo the Deliverer; a 
 title conferred on him by the Phigalians in gratitude for his 
 having delivered them "from a pestilence. They represent 
 the combat of the Centaurs and the Lapithae, and that of the 
 Greeks and Amazons. The similarity, both in design and 
 execution, which they bear to the decorations on the Par- 
 thenon leavs no doubt that they arc the workmanship of 
 the same master minds which designed, constructed, and 
 adorned that splendid monument of the golden age of art. 
 S«« Parthenon, Elgin Marbles. 
 
 PHLLADE'LPHES. '<; r . </><Xfw, / love, dfe~S<po<:. brother.) 
 A secret society, said to have existed in France during the 
 government of Napoleon, and to have produced the conspi- 
 racy of Colonel Malet in 1812. An account of it is given, 
 but we do not know how far it is to In' understood as nar- 
 rating matters of feet, in the Histoirc des Societes Secretes 
 de VJlrmee, published in 1814. 
 
 PllII.AVrilROTINISM. A name given in Germ, in to 
 the system of education on natural principles as it is 
 termed, which was promoted by Basedow and his friends 
 in the last century, and mainly founded on the notions ol 
 Locke and Rousseau. An institution for the purposes of 
 education, founded under the protection of the Duke "i 
 Dessau, in 1774, was the first so called " Philnnthropin." It 
 was dissolved in 17(C) ; and of the similar institutions alter 
 wards founded, only one, it is said, has continued to main- 
 tain itself. Hut the influence of the labours of the PMlah- 
 thropinlsls has undoubtedly entered largely into the modern 
 system of education. (Conv. Lex.) 
 926 
 
 PHILOLOGY. 
 
 PHILANTHROPY. (Gr. ( Atu>, I love, and av8pujToc, a 
 man.) A general term for a benevolent feeling towards the 
 whole human race. I! is opposed to misanthropy . 
 
 PHILIBEG, or FILIBEG. Sec Kilt. 
 
 PHILI'PPIC. The title of several orations of Demosthe- 
 nes against Philip king of Macedon, the spirit and animo- 
 sity of which has caused the name to be transferred to 
 similar compositions. Thus Cicero gave this name to the 
 orations Which drove Mark Antony from Rome, and impel- 
 led the senate to prosecute the war against him utter the 
 murder of Julius Casar. 
 
 1*111 LOCTE'TES. In Mythology, the son of Pa-an ; ac- 
 cording to some authors, one of the Argonauts. The friend 
 and companion of Hercules, and one of the most celebrated 
 heroes of the siege of Troy, though but little referred to in 
 the Iliad. His adventures, too long to be here recounted, 
 form the subject of one of the tragedies of Sophocles. 
 
 PHILO'LOGY. (Gr. <j>i\c<i>, I love, and Xoyoc, speech, 
 discourse.) This word appears to have been used by the 
 classical ancients to designate the whole circle of belles-let- 
 tres, and even of the sciences : cultivated as they then were 
 very imperfectly, and more in a theoretical than an induc- 
 tive shape ; considered not with respect to their respective 
 subject matters, but to the language in which they were 
 conveyed. A philologist was one who studied or taught 
 the elegance of diction, as applicable to every branch of hu- 
 man learning; nor can the meaning of the designation be 
 very accurately distinguished from that of the ypa/iiiaTiKOc, 
 or grammarian : while sometimes the term philology was 
 usurped in a wider sense, so as to comprehend learning in 
 general. After the revival of letters, the word was intro- 
 duced into modern European languages, but in a much 
 more restricted signification. It then comprehended gram- 
 matical criticism and etymology, and some branches of ar- 
 cha'ology ; and as these studies were almost confined to the 
 ancient languages, and other relics of classical antiquity, 
 which alone were then studied in a scientific manner, the 
 only philologists were the learned investigators of the Greek 
 and Latin idioms and literature. Commentaries on ancient 
 authors, etymological works, and glossaries of their lan- 
 guage, grammars, &c, were then the class of writings usu- 
 ally denominated philological ; and although the field of 
 philology, considered in this sense, is now more extensive, 
 as the modern European and non-European languages have 
 also become the subjects of accurate investigation, it is with 
 the same general meaning that the word is chiefly used, at 
 least among English Writers, at the present day. It is de- 
 fined by Johnson "criticism, grammatical learning." In 
 this popular sense philology may be said to embrace, 1. Ety- 
 mology, or the science of the origin of words; 2. Grammar, 
 or the science of the construction of language in general, and 
 of individual languages; 3. Literary criticism, or the inves- 
 tigation of merits and demerits in style and diction. 
 
 Of late years, however, a new and very extensive prov- 
 ince has been added to the dominion of philology ; namely, 
 the science of language in a more general sense, consider- 
 ed philosophically with respect to the light it throws on the 
 nature of the human intellect and progress of human knowl- 
 edge ; and historically, with reference to the connexion be- 
 tween different tongues, and the connexion thus indicated 
 Detween different nations and races. Some attempts have 
 recently been made to confine the use of the word philolo- 
 gy to this particular branch of learning. It comprehends, 
 1. Phonology, or the knowledge of the sounds of the human 
 voice; which appears to include orthography, or the sys- 
 tem to be adopted when we endeavour to render, by our 
 own alphabet, the sounds of a foreign language; -■ Ety- 
 mology; I!. Ideology, OX the science of the modification of 
 language by grammatical forms, according to the various 
 points of view from which men contemplate the ideas 
 which words are meant to express. 
 
 Classical Philology. — By German writers the use of the 
 word philology is siill not uncommonly restricted to this 
 branch of study. The earliest commentators, lexicograph- 
 ers, and grammarians, whose works we possess, nourished 
 in Greece and Rome at various periods between the Chris- 
 tian era and the fall of the Roman empire. During the 
 middle ages the knowledge of the classical languages, or of 
 the works written iu them, ceased to be cultivated as a sci- 
 ence. Philology was revived about the end of the 14th and 
 beginning of the 15th century, and chiefly by the labours of 
 various learned Creeks expelled from their own country by 
 the encroachments of the Romans. In the 15th century, 
 Italy was peculiarly animated with a zeal for classical lit- 
 erature, which, in tact, essentially injured, during the whole 
 of that period, the cultivation of the native language of the 
 country. In the following age, the cultivation of this study 
 passed chiefly into the hands of the French, Dutch, and 
 Germans ; nor was it long retained in any perfection among 
 
 the Students of the tir-t of these nations. In the hands of 
 the industrious writers of Holland and Germany classical 
 philology assumed a new form. Less elegant, and pursued
 
 PHILOLOGY. 
 
 in a less poetical mind than it had been among the Italians, 
 it became a vast and laborious science, exacting the seve- 
 rest industry, and no common ingenuity. During the 16th 
 and 17th centuries, philologists may be said to have been 
 chiefly occupied in collecting the materials of knowledge : 
 the task of criticism, and of separating the true from the 
 false in classical idiom and diction, began with the 17th ; 
 and the earliest name in this department of study is, per- 
 haps, still the most illustrious; that, namely, of Richard 
 Bentley. Since his time, we have had many distinguished 
 classical scholars in our own country, especially in the pres- 
 ent day, which has produced Parr, Porson, and Elmsley ; 
 hut Germany still remains the true nursery of classical re- 
 search; and the school of Wolf, Heyne, and Hermann, in 
 that country, has laid down canons of inquiry, as to the 
 genuineness and authority of some of the earliest works in 
 the ancient languages, which have imparted a new charac- 
 ter to classical criticism in general. See Language, Clas- 
 sics. 
 
 Philology, Sacred. The art of criticising the langua- 
 ges and dialects of the Hebrew and Hebrao-Greek writers 
 in order to elucidate the meaning of the sacred Scriptures. 
 The Hebrew language, consisting principally of the old 
 Phoenician, with admixtures of the Aranuean from Meso- 
 potamia, introduced by Abraham and his horde, received 
 also a iew modifications, owing to the long servitude of the 
 Israelites in Egypt. How old the book of Job may be, is 
 still a vexato gaestio among critics, some of whom suppose 
 that it was originally written in Jlralric and afterwards 
 translated, while others trace it to a remote period of He- 
 brew literature; but whether it be older or not than the 
 works of Moses, the Pentateuch must ever be considered 
 the basis of the Hebrew as a fixed written language. The 
 institution of the schools of the prophets under the Judges 
 no doubt tended to give that polish and poetic character 
 seen in the writings of David and Solomon ; but the He- 
 brew language remained essentially the same down to the 
 conquest of Palestine, first by Shalmaneser (who introdu- 
 ced an Araimean population in lieu of the expelled ten 
 tribes) : and, secondly, by Nebuchadnezzar, who (B.C. 588) 
 took the holy city, and captured the two remaining tribes, 
 transporting them also, according to a still prevalent eastern 
 custom, into his own territories. The Jews, however, du- 
 ring their captivity at Babylon, not only acquired new hab- 
 its, but received many additions to their language, both of 
 words and idioms ; and henceforward they spoke a dialect 
 usually known as the Hebrao-Aramaic, bearing nearly the 
 same analogy to the Hebrew that the modern Italian bears 
 to the Latin. In the later historical writers traces may be 
 discovered of this corruption. The prophecies of Haggai, 
 Zechariah, and Malachi, also, though very pure, present a 
 few instances of Chaldeism ; but the new dialect is most of 
 all perceptible in the Targums and other uninspired com- 
 mentaries by which alone the Scriptures could be made in- 
 telligible to the common people. Schultens, Rosenmuller, 
 the elder Michaelis, Bishops Louth and Horsley, Gesenius, 
 Ewald, and Prof. Lee have successfully laboured in eluci- 
 dating the history of the Hebrew language ; and the best 
 editions of the Hebrew Scriptures are by Kennicott and De 
 Rossi. After the cessation of Hebrew prophecy on the 
 death of Malachi, about 400 years B.C., the Aramaean dia- 
 lect prevailed more or less, owing to the adherence of the 
 Jews to their national language, down to the capture of 
 Jerusalem by Titus. The conquests of Alexander, how- 
 ever, had an undoubted influence over the learned castes, 
 who gradually became acquainted with the Greek lan- 
 guage ; and accordingly (B.C. 280), Ptolemy Philadelphus 
 invited five Jewish scribes to Alexandria for the purpose of 
 translating into Greek the Pentateuch, that part of the 
 Jewish history relating to the Egyptians. Some years af- 
 terwards the other books of the Old Testament were trans- 
 lated by different hands ; but the name Septuagint (see 
 Septuagint) is a misnomer; and the story connected with 
 it (resting wholly on the very questionable authority of 
 Plutarch and DiodorusSiculus) is quite unworthy of credit. 
 The work, however, is written in good Macedonian Greek 
 (.Koivri SioXcktos), with a few Hebrew admixtures; and 
 hence the Septuagint should be studied in connexion with 
 the New Testament, which presents similar features. In 
 the time of Christ the Aramaic (as the Gospels furnish 
 abundant proof) was the vulgar language of Palestine ; and 
 even Galilee had a separate though cognate dialect. (Luke, 
 xxii., 59 ; Acts, ii., 7.) After the descent of the Holy Spir- 
 it, the followers of Christ became gifted with that power of 
 expression necessary to carry the tidings of the Gospel into 
 distant countries ; and the Greek language, so far as the 
 regions west of Palestine were concerned, was the great 
 medium of communication. Hence the Evangelists and 
 Apostles wrote in this language. But though their ideas 
 were inspired, their words were of their own creation ; and 
 hence arose those peculiarities of diction, Hebrew expres- 
 sions, &c, the understanding of which is absolutely neces- 
 
 PHCENIX. 
 
 sary to an intimate acquaintance with the inspired writers 
 of Christianity. This, indeed, constitutes the science of 
 sacred philology ; and in this work the labours of Wet- 
 stein, Mill, Griesbach, and Scliolz have been employed in 
 producing a pure Greek text from the examination of the 
 best MSS. ; while the most celebrated critics of the New 
 Testament, Bengel, the younger Michaelis, Kuinoel, De 
 Wette, Bp. Marsh, Stuart, Ernesti, Winer, and Robinson 
 have spent their best days in elucidating the meaning of 
 the Evangelists and Apostles— the great pillars of the 
 church, of which Christ is the head corner-stone. 
 
 PHILO'SOl'HEirS-STONE. See Alchemy. 
 
 PHILO'SOPHY (Gr. (piAcu, I love, and ooipia, wisdom), 
 in common acceptation, is a general term, signifying the 
 sum total of systematic human knowledge. It is commonly 
 divided into three grand departments ; metaphysics, physics, 
 and ethics. If we include in the first logic, this may be re- 
 garded as a complete distribution of science, properly so 
 called. The first has for its object those truths which go 
 beyond mere experience ; as the nature of being, of God, 
 of the soul, &c, as they are in themselves, or as they are 
 apprehended by us. (Sec Metaphysics.) The second re- 
 lates "to objects as they are in nature, as subject to the rela- 
 tion of cause and effect. The third contemplates human 
 actions as they ought to be, not merely as they are ; and 
 takes account of the ideas of duty, freedom, responsibility, 
 and the like — of all, in short, which constitutes the distinc- 
 tion between an action and an event. 
 
 This word was first used by the Pythagoreans, and adopt- 
 ed from them by Socrates, who considered himself a lover 
 or seeker of wisdom only ; in distinction from a sophist, or 
 one who conceives himself to be in the possession or exer- 
 cise of wisdom. 
 
 Many valuable histories of philosophy have appeared of 
 late years, especially in Germany. The most celebrated 
 are those of Brucker, Tennemann, and Ritter. A sketch 
 of the history of philosophy written by the late Mr. Dugald 
 Stewart, originally prefixed to the Encyclopedia Britanni- 
 ca, is now printed in a separate volume. 
 
 PHI'LTER. (Gr. <pi\c.u>, I love.) A drug or preparation 
 supposed by the ancients to have the power of exciting 
 love. Nothing certain is known respecting the composi- 
 tion of these celebrated potions ; but there can be no doubt 
 that recourse was frequently had to them by the ancients, 
 and that their operation was so violent that many persons 
 lost their lives and their reason by their means. The 
 Thessalian philters were in the highest celebrity. (See 
 Juv., vi., 610.) 
 
 PHI'LYRA. In Mythology, one of the Oceanides, and 
 mother of the centaur Chiron by Saturn, who visited her 
 in the shape of a horse. Alarmed at the monstrosity of 
 her offspring, she implored Saturn to change her nature ; 
 when the god granted her request, and changed her into a 
 linden tree, which is still called in Greek by her name. 
 Her son received the gift of immortality. 
 
 PHLEBO'TOMY. (Gr. (pAeip, a vein, and t£//vw, / cut.) 
 The operation of opening a vein for the purpose of taking 
 away blood. 
 
 PHLEGE'THON. (Gr. ciXtyiQwv, burning.) The mass 
 of fire which, according to the poets of Rome and Greece, 
 washed the shores of the infernal regions. It is also the 
 name of one of the rivers of the infernal regions. See 
 Cocytus. 
 
 PHLOGI'STON. (Gr. <p\oyilu>, I burn.) An imaginary 
 principle, by which Stahl and the chemists of his school 
 accounted for the phenomena of combustion ; the matter 
 of fire fixed in combustible bodies. 
 
 PHLYCTiE'NA. (Gr. qjXvKTaiva.) A small vesicle 
 which contains a serous fluid. 
 
 PHLYZA'CIUM. (Gr. 0Aus«i/, to be hot.) A pustule 
 upon the skin. 
 
 PHOCA'CEANS, Phocacea, or Seal Tribe. The name 
 of the family of carnivorous and amphibious Mammals of 
 which the seal (Phoca) is the type. See Seals. 
 
 PHOCjE'NA. (Gr. (ftwKaiva, a porpoise.) A subgenus 
 of dolphins, distinguished by the absence of the beak-like 
 prolongation of the jaws. 
 
 PHOCE'NIN. A peculiar fatty matter contained in the 
 oil of the porpoise (Delphinum). When saponified it yields 
 a volatile odorous acid, called phocenic acid. 
 
 PHCE'BUS. (Gr. (pot(Jos, brilliant.) A name of Apollo, 
 often used in the same sense as Sol. 
 
 PHCENICO'PTERUS. (Gr. (poivil, red, and -nrtpnv, a 
 wing.) The generic name of the flamingo : also a term ap- 
 plied to other animals which have red wings, as the Bom- 
 by cilia phcenicoptcra. 
 
 PHCE'NIX. In Mythology, a bird of great celebrity 
 among the ancients; and, from the peculiar circumstances 
 connected with its origin, longevity, and death, regarded as 
 the emblem of immortality. She was described as of the 
 size of an eagle, her head finely crested, her body covered 
 with a beautiful plumage, and her eyes sparkling like stars. 
 
 927
 
 PHOLADEANS. 
 
 She was said to live 500 or 600 years in the wilderness, 
 when she built for herself a funeral pile of wood and aro- 
 matic gums, which she lighted with the fanning of her 
 wines, and thus apparently consumed herself, but not real- 
 ly ; this being merely the process by which she endowed 
 herself with new vitality : she then 
 
 Mounts from her funeral pvre on wings of flame, 
 And soars and shines, another and the same ! 
 Four periods of history are mentioned by ancient writers 
 as having been graced by the appearance of the phoenix. 
 The first was in the reign of Sesostris ; the second in that 
 of Amasis ; the third in that of Ptolemy III., king of Egypt ; 
 and the fourth in that of Tiberius. There is, however, a 
 great discrepancy of opinion on this point, as well as on 
 every other relating to the phoenix. The history and ima- 
 ginary attributes of the phoenix have formed a theme to 
 poets in every age ; and in most languages its name has 
 passed into a proverb. By the fathers of the church it was 
 frequently brought forward as an illustration of the doc- 
 trine of the resurrection (see Spanheim, De Usu et Ptcbs- 
 tantia Xumismatum, diss. v.. c. 13, and the authorities ci- 
 ted in that learned work) ; and it appears on the coins of 
 several Roman emperors, sometimes as a symbol of their 
 own apotheosis, sometimes as an emblem of the renovation 
 of the world and the revival of the golden age under their 
 beneficent rule. The chief ancient authorities with regard 
 to the phoenix are Herodotus, b. ii., c. 73 ; Ovid, Met., xv., 
 381 ; Pliny, Hist. JVafc, x., 2 : and Tacitus. Annal., vi., 18. 
 Besides these, the reader may consult, in the third volume 
 of Wernsdorf, Poetm Minores (to which the editor has pre- 
 fixed a learned introduction), the poem De Phanice, which 
 is usually attributed to Lactantius, and in which every cir- 
 cumstance on record with regard to the phoenix has been 
 chronicled with the most laborious precision. The reader 
 will also find in MetraPs work, I,e Phaniz,ou I'Oiseau du 
 Soleil (Paris, 1824), a resume of all that has been written, 
 both in ancient and modern tunes, respecting the history 
 and peculiarities of the phoenix. 
 
 Phoenix. One of the modern constellations in the south- 
 ern hemisphere. 
 
 PHOLA'DEANS, Pholadra. (Or. <p^\toc, a lurking- 
 place. The family of Lamellibranchiate Bivalves of which 
 the genus Pholas is the type : they are remarkable for the 
 hiding-places which they excavate for themselves in rocks 
 and clay, 
 
 PHONETIC WRITING. (Gr. <pu>v V , sound.) That 
 writing in which the signs used represent sounds; in op- 
 position to ideographic, in which they represent objects, or 
 symbolically denote abstract ideas, as in the figurative part 
 of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The signs representing 
 sounds ate usually arbitrary, or at least have become so in 
 process of time ; as in the ancient Roman alphabet, of 
 which the letters are for the most part derived from the 
 Hebrew or Phoenician, in which languages they may have 
 originally partaken of a symbolical character. But, in a 
 species of phonetic writing which is intermixed with the 
 figurative hieroglyphics in Egyptian inscriptions, every let- 
 ter is denoted by a figure representing some object, the 
 name of which begins with that letter. .Sec Hieroglyphics. 
 PHO'NICS. (Gr. fuvr).) The doctrine of sound : the 
 same as acoustics. (See Sound.) As sound, like light, is 
 subject to certain laws of reflection and refraction, the sci- 
 ence, like that of light, may be treated under three heads ; 
 namely, direct, reflected, and refracted sound. In allusion 
 to the corresponding branches of optics, these have been 
 denominated phonics, cataphonics, and diaphonics. 
 
 PHO'NOLITE. (Gr. <pun V . and A«ft>s, a stone.) A spe- 
 cies of compact basalt ; sonorous when struck. 
 
 PHO'RCI'S. In Mythology, a marine deity, son of Pon- 
 tus and Terra ; father of the Gorgons, the" dragon that 
 guarded the apples of the Hesperides, and otlier fabulous 
 monsters. 
 
 PlloRONO'MIA, or PHOEONO'MICS. (Gr. <btpu>, J 
 bear or carry.) A term sometimes used to denote the sci- 
 ence of motion. In this sense it was employed by Her- 
 mann, a mathematician who flourished in the beginning of 
 the 18th century, in a work entitled Phoronomia, sen de 
 Viribas et Jtfotibus Gorporum Bolidorvm et Liquidorum 
 (Amstel., 1710), and of great merit for the time in which 
 it appeared. The term mechanics being now employed 
 generally to signify the doctrine of moving bodies, phoro- 
 nomia, or phoronomics, seldom occurs in works of modern 
 science. 
 
 PHO'SGENE GAS. (Gr. (hue, light, and yiyvouai, / 
 produce.) A compound of chlorine and carbonic oxide, 
 made by exposing equal measures of those gases to the 
 sunshine, or to bright daylight. They will not unite in the 
 dark. 
 
 I'llt fB PHAT ES. Salts containing phosphoric acid. 
 PI l( ISPHTTES. Salts containing phosphorous acid. 
 PIN tSPIIORE'SCENCE. The emission of light by sub- 
 stances at common temperatures, or below a red heat. 
 928 
 
 PHOTOGENIC DRAWING. 
 
 PHOSPHORESCENT ANIMALS. Those species are 
 so called which have the faculty of emitting a luminous 
 fluid. They are much more numerous than the electric 
 animals ; belonging to most of the Invertebrate classes, 
 and frequently rendering vast tracts of the ocean luminous 
 by their prodigious numbers. The glow-worm (Lampyris), 
 the phosphorescent sea-pen (Pennatula phosphorea), and 
 the brilliant pyrosome (Pyrosoma Atlantic urn), are among 
 the most remarkable of these animals. 
 
 PHO'SPHORITE. Native phosphate of lime. 
 
 PHO'SPHORUS. (Gr. 0ws, light, and <ptpu, I carry.) 
 So called from its property of shining in the dark. It was 
 discovered in 1668 by Brandt, an alchemist of Hamburgh, 
 and was originally obtained by distilling urine ; but it is 
 now always extracted from bone earth, by a process contri- 
 ved by Scheele. The bones are calcined, so as to destroy 
 the animal matter, and, being powdered, are mixed with 
 water, to which half their weight of sulphuric acid is add- 
 ed. The bone earth, consisting chiefly of phosphate of 
 lime, is thus decomposed, sulphate of lime is formed, and 
 phosphoric acid is evolved ; or, rather, superphosphate of 
 lime, which, being much more soluble than the sulphate, re- 
 mains in the liquid, and may be obtained by its evapora- 
 tion ; it is mixed with about half its weight of charcoal, 
 and put into a well-luted earthen retort, the beak of which 
 dips into water. At a bright red heat, the phosphorus 
 distils over into the water. It is purified by carefully melt- 
 ing it under water, and straining it through a piece of cha- 
 mois leather. 
 
 Pure phosphorus is almost colourless, and semitranspa- 
 rent ; it may be cut with a knife, and its surface has a waxy 
 lustre. It fuses at 108°, boils at 550°, and is converted into 
 vapour, having, according to Dumas, a density = 4-35. It is 
 sparingly soluble in fixed and volatile oils, and in ether and 
 alcohol ; but insoluble in water. It shines in the dark, 
 and emits a luminous vapour, undergoing a slow combus- 
 tion, and exhaling a peculiar smell like garlic. When 
 rubbed, or heated to a temperature of about 110°, it takes 
 fire and burns with great rapidity, with a white flame, 
 emitting abundance of acid fumes ; in oxygen gas its com- 
 bustion is so intensely brilliant that the eye can scarcely 
 bear the light. 
 
 The product of the perfect combustion of phosphorus is 
 phosphoric acid, a fusible substance, very soluble in water, 
 and intensely sour. It appears to consist of 1 equivalent of 
 phosphorus = 16, and 2£ of oxygen = 20 ; its equivalent 
 being 36. 
 
 There are two other acids of phosphorus : namely, the 
 phosphorous acid, consisting of 16 phosphorus -4- 12 oxygen ; 
 and the hypophosphorous acid, which appears to be a com- 
 pound of 2 equivalents of phosphorus (16X2) =32, and 1 of 
 oxygen = 8. When phosphorus is boiled in a solution of 
 caustic potash a gas is evolved, which is remarkably dis- 
 tinguished by its spontaneous inflammability ; each bubble, 
 as it rises through the water, taking fire upon the surface, 
 and producing a beautiful ring of smoke : this gas is com- 
 monly called phosphurctted hydrogen. Phosphorus may be 
 made to combine with the greater number of the metals, 
 forming compounds called phosphurets. 
 
 PHOTOGENIC DRAWING. (Gr. <po)c, and yiyvouai, 
 I generate.) When the article Dagvkrrotype. was writ- 
 ten, under which we have adverted to the extraordinary 
 results obtained by Daguerre, the mode by which they 
 were produced had not been made public ; since that time, 
 however, all the details of the manipulation have been 
 fully disclosed, and they are extremely interesting and cu- 
 rious, though the explanation or theory of the process is 
 still somewhat obscure. The whole subject has lately ac- 
 quired much additional importance from its extended ap- 
 plications ; namely, from architectural objects, sculpture, 
 and interiors of rooms, to portrait*, and more lately to 
 groups, and even whole-lengths ; and it is undergoing al- 
 mosl daily extension and improvement. 
 
 The outline of the process is as follows : — A piece of cop- 
 per is plated in the usual way with silver by passing the 
 metals together through a rolling mill, and is then rut into 
 pieces of a proper size. The silver surface is carefully pol- 
 ished, and cleansed by wiping it over with a piece of cotton 
 dipped in dilute nitric add, washing, and drying. When 
 thus duly prepared — and much depends upon the manner 
 in which these preliminary operations are performed and 
 the materials used— the plate is subjected to the diffused 
 vapour of iodine, which forms a slightly brown or yellow 
 film upon the silver; it is then ready to be subjected to the 
 action of the image to be represented, which is thrown 
 upon it, rare being taken to exclude all other light, by an 
 Instrument upon the principle of the camera obscure. In 
 the course of a few seconds or minutes, the requisite time 
 depending upon the intensity of the light, the plate is re- 
 moved; and though nothing is as yet visible upon it. it has 
 received the image, which is brought out and rendered evi-
 
 PHOTOGRAPHY. 
 
 dent by subjecting it, inclined at an angle or about 45°, to 
 the vapour of mercury. This operation is performed in a 
 box with a glass side, at the bottom of which is a basin of 
 mercury heated to about 170°, so that the operator may see 
 the progress of the appearance of the image, and remove 
 the plate when it is perfect ; but light must be as far as pos- 
 sible excluded, and more especially daylight. The plate is 
 then washed by cautious immersion in a solution of hypo- 
 sulphite of soda, and lastly with boiling distilled water, and 
 allowed to dry : it is now perfect, may be exposed to light 
 without injury; but must be carefully protected from all 
 friction by covering it with a glass. The action of the va- 
 rious shades of light upon the film of iodine, and the subse- 
 quent influence of the mercurial vapour, upon which the 
 visibility of the picture depends, have not been satisfactorily 
 explained, and require further experimental elucidation. 
 The perfection of the drawing, and the extraordinary man- 
 ner in which the minutest details are represented, we have 
 noticed in our former article ; they must, however, be seen 
 to lie accurately judged of and duly appreciated. 
 
 The term "Photogenic Drawing" has usually been applied 
 to a process very different from the preceding ; namely, to 
 representations of various objects upon paper imbued with 
 some of the salts of silver. If a piece of paper be dipped 
 into a weak solution of nitrate of silver, carefully dried, 
 and preserved out of the contact of light, it remains white ; 
 but if exposed to light it gradually becomes discoloured, 
 acquiring a brownish or gray tint, and ultimately blackens, 
 the depth of colour depending upon the intensity of the 
 light and duration of exposure. If any opaque or translu- 
 cent object be laid upon a sheet of paper so prepared, so as 
 wholly or partially to intercept the incident light, a repre- 
 sentation of the object is obtained upon the paper. Where 
 the light has been wholly intercepted, it remains white ; 
 where partially so, various shades are produced; and wher- 
 ever the light has fallen without interruption, the utmost 
 blackness is obtained. If, for instance, a portrait painted in 
 transparent colours upon a plate of glass be laid upon a 
 piece of the prepared paper, and exposed to the solar light, 
 a copy is obtained in which the lights of the original are 
 shades, and the shades lights in proportion to their intensity ; 
 but if such a picture be taken upon a very thin piece of 
 paper, this may be again copied by a repetition of the pro- 
 cess, and then the lights and shades will be as in the origi- 
 nal. It is, however, obvious that such a photograph will 
 only be durable whilst kept in the dark, and that exposure 
 to light will gradually obliterate the whole ; to fix it, the 
 paper must be washed in a solution of hyposulphite of lime 
 or of soda, which removes all remaining and unaltered salt 
 of silver, but leaves the image untouched. In this process 
 the paper, after having been impregnated with nitrate of 
 silver, or with ammonia-nitrate of silver, is generally dipped 
 in a solution of common salt, by which chloride of silver is 
 formed, and this is more susceptible of the iufluence of light 
 than the mere nitrate. 
 
 In this article we have merely given an outline of the 
 theory of the process of photogenic drawing ; the use of 
 nitrate of silver for this purpose, and the mode of copying 
 paintings on glass, was originally suggested about forty years 
 ago by Mr. Wedgwood and Sir H. Davy. The interest ex- 
 cited by Daguerre's discoveries induced various experiment- 
 alists to resume the inquiry; and many new and important 
 facts connected with it have accordingly been brought to 
 Sight, especial ly by Mr. Fox Talbot and Sir J. F. W. Herschel, 
 whose communications are published in the Philosophical 
 Transactions ; and by Mr. A. Taylor, who has written a 
 small tract upon the subject. 
 PHOTOGRAPHY. See Photogenic Drawing. 
 PHOTO'METER. (Gr. 0ws, light, and ncrpov, measure.) 
 An instrument for measuring the intensity of light, or of 
 illumination. 
 
 The most elegant instrument which goes under this name 
 is the photometer invented by the late Sir John Leslie. It 
 (1.) 12.) * s raerely the differential thermometer of 
 
 the same ingenious philosopher, having 
 one of its balls diaphanous, and the other 
 coated with China ink, or blown of deep 
 black enamel; and the whole covered 
 by a case of thin transparent glass, to de- 
 fend the balls from the disturbing influence 
 of currents of air. The photometer has 
 two general forms ; the one portable (fig. 
 1.) in which the black ball is about an 
 inch higher than the other, and bent forward to the same 
 vertical line, or the axis of the translucent cylindrical case ; 
 and the other stationary (fig. 2,) having both its balls of the 
 same height, and reclining in opposite ways; the case being 
 composed of a wide cylinder surmounted by the larger seg- 
 ment of a hollow glass sphere. The latter form of the in- 
 strument, though less commodious, is better adapted for nice 
 observations; since, besides receiving the light more regu- 
 larly, its balls, from being on the same level, are not liable 
 
 PHOTOMETRY. 
 
 to be any how disturbed in their indications by different 
 strata of unequally heated air. 
 
 The theory of this photometer depends on the assumed 
 principle that the intensity of light is proportional to the 
 heat excited by its incidence on the black ball. When the 
 instrument is exposed to light, the rays which fall on the 
 clear ball pass through it, without suffering obstruction ; but 
 those which strike the dark ball are stopped and absorbed at 
 its surface, where, assuming a latent form, they act as heat, 
 which, by expanding the air within the ball, causes the 
 liquid in the stem to descend. This heat will continue to 
 accumulate till its farther increase comes to be counteracted 
 by an opposite dispersion, caused by the nse of temperature 
 which the ball has acquired. But, in still air, the rate of 
 cooling is, within moderate limits, proportional to the ex- 
 cess of the temperature of a given surface above that of 
 the surrounding medium. Hence the space through which 
 the coloured liquid sinks in the stem will measure the mo- 
 mentary impressions of light, or its actual intensity. (Les- 
 lie on the Relations of Air to Heat and. Moisture.) 
 
 The graduation is entirely arbitrary, and may be regulated 
 according to fancy or convenience. Leslie adopted the same 
 scale of divisions as in the differential thermometer, ten 
 degrees of which correspond to one of the centigrade ther- 
 mometer. When the temperature of both balls is exactly 
 the same, that is, when the instrument is excluded from 
 light, the liquid in the stem next the coloured ball stands at 
 zero. In this country the direct impression of the sun at 
 noon, about the summer solstice, forces the liquid down to 
 90° or 100°. The greatest force of the solar beams, in the 
 depth of winter, measures only about 25°. At the altitude 
 of 3° above the horizon, the whole effect of the sun's rays 
 does not exceed one degree. The indirect light from the 
 sky at noon in summer is from 30° to 40° ; in winter from 
 10° to 15°. Comparing the illuminating power of the solar 
 rays with that of artificial lights, Leslie found the light 
 emitted by the sun 12,000 times more powerful than that of 
 a wax candle ; that is to say, if a portion of the luminous 
 solar matter, rather less than half an inch in diameter, were 
 transmitted to our planet, it would throw forth a light equal 
 to the effect of 12,000 candles. 
 
 It has been objected that the instrument now described is 
 only a species of thermometer, and not strictly a photome- 
 ter ; since it measures heat, and not light. To this objec- 
 tion Sir J. Leslie replies by asking, " What does the ther- 
 mometer itself indicate except expansion ? As heat is 
 measured by the expansion it occasions, so light is deter- 
 mined by the intensity of the heat which in every supposi- 
 tion invariably accompanies it. What other mode, after 
 all, could be imagined for detecting the presence of light t 
 How can an unknown quantity be expounded but in terms 
 of one already known 1" {Ency. Brit., art. "Climate.") 
 
 It must be admitted, however, that the same quantity of 
 light emitted by terrestrial bodies of different kinds is not 
 always accompanied with the same degree of heat. Thus, 
 phosphorus burns in oxygen gas with intense splendour, 
 and yet gives out far less" heat than the comparatively dull 
 combustion of hydrogen in the same gas ; and the photome- 
 ter is more affected by a fire so dull that not a single letter 
 could be discerned in a well-printed page, than by the de- 
 gree of daylight by which the same page could be read 
 with pleasure and facility. For a particular description of 
 the photometer, and an account of its numerous applica- 
 tions, see Leslie's Experimental Inquiry into the Nature 
 and Propagation of Heat, 1804. 
 
 PHOTO T METRY. (Gr. 0u)?, and nerpov, measure.) The 
 science which treats of the measurement of light. At- 
 tempts to determine the relative intensities of different 
 lights were made at an early period in the history of ex- 
 perimental science. For the purpose of comparing the light 
 of Sirius with that of the sun, the celebrated Huygens em- 
 ployed a tube having a very small aperture at one end, into 
 which was inserted a minute globular lens, which allowed 
 only the 27664th part of the solar disk to be seen, and this 
 small portion afforded a light which appeared equally bright 
 with Sirius; whence he concluded the distance of Sirius to 
 be 27664 times greater than that of the sun. (Huygenii 
 Cosmothcoros.) Celsius appears to have been the first who 
 proposed to measure light directly by means of what he 
 called a lucimcter. His method, however, which was an 
 extremely imperfect one, consisted simply in observing the 
 greatest distance from the eye at which small circles painted 
 on paper were distinctly visible in different lights. It was 
 reserved for Bouguer to establish photometry on true prin- 
 ciples. Having been induced by Mairan's remarks on the 
 relative proportion of the sun's light at the summer and 
 winter solstice to investigate the subject, he undertook a 
 series of experiments, of which the results were first pub- 
 lished in his Essai d'Optique, 1729; and afterwards in his 
 Traiti d'Optiqvc sur la Gradation de la Lumiire, which 
 appeared in 1760, two years after his death. In the same 
 vear appeared the Photometria of Lambert ; in which the 
 y 3 M 929
 
 PHOTOPHOBIA. 
 
 subject was treated more generally, and with {Treat mathe- 
 matical elegance. The principle adopted by Bouguer and 
 Lambert is extremely simple. Though the eye cannot 
 judge of the proportional force of different lights, it can dis- 
 tinguish in many cases with great precision when two sim 
 ilar surfaces presented together are equally illuminated, or 
 when the shadows of an opaque object thrown upon them 
 by different lights are equally dark. But, as the particles 
 of light proceed in straight lines, they must spread uni- 
 formly, and hence their density will diminish in the dupli- 
 cate ratio of their distances. From the respective situa- 
 tions, therefore, of the centres of divergency when the 
 contrasted surfaces become equally bright, we may easily 
 compute their relative degrees of illumination. The objec- 
 tion to this method is, that the apparatus admits of no 
 certain standard of comparison. Even the light of the sun 
 itself, at the same altitude, and in the same climate, is sub- 
 ject to considerable variation ; much more so any artificial 
 light, the force of which must always be influenced by a 
 number of undefinable circumstances. In this respect, 
 therefore, the photometer described in the preceding article 
 has a great and decided advantage. 
 
 A simple and elegant application of the principle of Bou- 
 guer was made by the late Dr. Ritchie. His apparatus 
 consists of a rectangular box, about an inch and a half or 
 two inches square, open at both ends and blackened within, 
 to absorb extraneous light. Within, inclined at angles of 
 45° to its axis, are placed two rectangular plates of plane 
 looking-glass, cut from one and the same strip, to ensure 
 equality of their reflecting powers, and fastened so as to 
 meet at the top, in the middle of a narrow slit about an 
 inch long, and an eighth of an inch broad, which is covered 
 with a slip of fine tissue or oiled paper. In comparing, by 
 means of this instrument, the illuminating powers of two 
 different sources of light, they must be placed at such a 
 distance from each other, and from the instrument between 
 them, that the light from every part of each shall fall on the 
 reflector next it, and be reflected to the corresponding por- 
 tion of the oiled paper. The instrument is then moved 
 nearer the one or the other, rill the two portions of the paper 
 corresponding to the respective mirrors are equally illumin- 
 ated, of which the eye can judge with considerable certainty. 
 
 The modification of this method, which consists in con- 
 trasting the shadows of an opaque object formed by different 
 lights, is usually ascribed to Count Rumford, by whom it 
 was proposed in the Phil. Trans., vol. lxxxiv., but was long 
 before used by Lambert. It is generally supposed that the 
 equality of two shadows can be appreciated with more 
 certainty than that of two lights ; but, when the lights are 
 of different colours, their estimation by either method ad- 
 mits of little precision. 
 
 M. Arago has proposed a method of determining the rel- 
 ative intensities of different lights entirely different in prin- 
 ciple from any of the preceding, and probably susceptible 
 of much greater accuracy. It is founded on the properties 
 of polarized light. When two lights are to be compared, 
 the rays from each are polarized by causing them to pass 
 through a plate of tourmaline cut parallel to the axis, or by 
 reflecting them from a plate of glass, on which they fall at 
 the polarizing angle. They are then received on a plate of 
 rock crystal, cut perpendicularly to the axis, and observed 
 through a doubly refracting prism. Each light will thus 
 give two images tinged with the complementary colours. 
 The images are then brought into such a position that the 
 red of the one falls over the green of the other. If the 
 two lights arc equal in intensity, this superposition will 
 produce a white image; if unequal, the image will be 
 slightly coloured with red or green, according as the one or 
 the other predominates. The apparatus which this method 
 requires is somewhat complicated, and its manipulation 
 must be attended with considerable trouble. (See the 
 Notes to the French translation of Sir J. Herschel's Trea- 
 tise on Light, Paris, 1833.) 
 
 PHOTOPIIO'BIA. (Gr. <p,o<, light, and 0r>/3cw, T terrify.) 
 An intolerance or dread of light ; it is a symptom of inter- 
 nal ophthalmia. 
 
 PHRASE. (Gr. (ppaots, speech or expression.) In Music, 
 a short melody in which a perfect musical idea is not en- 
 tirely developed. 
 
 PllRASEO'LOGY. (Gr. (fpairic, and Xoyoc, science), 
 properly the science or knowledge of style ; hut used in 
 common language to signify the peculiarities of diction of 
 a writer, school, &c. 
 
 PHRA'TRY. (it. dip, it pin.) A subdivision of Athenian 
 citizens, analogous to the Spartan ohe and Human curia, 
 distinguished by particular rites and ceremonies that bound 
 iU members together. Bach of the four ancient tribes was 
 divided into three phratries, and each phratry into thirty 
 
 sections or clans, which bore a name exactly answering to 
 
 tin- Roman gsns {yivot); and this division remained subse 
 
 quently to and independent of the ten tribes of Cleisthenes. 
 The free Athenians registered their own or their adopted 
 930 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 children in the phratries to which they themselves be- 
 longed, at the festival of the Apaturia; but what the age 
 of registry was is uncertain. 
 
 PHRE'NIC. (Gr. (ppeves (plural of <ponv, the mind), the 
 diaphragm.) Relating to the diaphragm. 
 
 PHRENI'TIS. (Gr. <pptjv, the mind.) Inflammation of 
 the brain or its membranes. 
 
 PHRENOLOGY. (,Gr. <ppnv, the mind, and \oyoc, dis- 
 course), ought, according to its etymology, to signify mental 
 philosophy. The word has, however, been appropriated by 
 craniologists, on account of the light which their observa- 
 tions of the convolutions of the brain, and corresponding 
 elevations on the skull, are supposed to throw on the na- 
 ture and province of our different faculties. Those who 
 wish to judge how far this pretension is justifiable may con- 
 sult the works of Dr. Spurzheim and of Mr. Combe on the 
 subject. These gentlemen divide our faculties into three 
 classes: the intellectual or perceptive, the sentiments or 
 emotions, and the animal propensities. To the first of these 
 is assigned the anterior portion of the head ; the second 
 occupies the middle and upper; while the posterior region 
 and the cerebellum are allowed to the third and most in- 
 glorious division. That this distribution, in its general out- 
 line, is borne out by facts, observation is sufficient to con- 
 vince us; but whether the subdivision of those regions into 
 minute special organs corresponding to distinct faculties is 
 equally well supported, and whether the mental analysis 
 implied in it can be considered sound and accurate, are 
 questions which our limits forbid us to discuss. We sub- 
 join, however, for the reader's convenience in consultation, 
 the following outline of the different faculties, with their 
 uses and abuses, which we have borrowed from the Intro- 
 duction to Mr. G. Combe's Notes on the United States of 
 America, during a Phrenological Visit in 1838-9-40, as 
 probably containing the most recent as well as the most 
 authentic account of the present state of this much can- 
 vassed science. The subjoined figure will be of use in 
 illustrating the observations. 
 
 This figure shows the three great phrenological divisions 
 of the brain. The line B runs through the centre of ossi- 
 fication of the parietal bone 
 (the organ of Cautiousness, 
 No. 12), and terminates in the 
 centre of ossification of the 
 frontal bone situated at the 
 point where it touches the 
 line A A (the organ of Cau- 
 sality, No. 35.) The portion 
 above the line B is named 
 the coronal region, and serves 
 to manifest chiefly the moral 
 sentiments. The line A cor- 
 responds to the posterior lat- 
 eral edge of the superorbiter 
 plate, on which the anterior 
 lobe of the brain rests. The 
 space before the line A A indicates the size of the anterior 
 lobe, the region devoted to the manifestation of the intel- 
 lectual faculties. If the space before the lower A be long, 
 the organs of the observing faculties are large ; and if the 
 space forward from the point where the line B meets the 
 line A A be long, the reflecting organs are large. The space 
 below B and behind A A manifests the propensities com- 
 mon to man with the lower animals. We may remark that 
 in the above figure the coronal region would be said to be 
 large, indicating powerful moral sentiments; the Intellect- 
 ual region about an average, and that of the so called ani- 
 mal propensities moderate. 
 
 The faculties generally recognised by phrenologists are 
 the following.* 
 
 >Th« organs are double, each faculty having tw 
 lilmtions of the hemispheres of the bntirt ; except 
 
 individuality, eventuality, benevolence, <4>c.. represented in the tig. by 22, 
 3U, 13, tic, which occupy the ceutr.il part of the scull.
 
 PHRENOLOGY. 
 
 Order I. Feelings. 
 
 Genus I. Propensities — Common to Man with the Lower 
 
 Animals. 
 
 i The Love of Life. 
 
 *< Appetite for Food. — Uses: Nutrition. — Muses: 
 
 I Gluttony and drunkenness. 
 
 1. Amativeness — Produces sexual love. 
 
 2. Philoprogenitiveness. — Uses: Affection for young 
 and tender beings. — Muses : Pampering and spoiling chil- 
 dren. 
 
 3. Concentrativeness. — Uses: It renders permanent 
 emotions and ideas in the mind. — Muses : Morbid dwelling 
 on the internal emotions and ideas, to the neglect of exter- 
 nal impressions. 
 
 3. a. Inhabitiveness. — Uses: It produces the desire of 
 permanence in place. — Muses : Aversion to move abroad. 
 
 4. Adhesiveness. — Uses: Attachment, friendship, and 
 society result from it. — Abuses : Clanship for improper ob- 
 jects, attachment to worthless individuals. 
 
 5. Combativeness. — Uses: Courage to meet danger and 
 overcome difficulties, tendency to oppose and attack what- 
 ever requires opposition, and to resist unjust encroachments. 
 — Abuses : Love of contention, and tendency to provoke 
 and assault. This feeling obviously adapts man to a world 
 in which danger and difficulty abound. 
 
 6. Dkstructiveness. — Uses: Desire to destroy noxious 
 objects and to kill for food. It is very discernible in car- 
 nivorous animals. — Abuses : Cruelty, murder, desire to tor- 
 ment; tendency to passion, rage, and harshness and severity 
 in speech and writing. This feeling places man in harmo- 
 ny with death and destruction, which are woven into the 
 system of sublunary creation. 
 
 7. Secretiveness. — Uses: Tendency to restrain within 
 the mind the various emotions and ideas that involuntarily 
 present themselves until the judgment has approved of 
 giving them utterance ; it is simply the propensity to conceal, 
 and is an ingredient in prudence. — Abuses : Cunning, de- 
 ceit, duplicity and lying. 
 
 8. Acquisitiveness. — Uses : Desire to possess, and ten- 
 dency to accumulate articles of utility to provide against 
 want. — Abuses : Inordinate desire of property, selfishness, 
 avarice, theft. 
 
 9. Constructiveness. — Uses : Desire to build and con- 
 struct works of art. — Abuses : Construction of engines to in- 
 jure or destroy, and fabrication of objects to deceive man- 
 kind. 
 
 Genus II. Sentiments. 
 I. Sentiments common to Man with the Lower Animals. 
 
 10. Self-esteem. — Uses: Self-respect, self-interest, love 
 of independence, personal dignity. — Abuses : Pride, disdain, 
 overweening conceit, excessive selfishness, love of domin- 
 ion. 
 
 11. Love of Approbation. — Uses: Desire of the es- 
 leem of others, love of praise, desire of fame or glory. — 
 
 Abuses: vanity, ambition, thirst for praise independently of 
 prai se worthiness. 
 
 12. Cautiousness. — Uses: It gives origin to the senti- 
 ment of fear, the desire to shun danger, and circumspection ; 
 and it is an ingredient in prudence. — Abuses : Excessive 
 timidity, poltroonry, unfounded apprehensions, despondency, 
 melancholy. 
 
 13. Benevolence. — Uses : Desire of the happiness of 
 others, universal charity, mildness of disposition, and a 
 lively sympathy with the enjoyment of all animated beings. 
 — Abuses : Profusion, injurious indulgence of the appetites 
 and fancies of others, prodigality, facility of temper. 
 
 IT. Sentiments proper to Man. 
 
 14. Veneration. — Uses: Tendency to venerjte or res- 
 
 * These organs are not fully ascertained, but some fads indicate that they 
 lie in the base of the brain. The first ib not marked on the bust, but the 
 second is indicated by 6 a. on Fig. 1. 
 
 Feeling or Touch. 
 
 Taste. 
 
 Smell. 
 
 Hearing. 
 
 Sight. 
 
 pect whatever is great and good ; gives origin to religious 
 adoration. — Abuses : Senseless respect for unworthy objects 
 consecrated by time or situation, love of antiquated customs, 
 abject subserviency to persons in authority, superstitious 
 awe. 
 
 15. Firmness. — Uses; Determination, perseverance, 
 steadiness of purpose. — Abuses : Stubbornness, infatuation, 
 tenacity in evil. 
 
 16. Conscientiousness. — Uses: It gives origin to the 
 sentiment of justice, or respect for the rights of others, open- 
 ness to conviction, the love of truth. — Abuses : Scrupulous 
 adherence to noxious principles when ignorantly embraced, 
 excessive refinement in the views of duty and obligation, 
 excess in remorse or self-condemnation. 
 
 17. Hope. — Uses; Tendency to expect future good; it 
 cherishes faith. — Abuses : Credulity with respect to the at- 
 tainment of what is desired, absurd expectations of felicity 
 not founded on reason. 
 
 18. Wonder. — Uses: The desire of novelty ; admiration 
 of the new, the unexpected, the grand, the wonderful, and 
 extraordinary. — Abuses : Love of the marvellous and occult; 
 senseless astonishment; belief in prodigies, magic, ghosts, 
 and other supernatural absurdities. 
 
 19. Ideality. — Uses: Love of the beautiful and splen- 
 did, desire of excellence, poetic feeling. — Abuses : Extrava- 
 gance and absurd enthusiasm, preference of the showy and 
 glaring to the solid and useful, a tendency to dwell in the 
 regions of fancy and to neglect the duties of life. 
 
 19. a. The organ of Sublimity ; but not sufficiently ascer- 
 tained. 
 
 20. Wit. — Gives the feeling of the ludicrous, and disposes 
 to mirth. 
 
 21. Imitation — Copies the manners, gestures and ac- 
 tions of others, and appearances in nature generally. 
 
 Order II. Intellectual Faculties. 
 Genus I. External Senses. 
 
 Uses : To bring man into com- 
 munication with external objects, 
 and to enable him to enjoy them. 
 — Abuses : Excessive indulgence 
 in the pleasures arising from the 
 senses, to the extent of impairing 
 bodily health and debilitating or 
 deteriorating the mind. 
 
 Genus n. Knowing Faculties, which perceive the 
 Existence and Qualities of External Objects. 
 
 22. Individuality — Takes cognizance of existence and 
 simple facts. 
 
 23. Form — Renders man observant of form. 
 
 24. Size — Gives the idea of space, and enables him to ap- 
 preciate dimension and distance. 
 
 25. Weight — Communicates the perception of momen- 
 tum, weight, and resistance, and aids equilibrium. 
 
 26. Colouring — Gives perception of colours and their 
 harmonies. 
 
 Genus III. Knowing Faculties, which perceive the 
 Relations of External Objects. 
 
 27. Locality — Gives the idea of relative position. 
 
 28. Number — Gives the talent for calculation. 
 
 29. Order — Communicates the love of physical arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 30. Eventuality — Takes cognizance of occurrences or 
 events. 
 
 31. Time — Gives rise to the perception of duration. 
 
 32. Tune. — The sense of Melody and Harmony arises 
 from it. 
 
 33. Language — Gives facility in acquiring a knowledge 
 of arbitrary signs to express thoughts, readiness in the use 
 of them, and the power of inventing and recollecting them. 
 
 Genus IV. Reflecting Faculties, which compare, 
 judge, and discriminate. 
 
 34. Comparison — Gives the power of discovering analo- 
 gies, resemblances, and differences. 
 
 35. Causality — Traces the dependences of phenomena, 
 and the relation of cause and effect. 
 
 The most accredited works in favour of phrenology are 
 Mr. Combe's writings, and the Phrenological Journal, which 
 is ably conducted. The most hostile inquiry into the pre- 
 tensions of phrenology to be regarded as a science appeared 
 in 1826, in the Edinburgh Review. In that article, which 
 was well known to have emanated from the |>en of Mr. 
 (now Lord) Jeffrey, the views of the phrenologists are 
 treated with ridicule, and their weak side subjected to one 
 of the most vigorous attacks ever made in literary criti- 
 cism. 
 
 PHRYGA'NIDiE. Case-worm flies. The family of Tri- 
 chopterous insects of which the genus Phrygania is the 
 type. See Trichopterans. 
 
 931
 
 PHRYGIAN MARBLE. 
 
 PHRYGIAN MARBLE. See Marble. 
 
 PHRYGIANS. An early sect of heretics ; so called from 
 Phrygia, the country where they abounded. They regard- 
 ed Moutanus, the founder of the Montanists, (which see), 
 as their prophet ; and their distinguishing characteristic was 
 the spirit of prophecy to which they laid claim. 
 
 PHTHIRI'ASIS. (Gr.(pOetp,alouse.) A disease in which 
 the body is overrun with lice. 
 
 PHTHISIS. (Gr. <pOtvui, I consume.") Consumption, 
 which see. 
 
 PHYCOMA'TER. (Gr. (bvKoc, sea-weed, and unrnp, 
 mother.) The gelatine hi which the sporulcs of Algaceous 
 plants first vegetate. 
 
 PH YLA'CTERY. (Gr. (pv\aKTripiov, a protection or pres- 
 ervation.) An amulet or preservative against infection. 
 The phylacteries of the Jews were derived from the in- 
 junction contained in Exodus, xiii., 9; and consisted of slips 
 of parchment inscribed with verses of the law, enclosed in 
 cases and worn during prayer on the arm and between the 
 eyes. 
 
 PHY'LiE. (Gr. <pv\n, a tribe.) The tribes into which 
 the whole of Attica was divided in antiquity. Originally 
 there were but four phyla;, which were frequently remodel- 
 led, but remained the same in number till soon after the 
 expulsion of the Pisistratidre, when Cleisthenes caused 
 their number to be increased to ten. What the precise na- 
 ture of the change effected on this occasion was is not 
 known, but it is probable that the new tribes embraced a 
 large number of citizens that had been excluded from the 
 former. The phyla? were afterwards increased to twelve, 
 by the addition of two in honour of Antigonous and his son 
 Demetrius. The Athenian senate was composed of fifty 
 delegates from each of these tribes. 
 
 PHY'LARCH. (Gr. <pv>.npxos, ruler of a phyle.) An 
 Athenian officer appointed for each phyle or tribe, to super- 
 intend the registering of its members and other common du- 
 ties. The title answers to that of the Roman tribune, but 
 its functions never reached the same importance. 
 
 PHYLLO'DIA. (Gr. <pv\\ov, a leaf.) A term applied 
 to the petioles of certain leafless plants which become so 
 much developed as to assume the appearance of leaves, all 
 the functions of which they perform. 
 
 PHYLLONY'CTERANS. (Gr. a)y\\ov and wxrcpic, a 
 bat.) The name of a primary division of the order Chei- 
 roptera, including the " foliated bats," or those species which 
 have the ears and nose complicated by grotesque and vari- 
 ously-figured membranous foliations, serving the purpose of 
 antennae, and augmenting the sense of touch in these night- 
 flying and short-sighted species. The tribe is also charac- 
 terized by having a single finger, the innermost armed with 
 a hooked-shaped claw, and the molar teeth beset with 
 sharp-pointed tubercles adapted for crushing insects. 
 
 PHYLLO'PHAGANS, Phyllophaga. (Gr. tbyXXov, and 
 Qaytii, I eat.) The name of a tribe of Marsupials, includ- 
 ing the Phalangers, Petaurists, and Koala ; also of a tribe 
 of beetles, including those which live by suction of the 
 tender parts of vegetables, as the leaves and succulent 
 sprouts. 
 
 PHY'LLOPODS, Phyllopoda. (Gr. 0uAW, and ttovs, 
 a foot.) The name of a tribe of Crustaceans, compre- 
 hending those in which the feet are of a flattened leaf-like 
 form. 
 
 PHY'LLOSTOMES, Phyllostomata. (Gr. QuWov, and 
 trroixa, a mouth.) A family of bats, including those in which 
 Uie nose supports a simple leaf-shaped appendage. 
 
 PHYSA. (Gr. <puaa, a bubble.) A genus of fresh-water 
 snails ; so called from the thinness and inflated appearance 
 of the shell. Several species of bubble-shell are found in 
 England; as Physa fontinalis, in the Thames ; Physa alba, 
 in North Wales; Physa hypnorum, common in ponds and 
 glow streams. 
 
 PHY'SALIS, or PIIYSA'LIA. (Gr. <j>voa.) The name 
 of a hydrostatic Acalephan, commonly called the Portu- 
 guese man-of-war, remarkable for its size, the brilliancy 
 of its hues, and the severe burning pain produced by its 
 contact. 
 
 PHY'SALITE. In Mineralogy, a species of topaz. 
 
 PHYSCO'NIA. (Gr. (pvanuv, a big-bellied fellow.) This 
 term is applied to various enlargements of the abdomen un- 
 connected with dropsy or with accumulations of air, such as 
 morbid states of the liver or of the spleen. 
 
 PHY'SICS. (Gr. 0ii(T(5, nature.) The science of nature. 
 In modern language, however, the term has a less general 
 signification than its derivation implies. Nature signifying 
 the assemblage of all the bodies of the universe, the science 
 of nature comprehends every species of knowledge which 
 regards the external world. But bodies maybe studied un- 
 der three different points of view ; they may be examined 
 with relation to their different properties, with relation to 
 their constituent parts, and with relation to their appear- 
 ances and exterior qualities. These three distinct views 
 give rise to the three great divisions of natural science ; 
 932 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 namely, Physics, Chemistry, and Natural History. Phys- 
 ics has for its object the properties of bodies, chemistry 
 studies their elementary principles, and natural history ob- 
 serves their physiognomy or external appearance. 
 
 PHYSIO'GNOMY. (Gr. Qvois, nature, and yt&ptav, a 
 rule or measure.) The art of interpreting the indications 
 of the inward disposition supposed to be afforded by the out- 
 ward appearance, especially the features of the face. (See 
 Liavater's Physiognomy.) 
 
 PHYSIOL'OGY. (Gr. <pvm$, and \oyos, a discourse.) 
 The science of things generated or alive ; but usually re- 
 garded as the doctrine of vital phenomena. This science i9 
 divided, according to the two great classes of generated be- 
 ings, into animal and vegetable physiology. Some philoso- 
 phers have proposed to change the term for " biology ;" but 
 the restricted application of bios to the life of an individual 
 in other English compound words, as " biography," would 
 be an objection to this change, even if the word physiology 
 were less appropriate than it is, or if its use in the sense 
 above defined had not been sanctioned by philosophers of 
 other nations. 
 
 The chief object of the physiologist is to ascertain the 
 precise mode in which each part or organ of a living being 
 reacts when stimulated. When the precise conditions and 
 mode of the reaction of the circulating fluid upon the solids, 
 and reciprocally, are understood, a true and intelligible defi- 
 nition of life may, perhaps, be given. 
 
 In animal physiology, the simplest condition under which 
 life can be contemplated is that which it presents in the 
 torpid hybernater. 
 
 During this state a dark nutrient fluid, the venous blood, 
 (see Blood), is propelled, by the contractions of a hollow 
 muscle (see Heart), along the arteries to every part of the 
 body, whence it is again returned to the heart by the veins. 
 With respect to this chief manifestation of life in the torpid 
 animal it may be asked, What is the cause or condition of 
 the reaction of the fibres of the hollow muscle upon the 
 stimulating fluid 1 How does each tissue of the body select 
 from the currents flowing through the terminal capillaries 
 the appropriate particles for its growth or reparation, and, 
 in return, add to the blood, either directly or through the 
 medium of lymphatic vessels, its effete particles ? These 
 are questions which physiology has yet to resolve : the elec- 
 tric conditions of the parts concerned have not been ascer- 
 tained. The blood is maintained in a fit state for the pres- 
 ervation of the tissues of the torpid animal by slowly part- 
 ing with some noxious or useles principles, through the ex- 
 cretion of the kidneys, and of the different mucous and se- 
 rous surfaces. The reaction of the circulating fluids upon the 
 solids supersedes the ordinary chemical reaction, by which 
 they would be decomposed and destroyed, and thus the tor- 
 pid animal is kept alive ; but it is the life of the plant or 
 of the ovum. The functions of circulation, nutrition, exe- 
 cration, are manifested when life is thus reduced, as in the 
 plant, to its simplest condition ; and these must, therefore, 
 be its most essential actions. In the torpid animal, the phe- 
 nomena of irritability and contractility of muscular fibre are 
 superadded, as in the action of the heart ; and this is de- 
 pendent on the connexion of the muscular fibre with a 
 nerve. The power of the external decomposing forces is 
 increased by elevation of temperature ; and the stimulus of 
 heat produces in the torpid animal, in a manner not under- 
 stood, a reaction of the mucous surface of the lungs: this 
 reaction influences, through the nerves, the muscles of res- 
 piration, and atmospheric air is inspired and brought into 
 contact with the thin membrane over which the pulmonary 
 capillaries are richly spread. The result of this contact is 
 the immediate elimination of the carbon from the blood, 
 which changes its dark for a florid red colour ; or converts- 
 it from venous to arterial blood. 
 
 The blood, so changed, stimulates in a different and more 
 potent manner the parts over which it is distributed ; the 
 heart contracts more vigorously and frequently ; the brain 
 and nervous system now receiving more blond, and that of 
 a different kind, begin to react on the application of stimuli 
 to which they were before insensible. 
 
 First, self-consciousness ; then sensation of external im- 
 pressions ; lastly, the propagation of a stimulus to the 
 muscular system generally, which produces the reaction 
 of vibratile contraction of its fibre, and by which the ani- 
 mal ves its parts upon each other, or its entire body upon 
 
 external matter, are successively manifested; and to circu- 
 lation, nutrition, excretion, and respiration, are now added 
 the functions of sensation and voluntary motion. But with 
 this greatly increased activity of the whole organic ma- 
 chinery, there is a proportional increase of vital decompo- 
 sition; l. «., of abstraction by the tissues of assimilating 
 particles from the capillary blood, and of addition to the 
 same of effete particles; and those actions demand not 
 only increased activity in the organs which eliminate the 
 waste and noxious particles from the blood, and expel them 
 from the body, but also a means of supplying new blood.
 
 PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 This is effected by digestion, chylification, and lacteal 
 absorption. 
 
 It is the consciousness of this want that impels the newly 
 roused hybernating animal to seek for its appropriate food: 
 the first use to which the machine is put is to supply itself 
 with the means for its continued activity ; and this com- 
 pletes the circle of the functions by which animal life is 
 maintained, as respects the individual being. 
 
 It is a law, that the renovation of the parts of a living 
 body should not be uniform : at first the power is in excess, 
 and the body grows ; afterwards it is unequal to the waste, 
 and the body shrinks ; it is at no period, perhaps, quite 
 perfect; the machinery of renovation thus, in time, be- 
 comes unequal to its office, and the ordinary" chemical de- 
 compositions and recompositions take the place of those 
 in which life had before essentially consisted. 
 
 A given term of life characterizes each species of ani- 
 mal ; but that the species should continue, it is necessary 
 that the death of the individual be compensated for. This 
 is effected by the power which living beings possess of 
 detaching a portion of themselves ; which portion contains 
 in itself, potentially, all the faculties or functions of life ; 
 develops their organs progressively, and according to the 
 pattern of the parent from which it was derived ; and 
 when arrived at maturity, in like manner generates or 
 separates another portion of itself, with similar powers of 
 development and growth ; then decays and dies. Thus 
 the species of living beings are maintained by the function 
 of generation through a long, but apparently not an indefi- 
 nite period of time ; for the history of the changes of the 
 earth's surface teaches us that the duration of the exist- 
 ence of species, as well as of the individual, is limited, and 
 that many species have become extinct. So far, however, 
 as observation has been able to reach, the death of a species 
 seems to have been rather a violent than a natural one. 
 We have, as yet, had no experience of the extinction of a 
 species by a gradual abrogation of the procreative powers 
 in the individuals of successive generations. Of the intro- 
 duction of new species we know of no natural cause, nor 
 can hardly form a conception of such. 
 
 The science of physiology is that of the different func- 
 tions of which life is the manifestation: that is to say, 
 of circulation, nutrition, excretion, respiration, sensation, 
 muscular contraction, digestion, absorption, generation ; 
 with other subordinate faculties, as the maintenance of 
 equable temperature, the production of vocal sounds, the 
 mental phenomena. To explain these functions, we must 
 first know the instruments by which they are performed ; 
 secondly, the matters which they attract, those which 
 they reject, and the nature of that which remains ; thirdly, 
 by what forces these matters are transported, attracted, 
 retained, and rejected ; and finally, the nature of the 
 stimuli appropriate to each part, and the mode in which 
 such part reacts when stimulated. Physiology has thus 
 many departments, and each department has its anato- 
 mical, chemical, dynamical, and what may be termed its 
 purely phvsiological line of research. 
 
 PHYSIOLOGY, VEGETABLE. See Botany. 
 
 PHY'SOGRADES, Physograda. (Gr. (pvois, air, and 
 gradior, I proceed. The name of a tribe of Acalepha?. com- 
 prehending those which swim by means of air-bladders. 
 
 PHYTI'PHAGAXS, Phytiphaga. (Gr. Qvtov, a plant, 
 and <payu>. I eat.) The name of a tribe of Cetaceous Mam- 
 mals, synonymous with Herbivora. Also, applied by La- 
 marck to a section of his order of Trachelipod Mollusks. 
 
 PHYTO'GRAPHY. (Gr. (porov, a plant, and yp,i<pui, I 
 describe.) That branch of science which concerns itself 
 with the rules to be observed in describing and naming 
 plants. See Botany. 
 
 PHYTO'LOGY. (Gr. dvrov, and \oyoc, a discourse.) 
 A book containing herbs and plants. 
 
 PHYTO'PHAGOUS. (Gr. Qvtov, a plant, and 0ayw, 
 / eat.) Plant-eating. 
 
 PHYTO'ZOOXS, Phytozoa. (Gr. Qvtov, a plant, and 
 5(1)01/, an animal.) This term is applied by various na- 
 turalists to different sections of the sub-kingdom Zoopkyta 
 of Cuvier. 
 
 PLY MATER. A thin vascular membrane covering the 
 convolutions of the brain and the spinal marrow. 
 
 PIANO. In Music. See P., &c. 
 
 PIA'XO-FORTE. (It.) A musical stringed instrument 
 of the keyed species. Its name, compounded of two Italian 
 words, signifying soft and loud, was probably given to it 
 to distinguish it from the harpsichord and spinet, in which 
 no lightness of touch could lessen the strength of the 
 sound produced from the quills always striking the strings 
 with equal force ; whereas, in the piano-forte' the strings 
 are put in vibration by means of small hammers, connect- 
 ed by levers with the key or finger board, which hammers 
 quit the string the moment it is struck, a damper falling 
 down upon it the moment the finger quits the key. The 
 invention of the piano-forte is ascribed to a German named 
 
 PICTURESaUE. 
 
 Schroeder, who lived at the beginning of last century ; but 
 it was first introduced into England in 1766, by Zumpe, 
 by whom it was greatly improved. Within the present 
 century this instrument has received many useful and 
 valuable improvements, from the hands both of English- 
 men and foreigners ; so that it may be now fairly regarded 
 as, next to the organ, the noblest and most elegant instru- 
 ment in the whole compass of musical practice. Many 
 distinguished musicians have devoted themselves to the 
 composition of pieces for this instrument ; and several of 
 the most distinguished composers in modern times, among 
 whom we may mention Hummel, Czerny, Herz, Kalk- 
 brenner, Cramer, Moscheles, Chopin, Thalberg, Liszt, &c, 
 have made the instrument itself almost their exclusive 
 study. There is an excellent article on the piano-forte in 
 the British and Foreign Review for 1839. 
 
 PI'ARISTS. (Patres Scholarum Piarum.) Members of 
 a religious order founded at Rome by Cazalanza, a Spanish 
 nobleman, early in the seventeenth century. They were 
 bound by a special vow to devote themselves to the pur- 
 pose of education. They still continue to superintend a 
 great number of schools in Hungary, Poland, Bohemia, &c. 
 
 PIA'STRE. A silver coin used in Spain. Italy, Turkey, 
 South America, the East Indies, &c, varying in value in 
 every country. See Money. 
 
 PIA'ZZA. (Ital.) In Architecture, a square open space 
 surrounded by buildings. Improperly used in England to 
 denote a walk under an arcade. 
 
 PI'BROCH. Martial music produced by the bag-pipe of 
 the Highlanders. It is said to signify also the instrument 
 itself; but the former meaning, if, indeed, there are any in- 
 stances of the latter to be found in any classical writer, 
 has received the sanction of the two most celebrated poets 
 of their time, Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott. The con- 
 noisseurs, says the latter writer, in pipe-music, affect to 
 discover, in a well-composed pibroch, the imitative sounds 
 of march, conflict, flight, pursuit, and all the " current of a 
 heady fight." (See a note in Bcattie's Essay on Laughter 
 and Ludicrous Composition, chap, iii., for a description of 
 the nature of the pibroch.) The 17th stanza of the 2d 
 canto of the Lady of the Lake, in which the effects of this 
 martial music are so admirably depicted, must be familiar 
 to every reader. 
 
 PI'CA. In Printing, a type of a moderate size ; so called 
 because it was used in printing the Pic, the service-book 
 of old Catholic times, which again is supposed to derive 
 its appellation from the piecolour of the text and rubric. 
 
 PI'CAMAR. The bitter principle of tar; whence it 
 derives its name (in pice amarum). 
 
 PICA'RDS. The name of a fanatical and immoral sect 
 of Christians, who sprang up in Bohemia in the fifteenth 
 century. They derived their name from Picard, a native 
 of Flanders, who styled himself the New Adam, and at- 
 tempted to revive the absurdities of the Adamites of the 
 second century in imitating the state of primeval inno- 
 cence. They were completely annihilated by Zisca, the 
 great general of the Hussites, who, struck with their 
 abominable practices, had marched against them. 
 
 PI'CHURIM BEAX. An oblong heavy seed brought 
 from Brazil, and used medicinally in the cure of colic. 
 It has a musky odour, and is supposed to be the produce 
 of a species of Laurus. 
 
 PICI. (Lat. picus, a woodpecker.) The name given by 
 Linnseus to a group of birds, corresponding to the Scansores 
 and part of the Passeres of Cuvier. 
 
 PICIILE. Woodpeckers. The family of birds of which 
 the genus Picus is the type. 
 
 PI'CKET. In Fortification, a stake used in laving out 
 ground to mark the bounds and angles. Pickets are of 
 various lengths, according to the purpose they are to serve. 
 One end is sharp and shod with iron, and the other some- 
 times carries a small flag, for the purpose of rendering it 
 visible at a distance. 
 
 PI'CROMEL. (Gr. mKpoc, bitter, and ue>,i, honey.) A 
 peculiar substance, of a sweetish bitter taste, which exists 
 in bile. 
 
 PICROTO'XIA. (Gr. ri/epo?, bitter, and toIikov, a poi- 
 son.) A poisonous bitter principle which exists in the 
 Cocculus indicus. 
 
 PICTS WALL. One of the barriers erected by the 
 Romans across the northern part of our island to restrain 
 the incursions of the Scots. 
 
 PICTURE'SQUE. (Equivalent to the Ital. pittoresco, 
 and the Germ, malerisch.) In the strict sense of the 
 word, all objects which afford fit combinations of form and 
 colour for the imitation of the painter. In literary compo- 
 sition, a style which represents objects and events in such 
 a manner as to call up vivid impressions, as it were, of 
 visible reality, is termed picturesque. 
 
 A great diversity of opinion prevails as to the precise 
 nature of that quality which peculiarly recommends ob- 
 jects for pictorial representation ; but it would be impossible
 
 PIEDROIT. 
 
 in this place to lay down any general rules on the subject, 
 that would be of any use for the guidance of the student. 
 Meanwhile, however, it may be necessary to notice the 
 fact, that the term picturesque is used in a totally different 
 sense from that above adverted to, being applied by many 
 writers to such natural objects as have a somewhat cogged 
 appearance, in contradistinction to those objects which 
 have a sublime or beautiful character. Thus, in water, 
 that of which the surface is broken, and the motion abrupt 
 and irregular; and. anions trees, "not the smooth young 
 beech, nor the fresh and tender ash, but the rugged oak, 
 or knotty wieh elm, is picturesque. Nor is it necessary 
 they should be of great bulk ; it is sufficient if they are 
 rough and mossy, with a character of age, and with sudden 
 variations of their forms. Among animals, the ass is ge- 
 nerally thought to be more picturesque than the horse ; 
 and among horses, it is the wild and rough forester, or 
 the worn-out cart-horse, to which that title is applied. 
 In our own species, objects merely picturesque are to be 
 found among the wandering tribes of gipsies and beggars, 
 who, in all the qualities that give them that character, 
 bear a close analogy to the wild forester and the worn- 
 out cart-house ; and again to old mills, hovels, and other 
 inanimate objects of that kind." Such objects, it is argued, 
 are neither beautiful nor sublime ; and though far less 
 universally pleasing and alluring than those which possess 
 the qualities of beauty or sublimity, are nevertheless en- 
 dowed with qualities of their own, which are not only 
 highly suited to the painter and his art, but attractive also 
 to the rest of mankind whose minds have been at all cul- 
 tivated or improved ; and to such objects the term pictur- 
 esque ought to be exclusively applied. It is impossible, we 
 believe, to invalidate this argument, for the circumstances 
 are sufficiently striking and general to admit of a satis- 
 factory solution ; though it must be conceded that great 
 caution is necessary before joining a third and distinct 
 character to the two graces which it is universally ad- 
 mitted embellish natural forms — the sublime and beauti- 
 ful. But on this question our limits preclude us from 
 entering; and we must refer the reader to Price's elabo- 
 rate work on the Picturesque for full information. (See 
 also the Quart. Rev. vol. iv.) 
 
 PIEDROIT. (Fr.) In Architecture, a pier or square 
 pillar partly hid within a wall. It is without base or 
 capital, therein differing from a pilaster. 
 
 PIE'NO. (It.) In Music, a term denoting that the com- 
 position where the word is appended is full, that is, for all 
 the performers. 
 
 PIE POUDRE COURT. In English Law, a court 
 established to decide on the spot disputes arising at fairs 
 or markets. It was styled in Lat. curia pedis pulverhati, 
 and derived its name from the itinerant " dusty-footed" 
 dealers (in old Fr. pied pouldreuz), for whose convenience 
 it was principally instituted. 
 
 PIER. In Architecture, the solid between the openings 
 of a building, or that from which an arch springs. An 
 abutment pier, in a bridge, is that next the shore. For the 
 mode of building the piers of a bridge, see Bridge. 
 
 Pier. In Engineering, identical with mote, and is used 
 to designate the masses of building erected to form har- 
 bour-, landing-places, &c. 
 
 PIERCED. In Heraldry, a term used when a charge 
 is represented as perforated, so as to show the field un- 
 der it. 
 
 1'IE'RIDES. A name of the Muses, who were so called 
 from Pieria, a district of Thrace. This was also the name 
 of the nine daughters of Pierus, the king of Emathia, 
 whose profound acquaintance with the fine arts tempted 
 them to challenge the Muses to a contest of musical skill; 
 but, being worsted, were changed by the latter into mag- 
 pies. In memory of their victory over the Pierides, the 
 Muses are considered, by some authors, to have adopted 
 the name. 
 
 PIETISTS. The name given to certain reformers of 
 the doctrines and practice of the Lutheran church, that 
 arose in Germany towards the end of the seventeenth 
 century, and censed gn:it dissensions in that body. The 
 Pietists may be divided into two classes, of which the one 
 proposed to effect merely an amendment of life anil man- 
 ners, and to promote a more evangelical spirit and con- 
 ception of gospel truth than was cherished by the reformed 
 churches, which, at the period in question, had degene- 
 rated into great coldness and formality. Hut of the dis- 
 cussions which this agitation excited there arose, how- 
 ever, a more violent and fanatical sect, who accompanied 
 the assaults they made on the doctrine nnd discipline of 
 the church, by the assertion of various mystical extra- 
 vagances. Arnold. DtppeUtU, and Petersen were their most 
 distinguished leaders. The same school of theologians 
 gave birth to the celebrated enthusiast Jacob Itehmen. (See 
 Mosheim. vol. v.. |p. 312. trans. 1790.) The term Pittui 
 is at present applied, in Germany, much in the same sense 
 934 
 
 PILE. 
 
 of disparagement as the word Methodist is vulgarly used 
 among ourselves, to those persons who make a display of 
 strong religious feelings. 
 
 PIEZOMETER. (Gr. vitXp, T press, and pnf>o\>. mea- 
 sure.) An instrument for ascertaining the compressibility 
 of liquids. 
 
 PI'GMENT. (Lat. pigmentum.) A term applied by 
 anatomists to the mucous secretion which covers the irisj 
 of the eye. and gives it its various colours; and to the dark 
 matter which covers the anterior surface of the choroid 
 membrane, and the interior surface of the ciliary processes. . 
 
 Pigment. In Painting, a general term denoting auy 
 colour used bv artists. 
 
 PI'GMY, or PYGMY. Gr. manioc, sc. avrjp, from 
 TrvYfirji i cubit ; a diminutive man.) By ancient authors on 
 natural history, this name was applied to a fabulous race of 
 dwarfish and deformed human beings; it is now restricted 
 to a species of ape, the Simia troglodytes of Blumenbach, 
 or the Chimpanzee. (See Tyson's Anatomy of a Pygmie, 
 with an Essay concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients, 
 fol 1699.) Ancient fable (as ancient as Homer, //., b. 3), 
 described a nation of pygmies dwelling somewhere near 
 the shores of the ocean, and maintaining perpetual wars 
 with the cranes ; of which Athenteus gives the mytholo- 
 gical origin. Ctesias the Greek historian, as quoted by 
 Photius, represented a nation of them as inhabiting India, 
 and attending its king on his military expeditions. Other 
 ancients believed them to inhabit the Indian islands ; and 
 Aristotle places them in Ethiopia, Pliny in Transgangetic 
 India. Some modern lovers of the marvellous have con- 
 structed these stories from the legends of pigmy nations 
 inhabiting the northernmost part of the earth. These nu- 
 merous fables appear to originate partly, as Strabo long ago 
 observed, in the stunted growth of particular races, under 
 the sufferings of a severe climate or great privations; thus, 
 the Esquimaux, or Laplanders, furnish the ancient North- 
 men with their legendary " Dwergar," or nations of mali- 
 cious dwarfs. Some of the low-caste races, which inhabit 
 the forests of interior Hindostan, are feeble and puny enough 
 to have given origin to the account of Ctesias ; while the 
 pygmies of the Malay Archipelago, and the interior of 
 Africa, were probably apes. (See the Encyc. Metropo- 
 litans.) 
 
 PIG NUT. The bulbous root of the Bunium bulbocas- 
 tanum ; so called because pigs are fond of and dig for 
 them. 
 
 PIKE. In Ichthyology, the English term for a fish be- 
 longing to the order jValacopterygii, section .ibdominalcs, 
 family Esocidae, and genus Esoz. See Malacoptery- 
 gians. 
 
 Pike. In Military affairs, an offensive weapon used in 
 antiquity and modern times, down to the invention of the 
 bayonet, by which it has been universally superseded, con- 
 sisting of a shaft of wood of 12 or 14 feet in length, sur- 
 mounted with a flat pointed steel, commonly called the 
 spear. It was chiefly used by the infantry. 
 
 PILA'STER. (Ital. pilastro.) In Architecture, a square 
 pillar engaged in a wall, usually projecting not more than 
 one fifth or one sixth of its width. Pilasters are subject to 
 the same rules of proportion as columns. 
 
 PI'LCHARD. In Ichthyology, the common name for a 
 fish closely resembling the common herring; but smaller, 
 and at the same time thicker and rounder. They are found 
 chiefly on the coasts of Devon and Cornwall, particularly 
 the latter, where they are taken in great numbers from July 
 to September. It is a saying of the Cornwall fishermen, 
 that the pilchard is the least fish in size, but greatest 
 in number and for gain, taken from the sea. For some 
 curious details on the pilchard fishery, see the Commercial 
 Diet. 
 
 PILE. In Heraldry, an ordinary which is represented of 
 a wedge-shape, tapering from the chief down wards towards 
 the point; said to represent the piles on which bridges and 
 other erections are founded. 
 
 Pile. In Artillery, a heap of shot or shells, piled up by 
 horizontal courses in a pyramidal or welge like form. The 
 form of the pile is determined by that of the base, which 
 may be a triangle, a square, or a rectangle. In a triangular 
 pile the base is an equilateral triangle, and there is one shot 
 at the vertex. The number in the successive horizontal 
 Courses, reckoned from the top downwards, are represented 
 by the triangular numbers 1, 3. 6, 10 . . . . A n (n-\- 1), the 
 sum of which is } n (n-f- 1) (n + 2) ; which, therefore, is 
 the number of shot in a pile of n courses. See Figuratc 
 N'imbers. 
 
 If the base is a square, the number in the successive 
 courses is represented by the series of squares, 1, 4, 9, 16, 
 &c. ; and the number in the pile of n courses is J n (n -f- 1) 
 C2n-f-l). 
 
 If the base is a rectangle, n the number of shot in the 
 Shortest side Cor the number of courses), and n + d the 
 number in the longest side, then the number in the pile con-
 
 PILE DRIVER. 
 
 tinued until there is a single row of d + 1 shot at the top is 
 £n(n + l)(2« + l + 3d). 
 
 PILE DRIVER. An engine for driving down piles. It 
 consists of a large ram or block of iron, which slides be- 
 tween two guide posts. Being drawn up to the top, and 
 then let fall from a considerable height, it comes down on 
 the head of the pile with a violent blow. It may be worked 
 by men or horses, or a steam engine. 
 
 PILES, in Building, are timbers driven into the ground 
 or bed of a river, for supporting the foundations of an ed- 
 ifice, or the piers of a bridge. They may be round or 
 square, and formed of any wood which does not rot under 
 water: oak, elm, and chiefly fir, are employed. The end 
 of the pile which penetrates the ground is pointed and 
 shod with iron, and the top is bound with a strong iron band 
 or hoop, to prevent the piles from being split by the violent 
 strokes of the ram by which they are driven down. 
 
 Piles. A disease originating in the morbid dilatation of 
 the veins of the lower part of the rectum, and upon the 
 verge of the anus, and frequently caused by costiveness 
 and irregularity of alvine evacuation ; the contents of the 
 rectum pressing upon the veins, and preventing the return 
 of their blood, so that they become turgid and varicose, 
 often forming bleeding or ulcerated enlargements and tu- 
 mours. Mild aperients, especially sulphur and castor oil, 
 are necessary in the relief of the early stage of piles : 
 when there is much inflammation, cold and astringent lo- 
 tions may be used, and the pain is often relieved by fomen- 
 tation with decoction of poppies. When the tumours are 
 large and flaccid, an ointment of powdered galls, with a 
 little opium and acetate of lead, often affords relief; and, 
 in old relaxed piles, the internal use and local application 
 of copaiba balsam, and even Ward's paste, which contains 
 black pepper, do good. In many cases of protrusions of 
 the tumours, they require removal by ligature or by the 
 knife. 
 
 PI'LGRIMAGE. A journey undertaken for devotional 
 purposes to some spot hallowed by religious associations. 
 
 The custom of making these pilgrimages has long been 
 recommended and enjoined by the Roman Church, and they 
 are frequently imposed by way of penance ; the remission 
 of sins, and various spiritual advantages, being promised as 
 the reward of the faithful and pious pilgrim. There exist 
 traces in the history of the early church of such journeys 
 being occasionally undertaken from the natural motives, 
 we may suppose, of curiosity, or of a deeper interest; in 
 process of time the custom of celebrating festivals in hon- 
 our of martyrs at the place of their sepulture drew larger 
 numbers together from a distance, who, doubtless, soon be- 
 gan to look with some complacency upon their own merits 
 in doing honour to the saints at the expense of fatigue or 
 danger to themselves. But the systematic establishment 
 of pilgrimage as a meritorious work seems to be of much 
 later date. That which was undertaken to the tomb of 
 St. Martin of Tours is among the earliest canonically en- 
 joined. Such places of devotion became gradually very 
 numerous ; of which, however, Jerusalem was held nat- 
 urally in the highest estimation. The difficulties which 
 presented themselves to the pilgrims who attempted to ac- 
 complish this journey, when Palestine had fallen into the 
 hands of the Saracens, were the proximate cause of the 
 excitement which armed Europe to the rescue of the Holy 
 Land. The cupidity of the persons in whose custody these 
 shrines were, and the immorality which ensued from the 
 desultory habits which the pilgrims acquired, called forth 
 the earliest animadversion of the church, at the council of 
 Chalons in the 9th century ; but the evil seems to have 
 continued steadily on the increase, until, at the time of the 
 Reformation, we find what was originally a harmless, and 
 even a pious practice, degenerated into one of the most 
 crying abuses of the ecclesiastical system. The earliest 
 pilgrimage on record is, perhaps, that of Helena, the wife of 
 Constantine, to the Holy Land. (See Schroeck's Kirchen 
 Geschichte, part 5, 8, 19, 23, 25). 
 
 But pilgrimages are not confined to Christian nations. 
 According to a command in the Koran, every good Mussul- 
 man is enjoined once in his lifetime to repair to Mecca; 
 and there are many other places, especially in Persia, en- 
 dowed with sufficient sanctity to attract multitudes of pil- 
 grims. The Hindoos have also their pilgrimages, the most 
 celebrated of which is to the city of Juggernaut, where 
 stands the temple erected in honour of the deity of the 
 same name ; a full account of which will be found in the 
 Geo. Diet., art., "Juggernaut." Among existing Christian 
 pilgrimages, the most celebrated is that of Marianzell, in 
 Austria. 
 
 PILI'DIUM. The orbicular hemispherical shield or apo- 
 thecium of a lichen, the outside of which changes to pow- 
 der, as in Calycium. 
 
 PILLAR. In Architecture. See Column. 
 
 PI'LLORY. (Fr. pilori ; supposed from pilier, a pillar.) 
 A wooden engine on which offenders were formerly ex- 
 
 PIONEERS. 
 
 posed to public view, and generally to public insult. It 
 was a common punishment in England, and by the " stat- 
 ute of the pillory," 51 Hen. 3, c. 6, appointed for forestal- 
 led, users of deceitful weights, perjury, forgery, &c. By 
 56 G. 3, c. 138, it was abolished in all cases except perjury ; 
 and, as it was discretionary in that instance, it had been 
 long wholly disused. It was finally abolished in 1837 by 
 the statute 1 Vict., c. 23. The French punishment of the 
 same description is now termed the " carcan," from the iron 
 collar by which the neck of the criminal is fixed to a post ; 
 anciently, "pilori." It is not now specifically appropriated 
 to particular crimes, but in heavy cases accompanies the 
 sentence of imprisonment or forced labour. 
 
 PILOSE. (Lat. pilus, a hair.) In Zoology, when an an- 
 imal or part is covered with hair. 
 
 PI'LOT. A person qualified and appointed by proper 
 authority to conduct ships in and out of particular harbours, 
 or along certain coasts, at a certain fixed rate, depending on 
 the draught of water. The pilot has the charge of the 
 vessel while in pilot water, and the captain or master ne- 
 glects or opposes the pilot's advice on his own responsibil- 
 ity. (See M'Culloch's Commercial Diet.) 
 
 PI'MELITE. (Gr. -nificXn, fatness.) A green hydrated 
 silico-aluminous mineral, containing oxide of nickel, of a 
 greasy feel. 
 
 PIME'NTO. The berry of the Myrtus pimenta ; all- 
 spice, or Jamaica pepper. See Piperace^:. 
 
 PIN. A small bit of wire, usually brass, with a point at 
 one end a spherical head at the other. No fewer than 
 fourteen distinct operations are necessary in making this lit- 
 tle article ; for an account of which see Ure' s Diet, of Arts, 
 &rc. There is a good account of this manufacture in Bab- 
 bage's Economy of Manufactures. See also Wealth of Na- 
 tions, p. 3 ; where the pin is cited as an admirable in- 
 stance of the good effects of a division of labour. 
 
 Pin. A term of Chinese diplomacy, signifying a petition 
 or address from foreigners to the emperor of China or any 
 of his viceroys or deputies. 
 
 PINACOTHE'CA. (Gr. irival, a picture, and TtOritu, I 
 place.) In Ancient Architecture, the apartment in a house 
 for the reception of paintings. 
 
 PI'NCHBECK. An alloy of copper of zinc ; a species 
 of brass much resembling what is now termed Mosaic 
 gold. It was brought into notice by a person of the above 
 name. 
 
 PI'NEAL GLAND. A small heart-shaped protuberance 
 of the brain, hanging by two peduncles from the beds of the 
 optic nerves immediately over the corpora quadrigemina. 
 Some fanciful physiologists have asserted that it is the seat 
 of the soul. 
 
 PINE. See Abies. 
 
 PI'NION. In Mechanics, a small wheel which plays in 
 the teeth of a larger, or sometimes only an arbor or spin- 
 dle, having notches or leaves, which are caught success- 
 ively by the teeth of the wheel, and the motion thereby 
 communicated. 
 
 PI'NITE. (From the mine Pini, at Schneeberg in Saxo- 
 ny.) A soft crystallized mineral, composed of alumine, si- 
 lex, and oxide of iron. 
 
 PINK, DUTCH. In Painting, a colour of a reddish hue. 
 
 PI'NNA. (Lat. pinna, a Jin.) The name of a genus of 
 Ostracean Acephalous Mollusks, commonly called "wing- 
 shells," remarkable for the size of the byssus, by which 
 they adhere to rocks, and which the natives of Sicily man- 
 ufacture into gloves, socks, and other articles of sale. 
 
 PI'NNACE. A small light vessel with sails and oars: 
 it is at present generally understood as one of the boats 
 belonging to a ship of war. 
 
 PI'NNACLE. (Lat. pinna.) In Architecture, a small 
 square or polygonal pillar, generally, though not necessari- 
 ly, applied at the angles of a building, terminating upwards 
 pyramidally, and embellished with foliage at the angles of 
 the pyramidal part. 
 
 PI'NNATES. A term applied by Linnaeus to the feet of 
 those birds which have the toes bordered by a scalloped 
 membrane, as the coots. 
 
 PINNA'TIPEDS, Pinnatipedia. (Lat. pinna, a fin, and 
 pes, afoot.) A term applied by Temminck to an order of 
 birds comprehending those which have the digits bordered 
 by membranes. 
 
 PI'NNIPEDS, Pinnipedes. The name of a section of 
 crabs (Brachyurous Decapod Crustaceans), in which are 
 comprehended those that have the last pair of feet, if not 
 more, terminated bv a flattened joint fitted for swimming. 
 
 PI'NNOTHERES. (Gr. mvvoOnpnt, from Lat. pinna, 
 and Gr. 6>)ftao), I pursue.) A small parasitic species of crab, 
 which takes up its abode in the shell of the pinna and oth- 
 er bivnlves. 
 
 PINT. A measure of capacity, being the eighth part of a 
 gallon. See Measures. 
 
 PIO'NEERS, in the Military Art, are certain soldiers, in 
 all infantry and cavalry regiments, whose business it is to 
 
 935
 
 PIPE. 
 
 clear the road before an army, to sink mines, and throw 
 up works and fortifications. Pioneers are provided on a 
 march with hatchets, axes, spades, pickaxes, and all other 
 necessary implements. 
 
 PIPE. A wine measure, usually containing 105 (very 
 nearly) imperial, or 1-20 wine gallons. Two pipes, or 210 
 imperial gallons, make a tun. But, in practice, the size of 
 the pipe varies according to the description of wine it con- 
 tains. Tims, B pipe of port contains 138 wine gallons, of 
 sherry 130, of Lisbon and Bucellas 140, of Madeira 110, and 
 of Vidonia 120. The pipe of port, it is to be observed, is 
 seldom accurately 138 gallons, and it is usual to charge 
 what the vessel actually contains. 
 
 PIPE CLAY. A species of clay, abounding in Devon- 
 shire and other parts of England, employed in the manu- 
 facture of various sorts of earthenware. 
 
 PIPERA'CE^E. (Piper one of the genera.) A natural 
 order of shrubby or herbaceous Exogens, inhabiting the 
 hotter parts of the world. According to Blume and Rich- 
 ard they are monocotyledonous ; but that they are really 
 dicotyledonous is proved by their medullary rays, articulated 
 leaves, and two-lobed embryo. They are closely related to 
 Polygonacew, Saururacea, and Urticacea, from all of 
 which they are distinguished by obvious characters. Com- 
 mon pepper represents the ordinary property of this order. 
 The cubebs of the shops is the produce of the Piper cubeba 
 and caninum ; betel, an acrid, stimulating substance, much 
 used for chewing by the Malays, is obtained from Piper be- 
 tel and siriboa. Black pepper is the unprepared fruit of 
 Piper nigrum, and white pepper is the same deprived of its 
 pulpy covering. Long pepper consists of the half-ripe 
 flower-heads of Piper longum and ehaba. 
 
 PI'PERIN. A white crystallizable substance extracted 
 from black pepper. It is tasteless, and free from pungency, 
 the acrimony of pepper residing in a peculiar fixed oil. 
 
 Pl'RACY. (Gr. miparesi from trtipa, an attempt.) In 
 Law, an offence which consists in the commission of those 
 acts of robbery and depredation upon the high seas which, 
 if committed on land, would have amounted to felony there. 
 By the statutes 11 & 12 W. 3, c. 7, and 6 G. 1, c. 19, piracies 
 committed on the sea or in haven, &c, where the admiral 
 has jurisdiction, may be tried at sea or on land, in his ma- 
 jesty's islands, &c, by commissioners under the great seal 
 appointed for that purpose, who may commit the offenders, 
 and call a court of admiralty for the purpose of the trial. 
 By the same statutes various acts are enumerated as amount- 
 ing to piracy, and aiders and abettors of pirates are declared 
 accessories, punishable as principals. By subsequent enact- 
 ments, acts of trading with pirates, arid acts of hostility 
 committed by natural-born subjects against his majesty's 
 subjects under colour of a foreign commission, are declared 
 piracy. In the realm of England, felonies, robberies, and 
 murders, committed by pirates, are triable under 28 H. 8, c. 
 15, by the king's commission of oyer and terminer, as if the 
 offences had been committed on land. (See as to the pi- 
 rates of antiquity, the Mem. de VAc. des Inscr., vol. xii.) 
 
 Piracy is also frequently used to signify any infringement 
 on the law of copyright. It is extremely difficult to lay 
 down any general principle on which to decide as to what 
 is and what is not piracy. Generally it is held, that one 
 writer may borrow the ideas or theories of another; but 
 that he must dress them up and explain them in a different 
 way, and in his own lnnguage. This, however, is often 
 done so as merely to evade the law ; and it were well, in or- 
 der to make greater attention be paid to originality, were the 
 law as to piracy less lax than it is at present. (See as to 
 the existing law of piracy the art. " Copyright— Books" in 
 Com. Diet.) 
 
 PISALPIIA'LTUM. Mineral pitch; an indurated bitu- 
 men. 
 
 PI'SCES. (Lat. pisces, a fish.) The name of the fourth 
 great subdivision of Vertebrate animals, or the class of fish 
 es characterized by a branchial respiration, a bilocular heart, 
 and a covering of scales. The nasal cavities do not com- 
 municate with the mouth, but have only external apertures. 
 See Ichthyology. 
 
 Pi'stes. (The Fishes.) One of the twelve zodiacal con- 
 stellations, the twelfth in order from Aries. See Constel- 
 lation, Zodiac. 
 
 PISCIS AUSTRALIS. (The Southern Fish.) One of 
 Ptolemy's 48 constellations, in the southern hemisphere. 
 The brilliant star Fomalhaut, of the first magnitude, be- 
 longs to ibis constellation. 
 
 I'isi 'is v< i|. \.\'S. A small modern constellation of the 
 southern hemisphere, formed by Bayer. It is situated on 
 tin' antartic circle. 
 
 PISE. (Fr.) In Architecture, a species of wall con- 
 structed of stiff earth or clay, carried up in moulds, and 
 rammed down as the work is carried up. 
 
 PISI'DTDM. (Lat. plaum, a pea.) A genus of fresh wa- 
 ter Gastropods ; so named on account of the resemblance of 
 the Bhell to a small pea. Many of the species are British ; 
 930 
 
 PITYRIASIS. 
 
 as risidium obtusale, which may be found in the New Riv- 
 er; P.pusillum, P. nitidum, P. pulchellum, ice. 
 
 PI'SOLITE. (Gr. mow, and XiOos, peastone.) A concre- 
 tional carbonate of lime. The concretions generally con- 
 tain a central grain of sand. 
 
 PISTA'CHIA or PISTA'CHIO NUTS. (Ger. pistachen ; 
 Du. pistasjes; Fr. pistaches ; It. pistacchi, fastucchi ; Sp. 
 alfocigos ; Lat. pistacia.) The fruit of the Pistachia vera, 
 a kind of turpentine tree. It grows naturally in Arabia, 
 Persia, and Syria ; also in Sicily, whence the nuts are an- 
 nually brought to us. They are oblong and pointed, about 
 the size and shape of a filbert, including a kernel of a pale 
 greenish colour, covered with a yellowish or reddish skin. 
 They have a pleasant, sweetish, or unctuous taste, resem- 
 bling that of sweet almonds ; their principal difference from 
 which consists in their having a greater degree of sweet- 
 ness, accompanied with a light grateful flavour, and in be- 
 ing more oily. Pistachias imported from the East are supe- 
 rior to those raised in Europe. 
 
 PISTI'LLUM. The organ which occupies the centre of 
 a flower, within the stamens and disk (if the latter be pres- 
 ent). It is distinguished into three parts : an upper or stig- 
 ma, a lower or ovarium, and a central part or style. It is 
 the female organ of the flower, and contains the ovules or 
 young seeds within the ovary. 
 
 PISTOLE. A gold coin common in many parts of Ger- 
 many, equivalent to about 8s. <Sd. sterling. 
 
 PI'STON. In Machinery, a short cylinder of wood or 
 metal, which fits exactly the cavity of a pump or barrel, 
 and works up and down in it alternately. Two sorts of pis- 
 tons are used in pumps; one hollow, with a valve, used in 
 the sucking pump : and the other solid, which is employed in 
 the forcing pump. See Pump. 
 PIT. See Shaft. 
 
 PITCH. (Fr. picts.) In Music, the degree of acuteness 
 or graveness of a note. 
 
 Pitch. (Germ, pech.) The same as Asphalt and Bi- 
 tumen, which see. 
 
 Pitch. The residuum which remains after boiling tar in 
 an open iron pot, or in a still, till the volatile matter be driv- 
 en off. It is most extensively used in ship building. 
 
 PITCHBLENDE. A mineral found in Saxony ; it is a 
 compound of the oxides of uranium and iron. 
 
 PITCH OF A ROOF. In Architecture, the inclination 
 of the sloping sides to the horizon. It is usually designated 
 by the ratio of its height to its space. 
 
 PI'TCHSTONE. A silicious mineral, the fracture of 
 which resembles that of pitch or resin. It is of various 
 colours. 
 PITCOAL. See Coal and Geologt. 
 PITH. A cylindrical or angular column of cellular tis- 
 sue, arising at the neck of the stem of a Dicotyledonous 
 plant, and terminating at the leaf-buds, with all of which, 
 whether they are lateral or terminal, it is in direct commu- 
 nication. It forms the centre of a stem, and is covered over 
 by the wood. Its use is to act as a reservoir of nutritious 
 matter for the young leaves when first developing. 
 
 PITHE'CUS. (Gr. mBnicoc, an ape.) The subgeneric 
 name of the orang-utan ; Pithicvs satyrus, Geoff. 
 
 PITOT'S TUBE. In Hydraulics, an apparatus, so called 
 from the name of its inventor, for measuring the velocity of 
 a stream, or of a body moved through stagnant water. A 
 tube open at both ends is bent into two unequal branches at 
 right angles to each other. It is then placed in the stream, 
 the longer branch in a vertical position, and the shorter 
 turned round so that the water enters directly into the orifice, 
 which should be somewhat contracted. When thus placed, 
 the water enters the tube with the velocity of the stream, 
 and the pressure causes it to rise in the upright branch of 
 the tube to the height from which it must have fallen in or- 
 cer to acquire this velocity. The height to which the wa- 
 ter rises in the tube is measured by placing a graduated rod 
 in the tube of such specific gravity as to float on the water ; 
 or if the tube is of glass, the height may be measured ex- 
 ternally. The corresponding velocity is obtained from the 
 formula v — y/Cigh) ; where v denotes the Velocity, g the 
 accelerating force of gravity, and h the height to which the 
 water rises in the tube, all expressed in units of the same 
 denomination. The result is tolerably accurate, except 
 when the velocity is small ; but the effect is somewhat di- 
 miiii-Oied by the friction on the tube. 
 
 PI'TTACAL. (Gr. nr™, pitch, and ioiXXoc, ornament.) 
 A fine blue substance, obtained by the action of a solution 
 of baryta upon the heavy oil of tar." 
 
 PITUITARY GLAND. A gland situated within the 
 cranium, between a fold of the dura mater, in the sella tur- 
 cica of the sphenoid bone. 
 
 PITUITARY MEMBRANE. The mucous membrane 
 Of the nose. 
 
 PITYRTASIS. (Gr. mrvpnv, bran.) A cutaneous dis- 
 ease consisting of irregular scaly patches, unattended by 
 inflainmation. When it affects infants, it is called dandriff.
 
 PITT. 
 
 A similar exfoliation of the cuticle in reddi3h patches is 
 not uncommon in adults. Soap and water, and mild cool- 
 ing lotions, or very weak nitro-muriatic lotion, are the best 
 applications. 
 
 PIU. (Ital.) In Music, a word frequently prefixed to 
 another to increase the strength of its meaning; as piu alle- 
 gro, a little quicker. 
 
 PX'VOT. (Fr.) In Military language, that officer or sol- 
 dier upon whom the different wheelings are made in the 
 various evolutions of the drill, &c. 
 
 Pivot. In Mechanics, the extremity of the axle about 
 which a body revolves. 
 
 PLACA RD. (Said to be from the Greek ttXoJ, a tablet.) 
 A writing affixed to a wall, post, &c, in a public place, is 
 commonly so called ; and as this was in ancient times the 
 common mode of publishing proclamations and edicts, and 
 also of giving notoriety to libels and seditious advertisements, 
 the word is not uncommonly used in early modern writers 
 in both these senses. 
 
 PLACENTA. (Gr. irXaKovc, a cake.) The after-birth. 
 In the human subject it is a single subcircular, flattened, and 
 lobulated organ, composed of the capillary extremities of the 
 foetal hypogastric arteries and umbilical vein, and of a fine 
 cellular structure, which receives the maternal blood from 
 the tortuous uterine or decidual arteries. 
 
 The placenta forms a single lobe in the New World mon- 
 keys, the bats, the Insectivora, and the Rodentia. It sur- 
 rounds the foetus like a broad hoop in the Carnivora. It is 
 bilobed in the Old World monkeys ; and subdivided into 
 many separate lobes, called cotyledons, in the true Rumi- 
 nantia. The placenta is replaced by a diffused vascular 
 villosity of the chorion in the Camellidts, the ordinary Pa- 
 chyderms, and the Cetacea. The placenta is absent and 
 the chorion ceases to be vascular in the Marsupialia. 
 
 Place'nta. In Botany, a copious development of cellu- 
 lar tissue, formed at some point of the inside of a carpellum, 
 and out of which the ovules or young seeds arise. 
 
 PLACENTA'LIA. The name of that primary division 
 of the class Mammalia which includes the orders that have 
 either a placenta or a vascular chorion, by which the foetus 
 is attached to the parietes of the uterus. 
 
 PLA'CITA (Lat.), in the Middle Ages, were public 
 courts or assemblies, in which the sovereign presided when 
 a consultation was held upon the affairs of the state. They 
 were termed " Generalia Placita," because " generalitas uni- 
 versorum majorum tarn clericorum quam laicorum ibidem 
 conveniebat." The same custom appears to have existed 
 in France, with a slight modification. According to the 
 Black Book in the Exchequer, lib. ii., let. 13, this term was 
 also applied to penalties or fines. 
 
 PLA'GAL MELODIES. (Gr. TrXayio?, oblique.) In Mu- 
 sic, such as have their principal notes lying between the fifth 
 of the key and its octave or twelfth. 
 
 PLA'GIARISM. (From the Latin legal term plagium, 
 which signified the offence of stealing a slave, or kidnapping 
 a free person into slavery.) A plagiary, in the modern sense 
 of the word, is one who borrows without acknowledgment, 
 in literary composition, the thoughts or words of another ; 
 and the theft itself is styled plagiarism. 
 
 PLA'GIOSTOMES, Plagiostoma. (Gr. irAnyiOf, trans- 
 verse, and oto\i<x, a mouth.) A tribe of Cartilaginous fishes, 
 comprehending all those which have the mouth situated 
 transversely beneath the snout. Also the name of a genus 
 of Univalve Mollusks. 
 
 PLAGUE. "A typhus fever eminently contagious, and 
 attended by excessive debility: at an uncertain period of 
 the disease carbuncles or buboes ensue." This is Cullen's 
 brief but correct definition of this horrible disease. The best 
 account of the plague, and of its ravages, is to be found in 
 Heberden's work on the Rise and Decline of Disease. See 
 also the article Cholera in this work. 
 
 PLAID. A striped or variegated cloth much worn by the 
 Highlanders of Scotland, forming a prominent part of the 
 national costume, and indicating, by the variety of its pat- 
 terns, the different Scottish clans. 
 
 PLAIN CHANT. In Music, a term in ancient ecclesias- 
 tical music to signify the chief melody, which was confined 
 within the natural sounds of the scale. 
 
 PLAINS. In Geography, the general term for all those 
 parts of the dry land which cannot properly be called moun- 
 tainous, and which compose by far the greater part of the 
 earth's surface. Plains have different physical appearances 
 according to their geographical position, and the peculiar 
 characteristics of each have procured for them different 
 names ; thus we have the steppes of Asia, the deserts of 
 Africa, the pampas of South America, and the prairies or 
 savannahs of North America. See these different terms. 
 
 PLAN. (Lat. planus.) A drawing of something on a 
 plane. 
 
 Plan. In Architecture, an horizontal section of the walls, 
 partitions, staircases, &c, of a building, showing the dis- 
 tribution of the ground plot. 
 
 79 
 
 PLANET. 
 
 PLANA'RIA. (Lat. planus, flat.) Thenameofaeenus 
 of Sterelmintha, or Parenchymatous Intestinalia of Cuvier, 
 which do not inhabit the interior of animal bodies, but close- 
 ly resemble, in their organization, the parasitic species of 
 Trematode Entozoa. They lead from this order to the 
 Suctorious Anellides or leeches. 
 
 PLANE, in Geometry, is a surface without curvature ; or 
 it is a surface such that if any two points whatever in it be 
 joined by a straight line, the whole of the straight line, will 
 be in the surface. 
 
 PLANE PROBLEM, in Geometry, is a problem which 
 can be solved by the intersections of straight lines and cir- 
 cles, without the aid of the conic sections or any of the 
 higher curves. Such problems as require the construction 
 of the conic sections were called, by the ancient geometers, 
 solid problems. 
 
 PLANE SAILING, in Navigation, is the art of determin- 
 ing the ship's place, on the supposition that she is moving 
 on a plane, or that the surface of the ocean is plane instead 
 of being spherical. On account of the magnitude of the ter- 
 restrial radius, this supposition may be adopted for short dis- 
 tances without leading to great errors ; and it affords great 
 facilities in calculation, for the place of the ship is found by 
 the solution of a right-angled plane triangle. The part of 
 the meridian between the ship and the parallel of latitude 
 of the place whence she departed forms the perpendicular 
 of the triangle ; the distance on the parallel between the 
 place of departure and the foot of the perpendicular is the 
 base of the triangle (technically called the departure) ; and 
 the distance sailed is the hypothenuse. The angle at the 
 ship is called the course, and the other acute angle the 
 complement of the course. Now, of these four things, the 
 perpendicular, the departure, the distance sailed, and the 
 course, any two being given, the triangle can be laid down 
 on the chart, and all the other parts of it found. See Navi- 
 gation. 
 
 PLA'NET. (Gr. a$np tt'XavriT-nq, wandering star.) The 
 name given by the ancient Greeks to a few bright and con- 
 spicuous stars which are constantly changing their apparent 
 situations in the celestial sphere, and thus appear to wander 
 among the constellations. The modern discovery of satel- 
 lites and periodic comets has rendered it necessary to adopt 
 a more precise definition, in order to individualize the class 
 of objects to which the term is applied ; and accordingly 
 modern astronomers understand by the term planet, a body 
 which, in a telescope of sufficient power, exhibits a round 
 and well-defined disk, and which revolves about the sun in 
 an elliptic orbit, not differing very greatly from a circle. 
 
 The number of planets, including the earth, at present 
 known to belong to the solar system, is eleven. Five of 
 them — namely, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn 
 — have been known from the earliest ages of astronomy ; 
 Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel in 1781 ; 
 Ceres by Piazzi, at Palermo, on the first day of the present 
 century ; and the discovery was soon followed by that of 
 Juno, Pallas, and Vesta. The last four are never visible to 
 the naked eye ; under favourable circumstances Uranus 
 may be discerned without a telescope ; and Mercury, 
 though it appears as a large star, is seldom to be seen (in 
 our climates at least), in consequence of its proximity to the 
 sun. 
 
 Of the apparent Motions of the Planets. — On watching 
 the motions of any of the conspicuous planets for a few 
 days or weeks, their change of position among the fixed stars 
 becomes sufficiently apparent, even without the aid of an 
 instrument to measure their relative distances. Their paths 
 deviate little from that followed by the sun in his apparent 
 annual revolution through the heavens ; but their motions 
 are exceedingly irregular. Sometimes they advance rapid- 
 ly, then relax in their speed, come to a stop, and then move 
 for a while in an opposite direction. Through the most con- 
 siderable part of their orbits they move like the sun from 
 west to east, in opposition to the apparent diurnal motion ; 
 their course is then said to be direct. When it lies in the 
 opposite direction, their motion is retrograde ; and between 
 each change from the one direction to the other, they re- 
 main for a few days stationary. On the whole, however, 
 the direct motion prevails, and the planets make the entire 
 circuit of the heavens. These phenomena, which are call- 
 ed the stations and retrogradations of the planets, may be 
 exhibited in the following manner : Let E C represent the 
 ecliptic developed on a 
 plane surface : the path 
 of a planet, found by lay- 
 ing down its observed po- 
 sitions with reference to 
 the ecliptic from day to 
 day, will present the appearance of the ziszag line P Q. R S. 
 From P to Q. the motion is direct, but becomes slower as 
 the planet approaches to Q.. At Q. it is stationary ; from 
 <i to R retrograde ; at R again stationary ; from R to S di- 
 rect, and so on. Such is the general character of the ap- 
 3M* 937
 
 PLANET. 
 
 parent motion ; but the arcs and times of retrogradation 
 differ great); in respect of the different planets. 
 
 Mercury and Venus exhibit phenomena peculiar to them- 
 selves, inasmuch as they never appear in the opposite 
 quarter af the heavens to the sun, but oscillate about the 
 sun from side to m<I<- ; the oscillations of tbe former being 
 much quicker, ami performed in a much smaller arc than 
 those of* fie latter. The distance of Venus from the sun 
 never exceeds an arc of about 47°; and at its greatest dis- 
 tance the planet does not continue above the horizon more 
 than about 'i hours alter sunset. Its brilliancy, however, 
 is such, that it may frequently be seen in the morning sev- 
 eral hours after tbe sun has risen. Mercury never recedes 
 farther from the sun than 28° 20', and does not appear 
 above tbe horizon more than 1 h. 40 m. after sunset, or be- 
 fore sunrise. For these reasons, Mercury and Venus were 
 regarded by some of the ancient astronomers as satellites 
 of the sun, and supposed to describe orbits round that lumi- 
 nary. The other planets, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, be- 
 ing frequently seen in opposition to the sun, and at all dif- 
 ferent distances from it, were supposed to have independent 
 motions. 
 
 In order to explain and represent the apparent motions of 
 the planets, the ancient astronomers had imagined various 
 hypotheses, of which the most celebrated is that of epicycles 
 and deferents, invented by the geometer Apollonius ; and 
 adopted by Ptolemy, after whom it was called the Ptolemaic 
 system of the universe, and implicitly believed in during 
 many centuries. According to this hypothesis, each planet 
 moves uniformly in a small circle, called the epicycle, the 
 centre of which is earned along, with a uniform motion, in 
 the circumference of another large circle, called the deferent, 
 which has the earth at its centre. {See Epicycle.) By 
 supposing the velocity of the planet in its epicycle to be 
 greater than that with which the centre of the epicycle is 
 carried along the deferent, and by assigning proper relations 
 between the lengths of the radii of the epicycles and defer- 
 ent circles (their absolute lengths are immaterial), the ap- 
 parent geocentric motions may be represented with all the 
 exactness of which the ancient observations admitted. 
 Ptolemy placed the earth at the centre of the universe, and 
 nearest to it the moon. Next to the moon was Mercury, 
 then Venus, then the sun ; after which followed in order 
 Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; the distances of the three last 
 being arranged according to their respective periods of revo- 
 lution ; it being natural to suppose that those which required 
 the longest time to complete their periods must revolve in 
 the widest circles. At the present day, and familiar as we 
 now are with the true nature of the celestial motions, this 
 complicated system appears abundantly absurd ; but it 
 should be recollected that Ptolemy possessed no means of 
 forming any accurate notions of the distances of the planets: 
 he was unacquainted with the alternate increase and dim- 
 inution of their apparent diameters, with the phases of 
 Venus, and all the other information afforded by the tele- 
 scope ; in short, he knew of no phenomenon which could 
 not be reconciled to his theory ; and he does not appear to 
 have ever regarded his system of epicycles and deferents 
 in any other light than a mere hypothesis, by means of 
 which the celestial motions could be reduced to calculation. 
 All the apparent irregularities of the planetary move- 
 ments are got rid of at once by referring them to the sun 
 as a centre, instead of the earth. This great step in theo- 
 retical astronomy was made by Copernicus, who fust dem- 
 onstrated that all the phenomena were explicable in the sim- 
 plest manner by supposing the sun to be placed at the com- 
 mon centre of the planetary motions, and ascribing to the 
 earth a double motion : namely, a diurnal rotation about its 
 axis, and an annual revolution about the sun. On this hy- 
 pothesis, the truth Of Which has been established by a mul- 
 titude of different considerations, the stations and retrogra- 
 dations of the planets, anil all the geocentric appearances 
 which so much perplexed the ancient astronomers, become 
 simple consequences of relative motion. In order to illus 
 trate this, let us consider the appearances which must re- 
 sult from tin- combined motions of the earth and an inferior 
 planet; that is, a planet nearer to the sun than the 'earth 
 is. Let S be the sun, A II C D the 
 orbit of the earth, and abed that of 
 MerCUiy, both moving in the same 
 direction, or in the order of the let- 
 Ab ters. Suppose A to lie (he position 
 of the earth, and a that of Mercury 
 
 at its greatest eastern elongation ; the 
 lim \ „ u ill be a tangent to the orbit 
 at a. As the earth advances from A 
 towards It. and the planet from a to- 
 ward h, the angle of elongation 8 A n will continue to di- 
 minl li till the e tlth arrives at B certain point I!, when the 
 planet is at // In the same straight line with the earth and 
 
 the sun, the angles A S B and a S b described by the earth 
 and the planet being proportional to the respective mean 
 DM 
 
 angular motions. In this situation the planet is said to be 
 at iis inferior conjunction. When the earth has passed li- 
 the planet, advancing with a more rapid angular motion, 
 will begin to appear on the western side of the sun, and the 
 angle of elongation continue to increase, till the planet ar- 
 rives at c, and the earth at O, where the visual line is again 
 a tangent to the orbit. The angle of elongation has now 
 attained a second time its maximum value, and from this 
 point will continue to decrease, till it vanishes altogether 
 when the earth arrives at D and the planet tit </, the three 
 points D S and d being in the same straight line. The 
 plenet is now at its superior conjunction, and beyond the 
 sun. Soon after this the planet reappears on the eastern 
 side of the sun; and the angle of elongation continues to 
 increase till the planet comes round to e, and the earth ar- 
 rives at E, where the line E e is again a tangent to the or- 
 bit. The earth, the planet, and the sun have now precise- 
 ly the same relative situations in respect to each other as 
 they had when the earth was at A and the planet at a, so 
 that the series of changes will here recommence and pro- 
 ceed in the same order as before. The intervals after which 
 these phenomena occur may be easily computed from a 
 knowledge of the periods of revolution of the earth and 
 planet, and of the proportion of the radii of their respective 
 orbits, which is, moreover, known immediately from the 
 observed angle of greatest elongation, S A a; for, since S 
 a A is a right angle, we have S A to S a as radius to the 
 cosine of S A a : that is, the radius of the planet's orbit is 
 equal to the radius of earth's orbit multiplied by the cosine 
 angle of greatest elongation. 
 
 From the preceding figure, it is easy to see how the phe- 
 nomena of the stations and retrogradations must arise. At 
 the point b, where the planet is at its inferior conjunction, 
 the earth and planet are both moving in the same direction ; 
 but, as the planet is moving faster, it will leave the earth 
 behind it ; and the apparent motion, as seen from the earth, 
 will be the same as if the planet stood still, and the earth 
 moved in a contrary direction, with a velocity equal to the 
 difference of their relative motions. The apparent motion 
 of the planet is, therefore, contrary to the apparent motion 
 of the sun, and consequently retrograde. At the superior 
 conjunction d, the planet and earth are moving in opposite 
 directions in respect of the line D d ; the relative motion is 
 therefore the same as if the planet stood still, and the earth 
 was moving in its proper direction with a velocity equal to 
 their united motions: the apparent motion of the planet in 
 this situation is therefore direct. At the points of greatest 
 elongation, a and c, the planet is moving in the direction of 
 the line of vision, A a or C c, and the earth perpendicular 
 (nearly) to that line; the apparent motion of the planet at 
 those points is therefore direct. But since it is direct at a 
 and c, and retrograde at b, there must be a point between a 
 and b, and another between b and c, where the apparent 
 motion is neither direct nor retrograde, that is, where the 
 planet appears stationary. The problem of determining the 
 stationary points is one of pure geometry, and very easily 
 resolved when the orbits are supposed to be circular, and 
 the motion uniform; hut, in the case of elliptic orbits and 
 unequable motion, it is considerably more complicated. 
 The stationary points of Mercury are variable from 15° to 
 20° of elongation from the sun ; those of Venus are about 
 29°. Mercury continues to retrograde about twenty-two 
 days, Venus about forty-two. 
 
 The apparent motions of the superior planets, or those 
 which are at a greater distance from the sun than the earth 
 is, are explained with equal facility. As their orbits em- 
 brace that of the earth, they are not confined to certain 
 limits of elongation from the sun, but appear at all distances 
 from it, even in the directly opposite quarter of the heavens. 
 When they are in conjunction, they air situated beyond the 
 sun, in the same straight line with the suti and earth; and 
 when the earth comes between them and the sun, they are 
 said to be iii opposition. All the superior planets, when in 
 opposition, and for some time before and alter, appear to 
 have a retrograde motion ; but the extent of the arc of retro- 
 gradation, tbe time during which the motion is retrograde, 
 ami Hie velocity, are \ erj different in respect of the different 
 planets. Mars continues to retrograde about 73 days, Jupiter 
 131, and Saturn [38. 
 
 Phases of the Planets. — It is a necessary consequence of 
 the Copemican theory, that the planets, supposing them to 
 
 be, like the earth, round opake bodies illuminated by the 
 
 sun, must evblliit phases like the moon, according to the 
 angles under which the illuminated half Of their surfaces 
 
 is seen from the earth. When viewed though the telescope, 
 this is found to be the case with Mercury and Venus, and 
 to a certain extent ai-o with Mars ; and the appearance of 
 the phase is. in every case, exactly such as is determined a 
 
 priori, on the supposition that the planet is seen by the re- 
 flected light of the sun. Let S be the sun. K the earth, and V 
 
 Venus, in different positions of her orbit. When the planet 
 is at Its superior conjunction a, the whole of its illuminated
 
 PLANET, 
 
 . rafface is seen from the earth, and it consequently exhibits 
 a round disk. At the points of greatest elongation, b and *, 
 one half only of the illuminated hemisphere is visible, and 
 it therefore appears half-mooned at these points. At c, the 
 inferior conjunction, the 
 dark side is turned direct- 
 ly to the earth, and it is con- 
 sequently invisible. Be- 
 tween a and b, the planet 
 will therefore appear gib- 
 bous (e. e., more than the 
 half full); and between * 
 and c it will appear in the 
 form of a crescent, like the moon in its first or last quarter. 
 The phases of Mercury are precisely similar. With respect 
 to the superior planets, the absence of phases is a necessary 
 consequence of their great distances, from the sun in com- 
 parison of the earth's distance. Let S be the sun, E the 
 earth, and M Mars. It is evident that, as 
 the earth goes round its orbit, the smallest 
 portion of the enlightened hemisphere, m z n, 
 will be visible when the earth is at E, or in 
 such a position that the angle S E M is a 
 right angle. Suppose a line, therefore, to be 
 drawn from the centre of the planet perpen- 
 dicular to E M, and intersecting the surface 
 in x, the visible surface will be contained be- 
 tween x and n, so that the disk will appear 
 to be gibbous, but can never appear as a 
 crescent. These phenomena prove in the 
 most convincing manner that the planets are 
 opake spherical bodies, deriving their light 
 from the sun. 
 
 Distances and Periodic Twines of the Planets. — Practical 
 astronomy furnishes various methods of determining the 
 distances of the planets from the sun in terms of the earth's 
 distance, and the times in which they complete their revo- 
 lutions. It has already been stated, that the distances of 
 Mercury and Venus may be compared with that of the earth 
 by observing the angle of greatest elongation. In the case 
 of a superior planet, an approximation to the relative length 
 of the radius vector (the line which joins the planet with 
 the sun) may be obtained by observing the angular velocity 
 of its apparent retrogradation about the tune when it is in 
 opposition. Thus, conceive E e to be a small portion of the 
 earth's orbit described in a given 
 interval of time, a day, for example, 
 and M m to be the corresponding 
 
 17JJ portion of the orbit of Mars described 
 
 ~pT~ J in the same interval, the planet 
 being near the opposition. Join c 
 m, and draw e n parallel to S M. As seen from e, Mars 
 will appear to have retrograded from n to m; therefore the 
 angle semis given by observation, and consequently its 
 complement m e E becomes known (for the arc E e, being 
 very small, may be regarded as a straight line). Now, in 
 the triangle e S E, right-angled at E, the angle at S is given, 
 being the angle described by the radius vector of the earth 
 in the given interval ; consequently the angle S eE becomes 
 known, and hence also S e m. Supposing, therefore, the 
 periodic time of Mars to be known, the arc M m, or the 
 angle M S m, will be given ; and therefore ra S e, which is 
 its difference from E S e, becomes known. In the triangle 
 Sera, we have therefore given the two angles S e m, and 
 e S nt, and consequently also the third angle e m S, whence 
 the triangle is given in species, and the ratio of S e to S ra is 
 determined. But S m is the distance of Mars from the sun, 
 which, therefore, is determined in terms of the radius vec- 
 tor of the earth. 
 
 The method of finding the planet's distance, which has 
 just been described, requires that the periodic time be pre- 
 viously known. There are various methods of determining 
 the periodic time, independently of a knowledge of the dis- 
 tance of the planet from the earth. One is to observe the 
 times at which the planet is in either of its nodes, i. e., when 
 it passes through the plane of the ecliptic. As the orbits 
 are all inclined to the ecliptic, and have the sun nearly at 
 their centres, they are intersected by the plane of the eclip- 
 tic in two opposite points, which are called the nodes. Now 
 it is easy to ascertain by observation when a planet is in its 
 node ; for, as it then passes from the one side of the ecliptic 
 to the other, from the north to the south side, for example, 
 we have only to convert the observed right ascensions and 
 declinations into longitudes and latitudes, and the change 
 from north to south latitude between two successive obser- 
 vations will indicate that the planet has passed its node in 
 the interval ; while a simple proportion, grounded on the 
 quantity of its motion in latitude, will fix the precise hour 
 and minute at which it was in the ecliptic. The interval 
 between two successive passages of the planet through the 
 same node differs from the sidereal period, or the interval 
 which the planet occupies in returning to the same point of 
 
 the heavens, or the same star, as seen from the centre of 
 the sun, by a very small quantity, depending on a minute 
 motion of the node, and which in a general view of the 
 subject may be disregarded. 
 
 Another and more convenient method of finding the 
 period of a superior planet consists in determining, from the 
 observations of a few consecutive days, the exact time at 
 which it is in opposition to the sun. At this instant the 
 longitude of the planet is 180°, and on the day of the oppo- 
 sition it passes the meridian twelve hours after the sun. 
 The interval between two successive returns to the opposi- 
 tion is the synodic period of the planet ; this differs very 
 considerably from the sidereal period, but the latter is easily 
 deduced from it. Let E and J be the positions of the earth 
 and Jupiter, when Jupiter is in opposi- 
 tion. The next opposition will take 
 place after the earth has made a com- 
 plete revolution, together with a certain 
 arc \i e, which we shall call x, corre- 
 sponding to Jupiter's angular motion in 
 the interval. Now the number of days 
 between the two oppositions, or the sy- 
 nodic period, is known : call this 305 + 
 t ; then the time in which the arc E e 
 or x has been described becomes t days. 
 We have therefore 365 : t : : 360° : x ; whence z, or the 
 angle J Sj, is known. But, ii' p denote the sidereal period, 
 
 we shall have x : 360° ::t:p, and therefore v — — — . On 
 
 x 
 account of the orbits not being exactly circular, these inter- 
 vals are not quite equal ; but by taking the average of a 
 considerable number of observed oppositions, the inequalities 
 disappear, and the mean synodic periods (and consequently 
 the sidereal periods) are obtained with the utmost accuracy. 
 The following table exhibits the mean sidereal periods of 
 the planets, and their mean distances from the sun, in 
 terms of the mean distance of the earth from the sun being 
 supposed equal to unity. {Baily's Astronomical Tables.) 
 
 Planet. 
 
 Mean Sidereal Pe- 
 riod. 
 
 Mean Distance from 
 
 the Sun. 
 
 Mercury 
 
 Days. 
 
 S7-96i<258 
 
 0-387098 
 
 Venus .... 
 
 224 7007S7 
 
 0-723332 
 
 The Earth . 
 
 365-2'6361 
 
 l-ooooto 
 
 Mars .... 
 
 6!-6 979646 
 
 1 523692 
 
 Vesta .... 
 
 1325 743100 
 
 2 3t>7S:0 
 
 Juno .... 
 
 1592-660800 
 
 2-669009 
 
 Ceres .... 
 
 1681393100 
 
 2 767245 
 
 Pallas .... 
 
 1686 538800 
 
 2-772tSi6 
 
 Jupiter .... 
 
 4332-5I-4--'! 
 
 5 202776 
 
 Saturn .... 
 
 10759 219-17 
 
 9-533786 
 
 Uranus .... 
 
 306S6-820830 
 
 191S2390 
 
 Relations between the Periods and Distances. — On com- 
 paring the columns of the above table, the idea of a certain 
 relation between the periods and distances cannot fail to 
 suggest itself, as they both increase in a tolerably regular 
 progression (the four small planets between Mars and 
 Jupiter being accounted as one), though the periods in- 
 crease in a much more rapid proportion than the distances. 
 Jupiter, for example, is five times more distant from the 
 sun than the earth is, but his period is nearly twelve times 
 that of the earth. Kepler, the great founder of physical 
 astronomy, undertook to investigate the analogy ; and, 
 after a most laborious comparison of the numbers (and 
 their various powers) representing the periodic times and 
 the mean distances of the six planets known in his age, 
 discovered this most remarkable law: "That the squares 
 of the periodic times of any two planets are to each other 
 in the same proportion as the cubes of their mean distances 
 from the sun." (See Kepler's Laws.) Taking, for ex- 
 ample, the earth and Mars, whose periods are respectively 
 305-256 and 686-979 days, and distances in the proportion 
 of 1 and 1-5237, it will be found that (365-256)2 : (686-9792 : : 
 1 : (1-5237) 3 , very nearly. Nor is this merely an empirical 
 relation, tleduced from observed facts, but not referable to 
 any known cause ; on the contrary, it is a necessary result 
 of the law of gravitation, and pregnant with important con- 
 sequences. From its being observed in the planetary sys- 
 tem, it follows that all the planets are bodies of the same 
 kind as the earth, and that they are all ncted upon in the 
 same manner by the solar attraction (modified only by the 
 distance), which alone determines their periods, and retains 
 them in their orbits. 
 
 A curious relation of the numbers which express the 
 relative distances of the planets from the sun was dis- 
 covered by M. Bode, an astronomer of Berlin. Let the 
 number 10 be assumed to represent Ihe distance of the earth 
 from the sun ; then the distances of the other planets may 
 be expressed in round numbers as follows : 
 Mercury . . . . 4=4 
 
 Venus 7=4 + 3-20 
 
 The Earth .... 10=4 + 3-21 
 
 939
 
 PLANET. 
 
 Mars 16 = 4 + 3-22 
 
 The four New Planets . . 28 = 4 + 323 
 
 Jupiter 52=4 + 3-1 
 
 Saturn 100=4 + 325 
 
 Urunus 196 = 4 + 326 
 
 It had been conjectured by Kepler that an unknown planet 
 must exist circulating between the orbits of Mars and Jupi- 
 ter, a conjecture which was strangely verified by the dis- 
 covery of four planets circulating in that region, nearly in 
 equal periods, and at equal distances from the sun, and 
 exactly in the place where a planet was wanting to fill up 
 the above progression. The progression is, however, purely 
 empirical, and not even very accurate ; yet it agrees so 
 well, on the whole, with the actual distances of the planets, 
 that one can scarcely help thinking it must be connected 
 in some manner with the essential constitution of the 
 planetary system. 
 
 Real Dimensions of the Planetary Orbits. — Hitherto we 
 have spoken of the distances of the planets from the sun 
 only in relation to the sun's distance from the earth ; but 
 it is interesting to determine what these distances actually 
 are in terms of some measure with which we are familiarly 
 acquainted. In consequence of Kepler's law of the rela- 
 tion between the periods and distances, if the real dimen- 
 sions of any one orbit have been ascertained, those of all 
 the other orbits will be found immediately when the 
 periodic times of the planets are respectively known. In 
 fact, the dimensions of the orbits having been already stated 
 in terms of that of the earth, it is only necessary to find the 
 earth's distance from the sun, in order to find the respective 
 distances of all of them. Now, to find the earth's distance 
 from the sun is the same thing as to find the sun's hori- 
 zontal parallax, that is, the angle which the radius of the 
 earth would subtend if seen from the sun ; for the determi- 
 nation of that angle gives the relation between the earth's 
 distance and its semidiameter, which is known from the 
 actual measurement of degrees of the terrestrial meridian. 
 Of the various methods which astronomers possess of de- 
 termining the sun's horizontal parallax, the most accurate 
 is that which depends on observations of the transits of 
 Venus over the sun's disk ; a phenomenon, however, of 
 very rare occurrence, so that the method can very seldom 
 be practised. 
 
 When Venus is at her inferior conjunction, and at the 
 same time very near one of her nodes, the planet will be 
 projected on the disk of the sun ; and through the effect of 
 her proper motion, combined with that of the earth, will 
 be seen as a black spot to pass over, or transit, the solar 
 disk, describing a chord which will be referred to different 
 positions on the disk by observers stationed at different 
 points on the earth's surface. Let E be the earth, V Venus, 
 
 S the sun, and C 
 D a portion of 
 Venus's orbit, de- 
 scribed while she 
 is transiting the 
 sun's disk. Sup- 
 pose A and B to 
 be the two opposite extremities of the earth's diameter 
 which is perpendicular to the ecliptic : a spectator at A 
 would sec the centre of Venus projected on the sun's disk 
 at a, and describing in her successive positions the chord a' 
 a a" ; while a spectator placed at B would, at the same 
 instant, see her projected on the disk at ft, and describing 
 the chord V ft b" . Now it is evident that if there be any 
 means of measuring the distance between the two chords 
 a' a" and b' 4", or the line a ft, that distance will give the 
 Bun's horizontal parallax; for the two triangles A V B and 
 a V b being similar, a b is to A B as a V to A V, or as the 
 distance of Venus from the sun is to the distance of Venus 
 from the earth. But the relative distances of the earth 
 and Venus from the sun are known ; therefore the ratio of 
 a V to A V is known, and consequently that of a b to A B. 
 This ratio is that of (iri to 27, or 2J to 1 (very nearly) ; 
 therefore the distance a b as seen from the earth Ifi 2.t 
 times greater than A B as seen from the sun, or, which is 
 the same thing, equal to 5 times the sou's horizontal paral- 
 lax. The whole difficulty of the problem, therefore, con- 
 sists in determining the distance of the two chords a' a" 
 and V b", or their relative positions on the sun's disk, from 
 which their distance can be deduced. One of the beat u ays 
 of accomplishing this is to note, with great accuracy, the 
 instants at which Venus enters and emerges from the solar 
 disk, so as to obtain the exact time occupied in the transit ; 
 for, the relative motion of Venus being accurately known, 
 the time occupied In the transit gives the length of the chord 
 described ; and the sun's apparent diameter being also 
 known, the arcs cat off by a' a" and ft' b" are thus found, 
 and the difference between the versed sines of those arcs is 
 evidently the distance between the chords, or the line a ft. 
 The problem, however, is rendered much more complicated 
 by the earth's rotation, and other circumstances here neg- 
 940 
 
 lected, of which It is unnecessary to take account in 3 
 general explanation. 
 
 The last transit of Venus took place in 1769, and was the 
 occasion of the first of the celebrated voyages of Captain 
 Cook to Otaheite. It was observed at Otaheitc. at Wardhus 
 in Norway, at Cajaneburg, and Kola in Lapland ; at Peters- 
 burg, Paris, California, Hudson's Bay, &c. The general 
 result of nil the observations gave the sun's horizontal 
 parallax equal to 8-5776". Hence the sun's distance is given 
 in terms of the earth's radius by the proportion 
 
 sin. 8-5776" : radius : : radius of earth i sun's distance ; 
 
 whence, on reducing the radius of a circle to seconds, we 
 
 , .,, 360 X 60 X 60 
 
 have the sun 's distance = — — — = 24047 
 
 8-5776 X 2 X 314159 
 terrestrial radii. Assuming the earth's semidiameter (see 
 Earth) to be 4000 miles in round numbers, the sun's dis- 
 tance from the earth will therefore be 24047 x 4000 = 
 96,188,000, or about 90 millions of English miles. 
 
 This application of the transits of the inferior planets to 
 the important purpose of determining the sun's distance from 
 the earth was first pointed out by James Gregory, in his 
 Optica Promota, published in 1663. Those of Venus recur 
 after intervals of 113 years; but as Venus returns to her 
 conjunction at nearly the same point of her orbit in about 
 eight years, and the difference of her latitude at two succes- 
 sive conjunctions amounts only to 20' or 24', which is less 
 than the Bun's diameter, it will generally happen that two 
 transits take place within eight years ; the first before the 
 planet has passed the node, and the second after the passage 
 of the node. But three transits cannot take place within 16 
 years ; hence, after two transits have occurred within 8 
 years, another cannot be expected before 105, that is, 113 — 
 8 years, and may not happen until after 121 years. The 
 two last transits took place in 1761 and 1769; the two next 
 will take place in 1874 and 1882; after which there will 
 not be another till 2004. By reason of the small distance 
 of Mercury from the sun, the difference between his hori- 
 zontal parallax and that of the sun cannot be so accurately 
 ascertained : and hence the transits of that planet, though 
 of more frequent occurrence than those of Venus, cannot 
 be employed with such certainty in determining the sun's 
 parallax. 
 
 Having found the mean distance of the earth from the 
 sun in terms of a known unit, the mean distances of all 
 the other planets from the sun, the ratios of which to that 
 of the earth were given above, may be expressed in the 
 same terms. They are, in round numbers, as follows : 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Mercury .... 37,000,000 
 
 Venus 68,000,000 
 
 The Earth .... 90,000,000 
 
 Mara 142,000,000 
 
 Ceres 262,000,000 
 
 Jupiter 485,000,000 
 
 Saturn . . . ■ . . 890,000,000 
 
 Uranus 1,800,000,000 
 
 Inclination and Nodes of the Planetary Orbits. — The 
 planes of the planetary orbits are inclined to each other 
 under different angles, and. in determining the circumstances 
 of a planet's motion, one of the first steps to be taken is to 
 fix the situation in space of the plane in which it moves. 
 For this purpose it is necessary to refer it to some other 
 plane whose situation is assumed to be known. The plane 
 of the ecliptic is that to which we naturally refer the bodies 
 of the solar system, and the line of the equinoxes is taken 
 as the origin (if angular reckoning in that plane. Hence, to 
 determine the position in space of the plane of a planet's 
 orbit, we must determine its inclination to the ecliptic, and 
 the position of the line in which it Intersects the ecliptic 
 with respect to the line of the equinoxes. Let S be the sun, 
 P N II the orbit of a planet, and p N Q, 
 the projection of that orbit on the plane 
 of the ecliptic, intersecting the line of 
 the equinoxes S U in (1 ; then tl is the 
 point from which the longitudes are 
 reckoned, N is the node, S N the line of 
 the nodes, or line in which the plane of jyC 
 the orbit intersects the ecliptic, the angle 
 Q, S N the longitude of the node as seen 
 from the sun, and P N p the inclination of the orbit. If R 
 be supposed to he on the south side of the ecliptic, and P 
 on the north side, and the planet's motion to be in the di- 
 rection K P, then N is the ascending- node. The place of 
 the node is determined by observing the planet when its 
 latitude Is very nearly equal to nothing: and the equinoctial 
 point U being known, the geocentric, longitude of the node 
 (the angle formed by drawing Straight lines from U and N 
 to the earth) is determined by observation ; whence there 
 are Sufficient data for computing, by a trigonometrical pro- 
 cess, the heliocentric longitude U S N, and also the incline 
 tion PNj. The places of the nodes are not absolutely
 
 PLANET. 
 
 fixed. In consequence of the mutual attractions of the 
 planets to each other, they have a slow retrograde motion 
 in respect of the fixed stars. The inclinations are also 
 subject to a slight variation, but so small as to amount at 
 most to a few seconds in a century. Hence, in mentioning 
 the longitudes of the nodes, and the inclinations of the orbits, 
 it is necessary to state the epoch to which the values refer. 
 In the following table the values correspond to the 1st Jan- 
 uary, 1801 ; excepting those for Vesta, Juno, Ceres, and 
 Pallas, which are referred to January 1, 1820 : 
 
 Planet. 
 
 Inclination. 
 
 Longitude of 
 ascending node. 
 
 
 ' " 
 
 O ' " 
 
 Mercury 
 
 7 91 
 
 45 57 30-9 
 
 
 3 23 28-5 
 
 74 54 12-9 
 
 
 I 51 6-2 
 
 48 3-5 
 
 Vesta 
 
 7 8 9-0 
 
 103 13 18-2 
 
 
 13 4 9-7 
 
 17! 7 40-4 
 
 
 10 37 26-2 
 
 80 41 24 
 
 Pi) las 
 
 34 34 55-0 
 
 172 39 26-8 
 
 Jupiter . . . 
 
 1 18 51-3 
 
 98 28 18-9 
 
 
 2 29 35-7 
 
 111 56 37-4 
 
 Uranus 
 
 46 28-4 
 
 72 59 35-3 
 
 The ancients gave the name of zodiac to that zone of the 
 heavens within which the planets were observed to move, 
 and which, consequently, had a breadth of 14°, or twice the 
 inclination of the orbit of Mercury. Tile inclinations of the 
 four recently discovered planets being greater than that of 
 Mercury, they go beyond the zodiac, and hence have been 
 named the eztra-zodiacal planets. 
 
 Figures of the Planetary Orbits. — When the inclination 
 of a planet's orbit and the situation of the line of the nodes 
 have been determined, the radius vector of the planet, at 
 any instant, may be computed in terms of the sun's distance 
 from the earth, from the planet's latitude and longitude 
 found by a single observation. By computing, therefore, the 
 values of its radius vector at a great many different points 
 of the orbit, and laying down each on paper at the proper 
 angle of elongation round the sun, the form of the orbit 
 which the planet describes will be ascertained. A few ob- 
 servations of this sort will show that the radius vector va- 
 ries in length, and, consequently, that the orbit is eccentric. 
 This fact was known from the time of Hipparchus ; but the 
 true form of the planetary orbits was not discovered till 
 Kepler found, by a laborious computation of the distances 
 of Mars at its oppositions, from the observations of Tyclio 
 Brahe, that the orbit of that planet is an ellipse. He subse- 
 quently found the same thing to be true of the orbit of the 
 earth, and of the other planets then known ; and hence es- 
 tablished the first of those important laws respecting the 
 planetary motions which still go by his name, viz. that the 
 orbits of all the planets are ellipses, of which the sun occu- 
 pies one of the foci. See Kepler's Laws. 
 
 The same observations which show the orbit to be an el- 
 lipse will also serve for the determination of its eccentrici- 
 ty, which is half the difference between its greatest and 
 least distances. The only element which then requires to 
 be known, in order to fix the path described by the planet 
 in space, is the position of the orbit on its plane, or the 
 situation of its transverse axis with respect to the line of the 
 f, equinoxes. Let A B P be the projec- 
 
 tion of an orbit on the plane of the 
 ecliptic, A B its transverse axis, and 
 S Q. the line of the equinoxes, S being 
 the focus occupied by the sun. The 
 point A is the perihelion of the orbit, 
 
 7 Q and B the aphelion ; the line A B is the 
 
 X. S line of the apsides ; and the position of 
 
 A B with respect to S Q, will be known 
 hy means of one of the angles Q. S A or Q S B, which are 
 respectively the longitudes of these points. In modem ta- 
 bles, the angle Q. S A, or longitude, of the perihelion, is that 
 whose value is given. The following table shows the ec- 
 centricities and longitudes of the perihelia of the different 
 planets ; the epoch, as before, being January 1, 1801, for the 
 old planets, and 1820 for the four new ones : 
 
 Planet. 
 
 Eccentricity. 
 
 Longitude of Peri* 
 helion. 
 
 Mercury . 
 
 0-20i515 
 
 O ' " 
 
 74 21 47 
 
 Venus 
 
 0-006S61 
 
 123 43 53 
 
 The Earth 
 
 0-016784 
 
 99 30 5 
 
 Mars . . 
 
 0-093307 
 
 332 23 67 
 
 Vesta t ' . 
 
 0-089130 
 
 249 33 24 
 
 Juno . * . 
 
 0-257848 
 
 53 33 46 
 
 Cerrs 
 
 0-078439 
 
 147 7 31 
 
 Pallas 
 
 0-24 I64S 
 
 121 7 4 
 
 Jupiter 
 
 0048162 
 
 11 8 35 
 
 Saturn , . . 
 
 0-0i61-1t 
 
 89 9 30 
 
 Uranus 
 
 0046679 
 
 167 31 16 
 
 a state of continual but slow revolution, so that the peri- 
 helia are gradually shifting their places on the planes of the 
 orbits. In the case of all the planets excepting Venus the 
 motion of the line of the apsides is direct ; that is to say, 
 it is in the same direction as the motion of the planet in its 
 orbit The perihelion of Venus, referred to the fixed 6tars, 
 moves in a contrary direction. 
 
 Motion of the Planets in their Orbits. — When the six 
 elements of which numerical values have now been given, 
 viz. the mean distance and periodic time, the inclination 
 of the orbit and longitude of the node, the eccentricity and 
 longitude of the perihelion, have been determined for each 
 planet, it will be possible to compute the position of a planet 
 in its orbit, provided we know the law according to which 
 the planet moves at every point of the orbit, and also the 
 instant of time at which it occupied any given point. The 
 motion in the orbit is given by the second of Kepler's laws ; 
 viz. "The areas described by the radius vector are propor- 
 tional to the times employed in describing them." Thus, 
 if the planet has moved from A to P (see the preceding 
 figure), or the radius vector S P has described the area 
 A S P in the time t, and the area A Sp in the time t' ; then 
 f.t':: sector PSA: sector p S A. The problem which 
 proposes to find the point P, or the angle ASP (which is 
 called the true anomaly), from the condition that the area 
 ASP shall be to the whole ellipse as the given time in 
 which A P is described is to the time of a whole revolution, 
 is important in practical astronomy, and known by the name 
 of Kepler's problem. See Kepler's Problem. 
 
 Magnitude and Rotation of the Planets. — When the plan- 
 ets are examined through powerful telescopes, they are 
 seen to be round bodies, having measurable, and even con- 
 siderable, apparent diameters. The distance of a planet 
 being known, if the visual angle subtended by its diameter 
 be measured by the micrometer, the real magnitude of its 
 diameter will be discovered. In this manner it is found 
 that all the planets are incomparably smaller than the sun, 
 though some of them are vastly larger than the earth. The 
 diameter of Jupiter is eleven times greater than that of the 
 earth, whence his volume is about 1280 times greater than 
 the earth. That of Saturn is little less considerable. The 
 surfaces of the larger planets are also seen to be diversified 
 by dark patches or spots, from the attentive observation of 
 which it is found that they resemble the earth in having a 
 rotation about their own axes. Mercury, Venus, and Mars 
 revolve about their axes in nearly the same time as the 
 earth ; Jupiter and Saturn in less than half that time. The 
 four new planets, Vesta, Juno, Ceres, and Pallas, are so 
 small and indistinctly seen that their diameters cannot be 
 accurately measured, and their periods of rotation are un- 
 known. Pallas, considered to be the largest of them, was 
 supposed by Sir William Herschel to have a diameter of 
 only 80 English miles. In the following table the true di- 
 ameters and the volumes are given in terms of the diame- 
 ter and volume of the earth, supposed to be unit: 
 
 Planet. 
 
 Diameter. 
 
 Volume. 
 
 Sidereal Rota- 
 tion. 
 
 
 
 
 hrs. m. set. 
 
 Mercury 
 
 0-398 
 
 0-063 
 
 24 5 28 
 
 Venus 
 
 0-975 
 
 0927 
 
 23 21 7 
 
 The Earth 
 
 1000 
 
 1000 
 
 24 
 
 Mars . . . 
 
 0-517 
 
 0-139 
 
 24 39 21 
 
 Jupiter 
 
 10-860 
 
 1280-900 
 
 9 55 50 
 
 Sa'urn 
 
 9-982 
 
 995-000 
 
 10 29 17 
 
 Uranus 
 
 4-332 
 
 80-490 
 
 unknown. 
 
 The eccentricities of all the planets are subject to a very 
 small secular variation ; the line of the apsides is also in 
 
 77 
 
 (For other particulars respecting the appearances and phys- 
 ical condition of the several planets, their masses, densities, 
 &c, see the respective terms.) 
 
 The force which retains the planets in their orbits is the 
 attraction of the sun ; and, if they were acted upon by no 
 other force, the laws of Kepler would be accurately observ- 
 ed, and the elements of their orbits would remain invaria- 
 ble. But each planet exercises an attracting force on every 
 other, in consequence of which their motions, though prin- 
 cipally obedient to the predominating influence of the sun, 
 are affected by a number of forces of which the intensities 
 and directions are perpetually changing. Hence all the 
 elements of the orbits, their magnitudes and forms, their 
 inclinations to the ecliptic, and their positions on their 
 planes, are in a state of constant oscillation ; fluctuating, 
 however, between certain mean values from which they 
 never greatly depart. See Gravitation, Perturbatioh. 
 
 Hypothesis of Laplace, respecting the Formation of the 
 Planetary System.— The motion of the planets in elliptic 
 orbits, and the relation between their periods and distances, 
 are necessary consequences of the law of graritation which 
 prevails throughout the universe ; but the solar system 
 presents several remarkable phenomena of which gravita- 
 tion fails to give any account, which cannot be supposed to 
 be the effect of accident, and which lead almost irresistibly 
 to the conclusion that all the bodies which belong to it have 
 had a common origin, and been formed under the agency 
 
 941
 
 PLANE TABLE. 
 
 of the same mechanical laws. All the planets, as well as 
 satellites, move in the same direction, from west to east. 
 The orbits of all the large planets are situated very nearly 
 in the plane of the elliptic ; and, so far as has been discov- 
 ered, they all revolve about their axes in the same direc- 
 tion, also from west to east. To account for these phe- 
 nomena, Laplace has hazarded the speculation that all the 
 planets and satellites have had their origin in the solar at- 
 mosphere, which lie supposes to have extended beyond the 
 orbits of the most distant planets, and to have undergone a 
 progressive contraction by the radiation of heat into the 
 stellar spaces. Now, as the solar atmosphere partakes of 
 the sun's rotation about its axis, and in fact may be regard- 
 ed as part of his mass, in proportion as its limits are con- 
 tracted by cooling the rotatory motion most increase, ac- 
 cording to a well-known principle of mechanics ; and the 
 centrifugal force thus becoming greater, the point or limit 
 at which it is balanced by gravity approaches nearer the 
 centre. Supposing, therefore, the atmosphere to have ex- 
 tended this limit at any epoch, it must, in cooling, have 
 abandoned the molecules situated there and at the different 
 limits successively produced by the increased velocity of the 
 sun's rotation. This effect, however, would only take place 
 at the equator; for on the parallels of latitude the centrifu- 
 gal would not equal the attractive force. Thus, zones of 
 vapours would continue to be abandoned at the equator ; 
 and if the condensation of the molecules of these zones con- 
 tinued without any disunion taking place, the matter would, 
 in the long run, form a solid or liquid ring, circulating about 
 the sun in the plane of his equator. But the uniformity 
 which would be necessary for the production of this effect, 
 both in all the parts of the zone and in the cooling, must 
 render such a phenomenon extremely rare. In fact, the 
 ring of Saturn is the only instance of it in the planetary 
 system. In almost every case each zone of vapours must 
 have been broken up into numerous masses, which, mov- 
 ing with nearly the same velocities, would continue to cir- 
 culate about the sun, nearly at the same distances. These 
 separate masses would assume the spheroidal form, with a 
 motion of rotation in the same direction as their revolving 
 motion ; in short, they would become so many planets in 
 the state of vapour. But if any one of them was considera- 
 bly larger than the rest, it would finally, by its attraction, 
 'tnite all the others about its centre ; and thus the zone origi- 
 nally abandoned would be transformed into a single sphe- 
 roidal mass of vapours, circulating about the sun. This 
 latter case must have been the most common. An instance, 
 however, of permanent separation occurs in the four small 
 planets between Mars and Jupiter. 
 
 Conceiving the planet to have been detached from the 
 solar atmosphere in the manner now described, the fur- 
 ther cooling would occasion a nucleus to be formed at its 
 centre, which would progressively increase by the conden- 
 sation of the vapours surrounding it. The condition of the 
 planet would now perfectly resemble that of the sun, and 
 consequently similar results would follow from the con- 
 tinuance of the condensation. Hence the formation of the 
 satellites from the atmospheres of the planets, as the planets 
 are formed from that of the sun. 
 
 This hypothesis of Laplace does not explain the origin of 
 the comets, which may be regarded as small nebulosities 
 wandering from one solar system to another, and formed by 
 the condensation of nebulous matter, which appears to be 
 scattered through the universe in great profusion. What- 
 ever may be the fate of the hypothesis, it must be allowed 
 the merit of assigning a mechanical cause for some of the 
 most remarkable phenomena of the universe, without In- 
 voking the aid of any other force than that of gravity— a 
 property which belongs to matter in every form. See As- 
 tronomy, Satellite, Star, Sun. 
 
 PLANE TABLE. An instrument employed in land-sur- 
 veying, by means of which a plan is made on the spot, 
 without any protraction or measurement of angles. It con- 
 sists of a plane rectangular board, about sixteen inches 
 square, to the under side of which a centre is attached with 
 a ball and socket, or parallel plate screws, by which it can 
 be fixed upon a Stan-head or three legged stand, and set 
 horizontal by means of a circular spirit level. A boxwood 
 frame is accurately fitted round the edges of the board, for 
 the purpose of stretching and retaining the drawing paper. 
 It is usual to divide one face of the frame into HliO° from a 
 centre in the middle of the board; but this graduation is 
 scarcely of any use, and may be dispensed with. The re 
 verse i:n e of tin- frame is ilh ided into equal parts, as inches 
 and tenths, for the convenience of ruling parallel lines anil 
 squares, and for shilling the paper. A compass boi with a 
 magnetic needle is screwed into one side of the table, to in- 
 dicate the hearings, and to enable the surveyor to set up the 
 Instrument at a new station parallel to the position it had 
 at a former one. A brass rule or index, with a doping edge, 
 ami having perpendicular sight-vanes erected at each ex- 
 tremity, completes the apparatus. 
 942 
 
 PLASHING. 
 
 The plane table is used as follows: Two stations are se- 
 lected as the extremities of a base line, the distance be- 
 tween Which is accurately measured, and a line drawn on 
 the paper, representing that distance according to the as- 
 sumed scale. The instrument is then set up at one of the 
 stations, and a fine needle or pin being stuck into the table, 
 at one extremity of the line drawn on the paper, the edge 
 of the index is brought to press gently on the pin and coin- 
 cide with the line, and the table turned round till the object 
 at the second station is bisected through the sight vanes; 
 the table is then clamped, and the direction of the magnetic 
 meridian marked. The fiducial edge of the index, still in 
 contact with the upright pin, which serves as a centre, is 
 then directed successively to all the different objects which 
 have been selected as stations, and lines drawn on the pa- 
 per in the direction of each. This being done, the table is 
 removed to the second station, and the pin placed at the 
 corresponding point on the paper, which forms a second 
 centre. The edge of the ruler is then directed, as before, 
 to each of the objects which were observed from the first 
 station, and lines drawn in those different directions. The 
 intersections of the lines drawn from the second centre 
 with those drawn from the first, marks on the paper the po- 
 sition of each of the observed objects. 
 
 The plane-table is not susceptible of great accuracy, but 
 it is extremely useful in forming a sketch-map, or filling up 
 the details of a survey, where the principal points have 
 been fixed by the theodolite, or some equivalent instrument. 
 See Surveying. 
 
 PLANET A'RIUM. A machine for exhibiting the rela- 
 tive motions of the planets, and their positions in respect of 
 the sun. See Orrery. 
 
 PLA'NIPENNATES, Planipennes. (Lat. planus, flat; 
 penna, a feather.) The name of a tribe of Neuropterous in- 
 sects, comprehending those which have flat wings, of which 
 the inferior pair almost equal the superior ones, and are 
 simply folded underneath at their anterior margin. The 
 antenna; are multiarticulate, much longer than the head, 
 Without being subulate or styliform. The maxillary palps 
 are usually filiform or somewhat thicker at the extremity, 
 shorter than the head, and composed of from four to five 
 joints. The ant-lions (Myrmeleon) and termites are exam- 
 ples of this tribe. 
 
 PLA'NISPHERE. A projection of the sphere and its 
 various circles on a plane. See Projection. 
 
 PLANK. (Fr. planche.) In Architecture, a board that 
 exceeds nine inches in width. 
 
 PLANO-CONCAVE. In Optics, a lens which is plane 
 on one side and concave on the other. Plano-convei is a 
 lens plane on one side and convex on the other. See Lens. 
 PLANO'RBIS. (Lat. planus, and orbis, an orb.) A ge- 
 nus of marsh snails, so called from the form of the shell, 
 which is that of a flattened orb, arising from the volutions 
 being coiled on the same plane. Many species of this ge- 
 nus are common in Britain. 
 PLANT. In Natural History. See Botany. 
 PLANT A'GENET. The surname of the royal family 
 of England from Henry II. to Richard III. inclusive. The 
 origin of the name is involved in deep obscurity. The best 
 antiquaries derive it from the well known story of the Earl 
 of Anjou, the ancestor of the royal race, who having made 
 a pilgrimage to Rome, where he was scourged with broom 
 twigs, assumed the name of Plantagenista (literally, a 
 broom twig), Which his descendants retained. The name 
 Plantagenet belongs to the noble house of Buckingham. 
 
 PLANTATB >.\. A piece of ground planted with trees, 
 for the purpose of producing timber or coppice wood. In 
 new countries not generally cultivated, and more especially 
 in warm climates, the term plantation is applied to land 
 employed in the culture of the more important crops ; such 
 as the sugarcane, collie, pepper, cotton, &c. In Britain 
 it is exclusively applied to lauds planted with trees or 
 shrubs. 
 
 PLA'NTIGRADES, Plantirrrada. (Lat. planta, the sole 
 of the fiwt : gradlor, I march.) The name of a tribe of Car- 
 nivorous Mammals, comprehending those which apply the 
 whole or a great part of the sole to the ground in progressive 
 motion. 
 
 PLA'NTINO. The art of forming plantations of trees. 
 Also the art of inserting plants in the soil by the spade, 
 dibble, trowel, or by other means in use in agriculture and 
 gardening. See ARBORICULTURE. 
 
 PLA'oHING. A mode of repairing or modifying a hedge 
 by bending down a portion of the shoots, rutting them half 
 through near the ground, to render them more pliable, and 
 tw IsttDg them among the upright stems, so as to render the 
 whole effective as a fence, and at the same time preserve 
 all the branches alive. For this purpose the branches to 
 be plashed, or bent down, must not he <ut more than half 
 through, in order that a Sufficient porlion of sap may rise up 
 from the root to keep alive the upper part of the branches. 
 Where hedges are properly formed and kept, they can very
 
 PLASTER. 
 
 seldom require to be plashed ; but this mode of treating a 
 hedge is most valuable in the case of hedges abounding 
 with hedge row trees, when from neglect, or from any other 
 cause, the hedge has become of irregular growth. 
 
 PLA'STER. In Architecture, the material of which or- 
 naments are cast, and also that with which the fine stuff" 
 or gauge for mouldings and other parts is mixed, when 
 quick setting is required. 
 
 Plaster. In Pharmacy, a compound, generally of oxide 
 of lead and olive oil, for external applications. 
 
 PLASTER OF PARIS. Gypsum, or sulphate of lime, 
 commonly termed plaster stone, and found abundantly near 
 Paris. 
 
 PLA'STIC. (Gr. TiXaaaui, I form.) In Sculpture, that 
 which can be modelled, as clay, &c. In the arts it has a 
 more extended signification, and signifies those materials and 
 circumstances which are susceptible of being formed and 
 fashioned to the purpose wanted. 
 
 PLASTIC CLAY. A clay used in the manufacture of 
 pottery. See also Geology. 
 
 PLATAN 1ST, Platanista. A name applied by Pliny to 
 a fish in the river Ganges, having a snout and a tail like a 
 dolphin, but much larger. In modern Zoology, it is the 
 generic appellation of the Gangetic dolphin (Delpkhius 
 gangeticus, Cuv.). 
 
 PLATBAND. (Fr. plate and bande.) In Architec- 
 ture, a square moulding projecting less than its height or 
 breadth. The fillets between the flutes of columns are 
 sometimes called, but improperly, by this name. It is also 
 sometimes used to denote the lintel of a door. 
 
 PLATE. (Fr. platte.) In Architeclure, a piece of tim- 
 ber lying horizontally on a wall for the reception of the ends 
 of girders, joints, rafters, &c. 
 
 Plate. The name usually given to gold and silver 
 wrought into articles of household furniture. For the regu- 
 lations under which the manufacture of plate is carried on, 
 see the Com. Diet. 
 
 PLATFORM. (Fr. plateforme.) In Architecture, a 
 plane surface, lying level, of any materials used in a founda- 
 tion or elsewhere, for the reception of the foundations of a 
 building, or for the piers of a bridge: also a level scaffold, 
 raised above the ground for a temporarary purpose. 
 
 Platform. In Artillery, an elevated floor on which guns 
 are placed. 
 
 PLATING. The art of covering copper and other metals 
 with silver or gold: it is effected in various ways. Some- 
 times the silver is attached to and rolled out of the copper 
 by pressure ; sometimes the one metal is precipitated from 
 its solutions upon the other; and, of late, manufacturers 
 have availed themselves of electro-chemical decomposition 
 for the purpose. See Voltatvpe. 
 
 PLATINUM. (So called from the Spanish word plata, 
 silver, on account of its colour.) A metal of a white colour, 
 exceedingly ductile, malleable, and difficult of fusion. It is 
 the heaviest substance known, its specific gravity being 21 '5. 
 It undergoes no change from air or moisture, and is not at- 
 tacked by any of the pure acids; it is dissolved by chlorine 
 and nitromuriatic acid, and is oxidized at high temperatures 
 by pure potassa and lithia. It is only found in South 
 America and in the Uralian Mountains : it is usually in 
 small grains of a metallic lustre, associated or combined 
 with palladium, rhodium, iridium, and osmium ; and with 
 copper, iron, lead, titanium, chromium, gold and silver ; it 
 is also usually mixed with alluvial sand. The particles are 
 seldom so large as a small pea, but sometimes lumps have 
 been found of the size of a hazel nut to that of a pigeon's 
 egg. In 1826, it was first discovered in a vein associated 
 with gold by Boussingault, in the province of Antioquin, in 
 South America. When a perfectly clean surface of platinum 
 is presented to a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen gas, it has 
 the extraordinary property of causing them to combine so as 
 to form water, and often with such rapidity as to render the 
 metal red hot: spongy platinum, as it is usually called, ob- 
 tained by heating the ammonio-muriate of platinum, is most 
 effective in producing this extraordinary result ; and a jet of 
 hydrogen directed upon it may be inflamed by the metal 
 thus ignited, a property which has been applied to the con- 
 struction of convenient instruments for procuring a light. 
 The equivalent of platinum is about 98. It is precipitated 
 from its nitromuriatic solution by sal ammoniac, which 
 throws it down in the form of a yellow powder, composed 
 of bichloride of platinum and sal ammoniac. 
 
 PLATO'NIC BODIES. The five regular geometrical 
 solids, so called because they were treated of or described 
 by Plato. They are the tetraedron, the hexaedron, the oc- 
 taedron, the dodecaedron, and the icosaedron. Besides these 
 five, there can be no other solids bounded by like, equal, and 
 regular plane figures, and whose solid angles are all equal. 
 PLATONISM. The philosophy of Plato. To give a 
 satisfactory account of the system of this great thinker, 
 within the limits which the nature of the present work 
 necessarily impose upon us, would be an undertaking of no 
 
 PLATONISM. 
 
 common difficulty. Those of our readers who are adequate- 
 by conversant with the original writings of Plato must be 
 well aware that the views entertained in our own country 
 of his philosophical character and merits are, to say the 
 least, partial and incomplete ; while those who add to this 
 knowledge an acquaintance with the researches of our 
 German contemporaries on this subject will admit the possi- 
 bility, at the same time that they appreciate the difficulty, 
 of attaining a fuller and more adequate comprehension. 
 The leading characteristic of the mind of Plato is its com- 
 prehensiveness. This quality discovers itself equally in the 
 form in which his philosophy is communicated, and in that 
 philosophy itself. The form to which we allude is, it is 
 well known, that of the dialogue. The Dialogues of Plato 
 are at once vivid representations of Athenian life and char- 
 acter, and constituent parts of a system of universal philos- 
 ophy ; the harmonious productions of a genius which com- 
 bined the dramatic imagination with the scientific intellect 
 in a degree which has never before nor since been equalled. 
 It is in this circumstance that we must seek alike for the 
 influence which Plato's writings have exerted, and for the 
 difficulty of rightly apprehending their meaning. What has 
 been said of history in general may with equal truth be ap- 
 plied to the Platonic dialogues — that they are " philosophy 
 teaching by examples." In place of a formal refutation of 
 sophistry, we are introduced to living sophists; in the room 
 of an elaborate system of philosophy, we meet the greatest 
 philosophers of his day, reasoning and conversing with dis- 
 ciples eager in the pursuit of knowledge — with Athenians 
 full of natural prejudices, with men abounding with indivi- 
 dual peculiarities. 
 
 Under no other or less complex form of composition could 
 Plato have accomplished the manifold purposes which he 
 had in view ; purposes not of the philosopher only, but of 
 the reformer and educator of the moral and intellectual na- 
 ture of his countrymen. In most of his dialogues, one or 
 other of these intentions is the prominent one ; in some the ' 
 refutation of false philosophy, in others the establishment 
 of his own ; while others again seem chiefly designed as 
 exemplifications of scientific method generally ; though we 
 agree with Schleiermacher in thinking, that there are none 
 which do not contribute to the gradual development of hi3 
 own system. 
 
 But it is not merely in the form in which his doctrines 
 are clothed that we discern the comprehensiveness of 
 Plato's genius. The same quality is, as we have said, 
 equally apparent in the philosophy of which his dialogues 
 are the vehicle. By referring to the articles Eleatic, Ionic, 
 and Pythagorean Philosophy, the reader will be able to 
 form some conception of the systems which preceded that 
 of Plato. In each of these some leading idea is taken up, 
 and traced, generally to the exclusion of all others, through 
 all its possible consequences. These three schools may, 
 indeed, be severally taken as the representatives of the 
 three constituent portions of universal philosophy : the 
 Eleatics of the logical or dialectic ; the lonians of the physi- 
 cal ; and the Pythagoreans, though in a less exclusive de- 
 gree, of the ethical element. It was in Plato that these 
 different tendencies first converged. Each viewed by itself 
 was essentially partial and one-sided, and, with whatever 
 of truth it might contain, must necessarily, by its very ex- 
 clusiveness, combine much of error. Of this circumstance 
 the sophists had taken advantage, and, by setting the doc- 
 trines of one system in contradiction to those of another, 
 had succeeded in the introduction of a universal skepticism. 
 Plato was thus led clearly to discern the necessity of lay- 
 ing the foundations of science deeper than they had been 
 laid by his predecessors. The ultimate unity of all knowl- 
 edge, properly so called, and the mutual dependence of all 
 its parts ou each other, is the fundamental intention of his 
 philosophy. How this first principle was to be attained, 
 whether, indeed, it were attainable or not, could only be 
 ascertained by a previous inquiry into the nature, not of 
 being, but of knowledge. This is one mark which distin- 
 guishes Plato from earlier speculators ; and it is important 
 to bear it in mind, if we would form a correct estimate of the 
 services rendered by him to the progress of philosophy. 
 The hint was unquestionably given by Socrates, but Plato 
 was the only one among his immediate disciples who ap- 
 pears to have followed it up. He may, in truth, be styled 
 the founder of the ancient psychology ; and the dialogue 
 entitled T/iea-tetus may be considered one of the most im- 
 portant contributions to the most important branch of that 
 science, the theory of perception and judgment, which an- 
 tiquity affords. It is in this dialogue that the negative side 
 of the inquiry into knowiege, which we have alluded to, is 
 contained. Knowledge, it is there shown, is not to be con- 
 founded either with the impressions on the senses, or with 
 the judgments (r^ns) founded upon them. Sensation, by 
 its very nature, is relative only : it is the joint effect of the 
 conditions of, our internal constitution and a motion, or 
 change, communicated from without. Judgment, in so far 
 
 943
 
 PLATOON. 
 
 as it is founded on a prior impression, can have no validity, 
 save in reference to that Impression. Pure knowledge, 
 therefore, if it exist at all, must be found in some other di- 
 rection. It is here that the celebrated doctrine of ideas 
 finds its place. Without entering into the question more 
 deeply than our limits allow, it is sufficiently clear that no 
 other word, such as conception, notion, or the like, is ade- 
 quate to convey all that Plato meant by an idea. Having 
 tailed in finding alike knowledge in the senses and perma- 
 nent being, its object in nature, he was driven, in order to 
 avoid the sophistic doctrine of the relative nature of all 
 knowledge, to seek for the true objects of reason in some- 
 thing distinct from the material universe. In place of the 
 doctrine of Protagoras, " Man is the measure of all things,*' 
 he substituted, "God is the measure of all things ;" mean- 
 ing by this, as he elsewhere explains himself, that in the 
 divine nature reason and being are one. From this original 
 unity, which is denominated by Plato the good, or the su- 
 preme good, proceed, on the one hand, human reason ; on 
 the other, those ideas which constitute all in nature that is 
 real ; all, that is, which the reason can apprehend. We 
 might hence be led to suppose that the modern term " law," 
 may be correctly used in place of the Platonic " idea." 
 But, when we examine the matter more narrowly, we shall 
 find an essential difference between the two words, not 
 merely in the ontological or theological considerations just 
 alluded to, but also in the habit, which Plato inherited from 
 his master Socrates, of referring the laws of the universe 
 to a moral or teleological standard. The three great ideas 
 of truth, beauty, and order or fitness, are the ultimate uni- 
 ties to which he conceives it to be the business of the rea- 
 son to refer all its conceptions. These ideas are them- 
 selves included in the highest unity, or God, from whom it 
 is that they derive their reality. "But the supreme nature 
 is to us incomprehensible ; it is in the consciousness of our 
 separation from the great source of being that philosophy 
 takes its rise. The senses it is which first suggest to us 
 this want : we strive to bring their phenomena under gen- 
 eral conceptions ; and every attempt to understand the sen- 
 sible is a self recognition of the reason, and a step towards 
 divinity. Theology is, therefore, the ultimate science in 
 ■which all the other sciences converge : dialectics, as the 
 science of the true; ethics, as the science of the morally 
 beautiful ; and physics, as that which discerns the order 
 and fitness of outward things. Such is a very imperfect 
 sketch of the Platonic idea of science in its three constitu- 
 ent parts. The threefold division above given we nowhere 
 find expressly laid down in the written works of Plato ; but, 
 besides that it is throughout implied, the fact that it is 
 taken for granted by his immediate successors, Xenocrates 
 and Aristotle, justifies us in supposing that it formed part 
 of Plato's oral communications. But, besides this compre- 
 hensive view of universal science, we are indebted to Plato 
 lor many valuable discoveries, and many more most preg- 
 nant hints, in subordinate branches of inquiry. Among 
 these may be enumerated the discussion of the theory of 
 pleasure and pain, and their relation to desire and emotion, 
 in the Philebus ; of the first principles of the science of 
 grammar in the Cratylus and Sophist ; of the nature of 
 mathematical science, and its place in general philosophy, 
 Rep. vi., &c. The ethics of Plato, though, in many im- 
 portant respects, they must be allowed to be greatly defec- 
 tive, as, in particular, in the omission of the notions of duty 
 and responsibility, are yet far from deserving the contemptu- 
 ous treatment they have met with from certain writers 
 among ourselves. In the Republic, which contains the 
 substance of his moral doctrines, the intention of Plato 
 manifestly was to develop the idea of perfect humanity, 
 alike in the individual, and in what be regarded as an en- 
 larged transcript of the individual, the state. (See Ethics.) 
 The most important contribution to the Study and right un- 
 derstanding (if the Platonic philosophy, with which modern 
 times have furnished us, is to be found in the arrangement 
 of his Dialogues, and the introduction prefixed to each, by 
 the celebrated Schleiermacher, a work which has recently 
 been translated into English. See also Hitter, Gesch. tier 
 Philosophic, b. v:ii. ; and, for some abstruse portions of Pla- 
 to's doctrine, Trendelenburg's Idea Plat. ex Jlristot. Must. 
 
 The best editions of Plato's works are those of Hekker 
 and llallbaum. For an account of his life, see Jlsfs Leben 
 ■uvtl Seh rif ten Pln'na. 
 
 PL \ TOO'N. In the art Military, a small, square body 
 of musketeers, drawn out from the main body to strengthen 
 the angle of a larger square, or to do duty in ambuscades 
 iii defiles, tec, when there is not room for whole regiments 
 or battalions to act. 
 
 PLA'TYRIIINES. Platyrhinai. (Gr. TrXnrus, wide, and 
 pti; a nose.) The name of a section of the Linna;an genus 
 Siiiun. including those species which have the nostrils sep- 
 arated by a wide interspace. These monkeys are peculiar 
 to the New World. • 
 
 PLA'TYSOMES. Platysoma, (Gr. irXarvs, and aoipa, 
 «U4 
 
 PLEADING. 
 
 body.) The name of a family of Coleopterous insects, com- 
 prehending species with a wide and much depressed body. 
 These insects are found under the bark of trees, and form 
 the genus Cuciijus of Fabricus,' now subdivided. 
 
 PLEA'DING. (Lat. placitum, Norman French plaid, to- 
 gether with the verb placitare, to plead; derived from placi- 
 tum, the decree or sentence of a judicial or legislative au- 
 thority.) Pleadings, in English law, are the preparatory al- 
 legations in writing which intervene between the com- 
 mencement of a cause and its trial. 
 
 The first object in deciding a dispute between two litigant 
 parties is always to ascertain the subject for decision. This 
 must be accomplished by disengaging the point in debate 
 from all the extraneous matter in which the complaints and 
 answers of the respective parties have involved it. This is 
 the principle from which all the subtleties of the system of 
 pleading, commonly called special pleading; are derived; 
 and, in so far as it has departed from this object, it has 
 wandered from its original purpose. 
 
 Pleadings were conducted orally in the first times of our 
 jurisprudence ; the parties, or their advocates, exposing the 
 state of facts on which they relied successively before the 
 judge, who moderated between them, and answering each 
 other until the judge was able to fix upon the point at issue, 
 as it was called; that is, the question, whether of factor 
 law, on which the judge, or the jury, was eventually to de- 
 cide. Hence issues are said to be in fact or in law. The 
 same principle governs the course of written pleadings now 
 adopted. 
 
 The plaintiff, or complaining party, having summoned the 
 defendant into court, by a writ stating the nature of his 
 complaint, makes his first statement, which is termed a 
 declaration. The defendant may now answer him, either 
 by denying that there is any ground in law for the action, 
 either because there is defect in substance in the plaintiff's 
 alleged right, or defect in form in his proceedings ; or by 
 controverting the facts which he alleges, or alleging new 
 facts in answer to them. In the former case the defendant 
 demurs to the declaration ; in the latter case he answers by 
 one or more pleas. 
 
 A demurrer may take place either at this or at any sub- 
 sequent stage of the proceedings ; and may be made either 
 by plaintiff or defendant. And it is either general to sub- 
 stance, or special to form. (But, by the increased liberality 
 of the courts, many errors in form may now be amended, 
 on application, which formerly were fatal.) If the demurrer 
 comes to be argued (which is done in term time, or in bench, 
 before all the judges of the court in which the action is 
 brought), the court will examine the whole pleadings on 
 both sides ; and their decision on the point of law is final as 
 to the action. 
 
 The defendant may answer or traverse the facts; 1. By 
 pleading what is termed the general issue ; a form which, 
 in its original signification, implied an absolute denial of the 
 facts on which the plaintiff founded his complaint; and 
 concludes with the words, "and of this the said defendant 
 puts himself on the country," that is, offers to have the 
 issue tried by a jury. But, by the refinements introduced 
 into pleading, the general issue was gradually admitted, in 
 each of the several forms of action to which we shall 
 presently refer, not only to deny the plaintiff's facts, but to 
 allow the defendant to bring forward other facts in answer; 
 although these more properly form the subject, 2, at special 
 pleas. When the defendant admits all or a part of the 
 plaintiff's facts, but relies on certain other facts as exon- 
 erating him from the liability asserted by the plaintiff, he 
 ought to state these facts in answer; for instance, in order 
 to answer the claim of a debt, that it is barred by length of 
 time, or that the defendant has a set-off to allege against 
 if. this is termed a plea by Way of confession ami avoid- 
 ance. The plea stating such new facts concludes with the 
 assertion; " and this the said defendant is ready to verify." 
 To this the plaintiff may reply in his second statement, 
 called a replication, either by denying the defendant's facts, 
 that is, a replication by way of traverse, or by alleging fresh 
 ones ; the defendant may deny these, or again allege fresh 
 ones, in his rejoinder ; sometimes a surrejoinder, a rebutter, 
 and a surrebutter may be added ; and the edifice of plead- 
 ing is raised by stories gradually narrowing, by the exclu- 
 sion of superfluous facts, until it reaches its summit in the 
 production of one or more issues, either in law or fact, the 
 decision of which finally arranges the dispute; and, by 
 what are called the new rules of pleading, framed in 1834, 
 many defences which might formerly have heen given un- 
 der the general issue must be pleaded specially. 
 
 Thus, in an action of debt, the defendant pleads specially 
 the statute of limitations, that is, that more than six years 
 have passed since the cause of action accrued ; the plaintitf 
 replies, admitting the length of time, but alleging t tint the 
 defendant has since promised to pay the debt ; this the de- 
 fendant denies in bis rejoinder; anil hereupon, i. e., on the 
 fact of Uie promise, issue is joined.
 
 PLEASURE-GROUND. 
 
 A plaintiff complains of breach of covenant by his lessee, 
 in not repairing premises. The defendant pleads, admitting 
 the lease and the want of repair; but alleges that he had 
 received from the plaintiff a release from all his liability. 
 The plaintiff replies, admitting the release, but asserting 
 that it was obtained from him by force or duress. The de- 
 fendant may, perhaps, deny the legal sufficiency of this 
 ground, or demur to the replication; or he may traverse it 
 in his rejoinder, denying the force or duress. In the former 
 case, an issue of law is raised for the court; in the latter, 
 an issue of fact for the jury. 
 
 The attorneys for the p'arties deliver in their respective 
 pleadings on paper to the officers of the court. When issue 
 is joined, these pleadings are entered on a parchment roll, 
 and the issue is likewise entered; in the form of appoint 1112 
 a day for the trial of the demurrer, if the issue be in law ; 
 or in the form of a precept to the sheriff of the county 
 named in the pleadings, to summon twelve good and lawful 
 men for the trial of the issue in fact. This roll is called the 
 record, and is preserved as an authentic memorial of the 
 proceedings in the case ; the verdict and the judgment being 
 entered on it. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the forms of pleading as appli- 
 cable to every injury of which complaint can be made in 
 the courts of common law. But. according to the nature of 
 the injury complained of, his action will assume a particu- 
 lar form, allotted by law to enable him to recover the par- 
 ticular remedy he seeks. See Action, and the Forms of 
 Action, under their several heads. 
 
 PLEASURE-GROUND. That portion of ground adjoin- 
 ing a dwelling in the country which is exclusively devoted 
 to ornamental and recreative purposes. In the ancient style 
 of gardening, the pleasure-ground was laid out in straight 
 ■walks, and regular or symmetrical forms, commonly bor- 
 rowed from architecture ; but, in the modern style, it is laid 
 out in winding walks, and in forms borrowed direct from 
 nature. A portion of lawn or smooth grassy surface may 
 be considered as essential to the pleasure-ground under both 
 stvles. 
 
 "PLEBE'IAXS. The free citizens of Rome who did not 
 come under the class of the patricians or client*. Though 
 always personally independent, they had in early times no 
 political power, the government being entirely in the hands 
 of the patricians, who, with their clients and the king. 
 formed the original people. The class of plebeians was of 
 after-growth, and probably drew its numbers from various 
 sources, as from clients whose obligations were dissolved 
 by the decay of the houses of their patrons, and the inhabi- 
 tants of conquered states who were admitted to rights of cit- 
 izenship. The plebeian families with patrician names are 
 supposed to have arisen from marriages of disparagement 
 contracted between the higher and lower classes. 
 
 As this body, from its constitution, naturally grew in vigour 
 while the patricians became weaker, it soon formed the 
 main strength of the Roman armies, and became desirous 
 of sharing in the advantages of the conquests made by its 
 prowess ; while the patricians, on their part, tenaciously 
 clung to all their privileges, and, far from yielding to the 
 demands of the other party, exercised the severe rights 
 which as creditors they possessed over the liberties of many 
 of its members. This state of things produced a continued 
 series of collisions between the two orders, in which the 
 latter gradually gained ground, till, in the last ages of the 
 republic, it was admitted to a full share of all the powers 
 and privileges before confined to one order. 
 
 PLEBISCl TUM. (Lat. a decree of the people.) In Ro- 
 man History, a law enacted by the common people, under 
 the superintendence of the tribune or some subordinate ple- 
 beian magistrate, without the intervention of the senate. 
 The term, however, is used in a more peculiar sense, being 
 applied chiefly to the law made when, upon a misunder- 
 standing with the senate, thev retired to Mount Aventine. 
 
 PLETJTOGNATHES, Ple'ctognathi. (Gr. irX&a, / con- 
 nect, and j ia9oc, ajatt.) The name of an order of fishes, 
 including those which have the maxillary hones anchylo- 
 sed to the sides of the intermaxillaries, which alone form 
 the jaws. 
 
 PLEXTROPO'MA. (Gr. xAqirrpov, a spur, and ™m, a 
 lid.) A name applied by Cuvier to a genus of Percoid fish- 
 es, characterized by having the angle of the preoperculum 
 produced, or divided into a series of spines, like those which 
 arm the rowel of a spur. All the species are exotic, and 
 belong to warm climates. 
 
 PLE'CTRUM. (Gr. -Interpol* ; from -Xijo-o-w, / strike.) 
 The small ivory instrument with which the ancients struck 
 the lyre. 
 
 PLEIADES. In Mythology, the seven daughters of At- 
 las and Pleione were so called, whose names were Alcyone. 
 Maia, Electra, Merope, Calano, Sterope, and Taygeta. 
 They were loved for seven years by Orion, from whose so- 
 licitations they were at length released by the interposition 
 of Jupiter, who transformed them to the stars, where they 
 
 PLOTTING-SCALE. 
 
 now form a cluster in the neck of the constellation Taurus. 
 Only six of these stars are visible to the naked eye ; and the 
 ancients supposed that the seventh concealed herself, out of 
 shame for having bestowed her love on a mere mortal, 
 Sisyphus, while her sisters were the favourites of divine 
 personages. 
 
 PLE'XARTY. (Lat. plenus, full.) In Law, the state 
 of a benefice, office, &c, when full : in opposition to va- 
 cancv. 
 
 PLEXE ADMIXISTRA'VIT. (Lat.) In Law, a plea 
 pleaded by an executor or administrator to an action on a 
 liability of the deceased, that he has fully administered his 
 goods. 
 
 PLE'XICORXS, Plenicornia. (Lat. plenus, full, and 
 cornu. a horn.) The name of a tribe of Ruminants, inclu- 
 ding those which have horns composed of an uniform solid 
 osseous substance, as the antlers of deer. See Cornxa. 
 
 PLENIPOTENTIARY. See Ambassador. 
 
 PLEONASM. (Gr. i:\eov, more.) In Rhetoric, a re- 
 dundant phrase or expression, sometimes introduced to give 
 additional enerev, at other times needless and ungraceful. 
 
 PLE'SIOMO'RPHISM. (Gr. -\noto S , near, and uopfn, 
 form.) A term applied to crystallized substances the forms 
 of which closely resemble each other, but are not absolutely 
 identical. The primary form of sulphate of strontia is a 
 rhombic prism very similar to that of sulphate of baryta ; 
 but, on measuring the inclination of corresponding sides on 
 each prism, the difference exceeds 2°. Similar differences 
 are observable in the rhomboedrons of carbonate of lime 
 and carbonate of iron. Such substances, therefore, are 
 plesiomnrphous . 
 
 PLE'SIOSAUR, Plesiosaurus. (Gr. t\t]<jwc, and aavpoc, a, 
 lizard.) The name of a genus of extinct marine saurians, 
 chiefly remarkable for their length of neck. The head is 
 small, but like that of a crocodile ; the vertebra? are articu- 
 lated generally by nearly plane surfaces ; the cervical ver- 
 tebra have an articular surface, divided by a longitudinal 
 impression, for a rudimental rib on each side, and two vas- 
 cular foramina beneath the digital bones of both the hind 
 and fore extremities are flattened, and are enveloped in a 
 sheath of skin like the paddles of the Cetacea. The re- 
 mains of the Plesiosauri occur in the formations from the 
 muschel-chalk to the chalk inclusive; but are most com- 
 mon in the lias and kimmeridge clav beds. 
 
 PLE'THORA. (Gr. nXnQu, / fill.) A redundant ful- 
 ness of the blood-vessels. It results from various causes, 
 generally referred to sanguine plethora, to which the robust 
 and athletic are most subject ; and to serous plethora, 
 which attacks debilitated constitutions. 
 
 PLEU RA. (Lat.) The membrane which covers the 
 inner surface of the thorax and its viscera. It forms two 
 distinct portions, or bags, which, being applied laterally to 
 each other, form the partition called the mediastinum. 
 
 PLEURI'TIS, Pleurisy. Inflammation of the pleura. 
 This disease begins with fever, cough, pain in the side, a 
 peculiar hard and strong pulse : the symptoms often run on 
 with great rapidity, attended by very painful respiration and 
 other alarming symptoms. (See Pneumonia.) The treat- 
 ment must be prompt and decided : it consists in bleeding, 
 blisters, and purging : and in the after treatment, great care 
 must be taken against an insidious and local form of the 
 disease, which often extends to the lungs. 
 
 PLEU'RONECTID^E. (Gr. vXevpa, a side, and vckt V c, 
 a swimmer.) The name of a family of Jugular fishes 
 which swim on their side, and of which the genus Pleu- 
 ra nertes. or sole, is the type; they are commonly called 
 flat-fishes. 
 
 PLI'CA. (Lat. plico. / entangle.) A disease said to be 
 peculiar to Poland, Lithuania, and Tartary. in which the 
 hair becomes matted and inextricably entangled. It is often 
 called Plica Polonica. 
 
 PLI'CIPENNATES. Plicipennes. (Lat. plico, / fold, 
 and penna. a feather.) .The name of a tribe of Neuropte- 
 rous insects, comprehending those which have the inferior 
 wings wider than the others, and folded longitudinally. 
 The mandibles are wanting in this tribe, which is repre- 
 sented bv the genus Pkri/rranea, or caddis-flies. 
 
 PLINTH. (Gr. yrXivdoc, a brick.) In Architecture, the 
 lowest member of the base of a column, bearing, as its 
 name indicates, the form of a square brick or tile. (See 
 Base.) Sometimes the abacus of the Tuscan capital is 
 called the plinth of the capital. 
 
 PLI'OCENE. (Gr. -Ariwr, greater, and Kaivoc, recent.) 
 A geological term applied to the most modern of the divis- 
 ions of the tertiary epoch, because the major part of its fos- 
 sil testacea are referable to recent species. See Geology. 
 
 PLO'TTING, in Surveying, signifies describing or laying 
 down on paper the several angles and lines of a tract of 
 land which has been sun-eyed and measured. It is usually 
 performed by means of a protractor (see the term) ; some- 
 times by the plotting scale. 
 
 PLO'TTING SCALE. A mathematical instrument used 
 3N 945
 
 PLOTUS. 
 
 in plotting, or setting off the lengths of lines in surveying. 
 It consists of two graduated Ivory scales, one of which is 
 perforated nearly its whole length hy a dovetail-shaped 
 groove, for the reception of a sliding piece to which the 
 second scale is attached, and with which it moves, the 
 edge of the second being always at right angles to the edge 
 of the first. By this means the rectangular co-ordinates of 
 a point are measured at once on the scales ; or the position 
 of the point laid down on the plan. 
 
 PLOTUS. A genus of web-footed birds of the family 
 Pclicanida>, and nearly allied to the cormorants. They are 
 generally known by the name of Jlnhinga, or "darters," 
 from the rapidity with which they shoot down into the wa- 
 ter in the capture of fish. The white-billed anbinga (Plo- 
 tus mclanogastrr) is the most common and best-known spe- 
 cies : it is a native of the tropical regions of both North and 
 South America. 
 
 PLOUGH. (Germ, pflug.) An implement drawn by 
 horses and guided by a driver, by which the surface of the 
 soil is cut into longitudinal slices, and successively raised 
 up and turned over. The object of the operation is to ex- 
 pose a new surface to the action of the air, and to render it 
 fit for receiving the seed, or for harrowing, or for other op- 
 erations of agriculture. Ploughs are of two kinds : those 
 without wheels, commonly called swing-ploughs ; and 
 those with one or more wheels, called wheel-ploughs. 
 The essential parts which compose both kinds of ploughs, 
 are, the beam by which it is drawn ; the stilts or handles 
 by which the ploughman guides it, being two levers con- 
 nected with the beam ; the coulter fixed into the beam, by 
 which the furrow-slice is cut ; the share, also attached to 
 the beam, by which the slice is raised up ; and, finally, 
 the mould-board, by which the slice is turned over. The 
 most improved form of the swing-plough is that in general 
 use in Scotland and the North of England, which is known 
 as a modification of what is called Small's improved swing- 
 plough. The most improved wheel-plough is the same 
 implement, with a wheel attached to the beam, for the pur- 
 pose of keeping the share at a uniform distance beneath the 
 surface. The subsoil plough, the invention of Mr. Smith, 
 of Deanston, in Stirlingshire, is the swing-plough, of a 
 somewhat stronger construction than that in common use, 
 but without the coulter and the mould board. The use of 
 this implement is to follow the common plough, and loosen 
 the subsoil at the bottom of the furrow without raising it 
 to the surface. The most improved form of this implement 
 contains a muzzle (the instrument by which it is drawn,) 
 so contrived as that the horses may walk on the firm soil. 
 The use of the subsoil -plough is one of the greatest mod- 
 ern improvements that has been introduced into the cul- 
 ture of arable land. Draining-ploughs are of different 
 kinds. The mole-plough, instead of a share and mould- 
 board, has a small iron cylinder attached to the lower ex- 
 tremity of the coulter, and which, being drawn through 
 grass iand, leaves in its track a small opening, which has 
 been compared to the underground track of a mole, and 
 into which the water percolates from the surface through 
 the narrow slit formed by the upper part of the coulter, and 
 is thus carried off to an open drain. The other kinds of 
 draining ploughs cut out the soil, raise it to the surface, 
 and turn it over in the manner of the common plough, thus 
 leaving a deep furrow, which is commonly farther deepen- 
 ed and modified hy the spade, and afterwards partially 
 filled with stones, draining tiles, or other materials through 
 which water may find its way, and finally, covered with 
 the surface soil. Draining-ploughs, though, in theory, 
 promising a saving of manflal labour, yet, in practice, are 
 found inconvenient, from the number of horses required to 
 work them. Their use is, therefore, generally confined to 
 free, deep, loamy soils, with an even surface. 
 
 PLOUGHING. The act of turning over the soil by 
 means of the plough. Trench ploughing is effected by the 
 plough passing twice along the same furrow ; the first time 
 for the purpose of throwing the surface soil into the bottom 
 of the furrow; and Hie second time for raising a furrow- 
 slice from under that which had been already turned over, 
 and raising it up, &.C., turning it upon the first furrow-slice, 
 by means of which the surface soil is entirely buried, anil a 
 stratum of subsoil laid over it: thus effecting in the field 
 what trenching with the spade dors in the garden. Trench 
 ploughing can only be employed with advantage where the 
 subsoil is naturally dry and of good quality, or where it has 
 l>een rendered so by draining and subsoil ploughing ; for 
 bad subsoil brought to the surface would be unfit for re- 
 ceiving seeds or plants. See Plocoh. 
 
 PLUG. In Architecture, a piece of wood driven hori- 
 zontally into a wall, its end being then sawn away flush 
 with the wall, to afford a hold for the nailing up dress- 
 ings, &.C. 
 
 PLUMBA'GIN. A crystnllizable substance, extracted 
 from the root of the Vluribago Europoa. 
 PLUMBAGO, Graphite, Black Lead. This useful sub- 
 946 
 
 PNEUMATICS. 
 
 stance is a compound of carbon, generally with a minute 
 quantity of iron ; there is, however, some doubt as to the 
 nature of the combination. The finest plumbago is from 
 Borrodale in Cumberland. 
 
 PLUMB-LINE, PLUMMET. (Lnt. plumbum, lead.) A 
 heavy body (usually a piece of lead, whence the name) 
 suspended by a flexible thread for the purpose of indicating 
 the perpendicular to the horizon, or the direction of terres- 
 trial gravity. In former times, the plumb-line constituted 
 an essential part of the apparatus employed for adjusting 
 astronomical instruments ; but it is seldom used in modern 
 observations, excepting those made with the zenith sector, 
 its place being either more conveniently supplied by the 
 spirit level, or the method of determining the zenith point 
 by combining direct and reflected observations rendering it 
 unnecessary. For the common artificer's plummet, see 
 Level. 
 
 PLU'MULA. (Lat. pluma, a feather.) The growing 
 point of the embryo, situated at the apex of the radicle and 
 at the base of the cotyledons, by which it is protected 
 when young. It is the rudiment of the future stem of a 
 plant. 
 
 PLUPE'RFECT TENSE. (Lat. plus quam perfectum, 
 more than perfect.) In Grammar, the tense which denotes 
 that an action was finished at a certain period to which the 
 speaker refers. 
 
 PLURAL. See Grammar. 
 
 PLURA'LITY. In Ecclesiastical Law, the holding of 
 more than one benefice. It was ordained in the council of 
 Lateran, A.D. 1215, that whosoever should take any bene- 
 fice with cure of souls, if he should before have attained a 
 like benefice, should, ipso facto, be deprived of the latter. 
 Exceptions were made to this rule in certain cases of in 
 commendam, by a constitution published in the council of 
 Lyons ; but it could always be evaded by dispensation from 
 the pope. Since the Reformation, dispensations in Eng- 
 land are granted by archbishops. The first English enact- 
 ment on the subject was that of 21 H. 8, c. 13, and render- 
 ed the former benefice void if of the value of £8 or above. 
 A benefice, therefore, with which another may be held, 
 must be below that value in " the king's books." By the 
 4th canon, 41, no license or dispensation for the holding of 
 more benefices than one can be granted to any one, unless 
 a graduate as A.M. in one of the universities ; and be must 
 reside a reasonable time on each benefice, and licensed as a 
 preacher; nor may they be more than thirty miles asunder; 
 and he must have under him a preacher properly licensed 
 in that where he resides least. Formerly, dispensations 
 even from the injunctions of this canon were obtained from 
 the crown ; but none, it is said, since the Revolution. The 
 practice was very common in this country in Roman Cath- 
 olic times ; and though, as we have already observed, re- 
 strained bv various statutes, still subsists to a considerable 
 extent. Until every' benefice is made capable of supporting 
 an incumbent, it is manifestly impossible to abolish it en- 
 tirely ; and, in the case of an individual holding one rich 
 and one poor living together, the arrangement may fre- 
 quently be practically advantageous. Under the existing 
 laws (i836), dispensations for holding two benefices may be 
 obtained on various pleas ; but measures of farther restraint 
 are understood to be in contemplation. 
 
 PLUS. In Algebra, the additive or positive sign +, 
 which, being placed between two quantities, signifies that 
 they are to be taken collectively, or added together. Ac- 
 cording to Dr. Hutton, this character was first used hy Sti- 
 felius, as a contraction of the letter p, the initial of plus. 
 
 PLUTO. (Gr. mjvriav.) Called also Hades (AirV). 
 Aidoneus (AirWrA) by the Greeks, or Orcus by the Ro- 
 mans, was the brother of Jupiter and Neptune, and lord of 
 the infernal regions. He is not, like his brothers, celebra- 
 ted for amours, but remained faithful to Proserpine, whom 
 he carried away from the plains of Sicily, and made his 
 queen. 
 
 Pluto is represented as an old man with a dignified but 
 severe countenance, holding in his hand a two-pronged 
 fork. 
 
 PLUTO'NIC ROCKS. Unstratifled crystalline rocks, 
 probably formed at great depths benealh the surface by 
 igneous fusion. The term is opposed to volcanic rocks, also 
 formed by fire, but having cooled near the surface. See 
 Geoi.ooy. 
 
 PLUTTTS. (Gr. TrXorroc, ircalth.) The god of riches, 
 said to have been the son of .Tasius and Demeter or Ceres. 
 There are no particulars known as to his worship; but he 
 is introduced as an actor in the play of Aristophanes which 
 bears his name, and he bears a part also in the Timon of 
 Lillian. 
 
 PL.UVIAMETER. (Lat. pluvius, rain.) See Rain- 
 Gaiioe. 
 
 PNEUMATICS. (Gr. nriiua, air or breath.) The sci- 
 ence which treats of the mechanical properties of elastic 
 fluids, and particularly of atmospheric air.
 
 PNEUMATICS. 
 
 Elastic fluids are divided into two classes— permanent 
 gases, and vapours. The gases cannot be converted into 
 the liquid state by any known process of art ; whereas the 
 vapours are readily reduced to the liquid form by pressure, 
 or diminution of temperature. In respect of their mechani- 
 cal properties there is, however, no essential difference 
 between the two classes. 
 
 Elastic fluids, in a state of equilibrium, are subject to the 
 action of two forces; namely, gravity, and a molecular 
 force acting from particle to particle. Gravity acts on the 
 gases in the same manner as on all other material substan- 
 ces ; but the action of the molecular forces is altogether dif- 
 ferent from that which takes place among the elementary 
 particles of solids and liquids ; for, in the case of solid bod- 
 ies, the molecules strongly attract each other (whence re- 
 sults their cohesion), and, in the case of liquids, exert a 
 feeble or evanescent attraction, so as to be indifferent to in- 
 ternal motion ; but, in the case of the gases, the molecular 
 forces are repulsive, and the molecules, yielding to the ac- 
 tion of these forces, tend incessantly to recede from each 
 other, and, in fact, do recede, until their farther separation 
 is prevented by an exterior obstacle. Thus, air confined 
 within a close vessel exerts a constant pressure against the 
 interior surface, which is not sensible, only because it is 
 balanced by the equal pressure of the atmosphere on the 
 exterior surface. This pressure exerted by the air against 
 the sides of a vessel within which it is confined is called its 
 elasticity, or elastic force, or tension. 
 
 Conditions of Equilibrium. — In order that all the parts 
 of an elastic fluid may be in equilibrium, one condition only 
 is necessary; namely, that the elastic force be the same at 
 every point situated in the same horizontal plane. This 
 condition is likewise necessary to the equilibrium of liquids, 
 and the same circumstances give rise to it in both cases; 
 namely, the mobility of the particles, and the action of 
 gravity upon them. Conceive a close vessel to be filled 
 with air, or a gas ; and let a and b be two molecules situated 
 in the same horizontal plane. It is evident that if the two 
 molecules are in a state of equilibrium, the force with 
 which a repels b must be exactly counteracted by that with 
 which b repels a, for otherwise motion would take place. 
 The same thing takes place in respect of every horizontal 
 section of the gas ; but the pressure on each section varies 
 with its altitude. Suppose c and d to be two molecules 
 situated in a horizontal section, lower than that in which 
 are a and 6. It is evident that the molecules c and d sus- 
 tain a greater pressure than a and b; for, in the first place, 
 the whole of the pressure on a and b is transmitted to them 
 by the principle of the equality of pressure in all directions ; 
 and, in the second place, they sustain a new pressure, 
 arising from the weight or gravity of all the molecules 
 situated between the two horizontal planes a b and c d. 
 
 The principle which has just been explained is proved 
 experimentally by the diminution of the pressure of the 
 atmosphere at greater altitudes. A column of air reaching 
 from the ground to the top of the atmosphere exerts a pres- 
 sure equal to the weight of a column of mercury of the 
 same diameter, and whose height is equal to that in the 
 barometric tube. Now, on carrying the barometer to the 
 top of a mountain, for example, the mercurial column is 
 observed gradually to become shorter as we ascend ; and 
 the diminution of the column, and consequently of atmo- 
 spheric pressure, is connected with the increase of altitude 
 by a certain constant law, which enables us to deduce the 
 one from the other, and to apply the barometer to the very 
 important purpose of determining the relative altitudes of 
 places on the surface of the earth. See Heights, Mea- 
 surement of. 
 
 Law of Jlariotte. — In order to determine the relation be- 
 tween the density and pressure of the elastic fluids in the 
 state of equilibrium, let A C B be a graduated bent tube 
 (like a siphon barometer), having two unequal 
 branches, of which the shorter is hermetically 
 sealed at B, and the longer open at A. Let a 
 small quantity of mercury be poured into the 
 tube, just enough to fill the bend, and intercept 
 the communication between the air in C B and 
 the external atmosphere, and let the level E F 
 be marked at which it stands in the two branches 
 of the tube. It is evident that in this state the 
 pressure of the air imprisoned between E and B 
 is exactly equal to that of the atmosphere. Now, 
 let mercury be poured into the tube at A ; it will 
 rise slowly in the branch E B, and much more 
 rapidly in the open branch FA. Let mercury 
 then be continued to be poured in until it stands 
 at two points, D and E', so situated that the alti- 
 tude of D above E', or DF', is just equal to the height of 
 the column in the barometer, or about 30 inches. In this 
 state, the elasticity of the air in the space E' B is in equi- 
 librium with the pressure arising from the weight of the 
 mercurial column F' D, and the pressure of the atmosphere 
 
 exerted on D. But the weight of the mercurial column 
 F'D is just equal to the atmospheric pressure, consequently 
 the air in E' B is compressed by a force equal to twice the 
 atmospheric pressure. Now, on observing the length of the 
 column E' B, it will be found exactly one half of EB, or 
 the air has been reduced to half its former volume. On in- 
 creasing the length of the open branch of the siphon, and 
 pouring in a proper quantity of mercury, it is found that a 
 pressure of three atmospheres reduces the volume of air at 
 B to one third, and of four atmospheres to a fourth of its 
 first volume ; whence it is inferred, generally, that the 
 volumes of gases are inversely as the pressures which they 
 support. This fundamental property of elastic fluids is 
 called the Law of Jlariotte, from its having been discovered 
 by that philosopher in France. It has been verified in 
 several ways, on all the known gases; and, in the case of 
 dry air, its verification has been pushed, by MM. Dulong 
 and Arago, to pressures equivalent to twenty-seven atmo- 
 spheres. (Lame Cours de Physique.) It also holds true in 
 respect of vapours or steam, subjected to a smaller degree 
 of pressure than that which is necessary to reduce them to 
 the liquid state ; and even for mixtures of different gases. 
 It is important, however, to observe, that it is supposed no 
 variation of temperature has taken place during the experi- 
 ment. The apparatus above described is called a mane- 
 meter. 
 
 The density of bodies being inversely as their volumes, 
 the law of Mariotte may be otherwise expressed, by saying, 
 the density of an elastic fluid is directly proportional to the 
 pressure it sustains. Under the pressure of a single atmo- 
 sphere, the density of air is about the 770th part of that of 
 water ; whence it follows that, under the pressure of 770 
 atmospheres, air is as dense as water. Thus, the average 
 atmospheric pressure being equal to that of a column of 
 water of about 32 feet in altitude, at the bottom of the sea, 
 at a depth of 24640 (= 770 X 32) feet, or 4§ miles, air would 
 be heavier than water; and though it should still remain 
 in a gaseous state, it would be incapable of rising to the 
 surface. 
 
 Effects of Heat on the Elasticity of the Gases. — The re- 
 pulsive energy of the molcules of the elastic fluids is greatly 
 augmented by an increase of temperature ; and it is of the 
 utmost importance in many physical inquiries to ascertain 
 the relation between the temperature and the elastic force. 
 If the air and several other gases, sustaining the same con- 
 stant pressure, are exposed to an increase of temperature 
 which affects all of them equally, it is proved, by observa- 
 tion, that they all undergo an equal expansion ; that is to 
 say, the increase of volume of all the gases is the same for 
 equal augmentations of temperature, and proportional to 
 these augmentations. Experience also shows that, within a 
 considerable range of temperature, the indications of the 
 air thermometer differ very little from those of the mer- 
 curial thermometer ; so that, within this range, the ex- 
 pansion of any gas whatever is proportional to the increase 
 of temperature indicated by the degrees of the ordinary 
 thermometer. From the temperature of melting ice to that 
 of boiling water, or from zero to 100° of the centigrade ther- 
 mometer, Gay-Lussac found the expansion of air subjected 
 to a constant pressure, to be in the ratio of unity to 1-375 ; 
 which gives an expansion of 000375 for each centigrade 
 degree. This being assumed, let V be the volume of any 
 gas at the zero temperature, P its elastic force, or the 
 pressure it sustains, and D its density. Let a = '00375, and 
 suppose the values of V and D to become V and D' when 
 the temperature is increased t degrees ; then the pressure P 
 being supposed constant, we have evidently 
 
 V' = V(l + at); 
 and' the density being inversely as the volume, we have, 
 also, 
 
 1+at 
 Now, suppose the pressure to be varied without any 
 change of the temperature, and let p denote the new 
 pressure, and d the corresponding density : the law of 
 Mariotte gives 
 
 Pa" 
 
 and, on substituting for D' its value given by the preceding 
 
 p 
 formula, and making — = k, we obtain 
 
 p=kd(l + at) 
 for the expression of the elastic force of any gas in a 
 function of its density and temperature. 
 
 The coefficient k is constant for the same gas, but has a 
 different value for different gases, depending on their densi- 
 ties or specific gravities. With respect to atmospheric air, 
 its value may be found thus': The density of air, compared 
 with water, is 0-0013, and that of mercury 13-59; there- 
 
 947
 
 PNEUMATICS. 
 
 fore, supposing the height of the barometer to be 30 inches, 
 the value of k, or the height of a column of air of uniform 
 density, exerting on its base a pressure equal to that of 
 
 13'59 
 the atmosphere, is 30 in. X = 313860 inches, or 26155 
 
 feet (about five miles), the temperature being that of freez- 
 water. 
 
 Of the Motion of the Gases. — Elastic fluids, in escaping 
 from a vessel by a small orifice, or lube, into a vacuum, 
 observe, like Liquids, a law first discovered by Torricelli ; 
 namely, that the velocity of the molecules, when they 
 escape from the orifice, is equal to that which they would 
 have acquired by falling through a height equal to the 
 height of a vertical column of uniform density, producing 
 the same pressure as is exerted by the gas at the level of 
 the orifice. Thus, it has just been shown that the pressure 
 of the atmosphere, when the barometer stands at 30 inches, 
 and the temperature is that of freezing, is equal to that 
 which would be produced by a column of air of uniform 
 density extending to an altitude of 26155 feet. Now, putting 
 g—lhe accelerating force of gravity = 32 feet per second, 
 the velocity which a heavy body would acquire by falling 
 in a vacuum from a height of 26155 feet, is v A- < ?' X 20155;= 
 8-^26155 = 100,4 f ee t m a second; which, therefore, is the 
 velocity with which air rushes into a vacuum. If the tem- 
 perature varies, the velocity will vary aiso, and will become 
 1294 y/(l + a t). For example, if the temperature were 16° 
 centigrade (about 61° of Fahrenheit), the velocity would be 
 1332 feet per second. 
 
 Since the densities of the gases are proportional to the 
 pressures they support, air will always rush into a vacuum 
 with the same velocity, whatever its density may be in the 
 vessel from which it escapes ; for the homogeneous column 
 of the same density, and exercising the same pressure as the 
 air in the vessel, must, in all cnses, have the same alfitude. 
 
 The velocities with which the different gases enter a 
 vacuum are inversely as the square roots of their densities ; 
 for they are proportional to the square roots of the altitudes 
 from which the molecules are supposed to fall, and these 
 altitudes are inversely as the densities. Thus, hydrogen 
 gas, the lightest of all the gases, and whose density is only 
 0-0688 of that of air, would enter a vacuum with a velocity 
 of 4933 (=1294 divided by the square root of 0-0688) feet in 
 a second. It is to be remarked, however, that all those laws 
 relative to the flow of gases, are rather inferences from 
 theory than truths demonstrated by direct experiment. 
 
 In the case of air or any gas flowing into a space con- 
 taining a gas of an inferior density, the velocity will be the 
 same as that of an incompressible liquid, of similar density 
 with the effluent gas, and capable of exercising a pressure 
 equal to the difference between the pressures of the two 
 gases. Taking, for example, the case of a gas flowing from 
 a gasometer into the atmosphere : let A denote the height 
 of the barometer, and A + H that of the column of mercury 
 exercising a pressure equal to the elasticity of the effluent 
 gas, so that H is the difference of the two pressures. Also, 
 let A denote the density of mercury, d that of the gas in the 
 gasometer corresponding to the pressure A + H, and v the 
 velocity per second ; then 
 
 Now if, in the formula p — kd (1 + <zr), we substitute 
 the pressure in the gasometer (A + H) A for p, and also 
 for k its value as above determined in feet, this expression 
 will become 
 
 where v is expressed in feet. If, therefore, A denote the 
 area of the orifice in feet, the volume or number of cubic 
 feet discharged in a second will be v A. It is to be observed, 
 that the volume thus determined is the volume of a gas of 
 the same density as in the gasometer ; if it were required 
 to find the Dumber of cubic feet, at a different density, cor- 
 responding to the pressure of a mercurial column whose 
 height =A', it would be necessary to multiply the above 
 expression b] the ratio (A + H)-^A\ 
 
 From the experiments of D'Aubuisson, it has been ascer- 
 tained that air, in passing through an orifice pierced in B 
 thin plate, forms a vma contractu, whose area, as in the 
 case of a liquid, is 005 of the area of the orifice. The ap- 
 plication of cylindric adjutages increases the quantity i88u 
 ing through the orifice to 0-93, and a conical tube to 095. 
 The length of the adjutage may be 20 or 30 times the 
 diameter of the orifice before the discharge begins to be 
 diminished by friction. If, therefore, we suppose the gas 
 to flow through a cyltndrtc tube, and assume the multi- 
 plier 093 : and also express the area of the orifice in terms 
 of the diameter of the tube, which we (hall suppose =m 
 feet; then, observing that 4 A = 3-14159 m-'. the formula 
 for the number of cubic feet discharged in a second the 
 948 
 
 PNEUMOBRANCHIATES. 
 
 density being measured by A + H, will become 
 
 945m - V ,Ai?H (1 + at) S • 
 
 The principle of the lateral communication of motion 
 holds good with respect to the gases as well as the liquids. 
 Ob tins principle we may explain a curious fact, observed 
 in the efflux of air from a blowing machine, and in the 
 escape of steam from the valves of boilers. If a circular 
 disk of four or five limes the diameter of the orifice be 
 placed close to it, not only will it not be forced away by the 
 current of the elastic fluid, but it will be retained by a con- 
 siderable force; insomuch that if the orifice be directed 
 downwards, the disk, though formed of a dense metallic 
 substance, will be supported in opposition to its gravity. 
 Let air. issuing with considerable force through the aper- 
 ture A B, have its course interrupted by the fc . 
 metallic plate C D ; the current will assume N> x r D/y 
 the form of a conoid E A B F, containing 
 the cavity E G F. At first, the space C G D 
 will be filled with the effluent air ; but if a 
 lateral communication of motion takes place, the air in this 
 conoid will join itself to that which escapes by the edges of 
 the plate, and a vacuum be formed in the space C t; 1), and 
 the plate C D be forced towards the aperture by the pressure 
 of the atmosphere on the opposite side. But as it ap- 
 proaches the orifice, the action of the effluent air will be- 
 come more intense, and the dimensions of the void space 
 be diminished, so that the plate will assume a position in 
 which the forces tending to move it m opposite directions 
 will be balanced. 
 
 It has been demonstrated by Newton, in the second book 
 of the Principia, that the velocity with which sound is 
 propagated through the air is the same as that which a 
 heavy body would acquire by falling through half the 
 height of the homogeneous atmosphere, and, consequently, 
 equal to 8-^13078, or, about 915 feet per second. But this 
 theoretical determination is found to differ considerably 
 from experiment, which gives a velocity of 1125 feet per 
 second, when the temperature of the air is at 62° of Fahren- 
 heit's thermometer. Laplace suggested a very probable 
 explanation of this discrepancy : namely, that the con- 
 densation caused by the vibrations produced a degree of 
 sensible heat by which the elasticity of the air is increased, 
 or, rather, the density diminished, while the elastic force 
 remains the same. In consequence of this extrication of 
 heat, the number given by the formula of Newton must be 
 multiplied by the square root of the number which ex- 
 presses the ratio of the specific heat of the air under a con- 
 stant pressure to its specific heat under a constant volume. 
 This number is found by experiment to be 1-375, the square 
 root of which is 1-173 ; and, on applying litis correction, 
 with the proper corrections for temperature, the theoretical 
 determination does not differ very widely from the experi- 
 mental result. See Sound. 
 
 Pneumatics forms a branch of physical science which has 
 been entirely created by modern discoveries. Galileo first 
 demonstrated that air possesses weight. His pupil, Torri- 
 celli, invented the barometer; and Pascal, by observing the 
 difference of the altitudes of the mercurial column at the 
 top and the foot of the Puy de Dome, proved that the sus- 
 pension of the mercury is caused by the pressure of the 
 atmosphere. Otto Guericke, a citizen of Magdeburg, in- 
 vented the air-pump about the year 1654; and Boyle and 
 Mariotte, soon afterwards detected, by its means.the principal 
 mechanical properties of atmospheric air. Analogous pro- 
 perties have been proved to belong to all the other aeriform 
 fluids. The problem of determining the velocity of their 
 vibrations was solved by Newton and Euler, but more com- 
 pletely by Lagrange. The theoretical principles relative to 
 the pressure and motion of elastic fluids, from which the 
 practical formula; are deduced, were established by Daniel 
 Bernoulli, in his Ilydrodynamica, (1738); but have been 
 rendered more general by Navier (.Mem. de I'Acad. 1830). 
 The experiments of D'Aubuisson, above referred to, are 
 given in different volumes of the .Innalfs de Chimie (1826, 
 1828, 1829). Set Gas, Rkbistami k, Vapoir. 
 
 PNEUMATIC RAILWAY. Sec Railroad. 
 
 PNEUMATCMACH1 <;r. nvtvpa, spirit, and payr,, 
 In Ecclesiastical History, a name of reproach, 
 given by the orthodox to those various classes of heretics 
 who, in the fourth and fifth centuries, impugned the di- 
 vinity of the Hoi j Ghost. See Macedonians. 
 
 PNEUMATOSIS. (Gr. mci-parou,, I inflate.) Fmphv- 
 sema. .\ collection of air in the cellular membrane, ren- 
 dering the pan tumid, elastic and crepitating when pressed. 
 It rarely arises spontaneously, but generally from some 
 
 wound which afiectS the lungs, and by which the air 
 
 spreads through the cellular membrane. In some rare 
 
 an i ni-ct of certain poisons. 
 
 PNEUMOBB IN'CHIATES, Tneumobramchiata. (Gr. 
 
 irvtvpa, air, ^pay\ia, gills.) A name applied by Hunter to
 
 PNEUMONIA. 
 
 the Perennibranchiate reptiles of recent zoologists ; and by 
 Lamarck to an order of Gastropodous mollusks. 
 
 PNEUMO'NIA, or PNEUMONITIS. An inflammation 
 of the lungs. This disease generally attacks those of robust 
 habit after exposure to the cold or wet, and suppressed 
 perspiration ; it is sometimes produced by any inordinate 
 exertion of the lungs. Fever, cough, difficult breathing, a 
 strong, hard, and quick pulse, usher in the disease, which, 
 if neglected, sometimes proceeds so rapidly as to end in 
 suffocation ; it may also prove fatal by terminating in sup- 
 puration and gangrene. A free and abundant expectoration, 
 perspiration, or diarrhoea, are favourable symptoms of its 
 termination in resolution. Large bleeding at the outset, re- 
 peated, however, with much circumspection, local bleed- 
 ing, purges, and diaphoretics of calomel and antimony, and 
 afterwards small doses of opium, hemlock, and such reme- 
 dies as quiet the cough, and procure sleep, constitute the 
 leading principles of treatment. 
 
 PNEU'MOTHO'RAX. (Gr. nvtvp.ee, and $topal, chest.) 
 An accumulation of air in the sac of the pleura. 
 
 POA. (Gr. -rrori, grass.) A name given by botanists to a 
 genus of grasses of considerable extent, and very abundant 
 in the pasturages of Europe. One of the commonest of all 
 weeds is the Pao annua. Poa trivialis and pratensis are 
 other species, sown extensively as a part of the artificial 
 pastures and lawns, which are now commonly made with 
 picked grasses instead of "hay seeds." In general, they 
 appear to be nutritious and agreeable to cattle. 
 
 POACHERS. See Game Laws. 
 
 POCO. (Ital.) In Music, a word frequently prefixed to 
 another to lessen the strength of its signification; as poco 
 largo, a little slow. 
 
 PO'DAGRA. (Gr. -novs, the foot, and aypa, a seizure.) 
 See. Gout. 
 
 PODESTA. One of the chief magistrates of Genoa and 
 Venice is so called. 
 
 PODE'TIA. (Gr. novc, a foot.) The stalk-like elonga- 
 tions of the thallus, which, in certain lichens, support the 
 fructification, as in Cenomyce. 
 
 PO'DICEPS. (Gr. divided foot.) A genus of birds, com- 
 monly called Grebes, placed in the order of Palmipeds by 
 Cuvier, but forming the transition from the waders to the 
 swimmers by having the webs of the toes incomplete, and 
 formed by a scalloped membrane, as in the coot. The legs 
 are, however, placed far back, so as to render them efficient 
 organs of swimming, while their use in walking on dry land 
 is proportionally deteriorated; the feet are admirably or- 
 ganized for propelling the body through the water ; and the 
 grebe, which dives more than it swims, assists the feet with 
 a simultaneous action of its wings ; but these, like the pec- 
 toral fins of fishes, serve mainly to direct and vary the 
 course of the bird. 
 
 PO'DIUM. (Lat.) In Architecture, the part in an am- 
 phitheatre projecting over the arena, above which it was 
 raised about 12 or 15 feet : in this part sat the persona- 
 ges of distinction. The word is also used to signify a bal- 
 cony. 
 
 PtE'CILE. (Gr.) A celebrated portico or gallery at 
 Athens, where Zeno inculcated his doctrines. The Pcecile 
 was adorned with the statues of gods and benefactors; and 
 the picture of Polygnotus, so well known to the classical 
 reader, which represented Miltiades at the head of the 1000 
 Greeks at the battle of Marathon, was here suspended for 
 ages. 
 
 POZ'CILOPODS, Pmcilopoda. (Gr. ttoikiAo;, varied, and 
 ttous, a foot.) The name of an order of Entomostracous 
 Crustaceans, including those which have feet of different 
 forms and uses, the anterior ones being ambulatory or pre- 
 hensile, the posterior branchial and natatory. 
 
 POETRY. (Gr. rrottjcrig, a poem, and TroirjTiKri rtxi'1- the 
 art of poetry ; from tiouh), I make, according to Aristotle, 
 because the writers of each different class of poems, epic, 
 elegiac, &c, were said, in common language, to " make" 
 them ; and called ciro-noiot, tXtyuoitotot, epic-makers, and 
 elegy-makers. De Poet., sec. iii.) To produce a complete 
 and satisfactory definition of poetry has been, hitherto, un- 
 successfully attempted by writers on taste, and by poets 
 themselves. A popular one, sufficiently adapted to general 
 notions, is furnished by the doyen of living critics, Lord Jef- 
 frey : " The end of poetry is to please ; and the name, we 
 think, is strictly applicable to every metrical composition 
 from which we derive pleasure without any laborious ex- 
 ercise of the understanding." (Ed. Rev., xi., p. 216.) But, 
 in the first place, it has been truly observed that "verse is 
 the limit by which poetry is bounded : it is the adjunct of 
 poetry, but not its living principle." " Poetry," says Cole- 
 ridge, " is not the proper antithesis to prose, but to science. 
 Poetry is opposed to science, and prose to metre." " The 
 proper and immediate object of science is the acquirement 
 or communication of truth ; the proper and immediate ob- 
 ject of poetry is the communication of immediate pleasure." 
 In the next place, Lord Jeffrey's definition would clearly In- 
 78 
 
 POETRY. 
 
 elude burlesque composition. Is this strictly poetry ? It 
 was included, certainly, in their rather artificial analysis of 
 poetry by ancient critics : in the Poetics of Aristotle the rules 
 of comic composition are as elaborately laid down as those 
 of any other species. Yet the excitement of the ridicidoua 
 is altogether of a different nature from that produced by po- 
 etry in the modern sense of the word ; which is necessarily 
 either elevating, imaginative, or tender. And this it does, 
 as Coleridge, with a true poetical feeling, has described it, 
 by communicating to the reader "that pleasurable emotion, 
 that peculiar state and degree of excitement which arises in 
 the poet himself in the act of composition. (Literary Re- 
 mains.) The end of poetry, then, appears to be to produce 
 intellectual pleasure by exciting emotions either of the ele- 
 vated or pathetic order. But in what mode does poetry ef- 
 fect this 1 The sight of a distressed object raises tender 
 feelings; a tale of distress does the same : to be witness of 
 some stupendous event, or great natural phenomenon, ele- 
 vates them ; and so does the description of such. Yet this 
 tale or description is not poetry. Some dramas, almost ut- 
 terly destitute of poetical merit, retain a hold on theatrical 
 audiences merely because they are transcripts of painful 
 scenes actually occurring in domestic life. But these are 
 not poetry, although constantly mistaken for it. So, again, 
 the mere narration of a grand and surprising circumstance 
 is not poetry, however akin to poetical the emotion it in- 
 spires. Few passages in poetry retain a greater hold on the 
 imagination than the well-known accounts of Napoleon 
 amid the fires of Moscow, or the sack of Rome by Bourbon, 
 or the execution of Charles the First, or mere descriptions 
 of the Alps or Niagara : the most prosaic writer who treats 
 these subjects, if he only adhere to truth and bring out its 
 striking particulars, cannot fail of producing an effect which 
 may be termed, as regards the reader, poetical ; but not by 
 the employment of poetry. This consideration leads us to 
 its great characteristic. It is essentially a creative art : its op- 
 eration is "making," not transcribing. "Imitation" it is, as 
 Aristotle defines it ; not because it copies, but because it has 
 its model in nature, and can never depart far from it with- 
 out losing its character. Lord Bacon explains this by say- 
 ing, that poetry " doth raise and erect the mind, by submit- 
 ting the shows of things to the desire of the mind." The 
 imagination alters these "shows of things" by adding or 
 subtracting qualities, and poetry produces to view the forms 
 which result from the operation. 
 
 But Lord Jeffrey goes on, in the passage which has been 
 already quoted, to give an analysis of the elements of poeti- 
 cal pleasure, which appears to us singularly clear and ac- 
 curate. " This pleasure may, in general, be analyzed into 
 three parts : that which we receive from the excitement of 
 passion or emotion ; that which is derived from the play of 
 imagination, or the easy exercise of reason ; and that which 
 depends on the character and qualities of the diction." The 
 two first are the vital and primary species of poetical de- 
 light. And this analysis may lead us to consider the facul- 
 ties by the exercise of which these several pleasures are 
 produced — faculties widely different, yet all poetical; some 
 of them more and some less essential to the production of 
 poetical pleasure ; some less and some more conspicuous in 
 different poets; all united in hardly any. 
 
 I. Imagination is, emphatically, the great poetical facul- 
 ty. It is " the first moving or creative principle of the mind, 
 which fashions out of materials previously existing, new ma- 
 terials and original truths." It is "a complex power, in- 
 cluding those faculties which are called by metaphysicians 
 conception, abstraction, and judgment :" the first enabling 
 us to form a notion of objects of perception and knowledge; 
 the second "separating the selected materials from the 
 qualities and circumstances which are connected with them 
 in nature ;" the third selecting the materials. (Stewart : 
 see the article "Poetry" in the Encycl. Britannica.) Its 
 operations are most various, and it exhibits itself in poetry 
 in very different degrees and forms. It may shine here and 
 there, chiefly in comparison, or in bold and pleasing meta- 
 phor, breaking the chain of a narrative, as in Homer and 
 the earlier poetry of most nations; it may hurry image on 
 image, connected only by those exquisite links of thought 
 which are present in the mind of the poet, in daring, com- 
 pressed, rapid language, as if language were inadequate to 
 its expression, as in the inspired prophets, in ^Eschylus, and 
 often in Shakspeare ; it may predominate in entire sustained 
 conceptions, grasping at general features, as in Milton ; it 
 may cling more closely to the "shows of things," dwelling 
 in particulars, reproducing with startling vividness images 
 little altered, graphic and minute, as in Dante ; and here it 
 often approaches to fancy. Imagination, combined in a 
 Cieater or less degree with thought or reflection, but with 
 little of the other poetical qualities, produces a kind of po- 
 etry which suits the taste of a refined and thoughtful class, 
 but has little hold on the general mind ; departing too wide- 
 ly from Milton's rule in being, if simple, neither " sensuou9 
 nor passionate," of which striking examples may be found 
 
 949 
 
 e lound
 
 POETRY. 
 
 In Wordsworth, and sometimes in Goethe, a writer of a very 
 different cast. 
 
 -. No distinction has given critics more trouble, in the 
 way of definition, than that between imagination and fancy. 
 "Fancy," it has been said, "is given to beguile and quicken 
 the temporal part of our nature; imagination to incite and 
 support the eternal." "The distinction between fancy and 
 Imagination," says another, "is simply that the former alto- 
 gether changes and remodels the original idea, impregna- 
 ting it with something extraneous; the latter leaves it un- 
 disturbed, but associates it with things to which in some 
 view or other it bears a resemblance." Now the latter is 
 an operation of thought, wit, or judgment ; and this, per- 
 haps, will lead us to a right conclusion. The poetry of true 
 fancy is merely that of imagination "at a Inner "point of 
 excitement," or employed on less elevated subject matter. 
 The poetry of the Midsummer Night's Dream, for instance, 
 may be termed either imaginative or fanciful with equal 
 correctness. But there is also a spurious fancy, the off- 
 spring of a quick wit, adopting poetical diction: are we 
 wrong in calling this the real quality of one of the most 
 charming of modern poets, whose wit is very nearly allied 
 to imagination, yet not the same — Thomas Moore 1 
 
 3. Lord Jeffrey, as we have seen, associates with the 
 pleasure of imagination that derived from " the easy exer- 
 cise of reason." This is produced chiefly by the facilities 
 of thought, wit. and reflection. It may, indeed, be doubted 
 whether the expression of thought, however energetic and 
 acute, clad in current poetical diction, is really poetry. Cer- 
 tainly it is so, if at all, in a very inferior degree to that of 
 the imagination. And yet when we reflect how much of 
 the pleasure which we derive from verse is of this kind, 
 how many of the greatest names in the history of poetry 
 are distinguished for this alone, and that one great literary 
 nation (the French) seems to have placed its idea of poetry 
 entirely in the expression of thought and feeling, and chiefly 
 the former, we can scarcely refuse it an important place. 
 It also takes many shapes, "it appears in the form of witty 
 or acute conceits, as in Donne and Cowley, and many 
 French and Italian poets, nearly allied to that spurious 
 fancy of which we have spoken. It lightens in flashes of 
 high-minded indignation or keen sarcasm in Juvenal ; as- 
 sumes a still loftier moral tone in Persius, and often in Dry- 
 den, mixed with grave, energetic, powerful reflection. It 
 takes the easier tone of acute knowledge of the ways of 
 man, and light satire, in the pages of Horace, and enlivens 
 the charming narrative of Ariosto. It often assumes a 
 rhetorical character, as in Corneille and Lucan. There is 
 a trivial experiment by which the difference between this 
 and imaginative poetry may be tested. Turn both into 
 prose ; the latter re:ains its poetical character; the former 
 seems to lose it. 
 
 4. The expression of passion, sentiment, or pathos, is the 
 most common and universal of all sources of poetical pleas- 
 ure. It is the very soul of all early and simple poetry ; it 
 pervades no less that of the most civilized communities. 
 Yet this class of poetry is less truly and emphatically poeti- 
 cal than the imaginative, although more popular. The 
 pleasure occasioned by it is of a mixed nature : it arises 
 from the excitement of peculiar sympathies, not produced, 
 hut heightened only, by the form in which that excitement 
 is conveyed. This is the reason whv mere popularity is not 
 a test of the excellence of poetry. 'The uncritical'reader 
 calls that the best poetry by which he is best pleased. De- 
 votional poetry, for instance, appeals to an elevated and 
 universal class of sympathies; and on this account often 
 passes for worth more than, as poetry, it really is. The 
 highest attribute of a poet, in this branch of the poetical 
 faculty, is a sensibility to all the springs of our passions, 
 joined with the art of expressing it; these, when united 
 with that power of personification which is more peculiarly 
 the dramatic faculty, produce the drama in its highest and 
 noblest shape, such as it is exhibited by Bhakspeare, and 
 by him alone. But the power of giving language to the 
 sentiments of any common and elevated passion is by itself 
 a u'reiit poetical merit. The passion of love N the staple of 
 numberless bards. The passion for \v;ir or conflict, unhap- 
 pily natural to man. is a source of [ try : it is Impossible 
 
 not to perceive in Homer and Scott, independently of their 
 art of narration and energy of description, an exultation in 
 
 the animal excitement of the imaginary battle, the a n mi 
 
 nis gaudia of the savage Atlila, peculiarly and intensely 
 poetical. The sentiment of self-love, the natural propensity 
 to exhibit self to self in a romantic or elevated point of view, 
 forms a great part of the charm of such a muse as that of 
 Byron. Again, independently of the direct expression of 
 feeling, there is \ n some poets a general colouring derived 
 from it. thrown as a liu'ht veil over all the objects present- 
 ed, which is a singularly attractive attribute. Such is the 
 tince of grave and serious tenderness which shades the po- 
 mry of Sophocles and Virgil, and assumes, perhaps, a more 
 feminine character in that of Tasso. 
 - 950 
 
 POINTS OF SUPPORT. 
 
 These are the more strictly subjective qualities of tme 
 poetry. There are others, of a more objective character, 
 which can scarcely be said to belong to it strictly as po- 
 etry, and yet can scarcely be excluded from a general re- 
 view. 
 
 5. The dramatic faculty, of which we have already spo- 
 ken, seems to consist in acute powers of observation of the 
 varieties of human character, together with the rarer power 
 of delineating it with such force as to bring the imaginary 
 person distinctly before the reader. It is the wonderful 
 and unique characteristic of Shakspeare, in whom all indi- 
 viduality, as has been often observed, seems absolutely lost 
 If we are to look for a second to Shakspeare in this high 
 faculty, we shall find him, among poets, only in Scott. But 
 it is a power often much developed in writers who are not 
 poets in any sense, such as Le Sage and De Foe. 
 
 6. The descriptive faculty is of the same kind; that of 
 bringing the objects of external nature, or passing scenes of 
 whatever sort vividly before the reader's fancy. When 
 the objects or scenes so represented are such as the painter 
 might choose with advantage for the exercise of his art, the 
 faculty is properly termed picturesque, though that word is 
 often of a looser acceptation. It is obvious that this also is 
 a faculty common to poets, with many others who are not 
 so; but sustained energy of description, as in Homer, forms 
 a magnificent groundwork for strictly poetical ornament. 
 In the poetry of modern times, especially in this country, 
 and in Germany, the description of external nature has been 
 made subservient to the purposes of imagination and reflec- 
 tion by writers of high genius ; and this combination pecu- 
 liarly characterizes the taste of the age. 
 
 7. Lord Jeffrey ranks last the pleasure derived from dic- 
 tion as of a secondary order, which it undoubtedly is, and 
 jet almost essential. The highest poetry, without beauty 
 of style, is rarely or never popular. We have no space to 
 characterize minutely this poetical quality ; but, by way of 
 example, it may suffice to observe, that Virgil is, perhaps, 
 of all poets, he of whose charm the greatest proportion is 
 derived from simple beauty and felicity of diction ; through 
 a whole range of ill-chosen subjects, always graceful, al- 
 ways equable, and as nearly approaching to faultlessness as 
 human skill can construct. 
 
 8. Lastly, we must not omit the pleasure of melody : not 
 essential to poetry, since there may be poetry without 
 verse; not always a merit of the poet's own, since much 
 depends on the language ; and a Greek or Italian poet, ce- 
 teris paribus, will ever be preferable to an English or Ger- 
 man one, on this account alone; but a grace which height- 
 ens the charm of the noblest poetry, and sometimes capti- 
 vates the sense even in the most indifferent. 
 
 POIKILl'TIC FORMATION'. (Gr. rotKiXof, variega- 
 ted.) In Geology, a term applied to the new red sandstone 
 formation, in consequence of the varieties of colours which 
 it exhibits. 
 
 POI'NDING. In Scottish Law, a species of diligence 
 (i. «., process), whereby the property of the debtor's move- 
 ables is transferred to the creditor. Poindings are either 
 real or personal ; the former affecting the debtor's move- 
 ables on the lands to which the debt attaches, the other his 
 moveables generally. The effect of real poinding is to give 
 the user of it right to the rents. 
 
 POINT. A steel instrument used by engravers for tra- 
 cing the work on a copper-plate. 
 
 Point. In Heraldry, an ordinary somewhat resembling 
 the pile (see Pile), but issuing from the base of the escutch- 
 eon instead of the chief: seldom used in English, but fre- 
 quently in foreign armories. 
 
 Point. In Music, a character used by many instead of 
 the dash, its chief use being to distinguish those notes from 
 which an intermediate effect is required dissimilar to the 
 dash. 
 
 POINT BLANK, in Gunnery, denotes the position of the 
 gun when pointed so that its axis is parallel to the horizon. 
 Point-blank range is the distance to which a shot fired in 
 the point-blank or horizontal direction is carried. 
 
 POI'NTING, in Artillery, denotes placing the gun so as 
 tn give the shot a particular direction. This is usually 
 done by help of the gunner's quadrant or level. Sec Le- 
 vel. 
 
 POINTS. Small flat pieces of cordage put throuch the 
 saiN in horizontal rows, for the purpose of reefing them. 
 
 POINTS OF SUPPORT, in Architecture, are the col- 
 lected areas on the plan of the piers, walls, columns. &c„ 
 upon which an edifice rests, or by which it is supported. It 
 is evident that the smaller their total are:i, compared with 
 the superficies of the whole building, the greater is the skill 
 exhibited by the architect; and this for many reasons, not 
 the least whereof is the greater resultant economy. We 
 subjoin a table of some few buildings in Europe, examined 
 in this respect. They are arranged in the order of the ratio 
 of their points of support, whose area, :is well as their total 
 superficies, are added in separate columns.
 
 POINTS OF THE COMPASS. 
 
 Points of 
 Support. 
 
 0056 
 
 127 
 0-129 
 0:139 
 0-140 
 0146 
 151 
 0154 
 
 0157 
 0-163 
 0167 
 
 0169 
 0-170 
 172 
 0176 
 
 0194 
 
 0-201 
 0-217 
 
 232 
 235 
 0-261 
 0-26S 
 
 Rome, now 
 
 (de- 
 
 Temple of Claudius il 
 Church of St. Stetano 
 Church of St. Sabino in Rom 
 
 stroved) 
 
 Church of St. Paul in Rome, without 
 
 the walls of the city 
 Temple of Peace in Rome . 
 Church of St. Filippo Neri, Naples . 
 Church of St. Giuseppe, Palermo 
 Church of Notre Dame, Paris . 
 Church of St. Dominion, Palermo 
 Church of St. Sulpice, Paris 
 Pantheon, or Church of SL Genevieve, 
 
 Paris 
 
 Church of St. Peter, ad Vincula, Rome 
 Church of S'. Vital, Ravenna . 
 Temple of Juno Lucina, Sicily . 
 Central building of Baths of Diocle- 
 
 sian, Rome 
 
 Cathedral, Milan . 
 
 St. Paul's, London .... 
 
 Great Temple at Psstum . 
 
 Central building of Baths of Caracalll, 
 
 Rome . . . . ; 
 Temple of Concord, Girgenti, Sicily . 
 Caihedral Sta. M. del Fiore, Florence 
 Mosque of Sta. Sophia, Constantino- 
 ple • • 
 
 Pantheon at Rome . . . . 
 Ancient Temple Galuzzo, Rome 
 St. Peter's, Rome . . . . 
 Hotel deslnvalides, Paris . 
 
 Total Area 
 
 in English 
 
 Feet. 
 
 15,139 
 
 106,513 
 67,123 
 22.S26 
 26,046 
 67,343 
 34,144 
 60,760 
 
 60.2S7 
 21.520 
 7,276 
 6,821 
 
 351,636 
 125,853 
 
 84,025 
 15,353 
 
 275,503 
 6,849 
 
 84,802 
 
 103,200 
 34,238 
 9,21)6 
 
 227,0b9 
 29,003 
 
 Area of 
 Points of 
 Support. 
 
 2,051 
 
 1,543 
 
 12,655 
 8,571 
 2.944 
 3,611 
 8,784 
 4.9SS 
 9,127 
 
 9,269 
 3,353 
 1,142 
 1,110 
 
 5S,797 
 21.365 
 14,311 
 2,619 
 
 43,911 
 1 ,330 
 17,030 
 
 22,567 
 7,954 
 2,167 
 
 59,30.3 
 7,790 
 
 POINTS OF THE COMPASS. In Geography and Nav- 
 igation, the points of division of the circle representing the 
 horizon, or of the compass card over which the magnetic 
 needle is suspended. A diameter of the circle being drawn 
 to represent the meridian, or north and south directions, 
 and another at right angles to it to represent the directions 
 east and west, the circle is thus divided into four quarters, 
 each of which is subdivided into eight equal parts, so that 
 the whole circle is divided into thirty-two equal parts ; and 
 the points of division are termed the points of the compass. 
 Each has a particular name, indicating its place with refer- 
 ence to the four principal or cardinal points, namely, the 
 north, south, east, and west points. See Compass. 
 
 POINTS OF THE ESCUTCHEON, in Heraldry, are 
 nine. These are marked by letters in the cut attached to 
 the article Heraldry, which is copied from those in the 
 ordinary English works on the elements of the science. 
 They are — A, dexter chief; B, middle chief; C, sinister 
 chief (Fr. chef, head) ; D, honour point ; E, fess point, 
 which is the centre of the shield (fascia, belt, or sash, from 
 the belt encircling the middle of a man) ; F, nombril point 
 (navel); G, dexter base; H, middle base; and I, sinister 
 base. It will be observed, that the greater part of these 
 names are taken from those parts of the human body which 
 the shield was taken figuratively to represent. 
 
 POI'SON. (Fr. poison.) A substance which disturbs, 
 suspends, or destroys one or more of the vital functions. 
 Poisons are classified by Orfila under the four heads of Irri- 
 tants, Narcotics, Narcofico-acrids, and Putrefiants or Septics. 
 See Toxicology. 
 
 POISON-FANG. The superior maxillary teeth of cer- 
 tain species of serpents are so called ; which, besides the 
 cavity for the pulp, appear to be perforated by a second 
 longitudinal canal, which is open at both ends, and receives 
 at that next the base of the fang the termination of the duct 
 of the poison gland. The tooth essentially consists of a 
 narrow and thin plate, bent upon itself lengthwise, and with 
 the approximated margins adherent together. In some 
 poison-fangs the line of adhesion is visible along the convex 
 aide of the tooth. 
 
 There is generally but one poison-fang on each maxillary 
 bone, as in the viper and naia ; but sometimes there are a 
 few additional teeth behind the principal fang. The fang 
 ordinarily lies recumbent : but when the serpent designs to 
 strike with this weapon, it is erected by a rotatory movement 
 of the jaw, and the poison-gland is at the same time coin- 
 pressed and emptied of its secretion, which is injected 
 through the hollow fang into the wound. 
 
 POISON-GLAND. Those glands which secrete an acrid 
 or venomous liquor, which is conveyed along an instrument 
 capable of inflicting a wound, are so termed. The glands 
 at the sides of the head of poisonous serpents, those at the 
 base of the hollow jaws of the centipede, at the aculeated 
 tail of the scorpion, communicating with the sting of the 
 bee or the spur of the omithorhynchus, are examples. 
 
 POLA'CCA. A peculiar vessel with three masts, navigated 
 Chiefly in the Levant and other parts of the Mediterranean. 
 POLAI'RE. A peculiar rig of a vessel, having pole 
 masts, no tops, and sometimes no crosstrees, whereby the 
 yard and sail are lowered almost close down to the yard 
 next below. 
 
 POLARIZATION OF LIGHT. 
 
 POLAR. Having reference to poles ; as polar circles, 
 polar regions, polar projection, &c. 
 
 POLA'RITY. In Physics, that property of bodies in 
 consequence of which, when at liberty to move freely, they 
 arrange themselves in certain determinate directions, or 
 point, as it were, to given poles. Thus, an iion bar acquires 
 polarity by magnetism, and, when suspended from a single 
 point, arranges itself in the direction of the magnetic meri- 
 dian, or points to the magnetic poles of the earth. When 
 light is supposed to consist of material particles emitted from 
 the sun, it is necessary, in order to explain certuin phe- 
 nomena of optics, to assume that the particles are endowed 
 with polarity, which merely signifies that the opposite sides 
 of a panicle have different physical properties. See Polari- 
 zation. 
 
 PO'LARIZA'TION OF LIGHT. Light which has un- 
 dergone certain reflections or refractions, or been subjected 
 to the action of material bodies in any one of a great num- 
 ber of ways, acquires a certain modification, in consequence 
 of which it no longer presents the same phenomena of 
 reflection and transmission as light which has not been 
 subjected to such action. This modification is termed the 
 polarization of light ; its rays being supposed, according to 
 particular theoretical views, to have acquired poles (like 
 the magnet), or sides with opposite properties. 
 
 The polarization of light may be effected in various ways, 
 but chiefly in the following : 1. By reflection at a proper 
 angle from the surfaces of transparent media, as glass, 
 water, &c. 2. By transmission through crystals possessing 
 the property of double refraction. 3. By transmission 
 through a sufficient number of transparent uncrystallized 
 plates placed at proper angles. 4. By transmission through 
 a number of other bodies imperfectly crystallized, as agate, 
 mother of pearl, &c. The following experiment will serve 
 to illustrate the first of these modes, and also give a clear 
 idea of the difference between common and polarized light. 
 Let A and B be two metallic or pasteboard tubes, open at 
 both ends, and fitting into each 
 so as to turn stiffly. Into each 
 of these let a piece of polished k^ 
 glass, M, N, having one of its £££ 
 sides roughened, and blackened 
 with melted pitch or black var- 
 
 nish so as to destroy its internal reflection, be fixed in such 
 a position that its surface makes an angle ot 33 degrees 
 with the axis of the tubes. Let the tubes now be placed 
 so that the light from the sun, or any luminary, ia ling on 
 the plate M, shall be reflected along the axis ; and let the 
 tube A be fixed in that position. The light which traverses 
 the axis of the tube will fall on the plate N, from which 
 it will be again reflected, and may be received by the eye, 
 or on a screen. The apparatus being thus arranged, let 
 the tube B be turned round within A, carrying with it the 
 reflector N, which in its revolution will always preserve 
 the same inclination to the axis of the tube ; and the ray 
 of light reflected from N will describe a conical surtace. 
 Now, on attending to the ray reflected from N, it will be 
 observed in the course of the revolution constantly to vary 
 in intensity : at two opposite points it will acquire a maxi- 
 mum of intensity ; and at other two opposite points, inter- 
 mediate between these, it will entirely disappear. On 
 comparing the positions of the reflecting planes at the 
 occurrence of these phases, it will be found that the inten- 
 sity of the light is greatest when the plane N is parallel 
 to M, and that there is no reflection from N when the two 
 planes are at right angles. It thus appears that a ray of 
 light reflected from the surface of glass at this particular 
 angle of 33° is incapable of being reflected a second time 
 from a similar surface, perpendicular to the former, at an 
 equal angle of incidence. This property is expressed by 
 saving that the light reflected from M is polarized in the 
 plane of reflection. It has, in fact, acquired some property 
 or modification, in virtue of which, while it preserves the 
 power of being again reflected in the same plane, it ceases 
 to be subject to the ordinary law of reflection in a perpen- 
 dicular plane. . „ , . . . 
 
 If the ray reflected from M, instead of being received on 
 a second reflecting surface N, be thrown upon a crystal of 
 Iceland spar, or any doubly refracting crystal so placed 
 that its principal plane (.». e., the plane passmg through the 
 direction of the ray and the shorter diagonal ot the rhom- 
 bus) is parallel to the plane of reflection M, then there 
 will only be a single refraction ; the extraordinary ray 
 will disappear, and the ordinary ray alone be produced 
 But if the face of the crystal be turned round 90°, the 
 phenomena are reversed ; the extraordinary ray alone is 
 produced, and the ordinary one disappears. The light, 
 therefore in consequence of its reflection from the surtace 
 M, ceases to obey the same laws of double refraction as 
 ordinary light. 
 
 When the- ray reflected from M is received perpendicu- 
 larly on a tourmaline plate, it will present different phe- 
 
 951
 
 POLARIZATION. 
 
 nomena of transmission according to the position of the 
 axis of the plate, that is, the axis of the crystal from which 
 the plate was cut If the axis is parallel" to the reflecting 
 plane, the whole of the light will be transmitted through 
 the plate ; but if the plate lie turned round in its own 
 plane until the axis becomes perpendicular to the reflecting 
 plane, no portion of the light will be transmitted. 
 
 From these experiments it appears that light polarized 
 by reflection possesses the following characters, which are 
 invariably found to belong to all polarized light, in what- 
 ever way the polarization may have been produced : 1. It 
 is incapable of being reflected by polished transparent 
 bodies at certain angles of incidence, and in certain posi- 
 tions of the plane of incidence. 2. It is incapable of under- 
 going division into two equal pencils by double refraction, 
 in positions of the doubly refracting bodies in which a ray 
 of ordinary light would be so divided. 3. It is incapable of 
 being transmitted by a plate of tourmaline when incident 
 perpendicularly upon it, in certain positions of the plate; 
 and is readily transmitted by it in certain other positions, at 
 right angles to the former. 
 
 The polarization of light by reflection is only effected 
 completely when the light falls on the reflecting surface at 
 a particular angle ; and it has been mentioned that, in the 
 case of glass, the angle which the direction of the ray must 
 make with the surface is about 33°, or the angle of incidence 
 (the complement of the former) must be 57°, in round num- 
 bers. This angle is called the polarizing angle. It is dif- 
 ferent for different substances ; but from an extensive series 
 of experiments with a great number of different bodies, Sir 
 David Brewster found the following remarkably simple and 
 beautiful relation to subsist in all cases between the polari- 
 zing angle and the refractive power of the medium, viz. 
 The tangent of the polarizing angle for any medium is the 
 index of refraction belonging to that medium. 
 
 All reflecting substances are capable of polarizing light if 
 incident at proper angles; but metallic bodies, and bodies 
 of very high n 'tractive power, like the diamond, appear to 
 do so only imperfectly, the reflected ray not entirely disap- 
 pearing in circumstances when a perfectly polarized ray 
 would be completely extinguished. 
 
 When light is reflected at an angle greater or less than 
 the polarizing angle, it is partially polarized. A second 
 reflection in the same plane renders the polarization more 
 complete ; and, by repeating the reflections a sufficient 
 number of times, it may be polarized at any angle of inci- 
 dence. 
 
 The second method of effecting the polarization of light 
 above mentioned, is by transmission through doubly refrac- 
 ting crystals. When a ray of common light is separated 
 into two by double refraction, both the pencils, at their 
 emergence from the crystal, are found to be completely 
 polarized ; but in different planes, at right angles to each 
 other. This may be proved by receiving them on a reflect- 
 ing surface at the polarizing angle, or by examining them 
 through a plate of tourmaline, or by interposing a second 
 crystal also having the power of double refraction ; and in 
 all cases each pencil will exhibit the same phenomena as 
 light polarized by reflection. Let a ray of light fall on a 
 rhomboid of Iceland spar, it will be separated into two, of 
 which call O the ordinary ray and E the extraordinary ray. 
 Let both pencils be received on a second rhomboid, aiid the 
 following phenomena will be observed. When the rhom- 
 boids are in similar positions, or have their homologous 
 faces parallel, neither of the pencils will be separated by 
 the second crystal ; but O will produce only an ordinary 
 ray, and E only an extraordinary ray. On turning the 
 second crystal round through an angle of 90°, O produces 
 only an extraordinary ray, and E only an ordinary ray. In 
 intermediate positions, each pencil is separated by the second 
 crystal into two, in the same manner as ordinary light. 
 This experiment, which was first made by Huygens, and 
 accurately described by him, may be made as follows: 
 Take two pretty thick rhomboids of Iceland spar, and lay 
 them down (the one over the other) on a sheet of white 
 paper, having a small and well-defined black spot on it. 
 When the rhomboids are so placed that their homologous 
 sides are parallel, the spot will be seen double through the 
 combined crystals, as if they formed one piece ; both images 
 will be equally bright, and the line which joins them will 
 be parallel to the principal sections of the crystals. This is 
 shown at A in the figure below. If we now turn round 
 the upper crystal in the horizontal plane from left to right, 
 two new faint images will make their appearance, ;i s :it B. 
 Continuing to turn, the four images will be all equally 
 luminous, as at C, where the crystal has been turned 4. r A 
 As the rotation proceeds, the two original images become 
 extremely faint, as at I). When the crystal has been turned 
 90°, there will again be only two images, ns at E : two new 
 faint images will again appear at F. At G, where the angle 
 of rotation is three quadrants, the four will be niton equally 
 bright ; farther on at H they will become unequal ; and at 
 952 
 
 POLEMOSCOPE. 
 
 I, when the revolution is pre- 
 cisely 180°, they will all co- 
 alesce into one bright spot. 
 From all these appearances ab cdefoh i 
 it follows that the ordinary ray is polarized in the principal 
 plane of the crystal, and the extraordinary ray in a plane 
 perpendicular to the principal plane. 
 
 The phenomena produced by the polarization of light are 
 among the most splendid and singular in the whole range 
 of physical science. They lay open many new viewB of 
 the constitution of natural bodies, and their explanation 
 constitutes the principal part of the theory of light. The 
 general explanation, according to the Newtonian theory of 
 emission, is this : The molecular forces of the crystal, acting 
 on the particles of light, give them a rotatory motion round 
 their centres of gravity, till their axis assume certain deter- 
 minate positions, after which they remain at rest. There 
 are, however, cases in which the luminous particles, in 
 traversing the crystal, assume no fixed position, but oscillate 
 about their centres of gravity in regular periods, termed by 
 Newton fits ; and there are even cases in which it is neces- 
 sary to suppose that they are endowed with a continuous 
 rotation. In giving a rational account of these complicated 
 phenomena, and reducing them to calculation, the followers 
 of the undulatory theory have been more successful, and 
 the whole are connected and explained by a simple hy- 
 pothesis, which may be enunciated as follows: 
 
 "Common light consists of undulations in which the vi- 
 brations of each particle are in the plane perpendicular to 
 the wave's motion. The polarization of light is the reso- 
 lution of each vibration into two, one parallel to a given 
 plane passing through the direction of the wave's motion, 
 and the other perpendicular to that plane, which become 
 in certain cases the origin of waves that travel in different 
 directions. When we are able to separate one of these 
 from the other, we say that the light of each is polarized. 
 When the resolved vibration parallel to the plane is pre- 
 served unaltered, and that perpendicular to the plane is 
 diminished in a given ratio (or vice versa), and not sepa- 
 rated from it, we sav that the light is partially polarized." 
 (Airy's Mathematical Tracts, p. 339.) 
 
 The polarization of light by reflection was accidentally 
 discovered by Malus, a French engineer officer, in the year 
 1810 ; and the phenomena, which appeared the most re- 
 markable of any that had yet been observed, both on account 
 of their splendour and their intimate relations with the 
 more interesting parts of physical optics and the theory of 
 light, soon began to be studied with great care, and to be 
 varied in every possible way, by Malus himself, by Biot, 
 Arago, Dr. Young, Seebeck, Sir David Brewster, Sir John 
 Herschel, and many others. But the individual who beyond 
 all doubt contributed most to connect them with theory, 
 and to show their mutual relations and dependences, was 
 Fresnel, whose success in deriving them, by a priori reason- 
 ing, from the principles of the undulatory hypothesis of 
 light, was so complete as to place the evidence of the truth 
 of that theory on almost the same footing of credibility as 
 that of gravitation itself. Analogous phenomena to those 
 of the polarization of light have been found to belong also 
 to radiant heat. Professor Forbes of Edinburgh, who has 
 been the most successful investigator in this interesting de- 
 partment of physics, has shown that heat is polarized both 
 by reflection and refraction. He has also succeeded in 
 depolarizing heat, and thereby proved that heat possesses the 
 property of double refraction. 
 
 See Malus, Theorie de la Double Refraction ; Fresnel, 
 Memoircs deVIvstitut,\z>24, 1820, 1827; Herschel's Treatise 
 on Light, F.ncy. Metr. ; Brewster's "Optics," Cabinet Cyclo- 
 pedia ; various papers in the Phil. Trans, from 1813 to 
 1819 ; Airy's Math. Tracts, 2d ed. 1831 ; und the various 
 scientific journals. 
 
 POLE. In Surveying, a measure of length, containing 
 16j feet or 5£ yards ; it is the same as rod. Sometimes the 
 term is used as a superficial measure; a square pole de- 
 noting 5.1 X 5A yards, or 30.) square yards. 
 
 POLE'MIOS, or POLEMICAL THEOLOGY. (Gr. 
 TTuXeiws, war.) The same as controversial. The term is 
 not necessarily applicable to theology only, but it is gene- 
 rally so applied ; and it reflects little credit on human 
 nature that such a subject should have been treated in 
 ■UCh a manner ns the appellation indicates. 
 
 POXEMOSCOPE. (Gr. TroXtf/of, war, and pkottcu), I 
 view.) An instrument imagined by Hevelius, for seeing 
 objects which cannot be seen by direct vision. It consists 
 of n mirror placed obliquely in a tube or box, having an 
 Opening in tin- side opposite the mirror, so that rays from 
 any obj Ct filling on the mirror are reflected to the eye of 
 the spectator. Hevelius chose the name of polemoscope 
 because he thought the instrument might be applied) in 
 lime of war, !■> discover what was going on in the camp of 
 the enemy, while Hie spectator remained concealed behind 
 a wall or other defence, and therefore could not employ a
 
 POLES. 
 
 telescope. Opera glasses are sometimes constructed on 
 this principle, for the purpose of enabling a person to see 
 others on the right or left, while he appears to look straight 
 forward. 
 
 POLES. (Gr. tnSXo;.) In Geometry and Astronomy, 
 the extremities of an axis of rotation of a sphere or 
 spheroids. In spherics, the poles of a great circle are the 
 extremities of the straight line perpendicular to the plane 
 of the circle, and passing through its centre. The poles of 
 the ecliptic are the points about which the stars are carried 
 by the slow motion of the precession of the equinoxes ; 
 the poles of the equator, or poles of the world, are the two 
 points about which the stars perform their diurnal rotation ; 
 the poles of the horizon are the zenith and nadir ; the poles 
 of the meridian are the points of the horizon due east and 
 west. 
 
 Poles, in Physics, are the points of a body in which its 
 attractive or repulsive energy appears to be concentrated. 
 Thus, the poles of a magnet are the opposite points in which 
 the magnetic force is collected. 
 
 POLICE, is a term employed to designate those regula- 
 tions which have for their object to secure the maintenance 
 of good order, cleanliness, health, &c. in cities and country 
 districts ; and it is also used to designate the description of 
 force by which these objects are effected. This force dif- 
 fers from military in its being commanded by civil officers, 
 and not being under military law ; but it is generally drilled 
 and armed in a half military manner, and has a distinctive 
 uniform. The police force is employed alike to prevent 
 and detect offences ; and may be either open or secret. 
 By an open police is meant officers dressed in their accus- 
 tomed uniform, and known to every body ; while, by a 
 secret police is meant officers whom it may be difficult or 
 impossible to distinguish from certain classes of citizens, 
 whose dress and manners they may think it expedient to 
 assume. The latter are employed that they may, without 
 exciting the suspicion of guilty parties, or of those who are 
 projecting some outrage, acquire their confidence, and, by 
 making themselves masters of their secrets, secure their 
 apprehension or prevent the outrage. It is needless to say 
 that the employment of a police force of this description is 
 attended with many inconveniences ; and sometimes it is 
 believed the officers have stimulated to the commission of 
 the very offences they were employed to detect and prevent. 
 Still, however, it does not seem that it should be altogether 
 dispensed with ; and under proper regulations, it affords not 
 only the best means of detecting crimes, but also of prevent- 
 ing the commission of such as require any previous combi- 
 nation or arrangement. 
 
 The organization and efficiency of the police differ in dif- 
 ferent places. Its expenses are usually defrayed by a rate 
 laid on the inhabitants of the town or place where it is es- 
 tablished. The metropolitan police was newly organized a 
 few years ago, and is now a most effective force. The city 
 of London is not under the charge of the metropolitan po- 
 lice, but is protected by a body of men, organized on the 
 plan and in imitation of that body, but placed under the 
 city authorities. The metropolitan police amounts in all to 
 nearly 4000 men. 
 
 The police or constabulary force of Ireland is armed, and 
 has more of a military*than of a civil character. Accord- 
 ing to recent arrangements, a lord-lieutenant is appointed to 
 each Irish county, through whom all communications to the 
 Irish government are made. The lords-lieutenant are as- 
 sisted in the discharge of their duties by an indefinite num- 
 ber of deputy lieutenants. All these officers act gratuitous- 
 ly, and are removeable at pleasure. 
 
 The constabulary force of Ireland amounted, in 1840, to 
 about 7650 men, exclusive of a temporary police force of 
 about 650 men. 
 POLICY. See Assurance. 
 
 POLISH, Polishing. (Lat. polio, to make smooth.) In 
 Sculpture, the operation of giving a smoothness and gloss 
 to any surface. The polishing of marble is effected by first 
 rubbing the surface with freestone ; after which it is wrought 
 upon with pumicestone ; and lastly with the finest emery 
 powder, from which the glossv surface is obtained. 
 POLITICAL ARITHMETIC. See Statistics. 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY.* Political science is com- 
 monly divided into two great departments. One of these 
 has for its object to ascertain and establish the principles 
 according to which the governments of states may be best 
 organized ; to discriminate between the legislative, judicial, 
 and executive departments, and to assign to each its proper 
 functions, limits, and duties; to determine to what hands, 
 and under what conditions and limitations, the supreme 
 power may be most advantageously committed, and how 
 its various subordinate officers should be selected and con- 
 trolled ; to decide, in fine, how the government, under any 
 
 * Economy, from OIKOC, a house or family. I ouo$, a law. Hence, po- 
 litical economy may be said to be to the state what private economy is to a 
 single family. 
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 given set of circumstances, should be framed, so that it 
 may be most likely to promote the well being of those sub' 
 jected to its authority. This is what is commonly called 
 pure politics. The other department of political science 
 has a different, more practical, and not less important object 
 in view. Those engaged in its study do not inquire into the 
 best methods of distributing political power, or of constitu- 
 ting the governing body ; but, taking them as they exist, 
 they endeavour to ascertain the rules and principles — the 
 leges legum, as they were termed by Bacon — according to 
 which all governments, however formed, should act so ad 
 to procure for their subjects the greatest amount of wealth, 
 civilization, and happiness. This department of the science 
 has received the name of political economy ; and we shall 
 endeavour, in this article, to give a brief exposition of its 
 objects and principles. To enlarge on its importance would 
 be superfluous. The history of the human race proves that 
 national prosperity, or the well-being of the bulk of the peo- 
 ple, is not the exclusive attribute of any particular spe- 
 cies or form of government. It has been and may be en- 
 joyed by all countries, how different soever their political or- 
 ganization, provided that they adopt a sound system of po- 
 litical economy ; and it can be enjoyed by none who do not. 
 Without, therefore, undervaluing the other great branch of 
 the political sciences, or that which treats of the constitu- 
 tion of governments, this seems to possess at least equal 
 claims on the public attention. Its leading principles and 
 rules are applicable at all times and under all circumstan- 
 ces ; they are equally suitable to despotic monarchies and 
 to republics, and cannot be neglected or contemned by 
 either without the most injurious consequences. 
 
 It is in general said of political economy that its object is 
 to ascertain the circumstances most favourable for the pro- 
 duction of wealth, and the laws which determine its dis- 
 tribution among the different ranks and orders into which 
 society is divided ; and this definition seems quite unexcep- 
 tionable, provided it be clearly understood that by wealth, 
 in this science, is meant only those articles or products 
 which require some portion of human industry for their 
 production, acquisition, or preservation, and which, conse- 
 quently, possess exchangeable value. A commodity or 
 product is not valuable merely because it is useful or desi- 
 rable ; but it is valuable when, in addition to these qual- 
 ities, it can only be procured or enjoyed through the inter- 
 vention of labour. It cannot justly be said that food or 
 clothes are more useful than atmospheric air ; and yet they 
 are possessed of that value in exchange of which the latter 
 is wholly destitute. The reason is, that food and clothes, 
 are not, like air, gratuitous products ; they cannot be had at 
 all times, in any quantity, and enjoyed without any volun- 
 tary exertion. On the contrary, labour is always required 
 for their production or appropriation, or both ; and as no one 
 will voluntarily sacrifice the fruits of his industry without 
 receiving an equivalent, they are truly said to possess ex- 
 changeable value. 
 
 The production and distribution of such articles as exist, 
 and may be obtained in unlimited quantities independently 
 of voluntary human agency, form no part of the investiga- 
 tions of the political economist. The results of the industry 
 of man comprise the only subjects that come within the 
 scope of his inquiries. This may, indeed, be said to be the 
 science of values, or of the circumstances which determine 
 the production and distribution of products possessed of ex- 
 changeable value, or which will be received as an equiv- 
 alent for something else which it has taken some labour to 
 produce or obtain. 
 
 The word value is very frequently employed to express, 
 not only the exchangeable worth of a commodity, or its ca- 
 pacity of exchanging for other commodities, but also its util- 
 ity, or capacity of satisfying our wants, or of contributing 
 to our comforts and enjoyments. But it is obvious that the 
 utility of commodities— that the capacity of bread, for ex- 
 ample, to appease hunger, and of water to quench thirst — 
 is a totally different and distinct quality from the capacity 
 of exchanging for other commodities. I)r. Smith perceived 
 this difference, and showed the importance of carefully dis- 
 tinguishing between utility, or, as he expressed it, "value in 
 use," and value in exchange. But he did not always keep 
 this distinction in view, and it has been very often lost sight of 
 by subsequent writers. There can be no doubt, indeed, that 
 the confounding of these opposite qualities has been one of 
 the principal causes of the confusion and obscurity in which 
 many of the branches of the science, not in themselves dif- 
 ficult, have been involved. When, for example, it is said 
 that water is highly valuable, a very different meaning is 
 attached to the phrase from what is attached to it when it is 
 said that gold is valuable. Water is indispensable to ex- 
 istence, and has, therefore, a high degree of utility, or of 
 " value in use ;" but as it can generally be obtained in large 
 quantities, without much labour or exertion, it has, in most 
 places, but a very low value in exchange. Gold, on the 
 contrary, is of comparatively little utility ; but as it exists 
 3N* 953
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 only in limited quantities, nnd requires a great ileal of labour 
 on it* production, it has a comparatively high exchangeable 
 value) and may be exchanged or bartered tor a proportion- 
 ally large quantity of most other things. Those who con- 
 found qualities bo different must obviously arrive at the most 
 erroneous conclusions. And therefore, toobviate all chance 
 of error from mistaking the sense of so important a word 
 as value, it is better not to use it except to signify exchange- 
 able worth, or value in exchange, and to employ the word 
 utility to express the power or capacity of an article to sat- 
 isfy our wants or gratify our desires. 
 
 Capacity of appropriation is indispensibly necessary to 
 make anything wealth. A man is not said to be wealthy 
 because he has an indefinite command over atmospheric 
 air, the rays of the sun, or the articles with which, in com- 
 ninri with others, he is gratuitously furnished by nature; 
 for this being a privilege which he enjoys in common with 
 every one else, can form no ground of distinction : but he is 
 said to be wealthy according to the degree in which he can 
 afford to command those necessaries, conveniences, nnd 
 luxuries that are not the gifts of nature, but the products of 
 human industry. 
 
 The proper meaning to be attached to the term wealth 
 being thus ascertained, we shall now proceed to show that 
 labour is the only source of wealth; and having done this, 
 we shall next inquire into the means by which labour may 
 be rendered most efficient, that is, into the means by which 
 the greatest amount of wealth may be obtained with the 
 least expenditure of labour: when this inquiry is com- 
 pleted, we shall have exhausted that great department of 
 the science which treats of the production of wealth. 
 
 I. Production of Wealth. 
 1. Labour the only Source of Wealth. — It may be neces- 
 sarv. perhaps, to observe at the outset, that by production, 
 in this science, is not meant the production of matter, that 
 being the exclusive attribute of Omnipotence ; but the pro- 
 duction of utility, and consequently of value, by appropri- 
 ating and modifying matter already in existence, so as to tit 
 it to satisfy our wants and contribute to our enjoyments. 
 Nature spontaneously furnishes the matter of which all 
 commodities are made ; but until the labour has been ap- 
 plied to appropriate tbat matter, or to adapt it to our use, it 
 is wholly destitute of value, and is not, nor ever has been 
 considered as forming wealth. Were we placed on the 
 banks of a river, or in an orchard, we should infallibly per- 
 ish of thirst or hunger, unless by an effort of industry we 
 raised the water to our lips, or plucked the fruit from its 
 parent tree. It is seldom, however, that the mere appro- 
 priation of matter is sufficient. In the vast majority of ca- 
 ses, labour is required not only to appropriate it, but to con- 
 vey it from place to place, and to give it that peculiar shape 
 without which it may be totally useless, and incapable of 
 administering either to our necessities or our comforts. 
 The coal used in our fires is buried deep in the bowels of 
 the earth, and is absolutely worthless until, by the labour 
 of the miner, it has been extracted from the mine, and 
 brought into a situation where it may be made use of. 
 The stones and mort:ir used in building our houses, and the 
 
 rugged and shapeless materials that have been fashioned 
 
 into the virions articles of convenience and ornament 
 with which they are furnished, were, in their original 
 state, destitute alike of value and utility. And of the in- 
 numerable variety of animal, vegetable, and mineral prod- 
 ucts which form the materials of our food and clothes. 
 Bene were originally serviceable, while many were cx- 
 tremely noxious to nun. The labour that has subdued 
 their bad qualities, that has given them utility, and fitted 
 them to satisfy our wants, and to minister to our comforts 
 and enjoyments, is plainly, therefore, the only source of 
 wealth. "Labour," to use the words of Idam Smith, 
 '• wis the first price, the original purchise-monov. that was 
 paid for all thinirs. It was not by gold or by silver, but by 
 labour, that all the wealth of the world 'was originallj 
 I of Nations, p. 14.) 
 Those who observe the progress and trace the history of 
 the human nccin different countries and states of society, 
 will find that their comfort and happiness have in all ca- 
 ses been principally dependent on their ability to appro- 
 priate the raw products of nature, and to adapt them to 
 their use. The g ivage whose labour is confined, like that 
 of the Australian, to the gathering of wild fruits, or of 
 shell-fish on the sea const, is placed at the very bottom "I 
 
 the scale of civilization, and is, in point of comfort, deci- 
 dedly inferior to many of the lower animals. The first 
 
 step in the progress of society is made when man learns to 
 
 hunt wild animals, to feed himself with their flesh. : ,nd 
 clothe himself with their skins. Hut labour, when con- 
 fined to tin' chase, is extremely barren ami unproductive. 
 
 Tribes of hunters, like heists of prey, whom they closely 
 resemble in their habits and modes of subsistence. :ire but 
 thinly scattered over the countries which they occupy ; 
 
 and notwithstanding the fewness of their numbers, anv un- 
 usual deficiency in the supply of game never fails to re- 
 duce them to the extremity of want. The second step in 
 the progress of society is made when the tribes of hunters 
 and fishers devote themselves, like the ancient Scvthians 
 and modern Tartars, to the domestication of wild animals 
 and the rearing of flocks. The subsistence of herdsmen 
 and shepherds is much less precarious than that of hunt- 
 ers ; hut they are almost entirely destitute of the various 
 comforts and elegances that give to civilized life its chief 
 value. The third and most decisive step in the progress of 
 civilization, in the great art of producing the nee 
 and conveniences of life, is made when the wandering 
 tribes of hunters and shepherds renounce their migratory 
 habits, and become agriculturists and manufacturers. It is 
 then that man begins fully to avail himself of his product- 
 ive powers. He then becomes laborious, and, by a neces- 
 sary consequence, his wants are then, for the first time, ful- 
 ly supplied, and he acquires an extensive command over 
 the articles necessary for his comfort as well as his sub- 
 sistence. 
 
 The importance of labour in the production of wealth 
 was very- clearly perceived by Locke. In his Essay on 
 Civil Government, published in 1689, he has entered into a 
 lengthened, discriminating, and able analysis, to show that 
 it is from labour that the products of the earth derive al- 
 most all their value. " Let any one consider," says he, 
 " what the difference is between an acre of land planted 
 with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, and an 
 acre of the same land lying in common, without any hus- 
 bandry upon it, and he will find that the improvement 
 of labour makes the far greater part of the value. I think 
 it will be but a very modest computation to say, that of 
 the products of earth useful to the life of man. nine ttnths 
 are the effects of labour; nay, if we will rightly estimate 
 things as they come to our use, and cast up the several 
 expenses about them, what in them is purely owing to na- 
 ture, and what to labour, we shall find that in most of 
 them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the 
 account of labour. 
 
 " There cannot be a clearer demonstration of anything 
 than several nations of the Americans are of this, who 
 are rich in land, and poor in all the comforts of life ; whom 
 nature having furnished as liberally as any other people 
 with the materials of plenty, i. c, a fruitful soil apt to pro- 
 duce in abundance what might serve for food, raiment, 
 and delight ; yet. for want of improving it by labour, have 
 not one hundredth part of the conveniences we enjoy ; 
 and the king of a large and fruitful territory there feeds, 
 lodses, and is clad worse than a day labourer in England. 
 
 "To make this a little clearer, let us but trace some of 
 the ordinary provisions of life through their several prog- 
 resses before they come to our use, and see how much 
 they receive of their value from human industry. Bread, 
 wine, and cloth are things of daily use and great plenty ; 
 yet, notwithstanding, acorns, water, and leaves or skins 
 must be our bread, drink, and clothins. did not labour fur- 
 nish us with these more useful commodities : for whatever 
 bread is more worth than acorns, wine than water, and cloth 
 or silk than leaves, skins, or moss, tfcat is solely owing to la- 
 bour and industry : the one of these being the food and rai- 
 ment which unassisted nature furnishes us with : the oth- 
 er, provisions which our industry and pains prepare for us; 
 which how much they exceed the other in value when any 
 one hath computed, he will then see how much labour 
 makes the far greatest part of the value of things we enjoy 
 in this world. And the ground which produces the mate- 
 rials is scarce to be reckoned in as any, or, at most, hut a 
 very small part of it; so little, tint even among us. |;md 
 that is wholly left to nature, that hath no Improvement of 
 pasturage, tillage, or planting, is called, as indeed it is, 
 waste : and we shall find the benefit of it amount to little 
 more than nothing. 
 
 "An acre of Land that hears here twenty bushels of 
 wheat, and another in America which, with the same 
 husbandry, would do the like, are, without doubt, of the 
 same natural intrinsic value (utility). But yet the benefit 
 mankind receives from the one in a year is worth five 
 pounds, and from the other possibly not worth a penny, if 
 all the profit an Indian received from it were to he valued 
 and sold here ; at least. I may truly say. not one thousandth. 
 It is labour, then, which puts the greatest part of value 
 upon land, without which it would scarcely be worth any- 
 thing. It is to that we owe the greatest part of all its use- 
 ful products; for all that the straw, bran, bread, of that acre 
 of wheat, is more worth than the product of an acre of 
 as good hmd which lies waste, is all the effect of labour. 
 For it is not barely the ploughman's pains, the reaper's and 
 thrasher's toil, and the baker's sweat is to he accounted Into 
 the bread we eat ; the labour of those who broke the oxen, 
 who digged anil wrought the iron and stones, who felled and 
 framed the timber employed about the plough, mill, oven, or
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 any other utensils, which are a vast number, requisite to 
 this corn ; from its being seed to be sown to its being made 
 bread, must all be charged on the account of labour, and re- 
 ceived as an effect of that ; nature and the earth furnished 
 only the almost worthless materials as in themselves. It 
 would be a strange catalogue of things that industry provi- 
 ded and made use of about every loaf of bread before it 
 came to our use, if we could trace them ; iron, wood, leath- 
 er, bark, timber, stone, bricks, coals, lime, cloth, dyeing 
 drugs, pitch, tar, masts, ropes, and all the materials made 
 use of in the ships that brought away the commodities 
 made use of by any of the workmen to any part of the work ; 
 all which it would be almost impossible, at least too long, 
 to reckon up." 
 
 Mr. Locke has here all but established the fundamental 
 principle upon which this science rests. Had he carried 
 his analysis a little further, he could not have failed to per- 
 ceive that neither water, leaves, skins, nor any one of the 
 spontaneous products of nature, has any value, except what 
 it owes to the labour required for its appropriation. The 
 utility of such products makes them be demanded, but it 
 does not give them value ; this is a quality which can be 
 communicated only through the agency of voluntary labour 
 of some sort or other. An object which it does not require 
 any portion of labour to appropriate, or to adopt to our use, 
 may, like atmospherical air, be of the very highest utility ; 
 but as it is the free gift of nature, it is quite impossible it 
 should have the smallest value. 
 
 That commodities could not be produced without the co- 
 operation of the powers of nature, is most certain. We are 
 very far, indeed, from wishing to depreciate the obligations 
 we are under to our common mother, or to exalt the benefits 
 man owes to his own exertions by concealing or underra- 
 ting those which he enjoys through the bounty of nature. 
 But it is the distinguishing characteristic of the services 
 rendered by the latter that they are gratuitous. They are 
 infinitely useful, and they are, at the same time, infinitely 
 cheap. They are not, like human services, sold for a price ; 
 they are merely appropriated. When a fish is caught, or 
 a tree is felled, do the Nereids, or wood nymphs, make 
 their appearance, and stipulate that the labour of nature 
 in producing it should be paid for, before it be carried 
 off and made use of by man t When the miner has dug 
 his way down to the ore, does Plutus interpose to prevent 
 its appropriation 7 Nature is not, as so many would have 
 us to suppose, frugal and grudging. Her rude products, and 
 her capacities and powers, are all offered freely to man. 
 She neither demands nor receives a return for her favours. 
 Her services are of inestimable utility ; but being granted 
 freely and unconditionally, they are wholly destitute of 
 value, and are, consequently, without the power of commu- 
 nicating that quality to anything. 
 
 The utility of water, or its capacity to slake thirst, is equal 
 at all times and places ; but as this quality is communi- 
 cated to it by nature, it adds nothing to its value, which is, 
 in all cases, measured by the labour required for its appro- 
 priation. A very small expenditure of labour being required 
 to raise water from a river to the lips of an individual on its 
 banks, its value, under such circumstances, is very trifling 
 indeed. But when, instead of being upon its banks, the 
 consumers of the water are five, ten, or twenty miles dis- 
 tant, its value, being increased proportionally to the greater 
 expenditure of labour upon its conveyance, may become 
 very considerable. This principle holds universally. The 
 utility of coal, or its capacity of furnishing heat and light, 
 makes it an object of demand ; but this utility, being a free 
 gift of nature, has no influence over its value or price: this 
 depends entirely on the labour required to extract the coal 
 from the mine, and to convey it to the consumers. 
 
 "Si je retranche," to use a striking illustration of this 
 doctrine given by M. Canard, " de ma montre, par la 
 pensee, tous les travaux qui lui ont ete successivement ap- 
 pliques, il ne restera que quelques grains de mineral places 
 dans rinterieur de la terre, d'oii on les a tires, et oii ils n'ont 
 aucune valeur. De meme, si je decompose le pain que je 
 mange, et que j'en retranche successivement tous les tra- 
 vaux successifs qu'il a recus, il ne restera que quelques tiges 
 d'herbes graminees, eparses dans des deserts incultes, et 
 sans aucune valeur." 
 
 It is true that natural powers and products may sometimes 
 be appropriated or engrossed by one or more individuals to 
 the exclusion of others, and those by whom they are so en- 
 grossed may exact a price for them ; but does that show that 
 they cost the engrossers any thing ? If A. have a waterfall 
 on his estate, he may, probably, get a rent for it. It is plain, 
 however, that the work performed by the waterfall is as 
 completely gratuitous as that which is performed by the 
 wind that acts on a windmill. The only difference between 
 them originates in this, — that all individuals having it in 
 their power to avail themselves of the services of the wind, 
 no one can intercept the bounty of nature, and exact a 
 price for that which she freely bestows; whereas A., by 
 
 appropriating the waterfall, and consequently acquiring a 
 command over it, has it in his power to prevent its being 
 used at all, or to sell its services. He can oblige B., C, and 
 D. to pay for liberty to use it ; but as they pay for that which 
 costs him nothing, he gains the whole that they lose ; so 
 that the services rendered by the waterfall are still so much 
 clear gain — so much work performed gratuitously for so- 
 ciety. 
 
 Had Mr. Senior attended to this principle, he would not 
 have made the strange supposition, that if aerolites con- 
 sisted wholly of gold, they would, according to the princi- 
 ples now explained, be destitute of value. * If, indeed, they 
 were so very abundant as to supply every one with as much 
 gold as he desired, they would have no value whatever, other 
 than what they might derive from the trouble of gathering 
 them ; but, if they existed only in limited quantities, and 
 were quite incapable of supplying the demand for gold, the 
 fortunate finder of one of them would be able to sell it, or 
 exchange it, for the same quantity of produce it would 
 have commanded had it been produced, like other gold, by 
 the labour of the miner, smelter, &x. But it is obvious 
 that its value is, in this case, derived from circumstances 
 which, though extrinsic to itself, depend wholly on the ex- 
 penditure of labour ; and that, in fact, it is measured or de- 
 termined by the labour required to produce gold under ordi- 
 nary circumstances, precisely in the same way that the 
 value of the waterfall is determined by the quantity of la- 
 bour it will save to the party by whom it is bought or 
 rented. 
 
 Labour, therefore, is the sole source of exchangeable 
 value, and, consequently, of wealth. It is the talisman 
 that has raised man from the condition of the savage — that 
 has changed the desert and the forest into cultivated fields ; 
 that has covered the earth with cities, and the ocean with 
 ships ; that has given us abundance, comfort, and elegance, 
 instead of want, misery, and barbarism : — 
 
 " All is the gift of Industry ; whate'er 
 Exal's, embellishes, and renders life 
 Delightful." 
 
 The fundamental principle, that it is only through the 
 agency of labour that the various articles and conveniences 
 required for the use and accommodation of man can be ob- 
 tained, being thus established, it necessarily follows, that 
 the great practical problem involved in that part of the 
 science which treats of the production of wealth must re- 
 solve itself into a discussion of the means by which labour 
 may be rendered most efficient. Every measure that haa 
 any tendency to add to the power of labour, or, which is the 
 same thing, to reduce the cost of commodities, must add 
 proportionally to the means of obtaining wealth and riches; 
 while every measure or regulation that has any tendency to 
 waste labour, or to raise the cost of commodities, must 
 equally lessen these means. This, then, is the simple and 
 decisive test by which to judge of the expediency of all 
 measures affecting the wealth of a country, and of the 
 value of all inventions. If they render labour more pro- 
 ductive — if, by reducing the value of commodities, they 
 render them more easily obtainable, and bring them within 
 the command of a greater portion of society, they must be 
 advantageous; and conversely. Considered in this point of 
 view, that great branch of the science which treats of the 
 production of wealth will be found to be abundantly sim- 
 ple, and easily understood. 
 
 Labour, according as it is applied to the raising of raw 
 produce, to the fashioning of that raw produce when raised 
 into articles of utility, convenience, or ornament, or to the 
 conveyance of raw and wrought produce from one country 
 or place to another, is said to be agricultural, manufactur- 
 ing, or commercial. An acquaintance with the particular 
 processes, and most advantageous methods of applying la- 
 bour in each of these grand departments of industry, forms 
 the peculiar and appropriate study of agriculturists, manu- 
 facturers, and merchants. It is not consistent with the ob- 
 jects of the political economist to enter into the details of 
 particular businesses and professions. He confines himself 
 to an investigation of the means by which labour in general 
 may be rendered most productive, and how its powers may 
 be increased in all the departments of industry. 
 
 In thus endeavouring to exhibit the importance of labour, 
 and the advantages which its successful prosecution confers 
 on man, it must not be supposed that reference is made to 
 the labour of the hand only. This species, indeed, comes 
 most under our observation : it is that, too, without which 
 we could not exist, and which principally determines the 
 value of commodities. It is questionable, however, whether 
 it be really more productive than the labour of the mind. 
 The hand is not more necessary to execute than the head 
 to contrive. Some very valuable discoveries have no doubt 
 been the result of accident; while others have naturally 
 grown out of the progress of society, without being materi- 
 
 f Ait. " Political Economy," Encvclopxdia Metropolitana. 
 955
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 ally advanced by thf effort? of any single individual. These, 
 however, have not been their only, nor. perhaps, their most 
 copious sources; and every one, how little soever he may 
 be acquainted with the history of his species, is aware that 
 we are indebted to the labour of the mind, to patient study 
 and long-continued research, for numberless Inventions, 
 some of which have made almost Incalculable additions to 
 our powers, and changed, indeed, the whole aspect and con- 
 dition of society. 
 
 2. Means by which Labour may be facilitated.— -Having 
 thus endeavoured to show that man is indebted to labour or 
 industry for all those articles or products which constitute 
 wealth, or which are not freely bestowed by nature, we 
 have next to inquire into the means by which labour may 
 be rendered most productive, or by .which the greatest 
 amount of wealth may be obtained with the least labour, 
 or at the least expense. 
 
 It may seem on a cursory view as if an inquiry of this 
 sort would necessarily branch out into an infinity of details. 
 But, in so far as this science, which deals only with the 
 general principles applicable to all departments of industry, 
 is concerned, such is not the case. On the contrary, it will 
 be found, supposing the security of property, without which 
 there ca'n be neither industry nor accumulation, to be estab- 
 lished, that all the means by which labour may be facilitated 
 and wealth increased resolve themselves, 1st, into the bet- 
 ter division and combination of employments among indi- 
 viduals and nations ; and, '2d, into the more extensive or 
 more judicious application of capital or stock in industrious 
 undertakings. All the improvements that ever have been 
 or ever will be made in the great art of producing the vari- 
 ous necessaries, conveniences, and enjoyments of human 
 life may be classed under one or other of these heads; that 
 is, they will be found to consist either in the better distribu- 
 tion of employments, or in the greater command and better 
 application of capital. Without availing themselves of these 
 means no people can make any advance in civilization. 
 And, supposing property to be equally well protected, it will, 
 generally speaking; he (bund that those nations have been 
 the wealthiest, most cultivated, and refined, in which the 
 division of labour has been carried to the farthest extent, 
 and capital been most abundant and most judiciously ap- 
 plied. 
 
 Division of Employments. — The division of employments 
 can only be imperfectly established in rude societies and 
 thinly-peopled countries; but in every state of society — in 
 the rudest as well as the most improved — we may trace its 
 operation and effects. The various physical powers, tal- 
 ents, and propensities, with which men are endowed, fit 
 them for different occupations; and a regard to mutual in- 
 terest and convenience naturally leads them, at a very early 
 period, to establish a system of barter and a division of em- 
 ployments. It was speedily seen that by separating and 
 combining their efforts so as to bring about some desirable 
 end, tbej might, with ease, accomplish tasks that could not 
 otherwise be attempted. Even in the simplest businesses 
 this co-operation is required: neither hunting nor fishing, 
 any more than agriculture or manufactures, can be advan- 
 tageously carried on by solitary individuals. Man is the 
 creature of society ; and is compelled, in every stage of his 
 progress, to depend for help on his fellows: — Qud alio 
 fortes siiiiiiis i/u tin quid miituis juvamur officiis 1 Instead 
 of trusting to his own unaided efforts for a provision of the 
 various articles required for his subsistence, comfort, and 
 security, he instinctively associates himself with others, and 
 finds in this association the principal source of his superior 
 power. Perceiving that he can obtain an incomparably 
 
 freater command of all that he deems useful or desirable 
 y applying himself in preference to some one department 
 of industry, he limits his attention to it only. As society 
 advances, this dtt ision extends itself on all sides: one man 
 becomes a tanner or dresser of .-kins; another a shoemaker; 
 a third a weaver; a fourth a house -carpenter ; a fifth a 
 smith, and so on ; one undertakes the defence of the society, 
 and one the distribution of justice; and each endeavours 
 to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent or ge- 
 nius he may possess for the particular Calling in which he 
 is engaged. The wealth and comforts of all classes are, in 
 consequence, prodigiously augmented. In countries where 
 the division of labour Is carried to a considerable extent, 
 agriculturists are not obliged to spend their time in clumsy 
 attempts to manufacture their own produce, and manufac- 
 turers cease to interest themselves about the raising of corn, 
 
 and the fattening of cattle. The facility of exchanging Is 
 the vivifying principle of industry; it stimulates agricuitu 
 rist- to adopt the best system of cultivation, ami to raise the 
 largest crops, because it enables them to exchange « natever 
 portion of the produce of their lands exceeds their own 
 wants for other commodities contributing to their comforts 
 
 and enjoyments; and it stimulates manufacturers and met 
 chants to increase and improve the- quantity, variety, and 
 quality of their goods, that they may thereby obtain greater 
 
 supplies of raw produce. A spirit of industry is thus uni- 
 versally diffused ; and that apathy and languor which cha- 
 racterize a rude state of society entirely disappear. 
 
 But the facility of exchanging, or the circumstance of be- 
 ing able readily to barter the surplus produce of our own 
 labour for such parts of the surplus produce of other peo- 
 ple's labour as we may desire to obtain and they may choose 
 to part with, is not the only advantage of the separation of 
 employments. Besides enabling each individual to addict 
 himself in preference to those departments which suit his 
 taste and disposition, it adds very largely to the efficacy of 
 his powers, and enables him to produce a much greater 
 quantity of useful and desirable articles than he could do 
 were he to engage indiscriminately in different businesses. 
 Dr. Smith, who has treated this subject in the most mas- 
 terly manner, has classed the circumstances which conspire 
 to Increase the productive powers of industry, when labour 
 is divided, under the following heads : — First, the increased 
 skill and dexterity of the workmen ; second, the saving of 
 time which is commonly lost in passing from one employ- 
 ment to another ; and, third, the circumstance of the divi- 
 sion of employments having a tendency to facilitate the in- 
 vention of machines and processes for abridging and saving 
 labour. A few observations on each of these heads are 
 subjoined. 
 
 1st. tilth respect to the improvement of the skill and dex- 
 terity of the labourer. — It is sufficiently plain that when a 
 person's whole attention is devoted to one branch of busi- 
 ness, when all the energies of his mind and powers of his 
 body are made to converge, as it were, to a single point, he 
 must attain to a degree of proficiency in that particular 
 branch, to which no individual engaged In a variety of oc- 
 cupations can be expected to reach. A peculiar play of the 
 muscles, or sleight of hand, is necessary to perforin the 
 simplest operation in the best and most expeditious manner, 
 and this can only be acquired by habitual and constant 
 practice. Smith has given a striking example, in the case 
 of the nail-manufacturer, of the extreme difference between 
 training a workman to the precise occupation in which he 
 is to be employed, and training him to a similar and closely 
 allied occupation. " A common smith," says he, " who, 
 though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been 
 used to make nails, if, upon some particular occasion, he is 
 obliged to attempt it, will scarce, I am assured, be able to 
 make above two or three hundred nails in a day, and those, 
 too, very bad ones. A smith who has been accustomed to 
 make nails, but whose sole or principal business has not 
 been that of a nailer, can seldom, with his utmost diligence, 
 make more than eight hundred or a thousand nails in a day. 
 But I have seen several boys, under twenty years of age, 
 who had never exercised any other trade but that of mak- 
 ing nails, and who, when they exerted themselves, could 
 make, each of them, upwards of two thousand three hun- 
 dred nails in a day, or nearly three times the number of the 
 smith who had been accustomed to make them, but who 
 was not entirely devoted to that particular business." 
 ( Wealth of Nations, p. 4.) 
 
 2d. The influence of the division of labour in preventing 
 that waste of time in moving from one employment to ano- 
 ther, which must always take place when an individual en- 
 gages in different occupations, is even more obvious than 
 its influence in improving his skill and dexterity. When the 
 same person carries on different employments, in different 
 and perhaps distant places, and with different sets of tools, 
 he must plainly lose a considerable portion of time in pass- 
 ing between them. If the different employments in which 
 he is to he engaged could be carried on in the same work- 
 shop, the loss of lime would be less; but even in that case 
 it would be considerable. "A man," as Dr. Smith has 
 justly observed, "commonly saunters a little in turning his 
 hand from one sort of employment to another. When he 
 first begins the new work, he is seldom very keen and 
 hearty; his mind, as they say, does not go along with it, 
 and for some time he ralher trifles than applies to good pur- 
 pose. The habit of sauntering and of indolent careless ap- 
 plication, which is naturally, or ralher necessarily, acquired 
 by every country workman, who is obliged to change his 
 work and his tools every half hour, anil to apply his hand 
 in twenty different ways almost even day of his life, ren- 
 ders him almost always slothful and iazy, and incapable of 
 any vigorous application, even on the most pressing occa- 
 sions, independent, therefore, of his deficiency in point of 
 dexterity, llns cause alone must always reduce considera- 
 bly the quantity of work which he is capable of perform- 
 ing." ( Wealth of .Yiitimis, p. 5.) 
 
 3d. With regard to the influence of the division of employ- 
 ment in facilitating the invention of machines, and pro- 
 
 eissis for abridging and snrinir labour. — It is obvious that 
 those engaged in any branch of industry will be more likely 
 to discover easier anil readier methods of carrying it on 
 w lien the Whole a 1 tent ion of their minds is devoted exclu- 
 sively to it, than if it were dissipated among a variety of
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 objects. But it is a mistake to suppose, as has been some- 
 times done, that the inventive genius of workmen and arti- 
 ficers is alone whetted and improved by the division of la- 
 bour. As society advances, the study of particular branches 
 of science and philosophy becomes the principal or sole oc- 
 cupation of the most ingenious men. Chemistry becomes a 
 distinct science from natural philosophy ; the physical as- 
 tronomer separates himself from the astronomical observer; 
 the political economist from the politician ; and each, medi- 
 tating exclusively or principally on his peculiar deportment 
 of science, attains to a degree of proficiency and expertness 
 in it which the general scholar seldom or never reaches. 
 And hence, in labouring to promote our own ends, we all 
 necessarily adopt that precise course which is most advan- 
 tageous for all. Like the different parts of a well-constructed 
 engine, the inhabitants of a civilized country are all^mutu- 
 ally dependent on and connected with each other. Without 
 any previous consent, and obeying only the powerful and 
 steady impulse of self-interest, they universally conspire to 
 the same great end; and contribute, each in his respective 
 sphere, to furnish the greatest supply of necessaries, lux- 
 uries, conveniences, and enjoyments. 
 
 Probably, however, the most advantageous result of the 
 division of labour may be found in the circumstance of its 
 enabling manufactures or others engaged in any complicated 
 business, or department of industry, to employ work-people 
 of very various degrees of skill and force. In the cotton 
 manufacture, for example, some processes that are indis- 
 pensable may be quite as well performed by children and 
 women as by the most expert and powerful workmen. It 
 is clear, however, that but for the distribution of the 
 labour required to bring about any result among different 
 individuals possessing the degree of skill and strength ne- 
 cessary in each particular part of the process, none could 
 be employed but those who possessed the skill and strength 
 required in the most difficult and laborious; and, conse- 
 quently, workmen at 30s. or 40s. a week would have to en- 
 gage in tasks that might be as well or better performed by 
 girls at 5s. or 6s. a week. In all the great departments of 
 industry it is of the utmost importance to separate the pro- 
 cesses requiring peculiar skill, dexterity, and force from the 
 others, and to appropriate them exclusively to certain classes 
 of individuals ; and to perform the operations requiring less 
 skill, or less strength, by sets of inferior labourers. The 
 success of most industrious undertakings depends, in fact, 
 principally on the sagacity with which this distribution of 
 employments is made, or with which the skill and power 
 of the work-people are proportioned to the results to be 
 produced. (Tor further illustrations of this principle see 
 Babbage's Economy of Manufactures, p. 172, &.C.) 
 
 It is necessary to bear in mind that the advantages derived 
 from the division of labour, though they may be, and in fact 
 are, partially enjoyed in every country and state of society, 
 can only be carried to their full extent where there is a great 
 power of exchanging, or an extensive market. There are an 
 infinite variety of employments which cannot be separately 
 carried on without the precincts of a large city ; and in ail 
 cases the division becomes more perfect, according as the 
 demand for the produce is extended. It is stated by Dr. 
 Smith that ten labourers, employed in different departments 
 in a pin manufactory, can produce 48,000 pins a day, and 
 since his time the quantity has been more than doubled ; 
 but it is evident that if the demand were not sufficient to 
 take off this quantity, ten persons could not be constantly 
 employed in the business ; and the division of employments 
 in it not beinsr carried so far, the labour would be less eco- 
 nomically and efficiently applied, and the cost of the pins 
 proportionally increased. The same principle holds uni- 
 versally. A cotton mill could not be constructed in a small 
 country having no intercourse with its neighbours. The 
 demand and competition of Europe, Asia, and America have 
 been necessany to carry the manufactures of Glasgow, 
 Manchester, and Birmingham to their present state of im- 
 provement. 
 
 Territorial Division of Labour, or Commerce. — Besides 
 that sort of division of labour which enables each individ- 
 ual in a limited society to confine himself to a particular 
 employment, there is another and most important branch 
 of the division of labour, which not only enables particular 
 individuals, but the inhabitants of entire districts, and even 
 nations, to addict themselves in preference to certain bran- 
 ches of industry. It is on this territorial division of labour, 
 as it has been appropriately termed, that the commerce 
 carried on between different districts of the same country, 
 and between differrnt countries, is founded. The variations 
 in the situation, soil, climate, mineral products, &c, of the 
 different districts of an extensive country, render them more 
 suitable for some than for other species of industry. A 
 district where coal is abundant, which has an easy access 
 to the ocean, and a considerable command of internal navi- 
 gation, is the natural seat of manufactures. Wheat and 
 other species of grain are the proper products of rich arable 
 78 
 
 soils ; and cattle, after being reared in mountainous dis- 
 tricts, are most advantageously fattened in meadows and 
 low grounds. Nothing can be more obvious than that the 
 inhabitants of these different districts will be able, by con- 
 fining themselves to those employments for the prosecution 
 of which they have some peculiar capability, to produce a 
 much greater quantity of useful and desirable articles than 
 they could do were they to engage indiscriminately in 
 every possible employment. Can it be doubted that a vastly 
 greater supply of manufactured goods, corn, and cattle is 
 produced by the inhabitants of Glasgow, the Carse of Gow- 
 rie, and Argyleshire respectively confining themselves to 
 manufactures, agriculture, and the rearing of cattle, than 
 if each endeavoured directly to raise these various pro- 
 ducts ■? 
 
 But it is easy to see that foreign trade, or the territorial 
 division of labour between different and independent coun- 
 tries, contributes to increase the wealth of each in precisely 
 the same manner that the trade between different provin- 
 ces of the same kingdom contributes to increase their 
 wealth. There is a still greater difference between the 
 productive powers with which Providence has endowed 
 different and distant countries, than there is between the 
 productive powers of the provinces of the same country ; 
 and consequently the establishment of a free intercourse be- 
 tween them must be proportionally more advantageous. In- 
 deed, there are a great many products, and some of them 
 of the very greatest utility, that cannot be raised except in 
 particular situations. Were it not for commercial inter- 
 course, we should not be able to obtain the smallest supply of 
 tea, spices, raw cotton, raw silk, gold and silver, and a thous- 
 and other equally useful and desirable commodities. Pro- 
 vidence, by giving different soils, climates, and natural pro- 
 ductions to different countries, has evidently provided for 
 their mutual intercourse and civilization. By permitting the 
 people of each to employ their capital and labour in those 
 departments in which their geographical situation, the phy- 
 sical capacities of their soil, their national character and 
 habits fit them to excel, foreign commerce, or the territorial 
 division of labour, has a wonderful influence in multiplying 
 the products of arts and industry. Where the freedom of 
 commerce is not interfered with, each country necessarily 
 devotes itself to such employments as are most beneficial 
 for itself. And this pursuit of individual advantage is 
 in the highest degree conducive to the good of the whole. 
 By stimulating industry, by rewarding ingenuity, and by 
 using most efficaciously the particular powers bestowed by 
 nature, commerce distributes labour most effectively and 
 economically ; while, by increasing the mass of necessary 
 and useful products it diffuses opulence, and binds together 
 the universal society of nations by the common and power- 
 ful ties of mutual interest and reciprocal obligation. Com- 
 merce enables each particular state to profit by the inven- 
 tions and discoveries of every other state. It creates new 
 tastes and new appetites, and it also gives the means and 
 the desire of gratifying them. The progress of domestic in- 
 dustry is accelerated by the competition of foreigners. Com- 
 merce has either entirely removed or greatly weakened a 
 host of unworthy prejudices. It has shown that nothing 
 can be more illiberal and absurd than that once prevalent 
 dread of the progress of others in wealth and civilization ; 
 and that the true glory and real interest of each particular 
 people will be more certainly advanced by endeavouring to 
 emulate and outstrip its neighbours in the career of science 
 and civilization, than by labouring to attain a barren pre- 
 eminence in the bloody and destructive though necessary 
 art of war. " 
 
 The influence of commerce in giving increased efficacy 
 to labour, and augmenting national wealth, may be easily 
 illustrated. Thus in the case of the intercourse or territo- 
 rial division of labouf carried on between England and Por- 
 tugal, our superior wool, and our command of coal, of skil- 
 ful workmen, of improved machinery, in short, of all the 
 instruments of manufacturing industry, enable us to produce 
 cloth at a much cheaper rate than the Portuguese ; but, on 
 the other hand, the soil and climate of Portugal being pe- 
 culiarly favourable for the cultivation and growth of the 
 grape, she is able to produce wine at an infinitely less cost 
 than it can be fftoduced here. And hence it is obvious that 
 England, by confining herself to the manufacture of cloth, 
 in which she has a natural advantage, and exchanging it 
 with the Portuguese for wine, will obtain a vastly larger 
 supply of that commodity than if she attempted to cultivate 
 the grape at home ; and Portugal, by exchanging her wine 
 for the cloth of England, will obtain a much greater quan- 
 tity of cloth than if she attempted to counteract the inten- 
 tion of nature by converting a portion of her capital and in- 
 dustry from the raising of wine, in which she has an ad- 
 vantage, to the manufacture of cloth, in which the advan- 
 tage is on the side of another. 
 
 What has been already stated is sufficient to expose the 
 sophism of the French economists, who contended, that as. 
 
 957
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY- 
 
 an equivalent must be always given for commodities brought 
 from abroad, it is Impossible foreign commerce should be a 
 means of increasing wealth. "How," they asked, "can tin- 
 wealth of a country be increased by giving equal values for 
 equal valued I" They admitted that commerce might be 
 the means of making a better distribution of tile wealth of 
 the world ; but a8 it did nothing more llian exchange one 
 sort of wealth for another, they denied that it could make 
 any addition to its amount. At first sights this sophistical 
 and delusive statement appears sutricienth conclusive ; but 
 a very few words will he sufficient to demonstrate its fal- 
 lacy. The advantage of commerce does hot consist in its 
 
 enabling others of the parties who carry it On to obtain ar- 
 
 in lea ol greater value than those they give in exchange. It 
 
 may have COS) as much to produce the cloth with which the 
 English merchant purchases the wine of Portugal as it did 
 to produce the latter, or it may have cost more. But then 
 it must be observed, that in mating the exchange the value 
 Of the wine is estimated by what it takes to produce it in 
 Portugal, which has peculiar capabilities for that species of 
 industry, and not by what it would take to produce it in 
 England were the trade put an end to; and in like manner, 
 the value of the cloth is estimated by what it takes to pro- 
 duce it in England, and not by what it would take to pro- 
 duce it in Portugal. The advantage of the intercourse con- 
 sols in this, that it enables each country to obtain commo- 
 dities for the production of which it has no natural capabil- 
 ity, and which it would therefore cost vastly more to pro- 
 duce directly at home, at the price required to produce them 
 under the most favourable circumstances, and with the least 
 possible expense. The gain of the one party is not the loss 
 of the other. Both benefit by the intercourse, for it enables 
 both to save labour and expense in the production of com- 
 modities ; so that the wealth of the two countries is not only 
 better distributed, hut is also greatly increased, by the ter- 
 ritorial division of labour established between them. 
 
 " The commerce of one country with another is merely 
 an extension Of that division of labour by which so many 
 benefits are conferred on the human race. As the same 
 country is rendered richer by the trade of one province with 
 another; as its labour becomes thus infinitely more divided 
 and more productive than it could otherwise have been; and 
 as the mutual interchange of all those commodities which 
 one province has, and another wants, multiplies the accom- 
 modations anil comforts of the whole, and the country be- 
 comes thus in a wonderful degree more opulent and happy ; 
 so the same beautiful train of consequences is observable in 
 the world at large — that vast empire, of which the different 
 kingdoms may be regarded as the provinces. In this magni- 
 ficent empire, one province is favourable to the production 
 of one species of produce, and another province to another. 
 By their mutual intercourse, mankind are enabled to distri- 
 bute their labour as best fits the genius of each particular 
 country and people. The industry of the whole is thus ren- 
 dered incomparably more productive ; and every species of 
 necessary, useful, and agreeable accommodation is obtained 
 in much greater abundance, and with infinitely less ex- 
 pense." (.Mill's Commerce Defended, p. 38.) 
 
 The supply of a great city with its various articles of pro- 
 vision and consumption, affords, as has been justly observed, 
 one of the most striking instances of the benefits resulting 
 from the division and combination of employments on the 
 most extensive scale. In illustration of this, it may be 
 stated, that at this moment (1841), there are not less than 
 two millions of inhabitants congregated within ten miles 
 round St. Paul's, comprising a large proportion of the weal 
 thiest individuals in the kingdom. The production of the 
 provisions and other accommodations required by this vast 
 population employs not only a very large proportion of the 
 people of the United Kingdom, but also,an immense number 
 of labourers in the most distant, countries. The Chinese 
 furnish the tea; the planters of Jamaica and Demerara the 
 sugar and collie; Ceylon and the Eastern Archipelago the 
 spices; the Portuguese and French the wines; the people 
 of Cashmere in Central Asia the shawls; the Australians 
 and Germans the wool; the Americans the cotton; the 
 Italians and Chinese the silk; the Norwegians the lobsters ; 
 the Spaniards and the people of the Azores the Oranges, 
 and so forth, required for the supplj of London. And yet, 
 notwithstanding the extreme diversity of the sources whence 
 they are brought, and of the conditions under which they 
 are produced, every article is supplied to the exact extent 
 to which it is wanted; and every individual in this im- 
 mense city may get, on the shortest notice, any quantit] of 
 any article, bow great or how small soever, that he requires. 
 Then is no excess at one time, or scarcity at another. The 
 stftmly of every article is adjusted to the demand with a 
 precision that any one not acquainted with the circiimMan 
 
 crvWmid d priori, have pronounced Impossible. 
 
 And how, it may be inquired, are these astonishing results, 
 tflrWcVirWiniit ami equable supply of infinitely varied wants, 
 l/rodgm rtwwt ? Had government undertaken such n task, 
 
 it certainly would have exhibited, even with (he assisianCff 
 of a whole army of officers and purveyors, a signal and tip 
 tal failure ; but it is now effected with the Utmost facility 
 by the efforts of individuals, who, in the prosecution of 
 their own interests, confer inestimable advantages on this 
 great city, and, indeed, enable it to subsist. Every retail 
 dealer is aware of the ordinary or average demand of his 
 Customers for the article or articles in which he deals ; and 
 in like manner the wholesale dealers, who commission ar- 
 ticles of the producers, are each and all aware of the quan- 
 tity that will he taken off by the retailers, whose agents they 
 are, and of the periods when they will have to be supplied. 
 In this way the aggregate and individual wants of any pop- 
 ulation, how great soever, come to be accurately known ; 
 and the quantity of labour required to supply the different 
 articles of which they stand in need, and no more, is put in 
 motion. 
 
 It would be unnecessary, in a work of this kind, to dwell 
 on the advantages resulting to society from the formation 
 of improved roads, canals, and other easy means of com- 
 munication. At bottom, however, the principal advantage 
 of these consists in the facility which they atl'ord for ena- 
 bling products to be conveyed from one place to another; 
 that is, for enabling the division of labour between dill'er- 
 ent parts of the country to be carried to the greatest 
 extent. And the same principle that teaches us that it 
 is for the public advantage to construct new and improved 
 roads, and to promote to the utmost the facilities of inter- 
 course between the different parts of the United Kingdom, 
 should teach us to abolish, in as far as practicable, all re- 
 strictions on the intercourse with foreign countries, and to 
 give full scope to the territorial division of labour between 
 our people and those of other nations. All the arguments 
 that can be used for the opening of new roads, the throwing 
 of bridges over ravines and rivers, and otherwise improving 
 the means of internal intercourse, apply with but little 
 variation, and with equal force, to the abolition of restric- 
 tions on the exportation of native and the importation of 
 foreign produce ; the object of the one class of measures as 
 of the other is to facilitate the interchange of the various 
 products of art and industry, and consequently to enablo 
 capital and labour to be employed in the channels in which 
 they are sure to be most productive. (See the art. Com- 
 merce in this Diet., and the authorities therein referred 
 to.) 
 
 The various provisions made by society for its protection, 
 and for securing and preserving the rights and privileges of 
 individuals, owe their origin to this principle. Government 
 itself is wholly founded on a sense of the advantages re- 
 sulting from the division of employments. " In the rudest 
 state of society each man relies principally on himself for the 
 protection both of his person and of his property. For these 
 purposes he must be always armed, and always watchful; 
 What little property he has must be moveable, so as never 
 to be fat distant from its owner. Defence or escape occupy 
 almost all his thoughts, and almost all his time ; and after 
 all these sacrifices, they are very imperfectly effected. 'If 
 ever you see an old man here,' said an inhabitant of the 
 confines of Abyssinia to Bruce, 'heia a stranger; the na- 
 tives all die young by the lance.' 
 
 "But the labour which every individual who relies on 
 himself for protection must himself undergo is more than 
 sufficient to enable a few individuals to protect themselves, 
 and also the whole of a numerous community. To this 
 may be traced the origin of governments. The nucleus of 
 every government must have been some person who offered 
 protection in exchange for submission. On the governor 
 and those with whom he is associated, or Whom he ap- 
 points, is devolved the care of defending the community 
 from violence and fraud; and so far as internal violence is 
 concerned, and that is the evil most dreaded in civilized so- 
 society, it is wonderful how small a number of persons can 
 provide for the security of multitudes. About fifteen thou- 
 sand soldiers, and not fifteen thousand policemen, watch- 
 men, and officers of justice, protect the persons and property 
 of the seventeen millions ol' inhabitants of Great Britain. 
 There is scarcely a trade that does not engross the labour of 
 
 a greater number of persons than are employed to perform 
 this the most important of all services." (Senior on Politi- 
 cal Economy.) 
 
 Definition and Employment of Capital. — The capital of 
 a country consists of those portions of the produce 01 indus- 
 try exiting in it that may be made directly available, either 
 for the support of human beings, or the facilitating of pro- 
 duction. It consequently comprises all those articles that 
 may be emploj ed for the subsistence, clothing, and lodging 
 of the labourers engaged in industrious undertakings; and 
 the various animals, tools, and machines of which they may 
 avail themselves in performing their tasks. It is usual to 
 call the former, or the food, clothes, &C., required for tha 
 subsistence of the labourer, the corn used as seed and ill 
 the feuding of horses, coal, &c, circulating capital ; wliile
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 those articles that are more slowly consumed, as the lower 
 animals, the houses, and the various instruments and ma- 
 chines that either are or may he employed in industrious 
 undertakings, are called_/u;e<2 capital. But though this dis- 
 tinction be convenient for some purposes, no distinct line of 
 demarcation can be drawn between the different varieties 
 of capital, and they are alike indispensable to the success- 
 ful prosecution of most branches of industry. Without a 
 supply of the first, or circulating capital, that is, without a 
 supply of food, clothes, &c, it would plainly be impassible 
 to engage in any sort of undertaking where the return was 
 at all distant; and without the second, or fixed capital, that 
 is, without the aid of tools and machines (which aie merely 
 a more complex species of tools), there are but few sorts of 
 labour that could be carried on at all, or with any advan- 
 tage. But the progressive nature of man, his foresight and 
 inventive faculty, lead him, even in the earliest ages, and in 
 the rudest states of society, to provide a reserve of food, and 
 to contrive tools and instruments to assist him in his opera- 
 tions. The American hunters make use of clubs and slings 
 to abridge their labour and facilitate the acquisition of 
 game ; and the same principle which prompts them to con- 
 struct and avail themselves of those rude instruments never 
 ceases to operate: it is always producing some new im- 
 provement, and in an advanced and refined period substitutes 
 ships for canoes, muskets for slings, steam-engines for clubs, 
 and cotton-mills for distaffs. 
 
 Hence it is only by the employment and co-operation of 
 both descriptions of capital that wealth can be largely pro- 
 duced, and universally diffused. An agriculturist might 
 have an ample supply of carts and ploughs, of oxen and 
 horses, and, generally, of all the instruments and animals 
 used in his department of industry ; but were he destitute 
 of circulating capital, or food and clothes, he would be un- 
 able to avail himself of their assistance ; and instead of till- 
 ing the ground, would have to resort to some species of ap- 
 propriative industry : and, on the other hand, supposing he 
 were abundantly supplied with provisions, what could he 
 do without the assistance of a fixed capital or tools'? What 
 could the most skilful husbandman perform without his 
 spade and plough 1 a weaver without his loom 1 a carpen- 
 ter without his saw, his hatchet, and his planes. 
 
 The division of labour cannot be carried to any consid- 
 erable extent without the previous accumulation of capital. 
 Before labour can be divided, " a stock of goods of different 
 kinds must be stored up somewhere, sufficient to maintain 
 the labourer, and to supply him with materials and tools. 
 A weaver cannot apply himself entirely to his peculiar 
 business, unless there is beforehand stored up somewhere, 
 either in his own possession or in that of some other per- 
 son, a stock sufficient to maintain him, and to supply him 
 with the materials and tools of his works, till he has not 
 only completed but sold his web. This accumulation must, 
 evidently, be previous to his applying himself for so long a 
 time to such a peculiar business. ( Wealth of Nations, 119.) 
 
 As the accumulation of capital must have preceded the 
 extensive division of labour, so its subsequent division can 
 only be perfected as capital is more and more accumulated. 
 Accumulation and division act and react on each other. 
 The quantity of work which the same number of people can 
 perform increases in a great proportion with every fresh 
 subdivision of labour ; and according as the operations of 
 each workman are reduced to a greater degree of identity 
 and simplicity, he has, as already explained, a greater chance 
 of discovering machines and processes for facilitating his 
 separate task. The quantity of industry, therefore, not only 
 increases in every country with the increase of the stock or 
 capital which sets it in motion ; but, In consequence of this 
 increase, the division of labour is extended, new and more 
 powerful implements and machines are invented, and the 
 same quantity of labour is made to produce an infinitely 
 greater quantity of commodities. 
 
 Besides enabling labour to be divided, capital contributes 
 to facilitate labour and produce wealth in the three follow- 
 ing ways : 
 
 First. — It enables work to be executed that could not be 
 executed, or commodities to be produced that could not be 
 produced, without it. 
 
 Second. — It saves labour in the production of almost every 
 species of commodities. 
 
 Third— H enables work to be executed better, as well as 
 more expeditiously. 
 
 With regard to the first advantage derived from the em- 
 ployment of capital, or the circumstance of its enabling 
 commodities to be produced that could not be produced 
 without it, it is plain, as already observed, that the produc- 
 tion of such commodities as require a considerable period 
 for their completion could not be attempted unless a stock 
 of circulating capital, or of food and clothes sufficient for the 
 maintenance of the labourer while employed on them, was 
 previously provided. But the possession of fixed capital, or 
 of tools and machines, is frequently as necessary to the pro- 
 
 duction of commodities as the possession of circulating capi- 
 tal. It would, for example, be quite impossible to produce 
 a pair of stockings without the aid of wires ; and although 
 the ground might be cultivated without the aid of a plough, 
 it could not be cultivated without the aid of a spade or a 
 hoe. If we run over the vast catalogue of the arts practised 
 in a civilized country, it will be found that extremely few 
 can be carried on by the mere employment of the fingers, 
 or rude tools with which man is furnished by nature. It is 
 almost always necessary to provide ourselves with the re- 
 sult of previous industry and invention, and to strengthen 
 our feeble hands by arming them, if we may so speak, " with 
 the force of all the elements." 
 
 In the second place, besides supplying many species of 
 commodities that could not be produced without its co-oper- 
 ation, the employment of capital occasions a saving of la- 
 bour in the production of many others ; and, by lowering 
 their cost, brings them within the reach of a far greater 
 number of consumers. We have been so long accustomed 
 to profit by the services of the most commodious and pow- 
 erful machines, that it requires a considerable effort of ab- 
 straction to become fully aware of the advantages we owe 
 to them. But if we compare the arts practised alike by 
 highly civilized societies and those in a less advanced state, 
 we can hardly fail of being convinced that we are indebted 
 to the employment of machinery for a very large propor- 
 tion of our superior comforts and enjoyments. Suppose, 
 that, like the Peruvians, and many other people of the New 
 as well as the Old World, we were destitute of iron, and 
 unacquainted with the method of domesticating and em- 
 ploying oxen and horses, how prodigious a change for the 
 worse would be made in our condition I It was customary, 
 in some countries, to make cloth by taking up thread after 
 thread of the warp, and passing the woof between them by 
 the unassisted agency of the hand ; so that years were con- 
 sumed in the manufacture of a piece which, with the aid 
 of the loom, may be produced in as many days. Nothing, 
 perhaps, has contributed so much to accelerate the progress 
 and diffuse the blessings of civilization, as the establishment 
 of a commercial intercourse between different and distant 
 nations. But how could this be effected without the con- 
 struction of vessels, and the discovery of the art of naviga- 
 tion ? And if we compare the early navigators, creeping 
 timidly along the shore in canoes formed out of trees partly 
 hollowed by fire, and partly by the aid of a stone hatchet 
 or the bone of some animal, with those who now boldly 
 traverse the trackless ocean in noble ships, laden with the 
 produce of every climate, we shall have a faint idea of the 
 advance of the arts, and what we owe to machinery and 
 science. Those who have distinguished themselves in this 
 career, though they have rarely met with that gratitude 
 and applause from their fellow-citizens to which they had 
 so just a claim, hive been the great benefactors of the hu- 
 man race. By pressing the powers of nature into our ser- 
 vice, and subjecting them to our control, they have given 
 man almost omnipotent power, and rendered him equal to 
 the most gigantic undertakings. Without their assistance 
 we should be poor indeed ! Such as the naked and half- 
 famished savage of New Holland is at this day, such would 
 the Athenian, the Roman, and the Englishman have been, 
 but for the invention of tools and machines, and the em- 
 ployment of tire natural agents in the great work of pro- 
 duction. 
 
 The third advantage derived from the employment of 
 capital consists in its enabling work to be done better, as 
 well as more expeditiously. Cotton, for example, might be 
 spun by the hand ; but the admirable machines invented by 
 Hargreaves, Arkwright, and others, enable a hundred or a 
 thousand times as much yarn to be spun as could be effect- 
 ed by means of a common spindle, at the same time that 
 they have improved its quality and given it a degree of fine- 
 ness and of evenness, or equality in its parts, which was 
 never previously attained. A painter would occupy months, 
 or it might be years, in painting with a brush the cottons, 
 or printed cloths, used in the hanging of a single room ; and 
 it would be very difficult, if not impossible, for the best artist 
 to give that perfect identity to his figures which is given to 
 them by the machinery now made use of for that purpose. 
 Not to mention the other and more important advantages 
 resulting from the invention of moveable types and print- 
 ing, it is certain that the most perfect manuscript, one on 
 which years of patient and irksome labour have been ex- 
 pended, is unable, in point of delicacy and correctness, to 
 match a well-printed work, executed in the hundredth part 
 of the time, and at a hundredth part of the expense. The 
 great foreign demind for English manufactured goods re- 
 sults no less from the superiority of their manufacture than 
 from their greater cheapness ; and for both these advan- 
 tages we are principally indebted to the excellence of our 
 machinery. 
 
 There are other considerations which equally illustrate 
 the extreme importance of the accumulation and employ- 
 
 959
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 mcnt of capital. The food and other accommodations en- 
 joyed by a aatioo cannot be Increased except by an increase 
 in the number of it* labourers, or in their productive powers; 
 but, without an increase of capital, it is in most cases Im- 
 possible i" employ more workmen with advantage. If the 
 articles applicable to the support of the labourers, and the 
 tools ami machines with which they are to operate, be re- 
 quired for the maintenance and efficient employment of 
 those already in existence, there can be no additional de- 
 demand ler others. Under such circumstances the rate of 
 wages cannot rise ; and If the number of inhabitants be in- 
 creased they mast be worse provided for. Neither is it at 
 all probable that the powers of the labourer should be aug- 
 mented, except capital be previously increased. Without 
 the better education tind training of workmen, the greater 
 subdivision of their employments, or the improvement of 
 machinery, their productive energies can never be material 
 ly increased ; and in almost all these cases additional capital 
 is required. It is seldom, unless by its means, that work- 
 men can be better trained, or that the undertaker of any 
 work can either provide them with better machinery, or 
 make a proper distribution of labour among them. Should 
 the work to be done consist of a number of parts, to keep a 
 workman constantly employed in one only requires a much 
 larger stock than when he is occasionally employed is every 
 different part. " When," says Dr. Smith, " we compare the 
 state of a nation at two different periods, and find that the 
 annual produce of its land and labour Is evidently greater at 
 the latter than at the former, that its lands are better culti- 
 vated, its manufactures more numerous and more flourish- 
 ing, and its trade more extensive, we may be assured that 
 its capital must have increased during the interval between 
 these two periods, and that more must have been added to 
 it, by the good conduct of some, than had been taken from 
 it, cither by the private misconduct of others, or by the pub- 
 lic extravagance of government." ( IVealth of Nations, 
 152.) It is therefore apparent that no country can ever reach 
 the stationary state, so long as she continues to accumu- 
 late additional capital. While she does this she will have 
 an increased demand for labour, and will be uniformly aug- 
 menting the mass of necessaries, luxuries, and conveniences, 
 and consequently, also, the numbers of her people. But 
 with every diminution of the rate at which capital has been 
 accumulating, the demand for labour will decline. When 
 no additions are made to capital, no more labour will be, or, 
 at least, can be advantageously employed. And should the 
 natural capital diminish, the condition of the great body of 
 the people will deteriorate; the wages of labour will be re- 
 duced ; and pauperism, with its attendant train of vice, 
 misery, and crime, will spread its ravages throughout society. 
 Objections to .Machinery unfounded. — But, admitting what 
 has been stated, still it may be, and, indeed, has been con- 
 tended, that how advantageous soever to the country, ma- 
 chines, on their first introduction, frequently injure the la- 
 bouring class, by lessening the demand for labour and the 
 rate of wages. In point of fact, however, it admits of de- 
 monstration that every introduction of improved machinery 
 is sure to increase the aggregate demand for labour; at the 
 same time that, by reducing the cost of commodities, it en- 
 ables the labouring class, in common with the rest of so- 
 ciety, to obtain a greater command over necessaries and 
 conveniences. It sometimes, indeed, happens that the in 
 troducti ii of machinery is injurious to the labourers em- 
 ployed in a particular department ; but if it displace them, 
 it cannot tail to occasion a more than equivalent demand 
 for their services in other departments. The introduction 
 Of moveable t\ pes and printing threw out of employment all 
 
 those who had been previously engaged in the copying of 
 
 manuscripts; but, at the same time, it is certain that this 
 invention, by cheapening and multiplying books, has made 
 at least from a hundred to live hundred persons be employ- 
 ed In the book trade for one that was employed in it when 
 it began to be introduced, or that would have been employ- 
 ed in it at this moment had it not been discovered. 
 
 Precisely similar results follow in all eases In which any 
 peculiar description of hand labour is superseded by ma- 
 chine r\ . At this ii ion lent we have an example of the prin- 
 ciple before us in the business of hand loom weaving, which 
 is in the course of being superseded by the introduction of 
 power-looms, the hand-loom weavers being, like the copy- 
 ing clerks in the 15th and llith centuries, Involved in the 
 greatest difficulties. But these, how severe soever in the 
 meantime, will be but at temporary duration, and society 
 will be perpetual gainers by the change. Power-looms are 
 introduced only because they do their work cheaper than 
 
 it Can be done by the hand. But the wealth of those w ho 
 buy the products of the power-looms is not affected by the 
 
 change; and whatever they may save through the reduc 
 
 lion of their price will be laid out on other things, the pro- 
 duction Of Which Will, in the end, fully absorb the unem- 
 ployed hand loom weavers, at the same tune that the cheap- 
 ened products will be brought within the command of new 
 o*io 
 
 classes of purchasers, and that the demand for them will 
 be proportionally increased ; and this, it is plain, will Open 
 a new field for the employment of many additional bands in 
 the construction of machinery, and iii the various subor- 
 dinate departments connected' with the manufacture. To 
 suppose, indeed, that the introduction of improved machinery 
 should, under any circumstances, entail a real injury on so- 
 ciety, is to suppose what is contradictory and absurd ; it is 
 equivalent to supposing that society might be Injured by an 
 increased productiveness of soil, and an increased salubrity 
 of climate; it is to suppose that wealth may be too much 
 increased, and that the necessaries and conveniences of 
 life may he too widely diffused. 
 
 Circumstances most favourable for the Accumulation of 
 Capital. — Having thus endeavoured to point out the vast 
 importance of the employment of capital, and the manner in 
 which it co-operates in facilitating production, we proceed 
 to explain the circumstances most favourable for its accu- 
 mulation. Now, as capital is nothing but the accumulated 
 produce of previous industry, it is evident that its increase 
 will be most likely to be most rapid where industry is most 
 productive; or, in other words, where the profits of stock 
 are highest. The man who can produce a bushel of wheat 
 in three days may accumulate twice as fast as the man 
 who, either from a deficiency of skill, or from having to cul- 
 tivate a bad soil, is forced to labour six days to produce the 
 same quantity; and the capitalist who can invest stock so 
 as to yield him a profit of ten per cent., has it equally in his 
 power to accumulate twice as fast as he who can only ob- 
 tain five per cent, for his capital. Experience, too, shows, 
 that while high profits afford greater means of saving, they 
 act as incentives to accumulation. Hence it is found that 
 in those countries most rapidly increasing in wealth and 
 population, the rate of profit is always comparatively high. 
 Thus in the United States, the rate of profit is usually twice 
 as high as in Great Britain or France; and it is to this that 
 the more rapid advancement of the former in wealth and 
 population is entirely to be ascribed. We do not mean to 
 say that high profits are necessarily, and in every instance, 
 accompanied by a great degree of prosperity. Countries 
 with every other advantage for the profitable employment 
 of industry and stock may be subjected to a despotical gov- 
 ernment, which does not respect the right of property ; and 
 the want of adequate security thence resulting may be suf- 
 ficient to paralyse all the exertions of those who are other- 
 wise plared in the most favourable situation for the accu- 
 mulation of capital. But we have no hesitation in laying it 
 down as a principle which holds in every case, and from 
 which there is really no exception, that if the governments 
 of any two or more countries he about equally liberal, and 
 property in each be about equally well secured, their com- 
 parative prosperity will depend on the rate of profit : wher- 
 ever profits are high, there is a great demand for labour, 
 and the society rapidly augments both in population and 
 riches. On the other hand, wherever they are low, the de- 
 mand for labour is proportionally reduced, and the progress 
 Ofsocietj rendered so miiih the slower. l!ut however high 
 the rale of profit, had men always lived up to their incomes, 
 that is, had they always Consumed tin' whole produce of 
 their industry in the gratification of their immediate wur.ts 
 and desires, it is obvious there could have been no such 
 thing as capital in the world. High profits are advanta- 
 geous, because they afford the means of amassing capital ; 
 but something more is necessary to make us use these means, 
 and this is the accumulating principle. The desire implant- 
 ed in the breast of every individual of rising in the world, 
 and improving his condition, has prompted mankind to save 
 a portion of their income, or of the produce of their industry, 
 
 from immediate consumption, and to Bel it apart as a fund, 
 
 or capital, to assist them in their future undertakings. It is 
 to this principle, therefore, or rather to its effect, parsimony, 
 that we owe our capital ; and it is to capital that we owe 
 almost all our comforts and enjoyments. Without its as- 
 sistance and co-operation, labour could not have been di- 
 vided; arts could not have made any progress ; and man- 
 kind must have continued to shelter themselves, as in the 
 earliest ages, in caves and forests, ;l nd to clothe themselves 
 with the skins ol' wild animals. All the accumulated 
 riches of the world, the cities which cover its surface, the 
 ships which traverse its seas, and the innumerable variety 
 of Improvements, owe their origin to Ibis principle — to the 
 desire to rise in the world, anil consequently to save and 
 amass. 
 
 It has been wisely ordered that this principle should he 
 as powerful as il is advantageous. "With regard to pro- 
 fusion." says Smith, "the principle which prompts to ex- 
 pen e is the passion for present enjoyment; which, though 
 
 sometimes violent, and very difficult to be restrained is, in 
 
 general, onlj m intary and occasional. But the principle 
 
 Which prompts lo save is the desire of bettering our condi- 
 tion ; a desire which, though generally calm and dispas- 
 sionate, comes with us from the womb, and never leaves us
 
 POLITICAL ECONOMY. 
 
 till we go into the grave. In the whole interval which sep- 
 arates the two moments, there is scarce, perhaps, a single 
 instance in which any man is so perfectly and completely 
 satisfied with his situation as to be without any wish of al- 
 teration or improvement of any kind. An augmentation of 
 fortune is the means by which the greater part of men pro- 
 pose and wish to better their condition. It is the means the 
 most vulgar and the most obvious ; and the most likely way 
 of augmenting their fortune is to save and accumulate some 
 part of what they acquire, either regularly and annually, or 
 upon some extraordinary occasion. Though the principle 
 of expense, therefore, prevails in almost all men upon some 
 occasions, and in some men upon almost all occasions, yet 
 in the greater part of men, taking the whole course of their 
 life at an average, the principle of frugality seems not only 
 to predominate, but to predominate very greatly." ( Wealth 
 qf Nations, 151.) 
 
 It is this principle which carries society forward. The 
 spirit of parsimony, and the efforts which the frugal and in- 
 dustrious classes make to improve their condition, in most 
 instances balance not only the profusion of individuals, but 
 also the more wasteful profusion and extravagance of gov- 
 ernment. The spirit of economy has been happily com- 
 pared by Smith to the unknown principle of animal life, the 
 vis ntcdicatrijc natu.ro:, which frequently restores health 
 and vigour to the constitution, in spite both of disease, and 
 of the absurd prescriptions of the physician. 
 
 But however great the capacity of the principle of accu- 
 mulation to repair the waste of capital, we must take care 
 not to fall into the error of supposing, as very many have 
 done, that its operations are in all cases promoted by a large 
 public expenditure. To a certain extent this is indeed true. 
 A moderate increase of taxation has the same effects on the 
 habits and industry of a nation that an increase of his family, 
 or of his necessary and unavoidable expenses, has upon a 
 private individual. Man is not influenced solely by hope — 
 he is also powerfully operated upon by fear ; taxation brings 
 the latter principle into the field. To the desire of rising in 
 the world inherent in the breast of every individual, an in- 
 crease of taxation superadds the fear of being cast down to a 
 lower station — of being deprived of conveniences and grati- 
 fications which habit has rendered almost indispensable ; 
 and the combined influence of the two principles produces 
 efforts that could not be produced by the unassisted agency 
 of either. They stimulate individuals to endeavour, by in- 
 creased efforts of industry and economy, to repair the breach 
 taxation has made in their fortunes ; and it not unfrequent- 
 ly happens that their efforts do more than this, and that, 
 consequently, the national wealth is increased through the 
 increase of taxation. But we must be on our guard against 
 the abuse of this doctrine. To render an increase of taxa- 
 tion a cause of greater exertion, economy, and invention, its 
 increase should be slow and gradual; and it should never 
 be carried to such a height as to incapacitate individuals 
 from meeting the sacrifices it imposes on them by such a 
 moderate degree of increased exertion and economy as it 
 may be in their power to make, without requiring any very 
 violent change in their habits. The increase of taxation 
 must not be such as to render it impracticable to overcome 
 its influence, or to induce the belief that it is impracticable. 
 Difficulties that seem to be surmountable sharpen the in- 
 ventive powers, and are readily grappled with ; but an ap- 
 parently insurmountable difficulty, or such an excessive 
 weight of taxation as it was deemed impossible to meet, 
 would not stimulate, but destroy exertion. Instead of pro- 
 ducing new efforts of ingenuity and economy, it would pro- 
 duce only despair. Whenever taxation becomes so heavy 
 that the produce it takes from individuals can no longer be 
 replaced by fresh efforts, these efforts uniformly cease to be 
 made ; the population becomes dispirited, industry is par- 
 alysed, and the country rapidly declines. 
 
 Ambition to rise is the animating principle of society. 
 Instead of remaining satisfied with the condition of their 
 fathers, the great object of mankind in every age has been 
 to rise above it — to elevate themselves in the scale of wealth ; 
 to continue stationary, or to retrograde, is not natural to so- 
 ciety. Man from youth grows to manhood, then decays and 
 dies ; but such is not the destiny of nations. The arts, sci- 
 ences, and capital of one generation become the patrimony 
 of that which succeeds them, and in their hands are aug- 
 mented and rendered more efficient; so that, if not counter- 
 acted by the want of security, or by other adventitious 
 causes, the principle of improvement would always operate, 
 and would secure the constant advancement of nations in 
 wealth and population. 
 
 Such is a short outline of the circumstances on which the 
 production of wealth depends. It is difficult in separately 
 considering the influence of the combination and division of 
 employments, and of the introduction and improvement of 
 machinery, to avoid ascribing an undue degree of import- 
 ance to the one immediately under consideration. But 
 neither is entitled to any pre-eminence over the other 
 81 
 
 POLITICS. 
 
 They are alike important; or rather, we should say, they 
 are alike indispensable to the production of wealth. It 
 would, indeed, be quite as profitable to inquire whether the 
 heart or the lungs be most essential to animal existence, as 
 it is to inquire whether the division and combination of em- 
 ployments, or the command of capital, including tools and 
 machines, be most essential to the growth of opulence and 
 civilization. Without their combined and powerful aid, 
 man must have continued sunk in primeval barbarism and 
 ignorance. Take away the division and combination of 
 employments, and the isolated efforts of individuals will be 
 wholly unable to produce any considerable result ; and take 
 away capital, or the aid derived from previous savings, and 
 from tools and machinery, and we shall immediately sink 
 to the level of the Australian savages. 
 
 It would be inconsistent with the objects and limits of this 
 work to enter farther into details. The sketch now given 
 comprises, we believe, an accurate statement of the great 
 principles that lie at the bottom of the science, and by the 
 application of which a correct judgment may be formed of 
 most practical measures affecting the production of wealth. 
 But those who wish for more detailed statements, and ex- 
 positions of difficulties, must resort to works especially ap- 
 propriated to such investigations. 
 
 The second great division of Political Economy has for 
 its object to inquire into the laws which regulate the distri- 
 bution of wealth among the various ranks and orders of the 
 community. 
 
 II. Distribution of Wealth. 
 
 The inhabitants of such countries as have made any con- 
 siderable progress in civilization may be divided into the 
 three great classes of labourers, landlords, and capitalists; 
 that is, into those who employ themselves for hire in any 
 undertaking, those to whom the lands belong, and those 
 who are the owners of capital. An individual may combine 
 in his own person each of these separate characters ; but 
 they are, notwithstanding, sufficiently well marked to ad- 
 mit of their classification and separate consideration in the 
 case of all individuals. And whatever be the condition of 
 any country or society, whether it be rude or refined, rich 
 or poor, every person belonging to it, who is not a pauper, or 
 who does not subsist on the bounty of others, may be 
 reckoned in one or other of these classes. They divide 
 among them all the wealth of the community. Public 
 functionaries of all sorts, and the various individuals en- 
 gaged in what are called liberal or learned professions, ex- 
 change their services for valuable considerations. The 
 whole subsistence of such persons, in so far as they depend 
 upon their employments, is derived from wages; and they 
 are as evidently labourers as if they handled a spade or a 
 plough. " Every man," says Dr. Paley, " has his work. 
 The kind of work varies, and that is all the difference there 
 is. A great deal of labour exists besides that of the hands : 
 many species of industry besides bodily operation ; equally 
 necessary, requiring equal assiduity, more attention, more 
 anxiety. It is not true, therefore, that men of elevated sta- 
 tions are exempted from work ; it is only true that there is 
 assigned to them work of a different kind : whether more 
 easy or more pleasant may be questioned ; but certainly not 
 less wanted, nor less essential to the common good." (As- 
 size Sermon, 29th July, 1795.) Hence it is that the inquiry 
 into the distribution of wealth among the different orders of 
 the society, resolves itself into an investigation of the laws 
 which regulate wages, rent, and profit, and of the best 
 methods of providing for the exigencies of the poor, or 
 of those who are unable to provide for themselves. We 
 believe, however, that it will be the preferable plan to 
 refer the consideration of these topics to the heads now 
 mentioned, which will, consequently, comprise all that 
 is essential to a general view of this department of the sci- 
 ence. 
 
 Among the many works that have been written on this 
 science, the first place is due to the Wealth of Nations, by 
 Adam Smith : an edition of this work was published in 1838, 
 in one volume, 8vo., with notes and illustrations by the au- 
 thor of this article. See also Ricardo's Principles of Politi- 
 cal Economy and Taxation ; Torrens on the Production of 
 Wealth ; Senior's art. on Political Economy in the Encyclo- 
 pedia Metropolitana ; M'Cul loch's Principles of Political 
 Economy ; Say, Traite d' Economie Politique, &c. 
 
 PO'LITICS (Gr. iroXic, a city), may be considered either 
 as a science or an art, according to the manner in which it 
 is treated. Political science is that which treats of the theo- 
 ry and practice of government, and the subjects which it 
 comprises have been arranged under the following heads : 
 1. Natural law ; 2. Abstract politics, i. e., the object of a 
 state, and the relations between it and individual citizens ; 
 3. Political economy; 4. The science of police, or municipal 
 regulation ; 5. Practical politics, or the conduct of the im- 
 mediate public affairs of a state; 6. History of politics; 7. 
 Historv of the European system of states, being the only sys- 
 30 961
 
 POLL. 
 
 tern in which the modern art of politics has received a prac- 
 tical development; 8. Statistics ; '.'. Positive law relating 
 to state affaire, commonly called constitutional law ; 10. 
 Practical law of nations; 11. Diplomacy; 12. The technical 
 science of politics, an acquaintance with the forms ami style 
 of public business in different countries. The ancient Greek 
 writers treated the science of polities uniformly with refer- 
 ence to an imaginary perfect state ; the constitution of which 
 each propounded according to his own speculative views, 
 and then proceeded to show in what respects existing gov- 
 ernments differed from this ideal standard, the cause of 
 these variations, &c. 
 
 POLL. In Politics. See Parliament. 
 
 POLLARD. A tree with the head cut off at the height 
 of 10 or IS feet from the ground, for the purpose of inducing 
 it to throw out branches all round the section where ampu- 
 tation has taken place ; which branches are cut off peri- 
 odically, when they attain the length of 8 or 10 feet, to be 
 used as fuel, fence wood, or for other rustic purposes. Pol- 
 lard trees are for the most part found in hedgerows, which 
 they greatly injure by the dense shade produced by their 
 branches on the plants below ; and excepting when the 
 round formal heads of the pollards enter into combination 
 with overgrown hedge plants, or with large trees which 
 have not been pollarded, they disfigure the landscape, from 
 the sajneness of their appearance, and their expression of 
 meanness, as compared with that of trees undecapitated and 
 left in all their native luxuriance. In the time of Evelyn 
 tlie term pollard appears to have been chiefly applied to 
 trees which were lopped or deprived of their side branches, 
 excepting a few at top, leaving the tree standing like a 
 naked pole. Examples of this kind of pollard are frequent 
 among the hedgerow e'ms in the neighbourhood of London. 
 The decapitated tree, now called a pollard, was in Evelyn's 
 time called a dottard. 
 
 POLLEN. In Botany, the pulverulent substance which 
 fills the cells of the anthers of a plant, consisting of a mul- 
 titude of little hollow cases filled with a fluid holding very 
 minute molecular matter in suspension. The latter is 
 eventually discharged by the grains of pollen through their 
 hollow tubes, and is supposed to be the spermatic fluid of a 
 plant. 
 
 POLLEN" TUHEs 5 , are the tubular processes emitted 
 by the pollen when it comes in contact with the stigma of 
 a plant, and which are supposed to conduct the impreg- 
 nating matter down the style into the ovules through the 
 foramen. 
 
 POLL TAX. A tax still levied in many of the Conti- 
 nental states, and formerly also in England, in proportion 
 to the rank or fortune of the individual. In England this 
 species of tax was first levied in 1378; and, as is well 
 known, it was from the brutality with which the levying 
 of it was accompanied, that the rebellion of Wat Tyler 
 took its rise in 1381. Various poll taxes were levied at dif- 
 ferent periods in the subsequent history of England ; but 
 they were finally abolished in the reign of William HI. See 
 Taxation. 
 
 PO'LLUX. In Astronomy, one of the twins forming the 
 constellation Gemini. (See Castor.) Pollux is also the 
 name of a star of the second magnitude in the same con- 
 stellation. 
 
 PO'LYARCHY. (Gr. nvXvc, many, and apxctv, to gov- 
 ern.) A word sometimes used by political writers in a 
 sense opposed to monarchy : the government of many, 
 whether a privileged class (aristocracy), or the people at 
 large (democracy). 
 
 POLYCHRO'ITE. (Gr. raXvc, and xP»a, colour.) A 
 term applied to the colouring matter of saffron, in conse- 
 quence of the variety of colours which it exhibits when 
 acted upon by various re-agents. 
 
 PCLYCHREST. Or. uoAus, Md \pnaroc, useful.) A 
 term applied by the old chemists to certain preparations 
 which they regarded .'is possessed of multifarious virtues. 
 Polychrc.<t sail was the sulphate of potash. 
 
 POLYG \l. K'CEJE. (Polygala, one of the genera.) A 
 
 natural order of irregular Polypetalous 1'. 
 tonic, astringent, and nephritic properties. The species an- 
 also sometimes cultivated for the sake of their beautiful 
 
 flowers; they usually inhabit temperate Climates, and are 
 J>articularly common at the Cape of Good Hope. Khntnny 
 root, a powerful astringent, belongs to Kramcria, a genus 
 of this order. 
 
 POLY'GAMOUS (Gr. iroXuc, and ya/jo>, man 
 
 -igintics when one of the two flowerets of which B 
 
 spikelet consists is unisexual, the other hermaphrodite, as 
 in Spodiopogou, &.C. : in other plants it expresses the pres- 
 ence in the same- individual of male, female, and hermaph- 
 rodite flowers, 
 
 POLY'GAMY. [Gr. xo>uc, and yapos, marriage.) The 
 custom of hat Ing several w Ivei : a custom apparently com 
 
 ■DOB In all nations in remote antiquity, and common now to 
 most of those iu which the tie of marriage is recognised, 
 9U2 
 
 POLYGASTRIA. 
 
 nnd to which Christianity has not extended. It was ad- 
 mitted among the Patriarchs, and under the Mosaic dispen- 
 sation (Exod., xxi., 10; Deut., xxi., 15) ; and Selden ( Uxor 
 Hebraica) has shown its prevalence among the Jews, with- 
 out mentioning the extraordinary instances of sovereigns, 
 such as David and Solomon, recounted in Scripture. It may 
 be questioned, however, whether it continued at the period 
 of our Saviour's preaching. Certainly his injunctions in re- 
 gard to marriage seem rather to be founded on the suppo- 
 sition of monogamy ; and the absence of positive injunctions 
 against polygamy has been relied on by some modern dis- 
 putants, with very little reason, as an authority that the li- 
 cence assumed by the holy men of the Old Testament is 
 not revoked. The severer manners, of Western nations 
 seems to have repudiated it. It was no part of Grecian 
 manners: the notion that the Athenian laws allowed of 
 two wives (founded in part on a passage in Jlthentcus, 1. 
 xiii., eh. 1), seems a mistake; but it appears to have been 
 allowed to a citizen, in addition to his lawful wife, herself 
 a citizen, to live in a kind of legitimate concubinage with a 
 female not belonging to that class. Thus (if there is any 
 truth in the story of Socrates' two wives) his plague, Xan- 
 tippe. was the wife by night, while the softer Myrto was 
 only a wife by courtesy. In republican Rome no such li- 
 cence was known ; but under the emperors the practice of 
 polygamy seems to have crept in, though repudiated both 
 by the moral sense and civil usages of the people. Valen- 
 tinian I. legalized it by an edict. But the Christian ecclesi- 
 astics of the empire strenuously opposed it; and it disap- 
 peared altogether, we believe, from Christendom with the 
 fall of the Roman empire. In the East it has continued to 
 prevail. 
 
 A few bold writers in modem times have raised the de- 
 fence of polygamy, grounded on the supposed absence of its 
 express prohibition. Bernardus Achinus, a well-known and 
 able, but unsteady theologian of the loth century, who be- 
 longed by turns to the Roman Catholic and Protestant com- 
 munions, is among the most remarkable. Lyserus Petfgar 
 tnia Triumphratrif) adopted a still more decided view. 
 The Rev. Mr. Madon, in his Thelyphlhora (a work which 
 excited an extraordinary and very unfavourable sensation 
 on its appearance), limited the privilege of polygamy to 
 men; and asserted that the injunction of St. Paul, that a 
 bishop "should he the husband of one wife," plainly dem- 
 onstrated its lawfulness in others; meaning one wife at a 
 time: a supposition which is not improbable, although it 
 will scarcely support his conclusions. But a greater num- 
 ber of philosophical writers have sought for a justification 
 
 of the practice in the East. Voltaire, Montesquieu, and 
 others, defend it on the ground of the rapid decay of 6 male 
 beauty in those regions. Montesquieu also relies on the 
 strange notion, that the number of females in eastern coun- 
 tries is much greater than that of males: which the trav- 
 eller Bruce asserts on the authority of his own observa- 
 tions. But the supposed fact on which these reasonings 
 rest seems to be altogether imaginary. At all events, the 
 practice of polygamy in the East is confined to so few that 
 it can have little direct effect on manners, and none en 
 population. Mr. L'rquhart, who endeavours to place Turk- 
 ish usages in a favourable contrast with those of the West, 
 after to a certain extent defending polygamy, says rather 
 inconsistently, "While the law of nature renders this prac- 
 tice an impossibility as regards the community, it is here 
 still farther restrained, among the few who have the means 
 of indulging in it. both by the domestic unquiet that results 
 from it, and by the public censure and reprobation of which 
 it is the object." [Spirit of the Kast.) He adds, that in his 
 time "a case of polygamy was unknown in Candia, among 
 a population of 4u,iKii) Mussulmen." And Niebubr aaya, 
 that in Arabia the conduct of those who take more than 
 one wife "is blamed by all other men." But it seems 
 scarcely to have occurred to mo-; r. asoners that while po- 
 lygamy is rare, its recognition is almost always accompa- 
 nied with the toleration of concubinage by public morality. 
 The man who is not rich enough to take two wives, or who 
 does not choose to encounter the household disturbances 
 which follow such an arrangement, tiills entirely in with 
 the public opinion "f his class, in taking into his family a 
 recognised concubine to dwell with his lawful spouse. I >ur 
 Western manners divide the female part of the community 
 
 into two classes : ;i gri ater number, treated with the high- 
 est respect, and in whom perfect purity is presumed; a 
 smaller number, abandoned to utter degradation, Where 
 polygamy am! concubinage are recognised, there is probably 
 much less gross prostitution i but the general character of 
 -lands on a lower basis. 
 POLYGA'STRIA. (Gr. iroXvs, and yiuTrp. a stomach.) 
 The name of tin- most minute and simple class of [nfnso- 
 
 ries, anil of the whole animal kingdom. The Polygastri- 
 
 ans are characterized by Ehrenberg as animalcule- devoid 
 of spina] marrow, and of vascular and respiratory organs, 
 with many stomachs, of an indefinite form, and androgy-
 
 POLYGLOT. 
 
 aotts, With spurious locomotive organs of various nature. 
 They are all endowed with an organization characteristic of 
 the animal kingdom; and manifest such modifications of 
 internal structure and external form that they can he di- 
 vided into twenty-two families, of which eleven are naked 
 and eleven clothed in a siliceous case. Forty-eight species, 
 referable to twenty-one distinct genera, are provided with 
 eyes or coloured eye-specks ; and, among these, nervous 
 ganglia have been detected beneath the eye in Amblyophis 
 and Euglcna. They occur in all parts of the world, and 
 differ according to diversity of climate, region, kind of wa- 
 ter, &c. They are invisible to the naked eye ; but, by their 
 immense numbers, can impart a distinct colour to the water 
 in which they swarm : they are one of the causes of the 
 phosphorescence of the sea. They enjoy the most exten- 
 sive powers of reproduction ; and through their faculty of 
 spontaneous Ji-ssien, the individual becomes constant, and, 
 as it were, perpetually renews its youth. By virtue of the 
 imperishability of their external cases the Folygastria have 
 formed vast masses of rock, as at Bilin in Bohemia, where 
 a single stratum, extending over a wide area, is no less 
 than 14 feet thick ; and this consists exclusively of the 
 cases of Bacillaria, Gaillonella, &c, united together with- 
 out any visible cement. They sometimes so choke up wa- 
 ter by their vast numbers as to cause the death of fishes 
 contained therein. They appear never to sleep : they are 
 very tenacious of life, and fall into a kind of torpidity by 
 excess of dryness, heat, or cold. The more minute species 
 are probably often suspended in the air. They act accord- 
 ing to external circumstances, as the higher organized ani- 
 mals do. They are injuriously affected or killed by strong 
 poisons; but can sometimes support great degrees of warmth 
 and cold, and can live with or without light; their motions 
 are slow. Ehrenberg calculates that the Monas punctum, 
 if it were to continue its ordinary rate of motion in a straight 
 line, would traverse one mile of space in five years; while 
 the Navicula grandis would require forty years to travel 
 over the same distance. But their movements manifest the 
 phenomena of consciousness and choice, and their muscu- 
 lar power is indicated by the strong maxillary apparatus 
 with which many are provided. 
 
 POLYGLOT. (Gr. ttoXvs, and yXurra, language.) A 
 word generally applied to such Bibles as have been printed 
 with the text represented in various languages. The most 
 ancient instance of this parallel representation of various 
 texts is the work of Origen, known by the name of the 
 Hezapla, in imitation of which several similar editions of 
 the Scriptures have been published since the invention of 
 printing; of which the most important are, 1. The Complu- 
 tensian, or edition of Cardinal Ximenes, printed at Alcala 
 in Spain, 1515, in four languages, comprehended in six vols., 
 folio. 2. The Plantin, Antwerp, 1572. 3. The Polyglot, 
 of De Sacy, Paris, 1645. 4. The English, or Walton's' Poly- 
 glot, London, 1657. These contain among them the He- 
 brew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Samaritan texts, with Latin 
 versions of each ; the Septuagint, the Greek of the New 
 Testament, the Italic and the Vulgate ; with some of the 
 Hebrew and Chaldee paraphrases, and copious indexes and 
 grammatical illustrations. 5. Hatter's Polyglot, Nurem- 
 berg, 1599, contains twelve languages ; the Hebrew, Syri- 
 ac, Greek, Latin, German, Bohemian, Italian, Spanish, 
 French, English, Danish, and Polish. 
 
 PO'LYGON (Gr. iroXvs, and yuivta, angle), according to 
 Euclid, is any plane rectilinear figure having more than four 
 sides or four angles; but, in treating of polygons generally, 
 geometers also include the triangle and the quadrangle. 
 If the sides of the polygon are all equal, it is said to be a 
 regular polygon; otherwise it is irregular. Every regular 
 polygon can be circumscribed by a circle, or have a circle 
 inscribed in it; but of irregular polygons, excepting trian- 
 gles, there is only one case in which a circle will pass 
 through all their angular points ; namely, when the poly- 
 gon has an equal number of sides, one half of which are 
 equal to one another, and the other half also equal to one 
 another, but different from the former, and the equal and 
 unequal sides are placed alternately. It is obvious that 
 all the angles of such a figure are equal. 
 
 Euclid has shown in the Elements how to inscribe a tri- 
 angle, a square, and a pentagon in a given circle ; and as 
 any arc of a circle may be bisected geometricallv, and the 
 halves again bisected continually, it follows that any regu- 
 lar polygon, of which the number of sides is 2" (n being 
 any number whatever), or 3 x 2n, or 5 X 2», may be in- 
 scribed in a circle by elementary geometry. Until a re- 
 cent discovery respecting the division of angles was made 
 by Gauss, it was supposed that if the number of sides of 
 a polygon was any other prime number than 3 or 5, the 
 figure could not be inscribed in a circle ; but this geometer, 
 in his Disquisitiones Arithmetics, has demonstated that 
 every polygon, the number of whose sides is a prime num- 
 ber of the form 2n-f 1, may be geometrically inscribed in a 
 circle. When n — 1, this form gives 3, or the triangle ; 
 
 POLYGONAL NUMBERS. 
 
 when n — 2, it gives 5, or the pentagon ; when n — 3, it 
 gives 9, which is not a prime ; when n = 4, it gives 17, 
 whence a seve.nteen-sided figure may be inscribed in a cir- 
 cle geometrically. The next prime is found by making 
 n = 8, when the form gives 257. 
 
 In order to investigate the general properties of polygons, 
 it is necessary to divide them into two classes, convex and 
 concave; the first comprehending those of which all the 
 interior angles are less than 1 2 
 
 two right angles (fig. 1), and 
 the second those which have 
 one or more re-entering angles, 
 as C (fig, 2). If we call those 
 the interior angles of the poly- E - 
 gon which belong to the inte- 
 rior of the figure (whether less or greater than two right 
 angles), and those exterior angles which are obtained by 
 subtracting each interior angle from four right angles, the 
 two follow ing theorems will be true of the polygons of 
 both classes : 
 
 1. The sum of the interior angles of a polygon is equal 
 to as many times two right angles as there are sides minus 
 two. Thus, let S denote the sum of the interior angles, R 
 a right angle, and n the number of sides of the polygon ; 
 thenS = 2(» — 2) R. 
 
 2. The sum of the exterior angles of a polygon is equal 
 to as many times two right angles as there are sides plus 
 two. Let S' be the sum of the exterior angles, as above 
 defined ; then S' = 2 (n + 2) R. 
 
 Any polygon may be decomposed into triangles by draw- 
 ing straight lines from one of its angular points to each of 
 the opposite angles, and the area of the polygon is the sum 
 of the areas of all the component triangles. But a beauti- 
 ful theorem was found by L'Huilier of Geneva, by means 
 of which, when the sides and angles of a polygon are 
 known, the area is found without decomposing it into tri- 
 angles, which, when the number of sides is considerable, 
 leads to laborious calculations. The theorem is this: The 
 double of the surface of any rectilinear figure is equal to the 
 sum of the rectangles of its sides, taken two and two, ex- 
 cepting one, multiplied by the sine of the sum of the sup- 
 plements of the interior angles contained between each 
 pair of sides. Thus, in the preceding figure (fig. 1), let A, 
 B, C, D, E be the supplements of the ulterior angles at 
 those points ; then 
 
 2area = ABxBCsin. B 
 
 + ABXCDsin. (B + C) 
 -f-ABxDEsin. (B + C + D) 
 + BCXCD sin. C 
 -f B C X D E sin. (C + D) 
 -f C D X D E sin. D. 
 This formula also gives the area of the polygons of the 
 second class (fig. 2) ; only the supplement of the re-enter- 
 ing angle C must be taken with the negative sign. (See 
 L' HuMer's Po/ygonometrie, Geneve, 1789.) 
 
 Polygon, in Fortification, is either exterior or interior. 
 The exterior polygon is the figure formed by lines connect- 
 ing the angles of the bastions with one another all round 
 the work ; the interior polygon by lines connecting the 
 centres of the bastions all round. 
 
 POLYGONA'CE^E. (Polygonum, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of herbaceous, rarely shrubby, apetalous 
 Exogens, inhabiting the whole world ; distinguished from 
 most other plants by the cohesion of the scarious stipules 
 into a sheath, technically called an ochrea or boot, and by 
 their triangular fruit. Sorrel on the one hand, and rhu- 
 barb on the other, represent the general qualities of this 
 order. While the leaves and young shoots are acid and 
 agreeable, the roots are universally nauseous and purga- 
 tive. Rumex acetosa contains pure oxalic acid, and many 
 species of Polygonum are used in dyeing. The Rheum or 
 rhubarb, and Rumex or dock, are well-known plants of 
 this order; which is also sometimes remarkably astrin- 
 gent, as in the case of the Coccoloba uvifera, or sea-side 
 grape of the West Indies, an extract of whose bark forms 
 a kind of kino. 
 
 POLYGONAL NUMBERS, in Arithmetic, are the suc- 
 cessive sums of a series of numbers in arithmetical pro- 
 gression. When the common difference of the series in 
 arithmetical progression is 1, then the sums of the terms 
 give the triangular numbers; when the common differ- 
 ence of the terms of the arithmetical series is 2, the sums 
 of the terms are the square numbers ; when the difference 
 is 3, the sums are the pentagonal numbers; and so on. 
 Thus: 
 
 ( Common difference = 1 ; 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, &c. 
 
 ) Triangular numbers 1, 3, 6, 10, 15. 21, &c. 
 
 ( Common difference = 2; 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, &x. 
 
 ) Square numbers 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, &c. 
 
 ( Common difference = 3; 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, &c. 
 
 t Pentagonal numbers 1, 5, 12, 22, 35, 51. &c. 
 
 963
 
 POLYGON OF FORCES. 
 
 and so on. These numbers are called, in general, polygo- 
 
 m n.i/, fmm possessing this property, that the 
 
 .* ( . Bame nnjrjber of points may be arraflged in the 
 
 /. . . •' form of that polygonal figure to which it be- 
 
 • • • r '' longs. For example, the pentagonal numbers 
 
 \ '.j* / » . r >. 1-. 22, :(5. 51, fcc, may be severally arranged 
 
 ... -i, In a pentagonal form. Thus, in the annexed 
 
 ' m figure. .") points form the pentagon a be de; \2 
 
 the pentagon afgk i. with the former enclosed; 22 the 
 
 pentagon a * / m «, with the two former enclosed. 
 
 A very general and remarkable property of polygonal 
 numbers was discovered by Format, though it has yet 
 been demonstrated only in respect of the triangular and 
 square numbers. It is this: Every number whatever, is 
 the sum of one, two, or three triangular numbers ; the sum 
 of one, two, three, or four squares ; the sum of one, two, 
 three, four, or five pentagonal numbers ; and so on. See 
 
 FlGURATI Nf.MBERS. 
 
 POLYGON OP FORCES. In Mechanics, the name 
 given to a theorem, the discovery of which is attributed to 
 Leibnitz. The theorem is this : If any number of forces 
 act upon a point, and a polygon be taken, one of the sides 
 of which is formed by the line representing one of the 
 forces, and the following sides in succession by lines rep- 
 resenting the other forces in magnitude, and parallel to 
 their directions, then the line which completes the poly- 
 gon will represent the resultant of all the forces. 
 
 PO'LYGONOMETRY. The doctrine of polygons, as 
 trigonometry is the doctrine of triangles. The properties 
 of polygons are usually investigated by resolving them into 
 triangles ; their areas, however, may be found, when so 
 many of their sides and angles as suffice to determine them 
 are known. See Polygon. 
 
 PO'LYGRAM. (Gr. -oAvc, many, and ypa/i/ta, a line.) 
 A figure consisting of many lines. 
 
 PO'LYGRAPH. (Gr. noAus. and ypa'ato, / irnfc) In 
 Bibliography, a name invented to designate a collection of 
 different works either by one or several authors. 
 
 POLY'HALITE. (Gr. ireAvj, and &\c, salt.) A mineral 
 found at Ischel, in Upper Austria, composed of muriate of 
 soda, and of the sulphates of magnesia, lime, and potash. 
 
 POLYHE'DRON. (Gr. rroAus, and iSpa, seat.) In Ge- 
 ometry, a solid body bounded by many fares or planes. 
 When all the faces are regular polygons* similar and equal 
 to each other, the solid becomes a regular body. It may 
 be demonstrated that only five regular solids Can exist; 
 namely the tetraedron, the Hexaedron, the octaedron, the 
 dodecaedron, and the icosaedron. See the terms ; see also 
 Platonic Bodies. 
 
 Polyhedron. In Optics. See Polyscope. 
 
 POLYHYMNIA, the muse who presided over lyric 
 poetry: 
 
 Nee Polyhymnia 
 Lestram refugil tendere barbital). Bam. Od., i., I. 
 
 PO'LYMI'GNTTE. (Gr. iroAes, and piyvopu, I mix.) A 
 
 mineral which occurs in small prismatic crystals of a 
 metallic lustre; its constituents are titanic acid, zirconia, 
 lime, yttria, oxides of iron, cerium and manganese, mag- 
 nesia, potassa, silica, and oxide of tin. It is found in Nor- 
 wav. 
 
 POLYNOMIAL, or MULTINOMIAL, in Algebra, de- 
 notes a quantity having many terms. Such, for example, 
 is the expression a + 26 + 3c + nri, &.c. 
 
 POLYO'PTRoN. 'Gr. jtoAbs, and o-nrpov, a looking- 
 glass. In Optics, a glass through which objects appear 
 multiplied, but diminished. It consists of a lens one side 
 of which is plane, but in the other are ground several 
 spherical concavities. Bach of these concavities becomes 
 a plano-concave lens, through which an object appears 
 diminished; and whin there area numher of them to- 
 gether, the object will be seen through each, and thus 
 multiplied. 
 
 POXYPBB, Polypi. (Gr. jtoAuc, and xovs, a foot.) The 
 name of an extensive group of radiated animals in the sys- 
 tem of Cuvter, associated together by the common charac- 
 ter of a fleshy body, of a conical or cylindrical form, com- 
 monly fixed by one extremity, and with the month situated 
 at the Opposite end and surrounded by more nr less nu- 
 merous arms or tentacles. Under this external form is 
 masked various grades of organization, of which three at 
 least have been well defined by recent and minute anatom- 
 ical researches. 
 
 The lowest grade of organization is manifested hy the 
 fresh water polype (Ifijdra), and the compound marine 
 corallines [Sertviaria, Tubulari<r, ire.). The bo 
 consists of a granular parenchyma, having a contractile 
 
 power In every part, not requiring a distinct allocation and 
 arrangement of muscular fibres. When it is defended, aa 
 in the Corallines, by a polypary, it can be retracted Into its 
 cell without being folded upon Itself. The oral tentacles 
 are not provided with vihratilo cilia; the stomach Is not 
 distinct from the parietes of the body. The polypes thus 
 964 
 
 POLYTHEISM. 
 
 organized have been termed Dimorphea bv Ehrenberg; 
 and .Yudibrarhiati, or llydriforni Polypes, by Dr. Farre. 
 In the second group of Polypes the body is distinctly mem- 
 branous and fibrous, and the stomal b parate 
 pouch suspended in its centre. The stomach has but one 
 external orifice, which serves for mouth and vent: hut 
 posteriorly it communicates with the main cavity of the 
 body. This is divided into several i its by Ver- 
 tical partitions passing from the walls Of the I avitv to those 
 of the stomach; and with the chambers thus formed the 
 tubular arms surrounding the mouth communicate: these 
 arms are not ciliated externally. This group of Polj pes has 
 been termed ArUhozoa by Ehrenberg: it includes (he Sea- 
 anemonies, Madrepores, Coral-polypes, &c. In the third 
 and highest group of Polypes the parietes of the stomach 
 are not only distinct from those of the body, but are con- 
 tinued into an intestinal tube, which is reflected forward, 
 and terminates in a distinct anal aperture near the mouth: 
 the tentacula are provided with vibratile cilia. The Po- 
 lypes of this division are aggregated or compound, and pro- 
 vided with flexible or calcareous cells : they have been 
 termed Bryozoa by Ehrenberg, and Ci/iobmcltiata by Dr. 
 Farre. All the groups of Polypes propagate by gemmation, 
 and likewise by ova, which are first developed into ciliated 
 and locomotive gemmules. In the Ciliobrachiata the sexes 
 are distinct. 
 
 POLYPHEMUS. See Cyclops. 
 
 POLYPUS. In Surgery, a fleshy tumour, which is oc- 
 casionally formed in the nostrils : the same term is also ap- 
 plied to a fleshy tumour of the uterus. 
 
 POLYSA'RCIA. (Gr. ttoAvs, and capl, flesh.) Corpu- 
 lency. 
 
 PO'LYSCOPE. (Gr. roAvc, and oKorrtu, / view.) In 
 Optics, a lens plane on one side and convex on the other; 
 but of which the convex side is formed of several plane 
 surfaces, or facettes, so that an object seen through it ap- 
 pears multiplied. The reason of the multiplication of the 
 image is this : When the opposite sides of a thick piece of 
 glass are not parallel, an object seen through it appears 
 out of its true place on account of the refraction ; conse- 
 quently, if a lens is ground so that portions of its convex 
 surface are differently inclined to its plane side, the object 
 will appear in different places at the same time. The po- 
 lyscope may be used to collect the images of several dis- 
 persed objects into a single point, or to colli cl parts of the 
 same object represented in different places, s,, : ,s to form a 
 single image. The instrument is a mere toy, and only 
 used for the purpose of amusement. 
 
 POLYSPA'STON. A term used by some of the old 
 writers on mechanics to denote an assemblage of pulleys 
 for raising heavy weights. 
 
 PO'LYSTYLE. (Gr. tto\v?. and otvAoc, a column.) In 
 Architecture, an edifice in which there are a great number 
 of columns. 
 
 POLYTE'CHNIC SCHOOL. (Gr. iroAur, and ti X vti, 
 art.) This establishment was founded in IT'.M, at Paris, by 
 a decree of the National Convention. Its object is to in- 
 struct youth in the mathematical, physical, and chemical 
 sciences. Napoleon, who introduced various modifications 
 into its constitution, gave a military turn to its discipline. 
 It prepares pupils for the artillery service, and civil and 
 military engineering. The numher is limited to 300. 
 Youths are admitted between the ages of sixteen and 
 twenty, and the course of study lasts two years. In the 
 lists of its professors have been included the illustrious 
 names of Lagrange, La Place, Mbnge, BerthoIIet, &c. ; 
 and from the ranks of its pupils have proceeded, almost 
 without exception, all the mathematicians and philoso- 
 phers of France who have attained to eminence during the 
 last half century. 
 
 POLYTHALAM A'CEANS. Pohjthalamnrea. (Gr. tto- 
 Auc, many, and ^uAofioe, a chamber.) A name applied hy 
 De P.lainville to an order of Cepha bipods, including those 
 which have many-chambered shells. Like all divisions 
 founded merely on external or dermal characters, it con- 
 tains animals of dillirent degrees of organization, and 
 which cannot be grouped together in the same order in a 
 natural system. Set Tctrabranchiatis. 
 
 POLYTHEISM. Gr. m\vc, and e»r, Ood.) The doc- 
 trine of a plurality of Gods. Babianism 'or planet wor- 
 ship), Zendlsm, demon worship, hero worship, and animal 
 worship, together with the fiticism of some .Negro tribes, 
 may all be considered as varieties of Polytheism. That 
 the first deviation from pure Theism, such as we behove 
 
 10 have been at the outset revealed to man. was into the 
 worship of the sun, moon, and stars (the hot of heaven ; 
 
 Hehr. Tsaha, a hast: whence Tsabianiem, or Babianism, 
 which see), is sufficiently probable. The origin of the 
 worship of the good and evil principle as distinct deities, 
 
 which characterized the religion of some oriental nations, 
 
 la not so easily explicable. Some have attributed it to the 
 
 recognition of the opposites to those phenomena, which
 
 POLYZONAL LENS. 
 
 had been deified in the Sabian notions ; e. g., darkness as 
 contrary to light, night to day, &c. ; some to traditionary 
 belief in the existence of evil or reprobate spirits; some to 
 a mere philosophical theory adapted by priests to popular 
 comprehension. Daemon worship, or the worship of inter- 
 mediate intelligences, appropriated to external objects, and 
 subordinate to the highest God, was a natural effect of Sa- 
 bianism. The worship of heroes, or deified mortals, arose 
 again from it in a later stage of society ; and the most 
 probable theory of the greatest systems of Polytheism 
 which have been recognised by divisions of the human 
 race, viz., the Egyptian, Greek, Indian, and Scandinavian, 
 seems to be this, that hero worship, the most congenial of 
 all to the vulgar imagination, superseded former modes of 
 belief; that the gods were actually heroes, who had grad- 
 ually absorbed to themselves the honours formerly paid to 
 daemons and intelligences, and to the host of heaven, so 
 that their attributes, in later mythology, present a vague 
 mixture of the characters of all. If, however, this be the 
 case, it remains to be explained how, after the gods of 
 Olympus had acquired their station and attributes in the 
 Grecian religion, a secondary race of heroes, the ijptoes, 
 properly so called (whose worship is quite of recent ori- 
 gin, and certainly posterior to Homer), should have found a 
 place in the same mythology. The strange system of ani- 
 mal worship seems peculiar to ancient Egypt, and has been 
 derived by some from the natural circumstances of the 
 country ; the scarcity of domesticated animals having given 
 them an importance^ which the priests made use of, and 
 connected with superstition. As to the theory and general 
 history of Polytheism, the following among many other 
 books may be mentioned : Stillingfleet's Origines Sacra; : 
 Karnes's Sketches of the History of Man ; Court de Gebelin 
 Monde Primitif; Bryant's Mythology; the Works of Her- 
 der; IVarburton's Divine Legation; Cudworth's Intellec- 
 tual System; Vossius, De Origine Idololatria ; Mem. de 
 i'Acad. des Inscr., vol. xxxviii. 
 POLYZO'NAL LENS. (Gr. iro\vg, and Zpw, zone.) 
 I The name given by Sir David Brewster 
 
 to a burning lens constructed of several 
 zones or rings, each of which may be 
 again composed of separate segments. 
 In the annexed figure, A B C D is a cen- 
 tral lens formed of one piece of glass ; 
 E F G II is a middle ring, or zone, com- 
 1 posed of four separate pieces ; I K L M 
 
 is another ring composed of eight segments, and surround- 
 ing the former. The number of zones, and of parts in each, 
 may be as great or as small as we please. 
 
 This method of forming lenses is attended with several 
 important advantages. The difficulty of procuring flint 
 glass of sufficient purity to render it fit for the construction 
 of a solid lens of large dimensions is removed, and the ex- 
 pense greatly diminished. If impurity exist in any of the 
 spherical segments, or if an accident happen to any of 
 them, it can easily be replaced. Another advantage attend- 
 ing the construction is, that it enables us to correct, very 
 nearly, the spherical aberration, by making the foci of each 
 zone coincide. Lenses of this kind have been made in 
 France of crown glass, and have been introduced into the 
 principal French light-houses. One was constructed, un- 
 der the directions of Sir David Brewster, for the Commis- 
 sioners of the northern light-houses. It was made of pure 
 flint glass, was three feet in diameter, and consisted of nu- 
 merous zones and segments. (See Brewster's Treatise on 
 New Philosophical Instruments ; and " Optics" in JLard- 
 ner's Cabinet Ci/clopadia.) » 
 
 POLY'ZOONS. Polyzoa. (Gr. ttoXuj, and fyov, ani- 
 mal.) A class of compound animals resembling in their 
 organs of support the Sertularians, but in their internal or- 
 ganization approaching nearly to the compound Ascidians. 
 POMA'CE^E. (Lat. pomum, an apple.) That division 
 of the natural order Rosacea to which the apple, pear, 
 quince, and medlar belong. It differs from Rosacea: proper 
 in having an inferior ovary. 
 
 POMEGRANATE. The fruit of the Punica granatum. 
 The pulp is acid, and the rind highly astringent. The dried 
 flowers, which are also astringent, were formerly used in 
 medicine, under the name of Balaustine flowers. 
 
 POMCE'RIUM. (Lat. post, behind, and mums, a wall.) 
 In Roman Antiquities, a space of ground, both within and 
 without the walls of a city, kept free from buildings {Livy, 
 xiii.), and consecrated by a religious ceremony derived from 
 the Etruscans. (See a memoir of D'Anville on the extent 
 of ancient Rome, Mem. de I'Acad. des Inscr., vol. xxi., p. 
 206.) When it was found necessary to extend the limits of 
 any city, a new pomveium was formed, and the former one 
 desecrated. 
 
 POMO'NA. The Italian goddess of fruit-trees. Her 
 worship was assiduously cultivated at Rome, where there 
 was a flamen pomonalis, who sacrificed to her every year 
 for the preservation of the fruit. The story of Pomona and 
 
 POOR, THE. 
 
 Vertumnus is well known. (See Ovid. Met., xiv., 623.) 
 The name is derived from poma, fruit. 
 
 PO'MPHOLIX. (Gr. ro/^o?, a bubble.) An alchemical 
 term for oxide of zinc. 
 
 Po'mpholix. In Medicine, a vesicular eruption upon the 
 skin. 
 
 PO'MUM ADA'MI. Adam's apple. The protuberance 
 in front of the neck formed by the thyroid gland. It has 
 been fancifully supposed to represent the forbidden apple 
 eaten by Adam. 
 
 POND. An artificial excavation in the soil, or a natural 
 hollow dammed up for the purpose of detaining water, gen- 
 erally made in fields in order to supply drink to pasturing 
 animals. The essential difference between a pond and a 
 lake is, that the former is formed by art, the water being 
 often ponded, or impounded, by a bank of earth thrown 
 across a natural gutter, hollow, or bourne containing a 
 stream. In Gloucestershire, Kent, and other counties 
 where the soil does not abound in springs, the formation of 
 ponds in the fields is as essential to the business of farming 
 as the building of farm offices. A pond in a garden, when 
 of a round form, is termed a basin ; and when of some 
 length, with parallel sides, a canal. 
 
 PO'NE. (Lat.) In Law, a writ which lies to remove 
 actions of debt, detinue, writs of right, nuisances, &c, out 
 of the county or other inferior court into the Common Pleas, 
 and sometimes into the Queen's Bench. 
 
 PONS VARO'LII. The bridge of Varolius. An arched 
 eminence of the medulla oblongata, formed by the two exte- 
 rior crura of the cerebellum becoming flattened, and passing 
 over the crura of the cerebrum. 
 
 PO'NTEE. In Glass Manufacture, an iron instrument 
 by which the hot glass is taken out of the glass-pot. 
 
 PO'NTIA. (Gr. Iloinia, one of the names of the goddess 
 of love.) A genus of butterflies, of which the common white 
 or cabbage butterfly (Pontia brassicie) is a well-known na- 
 tive species. 
 
 PO'NTIFEX. (Lat.) The highest Roman sacerdotal 
 title. Numa instituted four pontifices, chosen from the pa- 
 tricians; to which were added, long subsequently, four ple- 
 beians. Sylla increased their number to fifteen. The col- 
 lege was divided into two classes, distinguished by the epi- 
 thets majores and minores ; but it is not certain whether 
 this difference of title marked out the patricians from the 
 plebeians, or the more ancient members from the seven 
 added by Sylla. The pontifices judged in all causes rela- 
 ting to sacred things, and inspected the conduct of the infe- 
 rior priests. They were a self-elected body down to the 
 latter ages of the republic, when the power of election was 
 sometimes held by the people. It was finally vested in the 
 emperors, who added as many to their numbers as they 
 thought fit. The chief of the pontifices was called the pon- 
 tifex maximus, and was always created by the people, being 
 generally chosen from those who had borne the first offices 
 in the state. His station was one of great dignity and pow- 
 er, as he not only had supreme authority in religious mat- 
 ters, but, in consequence of the close connexion between 
 the civil government and religion of Rome, he had also 
 considerable political influence. The title of pontifex max- 
 imus being for life, Augustus never assumed it till the death 
 of Lepidus, after which it was always held by himself and 
 his successors to the time of Theodosius. The insignia 
 consisted of the toga pratexta, and a conical woollen cap 
 with a tassel (galerus). (See the Mem. de V Ac. des Inscr., 
 vols, xii., xv., xxiv., xxxvii.) From this word the well- 
 known title of Pontiff in modern Europe is derived. " Su- 
 preme Pontiff" is a common style of the pope. 
 
 PONTOO'N. A Military term, denoting a kind of flat- 
 bottomed boat, generally lined within and without with tin. 
 Our pontoons are about 21 feet long, five feet broad, and two 
 feet deep. They are carried along with an army for the 
 purpose of making temporary bridges, called pontoon bridges, 
 by which an army is pursued over rivers. 
 
 POOP. A partial deck extending close aft, above the 
 complete deck of the vessel. A sea coming over the stern 
 is said to poop the vessel. 
 
 POOR, THE. (Lat. pauperes.) In Political Economy, 
 the term employed to designate those persons, or that por- 
 tion of the population of any county, who, being destitute 
 of wealth, are, through age, bodily or mental infirmity, want 
 of employment, or other cause, unable to support them- 
 selves, and have to depend for support on the contributions 
 of others. 
 
 The first notice of the poor by the legislature of England 
 appears to have occurred in 1376 ; and there does not seem 
 to be any good grounds for thinking that any portion of the 
 people were known by this designation previously to the 
 14th century. The truth is, how paradoxical soever the 
 statement may at first appear, that the poor, as a class, owe 
 their existence to the abolition of villenage and the progress 
 of civilization. Previously to this abolition, the great bulk 
 of the people were in a state of predial slavery, or in a con- 
 
 965
 
 POOR, THE. 
 
 dition closely resembling that of the Spartan helots. But 
 in such B slate of society the class of persons now known 
 .-is tin- destitute poor could not exist. It is essential to the 
 idea of slavery, whether predial or absolute, that the mas- 
 ters should provide their bondsmen or slaves with at least 
 the necessaries of life ; and, in the event of their neglecting 
 to do so. the law, if it interfere, merely directs that they 
 shall fulfil this natural obligation, or that otherwise they 
 shall sill or assign their slaves to those by whom it will be 
 fulfilled. Bui alter the establishment of corporate bodies 
 in the towns and cities, and the growth of manufactures 
 and commerce had given birth to a class of free labourers, 
 the poor began to make their appearance, and to attract the 
 notice of the legislature. Free labourers owe no compul- 
 sory sefvice f> any one. They are their own masters, and 
 may employ themselves in any way not injurious to others 
 they think tit. But it is plain that such persons cannot, in 
 the event of their becoming infirm or destitute, claim to be 
 supported by any particular individual or class of individ- 
 uals. They are not bound to serve any one when in health, 
 and, consequently, no one can be bound to provide for them 
 when in want. 1'nder such circumstances, they have no- 
 thing to look to hut the compassionate chanty of individ- 
 uals or the public. But as the conduct of Individuals must, 
 in such matters, be left to be determined by their own sense 
 of what is right and proper, we shall now, without alluding 
 farther to them, briefly inquire what, in this respect, is the 
 duty of the public, or whether, and to what extent, it should 
 interfere to relieve the destitute. 
 
 The poor and destitute may be divided into two great 
 classes : the first consisting of maimed and impotent per- 
 sons, or of those whom natural or accidental infirmities dis- 
 able from working: and the second, of those who, though 
 able and willing to work, are unable to find employment, or 
 do not receive wages adequate for their support and that of 
 their families. There is a very wide difference in the situ- 
 ation of these classes ; and the same means of relief that 
 may be advantageously atrorded to the one may not, in va- 
 rious respects, he suitable for the other. 
 
 I. With respect, however, to the first class, or the impo- 
 tent poor, there does not seem to be much room for doubt 
 as to the policy, as well as humanity, of giving them a legal 
 claim to relief. It has sometimes, indeed, been contended, 
 that, by affording relief to those who are unable, from age 
 or the gradual decay of their bodily powers, to provide for 
 themselves, the motives that induce individuals, while in 
 health, to make a provision against future contingences arc 
 weakened ; sn that. In attempting to protect a few from the 
 effects of their own improvidence, an injury is done to the 
 whole community. This statement is, probably, true to a 
 certain extent ; though it be difficult to imagine that any 
 considerable portion of a moderately intelligent population 
 Will ever be tempted to relax in their efforts to save and 
 accumulate, when they have the means of doing so, from a 
 knowledge that the workhouse will receive them in old 
 age ! But whatever may have been the faults of individ- 
 uals, it would be abhorrent to all the feelings of humanity 
 to allow them to suffer the extremity of want. An indi- 
 vidual is unfortunate perhaps, or he may not have been as 
 thrifty or as prudent as he ought ; hut is he, therefore, to he 
 allowed to die in the street-s 1 It is proper, certainly, to do 
 nothing that can really weaken the spirit of industry; but 
 if, in order to strengthen it, all relief were refused to the 
 maimed and impotent poor, the habits and feelings of the 
 people would be degraded and brutalized by familiarity 
 With the most abject wretchedness ; at the same time, that, 
 by driving the victims of poverty to despair, a foundation 
 would be laid for the most dreadful crimes, and such a 
 (-hock given to the security of property as would very much 
 overbalance whatever additional spur the refusal "of sup- 
 port might give to Lndustrj and economy. It does, there- 
 rots, appear sufficiently clear that this class of poor should 
 besup|Kirted in one way or Other; and that, when the par- 
 ties are either Without relations ur friends, or when these 
 do not come voluntarily forward to discharge this indispen- 
 sable duty, the necessary funds should he provided by a tax 
 or rate, made equally to affect all classes : for, If they be not 
 sn raised, the poor will either not be provided for at all, or 
 the burden of providing for them will fall wholly on the 
 benevolent, who should not, in such a case, be called upon 
 to contribute more than their fair share. 
 
 II. The only question, then, about which there seems to 
 he any real ground for doubt or difference of opinion is, 
 whether any Legal claim tor rebel' should be given to the 
 bodied poor, or to those who are able and ready to 
 work, but Who cannot find employment, Of cannot earn wa- 
 ges adequate for their support ? Now this, it must be con- 
 fessed, is rather a difficult question, and one which does 
 not, perhaps, admit of any very satisfactory solution. On 
 the whole, however, it appears, for the reasons we shall 
 now shortly state, that it should, under certain restrictions, 
 DC decided in the affirmative. 
 Uliti 
 
 In the first place, it may be observed, that, owing to cfttm- 
 ges Of fashion, to the miscalculation of producers and mer- 
 chants, and to political events, those engaged In manufac- 
 turing employments are necessarily exposed to many vicis- 
 situdes ; and when their number is so very great as in this 
 country, it is quite essential that a resource should lie pro- 
 vided fol their support in periods Of adversity. In the event 
 of no such provision being made, and of the distress being 
 at the same time extensive and severe, the public tranquil- 
 lity would most likely be seriously endangered. Lord lia- 
 con has observed, that "of all rebellious, those of the belly 
 are the worst." It would be visionary, indeed, to imagine 
 that those who have nothing should quietly submit to suffer 
 the extremity of want without attacking the property of 
 others; and hence, if we would preserve unimpaired the 
 peace, and, consequently, the prosperity, of the country, we 
 must beware of allowing any considerable portion of the 
 population to fill into a state of destitution. But without 
 the establishment of a compulsory provision for the support 
 of the unemployed poor, it is difficult to see how they could 
 avoid occasionally falling into this state. Through its in- 
 strumentality, however, they are sustained in periods of ad- 
 versity without being driven by necessity to ( unit crimes. 
 
 It must, indeed, be admitted that a provision of this sort is 
 very liable to abuse. Means have, however, been devised 
 for checking this tendency : and. whatever imperfections 
 may, after all, attach to it, it has not yet been shown how 
 security and good order could be maintained in periods 
 when either employment or food was deficient, were it 
 abolished. 
 
 In the second place, supposing it were possible to main- 
 tain tranquillity without making a legal provision for the 
 support of the unemployed poor, the privations to which, 
 under such circumstances, they would be forced to submit, 
 would, in all probability, lower their notions as to what was 
 necessary for their comfortable subsistence, and exert a 
 most pernicious influence over their conduct and character. 
 It is, perhaps, unnecessary to enter into any statements to 
 show the importance of endeavouring to guard against any 
 such obviously mischievous results. But Mr. Barton has 
 made some observations on this point, which are so striking 
 and conclusive that we cannot forbear laying them before 
 the reader. " It is to be remembered," says he. " that even 
 those who most strongly assert the impolicy and injurious 
 tendency of our poor laws admit that causes wholly uncon- 
 nected with these laws do, at times, depress the condition 
 of the labourer. Poor families are often thrown into a state 
 of severe necessity by long-continued illness or unavoidable 
 misfortunes, from which it would he impossible for them to 
 return to the enjoyment of decent competence if not sup- 
 ported by extraneous means. It is well known, too, that a 
 general rise in the price of commodities is seldom immedi- 
 ately followed by a rise in the wages of country labour. In 
 the mean time, great suffering must be endured by the whole 
 class of peasantry, if no legislative provision existed for their 
 relief; and when such a rise of prices goes on gradually in- 
 creasing for a series of years, as sometimes happens, the 
 sufferings resulting from it must be proportionally prolonged. 
 The question at issue is simply this, whether that suffering 
 be calculated to cherish habits of sober and self-denying 
 prudence, or to generate a spirit of careless desperation ? 
 
 "During these periods of extraordinary privation the la- 
 bourer, if not effectually relieved, would imperceptibly lose 
 that taste for order, decency, and cleanliness which had 
 been gradually formed and accumulated in better times by 
 the insensible operation of habit and example; and no 
 strength of argument, no force of authority, could again in- 
 stil into the minds of a new generation, growing up under 
 more prosperous circumstances, the sentiments and tastes 
 thus blighted and destroyed by the cold breath of penury. 
 Every return of temporary distress would, therefore, vitiate 
 the feelings and lower the sensibilities of the labouring 
 classes. The little progress of improvement made in hap- 
 pier times would be lost and forgotten. If we ward off a 
 few of the bitterest blasts of calamity, the sacred flame may 
 be kept alive till the tempest be past ; but If once extin- 
 guished, how hard is tin- task of rekindling it in minds long 
 inured to degradation and wretchedness I" (Inquiry into 
 tht Depreciation of .Agricultural Labour, p. 32.) 
 
 In the third place, it will, we suppose, be admitted that, 
 when a considerable number of destitute poor persons are 
 thrown out of employment, a provision Of some sort or other 
 
 should be made lor their support Suppose now that it is 
 
 made, not by a compulsory rate, but by the charitable con- 
 tributions of the benevolent; it is contended that such a 
 mode of relieving their distress tends to nourish the better 
 feelings of the poor, and that many would rather choose to 
 undergo the greatest privations than submit to solicit a 
 share of this charitable contribution, who yet would make 
 DO scruple of claiming it had the state given them a legal 
 
 right to look to it far Bupport But, admitting the truth of 
 this statement, it has been already seen that it is not for
 
 POOR, THE. 
 
 the advantage of society that the poor should be forced to 
 submit to such extraordinary privations. It is, besides, 
 abundantly certain that many would not be influenced by 
 the motives alluded to ; and in the event of the distress 
 being either very severe, or long-continued, even those 
 most disinclined to become a burden on others might be 
 forced to beg a pittance. And it is pretty obvious, notwith- 
 standing all that has been said to the contrary, that the 
 necessary result of such a state of things would be far 
 more prejudicial to the character of the poor— that it would 
 do more to prostrate their pride and independence, and to 
 sink them in their own estimation, than the acceptance of 
 relief from a poor's rate. It is idle, indeed, to talk about 
 the independence of a man who is receiving charity ; but 
 an individual supported by a poor's rate cannot fairly be 
 garded in such a point of view. He is merely sharing in a 
 public provision made by the state ; and, as all property 
 has been acquired with the knowledge that it was respon- 
 sible to this claim on the part of the poor, it cannot justly 
 be considered as entailing any burden on any particular 
 individual. It may, therefore, one should think, be fairly 
 presumed that the pride and independence of tbe poor will 
 be more likely to be supported under a system of this sort 
 than if they were obliged to depend, in periods of distress, 
 on the bounty of others. Wherever the poor have not ei- 
 ther dejure or de facto a claim for support, they must una- 
 voidably, in such periods, be allowed to beg. But of all 
 the scourges that afflict and disgrace humanity, there is, 
 perhaps, none more destructive than the prevalence of 
 mendicity. A common beggar is the most degraded of be- 
 ings ; and the experience of Ireland, down to a very late 
 date, as well as of France, Italy, Spain, and, in short, of 
 every country where there is no established provision for 
 the support of the poor, shows that wherever they are com- 
 pelled to depend on so precarious a resource as charity, we 
 look in vain for that manliness and independence of char- 
 acter among the labouring classes which distinguish those 
 of England, and find in their stead all those degrading vices 
 which a sense of insecurity, and the prevalence of beggary, 
 are sure to produce. 
 
 The people and legislature of England have acquiesced 
 in the justice and expediency of the principles now laid 
 down. A compulsory provision for the support of the poor 
 has, in fact, existed in England for a lengthened period. It 
 grew out of the impotent attempts made in the reigns of 
 Henry VIII., Edward VI., and the earlier part of that of 
 Elizabeth, to suppress mendicancy, and, at the same time, 
 to provide for the poor by voluntary contributions. At 
 length the earlier statutes on the subject were consolida- 
 ted, and the principle of compulsory provision carried to 
 the fullest extent by the famous statute of the 43 Eliz., c.2, 
 which enacted that all maimed and impotent persons should 
 be provided for at the expense of their respective parishes, 
 and that employment should be found for the unemployed 
 able-bodied poor. From this remote period, the law of 
 England has regarded every parish in the light of a family, 
 the richer members of which were bound to provide for 
 those who, through inability, misfortune, or want of work, 
 could not provide for themselves. This, also, is the princi- 
 ple imbodied in the law of Scotland with respect to the 
 poor; and, provided the means for carrying it into effect be 
 so contrived that indigence and suffering may be relieved, 
 without at the same time encouraging indolence and vice, 
 the system would seem to be quite unexceptionable. Prac- 
 tically, however, this has been found to be a problem of 
 exceedingly difficult solution ; and this difficulty has made 
 not a few conclude that, however administered, all sys- 
 tematic attempts to relieve the poor are necessarily, in the 
 end, productive of increased want and misery. 
 
 The poor, no doubt, are naturally anxious that the com- 
 pulsory provision for their support should be raised to the 
 highest limit ; and that their necessities should not only be 
 relieved, but that they should be able, without molestation, 
 to eat the bread of idleness. But wherever the assessment 
 and administration of the provision for their support is left 
 to the care of those on whom the burden of its payment 
 really falls, this tendency to abuse is not long in being ef- 
 fectually provided against; and the sustaining and benefi- 
 cial influence of the system alone remains. The complica- 
 ted code of laws respecting settlements, and the establish- 
 ment of workhouses, owes its origin to this principle— to 
 the wish of the legislature to relieve the poor, and, at the 
 same time, to prevent the abuse of the rates ; and there is 
 unquestionable evidence to show that, from the establish- 
 ment of the system in 1003 down to about 1780, the devices 
 in question were effectual for their object ; and that while 
 poverty was relieved, no encouragement was given to sloth, 
 or to early and improvident unions. But soon after this 
 period various innovations were made on the old law, 
 which broke down most of the securities against the abuse 
 of the rates ; and in 1795 the pernicious principle was 
 adopted of mixing together wages and poor rates, and of 
 
 POPULATION. 
 
 eking out what was supposed to be a deficiency in the for- 
 mer by payments from the latter! In consequence of this 
 subversion of the principle on which the poor rates had 
 been previously administered, they began rapidly to in- 
 crease, and threatened to swallow up the whole, or, at 
 least, a very large part of the surplus produce of the land. 
 Various devices were resorted to, in the view of checking 
 the evil ; but, unaccountable as it may appear, not one of 
 them had for its object to revert to those practices and 
 mode of administering the law which the experience of 
 more than 250 years had shown were fully effectual for the 
 prevention of abuse. At length the Poor Law Amendment 
 Act was passed in 1834, which introduced a totally new 
 system for the administration of the poor laws. Under 
 this act the country has been divided into unions of more 
 or fewer parishes, according to circumstances, the adminis- 
 tration of all matters relating to the poor in these unions 
 being intrusted to a board of guardians elected by the rate- 
 payers. But these guardians are themselves controlled by, 
 and, in fact, are merely the executive officers of, a central 
 board of three commissioners established in London, who 
 have power to issue rules and regulations as to the man- 
 agement of the poor, which all guardians, and other infe- 
 rior officers, are bound to obey. The central board is as- 
 sisted by deputy commissioners, who attend at meetings of 
 guardians, explain the law, and adjudicate or report upon 
 extraordinary cases, and see that the rules laid down by 
 the central board are complied with. The whole that can 
 be said in favour of this law is, that the poor rates have 
 been materially reduced since its introduction ; but we in- 
 cline to think that the reduction would have been about as 
 great had the system for the regulation of the compulsory 
 provision that prevailed in the reign of George II. been re- 
 vived, with a few alterations ; while many pernicious con- 
 sequences, inseparable from the existing system, would 
 have been avoided. (See Wealth of Nations, M'Culloch's 
 ed., note xxii.) 
 
 We subjoin a table of the sums expended for the relief 
 and maintenance of the poor of England and Wales at dif- 
 ferent periods since 1748, with an estimate of the population 
 at these periods : 
 
 Years. 
 
 Sums expended on 
 Poor. 
 
 Population. 
 
 Aucrasze. 
 
 £ 
 
 
 1743, 1749, 1750 
 
 689,971 
 
 6,000,000 
 
 1775, 1776 
 
 1,530.800 
 
 7,00u,000 
 
 1783, 1784, 1785 
 
 2,00+,239 
 
 8,000,000 
 
 1801 
 
 4,017,871 
 
 8,872,000 
 
 1813 
 
 6,6.6,100 
 
 10,1611,000 
 
 1821 
 
 6,9'.9,249 
 
 11,978,000 
 
 1831 
 
 6,798,888 
 
 13,897,000 
 
 1835 
 
 5,526,418 
 
 14,7^0,000 
 
 1839 
 
 4.406,907 
 
 15,577,000 
 
 POPE. A title derived from an oriental word signifying 
 father, and in earlier times applied indiscriminately to all 
 bishops, and in the East even to ministers ; but for many 
 centuries the term has been confined to the bishop of Rome, 
 who is also designated by Roman Catholics as the Holy 
 Father. See Papacy. 
 
 POPERY. See Papacy. 
 
 POPLI'TEAL. (Lat. poples, the ham.) Relating to the 
 posterior part of the knee-joint or ham. 
 
 POPULATION. (Lat. populus, people.) The inhab- 
 itants or people of any particular territory or district. 
 
 POPULATION, LAW OR PRINCIPLE OF, in Politi- 
 cal Economy, means the law according to which the popu- 
 lation of any country would increase, independently of 
 immigration or emigration, under any assumed set of cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 The law of population, or of the increase of the human 
 species, has not, till a comparatively recent period, attract- 
 ed that attention to which it is eminently entitled. It was 
 formerly taken for granted that every increase of popula- 
 tion was an advantage, and it was usual for legislators to 
 encourage early marriages, and to bestow rewards on those 
 who brought up the greatest number of children. But the 
 researches of Mr. Malthus * have shown the mischievous 
 nature of such interferences : they have shown that every 
 increase in the numbers of a people, occasioned by arti- 
 ficial expedients, and which is not either accompanied or 
 preceded by a corresponding increase of the means of sub- 
 sistence, can be productive only of misery or of increased 
 mortality ; that the difficulty never is to bring human be- 
 ings into the world, but to feed, clothe, and educate them 
 when there ; that mankind do everywhere increase their 
 numbers, till their farther multiplication is restrained by 
 the difficulty of providing subsistence, and the poverty of 
 some part of the society ; and that, consequently, instead 
 of attempting to strengthen the principle of increase, we 
 should rather endeavour to strengthen the principles by 
 which it is c ontrolled and regulated. 
 
 * Essay nn ihe Principle of Population, passim. The first edition of this 
 work was published in 1798. 
 
 967
 
 POPULATION. 
 
 In order briefly to show the principle on which the in- 
 ereaae of population depends, we may state that the sexual 
 passion or Instinct has appeared in all ages and countries 
 s.i nearly tin- same, that it may, in the language of geome- 
 ters, be called a constant quantity. Now, it has been 
 shown by tin- experience of America, and of other coun- 
 tries under nearly similar circumstances, or where there 
 has been a nearly equal command over the means of sub- 
 sistence, that population has gone on, for a lengthened pe- 
 riod, doubling in every twenty or five and twenty years. 
 But the same principle or instinct that doubles the popula- 
 tion of any particular country in this short period is every- 
 where in existence, and is everywhere about equally 
 powerful. And, such being the case, it may be asked, Why 
 does not population everywhere increase with the same 
 rapidity as in Kentucky or Illinois? The reason is, that 
 the increase of population must always depend upon, and 
 can never for any considerable period exceed, the increase 
 of the food and other accommodations required for the 
 subsistence of human beings; and this increase being very 
 different in different countries, the progress of population 
 must vary accordingly: in some it may be rapid, in others 
 slowly progressive, and in others stationary, or even retro- 
 grade. 
 
 It is certain, however, that the principle of increase in the 
 species is sufficiently powerful to keep the population of 
 the most favoured countries, or of those where wealth is 
 most easily obtained and rapidly increased, quite up to the 
 level of the means of subsistence. This is evinced by the 
 poverty of a considerable portion of the people of such 
 countries, by their usually having more claimants for employ 
 than employers, or by the demand for labour being rather 
 greater than that for labourers ; in short, by the constant 
 pressure, as it were, of a part of the population against the 
 limits of subsistence. But, when such is the case, even in 
 the most favourably situated countries, it is quite obvious 
 that if the principle of increase were allowed to exert its 
 full force in countries placed under less favourable circum- 
 stances — if the same habit of early and universal marriage 
 were indulged in the latter as in the former, it could not 
 fail to occasion the most deplorable results. Man cannot 
 increase beyond the means of subsistence ; and where these 
 are either stationary, or but slowly advancing, any such de- 
 velopment of the principle of increase as is exhibited in 
 countries where these means are increasing most rapidly 
 would be productive only of increased misery and mortality. 
 And hence, in the vast majority of cases, the principle of 
 increase is restrained and controlled by prudential consid- 
 erations. Man is not, like the lower animals, actuated only 
 by instinct. To occasion a marriage, it is not always enough 
 that the parties should be attached to each other. The 
 obligation of providing for the children that may be expect- 
 ed to spring from it, is one that cannot fail to awaken the 
 forethought and to influence the conduct of all but the 
 most improvident and thoughtless. If the situation of those 
 who might be disposed to enter into a matrimonial alliance 
 be such as to preclude all reasonable expectation of their 
 being able to bring up and educate their children, without 
 exposing themselves to privations, or to the risk of being 
 cast down to a lower place in society, they may not impro- 
 bably either relinquish all thoughts of forming a union, or 
 postpone it till a more convenient opportunity. No doubt 
 there are very many individuals in all countries who are 
 not affected by such considerations, and who, seeing the 
 future through the deceitful medium of their passions, are 
 not deterred from gratifying their inclinations by any fear 
 of the consequences. But the great majority of every so- 
 ciety act on sounder principles. They are anxious not to 
 preserve merely, but to improve their'condition in society, 
 and cannot bear the idea that their family should be in a 
 worse situation than themselves. Hence the reason that in 
 all old settled or densely peopled countries, marriages are 
 deferred to a much later period than in colonies and newly 
 settled countries, where there are comparatively great fa- 
 cilities for gaining a livelihood, and that a much larger pro- 
 portion of the population find it expedient to pass their 
 lives in celibacy. And it is fortunate that such is the case 
 — that the forethought anil good sense of the people, .-11111 
 their laudable wish to maintain and better their condition, 
 make them control the violence of their passions, and dis- 
 regard the dicta of spurious advisers* It is quite obvioiU 
 that if the capacity of multiplication, or the principle of 
 increase, in densely peopled countries, wheie there is a 
 
 comparatively great difficulty in obtaining supplies of food, 
 were not checked by the prevalence of moral restraint, 
 arising from the consideration of the circumstances under 
 which society is placed, it would occasion the constant 
 pressure of misery and famine. There is no alternative. 
 The population of every country has the power, supposing 
 
 food and other necessary accommodations to be adequate!) 
 
 supplied, to go on d. .ul/ling every twenty or live and twenty 
 years; but as the limited extent and limited fertility of the 
 
 yea 
 
 soil render it impossible to go on permanently p-oducing 
 food in this ratio, it unavoidably follows that unless the 
 passions be moderated, and a proportional diminution bo 
 effected in the number of marriages and births, the stand- 
 ard of subsistence will be reduced to the lowest assignable 
 limit, and famine and pestilence will be perpetually sit work 
 to relieve the population of wretches born only to be Btarvedi 
 
 Although, therefore, the principle or instinct which 
 prompts to the increase of the species be alike powerful in 
 the most opposite conditions and states of society, its devel- 
 opment depends on a variety of circumstances. Generally, 
 however, there can be no question that it is sufficiently 
 powerful, even where the means of subsistence are ac- 
 quired with the greatest ease, to keep population on a level 
 with these means ; and in all hut the most favoured situa- 
 tions, it could hardly fail, if not controlled by other circum- 
 stances, to make the increase of population outrun that of 
 the means of subsistence, and, consequently, to occasion an 
 increase of misery and mortality. But this tendency is sel- 
 dom or never allowed to exert its full influence. The prin- 
 ciple of increase, though one of the strongest implanted in 
 our nature, is, after all, governed less by instinct than by 
 reason. At all events, it is invariably found, when we 
 look at nations or great masses of individuals, that the 
 period and frequency of marriages and the rate of increase 
 are determined by the state of the population with respect 
 to food, and that the latter is never outrun by the former. 
 
 The principle of increase is not, therefore, the bugbear, 
 the invincible obstacle to all real improvement it has been 
 represented by those who have overlooked the influence ot 
 moral causes in modifying and controlling its action. That 
 the tendency to increase is not inconsistent with the im- 
 provement of society is a fact, as to which, indeed, there 
 can be no dispute. Without going back to antiquity, let 
 any one compare the state of this or any other European 
 country 500 or 100 years ago with its present state, and he 
 will be satisfied that prodigious advances have been made, 
 that the means of subsistence have increased much more 
 rapidly than the population, and that the labouring classes 
 are now generally in the possession of conveniences and 
 luxuries that were formerly not enjoyed even by the richest 
 lords. The principle of increase is not, however, merely 
 consistent with the continued improvement of the bulk of 
 society — it is, in fart, the great cause of this improvement, 
 and of the wonderful progress made in the arts. Had the 
 principle been less powerful, or had it not existed at all, 
 every new discovery, by diminishing the necessity for 
 others, would have occasioned a decline in the spirit of 
 invention, and society would long since have been either 
 in a languishing or a stationary state. But the increase of 
 population, though generally subordinate to the increase of 
 food, is always sufficiently powerful to keep invention on 
 the stretch. All that numerous class who live by their la- 
 bour, and who are either striving to raise themselves to a 
 higher station, or to maintain their present position, are at 
 this moment impelled by the same powerful motives to in- 
 vent and contrive new and more powerful methods of pro- 
 duction that impelled their ancestors 5000 years ago ; and 
 so it will be in all time to come. The run's acurns mortalia 
 corda will never cease to operate, and will secure the con- 
 tinued advancement of society. To suppose, as some have 
 done, that the extraordinary progress already made in 
 science and the arts would have been equal or greater had 
 the tendency to increase been less powerful, is in truth 
 equivalent to supposing that industry and invention would 
 be promoted by lessening the motives to their exercise, and 
 the advantages derivable from them. There might, perhaps, 
 have been less squalid poverty among the very dregs of the 
 population, had there been no principle of increase; but it 
 is a contradiction to pretend, had such really been the case, 
 that the powers and resources of industry would have been 
 so astonishingly developed, that scientific investigations 
 
 would have been prosecuted with equal perseverance and 
 
 zeal, that so much wealth would have been accumulated 
 by the upper and middle classes, or that the same circum- 
 stances which urged society forward in its infancy would 
 have continued in every subsequent age to preserve their 
 energy unimpaired; and it may well be doubted whether 
 an exemption from the evils incident to poverty would not 
 have been dearly purchased, even by the very lowest clas- 
 ses, by the sacrifice of the hopes and fears attached to their 
 present condition, and the extraordinary gratification they 
 now reap from successful industry. 
 
 If these Conclusions lie well founded, it follows that the 
 
 schemes proposed for directly repressing population in the 
 ancient and modern world, besides being tor the most part 
 atrocious and disgusting, have really been opposed to the 
 
 ultimate objects their projectors had in view. Could the 
 rate of Increase be subjected to any easily applied physical 
 
 control, tiw comparatively among the p er classes would 
 
 be inclined to burden themselves w ilh tin- lii^k of pHM Idlng 
 for u family ; and the most effective stimulus to exertion
 
 POPULIN. 
 
 being destroyed, society would gradually sink into apathy 
 and languor." It is, therefore, to the principle of moral res- 
 traint, or to the exercise of the prudential virtues, that we 
 should exclusively trust for the regulation of the increase of 
 population. In an instructed society, where there are no 
 institutions favourable to improvidence, this check is suf- 
 ficiently powerful to confine the progress of population 
 within due limits, at the same time that it is not so powerful 
 as to hinder it from operating, in all cases, as the strongest 
 incentive to industry and economy. 
 
 Mr. Malthus's Essay on Population made a great sen- 
 sation at the time when it appeared, and is valuable from its 
 showing conclusively that the principle of increase is strong 
 enough, without any adventitious encouragement, to keep 
 population always on a level with the means of subsistence. 
 In other respects, however, it is altogether defective. Mr. 
 Maltbus has not shown that the mischievous consequences 
 that might otherwise result from the operation of the prin- 
 ciple of increase are sure to be countervailed by the opera- 
 tion of those prudential considerations to which it necessa- 
 rily gives rise; nor has he shown the important and power- 
 ful influence of the principle in securing the continued im- 
 provement of society. One of the best expositions of the 
 theory of population is that given by Bishop Sumner in his 
 Records of the Creation. See also the note on Population 
 in M'Culloch's edition of the Wealth of Nations. 
 
 PO'PULIN. A crystallizable substance separated from 
 the bark of the Populus tremula. 
 
 PO'RCATE. (Lat. porca, a ridge.) In Entomology, 
 when a surface has several parallel elevated longitudinal 
 ridges. 
 
 PORCELAIN. See Pottery. 
 
 PORCELLANITE. An opake brittle variety of jasper. 
 
 PORCH. (Fr. porche.) In Architecture, an arched or 
 flat or ceiled vestibule at the entrance of a church or other 
 building. 
 
 PORES. In Natural Philosophy, the small interstices 
 between the particles or molecules of matter which com- 
 pose bodies. There are many considerations which prove 
 that all bodies, even the densest are composed of molecules, 
 not in absolute contact, but separated from each other by 
 intervals, which, though so small as to be inappreciable to 
 the senses, have, nevertheless, a magnitude considerable in 
 respect of the molecules themselves. The porosity of bo- 
 dies may be demonstrated in many cases by very simple ex- 
 periments. If a piece of wood, or marble, granite, or other 
 compact stone, be plunged under water and placed under 
 the receiver of an air-pump, on withdrawing the external 
 pressure the air which had been dispersed through the inte- 
 rior cavities, or pores, will issue from every point of their 
 surface, and rise in a torrent of bubbles. In like manner, 
 mercury is forced through a piece of dry wood or leather, 
 and made to fall in a finely divided shower. A body plunged 
 deep under a liquid sustains a pressure, in consequence of 
 which it is contracted in all its dimensions, and the liquid 
 penetrates the body without producing any apparent disrup- 
 tion of its parts. Iron, by being hammered, is reduced in 
 volume ; and the dimensions of all bodies are affected by 
 heat and cold. The facility with which translucent sub- 
 stances are penetrated by the rays of light evinces extreme 
 porosity. And this penetration is not confined to bodies 
 which are usually termed diaphanous ; for gold itself, one of 
 the most opake of the metals, when beaten into extreme 
 thinness, transmits a soft green light. All these facts prove 
 the existence of pores; and it has been inferred that gold 
 has more pores than solid parts ; whence water, or any sub- 
 stance of the same specific gravity, must have many times 
 more pores than solid parts. 
 
 PORI'FERA. (Lat. poms, a pore, and fero, I carry.) A 
 name invented and applied by Mr. Hogg to a group of Po- 
 lyps, including the genera Cellepora, Millepora, and Tubu- 
 lipora : also used by Dr. Grant to designate the class of 
 organized beings including the marine and fresh-water 
 sponges. 
 
 PO'RISM, (Gr. iropiaua; from iropt?i,>, I investigate), in 
 Geometry, is defined by professor Playfair to be " a proposi- 
 tion affirming the possibility of finding such conditions as 
 will render a certain problem indeterminate, or capable of 
 innumerable solutions." 
 
 According to Pappus, the porisms constituted one of the 
 eight subjects which formed the ancient geometrical analy- 
 sis. Euclid composed a treatise on porisms in three books, 
 of which no trace now remains, except some obscure hints 
 preserved in the mathematical collections of Pappus. From 
 the manner in which the porisms are mentioned by Pappus, 
 it is evident that the ancients set a high value on this class 
 of propositions; but the description which he has given of 
 them is so vague that geometers were long unable to divine 
 his meaning, or to discover the peculiar circumstances in 
 respect of which a porism differs from an ordinary problem. 
 The subject, indeed, baffled the ingenuity of the most emi- 
 nent mathematicians, until it was taken up by Dr. Simson, 
 
 PORPHYRY. 
 
 of Glasgow, who at length succeeded in restoring a great 
 number of Euclid's porisms, together with their analysis. 
 The propositions thus restored form a part of his posthu- 
 mous works, published in 1776, at the expense of Earl Stan- 
 hope. It still remained, however, to inquire into the proba- 
 ble origin of the porisms, or the steps by which the ancient 
 geometers had been led to their discovery; and also to 
 point, out the relations in which they stand to other classes 
 of geometrical truths. This was accomplished by the 
 late Professor Playfair, in an admirable paper, "On the 
 Origin and Investigation of Porisms," published in vol. iii. 
 of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 
 and afterwards in the 3d volume of his collected Works, 
 Edin. 1822. 
 
 The nature of a porism, and the manner in which it is 
 derived from an ordinary proposition, will be best illus 
 trated by an example. The following proposition is one of 
 those selected by Mr. Playfair for the purpose: 
 
 A triangle ABC being given, and also a point D ; to 
 draw through D a straight line D E, such 
 that perpendiculars being drawn to it o 
 
 from the three angles of the triangle, 
 namely, A E, B G, C F, the sum of the 
 two perpendiculars on the same side of 
 D E shall be equal to the remaining per- 
 pendicular, or that A E and B G together 
 shall be equal to CF. 
 
 Suppose it done ; bisect A B in H ; 
 join CH (intersecting DE in L), and 
 draw H K perpendicular to D E. 
 
 Because A B is bisected in H, the two perpendiculars 
 A E and B G are together double of H K ; and, as they are 
 equal to C F, by hypothesis, C F must also be double of 
 H K, and C L of L H. Now, C H is given in position and 
 magnitude, therefore the point L is given ; and the point D 
 being also given, the line D L is given in position, which 
 was to be found. 
 
 The construction is obvious. Bisect A B in H, join C H, 
 and take H L equal to one third of C H ; the straight line 
 which joins the points D and L is the line required. 
 
 Now, it is plain that while the triangle ABC remains 
 the same, the point L also remains the same, wherever the 
 point D may be. The point D may therefore coincide with 
 L; and, when this happens, the position of the line to be 
 drawn remains undetermined ; that is to say, any line what- 
 ever drawn through L will satisfy the conditions of the 
 problem. Here, then, we have an indeterminate case of a 
 problem, and, of consequence, a porism, which may be thus 
 enunciated : 
 
 A triangle being given in position, a point in it may be 
 found such that any straight line whatever being drawn 
 through that point, the perpendiculars drawn to this straight 
 line from the two angles of the triangle which are on one 
 side of it, will be, together, equal to the perpendicular that 
 is drawn to the same line from the angle on the other side 
 of it. 
 
 For examples of porisms, see Simpson's Opera Reliqua ; 
 Playfair's paper above mentioned ; a paper by Prof. Wal- 
 lace, entitled " Some Geometrical Porisms, ifce." in the 
 Edinburgh Transactions, vol. iv. ; Stewart's General The- 
 orems, 1746; Leslies Geometrical .Analysis; and Ley- 
 bourn's Mathematical Repository. See, also, Traill's Ac- 
 count of the Life and Writings of Robert Simpson, M.D.; 
 and Chasles, Jlpercu Historique sur I'Origine et le De- 
 veloppement des Methodes en Geometric Brux. 1837. 
 
 The term porism is also used by the Greek geometricians 
 to signify merely the corollary to a proposition. 
 
 PORO'SITY. A property of matter, in consequence of 
 which its molecules are net in absolute contact, but sepa- 
 rated by intervals or pores. The quantity of matter in a 
 body is inversely as its porosity ; whence the ratio of the 
 porosity of one body to another may be determined from 
 their weight. See Pores. 
 
 PO'RPHYRY. (Gr. vopipvpa, purple.) In Statuary, an 
 extremely hard stone of a red, or rather purple and white 
 colour, more or less variegated, its purple being of all grada- 
 tions, from violet to a claret colour. It i.-: susceptible of a 
 very high polish. Egypt and the East furnish very plenti- 
 ful strata of this material. It is also found in Minorca. 
 The extreme ease with which the ancients seem to have 
 cut this substance, and worked it in sculptural subjects, has 
 been a matter of much discussion among the moderns. Dr. 
 Lister, in a paper of the Philosophical Transactions, seems 
 to think that the ancients possessed the secret of tempering 
 steel better than the moderns. The French cut it with an 
 iron saw without teeth, using a kind of freestone pulverized 
 and mixed with water. And Cosmo di Medici is said to 
 have distilled a water by the help whereof Francesco Taddi, 
 his sculptor, gave his tools a hardness and temper capable 
 of working the hardest and most compact substances. 
 
 Porphyry. In Geology, an unstratified or igneous reck 
 containing embedded crystals of felspar. The term was 
 3 0* 969
 
 PORPITA. 
 
 originally applied to n red rock of this kind found in Egypt, 
 alluded to in the preceding article. See Geology. 
 
 I'll Ul'ITA. (<ir. iropnn, .innu/us clypri.) The name 
 of a genus of sea nettles (.icalcphtt) characterized by an 
 Internal circular Battened disk of a calcareous and homy 
 texture. 
 
 PORRECT. (Lat. porrigo, J eitend.) In Zoology, when 
 
 a pari extends forth horizontally, as if to meet something. 
 
 PORRl'GO. (Lat. porrigo.) The ringworm, or scald- 
 head. 
 
 PORT. See Harbour. 
 
 Port is. usually, the adverb of larboard ; as, the ship 
 heels to port, for the larboard side. Put the helm a-port, 
 &c. 
 
 Port. The opening or embrasure in the ship's side for 
 a gun. The ports of the lower deck are defended, when at 
 sea, by strong covers hanging from hinges; the ropes by 
 which these are held up, or open, are called port lanyards, 
 and consist of a pendant passing through a leaded hole in 
 the side, with a tackle. 
 
 PORTAL. (Fr. portal!.) In Architecture, the lesser of 
 two gales, when they are of two dimensions, at the entrance 
 of a building. 
 
 PORTCU'LUS. (Fr. portecoulisse.) In Fortification, 
 a sort of machine composed of several large pieces of wood, 
 laid across one another, like a harrow, and pointed with 
 iron, used formerly to be hung over gateways or fortified 
 places, to be let down in case of a surprise, and when there 
 was not time to shut the gate. 
 
 PORTE, THE SUBLIME. The official title of the 
 government of the Ottoman empire: said to be derived 
 from a gate of the palace at Bronssa, the original metro- 
 polis of that empire, called Bab Humayoor, the sublime 
 gate. 
 
 PO RTER. A liquor brewed from malt, part of which 
 has been more highly dried than that used for ale. It is 
 hopped in the same way as ale; and its deep colour is 
 finally given to it cither by burned sugar, which usually 
 goes under the name of colouring, or, more legitimately, by 
 roasted or parched malt. Porter was first brewed in 1722. 
 The malt liquor previously drunk consisted of three kinds — 
 ale, beer, and " twopenny ;" and a mixture of either of these 
 kinds was a favourite beverage under the name of half-and- 
 half;" or a mixture was drunk called "three threads," con- 
 .sistinc of equal portions of each of the above kinds of liquor, 
 for a draught of which the publican had to go to three dif- 
 ferent casks. About 1722, llarwood. a London brewer, com- 
 menced brewing a malt liquor, which was intended to unite 
 the flavours of ale and beer, or ale, beer, and "twopenny;" 
 and, having succeeded, he called his liquor "entire," or 
 "entire butt;" a name intended to intimate that it was 
 drawn from one cask or butt only. A mixture of ale or 
 porter, drawn from different casks, is very commonly drunk 
 in London at the present time. Harwood's liquor obtained 
 the name of porter from its consumption by porters and 
 labourers. From 1722 to 1701, the retail price of porter was 
 'id. per pot, when it was raised to 3W„ at which it con- 
 tinued till 1799; it has never been higher than 6d., nor, 
 during the present century, lower than tit the present time 
 (September 1841), when the price is id. The following 
 air. unit of the fluctuations of the price per barrel, since 
 1816, is from B private source: In July, 1816, the price was 
 reduced fr 45s. to 40s., but, in October, was again ad- 
 vanced to 4. r >* ; iu January, 1817, a further advance was 
 made to 50s. ; and, in December of the same year, it reached 
 55s. In 1819, 1820, and 1-22, the price was successively re- 
 duced from 55s. to Ms., 45s., and 40s. In January, 1824, 
 it was advanced to 4, r >.v. ; in November, 1825, to 50s.; but a 
 few months afterwards it again fell to 45s. Since the abo- 
 lution of the beer duties, in 1830, the price has been 33s. per 
 
 PORT-FIRE. In Gunnery, a paper tube about ten 
 inches long, filled with a composition of meal-powder. 
 sulphur, and nitre, rammed moderately hard; used to fire 
 guns and mortars instead of a match. [Button's Diet.) 
 
 PCRTICO. dial.; from porticos, Lat.) In Architec- 
 ture a place for walking in under shelter, occasionally 
 
 r:i i -• >l alter the manner of a gallery with arches. Some 
 
 times tin- portico is vaulted, and sometimes it is with a 
 
 flat ceiling. The most usual application of the word is 
 to the projection supported by columns placed before a 
 building. 
 
 PCRTIO, or PORTION', is a term anatomically applied 
 to two branches of the seventh pair of nerves: the portio 
 
 hard portion, and the portio mollis, or soft portion : 
 the former Is the facial nerve, the latter the auditory or 
 acoustic nerve. 
 
 PCRTLAND POWDER. A mixture of several in- 
 digenous bitter herbs which was once a celebrated remedy 
 in the gout. 
 
 PORTLAND STONE. A granular limestone, belong- 
 ing to the upper part of the oolite formation, und abounding ! 
 970 ' 
 
 POSITION. 
 
 in the island of Portland, upon the coast of Dorsetshire. 
 Sa Geology. 
 
 P( IRTLAND VASE. A celebrated cinerary urn or vase, 
 long in possession of the noble family of the Barberini at 
 
 Rome (whence it was called the Barlierini rase); from 
 whom it came into the possession of the Portland family, 
 who deposited it, in 1810, in the British Museum, of which 
 it is one of the most valuable reliques. This beautiful speci- 
 men of ancient art was found in the tomb of the Emperor 
 
 Alexander Severus and his mother Mammtca. It is de- 
 scribed by Montfaucon {jlntiq. Expliqui, torn, v.), who was 
 evidently mistaken in representing it as formed Of a precious 
 stone. The substance is said to he of glass, or composition ; 
 it is of a deep blue or violet colour, and the figures in the 
 scene depicted on it are white. The subjects are mytho- 
 logical, but have been very imperfectly explained. See 
 two memoirs upon it, by Dr. King and W. Marsh, in the 
 8th volume of the Archo?ologia, and one by Dr. Darwin, in 
 the Notes to his Botanic Garden.) The late Mr. Wedg- 
 wood made a mould of this vase, and took from it a number 
 of casts, made with the greatest skill, and perfectly resem- 
 bling the original. 
 
 PO'RTRAIT. (Fr. pouitrait.) In Painting, the repre- 
 sentation of an individual, or, more strictly speaking, of 
 a face, painted from real life. Portraits are of full length, 
 half length, &c. ; und are executed in oil or water colours, 
 crayons, &c. 
 
 PORTREE'VE, or PORT GREVE. (Ang. Sax. gerefa.) 
 Anciently, the principal magistrate in ports and maritime 
 towns. According to Camden, this was the ancient title 
 of the officer who was afterwards called mayor, in Lon- 
 don. 
 
 PORT ROYALISTS. The name popularly given to 
 the members of the celebrated convent of the Poll Royal 
 des Champs. It was founded about 1204. by Matthieu de 
 Marli, on the eve of his departure for the Holy Land ; and, 
 though originally limited in its means and objects, it grad- 
 ually acquired such importance as to have secured for it a 
 prominent place in the history of Europe. It would be out 
 of place here to give any details of its varied fortunes, and 
 the religions controversies which it carried on in the 17th 
 century — the period of its greatest importance ; and we refer 
 the reader to the learned work of Reiichlin [Oeschichte von 
 Port Royal), for full information. (See, also, the eloquent 
 article in vol. lxxiv. of the F.din. Review.) It was abolished 
 by Louis XIV., as a nest of Jansenists and heietics. Among 
 the distinguished names connected with the Tort Royal, are 
 those of Lancelot, Paschal, Arnauld, Nicole de Sncy, and 
 Tilleniont. The school books which were published for 
 the use of that institution, were translated into all the lan- 
 guages of Europe, and maintained their reputation long 
 after its abolition ; and, though they are now fallen into 
 disuse, the following deserve especial mention : 1. Nouvelle 
 Mtthode pour apprendrc la I.angue I^atiiu ; 2. .Ymujellc 
 JMethode pour apprendre la Langue Grccque ; 3. Gram- 
 moire Generate, <$-c. 
 
 POSITION. (Lat. pono, I place.) A rule in Arithmetic, 
 called also the rule of supposition, or rule of false. It con- 
 sists in assuming a number, and performing upon it the 
 operation described in the question, and then comparing 
 the result with that given in the question, in order to dis- 
 cover the error of the assumption. Writers on arithmetic 
 divide the rule into two parts, single position and double. 
 position; the former comprehending those questions in 
 which the results tire proportional to the suppositions, and 
 where, consequently, only one assumption is required : the 
 latter those in which the results arc not proportional to the 
 suppositions, and where two suppositions are necessary in 
 order to deduce the true answer. To simple position be- 
 long such questions as the following: What number is that 
 from which, if a third and a fourth of itself he subtracted, 
 
 the remainder is (ill ? Double position comprehends ques- 
 tions of this sort : What number is that which, being mul- 
 tiplied by fi, the product Increased by 18, and the sum 
 
 divided by 9, the quotient shall be 2(1 ? It will be observed, 
 
 that both these questions ate immediately solved by a 
 simple algebraic equation; .and, in fact, the same pro- 
 cess is performed in the arithmetical operation in the as- 
 sured number, which, in the algebraic, Is performed on the 
 unknown quantity. The rules given for the solution of 
 questions in double position, are founded on certain prin- 
 ciples i>( algebra, which may be applied with much greater 
 facility to the immediate solution of the questions them- 
 selves. Sin h questions, therefore, cannot be considered as 
 properly belonging to arithmetic, hut to what may be deno- 
 minated numerical analysis. Position is also called the 
 rule of trial and error, anil is sometimes employed with 
 good effect in approximating to the roots of numerical 
 equations. 
 
 Position. In Painting, the placing of the model in tho 
 manner besl calculated for the end in view by the artist. 
 Such positions as are most natural and easy, and which
 
 POSITIVE ELECTRICITY. 
 
 exhibit the peculiar habit of the individual, in portrait paint- 
 ing, are preferable. 
 POSITIVE ELECTRICITY. See Electricity. 
 POSITIVE QUANTITY, in Algebra, denotes an affirm- 
 ative or additive quantity ; which character is indicated by 
 the sign -f>, called, in consequence, the positive sign. The 
 term is used in contradistinction lanegative ; negative quan- 
 tities being such as are subtractive, and marked by the 
 sign — , which is called the negative sign. See Sios. 
 
 PO'SSE COMITA'TUS. (Eat.) In Law, the power of 
 the county, which the sheriff is empowered to raise in case 
 of riot, possession kept on forcible entry, rescue, or other 
 force made in opposition to the king's writ or execution of 
 justice. It is said to include all knights and other men, 
 above the age of fifteen able to travel, within the county. 
 Justices of the peace may also raise the posse in order to re- 
 move a force in making entry Into or detaining lands. 
 
 POST. (Fr. poste.) In Architecture, any vertical piece 
 of timber ; as a truss post, door post, a quarter in a par- 
 tition. 
 
 Post. In Public Economy, a messenger, courier, or con- 
 veyance that travels at stated periods, and generally with 
 more than ordinary speed, employed to convey letters or 
 other despatches, whether of government or individuals. 
 
 POST-ABDOMEN. (Lat.) The name applied by La- 
 treiile to the five posterior segments of the abdomen of 
 Hexapod insects ; and to the tail of Crustaceans, which 
 consists of analogous but more numerous segments. 
 
 POSTAGE. The duty or rate of charge levied on letters 
 or other articles conveyed bv post. 
 
 PO'STEA. (Lat.) In Law, the return of the judge 
 before whom a cause Is tried, after verdict, of what was 
 done in the cause, which is endorsed on the back of the 
 nisi prius record. 
 
 POSTERN. (Fr. posterne.) In Architecture, a small 
 gate or door at the back of a building. 
 
 PosTerv. In Fortification, a small gate, usually made 
 in the angle of the flank of a bastion, or in that of the 
 curtain. 
 
 POSTI'LUM. (Lat.) In Architecture, the portico at 
 the back of a temple. See Naos. 
 
 POSTLIMINIUM, or JUS POSTLIMINII. (Lat. limen, 
 a threshold.) In National and Civil Law, the right by 
 virtue of which persons taken by an enemy return to their 
 former state of freedom, with their former rights and pro- 
 perty, on its termination ; and property so taken reverts to 
 its former owners. 
 
 POST OBIT. (Lat. post obitum, after death.) A bond 
 given for the purpose of securing a sum of money on the 
 death of some specified individual. 
 
 POST OFFICE. A place for the reception and distribu- 
 tion of the letters and despatches that are to be or that have 
 been carried by the post ; where the duties on them are 
 paid, and where the various departments connected with 
 the business of the post are conducted, or superintended. 
 
 The conveyance of letters by post is one of the few in- 
 dustrious undertakings which are certainly better managed 
 by government than they could be by individuals. It is 
 indispensable to the satisfactory working of the post-office, 
 that it should be conducted with the greatest regularity and 
 precision : and that all the departments should be made 
 subservient to each other, and conducted on the same plan. 
 It is plain that such results could not be obtained in any 
 extensive country otherwise than by the agency of govern- 
 ment ; and the interference of the latter is also required to 
 make arrangements for the safe and speedy conveyance of 
 letters to, from, and through foreign countries. 
 
 The organization of the post-office supplies one of the 
 most striking examples of the advantages resulting from 
 the division and combination of employments. "Nearly 
 the same exertions that are necessary to send a single letter 
 from Falmouth to New York will suffice to send 50,000. 
 If every man was to effect the transmission of his own 
 correspondence, the whole life of an eminent merchant 
 mi!_'ht be passed in travelling, without his being able to 
 deliver all the letters which the post-office forwards for 
 him in a single evening. The labour of a few individuals, 
 devoted exclusively to the forwarding of letters, produces 
 results which all the exertions of all the inhabitants of 
 Europe could not effect, each person acting independently." 
 (Senior on Political Economy.) 
 
 Posts appear to have been established for the first time, 
 in modern Europe, in 1479, by Louis XI. of France. They 
 were originally intended to serve merely- for the conveyance 
 of public despatches, and of persons 'travelling by autho- 
 rity of government. Subsequently, however, private indi- 
 viduals were allowed to avail themselves of this institution 
 for forwarding letters and despatches; and governments, 
 by imposing higher duties or rates of postage on the letters 
 and parcels conveyed by post than are sufficient to defray 
 the expense of the establishment, have rendered it pro- 
 ductive of a considerable revenue. Nor, while the rates of 
 
 POST OFFICE. 
 
 postage are confined within reasonable limits, and do not 
 materially affect the facility of correspondence, is there, 
 perhaps, a less objectionable tax. 
 
 The post office was not established in England till the 
 17th century. Post-masters, indeed, existed in more ancient 
 times ; but their business was confined to ihe furnishing of 
 post horses to persons who were desirous of travelling ex- 
 peditiously, and to Ihe despatching of extraordinary packets 
 upon special occasions. In 1635, Charles I. erected a letter 
 office for England and Scotland ; but this extended only to 
 a few of the principal roads ; the times of carriage were 
 uncertain; and the post-masters on each road were required 
 to furnish horses for the conveyance of the letters at the 
 rate of i\d. a mile. This establishment did not succeed ; 
 and, at the breaking out of the civil war, great difficulty 
 was experienced in the forwarding of letters. At length a 
 post office, or establishment for the weekly conveyance of 
 letters to all parts of the kingdom, was instituted in 1649, 
 by Mr. Edward Prideaux, attorney-general for the Common- 
 wealth ; the immediate consequence of which was a saving 
 to the public of £7,000 a year on account of post masters. 
 In 1657, the post office was established nearly on its present 
 footing, and the rates of postage that were then fixed were 
 continued till the reign of Queen Anne. (Black. Com^ 
 book i., c. 8.) 
 
 From the establishment of the post office by Cromwell- 
 down to 1784, mails were conveyed either on horseback, or 
 in carts made for the purpose ; and instead of being the 
 most expeditious and safest conveyance, the post had 
 become, at the latter period, one of the slowest and most 
 easily robbed of any in the country. In 1784, it was usual 
 for the diligences between London and Bath to accomplish 
 the journey in seventeen hours, while the post took forty 
 hours ; and on other roads the comparative rate of travel- 
 ling of the post and stage coaches was in about the same 
 proportion. The natural consequence of such a difference 
 in point of despatch was, that a very great number of letters 
 were sent by other conveyances than the mail : the law to 
 the contrary being easily defeated, by giving them the form 
 of small parcels. 
 
 Under these circumstances, it occurred to Mr. John 
 Palmer of Bath, comptroller-general of the post office, that 
 a very great improvement might be made in the convey- 
 ance of letters, in respect of economy, as well as of speed 
 and safety, by contracting with the proprietors of stage 
 coaches for the carriage of the mail ; the latter being bound 
 to perform the journey in a specified time, and to take a 
 guard with the mail for its protection. Mr. Palmer's plan 
 encountered much opposition, but was at length carried 
 into effect with the most advantageous results. The use 
 of mail-coaches speedily extended to most parts of the em- 
 pire ; and. while letters and parcels were conveyed in less 
 than half the time that had been required under the old 
 system, the coaches by which they were conveyed afforded, 
 by their regularity and speed, a most desirable mode of 
 conveyance for travellers. Mr. Palmer was the author of 
 several other improvements in the economy of the post- 
 office ; nor is there any individual to whom the department 
 owes more. (Macpherson's slnna/s of Com. anno 1784.) 
 
 Within the last few years, however, the construction of 
 railways between most of the great towns of the empire 
 has gone far to supersede the use of mail coaches on the 
 principal lines of road, and has added prodigiously to the 
 facilities of correspondence and travelling. The journey 
 from London to Liverpool, which had been accomplished 
 by the mail in about twenty or twenty-two hours, is now 
 accomplished, by railway, in nine or ten hours! and on 
 other roads in the same proportion. The great expense of 
 the post office consists, in fact, not so much in the convey- 
 ance of letters from place to place, as in their previous col- 
 lection and their distribution after they have been conveyed 
 to their destination. This necessitates the establishment 
 of a vast number of subordinate offices in the remoter parts 
 of the kingdom, many of which do not defray their ex- 
 penses. This is particularly the case in Ireland, where, in 
 1838, the expense of collecting the gross post office revenue 
 amounted to 391. 16*. 4-.d. per cent. 
 
 Revenue and Rates 'of Postage.— During 1838 the post 
 office of the United Kingdom produced a gross revenue of 
 £•2,346.278, and a nett revenue, after deducting the expense 
 of collection, of £1,676,522. This large revenue was de- 
 rived from rates of postage, varying with the distance 
 according to which letters were conveyed, but so that at an 
 average they amounted to about ~d. or 7.W. for a single 
 letter. But the fact that the post office revenue had con- 
 tinued nearly stationary during the twenty years ending 
 with 1838, notwithstanding the vast increase in that period 
 of population and of the intercourse between the different 
 parts of the empire, was a conclusive proof that the rates 
 of postage had been carried to a vicious excess ; and that 
 in the arithmetic of the post office, as well as of the cus- 
 toms, two and two, instead of always making four, some- 
 
 971
 
 POST OFFICE. 
 
 times make only one. The effectual reduction of these 
 rates \\.i~ theref re urgently required, not only bemuse of 
 the Importance to a commercial and manufacturing com- 
 munity of having the charge for the conveyance of corres- 
 pondence fixed al a moderate amount, but because it was 
 all but certain that moderate rates of postage would be more 
 productive of revenue. It did not, however, follow, that 
 because an average charge of ~d. or 7'd. each on all letters 
 conveyed by post was very decidedly too much, that the 
 plan for malting an invariable charge of Id., whether the 
 letter were conveyed one mile or 1000 miles, should have 
 been adopted. This was to rush from one extreme to 
 another, and to endanger a considerable amount of revenue 
 without any equivalent advantage. It must, no doubt, be 
 admitted that the proposal for a uniform penny rate of post- 
 age, had many recommendations in Its favour. Being 
 calculated at once to obviate trouble and save expense, it 
 could not fail to be acceptable (what reduction of taxation 
 is not ?) to a large portion of the public, particularly to 
 persons engaged in business. We believe, however, that 
 the scheme was more indebted for its popularity to the 
 oppressiveness of the old rates of postage than to any in 
 trinsic merits of its own. Had these been reduced four or 
 five years previously to a reasonable amount, that is, had 
 letters of 1 oz. Weighl coming from Scotland or Ireland to 
 London been reduced to 6d., and other letters in proportion, 
 and mercantile circulars been allowed to pass under covers 
 open at the ends at \d. or 2d. each, we venture to say that 
 the clamour for a uniform rate of penny postage would not 
 have made any way. But in this, as usually happens on 
 similar occasions, those who delay to make reasonable and 
 necessary concessions at the outset, are in the end compelled 
 to concede a great deal more than would at first have been 
 satisfactory. This, at all events, has been eminently true 
 in the present instance. The clamour for a uniform penny 
 rate became too powerful to be resisted ; and parliament, 
 whether it were so inclined or not, was obliged to lend its 
 sanction to the measure. And under the provision of the 
 act 2 & 3 Vict., cap. 52. it has been enacted that all inland 
 Inters, without regard to the number of enclosures, or the 
 distance conveyed, provided they be paid when posted or 
 despatched, shall, if not exceeding J oz. weight, be charged 
 Id. ; 1 oz. 2d. : 2 oz. -id. ; 3 oz. 6d. ; and so on ; 2d. being 
 added for every additional ounce up to 16 oz., beyond which, 
 with the following exceptions, no packet, whether subject 
 to postage or not, is received : 
 
 1. Parliamentary petitions and addresses to her Majesty. 
 
 2. Parliamentary proceedings. 
 
 3. Letters and packets addressed to or received from 
 places beyond sea. 
 
 4. Letters and packets to and from public departments, 
 and to and from public officers that formerly franked by 
 virtue of their offices. 
 
 5. Deeds, it' sent o|ien, or in covers open at the sides. 
 They may be tied with string and sealed, in order to pre- 
 vent inspection of the contents : but they must be open at 
 the sides, that it may be seen that they are entitled to the 
 privilege. 
 
 With these exceptions, all packets above the weight of 
 10 oz. will be immediately forwarded to the Dead Letter 
 Office. 
 
 But all letters not paid when they are posted or despatch- 
 ed are charged double the above rates. 
 
 All parliamentary and official franking has been put an 
 end to; but members of either house of parliament are 
 entitled to receive petitions to parliament free of charge, 
 provided such petitions be sent in covers open at the ends, 
 and do not exceed oz. weight. 
 
 To facilitate the working of the plan, envelopes and 
 stamps for single, double, &c. letters, are furnished by the 
 post office, and have been widely distributed. 
 
 Such are the more prominent features of the new sys- 
 tem ; and none can deny that it has the recommendations 
 of Simplicity and cheapness in its favour, and that it has 
 
 greatly facilitated correspondence. But it may nevertheless 
 be doubted whether its adoption was expedient It is cer- 
 tainly very convenient for merchants, bankers, middlemen, 
 and retail dealers, to L»'t letters for id., that previous"] cost 
 them Id. or " ../. : bul their satisfaction is not the only thing 
 to be attendeii to in forming a lair estimate of the measure. 
 The public exigencies require that a sum of above fifty 
 millions a year should be raised, one way or other; and so 
 long as we are pressed by an unreasoning necessity of this 
 sort, it is not much to say in favour of the repeal or dimi- 
 nution of any tax, that (hose on whom it fell with the 
 creates) g< •>■ ritj are delighted with the reduction. Sugar 
 lias in England become a necessary of life; and its con- 
 sumption, to say the least of it. is (|uite as Indispensable to 
 
 the bulk of the people, and especially to the labouring 
 
 writing of letters. Put would it, then-lore. 
 
 It a u lae measure to repeal the duty on sugar, or to reduce 
 
 it to Is. a cwt ! It has been alleged, indeed, that taxes on 
 
 973 
 
 POTASSIUM. 
 
 the transmission of letters are objectionable on principle, 
 and should therefore be repealed, independently altogether 
 of financial considerations. But it is easier to make an 
 allegation of this sort than to prove it. All taxes, however 
 Imposed, if they lie carried (as was the ca-e with the old 
 rates of postage) beyond their proper limits, are objection- 
 able ; but provided these be not exceeded, we have yet to 
 learn why a tax on a letter should be more objectionable 
 than a tax on the paper on which it is written, on the food 
 of the writer, or on fifty other things. 
 
 During the first vear (1840) of the new svstem. the nett 
 revenue of the Post Office fell off about £1,200.000! No 
 doubt, however, the revenue will Increase in subsequent 
 years, with the increasing population and wealth of the 
 country. But it would have done this under any system 
 of moderate duties ; and its future increase, whatever it 
 may be, is consequently no proof of the superiority of the 
 presenl system. 
 
 POST "POSITION*. In Music, retardations of the har- 
 mony, effected by placing discords upon the accented parts 
 of a bar not prepared and resolved according to the rules 
 for discords. 
 
 POSTSCE'XH'M. (Lat. post, behind, and scena. a scene.) 
 In Architecture, the back part of the theatre behind the 
 scenes, furnished with conveniences for robing the actors 
 and depositing the machinery. 
 
 PO'STULATE. (Lat. postulare. to demand.) In Geom- 
 etry, something to be assumed, or taken for granted. Euclid 
 has constructed his Elements on the three following postu- 
 lates : 1. That a straight line may be drawn from any one 
 point to any other point. 2. That a terminated straight line 
 may be produced to any length in a straight line. 3. That 
 a circle may be described from any centre at any distance 
 from that centre. (Playfair's Euclid.) 
 
 Postulate. In Logic and Philosophy, a proposition of 
 which the truth is demanded or assumed for the purpose of 
 future reasoning. 
 
 POTA'SH. The saline matter obtained by lixiviating 
 the ashes of wood. When purified by calcination it is 
 termed pear/ash, and is in that state an impure carbonate 
 of potassa. The production of potash is carried on upon a 
 large scale in Russia and America ; it can only he thus 
 obtained in countries where there are vast natural forests, 
 and where the value of timber is little more than that of 
 the labour of felling it. See Potassium. 
 
 POTASSA. Sec Potassium. 
 
 POTA'SHIUM. This extraordinary metal wasdiscovered 
 by Davy in the year 1807, and was one of the tir>t fruits of 
 his masterly researches into the chemical powers of elec- 
 tricity. Its properties are so remarkable, that it was for a 
 time doubted whether it could with propriety be placed 
 among the metals; but the progress of discovery has re- 
 moved all difficulty upon that point, by making us acquainted 
 with other metallic substances, the properties of which are, 
 as it were, intermediate between those of potassium on 
 the one hand, and the common metals on the other. One 
 of the striking peculiarities of potassium is mechanical 
 rather than chemical, namely, its low specific gravity, it 
 being the lightest known solid ; another is its intense affinity 
 for oxycen.and ils consequent energetic action when placed 
 upon water, where it immediately takes tire. The specific 
 gravity of potassium is -865 at the temperature of 00°; it is 
 solid at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere ; at 
 80° it becomes soft, and at 150° is perfectly liquid; at 32° 
 it is brittle, and has a crystalline texture. In colour and 
 lustre it resembles mercury. Its attraction for oxygen is 
 such that it immediately loses its brilliancy on e\|iosure to 
 air. and becomes converted into potassa : heated in the air 
 it burns with a purple flame. The equivalent of potassium 
 is 40, and that Of potassa or protoxide of potassium is 48. 
 When potassium is heated in oxygen it absorbs a larger 
 quantity of that element and becomes a peroxide, which, 
 however, is immediately converted into protoxide by the 
 action of water. Protoxide of potassium exists in the state 
 Of hi/drate In what is called caustic potash, which is a 
 compound of 48 potassa + water. This substance fuses 
 
 at a dull red heat, it is very Boluble and deliquescent, and 
 
 powerfully corrodes almost all animal textures. It is the 
 
 tapis eaustievs of old pharmacy. Dissolved In water it 
 
 D !iii. or the liquor potassa of the Pharmacopoeia. 
 
 This solution is obtained by pouring water upon a mixture 
 
 of equal parts of quicklime and carbonate of potassa; me 
 
 racts carbonic acid from the carbonate, and 
 
 converted into an insoluble carbonate of lime, 
 
 whilst the evolved potassa is taken op bj the water. The 
 
 solution thus obtained is powerfully alkaline and caustic; 
 
 and. as it soon absorbs carbonic acid when exposed to air, 
 
 it should lie carefully preserved in well Stopped phials. 
 
 Tree potassa is easily detected and recognised, when in 
 
 solution, by its alkaline reaction upon proper vegetable 
 
 Dolours, rendering, for instance, the yellow of turmeric 
 brown, and the blue of violet green ; when excess of tar-
 
 POTATOES. 
 
 POULTRY, 
 
 taric acid is added to it, it yields a white granular precipi- i requires to be formed into thicker and heavier vessels ; and 
 
 tate of bitartrate of potassa, and an alcoholic solution of 
 carbazotic acid yields with it yellow and difficultly soluble 
 crystals of carbaxotate of potassa. When potassa is in 
 combination, as, for instance, when any of its salts are dis- 
 solved in water, they are best detected by a strong solution 
 of chloride of platinum, which causes a yellow precipitate 
 of the potassio-chloride of platinum 
 
 more fusible than the finest porcelains of Japan and China. 
 The colours employed in painting porcelain are the same 
 metallic oxides used for colouring glass, and in all the 
 more delicate patterns they are laid on with a camel-hair 
 pencil, and generally previously mixed with a little oil of 
 turpentine. Where several colours are used, they often re- 
 quire various temperatures for their perfection ; in which 
 
 When potassium and sulphur are heated together, they [ case those that bear the highest heat are first applied, and 
 
 combine and form a sulphuret of potassium^ With the 
 acids, potassa forms a variety of useful salts ; such as nitre, 
 or nitrate of potassa, with nitric acid; sulphate of potassa, 
 with the sulphuric acid ; and carbonate of potassa, with 
 the carbonic acid. The latter is a very important salt : it 
 forms great part of the residuum or ash of burnt wood, 
 from which it is obtained by lixiviation, and brought to this 
 country from Russia and America, under the name of pearl- 
 ash and potash. It consists of 48 potassa -4- 22 carbonic 
 acid ; it is deliquescent, uncrystallizable, and has an alka- 
 line reaction. When carbonic acid is passed through a 
 solution of this sort, it becomes converted into bicarbonate 
 of potassa, composed of 48 potassa -f- 44 carbonic acid. 
 Potassium burns with great splendour in chlorine, and 
 forms chloride of potassium ; it also combines with iodine, 
 bromine, and fluorine. 
 
 POTA'TOES. The common name for the roots of the 
 Solanum tuberosum, which see. 
 
 POTE'NTIAL MOOD. (Lat. possum, / am able.) In 
 Grammar, that mood of the verb which expresses an action 
 conceived as possible; denoted in English by the auxiliary 
 verb may or might. 
 
 POTENTIAL QUALITIES. In Scholastic Philosophy, 
 such as are supposed to exist in a body in potentia only. In 
 Grammar, a mood of the verb, also called the optative; by 
 some considered as the same with the subjunctive. 
 
 POTl'TII. The Roman priests of Hercules, who were 
 said to have been instituted by Evander. Of an inferior 
 grade to them, but in the service of the same god, were 
 the Pinari ; but these became extinct through the means of 
 Appius Claudius. 
 
 PO'TSTONE. A tough variety of steatite, sometimes 
 manufactured into culinary vessels. It is the lapis ollaris 
 of Pliny. 
 
 PO'TTERY AND PORCELAIN. The better kind of 
 pottery, called in this country Staffordshire tcare, is made 
 
 subsequently those which lire brought out at lower temper- 
 atures. This art of painting on porcelain, or in enamel, is 
 of the most delicate description : much experience and 
 skill are required in it, and with every care there are fre- 
 quent failures ; hence it is attended with considerable ex- 
 pense. The gilding of porcelain is generally performed by 
 applying finely divided gold mixed with gum-water and 
 borax ; upon the application of heat the gum burns off", and 
 the borax vitrifying upon the surface causes the gold firmly 
 to adhere ; it is afterwards burnished. 
 
 In the manufacture of various kinds of pottery employed 
 in the chemical laboratory, and especially in regard to cru- 
 cibles, many difficulties occur; and many requisites are ne- 
 cessary, which cannot be united in the same vessel. To 
 the late Mr. Wedgwood we are indebted for vast improve- 
 ments in this as well as in other branches of the art. Cru- 
 cibles composed of one part of pure clay mixed with about 
 three parts of coarse and pure sand, slowly dried and an- 
 nealed, resist a very high temperature without fusion, and 
 generally retain metallic substances ; but where the metals 
 are suffered to oxidize, there are few which do not act 
 upon ony earthen vessel, and some cause its rapid fusion, 
 as the oxides of lead, bismuth, &c. Where saline fluxes 
 are used, the best crucibles will always suffer ; but plati- 
 num may often be employed in these cases, and the chem- 
 ist is this enabled to combat many difficulties which were 
 nearly insurmountable before this metal was thus applied. 
 Whenever silica and alumina are blended, as in the mix- 
 ture of clay and sand, the compound softens, and the vessel 
 loses iw shape when exposed to a long-continued white 
 heat, and this is the case with the Hessian crucibles : con- 
 sequently, the most refractory of all vessels are those made 
 entirely of clay, coarsely-powdered burned clay being used 
 as a substitute for the sand. Such a compound resists the 
 action of saline fluxes longer than any other, and is there- 
 fore used for the pots in glass furnaces. A Hessian cruci- 
 
 of an artificial mixture of alumina and silica ; the former ble lined with purer clay is rendered much more retentive ; 
 
 obtained in the form of a fine clay, from Devonshire chiefly 
 and the latter consisting of chert or flint, which is heated 
 red-hot, quenched in water, and then reduced to powder. 
 Each material, carefully powdered and sifted, is diffused 
 through water, mixed by measure, and brought to a due 
 consistency by evaporation : it is then highly plastic, and 
 funned upon the potter's wheel and lathe into various cir- 
 cular vessels, or moulded into other forms, which, after 
 having been dried in a warm room, are enclosed in baked 
 clay cases resembling bandboxes, and called sen-gars ; these 
 are ranged in the kiln so as nearly W rill it, leaving only 
 space enough for the fuel ; here the ware is kept red-hot 
 for a considerable time, and thus brought to the state of 
 biscuit. This is afterwards glazed, which is done by dip- 
 ping the biscuit-ware into a tub containing a mixture of 
 about 60 parts of litharge, 10 of clay, and 20 of ground flint, 
 diffused in water to a creamy consistence; and when taken 
 out enough adheres to tbe piece to give an uniform glazing 
 when again heated. The pieces are then again packed up 
 in the seggars, with small bits of pottery interposed between 
 each, and fired in a kiln as before. The glazing mixture 
 fuses at a very moderate heat, and gives an uniform glossy 
 coating, which finishes the process when it is intended for 
 common white ware. 
 
 The patterns upon ordinary porcelain, which are chiefly 
 in blue, in consequence of the facility of applying cobalt, 
 are generally first printed off upon paper, which is attached 
 to the plate or other article while in the state of biscuit ; 
 the colour adheres permanently to the surface when heat is 
 properly applied : other mineral colours, such as the oxides 
 of chrome and manganese, are also occasionally employed 
 in the same way. 
 
 The manufacture of Porcelain is a more refined branch 
 of art; the materials are selected with the greatest caution, 
 it being necessary that the compound should remain per- 
 fectly white after exposure to heat : it is also required that 
 it should endure a very high temperature without fusing, 
 and at the same time acquire a semivitreous texture, and a 
 peculiar degree of translucency and toughness. These 
 qualities are united in some of the oriental porcelain, or 
 China, and in some of the old Dresden ; but they are rarely 
 found coexistent in that of modern European manufacture. 
 Some of the French and English porcelain, especially that 
 made at Sevres and Worcester, is extremely white, and 
 
 and a thin china cup, or other dense porcelain, resists the 
 action of saline matters in fusion for a considerable time. 
 Plumbago is a very good material for crucibles, and applica- 
 ble to many purposes; when mixed with clay it forms a 
 very difficultly fusible compound, and is protected from the 
 action of the air at high temperatures : it is well calculated 
 for small table furnaces. 
 
 POULP. The English generic name of the eight-footed' 
 Dibranchiate Cephalopods (Octopi), which have a double 
 alternate row of suckers on each foot. 
 
 PO'ULTRY. Different kinds of birds reared for the pro- 
 duction of eggs, feathers, and for the use of their bodies as 
 animal food. The domestic poultry in common use in Brit- 
 ain are the common domestic fowls, or cock and hen, the 
 turkey, the duck, and the goose ; to which may be added, 
 as occasionally reared, the guinea fowl and the peacock. 
 The most generally useful kind of poultry is the common 
 domestic fowl, which, though a native of India, accompa- 
 nies man throngh all climates, but which is only productive 
 of abundance of eggs when well fed and warmly lodged. 
 Hence, all poultry-houses, when not built adjoining an 
 apartment in which fire is kept, or over a stable or cow- 
 house, where they might benefit by the heat generated by 
 the larger animals, ought to be furnished with flues, or 
 some other means of generating heat artificially during win- 
 ter and spring. Without some mode of effecting this, poul- 
 try will seldom produce abundance of eggs in cold weather, 
 particularly in the colder parts of Britain. Hence, in Scot- 
 land, the common hen roosts in the same room that the cot- 
 tager lives in ; and the poultry-house of the small farmer is 
 a loft either over his kitchen, or over his cow-house. In 
 the management of poultry it is not sufficient to supply 
 abundance of food and warmth, hut it is equally necessary 
 that they have ample space for exercise. This space should 
 always contain living plants of various kinds, and some 
 gravelly or sandy soil ; because worms, snails, and insects, 
 as well as occasionally grass and herbage, form a part of 
 the food of poultry ; and sand or gravel is swallowed by 
 them for the purpose of promoting digestion. Hence, no 
 healthy poultry can ever be reared in towns, however much 
 the natural food may be imitated by the supply of animal 
 matters, herbage, and sand : the want of exercise in poultry 
 so circumstanced will soon become evident from the ap- 
 pearance of the fowls, and from the soft shell of their eggs, 
 
 duly translucent; but it is more apt to crack by sudden in consequence of the animal functions not beiog efficiently 
 changes of temperature ; more brittle, and consequently | performed. 
 
 79 ® 973
 
 POULTRY-HOUSES. 
 
 POULTRY-HOUSES. Structures In which poultry are 
 k«j)t in the night time; the principal features of which 
 ought i<> be, that each kind of bird shall be separately lodg 
 ed, and that all shall have access to an ample field, contain- 
 ing a pond and a heap of gravel. See Poultry. 
 
 POUNCE. A powder to prevent ink from spreading 
 upon paper after erasures: it is either sandairach ri In ol 
 the juniper] in powder, or the powdered bone of the cuttle- 
 fish. The term pounce is also applied to the coloured pow- 
 ders used by pattern drawers lor sprinkling over pricked 
 papers. 
 
 ]'( U'.\T>. (Lat. pondus, weight.) A measure of « eight 
 In England two different pounds are used ; the pound nr<<tr 
 dupois, and the pound troy. The pound avoirdupois weighs 
 7000 grains troy, and the pound troy 5760 grains. The for- 
 mer is divided into 16 ounces, -and the latter into 12. {See 
 Wkioht.) Pound is also a denomination of money; the 
 pound Bterling being equal In value to 20 shillings, or 240 
 pence. Anciently -240 pence were equivalent to a pound of 
 silver ; hence the origin of the term. 
 
 POLPART'i? Lit: VMli.NT. The tendinous attachment 
 of the external oblique muscle of the abdomen to the supe- 
 rior and anterior spinous process of the os ileum and os 
 pubis. 
 
 POU'RPRESTURE, or PU'RPRESTURE, in Law, is 
 said to be ultra an}' man takes unto himself or appropri- 
 ates anything that he ought not, whether it be in any juris- 
 diction, land, or franchise ; and generally when anything is 
 done to the nuisance of the king's tenants, by way of nui- 
 sance or hurt to the king's highways or demesnes, by en- 
 closing. &.C. Pourpresture may also he lay tenant against 
 lord of the fee, or hy one neighbour against another. 
 
 POUR8UIVANT. See Pursuivant. 
 
 I'i AVER, in Algebra and Arithmetic, denotes the product 
 arising from the continued multiplication of a quantity or 
 number into itself. The successive powers of a number are 
 formed and indicated as follows : Thus, taking the num- 
 ber 3, 
 
 3'= 3, the 1st power of 3; 
 3 X 3 or 3-' = 9, the 2d power, or square of 3; 
 
 32 x 3 or 33 = 27, the 3d power, or Cube of 3: 
 
 33 X 3 or 31 = 81, the 4th power of 3, &c. 
 
 In like manner, the successive powers of the quantity a are 
 ol, a-, a 3 , <x 4 , &c. The numbers indicating the powers are 
 called the exponents ; and it is obvious from their formation 
 that powers of the same quantity are multiplied hy adding 
 their exponents, and divided by subtracting their exponents. 
 Powers are considered as negative or fractional which have 
 negative or fractional exponents. 
 
 Power, in Mechanics, denotes a force which being ap- 
 plied to a machine tends to produce motion. A mechanical 
 power denotes one of the six simple machines; Viz., the 
 lever, the inclined plane, the screw, the wheel and axle, the 
 ■wedge, and the pulhy. 
 
 Power. In Law, a term commonly applied to designate 
 a reservation made in a conveyance, either for the party 
 conveying or for some other party, to enable him to do cer- 
 tain acts" regarding the property conveyed. Powers are 
 either common law authorities, or have their validity from 
 the Statute Of Uses. To the former class belong powers 
 granted by will or by act of parliament to certain persons to 
 sell estates, &c. The latter are of several sorts — 1. Powers 
 appendant, or appurtenant, are powers granted to one who 
 has an estate given him by the deed creating the power, 
 and strictly depending on the estate so limited ; as where 
 an estate for life is limited to a man, with power to grant 
 leases in |H>ssession. 2. A power collateral, or in gross, 
 given also to one having an interest, either granted by the 
 same deed, or subsisting previously to its execution ; but it 
 enables him to create such interests only as will not attach 
 on the Interest limited to him, as a power to tenant for life 
 to appoint the estate after his decease among bis children. 
 
 3. A power simply collateral is one given 10 a party who 
 has not any interest in the land, either after, or subsisting 
 Immediately up to, the period of the execution of the deed. 
 
 POWEE OF ATTORNEY. In Law, an instrument by 
 which a party empowers another to perform certain arts 
 lor bus, either generally, or for a particular purpose ; such 
 as to accept and negotiate letters of exchange, to receive 
 dividends, fee. An instrument hy winch a party authorizes 
 bis attorney to appear and plead for him is termed a war- 
 rant of attorney (see that artii le i, 
 
 POWERS, GREAT, OF EUROPE. In the language of 
 modern diplomacy, England, France, Austria, Russia, and 
 Prussia, are so called. 
 
 I'OZZI'OLA'N'A. Volcanic ashes used in the mami 
 facture Of a mortar which hardens under water. They are 
 exported from Pozzuoli, a town in the Bay Of Naples. 
 
 PRAAM. A sort of lighter used in Holland and the 
 Baltic. 
 
 PRA'CTICE. A rule in arithmetic for expeditiously 
 974 
 
 PRAETORIAN COHORTS. 
 
 solving questions in proportion ; or, rather, for abridging the 
 opei ition of multiplying quantities expressed in different de- 
 nominations: as pounds, shillings, and pence; yards, feet, 
 and inches, &C. 
 
 1'K.l. I'DAMITES. A term given to those inhabitants 
 of the earth who are presumed, by Bome writers, to have 
 lived before Ad tm. In support of this theory, a work was 
 published in it>.V>. by Isaac de la Pyreri, which proved the 
 means of converting many to its author's opinions. 
 
 I'li.l'.t OKItl.Y. (Lat. pra?, before, and cor, the heart.) 
 The tore part of the chest. 
 
 PREFECT. (Lat. prcefectus.) A common name of va- 
 rious Roman functionaries; among others a military officer, 
 who had the command of the cavalry of a legion. The 
 praetorian prefect was the commanding officer of the prav 
 toiian cohorts, w ho were the imperial guard, and always 
 stationed at Rome. This office, alter the time of Severus, 
 i agrossed the highest powers to which a subject could at- 
 tain. (See Pk.viorian Cohorts.) Prated was likewise 
 the title given to the imperial governor of Egypt, which 
 was on a different footing from the other provinces, which 
 were superintended by senatorial men with the titles of 
 proconsul and proprietor. The prefect of Egypt, on the 
 contrary, was always of the equestrian order, and was a 
 military governor. This anomaly is said to have arisen 
 from a prophecy which foretold that Egypt should recover 
 its liberty when the Roman fasces and pratexta should 
 come to it; and which Augustus took advantage of, to 
 bring that province more immediately under bis own super- 
 intendence. 
 
 PRyEMUNI'RE. In Law, a name given to a species of 
 offence, in the nature of a contempt, against the king and 
 his government. The name is derived from the words 
 " pr.TiHoneri," or "prsmuniri facias," which are used in 
 the beginning of the writ preparatory to the prosecution of 
 the Offence ; " Cause A. B. to be forewarned that he appear 
 before us," &x. The first statute of praemunire was pass- 
 ed in the reign of Edward I. to restrain the encroachments 
 of the Romish clergy; and several subsequent statutes be- 
 fore the Reformation have extended the number of penal 
 acts under this title. The principal were those proceeding 
 from an assumption of authority In England by virtue of 
 papa] and other foreign provisions. But, by still later stat- 
 utes, acts of a very miscellaneous character have been ren- 
 dered, liable to the penalties of praemunire, as refusing to 
 take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, &c. 
 PR-dSNO'MEN. See Coomomen, Name". 
 Pit ETP'XTA. (Lat.) A long white robe with a pur- 
 ple herder, originally appropriated by Tullus Hostilius to 
 the Roman magistrates and some of the priests ; hut after- 
 wards worn by the children of the higher classes ; by hoys 
 till the age of seventeen (when they assumed the toga viri- 
 
 lis), and by girls till they were married. 
 
 PR/E'TOR. A Roman magistrate ranking in dignity 
 next to the consuls. Anciently the name of pra-tor was 
 common to all the thief magistrates ; but, on account of the 
 continual absence of the consuls in foreign wars, and their 
 consequent inability to discharge many of their civil duties, 
 a new ( nil magistrate wa~ created to supply their place 
 (A.U. 389), to whom the title of prstor was' specially as- 
 signed. He was at first elected from the patricians, but 
 the office was afterwards (A.U. 418) thrown open also to 
 the plebeians. When it was found that a single pra-tor 
 was Inadequate to the due discharge of his duties, in con- 
 sequence of the great Influx of strangers, another was add- 
 ed (A.U. 519) to administer justici in cases in which they 
 were involved, with the epithet peregrinut attached to bis 
 title, to distinguish him from the more ancient and bonoui 
 able magistrate, the praetor urbanue, as he was called. 
 This latter dignitary corresponded in man) respects to the 
 lord-mayors, mayors, or provosts of our country . combining 
 with their functions the judicial power of lord-chancellor. 
 Besides this, he performed the duties of the consul, on 
 many occasions In their absence, presiding in the assemblies 
 of the people, and convening the senate. So long as the 
 
 Roman empire was confined to Italy, the Dumber Of prstors 
 did not exceed two : but on the reduction of Sicily and Sar- 
 dinia to the form Of provinces, two more wire added 10 
 govern them, and again two more were created on the -ah 
 lection of hither and farther Spain to the Roman yoke. 
 The praetors on bi ing elected determined their province, 
 tnsuls, bj casting lots. Under the emperors the 
 
 powers of the pra tors were reduced, their principal func- 
 tions being transferred to the pnetorian prefect; but the 
 name of the magistrate continued to the time of Justinian. 
 (See JVYe&uAr's Roman History.) 
 
 PB ETO RJ W COHORTS. A body of troops among 
 the !•'' mans, distinguished from the res! of the army by 
 and superior privileges, first instituted by Augus- 
 tus, and called hy that name, in imitation of the select 
 band which attended a Roman general in battle. At llnir 
 
 first institution they were nine in number, thrco being sta-
 
 PR^TORIUM. 
 
 tioned at Rome, and the rest in the adjacent towns of Italy, 
 and consisted of Italian soldiers only. Tiberius assem- 
 bled them all at Rome, and placed them in a permanent 
 camp ; a measure which, while it answered the purpose of 
 keeping the citizens in awe, proved dangerous and some- 
 times destructive to his successors. The emperor Severus 
 disarmed the old guards, and established the praetorian co- 
 horts on a new footing, increased their number, and filling 
 theui entirely with troops draughted from the armies of the 
 northern frontier. The command of these troops was vest- 
 ed in an officer called the Pratorian praefect, who, as the 
 government gradually degenerated into a military despot- 
 ism, rose, from the station of simple captain of the guards, 
 not only to be the head of the army, but of the provinces, 
 and even of the law. In every department of administra- 
 tion he represented the person and exercised the authority 
 of the emperor. The pratorian bands were deprived of all 
 their privileges by Diocletian, who replaced them by other 
 troops, and were'tinallv abolished by Constantine. 
 
 PRjETO'RIUM. That part of a Roman camp in which 
 the general's tent stood, and where he took the auspices. 
 It was raised a few feet above the level of the rest of the 
 camp. Of the four gates of the Roman camp, that which 
 lav next the enemv was called the pratorian gate. 
 
 PRAGMATIC 'SANCTION, more correctly Pragmatic 
 Rescript. A term of which the use seems to have origina- 
 ted in the Byzantine empire, signifying a public and solemn 
 constitution or decree pronounced by a prince ; distinguish- 
 ed from the simple rescript, which was a declaration of 
 law in answer to a question propounded on behalf of an in- 
 dividual. In European history several important treaties 
 are called by the name Pragmatic Sanction ; among which 
 the principal are — 1. The oidinance of Charles VII. of 
 France, in 1438, which constituted the foundation of the 
 liberties of the Gallican church. 2. Charles VI., emperor 
 of Germany, being without male descendants, endeavour- 
 ed by an instrument termed the Pragmatic Sanction to se- 
 cure the succession to his female heirs ; which caused the 
 Bavarian war of succession, 1740. 3. The law of succes- 
 sion to the kingdom of Naples, when ceded by Charles II. 
 of Spain, in 1759, to his third son and his posterity. 
 
 PRAIRIE. (Fr.) A term in common use for the vast 
 plains or savannahs of the Mississippi and Missouri. See 
 Savannahs. 
 
 PRASE. Green quartz. The colouring matter of this 
 mineral appears to be actinolite. 
 
 PRA'XEANS. A sect of heretics that sprung up in A*ta 
 in the second century ; so called from their founder, Pra*eas, 
 an Asiatic ha;resiareh. The distinguishing characteristics 
 of this sect were their denial of plurality of persons in the 
 godhead, and their belief that it was the Father himself 
 who suffered on the cross. The Monarchic', Sabellians, 
 and Patripassians adopted these sentiments. 
 
 PREA'MBLE. The commencement o( a statute, which 
 recites the intention of parliament in framing it, and is oft- 
 en admissible in argument to prove its meaning. 
 
 PRE'BEND. (Lat. prsbenda.i The share of the estate 
 of a cathedral or collegiate church received by a preben- 
 dary. To all such churches there are several prebendaries 
 attached, who reside and officiate in rotation. 
 
 PRECE'DENCV. (Lat. precedo, / go first.) The rela- 
 tive rank of men and women in the etiquette of society ; 
 strictly it means the order in which they follow one an- 
 other in a state procession, which it is part of the office of 
 herald's duty to ascertain and preserve. The following 
 are the degrees of precedency commonly recognised in Eng- 
 land anion? men : 1. The Sovereign. 2. The Prince of 
 Wales. 3. The Queen's consort. 4. The Queen Dowa- 
 ger. 5. The princes of the blood according to seniority. 6. 
 The Sovereign's uncles. 7. Cousins of the Sovereign. 8. 
 Husbands of princesses. 9. The archbishop of Canterbury. 
 10. The lord high chancellor. 11. The archbishop of York. 
 12. Lord high treasurer. 13. Lord president of the privy 
 council. 14. Lord privy seal. 15. Lord high constable. 
 16. Earl marshal. 17. Lord high admiral. 18. Lord stew- 
 ard of the household. 19. Lord chamberlain of the house- 
 hold. (The last five, however, take precedence only of all 
 their degree : i. c, if dukes, they precede all dukes ; if 
 marquises, all marquises, &c.) 20. Dukes. 21. Marquises. 
 22. Dukes' eldest sons. 23. Earls. 24. Marquises' eldest 
 sons. 25. Dukes' younger sons. 26. Viscounts. 27. Earls' 
 eldest sons. 23. Marquises' younger sons. 29, 30, 31. The 
 bishops of London, Durham, and Winchester. 32. Other 
 bishops according to priority of consecration. 33. Barons. 
 34. Speaker of the House of Commons. 35. Viscounts' eld- 
 est sons. 36. Earls' younger sons. 37. Barons' eldest sons. 
 38. Knishts of the Garter. 39. Privy councillors. 40. Chan- 
 cellor of the Exchequer. 41. Chancellor of the duchy of 
 Lancaster. 42. Lord chief justice of K. B. 43. Vice-chan- 
 chellor. 44. Master of the Rolls. 45. Lord chief justice of 
 C. P. 46. Lord chief baron of the Exchequer. 47. Judges 
 and barons of the Exchequer of the degree of the coifj'by 
 
 PRECESSION OF THE EQUINOXES. 
 
 seniority. 48. Knights bannerets made by the king in per- 
 son. 49. Viscounts' younger sons. 50. Barons' younger 
 sons. 51. Baronets. 52. Bannerets not made by the king 
 in person. 53. Knights grand cros-es of the Bath. 54. 
 Knights commanders of the Bath. 55. Knights bachelors. 
 56. Companions of the Bath. 57. Eldest sons of the young- 
 er sons of peers. 58. Baronets' eldest sons. 59. Knights of 
 the Garter's eldest sons. 60. Bannerets' eldest sons. 61. 
 Knights of the Bath's eldest sons. 62. Knights' eldest sons. 
 63. Baronets' younger sons. 64. Esquires of the King's 
 body. 65. Gentlemen of the privy chamber. 66. Esquires 
 of the knights of the Bath. 67. Esquires by creation. 68. 
 Esquires by office. 69. Younger sons of knights of the Gar- 
 ter. 70. Younger sons of bannerets. 71. Younger sons of 
 knights of the Bath. 72. Younger sons of knights bache- 
 lors. 73. Gentlemen entitled to bear arms. 
 
 PRE'CEDENTS, in Law, are defined authorities to be 
 followed in courts of justice. Precedents, strictly speaking, 
 are only binding on tribunals when they are in the shape of 
 actual judicial dicisions of the point in question. What En- 
 glish lawyers term an extrajudicial opinion — i. e., the opin- 
 ion of a judge pronounced where it was not called for to 
 decide the issue — can only have authority from the character 
 of the individual judge, and not as a precedent. When the 
 principles of equity were as yet unsettled, it was held by 
 many that precedents were inapplicable in that branch of 
 law ; as its very name seemed to imply that each case 
 should be governed by the judge's opinion of its individual 
 merits. But Lord Keeper Bridgman, among others, serious- 
 ly refuted this supposition ; and precedents have long been 
 of as much authority in courts of equity as in those of com- 
 mon law. A form of an instrument or a pleading, from 
 which others corresponding in circumstances may be cop- 
 ied, is also termed a precedent. 
 
 l'RECETTORIES. In the Middle Ages, a kind of bene- 
 fices possessed by the more eminent Knights Templar, 
 whom the grand master created and styled Praceptores 
 Templi ; whence the name. Of these preceptories, 16 are 
 recorded as belonging to the Templars in England (see Mon. 
 ■ing.) ; but it is averred by some writers that these places 
 were merely cells, subordinate to their head-quarters, the 
 Temple in London. See Commandery. 
 
 PRECESSION OF THE EQLTNOXES. A term used 
 in astromony to denote a small annual variation in the po- 
 sition of the line in which the planes of the ecliptic and 
 equator intercept each other, in consequence of which the 
 sun returns to the same equinoctial point before completing 
 his apparent revolution with respect to the fixed stars. 
 
 The longtitude of a star is counted on the ecliptic east- 
 ward from the first point of Aries, or the vernal equinox. If 
 the line of the equinoxes, therefore, maintained always the 
 same position with respect to the celestial sphere, thelong- 
 titudes of the stars would be invariable. But on comparing 
 the actual state of the heavens with the observations re- 
 corded by ancient astronomers, it is found that the longti- 
 tudes of all the stars have considerably increased, and all 
 to the same degTee ; so that the celestial sphere appears to 
 : turn round the axis of the ecliptic with a slow motion from 
 west to east, or in the same direction as the sun in his an- 
 nual revolution. The phenomena, however, will be in all 
 respects the same, if, instead of supposing the whole firma- 
 ment to advance in the order of the signs, we suppose the 
 axis of the earth's equator to have a slow motion about the 
 axis of the ecliptic in the opposite direction. This will give 
 to the line of intersection of the two planes (which is the 
 line of the equinoxes) a retrograde motion from east to 
 "est, in consequence of which the sun, whose motion is 
 from west to east, arrives at the equinoctial point sooner 
 than if they remained at rest; and therefore the equinoxes, 
 and the seasons which depend on them, come round before 
 the sun has completed an entire circuit of the sphere. On 
 this account the motion has been called the precession of 
 the equinoxes. 
 
 Although the existence of the precessional motion of the 
 equinoctial points was known at an early period in the his- 
 tory of astronomy, the imperfection of instruments prior to 
 the sixteenth century did not permit of observations be- 
 ing made with sufficient accuracy to determine its precise 
 rate, which must therefore be deduced from comparisons of 
 the longtitude of the same star calculated from modern ob- 
 servations ; although, on account of the extreme slowness 
 of the motion, the determination must be liable to some un- 
 certainty, unless a considerable interval of time has elapsed 
 between the epochs of observation. According to Bradley's 
 observations, the longtitude of the star Spica Virginis, at 
 the beginning of the year 1760, was 2004944°. At the be- 
 ginning of 1802 Maskelvne found the longtitude of the same 
 star to be 201-0781°. The difference is 05837° in 42 years, 
 which gives 50'3" in a year. The comparison of a great 
 number of observations on different stars gives 50'1" for the 
 annual precession. According to this estimate, the equi- 
 noctial points retrograde on the ecliptic at the rate of one 
 
 975
 
 PRECESSION OF THE EG.UINOXE3. 
 
 donee in "Hi years, and therefore will require a period of 
 : omplete revolution. 
 The physical cause of the precession of the equinoxes is 
 lined action of the sun ami moon on tin 
 matter accumulated about the earth's equator, and forming 
 he terrestrial spheroid above its inscribed 
 sphere. The matter of this spheroidal shell, in reference to 
 the effect of the solar attraction on it. may l>e regarded as 
 i ring about the earth in the plane of the equator. 
 Now the solar force, acting on the part of the ring which is 
 above the ecliptic, may at every point be resolved into two 
 parts, one parallel to the plane of the equator, and the other 
 perpendicular to it; and the resultant of all the latter 
 forces must be a force tending to impress on the rim: a mo- 
 tion round the intersection or its plane with the ecliptic. 
 . thing holds true of the other half of the ring 
 which is under the ecliptic. If the earth, therefore, had no 
 motion of rotation, the plane of the equator would turn 
 round the line of its intersection with the ecliptic until it 
 coincided with the latter plane. But while the equator has 
 this tendency to revolve about an axis in its plane, it has also 
 a rotatory motion about an axis perpendicular to its plane; 
 it will therefore, according to a well-known theorem in me- 
 chanics, not revolve on either of these axes, but on one 
 which divides the angle between them, so that the sine of 
 its angular distance from each axis is in the inverse ratio 
 of the angular velocity round that axis. See Rotation. 
 In order to illustrate this, let E K F U be the earth's 
 equator, A the centre, A B the axis of 
 FT*} rotation, S the sun, and E F the diame- 
 x/"/7 ter of the equator perpendicular to A S ; 
 and suppose the earth to be in the posi- 
 tion it occupies at the summer solstice. 
 We may also suppose the centre of gravity A to be at rest, 
 as the effect in question is not altered by the orbital mo- 
 tion. It is plain that if the earth were a sphere, the sun's 
 attraction would have no tendency to give it an angular 
 motion about the centre A; for all the matter h< 
 metrically arranged about the line S A, the effect of the 
 attraction on any point on one side of that line would be ex- 
 actly compensated by the attraction on the corresponding 
 point on the opposite side. But the earth being an oblate 
 spheriod, we must consider the effect of the sun's attraction 
 on the mass of matter exterior to the sphere which touches 
 the spheroid at its poles. Now let K he an element of tin 
 protuberant matter, which we may suppose to he all accu- 
 mulated in the plane of the equator ; the sun's attraction on 
 K, acting in the line which joins S and K, may I 
 into two parts— one of them acting in the plane of the equa- 
 tor, and the other in a line perpendicular to that plane. 
 The part of the solar force acting on K perpendicularly to 
 the equator, tends to give that plane a rotatory motion about 
 the axis E F, by drawing K towards the plane of the eclip- 
 tic : but the earth at the same time revolves about the axis 
 A B. which is perpendicular to E F. In consequence of 
 tills compound motion the axis of rotation will change its 
 position from A 1! to A I), the pole B moving in a direction 
 opposite to that of the rotation ; and as the solar force con- 
 tinues to act at every instant, the poleB will have a contin- 
 uous slow motion about the pole of the ecliptic, and the 
 plane of the equator, which is perpendicular to A B, will at 
 every instant intersect the ecliptic in a new line, which will 
 slowly recede or go backward on the ecliptic in the direc- 
 tion opposite to that of the earth's rotation. 
 
 The motion now described may be assimilated to that of a 
 top put into rapid motion, with its axis inclined to the horizon. 
 In this posiii .in the axis of the lop slowly revolves about 
 the vertical draw n from the point on which it rests, describ- 
 ing the surface of a cone ; and ai y section of the top per- 
 pendicular to the axis, if produced to meet the horizon, will 
 at every instant intersect that plane in a new line; and the 
 line of Intersection "ill revolve with a motion correspond- 
 ing to that of the axis in the direction opposite to that of the 
 rotation. 
 
 The attraction of the moon on the spheroidal shell pro- 
 duces a similar effect to that of the sun. and in a still great- 
 er degree, in the ratio of about ."> to -■ It i< easj to see that 
 the etlect of both those bodies in displacing the equator of 
 the terrestrial spheroid must vary with their position in re- 
 ference to it ; for if they moved in the plane of the equator, 
 there would evidently be no di -placement, and tln-ir power 
 to produce it is greatest when the earth is in such I 
 don that the inclination of the equator to the ecliptic, or to 
 the plane of the lunar orbit, is a maximum. This ine- 
 quality of action gives rise to another highly important as- 
 tronomical phenomon; namely, an apparent vibratory mo- 
 tion of the equator, which Bradley 'who lir-l • 
 
 cause and period] significantly denominated the nutation of 
 
 Vie earth's an . - \i ivtios. 
 
 In consequence of the precession of the equinoxes the 
 sun's place among the zodiacal constellations, at an- 
 season of the year, is now greatly different from what it 
 976 
 
 PRE-EXISTENCE. 
 
 was in remote ages. Sometime before the nze of Ilippar- 
 chus the first points of Aries and Libra corresponded to the 
 vernal and autumnal equinoxes, and those of Cancer and 
 Capricorn to the summer and winter solstices. These (xcints 
 have now receded 30° from the constellations to w Inch they 
 then corresponded. The vernal equinox now happens when 
 the sun is in Pisces, the summer solstice when he is in 
 Gemini, the autumnal equinox when lie is in Virgo, and the 
 winter solstice when he is in Sagittarius. Astronomers, 
 however, still employ the term the first point of Aria to de- 
 note the position of the vernal equinox. On this account 
 the signs of the zodiac, or ecliptic, which nre fixed in respect 
 of the equinoctial points, must be carefully distinguished 
 from the constellations, which are moveable with resect to 
 those points. (See Airy' 8 .Mathematical Tracts ; Encye. 
 lint., art. " Precession ;" It'oodhousc's Physical Jlstronomy ; 
 La Place, Mecaniquc Celeste; Poisson, Sur le Mouvemeut 
 da la Terre autour de son Centre dc (iravite. in the Mem, 
 de VAead, dee S cien ces de Fan.--, torn, vii., 1^-29.) 
 
 PRECTPITATE. (Lat preceps, headlong.) A result 
 of chemical decomposition, in which a substance is thrown 
 (Imrt) in a solid, and generally in a finely divided state, from 
 a liquid. 
 
 PREDA'CEANS. (Lat. pneda, booty.) The English 
 name used by Kirby as synonymous with the Carnassicrs 
 of Cuvier. See Fkrinks. 
 
 PREDESTLVATH >N. (In Gr. zrpnoptauoc, Rom., viii., 
 29 j Eph. i., 5, 11.) The belief that God has from all eter- 
 nity decreed whatever comes to pass. In a theological 
 sense, it is thus defined in the 17th Article of our church — 
 "Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, 
 whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, he 
 hath constantly decreed by his counsel, secret to u>. to de- 
 liver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chos- 
 en in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to 
 everlasting salvation." The Lambeth Articles, agreed to 
 in 1595 by a portion of the clergy, assert that 'God from 
 eternity hath predestinated certain men unto life, certain he 
 hath reprobated." Theological writers have generally for- 
 borne to use the word predestination with respect to the re- 
 jected : "Nefas est dicere Deum aliquid nisi hnnum pra?des- 
 tinare." (August., De Dono Persevcranticc.) See Elec- 
 tion. Calvinism. 
 
 PREDETERMINATION. In Scholastic Philosophy, 
 that concurrence of God which determines men in the per- 
 formance of their actions, good or evil ; called physical pre- 
 dttermination, or premotion. 
 
 I'VE'DIAL. (Lat. pnedium, farm.) Of or belonging to 
 a farm Tims we often read of predial slaves and slavery, 
 in oppos'.tion to domestic ; predial disturbances in Ireland, 
 &c. 
 
 PRE'DICABLE. In Louie, a term which ran be affirma- 
 tively predicated of several others. The notions expressed 
 by such terms are formed by the faculty termed abstraction, 
 after the particular circumstances characterizing each indi- 
 vidual have beer, withdraws from it. The preclicables are 
 commonly said to be five; L'e-.ois. spec.. •'. pro- 
 
 perty 'which has been subdivided into four heads by no 
 very intelligible BJ and accident 
 
 (which is either separable or inseparable). Sec these terms 
 and Logic 
 
 PREDI'CAMENTS, or CATEGORIES, in Logic, are a 
 certain number of genera] heads, or, in logical phraseology, 
 summa genera, under one or other of which every term 'nay 
 be arranged. Aristotle enumerated ten predicaments; 
 others, by subdividing seine of these, have increased their 
 number. Those of Aristotle nre — substance, qoantity, qua- 
 lity, relation, place, time, situation, possession, action, suf- 
 fering. It is evident that all these may be arrange/! under 
 two grand heads — substance and at:ribute. Sec Category, 
 
 AtTI'.II'.I te. 
 
 PREDICATE. In Logic, Is, of the two terms of a pro- 
 portion, that which is affirmed or denied of the other. See 
 I ,0OII 
 
 PREDISPO'SING CAUSE, in Medicine, is any circum- 
 stance which renders the bod) susceptible of disease. 
 
 PRE EXISTENCE, in Philosophy, tl of any 
 
 thins before another; commonly used for the existence of 
 the human soul, in some former Condition, before it became 
 
 connected with its present body. It was the doctrine of the 
 Pythagorean school, and connected with their peculiar te- 
 lle Metempsychosis. It was also the doctrine of 
 
 and he' uses in support of it arguments which have 
 
 exercised a strong influence on many minds, and to this 
 day are constantly recurring to those " ho study the subject 
 on Independent principles; particularly the rapidity of 
 learning in early childhood, which he explains as an effort 
 of reminisce » e, doi acquisition. Others have enlisted into 
 ttions which are sometimes 
 
 raiseel by scenes, persons, sounds w ords, though seen or 
 
 heard, as our reason would persuade us, for the Bret oBte, 
 as if we were conscious of some prior familiarity with
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 them. This poetical, rather than philosophical view of the 
 subject, is beautifully illustrated in a well known ode of 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 PRE'FACE. (Lat. prte, and fari, to speak.) The obser- 
 vations prefixed to a work or treatise, intended to inform 
 the reader of its plan and peculiarities. There are few 
 subjects which afford so wide a field for the display of skill 
 and address as preface writing ; and those who wish to 
 witness an unrivalled exhibition of these qualities may con- 
 sult some of Dr. Johnson's prefaces, either to his own writ- 
 ings, or to the numerous works which he edited. 
 
 PRE'FECT. An important political functionary in mo- 
 dern France. Under the old regime, the officers who were 
 sent round to the provinces to superintend the details of ad- 
 ministration on behalf of the king were at first styled mai- 
 tres des requites. These were made permanent local offi- 
 cers in the reign of Henry II., and afterwards attained many 
 additional powers, with the title of intendants. These were 
 abolished at the Revolution, when various attempts were 
 made to establish elective local governments. By a law of 
 the year 1800 prefects were first appointed for the depart- 
 ments, with powers similar in many respects to those of the 
 old intendants, with a council of the prefecture, and a gen- 
 eral council of the department; which, however, fell into 
 disuse. With slight variations, the prefects retain the same 
 jurisdiction. They are, in some respects, analogous to our 
 sheriffs ; but with far greater powers. They possess not 
 the nominal only, but the actual direction of the police es- 
 tablishment, within their respective departments, together 
 with extensive powers of municipal regulation ; the arron- 
 disseinents or districts Into which the departments are sub- 
 divided are under sous-prefets appointed by them. Their 
 power, however, is considerably controlled by that of the 
 council of the prefecture, which acts in some measure as a 
 court of appeal from the prefect, taking cognizance of vari- 
 ous cases within the sphere of his administrative interfer- 
 ence, if legal disputes arise upon it. 
 
 PRE'HNITE. A mineral of a greenish colour, allied to 
 the zeolites ; originally discovered at the Cape of Good 
 Hope By Colonel Prehn. 
 
 PRE' LACY. See Episcopacy. 
 
 PRE'LATE. (Lat. prelatus.) A term commonly ap- 
 plied to bishops, archbishops, and patriarchs, in Christian 
 churches. Anciently, mitred abbots seem also to have 
 been called prelates. 
 
 PRE'LUDE. (Lat. pra, before, and ludo, J play.) In 
 Music, the preface or introduction to a movement, and usu- 
 ally consisting of a few bars of harmony in the same key as 
 the movement which it precedes ; being, in fact, a prepara- 
 tion to the ear for what is to follow. 
 
 PRE'MIER. (Fr.) The name generally given to the 
 prime minister of England. 
 
 PRE'MISES. In Logic, the two first propositions of a 
 syllogism are so called. See Syllogism. 
 
 PREMO'NSTRANTS. A religious order of regular can- 
 ons instituted in 1120 by St. Norbert (whence they are also 
 called Norbertines), at Premonstratum, in Picardy, which 
 is said to have derived its name from having been pointed 
 out by the Virgin. The canons of this order followed the 
 rule of St. Austin, and were sometimes called White Can- 
 ons, from the colour of their habits. They were brought 
 into England about 1140, where they are said to have estab- 
 lished thirty-five houses of their order. 
 
 PRENSICULA'NTIA. (Lat. prehendo, / seize.) A 
 name applied by Illiger to an order of Mammalia, corres- 
 ponding with the Glires of Linnaeus and the Rodentia of 
 Cuvier, and indicative of the prehensile faculty with which 
 the fore paw is endowed in most of the species of this order. 
 PREPARATION. In Music, the previous adjustment of 
 two notes by whose introduction a note which is to become 
 a discord is heard in the preceding harmony. See. Mcsic. 
 
 PREPOSI'TION. (Lat. pra-pono, / place before.) In 
 Grammar, that part of speech which denotes the relations 
 between objects ; as in, to, upon. See Grammar. 
 
 PRERO'GATIVE. (Lat. prcerogativa, applied in ancient 
 Rome to that tribe, or century, which had the privilege of 
 giving its votes (rogare suffra'gia) first at the comitia.) A 
 word in English law, signifying the king's special rights, 
 both as chief of the kingdom in point of honour, and as su- 
 preme magistrate intrusted with the execution of the laws. 
 Prerogatives are said to be of two kinds, direct and inciden- 
 tal; the first, such as belong to the king essentially by vir- 
 tue of his high political character ; such as the inviolability 
 of his person, the appointment to offices and places of trust, 
 the command of the army, the power of making war and 
 peace, the supremacy of the national church, his legislative 
 authority, &c. ; and the latter, such exceptions as are made 
 in his favour from the ordinary rules of law in private mat- 
 ters. Such are, with respect to debts, the power to levy 
 first execution before other creditors, and of levying by the 
 prerogative writ of extent; the power of taking' goods and 
 chatties in succession, which no other corporation can do ; 
 
 PRESBYTERY. 
 
 exemption from all customs general and special as to de- 
 scent of lands, in a case where any such custom would have 
 the effect of preventing lands held jure corona; from passing 
 to the successor; the abstract dominion of all lands and 
 hereditaments by the fiction of universal occupancy ; the 
 right to derelict lands by the sudden retiring of the sea ; the 
 dominion of seas, navigable rivers, &c. 
 
 PRERO'GATIVE COURT. The court in which wills 
 are proved, and administrations taken, which belong to the 
 archbishop, by his prerogative. Sec Law, Ecclesiastical, 
 
 PRESBYO'PIA. (Gr. i:pcc6vs, old, and wxp, the eye.) 
 An imperfection of vision commonly attendant upon the 
 more advanced periods of life, in which near objects are seen 
 less distinctly than those at a distance. It is usually caused 
 by flattening of the cornea ; hence convex spectacles are 
 required. It often happens that one eye is more affected 
 than the other, in which case glasses of different foci should 
 be used. 
 
 PRE'SB YTER. (Gr. -nptaGvTtpo;, elder ; by which word 
 it is translated in our New Testament.) One of an order 
 of ministers in the Christian church, frequently alluded to 
 in the Scriptures as having, in its several members, the 
 spiritual care of distinct congregations, and exercising as a 
 class a general superintendence over the concerns of the 
 church. It is allowed that, up to the time of Calvin, there 
 never existed a church in which there was not an order of 
 presbytery, or priests, subordinate to that of bishops ; and, 
 although the words themselves are sometimes confounded 
 in the New Testament, the assertors of episcopacy point 
 out the distinction between the offices as accurately pre- 
 served throughout. See Episcopacy and Presbytery. 
 
 PRESBYTE'RIANS. The name given to that sect of 
 Christians who have embraced the Presbyterian form of 
 government. See Presbytery. 
 
 PRE'SB YTERY (Gr. Tpea6vTiptoi>, a council or assembly 
 of elders), is that form of ecclesiastical polity according to 
 which there is no gradation of order in the church, but 
 which vests church government in a society of clerical and 
 lay presbyters, or, in common phraseology, ministers and 
 lay elders, all possessed officially of equal rank and power. 
 The Presbyterians maintain that the words presbyter {-Kpta- 
 Bvrtpoi) and bishop {tTTWKO-Kai) are synonymous and inter- 
 changeable terms ; that we nowhere read in the New Testa- 
 ment of bishops and presbyters or of pastors of different rank, 
 in the same church ; that all ministers of the gospel, being 
 ambassadors of Christ, are inherently equal ; and that dea- 
 cons are laymen, whose sole duty it is to take charge of the 
 poor. Among other proofs they quote the following: "The 
 elders (TrpcoSviepoi) who are among you I exhort, who am 
 also an elder (avfnrpecBvTtpos). Feed the flock which is 
 among you, taking the oversight thereof (cmoKoizovvTcc, act- 
 ing as bishops over them), not by restraint, but willingly; 
 not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being 
 lords over God's heritage." (1 Peter, v., 1, 2, 3.) It is 
 contended that, in this passage, the identity of presbyter and 
 bishop is apparent ; and that the apostle himself, as an of- 
 ficer of the church, was simply a presbyter or elder. (See 
 also Hebrews, xiii., 7, 17; 1 Thess., v., 12, 6.) On these 
 grounds the Presbyterians assume that "the very chiefest 
 apostles" were presbyters, or labouring ministers ; and that 
 every faithful pastor of a flock ordained by the imposition 
 of hands, as sanctioned and taught in Scripture, is a suc- 
 cessor of the apostles in every respect in which divinely in- 
 spired men can be regarded as having any successors. It is 
 farther argued, in support of the polity under review, that 
 Timothy himself, though said to be a bishop, was ordained 
 " with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery.'" (I 
 Tim., iv., 14.) 
 
 It is, however, admitted by the Presbyterians that episco- 
 pacy was introduced at an early period into the Christian 
 church, and has hitherto been the prevailing polity; but 
 they insist that as St. Paul presided at the ordination of 
 Timothy, not as supreme over his brethren, but as moderator 
 or chairman for the occasion, primus in paribus, so the mod- 
 erator of a presbytery, instead of being changed or re-elected, 
 had in course of time been declared permanent; and hence 
 the origin of the episcopal order. (Jllos/ieim, i., 90; Hill's 
 Theol. Institutes.) 
 
 But while the Presbyterians trace the origin of their 
 church to the practice of the apostles, and affirm that there 
 are no intimations of episcopacy in Scripture, or in the 
 writings of the apostolical fathers, they admit that presby- 
 tery, as it now obtains, did not exist between the 2d century 
 and the reformation of religion. "The first reformers, who 
 believed that the distinction between bishops and presbyters 
 had no foundation in Scripture, and who wished to apply an 
 effectual remedy to the abuses which appeared to them to 
 have arisen in the progress of human inventions, of invest- 
 ing bishops with powers superior to presbyters, did not con- 
 sider the antiquity or universality of that practice as any 
 reason for its being continued. Recurring to what they con- 
 sidered the primitive Scripture model, they laid the founda- 
 
 977
 
 PRESBYTERY. 
 
 tion of presbyterian church government on this principle, 
 thai all members :ir»- equal in rank and power; and tbey 
 diil not admit an> official preference, but that which is con 
 stitued by voluntary agreement for the sake of order." (Hill's 
 
 Theol. fust., p. 167.) 
 
 The first presbyterian church, in modem times, was found- 
 ed in Geneva, by John Calvin, about 1541 ; and tin- si>:i in 
 was thence introduced into Scotland, with some modifica- 
 tions, by John Knox, about 1560, but was not legally estab- 
 lished there till 1592. For about a century from this date 
 there was a continual struggle in Scotland between presby- 
 tery and episcopacy for superiority. The latter which was 
 
 patronized by the court) predominated in 1606; bul was 
 superseded by the former (to which the great hody of the 
 people were attached) in 1538. Presbytery kept Its ground 
 
 from this period till the revolution in 1660, when episcopacy 
 asain obtained the ascendancy, which it maintained till 
 1688; soon after which it was abolished, and the national 
 church of Scotland declared presbyterian — a form which it 
 has since retained. The most numerous bodies of dissenters 
 from the Scottish established church, such as the Associate 
 and Relief Synods, are also Presbyterians; their cause of 
 secession being that the church had' relaxed the strictness of 
 presbyterian principles. 
 
 Presbytery has never flourished ureatly in England. Here 
 the first presbyterian church was formed at Wandsworth, 
 Surrey, in 1573, .".hunt 'JO years before presbytery was estab- 
 lished by law in Scotland ; but though the system was never 
 palatable to the English nation generally, an attempt was 
 made to make the established church presbyterian in the 
 reign of Charles I. This object was signally promoted by 
 the famous Assembly of Divines at Westminster. In 1649, 
 presbytery was sun tinned by the English parliament, and 
 lb.- established church was nominally presbyterian from 
 this date till the restoration in ltjtJO; yet it was never gen- 
 erally adopted, or regularly organized, except in London 
 and in Lancashire. {.Murray's Lift of Samuel Rutherford, 
 Edin., I(s-.i8. chap, viii.) Upwards of 8000 presbyterian 
 clergy were ejected from their cures in England, in conse- 
 quence of the Act of Uniformity in 106-2. Then 
 many congregations about 150) in England, particularly in 
 the northern counties, called presbyterian ; some of them in 
 full connexion with the Scottish church, others differing 
 materially from that polity, while not a few of them have 
 adopted nearly the same church government with the Inde- 
 pendents. In Ireland, chiefly in the province of Ulster, there 
 are about 450 presbyterian congregations. There are up- 
 wards of 100 such congregations in our North American 
 possessions; and presbytery has also been introduced to a 
 greater or less extent in the other British colonies. 
 
 In the United States of America presbytery embraces up- 
 wards of OSOO congregations, with 2000 ministers. (American 
 Almanac for 1840.) The same system, though some what 
 modified from that which obtains in Scotland, is the estab- 
 lished church in Holland. (Steven's Brief i'iew of the 
 Dutch Eccles. Establishment, ed. 1839.) It still exists, 
 though to a very limited extent, in Geneva: it prevails also 
 less or more in several of the other Swiss cantons. 
 
 The constitution of the church of Scotland, which has 
 long been the most perfect and efficient model of presbytery, 
 is as follows: The kirk session is the lowest court, and is 
 composed of the parochial minister and of lay elders, the 
 number of whom varies in different parishes, but is general- 
 ly about 12. The minister is moderator ex officio. This kirk 
 session exercises the religions discipline of the parish ; but 
 an appeal may be made from its decisions to the presbytery, 
 the court next in dignity. The presbytery, from which there 
 is a power of appeal to the synod, i^ composed of the min- 
 isters of a number of contiguous parishes (varying in nuin- 
 l>er in different cases , w ith a lay elder from each. A mod- 
 erator, who must I"- a clergyman, is chosen every half year. 
 
 A presbytery generally meets once a month, but it "must 
 meet at least twice a year; and it may hold pro re nata 
 meetings. This court takes young men on trial as candi- 
 dates for licence; ordains presentees to vacant livings; has 
 Die power of sitting in judgment on the conduct of any of 
 its members, and them; ami has die general 
 
 superintendence of religion and education w [thin it-- bounds. 
 The number of preeb; present 82. The synod, 
 
 which meets mice yearly, is formed of the members, both 
 lay and clerical, of two or more presbyteries. \t ever] 
 meeting a moderator is chosen, who must be a clergyman; 
 and a sermon is preached before tin- court proceeds to husi- 
 oeaa, The Bomber of synods i- sixteen. The general as- 
 sembly is the highest ecclesiastical court, its decisions being 
 supreme. It meets annually in the month of .May, and sits 
 for ten successive days. Unlike the inferior courts, it con- 
 sists of representatives chosen by the various presbyteries, 
 royal burghs, and universities of Scotland. The number of 
 representatives from rm pends on the number of 
 
 members of which each Is composed. No presbytery sends 
 
 leSB than two ministers and one lay elder; and OOI I more 
 978 
 
 PRESIDENT. 
 
 than siv ministers and three elders. The total number of 
 members of the general assembly is 386, of whom 218 are 
 iniiiist, is. This supreme court has of late consisted of more 
 
 than this Dumber, as the church has admitted the ministers 
 of quoad sacra parishes as constituent members of ecclesias- 
 tical courts: but the civil law has not given us sanction to 
 this measure: indeed the question is at present sub judice. 
 Tin' assembl] chooses a new moderator yearly, w ho, in re- 
 cent times, is always a clergyman. A sermon is r 
 before the opening of the court. The assembly is honoured 
 with the presence of a nobleman as representatu. of the 
 sovereign, under the title of lord high commissioner; but ibis 
 high functionary takes no part in the proceedings of the 
 court, except in opening and closing or di->oh ing its sittings, 
 and has no voice in its deliberations. The assembly before 
 its close appoints a commission, which is equivalent to a 
 committee of the whole house, being composed of all the 
 members of assembly, and one minister additional, named 
 by the moderator. The commission meets quarterly ; but 
 may hold pro re nata meetings, 
 
 The income of the clergy, w hich may average about X250 
 yearly, including manse and glebe, is regulated bj the state ; 
 and they are nominated to livings by patronage. They have 
 no liturgy, no altar, no instrumental mii<ic. The Scottish 
 Presbyterians do not kneel, but stand in time of prayer ; and 
 in singing the praises of Cod they sit. The sacrament of 
 the Supper is not administered In private houses to any per- 
 son under any circumstances whatever. (The Directory 
 for the Public Worship of (•'ad, by the IVcstin nstt r . ls.-i m- 
 bly of Divines.) Pluralities have been prohibited; and the 
 residence of clergymen within their respective parishes has 
 always been imperative. Their creed is ri^'id Calvinism, 
 and may be found embodied in the Westmin, 
 of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms. But 
 though the faith of the Scottish Presbyterians, whether 
 churchmen or dissenters, is Calvinistic, not a few of the 
 Presbyterians in other countries have adopted an Arniiiiim, 
 and not unfrequent'.y a Unitarian creed. (Adam's Relig. 
 tVorld Displayed, ii.. 289-305; Lord King's Inquiry into 
 the Constitution of the Primitive Church; Forbts's Prcsby- 
 tirinn Letters.) 
 
 Presbytery. In the Scottish Kirk, a district composed 
 of a number of adjacent parishes. See the preceding ar- 
 ticle. 
 
 Presbytery. In Architecture, a portion of the choir or 
 clvmcel of a church arranged with seats for the dignitaries 
 of the establishment. 
 
 PRESCRTPTION. A title acquired by use and time to 
 incorporeal hereditaments, such as a right of way or of com- 
 mon, and the like. All prescription is either pel 
 when it is in a man and his ancestors, or it is in riL'ht of a 
 particular estate; which last being in a man. and those 
 whose estate he hath, is called prescription in a one elate. 
 It presupposes a L'rant, and can therefore give a title to 
 those things only which can pass by grant. After uninter- 
 rupted enjoyment for thirty, and in many cases for twenty 
 years, a prima facie title arisi-s by prescription to the thing 
 enjoyed ; and unless such enjoyment have continued under 
 some consent or agreement, the title becomes, in sixty \ ears, 
 absolute and indefeasible. The time of prescription in most 
 of the ordinarv instances to which it applies is now regu- 
 late! by 2 & 3 W. 4. c. 71. 
 
 PRESENTATION. In Law, the appointment of a 
 clergyman to a benefice by the patron, which lakes place 
 by presenting him to the bishop for institution. 
 
 PRESENTATION, FEAST OF. In Ecclesiastical 
 Usage, the same with the Purification of the Blessed Vir- 
 gin. Sir I'lKlHi A HON. 
 
 PRESE'NTMENT, in Criminal Law. is defined to lie an 
 information made by the jury in a court before a judge who 
 has authority to punish an offence. Pi .km:.', it is 
 
 the notice taken by a grand jury of their own knowledge, 
 without any bill or indictment found before them, at the 
 suit of the king, of any offence, nuisance, libel, &.c. of w hich 
 they are competent to take notice. An Indictment, i orrect- 
 lv speaking, is that which is drawn up ami engrossed to be 
 found by the grand jury, founded on their presentment or 
 n. lie of instruction. Presentment is also comprehensively 
 taken to include inquisitions of office and Indictments, as 
 \\<ll as presentments > t r i ,- 1 1 v so called. 
 
 PRE'SIDENT. I. at. pr.'i-idro, / sit foremost.) A title 
 
 applied to many officers in various capacities, bul generally 
 
 denoting a pic eminencj . oiler u mporary or fixed, among 
 
 a number of Individuals assembled for a definite purpose. 
 
 Thug tin- superior of a board or council, &c is generally 
 
 entitled president, as is the individual called to on 
 
 an occasional meeting, or to till the chair at a club, dinner, 
 
 fee; although tie- old English title of chairman is frequent- 
 ly used on such occasions. 
 
 Tin- supremo executive officer of the United States of 
 
 America is styled president. The qualifications required 
 
 of a person raised to this dignity are, to be a natural-born
 
 PRESIDENT, LORD, OF THE CUONCIL. 
 
 citizen of the age of thirty-five years, and to have resided 
 fourteen years within the States'. The election is by elec- 
 toral colleges in every state. These colleges contain, in 
 each state, a number of electors equal to all the senators 
 and representatives of that state in congress; but their ap- 
 pointment varies in different states, and at different times; 
 sometimes it is made by their respective legislatures, some- 
 times by general election throughout the state, sometimes 
 part of the electors are chosen by district and part by gen- 
 eral election. The colleges in each state vote by ballot for 
 a president (and at the same time for a vice-president) ; 
 and the votes of all the electors, taken in this manner, are 
 counted by the president of the senate : when, if any person 
 have an absolute majority of votes, he is duly elected ; if not, 
 the election is made by the house of representatives be- 
 tween the three persons having the highest number; in 
 which case the votes are taken by states, and a majority of 
 all the states is necessary to constitute a choice. On two oc- 
 casions, of which the last was in 1824, no candidate having 
 had a majority of the whole number of voters, the house 
 of representatives has proceeded to make the election ; and, 
 on the last of these occasions, a majority of states chose a 
 candidate (Adams) who had a smaller number of electoral 
 votes than one of his opponents (Jackson). On one occa- 
 sion, in 1800, the states balloted thirty-six times before any 
 candidate could obtain an absolute majority. Should the 
 president die during his term of office, he is succeeded by 
 the vice-president, an event which has recently occurred. 
 
 In his legislative capacity, the president has the power 
 of approving bills sent to him after passing both houses of 
 congress, or of returning them to the house in which they 
 have originated with his objections annexed. In the latter 
 case, the bill must be considered by that house ; ami if, on 
 reconsideration, it obtain a majority of two thirds in both 
 houses, it passes into a law. In his executive capacity, he 
 is commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the Union, 
 and of the state militias when called into the service of the 
 Union ; he has the power of reprieving and pardoning, ex- 
 cept in cases of impeachment ; he has power to make trea- 
 ties, with the consent of the senate (by a majority of two 
 thirds) ; he nominates ambassadors, consuls, judges of the 
 supreme court, and all other officers of the United States 
 whose appointments are not vested elsewhere by the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 PRESIDENT, LORD, OF THE COUNCIL. The fourth 
 great officer of state in England; appointed by letters patent 
 under the great seal, durante bene placito. 
 
 PRESS. (Fr. presse.) The machine by which books, 
 &c, are printed. Very little improvement in the construc- 
 tion of this instrument took place from the first introduction 
 of the art into Europe till the late Earl Stanhope applied 
 the powers of his mind to the subject, and introduced a new 
 press of a decidedly superior construction. The old press 
 was made of wood, with an iron screw that had a bar fitted 
 in it; to the lower end of this screw was attached, hori- 
 zontally, a flat piece of wood, called the platen, which was 
 brought down by means of the screw, and pressed the paper 
 upon the face of the types ; and thus the impression was 
 obtained. This press has, however, entirely given place to 
 presses made of iron. Lord Stanhope's press is construct- 
 ed of iron, with a screw ; but the bar is fixed to an upright 
 spindle, to which a lever is attached connected with a se- 
 cond lever fixed to the top of the screw by a connecting bar. 
 These two levers are placed at different angles to each 
 other ; and when the platen is brought down to the face of 
 the types, and power is wanted, the two levers take such a 
 position with each other so as to act with the greatest ad- 
 vantage, and thus an almost incredible accession of power 
 is gained, which enables the pressman to print larger sheets 
 of paper in a superior manner, with less labour, ami with 
 greater ease to himself. This press maintains its superiority 
 over all others. 
 
 This great improvement in the printing press that Lord 
 Stanhope had accomplished, excited other ingenious men 
 to exert their abilities in attempts at further improvements ; 
 anions whom was a Mr. George Clymer, an American, who 
 brought forward an iron press, called the Columbian press, 
 in which he discarded the screw, and obtained his power 
 entirely by levers. This press has great power, and conse- 
 quently are-n strength, and is made of a size to print larger 
 sheets of paper than any other ; but for the common run of 
 printing it does not work so easy as the Stanhope press. 
 These two are looked upon as the best presses. 
 
 There are a variety of others which are great improve- 
 ments upon the old construction, and which are held in 
 estimation by printers, but the limits of this work will not 
 admit of the details of their respective merits. 
 
 The book press, in the warehouse department, used for 
 pressing books previous to their delivery, is the common 
 screw press, with a perpendicular screw, and screwed down 
 by means of an iron bar: it is also used for pressing paper, 
 when wetted, previous to being printed on, for the "purpose 
 
 PRICE. 
 
 of making it in better condition for the process ; and also in 
 cylindrical or machine printing to cause it to lie flat, other- 
 wise it is apt to wrinkle, particularly large sheets, in being 
 earned round the cylinders, upon a flat surface. In large 
 establishments Brahmah's hydraulic press is generally used 
 for these purposes, as being much more powerful, and also 
 more expeditious, not only in its use, but also in its effect. 
 
 Prbss. A machine for the purpose of compressing or 
 squeezing bodies. Any of the mechanical powers may be 
 used for this purpose. When constructed on a large scale, 
 the hydrostatic pressure of water is the power generally em- 
 ployed. See Hydrostatics. 
 
 Press is metaphorically applied either to the whole liter- 
 ature of a country, or to that part of it more immediately con- 
 nected with newspapers or other periodical publications. 
 
 PRESSIRO'STERS, Pressirostres. (Lat. pressus, flat- 
 tened; rostrum, a beak.) A tribe of wading birds, including 
 those which have a flattened or compressed beak. 
 
 PRE'SSURE. Dr. Young defines pressure to be "a force 
 counteracted by another force, so that no motion is pro- 
 duced. (Lectures on Nat. Phil.) Thus, when a heavy 
 body is supported on a table, or the ground, the force of ter- 
 restrial gravity, which, if the support were removed, would 
 cause the body to descend towards the centre of the earth, 
 being destroyed at every instant by the resistance of the 
 support, produces a pressure. A pressure and a moving 
 force differ from one another only in this respect, that the 
 infinitely small velocities which the pressure tends to pro- 
 duce are incessantly destroyed by the resistance of the ob- 
 stacle ; whereas those that are actually produced at every 
 instant by the moving forces are accumulated in the moving 
 body, and produce a finite velocity after a finite time. The 
 pressures of two different bodies are, therefore, to each 
 other as the masses multiplied by the infinitely small ve- 
 locities which they tend to produce in the same instant of 
 time, and which they would produce if the bodies were free 
 to move. 
 
 The pressure of a solid body is exerted in the direction of 
 the resultant of all the forces by which the body is acted 
 upon. In the interior of liquid and aeriform bodies, the 
 pressure is equal in all directions. (See Hydrostatics, 
 Pneumatics.) Centre of Pressure, in Hydrostatics, is that 
 point of a plane or side of a vessel containing a liquid to 
 which, if a force were applied equal to the total pressure, 
 and with the opposite direction, it would exactly balance the 
 effort of the total pressure. 
 
 PRESSVVORK, in Printing, is the operation of taking im- 
 pressions from types. &c. by means of the press; distinct 
 from composing, which is arranging the types to prepare 
 them for press. 
 
 PRESTO. (It.) In Music. See Allegro. 
 
 PRESU'MPTION OF LAW, is the assuming the truth 
 of a certain state of facts by the ordinary custom of the law. 
 It is either "juris et de jure," which is a presumption which 
 no evidence to the contrary can be admitted to traverse, as 
 the presumption of incapacity in a minor with guardians to 
 act without their consent; or it is "juris" only, which may 
 be traversed by evidence, as where the property of goods 
 is presumed to be in the possessor until the contrary is 
 shown. 
 
 PRESUMPTIVE HEIR. See Heir. 
 
 PRETE'NDER. The name by which the Chevalier 
 Charles Stuart is usually known, from his having pretend- 
 ed a right to the British crown, from which he had been ex- 
 cluded. 
 
 PRE'VOTALES, COURS. (Fr. courts of prevots, or 
 provosts.) Certain tribunals of summary jurisdiction, which 
 existed in France before the Revolution, were called by this 
 name. They were the courts of the prevots of France and 
 of Paris, of the prevots des marechaux (see Provost, Pro- 
 vost-Marshal, &c), and exercised a summary jurisdic- 
 tion over vagrants, highway robbers, disturbers of the peace, 
 &c. These ancient institutions furnished Napoleon with 
 the model of certain extraordinary courts, with mixed civil 
 and military judges, which were formed in 1808 for the pur- 
 pose of preserving public order in a summary manner. All 
 these unconstitutional tribunals were abolished by the first 
 charter of 1814 ; but with provision for the restoration of 
 the Courts Prevotales, should it be thought necessary. They 
 were accordingly established in 1815, to last for two years ; 
 but expired in 1818. 
 
 PRIA'PUS. (Gr. Ttpiaros.) A divinity introduced into 
 Grecian mythology after the time of Alexander. He was 
 the god of fruitfulness, and by the Romans was looked 
 on particularly as the guardian of gardens, in which in- 
 decent and rudely sculptured wooden statues of him were 
 usnallv set up. 
 
 PRICE (Fr. prix), in commerce, means the value or ex- 
 changeable worth of any commodity or product estimated 
 or rated in monev, or simply the quantity of money for 
 which it will exchange. The price of a commodity rises 
 when it fetches more, and falls when it fetches less money. 
 
 979
 
 PRICE. 
 
 rrice of frcrly produced Commodities.— The exchangea- 
 ble value of commodities— thai is. theii pow er of exchanging 
 fur or baying other commodities— depends, at any given pe- 
 riod, partly on the comparative facility of their pi 
 and panly on the relation of the supply and demand. If 
 any two or more commodities respectively requited the 
 same outlay of capital and labour to bring them to market. 
 and it" the supply "t' each were adjusted exactly according 
 to the effectual demand — that is, were they all in sufficient 
 abundance, and DO mure, to supply the wants of those able 
 and willing to pay the outlay upon them, and the ordinary 
 rate of profit at the time, they would each fetch the same 
 price, or exchange lor the same quantity of money or any- 
 thing else. But if any single commodity should happen to 
 require less or more capital and labour for its production, 
 while the quantity required to produce the others continued 
 stationary, its value, a.s compared with these, would, in the 
 tirst case, fall, and in the second rise; and supposing the 
 cost of its production not to vary, its value might he increas- 
 ed by a falling off in the supply, or by an increase of de- 
 mand, and conversely. 
 
 But it is of importance to hear in mind, that all variations 
 of price arising from any disproportion in the supply and 
 demand of such commodities as may be freely produced in 
 indefinite quantities, are temporary only ; while those that 
 are occasioned by changes in the cost of their production are 
 
 permanent, at least as much so as the Cause in which they 
 originate. A genera] mourning occasions a transient rise in 
 the price of black cloth ; but supposing that the fashion of 
 wearing black were to continue, its price would not perma- 
 nently vary: lor previously those who manufactured blue 
 and brown cloths, &c, would henceforth manufacture only 
 black cloth : and the supply being in this way increased to 
 the same extent as the demand, the price would settle at its 
 old level. Hence the importance of distinguishing between 
 a variation of price originating in a change of fashion, or 
 other accidental circumstances— such, for example, as a de- 
 ficient harvest — and a variation occasioned by some change 
 in the cost of production. In the former case, prices will 
 at no distant period revert to their old level ; in the latter, 
 the variation w ill be lasting. 
 
 When the price of a freely produced commodity rises or 
 falls, such variation may evidently lie occasioned either by 
 something affecting its value, or by something affecting 
 the value of money: but when the generality of commodi- 
 ties rise or fall, the fair presumption is, that the change is 
 not in them, hut in the money with which they are com- 
 pared. This conclusion does not, however, apply in all 
 cases; and we believe that most part of that fall in the 
 price of commodities which has taken place since the 
 peace, and which has been so generally ascribed to a rise 
 in the value of money occasioned by a decline in the pro- 
 ductiveness of the mines, has been caused by the increased 
 productiveness of industry, arising from the abolition of op- 
 pressive restraints on commerce, the opening of new and 
 more abundant sources of supply, and the discovery of new 
 means and improved methods of production. 
 
 Price of monopolized Commodities. — Exclusive, however. 
 of the commodities now alluded to, there is a considerable 
 class whose producers or holders enjoy either an absolute 
 or a partial monopoly of the supply. When such is the 
 case, prices depend entirely or principally on the proportion 
 between the supply and demand, and are not liable to be in- 
 fluenced, or only in a secondary decree, by changes in the cost 
 of production. Antique statues and gems, the pictures of the 
 great masters, wines of a peculiar flavor produced in small 
 quantities in particular situations, and a few other articles, 
 exist under what may be called absolute monopolies; 
 their supply cannot be increased; and their price must 
 therefore depend entirely on the competition of those who 
 may wi-h to buy them, without being in the slightest de- 
 gree Influenced by the cost of their production. 
 
 Monopolies are sometimes established by law ; as when 
 the power to supply the market with a particular article is 
 made over to one individual or society of individuals, with- 
 out any limitation of the price at which it may be sold; 
 which, of course, enables those possess) d of the monopoly 
 to exact the highest price for it that the competition of the 
 buyers win afford, though such price ma] exceed the cost 
 of production in any conceivable degree, Monopolies of 
 this sort used to be common in England particularly in the 
 reien of Elizabeth; but they were finally abolished i>y the 
 
 famous act Of the 21 .lac. 1, c. 3, an act which, by estab- 
 lishing the freedom of competition In all busim 
 ried on at home, has been productive of the greatest advan- 
 tages. 
 
 The rights conveyed by patents sometimes establish a 
 valuable monopoly; tor they enable the inventors of mi 
 proved methods Of production to maintain, during the con- 
 tinuance ol' the patent, the price of the article at a level 
 
 which may be much higher than Is required to afford them 
 the ordinary rate of protit. This advantage, however, by 
 980 
 
 PRIMATE. 
 
 Stimulating invention, and exciting to new discoveries, of 
 which it is the natural and appropriate reward, instead of 
 being injurious, is beneficial to the public. 
 
 There Bre also partial monopolies, depending upon situa- 
 tion, connexion, fashion, &c; these and other inapprecia- 
 ble circumstances sometimes occasion a difference of .'to per 
 cent., or more, in the price of the same article in shops not 
 very distant from each other. 
 
 Generally speaking, the supply of monopolized commodi- 
 ties is less liable to vary than those that are freelj pro 
 duced ; and their prices are commonly steady. Hut there 
 are various exceptions to this rule ; and of these the partial 
 monopoly of the supply of corn, which the exist 
 laws secure to the British agriculturists, may he taken as 
 an example. The variations in the harvests of particular 
 countries, and their average equality throughout the world, 
 expose a nation which shuts foreign com out of its ports to 
 vicissitudes of price, from which it would enjoy a compara- 
 tive exemption were its ports always open. Sometimes 
 the expiration of a monopoly, a patent for example, has oc- 
 casioned a sudden and extraordinary increase of supply, 
 and consequent fall of price ; entailing, of course, a serious 
 loss on the holders of large stocks of goods produced under 
 the monopoly. 
 
 New Sources of Supply. — The effects on prices produced 
 by the opening of new markets, or new BOUrces of supply, 
 are familiar to every one. The fall that has taken place in 
 the price of pepper, and of most sorts of commodities brought 
 from the East, since the opening of the trade in 1814, is a 
 conspicuous proof of what is now stated. 
 
 Influence of Tares on Prices. — It is unnecessary to dilate 
 on a topic so familiar to every one. When a tax is laid on 
 a commodity, its price necessarily rises in a corresponding 
 proportion ; for otherwise the producers would not obtain 
 the ordinary rate of profit, and would, of course, withdraw 
 from the business. A considerable part of the price of 
 many articles in this and other countries really consists of 
 the tax or duty laid upon them. 
 
 These statements will probably suffice to give our readers 
 a general idea of the principles which determine the value 
 of commodities. To go deeper into the subject would in- 
 volve us in discussions that belong to political economy, 
 and which are nowise suited for such a work as this. 
 
 Such, however, of our readers as wish for full and satis- 
 factory information as to these topics, and the practical 
 operation of the different circumstances to which we have 
 new adverted, would do well to consult Mr. Tooke's His- 
 tory of Pricr.<. This work is especially valuable for the 
 rare union which it exhibits of a perfect know ledge of prin- 
 ciples with the most extensive acquaintance with practical 
 details. 
 
 PRICKING -UP. In Architecture, the fust coating of 
 plaster in work of three coats upon laths. It is executed 
 with coarse stuff in London, usually compounded with road 
 stuff, or Thames sand. The surface is scratched over, to 
 form a helter key for the next coat. 
 
 PRICK-POST. In Architecture, a post in wooden build- 
 ings framed intermediately between two principal posts. 
 
 PRIEST. (Gr. vpcoSvTtpos, elder.) Etyniologicnlly, the 
 Christian priest is merely a minister who presides over the 
 spiritual affairs of a congregation. The word, however, is 
 commonly used also to represent the Greek leptvc, who, 
 like the Jewish priest, had both a sacrificial and mediato- 
 rial character; and the Roman Catholic looks upon the 
 Christian priest in thi' same light. 
 
 I'lUM.E VIJE. (Eat. tltr first passages.) Medical men 
 apply this term to the Stomach and bowels. 
 
 PRI'MAGE. A certain allowance paid by the shipper or 
 consigner of goods to the master and saili r^ of a vessel for 
 loading the same. It varies in different places according to 
 their respective customs. 
 
 PRI'MARY COLOCRS. The colours into which a ray 
 of white solar light may be decomposed or separated. 
 Newton supposed them to be seven; red, orange, yellow, 
 
 green, blue, indigo, and violet. Mayer considered seme of 
 these to be secondary colours, and that there are onlythree 
 primary colours in the solar spectrum ; namely, red. yellow, 
 and blue, certain portions of which constitute white built 
 and all the other colours, ((i/nra intdita, 1775, It 
 Young assumes red, gieen, and violet as the fundamental 
 Colours. I I.* cturet mi .\'<it. Phil., p. 439.) In tact, any 
 three prismatic rays may be assumed as the primary colours, 
 
 and all the rest compounded from them. pro> Ided w e attend 
 
 only to the predominant tint resulting, and disregard its di- 
 lution with while. (Jhrse/iil mi Light, $ 518.) Ace Chro- 
 matics, LlOHT. 
 
 PRIMAR] KOCKS, or PRIMITIVE ROCKS. See Ge- 
 
 OLO0Y. 
 
 PRI'MATE. (I. at. primus, first.) A prelate of superior 
 
 dignity and authority. In England, the archbishop of York 
 is entitled Primate of England; the archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, Primate ol all England.
 
 PRIMATES. 
 
 PRIMATES. The name given by Linntcus to the first 
 order of animals in his Systema jYaturie, which associated 
 man with the monkeys and bats, and corresponded to the 
 Bimana, Quadrumana, and Cheiroptera of Cuvier. 
 
 PRIME NUMBERS, in Arithmetic, are numbers which 
 have no divisors, or which cannot be divided into any less 
 number of equal integral parts than the number of units of 
 which they are composed; such are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, &c. 
 
 A general method of finding prime numbers, beyond a 
 certain limit, by a direct process, is one of the most difficult 
 problems in the theory of numbers ; and, though often 
 sought after, has not yet been discovered. Many remarka- 
 ble properties of numbers have, however, been detected, by 
 means of which it is in most cases not difficult to determine 
 whether an assigned number is prune or not. Some of 
 these properties are the following: 
 
 1. Every prime number above 3 is comprehended in one 
 of these forms, (i n -f- 1, or 6 n — 1 (re being any whole num- 
 ber) ; that is to say, if a prime number be increased or di- 
 minished by unity, the result is a multiple of 6. In order 
 to prove this, it will be sufficient to remark that every whole 
 number is necessarily comprised in one or other of these six 
 forms (where n is successively 0, 1, 2, 3, &c), 
 
 6n + l, 67t + 2, 6n + 3, 6n + 4, 6n + 5, G/i + 6. 
 Now the second, fourth, and sixth of these forms, being di- 
 visible by 2, cannot give prime numbers. The tlurd gives 
 only numbers divisible by 3; therefore the primes can only 
 be of the form 6 re + 1, or6re-(-5. But 6?i + 5 = 6re + 6 — 
 1 = 6(«+1) — l = 6?i' — 1. n' being any whole number; 
 it follows, therefore, that all prime numbers are compre- 
 hended in one of the forms 6 n -4- 1, or 6 re — 1. 
 
 2. In like manner, every prime number above 2 is of one 
 of the forms 4 re + 1, or 4n — 1; and every prime number, 
 excepting 2, of one of the forms 8 re + 1, 8 re -4- 3, 8 n + 5, 
 8n + 7. In fact, prime numbers may be divided in this 
 manner into classes, according to any modulus, at pleasure ; 
 the last four forms, however, are those which possess the 
 most distinctive properties. 
 
 Although every prime number is comprehended in one 
 of these forms, the converse proposition is not true ; name- 
 ly, that every number in one of these forms is a prime 
 number. No direct rule has yet been given by which it 
 can be determined <i priori whether a given number be 
 prime or not. 
 
 3. If a number cannot be divided by another number less 
 than the square root of itself, that number is a prime. 
 
 4. If ?i denote any prime number, the product, 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 
 • • • • (n — 1), increased by unity, is divisible by n. 
 
 It is frequently of use in arithmetical investigations to 
 know whether a number is prime or not; tables of them 
 have accordingly been formed to a certain extent, and are 
 given in various works. Vega's tables contain the prime 
 numbers under 400,000. The largest prime number which 
 has yet been verified is 231 — 1 = 2147483&47. This was 
 found by Euler. 
 
 For properties of prime numbers, see Fermat's edition of 
 Diophantus ; Euler's Algebra, and Analysis Infinitorum • 
 Legendre, Essai sur la Theorie des Nombres ; Barlow's 
 Elementary Investigations, &-c. ; and especially the Dis- 
 quisitiones Arithmetics of Gauss, of which there is a 
 French translation by Delisle. 
 
 Prime and Ultimate Ratios. — A method of calculation 
 Invented by Newton, and employed in the Principia, being 
 an extension and simplification of the ancient methods of 
 exhaustions. It may be thus explained : Let there be two 
 variable quantities constantly approaching each other in 
 value, so that their ratio or quotient continually approaches 
 to unity, and at last differs from unity by less than any as- 
 signable quantity ; the ultimate ratio of these two quanti- 
 ties, is said to be a ratio of equality. In general, when 
 different variable quantities respectively and simultaneously 
 approach other quantifies considered as invariable, so that 
 the differences between the variable and invariable quanti- 
 ties become at the same time less than any assignable quan- 
 tity, the ultimate ratios of the variables are the ratios of 
 tin' invariable quantities or limits, to which they continu- 
 ally and simultaneously approach. They are called prime 
 ratios, or ultimate ratios, according as the ratios of the va- 
 riables are considered as receding from, or approaching to, 
 the ratios of the limits. (See Principia, book i.) 
 
 PRI'MER, signified anciently a religious work employed 
 in the Roman Catholic service ; but it is now generally 
 used to denote the first book for children. 
 
 PRIMER SEISIN. (Norm. Fr.) An ancient branch of 
 the royal prerogative in England, whereby it had possession 
 for a year of the lands and tenements of which a tenant in 
 capite died seised, if the heir was of full age; or, if not, 
 until he was of a«e. 
 
 PRIME VERTICAL. In Astronomy, the vertical circle 
 of the sphere which intersects the meridian at right an- 
 gles, and passes through the east and west points of the 
 
 PRINCE OF WALES. 
 
 horizon. In dialling, prime vertical dials are those which 
 are projected on the plane of the prime vertical, or a plane 
 parallel to it. 
 
 PRI'MINE. In Botany, the outermost sac or covering 
 of an ovule ; either composed of cellular tissue only, or 
 traversed by numerous veins or bundles of tubes. 
 
 PRIMING. (Lat. primus, first.) In Architecture, the 
 first coat of painting. 
 
 PRIMIPI'LUS. In Ancient History, the name of the 
 centurion of the first cohort of a legion, who had charge 
 of the Roman eagle. This office was one of considera- 
 ble dignity, and entitled its holder to various privileges, 
 which conferred both rank and emolument. On quitting 
 his charge, the primipilus assumed his place among the 
 members of the equestrian order, with the title primipi- 
 larius. (See Adam's Rom. Antiquities ; Mem. de I'Acad. 
 des laser., vol. xxxii.1 
 
 PRIMI'TI^E. The first fruits of any production of the 
 earth, which were uniformly consecrated to the Deity by 
 all the nations of antiquity. See First Fruits. 
 
 PRI'MITIVE. In Grammar, a word neither derived from 
 any other language, nor compounded from any other words 
 of the same ; as horse, man. 
 
 PRI'MITIVE COLOURS, in Painting, are red, yellow, 
 and blue, from the mixtures whereof all other colours may 
 be obtained. 
 
 PRIMOGE'NITURE. The right of the eldest son, and 
 those who derive through the eldest son, to succeed to the 
 property of the ancestor. Among ancient nations, the 
 Jews alone appear, as far as is known, to have recognised 
 this usage among their institutions. For some notice of the 
 policy of the system of primogeniture, see Succession, 
 Law of. 
 
 PRIMULA CEvE. (Primula, one of the genera.) A nat- 
 ural order of herbaceous Exogens, inhabiting the northern 
 and colder parts of the globe. It is nearly allied to all the 
 regular Monopetalous orders, with a capsular superior fruit, 
 especially to Solanacea and Ericaceae, from both of which 
 it is readily known by the stamens being placed opposite to 
 the segments of the corolla. In this respect it agrees with 
 Jlfyrsinacew, which differ chiefly in their fleshy fruit and 
 arborescent habit. The cowslip, from which a sedative 
 wine is made; the primrose, auricula, and the acrid cycla- 
 men; together with anagallis, or the herb pimpernel, 
 which regularly closes its flowers at the approach of rain- 
 are species of this order. 
 
 PRl'MUM MO'BILE, in the Ptolemaic Astronomy, is the 
 outermost sphere of the universe, which gives motion to all 
 the others (t. e. those of the moon, planets, &.c.) and car- 
 ries them round with it in its diurnal revolution. Its centre 
 is the centre of the earth. 
 
 PRI'MURIES, or PRIMARY QUILLS. (Primores, 
 Linn.) The largest feathers of the wings ; they rise from 
 the pinion-bones, or those corresponding to the metacarpus 
 and digits. 
 
 PRINCE. (From the Latin princeps. first, leader, or fore- 
 most.) This title is probably of Teutonic origin : the Ger- 
 man equivalent, furst, has the same etymological significa- 
 tion, and the Latin nation appears to have translated it. In 
 England, the title is applied only to members of the royal 
 family ; and in no case, except that of the eldest son of the 
 reigning king (Prince of Wales), is it connected with a ter- 
 ritorial distinction. On the Continent, the rank of princes 
 is various : in France, under the old regime, the title be- 
 longed only to certain families of high distinction, connect- 
 ed with the royal blood ; it ranks in Germany below that of 
 duke. 
 
 PRINCE OF WALES. The title bestowed by patent 
 on the heir apparent to the crown of England. He is born 
 Uuke of Cornwall, &c. ; but the title of Duke of Cornwall 
 does not necessarily belong to the heir apparent, as it can 
 only be held by tbe first-begotten (not eldest) son of a king: 
 thus Henry VIII. was not, in the life of his father, Duke of 
 Cornwall. The origin of the title of Prince of Wales is as 
 follows: When Edward I. subdued Wales, he promised 
 the people of that country, upon condition of their submis- 
 sion, to give them a prince who was born amongst them, 
 and who could speak no other language. Upon their ac- 
 quiescence with this deceitful offer he conferred the princi- 
 pality of Wales upon his second son Edward, then an in- 
 fant,' born within the principality, and unable to speak any 
 language. Edward, by the death of his elder brother Al- 
 fonso, became heir to the crown, and from that time this 
 honour has been appropriated to the eldest sons of the 
 Kings of England. The Earldom of Chester, which is 
 likewise usually conferred upon the heir-apparent, was 
 once a principality, and erected into that title by parliament 
 in the 21st of Richard II. ; it was then appointed to be given 
 to the king's eldest son. But the whole acts of that parlia- 
 ment were repealed in the reign of Henry IV., although the 
 earldom has usually been since given with the principality 
 of Wales. The revenue of the last Prince of Wales was
 
 PRINCEPS SENATUS. 
 
 £185,000; £60,000 being paid from the mil list, and £fi5,000 
 from the consolidated fund. His income was last regulated 
 bv 35 6. :t.i j . 125. To compass the death of the Prince of 
 Wales, or vi ilate the chastity Of liis consort, is hi^li trea- 
 son within the statute of 25 Ed. :!. The Prince of Wales 
 lias a household of lus own, of which the chief officers are 
 a comptroller and auditor general, treasurer, vice chamber- 
 lain, Gloucester king alarms, and herald; besides another 
 class "i officers belonging to the duchy of Cornwall, and 
 another as great steward of Scotland. As Duke of Corn- 
 wall and Karl of Chester, the prince appoints sheriffs. &c, 
 for those counties. By a statute of the order of the Garter, 
 iss I in 181)5, the Prince of Wales was declared a constit- 
 uent part of the original institution. Hence everj prince 
 becomi a a Knight ot the Garter the moment he is created 
 Prince of Wales. For the constitutional question raised in 
 1788, respecting the right of the Prince of Wales to the re- 
 see Kia.Kvr. 
 
 PRINCEPS SENA'TUS. Prince or first of the senate. 
 In Ancient Koine, the citizen whose Dame was inscribed 
 first on the list of the senate by the censors was so called. 
 The high dignity was not connected with any office, and 
 was conferred, in later times, only on those who were re- 
 cognised as the most considerable citizens of the state. Be- 
 fore the second Punic war, it seems to have belonged to the 
 oldest of those who had held the office of censor; hut tin 
 first deviation from this practice was in favour of Fabius 
 Maximus. This title was the fust germ of the imperial au- 
 thority of Augustus. (See Senate.) There is a memoir 
 on the subject in vol. x.xiv. of the Jlemoires dc I'Acadcmie 
 des Inscriptions. 
 
 PRl'NCIPAL. (Lat. princeps, chief.) In Architecture, 
 a main timber in an assemblage of carpentry. Thus, in a 
 roof, the strong rafters used for trussing the beams are called 
 principal rafters. 
 
 1'itisi [pal. The name of which the heads of the Scot- 
 tish universities ore distinguished. 
 
 Prini ipai.. In the Fine Arts, the chief circumstance in a 
 work of art, to Which the resl are to be subordinate. 
 
 PRI'NI I PES. The name given to one of the four grand 
 divisions of the Roman infantry. It was their duty to as- 
 sume the initiative in an engagement, for which they were 
 admirably qualified, being the choice men of the Roman 
 army, and from this circumstance their name is said to be 
 derived. The other three bodies were the velites, hastati, 
 and triarii, w Inch see. (See Mem. de VAcad. des Jnscr. vol. 
 x.xix.) 
 
 PRI'NCIPLE. (Lat. principittm.) In Chemistry, a term 
 sometimes applied to certain proximate components of or- 
 ganic bodn-s, Mich as bitter principle, febrifuge principle, 
 narcotic principle, &c. This term, however, is now almost 
 disused, it having been found that each bitter, febrifuge, 
 narcotic, or other substance, generally contains a principle 
 peculiar to itself upon which its powers depend, and that 
 bo such common or universal principle as was for- 
 merly supposed. For the same reason the term " principle 
 of inflammability," or phloiristmi, is rejected, as applied in 
 common with •'nervous principle," rSt'c, to an imaginary 
 e.xi>tence. 
 
 PRl'NCIPLES. In the Fine Arts, those general and 
 fundamental truths from which the rules and maxims of 
 art arc deduced. To each art particular principles are at- 
 tached on which its theory is founded. These principles, 
 before they can be said to have stability, must be found to 
 depend on certain truths, which, recognised by every one, 
 and indisputable, oblige the mind to concur in the deduc- 
 tions that resull from them. Before a law in any art is 
 laid down, u is necessary to trace it to the principles from 
 Which n spril gs, though there may he causes winch prevent 
 
 being universally admitted; such as Igno- 
 rance, prejudice, love of novelty, and the like, indeed, 
 tin re is an everlasting contesl between truth and error in 
 all human Institutions. The former, like light, is acknow- 
 ledged by all, though our passions and interests too often 
 tempt us to obscure it; but, as darkness Itself proves thai 
 light exists, so falsehood only enables truth to shine with 
 I ii -Ire. 
 
 PRINTING. M'r. Imprimerie.) Letterpress printing, to 
 which this article la confined, la the art of taking imprea 
 sions from engravings in relief. 
 
 The process is generally limited to printing from types, 
 and from engravings on wood. 
 
 The history of its origin is enveloped in my-t. 
 this art, which commemorates all other Inventions, which 
 bands down to posterity ever] Important event, which im- 
 mortalizes the actions of the great, and which, above ail, 
 
 ' Men. I- and dill'u-es (he word of God to all mankind ; this 
 
 very ait has left its own origin in obscurity, and haa given 
 employment to the studies and researches of the njosl 
 learned men in Europe, to determine to whom the honom 
 of the Invention is due. 
 Borne writen maintain that the art was practised as far 
 
 PRINTING. 
 
 hack at least as the building of Babylon ; and hold that thf» 
 characters impressed on the bricks found on the supposed 
 site of that city are literally printed: we are in possession of 
 
 metal stamps, with words engraved in relief, which the 
 Romans made use of to mark their various articles. On 
 this subject .Mr. Landseer, in his Lectures on the Art of 
 Engraving, 8vo. 1807, observes, "Had the modem art of 
 
 making paper been known to the ancients, we had proba- 
 bly never heard the names of Faust and Finiguerra : for, 
 
 w nh the same kind of stamps which the Roman tradesmen 
 
 used lor their pottery and packages, books might also have 
 been printed; and the same engraving which adorned the 
 shields and pnteras of the more remote ages, with the addi- 
 tion of paper, might have spread the rays of Greek and 
 Btrurian intelligence over the world of antiquity. Of the 
 truth of this assertion I have the satisfaction to lay before 
 you the most decided proofs, by exhibiting engraved Latin 
 inscriptions, both in cameo and intaglio, from the collection 
 of Mr. Douce, With impressions taken from them at Mr. 
 
 Savage's letterpress but yesterday (in 1805). One of these 
 is an intaglio stamp, engraved on stone, with which a Ro- 
 man oculist was used to mark his medicines; the other, 
 which is of metal, and in cameo, is simply the proper name 
 of the (Roman) tradesman by whom it has probably been 
 used. 'Tints Valagini Mauri.'" Of the latter stamp, the 
 following impression is a facsimile : 
 
 VALAG1 
 
 Papillon's relation of the two Cunio, who engraved on 
 wood the heroic actions of Alexander the Great, and printed 
 impressions from them in the year 1285, the truth of which 
 has been defended by Zani, Ollley, and Singer ; the print of 
 St. Christopher carrying the infant Jesus across the sea, 
 with an inscription and the date 1421! at the bottom on the 
 same block, in the library of Earl Spencer ; and the decree 
 of the government of Venice, of the dale ilth October, 
 1441, respecting "playing cards, and coloured figures print- 
 ed," the art and mystery of making which had fallen to 
 total decay at Venice, in consequence of the great quantity 
 which were made out of Venice, and prohibiting the intro- 
 duction of them under pain and forfeiture and fine — a de- 
 cree which carries the art of printing back into the 14th 
 century: these circumstances, taken together, prove that 
 the knowledge and the practice of the art of printing exist- 
 ed in Europe long before the time which is usually attribu- 
 ted to it, although it had not been applied to the multiplica- 
 tion of hooks. 
 
 According to Du Halde and the missionaries, the art of 
 printing from engraved blocks of wood was practised in 
 China nearly fifty years before the Christian era ; and from 
 the early commercial intercourse of the Venetians with that 
 country, there is reason to believe that the knowledge of 
 the art and of its application to the multiplying of books 
 was derived from thence ; for Venice is the first place in 
 Europe of which we have any account in which it was 
 practised, as appears by the decree above mentioned, which 
 is the most ancient document in existence respecting print- 
 ing; but the date of this application of the arl, or the place 
 where it was first practised, it is Impossible to determine. 
 From that decree and tin' existence of the print ot' St. 
 Christopher, it would seem that it hail been long applied to 
 
 the production of playing cards, and of religious subjects ; and 
 
 when it was extended to hooks, they were pi inled by the Chi- 
 nese method, siiil in use, each page being engraved on a block 
 
 of wood: and if this plan was followed, as most probably it 
 was. from its being the mosl expeditious, and Ihe most correct 
 
 —of fastening a page of manuscript on the face of the block 
 ami engraving from that,instead of drawing the characters on 
 
 the wood — it WOUld at once account for Ihe diversity of char- 
 acters found in the block hooks, which varied with the differ- 
 ent band writings of the scribes, and has completely puzzled 
 
 the learned, w ho endeavour to ascertain the printer by com- 
 paring Ihe characters with some oilier work ; as well as for 
 their great similarity to manuscripts, 1'or which lliev w ere 
 sold. This appearance too was aided by their being printed 
 on line side of the piper only, the indention being removed 
 by burnishing tin' back, anil two leaves were pasted to- 
 gether, llnis making them such perfect facsimiles of tnanu- 
 
 scripts as to require even at the present day great discrimi- 
 nation and even chemical skill lo distinguish them In mi 
 
 each Other; and as these hooks had neither names, dates, 
 
 nor places affixed io them, it la now Impossible to ascertain 
 
 by whom, when, or where they were executed ; anil thus
 
 PRINTING. 
 
 the fabrication of these pseudo-manuscripts involved the 
 first introduction of the art of printing books in Europe in 
 complete obscurity. 
 
 About the year 1450, the great and accumulating expense 
 of engraving blocks for each separate work of the increas- 
 ing number of books produced by means of printing, led 
 to the important improvement of the art of casting separate 
 metal types, and substituting them for the wooden blocks 
 previously used. This formed a new epoch in the art, and 
 is now termed, erroneously, the origin of printing. After a 
 lapse of many years, several cities claimed the honour of 
 this invention, but time has reduced these claims to two — 
 Haarlem and Mentz ; and this rivalry has employed the stu- 
 dies and the pens of many learned men, who have laboured 
 to prove the respective claims of these cities to the imagi- 
 nary honour of the invention of printing; for what can be 
 more imaginary than such an honour 1 seeing the art had 
 been practised in Europe, privately and publicly, in a modi- 
 fied form, for sixty or seventy years previously to the period 
 Which forms the subject in dispute. The claims of Haarlem 
 rest upon the statement of Hadrian Junius, who gives it 
 upon the testimony of one Cornelius, who had been a ser- 
 vant of Laurence Coster, for whom the invention is claim- 
 ed ; but this testimony is, in our opinion, utterly worthless. 
 Modern research gives the credit of the introduction of move- 
 able metal types (unquestionably a grand improvement), to 
 Peter Schoefler, the assistant and son-in-law of John Fust 
 or Faust of Mentz, so well known in Europe as Dr. Faus- 
 tus. Of two writers who have supported the respective 
 claims of these two places, it has been observed, that it 
 now seems to be allowed that Heinecken has paid too little 
 attention to the antiquity of the claims of Haarlem, and 
 Meerman infinitely too much. 
 
 The first edition of the Speculum Humana Salvationis 
 was printed by Coster at Haarlem, about the year 1440 as 
 is supposed, and is one of the earliest productions of the 
 press of which the printer is known, and of which we shall 
 have occasion to speak hereafter. But the celebrated Bi- 
 ble, known as the "Mentz Bible without date," is the first 
 important specimen of printing with metal types : this was 
 executed by Gutemberg and Fust, between the years 1450 
 and 1455, and was the occasion of the secret being divulged, 
 of producing books by mechanical means, as is mentioned 
 in the article Black Letter. Then followed " the Psal- 
 ter, of 1457," by Fust and Schoefler. These works are ex- 
 ecuted in such a manner that, with all our boasted skill, and 
 our improvements in the art, we are decidedly of opinion, 
 perfect facsimiles, taking the ink and workmanship into 
 account, could not have been executed in England so lately 
 as twenty-five years ago. When the secret was made 
 known, books avowedly printed issued from the press in all 
 parts of Europe, far beyond what could have been calcula- 
 ted upon from a new discovery ; for before the year 1500, 
 there were printing offices in upwards of 220 places — in 
 Austria, Bavaria, Bohemia, Calabria, the Cremonese, Den- 
 mark, England, Flanders, France, Franconia, the Frioul, 
 Geneva, Genoa, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Italy, Lom- 
 bard}', Mecklenburg, Moravia, Naples, the Palatinate, Pied- 
 mont, Poland, Portugal, Rome, Sardinia, Upper and Lower 
 Saxony, Sicily, Silesia, Spain, Swabia, Switzerland, Thessa- 
 lonica, Turkey, Tuscany, the Tyrol, Venice, the Veronese, 
 Westphalia, Wirtemberg, &c. The number of places in 
 which the art was practised, the wide extent to which 
 it had spread in so short a space of time, combined with 
 the skill which the early printers displayed in their works, 
 appear to us to be totally incompatible with the date gener- 
 ally assigned to the invention ; and we are of opinion that, 
 after having been long practised in private, it emerged into 
 publicity in a state nearly approaching to perfection. 
 
 It is impossible in this short and rapid sketch of the his- 
 tory of the art to enter into detail, or to trace its progress in 
 the different cities and towns, or even in the different coun- 
 tries where it was first publicly practised after the secret 
 was divulged : in fact, it would be impossible to arrive at any 
 satisfactory conclusion; for as the first printers neither 
 affixed their names, dates, nor places where their produc- 
 tions were executed, the greatest research could only result 
 in vagueness and uncertainty. There has been great differ- 
 ence of opinion among bibliograpbers who have written 
 on the subject, even respecting the first edition of the Latin 
 translation of the Bible; and Meerman has enumerated ten 
 ancient editions without date, in favour of the priority of 
 each of which pretensions have been advanced and sup- 
 ported. 
 
 William Caxton is generally regarded as first who intro- 
 duced the art of printina into England, and practised it at 
 Westminster; but a prior claim is advanced in favour of 
 Oxford, which has occasioned much controversy. Dr. Dib- 
 din, in his Typographical -Antiquities, says, " Although 
 Caxton is called by me the first English printer, yet I fully 
 believe in the authenticity of the Oxford edition of the Ez- 
 posicio sancti Jeronimi in simbolo apostolorum, &.C., of the 
 
 date of 1468, which was printed by a foreigner at Oxford, 
 who was interrupted in the prosecution of his typographi- 
 cal labours." Several copies of this work are in existence; 
 one is in the Bodleian library, another in the public library 
 at Cambridge, and a third in the British Museum : Herbert 
 mentions a fourth in the Earl of Pembroke's library ; a fifth 
 in All Souls library, of which a doubt may be entertained ; 
 and Hearne speaks of a sixth copy in the school tower at 
 Oxford. Those who deny the priority for Oxford argue that 
 the date is incorrect, either from accident or design ; that 
 being in Roman numerals an X is omitted, and that the real 
 date of the book should be MCCCCLXXVIII. 
 
 Caxton, during a long residence on the Continent on com- 
 mercial affairs and political missions, in the reign of Henry 
 VII., acquired a practical knowledge of the art, and on his 
 return to England established a printing-office in a chapel 
 adjoining to Westminster Abbey, where, for many years, he 
 was indefatigable in translating and preparing works for the 
 press, and in printing them ; and to him may be fairly as- 
 cribed the merit of being the first to introduce the practice 
 of printing generally into England. He printed many books 
 on a variety of subjects; and all the productions of his 
 press are objects of great interest to book collectors. He 
 commenced printing in England about the year 1474, and 
 was billowed by Wynkyn de Worde, Richard Pynson, &.C. 
 
 In the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry the Seventh are 
 the following entries : 
 
 "June 6, 1499. To the Printers at Westmr, £1." 
 
 "Nov. 1, 1504. To Richard Pynson, the Prynter, in re- 
 warde, £1." 
 
 " 24. For prynting of new Colletts, £1 Us. 4d." 
 
 "July 12, 1505. To Ric. Pynson opon a prest for masse- 
 bokes to be printed, £10." — Ezcerpta Historica, 8vo, 1833. 
 
 Dr. Dibdin relates, that, in 1524, Dr. Robert Wakefield, 
 chaplain to Henry VIII., published his Oratio de Laudibus 
 et Vtilitate trium lAnguarum, Aratric<£, CAaldaictB, et He- 
 hraicm, &c, 4to. The printer was Wynkyn de Worde ; and 
 the author complains that he was obliged to omit his whole 
 third part, because the printer had no Hebrew types. We 
 have now in the British Ibunderies, in addition to the Roman 
 and Italic characters, Arabic, Armenian, Coptic, Domesday, 
 Engrossing, Ethiopic, Etruscan, German, Greek. Alexandrian 
 Greek, Gothic, Hebrew, Hibernian or Irish, Malabaric, 
 .Malayan, Nagari or Brahmin, Persian, Philosophical, Runic, 
 Russian, Samaritan, Sanscrit, Saxon, Sclavonian or ancient 
 Russian, Script in imitation of writing, Swedish, Syriac, 
 Tamoul, Telegii, Turkish ; also black letter, and music ; and, 
 in addition, a great variety of fancy types. 
 
 The first book in which Greek types occur is Cicero's Of- 
 fices, printed in the year 1465, in which the characters are 
 so imperfect that the words are with difficulty deciphered; 
 and the first book printed in Roman characters was Cicero's 
 Epistolm Familiares, by Svveynheini and Pannartz, at 
 Rome, in 1467. The Italic type was the invention of Aldus 
 Manutius, the celebrated printer at Venice, about 1500, and 
 dedicated by him to the States of Italy, from which it took 
 its name. 
 
 The art appeared to start into publicity in a state of per- 
 fection. As it extended, the workmanship became much in- 
 ferior ; so that while the productions of the first printers 
 were executed in a very superior style, and the embellish- 
 ments showed a great proficiency both in design and en- 
 graving, the productions of their competitors had all the 
 crudeness and imperfection of a new invention ; and in the 
 17th century it had retrograded to a very low state. At the 
 commencement of the 18th century, Caslon made great im- 
 provement in types ; and about 1750 Baskerville of Birming- 
 ham also made great improvements, both in types and print- 
 ing, which were subsequently carried on by Bensley, Bul- 
 mer, Corrall, Davison, M'Creery, Whittingham, and a few 
 others, in London ; the Foulis, at Glasgow; the Ballantynes 
 in Edinburgh ; Bodoni at Parma, and Didot at Paris. 
 
 Many of the manuscripts of the 14th and 15th centuries 
 were WTitten in a beautiful manner, and embellished by 
 borders round the pages, and by the large letters at the com- 
 mencements of chapters being drawn and coloured with 
 brilliant colours, heightened with burnished gold, and fin- 
 ished with taste, delicacy, and great ability, so as produce a 
 most splendid effect. These were called illuminated manu- 
 scripts. On the first production of books by the process of 
 printing these ornamental letters were left blank, and both 
 these letters and the borders were finished by hand in the 
 usual manner, which gave to the book a perfect resemblance 
 to a manuscript, of which it became by these means a com- 
 plete facsimile. This is the case with the Mentz Bible by 
 Fust and Gutenberg. The first printers soon began to print 
 these large ornamented letters, the letter itself being in some 
 instances red and the ornamental part blue, in others the 
 letter is blue and the ornamental part red ; and these were 
 afterwards finished by hand, as is apparent in the Psalter 
 of 1457, printed by Fust and Schoeffer, who also showed 
 great ingenuity and skill in the large letter B in the same 
 
 983
 
 PRINTING. 
 
 book, which is printed with red ink, and the ornamental 
 put, consisting of a nourished line, as if it bad been drawn 
 with a pen, extending from the top to the bottom of the 
 
 folio |>;itr«', with blue ink. Of two copies which We have 
 examined, one was in the library of Geo. III. at Bucking- 
 ham Pi i hire, and the other in the possession of Karl Spencer. 
 The first edition of the Speculum Humana Salralionis, 
 which WSS printed at Haarlem, about the year 1-1 -in, by 
 
 Lenience Coster, has engravings on wood printed in a 
 different coloured ink from the body of the work. A copy 
 of this rare and curious work, which We examined BOOK 
 years a'_"i in the valuable collection of Qie Messrs. Long- 
 man, impressed us momentarily with the idea that the en- 
 gravings were pen and ink drawings, and that the ink had 
 turned brown with ace, so precisely was this effect produced 
 by the tone of the ink. 
 
 We mention these early specimens of printing with col- 
 oured inks, and in the case of the Psalter having two Mocks 
 of wood with two different colours, as being produced by 
 means of the press, coeval with the generally received 
 opinion of the invention of printing, to show the impossibility 
 o( the case. For, looking at the freedom of tin- engraving 
 in the letter B, and the skill of the workman in printing it, 
 it must be evident to every person conversant with the 
 art that this perfection could only be obtained by lone prac- 
 tice ; and the contrast between these productions of the first 
 practitioners and their competitors, when the art became 
 public, puts the question beyond a doubt, as an examination 
 Bf the facsimiles given by Heinecken from Fables printed 
 at Bamberg about 1461, from the Legendts printed at the 
 same place about 1470, and also the Fables of ..Esop by 
 ('avion, will, we think, satisfy the most scrupulous and 
 skeptical. 
 
 Towards the end of the 15th century the art was extend- 
 ed to the imitation of pen and ink sketches with a coloured 
 ground, by the great masters of painting; and in a few 
 years it was farther extended to the imitation of drawings 
 jn clare-obscure, and that with such success as to induce 
 some of the first artists to encourage it by drawing the sub- 
 jects on the blocks. The first praclisers of this extension of 
 the art were, Michael Wolgemuth of Nuremberg, who fur- 
 nished the designs for the .Nuremberg Chronicle, and also 
 
 engraved them on wood, and Blair, a native of Landshut, 
 
 the disciple of Martin Schon; between whom the priority 
 rests of printing in clare-obscure. After them were Girolomo 
 Hoeetto, Lucas Cranach, Baldassar Peruzzi, Hans Burgh- 
 mair, and (Jgo da Carpi (who has been generally regarded 
 
 as the inventor of this style of printing, but dates prove this 
 opinion to be erroneous), Domenico Beccafuiuii, John I'liic, 
 Albert Altdorfer, Hans lluldung. Lucus Jacobs Leydeu 
 (called Lucas Van); all these were born in the lfith cen- 
 tury. In the 16th century, there were Antonio da Trenta, 
 Giovanni Nicolo Vicentino (called Rossigliani), Herbert 
 Goltzor Goltzius, Andrew Andreani, Henry Goltz or Goltz- 
 ius. Abraham Hloemaert, Paul Moreelze, Bartolomeo Corio- 
 lano, Giovanni Batista Coriolano, Christopher Jegher, George 
 L'Allemand. ami Frederic Bloemaert In the 17th century, 
 there were Louis Businck, Vincent le Sueur, Antonio 
 Maria Zanetti, Nicholas le Sueur, Comte de Caylus, Ed- 
 ward kirkhall, and John Baptist Michael Papillon. This 
 last-mentioned engraver, in his treatise on Engraving on 
 Wood, expressly states that Albert Durer engraved some 
 subjects on clare-obscure, and that he had examined them 
 in the collection of the king of France; Parmigiano also 
 superintended the printing in this manner of a number of 
 hie own designs; Titian, Baflhelle, and other eminent mas- 
 ters made designs on the blocks for printing; and the author 
 of Jin Enquiry into the Origin of Printing in Europe states, 
 that "one of the greatest princes and connoisseurs of our 
 age used to say, be saw nothing in prints that could give 
 him the plea-iire he received from looking at the wood 
 
 prints, done In chiaro-oscuro by lingo (li Carpi." This 
 prince was the Duke of Orleans, regent of France. 
 
 Alter these were John Baptist Jackson, who executed a 
 number of subjects, of a large size, iii clare obscure, copied 
 from celebrated paintings in churches in Italy, and from 
 private collections; he afterwards established a manufac- 
 tory at Chelsea for printing paper-hangings In oil colours, a 
 speculation, however, which was unsuccessful, s f 
 
 his productions printed in colours Were Complete failures, 
 the Oil having spread in the paper; and the subjects being 
 
 in the rir-t Instance engraved with strong lines, they have 
 the appearance of coarse engravings coloured by children. 
 Jackson flourished from 1730, to I7S4 If r. John Skippe, an 
 amateur, executed many subjects in clare-obscure very 
 adroitly. 
 
 Gubitz, an engraver at Berlin, has produced a great num- 
 ber of subjects primed in colours, of a very superior charac 
 
 ter, but none- of tbem can be called imitations of drawings. 
 The writer of tins article was the tir-t who attempted to 
 
 Imita te drawings in water colours by means of the common 
 printing press, and accomplished the applying of all the col- 
 
 ours used by artists to the composition of printing ink, thus 
 
 seiving as a pioneer to more skilful persons who might de- 
 Vote themselves to this branch of art; and he succeeded in 
 
 producing facsimiles of the drawings of different artists so 
 
 as to deceive every one who examined them. Mes-rs. 
 Whiting and liranslon. of Beaufort House, applied printing 
 in coloured inks to the prevention of forgery, and to em- 
 bossing on paper; and Messrs. Vizetelly and liranslon have 
 produced some very tasteful things in colours; but neither 
 of these establishments has, to our knowledge, turned their 
 attention to the imitation of drawings. Mr. Baxter is now 
 pursuing the subject, and has executed many very superior 
 specimens in a manner that would have been deemed total- 
 ly impracticable twenty five years ago. The result is con- 
 firming the most sanguine expectations we ever entertained 
 on the subject ; and we are decidedly of opinion that the 
 powers of the printing press in producing works of art are 
 far from being fully developed. 
 
 The art of taking impressions in gold from types, and from 
 engravings on wood and metals in relief, generally called 
 printing in gold, is executed most successfully by the com- 
 mon printing press. It is also accomplished with bronze of 
 different colours in the most delicate engravings ; but how- 
 ever beautiful the effect of bronze may be at first, it unfor- 
 tunately is not permanent. 
 
 After this brief sketch of the history and progress of the 
 art of printing in Europe, tin art more important in the 
 effects it has produced on the human mind, and, conse- 
 quently, on the state of society, than tiny other that has 
 ever been practised, we shall lay before the reader a short 
 outline of the practical part, for the better understanding of 
 which, we shall subjoin a glossary of the chief technical 
 terms in common use. 
 
 The first operation, called composing, is to arrange the 
 separate letters called types (see Typks) into words, lines, 
 and pages. These pages, being placed upon a large tint sur- 
 face, called an imposing stone, in such an order that when 
 they are printed, and the sheet of paper is folded, the pages 
 will follow- each other consecutively, are then wedged up in 
 an iron frame, termed a chase. This operation is styled im- 
 posing. 
 
 A printing press is a machine on which the matter to be 
 printed is laid on an even surface horizontally placed, either 
 of stone or iron ; and the pressure upon the tj pes js produced 
 by a parallel surface of wood or iron, technically a platen, 
 by means of a screw, or lever, or both combined. See 
 Pur.s.s. 
 
 Perhaps the most satisfactory way of explaining the pro- 
 cess generally, will be to take a printing-office just com- 
 mencing, and describe the whole arrangement, and follow, 
 in the order of its proceeding, the execution of a work from 
 its being put in hand to its completion. 
 
 The office having been supplied with all the necessary 
 materials; \iz., frames, cases, case racks, bulks, boards, 
 board racks, imposing stone, furniture, quoins, mallet, shoot- 
 ing-sticks, brass rule, chases, and types, in the quantity and 
 variety that may he judged necessary; and also presses 
 with their accompaniments, banks and horses, with a sink, 
 lye trough, wetting trough, and paper hoards; and in the 
 warehouse, with a gathering table, poles, a peel, and a press 
 to press the books before they are delivered — it may be said 
 that the office is in a state to commence business. 
 
 The compositor now proceeds to lay the letter into as 
 many rases as may be judged expedient in the first instance 
 (see Case), laying the Italic in cases distinct from the 
 Roman, each letter or sort in the box appropriated to it: 
 having done this with one fount, he will put the cases into 
 the case rack, and proceed with another fount, till the whole 
 of the letter is laid ; he will put the superfluous sorts either 
 into a fount case or into coffins ; an 1 he will then be ready 
 to take copy. 
 
 The pressman has to adjust his press, place the footstep 
 so as to give him the greatest advantage in the pull, fix the 
 rounce, place the girths so that the carriage shall run in and 
 out properly, fix the back Btay, justify the platen so that it 
 
 shall bear equally on all pans of the form, and cover his 
 tvuipans and frisket ; and he is also ready to proceed in his 
 work. 
 
 The compositor having taken copy, and received direc- 
 tions respecting the measure, the length of the page, any 
 peculiarity in the spelling of particular words, the use of 
 capital letters, the punctuation, the words that are to be in 
 Italic or small capitals, and any other directions that may 
 be deemed Qecessarj . proct eds to make his measure, and cut 
 a c pos ]nL r rule; he then begins to compose, letter by let- 
 ter, till be ha- formed a word; he separates ibis from the 
 following wool by a space, and so continues till he has 
 composed a line; be then Justifies this line, by increasing 
 the space between the words or lessening ii according to 
 
 chrcumstant es, so that the line shall be tolerably tight in the 
 
 composing stick ; and thus procei d- iiii he has campli led a 
 page; alter having set the head line and direction line
 
 PRINTING. 
 
 with the signature, he ties a page cord round it, to preserve 
 it from falling asunder, puts it on a page-paper, and places 
 it on the bottom of his frame ; and thus continues, page 
 after page, till he has composed a sheet. 
 
 It may be necessary to state that every line is of the same 
 length, whether the types fill it out or not ; the last line 
 of a paragraph, lines of poetry, and short lines of any other 
 description, are filled up with quadrats to the proper length, 
 in order that they be secured from derangement by being 
 wedged up in the chase ; which is termed locking-up. 
 
 The pages are then taken to the imposing stone, and ar- 
 ranged in the proper order ; the page papers removed ; a 
 chase is then placed over them (see Chase), furniture put 
 about them (see Furniture), and the pagecords taken 
 away ; proper quoins are then selected, and the form is 
 locked up. It is then taken to a press, and one impression 
 is printed ; this is styled the first proof, which is folded and 
 taken to the reader with the copy ; a boy reads the copy to 
 him, while he examines the proof and marks the errors of 
 the compositor, and puts a query to any doubtful matter for 
 the author's consideration ; the proof is then returned to the 
 compositor, who corrects the errors and mistakes, and a 
 second impression is printed with more care, and generally 
 on better paper; this is styled a clean proof; it is examined 
 by the first proof to see that the errors of workmanship are 
 corrected, which is termed revising, and then sent out with 
 the copy to the author ; he makes what alterations and 
 corrections he may think necessary (see Correcting) ; 
 these are corrected by the compositor ; another impression 
 is printed, revised, and read finally and with care for press ; 
 the margin is then adjusted (see Margin) ; and the correc- 
 tions being carefully made, it is taken to the press to be 
 printed off. 
 
 In the mean time, after the author has returned the sheet 
 for press, the warehouseman delivers out the proper quan- 
 tity of paper, which the pressman wets, by drawing the pa- 
 per, to the extent of three, four, five, or six dips for each 
 quire, through clean water, according as the paper may be 
 hard sized or porous, and also as the form may be solid or 
 open ; the paper as it is wetted is laid upon a board, opened 
 out, and another board is laid upon it with weights ; on the 
 following day it is turned, which causes fresh surfaces to 
 come into contact with each other, and diffuses the moisture 
 equally throughout every part of the heap; it will be in 
 good condition to print on the next day. This wetting the 
 paper causes it to receive the impression of the ink in a 
 much more perfect manner than it could possibly be made 
 to do if dry. 
 
 The pressman having received the forms lays the inner 
 form on the press, and prints one copy, which is called a 
 revise ; this he takes to the person appointed to revise it, 
 and while that is doing proceeds to secure the form on the 
 table of the press by means of quoins ; to place his tympan 
 sheet ; to fix the points which make small holes in the paper 
 that enable him to cause the pages to fall precisely on the 
 back of each other when the second side of the paper is 
 printed, and to produce an even and uniform impression in 
 all the pages ; he then cuts his frisket, which preserves the 
 margin of the paper clean, and, when the revise is correct- 
 ed, proceeds to ink the surface of the types by means of 
 balls or rollers. When the whole impression of one side of 
 the paper is printed, he lifts the form off the press, washes 
 the ink off the face of the type with lye, and rinses it with 
 water. He then proceeds in a similar manner with the outer 
 form, which completes the sheet; and thus sheet after 
 sheet. 
 
 If it be intended to have large paper copies of a work, the 
 alteration of margin is made when the number of small pa- 
 per copies is printed off from each form. 
 
 When the sheet is printed the compositor lays it up, dis- 
 tributes the letter, and proceeds, sheet after sheet, till the 
 body of the work is finished ; then the title, dedication, 
 preface, introduction, contents, and any other prefatory mat- 
 ter, is proceeded with, these being always printed the last. 
 
 The warehouseman then takes the printed sheets away, 
 and hangs them up on poles to dry, varying the number of 
 sheets hung up together from five or six to ten or eleven, ac- 
 cording to the state of the weather, the heat of the room, or 
 the pressure of business ; when these sheets are dry they 
 are taken down from the poles, carefully knocked up, anil 
 put away in the warehouse in piles ; when the book is near- 
 ly finished from ten to fourteen consecutive sheets are laid 
 upon the gathering table in order, and collected sheet bv 
 sheet by boys, who deposit each gathering in a heap at the 
 end of the table, which is generally what is styled a horse- 
 shoe table, so that when a boy has deposited his gathering he 
 has only to turn himself and begin again. These gather- 
 ings are then carefully collated, to ascertain that the differ- 
 ent sheets are correct and in order, and folded up the mid- 
 dle. When the work is finished the gatherings are put to- 
 gether, each of which forms a copy of the work, and press- 
 ed ; the work is now completed, and awaits the order of the 
 
 bookseller, <fcc, to deliver the copies either to himself, the 
 bookbinder, or to others, according to circumstances. 
 
 A new method of obtaining impressions from types by 
 means of cylinders has been introduced, and the power gen- 
 erally employed is steam. Mr. Kcinig, a Saxon, had con- 
 sidered that steam might be employed with advantage to 
 expedite the process ; but not receiving encouragement on 
 the Continent to enable him to prosecute his plans, he came 
 to England in 1804, and, after explaining his views to some 
 of the principal printers in London, Mr. Thomas Bensley, 
 Mr. George Woodfall, and Mr. Richard Taylor embarked in 
 the undertaking, but Mr. Woodfall soon withdrew. After 
 innumerable experiments, and a great outlay of capital, the 
 result was not satisfactory ; but the experience gained by 
 prosecuting these experiments resulted in the production of 
 a machine to print with cylinders instead of a flat surface, 
 as was the case with the printing press, which was limited 
 in the size of the paper by the size of the press and the 
 power of the pressman. In cylindrical printing, by which 
 the pressure is communicated in lines, the size may be very 
 considerably increased. 
 
 The first machine that was constructed was capable of 
 printing 1000 copies per hour of double demy paper on both 
 sides, while a press is estimated to print 250 copies of a 
 single sheet on one side only, in the same time. 
 
 When this machine was completed, the proprietors of 
 the Times newspaper, ever ready to adopt any improvement 
 that would expedite its publication, without regarding ex- 
 pense, agreed with the patentees for two machines ; and 
 on the 28th of November, 1814, the Times was published, 
 executed by cylindrical printing, the moving power being 
 steam : these were the only machines constructed under 
 the first patent. 
 
 Various improvements and simplifications of this complex 
 machine were soon effected by different ingenious men, and 
 were adopted by many printers. They have become in- 
 valuable for the publication of periodicals where the num- 
 ber of copies is great, and also for newspapers ; for their 
 power of printing sheets of paper of a size far beyond the 
 capability of any press, and their rapidity of throwing off 
 copies, enable the editors to increase the size, and to delay 
 commencing the printing off for a considerable time later 
 than before their introduction, and thus avail themselves 
 of any intelligence that might arrive in the interval. 
 
 Perhaps the most complete machine for printing one side 
 of the paper is that used at the office of the Times ; the 
 carriage on which the pages to be printed are laid, travels 
 under the printing cylinders, of which there are four, and 
 back again nineteen times in a minute, producing two im- 
 pressions in going, and two in returning, or seventy-six in a 
 minute, being 4,560 copies of four pages of that newspaper 
 in the hour, at its ordinary rate of working. The paper is 
 laid on at both ends of the machine, two persons laying on 
 at each end ; and the printed sheets are delivered two at 
 each end. 
 
 The types are inked by means of rollers, and the appa- 
 ratus for this purpose was the invention of Mr. Edu ard 
 Cowper ; the paper is secured in travelling round the cylin- 
 ders by means of tapes, as first practised by Mr. Kdnig : the 
 chief improvements in this machine are known as those of 
 Messrs. Applegath and Cowper, by the former of whom it 
 was constructed and fitted up. 
 
 This machine has the appearance of four single machines 
 formed into one, and working at less speed than separate 
 machines are in the habit of doing, many of which are 
 capable of printing 1500 per hour ; and we have no hesita- 
 tion in saying, that if it were requisite for the sake of 
 despatch, the principle might be extended, and a machine 
 constructed to print 6000 or 8000 an hour without diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 The idea of cylindrical printing in England originated 
 some years anterior to Mr. KOnig submitting his plan, for 
 the late Mr. William Nicholson took out a patent for the 
 purpose, date<l 29th April, 1790, but it was never acted on ; 
 and, as to the use of steam as the motive power, the late 
 Mr. Alexander Tilloch is known to have stated previously 
 to the introduction of these machines, that he had long had 
 it in contemplation to apply steam as the power to print off 
 the Star newspaper. 
 
 The late Sir William Congreve took out a patent for a 
 machine to print two colours at once, which was made by 
 Messrs. Donkin and Company, and completely answered 
 the purpose. This machine was intended to print stamps 
 and bank bills, which Sir William stated would be inimita- 
 ble, except by the machine of which he was the patentee ; 
 but he was too sanguine, and the opinion was fallacious, 
 for nothing in the process of printing is more easy to execute 
 at the common press by a common workman than this 
 inimitable plan for preventing forgeries. 
 
 Glossary to the Article Printing. 
 
 Alteration of Margin, is increasing the space between 
 3P * 985
 
 PRINTING. 
 
 the pages, so as in enlarge the margin of a book, and make 
 ii proportional In large paper copies. 
 
 ll.uk Stay, is a girth or Btrap of strong leather attached 
 
 tu the back of the carriage, and fastened to the hind |iart of 
 
 its use i- to check the carriage In running out 
 
 beyond the point which will allow the tympan to 1 isu clear 
 
 of the front of the platen. 
 
 Halls are used for coating the face of the type or engraving 
 with ink for the purpose of obtaining impressions. They 
 consist of ilie ball-stock, Stuffed with carded wool, and not 
 many years ago were covered with an undressed sheep- 
 skin, the hair taken oil", termed a pelt. The noisome smell 
 which these halls occasioned in a printing office by the 
 means used to keep them in good working order, induced 
 many persons to turn their attention to the providing of a 
 substitute Cor them; but long without success: at length 
 Mr. B. Foster Introduced composition balls, made of" glue 
 and treacle melted together and cast in a dished mould, so 
 thai the edges are thinner than the middle, and attached to 
 a piece of canvass as a substitute for the pelt ; these balls 
 were found to answer so well, and be so free from any 
 noxious smell, that they have generally superseded the pelt 
 balls. 
 
 Hunk. A table placed at the side of a press, on one end 
 of which the horse containing the paper to be printed is 
 laid, and at the other the sheets printed during the opera- 
 tion. 
 
 Hoard Rack. Grooves formed in some recess, or under 
 the imposing stone or a hulk, or in a closet, to receive letter 
 hoards on which types ate placed that are not in immediate 
 use. 
 
 Carriage. That part of a press on which the types are 
 placed to be printed, which is run in till they are imme- 
 diately under the platen, and, when the impression is taken, 
 run out, in order to change the sheet of paper, and to ink 
 lac tj pes again. 
 
 Case Rack. A frame of wood of the width and depth of 
 a oase, with ledges attached to the inside of the upright 
 parts to receive those cases which are not in use. 
 
 I'uffni. A piece of strong paper twisted into a conical 
 shape like a sugar paper, into which any superfluous types 
 are temporarily deposited. Also that part of the carriage 
 of a wooden press in which the stone is bedded. 
 
 ing Hull'. A piece of brass rule, the width of 
 which i- equal to the height of the types, cut to the length 
 of the line, and laid in the composing stick, upon which the 
 compositor arranges the types; it facilitates the process, 
 and by means of it he empties his stick when it is full. 
 
 ( omposing stick. An instrument of simple construction, 
 in which the compositor arranges the words and lines. It 
 ha-, a slide, which is secured by a screw, by means of which 
 he is enabled to make the lines of any length that may lie 
 required. 
 
 Direction Line. A line of quadrants at the bottom of 
 each page, in which is inserted the first word of the next 
 page, which is called the catch-word; in the first page of 
 each sheet there is also inserted in it the number of the 
 volume, if more than one, and the signature. 
 
 To Distribute. To replace the letters in their respective 
 situations in the cases, after a sheet has been printed ofT, to 
 enable the compositor to proceed with the work. 
 
 Footstep. An inclined plane fixed under the front side 
 (if the press, fur the pressman to place his foot upon when 
 at woik, tu enable him to exert his strength to advantage. 
 
 Farm. A chase with one or more pages wedged up in it. 
 
 Fniini Case. A case of large dimension in which the 
 
 superfl s sorts of a fount are placed, as a depot, till they 
 
 be wanted. 
 
 It is made of wood, of a height to suit a man 
 Standing to work at it, on which the cases arc placed. It 
 is much higher at the hack than the front, which brings 
 the most distant boxes nearer to the compositor's hand. 
 
 Frisket. A light iron frame, attached to the tympan by 
 joints or pivots, which turns down upon the tympan over 
 
 the sheet of paper to he printed, to preserve the margin 
 clean, and to retain the paper in its position ; t,, effect this, 
 the frlskel Is covered with paper, and openings cut in it the 
 size oi the pages to he printed. 
 
 Girths. Two pieces of girthweb or strong leather, 
 fastened at one of the ends to the w heel, and wound differ- 
 ent ways round it, and the other ends attached t" the ex 
 
 Ireine ends of the carriage ; by this means turning the mimic 
 one way causes the camaire to run in Under the platen, and 
 
 turning it the reverse waj causes it to run out again. 
 
 Iliad I. me The line at the lop of the page, which con- 
 tain- the ti.iio or number of the page, ami frequently the 
 title of the book, or the subject of the chapter or of the 
 page. 
 
 Horse. An apparatus of a desk-like shape, placed on 
 (he '-Mil. close to the tympan of the press, on which the 
 papei to i.e printed is laid. 
 
 Inner Form. The thase and pages in proper order, 
 9S8 
 
 wedged up. which contains the 2d, 3d, 6th, 7th, 10th, 11th, 
 14th, and 15th pages Of a sheet in octavo; it invariably con- 
 tains the second page of a sheet, whatever may be the size 
 of the hook. 
 
 Justifying. Putting equal space between the words in 
 each line; making the lines of preciselj tin same length; 
 placing the marginal notes opposite the references ; making 
 the pages uniformly of one length ; and adjusting any pecu- 
 liar matter, so that the whole shall be tight and propel 
 w hen wedged up. 
 
 To Knock-up. At press, it is for the presstnen to make a 
 pair "f halls. In the warehouse, it is to make the printed 
 sheets even at the edges, which is performed by taking in id 
 
 of a panel of sheets by tho two edges, holding them slack 
 in the hands, and letting them fall on their bottom edge by 
 their own weight, then by a sleight of hand throwing them 
 flat on the hoard, repeating the operation till all the sheets 
 are even at the edges, when they are placed in piles until 
 they are gathered. 
 
 To Lay-up. This is the operation of washing the ink off 
 the types after the impression is printed, by laying the form 
 on a letter board, loosening the quoins, and working the 
 letter with the hand, pouring on it plenty of water to clean 
 the types for distribution. 
 
 Letter Board. A board on which pages of types are 
 placed for distribution, and also when they are not imme- 
 diately wanted. There are two ledges of wood grooved in 
 on the under side, which project a little mine than an inch, 
 on which it rests, which allows it to be set over other types 
 on boards without putting them in confusion. 
 
 Lye Trovgh. A shallow trough, lined with lead, suffi- 
 ciently capacious to admit a board on which a form is laid ; 
 this trough has some lye in it, with which the surface of 
 the letter, the chase, and the furniture is brushed over, to 
 remove the ink which has accumulated during the process 
 of printing ; the form is then taken out, set upon its edge, 
 and rinsed with water. The lye is composed of water and 
 pearlash. 
 
 Mallet. (Fr. maillet.) A wooden hammer, with which 
 the quoins arc tightened, and also loosened ; and which is 
 also used for general purposes. 
 
 JMcasure. (Fr. mesure ) The space in the composing 
 stick between the end and the slide, which is the length of 
 a line, however large or small the page may be, is styled 
 the measure. 
 
 Outer Farm. The chase and pages in proper order, 
 wedged up, which contains the 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, 12th, 
 Kith, and Kith pages of a sheet in octavo; it invariably 
 contains the first and last pages of a sheet, whatever may 
 be the size of the book. 
 
 Page Cord. Small twine, even and strong, which is 
 used to tie round the pages of types, to secure them from 
 accidents till they are imposed, when the cords are taken 
 off. 
 
 Page Papers. Pieces of stout and smooth paper, on 
 which the pages of types in the progress of a work are 
 placed in a safe place iill a sheet is ready to he Imposed. 
 
 Paper Boards. Hoards on which paper is laid when 
 wetted ; also those boards used in pressing books ; they tire 
 of various dimensions, according to the size of the paper. 
 They differ from letter boards in being smooth and even on 
 both sides. 
 
 Peel. A thin piece of wood with a long handle affixed 
 to it, in the shape of the letter T; it is used lor hanging 
 the sheets of a book upon the poles to dry, and for taking 
 them down again. 
 
 Platen. A thick piece of wood, or more generally now 
 made of iron, perfectly level on its under side, attached Im- 
 mediately under the moving power of a printing press, 
 which produces the impression. 
 
 Point. There are always two points used in press-work, 
 
 when a sheet of paper Is printed on both sides; they are 
 made of thin iron, u ith a notch at one end, and a projecting 
 spur or point at the other end ; they are attached to the 
 tympan by screws, and lie flat upon it: the spurs being 
 under the sheet of paper to he printed make small holes in 
 
 it, so that when the reiteration or second side is printed the 
 spurs are placed in these holes, which cause the pages to 
 actlj on the hack of each other. 
 Poles. Long pieces of Br wood, about an inch and a 
 half thick, and three or lour inches broad, placed across 
 the warehouse and other rooms in a printing-office, at ahoitt 
 eight or nine inches apart, and about fourteen inches from 
 the ceiling; their ends rest in notches cut in stretchers 
 fastened to the wall. Their use is to hang the damp printed 
 papei upon to dry, which is dime with facility by means of 
 
 the perl. 
 
 Quadrats. (Fr. quadrat) Pieces of metal of the same 
 bod) as the type, hut cast lower in height ; used to fill up 
 Inn i In , and to form a blank line or lines w here nece-arv ; 
 being cast lower than the type, they do not produce any 
 impres.-ion on the paper.
 
 PRINTING INK. 
 
 Quoin. A wedge about half an inch thick and of various 
 widths, to wedge up the pages of type in a chase. 
 
 Roller. (Fr. rouleau.) The roller has nearly superseded 
 the use of balls for inking the surface of the types. It is 
 formed of a composition of glue and treacle cast on a wooden 
 cylinder, turning on its axis in a light frame. 
 
 Rounce. The rounce is the handle by which the car- 
 riage of the press, on which the form to be printed is laid, 
 is run in under the platen and out again ; it is fixed on the 
 spit, which is the axis, that passes through the drum, a 
 cylinder of wood on which one end of the girths are fasten- 
 ed. The whole apparatus is generally termed the rounce. 
 
 Run-in. The act of placing the carriage with the form 
 of types under the platen, to obtain an impression. This is 
 effected by turning the rounce. 
 
 Run-out. The act of withdrawing the carriage with the 
 form of types from under the platen, by turning the rounce 
 the reverse way from the preceding, after the impression is 
 taken. 
 
 Shooting Stick. An implement for tightening and loosen- 
 ing the quoins that wedge up the pages in a chase. It is in 
 the shape of a wedge, about two inches broad and nine 
 inches long, and is usually made of box wood. In use the 
 small end is placed against the quoin, and the other struck 
 by the mallet. 
 
 Signature. A letter of the alphabet placed at the bottom 
 of the first page of a sheet, and so on to each sheet con- 
 secutively through the alphabet, with the exception of the 
 letters J, V, and W ; their use is to facilitate collating a 
 book, as a guide to the bookbinder in folding the sheets, 
 and as a ready means of referring to any part of a work 
 before it is bound. 
 
 Sink. A corner of the pressroom, generally inclosed and 
 lined with lead, with loose boards upon the lead ; in this 
 sink are placed the lye trough and a wetting trough ; it is 
 here where the forms are washed, rinsed, and laid up. 
 There is always a pipe to carry off the waste water. 
 
 Sorts. It is generally used in the plural ; it means any 
 letter, point, mark, space, or quadrat, that is either deficient 
 or redundant in quantity. A work runs upon sorts ; that 
 is, a greater number of some particular letters are required 
 than the regular proportion, an index for instance. 
 
 Space. A piece of metal cast lower than a type, so as 
 not to print, used to separate words ; they are of different 
 thicknesses, so as to enable the compositor to arrange the 
 words at equal distances from each other in the same line. 
 Tympan. A wooden frame attached to the carriage of 
 the press by joints, and covered with parchment, on which 
 the sheet of paper to be printed is laid ; there is another 
 frame called the inner tympan, which fits into this, also 
 covered with parchment; between these are placed pieces 
 of woollen cloth, termed blankets, which form a soft medium 
 between the types and the platen that tends to produce an 
 equal impression. 
 
 Tympan Sheet. A sheet of paper, the same that a work 
 is printed on, laid upon the tympan, and fastened to it at 
 the corners with paste ; it is the guide on which the sheets 
 to be printed are laid, by which means the margin is kept 
 regular and uniform. 
 
 Wetting Trough. Two troughs joined together and lined 
 with lead ; one deep, containing the water ; the other shal- 
 low, of sufficient size to contain a paper board. The paper 
 is wetted for printing by drawing it through the water, and 
 opening it out on the board. 
 
 PRINTING INK. A composition with which the face 
 of types and engravings in relief are coated previous to ob- 
 taining an impression from them : it is made of different 
 colours ; but books, and the generality of printing, are exe- 
 cuted with black ink. Its composition, generally speaking, 
 is linseed oil boiled to a varnish, with colouring matter 
 added to it. The preparation of this article was long kept 
 a profound secret by the few manufacturers of it in England, 
 who completely monopolized the trade, till Mr. W. Savage 
 published a treatise on the subject, in which he gave the 
 process in detail for making printing ink of every quality 
 and colour, which may be consulted with advantage by 
 those who are interested in the subject. 
 
 PRIOR, PRIORESS. (Lat.) The heads of certain con- 
 vents of monks or nuns, which are thence denominated 
 priories ; the prior is inferior in dignity to the abbot. 
 
 PRISCTLLIANISTS. In Ecclesiastical History, heretics 
 of the 4th century; so named from Priscillian, bishop of 
 Atila in Spain, who was put to death in A.D. 382 by Maxi- 
 mus, tyrant of Gaul, for heresy, on the accusation of another 
 bishop, Ithacius: one of the earliest instances of persecution 
 to death for that offence. The opinions of Priscillian and 
 his followers are said to have been Manichtean ; but it is 
 remarkable that Snip. Severus, himself sufficiently zealous 
 against their doctrines, admits that their persecutor Ithacius 
 was a man of disreputable character, and that purity and 
 austerity of manners were often sufficient with him to 
 ground an accusation of Prisciilianism. This affords a 
 
 PRISON. 
 
 curious parallel with the history of the 12th and 13th cen- 
 turies, when accusations of Manicheism were liberally 
 brought against sectaries whose avowed tenets extended 
 only to the reformation of ecclesiastical matters and denial 
 of the church's authority. (See Mosheim, cent, iv., part 2.) 
 
 PRISM. In Geometry, a solid contained by planes of 
 which two that are opposite are equal, similar, and parallel, 
 and all the rest parallelograms. Prisms take particular 
 names from the figures of their ends, or opposite equal and 
 parallel sides. When the ends are triangles, they are called 
 triangular prisms ; when the ends are square, square prisms ; 
 when the ends are pentagonal, pentagonal prisms ; and so 
 on. A right prism has its sides perpendicular to its ends ; 
 an oblique prism is that of which the sides are oblique to 
 the ends. The solid content of a prism is found by multi- 
 plying the area of the base into the perpendicular altitude ; 
 hence all prisms are to one another hi the ratio compounded 
 of their bases and altitudes. 
 
 Prism. In Dioptrics, a piece of glass or other diaphanous 
 substance, in form of a triangular prism, employed to sepa- 
 rate a ray of light into its constituent parts or colours by 
 refraction. The prism is the instrument by means of which. 
 most of the remarkable phenomena of light and colours are 
 exhibited. See Chromatics, Optics, Refraction. 
 
 PRISMATIC COLOURS. The colours produced by de- 
 composing light by a prism. See Primary Colours. 
 
 PRISMATIC COMPASS. A surveying instrument, much 
 used on account of its convenient size and form in military 
 sketching, and for filling up the details of a map where 
 great accuracy is not required. The construction is as fol- 
 lows : The compass-card, divided into degrees and minutes, 
 is attached to the needle, and turns with it. On one side 
 of the compass-box stands a perpendicular slip, called the 
 sight-vane, having a long, narrow, perpendicular slit in it, 
 along the middle of which a fine thread is sti etched. On 
 one side of the box, opposite to the sight-vane, there is a 
 prism, through which and through the sight-vane an object 
 is observed, and bisected by the thread. The use of the 
 prism is this— the rays of light passing from the thread to 
 the eye are refracted in passing through the prism, so that 
 the thread appears to be prolonged, and to intersect the cir- 
 cle on the card on which the divisions are ; consequently, 
 the magnetic azimuth of any object which the thread bi- 
 sects is indicated immediately by the division with which 
 the thread coincides. The angle between two stations is 
 thus obtained, being equal when the stations are on opposite 
 sides of the meridian to the sum of their azimuths, and to 
 the difference of the azimuths when they are on the same 
 side of the meridian. The card is divided to 15' of a degree, 
 which is, perhaps, a smaller angle than can be measured by 
 this instrument. (See Simms's Treatise on Mathematical 
 Instruments.) 
 
 PRISMOID. An imperfect prism ; a figure resembling a 
 prism, but not answering exactly to the definition. 
 
 PIU'SON. (Fr. prendre, to take.) Imprisonment is used 
 in most civilized states for three purposes : for safe custody 
 of persons charged with offences, for the detention of debt- 
 ors, and for punishment; under which latter head the refor- 
 mation of prisoners must be comprehended, as being prop- 
 erly only an adjunct to punishment. The first principles of 
 order seem to require that these three classes of prisoners 
 should be kept entirely distinct, and, if possible, in separate 
 places of confinement; but even the. former rule has been 
 generally very imperfectly observed, while the latter is in 
 most places impracticable by reason of expense. The alle- 
 viation of the horrors of imprisonment, by physical improve- 
 ment of the condition of prisoners and the imparting of reli- 
 gious instruction, has been from very early times an object 
 with philanthropists ; but the adaptation of imprisonment 
 to serve the end of punishment has been, comparatively 
 speaking, only very recently attempted. The Society of the 
 Brothers of Mercy, in Italy, paid much attention to the for- 
 mer subject in the 15th and 10th centuries; and the names 
 of S. Carlo Borromeo and St. Vincent de Patile have deri- 
 ved from it much of their lustre. But the earliest instance 
 of a prison managed on any principles of policy and hu 
 manity seems to be that of the Penitentiary at Amsterdam, 
 erected in 1595; an example which was soon followed by 
 some of the German towns, especially Hamburg and Bre- 
 men. In England it is well known that the impulse of 
 prison improvement was first communicated by the celebra- 
 ted Howard, whose sufferings, when taken by a privateer 
 and imprisoned at Brest, during the seven years' war, are 
 said to have first directed his attention to the subject. The 
 fruits of his observations, in his repeated visits to most of 
 the prisons of Europe, were given to the world partly in his 
 publications, and partly on examination before a committee 
 of the House of Commons in 1774. To his suggestions, and 
 those of Jonas Hanway, are principally owing the provisions 
 of the 19 G. 3, c. 74 (passed in 1778), truly called the basis 
 of succeeding legislation on the subject. Solitary imprison- 
 ment was then first instituted. The works of Neeld and 
 
 987
 
 PRISON. 
 
 others, nml the labours of the Prison Discipline Society 
 (founded, we believe, chieflj by Mr. Powell Buxton), kept 
 the attention of the public fixed on the subjeefc in 1813, 
 the construction of the Milbank Penitentiary was begun, in- 
 tended aa a species of modi I prison ; but that establishment, 
 from man} errors committed in its foundation, and first man- 
 agement, was long before ii answered in any degree the 
 views of its projectors. Meanwhile, practical improvement 
 had proceeded much farther in the United States of Ameri- 
 ca, where ii tperimeais of solitary confinement and of 
 
 association in silence were both first Instituted on an] ex- 
 tensive scale, and have formed the basis of two different 
 systems, which now divide the suffrages of observers. En- 
 rope lias, ia this mailer, taken lessons from America; and 
 the reports of French visiters 'Messrs. Beaumont and De 
 Tocqueville, 1834; Messrs. De Metz and Blouet, sent by 
 government; l-:i7), of Dr. Juliers, sent from Prussia, and 
 Mr. Crawford from England, have contributed largely to 
 the present state of public opinion on the subject In 1834, 
 inspectors were appointed to report annually on the state of 
 English and Scottish prisons — a measure wliirh had been 
 earlier adopted with reference to Ireland; and their reports 
 may be consulted with great advantage, both with a view 
 to the actual state of prisons and their prospective reform. 
 The "Third Report of the English Inspector for the Home 
 District" (1838) is particularly valuable, from the historical 
 sketch ii contains, and from tin 1 comparison there instituted 
 between the separate and the silent systems. The chief 
 heads of improvement in prison discipline which have been 
 recommended or Introduced since public attention was call- 
 ed to the subject are, 1. Inspection nnd control ; 2. Classifi- 
 cation ; 3. Separate or solitary punishment ; 4. The "silent" 
 or lion intercourse system ; 5. The introduction of labour; 6. 
 Religious and intellectual instruction. — 1. The first of these 
 is matter rather of practical than theoretical development. 
 The history of the plan originally suggested by General 
 Bentham and his brother, the philosopher, which has form- 
 ed, to a certain extent, the basis of later experiments, is 
 mentioned under the head Penitentiary. 2. Classifica- 
 tion, under the English jail acts of 1823 and 1824, has been 
 extensively introduced into prisons. It is, of course, a great 
 improvement on the indiscriminate mixture of prisoners of 
 all classes and characters which formerly prevailed; but, 
 aa a means of reformation or of punishment, it has not an- 
 swered the views once entertained of it. And the reason is 
 obvious: the only object of classification is the exclusion of 
 the moral influence of mora or less corrupted minds ; but by 
 no system of classification (and as many as fifteen classes 
 have been introduced in some prisons) can this be exclu- 
 ded. In every class, whether arranged according to age, or 
 degree of offence, or in any other practicable mode, there 
 will probably be some unusually depraved characters; and 
 
 then the experiment must fail. The only perfect classifica- 
 tion is that which constitutes the basis of, 3. The separate 
 system, namely, the entire separation of prisoners from each 
 other in solitary cells. When this has been carried to ex- 
 cess as a means of punishment, namely, seclusion by day 
 and by night, without labour, without employment, with 
 only the occasional silent visits of the turnkey or the nodi 
 
 rai attendant, it has generally proved more than human 
 nature can bear, at Least for any time; but separate confine- 
 ment with labour as an alleviation, and with occasional vis 
 Its for religious consolation and instruction, is a very differ- 
 ent mode of treatment. The separate system is that estab- 
 lished in the great eastern penitentiary of Pennsylvania, in 
 Philadelphia, uow in operation for ten or eleven years; and in 
 thai of Glasgow -which may be mentioned as models in their 
 kind. •!. The difficulty of enforcing solitary confinement, in 
 some American pri one, seems to have led to the adoption 
 of the .-■/// nt system; of which the prison at Auburn, in the 
 State of New-York, affords the most celebrated instance. 
 The prisoners work together in the day, but are prevented 
 from all communication: at night they are separate, it 
 was. we believe, introduced several years ago in the Maisoo 
 di Force at Ghent In England, It is in operation al Cold 
 bath Fields, Wakefield, and elsewhere. With reaped to 
 the comparative advantages of the two systems, the work 
 of Messrs, Beaumont and be Tocqueville may be consulted 
 for an Impartial summary of evidence, without the expres- 
 sion of decided opinion. | Part I., chap. ii.. s. 3.) The " sep- 
 arate" was recommended In 1839 by the committee on ve- 
 ondary punishments, and la advocated by Mr. Crauford, in 
 Ins Report on tin Penitentiaries of the United State* 1837, 
 and In the fourth Report above alluded to; by Dr. Juliers ; 
 
 is. Hi- Metz and lilouett, and by M. Moreau-< 'hris- 
 tophe in various WOrkS. The silent system seems to he 
 
 supported by M.Lucas, lie la Reform dee Prism 
 while, iii his Thiorit is V Emprisonnement, be attempt- to 
 reconcile the two ; by Messrs. Berenger and GasparJn : and 
 l>y Mr. Inspector Williams (fourth Report England ; North 
 era and Eastern Division . The chief objections to the 
 separate system are, 1. As a punishment, its Inequality, 
 
 PRIVATEER. 
 
 being felt far more severely by some than others; but to 
 this it may be answered, that those who do feel it are pre- 
 cisely those whom it is most desirable to atl'eel — the more 
 
 depraved. '-. Its effects on the mind and passions in some 
 respects; a very difficult and delicate subject, and by far 
 
 the most serious charge against it. :t. That even as a sys- 
 tem of reform, for which, in subjects presenting any prospect 
 
 Of amendment, it is best calculated, it is utterly useless In 
 short terms Of imprisonment. " Those best acquainted with 
 the Subject in the United States," says Mr. Williams, "con- 
 ceive that two years' imprisonment are required before any 
 Impression can be made, and from four to six years to 
 achieve the work of reformation." To the silent system, 
 its enemies object, 1. The extreme difficulty of carrying it 
 into successful operation. 2. Its supposed edict in irrita- 
 ting, degrading, and even brutalizing the minds of prisoners, 
 by its vexatious discipline. They appeal in support of this 
 
 position to the quantity of punishment (corporal, or by soli- 
 tary confinement) which is required to carry it into effect 
 In Wakefield and Coldbath Fields, upon this system, 26,257 
 punishments were Inflicted on 13,188 prisoners, or two on 
 each on the average; while in all England the proportion 
 was found U> be 54,825 punishments to ll>!),4 < .>5 prisoners, or 
 one to two only. But this is explained in some degree, in 
 the latter prison at least, by the number of short imprison- 
 ments. 5. With respect to the introduction of labour into 
 prisons of punishment, the chief question seems to be, 
 whether it ought to form part of the punishment, and be of 
 a vexatious and severe nature, or whether it should be used 
 as an alleviation to the rigour of separate confinement, as a 
 preparation of the criminal for re-entrance into society. 
 The former is the principle commonly adopted in England; 
 the ordinary sentence, for many offences, being Imprison- 
 ment with hard labour, and with occasional intervals of sol- 
 itary confinement ; the treadwheel being the most common 
 species of labour. On tills subject the reader may consult 
 the original article "Prisons" in the Eur. Britanmca ; but 
 the views Of the author are somewhat too dogmatically ex- 
 pressed. The policy and practicability of making prison 
 labour pay or contribute largely towards the maintenance 
 of the prison has not been much discussed In England, 
 where, from our less economical habits, the experiment has 
 hardly been tried. In America several are said to afford a 
 revenue to the state. (See Messrs. De Beaumont and 
 Tocqueville.) In Belgium they have long been rendered 
 very productive: the works of the present very able in- 
 spector-general, M. Ducpetiaux, contain ample information 
 on the subject. The 10th and 17th Reports of the Irish In- 
 spectors refer largely to it: from the latter it appears that 
 the cost of work has been more than repaid by the return 
 in every prison ; but it does not appear clearly what is com- 
 prehended tinder the former head, and the numbers seem 
 not altogether accurate. There are, however, serious moral 
 objections to plaus combining economical advantage with 
 punishment and reformation. It is impossible to conclude 
 an article on this subject without noticing that terrible de- 
 fect in our institutions, the want of any control over, or pro- 
 \-ision for. Offenders discharged from prisons ; a defect which 
 the abolition of transportation, without any substitute, will 
 render even more conspicuously injurious than it has hith- 
 erto been. Most of the best modern authorities on this 
 subject are referred to in the course of this article : see also 
 the article " Gefangniss" in the Conversations Lexicon, and 
 the German works mentioned at the end of it ; and the Ed. 
 Hev., vols, xxii., xxx., xxxv., and xxxvi. 
 
 The last prisons act is the 2 & 3 Vict., c. 50 (1839). Tty 
 this act. sip, irate confinement is for the first time distin- 
 guished from the severer punishment of solitary confine- 
 ment. The justices are empowered to make rules for classi- 
 fication, &c, subject to the approval, of the secretary of 
 state. According to the reports of 1838, 133,313 |>ersons 
 were confined in the prisons of England and Wales during 
 that year ; of whom 23,808 were committed for trial at as- 
 sizes and sessions, 56,738 on summer] conviction. 
 
 PRISONS, MAMEKTINE, Certain fearful places of 
 confinement in ancient Rome, chiefly intended for state 
 prisoners. They were constructed by Ancua Martins, of 
 
 large uncemented stones ; and, from the specimens of them 
 
 which remain, it is difficult to imagine a more horrible 
 place for the confinement of a human being. There were 
 
 two apartments, one above the oilier, to Which there was 
 
 no entrance except by a small aperture in the upper roof; 
 
 and a similar hole in the upper floor led to the cell below, 
 
 there being no staircase to either. The upper prison was 
 
 -J? Bel long bj 30 wide, and the lower, which was ellipti- 
 cal, was 2ii hy 10; the height of the former was 14 feet, of 
 
 the latter 7. .None but persons of distinction had the priv- 
 ilege of occupying thee prisons. 
 
 PlilV ATI I. K. A vessel belonging to one or more pri- 
 VBtj individuals, sailing with a license from government, 
 
 In time of war, to seize and plunder the ships of the enemy. 
 The practice of granting commissions to privateers first be-
 
 PRIVILEGE. 
 
 came general in the war between Spain and the revolted 
 Netherlands, at the end of the sixteenth century ; when it 
 was extensively made use of by the Prince of Orange as a 
 means of annoying the Spanish trade. 
 
 PRI'VJLEGE. (Lat. privilegium : defined by Cicero, lex 
 privato homini irrogata.) In the ordinary acceptation of 
 the word, a law, or an exception from the common provis- 
 ions of law, in favour of an individual or a body. Privilege 
 is said to be personal or real ; that is, attached to the per- 
 son only, or to the person in respect of a particular place ; 
 as to a member of one of the universities, an officer of one 
 of the courts at Westminster. The privileges chiefly recog- 
 nised by the English law are privilege of parliament (see 
 Parliament), and the privilege to sue and be sued, accord- 
 ing to particular provisions, allowed to officers and attend- 
 ants in the courts of justice. 
 
 PRI'VITY, in Law, is a peculiar mutual relation which 
 subsists between individuals connected in various ways ; so 
 that, besides those who are actually parties to a transac- 
 tion, others connected with these parties are said to be 
 privy to the transaction, and are bound by its consequences. 
 Several sorts of privity are enumerated by writers on law ; 
 but those of most ordinary occurrence are three : privity of 
 blood, of estate, and of contract. The former subsists be- 
 tween an ancestor and his heir ; the second between lessor 
 and lessee, tenant for life and reversioner created by the 
 same instrument ; and privity of contract between those 
 who are parties to a contract, which species of privity is 
 personal only. 
 
 PRIVY CHAMBER, GENTLEMEN OF THE. Offi- 
 cers of the king's household, instituted by Henry VII. 
 Their proper duties are to attend the king and queen at 
 court in their diversions, progresses, &c. There are also 
 four gentlemen ushers of the privy chamber, whose office 
 is to wait in the presence chamber, attend on the king's 
 person, and note affairs under the lord-chamberlain and 
 vice-chamberlain. 
 
 PRIVY COUNCIL. See Council, Privy. 
 
 PRIVY SEAL, LORD. The fifth great officer of state 
 in England, who has the custody of the privy seal of the 
 king, used to all grants, charters, pardons, &.c, before they 
 come to the great seal. 
 
 PRIZE. Anything captured by a belligerent using the 
 right of war: in common language, only ships thus cap- 
 tured, with the property taken in them, are so called. Pri- 
 zes taken in war are condemned by the proper judicature 
 in the courts of the captors : such condemnation is held to 
 divest the title of the proprietor and confer a new owner- 
 ship. In order to give jurisdiction to a court of prize, it is 
 deemed necessary, by the law of nations, that the property 
 captured should be in possession of the captors in their 
 own ports, those of an ally, or of a neutral ; but no belli- 
 gerent power has a right to capture in the ports of a neu- 
 tral country, or within a marine league of her shores ; nor 
 does a capture made then render the adjudication valid. 
 Subject to capture are hostile property, ?'. e., the property of 
 persons domiciled in a hostile country, and neutral property 
 contraband of war. See Contraband. 
 
 PRO' A, FLYING. A narrow canoe about 30 feet long 
 by 3 feet wide, used in the Ladrone Islands. The lee side 
 is flat, being the mere longitudinal section of the common 
 form, and tbe head and stem exactly alike. A slight frame- 
 work projects several feet to windward, bearing a small 
 block of wood like a canoe : this float supports the vessel 
 from oversetting to that side, as she would otherwise do, 
 and the framework affords support for a weight acting 
 against tbe pressure of the sail. The vessel is steered by 
 a paddle at either end, and moves with great velocity, ei- 
 ther backwards or forwards, being adapted to a side wind 
 in running between two places. The sail is mat, with a 
 boom, upon one mast. Proa is also the name for large 
 boats used by the Malays, propelled both bv oars and sails. 
 
 PROAU'LION. (Gr. xpo, and av\ v , a hall.) In Archi- 
 tecture, the same as vestibule ; which see. 
 
 PRO'BABILISM. In Theology and Ethics, a theory 
 professed by some casuistical divines, chiefly of the Jesuit 
 order, according to which it is lawful to follow a probable 
 opinion in doubtful points, although other opinions may 
 seem to the mind of the inquirer more probable. Those 
 who teach this doctrine are styled Probabilists. This and 
 the other tenets of the once celebrated science of casuistry 
 are ably touched on by Mr. Hallam, in vol. iii. of his Liter- 
 ature of Europe. 
 
 PROBABILITY, THEORY OF. A very extensive and 
 important application of analysis, having for its object the 
 determination of the number of ways in which a future or 
 uncertain event may happen or fail, in order that we may 
 be enabled to judge whether the chances of its happening 
 or failing are the greater, and in what proportion. 
 
 In this theory the word chance is used to signify the oc- 
 currence of an event in a particular way, when there exist 
 two or more ways by which it may take place, and no rea- 
 80 
 
 PROBABILITY, THEORY OF. 
 
 son can be assigned for its happening in one way rather 
 than another. For example, if a die be thrown up into the 
 air, it will necessarily fall on one or other of its six faces ; 
 but as we know of no reason why it should fall on the 
 face marked one rather than on that which is marked two, 
 or on any other face, and as the circumstances are precisely 
 the same in all the cases, we say the chance of its falling 
 on any one face is equal to the chance of its falling on anv 
 other. Suppose, again, a die, having four of its faces white, 
 and the other two black, to be tossed up. There are four 
 ways in which the die may fall so as to turn up a white 
 face, and two in which it may turn up a black face ; we 
 therefore say the chances of its turning up a white face are 
 to the chances of its turning up a black face as four to two. 
 In ordinary language, when an event is said to happen by 
 chance, it is merely implied that the cause is unknown, or 
 cannot be certainly appreciated. 
 
 The term probable, in its common acceptation, is applied 
 to any contingent or future event, to denote that in our 
 judgment the event is more likely to happen than not to 
 happen. In mathematical language probability has a defi- 
 nite signification. Suppose five balls to be placed in an 
 urn, three of them white, and two black ; and, one of them 
 being drawn out at random, let it be proposed to assign a 
 measure of the probability of its being a white or a black 
 ball. In this case there are five chances in all, three of 
 which are in favour of a white ball, and two in favour of a 
 black. The probability of drawing at the first trial any 
 particular ball will evidently be represented by the fraction 
 $ ; hence the probability of drawing a white ball is |, and 
 the probability of drawing a black ball |. Now it is obvi- 
 ous that the absolute number of balls in the urn will not 
 affect the relative probabilities, so long as the proportion of 
 white to black balls remains unaltered. Suppose, for exam- 
 ple, the number of balls increased to fifty, of which thirty 
 are white and twenty black ; the probability of drawing a 
 white ball at the first trial must still remain the same, there 
 being always three chances in favour of a white ball for 
 every two in favour of a black. Whatever, therefore, the 
 number of balls in the urn may be, the probability of draw- 
 ing one of a particular colour must remain the same, so 
 long as the ratio of the number of balls of that colour to 
 the whole number in the urn remains unaltered. Hence 
 we derive the following definition, which is, in fact, the 
 basis of the whole doctrine of probabilities : 
 
 The probability of the occurrence of any event is mea- 
 sured by a fraction, the numerator of which expresses the 
 number of chances favourable to the occurrence of the 
 event, and the denominator the whole number of chances 
 favourable and unfavourable. 
 
 This fraction is called the mathematical probability. It 
 is important to remark, that all the chances are considered 
 as equal ; for example, that, in drawing a ball from the 
 urn, any one ball has the same chance of being drawn as 
 any other. 
 
 Every contingent event gives rise to two opposite pro- 
 babilities — one, that the event will happen : the other, that 
 it will not ; and the sum of these probabilities is always 
 equal to unity. Thus, in the preceding example, the pro- 
 bability that a white ball will be drawn from the urn is f, 
 and the probability that a black ball will be drawn (i.e., 
 that a white ball will not be drawn) is f ; and f -)-f =4 = 1. 
 In general, let m denote the number of chances favourable 
 to an event, and n the number of unfavourable chances; 
 then, the whole number of chances, or ways in which the 
 event can happen or fail, being m + n, the probability that 
 
 the event will happen is , the probability that it will 
 
 7B+ n 
 
 not happen — , and the sum of these probabilities is L 
 
 m-\-n 
 Hence, ifp denote the probability of the occurrence of any 
 event, the probability that it will not occur is 1 — p. For 
 instance, let p = the probability that an individual of a 
 given age will live over one year; then 1 — p is the proba- 
 bility that he will not live over the year, or that he will be 
 dead within the year. As the individual must either be 
 alive or dead, the sum of the probabilities must necessarily 
 amount to certainty, which is represented by unity, and 
 hence the probability of any contingent event is always a 
 fraction less than unity. 
 
 Probability of simultaneous Events. — The probability of 
 the simultaneous occurrence of several independent events 
 is calculated as follows : Let it be required for example, 
 to determine the probability of throwing aces with two 
 dice. Let the dice be called respectively A and B. The 
 probability that A will turn up ace is ^ ; and if a person 
 were to purchase the chance of receiving a sum of £36 on 
 the occurrence of this event alone, the proper sum he 
 ought to pay for the chance is £G. But, if the sum is to 
 be received only on condition of A and B both turning up 
 ace, the above probability will only be beneficial to him
 
 PROBABILITY, THEORY OF. 
 
 provided I! also turns up ace. Now, the probability of this 
 ( \ cut is likewise I ; therefore, the probability of receiving 
 tin sam is | ,,i ;. thai is ,' (i . and the price to be paid for 
 the chance la ' of £6, that is, XI. 
 
 The same reasoning may be applied to any number of 
 Independent events : and the conclusion, w hich Is pei fectlj 
 general. ma\ be expressed by the follow ing rule ; " The pro 
 Bability of the occurrence of several Independent events is 
 obtained by multiplying together their separate proba- 
 bilities." Thus, lei jj di note tin' probability of an event A, 
 q that of an event 1!, r that of an event C, &.C. ; then the 
 probability of the joint occurrence of those events is e.v- 
 pressed by the continued product pyr, tec. 
 
 Probability of success) 01 Eui its. — The probability of the 
 .r recurrence of the same or different events is 
 determined precisely in the same manner. For example, 
 let the probability he required of throwing ace twice sin: 
 cessively with the same die. The probability of ace turn- 
 ing U)i at the first throw is -,' ; , and at tin' second J; the 
 probability of ace turning up at both throws is, therefore, £ 
 of £=JU. Hence, the probability that ace will not turn 
 up both at the first and second throw is 1 — 3TT = 'jf* 
 This last probability, it is necessary to remark, is quite 
 distinct from the probability that ace will nut turn up in 
 
 either throw, anil which is found thus: The probability 
 that ace will not be thrown at the first throw is J ; and the 
 probability that it will not be thrown at the second also £ : 
 hence, by the former rule, the probability that it will not 
 he thrown at either throw is { X t = §4- This, added to 
 Jg, the probability that ace will be thrown both times, 
 does not give the sum equal to unity, for there are still two 
 cases to be taken account of. Ace may he thrown at the 
 first throw, and not at the second ; or ace may not he 
 thrown at the first throw, hut thrown at the second. The 
 probability that ace will turn up at the fust throw is |, and 
 that it will not turn up at the second throw § ; hence, the 
 probability thai it will turn up at the first, and not at the 
 second is. ' x r=gV The probability that it will not 
 turn at the fust, but turn up at the second, is ji -)-| = ^-; 
 and the sum of these, added to the sum of the probabilities 
 of the two former cases, gives a result equal to unity. A 
 distinct enumeration of the different suppositions that may 
 be madi relative to the ace point, in two successive throw's 
 
 of the same (he, will render this reasoning more obvious. 
 The event can happen only in one of four ways, which, 
 with their respective probabilities, are as follows": 
 
 1. Ace at both throws, probability = ~$ 
 
 2. Ace at neither throw, probability = ^4 
 
 3. Ace at first, not at second, probability = A 
 
 4. Ace at second, not at first, probability = A 
 And the sum of these fractions is §4 = 1. 
 
 This reasoning may be rendered general. Suppose m 
 =the number of white balls in an urn, and n==the num- 
 ber of black halls in the same urn. and that when a ball 
 has been drawn it is immediately replaced in the urn, so 
 that ai each trial the whole number of chances is m+n. 
 Let p = the probability of drawing a white hall on any 
 trial, and r/_ihe probability of drawing a black ball; we 
 
 have then p=_? , and q=—0— . And first let us 
 
 "i + « in + >i 
 
 consider the probabilities of the different possible events 
 that may happen mi two trials. 
 
 The only possible ways in which the balls can be drawn 
 in two successh e trials are these four : 
 
 1. first white, second white; probability =pxp = p 2 ; 
 
 2. First white, second black; probability— pXq=pq; 
 
 3. first block, second white ; probability =qXp=pq; 
 
 4. First black, sec 1 black; probability = j X q — j> ; 
 
 Adding together these probabilities we get 
 
 P 2 + 2po + a2=(p + „)2, 
 and the Bum is equal to unity, as will be evident by sub- 
 stituting for; and o their values in terms of m and n. 
 
 It thus appears, that the probabilities of all the different 
 combinations that can be formed in two trials, are ii spec! 
 ively given by the development of the binomial (p-\-q)2. 
 
 It will be observed, that the term 2pq gives the proba- 
 bility of drawing a hall of each colour in the two trials, 
 
 without distinct] I order; that is, the white ball mav he 
 
 drawn either at the first or second trial. 
 
 NOW, let the number of trials, instead of being two, be 
 d to any number n ; the probabilities Of Oil dil 
 
 ferenl combinations will be given by the development of 
 the binomial (p + q)u. This development is 
 
 pu + 'ipu-. , + fi^I) ? u-2 y 2 .... 
 
 ■ w-(u — l)(u — 2), 
 1.8, 3~T 
 990 
 
 (u — o + l) 
 
 J, U-T ql -j- & C . 
 
 The first term p\ indicates the probability of drawing a 
 wbne bill in each of the a trials, or that all the balls 
 
 drawn will he white. The second term u pB— 1 q denotes 
 
 the probability of drawing u — 1 white balls and i black 
 
 ball in u trials, without regard to the order; that is to say, 
 the black ball may be drawn at the fust, second, third, or 
 any oilier trial. The general term 
 
 i t (a-l)(it-2)....(«-p + l) .. v 
 
 1.2.3 v P 9 
 
 gives the probability that in u trials u — v white balls will 
 be drawn, and black balls, without distinction Of Order. 
 
 If the probability of drawing the ball in a determinate 
 order of succession were required ; for instance, if it were 
 required to determine the probability of drawing u — v 
 white balls successively, and then v black balls: the co- 
 efficient of the term must be suppressed, and the probability 
 becomes /)>'— vyv. 
 
 The practical question that most frequently arises is, not 
 to determine the probability of the repetitions of an event 
 in any precise order, but the probability that the number 
 of repetitions will exceed or not exceed a certain limit. 
 Thus, in the preceding example, suppose it were required 
 to assign the probability that not fewer than u—v white 
 halls will be drawn m u trials; ii is evident that us the 
 first term gives the probability of drawing « white balls, 
 the second term that of drawing u — 1 while balls, ami so 
 on, and as each of these combinations satisfies the con- 
 dition, the required probability w ill be found by taking the 
 sum of all the terms of the development of (p + ?) u from 
 the first to that in which the factor ;u— vyv appears, both 
 inclusive. As an example, let it be required to determine 
 the probability of throwing ace at least tieice in four throws 
 of the same die. Here we have p = i, ? = j, w = 4. and 
 u — o = 2, whence o = 2. Now, the development of 
 (P + 9) 4 t0 the term in which p-q- occurs, is p*-\-ip3q 
 -|- t>p- </-', which, on substituting for p and q their values, 
 
 becomes U)4 + 4 (J)3 x | + 6(')2x (£)2 = -^i = between 
 
 \ and I. Again, suppose the question were to assign the 
 probability of throwing ace at least o;icc in four trials, we 
 should have u — = 1, and therefore o = 3. Now, the 
 term of the development of (;» + </)^ in which pqS occurs, 
 is the fourth, or last but one; the sum of the lir.-t four 
 terms, therefore, gives the required probability. Hut the 
 calculation of this sum is easy; for, since the sum of all 
 the terms is (p-\-q)* = l, and the least term is q-i, the sum 
 
 of the first four is 1 — ? t = l — (|)4 = 1 — -5^- = — . 
 * 1296 1296 
 
 Probability derived from Experience. — In what precedes 
 it has been supposed that the number of ways in which an 
 event can arrive are known « priori ; but it may happen, 
 and indeed does happen, in the greater number of the most 
 important questions to which the calculus of probabilities 
 is applied, that the number of chances favourable and un- 
 favourable to the occurrence of any particular event is 
 unknown, and that the ratio of the one to the other can 
 only he inferred from considering the ways in which the 
 
 event has been observed already in happen. Recurring to 
 the case of the urn — let us suppose the urn to contain a 
 certain number of balls 6f different colours; but that the 
 number of each colour is unknown, and that, from having 
 observed the result of several trials, we line to determine 
 the probability of drawing a ball of a particular colour at 
 the next trial. The method of proceeding is as follows: 
 Taking a simple case; suppose the urn to contain only 
 four balls, of two colours, white and black, and that, on 
 four successive trials (the ball drawn being in each case 
 replaced in the urn), three white halls anil one black have 
 
 been drawn. Three hypotheses may be fori I respecting 
 
 the number of balls of each colour in the urn ; and if ;i = 
 the probability of drawing a White ball, and q= that of 
 
 drawing a black ball, on any hypothesis, the three hypo- 
 theses, with the corresponding values of; and q, will bo 
 as under, viz. : 
 
 1. 3 white, 1 black, p= J, q=i ; 
 
 2. 2 white, 2 black, p = f , ? = I ; 
 
 3. 1 white, 3 black, p = j, f=|. 
 
 NOW, on calculating from each of these hypotheses the 
 probability of the event observed, namely, of drawing 
 three white balls and one black in loiirtriaN, which proba- 
 bility, by what was shown above, is expressed by -ip^q, 
 
 we have, 
 
 by 1st hypothesis, 4p3q=;fJ, 
 by 2d hypothesis, •ip 3 q == ^it 
 by :td hypothesis, 4/>'j = ^. 
 
 The numerators of these fractions, which represent the 
 relative probabilities of the event which has happened on
 
 PROBABILITY, THEORY OF. 
 
 each of the hypotheses, mav be considered as giving the 
 relative probabilities of the hypotheses as to the causes ot 
 the event, or to the state of the urn by which the event was 
 determined: and, as one or other of these hypotheses 
 must necessarily be true, the sum of their probabilities 
 must be unity ; whence the probability of each hypothesis 
 
 is respectively 
 
 27 16 3 
 
 4tf> re~> 4^' 
 This result mav be expressed generally as follows : The 
 probabilities of the different hypotheses are found by di- 
 viding the probability of the event which has been observes, 
 calculated, according to each hypothesis, by the sum ot its 
 probabilities calculated on all the hypotheses. 
 
 Now, in order to find the probability of drawing a white 
 ball at the next trial, we may reason in this manner: If 
 the first hypothesis be true, the chance of drawing a white 
 ball is |, and the probability of the hypothesis being true is 
 ^■3-; therefore, the compound probability of both hypo- 
 thesis and event, is § X |j = AV" U tile second hyP °' 
 thesis be true, the probability of drawing a white ball is 
 f , and the probability of the hypothesis is I£; therefore, 
 the compound probability is f X ^ = 10- If the third 
 hypothesis be true, the chance of drawing a white ball 
 is i, and the probability of the hypothesis is £g\ therefore, 
 the joint probability of the hypothesis being true, and of 
 the event arising, is i X T \ = T | j- . Adding together these 
 partial probabilities, the whole probability of drawing a 
 white ball at a future trial is y^y + fVy + J84 = T&T" 
 
 In like manner, the probability of drawing a black ball 
 at a future trial, is 
 
 And the sum of the two probabilities is 1, as it ought to be, 
 since the ball must necessarily be white or black. 
 
 The method of proceeding which has been followed in 
 this particular case is quite general, and applicable to all 
 cases where it is required to compute the probabilities of 
 events depending on causes not known a priori, but only 
 inferred from experience. It may be stated generally as 
 follows : let c, c', c", c'" , &c. be so many independent causes 
 (or hypotheses), eacli of which may give rise to an event 
 E ; and let the probabilities of the existence of these causes 
 be respectively A, A' A", A'", &c, and those of the events 
 calculated according to each hypothesis p, p', p" p'". &c. ; 
 then the probability of the event E is h p -f A' p' + h" p" 
 + A"V" + &c. 
 
 The preceding examples will suffice to give some idea 
 of the manner in which the probability of the occurrence 
 or failure of events depending on chance is submitted to 
 numerical estimation ; but for the methods of applying the 
 calculus in particular cases, and especially when the for- 
 mulie involve high numbers, and the ordinary processes 
 of arithmetic become unavailable, reference must be made 
 to works specially devoted to the subject, a list of which is 
 given at the end of this article. 
 
 The calculus of probabilities had its origin in the specu- 
 lations of Pascal, Fermat, Huygens, and other eminent 
 mathematicians of the 17th century. It was first applied 
 to the solution of questions connected with games of 
 chance: but it has since, by the researches of James Ber- 
 noulli, Montmort, Demoivre. D'Alembert, Simpson, Con- 
 dorcet, Lagrange, La Place, Poisson, and others, become 
 one of the most interesting branches of mathematics, and 
 been applied with equal success and advantage to numerous 
 important questions belonging to natural and political phi- 
 losophy. One of its most familiar and useful applications 
 is to the subject of annuities, assurances, reversions, and 
 other interests depending on the average duration of human 
 life, and the expectation of the continuance or survivorship 
 of lives of given ages. (See Annuity, Expectation- of 
 Life.) Another important application is to determine the 
 most probable mean or average, of a great number of ob- 
 servations; and hence its utility in many cases of practical 
 astronomy and general physics. (See Probable Error.) 
 Condorcet has applied it to determine the value of testi- 
 mony, the verdicts of juries, and the best mode of consti- 
 tuting tribunals, and of collecting votes in elections. In such 
 applications, it is true, assumptions more or less arbitrary- 
 must be admitted, and great uncertainty will always attach 
 to results which are influenced by human will or caprice : 
 nevertheless, the knowledge derived from an accurate and 
 systematic analysis of the circumstances concerned, and of 
 the consequences of their various combinations, affords im- 
 portant aid in guiding our judgments, and may be of great 
 use in the practical affairs of life. 
 
 The following are the principal works on the subject: 
 Montmort, Analyse des Jeux de Hasard. (1st ed., 1708 : 2d, 
 1713); Bernoulli, *1rs Conjectandi, 1713 ; De Mo'ivre, Doc- 
 trine of Chances (1st ed. 1718; 3d, greatly enlarged, 1785) ; 
 
 PROCEDENDO. 
 
 Simpson, Laws of Chance, 1740; Condorcet, Essai sur 
 V Application de analyse a la Probabilite des Decisions 
 renducs it la Pluralite des Voii, 1785; La Place, Theorie 
 .Inahitique des Probnbilites, 3d edit., 18-20; Poisson, Re- 
 cherches sur la Probabilite des Jugemens, 1837 ; the article 
 in the Encyc. Metropol. by Professor de Morgan, and that 
 in the Encyc. Brit, by Mr. Galloway (which is published 
 separately). For elementary works, the reader may be 
 referred to Simpson's Laws of Chance, and Lacroiz's 
 Traite E'ementaire, &c. ; and for an explanation of the 
 objects and results of the science, without mathematical 
 investigation, to Professor De Morgan's Essay on Probabil- 
 ities, and on their Application to Life Contingencies and 
 Insurance Offices, in the Cabinet Cyclopedia. 
 
 PRO'BABLE ERROR. In Astronomy and Physics, 
 when the value of any quantity or element, as the declin- 
 ation of a star, the latitude of a place, the specific gravity 
 of a bodv, &c, has been determined by means of a number 
 of independent observations, each liable to a small amount 
 of error, the determination (in whatever way it may have 
 been deduced from the observations) will also be liable 
 to some uncertainty ; and the probable error is the quantity, 
 which is such that there is the same probability of the dif- 
 ference between the determination and the true absolute 
 value of the thing to be determined exceeding or falling 
 short of it. Thus, if twenty measurements of an angle have 
 been made with the theodolite, and the arithmetical mean 
 or average of the whole gives 50° 27' 13" ; and if it be an 
 equal wager that the error of this result (either in excess 
 or defect) is less than two seconds, or greater than two 
 seconds, then the probable error of the determination is two 
 seconds. The method of computing the probable error, 
 which is deduced from the theory of probability, is as fol- 
 lows : Let /, V, I", &c. be the observed values, A the num- 
 ber of observations, m the average value (i. e., the sum of 
 the observed values divided by number of observations) ; 
 then if we call / — m the error of the observation /, and 
 2 (£ — m )2 the sum of the squares of the errors of all the 
 
 observations, the probable error is -674489 X ; 
 
 that is, the square root of the sum of the squares of the 
 errors, divided by the number of observations, and multi- 
 plied by the decimal -674489. 
 
 It is* frequently convenient to compute the probable er- 
 ror of a result from another function, which is called the 
 weiirht. The w-eight is the square of the number of obser- 
 vations divided by twice the sum of the squares of the er- 
 rors ; and the probable error is -476936 divided by the 
 square root of the weight. This definition agrees with the 
 former, for -674489 = -476936 X >/2. 
 
 PROBAIVG. A flexible piece of whalebone with a ball 
 of sponge attached to its extremity, for the purpose of re- 
 moving obstructions in the oesophagus. 
 
 PRO'BATE OF TESTAMENTS. In Law, the exhibit- 
 ing and proving wills and Testaments before the ecclesias- 
 tical judge delegated by the ordinary of the place where the 
 party dies. It is done by granting letters testamentary to the 
 executor under seal of the court ; and such probate is evi- 
 dence in questions relating to the personal estates. 
 
 PROBE. (Lat. probo, J try.) A surgical instrument, 
 generally made of silver wire, rounded at one end, and 
 pointed 'at the other, for the purpose of examining wounds. 
 PRO'BLEM. In Geometry, a proposition requiring some 
 operation to be performed or construction to be executed ; 
 such as to bisect a line, to describe a circle passing through 
 three given points. In Algebra, a problem requires some 
 unknown truth to be investigated, or discovered and dem- 
 onstrated. 
 
 PROBOSCfDIANS, Proboscidia. (Lat. proboscis, a 
 trunk.) The name of a family of Pachydermatous Mam- 
 mals, including those which have the nose prolonged into 
 a prehensile trunk or proboscis ; as the elephant and mas- 
 todon. 
 
 PROBO'SCIS, in Mammalogy, signifies the prehensile 
 organ formed by a prolongation of the nose, of which the 
 trunk of the elephant is an example. In Entomology, the 
 oral instrument of the Diptera is so called, in which the or- 
 dinary trophi are replaced by an ex-articulate sheath, ter- 
 minated by a pair of tumid lobes (labella). and containing 
 one or more lancet-shaped instruments (scapella), covered 
 by a valve. In Malacology, the same term is applied to 
 the tongue of certain Gastropods, when it is so long as to 
 be capable of being protruded for some distance from the 
 mouth • in which case it is generally organized at the ex- 
 tremity for the purpose of boring the shells ot other testa- 
 cea and of destroying by suction the soft parts of the inhab- 
 
 PROCEDE'XDO (or Procedendo in Loqueld). A writ 
 which lies where an action has been removed from an in- 
 ferior to a superior jurisdiction, and it does not appear to 
 the court that the suggestion on which the removal took
 
 PR0CELLAR1A. 
 
 place was sufficiently proved to send the cause back to the 
 inferior court for farther proceeding. 
 
 Procedendo «</ Judicium. A writ which issues out of the 
 court of chancery, commanding inferior courts to proceed 
 t judgment where it has been unjustly delayed. 
 
 PR< ii T.I.I, \ R] \. (I, at. procella. a storm.) A Linnav 
 nn genua of web looted birds, now the type of a family of 
 ngipennate Palmipedes in the system of Cuvier, 
 characterized by the beak being hooked at the tip, with its 
 extremity appearing as though a piece had been articulated 
 to the rest; the nostrils are united to form a tube, which 
 lies along the back of the upper mandible; and their feet, 
 instead of a back toe, have merelj a claw implanted in the 
 heel. Those species In which the lower mandible is trun- 
 cated belong to the true Procetlarim. Some smaller spe- 
 cies, With a sliurler bill, rather longer legs, and black phi 
 mage, commonly called Storm-birds, or Mother Carey's 
 chickens, are associated under the generic name Thalassi- 
 droma. The Procellaria range over the high seas at the 
 greatest distance from land. Their name of Petrel, which 
 is a diminutive of Peter, has been applied to them from 
 their habit of walking on the waves, which they do with 
 the assistance of their wings. 
 
 PRO'CESS, in the language of English Common Law, 
 is used in two senses: to signify the whole proceedings in 
 an action or prosecution : ami to signify the means whereby 
 the defendant in an action is compelled to appear in court. 
 When actions were commenced by original writ (see Plead- 
 ing), original process was that which was founded on that 
 writ, commencing with notice, writ of attachment, &c. 
 JUcsne, or intermediate process, was, properly speaking, 
 such process as issued pending the writ, on some collateral 
 or interlocutory matter; as. id summon juries or witnesses. 
 But in popular language it was taken to signify the whole 
 process, from the commencement of the suit, before the 
 final process which ended it. Thus a defendant was said 
 to be arrested on mi-sue process, i. e., on a writ of capias 
 issued pending the suit. This was done originally when 
 the defendant, being summoned or attached, neglected to 
 appear or made default. In course of time, by a legal lie- 
 lion, the summons and neglect were supposed; and the 
 writ of capias became the commencement of the proceed- 
 ings, to which the term mesne process was still, inaccu- 
 
 rately, applied. The term mesne process is now con [y 
 
 applied to the writ of summons, which is the instrument 
 now in use for commencing personal actions. Thus the 
 popular inaccuracy of language is retained. Final pro- 
 cess is the writ of execution used to carry the. judgment 
 into effect. In ordinary language, the regular proci edings 
 
 Of everj court Of judicature in a suit are called its process. 
 
 I'i;i ICE'S VERBAL. In the language of French juris- 
 prudence, an authentic written minute or report of an offi- 
 cial act or proceeding,, or statement of facts. The term is 
 also used to signify minutes drawn up by a secretary or 
 other officer of tiie proceedings of an assembly. 
 
 PR< H LAMA TION. Public notice given by the king to 
 his subjects. [See Kino, Privy Council.) The power of 
 issuing proclamations is a branch of the king's prerogative, 
 and Vested in him alone. They have a binding force on 
 the subject, in so far as they are grounded on and enforce 
 the laws of the realm. They may be said to be of two 
 sorts: the one. enforcing an actually existing law by giving 
 it a particular application of time, place, and circumstance : 
 the other, exercising an extraordinary power vested in the 
 king, which until bo exercised is dormant ; as a proclama- 
 tion to prohibit any subject from leaving the realm during 
 a certain time. Proclamations must be under the ereat 
 .seal. By 31 II. 8, C. B, it was enacted that the kind's proc- 
 lamations should have the force of law ; an enactment 
 which, while it subsisted, did, ill effect, make a complete 
 
 revolution in tin- government of this country. It was, 
 however, repealed five years afterwards by IE.B, c. 12, 
 Nevertheless, in later times, jt was held by crown lawyers, 
 that the king might suspend or dispense with an existing 
 law in favour of particular circumstances. But bv l \V. &. 
 M.. -tat. -j. c. -J. it is declared that no such powei exists. 
 
 PROCO'NSUL. Originally an officer invested with con 
 solar command without the office. Thus, a consul some 
 times had his command prolonged to him after his year of 
 magistracy had ceased, with the title of proconsul. The 
 provinces which at lirM were governed bj prtetors were, 
 f.r the most |iart. subsequently put under proem 
 proprietors, who were at first especially appointed al the 
 Comitia Tributa ; but afterwards, oy the Bempronean law, 
 entered mi their provincial jurisdictions forthwith, on the 
 expiration of then- year of consulship or prtetorship. Thi 
 office was properly annual ; but it might be prolonged, at 
 
 WSJ done in the case of Cesar. In the time of the fepub 
 lie the proconsul held the military command as well as Die 
 
 civil jurisdiction of his pro\ ince, ami accordingly bail about 
 him a large staff of officers, as the lieutenants oi legati, 
 prefects, &c. But Augustus, on assuming the chief power 
 
 PRODOMUS. 
 
 in the state, remodelled the system by a new partition of 
 the provinces, and by separating the civil jurisdiction, which 
 was left tin- proconsul, from the military command. Un- 
 der the emperors, the proconsuls and proprietors were thus 
 distinguished; the former being appointed to the provinces 
 under the especial superintendence of the senate, the latter 
 to those which the emperor held. 
 
 PROCRU'STES. In Mythology, a famous robber of an- 
 cient Greece, who tortured his victims by placing them on 
 
 an iron bed, which their stature was made to lit by stretch- 
 ing or mutilating them so as to suit its dimensions ; whence 
 the well known metaphorical expression, the bed of Pro- 
 crustes. He was killed by Theseus, near Hermione, in Ar- 
 golis. According to a recent critic (Bdttiger), Procrustes, 
 Sinis, Phil) oc.rmptes, &c, were all different names for one 
 real or fabulous robber, derived from the different kinds of 
 violence applied by him to travellers. 
 
 PRO'CTOR. (Lat. procurator.) In Ecclesiastical Law, 
 he who undertakes lor his fee to manage a cause in the 
 ecclesiastical or civil court, being duly admitted under 53 
 G. 3, c. 127, exercising the same office which is performed 
 by attorneys and solicitors in courts of common law and 
 equity. 
 
 PROCTORS. In the English Universities, both at Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge, two masters of arts are appointed an- 
 nually to this office. Each college, in both, nominates a 
 proctor in rotation, according to a cycle of years drawn up, 
 on mathematical principles, to suit the number of fellows 
 on the foundation of each. The proctors are officers of 
 considerable importance ; being, in the firsi place, the chief 
 police magistrates for the time being of each university. 
 They, with their deputies the pro-proctors, have power not 
 only to enforce the rules of academical discipline on the 
 students, but also an extensive summary authority 0V( r the 
 townspeople, according to the special privileges of the uni- 
 versities. They also have, in both universities, peculiar 
 legislative authority as assistants to the heads of houses, 
 and official votes in the election of many professors and 
 other officers. The proctors must be masters of arts, and 
 their standing as such, at Oxford, from four to ten years. 
 
 PRO'CURATOR. (Lat. pro, for, and cura, care.) A 
 Roman provincial magistrate, whose office it was to man- 
 age the affairs of the revenue, and exercise a judicial au- 
 thority in matters pertaining to it. Sometimes the pro- 
 curator discharged the office of governor, especially in a 
 small province, as did Pontius Pilate in Judea; in which 
 case, but not otherwise, he had the power of inflicting 
 capital punishment. This magistracy did not exist under 
 the republic, its duties being comprised under those of the 
 preetor or proconsul, but was instituted by Augustus. They 
 were called Procuratores Ciesaris, to distinguish them from 
 the common procurator, who was merely an agent employ- 
 ed by private persons to manage their affairs in their ab- 
 sence when an action was brought against them. 
 
 Procurator, Procureur, Src. In the Civil Jurispru- 
 dence, one who undertakes the care of any legal proceed- 
 ings for another, and stands in his place by virtue of a 
 power or procuration from him. A mandatory is said to 
 differ from a procurator in that the latter acts only by vir- 
 tue of an express written instrument. In France, before 
 the revolution, the procureurs (procuratores ad lites) were 
 officers legally empowered to carry on suits on hi half of 
 clients. This body was abolished in 17111, and that of 
 avoucs substituted in its place. The du mi, in 
 
 Flame, are officers of w h one is appointed to every tri- 
 bunal of arrondisscinent, together with a sufficient number 
 of ■' substitutes." 
 
 PROCUREUR-GENERAL. The public advocate of the 
 crown in France. Every pnrlrminl or emir souveraiiu bad, 
 before the revolution, a /</-</.< attached to it. 
 
 Under the present sj stem of judicature, o f these officers 
 
 is established in every tour royale, for the criminal part of 
 its proceedings ; and under him an avocat general, lor the 
 civil department of the conn. The public accusers in the 
 inferior courts of assize, and premiere instance, are termed 
 respectively procureurs criminels and procureurs du roi. 
 These officers are > barged with the conduct of all criminal 
 proceedings on behalf of the prosecution; and are placed 
 under the immediate control of the minister of justice. 
 
 PRO' DIG Y (of very doubtful etymology), in ordinary 
 modern language signifies a surprising though natural event; 
 in contradistinction to miracle, which is something out of 
 the course of nature. Among the Romans, however, any 
 
 exlraordinai , event OX appearance, to which, from insuffi- 
 cient acquaintance With natural history, they could not as- 
 sign a cause, was termed a prodigy, and regarded as a su- 
 
 peinatui.il event, Indicative of favourable or (more gener- 
 al]] I Of Unfavourable dispositions of their gods. Hence the 
 led prodigies, mam evidently false, some 
 retd but misunderstood, which 1 .ivy has inserted in his 
 annals. 
 PRO'DOMUS. (Gr. vpo, and <5o/*oc, house.) In Ancient
 
 PRODUCT. 
 
 Architecture, the portico before the entrance of the cella 
 of a temple; the same as pronaos. See Naos. 
 
 PRO'DUCT, in Arithmetic and Algebra, is the result of, 
 or quantity produced by, the multiplication of one number 
 by another, or a quantity of any kind by a number. See 
 Multiplication. 
 
 PRODU'CTA. An extinct genus of fossil bivalve shells, 
 closely allied to the living genus Terebratala. They only 
 occur in the older secondary rocks. 
 
 PRO'EM. tGr. tt/jo ujil, I go before.) A term formerly 
 used for preface, which see. 
 
 PROEMPTO'SIS. (Gr. -npo, before, and cuttitttu, I fall 
 vpon.) The term applied to the lunar equation or addition 
 of a day to prevent the new moon happening too soon ; 
 which must be effected by the addition of a day every 330 
 years and another every 3400. The opposite term is me- 
 temptosis, which is used to signify the solar equation ne- 
 cessary to prevent the new moon from falling a day too late, 
 or the suppression of the bissextile every 13-1 years. 
 
 PROFESSOR. The recognised title, in all universities, 
 of the public and authorized teachers in the various facul- 
 ties. In the origin of those institutions the degrees confer- 
 red on students were, in fact, licences to commence as pub- 
 lic teachers ; and the terms master, doctor, and professor 
 seem to have been used indifferently. But as in process of 
 time the great body of graduates ceased, in most of them, 
 to have any concern in public instruction, a separate body 
 of recognised teachers gradually arose ; endowed in some 
 instances with salaries, in others paid by fees. These were 
 the professors. But in those universities in which collegi- 
 ate foundations prevailed, as in Oxford and Cambridge, 
 these officers fell into a secondary situation. The neces- 
 sary business of instruction was transacted, and still con- 
 tinues to be so, by the functionaries of the several colleges. 
 The professors, therefore, and the instruction which they 
 convey by lectures, have become only auxiliaries, instead 
 of principals, and attendance on their lectures is in few 
 cases compulsory. On the other hand, in universities des- 
 titute, or nearly so, of collegiate endowments (as those of 
 Scotland, Germany, and others founded on the German 
 model), the professors have become at once the governing 
 body of the university, and the sole recognised functiona- 
 ries lor the purpose of education. 
 
 PROFI'LE. (Fr. profil.) In Architecture, the contour 
 of the different parts of an order. 
 
 Profile. In the Fine Arts, an outline of the principal 
 parts of an object, free from all foreshortening, showing 
 their real projections, indentations, &c. 
 
 PRO'FIT (Fr. profit), in Political Economy means the 
 advantage or gain resulting to the owner of capital from its 
 employment in industrious undertakings. It is the premi- 
 um, as it w r ere, on accumulation. Were there no profit, 
 there would be little or no motive to save and amass; and 
 all the vast advantages that society derives from the form- 
 ation and employment of capital would be unknown. But 
 without taking into account the security and consequence 
 conferred on the possessors of capital or wealth, and look- 
 ing only at its tangible results, profit consists of that part of 
 the produce raised by the agency of capital employed in 
 industrious undertakings that remains in the hands of those 
 by whom it is employed after replacing the capital itself 
 or such portions of it as may have been wasted in the busi- 
 nesses, and every expense necessarily incurred in superin- 
 tending its employment. 
 
 The rate of profit is the proportion which the amount of 
 profit derived from an undertaking bears to the capital em- 
 ployed in it. 
 
 Thus, suppose an agriculturist employs a capital equiva- 
 lent to 1000 quarters of corn, or .£1000, in the cultivation of 
 a farm, and that the net surplus produce remaining to him 
 at the end of the year, after his capital has been replaced, 
 and he has been indemnified for the trouble of superintend- 
 ence, and for every necessary expense incurred in the man- 
 agement of the farm, is 100 quarters, or .£100 ; this net sur- 
 plus would form the profits of the agriculturist, being to the 
 capital by whose agency they are obtained in the ratio of 
 100 to 1000, or at the rate of ten per cent. 
 
 It has been shown by Dr. Smith and others, that the 
 capital vested in different businesses yields, provided they 
 be not subjected to any species of monopoly, about the 
 same rate of net profit; and we shall now endeavour 
 shortly to state the circumstances which seem to determine 
 this rate. 
 
 In this investigation it is not necessary to inquire whether 
 the capital engaged in certain businesses yields rent as well 
 as profits, or profits only. The competition of the pro- 
 ducers will always reduce profits in different businesses to 
 what is, taking all things into account, nearly the same 
 common level ; and, as rent is in every case a surplus over 
 and above profits, it may in this investigation be left wholly 
 out of view. The laws by which profits are regulated in 
 countries where the best lands only are cultivated, and no 
 
 PROFIT. 
 
 rents are paid, are in no respect different from those which 
 regulate them in countries where cultivation has been 
 widely extended, and where lands of superior fertility yield 
 a high rent. 
 
 Suppose, therefore, that rent is deducted, or set aside, it 
 follows that the whole of the remaining produce of indus- 
 try must, in the first instance, be divided between capitalists 
 and labourers ; that U, between those who furnish the capi- 
 tal and those who furnish the manual labour made use of 
 in the production of commodities. And hence, were taxa- 
 tion either unknown or constant, the proportion of the pro- 
 duce of industry under deduction of rent falling to the 
 share of the capitalists could not be increased without the 
 proportion falling to the share of the labourers being at the 
 same time diminished, and conversely. But the share of 
 the produce of industry falling to the capitalists includes, 
 besides profit, the portion required to replace the capital 
 wasted in production, and to defray the wages of superin- 
 tendence. So that the rate of profit is not, as has been al- 
 ready stated, determined by the raiio which the share of 
 the produce of industry that goes in the first instance to the 
 capitalists, after every sort of outlay has been deducted, 
 bears to the total capital employed. 
 
 Suppose, for example, that an agriculturist employs a 
 quantity of capital of the value of 1000 quarters of corn, 
 or .£1000, in cultivating a farm ; that half this capital con- 
 sists of seed, horses, and other instruments used in agri- 
 culture, the other half being employed in the payment of 
 wages; and suppose that after his rent has been deducted 
 or set aside, he has produce equivalent to 1-200 quarters, or 
 £1200; of this sum 1000 quarters, or .£1000, must go to re- 
 place his capital ; and supposing that his taxes amount to 
 100 quarters, or .£100, it follows that 100 quarters, or £100 
 will remain for his profits, which are consequently at the 
 rate of ten per cent. Now, in this case — and this case is, 
 mtitatis, mutandis, the case of every man engaged in busi- 
 ness — it is obvious that the rate of profit may be raised in 
 three, but only in three ways; viz., 1. By industry becom- 
 ing more productive ; or 2. By a reduction in the rate of 
 wages ; or 3. By a reduction in the amount of taxation. 
 And it may be reduced by the opposite circumstances; or 
 1. By industry becoming less productive ; or 2. By a rise in 
 the rate of wages ; or 3. By a rise in the amount of taxa- 
 tion. Profits cannot be affected in any way not referable to 
 one or other of these heads. 
 
 To revert to the previous example, let it be supposed, 
 other things remaining the same, that the quantity of pro- 
 duce is increased, by means of the better application of the 
 capital and labour employed, from 1200 quarters, or £1200, 
 to 1300 quarters, or £1300 ; the gross amount of profits 
 would in this case be increased from 100 quarters, or £100, 
 to 200 quarters, or £200, and the rate of profit would be 
 raised from 10 to 20 per cent. A similar result would be 
 produced, other things being the same, were wages redu- 
 ced from 500 quarters, or £500, to 400 quarters, or £400 ; 
 and were taxation reduced from 100 quarters, or £100, to 
 50 quarters, or £50, the rate of profit would be raised from 
 10 to 15 per cent. On the other hand, if we suppose that 
 the quantity of produce, instead of being increased, is di- 
 minished, or that wages or taxes are augmented, the gross 
 amount of profit, and the rate of profit, will be proportion- 
 ally lessened. 
 
 Had it not been for the gradually decreasing productive- 
 ness of the capital laid out on the lands, the productiveness 
 of industry would have increased with every discovery and 
 invention for saving labour ; so that, without a correspond- 
 ing increase of wages and taxes, the rate of profit would 
 have been continually increasing. But, though improve- 
 ments may materially increase the productiveness of agri- 
 cultural industry for a lengthened period, the incraase can- 
 not be permanent ; inasmuch as the growth of population 
 never fails, in the end, to force recourse to inferior lands, 
 which, of course, yield less produce in return for the same 
 outlay. This decreasing productiveness of the capital ap- 
 plied'to the soil has a double influence over profits ; for, in 
 the first place, it lessens the quantity of produce obtained 
 by the outlay of capital and labour ; and, in the second 
 place, it increases the portion of that produce going to the 
 labourer as wages. The latter must always get enough to 
 enable him to subsist and continue his race ; and though, 
 in the event of his resorting to a lower species of food or an 
 inferior standard of comfort, a rise in the price of raw pro- 
 duce may not be followed by a rise of wages, yet, speaking 
 generally, the one is always consequent to the other. The 
 cost of food is the main regulator of wairs ; and it is quite 
 impossible to go on, for any lengthened period, by taking 
 bad land into cultivation, or forcing the good land, making 
 constant additions to its cost, without ultimately raising 
 wages. Manufacturing industry, or the adaptation of mat- 
 ter to our use, necessarily becomes, from the influence of 
 discoveries and inventions, more and more productive as 
 society advances; so that the decreasing fertility of the 
 3 Q 993
 
 PROFIT. 
 
 soil is at bottom the only cause of whatever reduction in 
 the rate of profit is i" be ascribed to a decline In the pro- 
 ductiveness of industry ; and it is pretty frequently al - 
 cause of those n ductions that are occasioned Ijy a rise in 
 the rat.- of wages. The latter, it is true, is also brought 
 about by an increase d demand for labour, and by a greater 
 prevalence of moral restraint. Hut a rise of wages caused 
 by the increased cost of necessaries does not depend on 
 gent circumstances, or on the forethought of the la- 
 
 bourers. It must be experienced in every country and state 
 n . according as i| becomes mote and more difficult 
 
 tain supplies of food for an increasing population. 
 
 Thi absolute wages of the labourer, or the quantity of ne- 
 
 td conveniences given him for liis labour, may 
 be, and indeed frequently tire, diminished in the progress 
 o! society : but when cultivation is far extended, li«' is uni- 
 formly almost in the receipt of a larger share of the pro- 
 duce of his labour; so that, as has just been observed, 
 profits are reduced in an advanced stage of society, because 
 the quantity of produce is diminished, and because the la- 
 bourers get a larger share of this diminished quantity. 
 
 The theory of Smith, as to the circumstances which de- 
 termine the rate of profit, differs widely from the above. 
 He seems to have had no idea of the important principle 
 which shows that, despite the countervailing influence of 
 improvements, the capitals successively .applied to the land 
 are sure, in the long run, to decrease in productiveness. 
 And not imagining that there was any natural cause why 
 the produce obtained by the outlay of equal amounts of 
 capital and labour should ever be diminished, he supposed 
 that profits were lowered tlurough the competition of capi- 
 talists ; that when capital increased, the undertakers of 
 different businesses became anxious to encroach on each 
 other ; and that, in order to attain their object, they ottered 
 their produce at a lower price, and gave higher wages to 
 their workmen. 
 
 But though, at first view, this theory appear sufficiently 
 plausible, it will not bear the least examination. It Is easy 
 to see that competition cannot occasion a general fall of 
 prolits. All that competition can do, and all that it ever 
 does, is to reduce the profits obtained in different business- 
 es and employments to the same common level, to prevent 
 particular individuals realizing greater or lesser profits than 
 their neighbours. Farther than this competition cannot 
 go. The common and average rate of profit depends not 
 on it, but on the excess of the produce obtained by em- 
 ploying capital after it is replaced, along with every con- 
 il expense. Competition cannot affect the produc- 
 tiveness of industry, neither can it, speaking generally, af- 
 fect the rate of wages; for, such as the ordinary -demand 
 for labour is, such will be its supply, and it has no influ- 
 ence over taxation. It is plain, therefore, that it has no- 
 thing to do with the determination of the common and 
 average rate Of profit. It hinders individuals from getting 
 more or less than this common rate ; but it has no farther 
 effect. 
 
 Hence it appears, that that fall in the rate of profit that 
 is usually observed to take place as society advances is not 
 owing to an increase of capital, or to the competition con- 
 sequent upon that increase, but to an inability to employ 
 capital with the same advantage as before : resulting (1,) 
 from a decrease in the fertility of the soils to which re- 
 course iim-t In- had, or rl,) from a rise of wages, or (3,) 
 from tin ini rease of taxation. Of these causes, one nia_\ he 
 the more powerful at one period, and another at a dillerent 
 period. The first aot only lessens the quantity of [produce 
 raised bj the outlay of capital and labour, but it also, as 
 already seen, generally raises, in the end. the rate of pro- 
 pottionaj wages. It is, of course, impossible to lay down 
 any fixed principles with respect to the influence of taxa- 
 tion. In the progress Of Society, it may increase or dimin- 
 ish. It has been shown that the heavy taxation of Holland, 
 during the last centurj , vc as the principal cause of the low 
 rate of profit in that country {Principles of Political Econ- 
 omy, -_'d ( d.. p. lull : and, no doubt, profits in England are 
 sensibly affed ition. 
 
 The principles already established show, 1. That so long 
 as the productiveness of industry is undiminished, profits 
 cannot be reduced otherwise than bj a rise of wages or of 
 taxes; 2. That so long as the rate of wages Is constant, 
 profits cannot be reduced, unless Industry become less pro- 
 ductive, or taxation he augmented : and. 3. That go ti 
 taxation remains constant, profits cannot be reduced, unless 
 Industry become less productive, or wages be raised, it Is 
 supposed, in these cases, for the sake of simplicity, that 
 
 . one ol the regulating principles of profit reman 
 st.-mt, the other two vary in the same way. lint the] might 
 vary in dull-rent ways ; and If so, then Influence on profits 
 
 ■WOUld Obviously depend on the extent to which the varia- 
 tion in the one exceeded the variation In the other. Sup 
 lor Instance, that while the productiveness of industry 
 remains i onstant a rise of wages and a reduction of ta.vi- 
 994 
 
 PROGRESSION. 
 
 I tion are experienced ; the effect of this variation will plain- 
 ly depend on the rise of wages exceeding, falling short, or 
 being identical with the reduction in the amount of taxa- 
 tion : If it exceed the reduction of taxation, profits will be 
 
 lowered proportionally to the excess ; If it be less than the 
 
 reduction of taxation, profits will be proportional!) raised; 
 and if the rise of wages and the reduction of taxation be 
 exactly equivalent, profits will, of course, undergo no change. 
 PROGNOSIS. (»;r. too, and yivwoicw, I know.) An 
 opinion respecting the progress and termination of a dis- 
 ease. 
 
 PROGRAMME. An old university term, signifying an 
 outline of the speeches or orations to be delivered on a par- 
 ticular occasion ; but now applied in a more extended sense 
 to the outline of any entertainment or public ceremony. 
 
 PROGRESS. The state journeys of royal personages 
 were called by this name in old English etiquette. In the 
 • of Elizabeth and James they were frequent, and 
 somewhat costly to the wealthier subjects, inasmuch as 
 they were usually honoured with the onerous privilege of 
 affording hospitality to royalty. The "progresses" of 
 Queen Elizabeth firm the subject of a work by Mr. Nichr 
 oll. (See also Quart. Rev., vol. xli.) Perhaps the most 
 celebrated progress in English history is that of James I. 
 from Scotland to London on his accession. 
 
 PROGRESSION. (Lat progressio.) In Arithmetic, a 
 series of numbers proceeding according to a certain order. 
 It IS arithmetical, geometrical, or harmonical. 
 
 An Arithmetical Progression is a series of numbers, in- 
 creasing or decreasing by equal differences. Thus, 
 increasing, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, &c. 
 decreasing, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, &x. 
 Or, generally, a ± d, a ± 2-i, a ± 3d, a ± 4rf, ±, &c. 
 Let a denote the least term, 
 2 the greatest term, 
 d the common difference, 
 n the number of terms, 
 5 the sum of all the terms ; 
 
 then the principal properties of an arithmetical progression 
 are expressed by the following formulae : 
 
 a = 2 — (n — 1) d, 2 = a+ (n — 1) d, 
 
 z — a 2 — i 
 
 « — r ' " d 
 
 and these expressions become still simpler when the first 
 lorui. A, is nothing. 
 
 A Geometrical Progression is a series of numbers in- 
 creaaing or decreasing in a certain constant ratio; or such 
 that the quotient of any one of them by that which imme- 
 diately precedes is constantly the same. Thus, 
 
 increasing, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, &.C. 
 decreasing, 81, 27, 9, 3, 1, &c. 
 Or, generally, a, ra, r-a, r"a, &c. 
 
 d—- 
 
 1 I -i a + 2 
 
 ■+l,s=-o-*; 
 
 Or a, -; 
 
 r' J- 2 ' r 3 
 
 ice 
 
 where a is the first terra, and r the common ratio in the 
 one case, and \—r the common ratio in the other. 
 
 Let a denote the least term, 
 2 the greatest term, 
 r the common ratio. 
 n the Dumber of terms, 
 s the sum of the terms ; 
 
 then the principal properties of a geometrical progression 
 are expressed as follows : 
 
 * , f**V*-r 
 
 0= , : = arn— l, _ — I - In— I, 
 
 ra—\, ~ — x ( ,/ 
 
 r: rz — a r" — 1 
 
 „ = log. - -H los. r, * = — j-= —a. 
 
 Some of these formula- may he mure conveniently ex- 
 pressed in terms of s which does not enter into any one of 
 the first font. Thus, 
 
 r— 1 8 — a 
 
 a = ;s ; or a — :r — (r — Its; r= . 
 
 rn — 1 ' s — z 
 
 An Harmonical Progression is a series of numbers ia 
 harmonical proportion, or such that, of any three consei u- 
 
 ti\e terms, tin- fust is to the third as the- difference I" iv ' • re 
 
 the first mid Bee I is to the difference between tin 
 
 and third. {See Harmonic ai. Proportion. Thi 
 rocals of an arithmetical progression form an ban 
 progression. Thus, the reciprocals ol* the arithmetical 
 series I, 2, It. 4, 5, &.c. are 
 
 t. ' ' 
 
 -j* r s' 
 
 «CC 
 
 which form an Harmonical progression.
 
 PROHEDRI. 
 
 PRO'HEDRI. (Gr. rpbtcpoi.) Certain Athenian officers ' 
 chosen to superintend the proceedings in the two legisla- , 
 tive assemblies : so called because they had the privilege 
 of sitting in the front seats {r.poirpia). The proheclri of the 
 senate were ten in number. (.See Prytanes.) The pro- j 
 hedri of the ecclesia were more in number, one being ap- 
 pointed from each tribe, which did not contain the prytanes I 
 for the time being. Their duties only extended to the one 
 assembly of the people, a new set being elected each time ; 
 and one of their number was appointed epistates or presi- 
 dent. Their employment was to propose the subject of de- 
 bate to the people, and to count the votes. 
 
 PROHIBITION. In Law, a writ to forbid any court 
 from proceeding in a cause then depending, on suggestion 
 that the cause of it does not properly belong to that court. 
 tn modem times, the writ of prohibition is chiefly used 
 where parties have been impleaded before the ecclesiasti- 
 cal courts. It issues properly out of the court of King's 
 Bench : but may also be had in some cases out of the 
 Chancery. Common Pleas, or Exchequer. It is the proper 
 remedy where the court against which it is sued has ex- 
 ceeded its jurisdiction in taking cognizance of matters not 
 properly belonging to it. It is granted on motion ; but if 
 the question of jurisdiction be doubtful, the courts direct 
 the party suing the writ to declare in prohibition. This 
 proceeding rested originally on a fiction of law. The plain- 
 tiff assumed that the writ had been granted, and brought 
 his action against the defendant, on the supposition that he 
 was proceeding in the case, notwithstanding the prohibi- 
 tion ; and the merits were then tried on demurrer. But 
 now, by 1 VV. 4, c. 21, the declaration concludes with a 
 praver for a writ. 
 
 PROJECTILE (Lat. projicio, I throw forward), in Me- 
 chanics, is a body which, having had a motion in space 
 impressed on it by the action of an external force, is aban- 
 doned by this force, and left to pursue its course. Thus, a 
 stone thrown from the hand or a sling, an arrow shot from 
 a bow, and a bullet discharged from a cannon, are projec- 
 tiles while they continue in motion. 
 
 Motion of Projectiles. — When a heavy body is projected 
 from the earth, it is subject to the action of three separate 
 and independent forces : I. The projectile force, or that by 
 which it was put in motion, and in virtue of which, if no 
 other force interfered, the body would continue for ever to 
 move forward in a straight line with the same constant ve- 
 locity. 2. The force of gravity, by which it is at even' in- 
 stant pulled towards the earth in a vertical line. 3. The 
 resistance of the atmosphere, which, acting in the direc- 
 tion opposite to that in which the body is moving, tfnds at 
 every instant to destroy its motion, or to bring it to rest. 
 
 When the projectile is a body possessing considerable 
 tensity, and the motion is slow, the resistance of the air is 
 inconsiderable, and the body describes almost the same 
 path as if it had been projected in a vacuum : but when 
 the velocity is great, as in the case of a cannon-ball (and it 
 is only in such cases that the -theory of the motion of pro- 
 jectiles has any practical application), the resistance of the 
 air becomes enormous, and causes the projectile to deviate 
 widely from the path it would have pursued if this force 
 had not been in action. The direct investigation of the 
 path of a projectile in a resisting medium being a problem 
 of the higher mathematics, and attended with very consid- 
 erable ditfkuliy. the way in which the subject can be ren- 
 dered most intelligible is, to proceed, in the first place, on 
 the supposition that there is no resistance, and determine 
 the circumstances of the motion of a body supposed to obey 
 only the impulse by which it was projected and the force 
 of gravity, and then to consider the resistance, as a disturb- 
 ing force, and find the correction that must be applied in 
 consequence to the path determined on the previous sup- 
 position. 
 
 Motion of Projectiles in vacuo. — In order to determine 
 the path of a projectile on the sup- 
 position that it is not resisted by 
 the atmosphere, suppose it to be 
 projected from the point A with a 
 velocity a, in 'the direction AT: 
 since gravity acts only in the ver- 
 tical direction, it is evident that the 
 body will move in the vertical plane passing through A T. 
 Let A C D, therefore, be its path or trajectorv in this plane ; 
 and let A X and A Y be the rectangular co-ordinates of the 
 curve, AX being horizontal, and A Y in the direction of 
 gravity. At the end of any given time t, let P be the place 
 of the projectile: i = AQ, its absciss: and y=PQ, its 
 ordinate : also let g he the accelerating force of gravitv 
 (= 32 feet per second), and A the angle TAX. 
 
 The body being projected in the direction of the line A T 
 with a velocity = a, its velocity in the horizontal direction 
 will continue uniform, and = o cos. A. In like manner, its 
 velocity in the vertical direction A Y, due to the projectile 
 force, is = a sin. A ; and at the end of any time t the spaces 
 
 B 
 
 PROJECTILE. 
 
 passed over in those directions, if gravity did not act would 
 be respectively, t a cos. z, and t a sin. A. But the space 
 through which a heavy body falls by the action of gravity 
 in the time t \sh g t-\ and as this is in the vertical direc- 
 tion, and opposite to A Y, it must be joined to the resolved 
 part of the projectile motion in that direction, with, a con- 
 trary sign. We have, therefore, 
 
 i = ta cos. A, y = ta sin. A — hgt 2 . . . . (1.) 
 On eliminating t from these two equations, and supposing 
 the velocity a to be that which a body would acquire in 
 falling from a height = h. so that a = jigh, we obtain the 
 following for the equation of the curve described by the 
 projectile : 
 
 !/ = ztan. A — — — -. . . . (2.) 
 
 ' 4Acos.2A 
 
 This equation belongs to a parabola whose axis is vertical, 
 or parallel to A Y. The summit of the parabola is found 
 
 dy 
 by differentiating the equation, and making -r- = 0, which, 
 
 gives i = 2A cos. A sin. A, and consequently y = Asin.2 A, 
 for the values of x and y at that point. 
 
 Inorde* to find the amplitude or range of the projectile, 
 that is, the. point B in which it again passes through the 
 horizontal plane from which it was projected, we have 
 only to suppose, in the above equation, y = 0. This gives 
 
 z = 4A cos. A sin. A = 2A sin. 2A 
 for the value of A B ; and, as the sine of an angle contin- 
 ues to increase to 90°, the value of AB will be greatest 
 when A, the angle of projection, is 45°. The amplitude is 
 then.= 2A. or twice the altitude due to the initial velocity. 
 At every other inclination there are two angles which give 
 the same range, the one as much less than 45° as the other 
 is greater. 
 
 The velocity v, at any point in the curve, is found by 
 di2 + <f«2 
 
 means of the differential formula 7.-2= ' . On dif- 
 
 dti 
 
 ferentiating the values of x and y in the equations (1), and 
 adding the results, we find 
 
 v- = a- — 2 a g t sin. A + g- 1-. 
 Let £ = fhe height from which a body must have fallen to 
 acquire the velocity v, then t)2 = 2«-i. But we have also 
 
 substituting, therefore, these 
 
 a?- = 2gh, and t = r; 
 
 o cos. A 
 
 values in the above equation, we obtain 
 k = h — i tan. A + 
 
 4Acos.2A' 
 
 and comparing this with the value of y in equation (2), we 
 have ultimately k + y = h. 
 
 From this equation it appears that if in A Y a point H be 
 taken, such that AH = J, the height from which a heavy 
 body must fall to acquire the initial velocity, and a straight 
 line H H be drawn through H parallel to the horizon, or to 
 A X, the velocity of the projectile in the curve at any 
 point P is equal to that which a heaw bodv would acquire 
 by falling freely from the line H H' to P. 'The line H H', 
 as is easily proved, is the directrix of the parabola ; and 
 hence all the parabolas described by bodies projected from 
 the same point, and with the same velocities, though with 
 different elevations, have the same directrix, and conse- 
 quently their foci in the circumference of the same circle. 
 
 Thus it appears that the theory of the motion of projec- 
 tiles in a vacuum is extremely simple ; but, as has been 
 already mentioned, the resistance which the air opposes to 
 their motion, particularly when the velocity is great, is by 
 far too considerable to be neglected : in fact, it changes en- 
 tirely the form of the trajectory, and the law of motion by 
 which it is described. 
 
 Motion of Projectiles in a resisting Medium. — When the 
 resistance of the air is taken into account, the determina- 
 tion of the path described by a projectile is a problem of 
 far greater difficulty, though still capable of rigid solution, 
 on assuming an algebraic relation between the velocity 
 and the resistance ; but when it is considered that, in or- 
 der to compute the trajectory of a resisted body, it is ne- 
 cessary not only to assume a law of resistance which we 
 never can be quite sure is the true one. but also to know 
 accurately the initial velocity of the body, together with 
 its densitv. form, and dimensions, it is easy to see that no 
 great practical advantage is likely to be obtained in any 
 case from the theory, and that recourse must be had to ex- 
 periment. The problem, however, regarded merely as a 
 mathematical speculation, possesses considerable interest, 
 and has been discussed by Newton in the Principia (Scho- 
 lium, prop. 10. lib. ii.;. by John Bernoulli. Dr. Brook Tay- 
 lor, Hermann, Euler, and others. For the solution, see 
 
 995
 
 PROJECTION. 
 
 jLegendre, Exercises de Calcul Integral, torn. i. ; Poisson, 
 Traiti de Mtcanique. 
 
 The hypothesis asually made with respect to the resist- 
 ance is. that it is proportional to the-square of the velocity. 
 Oil this hypothesis it u;is shown by Newton that the tra- 
 jectory baa more resemblance to a hyperbola than a para- 
 bola. The two branches A (' anil C L> are dissimilar ; and 
 M the motion in the descending branch 
 C 1) becomes constantly more nearly 
 vertical and uniform, so that ultimate- 
 ly the body would describe a vertical 
 line with a uniform velocity. This 
 branch of the curve has therefore a 
 vertical asymptote M O, to which it 
 continually approaches. The other branch A C has like- 
 wise an asymptote, which makes an angle with the axis A 
 B, and intersects it at a distance A X from A. depending 
 
 on the initial direction and velocity of the projectile. 
 
 Some anomalous circumstances are observed in experi- 
 ment- with artillery, which are quite beyond the reach of 
 theoretical calculation. Bullets are frequently driven to 
 the right or left of the plane in which they were projected, 
 as if a force acted upon them sideways as well as vertical- 
 ly, and In this case their path becomes a curve of double 
 curvature. Dr. lliitton ascribes this chiefly to a whirling 
 motion acquired by the bullet about an avis, in consequence 
 of its friction against the sides of the piece; for this rota- 
 tory motion, combined with the progressive motion, causes 
 each part of the ball's surface to strike the air in a direc- 
 tion different from what it would do if there were no such 
 whirl. Euler, on the other hand, attributes the lateral de- 
 flection chiefly to the irregularity of the figure of the ball, 
 and in a small degree to its rotation. Mr. Robins found 
 the range of shot extremely uncertain, falling sometimes 
 2U0 yards short of what it did at other times, though there 
 was no visible cause of difference in making the experi- 
 ment; and Dr. llutton states that he often experienced 
 a difference of one fifth or one sixth of the whole range, 
 both in the deflection to the right or left, and also in the 
 evtent of the range of cannon shot. See Gunnery, Re- 
 
 SISTAM K. 
 
 PROJECTION. In Perspective, the representation of 
 any object on the perspective plane. Sec Perspective. 
 PROJECTION (»F THE SPHERE, [n Geography, the 
 
 representation of the several parts of the surface of the 
 sphere on a plane, according to some geometrical law by 
 which the different points in the representation can be ac- 
 curately referred to their relative positions on the sphere. 
 It is a problem of much importance, in consequence of its 
 application to the construction of maps, charts, planis- 
 pheres, &c. 
 
 Projections are of various kinds, according to the situa- 
 tions in which the eye is supposed to he placed in respect 
 of the sphere and the plant- on which it is to be projected ; 
 but there are three which, by reason of the frequency of 
 their use, are particularly deserving of attention ; namely, 
 the orthographic, the stereographic, and the central or gno- 
 monic. 
 
 1. Orthographic Projection. In this projection the eye 
 is supposed to be at an infinite distance, and the plane of 
 projection, i. e., the plane on which the representation is 
 made, perpendicular to the direction of the rays of light, 
 which are all parallel to each other. The laws of this 
 projection are easily deduced. 1. Any point in space is 
 projected by drawing a straight line 
 from it perpendicular to the plane of 
 
 projection. '2. A straight line perpen- 
 dicular to the plane of projection is 
 projected Into a point. A straight 
 
 -^ line A li, parallel to the plane of pro- 
 jection P U, is projected Into an equal 
 straight line a b ; and a straight line CD, inclined to the 
 plane of projection, is projected into a straight line cd, 
 which Is shorter than C l>. in the proportion Of the cosine 
 oi Hie angle of inclination to radius. :t. a plane surface 
 perpendicular to the plane of projection is projected into a 
 straight line. i. \ clri te parallel to the plane of projec- 
 tion is projected into an equal Circle; bin a circle oblique 
 to ilii plane Of projection is projected into an ellipse, of 
 
 which the greater axis is equal to the diameter of the cir- 
 cle, and the les>er axis is equal to that diameter multiplied 
 
 by the cosine of the obliquity. 
 
 Orthographic projections of the sphere are usually made 
 either on the plane ol the equator, or on the plane of a 
 
 meridian. When on the plane of the equator, the nuri 
 
 dians are all represented by straight lines Intersecting In 
 
 tip- centre Of the projection, and the parallels of latitude 
 
 by circles whose radii are respectively equal to ( to 
 
 (it the latitude. Winn the representation is on the plane 
 
 ot'a meridian, the other meridians an- represented by ellip- 
 ses, ami the parallels ol latitude by Straight lines parallel 
 to the diameter ol the projection. Orthographic projections 
 
 db 
 
 PROJECTION OF THE SPHERE. 
 
 of a hemisphere have this defect, that they are much 
 crowded and distorted near the Circumference Of the repre- 
 sentation, as may be interred from the above figure : all the 
 points in the arc A C being compressed within the line ac 
 (which is equal to the versed sine of the arc), w bile tin arc 
 at the vertex of the hemisphere is projected into a line 
 nearly equal to itself. 
 
 The orthographic projection has a multitude of other 
 applications. The plans and sections by which artificers 
 execub their different constructions are orthographic pro- 
 jections of the things to be constructed ; and a solid body 
 may be represented in all its dimensions by orthographic 
 projections on two planes at right angles to each other. 
 Set lo si uiPTivE Geometry. 
 
 2. Stereographic Projection. — In this projection the eye 
 is supposed to be situated at the surface of the sphere, and 
 the plane of projection is that of the great circle, which is 
 every where 90 degrees from the po- 
 sition of the eve. Thus, let A C B E 
 represent a sphere cut by a plane P CI 
 passing through the centre, and per- 
 pendicular to the plane of the great 
 circle ABE; and let E be the position 
 of the eye in this circle. If straight 
 lines be drawn from E to any points -«■ 
 A D B in the opposite hemisphere, the points a d b in which 
 those lines cut the plane P U will be the stereographic 
 projections of A D B. 
 
 Some of the principal properties of this projection are 
 the following: 1. The projection of any circle on the 
 sphere which does not pass through the eye is a circle : and 
 circles whose planes pass through the eye are projected 
 into straight lines. 2. The angle made on the surface of 
 the sphere by two circles which cut each other, and the 
 angle made by their projections, is equal. 3. Let C be the 
 pole opposite to E, and c its projection ; then any point A is 
 projected into a point a, such that c a is equal to half the 
 tangent of the arc A C. 
 
 3. Gnomonic or Central Projection. — In this projection 
 the eye is situated at the centre of the sphere, and the 
 plane of projection is a plane which touches the sphere tit 
 any point assumed at pleasure. The point of contact is 
 called the principal point ; and the projections of all other 
 points on the sphere are at the extremities of the tangents 
 of the arcs Intercepted between them and the principal 
 point. As the tangents increase very rapidly when the arcs 
 exceed 45°, and at 90° become infinite, the centra] projection 
 cannot be adopted for a whole hemisphere. 
 
 The orthographic and srercoirapliic projections were both 
 employed by the ancient {Creek astronomers for the purpose 
 of representing the celestial sphere with all its cir< les on a 
 plane. The first was called by them the aii.ili innia. 1'tolemv 
 wrote a treatise on this projection ; and the Arabs derived 
 from it the fundamental theorems of trigonometry . The ste- 
 reographic projection appears to have been invented by llip- 
 parchus, and was denominated by the Greek astronomers 
 planisphere. The name stereographic (derived from rrrr- 
 pcoc, a solid) was given to it by the Jesuit Aguilon, because 
 it results from the intersection of two solids, the COne and 
 the sphere. Hipparchus and Ptolemy appear (though they 
 do not expressly mention it) to have been acquainted with 
 its principal property, namely, that circles on the sphere 
 are projected into circles, which affords great facilities for 
 the construction of maps. The second property, not less 
 remarkable, that all circles in the projection intersect each 
 other in ant'.es equal to those made by the corresponding 
 circles on the sphere, is of modern discovery, and appears 
 to have been first demonstrated by Dr. Ilalley, in 1696, in 
 No. 219, of the Phil. Tnin*., white the discover] is attrib- 
 uted to Demoivte or Ilooko. From lite equality ol the an- 
 gles, it follows that any very small portion of the spherical 
 Surface and its projection tire similar figures — a property of 
 
 great importance in the construction of maps, but which is 
 not peculiar to ibis projection, as it belongs also to Merca- 
 tor's ; anil numerous other relations may be assigned be- 
 tween the original and projected figures in winch it will 
 
 hold good. The gnomonic projection is also described l>y 
 
 Ptolemy; but as the Greeks had no idea ol' tin li iuouoiuet- 
 rical tangents, the polar distances were expressed by the 
 ratios of the sines to ibe cosines ,,f the arcs. 
 
 In constructing maps of countries, the object sought to 
 be attained is to lay down the places in their true relative 
 positions, and at the same lime to preserve as much as pos- 
 
 slble the same Bcale of distances throughout. In the three 
 projections which have been explained, equal portions of 
 the spherical surface are represented by unequal portions 
 
 of a plane surface, ami the de via tion limn equality becomes 
 in the centre to the circumference of the projec- 
 tion, The degrees of latitude are greatly contracted towards 
 the circumference In the orthographic projection, and en- 
 larged in the gnomonic, bo as m both cases f> produce a 
 great distortion. Geographers have, accurdiugly, attempted
 
 PROJECTURE. 
 
 to correct this deviation by placing the point of view at 
 some finite distance without the sphere. This gives rise to 
 the following, which was proposed by Lahire. 
 
 Globular Projection.— Let A C B be the hemisphere to be 
 represented on the plane passing through the 
 diameter A B, and let E be the position of 
 the eye in a straight line passing tbrough the 
 centre O perpendicular to A B ; the represen- 
 tation will be perfect, if the several arcs A M, 
 M F, F C, have each the same ratio to their 
 projections A N, N G, G O. This cannot be 
 u accomplished accurately, but the nearest ap- 
 
 proximate will be obtained by placing the point E in such a 
 position that if F be the middle point of the arc AC, its 
 corresponding point G is also the middle of A O. The pro- 
 blem therefore, is to find a point E in C D, such that on 
 drawing the line E F to bisect A C it shall also bisect the 
 radius A O. Draw F L perpendicular to O C, and join F O. 
 It is evident that F L is half the side of the inscribed square, 
 and G O is half the radius ; therefore F L is to G O as O F 
 or O C to O L. But FL:GO::LE: OE; therefore, 
 LE:OE:: OC:OL, and consequently LO: O E : : 
 C L : O L ; whence OE-CL = OU But D L • C L = 
 F L2= O L2 ; therefore O E = D L, or DE^OL, the co- 
 sine or sine of 45° ; consequently, by the trigonometrical 
 tables, U E = -71, the radius being unity. 
 
 The projections which have now been explained are sel- 
 dom used in delineating the features of a single country, or 
 a small portion of the earth's surface. For this purpose it 
 is found more convenient to employ some of the methods 
 of development of the spherical surface explained under 
 the term Map. 
 
 The projection of the circles of the sphere on a plane is 
 a problem of which the solution is easily found, either by the 
 methods of the descriptive geometry, or by common alge- 
 bra, or spherical trigonometry. Whatever be the situation 
 of the eye, every circle on the sphere, not passing through 
 the eye, forms the base of a cone, of which the eye is the 
 apex ; and the intersection of this cone with the plane of 
 projection gives the curve into which the circle is projected. 
 This curve, therefore, can be no other lhan a conic section, 
 and its equation can never exceed the second degree. On 
 forming the general equation, and assigning a particular po- 
 sition to the eye and the plane of projection, all the proper- 
 ties of the different kinds of projection are readily deduced. 
 The subject is explained in a popular manner In Murray's 
 Encyclopaedia of Geography (Introduction), Malte Brim's 
 Geography, and most other works on that science ; and 
 treated mathematically by Lambert in his Bcitragc, &c. 
 Berlin, 1772; by Euler in the Petersburg Commentaries for 
 1777 ; by Lagrange in the Berlin Memoirs for 1779 ; and by 
 Gauss in a Memoir which is translated in the Philosophical 
 Magazine for August and September, 1828. 
 
 PROJE'CTURE. In Architecture, the jutting or leaning 
 outwards of the mouldings and other members of architec- 
 ture beyond the face of a wall, column, &c. 
 
 PROLA'PSUS. (Lat.) A protrusion or falling down of 
 a part of a viscus that is uncovered. 
 
 PROLATE SPHEROID. In Geometry, a spheroid pro- 
 duced by the revolution of an ellipse about its transverse 
 diameter; so called in opposition to the oblate spheroid, 
 which is produced by the revolution of the ellipse about its 
 shorter axis. 
 
 PROLEGO'MENA. (Gr. irpo\ey6i/cva.) In Literature, 
 preliminary or introductory observations or dissertations 
 prefixed to any work. The famous dissertation prefixed by 
 D'Alembert to the Encyclopedic, and the dissertations pre- 
 fixed by Dugald Stewart, Playfair, Leslie, and Mackintosh 
 to the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, are 
 among the best specimens of prolegomena. 
 
 PRO'LEGS, in Entomology, are the fleshy, exarticulate, 
 pediform, often retractile organs, which assist various larvae 
 in walking and other motions, but which disappear in the 
 perfect insect. 
 
 PROLE'PSIS. (Gr. Trfo\aiJi6dvo), T anticipate.) In Rhe- 
 toric, a figure by which the speaker anticipates and answers 
 imaginary objections, such as might be raised against the 
 sentiments which he is urging. 
 
 PRO'LOGUE. (Gr. np6\oyoc.) A piece in verse, recited 
 before the representation of a play, and serving as an intro- 
 duction to it. See Epilogue. 
 
 PROLU'SION. (Lat.) A classical word which has been 
 adopted in a rather general sense by authors unwilling to 
 entitle their own productions by a more ambitious designa- 
 tion; an essay or preparatory exercise, in which the writer 
 tries his own strength, or throws out some preliminary re- 
 marks on a subject which he intends to treat more profound- 
 ly. The early and fugitive pieces of some poets (as the 
 Culex and others attributed to Virgil) have been termed, by 
 critics, their prolusions. 
 
 PROME'THEANS. A term applied to small glass tubes 
 containing concentrated sulphuric acid, and surrounded with 
 84 
 
 PROPAGATION OF PLANTS. 
 
 an inflammable mixture, which they ignite on being pressed, 
 and thereby give instantaneous light. The term is derived 
 from 
 
 PROME'THEUS. (From Gr. jiyrifi counsel.) Accord- 
 ing to the most ordinary form of his legend in Greek my- 
 thology, one of the Titans, who was exposed to the wrath 
 of Jupiter on account of his having taught mortals the arts, 
 and especially the use of fire ; which he was said to have 
 stolen from heaven, concealed in a pipe. According to an- 
 other story, Prometheus was actually the creator of men ; 
 and in the Protagoras of Plato he is made not to have cre- 
 ated, but to have inspired them with thought and sense. 
 His punishment was to be chained to a rock on Caucasus, 
 where a vulture perpetually gnawed his liver; from which, 
 he was finally rescued by Hercules. This legend has formed 
 the subject of the grandest of all the poetical illustrations of 
 Greek supernatural belief, the Prometheus Bound of iEschy- 
 lus. Many have recognised in the indomitable resolution 
 of this suffering Titan, and his stern endurance of the evils 
 inflicted on him by a power with which he had vainly 
 warred for supremacy, the prototype of the arch -fiend of 
 Milton. Others have sought for a recondite analogy, and 
 discovered in the tortures endured by Prometheus as a sa- 
 crifice for mankind, whom he had benefited, a foreshadow- 
 ing of the great mystery of Christianity. 
 
 PROMISSORY NOTE. A note or writing by which an 
 individual, or number of individuals, promise or engage to 
 undertake or perform some specified act. In ordinary lan- 
 guage, however, it is applied to engagements to pay certain 
 specified sums of money at certain dates. Such documents, 
 if drawn on proper stamps, are legal negotiable instruments 
 that enjoy the same privileges as bills. 
 
 PRO'MONTORY. (Lat. pro, and mons, amountain.) In 
 Geography, a point of land, whether high or low is indiffer- 
 ent, projecting into the sea. See Cape. 
 
 PROMU'SCIS. The name of the suctorious organ of the 
 Hemipterous insects, formed by the union of the two jaws 
 (mazillte) to the lower lip, which they embrace ; thus form- 
 ing a jointed organ, containing four long capillary lancets 
 and a short tongue. 
 
 PRONA'OS. (Gr. rpo, and vaoc, a temple.) In Archi- 
 tecture, the front porch of a temple. See Naos. 
 
 PRONA'TOR MUSCLES. Those which are used in 
 turning the palm of the hand downwards. 
 
 PRO'NOUNS. In Grammar, parts of speech which are 
 used in the stead of nouns, to avoid needless or inconvenient 
 specification. Pronouns are divided into substantive or 
 personal, and adjective ; the latter including possessive, de- 
 monstrative, relative, indefinite, and interrogative pronouns. 
 
 PROOF. (From the verb to prove.) hi Engraiing, an 
 impression taken from an engraving to prove the state of it 
 during the progress of executing it; also one taken before 
 the insertion of the letters are engraved on the plate. 
 
 Proof. In Printing, an impression on which the errors 
 and mistakes are marked for the purpose of being correct- 
 ed. Proofs are — first proof, which is the impression taken 
 with all the errors of workmanship. After it is read by 
 the copy, and the errors corrected, which if not many, and 
 carefully done, another impression is printed with more 
 care, to send to the author ; this is termed a clean proof. 
 On it he makes his corrections and alterations : when those 
 are altered in the types, another proof is printed, and read 
 over carefully, previously to the whole number being print- 
 ed oft"; this is called the press proof. 
 
 Proof. See Evidence. 
 
 PROOF SPIRIT. A mixture of equal weights of abso- 
 lute alcohol and water; the specific gravity of such a mix- 
 ture is 0-917 ; but the density of the proof spirit of commerce 
 is 0-930. 
 
 PROPAEDEUTICS. (Gr. -rrpo, and irai&cvu), I instruct.) 
 A term used by German writers to signify the preliminary 
 learning connected with any art or science : that in which, 
 it is necessary to be instructed, in order to study with ad- 
 vantage the art or science itself. 
 
 PROPAGANDA. The name given to an association, or, 
 as it is termed, the congregation I)e propaganda Fide, estab- 
 lished at Rome by Gregory XV. in 1022, for diffusing a 
 knowledge of Christianity throughout the world. It is a 
 committee of cardinals and special agents of the pope, under 
 whose presidency it meets every week. Its duties are, the 
 superintendence and assistance of missionaries in all parts 
 of the globe, the maintenance of recent converts, the pub- 
 lication of religious works in foreign languages, &c. De- 
 rived from this celebrated society, the name propaganda is 
 applied in modern political language as a term of reproach 
 to secret associations for the spread of opinions and princi- 
 ples which are viewed by most governments with horror 
 and aversion. 
 
 PROPAGA'TION OF PLANTS. The greater number 
 of plants are propagated naturally by means of seeds ; but, 
 in addition to these, many plants are extended over the sur- 
 face on which they take root by the production of runners 
 
 997
 
 PROPEDS. 
 
 or lateral shoots, which spread along the surface, and root 
 :it the joints or buds, from which they send up new plants ; 
 by Backers or Bide shoots from the roots; and by various 
 oiher natural means. Artificially, plants are propagated by 
 
 seed, by runners, sinkers, offsets, dividing the tubers, lav ers. 
 
 cuttings, grafting, budding', inarching, fcc Beeds are gather- 
 ed when mature, and sown on recently stirred soil, and cov- 
 iiit'erent depths, according to the size of the seed, 
 the nature of the soil and situation, and other circumstances. 
 The plants formed by runners are separated from the parent 
 plant by cutting through the runner, and removing the young 
 plant, in order to plant it elsewhere. Suckers, slips, or side 
 shoots from the roils, are separated from the parent plant 
 by being slipped down, or cut otf, so as to carry' "ith them 
 a portion of fibrous roots; and they are afterwards planted 
 in suitable soil, &c. Offsets are small bulbs which are pro- 
 round the base of larger ones, and, being taken off 
 and planted, become plants. Tubers arc underground 
 Stems, containing leaf buds-, and these may be separated 
 and planted entire, or cut into as many pieces as there are 
 buds, in either of which cases new plants will be formed. 
 Layers are branches or shoots of either woody or herbaceous 
 plants, which are bent down, and a portion of their length 
 buried a few inches in the soil : that portion having been 
 pre\ iously w ounded by cutting, bruisireg, or twisting, which. 
 by checking the descent of the sap. gives rise, alter a eei- 
 tain period, to the production of roots. After these roots 
 are formed, the portion of the layer which has produced 
 them is separated from the main stock or parent plant, and 
 planted by itself. Cuttings are portions of shoots, either of 
 ligneous or herbaceous plants: and they are made of the 
 young shoots with the leaves on, or of the ripened wood 
 either with or without its leaves; and after they have, 
 either in a herbaceous state with the leaves on, or with the 
 wood mature and with or without the leaves, been proper- 
 ly prepared and planted, they form roots at their lower ex- 
 tremity, each cutting becoming a perfect plant. In general, 
 CUttinge should !»' taken from those shoots of a plant which 
 are nearest the soil ; because, from the moisture and shade 
 there, such shoots are more predisposed to emit roots than 
 'lie upper part of the plant The young or last- 
 formed shoots are to be taken in preference to such as are 
 Older, as containing more perfect buds in an undeveloped 
 
 state, and a hark re easily permeable by roots ; and the 
 
 cutting is to he prepared by cutting its lower extremity 
 across at a joint, the lenticells or root-buds being there most 
 abundant. When the cutting is planted, the principal part 
 of the art consists in making it quite firm at the lower ex- 
 tremity, so as completely to exclude the air from the wound- 
 ed section. Cuttings emit roots at this section, either in 
 consequence of the action of the accumulated sap in the 
 catting, as in the case of the ripened wood in deciduous 
 trees and shrubs ; or in consequence of the joint action of 
 the ace in n 1 1 la ted sap and of the leaves, as in the case of cut- 
 ties Of soft wood with the leaves on, and in a living state. 
 A tew plants are propagated by cuttings of the leaves, the 
 petiole of the leaf being slipped olf from the parent plant, 
 and probably containing the latent embryos of buds. Graft- 
 ing and budding are processes which have been already ex- 
 plained. (See these words.) Inarching may he described 
 as a Bpecles of grafting, in which the scion is not separated 
 from the parent plant till it has become united with the 
 stock. 
 
 PRO'PEDS. Propedes. The name given by Kirhy to the 
 soft, fleshy, inarticultate, pediform appendages of certain 
 larvae, placed behind the true feet, and disappearing in the 
 mature 
 
 PRo'PEK. In Heraldry, any object represented of its 
 natural colour i- so termed. 
 
 PROPERTY. In Logic, a predicahle which denotes 
 something essentially conjoined to the essence of the species. 
 There are enumerated in hooks on logic four kinds of prop- 
 erty, which are termed " universal, hut not peculiar;" "pe- 
 culiar, but not universal ;" "universal and peculiar;" " uni- 
 od peculiar, but not at every time." The last kind 
 is evidently more properly designated as Accident. Sec 
 Loon . PrkdicaRLE. 
 
 i 11 IV. I'lciMT OF. 8»t I'ioiit of Propkrty. 
 
 PRCPHETS. [Gr. irpo, before, and <f>,,i, t , r speak.) A 
 a In the Scriptures to persons inspired, or endowed 
 
 with the capacity to predict future events. The first to 
 
 whom it is applied is Abraham; and we heir, in the same 
 i if companies of prophets, persons w ho were 
 
 d in the study or exposition of tne divine law. in 
 
 which case it does not necessarily imply the power of pre 
 dieting future events, iii its in strict signification, the 
 
 term prophet Is given to Elijah. Bllsha, and others, who did 
 
 not commit their prophecies to writing, but whose Inspira- 
 tion Is attested in the historical books of the Old Testament, 
 he sixteen whose hooks are collected under the sub 
 
 divisions of the greater and the lesser. Jonah, tin earl lest, 
 B.C. ; and Malachi, the latest, about 400 B.C. 
 
 PROPORTION. 
 
 PROPHVT. ATTIC. (Gr. npopv\aooa, I defend.) Means 
 used to prevent disease. 
 
 PROPO'RTIOX Lat. proportio), in Arithmetic and Ge- 
 ometry, Ls the equality or similitude of ratios ; four numbers 
 or magnitudes being said to be proportional, or in propor- 
 tion, when the ratio of the first to the second is the same 
 as the ratio of the third to the fourth, or when the first di- 
 vided by the second gives the same quotient as the third 
 divided by the fourth. 
 
 The definition of proportion has given rise to much con- 
 troversy among writers on the elements of geometry. Eu- 
 clid's celebrated definition in the tilth hook, whatever may 
 
 be said in favour of its ingenuity and exactness, is found by 
 experience to be much too complicated and refined to be 
 understood by beginners; and accordingly many attempts 
 have been made to .substitute for it one more intelligible; 
 but, on account of the difficulty of defining the term ratio in 
 such a manner as to include incommensurable quantities, 
 none of these attempts can be said to have been perfectly 
 successful. This imperfection, however, must be under- 
 stood as belonging merely to the metaphysical accuracy of 
 the definition, for many of the treatises which have been 
 composed with the view- of superseding Euclid's have all 
 the simplicity and elegance which can be desired. On this 
 subject the reader may consult Jlarrmr's Mathematical 
 Lectures; the notes to Playfair's Euclid; Camerer's Eu- 
 clid, Berlin, li-'2.->; I)e Morgan, On Vie Connexion of Num- 
 ber and Magnitude, 1836 ; and the art. " Proportion" in the 
 Penny Cyc. 
 
 Proportion is continual or discrete, direct or inverse. It 
 is continual when every two adjacent terms have the suite 
 ratio, or when the consequent of one ratio is the antecedent 
 of the next following; thus, 2, -1, 8, 16, fcc, are numbers in 
 continual proportion, for the ratio of 2 to 4 is the same as 
 that of 4 to 8, of 8 to 16, &c. JJiscrcte proportion is when 
 the antecedent of one ratio is different from the consequent 
 of the former ; thus, 2, 3, 4, 6. The terms direct and in Bi rsc 
 have reference to arithmetical questions in what is denom- 
 inated the Rule of Three, and which in their enunciation 
 include four numbers, two of which are of one kind and 
 two of another, and moreover each number of the second 
 kind intimately connected with one of the numbers of the 
 first kind by the nature of the question. Now. when the 
 four numbers are written in the form of a proportion, if the 
 antecedents of the two ratios are the related numbers, the 
 proportion is said to be direct ; but if the antecedent of the 
 first ratio is the number connected with the i onsequent of 
 the second, the proportion is inverse. For example, let the 
 question he this: If 8 yards cost 12 shillings, what is the 
 price of 20 yards'? The answer is 30 shillings. Now, in 
 this question, the numbers 8 and 20 are of one kind, name- 
 ly, yards ; and the two others, 12 and 30, are of the same 
 kind, shillings. The numbers form the proportion 8 : 20: : 
 12:30; and the numbers 8 and 13 (the antecedents of the 
 ratios) are related to each other, and also 20 and 30; 12 
 shillings being the price of 8 yards, and 30 the price of 20. 
 The proportion is therefore direct. Hut if the question were 
 to find in how many days 4 men will do a piece of w oik, 
 supposing fi men can do it in 10 days, the related numbers 
 would he differently placed; for the answer being 1") days, 
 the four numbers written as proportionals must stand thus, 
 4 : 6 : : 10 : 15 ; and as the numbers 4 and 15 are here the 
 related numbers, or the antecedent of the first ratio is re- 
 lated to the consequent of the second, the proportion is in- 
 verse. This is also called reciprocal proportion ; for if one 
 of the ratios he formed of the reciprocals of the given num- 
 bers instead of the numbers themselves, the related num- 
 bers would stand as in direct proportion ; thus, \ : $ : : 10 : 
 15; or 6:4:: T V T V 
 
 It is a property of proportional numbers, derived imme- 
 diately from the definition, that the product of the first and 
 fourth terms is equal to the product of the second and third. 
 Hence, when three terms of a proportion are [riven, the 
 fourth can be found. This is the object of all questions in 
 the Rule of Three. 
 
 The precedine remarks apply exclusively to geometrical 
 proportion ; that is to sav. when the proportion consists in 
 the equality of ratios. Writers on arithmetic also mention 
 nrit'imiticul proportion, and harmonical proportion, for 
 
 Which see the res|iei liv e terms. 
 
 PROPORTION. In the I'mc Arts, the most proper relation 
 of the measUN Of parts to each other and to the whole. 
 The Greeks used the word avpfierpia (symmetry I, to express 
 this Idea. In many instances, proportion may be consider- 
 ed almost synonymous with fitness, though there is a dis- 
 tinction hotvv een lhein ; since every form susceptible of pro- 
 portion may be considered either with respect to its whole 
 
 as connected With the end designed, or with respect to the 
 
 relation "t the several parts to the end. in the first case, 
 litne-s is the thin:' considered ; in the second, proportion. 
 Fitness, therefore, expresses the general relation of means
 
 PROPORTIONAL COMPASSES. 
 
 to an end, and proportion the proper relation of parts to an 
 end. It is hence needless to dwell on the intimate con- 
 nexion that exists between beauty and proportion, in all 
 complex forms. Payne Knight, in his Inquiry into the Prin- 
 ciples of Taste, has asserted that in many productions of art 
 " symmetry is the result of arbitrary connexion." It would 
 be very easy to show the absurdity of this assertion, if we 
 considered it worth the space. 
 
 PROPORTIONAL COMPASSES. Compasses with two 
 pairs of opposite legs, by which distances are enlarged or 
 diminished in any proportion. 
 
 PROPORTIONAL SCALES. See Scales. 
 
 PROPORTIONALS. The terms of a proportion ; of these 
 the first and last a*e the extremes, and the intermediate the 
 means, or the mean when the proportion consists of only 
 three terms. See Proportion. 
 
 PROPORTIONS, DEFINITE. In Chemistry. See Af- 
 finity. 
 
 PROPOSI'TION, in Logic, is defined "a sentence indica- 
 tive ;" i. e., a sentence which affirms or denies. Thus, sen- 
 tences in the form of command or question are excluded 
 from the character of propositions. Logical propositions are 
 said to be divided, first, according to substance, into categori- 
 cal and hypothetical; secondly, according to quality, into 
 affirmative and negative ; thirdly, according to quantity, into 
 universal and particular. 1. A categorical proposition is 
 where the sentence affirms or denies absolutely, as "man 
 is mortal." A hypothetical proposition is defined to be two 
 or more categoricals united by a conjunction, as " if Caius is 
 man, he is mortal." There are several sorts of hypothetical 
 propositions; conditional, disjunctive, causal, &c. 2. An 
 affirmative proposition is one whose copula (or conjunction) 
 is affirmative, as " man is mortal ;" a negative proposition 
 has a negative copula, as "man is not immortal." 3. An 
 universal proposition is when the predicate is said of the 
 whole of the subject, as "all men are mortal," "Caius is 
 mortal ;" a particular, when it is said of part of the subject 
 only, as " some men are rich." To these two species may 
 be added the indefinite proposition, when the subject has 
 no sign of universality or particularity, or is a singular m >un, 
 which is either universal or particular according to the mat- 
 ter. The matter of a proposition is said to be either neces- 
 sary, impossible, or contingent ; and if the matter of an in- 
 definite proposition be either of the former, it is equivalent 
 to an universal ; if the last, to a particular : e. g., " birds fly," 
 i. e., all birds — universal. " No birds are quadrupeds ;" here 
 the matter is impossible, and the proposition universal. 
 " Birds sing," i, e., some birds — particular. 
 
 The fourfold division of propositions according to quality 
 and quantity is denoted by arbitrary signs ; e. g., A stands 
 for an universal affirmative, in the logic used at Oxford ; E 
 for an universal negative ; I for a particular affirmative ; O 
 for a particular negative. 
 
 A categorical proposition is composed of two terms united 
 by a copula. (.See Term Copula.) The first term, i. e., that 
 of which the other is affirmed or denied, is the subject ; the 
 other (that which is affirmed or denied respecting the first) 
 the predicate. In the collocation of our language, the sub- 
 ject usually, but not invariably, precedes the predicate. 
 Thus, "Diana of the Ephesians (subject) is great" (predi- 
 cate) is transposed into " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." 
 In some languages, as Greek and Latin, the latter form of 
 collocation is not less natural or usual than the former. 
 When the subject of a proposition is a common term (see 
 Term) it is said to be "distributed," when the universal 
 sign (all, no, every, &c.) is prefixed, and the proposition 
 consequently universal. The predicate is said to be "dis- 
 tributed" in all negative and no affirmative propositions, in- 
 asmuch as a negative proposition denies that any part of 
 the predicate agrees with the subject, whereas an affirma- 
 tive can never assert that every part of the predicate agrees 
 with the subject ; i. e., can never do so necessarily, by the 
 logical force of the proposition, although it may undoubted- 
 ly happen that the predicate agrees with the subject and 
 with nothing else : e. g., " Caesar was the first Roman em- 
 peror." Two propositions are said to be opposed, when, 
 having the same subject or predicate, thev differ in quan- 
 tity, in quality, or in both. The two universals (A and E) 
 are termed contraries to each other ; the two particulars (I 
 and O) sub-contraries ; the universals and particulars (A 
 and E, I and O) subalterns; A and O, or E and I (those 
 which differ both in quantity and quality), contradictories. A 
 proposition is said to be converted when its terms are trans- 
 posed ; i. e., when the subject is made the predicate, and the 
 predicate the subject. See Conversion of Propositions. 
 
 Proposition. In Mathematics, a theorem proposed to be 
 demonstrated, or a problem in which something is proposed 
 to be done. 
 
 PROPRIETOR. A Roman magistrate, bearing the same 
 relation to the prator that the proconsul did to the consul. 
 (See Proconsul.) Under the emperors, proprietors, as dis- 
 tinguished from proconsuls, were appointed as governors 
 
 PROSPECTUS. 
 
 to the imperial provinces, the latter being the servants of 
 the senate. 
 
 PROPYLiEUM. (Gr. 7r/7o7nAaiov.) In Ancient Archi- 
 tecture, the vestibule of a house. The vestibules or porticos 
 at Athens, leading to the Acropolis, were thus denominated. 
 
 PRO RE NATA. (Lat. according as occasion may re- 
 quire.) A term commonly used in medical prescriptions. 
 
 PROROGA'TION. See Parliament. 
 
 PROSCE'NIUM. (Gr. npo, before, and cKnvn, a scene.) 
 In Architecture, the frontispiece or part in a theatre where 
 the drop scene separates the stage from the audience, and 
 beyond the orchestra. In the ancient theatres it comprised 
 the whole of the stage. 
 
 PROSCRI'PTION. (Lat. proscribere, to proscribe, out- 
 law, or doom to death; to confiscate one's property.) The 
 most vindictive species of proscription was that introduced 
 by Sylla when he wrested Rome from the hands of the 
 Marian faction. It consisted in making out a list of persons 
 supposed to be obnoxious to the state, and getting a sentence 
 of condemnation passed against them, which made it un- 
 lawful to harbour a proscribed person. By these measures 
 thousands of citizens perished in the civil wars of Rome. 
 The most celebrated proscription was that of the triumvirs, 
 Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus, in which Cicero was slain. 
 
 PROSE. (Lat. prorsa oratio ; from prorsus, adv., direct 
 or straightfvricard.) In Literature, all language not in 
 verse. Prose diction, to be good, or even admissible, in or- 
 dinary criticism, must be conformable to the rules of com- 
 position as to style, cadence, &c. 
 
 PRO'SELYTE. (Gr. Trpocrn\vTO$, one who arrives as a 
 stranger.) A term in use among the Jews after their con- 
 nexion with the Greeks, and applied to such foreigners as 
 embraced their religion. These they divided, according to 
 the common opinion, into two classes; distinguished by the 
 terms proselytes of the gate, and proselytes of righteous- 
 ness. Of these the former were such as merely renounced 
 idolatry, and believed in and worshipped the true God, ob- 
 serving the precepts of the natural law, and, from being ad- 
 mitted within the first gate of the temple, received this ap- 
 pellation. The latter class were those who submitted to 
 circumcision, and in every other respect conformed entirely 
 to the customs of the Jewish people. Dr. Burton, how- 
 ever, it must be admitted, thinks this distinction unfound- 
 ed. (Lectures on the Eccl. History of the First Three Cen- 
 turies, 1. iii.) 
 
 PRO'SENCHYMA. (Gr. ■Kpoatyxcw, I pour still more 
 upon.) Cellular tissue, the cellules of which taper to each 
 end, and consequently overlap each other at their extremi- 
 ties. It is the first approach on the part of cellular tissue 
 to the condition of woody tissue. 
 
 PRO'SERPINE. The Latin form of Persephone, the 
 name of a Grecian goddess, sprung from Jupiter and Ceres. 
 She was stolen from her mother by Pluto, who, enamoured 
 of her beauty, carried her off from the plains of Enna in 
 Sicily, while sporting with her companions, to the infernal 
 regions, where she became his queen. The wanderings of 
 Ceres in search of her daughter were much celebrated by 
 the ancient poets. When she at last discovered the place 
 of her concealment, a compromise was entered into, by 
 which Proserpine was allowed to spend two thirds of the 
 year with her parents and the rest with Pluto in his empire. 
 
 PROS'ODY. (Gr. irpoc, to, and loir;, song; signifying, 
 literally, a guide or assistance to versification.) The science 
 which treats of quantity, accent, and the laws of harmony, 
 both in metrical and prose composition. In the Greek and 
 Latin languages every syllable had its determinate value or 
 quantity, and verses were constructed by systems of recur- 
 ring feet, each foot containing a definite number of syllables 
 possessing a certain quantity and arrangement. (See Foot.) 
 The versification of modern European languages, in general, 
 is constructed simply by accent and number of syllables. 
 They have, therefore, no prosody strictly so called. The 
 Germans, however, have laboured to subject their language 
 to the ancient metrical system, but with indifferent success. 
 
 PROSOPO'GRAPHY. (Gr. -poaunrov, figure or person, 
 and ypatpb), I describe.) In Rhetoric, a word used by some 
 critical writers to signify the description of animated ob- 
 jects. Of this figure the'portraits of the horse and the levi- 
 athan in the book of Job are well-known and beautiful ex- 
 amples. 
 
 PROSOPOPCE'IA. (Gr. irpoaunrov, and -rroicw, I make.) 
 A figure by which inanimate objects, or abstract ideas, are 
 personified, and addressed or represented by the poet or 
 orator as if endowed with human shape or sentiments. Mil- 
 ton's famous digression of Sin and Death, in the Paradise 
 Lost, is at once a prosopopoeia and an allegory. 
 
 PROSPE'CTUS (Lat.), in its most extended sense, is 
 applied to the outline of any plan or proposal submitted 
 for public approbation ; but it is most usually confined to 
 literary undertakings, in which it signifies an outline or 
 sketch of the plan or design of a work, together with such 
 other circumstances connected with the publication, &c, 
 
 999
 
 PROSTATE GLAND. 
 
 as it may be thought desirable to enlarge upon or make 
 known. 
 PRO'STATE GLAND. In Comparative Anatomy, the 
 .Land retains its single compact form in most of the 
 Quadrumana, but is bifid in the Rnminantia ; in the Ro- 
 dentia and Insectivora it is resolved into numerous slender 
 elongated ccecal tubes; in the mole it is remarkable Tor its 
 i size. 
 PRi t'STA rE3. Gr.) The name given to the guardians 
 of the foreign settlers at Athens, whose business it was to 
 represent them in courts of law, and protect them from in- 
 jurv. 
 
 PRO'STHAPHE'RESIS. (Gr. vpooStv, and aQatptaic, 
 subtraction.) A term used by the older writers on astrono- 
 my to signify the difference between the true and mean mo- 
 tion, or tlte true and mean place of a planet, or the quantity 
 which must be taken from or added to the mean anomaly, 
 in order to get the true anomaly. Let P (or P') be the place 
 of a plant in its orbit, 9 the sun, C the centre, 
 and A the perihelion of the orbit; the angle A 
 S P is the true anomaly, A C P is the mean 
 anomaly; and the difference between A SPand 
 A C P is S I'C, which is the prosthapheresis. 
 If A C P be less than a right angle, S P C must 
 lie added to A C P in order to get the true ano- 
 maly ; but if it lie greater than a right angle, the angle S P 
 C must be deducted. The angle S P C is called by modern 
 writers the equation of the centre, or equation of the orbit. 
 PR( i STHESIS. <;r. -pos, and uOnin, I place.) A fig- 
 ure ii grammar by which one of more letters are added to 
 the commencement of a word; as in the common English 
 participles, /« loved, Jcreft, Sec. See Metaplasm. 
 
 PRO'STYLE, or PROSTYLOS. (Gr. -p.-,, Wore, and 
 crvXos, a column.) In Architecture, a temple or other build- 
 in;: with columns in its front face. 
 
 PR< > TASIS. (Gr. zp6raois, from Trporeivd), I stretch 
 or put forth.) In Grammar and Rhetoric, every properly 
 constructed period (see Period) is said to be naturally divisi- 
 ble into twn parts ; of which the first is termed protasis, the 
 second apodosis. In the ancient drama, the protasis was 
 the exposition, usually contained in the first part of the piece, 
 either by way of soliloquy or dialogue, serving to make 
 known the characters and the plot to the audience. 
 
 PROTEA'CE/E. (Protea, one of the genera.) A natural 
 order of arborescent, rigid, useless Ezogens, Inhabiting the 
 hotter parts of the world, and found in dry, sterile, atony, 
 exposed places, especially near to the sea coast. Tiny are 
 known from F.laagnacca by the woody texture of their 
 leaves ; by the irregular calyxes having a valvate aestivation, 
 with the stamens placed upon the lobes; and by the dehis- 
 cent fruit. The genera Banksia, Dryandra, Protea, and 
 are cultivated for the sake of their beautiful fo- 
 liage and (lowers. The seeds of Gucvina are sold in Chili 
 for tin same use as hazel nuts with us. One of the larger 
 timber trees of New Zealand is the Knightia ezcelsa, a plant 
 of this order. 
 
 PROTE'CTOR. In English History, a title which has 
 been three times assumed by daring statesmen : 1. Richard, 
 duke oi York, in 1453, was appointed by parliament protector 
 during pleasure. L .'. The duke of Somerset, being consti- 
 tuted one of Henry YIII.'s sixteen executors, obtained a 
 patent from the young king, Edward VI., in 1548, constitu- 
 ting him protector, with the assistance of the other fifteen 
 as councillors; but he only enjoyed this dignity a few 
 month-, and his li»<s of it was soon followed by his death. 
 3. Cromwell took the tit:,, of lord protector of the common- 
 wealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland, on the 12th Dec, 
 1653, when the "Barel •< Parliament" resigned its au- 
 thority into his hand. His Bon Richard succeeded him in 
 his title and authority, but was never formally installed pro- 
 
 PRQTEST. In Parliamentary Law, is a privilege pecu- 
 liar to the members of the upper hi use of parliament of en- 
 terinL' (by have of the hon-e always presumed) their dis- 
 sent from a motion or resolution agreed to l.\ a majority of 
 the house, together with their reasons for dissenting. The 
 paper embodying these reasons of dissent i- called a protest, 
 and is entered on the journals. Protests, with the reasons, 
 were first set down, according to Lord Clarendon, m L64L 
 Sec Parliament. 
 
 I'll' KTESTANTS. A genera] name applied to the rati- 
 on- denominations of Christians which have sprung from 
 the adoption of tin- principles of the Reformation In the 16th 
 century. The term was assumed, in the tir.-t in 
 the reformers of North Germany, who, in the year 1529, 
 formally protested against a decree of the imperial diet held 
 at Spires, which ordained that the question between the 
 
 parties should remain unsettled, some restrictions being 
 laid upon tin- progress ol the new opinions, until the calling 
 of a general council, the time of which was left uncertain. 
 The Protestants accordingly asserted that the decree was 
 
 Unfavourable and unjust to 'their party, and claimed the im- 
 
 PROTItACTOR. 
 
 mediate summons of a lawful council, which they knew it 
 was the interest of the papacy, under the circumstances, to 
 delay. In the early period of the Reformation, the princi- 
 pal reformed churches "ere two. those of the follow < i- of 
 Luther and of Calvin, the partisans of Zuingli having be- 
 come nearly identified with the latter. Since that time the 
 number of subdivisions upon every point of doctrine and 
 discipline has been infinite. The general bond of union, 
 however, among all, continues to ibis daj to be thi 
 lion of private judgment, and rejection of any infallible head 
 of the church, or ultimate authority in pope or council. We 
 believe, also, that no Protestant church has ever relapsed 
 into any one of the prominent results of the Romish system 
 — such as the doctrine of the seven sacraments, of transub- 
 stantiation, or of purgatory, the Celibacy of the clergy, or 
 veneration of images or relies. 
 
 There are, however, two lines of argument upon which 
 these principles are maintained, the respective assumption 
 of which seems to constitute the strongest line of distinction 
 among Protestants. The tir.-t i< that to which the German 
 and .-Swiss reformers most generally leaned, which con- 
 siders the Bible to contain within itself so complete a re- 
 pository of divine truths as to he its own interpreter, as well 
 as tile evidence of its own authenticity .and inspiration. The 
 English reformers, on the other hand, endeavoured to base 
 their doctrines upon the practice of the fust three centuries, 
 and appealed therein to similar principle- with the Roman 
 church, which they maintained to be corrupt, not in its 
 origin, but in its growth. 
 
 PRO'TEl'S. A marine deity of the Greeks, celebrated 
 for his gift of divination, and the power of changing his 
 form, by which means he eluded those who resorted to him 
 for information. 
 
 Pro'tecs. In Zoology, this name was originally and 
 very aptly applied to a genus of Infusories, which, during 
 life, never for a single minute maintain the same form ; this 
 peculiarity is strikingly manifested, as in the common species 
 called Proteus diffluens. The term was subsequently used 
 by Laurenti to designate a singular amphibious reptile, pe- 
 culiar to certain subterranean waters in Carniola, and w inch, 
 like the American siren, retains the external gills, together 
 with internal lungs or air-trigs, throughout life. 
 
 PROTIIO'NOTARY. (Lat. proto-notarius, or first no- 
 tary.) A title originally of the Byzantine empire. The 
 Apostolical prothonotaries of the Papal court are officers 
 having precedence of the other notaries or secretaries of 
 the Roman chancery; the papal "notaries participant - ' 
 rank after bishops, but before abbots. In England, officers 
 in the courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas had this 
 title, until the recent changes in those court-. 
 
 PROTHO'RAX. (Gr. -po, before, and Ouipat,. a shield.) 
 In Entomology, signifies the tirst segment of the thorax In 
 insects; by Kirhy the term is restricted to the upper part 
 onlv, or shield of that segment. 
 
 PROTHY'RIDES. (Gr. r.po, and Ovpa, a door.) See An- 
 
 CONES. 
 
 PRO 'THYRUM. (Gr. -po. and Ovpa.) In Architecture, 
 a porch before the outer door of a house. 
 
 PRO'TOCOL. (From the Latin protocollum : a word 
 derived from the Greek zpunos, first, and xoWa, glue : but 
 the etymological signification attached to this derivation 
 seems unknown.) The word protocol, in the French lan- 
 guage, signifies the formulae or technical words of legal in- 
 struments ; in Germany, it has been used to denote the 
 minutes or rough draught of an instrument or transaction. 
 It is in the latter sense that the word has been borrowed 
 by diplomacy, in which it signifies the original copy of any 
 dispatch, treaty, or other document. 
 
 PRO'TOTYPE. (Gr. nputioc, first, and roiros, a mark.) 
 In the Fine Arts, the original pattern or model of a thing 
 whereon are founded principles of imitation. 
 
 PRI I T< >'/.< • A. (Gr. -pioroi, and Uooi, animal.) A name 
 synonymous with acrita and oozoa, and applied to 
 plest animals, or those which stand, as it were, on the first 
 step of organization. 
 
 PROTRA'CTOR. A mathematical instrument for lay- 
 ing down angles on paper, osed in surveying, plotting, &c. 
 
 In its simplest form, the protractor consists mere!] of a 
 semicircular limb of meia I. divided into lsip, and subtend- 
 ed by a diameter, in the middle of which is a notch to mark 
 the position of the centre. < in placing this notch over the 
 angular point, and lav oil- the diameter along a given straight 
 line, an angle of any number of degrees may he made by 
 marking the point on tin- paper which coincides with the 
 glvi " degree on the Umb, and joining this point with the 
 centre, when the instrument is removed. The protractor is 
 
 rendered more commodious by transferring the divisions to 
 
 the edge of a parallel ruler. 
 
 Winn a survey is to he plotted on a larce scale, and it 
 becomes necessary, in consequence, to lav don n the angles 
 
 with considerable precision, a more complex apparatus is 
 required. The most approved form ol the protractor may
 
 PROVERBS. 
 
 be described as follows : It consists of an entire circle, con- 
 nected with its centre by four radial bars. The centre of 
 the metal is removed, and a circular disk of glass fixed in its 
 place, on which are drawn two lines crossing each other at 
 right angles, the point of intersection denoting the centre of 
 the protractor. Round the centre, and concentric with the 
 circle, is fitted a collar carrying two arms, one of which has 
 a vernier at its extremity adapted to the divided circle; and 
 the other a milled head, which turns a pinion working in a 
 toothed rack round the exterior edge of the instrument. 
 The rack and pinion give motion to the arms, which can 
 thus be turned quite round the circle, and set the vernier to 
 any angle that may be required. Each of the two arms is 
 prolonged beyond the edge of the protractor, and carries a 
 fine steel pricker, which is pressed down when the instru- 
 ment is placed in its required position, and makes a small 
 puncture in the paper. It is essential that the points of the 
 two prickers, and the centre of the instrument, be accurate- 
 ly in the same straight line. (Simms on .Mathematical In- 
 struments.) 
 
 In Anatomy, the muscles which draw forwards a part 
 are termed protractors. 
 
 PRO'VERBS. (Lat. proverbium.) A familiar saying, 
 which has been variously defined. In point of form, there 
 are two species of proverbs ; one containing a maxim direct- 
 ly expressed in a concise and familiar style ; the other, in 
 which a maxim is expressed metaphorically, e. g. " honesty 
 is the best policy," or, rather, allegorically, e. g. "strike, 
 while the iron is hot." In point of substance, proverbs are 
 for the most part rules of moral, or, still more properly, of 
 prudential, conduct. 
 
 In dramatic literature, chiefly French, the term has been 
 applied to short pieces, in which some proverb or popular 
 saying is taken as the foundation of the plot. They ori- 
 ginated in the fondness of the higher class of France for 
 private theatricals, which became a sort of passion about 
 the middle of the last century. Carmantelli was the most 
 successful writer of proverbs at the time of their highest 
 popularity. Those of M. Theodore Leclcrcq, at the present 
 time, have met with considerable success. 
 
 PROVERBS, THE, OF SOLOMON. One of the can 
 onical books of the Old Testament. According to the ar- 
 rangement in its present shape, the first nine books form a 
 species of introduction ; those from the tenth to the twenty- 
 fourth contain the proverbs of Solomon, properly so called : 
 and the remainder furnishes a kind of appendix; including 
 the thirtieth and thirty-first, which contain the proverbs of 
 Agur, the son of Jakeh, and of king Lemuel. 
 
 PROVI'NCIA. Those countries were called by the Ro- 
 mans provinces which, having been reduced under their 
 power, were subjected to government by magistrates sent 
 from Rome. The laws of a province were generally set- 
 tled by ten commissioners, dispatched from Rome in con- 
 junction with the victorious general. In its modern accepta- 
 tion, province signifies a grand division of a kingdom or state, 
 comprising several cities, towns, &c, all under the same 
 government, and usually distinguished by the extent either 
 of the civil or ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 
 
 PROVISIONS, in the Navy, daily, 1 lb. of biscuit, 1 oz. 
 of cocoa, \ oz. of tea, \ of an imperial pint of spirits, or 1 
 imperial pint of wine, \ lb. of beef with j lb. of flour, and % 
 lb. of pork with i a pint of peas on alternate days, or 1 lb. 
 of fresh meat with 9 oz. of vegetables. Part of the flour 
 may be exchanged for suet, currants and raisins; 1 pint of 
 oatmeal, and 10 oz. of sugar a week. After ten days of salt 
 provisions, an allowance of lemonade. 
 
 PROVI'SO. In Law, a condition inserted in a deed on 
 which its validity depends, commencing usually with the 
 words " provided that ;" as also in acts of parliament. 
 
 PROVI'SOR. The title, in the ancient French Universi- 
 ties, of an officer charged with the management of their ex- 
 ternal affairs, both spiritual and temporal, and to a certain 
 extent with their discipline also. The provisor of the Sor- 
 bonne was an officer of high importance among the clergy. 
 The principals of Napoleon's lyceum had the title of provi- 
 sors, and the modern royal colleges retain it for the same 
 functionary. 
 
 PRO'VOST (contracted from Lat. propositus, placed 
 over). The title of the chief municipal magistrates of Scot- 
 land, equivalent to mayor in England. The chief magis- 
 trates of Edinburgh and Glasgow are styled Lord Provost. 
 PROVOST OF A UNIVERSITY. See University. 
 PRO'XENE. (Gr. vp>\cvog.) In Grecian Antiquities, 
 officers at Sparta who had the charge of superintending 
 strangers. (Herodot., vi.) In the flourishing time of the 
 Grecian republics, wealthy and distinguished men of par- 
 ticular states seem to have accounted it an honour to act as 
 protectors of the citizens of foreign commonwealths: thus, 
 Alcibiades was prorejius of the Spartans at Athens. 
 
 PRO'XIMATE PRINCIPLES. Distinct compounds 
 which exist ready formed in animals and vegetables, such 
 as albumen, gelatine, fat, &c, in the former; and sugar, 
 
 PRURIGO. 
 
 gum, starch, resins, &c, in the latter, which are so called, 
 without reference to their ultimate composition. 
 
 PRO'XY. (Lat. proximus.) In Parliamentary Law, 
 every peer, spiritual or temporal, can (by license, supposed 
 to be obtained from the king) constitute another lord of par- 
 liament, of the same order with himself, his proxy, to vote 
 for him in his absence. Proxies cannot be used when the 
 house is in committee, nor can a proxy sign a protest. By 
 an order of 2 C. 2, no peer can hold more than two proxies. 
 See Parliament. 
 
 PRUD'HO'MME. (Lat. homo prudens.) In France, 
 during the middle ages, municipal tribunals composed of 
 citizens exercising a sort of conciliatory or equitable juris- 
 diction, as arbiters of disputes, inspectors of police, &.c, were 
 termed councils of pruaVhommcs. In 1806, a court of this 
 denomination was re-established at Lyons by a law of Na- 
 poleon ; its principal office is the decision of disputes be- 
 tween masters and workmen in the silk manufacture. 
 
 PRU'NING. The art of cutting off parts of plants, and 
 more especially of trees and shrubs, with a view to strength- 
 ening those which remain, or of bringing the tree or plant 
 into particular forms, calculated to increase particular pro- 
 ducts. Pruning, therefore, varies according to the kind of 
 plant or tree to be pruned, and according to the object in 
 view. In the case of forest trees, the general object of prun- 
 ing is to increase the quantity of timber in the trunk by 
 diminishing the side branches, commencing at the lower 
 part of the tree when it is quite young, and gradually ad- 
 vancing upwards as the tree increases in growth. In the 
 case of hedges, the object is to produce a dense mass from 
 the ground upwards, which is effected by shortening the 
 side branches. In the case of pruning trees which are cul- 
 tivated for the sake of their fruit or blossoms, the object is 
 to thin out the branches so as to admit the light and air 
 more freely to their leaves and blossoms, and to concentrate 
 and increase the nourishment to the branches which re- 
 main. In the case of trees, or shrubs cultivated for the 
 beauty of their shapes, whether natural or artificial, the ob- 
 ject of pruning is to deprive the trees or shrubs of all those 
 branches which deviate from or interfere with the natural 
 shape, or with the form which is intended to be produced 
 by art. In pruning with a view to produce fruit, it is ne- 
 cessary to know on what description of branches and buds 
 the fruit is produced. In some trees, as in the peach, it i3 
 generally produced on the wood of the preceding year ; in 
 others, as in the apple and pear, it is generally produced on 
 wood of two years' growth ; and in the vine it is produced 
 on shoots of the current year. The general effect of pruning 
 on plants is to increase their longevity ; since the tendency 
 of all vegetables is to exhaust themselves, and, consequent- 
 ly, to shorten their duration, by the production of seeds. In 
 the operation of pruning, the shoots are cut off close to the 
 buds, or at a distance from them not greater than the diame- 
 ter of the branch to be cut off; because, without the near 
 proximity of a bud, the wounds will not heal over. In 
 shoots which produce their buds alternately, the cut is made 
 at the back of the bud, sloping from it, so as that it may be 
 readily covered by bark in the same or in the following 
 year. This is readily done with a pruning knife, by a 
 slanting cut, made at an angle of 45° with the direction of 
 the branch ; but, in the case of branches where the buds 
 are produced opposite each other, either one bud must be 
 sacrificed, or the branch must be cut off at right angles to 
 its line of direction ; and is more conveniently done by the 
 pruning shears. The operation of pruning may in many 
 cases be superseded by rubbing off, or pinching out, the 
 leaf-buds, so as to prevent superfluous shoots from being 
 produced. 
 
 PRU'NING KNIFE. A knife the blade of which has a 
 straight edge, formed of well-tempered steel, and of no 
 great breadth, with a narrow point, in order that it may be 
 more readily introduced among crowded branches. For- 
 merly, pruning knives were hooked at the point ; but the 
 cuts made by such knives had a tendency to crush the 
 shoot, and leave a rough section, more readily injured by 
 the air and water, and less likely to be speedily healed 
 over. Such knives, when of a large size, were called 
 pruning hooks. 
 
 PRU'NING SHEARS. Shears in which one of the blades 
 moves on a pivot which works in an oblong opening, instead 
 of a circular one, bv which means a draw cut is produced 
 similar to that effected by a knife, instead of the crushing 
 cut produced by common shears, which fractures the sec- 
 tion left on the branch, and renders it liable to become 
 diseased or to decay, instead of being covered over with 
 fresh bark. Pruning shears are particularly adapted for 
 cuttin" spiny or prickly shrubs, such as the different species 
 of thorns, gooseberries, or roses. 
 
 PKURI'GO. (Lat. prurio, / itch.) An itching of the 
 skin with the eruption of small pimples. The term is also 
 medically applied to irritation of various parts of the body 
 from other causes, as from vermin, worms, &c. 
 
 3 a * low
 
 PRUSSIAN BLUE. 
 
 PRU'SSIAN BLUE. This beautiful dark-blue pigment 
 was accidentia discovered iu 1710 in Diesbach, a chemist 
 of Berlin. Tie process for us preparation was rirst pub- 
 lished in the Philosophical Transactions for 17-J4, by Dr. 
 Woodward. It is made by adding solution of ferrocyanuret 
 of potassium to persulphate of iron. The ferrocyanuret of 
 - ma is prepared bj gentlj igniting carbonate ofpotassa 
 wiili animal matters, such as boms, boot's, or dried blood, in 
 iron vessels, by which cyanuret of potassium and some 
 cyanuret of iron are formed; the soluble parts are then 
 . <1 out with water, and Sulphate of iron added until 
 the Prussian blue which is formed ceases to be decomposed 
 by the &ee potassa contained in the solution; the ferro- 
 cyannrel of potassium is then Bet to crystallize, and separated 
 
 bj repeated crystallization from sulphate of potassa. It is 
 
 thus obtained in truncated octoedxal crystals of a yellow 
 colour, commonly called Prussiate of potash. It is much 
 used as a lest of the presence of metals, and especially of 
 iron, the peroxide of which it throws down from its solutions 
 in the state of Prussian blue. This compound has generally 
 been considered as a ferrocyanate of the peroxide of iron; 
 
 but, according to Berzelius, it is a double cyanuret ; that is, 
 a ferrocj anuret of the sesquicyaauret of iron. Ferrocyanuret 
 of potassium (prussiate of potash) is composed of 2 atoms of 
 cyanuret of potassium (66 X 2) = 132,and l atom of cyanuret 
 
 of iron rJti + 36) = 54, and has, therefore, the equivalent 
 (132 + 54) = 186. 
 
 PRUSSIC ACID. The composition and chemical cha- 
 racters of this acid are given under the head of hydrocyanic 
 acid. Prussic acid is frequently used medicinally as a 
 powerful sedative and anti-irritant, especially to allay cough 
 in phthysis, and to mitigate the spasmodic action in whoop- 
 ing-cough ; but from its poisonous nature it requires to be 
 employed with much caution. The antidotes for prussic 
 acid, where it has been taken as a poison, are solution of 
 chlorine, by which it is chemically decomposed ; and am- 
 monia, which combines with it, and acts as a stimulant. 
 
 PRY'TANES. (Gr. Trpvravcti.) The Athenian senate 
 consisted of 3011 persons, elected fifty from each of the ten 
 tribes; each of these fifties took it by turn to preside with 
 tlie title of Prytanes, having one tenth of the year assigned 
 to it; or, more accurately speaking, :t4 days were allotted 
 to each of the first tour "tribes, and 3.> to the last six; the 
 Attic year consisting of 354 days. Kadi titty was atrain sub- 
 divided into five doilies of ten. which, when prytanes, took 
 it by turns to perform the duties of prohedri (■npocc'poi), 
 seven days being allotted each. From these prohedri, again, 
 was chosen by lot an epistntes (htmd-in) or president, 
 whose office lasted one day. 
 
 PSALM. (Gr. uV u A(/of, from xpaWoi, I sing.) A sacred 
 song or hymn, originally accompanied with music. The 
 book of Psalms is called, in the Hebrew, Tluhillim (praises), 
 in conformity with the general object of the collection. It 
 seems to have been an article of faith, with most of the 
 early fathers, that tin; Psalms were all of them composed 
 by David; a strange notion, which the internal evidence of 
 several immediately refutes. The Jews divide them into 5 
 books, ending witii the 40th, 71st, BBth, 105th, ami last, 
 respectively. They, as well as all Christians, retain the 
 number 150; but the divisions have varied. There is an 
 ryphal 151st added in some Creek versions. The 119th 
 and following psalms to the 134th, called by some ''gradual 
 psalms," or " psalms of the stairs," a term of which various 
 explanations have been given, are thought by Calmet and 
 others to have been composed on the occasion of the 
 deliverance from Babylon : possibly by Esdras, who ia con- 
 sidered as the first collector of the Psalms; but they were 
 at least partially used before, as early as the reign of Heze- 
 kiah. 
 
 PSA'LMODY. \ general term applied to the whole 
 rig, &c 
 
 PSA'LTER. A book of devotion containing the psalms. 
 
 •mr's Origins* Litur/riue, vol. i.. p. 907. 
 
 PSALTE'RIUM. (Lat a psalter or psalm h„ k.) The 
 
 name of the manyplies or third cavity of the complex 
 
 stomach of the ruminant quadrupeds, bo called because it is 
 
 occupied by numerous broad folds of membrane resembling 
 
 the leaves of a hook. 
 
 PSA'LTERY. A Stringed instrument in use among the 
 ancient .lews, by whom it was called nablum (whii b 
 It resembled, according to Burney, partly the lyre and partly 
 the harp. 
 
 PSE'PHOI. <('-r.) A general name given to several 
 things made use of by the Creeks in giving their suffrages, 
 and in tlieir computations, at small stones, shells, beans, .^e. 
 They were synonymous with the calculi and tabslla of the 
 Romans, whii 
 
 PSEUDEPI'GRA PHY. (Gr. uW>c, false ; and btvypa^, 
 
 inscription.) The ascription OX false name- of author! to 
 
 Work-. This was carried to a great extent among the 
 
 ■Hans of the fourth and following centuries. Thus, 
 
 the verses known by the name of SSibyline are evident 
 ltxhi 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. 
 
 Christian forgeries; and it is extremely difficult to distin- 
 guish the spurious works of the fathers from the true. 
 (See Gieseler, Tc it-book of Eccl. Hist., 1st period, chap. 3, 
 sec. 5-2, for a good section on Christian pseudepigraphy ; 
 Fabric// Oodea Pseudeptgraphua ; llaibier, Diet, des Ouv- 
 rages .In on antes et l'siuduiiijiiics, contains a notice of most 
 w oiks falsely ascribed to their alleged authors in the French 
 Language.) 
 
 I'SKU'DOBLEPSIS, (Gr. yVnnV, and fiXupts, sight.) 
 There arc various forms of false vision, some apparently 
 dependent upon nervous irritation, others upon organic 
 derangement Specks, network, colours, and imaginary 
 bodies floating Or dancing before the eves, distorted vision, 
 double vision, are among the most common modifications 
 of tins complaint. They occur in plethoric as well as in 
 debilitated habits, and are the consequence occasionally of 
 
 intense study, of weakening evacuations, of debauchery, of 
 hysteria, and of hypochondriasis; the treatment, therefore, 
 which is required is very various. Attention to the stomach 
 and bowels, local bleeding, camphor, ether, and other ner- 
 vine stimulants, change of scene and occupation, varied 
 exercise, are among the efficient remedies. A very alarm- 
 ing case of double vision, with coloured circles in rapid 
 motion dancing before the eyes, of two years' continuance, 
 and brought on by too intense application of study, gave way 
 to cupping ami to a journey to the Highlands. 
 
 PSEU'DO BULB. In Botany, an enlarged aerial stem, 
 resembling a tuber, from which it scarcely differs, except in 
 being formed above ground, in the epidermis, being often 
 extremely hard, and in retaining upon its surface tlie scars 
 of leaves that it once bore. 
 
 PSEUDODIP'TERAL. (Gr. uWi/j, false, lie, twice, 
 and -repui; a wing.) In Architecture, a term denoting a 
 building or temple wherein the distance from eacli side of 
 the cell to tlie columns on the flanks is equal to two iuter- 
 cnlumniations ; the intermediate range of columns which 
 would stand between tlie outer range and the cell being 
 omitted. 
 
 PSEUDOISODO'MUM. (Gr. xpevSvs, icroj, equal, and 
 Souoi, a house.) In Ancient Architecture, a species of 
 masonry In which the height, thickness, and length of the 
 courses are different. See Isodokuv. 
 
 PSEU'DOPOUS. Pseudopdda. (Gr. xjJcvSns, and ttouc, 
 foot.) A name applied to a tribe of Polygastric Infusories, 
 including those in which the body, by various contractions 
 and chances of form, produces pediform processes. 
 
 PSEUDOSCO'RPIONS, Pseudo-scorpiones. A family 
 of Arachnidans, including those with an oblong body divided 
 into several segments, with two or four eyes, and six or 
 eight lees, as the hook-crabs (Ckelifer). 
 
 PSEUDO'THYRON. (Gr. xltiivu and Qvpa, a door.) 
 In Architecture, a false door. 
 
 PBI'TTACINES, Psittacini. (Parrot tribe.) The name 
 of a tribe of Scansorial birds, of which the genus Psittacus 
 is the tvpe. 
 
 PSOAS MUSCLE. (Gr. xpoai, the loins.) A large mus- 
 cle upon the fore part and sides of tlie lumbar vertebras. It 
 In nils the thigh forwards, and assists in turning it outwards. 
 
 PSO'PHIA. (Gr. \po(pctx>, I make a noise.) A subgenus 
 of storks, having a shorter bill than the rest, with the bead 
 and neck covered only with a kind of down, and the cir- 
 cumference of tlie eye naked. They frequent wooded 
 regions, and subsist on {Trains and fruits. The best known 
 species (Psophia crepitans} is a native of South America, 
 and is remarkable for Die ambiguous sound which it emits 
 from time to lime, and whence its specific name is derived. 
 This bird is easily tamed by the Spanish seniors in South 
 
 America, and is even taught by them to guide and defend 
 the common poultry from the rapacious birds, as a shep- 
 herd's dog L'liards his sheep from tlie Wolves. 
 
 PS( »'RA. (Gr.) The itch. See In n. 
 
 PSOItl VSIS. A rough scaly stale ot cuticle, sometimes 
 continuous ami sometimes in patches, generally accompanied 
 by chaps or Assures. 
 
 PSV'cill'.. (Gr.) In Mythology, a nymph whom Cupid 
 
 married, after she had been persecuted by Venus. 'J'he 
 
 word signifies the soul, of which Psyche was considered 
 
 the personification. This beautiful allegory is first known 
 to us by the romance of Apuhius: but it is presumed to be 
 of much earlier origin from its occurrence in relics of art. 
 
 Lafontaine made it the subject of a pastoral, and JMrs. Tighe, 
 reci ntly, of a poem. 
 
 PSYCHOLOGY. [Gr. <//ny). the soul, and )<jyoc, dis- 
 course.) In its larger acceptation, may be taken as synony- 
 mous vv ilh mental philosophy. The word is more frequently 
 
 noed in reference to the lower facilities of the mind, and 
 the Classification of the phenomena which they present. 
 All psychology is built on experience, either immediate, or 
 
 revived by the memory and imagination. But, in reflecting 
 on our intellectual faculties, ue discover in them certain 
 laws, which, as soon as ihey are presented to us, we at 
 
 once recognise as universal and necessary ; certain condi-
 
 PSYCHOMANCY. 
 
 tions without the fulfilment of which we are sensible that 
 no act of intellection could have taken place. This uni- 
 versality is something very different from the empirical 
 truth, as a matter of fact, which we attribute to the laws 
 of association, which are, indeed, universal, but which 
 might, for aught we can see, have been different from 
 what they are. Corresponding to this distinction, German 
 writers have discriminated between a higher, or rational, 
 and a lower, or empirical psychology : the first, that of 
 Kant, who sought, in all our mental faculties, to determine 
 that only which is necessary and immutable ; the second, 
 that of Hartley, who treats all our intellectual acts as alike 
 objects of mere history, dependent for their validity only 
 on the fact that they do really recur in such and such 
 order. The psychology of Aristotle was of the latter de- 
 scription. He, consequently, regarded the science as form- 
 ing one of the physical sciences, or those which are conver- 
 sant with the contingent and changeable. Many pregnant 
 psychological truths are discoverable in that philosopher's 
 work on the soul ; in particular, the doctrine of association, 
 the master-light of all sound experimental psychology, 
 owes its first enunciation to him. Among later writers 
 who have made valuable contributions to the science may 
 be enumerated Hobbes, Locke, Hartley, and Sir Thomas 
 Brown. The value of these authors' writings in this 
 peculiar province cannot be too highly appreciated. It is 
 only when psychology intrudes upon the domain, or usurps 
 the attributes, of the higher philosophy, that its claims 
 need to be resisted. As a preparation for metaphysical 
 and theological thought, and, indeed, as an indispensable 
 requisite for the science of man, whether history, politics, 
 or ethics, it is not easy to exaggerate its importance. 
 
 PSYCHOMA'NCY. (Gr. ipvxv, an <l pavTiia, prophecy.) 
 A species of divination, in which the dead were supposed 
 to appear as spirits, to communicate the wished for infor- 
 mation. 
 
 PSVCHRO'METER. (Gr. i^vxpoc, cool; uttpov, mea- 
 sure.) An instrument invented by Professor August of 
 Berlin, for measuring the tension of the aqueous vapour 
 contained in the atmosphere. It consists of two very sen- 
 sible thermometers, one of which, when an observation is 
 to be made, has its bulb kept moistened, but so that no drop 
 of water remains suspended from it. The thermometers 
 being then freely exposed to the air, the temperature indi- 
 cated by each is observed, and also the height of the 
 barometer, from which data the tension of the vapour is 
 computed by means of this formula : 
 
 e~ c' —000081482 (t — t') b ; 
 
 where b is the height of the barometer (in Paris lines), t 
 the temperature of the air (in centesimal degrees), t' the 
 temperature of the wet bulb, e' the tension of vapour cor- 
 responding to the temperature t', and e the tension of the 
 vapour actually contained in the air. The instrument is 
 described in the work of August, Sur les Progres de V Hy- 
 grometrie dans les Verniers Temps, Berlin, 1830 ; also in 
 the Lehrbuch der Meteorologie of Koemptz ; and Qucte- 
 let's Correspondence Jllathematique et Physique, 3me serie, 
 tome 2. 
 
 PTERODA'CTYLE, Pterodactylus. (Gr. ttc/Mk, a wing, 
 rWruXoj, a digit.) The name of a genus of extinct rep- 
 tiles, in which the second digit of the hand is of extreme 
 length, and is considered to have supported an aliform ex- 
 pansion of the skin. 
 
 PTE'ROPODS, Pteropoda. (Gr. 7rrrpoi/,and irovc, afoot.) 
 The name of a class of Mollusks, comprehending those 
 which have a natatory wing-shaped expansion on each side 
 of the head and neck. 
 
 PTERY'GIANS, Pterygia. (Gr. irrcpvl. a wing.) A 
 name applied by Latreille to a group of Mollusks, corres- 
 ponding to the Cephalopods and Pteropods of Cuvier, both 
 of which have locomotive organs, composed of wing-like 
 expansions of the skin. 
 
 PTERY'GODA. (Gr. Trrepvl.) Latreille has given this 
 term to two small, hard, moveable bodies, in the form of 
 little elytra, directed backwards, and terminating at the 
 origin of the wings. They arise from the two sides of the 
 anterior extremity of the trunk, near the exterior base of the 
 two first legs, instead of from the second segment of the 
 trunk, like true elytra. They are present in Lepidopterous 
 and Strepsipterous insects. 
 
 PTERY'GOID. (Gr. wrepvl, and trio;, form.) Wing- 
 shaped. The name is applied to processes of the sphenoid 
 hone, which complete the osseous palate behind, and form 
 distinct bones in the oviparous vertebrate animals. 
 
 PTI'SAN. (Gr. ttthtoo), I bruise.) A weak diluent drink. 
 
 PTOLEMAIC SYSTEM. See Astronomy. 
 
 PTOLEMA'ITES. A sect of ancient heretics among 
 the Gnostics, who maintained that the Mosaic Law came 
 partly from God, partly from Moses, and partly from the 
 traditions of the Jewish doctors. (See MosheMs Church 
 History.) 
 
 PULLEY. 
 
 PTY'ALISM. (Gr. tttvoXi^o), I spit.) An increased 
 flow of saliva. Salivation. 
 
 PUBE'SCENT. (Lat. pubescens, hairy.) In Zoology, 
 when a part or whole is covered with very fine recumbent 
 short hairs. 
 
 PU'BLICANS. (Lat. publicani.) The farmers of the 
 public revenue of Rome. They formed two distinct classes ; 
 the farmers-general of the revenues, who were regarded as 
 belonging to one of the most honourable grades of citizens, 
 and deputies or under publicans of an inferior caste, whose 
 reputation was on a par with that of the most degraded 
 citizens. Hence, in the New Testament, the rtXojvnri, a 
 word rendered publicans by the Latin translators, are almost 
 always placed in juxtaposition with sinners. (See Milman's 
 Hist, of Christianity.) This term was also applied as a 
 nickname to the Albigenses, which see. 
 
 PUBLIC SAFETY, COMMITTEE OF. (French Revo- 
 lution.) This famous body was formed out of the conven- 
 tion, April 6, 1793, and invested with very general powers 
 to provide for the supposed welfare of the state ; even the 
 power of arrest and imprisonment was soon conferred upon 
 it. After the downfall of the Girondist party {see Giron- 
 distes), this committee became the virtual government of 
 France, by a decree of Dec. 4, 1793. Its members were, at 
 this period, elected every month, but in general the same 
 were re-elected. From this period its history is, in effect, 
 that of the revolution. It appointed tribunals, composed 
 of committees, invested with sovereign power to try offences 
 against the state, over the whole country. It was in the 
 committee of public safety that the opposition to Robes- 
 pierre originated ; but, on the overthrow of that personage, 
 its powers were limited by the convention ; and, on the 
 introduction of the new constitution of October, 1794, it 
 became extinct along with the assembly out of which it 
 had been formed. 
 
 PUCK. In Mediaeval Mythology, the " merry wanderer 
 of the night," whose character and attributes are so beau- 
 tifully depicted in the Midsummer Night's Dream. This 
 celebrated fairy is known by a variety of names ; as Robin 
 Oood-fe/low and Friar Rush in England ; and in Germany, 
 as Knecht Ruprecht ; but it is by his designation of Puck, 
 that he is most generally known both in England, Ger- 
 many, and the more northern nations. He was the chief 
 of the domestic tribe of fairies, or brownies, as they are 
 called in Scotland ; and innumerable stories are told of his 
 nocturnal exploits, among which, drawing the wine, and 
 cleaning the kitchen while the family were asleep, are 
 the most prominent. The word is probably derived from 
 the old Scandinavian pukj, a boy; it is also synonymous 
 with pug, or monkey, whose form this fairy is said to have 
 most frequently assumed. 
 
 PU'DDING-STONE. A conglomerate of rounded peb- 
 bles cemented together by a fine-grained and generally 
 silicious or sandy paste. When select specimens are cut 
 and polished, they resemble a section of a plum-pudding, 
 and are often used for ornamental purposes, such as snuff- 
 boxes and slabs. 
 
 PUE'RPERAL FEVER. A fever attended by peritoneal 
 inflammation, which comes on about the third day after 
 delivery. The usual febrile symptoms are attended with 
 great tenseness and tenderness of the abdomen ; the milk 
 disappears, and the bowels are usually affected by diarrhoea. 
 It is most common in the autumn, and appears to be con- 
 tagious. It is an alarming disease, and requires great 
 promptitude and judgment in its treatment. Bleeding, 
 modified according to the circumstances of the case, purging 
 with calomel, saline sudorifics, and occasionally opium, to 
 quiet pain and induce rest, are among the remedial means ; 
 but it often happens that great irritability of the stomach 
 and bowels, or even incessant purging and vomiting, are 
 predominant symptoms, and the fever assumes a typhoid 
 character, in which case the system requires support from 
 cordials. 
 
 PU'GGING. In Architecture, the stuff made of plaster 
 laid on the sounding boarding under the boards of a floor, to 
 deaden the sound between one story and another. 
 
 PU'GIL. (Lat. pugillus.) A quantity of anything which 
 may be taken up between the thumb and two fingers. 
 
 PUISNE JUDGE. (Norm. Fr. puisne, younger.) The 
 judges and barons of the King's Bench, Common Pleas, and 
 Exchequer, with the exception of the chief justices and 
 chief baron, are so called. 
 
 PU'LLEY. In Mechanics, one of the six simple machines, 
 or mechanical powers. It consists of a wheel, moveable 
 about an axis, and having a groove cut in its circumference, 
 over which a cord passes. The axle is supported by a box 
 or sheave, called the block, which may either be moveable, 
 or fixed to a firm support. 
 
 A single pulley serves merely to change the direction of 
 motion ; but several of them may be combined in various 
 ways, by which a mechanical advantage or purchase is gain- 
 ed, greater or less, according to their number and the mode 
 
 1003
 
 (2.) 
 
 PULMOGRADES. 
 
 of combination. The purchase sained by any 
 combination is readily computed by co mpari ng 
 li nty of the weight raised with that of 
 the ni< >\ mi} power, according t< > the principle of 
 virtual velocities, which is :tlikt- applicable to 
 all machines of whatever kind. In fig. 1, which 
 represents a system where the several portions 
 of the cord are' parallel to each other, suppose 
 the weight W to rise one inch, the two blocks 
 would approach each other by that quantity, 
 and, consequently, the length of cord connect- 
 in;; a simile pair of pulleys would be shortened 
 b] 3 inches, so that the power 1' would deal end 
 2 inches. Let the Dumber of pulleys in each 
 block be » ; then, while the weight as 
 1 inch, the power descends 3 n inches, and, 
 consequently, when there is equilibrium, the power is to 
 the weight as 1 to 8 n. 
 
 In the combination represented in fig. 2, the 
 purchase is much greater. Here the pulleys are 
 all moveable, and each is supported by a separate 
 cord, having one end fastened to a fixed obsta- 
 cle and the other attached to the succeeding 
 pulley, excepting the upper block, which is fixed. 
 7 Q It is evident that, for every inch the weight on 
 (Jfe P the first pulley a ascends, the second, A. ascends 
 two; the third, c, ascends four, and so on; 
 da the velocity being doubled by each additional 
 
 r^-j pulley. Trie purchase finally obtained is. there- 
 
 lu w l fore, = 2" ; or the power is to the weight as 
 
 1 : •>. 
 The third combination, fig. 3, has still greater efficacy. 
 (3.) In this system, each cord is fastened to the 
 Weight, and, passing over a pulley, is attached 
 to another pulley, excepting the last, which 
 supports the power. While the weight W rises 
 1 inch, the first moveable pulley./, will sink 1 
 inch, which allows the cord applied to it to 
 Blacken 2 inches, and this joined to the inch 
 which the weight ascends allows the second 
 moveable puliey. »■, to descend 3 inches. This 
 allows the next pulley in succession to descend 
 6 inches, which, joined to the 1 inch which the 
 weight ascends, gives 7 inches for the descent of the third" 
 pulley. In like m inner, it is found that the descent of the 
 fourth pulley is 15 inches. Hence, one moveable pulley al- 
 lows the weight to descend - X 1 + 1 = 3 inches; two such 
 pulleys. -2 X 3 + 1 = 7 inches ; 3 pulleys, '2 X 7 + 1 = 15 
 Inches ; four pulleys, 2 X 15 + 1 = 3) inches, and so cm ; so 
 that the purchase obtained by n moveable pulleys, is 2 " + ' 
 — 1, or the power is to the weight as 1 to 2 n + ' — 1. The 
 theoretical advantage thus computed is, however, in all the 
 cases, greatly diminished by friction, and the rigidity of the 
 rope. 
 
 The two last combinations are of little, if any, use in 
 practice, hut various modifications of the first are common. 
 5 neaton's tack, OB it is usually called. 
 contains two rows of wheels, one under the other, in each 
 block, and a simile cord is made to pass over them in such 
 a manner that tin- power and the weight both act in the 
 same line with the centres of the two blocks, so that there 
 is no tendency to twist. But this ingenious arrangement is 
 open to set eral objections, and particularly the great amount 
 of lateral friction of so many independent wheels. In 
 While's pulley see fig. 1), the wheels in each block turn 
 on the same axis, ami, consequently, revolve in the same 
 time; and they are of different sizes, their dimensions being 
 so proportioned that a point on the circumferrence of any 
 wheel moves with the velocity of the rope on that wheel. 
 To effect this the diameter of the wheels in the upper block 
 must be as the numbers, 1. 3. ."i. kc., and in the lowers J. 
 -1. ii. A^c. Instead of separate wheels, the upper and lower 
 blocks are cut in grooves iii the above proportions, whereby 
 tin- friction is reduced to that of one wheel in each block. 
 
 PU'LMOGRADES, Pulmograda. (LaL pulmo, a /»»"■. 
 
 gradior. / advance.) The none of a tribe of Acalephans, 
 
 including those gelatinous species Which swim by the con- 
 
 ■ I the vaSCUUU margin o| the disk shaped body, 
 
 where respiration, also, probablj taki - place. 
 
 PITLMON MIII'.S. Pulmonaria, The name of the order 
 of Arnchnidans, including those which breathe by means 
 of pulmonary sac- or longs. 
 
 IT I. Mi (NATES, Pulmonata. The name of an order of 
 
 GastropodoUS Molln-ks, including those which breathe air. 
 
 to winch the blood is exposed while circulating through a 
 rk which lines the internal surface of the 
 bronchial cavity. 
 
 The order is subdivided into the Puhnnvata ttrrutria, 
 comprehending the Linnaan genera lAmax and // 
 ' "'in. Urap., and .iiltntinu, Lain. ; and the Pulmonata 
 
 aaualica, comprehending the genera Onchidium, Buchanan ; 
 1004 
 
 PUMP. 
 
 Planorbis, Cuv. ; Lymncea, Lam. ; Physa, Drap. ; Auricula, 
 Lam. : Cbnovuluo, Lam. 
 
 PU'LPIT. lLat piiipituni.) In Architecture, the raised 
 part in a public building from which an oration is delivered. 
 
 in the ancient theatre it was the higher pan of the staize 
 whereon the musicians stood. 
 
 l'L'LSL. (Lat. pulsus.) The pulsation of the arteries, 
 depending upon the impulse given to the blood by the actiou 
 Of the heart. (See Hhart.) The pulse is usually fell by 
 pressing the radial artery at the wrist, and the rapidity, 
 regularity, and force of the circulation is thus judged of, 
 and furnishes an important criterion of the phenomena and 
 progress of disease. The range of the pulse as to frequency , 
 in a healthy adult, is usually between CO and 80, but there 
 are persons whose pulses rarely beat GO limes in a minute, 
 and others, not out of health, in whom the frequency ex- 
 ceedsSO; the pulse, in short, is extremely capricious, and 
 before any correct inferences can be drawn from it. the pecu- 
 liarities of each individual require to be carefully considered ; 
 slight mental affections, indigestion, irritability, and many 
 other causes producing modifications of the pulse, do not ad- 
 mit of any general description. The terms hard, full, soft, 
 and wiry pulse, are used to indicate other obvious modifica- 
 tions independent of the Dumber of pulsations. The average 
 rate of the pulse of a healthy infant is, for the first year, 
 from about 120 to 10*; for the second year, from 108 to 90; 
 for the third, from 100 to 80 ; from the seventh to the twelfth 
 year, the pulsations are about 70. When the pulse exceeds 
 14(1 beats in a minute it is not easy to count it precisely, and 
 to this it attains in some febrile diseases. 
 
 An iuti rmitting pulse is by no means uncommon, and 
 often produced by trivial causes ; with many persons in per- 
 fect health the pulse will lie subject to very extraordinary 
 irregularities ; and there are cases on record in which a per- 
 son's pulse which has always intermitted in a state of health 
 has acquired regularity on the accession of disease. The 
 state of the digestive organs has often a marked influence 
 upon this condition of Uk; pulse. 
 
 Prist. Leguminous plants cultivated for their pods or 
 seeds, such as the pea. bean, kidney-bean, ke. 
 
 PULVI'LLI, in Entomology, are the cushions of short 
 hairs very closely set, or a membrane capable of being in- 
 flated, or very soft and concave plates, which cover the un- 
 derside, or their apex, of the four first joints of the innnus or 
 tarsus, and sometimes even of the ends of the moveable 
 spines situated at the apex of the tibia, which act so as to 
 produce a vacuum, and enable the insect to suspend itself, 
 or walk against gravity. 
 
 PU'LVINATED. (Lat. pulvinar, a pillow.) In Archi- 
 tecture, a term used to express a swelling in any portion of 
 an order, such, for instance, as that of the frieze in the 
 modem Ionic order. 
 
 PU'MICE. (Lat. pumex.) A porous volcanic product, 
 consisting chiefly of silica and alumina, with traces of pot- 
 ash, soda, and oxide Of iron. 
 
 PUMP. A machine for raising water. Though the 
 forms under which this useful engine is constructed, and 
 the mode in which the power is applied, may be modified 
 in an infinite number of ways, there are only three which 
 can be considered as differing from each other in principle. 
 These are, the sucking pump, the forcing pump, and the 
 lifting pump, so called from the manner in which they act. 
 
 The sucking pump, or common household pump, is an ap- 
 paratus of which the principle and construction will be evi- 
 dent from the annexed figure. A A is a pipe of any con- 
 venient length, the lower end of which reaches .. . 
 below the surface of the water in the well or re- v "J 
 Bervoir; I? is a barrel, generally of greater tliam- |[E 
 
 ler than the pipe; C a valve opening upwards; f 
 Ha piston mo\ed by the rod H: in this piston B 
 there is also a valve opening upwards. When 
 ton is raised, the air in the barrel between 
 the valves is expanded, and its tension, conse- 
 quently, diminished; the pressure of the air in 
 the pipe, therefore, opens the' valve (', and the 
 whole air in the pipe and barrel her. .in, - h--s 
 
 dense. In this state the atmospheric pressure on 
 the .-info e of the water causes it to rise in the 
 pipe, until the ten-ion of the confined air becomes yV*J , 
 equal to the pres-iue of the atmosphere. On ^~ — 
 
 again depressing the piston, the valve in it opens, and the 
 air passes through it from the barrel as it descends; but the 
 valve C is closed by the downward pressure, and the vol 
 lime of water Which has entered the pipe remains. On 
 again raising the piston, the same effect is repeated, and an 
 additional quantity of water enters the pipe. Thus, by the 
 alternating motion of the piston, a column of water is raised 
 in the pipe until it reaches the piston when at the bottom of 
 the barrel, and the w hole of the air below it has been ex- 
 cluded. On rai-iiiL' the pistOD w hen the water has n ,, ■),, ,| 
 
 it. the fluid will he compelled to follow bj the pressure of 
 
 the atmosphere on its surface iu the well. When the pis-
 
 PUMP. 
 
 ton is again depressed, the water flows through the valve in 
 it, and ascends into the barrel, and by the succeeding strokes 
 of the piston is lilted up umil it reaches and flows out of 
 the spout F. 
 
 Although in theory the limit of the height to which water 
 mav be raised by the sucking pump, from the surface of the 
 fluid in the well to the highest position of the moveable pis- 
 ton, is about 34 feet (the height of a column of water which 
 balances the pressure of the atmosphere), it is not found 
 practicable, with pumps of the ordinary construction, to 
 raise it more than about 28 feet. The difference arises from 
 the difficulty of making the apparatus absolutely air-tight. 
 The forcing pump is represented in fig. 2. The piston- 
 rod E D is attached to a solid plunger D, 
 adjusted to the cavity of the barrel. A 
 pipe G H, furnished with a valve F, open- 
 ing outwards, communicates with the 
 barrel at G. On elevating the plunger D, 
 the water will ascend through the valve 
 C, in the same manner as in the sucking 
 pump, till the barrel is filled to D. Now, 
 when the plunger is depressed the valve 
 C will shut, and the water between D 
 and C be forced through the valve F into 
 the pipe G H. When the plunger is 
 raised, the valve at F shuts, the pressure 
 on itsunder side being removed, so that the 
 water which was forced into the pipe by 
 the previous stroke cannot return into the 
 barrel. At the next stroke of the piston 
 more water is again forced into the pipe, and so on till it is 
 raised to the height required. 
 
 In this pump the pipe A A may be dispensed with, and 
 the barrel B immersed in the reservoir ; in which case the 
 action of the pump is independent of the atmospheric pres- 
 sure, and could be maintained equally well in a vacuum. 
 In order to produce a continued stream through the pipe 
 G H, an air vessel, m n, may be attached 
 to the lateral branch above the valve F, 
 fig. 3. The pipe G H reaches to near the 
 bottom of the air vessel ; and when the 
 water has been forced into the vessel by 
 the action of the pump, until it reaches 
 above the lower end of tho pipe at G, it 
 is evident that, as all communication is 
 then cut off with the external atmosphere, 
 every additional quantity of water thrown 
 into the vessel will tend more and more 
 to compress the air within it, which, act- 
 ing by its pressure on the surface of the 
 water, forces it through the pipe G H in a 
 continued stream. 
 The lifting- pump is represented by fig. 4. The barrel of 
 the pump is immersed in the water and fixed to an immove- 
 (4.) able frame. The piston with its bucket and 
 
 G s valve C, opening upwards, is attached at E to 
 another frame, G H I K L, consisting of two 
 strong iron rods, H I and L K, which move 
 through holes in the framework to which the 
 pump is fixed. An inclined branch M N, either 
 fixed to the top of the barrel, or moveable by 
 means of a ball and socket, is fitted exactly to 
 the barrel, and furnished with a valve at M. 
 Suppose the barrel immersed in the water to a 
 certain depth : if the piston frame be now 
 thrust down by the handle at G, the piston 
 will descend, and the water be forced by its 
 upward pressure through the valve C, so as to 
 maintain the same level in the pump as in the 
 well. But when the piston frame is elevated, the valve C 
 will shut (as shown in the figure), and the water above C 
 he lifted up with the piston, and forced through the valve 
 M into the branch M N, from which its return will be pre- 
 vented by the shutting of the valve M when the piston de- 
 scends. 
 
 In each of these different kinds of pumps which have 
 been described, the total effort required to work the machine, 
 independently of friction, is equal to the weight of a column 
 of water, the base of which is equal to the area of a section 
 of the working barrel, and the altitude equal to the distance 
 between the surface of the water in the reservoir and the 
 point to which it is raised. In the sucking pump the whole 
 of this effort is expended in raising the piston ; in the forcing 
 pump one part is expended in raising and the other in de- 
 pressing the piston, and it is advantageous to dispose the 
 machinery so that these two parts shall be nearly equal. In 
 small pumps for domestic purposes, the strength of man is 
 usually employed as the moving power; but in raising water 
 from great depths, as the bottom of mines, the steam : engine 
 is applied to this purpose. (See Fire Engine.) For an ac- 
 count of the mechanism of different kinds of pumps, see 
 Gregory's Mechanics, vol. ii. 
 81 
 
 PUNISHMENT. 
 
 The chain pump used in ships of war consists of an end- 
 less chain moving over a wheel on the gun-deck, which is 
 turned by winches, and over a roller in the pump-well, hav- 
 ing saucers or flat circular pistons at certain intervals. Near 
 the pump-well, on the side on which the chain on turning 
 the winches ascends, are a few feet of pipe ; through this 
 the saucers raise the column of water, which, being lifted 
 over the upper orifice of the pipe, falls into the cistern, and 
 thence into the waste-pipe, called the pump-dale, which 
 carries it overboard. The descending portion of chain falls 
 through another case called the back case. Chain pumps, 
 in large ships, throw out a ton a minute. 
 
 PU'AIPERNTCKEL. The name of a species of bread 
 peculiar to Westphalia: it consists of bran, has a little acid- 
 ity, but is agreeable to the taste, and very nourishing, and 
 remains moist for several months. It forms the chief food 
 of the Westphalian peasants ; but it is regarded as a great 
 delicacy in other parts of Germany, whither it is exported in 
 large quantities. They sometimes weigh 60 lbs. The term 
 is said to be of French derivation, and originated in a French, 
 soldier having rejected the bread with disgust, exclaiming, 
 "C'est bon pour Nickel ;" i. e., for his horse. 
 
 PUN. A play upon words, the wit or point of which de- 
 pends on a resemblance between the sound and syllables of 
 two or more words, which have different, and perhaps op- 
 posite, meanings. See Paronomasia. 
 
 PU'NCHEON. In Architecture, a short post. The small 
 quarters in a partition above the head of a door are called 
 puncheons. 
 
 Puncheon. A measure of capacity for liquids, contain- 
 ing 84 gallons, or one third of a tun. 
 
 PU'NCTATE. (Lat. punctum, a point.) In Zoology, 
 when a part is beset with many points, or minute impres- 
 sions, which do not perforate the surface. 
 
 PUNCTUATION. In Writing, the dividing words, prop- 
 ositions, or sentences from each other by means of certain 
 marks or points, designed to facilitate the apprehension, 
 or to regulate the enunciation of written language. Points 
 or stops are said to have been first used by Aristophanes, 
 the Alexandrian grammarian ; but the modem system of 
 punctuation is due to Manutius, a learned printer, who lived 
 at Venice in the 15th and 16th centuries. The marks most 
 commonly in use are, 1. The comma (,), which is placed 
 between the less important divisions of a sentence or pas- 
 sage ; as, for instance, before and after qualifying proposi- 
 tions or clauses ; between single words not connected by 
 conjunctions ; before conjunctions which unite sentences, 
 &c. 2. The semicolon (:), which distinguishes the longer 
 or more important members of a sentence ; as when the lat- 
 ter part is an inference from, or qualification, explanation, or 
 illustration of, the former. 3. The colon (:), which is chief- 
 ly used to distinguish such members of a sentence as are 
 themselves divided by semicolons into two or more principal 
 parts. 4. The period or full stop (.), which stands at the 
 end of a complete sentence. Besides these may be enumer- 
 ated the note of interrogation (?) or inquiry; of exclama- 
 tion (!), expressing admiration, endearment, or any consider- 
 able emotion ; the parenthesis ( ), used when a clause is in- 
 serted which interrupts the progress of the sentence ; with 
 other marks, either less commonly used, or the rules for 
 whose use are less easily defined. 
 
 PU'NDIT (more correctly written Pandit). The title of 
 learned Brahmins in Hindoostan. The term is used ironi- 
 cally in England to designate any one who makes a vast 
 show of learning without possessing it in reality. 
 
 PU'NIC WARS. The name given to the celebrated 
 contests in which the Romans and Carthaginians were en- 
 gaged for more than three centuries, and which finally ter- 
 minated in the destruction of Carthage. The first com- 
 menced A.C. 264, and ended A.C. 241 ; the second lasted 
 from A.C. 218 to A.C. 202 ; the third from A.C. 149 to A.C. 
 147, ending with the destruction of Carthage. 
 
 PU'NISHMENT. (Lat. poana, punishment.) In Juris- 
 prudence, the infliction of suffering, under legal sanction, 
 upon those who have violated the law. 
 
 It is undoubtedly true, that both in legislation and in pub- 
 lic opinion respecting punishment, the vindictive theory 
 which considered it as a retribution for crime, and to be go- 
 verned by our moral feelings of indignation against the of- 
 fender, has far too generally prevailed, and that the primary 
 end, the interests of society, has been overlooked. But we 
 are not quite certain whether the present course of opinion 
 does not run too exclusively in the contrary direction ; and 
 whether those who adopt the common formula, that " the 
 object of all punishment is the prevention of the offence in 
 future," have reflected on all the consequences of that po- 
 sition. 
 
 For instance, it is the common practice in this country as 
 well as in others, to connect the administration of justice 
 with the enforcement of the tenets of religion and morality. 
 In passing sentence, wherever there is any peculiarity in 
 the case calculated to call forth such observation, the judge 
 
 1005
 
 PUNISHMENT. 
 
 rarely fails to comment on the moral deformity of the act ; 
 not merely in its tendency to injure society, but subjective 
 ly, a< evidencing mural depravity in the person committing 
 it. The solemnities of public worship which form part of 
 
 the ceremonial ; the public harangues of the judges (as, for 
 instance, in the English custom of charging the grand jury) ; 
 the Language in which the jury is commonly addressed, 
 
 both by the judge and the advocates; all these seem based 
 on the assumption that the moral quality of acta is one 
 of the matters lobe brought under their consideration. But 
 if the judge has really no concern whatever With that mu- 
 ral quality, and is simply there to see that society may he 
 guarded, as far as possible, from exposure to material injury 
 by fraud or violence, all these ceremonies are utterly out of 
 place. They must either be defended as politic devices, 
 employing the machinery of religion to aid in terrifying of- 
 fenders from the commission of crime ; or as concessions to 
 popular ignorance. And it is certain that in such a case 
 they had far better be abolished altogether, as they strongly 
 lead the mind to dwell on that false view of the object of 
 punishment, which it is the object of Bentham and his 
 school to extirpate. 
 
 Again, in popular estimation, the moral atrocity of an 
 offence is one of the elements in the correct measure of 
 punishment. (Jn whatever ground philosophers may ob- 
 ject to sanguinary laws, this plain objection is that which 
 has always prevailed in the public mind. In the case of 
 forgery, for example, the feeling of the majority triumphed 
 in the end over the severity of the law, not because it was 
 thought disproportioned to the injury indicted on society, or 
 to the importance of repressing the crime, hut because it 
 was thought not to deserve it in a moral point of view. 
 Now all such expressions of sentiment, on the theory in 
 question, is founded on a wrong principle ; and the writers 
 who adhere to it are forced to admit this feeling as a dis- 
 turbing cause, preventing the right doctrine from being ful- 
 ]> carried out; they are forced to admit, as part of their de- 
 finition of a good punishment, that it shall not be such as 
 to shock the popular notion of moral justice; which is, in 
 Other words, to admit that penal laws must be governed in 
 part by principles which they condemn as altogether wrong; 
 a very mischievous concession for a legislator to make. 
 
 That the interest of society is the great object of punish- 
 ment must be conceded on all hands. That the specific ob- 
 ject of preventing the offence from being committed is a 
 very important part of that general object, probably by far 
 the most important, may also be conceded. Hut the ques- 
 tion is, whether the general object does not comprehend 
 other particular objects also; and whether a punishment, 
 which should answer in the highest degree the advantage 
 of repressing that particular offence, or class of offences, 
 might not be imperfect notwithstanding. 
 
 This question can only be solved by deciding the great 
 preliminary difficulty of political science, in which so many 
 others are involved; whether the ruling power, which we 
 call the state, or society, or the legislature, has or has not 
 any moral authority. Those who conclude that it has no- 
 thing to do beyond preserving the personal security and 
 property of individuals, of course deny that it has any. 
 It u i those who believe that it has, also, what may be 
 termed a paternal power, and is entrusted by Providence 
 with the maintenance of religion and moral principle, must, 
 tty admit that there maybe a moral object in pun- 
 ishment beyond the mere prevention of the offence. 
 
 And it must be observed in passing, that those who do 
 hold the slat" to possess such a moral authority, and have 
 such moral dutiee imposed anon it, need not, therefore, hold 
 those to be its principal objects. It may very well be that 
 the primary object of the association of men in a political 
 body is security and self-defence; yet that such association 
 may have other ends not inconsistent with Ibis. And al- 
 though those other ends are in themselves incomparably the 
 most Important, it does not at all follow that they are the 
 most important as regards the state. When men enter into 
 a particular contract with each other, their mutual duties 
 under that contract are primarily those connected with the 
 object of that contract : they may have Other and mure on 
 portant mutual duties, which yet, as n L'-'iuls that contract, 
 are secondary. No religious man will deny that the con- 
 nexion of master and servant involves some duties of a 
 very exalted character; but the principal object of that con- 
 nexion is, nevertheless, the rendering of service in view of 
 a remuneration. 
 
 We have not space here to punue this line of re 
 but must proceed to take the moral vocation of the state us 
 admitted, and consider the effect of that admission on the 
 theory of punishment In the first place, it would be a mis- 
 take to suppose that it justifies retribution as an object of 
 
 punishment No one can apportion retributive justice who 
 cannot judge Of the motives of actions. The moral antho 
 rity of the State, even by those who have carried its divine 
 Character to the highest point, has only been likened to the 
 1000 
 
 PUPE. 
 
 paternal ; and no father has the right to chastise a child bj 
 way of retribution. He lias no right to punish at all, except 
 with a view to reformation. Omitting this mistaken end, 
 
 the real objects of punishment may be classed as follows ; 
 
 I. The interests of society ; which must be subdivided 
 into, 
 
 i. Its security from the injury to person or property occa- 
 sioned by the crime. 
 
 ii. Its moral and religious improvement. 
 
 And II. The reformation of the offender. This is admit- 
 ted as one Of the ends of punishment by all writers ; but 
 Bentham and his followers regard it as such only so tar as 
 it conduces to the security of society by preventing the repe- 
 tition of the offence; those who embrace the hinder view, 
 both on this account, and also as the fulfilment of the duty 
 of the state towards the offender himself. Considered In 
 either view, it is clearly a secondary object only, the good 
 of society being the first. 
 
 The security of society is attainable by punishment in 
 four ways : 
 
 1. By forcibly preventing the offender from repeating his 
 offence ; as by death, mutilation, or perpetual imprisonment. 
 
 2. By reforming the habits of the offender, and thereby 
 taking away the desire. 
 
 3. By deterring the offender from repetition by the fear of 
 fresh punishment. 
 
 4. By deterring others through example. And this last is 
 clearly the chief practical end of all legal inflictions. The ad- 
 mission of other principles, while it seems necessary in or- 
 der to satisfy our conception of the existence of the state as 
 a moral agent, need not prevent the legislator from keeping 
 this steadily in view. 
 
 Our limits forbid us from pursuing farther the analysis 
 of punishment, and pointing out in what manner the differ- 
 ent kinds and degree of it principally in use follow, or de- 
 part from, their legitimate ends. VVe will conclude with 
 the classification of punishments given by Bentham, in his 
 Theorie des Peines, to use the title of the work as given by 
 his translator Dumont. If Bentham's theory be defective ia 
 its main principles (and although we have presented the 
 reader with some arguments against it, we do not assert that 
 they must be conclusive with all), it is at all events only 
 from being imperfect, not erroneous: as far as it goes, it is 
 logical, consistent, and definite. And as he was nearly the 
 first writer who introduced anything like clearness or ar- 
 rangement into the popular notions on penal laws, so we are 
 inclined to think that, on the whole, he has done more for 
 society in this particular than in any other of the various 
 subjects to which he applied his reforming genius. It must 
 not be forgotten that Sir S. Homilly and t?ir J. Mackintosh 
 were the pupils who carried his speculations into practice. 
 
 He divides punishments into corporeal and privative. The 
 first of these arc, 1. Simply afflictive, those which consist in 
 the mere infliction of temporary pains, the lash, &c. 2. 
 Complexly inflictive, in which pain is joined with perma- 
 nent loss ; as in the old punishments of mutilation and dis- 
 figurement. 3. Restrictive, under which he classes together 
 (perhaps rather inappropriately) imprisonment, or the total 
 deprivation of liberty, and banishment, which deprives of a 
 certain portion of Liberty. 4. Active or laborious ; such as 
 the galleys, hard Labour, &c. Transportation combines this 
 character with the former. 5. Privative punishments are 
 those which deprive the criminal, 1. Of life. 2. Of reputa- 
 tion only ; such, perhaps, as the amende in French law. 3. 
 Of property: fine, and confiscations. 4. Forfeiture of condi- 
 tion; which, more or less, accompanies infamous punish- 
 ments in most countries ; e.f., civil infamy, in France, is at- 
 tended with various disabilities. These eight comprehend 
 all the simple forms of punishment in ordinary use ; but he 
 adds a few, which he terms anomalous, and only mentions 
 to hold them up to general reprobation. 1. What he calls 
 vicarious punishments ; as u hen the family of a suicide are 
 punished by the forfeiture of his chattels. !i. Transitive; 
 when the penalty passes to future generations: corruption 
 of blood in the English law. 3. Collective, of which he 
 gives, as an Instance, the punishment of corporations for the 
 aits of individual corporators; a more ordinary one is, the 
 compelling the inhabitants of a hundred to make good the 
 damages occasioned by a riot 4. Fortuitous; where indi- 
 \ nluals wholly unconnected with the offender are implica- 
 ted, as it wire, casually, in the consequences of his crime ; 
 of which he gives, as an instance, the avoidance of mesne 
 conveyances by some kinds of confiscation, and consequent 
 loss of innocent purchasers : and the imposition Of deodands, 
 where no negligence is imputed. (See, also, F.il. ll<r., vol. 
 x\h.. where his work is reviewed; Lucas, Siisleme Penal.) 
 
 PI 'PA. (Lat pupa, a puppet.) A genus of land snails, 
 so called from the res< mblance of the shell to the pope, or 
 
 chrysalis of an insect. Several species are British, as I'lipa. 
 
 sto, Drap. ; /'. marginata, Drap.: /'. edeatula, Drap. 
 
 I'l I'K. (Lat. pupa.) The name Of the oviform nymphs 
 of Lepidopterous insects ; also applied to Metabolian in-
 
 PUPIL. 
 
 sects generally, when in the second stage of their meta- 
 morphosis. 
 
 PU'PIL. (Lat. pupa.) A term applied to the central 
 opening of the eye, because it reflects the diminished image 
 of the person who looks into it. It is the central aperture 
 of the iris. 
 
 PUPIPARES, Pupipara, (Lat. pupa, and pario, I bring 
 forth.) Those insects are said to be pupiparous which pro- 
 duce their young in the condition of a pupe or nymph ; as 
 the forest-fly, Hippobosca equina. 
 
 PU'PIVORES, Pupivora. (Lat. pupa and voro, I devour.) 
 The name of a tribe of Hyinenopterous insects, comprehend- 
 ing those of which the larva- live parnsitically in the interior 
 of the larvae and pups of other insects. 
 
 PURA'NA. (Sanscrit, a poem.) The sacred books of 
 India which contain the explanation of the Shaster (which 
 see.) There are eighteen books of the Puranas ; chiefly 
 filled with legends of the inferior gods and the heroes of 
 Hindostan. (See Mem. de I'Acad. des Inser., vol. xxxviii.) 
 It should be stated, that Professor Wilson intimates his dis- 
 belief of the received opinion as to the great antiquity of the 
 Puranas, and believes the writings now known under that 
 name to be mere imitations of lost originals. (Preface to his 
 translation of the Vishnu Purana.) See Asiatic Journal, 
 Dec. 1840. 
 
 PURBECK LIMESTONE. See Geology. 
 
 PU'RCHASE, in Law, means, generally, the acquisition 
 of lands or tenements by any other means than descent ; 
 as by devise, gift, deed, or agreement. 
 
 PU'RGATORY. A place appointed for the satisfaction 
 of temporal punishments, which, according to the Roman 
 Catholic Church, are distinguished from the eternal, of 
 which the latter only are remitted to us by the death of 
 Christ. There is none, perhaps, of the peculiar articles of 
 the Romish faith in favour of which so little can be advanced 
 from the language of scripture ; and it may be safely averred 
 that it was not from that source that the opinion ever gained 
 possession of men's minds. It seems to be a natural but too 
 strict an inference from the imperfectly disclosed economy 
 of the divine judgments, which we find to admit of every 
 degree of severity in this life, and are liable to conclude 
 from analogy must be subject to some equivalent adjustment 
 in the next. Accordingly, we discover some imperfect 
 recognitions of the idea in individual writers several cen- 
 turies before it can be proved that it formed an established 
 article of faith. Augustin is considered the earliest of these ; 
 and he speaks vaguely and inconsistently. It was first in- 
 culcated as a doctrine by Gregory the Great, who seems to 
 have connected it with the then popular belief that the 
 world was closely approaching to its end. It was much dis- 
 cussed between the Greeks and Latins at the council of 
 Ferrara, 1438. The present Roman Catholic belief is thus 
 expressed in the creed of Pope Pius IV. : " Constanter teneo 
 purgatorium esse, animasque ibi detentas suffragio fidelium 
 juvari." To which it may be added, that the sins punished 
 in Purgatory are of two kinds — mortal, repented of; and 
 venial. This article of the creed is derived from the canon 
 of the council of Trent on the subject, sess. 25. The " Romish 
 doctrine" of Purgatory is condemned by Art. 22 of the Eng- 
 lish Church. The reader will find the general argument 
 for Purgatory well stated (among Protestants) by Hooker in 
 his 3d Sermon : the latter part, in which he replied to it, is 
 lost. It is also set forth with much learning and modera- 
 tion in Tracts for the Times, No. 79. 
 
 PURIFICATION. An observance enjoined by the law 
 of Moses upon occasion of certain accidental defilements, 
 which are scrupulously recorded in the Levitical code. 
 The purification was generally by water ; and in the case 
 of women, who were considered impure after childbirth for 
 the space of forty days if delivered of a male, and eighty if 
 of a female, the offering of a lamb and some other sacrifices 
 was required. The purification of the Virgin Mary is a fes- 
 tival in the calendar, and is observed on the 2d of February, 
 heing forty days after Christmas. This festival was estab- 
 lished in the 6th century, and is variously termed in ecclesi- 
 astical antiquities by the names of viraTTtivTr/, Festum Can- 
 delarum, Candlemas, the Presentation. The processions of 
 this day were instituted by Gregory the Great. For an ac- 
 count of the ceremonies of purification among the Greeks 
 and Romans, see the article Lustration. 
 
 PU'RIM. The name of the solemn festival among the 
 Jews in which they commemorate their deliverance from 
 the wiles and stratagems of Haman, as recorded in the 
 book of Esther. The observance of this festival has been 
 religiously maintained by all the Hebrew race from its 
 institution down to the present time. It is held in Feb- 
 ruary. 
 
 PU'RIST. A name sometimes applied to rigorous critics 
 of purity in literary style. 
 
 PU'RITANS. The name by which the dissenters from 
 the Church of England were generally known in the reign 
 of Elizabeth and the first two Stuarts. The term was as- 
 
 PUTREFACTION. 
 
 sumed, as the word implies, from the superior purity of doc- 
 trine and discipline which the more violent reformers claim- 
 ed as their own ; maintaining that they followed the word 
 of God alone, puritied from all human inventions and super- 
 stitions, of which they believed the English church to re- 
 tain a considerable share, notwithstanding its alleged re- 
 formation. According to Fuller, the use of the name com- 
 menced about 15G4. (See Ncale's History of the Puritans.) 
 See Dissenters. 
 
 PU'RLINE. In Architecture, a piece of timber lying on 
 the principal rafters to support them in the middle. 
 
 PU'RPLE. (Gr. izoptpvpa.) In Painting, a colour pro- 
 duced by the mixture of red and blue, and thence partaking 
 of the hue of each. Among the ancients, purple was al- 
 ways the distinguishing badge of power and distinction ; and, 
 of all the various kinds in use, the Tyrian dye is the most 
 celebrated. This colour was produced from an animal .juice 
 found in a shell-fish, called niiiixx, or conchylium, the quali- 
 ty of which, however, varied with the different coasts on 
 which it was caught. 
 
 PURPLE OF CASSIUS. A compound of the oxides of 
 tin and gold, obtained by adding protochloride of tin to a solu- 
 tion of chloride of gold. The true nature of the compound 
 has not been determined ; it is used as a purple colour for 
 porcelain painting, and also for staining glass, to which it 
 imparts a fine ruby red. 
 
 PU'RPURA. An eruption of small purple specks and 
 patches, caused by extravasation of blood under the cuticle ; 
 it is generally attended by constitutional debility, and often 
 by fever. Aperient medicines, and sometimes purgatives, 
 carried to a greater or less extent, followed by mild tonics, 
 and in some cases by wine, bark, and acids, are the princi- 
 pal remedies ; but in the treatment, much will depend upon 
 the concomitant symptoms. 
 
 In Zoology, purpura is a generic name of the univalve 
 Gasteropod which secretes the purple fluid which formed 
 the base of the Tyrian dye. 
 
 PU'RPURE. Purple. In Heraldry, one of the colours or 
 tinctures used in blazonry. It is equivalent to amethyst 
 among precious stones, Mercury among planets. In en- 
 graving it is represented by diagonal lines from the sinister 
 to the dexter side of the escutcheon. 
 
 PURPU'RIC ACID. A substance resulting from the ac- 
 tion of nitric acid upon uric acid ; it forms deep red or pur- 
 ple compounds with most bases. 
 
 PURPU'RIFERS, Purpurifera. (Lat. purpura, purple, 
 fero, I bear.) The name of a family of Gastropodous Mol- 
 lusks, including those species which secrete the purple sub- 
 stance forming the celebrated dye of the ancients. 
 
 PU'RSER. An officer in the British navy, whose chief 
 duty consists in keeping the accounts of the ship to which 
 he belongs: but he also acts as purveyor. 
 
 PURSUIVA'NTS. In Heraldry, a kind of probationers 
 in the Heralds' College of England, not admitted to the full 
 privileges of the college, but advanced by succession into its 
 higher offices. They are styled Portcullis, Rouge Dragon, 
 Blue Mantle, and Rouge Croix. 
 
 PURVE'YANCE, or POURVEYANCE. (Fr. pourvoir, 
 to provide.) In English Law, the providing necessaries for 
 the king's house. The right of purveyance, or pre-emp- 
 tion, ?'. e., of buying necessaries for the household, impres- 
 sing horses and carriages for use, or, on payment of a set- 
 tled price, even against the will of the owner, was a valu- 
 able part of the ancient prerogatives of the kings of Eng- 
 land, especially in times when the court was frequently in 
 progress. It was abolished by 12 C. 2, c. 24, and has only 
 been occasionally revived since that time by temporary 
 acts for special purposes. The name of " purveyor" had 
 long before become so odious, that by 36 Ed. 3, c. 2, it was 
 changed into " buyer." 
 
 PUS. (Lat.) A bland, yellowish fluid, somewhat like 
 cream, found in abscesses, and formed upon the surfaces 
 of what are termed healthy sores ; it is heavier than wa- 
 ter, and viewed under the microscope, appears composed 
 of translucent globules floating in a colourless fluid. 
 
 PUTA'MEN. In Botany, the inner coat, or shell, or 
 stone of a fruit : commonly called the endocarpium. 
 
 PU'TLOGS. (Etym. uncertain.) In Architecture, short 
 pieces of timber used in scaffolds wherever the scaffold 
 boards lie. They are placed at right angles to the wall, 
 one end of them resting on the ledges of the scaffold, and 
 the other on holes left in the wall. 
 
 PUTREFA'CTION. (Lat. putrefactio.) The sponta- 
 neous decomposition of animal and vegetable substances, 
 attended by the evolution of foetid gases. The putrefac- 
 tion for putrefactive fermentation) of animal substances is 
 usually attended by more fffltid and noxious exhalations 
 than those arising from vegetable products. This appears 
 principally referable to the more abundant presence of ni- 
 trogen in the former ; and hence those vegetables which 
 abound in nitrogeniferous principles (such as most, if not 
 all, of the cruciform plants) exhale peculiarly nauseous ef- 
 
 1007
 
 PUTTY. 
 
 Aavia : hence, also, surh animal products as arc destitute 
 of nitrogen are cither unsusceptible of what is commonly 
 called putrefaction, or suffer it slowly and imperfectly. 
 The formation of ammonia, or of ammoniacal compounds, 
 is a characteristic of most cases of animal putrefaction ; 
 while other combinations of hydrogen are also formed, es- 
 peciallj carburetted tlydrogen, together with complicated 
 and often highly infections vapours or gases, in which sul- 
 phur and phosphorus are frequently discerned. These 
 putrefactive effluvia are, for the most part, easily decompo- 
 sed, and resolved into new and comparatively innocuous 
 compounds, by the agency of chlorine ; hence the impor- 
 tance of that body as a powerful and rapidly acting disin- 
 fectant 
 
 The rapidity of putrefaction, and the nature of its pro- 
 ducts, are to a great extent influenced by temperature. 
 moisture, and access of air; they do not ensue below the 
 freezing point, nor in dry substances, nor under the entire 
 exclusion of oxygen ; and hence various means suggest 
 themselves of retarding or preventing putrefaction, as well 
 Bsof modifying its results: a temperature between 60° and 
 80°, a due degree of humidity, and free access of air, are 
 the circumstances under which it proceeds most rapidly. 
 The most effective antiputrefactives or antiseptics are sub- 
 stances which either absorb or remove a portion of the wa- 
 ter or moisture, and enter into new combinations with the 
 organic matter ; hence the great efficacy of certain salts, 
 sugar, alcohol, and several other applications, among which, 
 perhaps, the most remarkable are some of the volatile oils, 
 such especially as kreosote and other empyreumatic pro- 
 ducts obtained by the destructive distillation of wood, and 
 pyroligneous acid, and pyroligneous spirit ; the latter is emi- 
 nently useful in the preservation of dead bodies for the pur- 
 poses of dissection, and, when properly and sufficiently in- 
 jected into the vessels, and externally applied, indefinitely 
 suspends all the ordinary steps of the putrefactive process. 
 
 The astringent or tanning principle of vegetables is also a 
 powerful preserver of most organic tissues: it enters into 
 chemical combination with the albuminous and gelatinous 
 membranes and fibres; and the resulting compound, of 
 which leather furnishes a characteristic example, is com- 
 paratively little prone to change, although the tanning ma- 
 terial itself, as well as the animal principles with which it 
 unites, are separately liable to decay. 
 
 Among saline substances, the antiputrefactive powers of 
 salt are commonly known : when a piece of flesh is salted, 
 brine runs from it, in consequence of the energy with which 
 the salt abstracts the component water of the muscular 
 fibre; the flesh becomes indurated, and its susceptibility to 
 putrefactive changes greatly diminished; it becomes at the 
 same time less easy of digestion as an article of food. Cor- 
 rosive sublimate is a far more powerful preservative than 
 Common salt; and it appears to act not by the mere abstrac- 
 tion of water, but by entering into chemical union with the 
 fibre. Sulphate of copper and several other metallic salts 
 are similarly efficacious ; and the most putrescible substan- 
 ces, BUCh as the brain for instance, after having been steep- 
 ed in such solutions and dried, will remain without 
 farther change fur an indefinite period: the poisonous na- 
 ture i. (these and many other metallic salts prevents their 
 employment in the preservation of articles of food. 
 
 It is probable that the ancient Egyptians employed sever- 
 al of the above-mentioned antiputrefactive and preservative 
 substances in the preparation of their mummies, which 
 have remained for so many hundred years without signs of 
 decay or decomposition ; yet in these and similar cases, 
 when by the careful application Of various solvents the 
 
 preservative substances are removed, the flesh resumes its 
 susceptibility of putrefaction. 
 
 The inhabitants of northern climates avail themselves of 
 freezing to prevent the putrefaction of their food, and the 
 
 supplies of game and other articles in the Russian markets 
 
 are retained in a frozen state; our fishmongers resort to the 
 same expedient for the preservation of their unsold Ash, 
 which is daily removed to the icehouse after having been 
 exhibited in their shops; salmon is packed in ire fur the 
 purpose of transport anil preservation. 
 
 It is curious to remark the wonderful influence of vitality 
 
 in opposing tho^e chemical changes winch constitute putre 
 fiction, and in retaining that arrangement of the organic 
 
 elements requisite for the functions of lite ; when a part of 
 
 dies, the phenomena of gangrene or mortification 
 
 ensue: that W, of local putrefaction: the putrefactive chan 
 ges are the more energetic in consequence of the proximity 
 of tin- dead pin to the living. 
 
 All organic tissues may be indefinitely preserved by CftU- 
 tious desiccation; and it is in consequence of the absence 
 Of Component water that the animal part of bone resists pu- 
 trefaction : dried bones may thus be stored up for ages, and 
 when it is required to extract their nutritive parts, these are 
 found unimpaired. 
 
 l'l TTV. in Architecture, a very fine cement used by 
 1008 
 
 PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT. 
 
 plasterers, made of lime only. It differs from fine stuff in 
 the manner of preparing it, and in its being used without 
 hair. Also a composition used by glaziers, consisting of oil, 
 Whiting, &c. 
 
 PY'CNITE, or SHORLOUS TOPAZ. (Gr. wvkvoc, 
 thick.) A prismatic mineral found at Altenburg in Saxony. 
 
 PYTJNOSTYLE. (Gr. jrwevoy, aud orvXoc, a column.) 
 In Architecture, an arrangement of columns, in which the 
 intercolumniations are equal to one diameter and a half of 
 the columns. 
 
 PY'GMY. See Pigmy. 
 
 PYLA'GORAS. (Gr. miXayopac, so called from the as- 
 sembly of the Amphictyons at Tbermopyle.) The title of 
 one of the two deputies from each confederate at the Aiu- 
 phyctyonic Council. His functions comprised the diplo- 
 matic and deliberative duties of the mission: while the care 
 of the sacred rites fell on his colleague, the Hieromnemon 
 (Ispouvitnuv). 
 
 PYLORI'DEANS, Pyloridea. (Gr. m^r,, an entrance, 
 ovpoc, a guard, and eitoc, form.) The name of a tribe of 
 Lamillibrancliiate Bivalves, comprehending those which 
 have a shell open at both extremities. 
 
 PYLO'RUS. (Gr. 7ruA»;, an entrance, and ovpoc, a guard.) 
 The aperture of the stomach into the duodenum ; it guards, 
 as it were, the entrance into the intestinal canal. 
 
 PYRA'LLOITE. (Gr. irvp.fire, and aAXoc, another.) A 
 mineral which undergoes various changes of colour when 
 heated. 
 
 PY'RAMID. (Supposed to be from Gr. irvp, fire, from 
 the resemblance of the form to a spire of flame ; but for a 
 more probable derivation of the word, see infra. Pyramids 
 of Egypt). In Geometry, a solid contained by a plane 
 polysonal hase and other planes meeting in a point. This 
 point is called the vertex of the pyramid ; and the planes 
 which meet in the vertex are called the sides, which are 
 necessarily all triangles. 
 
 The principal properties of pyramids are the following : 
 1. Every pyramid is equivalent to one third of a prism hav- 
 ing the same base and altitude. Hence, 2. All pyramids 
 having equivalent bases and equal altitudes are equivalent. 
 
 3. The solid content of a pyramid is measured by the pro- 
 duct of the area of the base into one third of the altitude. 
 
 4. If a pyramid is cut by a plane parallel to its base, the 
 frustum (or part comprehended between the base and the 
 section) is equal to the sum of three pyramids having for 
 their common altitude that of the frustum, and of which 
 the bases are respectively the lower base of the frustum, 
 the upper base of the frustum, and a mean proportional be- 
 tween them. (See Legendre's Geometry, and Notes.) 
 
 Pyramids are denominated from the figures of their hases, 
 being triangular, quadrangular, pentagonal, &c, according 
 as the base is a triangle, a quadrangle, a pentagon. 
 
 PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT. Celebrated monuments of* 
 massive masonry, which, from a square hase. rise by regu- 
 lar gradations till they terminate in a point, but so that the 
 width of the base always exceeds the perpendicular height. 
 The pyramids commence immediately south of Cairo, but 
 on the opposite bank of the Nile, and extend in an uninter- 
 rupted range for many miles in a southerly direction, paral- 
 lel with the hanks of the river. 
 
 The three largest are situated in the vicinity of Ghi/.eh, 
 not far from Cairo; and of these the loftiest is called the 
 pyramid of Cheops, from the prince by whom it is supposed 
 to have been erected. The side* of its base, which are in 
 the line of the four cardinal points, measure at the founda- 
 tion 7634 feet : so that it occupies a space of more than 13 
 acres. Its perpendicular height is 480 feet, being, conse- 
 quentlv 43 feet higher than St. Peter's at Rome, and 136 
 
 feet higher than St. Paul's. Supposing this pyramid to be 
 
 entirely solid, its contents would exceed three millions of 
 cubic yards, and the muss of stone contained in it would be 
 six times as great as that contained in the Plymouth break- 
 water! [Egyptian Antiquities, Library of Entertaining 
 Knowledge, ii., 213). This hutre fabric consists of succes- 
 sive tiers of vast blocks of calcareous stone, rising above 
 each other in the form of steps. The thickness of the 
 stones, which is identical with the height of the steps, de- 
 creases as the altitude of the pyramid increases, the great- 
 est helgfal being 4-628 ft., and the least 1-686 ft. The mean 
 breadth of the steps is about 1 ft. 9 in. The best authori- 
 ties agree in estimating the number of steps or tiers of stone 
 at 203. According to the information communicated to 
 Herodotus by the priests, 100,000 men were employed for 
 twenty yars In the construction of this prodigious edifice ; 
 nnd ten years were employed in constructing a causeway 
 
 ii™ '. 
 
 e^xtleries have been eiplored in 
 
 of the principal 
 
 .. .1 general attention; but n«r recently the reaearchea of Colonel How- 
 lid Vt» have been attended with greater raoceas. The Utter »rntlemim 
 - new chamber! in the itt.ai pyramid ; he at*) 
 opene! ihe third pyramid of Chizeb, of the previous opening of which no 
 tradition eiistt.
 
 PYRAMIDAL NUMBERS. 
 
 by which to convey the stones to the place, and in their 
 conveyance. (Lib. ii., § 124.) 
 
 The olher pyramids are of inferior dimensions ; but they 
 are mostly all, notwithstanding, of vast magnitude — instar 
 montium eductm : they are not all of stone, some of them 
 being of brick. 
 
 Many learned dissertations have been written, and many 
 fanciful and a few ingenious conjectures have been framed, 
 to account for the original use and object of these imperish- 
 able structures. But the difficulty of the subject is such, that 
 hitherto no satisfactory conclusion has been arrived at. 
 Even in the remotest antiquity their origin was matter of 
 doubt, and nothing certain was known with respect to 
 them or their founders. (Plin. Hist. Nat., lib. 36, $ 12.) 
 On the whole, however, it would seem to be most proba- 
 ble that they were intimately connected with the religion 
 of the ancient Egyptians : and that they were at once a 
 species of tombs and temples, but participating more of the 
 latter than of the former character. (For some remarks on 
 this part of the subject, see Shaw's Travels, p. 170, &.C., 
 4to edit. ; and Greaves's Pyramidograpkia, in his Works, 
 vol. i.) 
 
 It has long been customary to regard the Pyramids as 
 monuments merely of the power and folly of the monarchs 
 by whom they were raised, and of the bondage of their sub- 
 jects. This, however, seems to be a very superficial, pre- 
 judiced view of the matter. The varying magnitude of the 
 pyramids, the fact of their being scattered over a space ex- 
 tending lengthwise about 70 miles, and their extraordinary 
 number, appear to show pretty conclusively that they must 
 have been constructed from a sense of utility or duty ; and 
 not out of caprice, or from a vain desire to perpetuate the 
 names or the celebrity of the founders. If we had a suffi- 
 cient knowledge of antiquity, it would probably be found 
 that the motives which led to the construction of the pyra- 
 mids were, at bottom, nearly identical with those which 
 led to the construction of St. Peter's and St. Paul's ; and 
 that they are monuments of the religion and piety, as well 
 as of the power of the Pharaohs. 
 
 The pyramids were esteemed by the ancients as one of 
 the seven wonders of the world, and most deservedly ; for 
 it is impossible to look at these stupendous structures with- 
 out being overwhelmed with a sense of their sublimity. 
 They are associated, too, with some of the most interesting 
 events in the history of the human race. Herodotus, Plato, 
 and Pythagoras beheld them with wonder and admiration ; 
 Alexander the Great and Napoleon marshalled their hosts 
 under their shadow ; and they are probably destined to sur- 
 vive long after the proudest monuments of the present gen- 
 eration have crumbled into dust. 
 
 The etymology of the word pyramid is involved in as 
 great obscurity as the object of the structures themselves. 
 The most usual derivations that have been assigned to the 
 term almost all proceeded on the supposition that it is of 
 Greek origin, than which nothing can be more erroneous. 
 Perhaps the most probable conjecture is that of De Sacy, 
 which is as follows : The is in Trvpuun he regards as a 
 Greek termination ; the first syllable irv he holds to be the 
 Greek version of the Egyptian article pi (and so written by 
 the Greeks from their wish to derive the word from -rrvp, 
 fire) ; and he refers the syllable p iu to the root ram, which, 
 in the Egyptian language, signified separating- or setting 
 apart from common use : consequently, the word pyramid 
 will denote a sacred place or edifice set apart for some reli- 
 gious purpose. (De Sacy, Observations sur I'Origine du 
 JVom donne par les Grecs et les Arabs aux Pyramides 
 d'JEgypte.) See M'Oulloch's Geog. Diet., art. "Egypt," 
 anil the authorities there cited. 
 
 PYRAMIDAL NUMBERS, in Arithmetic, are numbers 
 formed by the successive sums of polygonal numbers, in 
 the same manner as the polygonal numbers are formed from 
 arithmetical progressions. Thus : 
 
 Arithmetical progression, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &c. 
 Polygonal numbers, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, &c. 
 
 Pyramidal numbers, 1, 4, 10, 20, 35, &c. 
 
 See. Figurate Numbers and Polygonal Numbers. 
 
 PYRENE'ITE. A mineral found in the limestone of 
 the French Pyrenees; it appears to be a variety of the 
 garnet. 
 
 PYRETO'LOGY. (Gr. Ttvperoc, fever, and Aoyo?, a dis- 
 course.) The doctrine of fevers. 
 
 PYRE'XLE. (Gr. -vp, fire, and elk, habit.) Fevers ; 
 diseases attended by fever. 
 
 PYRI'TES. (Gr. ™p.) Sulphurets of copper and iron, 
 commonly distinguished as copper and iron pvrites. The 
 former is the principal ore of copper ; the latter is an 
 abundant natural product of a brass-yellow colour. When 
 exposed to air and moisture, especially after having been 
 heated, it absorbs oxygen, and yields sulphate of iron, or 
 green vitriol. The term is derived from irvp, fire ; either 
 because they sometimes spontaneously ignite, or as bein a 
 hard enough to strike fire with steel. 
 85 
 
 PYROMETER. 
 
 PYROACE'TIC SPIRIT. A liquid formed during the 
 destructive distillation of acetate of lead. When carefully 
 purified, it has a peculiar spirituous odour, is limpid, and 
 very inflammable ; its specific gravity is 0792, and it boils 
 at 132°. It consists of 3 car. + 3 b. + ox. Hence 1 equiv- 
 alent of acetic acid (4 car. + 3 h. + 3 ox.) corresponds to 1 
 equivalent of pyroacetic spirit and 1 of carbonic acid ; 
 hence dry acetate of baryta is resolved by heat into car- 
 bonate of baryta and pyroacetic spirit. The term acetone is 
 now commonly applied to this compound. 
 
 PYRO-ACIDS. (Gr. iru/>.) The prefix pyro is usually 
 applied to the products which are obtained by subjecting 
 certain organic acids to heat. The acids are thus modified, 
 and give rise to distinct classes of salts. Thus we have 
 the pyrogallic, pyromalic, pyrotartaric acids, &.c. 
 
 PY'ROCHLORE. (Or. vvp, and x*<"/>o?> green.) A 
 name given by Werner to the octoedral ore of titanium. 
 
 PYROLI'GNEOUS ACID. (Gr. m >p, and Lat. lignum, 
 wood.) This term is generally applied to the acid liquor 
 which passes over along with tar and gaseous products 
 when wood is subjected to destructive distillation. This 
 acid liquor is an impure vinegar, from which acetic acid is 
 obtained as follows : The pyroligneous acid, freed from 
 tar, is saturated with chalk or powdered slaked lime, filter- 
 ed, and evaporated, by which an impure acetate of lime is 
 obtained ; this is gently heated, so as to destroy part of its 
 empyreumatic matter without decomposing the acetic 
 acid ; it is then mixed with sulphate of soda, which yields, 
 by double decomposition, sulphate of lime and acetate of 
 soda ; the acetate of soda is filtered otf the sulphate of 
 lime, evaporated, heated, and redissolved and crystallized. 
 In this way a pure crystallized acetate of soda is, by proper 
 management, obtained, which is mixed in a retort or still 
 with a proper proportion of sulphuric acid, and a gentle 
 heat applied, which causes the strong acetic acid to distil 
 over, and sulphate of soda remains behind. This acetic 
 acid is in a high state of concentration; it is lowered by 
 the addition of water, and if intended for the table or for 
 domestic use, as a substitute for other forms of vinegar, it 
 is usually coloured with a little burned sugar. The char- 
 coal which is the residue of this distillation of wood is of 
 an excellent quality — that employed in the manufacture of 
 gunpowder is thus prepared. This manufacture of vinegar 
 is now carried on upon a very large scale, and the greater 
 part of the vinegar used for domestic purposes and in the 
 arts, in many of which it is largely consumed, is derived 
 from this source. 
 
 PYROLIGNEOUS SPIRIT. Sec Pyroxvlic Spirit. 
 
 PYROLU'SITE. A mineralogtcal term applied by some 
 to the common black or binoxide of manganese, from the 
 facility with which it is resolved by heat into oxygen and 
 a suboxide. 
 
 PY'ROMANCY. (Gr. irvp, and navrcia, prophecy.) 
 Among the classical ancients, a species of divination by 
 means of the fire of the sacrifice ; in which, if the flames 
 immediately took hold of and consumed the victims, or if 
 they were bright and pure, or if the sparks rose upward in 
 a pyramidal form, success was said to be indicated. If the 
 contrary took place, misfortunes were said to be presaged. 
 
 PYRO'METER. (Gr. irvp, and anpov, measure.) An 
 instrument for measuring the degrees of heat. According 
 to this definition, the pyrometer is synonymous with ther- 
 mometer ; but though the two terms are sometimes applied 
 indifferently to the same instrument, the term pyrometer 
 is generally understood to denote either an instrument in- 
 tended to measure higher temperatures than can be meas- 
 ured by the ordinary thermometer, or an instrument for 
 comparing the expansions of different metals. 
 
 Various contrivances have been employed for the above 
 purposes. Musschenbroek, the original inventor of the py- 
 rometer, adopted the following method : A prismatic rod 
 (about six inches long) of the metal under trial being at- 
 tached at one extremity to an immoveable obstacle, and 
 heated by lamps, the other end is necessarily pushed for- 
 ward ; and this being fastened to the end of a rack playing 
 into a pinion, communicates a revolving motion to an axle to 
 which a train of wheel- work is attached, whereby the 
 minutest expansion of the heated bar is rendered sensible, 
 and measured by an index on a dial. The principle of this 
 apparatus is sufficiently simple ; but the uncertainty attend- 
 ing the motion of so many loosely connected wheels and 
 pinions must have rendered its indications of little value ; 
 and the method is liabie to a still more serious objection, 
 namely, that the temperature communicated to the bar by 
 the lamps is entirely unknown. Desaguliers, and afterwards 
 Ellicott, made several improvements in the construction of 
 the instrument, tending to give it a mote equable motion 
 and to increase its delicacy. Graham substituted a microme- 
 ter screw for the wheels and levers that had formerly been 
 employed ; and on this principle Mr. Smeaton contrived an 
 ingenious apparatus, which is described in the Phil. Trans., 
 vol. xlviii. 
 
 3R 1009
 
 PYROMORPHITE. 
 
 Various niher forms of the pyrometer have been proposed. 
 to render it better adapted for the measurement of expansion 
 by heat; among which the most perfect perhaps are those 
 contrived by Ferguson, JJe Luc, and particularly that em- 
 ployed bj Kamsden for determining the expansion of the 
 glass rods used in measuring the base on Hounslow Heatb 
 fix Genera] Ion's survey, ^ee Phil. Trans., 1785.] 
 
 for ascertaining the temperatures of furnaces, and other 
 verv high temperatures, the pyrometers now described are 
 inapplicable. In order to remedy this deficiency, Wedgwood 
 availed himself of the property which clay possesses of 
 contracting by heat, and remaining afterwards in that state 
 of contraction. He found, by repeated trials, that fine porce- 
 lain clay contracted Uniformly with the degree of heat ap- 
 plied to it ; accordingly, by measuring the dimensions of a 
 cylindrical piece of this substance (which may be done « ith 
 great accuracy, by observing the depth to which it will sink 
 between rWO scales Of metal inclined to each other under a 
 small angle), and the subjecting it to the heat of a furnace, 
 and applying the scale again to it when cold, an indication 
 of the degree of heat to which it has been subjected is given 
 by the amount Of its contraction. Wedgwood divided his 
 scale into 240°; and, in- order to compare it with that of 
 Fahrenheit's thermometer, made use of a piece of fine silver 
 fitted to the same mould as the pyrometric pieces of clay. 
 Having determined the expansion of the silver between 50° 
 and '-!- of Fahrenheit's scale, the silver and clay were 
 subjected to the same heat ; and, by a comparison of the 
 expansion of the one with the contraction of the other, he 
 estimated that each degree of his scale was equal to 130° 
 of Fahrenheit's. He also estimated that the zero of his 
 scale corresponded with 1077-53 of Fahr. ; and from these 
 data comparative tables of the two scales are formed. The 
 objections to this method are, that as clay is a heterogeneous 
 mixture, it is not very probable (and there are no means of 
 ascertaining the fact) that its contractions are equal at 
 different temperatures; and that different portions of clay 
 possess different degrees of contractibility. It was also sur- 
 mised that a long or frequent exposure to inferior degrees 
 of heat will cause it to contract, even after it has undergone 
 tin; action of a high temperature : but this appears to have 
 been disproved. [Phil. Traits., 1782, 1784J 1786.) 
 
 Guyton Morveau invented a platina pyrometer as a sub- 
 stitute for Wedgwood's. In a solid plate of highly baked 
 porcelain a groove was cut containing a fiat bar of platina. 
 an inch and three quarters in length, two tenths of an inch 
 broad, and one tenth of an inch thick. One end of the bar 
 abuts against the bottom of the groove, the other presses 
 against the short arm of a bent lever, of which the long arm, 
 moving on a pivot, becomes the index of the instrument, 
 and marks t lie degrees on a scale fixed to the porcelain. 
 With this instrument he made numerous experiments, the 
 general result of which proved that Wedgwood had assigned 
 by far too high a temperature for the decrees of his scale. 
 (jlnnales de Chimie, torn. xlvi. ; Nicholson's Journal, vol. vi.) 
 
 A pyrometer, invented by Professor Daniell, is described 
 in the eleventh volume of Brandt's Quarterly Journal. 
 The part on which the heat acts consists of a rod or wire of 
 platina, about ten inches in length, and about a seventh of 
 an inch in diameter, placed within a tube of black lead 
 ware, and having one end lixed at the bottom of the tube: 
 to the other end is attached a fine wire of platina, which, 
 after passing two or three times round the axis of a wheel, 
 is fastened to a spring by which it is always preserved at 
 the same degree of tension. The teeth of the wheel play 
 into a pinion, the axis of which carries an index, whose 
 revolution show.-, on a greatly magnified scale, the expan- 
 sion and contraction of tin- platina rod. With this instru- 
 ment experiments u ere made to determine the fusing points 
 of the different metals; the results agreed nearly with those 
 of Morveau, but differed widely from those of Wedgwood. 
 Blr. Danieii subsequently made great Improvements upon 
 this apparatus, or rather invented a second pyrometer, 
 which is described in the Phil, '/'am*., for 1830, and the 
 Phil. Magazine for 1831 and 1832. 
 
 For Mr. Prtnsep's method of determining high tempera- 
 tures from the fusing points of pun- metals and different 
 metallic alloys, see Phil. Trans., 1828; or Phil. Mag., new 
 s dee, vol. hi. (See Library of Useful Knowledge ; Grego- 
 ry's Mechanics ; Encyc, Brit.) 
 
 PYKo.Mu'it-i'iilTK. (Gr.irop, and uopfa, form.) Native 
 phosphate of lead. When healed before the blowpipe, it 
 fuses into a globule, which assumes a polj hedral crystalline 
 form as ii cools. 
 
 PY'ROPE. (Gr. nvp, and tod/, the eye.) A fiery or bril- 
 liant red garnet 
 
 PYROTHORUS. (Gr. trap, and <btpu>, / bear.) A sub- 
 stance which spontaneous!) takes lire when exposed to air, 
 tttomberg'e pyrophorus is made by mixing equal weights of 
 
 Blum and brown sugar, and stirring the mixture OVW the 
 fire in an iron ladle till quite dry; it is then put into an 
 earthen or coated glass bottle, and heated red-hot so long as 
 1010 
 
 PYRRHIC DANCE. 
 
 a flame appears at the mouth ; it is then removed, carefully 
 stopped, and suffered to cool. The black powder which it 
 contains becomes flowing hot when exposed lor a few 
 minutes to the air : the experiment succeeds best in a dam'' 
 state of the atmosphere, and the ignition is frequently ac- 
 Celerated by breathing upon the powder. A mixture of 3 
 parts of lampblack, 4 of dried alum, and 8 of carbonate of 
 potassa, may be substituted for the above, and calcined in 
 the same way: -27 pans of sulphate of potassa and 15 of 
 calcined lampblack, heated to redness in a crucible, and 
 then carefully preserved out of contact of air, also yields a 
 good pyrophorus. 
 
 It appears from Gay Lussac's experiments that the essen- 
 tial ingredient in pyrophorus is sulphuret of potassium ; the 
 charcoal and alumina only act by being interposed between 
 its particles ; but, when the mass once kindles, the charcoal 
 takes fire and prolongs the combustion. An excellent pyro- 
 phorus is afforded by heating tartrate of lead red-hot in a 
 glass tube, in which it may afterwards be hermetically 
 sealed. When the tube is broken, and the black powder 
 within it shaken out through the air, it bums with the emis- 
 sion of a dense smoke of oxide of lead. This curiously 
 shows the spontaneous Inflammability of minutely divided 
 lead. 
 
 PYRO'RTHITE. (Gr. ™p, and opfloc, straight.) A 
 mineral resembling orthite, but differently affected by heat. 
 
 PYRO'SIS. (Gr. -rrvpou), I burn.) A disease of the 
 stomach, attended by a binning sensation, and the throwing 
 up of a quantity of saline and sour fluid; it is sometimes 
 called water brash and black water: it is a variety of heart- 
 burn. 
 
 PYRO'SMALITE. (Gr. vvp, oouv, odour, and hQos, a 
 stone.) A native submuriate of iron, which, when heated, 
 exhales the odour of chlorine. 
 
 PY'ROSOME, Pyrosoma. (Gr. -rep, and auua, a body.) 
 The generic name of certain compound Ascidians, remarka- 
 ble for the brilliant phosphoric luminosity which they emit. 
 
 PY'ROTE'CIINY (Gr. Trip, and rex'-n, art), signifies, in 
 its widest sense, the art or science which teaches the man- 
 agement and application of tire to certain operations ; but 
 it is most usually restricted to those articles and instruments 
 manufactured for amusement, or for grand public occasions. 
 The origin of artificial fireworks is lost in obscurity. They 
 were in general use in China long before their introduction 
 into Europe, winch is comparatively of recent date. The 
 finest inventions of this kind are due to the celebrated Rug- 
 gieri, father and son, who executed in Home and Paris, and 
 the principal capitals of Europe, the most brilliant tirew orks 
 that were ever seen. 
 
 Fireworks are divided into three classes : 1. Those to be 
 Bet off Upon the ground; -2. Those which are shot up into 
 the air ; and 3. Those which act upon or under water. 
 
 The three prime materials of this art are, nitre, sulphur, 
 and charcoal, along with filings of iron, steel, copper, zinc, 
 and resin, camphor, lycopodium, &c. Gunpowder is used 
 either in grain, half crushed, or finely ground, for different 
 purposes. The longer the iron filings, the brighter red and 
 white sparks they give ; those being preferred which are 
 made xxith a very coarse file, and quite free from rust. 
 Sieel filings and cast-iron borings contain carbon, and afford 
 a more brilliant fire, with wavy radiations. Copper filings 
 give a greenish tint to flame, those of zinc a fine blue 
 colour ; the sulphuret of antimony gives a less greenish blue 
 than zinc, but with much smoke; amber affords a yellow 
 fire, as well as colophony and common salt; but the last 
 must be very dry. Lampblack produces a very red colour 
 with gunpowder, and a pink with nitre in excess. It serves 
 for making golden showers. The yellow sand. or glistening 
 
 mica, communicates to fire-Works golden radiations. Ver- 
 digris imparts a pale green; sulphate of copper and sal- 
 ammoniac, a palm-tree green. Camphor yields a very 
 u bite Same and aromatic fumes, which mask the bad smell 
 of other substances. Benzoin and storax are used also on 
 account of their agreeable odour. Lycopodnuu burns with 
 
 a rose colour and a magnificenl Same ; but it is principally 
 employed in theatres to represenl lightning, or to charge the 
 torch of a fury. (Bee, for full information as to the various 
 processes adopled m the construction of fire-works, Ure'a 
 1/1, i. ot . irts, At, art. " Fireworks.") 
 n &OXENE. [Gr. irvp, and leuos, a, stranger.) The 
 
 iitustti-, supposed to have pre-existed in the volcanic mine- 
 rals containing it, and acfl to have been formed by fire. 
 PYROXY'LIC SPIRIT. (Gr. imp, and \v\ov, wood.) 
 i of the products of Hie destructive distillation off 
 wood. Its specific gravity when rectified is 0*804 : it boila 
 at 150 II burns \vith a blue flame, and ma*j be used as ■ 
 substitute for alcohol in lamps. ior which purpose it is often 
 .-"id under the name of naphtha. It is assumed to be the 
 hydrate of a peculiar hydrocarbon which chemists have 
 d by the term methylene (from ni0v,wine, and v\n, 
 
 PI KK11IC DANCE, called by the Romans Pyrrhfca
 
 PYRRHONISTS. 
 
 Ealtalio. A species of warlike dance, said to have been 
 invented by Pyrrhus to grace the funeral of his father 
 Achilles, though this point is involved in obscurity. This 
 dance consisted chiefly in such an adroit and nimble turning 
 of the body as represented an attempt to avoid the strokes 
 of an enemy in battle, and the motions necessary to perform 
 it were looked upon as a kind of training for the field of 
 battle. This dance is supposed to be described by Homer 
 as engraved on the shield of Achilles. Lord Byron describes 
 the Suliotes as still performing this dance (Childe Harold) ; 
 and in the famous fide on the aspirations of Greece after 
 liberty, he exclaims: 
 
 " You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet ; 
 Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone? 
 Of two such lessons why forget 
 The nobler and the manlier one ?" 
 
 PY'RRHONISTS. The followers of Pyrrho, a philoso- 
 pher of Elis, and disciple of Anaxarchus, who flourished 
 about 300 B.C. Their tenets, which have come to us only 
 through the reports of unfriendly writers, are said to have 
 been so absurdly sceptical, that the Pyrrhonists would not 
 put even as much confidence in the senses as was necessary 
 tor the preservation of their existence ; but this seems partly 
 refuted by the age at which Pyrrho himself died, which 
 was 90 years. There is a summary of the doctrines of Pyr- 
 rhonism" in the 2d vol. of the historical part of the Encyc. 
 Jiletropolitana. See Scepticism. 
 
 PYTHAGORE'ANS. The followers of Pythagoras, a 
 native of Samos, born B.C. 570 ; said to have been the first 
 Greek who assumed the title of a philosopher. Pythagoras, 
 after travelling through Egypt and the East in search of 
 instruction, finally fixed his abode at Crotona, one of the 
 Dorian colonies in the south of Italy. He here attached to 
 himself n large number of youths of noble descent, whom 
 he formed into a secret fraternity for religious and political 
 as well as philosophical purposes ; and by their assistance 
 produced many beneficial changes in the institutions of 
 Croton and the other Grreco-Italian cities. Of the strictly 
 philosophical tenets of the Pythagoreans very imperfect 
 records are preserved. Many of the doctrines ordinarily 
 imputed to them are evidently the fabrication of the later 
 Pythagoreans, a class of visionaries who lived during the 
 decline of the Roman empire. The fragments of Philolaus, 
 apparently a genuine follower of Pythagoras, have been 
 collected by Boeckh ; but these, combined with what ac- 
 counts we can glean from Plato, Aristotle, and others, are 
 far from being sufficient to give us the information necessary 
 for a clear understanding of this very singular system. One 
 point is sufficiently evident, that the Pythagoreans were the 
 greatest mathematicians of their time, and that they sought 
 in the study of mathematical relations that solution of the 
 principal philosophical problems for which their contempo- 
 raries, the Ionic and Eleatic philosophers, sought, the first 
 in physical, the others in ontological hypotheses. Bearing 
 this peculiarity distinctly in mind, the student of the history 
 of philosophy will be prepared for much in the Pythagorean 
 doctrine which would otherwise seem capricious and unin- 
 telligible. To reduce the phenomena presented to the senses 
 to harmony with the laws of reason is the first endeavour 
 of philosophical thinkers: to determine its own limits, and 
 the necessary laws of its operation, is among the last of the 
 problems of which the reason enters on the solution. The 
 relations of space and quantity, as they are the most obvious, 
 are also the most distinct and definite forms, in which the 
 laws of the outward world can present themselves to this 
 faculty. We cannot, therefore, feel surprise when we dis- 
 cover in the early mathematicians that error which has 
 more or less prevailed among all great mathematicians who 
 meddled with philosophy — the error of striving to enlarge 
 the domain of their favourite science beyond its legitimate 
 bounds. Precisely as the atomic philosophers have en- 
 deavoured to explain all things by a diversity in the figure 
 of their ultimate parts, the Pythagoreans seemed to have 
 found, in the number and proportions of those parts, the 
 true essence of the things themselves. Having proceeded 
 thus far, they went a step farther. They perceived that 
 the universe and its parts are obedient to certain laws, and 
 that these laws can be expressed by numbers. By a mis- 
 take prevalent during every period of speculation, they 
 mistook the necessary conditions of a thing's subsistence 
 for the essence of that thing itself, and at once pronounced 
 that numerical relations were not merely all that could be 
 understood in outward phenomena, but were, in fact, all 
 that was real in them. Units of number grew gradually 
 into points in space, and these into material atoms. To 
 every order of existence, even to many abstract conceptions, 
 a distinct number was assigned. God is represented as the 
 original unity ; the human soul, the earth, the planets, the 
 animal creation, have each their own peculiar arithmetical 
 essence ; as have also the abstractions justice, opportunity 
 (icaipds), opinion, &c. In many of these numbers, it is not 
 difficult to imagine a symbolical meaning ; but how far any 
 
 QUADRANT. 
 
 such meaning was contemplated by the Pythagoreans must 
 remain matter of doubt. 
 
 The outlines of a dualislic scheme are discernible in a 
 singular table of opposites (crvoroixia), preserved to us by 
 Aristotle, in which the two principles of the universe are 
 successively represented under the form of limit and the 
 unlimited, odd and even, one and many, right and left, male 
 and female, still and moved, straight and curved, light and 
 darkness, good and evil, square and oblong. 
 
 But it would far fljxceed our limits to enumerate the 
 various fanciful disguises under which the Pythagoreans 
 voluntarily or involuntarily concealed the result of their 
 meditations. Their moral system is more intelligible, being 
 founded, as the tone of their general doctrines would lead 
 us to anticipate, on the ideas of law and harmony. Every 
 state, and every member of a state, is to exhibit, each in his 
 degree, a miniature resemblance of the universal constitu- 
 tion of the world. This essentially Greek idea they sought 
 to realize in themselves by a long course of propedeutic 
 discipline, in which music plays a conspicuous part. That 
 the Pythagoreans were strongly influenced by their doctrines, 
 is sufficiently apparent in the length of time during which 
 their brotherhood continued. Philolaus, Lysis, Cleinias, 
 Eurythes, and Archytes, in all probability genuine Pytha- 
 goreans, were contemporaries of Plato and Socrates. (See 
 ThirlwalVs Hist, of Greece, vol. ii., c. 12. ; Hitter's Hist, 
 of Philosophy, b. iv. ; Boeckh's Philolaus, &c.) 
 
 The doctrine of metempsychosis, or the transmigration of 
 souls through different orders of animal existence, is the 
 main feature by which the Pythagorean philosophy is 
 popularly known. It is, however, by no means certain 
 that the genuine Pythagoreans held this doctrine in a literal 
 sense. It may have been only a mythical way of commu- 
 nicating their belief in the individuality and post mortem 
 duration of the soul. 
 
 PY'THIAN GAMES. One of the four great national 
 festivals of Greece, celebrated every fifth year in honour 
 of Apollo, near Delphi. Their institution is variously re- 
 ferred to Amphictyon, son of Deucalion, founder .of the 
 council of Amphictyons, and Dionied, son of Tydeus ; but 
 the most common legend is, that they were founded by 
 Apollo himself, after he had overcome the dragon Python. 
 The contests were the same as those at Olympia, and the 
 victors were rewarded with apples and garlands of laurel. 
 As is well known, the priestess who delivered the oracle at 
 Delphi was called Pythia. See Delphi. 
 
 PY'THON. (Gr. vvduiv.) The name of a genus of 
 large non-venomous Ophidian reptiles, having anal hooks, 
 and a double series of sub-caudal scuta?. 
 
 PYX. The name given to the box in which the host is 
 kept by the Roman Catholic priesthood. 
 
 PYXI'DIUM. (Gr. nvfa, a small box.) A fruit which 
 divides circularly into a lower and upper half, of which the 
 latter acts as a kind of lid. 
 
 PY'XIS NAUTICA. The Mariner's Compass. A con- 
 stellation of the southern hemisphere, formed by Lacaille. 
 
 PYX, TRIAL OF. See Coinage. 
 
 a. 
 
 Q. (Fr. queue, a tail ; its form being that of O with a 
 tail.) In all the languages in which it is used it is invaria- 
 bly followed by u. Q. is used as an abbreviation for ques- 
 tion : Qy. for query ; Q. E. D. for quod erat demonstran- 
 dum, which was to be demonstrated, &c. 
 
 QUADRAGE'SIMA. (Lat. fortieth.) In the Calendar, 
 a term applied to the time of Lent, because it consists of 
 about forty days. Quadragesima Sunday is the first Sun- 
 day in Lent, and about the fortieth day before Easter. 
 
 QUADRA'NGLE. In Geometry, a plane figure having 
 four angles, and consequently four sides. 
 
 QUA'DRANS. A division of the Roman as, consisting 
 of one fourth of it, or three ounces when the as was of its 
 full weight. (See As, Teruncius.) A farthing. Before 
 Edward I. the smallest coin was a penny or starling. It 
 was marked with a cross, so as to admit of being quartered ; 
 but, to avoid unfair cutting, half pence and farthings were 
 coined in the above reign. 
 
 QUA'DRANT. In Geometry, the fourth part of a cir- 
 cle ; an arc of 90 degrees. 
 
 Quadrant is also a mathematical instrument, formerly 
 much used in astronomy and navigation. The instrument 
 is variously contrived and fitted up, according to the purpose 
 for which it is intended ; but it consists essentially of a limb 
 or arch of a circle equal to the fourth of the circumference, 
 and divided into 90°, with subdivisions. The mural qua- 
 drant is of considerable size (6 or 8 feet radius, for example), 
 the axes of which moves in a wall or solid piece of mason- 
 ry. Ptolemy, in the Almagest, describes a quadrant with 
 which he determined the obliquity of the ecliptic. Tycho 
 
 1011
 
 aUADRANTAL TRIANGLE. 
 
 Brahe had D large mural quadrant for observing altitudes, 
 and others which revolved on a vertical axis fol measuring 
 azimuths. Picart, in his measurement of the earth, used a 
 quadrant for his terrestrial angles. In 1725 a mural qua- 
 drant, by Graham, was erected in the Royal Observatory al 
 
 IWich, which, in 1750, was replaced by Bird's quadrant, 
 
 with which Bradley made his celebrated observations. The 
 
 quadrant has, however, of late years been entirely super- 
 seded by the mi.™/ circle; it having been found that tiie 
 circle, on account of the symmetry ojfcits form, and the ad- 
 vantage which it possesses of allowing the readings to be 
 made at different parts of the limb, is an instrument much 
 more to be relied on. (See Mcral Circle.) Hadley'a 
 quadrant, ill its principle and application, is the same as the 
 i it. by which it lias been superseded. (Sec Sextant ) 
 For further information respecting the quadrant, see La- 
 lande, Astronomic, s. 3311. ; I'mcc's Practical Astronomy; 
 Pearson's Practical Astronomy ; and the Penny Cyclopedia. 
 
 QUADRANT, in Gunnery, or the gunner's square, is an in- 
 strument used for elevating and pointing cannon, mortars, 
 &c. It consists of two rectangular branches of wood or 
 brass, having a quadrantal ar. h between them, divided into 
 90°, and furnished with a thread and plummet. One of the 
 branches being placed in I lie mouth of the piece, the de- 
 gree intersected by the thread on the limb shows the ele- 
 vation. 
 
 QUADRAN'TAL TRIANGLE, in Trigonometry, is a 
 spherical triangle which has one side equal to a quarter of 
 a circle, cr 90°. 
 
 QUA'DRANT OF ALTITUDE. An appendix to an 
 artificial globe, consisting of a tliin pliable slip of brass, 
 which is applied to the globe, and used as a scale for mea- 
 suring the distances between points in degrees. It is gra- 
 duated into 90°, the degrees being of the same length as 
 those on one of the great circles of the globe. At the end 
 where the division terminates a nut is rivetted on, and fur- 
 nished with a screw, by which it is attached to the brass 
 meridian of the globe at any point. This point being placed 
 in the .zenith, and the quadrant applied to the globe, its 
 zero coincides with the horizon, and consequently the alti- 
 tude of any point along its graduated edge is indicated by 
 the corres(ionding division. 
 
 aUADRA'TIU EQUATION, in Algebra, is an equation 
 of the second degree, or one which involves the second 
 power, or square, of the unknown quantity. 
 
 Quadratic equations are of two kinds, incomplete and 
 complete. The incomplete equation is that which contains 
 only terms affected by the square, and not by the simple 
 power of the unknown quantity. It is also called an equa 
 tion of two terms, because by means of proper reductions 
 of the known quantities, it may always be put under the 
 form a xi = b ; or a pure quadratic, because, on dividing by 
 the coefficient of x 2 , it contains only the square of the un- 
 known quantity in one term, or is of the form x 2 = c. 
 
 The complete quadratic equation consists of three terms, 
 containing the square of the unknown quantity in one, the 
 simple power in another, and the known quantities in a 
 third. It is also called an affected quadratic, and its general 
 form is a xl -f- 4 x -f- c ='0. 
 
 When the proposed equation consists of only two terms, 
 the method of finding the value of the unknown quantity 
 is obvious. Let the equation after reduction be z 2 — p, 
 then i = v/p. Now, if p be a number, its square root, 
 which is the value of x, can either be found exactly, or to 
 any required degree of approximation ; and if p be an alge- 
 braic quantity, its square root will be found either exactly 
 or approximately by the ordinary methods of extraction. 
 There is, however, a circumstance respecting the sign of the 
 root which must be attended to. The root of any quantity 
 may be either positive or negative, because the square of 
 -J- a and of — a is equally a- ; whence y/ai = ^ a, and the 
 equation x 2 = p gives two values of x, namely, x=.-\-^/p, 
 and x = — y/p. 
 
 As the square of any quantity, whatever be its sign, is 
 always positive, it follows that a negative quantity can 
 never be formed by the multiplication of any real quantity 
 into itself, and hence an equation of the form i*— — p 
 can have no real root. When such an equation occurs in 
 the solution of a problem in which Only real quantities are 
 concerned, it shows that some contradiction is involved, 
 either in the data, or in the reasoning by which that result 
 has been produced. 
 
 A complete quadratic equation is always reducible to the 
 form i2 -f- a x = ^ b ; and in order to deduce from it the 
 value of x, it is necessary to add some known quantity to 
 both sides by which the first will be rendered an exact 
 square. The square of the binomial x-\- u, is x 2 -f- 2uz-f- 
 ui ; on comparing this with z 2 + ax, it Is evident that if we 
 suppose a = 2 u, or u = Jo, and consequently u 2 = $ a 2 , the 
 quantities j-' -j- 2 « x -f- ul and z 2 -\-az-\- i ft 2 will be equal ; 
 and therefore, since x 2 + 2 u z-f- u 2 is tin- square of sr.4- u, 
 no x 2 -f- a x -f i at must be the square of x + i o 2 , which is 
 1012 
 
 QUADRATIC EQUATION. 
 
 equal to x -f- «. If, therefore, the proposed equation be x'3 
 -\- ax = b, let i a 2 be added to both sides, and it becomes I 
 -f-ai-)-ia 2 = ia 2 + A, which, on extracting the square 
 
 root, gives r -f- A a = i ^ - -\-b ; therefore, by transposi- 
 
 In like manner, it will appear that, if the proposed equa- 
 tion were x 2 — az — b , the e quation giving the value of x 
 
 will he x — t f = ± v -r + b; whence x= - ^ v !L -f_ j,. 
 
 The quantity b retains the same sign in the resolved as in 
 the original equation. 
 
 From these considerations the rales for the solution of 
 quadratic equations in general follow so obviously that it is 
 unnecessary to state them in form. The double sign, how- 
 ever, which appears in the root, and which shows that the 
 unknown quantity in every quadratic equation has two dis- 
 tinct values, requires some further attention. 
 
 Taking an example in numbers, let the proposed equation 
 he x2 -+■ 2 x = 35. Adding to each side the square of half 
 the coefficient of x, or of 1, it becomes x 2 -J- 2 x -|- 1 = 36 ; 
 whence x-f- l = -f 6, and, consequently, z = — 1^0; that 
 is, x = -f-5, or x = — 7. Now, if we transpose the abso- 
 lute term of the proposed equation x- -f- 2 i = 35 to the left 
 side, it becomes x 2 -f- 2 x — 35 = ; and it is easy to see 
 (and may be proved by actual multiplication), that r--(-2x 
 
 — 35 arises from the product of two factors i — 5 and x-f- 
 7; therefore (x — 5) (x -f- 7) = 0. But this last equation 
 may be satisfied in two ways, viz. either by making c — 5 
 = 0, or by making x + 7 = 0. If x — 5 = 0, then x=5; 
 and if x-f- 7 = 0, then x = — 7. There are two values of 
 x. therefore, which alike satisfy the proposed equation 
 nearly, -f- 5 and — 7, and these are the two roots found 
 above by the direct solution. 
 
 What has been now said in respect of the particular ex- 
 ample is true of quadratic equations in general. Every ex- 
 pression of the form x 2 + a x — b is decomposable into two 
 factors, x — p and x-\-q, in which p and q are quantities in- 
 dependent of x, and depending only on a and b. Hence the 
 equation z 2 -f-ax — 6 = is identical with the equation (x 
 
 — p) (x-f-c) = 0; and this last is obviously satisfied alike 
 by making i — ;) = 0, or by making x-f- <,=0, that is, by x 
 = +p or x = — q. 
 
 It follows, therefore, that every quadratic equation has 
 necessarily two roots, and it is obvious that it can have no 
 more than two ; for if it could be supposed to have three, 
 or any greater number, then the expression xi -\- a x — b 
 would be resolvable into as many separate factors of the 
 form x — p, x — q, x — r, &.C But this is evidently impos- 
 sible ; for the product of three such factors would necessa- 
 rily contain the third power of x, or x3 which the given 
 equation does not. The resolution of equations into as 
 many factors as there are roots is a property belonging to 
 equations of every degree. See Equations. 
 
 The consideration of the nature of the factors into which 
 the proposed equation can be resolved leads to some im- 
 portant consequences. The hypothesis x 2 -f- a x — b = (x — 
 p) (x-f- q) gives x 2 -f- ax — 4 = z 2 — (p — q) s — pq ; whence, 
 since z is an inde erminate quantity, we must have a = — 
 (p — q) and b — pq. Now, since + /) and — q are the two 
 roots of the equation x 2 + a x = b, it is evident that p — a is 
 their sum, and — pq their product; therefore, because d — 
 e = — a, the sum of the two roots of any quadratic x 2 + 
 a x = b is equal to the coefficient of the second term, having 
 its sign changed ; and their product is equal to the absolute 
 number or term which does not contain i, having its sign 
 also changed. 
 
 The roots of quadratic equations may he exhibited by a 
 geometrical construction. All quadratics belong to one of 
 the four forms, 
 
 x 2 + a x =s b c, z 2 — ai = Jc, 
 z 2 + ax = — be, x2 — a x = — be. 
 
 Now to construct the first form, let a circle be described 
 on a diameter = a. or radius 
 = A a : in the circle inflect a 
 straight line, A B = b — e, 
 and produce it to C, so that 
 AC = (, and consequently e[- 
 B C = c ; and draw C D E 
 through the centre O, meet- 
 ing the circle in 1) and F. ; 
 then C D and C E are the 
 two roots of the equation. For let C D = x, then C E = z 
 4- a. and the rectangle C D • C E = x (x -f- a) = r 2 + a x. 
 lint by construction C A • CB = i C and by the property of 
 tin' circle C D'CE=C A'CB; therefore, ii-f« = Jc, 
 which was the equation given. 
 
 To construct the second form, namely, x 2 — a x = 4 c, let 
 C E = x ; then C" D = x — a, and, consequently, C E • C D
 
 Q.UADRATO. 
 
 = i(i-«) = i ! -«; but, as before, C E ■ CD=C A- 
 CB = ic; therefore z 2 — m = ic, and the roots of the 
 equation are C E and C D. In these two cases, if b — c = 
 0, the straight line C B A becomes a tangent to the circle ; 
 and if b — c be greater than a, another line may be taken 
 which is a mean proportional between b and c, and which 
 will lie the tangent to the circle, so that the construction is 
 possible in all cases. 
 To construct the fourth form, z 2 — a x = — b c, let a cir- 
 cle be described with the radius \ a as 
 before, and inflect in it a straight line 
 A B = b -j- c ; take A C = ft, and 
 through C and the centre O draw the 
 diameter E D ; then E C and C D are 
 the two roots of the equation or values 
 of x. For, since E D = a, if E C = z, 
 then CD = « — z, and therefore E C ■ 
 CD = i!«-i) = «x-irJ. ButEC- 
 CD=AC'CB = k; therefore a x 
 
 x 2=zb c; or z 2 — a x — — be. The same construction 
 
 gives the third form, x 2 + a x = — b c ; but the two roots are 
 in this case both negative, namely — EC and — CD. 
 
 Hence it follows that every geometrical problem produc- 
 ing a quadratic equation can be constructed by means of a 
 circle and straight lines; and, reciprocally, all probletns re- 
 specting circles and straight lines may be resolved algebrai- 
 cally by means of quadratic equations. 
 
 QUADRA'TO, or QUA'DRO. (It.) In Music, a name 
 given to the note B in the natural or diatonic scale, marked 
 thus a, being a semitone minor higher than B mol or [). 
 
 QUADRA'TRIX. In Geometry, a transcendal curve, by 
 means of which the quadrature of curvilinear spaces can 
 be determined mechanically The best known of these 
 curves is the Quadratrix of Dinostratus, so called from its 
 reputed inventor, a brother of Menechmus and disciple of 
 Plato. This curve is generated as fol- 
 lows — 
 
 In the circular quadrant CAB, sup- 
 pose the radius C A to revolve uniform- 
 ly about C, passing through the different 
 positions C K, C k, &c, till it arrives at 
 the position C B ; and that during the 
 J B same time a line A L, at right angles to 
 C A, moves parallel to itself with a uni- 
 form motion from the position A L, passing through the dif- 
 ferent positions M N, m n, &c, and arriving at C B at the 
 same instant that C K coincides with C B ; then the con- 
 tinual intersection of the revolving radius and the parallel 
 line will trace the quadratrix A P Q,. 
 
 From this mode of describing the curve, it is easy to see 
 how it may be applied to divide an angle into any number 
 of equal parts. Let it be required, for example, to trisect 
 the angle A C k. Having applied the quadratrix to C A, 
 take A M equal to a third of A m, and through M draw M X 
 perpendicular to A C, meeting the curve in P; join C P, 
 and the angle A C P is equal to one third of A C k ; for by 
 the nature of the quadratrix A M : A m : : A K : A k. 
 
 The application of this curve to the quadrature of the 
 circle depends on the property that the line C Q. is a third 
 proportional to the quadrantal arc A B, and the radius. 
 
 Hence the arc AB= ' , and consequently the area of 
 
 CB3 
 
 the quadrant C A B = j . 
 
 If the quadratrix be continued beyond A, without the cir- 
 cle, it will consist of a series of infinite hyperbolic branches, 
 cutting the axis C A produced, in points which are separa- 
 ted from each other by a space equal to 2 A C. 
 
 Other curves may be formed in a similar manner, by 
 which the quadrature of the circle would be obtained. 
 Thus, instead of supposing the lines M N, m n to be inter- 
 sected by the radiants CK, C k, we may suppose straight 
 lines drawn from K k parallel to A C, intersecting M N, m 
 n in r and s ; these intersections form a different curve, 
 which is called the Quadratrix of Tscfiirnhausen. 
 
 Let A M = x, M P — y, and A C = a ; then, since x : a : : 
 
 Hence the equa- 
 
 2 a' 
 
 A K : A B, or i t, we have AK = 
 tion of the quadratrix of Dinostratus is y = (a — x) tan. 
 ; and that of the quadratrix of Tschirnhausen y = a 
 
 2 a 
 
 7T X 
 
 sin. -g — . (Montucla, Histoire des Mathematiques ; Pea- 
 cock's Collection of Examples ; Leslie's Geometry of Curve 
 Lines.) 
 
 QUA'DRATURE, in Astronomy, denotes the position of 
 the moon when she is 90° from the sun, or at one of the 
 two points of her orbit equally distant from the conjunction 
 and opposition. 
 
 Quadrature, in Geometry, signifies the determination 
 
 aUADRICORNS. 
 
 of the area of a curve, or finding an equal square. The 
 differential element of the area of a curve referred to rect- 
 angular co-ordinates is y d x ; and since y is given in terms 
 of x by the equation of the curve of which the area is pro- 
 posed to be found, the problem of quadratures in general 
 reduces itself to the integration of the differential X d x, in 
 which X is an algebraic function of x and known quanti- 
 ties. In the applications of the higher geometry, a problem 
 is conceived to be resolved when it is reduced to quadra- 
 tures; that is, when the variable quantities have been sep- 
 arated, and its solution been made to depend on finding the 
 
 values of one or more integrals of the form / X d x. In 
 
 the case of some curves, parabolas, for example, of differ- 
 ent orders, expressed by the equation y m := a zn, the inte- 
 gral is found in finite terms ; in regard to other curves, the 
 circle, for example, it can be represented by a converging 
 series ; but it frequently happens, especially in the applica- 
 tions to physical astronomy, that the expression represented 
 
 by X is too complicated to allow of the integral / X a" z 
 
 being found by a converging series ; and when this occurs, 
 the only thing that can be done is to rind values of it for 
 particular cases only, that is to say, for portions of the area 
 corresponding to values of x, taken within certain limits. 
 The method of quadratures accordingly forms an important 
 branch of the Integral Calculus. 
 
 The quadrature of the circle is a problem of great celeb- 
 rity in the history of mathematical science. The whole 
 circular area being equal to the rectangle under the radi- 
 us, and a straight line equal to half the circumference, the 
 quadrature would be obtained if the length of the circum- 
 ference were assigned ; and hence the particular object 
 aimed at in attempting to square the circle is the determina- 
 tion of the ratio of the circumference to the diameter. 
 This ratio can only be expressed by infinite series, of which 
 many have been given that converge with great rapidity. 
 See Circle. 
 
 It is necessary to make a distinction between the definite 
 and the indefinite quadrature. The definite quadrature 
 would be that which would give either the area of the 
 whole circle, or of some particular portion of it, without 
 giving that of every other portion ; the indefinite quadrature 
 would give the area of any sector whatever, or the length 
 of any arc which could be assigned. James Gregory un- 
 dertook to demonstrate that the definite quadrature is im- 
 possible ; Huygens, however, objected to his reasoning ; and 
 the opinion of geometers seems to be, that no satisfactory 
 demonstration has yet been given of the absolute impossi- 
 bility of solving the problem. It has indeed been proved by 
 Lambert and Legendre that the ratio of the circumference 
 to the diameter, and its square, are irrational numbers. 
 But irrational quantities may be susceptible of geometrical 
 construction ; and if a straight line equal to the circumfer- 
 ence of a circle having a given radius could be constructed 
 geometrically, the quadrature of the circle would be accom- 
 plished, although the length of the line could not be ex- 
 pressed by a finite number. With regard to the indefinite 
 quadrature. Newton has demonstrated in the Pnncipia 
 (though in a manner not altogether unobjectionable) that 
 no curse which returns into itself, like the circle or ellipse, 
 is susceptible of it. 
 
 Numerous pretenders to the discovery of the quadrature 
 of the circle have appeared at various times, and occasion- 
 ally present themselves even at the present day. They are 
 only to be found among those who have an imperfect 
 knowledge of the principles of geometry ; and when their 
 reasoning happens to be intelligible, their paralogisms are 
 in general easily detected. With a view to discourage the 
 futile attempts so frequently made on this and similar sub- 
 jects, the Academy of Sciences of Paris, in 1775, publicly an- 
 nounced, that it would not examine in future any paper 
 pretending to the quadrature of the circle, the trisection of 
 an angle, the duplication of the cube, or the discovery of the 
 perpetual motion ; and shortly after the Royal Society 
 adopted a similar resolution. For the history of this fa- 
 mous problem, see the third supplement to the 4th volume 
 of Montucla. 
 
 It was stated in the article Circle that the approxima- 
 tion to the numerical ratio of the circumference to the di 
 ameter had been computed by De Laguy to 128 places of 
 decimals. It should have been added, that the approxima- 
 tion was carried by Vega to 140 figures ; and Montucla 
 mentions a MS. in the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, in which 
 it is carried to 154 figures. Very recently (May, 1841; a 
 paper was communicated by Mr. Rutherford of Woolwich 
 to the Royal Society, in which the number is extended to 
 208 places of decimals, and which is presumed to be accu- 
 rate to the last figure, the computations having been actu- 
 ally- carried to 210 figures 
 
 QTJA'DRICORNS, Quadricornia. (Lat. quatuor, four, 
 and cornu, a horn.) The name of a family of Apterous 
 
 1013
 
 aUADRIFORES. 
 
 insects, comprehending those which have four antennae. A 
 species of antelope With four horns is called Antilope quad- 
 rieornie. 
 
 aUA'DRIFORES, Qnadrifera. (Lat. quatuor. and foro, 
 / fierce.) A name given by Latrcille to a family of 
 Sessile Cirripeds, comprehending those in which the oper- 
 cular covering of the tube is composed of four valves or 
 calcareous pieces. 
 
 HI ADRI'GA. (I, at. quatuor, and jugum, a yoke.) In 
 Antiquity, a car or chariot drawn by four horses, which 
 were harnessed all abreast, and not in pairs. The quadri- 
 ga is often met with on the reverse of medals, which are 
 thence termed nummi quadrigati, or victorinti, from then 1 
 being a representation of a figure of Victory holding the 
 reins. 
 
 aUA'DRl HYDROCARBON. A liquid hydrocarbon, 
 in which 4 atoms of hydrogen and 1 of carbon are so com- 
 bined and condensed as to constitute one atom of quadri 
 In drocarbon. 
 
 QUADRILATERAL. (Lat. quatuor, four, and latus, 
 a side.) In Geometry, a plane figure contained by four 
 Straight lines. It comprehends the square parallelogram, 
 reebtngle, rhombus, rhomboid, and trapezium. The most 
 general properties of a quadrilateral figure are the two fol- 
 lowing: 1. The siun of the four angles is equal to four 
 riL'ht angles ; 2. The sum of the squares of the sides is 
 equal to the siun of the squares of the two diagonals to- 
 gether, with four times the square of the straight line which 
 joins the middle points of the diagonals. 
 
 Ui Utlill. \ TERALS, Quadrilatera. (Lat.) Thennme 
 of a tribe of crabs (Brachyurous Crustaceans), comprehend- 
 ing those in which the carapace or shell is more or less 
 square-shaped. 
 
 Ql ADRIPE'NNATES, Quadripennes. (Lat. quatuor, 
 and penna, a icing.) The name of a section of Anelytrous 
 insects. Including those which have four wings. 
 
 QUADRIRE'.ME. (Lat quatuor, and renins, an oar.) 
 A ship of war in use among the ancient Greeks and Ro- 
 mans ; so called because it had four banks of oars. See 
 Galley. 
 
 QUADRISU'LCATES, Quailrisulrata. (Lat. quatuor, 
 and sulcus, a furrow.) A name applied to those Ungulate 
 quadrupeds in which the hoof is divided into four parts, 
 corresponding to the four dibits. 
 
 aUADRI'VIUM. (Lat.) In the language of the schools, 
 the four lesser arts — arithmetic, music, geometry, and as- 
 tronomy. See Triviom, 
 
 QUA'DRUM. In Music, the same as natural, which 
 see. 
 
 aUA'DRUMANES, Quadrumana. (Lat. quatuor, four, 
 and nianus, hand.) The name of an order of Mammals, 
 comprehending those in which the four extremities are ter- 
 minated by a hand; as tho ape, baboon, &c. The hinder 
 extremities are always terminated by more perfect hands 
 than the fore extremities, in which the thumb is some- 
 times wanting, or, as in the South American monkeys, in- 
 capable of being opposed to the other digits. 
 
 aUA'DRUPEDS, Quadrupedia. (Lat. quatuor, four; 
 pes, afoot.) All Vertebrate animals with four extremities 
 fitted for terresirial progression were formerly so called, the 
 scaly reptiles being distinguished, as oviparous quadrupeds, 
 from the hairy, warm-blooded, viviparous four-footed mam- 
 mals. But as there are both reptiles and mammalia which 
 have only two legs, and as those of both classes which 
 agree in having four legs differ essentially in the Important 
 characters on which classific distinctions' are now founded, 
 the term quadruped is no longer used in a strict zoological 
 sense as Indicative of a particular group of animals. 
 
 <il \ 'DRUPLE. in Arithmetic, fourfold; the product 
 of tiny magnitude or quantity multiplied by 4. 
 
 Ql dS'STOR. A Roman magistrate whose office it was 
 to collect the public revenue, whence their name (from 
 qtuero, f teek) was derived. Two qusjstors were originally 
 brj the kin«s In the earliest times of the city; and 
 after their expulsion the appointment remained in the 
 hands of the consuls till the year :107 A.C., when they be- 
 gan to he elected by the people at the Comitia Tributa. 
 Soon after this tun more muestors were appointed to attend 
 the consuls in war ; and from this time they might be cho- 
 sen indifferently from plebeians anil patrician-, the former 
 class having been previously excluded. As the Roman 
 empire was extended over all Italy, and the other countries 
 that finally owned its sway, the number of qUffiSton was 
 increased, so that one was appointed to each consul or 
 prtetOt when he went to his province; and this WSJ dune 
 generally by lot. but - etinies the superior magistrate was 
 
 allowed to choose bis own quaestor. The qtuBstorshlp was 
 the fust step uf preferment which gave admission into the 
 senate; but it was sometimes held by those who had been 
 consuls, Under the emperors the office underwent many 
 ehaagei ; Augustus deprived them of the charge of the 
 u huh he Imposed on the praters, and gave them 
 1014 
 
 aUANTITY. 
 
 the superintendence of the public records; but the former 
 office was restored to them by Claudius. 
 
 aUA'GOA. The name of a Solipedous quadruped, or 
 species of F.ijhus, allied to the zebra. 
 
 QUA'GMIKE. Boggy ground saturated with water to 
 BUCfa a degree as to be mora like mud than firm soil. 
 
 QUAIL. A genus of Gallinaceous birds ( Coturnii, Cuv.), 
 allied to the partridge, but of smaller size, with a more 
 slender beak and shorter tail, and without red eyebrows or 
 spurs. 
 
 QUA'KERS, or FRIENDS. A religious sect, which 
 had its origin in England about the middle of the 17th 
 century, and spread, by the emigration of its members, who 
 were exposed to many restrictions and persecutions in this 
 country, over various parts of Europe and North America. 
 The founder of the sect was George Fox, who, being equal- 
 ly dissatisfied with the tenets of the established church 
 and those of the Puritans, succeeded in attaching to him- 
 self various persons who agreed xvith him in the view 
 which he took of the internal operation of religion on men's- 
 hearts, conceiving it to supersede all the observances of 
 different denominations, nor to be evidenced in any degree 
 by them. The Quakers, therefore, reject both the sacra- 
 ments ; nor do they appoint any order of ministers, but 
 consider the instruction and edification of their congrega- 
 tions to be the proxince of whatsoever person of either 
 sex conceives himself to he impelled thereto at the time 
 by an internal suggestion of the Spirit. Upon doctrinal 
 points, liowex'er, they assert themselves to maintain opin- 
 ions coincident xvith those generally received by the ortho- 
 dox. Their internal affairs are managed by yearly, quar- 
 terly, and monthly meetings, of which the former in this 
 country is held in London, and embraces representatives 
 for all the rest. A similar arrangement takes place among 
 the females of the society, xvho are allowed a considerable 
 share in the management of the affairs of their own sex. 
 
 Tliis society is distinguished in its intercourse xvith the 
 xvorld by great seriousness of deportment, uniform sober- 
 ness in dress, and generally a scrupulous avoidance of 
 ex-erything xvhich can encourage vanity and frivolity. 
 They are all sensitix'ely averse from all matters of cere- 
 mony, xvhich they conceive to have their origin in flattery 
 and deception. Their refusal to take judicial oaths used 
 in former times to subject them to very severe penalties. 
 Up to the accession of James II. their history is an unvaried 
 series of persecutions ; either such as they endured in com* 
 nion xvith other dissenters, or such as were peculiar to 
 themselves in consequence of their refusal to pay tithes 
 and to take oaths. Under Jtunes, the severity of the penal 
 laws xvas relaxed; hut William III. xvas the first prince 
 xvho enacted laws for the especial relief of the Uuakers. 
 From this time, their affirmation is receix-ed in lieu of oath 
 in judicial proceedings; and an alteration in the met bod 
 of levying tithes has been provided, by which their scru- 
 ples are satisfied. (See, among other authorities resent- 
 ing the Quakers, Fox's Journal ; Barclay's Apology, and 
 SevjelPa History of the Rise, A'-e. of theQuakers (1722). 
 The Quakers of the present day are thought to be a de- 
 creasing sect. In 1836, the number of their congregations 
 xvas estimated at 300. (Congregational Magazine*) They 
 are most numerous in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Durham, 
 Cumberland, and Essex. 
 
 QUA'KING BOG. Peat bog in a growing state, and so 
 saturated xvith xvater that a considerable extent of surface 
 xvill quake or shake, xvhen pressed on by the foot or nny 
 other body. Such hogs are unfit for any useful purpose 
 till they are drained. 
 
 QUA'LITY. (Lat. qualis.) In Physics, some property 
 or affection of bodies. Sensible qualities are those which 
 immediately affect the senses; as figure, taste, &.C. 
 
 Qcaltty, in the philosophy of Kant, the second cate- 
 gory (there being four in all), comprising the notions of 
 existence or reality, non-existence or negation, and limi- 
 tation. 
 
 QUA'NTITY. (Lan. quantus, how much.) A property 
 of anything capable of being increased or diminished. 
 Quantity is distinguished Into continued and disrate. It is 
 continued xvhen the parts are connected together, and is 
 then called magnitude, which is the object of geometry. It 
 is discrete when the parts have an unconnected and inde- 
 pendent existence, forming multitude or number, xvhich is 
 
 the object of arithmetic. The quantity of matter in any 
 body is prop or tional conjointly to the magnitude and den- 
 sity of the body, and Is measured by its absolute weight 
 Quantify of motion is used synonymously with momentum, 
 
 to denote the product of the quantity of matter in the 
 moving body by Its velocity. Algebraic quantities are the 
 expressions of indefinite numbers. 
 
 Qt vntity. In Prosody, the amount of time in a sylla- 
 ble. Syllables are either short a? long; the former being 
 the unit or smallest measure of time, the latter consisting 
 of two times. This distinction Ls clearly marked in the 

 
 QUARANTINE. 
 
 ancient languages, in which some syllables are necessarily 
 long or short by position, others by the nature of the vow- 
 els which they contain ; and, in the Latin language, some 
 common, or susceptible of being sounded as long or short, 
 according to certain rules of elegance or convenience. All 
 the metrical system of the ancient languages is founded on 
 quantity. In most modern languages there is, strictly 
 speaking, no quantity, as distinct from emphasis or accent ; 
 the long syllables being those which receive the arsis, the 
 short those which receive the thesis. In the German lan- 
 guage, however, critics have endeavoured to establish a 
 conventional system of quantity, and thus to adapt that lan- 
 guage to regular versification in the ancient Greek and 
 Latin metres. See Rhythm, Metre. 
 
 QUARANTINE. (Ital. quaranto, forty.) A period of 
 time of variable length, during which a vessel from certain 
 coasts or ports, said or supposed to be infected with cer- 
 tain diseases, is not allowed to communicate with the shore, 
 except under particular restrictions. A ship in quaran- 
 tine carries a yellow flag at the main ; and when released 
 from this condition, she is said to obtain pratique. The 
 term is derived from the Ital. quaranto, forty, it being 
 generally supposed that if no infectious disease break out 
 within 40 days or six weeks, no farther danger is to be ap- 
 prehended. It is universally believed that the Venetians 
 were the first to adopt regulations for guarding against the 
 introduction of infected persons into their ports ; but there 
 is now no civilized country in which it is not practised. 
 (For full particulars on the history and policy of quaran- 
 tines, see the Com. Diet.) 
 
 aUA'RE IMPEDIT. In Law, a writ lying for one who 
 has a right of advowson against a person who hinders or 
 disturbs him in his right by presenting a clerk when the 
 church is void. 
 
 QUART. A measure of capacity, being the fourth part 
 of a gallon. See Measures. 
 
 QUA'RTAN. (Lat. quartus, fourth.) A species of in- 
 termittent fever or ague, which returns every fourth day. 
 See Ague. 
 
 QUART A'TION. In Metallurgy, the separation of sil- 
 ver from gold by means of nitric acid. To extract the 
 whole of the silver from gold by the action of nitric acid, 
 it is necessary that there should be at least three parts of 
 silver to one of gold, otherwise the gold protects the silver 
 from the action of the acid ; so that, in thus separating 
 these precious metals, it is customary, where gold greatly 
 predominates, to add silver till it constitutes at least three 
 fourths of the alloy. 
 
 QUA'RTER. The fourth part of anything. As a term 
 of weight, it denotes the fourth of a hundred weight, or 
 28 pounds ; as a dry measure, it signifies the fourth of a 
 chaldron. 
 
 Quarter. The after part of the ship's side. On the 
 quarter, implies the bearing or position of an object seen 
 between abaft and abeam. 
 
 QUARTER DAYS. The days usually regarded in Eng- 
 land and most Continental countries (but not in Scotland) 
 as beginning the four quarters of the year. They are, 
 1. Lady Day (25th of March) ; 2. Midsummer Day (June 
 24th) ; 3. Michaelmas Day (Sept. 29th) ; and 4. Christmas 
 Day (Dec. 25th). 
 
 QUARTER DECK. The portion of the uppermost deck 
 of a ship between the main and mizen masts. This is the 
 " parade" in men-of-war. 
 
 QUA'RTERING. In Heraldry, the division of a shield 
 by two lines, fess-wise and pale-wise, meeting in the centre 
 of the shield. In marshalling, whenever a husband can 
 place his wife's arms on an escutcheon of pretence (see 
 Escutcheon), the children may bear them quarterly, with 
 their own : whence arises the great variety of quarterings 
 in the shields of some families. 
 
 QUARTER MASTER. In the Navy, a petty officer, 
 who, besides other duties of superintendence cons the ship, 
 and attends to her steerage. 
 
 Quarter-master. In the Army, an officer whose busi- 
 ness it is to look after the quarters of the soldiers, and at- 
 tend to their clothing, bread, ammunition, &c. There is a 
 quarter-master attached to every regiment, whether of foot, 
 cavalry, or artillery. 
 
 QUA'RTER ROUND. In Architecture. See Echinus 
 and Ovolo. 
 
 QUARTERS. The stations of a ship's crew in time of 
 action, to which they are summoned by beat of drum, or by 
 the boatswain's pipe. 
 
 QUARTERS and QUARTERING. (Fr. quartiers.) In 
 Architecture, the upright posts in partitions to which the 
 laths are nailed. Quarters are either single or double ; the 
 former being sawn stuff two inches thick, and four inches 
 broad; the latter usually sawn to a scantling four inches 
 square, or four inches by a less width. No quarters should 
 ever be more than fourteen inches apart. Quartering is a 
 term properly applied only to an assemblage of quarters, 
 
 QUEEN. 
 
 though it is not unfrequently used to denote the quarters 
 themselves. 
 
 QUARTER SESSIONS OF THE PEACE. In Law, a 
 court held by two justices at least, one of whom must be 
 of the quorum, quarterly, in every county ; having a juris- 
 diction originally in matters touching the breach of the 
 peace only, but since extended by various statutes. (See 
 Justices of the Peace.) Quarter sessions in boroughs, 
 since the Municipal Corporation Act, are held by the re- 
 corders. 
 
 QUARTER STAFF. A weapon of defence; so called 
 from the manner of using it, one hand being placed in the 
 middle, and the other equally between the middle and end. 
 
 QUA'RTETT. A piece of music arranged for four 
 voices or four instruments. Of the latter the most cele- 
 brated are arranged for two violins — a tenor violin, and a 
 violoncello ; and many of the most distinguished composers, 
 among whom we may mention Haydn, Moz:irt, Beethoven, 
 Romberg, Spohr, Ries, Onslow, &c, have not disdained to 
 devote their talents to this species of composition. The 
 term quartctt, though strictly any piece in four parts, is sel- 
 dom applied except to instrumental pieces. 
 
 QUA'RTILE A'SPECT, in Astrology, denotes the as- 
 pect or appearance of two planets, whose positions are at a 
 distance of 90° on the zodiac. 
 
 QUA'RTINE. The fourth envelope of the vegetable 
 ovuluin, beginning to count from the outside. 
 
 QUARTO. A name given to books composed of sheets 
 of paper folded into four leaves. It is abbreviated 4to. 
 
 QUARTODECIMA'NTES. In Church History, those 
 who imitated the Jews in celebrating Easter on the 14th day 
 of the paschal moon, instead of the Sunday next following, 
 were so called, after they had been excommunicated as 
 heretics by the councils of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephe- 
 sus. See Easter. 
 
 QUARTZ. A German term, now universally adopted 
 in scientific language, and commonly applied in mineralogy 
 to the purer varieties of silica, especially to rock crystal. 
 
 QUASIMO'DO. In the Roman Catholic Calendar, the 
 first Sunday after Easter ; so called because the Introit 
 for that day begins with the words " Quasi modo geniti 
 infantes." "(1 Pet., ii., 1.) It is also called Dominica in 
 nlbis, as being the day on which those who had been bap- 
 tized on Easter Sunday deposited their white robes in the 
 sacristy. 
 
 QUA'SSIA. The wood of the Quassia ercelsa, or ama- 
 ru; a native of South America, and some of the West In- 
 dian islands. It yields an intensely bitter infusion, which 
 may be made with one drachm of the shavings of quassia 
 to a pint of boiling water: of this a wine-glass-full may be 
 taken twice a day, with or without other additions, as a 
 tonic. It is a good vehicle for most of the metallic salts, 
 which are not decomposed by it, as by many other bitter 
 vegetable infusions. A strong infusion of quassia, sweet- 
 ened with brown sugar, is a safe and effective poison for 
 flies. 
 
 QUATRAI'N. (Ital. quattrino.) In Poetry, a piece con- 
 sisting of four verses, the rhymes usually alternate ; some- 
 times also, especially in French poetry, intermixed, the first 
 and fourth, second and third, rhyming together. 
 
 QUA'VER. (Sax. pazian.) In Music, a character, £. 
 whose measure is equal to half a crotchet, or one eighth 
 of a semi breve. 
 
 QUEEN. (Anglo-Sax. cwen, wife.) 1. A female sov- 
 ereign ; entitled queen regnant, or queen regent. She has, 
 in Great Britain, the same power, prerogatives, &c, as a 
 king, which is expressly declared by stat. 1 Mar. 1, St. 3, 
 c. 1. In France, where females do not succeed to the 
 throne, the title queen regent has been given to the mothers 
 of kings holding sovereign authority, or a portion of it, 
 during the minority of their sons; as Catherine de Medicis 
 in the reign of Francis H. ; Mary de Medicis, in that of 
 Louis XIII. 
 
 2. Queen Consort. The wife of a king. Her rights and 
 dignities (in England, as well as most other countries) ap- 
 pear to be similar in many respects to those of the " Augus- 
 ta," or Piissima regina conjux divi imperatoris, in imperial 
 Rome. The English queen, like the Roman empress, is ca- 
 pable of receiving a grant from her husband, or making one 
 to him ; therein differing from all other wives. She can 
 also purchase and convey land, &c, without his concur- 
 rence, and sue and be sued alone : in short, she is looked 
 upon in all legal proceedings as a feme sole. But, except 
 where she enjoys specific exemptions, she is only on a foot- 
 ing with other subjects ; and this also is according to the 
 Roman maxim, "Augusta legibus soluta non est." By the 
 Statute of Treasons, 25 Ed. 3, to compass or imagine the 
 death of the king's " companion," and also to violate and 
 defile her, is treason. The queen, if accused of treason 
 herself, is tried by the peers of parliament ; as Ann Boleyn 
 in 28 Hen. 8. The consort of George IV. was proceeded 
 acainst by the method of a bill of pains and penalties 
 e 1015
 
 QUEEN POST. 
 
 Queen-gold was a duty amounting to one full tenth of the 
 value of lines. &.c, on grants by tlie crown, anciently due to 
 the queen : which Charles I. purchased of his consort Hen 
 rietta, in 1635, for £10,000, but which was not revived alter 
 the restoration. The queen conanrt has a separate house- 
 hold, consisting of six ladies of the bed-chamber, a cham- 
 berlain, vice-chamberlain, mistress of the robes, master of 
 the horse, and three equerries, attorney and solicitor gener- 
 al, &c. 
 
 3. Quern Dowager. The widow of a deceased king. She 
 Continues to enjoy most of the privileges which belonged to 
 bet as queen consort Nor did she, in ancient times, lose 
 her dignity on remarriage; for Catherine, queen dowager of 
 I'mri V. alter she had married Owen Tudor, maintained 
 an action by the name of Catherine Queen of England. 
 lint it is held that no man can marry a queen dowager 
 Without special license from the king, on pain of forfeiture 
 of lands and goods, according to an act of 6 Hen. ti. which, 
 however, is not printed among the statutes. The revenue 
 of a queen dowager is settled by statute. By 1 & 2 VV. 4, 
 c. 11, his late majesty was empowered to settle £100,000 
 per annum on his queen, to commence at his decease. 
 
 4. Queen Mother. A queen dowager who is also mother 
 of the reigning sovereign. 
 
 Q.UEE.V POST. In Architecture, an upright post in a 
 roof for suspending the beam when the principal rafters do 
 not meet in the ridge. See Roof. 
 
 QUE'RUITRON" HARK. The bark of the Querevs ni- 
 gra, or American oak ; it is a highly valuable dye-stuff, and 
 is used in the production of some of the most durable yel- 
 lows. 
 
 QUE'RCITS. (Lat.) This is the most important genus 
 of trees found in the cold countries of the world, on account 
 of its producing the various kinds of timber called oak. 
 The species are not, however, confined to Europe, or simi- 
 lar latitudes, but occur abundantly in the equinoctial parts 
 of Asia and America ; they have not, however, been found 
 south of the equator. It is usually recognised by the cup 
 in which the acorn is seated ; but in some tropical species 
 the acorn is so small as to be buried in the cup, when the 
 fruit nearly resembles that of the chesnut (Castanea). The 
 valuable oak of Great Britain is obtained from two native 
 species: the one Q. pedunculata, the long-stalked or white 
 oak ; the other Q. scssiliflora, the sessile-fruited or red oak. 
 A prejudice has arisen against the timber of the latter, 
 which, however, appears to be unfounded, as it is found to 
 be in point of strength and durability fully equal to the 
 other. Oak timber, however, is affected very much by soil 
 and climate; and hence we have oak of bad quality from 
 both our native species. What is called wainscot oak is 
 probably the timber of Q. scssiliflora, grown rapidly in the 
 dense forests of Hungary; by some persons, however, it is 
 supposed to be furnished by an Oriental species called Q. 
 arris, or the mossy-cupped. The Escidus of Virgil, whose 
 acorns were eatable, appears to have been a sweet-fruited 
 variety of Q. sessiliflora. Besides the species already men 
 tioned, the Quercus ilei, or European oak, the Q. suiter, or 
 cork tree, whose bark is in such extensive use, and the Q. 
 or Spanish ilex, whose acorns are sweet and eata- 
 ble, are the more important species. Those from North 
 America, although fine trees, are inferior to the oaks of Eng- 
 land as regards their timber, and require hotter summers 
 than we have in these islands. Oak galls are produced 
 upon Q. infectoria, in the Levant, by the puncture of a 
 cynips. The species are excessively confused by botanists ; 
 but a full popular account of this genus will be found in 
 Loudon's Arboretum Britanniaim. For a few popular de- 
 tails, see also the article Oak, in this work. 
 
 Hi I. S I'll i.V The application of torture to prisoners un- 
 der criminal accusation, according to the laws of France he- 
 fore the Revolution. The question w as of two kinds : one, 
 where strong evidence, but insufficient of itself to justify a 
 Condemnation to death, existed against a prisoner on a cap- 
 ital charge; lie might then be subjected to torture to pro- 
 duce confession. This was termer! the question pre para 
 toirc. It was abolished by an ordinance of Louis XVI. in 
 1780. The other, termed question prealable or definitive, 
 was applied to the prisoner u Inn convicted of a capital of- 
 fence, in order to make him discover supposed accomplices. 
 It was abolished by the .National Assembly. The prepara- 
 tory question was also of two sorts: one, avec reserve de 
 preuves, in which case, If the criminal did not confess tinder 
 the torture, the oilier evidence was considered as still sub 
 sisiini; against him, so as to justify his condemnation to 
 
 some lighter punishment; the other, sans reserve de preuves, 
 
 in which ease, ii hi' persisted in ins denial, he was acquit- 
 ted altogether. It was at the option of the Judges, accord 
 tag io their opinion of the amount of evidence, to decide to 
 which of these questions the accused should he subjected. 
 
 The modes of torture applied, varied in France, being fixed 
 by the several parliaments within their separate jurisdic 
 tions. Those in common use at Paris were — the question 
 1010 
 
 QUIETISM. 
 
 by water, which consisted in stretching the limbs of the suf- 
 ferer on a board by means of screws, and forcing him to 
 swallow large quantities of water; and the hoots, in which 
 his legs were enclosed in wooden cases, the whole tightly 
 campreeeed with ropes, and wedges driven with a mallet 
 between the two cases. The question varied in degree, be- 
 ing ordinary or txtraordinary, at the discretion of the judg- 
 es. Children and adolescents, old men, and women with 
 child, were excepted from torture by the French law. And, 
 by an ordonnance of 1070, the second application of the 
 question was forbidden in all cases. 
 
 Torture has been applied, as a mode of extorting confes- 
 sion, in all countries into which the principles of the civil 
 law have been imported : although the barbarity and un- 
 certainty of the practice were remarked upon even in the 
 best times of Roman jurisprudence. The observations of 
 Cicero on the subject are well known; and Ulpian, the 
 greatest authority on the civil law, speaks even more direct- 
 ly. "Res est fragilis el periculosa (the torture), et qua veri- 
 tatem fallit: nam plerique patientia sive duritnl tormento- 
 rem ita et torments contemnunt, ut ezprimi eis Veritas nullo 
 modo possit; alii tanta sunt impatientia ut quidvis mentiri 
 quam pati mallent" It is, however, an important remark, 
 that as, by the strict principles of jurisprudence, the torture 
 was only applied in cases where there already existed a 
 mass of evidence against the prisoner, sufficient, in ordinary 
 judgment to warrant his condemnation, it did. in fact, afford 
 him an addilional chance of escape; and that however 
 great its absurdity on every supposition, its barbarity rather 
 arose from its liability to abuse than its legitimate infliction. 
 
 The practice of judicial torture was not a part of the com- 
 mon law of England, except in one particular case. The 
 rack is said to have been first introduced into this country 
 by the dukes of Exeter and Suffolk, in the minority of Henry 
 VI. ; at all events, it was then first made a common engine 
 of discovery in state matters. It was used, on warrant from 
 the privy council, on prisoners in the Tower of London for 
 a long period afterwards, and more especially iu the reign 
 of Elizabeth, to enforce confessions or accusation of accom- 
 plices from recusant priests, and others suspected of being 
 engaged in treasonable plots against her. It was probably 
 employed in the examination of Guy Fawkes, after the de- 
 tection of the Gunpowder Plot; as has been conjectured, 
 among other reasons, from the feeble and trembling hand in 
 which the signature of that criminal to his last confession 
 is written, when compared with that In which he subscribed 
 his former declarations. On the trial of Felton for the as- 
 sassination of Villieis, duke of Buckingham, the judges were 
 consulted by the privy council as to the lawfulness of the 
 infliction of torture ; and on their asserting it to be illegal, it 
 was not applied: there is, however, reason to suppose that 
 it was used at least in one subsequent case in the reign of 
 Charles I. (See Jardine on Torture, 1837.) 
 
 The exception to which allusion hns been made, by 
 which torture was in one case recognised by the common 
 law, is the celebrated Peine Forte et Dure. It has, indeed, 
 been said, and was asserted by the judges in 8 Hen. 4 that 
 this infliction was only introduced in consequence of the 
 first statute of Westminster ; but it is at least highly proba- 
 ble that before that period persons refusing to plead were 
 subjected to imprisonment and ill-treatment to induce them 
 to do so. After that statute, the judgment appears only to 
 have been to strait and severe confinement ; nor was it until 
 the reign of II. IV. that its horrible character seems to have 
 been fully determined by law. After that time, the prison- 
 er was remanded to the place from whence be I nine, laid 
 On the ground In a dark room, and "as many weights as ho 
 can bear, and more," laid upon him; with no sustenance 
 except a morsel of the worst bread and a draught Of the 
 worst water, on alternate days; and so to remain until he 
 pleaded or died ; which alternative, according to the later 
 practice, was soon decided, as the weights laid on wen suf- 
 ficient to cause speedy death. The peine forte et dure was 
 not unfrequently put in practice until the beginning of the 
 last century ; and as late as the commencement of the reign 
 of George ill. the enforcing prisoners to plead bj squeezing 
 
 their thumbs, and other modes of torture, was a common 
 Old Bailey practice. By IS G. 3, c. 20, any person standing 
 mute, or not answering directly to the arraignment, incurred 
 conviction. 
 
 tiri't M,IM v.. Pure or caustic lime. See Lime. 
 
 atJI'CKSILVER. sec Mercury. 
 
 QXJ'IETISM. A name generally applied to the opinions 
 of enthusiasts, who conceive the great object of religion to 
 
 be the absorption of all human sentiments and passions into 
 
 devout contemplation and love of God. This idea has found 
 
 its admirers and encomiasts in all ages. A sect called by 
 
 tins name .m Greek, FJesychasts) existed among the reli- 
 gious of Mount \lhos ; and in the lTtli Century it w as given 
 ii: Frame to a peculiar class Of devout persons wilh a ten- 
 dency towards a higher spiritual devotion, which seems to 
 have arisen, in great measure, out of a natural opposition 

 
 QUINCUNX. 
 
 to the hierarchal coldness and positive morality of Roman 
 Catholic religion at that time, especially under the influ- 
 ence of the Jesuits. A Spanish priest, Molinos, published 
 at Rome a work entitled The Spiritual Guide (1675), of 
 which the ardent language attracted a multitude of parti- 
 sans. Its leading feature was the description of the happi- 
 ness of a soul reposing in perfect quiet on God, so as to be- 
 come conscious of His presence only, and untroubled by ex- 
 ternal things. He even advanced so far as to maintain that 
 the soul, in its highest state of perfection, is removed even 
 beyond the contemplation of God himself, and is solely oc- 
 cupied in the passive reception of divine influences. The 
 work of Molinos was afterwards condemned on the appli- 
 cation of the Jesuits. Akin to the ideas of Molinos seem to 
 have been those of the French Quiefists, of whom Madame 
 de la Motte Guyon and Fentlon are the most celebrated 
 names. The former was at one time treated as insane, on 
 account of some strange delusions which led her to repre- 
 sent herself (unless she was calumniated) as the mystical 
 woman of the Apocalypse ; at another she was admitted to 
 the intimacy of Madame tie Maintenon, and high in court 
 favour. Fenelon praised her in his treatise Sur la Vie In- 
 terieure (1691), in which many of the most dangerous tenets 
 of Quietism were contained. The writings of the latter 
 upon this subject were finally condemned by Innocent XII. ; 
 and the example of the archbishop in submitting to the de- 
 cision, and declaring himself satisfied and convinced by the 
 opinion of the Church, has been dwelt on by pious writers 
 as a signal triumph of a truly religious mind. The dissolute 
 conduct of some hypocritical priests, nnder the pretence of 
 inculcating the tenets and practice of Quietism, brought it 
 eventually into disrepute more than the repeated condemna- 
 tions of the head of the Roman Catholic Church. 
 
 QUTNCUNX. The Latin term properly for that dispo- 
 sition of five objects in which they are made to occupy the 
 four corners and point of intersection of the diagonals of a 
 square ; but the word is extended to any number of things 
 so arranged in lines that the members of each succeeding 
 line stand behind the spaces between those of the preceding 
 one. Troops were frequently drawn up in this order ; which 
 was also a favourite arrangement for plantations of vines. 
 
 QUINDE'CAGON. In Geometry, a plane figure bounded 
 by fifteen sides. The regular quindecagon is inscribable in 
 a circle bv elementarv geometry. (Euclid, book iv.) 
 
 QUINDECE'MVIRI. Roman magistrates, whose duty- 
 it was to take care of the Sibylline books, and consult them 
 on critical occasions when the senate deemed their advice 
 necessary. They were exempted from the privilege of 
 serving in the army, and from other offices in the city ; and 
 their priesthood, which was probably in service of Apollo, 
 lasted for life. Their number, as their name imports, was 
 fifteen by Sylla's appointment ; but originally they had been 
 ten, an equal number being elected from patricians and ple- 
 beians : and bv Julius Ca'sar thev were raised to sixteen. 
 
 QU'INIA, or QUININE. An alkaline base obtained 
 from yellow bark ; the Cinchona cordifolia. This sub- 
 stance, combined with sulphuric acid, forms the sulphate 
 of quinia. which is now so extensively used as a medicine, 
 and as a substitute for the various forms of Peruvian bark. 
 To obtain quinia, bruised yellow bark is boiled in repeated 
 portions of water, acidulated by sulphuric acid, till all its 
 soluble matters are extracted; a little excess of quicklime 
 is then added to the strained decoction, and the precipitate 
 which is formed is collected, washed, and carefully dried; 
 it is then digested in alcohol, which takes up the quinia, 
 and from which it may be obtained in the form of a yellow- 
 ish umrystallizable substance by careful evaporation. It is 
 dissolved in dilute sulphuric acid, and the sulphate of qui- 
 nine, or quinia, crystallizes from its concentrated solution 
 in fine silky prisms, which effloresce on exposure to air. 
 Sulphate of quinia is difficultly soluble in water, and in- 
 tensely bitter. It is administered as a tonic and febrifuge 
 in doses of from one to five or six grains. 
 
 QUINQUAGE'SIMA SUNDAY, in the Calendar, is the 
 seventh Sunday before Easter, and consequently about the 
 fiftieth day before that festival ; whence the origin of the 
 term. 
 
 QULN'QUA'TRUS. In Roman Classical Antiquities, the 
 feast of Minerva, which began on the 14th of the Kal. of 
 April, and lasted five days. It is in allusion to the well- 
 known attributes of the goddess that Juvenal makes this 
 the season in which her youthful votaries pray for forensic 
 success. 
 
 Eloquium et famam Demosthenes et Ciceronis 
 Inripit optare. et totis Quinquatnbus optat. 
 
 QUINQUENNA'LIA, or LUDI QUINQUENNALES. 
 In Classical Antiquity, public games celebrated every five 
 years. They were instituted by the emperors in commemo- 
 ration of different events of their respective reigns. Medals 
 struck on these occasions have been discovered, bearing the 
 date of the reign of Posthumus. 
 
 QULNQUERE'MIS. (Lat. quinque, Jive, and remits, an 
 
 QUOIN. 
 
 oar : in Greek, -rtvTvpvs-) The name of a class of Roman 
 war ships which were rowed by five banks of oars, whence 
 the name is derived. The substitution of the quinquereme 
 for the trireme, as the ordinary war vessel, gradually tools 
 place in the course of the fourth century before Christ ; in 
 the interval between the Peloponnesian and first Punic 
 wars. The number of vessels of this large class employed 
 in the latter is perfectly surprising. According to Polybius, 
 the Romans lost 700 in the course of it ; the Carthaginians 
 500. In A.U.C. 498 (the year in which Regulus was sent 
 to Africa) the Romans had 330, the Carthaginians 350: 
 each quinquereme of the former nation carried 300 rowers 
 and 120 soldiers, in all 140,000 men ; the Carthaginians, ac- 
 cording to the same computation, amounted to 150,000: 
 numbers which would be scarcely credible, were they not 
 given by so exact an author. See Trireme, Galley. 
 
 QUIN'QUINA. Peruvian bark. The bark of various 
 species of Cinchona, which see. 
 
 QLT'NSEY. (Fr. squinance.) Inflammation of the ton- 
 sils. This is common inflammatory sore throat: it is not 
 infectious. It begins with pain on one side of the throat, 
 and swelling of the tonsil, attended by febrile symptoms, 
 which sometimes run high, especially as the tumefaction 
 advances ; there is great restlessness and anxiety, and often 
 the utmost difficulty of swallowing even liquids, and of 
 breathing. The disease has proved fatal by producing suf- 
 focation, but it generally terminates in resolution, or suppu- 
 ration : in the latter case the abscess breaks, and a good 
 deal of pus is discharged, and the patient is at once relieved 
 of all his urgent symptoms ; but it occasionally happens that 
 the other side of the throat becomes affected, and goes 
 through the same stages. 
 
 QUI'XTAIX. An ancient pastime, in which a post was 
 erected, with a cross-piece turning upon a pivot on the top 
 of it, to one end of which a sand bag was suspended, and 
 at the other a board was fixed. The play consisted in ri- 
 ding or tilting against the board with a lance, and passing 
 without being struck behind by the sand-bag. 
 
 QUl'XTAL. An old denomination of weight, being the 
 same with the hundred weight, or equal to 112 pounds. 
 
 QUINTESSENCE. A term applied by the older chem- 
 ists to alcoholic tinctures or essences, made by digestion at 
 common temperatures or in the sun's heat. 
 
 QUI'NTILE. In Astrology, an aspect of two planets 
 distant from each other the 5th of the zodiac, or 72°. 
 
 QUI'NTELIANS. A sect of ancient heretics ; so called 
 from Quintilia, their founder and leader. Their chief pe- 
 culiarities consisted in attributing extraordinary gifts to Eve 
 Cor having eaten of the tree of knowledge, and in admitting 
 women to the sacerdotal and episcopal office. 
 
 QUI'NTINE. (Lat. quintus.) A name given in botany 
 to the fifth or innermost envelop of the vegetable ovulum, 
 the most external being the first or primine. 
 
 QITXTCPLE. In Music, a species of time, now seldom 
 used, containing five crotchets in a bar. 
 
 QULXZALNE. In Chronology, the fourteenth day after 
 a feast day, or the fifteenth, if the day of the feast be inclu- 
 ded. But a different rule seems to have prevailed on the 
 Continent. (See Sir H. JVicolas's Chronology of History, 
 p. 105.) 
 
 QUI PRO QUO, or QUID PRO QUO. (Lat. one for 
 another.) A conventional term borrowed from the French, 
 who use it in the sense of an error committed by mistaking 
 one thing or person for another ; especially a verbal am- 
 biguity. 
 
 QUIRI'NUS. An Italian warlike divinity, supposed by 
 some to be the same as Mars. When the Romans deified 
 Romulus they called him by this name, and the festivals 
 insiituted in his honour Quirinalia. 
 
 QUIRK. In Architecture, a piece of ground cut off from 
 a square plot. 
 
 QUIRKED MOULDING. In Architecture, one whose 
 convexitv is sudden, being in the form of a conic section. 
 
 QUI TAM. (Lat. who as well.) In Law, a penal action, 
 in which half the penalty is given to the crown and the rest 
 to the informer. The plaintiff describes him as A. B. '■ qui 
 tam pro domino rege quam pro se ipso," — who sues as well 
 for the king as himself. 
 
 QUIT RENT. (Lat. quietus redditus.) In Law, asmall 
 rent payable by tenants of manors in token of subjection. 
 See Rent. 
 
 QUO'DLIBET. (hat. what you please.) In the language 
 of the schoolmen, questions on general subjects within the 
 range of their inquiries were termed questiones quodlibetica, 
 or miscellaneous. In French the word quodlibet, or quolibet, 
 is retained, in the sense of a slight jeud'esprit pun,&c. What 
 is termed in music a " pot-pourri" was also called in Ger- 
 tnanv a quodlibet. 
 
 QUOIN. (Fr. coin.) In Architecture, the comer or in- 
 ternal and external angle of a building, or of any part of a 
 tuilding. 
 
 Quots. In Artillerv, a loose wedge of wood put below 
 3 R * 1017
 
 QUORUM. 
 
 fee breech of a cannon, for the purpose of adjusting its ele- 
 vation. 
 
 UCO'RI'M. A term derived from the words used in the 
 Latin form of the commission issued to justices of the peace; 
 in which the expression occurred, "quorum unum A. H. esse 
 voluntas. " — "of whom we will that A. B. be one;" tlius 
 rendering it necessary that certain individuals (said to be of 
 the quorum) should be present at the transaction of business. 
 Hence when in an assembly, committees, &.c. it is necessary 
 that a certain number should he present to give validity to 
 its acts, that number is generally said to constitute a quorum. 
 
 ftTJOTA. i.at. quot,*«to many.) Thai partwhicheaeh 
 member of a society has to contribute or receive In making 
 Up or di\ iding a certain sum. 
 
 QUOTIDIAN. (Lat. quotidianus.) That form of ague 
 which returns daily. 
 
 Ul'i i'TIENT (Lat. quoties, how often), in Arithmetic, is 
 the result of the operation of division ; and may he either a 
 magnitude of any denomination, or an abstract number. 
 When a magnitude of any kind is proposed to he divided 
 into any number of parts, and the divisor is, consequent- 
 ly, an abstract number, the quotient is of the same kind 
 with the dividend or quantity proposed to be divided ; 
 but when the dividend and divisor are both things of the 
 same denomination, or both magnitudes of any kind, the 
 quotient is an abstract number, and is the ratio of the one 
 magnitude to the other. 
 
 CIU< I WARRANTO. In Law, a writ, filed in the Court 
 of King's Bench by the attorney-general, or an individual in 
 his name, calling upon the person informed against to show 
 by what title he holds any office, franchise, or liberty. The 
 proceedings on a writ of quo warranto presenting many diffi- 
 culties, it has been superseded in modem times by what is 
 termed an information in the nature of a quo warranto. 
 
 R. 
 
 R. One of those letters belonging to the series called 
 liquids or semivowels. It was called the litera canina by 
 the Latins, from some fancied resemblance it bears in sound 
 to the snarling of a dog. At the commencement of English 
 words, derived from the Greek through the medium of the 
 Latin, r is usually followed by h, to represent the force of p, 
 as in rhetoric, rhapsody ; and the same observation applies 
 to this letter when it occurs in the middle of an English 
 word derived from a Greek compound, as in diarrhaa, from 
 e'en and pew. This letter is susceptible of numerous inter- 
 changes, more especially in Latin; for a complete list of 
 v. hn Q see the Penny Oyclopmdia. As an abbreviation, R., 
 among ourselves, stands for rex or regina, and in ancient 
 times for Roma ; R. P. for respublica, &,c. In medicinal pre- 
 scriptions, R. stands for recipe or take. 
 
 B \ BBL A Hebrew term for doctor or teacher; the 
 termination being properly the first pronoun possessive. This 
 word, which is frequently found in the New Testament, is 
 in use at the present day, the rabbis being the expounders of 
 the law, and more particularly of the Talmud, or commen- 
 taries of later doctors. .See Talmud. 
 
 RA'BDOMANCY. See Rhabdomakct. 
 
 RACA. An ancient Syria* word, signifying vanity or 
 folly, and pronounced by the Jews with certain gestures of 
 indignation. Our Saviour, in using the word (Matt., v., 22), 
 intimates that whoever should apply this word to his neigh- 
 bour, should be condemned by the council of the sanhedrim. 
 
 1! \t T.'M E. 'L;it. racemus, a bunch of grapes.) In Bot- 
 an\, a tin in of inflorescence, in which the flowers are stalked 
 along a common unbranched axis, as in the hyacinth. 
 
 RACE'MIC ACID. (Lat. racemus, a bunch of gropes.) 
 An acid found, together with the tartaric arid, in" the tartar 
 obtained from certain vineyards on the Rhine. It is the 
 
 jjrirntartnric oriil of Berzelius. It is less soluble in water 
 than tartaric acid, and differs in the form of its crystals and 
 In its salts; yet it appears to be isomeric, and to" have the 
 same equivalent with the tartaric acid. 
 
 B VCHi'LLA. K'.r. />>i\ic, a spine.) A branch of in- 
 florescence; the zigzag centre upon which the florets are 
 arranged in the Bpikeletsof gi 
 
 RACHIS. i;r. pa yi j.) A brandl which proceeds in 
 nearly a straight line from the base to the apex of the In- 
 florescence of a plant It ifl also applied to the petioles of 
 the leaves of ferns. 
 
 Rachis. A term applied by Illiger and other zoologists 
 
 to the vertebral eoluinn of m animals and birds. 
 
 B M urns. {Gr.paxfSi "" spine, the part principally 
 affected.) The rickets. A disease generally confined to 
 childhood, known by a large head, protruded breastbone, 
 flattened ribs, tumid belly, emaciated limbs, and great gen 
 erai debility ; the bones li general, and especially ihe spine, 
 are variously distorted and deficient In bony matter: the syi 
 tein occasionally rallies from this slate- as growth advances, 
 lUia 
 
 RADIANT HEAT. 
 
 hut there is more or less deformity left. Tonics, cold bath- 
 ing, regular and proper exercise, very' careful nursing, and 
 occasionally rhubarb and tonic aperients, are the principal 
 remedies ; and where particular bones are inclined to bend, 
 
 attempts must be made to throw the weight off them. This 
 
 disease is frequently symptomatic of a scrofulous state of the 
 glands and viscera: the stomach and bowels are always 
 greatly deranged ; and as there appears to be a deficiency 
 of the hardening matter of the bones, various salts of lime, 
 and even phosphate of lime, have been prescribed ; the only 
 apparent use of some of these remedies is to render the gas- 
 less acrid and acid. 
 RACK. (Sax. wroccan, to strain, torment, &c. ; evident- 
 ly of the same origin as the Germ, rachen, Aug. to wreak.) 
 An instrument of torture formerly used in England. Ac- 
 cording to Coke (who, however, merely reports the story on 
 traditional authority), the rack w '8S first introduced into the 
 Tower by the Duke of Exeter, constable of the Tower in 
 1447 ; anil thence called " the Duke of Exeter's daughter." 
 (3 Inst., p. 34.) Stowe, in his Chronicle, says that the 
 duke's daughter herself invented it. The earliest mention 
 of the use of the " rack or brake" is by Holinshed, under the 
 year 14t>T. But it first became common in the reign of Henry 
 V11I. Under that prince, the remaining Tudors, James I., 
 and Charles I., down to 1040, the rack was a common imple- 
 ment of torture for prisoners confined in the Tower, and in- 
 flicted by the warrant of the council or under the sign manual. 
 The rack consisted of an oblong frame of wood, composed 
 of four beams, a little raised above the ground ; the sufferer 
 was fastened by the hands and feet to the corners, where 
 two cross beams joined tile longer ones, sometimes by small 
 cords attached to each finger and toe ; and the cords were 
 twisted by means of rollers, so as to raise him from the 
 ground, and stretch his body with extreme violence, disloca- 
 ting the limbs, and, according to the Jesuit writers, who have 
 left the most vivid representations of the sufferings of their 
 companions under the stale persecution of Elizabeth, some- 
 times extending the sufferer "more than a palm beyond his 
 usual stature !" (Jenner, Societas Europcea, p. 12 ; see also 
 Jardine's Reading on the Use of Torture in England, 1837.) 
 
 The Roman equvleus is often translated ruck by English 
 writers ; but whether the equuleus was something similar 
 to the English engine, or a wooden horse (as the derivation 
 of the word implies), or, in short, what was its form and 
 description, antiquaries have not been able to discover. Bee 
 among other authorities the learned treatise of iMagius, JUe 
 Equuleo.) 
 
 Rack. A railed convenience formed above the manger 
 in a stable for the reception of the hay. It should be con- 
 structed with openings at the bottom for the seed or dust 
 to pass through. 
 
 Rack. In Machinery, a rectilinear sliding piece, having 
 teeth cut on its edge so that they may work with those of a 
 wheel or pinion which drives or follows the rack. The rack 
 may be regarded as a toothed wheel whose radius is in- 
 finite. 
 
 RACK RENT. See Rent. 
 
 RACO'VIANS. In Eccl. History, the Unitarians of Po- 
 land are sometimes so called ; from Racow, a small city of 
 that country, where Jacobus a Sienna, its head, erected a 
 public seminary for their church in 1000. Here the "Ra- 
 covian Catechism," originally composed by Socinus, and re- 
 vised by his most eminent followers, was published. (Mo- 
 sheim, Eccl. Hist., cent. 16, sec. 3.) 
 
 RADIANT. In Geometry, a Btraight line proceeding 
 from a given point, or fixed pole, about which it i- conceived 
 to revolve. When several radiants, forming a system, are 
 constrained to revolve in such a manner that all the inter- 
 sections excepting one are carried along given straight lines 
 or curves called directrices, then the remaining intersection 
 traces a curve whose equation is of an order which is a certain 
 determinate function of the orders of the several directrices. 
 Thus, if all ihe intersections hut one are carried along straight 
 lines, the remainingone describesa conic section. The theory 
 of the description of lines of the sec ml order by the intersec- 
 tion of radiants is given by Newton in the I'rinri/iia : and 
 the subject is treated more generally by Mnclaiiriii in his 
 Oeomctria Orgnnica. and bj some recent writers in the An- 
 nates des Muthematiques. See, also, Leslie's Geometry of 
 Ourvi Lines; Carnot, Essai sur la Theorie des Trans- 
 it &.C. 
 
 RADIANT HEAT. When a hot body Is suspended in 
 the air, a quantity of heat is emitted in all directions by its 
 Surface, passing off in right lines like radii drawn from 
 the centre to the circumference of n circle ; these rays pass 
 freely through the air without affecting its temperature; 
 
 when fhej impinge upon surrounding bodies, the] are either 
 njl'rtnl, nlisorlial, or transmitted. The quantity of these 
 rays, or of radiant heat, which is thus emitted, is greatly 
 dependenl npon the nature of the heated surface ; it is 
 smallest from polished metallic Surfaces, and greatest from 
 rough and uniiiclulUc surfaces. The radiating power, for
 
 RADIARIES. 
 
 Instance, of polished silver, heated up to 212°, being = 1, 
 that of a surface of writing paper is about = P. Whether 
 colour has or has not any effect upon this escape of heat 
 from surfaces, is a doubtful question. 
 
 That this radiant heat is susceptible of reflection, may be 
 shown by holding a piece of polished tin plate opposite a 
 fire in such a position as admits the reflection of the flame 
 to be seen in it, when an impression of heat is at the same 
 time perceived upon the face ; if the surface of the tin plate 
 be roughened or covered with paper, scarcely any heat is then 
 thrown on", but the plate itself becomes hot in consequence 
 of the absorption of the rays. This terrestrial radiant heat, 
 especially when it emanates from surfaces which are not 
 luminous, as from a flask of hot water, for instance, is to a 
 great extent arrested in its progress by a plate of transparent 
 glass, in which respect it appears to be unlike solar heat, 
 which passes freely through all transparent media ; but there 
 are some substances which do not thus impede its progress ; 
 among them, a transparent plate of rock-salt is most remark- 
 able, the rays proceeding through it with little interruption ; 
 such substances, therefore, have been termed thcrmophanous 
 bodies. (See Melloni, Annates de C/iim. ct Phys., vol. liii.) 
 
 RA'DIARIES, Hadiaria, or Radiata. (Lat. radius.) 
 The name given by Cuvier to the lowest organized of the 
 primary divisions of the animal kingdom ; because certain 
 of the animals therein included have a radiated form of a 
 part or the whole of their body. -See Acrita, Nemato- 
 
 HEURA, ZOOPHYTA. 
 
 RADIATING POINT. In Optics, any point from which 
 rays of light proceed. 
 
 RADIATION. (Lat. radius, a ray.) In Physics and 
 Meteorology, the emission of rays of light or heat from a 
 luminous or heated body. 
 
 The theory of the radiation and conduction of heat, which 
 long remained one of the most obscure parts of physical in- 
 quiry, has been reduced, by the successive labours of Pre- 
 vost, Leslie, Fourier, Biot, Laplace, Poisson, Melloni, Forbes, 
 and others, to a purely mathematical form, and thereby 
 placed in the same rank with physical optics, with which, 
 indeed, it has many principles in common. 
 
 The general laws of the radiation of heat, which have 
 been established by experiment, are the following: 1. Like 
 all other emanations, its intensity, in a vacuum, varies in 
 the ratio of the inverse square of the distance from the radi 
 ating point. In air and the gases, the decrease is a little 
 faster in consequence of a partial absorption. 2. The amount 
 of radiation, or the rate at which a body parts with its heat, 
 is proportional to the excess of the temperature of the body 
 above that of the medium in which it is placed. This prin- 
 ciple was assumed by Newton ; and it follows from it that 
 if the times of cooling be taken in an arithmetical progres- 
 sion, the heat will decrease in a geometrical progression. 
 The principle, however, is found by experiment to hold good 
 only within a certain range of temperature, not exceeding 
 5(P of Fahrenheit. At the higher temperatures Dulong and 
 Petit found the rate of cooling to be more rapid than in the 
 ratio stated. 3. All bodies placed in an enclosed space as- 
 sume in time the temperature of the enclosure. 4. Heat is 
 emitted from every point of the surface of a hot body in all 
 directions, and the intensity of the heating ray is as the sine 
 of the angle which it makes with the surface. This result, 
 which is by no means obvious, was discovered by Leslie; 
 and its physical cause is, that radiation takes place not from 
 the surface alone, but from particles situated within a cer- 
 tain minute but sensible depth, which is different for differ- 
 ent surfaces. 5. The intensity of radiation varies with the 
 nature of the radiating body, and the state of its surface 
 with regard to polish, colour, source of heat, &c. It is 
 greatest for rough and dark surfaces, and least for bright 
 surfaces of polished metal. 
 
 The velocity with which radiated heat is propagated 
 through space is entirely unknown. It is certain, however, 
 that it is very great, and probably not inferior to that of 
 light. 
 
 The doctrine of the radiation of heat was first stated in a 
 precise and satisfactory manner by Prevost of Geneva, about 
 1790. Its leading principle being that all bodies are perpetu- 
 ally exchanging their heat with one another, it is sometimes 
 called the theory of exchanges. As this emission of heat 
 cannot be attributed to the body which receives it, but for 
 the same radiating body and the same state of surface de- 
 pends only on the temperature of the body, we are led to 
 suppose that radiation takes place with greater or less in- 
 tensity at all temperatures; that it is reciprocal between 
 distant bodies ; and that it subsists when the temperatures 
 are equal, though in this case no alteration of temperature 
 takes place. By a close attention to the phenomena, we are 
 also led to infer that the faculty of the emission (and also of 
 the absorption) of heat belongs to all the molecules of a body I 
 and, consequently, that radiation takes place not only at the 
 surfaces, but also in the interior of solids and liquids, in the 
 same manner as it takes place in air, or differing only'in con- 
 
 RADICAL REFORMERS. 
 
 sequence of its more rapid absorption. Fourier and Laplace 
 were thus led to view the constituent molecules of all bodies 
 as so many foci of radiating heat. This heat is radiated by 
 every molecule in every direction, and is propagated through 
 the pores or void spaces of ponderable matter, until it is en- 
 tirely absorbed by the molecules which it encounters. In 
 solids and liquids the absorption take place at very small 
 distances ; in air and the gases at very great distances. The 
 mathematical theory of heat is founded on this hypothesis 
 of molecular radiation. 
 
 Solar and Terrestrial Radiation. — The measure of heat 
 received from the sun, and of that which is constantly 
 escaping from the earth into the regions of space, are among 
 the most important elements of meteorology. If the earth 
 were not surrounded with the atmosphere, the quantity of 
 solar light received at any time on a given portion of its sur- 
 face would be proportional to the inclination of the ray to 
 the surface, or to the cosine of the sun's zenith distance ; 
 but owing to the modifying effects of the atmosphere, it 
 would appear from the results of experiments that so far 
 from this law holding good, the force of the sun's direct 
 radiation rather increases with the latitude. Professor 
 Daniell (Meteorological Essays, p. 228) suggests that as the 
 cooling power of the air has been proved to be in proportion 
 to its elasticity, it is reasonable to suppose that the difficulty 
 with which heat passes through the atmosphere is in the 
 same ratio. The proportion of solar heat absorbed in trav- 
 ersing the atmosphere vertically has been estimated by 
 Leslie and Pouillet at 25 parts in 100 ; by Kamptz at 32 ; 
 and by Prof. Forbes at 29. 
 
 The force of solar radiation is measured by the excess of 
 the temperature which a body assumes when exposed to 
 the direct action of the sun's rays above that which it would 
 have in the shade. This excess may be roughly measured 
 by two common thermometers, one placed in the shade, and 
 the other exposed to the sun, and having its bulb covered to 
 prevent reflection. The most accurate measurement is, 
 however, given by the actinometer, an instrument invented 
 by Sir J. Herschel, in 1624, for the dynamical measurement 
 of solar radiation. A description of this valuable instrument, 
 and full directions for the method of using it, are given in 
 the Report of the President and Council of the Royal Society 
 on the Objects of Scientific Inquiry in Physics and Meteor- 
 ology, 1840. 
 
 From certain experiments made by Pouillet at Paris, he 
 inferred that the whole amount of solar heat annually radi- 
 ated to the earth is equal to that which would suffice to 
 melt a stratum of ice about 14 metres or 40 feet thick en- 
 crusting the whole earth (Elements de Physique etde Mete- 
 orologie) ; but in a subsequent memoir (Sur la Chaleur 
 Solaire) he estimated the same quantity at 31 metres, or 102 
 feet. 
 
 The measure of terrestrial radiation is of equal importance 
 with that of solar radiation, but no perfect instrument has 
 yet been contrived for its determination. The best means 
 consist in the daily register of the minimum temperature 
 shown by a register thermometer, the bulb of which is placed 
 in the focus of a parabolic metallic mirror pointed towards 
 the clear aspect of the sky, and defended from currents. It 
 may be supposed that the same atmospheric causes which 
 obstruct the passage of radiant heat from the sun oppose 
 also its transmission from the earth into space. 
 
 From the theory of terrestrial radiation, a curious deduc- 
 tion was made by Fourier, with regard to the temperature 
 of the region of space through which the earth moves in its 
 orbital revolution. On computing the temperature which it 
 is necessary to suppose the planetary spaces to possess in 
 order that the thermometries] state of the earth's surface 
 may be such as is actually observed, he found that the ex- 
 isting phenomena correspond to those which would result 
 from the supposition that the regions of space have a tem- 
 perature of about — 58° Fahrenheit. Svanberg arrived at 
 the same conclusion by a different process ; but others have 
 given very different estimates. Thus Poisson makes it — 13° 
 cent, or -j-8J° Fahr., and Pouillet supposes it to be below 
 — 115° cent, or — 175° Fahr. (See Leslie's Experimental 
 Inquiry into the JVature and Propagation of Heat, 1804 ; 
 Prevost, Essai sur la Calorique Rayonnantc, 1809 ; Fourier, 
 Theorie Analytique de la Chaleur, 1822 ; Laplace, Mechan- 
 ique Celeste, tome v. ; Poisson, Thiorie Mathematique de la 
 Chaleur, 1835; Kelland's Theory of Heat, 1837; Reports to 
 the British Association for 1832, 1835, and 1840.) 
 
 RA'DICAL (Lat. radix, a root), in Chemistry, is a term 
 occasionally used as synonymous with base : thus sulphur 
 and phosphorus are the radicals of the sulphuric and phos- 
 phoric acids. The term compound radical is applied to cer- 
 tain organic combinations ; in this case compounds of hydro- 
 gen, carbon, or nitrogen constitute the principal radicals. 
 
 RA'DICAL BASS. In Music, the same as fundamental 
 bass, which see. 
 
 RA'DICAL REFORMERS. In Politics, that political 
 party in England which desires to have the abuses which, 
 
 1019
 
 RADICAL SIGN. 
 
 from lapse of time or any other cause, may have crept into ' 
 the government, completely rooted out (as the origin of the 
 term implies); all our institutions remodelled; and. In short, 
 a larger portion of the democratic spirit infused into the con- 
 stitution. 
 
 RA'DICAL SIGN. In Algebra, the symbol ./, denoting 
 tin- extraction of a root It is ;i modification of the letter r, 
 the initial letter of radix or root. To distinguish the par- 
 ticular root which is to be extracted, a number is prefixed 
 t'i the symbol ; thus, ^/, \/, 4/, &c, denote respectively the 
 square root, cnbe root, fourth root, &c. ; but as the square 
 root or second toot was the first considered, the number is 
 usually omitted, and merely the symbol s/ written. Frac- 
 tional exponents are frequently used instead of the radical 
 sign. A radical quantity is a quantity to which the radical 
 
 sign is prefixed. 
 
 KA'DICLE. In Rotany, that portion of an embryo which 
 eventually becomes the descending axis or root. It is the 
 lowest of the two opposite cones of which an embryo plant 
 
 consists. 
 
 RA'DIOLITES. A genus of fossil shells; the inferior 
 valve of which is in the shape of a reversed cone, the 
 superior valve convex. 
 
 RA'DIUS. ,L:rt. a ray.) In Geometry and Trigonometry, 
 the semidiaineter of a circle, or straight line drawn from the 
 centre to the circumference. In the trigonometrical tables 
 the sines, cosines, tangents, &c. of circular arcs are express- 
 ed in parts of the radius, which is usually assumed equal to 
 1. The radius is equal to the side of the inscribed hexagon ; 
 or it is equal to an arc of 57-29578°, or 57° 17' 4481", the 
 semicircumferences, or 180°, in parts of the radius 1 being 
 3-1413937. 
 
 Radius. In Osteology, a bone of the forearm; so called 
 from its supposed resemblance to the spoke of a wheel. Its 
 upper end, which is the smallest, is formed into a round 
 hollowed head, and is articulated with the small head at 
 the side of the pulley of the humerus, whilst the rounded 
 border of it next the ulna is articulated with the lesser 
 sigmoid cavity of that bone; its lower extremity is articu- 
 lated with the bones of the wrist. 
 
 RADIUS OP CURVATURE. In the higher Geometry, 
 the radius of curvature at any point of a curve line is the 
 radius of the circle which osculates the curve at the given 
 point (see Osctlation), or has the same curvature as the 
 curve at that point. The curvature of a circle being uni- 
 form, and inversely as the radius, the radius of the osculat- 
 ing circle enables us to judge of the curvature of any curve 
 line at its different points. The general expression for the 
 radius of curvature, r, of any plane curve defined by the 
 equation y=f(z), is 
 
 r _ (dr? + dy2)% 
 dxd 2 y 
 (.?cc F.voi.t-te.) From this expression the value of r is 
 readily found when the equation of the curve is given; it 
 is a propertj of lines of the second order, that the radius of 
 curvature is e-pial to the cube of the normal divided by the 
 square of the semiparameter. 
 
 The expression fur the radius of curvature of a surface 
 repri sented by the equation z=/(iy), at any point whose 
 co-ordinates are 7, ,j, :, is as follows: Make 
 
 dy dz di 
 
 — = m, — =.p, — = ?, 
 
 dz dz dy 
 
 d*i _ dlz _ rf2 z _ 
 
 di- dzdy ' (l)/' 
 
 and let R denote the radius of curvature of a normal section 
 of the surface ; then 
 
 r -4- 2 * m -4- 1 m^ 
 RA'DIUS VE'I T< >R. In Astronomy, is the straight line 
 drawn from the centre of force to the point of the orbit, 
 where the body is supposed to be. A body projected in 
 space, and subjected to the ar-tion of a centripetal force, as 
 gravity, which varies in the inverse ratio of the distance, 
 describes a conic section which has one of its foci at the 
 centre of force. In the parabola, let p denote the param- 
 eter; and in the ellipse and hyperbola, let a denote the 
 semitransverse axis, and e the eccentricity ; also let r denote 
 the radius vector, and rj the angle which it makes with the 
 transverse axis; then the expression for the radius vector 
 in tie- parabola, the ellipse, and the hyperbola respect- 
 ively, is 
 
 Ap _ o2 — cl e2 — a% 
 
 1-f-cos.rc 
 
 » I r cos. B 
 
 a + e cos. v 
 
 These expressions are called the polar equations of the 
 three curves, 
 
 RA'DIX, or ROOT. 
 10-20 
 
 See Root. 
 
 RAILROADS. 
 
 RAFT. A species of float formed of various logs or 
 planks, fastened together side by side, so as to lie conveyed 
 lion, one point to another. This means of conveying lim- 
 ber to the sea-coast is advantageously practised in many 
 places. The following notice of the plan adopted on the 
 Rhine, of bringing the vast quantities of trees felled near its 
 source down to the navigable stations on its banks, max hu 
 interesting to the reader: 
 
 A little below Anilernach the little village of Namedy 
 appears on the left bank, under a wooded mountain. The 
 Rhine here forms a bay. where the pilots are accustomed 
 to unite together the small rafts of timber floated down the 
 tributary rivers into the Rhine, and to construct enormous 
 floats, which are navigated to Dordrecht, and sold. These 
 machines have the appearance of a floating village, com- 
 posed of 12 or 15 little wooden huts, on a platform of oak 
 and deal timber. They are frequently 800 or 900 feet in 
 length, and bO or 70 in breadth. The rowers and workmen 
 sometimes amount to 700 or 800, superintended by pilots, 
 and a proprietor, whose habitation is superior in size and 
 elegance to the rest. The raft is composed of several layers 
 of trees, placed one on the other, and bound together: a 
 large raft draws not less than G or 7 feet of water. Several 
 smaller ones are attached to it. by way of protection, besides 
 a string of boats loaded with anchors and cables, and used 
 for the purpose of sounding the river and going on shore. 
 The domestic economy of an East Indiaman or an English 
 man of war is hardly more complete. Poultry, pigs, and 
 other animals are to be found on board ; ami several butchers 
 are attached to the suite. A well-supplied boiler is ai work 
 night and day in the kitchen ; the dinner hour is announced 
 by a basket stuck on a pole, at which signal the pilot gives 
 the word of command, and the workmen run from all 
 quarters to receive their messes. The consumption of pro- 
 visions in the voyage to Holland is almost incredible : some- 
 times amounting to 40,000 or 50,000 pounds of bread ; 18,000 
 or 20,000 of fresh, besides a quantity of salted meat; and 
 butter, vegetables, &.C in proportion. The expenses are so 
 great, that a capital of three or four hundred florins is con- 
 sidered necessary to undertake a raft. Their navigation is 
 a matter of considerable skill, owing to the abrupt windings, 
 tin rocks, and shallows of the river: and some years ago 
 tin- secret was thought to be monopolized by a boatman of 
 Riidesheim and his sons. (.111111:1111 <>n the Rhine.) 
 
 RATTER. (Sox. rafter.) In Architecture, an inclined 
 piece of timber in the side of a roof: in the provinces called 
 a spar. It is of various sorts, as will be seen under the art. 
 Roof, which see. 
 
 RAG-STONE. A dark gray silk-ions sandstone. 
 
 RAIL. In Architecture, the horizontal part in any piece 
 of flaming or panelling Thus, in a door, the horizontal 
 pieces between which the panels lie are called rails, whilst 
 the vertical pieces between which the panels are inserted 
 are called styles. 
 
 RAIL, or' WATER-RAIL. (Rallus aqvntims of Lin.) 
 A native species of a genus of Macrodactyle or long-toed 
 waders, destitute of alar spines or a frontal shield. 
 
 RATLING. A fence or barrier made of posts and rails. 
 The most ordinary fence of this description in the country 
 is formed of wooden posts let in the soil, so as to stand up- 
 right, to which are nailed or morticed horizontal wooden 
 rails, one above another, at such a distance as to prevent 
 domestic animals from penetrating through them. In some 
 cases one horizontal rail is fixed to the posts near the 
 ground, and another near the top of the post, and the in- 
 terval between them is rendered impervious to cattle by up- 
 right rails nailed to the top and bottom horizontal rail. 
 Iron railings are generallv formed in ibis manner. 
 
 RAILROADS, or RAILWAYS. Roads constructed of 
 tracks 1,1' iron called rails, on which ihe wheels of carriages 
 roll, and to which they are confined by ledges or flanges 
 raised either on the rail or on the tires of the wheels 
 
 Theory of Railways.— The object to be obtained by the 
 construction of roads of every kind is to effect the trans- 
 port of loads by the least possible expenditure of tractive 
 force ; and one road is better or worse than another, ceteris 
 paribus, according as the same moving power is capable of 
 drawing upon it a greater or less amount of load. Since 
 the moving power, whatever it may be, is expended in 
 overcoming the resistance which the carriage's on which 
 the load Is borne offers, this object can only be attainable 
 bs the adoption of such expedients as will permanently 
 diminish the amount of that resistance. The causes of 
 resistance to the motion of a carriage along the roael are the 
 following: 
 
 1. Roughness nr l r nrrnmcss of the Rood Surface. — AM 
 asperities formed by stones or other hard substances pro- 
 jecting above the general surface of the roael produce a 
 resistance to the moving power, since, when the win els 
 encounter them anil pass e.ver them, the weight of the 
 load, resting as it does upon the Wheels, must be raised 
 through a height corresponding with such projections;
 
 RAILROADS. 
 
 and, when such projections are frequent cr continued, 
 this expenditure of the moving power is also continued, 
 and the same species of resistance is produced as if the 
 moving power had continually to raise an equivalent 
 weight. In like manner, if cavities or ruts occur on the 
 road surface, the %vheels sink into them, and the moving 
 power is constantly expended in raising the load out of 
 these cavities. All roughness or unevenness of surface 
 consisting of nothing more than a multitude of such pro- 
 jections and cavities, more or less minute in magnitude, 
 the same causes operate by such means in absorbing the 
 moving power. 
 
 2. Softness of the Road.— However free the road surface 
 may be from asperities or cavities, if its substructure be of 
 such a nature that it will yield to the pressure of the 
 Wheels, a resistance will be produced to the moving power, 
 the amount of which will be more or less, according to the 
 degree in which this softness or yielding quality exists. 
 The wheels sinking into a cavity produced in the soft sur- 
 face of the road by their pressure, the moving power is 
 affected in nearly the same manner as if it had to draw the 
 load out of the cavity which it makes for itself, and a cor- 
 responding amount of resistance is the consequence. 
 
 3. Acclivity of the Road Surface. — When the surface of 
 the road is not perfectly horizontal, but forms an inclined 
 plane up which the load is to be drawn, a resistance will 
 be produced by the gravity or weight of the load, which 
 will be proportional to the steepness of the acclivity : thus, 
 if the road surface rise, in the direction of the motion, one 
 perpendicular foot in 50 feet of distance, then as much 
 moving power will be absorbed in going over every 50 feet 
 of distance as would lift the entire load through one foot of 
 perpendicular height. 
 
 This cause of resistance differs from the former causes. 
 In both the former the resistance to the moving power 
 would be equally produced in whichever direction the load 
 is drawn; but the effect of an acclivity is to increase the 
 resistance only in the ascending direction. In the descend- 
 ing direction, on the other hand, it will have the effect of 
 assisting the moving power, by causing the gravity of the 
 load to co-operate with that power in overcoming the other 
 resistance. In all roads, therefore, on which the traffic is 
 equal in both directions, the advantage derived from de- 
 scending acclivities is to be placed against the power ex- 
 pended in ascending them. The principles on which the 
 question of the best possible arrangement of the acclivities 
 on roads of different kinds depends are of great importance, 
 not only with reference to the working of roads, but also in 
 Saying them out, or originally constructing them ; and there 
 is none about which there has been, and still is, a greater 
 difference of opinion among engineers and men of practical 
 6cience. 
 
 Such, therefore, being the sources of resistance, the 
 qualities which must be imparted to a road, to diminish as 
 much as possible the resistance to the moving power, must 
 be the following: 
 
 1st. Smoothness ami evenness of the road surface. 
 
 2d. Hardness and durability of the road structure. 
 
 3d. Such an arrangement of the acclivities that the effect 
 of the gravity of the load shall produce on the whole the 
 least amount of re-istance, or that it shall contribute the 
 greatest amount of advantage to the moving power. 
 
 In ordinary roads, formed of gravel, broken stone, or 
 pavement, the entire surface is constructed in an uniform 
 manner, so that every part of it is equally adapted to the 
 motion of the wheels; and, as the tractive power com- 
 monly used is the strength of horses, the structure of the 
 road must also be more or less made with a view to their 
 qualities. Thus it might happen that the great degree of 
 smoothness and hardness which would contribute most 
 effectually to diminish the resistance of the carriages, would 
 be incompatible with the continued health and soundness 
 of the horses working on it. The paved streets of a town, 
 by reason of their hardness, produce less resistance to the 
 motion of carriages than the softer gravel roads of the 
 country, but they are incomparably more injurious to the 
 horses which work upon them. 
 
 This difficulty is met by appropriating certain parts onlv 
 of the road to the action of the wheels, and imparting to 
 these, in the highest practicable degree, the qualities neces- 
 sary to diminish the resistance, and to give the greatest 
 durability to the road ; and, on the other hand, to adapt that 
 part of the road appropriated to the horses to the peculiar 
 action of their feet, and to the circumstances of the struc- 
 ture and health of the animal. 
 
 This has been accomplished bv constructing upon the 
 roadway parallel tracks, with a width corresponding to the 
 distance between the wheels, and between these tracks 
 forming a path suitable to the horses. 
 
 Another advantage al tending such an arrangement is, 
 that the extent of the rna d surface adapted to the action of 
 the wheels is extremely limited, and a greater amount of 
 82 86 
 
 expense can be incurred in giving it the necessary smooth- 
 ness, hardness, strength, and durability, than could be at 
 all practicable if these qualities were to be imparted, as ia 
 common roads, to the whole extent of the road surface. 
 
 Such are the general principles which have led, through 
 a succession of stages of progressive improvement, to that 
 most perfect of all the instruments of transport which 
 human invention has yet devised — the modern railway. 
 Such a road consists of two parallel tracks of iron firmly 
 maintained in their places, the upper surfaces of which 
 are rendered in a very high degree smooth and level, a 
 strength being given to them which renders them capable 
 of sustaining enormous loads without being deranged in 
 their structure or position. The carriages are maintained 
 upon such tracks or ledges by means of a projecting flange 
 which is constructed upon the inside of the tires of the 
 carriage wheels, and which, by pressing on the inside of 
 either rail, prevents the carriages from escaping from the 
 rails. The general method of constructing such roads will 
 be rendered most easily and agreeably intelligible by a 
 brief view of their history from their first invention to their 
 present state. 
 
 History of Raihcays. — About the middle of the 17th 
 century, the transport of coals from the pits to the harbour 
 was eifected in the coal districts of Northumberland and 
 Durham by laying down parallel tracks of timber with a 
 horse-path between them, the wheels being confined upon 
 the beams or rails of timber by ledges or flanges projecting 
 from the inside of the tire of the wheels. These timber 
 rails were constructed in pieces of about six feet long with 
 a section of about four inches square : they were supported 
 on pieces of timber called sleepers laid at right angles to 
 them transversely on the road. These sleepers were laid 
 at about two feet apart, so that each pair of parallel rails 
 was supported by three sleepers ; besides giving support to 
 the rails, these sleepers also had the effect of maintaining 
 the rails in gauge, or in keeping them at a fixed distance 
 asunder. The rails were fastened to the sleepers by pins 
 driven quite through the rails, and half way through the 
 sleepers; to preserve the uniformity of the upper surface 
 of the rail, these wooden pins were planed off at the top. 
 
 The necessity of giving room for the flanges of the 
 wheels, running as they did below the surface of the rail, 
 and the small depth between the surface of the rail and 
 the sleeper, rendered it impossible to protect the sleepers 
 effectually from the action of the horses' feet by any cover- 
 ing of gravel or other material. The sleepers were conse- 
 quently subject to be worn and destroyed. The rails, also, 
 being worn by the action of the wheels still more rapidly 
 than the sleepers, required to be frequently replaced : and, 
 each new rail being pinned down to the same sleeper, the 
 ends of the s eepers were gradually perforated by so many 
 holes that the sleepers were weakened, and required to be 
 soon replaced. These defects were remedied by the adop- 
 tion of the double timber railway, which consisted in laying 
 upon the surface of trie timber rails, above described, addi- 
 tional rails of timber of equal scantling, attached to the 
 lower rails by wooden pins, passing quite through the upper 
 and half through the lower rails, in the same manner as 
 the lower rails themselves were attached to the transverse 
 sleepers. This change was attended with many advantages. 
 Besides the increased strength given to the rails by the 
 double timbers, the depth of the sleepers below the upper 
 surface of the superior rail, allowed the sleepers to be pro- 
 tected from the action of the horses' feet by covering them 
 with broken stones, gravel, or other road materials. The 
 structure of rails and sleepers also being stronger and more 
 weighty, and held down by the road material with which 
 the sleepers were covered, allowed a packing or ballasting 
 to be driven under the rails, so as to give greater stability 
 and firmness to the road. Another advantage obtained by 
 this arrangement was, that when the superior rails were 
 worn by the action of the wheels, they could be replaced 
 by new ones without disturbing the inferior rails; and as 
 the places of the joints, and those at which they were at- 
 tached by pins to the inferior rails, could be varied at 
 pleasure, the pinholes made in the inferior rails would not 
 come in the same place, or near each other, so as injuriously 
 to weaken the latter. 
 
 The next improvement consisted in the addition of a plate 
 or bar of iron, about two inches broad and half an inch thick, 
 laid along the upper surface of the superior rail, and attach- 
 ed to it by nails or iron pins countersunk in it. The wheels 
 of the carriages ran upon this iron rail, which formed a 
 more durable surface than that of the wood. In the United 
 States of America, railways of this construction are still in 
 verv general use. They are recommended in that country 
 by the abundance and cheapness of timber, and the com- 
 parative high cost of iron. Such a road is tolerably efficient 
 where the traffic is light, and can therefore be resorted to 
 in localities and circumstances in which an adequate re- 
 turn could not be obtained fur the capital necessary for the 
 
 1021
 
 RAILROADS. 
 
 construction of these timber railways in America many 
 other Improvements have been introduced, mure especially 
 in the substructure of the road. In laying out the roadway 
 for the reception of the rails, two parallel trenches are cut 
 along the line of way corresponding to the distance between 
 the rails, and transverse trenches at right angles to these are 
 cut to receive the sleepers : these trenches are respectively 
 bottomed with a ballasting of broken stone, on which the 
 rails and cross-sleepers rest. This basis answers the double 
 purpose of a firm and durable support for the road and an 
 effectual means of drainage. The scantling of the timbers 
 used for the rails is usually six inches in width by ten inches 
 in depth : they are attached to the sleepers, so as to be at 
 once kept from springing from them and from altering their 
 gauge, by the following means: A notch is cut in the sleeper 
 corresponding to the size and form of the rail ; and the rail, 
 at the place where it is let into the sleeper, is formed with 
 a vertical surface on the outside, and a levelled surface on 
 the inside, increasing in width downwards. When let into 
 the notch of the sleeper, the levelled part of the rail is forced 
 into the corresponding cavity of the notch by a wedge driven 
 between the outside edge of the rail and the outer surface 
 of the notch. 
 
 An expedient based upon the general principle of rail- 
 ways has been adopted, but from what date we are not in- 
 formed, in the streets of some of the Italian cities, and more 
 particularly in those of Milan. Paralleled tracks of hewn 
 stone are laid down to receive the wheels of carriages, and 
 such a width is given to them as to be accommodated to 
 any variations which are usual in the structure of carriages. 
 This width is also such that the wheels are not liable to 
 run otT these flagged paths by any irregularity in the course 
 which the horse takes in drawing the carriage. 
 
 Great facility of draught is obtained by this expedient, 
 which has been of late years adopted with some improve- 
 ment in England. A flagged trackway of this kind was 
 constructed some years ago, and is still in operation, extend- 
 ing from the West India Docks, along the Commercial Road, 
 towards the City of London, and a similar expedient has 
 been more recently proposed to facilitate the application of 
 steam power on common roads. Stone track ways of this 
 kind have been accordingly laid down on some parts of the 
 high road between London and Birmingham. This expe- 
 dient has the advantage in one respect over railways, inas- 
 much as the carriages are not confined by flanges or any 
 other expedient to the stone paths on which the wheels 
 move, and consequently the same carriages which run upon 
 them may also move on other parts of the road. Thus, one 
 carriage may pass another, while both used the same line 
 of stone rails, which cannot be effected when carriages are 
 confined to the rails. 
 
 In the progress of improvement, the timber railway above 
 described was succeeded by the last iron plate railway, or 
 tramway, which was a long period used exclusively in the 
 coal districts, and in public works generally, and is still to 
 a considerable extent adopted, espeetfcly in the railways 
 which are carried through the workings of mines, and on 
 which the product of the mine is conducted in wagons, be- 
 ing pushed by men or drawn by horses to the foot of the 
 shaft. 
 
 The Plate Railway, or Tramway. — About the year 1770 
 tramways of cast iron came into use in the collieries in the 
 north of England. These railways consisted of two rails 
 of cast iron laid parallel to each other at a distance from 
 three to three and a half feet asunder. They were usual- 
 ly supported either on timber or stone bearing. A cross 
 Vertical section of these as lirst used is represented at liir. 1 ; 
 where A A' represents the timber supports, BCD,B' C' D' 
 
 (1-) 
 S i 
 
 3-6 
 
 represent the sections of the rails, C D, C D' represent the 
 horizontal plates attached by nails or pins to the sleeper. 
 On this plate the wheels of the wagon rolled. The ledges 
 lie, lie rose perpendicularly two and a half inches on 
 the outside edges C of each plate CD'. These ledges, by 
 
 pressing on the OUtside Of the wheels, prevented the WBgOD 
 from escaping from the road. They were subsequently 
 raised on the inxi,lr of the horizontal plate, so as to act on 
 the inside of the wheels. 
 
 In order to give such rails strength in the vertical direc- 
 tion, to supersede the necessity of a continued support be- 
 neath them, they were afterwards cast u it ti a ledge beneath 
 them, projecting downwards from the outside edge of the 
 horizontal plate. A side view of such a rail is represented 
 in fig. 2, anil a cross section of the rails in rig. 3. The up- 
 1022 
 
 right ledges B C, B' C (fig. 3) rising from the horizontal 
 plates CD, CD', and coming within each wheel, kept the 
 wheels on the rails; and the ledge D E, D'E', projecting 
 downwards, and increasing in depth towards the middle of 
 the distance between the supports, as represented in fig. 2, 
 gave the necessary strength to the rail. The outlines of 
 this ledge formed each a curve, so that the strength at dif- 
 ferent points between the supports might be proportioned 
 to the mechanical effect of the vertical pressure. The 
 flanges B C, B' C are the same height throughout the whole 
 length of the rail. 
 
 These tramways were for a long period constructed ex- 
 clusively of cast iron ; but, when improved methods of roll- 
 ing malleable iron were contrived, they were formed by 
 rolling ; and for nearly twenty years back they have been 
 constructed exclusively of wrought iron. 
 
 Edge Railway. — Within twenty years after the first in- 
 troduction of tramways of iron, the form of rail called the 
 edge rail was brought into use. This rail is constructed in 
 the form of a bar of iron, whose width is considerably less 
 than its depth, placed, as the name implies, with its narrow 
 edge presented upwards. Owing to its depth being much 
 greater than its width, its power, in proportion to its weight 
 to resist vertical pressure, is very considerable. The wheels 
 were retained on rails of this description by flanges project- 
 ing from the inside of their tires. These flanges, at the 
 point where the wheels rest on the rails, descend below the 
 rails ; and the wheel cannot pass off the rail towards the 
 outside, unless the flange rolls over the rail. 
 
 For a long period after their first adoption, edge railways 
 were confined to the mining districts, and more particularly 
 to the collieries, where they were used for the transport of 
 the products of the mines to the places of shipment : but 
 this species of road acquired vastly increased importance 
 when passengers and goods came to be transported on it by 
 locomotive engines, which took place between Liverpool 
 and Manchester in the year 1830. Since that time, the 
 construction of railways adapted for general traffic, at a 
 speed which until within the last ten years would have 
 been thought impossible, has been carried to a great extent 
 in England, and in the United States. Lines of railway 
 with the same object have likewise been projected, and 
 some of limited extent constructed in ditl'ercnt parts of Eu- 
 rope. The general flatness of Belgium offering the greatest 
 facilities for the construction of this kind of road, lines of 
 railway have been brought into operation between the chief 
 towns of that country, and it is intended to continue these 
 lines to Aix-la-Chapelle, from which a line was recently 
 opened to Cologne. The Times, of Dec. 16, 1841, gives a 
 list of the various railroads projected, in progress, and com- 
 pleted, in Germany, down to that date. 
 
 In France, the only railways worked by steam power, 
 adapted for passengers, which have yet been brought into 
 operation, are the short lines connecting Versailles and St. 
 Germain with Paris. Several others of greater extent are, 
 however, in progress; among which may be mentioned, 
 more particularly, the Paris and Havre line, by which, com- 
 bined with the London and Southampton railway, the 
 French metropolis will be accessible by a journey of twenty- 
 four hours or less from London. 
 
 Within the limits of the present article, it would not be 
 possible to trace, in the order of time, the succession of im- 
 provements by which the present methods of laying out 
 and constructing railways for the swift transport of passen- 
 gers by steam power have been attained. When the Liver- 
 pool and Manchester line was first brought into operation, 
 little, comparatively, was understood of tin- < Stabilities of 
 such means of Intercommunication; and that line may lie 
 regarded as an experimental railway, the refills of which 
 nave supplied the data on which others have since been 
 
 constructed and worked. 'I'he form, strength, and weight 
 of the rails — the mode of fixing them on the road — the 
 weight, power, anil proportions of the engines — the form, 
 
 strength, ami weigh) of the carriages and wagons — the mag- 
 nitudes of the trams, and the speed of transport, have all 
 been subject to change from year to year, ami almost from 
 uiouth to month, since the opening of that line in lt)30 to
 
 RAILROADS. 
 
 the present time. We shall not, therefore, attempt to trace 
 these improvements; but shall briefly explain the forma- 
 tion and construction of railways, according to the methods 
 and principles at present generally received. 
 
 Of the Formation and Construction of Railways. — What- 
 ever be the moving power to be used for the transport of 
 loads upon a railway, its force must be proportioned to the 
 average resistance of such loads, and it must be capable of 
 varying its energy to the same extent as that resistance is 
 subject to variation. The great perfection which has been 
 attained in the construction of the rails, and in the methods 
 of fixing them in their position upon the road, is such, that 
 the resistance offered to the tractive power by loads moved 
 on a straight and level railway may be regarded as practi- 
 cally uniform, so that the moving power by which a load is 
 transported at a given speed on a straight and level line of 
 railway is subject to a resistance as unvaried and as uni- 
 form as any to which moving powers are usually submitted 
 in any of the processes of art ; but as the amount of resist- 
 ance to the tractive powers upon a straight and level rail- 
 way is diminished by the perfection thus attained in the 
 construction of the road, so, in the same degree, is any re- 
 sistance produced by a departure from a perfect level more 
 sensibly felt. Thus, if the resistance to the moving [lower 
 on a straight and level railway, by a load moved at a given 
 speed, be equal to the 250th part of the load, an acclivity 
 which would rise at the rate of one foot in 250, or nearly at 
 the rate of 20 perpendicular feet in a mile, would produce 
 a resistance to the moving power, by reason of the ascent 
 alone, equal to a 250th part of the load, and therefore equal 
 to the resistance which the moving power would sustain on 
 a level line. It follows, therefore, that, under such circum- 
 stances, in drawing a load up such an acclivity, the moving 
 power would have to overcome twice the resistance opposed 
 to it on a level ; for the same causes which produce on a 
 level a resistance amounting to the 250th pari of the load 
 equally produce this resistance in ascending the acclivity, 
 in addition to which there would be an equal amount of re- 
 sistance due to the ascent. If, therefore, under such cir- 
 cumstances, the moving power were required to draw the 
 load up the acclivity at the same speed as that at which it 
 drew it on the level, trie machine exerting that power must 
 be endowed with properties in virtue of which it is capable 
 of varying its energy, without injury to its structure, in the 
 proportion of two to one. 
 
 Whether such limits of variation in the resistance or in 
 the moving power as are here referred to for the sake of il- 
 lustration be those which are requisite in practice or not, it 
 is apparent that some practical limits must exist to the varia- 
 tion of the resistance ; and that, whatever these limits may 
 be, corresponding limits must be imposed on the acclivities 
 or gradients, as they have been called, which are admissi- 
 ble on the railway on which such moving power is to be ap- 
 plied. If the moving p6wer be incapable of increasing its 
 energy in a greater proportion than two to one, then the 
 steepest gradients must not create more than twice the re- 
 sistance on the level parts of the line ; and, if the resistance 
 on the level parts of the line be equal to the 250th part of 
 the load, the steepest gradients ought not exceed one in 250. 
 This, however, proceeds on the supposition that the same 
 speed is required to be maintained in ascending the acclivi- 
 ties as on the level. 
 
 When a carriage of any kind changes the direction of its 
 motion, it does not accomplish this by suddenly passing from 
 motion in the one direction to motion in the other. Many 
 mechanical effects, which will be sufficiently obvious, for- 
 bid this. The change of direction is, on the other hand, 
 effected gradually, by causing the carriage to move in a 
 curve. Now, in such a motion, it is evident that the wheels 
 which traverse the outer part of the curve will in the same 
 time move over a greater space than those which traverse 
 the inner part ; in fact, the inner and outer wheels move 
 over arches of circles which have the same centre, the 
 outer arch being longer than the inner. If the wheels, 
 therefore, be (as they always are) of the same magnitude, 
 the outer wheel must revolve oftener on its axle in passing 
 over the curve than the inner : but, besides this, the posi- 
 tion assumed by the wheels in passing round a curve is dif- 
 ferent from that which they have when moving in a straight 
 line. If a four-wheel carriage move along a straight road, 
 its axles will be at right angles to the direction of its motion, 
 and therefore parallel to each other ; but if it move in a 
 curve, which it does in turning a corner, then its axles are 
 no longer parallel, but each of them is directed to the centre 
 of the curve which the carriage describes. The mechanism 
 by which this effect is provided for by four-wheel carriages, 
 used on common roads, is the perch or pivot on which the 
 axle of the fore wheels is made to turn. By this pivot the 
 fore axle may be placed at any required angle with the axle 
 of the hind wheels. As the wheels of all such carriages 
 revolve independently of each other, each upon its own axle, 
 the wheels on the same axle may revolve at different speeds. 
 
 These two provisions, therefore, are brought into play when 
 a common carriage changes its direction. The outer wheels, 
 in turning round the curve, move faster than the inner, and 
 the axles throw themselves out of parallelism, and take the 
 directions of the radii of the curve. 
 
 The peculiar structure of railway carriages excludes the 
 possibility of either of these provisions for turning round a 
 curve. To maintain in security the carriages on the rails, 
 it has been found necessary to fix the axles truly square 
 with the carriages, and therefore to exclude the pivot or 
 perch by which a common carriage is turned. It has like- 
 wise been found necessary to key the wheels firmly upon 
 the axle, so that the wheels and axle shall turn together, in- 
 stead of the axle being fixed, as in a common carriage, and 
 the wheels turning upon it. The mechanism of a railway 
 carriage is therefore essentially adapted to rectilinear mo- 
 tion, and it contains no expedient by which it can move 
 round a curve. When such a carriage, therefore, first en- 
 counters a curve, its tendency is to proceed in the continua- 
 tion of the straight line in which it has previously moved, 
 and which forms a tangent to the curve. If this tendency 
 were allowed to take effect, the outer wheel would run off 
 the mil on the outside of the curve, and the inner wheel 
 would come off the rail in the space between the rails. This 
 is prevented by the flange which projects from the tire of 
 the outer wheel, and which, at the point where that wheel 
 rests upon the rail, descends below the rail. When the 
 wheel makes an effort, in virtue of the tendency to recti- 
 linear motion, to pass off the rail, the flange comes in con- 
 tact with the inside of the rail, and, by pressing upon it, 
 throws the carriage inwards ; and this taking place with 
 the fore wheels, the direction of the body of the carriage is 
 shifted, and it is thrown more nearly square with the rails. 
 This action of the flange is continued while the carriage is 
 passing round the curve, and it is to it alone that the change 
 of direction of the carriage is due. 
 
 The tires of the wheels of railway carriages have usual- 
 ly a conical form given to them, becoming gradually smaller 
 from the flange outwards ; and, when a carriage rests straight 
 upon the rails, the distance between the flanges of the 
 wheels being less than the distance between the rails, a 
 small space is left between the flanges and the rails, to al- 
 low some play to the flanges without letting them strike the 
 rails. When the carriage comes to a curve, the flange of 
 the outer wheel comes into contact with the outer rail, and 
 the whole play of the flanges is given to the space between 
 the flange of the inner wheel and the inner rail. In conse- 
 quence of the conical form of the tires of the wheels, the 
 outer wheels, in this case, rest upon a thicker part of the 
 cone than the inner, and the actual diameter on which they 
 revolve is consequently greater than that on which the in- 
 ner wheels revolve. This effect has been generally regard- 
 ed as an expedient sufficient to enable railway carriages to 
 run round curves of a certain limited radius ; but that this 
 is an error may be easily shown — if, to a four-wheel car- 
 riage, wheels of equjfcliiameter be attached, smaller wheels 
 being put on the o«#"side than on the other, and if such 
 wheels were attached to their axles, so that the axles re- 
 volve with them, and if at the same time the axles be fixed 
 square with the carriage, such a carriage will be found to be 
 incapable of moving in a curve, notwithstanding the inequali- 
 ty of its wheels. 
 
 The pressure of the flange on the rail being, therefore, 
 the only means of turning a railway carriage round a curve, 
 and such pressure being attended by friction, and therefore 
 by increased resistance to the moving power, curves as well 
 as acclivities are a cause of resistance, and this resistance 
 will be great in proportion to the rapidity of the curve or 
 the shortness of its radius. But, independently of this ef- 
 fect of curves, a more serious objection to those whose radius 
 is under a certain limit of magnitude arises from the liabili- 
 ty of the carriages to run off, by the flange encountering any 
 obstacle or inequality which would cause it to pass over the 
 rails. 
 
 The section of a railway is therefore limited by those cir- 
 cumstances which govern its acclivities, already explained, 
 and which are equally related to the amount of the resist- 
 ance on level rails, and to the practical limits of the varia- 
 tion of the moving power; and the plan is, on the other 
 hand, limited by the necessity of effecting every change of 
 direction of the line by curves whose radius shall have such 
 a magnitude as to exclude all danger of the carriages run- 
 ning off the line. In the laying out of a railway, therefore, 
 limitations of its section and plan must be kept constantly in 
 view. 
 
 Since the natural surface of a country is rarely adapted 
 to the conditions which have been thus shown to be ne- 
 cessary to the formation of a railway, an artificial surface 
 must generally be formed by raising some and lowering 
 other parts of the country through which the railway is to 
 pass. The expedients by which this is accomplished are 
 attended with mure or less difficulty and expense, and the 
 
 1023
 
 RAILROADS. 
 
 skill of thB engineer is eminently required in the selection 
 of Blich B course for a proposed line of railway as will he 
 attended with the least expensive construction, due regard 
 being had to the pexmanenl expense of working and main- 
 taining it. 
 
 Whin a railway is proposed to be constructed between 
 two points, which are called its ttrmiyiii, the engineer 
 makes himself generally acquainted with the country be- 
 tween these termioii, and selects that course for the line 
 which, with least deviation from a straight line joining 
 the proposed terminii. will afibrd the greatest facilities for 
 the formation of the artificial surface of the railway, lim- 
 ited as it must be in respect to its acclivities, and to the 
 curves by which its various changes of direction are effect- 
 ed. This is first accomplished by an eye survey or general 
 reconnaissance of the country. An instrumental sur\ey is 
 afterwards made along the direction which has been se- 
 lected for the line, and a nearly accurate profile of the coun- 
 try from terminus to terminus, in the proposed direction is 
 obtained. This being accomplished and reduced to a draw- 
 ing, as represented in fig. 4, a line ABCUEFGHIKis 
 
 (4-) 
 
 drawn, regulated by the degrees of inclination which have 
 been decided to be the best practical limits of the accliv- 
 ities. This line will, as represented in the figure, in some 
 place-, as A B, C D, E F, G H, I K, pass above, and in oth- 
 ers. LSC, DE, FG, H I, below, the natural surface of the 
 ground. It is therefore to be considered that, in the one 
 case, the artificial surface of the line must be elevated 
 above the natural surface ; and that, in the other case, 
 some expedient must be provided by which the artificial 
 surface may pass at the requisite depth below the natural 
 surface. 
 
 The surface of a railway is raised above the natural sur- 
 face of the ground by either of two expedients ; 1st, by form- 
 ing a mound of earth with sloping sides, bavins the rail- 
 way on its summit; this is called an embankment (tig. 5) ; 
 (5.) 
 A' 
 
 2dly, by constructing a bridge by which 1 the railway can be 
 conducted, at the requisite elevation, above thi 
 surface of the ground, in the same manner as a road is 
 Constructed Over B river; such a bridge is called a via- 
 tiuit. Such structures are formed either of masonry or of 
 r :ist iron ; but in countries such as the United" States' where 
 timber is abundant, cheap viaducts of carpentry are fre- 
 quently used. 
 
 The surface of a railway is conducted below the natural 
 surface of the ground by either of two expedients: 1st, by 
 farming an excavation, or artificial valley, with sloping 
 
 sides, along the bottom of which the railway is C trucl 
 
 ed ; such an excavation is called a cutting (fig. 0; ; 2dlv, by 
 
 (0.) 
 
 d 
 
 undermining the ground and constructing a subterranean 
 archway or vault of sufficient magnitude, the roof or which 
 
 is usually lined with masonry, and along the bottom of 
 which the railway is conducted : such an archway is called 
 a tunnel. 
 
 In laying out a railway, the disposition of its cuttings and 
 embankments must be kept in \ ieW, In genera], tin mate 
 
 rial by which the embankments are formed i* obtained 
 from the cuttings; ami, with a view to the saving Of ex- 
 panse, the engineer so arranges his section that the qu an 
 tity of stuff required for the formation of embankments 
 nhaii be as nearly as p I to that supplied by the 
 
 cuttings. If there be an excess of stuff from the cuttings, 
 1024 
 
 ground must bo obtained in some position near the cuttings 
 whereon it can be thrown. This is technically called put 
 ting it tu spoil. 
 
 If. on the other hand, there be an excess of embankment, 
 then the Stuff necessary for the formation of such embank 
 ment must be obtained from some excavation made near 
 the embankment expressly to supply the stuff for the em- 
 bankment. This is called side cutting. 
 
 The distance along which the stuff obtained from a cut- 
 ting is carried before it is laid down to form the embank- 
 ment is called the lead ; and the quantity of labour neces- 
 sary to form an embankment out of an adjacent cutting is 
 determined by the number of cubic yards of stuff necessary 
 to form the embankment multiplied by the average lead, or 
 the mean distance to which such staff has to be carried. 
 
 Where a very low and long embankment occurs, it may 
 happen that the lead is so long that the expense of forming 
 the embankment from the nearest cutting would be greater 
 than the expense of putting the cutting to spoil, and of form- 
 ing the embankment from side cutting. These are ques- 
 tions which are determined in each individual case with 
 reference to the price of land and labour. 
 
 When the elevation above the natural surface of the 
 ground at which the railway must be carried is so great 
 as to render an embankment impracticable, or attended with 
 a disproportionate expense, a viaduct is resorted to ; and, on 
 the other hand, when the excavation necessary to give an 
 open cutting would be productive of objectionable expense, 
 then the railway is conducted under the ground through a 
 tunnel. 
 
 The slopes A B, A' B\ fig. 5, 6, forming the sides of em- 
 bankments and cuttings, depend on the nature of the soil or 
 strata through which the cuttings are made, and of which 
 the embankments are formed. In general, every material 
 has a certain angle at which it will rest, all more steep an- 
 gles causing it to slip or fall: this angle is called, in me- 
 chanics, the angle of repose. In the strata through which 
 railway cuttings are made, and from which embankments 
 are usually formed, the slopes of the sides are rarely less 
 than 1A foot horizontal to 1 foot vertical, and they vary be- 
 tween that and 2 feet horizontal to 1 foot vertical. When 
 the material is gravel, sand, loose chalk, or gravelly clay, 
 a slope of 1 J to 1 is generally found sufficient; but wilb cer- 
 tain descriptions of clay, such as that called the London 
 clay, a more gradual slope must be allowed. With such 
 material, the slopes are constructed at 1$ or 2 horizontal to 
 1 vertical ; but in general it is better, even at increased ex- 
 pense of earthwork, to allow a sufficient slope in the com- 
 mencement, and thereby avoid the continual expense at- 
 tending slips, as the gradual decadence of the sides of cut- 
 tings and embankments is called. 
 
 The face of slopes, both of cuttings and embankments, 
 should be covered with soil and sown With grass seeds, so 
 as to produce a turf, which gives a farther security against 
 slips. They may be also, especially the slopes of embank- 
 ments, planted with shrubs; care being taken, however, not 
 to obstruct the ventilation of the road. 
 
 When the stratum through which a cutting is required to 
 be made is rock or hard stratified chalk, it will stand with 
 perpendicular sides ; and, in such cases, cuttings of great 
 depths may be made at a tritlinsr sacrifice of land. The 
 Olive Mount cutting on the Liverpool and Manchester rail- 
 w ay is. at the deepest parts, above 100 perpendicular feet 
 from the natural level of the surface to the level of tho 
 rails : and cuttings of still greater depth and much greater 
 extent, through stratified chalk, are executed on the Brigfa 
 ton railway, of which the sides are perpendicular. 
 
 In most case-', however, where cuttings attain to these 
 
 extraordinary depths, tunnels would be less expensive, u 
 sometimes happens thai the material of the cutting is re- 
 quired for an adjacent embankment; and, under such cir- 
 cumstances, if the sides of the cutting can he perpendicu- 
 lar, and the sacrifice of land small, it may be preferable to 
 tunnelling. The materials from the Olive Mount cutting 
 above mentioned were required for the formation of the 
 broad green embankment adjacent to it. 
 
 Drainage. — The formation level, as the artificial surface 
 of the road Intended 10 receive the rails and their sup- 
 ports is called, should be properly drained. This is effected 
 by a Centre drain, carried along the middle of the road, w ith 
 
 cross drain- at proper Intervals communicating with side 
 drains in the cuttings, and discharging the water down slo- 
 ping drains descending the sides oi em hank no nts. Thecen- 
 
 ire anil cross drains are covered drains, formed either of 
 brick or Stone, or. more economically, Of tiles made of a 
 
 in for the purpose. 
 Rood Structure.— The surface of the road beine prepared 
 to receive the rails, the props or chairs which, at fixed In- 
 tervals, form the Bupporl of the rails must next he laid down. 
 
 These are sustained on supports of either of tw kinds ; 
 
 1st. In cuttings or on well consolidated embankments, 
 stone blocks are provided, roughly formed into a rectangu-
 
 RAILROADS. 
 
 lar parallelopiped, the base of which is a square whose fide 
 is 2 feet, and the height of which is 1 foot. A bottoming of 
 broken stone and gravel being spread to receive these, they 
 are set upon it by raising them repeatedly by means of a 
 lever, and letting them fall in the place where they are in- 
 tended to rest, until they beat for themselves a solid and 
 unyielding bed. It was the practice to lay these blocks so 
 that their sides were parallel and perpendicular to the sides 
 of the railway. In fig. 7 is represented the plan of a rial- 
 
 (7.) 
 
 I Mi I u | i ery 
 
 "ml 
 
 f ryi 
 
 m n rrnn m rn rn 
 
 ijnxanjro_m _rkijriiXaZLr^rL, r 
 
 UU. L_s_l i_H_i Lii LiU i_2J LiU Lai 
 
 S g s 
 
 way thus laid on blocks, showing its drainage, consisting, as 
 is usual with railways having extensive traffic, of two lines. 
 The line R R, R' R' is appropriated to carriages moving in 
 one direction, and the line rr, r' r' to carriages moving in 
 the other direction. By thus causing carriages moving in 
 the same direction to be confined to the same line, the col- 
 lision of trains meeting is prevented. The centre drain run- 
 ning between the two lines of railway is represented at 
 DUD. The cross drains are shown at C C C, communica- 
 ting with the side drains S S S. 
 
 The blocks are represented at B B, supporting the rails, 
 and laid with their sides parallel and perpendicular to the 
 rails. 
 
 This arrangement has lately been superseded by the di- 
 agonal arrangement of blocks, represented in fig. 8. It is 
 
 considered that this arrangement gives the block a better 
 bearing on its bed ; but the chief advantage attending it, as 
 compared with the former position of the blocks, is that it 
 renders the base of the block more accessible for repairing 
 and adjustment, from time to time, when the road is in op- 
 eration. 
 
 2dly, On embankments newly made, or other parts of 
 the line where the foundation of the road is liable to yield 
 under the operation of the traffic upon it, wooden sleepers, 
 S S, fig. 9, extending across the road, are used instead of 
 
 
 Q 
 
 
 ' 
 
 (9.) 
 
 K 
 
 
 Q U 
 
 
 
 l 
 
 
 y 
 
 j 
 
 H 
 
 
 Hj |. 
 
 — J 
 
 
 r 
 
 s 
 
 S 
 
 n 
 
 s 
 
 « 
 
 p 
 
 s 
 
 nl !r, 
 
 s 
 
 
 Cj 
 
 L 
 
 ^J L 
 
 "1 
 
 b 
 
 
 ill L!J 
 
 
 stone blocks to support the chairs. These are usually 
 formed of larch : the tree is split along the centre, so as to 
 form two sleepers, one side of which is flat, and the other 
 convex. They are usually from 8 to 9 feet long, and from 
 9 to 10 inches broad on the flat side ; and from 4 to 5 inches 
 deep, measured in the thickest part. Thev are laid across 
 the road, with the flat side downwards. The chairs are fas- 
 tened to them by pins on the convex side, in the same man- 
 ner as they have been already described to be fastened to 
 the blocks. Each pair of opposite chairs being thus con- 
 nected, by being attached to the same sleeper, the rails are 
 
 (10.) 
 
 kept in gauge, notwithstanding the yielding of the founda- 
 tion under the sleeper. 
 
 Until within a recent period, stone blocks were universal- 
 ly regarded as the best permanent support for the rails 
 wherever they could be laid upon a solid and durable foun- 
 dation, and wooden sleepers were only resorted to as tempo- 
 rary supports, to be ultimately superseded by stone blocks 
 whenever the foundation of the road should be properly con- 
 solidated. Opinion has, however, undergone some change 
 on this subject, and wooden sleepers are now sometimes 
 used in preference to stone blocks for permanent purposes : 
 whether they will prove economical, when submitted to the 
 trial of a long period of time, experience alone can decide. 
 
 The chairs, which are the immediate supports or props on 
 which the rails rest, are attached to the centre of the upper 
 surfaces of the blocks in the following manner: Two holes 
 are drilled in the blocks to a sufficient depth, about 2 inches 
 in diameter, into which plugs of oak or other hard wood 
 are driven ; holes are then bored in these, 3-8ths of an inch 
 in diameter, corresponding in position with two holes in the 
 chair of cast iron, which is to support the rail. Iron pins 
 of half an inch in diameter are then driven through the 
 holes in the chairs into the holes in the block, a piece of 
 patent felt being placed between the chair and the block ; 
 and the chair is thus firmly fastened to the block. 
 
 The chairs are formed of cast iron, formed with a cavity 
 corresponding to the magnitude and form of the rail : they 
 vary very much in their size and form, according to the 
 opinion or judgment of the engineer. A cross vertical sec- 
 tion of one of the most common forms 
 of chair, fixed on a block, now in use, 
 with the rail resting in it, is repre- 
 sented in fig. 10. 
 
 A great variety of expedients have 
 been resorted to to maintain the rail 
 fixed in its position in the chair. 
 Pins and wedges of iron were first 
 used of various forms, and applied in 
 various ways. These, however, have now been very gen- 
 erally superseded by the simple contrivance of a wooden 
 block or wedge, driven in between the side of the chair, as 
 represented at a, fig. 10. These wedges are prepared by 
 previously passing them through a h> drostatic press, so as to 
 harden them by exposing them to a severe pressure. Besides 
 affording a very effectual fastening to the rail in the chair, 
 these wedges, from the nature of the material, soften the 
 jar which attends tho transition of the wheels over the 
 chairs. 
 
 Weight and Form of Rails. — The weight and form of the 
 rails have been subject to great variation, since the exten- 
 sion of railways to the rapid transport of passengers. This 
 has not arisen so much from ignorance of the mechanical 
 properties of the metal thus applied, as from the varying 
 weight and speed of the engines and loads transported upon 
 them. The weight of the engines was, in the commence- 
 ment, limited to 6*tons ; but the most common weight of 
 these machines at present is 12 tons; and their speed, as 
 well as the amount of loads which they draw, have un- 
 dergone a corresponding increase. The strength and solid- 
 ity of the structure on which this extraordinary traffic is car- 
 ried have necessarily undergone corresponding changes. 
 The Liverpool and Manchester railway was first laid down 
 with rolled iron rails, weighing 35 pounds per yard, support- 
 ed on chairs 3 feet asunder. These, were, however, soon 
 found insufficient in strength, and they were replaced by 
 rails weighing 50 pounds per yard, supported on bearings 
 at the same distance asunder. 
 
 The distance between the bearings or chairs has also 
 been subject to change. The necessary strength or weight 
 of the rail will evidently depend on this distance; the 
 greater the distance between the props, the greater must be 
 the strength of the rail ; and, so far as regards the expense, 
 the engineer has to balance the cost of heavier rails against 
 the saving effected by a diminished number of blocks and 
 chairs. But, independently of the consideration of expense, 
 the effect upon the carriages and engines is to be considered. 
 Between chair and chair, a slight flexure of the rail takes 
 place, and the wheels have consequently to pass over a se- 
 ries of eminences, so as to give to the carriages a pitching 
 motion, the intervals and degree of which must depend 
 conjointly on the strength of the rails and the distance be- 
 tween the chairs. 
 
 The least distance between the chairs now used is 3 feet, 
 and the greatest 5 feet ; 50 lb. rails are very generally used 
 on 3 feet bearings ; 65 lb. rails on 4 feet bearings ; and To lb. 
 rails on 5 feet bearings. All these varieties of construction 
 are used in different parts of the Liverpool and Manchester 
 railway. The Grand Junction railway, extending from 
 Birmingham to Newton, is laid down uniformly with 65 lb. 
 rails on 4 feet bearings, and the London and Birmingham 
 railway has, in different places, all theabrve varie ies. 
 
 The form of the rail has been much varied. The fish- 
 3S 1025
 
 RAILROAD. 
 
 bellied rail nu considered to have the most advantageous 
 form, when the Liverpool and Manchester railway was 
 first brought into operation, and tor some years afterwards. 
 This form gives increased depth to the rail at the parts 
 most distant from tin- supports; and, in theory, it is un- 
 questionably the most correct, the strength of every part to 
 resi>t vertical pressure being the same. Hut various prac- 
 tical objections have been found against it, Which our limits 
 will not allow us to examine or discuss ; and the 6ah-bellied 
 rail baa accordingly been altogether superseded by the 
 parallel rail, which is a rail whose cross section is the 
 same at every part. Nothing can he more varied or more 
 capricious than the forms given to the cross section of rails 
 by diti'erent engineers. The figures 11 to 18, represent a 
 few of tins great variety. 
 
 (11.1 (12.) (13.) (14.) 
 
 (15.) 
 
 (lb.) 
 
 (17.) 
 
 (18.) 
 
 The form, however, which has obtained most general 
 favour at the present time is that which is represented in 
 fig. 13, the cross section of which is nearly the same as the 
 longitudinal section of a dumb bell. This form of parallel 
 rail has the advantage of being capable of being reversed, 
 either side being turned upwards. 
 
 In some rare instances, modern railways in England have 
 been laid down on continuous bearing's. The rails, in such 
 cases, are supported immediately on the longitudinal truck- 
 ers without chairs. This is the case in the Manchester 
 
 (19.) 
 R 
 
 f 
 
 (20.) 
 
 and Bolton railway, and in the Great 
 Western railway : a section of a rail, as 
 attached to a longitudinal trucker sup- 
 port without a chair, is represented in 
 fig. 19, where R is a section of the rail, 
 P an iron pin attaching it to the trucker 
 B. These pins are placed at regular 
 distances along the outside base of the 
 rail. 
 
 A section of the rail with its trucker 
 support, used on the Great Western rail- 
 way, is given in tig. '20. These rails are 
 fastened to the truckers by screws on 
 each side. They weigh from 40 to 50 
 lbs. per yard. 
 
 Ga.ugt of the Railway. — The gauge, or the distance be- 
 tween the rails, on which depends the distance between 
 the wheels of the carriages and engines, and to a certain 
 extent their structure, has recently been a subject of much 
 discussion. It is contended by some that all railways con- 
 structed in the same country ought to have the same gauge ; 
 that, though it is not contended that the gauge now in use 
 is the best that could possibly have been adopted, yet that, 
 extensive lines of road having been constructed with that 
 gauge, more disadvantage will attend any departure from 
 it than could be balanced by any advantages that could 
 attend any other magnitude of gauge. 
 
 In the colliery railways in the north of England, the rails 
 had been laid at 4 feet 8A inches asunder ; and on the 
 Liverpool and Manchester railway, the first line intended 
 for general trartic, was laid down by Mr. Stevenson with 
 the same gauge. The lines of railway subsequently pro- 
 jected, extending from Liverpool and Manchester to Bir- 
 mingham 'and thence to London), to Preston, Wigan, 
 Bolton, Leeds, and other places, were laid down with the 
 same gauge, since the carriages and engines would neces- 
 sarily have to pass from one to the other. But when rail- 
 ways began to be constructed in Belgium and other parts 
 of tin Continent, where the same reason for uniformity of 
 gauge did not prevail, the same gauge nevertheless was 
 adopted. The Bret conspicuous departure from this uni- 
 formity took place in the Great Western railway, extending 
 from London to Bristol, which w as laid down with a gauge 
 of 7 feet; and the Eastern Counties railway next adopted 
 a gauge of C feet. 
 
 The gauge of a railway can he regarded as nothing more 
 than its linear modulus, or the index to its general scale. 
 There is nothing per se to give one gauge a preference over 
 another; but, as the magnitude of the gauge determines 
 the general magnitude and scale of the railway, and of 
 everything connected with the railway, including waRons, 
 coaches, and engines, bridges, viaducts, tunnels, cuttings, 
 fee, and, In short, all the works, whether of u moveable 
 1028 
 
 RAIN. 
 
 and perishable or fixed and permanent nature, it is a matter 
 of the greatest importance that it should be determined 
 With a just regard to the traffic of the line. 
 
 ( urves on Railways. — With a view to insure the public 
 safety, the legislature has generally required that no curve 
 shall be allowed upon a main line with a less radius than 
 one mile : the exceptions to this are where one railway 
 passes into another ; and at the termini, or the entrance of 
 depots or stations. In such situations the trains must 
 slacken their speed, and therefore a sharp curve is attended 
 with less danger. It has appeared, however, that these 
 restrictions upon the radii of curves have been more strin- 
 gent than safety requires. In a course of experiments 
 made by Dr. Lardner, within the last two years, it has 
 been established that curves of a mile radius produce no 
 sensible increase of resistance at the usual speed of rail- 
 way trains, and therefore curves of considerably less radius 
 may be traversed at that speed without danger. We may 
 here state, that on the Newcastle and Carlisle railway 
 there are many curves in the main line with radii under 
 half a mile, which are traversed at the usual speed with 
 perfect safety. 
 
 Motive Power on Railways. — The motive power on rail- 
 ways for general trartic is at present steam power, and is 
 either locomotive engines, which move along the railway 
 with the load which they draw ; or stationary engines, 
 which, by means of ropes extended along the line of rail- 
 way, draw the loads in either direction. See Locomotive 
 Engine and Stationary Engine. 
 
 Resistance of Air to Railway Trains. — Until very re- 
 cently, it has been considered by engineers that the resist- 
 ance to railway trains was almost entirely due to friction 
 and mechanical effects, and that that part of the resistance 
 which depends on the atmosphere formed so inconsiderable 
 a portion of the whole that it might be disregarded in 
 practice. The result of a course of experiments, made 
 within the last two years, by Dr. Lardner, the details of 
 which may be seen in the Proceedings of the British Asso- 
 ciation, have, however, indicated a serious amount of 
 resistance due to the air. If Dr. Lardner's conclusion shall 
 be confirmed by further experience, the great expense at- 
 tending the maintenance of very high speed on railways, 
 and the improbability of attaining in the ordinary work of 
 a line the extraordinary velocity which some persons now 
 contemplate, will be apparent. 
 
 Speed of Railway Traffic. See Locomotive Engine. 
 
 For the details of the structure and operation of railways, 
 see the Treatise by Nicholas Wood, 3d edition, London, 
 1838 ; The Steam Engine, $-c, by Dr. Lardner, 7th edition, 
 London, 1840. 
 
 Railway, Pneumatic or Atmospheric. The name 
 given to a system of locomotion on railways by means of 
 the pressure of the atmosphere. A simple and ingenious 
 apparatus for this purpose was invented a few years ago, 
 and is now being exhibited on the West London Railway 
 at Wormwood Scrubs. Those who desire to see a brief 
 though clear account of this invention, with a resume of 
 the advantages likely to accrue from its being generally 
 adopted, may consult the well-reasoned letter of Mr. Pirn, 
 addressed to the President of the Hoard of Trade (1841). 
 (See also a treatise on this subject, by Mr. Samuda.) 
 
 RAIN. (Ger. regen.) In Meteorology, water falling 
 from the atmosphere in drops. 
 
 The theory of rain is not yet very satisfactorily estab- 
 lished. One of the most ingenious explanations, ami indeed 
 the only one which rests entirely on known principles, 
 was proposed by Dr. James Hittton in the Philosophical 
 Transactions of Edinburgh, for 1787. It is now a well- 
 ascertaineil fact, though it was only matter of conjecture to 
 Dr. Mutton, that the capacity of air for moisture, or the 
 quantity of moisture which a given volume of air will hold, 
 increases with the temperature, but in a much faster ratio 
 than the temperature ; and hence it follows that if two 
 equal portions of air at different temperatures completely 
 saturated with moisture are mingled together, a precipita- 
 tion must take place in consequence of the mixture, which 
 will have the mean temperature of the two portions, being 
 unable to sustain the mean quantity of vapour. For ex- 
 ample, suppose that while the temperature increases in an 
 arithmetical ratio, the rapacity for retaining moisture in- 
 creases In a geometrical ratio, and that at the temperature 
 of 15 centesimal degrees air can hold 200 parts of moisture; 
 then at 30 degrees it will hold 400 parts, and at 45 degrees 
 BOO parts. Now, suppose two equal bulks of damp air, at 
 the respective temperatures of 15 and 45 degrees, to be 
 mixed together, the compound must contain lOOO parts of 
 Vapour, or either half of il 500 p:irls ; and the temperature 
 of the Compound Will be 30 degrees. But at this tempera- 
 ture the air is saturated with 400 parts, and consequently 
 there will be a precipitation of 100 parts from each of the 
 given bulks. 
 
 It is obviously not necessary that the commingled por-
 
 RAIN. 
 
 tions of air should be fully saturated with moisture, as 
 assumed in the above example ; rain will be precipitated if 
 the two masses approach the point of saturation, but the 
 quantity will be proportionally less. It is also a conse- 
 quence of the theory, that for a given difference of heat the 
 precipitation will be greatly increased at the higher tem- 
 peratures ; and this is conformable to experience, for 
 showers are most copious during hot weather, and in tropi- 
 cal countries. The circumstances, therefore, on which, 
 according to this theory, the quantity of rain precipitated 
 in a given time depends, are the following: The previous 
 dampness of the commixed portions of air ; the difference 
 of their respective temperatures ; the elevation of their 
 mean temperature ; and the extent to which the combina- 
 tion takes place. 
 
 The principal objection to this theory is, that the quantity 
 of rain which actually falls in a given portion of time is 
 often verv much greater than can be supposed to be pro- 
 duced by any probable extent of cooling that can take place 
 in the free atmosphere in that time, unless, perhaps, we 
 have recourse to the supposition of a cold and warm cur- 
 rent driving swiftly in opposite directions, and continually 
 mixing their conterminous surfaces. Sir J. Leslie (Encyc. 
 Brit., art. " Meteorology") computes that if two currents 
 of moist air were driving along in opposite directions, with 
 velocities whose sum is 30 miles an hour, the one bavins a 
 temperature of 70° of Fahrenheit, and the other of 50°, 
 the deposition of moisture in the space of an hour would 
 be equal to the height of an inch. If the sum of the oppo- 
 site velocities amounted to 60 miles an hour, and the inter- 
 mingling influence extended to but a quarter of an inch at 
 the grazing surfaces, there would still be produced in the 
 same time a fall of rain reaching to half an inch in altitude. 
 These quantities agree sufficiently with observation in 
 certain cases ; but the objection still recurs that rain fre- 
 quently falls from clouds which appear to move very 
 slowly, and when, consequently, the supposition of such 
 velocities is inadmissible. 
 
 It is the opinion of Mr. Luke Howard, and some other 
 writers on meteorology, that Dr. Hutton's theory is insuffi- 
 cient to explain the phenomena ; and that the immediate 
 cause of rain is to be ascribed, in many instances at least, 
 to the electric action of the clouds on each other. They 
 suppose the hygrometric moisture in the air to be kept 
 suspeaded by the mutual repulsions of the electric atmo- 
 spheres of the particles ; and that when the electricity is 
 from any cause withdrawn, the suspending power is like- 
 wise removed, and the particles coalesce and fall in conse- 
 quence of their gravity. That rain is connected in some 
 waj or other with the electric state of the atmosphere, is a 
 position which may be readily conceded ; but as the dis- 
 turbance of the electric equilibrium remains to be accounted 
 for, this theory, as it at present stands, brings us no nearer 
 to definite ideas. 
 
 Some extraordinary falls of rain have been recorded, the 
 accounts of which, if not given on apparently unexception- 
 able testimony, would scarcely fail to be regarded as fabu- 
 lous. On the 25th October, 18-25, a fall of 30 French inches 
 (32 English), within 24 hours, occurred at Genoa ; and on 
 the 9th October, 1827, there fell at Joyeuse, in the south of 
 France, a quantity equal to 31 English inches within the 
 space of 22 hours. (Prof. Forbe's Report on Meteorology, 
 in the Reports of the British Association fur 1840.) 
 
 A curious circumstance attending the fall of rain is, that 
 the quantity collected in rain gauges placed at the surface 
 of the ground is considerably greater than when the instru- 
 ments are placed at some elevation above the surface. On 
 an average of 13 years the quantity of rain which fell 
 annually in the court of the observatory at Paris was 56 
 centimetres (22 English inches) ; while the mean quantity 
 which fell on the terrace, at the height of 28 metres (92 
 feet) above the court, was only 50 centimetres, or 8-9ths of 
 the former quantity. A gauge placed on the top of York 
 Minster, at an elevation of 212 feet 10 inches, showed a fall 
 of 14963 inches between February 1833 and February 1834 ; 
 while two perfectly similar instruments, one placed on the 
 top of the Museum of that city, at a height of 43 feet 8 
 inches, and the other on the ground, gave respectively 
 19-852 inches and 25-706 inches. {Reports of the British 
 Association for 1834.; It is supposed that this phenomenon 
 depends, in some measure at least, on the circumstance 
 that the drops of rain, descending from the higher regions 
 with the temperature belonging to the elevation, cause a 
 condensation of vapour in the lower strata, and probably 
 of fogs, which are always denser near the surface of the 
 ground, and which yield a considerable deposition of water. 
 Any hypothesis of this kind, however, is quite insufficient ! 
 to explain the great difference observed at York between 
 the products of the rain gauges on the ground and the top 
 of the Minster, and which is most probably to be abscribed 
 to some imperfection in the action of the Instrument when ( 
 exposed to gales of wind. It has been suggested that eddies i 
 
 RAINBOW. 
 
 are formed round the rim of the funnel, which have the 
 effect of diverting part of the rain. 
 
 Rain drops vary in size from perhaps the 25th to the 3d 
 part of an inch in diameter ; and, like other falling bodies, 
 descend with a continually accelerating velocity until the 
 resistance of the air becomes equal to their weight, after 
 which the descent is uniform. The terminal velocity is 
 proportional to the square root of the diameter of the drop ; 
 but it is perhaps not possible to determine with certainty 
 the actual terminal velocity corresponding to a drop of any 
 given diameter. 
 
 The average quantity of rain which falls in a year at any 
 given place depends upon a great variety of circumstances, 
 as latitude, proximity to the sea, elevation of the region, 
 configuration of the country and of the mountain ranges, 
 exposure to the prevailing winds ; and in general on the 
 different local causes which influence climate. Humboldt 
 estimates that the average depth of rain which annually 
 falls at the latitudes of 0°, 19°. 45°, and 60°, may be taken 
 respectively at 98, 80, 29, and 17 inches ; but this estimate 
 must be regarded rather as a rough approximation to the 
 ratio in which the quantity decreases on going from the 
 equator, than as indicating the actual averages at any par- 
 ticular place ; and it is observed that though the annual 
 depth be greatest towards the equator, the number of rainy 
 days in the majority of places increases with the latitude. 
 
 The greatest depth of rain which has been registered at 
 any place in a year is at Maranham, lat. 2A° S., and which 
 is stated by Humboldt to be 277 English inches. But this 
 is greatly above the average, and indeed more than double 
 the annual quantity which has heen observed at any other 
 locality. At St Domingo the annual fall is estimated at 
 120 inches ; at Cayenne, 116 inches ; in the island of 
 Granada, 112; at the Havannah, 91 ; at Calcutta, from 76 
 to 118 ; at Bombay, from 83 to 96 ; the island of Martinique, 
 87 inches ; and at Sierra Leone, 86. Of European Coun- 
 tries, Portugal appears to be the most humid, 123 inches 
 having been observed at Coimbra in a year. The average 
 ■depth at Paris is 19-1 inches (Arago, Journal de Physique, 
 1816) ; Berlin, 20-9 ; Brussels, 19 ; Florence, 41-3 ; Lyons, 
 39-5 ; Maestricht, 36-1 ; Marseilles, 184 ; Padua, 36.6 ; Peters- 
 burg, 18-2; Rome, 312; Rotterdam, 224; Stockholm, 187; 
 Vienna, 17. For places in Great Britain the following 
 averages were deduced by Dr. Dalton from observations of 
 a number of years : Manchester, 36140 inches : Liverpool, 
 34-118 ; Lancaster, 39-714 ; Kendal, 53-944 ; Dumfries, 36918 ; 
 Glasgow, 21-331 : London, 20686. Mr. Howard gives the 
 annual average at London equal to 249 inches ; Professor 
 Phillips at York, 25-7 ; and Mr. Adie at Edinburgh, 25 
 inches. (On the theory of rain, see Kamptz, Lehrbuch der 
 JWtteorologie ; Muncke, in Gehler's Physical is ches IV'&rter- 
 buch; DanielVs Meteorological Essays, &C.) 
 
 RAIXBOW. (Germ, regeqbogen ; Lat. iris ; Fr. arc en 
 ciel.) The brilliant-colotred arch which makes its appear- 
 ance when rain is falling in the region of the sky opposite 
 to the sun, and the sun is shining at the same time. 
 
 This well-known meteor presents, when perfect, the ap- 
 pearance of two concentric arches ; the inner being called 
 the primary, and the outer the secondary rainbow. Each 
 is formed of the colours of the solar spectrum ; but the 
 colours are arranged in the reversed order, the red forming 
 the exterior ring of the primary' bow and the interior of the 
 secondary. The innermost bow is a segment of a circle 
 whose radius subtends an angle of about 42° ; the radius 
 of the outer subtends an angle of about 51° ; and the com- 
 mon centre is situated in the prolongation of the straight 
 line which passes through the centre of the sun and the 
 eye of the spectator. From the conditions invariably ac- 
 companying its appearance, the colours of the rainbow 
 were known at an early period to be produced by the sun's 
 rays passing through the drops of falling rain ; but the 
 phenomenon is a complicated one, and was not fully and 
 satisfactorily explained until Newton had discovered the 
 compound nature of solar light, and the different refrangi- 
 bility of the component rays. 
 
 In order to explain the phenomenon of the rainbow, lei 
 us suppose a beam of light admitted through a small hole 
 in the shutter of a darkened room to fall on a spherical 
 globule of water at I (fig. 1,) in the direction of S I, and 
 trace the path of the light in the 
 interior of the globule. On enter- 
 ing the globule at I it is refracted, 
 and consequently decomposed, the 
 ravs of each colour being deflected S, 
 under a different angle from its 
 original direction. For the sake 
 of perspicuity, we shall confine B.^ 
 our attention to the red ray. Let 
 I K be the direction of the ray after the first refraction, 
 meeting the surface of the drop at K a portion of the light 
 will effect its escape, and be again refracted in the direction 
 K P, while the remaining portion will be reflected by the 
 
 1027
 
 RAINBOW. 
 
 surface in the direction K L, the lines IK.KL making 
 equal angles \\ iiti a tangent at K. Hut ou arriving again 
 ai the surface at I* this portion of the ray \\ hieta was re- 
 flected from K mil lie again divided into two parts; one 
 pan will escape at L, ami be refracted in the direction L ti, 
 while the oilier p.irt will be reflected by the surface, and 
 proceed in the direction I, 51. At 51 the phenomenon will 
 
 be repeated ; pan of the remaining light will escape and 
 
 be refracted in the direction 51 K, and the other be reflected 
 in the direction 51 N. This process will he repeated indef- 
 initely : but the intensity of the light is diminished at each 
 successive impact, and after a few reflections the quantity 
 which emerges becomes insufficient to make an impression 
 on the eye. All this may be shown experimentally by 
 f»n«tng a beam of light to fall upon a glass cylinder rilled 
 with water, and placed in a darkened room; the red light 
 emerging at the points KLM will be seen when the eye 
 is placed in the straight lines K P, or L CI, or M K . 
 To apply this experiment to the explanation of the rain- 
 bow, it is necessary to determine 
 the inclination of the emerging to 
 the incident ray. We shall first 
 take the case of two refractions 
 with a single intermediate reflec- 
 tion. Let ti I (tig. 2) be the inci- 
 dent ray, I K the direction after the 
 first refraction, K the point of re- 
 ^^""l> flection, L the point of emergence, 
 
 a arid L R the direction of the emer- 
 
 ging ray ; also let S I and R L be produced to meet in T. 
 The angle -J T R is called the angle of deviation, and the 
 object is now to find an expression for its value in terms of 
 the angle of incidence. Let O be the centre ; draw O I P 
 and O L, and join O T, which will evidently pass through 
 K. Let us now assume, 
 
 i = O I T = S I P the angle of incidence, 
 r = O K I = O 1 K the angle of refraction, 
 D = S T R the angle of deviation ; 
 then, since OKI^K IT + KTI.and KIT = OIT 
 — OIK, we have r = * — r+JD, whence 
 D = 4r — 2i . . . . (1.) 
 Here D is expressed in terms of r and t ; but by the theory 
 of refraction we have also the relation 
 
 sin. i = n sin. r . . . . (2.) 
 (where n is the index of refraction for the red ray), so that 
 the value of D depends only on that of i. 
 
 The angle of incidence, i, may have any value between 
 90° and 0. But it is obvious that between those values 1) 
 must have a maximum ; for when S I falls perpendicularly 
 on the globule there is no deviation, and when S I merely 
 touches the globule the deviation again vanishes. To find 
 the determinate value of i at which the maximum takes 
 place, differentiate the equation (1;, and make the differen- 
 tia] of JJ equal to zero; this gives di = -2dr. Equation 
 (2) also gives cos. i d i = n cos. r dr ; whence we obtain, 
 by eliminating d r, and dividing both sides of the resulting 
 equation by d i, n cos. r ■=. 2 cos. i. On substituting for cos. 
 r in this equation its value found from (2), the following 
 expression is obtained : 
 
 cos. i = ,/<} (n'2 — 1). 
 
 This is the value of /' corresponding to the maximum de- 
 viation expressed in terms of n. But in respect of the red 
 rays, the value of R is found experimentally to be 108 -f- 81 
 = L3333; and the corresponding value of i given by the 
 trigonometrical tables is i = 59° 23' 30". From this the 
 values of r and D are readily deduced ; and the three values 
 are as follows : 
 
 i — 590 23' 30", r = 4fJ° \<Z 10", D = 42° 1' 40". 
 
 The next step towards the explanation of the phenomenon 
 is, to show th it no other light than that which falls on the 
 drop under the angle Of incidence Corresponding to the L'reat 
 est deviation, will be refracted in sufficient quantity to make 
 a sensible impression on the eye. Now since S I is the in 
 cident ray, with respect to which the deviation is a mini- 
 mum, the rays w Men are situated very near to S I, on cither 
 side, will enter the drop at very nearly the same angle of 
 incidence, and consequently will emerge very nearly paral 
 
 lei to L R. With respect then to the pencil of Light which 
 falls on the drop at the angle of incidence c o rr esp onding to 
 the maximum deviation, all the rays of red light which it 
 contains, ami which emerge after the first reflection, will on 
 their emergence be parallel, and enter the eye situated In 
 the straight line L R in sufficient number to make .1 vivid 
 Un prestl oD on the retina. But with respect to a pencil fall- 
 ing on the drop at a small distance from I, and consequently 
 under a different angle of Incidence, the red rays at their 
 
 emergence \\ ill not be parallel, hut divergent ; and the light 
 
 will consequently diminish In intensity as it recedes from 
 Uic drop, and at the distance of Uie spectator wdl be much 
 
 una 
 
 loo faint to produce a distinct impression. It is on this del- 
 icate principle Hi it the phen om enon principally depends. 
 The above principles being clearly unuerslood, all the 
 
 circumstances of the p h e no men on admit 01 easy explana- 
 tion. Let A B (J (fig. 3) be a section of a drop of rain made 
 by the plane passing through the 
 centre of the sun, the centte of 
 the drop, and the eye of the spec- 
 tator; and suppose the rays ticm 
 the surfs centre to fall on it in 
 the direction S A. Let E be the 
 position of the eye of the specta- 
 tor, whose hack is turned towards 
 the sun, and draw E 1' parallel 
 to :> A. Now suppose the line 
 E T to be drawn so as to make E^ 
 with E F an angle of 42° 1' 40", 
 
 aud to meet the drop at C ; then, since the whole of the an- 
 tenor surface of the drop is illuminated by the rays S A, 
 some one of those rays must fall on it under an angle of in- 
 cidence, such that alter being retracted at A. reflected at B, 
 and again refracted at (', il will emerge parallel to C E, and 
 consequently make with E F the maximum angle of devia- 
 tion. The spectator will therefore see the nd colour of the 
 spectrum in the direction E C. But it is obvious that all 
 tliese conditions will lie fulfilled in respect of every drop of 
 rain which the line E C will meet, on supposing it nj revolve 
 about EF as an axis at the same angle ol inclination. Hence 
 the red rays thus retracted lorm the surface of a cone, the 
 axis of which is the prolongation of the straight line drawn 
 from the centre of the sun to the eye ; ami as the eye of the 
 spectator is at the apex of the cone, a circular segment of 
 red light will be visible, the other part of the circle being 
 cut off by the horizon. 
 
 What has now been said has reference only to nys com- 
 ing from the sun's centre; but the same thing must happen 
 with respect to rays coming from every point of the sun's 
 disk; and as the sun's diameter subtends an angle of about 
 3u', the spectator Will consequently see a band of red light 
 of the breadth of about 30'. 
 
 The explanation which has now been given of the ap- 
 pearance of the red light applies to all the other colours of 
 the spectrum, the only difference being in the value of the 
 index of refraction. For the violet ray, in passing from air 
 10 water, the index is 109 ■+■ 81 ; we have therefor* n = 
 1*3468; and on computing from this the values of i, r, and 
 D, by means of the preceding formulae, there results, approx- 
 imately, 
 
 t = 58° 40' 3", r = 39° 24' 20", D = 40° 17'. 
 In this case, therefore, the angle of maximum deviation is 
 less than for the red ray, and hence the violet is within the 
 red. The breadth of the violet baud will obviously be the 
 same as that of the red, as both depend on the same cause ; 
 namely, the magnitude of the sun's apparent diameter. 
 
 As the red and violet are the rays whose indices of refrac- 
 tion are the least and greatest respectively, all the other 
 prismatic colours will lie between these two, and occupy 
 bands of the same breadth, hut with considerable blending 
 into each other; for the distance between the centre of the 
 red and the centre of the violet, being equal to the differ- 
 ence between their respective angles of maximum deviation, 
 amounts only to 42° 2' — 40° 17' = 1° 45'. The whole 
 breadth of the interior or primary bow is this quantity plus 
 the sun's apparent diameter, or about 2° 15'. 
 
 The size of the bow depends upon the height of the sun 
 above the horizon. When the sun is in the horizon, the 
 bow will be a semicircle to a spectator on a plane; but on 
 the summit of a mountain, he may see a segment greater 
 than a semicircle. 
 
 We have now to explain the formation of the exterior 
 bow. In this case, tin' light sutlers two reflections in the 
 interior of the globule, and the pith of a ray, as represented 
 in fig. 1, is S I K L 51 II. If we denote the angle of devia- 
 tion, or the angle formed by S I and 51 li, the incident and 
 emerging rays by If. and take as before 1 and r to represent 
 
 the angles of incidence and refraction, it is easy lo find the 
 equation, 
 
 D' = G r — 2 i — 180°. 
 On procecdinrz from this by the same method ns nefore, to 
 find the value of 1 Corresponding to the marimum value of 
 D', the following equation is obtained : 
 
 cos. i= >/i (■*— !)• 
 Substituting for the constant n its values in respect of the red 
 and violet rays, the values of 1, and consequently of r and 
 D', arc obtained. They are as follows : 
 
 red, i = 71° 50', r = 45° 27', D' = — 50° 5& ; 
 \ iolet, 1 s= 71° 2G', r =: 44° 47', D' = — 54° 9' ; 
 the minus siun Indicating that the incident arid emergent 
 raysinlereccl before the drop.
 
 RAIN-GAUGE. 
 
 From these values it appears that in the case of the ex- 
 terior bow the deviation is le ist in respect of the red ray, 
 and greatest in respect of the violet ; the order of the colours 
 is therefore reversed, the red occupying the innermost band, 
 and the violet the outermost, as represented in fig. 4, where 
 E R is the red and E V the 
 violet ray, the eye of the 
 spectator being at E. The 
 breadth from the middle of 
 the red to the middle of the 
 violet is 3° 10', or nearly 
 double that of the interior 
 bow. The interval between 
 the red of the interior bow 
 and the red of the exterior 
 is 50° 59'— 42° 2', or 8° 57'. 
 All these values, deduced 
 as above from the theory 
 of refraction, are found to 
 agree exactly with those 
 found by actual measurement. 
 
 Dr. Halley, in the Phil. Trans, for 1700, has computed 
 the diameters of the rainbows formed by three, four, and 
 five reflections; but these bows are rarely if ever seen, the 
 light being too faint to make an impression on the eye. Su- 
 pernumerary or spurious rainbows are sometimes seen with- 
 in the primary and without the secondary bow, and having 
 the same order of colours as the bows to which they respec- 
 tively belong. They are explained by Dr. Young on the 
 theory of the interference of light. (Phil. Trans. 1804; 
 Lect., vol. i., p. 470.) An inverted or distorted iris is some- 
 times observed lying on the ground, formed by the drops of 
 dew suspended from the tops of the blades of grass, or from 
 spiders' webs. In favourable circumstances lunar rainbows 
 are sometimes seen ; but their colours are faint and scarcely 
 perceptible. 
 
 The first explanation of the true theory of the rainbow is 
 usually ascribed (see Newton's Optics) to Antonio De Do- 
 minis, archbishop of Spalatro, whose work De Radiis Visis 
 et /jucis, was published at Venice in 1611, but stated to have 
 been written twenty years previously. It would appear, 
 however, from the account of this work given by Boscovich, 
 Montucla, Priestley, and Biot, that the merit of De Dominis 
 was confined to a vague statement or surmise, unsupported 
 by experiment, that the interior bow is formed by two re- 
 fractions and air intermediate reflection. He gave no reason 
 for the precise angle which its diameter subtends ; and with 
 respect to the exterior bow, his attempt to explain its forma- 
 tion is wholly erroneous. The true theory of the exterior 
 bow, and the determination of the particular angles of devi- 
 ation under which alone the rays transmitted to the eye are 
 sufficiently dense to be visible, belongs to Descartes. The 
 explanation given by Descartes, in his Dioptrics, is complete 
 in every respect, excepting as to the cause of the colours, 
 the theory of which was supplied by Newton's great dis- 
 covery of the unequal refrangibility of the different rays. 
 (See Montucla, Histoire des jyiathtmatiqu.es, vol. i., p. 700 ; 
 Priestley on Vision, p. 107 ; Biot, Traite de Physique, torn, 
 iii., p. 460. 
 
 RAIN-GAUGE, also called OMBROMETER. UDOME- 
 TER, and PLUVIAMETER. An instrument for measur- 
 ing or gauging the quantity of rain which falls at a given 
 place. 
 
 " The rain-gauge may be of very simple construction. A 
 cubical box of strong tin or zinc, exactly 10 inches by the 
 side, open above, receives at an inch below its edge a funnel, 
 Sloping to a small hole in the centre. On one of the lateral 
 edges of the box, close to the top of the cavity, is soldered 
 a short pipe, in which a cork is fitted. The whole should 
 be well painted. The water which enters this gauge is 
 poured through the short tube into a cylindrical glass vessel, 
 graduated to cubic inches and fifths of cubic inches. Hence, 
 one inch depth of rain in the guage will be measured by 100 
 inches of the graduated vessel, and l-100th inch of rain may 
 be very easily read off*. 
 
 " It is very much to be desired that, being of such easy 
 construction, more than one of these gauges should be erect- 
 ed ; or at least one placed with its edge nearly level with 
 the ground, and another upon the top of the highest build 
 ing, rock, or tree in the immediate vicinity of the place of 
 observation, the height of which must be carefully determ- 
 ined, it having been satisfactorily ascertained that the height 
 of the gauge above the ground is a very material element 
 of the quantity of rain which enters it. The quantity of 
 water should be daily measured and registered at 9 a. m." 
 (Report of the President and Council of the Royal Society on 
 the Instructions to be prepared for the Scientific Expedition 
 to the Jintartic Regions, 1840.) 
 
 A convenient form of the instrument is represented in the 
 annexed figure, where the rain which enters the funnel is 
 collected in a cylindrical vessel of copper, connected with 
 which at the lower part is a glass tube with an attached 
 
 RAMPART. 
 
 scale. The water stands at the same height in 
 the cylinder and glass tube, and being visible 
 in the latter, the height is read immediately on 
 the scale ; and the cylinder and tube being con- 
 structed so that the sum of the areas of their sec- 
 tions is a given part, for instance a tenth, of the 
 area of the funnel at its orifice, each inch of 
 water in the tube is equivalent to the tenth of an 
 inch of water entering the mouth of the funnel. 
 A stop-cock is added, by which the water is 
 drawn off" when the observation is made. 
 
 RAISING PLATE, or UPPER PLATE. In Architec- 
 ture, the plate or longitudinal timber on which the roof 
 stands raised or placed. 
 
 RA'JAH. The hereditary princes of the Hindoos are so 
 termed. They belong to the caste of warriors, or Cshatriya, 
 and are generally dependent on Europeans, except in those 
 parts of the country which the European arms have not as 
 yet penetrated. See Caste. 
 
 RAKE, TO. The sea term for incline, and applies to the 
 masts, stem, and stern-post, &c. ; the bowsprit, instead of 
 raking, is said to steeve. Masts generally rake aft, and in 
 peculiar rigs only forward. The rake of the mast has an 
 influence on the sailing of the vessel, and the masts of some 
 schooners rake excessively. The principal effect seems to 
 be to diminish the effect common to al! the sails, of depress- 
 ing the ship's head. 
 
 To rake a ship, is to fire into her head or stern in the di- 
 rection of her length, or along her decks. It is similar to 
 what engineers term enfilading. 
 
 RAM. In Hydraulics. See Hydraulic Ram. 
 
 RAMADAN, or RHAMADAN. The name given to the 
 great fast or Lent of the Mohammedans. It commences 
 with the new moon of the ninth month of the Mohammedan 
 year: and, while it continues, the day is spent uninterrupt- 
 edly in prayers and other devotional exercises. Even the 
 night is passed by the more rigid of the faithful in the 
 mosques, which are splendidly illuminated on this occasion ; 
 but, generally speaking, the arrival of sunset is the signal 
 for a moie than usually unlimited indulgence in the plea- 
 sures of the table ; and, on the third evening of the fast, the 
 grand vizier commences a series of official banquets. The 
 Ramadan ends on the day preceding the only other great 
 festival of the Mohammedans — the Bairum (which see), 
 equivalent to our Easier. 
 
 RAMA YA'NA (Sanscr. the Career or Travels of Rama), 
 the oldest of the two great Sanscrit epic poems, describes 
 the life and actions of the hero Raina, and his wife Sita ; 
 and especially Rama's expedition to Ceylon, to rescue Sita 
 from the tyrant Rawana. The poem is thought to have been 
 composed before the Christian era ; but there is no certain 
 indication of its age. A translation of it was commenced by 
 Messrs. Carey and Marshman (printed at Serampore) ; and 
 another hv A. W. von Schlegel (Bonn, 18-29). 
 
 RAM, BATTERING. .See Battering Ram. 
 
 RAME'NTA. In Botany, thin, brown, foliaceous scales, 
 appearing sometimes in great abundance upon young shoots, 
 and particularly numerous and highly developed upon the 
 petioles and the backs of the leaves of ferns. 
 
 RA'MISTS, or RA'MEANS. In Philosophy, the partisans 
 of Pierre Rame, better known by his Latin name of Ramus, 
 royal professor of rhetoric and philosophy at Paris in the 
 reign of Henry II. He perished in the massacre of St. Bar- 
 tholomew. His system of logic was opposed to that of the 
 Aristotelian party; and during the latter half of the 16th 
 century a vehement contest was maintained between their 
 respective adherents in France, Germany, and other parts 
 of Europe. (Hallam, Introduction to the Literature of -E?t- 
 rope, vol. ii., ch. 3.) " He conferred," says the same writer, 
 "material obligations on science by denying the barbarous 
 method of the schoolmen. What are the merits of his own 
 method, is a different question." (lb. vol. i., ch. 7.) 
 
 RAMNE'NSES, or RAMNES. The name of the first 
 century of the 300 horsemen who constituted the cavalry of 
 Rome under the early kings. Most probably the name also 
 applied at first to the original century of patrician houses 
 established by Romulus, and distinguished Ihem from the 
 Tatienses and Luceres ; whose names, in like manner, must 
 be supposed to extend not merely to the two remaining cen- 
 turies of cavalry, but to the two centuries of tribes respect- 
 ively instituted by Romulus, on the accession of the Sabines 
 and Tarquinius Priscus. (See the histories of Niebuhr and 
 Arnold.) 
 
 RAMP. (Fr. Rampe.) In Architecture, a concave bend 
 or slope in the cap or upper member of any piece of ascend- 
 ing or descending workmanship. 
 
 RA'MPANT. (Fr.) In Heraldry, a term used to describe 
 lions, tigers, bears, &c, when represented as standing erect 
 on their hind legs. 
 
 RA'MPART, or RAMPIER. In Fortification, the wall 
 which surrounds a fortified place. Il is built of the earth 
 taken out of the ditch ; though the lower part of the outer 
 
 1029
 
 RAMS' HORNS. 
 
 slope is usually constructed of masonry. The advantage 
 of earth is, thai the hails instead of splintering the work, 
 and rebounding In various directions to the great injury of 
 the besieged, pass forward into the earth, and bury them- 
 selves there. This also renders the rampart of earth much 
 more durable under the tire of the besiegers than masonry 
 would be. The usual height of the rampart is about three 
 fathoms and its thickness about ten or twelve feet. See 
 For urn vnov. 
 
 RAMS' HORNS. In Fortification, the name given by 
 Belidor to the tenailles. See Tenaille. 
 
 B \ N A. (Lai u frog.) The generic name of the tail- 
 less Batrachian reptiles, which have the hind le»s longer 
 than the fore, and Webbed toes fitted for swimming, and 
 not expanded at the extremity. Their head is flat, muzzle 
 rounded, and the opening of their jaws large ; the tongue 
 In most of them is soft, and not attached to die bottom of 
 the gullet, but to the edges of the jaw, with the free end 
 turned backwards. There are hut four toes to the ante- 
 rior feet; the hind ones frequently exhibit the rudiment of 
 a sixth. 
 
 There are no ribs to the skeleton, and a prominent carti- 
 laginous plate supplies the place of a tympanum, and ren- 
 ders the ear visible externally. The eye is furnished with 
 two fleshy lids, and a third, which is transparent and hori- 
 zontal, concealed under the lower one. Inspiration is ef- 
 fected by the muscles of the throat, which, by dilating, 
 draw in air by the nostiils, and by contracting while the 
 nostrils are closed by the tongue, compel the air to enter the 
 lungs; expiration, on the contrary, is produced by the mus- 
 cles hi' the lower part of the abdomen. The young frog, 
 which is called a tadpole, is at first furnished with a long 
 fleshy tail, and a small homy beak, having no other ap- 
 parent limbs than little fringes on the sides of the neck. 
 These disappear in a few days, and the hind feet of the 
 tadpole are very gradually and visibly developed; the fore 
 feet are also developed, but under the skin. throiiL'h which 
 they subsequently penetrate. The tail is gradually ab- 
 sorbed. The beak falls and discloses the true jaws, w hull 
 at first wire soil and concealed beneath the skin; and the 
 branchite are absorbed, leaving to the lungs alone the func- 
 tion of respiration in which they participated. The eyes, 
 which at first could only be discerned through a transpa- 
 rent spot in the skin of the tadpole, are now visible with 
 their three lids. Tadpoles reproduce their limbs almost 
 like salamanders. 
 
 The period at which each of these changes takes place 
 Varies With the species. In cold and temperate climates, 
 the perfect animal passes the winter under ground, or in 
 the mud under waiter, without eating or breathing; though 
 if it be prevented from respiring during the summer for a 
 few minutes by keeping its mouth open, it dies. 
 
 RA'NDOM SHI IT. A shot discharged with the axis of 
 the gun above the horizontal or point blank direction. 
 
 RANGE, in Gunnery, is the horizontal distance to which 
 a shot or other projectile is carried. Were it not for the 
 resistance of the air, the path described by a projectile 
 acted upon by the force of gravity would be a parabola; 
 and the greatest range would be obtained by discharging 
 I an angle of 45° of elevation. Hut by rea- 
 son of the atmospheric resistance, the path actually de- 
 scribed is very different from a parabola, and the elevation 
 which gives the greatest range can only be determined by 
 experiment. Set GuNNCRY, Projectiles. 
 
 Rajiok. A certain quantity of cable drawn up out of the 
 cable tied and laid along the deck, equal in length to the 
 depth of wati r. in order that the anchor, when let go, may 
 reach the bottom without being checked. 
 
 RA'NGER. Formerly a sworn officer of the king's 
 forests, whose principal duty it was to see and inquire of 
 trespassers in his bailiwicks, and present them at the next 
 court holdon for the forest; but now merely an officer of 
 state-. See Forest. 
 
 HA'.VIIi.r,. The family of Batrachian reptiles, hav- 
 ing as the type the frog (Rana temporaria, Linn.) See 
 
 B ASA. 
 
 RA'NTERS. A sect which originated in a secession 
 
 from the Wesleyan Connexion, on tin' ground that the 
 
 nj paid to., much attention to order and decorum 
 
 ill the conducting Of public worship, and that they were de 
 
 ficient in zeal in obtruding the gospel on the minds of the 
 
 peopli bj open preaching in the streets and fields. The 
 
 ministers of this party parade the streets, preaching, sing 
 ing hymns, and inviting the populace to Come to their 
 places of worship. They admit of female preaching; a 
 thing unknown to ever] Othel body of .Methodists. Then 
 Chapels are about -lull in number : their preachers. 2700; 
 their members, 34,000. (Bourne's Hut. vf the I'nm. Mi th 
 
 B \ 'M'l.V (hat. rana, a frog, to which it has been 
 ■opposed lo beat some resemblance.) A tumour under the 
 tongue, generally arising from some obstruction of the ducts 
 1030 
 
 RASORES. 
 
 of the salivary glands ; when they break they are apt to 
 lease a very troublesome ulcer. 
 
 i; \.\ i Will. A < T..K. (Ranunculus, one of the genera.) 
 
 Exogenous Polypetalous plants, in almost all cases herba- 
 ceous, inhabiting the colder parts of the world, and un- 
 known in hot countries, except at considerable elevalions. 
 
 They are of great importance, in consequence of their usu- 
 ally poisonous qualities, as evinced by aconite and helle- 
 bore in particular, which are the roots of several species. 
 Some of them are objects of beauty, as the larkspurs, ra- 
 nunculus, anemone, and peony. A few are simply astrin- 
 gent, as the COptis or gold thread of North America. Tin: 
 plants of this order are readily known by having an indefi- 
 nite number of bypOgynOUS stamens, separate carpels, ex- 
 stipulate undotted leaves, and an herbaceous stem. 
 
 B INS DBS VACHES. (Germ. Knhreigen.) The name 
 
 of the simple and beautiful melody w Inch the Swiss herds- 
 men are in the habit of playing on the Alpine horn, ami 
 sometimes of singing, when they drive out their herds to 
 the mountains. It consists of a frw simple intervals, and 
 has a beautiful effect in the echoes of the Swiss moun- 
 tains. The natives regard it almost with rapture, and are 
 said to be seized with irrepressible longings to return to 
 their native country when they hear it played in a foreign 
 land. 
 
 RAPE. (hat. raptUS.) In Criminal Jurisprudence, a 
 well-known and detestable ofience committed against wo- 
 men. This oflence has been most properly viewed by all 
 legislators as one of the graves! character, and has been 
 usually visited with the highest penalties. The accusation 
 of rape, it is true, is one that may be easily made, and is, 
 no doubt, sometimes preferred in cases where consent has 
 been given. The proof, therefore, should be clear in pro- 
 portion to the enormity of the crime ; but when proved it is 
 one that should very rarely indeed escape the utmost ven- 
 geance of the law. Capital punishment for this offence 
 was abolished in 1841. 
 
 Rape. An Anglo-Saxon territorial division, of which 
 the etymology is uncertain. Sussex is the only county di- 
 vided into rapes: each containing three or four hundred. 
 These subsisted as military divisions at the time when 
 
 Domesday Book was c piled. They were formerly under 
 
 the superintendence of " rasse-reeves," subordinate to the 
 sheriff of the county. 
 
 Rape. A plant belonging to the cabbage family (Eras- 
 sica rapa. Linn.), cultivated in fields lor its seeds, which 
 are crushed for oil; and sometimes for its leaves, which 
 are feil off by sheep. In Belgium another species or \ anety 
 of Brassica is cultivated for these purposes, called cobya, 
 the llrnssica oliefera of De Candolle. 
 
 RAPHE. (Gr. pa<pi). a suture.) In Botany, the vascu- 
 lar cord communicating between the nucleus of an OVUle 
 and the placenta, when the base of the former is removed 
 from the base of the ovuluin. 
 
 Raphe. In Anatomy, a term applied to parts which look 
 as if thev had been sewed or joined together. 
 
 RATB3DES. (Gr. pa(j>rj.) Certain needle-like trans- 
 parent bodies found lying in the tissue of plants. They 
 were formerly thought to be peculiar organs, hut are now 
 known to lie the crystals of various sails. 
 
 RAPTURES. (Let raptor, a robber.) Rapacious birds, 
 or raveiiers. The name of the order of birds called Jlccipi- 
 tres by Linna-us and Cuvier, including those which live by 
 rapine, and are characterized by a strong, curved, sharp- 
 edged, and sharp pointed beak: and robust short legs, with 
 three toes before and one behind, armed with long, strong, 
 crooked talons. 
 
 RARE'F ACTION. In Physics, an augmentation of the 
 intervals between the particles of matter, whereby the 
 same number of panicles occupy a Larn r space. The terns 
 
 is chiefly used in speakum of the aeriform Quids, the terms 
 dilatation and expansion being applied in .-peaking of solids 
 and liquids. In the free atmosphere rar. taction is caused 
 by diminishing the pressure, and hence the air becomes 
 rarefied at elevations above the general level. The limits 
 to which rarefaction may lie carried are not known ; but it 
 has been proved by experiments with the air-pump, that 
 air may he rarefied 90 as to occupy a volume Kt.tKHI times 
 greater than it occupies under the Ordinal] pressure. 
 
 RASKO'LNIKS. (Rusa raskolo. a division.) The 
 name of the largest and most Important body of di 
 
 from the Greek Church in the Russian dominions. They 
 
 designate themselves Starowerzi, or the OrtAodea : but dif- 
 fer from the Greek Church only in the outward forms id' 
 
 religion, and in maintaining a more strict ecclesiastical dis- 
 cipline. This hcilv was formerly subjected to persecution; 
 
 but it is now tieated with comparative toleration, though 
 
 it- members are still excluded from the service of the state. 
 Their Dumber is said to be about 300,000. 
 
 RASO'RES. (Lai. redo, t scratch.) Gallinaceous birda, 
 or scratched. The name of an order ot birds, Ini 
 thOW which have strong feet, provided With obtuse claw s 

 
 RAT. 
 
 for scratching up grains, &c, and the upper mandible 
 vaulted, with the nostrils pierced in a membranous space 
 at its base, and covered by a cartilaginous scale. See Gal- 
 
 LINAOE.E. 
 
 RAT. The name of a large, destructive, and very pro- 
 lific species of the genus Mas (Mas decumanus, Linn.), 
 introduced into the British Islands from Asia; not, as is 
 commonly believed, from Norway. It has spread over all 
 the country, and multiplied at the expense of the old Brit- 
 ish species called the "black rat" (Mas rattus. Linn.). 
 See Mus. 
 
 KA'TCHET, in Clock and Watch Work, is the name 
 given to an arm or piece of mechanism, one extremity of 
 which abuts against the teeth of a ratchet wheel, and the 
 other extremity is either freely jointed to a reciprocating 
 driver for the purpose of communicating a continuous mo- 
 tion to the wheel, or is attached to a fixed centre to ensure 
 the wheel against reverse motion. In the former case it is 
 also called a click or paul, in the latter a detent. 
 
 RA'TCHET WHEEL. A wheel having teeth formed 
 like those of a saw, against which the ratchet abuts. See 
 Ratchet. 
 
 RATE OF A SHIP, in the Royal Navy. The navy is 
 divided into three classes. Rated ships, commanded by 
 captains; sloops and vessels, by commanders; and the 
 third class by lieutenants. Rated ships are divided into six 
 classes : 1st, all three-deckers ; 2d, two-deckers, having 700 
 men and upwards (war establishment) ; 3d, ships having 
 from 600 to 800 men; 4th, ships having from 000 to 400 
 men ; 5th, ships having from 400 to 250 men ; 6th, ships 
 having under 250 men. 
 
 Rate of sailing- of a Vessel is measured by the log, which 
 see. Various plans have been proposed for this purpose 
 by various forms of the log itself, by the rise of water in 
 tubes communicating with the sea, and (by Captain Bur- 
 ney) by the pressure upon a body towed astern and pulling 
 on a spring. But the violence and irregularity of the pull, 
 and the uncertainty in reading the result, have probably 
 combined to set aside this last plan, which, in theory, seems 
 to promise some advantages; because the pressure, increas- 
 ing as the square of the velocity, would show very small 
 changes of velocity : for the same reason, however, the 
 mean result shown in a heavy sea would be too great. A 
 certain and simple method of ascertaining the velocity at 
 any instant, with precision, is one of the most important 
 desiderata towards the perfection of naval science. 
 
 RA'THOFFITE. In Mineralogy, a species of garnet 
 found in Sweden, accompanied by calcspar and horn- 
 blende. 
 
 RATIFICATION. (Lat. ratum, determined, facio, / 
 make.) The solemn act by which a competent authority 
 gives validity to an instrument, agreement, &c. The term 
 is ordinarily used in international law for the sanction 
 given by governments to treaties contracted by their repre- 
 sentatives. In French law, ratification is defined the ap- 
 probation or confirmation of what has been done or prom- 
 ised. Thus, in many instances, a person, on attaining his 
 majority, ratifies acts done by himself or his guardian in his 
 minority. And ratification is either express or tacit ; the 
 latter resulting, by implication, from his silence for ten 
 years after attaining his majority. 
 
 RA TIO (Lat.), in Geometry, is defined by Euclid {Ele- 
 ments, book v., def. 3) to be "a mutual relation of two 
 magnitudes of the same kind to one another in respect of 
 quantity." This definition has been much criticised. Dr. 
 Barrow (Lectiones Math.) calls it a metaphysical definition, 
 inasmuch as it is not properly a mathematical definition, 
 since nothing in mathematics depends on it, or can be de- 
 duced from it ; and supposes that Euclid had probably no 
 other design in making it than to give a general summary 
 idea of ratio to beginners. It has been remarked, that as 
 the word quantity in our language, if not quite synonymous 
 with magnitude, has a signification only a little more gen- 
 eral, the definition as above rendered is either tautological 
 or unmeaning. Dr. Simson supposes it to be the interpola- 
 tion of some unskilful editor. Leslie (Elements of Geome- 
 try) ingeniously supposes that the Greek word jn/Aj/erfn?*, 
 which is usually translated quantity, may have reference 
 to multitude or number, as well as to magnitude, and that 
 Euclid's definition maybe rendered as follows: "Ratio is 
 a certain mutual habitude of two homogeneous magnitudes 
 with respect to quotity, or numerical composition." Dr. 
 Wallis (Opera Mathematka, torn, ii., p. 665) translates the 
 same word by the Latin quantuplicitas, which refers to the 
 number of times the one magnitude is contained in the 
 other. Dr. Peacock (Jilgebra, p. 309) remarks, that there 
 is no geometrical definition of ratio by which the equiva- 
 lence of different modes of representation may be ascer- 
 tained as necessary consequences ; and for this reason, ra- 
 tios in geometry are only considered in connexion with 
 each other, as constituting, or not constituting, a proportion. 
 In arithmetic and algebra, a ratio may be defined as the 
 
 RATTLESNAKE. 
 
 fraction whose numerator is the antecedent, and denomi- 
 nator the consequent of the ratio; and hence, in those sci- 
 ences, the theory of ratios become identified with the theo- 
 ry of fractions. (For an account of what has been written 
 on the subject of geometrical ratios, see Camerer's Euclid, 
 Excursus ad lib. v., Berlin, 1825.) 
 
 RA'TION. In the Army, a portion of food and ammu- 
 nition, &c, distributed to each soldier for his daily main- 
 tenance. The rations of officers vary according to the num- 
 ber of servants in their pay. 
 
 RA'TIONAL. In Arithmetic and Algebra, an expres- 
 sion in finite terms; or one in which no extraction of a root 
 is left ; or, at least, none such indicated, which cannot be 
 actually performed by known processes. The contrary of 
 these are called surd or irrational quantities. Thus, 2, 9, 
 12A, are rational quantities ; and ^/% £/4, &c, are irration- 
 al "or surd quantities, because their values can only be ap- 
 proximately, and not accurately, assigned. 
 
 RATIONAL HORIZON. In Geography, the plane 
 passing through the centre of the earth parallel to the sen- 
 sible horizon of the place to which it is referred. See 
 Horizon. 
 
 RA'TIONALISM. The interpretation of scripture truth3 
 upon the principles of human reason ; which has become 
 famous in the present day by the theological systems to 
 which it has given birth in Germany. The history of the 
 progress of the opinions of the reformed churches of that 
 country may be found in Dr. Pusey's essay upon this sub- 
 ject. He conceives the polemical discussions which pre- 
 vailed throughout those communities in the 17th and first 
 half of the following century to have prepared the way for 
 the reception of the low views of Christianity, as a moral 
 system, which were derived from the writings of the con- 
 cealed or avowed deists of this country. Herbert, Tyndal, 
 Morgan, Toland, &c. ; and from the tone with which they 
 were reviewed by the sincere, but odd. theologians of the 
 orthodox party. From the middle of the last century there 
 has arisen in Germany a succession of divines — Baumgar- 
 ten, Michaelis, Semler, Eichhorn, Paulus, Bretschneider, 
 &c, who have endeavoured either to affix a lower and 
 more human character to the invisible operations of God 
 upon men through Christianity, or to reduce the accounts 
 which we have of the foundation of our religion to the mix- 
 ture of truth and error natural to fallible men. They have 
 questioned the genuineness of almost all the separate parts 
 of Scripture, and the accuracy of all their supernatural 
 narratives. The discredit into which these theologians ap- 
 pear to have fallen arises, in a great measure, from the ina- 
 bility they have shown to produce a connected and con- 
 sistent system of religion upon the low ground which they 
 have taken up. Of later years a much more spiritual con- 
 ception of the nature of scripture promises and Christian 
 assistances is observable in the writings of German divines, 
 under the operation of which their theological criticism has 
 already assumed a more dignified and exalted lone. The 
 sensation created by Strauss's Life of Christ, the latest, 
 and in some respects the most remarkable production of the 
 Rationalist school, may probably have aided in this reac- 
 tion. (See the article "Rationalismus," in the Conv. Lexi- 
 con. The English reader may consult the writings of Mr. 
 Hugh Rose and Dr. Pusey on the subject of German ra- 
 tionalism; Atkinson's View of Universities in Germany; 
 Hawkins's Germany, and two articles in the Church of 
 England Quarterly Review, Oct. 1837, and Jan. 1838.) 
 
 RA'TLINES. Small horizontal lines or ropes extended 
 over the shrouds, thus forming the steps of ladders for 
 going up and down the rigging and masts. To rattle the 
 rigging, is to fix these ratlines. 
 
 RATTANS, or CANES. The long slender shoots of a 
 prickly bush (Calamus rotang, Linn.), one of the most use- 
 ful plants of the Malay peninsula and the Eastern islands. 
 They are exported to Bengal, to Europe, and above all to 
 China, where they are consumed in immense quantities. 
 For cane-work they should be chosen long, of a bright pale 
 yellow colour, well glazed, and of a small size ; not brittle 
 or subject to break. They are purchased by the bundle, 
 which ought to contain 100 rattans, having their ends bent 
 together, and tied in the middle. In China they are sold by 
 the picul, which contains from 9 to 12 bundles. Such as 
 are black or dark-coloured, snap short, or from which the 
 glazing flies off on their being bent, should be rejected. 
 When stowed as dunnage, they are generally allowed to 
 pass free of freight. (Mi/bum's Orient. Com., <S-c.) The 
 imports into this'country are very considerable. (See Com. 
 
 RATTLESNAKE. One of the most deadly of poison- 
 ous serpents is so called, on account of the peculiar rattling 
 instrument which it carries at the extremity of the tail, 
 and which is formed of several horny flattened rings, loose- 
 ly attached together, which move and rattle whenever the 
 animal shakes or alters the position of the tail. These 
 riii"? increase in number with the age of the animal, and it 
 
 ° 1031
 
 RATTLESNAKE ROOT. 
 
 Is asserted it acquires an additional one nt each casting of 
 the skin. The generic name of the rattlesnake, I 
 (from the Greek «,p.>ruAo?, a rattle), relates to the above 
 mentioned peculiarity. Two species are well distinguish 
 ed; Vis. the Qrotaius korridus of the United States, and the 
 Cretaliu thtrissua of Guiana. The genua is peculiarly 
 American. In common with the boa, the rattlesnakes 
 have simple transverse plates beneath the body and tail. 
 Their muzzle is hollowed by a little round depression be- 
 hind each nostril. The habits of the rattlesnake are slog 
 gish ; they move slowly, and only bite when provoked, Or 
 for the purpose of killing their prey. They feed principally 
 Upon birds, rats, squirrels &.C., Which it is believed they 
 
 have the power of fascinating. 
 RATTLESNAKE ROOT. The root of the POggota 
 
 Senega, a stimulant said to have proved a serviceable rem- 
 edy in cases of the bite of the rattlesnake. 
 
 R.V'VELIN, in Military Works, is a detached work com- 
 posed of two embankments forming a salient angle. It is 
 raised before the curtain on the counterscarp of the work, 
 serving to cover it and the adjacent Hanks from the direct 
 fire of the enemy. When used to cover the approach to a 
 bridge, it is called a titc du punt. It is also used in field 
 fortification. 
 
 RAY, Rata. (Lat. radius, a ray.) A genus of cartila- 
 ginous Plagioatomous fishes, recognisible by their horizon- 
 tally flattened and broad, disk-shaped body, which is chiefly 
 composed of the immense pectoral fins, the jointed and 
 branched rays of which diverge, like the rays of a fan, and 
 support a broad duplicature of the skin, which is continu- 
 ous anteriorly with that of the side of the flattened head ; 
 whence the name of the genus. The Rai<e of Linnaeus are 
 now divided into many subgenera, of which the sting ray, 
 eagle ray, electric ray, fire flare, skate, &c, are the respect- 
 ive types. 
 
 Ray. In Optics, a beam of light propagated in a straight 
 line from some luminous point. A ray of white light may 
 be divided by retraction Into a number of distinct rays of 
 different colours. See Refraction. 
 
 RA'YAH. The designation by the Turkish government 
 of its nun Mohammedan subjects, who pay the capitation 
 tax. Under Bajazet I. the taxable Rayahs in Turkev, in 
 Europe, were numbered at 1,11-2,000; under Selim, the' late 
 sultan, 1,337,000. 
 
 RAZE'E. (Fr.) The term used for any vessel cut down 
 to an inferior class, as a 74 to a frigate, &c. By razeeing, 
 the draught of water is diminished, while the centre of 
 gravity is lowered, and the qu iliiies of the vessel have gen- 
 erally, though not invariably, been improved. 
 
 REACH. That portion rif the length of a river in which 
 the stream preserves the same direction. 
 
 REACTION. A term used in Mechanics to denote the 
 reeiproeality of force exerted by two bodies which act mu- 
 tually on each other; or the general fact, collected from 
 observation, that any two bodies repelling or attracting each 
 other are made to recede or approach with equal momenta. 
 Newton's third law of motion is, that "reaction is always 
 contrary and equal to action, or that the mutual actions of 
 two bodies are always equal, exerted in opposite directions." 
 In the mathematical consideration of mechanics, this prin- 
 ciple must be assumed a. a necessary axiom or law ; and, in 
 fact, as is remarked by Dr. Young (JVa*. Phil.), there would 
 be something peculiar, and almost inconceivable, in a force 
 Which could afftcl Unequally the similar particles of mat 
 ter ; or in the particles themselves, if they could be sup- 
 posed of such different degrees of mobility as to be equally 
 moveable with respect to one force, and unequally with re- 
 s|>ect to another. The principle may, therefore, as justly 
 be termed a necessarj law as an experimental fact. 
 
 REA'DER. In Ecclesiastical matters, one of the five in- 
 ferior orders in the Romish Church. In the Church of Eng 
 land, a reader is a deacon appointed to do divine service In 
 churches and chapels of which no one has the cure. There 
 are also readers i priests) attached to vaiious eleemosynary 
 and other foundations. 
 
 REAL. See Money. 
 
 REA'LGAR. Redvulphnret of arsenic. It is found na- 
 tive, and is composed of 38 arsenic I Hi sulphur. 
 
 RB'ALISM, in Philosophy, has two distinct meanings, 
 according as it is used in contradistinction to idealism or to 
 
 nominalism : in the former case relating to the theory of 
 
 perception, In the second to the theory of abstraction and 
 generalization. For the first, see PERCEPTION and ho w. 
 ISM; for the second. Si molastu- Philosophy, ThOMISTS, 
 BcOTISTB, and Nominalists. 
 
 REAL PRE8ENCE. sv, Transihstantiation. 
 
 REAL PROPERTY. Real property is commonly said 
 to consist in -lands, tenements, and hereditaments;" of 
 which terms the last is. in feet, coextensive with the '' mi 
 real property Itself, expressing tin- same thing by the quality 
 which tie- logicians would term its difference, viz., that it 
 descends to the heir wherever held in perfect right : thus 
 1032 
 
 REASON. 
 
 distinguished from all other species of full property, which, 
 if possessed in equally absolute right, descend to the execu- 
 tors or administrators of the party. Hereditaments, then, 
 
 are either corporeal or incorporeal ; the first being land ami 
 ils visible adjuncts reo gui-ed by the law as appertaining to 
 it, consisting principally of whatever is fixed thereon; the 
 second, to follow Blackstone's division, are chiefly ten — ad- 
 VOWSOns, tithes, rights of common, rights of way, oflices, 
 dignities, franchises, corodies (pensions ch uged on eeclesi- 
 asiical property, now obsolete), annuities charged on land, 
 and rents reserved out of lands and tenements. The quali- 
 ty of the property which the man may possess in those ob- 
 jects Included under the term real (technically called his 
 estate) may vary in tenure or in degree. See Freehold, 
 Copyhold, Fee Simple, &.c. 
 
 REAM. A quantity of paper, consisting generally of 
 twenty quires of twenty four sheets each ; but What is call- 
 ed the printer's ream contains sil£ quires, or 516 sheets. See 
 Paper. 
 
 RE'APING. Cutting down corn or pulse with a sickle, 
 hook, or scythe, or by a leaping machine. These opera- 
 tions are more advantageously performed when the corn or 
 pulse is not quite ripe than when it is thoroughly ripe; be- 
 cause in the latter case the seeds are apt to drop out in the 
 process of handling, turning, and drying. 
 
 REAR. The third or last division of a fleet, commanded 
 by a rear admiral. 
 
 REAR GUARD. That part of an army, a regiment, or 
 battalion, which marches after the main body. Rear rank 
 signifies the last rank of a battalion when drawn up in open 
 order. 
 
 REA'SON. (Eat. ratio.) That particular faculty in man 
 of which either the exclusive or the more intense enjoy- 
 ment distinguishes him from the rest of the animal creation. 
 Like most of the terms in the science of mind, that of reason 
 has been employed in a great variety of significations. Du- 
 gald Stewart takes it in its widest sense, and comprises un- 
 der it all the operations of the intellect upon the materials 
 of knowledge which are furnished in the first instance by 
 sense and perception. Its office is to distinguish the true 
 from the false, right from wrong, and to combine means for 
 the attainment of particular ends. According to this defi- 
 nition, therefore, the province of reason is coextensive with 
 the range of human activity, and it directs itself to the three 
 supreme objects of desire to man — the good, the beautiful, 
 and the true. Mr. Hume, however, withdraws the discern- 
 ment of right and wrong, and of the beautiful and its con- 
 trary, from the domain of reason ; and, on the other hand, 
 also, denies the certainty of the truth which it enunciates, 
 and limits its convincing force merely to a certain weight of 
 probability. Locke's usage of the term, again, partaking as 
 it does of the general looseness of his phraseology, is very 
 different. In one passage reason is declared to lie the fac- 
 ulty which finds out the means, And rightly applies them, to 
 discover either the certain agreement or disagreement of two 
 ideas, or their probable connexion. But, in another place, 
 it is said to be conversant with certainty alone; while the 
 discovery ofwhat, as probable, enforces a contingent assent 
 or opinion, is ascribed toan especial faculty. Which is called 
 the judgment. Bird, on the other hand, confines the latter 
 term to the apprehension of intuitive truth ; but agrees so 
 far with Locke as to make it one part of reason, whose 
 other part is reasoning, both demonstrative and moral. On 
 the whole, however, it is clear that In the mind of Locke 
 the terms reasoning and reason were nearly, if not quite, 
 equivalent. But reasoning and deduction are evidently not 
 the source either of the dignity or the authority of the hu- 
 man intellect. The discursive faculty can never e-tablish 
 any other than a conditional truth, which predisposes some 
 anterior and pre-established verity as its basis and verifica- 
 tion. If there were not in the human mind something pri- 
 mary, unconditional, and absolute, to which all reasonings 
 might he referred, as to their source and foundation, the 
 discursive process would proceed into infinity, and its con- 
 clusions he, as Hume asserts that they are, without any 
 power to enforce assent. But there are unquestionably in 
 the human mind certain necessary and universal principles, 
 which, shining w i.h an intrinsic light of evidence, ate lliem- 
 selves above proof, but the authority for all mediate and 
 contingent principles. That which is thus above reasoning 
 is the reason. 
 
 In the language of English philosophy, the terms reason 
 and understanding are nearly identical, and are so used by 
 Stewart; hut in the critical phil phy of Kant a broad dis- 
 tinction has been drawn between them. Reason is the 
 principle of principles ; either speculatively verifies every 
 
 special principle, or practically determines the proper ends 
 of human action. Approximately, it may be called the sum 
 of what, in Scotch philosophy, has been denominated the 
 laws of man's Intellectual constitution. The understand- 
 ing, on the other h Hid, is coextensive with the vernacular 
 use of reason. It is that which conceives of sensible ob-
 
 REBATE. 
 
 jects under certain general notions, which again it compares 
 one with another, or with particular representations of 
 them, or with the objects themselves. It is, therefore, the 
 faculty of reflection and generalization. But the act of 
 comparison is called a judgment; and the understanding, 
 when it enunciates its conceptions, becomes also the fac- 
 ulty of judging. But the truth of a proposition which is not 
 identical, or the enunciation of a primary truth, cannot be 
 immediately certain. To prove it, recourse must be had to 
 other propositions previously admitted ; the understanding, 
 that is, must deduce one judgment from another, and so be- 
 comes the discursive faculty, or reasoning. Farther, in dis- 
 covering these mediate truths, and in the regular and me- 
 thodical disposition of them for the purpose of conclusion, 
 as well as in the selection of means for the accomplishment 
 of its ends, it exhibits itself as a power of adaptation. 
 
 By adopting this distinction between reason and under- 
 standing much of the difficulty involved in the considera- 
 tion of instinct will be removed. Instinct is defined to be a 
 natural impulse in animals, by which they are directed to 
 certain actions necessary to the continuation of the individ- 
 ual and of the species, and enabled to perform them uner- 
 ringly, independent of instruction and experience. To this 
 definition it is usual to add— without deliberation, and with- 
 out a view to the end which their actions will effectuate. 
 But these words, while they apply to the instinctive princi- 
 ple in its lowest manifestation, do not belong to it in its 
 highest. That in some cases the spontaneity of the animal 
 operates unconsciously is fully established by experience. 
 The solitary wasp does not itself feed upon flesh, and it 
 cannot know that a larva is to issue from the egg which it 
 is placing in the sand ; but yet it deposites in the same hole 
 with it the exact number of green worms that is sutlicient 
 for the sustenance of the wasp-worm until, being trans- 
 formed into a fly, it will be capable of finding food for itself. 
 In other cases, it is impossible to deny the presence of judg- 
 ment and design, of reasoning and adaptation. It is essen- 
 tia to the nymphs of the water-moth, or cod bait, which, 
 by means of the gluten which proceeds from its body, cov- 
 ers itself with pieces of straw or wood, and of gravel or 
 light shells, that it should maintain itself in equilibrium 
 with the water in which it lives. To accomplish this, 
 when its coating is too light it is observed to add a piece of 
 gravel, and a piece of wood when it is too heavy. The for- 
 mer cases may be designated as pure instinct, the latter as 
 instinctive intelligence. Yet, however we may be con- 
 strained to assign understanding and intelligence to the op- 
 erations of the inferior animals, they are manifestly desti- 
 tute of reason. However exquisite may be the construction 
 of the bee's cell, it is impossible to ascribe to it a knowl- 
 edge of the mathematical principles of its construction. 
 The bee is born an artist ; and prior to, and independently 
 of all instruction and experience, is perfect in its works, and 
 chooses its means with an unerring certainty. But the 
 acts of the rational creature proceed slowly, through diver- 
 sified and oft-repeated experiments, to realize the principles 
 of the act which are present to its mind ; while the means 
 it employs are as various as the individuals, and seldom 
 the best and most appropriate. Again, the acts of the infe- 
 rior animals are solely subservient to the continuation of 
 the individual, or the propagation of its kind ; whereas the 
 works of the rational animal fall short of perfection in 
 many respects, and are rendered still more difficult by a 
 voluntary combination of the beautiful with the simply 
 useful and necessary. 
 
 REBATE. (Fr. rabattre.) In Architecture, the groove, 
 recess, or channel, sunk on the edge of any piece of mate- 
 rial. 
 
 REBEC. A Moorish word, signifying a stringed instru- 
 ment somewhat similar to the violin, having three strings 
 tuned in fifths, and played with a bow. It was introduced 
 by the Moors into Spain. It appears to have been much 
 used at festive entertainments. Hence Byron, speaking of 
 Seville, says, 
 
 Nor here war's clarion, but love's rebec sounds. 
 
 Milton, in TSMlegro, calls it the "jocund rebec " 
 
 REBE'LLION, CIVIL. In Scottish Law, bv a peculiar 
 fiction, a debtor who disobeys a charge on letters of horn- 
 ing to pay or perform in terms of his obligation is accounted 
 a rebel, by reason of his disobedience to the king's com- 
 mand contained in the writ. The penal consequences for- 
 merly attaching to this construction of the law were abol- 
 ished bv 20 G. 2, c. 50. 
 
 REBELLION, THE GREAT. The revolt of the Long 
 Parliament against the authority of Charles I., in English 
 History, is commonly so denominated. Nevertheless, as 
 arbitrary and unconstitutional acts were undoubtedly com- 
 mitted on both sides during the struggle which preceded 
 the actual resort to arms, a constitutional lawyer may con- 
 sider it questionable whether the parliament may be more 
 justly said to have rebelled against the king, or the king 
 87 
 
 RECKONING. 
 
 against the state. The question is very fairly discussed by 
 Mr. Hallam in his Constitutional History of England. The 
 commencement of the rebellion may be daied from the 
 votes of the two houses concerning the militia (Feb. 1642), 
 by which they endeavoured to seize on the military power 
 of the realm ; immediately after which the king left London 
 for the north of England, and hostilities speedily began. 
 (See Clarendon, vol. i., p. 2.) In the summer of 1642 the 
 parties first took up arms ; the king's standard was set up 
 August 25, and the civil war was ended by the submission 
 of the king to the Scots in April, 1646. The period of the 
 rebellion is, however, extended, in ordinary language, so as 
 to include the Commonwealth or Protectorate, down to the 
 restoration of Charles II. in May, 1660. 
 
 RE'BUS. An antiquated species of ingenuity, a great 
 favourite with our ancestors ; being an enigmatical repre- 
 sentation of a name or thing by using figures for letters, 
 syllables, or parts of words : thus an eye, and a ton or bar- 
 rel, represent the family name of Eyton ; an instance of a 
 rebus borne by way of device, as they very commonly were. 
 (See Device.) In heraldry, a coat of arms alluding to the 
 name of the bearer (otherwise called amies parlantes) is 
 also called a rebus ; e. g., three trouts for Troutbeck, three 
 cups for Butler, &c. The term is said to be derived from 
 an annual practice of the priests of Picardy, which consist- 
 ed in satirizing tne people of their vicinity on the recur- 
 rence of the Carnival in ingenious squibs, entitled " De re- 
 bus quae geruntur." 
 
 REBU'TTER. In Law, the fifth stage of the pleadings 
 in a suit, or the plaintiff's answer to the defendant's re- 
 joinder. See Pleading. 
 
 RECE'PTACLE, in Botany, has four different significa- 
 tions : 1. That part of a flower upon which the carpella 
 are situated ; or, in other words, the apex of the peduncle, 
 or summit of the floral branch, of which the carpella are 
 the termination. 2. The axis of the theca of Trichomanes 
 and Hymmophyllum, among ferns. 3. That part of the 
 ovarium from which the ovula arise, and which is com- 
 monly called the placenta. And, 4. That part of the axis 
 of a plant which bears the flowers when it is depressed in 
 its development ; so that, instead of being elongated into a 
 rarhis, it forms a flattened area, over which the flowers are 
 arranged, as in Compositae. 
 
 RECE'SSION OF THE EQUINOXES. See Preces- 
 sion. 
 
 RECE'SS OF THE EMPIRE. In History, the name 
 given in judicial language to the decrees of the German 
 diet. They are thought to have been so termed from being 
 pronounced at the time when the diet was about to "re- 
 cede" or separate. See Diet. 
 
 RE'CHABITES. A religious order among the ancient 
 Jews, instituted by Jonadab, the son of Rechab, from whom 
 they derived their name. It comprised only the family and 
 posterity of the founder, who was anxious to perpetuate 
 among them the nomadic life ; and with this view prescri- 
 bed to them several rules, the chief of which were — to ab- 
 stain from wine, from building houses, and from planting 
 vines. These rules were observed by the Rechabites with 
 great strictness. (See Jer. xxxv., 6.) In recent times, a 
 branch of the body called teetotallers, has assumed the 
 name of Rechabites. 
 
 RE'CIPE. The symbol B at the head of a medical pre- 
 scription generally means recipe, or "takei" Dr. Paris says 
 this character is a relic of the astrological symbol of Jupiter, 
 a planet under the ascendancy of which herbs were often 
 collected or prepared. (Pharmacologia.) 
 
 RECI'PROCAL. In Arithmetic, the quotient resulting 
 from the division of unity by any number. Thus, £ is the 
 reciprocal of 2; and, conversely, 2 is the reciprocal of \. 
 
 RECI'PROCAL FIGURES, in Geometry, are two figures 
 of the same kind (triangles, parallelograms, prisms, pyra- 
 mids, &c), so related that two sides of the one form the 
 extremes of an analogy of which the means aie the two 
 corresponding sides of the other. 
 
 RECI'PROCAL PROPORTION, is when, of four terms 
 taken in order, the first has to the second the same ratio 
 which the fourth has to the third : or when the fir*t has to 
 the second the same ratio which the reciprocal of the third 
 has to the reciprocal of the fourth. In works of arithmetic, 
 the case which gives rise to this class of relations is called 
 inverse Proportion, or the Rule of Three Inverse. 
 
 RE'CITATIVE. (Lat. recitare, to recite.) In Music, a 
 species of singing differing but Utile from ordinary speaking. 
 It is used in operas, &c, to express some action or passion, 
 or to relate a story, or reveal a secret or design ; and, though 
 written in true time, the performer may alter the parts of 
 the measure as he thinks most suitable to produce certain 
 effects, those that accompany him being dependant on his 
 pleasure. 
 
 RE'CKONING. In Navigation, the estimated place of a 
 ship, calculated from the rate as determined by the log, and 
 the course as determined by the compass, the place from 
 3 S * 1033
 
 RECLINATION. 
 
 which the vessel started being known. An elegant and 
 ready method lor solving this problem has been recently 
 given by Professoi GUI, of New-York, In the first number 
 of his Mathematical Miscellany, much more accurate than 
 the method usually given by writers on navigation. (See 
 Vwm v rios.i Dead reckoning means the same as reckon- 
 ia'. lim- allowance bciiiL' made lor drift, lce-wav, currents, 
 tsx. 
 
 EECLINA'TION Lat. reclino, / repose). In "Dialling, is 
 the angle which the plane of the dial makes with a vertical 
 plane which it intersects in a horizontal line. 
 
 REGLU'SE. The common title of a class of religious 
 persons in Koman Catholic countries. See Imi.isi. 
 
 RECOGNISANCE, in Law. an acknowledgment of a 
 debt upon record. By a fiction of law, the obligation which 
 a party enters into before a court of record or magistrate 
 duly authorized, with condition to do some particular act — 
 as to appear at the assizes, keep the peace, &c. — is in the 
 form of a recognisance; the party acknowledging himself 
 to be indebted to the kin;:, the plaintiff, &.<•„ with condition 
 that the obligation shall be void on performance of the 
 thing stipulated. 
 
 RECOl'L, in Artillery, is the rebound or resilience of a 
 i ordnance when discharged. This has been em- 
 ployed for the determination of the explosive force of gun- 
 powder: but the method does not appear to be susceptible 
 of much accuracy. See Gunnery. 
 
 REVOLLETS, or RE'COLLECTS. Monks of the or- 
 der of St. Francis under a reformed rule. The first separa- 
 tion from the original body seems to have taken place to- 
 wards the end of the 14th century, when some religious 
 persons, desirous of returning to stricter discipline, assumed 
 the title of Brothers of the Observance. From these origi- 
 nated the Recollects (living in a state of recollection, or re- 
 clusion), first established in Spain by the Count de Belalca- 
 zar, about 1484, and afterwards introduced into Italy. After 
 much opposition, they acquired the possession of great 
 wealth and court favour in France, during the 10th and 17th 
 Centur 
 
 K E( !( >KD. Literally an authentic account of any fact or 
 transaction in writing, contained in rolls of parchment, 
 wood, or any other durable substance, and preserved in a 
 court of record. See Archives. 
 
 Record. In Law, the authentic testimony in writing, 
 contained in rolls of parchment, of the judgment of a supe- 
 rior court, and of the other proceedings in a case. Records 
 are said to be of three kinds — judicial records; ministerial 
 records on oath, being offices or inquisitions found ; records 
 made by conveyance or consent, as fines, recoveries, or 
 deeds enrolled. (See Court.) Trial by record is used 
 where a matter of record is pleaded in any action, as a fine, 
 judgment, fee; and the opposite party pleads ••null tiel re- 
 cord," that there is no such record existing. On this issue 
 is joined, which can be tried only by inspection of the re- 
 cord. 
 
 RECORDA'RI FA'CIAS LOQUE'LAM. In Law, a 
 writ to remove proceedings out of an interior court to the 
 King's Bench oi Common Pleas. It is directed to the sheriff 
 Commanding him to make a record of the plaint and other 
 proceedings, and then to send up the cause. It is the com- 
 mon mode by which an action of replevin is transferred from 
 the sheriff's to the superior courts, 
 
 Itl'.i i I'RDER. The chief judicial officer of a borouch or 
 city, exercising within it. in criminal matters, the jurisdiction 
 
 of a court of record ; whence his title is derived. This ju- 
 risdiction is now in ide uniform in extent throughout all bor- 
 
 OUgha, and is rendered equal to that of the quarter sessions 
 of a county. Recorders were formerly chosen without re- 
 striction by the corporations with which they were connect- 
 ed ; but by the existing municipal system the appointment is 
 vested in the crown, and the selection is confined to barris- 
 ters of five years' standing. 
 
 Ri< -order. The nnme of a musical Instrument some- 
 what resembling the flageolet, formerly In use in this coun- 
 try. It had a peculiarly pleasing tone ; hence Milton speaks 
 of 
 
 Ttie Dnrinn mood 
 Of flutes and soft recorders. 
 
 The etymology of the term is involved in great obscurity. 
 
 BECO'VERY, or COMMON RECOVERY. I- Law 
 
 {set Pink), a mode of assurance in the form of a fictitious 
 
 action, by means of which conveyance-, were made by va- 
 rious tenant* possessed of limited righls in real property (by 
 
 tenants in tail more particularly). The effect of a common 
 
 recovery duly Buffered w as to raise tin absolute bar. not only 
 of all estates tall, but of all estates in remainder and re- 
 version expectant on such estates tail ; and to give the re- 
 rovepr a fee simple absolute. A common recovery, how- 
 ever did not bar a springing use, or an executory devise. A 
 common n-ro\ery also avoided all charges, leases, and in 
 cumbrances made by those in reversion or remainder. By3 
 Ai 4 W. 4, c. 7 1, common recoveries are abolished, and u 
 1034 
 
 RECUSANTS. 
 
 new mode of conveyance for the use of tenant in tail sub- 
 -tituted tor them. Sec Estate Tail. 
 
 RECTANGLE. In Geometry, a right-angled parallelo- 
 gram. When the adjacent sides are equal, it becomes a 
 square. The area of a rectangle is numerically expressed 
 by the product of the two numbers which express the 
 lengths of its adjacent sides, and hence the term rectangle is 
 sometimes, but incorrectly, used for product. 
 
 BJECTIFICATION. In Geometry, the determination of 
 a straight line, whose length is equal to a portion of a curve. 
 It is effected by the integral calculus. 
 
 If the curve be entirely in one plane, the length of the 
 
 arc is / *J d y* + d x 1 ; or if it be a curve of double cur- 
 vature, its length is / y/d j5 -f d y 2 -f- d z l . In the former 
 
 case, the equation of the curve being single will give a val- 
 ue of d y or d x, as may be found most convenient ; and this 
 being substituted in the above formula, and the expression 
 integrated between the specified limits, the actual length is 
 obtained. In the second case, the equations upon two of 
 the planes of projection being given, the values of d y and 
 d i can be Obtained in terms of d u (u being another varia- 
 ble), and the values of y and z in terms of u ; then these 
 substitutions being made, the process is the same as before. 
 See Integral Calculus. 
 
 It will, however, very rarely happen that the rectification 
 can be obtained in finite terms', as the substitutions generally 
 introduce radical expressions into the differential, which are 
 hardly ever so connected with the rational parts as to be 
 susceptible of a finite integral ; and hence it has been an ob- 
 ject with mathematicians to transform the expressions into 
 others, the successive terms of which are so related as to 
 diminish at a very rapid rate. In this case, the approxima- 
 tion to the value of the arc is rendered comparatively easy. 
 The first curve which was rectified was the semicubical 
 parabola; and the merit belongs to a Mr. Neal, whose rec- 
 tification was published in 1657. Two years later the same 
 curve was rectified by Van Heureat, in Holland. 
 
 Rectification. A Chemical term, generally implying a 
 second or more frequently repeated distillation ; thus, "rec- 
 tified spirit of wine," means spirit which has been redistil- 
 led, and by which it is to a great extent freed from water, or 
 rendered stronger. 
 
 RECTILI'NEAL, or RECTILINEAR FIGURE, in Ge- 
 ometry, is a figure bounded by straight lines. 
 
 RE'CTOR. (Lat. rector ecclesia?, ruler of the church), is 
 a person who hath the charge and care of a parish church. 
 The other rector is a la] man, or a college or corporate body 
 (see art. Tithes). He is bound to provide a vicar to serve 
 the church in his place, and to allow the small tithes, or a 
 sufficient stipend, for his maintenance. The term rector is 
 also employed in Scotland to designate the head master of a 
 public school or academy. 
 
 RECTRI'CES. (Lat." rectrix, a guide.) The name of 
 the tail feathers of a bird, which, like a rudder, direct its 
 flight. 
 
 RE'CTUM. (Lat. straight.) The last portion of the 
 large intestines; so named from an erroneous notion of the 
 old anatomists that it was straight 
 
 RECU'MBENT. (Lat. recumbo, Iliedown.) In Zoolo- 
 gy, when a part is leaning or reposing upon any thing. 
 "RECU'RRENT NERVES. Two branches of nerves 
 from the par vagum, in the cavity of the thorax, are so call- 
 ed : tin y are distributed to the muscles of the larynx and 
 pharynx. 
 
 RECU'RRING DECIMALS, or CBftCULATING DE- 
 CIMALS, in Arithmetic, are decimals which arise from the 
 expansion of a fraction whosi denominator includes one or 
 more prime numbers, as (actors, different from 2 or 5, and 
 not included in the numerator. In this case the same 
 figures are continually repeated in the same order. Thus, 
 T 2 r = - 181818, fee. ; \ =• 1428571428571, see., ad infinitum. 
 Their value can always be found by taking one of the pe- 
 riods for a numerator, and as many nines for the denomina- 
 tor as there are figures in the period, and reducing the re- 
 sulling fraction to its lowest terms. Thus, Ii=-'£ -L? bein g 
 so reduced, is found equal to L 
 
 Recurring decimals were first noticed by Dr. Wallis; but 
 their pro]..-i tie- have not been extensively investigated. 
 
 RECU'RRING SERIES. In Algebra, a series in which 
 the coefficients of the successive powers of x are formed 
 
 from a certain number of the preceding coetlicii nts accord 
 
 ing to sunn- invariable law. Thus a-f- (a-f- 1) z-f- (2 a 
 -4- 2) xl -f- (3 a + 3) r3-f- (5 o+ 5) a£+ . . . is a recurring 
 series, the coefficient of each term being the sum of the 
 coefficients of tie two preceding terms. The value of the 
 
 terms of such a series can always be exhibited in a finite 
 form. 'See Ettler, Introductio in .Inahjsin Infinitorum ; 
 it's . tlgt bra, i 1 .' . 
 RECU'SANTS. In English Histiry, a term applied to
 
 RED. 
 
 those who refused to acknowledge the king's supremacy as 
 head of the church, chiefly Papists. 
 
 RED. One of the primary colours. .See Chromatics. 
 
 RE'DAN. In Fortification, a kind of rampart placed in 
 advance of the principal works to defend the least protect- 
 ed parts. The redan usually consists of a rampart of earth ; 
 and it is the simplest kind of field fortification. See For- 
 tification. 
 
 RED BOOK. The name given to a book containing the 
 names of all persons in the service of the state. The Red 
 Book of the Exchequer is an ancient record, in which are 
 registered the names of all those that held lands per baro- 
 niam in the time of Henry II. 
 
 RE'DDLE. A soft argillaceous mineral, deeply tinged 
 with red by oxide of iron. The best specimens, used as 
 drawing chalk, are brought from Germany. 
 
 REDE'MPTORISTS. A religious order founded in Na- 
 ples by Liguori in 1732, and revived in Austria in 1820. 
 They are bound by the usual monastic vows, and devote 
 themselves to the education of youth and the propagation 
 of Catholicism. They style themselves members of the 
 order of the Holy Redeemer (il Santo Redemptore), whence 
 their name ; but they are also often called Liguorists, from 
 the name of their founder. 
 
 RED LEAD. An oxide intermediate between the pro- 
 toxide and peroxide of lead. See Lead and Minium. 
 
 RED MARL. New red sandstone. See Geology. 
 
 RED PRECIPITATE. The peroxide of mercury, ob- 
 tained by the decomposition of nitrate of mercury by heat. 
 See Mercury. 
 
 REDOU'BT. In Fortification, a term applied to nearly 
 every kind of work intended to fortify military positions ; as 
 also to works constructed within others to prolong their de- 
 fence ; or to detached works used to secure some piece of 
 ground which would be useful to the besiegers, and thereby 
 create delay in offensive operations. 
 
 REDU'CL\G SCALE. A scale used by surveyors for 
 turning links into roods and acres by inspection. 
 
 REDU'CTION. The process of converting a metallic 
 oxide into metal by expelling its oxygen. In some cases it 
 is effected simply by heat, but generally by the joint action 
 of heat and some deoxidizing agent; upon the large scale, 
 charcoal is almost always resorted to. 
 
 Reduction. In Arithmetic, the changing of quantities 
 from one denomination to another. 
 
 REDUCTION OF FIGURES, in Practical Geometry, 
 consists in describing figures similar to the given ones, but of 
 different (generally smaller) dimensions. The pentagraph 
 and the proportional compasses are the readiest and most 
 accurate methods of performing these reductions ; but in 
 the absence of these, many different methods are taught in 
 works of practical geometry. The simplest is here an- 
 nexed. 
 
 Let A B C D be the figure to be reduced, and a b be 
 
 the line which is homologous to A B. At a convenient 
 place on the paper draw a b, parallel to A B, and equal to 
 the reduced line. Draw A a, B b, meeting in O, and from 
 O draw lines to all the other angles of the figure ; then 
 draw b c parallel to BC.sd parallel to A D, &c. ; and join 
 the last two points. Then abed is the reduced figure 
 sought. 
 
 If the proposed figure be curvilinear, inscribe any po- 
 lygon within it, and draw the similar polygon as above 
 directed; then trace the curve through the angles of the 
 polygon. 
 
 REDU'NDANT HYPERBOLA. A line of the third or- 
 der, having three pairs of asymptotic branches. Its proper- 
 ties may be seen in Newton's Enumeratio. 
 
 REEF, in Navigation, signifies to diminish the surface of 
 the sails on the increasing of the wind. Sails attached to 
 yards are reefed at the head. Strong horizontal bands of 
 canvass, from three to six feet apart, extend across the sails ; 
 these are called reef bands ; and there are usually four in 
 each topsail, and two in the foresail and mainsail. The 
 reef band is commonly pierced with two holes in each cloth 
 (or breadth of canvass) in the sail ; through each hole are 
 drawn two reef points— short pieces of flat rope, each hav- 
 ing an eye in one end, and hung one before and the other 
 abaft the sail, each passing through the eye in the end of 
 the other. The sail being lowered, and trimmed to the 
 wind so as to shake, the extremities of the reef band are 
 drawn up towards the yard arm by the ropes called reef 
 tackles ; the men then going out upon the yard, which they 
 lean over while their feet are supported by the foot ropes 
 gather up the loose canvass of the sail till they reach the 
 
 REFLEXION. 
 
 reef band, which they keep extended tight along the yard 
 until the earings are passed or secured, the weather earing 
 being passed first ; they then tie the two reef points of each 
 pair together over the yard, and the sail is reefed, the sur- 
 face having been thus diminished by the depth of one reef. 
 Gaff sails are reefed at the foot. The sail being lowered 
 enough to slack the canvass, the earing which is on the 
 after leech is brought or hove down to the boom end by a 
 strong rope called a reef pendant ; the men then standing 
 wherever they can reach the foot of the sail, tie the points 
 under it. When the yard is not lowered, as in reefing the 
 courses, the sail is partly clued up for reefing. 
 
 Reef, or Coral Reef, is also applied to a chain of rocks 
 in various parts of the ocean lying near the surface. See 
 Geology. 
 
 REEL. A lively dance peculiar to Scotland, generally 
 written in common time of four crotchets in a bar, but 
 sometimes in gig time of six quavers. 
 
 Reel. An angler's implement attached to the butt of the 
 rod, for the purpose of winding in the line when a fish is 
 hooked. The barrel of the reel should be of sufficient di- 
 ameter to wind in quickly, as a fish is often lost by not being 
 able to bring him rapidly within reach of the landing net; 
 especially where, as in fly-fishing, a great length of line has 
 been thrown out. 
 
 RE-E'NTER. In Engraving, a word which denotes the 
 passing of the graver into those incisions of the plate, so as 
 to deepen them, where the aquafortis has not bitten in suf- 
 ficiently. 
 
 RE-E'NTERING ANGLE. In Fortification the angle 
 of a work whose point turns inwards towards the defended 
 place. 
 
 REEVE. (Ang. Sax. gerefa, an officer or governor.) A 
 word of a very general application, entering into the com- 
 position of some titles yet in use. Hence sheriff, i. e., shire- 
 reeve, the governor of a shire or county ; borough-reeve, 
 port-reeve, &c. 
 
 Reeve. The Sea term for putting a rope through a block, 
 or any hole through which it is intended to run. 
 
 REFE'CTION. (Lat. reficio, / restore.) In the lan- 
 guage of Ecclesiastical communities, a spare meal, sufficient 
 only to maintain life ; whence the hall in convents where 
 meals are taken is termed refectory. 
 
 REFE'CTORY. (Lat. refectorum.) In Architecture, 
 an apartment wherein meals are taken. 
 
 REFERE'NDARIES. In the early monarchies of Europe 
 after the fifth century, public officers charged with the duty 
 of procuring, executing, and despatching diplomas and 
 charters. The office of great referendary, in the French. 
 monarchy, became merged in that of chancellor. 
 
 REFLECTING CIRCLE. An astronomical instrument 
 for the measurement of angles by reflection. (See Sex- 
 tant.) The term is also applied to a surveying instrument, 
 invented by Sir Howard Douglas, which combines the ad- 
 vantages of the Hadley's quadrant and the protractor. The 
 object of it is to protract, or lay down on the plan, the an- 
 gles measured with the instrument from the instrument it- 
 self, without any intermediate step, or even a register of 
 their values. The advantage of such an instrument must 
 be obvious in military surveys, where expedition is impor- 
 tant, while accuracy is thereby far more efficiently insured 
 than by the old and more tedious process. It is also ad- 
 vantageously used in forming general sketches of a country. 
 
 RE'FLEX. (Lat. reflecto, / bend back.) In Painting, 
 the illumination of one body, or a part of it, by light re- 
 flected from another body. The foundation of the law of 
 reflexes depends upon the knowledge that every body in 
 light reflects that light to a certain degree, in the same way 
 that flame does. The stronger, therefore, the light on the 
 body, the stronger will be the reflex, distances being equal. 
 Again, the more directly the light falls on a body, the more 
 influence it will have in imparting a reflex. 
 
 REFLE'XION, in Mechanics, denotes the rebound or re- 
 gressive motion of a body from the surface of another body 
 against which it impinges. In Natural Philosophy, the term 
 is applied to the analogous motions of light, heat and sound, 
 when turned from their course by an opposing surface. The 
 laws of the reflexion of light form the branch of science 
 called catoptrics ; those of the reflexion of sound are some- 
 times called cataphonics. Sec Sound. 
 
 The simplest view which can be taken of the mechanical 
 action whereby reflexion is produced, is to assimilate it to 
 that which takes place when an elastic body impinges on 
 another body which it cannot move out of its place. If 
 light, heat, and sound are propagated by the pulses of an 
 elastic medium, the same theory will apply to them ; and it 
 is to be remarked, that in all cases of reflexion the change 
 of motion which takes place follows precisely the same 
 laws as that which is produced by the impact of two elastic 
 bodies. 
 
 Reflexion of Light. — When we consider only the direction 
 of the rays of light after being reflected from a polished 
 
 1035
 
 REFLEXION. 
 
 surface, and leave its Quantity or intensity out of view, the 
 laws of reflexion ire extremely ample. Suppose A B (i\«. 
 (1.) 1.) to be a smooth polished surface, or mir- 
 
 ror, ami a ray of light proceeding in the ili- 
 ,a rection I. P to Impinge on the surface at P, 
 and to In' reflected from it in the direction 
 I' K. Through the point PdrawP u a nor 
 mal or perpendicular to the surface; then. 
 p adhering to the definitions adopted by moat 
 
 writers on optics, the angle I. P il is called the angh of m 
 cidtnrr, Q P R the angU of reflexion, the plane in which are 
 tli.> two straight lines 1, P ami P 11 is called tin plane of in- 
 cidence, and the plane determined by U P ami P It the plane 
 of reflexion. Now the two general laws of rellevion are 
 1st. The plane of rellevion coincides with the plane 
 of incidence: or the three straight lines 1. I", P ti. and I' R, 
 are in one plane. 3d. The angle of reflexion is equal to 
 the angle of incidence, and on the opposite side of the nor- 
 m al. These laws hold true, whatever he the nature of the 
 
 reflecting ratface, or tin- origin of the light which falls on 
 it. Experience offers ao exception to them whatever; and 
 all the phenomena of reflexion from mirrors or polished 
 surfaces, whether plane or having any regular curvature, 
 are readily deduced from them as simple geometrical conse- 
 quences. 
 
 Reflexion from Plane .Mirrors. — To determine the path 
 of the reflected rays, and the formation of images by plane 
 mirrors, suppose M N (fig. '-' to 
 \u- an object placed before the plane 
 reflecting surface A B, and the eye 
 to be situated at E. The rays ,,f 
 light which proceed from the point 
 M, and are reflected to the eye at 
 E, will impinge on the mirror at P. 
 and appear to come from a point 
 »i, which, in respect of the plane 
 A B, is symmetrical with M : that is to say. placed in the 
 Straight line which i> drawn from M perpendicular to the 
 
 surface, and at the same distance from A B on the opposite 
 side. For let M K In- tin- perpendicular, and let it be con- 
 tinued t'.ll it meet the prohibition of E P in m ; then, from 
 the equality of the angles of incidence and reflexion, the 
 nnr/les M P K ami K P B (which are the complements of 
 those angles) are equal : hence M P K — K P m : and the 
 two right angled triangles K P M and K P m, h n I 
 common side, are every way equal ; whence K m =z K M. 
 In like manner, the rays which issue from X. and are re- 
 flected to E, will appear to proceed from a point « symmet- 
 rical with N ; anil as the same thin;; is evidently true with 
 respect to ever] other poinl of the object, a perfect image 
 
 m n of the object will be formed on the opposite side of the 
 mirror, and at the same distar.ee. It will he observed that 
 the Image is not, properly speaking, reversed, like writing 
 looked at through the opposite side of the paper: the spec- 
 tator sees the same side of the object as if he stood in front 
 of the mirror, and viewed the object directly; but. in the 
 reflected image, right takes the place of left, and left of 
 right. 
 
 Reflexion from Carre Surfaces— In order to apply the 
 two general laws of reflexion to the determination of the 
 direction of a ray reflected from a curve surface, it is as- 
 sumed that the reflexion takes place at each point of the 
 surface in the same manner as it would from a plane 
 touching the curve surface at that point, and the problem 
 
 therefore bee. mes that of determining the direction of the 
 normal at the given point; for. when the direction of the 
 Incident ray, and of the normal at the point of incidence, 
 are both known, the plane of the reflected ray, and the 
 position of the ray in that plane, are both given. The 
 mirror may he concave or convex; and the incident rays 
 may be parallel or divergent. 
 
 Let I) centre of a concave mirror, D C its 
 
 axis, C the centre of curvature at I) : and assume the Beml 
 
 (3.) diameter of the mirror I) P to be 
 
 , sm ill in comparison of us radius of 
 
 / curvature (' 1). Now suppose .-, r a> 
 
 k- of light L P, parallel to the avis, to 
 
 | \ fall on the mirror at P: thi 
 
 |r B c draw P C, and make the angle C P R 
 
 \ —C P I, or P L II. P It will be the 
 
 direction of the n fleeted raj ; tor, by 
 the nature of curvature, CP is a normal to tin- surface, the 
 an: 1) i' being -mall. Hut. on the hypothesis of n p being 
 small, we havi also B P=B !»• ami by reason of the 
 equal angles UP ('and R C P, R P=R C, therefore HI) 
 - RC; or i; iv a given point, and. consequently, all the 
 
 rays which fill on the mirror parallel to C II ao 
 
 into the same pant II. Prom this property Ihe point R, 
 which bisects the radius C I'. is called the principal focus 
 ol the mirror, or the focus of parallel rays. Set Foi i -. 
 
 It tin- reflecting surface were a portion of a paraboloid. 
 then all rays parallel to the axis would be accurately re- 
 l(Wi 
 
 I fleeted into the focus at R, whatever the extent of the sur- 
 i ce might tie ; hut, on account of the practical difficulty of 
 
 grinding and poliehing curve surfaces of any other form 
 than the spherical, the concave and convex mirrors requi- 
 red for optical purposes are always spherical. 
 
 Suppose, next, the rays to diverge from a point in th<» 
 axis of the mirror. Let L (tig. 4) be the luminous point, C 
 the centre of curvature, and 
 P R the reflected rav. To 
 find the point li.let I=LPC 
 = R P (.'; and let K, C, I. 
 denote respectively the acute 
 angles at the points indicated 
 by these le;ti re. We shall 
 then have, obviously, R — I 
 =C,andI+L=C; whence L + R = 2C. Now, since I> 
 P is supposed to be an arc of a small number of degrees, I) 
 P may he regarded as a straight line perpendicular to L D ; 
 and since the angles R, C, L are also small, we may sub- 
 stitute for the arcs to which thev respectively correspond 
 
 ,.. ., PD'PDPD 
 
 their trigonometrical tangents, namelv, =r-=i r— > =r-=-. 
 
 UK DC JJ L 
 Hence, if we assume DL=f,DR = (;,DC=r, the radi- 
 us of curvature, the above equation R + L = 2 C will be- 
 come 
 
 p q r 
 which gives the relation between p nnd q, r being a con- 
 stant quantity for the same mirror. If, therefore, L be a 
 given point, then p has a given value, and q is also deter- 
 mined ; so that all rays diverging from the point L, and 
 falling on the mirror, are reflected into the point R. As the 
 two quantities p and q enter symmetric illy into the equa- 
 tion, each being expressed in terms of the other by the 
 same formula, the points R and L are interchangeable; 
 that is, if R be taken as the radiating point, then L is the 
 focus of the reflected rays. Hence L and R are culled con- 
 jugate points, or conjugate foci. 
 
 Since the reciprocals of p and q always make up the 
 same sum, when one of those quantities increases the other 
 diminishes, and vice versa. If. therefore, L approaches to- 
 wards C. 1', will also approach towards C (the origin being 
 supposed at D), and they will ultimately coincide at that 
 point, so that a ray issuim: from (' would be reflected back 
 on itself. If L recedes from ('. then R recedes from C, or 
 approaches D. .Suppose I, to he at an infinite distance ; in 
 this case 1 -f-/> = 0. and the equation gives q == V r, or I) R 
 = A D C ; so that R becomes the principal foots, as it evi- 
 dently ought ; for when L is at an infinite distance, the 
 rays L P are parallel to the axi'. 
 
 It is evident from the above equation that so Ions as p 
 and q have the s ime sign, that is, so lone as L and K are 
 on the same side of the mirror, each of those quantities 
 must be greater than \ r. Suppose the radiating point L to 
 be placed between h and 
 C (fig. 5), and let D L or 
 p become less than J r. 
 In this case, q must be- 
 come negative ; that is to 
 say. the rays which ema- 
 nate from L must become 
 divergent after reflexion, 
 
 and have the same direction as if they diverged from a 
 point R' on the opposite side of the mirror, and of which 
 the distance q from D is determined by the equation 
 
 1 1 2 
 
 =-. This point R' is called the virtual focus of 
 
 p q r 
 
 the reflected rays. 
 
 The same construction and equation (with the proper 
 changes of sign) apply 
 equally to convex and con- 
 cave mirrors. Let L (fig. 
 C) be the luminous point, 
 from w Inch diverging rax a 
 fall on the convex mirror 
 P li. of which C is the 
 centre of cun iture. De- 
 
 noting, as before. |l [.. II 
 1!, and I) C, by /., q. and r respectively, ard assuming the 
 constant r to t"' positive, then, by exactly the same reason- 
 ing as above, we shall find the equation 
 
 1_1_2 
 
 q p~~ r 
 In this case, p and q Increase or decrease simultaneously ; 
 and it we suppose p to increase to Infinity, or the incident 
 rays to become parallel, then we have again }={r; so 
 
 that, for parallel r;ns the conjugate focus i_ n l the middle 
 
 of ihe distance between l> and C. When the mirrur U 
 convex, the conjugate focus is always the virtuul focus.
 
 (-•) 
 
 REFORM ACT. 
 
 From what has now been shown, it is easy to see in 
 what manner images are formed by concave or convex 
 mirrors. Let M N (fig. 7} be an 
 object placed before a concave 
 mirror A B, beyond its centre 
 of curvature C. On tracing 
 the path of the rays M A, M D, 
 M B, after reflexion, they will 
 be found to meet in the point 
 fef m. and those which proceed 
 from N will, in like manner, be 
 found to meet in n : whence, rays diverging from every point 
 of the object between M and N will meet, after reflexion, in a 
 point situated between m and n ; and in this manner an in- 
 verted image m n of the object will be formed. The mag- 
 nitude of the image is to that of the object as D m to D M, 
 or as the distance of the image from the mirror is to the 
 distance of the object from the mirror ; and the image will 
 be more brilliant in proportion as the rays of light coming 
 from the object are collected within a smaller space. If 
 the object were placed at m «, then an enlarged image 
 would be formed at M N. It is on this principle that re- 
 flecting telescopes and microscopes are constructed. See 
 Telescope, Microscope. 
 
 Intensity of reflected Light. — It has now been shown 
 that the path of the reflected light can be determined in all 
 cases with geometrical precision, when the form of the 
 reflecting surface is known ; but the case is very different 
 when the question is to determine the quantity or propor- 
 tion of the light which is thrown into a different direction 
 by an opposing surface. The following laws, however, 
 have been established by experiment: 1st. The quantity of 
 light regularly reflected increases with the angle of inci- 
 dence, but doe? not vanish entirely when that angle be- 
 comes 0. 2d. It depends both on the nature of the medium 
 through which the light is passing when it falls on the re- 
 flecting surface, and on that of the substance on which it 
 falls. 3d. Bodies of different natures, placed in the same 
 circumstances, reflect very different proportions of the inci- 
 dent light. 
 
 On this subject a great number of experiments were 
 made by Bouguer. and more recently by Araeo, Fresnel, 
 Mr. Potter, and others. The following numerical relations 
 are given by Bouguer : When a beam of light, the intensi- 
 ty of which is represented by 1000, falls upon water so as 
 to make an angle of 0° 30' with the surface, the inten- 
 sity of the reflected light is represented hv721 ; at an angle 
 of 15° with the surface, by 'ill : at an angle of 30°. bv 65; 
 and at an angle from 00° to 90°, by 18. Of 1000 rays" fall- 
 ing upon a surface of glass, and making an angle of 5° with 
 the surface, 543 are reflected ; 300 when the angle is 15° : 
 112 when 3(1°; 25 when 60^, or above. Of 1000 rays fall- 
 ing on a polished surface of black marble. 600 are reflected 
 when the angle with the surface is 3° 15' ; 156 when 15°; 
 51 when 30°; 23 when 60° and upwards. Mercury and 
 metallic mirrors give a less rapid diminution. Of 1000 in- 
 cident rays, 700 are reflected when the angle with the sur- 
 face is very small ; and about 600. or more than half, 
 when the angle approaches to 90°, or the incident ray is 
 nearly perpendicular to the surface. (Traite d'Optique. 
 See also the Edinburgh Journal of Science for 1830 and 
 1832.) 
 
 In order to produce reflexion in a greater or less degree, 
 the only indispensable condition is. that light pass from one 
 medium to another having a different refractive power. In 
 passing through a perfectly homogeneous medium, no re- 
 flexion take* place : but whenever there is a change of me- 
 dium (and this change may occur in the same substance by 
 an inequality of density in the different parts, or a different 
 arrangement of the particles), more or less reflexion takes 
 place at the surface which separates the two media. 
 Thus, in passing through the atmosphere, the solar light 
 undergoes an infinite number of partial reflexions before it 
 arrives at the earth, as every successive thin stratum of 
 air. by reason of its increasing density, forms, as it were, a 
 different medium. See Refraction, Astronomical. 
 
 If any surfaces could be formed of so perfect a polish as 
 to reflect the whole of the incident light, the eve would be 
 unable to distinguish them ; and. unless bv coming in actu- 
 al contact with them, we should have no reason to suspect 
 their existence. Bodies are onlv visible in consequence of 
 rays irregularly reflected from their surfaces meeting the 
 eye ; for rays which are regularly reflected onlv show the 
 luminous points from which they emanate, and not the sur- 
 faces on which they fall. If the lunar surface were as 
 perfectly polished as a globule of pure mercurv, the moon 
 would present to us only a reflected image of the sun. See 
 
 LlOFIT. ( >PTIfS. 
 
 REFORM ACT. In Politics. .See Parliament. 
 
 REFORMATION. An important era in political and 
 
 ecclesiastical history, when the doctrines and usages of the 
 
 Romish church, then dominant throughout the' western 
 
 83 
 
 REFORMATION. 
 
 states of Christendom, were first successfully called in 
 question. This event is commonly dated from the year 
 1517, when Luther began to oppose the pope and con- 
 demned the sale of indulgences. Mosheim assigns to it the 
 date 1520, when Luther was excommunicated. 
 
 Prior to the Reformation, the pope claimed of divine 
 right, and exercised, absolute authority over the whole 
 Christian church, with the exception of those states and 
 provinces in which the Eastern or Greek church was estab- 
 lished. Not only was his authority regarded as supreme 
 on subjects of doctrine and discipline, but his decisions 
 were considered as infallible ; and whoever ventured to 
 question or gainsay them was treated as a heretic, and 
 was liable to such canonical censures and temporal penal- 
 ties as the canon law determined. Of course, the exercise 
 of private judgment in religious and ecclesiastical matters, 
 or the right of the people to peruse the sacred volume, was 
 peremptorily denied. Nothing, therefore, could be more 
 absolute than was the government of the Christian church 
 under the see of Rome. His holiness, also, laid claim to 
 supremacy even in temporal things throughout the wide 
 range of his religious authority ; though the exercise of this 
 supremacy was not always quietly submitted to ; nay, was 
 sometimes resisted with success. He regarded all parts of 
 the world not inhabited by Christians as uninhabited, and 
 gave full power to those Christians who might occupy 
 them to make war on the inhabitants ; and the countries, . 
 if conquered, were parcelled out according to his sovereign 
 pleasure. But while the absolutism claimed by the Roman 
 pontiff was calculated to arouse jealousy and opposition, 
 which, indeed, it did, in some degree, in different places 
 and at various times, these feelings were greatly increased 
 by several other causes : such as the immoral lives of the 
 clergy; the facilities by which their immoralities were 
 pardoned ; the exorbitant wealth of the church : the great 
 personal immunities of ecclesiastics, and their encroach- 
 ments on the jurisdiction of the laity. These and similar 
 circumstances, which the invention of the art of printing 
 and the revival of learning had tended more thoroughly 
 and widely to disclose, gradually prepared the public mind 
 for that reformation of religion of which, in this article, we 
 intend briefly to give an account. 
 
 Without minute'y mentioning the frequent, but compar- 
 atively feeble opposition, to which the absolutism in the 
 government of the church had, in various periods, given 
 rise, it may suffice here to confine ourselves to an account 
 of that course of opposition, in the llith century, which ter- 
 minated in the Reformation. 
 
 According to the doctrine of the Romish church, all the 
 good works of the saints, over and above those necessary 
 for their own justification, are deposited, together with the 
 infinite merits of Jesus Christ, in one inexhaustible treasury. 
 The keys of this treasury were committed to St. Peter, and 
 his successors, the popes, who may open it at pleasure, 
 and by transferring a portion of this superabundant merit 
 to any particular person for a sum of money, may convey 
 to him either the pardon of his own sins, or a release for 
 any one in whose happiness he is interested, from the 
 pains of purgatory. Hence the origin (which took place in 
 the 11th century) of the sale of indulgences. Pope LeoX., 
 under the pretence of raising contributions towards building 
 the church of St. Peter at Rome, granted, in 1517, the right 
 of promulgating those indulgences in Germany, together 
 with a share in the profits arising from the sale of them, 
 to the archbishop of Magdeburg, who, as his chief aeent 
 for retailing them in Saxony, employed Tetzel, a Domini- 
 can friar, of dissolute morals, but of great activity and en- 
 ergy of character. Tetzel, assisted by the monks of his 
 order, executed the commission with great zeal, but with 
 little discretion or decency ; and, by disposing of them at a 
 very low price, carried on for some time an extensive and 
 lucrative traffic among the credulous and ignorant. The 
 princes and nobles were irritated at seeing their vassals 
 drained of their wealth to replenish the treasury of a pro- 
 fuse pontiff. Men of piety regretted equally the corruptions 
 of the church and the delusions of the people. Even the 
 most unthinking were shocked at the scandalous behaviour 
 of Tetzel and his associates. But it was reserved to Mar- 
 tin Luther, formerly a monk of the Augustine order, and 
 at that time professor of theology at Wittenberg, effectually 
 to expose the artifices of those who sold, and the simplicity 
 of those who bought indulgences, and to shake the founda- 
 tions of the papal see itself. What were the motives 
 which first induced this distinguished person to oppose this 
 traffic cannot now be ascertained. The traffic was not a 
 novelty, as it had been practised throughout Christendom 
 for several centuries. Some writers have imagined, though 
 with what justice is not evident, that his opposition was 
 founded in jealousy, because this gainful trade had not 
 been conferred on the Augustinians, to whom he belonged, 
 but on the Dominicans, a rival order. But, whatever were 
 his motives, his opposition at first was confined simplv to 
 
 1037
 
 REFORMATION. 
 
 the sale of indulgences. His memorable theses, ninety-five 
 in number, against this practice were affixed to the doers 
 Dt' the cathedral of Wittenberg, 31st October, 1517; while 
 from the pulpit he inveighed bitterly against the irregulari- 
 ties and vices ni' tlu 1 in. niks who published indulgences, a. 4 
 well as against the abuse itself. The sentiments contained 
 in his theses he proposed not as points fully established, or 
 of undoubted certainty, but merely as subjects of inquiry 
 
 and disputation : he appointed a day on which the learned 
 were invited to impugn them, either in person or by wri- 
 ting; and to the whole he subjoined solemn protestations 
 
 of his high respect for the apostolic see, and of his implicit 
 obedience to its authority. No opponent appeared at the 
 time prefixed. Meanwhile the theses spread over Ger- 
 many with astonishing rapidity ; they were everywhere 
 read with the greatest avidity ; and ail admired the bold- 
 ness of the man who had ventured to attack the plenitude 
 of papal power. Meanwhile Tctzel, in opposition to Lu- 
 ther, published counter-theses at Frankfort on the Oder; 
 Eckius, a celebrated divine of Augsburg, endeavoured to 
 refute Luther's notions; and Prierias, a Dominican friar, 
 master of the sacred palace and inquisitor-general, wrote 
 against him with uncompromising virulence. But this op- 
 position was of little or no avail. Luther supported his 
 views by arguments founded on reason or derived from 
 scripture, and his cause was found daily to gain strength. 
 
 Leo, naturally fond of ease, and occupied in the pursuits 
 of pleasure and ambition, paid little or no attention to the 
 dispute that was thus raging in Germany, and at first de- 
 spised it as a mere monkish squabble. Hut the tidings of 
 Luther's rapid success, and the clamours of the ecclesiastics 
 for aid and vengeance, at length roused him from his apathy, 
 and induced him to take prompt steps to put a stop to the 
 spread of heresy. On the 21st Aug. 1518, he summoned 
 Luther to appear at Rome within sixty days, before the 
 auditor of the chamber and the inquisitor-general Prierias, 
 who had written against him, whom he empowered jointly 
 to examine his doctrines and to decide concerning them. 
 This was evidently an unjust tribunal by which the deci- 
 sion was to be made ; and through the influence of Frede- 
 rick the elector of Saxony, who was favourable to the new 
 doctrines, and of others, and by a submissive letter written 
 to the Pope by Luther himself, bis holiness ngreed to refer 
 the hearing and determining of the cause to his legate in 
 Germany, Cardinal Cajelan, a Dominican, eminent for 
 scholastic learning. 
 
 The reformer accordingly appeared before Cajetan, who, 
 after some discussion, commanded him to retract his 
 opinions; but Luther, with that intrepidity of mind which 
 was his grand characteristic, declared that he could not, 
 with a safe conscience, renounce opinions which he be- 
 lieved to be true, nor should any consideration induce him 
 to do what would be so base in itself, and so offensive to 
 God. The result was, that Luther, who, with his friends, 
 suspected that even the imperial safe-conduct would not 
 be able to protect him from the legate's power and resent- 
 ment, was induced to withdraw secretly from Augsburg, 
 and return to Wittenberg; previously to which, however, 
 he prepared a solemn appeal from the pope, ill-informed at 
 that tune concerning I us cause, to the pope when he should 
 be better able to judge respecting it. (Secken, Comment., 
 lib. i., p. 14; Luthcri Opera, i., p. Kit).) But so impatient 
 were Luther's enemies at Rome, that even before the sixty 
 days had expired, he was there condemned as a heretic ; 
 and Leo, in several of the briefs and letters, had stigma- 
 tized him as a child of iniquity, and as given up to a repro 
 bate mind. Hut Luther, convinced that his views wen- 
 agreeable both i i Scripture and reason, was not to be de- 
 terred from teaching and promulgating his opinions both 
 from the pulpit and through the press; and as every step 
 
 taken by the court of Rome against him convinced him 
 
 that Leo would soon proceed to the most violent measures; 
 
 he had recourse to the only expedient in his power in 
 order to prevent the effect of the papal censure-. He ap 
 pealed to a general council, which he affirmed to he the 
 representative of the Catholic church, and superior in 
 power to the pope, who, being a fallible man, might err, as 
 St. Peter, the most perfect of rill Ins predecessors, had 
 erred. As opposition against him increased, and as the 
 controversy advanced, Luther's views began to expand ; 
 and in his disputation with Bckhu, be went so fat as to 
 
 question the supremacy of tin: pope over the church, as 
 well as the doctrines of purgatory, auricular confession, 
 
 an! absolution; and he, about the same time, published 
 several treatises, in which he more openly expri 
 
 dissent. I. other may now be said to have embraced the 
 fundamental tenet which now characterizes all sects of 
 
 Protestants, and which was subversive of the slavish obe- 
 dience in |Kiints of doctrine and discipline which had 
 hitherto been paid to the holy see; namely, thai 
 is the only rule of faith and manners, and that this rule i- 
 
 to be interpreted by the exercise of private judgment. A 
 1038 
 
 step was at this period (June, 1520) taken by the court of 
 Home fatal to the object which it had in view. The pope 
 issued a bull condemning, as heretical and offensive to 
 pious ears, forty-One propositions extracted out of Luther's 
 works; all persons were forbidden to read bis works 00 
 pain of excommunication ; those who possessed a copy of 
 them were commanded to commit it to the flames ; and he 
 himself, if he did not within sixty days publicly recant his 
 errors and burn his works, pronounced a heretic, excom- 
 municated, and delivered unto Satan ; and all secular 
 princes required, under pain of incurring the same censure, 
 to seize his person, that he might be punished as his crimes 
 deserved. 
 
 'I'll is sentence, while it did not disconcert or intimidate 
 Luther, excited more indignation than terror among his 
 followers, and gave a flesh impulse to the spread of the 
 new doctrines. In some cities the people violently ob- 
 structed the promulgation of the bull ; in others, the per- 
 sons who attempted to publish it were insulted, and the 
 bull itself was torn in pieces and trodden under foot. Lu- 
 ther, after renewing his appeal to the general council, 
 published remarks on the papal bull; and, being now 
 persuaded that Leo had been guilty both of impiety and 
 injustice in his proceedings against him, assumed a bolder 
 tone, anil dec hired the pope to be that man of sin, or Anti- 
 christ, whose appearance is foretold in the New Testa- 
 ment. He declaimed against his branny and usurpations, 
 and exhorted all Christian princes to shake off such an 
 ignominious yoke. Nor did he stop here. As Leo had, in 
 execution of the bull, appointed Luther's works to be burnt 
 
 at B e, the latter, by way of retaliation, assembled all 
 
 the members of the university of Wittenberg, and, with 
 
 great pomp, ill presence of a vast number of spectators, 
 cast the volumes of the canon law. together with the bull 
 of excommunication, into the flames; and his example was 
 imitated in several cities of Germany. This took place on 
 the 10th of December, 1520; and, on the 6th of the ensuing 
 month, the pope launched a second bull against him, by 
 which Luther was finally expelled from the communion 
 of the church. Thus separated from all connexion with 
 the see of Rome, Luther applied himself more assiduously 
 than ever to the study of the word of God, as the only 
 standard of theological truth; and while he was thus 
 enabled to attack with the greater success most of the 
 peculiar papal doctrines, both theological and ecclesiastical, 
 he exposed, at the same time, the immoral and secular 
 lives of the clergy ; and thus laid the foundation of that 
 reformation of religion which at first he never contem- 
 plated, but which has been characterized "as a revolution 
 in the sentiments of mankind, the greatest as well as the 
 most beneficial, that has happened since the publication of 
 Christianity." (Rubirtsu/i's Charles V., Svo ed., vol. ii., 
 p. 12.) 
 
 A spirit of inquiry having, by means of Luther's preach- 
 ing and publications, and the violent procedure of the 
 court of Rome, been excited in the public mind, the pro- 
 gress of the reformed doctrines was rapid and general, and 
 threatened to embrace the whole of Germany, notwith- 
 standing the Emperor Charles V. co-operated with the 
 pope to check and destroy them. Luther, too, was pro- 
 tected, from various motives, not merely by the Elector of 
 Sa.xony, but by many other princes; and the new views 
 were adopted and sedulously propagated by Melanchthon, 
 Carlostadius, and other eminent men. Erasmus, too, 
 though he did not long follow in the same course as the 
 German reformer, and ultimately wrote against some of 
 his views, yet discovered and exposed, with great learning 
 and ability, many errors both in the doctrine and worship 
 of the Romish church, and may he considered as his 
 auxiliary in the work of reformation. 
 
 Under such circumstances it was that the imperial diet 
 at Worms was held, January, 1521, to which the different 
 princes were invited, in order to concert the most proper 
 measures for checking tin progress of those new and dan- 
 L'eroiis doctrines, which threatened to disturb the pi ace of 
 
 Germany, and to overthrow the religion of their ancestors. 
 
 An attempt to condemn him in his absence was frustrated 
 by a majority of the mi inbers of the diet; and Luther, 
 under a sale conduct, was summoned to appear before 
 them, lie did not hesitate to attend; but neither threats 
 nor entreaties COUld induce him to retract any of his opin- 
 ions, or to consent to their being tried by any other rule 
 than the word of God. lie was allowed to leave the city 
 in safety; but an edict was published in the emperor's 
 name, after his departure, putting him under the ban of the 
 empire. The circumstances, however, in which Charles 
 was placed — the commotions in Spain, and the vv.ns m 
 Italy and the Low countries, together with the prudent 
 precaution of the Elector of Saxony in concealing I. other 
 
 in tin castle of Wartburg, ail concurred in preventing the 
 edict i» iiii.' earned into effect During his confinement his 
 
 opinion:, continued to gain ground ; and the Augustinians
 
 REFORMATION. 
 
 of Wittenberg ventured on an alteration in the established 
 forms of public Worship, by abolishing the celebration of 
 private masses, and by giving the cup as well as the bread 
 to the laity in administering the sacrament of the Lord's 
 Supper. In a short time, however, the new views were 
 condemned by the university of Paris, and a refutation of 
 them was attempted by Henry - VIII. of England. But 
 neither of these intimidated Luther. He published ani- 
 madversions on both with as much virulence as if he had 
 been dealing with an ordinary adversary. 
 
 Meanwhile an attack no less violent, occasioned by a 
 similar cause, was made on the Romish church in Switzer- 
 land. The Franciscans being intrusted with the sale of 
 indulgences in that country, executed their commission 
 with the same indiscretion and rapaciousness which had 
 rendered the Dominicans so odious in Germany. But they 
 were met and opposed (1518) by Zuinglius, a man not in- 
 ferior to Luther himself in zeal and intrepidity, and who 
 advanced with perhaps more daring and rapid steps to 
 overthrow the whole fabric of the established religion. 
 Notwithstanding that the universities of Cologne and Lou- 
 vain pronounced his doctrines to be erroneous, the cantons 
 of Zurich, Berne, Basil, and Schaffhausen embraced his 
 opinions. Several conferences were at different times 
 held between the Roman Catholics and the " Evangelicals," 
 as the followers of Zuinglius were called ; and all of them 
 tended to the spread of the reformed faith. After a con- 
 ference held at Berne in 1528, the council of that canton, 
 considering the result to be in favour of the Evangelicals, 
 published ten theses, which embodied the substance of the 
 Reformation in Switzerland ; and most of the leading 
 principles contained in them are acknowledged by the re- 
 formed churches generally, however widely they may 
 ditfer among themselves on some abstruse points. 
 
 The Swiss and the German reformers were at first un- 
 acquainted with the proceedings of each other, though 
 both were animated by the same spirit, and, in different 
 places, pursuing a similar object. But, while they both 
 resisted and exposed the usurpations and errors of the 
 Romish church, and generally agreed in their sentiments, 
 they entertained very different theological opinions ; and 
 thus was sown the seeds of those divisions which have 
 since agitated the reformed churches. The chief subject 
 of dispute between the two reformers was concerning the 
 manner in which the body and blood of Christ were pre- 
 sent in the Eucharist. Luther and his followers, though 
 they rejected the papal belief of transubstantiation, were, 
 nevertheless, of opinion that the body and blood of Christ 
 were really present in the Lord's Supper, in a way which 
 they could not pretend to explain. Zuinslius and his ad- 
 herents repudiated the doctrine, and taught that the bread 
 and wine used at the Eucharist were no more than ex- 
 ternal symbols to excite the remembrance of Christ's suf- 
 ferings in the minds of those who received it. Both parties 
 maintained their opinions with equal obstinacy ; and, as 
 this depute threatened to retard the great work of reforma- 
 tion, and to bring discredit on its adherents, the Landgrave 
 of Hesse invited Luther and Zuinglius, with several of the 
 most eminent of their respective followers, to a conference 
 at Marburg, in order to promote unanimity and peace. 
 After a disputation of four days, however, neither of the 
 contending parties could be persuaded to abandon their 
 views. But as both agreed in their sentiments, not only as 
 to the popish hierarchy, but as to the fundamental prin- 
 ciples of Christianity, they parted in Christian charity, 
 though not in brotherhood, agreeing to refrain from open 
 controversy. 
 
 The struggle between the Roman Catholics and the re- 
 formers still raged in Germany. At the diet of the empire, 
 held at Spires in 15-26, the emperor's ambassadors used 
 their utmost endeavours to suppress all disputes about 
 religion, and insisted on the vigorous execution of the 
 sentence which had been pronounced against Luther and 
 his followers at Worms. This attempt was successfully 
 resisted by the majority of the members ; and it was at last 
 unanimously agreed to present an address to the emperor 
 entreating him to call a general council without delay; and 
 that the princes of the empire should in the meantime be 
 allowed, in their respective dominions, to manase religious 
 matters as they should think proper. These resolutions 
 proved favourable to the cause of the Reformation, and 
 gave an impetus to the expression of the public voice. The 
 war in which at this time the emperor was engaged with 
 the pope, gave a decided advantage to the friends of the 
 reformed faith, and greatly increased their number. At a 
 diet, however, held in the same place in 1529, the power 
 which had been given to princes of managins ecclesiastical 
 affairs until the meeting of a general council, was revoked 
 by a majority of votes, and every change declared unlaw- 
 ful that should be made in the established religion before 
 the determination of the approaching council was known. 
 After many ineffectual remonstrances and arguments, six 
 
 princes of the empire and thirteen imperial cities " pro- 
 tested" against this decision. Hence arose the denomina- 
 tion of " Protestants ;" a term at first applicable only to the 
 Lutherans, but now common to all who have separated 
 t from the church of Rome. 
 
 As the reformed doctrines in Germany had not yet been 
 reduced to a system, the Elector of Saxony ordered Luther, 
 and oilier divines, to commit to writing the leading articles 
 of their religious system, along with the principal points on 
 which they differed from the church of Rome. In com- 
 pliance with this order, Luther delivered to the elector at 
 Torgau seventeen articles, which had been agreed on at a 
 conference at Sulzbach ; hence called the Articles of 
 Torgau. This declaration of the sentiments of the re- 
 formers was enlarged and rendered more minute and per- 
 spicuous by Melanchthnn, who performed the task with 
 equal ability and elegance. 
 
 In 1530, Charles convoked a diet of the empire at Augs- 
 burg, and directed the reformers to lay before it an account 
 of their tenets in German and Latin. The work prepared 
 by Luther and Melanchthon was presented to the diet ; 
 hence called the Confession of Augsburg, or Confessio 
 Augustana, which was read aloud by the chancellor to 
 the assembly. It contained twenty-eight chapters, of 
 which twenty-one were illustrative of the religious opin- 
 ions of the Protestants, and the remaining seven of the 
 errors and superstitions of the papal faith. But after much 
 disputation, not only was it rejected, but the diet published 
 a decree condemning most of the peculiar tenets held by 
 the Protestants, and forbidding any person to protect or 
 tolerate such as taught them; enjoining a strict observ- 
 ance of the established rites, with other articles equally 
 galling and tyrannical. But the Protestants were now too 
 powerful a body, and their views had assumed so com- 
 pletely" the form of a system that they were not easily dis- 
 mayed. On the contrary", they assembled at Smalcalde, 
 where they concluded a treaty of mutual defence, both 
 religious and political, against all aggressors, and formed 
 the Protestant states of the empire into one regular com- 
 bination. Thus, in the year 1530, was the Reformation 
 virtually established in Germany; first, by the publication 
 of the Confession of Augsburg; and, second, by the league 
 of Smalcalde, which made that creed the bond of union of 
 a powerful political confederacy. 
 
 It may here be mentioned that the followers of Zuin- 
 glius, or Sacramentarians, as they were sometimes called, 
 presented their confession of faith on the part of four cities, 
 Strasburg, Memmingen, Landau, and Constance ; generally 
 known by the Confession of Strasburg, or Confessio Tetra- 
 politana. The reformed cantons of Switzerland were not 
 allowed to join the league of Smalcalde, inasmuch as they 
 refused to sign the Confession of Augsburg ; and thus the 
 Swiss Evangelicals, or Sacramentarians, continued distinct 
 from the Lutherans (as they still do), though they joined 
 in a separate league with the city of Strasburg and the 
 Landgrave of Hesse, who adopted their views. The Hel- 
 vetic Confession of Faith, founded on the articles of Berne 
 already referred to, was finally published in 1532. The 
 reformed doctrines had early spread to Geneva ; and John 
 Cauvin, or Calvin, of that city, after the death of Zuin- 
 glius, carried them farther than the Swiss Protestants had 
 done. He nbolished all festivals except the Sabbath, dis- 
 carded all church ceremonies, used leavened bread for the 
 sacrament, and taught the doctrines of predestination and 
 election in all their rigour. {See Presbytery, in this 
 work.) Calvinism thus became the third great branch of 
 the Reformation, Luther and Zuinglius being respectively 
 at the head of the other two. The systems of Zuinglius 
 and Calvin, however, gradually merged together, and they 
 may now be considered as one, having the same confession 
 of faith. 
 
 It would exceed the bounds to which we must neces- 
 sarily confine ourselves in this article, were we to trace 
 the history of the Reformed faith after the treaty of Smal- 
 calde : that treaty, among other results (such as con- 
 ferences, meetings of councils, particularly the celebrated 
 council of Trent in 1540). gave rise to a war between the 
 emperor and the Protestants. But the peace of Augsburg, 
 in 1555, terminated those and similar calamities which had 
 so long agitated the empire. The following are the lead- 
 ing articles of that peace : namely, that the Protestants 
 who followed the Confession of Augsburg should in future 
 be free from the jurisdiction of the pope, and from the 
 authority and superintendence of the bishops ; that all the 
 inhabitants of the German empire should be at perfect 
 liberty to judse for themselves in all matters, religious and 
 ecclesiastical; that all persons, whatever be their religious 
 opinions, should enjoy equal civil rights and privileges ; in 
 other words, that a complete toleration in religious matters 
 should obtain ; and that all those who should persecute 
 any person under religious pretences should be declared 
 and treated as public enemies of the empire, invaders of it§ 
 
 1039
 
 REFORMATION, JUBILEE OF. 
 
 liberties, and disturb) rs of its peace. Thus was the Re- 
 formation final Ij established in many parts of Germany as 
 it . \i>ts. without any verj marked change either as to its 
 extent 01 to it* principles, at the present day. The con- 
 ditioDs on which this desirable object was obtained were 
 hcmniirai.il- tn both parties, both Catholic ami Protestant, 
 and, generally speaking, to the German character. This 
 happj state of things was broken many years after by the 
 thirty years' war (1619-48) ; bui the treaty of Westphalia, 
 which terminated this war. confirmed the articles of the 
 p ace of lugsburg, and extended its benefits to the Calvin- 
 i>ts as well as to lhc Lutherans. Equal religious rights 
 ami privileges were extended to all, as is still happily the 
 
 CISC. 
 
 While these events were taking place in Germany ami 
 Switzerland, the spirit of inquiry, which had been evoked 
 so signally in these countries, spread, and roused most of 
 the nations of Europe to a greater or less extent from their 
 mental inactivity or superstitious credulity: the doctrines 
 of the Reformation found their way partially into France ; 
 aNu into Spain and Italy. Trior to Luther's death (1546) 
 these doctrines had made many converts in the Nether- 
 lands; and in the time of Philip II. the "Seven United 
 Provinces," which separated from the rest, proclaimed 
 liberty of conscience, and adopted the tenets of Calvinism, 
 to which they have ever since adhered. 
 
 About the year 1556, the Lutheran creed was adopted 
 as the state religion in Denmark and Norway. This creed 
 was propagated in Sweden soon alter Luther's rupture 
 with the church of Rome, by Olaus Petri, one of his dis- 
 ciples. Both Lutheronism and Calvinism early gained an 
 extensive looting in Poland, which they still retain. To 
 Hungary and Transylvania a similar remark applies. The 
 history of the Reformation In the British empire is well 
 known, and need not be detailed here. Though the Pro- 
 testant episcopal church is the established religion in Ire- 
 land, more than three-fourths of the people of that country 
 retain their hereditary attachment to the papal creed. Al- 
 together, not more than a fourth of the population of 
 Europe are Protestant; of the remainder, about two-thirds 
 still adhere to the Romish faith, the two great exceptions 
 being Turkey, where- Mohammi danism is established; and 
 the east of Europe and other contiguous provinces, where 
 the Greek church prevails. Protestantism, besides, is the 
 
 predominant religion in the United States, and in almost all 
 the I!riti-li colonies. See CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Independently of the truth or falsehood of the doctrinal 
 and other points on which the reformed church dissents 
 
 from that of Koine, the Reformation was the cause of many 
 interesting and important advantages. It hurst the fetters 
 by which the human mind had previously been bound, and 
 
 restored it to liberty. It made- religion an object of the un- 
 derstanding, and not of the eye ; of the heart, rather than 
 
 of the memory. "On the whole, the Reformation has been 
 an incalculable good to Europe; it has purified religion and 
 morals; it has improved tin- intellect, and has guaranteed 
 civil liberty." {Dunham's Hist, of Ike Germanic Emp., b. 
 hi., c 2.) It has contributed to improve even the Church 
 
 of Koine itself both in science and in morals. "The desire 
 
 of equalling the reformers in those talents which had pro 
 cured them respect ; the necessity of acquiring the knowl- 
 
 [uisite for defending their own tenets, or refuting the 
 arguments of their opponents; together with the emulation 
 natural between two rival churches, engaged the Roman 
 Catholic- clergy to apply themselves to the study of useful 
 
 which they cultivated with such assiduity and sue 
 
 cess, that they have gradually bee ■ as eminent in lin-r- 
 
 alure as they were, in -one- period-, infamous. The same 
 principle occasioned a change no less considerable in the 
 
 of the Romish clergy. Many of them have, in con 
 sequence, been distinguished for all the accomplishments 
 and virtues which can adorn their profession, and differ 
 greatlj from their pr< deci ssors before the Reformation, both 
 in their maxim- and in their conduct" (Robi rtson's ' 'harles 
 V., vol. v., p. 414-15; Hist, ol tin Great Reformation in 
 Germany and Switzerland, bj D'Aubigne; F.Paul, Hist. of 
 
 tin ( 'OWU il ffj I 
 
 REFORMATION, Jl BILEE OF THE. The two hun 
 dredih anniversary ol the Introduction of the Reformation 
 at Geneva, was solemnized under this title in August, 1835. 
 
 The canton, since- tin- < longTI 91 of Vienna, ha\ bag Ire. oine 
 
 "mixed" in religion, the government nmk no part in iliis 
 festival, the expenses of w hlch wen- defrai ed by voluntary 
 subscription. Invitations wen- seni to tin- Protestant clergy 
 of all countries, both Lutheran and Calvinist, to attend its 
 solemnization: 61 were pre enl from France, 12 from Eng- 
 land, :i in in North America, The account of tins great 
 Is published under the title of Jubili dela ■ 
 
 lirn ,1, ( ,i n, r, , Olil-V., 1835. 
 
 REFORMED CHURCH, comprises, In a general sense, all 
 dies of Christians thnt have separated from > !■•- 
 Church of Home since the era of the Reformation ; but it is 
 1040 
 
 REFRACTION OF LIGHT. 
 
 applied in a restricted sense to those Protestant churches 
 Which did not embrace the doctrines and discipline of 
 Luther, and more particularly to the Calvinislic churches 
 on the Continent. 
 
 REFRA'CTION. (Lat. refractus, broken.) In Mechan- 
 ics, tin- change of direction w inch lakes place iii the motion 
 
 of a body when it passes obliquely out of one medium into 
 another of different density. The term is chiefly applied to 
 the deviation from their rectilinear course of the rays of 
 
 light in passing through transparent substances. 
 
 REFRACTION OF LIGHT. The deviation of a ray of 
 light from its original path in entering a medium of a differ- 
 ent density. This change of direction, which lakes place 
 
 at the surface of separation of two media, is the ultimate 
 
 fact from which man) Of the most interesting phenomena 
 of Unlit receive their explanation. The laws by w Inch it is 
 regulated, and the investigation of ihe consequences of 
 those laws, form the branch of natural philosophy usually 
 termed Dioptrics. 
 
 The phenomenon may he observed as follows : Suppose 
 a beam of light proceeding from a luminous (1.) 
 
 point S (fig. 1) to be admitted through a S 
 small hole A in the side of a vessel A II ; N 
 then, the vessel being empty, the light will 
 fall on the bottom at a point L in the same 
 straight line with S and A. Now let water 
 he- poured into the vessel, and suppose the 
 beam Of light to fall on the surface of the 1 R !■ 
 
 water at P ; then it will be seen that the light no longer 
 continues its course in the same straight line, but is hint, or 
 nfractcd, at P, and proceeds through the water in a straight 
 line P R, more nearly perpendicular to the: surface. A simi- 
 lar deviation takes place in all cases in which light passes 
 from one transparent medium into another ; hut the magni- 
 tude of the angle R 1' I., or the amount of the refraction, 
 varies according to the nature of the two media, and the: de- 
 gree of obliq.iity with which the incident ray falls on the 
 surface- of separation. 
 
 Through 1' draw U P q a normal to the surface ; then S 
 P CI is the angle of incidence, R 1' </ is the angle of refraction, 
 and the follow ing laws an found to he observed in all cases ; 
 
 1. The refracted ray P K is in the same plane Willi S P 
 and P ti ; that is, with the incident ray anil the perpendicu- 
 lar to the surface at the point of incidence. 
 
 2. The Incident ray S 1' and the refracted ray 1' R are al- 
 ways on opposile sides of the perpendicular U P q. 
 
 3. Whatever be the inclination of tile incident ray to the 
 surface, the sine of the angle of incidence has to the sine of 
 the angle of refraction a constant ratio. 
 
 These three laws, which hold good for curve surfaces as 
 well as for planes, enable us to determine the path of the 
 refracted ray with mathematical precision when i he form 
 oi' the surface and the nature of the refracting medium are 
 both known. The first two are- easily verified, anil have 
 been known from the days of Ptolemy. The third, which 
 i> very remarkable, was firsl enunciated in tin- Dioptrics of 
 Descartes, published in 1637; hut the discovery belongs to 
 Willebrod Snell, professor of mathematics ai Leyden, who 
 
 died at an early age- in 1626. Snell, indeed, made no ine-n- 
 tion of the sines oi' the- two angles, bul the- relation w huh 
 lie alliiinc-el In subsist is identical w ilh the- law as stated by 
 Descartes. Through P (fig. 2), the point of incidence, as a 
 centre, let a circle be described inn ling 
 the incidental ray in T, and the refracted 
 in R, and through R draw K M perpen- 
 dicular to the surface A li, meeting 1' L 
 in M ; draw also K c, M </, T <, respective- 
 ly perpendicular to Q. q. Now the propo- 
 sition affirmed bj Snell was, that for 
 every Inclination of S P to the surface 
 the line I' K is to 1' lVJ in a constant ratio. 
 Hut 1' K = PT, and PT:PM ::T«: M«\- 
 or as 'I' c ; it r, therefore T e is to R c in s i onstant ratio ; 
 
 and these are ohx ioiisly the- sines ol incidence' and refraction 
 
 respectively to the same- radius. Descartes, in stating the 
 law of tin- sines, made no mention of Snell, leaving it to he 
 Inferred thai he himself w as the discoverer of Un- property 
 in que Hon, « huh. in fact, i^ usuallj ascribed to him by the 
 French authors, li Is, however, by no means certain 
 (though asserted bj various writers) that Descartes was ac- 
 quainted with what had been done by Snell, as the work 
 of the latter existed enlj In manuscript when the Dioptric* 
 made iis appearance. 
 
 Lei i denote the angle of incidence, r Ihe angle of refrac- 
 tion, and lei a 1 DO Ihe- constant ratio of the sines in pass- 
 ing from a given medium A into another given medium Bj 
 w e- ha\ a then, by the third law above stated, sin. i= n sin. 
 r, for ever] value of i. The quantity «, which is constant 
 for the- sn tw o medio, is greater than unit) w hen the in- 
 fracting power of tin- first medium A is less than thai of ihe 
 
 sec I it, and vice versd, its value must be determined in 
 
 ever] case by experiment; and as it is relative to both 
 
 ,
 
 REFRACTION OF LIGHT. 
 
 media, it is convenient for the purpose of comparing the re- 
 fractive powers of different substances to refer them all to 
 some common medium A, usually assumed to be an abso- 
 lute void, and in this case the quantity n is called the prin- 
 cipal index of refraction of the medium B, or simply the in- 
 dex of refraction. We have therefore this definition : 
 
 The index of refraction of any transparent substance is the 
 ratio of the sine of incidence to the sine of refraction, when 
 light passes from a vacuum into the substance. 
 
 As there is no known substance of such a nature that 
 light entering it from a vacuum is refracted so as to make 
 • the angle of refraction greater than the angle of incidence, 
 the index of refraction is always greater than unity. Of all 
 known substances, that which possesses the greatest refrac- 
 tive power is chromate of lead, for which the index of re- 
 fraction is 3 ; hence in the equation sin. ?'= n sin. r, all the 
 values of n which have yet been experimentally determined 
 lie between 1 and 3. 
 
 From the formula sin. i=zn sin. r some remarkable con- 
 sequences are readily deduced. Suppose i to have its great- 
 est value, namely 90°, in which case the incident ray be- 
 comes parallel to the surface of the medium. We have 
 then sin. i = 1 ; and the formula becomes 1 = n sin. r, 
 whence sin. r = 1 -f-7i, which is the limiting value of r. In 
 the case of water the index of refraction n = 1-336 (or nearly 
 £), and the arc whose sine is the reciprocal of this quantity 
 is 48° 27' 40" ; consequently light cannot enter water more 
 obliquely than under an angle of 48° 28'. Thus, suppose a 
 (3.) vessel ABCD (fig. 3) to be filled with 
 
 . P t. water, and a part of the surface A P to be 
 
 / [1 covered over ; then, on drawing a line P 
 
 / 9 M, making with the perpendicular P Q. an 
 
 P 1 <- ^ —l c angle M P a = 48° 28', the part APMD 
 ** ^ will remain in perfect darkness, however 
 
 the uncovered part of the surface P B may be illuminated. 
 It is a principle in optics, that if a ray of light passes from 
 a point A to a point B after any number of refractions or re- 
 flections, a ray will pass from B to A by following precisely 
 the same course in an opposite direction. From this it fol- 
 lows that if a ray of light S P (fig. 4) falling on the exterior 
 surface A B of a medium is refracted into 
 the direction P R, then on arriving at the 
 interior surface C D it will suffer another 
 refraction, and escape from the medium in 
 the direction R s, making with K k (the 
 perpendicular to C D at R), the angle s R 
 A- equal to the angle SPtt. With respect 
 to the surface C D, P R K becomes the an- 
 * * gle of incidence, and k R s the angle of re- 
 fraction ; and if we suppose the ray to pass from the medium 
 into a vacuum, and n to be the index of refraction of the 
 
 medium, we have sin. i = - sin. r. Now, since n is greater 
 
 than unity, r is greater than i ; and if we suppose those an- 
 gles to increase until r, or the angle 4R« becomes a right 
 angle, then sin. r=l, and we have sin. t= 1 — n, for the 
 limiting value of ;', beyond which the ray will not leave the 
 surface at R ; for if sin. t be greater than 1 -h?j, it follows 
 that sin. r must be greater than unity, which is impossible. 
 Hence it follows that if the ray P R fall upon the interior 
 surface, making with the normal K R an angle greater than 
 1 -J- re, it will not leave the medium, but be reflected internal- 
 ly from R. 
 
 This property admits of various practical applications. 
 For ordinary glass the value of n is about 4, so that in pass- 
 ing from glass to air we have sin. i = § sin. r. Now let i in- 
 crease until r = 90°, then sin. «"=$, whence i = 41° 49', 
 which therefore is the limiting value of the angle of incidence 
 when light passes from glass into air. Let ABC (fig. 5) be 
 a triangular glass prism having the angle 
 at A a right angle, and the sides A B and A 
 C equal, so that B and C are each angles of 
 7 B 45°; and conceive a ray of light S P to fall 
 perpendicularly on the surface A C at P. 
 This will continue its course throusrh the 
 glass in a straight line until it meets the side 
 B C in R, making with R O. (the normal to 
 B C) the angle of incidence S R a =45°. 
 But this angle being greater than 41° 49', the ray will not 
 leave the medium, but be reflected at the interior surface in 
 the direction R T, which, since the angles of incidence and 
 reflection are equal, will be perpendicular to S R, so that the 
 ray will fall perpendiculary upon the surface A B, and pass 
 through it without refraction. The prism thus produces the 
 same effect as a diagonal mirror placed in the plane B C. 
 
 When the index of refraction for each of two media has 
 been determined, the refraction which takes place in pass- 
 ing from the one medium to the other is also known, the con- 
 stant ratio of the sines of incidence and refraction being, in 
 this case, the ratio of the indices of the two media. Let m 
 be the index of refraction for the medium A, and n the in- 
 
 dex for the medium B ; then, in passing from A into B, we 
 
 n 
 have sin. i= -sin. r. Thus, the index of refraction fox 
 
 771 
 
 water is 1336, and for amber 1-547; therefore in passing 
 out of water into amber the constant ratio of the sines 
 of incidence and refraction will be 1-158, the quotient which 
 arises from the division of 1-547 by 1-336. An imme- 
 diate consequence of this is, that when a ray of light en- 
 ters a medium after having passed successively through 
 several others, the path of the ray in the last medium will 
 be the same as if it had entered that medium directly un- 
 der the same angle of incidence as that by which it entered 
 the first ; and if the media are bounded by parallel surfaces, 
 the direction of the ray after escaping from the last surface 
 will be parallel to its primitive direction. (6.) 
 
 Thus, let the ray S P (fig. 6), entering the g 
 medium A at P, be refracted into the direc- 
 tion P R, and on entering the second medium 
 B be again refracted into the direction R V, 
 the path of the ray V X after leaving the 
 second medium will be parallel to S P, pro- 
 vided the surfaces at P and V are parallel ; 
 and in all cases the ray will emerge at V 
 under the same angle of obliquity as it entered the first sur- 
 face at P. 
 
 The principles which have now been laid down are suffi- 
 cient to enable us to compute the path of a ray of light 
 through any diaphanous substance, or through different sub- 
 stances in succession, when the index of refraction belonging 
 to each substance is known. The following table (from 
 Brewster's Optics, Cab. Cyclopedia, p. 370) gives the in- 
 dices of refraction for the greater part of the substances 
 which have yet been examined. 
 
 Table of the Refractive Powers of Solid and Fluid Bodies. 
 
 
 Index of 
 
 
 Index of 
 
 
 Refraction 
 
 
 Refraction 
 
 Realgar, artificial . 
 
 2-5-19 
 
 Plate glass, from 
 
 1-514 
 
 Odohednte . . 
 
 2-50O 
 
 to 
 
 1-542 
 
 Diamond 
 
 2 439 
 
 Croivn glass, from 
 
 1-525 
 
 Nitrite of lead 
 
 2 3.22 
 
 to 
 
 1-534 
 
 Blende .... 
 
 2 2U) 
 
 Oil of cloves . 
 
 1-535 
 
 Phosphorus . 
 
 2-224 
 
 Balsam of capivi 
 
 1-528 
 
 Sulphur melted 
 
 2-148 
 
 Gum arabic . 
 
 1-502 
 
 Zircn .... 
 
 1-Sol 
 
 Oil of beech nut 
 
 1-500 
 
 Glass — lead 2 parts, fliot 
 
 
 Castor oil 
 
 1-490 
 
 1 part 
 
 1-530 
 
 Cajeput oil . 
 
 1-468 
 
 Garnet .... 
 
 1-815 
 
 Oil <if lurpentine 
 
 1.475 
 
 Ruby .... 
 
 1-779 
 
 Oil of olives . 
 
 1.470 
 
 Glass— lead 3 parts, £int 
 
 
 Alum . 
 
 1-457 
 
 1 part 
 
 2-02S 
 
 Fluor spar 
 
 1-434 
 
 Sapphire 
 
 1-794 
 
 Sulphuric acid 
 
 1.434 
 
 ••pinelle 
 
 1-764 
 
 Nitric acid . 
 
 1-410 
 
 Cinnamon stone . 
 
 1-759 
 
 Muriatic acid 
 
 1-410 
 
 Sulphuret of carbon 
 
 1-768 
 
 Alcohol . 
 
 1-372 
 
 Oil of easm . 
 
 1.641 
 
 Cryolite 
 
 1-349 
 
 Balsam of Tolu 
 
 1-62S 
 
 Water . 
 
 1-336 
 
 Guiacum 
 
 1-619 
 
 Ice 
 
 1309 
 
 Oil of anise seed . 
 
 1-601 
 
 Fluids in minerals 
 
 1-294 
 
 Quartz .... 
 
 1 543 
 
 to 
 
 1-131 
 
 Rock-salt 
 
 1-557 
 
 T;ibasheer 
 
 1-111 
 
 Su^ar melted 
 
 1-554 
 
 Ether expanded to 
 
 thrice 
 
 Canada balsam 
 
 1-549 
 
 its volume . 
 
 1057 
 
 
 
 Air 
 
 . 1-000294 
 
 Table of th 
 
 e Refrac 
 
 ive Powers of 
 
 Gases. 
 
 
 Index of 
 
 
 Index of 
 
 
 Refraction 
 
 Carbonic acid 
 
 Refraction 
 
 Vapour of sulphurel of 
 
 
 1 -0UO449 
 
 carbon 
 
 1-001530 
 
 Carburetted hydrog 
 
 en . 1 000443 
 
 Phosgene 
 
 1-001 '59 
 
 Ammonia 
 
 I-0003S5 
 
 Cyanogen . 
 
 1 000834 
 
 Carbonic oxide 
 
 . 1-0(11)310 
 
 Chlorine 
 
 1-000772 
 
 Nitrous gas . 
 
 1-000808 
 
 defiant gas . 
 
 1 090678 
 
 Azote . 
 
 . I-00O300 
 
 Sulphurous acid . . 
 
 1 000665 
 
 Atmospheric air 
 
 . 1-000294 
 
 Sulphurettud hydrogen . 
 
 1-000544 
 
 Oxygen . . 
 
 1-000272 
 
 Nitrous oxide 
 
 1-000503 
 
 Hy-lrogen 
 
 1-000133 
 
 Hydrocyanic acid . 
 
 1 000451 
 
 Vacuum 
 
 1 000000 
 
 Muriatic acid 
 
 1-000449 
 
 
 
 In the preceding remarks, light has been regarded as a 
 homogeneous substance, all the parts of which have the 
 same index of refraction. This, however, is not the case ; 
 refraction never takes place without a separation of the dif- 
 ferently coloured rays, so that for every transparent body 
 the index of refraction changes with the colour of the light. 
 The numerical value of the indices, given iu the above ta- 
 ble, correspond to the yellow or green rays which occupy 
 the middle of the dispersed pencil. For the different re- 
 frangibilities of the primary rays, see Chromatics, Disper- 
 sion, Spectrum. 
 
 Double Refraction.— The phenomena and laws of refrac- 
 tion, which have yet been considered, belong to those cases 
 in which a single refraction takes place on the entrance of 
 light into a different medium, or in which a pencil of light on 
 entering a refracting medium continues to form a single pen- 
 cil, and to afford a single image of the object from which it 
 proceeds. There are, however, a multitude of substances 
 which, either in their natural state or under accidental cir- 
 3T 1041
 
 REFRACTION OF LIGHT. 
 
 cumstnnces. exorcise a peculiar influence nn lisht, causing 
 it, in its passage through them, to follow two distinct paths, 
 forming with each other an angle of greater or les^ amount. 
 Such BUDStances arc called doubly refracting- substances, 
 and the phenomenon Itself is called double refraction. 
 
 The substances or media which produce only single re- 
 fraction belong to one or other of the four following classes : 
 - and vapours. 'J. Fluids. 3. Substances which 
 have passed from the liquid to the solid state so rapidly as 
 t.i prevent the molecules from taking a regular crystalline 
 arrangement: for example, glass, glue, &c. ; gums, resins, 
 
 &.C. 4. Cry8tal3 Whose primitive form is the cube, regular 
 
 octahedron, or rhomboldal dodecahedron, or which belong 
 to the tessular system of Moris. All other substances, us 
 the salt-, precious stones, crystals not belonging to the above- 
 named forms: all bodies belonging both to the animal and 
 vegetable kingdoms, in Which there exists any disposition to 
 a regular arrangement of the molecules, as horn, mother of 
 pearl, &.c. ; and, in general, all bodies unequally compressed, 
 or which have not the same structure In all directions, sep- 
 arate the light which they refract into two distinct pencils, 
 which pursue separate courses, and are governed by totally 
 different laws. 
 In order to give an idea of this remarkable phenomenon, 
 (7.) " let A B C 1) X llig. 7.) be a crystal of 
 
 g. Iceland spar (carbonate of lime), having its 
 / faces made smooth either by cleavage or by 
 ^ s^X - iC grinding, and let it be laid on one of its 
 y.(\ fSi> faces on a sheet of white paper over a 
 1 / , black spot O ; then, on looking through 
 
 ~—> the crystal, two spots will be seen, one at 
 Tzo )/ O, and the other at E. On turning the 
 
 crystal round on its axis, but always keep- 
 ing the same face on the paper, one of the images, O, will 
 remain invariable, while the other E, will appear to describe 
 a circle about O. If instead of a round spot the object 
 viewed be a straight line ; then, on looking through the 
 crystal, a double image of the line will be seen, one pass- 
 ing through (), and the other through E. On turning the 
 crystal as before, it will be seen that the distance between 
 the two lines varies, but that they always remain parallel 
 to each other; and that in the course of a complete revo- 
 lution of the crystal about its axis there are two positions 
 in which the images will coincide, and two other positions, 
 midway between the former, in which they will attain a 
 maximum distance. These phenomena show that a ray 
 of light, S I, on entering the face of the crystal at I, is sep- 
 arated by refraction into two pencils, I and I E ; and it 
 is found that on emerging from the crystals the two pencils 
 make the same angle with the surface, and continue their 
 course in a direction parallel to each other and to the inci- 
 dent ray S I. 
 
 It" we cause a beam of solar light to fall on the crystal, 
 and examine the paths of the two pencils, it will be found 
 that I O follows the laws of ordinary refraction, the sine of 
 incidence being to the sine of refraction in a constant ratio, 
 and the pencil continuing in the same plane with the inci- 
 dent ray and the normal to the surface at the point of inci- 
 dence : hence I O is called the ordinary pencil. Hut I E is 
 found to follow an entirely different law, and is therefore 
 called the extraordinary pencil. If. for example, the inci- 
 dent ray S 1 is perpendicular to the face of the crystal, the 
 ordinary refraction does not take place, the angle of inci- 
 dence being zero ; but in this case the angle of refraction of 
 the extraordinary pencil, I E, is G° 1°.'. and it is not in the 
 same plane with the normal and the incident ray. 
 
 From a careful examination of the phenomena it is also 
 found that although a ray of light falling on the face of the 
 crystal is refracted generally into two pencils, there is one 
 particular direction in which the incident ray undergoes 
 only the ordinary refraction. This direction is parallel to 
 A X, the sle.rt.-r BJtia of the crystal, and is called the axu 
 ef double refraction. It is, therefore, to lie observed that the 
 axis of double refraction of a crystal is not a fixed line, but 
 a determinate direction with reroren.ee to the faces of the 
 crystal, every line parallel to AX. forming an axis of double 
 
 refraction. In some crystals tie- extraordinary ray is re- 
 fracted towards tin 1 axis A X. in Others it is refracted from 
 it. In the first case the axis is called a positive axis of re- 
 fraction ; in the second it is called a negative axis. 
 
 In the crystal we have now been considering (Iceland 
 spin, there is only one direction in which the double re 
 fraction does not take place, hut in many other crystals 
 there are two directions which have this property. In 
 examining the phenomena of double refraction in si great 
 number of crystallized substances, Sir David Brewster 
 found that all those crystals whose primitive and simplest 
 form has only one axi< of figure, or one pre-eminent 
 line about which the figure is symmetrical, have Wily 
 one axis of double refraction. The primitive forms 
 which have only one symmetrical axis of figure are the fol- 
 lowing: — 
 
 1042 
 
 1. The rhomb with an obtuse summit ; as Iceland spar, 
 
 tourmaline, quartz, &c. 
 
 2. The rhomb with an acute summit ; of xvhich form are 
 
 corundum, sapphire, ruby, cinnabar, and arseniate of 
 copper. 
 
 3. The regular hexaedral prism ; as emerald, beryl, arse- 
 
 niate of lead, &.C. 
 
 4. Octohedron with square base ; as zircon, oxide of tin, 
 
 prussiate of potash, &c. 
 
 5. Right prism with square base; as arseniate of potash, 
 
 phosphate of magnesia, tec. 
 
 In all these forms, and in the primitive forms to which ' 
 they belong, the line A X is the axis of figure and of 
 double refraction ; and it is the only direction in xvhich 
 there is no double refraction. See Brewster's Optics, p. 
 149.) 
 
 The property of possessing two axes of double refraction 
 was discovered by Sir David Brewster in 1815, and he found 
 that it belonged to all crystals, whether chemical bodies or 
 mineral substances, which are included in the prismatic 
 system of .Mobs, or whose primitive forms are, 
 
 1. A right prism, base a rectangle. 
 
 2. A right prism, base a rhomb. 
 
 3. A right prism, base an oblique parallelogram. 
 
 4. Oblique prism, base a rectangle. 
 
 5. Oblique prism, base a rhomb. 
 
 6. Oblique prism, base an oblique parallelogram. 
 
 7. Octohedron, base a rectangle. 
 
 8. Octohedron, base a rhomb. 
 
 In all these forms there is no axis about which the crystal 
 is symmetrical. 
 
 In all cases of crystals xvith two axes of double refrac- 
 tipn, both the pencils are refracted according to the laws of 
 extraordinary refraction. In a substance called analcime 
 Sir D. Brewster found there were several planes along 
 which if the incident ray passes it will not sutler double 
 refraction, xvhatever be the angle of incidence. Each of 
 these planes, therefore, may be considered as containing an 
 infinite number of axes of double refraction, or lines in 
 which there is no double refraction. No other substance 
 has vet been found possessing the same property. (Optics, 
 p. 155.) 
 
 Another very remarkable property is, that in crystals 
 xvhich have only one axis of double refraction the axis has 
 always the same position, being, in fact, in all cases, the 
 axis of symmetry ; but in crystals xvhich have two axes of 
 double refraction, the axes change their position according 
 to the colour of the incident light. Sir John Herschel, to 
 whom this discovery is due, found that in crystals of 
 Rochelle salts the inclination of the two axes for violet 
 light is 56°, xvhile for red light it is about 76°. In other 
 crystals, as nitre, the inclination of the two axes is greater 
 for the violet than for the red rays; but in all cases the line 
 which joins the extremities of the axes for all the rays is a 
 str lisht line. 
 
 The property of double refraction was discovered by 
 Bartholin, in 1669, and xvas fust explained by Iluygens on 
 the hypothesis of the propagation of light by means of an 
 elastic medium. The phenomena have been studied with 
 great assiduity in modern times, and, in fact, the investiga- 
 tion of their laxvs forms one of the principal parts of 
 physical optics, and has mainly contributed towards the 
 establishment of the now generally received theory of un- 
 dulation. Newton does not appear to have paid much 
 attention to the subject, and his theory of emission does 
 not very readily accommodate itself to the explanation of 
 the phenomena ; though it must be owned that the sup- 
 porters of that theory have succeeded, by means of certain 
 arbitrary hypotheses, in constructing mathematical for- 
 mula; xvhich represent the greater part of the known facts. 
 For the complete explanation of all the phenomena, the 
 undulatory theory requires two postulates, or assumptions: 
 1. That the vibrations of the ether take place transversely, 
 or in the direction perpendicular to the visual ray; and, •-'. 
 That the elasticity of the medium Is unequally developed 
 in the interior of the refracting crystal. The first of these 
 assumptions is analagous to \xhal takes place when a blow 
 is given to a cord tightly stretched ; the motion is commu- 
 nicated rapidly in the direction of its length, While the 
 vibrations are at right angles to that direction. With respect 
 to the second assumption, the facts which are known re- 
 specting the constitution of crystals render it exceedingly 
 probable, « priori. All diaphanous bodies which refract 
 light only in a single direction, and according to the Car- 
 tesian law. are found to have the same tenacity and the 
 same elasticity in all directions, and their linear dilatations 
 by heat are also the same : but it has been established that 
 wnh respect to all crystallized substances, which possess 
 the property of double retraction, the elastic force with 
 
 winch they resist compression is greater in certain direc- 
 tions than in others ; and also that linear dilatation corre- 
 sponding to the same increase of temperature varies with
 
 A/jj 
 
 REFRACTION, ASTRONOMICAL. 
 
 the direction in which it is measured. These facts prove 
 that the matter of the crystal possesses an elasticity vary- 
 ing with the direction ; and it seems natural to suppose that 
 the ether within it must have the same property. On these 
 two assumptions, namely, transverse vibrations, and un- 
 equally developed elasticity of the medium, Fresnel has 
 constructed a mathematical theory of double refraction, 
 from which all the phenomena which have yet been ob- 
 served are deduced as simple corollaries. (See Sir J. 
 HerschcVs Treatise on Light, Ency. Metropol. ; Airy's 
 Mathematical Tracts, 2d ed. ; Pouillet, Elemens de Phy- 
 sique.) 
 
 REFRACTION, ASTRONOMICAL. Refraction, in As- 
 tronomy, is the apparent angular elevation of the celes- 
 tial bodies above their true places, caused by the refraction 
 of the rajs of light in their passage through the earth's 
 atmosphere. 
 
 It is found by experiment, that the refractive power of a 
 gas or aeriform substance, is proportional to its density. 
 Now the earth's atmosphere is not a medium of uniform 
 density, but of a density continually diminishing as the dis- 
 tance from the centre is increased. For the purpose of 
 illustration, the atmosphere may be regarded as composed 
 of a great but finite number of concentric spherical strata, 
 each having a uniform density greater than that of the 
 stratum by which it is enveloped, but less than that of the 
 stratum which it envelopes. Hence, on entering each suc- 
 cessive stratum, the light must undergo a slight deviation 
 from its rectilinear course, and 
 the amount of all these devia- 
 tions constitutes the phenome- 
 g non of astronomical refraction. 
 Let A A, B B, C C, represent 
 the boundaries of the succes- 
 sive strata, and suppose a ray 
 of light proceeding from the star S to enter the highest 
 6tratum A A obliquely at a. If no deviation took place, 
 the ray would continue to advance in the same straight 
 line Sa; but in consequence of entering a denser medium 
 it is refracted, according to the law of Descartes, into a 
 direction, a b, more nearly perpendicular to the surface of 
 the spherical stratum. At b it again enters a medium of a 
 greater density, and is refracted into the direction b c, still 
 approaching the perpendicular to the surface. On arriving 
 at c the phenomenon is repeated, and the ray is bent from 
 the direction be into the direction c O; so that in passing 
 from S to O the ray of light, instead of describing the 
 straight line S O, describes the polygon S a b c O, and to a 
 spectator at O the star will appear to be situated at S' in the 
 direction O c Hence the star appears to be elevated above 
 its true place ; and the angle S' O S, which is the difference 
 between its true and apparent elevations, is the astronomi- 
 cal refraction. If we suppose the number of the strata to 
 become infinitely great, then the angular deviation at each 
 successive stratum will become infinitely small : and the 
 path of the ray, instead of being a polygon, will be a con- 
 tinuous curve, which, according to the laws of refraction, 
 will lie wholly in the same vertical plane. 
 
 Since the ratio of the sines of incidence and refraction is 
 constant, it is evident that the total effect will be the great- 
 est when the luminous rays enter the atmospheric strata 
 with the greatest obliquity ; that is to say, when the object 
 is seen in the horizon. At the zenith there is no refrac- 
 tion ; in descending from the zenith to the horizon it con- 
 tinually increases, according to a certain law, which may 
 be determined theoretically if the refractive power of atmos- 
 pheric air at a given density and temperature, the dilatation 
 of air by heat, and also the law of the variation of the 
 density and temperature in ascending into the higher regions 
 of the atmosphere, are supposed to be known. At a me- 
 dium density, and at the temperature of melting ice, Biot 
 and Arago found by experiment that for any altitude ex- 
 ceeding 10° above the horizon the law of atmospheric re- 
 fraction is represented by the formula r= 60-6" tan. (Z — 
 325 X r), in which r is the refraction corresponding to a 
 given zenith distance Z. Bradley had given the formula 
 r = 57" tan. (Z — 325 r). From either of these it appears 
 that the increase of refraction is nearly proportional to the 
 tangent of the zenith distance, but at low altitudes the ex- 
 pression becomes much more complicated. 
 
 The following table given by Mr. Ivory {Phil, transac- 
 tions for 1838, part 2) shows the amount of refraction at 
 different zenith distances, the temperature bein» 50° of 
 Fahrenheit, and the height of the barometer 30 inches. 
 The correction (omitting some small terms) for the ac- 
 tual temperature and barometric pressure is obtained by 
 
 multiplying the tabular refraction by . - 
 
 , • . . , l + c(t — 50) 30' 
 
 where b is the observed height of the barometer reduced 
 to the fixed temperature of 50° Fahr., t the temperature of 
 the air on the same scale, and c = -002183. 
 
 REFRACTIVE POWER. 
 
 Zenith Dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Refraction. 
 
 Zenith Dis- 
 tance. 
 
 Refraction. 
 
 10" 
 
 10 3U" 
 
 82° 
 
 39T6S'~ 
 
 20 
 
 21-26 
 
 83 
 
 44.542 
 
 30 
 
 33 72 
 
 84 
 
 609-86 
 
 40 
 
 4S-99 
 
 85, 
 
 593-96 
 
 45 
 
 68 36 
 
 85* 
 
 646 21 
 
 50 
 
 69-52 
 
 86, 
 
 707-43 
 
 55 
 
 83-25 
 
 - 86£ 
 
 779-92 
 
 60 
 
 100-85 
 
 W. 
 
 866-76 
 
 65 
 
 124-65 
 
 87* 
 
 971-93 
 
 70 
 
 159 16 
 
 88, 
 
 1101 35 
 
 75 
 
 214-70 
 
 8SJ 
 
 12626 
 
 80 
 
 32019 
 
 89 
 
 1466-8 
 
 81 
 
 353-79 
 
 8D£ 
 
 1729-5 
 
 The existence of astronomical refraction was known at 
 an early period, though its amount and laws have only 
 been ascertained in recent times. Ptolemy, in his book on 
 Optics, remarks that in consequence of refraction a star is 
 brought nearer the zenith, and that the effect is greater in 
 the case of a low than a high star ; but as no mention is 
 made of the subject in the Almagest, it was not then re- 
 garded as an element of astronomical calculation. Similar 
 notions appear in the Optics of Alhazen. Walther was 
 the first who began to estimate the effects of refraction near 
 the horizon ; and Tycho Brahe constructed, from observa- 
 tions, the first table. He supposed the horizontal refrac- 
 tion to be 34', which is very near the truth (its mean 
 amount being 33') ; but he supposed it to vanish at the alti- 
 tude of 45°, though its mean amount at that altitude 
 appears, by the preceding table, to be nearly 1 minute. 
 Dominic Cassini gave an empirical formula for computing 
 the refraction at any altitude ; but the solution of the pro- 
 blem on true principles was first undertaken, and, in fact, 
 fully accomplished, by Newton, though his results did not 
 represent the observations, in consequence of the imperfect 
 knowledge which then existed respecting the physical con- 
 stitution of the atmosphere. 
 
 REFRACTION, TERRESTRIAL. The atmospherical 
 refraction which has just been explained, is the effect pro- 
 duced by the whole atmosphere on a body placed entirely 
 beyond it ; but as the density of the atmosphere varies with 
 the height, it is evident that the apparent place of any 
 object placed on a different level from that of the observer 
 must be affected in a greater or less degree by refraction. 
 Whether the rays of light come from a more elevated ob- 
 ject, and consequently pass from a rarer into a denser 
 medium, or from an object depressed below the horizon of 
 the observer, and consequently pass from a denser into a 
 rarer medium, they are equally bent downwards, and con- 
 sequently the apparent place of the object is raised. This 
 refraction between terrestrial objects is called terrestrial re- 
 fraction ; and as the density of the air near the surface of 
 the earth is liable to great irregularities from being irregular- 
 ly heated, its effects give rise to many very remarkable phe- 
 nomena. Among these are looming or mirage, the fata 
 morgana (see the terms), and the occasional appearance 
 above the horizon of distant objects which, in the ordinary 
 state of the atmosphere are, invisible. Sometimes, in conse- 
 quence of the rarefaction of the air in the neighbourhood of 
 a surface of water, or of a building, or of the earth itself, 
 a distant object appears to be depressed instead of being 
 elevated ; and occasionally it is at once both depressed and 
 elevated, so as to appear double, in which case one of the 
 images is generally seen in an inverted position, as if a re- 
 flexion had taken place. In very exact observations, as in 
 geodetical surveys, it is found that the refraction is not 
 always confined to the same vetircal plane, but sometimes 
 produces a deviation amounting to a few seconds later- 
 ally. 
 
 REFRACTIVE POWER, in Optics, is the degree of in- 
 fluence which a diaphanous body exercises on the light 
 which passes through it. For the measure of this influence 
 modern writers generally adopt the square of the index of 
 refraction diminished by unity, or n2 — 1, where n denotes 
 the principal index of refraction. {See Refraction.) The 
 reason of this is founded on certain dynamical considera- 
 tions regarding the physical cause of refraction. According 
 to the Newtonian theory of emission, the velocity of light 
 is accelerated on entering a denser medium by reason of the 
 increased molecular attraction ; and the law of refraction is 
 explained by supposing the index of refraction of any sub- 
 stance to be the ratio of the velocity of light in that sub- 
 stance to its velocity in a vacuum. Thus, let u denote the 
 velocity of light in a vacuum, and v its velocity while 
 passing through a diaphanous substance, then v -f-« = n ; 
 or, since sin. i -f- sin. r — u, the sine of incidence is to the 
 sine of refraction inversely as the velocity in a vacuum to 
 the velocity in the medium. Now the increment of the vis 
 viva, or the excess of the square of the new velocity above 
 that of the former, is v 2 — u 2 , and the ratio of this to the 
 
 1043
 
 REFRAIN. 
 
 square of the former is , bj — u-, : u-, which is the same as 
 the ratio of n- — 1 to unity. 
 
 ttog to the undulntory theory, the velocity of light 
 is diuiiui.-lied i'ii entering a denser body. In tins case, u- — 
 e- is the loss of vis viva ; and the ratio »- — p9] ; r .', c , r 
 n- — 1 to 1, is the ratio of vis lira which is lost to that 
 i i- retained. In either case, the ratio al — 1 to 1 
 forms the measure of the refractive powr of the substance 
 of which ;i i- the index of refraction. 
 
 Bome mod, in authors employ the phrase absolute refrac- 
 tire powir to denote the ratio of the refractive power of a 
 Substance (as above defined) to its density : that is to sty, 
 the ratio «-' — 1 ; : 1). where I) stands for the density of the 
 body. Sir [saac .Newton {Optics, p. -J47,) calls this the 
 "refractive power of a body in respect of Its density :" and. 
 as it i- ' e of tlie theory of emission that the re- 
 
 fractive powi r mu-t he proportional to the density, the ratio 
 («* — 1): I), according to this theory, is constant for the 
 same medium ; that is to say, its numerical value depends 
 only on the nature of the medium, and is independent of 
 its condition ; so that a liquid and its vapour ought to have 
 the same absolute refractive power, which is contradicted 
 by the experiments of Ar.igo and Petit 
 
 The French authors use the term puissance refractive to 
 denote the refractive power, or the number n2 — 1, while 
 they express the absolute refractive power, or the ratio 
 (it- — 1) : D, by the term pouvoir refringent. It is con- 
 venient to have different names for the two things, which 
 are totally different, at least in their numerical measures. 
 Thus hydrogen gas has a smaller index of refraction, and 
 consequent!} a smaller retractive power, than any other 
 suhstance ; hut its absolute refractive poirrr. or pouroir re- 
 fringent. is greater than that of any other substance. (For 
 a table of the values of the ratio (»- — 1): D for a con- 
 siderable number of different substances, see Brewster's 
 Optics, Gib. Cyclopaedia.) 
 
 KKl'l; \ l\. 'Ihe burden of a song, &c. See Bcrden-. 
 
 REFRANGIBILlT Y , in Optics, is the disposition of the 
 rays ot light to he refracted or bent in passing obliquely 
 lrom one transparent medium into another : but the term 
 is chiefly used to denote the degree of that disposition pos- 
 & Bsed by the differently coloured rajs. See Refraction, 
 Spki trim. 
 
 RE'FI'GE. CITIES OF. Six cities appointed, according 
 to the words of Moses, under the Jewish dispensation Deu 
 teron., xix., -J, 9), for the safety of those who had caused the 
 accidental death of any one. If a deliberate murderer fled 
 to one of these cities, the elders of the city were to deliver 
 him " into the hands of the avenger of blood." The cities 
 are enumerated in Joshua, chap. xx. 
 
 REFUGEE. A name which has been given in history 
 and political phraseology indiscriminately to persons who 
 flee from religious or [lolitical persecution in their own coun- 
 try, and take refuse in another. It was originally applied 
 to the French Protestants (refugies) who found an asylum 
 in this country, and among various Continental nations, after 
 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by I.ouis XIV. 
 
 REG \ l.l \. i.;it. rex, a king, hi Polities, the privi- 
 leges, prerogative, and right of pro perty, belonging, in virtue 
 ot office, to the sovereign of a state. The latter class of ob- 
 most commonly termed regalia minora ■ as in 
 untries, waifs, strays, and newly-formed land. fee. : 
 Qd, forfeitures, &c. ; while the former are known 
 by the epithet majora. Regalia, in English Heraldry, the 
 royal insignia, crowns, sceptres, globes, crosses, tc., used at 
 the coronation: also the crown jewels. Regalia of the 
 church, the privileges which have been conceded to it by 
 king- : sometimes the patrimony of a church. 
 
 REGARDANT. (Fr.) In Heraldry, literally, looking 
 behind : applied to any animal whose face is turned towards 
 the tail in an attitude of vigilance. 
 
 REGATTA. (Hal.] \ word used originally by the 
 Veneuans to signify a grind fete, in which the gondoliers 
 
 contested for superiority in rowing their gondolas; but the 
 
 term has been adopted into all the languages of modern 
 in which it signifies a brilliant species of boat race 
 In England, festivities of this species are almost of weekly 
 occurrence during the summer season. 
 
 KEGEL, oi RIGEL. A star of the first magnitude, con- 
 stituting the left heel of the constellation Orion. 
 
 REGENERATION. In Theology , the new birth of man 
 unto righteousness, following oo the abolition of the original 
 
 corruption of his nature. Similar language was used re 
 
 nieeting the admission of proselytes to the privili 
 
 -■>. also, in other religions. The Sanscrit name for 
 a Brahmin is said to signify "twice horn;" and Tertullian 
 says that the heathens used baptism in their myst 
 regenerationem." When oar Saviour admonished Nicode 
 
 to marvel at bis words, " Ye must he horn again." 
 he added, with reference, doubtless, to the doctrines ahead-, 
 taught among the Jew s, " Art thou a master of Israel, and 
 
 1044 
 
 REGICIDE. 
 
 knowest not these things ?" (John, iii., 10.) That baptism 
 is "a sign of regeneration." as expressed in the J7;h Artit la 
 of the Church of England, is admitted by nearly all Chris- 
 tians. (Rom., vi„ 4, 11; Tit., iii.. o; John, iii.. 0.) But 
 whether the new birth to which allusion is made in these 
 solemn passages actually takes place by and through bap- 
 tism ; whether baptism, duly administered bj those author- 
 ised, is in itself an "opus operatum," in the language of the 
 schools ; or w hether the regeneration spoken of as tin con- 
 dition ot our salvation takes place alter, and independent of 
 baptism, by the operation of the spirit on the inner man — 
 this is a question on which Protestants have never agreed 
 among themselves, and w hull divides the English church at 
 this day. The former is the commonly received or Catholic 
 doctrine; and has been so fr m very early limes, as tar as 
 we can conclude from the language of the lathers and an- 
 cient forms of the church. But it docs not appear to be posi- 
 tively declared by the Church of England, though inferred 
 from various passages m the baptismal service. 
 
 RE'GENT. d.at. rego. f govern.) The peiBon who ex- 
 ercises the powers of a sovereign during the absence, inca- 
 pacity, or minority of the latter, in most hereditary gov- 
 ernments the maxim is. that the office belongs to the nearest 
 relative of the sovereign capable of undertaking it; but this 
 rule is subject to many limitations. The kings of France ex- 
 ercised at various periods the power of fixing, by ordinance 
 or will, the regency, in case of their decease leaving issue 
 under age; and also the period of their son's majority. 
 Nevertheless, these wills !ia\e bei D at various time- disre- 
 garded in favour of what was esteemed the principle of the 
 monarchy. Thus, the testament of I.ouis .XIII.. by which 
 he declared his wife future regent, hut limited her power in 
 the essential prerogative of the choice of a count il, was set 
 aside as to this limitation, and she was appointed regent 
 with full prerogatives. The testament of Louis XIV.. as to 
 
 during the minority of Louis XV.. was - 
 by the parliament of Paris immediately after his death. Iii 
 England, the right to appoint the regent is now fully recog- 
 nised to belong to parliament; although, in 1788, on the oc- 
 casion of the first illness of George III., much discussion 
 took place as to the absolute right which some supposed to 
 inhere in the heir apparent. The regency, in the event of 
 the demise of the present sovereign leaving issue, is vested 
 by act of parliament in her majesty's consort. 
 
 RE'GENT MASTERS, or REGENTS. In the English 
 Universities, a term borrowed from the ancient Ui 
 the 1 rniveraity Of Paris. In that institution graduates in the 
 faculties, within a certain period after their degree, had the 
 privilege, which they were bound to exercise, of gi\ ing pub- 
 lic lectures (dncendl, legendi. regendl scholas . The same 
 custom was adopted at Oxford and Cambridge ; although the 
 regent masters were at an early period succeeded in the per- 
 formance of this office by the established professors The 
 regents still form the governing body of the universities, in 
 the convocation and congregation at Oxford, and in the 
 academical senate of Cambridge. See Master of Arts. 
 
 RE'GICIDE. (Lat. rex. king, and Cffdp, / kill.) The 
 offence of slaying a king or other sovereign. The eariy 
 Greek republics, unaccustomed to the legitimate rule of 
 monarchs, saw, in the occasional subjugation which they 
 underwent from successful partisans, a mere usurpation, or 
 tyranny: and tyrannicide was with them only the Slaying 
 of a public enemy. And the hatred which attachi 
 in the minds of the Roman people to the royal name and 
 authority made them regard the acts of the elder and younger 
 Brutus, even to the latest days of the republic, and long after 
 the establishment of the empire, as virtuous and honour- 
 able. Hence the perverted morality on this peculiar sub- 
 ject which continues to prevail, more or lo-s<. even to the 
 present day, as false in logic as contrarj to the plain rules 
 of conscience ; for it is obvious that, to each individual, a 
 wealthy or powerful oppressor, who commits injuries against 
 him and his friends for which the law can give him no re- 
 do -v is hist as fair a subject for illegal vengeance as a king 
 to any member of the community. Vet no one ever sought 
 seriously to set op the right of assassination in such canon ; 
 
 BS Buchanan, I.anguet. Mariana, and others have done in 
 thai of kings. English history has three notorious instances 
 I'.dward II.. Richard ill., and Edward V. murder- 
 ed by powerful and rebellious subjects. But 
 all other countries, i- fertile in examples of regicide, effect- 
 ed or attempted by private individuals under the influence 
 
 of religious and political fanaticism. Henrj III. and IV. 
 both tell by the hands of Roman Catholic zealots. The 
 reader will find in the Discourse of Pere Mathieu on the 
 Death of the latter lately republished in Qfmfer, ./rehires 
 ''"""""- , a singular example of ,„,. fanaticism of cruelty 
 in the way of retaliation, excited, and not hi naturally, by 
 the repetition of such monstrous and desperate acts. But 
 the savage execudon of Ravaillac did not deter Damien, in 
 the reign of I.ouis \v., from attempting the same oflbnee 
 from the same motives. The murder of the Due de Bern,
 
 REGIMENT. 
 
 and the repeated attempts on the life of Louis Philippe, from 
 political enthusiasm, show but too plainly that the morbid 
 passions which actuated those celebraled assassins have 
 but taken in modern times another direction. The murder 
 of Gustavus, king of Sweden, by Ankarstrom, is, perhaps, 
 the most deliberate instance of this crime on record ; for 
 the criminal, though rancorous and determined, was no 
 zealot. It must be added, that the application of the term 
 regicide to the members of the commission which sat in 
 judgment on Charles I., and to the majority of the conven- 
 tion which condemned Louis XVI., is a violation of that 
 moral sense which judges unerringly of actions ; whatever 
 the character of their conduct might be, it was altogether 
 different from assassination ; and to confound Vane or Car- 
 not with R& vail lac and Fieschi, under a similar designation, 
 can scire no ends but those of temporary party malice. 
 
 RE'GIMEXT. (Lat. rego, I rule.) A body of troops con- 
 sisting (if infantry) of several battalions, or (if cavalry) of 
 several squadrons, under the command of a colonel. The 
 British army consists, at present, of three regiments of horse 
 guards; sixteeu regiments of cavalry, of which four are 
 heavy dragoons, five light dragoons, four hussars, and four 
 lancers; three regiments of foot guards, divided into the 
 grenadier guards, the Scots fusiliers, and the Coldstream 
 guards; and ninety-nine regiments of infantry, exclusive of 
 the royal regiment of artillery, and the royal corps of ma- 
 rines. Many of the regiments in the British army are dis- 
 tinguished by the name of the counties or districts where 
 the men were originally enlisted. Thus the 3d regiment is 
 called the East Kent regiment; the 6th, the Royal War- 
 wickshire, &c, &c. No rule is established with regard to 
 the number of men of which a regiment should consist : both 
 in England and on the Continent this point is settled either 
 by the exigencies of service in time of war, or the principles 
 of economy in time of peace. In the British army, the three 
 regiments of horse guards consist, at present, each of 32 offi- 
 cers, 53 non-commissioned officers, 351 privates, and 274 
 horses. The ordinary cavalry regiments have each at an 
 average 27 commissioned officers, 31 non-commissioned offi- 
 cers, 304 privates, ami 283 horses. The grenadier regiment 
 of guards consists of three battalions; and has 90 officers, 177 
 non-commissioned officers, and 2080 privates. The other 
 two regiments of foot guards consist also of two battalions 
 each, and have each 61 officers, 109 non-commissioned offi- 
 cers, and 1280 privates. The royal regiment of artillery con- 
 sists of nine battalions, having 449 officers and 6062 non- 
 commissioned officers and men, exclusive of the horse bri- 
 gade, the engineers, and sappers and miners. (Stat, of the 
 Brit. Empire, vol. ii., p. 433.) 
 
 RE'GISTER, LORD; or LORD CLERK REGISTER. 
 A Scottish officer of state, who has the custody of the ar- 
 chives; hence also termed custos rotulorum. He was of 
 old the principal clerk of the kingdom, from whom other 
 clerks derived their authority. The office was formerly at 
 pleasure, but since 1777 for life. Salary £ 1200 a year. He 
 is assisted in his duties by a resident deputy. 
 
 RE'GISTRY OF BIRTHS, MARRIAGES, AND 
 DEATHS. Down to the year 1836, in consequence of the 
 defects of the system of registration, no complete or accurate 
 information could be obtained as to the amount of births, 
 marriages, and deaths throughout England; but at that 
 period the necessity of having it superseded by a better sys- 
 tem was admitted, which was finally accomplished by the 
 act 6&7 Will. 4, c. 80. 
 
 This act, passed in pursuance of the recommendation of 
 a committee of the House of Commons on parochial regis- 
 ters (1833), embodies a plan for the effectual registration of 
 births, deaths, and marriages in England and Wales. To 
 give uniformity to the system, it is conducted under the 
 superintendence of an officer resident in London ; and there 
 also a central place of deposit is provided for certified copies 
 of all parochial registers, with ready means of finding any 
 entry in them. It is provided that in every case of birth, the 
 following circumstances shall be recorded : viz.. the time 
 and place of birth ; the name (if any) and sex of child ; 
 name and surname of father ; name and maiden surname of 
 mother ; rank or profession of father ; the signature, descrip- 
 tion, and residence of the informant ; and also the baptismal 
 name of child, if added after registration of birth. In every 
 case of death the register is to record the time and place of 
 death ; the name and surname, sex, age, and rank or pro- 
 fession of the deceased ; the cause of death ; and the signa- 
 ture, description, and residence of the informant. In all 
 cases the entries must be signed by the informant, and also 
 by the registrar, who discharges this duty without any im- 
 mediate expense to the parties requiring registration, his re- 
 muneration being derived from moderate fees paid out of 
 the poor's rates. The insertion of the cause of death, along 
 with the period of death, and the residence, sex, age, and 
 occupation of the deceased, will, in time, afford data of the 
 utmost importance to medical science, and to the improve- 
 ment of vital statistics. 
 
 REGIUM DONUM. 
 
 The central office in London for the deposit of certified 
 copies of registers, and the general supervision and conduct 
 of the business of registration, is called the General Regis- 
 ter Office. It is presided over by a registrar-general appoint- 
 ed under the great seal, having under him an assistant re- 
 gistrar, chief clerk, and a numerous body of subordinate 
 clerks. From this office communications emanate to all 
 superintending registrars, registrars of births and deaths, 
 and registrars of marriages, who all act within their respec- 
 tive districts under the directions of the registrar-general, in 
 whom is vested the power of dismissal. 
 
 There are at present 619 superintendent registrars, who 
 may each appoint a deputy, with the approval of the regis- 
 trar-general. Of these superintendents 562 have accepted 
 the office as clerks of boards of guardians for the poor, or 
 have been appointed by the guardians, and 57 have been 
 appointed by the registrar-general. Each superintendent 
 registrar serves within the district to which he is appointed, 
 which comprises one or more registrar's districts. 
 
 There are 2197 registrars of births, and deaths, who may 
 each appoint a deputy, with the approval of the guardians, 
 or of the poor law commissioners. Of these registrars, 1981 
 have been appointed by the boards of guardians established 
 under the Poor Law Amendment Act; and 216 are regis- 
 trars of temporary districts, appointed by the poor law com- 
 missioners. Each registrar is appointed to some one of the 
 2197 registrars' districts, into which the whole of England 
 and Wales has been divided: and he must reside in that 
 district, and register all births and deaths that occur in it. 
 
 Marriages are registered, 1st, By clergymen of the estab- 
 lished church, of whom 11,694 have been furnished with 
 books for this purpose. 2dly, By registrars of marriages, of 
 whom there were, on the 1st of January, 1838, 716: these 
 last are appointed by the superintendent registrars, and re- 
 gister marriages solemnized in their presence in registered 
 places of worship, or in the superintendent registrar's office ; 
 297 of the total number of 716 are also registrars of births 
 and deaths. 3dly, By the registering officers of Quakers, of 
 whom there are 90. And 4thly, By the secretaries of syna- 
 gogues, of whom there are 36. 
 
 The clergyman, and the various officers, amounting in all 
 to about 14,400 to whom the business of registration is com- 
 mitted, are bound to make quarterly deliveries of certified 
 copies of all entries in their respective registers during the 
 previous quarter, to the superintendent registrars of the dis- 
 trict to which they respectively belong ; and these certified 
 copies are transmitted by the superintendent registrars to 
 the registrar-general. The certified copies are made on 
 separate leaves of paper of a uniform size and peculiar tex- 
 ture, having a distinguishing water-mark. On being re- 
 ceived at the general register office in London (whither 
 they are sent by post), they are carefully examined ; and 
 any defects being noted, are made the subject of communi- 
 cation with the person from whom the defective copy came, 
 who is required either to furnish another copy, or a satis- 
 factory explanation. They are then arranged, paged, and 
 inserted in books for reference. 
 
 Alphabetical indexes of births, deaths, and marriages are 
 prepared and kept in the general register office ; and any 
 person, on payment of Is., may search these indexes for 
 any entry, and, on finding it, may, if he wish, obtain, for 2.?. 
 6d., a stamped copy of such entry, which will be "received 
 as evidence of the birth, death, or marriage to which the 
 same relates, without any farther or other proof of such 
 entry." There are separate alphabetical indexes for the 
 births, the deaths, and the marriages in each quarter. The 
 registrar-general is bound to furnish, once a year, one of the 
 principal secretaries of state with a general abstract account 
 of the births, deaths, and marriages registered during the 
 foregoing year, to be laid before parliament. Three reports 
 of the registrar-general have already been published; and, 
 in a statistical point of view, the sound, accurate, and judi- 
 cious information which they embody, cannot be too high- 
 ly appreciated. (Statistics of the Brit. Empire.) 
 
 RE'GISTRY OF DEEDS, in Law, exists in England 
 only in certain districts; in the three ridings of Yorkshire, 
 and in Middlesex, it is established by act of parliament. It 
 does not extend to copyhold estates, or to leases not exceed- 
 ing twenty-one years in possession. The intention of the 
 registry was to give notice to purchasers of incumbrances 
 existing on estates. But its value, in this respect, is ma- 
 terially lessened by the prevalence of the equitable doctrine 
 of notice ; namely, that where a party is, either actually or 
 constructively, aware of incumbrances not registered, he is 
 bound by such knowledge. 
 
 REGISTRY OF SHIPS. See Ships, Registry of. 
 
 RE'GIUM DONUM. (hat. royal gift.) An annual grant 
 of public money in aid of the maintenance of the Presby- 
 terian clergy in Ireland. It was instituted by William III. 
 in 1690, and remodelled in 1790. The stipends are paid to 
 ministers both of the "Synod of Ulster" and "Seceding 
 Synod," the two principal divisions of the sect. 
 
 1045
 
 REGIUS PROFESSORS. 
 
 REGIUS PROFESSORS. The nam,' given to those pro- 
 fessors in the English universities whose chairs were found- 
 ed by Henry VIII. In the Bcoteh universities, in which 
 the patronage of by far (he greater number of chairs is vest- 
 ed in the civil bodies, those professors are called regius pro- 
 fessors who have been appointed by the crown. 
 
 REGLET. I. n. regula.) In Architecture. SeeFiLLET. 
 
 RJBGRATLNG. See Fokkst.ii.lino. 
 
 REGRESSION. Lat. regressus, a going backwards.) 
 In Astronomy, the regression of the moon's nodes is the mo- 
 tion of the line of intersection of the orbit of the moon with 
 the ecliptic, which is retrograde, or contrary to the order of 
 the signs. This motion of the nodes of the lunar orbit takes 
 place with considerable rapidity, the whole revolution be- 
 ing accomplished in about 18| years. The nodes of the 
 pUnetarj orbits also regress on the ecliptic; but, in the case 
 of the planets, the regression is extremely slow, that of the 
 nodes of Mercury, which is the most rapid, amounting only 
 to about 4-2 seconds of a degree in a solar year. See Node, 
 Planet. 
 
 REGULAR ROntES. See Platonic Bodies. 
 
 REGULAR FIGURES, in Geometry, are equilateral and 
 equiangular polygons. Circles can be described within and 
 about such figures ; but such figures can be described by 
 geometrical methods only in particular cases. General ex- 
 pressions for the radii of the circles described within and 
 about them (r and R), and for their areas and angles, can, 
 however, be given in neat forms. Thus, if n denote the 
 number of sides of the polygon, and if u° represent the nth 
 part of 1800, we shall have, a being the side, R = ka cosec. 
 u°, r = ha cot. u°. area = j,n a? cot. u°. 
 
 Tables of the values of cosec. u° and cot. «°, computed 
 from these expressions, may be seen in most works on men- 
 suration adapted to the values of n as far as 12. (See Hut- 
 ton's Mensuration.) 
 
 REGULARS. In the Roman Catholic Church, those 
 that profess and follow a certain rule of life, and observe 
 the three vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, are so 
 called. 
 
 REGUEA'TOR. In Machinery, a general name for any 
 contrivance of which the object is to produce the uniform 
 movement of machines. The regulators most commonly 
 applied are the/y and the governor, for which see the re- 
 spective term«. 
 
 The regulator of a watch is the spiral spring attached to 
 the balance. This ingenious contrivance, the invention of 
 Hooke, has contributed as much to the improvement of 
 Watches as the pendulum to the improvement of clocks. 
 
 In a paper published in the Memoirs of the Royal Astro- 
 nomical Society, vol. xi.. the present Astronomer Royal has 
 Investigated the mathematical problem of the motion of the 
 regulator applied to the clock-work by which motion is given 
 to large equatorial telescopes. For this purpose, absolute 
 Uniformity of motion is of very great importance. The 
 construction usually adopted, in this country at least, de- 
 pends on the same principle as that of the governor of the 
 steam-engine. Two balls suspended from the upper part of 
 a virtual axis by rods of a certain length, are made to ex- 
 pand by the rotatory velocity of the axis; and when the 
 expansion reaches a certain limit, a lever is pressed against 
 some revolving part, whereby a friction is produced which 
 immediately checks the velocity. Now the uniformity of 
 the rotatory motion of the spindle depends upon the as- 
 sumption, that if upon the whole the retarding forces are 
 equal to the accelerating force*, the balls will move in a 
 nd in no other curve. But this assumption is Incor- 
 rect ; for the balls may move in a curve differing insensibly 
 from an ellip-e ; and, in some instances, Mr. Airy observed 
 the balls to revolve in an ellipse "i considerable eccentrici- 
 ty. When this takes place, the rot ttory motion of the spin- 
 dle becomes exceedingly variable. This injurious effect 
 may be partly counteracted by constructing the apparatus 
 so that the revolutions shall be either very slow or very 
 quick ; the former method has the effect 01 gn i 
 smoothness of motion, but the second insures more com 
 pletlv that the Object observed shall remain stead] in tin- 
 field of the telescope. 
 
 RE'GI.'EI'S. In Chemistry. The old chemists designa- 
 ted several of the brittle or inferior metals by this term, 
 when freed from impurities and obtained in their metallic 
 state: it is thus th it they speak of regulus of antimony, 
 
 ■'l. ii.r. 
 
 REHABILITATION, in Foreign Criminal Eaw. is the 
 reinstatement of a criminal in his personal rights which he 
 has lost by a judicial sentence. Thus, in Scotland, a par- 
 don from the king is said to rehabilitate a witness labour- 
 ing under infamia juris. In France, persons condemned to 
 imprisonment or compulsory labour may demand their re- 
 habilitation live years after the expiration of their penalty: 
 
 the 'ban ma i« considered by the com royale of the district, 
 
 and pronounced upon by the king In his privy council. Va- 
 rious singular forms were attached to the process of reha- 
 10-16 
 
 REJOINDER. 
 
 bilitation in ancient times. There are extant letters of 
 Charles VI., given in 1383, permitting a criminal whose 
 hand had been cut off for homicide to replace it by another 
 made in such fashion as he may choose. 
 
 REHE l/RSAL. The recital in private of an opera, ora- 
 torio, or, in short, any dramatic work, previously to public 
 exhibition. 
 
 REIN-DEER, (Germ, rennthier.) Crrrus tarandus, 
 Linn. A large species of Centra* with branched, recurved, 
 round antlers, the summits of which are palmated. These 
 antlers are remarkable for the size of the branch which 
 comes off near the base, and is directed forwards, called 
 the brow-antler, and which is said to be u-ed by the animal 
 to clear away the snow from the hidden lichens which 
 constitute the food of the rein-deer during the long and se- 
 vere winter of Greenland, their native clime. As the fe- 
 male also possesses antlers of similar form, hut smaller 
 upon the whole than those of the male, their function as 
 instruments to obtain food is rendered more probable, since 
 in the deer which do not exist in artic climes the females 
 are destitute of antlers. These appendages of the rein- 
 deer are annually shed and renewed in both sexes. 
 
 The length of a full-grown male is about nine feet, that 
 of the head is fifteen inches. They are well clothed with 
 hair, which becomes thicker, longer, and of a whiter col- 
 our in the winter season; at which time the male has a 
 white beard, like the goat. The rutting season, is at the 
 beginning of winter, and the hind brings forth one, rarely 
 two calves, in May or June. 
 
 The rein-deer is swift of foot, sharp-sighted, has an acute 
 smell and hearing. It is more cautious and timid In herds 
 than when solitary. It can swim well, and often crosses 
 lakes and rivers. 
 
 The flesh of the rein-deer, which is held in great esteem 
 by the Greenlanders, is usually eaten raw, or dried with the 
 smoke of the lichen nivalis. The blood is boiled with ber- 
 ries mixed with the fat which is also preserved separately 
 and used as lard. The half-digested contents of the paunch 
 of the rein-deer is the Greenlander's prime luxury ; nor is 
 the trail rejected. The hide of the rein-deer supplies the 
 Greenlander with a beautiful material for his tent, his 
 clothing, his bedding. The bones and antlers are worked 
 into implements for domestic use, for fishing and hunting. 
 The tendons are split into threads. 
 
 The Greenlanders likewise use the spare hides of the 
 rein-deer as an article of barter. 
 
 REI'NECKE (The Fox). The name of a celebrated 
 popular German epic poem, which, during the latter part of 
 the middle ages and the early centuries of modern times, 
 enjoyed an almost European reputation. It became first 
 known through the medium of a Low German version in 
 the 15th century ; and it has, with few interruptions, ever 
 since involved the German literati in discussions as to its 
 origin, which are yet apparently far from being settled. It 
 contains a humorous and satirical account of the adven- 
 tures of Reinecke (the fox) at the court of King Nodel (the 
 lion) ; exhibits the cunning of the former, and the means 
 which he adopted to rebut the charges preferred against 
 him, and the hypocrisy and lies by which he contrived to 
 gain the favour of his sovereign, who loaded him with hon- 
 ours. The king, the officers of his court, and all his sub- 
 jects are represented, as in Esop's Fables, under the names 
 of the animals best suited to their respective characters ; 
 and the poem is an admirable satire on the intrigues prac- 
 tised at a weak court. The most successful versions of 
 this poem nre those of Goethe, in hexameters ; of 8 It at, 
 in the measure of the original ; and the more recent at- 
 tempt of Ortlepp. This poem appears, In some form or oth- 
 er, to have been known throughout Burope. For full infor- 
 mation respecting It. the reader may consult Mean Romas 
 tlu Renard, Paris. 1826) ; and the Reinhart Fuchs, bv Jacob 
 Grimm fBerlin. 1834). 
 
 REINFO'RCE, in Artillery, is that part of a gun nearest 
 to the breech, made stronger to resist the explosive force of 
 the powder. Set Gnu. 
 
 REINFORCE KINGS, are flat hooplike mouldings on the 
 reinforces on the side nearest the breech. There are OBO* 
 ally two, the second being rather smaller than the tirst. 
 
 REIS EFFENDI. The name given to one of the chief 
 Turkish officers of state. He is chancellor of the empire 
 
 and minister of foreign nft'iirs, in which capacity he ne- 
 gotiates with the ambassadors and interpreters of foreign 
 
 REITERS. (Germ, reuters, riders.) The German cav- 
 alry of the Hth and 15th centuries were so called; es|>e- 
 ciaily in France during the religious wars, in which they 
 served on the Protestant side. At that ]>eriod they were 
 light-armed, and carried a long sword and carbine. 
 
 REJOI'NDER. In Law, the fourth stage in the plead- 
 ing- in an action, being the defendant's answer to the plain- 
 tiff - n plication. The next allegation of the plain till' in 
 called a surrejoinder. See Plbadinu.
 
 RELAIS. 
 
 BEL AIS. In Fortification, a narrow walk of four or five 
 feet wide, left without the rampart to receive the earth 
 which may be washed down and prevent its falling into the 
 ditch. It is sometimes, for greater security, pallisaded. 
 
 RELA'PSE (Lat. relator, I fall back), is applied, in Ec- 
 clesiastical Law, to a heretic who falls back into an error 
 which he has abjured. 
 
 RELATION, INHARMONIC. In Music, a term deno- 
 ting that a dissonant sound is introduced which is not heard 
 in the preceding chord. 
 
 RELE'ASE (Fr. relaiser), in Law, signifies, properly 
 speaking, a discharge of a right: e. g., 1. A release of land 
 is a discharge or conveyance of a man's right in lands and 
 tenements to another that has some former estate in pos- 
 session, on which principle the common mode of convey- 
 ance by lease and release is founded ; i. e., releasing all the 
 right of the releasor to a party already in possession under 
 a lease for a year. 2. A release of a right of action ; which 
 may be pleaded in bar. (See Pleading.) A release "of 
 all demands" discharges all sorts of actions, rights, titles, 
 conditions, executions, appeals, covenants, contracts, annu- 
 ities, rents, recognisances, &c. 
 
 RE'LICS (Lat. reliqua;), in the Romish Church, are the 
 remains of saints and holy men, or of their garments, &c, 
 which are enjoined to be held in veneration, and are con- 
 sidered, in many instances, to be endued with miraculous 
 powers. They are preserved in the churches, to which 
 they are often the means of attracting pilgrimages, and in 
 very ignorant times and places have been actually made ob- 
 jects of adoration. The virtues which are attributed to 
 them are defended by such instances from scripture as that 
 of the miracles that were wrought by the bones of Elisha. 
 (2 Kings, xiii.,21.) 
 
 RELIE'F, in Feudal Law, is derived from the Latin re- 
 levare, to take up ; because the tenant, by payment of the 
 relief, was said to take up the fief which had fallen to the 
 lord by the death, &c, of his predecessor. '-The heir," 
 says Blackstone, " when admitted to the feud which his 
 ancestor possessed, used generally to pay a fine or acknowl- 
 edgment to the lord in horses, arms, money, or the like, for 
 such renewal of the feud ; which was called a relief, be- 
 cause it raised up and re-established the inheritance; or, in 
 the words of the feudal writers, ' incertam et caducam hiere- 
 ditatem relevabat.' " Reliefs, together with the other inci- 
 dents of feudal tenure, were abolished in England by stat. 
 12 Car. 2. .See Feudal System. 
 
 Relief. In Architecture, the projection of a figure or 
 ornament from the ground or plane on which it is sculp- 
 tured. In Sculpture, when the whole of the figure stands 
 out, the work is denominated alto-rilievo ; when only half 
 out, demi-rilievo ; and when its projection is very small, it 
 is called basso rilievo. 
 
 Relief, Rilievo. In Sculpture, that species of sculpture 
 in which the figures are engaged on or rise from a ground. 
 There are three sorts of rilievo — basso-rilievo, in which the 
 figures or other objects have but small projection from the 
 ground on which they are sculptured ; mezzo-rilievo, in which 
 the figures stand out about half their natural proportions, the 
 other half appearing immersed in the ground ; and, lastly, 
 alto-rilievo, in which the figures stand completely out from 
 the ground, being attached to it only in a few places, and in 
 others worked entirely round like single statues ; such are 
 the metopae of the Elgin marbles in the British Museum, 
 which marbles also, in the Panathenaic procession, exhibit 
 some exquisite examples of basso-rilievo. 
 
 RELIEF SYNOD. A respectable body of Presbyterian 
 dissenters in Scotland, whose ground of separation from the 
 established church was the violent exercise of lay patron- 
 age which obtained in the latter. Though patronage, or 
 the appointment of clergymen to church benefices by pre- 
 sentations had been established by act of Parliament in 
 1712, yet a minority of the clergy were opposed to that 
 measure; at least to the intrusion of a minister into paro- 
 chial charge contrary to the sentiments of the people. The 
 majority of the Church, however, entertained different 
 views, and rigorously enforced the provisions of the act of 
 1712. With this state of things the people generally, but 
 particularly in rural districts, were dissatisfied ; and hence 
 the origin of the Secession Church, and the Relief. See 
 Burghers. 
 
 The origin of the Relief may be dated in 1752. Six of 
 the ministers of the Presbytery of Dunfermline having re- 
 fused, contrary to the express authority of the General As- 
 sembly of the Church of Scotland, to assist at the admis- 
 sion of Mr. Richardson to the parish of Inverkeithing (the 
 people being unwilling to receive him as their pastor), were 
 summoned before this venerable court for contumacy. They 
 pleaded conscientious scruples ; but this representation had 
 no effect on the assembly ; and, as an example to the church, 
 one of the six recusants was peremptorily deposed from the 
 office of the ministry, while the remaining five were sus- 
 pended. Mr. Gillespie, minister of Carnock, the individ- 
 
 REMAINDER. 
 
 ual deposed, still claimed his pastoral relation to his flock ; 
 and though deprived of the use of the parish church, 
 preached in the fields, attended not merely by his former 
 hearers, but by many others attracted by the peculiar cir- 
 cumstances of the case. A chapel was afterwards built for 
 him in the neighbouring town of Dunfermline, where he 
 continued to preach till his death, and to oppose the law of 
 patronage in the church. Mr. Gillespie for a few years 
 stood alone ; but in consequence of the violent settlement of 
 a clergyman in the town of Jedburgh, the great body of the 
 people of that place, forsaking the established church, gave 
 a call (1759) to Mr. Thomas Boston, minister of a neighbour- 
 ing parish, to be their pastor. Mr. Boston, for whom they 
 erected a chapel, accepted the invitation, and withdrew 
 from the Church of Scotland. Owing to exactly similar 
 circumstances, the people of the parish of Kilconquhar, in 
 Fifeshire, followed the example set them in Jedburgh, and 
 chose Mr. Collier to be their minister. On the 22d of No- 
 vember, 1759, Mr. Gillespie and Mr. Boston, with a lay elder 
 from each of their congregations, met in a presbyterian ca- 
 pacity at Colinsburgh, in the last mentioned parish, to in- 
 duct Mr. Collier to his charge. On the evening of the same 
 day these three ministers met, and agreed to form them- 
 selves into an ecclesiastical body, to be called the "Pres- 
 bytery of Relief, for the relief of Christians oppressed in 
 their Christian privileges." This sect gradually gained ac- 
 cession to their number from causes similar to those which 
 we have already detailed, and at length formed themselves 
 into a synod, which, at this date (1842), embraces eleven 
 presbyteries, including 116 congregations ; being, in point of 
 numbers and influence, the third ecclesiastical body in Scot- 
 land. The founders of the Relief professed to differ from 
 the established church on no point other than the right of 
 patrons to appoint ministers against the inclinations of the 
 people. This still constitutes the leading characteristic of 
 the sect ; but on this they have engrafted voluntary church 
 principles, or are hostile to the principle of a national church, 
 or to state endowments of religion. The Secession and 
 Relief are at present engaged in considering overtures made 
 mutually to each other for forming a union of the two de- 
 nominations. The Relief Synod have a professor of di- 
 vinity in their own connexion. (Smith's Hist. Sketches of 
 the Relief Church ; Hutchison's Compendious flew of the 
 Synod of Relief; Adam's Relig. World Displayed, vol. iii., 
 p. 223-232 ; M'Kerrow's Hist, of Secession, v. i., 319-324, 
 326-328.1 
 
 RELIE'VING TACKLES. Temporary tackles attached 
 to the end of the tiller in bad weather to assist the helms- 
 man, and in case of accident happening to the tiller ropes. 
 They are also strong tackles from the wharf to which the 
 ship is hove down, passed under her bottom and attached 
 to the opposite side, to assist in righting her afterwards, as 
 well as to prevent her from oversetting entirely. 
 
 RE'LIQUARY. A receptacle for the relics venerated in 
 Roman Catholic churches. The difference between a reli- 
 quary and a case (Fr. chasse) used for the same purpose is, 
 that the former is smaller in dimensions, and contains only 
 small fragments ; the latter, in many instances, entire bodies. 
 
 REMAI'NDER. The difference of two quantities left 
 after the less is subtracted from the greater. 
 
 Remainder. A remainder, in Law, is a future estate in 
 land, tenements, or hereditaments, limited to arise after the 
 determination of another estate ; as if land be granted to 
 A for twenty years, and afterwards to B and his heirs for 
 ever, B has a remainder in fee. An estate in reversion is 
 the residue left in the grantor, to commence in posses- 
 sion after the determination of some particular estate grant- 
 ed out by him ; as if A, being seised in fee-simple, gives to 
 B and his heirs male of his body (thus creating an es- 
 tate tail), on the failure of such heirs male the land given 
 reverts to A, who, therefore, prior to such failure, has an 
 estate in reversion in the lands. Remainders are either 
 vested or contingent ; vested or executed, where the estate 
 is invariably fixed, to remain to a determinate person after 
 the preceding estate (called the particular estate) is spent. 
 In this case, the remainder man has a present interest to be 
 enjoyed in futuro. Contingent remainders, otherwise called 
 executory, are defined to be " where the estate in remainder 
 is limited to take effect either to an uncertain person, or 
 upon an uncertain event ; so that the particular estate may 
 chance to be determined, and the remainder never take ef- 
 fect." The doctrines of law with reference to these es- 
 tates have gradually been moulded into a system so intri- 
 cate, and replete with the most refined distinctions, that it 
 would be impossible to give a cursory view of this branch 
 of our jurisprudence. An instance of a vested remainder 
 is to be found in the example before cited of an estate 
 granted to one party for a term of years, and afterwards to 
 another in fee simple. A contingent remainder limited to 
 an uncertain person is where, for instance, there is an estate 
 to A for life, and afterwards to B's eldest son (then unborn). 
 And in order to prevent the accumulation of future possi- 
 
 1047
 
 REMBLAT. 
 
 ble estates, the rule of law is. ili.it no Limitation by way of 
 remainder 01 executor] devise (». »., a grant of a contingent 
 remainder by w ill i shall be good which is to take effect af- 
 ter the determination of a life or lives in being and 2] 
 (the period of niiooritj ) afterwards. An instance of a con- 
 
 tJUL'cnt remainder limited on an uncertain event is where 
 laud is given tn A for life, and in case 1! survives A then to 
 B in fee. 
 
 The particular estate, which precedes in legal language 
 supports) a vested remainder, may he either of years, or of 
 
 freehold; to support a contingent remainder it must neces- 
 sarily be of freehold. 
 
 RRMBTiAL (Fr.) A term used in Fortification to de- 
 note the earth or materials used in filling up a trench or ex- 
 cavation. It is opposed to deblai, which denotes the mate- 
 rials o\ca\ ated. 
 
 REMEMBRANCERS. Officers of the Court of Exche- 
 quer, who perform various functions, the chief of which is 
 to put the judges of that court in reun inhrance of BUch 
 things as are to be called on or done for the king's benefit 
 They were formerly three in number; the king's remem- 
 brancer, the lord treasurer's remembrancer, and the remem- 
 brancer of first fruits ; hut the duties of the second of these 
 officers were merged in the tirst by 3 &. 4 Will. 4, c. 99. 
 
 RF.'.MICES. (Lat. remigo, / row.) The quill feathers 
 of the wings of a bird, which, like oars, propel it through 
 the air. 
 
 RE'MTPEDS, Remipcdes. (Lat. rema, an oar; pes, a 
 foot.) The name of an order of Coleopterous insects, inclu- 
 ding those which have tarsi adapted fur swimming. See 
 Ni i ropoDS. 
 
 H EM I'TTENT FEVER. Any fever which suffers a de- 
 cided remission in its violence during the twenty-four hours, 
 but without entirely leaving the patient, is called a remit- 
 tent ; it differs from an intermittent in there never being a 
 total absence of fever. These fevers are most common in 
 autumn, and they vary in degree from extreme mildness to 
 alarming violence, and are both inflammatory and malig- 
 nant. The remittent fever of children, or, as it is often 
 called, the infantile fever, is generally symptomatic either 
 of worms in the intestines, or of a foul state of bowels, aris- 
 ing from inattention to diet, or from the indigestible trash 
 which children frequently indulge in: the tongue is very 
 foul, the head aches, the belly is tumid, food is loathed; 
 the child is drowsy all day, but restless and often deliri- 
 ous at night, and the bowels torpid. A proper system of 
 purging is the most essential part of the treatment in these 
 cases; and under it the symptoms, though often alarming 
 and obstinate, gradually give way. Calomel, with scam 
 monyand jalap, aided, if necessary, by infusion of senna and 
 aperient salts, are the principal remedies, and saline draughts 
 and diluents in the intervals, If bilious diarrhoea ensue, 
 with vomiting, the irritability of the stomach must be allay- 
 ed by effervescing salines, and that of the bowels by very 
 Dild aperients; if the head is much affected, cold and evap 
 orating lotions may he used. Good air, thorough ventila- 
 tion, and light farinaceous diet, with the above treatment, 
 generally effect a cure ; hut the disorder is often very obsti- 
 nate, and continues for three weeks or a month. The yel- 
 
 loir frri r. or bilious remittent of hot climates, and especially 
 of the West Indies, is another form of this fever ; it appears 
 to be produced by marsh miasma. In all these fevers par- 
 ticular symptoms occasionally present themselves, which 
 require particular modes of treatment; and this must also 
 be modified according to the inflammatory, malignant, ner- 
 vous, or intermittent form which they may assume or pass 
 into. 
 
 REMONSTRANTS. In Ecclesiastical History. SeeAR- 
 
 M1M \ns. 
 
 RE'MPH IN. An idol worshipped by the Israelites while 
 in the wilderness, according to the language of St. Stephen, 
 as recorded in the Acts, » Ye took up the tabernacle of Mo 
 
 lOCh, and the star of your god Remphan." In this passage 
 
 commentators are agreed that St. Stephen quotes the words 
 of Amos, -Ye have home the tabernacle of your Moloch 
 
 and Chinn, your images." Chiun anil Remphan are, th. re 
 fore, the same, and both are thought to he personifications 
 
 of Sirius, the 1 tog -tar. [F.nr. Brit.) Chiun is supposed 
 by si, I,,,. I,, | M . the same word a- Chan or Khan. Chagan, 
 Kiinig, "king;" Remphan or Raiphan, "high or exalted 
 light." 
 
 RENAL GLANDS. There is a glandular body upon 
 each kidney o|' a somewhat triangular shape, small in the 
 adult, but in the fOBlUS longer than the kidney ; it is called 
 the renal, or supra-renal, gland or capsule; it has no excre- 
 tory duct, ami us use is unknown. 
 
 RENDERED. In Architecture. Se« Hindered andSet. 
 
 Rendered ash Floated, in Architecture, plastering of 
 three coats on brickwork. 
 
 RENDERED ami S«T. In Architecture, a term used to 
 
 denote plastering of two coats on naked brick or stonework. 
 
 If the work Is to he of three coats, it is called roughing >n. 
 1048 
 
 RENT. 
 
 Pricking up is the first of three-coat plaster on lath, or on 
 brickwork, that has been previously rendered. The mate- 
 rials lor rendering and pricking up are the same. 
 
 Rendered, Floated, and Set for Paper. In Archi- 
 tecture, plastering of three coats; the tirst being lime and 
 
 hair upon buck work ; the sen mil. the same compound, with 
 the addition of a little more hair, and then floated with a 
 long rule; the third. Jim stuff mixed with white hair. 
 
 RENNET, or RUNNET. The prepared inner membrane 
 
 of the calf's stomach, which has the property of coagula- 
 ting the albumen of milk and converting it into curd and 
 whey. 
 
 RENT. (I, at. reditus ; Fr. fermage, loyer des terres.) 
 In Political Economy, and in ordinary language, the sum 
 paid by llie fanners or lessees of lands to the landlords. 
 
 In order to acquire clear and correct ideas with respect to 
 
 the nature and origin of rent, it is necessary to discriminate 
 between the sources whence it usually arises ; that is, be- 
 tween the portion paid tor the use of the natural and inhe- 
 rent powers of the soil, and the portion paid for the use of 
 
 the buildings, fences, drains, mads, and other improvements 
 
 made upon the soil. Two farms may be naturally of about 
 equal goodness, and equally well situated; hut if little or 
 no capital have been laid out on the one, while a great deal 
 has been judiciously laid out on the other, they will let for 
 very different sums. It is usual, no doubt, to class all sums 
 derived from hind, whatever may be their origin, under the 
 common name of rent; hut it is obviously necessary, in an 
 inquiry of this sort, to distinguish between the sums paid 
 for the use of the land and those paid for the use of the 
 improvements, if there be any, made upon it. Landlords 
 are, for the most part, capitalists as well as owners of the 
 soil : and the sums paid to them by their tenants for the 
 use of the capital expended upon the soil, though included 
 under the term rent, are substantially and in tact profits, 
 and depend wholly on the circumstances by which they are 
 governed. Rrnt really, therefore, consists of that portion 
 of the gross sum paid far laml, that is, paid for the use of 
 tin natural ami into r, at powers of the soil, or that mould be 
 paid fur the land supposing it to hi in a state of nature, and 
 without any improvement upon it. The owners of the soil 
 receive this portion of their gross income, not because they 
 are capitalists, but because they are landlords. And we 
 shall now briefly endeavour to exhibit the origin of this pay- 
 ment, or of rent, in the scientific and restricted sense of the 
 term. 
 
 Origin of Rent. — On the first settling of any country 
 abounding in large tracts of unappropriated land, rent, in 
 the sense now explained, is unknown ; and for this obvious 
 reason, that no person will pay rent for what may be pro- 
 cured in unlimited quantities for nothing. In such countries 
 rent only begins to appear when the best of the unappropri- 
 ated lands have become private property and been occupied. 
 Suppose, however, this comes to be the case, and that the 
 population has increased, so that the demand for raw prod- 
 uce can no longer be supplied by the culture of the best 
 lands: under these circumstances, it is plain either that 
 population must become stationary, or that the price of raw 
 produce must rise so as to enable inferior lands to be culti- 
 vated. No advance short of this will procure another 
 bushel of corn; and competition will not, as will be imme- 
 diately seen, allow prices to rise permanently above this 
 level. Under the circumstances supposed, the inhabitants 
 have but one alternative. If they pay a price sufficient to 
 cover the expense of cultivating secondary lands, they will 
 obtain additional supplies; if they do not, they must be 
 without them. 
 
 Suppose, now, that the price rises so as to pay the expense 
 of raising corn on soils which, in return for the same ex- 
 penditure that would produce 1(10 quarters on lands of the 
 tirst quality, will only yield HO quarters ; it is plain it will 
 then be indifferent to a farmer whether he pay a rent of 
 ten quarters for the first quality Of land, or farm tile second 
 quality, which is unappropriated and open, wilhoul paving 
 any rent. If the population went on increasing, lands 
 w hub would yield only 80, 70, fid, 50, &c, quarters in re- 
 turn for the same expenditure that had raised 100 quarters 
 on the best lands might be successively brought under cul- 
 tivation. And When recourse has been had to these Inferior 
 foels. the Corn renl Of those that are superior would plainly 
 be equal to the ditlerence between the quantity of produce 
 obtained from them and the quantity obtained from the 
 WOrSl quality under tillage. Suppose, for example, that IhO 
 WOTSt quality cultivated J lelds 60 quarters, then the rent of 
 
 the first quality w ill be 40 quarters, or 100—60; the rent of 
 
 the second quality will, in like manner, he equal to the dif- 
 ference between 'JO and 00, or :ill quarters ; the rent of the 
 third quality will he equal to 80 — 00, or L J0 ipiarlers, and 
 BO on ; the produce raised on the land last cultivated, or by 
 means of the capital Ia8t applied to the soil, being all the 
 
 while sold at u- necessary price, or at that price which is 
 sufficient merely to cover the cost of its production, Inclu-
 
 RENT. 
 
 ding therein the ordinary rate of profit on the capital of the 
 cultivators. If the price were above this level, agriculture 
 would be a peculiarly profitable business, and tillage would 
 be immediately extended : if, on the other hand, the price 
 fell below this level, capital would be withdrawn from the 
 soil, and the poorer lands thrown out of cultivation. Under 
 such circumstances, it is clear that rent could not enter into 
 the price of that portion of the necessary supply of produce 
 raised by means of the capital last applied to the soil. Its 
 price is exclusively made up of wages and profits. The 
 proprietors of the superior lands obtain rent ; but this is the 
 necessary result of their greater fertility. The demand 
 cannot be supplied without cultivating inferior soils, the 
 produce of which must necessarily sell for such a price as 
 will afford the ordinary rate of profit to their cultivators. 
 This price will, however, yield a surplus over and above 
 the ordinary rate of profit to the cultivators of the more fer- 
 tile lands ; and it is this surplus that forms rent. 
 
 In so far, therefore, as rent is a return for the use of the 
 soil, and not for the capital laid out on improvements, it 
 results entirely from the necessity of resorting, as population 
 increases, to soils of a decreasing degree of fertility, or of 
 applying capital to the old land with a less return. It va- 
 ries inversely as the produce obtained by means of the cap- 
 ital and labour employed in cultivation ; increasing when 
 the profits of agricultural labour diminish, and diminishing 
 when they increase. Profits are at their maximum in coun- 
 tries like Australia, Indiana, and Illinois ; and generally in 
 all situations in which no rent is paid, and the best of the 
 good lands only are cultivated ; but it cannot be said that 
 rents have attained their maximum so long as capital yields 
 any surplus in the shape of profit. 
 
 A quarter of wheat may be raised in Kent or Essex, or in 
 the Carse of Gowrie, for a. fourth or a fifth part, perhaps, of 
 the expense necessary to raise it on the worst soils in culti- 
 vation in the less fertile parts of the country. The same 
 article cannot, however, have two or more prices at the 
 same time and in the same market. And it is plain, that if 
 the price be not such as will indemnify the producers of the 
 wheat raised on the worst soils, they will cease bringing it 
 to market, and the required supplies will no longer be ob- 
 tained; while, if the price exceed this sum, fresh capital 
 will be applied to its production, and competition will soon 
 sink prices to their natural level ; that is, to such a sum as 
 will afford the common and ordinary rate of profit to the 
 raisers of that portion of the required supply which is pro 
 duced under the most unfavourable circumstances, or at the 
 greatest expense. The cost of producing this portion gov- 
 erns the price of the whole crop. It is plainly, therefore, 
 the same thing to the consumers whether, in an advanced 
 stage of society, the excess of return over the cost of pro- 
 duction on superior lands belong to a non-resident landlord 
 or an occupier. It must belong to the one or the other. 
 Corn is not high because rent is paid, but rent is paid be- 
 cause corn is high ; because the demand is such that it 
 cannot be supplied without cultivating soils of a diminished 
 degree of fertility as compared with the best. Suppose 
 there is in any country an effectual demand for ten millions 
 of quarters of corn ; that nine millions may be raised upon 
 lands that yield a high rent ; but that it is necessary to raise 
 the other million on inferior lands, which yield nothing but 
 the common and average rate of profit to their cultivators. 
 Under these circumstances, it is clear that the relinquishing 
 of the rents payable by the cultivators of the superior lands 
 would be no boon to the cultivators of those that are infe- 
 rior. It would not lessen their expenses ; that is. it would 
 not lessen the capital and labour employed by them in the 
 production of that portion of the required supply raised on 
 their lands ; and unless it did this, it is obviously impossi- 
 ble, supposing the demand not to decline, that it could lower 
 prices. Although, therefore, landlords were to give up the 
 whole of the rents, their doing so would have no influence 
 over prices. Such an act would turn farmers into landlords, 
 and landlords into beggars; but there its effect would stop. 
 But the case is entirely different when the cost of production 
 varies. If it diminish, the competition of the producers will 
 infallibly sink prices in the same proportion. If it increase, 
 no supplies will be brought to market/unless the price rise 
 to a corresponding level. In no case, therefore, whether 
 the demand be great or small, whether it be for one thou- 
 sand or one million quarters, can the price of raw produce 
 ever permanently exceed or fall below the sum necessary 
 to pay the cost of producing that portion of the required 
 supply that is raised on the worst land, or by means of the 
 last capital laid out on the soil. 
 
 It has been objected to this theory, that, though it mav 
 apply in unappropriated countries like New Holland, it wiil 
 not apply in countries like England, where land is univer- 
 sally appropriated, and where, it is alleged, the worst quali- 
 ties always yield some small rent to the proprietor. 
 
 It may be observed of this objection, that, even if it were 
 well founded, it would not practically affect the conclusions 
 
 previously established. There are in England and Scotland 
 vast tracts of land which do not let for Gd. an acre ; but to 
 cultivate them would require an outlay of many thousands 
 of pounds, and the rent would consequently bear so small a 
 proportion to the expenses of production as to become alto- 
 gether evanescent and inappreciable. 
 
 There can be no doubt, however, that there is in this, and 
 most other extensive countries, a great deal of land which 
 yields no rent. In the United States and Russia, such is 
 unquestionably the case ; and yet no one presumes to say 
 that the laws which govern rent in them are different from 
 those which govern it in England and France. The poor- 
 est lands are always let in immense tracts. If it were at- 
 tempted to let particular portions of these tracts separately, 
 no one would offer for them ; but they appear to yield rent, 
 because, though they really fetch nothing, the more fertile 
 spots with which they are intermixed may, in most cases, 
 be let for a larger or smaller rent. But, though every rood 
 of land in Britain paid a high rent, it might still be truly af- 
 firmed that such rent did not enter into the price of raw 
 produce. The rent of a country consists of the difference, 
 or the value of the difference, between the produce obtained 
 through the agency of the capital first applied to the land 
 and that which is last applied to it. It would, as already 
 seen, be exactly the same thing to a cultivator, whether he 
 paid a rent of ten quarters to a landlord for land yielding, 
 with a certain outlay, 100 quarters of corn, or employed the 
 same capital in cultivating inferior land yielding only 90 
 quarters for which he paid no rent. Were it possible al- 
 ways to go on obtaining equal returns for every equal addi- 
 tional capital applied to the superior soils, no person, it is 
 obvious, would ever resort to those of inferior fertility ; and, 
 under such circumstances, the largest population might be 
 supported on the smallest extent of land. But such is not 
 the law under which food is obtained ; and the fact that in 
 the progress of society new and less fertile land is invariably 
 brought under cultivation, demonstrates that additional cap- 
 ifil and labour cannot be indefinitely applied with the same 
 advantage to the old land. The state of a country may be 
 such, the deniand for agricultural produce may be so great, 
 that every quality of land yields rent ; but it is the same 
 thing, in respect of this theory, if there be any capital em- 
 ployed on land which yields only the ordinary rate of profit, 
 whether it be employed on old or new land. And that there 
 is everywhere a very large amount of capital employed in 
 such a manner, is a feet of which there cannot be any doubt 
 Whatever. The owners and occupiers of land are influen- 
 ced by the same principles, in the employment of their cap- 
 ital and labour, that influence other men. Like them, they 
 endeavour, in prosecuting their own interest, so to adjust the 
 capital they employ that the last quantity laid out may yield 
 the common and ordinary rate of profit, neither more nor 
 less. Suppose, for example, that a landlord occupies a farm 
 which he might let for £200 a year, producing, with a cer- 
 tain outlay of capital, 300 quarters of wheat. If the farm 
 be managed with the requisite skill and attention, the wheat 
 should, at an average, sell for so much money as is equiva- 
 lent to the rent, the expense of labour, and the profit on the 
 capital employed. Suppose, now, that the landlord finds 
 that by laying nut additional capital on the farm it may be 
 made to yield 10, 20, 50, or 100 quarters more, he will make 
 the outlay, provided the additional produce yield the ordi- 
 nary rate of profit. He will not wait, before commencing 
 the improvement, until prices rise to a still higher elevation. 
 It will be quite enough to induce him immediately to set 
 about it, that they are such as afford a fair prospect of real- 
 izing the usual return on the capital to be expended. He 
 will, in fact, act exactly as the merchant or manufacturer 
 acts who sends another ship to sea, or builds another cotton 
 mill, whenever he supposes that the capital so embarked 
 will yield customary profits. And, supposing that the farm 
 is let to a tenant, he. it is obvious, will do the very same thing 
 as the proprietor, if he obtain so much more profit as will, 
 over and above the usual return, suffice to replace the cap- 
 ital itself previously to the termination of his lease. Wheth- 
 er he will employ this additional capital depends entirely 
 on the circumstance of prices being such as will repay his 
 expenses and profits ; for he knows he will have no addi- 
 tional rent to pay. Even at the expiration of his lease, the 
 fact of an additional capital having been employed would 
 not ecrasion any rise of rent, unless in so far as some por- 
 tion of it, by being permanently incorporated with the soil, 
 may increase its productive powers; and were his landlord 
 to require more rent because a greater moveable capital had 
 been employed, he would cease to employ it, since by the 
 supposition he gets only the same profit he might get by 
 employing it in any other department of industry. 
 
 If we reverse the previous suppositions, and suppose that 
 the owner of a farm finds that, owing to a fall in the price 
 of corn, the capital employed in its cultivation does not yield 
 the common and ordinary" rate of profit, he will then, acting 
 on the same principle that led him in the other case to in- 
 3 T * 1049
 
 RENT. 
 
 Crease the capital on the farm, withdraw a part or, it may 
 be the Whole, of such capital : ami, supposing it to be Jet, 
 the rent would be proportionally reduced at the end of the 
 lease, or sooner. 
 
 li la DOI to be supposed that we mean to affirm that these 
 result-; follow immedi itely, and without any difficulty, on a 
 rise or fall of prices : on the contrary, they take place only 
 ■- : and are often productive, on the one hand, of 
 peculiar advantages, and, on the other, of peculiar sacrifices. 
 But, in purely theoretical inquiries, or such as have the es 
 tablisbmenl of principles for their object, such accidental 
 circumstances may be overlooked; and it may, generally 
 speaking, be said that the last portion of capital laid out on 
 the soil yields only the common and average rate of profit. 
 If, on the one hand, it were to yield more, fresh capital 
 would be drawn to agriculture, and competition would sink 
 prices to such a level that they would only yield this rate. 
 If, on the other hand, the capital last applied to the soil 
 should yield less than this common and average rate, it 
 would be v. ithdrawn until, by the rise of price, the last re- 
 maining portion of capital left this rate to its owners: and 
 hence it follows that, whether the last quality of land taken 
 into cultivation yield rent or not, the last capital applied to 
 the land yields only the common and average rate of profit : 
 and, consequently, the price of the produce which it yields, 
 and which determines the price of all the rest, is totally un- 
 affected by rent. 
 
 It is farther said by those who have cavilled at this theo- 
 ry, that it represents the cultivation of had land as the cause 
 of rent; whereas it is, they affirm, the growing demand of 
 the population for food that is its cause, it being the rise of 
 price consequent upon this increased demand that occasions 
 the cultivation of bad lands, and the payment of a rent for 
 those that are superior. This, however, is, at best, mere 
 verbal trithng. The demand of the population for corn ele- 
 vates its price to such a height as is necessary to obtain the 
 required supply, and may, therefore, be truly said to be the 
 cause of its being produced; but rent originates in the pecu- 
 liar circumstances under w Inch supplies of corn are produ- 
 ced. Were it not that it is most frequently necessary, in 
 obtaining increased supplies of corn, to resort to soils of dif- 
 ferent degrees of fertility, or to apply capital, with a less 
 return, to the old land, rent would be altogether unknown; 
 nor, though the demand for corn were increased in a ten- 
 fold proportion, would prices be permanently elevated. It 
 does, therefore, seem to be logically, as well as substantially 
 correct, to affirm that the decreasing fertility of the soil is 
 the immediate cause of rent, and that its amount is deter- 
 mined by the extent to which bad land is cultivated or good 
 land forced. 
 
 This analysis of the nature and causes of rent discovers 
 an important distinction between agricultural, and commer- 
 cial, and manufacturing industry. In manufactures, the 
 worst machinery is first set in motion, and every day its 
 powers are improved by new inventions, and it is rendered 
 capable of yielding a greater amount of produce with the 
 same expense ; and as no limits can he assigned to the 
 quantity of improved machinery that may he introduced, 
 as a million of steam engines maybe constructed for the 
 same, or rather for a less proportional expense than is re- 
 quired Cor the construction of one, competition never fails 
 to reduce the price of manufactured commodities to the 
 sum for which they may he purchased, according to the 
 least expensive method of production. 
 
 In agriculture, on the contrary, the best machines, or best 
 soil-, are brought first into use ; and recourse is afterwards 
 hail to interior soils, or those requiring a greater expenditure 
 to make them yield the same supplies, it is true that Im- 
 provements iii 'In' construction Of farming implements, the 
 discovery of more efficient manures, and the Introduction 
 of more prolific crops and improved systems of management, 
 Increase in a high degree the productiveness of the soil, 
 and proportionally reduce the price of raw produce ; but a 
 fall of price, though permanent in manufactures, is only 
 temporary in agriculture. When the price of corn is re- 
 duced, all classes obtain greater quantities than before in 
 exchange lor their products, or their labour; hence the 
 rate of profit, and, consequently, tie- accumulation of capital, 
 are both increased : ami tin- Increase, bj causing a greater 
 
 demand for labour and higher wages, leads, in the end, to 
 ise of population, and a further demand for raw 
 produce and an extended cultivation. Agricultural im- 
 pi ivements obviate, sometimes for a lengthened period, the 
 necessity of having recourse to inferior -oils . still, hou et er, 
 this effect cannol lie permanent. The stimulus which they | 
 at the same time give to population, and the natural ten- 
 dency of mankind to increase up to the means of subsistence, ' 
 is sure, iii the long run, to raise prices, and, by forcing re- j 
 
 Course to poor lands, rents also. 
 
 In illustrating this important distinction between agricul- 
 ture and manufacturing industry, Mr. Malthas DBS set the 
 
 theory of rent in a striking point of view. "The earth," 
 1050 
 
 he observes, " has been sometimes compared to a vast 
 machine, presented by nature to man for the production of 
 food and raw materials ; but to make the resemblance more 
 just, as far as the] admit of comparison, we should consider 
 the soil as a present to man of a great number of machines, 
 ail susceptible of continued improvement by the application 
 of capital to them, but yet of very different original quali- 
 ties and powers. 
 
 "This great inequality in the powers of the machinery 
 employed in procuring raw produce, forms one of the most 
 remarkable features which distinguishes the machinery 
 of the land from the machinery employed in manufac- 
 tures. 
 
 " When a machine in manufactures is invented which 
 will produce more finished work with less labour and capi- 
 tal than before, if there be no patent, or as soon as the 
 patent is over, a sufficient number of such machines may 
 be made to supply the whole demand, and to supersede en- 
 tirely the use of all the old machinery. The natural con- 
 sequence is that the price is reduced to the price of pro- 
 duction from the best machinery ; and if the price were to 
 be depressed lower, the whole of the commodity would be 
 withdrawn from the market. 
 
 " The machines which produce corn and raw materials, 
 on the contrary, are the gifts of nature, not the works of 
 man ; and we find by experience that these gifts have very 
 ditl'erent qualities and powers. The most fertile lands of a 
 country, those which, like the best machinery in manufac- 
 tures, yield the greatest products with the least labour and 
 capital, are never found sufficient to supply the effective 
 demand of an increasing population. The price of raw 
 produce, therefore, naturally rises till it becomes sufficiently 
 high to pay the cost of raising it with inferior machines 
 and by a more expensive process ; and, as there cannot be 
 two prices for corn of the same quality, all the other ma- 
 chines, the working of which requires less capital] compared 
 with the produce, must yield rents in proportion to their 
 goodness. 
 
 " Every extensive country may thus he considered as 
 possessing a gradation of machines for the production of 
 corn and raw materials, including in 'his gradation not only 
 all the various qualities of poor land, of which a very large 
 territory has generally an abundance, but the interior 
 machinery which may be said to he employed when good 
 land is farther and farther forced for additional produce. 
 As the price of raw produce continues to rise, these inferior 
 machines are successively called into action; and as the 
 price of raw produce continues to fall, they are successively 
 thrown out of action. The illustration here used serves to 
 show at once the necessity of the actual price of corn to 
 the actual produce, and the different effect which would 
 attend a great reduction in the price of any particular 
 manufacture and a great reduction in the price of raw pro- 
 duce." (Inquiry into the .Vature and Progress of Kent, 
 p. 37.) 
 
 It appears, therefore, that in the earlier stages of society, 
 and when only the best lands are cultivated, rent is un- 
 known. The landlords, as such, do not begin to share in 
 the produce of the soil until it becomes necessary to culti- 
 vate lands of an inferior degree of fertility, or to apply capital 
 to the superior hinds with a diminished return. Whenever 
 this is the case, rent begins to be paid ; and it continues to 
 increase according as cultivation is extended over poorer 
 soils, and diminishes according as the^e poorer soils are 
 thrown out of cultivation. Kent, therefore, depends exclu- 
 sively on the extension of tillage. It is high where tillage 
 is widely extended over inferior lands, and low where it 
 is confined to the superior descriptions only. But in no case 
 does rent enter into price ; for the produce raised on the 
 poorest lands id" a country, or by means of the capital last 
 applied to the culture of the soil, determines the price of 
 the entire crop; and this produce yields only the common 
 and average rate of profit. 
 
 Influence of situation on Rent. — In the previous state- 
 ments we have, to simplify the consideration of the ques- 
 tion, omitted to notice the influence of situation on rent. It 
 is plain, however, that this is a very important element in 
 determining its amount; and that diflerence of situation 
 lias precisely the same sort of influence over rent as differ- 
 ences of fertility. Thus, suppose two farmers employ 
 equal quantities of capital, as 5000 quarters each, in the cul- 
 tivation of farm- of the same goodness, the one situated in 
 the immediate vicinity of London, and the other in York- 
 shire ; and suppose, farther, that London is the market to 
 which the produce of both farms is sent, and that the cost 
 of conveying corn from Yorkshire to London i- ."is. a quar- 
 ter : under these circumstances, if the gross produce of each 
 firm were 1000 quarters, of which the landlord received 
 one fifth part, oi 200 quarters, as rent, the farm oear Lon- 
 don would fetch £50 a year more than the farm in York- 
 shire. For, as the corn raised in the districts adjacent to 
 London is not adequate for its supply, its price in the city
 
 RENT. 
 
 must suffice to pay those who bring any portion of the 
 necessary supplies from the greatest distance, as well for 
 the expenses of carriage as for those of production ; and 
 the farmer in the immediate vicinity, who gets this increased 
 price for his produce, will have to pay a proportional in- 
 crease of rent, in the same way that the occupier of good 
 land has to pay an increased rent ; when inferior lands are 
 taken into cultivation. 
 
 It would, on many accounts, be desirable readily to dis- 
 tinguish between that portion of the gross rental of a coun- 
 try which is to be considered as rent, properly so called, or 
 as the remuneration paid to the landlords for the use of 
 the natural powers of the soil, and that portion which is 
 the return to, or the interest upon, the capital laid out upon 
 houses, fences, drains, roads, and other improvements. 
 But how desirable soever, it is admitted by all practical 
 men that it is quite impossible to make such a distinction 
 with anything approaching to accuracy. No two of the 
 most expert agriculturists, supposing them to be desired to 
 resolve the gross rental of a single improved farm into its 
 constituent parts, would arrive at the same result. Im- 
 provements become so much blended with the natural 
 powers of the soil, that the influence of the one cannot be 
 separated from that of the other ; and it is merely the joint 
 value of the two that can be estimated. No doubt can, 
 however, be entertained by any one who reflects for a mo- 
 ment on the vast sums, the many hundreds, or rather 
 thousands of millions, that have been laid out upon the soil 
 of Great Britain, that the payment made to the landlords 
 for the use of its natural powers is inconsiderable, compared 
 with that made to them on account of improvements ; and 
 hence the inequality and mischievous operation of taxes on 
 rent. Two landlords receive equal rents from their estates ; 
 but the rent of one is principally a consequence of natural 
 fertility, while that of the other is derived principally from 
 outlays of capital. What, then, could be more unfair than 
 to subject them both to the same equal tax ? And yet the 
 amount of their rents is the only criterion to which recourse 
 could be had in fixing the amount of the tax ; for all the 
 tax collectors in the world could not separate between what 
 was really rent, in the scientific sense of the term, and 
 what was interest on capital. Such a tax would oppose 
 the most effectual obstacle to improvements. Instead of 
 carrying capital from other employments to the land, it 
 would henceforth be carried from the land to them. The 
 object would not then be to have an estate look well, but 
 to have it look ill ; and it may be said of estates as of indi- 
 viduals, 
 
 Pauper videri Cinna vult, et est pauper. 
 The effects that were formerly produced by the taille, 
 and that are now produced by the contribution fonciere in 
 France, and the fluctuating land taxes imposed in other 
 countries, abundantly confirm the truth of this statement. 
 Their influence has been most disastrous. 
 
 The theory of rent explained in this article was first pro- 
 mulgated and satisfactorily established in a tract on the 
 corn laws, published at Edinburgh in 1777, by Dr. James 
 Anderson, a native of Hermandston in Mid Lothian, editor 
 of the Bee and other publications. But notwithstanding 
 the clear and able manner in which he explained the theory, 
 and its ingenuity and importance, his elucidations do not 
 appear to have attracted the least attention ; and seem, 
 indeed, to have been completely forgotten. So much so 
 was this case, that when, in 1815, Mr. Malthus and Sir 
 Edward West published tracts explaining the nature and 
 origin of rent, they were universally believed to be the 
 authors of the theory. Although, however, there is, we 
 believe, no doubt as to their originality, still they were 
 merely the expositors of a theory that had been clearly and 
 ably explained above forty years previously to the publica- 
 tion of their tracts. 
 
 Rent, in Law, is defined " a certain profit issuing yearly 
 out of lands and tenements corporeal," not necessarily, 
 although by English usage generally, consisting in money. 
 There are at common law three kinds of rents: 1. Rent- 
 service ; having some incident of feudal service connected 
 with it, for which the landlord might distrain of common 
 right. 2. Rent-charge, where the owner of the rent had no 
 future interest or reversion expectant on the land ; as where 
 one having parted with his land reserved a rent with a 
 clause of distress in the deed, by which the land was charged 
 with the payment of the rent. 3. Rent-seek, reditus siccus, 
 w*ich was rent reserved by deed without a clause of dis- 
 tress. But the common remedy of distress was extended 
 to all these divisions of rent by 4 G. 2, c. 38. (See Dis- 
 tress.) The ordinary remedy by action is in debt, for the 
 breach of the express contract ; or covenant may be brought 
 for the breach of a covenant to pay rent. And these actions 
 may be brought at any time within twenty years after the 
 cause of action shall have accrued. A " fee-farm-rent" is 
 a rent issuing out of an estate in fee. The common term 
 M rack-rent" has no particular legal acceptation, and merely 
 
 REPEATING CIRCLE. 
 
 means a rent at or near the full value of the premises de- 
 mised. 
 
 REPE'AT. In Music, a character :$: denoting the repe- 
 tition of the part which it bounds. It is sometimes ex- 
 pressed by dots against the bar, and sometimes by the words 
 Da Capo. 
 
 REPEATING CIRCLE. In order to diminish the effect 
 of errors of graduation, and to obtain very accurate measure- 
 ments by means of comparatively small, and, therefore, 
 portable instruments, a method of observing was invented, 
 or rather brought into use, by Borda, which is now exten- 
 sively employed, especially in geodetical operations. The 
 method, which consists in moving the telescope successively 
 over portions of the graduated limb corresponding to the 
 angle to be measured, and reading only the multiple arc, 
 may be advantageously applied to circular instruments 
 destined for very different purposes : as, for example, to an 
 instrument for the measurement of the zenith distances of 
 stars or terrestrial objects, or the distance of two trigono- 
 metrical stations, in which case it is simply called repeating 
 circle; to a reflecting circle used for observations at sea, 
 when it becomes a repeating reflecting circle ; or to a theo- 
 dolite, when it becomes a repeating theodolite. 
 
 For the purpose of giving an idea of the principle of this 
 method, we borrow the following illustration from Sir J. 
 Herschel : " Let P Q. be two objects, which we may suppose 
 fixed for purposes of mere explanation; and let K L be a 
 telescope moveable on O, the common axis of two circles, 
 A M L and A B C, of which the former, A M L, is abso- 
 lutely fixed in the plane of the objects, and carries the 
 graduations freely moveable on the axis. The telescope ia 
 attached permanently to the latter circle, and moves with 
 it. An arm, O a A, carries the index or 
 vernier, which reads off the graduated 
 limb of the fixed circle. This arm is 
 provided with two clamps, by which it 
 can be temporarily connected with either 
 circle, and detached at pleasure. Sup- 
 pose now the telescope directed to P. 
 Clamp the index O A to the inner circle, 
 and unclamp it from the outer, and read 
 off; then carry the telescope round to 
 the other object Q,. Li so doing the inner 
 circle, and the index arm, which is 
 clamped to it, will also be carried round over an arc A B 
 on the graduated limb of the outer equal to the angle P O 
 Q,. Now clamp the index to the outer circle, and unclamp 
 the inner, and read oft*. The difference of readings will of 
 course measure the angle POO.; but the result will be 
 liable to two sources of error, that of graduation, and that 
 of observation, both of which it is our object to get rid of. 
 To this end transfer the telescope back to P, without un- 
 clamping the outer circle ; then, having made the bisection 
 of P, clamp the arm to A, and unclamp it from B, and again 
 transfer the telescope to Q, by which the aim will now be 
 carried with it to C over a second arc B C equal to the angle 
 POd. Now again read off; then will the difference be- 
 tween this reading and the original one measure twice the 
 angle P O Q, affected with both errors of observation, but 
 only with the same error of graduation as before. Let this 
 process be repeated as often as we please (suppose ten 
 times) ; then will the final arc A B C D read off on the cir- 
 cle be ten times the required angle, affected by the joint 
 errors of all the ten observations, but only by the same con- 
 stant error of graduation, which depends on the initial and 
 final readings off alone. Now the errors of observation, 
 when numerous, tend to balance and destroy one another ; 
 so that, if sufficiently multiplied, their influence will dis- 
 appear from the result. There remains, then, only the 
 constant error of graduation, which comes to be divided in 
 the final result by the number of observations, and is there- 
 fore diminished in its influence to one tenth of its possible 
 amount, or to less if need be." (Astronomy, Cab. Cyc, p. 
 105.) 
 
 When the repeating circle is used for measuring zenith 
 distances, it is constructed so as to be capable of being 
 turned round on a vertical pivot, the direction of which 
 passes through its centre, and to which its plane is parallel, 
 and also of turning in its own plane about a horizontal axis. 
 The instrument being placed in the same vertical plane 
 with the star, the telescope is directed to the star and the 
 bisection made ; the telescope, which carries the verniers 
 with it, is then firmly clamped to the circle, and the circle 
 turned round 180° in azimuth about the vertical pivot. If 
 the circle be now kept fast, the telescope undamped and 
 carried round till the star is again bisected, it is plain that 
 the arc of the limb passed over by the verniers in conse- 
 quence of this motion of the telescope will be double the 
 zenith distance of the star. The same process is repeated 
 as often as may be thought necessary. For the purpose of 
 geodetical measurements the circle is usually furnished 
 with two telescopes, one on the face, and the other on the 
 
 1051
 
 REPELLENTS. 
 
 bark ; and BO placed thru the optical axes of both are ex- 
 actly in the plane of the circle. The circles used by 
 , and Delambre in the operations connected with 
 isureraeat of the French arc >>f meridian, were 
 about 4-10ths of a metre (nearly 1G inches) in diameter, 
 and were di\ Ided into arcs equivalent to about 39 sexagesl- 
 onda, which were subdivided into tenths by the 
 verniers. 
 
 The merit of first applying the Ingenious principle of 
 repetition to angular measurements belongs to Tobias 
 Mayer: but it was Borda, as above stated, who first brought 
 the instrument into general use. 
 
 For a description of the repeating circle, its adjustments, 
 and the method of using it. see Blot, AstrtmomU Physique, 
 tome L ; Delambre, JUstronomie, or Bast Metrique, tome I. j 
 Puissant, Traiti de Giodisie; Roper's Practice of Navi- 
 gation, fee. The comparative advantages and defects of 
 the instrument are very dearly stated in a paper by 
 Troughton in the first volume of "the Memoirs of the Royal 
 Astronomical s 
 
 REPE'LLENTS. Applications to thesurface of the body 
 which appear to make disorders n treat inwards. 
 
 REPE'LLING POWER. See Repulsion, 
 
 BJB'PENT. I.at. repo, I creep), in Zoology, is used in 
 the same sense as Creeping, and is applied to those animals 
 which move with the body close to the ground, either 
 without the aid of legs, or by means of more than four pairs 
 ofshori 
 
 RE PETEND. In Arithmetic, that part of a repeating 
 decimal which recurs continually ad infinitum. It is called 
 a simple repetend when then- is but one (inure, as -333. . . ad 
 inf. ; and a compound repetend w hen there are more figures 
 
 than one in the repeating period, as •029029 ad inf. It 
 
 is usual to mark the first and last figures of the period by 
 dots placed over them ; thus the repetends above mentioned 
 are written -It. and "029. 
 
 REPLE'VLN, in Law, is an action of tort, in which the 
 plaintiff seeks the recovery of goods illegally distrained. 
 
 ION. 
 
 REPLICATION. In Law, the third stage in the plead- 
 ings in an action, being the plaintiff's answer to the defend- 
 ant's plea. Set Pleading. 
 
 REPO'SE. I. t. repono, T lie doicn.) In the Fine 
 Arts, the absence of that agitation which is induced by the 
 Scattering and division of a subject into too many uncon- 
 nected parts. i M which case a work is said to want repose. 
 
 Where repose is wanting from this cause, "the eye," Bays 
 Sir Joshua Reynolds, " is perplexed and fatigued, from not 
 knowing win nre to rest, where to find the principal action, 
 or which is the principal figure; for where all are making 
 equal pretension all nre in danger of neglect." 
 
 REPRESENTATION. (I.at. representation In Poll 
 tics, the part performed by a deputy chosen by a constitu- 
 ent body to support its interests, and act in its name on a 
 
 public occasion. Thus a plenipotentiary represents the 
 sovereign or the state which delegates him at a foreign 
 Court Mut tie most ordinary use of the word is to express 
 pal function of the delegate of a constituency in 
 a legislative assembly. Representation, in this sense, was 
 unknown to the political systems of the ancients, and 
 seems to have originated in the necessities and usages of 
 feudal times; the lord not being able to lew aid from his 
 
 without their consent, it became customary for 
 these t<> delegate powers to individuals from among their 
 numbers t,, attend his summons, and confer with him re- 
 ri d. Hence, in our own country, the 
 '■■ tntj freeholders by knights, of corn- 
 
 by their chosen burgesses, in parliament. The 
 most complete early model of a representative feudal as 
 sembly is to be found in the parliament of the Sicilies tin 
 der ihe Suabian Mul's; but England is the only country in 
 which it has expanded regularly into a legislature. 
 
 The i lib f question, In political science, regarding the 
 system of representation is, lev, far each delegate repre- 
 sents tbe opinii . i body Which sends bini, and 
 is bound lo acl in obedience to their directions. This w as 
 unquestionably the early notion of representation. But the 
 constitutional principle of English statesmen has been in 
 general \ ery different, it is, that each member represents, 
 
 not the local body, but the entire nation. The ties which 
 
 bind him to bis constituents .are altogether subordinate to 
 
 eh ttai h to him in a general character, lie is 
 
 hound to sacrifice not only the wishes, but the immediate 
 and local interests of the body which sends him, if they 
 
 .are in Opposition b' tin' general fond of the country. The 
 most popular and best known exposition of this d 
 
 perhaps to he found in Burke's fa s speech to the electors 
 
 of Bristol, li follows as a corollary, thai constituencies act 
 
 lutionally in demanding pledges of candidates tor 
 tin ,r representation as to the part which the) are to take 
 
 on particular qu< dons. But this, like othei rule! oft 
 
 stilutional conduct, must not be pressed too far. Constilu- 
 
 1002 
 
 REPTILES. 
 
 encies, as well as representatives, are bound to use their 
 powers for the general good of the nation ; and there may 
 
 be Occasions, although rarely, on which those powers are 
 best used by Inking securitv of the representative that his 
 
 conduct, on some very Important ami critical questions, 
 
 will be in accordance With what they deem the national 
 view. See /:, nt /in in'.-- Rationale of Representation.) 
 Representation. In Painting and the other .\us. the 
 
 transference to a plane of a solid mass, or the appearance 
 of an object to the eye. 
 
 REPRIE'VE. i I 'torn the Fr. reprendre, to take back.) 
 In Law, the suspension of the execution of sentence, on 
 judgmenl in a criminal case for a certain time. Reprieve 
 at the will of the judge is arbitrary ; and the latter has pow- 
 er to gjve it wlnre he is dissatisfied with the verdict, in 
 onier to give time to apply to the crown for a pardon. Re- 
 prieve is also ii necessitate legis; as. a woman capitally 
 convicted has a riL'ht lo a reprieve during pregnancy ; or 
 When a party becomes insane betw een judgment and award 
 
 of execution. 
 
 REPRI'SALS, LETTERS OF. In National Law, the 
 capture of properly belonging to the subjects of a foreign 
 power in satisfaction of losses sustained by a citizen of the 
 capturing state. (See Letters of Marque.) Letters of 
 reprisal are grantable by the law of tuitions, where the sul>- 
 ject of one state has been oppressed or injured by the sub- 
 jects of another, and where justice has been refused on ap- 
 lication by letters of request. The mode of serving out let- 
 ters of marque and reprisal in time of time was regulated 
 by statute 4 Hen. 5, c. 7, but has been long disused. The 
 power of granting letters of marque and reprisal is some- 
 times given by proclamation of the king in council to the 
 lords of the admiralty. 
 
 REPRI'SES. In Law, deductions or payments out of 
 the value of lands ; such as rent-charges, or annuities. 
 
 REPROBA'TION, in Theology, is a term commonly 
 applied to the supralapsaiian tenet of the consignment of 
 all mankind to eternal punishment, with the exception of 
 those whom God has arbitrarily selected for eternal happi- 
 ness. Se< Election, Predestination. 
 
 REPRODUCTION. (Lat. reproduce, I reproduce.) This 
 word, in Physiology, is sometimes used for generation^ but 
 it signifies properly the power which a fully developed or- 
 ganized being possesses to push forth and form anew parts 
 
 of the body which have been cut oil'. Vegetables possess 
 
 this faculty in an eminent degree, and animals have the 
 power of reproduction in proportion as they resemble vege- 
 tables in the simplicity of their organization : thus tin; 
 freshwater polype Hydra viridis, when divided Into many 
 pieces, reproduces all its characteristic organs out of each 
 
 piece. Worms and ether Anneiides can reproduce many 
 segments of the body. Snails can push forth new horns, 
 and even reproduce a great part of the head. Lobsters 
 and spiders thus gain new claws or legs. Newts and liz- 
 ards reproduce their tails. 
 
 REPTA'TION. A mode of progression by advancing 
 successively parts of the trunk, which occupy the place of 
 the anterior parts which are carried forwards, as in ser- 
 pents: also applied to the slow progression of those ani- 
 mals whose extremities are so short that the body touches 
 the ground. 
 
 RE'PTILES, Reptilia. (La t. repo, I creep.) The name 
 of a class of cold-blooded Vertebrate animals, including 
 all those which have lungs, and a heart composed of two 
 auricles and one ventricle. Those \xhich retain their gills 
 during the whole or a part of their existence are termed 
 Batrachians or Amphibia: the latter name Limueus ap- 
 plied to the whole group, as well as to certain true fishes. 
 
 Sei Amphibians, Chelonians, Saurians, Ophidians and 
 Batrachians.) Cuvier, in characterizing the Class of rep- 
 tiles as defined by him, well Observes, that as it is from 
 
 respiration that the blood derives its heat, and the muscu- 
 lar fibre its susceptibility of nervous irritation, the blood of 
 
 reptiles is cold, ami the muscular energy less than thai of 
 
 quadrupeds, and much less than that of birds. Thus we 
 
 find their movements usual!) confined to crawling and 
 
 swimming; for though at Certain times several of them 
 jump and run with Considerable activity, their habits are 
 
 generally lazy, their digestion excessively slow, and their 
 
 sensations obtuse. In cold or temperate climates, almost 
 all of them pass the winter in a state of torpor. Their 
 brain, which is proportionally very small, is not so essen- 
 tially requisite to the exercise of their .animal and vital 
 faculties as to the members of the two first (lasses: their 
 sensations vein to be less referred to a common centre, lor 
 they Continue to live and to exhibit voluntary motions long 
 alter losing their brain, and even after tin' lOBS of their 
 
 head. A communication with the nervous system is also 
 linn b less necessary to the contraction of their fibres, and 
 their muscles preserve their irritability after being severed 
 
 from the body much longer than those of the preceding 
 classes: their heart continues to pulsate for hours after it
 
 REPUBLIC. 
 
 has been torn away, nor does its loss prevent the body 
 from moving for a long time. 
 
 The smallness of the pulmonary vessels permits reptiles 
 to suspend the process of respiration, without arresting the 
 course of the blood ; thus they dive with more facility, 
 and remain longer under water than either the Mammalia 
 or birds. 
 
 No reptile hatches its eggs. The young Batrachians on 
 quitting the egg have the form and branchiae of fishes, and 
 some of the genera preserve these organs even after the 
 development of their lungs. 
 
 The quantity of respiration in reptiles is not fixed, like 
 that of the Mammalia and birds, but varies with the pro- 
 portion of the diameter of the pulmonary artery compared 
 to that of the aorta. Thus tortoises and lizards respire 
 more than frogs, &c; and hence a much greater differ- 
 ence of sensibility and energy is manifested in this class 
 than can exist between one of the Mammalia and another, 
 or between birds. See Erpktology. 
 
 REPU'BLIC. (Lat. respublica, commonwealth.) That 
 form of government in which the supreme power is vested 
 in the people. A republic may be either an aristocracy or 
 a democracy : the supreme power, in the former, being 
 consigned to the nobles or a few privileged individuals, as 
 was formerly the case in Venice and Genoa ; while, in the 
 latter, it is placed in the hands of rulers chosen by and 
 from the whole body of the people, or by their representa- 
 tives assembled in a congress or national assembly. The 
 free towns of the Continent, Hamburg, Frankfort, Liibeck, 
 and Bremen, are instances of this latter form of govern- 
 ment; but the most perfect example of it is to be found in 
 the United States, in Texas, and in some of the South 
 American confederations which have shaken off" the Span- 
 ish yoke. In Switzerland, aristocracy is blended with de- 
 mocracy in the form of government. 
 
 REQUE'ST, LETTERS OF. In Ecclesiastical Law, 
 an instrument by which the regular judge of a cause 
 waives or remits his own jurisdiction, under the provisions 
 of the Statute of Citations, 23 H. 8, c. 9; in which event 
 the jurisdiction of the appellate court attaches. 
 
 REQUESTS, COURT OF. 1. An ancient court of equi- 
 ty, inferior to the Court of Chancery, of which the lord 
 privy seal was chief judge ; taken away by 16 & 17 C. 1, 
 c. 10. 2. The Court of Conscience, or of Requests, of Lon- 
 don, for the recovery of small debts, was erected in the 9th 
 year of H. 8, with jurisdiction between citizens and free- 
 men in cases of debt or damages under 40s., extended in 
 the reign of G. 3, to £5. The local courts instituted in 
 many parts of the kingdom for the recovery of small debts 
 by summary process are hence called popularly Courts of 
 Requests. Many of them are very recently erected, or in 
 process of erection, under local acts. The number of 
 causes tried in the Southwaik Court of Requests in 1837, 
 under 40s., was 14,474 ; above that sum, 3333. 
 
 RE'QUIEM. (Lat.) In the Roman Catholic Church, a 
 mass performed for the repose of the souls of deceased per- 
 sons. It is so called from the prayer commencing "Requi- 
 em sternum dona iis Domine." The term is also applied 
 to grand musical compositions performed on solemn occa- 
 sions in honour of deceased civil or ecclesiastical dignita- 
 ries. The requiems composed by Mozart, Jomelli, and 
 Cherubini are well known. 
 
 RE'SCRIPTS. (Lat. rescribo, I write back ) In the 
 Civil Law, answers of popes and emperors to questions in 
 jurisprudence propounded to them officially. Those of the 
 Roman emperors constitute one of the authoritative sources 
 of the civil law. 
 
 RE'SCUE. In Law, in the more general sense, a spe- 
 cies of resistance against lawful authority ; as, by deliver- 
 ing one arrested out of the hands of those who have legal 
 custody of him. In a more restricted application, the term 
 rescue means the taking away and setting at liberty, 
 against law, any distress taken for rent, or services, or 
 damage feasant. 
 
 RESEDA'CE^E. (Reseda, one of the genera.) A natu- 
 ral order of herbaceous or suffiutescent Exogens, inhabit- 
 ing Europe and Asia. There are but three genera belong- 
 ing to it ; and of these but one species, the common mig- 
 nonette, a Barbary plant, now a universal favourite for 
 the sake of its peculiar fragrance, is the only species pos- 
 sessing any interest except to the botanist. 
 
 RESERVOIR. (Fr.) A tank, or pond, in which water 
 is collected and preserved in order to be conveyed through 
 pipes for the supply of a town, &c. Thus, Edinburgh is 
 chiefly supplied with water by springs collected in a mag- 
 nificent reservoir seven miles distant from the city. The 
 term is also applied to a place where water is collected 
 and preserved for the more regular supply of a fountain 
 or drinking trough in seasons when it is not naturally 
 abundant. 
 
 RESIDENCE OF CLERGYMEN ON THEIR BENE- 
 FICES, is enjoined by the common law of England, as 
 84 
 
 RESISTANCE OF FLUIDS. 
 
 well as by the canon law and many statutory provisions. 
 These last are now consolidated by 1 & 2 Vict., c. 106. 
 Under that act, an incumbent is considered to be non-resi- 
 dent if he is absent for one or more periods exceeding in 
 the whole three calendar months in each year ; and will 
 be liable to the penalties unless he has obtained a license 
 for non-residence from the bishop, or is within any of the 
 statutory exemptions. The license may be given when 
 there is no house or fit place of residence, to reside in some 
 fit or convenient house described in the license, which 
 must be within three miles of the church ; or within two, 
 if the church be in a city, market, or borough town. The 
 statutory exemptions are in favour of a variety of officers 
 of cathedral and collegiate churches ; who may not, how- 
 ever, be absent on account of their residence and perform- 
 ance of duty elsewhere for more than five months. Li- 
 censes for absence from the benefice may also be granted 
 by the bishop, on petition, for a few other causes : incapa- 
 city of mind or body ; the dangerous illness of a wife or 
 child, part of the family — in which case the license is only 
 for six months, and requires the archbishop's renewal ; 
 and in case a house convenient for residence cannot be 
 procured within the benefice. The penalties are fixed in a 
 graduated scale, being the prefixtures of portions of the 
 value of the benefice, and may be proceeded for in the 
 bishop's court. The bishop may also proceed by monition 
 and sequestration. 
 
 RE'SIUUE. In Law, the remainder of a testator's es- 
 tate after payment of debts and legacies : if this remainder 
 be bequeathed to any one, he is styled the residuary lega- 
 tee. If a legatee dies before the testator, the legacy is a 
 lost or lapsed legacy, and sinks into the residue ; and this 
 provision of the law is extended to devises of real property 
 by 7 G. 4, and 1 Vict., c. 26, (the Wills Act) s. 25. See 
 Legacy, Will. 
 
 RE'SIN. (Gr. ptnvr) ; from /5cw, I flow.) A proximate 
 principle common in the vegetable kingdom, the ultimate 
 components of which are carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen. 
 There are many varieties of resin. Their general charac- 
 ters are fusibility and inflammability ; solubility in alcohol, 
 insolubility in water. They are generally separable into 
 tun distinct portions by the action of cold and of hot al- 
 cohol. They are valuable as ingredients in varnishes, and 
 several of them are used in medicine. They are often 
 naturally blended with modifications of gum, in which 
 case they constitute the series of gum resins. The specific 
 gravity of the resins varies between 1-0 and 14. They 
 become negatively electric by friction. The commonest 
 resin in use, usually called rosin, is obtained by distilling 
 turpentine : the volatile oil passes over, and the resin re- 
 mains in the still. 
 
 RESI'STANCE, in Mechanics, denotes generally a force 
 acting in opposition to another force, so as to destroy it or 
 diminish its effect. Resistance is sometimes considered as 
 of two kinds, active and passive ; the active resistance be- 
 ing that which corresponds to the useful effect produced 
 by a machine, and the passive that which belongs to the 
 inertia of the machine. Thus, in raising water from a 
 well, the active resistance to the force employed is meas- 
 ured by the quantity of water which is raised ; and the 
 passive resistance by the force required to overcome the 
 weight of the bucket and the rope, the friction of the pul- 
 ley on its axle, &c. 
 
 RESISTANCE OF FLUIDS. In Hydrodynamics, the 
 force with which a solid body moving through a fluid is 
 resisted or retarded. Of all the different kinds of resistance 
 which manifest themselves among bodies, there is none of 
 greater importance than this, on account of its application 
 to the theory of naval architecture. 
 
 Sir Isaac Newton was the first who gave a general theory 
 of the motions and actions of fluids. (.See Hydrodynam- 
 ics.) The Newtonian theory of the resistance of fluids, 
 which is given in the second book of the Principia, is 
 founded on the assumption of the perfect intennobility of 
 the particles of the fluid, and the equal propagation of pres- 
 sure in all directions. These are, indeed, the characteris- 
 tic properties of fluidity ; nevertheless, the results of the 
 mathematical theory differ so widely in many cases from 
 actual experiment, that some philosophers have called in 
 question the accuracy of the principles from which they 
 are derived. The theory, however, notwithstanding its de- 
 fects, furnishes some propositions of great practical use, 
 and, indeed, forms the groundwork of all our knowledge on 
 the subject. We shall here give a general view of its 
 leading principles. 
 
 It is evident that a solid body, in moving through a fluid, 
 must communicate a motion to the fluid particles with 
 which it successively comes in contact. Now, the quantity 
 of motion communicated to the fluid is necessarily equal to 
 that which is lost by the solid, and may therefore be taken 
 as the measure of the resistance. To determine this quan- 
 tity of motion, let us conceive a cylindricai or prismatic 
 
 1053
 
 RESISTANCE OF FLUIDS. 
 
 body, terminated by a plana perpendicular to us axis, to be 
 propelled through a non-elastic fluid in the direction of its 
 thai the particles of the fluid strike against the 
 plane perpendicularly: and lei A denote the area of the 
 anterior surface of the body, p the density of the fluid, and 
 c the velocity of the motion, during the small interval of 
 time .. ' Then the space described by the body in the 
 time d I is B d t ; the volume of the fluid displaced in that 
 tune is A p 1/ t ; the mass of the fluid displaced is p A d 
 t ; and the momentum or quantity of motion imparted to 
 the fluid is p A v d t X o = p A v- d t. Let It denote the re- 
 sistance of the fluid, we have then 
 
 R = pAv*dt. . . . (1.) 
 From this equation it appears that the resistance upon a 
 plane surface, moved perpendicularly through a non-elastic 
 fluid at rest, is proportional to the density of the fluid, to 
 
 Uie area of the plane, and to the square of the velocity. 
 
 We may deduce from equation (J) a measure of the 
 force of resistance by comparing it with the pressure of 
 gravity. Let A denote the height from which a heavy 
 body must fall in order to acquire the velocity v, and let g 
 be the accelerating force of gravity [32 feet in a second); 
 we have then (see Force) v 2 =%gh, and by substituting 
 this in equation (1), we get 
 
 R = 2pAhXgdt .... (2.) 
 Now, since g is the velocity generated by gravity in one 
 second, g d t \< the velocity genetated in the time d t ; and 
 since - p A A expresses the mass of a prism of" the fluid, 
 having A for the area of its base and 2A for its altitude, 
 %p AAX gdt is the quantity of motion which the prism 
 would acquire by the free action of gravity in the time d t; 
 in other words, its weight. We have, therefore, this prop- 
 osition : The direct resistance of an unelastie fluid an any 
 plane surface is equal to the weight of a column of the fluid 
 having the surface for its base, and for its altitude twice 
 the height due to the velocity with which the surface moves 
 tht flu 1 1. I ,et W be the weight of the unit of vol- 
 ume of the liquid ; we have thru 
 
 R = 2WA A. . . . (3.) 
 The above measure of the force of resistance is deduced 
 on the supposition that the direction of the motion is per- 
 pendicular to the plane. If the shock is received obliquely, 
 the resistance will be greatly diminished. Let A B repre- 
 sent the profile of the plane, and M N the 
 E direction of the motion of the plane in stag- 
 nant water, or of a vein of fluid DCBE 
 striking against the plane, supposed to be 
 fixed. Let F be the intersection of M N 
 wilh A I!, and draw B C perpendicular to 
 M N. Now, if A denote the area of the 
 given plane AB,i the velocity of the mo- 
 B tion. and It the direct resistance due to the 
 velocity v (that is, the resistance which the 
 plane would sustain if placed perpendicular- 
 ly to M N) ; then (1) we have R=zp A «2 d 
 t. On F N take F G, to represent It. This 
 force F G may be resolved into two, F II perpendicular 
 and II G parallel to A B, of which the latter produces no 
 effect on the plane ; hence the resistance Is diminished, by- 
 reason of the oblique impact, in the ratio of F II : F G, or 
 of" .-in. i : 1 (t denoting the angle of incidence A F N). But, 
 again, the absolute resistance is also proportional to the 
 number or filaments which strike the plane; and it is ob- 
 vious that the number which would strike it in the oblique 
 position A 1! is less than the number which would strike it 
 if direct!} opposed to the stream, in the ratio of B C i B A, 
 or of sin. 1 : 1. Comj iding this with the former ratio, 
 
 the total diminution Of resistance is as .sin. -V : 1 ; that is to 
 say, the absolute resistance or pressure in the direction F 
 II perpendicular to the plane is it sin. V, 
 
 It still remains to find the effective impulse or resistance 
 In the direction of the motion. Draw 11 1 perpendicular to 
 M N. The force in the direction i" n may be resolved Into 
 F I and I II, of which the effective part is I' I. Hence the 
 effective impulse is to the absolute oblique impulse as r 1 to 
 F II, or as sin, t : 1 ; consequently the effective impulse on 
 
 (he plane in the direction M N is 11 sill. 3,. Let this be de- 
 note d by E'; we have then 
 
 R' = R sin. 3i = p A »2 d t X sin. H (4.) 
 
 If We denote by A' the area of the projection of the plane 
 A B upon a plane perpendicular to M N. we have A' = A 
 cos. A BC : A sin. i; and since p v* d t — 2 W A, the 
 above formula becomes, by substitution, 
 
 R'sJWA'J sin. ti (5.) 
 
 From this last formula the effective oblique impulse In 
 the direction of the stream upon any plane surface is easily 
 
 computed. For other Burf&CeB than planes, it i- 1 
 to find an expression for the resistance on the differential 
 element of the surface, which may be regarded as. coinci- 
 1054 
 
 ding with its tangent plane; and the sum of all these re- 
 Bistances, found by the usual process of Integration, will 
 give tin} whole resistance on the surface. For a surface of 
 revolution we have 
 
 dA' = 2rrv<2y and sin. 2, 
 
 -(LM.Y 
 
 therefore, 
 
 /"di/3 
 
 dy3 
 
 Numerous experiments have been made for the purpose 
 of ascertaining how far this theory of the resistance of fluids 
 agrees with the actual facts, or for forming an empirical 
 theory for the guidance of the engineer. Of the details of 
 these experiments our limits will not permit us to give an 
 account ; but the principal experimenters, and works in 
 which the results may he found, are the following: Sir 
 Isaac Newton [Principia, lib. ii.) ; Mariotte (Traite des 
 Mouvemens des Eauz); Gravesande (System of Natural 
 Philosophy) ; 1). Bernoulli and Krall't (Comment. I'etmpol.) ; 
 Borda (Mem. de VAcad. des Sciences de Paris, 1763 and 
 1707) ; Condorcet, D'Alembert, and Bossut, by order of the 
 French government in 177.V, Bossut (Hydrodynamiqwe); 
 Du Buat (Principes «P Hydraulique) ; Robins (Gunnery).; 
 Don George d'Ulloa (F.r.aman Maritime); Coulomb (Mem. 
 de V Institut. torn, iii.) ; Vince (PAiV. Trans.); llutton 
 (Tracts.); Beaufpy (Nautical and Hydraulic Experi- 
 ments) ; Russel (Trans, of the Royal Society of Edin. vol. 
 xiv.), &c. The general results of the experiments may be 
 stated as follows : 
 
 I. The force of resistance on bodies moving in fluids is 
 proportional to the square of the velocity, at hast within 
 the limits of 2 to 10 feet per second. This is in accordance 
 with the theory. 
 
 II. The direct resistance on bodies moving with the same 
 velocities is nearly in the ratio of the surfaces. 
 
 III. The resistances on surfaces moving obliquely do not 
 by any means vary In the ratio of" the squares of the sines 
 of the angles of incidence, especially when the incidence 
 is very oblique ; and for such motions the theory must be 
 entirely abandoned. 
 
 The above results are, however, considerably modified 
 by various circumstances, of which the principal are the 
 following: 
 
 1. The form of the body. The Newtonian theory takes 
 account only of the anterior surface of the body ; but it was 
 clearly established by the experiments of Du Bual that the 
 form of the hinder part is not less efficacious in modifying 
 the resistance. A prismatic body, having its prow and poop 
 equal and parallel surfaces, being plunged horizontally into 
 a stream, will require, in order to keep it immoveable, a 
 force in the direction of its axis equal Co the difference of 
 the real pressures exerted on its prow and poop. If the 
 fluid is at rest, this difference will be nothing, because the 
 opposite dead pressures are equal ; but in a stream there is 
 superadded to the dead pressure on the prow the active 
 pressure arising from the deflection of the filaments of the 
 fluid, which being turned aside and rendered divergent by 
 the obstruction of the anterior surface, a part of the pres- 
 sure of the circumambient fluid is employed in turning 
 them into the trough behind the body, and consequently 
 there is less pressure on the posterior surface than if the 
 body were at rest in stagnant water, so that the body is im- 
 pelled backwards. This force is called by Du Buat the 
 non pressure \ by Beaufoy the minus pressure. Now, the 
 whole impulse to be withstood if the body is in a stream, 
 or the resistance to be overcome if it moves in stagnant 
 water, is the sum of the active pressure on the fore part 
 and the non-pressure on the hinder part; and this does not 
 di pend solely on the form of the prow and poop, but also, 
 and perhaps chiefly, on the length of the bod) . The non- 
 pressure on a cube was found bj experiment to be reduced 
 
 to a fourth part, by making the length of the body triple of 
 the breadth. The mere lengthening of a ship, without 
 changing the form of the prow or poop, increases the speed. 
 
 2. Another circumstance Which modifies the general re- 
 sults is the velocity of the body. It was asceitained, by 
 Mr. Russel'a experiments on canal boats, that the resistance 
 
 dors not follow the ratio of the squares of the velocities, 
 excepting when the velocity is small and the depth consid- 
 erable ; but that the increments of the resistance are great- 
 er than those due to the squares of the velocities as the \ e- 
 loclty approaches to a certain limit depending on the depth 
 of the fluid; and that Immediately after passing tins limit 
 
 the resistance sutlers a sudden diminution, and becomes 
 
 much less than that due to the square of the velocity. In 
 
 a canal about live and a half bet deep this limit (which is 
 
 1 Ity of the wave generated by the motion of the 
 body) was found to be from 11 to 12 feet per second, or 
 about eight miles per hour. 
 
 :f. A third cause which modifies the theory is the adhe- 
 sion of the molecules of the fluid, which is most sensible
 
 RESISTANCE OF FLUIDS. 
 
 when tile motion is slow and the body small and very long. 
 In such cases, it becomes necessary to add a term depending 
 on the first power of the velocity. 
 
 4. The resistance is also influenced by the depth of the 
 body under the surface of the water. When the body is 
 near the surface the resistance is greater than when it is at 
 the depth of six feet. When a body floats, the fluid is heap- 
 ed up, as it were, before the anterior surface, by which the 
 resistance is increased. 
 
 5. In elastic fluids, as the density increases with the pres- 
 sure, the density of the fluid before the anterior surface in- 
 creases with the velocity, and the increments of the resist- 
 ance are greater than in the ratio of the square of the velo- 
 city. In this case, also, we may conceive a velocity so 
 gieat that the pressure on the posterior surface becomes ne- 
 gative, as in the case of a cannon ball projected with a ve- 
 locity greater than that with which air rushes into a vacuum. 
 When this takes place the fluid is not even in contact with 
 the posterior surfaces of the ball, and the character of the 
 resistance is wholly changed. See Projectiles. 
 
 6. When a body moves in a fluid a portion of the fluid 
 adheres to the body, and accompanies it in its motion ; 
 whereby the form of the moving body is altered, and the 
 resistance increased. The quantity of fluid thus dragged 
 along is independent of the velocity, and was estimated by 
 Du Buat, from experiments made on spheres vibrating in 
 water, to increase the quantity of displaced fluid in the 
 ratio of 1 to l - 6. His experiments on prisms also showed 
 that the quantity of dragged fluid was proportional to the 
 bulk of the moving body. Mr. Baily (Phil. Trans. 1832) 
 gives, as the mean results of his experiments on pendulums 
 swinging in air, the ratio 1 to l - 848 as the increase of the 
 displaced fluid from this cause ; and remarks that the quan- 
 tity appeared to depend on the form as well as magnitude 
 of the moving body, but not on its weight or specific gravity. 
 This circumstance, which considerably modifies the resist- 
 ance, though made known by Du Buat in 1786, was over- 
 looked by other experimenters, until re-discovered by Bessel 
 in 1826, when engaged on experiments to determine the 
 length of the seconds' pendulum. 
 
 From the above considerations, it may be inferred that the 
 resistance R opposed to any body moving through a fluid, 
 considered as a pressure of so many pounds weight, will be 
 expressed by an equation of tins form. 
 
 R = (m + n) W A h ; 
 where W is the weight in pounds of the unit of volume of 
 the fluid (one cubic foot) ; A the area of the greatest trans- 
 verse section of the body, expressed in square feet ; h the 
 height in feet due to the velocity, so that h = vZ — 64 ; and 
 m and n numerical coefficients, constant for bodies of simi- 
 lar figure, but variable for bodies of different figures, and to 
 be determined by experiment for each kind of body ; m hav- 
 ing reference to the impulse and pressure on the anterior 
 surface, and jt to the non-pressure on the posterior part. 
 The following are a few of the cases for which values of m 
 and n have been found. 
 
 When a thin plate is directly opposed to the impulse of a 
 stream, the value of m -f- n appears to increase with the 
 area. If A is equal to a tenth of a square foot, m + re = 
 1-4 ; and if A = 1 square foot, ra-f- 7t= 1-9. The value of 
 m -f- n for surfaces of larger dimensions has not been suf- 
 ficiently determined. For a prismatic body terminated by two 
 planes, the pressure against the anterior force remains con- 
 stant ; but the non-pressure, or value of n, diminishes as 
 the length increases. For a cube held fast in a scream, Du 
 Buat found jn-f-7i = l-46; and for a prism whose length 
 was from three to six times the square root of its face, m-f- 
 n = l - 34. But when the bodies moved in srill water, he 
 found, as for the thin plate, m-\-n = 1-43; for the cube, m 
 -f- n = 1-17 ; and for the prism, m + n = I'lO. 
 
 By means of these values the actual resistances are read- 
 ily computed for each body, when the velocity is given. 
 Suppose the velocity to be 3 feet per second, and the oppos- 
 ing surface in each case to be 1 square foot. For v = 3, we 
 have A = 9-f-64 = -1406. With respect to W, the weight 
 of an imperial gallon of water, at temperature 62° and un- 
 der the mean pressure, is 10 lbs. avoirdupois; but an impe- 
 rial gallon contains 277-27 cubic inches, whence the weight 
 of a cubic foot of wnter is 62-3 lbs. avoirdupois. Hence, if 
 the bodies are impelled through stagnant water with a ve- 
 locity of 3 feet per second, the absolute resistances in each 
 case are as under : 
 For the thin plate R = 1-43 x 623 X -1406 = 125 lbs 
 For the cube R = 1-17 X 623 x 0406 = 10-2 
 
 For the prism R = 1-10 X 623 X -1406 = 96 
 
 The effect produced by the addition of a poop or prow 
 was also determined by Du Buat. The addition of a poop 
 to a prismatic body whose length is four or five times its 
 breadth only diminishes the resistance by a tenth part. But 
 when a prow consisting of two equal vertical planes, mak- 
 ing with each other an angle of 60°, was added, the re- 
 
 RESPIRATION. 
 
 sistance was reduced to about a half. On giving the prow 
 the form of a semicylinder, the resistance was also reduced 
 about a half. The section of the prow being a triangle 
 whose height was double the base or breadth of the prism, 
 the resistance was reduced to two fifths. In general, a 
 prow having a curved surface produces a greater diminu- 
 tion of the resistance than one of equal magnitude termi- 
 nated by plane surfaces. 
 
 For a sphere moving in water or in air with a moderate 
 velocity, the experiments give m-\- n=- 0-6; but this value 
 increases when the velocity becomes great, as in the case of 
 a projectile. The experiments of Bossut on the model of a 
 ship moved in the direction of its axis gave ?n+?i = 0-16. 
 This may be considered as the value corresponding to the 
 solid of least resistance. For the effect with which solid 
 bodies resist an effort tending to break or crush them, see 
 Strength of Materials ; and for the resistance of the 
 atmosphere on a projectile, see Gunnery, Projectile. 
 
 RESISTANCE, SOLID OF LEAST. In Mechanics, 
 the solid whose figure is such that in its motion through a 
 fluid it sustains the least resistance of all others having the 
 same length and base ; or, on the other hand, being station- 
 ary in a current of fluid, offers the least interruption to the 
 progress of that fluid. In the former case, it has been con- 
 sidered the best form for the stem of a ship ; in the latter, the 
 proper form for the pier of a bridge. The determination of 
 the curve whose revolution gives the body having this pro- 
 perty is a problem which can be solved by the ordinary me- 
 thods of maxima and minima, when the law of resistance 
 is assumed. On the hypothesis that the resistance is pro- 
 portional to the square of the velocity, Newton gave the 
 following construction : Let a curve D G be so taken that if 
 from any point N in it, an ordi- 
 nate N M be drawn perpendi- 
 cular to the axis A B, and from 
 a given point G the line G R 
 be drawn parallel to the tan- 
 gent N T at N, cutting the axis 
 in R ; then if M N : G R : : G 
 Rs : 4 B R • B G2, the solid generated by the revolution of 
 this curve about the axis A B will be the solid of least re- 
 sistance. (Prtneipia, lib. ii., prop. 34.) 
 
 RESOLUTION. (Lat. resolutio.) In Medicine and 
 Surgery, this term implies the cessation or dispersion of in- 
 flammatory action without the formation of an abscess or 
 mortification. 
 
 Resolution. In Music, the writing out of a canon or 
 fugue in partition from a single line. 
 
 Resolution of a Discord. The descent by a tone or 
 a semitone, according as the mode may require, of a dis- 
 cord which has been heard in the preceeding harmony. 
 
 Resolution of Equations. The finding the values 
 which the unknown quantity or quantities must have, so as 
 to fulfil the conditions expressed in the proposed equation ; 
 viz. of rendering the aggregate value of all the positive 
 terms equal to the aggregate value of all the negative terms. 
 These values are called the roots of the equation. See 
 Equation. 
 Resolution of Forces. See Resultant. 
 Resolution, or Solution, in Mathematics, is the orderly 
 enumeration of the things to be done to obtain what is re- 
 quired in a problem. A problem may be divided into three 
 parts — the proposition, the resolution, and the demonstra- 
 tion. 
 
 RE'SONANCE. (Lat. resonans.) In Music, the return- 
 ing of sound by the air acting on the bodies of stringed mu- 
 sical instruments. 
 
 RESPIRA'TION. (Lat. respiro, / breathe.) The func- 
 tion by which the nutrient circulating fluid of an organized 
 body is submitted to the influence of air, for the put pose of 
 changing its properties. The great end which appears to 
 be answered by respiration is the removal of carbon, in the 
 form of carbonic acid, from venous blood. This gas is ac- 
 cordingly found in the air which is expired from the lungs ; 
 and the blood, having lost its carbonic acid, at the same 
 time loses its dingy hue, and acquires the florid red which 
 characterizes arterial blood. It has been shown by Dr. 
 Stevens that a peculiar attraction exists (not chemical) be- 
 tween oxygen and carbonic acid, which acts through mem- 
 branes, and in consequence of which the carbonic acid ap- 
 pears to be attracted, as it were, out of the venuos blood, by 
 the oxygen of the air in the cellular structure of the lungs; 
 while, at the same time, a portion of oxygen, probably 
 equal in bulk to that of the emitted carbonic acid, is ab- 
 sorbed by the blood, and contributes to its arterial charac- 
 ters. The change from the arterial to the venous state, and 
 consequently the formation of carbonic acid, appears to take 
 place in the capillary junctions of the artery and vein ; but 
 how it is there effected we know not. 
 
 From the quantity of carbonic acid emitted from the lungs 
 in a given time, it has been attempted to ascertain the quan- 
 tity of carbon which is thus thrown off"; but the usual esti- 
 
 1055
 
 RESPIRATOR. 
 
 mates upon this subject, which place it nt about 12 ounces 
 in the 24 boats, arc ptobobt) overrated, Inasmuch as that 
 quantity of carbon is more than exists in the food daily 
 taken into the stomach, If wo average it at 6 ounces, it 
 will probably be nearer the truth ; and »> ounces of charcoal 
 an- equal to 22 ounces of carbonic acid gas. Besides car- 
 bonic acid, there is also a quantity of aqueous vapour 
 thrown out with the expired air; this is probably Chiefly 
 produced by the superficial exbalents of the lungs, but it 
 may also be partly derived from transpiration from the 
 blood. It has not lurn satisfactorily ascertained whether 
 nitrogen is taken up by the blood as well as oxygen, 
 though experiments have rendered it probable that a por- 
 tion of that component of the atmosphere is also absorbed. 
 
 Respiration of Plants. See Botany. 
 
 RESPIRATOR. An instrument fitted to cover the mouth, 
 over which it is retained by proper bandages : it is construct- 
 ed of a series of flattened silver or gilt wires over and be- 
 tween which tin? air passes and repasses in the act of respi- 
 ration and of speaking. It is presumed that the warm air 
 emitted from the lungs imparts its excess of temperature to 
 the small metallic bars, and that these in their turn impart 
 heat to the cold air drawn through them at each inspiration ; 
 so that in this way the low temperature of the external air 
 in cold weather is mitigated before it reaches the lungs, and 
 its supposed noxious influence prevented. When a handker- 
 chief is tied over the mouth, and we are obliged to breathe 
 through the nose, the extreme low temperature of the ex- 
 ternal air is similarly mitigated before it reaches the lungs. 
 
 RESPONDE'NTLA. In Mercantile Law, a species of 
 contract; which differs from bottomry in that the loan is 
 effected on the security of the freight, and not on that of 
 the ship itself. Sec Bottomry. 
 
 REST. In Music, a pause or interval of time, during 
 which there is an intermission of the voice or sound. A 
 rest may be for a bar, or more than a bar, or for a part of a 
 bar only. 
 
 RESTITUTION, WRIT OF, in Law, lies where judg- 
 ment has been reversed, to restore to the defendant what 
 he has lost II can properly only be granted where the 
 party cannot be restored by the ordinary course of law. 
 Restitution of goods to a party robbed was unknown to the 
 common law; but the Btat. 21 II. 8, c. 11, first saw it. Bv 
 the statute 7 & H O. 4, c. 29, s. 57, it is now in the power of 
 the court to award a writ of restitution of goods and chat- 
 ties, and to restore them in a summary manner, where a 
 thief or fraudulent taker has been indicted on the part of 
 the owner and convicted. Such restitution cannot be grant- 
 ed Of a valuable security, where the property has passed 
 into Other hands by a bona tide the transaction. But a writ 
 of restitution will reach goods stolen, although they have 
 been sold in market overt. Restitution can only be had 
 from the person in possession Of the goods at the time of 
 
 and after the felon's conviction. 
 
 RESTORATION. THE, in English History, is applied by 
 waj of eminence to the accession of Charles II. tothe throne 
 alter an Interregnum of eleven years and four months, from 
 Jan. 30. 1649, when Charles I. was beheaded, till May 29, 
 1660. The latter day is appointed in the liturgy of the En- 
 glish Churcb as an anniversary festival in commemoration 
 of the restoration of the monorchia! form of government in 
 these realms. 
 
 RESU'LTANT, in Dynamics, is the force which results 
 from the composition of two or more forces acting upon a 
 body. When the two forces act upon a body in the same 
 line of direction, the resultant is equivalent to the sum of 
 both ; when they act In opposite directions, the resultant is 
 equal to their difference, and acts in the direction of the 
 greater. If the lines of direction of the two forces are in- 
 clined to each other, then, on taking in each direction from 
 the point wlnre thej interseel a straight line to represent 
 each of the forces respectively, and constructing a parallel 
 
 oL'ram of which these lines are the sides, the resultant is 
 
 represented both In intensity and direction bj the diagonal 
 of the parallelogram passing through the point ofintersec 
 tJon. By combining this resultant u nh a third force, a new 
 
 resultant will be obtained ; and in this manner the resul- 
 tanl of any number of forces may be determined. See Com- 
 
 oi Forces. 
 RESURRE'CTION. (Lat. resurgo, T rise again.) The 
 history of the resurrection of our Saviour is detailed in the 
 
 separate narration of each of the lour Evangelists, and is 
 also referred to and Insisted on in tin- Acts Of the Apostles, 
 and in every one of the Epistles. The importance of this 
 
 history, as an evidence ofthe truth of Christianity, is point- 
 ed out in a peculiar manner by Palej I 'vidi nets, pari 2, cb. 
 8); namely, that it was alleged from the beginning by all 
 
 the propagators of Christianity, and relied on as the great 
 
 t' • of the doctrines which they taught; consequently, if 
 
 the fact be untrue, they must all have l,een eilbei deceiv- 
 ers, or deceived in a point on which it is morally n. 
 hie tin j could be so. 
 1050 
 
 RETICULUM. 
 
 RESUSOITA'TION. (Lat. resuscitare, to arouse.) This 
 term is generally used to signify the restoring to animation 
 of persons apparently dead. Tlie first and principal object 
 in these cases is to aerate the blood by the artificial intro- 
 duction of fresh air into the lungs, and to restore the nat- 
 ural function of respiration ; the lungs, therefore, must be 
 inflated, and proper stimulants applied when necessary; 
 among these, in cases of drowning and of apparent death from 
 exposure to cold, friction and warm bath are eminently im- 
 portant : alter hanging, the vessels of the brain often require 
 to be unloaded by venesection in the jugular vein. Electri- 
 city is sometimes resorted to, but generally hopelessly. In 
 all these cases no time should on any account be lost, as 
 everything depends upon prompt treatment, as well as 
 upon proper means ; and many lives have been lost for 
 want of immediate aid, and skill in applying it. The at- 
 tempts to restore suspended animation should not be given 
 up till unequivocal proofs of death are manifest. (See 
 DROWNING.) The details of the management of different 
 cases of apparent death are too extensive to come within our 
 limits: upon ibis subject the reader may advantageously 
 consult Taylor's Elements of Medical Jurisprudence. 
 
 RETA'INER. In old English Law, a servant not dwel- 
 ling in the master's house or employed by him in any dis- 
 tinct occupation, but wearing his livery (i.e., hat, badge, or 
 suit), and attending on particular occasions: an important 
 relic of the times of private warfare. The giving liveries, 
 or retaining this class of servants, was forbidden by many 
 statutes with little efl'ect. The statutes themselves were 
 repealed by 3 Car. 1, c. 1 ; but the usage had then nearly 
 
 RETAINER, or RETAINING FEE. In the language of 
 the Bar, a fee given to a counsel to secure his services; or 
 rather, as it has been said, to prevent the opposite side from 
 engaging them. A special retainer is for a particular case 
 expected to come on. A general retainer is given by a par- 
 ty desirous of securing a priority of claim on the counsel's 
 services for any case which he may have in any court 
 which that counsel attends. The efl'ect of it is merely this, 
 that if a counsel having a general retainer receive a special 
 retainer on the other side, he cannot accept it until twenty - 
 four hours after notice shall have been given of its arrival 
 to the party so generally retaining him ; when, if he does 
 not receive a brief or a special retainer from the latter, he is 
 hound to accept it. The same wind in its strict legal accep- 
 tation signifies the engagement of an attorney by his client, 
 which enhances the mutual duties implied by the law be- 
 tween them. 
 
 RE'l'ARDA'TION. The act of hindering the free pro- 
 gress of a body, and ultimately, therefore, stopping it. It 
 arises from the opposition of the medium in which the body 
 moves, or from the friction of the surface upon which it 
 moves. Sec Friction, Resistance. 
 
 RE'TE MUCO'SUM. (Lat.) The soft and apparently 
 fibrous mailer, or layer, situated between the cuticle and 
 the cutis ; it is the seat of the colour of the skin. It is black in 
 the negro, and the colouring matter is of such a nature as to 
 admit of being bleached bv the action of chlorine. 
 
 RE'TIARII'.S, Retiaria. (Lat. rete, a net.) In Entomo- 
 logy, those spiders are so called which spin a web or net to 
 entrap their prey 
 
 RETIA'RIUS. (Lat. rete, a net.) The name of a class 
 of Roman gladiators armed in a peculiar way. The retia- 
 rius was furnished with a trident and net, with no more 
 covering than a short tunic ; and with these implements he 
 endeavoured to entangle and despatch his adversary, who 
 was called secutor (from sequi, to follow), and was armed 
 with a helmet, a shield, and sword. 
 
 RE'iTCCE.Vl'i:. (Lat. rete.) In Zoology, when a sur- 
 face has a number of minute impressed lines which inter- 
 sect each other in various directions, like the meshes of a 
 net. 
 
 RETI'CULATEH \V< IRK. In Architecture, that where- 
 in the stones are square and laid lozengewiso, resembling 
 
 the meshes of a net. This species of masonry is scarcely 
 ever practised in the present dav ; but it was very common 
 among the ancients. 
 
 RETl'CUliATES, Reticulata. (T.at. reticulum, a vrt.) 
 The name id' a section of Lithophytes, comprehending those 
 
 in which the polype cells have a reticulate disposition on 
 
 the surface of expanded plates. 
 
 RE'TICI'I.E. In a telescope, a network of some fine 
 fibres crossing each other al right angles, and dividing the 
 field of view into a series of small equal squares. It has 
 been long used for observations on the quantity of the ™- 
 
 llghtened parts of a luminary d urine eclipses : and is found, 
 
 under most circumstances, well adapted for the purpose, 
 when placed in a convenient position In respect to the ob- 
 ject gloss of the telescope. The term reticule is also ap- 
 plied to a well Known article, formerly of network, but now 
 of every description of materials, used bv ladies. 
 RETI'CULUM. (Lat.) The name ofthe. "honeycomb
 
 RETINA. 
 
 bag," or second cavity of the complex stomach of the Ru- 
 minant quadrupeds ; so called because of the reticulate or 
 honeycomb-like disposition of the mostly hexagonal cells 
 which occupy its inner surface. 
 
 RE'TINA." (Lat. rete.) The pulpy expansion of the op- 
 tic nerve in the interior of the eve ; it is the seat of vision. 
 
 RETINASPHA'LTUM, or RETINITE. (Gr. pcTivn, 
 resin, and aoipaXrov, bitumen, retinite.) A substance dis- 
 covered by Mr. Hatchett, associated with Bovey coal, and 
 which has since been found in other coal strata. When 
 digested in alcohol it yields a portion of resin, and asphal- 
 tum remains ; it appears, therefore, to be a substance inter- 
 mediate between resin and bitumen, and renders it probable | 
 that bitumens are of resinous origin. 
 
 RETINITIS. Inflammation of the retina. 
 
 RE'TIPEDS, Retipedes. (Lat. rete. and pes, afoot.) 
 The name given by Scopoli, to one of the divisions of a bi- 
 nary arrangement of birds, including all those which have 
 the skin of the tarsi divided into small polygonal scales. 
 
 RETI'RED FLANK. In Fortification, a flank having 
 an arc of a circle with its convexity turned towards the 
 place. 
 
 RETORT. A chemical vessel employed in a variety of 
 
 O/' N distillations, it is generally made 
 ^Ca ) of glass or earthenware, and 
 
 \^ J sometimes is provided with a 
 ■ stopper so placed above the bulb 
 
 JSk. as to enable substances to be in- 
 c? f ^, troduced into it without soiling 
 
 >lr £ ± J t] ie neck ; in this case it is called 
 
 ( } (2.) ^ ' a tubulated retort. A receiver is 
 
 \ J usually annexed to it for the pur- 
 
 pose of collecting the products of distillation. Fig. 1 repre- 
 sents a plain retort and receiver ; in tig. 2, both are tubula- 
 ted. 
 
 RETOUCH. In Painting. Sculpture, &c, a verb used to 
 denote the reapplication of the master's hand to a work 
 which he had theretofore considered in a finished state. 
 
 RETRACE. In Painting, &c, a verb used to denote the 
 renewal of the outline of a drawing. 
 
 RETRENCHMENT. See Fortification. 
 
 RETROCE'DENT. A term applied in Medicine to those 
 diseases which move about from one part of the body to an- 
 other; as retroccdent gout, when it leaves the toe for the 
 stomach. 
 
 RETROGRADATION. A term applied to the apparent 
 motion of a planet when it is contrary to the order of the 
 signs, or when the planet appears to move westward among 
 the fixed stars. See Planet. 
 
 RETU'RN, in Law, in its most usual signification, is ap- 
 plied to writs. The return to a writ is, properly speaking, a 
 recital by the sheriff or other officer to whom it was directed 
 of what he has done in execution of it ; as, for exam- 
 ple, in cases of civil process, that the defendant cannot be 
 found (technically called, non est inventus), has no goods 
 within the sheriff's bailiwick (nulla bona), and so forth. 
 This is endorsed on the writ ; and the writ is then delivered 
 into the court whence it issued on the " return day," or day 
 when the writ is returnable. The remedy against the sher- 
 iff for a false return is by action on the case. The return 
 of members of parliament is thus, strictly speaking, the re- 
 turn by the sheriff, or other returning officer, of the writ ad- 
 dressed to him, certifying the election in pursuance of it. 
 See Parliament. 
 
 Return. In Architecture, a projecture, moulding, or 
 Wall continued in a different or opposite direction. 
 
 REVEILLE. (Fr. literally, awake.) The name given 
 to the practice prevalent throughout all the European ar- 
 mies of beating the drum at daybreak, to awake the soldiers 
 and put a stop to the challenging of the sentries. The 
 equivalent tune played on the bugle in the evening, to sum- 
 mon the soldiers within their barracks, is called the retreat. 
 
 REVELA'TION, in a theological sense, is a communica- 
 tion of truth made by God to man; but it is understood 
 that those truths only are revealed which are communica- 
 ted by direct and special means, that is. by divine inspira- 
 tion. Such fragments of the divine will and economy as 
 are taught men by their own faculties and instincts are dis- 
 tinguished under the term natural religion. 
 
 FE'VELS, MASTER OF THE, or LORD OF MIS- 
 RULE. The name of an officer formerly attached pro tem- 
 pore to royal and other distinguished houses, whose duty 
 it was to preside over the Christmas entertainments. This 
 office was first permanently instituted in the reign of Henry 
 VIII.; and appears to have gone out of fashion towards the 
 end df the 17th century. 
 
 REVINDICATION. A term of the civil law, signify- 
 ing a claim legally made to recover property, by one claim- 
 ing as owner. The right of property must, generally speak 
 ing. he complete, to proceed to the action of revendication ; 
 thus, no such action can be brought for corporeal things un- 
 til after delivery, by which they pass. 
 
 REVERSIONARY PAYMENTS. 
 
 RE'VENUE. (Ft.) The name was given to the income 
 of a state derived from the customs, excise, taxation, and 
 other sources, and appropriated to the payment of the na- 
 tional expenses. Most useful and comprehensive tables, 
 showing the revenue and expenditure of Great Britain, will 
 be found in the Parliamentary Papers printed every session. 
 
 RE'VEREND. (Lat. reverendus.) A title of respect giv- 
 en to the clergy. In Roman Catholic countries the mem- 
 bers of the different religious orders are styled reverend. 
 In England deans are very reverend, bishops right reverend, 
 and archbishops most reverend. In Scotland, the principals 
 of the universities and the moderator of the General As- 
 sembly for the time being are styled very reverend. 
 
 REVE'RSE. In Numismatics, the opposite to the ob- 
 verse or face of the coin or medal. See Obverse, Numis- 
 matics. 
 
 REVE'RSION, in Law, is defined to be the residue of an 
 estate in lands, tenements, or hereditaments, left in the 
 grantor, to commence in possession after the determination 
 of some particular estate granted by him. 
 
 REVE'RSION OF SERIES, in" Algebra, is the method 
 of expressing the value of an unknown quantity which is in- 
 volved in an infinite series of terms, by means of another 
 series of terms involving the powers of the quantity to 
 which the proposed series is equal. Thus, if the proposed 
 series be 
 
 z = az-f-6z z + cz 3 + (Zz*-t- . . .ad inf. .... (1.) 
 and if we assume 
 
 x= A 2 + B : 2 + C z> + D :* + . . . ad inf. . ... (2.) 
 the original series will be reverted on determining the coef- 
 ficients A. B, C, D, &c. 
 
 The ordinary method substituting the last series (2) and 
 its powers for z and its powers in the series (1), and equa- 
 ting the coefficients, whereby the values of A, B, C, D, &c, 
 are obtained. But this method, though given by Newton, 
 by whom the problem was first proposed, becomes unman- 
 ageable after a few steps ; and is moreover defective, inas- 
 much as it does not show the connexion of the coefficients, 
 nor the law by which they are formed. A general formula 
 was given by Arbog;ist {Ca/cul des Derivntions), whereby 
 they may be continued with comparatively little trouble to 
 almost any extent. The values of the first four coefficients 
 are, 
 
 A= -,B = - 
 
 C = 
 
 2 ft 2 
 
 D =• 
 
 5 b' — 5 a ft c -f- a" d 
 
 a~1 ' 
 
 (See also JVoodchouse's Principles of Analytical Calcula- 
 tion, arts. 72 and 73; and the Penny Cyclopedia, where the 
 values of the coefficients are given to eleven terms.) 
 
 REVE'RSION. REVERSIONARY PAYMENTS. In 
 the doctrine of Annuities, a reversion is a payment which 
 is not to be received, or a benefit which does not begin, un- 
 til the happening of some event, as the death of a person 
 now living. Payments which are to be received at the end 
 of a specified period of time are usually called deferred pay- 
 ments. 
 
 The present value of a sum of money to be received on 
 the death of an individual of a given age depends evidently 
 upon the chances which the individual has of surviving 
 each future year of age, combined with the interest of mon- 
 ey. The method by which the value is calculated, from an 
 observed or assumed law of mortality, has been explained 
 under the term of Assurance ; and for the sake of facilita- 
 ting calculations of this kind, which are of very frequent 
 occurrence in the affairs of life, extensive tables have been 
 published, computed from various hypothesis of mortality, 
 and at different rates of interest. Such tables are usually 
 exhibited in the form of Annuity Tables, from which the 
 solutions of all questions relating to assurances and rever- 
 sions are easily deduced. See Annuity and Assurance. 
 
 Let A denote the value of an annuity of ]/. on a life of a 
 given age, V the present value of 1/. to be received at the 
 end of the year in which the life fails (the year being sup- 
 posed to commence with the day on which the annuity is 
 payable), r the rate of interest, and o = 1 -f- (1 + r\ ; then, 
 V = » (1 + A) —A,ot\ — v — (1 — v) A. 
 
 Suppose, for example, that on the death of A, whose 
 present age is fifty five, the sum of 5000/. is to revert to B, or 
 his assigns, and "that B proposes to sell his interest in this 
 reversion ; and let it be proposed to calculate the sum which 
 he ought now to receive, allowing the purchaser interest at 
 the rate of 4 per cent, per annum. In the table given under 
 the term Annuity, the value of an annuity of £1 on a male 
 life aged fifty -five is 110392. At 4 per cent, we have r = 
 
 12-0392 
 ■04, and v = 1 ■+■ 104 ; therefore V = — — 110392 = 
 
 •5370. This is the value of the reversion of XI : conse- 
 quently £5000 X -5370 = £2085 is the sum which B. should 
 receive for his reversionary interest. 
 
 3U 1057
 
 REVETEMENT. 
 
 When the reversionary benefit consists of an annuity to 
 commence upon the death of an individual, ami to continue 
 
 ior a term of years certain, its value is round by computing 
 the value of the annuity for the assigned period, and pro- 
 ceeding as in the above example ; but when ii consists of an 
 annuity commencing upon tin- death of one individual, and 
 
 terminable upon the death of another, it becomes necessary 
 to have recourse to tables of annuities on joint lives. Thus, if 
 A becomes entitled upon the death of A" to an annuity of £1 
 for the remainder of his life, the present value of the rever- 
 sion, or of , i's interest, is equal to B — A B ; where B de- 
 notes the present value of the annuity on the life of B, and 
 A B the value of the annuity on the joint lives of .1 and 
 B, that is. to continue only so long as both remain alive. 
 
 The four following rules give the solution of all the cases 
 of reversionary annuities which can arise when three lives 
 tire concerned, and it is seldom that a case occurs in prac- 
 tice involving a greater number. It is to be observed, that 
 the two letters A B standing together denote, as above, 
 the value of an annuity on the joint lives of .4 and B, P B 
 that of an annuity on the joint lives of B and P, and A P 
 Q. that of an annuity on the joint continuance of the three 
 lives A, P, Q, and so on. Let R be the value of the re- 
 versionary annuity in each case. 
 
 1. On a single life A, after the longest of two lives P 
 and Q; R = A — A P— A Q-f A P U. 
 
 •J. On the longest of two lives A, B, after a single life 
 P; R = A + B — AB — AP — BP-f A PI!. 
 
 3. On a single life A, after two joint lives P, Q ; R =; 
 A — APQ. 
 
 4. On two joint lives A, B, after a single life P ; R = 
 A B — A B P. 
 
 When reversionary benefits are contingent on lives failing 
 in an assigned order, as for instance an annuity to be re- 
 ceived upon the death of A provided he die while B is 
 living, the formula becomes more intricate, and could scarce- 
 ly be explained without entering into details inconsistent 
 with the nature of this work. For full information on the 
 subject, see the Treatises of Baily (1813), and Milne (1816). 
 We may remark, however, that the formula for the solu- 
 tion of questions connected with this subject may be great- 
 ly simplified by the use of an appropriate notation: for ex- 
 amples of which see lh Morgan's Essay on Probabilities, 
 Cabinet Cycl.: and Hardy's A" tc and General Notation 
 for Life Contingencies (1840) ; In which last work the so- 
 lutions of all the cases of annuities and assurances which 
 can arise, when not more than three lives are concerned, 
 are arranged in a convenient table. 
 
 REVE'TEMENT. In Fortification, a strong wall of 
 brick or stone built round the lower part of the rampart, 
 to support the earth and prevent it rolling into the ditch, 
 as well as to increase the difficulty of escalade. 
 
 REVIEW. The name now commonly assumed, by lit- 
 erary usage, for periodical publications consisting of a col- 
 lection of critical essays. The Journal des Savans, com- 
 menced at Paris in 1665 by M. de Sallo, is commonly cited 
 as the first review properly so called. The most distin- 
 guished modern journals under the name of review in 
 France are, the /.*, oue Eneyclopidique, the oldest of them 
 (now extinct); the Revue Francaise, and }>/.< Deux 
 .Month* ; and the Rente Britannique, which consists of 
 translations from the English. In England the Monthly 
 Rrrt'tr (established in 1749) was the first publication of its 
 kind. The establishment of the Edinburgh Review in 
 1802, followed by that of the Quarterly in 180!), maybe said 
 to have commenced a new era in criticism ; from that time 
 reviews have been adopted as the organs for Conveying the 
 
 opinions of sects ami parties In religion and politics, as well 
 a.s in literature. All the leading works of this description 
 (the Edinburgh, Quarterly. Foreign Quarterly, British and 
 Foreign, Westminster, British Critic, Church of England, 
 and Dublin] now appear quarterly, or nearly go. The 
 management of reviews In England is in the bands of an ed- 
 it irj w hose name, however, does not appear, the publisher 
 being the party responsible. The article- are also always 
 anonymous: the Westminster only, some tim. ago, adopt 
 
 cd the practice of putting the initial- of contributors, or ini- 
 tials assumed by them, at the fool of their papers. All 
 
 these reviews adhere to their designation, the articles ail 
 milled being in the form of reviews on Borne work or works 
 specified at the head, although, in point id' fad, the latter 
 are often not even noticed by the reviewer, his n marks he 
 ing more in the form of a general essay than of a review. 
 In this way they serve the purpose of affording govern- 
 ments or political parties the means of making statements 
 of facts, or declarations of opinion, which do not involve 
 them iii the difficulties of direct responsibility, and yet are 
 generally understood to convey their sentiments. The pay 
 
 of writers in reviews is various, depending not only on the 
 means of the review, hut on the rules adopted by partial 
 
 lar editors ; tor some have th inght proper u> equalize their 
 rate of remuneration, others to retain in their own hands 
 10W 
 
 RHAMNACEjE. 
 
 the power of estimating contributions according to their 
 supposed value. The French " ie\ ues," are conducted on 
 
 a different plan. Articles, in general, have the name of the 
 
 Contributor attached; and the form of a "review" is not 
 
 preserved, tales, poetry, essays on the politics of the day, 
 &.c, being admitted indiscriminately. 
 
 But besides France and England, reviews have been long 
 established in the other European states, and in America; 
 hut this species of publication has taken the deepest root in 
 Germany, where reviews may be said, without exaggera- 
 tion, to appear daily, though none of them possess the influ- 
 ence of our Edinburgh or Quarterly Review. The Ciuttm- 
 trer Oelehrte Anieige, which is the oldest, still exists, and 
 maintains a high character for ability and impartiality. 
 
 REVIEW. In Military language, an inspection of the ap- 
 pearance and regular disposition of a body of troops assem- 
 bled for that purpose. 
 
 REVISE. See Correcting. 
 
 REVI'VOR, BILL OF, in Law, is a continuance of an 
 original bill in a court of equity, when by death some parry 
 to it has become incapable of prosecuting or defending a 
 suit, or a female plnintiffhas incapacitated herself by mar- 
 riage from suing alone. A bill " of revivor and supple- 
 ment" continues a suit upon an abatement, and supplies 
 defects arisen from some event subsequent to the institu- 
 tion of the suit. 
 
 REVOCA'TIOX, POWER OF. In Law, a power con- 
 tained in a voluntary deed of conveyance to uses, by which 
 the grantor retains the liberty to revoke the uses granted 
 by the deed. Voluntary estates made with power of revo- 
 cation are held fraudulent under stat. 27 Eli/.., c. 4, as 
 against purchasers. 
 
 RE'VOLUTE. (Lat. revolvo, / red! back.) In Zoology, 
 when a part is rolled outwards or backwards. 
 
 REVOLU'TION. In Politics, a word of somewhat in- 
 definite meaning, but usually denoting an extensive change 
 in the political constitution of a country accomplished in a 
 short time, whether by legal or illegal means. The term 
 Revolution, in English History, is applied by way of emi- 
 nence to the year 1688, universally regarded as the great 
 era of English liberty — when William III. and Mary acce- 
 ded to the throne on the forced abdication of James II. 
 
 Revolution. In Geometry, the motion of a point or 
 line about a centre. 
 
 REVOLUTION, in Astronomy, is used to signify the period 
 in which a planet, satellite, or comet returns to the place 
 in its orbit from w hicl] we estimate its setting out. 
 
 REVOLUTION, FRENCH (ERA OF THE). In Chro- 
 nology, this was substituted for the Christian era in all pub- 
 lic acts and documents, by a decree of the National Con- 
 vention in 1793; and fixed at the 23d September, 1792, the 
 day of the foundation of the French Republic. It was 
 abolished by Napoleon, and the Christian era restored, in 
 1806. 
 
 REX PACRO'RUM. In Roman History, a priest ap- 
 pointed after the expulsion of Tarquin to superintend cer- 
 tain holy rites which had always been performed by the 
 king in person. (JJv. ii., 2.) 
 
 RHABDOLO'GIA. (Gr. p«#rV, a rod, and >o>oc, a de- 
 scription.) The name given by Napier to a method of per- 
 forming multiplication and division by means of a set of 
 figured rods or scales. See Napier's Rods. 
 
 RHA'BDOMANCY. (Gt. ^«/3 Sos, and uAvrsia, prophecy.) 
 Properly, divination by a rod or w and. Some persons have 
 been believed to be endowed by nature with a peculiar 
 sense or perception, by which they tire enabled to discover 
 tilings hid in the earth, especially metals and water. But 
 a more prevalent opinion has been, that the discovery of 
 these substances might be effected by means of a divining 
 rod. The divining rod is a branch of a tree, generally 
 ha/el, forked at the end, and held in a particular Way, by 
 the two ends, in the hands of the adept ; and is supposed 
 to indicate the position of the substance sought by bending 
 
 towards it with a slow rotatory motion, the adept, accord- 
 ing to modern practice, being placed in contact with some 
 
 tallic or other magnetic substance. The art is said to 
 
 he occasionally practised in the south of France and Italy, 
 
 under the names of metalloscopy, hydroseopy, fcc. Cam- 
 petti, an Italian, in the beginning of the present century, 
 excited much attention by his professed powers of rhab- 
 domancy. 
 
 Ill I \Sl.\.\'('E.E. (Rhamnus, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of arborescent or shrubby ExogenS, inh abit 
 ing all parts of the world excepting the arctic regions. 
 The berries of various species of Rhamnus are violent pur- 
 
 g iti\ es : while the fruit of Bome, as the jujube, is harmless 
 and eatable. Rhamnus trangula yields "the best kind of 
 charcoal for irunpowder. From the berries of/,', infectori- 
 u.i and others a yellow dye is obtained, but. in general, the 
 species are neither useful nor ornamental. The) are nil 
 
 • ai til flowered polypetalous or apetalous plants, with four 
 or live Stamens alternating with the lobes of the calyx.
 
 RHAMPHASTOS. 
 
 RHAMPHA'STOS. (Gr. pa^oi, a beak.) The name 
 of a genus of Scansorial birds (Toucans) in the system of 
 Cnvier, distinguished by an enormous beak, nearly as 
 thick and as long as the body in some species. The com- 
 pensation by which this disproportionate beak is rendered 
 manageable and portable is an extremely light and cellular 
 structure internally. It is arcuated near the extremity, 
 and in old toucans is irregularly indented along the edges. 
 The toucans are distinguished from the hornbills by the 
 scansorial modification of their feet, in which two toes be- 
 hind are opposed to two in front ; and by their long, nar- 
 row, and ciliated tongue. They are confined to the hot 
 climates of America, where they live in small flocks, feed- 
 ing on fruit, insects, and the eggs and callow offspring of 
 other birds. 
 
 RHAPO'NTICIN. A substance obtained from the 
 Rheum rhaponticnm, in the form of yellow scales ; insolu- 
 ble in cold water and in ether, and tasteless and inodor- 
 ous. It dissolves in 24 parts of boiling water, and in 2 of 
 absolute alcohol. t 
 
 RHA'PSODIST. (Gr. pa-XTO), I sew or string together ; 
 won, a song.) A class of persons who are said to have 
 flourished in the age of Homer, whose occupation it was 
 to compose or commit to memory poems, which they re- 
 cited for the amusement of their auditors. It has been 
 supposed that by means of persons of this class the poems 
 of Homer were preserved till the invention of writing se- 
 cured them more permanently, and among them is divided 
 the honour of the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey by 
 those who deny the individuality of Horner. But the fact 
 of the existence of such a class with higher pretensions 
 than to the faculty of making short extemporaneous effu- 
 sions is highly doubtful, as it rests mainly on the assumed 
 fact that the art of writing was unknown in Ionia in the 
 Homeric age. 
 
 RHEA. (Gr. ptui, I flow.) In Classical Mythology, 
 daughter of Ccelus and Terra, wife of Saturn, and mother 
 of Vesta, Ceres, Juno, Pluto, &c. She is frequently con- 
 founded with Ops, Terra, and Cybele. For the particulars 
 of her history, see Saturn. 
 
 Rhea. The name of a genus of Struthious birds, of 
 which the three-toed ostriches of South America are the 
 representatives. 
 
 RHE'IN. An inodorous bitterish substance of a yellow 
 colour, obtained by gently heating powdered rhubarb with 
 8 parts of nitric acid of the sp. gr. 137, evaporating to the 
 consistence of syrup, and diluting with cold water. 
 
 RHE'TORIC. (Gr. pijTopiKn, sc. rexflt the rhetorical 
 art; from pnro>p, an orator.) In the widest sense in which 
 the word is occasionally used by modern writers, the art 
 of prose composition generally. In the most restricted 
 and most etymological sense, the art of oratory, or of ad- 
 dressing public assemblies. In an intermediate sense, in 
 which, perhaps, it is most commonly employed, the art of 
 argumentative composition. This comes nearest to the 
 signification which Aristotle, the earliest extant writer of 
 a formal treatise on rhetoric, attached to the title of his 
 subject, when he defined it to be the art of discovering 
 and employing topics of persuasion. He arranged these 
 topics or means of persuasion under three heads. First, 
 those which arise from the character of the orator him- 
 self; i. e., the character in which, by what must be term- 
 ed rhetorical artifice, he places himself before his hearers. 
 It is obvious that a speaker addressing an assembly, who 
 is known by them to be actuated by honest motives, and 
 to understand the subject on which he speaks, advances 
 by the mere possession of these adventitious attributes a 
 long way towards the end and aim of oratory, viz., per- 
 suasion. Hence it is that Aristotle presents, as one of the 
 chief branches of rhetoric, the art by which the speaker 
 or writer, as it were, invests himself with these attributes, 
 and thus ensures a more favourable reception to his argu- 
 ment. The art of moving the passions by the use of such 
 arguments and representations as are proper to excite each, 
 belongs also, in Aristotle's arrangement, to this division of 
 his subject. In his second division he treats of argument 
 itself, considered with respect to its cogency or inconclu- 
 siveness in point of form ; and hence logic, in this point of 
 view, becomes ancillary to, or a subdivision of, rhetoric. 
 The third division of the subject exhibits the modes of 
 persuasion arising from style, arrangement, delivery, and 
 action ; and to this third branch writers, who have treated 
 of rhetoric in its more limited sense, have usually confin- 
 ed themselves. 
 
 As the work of Aristotle is the first, so it is the only 
 systematic treatise on rhetoric which the ancients have 
 left us, among whom the art was much more diligently 
 cultivated than among the moderns. Public speaking was 
 of infinitely greater importance in the classical common- 
 wealths than in any modern state ; even in our own, 
 where most sedulously studied and most valued, it is but 
 a subsidiary accomplishment. The true momentum of 
 decision, that which convinces or dissuades, lies in the 
 
 RHIZANTHE.E. 
 
 pen of the writer, rather than the voice of the orator ; and 
 while in the Grecian republics assemblies were actually 
 swayed by oratory to determine on a particular course of 
 action, its principal use now appears to be to arraign, to 
 vindicate, or to explain the actions of individuals. French 
 oratory, from the nature of its subject, is and always was 
 confined within narrow limits. Probably pulpit oratory, 
 in modern European society, answers most nearly to the 
 classical notion of rhetoric ; and, had it ever been sub- 
 jected to systematic rules, would have been found most 
 nearly to conform to those which the ancients have left 
 us. Among the Romans, oratory did not begin to be cul- 
 tivated as a science until just at the period when its polit- 
 ical importance was about to cease. Rhetoric, under the 
 Roman empire, was taught as a regular science ; but its 
 practical display was confined to the orators of the forum, 
 among whom the art gradually declined, from the tenden- 
 cy of the crvil law, during the last period of its develop- 
 ment, to conduct all process by written rather than oral 
 method. On the other hand, the rules of rhetoric were 
 applied to the construction of declamations, a species of 
 fictitious argument much in vogue during the decline of 
 Roman literature ; and of panegyrical harangues. The 
 study of rhetoric, in this perverted sense of the word, t. e., 
 of declamatory speaking or writing, found peculiar favour 
 in the African and oriental schools of the Roman empire. 
 Some of the early Christian writers, especially Tertullian, 
 afford evident tokens of having acquired the art of compo- 
 sition under such discipline. See Eloquence. 
 
 RHEU'MATISM. (Gr. pevnana^oi.) A painful affec- 
 tion of the joints, attended by swelling or stiffness ; and 
 also affecting the muscular, tendinous, and fibrous tex- 
 tures. It is occasionally accompanied by fever, when it 
 constitutes acute rheumatism, or rheumatic fever : in which 
 case the joints are much swollen and excessively painful ; 
 the pulse frequent, but seldom hard ; the perspiration usu- 
 ally abundant and acid ; the tongue extremely foul, and 
 the bowels costive ; headache is seldom complained of, 
 and delirium very rare. In this form of the disease its 
 translation or metastasis to the heart is not uncommon. 
 The treatment consists in occasional venesection ; in the 
 use of purgatives and sudorifics, and occasionally of tonics, 
 more especially cinchona : calomel and opium are also 
 largely, and often very successfully employed. Chronic 
 rheumatism is not in general attended by any very re- 
 markable constitutional symptoms. It occasionally leads 
 to permanent distortion of the joints ; affects the perios- 
 teum, tendons, and ligaments ; and is most common in 
 debilitated habits, when the health has been broken by 
 previous disease or over exertion of body or mind. 
 Opium, especially in the form of Dover's powder, is gener- 
 ally necessary in this disorder to procure rest. The bow- 
 els should be kept moderately active by warm purges, and 
 tonics and alteratives cautiously administered. A course 
 of sarsaparilla is often extremely serviceable : colchicum 
 has been resorted to, but with most uncertain success. 
 
 RHINO'CEROS. (Gr. piv, a nose; Ktpa<;, a horn.) The 
 name of a genus of Pachydermatous mammals, character- 
 ized by one or two horny productions upon the nose. A 
 species of hornbill is also called rhinoceros, on account of 
 the remarkable recurved horny process which rises from 
 its upper mandible. 
 
 RHINSBURGERS. The name of a sect of Christians 
 which sprung up in Holland in the 18th century. They 
 seem to have separated from the church for the mere sake 
 of separation, for they held all its doctrines, but rejected 
 all discipline ; no other profession being required from its 
 members than a belief that Christ is the Messiah, and that 
 the Scriptures are inspired. They allowed of no priests : 
 any member (women alone excepted) might preach and 
 expound in their meetings, which were held in, so called, 
 colleges of piety. At one period they had formed eighteen 
 of these in different towns ; but from the large license of 
 the interpretation of Scripture which they enjoyed, several 
 ran into enthusiasm, and having no principle of cohesion 
 they soon fell to pieces, and are now completely extinct. 
 See Society. 
 
 RHIPI'PTE'RANS, Rhipiptcra. (Gr. pine, a fan ; ttte- 
 pov, a wing.) A name proposed by Latreille to supersede 
 that of Strepsiptera, by which Kirby designated a new or- 
 der of insects which he had discovered. The new name 
 has nothing to recommend it, since it signifies a character, 
 founded on the presence of pterygoda, common to other 
 orders of insects, as the Eepulopterans. 
 
 RHIZA'NTHE^E. (Gr. pt^a, a root ; avdos, a flower.) 
 A class of plants occupying a station between sexual and 
 asexual species, and appearing to be an intermediate form 
 of organization between Endogens and the lower orders of 
 vegetation. They agree with the former in the presence 
 of sexes, and in their flowers having sometimes a ternary- 
 structure ; but they have scarcely any spiral vessels ; and 
 their seeds appear, as far as they have been examined, to 
 consist of a mass of spores, without a special embryo. In 
 
 1059
 
 RHIZOMA. 
 
 their succulent texture, in their colour, often in their pu- 
 trid odour when decaying, in the sporuliferous seeds, and 
 in their parasitica] habits, these plants resemble Funga- 
 cett : while in their flowers and sexes they accord with 
 jSraeett, or similar Endogens. They are in all cases para 
 site<. and destitute of proper leaves, in lieu of \\ bit b some 
 of them have scales imbricated over their stems, -\"i 
 withstanding their parasitical habits, some are of extraor- 
 dinary size: the flowers of Raffiesia arnolUi are as much 
 as nine feet in circumference. 
 
 RHtZO'MA. In Botany. See Rootstock. 
 
 RHI'ZOSTOMES, Rkiiostotaa. (Gr. )i&, and <xr<u/a, 
 amouth.) A genus of Medusa, including those which 
 have the absorbing orifices of their nutrient canals of 
 small size, and situated in great numbers on the branches 
 of arms, or peduncles, extending from the centre of the 
 inferior surface of the disk. 
 
 RflO HUM. (Gr. podov, a rose; on account of the rose- 
 red colour of some or its salts, especially of the chloride, 
 when dissolved in water.) A metal discovered in 1703, by 
 
 Wollaston, associated with palladium in the ore of pla- 
 tinum. It is of a whitish colour, very difficult of fusion, 
 and very hard. Its specific gravity is about II, and its 
 equivalent about 53. It has been 'used for the points of 
 metallic pens. 
 
 RHOMBOID. In Geometry, a quadrilateral figure 
 which has its opposite sides equal. When its angles are 
 right angles, it is called a rectangle. 
 
 KHoMli SPAR. A crystalline magnesian carbonate of 
 lime. 
 
 RHO'MBUS. In Geometry, a plane figure bounded by- 
 four equal straight lines. When its angles are right an- 
 gle*, it becomes a square. 
 
 RHONCUS. (Gr. poyxoj.) A rattling or wheezing 
 sound: the term is chiefly applied to sounds occasioned 
 by certain morbid states of respiration, as indicated by the 
 stethoscope. 
 
 RHU'BARB. The root of the Rheum palmatum, and 
 
 perhaps 8 e other species, cultivated in China for the 
 
 supply of the drug market. The varieties of rhubarb 
 known in commerce tinder the names of Russian, Turkey, 
 and Indian rhubarb, are all derived from one source; but 
 the select pieces are sold under the name of Russian and 
 Turkey rhubarb, and those of somewhat interior quality 
 as East Indian. To judge of the quality of rhubarb, it 
 should be cut or broken : when good it is of a mottled red- 
 dish or brownish red colour; that which is very pale or 
 very dark coloured, and either so soft as to be spongy, or 
 hard and stony in texture, is bad. Rhubarb is B valuable 
 article of the materia medica, being an aperient, and at 
 the same time a tonic and astringent. The average dose 
 of powdered rhubarb is twenty grains, which after its pur- 
 gative operation leaves a certain astringent effect upon 
 the bowels ; hence its use in diarrhraa : from two to five 
 grains operates as a tonic, and is very useful in some 
 forms of dyspepsia. A mixture of one part of rhubarb 
 with two of powdered sulphate of potash is an excellent 
 aperient for children. It is occasionally given as a tinc- 
 ture or infusion; but the powder is the best form, either 
 in a little plain, or peppermint water, or in the form of 
 pill. 
 
 KIM. MB. A circle on the earth's surface making a 
 given angle witb the meridian of the place, marking the 
 direction of any object through which it passes. The 
 divisions on the compass card are called rhumbs. See 
 Meki a tor's Chart. 
 
 RHUMB LINE. In Naval Affairs, the track of a ship 
 which cuts all the meridians at the same angle; called 
 also the luzodromic curve. This being the simplest curve, 
 is the route universally pursued; but a ship sailing on this 
 curve never looks direct for her port until it comes in sight. 
 See Loxontio.Mii CtRVK. 
 
 REIT MB. <;r. pvB/iOi, measure; or Germ, reim.) In 
 Poetry, the correspondence of sounds In the last words or 
 syllables of verses. The latter is the true rhyme of modem 
 European Languages. There are rhymed verses in the 
 
 Latin classical poets, where the jingle -ci in- intentional, 
 
 and more distinct examples of M in the fragments of Roman 
 
 military songs, &.<■.. which have come down to us. Bui 
 in the earlier period of the decs.] of the I. aim language, 
 
 when accent was substituted for metre in the rhythmical 
 
 arrangement of the verse, rhyme made its way Into the 
 
 Composition of chinch hymns, fee. It has been attempted. 
 
 but with little success, to deduce this Innovation from the 
 
 GotilS, and from the Arabians; but the foimer. like the old 
 
 races, probablj used alliteration, but no rhyme la 
 
 their Verses; and the hitter could not have intluenced 
 European literature until a period long after that in which 
 
 rhyme Oral appears. ,\ rhyme in which the final syllables 
 
 only ,-iL'ree '. strain, complain), is called a male rhyme ; one 
 in which the two final syllables of each verse, agree, ■ ii<- 
 last being -sliurt {motion, ocean), female ; and the latter is 
 1000 
 
 RIDER. 
 
 sometimes extended in Italian poetry to three syllables 
 [femore, imtnemore), when the verse is called sdrucciol&. 
 in English such a licence Is hardly permissible, i 
 burlesque poetry (see Hudibras and lion Juan foi iu- 
 liy the strict rules of French prosody, the male 
 nnd female species of rhymes must be alternately us, ,), 
 however intricate the disposition of the verse maybe; al- 
 though the last short syllable is generally mule, or very 
 slightly sounded. Rhymes which extend not only beyond 
 the three last syllables, but through the whole structure of 
 the lines, are used in Arabian and Persian poetry. Rh\ nies 
 in which the consonants of the last syllable in each verse 
 are identical (dress, address) are vicious in English, but 
 rather admired iii French poetry. One more singularity of 
 
 English poetry deserves notice: while, from the Irregularity 
 oi our spelling, many syllables rhyme with each other, al- 
 though widely dissimilar in orthography (woe, pursue), 
 there are, on the other hand, rhymes which speak to the 
 eye, and not to the ear; i.e., in which the orthography of 
 the- rhyming syllables is the same, but the pronunciation 
 different; as, wind, find ; gone, alone. In the following 
 triplet of Dryden, 
 
 >Tis nothing yet ; then poor and naked come, 
 
 Thy Father will receive his nnthnft home, 
 
 Aaj thy blessed Saviour's blood discbarge the mighty sum, 
 
 it will be seen that the first and third lines rhyme in a 
 legitimate manner, although the last syllables are differently 
 spelt; while the first and second rhyme to the eye only, 
 and not to the ear. This is a licence only rendered ad- 
 missible by precedent. 
 
 RilYXCHOPIIORES. Rhyncophora. (Gl. pyyxpc, aleak, 
 and (jiipui, I carry.) The name of a family of Coleopterous 
 insects, comprehending those which have the head pro- 
 longed in the form of a snout or probosi is. 
 
 RHYTHM. (Gr. pvQu.os.) The consonance of measure 
 and time in poetry, prose composition, nnd music, and by 
 analogy in dancing. Each verse or each period may be 
 considered as a whole, within which the poetical rhythm 
 is regular and exact, within certain limited variations, the 
 rhetorical less perfect, and the pleasure derived from it 
 rather matter of taste and experience than of rule. Those 
 parts which receive the ictus or stress of the rhythm are 
 termed arsis (elevation), the remainder form the thesis 
 (depression); the former is frequently denoted to the eye 
 by the accent marked ', when in a foreign or unknown 
 word we wish to direct the voice in pronunciation to em- 
 ploy the correct emphasis. The smallest rhythmical divi- 
 sion is the foot, by which every union of arsis and thesis is 
 understood. A short syllable is an original Unit of tune; a 
 long syllable contains two units. The number of feet enu- 
 merated in classical writers on metre amount to twenty- 
 eight, including all the varieties which may be formed out 
 of two, three, or four syllables, long and short, and varying 
 from two to eight units of time. See Foot, Metre. 
 
 RIAL. A gold coin current in the reigns of Henry VI. 
 and Elizabeth: under the former its value was 10*., under 
 the latter 15s. 
 
 RIBS. In Architecture, curviform limbers to which, in 
 an arched or coved plaster ceiling, the laths are nailed. 
 
 Ribs. A term for the timbers of a ship which spring 
 from the keel, as the ribs of an animal from the back 
 bone. 
 
 Ribs. In Anatomy, the lateral appendages of a vertebra, 
 especially when developed so as to encompass the trunk. 
 In the human subject there are twelve ribs. 
 
 RICE. .SVc Oryza. 
 
 RICE PAPER. This substance is said to be a mem- 
 brane of the Jlrtocarpus indsa, or bread-fruit tree. (See 
 Artocarpe*.) It is brought from china in small pieces, 
 dyed of various colours, and is use d as a material for paint- 
 ing upon, anil for the manufacture of several fancy and 
 
 ornamental articles. It is sometimes erroneously stated to 
 be prepared from rice. (See Brewster, Edinb. Journ. of 
 Science, vol. ii.) 
 
 RICI'NIC ACID. One of the products obtained by dis- 
 tilling castor oil at a high temperature. 
 
 RICKETS. Set I! *■ urn-. 
 
 RICOCHET FIRING, in Gunnery, is a mode of firing 
 with small charges from pieces of ordnance elevated at 
 small angles, as from IP to f>°. It is a very destructive 
 method; as tile rebound causes the shot or shell to pass 
 
 along a great space almost upon the ground, destroying all 
 that it meets with in its way. The word signifies, Literallyt 
 the sort of motion which is familiarly lulled ducks and- 
 
 drakes, as applied to a tlat stone thrown on the surface of 
 the water under a very small tingle. 
 RIDEAU. In fortification, a small elevation of earth 
 
 extending itself lengthwise on a plain, serving to cover a 
 
 camp from the approach of the emmy, or to give other ad- 
 vantage to a tHist. 
 RIDER. A term used to signify any addition to manu-
 
 RIDGE. 
 
 scripts or other documents, inserted after their comple- 
 tion. 
 
 RIDGE. In Architecture, the upper horizontal timber in 
 a roof, ag.-iinst which the rafters pitch. 
 
 Rl'DlNG. The three divisions of the county of York 
 are so termed, by a corruption of the Saxon word trithing 
 or triding (third part). 
 
 RIDO'TTO. (Ital.) A favourite Italian public enter- 
 tainment, consisting of music and dancing; held generally 
 on fast eves. 
 
 RITLE GUNS. Muskets or pieces of ordnance, whose 
 barrels, instead of being a clear cylinder inside, are fur- 
 rowed with spiral channels. The object is to give the 
 ball a rotatory motion about an axis, in consequence of 
 which it preserves its direction with much greater cer- 
 tainty than when fired from the common clear barrel. See 
 
 Gl'N. 
 
 A body of men armed with rifles are called riflemen ; 
 but the term is most frequently applied to the military 
 corps called the rifle brigade, and to the 60th regiment of 
 the British army, which is dressed in green and armed with 
 rifles. 
 
 RIG. The peculiar manner of fitting the masts and 
 rigging to the hull of any vessel; thus, schooner rig, ship 
 rig, &c, imply the masts and sails of these vessels without 
 regard to the hull. 
 
 Rl'GGING. The system of cordage by which the masts 
 are supported, and the sails extended or taken in. The 
 rigging is hence divided into standing rigging and running 
 rigging. The standing rigging consists of the pendant*, 
 short strong ropes first put over the lower mast heads, and 
 having thimbles for hooking tackles to; the shrouds, 
 stays, and backstays. The lower rigging implies that of 
 the lower masts; the topmast rigging that of the topmast, 
 and so on. The size, strength, number of ropes, gtc. of the 
 rigging, are all matters determined by experience. A com- 
 plete description of rigging is to be found in the well-known 
 work of Darcy Lever. 
 
 Rl'GGING LOFT. The room or rooms in which the 
 rigging is prepared. 
 
 RIGHT. In Geometry, a term sometimes used synony- 
 mously with straight, as right line; but generally as oppo- 
 sed to oblique. Thus, a right angle, the angle formed by 
 two straight lines perpendicular to each other, or an angle 
 of 90° ; right cone, cylinder, prism, pyramid, &x., figures 
 whose sides are perpendicular to the plane of the base. 
 
 Right-angled Triangle. A triangle having one right 
 angle. 
 
 Right-angled Triangle. In Numbers. A favourite spec- 
 ulation of the Platonic school of mathematicians was to 
 find rational numbers which should designate the sides 
 of a right-angled triangle. Pythagoras gave the formula' 
 
 n, , and , where n is odd. Plato gave 2 ji, 
 
 2 2' b 
 
 n 2 — 1, and n 2 -J- 1, where ?! is either odd or even. Various 
 other forms have been given by subsequent writers. The 
 determination of such sets of formula forms a branch of 
 the Dinphantine Analysis. 
 
 RIGHT SPHERE. In Geography, the position of the 
 sphere when the equator cuts the horizon at right angles. 
 
 RIGHT ASCENSION, in Astronomy, is the angle at the 
 pole of the equator formed by two great circles, one of 
 which passes through the first point of Aries, and the other 
 through a celestial body, and is consequently measured by 
 the arc of the equator intercepted between those circles. 
 Right ascension and declination are the two co-ordinates to 
 which the positions of celestial objects are referred. 
 
 RIGHT DIVINE. See Divine Right. 
 
 RIGHT OF PRO'PERTY. (Lat. jus proprietatis ; Fr. 
 droit de propriete.) In Political Economy, the right which 
 6tates, bodies of individuals, and individuals have to the 
 exclusive use and enjoyment of such lands, natural powers, 
 and products as have been appropriated or set apart for any 
 peculiar purpose. 
 
 Origin of this Right. — It would occupy the reader's 
 time to no good purpose were we to state the different 
 theories that have been advanced by jurists and writers 
 on public law, to account for the origin of this right.* This, 
 indeed, appears to us to be sufficiently obvious. All the 
 rude products furnished by nature have to be appropriated ; 
 and not one in a thousand, perhaps, of these products is, 
 in its natural state, capable either of supplying our wants 
 or administering to our comforts. Hence the necessity not 
 only of applying labour in the appropriation of natural 
 products, but in fashioning and preparing them so as to 
 be useful ; and hence, also, the origin of the right of pro- 
 perty. 
 
 If a number of individuals be set down together on the 
 shore of an unoccupied and unappropriated island, abound- 
 
 R1GHT OP PROPERTY. 
 
 ing with natural products, such as game, trees laden with 
 fruit, &c, each will have quite as good a right as another 
 to take the game or the fruit. But those who do so, or who 
 have, through their skill and industry, appropriated a por- 
 tion of the common stock, will obviously be entitled to the 
 exclusive use of such portion. We shall not undertake to 
 decide whether there be or be not a principle inherent in 
 man that at once suggests to every individual that it is his 
 duty not to interfere with what has been produced or appro- 
 priated by the labour of others; it is sufficient for us to 
 know that the briefest experience would point out to every 
 one the necessity of respecting this principle. If A climb 
 a tree and bring down fruit, which, as soon as he comes to 
 the ground, is taken from him by others, he will not again 
 engage in any similar undertaking till he be well assured 
 that he shall be permitted exclusively to profit by what has 
 been obtained through his sole exertions ; nor will others 
 engage in any such undertaking without a similar assu- 
 rance. No doubt, therefore, the right of property has had a 
 very remote origin. The necessity for its establishment 
 is so very obvious and urgent, that it must have been all 
 but coeval with the formation of societies. All have been 
 impressed with the reasonableness of the maxim which 
 teaches that products acquired by the labour of a man's 
 body, and the work of his hands, should be considered as 
 exclusively his own. Even among the rudest savages the 
 principle of meum and tuum is recognised ; the hows and 
 arrows of the huntsman, and the game he has killed, being 
 regarded by him as his own, and his right to their exclusive 
 possession being respected by his fellows. The right of 
 property, like other rights, is, no doubt, perfected only by 
 degrees, and is necessarily limited and adapted to the state 
 of society at the time. Thus, among hunters, the feral 
 natune on which they subsist, not being bred under the 
 care or inspection of individuals, are, so long as they run 
 wild in the forest, the common property of the tribe, and 
 only become the property of individuals after they have 
 been appropriated or caught by their labour or ingenuity. 
 As society advances, the right of property expands. The 
 modern Tartars, like the ancient Scythians, estimate their 
 wealth by the number of their cattle. Their right to the 
 animals which they have domesticated and reared is deem- 
 ed sacred and inviolable; but the pasture grounds belong, 
 like the hunting-grounds of the Indians, to the whole so- 
 ciety ; and as the flocks are driven from one place to an- 
 other, the grounds may be successively depastured by the 
 cattle of every different individual. The moment, how- 
 ever, that men began to renounce the pastoral for the agri- 
 cultural mode of life, a right of property in land began to 
 be established. The soil cannot be cultivated, its fertility 
 cannot be increased, nor can it be made to produce those 
 crops which yield the largest supplies of food and other ne- 
 cessary accommodations, without continuous labour, and 
 persevering attention. 
 
 Paler ipse Cctendi 
 Haud facilem esse viani voluit. 
 
 Hence the origin of property in land. Nothing, it is plain, 
 could ever tempt any one to engage in a laborious employ- 
 ment; he would neither domesticate wild animals, nor 
 clear and cultivate the ground, if, after months and years 
 of toil, when his flocks had become numerous, and his har- 
 vests were ripening for the sickle, a stranger were allowed 
 to rob him of the produce of his industry. The utility, or 
 rather necessity, of enacting some general regulations, that 
 should secure to every individual the peaceable enjoyment 
 of the produce he had raised, and of the ground he had 
 cultivated and improved, is, indeed, so very obvious, that it 
 suggested itself to the first legislators. The author of the 
 book of Job places those who remove their neighbours' 
 landmarks at the head of his list of wicked men ; and the 
 early Greek and Roman legislators placed these marks 
 under the especial protection of the god Terminus, and 
 made their removal a capital offence. (Goguet, deTOri- 
 gine des Loix, lib. i., art. 2.) Society may, in fact, be said 
 to have grown out of the institution of a right of property 
 in land. "Had not." says Mr. Justice Blackstone, '-a sepa- 
 rate property in lands, as well as moveables, been vested in 
 some individuals, the world must have continued a forest, 
 and men been mere animals of prey. Whereas now, so 
 graciously has Providence interwoven our duty and our 
 happiness together, the result of the institution of property 
 has been the ennobling of the human species, by giving it 
 opportunities of improving its rational faculties, as well as 
 exerting its natural. Necessity begat property ; and in order 
 to ensure that property recourse was had to civil society, 
 which brought along with it a long train of inseparable 
 concomitants — states, government, laws, punishments, and 
 the public exercise of religious duties. Thus connected to- 
 gether, it was found that a part only of society was suffi- 
 cient to provide, by their manual labour, for the necessary 
 subsistence of all; and leisure was given to others to cuiti- 
 
 1061
 
 RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 
 
 vnte the human mind, to Invent useful arts, and to lay the 
 foundation of society." {Comment,, hook ii.. cap. J.) 
 
 It is obvious, in in what has now been stated, that the 
 law of the land is not, as Dr. Paley has affirmed, the real 
 
 foundation of the riuht of property. It has a much more 
 reiimtf ami more solid foundation. It prows out of the cir- 
 cumstance's under which man is placed: and could not be 
 overthrown or set aside without depopulating the earth, 
 and throwing mankind back into primeval barbarism. The 
 obvious utility of securing to each individual the peaceable 
 enjoyment ol the land he has enclosed and cultivated, and 
 of the produce raised or acquired bj his labour, has un- 
 doubtedly formed the irresistible reason that has induced 
 every people to make the right of property a part of the 
 law of the land, and to guard it by the strongest sanctions. 
 The securitj of properly is, in truth, the principal founda- 
 tion on which society rests. Until properly had been pub- 
 licly guaranteed, men must have looked on each other as 
 enemies rather than as friends. The idle and Improvident 
 are always desirous of seizing on the earnings of the la- 
 borious and frugal ; and if they were permitted to prosecute 
 their attacks, they would, hy generating a feeling of inse- 
 curity, effectually check both industry and accumulation, and 
 sink all classes to the same level ofhopeless misery as them- 
 selves. The security of property is, if possible, still more 
 necessary to accumulation than production. No man ever 
 denies himself an immediate gratitication, when it is within 
 his power, unless he thinks that, hy doing so, his present 
 forbearance Will obtain for him a greater accession of com- 
 forts and enjoyments, or that it will obviate some probable 
 and considerable evil at a future period. Where the right 
 of property is vigilantly protected, an industrious man who 
 gams as much by one day's labour as is sufficient to main- 
 tain him two, is not idle the second day, hut accumulates 
 the surplus produce above his wants as a capital ; the in- 
 creased consequence and enjoyments which the possession 
 of capital brings along with it being, in the great majority 
 of cases, more than sufficient to counterbalance the desire 
 of immediate gratification. But, wherever property is inse- 
 cure, we look in vain for the operation of the principle of 
 accumulation. "It is plainly better for us," is then the in- 
 variable language of the people, " to enjoy while it is in our 
 power, than to accumulate property which we shall not be 
 pei milted to use, and which will expose us to the depreda- 
 tions of those who exist only by the plunder of their more 
 industrious neighbours." 
 
 The Becurit] of property is violated not merely when a 
 man is deprived of the power of peaceably enjoying the 
 fruits of his industry ; it is also violated, and perhaps in a 
 still more unjustifiable manner, when he is prevented from 
 using the powers with which nature has endowed him in 
 any way, not injurious to others, he may consider most for 
 his own advantage, of all the species of properly which a 
 man can possess, the faculties of his mind and powers of 
 his body are most particularly his own. He should, there- 
 fore, be permitted to enjoy, that is, to use or exert, these 
 powers at bis discretion. And hence the right of property 
 is as much Infringed upon when a man is interdicted from 
 engaging in a particular branch of business, as it would be 
 were he unjustly deprived of the produce he had raised. 
 Every monopoly which gives to a low individuals the ex- 
 clusive pow,r of carrying on certain branches of industry is 
 thus, in tact, established in direct violation of the property 
 of every one else. It prevents them from using their na- 
 tural capacities, or powers, in the manner they may con- 
 sider best; and as every man who is not a slave is justly 
 held to he the best, and, indeed, only judge, of what is ad- 
 vantageous tor himself, the principles of natural law and 
 the right of property are both subverted hy his exclusion 
 from any employment. In like manner, the right of pro- 
 perty is violated whin regulations are made to force indi- 
 viduals to employ themselves or their capital in a particular 
 way. The property of a landlord is violated if be he com- 
 pelled to adopt any system of cultivation, even supposing it 
 were really preferable to that which he was previously fol- 
 lowing. The property of the capitalist is violated when he 
 is obliged to accept a lower interest for his stock than he 
 
 might have obtained; and the property of the labourer is 
 
 violated whenever he is obliged to engage in any particular 
 
 occupation. It follows, too, that every restraint on tin' 
 freedom of commerce is an Infringement of the right of pro- 
 perty. If I, the lawful owner of any given article, am pre 
 
 vented from exchanging for any other 1 may be desirous to 
 obtain, the right of property is as much invaded as if I were 
 debarred from making any dirert nSC of the article. Had 
 . .• been adverted to. it is probable the re 
 strictive aygti in would not have made quite so much pro 
 
 - ii hat done. 
 Effects of the Insecurity of Property. — The finest soil, 
 the finest Climate, and the finest intellectual |x>wers, can 
 prevent no people from becoming barbarous, poor, and mis 
 
 erable, if they have the misfortune to be subjected to a 
 
 1002 
 
 government which does not respect and support the right of 
 property. All those vast and fruitful countries, comprising 
 the fairest portion of the earth, that stretch from i 1 
 Sea to the Persian Gulf, and from the western shores of 
 Morocco to the confines of China, once the seat of the most 
 renowned empires, of arts and civilization, are now, through 
 the want of security and freedom, become the most deplor- 
 able spectacles of extreme misery. "No care," says Mr. 
 Kinneir, speaking of some of the most fertile provinces ol 
 Asia Minor, " is taken to improve the land ; nor can this be 
 matter of surprise, when we reflect that the farmer is liable 
 to be turned out at a moment's warning, and is certnin of 
 being taxed, or rather plundered, in exact proportion to the 
 yearly produce of his farm. it is not, indeed, uncommon, 
 should there be a prospect of a plentiful harvest, for the 
 crops upon the grounds to he seized by the pacha, at a low 
 valuation, and then pul up to the highest bidder I" (Journey 
 in Jlsia Minor, <\-e. p. 52.) The same intelligent traveller 
 observes, in speaking of Syria, " that the Grand Seignior is 
 the lord of the soil, and the mtri or capitation tax, is regu- 
 larly paid into the public treasury. The pachas derive 
 their revenues from levying arbitrary contributions in 
 money and in kind upon the merchants, citizens, villagers, 
 and cultivators of the land. This unjust and uncertain 
 mode of taxation is rendered still more afflicting by the man- 
 ner of collecting it. The troops and followers of the pacha, 
 a licensed banditti, disperse themselves over the country and 
 villages, where they live at free quarters, and for every 
 piastre that is received by their master at least three have 
 been exacted from the unfortunate proprietor. Under 
 such a system, neither agriculture, commerce, .arms, arts, 
 nor sciences, can ever make the least progress; and it is 
 deeply to be lamented that no successful effort has hitherto 
 been made to wrest so noble a country from those who are 
 so unworthy to possess it." (Ibid. p. 174.) 
 
 Had it been possible for arbitrary power to profit by the 
 lessons of experience.it must long since have perceived 
 that not only the wealth of its subjects, but its own, would 
 he most effectually increased by maintaining the security of 
 property. Were ihe governments of Turkey and Persia to 
 establish a vigilant system of police, to secure to each indi- 
 vidual the unrestrained power of disposing of the fruits of 
 his labour, and to substitute a regular plan of taxation in 
 the room of the present odious system of extortion and 
 tyranny, industry would gradually revive ; capital and pop- 
 ulation would be augmented ; and a moderate land tax, or 
 reasonable duties on a few articles in general demand, 
 would bring a much larger sum into Ihe cotters of the 
 treasury than all that is now obtained by force and violence. 
 The stated public burdens laid on the Turks, Persians, &c. 
 are light compared with those imposed on the English, 
 Dutch, and French. But the latter know that when they 
 have paid the taxes due to government they will be permit- 
 ted peaceably to enjoy or to accumulate the residue of their 
 wealth ; whereas the subjects of eastern despotisms have, 
 generally speaking, no security, that the moment after they 
 have paid their stated contributions, the pacha, or one of 
 his satellites, may not strip them of every additional far- 
 thing they possess ! Security is the foundation, the principal 
 element, in every well-digested system of finance. When 
 maintained inviolate, it enables a country to support, with- 
 out much difficulty, a very heavy load of taxes; but where 
 there is no security, where property is a prey to rapine and 
 spoliation, to the attacks of the needy, the powerful, and 
 the profligate, the smallest burdens are justly regarded as 
 oppressive, and uniformly exceed the means of the im- 
 poverished and dispirited inhabitants. 
 
 Power of bequeathing Property. — To perfect the right of 
 property, it is necessary not only that an individual should 
 have the power freely to dispose of It during his lifetime, 
 but also that he should have power to bequeath it to 
 
 others in the event of his death. JYihil enim tarn eon- 
 oeniem est naturali aquitate, say the Roman jurists; qnam 
 voltintatrm Domini volentis rem siiam in alium transferre, 
 ratam Imlirri. (Instil., lib. ii., tit. i., s. 40.) It is evident that 
 the being enabled to bestow our property on those Who 
 occupy 'be chief place in our affections must have a power- 
 ful effect in stimulating industry. When a man is assured 
 that be is not labouring for strangers, that the fruit of his 
 industry will not fall into the hands of an unknown succes- 
 sor, but will descend to bis children or his friends, he finds, 
 
 as it w en-, his existence Indefinitely extended, and continues 
 with unimpaired energy to evert himself for the benefit of 
 
 those who are to perpetuate bis family and name, and 
 whose w elfare. perhaps, is as dear to him as bis own. The 
 power of bequeathing property connects the future with 
 the present: without It, no Undertaking WOUld be entered 
 
 upon which did not promise an adequate return during the 
 lifetime of the projector. But in civilized societies the 
 
 plans of the capitalist are not circumscribed by the brief 
 duration of human life, lie plants forests by w hiih he 
 can never expect to be enriched ; he raises edifices fitted
 
 RIGHT OF PROPERTY. 
 
 nnd intended to outlive many generations ; and executes 
 innumerable improvements, of which posterity alone can 
 reap the benefit. And he does all this because he is per- 
 mitted to name his successors ; to transmit his property and 
 effects to those with whom he is connected by the ties of 
 kindred, affection, or gratitude, and in whose welfare he 
 feels a deep interest. 
 
 Numerous difficult and important questions have, how- 
 ever, to be decided in framing regulations as to the be- 
 queathing of property by will; and as our purpose at present 
 is merely to point out the principle on which the power is 
 conceded, we shall defer the notice of the conditions which 
 should limit its exercise to the article Succession, Law of. 
 Property in Wild Animals. — It is clear from what has 
 been previously stated, and from the nature of the thing, 
 that nothing can be made property unless it be susceptible 
 of appropriation ; and, on this ground, it has sometimes 
 been objected to the game laws, that they have made a pro- 
 perty of that which, being incapable of appropriation, should 
 belong to the community, or to the captors. In support of 
 this view of the matter the rule of the Roman law has been 
 appealed to. where it is laid down — Fera igitur bestim, et 
 Volucres, et pisces, et omnia animalia qua mari, calu, et terra 
 nascuntur,simul atquc abaliquo capta fucrint, jure gentium 
 statim illius esse incipiunt ; quod enim ante nullius est, id 
 naturali ratione occupanti conceditur. (Instit., lib. ii., tit. i., 
 § 12.) But it is distinctly laid down in the same article 
 whence we have borrowed this paragraph, that the propri- 
 etor of an estate has full power to prohibit any one from 
 entering upon it to kill wild animals. Without this proviso, 
 there would not, in fact, be any such thing as a real property 
 in land ; and this is, in truth, all that is meant when it is 
 said thai game is property. A partridge or hare is mine so 
 long as it remains on my estate; but the moment it trans- 
 fers itself to the estate of another, it becomes the property 
 of the owner of such estate. Poachers are punished, not 
 because they have killed wild animals, but partly and prin- 
 cipally because in doing so they invade the right of property 
 by killing it without leave on lands belonging to other par- 
 ties, on which Ihey had no right to enter, and partly because 
 they have not paid the tax demanded by government from 
 all who kill game. 
 
 It is sometimes indispensable for the interests of society 
 to appropriate the whole or a portion of the landed property 
 of one or more individuals to some public purpose, as the 
 formation of a road, a canal, &c. But property should 
 never be wantonly taken for such purposes, nor till the ad- 
 vantages to be obtained by its cession have been fully estab- 
 lished before some competent tribunal ; and when this has 
 been done, full crmpensation should in every case be given 
 to those who are thus called upon to give up their property 
 for the promotion of the public interests. 
 
 Inconveniences of a Community of Goods.— Those 
 schemes of policy that have been founded or projected 
 either upon the the principle of a communion of goods, or 
 of an equal partition of the land among the different fami- 
 lies belonging to the society, are bottomed on the most erro- 
 neous views, and would, if they could be acted upon, be an 
 effectual bar to every improvement. Those who have ad- 
 vocated these schemes, struck with the evils arising from 
 the violations of private property to which the ill-regulated 
 cupidity of some and the wretchedness of others are per- 
 petually giving birth, seem to have thought that the crimes 
 and disorders that were thus occasioned might be advanta- 
 geously and completely got rid of by abolishing the right of 
 property, and obliging men to labour in common, and giving 
 each individual an equal share of the produce raised by the 
 joint labour of all. They imagined that they would, in this 
 way, eradiate that selfishness which was so fruitful a source 
 of mischief ; that as no one could be either richer or poorer 
 than his neighbour, no one would be the object of envy or 
 attack ; and that the principal sources of discord and crime 
 being thus dried up, men would henceforth live together 
 like brothers, and be anxious only to promote each other's 
 welfare. But these expectations are wholly inconsistent 
 with the nature of man, and cannot, therefore, be realized. 
 \\ e might as well attempt to eradicate the feelings of hun- 
 ger and of thirst, as of self-interest; and if we could eradi- 
 cate it, we should eradicate the principle which impels man 
 to labour, which prompts him to contrive, invent, and amass. 
 Ihere is plainly nothing blameable in our preference of our- 
 selves to others The desire of aggrandizement becomes 
 injurious only when it prompts individuals to endeavour to 
 advance their own interests by acting unjustly by their fel- 
 low-men ; for, otherwise, it is the source of all that is most 
 advantageous to society. And it is mainly for the purpose 
 of obviating this abuse, and of protecting every one in the 
 enjoyment of his property, that governments have been in- 
 stituted. Hanc enim ob causam, says Cicero; mazime ut 
 suatuerentur,respubliccBcivitatesqueconstituta;'sunt. Nam 
 etsi duce nature congregabantur homines, tamen spe custo- 
 dies rerum suarum urbium presidia quarebant. 
 
 RIGIDITY. 
 
 It is idle, therefore, to think that the feelings of self-in- 
 terest can ever be eradicated from the human breast. All 
 that the adoption of the system of those who propose to 
 establish a communion of labour and of goods could do, 
 would be to give the principle of selfishness a different di- 
 rection from what it takes when left to itself; to render it 
 a source of idleness and poverty, instead of labour and 
 wealth. Suppose you have a community of a thousand in- 
 dividuals who live and labour in common ; in this, as in ali 
 similar cases, it would be obvious to every individual that 
 if, on the one hand, he made any unusual exertions, either 
 of body or mind, he would reap only the thousandth part of 
 the advantages derivable from them ; while, on the other 
 hand, it must be equally obvious, that if he contrive to 
 avoid performing his due share of work, or obtain more 
 than his fair proportion of its produce, he will be the sole 
 gainer. Under such circumstances, it is clear not only that 
 society could make no farther progress, but that it" must 
 gradually, and not very slowly, retrograde. The principle 
 of self-interest would not be annihilated ; on the contrary, 
 it would be as strong as ever ; but inasmuch as no one could 
 henceforth expect to advance himself by industry, ingenui- 
 ty, or frugality, a regard for his own interest would teach 
 him to lbllovv an opposite course, and would infallibly 
 prompt him to labour as little and to consume as much as 
 possible ! The evils produced by such a system would be so in- 
 tolerable that it could not be continued. But if it were, we 
 should, instead of the industry, invention, and wealth pro- 
 duced by the establishment of private property, and the 
 consequent efforts of individuals to advance themselves in 
 the scale of society, have universal idleness, indifference, 
 and the most abject misery. We should purchase an ex- 
 emption from those crimes and disorders incident to an ad- 
 vanced stage of society, and which the adoption of good 
 laws and a vigilant system of police go far to repress, by 
 the annihilation of everything that raises civilized man 
 above the condition of the savage, and by subjecting all 
 classes to the plague of universal "poverty. 
 
 Inconveniences of Agrarian Laws. — The attempt to found 
 a society upon an agrarian law, or upon the principle of 
 maintaining an equal division of land among the ditierent 
 families of the society, is as much opposed to the nature of 
 things as a communion of goods; but were the system in 
 other respects as advantageous as it is the reverse, it could 
 not be maintained for any considerable period. Though the 
 first settlers of an unoccupied country were to adopt this 
 plan, it would, in less than a dozen years, be wholly sub- 
 verted, and there would be the greatest inequality in their 
 fortunes. This would arise from differences of strength, 
 talent, and conduct, from the varying numbers and conduct 
 of children, and the other unforeseen accidents and occur- 
 rences which are always affecting the circumstances of in- 
 dividuals. It is absurd to suppose that an equality of con- 
 dition could be maintained, notwithstanding the operation 
 of such powerful causes of derangement, without resorting 
 to the most atrocious system of tyranny, without equalizing 
 the number of children, and abstracting a portion of the 
 earnings of the industrious and frugal to bestow them on 
 the idle and improvident. But it is unnecessary to dwell on 
 such crude absurdities. The distinction of rich and poor is 
 not, as some shallow sophists would seem to suppose, arti- 
 ficial, but real ; it is as much a part of the order of Provi- 
 dence as the distinction of the sexes. It depends on the 
 differences of the physical and mental powers and disposi- 
 tions of different individuals, and of the different circum- 
 stances under which they happen to be placed ; and to 
 a, tempt to obliterate this distinction by encroaching on the 
 right of property, and enacting agrarian laws, or laws of a 
 similar tendency, is to attempt to accomplish what is in its 
 nature impracticable, at the expense ol great and certain 
 mischief and inconvenience. 
 
 RIGHT, PETITION OF. A declarator}' enactment 
 passed by the parliament of 1628, to which this name was 
 given by the framers, who were desirous to imply by it 
 that the franchises therein specified were not newly ac- 
 quired, and that the law was merely explanatory of the 
 ancient constitution. It was calculated to protect the sub- 
 ject against forced loans, benevolences, taxes imposed with- 
 out consent of parliament, arbitrary imprisonments, &c. 
 Much delay and some evasion took place before Charles I. 
 could be induced to give the royal assent to this measure. 
 RIGHTS, BILL OF. See Bill of Rights. 
 RIGI'DITY. In Mechanics, a resistance to change of 
 form. In all theoretical investigations respecting the appli- 
 cation of forces through the intervention of machines, those 
 machines are assumed (except cords) to be perfectly rigid, 
 so far as the forces employed are able to affect their inte- 
 grity of form and structure. Rigidity is often, in the arts, 
 called stiffness, and is opposed to flexibility. 
 
 The rigidity of cords, or the difficulty with which they 
 are bent into any given curve, is the chief cause of the loss 
 of power arising from their employment in machines. The 
 
 1063
 
 RIGORISTS. 
 
 law of their loss of force may lie thus expressed : The re- 
 tfetaace Arising from the stiffness of cords is as the weights 
 which stretch the cords multiplied by the thickness of the 
 cords, anil dil ided by the radii of curvature Of the surfaces 
 
 over which thej pass, it i-. howevt r. necessary to state 
 that experiments exhibit great discrepancies with this theo- 
 retical law. 
 
 RTGORISTS. In Ecclesiastical History, a name some- 
 times given to the extreme JanBenist party. (See Moskem, 
 vol. v.. p. 231, transl. cd., 1796.) 
 
 RTMOSE. (Lat. rima. a cleft.) In Zoology, when the 
 surface of an animal or part resembles the hark of a tree, 
 having numerous minute, narrow, and nearly parallel exca- 
 vations, Which run into each other. 
 
 RINFORZA'NDO. (It. strengthening.) In Music, a 
 a direction to the performer, denoting that the sound is to be 
 increased. It is marked thus < ; when the sound is to be 
 diminished (diminuendo) this mark > is need. 
 
 RING. In Geometry, the figure enveloping a sphere 
 which moves with its centre always in a riven curve, most 
 commonly a circle. For the principal properties Of this 
 solid, see Hachette, Geometric Descriptive. 
 
 The term is also sometimes applied to designate the area 
 of the space between two concentric circles. 
 
 KING BONE. In Farriery, a callus growing in the hollow 
 circle of the little pastern of a horse, just above the coronet. 
 
 RING OF SATURN. See Saturn. 
 
 KINGS. FAIRY. This name is given to irregular circles 
 in pastures and lawns on which .Agarics spring up, and 
 winch become much more verdant than the surrounding 
 grass. They are caused by the centrifugal growth of the 
 spawn of the -iparic, which radiates from a common centre, 
 and bears the fructification, which is what appears above 
 ground, only at the circumference. The verdure of the grass 
 where these fungi grow seems to be caused either by their 
 manuring the ground when they decay, or by the nitrogen 
 they give ott'. which is an active stimidant to vegetation, 
 The application of fairy rings was given to this phenome- 
 non from their being regarded as the places where the fai- 
 ries held their noctural revels. 
 
 RING SAIL. A small and light sail set on a mast on the 
 talfrail. Also a studding sail set upon the gati" of a fore 
 and aft sail. 
 
 RI'NGWORM. This disease appears in circular patches 
 Upon the neck, forehead, or scalp; it begins with clusters 
 of little pustules, which form scabs, leaving a red, pimply 
 surface and destroying the roots of the hair as it proceeds, 
 which it does, if not prevented, over the greater part of the 
 head. It is most common in children of a feeble, flabby 
 habit ; but as it is communicable by contagion, it generally 
 Spreads rapidly in schools and families by the frequent con- 
 tact of the heads of children, or by the use of the same 
 caps, combs, towels, &c. ; so that when it once appears, 
 tin diseased boys should be strictly removed from the others. 
 The treatment consists in shaving the head, and using fre- 
 quent and regular ablutions in the first instance, sponging 
 the part with weak soap and water ; when the scabbing be- 
 gins, other applications must be used, the selection of which 
 must entirely depend upon the degree of irritation and other 
 circumstances. Solutions of nitrate of silver, sulphate of 
 copper, iodide of potassium, or of iron, pitch, and tar oint- 
 ments, petroleum and naphtha, mercurial ointments of dif- 
 ferent kinds, and various other stimulants; as also some- 
 times sedatives, are resorted to, to get rid of the morbid 
 state of the part ; but so whimsical and obstinate is the dis- 
 ease, thai it is impossible to lay down any mode of treat- 
 ment which can be considered as approaching to a specific. 
 Except in particular cases, no internal medicine has ap- 
 peared to be of use. 
 
 RTOT, in Law, is said to be a tumultuous disturbance of 
 the peace by three persons or more assembling together of 
 
 their own authority in order to assist each other against 
 any one who shall oppose them in the execution of a pri- 
 vate purpose, and afterwards executing the same in a vio- 
 lent and turbulent manner. A rout is said to be a disturb- 
 ance of the peace by persons assembled together to do a 
 thing, which, if executed, WOUld make them rioters, and 
 making tome motion towards that object; an unlawful as- 
 sembly, a similar disturbance by persons who neither exe- 
 cute their purpose, nor make any actual motion towards the 
 execution of it. 
 
 RIPIE'NO. (It. full.) In Music, a term Signifying full, 
 and is u>e,l in compositions Of many parts, to distinguish 
 these Which till up the harmony and play only occasional 
 Iv, from those that play throughout the p 
 
 RIPPLE-HARKS. The peculiar undulated marks, 
 which the receding waves leave on the sea beach, and 
 which are occasionally found in some of the older strata of 
 
 ■ i ore considered as am DCrng a similar action at 
 
 a remote period. The wind blowing over a sandy district 
 somi times occasions a similar appearance. 
 
 RITOKNK'LLO. (It. a return.) In Music, properly a 
 10G4 
 
 RIVER. 
 
 short repetition, such as that of an echo, or of the last words 
 of a BOBg, especially if such repetition be made after a voice by 
 one or more instruments. Hut by custom tins word is now 
 
 used to denote all symphonies played before the voices 
 begin, and which seem to prelude or introduce what follows. 
 RITUAL. (Lat. runs, a rite.) A book in which the 
 different rites or services of the church are contained. 
 
 1:1 \ i.K. i Lat. rivus.) In Physical Geography, an inland 
 current of water, formed within a certain portion of the 
 earth's surface by the confluence of brooks, small streams, 
 or mountain torrents, arid discharging itself into the ocean, 
 a lake, marsh, or other river. There are few subjects in 
 physical geography which present s (1 wide a field for specu- 
 lation as rivers, whether we regard them in an historical, 
 political, economical, or scientific [mint of view. They are 
 associated with the earliest efforts of mankind to emerge 
 from a state of barbarism ; but they are no less serviceable 
 to nations which have reached the acme of civilization. In 
 the earliest ages they Were regarded with veneration, and 
 became the objects of a grateful adoration surpassed only by 
 that paid to the sun and the host of heaven. Nor is this 
 surprising; for in countries where the Labours of the hus- 
 bandman and shepherd depended for a successful issue on 
 the falling of periodical rains, or the melting of the collect- 
 ed snows in a far-distant country, such rivers as the Nile, 
 the Ganges, and the Indus were the visible agents of na- 
 ture In bestowing on the inhabitants of their banks all the 
 blessings of a rich and spontaneous fertility ; and hence 
 their waters were held sacred, and they received, and 
 to this day retain, the adoration of the countries through 
 which they flow. But it is by countries which have al- 
 ready made progress in civilization (to which, indeed, they 
 largely contribute, that the advantages of rivers are best ap- 
 preciated, in their adaptation to the purposes of navigation, 
 and in their application to the useful arts. Like the veins 
 and arteries of the human body which convey life and 
 strength to its remotest extremities, rivers vivify, maintain, 
 and excite the efforts of human industry : u hither we re- 
 gard them near their source as the humble instruments of 
 turning a mill, in their progress as facilitating the transport 
 of agricultural or manufacturing produce from one district 
 to another, or as enriching the countries at their mouths 
 \\ ith the varied products of distant lands. This has been 
 so admirably expressed by Pliny, that we cannot refrain 
 from embodying his words in our pages. "The beginnings 
 of a river," he says, "are Insignificant, and its Infancy is 
 frivolous: it plays among the flowers of a meadow ; it wa- 
 ters a garden, or turns a little mill. Gathering strength, in 
 its youth it becomes wild and impetuous. I inpatient of the 
 restraints which it still meets with in the hollows among 
 the mountains, it is restless and fretful ; quick in its turning, 
 and unsteady in its course. Now it is a roaring cataract, 
 tearing up and overturning whatever opposes its progress, 
 and it shoots headlong down from a rock; then it becomes 
 a sullen and gloomy pool, buried in the bottom of a glen. 
 Recovering breadth by repose, it again dashes along, till, 
 tired of uproar and mischief, it quits all that it has swept 
 along, and leaves the opening of the x-alley strewed with 
 the rejected waste. Now quitting its retirement, it comes 
 abroad into the world, journeying with more prudence and 
 discretion through cultivated fields, yielding to circum- 
 stances, and winding round what would trouble it to over- 
 whelm or remove. It passes through the populous cities, 
 and all the busy haunts of man, tendering its services on 
 every side, and becomes the support and ornament of the 
 country. Increased by numerous alliances, and advanced 
 in its course, it becomes grave and stately in its motions, 
 loves peace and quiet, and in majestic, silence rolls on its 
 mighty waters till it is laid to rest in the vast abyss." 
 
 Host large rivers have their origin In very elevated moun- 
 tains, or on Mgh table lands, the height and direction of 
 which chiefly determine their size and course. For full in- 
 humation on the various points involved in this subject, we 
 beg in refer the reader to the article " Rivers" in the F.nni. 
 Ilrit. : and we shall in this place confine our remarks to 
 some of their most striking peculiarities — periodical inunda- 
 tions, oecultations, and reappearance. 
 
 The periodical inundations of rivers depend on great falls 
 of rain in mountainous regions, or on the melting of snows 
 in the neighbourhood Of their source. The period depends 
 on the return of these seasons in different places. Within 
 the tropics, the rainy season occurs usually about the time 
 when the sun pav-.es the meridian towards the tropics J and 
 continues until his return to the same place. The rise of 
 
 the Orinoco commences in May, its Inundation begins in 
 
 June, and the waters return to their channel in September : 
 from which time they decrease until April of the succeed- 
 ing year. In the Lower Mississippi whose inundations be- 
 gin in March, and are at their height in June, are found 
 
 ti enormous rafts of driftwood (formed during the imm- 
 
 dationa , Which sometimes extend for ten or twelve miles 
 in one mass, rise and fall with the stream, yet have a luxu-
 
 RIVERS. 
 
 nous vegetation on their summits. The great rivers of Asia 
 — the Ganges, the Indus, the Tigris, and Euphrates — have 
 also their periods of inundation, depending on the circum- 
 stances determining the setting in of the rains on the moun- 
 tains in which they originate. In the Ganges the waters 
 begin to increase in April, and at the end of July the coun- 
 try, for a hundred miles along its banks, presents the ap- 
 pearance of a vast lake interspersed with insulated villages 
 and woods. But of all inundations, those of the Nile are 
 the most celebrated ; nor is it possible to find anywhere 
 anion'.' terrestrial objects a more striking instance of the 
 stability of the laws of nature, than the periodical rise and 
 fall of "this mighty river. We know by the testimony of 
 antiquity that theinundations of the Nile have been the 
 same, with respect to their season and duration, for three 
 thousand years. Indeed, their certainty regulates the pub- 
 lic revenue ; for when, by means of nilometers, it is ascer- 
 tained that the waters promise an unusually prosperous 
 season, the taxes are proportionally increased. Shortly 
 after the commencement of the rains of Abyssinia, in June, 
 the river begins to rise, and attains its greatest height in 
 August. At Cairo the greatest rise is twenty-eight feet; 
 but in the valley of the Nile, with a mean breadth of three 
 or four leagues, it is only four feet. It decreases gradually 
 until the following .May; and as soon as the waters are 
 within their usual channel, the soil, moistened and en- 
 riched by the sediment deposited from the inundation, is 
 diligently cultivated by the natives. Pliny thus speaks of 
 the inundation: "Justum incrementum est cubitoriim 16. 
 minores aqnse non omnia rigant: ampliores detinent tar- 
 dius recedendo. Haec serendi tempora absumunt: ilia? non 
 dant sitiente. Utrumque reputat provincial. In duodecim 
 cubitis famem sentiant, in tredecim etiamnum esurit ; qua- 
 tuordecim cubita hilaritatem afferant, quindecim securita- 
 tem, sexdecim delicias." (Hist. Nat., lib. v., 9.) 
 
 The engu/fment and reappearance of some rivers have 
 attracted attention in every age ; nor has any satisfactory 
 explanation been yet assigned for this extraordinary phe- 
 nomenon. In the Memoir of the Abbe Guettard. the phe- 
 nomenon in question is accounted for by the spongy na- 
 ture of the soil through which such rivefs flow ; thus the 
 Guadiana, one of the largest rivers in Spain, suddenly dis- 
 appears in the marshes near the village of Castillo de Cer- 
 rera, and after pursuing a subterraneous course for twelve 
 or fourteen miles bursts again into day. Limestone dis- 
 tricts afford many specimens of this phenomenon ; one of 
 the most striking of which is the occultation of the Rhone 
 near the gorge called the Perte. There are also some cu- 
 rious instances in Derbyshire and Yorkshire. But no coun- 
 try surpasses Greece in the number of its subterranean 
 streams, the peculiarities of which are often clothed in 
 splendid mythological fictions by her ancient bards. The 
 waters of many valleys in the Peloponnesus have no other 
 outlets than {epedpu, or chasms, which engulf them; such 
 are the outlets of the valleys of Tegea, Mantinea, Asa?a, 
 Stymphalus, Peneus, &c. A familiarity with such phe- 
 nomena, and a poetical temperament, readily led the ancient 
 Greeks to conceive still more distant secret communica- 
 tions ; and the imagination which peopled every grove, and 
 animated every stream with presiding deities, could easily 
 reconcile itself to the story of the river god Alpheus, who 
 was said to pursue his favourite nymph Arethusa beneath 
 the bed of the ocean from Greece to the shores of Sicily. 
 (Traill's Physical Geography.) 
 
 Rivers. 
 
 Length. 
 
 Length id 
 English 
 
 Propor- 
 tional . 
 
 Majni- 
 
 Area of 
 Basin in 
 English 
 
 Miles. 
 
 
 
 Mites. 
 
 tude of 
 Basin. 
 
 Europe 
 
 
 
 
 
 Thnmes . . . 
 
 
 ISO 
 
 1 
 
 5-500 
 
 Rhine .... 
 
 g 
 
 810 
 
 12i 
 
 70 000 
 
 Loire .... 
 
 720 
 
 8.V 
 
 4S.0O0 
 
 Po 
 
 2i 
 
 400 
 
 b" 
 
 27,000 
 
 Elbe .... 
 
 4 ? 
 
 820 
 
 9 
 
 50.000 
 
 Vistula . . 
 
 4+ 
 
 760 
 
 13*. 
 
 76,000 
 
 Danbue 
 
 94 
 
 1750 
 
 56 
 
 310,000 
 
 Dnieper 
 
 7i 
 
 1390 
 
 36 
 
 200,000 
 
 Dun .... 
 
 Asia. 
 
 71 
 
 1350 
 
 37 
 
 205,000 
 
 Wolga 
 
 14 1 
 
 2520 
 
 94 
 
 520,000 
 
 Euphrates . 
 
 9| 
 
 1750 
 
 42 
 
 230,000 
 
 Indus .... 
 
 "*. 
 
 10 2 
 
 2070 
 
 72 1 
 76" 
 
 400.000 
 
 Ganges 
 
 1800 
 
 420,000 
 
 Kan^-'se, or Great River 
 
 
 
 
 
 of China 
 
 21* 
 
 3870 
 
 13S 
 
 760,000 
 
 Aniour. Chinese Tartar)- 
 
 16 i 
 
 2880 
 
 164 
 
 900 000 
 
 Lena. Asiatic Russia 
 
 13* 
 
 2430 
 
 174 
 
 9(0,000 
 
 Oby, ditto . . . 
 Africa. 
 
 Nile .... 
 
 15 
 
 2700 
 
 236 
 
 1,300,000 
 
 1-i 
 
 2330 
 
 90 j 
 
 500,000 
 
 America. 
 
 
 
 
 uncertain. 
 
 St. Lawrence, including 
 
 
 
 
 
 lakes . 
 Mississippi . . . 
 
 22* 
 19" 1 
 
 4050 
 3420 
 
 109 
 249 
 
 600,000 
 1,368,000 
 
 Phfa .... 
 Amazon, not including 
 
 ,3 i 
 
 2430 
 
 225 
 
 1,240,000 
 
 Arajuav . 
 
 22$ 
 
 4095 
 
 395 
 
 2.177.000 
 
 The preceding table, from Dr. Traill's valuable Treatise 
 on Physical Geography, shows the length of the course 
 of twenty-two of the principal rivers of the world, and the 
 
 | area of their respective basins, together with their propor- 
 tional lengths in English miles ; a calculation which has 
 
 1 been obtained by multiplying them by 180, being the dis- 
 tance between the remotest sources of the Thames, which 
 is assumed as unity, and its embouchure at the Nore. 
 
 For an account of the phenomena of the Australian riv- 
 ers, which, in apparent contrariety to the laws of nature, 
 in other parts of the world, become narrower the farther 
 they flow from their source, see the Geog. Diet., art. 
 "Australia." 
 
 River. In Hydraulics, a current of water flowing in an 
 open channel. The velocity of a current of water flowing 
 in an open channel depends on the volume of water, the 
 
 I form of the channel, and its inclination ; and the deter- 
 mination of the relations subsisting among these three 
 
 ' quantities is a problem of great practical importance, the 
 solution of which must be derived partly from experiment, 
 and partly from the general theory of the motion and re- 
 
 , sistance of fluids. 
 
 If water, whether flowing in pipes or open channels, 
 
 ; suffered no resistance from the solid matter with which it 
 comes in contact, the velocity would depend solely upon 
 the accelerating force of gravity, and at any point of the 
 channel would be in proportion to the square root of the 
 difference of level between that point and the source. But 
 
 1 this velocity, if not constantly impeded, would soon become 
 enormous, and render rivers the immediate instruments of 
 devastation and ruin to the earth. The Rhone, for exam- 
 ple, which receives its principal waters at an elevation of 
 900 feet above the level of the sea, would enter the bay of 
 
 i Marseilles with a velocity of 164 miles in an hour, such 
 
 1 being the velocity due to a heavy body falling from a 
 
 ! height of 900 feet. Even the Thames, which has a de- 
 
 ' scent of only 100 feet, would acquire a velocity of 54 miles 
 in an hour. 
 
 The forces which tend to impede this constantly in- 
 creasing velocity depend upon the quantity of surface ex- 
 posed to friction and the velocity of the stream. Let / de- 
 note the length of a portion of the stream through which 
 the velocity and the form of the channel remain the same, 
 and c the length of the line of intersection of the channel 
 with a vertical plane perpendicular to the stream (»". e., the 
 perimeter or boundary of the transverse section minus the 
 superficial breadth) ; then the surface exposed tc friction 
 is represented by c I. With respect to the velocity, it is 
 found by experiment that the resistance is expressed by a 
 function of the velocity made up of two parts, one depend- 
 ing on the velocity simply, and the other on its square. 
 Hence, denoting the friction or resistance by /, and the 
 mean velocity by b, and assuming m and n. two constant 
 numbers, to be determined by experiment, the resistance 
 will be expressed by this formula : 
 
 / = (m v + n v 2 ) c I. 
 Now the force which opposes the velocity is the resist- 
 ance, and the force which tends to accelerate it is the com- 
 ponent of the weight in the direction of the slope ; and as 
 the velocity of the portion under consideration is regarded 
 as uniform, these two forces must be equal to each other. 
 Let a denote the area of the transverse section of the 
 stream, then the bulk is a I, and its weight gal; the re- 
 solved part of which in the direction of the slope is g a I 
 sin. (', where i is the inclination of the surface to the hori- 
 zon. We have, therefore, f= gal ,sin. i, or (mv -\- n v 2 ) 
 c I = gal sin. i ; whence for any length / for which the 
 area of the section, the slope, and form of the channel re- 
 main unchanged, we have (m v -4- n t>2) c = g a sin. i. 
 
 If we assume R = a -i- c (the area of the section divided 
 by the length of its boundary diminished by the width), 
 then the formula becomes m v + n v 2 = g R sin. i. This 
 quantity R is what is usually called the radius of the sec- 
 tion, and sometimes the hydraulic depth. It is the depth 
 which the river would take if it flowed in a rectangular 
 channel, whose breadth is equal to the bottom and sides 
 of the actual bed. 
 
 The constants m and n have been determined experi- 
 mentally by Prony (Recherches Physico-MaUiematiques sur 
 la Thtiirie'des Eauz Co urantes, Paris 1804). On reducing 
 his measures to English feet, and rejecting the term m v, 
 which is small in comparison of n v 2 , the formula becomes, 
 
 v — 10953 ,/R sin. ;'. 
 Eytelwein (Handluch der Mechanikfester Korper nnd 
 der Hydraulik, Berlin, 1801) gives v = 9487 ,/R sin. i. As 
 a sufficiently near approximation, we may assume v ■=. 100 
 ^/R sin. i ; and if we denote the fall in feet each mile by 
 h, we shall have sin. i ■=. k -f- 5280, and the formula will 
 become on reduction v = $ ^/R h nearly. This gives the 
 velocity in feet per second. To find the velocitv in miles 
 3U* 1065
 
 RIVOSE. 
 
 per hour, we nm«t multiply by 3G00, and divide by 5380, 
 
 which gives t> = iir ^/R * >' a formula found to be sutri- 
 ciently conformable t.i experiments. 
 
 From the above formula the mean velocity v is given, 
 when R and k are determined; <>r. generally, any one of 
 the three quantities, the mean velocity, the hydraulic 
 depth, and the fall, is determined in terms of the other two. 
 It La necessarj to observe, that the velocity is not ; 
 in all the parts of the section of the stream. The lil a- 
 ments of water in contact with the bottom and side- of the 
 
 Channel are arrested by the friction, and in their turn re- 
 tard the filaments next above them in consequence of their 
 adherence or viscidity ; so that the filaments which suffer 
 the least retardation are those at the surface and nearest 
 the middle of the stream. On the other hand, the hydro 
 static pressure tends to give the greatest velocity to the 
 
 filaments which are deepest under the surface. By the 
 
 combination of these two causes, the greatest velocity in 
 an open channel of a symmetrical term is at the middle, 
 and at a small depth under the surface. 
 
 The mean velocity, which has been denoted by v, is that 
 Which, when multiplied by the area of the transverse sec- 
 tion, gives the total quantity of water which passes through 
 
 the section in a given time. Du Bu&l found that tin great- 
 est velocity is to the mean velocity of the whole section in 
 the ratio nearly of 5 to 4; so that if the greatest velocity is 
 experimentally determined, we may assume the mean ve- 
 locity to be 4-5ths of the quantity given by the experiment. 
 It was found by Du Buat that if from the square root of 
 the velocity in the middle of the stream, expressed in inches 
 per second, unity be subtracted, the square of the remain- 
 der gives the velocity at the bottom. 
 
 Since the mean velocity of a river is proportional to the 
 square root of the hydraulic depth (the inclination remain- 
 ing the same), it follows that on contracting the channel 
 the velocity will lie increased. When a river receives a per- 
 manent addition, the first effect is to increase the velocity, 
 Whereby the attrition on the sides and bottom is also in- 
 creased; and th : generally of softer materials. 
 the consequence is that the width, and sometimes though 
 more rarely, the depth, is increased until the resistance is 
 again equal to the accelerative force, and the velocity be- 
 comes uniform. 
 
 It is frequently of great importance to determine the 
 whole quantity of water furnished by a river, or, as it is 
 called, the discharge. For this purpose the figure of the 
 bed must be accurately determined, w hirh may be done by 
 soundings. This also <_'ives the area of the section, and 
 consequent^ the hydraulic depth. The velocity at the 
 surface may be determined by means of a tloat; or at a 
 small depth under the surface by the instrument called 
 Print's tube (see the term), or by measuring the force of 
 the current by means of a dynamometer. 
 
 See, in addition to the works above quoted, Bossut, 
 Traite d? Hydrodynamiqut : Navier, Lefons sur V Applica- 
 tion de la Micanique ; Belidor, Architecture Hydraulique. 
 
 RIVO'SE. (l.at. rivus, a brook.) In Zoology, when the 
 surface Of an animal or part is marked with furrows which 
 do not run in a parallel direction, and are rather sinuate. 
 
 RLXDOLLAR. (A corruption of Germ, reichsthaler, or 
 dollar of the empire.) A silver coin of different values in 
 different countries. Sri Mosky. 
 
 if ' M II. The curve, or arch, which is generally cut in 
 
 the foot of so square sails, from one clue to the other, to 
 
 keep the foot clear of stays and ropes. 
 
 ROAD, or ROADSTEAD. A place of anchorage. A 
 Vessel when at anchor is termed a roadster, in contradis- 
 tinction to another under sail. 
 
 ROADS, are pathways formed through a country, by 
 which passengers and commodities may travel, or he trans- 
 ported, with more or less facility anil expedition, from one 
 
 place to another. Roads are of \ arious kinds, according to 
 
 the slate of civilization and wealth of the country through 
 which they are Constructed, and according to the nature 
 and extent of the traliic: to be earned on upon them, from 
 the rude paths of the aboriginal people, earned in direct 
 
 Lines o\ ei the natural Burface of the country, passabl ily 
 
 by foot passengers or paok horses, to the o mparatively per- 
 fect modern mad, carried on an artificial causeway, and 
 reduced to a marly level Burface at enormous expense by 
 means of vast excavations, extensive embankments, bridges, 
 viaducts, tunnels, ami other expedients supplied bj the skill 
 and ingenuity of the civil engineer. 
 
 Mages of Hauls. — There is no expedient which 
 
 more powerfully conduces t" the advancement of a people 
 in civilization, or to the extension of their prosperity and 
 
 national wealth, than the construction of good roads, con 
 
 necting the various centres of commerce ami of industry 
 
 about which they may have collected themselves. The 
 
 invention of printing, the expedient of money, the adoption 
 
 of a uniform system of weights ami measures, would sever- 
 ally be ineffectual, or productive of advantages of a very 
 moo 
 
 ROADS. 
 
 limited extent, if the intercommunication of those whose 
 feelings and ideas are expressed and conveyed in print, and 
 
 among whom money is made to circulate, and whose c i- 
 
 tnerce is stimulated and facilitated by the uniform module 
 of quantity supplied by Weights and measures, were not 
 facilitated and expedited by the means of conveyance sup- 
 plied by roads. Without roads, the interchange of advan- 
 tages, moral, intellectual, and physical, which now takes- 
 place in all highly civilized countries between the rural and 
 the urbane population, could not he maintained; without 
 them, indeed, large towns or cities could not continue to 
 exist The supply of the population collected in such 
 places with the various products of agriculture, necessary 
 to their physical existence, could not be sustained. .Nor, on 
 the other hand, would the rural population affording that 
 supply he benefitted by a return in exchange of the refine- 
 ments of tlie town, and the various articles of luxury and 
 necessity obtained by commerce from every part of the 
 globe. 
 
 But roads are not less necessary for the advancement of 
 agriculture itself, than for the due maintenance of the 
 necessary relations between the towns and the country. 
 Without the aid of roads, it would be impossible to apply 
 those arts to the soil by which increased powers of produc- 
 tion are given to it. Without roads, the various kinds of 
 manure, by which the scientific farmer knows how to raise 
 augmented crops, could not he transport* d to his fields from 
 the place, often distant and difficult of access, where such 
 manures are found. Roads may then, in fact, he considered 
 as a system of veins and arteries, by which all those prin- 
 ciples necessary for the maintenance of the prosperity of a 
 country- are kept in circulation. 
 
 History of Roads. — The importance of roads to the wel- 
 fare of nations was not unknown to the ancients. The 
 senate of Athens, the government of the Lacedemonians, 
 the Thebans, and other states of Greece, bestowed much 
 care upon them; but, as might naturally be expected, the 
 first great advances in the art of Intercommunication by 
 roads were due to a people essentially commercial. The 
 invention of paved roads is traced to the Carthaginians. 
 Rome, ever aw ake to the advantages to be gained from con- 
 quered people, followed in the steps of the Carthaginians, 
 and vastly extended and improved their processes in the 
 construction of roads. 
 
 The Via Appia, the Via Aurelia, and the Via Flaminia 
 were the first great monuments of the Roman people in this 
 department of art. Under Julius Cesar, the capital of the 
 empire was made to communicate with all the chief tow us 
 by paved roads ; and during the last African war, a road 
 of this kind was constructed from Spain through Gaul to 
 the Alps. After this, these great lines of communication 
 were extended through Savoy, Dauphiae, and Provence; 
 through Germany, every part of Spain; through Gaul, and 
 even to Constantinople ; through Asia, Hungary, Macedonia, 
 and to the mouths of the Danube. Neither did the inter- 
 position of seas obstruct the labour or daunt the enterprise 
 of this great people. The lines of communication thus con- 
 structed to the shores of the continent of I'm ope were con- 
 tinued at corresponding points of the neighbouring islands 
 
 and continents. Sic ily. Corsica. Sardinia. England, Africa, 
 and Asia were accordingly intersected and penetrated by 
 roads, forming the continuation of the great European lines. 
 These gigantic works were not mere paths prepared for the 
 action of the feet of horses and the wheels of carriages, 
 f< Tnicd upon the natural surface of the ground, but wen: 
 constructed cm principles in some respects as efficient as 
 
 those which modern engineering has supplied ; forests w era 
 opened, mountains excavated, hills lowered, valleys tilled 
 up. chasms and rivers bestridden by bridges, and marshes 
 drained, to an extent which would bear no mean comparison 
 to the result of the great engineering enterprise of recent 
 tunes. 
 
 '/ Roads. — The first roads of artificial construction 
 in England wire- those formed by the Romans While it was 
 a Roman province. \ grand trunk road was carried through 
 
 the- country north and south, and another nearly at right 
 angles to it east and west These main lines win'' supplied 
 with branches, extending ill every direction which the 
 conquerors found It expedient t>> render accessible to their 
 arms. The Roman road called Watling Street commenced 
 from Richborough in K< i m Ruterpinc, and being 
 
 carried through London in a north w 'estei 1\ direction, WBS 
 
 continued to Chester. The road called Ermine Street 
 commenced from London, and passing through Lincoln 
 
 was cam, d thence tl igh Carlisle into Scotland. The 
 
 Fobs Way passed from Bath, in a direction north-east, and 
 joined the Ermine Street The road called ikenald ex- 
 
 tended from -Norwich, in a southward direction, to Dorset- 
 shire. 
 
 The example thus afforded by their conquerors was not 
 followed by the Britons, who. unconscious of the many ad- 
 \ antages attending facilities of intercommunication, relapsed
 
 ROADS. 
 
 into the barbarous neglect of roads ; and while the Roman 
 ways were allowed to fall into decay, new roads were not 
 constructed. For many centuries, such intercourse as was 
 maintained between the various parts of this country took 
 place almost exclusively by rude paths, capable of being 
 passed on foot, or at best by horses, carried over the natural 
 surface of the ground in straight directions from place to 
 place. Hills were surmounted, valleys crossed, and rivers 
 forded, in the same manner as the savages of the most 
 remote wilds of America now communicate with each 
 other, or with the settlers. It was not till the reign of 
 Charles II. that any attempt was made by the legislature 
 to im]irove the roads of the country. In the 16th year of 
 the reign of that monarch, the first turnpike-road was es- 
 tablished by law, whereon toll was taken. It passed through 
 Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, and Huntingdonshire. It was 
 not, however, till about a century from the present time, 
 that any great or effectual attempts were made to establish 
 a system of good roads through the country. Till nearly 
 the middle of the last century, most of the goods were con- 
 veyed from place to place in Scotland on pack-horses. 
 Oatmeal, coals, turf, and even straw and hay, were con- 
 veyed in this way ; but in carrying goods between distant 
 placet) it was necessary to employ a cart, as all that a horse 
 could carry on his back, was not sufficient to defray the 
 cost of a long journey, The time that the carriers usually 
 required to perforin their journeys seems now almost in- 
 credible : the common carrier between Selkirk and Edin- 
 burgh, a distance of thirty-eight miles, required a fortnight 
 for his journey, going and returning. The road, for a con- 
 siderable extent, lay along the bottom of the district called 
 Gait Water; the bed of the stream, when not flooded, being 
 the tract chosen as the most level and easiest to travel in. 
 
 Nor were the means of travelling between large towns 
 much better. In 1678, a contract was made to establish a 
 coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow, a distance of forty- 
 four miles. Tbis coach was to be drawn by six horses, and 
 the journey between the places, to and from, was engaged 
 to be completed in six days ; even so recently as the year 
 1750, the stage coach from Edinburgh to Glasgow took a 
 day and a half to make the journey. 
 
 In the year 1763, there was but one stage coach between 
 Edinburgh and London, which started once a month from 
 each place, and took a fortnight to perform the journey. 
 At the present time, afier the lapse of not so much as eighty 
 years, there are seven coaches daily start from each of 
 these cities for the other ; besides several steam ships of 
 enormous magnitude, which sail weekly from each place, 
 supplying all the accommodation and luxury of floating 
 hotels, and completing the journey, in common with the 
 coaches, in less than forty-eight hours. If each of the 
 coaches be estimated as conveying ten passengers daily, 
 the coaches alone would thus convey daily between these 
 cities about 140 passengers, or above 4000 monthly. If an 
 equal number he estimated as conveyed by the steam ships, 
 we should have the present intercourse in passengers be- 
 tween London and Edinburgh amounting to about 8000 
 monthly ; whereas, in 1703, the number conveyed by stage 
 coaches between these places monthly could not have ex 
 ceeded twenty-five, and by all the means of conveyance 
 then existing probably did not exceed fifty. 
 
 It happens that the line of road now occupied by the 
 Liverpool and Manchester Railway and its branches, and 
 travelled daily by thousands of passengers, at a speed of 
 twenty-five miles an hour, including stoppages, was, in the 
 year 1770, travelled over by Mr. Arthur Young, who has 
 left us in his Tour the following account of the state of the 
 roads at that time : " I know not in the whole range of 
 language terms sufficiently expressive to describe this in- 
 fernal road. Let me most seriously caution all travellers, 
 who may accidentally propose to travel this terrible coun- 
 try, to avoid it as they would the devil ; for a thousand to 
 one they break their necks, or their limbs, by overthrows 
 or breakings-down. They will here meet with ruts, which 
 I actually measured, four feet deep, and floating with mud 
 only from a wet summer. What, therefore, must it be 
 after a winter 1 The only mending it receives is tumbling 
 in some loose stones, which serve no other purpose than 
 jolting a carriage in the most intolerable manner. These 
 are not merely opinions, but facts ; for I actually passed 
 three carts broken down in these eighteen miles of exe- 
 crable memory." With the exception of a few rare in- 
 stances of important roads, constructed under special acts 
 of parliament, the roads of England have not been con- 
 structed on any scientific principle, and are, in most cases 
 nearly coincident with the foot and horse paths adopted 
 by the early inhabitants of the country. These rude paths 
 having been formed at an early period, the only roads of 
 communication between the chief towns were gradually 
 improved, so as to be capable of being travelled over bv 
 wheel carriages. The natural surface of the ground was 
 In time covered with an artificial coating of gravel or stones ■ 
 
 hills too steep to be surmounted by carriages were either 
 levelled, and the material obtained from their excavation 
 thrown into the valleys, or the roads were carried round 
 them ; at a later period fences were added ; and thus, by 
 slow degrees, the old horse-path grew into the modern 
 road. How far removed from a truly good and scien- 
 tific line of communication such a road must be, will be 
 apparent to any one who considers what the principles 
 ought to be on which a road should be laid down and con- 
 structed. 
 
 The Art of Road-making. — When it is proposed to con- 
 struct a line of road extending between two places, the 
 engineer upon whom such a duty devolves first makes 
 himself well acquainted with the surface of the country 
 lying between the two places, so as to obtain an acquaint- 
 ance with the face of the country, somewhat approaching 
 to that which would be supplied by a superficial model of 
 it, which would exhibit all its inequalities and undulations 
 of surface. He is then to select what he considers, all 
 circumstances being taken into account, the best general 
 route for the proposed road. But, previously to laying it 
 out with accuracy, it is necessary to make an instrumental 
 survey of the country along the route thus selected ; taking 
 the levels from point to point throughout the whole dis- 
 tance, and making borings in all places where excavations 
 are required, to determine the strata through which such 
 cuttings are to be carried, and the requisite inclinations of 
 the slopes or slanting sides, as well of the cuttings as of 
 the embankments to be formed by the material thus ob- 
 tained. It is also requisite, in the selection of the route 
 for the proposed road, to have regard to the supply of 
 materials, not only for first constructing it, but for main- 
 taining it in repair ; thus, the position of gravel pits and 
 quarries in the neighbourhood of the proposed line, and 
 the modes of access to them, should be well ascertained. 
 
 The results of such an investigation should be reduced 
 to a plan and section ; the plan of the road being on a scale 
 not less than 66 yards to an inch, and the section not less 
 than 30 feet to an inch. 
 
 The loss of tractive power, and danger to travellers pro- 
 duced by steep acclivities, render it especially necessary 
 that a proper limitation should be imposed upon the incli- 
 nations or acclivities on every line of road on which much 
 traffic is carried on. As, however, this reduction of hills 
 in a country where much inequality of surface exists is 
 attended with a considerable outlay of capital, the engineer 
 will have to balance the cost of constructing a road having 
 the best possible inclinations against the advantages to be 
 obtained in the permanent working of the road ; and if the 
 expected traffic be not such as to yield advantages propor- 
 tionate to the capital absorbed, greater rates of inclination 
 must be allowed to the hills, with a view to diminish the 
 extent of the works, and to render the expense of con- 
 structing the road proportionate to the traffic expected 
 upon it. 
 
 A dead level, even where it can be obtained, is not the 
 best course for a road ; a certain inclination of the surface 
 facilitates the drainage, and keeps the road in a dry state. 
 There is a certain inclination, depending on the degree of 
 perfection given to the surface of the road, and on the 
 structure of the carriages worked upon it, which cannot 
 be exceeded without a direct loss of tractive power ; this 
 inclination or acclivity is that, in descending which, at a 
 uniform speed, the traces slacken, or which causes the car- 
 riages to press on the horses : the limiting inclination 
 within which this effect does not take place is called the 
 angle of repose. 
 
 On all acclivities less steep than the angle of repose, a 
 certain amount of tractive force is necessary in the descent 
 as well as in the ascent ; and the mean of the two draw- 
 ing forces, ascending and descending, is equal to the force 
 along a level road. Thus, on such acclivities as much 
 power is gained in the descent as is lost in the ascent; 
 but on acclivities which are more steep than the angle of 
 repose, the load presses on the horses during their descent, 
 so as to impede their action, and their power is expended 
 in checking the descent of the load ; or, if this effect be 
 prevented by the use of any form of drag or break, then 
 the power expended on such drag or break corresponds to 
 an equal quantity of mechanical power expended in the 
 ascent, for which no equivalent is obtained in the descent. 
 
 On well-constructed roads, with carriages such as now 
 are generally used in England, the angle of repose may be 
 taken at about one in thirty-six ; and this is consequently 
 an acclivity which ought not to be exceeded on roads over 
 which much traffic is carried. 
 
 The expedients by which the requisite inclinations are 
 obtained on common roads are the same as those which 
 are resorted to in the construction of railways. See Rail- 
 roads. 
 
 The exact course of the road and the degree of its ac- 
 clivities being determined, the next thing to be considered 
 is the formation of its surface. The qualities which ought 
 
 1067
 
 ROADS. 
 
 ROASTING. 
 
 to be imparted to it arc twofold— first, it should be smooth : I firm and the crust consolidated. After this, the remaining 
 liv it should be hard : and the goodness of the road -J inch.- of stone may be put on : the whole of this stone, 
 
 forming ti indies of crust, is to consist of pieces broken as 
 nearly as is practicable Into a cubical form, and of such a 
 magnitude that they can pass through a ring of •-" inches 
 
 will be exactly in the proportion of the degree in which 
 these qualities can be imparted to it. and permanently 
 
 maintained upon it. An error prevailed among mad en- 
 gineers until a very recent period. It was considered thai 
 smoothness of surface alone was sufficient for the perfection 
 ol a road; and that, provided it could be made sufficiently 
 durable, it was unimportant how soft or yielding the coat- 
 ing of the road might be; This error, into which, among 
 others, Macadam himself fell, was i>ased upon a neglect 
 of one of the most important circumstances to be con- 
 sidered in the construction of a road. The main object to 
 ; lined by all roads is the diminution of the resistance 
 which a carriage opposes to the tractive power. Other 
 things being the same, it was sufficiently apparent that 
 this resistance would he diminished by increasing the 
 smoothness of the road surface. But roughness or un- 
 evenness of surface is not the only cause of resistance to 
 the tractive power: if two roads have their surfaces 
 equally smooth and even, hut one is soft and elastic, so as 
 to yield under the pressure of the wheel, recovering its 
 form as the wheel advances, and the other is hard and 
 unyielding, the resistance to the tractive power will he 
 
 greater on the suft and yielding road than on the hard and 
 
 unyielding road : and this augmentation of resistance will 
 be in proportion to the softness of the surface. That this 
 would be the case, admits of immediate demonstration on 
 mechanical and mathematical principles; hut, without 
 resorting to these, it must he sufficiently apparent from 
 the results of the most common experience. A surface of 
 velvet may be as smooth and even as a surface of ice ; 
 but if an ivory ball be rolled on the latter, it will continue 
 its motion much longer than on the former. In fact, the 
 wheels of a carriage in passing along a soft road sink into 
 it- surface, as the ball would sink into the pile of the vel- 
 vet : and although in virtue of its elasticity, the surface 
 of the road, like that of the velvet, may recover its smooth- 
 lies, after the pressure has 1 ii removed from it, still a 
 
 resistance will he offered to the drawing or impelling 
 power, which would not he produced by a hard and un- 
 yielding surface equally smooth. 
 
 Macadamizition. — This process, which has received its 
 name from Macadam, fo Whose labours the improvement 
 of the roads of England within the last half century owes 
 so much, consists in forming the road crust of stone-, 
 broken with a hammer into angular pieces of a small and 
 uniform size. This method, however, is one which was 
 long practised in various parts of Europe. When the 
 stones of which the road crust is to he formed are broken 
 to the proper magnitude and form, they are spread over 
 the surface of the road in a I ■;, er of :t or 4 inches thick. 
 After this has been consolidated' by carriages working upon 
 it or by rollers, another layer of broken stones of equal 
 depth is laid upon it : it is consolidated in like manner ; 
 and thus one layer is laid over another until an artificial 
 crust is formed of broken stones of sufficient thickness to 
 give the requisite strength to the road. 
 
 A coating or road crust thus formed misht be constructed 
 on any substratum whatsoever, and a smooth and appa- 
 rently good road would be obtained. It was the practice 
 of Mr. Macadam to disregard the nature of the substratum ; 
 and he maintained that if it was not such a bog as would 
 not allow a man to walk over it, he would even prefer it 
 to a hard bottom. 
 
 !*« System. — The improvement in road-making 
 which consisted in a due attention to the substratum or 
 foundation of the road, so as to give increased facility to 
 
 the tractive power by rendering its surface hard and un- 
 yielding, is due to the late Mr. Telford. The following is 
 a description of the method of constructing such a road 
 practised by that eminent engineer. 
 
 Upon the level l"d prepare.! for the road materials a 
 bottom course or layer of stones N to be set by hand, in 
 form of a close firm pavement. The stones set in the 
 middle of the road should he 7 inches in depth : at 9 feet 
 from the centre the depth should be 5 inches: at 12 feet, 
 4 inches ; and at lf> feet. 'A inches ; the entire width of the 
 road being 30 feet. These stones are to be set on their 
 
 broadest edges lengthwise across the road, and the breadth 
 of the upper edge should not exceed 1 Inches. All the 
 
 irregularities of the Upper part of this pavement are to be 
 broken oil' by hammers, and all the Interstices to be tilled 
 with Btone chips firmly wedged "r packed by band with a 
 
 light hammer ; so that, when the pavement is finished, its 
 cross section shall have a convexitj of surface ol aboul I 
 Inches in tie centre above tin- extreme edges ; 18 feel In 
 the centre of this pavemenl are to be coated with a layi t 
 
 of hard broken stone-, t> inches deep: of these l, in 
 must be first put on and worked down bj carriages and 
 hones in the ordinary traffic of the road, care beinL' taken 
 constantly to rake in the ruts until the surface has become 
 10W 
 
 nternal diameter. The spaces on each side of the middle 
 is feet are to be eoated with broken stone or vv ell cleansed 
 stroim gravel up to the level of the footpath or other 
 boundary of the road, so as to make the w hole convexity 
 of the road ti inches in the middle above the level of the 
 edges . and the whole of the materials thus formed and 
 consolidated should be covered with a coating lh inches 
 deep of good gravel, free from clay or earth. 
 
 Such was the method practised by Mr. Telford in the 
 construction of great main roads, such as that between 
 Holyhead and Shrewsbury. In the streets of towns, and 
 other places where roads have to hear a still heavier traffic, 
 such a road as that above described is found to be subject to 
 a superficial wear, so rapid as to produce an intolerable 
 quantity of dust in summer and of mud in winter. In such 
 places recourse has been generally had to pavement. The 
 first object to he secured for a durable pavement, as well as 
 in other roads, is to secure a good foundation. The best 
 method is to lay a foundation of gravel or broken stone, the 
 bed of which should be formed with a convexity sloping to 
 each side by a fall of about 1 in 50. After the first layer of 
 broken stone is put on, the street should be open for car- 
 riages to pass over it until it is consolidated, all ruts being 
 carefully raked in. The same process should be repealed 
 with, each successive layer, until a sufficiently solid founda- 
 tion is obtained for the pavement. On this foundation a 
 pavement formed of blocks of stone is laid, the blocks be- 
 ing 10 inches in depth, from 10 to 15 inches in length, and 
 from to 8 inches in width. Such is the structure which is 
 requisite for the streets which are the main thoroughfares 
 of a izreat city ; a pavement with less strength of foundation, 
 and formed of smaller blocks of stone, being used for the 
 streets of less intercourse. 
 
 To manv inconveniences produced in the great thorough- 
 fares of London, such as Oxford-street, Holborn, Fleet- 
 street, the Strand, &c, by reason of the rapid wear of eve- 
 rv kind of pavement hitherto adopted, a suspension of the 
 intercourse during the frequent repairs, the dust in summer 
 and the mud in winter produced by a surface of broken 
 stones, and the intolerable noise produced by every species 
 of stone pavement, have lately excited much Inquiry as to 
 the possibility of constructing some road having sufficient 
 strength for a traffic so enormous, sufficient durability to 
 prevent the inconvenience of the frequent suspension of in- 
 tercourse by the necessity of repairs, and presenting a sur- 
 face which, while it would be free from the noise of a stone 
 pavement, would not be attended with the inconvenience 
 of dust and mud produced by a surface of broken stone. 
 This problem appears to be in a great degree solved by the 
 adoption of a pavement of wood. A short piece of Oxford- 
 street was thus paved in the beginning of 1839; and after a 
 successful trial of several months, the same pavemc lit was 
 
 extended nearly throughout the whole extent of that street ; 
 
 and at the present time 1842 this method of pavement is 
 in process of construction in several other thoroughfares of 
 I. onil, m. The idea of a wooden pavement is not new. In 
 the northern parts of Germany and in Russia Mich pave- 
 ments have been Ion'.' in use; some of the main streets of 
 Petersburg!) and Vienna have long been paved in this man- 
 ner. A few years ago a series of experiments were made 
 at New York, to determine the best description of paving 
 for a street. One of the methods adopted was a tesselaled 
 
 pavemeni. formed oi' hexagonal blocks of pine wood, mea- 
 suring 6 inches on each side of their transverse section, and 
 1-2 inches in depth. From the manner in which the timber 
 is cut its fibres are vertical, and therefore the tendency to 
 wear from vertical pressure is small. The blocks are coat- 
 ed with pitch or tar, forming a s »th upper surface. 
 
 \ | riOUS methods have been proposed for laving the wood 
 
 pavements of London: but as these methods are severally 
 
 as vet only in process of trial, nothing is practically known 
 Of their respective merits. There appears, however, to be 
 
 sufficient to justify a well grounded expectation that wood 
 
 pavements of some form or other will soon supersede all 
 
 others for the great thoroughfares of towns. 
 
 Concerning die formation of roads of various kinds, their 
 drainage, fencing, their management, repairs, &c., much 
 
 might be said; but the limits which must he imposed on 
 
 this article compel us to refer the reader for lie e details to 
 
 Sir Henry Pametl'S Treatise on Roads. See also the Kn- 
 
 , article "Chemin;" Bergier, Histoiri «'<.* Grands 
 chimin- de f Empire Item, mi ; Annates des Fonts el Chaut- 
 ?trs ; Anderson's Qmmeree; M'Culloch's 7Vi 
 
 , Library of Useful Knowledge; Mr. Telford's 
 
 ROA'STTNG, in Chemical Metallurgy, means the pro- 
 tracted application of heat to metallic ores, below their
 
 ROB. 
 
 fusing points. It is generally resorted to to expel volatile 
 matters, especially sulphur, arsenic, carbonic acid, water, 
 fee. 
 
 ROB. A term of Arabic origin, applied by old pharma- 
 ceutical writers to thin extracts or inspissated juices. 
 
 RO'BBERY (from the Germ, rauben, to rob), in Law, is 
 defined a felonious taking of money or goods of any value 
 from the person of another, or in his presence, against his 
 will, by violence or putting him in fear; and this, whether 
 the fear be of injury to the person's property or character. 
 But it is necessary that the fear be of immediate injury, not 
 of some future injurious results ; and then the money must, 
 generally speaking, be taken immediately upon the threat 
 made, and not afterwards given from fear of consequences. 
 But the extortion of money by threat to accuse of an infa- 
 mous crime was made robbery by 7 &. 8 G. 4, c. 29. The 
 law on the subject is now collected in the recent statute 1 
 Vict., c. 29 ; and robbery is capital only when the robber 
 "at the time, or immediately before or after," stabs, cuts, or 
 wounds any person. 
 
 ROBES, MASTER OF THE. An officer in the royal 
 household, whose duty, as the designation implies, consists 
 in ordering the sovereign's robes. Under a queen, this of- 
 fice, which has always been one of great dignity, is per- 
 formed by a lady, who enjoys the highest rank of the ladies 
 in the service of the queen. 
 
 RO'C, or RU'KH. The well-known monstrous bird of 
 Arabian mythology, of the same fabulous species with the 
 simurg of the Persians. In the notes to vol. iii. of Mr. 
 Lane's edition of the Jlrabian Nig/its' Entertainments are 
 some curious extracts from the writers of old voyages of 
 that nation ; showing that the tale was either founded on, 
 or supported by, the wonderful accounts of travellers. 
 Even Sinbad's well-known adventure, when his crew broke 
 the roc's egg, and were attacked in consequence by the en- 
 raged pair of birds, is borrowed from the serious narration 
 of Ibn-El-YVardee. The roc is also described by Marco 
 Paulo. (Marsden's transl., p. 707.) The size of this famous 
 monster is, of course, described with all the luxuriance of ori- 
 ental imagination. Ibn-El-Wardee makes one of its wings 
 10,000 fathoms long. Mr. Lane appears to think that this 
 extravagant fiction was suggested by the condor ; but the 
 size and power of that bird are much exaggerated, even in 
 the common accounts. The bearded vulture of Egypt seems 
 a better archetype of the rukh. In a drawing from an il- 
 luminated Persian MS., which Mr. Lane has copied, the 
 roc, or rather simurg. which is represented as performing 
 the slight operation of carrying otf three elephants in its 
 beak and claws, is something like a cock, with eagle's 
 wings and an extravagant tail. The simurg is a creature 
 of importance in Persian Mythology : it is the phoenix of 
 oriental fable, one only living at a time, and attains the age 
 of 1700 years. (See the notes to Southeifs Thalaba.) 
 
 ROCELLIC ACID. An acid obtained from the Rocella 
 tinctoria. 
 
 ROCHE'LLE SALT. The tartrate of soda and potassa. 
 It is a double salt, composed of 2 equivalents of tartaric 
 acid (66 X 2) = 132, 1 equivalent of potassa = 48, and 1 of 
 soda=32. Its crystals, which are large and well-defined 
 prisms, often presenting eight, ten, or twelve sides, include 8 
 equivalents (9X8)= 72 of water. 
 
 ROCK. See Geology. 
 
 ROCK CORK. A variety of asbestos, which see. 
 
 ROCK CRYSTAL. A common mineralogical term ap- 
 plied to crystallized silica: it is also called quartz. 
 
 RO'CKET. In the Military Art, a very destructive spe- 
 cies of fire-work, the best kind of which was invented by 
 the late Sir William Congreve, and called after him the 
 Congrcve rocket. The body of the machine is cvlindrical, 
 and its head conical. It is filled with very inflammable 
 materials; on the combustion of which, as in the common 
 sky-rocket, the body is impelled forward with a continual 
 acceleration. 
 
 ROCKING or LOGGING STONES. See Geology. 
 
 ROCK SALT. Common salt found in masses or beds in 
 the new red sandstone, as in Cheshire and elsewhere. See 
 Geology. 
 
 ROCK SHELLS. The common name of certain Uni- 
 valves, characterized by the long straight canal which ter- 
 minates the mouths of their shells. See Murex. 
 
 ROCKWORK. In Architecture, masonry wrought in 
 imitation of rough stone, in various arrangements, and 
 chiefly used in basements of buildings. 
 
 Rockwork, in Gardening, is applied to a quantity of 
 stones, fragments of rock, or even vitrified bricks, piled to- 
 gether in such a nrinner as to form a nidus for the growth 
 and display of alpine plants. When the pieces of rock are 
 of such torms as can be connected together so as to present 
 the appearance of stratification, that mode of arranging 
 them may be adopted ; and the soil and plants may be 
 placed in vertical, oblique, or horizontal fissures, or on 
 ledges, according to the lines of stratification. When, bow- 
 
 85 
 
 M 
 
 ROLLING PENDULUM. 
 
 ever, as is most frequently the case, land or water-worn 
 stones are used, they may be distributed over a mound of 
 earth, not uniformly, but in groups, with smooth surfaces 
 of soil between, in the manner that may be observed in na- 
 ture, where stones of different sizes are seen rising out of 
 the surface of a green hill or hillock. When agglutinated 
 masses of vitrified bricks are used, either alone or mixed 
 with land stones of different sizes, they may be distributed 
 over a mound, or along a bank of soil, in such a manner as 
 to produce a varied surface, without attempting to imitate 
 nature, and with interstices between them for inserting the 
 plants. Imitations of conical hills, caverns, precipices, and 
 even the Alps, on a small scale, have been made in rock- 
 work ; but these, and all other imitations of nature, require 
 to be designed and directed by the eye and mind of an art- 
 ist. In general, the piles of stone called rockwork, in bo- 
 tanic aud flower gardens, might with more propriety be 
 called heaps of stones. 
 
 ROD. A measure of length, otherwise called a pole. It 
 is 5i yards, or 16£ feet ; and four of these make the Gan- 
 ger's chain. 
 
 RO'DENTS, Rodentia. (Lat. rodo, I gnaw.) The name 
 given by Cuvier to the Glires of Linnams, an order of Un- 
 guiculate Mammals, comprehending those which have two 
 long chisel-shaped incisors in each jaw, and no canines, 
 but a vacant interspace between the incisors and the molars ; 
 the lower jaw is articulated by a longitudinal condyle, in 
 such a way as to allow of no horizontal motion, except 
 from back to front, and vice versa, as is requisite for the ac- 
 tion of gnawing. The molars also have flat crowns, whose 
 enamelled eminences are always transverse, so as to be in 
 opposition to the horizontal motion of the jaw, and to in- 
 crease the power of trituration. The genera in which these 
 eminences are simple lines, and the crown is very flat, are 
 more exclusively frugivorous ; those in which the eminen- 
 ces of the teeth are divided into blunt tubercles are omniv- 
 orous ; while the small number of such as have no points 
 more readily attack other animals, and approximate some- 
 what to the Carnaria. The form of the bodv in the Roden- 
 tia is generally such that the hinder parts of it exceed those 
 of the front, so that they rather leap than walk. In some 
 of them this disproportion is even as excessive as it is in the 
 kangaroos. In the whole of this class the brain is almost 
 smooth, and without furrows ; the orbits are not separated 
 from the temporal fossa?, which have but little depth ; and 
 the eyes are altogether lateral. The inferiority of these 
 animals is visible in most of the details of their organiza- 
 tion. Those genera, however, which possess stronger clav- 
 icles have a certain degree of dexterity, and use their fore 
 feet to convev their food to the mouth. 
 
 RODOMONTADE. A term that has passed into most 
 European languages ; from Rodomont, a boisterous charat- 
 ter in the Orlando Furioso — signifying a boastful mode of 
 talking. 
 
 ROE. The ova of osseous fishes which are developed 
 simultaneously and in great numbers are so called. 
 
 ROESTONE. A granular limestone, or oolite ; which 
 see. See also Geology. 
 
 ROGATIONS. (Lat. rogo, I ask.) In the Ritual, pub- 
 lic supplications or litanies were anciently so termed, until 
 the latter designation began to supersede every other. 
 (Palmer, Orig. Liturgical, vol. i., p. 270.) In the Calendar, 
 the three Rogation days are the Monday, Tuesday, and 
 Wednesday next before Ascension-day. 
 
 ROGUE'S YARN. A yarn of a different twist and col- 
 our from the rest, and inserted in the royal cordage, to iden- 
 tify it in case of its being stolen. 
 
 RO'LLERS. The name given by' seamen to unusually 
 heavy waves, which set in upon a coast or island without 
 wind. They are frequent at Ascension. 
 
 RO'LLING, in Mechanics, is when all the parts of the 
 surface of one body come into successive contact with 
 those of another, and under such conditions as that, at eve- 
 ry instant, the portion of the two surfaces which have been 
 in contact are exactly equal. When this condition is not 
 fulfilled, the one surface is said to slide upon the other. 
 The friction of bodies in rolling is much less than in that 
 of sliding ; and hence the advantage of wheels to all kind* 
 of carriages. See Friction. 
 
 Rolling. In Naval language, the lateral oscillation of a 
 vessel. This motion, which is often very great when the 
 vessel is running before the sea, endangers the masts, 
 strains the sides, and loosens the decks at the waterwavs • 
 it is also liable to cause the guns to break adrift. When 
 the centre of gravity is too low, the oscillations begin and 
 end violently. The changes in the stowage necessary to 
 modify the nature or extent of the roll are made by seamen 
 from experimental knowledge. 
 
 RO'LLING PE'NDULUM. A cylinder caused to oscil- 
 late in small spaces on a horizontal plane. Its mathema- 
 tical expressions are interesting, but it has been applied to 
 no important practical purpose. 
 
 1069
 
 ROLLING TACKLE. 
 
 RO'LLING TA'CKLE. A tackle or pulley hooked to 
 the weather quarter of a yard, and to a lashing or strap 
 round the mast mar the slings or parral Of the yard ; tin' 
 i ..t' it is to keep the yard constantly ever to leeward 
 thereby depriving it of play and friction when the ship rolls 
 to windward. 
 
 ROLLS, MASTER OF THE. A high officer of the 
 ('unit ofChancery, second only to the lord chancellor. He 
 is appointed by the crown by letters patent, and holds his 
 office for life. The master of the rolls administers justice 
 i:i a separate court called the Rolls. He has the power of 
 hearing and determining originally the same matters as the 
 lord chancellor, excepting cases of hinac] and bankruptcy ; 
 but all orders and decrees pronounced by the master of the 
 rolls must lie signed by the lord chancellor before they are 
 enrolled. The master of the rolls is also the chief of the 
 twelve masters in Chancery, and chief clerk in the Petty 
 Bag Office : he is the keeper also of all the records of the 
 Court of Chancery after the decrees and orders have been 
 enrolled ; and on that account he was anciently styled 
 g-iiariliin des rolles. The master of the rolls ranks iinnie- 
 diatelv after the chief justice of the King's Bench: his sal- 
 ary, by the stat. 6 Geo. 4, c. 84, is £7000 a year. 
 
 Before the passing of the act 3 & 4 vV. 4, c. 94, the mas- 
 ter of the rolls did not hear motions, pleas, or demurrers ; 
 and whatever was presented for his decision, other than 
 the hearing of causes, was brought before him by petition. 
 By the above-mentioned act, however, this was altered ; 
 and motions, pleas, and demurrers are now heard by him in 
 the same manner as by the other equity judges. By the 
 act 1 & 2 Vict., chap, ill, entitled " An Act for the hotter 
 Custody of the Public Records," the master of the rolls for 
 the time being Is entrusted with the custody both of the 
 public records and those of the common law courts and 
 Court of Exchequer. 
 
 ROMAN ALUM. An alum extracted from the volcanic 
 rocks of the Solfaterra near Naples : it crystallizes in 
 opaque cubes, and appears to contain more alumina than 
 the common octoedral alum. 
 
 RO'MAN ARCHITECTURE. See Architbcture. 
 
 RO'MAN CATHOLICS, ROMANISTS, OK PAPISTS. 
 The names by which Protestants designate the members of 
 the lnr::e and ancient church, which regards the bishop Or 
 pope of Rome as its infallible spiritual bead, and assumes 
 to itself the title of the Catholic, or universal. A rapid re- 
 view of the external fortunes of this system, as connected 
 with the holy see, will be found in the article Papacy ; the 
 principal doctrines, also, by which it is distinguished are 
 detailed under the several heads. (Sec Tkanscbstantia- 
 tion, Mass, Penance, Pf rgatory, &c.) It will be suffi- 
 cient in this place to point out the general argument upon 
 which the Roman system has been erected. 
 
 The Roman doctors hold that the Scripture is not suffi- 
 cient for its own Interpretation. The hooks which compose 
 the canon of the New Testament are, they conceive, de- 
 sultory and incomplete; being many of them written for 
 special occasions, at a period considerably later than the 
 foundation of the religion in various districts, in some of 
 which whole generations of believers may have passed 
 away without having seen or heard of their precious con- 
 tents. It is not to be supposed, however, that doctrines so 
 important as (hose shadowed forth in the Epistles of St. 
 Paul, or the Gospel of St. John, could have been left un- 
 taught to the churches which flourished before their publi- 
 cation or beyond their reach. It must be admitted, there- 
 fore, they argue, that the first preachers of Christianity 
 must have been commissioned and instructed to deliver 
 
 these same doctrines orally ; and it is affirmed that several 
 Important doctrines are imperfectly developed in Scripture, 
 and would not be undi rstood, except for some such illu tra 
 tion by the way, the result of which is conveyed in the 
 creeds of the first centuries. It is also affirmed thai the 
 practice of the primitive church, the infallibility of which 
 is assumed, authenticates various articles of Roman belief, 
 of which only very slight hints are to be found in Scripture, 
 and such, perhaps, as would not have been discovered but 
 for this verj evidence from the usage. This line of a run 
 ment is admitted also by many Protestants, the facts al- 
 leged being disputed, and opposite results obtained. It 
 must be allowed, however, that the Catholics do not ad- 
 vance any article of belief without pointing out some sup- 
 d ground for it in Scripture, although the only shadow 
 
 Of proof of this kind is in some cases to be found now here 
 
 but in the writings which Protestants esteem apocryphal. 
 But while Protestants may refer to (he practice of the prim 
 hive church, and the traditions which must have circulated 
 in tie genuine historical evidence of the si rip 
 
 (ural Interpretation of the earliest and purest times, they 
 find too much contradiction In the Individual witni 
 
 der any one system deduced therefrom as infallibly 
 light. The Romanists, on the contrary, attaching more im- 
 portau.ee to this kind of evidence, and labouring under the 
 1070 
 
 ROMANCE. 
 
 same difficulty in discriminating between genuine and cor- 
 rupt traditions, take refuge in the idea of a spiritual head 
 of the church, an authorized interpreter of tradition, an in- 
 fallible expounder of the faith, and him they seat in the 
 chair of St. Peter tit Rome ; maintaining that the dogmas 
 which have been advanced from this source have always 
 been those of the Catholic Church, and always authentic. 
 la later times, however, a question has been much agit iled 
 
 respecting the relative authority of popes ami councils; the 
 superiority of each has been maintained by different classes 
 
 of theologians, and it is certain that in some cases the de- 
 cision of popes have been ultimately reversed by councils. 
 
 It is clear that there cannot be anywhere an authority com- 
 petent to settle the question ; but it is believed that the opin- 
 ion now generally acquiesced in is, that the two are co-or- 
 dinate powers, and that infallibility resides in the decrees 
 of a /i"/» m council. 
 
 ROMA'NCE. In Literature, a work of fiction in prose 
 or verse, containing the relation of a series of adventures, 
 either marvellous or probable. A tale confined to the lat- 
 ter class of events has, indeed, been considered to be more 
 strictly designated by the term novel. (A'ce Novel.) But 
 as our nomenclature for works of fiction is not very precise 
 or accurate, the name romance is very frequently used to 
 comprehend both. 
 
 The term romance is derived from the class of languages 
 in which such fictitious narratives, in modem times, were 
 first widely known ami circulated. These were the tongues 
 derived from the Latin, Italian, Spanish, and French, which 
 were all Roman dialects, in contradistinction to the Euro- 
 pean languages of Teutonic origin. But the " langue Ro- 
 mane" more properly signifies the dialect of southern 
 Fiance, Catalonia, &c, of which the Provencal was a va- 
 riety. 
 
 The famous Milesian Tales of antiquity are thought to 
 have been, iii classical times, the class of writings nearest 
 approaching to our modern romances. All the original 
 Greek compositors of this kind have perished. Hut we 
 have, in the Golden Ass of .Aptilcius, a Latin imitation of 
 these, written in the later times of the Roman empire. It 
 contains a series of wonderful adventures, sorceries, trans- 
 formations, love, religion, &c. ; and although it has been as- 
 serted that the romance, in its proper sense, was unknown 
 to the ancients, it would he difficult to say in what respect) 
 except the total absence of chivalrous sentiment, which is 
 
 of modern growth, this curious fragment diners from those 
 
 later inventions which we have agreed to call by that name. 
 
 The same may he said, and with even greater strictness, 
 of the Creek pastoral romances; a class of works apper- 
 taining to a later period, of winch the famous Daphnis and 
 Cnloe of Longus is the first known specimen. They con- 
 tain narratives of amours, adventures, ace., usually inter- 
 mixed with some supernatural interference ; and they have 
 the great characteristic of a modern novel — a pair of lovers, 
 by way of hero and heroine, whose attachment is generally 
 brought to a happy termination. 
 
 The earliest modern romances were collections of chival- 
 rous adventures, chiefly founded on the lives and achieve- 
 ments of the warlike adherents of two sovereigns, one of 
 whom, perhaps, had only a fabulous existence, while the 
 annals of the other have given rise to a wonderful series of 
 fables — Arthur and Charlemagne. These romances were 
 metrical compositions in that branch of the modem French 
 language termed the langue d'oil, which prevailed through- 
 out the north of France, and especially in Normandy. Be- 
 sides these, a great variety of smaller tales, some chival- 
 rous, some marvellous, some simply ludicrous, termed fabli- 
 iini, exist in the same language. The date of these compo- 
 sitions extends from the 12th to the 15th centuries. 
 
 From the hands of these rhymers the tales of chivalry 
 passed first into those of prose compilers, w ho reduced them 
 into a form more resembling that of our modem romances. 
 The French prose romances of chivalry, still confined to 
 the same classes of subjects, belong to the 14th and l.">ih 
 centuries. These, again, gave birth in two different coun- 
 tries to two widely differing series of works of Imagination. 
 
 In Italy, the poets termed Komanzieri, taking the adven- 
 tures of the knights of Charlemagne as their subject, trans- 
 ferred the mile conceptions Of their predecessors into one 
 
 of th.' st finished and enchanting forms of poetry to 
 
 w Inch modern fancy has given birth. Iloiardo, in the latter 
 half Of the 15th century, was the first of these poets; and 
 the names of Pulci, Ariosto, and TaSBO, three of the greatest 
 in Italian literature, grace their long catalogue. In Spain 
 anil Portugal a new class of chivalrous romances was called 
 
 into existence. Lobelra, a Portuguese, in the 14th century 
 
 composed the first lour books of .'I mail in dt (Inn/. This fa- 
 mous work resembles in character the French romances of 
 
 ii. but narrates the exploits of a new- and entirely lm» 
 aginary hero. . Imadia \\ as finished, and a long lit of similar 
 
 romances added to it by subsequent Spanish and Portuguese 
 writers. In these, while adventures became more and mure
 
 ROMANCE. 
 
 marvellous, the fanciful spirit of chivalry was more and 
 more carried into wild exaggeration. They became, how- 
 ever, so popular as to be transplanted into most European 
 languages, and even in France to supersede the heroic ttles 
 of Arthur and Charlemagne. They declined with the ad- 
 vance of a better taste in literature after the art of printing 
 had been for some time introduced ; and were finally driven 
 out of fashion by the wit of Cervantes, whose Don Quixote 
 is aimed, in great measure, against them. 
 
 Meanwhile, a new species of fiction had acquired voeue 
 in Italy, to which the term novel was first applied. This 
 was the amorous or humorous tale ; of which the Decame- 
 ron of Boccaccio contains the earliest, and by far the most 
 popular collection. The stories were derived from many 
 originals; but especially from the fabliaux, of which men- 
 tion has been already made. The Italian Novellieri are 
 extremely numerous ; but their compositions are always 
 short, and would, in our modern language, be designated by 
 the term tale rather than novel or romance. They flour- 
 ished in the 15th and 16th centuries. From these, again, 
 was derived the comic satirical tale of Spain : a more sus- 
 tained and longer class of composition, of which I.azarillo 
 de Tonnes and Guzman d 'Alfarache are the best known 
 specimens. But in these, which were also caricatures of 
 the chivalrous romances, a long course of independent ex- 
 ploits of the hero formed the substance of the work, and not 
 a story possessing an individual point and interest. 
 
 Don Quixote, of which the first part was published in 
 1609, was the joint result of the romances of chivalry, which 
 it was intended to ridicule, and of the romances of low life, 
 of whose character it contains a large intermixture. Al- 
 though Cervantes had more in view, perhaps (the satirical 
 object of his writing), than the direct delineation of man- 
 ners and occurrences, such as we now expect in a novel, 
 yet it may be fairly said that his immortal work is the first 
 of its kind in which human nature is brought on the stage 
 alike unadorned and undegraded; neither exaggerated by 
 the ridiculous costume of chivalry, nor lowered by the fa- 
 miliar buffoonery of a comic tale. While, therefore, it has 
 been the source of numerous imitations in its satirical char- 
 acter, its wide popularity has produced much more lasting 
 effects in another manner : it gave the first example of a 
 work of fiction in which the grave and gay events of life 
 might be mingled together ; and in which, also, the views 
 and sentiments of the author might be conveyed through 
 the medium of fictitious personages and events. 
 
 On the other hand, the chivalrous romance had been 
 seized, at an earlier period, by a very different genius from 
 that of Cervantes, and applied to another object. The fic- 
 tions of Rabelais (the Histories of Garg-antua and Pan/a- 
 gruel) cannot be termed romances; but their popularity 
 was so great, that France was inundated for more than a 
 century afterwards with Rabelaisian tales ; and many of 
 the elements of the modern low romance, comic hyperbole, 
 eccentric humour, and much freedom and gro.-sness of de- 
 lineation, have been undoubtedly derived to us from Rabe- 
 lais and his admirers. Swift and Sterne were both essen- 
 tially imitators of this singular genius. 
 
 In the 17th century, Le Sage naturalized the Spanish ro- 
 mii'.ce in France. His works present a singular mixture of 
 different styles, although all derived from the same coun- 
 try. In Gil Bias, for example (if that work he not actually 
 of Spanish origin), we have something of the humour of 
 Don Quixote, the form as well as much of the substance of 
 Guzman d y Al far ache , &c. ; and much intermixture of a class 
 of tales of love and intrigue, which, coming originally from 
 the Italian novellieri, had acquired a certain chivalrous col- 
 ouring in passing through the hands of Spanish imitators. 
 There is, moreover, a touch of French taste and philosophy, 
 such as afterwards, when mixed with satire, gave birth to 
 the modern philosophical tale or romance, of which Vol- 
 taire's writings contain the best known specimens. 
 
 After Le Sage, a new class of romances suddenlv grew 
 into fashion in France— the heroic ; derived, indeed, "in part 
 from an earlier source, the pastoral romance of the 16th 
 century. Of these, the Clelie and Cassandre of Mademoi- 
 selle Scudery were among the most popular examples, al- 
 though they have long ceased to be read. This species of 
 composition was, in fact, a revival of the old chivalrous ro- 
 mance, without its supernatural marvels, but with even 
 greater exaggeration of sentiment. Its temporarv success is 
 rather to be attributed to a caprice of fashion than to the 
 natural progress of taste. It was not, however wholly 
 without its use, as it called back some-degree of sentiment 
 and high feeling into the romance, which was in danger of 
 degenerating wholly into a comic cast. 
 
 During the 18th century, the romance and novel enjoyed 
 a popularity, both in England and France, which threw 
 comparatively into the shade every other species of ficti- 
 tious literature. It would be impossible to continue such a 
 sketch as the present, so as to trace out the various styles 
 and species of those compositions which grew into vo^ue 
 
 ROMANTIC. 
 
 by the success of distinguished writers in each respective 
 branch. In England, Richardson transferred into ordinary 
 lite somewhat of the refined sentiments which distinguish- 
 ed the heroic romance, and thus formed the basis of the 
 modern English novel, properly so called, or novel of man- 
 ners. His Pamela appeared in 1740 ; his last work, Sir 
 C/iarles Grandison, in 1753. Fielding and Smollett, about 
 the same time, revived the old comic romance, adapted to 
 English scenes and characters. Sterne did the same by 
 the humorous or Rabelaisian style of writing, but added an 
 intermixture of pathos which had certainly never been 
 joined before with so incongruous a companion. To these 
 four writers, in conjunction with Goldsmith's Vicar of 
 Wakefield, confessedly an independent original, almost all 
 the English fictitious prose literature of the last century 
 which is not imitated from foreign works may be said to 
 owe its existence. In France, Marivaux, Provost, and, with 
 a worse taste than theirs, the younger Crebillon, formed 
 the national manner in this class of writing for some time. 
 Their productions have much of the same character with 
 those of Richardson, but a far lower tone of morality, and 
 less life-like description. But the popularity of the famous 
 Noucelle Heloise gave a new turn, not only in France, but 
 over Europe, to the public taste in this branch of writing. 
 Marivaux and Prevost may be said to have been Rousseau's 
 models, as to the externals of his great romance ; but its 
 tone and sentiment are peculiarly its own. In France, after 
 many inferior imitators, Madame de Stael, the first of fe- 
 male novelists, must be classed as the best and latest disci- 
 ple of the school of Rousseau. In Germany, his style had 
 even greater success ; and he may be said to have called 
 into life at once the taste and the power of that people and 
 literature for fictitious composition. Wieland, Kotzebue, 
 and Goethe (Sorrows of IVcrther and Wilhelm .l/r/.srcr), are 
 all, though with much originality of their own, essentially 
 followers of Rousseau : Lafontaine, and many other inferior 
 writers, more direct imitators. 
 
 In our own times, while the novel of manners continues 
 to maintain its empire in popular estimation, another spe- 
 cies of romance— the historical — has likewise acquired a 
 most powerful hold on the public taste, which, even more 
 than the first, is chiefly of English original. The historical 
 romance, in which fictitious scenes and personages are 
 made to serve as vehicles for the historical portraiture of 
 past times, had, especially in Germany, been cultivated 
 with success before the writings of Sir Walter Scott ; but it 
 is to his adoption of this branch of composition, and the ex- 
 traordinary talent which he devoted to it, that its present 
 popularity and universal imitation are entirely owing. 
 
 ROMANCE'RO. In Spanish, the general name for a 
 collection of the national ballads or romances; so called 
 from the Roman or Romanic tongue, which, in the early 
 part of the middle ages, seems to have been the common 
 appellation of all the dialects spoken from the Alps to the 
 western extremity of the Mediterranean. The Romancero 
 General, the most celebrated of these collections, was pub- 
 lished in 1604-14. 
 
 ROMANE'SQUE. (Fr.) In Painting, appertaining to 
 fable or romance. In historical painting, it consists in the 
 choice of a fanciful subject rather than one founded on fact. 
 The romanesque is different from romantic, because the lat- 
 ter may be founded on truth, which the former never is. 
 
 Romanesque, in Literature, is applied to the common dia- 
 lect of Languedoc and some other districts in the south of 
 France, which is a remnant of the old Romance language, 
 now nearly extinct. This term must not be confounded 
 with Romaic, which is used to signify the language of mod- 
 ern Greece. 
 
 RO'MAN ORDER. See Composite Order. 
 
 RO'MAN SCHOOL. This school of painting, which, 
 like the Florentine, addressed itself to the mind, is formed 
 upon antique models. Its style was poetical ; embellished 
 with all the grandeur, pathos, and freedom front common 
 matters that the happiest imagination could conceive. In 
 touch its masters were easy, correct in drawing, learned 
 and full of grace. In composition it is sometimes whimsi- 
 cal, yet always elegant. The heads of the figures are al- 
 ways drawn with great respect to truth and expression, and 
 it exhibits great intelligence in contrasting attitudes. It is 
 in colouring that it displays the greatest marks of negligence, 
 while in draperies it is eminently successful. At the head 
 of this school was Raffaelle; and among its other principal 
 masters were Giulio Romano, Zuccaro, M. A. Caravaggio, 
 Baroccio, Andrea Sacchi (perhaps the best colourist of this 
 schooU. 
 
 ROMA'NTIC, ROMANTICISM. By romantic is un- 
 derstood that singular intermixture of the wonderful and 
 the mysterious with the sublime and beautiful which intro- 
 duces us into an enchanted existence, and raises us above 
 the bare realities of life by its dazzling peculiarities. Anti- 
 quity was a stranger to this feeling, nor had the classic 
 languages any term to express it. See Chivalry. 
 
 1071
 
 ROMAN VITRIOL. 
 
 Almost all authors concur in the ditliculty of giving a pre- I 
 ificatiOD in the term romantic. The hictionnairc 
 de r.icaduiiic Franchise says, " Le roinantique est un genre 
 nouveau. Romantique Be dit encore des ecrivains qui affec- 
 tent de s'ail'ranchir des regies tie composition at de style 
 etablies par I'example des auteon elasslques." This defi- 
 nition, though far irom being precise, is perhaps the best 
 that has hitherto been given; and instead of attempting to 
 rival it, we shall content ourselves with placing it before 
 the reader. 
 
 The term romanticisin — an offshoot of romantic — is of re- 
 cent invention, and Is applied chiefly to the fantastic and 
 unnatural productions of the modern French school of nov- 
 elists, ai the bead of w bich are Victor Hugo, Balzac, "George 
 Sand," &c, and their imitators in France and other coun- 
 tries. 
 
 ROHAN VITRIOL. Sulphate of copper, or blue vitriol. 
 
 Rl i\l AX/IK Rl. In Italian Literature, a series of poets 
 who took for the subject of their compositions the chival- 
 rous romances ^t~ France and Spain ; and. wilh one or two 
 exceptions only, those relating to the exploits of Charle- 
 magne and bis fabulous Paladins. The earliest of these 
 poets flourished in the latter end of the 15th century. Boi- 
 ardo, although not absolutely the first in order of time, is 
 considered as having laid the groundwork, in his Orlando 
 Jnuamorato, of the edifice of fiction raised by his successors. 
 Pulci, in the Morgante Maggiore, was the first who allied 
 the romantic incidents and sentiments of chivalry with light 
 and humorous satire. Berni remodelled the work of Boiar- 
 do. Ariosto, in the Orlando Furioso, carried this species of 
 poetry to the highest degree of perfection. These are the 
 four principal Romanzieri ; but many other poets of the 
 same school flourished until the end of the 16th century. 
 Tasso composed one of his early poems (// Rinaldo) on the 
 common model. In the beginning of the 18th century, the 
 Abate Forliguerra compiled his Ricciardetto, a poem of a 
 Semi-burlesque character, intended originally as a parody, 
 but completed as a sciious composition ; and thus closes the 
 list of the Romanzieri. All these poets adopted the ottava 
 rima, invented by Boccaccio (see Ottava Rima). In their 
 poems the thread of the main narration is frequently inter- 
 rupted by a multiplicity of minor adventures and Intrigues ; 
 and this complication of plot appears to have constituted 
 one of the characteristic features of the chivalrous epic. In 
 most of them (from the time of Pulci) each book begins 
 with a sort of prologue, more or less connected with the 
 subject which follows: and these prologues form, perhaps, 
 the greatest charm of the poem of Ariosto; effecting the 
 transitions from one subject to another by means of some 
 touch of pathetic or elevated reflections, or of light humour 
 and playful satire, generally in the form of an address to 
 the supposed audience, the poem being framed on the model 
 of a tale recounted by a minstrel to an assembly of knights 
 and ladies. 
 
 KOMA'NZOFITE. A mineral from Finland of a brown 
 colour : it is a triple silicate of lime, alumina, and iron. 
 
 RO'NDEAU. (Fr.) In French Poetry, a little poem of 
 thirteen verses, divided Into three unequal strophes, with 
 two rhymes (eight lines masculine and five feminine, or 
 vice versa). The two or three first words of the first verse 
 serve as the burden, and recur in that shape after the eighth 
 and thirteenth verses. There are also double rondeaux and 
 single rondeaux; the latter an obsolete but easier kind of 
 verse. In Music, the term rondeaux is applied to a liu'lit air, 
 in which the first strain forms the burden, and as such is 
 frequently repeated : it is also written rondo. 
 
 Rl i MUX. In Fortification, a small round tower, erect- 
 ed in some particular cases at the foot of the bastion. 
 
 ROOD. (Aug. Sax. rode, beam; used for the Cross.) The 
 crucifix, sometimes also the image of a saint, was so called 
 in old English churches. Roods were set in shrines or tab- 
 ernacles, and tbe place where they stood was called tin- 
 rood-loft, which was commonly over or near the passage 
 out of the body of the church Into the chancel. They were 
 all ordered to be taken down In 1548 (Burnet, Hist, of tht 
 Reformation, vol. ii., book 1), but restored for a short time 
 under Queen Mary. (.1rch<tola<rin, voL L) 
 
 Rood. A square measure, the fourth part of a statute 
 acre, and equal to 40 perches or square poles. 
 
 ROOF. In Architecture, the uppermost part of a build- 
 ing, containing the timber work, with its covering of slat-', 
 lead, tile, or other material. Carpenters, however, restrict 
 tin ir use of the wool to the timber framing alone. 
 
 The inclination of the sides of a root will, considering the 
 species of covering to be the same in all, depend very much 
 on the temperature of the country to u bdeh it is to be adap 
 ted. In the southern countries of Europe roofs do not re- 
 quire much elevation, while as we proceed northward they 
 require a far greater pitch. In tin: warm, or, rather, hot 
 climates, buildings require nothing more than a terrace for 
 thi-ir covering; but in the temperate climates, wherein the 
 latitude exceeds 42 degrees, experience shows that the flat 
 11T72 
 
 ROOF. 
 
 covering of a building cannot be practised with any expec- 
 tation of durability . The rains of hot climates are violent, 
 while those of temperate climates are searching. In the 
 more northern latitudes, the moisture, the driving nature of 
 the rain, and, in addition, the duration of the snow on the 
 roofs, require, it is obvious, a more considerable inclination. 
 Such materials as lead, copper, zinc, and the like, which, 
 supposing them one piece, as, in fact, when used, they ought 
 to be, are not fair examples from which to draw inferences 
 in the theory whereof we speak ; for, if well executed, they 
 must either of them be considered as one homogeneous 
 piece : but in the case of tiles, whether of marble, stone, or 
 clay, the case is far different. Without entering minutely 
 into the details of this subject, we will merely observe that, 
 supposing the inclination of a roof to be zero at the equator, 
 if we ado to it an inclination of three degrees for ever)' cli- 
 mate from the equator to the polar circle, each climate be- 
 ing taken at 2° 42' 'Mi", we obtain results which show that 
 the roofs and pediments of temples of antiquity must have 
 been well studied in that useful point of view which re- 
 garded their durability and impenetrability by rain. The 
 Encyc. Met. we believe to have been the first instrument of 
 promulgating this curious theory ; and believing in it as we 
 do, we can, if it be not true, only use the Italian saying, "si 
 non e vero, e ben trovato." The theory would give an in- 
 clination to roofs at Athens of 16A degrees, and they are 
 very nearly so inclined; the temple of Minerva being 16 
 degrees, and that of the temple of Rretbeus ISA degrees. 
 In Rome, according to this theory, the inclination of a roof, 
 and, consequently, pediment, should be 22 degrees; and ex- 
 perience finds it varying from 23 degrees to 24A. The ad- 
 vocates for the propriety of strictly copying Greek forms 
 and details under the latitude of London will, if they have 
 studied the aesthetics of the art, find no little difficulty in 
 establishing their doctrines after weighing this matter im- 
 partially. But our limits prevent farmer observation; we 
 will merely subjoin a table conformable to the theory : 
 
 
 
 
 Inclination of 
 
 Place. 
 
 Latitude to 
 
 Length of 
 
 Roof, supposing 
 
 nearest Maiu'e. 
 
 longest Day. 
 
 Covering to be 
 
 
 
 
 Roman Tiles. 
 
 Carthagena 
 
 37" 3^ 
 
 I4h. 42m. 
 
 1U" 12' 
 
 Palermo . 
 
 3d 7 
 
 14 48 
 
 19 48 
 
 (Latitude of 
 Alliens is 33° 5') 
 
 1 • • 
 
 
 (see above.) 
 
 Lisbon , . 
 
 33 42 
 
 14 60 
 
 20 
 
 Madrid . 
 
 40 25 
 
 15 
 
 21 
 
 Napl s . 
 
 40 50 
 
 15 2 
 
 21 12 
 
 Rome 
 
 41 54 
 
 15 10 
 
 22 
 
 Paris 
 
 48 50 
 
 16 6 
 
 27 36 
 
 London • . 
 
 51 31 
 
 16 34 
 
 30 24 
 
 -iu.s'Tdam . 
 
 62 22 
 
 16 44 
 
 31 24 
 
 Edinburgh 
 
 55 57 
 
 17 31 
 
 36 12 
 
 Petersburg . 
 
 59 56 
 
 18 44 
 
 43 24 
 
 A roof, as respects its construction, involves some knowl- 
 edge of mathematics. Of the general principles on which 
 its proper construction depends, we shall here subjoin some 
 account. The obvious mode of covering a building, where 
 a greater or lesser inclination of the sides of the roof is re- 
 quired by the climate, is lo place two sloping rafters CC 
 upon the walls B B, as in the subjoined 
 diagram (fig, 1), meeting at the apex A ; 
 where we will suppose ihem so connect- 
 ed with a hinge as to be inseparable, but 
 capable of descending by their gravity, 
 as shown in No. 2. The walls are con- 
 sidered as solid masses, moveable on 
 points P. If the walls be not of suffi- 
 cient Weight, the thrust that will be thus 
 exerted on them by the tendency of tbe 
 rafters to spread ai their feet will throw 
 the walls out of an upright, as in No. 2, 
 and the whole assemblage will be de- 
 stroyed. By the laws of mechanics it is 
 known that the horizontal thrust thus 
 acting on the walls is proportional to the 
 length of a line d e, drawn at right angles to the rafter, In- 
 tersecting a vertical line drawn from the apex, which it is 
 manifest must Increase as the roof becomes flatter. To 
 counteract the thrust above mentioned, nothing more is ne- 
 
 than to tie together the feet of /r» \ 
 
 the rafters, as in the following diagram 
 Sg. J : in which A I! is the tie in ques- 
 tion, and thence is called a tie-beam. If ' 
 the extent be not very great, the rafters 
 may be kept from spreading by a minor tie, as at a b, called 
 a collar. Beyond certain lengths or spans, however, it will 
 Occur t" the reader that a tie-beam will itself ha\ B a tenden- 
 
 cj t" bend, or sag, as the workmen call it, in the middle; 
 and from this circumstance a fresh con- 
 trivance in 'nines necessary, which will 
 
 be sen in the annexed diagram (fig. 3), 
 
 marked c d : this is called a kingpost, or, 
 more properly, king pact, Inasmuch as it
 
 ROOK. 
 
 does not perform the office of a post, but rather of a tie, for it 
 ties up the beam to prevent its bending. If the rafters be so 
 long as to be liable to bend, two pieces a a, called struts, 
 are introduced; which, having their footing against the 
 sides of the king post, act as posts to support or strut up the 
 rafters at their weakest point. The piece of framing thus 
 contrived is altogether called a truss. It is obvious that by 
 means of the upper joints of the struts we obtain more 
 points of support (rig. 4), or rather suspension ; and that but 
 for the compressibility of the timber, 
 there would be no limit to the space 
 which a roof might be made to cov- 
 er. This compressibility takes place 
 ' at those points where the fibres of 
 the wood are pressed at right angles, or nearly so, with 
 their direction, and many ways are adopted for avoiding this 
 inconvenience. There is a species of roof, dependent in 
 construction on the principles we have just described, which 
 we shall here briefly notice, and whereof the following is a 
 ,,- v diagram (fig. 5). This roof lias three 
 
 ^' n A points of support, A, B, A ; the posts 
 -^ir^cJr*^. A A, A A are called queen posts ; the 
 *** collar A B A is here a straining- piece, 
 instead of a tie, as it was in the ex- 
 
 ^m 
 
 ample of ties first noticed, its operation being exactly the 
 reverse of a tie. The curb or mansard roof is one in which 
 a story is obtained, as may be seen in the annexed diagram 
 (tig. 6). Its principles are the same as 
 those already mentioned, and do not here 
 require farther notice. In the execution of 
 roofs the expense of trussing every pair of 
 rafters would be unnecessary, and the prac- 
 tice would also load the walls with a far 
 greater weight than would be expedient : it is therefore the 
 custom to place these principal parts of a roof at certain 
 intervals, which, however, should never exceed ten feet. 
 The rafters which are actually trussed are called principal 
 rafters ; and by the intervention of the purlinc A in the di- 
 
 ffig. 7.) 
 
 agram (fig. 7), are made to bear the 
 smaller or common rafters, which 
 are notched down on it. These com- 
 
 O -g gg- -^ib ^L_ zssaq mon rafters are received by or pitch 
 c I upon a plate B, called a pole plate ; 
 
 '-' and the principal rafters, which fall 
 on the tie-beam, are ultimately borne by the wall-plate C. 
 ffi". 8.) When beams, in either roofs or floors, are 
 
 I ; °V,' . so long that they cannot be procured in one 
 
 ' *\£ ' piece, two pieces to form the required length 
 { f T p > are scarfed together, by indenting them at 
 their joints and bolting them together, of 
 which practice two modes are here subjoined (fig. 8). 
 
 ROOK. The name of a well-known species of crow 
 (Corvus frugilegus, Linn.), resembling in size and colour 
 the carrion crow, but differing in haviing the base of the 
 bill whitish and scurfy, and bare of feathers. "This," says 
 Montague, " is acquired by the bird's habit of thrusting its 
 bill into the ground after worms and various insects. The 
 rook is content with feeding on the insect tribe, particularly 
 the larva; of the cockchaffer ; and while following the plough 
 to remove from the newly-made furrow this destructive 
 grub, it more than repays the husbandman for the grain 
 which it may afterwards pick up. The rook is gregarious 
 at all seasons, resorting constantly to the same trees every 
 spring to breed, wheu the nests may be seen crowded one 
 over another upon the upper branches. It lays four or five 
 eggs, much like those of the crow, of a greenish colour, 
 spotted and blotched with dusky. After their young have 
 taken wing, they all forsake their nest-trees, returning to 
 them again in October to roost; but as winter comes on, 
 they generally select more sheltered places at night in some 
 neighbouring wood, to which they fly off together." (Mon- 
 tague, Ornithological Dictionary.) The wood or grove of 
 tall trees, in which rooks congregate and build their nests, 
 is called a rookery. 
 
 ROOT. In Arithmetic, a number which being multi- 
 plied into itself any number of times produces another num- 
 ber, called a power, of which power the original number is 
 the root. The root takes the name of the power whose 
 root it is. Thus, it is called the square root, if the power 
 is a square ; the cube root, if the power is a cube, and so on. 
 
 Root. That part of the central axis of a plant which is 
 formed by the descending fibres, and whose function is to 
 attract liquid food from the soil in which it is mingled. It 
 differs from the stem in not having leaves or buds upon its 
 surface, and in its tendency to burrow under ground, re- 
 treating from light ; nevertheless, some kinds of roots are 
 exclusively formed in air and light, as in the ivy, and other 
 such plants. 
 
 ROOT OF AN EQUATION, in Algebra, signifies the 
 value ot the unknown quantity which enters into the equa- 
 tion. See. Equation. 
 
 ROO'TSTOCK. In Botany, a prostrate rooting thick- 
 
 ROSEMARY. 
 
 ened stem, which yearly produces young branches or plants. 
 It is common in Iradaceag and Epiphytous Orchidacte, and 
 is often confounded with the root. Ginger and orris root 
 are common instances of it. 
 
 ROSA'CEiE. (Rosa, one of the genera.) A large and 
 important natural order of plants, the species of which are, 
 for the most part, inhabitants of the cooler parts of the 
 world. They are in some cases trees, in others shrubs, and 
 in a great number of instances herbaceous perennial plants; 
 scarcely any are annuals. No natural orders contain more 
 species of general interest, in the beauty of their flowers or 
 their perfume : there is the rose itself, and various species 
 of the genera Rubus, Spircea, Potentilla, Geum, and Pyrus. 
 The apple, pear, plum, cherry, peach, nectarine, apricot, 
 and similar valuable fruits, are the produce of others. The 
 white thorn, with all its numerous exotic allies, belongs to 
 the genus Cratmgus. As medicinal plants, some are of 
 considerable importance. The root of Potentilla reptans, 
 Geum urbanam, and others, is powerfully astringent; the 
 hark of Prunus coccomilia has some reputation as a febri- 
 fuge ; an Abyssinian plant called Brayera anthelmintic)! 
 has energetic vermifugal qualities ; and finally, prussic 
 acid is obtained from the leaves and seeds of the almond, 
 peach, plum, and other related species. This important as- 
 semblage of plants is distinguished by having several pe- 
 tals ; separate carpels ; distinct, perigynous, numerous sta- 
 mens ; alternate leaves, and an exogenous mode of growth. 
 
 RO'SARY. (Lat. rosarium, a rose-bed.) A Roman 
 Catholic devotional practice ; which consists in reciting 15 
 times the Paternoster, or Lord's Prayer, and 150 times the 
 Ave Maria, or angelical salutation; but as the computa- 
 tion is made by means of beads, the string of beads used 
 for this purpose has acquired the popular name of a rosary. 
 The rosary i3 thus three times the ordinary chaplet. It is 
 instituted in honour of the fifteen principal mysteries in the 
 life of our Saviour and the Virgin Mary. Some have at- 
 tributed its institution to St. Dominic ; others (among whom 
 is Mosheim, cent, x., part 2, c. 4) give it a higher antiquity. 
 The festival of the Rosary falls on the first Sunday in Oc- 
 tober. Its name was changed by Gregory XIII. from that of 
 St. Mary of the Victory, given by Pius V. on its original in- 
 stitution in honour of the battle of Lepanto, which took; 
 place on that day. 
 
 ROSE. (Lat. rosa.) In Botany, the English name for 
 the well-known and universally cultivated flower of the ge- 
 nus Rosa. (See Rosaces.) It would occupy too much 
 space to point out even cursorily the various ceremonies 
 in which this flower plays a distinguished part ; suffice it to 
 say, that in the earliest ages it was regarded with even 
 more favour than at the present times, and both at public 
 and private festivals was considered an indispensable in- 
 gredient. (See the Damen Lexicon.) In architecture, the 
 sculptured representation of this flower is found in the cen- 
 tre of each face of the abacus in the Corinthian capital, 
 and is called the rose of that capital. Roses are also used 
 to decorate the caissons in the soffitts of coronas and ceil- 
 ings. 
 
 ROSE ENGINE. In Mechanics, an appendage to the 
 turning lathe, by which a surface of 
 wood or metal, as a watch-case, is en- 
 graved with a variety of curved lines. 
 The assemblage of these lines present- 
 ing some resemblance to a full-blown 
 rose, is called by the French rosette ; 
 and hence the engine by which the or- 
 nament is produced is called a rose en- 
 gine. The mechanism by which the fig- 
 ures are produced is sometimes called 
 a carnb, and may be described as fol- 
 lows : " A wheel upon the axle C turns 
 uniformly in the direction ABDE. A 
 rod m n moves in guides, which only 
 permit it to ascend and descend perpen- 
 dicularly. Its extremity m rests upon a 
 path or groove raised from the face of 
 the wheel, and shaped into such a curve 
 that as the wheel revolves the rod m n shall be moved 
 alternately in opposite directions, through the guides, with 
 the required velocity. The manner in which the velocity 
 varies will depend on the form given to the groove or chan- 
 nel raised upon the face of the wheel ; and this may be 
 shaped so as to give any variation to the motion of the rod 
 m n which may be required for the purpose to which is to 
 be applied." Gardner's Mechanics, Cabinet Cyclopedia, p. 
 250.) 
 
 The purpose of the machine is therefore to convert a uni- 
 form rotatory movement into a varied rectilinear and alter- 
 nating movement. It is also used in machinery for spin- 
 ning, and for lace-making. 
 
 ROSE'MARY (Lat. ros marinus, sea dew), is the name 
 given to a small evergreen shrub of the Labiate order, 
 which inhabits rocky hills in the neighbourhood of the Medi- 
 
 1073 
 
 - E
 
 ROSE-NOBLE. 
 
 terranean. and which is commonly cultivated in our gar- 
 dens, ll ii:is very narrow green leaves, tamed link at the 
 
 edge, riini hoary underneath. The flowers are of a dull 
 leaden blue, or even white. It has been employed in infu- 
 sion as a remedy fur headache, and La extensively employed 
 in the manufacture of pomatums for promoting ihe growth 
 
 of hair. Oil of rosemary is what gives the green colour to 
 these preparations. It is also said to be one of I 
 dients in Can de Cologne. Narbonne honey is also sain to 
 owe its peculiar flavour to bees reeding on the blossoms of 
 the rosemary. The gray bushes, mntltid with dew drops, 
 on the rocky coasts of France and Italy, are said to justify 
 the singular name that has been given to the plant. It is 
 the \t3avii>Tif aTiiiavuiitaTtK!] of DioSCOlides. 
 
 ROSE-NOBLE. A gold coin of the value of 6s. 8d., 
 first coined in the reign of Edward III. 
 
 ROSEOLA, called, from its rose colour, a rash; fre- 
 quently symptomatic of different febrile complaints, of dis- 
 ordered stomach and bowels, of teething, and of any con- 
 stitutional irritation. Acidulated drinks, mild aperients and 
 sudorifies, and strict attention to the diet, with caution 
 against the application of, or exposure to, cold, so as to cause 
 a retrocession, are the principal points to be attended to. 
 
 ROSES, FESTIVAL OF. A rural festival of some parts 
 of France, In which the best-behaved maiden of the town 
 or village (called La Rosiere) is annually crowned with ro- 
 ses in the church, whither she is conducted with great 
 pomp by the villagers. These festivals were originally cel- 
 ebrated on the 8th of June at Saiency, a village of Picardy, 
 under Louis Xlll.; but they were afterwards introduced 
 iuto Surene, near 1'aris. whence they extended to many oth- 
 er places, and have latterly even penetrated to Moravia. 
 The Persians have also an annual festival of roses which 
 consists of bands of youth parading the streets with music, 
 and offering roses, as the Italians during the carnival cun- 
 J'ctti, to all they meet, for which they receive a trifling gra- 
 tuity. 
 
 ROSES, WHITE AND RED. In English History, the 
 well-known feuds that prevailed between the houses of 
 York and Lancaster are so called, from the emblems adopt- 
 ed by their respective partisans; the adherents of the house 
 of Yoik having the white, those of Lancaster the red rose, 
 as their distinguishing symbol. These wars originated with 
 the descendants of Edward III. ; and after extending overs 
 period of more than eighty years, during which England 
 formed an almost uninterrupted scene of bloodshed and de- 
 vastation, were finally put an end to by the victory of Henry 
 Tudor, earl of Richmond, over Richard III., in 1485, the 
 victor uniting in his own person the title of Lancaster 
 through his mother, and that of York by his marriage with 
 the daughter of Edward VI. Since that period the rose 
 has been the emblem of England, as the thistle and sham- 
 rock (see those terms) are respectively the symbols of Scot- 
 land and Ireland. 
 
 ROSE'TTA STONE (so called from Rosetta, a village 
 of Egypt, where it was discovered by the French). The 
 nam.- given to the celebrated stone, now in the l!riti-h Mu- 
 seum, which has played so distinguished a part in all mod- 
 ern hieroglyphical researches. It is a piece of black ba- 
 salt, tiiree feet In length, and about two feet and a half in 
 breadth, and contains parts of three different sculptured in- 
 scriptions : one in sacred characters, or, as they are termed, 
 hieroglyphirs ; the second in enchorial characters i. e., in 
 those of the country, or in modified conventional hieroglyph- 
 ics) ; and the third in Greek. From the last, or Grc 
 Kription, it appears that the inscriptions are either entirely 
 or substantially identical, and form a royal decree which 
 was ordered to be sculptured in the languages above speci- 
 fied. The inscriptions are a good deal mutilated, particu- 
 larly the hieroglyphical; but they are still sufficient]} dis 
 tinrt to allow the hieroglyphical and enchorial characters 
 to be compared with each other and the (J reek. As the 
 discovery of this stone presented to the learned the first 
 opportunity of viewing the Greek in Juxtaposition to the 
 Egyptian language, great bones were entertained that a key 
 would thereby be obtained to the- decyphering of the nu- 
 merous monuments of ancient Egypt It would appear, 
 however, from the invi I Dr. Young and Cham 
 
 pollion, whose attention has been deepl) engro 
 
 t. that the Greek does not faithfully represent the 
 
 enchorial text, but gives merely its substance. According 
 to the Greek inscription, the stone was erected in the reign 
 of Ptolemy Epiphanes [A.C. 194 .whose benevolence it de 
 
 Scribes, and enumerates his victories and the principal DO 
 
 litical transactions of his reign. See Hieroglyphic b. 
 ROSICRU'CIANS. A sect of visionary specula! m who 
 : Germany about the beginning of the 17th century. 
 They ascribed, indeed, a much higher antiquity to them 
 
 selves; but it is probable that if an) body or philosophers 
 
 Who adopted this title ever existed in reality, they were the 
 
 alchemists, tire philosophers, or Paracelsisb of the ifith cen- 
 tury, who adopted this mode of giving vogue and fashion to 
 1074 l 
 
 ROT. 
 
 their tenets. Germany was inundated with tracts, from 
 L600 to 1630, purporting to come from supporters or from en- 
 emies of this sect, in Which their opinions and intentions 
 are canvassed, but generally iii a u ild and unintelligible man- 
 ner. From one- of these, a Treatise m tilt Laura if the Hosi- 
 crueians, by Ritter von Maier (1G18), we learn that the fra- 
 ternity had >ix fundamental laws: — 1. That their chief 
 end and object was to cure the sick without fee or re- 
 ward. 2. That in travelling they w ere to change their hab- 
 its and dress, so as to accommodate themselves to those of 
 the countries in which they sojourned. 3. To meet once a 
 year on a certain day and at a certain place, kept secret 
 from the rest of the world. 4. To till up vacancies in their 
 body by electing members. 5. To use the letters R C as 
 their common symbol. 0. That the fraternity should re- 
 main undivulged for one hundred years from its foundation. 
 It appears probable that the device of the rose issuing out of 
 the cross, which was the' same with Martin Luther's seal, 
 was adopted for the purpose of attracting the notice of the 
 religious: the rose was explained to represent the blood of 
 < Ihrist It would appear from these laws that some species 
 of Freemasonry was intended ; and the Rosicrucians ha\ e 
 been by some connected with the Freemasons ; but there 
 is. in point of fact, no evidence that any such society existed 
 at all, and the name and other circumstances were probably 
 only the device of some alchemists, who usually conveyed 
 their own notions under cover of symbolical language. An- 
 drea, a German scholar, is slated in the Convi rs itions T.i i i- 
 con, to have been the original propagator of the reports con- 
 cerning the Rosicrucian society. The Rosicrucians have 
 been also connected in various ways, by public opinion, with 
 the Cabalists, Illuminati, tec.; anil the division of spiritual 
 beings inferior to the angels into sylphs arid gnomes, which 
 furnished Pope with the machinery of the Rape of the Lock, 
 is of Rosicrucian or Cabalistic origin. It is found in that 
 singular work, the Comte de Gabalis, which obtained a sud- 
 den popularity in the beginning of the last century; in 
 which the author professes himself a member of the Rosi- 
 crucian fraternity, i See Mosheim, Eccl. Jlist., vol. v.) 
 
 ROSIN. .sv Resin. 
 
 ROSTE'LLUM. (Lat rostrum.) An elevated and rath- 
 er thickened portion of the stigma of Orchidaceous plants, 
 from which the peculiar gland separates by which the i»>I- 
 len masses of some species of that order are eventually 
 held together. It was formerly supposed to be the point 
 through which impregnation is effected; but this is now 
 known to have been an error. 
 
 Rostelli'm. The name of the mouth of the louse and 
 similar Apterous insects, in which the ordinary tropin are 
 replaced by an < particulate retractile tube, from which a re- 
 tractile siphuncle is protruded. The uncinated proboscis of 
 worms TiFnij , is also so called. 
 
 ROSTER, in Military affairs, is applied to the plan or ta- 
 ble by which all military duty is regulated. 
 
 RO'STRULUM. [Lat dim. of rostrum;, in Entomology, 
 is the name of the oral instrument of the flea and other 
 Jlphanipterans ; in which the ordinary tropin are replaced 
 by a bivalved beak, between the valves of which there are 
 three lancet-shaped instruments. 
 
 ROSTRUM. (Lat.) Literally the prow of a ship, but 
 metaphorically applied to the pulpit or pleading place in 
 the Roman forum, which was decorated with the prows of 
 \e si Is taken from the enemy. (See .Wibuhr's Raman 
 
 History.) 
 
 ROT. A term applied to a well-known disease peculiar 
 to sheep. It is often called great rot, and hydruphie rut, 
 &.C. ; but it is more popularly known by the single term of rot. 
 Many causes have been assigned for it ; as the Fankola 
 hep&tica, or fluke worm ; some particular plants eaten as 
 food; ground eating ; snails, and other ingesta : but as most 
 
 of the supposed deleterious herbs have been tried byway 
 
 of experiment, and have failed to produce the disease, so it 
 is attributable to some oilier cause. Neither Is there satis- 
 factory reason to suppose that the fluke worm is the original 
 cause of it, but a consequence ; since we know that the hili- 
 ar> \i --els of other annual-, as horses, asses, rat-, fcc, of- 
 ten have them : and above all. because that they are not al- 
 ways present In the rotted subject. From long experience, 
 and the almost invariable effect produced by a humid -tale of 
 
 atmosphere, soil, and product we are warranted in conclud- 
 ing these are tie- actual am! immediate agents : perhap-the 
 
 led food it-elf is sufficient to do it. The morning dew 
 baa been supposed equal to it. Bakewell, when his sheep 
 wen- pasl service, used to rot them purposely, that they 
 might not pass into other hands. This I tidily 
 
 did by overflowing hi- pastures. Rut great differences of 
 opinion exisl as to the quantity, form, and varieties of to 
 tare productive "f this fatal disease. It is said that land on 
 
 which water flows, but does not stagnate, will not rot how- 
 ever m 'i-t; but tlii- i- contradicted by the experience of 
 Bakewell, "bo used merely to flood his lands a few i i 
 only, to rot his sheep. It is also said they are safe from rot
 
 ROTATION. 
 
 en Irish bogs, salt marshes, and spring-flooded meadows, 
 which experience seems to verify. It is also said that the 
 very hay made from unsound land will rot; but this wants 
 continuation. When salt marshes are found injurious, it is 
 only when the rain has saturated, or rather super-saturated 
 such marshes. That putrid exhalations unaccompanied with 
 moisture can occasion rot, wants confirmation also; for these 
 commonly go together, and it is difficult to separate their ef- 
 fects. It is not, perhaps, the actual quantity of water immedi- 
 ately received by land, hut the capacity of that land to retain 
 the moisture, which makes it particularly of a rotting quality. 
 
 The signs of rottenness are sufficiently familiar to persons 
 about sheep. They first lose flesh, and what remains is 
 flabby and pale : they also lose their vivacity. The naked 
 partsi as the lips, tongue, &c, look livid, and are alternate- 
 ly hot and cold in the advanced stages. The eyes look sad 
 and glassy, the breath is fetid, the urine small in quantity 
 and high-coloured ; and the bowels are at one time costive, 
 and at another affected with a black purging. The pelt will 
 come oft' on the slightest pull in almost all cases. The dis- 
 ease has different degrees of rapidity, but is always fatal at 
 last. This difference in degree occasions some rotted sheep 
 to thrive well under its progress to a certain stage, when 
 they suddenly fall off, and the disease pursues the same 
 course with the rest. Some graziers know this crisis of de- 
 clension, as it has been called, and kill their sheep for mar- 
 ket in the immediate nick of time with no loss. In these 
 cases, no signs of disease are to be traced by ordinary inspec- 
 tors ; but the existence of the flukes, and, still more, a certain 
 state of liver and of its secretions, are characteristic marks 
 to the wary and experienced. 
 
 The treatment of rot is seldom successful unless when it 
 is early commenced, or when of a mild nature. A total change 
 of food is the first indication, and of that to a dry whole- 
 some kind : all the farina; are good, as the meals of whent, 
 barley, oats, peas, beans, &c. Carrots have done good, 
 mixed with these : broom, burnet, elder, and melilot, as diur- 
 etics, have also been recommended; but it is necessary to 
 observe that there is seldom any ventral effusion but in the 
 latter stages of the Complaint As long as the liver is not 
 wholly disorganized, the cure may be hoped by a simple re- 
 moval of the cause, which has been shown to be a variable 
 temperature, with excessive moisture of pasturage, which 
 may also be aided by such remedies as assist the action of 
 the biliary system. Salt acts in this way, and thus salt 
 marshes are good : salt may also be given in the water. 
 Salt appears the principal ingredient in Flesh's patent re- 
 storative for sheep ; for it states it to be composed of turpen- 
 tine, sal ammoniac, turmeric, quicksilver, brimstone, salt, 
 opium, alkanet root, bark, antimony, camphor, and distilled 
 water; but of this medley none of the articles can be in 
 sufficient quantity to prove useful but the salt. In the more 
 advanced stages of the disease, when the liver has become 
 materially affected, it is prudent to rub the belly of each 
 sheep with half a drachm of mercurial ointment every other 
 day tor a week. Give also the following, every morning: 
 Watery tincture of aloes, half an ounce; decoction of 
 willow bark, four ounces ; nitric acid, twenty-five drops. 
 (Loudon's Eacy. of Agriculture.) 
 
 Rot. In timber. See Dry Rot. 
 
 ROTA'TIOX. (Lat. rota, a wheel.) In Mechanics, the 
 motion of a solid body about an axis. Rotatory motion is dis- 
 tinct from progressive motion, though both are frequently 
 found to coexist in the same body. The planets, for exam- 
 ple, at the same time that they have a progressive motion in 
 their orbits, revolve also about axes passing through their 
 respective centresof gravity. It is the rotatory motion of the 
 earth about its axis which produces the alternations of day 
 and night; and a slow but constant change of position in 
 that axis, arising from the attractions of the sun and moon 
 on a body not absolutely round, gives rise to the astronomi- 
 cal phenomenon of the precession of the equinoxes. 
 
 The determination of the circumstances of the rotation 
 of a planet about its axis is a problem of physical astrono- 
 my, not less interesting or important than that of the plan- 
 et's motion in its orbit. It was, in fact, long considered as 
 the more difficult problem of the two; but, according to the 
 methods of modern analysis, both form a part of the same 
 theory, and their solutions are deduced from the same gen- 
 eral equations of motion. 
 
 In relation to practical mechanics, the problem of rotation 
 is also of great importance; inasmuch as it comprehends 
 the methods of computing the performance of machines, the 
 forces necessary to overcome their inertia, and the proper 
 relations and most advantageous disposition of their several 
 parts, in order that the required effect may be produced by 
 the smallest expenditure of power and the least strain or in- 
 jury to the machine itself. 
 
 In all investigations relating to the motion of bodies about 
 axes, the terms moment of force, moment of inertia, angular 
 velocity, are of constant occurrence ; it is therefore impor- 
 tant to keep in view the exact meaning of those terms. 
 
 The moment of a force exerted in turning a body about an 
 axis, is the product obtained by multiplying the force into 
 the perpendicular from the axis upon the line of its direc- 
 tion ; or it is the force multiplied into the leverage. Thus, 
 if F be force supposed to act in a plane perpendicular to the 
 axis, h a line drawn from the axis perpendicular to the di- 
 rection of the force, the moment of the force is F A. But 
 as force is measured by the velocity which it communicates 
 to a given mass, this is usually expressed by M V h ; where 
 V is the velocity which the force F communicates to the 
 mass M, when directed to its centre of gravity, in the time 
 which is assumed as unity. 
 
 The moment of inertia of a body in respect of a given 
 axis, is the sum of all the products obtained by multiplying 
 each element of the body into its distance from the axis. 
 Thus, if m be one of the constituent elements of the body, 
 and r the distance of m from the axis, then the moment of 
 inertia is Xr m: the summation denoted by 2 being extend- 
 ed to every element m. See Moment. 
 
 The different particles of a solid body revolving about an 
 axis move with a velocity proportional to their respective 
 distances from the axis ; and the velocity of the particle 
 whose distance from the axis is unity is the angular veloci- 
 ty of rotation. If this be denoted by to, then the velocity 
 of a particle whose distance from the axis is r will be r o>. 
 
 These definitions being premised, we may now state a 
 few of the more remarkable properties of rotary motion. If 
 the motion is produced by impulse, and the moving body is 
 not acted upon by any accelerating forces, so that the veloc- 
 ity is uniform, the fundamental theorem (which is easily 
 deduced from the property of the lever) is, 
 
 moment of impelling force 
 
 angular velocity = z-ft- —. . 
 
 J moment ot inertia 
 
 In the case of a body turning about a fixed axis, it is sup- 
 posed that the impelling force acts in a direction perpendic- 
 ular to the plane passing through the axis of rotation 
 and the point at which the force is applied. If the impel- 
 ling force is not perpendicular to this plane, it must be re- 
 solved into two parts, one of which is perpendicular to the 
 plane, and the other parallel to it; and it is only the form- 
 er part which tends to produce rotation, the latter being de- 
 stroyed by the resistance of the axis. 
 
 When all the different particles of a body are acted upon 
 by accelerating forces (as in the case of a pendulum drawn 
 aside from the position of rest and abandoned to the action 
 of gravity), the angular velocity becomes a variable quanti- 
 ty, and is expressed by this formula, 
 
 d iii moment of the impelling forces 
 d t ~ ' moment of inertia 
 
 where dw is the element of the velocity, and dt the ele- 
 ment of the time. The moment of the impelling forces is 
 computed from this expression, £ m v h ; where m is the 
 mass of an element of the body, h its distance from the axis 
 of rotation, and v the velocity due to the accelerating force. 
 From the above formula?, it is obvious that the computation 
 of the moment of inertia must enter into every question 
 connected with rotatory motion. 
 
 Principal Axes. — Generally speaking, any change which 
 is made in the position of the axis about which a body re- 
 volves must be accompanied with a change in the moment 
 of inertia. Hence, if a point (which is not the centre of 
 gravity) be taken in a solid body, all the axes which pass 
 through that point (and they may be infinite in number) 
 will have different moments of inertia, and there must ex- 
 ist one in respect of which the moment is a maximum, and 
 another in respect of which it is a minimum. Those axes 
 in respect of which the moment of inertia is a maximum or 
 minimum are called the principal ares of rotation. 
 
 If for any point taken in a solid body, we proceed by the 
 usual methods of maxima and minima to find the position 
 (relatively to the principal lines of the body) of that line or 
 axis about which the moment of inertia is the greatest or 
 least possible, the analysis leads to a cubic equation, of 
 which all the three roots are real. Hence, for every point 
 of a body, however irregular, there are three principal axes. 
 Further examination shows that these axes form a system 
 of straight lines at right angles to each other. One of them 
 is such that the moment of inertia with respect to it is the 
 least possible ; with respect to another, the moment is the 
 greatest possible ; and although with respect to the third 
 the moment is not, strictly speaking, the greatest or least, 
 vet it possesses this characteristic of maxima and minima, 
 that its differential coefficient is nothing, or its value is not 
 affected by a very small change in the position of the axis. 
 
 If the form and structure of the revolving body be such 
 that the moments of inertia about two of the principal axes 
 are equal, then every line in the plane of those axes pas- 
 sins through their points of intersection will be a principal 
 axis. For example, in the spheroid of revolution, the polar 
 diameter forms one of the principal axes; the two others 
 are in the plane of the equator, aud consequently equal ; 
 
 1075
 
 ROTATION. 
 
 and it is obvious from the symmetrical form of the body 
 that every equatorial diameter will have the same mo- 
 ment of inertia, or l>e a principal axis. If all three princi- 
 pal axes are equal, as in the case of a sphere when the 
 point in which the axes meet is the Centre, then every line 
 passing through the same point is a principal axis. From 
 this it follows that with respect to any point taken In a sol- 
 id body there are either three principal axes, or else an in- 
 finite number. 
 
 It is a property of the principal axes, that if a body be- 
 gins to revolve about any one of them it will continue to 
 revolve annul the same axis uniformly and perpetually, 
 unless the motion is deranged by the action of a disturbing 
 force. The centrifugal forces about a principal axis exactly 
 counterbalance each other, and the axis remains unmoved 
 without the aid of any support. There is, however, an es- 
 sential difference in this respect between one of the axes and 
 the two others. If a body begins to revolve about an axis 
 very near to one of the axes for which the moment of iner- 
 tia is the greatest or least possible, the axisof actual rota- 
 tion will continue to oscillate about that principal axis, nev- 
 er deviating from it beyond certain narrow limits, and the 
 angular velocity will only suffer small periodic alterations ; 
 but if the body begins to revolve about an axis which is 
 very near to the intermediate principal axis, the axis of rota- 
 tion will deviate from the principal axis indefinitely, and 
 the velocity of rotation will not remain constant. Hence 
 the rotation about two of the principal axes is stable ; about 
 the third unstable. 
 
 When a solid body revolves about a fixed axis, there are 
 certain points in the body having determinate situations 
 with respect to the axis of rotation and centre of gravity, 
 which, on account of their remarkable properties, require 
 to be distinguished. Thus, in computing the effects of ma- 
 chinery, it is often necessary to determine the situation of 
 the point at which if the whole mass of the revolving body 
 were concentrated the rotatory effect would remain unalter- 
 ed. This point is called the centre of gyration. The centre of 
 oscillation of a body suspended by an axis is the point at 
 which if all the matter were collected the oscillations 
 would be performed in the same time. The centre of per- 
 cussion is the point at which if the body encountered an im- 
 moveable obstacle the motion would be arrested without 
 producing any strain on the axle. For the properties of 
 these centres, and the method of computing their positions, 
 see Centre. 
 
 Motion of a Body entirely free. — If a body is retained by 
 no fixed point, but is at liberty to move in any direction, and 
 if a force be applied to it in a direction which passes through 
 its centre of gravity, all the points of the body move forward 
 in straight lines parallel to each other and to the direction of 
 the impelling force. But if the direction of the force does 
 not pass through the centre of gravity, the body will ac- 
 quire two motions — one progressive, and the other rotatory ; 
 and these two motions are entirely independent of each 
 other, that is to say, each is performed exactly in the same 
 manner as if the other did not exist. The progressive mo- 
 tion is the same as if the direction of applied force had 
 passed through the centre of gravity, and the rotatory motion 
 communicated to the body is the same as if the centre of 
 gravity had been a fixed point In consequence of this 
 property the general problem of determining the motions of 
 a body subjected to the action of given forces resolves itself 
 into two ; of which the first is to determine the motion of 
 the centre of gravity of the moving body, and the second to 
 determine at every instant the position of the axis and the 
 velocity of rotation. 
 
 In the solution of the latter problem the following elegant 
 theorem, first given by Frisi, is of important use: When a 
 body revolves on an axis passing through its centre of grav- 
 ity, and a force is impressed tending to make the body re- 
 volve about another axis also passing through its centre of 
 gravity, the body will revolve about neither, but on a third 
 axis, which lies in the same plane with the other two, and 
 so situated as to divide the angle Which they contain into 
 two parts, such that the sines of the parts are to each other 
 In the inverse ratio of the angular velocities with which 
 the body would have revolved about the said axes respect- 
 ively. It is evident that this conclusion will hold good if 
 the angular motions about both axes are impressed simulta- 
 neously ; and as the velocity about the new avis may In like 
 manner be compounded with another velocity about a diff- 
 erent axis, it follows that if several angular motions about 
 given axes are impressed on a body at the same time, the 
 position of the resultant axis and the velocity of rotation 
 may be readil] computed. 
 
 If the primitive axes are nt right angles to each other, 
 then the square of tho angular velocity about the resultant 
 avs is equal to the sum of the squares of the velocities 
 about the primitive axes. These properties form the theory 
 of the composition of rotatory motion. For their demon 
 stralion the reader may be referred to .liry's Mathematical 
 1070 
 
 ROUNDEL. 
 
 Tracts, " Precession" and " Nutation ;" or to the article 
 " Rotation," m the new edition of the Encyclopaedia liritan- 
 nica. 
 
 The principal application of the theory of the rotation of 
 bodies entirely free is to the planets, and particularly the 
 earth. It is to be observed, however, that the change 
 which is continually taking place in the position of the 
 
 terrestrial axis of rotation is only in respect of fixed points 
 In space ; for it can be shown that since the earliest record- 
 ed astronomical observations, the position of the poles of 
 rotation on the earth's surface has undergone no alteration 
 whatever. 
 
 The principal works on the subject are Euler's Theoria 
 Motus Corponan Solidorum, 17ii5; Vince, Phil. Trans., 
 1780; Frisii, Opera, torn. ii.. 1783; Jltwood's Treatise on 
 the Rectilinear Motion and Mutation of Bodies, 17H4; J.an- 
 den's Mathematical Memoirs, 1789; Laplace, Micanique 
 Celeste; Lagrange, Mecanique Analytique ; Po'isson, Traiti 
 dc M canique, &c. 
 
 ROTATION OF CROPS. In Agriculture and Garden- 
 ing, it is found that the same annual crop cannot be ad- 
 vantageously cultivated on the same soil for more than one 
 or two years ; and hence one kind of crop is made to suc- 
 ceed another. And the number of cultivated crops being 
 limited, when the whole course has been gone through 
 once, it is again repeated ; and hence the origin of the 
 word rotation. But as the same number and kind of crops 
 are not always grown in regular succession, but a change is 
 frequently made according to general principles, the term 
 used in that case is succcssioii of crops. The principle on 
 which the succession of crops is founded is, that every kind 
 of plant not only extracts nourishment from the soil, but 
 exudes into it excrementitious matter, which is found in- 
 jurious to that species, though it may prove nutritious to 
 another species. As a general principle of guidance in de- 
 termining the succession of crops, it is considered advan- 
 tageous that a crop cultivated for its leaves or roots should 
 succeed one cultivated for its ripened seeds ; that the cereal 
 grasses should be succeeded by leguminous plants ; tap- 
 rooted plants, or plants bearing tubers, by fibrous-rooted 
 plants ; and plants which form a compact covering on the 
 surface, such as corn and legumes sown broadcast, by plants 
 which only partially cover the surface, such as crops 
 grown in rows sufficiently wide to admit of cultivation be- 
 tween. It may also be adopted as a rule, that where land 
 is to be subjected to a crop of the same plants for a number 
 of years, as in permanent pasture, the plants composing the 
 crop should be of several different kinds, by which means 
 the excrementitious deposit of one species becomes the nu- 
 triment of another. Hence the propriety of sowing clover, 
 ribwort, and other taproutcd dicotyledonous herbage plants 
 among pasture grasses. 
 
 RO'TATORIES, Rotatoria. (Lat. rota, a wheel.) Wheel 
 animalcules. s '<c Rotifers. 
 
 RO'TIFERS, Rotifera. (Lat. rota, and fero, T carry.) 
 The name of a class of highly organized Infusorial ani- 
 mals, outwardly distinguished by certain ciliated appendages 
 at the anterior part of the body, which seem to move in a 
 rapid rotatory manner, and by their superior size. They 
 are commonly termed " wheel animalcules." 
 
 ROTTEN STONE. An earthy mineral found near 
 Bakewell in Derbyshire, in Wales, and at Albany in New 
 York. It is much used for polishing metals ; and consists, 
 according to R. Phillips, of 66 alumina, 10 carbon, and 4 
 silica. It resembles tripnli. 
 
 ROU'BLE. A Russian silver coin of different values. It 
 was first struck at Moscow in 1654. Catherine II. caused 
 some gold coins to be struck with this name ; but they are 
 no longer current. *Vc Mosey. 
 
 ROUE'. In the beau monde, a person devoted to a life 
 of pleasure and sensuality, but not so completely vitiated in 
 his character and manners as to be excluded from society. 
 The term is said to have been first used in this sense by 
 Philip of Orleans, the regent of France. 
 
 ROUGE. A species of lake prepared from the dried 
 flowers of the Carthamus tinctorius, or satflower. Rouge 
 is the only cosmetic which can be applied without ultimate 
 injury to the complexion. 
 
 ROUGH-CAST. In Architecture, the plastering of 
 walls with mortar and line gravel, left rough without any 
 smoothing. 
 
 ROUGHING IN. See Rendered and Set. 
 
 urn i. II STUCCO. In Architecture, stucco floated and 
 
 brushed In a small degree with water. 
 
 ROUND. The property of a circle, sphere, or right 
 
 cylinder, and indeed of any solid of revolution, though most 
 commonly confined to the sphere and cj Under. 
 
 ROU'NDEL. In Heraldry, an ordinary in the form of a 
 circle. It is improper to say a roundel or, gules, &.c, de- 
 scribing it by its tincture; unless, first, In case of counter- 
 changes; secondly, where the roundel is of fur, or of equal 
 
 tinctures, as a roundel ermine, a roundel cheeky of or and
 
 ROUNDELAY. 
 
 aeure. &c. ; otherwise, roundels have distinguishing names, 
 according to their tinctures. A roundel or is called a be- 
 zant, from the gold coins of the Greek or Byzantine empire; 
 a roundel argent, a plate ; gules, a tortcau, a kind of cake; 
 azure, hurt, a species of rlovver ; vert, pomme ; sable, pellet ; 
 purpure, golpe. A field or charge, with equidistant round- 
 els, is said to be bezwity, platy, &.c, according to the tinc- 
 ture. 
 
 ROU'NDELAY, in Poetry, is properly a short poem of 
 thirteen verses ; eight in one rhyme, and five in another. 
 See Rondeau. 
 
 ROUND HEADS. A nickname given to the Puritans 
 at the lime of the civil wars by the Cavaliers, from the 
 close black skull-cap, reaching down to the ears, which 
 was then worn by staid and serious persons ; or, more 
 probably, from the custom that prevailed among them of 
 wearing the hair closely cut to the head. 
 
 ROUND ROBIN. (Fr. rond ruban.) A phrase origin- 
 ally derived from a custom of the French officers, who, on 
 signing a remonstrance to their superiors, wrote their names 
 in a circular form, so that it might be impossible to ascer- 
 tain who had headed the list. It is now used to signify any 
 act by which a number of individuals bind themselves to 
 pursue a certain line of conduct. 
 
 ROUND TABLE, KNIGHTS OF THE. The name 
 given to the famous order of knights that existed in Eng- 
 land under the reign of King Arthur, by whom it was 
 founded. The members of this order are said to have been 
 forty in number, and derived their name from a huge round 
 marble table round which they were accustomed to sit. 
 Their adventures form the themes of much of the early ro- 
 mantic poetry and ballads of England ; and our own times 
 have been peculiarly fertile in clearing away much of the 
 obscurity in which the well-known names of Tristram, 
 Launcelot, and other members of this order were enveloped. 
 Sir W. Scott's labours in this field are too well known to 
 require any remark. (See Schlegel'-s Histury of Literature, 
 which gives a masterly sketch of the influence of the 
 Round Table on the romantic poetry of that and succeed- 
 ing ages.) 
 
 ROUP. A Scotticism for auction. 
 
 ROW. To propel a boat by oars. Rowing is reckoned 
 the most favourable application of human strength ; the 
 whole force is, however, not effective on the oar, as the 
 part inside the actual fulcrum, which is in the water, acts 
 as a backwater. Some nations take short strokes, which 
 they rise up in making; the English prefer a long stroke 
 sitting, which, to say the least, saves much exertion. As 
 the theory of rowing involves the resistance of fluids, it is 
 necessariiy defective. 
 
 ROYAL. In Naval affairs, the sail above the top- 
 gallant sail. The term royal is also applied, in artillery, to 
 a kind of small mortar. 
 
 ROY'ALISTS. The name applied originally to the ad- 
 herents of the Bourbon family after the revolution of 179-2; 
 but now in common use to designate the party attached to 
 the claimants of the Spanish and Portuguese thrones. 
 
 ROYAL OAK, Robur Carolinum. In Astronomy, a con- 
 stellation formed by Halley in the southern hemisphere. 
 See Constellation. 
 
 ROYALS. The name given by way of eminence to the 
 first regiment of foot in the British service : it is sup- 
 posed to be the oldest regular corps in Europe. {James's 
 Military Diet.) 
 
 RUBEFACIENTS. (Lat. rubefacio, I make red.) Sub- 
 stances which, when applied to or rubbed upon the skin, 
 induce a redness or blush upon the part, not followed by 
 blister. 
 
 RU'BELLITE. Red schorl or tourmaline. There is a 
 magnificent group of crystallized rubellite in the British 
 Museum, from the cabinet of the late Mr. Greville. 
 
 RUBE'OLA. The measles. This disease is preceded 
 by fever, with swelling and inflammation of the eyes ; an 
 oppressive cough ; and about the fourth day there is an 
 eruption of small red points, perceptible to the touch, 
 which continues for four or five days, and then goes oft", 
 with desquamation of the cuticle ; but the fever, cough, 
 soreness of the eyes, and irritable state of bowels are apt 
 to continue for some time after the entire disappearance of 
 the eruption. The most alarming cases are those in which 
 the inflammatory symptoms and fever run very high, and 
 which sometimes require bleeding, or blisters and cupping 
 upon the che-t ; or in which there is a putrid tendency, with 
 a dark livid colour. 
 
 RU'BEZAHL. The name of a famous spirit of the 
 Riesengebirge in Germany, who is celebrated in innumer- 
 able sagas ballads, and tales, and represented under the 
 various forms of a miner, hunter, monk, dwarf, giant, &c. 
 He is said to aid the poor and oppressed, and shows be- 
 nighted wanderers their road ; but wages incessant war 
 with the proud and wicked. The origin of the name is 
 obscure. (See the Tales of Musaus.) 
 
 RULE OF THREE. 
 
 RU'BICEL. A term applied to the Brazilian ruby. 
 
 RU'BRIC. (Lat. ruber, red.) In the language of the old 
 copies of manuscripts, and of modern printers, any writing 
 or printing in red ink. The date and place on a title page 
 being frequently in red ink, the word rubric has come to 
 signify the false name of a place on a title page. Many 
 books printed at Paris bear the rubric of Genoa, London, 
 &c. But the most common use of the word is in ecclesias- 
 tical matters. In MS. Missals, the directions prefixed to 
 the several prayers and offices were written or printed in 
 red ink; and hence, the rubric familiarly signifies the order 
 of the liturgy, in Roman Catholrc countries as well as in 
 England. 
 
 RU'BY. A crystallized gem of various shades of red, 
 found chiefly in the sand of rivers in Ceylon, Pegu, and 
 Mysore. Among lapidaries, the scarlet-coloured is some- 
 times called spinelte ruby; the pale or rose red, balass 
 ruby; and the yellowish red, rubicelle. It is inferior in 
 value and beauty to the red sapphire, or oriental ruby of 
 the jewellers. It consists of 83 alumina. 9 magnesia, and 
 7 or 8 chromic acid ; the latter gives its colour. 
 
 RUDDER. A heavy flat piece or frame of wood, hung 
 upon the stern post by means of pintles and gudgeons, for 
 the purpose of steering the ship. The rudder is turned 
 round the stern post as an axis, by the tiller, which enters 
 the rudder head. In vessels drawing much water the 
 rudder is deep and narrow ; in flat-bottomed vessels, it is 
 shallow and broad. When carried to a considerable breadth, 
 as in the Chinese vessels, it is pierced with holes, which 
 preserves an increased leverage with a diminished direct 
 resistance from the water. 
 
 When the rudder is broken off by the ship getting 
 aground, or by a heavy sea, a temporary one is made by 
 a topmast and other spars placed parallel, and loaded at 
 the bottom with pigs and ballast, and confined to the stem 
 post by hawsers leading on each side of the keel. 
 
 Rudder Coat. A covering of tarred canvass loosely 
 put round the rudder head to keep the water from entering 
 by the aperture, while it admits of the rudder being turned 
 freely round. 
 
 Rudder Pendants. Strong pieces of rope ending in 
 chains, by which the rudder, if unshipped, is held to the 
 ship's quarter. 
 
 Rudder Shock. A piece of wood fitting between the 
 head of the rudder and the rudder hole, to prevent the 
 play of the rudder in case of the tiller being removed. 
 
 RUDE'NTURE. (Fr.) In Architecture, the rope or 
 staff with which the lower parts of the flutings of columns 
 are often filled. See Cabling. 
 
 RUDIA'RIUS. (Lat.) The term applied to a discharged 
 gladiator. The word is derived from the staff (rudis), 
 which was given him in token of his dismission. 
 
 RUDO'LPHINE TABLES. A set of astronomical tables 
 computed by Kepler, and founded on the observations of 
 Tycho Brahe. They were called the Rudolphine Tables 
 in honour of Rudolph II., emperor of Bohemia, who, upon 
 the death of Tycho in 1601, conferred upon Kepler the 
 title of imperial mathematician, and undertook to defray 
 the expenses of their preparation. Owing to various causes 
 the work was not completed till 16-27, when the tables 
 were published at Uim. They are the first that were ever 
 calculated on the hypothesis that the planets move in 
 elliptic orbits, and they contributed greatly to the progress 
 of modern astronomy. For a detailed account of this very 
 remarkable production, see Delambre, .istronomie Moderns, 
 torn, i., p. 557. 
 
 RUFF. The name of the male of the Machetes pug-nax, 
 which is distinguished at the breeding season by a ruff or 
 tuft of wide-spreading feathers, projecting behind the eyes 
 and from the upper part of the neck. The female is called 
 the reeve. See Machetes and Tringa. 
 
 RULE, in Arithmetic, denotes a certain prescribed series 
 of numerical operations, adapted to discover from the given 
 conditions to which an unknown number is subjected what 
 that number is. They are generally distinguished by par- 
 ticular names, according to the purposes for which they 
 are given, or the particular nature of the business for 
 which they are required ; as the rules of interest, the rules 
 of fellowship, &c. 
 
 Rule. In a monastic sense, a system of laws or regula- 
 tions by which monasteries and other religious houses are 
 governed, and which the monks, nuns, and novices vow at 
 their entrance to observe. See Orders, Monastic. 
 
 Rule. In Law, an order of one of the three superior 
 courts of common law. Rules are either general or par- 
 ticular; the former being such orders relating to matters 
 of practice as are laid down and promulgated by the court 
 for the general guidance of the suitors : the latter are such 
 orders as are confined to the particular case in reference 
 to which they have been granted. See Courts of Law, 
 and Pleading. 
 
 RULE OF THREE, in Arithmetic is the rule by which 
 
 1077
 
 RULES. 
 
 when three numbers are given a fourth is to be found, so 
 that the font shall ho in direct or inverse proportion, be the 
 case may require. 
 
 RULES, in the Fine Arts, those laws and maxima 
 founded on the general and fundamental truths of nature by 
 
 which artists are guided in their compositions. 
 
 i;i l.r.s BRASS. Pieces of brass of different thick 
 
 i high, to print with. They arc made in 
 lengths of fourteen inches, hut of late years lengths half as 
 long again nave been made. One of the edges is bevelled 
 - to print a line line, and when a thicker line is re 
 quired the bottom edge is placed uppermost, which is the 
 full thickness of the brass; by this means lines of different 
 
 tbicknesses axe obtained, and also double lines, a thick one 
 and a fine one, when required. They arc used tor column 
 lines in tabic work ; to separate matter that requires to be 
 
 distinct ; and to be placed round pages. 
 
 In cases where diagrams are required, and there is no 
 engraver within reach, they may be formed by a clever 
 workman with brass rule. Of late years many ingenious 
 and elaborate imitations of architectural drawings of build- 
 ings, with pillars, &.<;. have been made with brass rule ; 
 and in this department of art Mr. Ebene/.er Parkes, of 
 Fetter Lane, has displayed great skill and ingenuity. 
 
 RULE, CARPENTER'S. A folding ruler, generally 
 used by carpenters and other artificers, having a variety of 
 scales adapted to facilitate the calculations of most frequent 
 occurrence by inspection. Sometimes it has a sliding piece 
 in one of its legs, by which its use is greatly extended. See 
 Sliding Ri i.e. 
 
 RULE, GAUGING, is a rule adapted in the same man- 
 ner to discover the contents of casks and other vessels. 
 It is used by the officers of excise in surveying the articles 
 in the process of manufacture that are liable to duties. See 
 
 Gil BIND. 
 
 RUM. A spirituous liquor distilled from the fermented 
 juice of the sugar cane, or from molasses. Its flavour is 
 due to the presence of a peculiar volatile oil : its average 
 proportion of alcohol fluctuates between 50 and 5(i per 
 rent. The rum consumed in the United Kingdom is en- 
 tirely the produce of the West Indies, and to a great ex- 
 tent of Jamaica ; and for this preference it is indebted 
 partly to its superior quality, and partly to its being pro- 
 tected against rum of Bast India produce by a differential 
 duty of 6s. per gallon; tin- dutj on West India rum being 
 
 9s., that on Hast India rum being 15s. per gallon. The 
 quantity of rum entered for home consumption for the 
 years 1839-40, averaged 2,670,515] gallons; the duty on it 
 for the three years, 1837-38-39, averaged jEI .372,540; and 
 in 1840, the gross amount was XI. 154,544. The consump- 
 tion of rum in this country has long been gradually de- 
 clining. 
 
 RUMEN. (Lai.) The name of the paunch or first cavity 
 of the complex stomach of the Ruminant quadrupeds. 
 
 RU'MINANTS, Ruminantia. (Lat. rumino, [ chein tin 
 
 cud.) The name given by Cuvier to the Pecora of Lin- 
 
 an order of Ungulate Mammals. Including those which 
 
 have a complicate.! stomach of four cavities so disposed as 
 
 to allow of rumination, and a cloven hoof. 
 
 Rl MINA'TION. (Lat. rumino.) The act by which 
 food once chewed and swallowed is a second time subjected 
 to mastication. Digestion is always preceded by this action 
 in the order of Mammals, hence called "Ruminants;" but 
 very rarely, and as an exceptional case, in am' other ani 
 mal. The stomach ofthe Ruminants is specially organized 
 for run g of four distinct cavities, till of 
 
 which communicate with a muscular canal at the termina- 
 tion of the oesophagus. Haul, solid, or coarsely masticated' 
 food, passes from the beginning of the muscular canal into 
 
 the first cavity of the stomach, called the rumen, or paunch. 
 
 Water is received into the second cavity, called the • 
 lutn.and almost exclusively occupies the honeycomb 
 
 Of that cavity; it is gradually mixed with the coarsely di- 
 vided food which i- undergoing mastication in the rumen. 
 When this is sufficiently advanced, a portion of the mass is 
 received into the muscular canal tit the termination of the 
 bogus; it is there moulded into a ball, and propelled 
 by a rapid and inverted action of the muscles of the gullet 
 into the mouth, where it is more perfectly masticated, 
 mixed with fluid, and again swallowed. It now pass - 
 directly into the third stomach, called the psalterium, from 
 tin- broad leaf-like plates of membrane with which it is dc 
 cupied; here the superfluous fluid, which otherwise might 
 have too much diluted the gastric juice, is absorbed, and 
 the subdivided cud passes gradually into the fourth or true 
 digesting stomach, called the abomasvs. In the camel tribe, 
 ireloped at the sides of the rumen, in ad 
 dition to those of the reticulum, and the psalterium is not 
 separated by am contraction Cri m the abpmasus. 
 
 BUMP PARLIAMENT. In English History, after the 
 dissolution of Bichnrd Cromwell's parliament, and his own 
 demission of the protectorate, a council of officers, at whose 
 lUTd 
 
 RUTACEjE. 
 
 head were Desborough, Lambert, and others, having seized 
 the supreme authority, found it advisable to call 
 the remnant of the Long Parliament, which ha 
 
 forcibly dissolved by <>ii\er. it was assembled in May, 
 1659; and consisted of little more than seventy members, 
 those Who had been excluded not being allowed to resume 
 their seats. This body soon became odious to the IV, -i 
 teiian and Royalist parts of the nation, and by its own as- 
 sumption of power displeased the officers who had called 
 it again into being. It acted, however, with some vigour 
 and determination, and defeated a variety of royalist con- 
 spiradi -; but having ventured so for as to cashier Lam- 
 bert and others ofthe leading officers, the troops again sur- 
 rounded Westminster Hall, and expelled it, on the 13th 
 
 October in the same year. But Fleetwood, who had the 
 command of the army, being unable to keep together the 
 distracted gov eminent, the officers once more invited the 
 parliament to >it again, which it did on the 26th of Decem- 
 ber. It once more assumed absolute authority ; but Gen- 
 eral Monk took part against it. On his invitation a good 
 many ofthe excluded members went to the house (Feb. 21), 
 and thus placed the Independents, who had hitherto ruled 
 it, in a minority; and, having passed some measures re- 
 versing its former acts, the parliament dissolved itself. It 
 got its nickname from heing, as it were, the remnant and 
 fag-end ofthe old Long Parliament, and was treated by the 
 nation with general contumely and derision. Hut it cannot 
 
 be denied that, utterly unable as it was to command the 
 divided nation, it showed boldness and vigour in its con- 
 duct, which, with a little more popularity, would probably 
 have ensured great successes. Vane and Hazlerig were its 
 leading members. 
 
 RU'NCINATE. In Botany, hooked back, or curved in 
 a direction from the apex to the base ; as the lobes of the 
 leaf of the dandelion. 
 
 RUN BS. (Genu. Runen), are properly the signs or let- 
 ters of the ancient alphabet peculitr to the northern 
 nations (Germans and Scandinavians). Schlegel deduces 
 tin- alphabet from the Phoenicians. (Lectures on Ancient 
 arid Modern Literature.) Others have supposed it to have 
 been derived from that of the Romans ; but its originally 
 consisting only of sixteen letters has been urged as an 
 argument against this hypothesis. The runen inscrip- 
 tions found in Germany (especially Northern Saxony) are 
 thought by some to have tokens of an origin somewhat 
 different from the Scandinavian. {Grimm on the German 
 Rimes, 1821.) The antiquity of both has been much dis- 
 puted. Of those found in Gothland, it is said that the 
 oldest are not earlier than A.D. 1200, the latest 1449 ; 1300 
 stones with Runic inscriptions have, it is said, been dis- 
 covered in Sweden; many in Denmark; none in Lapland 
 or Finland. Runic staves are mas.ive sticks, generally of 
 willow, inscribed with Runic characters, probably of 
 magieal import. (See (our. Lexicon.) 
 
 RUPEE. A coin of different values, current in different 
 parts ofthe East Indies. See Money. 
 
 RU'PIA. (Gr. pviroi.) An eruption of flatfish vesicles, 
 succeeded by an ill-conditioned disch Urge, which concretes 
 into thin scabs easily rubbed off and regenerated ; they 
 generally occur as a consequence of poor diet and weak 
 habit of body. Light nutritious food, tonics, and alteratives 
 are the remedies. 
 
 RUPTURE. See Hernia. 
 
 RU'RAL ECO'NOMY. The general management of 
 territorial property, either by the proprietor or his agent. 
 On a small scale, the agent is termed a bailiff or farm 
 servant; and on a large scale, a land steward or factor. 
 The duties of the latter tire to collect the rents, and see 
 that the different clauses in the leases by which the 
 tenants hold their lands are fulfilled ; and of the lurmer, 
 to cultivate the land in such a manner as to produce the 
 greatest profit, or to fulfil the intentions ofthe proprietor 
 as to the kind of produce which he considers it desirable 
 in obtain. See Aqrk i ltc'rk. 
 
 Rl ST. in its ordinary acceptation, is the reddish peroxide 
 which is found on the surface of iron when exposed to 
 moisture. 
 
 Rl i. In Horticulture. See Mildew. 
 
 Rl 'STIC. (Lat. rus.) In Architecture, a term applied 
 to work jigged out into an irregular surface. Work also 
 
 which is left rough, without tooling. 
 
 HIT VI'!', U hull, one ,,!' Hie genera.) A natural 
 order of plants, composed principally of trees and shrubs 
 
 inhabiting the warmer parts of the world, seldom of her- 
 baceous plants. The species are sometimes very orna- 
 mental, especially those belonging to the genera Correa, 
 nd Diosma. Some, as the common rue, the 
 bucku plant, &C., are remarkable for having S powerful, 
 peculiar, unpleasant odour, and antispasmodic quality ; 
 
 and a tew hive a fi brifuga] bark. The Dictamnus rt/ei/.f, 
 I'u, is extremely fragrant, and gives off un in 
 flammable vapour.
 
 RUTIDOSIS. 
 
 RUTIDO'SIS. (Gr. pvris, a furrow.) A disease of the 
 eye, in which the cornea appears shrunk and puckered. 
 It is produced by a wound, or by a deficiency of the aqueous 
 humour, which happens from old age or fevers, or occa- 
 sionally from the action of an extremely arid atmosphere. 
 After death it is produced by the evaporation of the 
 aqueous humour through the cornea, and the consequent 
 shrinking from that membrane. 
 
 RUTlLlTE. (Lat. rutilus, red.) Native oxide of tita- 
 nium. 
 
 RYA'COLITE. (Gr. pva\, a stream, and h9og, a stone.) 
 A name given to glassy felspar. 
 
 RYE. (Ger. roggen ; Du. rog, rogge), according to 
 some, is a native of Crete ; but it is very doubtful if it be 
 found wild in any country. It has been cultivated from 
 time immemorial, and is considered as coming nearer in 
 its properties to wheat than any other grain. It is more 
 common thin wheat in many parts of the Continent; 
 being a more certain crop, and requiring less culture and 
 manure. It is the bread corn of Germany and Russia. In 
 Britain it is now very little grown, being no longer a bread 
 corn ; and therefore of less value to the farmer than barley, 
 oats, or peas. 
 
 RYOTS. (Arab, a subject.) The name given to the 
 cultivators of the soil in Hindostan. Their social condi- 
 tion presents many singular anil interesting features, to 
 some of which we shall here advert. In all eastern coun- 
 tries the rulers may be said to be the proprietors of the 
 soil ; but in India the cultivators have a perpetual, heredi- 
 tary, and transferable right of occupancy, so long as they 
 continue to pay the share of the produce of the land de- 
 manded by the government. The value of this right of 
 occupancy to the rural population depends on the degree 
 of resistance which they have been able to oppose to the 
 exactions of arbitrary governments. In Bengal and the 
 adjacent provinces of India, from the peculiarly timid 
 character of the inhabitants, and the open and exposed 
 nature of the country, this resistance has been trifling 
 indeed ; and consequently the value of the right of occu- 
 pancy in the peasant, or ryot, has been proportionally- 
 reduced. This, also, may be considered, though with 
 some modifications, as being nearly the condition, in this 
 respect, of the inhabitants of every part of the great plain 
 of the Ganges, comprising more than half the population 
 of Hindostan. But where the country is naturally difficult, 
 the people have been able more effectually to resist the 
 encroachments of the head landlord, or state, and to retain 
 a valuable share in the property of the soil. This has 
 been particularly the case along the ghauts, as in Bednore, 
 Canara, Malabar, &c. ; the inhabitants of which provinces 
 not only lay claim to a right of private property in the 
 soil, but have been generally ready to support their claim 
 by force of arms. There can be no question, indeed, that 
 the same modified right of property formerly existed every- 
 where ; and it is indeed impossible that otherwise the 
 land should ever have been reclaimed from the wilder- 
 ness. But in those parts of India which could be readily 
 overrun by a military force, the right of property in the 
 soil has long been little else than the right to cultivate 
 one's paternal acres for behoof of others, the cultivators 
 reserving only a bare subsistence for themselves. 
 
 Under the Mogul emperors, the practice in Bengal was 
 to divide the gross produce of the soil, on the metayer prin- 
 ciple, into equal shares ; whereof one was retained by 
 the cultivator, the other going to government as rent or 
 tax. The officers employed to collect this revenue were 
 called zemindars ; and in the course of time their office 
 seems to have become hereditary. It may be remarked 
 that, in Persian, zemindar and landholder are synonymous ; 
 and this etymology, coupled with the hereditary nature 
 of their office, which brought them exclusively into con- 
 tact with the ryot or occupier, as well as with the govern- 
 ment, led many to believe that the zemindars were in 
 reality the owners of the land, and that the ryots were 
 their tenants. This, however, it is now admitted on all 
 hands, was an incorrect opinion. The zemindars in reality 
 were tax-gatherers, and were, in fact, obliged to pay to 
 the government nine tenths of the produce collected from 
 the ryots, retaining only one tenth as a compensation for 
 their trouble ; and, so long as the ryots paid their fixed 
 contribution, they could not be ousted from their posses- 
 sions, nor be in anywise interfered with. 
 
 But notwithstanding what has now been stated, the 
 perpetual or zemindary settlement, established by Lord 
 Cornwallis in Bengal, in 1793, was made on the assump- 
 tion that the zemindars were the proprietors of the soil. 
 His lordship, indeed, was far from being personally satis- 
 fied that such was really the case ; but he was anxious to 
 create a class of 1 arse proprietors, and to give them an 
 interest in the improvement and prosperity of the country. 
 It is clear, however, that this wish could not be realized 
 without destroying the permanent rights of the ryots ; for, 
 
 RYOTS. 
 
 unless this were accomplished, the zemindars could not 
 interfere in the management of their estates. The inter- 
 ests of the zemindars, and the rights of the ryots, were 
 plainly irreconcileable ; and it was obvious that the former 
 would endeavour to reduce the latter to the condition of 
 tenants at will. But this necessary consequence was 
 either overlooked or ineffectually provided against. The 
 zemindars became, under condition of their paying the 
 assessment or quit-rent due to government, proprietors or 
 owners of the land. The amount of the assessment was 
 fixed at the average of what it had been for a few years 
 previously, and it was declared to be perpetual and in- 
 variable at that amount. When a zemindar fell into 
 arrear with government, his estate might be either sold or 
 resumed. 
 
 That the assessment was at the outset, and still is too 
 high, cannot well be doubted ; and it must ever be matter 
 of regret that the settlement was not made with the ryots, 
 or cultivators, rather than with the zemindars ; but, not- 
 withstanding these and other defects, the measure was, 
 on the whole, a great boon to India. Until tbe introduc- 
 tion of the perpetual system into Bengal, the revenue was 
 raised in it, as it continues to be in the rest of India down 
 to the present day, by a variable as well as a most oppres- 
 sive land-tax. We all know what a pernicious influence 
 tithe has had in this country ; but suppose that, instead 
 of amounting to 10, tithe had amounted to 50 per cent, of 
 the gross produce of the soil, it would have been an 
 effectual obstacle to all improvement ; and the country 
 would now hfive been in about the same state as iu the 
 days of Alfred, or of William the Conqueror. 
 
 In France, Italy, and other parts of Europe, where the 
 metayer system is introduced, the landlord seldom or never 
 gets half the produce, unless he also furnish the stock and 
 farming capital, and, in most cases, the seed. But in India 
 neither the government nor the zemindars do anything of 
 the sort : they merely supply the land, which is usually 
 divided into very small portions, mostly about six, and 
 rarely amounting to twenty-four acres. A demand on 
 the occupiers of such patches for half the produce is quite 
 extravagant ; and hence the excessive poverty of the peo- 
 ple, which is such as to stagger belief. Still, however, 
 the perpetual system is vastly preferable in principle, and 
 also in its practical influence, to any other revenue system 
 hitherto established in India. It set limits to fiscal rapa- 
 city, and established, as it were, a rampart beyond which 
 no tax-gatherer dared to intrude. The enormous amount 
 of the assessment, and the rigour with which payment 
 was at first enforced, ruined an immense number of zemin- 
 dars. But their lands hiving come into new and more 
 efficient hands, a better system of management was intro- 
 duced, and the limitation of the government demand gave 
 a stimulus to improvement unknown in any other part of 
 Hindostan. This, in fact, was the grand desideratum. A 
 land-tax, that may be increased should the land be im- 
 proved, is all but certain to prevent any such improvement 
 being made. This has been its uniform operation in every 
 country in the world that has had the bad fortune to be 
 cursed with such a destructive impost. But a heavy land- 
 tax, provided it be fixed and unsusceptible of increase, is 
 no bar to improvements, unless in so far as it tends to de- 
 prive the proprietors and occupiers of land of the means 
 of making them. There is, in such a case, no want of 
 security ; and the cultivator is not deterred from attempt- 
 ing improvements, or of bringing superior enterprise and 
 industry to operate on his estate, by the fear that the tax 
 will, in consequence, be increased. 
 
 The truth of what is now stated has been fully evinced 
 in Bengal during the last twenty or thirty years ; for both 
 the population and the land revenue of that part of our 
 Indian empire have greatly increased. A great deal of 
 waste land has been cultivated, and various works have 
 been undertaken that would not be so much as dreamed 
 of in any other part of our empire in the East. But, with 
 all this, there has been but little, if any, improvement in 
 the condition of the people of Bengal under our govern- 
 ment. They, in fact, are practically excluded from at least 
 all direct participation in the benefits resulting from the 
 limitation of the assessment. They have merely ex- 
 changed one task-master for another. It is their landlords 
 who have been the great gainers. The occupiers still, 
 generally speaking, hold under the metayer principle, pay- 
 ing half or even more of their produce as rent ; so that 
 their poverty is often extreme, and their condition not in- 
 frequently inferior even to that of the hired labourer, who 
 receives the miserable pittance of two annas, or about 3d. 
 a day as wages, 
 
 It seems, however, as if there were some strange fatality 
 attending the government of India : and that the greatest 
 talents and the best intentions should, when applied to 
 legislate for that country, produce only the most pernicious 
 uroiects. The perpetual settlement carried into effect by 
 v 1079
 
 RYTINA. 
 
 Lord Cornwallis in Bengal was keenly opposed by Lord 
 Teignmouth, Colonel Wilkes, Mr. Thackeray, SirT. Monro, 
 and others, whose opinions on such subjects are. certainly 
 entitled to very great respect ; and it would seem that the 
 Board of Control became, at length, favourable to their 
 Mews. In consequence of this change of opinion it was 
 resolved to introduce a different system, under the super- 
 intendence of in zealous advocate, Sir Thomas Monro, 
 into the presidency of Madras, or Fort St. George. This 
 new system has received the name of the ryotwar settle- 
 ment. It proceeds on the assumption that government 
 possesses the entire property of the soil, and may dispose 
 of it at pleasure: no middlemen or zemindars are inter- 
 posed between the sovereign and cultivators: the ryots 
 being brought into immediate contact with the collectors 
 appointed by government to receive their rents. It is im- 
 possible tor us to enter into the details of this system, 
 which are complicated In the hiehest degree ; but we beg 
 to refer the reader for full information to the Oeog. Diet., 
 art. " India, British." 
 
 RYTIN'A. (Gr. fivTtf, a furrotp) The name of a genus 
 of herbivorous Cetaceans, of which a species inhabiting 
 the coasts of Kamtschatka {Rytina stclleri), with a wrin- 
 kled and furrowed integument, is the type. 
 
 s. 
 
 S. A sibilant articulation, found in all the languages of 
 which we have any knowledge. S may be regarded as a 
 species of semivowel, from its forming a kind of imperfect 
 sound without the aid of any of the vowels ; and from its 
 peculiar quality of being able to be sounded before all the 
 consonants, it has been termed by grammarians su<e potcs- 
 tatis litera. It is susceptible of numerous interchanges, 
 both in the ancient and modern languages. As an abbre- 
 viation, S is used for snr ins, societas, south, solo, &c. 
 
 BA'BAISM, or SAIU-'.ISM. (From the Heb. zaba, lord ; 
 whence Sabaoth, &c, or army, the host of heaven.) The 
 religion which has for its objects Of worship the sun, moon, 
 and other heavenly bodies. This belief prevailed in very 
 remote ages in the Asiatic countries between the Euphrates 
 and the Mediterranean ; and ChakUea, the native land of 
 astronomy, was its most celebrated seat. Many allusions 
 are made to this species of worship in the Old Testament, 
 especially in the invectives of the prophets against the 
 various forms of idolatry borrowed by the Jews from their 
 heathen neighbours. (See Sale's Preliminary Discourse 
 to the Koran.) There is a valuable memoir on the Sabaism 
 of the ancient Persians by Foucher, Mem. de I'Ac. drs laser.. 
 vol. xxv., p. 10U. See also Russell's Connezion of Sacred 
 and Profane History, vol. i. 
 
 SAB A'OTII. A Hebrew word, signifying hosts or armies. 
 It occurs in the New Testament as a designation of the 
 Almighty (the Lord of Sabaoth). 
 
 SABA'SIA. In ancient Mythology, festivals in honour 
 of various divinities, entitled Sabasii : the origin of which 
 term is not clear. Mithras, the sun, is called Sabasius in 
 ancient monuments, whence the word seems to have some 
 connexion with the root of Sabaism (see above) ; but 
 Bacchus was also thus denominated, according to some, 
 from the Sabae, a people of Thrace : and the nocturnal 
 Sabasia were celebrated in his name. Jupiter Sabasius 
 is thought to be the same as JEgiochus ; the Phoenician 
 word tsebaoth signifying kids, as the Greek di\ a goat 
 But there is probably, some more general oriental meaning, 
 which has not ><i been reached. 
 
 SABBATA'EIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, various 
 sects have been so called ; particularly a subdivision of 
 the Anabaptists in the Kith century, who observed the 
 Jewish sabbath. The Sabbatians of the 4th century were 
 followers of Sahbatius, a .\ovatian bishop, who attempted 
 to introduce some Jewish observance into the church. 
 They are said to have had the singular peculiarity of ab- 
 horring the use of the right hand; whence they were 
 called Aptcrrpoi, or left-handed. 
 
 SA'BIJATH. A Hebrew word signifying rest, applied 
 by the Jews to the seventh day of their week (our Satur- 
 day), on Which tiny were commanded to abstain from all 
 manner of work, because "in six days God created the 
 heavens and the earth, ami rested the seventh day." The 
 universal practice of the Christian church from the earliest 
 period, in conformity to what may be gathered from some 
 in the Acts of the Aposties, btai set apart the first 
 day of the week (Sunday) for the especial worship of God, 
 in memory of the resurrection of our Lord on that day. 
 The obligation upon which the observance of Sunday rests 
 has been placed upon different grounds. The most preva- 
 lent opinion supposes the commandment given to the Jews 
 
 Originally to I* of universal obligation, as far as the observ- 
 ance of one day in seveu. But there have been many 
 11W0 
 
 SACK. 
 
 divines in all ages who have held that all the formal obli- 
 gations of Judaism, as well those of the commandments as 
 those of the Levitjcal law, were abrogated on the advent 
 of our Saviour, and consider the consent of the church 
 and the practice of the Apostles to be the only sufficient 
 authority for this observance. It is upon this principle 
 that the Continental churches hold themselves justified in 
 indulging in all sorts of worldly recreation on Sundays, 
 alter the services of public worship are concluded. Arch- 
 bishop Whately lias recently drawn attention to the subject 
 by his able arguments against the popular opinions on 
 which the observance of the Sabbath is made to rest. 
 
 The name Sabbatarians was given to some early sects 
 of Judaising Christians, who insisted on the observance of 
 the Sabbath (Saturday) under the new dispensation. 
 
 SABBATICAL YEAR. Every seventh year among 
 the Jews was so called, because on that year the land 
 was allowed to lie fallow, and the people were supported 
 by the tripled produce of the year preceding. (Exod., xxiii., 
 10; Levit., xxv., 3,20.) 
 
 SABE'LLIANS. Heretics of the 3d century, followers 
 of Sabellius, whose system was an attempt to explain the 
 doctrine of the Trinity by representing the Father as the 
 sole person, and the Son and Spirit as attributes, or ema- 
 nations from him. Thus they compared the Divinity to 
 the sun ; of which the Father would be analogous to the 
 substance, the Son to the light, and the Holy Ghost to the 
 heat. This scheme has been known in later times as 
 that of the Modal Trinity ; and some divines of the or- 
 thodox English Church have found themselves entangled 
 in it, when attempting to explain accurately the mysteri- 
 ous doctrine to which it refers. On the other hand, their 
 opponents have been led, inadvertently in some cases, to 
 make too formal a distinction of the Three Persons, and 
 have thereby subjected themselves to the charge of Trithe- 
 ism. (See Mosheim. transl. ed., 1790, vol. i., p. 305.) 
 
 SA'BIANS. A Christian sect, also called Christians of 
 Saint John ; thought by some to be the remnant of the 
 Jewish Hemerobaptists found in Persia and Arabia, prin- 
 cipally at Basra. (See Mem. de VAc. des Inscr., vol. xii. ; 
 and Mosheim, vol. iv.) 
 
 SA'BLE. A small quadruped, allied to the martin-cat, 
 celebrated for the fine quality and rich colour of its fur, of 
 which the hairs turn with equal ease in every direction. 
 A single skin of the darker colour, though not above four 
 inches broad, has been valued as high as jt'15. The sable 
 (Mustela zibellina, Linn.) is principally a native of the 
 northern regions of Asia: it is hunted and killed for the 
 Russian market, either by a single ball, a blunt arrow, or 
 traps, by exiles or soldiers sent for that purpose in the des- 
 erts of Siberia. The skin is in the highest perfection from 
 November to February. A nearly allied animal, called 
 the " fisher," inhabits North America, and is similarly 
 sought after and destroyed for its fur. 
 
 Sable. In Heraldry, black : derived, probably, from 
 the fur of the animal sable. One of the colours, or tinc- 
 tures, employed in blazonry. It is equivalent to diamond 
 among precious stones, Saturn among planets. In engra- 
 ving, it is represented by vertical and horizontal lines 
 crossing each other. 
 
 SACCHA'RIC ACID. (Lat. saccharum, sugar.) An 
 uncrystallizable acid product, formed along with oxalie 
 acid during the action of nitric acid on sugar. 
 
 SA'CCHAROID. (Lat. saccharum, and Gr. £«5oc, form.) 
 A texture resembling that of loaf sugar ; as saccharoiu 
 carbonate of lime, &c. 
 
 SACCHARO'METER. (Lat. saccharum, and Gr. ncroov, 
 a measure.) An instrument for determining the specific 
 gravity of brewers' and distillers' worts. 
 
 SA'CCHARUM, See Sugar. 
 
 SACCHOL.VCTIC ACID. (Lat. saccharum, and lae, 
 milk.) An acid obtained by digesting sugar of milk in 
 nitric acid. It is identical with that obtained from gum, 
 and termed mucous arid. 
 
 BA'CER MO'RBUS. (Lat sacred disease.) One of the 
 names applied by the older writers to epilepsy, though 
 other disorders were also occasionally similarly desig- 
 nated. 
 
 SACK. (Fr. vin ser, from which the term is generally 
 supposed to be derived.) A Spanish wine of the dry kind. 
 The import ant part which it plays in Shakspeare is well 
 known. Falstall" calls it sherris sack, which means sher- 
 ry sack; so called, says Blount, in his Olossographia, 
 from Seres, a sea town of Corduba, where that kind of 
 sack is made. At a later period, sack seems to have been 
 used as n general term for all kinds of sweet wines ; and 
 it lias been conjectured that, instead of being a corruption 
 Of the French sec, as above noticed, it derives its name 
 more probably from a common practice of the Spaniards, 
 of putting their sweet wines into sacks made of goat 
 skins, and thus transporting them from one place to an- 
 other.
 
 SACKBUT. 
 
 It may be interesting to observe, that the term sack, in 
 the sense of a bag, is found in all the European and many 
 Asiatic languages. 
 
 SA'CKBUT. A wind instrument of the trumpet species, 
 but differing from the common trumpet in form and size. 
 It is of low or bass pitch, and is drawn out or shortened 
 by means of sliders, according to the acuteness or gravity 
 of the tone to be produced. It is, in fact, the trombone of 
 the Italians. 
 
 SA'CRAMENT. (Lat. an oath.) The military oath 
 taken by every Roman soldier, by which he swore to obey 
 his commander and not desert his standard. 
 
 Sacrament. In Theology, a word which does not oc- 
 cur in Scripture, nor possesses any exact equivalent there ; 
 but employed very early by writers in theology to signify 
 certain distinctive ceremonies of the Christian faith. Our 
 Saviour appointed the baptism of believers as an initiatory 
 rite ; he also commanded the observance of the supper of 
 the Lord to be held in remembrance of him. These, then, 
 are the badges by which Christian men are known, and 
 by which they make .profession of their belief. The ex- 
 pressions of Scripture, moreover, with which the appoint- 
 ment of these ceremonies is attended, have been generally 
 considered to attach some ulterior meaning to them. The 
 one is called the second birth, the other is said to be the 
 communion of the body and blood of our Saviour Christ ; 
 and the mysteries which seem to be concealed under these 
 terms have been made the subjects of various interpreta- 
 tions. According to the general consent of ancient ortho- 
 doxy, the sacraments have in themselves a peculiar effica- 
 cy, conferring grace upon the recipient, and imparting to 
 him the benefits of the Christian covenant. The Romish 
 Church is accused of holding the extreme opinion that this 
 grace is conferred ex opere operato, by the mere act, the re- 
 cipient remaining passive ; that they fail of operation only 
 where he is under the influence of positive sin ; but that 
 the administration of the Eucharist to a dying man uncon- 
 scious of the whole proceeding, would have the same ef- 
 fect as if he received it in the most holy frame of mind. 
 The English Church requires the worthy acceptation of 
 the person himself, as is expressly stated, with a tacit ref- 
 erence to this superstitious notion, in its twenty-fifth arti- 
 cle. It guards, at the same time, against the idea very 
 generally held among the Protestant Churches abroad, and 
 our own dissenting sects, in the words with which the 
 article begins : " Sacraments ordained of Christ be not 
 only signs or tokens of Christian men's profession ; but, 
 rather they be certain sure witnesses and effectual signs 
 of grace, and God's will towards us, by the which he doth 
 work invisibly in us, and doth not only quicken, but also 
 strengthen and confirm our faith in him." 
 
 The question as to the number of such ceremonies must 
 be settled by the definitions of a sacrament which theolo- 
 gians shall propound. It is agreed that a sacrament is a 
 federal rite, instituted by Christ or the Apostles, with a 
 direct appointment of matter by which some interior 
 meaning is signified, and the form or manner of its appli- 
 cation. This definition is conceived by Protestants to re- 
 strict the number to two only ; the Romanists extend it to 
 seven, adding to Baptism and the Lord's Supper, Confir- 
 mation, Penance, Orders, Matrimony, and Extreme Unc- 
 tion. 
 
 SA'CRED WAR. The most remarkable known by this 
 name in classical history is that which commenced with 
 the seizure of Delphi by the Phocians, B.C. 357, anil was 
 ended by the conquest of the Phocians by Philip of Mace- 
 don, B.C. 346, according to the chronology of Clinton. 
 (Fasti Hdlen.ici.) 
 
 SA'CRIFICE. Generally any offering made to the 
 Deity ; but more properly that of a victim upon an altar, 
 accompanied by customary ceremonies and forms of 
 prayer, with the idea of gratifying God and averting his 
 displeasure. In the Scriptures we meet with offerings, 
 both of fruits and of animals, antecedent to any command 
 or institution of God ; such as those of Cain and Abel ; of 
 Noah and the Patriarchs ; many of which, nevertheless, 
 are described as acceptable to him. In the Levitical Law, 
 however, sacrifices are ordained bv divine appointment; 
 and a question arises as to the probability of a similar 
 command having been in fact given to our first parents. 
 The universality of the practice undoubtedly requires 
 either the supposition of an original revelation, or the dis- 
 covery of a common principle impelling all men alike to 
 the adoption of what at first sight seems to militate against 
 our ideas of reason, and the absurdity of which has, we 
 know, been represented in the strongest light by the sages 
 of all nations at a certain period of the intellectual devel- 
 opment of each. Those divines who consider the ap- 
 pointment to have emanated directly from God conceive it 
 to have been, from the first, typical of the last and great- 
 est sacrifice — that of our Saviour on the cross. It may 
 fairly be asked of those who look for logical reasons for 
 all divine appointments, whether, upon human principles, 
 91 
 
 SAFETY LAMP. 
 
 it seems the more probable that the sacrifice of Christ be- 
 ing predetermined, the notion should be familiarized to 
 mankind by ordaining a previous practice ; or that, the 
 practice existing and having a meaning of its own in all 
 minds, the new revelation should be accommodated to our 
 notions by adopting that very practice for its foundation % 
 If, on the other hand, we follow the general current of 
 modern opinion upon this subject, and inquire for some 
 general principle of our nature to account for the univer- 
 sal reception of the ideas, we may discover it perhaps in 
 the perpetual sense of obligation with which the enjoy- 
 ment of prosperity is properly accompanied, and which in 
 some minds takes the form of grateful acknowledgment, 
 and the devotion to the giver of some portion of the gifts 
 by which we are ourselves gratified ; and in others be- 
 comes an uneasy scruple, and suggests the voluntary sur- 
 render of a part with a view to the more secure enjoy- 
 ment of the remainder. 
 
 SA'CRILEGE. (Lat. sacrilegium.) The profanation 
 of anything or place consecrated to the service of God. 
 
 SA'CRISTY. (Lat. sacer, sacred.) In Architecture, 
 an apartment attached to a church, in which the conse- 
 crated vessels of the church, and the garments in which 
 the clergyman officiates, &c, are deposited. 
 
 SA'CRUM. The posterior bone of the pelvis, articula- 
 ted to the last lumbar vertebra, and firmly united on each 
 side to the hip bones ; below, the os coccygis is attached 
 to it. It probably derives its name from having been of- 
 fered by the ancients in sacrifices. In young subjects it 
 is composed of five or six pieces united by cartilages, but 
 in more advanced age it becomes one bone. 
 
 SADDER. A work in the modern Persian tongue, com- 
 prising a summary of various parts of the Zendavesta, or 
 sacred books of the ancient Persians (which see). The 
 authority and character of the Sadder are supposed to be 
 very small ; some attribute it to the Parsees, and give it 
 an antiquity of several centuries ; others consider it a 
 more modern forgery. (See Mem. dc VAc. des Inscr., vol. 
 xxxviii.) 
 
 SADDLE. In Sea Language, a lump of wood acting 
 as a seat or rest to the heel of a boom, and shaped ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
 SA'DDUCEES. A peculiar sect of religionists among 
 the Jews. It is remarked that during the time that proph- 
 ets are recorded to have arisen among the Jews, there is 
 no account of the existence of any sects among them: 
 they frequently fell away into total idolatry ; but when- 
 ever recalled from that corruption, they appear to have 
 reverted in a body to the pure religion of their ancestors, 
 and never to have been separated in religious distinctions 
 among themselves. The most ancient sect was that of 
 the Sadducees, whose founder, Sadok, lived about 250 
 years B.C. He appears to have restricted the providence 
 of God to the distribution of the temporal rewards and 
 punishments which form the main feature of the old dis- 
 pensation. In the time of our Saviour his followers en- 
 tirely rejected the doctrine of a resurrection. They were 
 assimilated also to the Epicureans in maintaining the per- 
 fect freedom of human actions ; and, like those pagan 
 philosophers, were few in number, and only of the high- 
 est and most literary classes. They were distinguished 
 also from the Pharisees by the rejection of traditions, and 
 by strict adherence to the written law alone. (See Mil- 
 man's Hist, of Christianity, vol. i., p. 75, 211.) 
 
 SA'FETY LAMP. A iainp invented by Sir H. Davy, 
 which is so constructed as to burn without danger in an 
 explosive atmosphere. Flame may be considered as va- 
 pour or aeriform matter in a state of intense ignition ; the 
 temperature, therefore, of flame is always very high. It 
 is, however, independent of its luminosity; for some of 
 the dimmest flames, those of pure hydrogen gas, and of al- 
 cohol, for instance, are those which are hottest ; and that 
 this is so may be shown by projecting into them finely- 
 powdered substances, such as magnesia or lamp-black, or 
 by holding in them fine platinum wire, when the intensity 
 of their temperature is rendered evident by those substan- 
 ces becoming white hot. And whenever flames emit 
 much light they derive that property from the presence of 
 finely divided matter diffused through them : thus, the in- 
 tense brilliancy of the flame of phosphorus appears to 
 depend upon the particles of incombustible phosphoric 
 acid diffused through it ; and the bright light emitted by a 
 gas flame depends upon finely-divided charcoal, which is 
 ignited by the gas and at the same time burned. The 
 correctness of this theory of flame is shown by the circum- 
 stance of its being extinguished by cooling ; and this is 
 best effected by causing it to pass through a piece of fine 
 wire gauze, which, when held horizontally in the midst 
 of the flame, extinguishes its upper part : the inflammable 
 vapour or gas, and the soot or carbon, pass through, but 
 in passing are so far cooled as to be extinguished ; they 
 may, however, be rekindled by applying a flame above 
 the wire gauze. That the wire gauze merely acts by 
 3 X * 1081
 
 SAFETY VALVE. 
 
 SAIL. 
 
 its cooling power, is shown by the flame 
 _ ' : r. .uuli it when it acquires a white 
 beat, or when its meshes ore not Bne enough 
 to exert a due cooling power ; it is also round 
 th.it very hot flames, such as that of hydro- 
 gen, will" piss through tissues which are Im- 
 pervious to flames of a lower temperature, 
 such as that of a common candfe or a gas 
 
 PA 'no. A species of ferula or starch obtained from the 
 of an Easl Indian palm tree, the Sagus 
 .. farinifera. It is usually granulated, and known in the 
 S_^S. to exert a due cooling power ; it is also ton, id trade under the name of pearl sago. 
 
 thm , vn- hni flame* .nrfc :,« ii,-,t ,,(- i,,-,i,,,_ xhe tree, when at maturity, is about 30 feet hich. and 
 
 from I-' t.i 22 inches in diameter. Before the formation of 
 
 the fruit, the stem consists of an external wall about 2 
 
 inches thick, the whole interior being filled up with a sort 
 
 flame. ( See I'umk.) The application of of spongy, medullary matter. When the tree attains to 
 
 these principles to the construction of the maturity, and the fruit is formed, the stem is quite hollow. 
 
 safety lamp is as follows: The flame of a j Being cut down at a proper period, the medullary part is 
 
 extracted from the trunk, and reduced to a powder like 
 sawdust. The filaments are next separated by washing. 
 The meal is then laid to dry ; and being made into cakes is 
 haked and eaten. For exp< natation, the finest sngo meal 
 is mixed with water, and the paste rubbed into small grains 
 of the size and form of coriander seeds. This is the species 
 principally brought to England, for which market it should 
 be chosen of a reddisll hue. and readily dissolving in hot 
 and burns fa the cage : but, in consequence water into a fine jelly. Within these fvw years, however, 
 of the cooling power of the wire gauze, no | a process has been 'invented by the Chinese for refining 
 tl ime can pass outwards so as to ignite the sur- sago, so as to give it a fine pearly lustre ; and the sago so 
 rounding atmosphere: the miner, therefore, is warned of cured is in the highest estimation in all the European 
 his danger by the appearance of the lamp. As long as j markets. It is a light, wholesome, nutritious food. It is 
 the external atmosphere is safe, the lamp burns as usual ; ' sent from the islands w here it is grown to Singapore, where 
 but upon the approach of the fire-damp the flame is more it is granulated and bleached by the Chinese. The export 
 or less enlarged; and in the most explosive condition of trane to Europe and India is now principally confined to 
 the surrounding air the cyltndc r appears rilled with a blue | that settlement. (Ainslie's Mat. Indica ; Crawfurd's East. 
 
 small oil lamp C is surrounded by a cylinder 
 
 of wire gauze A u (doubled at A, where like- 
 ly to become h ittest, and protected by the 
 
 stout wire frame D). and bums within it, the 
 air having free ingress and egress. When it 
 is immersed in an explosive atmosphere, such 
 
 as that Of a coal mine infested by fire-damp, 
 the inflammable gas enters from without 
 
 lambent flame, which flickers within it, the wick of the 
 lamp appearing for the time extinguished. It is, however, 
 rekindled as the air becomes more pure ; or should the 
 fire-damp greatly predominate, it may be entirely extin- 
 guished. Before this happens, however, the miner is duly- 
 apprised of his danger, and has time to retreat. (See 
 Darn on the Safety Lamp.) 
 
 SAFETY VALVE. Ace Steam Engine. 
 
 B VITI.oWKK. The dried flowers of the Carthamvs 
 tinctorius, or bastard saffron, used as a dye stuff, and in 
 the preparation of the pigment called rouge. 
 
 .Irchip.. vol. i., p. 363-393 ; vol. in., p. 348 ; Bill's Rl view of 
 the Commerce of Bengal, <j-e.) 
 
 The consumption of sago has undergone an almost in- 
 credible increase within the last twenty years, which is 
 wholly ascribable to the reduction, in the interval, of the 
 oppressive duties by which the article was formerly load- 
 ed. — ( Pa/irrs published by the Board of Trade.) 
 
 SA'GUM. The military dress of the Roman magistrates 
 and dignitaries ; a cloak fastened at the breast with a clasp. 
 The same name was given to the ordinary dress of several 
 barbarous nations. Thus Tacitus says of the Germans, 
 
 S \ I'FRi >\. The prepared stigmata o? the Crocus sat- I tegumen omnibus sagum : and Varro and Diodorus Siculus 
 irus. The stigmata of this purple crocus are of a deep : represent it as the costume of the Cauls. 
 
 orange colour, and when in quantity have a peculiar and 
 very characteristic odour : they are used in medicine, 
 chiefly as a rich yellow or orange colouring matter. Saf- 
 fron is now chiefly imported from the south of Europe, es- 
 pecially Spain : it was formerly largely cultivated in this 
 country in the vicinity of Saffron Walden in Cambridge- 
 shire. S i (Iron is often largely adulterated with the petals 
 of other plants, especially with those of the marigold. 
 
 SA G \. Tie- gi neral name of those ancient composi- 
 tions which comprise at once the history and mythology 
 of the northern European races. Their language i- difler- 
 ent from the modern Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian, 
 and is more powerful and expressive than either of these 
 later dialects. Of the mythological sagas the most fa- 
 
 SA'HLITE. In Mineralogy, a variety of augite from the 
 silver mine, of Sahla in Sweden. 
 
 SAIL. A surface obtained by canvass, mat, or other 
 | material, by the action of the wind on which, w hen e.\- 
 I tended, the vessel is moved. A sail extended by a yard 
 hung [slung] by the middle and balanced, is called a square 
 sail: a sail set upon a gaff or a stay, is called a fort and 
 aft sail; which terms refer to the position of the yard, 
 gaff, or stay, when the sail is not set. The upper part of 
 every sail is the head, the lower part the foot ; the sides in 
 general are called leeches ; but the weather or side edge of 
 any but a square sail i< called the luff, and the other edge 
 the after leech. The upper two corners are earings, but 
 tint i 'l a jib is the head ; the lower two corners are In gen- 
 
 inoiis are the saga of Regnar, Lodbrok, the Hervarar saga, t . r al clu,s ; the weather clue of a fore and aft sail, or of a 
 
 the Voluspa saga, and the Wilkina saga. The historical course while set, is the tacA\ The edges of a sail are 
 
 numerous; the Jomsvilkangia saga and the Kaf strengthened by a rope called the bolt rape. The ropes at 
 
 comprehend much of the early annals of Nor- the upper and lower edges are the head and foot ropes of 
 
 way and Denmark; the Eyrbiggia >a_',a is the chief his- the sail. The canvass or sail-cloth is made in bolts ; and 
 
 h ument of ancient Iceland. It is, however, to he the qualities are numbi red from \o. I. which is the strong- 
 remembered, that the chief object of the relators is the in- est, and is used for sturui sails, to No. -. which is used for 
 
 t> resl of the narrative : so that as mere histories they are 
 of imperfect value. Many of them are collected iii the 
 great w..rk of Snorre Sturleson c tiled II, imskringla. The 
 period of these compositions is considered 
 by antiqu >. ithin the 12th and 13fh centuries. 
 
 the smallest sails, as mii ill studding sails, he., which the 
 seamen commonly caMfiying kites. The cloths in a square 
 sail are seamed vertically ; in a fore and aft sail they are 
 parallel to the after leech. In this way the strain of the 
 sheet diffuses itself over the canvass b >th along and across 
 
 BAGA PENl M. A fetid gum-resin brought from Persia the ,i ahs. Discussions have, however, arisen as to the 
 
 r.dria. probably the produce of a species of /eru/o. best mode of seaming. When a seam op. as. the sail often 
 
 ionallj used in medicine as a nervine and stim- splits. Captain Cowan took out a patent for horizontal 
 
 ulating expectorant. It< odour somewhat resembles that seaming; he n m on the Construction of Sails, 
 
 fffitida, hut it is much weaker. <$..<;.) it,,, sl „i, sails when they split remain full, ami are 
 
 S \ GGER. A clay used in making the pots in which less liable to blow away, and that they also were found to 
 
 earthenware is baked, and which are called saggers or last much longer. The plan, however, has not been ap- 
 
 eeggers. _ _ ^ proved. Diagonal seaming, which has also had its advo- 
 
 BAGGING Tii LEEWARD. A .Nautical term, deno- cates, is defective in principle ; for it must bring the strain 
 
 ting the movement by which a ship make, considerable of a sheet either on a single cloth, or entirely across the 
 
 leeway. 
 
 SAGI'TTA. I. at. arrow, or dart.) One of Ptolemy's 
 4 J constellations in the northern hemisphere. See Cok- 
 STKLLA.TION. 
 
 i \. A term used by the older writers on trigo- 
 nometry to denote the versed sine of an are: from its re- 
 semblance to an arrow standing on the chord of to 
 arc. 
 
 BAGITTATttroS. (Lat the Jlrther.) One of the twelve 
 
 COnstell itions of the zodiac. It is represented on celestial 
 
 stitches. 
 
 Sails take their names from the mast, yard, or stay upon 
 which they are stretched. Thus, the principal sail ax- 
 tended upon tin- main mast is called the main sail; the 
 next above, which stands upon the main lop mast, is the 
 
 mast sni; above which is the main-top-gallant 
 sail : and above all, the main royal. Ill like m inner, there 
 are thi' fori sail, the fore-top sail, the fore top-gallant sail, 
 and the fori royal; and similar appellations are given to 
 
 iipported b] the mitten or after mast. The inain- 
 
 glObei and charts by the figure of a centaur in the act of stay sail, main & ween the 
 
 Shooting an arrow from his how. main and tore masts; and the mizten Staysail, iitf.zcn-top- 
 
 BAGI'TTATE. (Lot. sagitta, on arrow.) In Zoology, \mu tic, are between the mam and mizzen 
 
 a part of an animal is so called when it is triangular and masts. Between th" foremast mid bowsprit are the for* 
 hollowed out at the base, with posterior angles. | staysail, the/or* top mast staysail, thsjib, and some limes
 
 SAILING. 
 
 a firing jib and middle jib. Square sails extended by yards 
 under the bowsprit and jib-booms are called sprit sails ; 
 and the studding sails are those which are extended upon 
 the different yards of the main mast and fore mast. 
 
 To make sail, is to set sail. To shorten sail, is to take in 
 some sail. To loose sails, is to spread or hang out the sails 
 that had been furled to air them, or for the purpose of set- 
 ting afterwards. To strike sail, is to lower the yard or 
 gaff of a sail when set, in token of salute. 
 
 The common theory of sails which assume the impact 
 of columns of air is radically defective ; for it is a fact fa- 
 miliar to sailors that the reef points, or any light stuff by 
 accident in the same situation, hang vertically in the hol- 
 low of the sail, as in a calm, thereby proving that the sail 
 is filled with a mass of air, quiescent or nearly so, and 
 maintained in a state of statical pressure; whereas, if the 
 common theory were true, the points would lie flat to the 
 canvass, as weeds are pressed against the bank of a stream. 
 Hence it follows that (as all sailors believe who have not 
 mixed with their practice the fragments of imperfect the- 
 ories) there is a certain extent of hollow or belly which in- 
 creases the effect of the sail. It of course adds to the ef- 
 fect of sails to wet them, by swelling the threads and 
 closing the pores: this practice is often resorted to in 
 chase. 
 
 SAILING. In Navigation, the art of directing a ship 
 on a given line laid down in a chart. It is called plane 
 Baiting when the chart is constructed on the supposition 
 that the earth's surface (or rather the surface of the ocean) 
 is an extended plane ; and globular sailing, when the chart 
 is a globular chart, or constructed on the supposition that 
 the earth is a sphere. See Navigation. 
 
 SAILING ORDER, or ORDF.Il OF SAILING. Any 
 determinate order preserved by a squadron of ships. It 
 usually implies 1, 2, or 3 parallel columns, but is at the dis- 
 position of the admiral. 
 
 SAINFOLV. (Hedysarum onabrychis.) A plant of the 
 family of the Leguminosa. It will not thrive well except 
 when the soil or subsoil is calcareous, and is consequently 
 not generally met with in this country ; though it is ex- 
 tensively cultivated on the Cotswold Hills, and on the 
 chalk soils of Dorset, Hants, Wilts, &c. It generally re- 
 in iins tor eight or ten years — a much longer period than it 
 does in France. It is made into hay, the after crop being 
 eaten by cattle. 
 
 SAINT JOHN, KNIGHTS OF ; or HOSPITALLERS. 
 A military order of religious persons. They derived their 
 name from a church and monastery dedicated to St. John 
 the Baptist, founded at Jerusalem about 1048, by merchants 
 from Amalti, the brotherhood of its members being devoted 
 to the duty of taking care of poor and sick pilgrims. The 
 order was instituted as a military brotherhood by Raymond 
 du Puy, its principal, early in the 12th century. It was 
 divided into three ranks — knights, chaplains, and servitors ; 
 and in its military capacity it was bound to defend the 
 church against the infidels. It possessed various posses- 
 sions and settlements at different times in different parts of 
 the East. In the 13th century, being driven from Palestine, 
 the knights of this order fixed their principal seat first in 
 Cyprus, and afterwards at Rhodes, where they remained 
 from 1309 to 1522, when the island was captured by Solyman 
 II. After several changes of settlement, they were fixed in 
 1530 by Charles V. at Malta and its dependant islands, 
 Whence they took the name of Knights of Malta. Here they 
 maintained themselves until 1798, when the island was ta- 
 ken by Napoleon. The order, however, continued to sub- 
 sist, notwithstanding the loss of its sovereign possessions 
 both in Malta and in Tuscany : the seat of the chapter is 
 now at Ferrara. Before the French Revolution the number 
 of knights was estimated at 3000. The temporal powers 
 of the order were chiefly concentrated in the hands of the 
 grand master ; but he was, in fact, controlled by the gov- 
 ernors of the eight languages. These were, of Provence, 
 Auvergne, France, Italy, Aragon, Germany, Castile, and 
 England. The lands were divided into priories, com- 
 manderies, and bailliages. The spiritual power was exer- 
 cised by the chapter, consisting of eight ballivi conven- 
 tuales. The knights were under the rules of the order of 
 St. Augustine ; but Protestants were not bound to celibacy. 
 They were required to be necessarily of good descent; but 
 those whose proofs of noble ancestry were unquestionable 
 were termed cavalieri di giustizia, while others who could 
 not show such proofs might be admitted on account of 
 their merits as cavalieri di graiia. See Hospitallers. 
 
 SAINTS. (Lat. sancti, holy persons.) Pious men, who, 
 according to a custom early prevalent among Christians, 
 were commemorated with honour after their death in the 
 services and ceremonies of the church. This distinction 
 was originally applied to the apostles and eminent martyrs 
 and confessors, whose places of burial were regarded with 
 pious affection by the faithful in the neighbourhood, and 
 memorials or relics of whom were carefully cherished 
 among them. The observance of particular days in the 
 
 SAL AMMONIAC. 
 
 honour of the saints was also a very early custom : but the 
 natural feeling which prompted this and other tributes of 
 gratitude and respect towards them became gradually cor- 
 rupted. The intercession of the saints was supposed to 
 have power with God, and individuals put themselves un- 
 der the especial patronage of one or more among the num- 
 ber, which in later times was vastly augmented, giving to 
 them the honour and worship due to Gcd alone, and con 
 ceiving themselves sufficiently protected by the influence 
 of their prayers. It was affirmed that miracles were per- 
 formed at their tombs and by their relics, and the greatest 
 rivalry and contention arose between the votaries of the 
 shrines of different saints, and sometimes those of the same. 
 For the manner of enrolment among the number of saints, 
 see art. Canonization. (See Bingham and Pulmcr's Ori- 
 gines Liturgical, as to the progress of the invocation of 
 saints in the church, vol. i., 27ii, &c.) 
 
 SAINT SIMOXIANS. Claude Henri, Count de S. Si- 
 mon, of the ancient family of that name, born in 17C0, w^s 
 engaged during the greater part of his life in a series of un- 
 successful commercial enterprises, a traveller, and in the 
 early portion of his life a soldier in America ; but having 
 dissipated a considerable fortune, and been unable to draw 
 the attention of the public to a variety of schemes, political 
 and social, which he was constantly publishing, he at- 
 tempted suicide in 1820 ; he lived, however, a few years 
 longer, and. died in 1825, leaving his papers and projects to 
 Olinde Rodriguez. St. Simon's views of society and the 
 destiny of mankind are contained in a variety of works, 
 and especially in a short treatise entitled the Nouveau. 
 Christianisme, published after his death by Rodriguez. 
 This book does not contain any scheme for the foundation 
 of a new religion, such as his disciples afterwards invent- 
 ed. It is a diatribe agiinst both the Catholic and Protes- 
 tant sects for their neglect of the main principle of Chris- 
 tianity, the elevation of the lower classes of society ; and 
 inveighs against " Sexploitation de I'homme par l'homme," 
 the existing system of individual industry, under which 
 capitalist and labourer have opposite interests and no com- 
 mon object. The principle of association, and just division 
 of the fruits of common labour between the members of 
 society, he imagined to be the true remedy for its present 
 evils. After his death these ideas were caught up by a 
 number of disciples, and formed into something resembling 
 a system. The new association, or St. Simonian family, 
 was chiefly framed by Rodriguez, Bazar, Thierry, Cheva- 
 lier, and other men of talent. After the revolution of July, 
 1830, it rose rapidly into notoriety, from the sympathy be- 
 tween the notions which it promulgated and those enter- 
 tained by many of the republican party. In 1831, the so- 
 ciety had about 3000 members, a newspaper (the Globe), 
 and large funds. The views of the St. Simonian family 
 were all directed to the abolition of rank and property in 
 society, and the establishment of association (such as the 
 followers of Mr. Owen in this country have denominated 
 co-operative), of which all the members should work in 
 common and divide the fruits of their labour. But with 
 these notions, common to many other social reformers, 
 they united the doctrine, that the division of the goods of 
 the community should be in due proportion to the merits 
 or capacity of the recipient. Society was to be governed 
 by a hierarchy, consisting of a supreme pontiff, apostles, 
 disciples of the first, second, and third order. It was not 
 until about this period (1830) that they began to invest 
 these opinions with the form and character of a religion; 
 but shortly after having done so they went into great ex- 
 travagances. There was a disunion among them as to the 
 fittest person to preside in the society ; and consequently 
 Messrs. Bazar and Enfantin divided, for some time, the 
 duties and dignity of the "Supreme Father," as he was 
 termed. But on the 19th Nov., 1831, Bazar and many 
 others left the society, of which Enfantin remained the 
 supreme father. Their doctrines and proceedings now be- 
 came licentious and immoral to the last degree. On the 
 22 Jan., 1832, the family was dispersed by the government. 
 Enfantin and Rodriguez were tried on various charges, and 
 imprisoned for a year. The former afterwards collected 
 again a part of fhe"societv at Menilmont ant ; but it broke up 
 for want of funds. Some former members of the St. Si- 
 monian association are now in places of rank and consider- 
 ation: some of the most extravagant have gone to the 
 East ; but Enfantin, we believe, has no followers. 
 
 SAX AMANDER, Salamandra. {Gr.caXaunvc'pa.) The 
 name of a genus of Batrachian reptiles, now limited to the 
 terrestrial species of long-tailed Caducibranchiate Batra- 
 chians, or those which lose their gills before arriving at 
 maturity, but retain their tails. This appendage is changed 
 in the progress of growth in the true salamander from a 
 compressed to a rounded form. The female brings forth 
 the young alive, which are hatched in the oviduct; and 
 the sexes frequent the water at the season of reproduction. 
 See Batrachia and Triton. 
 
 SAL AMMO'NIAC. Muriate of ammonia ; hydro- 
 
 1083
 
 SALEP. 
 
 chlorite of ammonia. A compound of 17 of ammonia and 
 3? hydrochloric acid, it* name is derived from the Tem- 
 ple oi Amnion, in Egypt, where it was originally made by 
 burning camels' dung: it is now largely manufactured In 
 this country. See Ammonia. 
 
 s \i.i:r.' S«< Salop. 
 SAL GEM. Common salt. 
 
 B \1.H ' \ < T..L. [Salix, the principal genus.) A na- 
 tural order of Achlamyd iceous Bxogens, distinguished by 
 
 a tWO-valved capsule, and numerous seeds tufted with long 
 hairs. The genus Salir comprehends the plants called 
 osiers, sallows, and willows, and is of great economical 
 value, not only for the purpose of the basket-maker, but 
 bee tuse sever il species have a hark which has heen found 
 by Davy to contain as much tannin as the oak; and a 
 crystalllzable principle called salieine has heen obtained 
 from Salii h, \i i and others, Which, according to Magendie, 
 arrests, the progress of a fever with the same power as the 
 sulphate of ipiinia. The poplars, aspens, and abele trees 
 also form a part of this order. 
 
 SA'LICIN. A bitter crystalllzable substance extracted 
 from willow bark. It exists in several species of willow; 
 and a similar substance has been extracted from the bark 
 of the poplar, especially of the Populus tremula. Its ulti- 
 mate elements are carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, so that 
 it differs from the vegeto-alkalis in containing no nitrogen. 
 
 SA'LIC LAW. The law of that community of the na- 
 tion of Franks which inhabited the country between the 
 Meuse and the Rhine— the law of the Ripuarian Franks 
 governing those who dwelt between the Rhine and the 
 Loire. The origin of the name Salian, given to this por- 
 tion of the Franks and their law, is uncertain: some de- 
 rive it from the river Saale, in Saxony, on the banks of 
 which they suppose them to have inhabited before the 
 period of their emigration westward. The body of law in 
 question was republished and reformed by Charlemagne in 
 798, and is still preserved, both in the earlier and in the re- 
 modelled shape. The most celebrated portion of it is con- 
 tained in the title 62 Dr .llode, where it is declared that 
 ''no portion of the inheritance in Salic land (terra salica) 
 can fall to females ; but that the whole must pass to the 
 males." What those lands were which are intended by 
 the term Salic, has afforded room for infinite discussion 
 among French antiquaries. It is suppose,] by Ducange 
 that they were those lands which were acquired by Franks 
 at the period of the conquest, and held by military service 
 only. But it seems that the exclusion of females was only 
 to take place where males were to be found in the same 
 degree of kindred to the ancestor. However this may be, 
 the fundamental law which excludes females from succes- 
 sion to the crown of France received, in very early times, 
 the appellation of the Salic law, and was supposed by her 
 lawyers to be derived from the provisions of this ancient 
 code. It was, indeed, a custom prevalent from the earliest 
 times, as we learn from Tacitus, among the Germanic 
 tribe-. It was observed in France under the first race; 
 hut the tir-t occ ision on which it was publicly canvassed 
 was in 1316, when Jeanne, the daughter of Louis Ilutin, 
 was excluded from the crown in favour of Philip V., her 
 uncle. In 1328 it was contested by Edward III., who claim- 
 ed by a prior title to Philip ofValols, if females were ad- 
 missible ; being the sun of Isabella, sister of Louis Hutin. 
 From this pretension arose the wars between England and 
 France, which occupied the whole of the following cen- 
 tury. In 1593 the famous arret of the parliament of Paris 
 was pronounced, by which all treaties made to transfer the 
 crown to a foreign dynasty were declared null, as contrary 
 to the "Salic" ami other fundamental laws. The same 
 law has been recognised in all countries of which the 
 
 crown has devolved upon the royal house of Frame, and 
 
 forms now the foundation of the pretensions of the infante 
 
 Don Carlos to the throne of Spain. It was also consider 
 
 ed as established in those great fiefs of the crown of France 
 Which had been granted to primes of the blood by way of 
 
 apanage; ami by this means, mi the death of Charles duke 
 of Burgundy, leaving a daughter only, the dukedom of 
 Burgundy proper reverted to Louis XI. as a male fief. 
 (See Mem. dt VJIt. des Tnscr., vol. \.\.: Meyer's Origines 
 Judii iain 1 1 ' i n ' Mid Ui hrrs.) 
 
 SALICC/dUES. The French term for the family of 
 MacroUTOUS or long tailed Crust icea of which the shrimp 
 lg Ibi' tv pe. 
 
 SALIENT. (Lat. salio, / leap.) In Heraldry, a term 
 lined to describe a beast when represented as leaping or 
 sprite. 
 
 SALIENT ANGLE, In Geometry and Fortification, 
 mi angle of a polygon projecting outwards in reference to 
 
 tie- centre of (be polygon. An angle pointing inwards is 
 
 called a n entering angle. All the angles of any regular 
 
 figure, as the triangle, square, hexagon, &<•., are Ballent, 
 
 BALIE'NTIA. (Lat. salio, I hap.) The third order in 
 the Mammalogical system of llliger, including the Mar- 
 supial genera Jlypsinrymnus und Ualmaturus, or the po- 
 1084 
 
 SALMON. 
 
 toroos and kangaroos, whose progression is by successive 
 leaps. 
 
 SALI'FEROUS ROCKS. The new red sandstone sys- 
 tem of some geologists. See Geology. 
 
 SALLFI'ABLE BASE. This term, which is of frequent 
 occurrence in chemistry, is chiefly applied to those metal 
 lie oxides which combine in definite proportions with the 
 acids, so as to form distinct salts: ammonia, and the vegeto- 
 alkalis are also, upon the same principle, salifiable bases. 
 
 SA'LII. The Roman Bamens, or peculiar priests of 
 Mars. They were twelve in number, and were instituted 
 by Noma to guard the ancile, or sacred shield of Mars. 
 They used on solemn occasions to proceed through the city 
 dancing, whence they derived their name (from satire, to 
 dance). 
 
 SALI'VA. (Lat.) The fluid secreted into the mouth 
 by the salivary glands ; its principal use is to lubricate the 
 parts, and to assist in rendering the food of a proper con- 
 sistency to be swallowed, 
 
 SALIVA'TION. The excessive flow of saliva which Li 
 produced by the continuous use of mercury and of soma 
 other remedies. 
 
 SALIX. (Lat. a willow,) is a genus of plants consisting 
 of numerous species, all either trees or bushes, occurring 
 abundantly in all the cooler parts of the northern hemi- 
 sphere. Some of them, like S. alba, acquire the dimen- 
 sions of the largest forest trees ; others are lost among the 
 grass with which they grow, as S. herbacea. They are the 
 last kind of ligneous plants that disappear before the rigours 
 of an arctic climate, the only tree found on Melville Island, 
 nine inches high, having been a willow (Saliz arctica). 
 Few extend into warm regions, the Salix babylonica, or 
 weeping willow, being the best known instance. Their 
 timber, when they form any, is light, tough, soft, and unfit 
 for purposes of construction : it is chiefly used for turnery, 
 and for coarse in-door purposes. Many species have long 
 flexible shoots, and are called osiers, under which name 
 they are extensively employed by the workers in wicker ; 
 others are not flexible, but form small trees or rough bushes, 
 named sallows. The latter, called Saules marceavi by the 
 French, yield the best kind of charcoal for military pur- 
 poses ; they are all, however, burned for the preparation 
 of this substance. The bark of S. hrlix, fragilis, prntan- 
 dria, and others, has been found useful in intermittent 
 fevers; and as these maladies are most common in the 
 low marshy places where salices abound, it has been sup- 
 posed that they are the means which the Creator has given 
 us for protecting ourselves against such disorders. The 
 species intermix very freely, forming mules and hybrids, 
 which have led botanists to create a prodigious number of 
 false species. 
 
 SALLY PORTS, in Fortification, are underground pas- 
 sages leading from the inner works to the outward ones, for 
 the troops to sally out. They are otherwise called postern 
 gates. 
 
 SA'LMON. (Lat. salmo.) The excellent and highly 
 valuable fish so called in England is the Salmo salar of 
 Linnauis, not of Rondeletius. Both species exist in our 
 rivers, the latter having been recognizably and accurately 
 defined under the name of Salmo rrior, or bull trout, w Inch 
 it is to he hoped will be retained for this species, notwith- 
 standing that the name of Salmo salar may have been ap- 
 plied to it by the older ichthyologist. 
 
 The normal locality of the salmon is at the mouth or 
 estuary of the larger livers, which, in the season of sexual 
 excitement, they ascend, sooner or later, in the summer 
 months, according as circumstances may influence their 
 coming into breeding condition. At first they ascend only 
 so tar as the tide wave reaches, and retire with the ebb; 
 but as the quantity of roe and milt increases, the instinct 
 which teaches the tit locality for ovlposition becomes more 
 imperative, anil few are the natural obstacles which the 
 salmon does not overcome in its endeavour to reach it. 
 
 The great value of the fish renders an accurate know- 
 ledge of it. under the disguise of its immature form and 
 markings, of the highest Importance; bul the difficulties 
 which attend the observation <>f the migrator] inhabitants 
 of the water have only very lately been overo me in the 
 present instance. The proof that the small Salmonoid 
 flsh, called the parr, is, as many naturalists had suspected, 
 the young of the salmon, has been elicited by the careful 
 and repeated observations and experiments of .Mr. Shaw of 
 
 Drumlanrlg, of which the following condensed account i* 
 
 taken from the Transactions of the Royal Society of F.itin 
 burgh. 
 
 In the river Nltb, Dumfries, the salmon oviposits in the 
 month of January. <)n the Kith of January, Mr. Bhaw ob- 
 served a female salmon of about ifi lbs. weight, and two 
 
 males of at least '.Ti lbs., engaged in depositing their spawn. 
 
 The spot which they had selected for that purpose was a 
 
 little apart from some other salmon which Were engaged 
 in the same process, and rather nearer the side of the stream, 
 although still iu pretty deep water. The two males kept
 
 SALMONOIDS. 
 
 rip an incessant conflict during the whole of the day for 
 possession of the female, and in their struggle frequently 
 drove each other almost ashore, and were repeatedly on the 
 surface, displaying their dorsal fins and lashing the water 
 with their tails.— The female throws herself at intervals of 
 a few minutes on her side ; and while in that position, by 
 the rapid action of her tail she digs a receptacle in the gravel 
 for her ova, a portion of which she deposits, and again turn- 
 ing upon her side she covers it up by the renewed action of 
 the tail ; thus alternately digging, depositing, and covering 
 the ova, until the process is completed by the laying of the 
 whole mass, an operation which generally occupies three 
 or four days. The embryo fish, conspicuous by the two 
 dark eye-specks and the vascular vitelline sac, presented 
 some appearance of animation in the ovum on February 
 28th, that is, forty-eight days after having been deposited ; 
 and on 8th April, or 90 days after impregnation of the ova, 
 the young were excluded. The head is large in proportion 
 to the body, which measures |ths of an inch in length ; the 
 vitellicle is i, of an inch in length, and resembles a light red 
 currant; the tail is margined like that of the tadpole, with 
 a continuous fin running from the dorsal above to the anal 
 beneath. The vitelline sac and its contents are absorbed 
 by the 30th May, or in about fifty days, until which time 
 the young fish does not leave the gravel. The terminal 
 fringe-like fin now begins to divide itself into the dorsal, adi- 
 pose, caudal, and anal fins; and the transverse bars on the 
 sides of the body m ike their appearance. At this period 
 the young salmon measures an inch in length, and is very 
 active, and continues in the shallows of its native stream 
 till the following spring, when it has attained the length of 
 from three to four inches, and i3 called the " May parr :" 
 they now descend into deeper parts of the river, but remain 
 there over the second winter. In April, the caudal, pecto- 
 ral, and dorsal fins assume a dusky margin ; the lateral bars 
 begin to be concealed by a silvery pigment; and the migra- 
 tory dress, characteristic of the salmon fry or smolt, is as- 
 sumed. The fish now begin to congregate in shoals, and to 
 migrate seaward. 
 
 The full-grown salmon averages a weight of between 25 
 lbs. and 35 lbs.; but instances are recorded of their attaining 
 to 55 lbs., 60 lbs., 70 lbs., 74 lbs., and 83 lbs. The last cited 
 weight was that of n female salmon, which came into the 
 possession of Mr. Groves, the fishmonger, in Bond Street, 
 about the season of 1821 ; it was a short fish for the weight, 
 but of very unusual thickness and depth. When cut up, the 
 flesh was fine in colour, and proved of excellent quality. 
 See Fisheries. 
 
 SA'LMONOEDS, Salmonidm. A family of soft-finned 
 Abdominal ti<h^s. of which the salmon is the type, having 
 their upper jaw formed in the middle by the Intermaxillary, 
 and at the sides by the maxillary bones, both of which sup- 
 port teeth; they are also characterized by a posterior small 
 adipose dorsal fin, and the body is covered with regular 
 cycloid scales. They pass, by almost imperceptible grada- 
 tions, into the Clupeoid or herring family, with which they 
 have been united by M. Agassiz, to form a common group 
 teTmed Halecoids. Those species of Silmonoids which, 
 like the Clupeoids, inhabit the sea, not only approach the 
 land, but ascend the rivers to near their source, in order to 
 deposite their ova. 
 
 SALO'N, or SALOON. (It. salone.) In Architecture, 
 a large state apartment; or, as its name imports, a great 
 hall, or one for the reception of works of art, and usually 
 running up through two stories of a house. Salon is also 
 applied to the reunions of the French capital, which have 
 always exercised considerable influence upon the country 
 in all that relates to fashion, literature, and even politics. 
 M. Guizot's admirable little work upon the Salons of Paris 
 is well known. It was recently well reviewed in the Jour- 
 nal drs Debats. 
 
 SA'LOP. The prepared root of the Orchis mascula. It 
 consists principally of a modification of gum, much resem- 
 bling tragacanth, with a small quantity of starch; it is 
 ■ometimes used as an article of food. 
 
 SALP. Satpa. (Lat. salpa, a stock-fish.) A name ap- 
 plied to a genus of soft-shelled or tunicated Acephalous 
 Mollnsks, which float in the sea, protected bv a transparent 
 gelatinous coat, perforated for the passage of water at both 
 extremities. 
 
 SA'LPINX. (Gr. (tiXtti)'?, a trumpet.) The Eustachian 
 tube, or channel of communication between the mouth and 
 ear. 
 
 SAL SEIGNETTE. Tartrate of potassa and soda. See 
 Eochelle Salt. 
 
 SALT. (Lat. sal, Germ, salz.) This term, though in 
 ordinary language limited to common salt, or sea salt, is 
 applied in chemistry to all combinations of acids with alka- 
 line or salifiable bases. The term has also been extended 
 to certain binary combinations of chlorine, iodine, bromine, 
 and fluorine with the metals; and these have been called 
 haloid salts (from d\i, sea salt, and u<5os,form), inasmuch 
 86 
 
 SALUTES. 
 
 as modern chemistry has taught us that sea salt belongs to 
 this class. Certain definite combinations of the sulphurets 
 with each other have of late been called sulphur salts ; but 
 the former appellation of double, sulphurets is, perhaps, more 
 properly applicable to such compounds. 
 
 Sea salt is a compound of 1 equivalent of sodium = 24, 
 and 1 of chlorine = 36; its equivalent, therefore, is (24 + 
 36) =60: and it is a chloride of sodium. The circum- 
 stances which gave rise to the notion of its containing mu- 
 riatic acid and soda, and being therefore a muriate of soda, 
 will be apparent by reference to the article Muriatic Acid. 
 For rock-salt, see Geology. 
 
 The nomenclature of salts has reference to the acids 
 which they contain ; sulphates, nitrates, carbonates, &c, 
 implying salts of the sulphuric, nitric, and carbonic acids. 
 The termination ate implies the maximum of oxygen in the 
 acids, and ite the minimum: thus the salts of sulphurous 
 and nitrous acids are called sulphites and nitrites. When 
 salts contain 1 equivalent of acid and 1 of base, they are 
 called neutral salts ; where 1 equivalent of acid is combined 
 with 2 of base, they are termed basic salts, subsalts, or di- 
 salts ; and where there are 2 equivalents of acid and 1 of 
 base, the salt is a supersalt, or bisalt. Thus, the terms sub- 
 acetate and diacetate of lead are synonymous; so are super- 
 carbonate and bicarbonate of potash. Many salts are hy- 
 drous ; that is, they contain a definite proportion of water 
 of crystallization; others are destitute of water, and are 
 dry or anhydrous salts. Some salts attruct moisture when 
 exposed to air, and are said to be deliquese ; others suffer 
 their water to escape and become opaque, or pulverulent : 
 these are called efflorescent salts. 
 
 Salt is, next to bread, the most important necessary of 
 life. It is one of the most important British minerals and 
 is procured in immense quantities, both from fossil beds and 
 brine springs, in Cheshire and Worcestershire. Previousl)' 
 to the discovery of the fossil beds during the 16th century, 
 and subsequently, a good deal of salt continued to be made 
 by the evaporation of sea water in salt pans, at Lymington 
 and many other places ; but the works at these places are 
 now all but abandoned ; while not only has the quality of 
 the article in question become greatly improved, but, in- 
 stead of being imported as formerly, it is now largely ex- 
 ported. The consumption of Great Britain only, exclusive 
 of Ireland, amounts to about 180,000 tons ; and the foreign 
 exports to about 300,000 tons per year, of which the United 
 States, Canada, the Low Countries, Russia, Prussia, and 
 Denmark are the chief consumers. Previously to 1823, an 
 oppressive tax of 155. per bushel, or about thirty times the 
 original cost price of the article, was imposed on salt ; but 
 in that year it was reduced to 2s., and two years subse- 
 quently was totally repealed. During the existence of the 
 duty, the retail price of salt was Ahd., it is now only hd. per lb. 
 
 In ancient Rome, salt was subjected to a duty, vectigal 
 salinarium (see Burman, Dissertatio de Vectigalibus Pop. 
 Rom., c. 6) ; and it has been heavily taxed in most modern 
 states. The gabelle, or code of salt laws formerly estab- 
 lished in France, was most oppressive. From 4000 to 5000 
 persons are calculated to have been sent annually to prison 
 and the galleys for offences connected with these laws, the 
 severity of which had no inconsiderable share in bringing 
 about the Revolution. 
 
 SA'LTATORY. (Lat.salto, I leap.) In Zoology, the ex- 
 tremities of an animal which by their form and proportions 
 are adapted for leaping, are called pedes saltatorii ; as the 
 hind lees of the kangaroo, cricket, &c. 
 
 SA'LTIGRADES. Saltigrada. (Lat. saltus, a leap, and 
 gradior, I walk.) The name of a tribe of spiders which 
 seize their prey by leaping upon it from a distance. 
 
 SA'LTIRE. In Heraldry, an ordinary in the form of a cross 
 of St. Andrew : formed by two bends, dexter and sinister 
 crossing each other. Charges having length (swords, batons, 
 &e.) placed in the direction of the saltire, are said to be 
 borne saltire-wise. 
 
 SALT MARSH. Land under pasture grasses or herbage 
 plants, subject to be overflown by the sen, or by the waters of 
 estuaries or the outlets of rivers, which, in consequence 
 of proximity to the sea, are more or less impregnated with 
 sea salt. 
 
 SALT MINE. See Geology. 
 
 SALT OF LEMONS. Binoxalate of potassa is usually 
 sold under this name, and is used for the removal of iron- 
 moulds and other stains from linen ; it is generally effectual, 
 and does not corrode. 
 
 SALT OF SORREL. Oxalate of potash. 
 
 SALTPE'TRE. (Lat. sal, salt, and Gr. rtrpt, a stone, 
 from its being found in certain stony soils.) Nitrate of 
 potash. An anhydrous salt composed of 1 equivalent of 
 nitric acid = 54, and 1 of potassa = 48. S?e Nitre. 
 
 SALT, SPIRIT OF. See Muriatic Acid. 
 
 SALT SPRINGS. See Geology. 
 
 SALU'TES. In Military and Naval Discipline, an exhi- 
 bition of respect performed in different ways, according to 
 
 1085
 
 SALVAGE. 
 
 circumstances. In the army, the officers salute their supe- 
 riors by dropping the point of their sword. In the navy, 
 the usual mode of Balutatton is by thing a certain numiier 
 
 ot" guns, which is regulated according t" the rank or station 
 of the Individual. [See Miles' a Epitome of the Naval Ser- 
 vice of England, 1.^41.) 
 
 SA'LVAGE, in Mercantile Law, is defined to be a com- 
 pensation to be made by the ship-owners or merchant to 
 other persons by whose assistance the ship or lading may 
 be saved from impending peril, or recovered after actual 
 loss. Salvage may booomo due— 4. Oa rescue from penis 
 
 of the sea. In this case, the salvor, or rescuer, has a lien 
 on the goods preserved until a recompense is mole him. 
 The amount of this recompense may he fixed by a jury ; 
 but it' the salvage happen at sea. or between high and low 
 water mark, the court of admiralty has also jurisdiction to 
 rix the amount on suit brought ; and by 12 Anne, st. 2, c. 18., 
 and other statutes, summary (lowers for the same purpose 
 are given to inferior officers in certain cases. 2. On rescue 
 from the hands of enemies. In this case, the old law was, 
 that if a ship was retaken from enemies before It was taken 
 home or condemned by the captor, the original owner could 
 recover her on payment of salvage to the recaptor; but if 
 retaken at a later" period, she became lawful prize to the 
 recaptors. But by 13 G.2, c.4. s. 18, and other statutes, the 
 right of the original owner has been extended to all cases of 
 recapture. Salvage, OH recapture by B kind's ship, was fixed, 
 in I7'.i:t. at one eighth, and by a private vessel at one sixth. 
 
 SALVATE'TTA. (Let salus, health.) A vein of the 
 arm terminating in the lingers. It was formerly regarded 
 as hiving peculiar influence on the health when opened 
 
 SAL VOLATILE. Carbonate of ammonia. The term is 
 often applied to a spirituous solution of carbonate of am- 
 monia flavoured with aromatics. 
 
 BAMANiE'ANS, SARMA'NES, GERMA'NES. Names 
 given by different classical writers to a sect of philosophers 
 of India. Clement of Alexandria derives the name from 
 Gr. acftio<, venerable. But it is more probably oriental ; the 
 word schamman, in India, signifying a philosopher. The 
 Samamtans are particularly distinguished by those who 
 mention them from the Brahmins. Saint Jerome and Cle- 
 ment of Alexandria represent them as priests of Buddha; 
 and the same name appears in the Cha-Men of the Chinese, 
 and Sammono-Codom of Siam. (See Buddhists.) There 
 is a memoir on the subject by M. de Guignes. [Jtft m. de 
 VJic. des fnscr., vol. xxvi. See also Hist, de I'.icad. des 
 Inscr., vol. xxxi. : and Mem., vol. xl.) 
 
 S \MA'RA. An indehiscent superior fruit, being a few- 
 seeded, indehiscent, dry nut, elongated into wing-like ex- 
 pansions; as in the fruit or "key" of the ash-tree, &c. 
 From this root is formed the word samaroid, expressing a 
 resemblance to a samara. 
 
 SAMARITANS. The inhabitants of the city and dis- 
 trict of Samaria to the north of Judea. The city was the 
 capital of the kings of Israel ; and after the captivity of that 
 portion of the Jew ish nation, a colony of Luthites, who are 
 supposed to be Scythians, was settled in the country by 
 the kings of Assyria. It is stated that they were instructed 
 in the Jewish religion by a priest who was sent to them for 
 that purpose by Esarhaddon, in order to avert the anger, 
 as was supposed, of the god of the country. The Samari- 
 tans professed belief in the Pentateuch only, but no idola- 
 trous practices are imputed to them; and it was probably 
 their spurious origin which excited against them the jea- 
 lousy and affected contempt of the Jews, to which many 
 passages of the New Testament so pointedly refer. 
 
 SAM I A.N EARTH and STONE. A species of marl 
 from the island of Samoa. 
 
 SAMSON'S POST. A strong pillar resting on the kel- 
 son, and supporting a beam of the deck over the hold, and 
 thus acting to keep the cargo in its place. Also a tempo- 
 rary or moveable pillar carrying a leading block for various 
 purposes. 
 
 SA 'MITEL, BOOKS OF. Two canonical hooks of the 
 Old Testament The first twenty four chapters of the first 
 book contain all that relates to the prophet Samuel himself, 
 
 beginning with the government of Eli The second book, 
 
 together with the remainder of the tir^t, carries on the his- 
 tory of the Jews to the death of David. It is traditionally 
 saiil thai the prophet Samuel composed the first pari, and 
 the prophets Gad and Nathan the remainder 
 
 SANCTIFICA'TU IN, in Theol gy, denotes the slate of 
 those Christians who. having lost fh.6 Inclination to vice, 
 have become pun- and holy, and wholly dewiled to vtoiks 
 of goodness. This slate is produced by the special Opera 
 lion of the Holy Ghost, and ensues upon justification ; 
 which 
 
 S V.N< TI'AKV. (Lat. sancrus, holy.) The innermost 
 chamber of the tabernacle, and in after limes of I lie- temple, 
 
 among the Jews, in which was kept the ark of the cove 
 nant, and which was regarded as the especial residence of 
 
 the Must High. It is also called the Holy of Holies, and 
 1090 
 
 SANSCRIT. 
 
 was never entered except once a year, and then only by 
 the high priest on the day of" the great expiation of the sins 
 of the people. For the mystical signification of tliis act, 
 see Ilebr. IX. 24. 
 
 By the Human Catholics, the part of the church imme- 
 diately round the altar is called ihe sanctuary, which is 
 supposed in many respects to bear an analogy to that of the 
 Jews. 
 
 From the time of Constantino downwards, certain church- 
 es have been set apart in many countries to be an asylum 
 
 for fugitives from the hands of justice. This seems to have 
 been originally intended only to prevent sudden violence, 
 and to give lime lor ihe regular administration of the law, 
 and perhaps, in the case of certain delinquencies, for the 
 intercession of the church. But in England, particularly 
 down to the Reformation, any person who had taken refuge 
 in a sanctuary was secured against punishment, if within 
 the space of forty days he gave signs of repenlance and 
 subjected himself to banishment. 
 
 SAND. (Germ.) Finely divided silicious matter consti- 
 tutes common river and sea sand; particles of oilier sub- 
 stances are often blended with it, and sometimes il becomes 
 calcareous from the prevalence of carbonate of lime. 
 
 SA'NDALS. A species of slippers worn by the ancient 
 Jews. Greeks, and Romans. They consisted of a sole with 
 a hollow part at one extreme, to embrace the ancle and 
 leave the upper part of the foot bare. Originally sandals 
 were made of leather ; but they afterwards bee one articles 
 of great luxury, being made of gold, silver, or other precious 
 stuff, and most beautifully ornamented. 
 
 SA'NDARACH. The resin of Callitris guadrivalois is 
 so called. The powder of this resin is sometimes used un- 
 der the name of pounce, to prevent ink from sinking into 
 paper. 
 
 SANDEMA'NIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, the fol- 
 lowers of Robert Sandeman, who published his opinions in 
 1757 in a series of letters. They are of a highly Antino- 
 mian character; and their distinguishing opinion is well 
 expressed in Sandeman's epitaph, where " the ancient 
 faith," for which he " long and boldly contended," is said 
 to be " that the bare work of Jesus Christ, without a deed 
 or thought on the part of man, is sufficient to present the 
 chief Of sinners;" faith, according to them, being only a 
 simple assent to the divine testimony concerning the Re- 
 deemer. The real founder of the Sandemanians was John 
 (;iass. the father-In law of Sandeman. The adherents of 
 the former have retained the name of Glassites, but are 
 confined entirely to Scotland, from which church lheir 
 founder originally dissented ; whereas the followers of San- 
 deman have extended to England and America as well as 
 Scotland. This sect has never been numerous, and it is 
 now, we believe, nearly extinct. 
 
 SA'NDERLING. The name of a small wading bird, a 
 species of Tringa (Tr. armaria, 111.), which fieijuenls 
 many of our shores, but is not a plentiful bird. 
 
 SAND1VER. The impurities which collect upon glass 
 during its fusion in the furnace are so called. 
 
 SANDPIPER. A name applied to different species of 
 the genus Tringa, but properly restricted to the Tringahy- 
 po/ccuus of Linna-us, which is the type of the subgenus 
 Tot anus. 
 
 SANDSTONE. Stone composed of agglutinated grains 
 of sand, which may be calcareous or siliceous. See Ge- 
 ology. 
 
 SA'NGIAC. A Turkish officer, governor of a sangia- 
 cate, or district forming part of a pai halic. There were 
 two hundred and ninety such districts in the Turkish em- 
 pire before the recent losses of territory on the side of 
 Greece and the Caucasus. 
 
 SANG1 ISO RBEyE. (Sanguisorba, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of herbaceous or undershrubby Exogens, 
 usually combined with Rosacea, BS a sub order ; but appa- 
 rently distinct, on account of the constantly apetalous 
 Bowers, indurated calyx, and solitary or almost solitary 
 carpels. Their general character is that of astringency. 
 Burnet, the Sanguisorba officinalis, is sometimes grown as 
 a pasture plant. 
 
 SANGITSUGES, Sanguisuga. (Lnt. sanguis, blood, 
 and sugo, T suck.) The name of a family of Hemipterous 
 
 inserts, including those which suck the blood of animals: 
 
 also applied to a family of Abranchiate Annelidans, of 
 
 which the leech [Sanguisuga medicinalis, 8av.) is the type. 
 SA'NHEDRIM. (Heb.) The highest judicial tribunal 
 among the Jews, consisting of seventy one members, In- 
 cluding the hiL'h priest Its origin is referred bj some wri- 
 ters to the institution by Moses of a council of seventy per- 
 sons on the occasion of a rebellion of the Israelites in the 
 
 w ililerness. (See Milman's Hist, of Christianity, i. 339, 
 
 &.C.) 
 
 SA'NIES. (Lat) A thin, unhealthy, purulent discharge 
 from wounds or sores. 
 BA'NSCBJT. The learned language of Hindostan. The
 
 SANS-CULOTTES. 
 
 literal meaning of the word Sanscrita is po'ished. and it is 
 used by grammarians in the sense of " regularly inflected or 
 formed." (Colebrooke's Remains, vol. ii., p. 2.) And it is a 
 question whether, in its present form, it was ever a spoken 
 language, although the theory of Schlegel is, that it was 
 imported by the conquering or Brahminical caste. It con- 
 stitutes the most ancient literature of the Hindoos, and is 
 radically connected with the various dialects of Hindustan, 
 so that they may be regarded as more or less deflected from 
 it. Colebrooke, however, is of opinion that " there seems 
 no good reason for doubting that it was once universally 
 spoken in India ;" and he says, that " those who are learn- 
 ed in Sanscrit, at the present day, deliver themselves with 
 6uch fluency as is sufficient to prove that it may have been 
 spoken in former times with as much facility as the con- 
 temporary dialects of the Greek language, or the more mo- 
 dern dialects of the Arabic tongue." Nine tenths of the 
 '• Hindustani," it is said, may be traced to the Sanscrit; the 
 remaining tenth is thought to be, perhaps, founded on the 
 old " Hindi" language, which Sir W. Jones thought anteri- 
 or to it, conceiving the Sanscrit to have been introduced by 
 conquerors in some very distant age. In the Hindoo drama, 
 the gods and saints are made to speak in Sanscrit; while 
 women, benevolent genii, &c, speak another dialect, and 
 the lower personages a third. (See also Professor Wilson's 
 Hindoo Theatre, Introduction.) The attention of European 
 inquirers was directed to the Sanscrit and its cognate Ian 
 guage by Sir William Jones. Since his time the study has 
 made great progress in England, where it has been especial- 
 ly furthered by the labours of Houghton, Wilkins, and 
 Wilson; and more in Germany, where Frederic Schlegel 
 {Sprache, &-c. der fndier, 1808) was the first to excite the 
 spirit of investigation. He was followed by his brother, A 
 W. Schlegel (who edited the Bhngavat Gita, translated 
 into English by Mr. Wilkins), and many others. Among 
 recent German philologists, Bopp deserves the highest name 
 for his researches in this direction. (See Quart. Rev., vol. 
 xlv., &c., where it is said that in the course of thirty years 
 nearly 700 works on, and translations from the Sanscrit, 
 have appeared.) The intiicate connexion of Sanscrit with 
 the principal varieties of the Caucasian speech, and espe- 
 cially the Zend, Greek, and Sclavonic, has greatly added to 
 the interest respecting it. 
 
 SANSCULOTTES, or BREECHESLESS. A name 
 first given in- ridicule to the Jacobins and other extravagant 
 patriots in the French Revolution, and afterwards assumed 
 by them as a title of honour ; like the old nickname of 
 *' guex" (beggars), in which the revolters of the Nether- 
 lands prided themselves. We have never been able to as- 
 certain the real history of this famous appellation, but we 
 believe that Camille Desmoulins was one of the first who 
 rendered it popular: his blasphemous application of it at 
 his trial is well known. It acquired great celebrity after 
 the "journee" of the 20th June, 1792, when one of the 
 principal standards borne by the insurgents was a pair of 
 black breeches, with the inscription, "Tremblez, tyrans! 
 voici les Sans-Culottes." Subsequently the French nation 
 adopted it with the utmost gravity in the original Republi- 
 can calendar. The five supernumerary days (the twelve 
 months containing thirty a piece), were named Sansculot- 
 tides ; and were festivals dedicated to " Genius," "Labour," 
 " Actions," " Rewards," "Opinion." In Leap-jears there 
 was to be a sixth Sansculottide, the festival of the Revolu- 
 tion. Future generations will find some difficulty in believ- 
 ing the narrative of the ludicrous farces with which nation- 
 al caprice interspersed the great tragedy of the French Rev- 
 olution. 
 
 SA'NTALIN. The colouring matter of red sandal or 
 saunders wood, from which it is separated by digesting the 
 rasped wood in alcohol, and then adding water to the tinc- 
 ture ; it falls in the form of a bright red precipitate, soluble 
 in alcohol and in alkaline solutions. 
 
 SA'NTONIN. A proximate vegetable principle, obtained 
 from the seed of the Artemisia santoniea. It is white, crys- 
 tallizable, bitterish, and very little soluble in water, but 
 more so in alcohol. 
 
 SAP. The fluid which is absorhed by the roots from the 
 earth, then sent upwards into the stem, and afterwards 
 conveyed from the leaves, where it is assimilated and al- 
 tered, to the bark. In its crude state it consists of little ex- 
 cept water holding earthy and gaseous matter in solution, 
 especially carbonic acid ; but as it rises through the tissue 
 of the stem it dissolves the secretions it meets within its 
 course, and thus acquires new properties, so that by the 
 time it reaches the leaves it is entirely different from its 
 state when it first enters the root. The course taken by 
 the sap in its passage through the stem is by the whole of the 
 tissue included within the bark, provided it is all permeable ; 
 but as, in many plants, the central part of the stem becomes 
 choked up with solid matter deposited in the tissue, it usu- 
 ally happens, especially in trees, that the course of the sap 
 is confined to the outer part of the wood, hence called sap- 
 
 SAPWOOD. 
 
 wood. It is not certainly known through what kind of tis- 
 sue the upward motion of the sap takes place, but it is pro- 
 bable that it is carried onwards through all the tubes and 
 vessels of the wood and their intercellular passages. The 
 dotted vessels of the wood seem more especially destined to 
 fulfil this office when the sap is in rapid motion ; but as 
 they afterwards become empty, while the ascent of the sap 
 continues, there can be no doubt that the woody tubes or 
 pleurenchyma offer the most constant means by which the 
 sap is conveyed. In Fortification, sap is a trench or ap- 
 proach made under cover of gabions, &c. 
 
 SAPAN WOOD. A dye-wood produced by certain spe- 
 cies of Casalpina. It has long been used in India, and re- 
 sembles Brazil wood in its colour and properties. 
 
 SAP GREEN, The inspissated juice of the berries of 
 the buckthorn (Rhamnus cat/iarticus). It is used by wa- 
 ter-colour painters as a green pigment. 
 
 SAPHE'NA. (Gr. <ru0^s, visible.) The large vein of 
 the leg which ascends over the external ancle. 
 
 SAPINDA'CE^E. (Sapindus, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of exotic trees and shrubs, the larger part of 
 which occur in South America. They usually have com- 
 pound leaves and inconspicuous flowers, resembling those 
 of European maples; and many of them are climbing 
 plants. The order is poisonous in various degrees; never- 
 theless, the arillus of Bliglia sapida is an esteemed fruit in 
 Africa and the West Indies, where it is called the akee. 
 The most singular property observed in the order is that of 
 having an astringent quality, and forming a lather when 
 agitated in water, whence the name of the typical genus — 
 from sapo. snap. 
 
 SA'PONIN. A peculiar suhstance contained in the root 
 of the Saponaria officinalis. It is the cause of the lather 
 which that root forms with water. 
 
 SAPOTA'CEvE. (Sapota, the name of one of the spe- 
 cies), are a small natural order of Exogenous trees, inhabit- 
 ing the West Indies and other tropical countries. They in 
 some cases produce eatable fruits, known by the colonial 
 names of sapodilla. marmalade apple, star tipple, Surinam 
 medlar, &c. Their juice is white, like milk ; and, unlike 
 the secretions of most lactescent families of plants, may be 
 used for alimentary purposes. The fruit of some yields a 
 greasy substance ; whence one of them, Bassia, has gained 
 the name of shea, or butter tree in Africa. 
 
 SAPPARE. In Mineralogy, a term applied to the cyan- 
 ite. 
 
 SAPPERS AND MINERS ROYAL. The name given 
 to the non-commissioned officers and privates of the corps 
 of Royal Engineers. Their duties consist in building fortifi- 
 cations, in executing field works and in performing similar 
 operations, tinder the direction of their superior officers. 
 They were first embodied at the end of the American war, 
 under the name of " Royal Military Artificers ;" and after 
 being formed into independent cempanies, were stationed at 
 Portsmouth, Chatham, and some other military and naval 
 arsenals. In 1812 they received their present designation ; 
 and, at the same time, an institution was formed at Chatham 
 for instructing the men in all the duties of military engineer- 
 ing. This corps consists of 13 companies, each of 68 men: 
 some of which are employed in the colonies ; others in the 
 mechanical operations connected with the survey at pre- 
 sent carried on by the Board of Ordnance; and others re- 
 main at Sandhurst and Addiscombe, to execute the various 
 military works undertaken for the instruction of the cadets 
 of these seminaries. 
 
 SA'PPHIC. The name given to a species of verse ; from 
 Sappho, the famous Greek poetess, by whom it was said to 
 lie invented. It consists of eleven syllables of five feet, of 
 which the following is a plan : 
 
 This measure was afterwards introduced into Latin, and re- 
 ceived, as the reader is aware, great improvements in the 
 hands of Horace and Catullus. The rules for the compo- 
 sition of Greek are much less strict than those for the com- 
 position of Latin sapphics. The sapphic strophe consists 
 of three sapphic verses, followed by a versus .Qdonicvs, or 
 Adonian verse ; which see. This species of verse has been 
 successfully imitated in German and English. 
 
 SA'PPHIRE. (Gr. oa<papos.) A very hard gem, consist- 
 ing essentially of crystallized alumina. It is of various 
 colours; the blue variety being generally called the sap- 
 phire, the red the oriental ruby, the yellow the oriental 
 topaz. 
 
 SAPRO'PHAGANS, Saprophaga. (Gr. cxpoc, decompos- 
 ing matter, and d>iyu>, I eat.) The name of a tribe of Co- 
 leopterous insects, comprising those which feed on animal 
 and vegetable substances in a state of decomposition. 
 
 SA'PWOOD, is the external part of the wood of Exo- 
 gens, which, from being the latest formed, is not filled up 
 with solid matter, or with the colouring principles which 
 are deposited in wood after a certain time. For these rea- 
 sons, sapwood is that through which the ascending fluids 
 
 1087
 
 SARABAITES. 
 
 of plants move most freely ; and not being solidified by the 
 earthy and other substances eventually incorporated with 
 wood, is quickly decomposed when exposed to the action of 
 air and moisture. Hence, for all building purposes the sap- 
 wood is. or ought to boi removed from timber. The sap- 
 wood or unsolidified wood of all trees is much the same in 
 its power of resisting decomposition, that of the oak and 
 lignum vita' perishing quickly as poplar and other valueless 
 timber; and chemists have ascertained that if the hardest 
 beaitwood Is reduced to its original condition of sapwood 
 by the ahstraction of the matter of solidification, all those 
 properties w hich give heartwood its value are destroyed. 
 
 BA'RABAiTJSS. A kind of oriental monks or c.Tnobites. 
 described by Caarian in his Institutions ; and supposed ti> 
 lie the same with those culled Remoboth by St. Jerome 
 <Epist. wiii.) and Eust., and characterized as vicious anil 
 ignorant. They seem to have been seceders from the ordi- 
 nary monastic life, who formed a species of society rather 
 resembling that of the Moravians of the present day, and 
 without community of goods. ( Waddinaton's Hist, of the 
 Church, cli. xix.) 
 
 SA'RABAND. (Span.) In Music, a composition in tri 
 pie time very similar to a. minuet. When denoting music 
 for the dance, it is to the same measure which usually ter- 
 minates when the beating hand rises ; being thus distin- 
 guished from the courant. which ends when the hand falls. 
 
 SARCOCE'LE. (Gr. oapi, flesh, and ntjXn, a tumour.) 
 A tumefaction of the testicle. 
 
 SA'RCOCO'LLA. (Gr. oapl, and koXXi, glue.) The 
 concrete juice of the Pentra sarcocolla. a plant growing in 
 the northern parts of Africa. It somewhat resembles gum 
 arable ; but it is soluble in alcohol, and its aqueous solution 
 is precipitated by tannin. 
 
 SA'RCOLITE. (Gr. oapl, and \Sos, a stone.) A varie- 
 ty of zeolite of a flesh colour. 
 
 SARCO'LOGY. (Gr. onpl, and >oyoc, a discourse.) The 
 history or doctrine of the fleshv parts of the bodv. 
 
 BARCO'PHAGUS. (Gr. <r>, and 0ayu«, I consume.) 
 In Antiquities, a stone receptacle for a dead body. The 
 name originates in the use of the lapis Assius, stone of 
 Assos (in Asia Minor,) said to have been prepared in anti- 
 quity for this purpose, on account of its supposed property 
 of corroding dead bodies, so as to consume them entirely in 
 forty days ; which, together with other incredible qmlitirs, 
 is ascribed to it by Theophrastus and Pliny. One of the 
 most celebrated specimens of this object of art is the great 
 sarcophagus taken by the British in F.gvpt in 1801, common 
 ly called that of Alexander: it is deposited in the British 
 Museum. Dr. Clarke, the traveller, wrote an essay to 
 prove that the Macedonian conqueror had really been en- 
 tombed in it ; but this opinion seems unfounded. 
 
 SARDO'NIC LAUGH. A convulsive laugh, said to 
 have been first observed in those who ate the herb sardo- 
 nia, which grows in Sardinia. 
 
 S \ KImiWX. (Gr.) A reddish yellow or orange col- 
 oured chalcedony or cornelian ; it is often blood red by- 
 transmitted light. 
 
 SA'ROS. An ancient astronomical period, the origin and 
 exact length of which are unknown, though they have been 
 the subject of much disputation. George Syncellns, who 
 wrote in the eighth century, cites a passage from Rerosus, 
 reported by Julius Africanus, in which mention is made of 
 three periods— the Sossos, the A'eros. and .faros ; and the 
 Sams is stated to be 3600 years. According to Lalande 
 (Astronomic, § 1572), Syncellus also cites Anianus and 
 Panodorus. who assigned the lengths of these periods as 
 follows: the Sossos, 60 days; the Neros, 600 days ; and the 
 Saros, 3600 days, or 9 common years, 10 months, and 11 
 days. Legentil, after Pugeres, supposes the Saros to be 10 
 years; Freret supposed it to he l'.U. years; Giiaud, 3600 Ju- 
 lian months, which make 371 1 lunations, or 31 years. Sui 
 das states that the Sin- was a period of lunar months equal 
 to 18| years; and Halley (Phil. Trans. No. 194), adopting 
 the same notion, and supporting himself by a passage in 
 Pliny, supposes it to be identical with the lunar period of 18 
 years, or rather of 223 lunations, which corresponds almost 
 exactly to 242 nodical revolutions of the moon (see Moon), 
 and consequently brings back the eclipses in the same or- 
 der. But Goguet | Origins des Loix, 4-e.) remarks, tlvu the 
 statement of Suidas is not supported by that of any ancient 
 
 author; and that there is no reason to suppose that Pliny, 
 in the passage in question, had the Saros in view. By 
 some authors the Saros has been confounded with the Me- 
 lon ic eti 
 
 S MiRACENIA'CE^E (Sarracenia, one of the genera), 
 are curious herbaceous plants, inhabiting the bogs of North 
 America, and haying their leaves hollowed out into tubes 
 
 or pitchers open at the upper end. Their flowers are some 
 
 thing like those of Papaveracea-, to which they are doubt- 
 b-ss allied. 
 
 SAKS U-AKll.l.A. The root of the Smilax sarsaparil- 
 la. Several varieties of this drug are imported from South 
 
 io8a 
 
 SATELLITE. 
 
 America: that which is now generally preferred is the red- 
 dish fibrous root, known in the market under the name of 
 Jamaica or red sarsaparilla. What is termed Lisbon sar- 
 saparilla is less fibrous, and more mealy and white in the 
 interior. This root, though long employed in medicine, 
 seems only lately to have been properly estimated. It was 
 formerly regarded as a specific in syphilis ; but this opinion 
 is now given up, and it is used as a powerful and valuable 
 alterative medicine in many disorders of debility, but more 
 especially in those cachectic habits which present symp- 
 toms formerly mistaken for venereal — such as pains of the 
 bones, nodes of the periosteum, loss of strength and flesh, 
 and other characters of what is sometimes called a broken 
 constitution. In these cases a course of sarsaparilla has 
 often effected a cure, especially If resorted to in time, when 
 all other remedies, and more especially mercurials, had 
 failed. It must be taken in pretty large doses ; that is, in 
 quantities not less than an ounce to an ounce and a half a 
 day, and persevered in for six, eight, or ten weeks ; or a quan- 
 tity of extract or syrup, or rather preparation equivalent to 
 that weight of the dried root : a concentrated liquid extract, 
 and a syrup, are now prepared, which are the best forms. 
 They nre apt to disagree with we;ik stomachs ; but general- 
 ly, by proper management and perseverance, this difficulty 
 may be got over. Where it agrees, the strength is gradual- 
 ly regained, the pains and other symptoms abate and van- 
 ish ; and the only other effect observed is, either that the 
 bowels are rather more open than usual, or the flow ot 
 urine or the perspiration increased. 
 
 SARTO'RIUS MUSCLE. (Lat. sartor, a tailor.) A 
 muscle of the thigh attached at the upper extremity to the 
 edge of the anterior superior spinous process of the ileum, 
 and at the lower to the inner side of the head of the tibia 
 It is concerned in bending the leg obliquely inwards, and in 
 crossing the thighs ; thence called sartorius, or the tailor's 
 muscle. 
 
 SASH. (Fr. chassis.) In Architecture, a piece of fram- 
 ing for holding the squares of glass in a window. It is ol 
 two sorts — viz. that called the French sash, which is hung 
 like a door to the sash-frame ; and that In which it moves 
 vertically from being balanced by a weight on each side, to 
 which it is attached by liies running over pulleys at the 
 top of the Bash-frame. When in a window both the upper 
 and lower sashes are moveable the sashes are said to be 
 double hung, and single hung when only one of them 
 moves. 
 
 S \SH-FRAME. In Architecture, the wooden frame into 
 which the sashes are fitted. 
 
 SASSAFRAS. The wood of the Lauras sassafras,* 
 native of North America, and growing abundantly upon the 
 banks of the river Sassafras; whence its name. It has a 
 warm aromatic flavour, and the decoction is diuretic and 
 diaphoretic. It was formerly used in cases of stone in the 
 bladder (hence its name has by some been derived from 
 saxum, ii stone, and frangere, to break). It has also been 
 extolled as an antisypliilitic remedy, and in rheumatic and 
 cutaneous affections : it is now scarcely ever employed ex- 
 cept as an ingredient in the compound decoction of sarsa- 
 parilla. 
 
 SA'SSOLIN. Native boracic acid, from the vicinity of 
 Sasso. in Florence. 
 
 SA'TAN. A Hebrew word signifying enemy or adver- 
 sary, and used as such, without any reference io the Evil 
 Rower itself, in one or two passages of the Old and New 
 Testaments. The equivalent term in Greek for this word 
 is SiaSoXos, literally our who accuses or calumniates ; whence 
 the word devil is derived. 
 
 SATELLITE (Lat. satelles, vn attendant), in the Solar 
 Sj stem, is the attendant of a planet : a body which revolves 
 about the planet, and follows it in its orbit round the sun. 
 Hence the satellite is sometimes called a secondary planet, 
 or merely a secondary; the planet about which it revolves 
 being the primary. 
 
 The planets which are accompanied by satellites are the 
 Earth, Jupiter. Saturn, and Uranus. The Earth has one 
 satellite, namely, the Moon; Jupiter has four; Saturn sev- 
 en; and Uranus certainly two, If not six. For the Earth's 
 satellite, see Moon. 
 
 Satellites of Jupiter. — These bodies were first observed 
 by Galileo, and their discovery followed immediately that 
 of the telesco|>e. With a telescope of ordinary power they 
 
 may be seen (unless when eclipsed by the shadow of the 
 planet, or concealed behind its disk), on any clear night, at 
 different distances from the planet, and arranged nearly in 
 a straight line, in which they appear to oscillate backwards 
 
 and forwards with different velocities, and performing un- 
 equal excursions; so that their arrangement with respect 
 to the planet, or configurations, are constantly changing. 
 S etlmes they are observed to pass before Jupiter, in 
 
 which ease they cast a shadow on his disk like a small, 
 round, black spot, whence they are inferred to be npnke 
 bodies illuminated by the sun ; at other times they pass be-
 
 SATELLITE. 
 
 SATIRE. 
 
 hind the planet and are concealed from our view; and all j observed to happen about 16 m. 26 sec. earlier than they 
 these phenomena occur in regular order, and, with respect 
 to each satellite, after the same intervals of time. 
 
 An attentive examination of the apparent motions of the 
 satellites soon renders it evident that they revolve round 
 Jupiter in small but unequal orbits, the planes of which 
 are nearly coincident vviih that of the equator of the planet, 
 which is inclined in a small angle to the ecliptic. Obser- 
 vation also shows that the motions of the satellites about 
 their primary are regulated by the same laws as are ob- 
 served by the planets in their revolutions round the sun. 
 The orbits are ellipses of small eccentricity, of which Jupi- 
 ter occupies one of the foci ; the areas described by the ra- 
 dius vector are proportional to the times of description; and 
 the squares of the periodic limes are respectively proportion- 
 al to the cubes of the mean distances. Thus Jupiter and 
 his satellites form a system in miniature entirely analogous 
 to that of the sun and planets. 
 
 The satellites are distinguished as the first, second, third, 
 and fourth, according to their respective distances from Ju- 
 piter, the first being that which is nearest the planet. The 
 following table shows their mean distances (in terms of the 
 equatorial radius of Jupiter), times of revolution, masses as 
 compared with Jupiter, and diameters in English miles : 
 
 Satellite. 
 
 Mean Di<tance 
 
 Periodic Time. 
 
 Mass. 
 
 Diameter 
 
 in Miles. 
 
 1 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 
 6043 '.3 
 9 62347 
 15 3 0-'4 
 26-99535 
 
 Day*. 
 l-7bOI4 
 355118 
 7 15455 
 16'6«77 
 
 o-onnon 
 
 000023 
 U-O00U-& 
 0-000043 
 
 2508 
 2068 
 3377 
 2890 
 
 The mean distances are found by measuring the angular 
 distances from Jupiter at the time of the greatest elonga- 
 tions, and the masses were determined by Laplace from the 
 theory of gravitation. On account of the minuteness of their 
 apparent diameters, it is difficult to determine their true di- 
 ameters with precision. The second, which is the smallest, 
 at the mean distance of the planet subtends an angle of 
 rather less than 1" ; and the third, which is the largest, an 
 angle of less than 15". {Memoirs lioijal Jlstronomical So- 
 ciety, vol. hi., p. 301.) 
 
 Small as the satellites of Jupiter are in comparison of the 
 primary planet, they are in themselves bodies of considera- 
 ble magnitude. As compared with the Earth, their diame- 
 ters may be approximately stated as follows : That of the 
 first rather less than £, of the second $, of the third £, and 
 of the fourth more than J. The third is about the size of 
 Mars. These four moons must present to the inhabitants 
 of Jupiter a spectacle of endless variety. 
 
 Although their orbits are doubtless elliptical, the eccentri- 
 cities of the first and second are so small as to be insensible 
 to observation. That of the third is sufficiently sensible ; 
 and that of the fourth still greater, but subject to considera- 
 ble variations. The direction of the motions of the satellites 
 in their orbits is from west to east, according to the general 
 analogy of the planetary system ; and, from observed peri- 
 odical defalcations of light to which they are subject, it has 
 been inferred that, like our own moon, each of them revolves 
 about its axis in the same time as that in which it completes 
 a sidereal revolution about the planet. 
 
 From the preceding table it will be seen that the periodic 
 time of the first satellite is nearly half of that of the second, 
 and that of the second nearly half of that of the third. The 
 mean angular motions of these three satellites, therefore, 
 form very nearly the progression 1, J, |; so that the mean 
 motion of the first satellite, added to twice that of the third, 
 is very nearly equal to three times the mean motion of the 
 second. Another equally singular analogy is, that the mean 
 longitude of the first, minus three times that of the second, 
 plus twice that of the third, is always very nearly equal to 
 two right angles. These two results subsist equally in re- 
 spect both of the sidereal and synodical motions and longi- 
 tudes ; and it follows as a consequence of the last, that for 
 a great number of years at least, the three first satellites 
 cannot be eclipsed at the same time, fur in the simultaneous 
 eclipses of the second and third the first will always be in 
 conjunction with Jupiter, and vice versa,. 
 
 On account of the shortness of the periods of revolution, 
 the eclipses of the satellites (especially of the first) take 
 place very frequently ; and they are phe'nomena of consid- 
 erable importance in astronomy, from their affording signals 
 by means of which the differences of terrestrial longitudes 
 are determined, in the same manner as in the case of an 
 eclipse of the moon. The method, however, is not capable 
 of the same precision as is afforded by lunar observations. 
 
 The eclipses of Jupiter's satellites have also a historical 
 interest, from having led Rremer to the important discovery 
 of the successive propagation and velocity of light. When 
 Jupiter is in opposition with the sun, and his distance from 
 the earth, consequently, less than his distance from the sun 
 by the whole radius of the earth's orbit, the eclipses are 
 
 happen when the planet is in conjunction, and its distance 
 from the earth greater than its distance from the sun by 
 the same quantity. This phenomenon can only be explain- 
 ed by supposing that light occupies 16 m. 26 sec. in travers- 
 ing the earth's orbit, and, consequently, 8 m. 13 sec. in 
 coining from the sun to the earth, which gives a velocity of 
 about 192,01)0 miles in a second. The theory', with its con- 
 sequences, has been amply confirmed by Bradley's discov- 
 ery of the aberration. See Aberration. 
 
 Satellites of Saturn. — Saturn, as has already been men- 
 tioned, is accompanied by seven satellites. The most dis- 
 tant, which is by far the largest, was discovered by Huy- 
 gens in 1665. Four others were first seen by Dominic Cas- 
 sini about twenty years afterwards ; but the two interior 
 ones, which can only be seen under very peculiar circum- 
 stances, and with the aid of the most powerful telescopes, 
 were discovered by Sir William Herschel, in 1789. On ac- 
 count of the difficulty of observing the satellites of this 
 planet, their theory has been little studied. The third law 
 of Kepler, which connects the periods and distances, is 
 found to be preserved, as in the system of Jupiter. The 
 planes of their orbits coincide nearly with that of the ring, 
 with the exception of the seventh, which makes an angle 
 with that plane of about three or four degrees. The orbit 
 of this last is sensibly elliptical, the eccentricity being -049. 
 Owing to the obliquity of the orbits to Saturn's ecliptic, the 
 satellites are not eclipsed in every revolution, but (with the 
 exception of the two interior ones) only fall into the shadow 
 of the planet at the times when the ring is seen from the 
 earth nearly edgewise. The following table shows their 
 mean distances from Saturn in terms of the equatorial ra- 
 dius of the planet, and their periods of sidereal revolution: 
 
 Satellite. 
 
 Mean Distance. 
 
 Periodic Time. 
 
 
 
 d. A. m. 
 
 1 
 
 3351 
 
 22 38 
 
 2 
 
 4 300 
 
 1 8 53 
 
 3 
 
 5 234 
 
 1 21 18 
 
 4 
 
 6-NI9 
 
 2 17 45 
 
 5 
 
 9 524 
 
 4 12 25 
 
 6 
 
 22-081 
 
 15 22 41 
 
 7 
 
 64-359 
 
 79 7 55 
 
 The two interior satellites appear to just skirt the exterior 
 edge of the ring. The seventh, like the satellites of Jupi- 
 ter, exhibits periodical changes in the intensity of its light, 
 whence it is inferred that it revolves on its axis in the same 
 time in which it completes its orbital revolution. 
 
 Satellites of Uranus. — Sir John Herschel remarks that, 
 with the exception of the two interior satellites of Saturn, 
 the attendants of Uranus are the most difficult objects to 
 obtain a sight of, of any in our system. Their existence 
 was first discovered by Sir William Herschel, who sus- 
 pected their number to be six ; but he was only able to ob- 
 tain micrornetrical measures of the distance of two of them, 
 and only those two have yet been seen by any other astron- 
 omer. Sir W. Herschel's observations are given in the 
 Phil. Trans, for 1788 and 1797, and again in the vol. for 
 1815. They were made between the years 1787 and 1798 ; 
 and from the latter period until 1828, the planet having been 
 unfavourably situated, these satellites remained unobserv- 
 ed, and had even fallen out of notice. Between the latter 
 year and 1834 a series of observations, recorded in the Me- 
 moirs of the R. Jistr. Society, vol. viii., were made by Sir 
 John Herschel for the purpose of verifying his father's re- 
 sults, which, with respect to two satellites, were confirmed 
 in the amplest manner. The periodic times deduced from 
 his observations are respectively 8 d. 16 h. 56 m. 313 sec, 
 and 13 d. 11 h. 7 m. 12 6 sec. The orbits are nearly circu- 
 lar, and almost perpendicular to the ecliptic, being inclined 
 to that plane in an angle of 78° 58' ; and what is extremely 
 remarkable, as contrary to the otherwise unbroken analogy 
 of the solar system, the motions of the satellites in their or- 
 bits are retrograde, or from east to west. The following 
 table shows the distances (in radii of Uranus) and periods 
 of all the satellites, according to Sir William Herschel. 
 (Herschel's Jlstromy, Cab. Kncyc.) 
 
 
 Mean Distance. 
 
 Sidereal Period. 
 
 
 
 d. h. m. ». 
 
 1 ? 
 
 13-120 
 
 5 21 25 
 
 
 17022 
 
 8 16 56 5 
 
 3? 
 
 19-845 
 
 10 23 4 
 
 
 22 752 
 
 13 11 8 59 
 
 
 45-507 
 
 33 1 43 
 
 6? 
 
 91-008 
 
 107 16 40 
 
 SATIN. A closely woven silk, generally dressed with 
 gum, especially when intended for ribands, dresses, &c. 
 
 SATIN SPAR. A fibrous variety of carbonate of lime 
 assuming a silky appearance when polished. 
 
 SATIRE, in Literature, has been defined a representation 
 of vice, or of the ridiculous, either in the form of discourse 
 3Y 1089
 
 SATIRE. 
 
 or put in dramatic action. The word satire must not be 
 confounded as to its etymology with the satyrf of the 
 Greeks, which were burlesque dramatic pieces, in which 
 the persons represented a band of satyrs. {See Drama.) 
 The modern WOtd satire. Latin satin, is derived from the 
 lanz satura — a dish full of various fruits and herbs winch 
 was carried in procession at the leasts of Ceres. Whence 
 the word came to signify a poem full of miscellaneous mat- 
 ter without orderly method | and in this sense only it was 
 probably employed by Lucilius. the first writer of satires: 
 although the title so usurped by him was afterwards only 
 applied to poems of a similar character with his own, vi/.., 
 containing moral reflection, interspersed with critical touch- 
 es directed against real or imaginary personages. 
 
 Satire, in the literary sense of the word, as designating a 
 species of composition, is usually confined to a species of 
 poetry; but prose works, of winch the contents are of a sa- 
 tirical character, are often comprehended under the same 
 appellation. Dramatic writings, also, are not satires in the 
 stricter sense of the word, although their contents be of a 
 satirical character. According to their subjects, satires are 
 divided into political and moral, and these again severally 
 subdivided into personal and general. Political satires, in 
 almost every language, have been nearly confined to prose : 
 the moral satire alone has found its appropriate vehicle in 
 verse. The only Greek satirist of whom any fragments 
 have reached us was Archilochus, and his attacks were 
 evidently directed against individuals. Aristophanes pos- 
 sessed a vein of satirical power, both in the indignant and 
 ludicrous strain, which has never been surpassed; and his 
 dramas contain not only sarcasms on individuals, but also 
 political and ethical lessons of the highest value. But the 
 moral satire, properly so called, was invented by the Ro- 
 mans, not only in form, but in substance also, and by them 
 carried to perfection ; and it is remarkable that the only 
 species of Roman poetry which has any degree of originali- 
 ty is that which would seem to have accorded the least 
 with the grave and austere turn of the genuine Roman i 
 character. 
 
 Of the three Roman satirists whose works have reached 
 us, Horace, the earliest, excels in conveying moral and pru- 
 dential lessons in beautiful and precise language, in light 
 allusions to the follies or excesses of his time; sometimes 
 though rarely, assuming the comic character, but generally 
 evincing more of the indefinable quality termed by us hu- 
 mour than is shown by any other classical Writer, with the 
 exception of Aristophanes. Whether the various person 
 ages introduced by Horace, for the most part rather as ex- 
 amples to be shunned than as individuals to be held up to 
 laughter or contempt, were intended to represent to his 
 readers, by allusions now undiscernible, actual characters 
 known to them, is a matter not easily ascertainable. The 
 same may be said with respect to Juvenal, whose selected 
 victims are for the most part exalted or notorious person 
 ages of the generations immediately preceding his own; 
 and it is not ascertained, although it has often been conjec- 
 tured, that their names were intended to conceal those of 
 cotemporaries of his own. Juvenal, without either wit or 
 humour, excels in the deep tones of moral indignation be- 
 fitting the scandalous excesses of the times in which he 
 lived: his exalted notions of virtue, and even of sanctity, 
 are so far superior to the ordinary standard of moral excel 
 lence to be drawn from classical writers, that it has been 
 conjectured that he, as well as Persius, had made some ac- 
 quaintance, either directly or indirectly, will) the lessons of 
 Christianity. Per-ius. although he occasionally rises into 
 very elevated flights of poetry, doe- nol afford main exam- 
 ples of the peculiar excellences of the satirist. 
 
 In the literature of the modern nations, the fate of satire 
 has been similar to that which has befallen many other 
 species of composition. The name and form Of the ancient 
 satire have been preserved by many writers, who have pro- 
 duced, for the most part, little besides cold or exaggerated 
 imitations of antiquity. Hut the true spirit of satire, in its 
 moral beauty, its humour, and its delicate irony, has been 
 inherited by others, who had too much originality of thought 
 to tie down their genius to an antiquated form' of writing. 
 Thus in France, Boileau is, or was, generally cited a< the 
 prince of satirists: his satires are closely formed on the 
 model of Horace, and are elegant and correct in style. He- 
 sides him, Regnier and many oilier writers have adopted 
 the same line. But the true satirists of France are Rabe- 
 lais, in his Inimitable romances; Montaigne the essayist, 
 
 endowed with much of the delicate and harmless sarcasm 
 of Horace; and, in later times, Volt lire. So In England, al- 
 though we possess satirists of considerable merit, who have 
 adopted the form of the ancient satire, our true national 
 satirists are to be found among our essayifts and Hovel H n- 
 tern. Bishop Hall, in the reign of F.li/.ahelh. and Donne, In 
 
 that of James, published collections of satires, directed 
 
 partly against the actual follies or vies of their times, but 
 too closely paraphrased, for the most part, from the Latin. 
 1090 
 
 SATURN. 
 
 to admit of much original observation. Withers, among our 
 early satirists, is the only other writer who is at all remcu,- 
 bered. Among our modern poets. Pope founded his satires 
 on the model of those of Horace, and of some of his English 
 predecessors. His style ami train of thought were rather 
 French than Roman. His works of this description are, in 
 point of form, mere imitations; but ihey are admirable tor 
 their point and the beauty of the verse, and not unfrequent- 
 ly contain pungent personal allusions, without which, un- 
 fortunately, a professed satirist can attract little notice and 
 produce little effect. Johnson, in his two well known imi- 
 tations of Juvenal, Churchill, and Young, are the latest wri- 
 ters of any note who have composed in the foim of the an- 
 cient satire. But of all these writers, not one possesses a 
 geniune or national character, except, perhaps, Churchill ; 
 while Swift, Fielding, &c, are, in our literature, what Hor- 
 ace and Juvenal were in those of the Romans — the painters 
 of existing manners, and the representatives of public opinion 
 respecting them. The literary satire may, perhaps, be men- 
 tioned as a separate species of com|H>sition, containing either 
 rules of writing, or critical observations on the defects of 
 individual writers. Some of Horace's satires and epistles 
 (as well as his Jlrs Poetica) belong exclusively, others par- 
 tially, to this class; and have given birth to a series of sim- 
 ilar productions, down to the English Bards and Scotch 
 Reviewers of Lord Byron. (See, as to the Roman satire, 
 Qunrt. Rev., Vol. lii. ; Mem. de I'.lc. drs hiscr.. vol. xxxix.) 
 
 SATRAP. The tide given by the Greek writers to the 
 governors of provinces under the Persian kings before the 
 conquests of Alexander. TIip satrapies of that empire are 
 enumerated by Herodotus. The name is thought by some 
 to be derived from a Persian word, signifying "fixed star." 
 (JHem. de I'.lc. drs Inscr.. vol. xxxi.) 
 
 SATURDAY. The seventh day of the week, held by 
 the Jews as their sabbath. It was dedicated by the Romans 
 to Saturn ; whence its name. 
 
 SATURN. An Italian deity having many points of sim- 
 ilarity with the Grecian Kronos (Vtpovos), with whom he is, 
 accordingly, frequently identified. He seems to have been 
 originally the god of earth (of which his wife Tellus, Ops, 
 or Rhea was the goddess), and presided over tillage, of 
 which the sickle he carried was the symbol. The treasury 
 at Rome was in his tpmple. 
 
 The Grecian Kronos was the youngest son of Ueaven 
 and Earth, and the father of Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, md 
 Pluto. He usurped the sovereignly, and was in his turn 
 deposed and imprisoned by Jupiter. His reign was celebra- 
 ted by the ancient poets as the golden age. 
 
 The whole history of this deity is probably allegorical. 
 The name itself, with a slight variation, signifies time 
 [Kpvpot) ; and his attribute of the sickle, together with the 
 account of his being the son of Heaven, by whose lumi- 
 naries time is measured, and the husband of Rhea (flow- 
 ing), and of his devouring his own progeny, are corrobora- 
 tive of this conjecture. 
 
 Niebuhr regards Saturn and Ops as the god and goddess 
 of the earth, its vivifying and its receptively-productive 
 powers. (Horn. Hist., vol. 1., p. C'i, Cambr. transl.) Creu- 
 zer makes Saturn the great god of nature, in many respects 
 assimilated to Janus. He is the god who suffices for him- 
 self — the god who is satisfied with his own powers. (Syn- 
 bolik. par Guigniaut, vol. hi., p. 499.) Hence the derivation 
 of the name from the Latin satur, full, satisfied. 
 
 SATURN. One of the principal planets in the solar sys- 
 tem, and the ninth in the order of distance from the sun. 
 Though less brilliant than Venus and Jupiter, Saturn is still 
 a conspicuous object in the heavens, and has accordingly 
 attracted the attention of astronomers since the first dawn 
 of the science. 
 
 Saturn revolves at the distance of about 890 millions of 
 miles from the sun. the mean radius of bis orbit being 
 9*588786 times that of the earth's orbit : and the period of 
 his sideral revolution is 10759*2198174 mean solar days, or 
 about 29.1 years. The orbit is nearly circular, its eccen- 
 tricity being only '0561505 fhalf the major axis being unity) ; 
 and it is inclined to the ecliptic in an angle which, at the 
 beginning of the present centurv. was 2° 29' 35" - 7, and is 
 subject to a decrease of 15"i" annually. 
 
 The diameter of Saturn at his mean distance from the 
 earth subtends an angle of about 162' ; whence his true 
 diameter is 9-983 times thai of the earth, or about 7fi068 
 
 miles, and consequently bis volume is nearly a thousand 
 times ihat of the earth. From the theory of his perturba- 
 tions, his mass compared with that of the sun is found to be 
 M738; whence bta density is inferred to he to that of 
 
 the sun as .",., in pill, nr about iih of the density of the earth. 
 From the O bse rv a tion of certain dark spots nn his surface, 
 
 Saturn is fl d to revolve about an axis iii 111 hours 39 m. 
 
 lie- 1 iec. This rapid rotation of so large a bodygives rise to 
 
 a great centrifugi I force at the equator of tin- planet, and 
 ace irdlngly bis form is that of a Bpher id considerably flat 
 tcned at the pules, the ratio of the polar to the equatorial
 
 SATURN. 
 
 diameter being nearly that of 11 to 12. The inclination of 
 his equator to the plane of the ecliptic is 31° 19', or nearly 
 28° 49' to the plane of his orbit. 
 
 When seen through a good telescope, the disc of Saturn 
 appears striped with dark belts, somewhat similar, but 
 broader and less strongly marked than those of Jupiter. 
 From their parallelism to his equator, it is inferred that they 
 subsist in his atmosphere, and are probably determined by- 
 Currents similar to our trade winds. 
 
 Saturn is attended by seven satellites ; but the two near- 
 est the planet can only be seen in certain favorable circum- 
 stances, and with telescopes of the very highest power. 
 See Satullitk. 
 
 Saturn's Huigs.—Snturn presents a phenomenon to which 
 there is nothing analogous in the rest of the solar system. 
 This consists of two flat, broad, and very thin rings, both 
 lying in the same plane, and concentric wiih each other 
 and with the planet. They are separated from the body of 
 the planet by an interval equal to about two and a half 
 times the diameter of the earth, and from each other by a 
 much smaller interval. The plane in which they lie is in- 
 clined to the ecliptic in an angle of 28° 40' ; and hence they 
 present themselves obliquely to the earth, under the form of 
 an ellipse, the breadth of which, when greatest, is nearly 
 equal to half the length. The following are the dimensions 
 of this extraordinary appendage, as given by Sir John Her- 
 schel (Treatise of Astronomy, Cab. CycL), from the micro- 
 metrical observations of Struve, with the exception of the 
 thickness of the rings, which was deduced from his own ob- 
 servations : 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Exterior diameter of exterior ring - - =176418 
 Interior diameter of exterior ring - - =155272 
 
 Exterior diameter of interior ring - - =151600 
 
 Interior diameter of interior ring - - =117339 
 
 Equatorial diameter of the planet - - = 79160 
 Interval between the planet and interior ring = 19090 
 Interval of the rings - - - - = 1791 
 
 Thickness of the rings not exceeding - - = 100 
 As the plane of this double ring maintains its parallelism 
 during the revolution of the planet, the angle under which 
 it is presented to the sun is continually changing, and 
 hence the varieties which take place in its apparent form 
 and magnitude. The points in which it intersects the eclip- 
 tic are in 170° and 350° of longitude ; consequently, when- 
 ever the planet comes into either of those longitudes (and it 
 must pass through both in each revolution), the plane of 
 the ring passes through the sun, and only the thin edge is 
 illuminated. In this case, the whole quantity of light 
 which is reflected from it is insufficient to render it visible, 
 and it entirely disappears, even in the most powerful tele- 
 scopes. On the 29th of April, 1833, Sir John Herschel re- 
 cords, " The disappearance of the rings is complete, when 
 observed with a reflector 18 inches in aperture and 20 feet 
 in focal length." A little before or after the planet is in 
 this position, the ring is seen as a fine straight line of light 
 drawn across the disc of the planet, and projecting on each 
 side like <zns<£ or handles. As the planet continues to re- 
 cede, the sun's rays fall upon the ring more obliquely, and 
 the luminous line gradually opens out into an ellipse, which 
 becomes wider and wider until it attains its maximum, when 
 the longitude of Saturn is 80° or 260°. In following out 
 these phenomena, it is, however, necessary to take into 
 account the position of the earth relatively to the sun and 
 the plane of the ring ; for it is evident, in the first place, 
 that the ring will only be visible when the sun and earth 
 are both on the same side of it ; and, in the second place, 
 that it will become invisible when its plane passes through 
 the centre of the earth, as none of the light reflected from 
 its sides can then reach us. On this account the disap- 
 pearance of the ring is generally double, the earth passing 
 twice through its plane in the same revolution. The suc- 
 cessive disappearances of the ring form a period of about 15 
 years, or half the times of Saturn's revolution in his orbit. 
 At present (1840), the north side of the ring is illuminated ; 
 in December, 1847, it will be invisible ; and in April, 1855, 
 the south side will become visible. The two sides of the 
 ring have thus alternately fifteen of our years of sunshine, 
 and fifteen years of darkness. 
 
 The singularity of Saturn's appearance was first noticed 
 by Galileo, to whom the planet appeared triple, or as a 
 large body placed between two small ones. The explana- 
 tion of the phenomena by means of the ring was first given 
 by Huygens. Some astronomers have thought they observ- 
 ed numerous dark divisions in the ring ; so that instead of 
 two there must be a number of concentric rings. Siurve 
 states, that he could perceive no traces of such division in 
 the great Dorpat refractor. 
 
 That the ring is composed of solid ponderous materials is 
 proved from the circumstances of its casting a dark shadow 
 on Saturn on the side nearest the sun, and receiving the 
 ihadow of the planet on the opposite side. The ring must 
 
 SAXIFRAGACEjE. 
 
 therefore be under the influence of the planet's attraction, 
 and also liable to be deranged by the disturbing action of the 
 satellites, the largest of which does not move in the same 
 plane. Hence it is an interesting problem in physical as- 
 tronomy to determine the conditions under which its equi- 
 librium is maintained. Laplace has shown, from the theory 
 of gravitation, that in order to maintain the stability of the 
 ring, it is necessary that the planet's attraction be counter- 
 acted by a centrifugal force arising from a very rapid rota- 
 tion of the ring in its own plane. Observation has confirm- 
 ed the result of theory ; for from the motions of certain 
 dusky spots on its surface it has been found that the ring 
 revolves in 10 hours 29 m. 17 s., which is very nearly the 
 period assigned by Laplace, and that in which a satellite 
 would revolve at a distance equal to that of the middle of 
 the ring. Laplace also showed that in order to resist the 
 tendency to subversion of the equilibrium, it is necessary to 
 suppose the ring to be of unequal density or thickness in its 
 different parts, so that the centre of gravity may not coin- 
 cide with the centre of figure ; for if it were perfectly simi- 
 lar throughout, its equilibrium would be disturbed by the 
 slightest force, as the attraction of a satellite ; and as it would 
 have no tendency to recover itself, it would ultimately be 
 precipitated on the planet. This inequality of form would 
 seem to be indicated by observation, for it has been noticed 
 that the two arms of the ring sometimes appear to be dis- 
 similar. According to Bessel, the mass of the ring is equal 
 to about the l-118lh part of that of the planet. For further 
 information, see Herschel's Treatise on Jistronomy. 
 
 SATURNA'LIA, the festival of Saturn, was celebrated 
 at Rome about the middle of December, and occupied at 
 different times one, three, and five days. It was a season of 
 complete liberty and rejoicing. No business was done ; 
 friends visited and made presents to each other ; and, what 
 was most remarkable, slaves were permitted to jest with 
 their masters, and were even waited on at table by them. 
 
 SA'TYRS. In Classical Mythology, divinities, or rather 
 supernatural personages, represented with the heads, arms, 
 and bodies of men, and the lower parts of goats. They 
 were under the peculiar government of the god Bacchus. 
 Some antiquaries have fancied that the notion of satyrs 
 arose from the introduction of ourang outangs by the real 
 Bacchus, on his return from his conquest of India, and de- 
 rive the name from the Heb. sahurim hairy men ; Bacchus, 
 according to tradition, having remained some time in Pales- 
 tine during his return. In the same way we may perhaps 
 account for St. Augustin's story, of a satyr having been seen 
 and caught, in his own time, in the deserts of Africa. In 
 Grecian Dramatic Literature, the name satyr is applied to a 
 theatrical piece, in which the chorus consisted of satyrs, of a 
 semi-burlesque character — to judge of it by the only specimen 
 left to us, the Cyclops of Euripides. It was customary for 
 the tragedian to present at the same time three tragic pieces 
 and one satyr, forming a tetralogy. In Zoology, the outrang- 
 outang (Simia satyrus, Linn.) is sometimes called satyr. 
 
 SAUCISSON. In Fortification, a long pipe or bag filled 
 with gunpowder for the purpose of firing a mine. 1'he 
 term is also applied to a fascine, longer than the common 
 ones, used for raising batteries and repairing breaches. 
 
 SAU'NDERS or SANDAL WOOD. The white or scent- 
 ed sandal wood is the produce of the Santalum album. It 
 is brought from the East Indies. When distilled with wa- 
 ter it yields a thick essential oil, smelling something like 
 roses. Red saunders or sandal is the wood of the Pterocar- 
 pus santalinus, also a native of India. Its colouring matter 
 is insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol, and is used to 
 impart a red tinge to certain tinctures. The resinous exu- 
 dation of this tree constitutes one of the varieties of dra- 
 gon's blood. 
 
 SA'URIANS, Sauria. (Gr. oavpos, a liiard.) The name 
 of an order of reptiles, including all those which are cover- 
 ed with scales and have four legs, as the crocodile and 
 lizard. The mouth of the saurians is always armed with 
 teeth, and their toes are generally furnished with claws; 
 they have all a tail more or less long, and generally very 
 thick at the base. A few species, exceptions to the general 
 character, have only two legs. The most gigantic and sin- 
 gular species of the Saurian order are now extinct. 
 
 SAUSSURITE. A variety of nephrite named in honour 
 of Saussure, who discovered it on the banks of the lake of 
 Geneva in rounded masses. 
 
 SAVA'NNAHS. The name given to those vast systems 
 of plains watered by the Missouri and Mississippi. These 
 savannahs are greatly diversified in appearance; but they 
 have some general features, which the reader will find sys- 
 tematically described in Mr. Flint's work on America. 
 
 SAVINGS BANKS. See Bank, Savings. (See also De- 
 gerando. De la Bievfaisance Publique, vol. iii., I. 2, ch. 4.) 
 
 SAXIFRAGA'CE^E. (Saxifraga, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of herbaceous Exogens. chiefly inhabiting 
 the mountainous regions of Europe and the northern parts 
 of the world. They are nearly allied to Rosacea, from 
 
 1091
 
 SAXON ARCHITECTURE. 
 
 which they differ in having polyspermous, didymous, par- 
 daily concrete carpels, and albuminous seeds, and in want- 
 ing stipules. The root of Heuckera Americana is a power- 
 ful astringent, whence it is called, in North America, alum 
 root; otnei species are pretty herbaceous plants: none of 
 them are of general Interest 
 
 SA\ll.\ AIU 111 LECTURE. See Architecture. 
 SAXO.N III. I E. A Bolution rtf indigo in concentrated 
 sulphuric acid: it i* much used as a dye stmt'. 
 
 SCABl'NI S. The Latinised form of the old German 
 word schuppr, in French echevin. Judicial officers of vari- 
 ous descriptions in the middle ages bore this title, especi illy 
 in the •• communes," or municipalities. See as to its history, 
 Meger's Instil. Judiciaries; Mem. del' Ac. des Inscr. vol. 
 ixxvii. 
 
 SCA'BROUS. (Lat. scaber, rough.) In Zoology, when a 
 surface is r. ugh to the touch, from granules scarcely visible. 
 SCA'FFOLDING, in Architecture, is the temporary com- 
 bination of tiiii.ici --work, liy the means of upright poles and 
 horizontal pieces, on which latter are laid the boards for car- 
 rying up the different stages or floors of a building, and 
 which are struck or removed as soon as they have answer- 
 ed their purpose. The scaffolding used for carrying up 
 buildings on the Continent has always been more scientifi- 
 cally mid solidly constructed than that used in this country. 
 But great improvements have latterly taken place ; and 
 there seems to be a prevalent notion here, in the present 
 day, that for large buildings a little more skill should be dis- 
 played than that which emanates from the combination of 
 unlnBtructed Irish labourers. 
 
 SCAGLIO'LA. (It.) In Architecture, a composition ; 
 sometimes called also Mischia, from the mixture of colours 
 employed in it, being made to imitate marble. The Floren- 
 tines claim the invention of this art, but it had been prac- 
 tised in Lombardy previous to its introduction at Florence. 
 Lanza says that it was invented by Guido Sassi, who died 
 at the age of bo, in 1049, at Carpi, in the state of Modena, 
 and that he commenced by executing cornices and other 
 members of architecture which had all the appearance of 
 the finest marbles ; whereas its introduction at Florence was 
 not till the middle of the 18lh century. Scagliola is com- 
 posed of gypsum or sulphate of lime, calcined and reduced 
 to a fine powder, with the addition of which to water a fine 
 paste is made. When columns are made with this compo- 
 sition, a frame or cradle is first formed, which is lathed 
 round and coated with lime and hair, raised up in some 
 parts with small projections. On this, when dry, is laid a 
 composition consisting of pure gypsum, calcined and passed 
 through a sieve, and, as wanted, mixed with glue or isin- 
 glass ; it is floated with wooden moulds of the proper form, 
 during which operation the colours, by which the imitation 
 is obtained, tire put on. When this is set the work is smooth- 
 ed with pumice stone with one hand of the workman, while 
 the other is employed in washing it with a sponge and wa- 
 ter. It is then polished with tripoli, charcoal, and a piece 
 of fine linen, and afterwards with a piece of felt dipped in 
 oil and tripoli, and finished off with pure oil laid on with 
 cotton wool. 
 
 SCALD {Skdlld), signifies in the ancient Norsk language 
 a poet. In the old northern literature, those mythological 
 poems of which the writers are known are properly called 
 songs of the Scalds, while those of unknown authors are 
 termed Eddus. It appeals from Tacitus that the ancient 
 Germans had those three classes of poems which were 
 found at a later era in Scandinavia, namely, relating to the 
 gods, to heaven, and to historical subjects. The Scalds 
 whose remains have come down to us are very numerous. 
 Their poems tire partly alliterative, and partly rhymed ; and 
 this latter circumstance seems to indicate works of compar- 
 atively recent date. The historical value of their poems is 
 considerable ; but they are written in a peculiar vein of ex- 
 aggeration, and in a metaphysical and almost enigmatical 
 fashion, which appears to have been characteristic of the 
 poetical art of the north. (See Edda, Saoa.) The most 
 complete list of the Scalds, and commentary on Scaldic poe 
 try, is to be found (according to the Conversations Lex.) in 
 the Fundgruben d<s orient., vol. i. 
 
 SCALE. (It. scala, a ladder, or series of stairs.) In 
 Music, a progressive series of sounds ari>ing In acuteness or 
 falling in gravity from any given pitch to the greatest prac- 
 tical distance, through such Intermediate degrees as create 
 an agreeable nnd perfect succession, wherein all the har- 
 monical Intervals are conveniently divided. See the words 
 Diatonic and Chromatic 
 
 Scale. In Mensuration, a line or rule of n definite 
 length, divided into a given number of equal parts, ami u ed 
 for the purpose of measuring other linear magnitudes. It 
 
 becomes a standard scale when all its divisions have been 
 
 examined and compared with some standard measure. | S< i 
 Meakork.j The scales of thermometers are graduated 
 
 from si .rue arbitrary point or zero (as that which indicates 
 the temperature of freezing water), from which the heat is 
 
 1093 
 
 SCAPULA. 
 
 counted upwards or downwards in degrees, which are als» 
 arbitrary. 
 
 The term scale is also applied to a mathematical instru- 
 ment, consisting of an assemblage of lines and figures en- 
 graved on a plane rule, by means of which certain propor- 
 tional quantities or arithmetical results are obtained by 
 Inspection. Of these the principal are the plane scale, the 
 scale, Hunter's scale, &c. For the construction 
 and uses ot' these vaiious scales, see Robertson's Descrip- 
 tion and Use of Mathematical Instruments. 
 
 In arithmetic, scale signifies the order of progression on 
 which any system of notation is founded ; as the binary 
 scale, the denary scale, &.c. See Binary Arithmetic, 
 Notation. 
 
 Scale, in Zoology, is properly applied to the plates, gener- 
 ally thin, small, and (imbricated, which defend the skin of 
 fishes. They are substances of different texture which are 
 developed beneath the true epiderm, and appertain to the 
 system of the rete mucosum. The so-called scales of ser- 
 pents and other reptiles are modifications of the epidermis, 
 and are sometimes termed " scutes." Fishes have been 
 classified according to the structure of their scales. See the 
 words Ctenoid, Cycloid, Ganoid, Placoid. 
 
 SCALE'NE. (Gr. <sKu\nvoi.) In Geometry, a scalene 
 triangle is a triangle of which the three sides are unequal. 
 A cone or cylinder is also said to be scalene if its axis is in- 
 clined to its base ; but in this case the term oblique is more 
 frequently used. 
 
 SCALE'NUS. A muscle of the neck, situated between 
 the transverse processes of the cervical vertebra; and the 
 upper part of the neck. 
 SCALPEL. (Lat. scalpare. to carve.) A dissecting knife. 
 SCALPRFM. (Lat. a knife.) Li Mammalogy, the cut- 
 ting edge of the incisor teeth. 
 
 SCA'MMONY, in Pharmacy, is the gum-resin of the 
 Convolvulus scammonea, chiefly imported from Aleppo 
 and Smyrna in packages, called drums, weighing about 100 
 pounds each. It is of a dark olive colour, and when wetted 
 and rubbed should easily form a milky solution ; it is very 
 apt to be adulterated, and an article entirely fictitious is 
 often sold under the name of scammony. Scammony is an 
 excellent drastic purge, and is generally administered in com- 
 bination with other purgatives in doses of three or four grains. 
 BCA'NDALUM MAGNA'TTJM. In Law, an action 
 which still lies, although for a long period it has never been 
 resorted to, on the stat. 2 Ric. 2, stat. 1, c. 5., and statute of 
 Westminster the First, 3 E. 1, c. 31, for words spoken in 
 derogation of a peer, a judge, or other great officer of the 
 realm ; which need not be such as would be actionable at 
 common law in the case of a private person. "The Duke 
 of Richmond v. Castellow," in the eighth year of Queen 
 Anne, seems to have been the last instance of this species 
 of action. 
 
 SCANSO'RIALS, Scansores. (Lat. scando, / climb.) 
 Climbing birds. The name of an order of birds, including 
 those which have the toes arranged in pairs, two before 
 and two behind ; a conformation of the foot which is ad- 
 mirably adapted for the act of climbing. 
 
 SCANT. In Naval language, the term applied to the 
 wind when it is barely fair. 
 
 SCANTLING. (Fr. echantillon.) In Architecture, the 
 measures of breadth and thickness of a piece of timber or 
 other material. It is also the name of a piece of timber 
 When under live inches square. 
 
 Scantling. In Naval Architecture, the scale or dimen- 
 sions of the breadth and thickness of the timbers. Thus 
 two ships of different sizes may have the same scantling. 
 
 SCA'PE. In Botany, a peduncle, which, in plants desti- 
 tute of a stem, rises above the ground and supports the flowers 
 upon its apex, as in cowslip. Also a synonym of Siaprllus. 
 SCAPEMENT, or ESCAPEMENT. See Horology. 
 SCAPIUTE. {GT.<TKu(p>i,aboat.) A genus of elliptical- 
 chambered shells, belonging to the family of Ammonites, 
 having the inner extremity coiled up in whorls embracing 
 one another, and the outer extremity continued nearly in 
 a horizontal plane, and then folded hick, so as sometimes 
 to touch the spire of the opposite end of the shell. The 
 transverse plates are numerous, and are pierced by a mar- 
 ginal siphuncle at the back of the shell, and their edges 
 are deeply cut a nil folia ted. These beautiful shells, which 
 thus resemble Ihe ancient form of a boat, are almost pecu- 
 liar to the chalk formation. 
 
 BCA'POLITE. A mineral, originally from Arendahl in 
 Norway, the crystals of which are often collected in groups 
 of parallel, diverging, or intermingled prisms; hence its 
 name, from memos, a rod, and AiOoc, a stone. 
 
 SCA'PULA. (I, at. the shoulder.) In Comparative Ana- 
 tomy, the bone which passes from the shoulder joint in ft 
 
 direction towards the vertebra] column, li is broad and 
 
 flat, generally triangular, sometimes suliqiiailrilateral, in 
 
 the Mammalia; ni w, and commonly Babre-shaped, In 
 
 birds ; narrow and straight in Saurian reptiles ; a round,
 
 SCAPULARS. 
 
 strong, and straight column, in Chelonian reptiles ; va- 
 riously shaped, and articulated to the back of the skull in 
 most fishes. 
 
 SCAPULARS, or SCAPULAR FEATHERS, in Orni- 
 thology, are those which take their origin from the shoulders 
 and cover the sides of the back. 
 
 SC A'PULARY. A portion of the dress of the monastic 
 orders, consisting of two bands of woollen stuff, of which 
 the one crosses the back or shoulders, and the other the 
 stomach. According to the Abbe Fleury (JJaurs des 
 Chretiens), the scapulary originated with St. Benedict, and 
 was a large and heavy covering of the shoulders, worn by 
 the early monks in their rural labours for the convenience 
 of carrying loads, and to protect the tunic. Simon Stock, 
 an Englishman, general of the Carmelites in the 13th cen- 
 tury, first introduced, under the authority of a vision, the 
 notion that the scapulary is an especial sign of devotion to 
 the Virgin Mary. Since that time it has been not an un- 
 common superstition, that whoever dies wearing it, is sure 
 of salvation. The scapulary of lay persons consists of two 
 little pieces of stuff on which the name of the Virgin is 
 embroidered. 
 
 SCA'PUS. (Lat. a stalk.) In Ornithology, the stem or 
 trunk of a feather, including the hollow base or quill, 
 "calamus," which is inserted into the skin, and the solid 
 exserted stem supporting the barbs, or "rachis." 
 
 Scapus. In Architecture, the same as the shaft of a 
 column, which see. 
 
 SCARABjE'IDAXS. Scarabeidm. (Lat. scaralxeus, a 
 beetle.) The name of a family of Coleopterous insects, of 
 which the genus Scarabteus is the type ; it corresponds with 
 the great tribe of Lamellicorns. See that word. 
 
 SCARAB.E'US. In Antiquities. The use and meaning 
 of the scarabsus, as a symbol, are, as yet, among the mys- 
 teries of archajological science. The Egyptians, It is said, 
 found in it an emblem of the world instinct with the seeds 
 of life ; because the kind of beede represented by it forms 
 a ball of earth in which to deposit its eggs. It is also 
 called a type of the sun. However this may be. it was 
 habitually worn by the ancient Egyptians and Etrurians as 
 an amulet. According to Mrs. Hamilton Gray {Tour to 
 the Sepulchres of Etruria, 1840j, several different styles of 
 the scarabsus are traceable. The ancient Egyptian scara- 
 bieus was plain, or inscribed with characters : and was 
 made of opaque stone, basalt, or porphyry. The Etrurian 
 scaraba;us (found in quantities in the sepulchres) was of 
 gemitransparent stone, cornelian, onyx, sardonyx, agate, or 
 jasper. It is almost always engraved, generally with the 
 figure of a god or genius, supposed to be the chosen pro- 
 tector of the individual who wore it: sometimes with 
 whole scenes, such as the labours of Hercules, races, &.c. ; 
 sometimes with Etru-can words or names ; and occasion- 
 ally with Egyptian divinities, Isis or Horus. Lastly, the 
 modern Egyptian scarabajus of Roman times was generally 
 of precious or semi-precious stones, and rudely engraved : 
 and seems to belong to an age when the religious use of 
 the scarabaus was forgotten, and it was retained only as 
 an ornament. In the Etruscan scirabaei themselves, ac- 
 cording to the same authoress, there are three distinct 
 styles of art remarkable — the rude or native Etruscan, the 
 Grecian, and that of a period of decline. 
 
 SCA'RAMOUCH. (Ital. scaramuccia, skirmish.) A 
 personage in the old Italian Comedia dell' Arte, dressed in 
 the Spanish or Hispano-Neapolitan costume, and repre- 
 senting a military personage, a poltroon and braggadocio, 
 who always ended by receiving a beating from the hands 
 of Harlequin. The most celebrated Scaramouch of the 
 Italian theatre at Paris was Tiberio Fiurelli, a Neapolitan. 
 Who had the honour of making Louis XIV. laugh when 
 an infant ; and whose agility was such that he was able, 
 according to his biographers, to give a box on the ear with 
 his foot at the age of 80. 
 
 SCARFING. In Architecture, the formation of a beam 
 out of two pieces of timber ; usually employed when it 
 cannot be conveniently procured in one length. It is 
 usually performed by indenting the pieces where they are 
 joined to each other, and bolting them together in the op- 
 posite direction. 
 SCARFSKIN. The cuticle or epidermis. See Skin. 
 SCARLFICA'TOR. An instrument used in cupping ; it 
 consists of 10 or 12 lancets, which are discharged through 
 apertures in its plane surface by pulling a kind of trigger, 
 so that in passing they make a number of incisions in the 
 part to which the instrument is applied 
 
 SCARLATI'NA, or SCARLET FEVER. This highly 
 contagious disease assumes two forms. In the one it comes 
 on with the usual symptoms of fever, such as languor, 
 chills and heat, thirst, nausea and vomiting; and on the 
 third or fourth day a scarlet efllorescence appears upon the 
 skin, which in three or four days ends in the cuticle peeling 
 off in branny scales : the febrile symptoms and soreness of 
 the throat, if any had been observed, then give wav and 
 92 v * 
 
 SCEPTICISM. 
 
 the patient gradually recovers. It is, however, not uncom- 
 monly followed by dropsical swelling of the body, which is 
 but of short continuance. In the other form of this disease 
 the febrile symptoms are at first more alarming: there is 
 bilious vomiting, great soreness and ulceration of the throat, 
 quick and small pulse, laborious breathing ; and the erup- 
 tion, instead of mitigating the symptoms, is accompanied by 
 their dangerous increase. The body becomes swollen, and 
 the nose and eyes inflamed ; the breath grows fcetid, and 
 the inflammation of the throat terminates in greyish sloughs, 
 which give it a speckled appearance. Under an aggrava- 
 tion of such symptoms, the patient is cut off; or his recovery 
 is very slow, and dropsical swellings and glandular tumours 
 follow, and leave him in a very precarious state. It occa- 
 sionally happens that the putrid symptoms run very high ; 
 the rash is livid, and accompanied by petechia? ; the breath 
 highly fcetid, the throat gangrenous; and other symptoms 
 announce a highly malignant form of the disease. 
 
 In the milder form of scarlet fever, the bowels should be 
 cleansed by saline aperients, and the patient kept in a 
 moderate temperature, as near b'0° as possible, and in a 
 clean and open room. If the throat is much affected, an 
 emetic should be given as early as possible, and the bowels 
 opened by small doses of calomel and antimoninls. When 
 the heat of the body is much above the usual standard, or 
 very distressing, sponging with cold water, judiciously re- 
 sorted to, has proved eminently useful. Acidulated gargles 
 must be used for the throat; and the dilute acids, with 
 light preparations of bark and tonics, at the decline of the 
 eruption, are required. Where the malignant symptoms 
 run high, cordial tonics, acids, wine, and the other treatment 
 of putrid fevers must be adopted. 
 
 Scarlet fever is distinguished from measles by the greater 
 extent and want of elevation of the eruption, and by its not 
 congregating into semilunar patches ; nor is there the cough, 
 and running from the eyes and nose, which usher in the 
 measles. It seizes those of all ages, but children and young 
 persons are most subject to it ; and it appears at all seasons 
 of the year, but in autumn is often epidemic. It may attack 
 the same person more than once. 
 
 EM ' A RP. In Fortification, the interior slope of the ditch. 
 See Escarp. 
 
 SCE'LIDES. (Gr. oki\oc, a leg;.) In Mammalogy, the 
 lower, posterior, or pelvic extremities. 
 
 SCENE. In Dramatic Literature (from the Gr. axfvTj, 
 arbour), dramatic representations, having, it is supposed, 
 originally taken place on spots of ground shaded with 
 boughs of trees. The imaginary place in which the action 
 of the play is supposed to pass ; also a division of a drama : 
 properly speaking, whenever the action changes to a new 
 scene or place. But in the French theatre, and those 
 framed on its model (in which unity of place is observed), 
 every entry of an actor constitutes a new scene. On the 
 English stage, the subdivi:-ion called a scene is extremely 
 arbitrary ; the scenes in most plays being far more numerous 
 than the actual changes of scene, while at the same time 
 the French rule is not observed, and actors enter in ihe 
 middle of a scene. The scenes in a play are numbered at 
 subdivisions of the act. See Act. 
 
 SCENE PAINTING. A department of the art of paint- 
 ing governed by the laws of perspective, applied to the 
 peculiar exigencies of a theatre. It is conducted chiefly 
 in water colours, and admits of the most striking effects, 
 which indeed, in scene painting, is almost all that is re- 
 quired. 
 
 SCENERY. The appearance of a place or of objects, or 
 the representation of a spot wherein an action is performed. 
 See Landsc APE. 
 
 SCEPTICISM. (Gr. cicnTTOuai, I examine.) In the 
 History of Philosophy, a name given to that tendency of 
 thought or system of doctrines the object of which is, by 
 denying the existence of all grounds of knowledge, to intro- 
 duce universal doubt and suspension of assent. Schools of 
 scepticbm have existed at several different periods in the 
 progress of philosophical inquiry. The first who received 
 or adopted the name was Pyrrho, a contemporary of Alex- 
 ander the Great, and his successors, who taught in Athens 
 about the year 300 B.C. Our chief notices of his opinions 
 are derived from the writings, in verse, of his disciple Timon, 
 preserved to us by Sextus Empiricus. He was led to his 
 sceptical views partly by the contradictions observable in 
 the impressions on our senses, and partly by the incompati- 
 bility of the principles of different schools with each other. 
 To a cmplete suspension of judgment in speculation Cnrn-xf)) 
 he united a corresponding state of indifference in feeling 
 (ampalia), and made virtue and happiness to ensist in the 
 absence of mental perturbation. Either he or his scholars 
 endeavoured to present a synopsis of their sceptical views 
 in ten general forms, or commonplaces, all of which, how- 
 ever, may be included in one or other of the two sources 
 of doubt mentioned above. 
 
 The school of Pyrrho seems to have expired with his dis- 
 
 1093
 
 SCEPTRE. 
 
 ciple Timon ; though many of his views were espoused 
 and maintained by the later academy. (See Academics.) 
 About the middle of the third century of the Christian Bra, 
 we meet with a school to which the name of the later scep- 
 tics has been assigned. This sect seems to have originated 
 with one fnesidemus, a physician. It was, in tact, a 
 school of physicians, who, in opposition to the Methodic 
 sect, adopted a strictly empirical mode of treatment, and 
 sought in sceptical considerations a justification of their 
 practice. The (.'rounds of this scepticism have been re- 
 corded by Sextus Empiricus. It regarded not so much the 
 validity of the notices given by the senses (to which their 
 empirical method imposed 00 them a necessity of yielding 
 their assent), as the general form and method of science. 
 Syllogism they regarded as utterly void, inasmuch as the 
 Conclusion must have been contained in the induction on 
 which the major proposition was founded. Perfect Induc- 
 tion was impossible; imperfect was unsatisfactory. They 
 also attacked, with considerable Muteness, the received 
 doctrines of cause and effect, and of the nature of God ; 
 chiefly in opposition to the Stoics, the most dogmatical of 
 the ancient sects. Their morality, like their speculative 
 creed, was a system of mere sensualism. This school may 
 be considered as the last purely Grecian sect. After them 
 an oriental element was introduced into philosophy, which 
 materially altered its character and bearing. The most 
 celebrated sceptics of modern times are, Montaigne (A.I). 
 1580) ; Glanville, tin Englishman, who flourished about the 
 period of the Restoration ; Bayle, and Hume. Of these 
 Mr. Hume has the merit of producing the most systematic 
 and comprehensive scheme of scepticism the world has yet 
 seen. According to this philosopher, all the objects of con- 
 sciousness may be reduced to two classes — 1, the impres- 
 sions on the senses; and 2, ideas, or copies of those im- 
 pressions, which differ from ihcir originals only in being less 
 vivid. All knowledge, save that of mathematical relations, 
 consists in the arrangement of these impressions according 
 to the order of their succession. Of the connexion between 
 any two links of this succession we know nothing; that to 
 Which we give the name of causation being, in fact, nothing 
 more than habitual sequence relatively to the phenomena, 
 and custom, or often repeated association, in relation to 
 ourselves. All inquiry into things in themselves, or their 
 grounds — in other words, all metaphysical speculation, is 
 consequently founded on delusion. The writings of David 
 Hume, which contain his sceptical speculations, are his 
 Treatise on Human Nature, and the early part of the second 
 volume of his Essays, (See Bitter, book x., ch. 1.) 
 
 SG'E'ITRE. (ilr. oici)-Tpn\ a stuff to lean on.) A well- 
 known emblem of sovereignty. Achilles, as is well known, 
 BWears by his staff' or sceptre in the first book of the Iliad. 
 Tarquin, the elder, first assumed the sceptre among the 
 Romans. According to Justin, it was originally a spear. 
 The sceptre of the Merovingian kings, as represented on 
 monuments, is a rod, probably of metal, of the height of the 
 bearer, and slightly curved like a crosier. 
 
 SGH AA'l.S'l'ElN. A mineralogical synonym of table spar 
 (tafel-spath of the Germans). It occurs in grey laminated 
 masses or concretions, chiefly at Bognatscha in the Bannat. 
 SCHEELE'S GREEN. A green pigment obtained by 
 mixing arsenite of potassa with sulphate of copper, it is 
 an arsenite of copper. 
 
 BCHEE'iitUM. A name sometimes applied to tungsten, 
 in honour oi Scheele, who discovered it. 
 
 BCHELLING, THE PHILOSOPHY OF, teaches the 
 identity or indifference of the ideal and real. Its author, 
 Frederick Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling, was born January 
 S27lh, 17;.">. and studied successively at Tubingen, Leipzig, 
 and Jena. In the latter place, he was a pupil of Fichte. 
 Bchelling lived nil recently at Munich, under the patronage 
 of the King of Bavari i, who ennobled him, and advanced 
 him to the dignity ofgeheime rath, or privy councillor; but 
 he has within the last few months accepted of an invita- 
 tion from the Prussian monarch to reside at Berlin, where 
 
 his lectures are said to excite the most lively interest among 
 the Prussian literati. 
 
 It is extremelj difficult to understand the true import 
 
 and significant') 1 of any particular system of philosophy, if 
 
 ulered in itself, and apart from its connexion with 
 
 the general history of philosophy, which, from its earliest 
 origin to its latest development, will be found to constitute 
 
 a Close and compact whole. This general truth is particu- 
 larly applicable tO the philosophical development of <;er- 
 m any. the unity of u hose literary pursuits seems to supply 
 the want of a true political unity. The concatenation of 
 views and opinions, from Leibnitz and Spmosa to the 
 philosophers ol the present day. Is easily traceable ; but it 
 will be sufficient for the elucidation of Schelling's philoso- 
 phy 10 begin with the critical theory of Kant. The tran- 
 scendental idealism of ihis philosopher formed the transition 
 
 from the empiricism of the eighteenth century, and effected, 
 
 m il were, a compromise between the scepticism of Hume 
 1094 
 
 SCHELLING, PHILOSOPHY OF. 
 
 and the realism which it succeeded to. Without denying 
 or asserting the existence of a material world, Kant was 
 content with confessing an ignorance at all events of its 
 nature. He taught that all that man can know of outward 
 objects is, that they furnish the material ground of his con- 
 ceptions ; to which the mind furnishes, on its part, the 
 form, in congruity with its original and connatural laws. 
 Of things themselves, or, as Kant calls ihem. of phenomena, 
 man absolutely knows nothing; all that he can do is to 
 note the modes under which they appear to hiin. But 
 while the criticism of the pure reason seemed to lead to a 
 speculative idealism, that of the practical reason appeared 
 to possess a mystical tendency. The principles of the lat- 
 ter work may thus be summed up: A consideration of the 
 exigencies of man's moral nature enforces the validity of 
 those ideas of (owl, immortality, and a future state of retri- 
 bution, which the speculative reason does indeed project, 
 but cannot legitimate. The latter tendency of the Kantian 
 philosophy was worked out by Hainan and Herder, but 
 found its culminating point in Jacobi's Philosophy of Faith 
 (Glaubm's Philosophic), which had many adherents in 
 Germany, and extensively influenced the prevailing ideas 
 of philosophy. According to Jacohi, the end and aim of 
 true philosophy is a knowledge of God. Now, the pursuit 
 of this object must set out from feeing and intuition, for 
 there is no speculative method which can give a demon- 
 stration of God ; for God is infinite, but the understanding 
 finite ; and all mediate knowledge by reasoning, which is a 
 procedure of the intellect, cannot attain to the infinite. 
 Reasoning, moreover, cannot do more than establish the 
 correspondence of certain identical propositions from which 
 it passes, step by step, and on the presumption of whose 
 truth it proceeds. The element, therefore, of all human 
 knowledge is faith ; an original instinct of man's nature, 
 which immediately reveals to him the divine; and, in spite 
 of any suspicions of the validity of sensuous testimony, 
 enforces a belief in the existence of an external world. 
 The philosophical merits of Jacobi consist in this, that he 
 did not, with Kant, regard God as a mere abstraction, but 
 as a living spirit, whose presence is manifest within man 
 himself; and further, in the way that he insisted on the 
 validity of the immediate perceptions of consciousness, in 
 opposition to the absolute authority of the finite understand- 
 ing. However, true philosophical science cannot admit of 
 any such contrariety of intellect and feeling; and to estab- 
 lish their identity, or at least to combine them in unison, 
 was the problem which Fichte attempted to solve. But 
 the predominant character of the hitter's philosophy lies in 
 the way in which he carried, to its extreme result, the 
 idealistic tendency of Kant. In the llissmsrh iftslekre wo 
 have a system of pure and absolute idealism. The exist- 
 ence of a material world is here denied unconditionally ; 
 the real exists only so far as it is necessarily conceived by 
 us; so that the external world is purely a creation of our 
 conceptions, and the real is a product of the ideal. To use 
 the language of Fichte, the ego is absolute, and posits itself; 
 it is a pure activity. As its activity, however, has certain 
 indefinable limi's, when it experiences this limitation of 
 its activity it also posits a non-ego, and so originates the 
 objective world. The ego, therefore, cannot posit itself 
 without at the same time projecting a non-ego ; which, 
 consequently, is in so far the mere creation of the ego. 
 With the mediate knowledge of reflection, by which Fichte 
 attained to this speculative result, he combined for practical 
 ends the authority of immediate consciousness. As, he 
 argued, it is from the impulse of the ego to activity that 
 the non ego arises, the absolute ego is also in the same rela- 
 tion to the intelligent ego as a cause is to its effect. But 
 although the absolute practical ego is absolutely free, and 
 the sole principle of al. reality, so as to posit the world in 
 opposition to itself, and to be its cause, it has, nevertheless, 
 a subjective limit to its operation. This is the idea of duty 
 which the consciousness immediately announces to man as 
 an unconditional authority and obligation; which, however, 
 is not subversive of the freedom of the ego, but is simply an 
 impulsive motive to its activity. Now. so far as the eco 
 attempts to realize this duty, it tends to a moral order. He 
 who does his utmost to establish this moral order, comes 
 near to the Deity, and enters upon his true and proper life. 
 Such was the point to which speculation bad attained 
 when Bchelling appeared as a philosophical writer. The 
 subjective thought bad been male the supreme and only 
 principle, before which all objective entity was driven into 
 the back ground; and the subjectivity of the idea was the 
 only real existence acknowledged. For this subjective 
 Idealism Bchelling, however, did but substitute an objective 
 
 Idealism, by giving objectivity to the idea itself, aid decla- 
 ring every entity to be also rational thought Kant had 
 spoken of the objective as unkaowable; Fichte had denied 
 
 in existence; and Bchelling identified the ideal and the 
 
 real. Fichte had confined himself to giving a derivation of 
 nature and its laws out of an absolute and spontaneous ac-
 
 SCHELLING, PHILOSOPHY OF. 
 
 tivity of the ego. Schelling maintained that not only must 
 the laws of consciousness be immediately cognizable in the 
 objective world, as laws of nature ; but conversely, also, 
 the laws of nature must be immediately demonstrable in 
 the consciousness as laws of the subjective. Man finds 
 himself in nature, and nature in himself. Besides Fichte's 
 method, therefore, of descending from the ego, Schelling 
 held it to be necessary to ascend from nature up to ego. 
 The former method is given in his transcendental philoso- 
 phy, the latter in the nature-philosophy, which make up 
 his system of identity. The general principles of this sys- 
 tem are as follows : That true and perfect science, which it 
 has always been the object of philosophy to realize, must 
 be one which has its authority in itself, embraces all things, 
 and is perfectly correspondent to its object ; for truth is im- 
 possible without a perfect agreement of the knowing and 
 the known. Now, as all philosophy must proceed on the 
 assumption that the cognizant mind is capable of true cog- 
 nition, it follows that the knowing subject cannot, in its es- 
 sence, be opposed to the subject known ; and that, con- 
 sequently, it must be possible to know the real essence of 
 things. The essence, therefore, of that which thinks and 
 that which exists, of thought and entity, soul and body, is 
 one and the same. By means of this essential oneness, or, 
 in the terminology of Schelling, of this absolute identity and 
 indifference of thought and being, the ideal and real, and in 
 consequence of the mind being, in substance at least, ho- 
 mogeneous with things without it, the former is capable of 
 representing in cognition the latter, such as they are in 
 truth and in their essence. The knowledge thus gained is 
 a pure intellectual intuition ; it is not mere reflection, which, 
 by its nature, cannot go beyond its data. Rising above phe- 
 nomena to the ideas of the absolute, which is their identi- 
 cal origin, it is able to apprehend the essence of things. 
 However, it is by reflection that man becomes conscious of 
 these ideas through the aid of the senses ; and this art of 
 unfolding ideas by reflection constitutes Dialectics. One of 
 the duties of this ait is to trace the identical principle in its 
 regular development, and to determine every branch of 
 knowledge, in relation not only to the fundamental idea of 
 the truth, but also to the cognate sciences. The true meth- 
 od of philosophy is the method of construction, and without 
 it no safe step can be taken in speculative science. This 
 method is to become fully conscious of the laws of mind, 
 which are inherent in it ; and, agreeably to them, to shape 
 every special science conformably to the existence of 
 things. By such a method philosophical science is possi- 
 ble ; and this is a science of the existent agreeably to the 
 ideas ( H'issenschaft von ideen) ; that is, a science of God, 
 and of his relation to the world, and of man and nature. 
 According to the nature-philosophy, the Absolute, or God, is 
 both thought and entity, without either unity or dilference, 
 out of which all contrariety has proceeded, and into which 
 it will again return. As the Absolute is the sole and eter- 
 nal essence of all things, every true entity, and therefore 
 nature also, is divine, without a participation in which there 
 can be no existence. In the eternal generation of things, 
 the Absolute has revealed itself in infinite ways in space 
 and time. This revelation is a living development of the 
 infinite according to certain contraries of the subjective and 
 the objective, the ideal and the real. These contraries 
 strive to combine together in different proportions, and so 
 acquire different names, according to the varying prepon- 
 derance or polarity of the ideal and real. Things, conse- 
 quently, are not different in their essence, but merely quan- 
 titatively, or in degree. The preponderance of the objective 
 constitutes unconscious nature ; that of the subjective is 
 spirit. The more complete the combination of these con- 
 traries, the more perfect are the objects. The most perfect 
 union of them, or their absolute indifference, is found in the 
 universe; and this complete identification and reunion of 
 them is the full revelation of God. Man, lastly, is a copy 
 of the universe (microcosm), in so far as, in a manner of 
 his own, he unites together the ideal and the real. 
 
 The philosophy of Schelling appears, then, to be directly 
 opposed to that of Kant, from which, however, it is direct- 
 ly descended, not only in the nature of the knowledge 
 which it assumes to be possible, but also with respect to 
 the objects of that knowledge. In its essence it pretends to 
 give a true image of the object known, and embraces, there- 
 fore, both nature and the world of man and spirits. In its 
 method of exposition, also, it pretends to imitate the true 
 course of the development of nature, in which everything 
 passes by coherent and successive steps (or powers, 
 A, A', A 2 , &c.) from the undeveloped to the developed and 
 perfect ; and, beginning from the lowest grades of entity, 
 passes to its higher developments. 
 
 Such is an outline of the system of Identity, as propound- 
 ed by Schelling upwards of thirty years ago, and which 
 has exercised so imporiant an influence on the mind of 
 Germany. There is, however, good reason to believe that 
 the opinions of its author have been materially modified in 
 
 SCHIRRUS. 
 
 the interval ; and though, influenced by some singular feel- 
 ing of reserve, which may, in fact, be said to have charac- 
 terized him throughout life, Schelling has hitherto refrained 
 from embodying his new views in any distinct or tangible 
 form, yet the unaccountable leniency with which he treats 
 his opponents in the celebrated Vorrede to Beckers's trans- 
 lation of Cousin's Vorrede, and the covert but ill-concealed 
 hostility therein displayed to some of the principles on 
 which both his own system and that of Hegel are based 
 (see infra), coupled with the (unacknowledged, it is true, 
 but still sufficiently authentic) revelations of some of his 
 most distinguished pupils — all these circumstances have 
 given rise to the supposition that the long silence which he 
 has maintained towards the public will speedily be broken 
 by a recantation of his old, and his avowal of a new system. 
 This conjecture has been materially strengthened by his re- 
 cent call to Berlin ; and the rumours which have reached 
 us of the nature of his lectures leave little doubt of the fact, 
 though his present views have not been sufficiently devel- 
 oped to warrant us in hazarding an opinion respecting them. 
 
 A brief statement of the manner in which the theory of 
 Schelling was farther modified by Hegel may be well ap- 
 pended here, and will complete it as a general view of the 
 modern philosophy in Germany. In the Encyclopedia of 
 Philosophical Sciences, which Hegel published in 1817 at 
 Berlin, and designed as a mutual for the use of his class, 
 he gives a general view of his system, and clearly exhibits 
 its ultimate tendency. " Logic," he says, "is the basis of 
 ontology." The idea in itself and potentially is the pri- 
 mary substance, but in actu it pisses into the real. The 
 ideal is to be examined, 1st, subjectively, as it exists in the 
 mind ; 2d, objectively, or in other, i. e., m its outward man- 
 ifestation ; and 3d, absolutely, as it is realized in art, reli- 
 gion, and philosophy. Schelling had made triplicity in 
 unity to be the law which the principle of identity follows 
 in its outward development, and this trinary law forms also 
 a conspicuous element of the Hegelian system. Thus he 
 makes thought to be threefold : 1. Formal thought, which 
 is independent of all subject matter, or, in the language of 
 Hegel, of all contents ; 2. The notion, or thought more 
 fully determined ; 3. The idea, or thought in its totality, and 
 fully determined. The last is the concrete, which is a 
 self-developing andorganical system, containing in itself all 
 momenta or germs of farther developement. Philosophy is 
 the right evolution of this concrete, and its true method is 
 the dialectical momentum. The history of philosophy, apart 
 from its accidental media of schools and professors, is no- 
 thing less than the actual development of philosophy itself. 
 The several systems successively recorded are but so many 
 gradations of progress, and the latest system is the sum and 
 perfection of all anterior ones. Thus the theories of 
 Schelling and Hegel are essentially based on the same prin- 
 ciple ; the absolute identity of thought and being. Accord- 
 ing to the former, the mind is in full possession both of 
 truth and reality, the knowledge of which it attains by 
 self-consciousness in the intellectual intuition. For the 
 latter, Hegel substituted his dialectical tnomeiitum, or the 
 logical development of the idea. Generally, Hegel, stood 
 in the same relation to Schelling as Wolff did to Leibnitz. 
 The cold and rigorous formalism of Fichte was displaced by 
 Schelling for a loose and illogical style of political enthu- 
 siasm. Hegel, however, rightly insisted on the necessity of 
 a scientific and systematic form as an indispensable condi- 
 tion of an exact science of truth. (Michelet, Geschichte 
 der letzen Systeme der Philosophic in Deutschland ; Jncobi, 
 Brief e uber die l,ehre des Spinosa; Fichte, Vie ff'issen- 
 scha'ftslchre ; Die Bestimmung der Mcnschen ; Schelling, 
 System des trans cendentalcn Idcalismus ; Bruno, Oder uber 
 die gotliche und naturliche Princip. der Dinge ; Hegel, Phe- 
 nomenologie des Geistes ; Encyclopaedic der Philosophischen 
 Wissenschaften. For some of the more recent views at- 
 tributed to Schelling, see StahVs Philosophic des Rechts nach 
 geschichtlicher Jlnsicht, <S-c, <$•<:.) 
 
 SCHEME. (Gr. a\vita.) A plan or representation of 
 any geometrical or astronomical figure ; a diagram. 
 
 SCHE'RIF. (Arab, lord, or master.) A title given in 
 the East, by prescriptive usage, to those who descend from 
 Mohammed through his son-in-law and daughter, Ali and 
 Fatima. They are also called Emir and Seid, and have the 
 privilege of wearing the green turban. (See Emir.) The 
 chiefs of Mecca and of Medina, who are always supposed to 
 belong to this sacred family, are styled the scherifs of those 
 
 cities. , t C J c 
 
 SCHERO'MA. A dryness of the eye arising from a defi- 
 ciency in the secretion of the lachrymal glands. 
 
 SCHIAH. See Sunniah. 
 
 SCHILLER SPAR. (Germ.schillern, to change colours.) 
 A mineral of a pearly lustre and changeable hues. Horn- 
 blend and Lnbradorite are varieties of it. 
 
 SCHI'RRUS. (Gr. cxippo^) An induration of a gland, 
 forming an indolent tumour, not readily suppurating, and at 
 first unattended by discoloration of the skin.
 
 SCHISM. 
 
 SCHISM. (Gr. «r\iJiui, / cleave.) Separation from the 
 true church : of Which, as of heresy, it imy be said that 
 Christians are not agreed whether the mere act constitutes 
 the crime, or whether it is only a wilful and obstinate sep- 
 aration that deserves to l>e so denominated. The chief 
 BChisms enumerated by Roman Catholic authorities are 
 those >>t the Novatians, the Donatists, the Luciferians, the 
 Greek Church and the Protestants. The great schism of 
 tin- West in the 14th century holds also an Important place 
 in the history of the Papacy. See Astipopk. 
 
 BCHfSMA. (Gr. o\ioua.) In Music, an interval equal 
 to halt a comma; therefore eighteen of them are required 
 to make a complete tone. 
 
 SCHIST, (fir. oxioto;.) A Geological term adopted 
 from the German, and applied to the varieties of slate ; 
 hence also the term schistose rack.--, applied to those which 
 have a slaty texture. See Geology. 
 
 SUM ZOPODS. (Gr. a\t^u>, I divide, and ttouc, afoot.) 
 The tribe of long-tailed Decapod Crustaceans, including 
 those which have the legs slender and filamentous, accom- 
 panied by ;i ii external articulated branch as long as the 
 limbs, which thus appear doubled in number ; fitted for 
 swimming, and not chelil'emus, the eggs being carried be- 
 neath them, and not under the tail. The opossum-shrimps 
 (Musis) are examples of this tribe. 
 
 SCHOLARSHIP. See Bcrsars. 
 
 SCHOLA'STIC PHILOSOPHY. That method of phi- 
 losophizing which arose in the schools and universities of 
 what are commonly called the dark ages. The father of 
 the schoolmen was John Scotus Erigena, a native of Ire- 
 land, who lived in the ninth century. He first introduced 
 among his contemporaries, from what source is unknown, 
 the philosophy of Aristotle, which he combined with the 
 doctrine of the new Platonists, and out of the combination 
 constructed a complete system of Pantheism. These spec- 
 ulations were at first regarded by the church with an evil 
 eye; nor was it before the expiration of the following cen- 
 tury that they were applied to the purpose of explaining 
 and supporting the leading facts of Christianity. It was 
 probably the necessity which was felt of combating heretics 
 with their own weapons, that caused the universal adoption 
 of the Aristotelian philosophy by the great religious author- 
 ities of the day. It is at any rate certain, that the subtlety 
 and ingenuity of the early schoolmen were confined to the 
 task of constructing a scientific basis for the doctrines of 
 the church out of the materials afforded by that system. 
 The scholastic philosophy may be said to have expired with 
 the conclusion of the 14th century, at least as to its influ- 
 ence on the leading minds of the age. Four distinct periods 
 have been observed in the course of its development ; the first 
 beginning with its earliest commencement, and including 
 the names of Berengarius, and Archbishops Lanfranc, An- 
 selm, and Hildebert. The second era commences with the 
 rise of the sect of Nominalists, the founder of whom was 
 Johannes Roscellinus, and their most distinguished member 
 the celebrated Peter Abelard. The third period is marked 
 by the introduction into Europe of the writings of the Ara- 
 bian philosophers, and the translation into Latin of the ver- 
 sions of Aristotle's writings, with the complete ascendency 
 of realism (which see), and the now undisputed supremacy 
 of Aristotle. The greatest names in this period, which em- 
 braces nearly all the thirteenth century are those of Alter- 
 tus Magnus, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus, with the 
 respective followers of the two latter, the Thomists and 
 SrutiMs. The glaring realism of Scotus roused the inde- 
 pendent spirit of an Englishman, William of Ockam, to a 
 closer investigation of the internal conditions of thought, 
 and in him led to what may be considered a transition 
 state between the formation of the old schoolmen and the 
 tendency towards nature and experience which distinguish- 
 es modern speculations. The acuteness of this man restored 
 the victory to the Nominalists. His nominalism, however, 
 differed from that of Roscellinus and Abelard in the admis- 
 sion that " universale" have a foundation of reality in the 
 subjective conditions of the intellect, though not an out- 
 ward nature; whereas, according to the former, a general 
 term was a name only — a "flatus vocis." An excellent ac- 
 count of the leading principles of the scholastic philosophy, 
 and the mode of its combination with the Catholic doc- 
 trines, is to be found in Dr. Hampden's Bamptotl Lectures 
 (Oxford, lH:t:t), The learned author, however, does not 
 sufficiently explain the points in which the scholastic no- 
 tion of Aristotle's philosophy deviates from the genuine doc- 
 trines of that profound thinker, especially with regard to 
 tin- doctrine of emanation, B purely oriental dogma, grafted 
 on the Grecian philosophy of the new Platonists of the 
 Latin empire. (See Tennemann's Geschichte dcr I'hitoso- 
 phie.) 
 
 The scholastic theology, to adopt the definition of Mr. 
 
 Hal lam ' Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 
 
 With, ami \'lh Centuries . was, " In its general principle, an 
 
 alliance between faith and reason ; an endeavour to arrange 
 
 lutMi 
 
 SCHOOLS, NORMAL. 
 
 ! the orthodox system of the church, such as authority had 
 made it, according to the rules and methods of the Aiisto- 
 telian dialectics, and sometimes upon premises supplied by 
 metaphysical reasoning." The scholastic philosophy, ac- 
 cording to the s ime author, " seems chiefly to be distin- 
 guished from this theology by a larger infusion of meta- 
 physical reasoning, or by its occasional inquiries into sub- 
 jects not immedj itely related to revealed articles of faith. 
 There can be no doubt that the sudden rise and expansion 
 
 i of the scholastic method was favourable to the growth of 
 mental vigour and illumination ; since it substituted rigid 
 reasoning, although on premises for the most part fanciful, 
 for that mere acquiescence in authority which had distin- 
 guished the theology and the scanty remnant of philosophy 
 
 I which subsisted in the ages immediately preceding. France, 
 Germany, England, and at one period Spain, were the prin- 
 cipal seats of the scholastic controversies: in Italy they had 
 less influence. Our own island has indeed the honour of 
 having produced an unusual proportion of the chief names 
 in this department of literature. The best known among 
 these are Duns Scotus, before mentioned ; aod William 
 Ocknm, one of the last of the distinguished schoolmen who 
 flourished in the 14th century. In the 14th century, the di- 
 alectical method of the schools was applied by some 
 learned legists to the science of jurisprudence. Bartolus 
 and Baldus have the highest reputation among the scho- 
 lastic jurists. 
 
 SCHOLIASTS. (Gr. <T X n^v, leisure.) The name given 
 to the old grammarians, or critics, who used to write anno- 
 tations on the margin of the manuscripts of the classical 
 authors of antiquity, called scholia ; the fruits, as it were, 
 of leisure. 
 
 SCHO'LIUM. (lint.) In Geometry, an explanatory ob- 
 servation, or excursive remark, on the nature and applica- 
 tion of a train of reasoning. 
 
 SCHOOLS, FREE AND ENDOWED. Free schools are 
 such as afford a gratuitous, or nearly gratuitous education, 
 to the children of the place, from whatever source the funds 
 be derived ; endowed schools, those of which the funds 
 arise out of royal or private endowment. The greater por- 
 tion of these, in England, are also grammar schools ; viz., 
 schools in which elementary education in the classical lan- 
 guages is afforded, according to the intentions of the foun- 
 der. A few among these have acquired, in popular phra- 
 seology, the designation of public schools. Most of these 
 schools were founded or endowed in the century and hnlf 
 following the Reformation. Nearly 500 are described by 
 Mr. Carlisle in his work on these institutions. 
 
 SCHOOLS, INFANT, are said to owe their origin to Mr. 
 Robert Owen of New Lanark. They have now been in 
 operation since the year 1820. Their number is roughly es- 
 timated at 150 in England, 70 in Scotland, and 50 in Ireland, 
 each school having on an average about 100 scholars, gen- 
 : 1 1 1 v between two and seven years of age. 
 
 SCHOOLS, NATIONAL. After public attention had 
 been drawn to the advantages of Dr. Bell's system of mutual 
 instruction in schools, chiefly through the activity of Mr. 
 Lancaster, two societies were formed in England for carry- 
 ing it into general operation. The British and Foreign 
 School Society was founded by Dissenters in 1805 ; the Na- 
 tional Society, by members of the establishment, a few 
 years later. The instruction of the former, in religion, is 
 confined to those points in which all are agreed ■ that of 
 the latter is founded on the liturgy and catechism of the 
 established church. The schools of these two societies are 
 now extensively spread over the face of the kingdom. The 
 education given by them is nearly gratuitous, hut certain 
 small payments are in some cases exacted. Mr. Hill, in his 
 work on the state of education in England, estimates the 
 children attending schools of the former union at 60.000 or 
 B0,000, and those of the National Schools at about 170,000; 
 but these calculations seem to be founded chiefly on proba- 
 bilities. The same writer estimates the average length of 
 education in these schools at about two years for each 
 child. Reading, writing, and arithmetic, with religious 
 knowledge according to the principles of the respective in- 
 stitutions, form the amount of education generally given ; 
 but in some schools geography, and even the elements of 
 geometry, are taught : and attempts have been made to 
 add instruction in various branches of manual industry. 
 Bach society has a model school, and establishment for 
 training teachers. That of the HiitUi and Foreign is in 
 the Borough Road: the principal ons of the National in the 
 
 Sanctuary. Westminster ; but it has others in different places. 
 
 BCHOOL8, NORMAL. Sd is foi the education of 
 
 persons Intended to become schoolmasters, teachers, or pro- 
 fessors in any line. Normal schools form a regular put of 
 the establishments i'>r education in many Continental states, 
 
 especiallj in Germany. The normal school of Paris was 
 suppressed in 1821, but revived a few years afterwards un- 
 der the name of preparatory school, and has now (since the 
 event of ldJO; resumed its original title.
 
 SCHOOLS OF ART. 
 
 SCHOOLS OF ART. See these under the heads Dutch 
 School, Flemish School, &c. 
 
 SCHOOLS, PUBLIC. This is a name of not very defi- 
 nite application, by which a certain number of schools are 
 designated, conferring a classical education, having on the 
 average a larger number of boys, and frequented by the 
 children of persons of rank and wealth. The principal are, 
 1. The three colleges, two of royal and one of private 
 foundation, Eton, Winchester, and Westminster. 2. Some 
 or all of the great metropolitan endowed schools, Charter- 
 House, St. Paul's, Merchant Tailors', Christ's Hospital (al- 
 though the last is no longer frequented except by children 
 of the less wealthy classes). 3. Certain endowed grammar- 
 schools in the country, raised by fashion and old reputation 
 to the rank of public— Harrow, Rugby, Shrewsbury, and 
 perhaps two or three more ; but here the designation be- 
 comes extremelv arbitrary. 
 
 SCHOOLS, SCOTTISH PAROCHIAL. In the reign of 
 James IV. (1494), the Scottish legislature enacted that all 
 barons and substantial freeholders should send their children 
 to school fraui the age of six to nine years, and afterwards 
 to the academical institutions. But it was not until 1615 
 that the foundations of the present system were laid by an 
 act empowering the bishops, together with a majority of the 
 landlords, or " heritors," to establish schools in every parish. 
 In 1 696, by another statute, the establishment of such schools 
 was directed. The appointment of the schoolmaster was 
 vested in the heritors and minister ; the burden of the ex- 
 pense of erecting the school and a dwelling-house for the 
 master, and paying to the latter a salary of not less than 
 £5 lis. Id., nor more than j£11 2s. -2d. per ann., being sup- 
 ported by the former. The general supervison of the schools 
 was intrusted to the presbyteries in which they were situ- 
 ated. Besides the salary (which has been raised to a maxi- 
 mum of £34 4s. i^d., and minimum of £25 13s. 3j</.), the 
 master is supported by trifling fees from the scholars. Read- 
 ing, writing, and arithmetic, some of the branches of prac- 
 tical mathematics in ordinary use, and even a slight amount 
 of classical learning, have been usually taught in these 
 parish schools. Such is a short outline of the system, of the 
 results of which, in the general education and morality of 
 the poorer classes, Scotland has been so justly proud. 
 
 SCHOOLS, SUNDAY. First set on fool by Mr. Robert 
 Raikes of Cloucester. According to Mr. Hill, in his recent 
 work on national education, the number of children at 
 present frequenting Sunday schools varies from 800,000 to 
 900,000. The average length of a Sunday school education 
 he estimates at four years; the education given is almost 
 uniformly confined to reading alone ; but many Sunday 
 schools appear to have evening schools connected with 
 them, open two or three times a week, in which writing 
 and arithmetic are taught. 
 
 SCHOO.XER. A small sharp-built vessel, with two 
 masts of considerable length and rake, with small topmasts, 
 and fore and aft sails. A schooner carries a square fore top 
 sail and topgallant sail. 
 
 SCHORL. (Swed. scorl, brittle.) A mineral usually oc- 
 curring in black prismatic crystals ; it is brittle, and has 
 much lustre, and becomes electric by heat and friction. See 
 Tourmaline. 
 
 SCLE-S'OI'DS, Scitcnoides. The name of a family of 
 Acanthopterygian fishes, of which the genus Sciama is the 
 type. This family is nearly allied to the Percoids; but 
 both the vomer and palatine bones are without teeth ; the 
 bones of the head are generally cavernous, and the muzzle 
 more or less enlarged and obtuse. 
 
 SCIATICA (Gr. toxtov, the hip.) A rheumatic aflec- 
 tion of the hip joint. 
 
 SCI'EN'CE (Lat. scientia), in its most comprehensive 
 sense, is applied to the knowledge of many, methodically di- 
 gested and arranged so as to become attainable by one. 
 The knowledge of reasons and their concisions constitute 
 abstract, that of causes and effects and of the laws of nature 
 natural science. The term science is, however, more parti- 
 cularly used in contradistinction to art and literature. As 
 distinguished from the former, a science is " a body of 
 truths, the common principles of which are supposed to be 
 known and separated, so that the individual truths, even 
 though some or all may be clear in themselves, have a 
 guarantee that they could have been discovered and known, 
 either with certainty or with such probability as the subject 
 admits of, by other means than their own evidence." (See 
 Art.) As distinguished from literature, science is applied 
 to any branch of knowledge which is made the subject of 
 investigation with a view to discover and apply first princi- 
 ples. (See Literature.) The various sciences will be 
 found under their particular heads. 
 
 SCI'LLITIN. The bitter principle of the squill (the bulb 
 of the Scilla maritima), to which its medical properties of 
 an expectorant and diuretic are referable. It is a white sub- 
 stance, of a resinous appearance. 
 
 SCIN'COI'DS, Scincoides. A family of Saurian reptiles, 
 
 SCOT. 
 
 of which the genus Scincus is the type. They have short 
 feet, a non-extensible tongue ; the body and tail are covered 
 with equal scales like tiles; they have no impressed lateral 
 line, and the toes are margined. 
 
 SCLNTILLA'TION. (Lat. scintilla, a spark.) In As- 
 tronomy, the term applied to the twinkling or tremulous 
 motion of the light of the larger fixed stars; by which they 
 appear as if the rays of light coining from them were not 
 continuous, but produced by particles succeeding each other 
 at intervals with a sort of vibratory movement. The plan- 
 ets, excepting, perhaps, Venus sometimes, have not this 
 twinkling appearance ; and they are th is readily distinguish- 
 ed from stars of the first magnitude. It arises from the ex- 
 treme smallness of the apparent diameters of the fixed stars, 
 and depends in some measure on the state of the atmo- 
 sphere. In countries where the atmosphere is very pure 
 and dry, and at considerable altitudes, the scintillation is ob- 
 served to be much diminished, and the stars shine with a 
 steady, clear light. 
 
 SCIO'GRAPHY. (Gr. axia, a shadow, and ypatpu, I de- 
 scribe.) In Painting, &.C., the art of casting and delineating 
 shadows with truth, and upon mathematical principles. 
 
 SCI'OX. (Lat. scindo, I cut off.) The first young shoot 
 produced during the year by a tree ; or, more commonly, a 
 part of a branch prepared for the purpose of being grafted 
 upon some other tree. 
 
 SCIO'LTO. (It. free.) In Music, a term which, applied 
 to counterpoint, signifies that it is free from syncopated or 
 tied notes, or that it is not constrained by general rules. 
 When applied to notes, it signifies that they are not tied to- 
 
 3am 
 
 gether qfe y; 
 
 Sciolti. Legati. 
 
 SCIO'PTIC or SCIOPTR1C BALL. (Gr. cKia, shadow, 
 and oiTTOfkai, I view.) A name sometimes given to a me- 
 chanical contrivance, used in the camera obscura, for the 
 purpose of giving motion to a lens in every direction. 
 
 SCI'RE FA'CIAS, in Law, is a judicial writ, which lies 
 in various cases ; most commonly to call on a party to show 
 cause to the court whence it issues, why execution of judg- 
 ment passed should not be made out. It is not granted un- 
 til a year and a day alter judgment given. 
 
 SCTSSEL. The clippings of various metals produced in 
 several mechanical operations concerned in their manufac- 
 ture. The slips or plates of metal out of which circular 
 blanks have been cut for the purpose of coinage are called 
 scissel at the mint. 
 
 SCI'URLXES, Sciurini. Squirrel tribe. The name of a 
 family of Rodents, of which the genus Sciurus is the type. 
 They are distinguished by their very narrow lower incisors, 
 and by their long and bushy tail. They h:i\e four toes be- 
 fore, and five behind. The thumb of the fore foot is some- 
 times marked bv a tubercle. The molars are tuberculated. 
 
 SCLE'RODERMS, Scleroderma (Gr. axXnp-jc, hard, and 
 iep/xa, skin.) A name given by Cuvier to a family of Plec- 
 tognathic fishes, comprehending those which have the skin, 
 covered with hard scales. 
 
 SCLERO'TICA. (Gr. oxXripoc.) One of the membranes 
 of the eye. See Eye. 
 
 SCOLOPA'CiD^E, (Gr. a/coXo-tra*, a woodcock.) Snipe 
 tribe. The name of a family of wading birds, of which the 
 genus Scolopaz is the type. The snipes proper have a 
 straight beak, the nasal furrows extending to near its point, 
 which is a little inflated externally, so as to extend beyond 
 the lower mandible. The point is soft, and verv sensible. 
 
 SCOLOPE'NDR^E. (Gr. oKoXo-tvlp*.) The generic 
 name of the Centipedes. 
 
 SCO'MBEROIDS, Scomberoides. Mackerel tribe. The 
 name of the family of fishes of which the genus Scomber is 
 the type. They are characterized by having a smooth body 
 covered with small scales, and a very powerful tail and 
 caudal fin ; and include species of the greatest utility to 
 mankind, in consequence of their abundance and flavour. 
 
 SCO'NCES. In Fortification, small forts for the defence 
 of a pass, river, or other place. 
 
 SCO'PA. (Lat. a little brush.) In Mammalogy, a fasci- 
 culus of long flaccid hairs, which may grow fiom any limit- 
 ed part of the body or extremities. 
 
 SCO'PIPEDS, Scopipedes. (Lat. scopaea, a broom, and 
 pes, afoot.) The name of a tribe of Melliferous insects, in- 
 cluding those which have the tarsi of the posterior feet fur- 
 nished with a brush of hairs. 
 
 SCO'RPIO. In Astronomy, the eighth sign of the zodiac, 
 and one of the ancient zodiacal constellations. When this 
 constellation rises, Orion sets; hence the mythological fable 
 of the death of Orion, who perished by the sting of a scor- 
 pion. See Constellation. 
 
 SCOT. (Sax. sceat, part or portion, in the sense of con- 
 tribution.) This old word has passed into various ordinary 
 expressions, such as " scot-free," &c, and at one time found 
 its way into the Italian language (Dante, I'urgatorio). In 
 3 Y * 1097
 
 SCOTER. 
 
 English law it is still retained in the phrase "inhabitants 
 paying Bcot and lot," which lias long boon held to mean 
 
 paying parochi il rates, and constitutes one of the old rights 
 
 of voting in various boroughs existing before the Reform 
 Act. 
 
 SCOTER. A name of the Mark duck, or black diver 
 (.Inns nigra, Linn.), now the tvpe of the subgenus Oidcmia, 
 Plcm. 
 
 SCOTIA, (fir. aKOTia, darkness.) In Architecture, the 
 name of a hollow moulding, chiefly used between the tori 
 in the bases of columns. It takes its name from the shadow 
 formed by it, which seems to envelop it in .darkness. It is 
 sometimes called a casement; and often, from its resem- 
 blance to :i common pulley, trochUus. 
 
 SCOTISTS. An old scholastic sect, followers of Duns 
 Scotus, "the subtle doctor," one of the leading champions 
 of Realism in the Kith century. He held that the "univer- 
 sal" existed not in " in posse" only, but " in acta ;" not de 
 pending in anywise on the conditions of the understanding, 
 but presented to it as nn outward reality. In this respect 
 his realism differs from that of his predecessor, Thomas 
 Aquinas, whose doctrines he combats in other respects. See 
 Thomists. 
 
 S('< > TODI'NTA. (Or. okotos, darkness, and Sno;, giddi- 
 ness.) Giddiness, with imperfect vision. 
 
 SCREEDS. (Etym. uncertain.) In Architecture, wood- 
 en rules for running mouldings. Also the extreme guides 
 on the margins of walls and ceilings for floating to, by the 
 aid of the rules. They are always necessary for running a 
 cornice when the ceiling is not floated. 
 
 SCREEN. (Fr. escran.) In Architecture, a partition 
 usually wrought with rich tracery, placed behind the high 
 altar Of a church, and also before small chapels and tombs. 
 Sometimes, as at Easter, they are placed temporarily at the 
 sides of choirs. 
 
 SCREW. In Mechanics, one of the six mechanical 
 powers, consisting Of a spiral ridge or groove, winding round 
 a cylinder, so as to cut every line on the surface parallel to the 
 axis at the same angle. The screw may be formed either on 
 the outside or inside of the cylinder; in the former case, it 
 is called the exterior or malr screw; in the latter, the in 
 ttriur or ft male screw. The action of the screw resembles 
 that of the wedge, or inclined plane; but as the cylinder 
 has always a handle attached to it, the screw is in reality a 
 compound of the inclined plane and lever; and if the direc- 
 tion of the power be parallel to the base of the cylinder, and 
 perpendicular to its radius, an equilibrium is produced when 
 the power is to the resistance or pressure as the interval 
 between the adjacent threads is to the circumference de- 
 scribed by the point to which the power is applied. Hence 
 the mechanical advantage afforded by the screw is propor- 
 tional jointly to the fineness of the threads and the smallness 
 of the cj Under relatively to the length of the lever or han- 
 dle. It is to be observed, however, that by diminishing the 
 distance between the threads, or diminishing the diameter 
 of tin- cylinder, we diminish also, in both cases, the strength 
 of the screw ; and hence there is obviously a limit to the in- 
 crease of power. But the action is greatly increased by 
 means of the contrivance called a double screw, m, from the 
 name of its Inventor, Hunter's seme, which consists in the 
 combination of two screws of unequal fineness of thread, 
 one of which works within the other. In this case the 
 power does not depend upon the interval between the 
 threads of either screw, but on the difference between the 
 intervals in the two screws, and may be increased to almost 
 any extent. 
 
 The endless srrrw consists of a screw combined with a 
 wheel and axle in such a manner that the threads of the 
 screw work into the teeth fixed on the periphery of the 
 wheel. Suppose the power applied to the handle of the 
 screw, and the weigh) attached to the axle of the wheel, 
 then there will be equilibrium when the power is to the 
 Weight as the distance between the threads multiplied by 
 
 the radius of the axle is to the length of the lever or handle, 
 multiplied by the radius of the w heel. 
 
 The water screw, or screw of .Irchimedes, is formed by 
 
 Windings flexible tube round a cylinder in the for la 
 
 screw. If the machine, thus constructed, be placed oblique- 
 ly, so as to make with the vertical an angle equal to that 
 which the spiral makes with the lines parallel to the axis 
 of the cylinder, there will be in each convolution of the 
 spiral a part parallel to the horizon. If any body, then, be 
 placed within the spiral at this part, it will remain tit rest ; 
 and if the screw be turned the body will ascend, because 
 the part of the -crew behind it becomes more inclined than 
 
 the pan before it. and it is consequently urged forward. This 
 
 simple but ingenious connivance is usually employed for the 
 purpose of raising water to a small height, but it may be 
 
 employed to raise any substance that can pa-s within the 
 
 tube-, and it is evident that the action may be increased by 
 
 placing s,.\e r a| tubes or spiral channels (for the-, nia> In- 
 formed of wood or iron) on the name cylinder. The princi- 
 1098 
 
 SCROPHULARIACE^E. 
 pie has been recently applied to the propelling of steam- 
 
 M'ssels. 
 
 The micrometer screw is a contrivance adapted to as- 
 rroiioinioal or optical instruments, for the purpose of measur- 
 ing angles with great exactness. The very gTeat space 
 through which the lever of t lie screw passes in Comparison 
 of that which is described by the cylinder in the direction 
 of its length, renders the screw of immense use in subdivid- 
 ing space into minute parts. 
 
 As a mechanical power, the screw has innumerable ap- 
 plications; but it is employed with most effect in all cases 
 in which a very great pressure is required to he exerted 
 within a small space, and without intermission. Hence it is 
 tin- power generally used for expressing juices from solid 
 
 substances, for compressing cotton and other goods into hard 
 dense masses for the convenience of carriage, for coining, 
 stamping, printing, &.C. 
 
 SCRIBES. The copyists, and at the same time the inter- 
 preters of the law, in the later periods of the Jewish history. 
 They were held in great honour among that people, and 
 ranked with the priests themselves in their estiitiation. In 
 the New Testament we find them generally referred to in 
 connexion with the Pharisees, to which sect they appear 
 generally to have belonged, and with whom they coincided 
 in temper and sentiments. Some ancient writers conceive 
 the scribes to have formed peculiar sects in themselves ; but 
 there is no authority for this opinion. 
 
 SCRI'BING. (Lat. sci ibo, I write or scratch.) In Archi- 
 tecture, fitting the edge of a board to another board in the 
 same plane as the edge. In joiner's work, it is the fitting 
 one piece of wood to another so that their fibres may be re- 
 spectivelv at right angles. 
 
 SCRl'PTIJRES. The Holy Scriptures, or writings of the 
 Old and New Testament. The Canonical Scriptures, which, 
 having been duly authenticated, are inserted in the canon 
 or rub- by which the faith of a believer is determined. See 
 Bible, New Testament, Old Testament. 
 
 SCRI' VENER. (From the Lat. scriho, / write ; apparent- 
 ly through the Spanish escribano.) Money scriveners, in 
 old English usage, were patties who received money to 
 place it out at interest, and supplied parties who wished to 
 lend money on security. Money brokers and attorneys who 
 practise in this manner have been held to he within the 
 statutes relating to scriveners. In this sense, the word is 
 obsolete. The last regular scrivener is said to have been a 
 person of the name of Jack Ellis, a cotemporaxy of Dr. 
 Johnson, mentioned in fioswell's Life. The city company 
 of scriveners remains to attest the ancient importance of the 
 business. 
 
 SCRO'FULA. This disease was originally termed x°iP"c, 
 or swine disease, by the Greeks ; and later nosologists have 
 translated it by the term scrofula. It consists in indurated 
 glandular tumours, especially about the neck, which, when 
 they suppurate, discharge a white curdled matter, unlike 
 healthy pus. Scrofula is not contagious, but often a heredi- 
 tary disease, and dependent upon a peculiar predisposition 
 in the constitution : its first appearance is usually between 
 the third and seventh years of the child's age, and it seldom 
 shows itself after the age of puberty. It is most common 
 among delicate children with fair complexions, and those 
 disposed to rickets. It Is rare in warm climates, and seems 
 to be favoured by cold and variable countties. It is pro- 
 moted by everything that debilitates ; and when its exciting 
 causes are by any accident not brought into action, it may 
 even remain dormant through life, and not show itself till 
 the next generation. In mild cases the glands, after having 
 suppurated, slowly heal ; in others the eyes and eyelids are 
 inflamed, and the joints become affected, the disease gradu- 
 ally extending to the ligaments and bones, and producing a 
 hectic and debilitated state, under which the patient sinks; 
 
 orit ends in tuberculated lungs and pulmonary consumption. 
 
 In the treatment of the mild and simpler forms of scrofula, 
 the diet should be nourishing and invigorating, and a dry 
 situation and sea air are to be sought ti-r; great attention 
 should be paid to the clothing, so as to avoid colds and 
 COUghs; and tonics and gentle stimulants, with mild nar- 
 cotics, and occasionally the alkalis, should be prescribed. 
 
 Iodine has sometimes appeared of much service, but it re- 
 quires the greatest circumspection in its internal use; it 
 may be applied externally, as may also sea water and 
 other saline lotions. Chalybeate* and mercurials are fre- 
 quently prescribed ; and much benefit has, in some instances, 
 been derived from a course oTsareaparllla. 
 BCROPHULARIA'CEJB. (Scrophularia, one of the 
 
 genera.) A natural order of herbaceous or shrubby mono- 
 petalous Exogens, inhabiting all parts of the world, except 
 tin- coldest. Tin- stamens are either dithnamous or un- 
 symmetrical : nevertheless the affinity of the order is un- 
 doubtedly with Solanticem, through the medium of the tribo 
 Salpiglossidea << that it becomes necessary to separate 
 them l>\ a nn re artificial distinction, considering as Solanar 
 cae such genera as have a plaited corolla and live stamens,
 
 SCRUPLE. 
 
 and as Scrojtkiilariacem all those in which the fifth stamen 
 is wanting, or the aestivation of the corolla imbricated. 
 They are generally acrid, bitterish plants. The leaves of 
 some are purgative, and even emetic, a property so much 
 increased in digitalis that its effects become highly danger- 
 ous ; and nearly all the tribe turn black in d ying. Many 
 of the genera, such as digitalis, calceolaria, &c, are valued 
 by gardeners for their beautiful flowers. 
 
 SCRU'PLE. A denomination of weight; the third part 
 of a drachm, and equal to twenty grains. See Weights. 
 
 SCRU'TIN Y. (Lat. scrutor, / examine.) In the Primi- 
 tive Church, an examination in the last week of Lent of 
 the catechumens who were to be baptized on Easter-day ; 
 used chiefly in the ancient Church of Rome. In parlia- 
 mentary language, an examination of the votes given at an 
 election by an election committee, at which the bad given 
 on both sides are rejected, and the poll corrected according- 
 ly, is called a scrutiny. 
 
 SCUD. The name given by seamen to loose, vapoury 
 clouds driven swiftly aiong by the winds. To Scud, signi- 
 fies to run directly before the wind in a gale. As the ob- 
 ject is to keep before the sea, the fore sail or foretop sail 
 is set: the latter or the maintop sail is often necessary, 
 as the fore sail is often becalmed from the height of the 
 waves. 
 
 SCU'DO. See Money. 
 
 SCULL. An oar, so short that one man can work a 
 pair. It most generally implies an oar placed over the 
 stern of a boat, and worked from side to side ; the blade, 
 which is turned diagonally, being always in the water. 
 In China, where Ihe method is well understood, large 
 boats are impelled by a single scull with considerable ve- 
 locity. 
 
 SCU'LPTURE. (Lat. sculpo, / carve.) The art of 
 carving in wood, stone, or other materials. The origin of 
 sculpture is so remote, that at ihis period there neither ex- 
 ists the probability of any authentic account of it being 
 satisfactorily deduced, nor even the indication of that na- 
 tion in which it first appeared. Though idolatry may have 
 favoured its early advances, and rendered it powerful as- 
 sistance, we are not indebted to religion alone for its inven- 
 tion. In Egypt, indeed, it may be said that its progress 
 was impeded by the restraints and shackles with which 
 religion invested it. "The monstrous shapes and sorceries" 
 of " fanatic Egypt" clearly barred its perfection in the coun- 
 try where a bird's head was combined with the body of a 
 lion, and cats' and wolves' heads were joined to the divine 
 form of man. It was in Greece only that the unnatural 
 junction of the two noblest animals was successful, and 
 grace and dignity resulted from the attempt in the creation 
 of a centaur. The first artist on record as a sculptor is 
 Bezaleel, who. with Aholiab (see Exodus, xxxi.), formed 
 the cherubim that covered the mercy-seat ; but, previous 
 to these, the art of moulding and working in metal was 
 long known. The presents to Rebekah consisted of jewels 
 of silver and gold ; Judih gave to Tamar his signet and 
 his bracelets ; in Egypt "Pharaoh took offhis ring from his 
 hand, and put it upon Joseph's hand." Then, as to the 
 art of moulding or carving, from the use of idols, we know 
 it must have existed in Asn, and in Egypt from the time 
 of Abraham and Jacob. The terap/um, which Rachel 
 stole from her father (Gen. xxxi., v. 19, 30), were, accord- 
 ing to the best commentators, carved images in a human 
 form, and household deities, like the penates and lares of 
 the Romans many centuries afterwards. The command- 
 ment will doubtless occur to the reader, "Thou shalt not 
 make to thyself any graven image;" as well as the address 
 of Moses to the Israelites, "For ye know how we have 
 dwelt in the land of Egypt, and how we came through the 
 nations which ye passed by ; and ye have seen their abom- 
 inations, and their idols of wood and stone, silver and gold, 
 which were among them." 
 
 Some of the most extraordinary specimens of early 
 sculpture on record are described by Diodorus as the works 
 of Semiramis ; but they are too wonderful to allow of our 
 implicit reliance on the author. She is s aid to have had 
 representitions in brick on her palace of every sort of ani- 
 mal in relief. These were afterwards so coloured to nature 
 as to have the appearance of life. In the midst of them 
 was represented Semiramis piercing a tiger with a dart, 
 and near her Ninus killing a lion with his lance. In an- 
 other part of the same palace were pbced the statue of 
 Jupiter Belus, those of Ninus, Semiramis. and the princi- 
 pal officers of the state, the whole executed in bronze. We 
 are also told that, bv command of this princess, a temple 
 was raised at Babylon, on the top whereof three massive 
 statues were placed of Jupiter, Juno, and Rhea. That of 
 Jupiter was forty feet in height. Stupendous as these 
 works are stated to have been, we gather from the same 
 author an account of the execution of one which throws 
 them into insignificance. One of the sides of the mountain 
 Bagistan was extremely rough and steep, and seventeen 
 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 stadia in height: this she caused to be reduced to a smooth 
 surface, and then sculptured into a figure of herself, attend- 
 ed by one hundred of her guards. It is to be observed that 
 Diodorus relates this story on the authority of Ctesias. 
 Doubtful as it is, the same sort of scheme was proposed to 
 Alexander by the architect Dinocrates, as related by Vitru- 
 vius in the preface to one of his books. 
 
 Of the sculpture of the Persians little notice is necessary. 
 In the article Painting we have mentioned that it was 
 contrary to the tenets of their religion to make in any way 
 representations of the human form. In Persepolis there 
 are, however, some extraordinary sculptures, bearing con- 
 siderable resemblance to the style of the Egyptian bassi- 
 relievi in the palace of Thebes, allowing for the difference 
 of dress; but they contain nothing in science or imitation 
 particularly worthy of our notice. The earliest sculpture 
 to which we can refer, and on which we can reason, is 
 that of the Egyptians. Herodotus tells us, that they 
 erected the first altars and temples to the gods, and carved 
 the figures of animals in stone. The abundance and vari- 
 ety of the specimens still in existence of their sculpture, 
 minute and colossal, domestic and religious, prove them 
 to have been a nation with prodigious resources, and dis- 
 tinguished for their wisdom and affection for the arts. The 
 greater portion of their sculpture seems to have been sa- 
 cred ; that is, representations of the divinities, and their at- 
 tributes and qualities. In respect of the dimensions of some 
 of their statues, Herodotus mentions one before the temple 
 of Vulcan at Memphis, and another at Sais, placed there 
 by King Anvisis, each of the height of seventy-five feet. 
 The part of the sphinx, near the great pyramid, still out of 
 the sand, that is, from the throat upwards, rises to the 
 height of twenty-five feet. At Thebes, the sitting statues 
 of Memnon, the mother and the sons of Osymandyas, are 
 each fifty-eight feet high. A long catalogue might be add- 
 ed to these : we will, however, only add, that in the Brit- 
 ish Museum is a closed hand, which must have been part 
 of a statue sixty-five feet high. Grace of form, elegance, 
 and symmetry, are not to be found in Egyptian sculpture. 
 The faces of their statues have a resemblance to the Chi- 
 nese, and their bodies are formed with large bellies. They 
 generally stand equally poised on both legs, having one 
 foot advanced ; the arms either hanging down straight on 
 each side, or if one be raised, it is at a right angle across 
 the body. Some of their statues are seated, and some are 
 kneeling; the position, however, of the hands is rarely dif- 
 ferent from what we have described. The faces of them 
 are generally flat; the brows, eyelids, and mouths formed 
 of simple curves slightly marked, and with little expression. 
 The tunics and draperies are frequently without folds. 
 
 The arts of Egypt seem to have been in a progressive 
 state of improvement from .about or before the period of 
 Moses to the invasion and subjugation of the country by 
 Cambyses, a thousand years afterwards. Winckelman 
 thinks that there were two distinct styles; the first ending 
 with the conquest just mentioned, and the second com- 
 mencing at that period, and ending after the time of Alex- 
 ander the Great. In the first of these styles he describes 
 the forms as straight, stiff, and ungraceful. The sitting 
 figures have the legs always par <IleI ; the feet are squeezed 
 together, and the arms fixed to the sides. In the females 
 the left arm is generally folded across the breast, and the 
 draperies exhibit very little skill or knowledge. In the 
 second style the hands become more elegant : the feet are 
 placed at a greater distance from each other, the arms 
 hang more freely, and the figure is generally clothed with 
 a tunic, robe, and mantle. The material usually employed 
 is granite or basalt: the statues are not only formed with 
 the chisel, but polished carefully ; and the eyes are some- 
 times formed of different materials from the statues them- 
 selves. Small figures are frequently found, to which the 
 name of penates has been given ; they are sometimes com- 
 posed of wood, sometimes of baked earth, and some are 
 covered with a green enamel. 
 
 " Winckelman," says Flaxman in his Second Lecture on 
 Sculpture, "has remarked tint the Egyptians executed 
 quadrupeds better than the human figure ; for which he 
 gives the two following reasons : first, that as professions 
 in that country were hereditary, genius must have been 
 wanting to represent the human form in perfection ; sec- 
 ondly, that the superstitious reverence for the works of 
 their ancestors prevented improvement. This is an amu- 
 sing but needless hypothesis ; for there are statues in the 
 Capitoline Museum with as great a breadth, and choice of 
 grand parts, proper to the human form, as ever they repre- 
 sented in their lions or other inferior animals, Ip addition 
 to these observations on Egyptian statues, we may remark, 
 the forms of their hands and feet are gross ; they have no 
 anatomical detail of parts, and are totally deficient in the 
 grace of motion. This last defect, in all probability, was 
 not the consequence of a superstitious determination to 
 persist in the practice of their ancestors ; it is accounted for 
 
 1099
 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 In another and better way." This " better way" of the 
 professor is from their being deficient at the time in geom- 
 etry, which. /«■ says, "will naturally account tor that of 
 motion in their stataea and relievos, which can only be ob- 
 tained by a c ireful observation assisted by geometry." We 
 confess we are nut convinced with the reason given ; and 
 witli all respect for the splendid talents of the professor, 
 whose own knowledge of geometry, from his curious defi- 
 nition of the centre of gravity in the human figure, we ap- 
 prehend to have been exceedingly limited, we rather pre- 
 fer the hypothesis of Winckclnian. Tin: Egyptian bassi- 
 relievi are usually sunk from the surface of the material 
 employed, which practice most probably obtained from 
 their being cut in very bard stone, such as granite or basalt. 
 and from [lie distance they were usually placed above the 
 eye. In the first case, cutting the ground away from the 
 figure would h ive occupied quite as much time as carving 
 the figure itself; and in the second case, the range of the 
 outline created a greater breadth of shadow and distinct- 
 ness to the spectator. These ba-ssi-relievi, or hieroglyphics, 
 when found on the walls of tombs, relate the profession, 
 actions, and funeral of the deceased ; on those of palaces, 
 the wars, negotiations, triumphs, processions, trophies, with 
 the civil, military, and domestic enjoyments of kings ; on 
 those of temples they were the records of theology; and 
 on obelisks they are hymns to the gods, or eulogies of their 
 kings. 
 
 The only correct notions that can be obtained on the 
 subject of Phoenician sculpture is from a contemplation of 
 the medals of the Carthaginians, who were a colony from 
 Phoenicia; though, perhaps, these may mislead us. The 
 Phoenicians, known by the name of Canaanites in Scrip- 
 ture, were at a very early period advanced in civilization. 
 When Moses sent out the spies to search the land of Ca- 
 naan, they returned with an account, "that the people 
 be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled 
 and very gre tt." it was from Childea, according to the 
 authorities cited by Jacob Bryant, that the arts of the 
 Phoenicians were derived, having first been transplanted to 
 Egypt. Beautiful in their own persons, they were, unlike 
 the Egyptian t ices, themselves models for their artists, and 
 their situation and character were favourable to the prog- 
 ress of the art. Their extraordinary and BUCCessful spirit 
 of commerce led to its cultivation, and some of the statues 
 that decorated their temples were celebrated in history. 
 Winckelman is of opinion that the Etrurians, or ancient 
 Tuscans, carried sculpture to a certain degree of perfection 
 much earlier than the Geeks. The same Dedal us who has 
 the reputation of having taught tliis art to the Greeks, has 
 ti similar good office assigned to him by historians towards 
 the Etrurians; for, in order to escape the resentment of 
 Minos, king of Crete, he is reported to have taken refuge in 
 Sicily, whence he passed over into Italy. Etrurian art 
 proves that the first attempts towards sculpture were in 
 clay, whereof innumerable specimens have been found in 
 Rome and its environs ; and as the Romans in the early 
 period of their existence as a people were entirely ignorant 
 of the arts, no doubt is left of these specimens being the 
 work of the Etrurians or Volscians. Clay was for a long 
 time the only material used — "nulla signa, statua've, sine 
 urgilla ;" and Pliny and Varro tell us that the Hercules, 
 the Jupiter Capitolinus, the quadriga on the top of his tem- 
 ple, and all the other statues of the gods before the temple 
 of Ceres was erected, were "Tuscanica omnia." Many of 
 the Etruscan statues bear so striking a resemblance to 
 those of Greece, that antiquarians have thought it probable 
 
 they must have been brought from that c itry, or from 
 
 Magna Grscia into Etruria, about the period of the con- 
 quest of Greece by the Romans, when Italy became almost 
 saturated with the magnificent spoils of' ;ut which that 
 country yielded. The Etruscan sculpture is in two distinct 
 styles of art. In the first or earliest 3tj le, the general lines 
 or contours are exceedingly Stiff and straight, and the atti- 
 tudes exhibit anything but a feeling of ease in the figure ; 
 the form of the head is entirely devoid of beauty, the out- 
 lines not well rounded ; their figures are almost invariably 
 
 too slender ; the form id' the head is oval, the chin piked, 
 the eyes flat, with some degree of tendency towards squint- 
 ing. All these defects indicate tin infant state id' the art, 
 
 and it is not extraordinary to see the very nine defects in 
 
 the works of the Gothic sculptors. The second style of 
 
 Etruscan art is conjectured 03 Winckelman t> be 1 tem- 
 porary with the age of Phidias; but it is to he observed 
 that this conjecture is in no way borne out or supported by 
 proof. In this style the joints are strongly marked, the 
 
 muscles raised, the hones perfectly distinguishable, and 
 derable knowledge of the science of anatomy is dis- 
 played. The statues of the godl are executed with delicti 
 cy, and there is a show of great power without violent dis- 
 .1 of the inii-iles. The attitudes, however, are far 
 from natural, and the action constantly overstrained. To 
 Uiia Millin adds u third period in tbo history of Etruscan 
 1100 
 
 art, commencing at the conquest of Greece by the Romans, 
 at which time the Etruscan artists became acquainted with 
 the works of the Grecians, and, adopting their style, be- 
 came at first their imitators, and afterwards their rivals. 
 To the Italian artists of this period Horace is supposed to 
 allude in one of his satires. In concluding this succinct ac 
 count of the sculptures of Etruria. to exhibit the extent to 
 which it was cultivated it is only necessary to state, on the 
 authority of Pliny, that when the Romans conquered Vol- 
 sinium, one of the twelve cities of Etruria, they carried 
 away from that city alone about 2000 statues. 
 
 Before turning to the sculpture of the Greeks we may no- 
 tice, as bearing some resemblance to the Egyptian sculp 
 Hire, that of the Hindus. It is not, however, intended to 
 compare the one with the other; for the latter is far more 
 deficient than the former, both in science and resemblance 
 to nature. The stupendous excavations at Ellora, which 
 have been mentioned in the article Architecture, and 
 those at Elephantis and other parts of India, are well 
 known by representations which have been published in 
 this country. They are, by some, considered ofwery high 
 antiquity, and are decorated profusely with mythological 
 sculpture, whereof the subjects are symbols, allegorical fig- 
 ures, and groups expressive of the attributes and energies of 
 divinity, according to the Brahmin doctrines. The reader 
 who is desirous of farther information on this subject may 
 profitably consult Moore's Hindu I'anthron, which contains 
 upwards of 1500 outlines of Hindu painting and sculpture 
 faithfully delineated from the originals. 
 
 As we have seen, the first dawn of the art was on tbo 
 soil of Phoenicia and Egypt : we have now to trace it to its 
 meridian splendour on the shores of Greece. In Egypt the 
 forms of the human figure, and its " face divine," far re- 
 moved from beauty and intellectual expression, a burning 
 climate, and institutions inimical to improving on the mod- 
 el, restrained the art within very narrow bounds ; whereas 
 in Greece, the beautiful forms of the male and female mod- 
 els, the genial and delicious climate, were among the lend- 
 ing physical causes of the supereminent success of the 
 Greeks. With them, says D'Agincourt, " an lieu de noirs 
 scarabees, du chacal, ou de la hyene foroce, du hideux 
 crocodile, cVtaient les diligentes ouvrieres du niont Hy- 
 mette, le noble coursier, le taureau vigoiireux, le cerf agile, 
 I'elegant et doux chevreuil, qui peuplaient las rives email- 
 lees de <e< tleuves, ses riuntes collines. sesforetsombragees." 
 With them, unlike the attachment to the combinations of 
 human with the brutal forms of Egypt, the softest desires, 
 the noblest and liveliest emotions of the heart, found con- 
 tinual nourishment in the splendid and affecting spectacle* 
 which the religion of the nation constantly exhibited. The 
 institution of public games, at which all men of considera- 
 tion and celebrity, and of whatever rank, contended for 
 honours, and the beauty of form to be seen at them, which 
 was an unceasing object of contemplation, raised them into 
 a nation of connoisseurs. No crowns, no honours decreed 
 by a congregated assemblage of intelligence, awaited the 
 monotonous labours of the Egyptian sculptor: his works 
 were to be executed in conformity with the practice of 
 former ages. Egypt abounded with artisans, Greece with 
 artists. 
 
 Greek sculpture has usually been arranged under three 
 epochs, which we shall here enumerate. We of course 
 pass over the rude and unfashioned representations of the 
 divinities of the primitive ages, which Patisanias tells us 
 were little more than blocks of stone, though regarded to 
 the last with the greatest reverence, and to he seen as late 
 as the time of Adrian at Thebes, Argos, and other cities; 
 and which, indeed, were rather .symbols than representa- 
 tions. Neither do we think it here necessary again to 
 touch upon the works ofDffidalus and End.cus. about which 
 we can now form no just conception, except that the raa- 
 teriil they employed was wood. About 775 B.C., Dipmnia 
 
 and Sscyllis the Cretan her line celebrated fur their marble 
 statues', which retained much of the ancient style in the 
 advancing position of the legs, the general form of the fig- 
 ure, and particularly in the vertical folds of drapery, whose 
 edges were zigzag. Boon after tins period sculpture re- 
 ceived tile most elaborate finishing, though the character of 
 the face and limbs w.as not much changed from the taste- 
 less and barbarous style of former times. Elaxman con- 
 
 jectures that tin- colossal busts of Hercules and \|>o|iorn 
 the British Museum may have been the works of Dipn-nis 
 nnd Scyiiis. It is not difficult to conceive the progressive 
 
 improvement in an art so much cultivated, between the 
 time of w hub we are now speaking and the first epoch in 
 which Ageladas, the master of Polycletus, appeared. 
 Ageladas, with whom Ins been confounded Eladas or Cei- 
 
 adas. the master of Phidias, was a native of Argos, and co- 
 
 temporary with Pisistratus. It was at this period that art 
 approached the personification of ideal beauty by the 
 
 choice of forms from many models, so that the excellence 
 found in each might be combined in one. Its cultivation
 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 had become an object of necessity in most of the Grecian 
 states, induced greatly by a practice introduced about this 
 era, of honouring with a statue every individual who had 
 received three crowns in the public games. Such a cus- 
 tom afforded the artist the opportunity of contemplating 
 some of the most perfect examples of living beauty, from 
 which were afterwards deduced those canons of proportion 
 on which all future art has been unable to improve. With- 
 in the interval of which we have just spoken appeared the 
 sculptor Callimachus, to whom Vitruvius assigns the merit 
 of having invented the Corinthian capital. (See Archi- 
 tecture.) "The better drawing of the figure, with a 
 more careful attention to its parts, more precision and vari- 
 ety of attitude, a less elaborate curling and dressing the 
 hair, the form of the figure better shown through the dra- 
 pery, are all certain signs of a near approach to the age of 
 Phidias." 
 
 The second epoch of sculpture among the Greeks was in 
 the age of Phidias, who flourished about 490 years before 
 the Christian era — a period peculiarly splendid in history, 
 as abounding with statesmen, warriors, artists, philoso- 
 phers, and poets ; among whom will doubtless occur to the 
 reader the names of Socrates, Plato, Pericles, Miltiades, 
 Cimon, Themistocles, and Xenophon. The emulation 
 among such rare talents as then appeared was highly fa- 
 vourable to the growth and perfection of genius. Athens, 
 destroyed by the army of Xerxes, rose under the auspices 
 of Pericles in renewed and far greater grandeur. Phidias, 
 the pupil of Eladas the Argive, though by some it is thought 
 that honour belongs to Hippias, was employed by Pericles 
 in the superintendence of the public works ; and the ad- 
 miration of his powers was so universal with the ancients, 
 that Quintilian says, speaking of his Athenian Minerva 
 and Olympian Jupiter at Elis, " Cujus pulchritudo adjecisse 
 aliquid etiam recepta; religioni videtur, adeo majestas operis 
 deum eequavit." Plutarch affirms that Callicrates and Ieti- 
 nus executed the work of the Parthenon ; and this, as far 
 as relates to the latter, is confirmed by Pausanias. The 
 statue, however, of Minerva, of ivory and gold, within the 
 temple, was the work of Phidias himself; and, excepting 
 his Jupiter at Elis, his most celebrated production, some 
 have doubted that Phidias himself ever worked in marble ; 
 but although his chief material was bronze when he did 
 not use ivory, it is certain that he occasionally wrought in 
 marble. The great reputation of Phidias was founded upon 
 his representations of the gods, excelling more in them than 
 in human forms ; and in his works in ivory it is said he 
 was unrivalled. Polycletus, the scholar of Ageladas above 
 mentioned, and cotemporary of Phidias, assisted in the per- 
 fection of style of the second epoch. He was of Sicyon, 
 and especially celebrated for his Doryphoros, or lance- 
 bearer, and his Diadumenus, or youth binding a fillet round 
 his head. The first was so esteemed by artists, that it was 
 called the "canon," from which they studied their propor- 
 tions. There is, however, some doubt whether it be this 
 or another statue to which this honour was paid. The co- 
 temporaries of these great men were Callon, Phragmon, 
 Gorgias, Lacon, Myron, Pythagoras, Scopas, and Perelius. 
 Jn a passage of Pliny, Alcamenes is classed with Critias, 
 Nestocles, and Hegias, who are called the rivals of Phi- 
 dias. The name of Colotes is preserved as another of his 
 scholars. 
 
 The third epoch is that in which we become acquainted 
 with the names of Praxiteles and Lysippus, and in which 
 what VVinckelman calls the finestife was introduced. The 
 graces of youth and beauty were the delight of Praxiteles ; 
 and in his marble statues" at the Ceramicus of Athens, he 
 is said to have excelled himself. His Venus of Cnidos was 
 so endowed with charms, that her suitors were seaborne 
 from all quarters to pay homage at her shrine. This statue, 
 whirh had been rejected by the Coans on account of its be- 
 ing naked, was refused to Nicomedes by the citizens of 
 Cnidos in payment of a debt of immense amount. It re- 
 mained at Cnidos in the time of the Emperor Arcadius, 
 about 400 A.D. Flaxman in his Lectures observes of it, 
 that it " seems to offer the first idea of the Venus de Medi- 
 cis, which is likely to be the repetition of another Venus, 
 the work of this artist." A satyr, Cupid, Apollo (the lizard- 
 catcher), and Bacchus leaning on a fawn, are known works 
 of this master. Cotemporary with Praxiteles was Lysip- 
 pus, so celebrated for the group of horses still to be seen in 
 the front of St. Murk's church at Venice. This epoch, 
 though that which VVinckelman calls of the fine style, is 
 not in grandeur comparable to its predecessor. The refine- 
 ment of art was carried almost to its utmost limit: greater 
 delicacy and voluptuousness may indeed have been and 
 was introduced into the female forms, but in dignity and 
 simplicity of feeling it is inferior to the extraordinary pro- 
 ductions of the age of Phidias. After this period several 
 of the finest groups and statues were nevertheless executed : 
 one of them, the Laocoon (see Laocoon), is in a very high 
 class of art, and perhaps not inferior to any group known. 
 
 The principal schools of sculpture were Athens and 
 Rhodes ; from which latter school came the Laocoon, the 
 Torso Farnese, and the Colossus. To what extent the Rho- 
 dians were sculptors may be conjectured from the circum- 
 stance of the Romans carrying off from this little island 3000 
 statues. After the death of Alexander the Great, 324 years 
 before Christ, the arts of design seem to have declined from 
 their meridian excellence. Apelles found an asylum in 
 Egypt with Ptolemy, a prince whose liberality induced 
 artists to repair to his dominions, and whose example in 
 this respect was followed by his successor ; but under the 
 detestable tyranny of the seventh of that dynasty, the art- 
 ists abandoned Alexandria altogether. The alternate fa- 
 vour and disgrace whirh they experienced under the kings 
 of Syria, and those of Bithynia and Pergamus, was repeat- 
 ed in Sicily under Agathocles and Hiero II., till the taking 
 (212 B.C.) of Syracuse by Marcellus, who was the first to 
 appreciate Greek statues as invaluable ornaments to the 
 "eternal city." 
 
 At the conclusion of the Macedonian war, 500 marble 
 and bronze statues graced the triumph of the conquerors. 
 Mummius and Scylla left no place unstripped of all in the 
 shape of art upon which they could lay their hands; and 
 within a very comparatively circumscribed period Rome be- 
 came the rendezvous of all artists who had any pretensions 
 to talent, for it was the only place in which they could ob- 
 tain employment. 
 
 The Romans had no natural taste in the fine arts, nor any 
 style of their own originally ; and down to a late period they 
 employed the Etrurians in all works of art. Tibullus char- 
 acterized the art in its early age by the line, 
 
 Stabat io exigua ligneus ceJe deusj 
 
 and even to its last hour it may be truly averred that sculp- 
 ture never shone in Rome except with a borrowed light. 
 Volsinium, one of the twelve cities of Etruria (the modern 
 Bolsena), was called the city of artists; and it was this 
 depot which for a long time supplied the Romans with ar- 
 chitects, painters, and sculptors, and taught the Romans at 
 an early period what little they knew of art. Before the 
 5th century of its existence the use of marble was scarcely 
 known in Rome ; but in the 6th, the Romans began to 
 spread themselves towards the regions inhabited by Gre- 
 cians, and imbibed a taste for the expensive materials used 
 by that nation. 
 
 The year 146 B.C. was signalized by the entire reduction 
 of Greece under the dominion of the Romans. Sixty-six 
 years previously a dawn of luxury and taste had opened at 
 Rome by the introduction, through Mnrcellus, of statues 
 from Syracuse ; but though the increasing luxury of the Ro- 
 mans created a constant demand for fresh objects of the 
 art, its history in the city is but a melancholy continuing 
 decline of it, its energies and beauties being destined to ex- 
 pire among the people of a strange land. The only occu- 
 pation then left for Greek artists was to be found in Rome, 
 whither they were invited, and where abundance of them 
 were to be seen. Among them Pliny (1. xxxv., c. 12, and 
 xxxvi., c. 5) mentions the name of Pasiteles, a sculptor, who 
 wrote five volumes, containing a catalogue raisonnt-e of the 
 finest works of art known in his time. Pasiteles excelled 
 as a modeller in metal. The silver statue he executed of 
 Roscius, as also his vases, were highly celebrated. Arche- 
 silaus, Topirus, and Evander, all Athenians, were among 
 his cotemporaries in the Augustan age. The first of these 
 who excelled in marble is extolled by Pliny for his care in 
 modelling before he began upon the block. He was the 
 friend of Lucullus, for whom he executed a group, described 
 by Varro, representing a lioness with cupids sporting round 
 her, and endeavouring to force her to drink. Still, how- 
 ever, the passion for ancient Greek statues prevailed with 
 the Romans. Martial says, in speaking of a statue of Her- 
 cules, 
 
 Non est farina recens, nee nostri gloria coeli : 
 
 Nobilis Lysippi munus, opusque vides. — ^Lib. ix., Ep. 45.) 
 
 Under Augustus the art had not been entirely divested of 
 grand and noble feeling ; but after his time it partook very 
 much of the character of his successors as they appeared. 
 Licentious and obscene under the sway of the vicious, de- 
 bauched, and cruel Tiberius ; under Caligula it became so 
 grossly flattering, that ancient Greek statues of the gods 
 were decapitated to make room for the head of this em- 
 peror. Under Nero, (to whom, however, we perhaps are 
 indebted for the preservation of the Apollo of the Vatican 
 and the Borghese gladiator, which were found in his villa 
 at Antium) it became so outre and extravagant, that some 
 of the statues of Lysippus were actually gilt. It has been 
 conjectured that the Apollo and gladiator above mentioned 
 were part of the spoils from the temple at Delphi. The 
 reigns of the three emperors that succeeded Nero were of 
 such short duration, that had they been so minded they had 
 not sufficient time to inflict any very serious injury on the 
 
 1101
 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 arts. Vespasian, whose only blemish was avarice, which 
 is even extenuated by the laudable and pattiotic use he 
 made of Ins revenues, cultivated the arts as well as litera- 
 ture. The Temple of Peace, which was really a temple of 
 the arts. w;is by him decorated with the choicest specimens 
 Of Creek painting ami sculpture. The reigns of bis s-n 
 Titus and of Trajan were also favourable to Bcolpture. The 
 latter was the patron of ApollodorUS, from whose hand is 
 the sculpture on the column that bears the emperor's name 
 and records his military exploits. Trajan, moreover, had 
 the liberality and good sense to erect statues m honour of 
 the eminent nun of his time. The works of this period 
 were, however, rather architectural than sculptural, such 
 as temples, palaces, triumphal arches, &c, and the sculp- 
 ture chiefly in request was for their decoration ; a want cer- 
 tainly not calculated to retrieve the art from its ninlring 
 suite, but rather to encourage bold and off-hand execution 
 at the expense of simplicity and expression. Adrian was 
 so great a lover of the arts, that he did not think it beneath 
 his character as emperor himself to exercise those of paint- 
 ing and sculpture for his amusement. He not only restored 
 the principal buildings at Athens, but extended his foster- 
 ing care to the temple of Jupiter at Olympia, where he 
 caused to lie erected a colossal statue of the god in gold and 
 ivory. The statue of Antinous, so generally known, was 
 the work of this reign. Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius 
 were appointed by Hadrian as his successors; under them 
 the art revived for a time, and has acknowledged her grati- 
 tude to the last by his bronze statue at the Capitol. The 
 former crowded with the choicest specimens of sculpture 
 he could procure his villa at Lanuvium. How sculpture 
 was encouraged at this time may be gathered from the in- 
 numerable busts of these emperors that have reached us. 
 Commodus had likewise been honoured with a multitude 
 of statues, but these, upon his death, were decreed by the 
 senate to be all destroyed. Only thirteen years afterwards, 
 under Septunius Severus, the decay of the art became very 
 manifest : its decline continued during the reign of Alex- 
 ander Severus, though two busts of him, which were dis- 
 covered a few years since, are not without merit. During 
 the next half century, the rapid succession of twenty em- 
 perors, scarcely one of whom died a natural death, gave to 
 sculpture little chance of a revival. In fact, by the end of 
 the 4th century it was extinct, of which no other proof is 
 than the arch of Constantine and the statues of 
 that prince, through whose removal of the capital of the em- 
 pire to Constantinople, Rome no longer swayed the sceptre 
 of the fine arts. If the Romans do not deserve the admira- 
 tion in which the Creeks are held for their knowledge of 
 the fine arts, they deserve our gratitude for their instru- 
 mentality in preserving some of the noblest productions of 
 the art of sculpture. There are two epochs under which 
 the taste of the R< imans for the tine arts may be classed : the 
 first beginning with the capture of Syracuse by Marcellus, 
 and ending at the time of Julius Casar; the second, that of 
 the Augu»tan age. in which all the polite arts flourished. 
 
 From the 4th to the Kith century, if there were materials 
 sufficiently authentic, the history of the arts, as we have 
 shown also in the articles Architecture and Painting, 
 is such a blank as to be scarcely worth the trouble of tracing. 
 In the 13th century, however, the clouds of darkness began 
 to separate, opening a dawn for their revival in the 14th, 
 which was soon afterwards to bring on the blaze of day. 
 We shall divide our account of the art from this period into 
 three epochs. 
 
 First Epoch. — The Roman power having been entirely 
 . m the West of Europe, Italy became divided into 
 republics and principalities, \\ hereof the chief were Venice, 
 Genoa, and Pisa, these bemg the earliest in Cully establish- 
 ing liberty. The last, however, was foremost in founding 
 a si h ol Of native art. The Pisans, who I 
 erable extent of coast, had beaten the Saracens in Africa, 
 Sardinia, Majorca, Minorca, and Sicily; and had thus ac- 
 quired the treasures with which they commenced the erec- 
 tion of their cathedral, which was finished in 10 
 
 seven years after that of St. Mark at Venice bad been con 
 secrated. Schools of painting, sculpture, and architecture. 
 soon arose alter this period, and the cause ofn ligion found 
 employment for the talent they produced, ir ba 
 jectured that Buschetto, whom the majority of writers and 
 weight of argument prove to have been a Greek, though 
 thought by some to have been an Italian, was the founder 
 of the school at Pisa, The reputation of this si hool was 
 raised to the greatest height by the appearance of Nicolo de 
 Pisa, the pride and glory of the 12th century, and 
 who on its restoration gave dignity and Importance to Bculp 
 ture. That tb jrments w bi( b 
 
 acquired soon enabled Nicolo to discriminate between them 
 and the chetto. Is evident from some remains 
 
 of his woik in the Campo Santo, in 1225 be was employ- 
 ed at Bo >rating the sarcophagus of St. Dominic, 
 m Which his admiration and successful imitatiou of tile 
 UUJ 
 
 antique shine forth. He was afterwards engaged on the 
 bas reliefs of the pulpits at Pisa and Sienna, and on the 
 facades of the cathedrals at Orvieto and Lucca. The time 
 of his death is uncertain. Ciovanni, the son of Nicolo, suc- 
 ceeded his father, to whom in some respects he was mora 
 than equal. Their figures, especially those of their draped 
 females, are elegant, and exhibit " an originality of idea and 
 a force of thought seldom met with when schools of art tire 
 in the habit of copying from each other." The school of 
 Pisa is not limited to the two we have just named. Araolfo 
 the Florentine, the brothers Agostino and Agnolo, and An- 
 drea I "goiino. all deserve to be recorded. Andrea executed 
 in bronze the Oldest gate of the baptistry at Florence, on 
 Which is represented the life of St. John. This work is de- 
 signed with much grandeur and simplicity, and almost if 
 not quite equal to his master; but in his marble statues he 
 is inferior. Giovanni da Balduccio, scholar of Nicolo or 
 Ciovanni, was of this epoch : his first works were at Milan, 
 where afterwards, in 1339, he executed the mausoleum of 
 St. Peter the Martyr. In the 14th century Giotto establish- 
 ed a school, distinguished by good drawing, which prepared 
 Florence for a perfect re-establishment of the art. Of it 
 was Orgagna, a name ever to be remembered for his cele- 
 brated loggia at Florence, who was also eminent for his 
 works in sculpture. A school at Sienna, towards the end 
 of this century, produced Jacopo della Querci a, whose prin- 
 cipal works were at Bologna, Lucca, and especially Sienna, 
 where a fountain which he designed was so admired that 
 he acquired the name of Jacopo della I'onte. From his 
 hand is the bas-relief in the facjade of San Petronio at Bo- 
 logna. The loth century was a splendid era for the pro- 
 duction of everything that was great and intelligent, and 
 most especially for the art of sculpture. The love of liberty 
 and knowledge seemed to animate the whole of the Italian 
 republics ; and as if the republic of the arts were not ex- 
 cluded from the common sentiment, no individual master 
 seems so to have outstripped his rivals as to have impress- 
 ed the art with his own particular style. 
 
 This period brings us to the second epoch, at the begin- 
 ning whereof we find six great artists engaged in a compe- 
 tition for executing the bronze doors of the baptistry at 
 Florence, in which, after a year's trial, Lorenzo Ghiberti 
 bore away the palm from his rivals. Among these was 
 Donatello, a Florentine, one of the most distinguished re- 
 storers of the art. " Some of his works," says Flaxman, no 
 incompetent judge, "both in bronze and marble, might be 
 placed beside the best productions of ancient Greece \\ ith- 
 oiit discredit." His alto-relievo of two singing boys in the 
 Duomo at Florence is. in point of character, sentiment, 
 drawina, and drapery, of extraordinary beauty. The marble 
 statue he executed of St. George standing upright, equally 
 
 poised on both his legs, with his hands resting on the shield 
 before him, so excited the admiration of Michael Angelo, 
 that after contemplating it in deep silence for a considera- 
 ble length of time, he suddenly exclaimed "March." Lo- 
 renzo Ghiberti, the cotemporary, and. as we have before 
 mentioned, successful rival of Donatello, in the gates (1401) 
 to the baptistry of San Giovanni, has immortalized himself 
 by that work. "which, from the eulogy bestowed on it by 
 Michael Angelo, bears the appellation of the "Gates Ol 
 Paradise." This undertaking occupied forty years of his 
 life, and still, notwithstanding the criticism i f Reynolds, 
 
 n i - "I the noblest monuments of modern art. The 
 
 subjects are from the Old and New Testaments ; and the 
 complaint of Reynolds is, that " the landscape and buildings 
 occupy so large a portion of the compartments that the 
 
 figures remained but secondary objects, entirely Contrary to 
 the principle of the ancients." Brunelleschi, the intimate 
 friend of Donatello, known better by his high acquirements 
 as an architect, was not less a sculptor of considerable 
 eminence: at Florence, in the church of St. Maria Novella, 
 is an admirable crucifix by him in wood. In 1450, Andrea 
 VerroccbJD and Dominico Ghirlandaio were found among 
 the first rank ofsculptors in Florence. The former of these 
 two. the master of Pietro Perugino and Leonardo da Vinci, 
 executed at Venice the famous figure of Bartolomeo Cog- 
 
 leone da Bergamo on horseback. The latter was the mas- 
 iir ni Michael Ingelo da Buonarotti, whom we have once 
 more (see Architecture and Paintingj to introduce to 
 the reader's notice as the most eminent of modern sculp- 
 tors, as well as ol' architects and painters. The miraculous 
 works of this extraordinary man seem rather the result of 
 inspiration than of genius, and with him is introduced 
 
 'I'll'- third epoch, in which the perfect restoration of the 
 art was accomplished. The historian of the painters, sculp- 
 tures, and architects wrote the life of Buonarotti while he 
 was yet living, and thus apostrophises for his so doing: 
 
 " Lei none be surprised that I have here written the Life 
 
 of Michael Ingelo, who is yet living. Indeed, it cannot be 
 
 expected that he will evet die. and. therefore, it has np- 
 
 |>cared to me proper to do him this little h ur ; for w hen, 
 
 iu common with other men, his life shall pass away, he
 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 Will be immortal in his immortal works, the fame of which, 
 as long as the world lasts, will live with glory in the mouths 
 of men and in their records, in contempt of envy and despite 
 of death." Michael Angelo was nobly descended, and at 
 the early age of 15 was patronized by Lorenzo de Medici, 
 who took hiui into his house, and whilst living continued 
 his friend. His career in sculpture was commenced by a 
 sleeping Cupid, a Bacchus, and young fawn, the colossal 
 David, and a group of a Madonna sitting with the dead 
 Christ on her knees; works which raised him immediately 
 above his cotemporaries. It is not our purpose here to 
 touch upon the productions of Michael Angelo in the other 
 two arts which occupied a great portion of his time, and 
 which it appears he afterwards regretted; for Condivi, his 
 biographer, observes, "Che mi rammenta udirlo dire che 
 quando la, (the basso-relievo of the battle of Hercules with 
 Uie Centaurs), viede, cognosce quanto torto egli abbia fatto 
 alia natura a non seguitar prontamente l'arte della scul- 
 tura." Julius II., on being raised to the papal chair, em- 
 ployed Michael Angelo on a mausoleum, which it was in- 
 tended to place under the centre of the dome of St. Peter's. 
 It was projected on a most magnificent scale: but being 
 subjected to many delays, and the pope dying, only one of 
 its sides was completed, which was afterwards erected in 
 the church of St. Pietro in Vincola by order of his nephew. 
 In this monument is found the celebrated Moses and some 
 other statues, two of which in the present day are in the 
 gallery at the Louvre. It is mortifying to know that a large 
 portion of this artist's time was wasted at the quarries of 
 Pietra Santa, owing to the misconduct of the underlings of 
 Leo X. Cardinal Giuliano di Medici, in 1523, engaged him 
 on the sacristy and library of San Lorenzo. In the Capella 
 dei Depositi, or sacristy, are the statues of Lorenzo and 
 Giuliano di Medici seated, and in Roman military habits: 
 the former is conceived with a simplicity worthy of the 
 highest era of Grecian art. The recumbent statues of Day- 
 break and Night, under the statue of Giuliano in the same 
 chapel, "are grand and mysterious: the characters and 
 forms bespeak the same mighty hand and mind evident 
 throughout the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and Last Judg- 
 ment. Even this mighty master was doomed to experience 
 ill-treatment from his employers, his last years having been 
 attended with mortification, and chequered with vexation 
 and trouble. Universal in his accomplishments, he was 
 mainly useful in defending the city of Florence when it was 
 besieged by the Prince of Orange. Having arrived at the 
 advanced age of eighty, and withdrawn from all employ- 
 ment, except the conduct of the works at St. Peter's, which 
 lie retained to prevent the intrigues for marrying his design 
 from being successful, he gratified the pious inclination of 
 his mind, and derived amusement in his leisure hours from 
 working on an enormous block of marble a group of four 
 figures, consisting of the dead body of our Saviour, supported 
 by Joseph of Arimathea attended by the two Marys : a 
 composition of infinite grandeur and pathos, which he lived 
 not to finish. His death occurred on the 15th of December, 
 1563, almost 90 years of age. " Michael," says Ariosto, " piu 
 che mortal, Angel' divino." Besides the honour lie con- 
 ferred on seven popes by serving them, he was the. friend 
 of Solyman emperor of the Turks, Francis I. king of France, 
 the emperor Charles V., the princes of the republic of 
 Venice, those of Italy, particularly the duke of Tuscany, 
 reigning at the time of his death. His body having been 
 buried in the church of the Holy Apostles at Rome, where 
 the pope meditated a magnificent tomb to his memory, was 
 privately removed to Florence, where funeral obsequies 
 were celebrated over it with every demonstration of pomp 
 and splendour. The ceremony took place in the church 
 Della Croce, attended by all the members of the Academy, 
 the church being decorated for the occasion with a cata- 
 falco, and the choicest examples of painting and sculpture. 
 The panegyric was pronounced by Benedetto Varchi. Flax- 
 man, in his Tenth Lecture on Sculpture, closes his account 
 of him thus : " The character and works of Michael Angelo 
 have been dwelt on at greater length, because, as his mental 
 and bodily powers continued far beyond the usual date of 
 human life, his diligence attained to so much greater per- 
 fection in the principles of art. Anatomy, the motion and 
 perspective of the figure, the complication, grandeur, and 
 harmony of his grouping, with the advantages and facility 
 of execution in painting and sculpture, besides his mathe- 
 matical and mechanical attainments in architecture and 
 building, together with the many and prodigious works he 
 accomplished, demonstrate how greatly he contributed to 
 the restoration of art." After this epoch, or perhaps almost 
 belonging to it, appeared Giovanni da Bologna, a sculptor 
 of extraordinary merit, and eminent particularly for his 
 works in bronze and marble. His Venus coming from the 
 Bath is delicate and graceful ; and the group of the Rape of 
 the Sabines, in the grand piazza at Florence, is extremely 
 well composed, and possesses a fine undulation of line. The 
 Mercury he executed, rising to fly, is energetic and original. 
 
 There are many small works extant by this artist. Bene- 
 vento Cellini, one of the strangest and most eccentric fel- 
 lows that ever existed in the world, appeared about this 
 period. He was chiefly employed as a goldsmith and 
 sculptor in metals ; but was frequently employed on large 
 figures and groups, of which the Perseus holding the head 
 of Medusa in his left hand, at Florence, is a splendid in- 
 stance of his talent. Other real disciples of the great Tus- 
 can master were Raphael di Monte Lupo, his favourite 
 pupil, who assisted in the execution of the two statues of 
 the Virtues on each side of the Moses ; Nicolo di Tribolo, 
 who made the bronze gates of the cathedral at Bologna ; 
 Giovanni dell' Opera, who received that name from the 
 prolific chisel he wielded ; and Vincenzo Dante. Of his 
 school also are Baccio Bandinelli, a man of considerable 
 talent, but of course greatly inferior to Michael Angelo, 
 though he set himself up as a rival and competitor ; Baccio 
 di Monte Lupo, who, among his works, executed the cruci- 
 fix in the church of San Lorenzo ; Andrea Contucci, a clever 
 and occasionally successful imitator of Michael Angelo, and 
 founder of the school of Loretto ; Francesco Rustici, a pupil 
 of Leonardo da Vinci, but whose works evince a devotion 
 to the style of Michael Angelo Buonarotti, and who intro- 
 duced it into France ; and Jacopo Tatti, commonly called 
 Sansovino, who was the head of the Venetian school of 
 sculpture. As an architect he was an artist of surprising 
 talents, as is manifest from his works at Verona; his sculp- 
 ture, however, is deficient in purity, though not in richness 
 of composition. His principal pupils were Danese Cattaneo 
 and Alessandro Vittoria. The principles of the school were 
 diffused through Italy, and were equally to be seen in Lom- 
 bardy and Naples: in the latter city the principal masters 
 were Marliano Nola and Girolamo St. Croce. At Milan 
 were Agostino Busti and Guglielmo della Porta, whose re- 
 putation was raised by the statues executed by him on the 
 tomb of Paul the Third at St. Peter's. These have been 
 esteemed as among the best examples of modern sculpture. 
 Torregiano, who also belongs to this period, was of a vaga- 
 bond disposition, but a man of genius ; he was invited over 
 to England, w here he wrought upon the tomb of Henry VII. 
 at Westminster, for which he received the sum of £1000. 
 From Benvenisto Cellini we learn that he was handsome, 
 but of consummate impudence, having the manner of a 
 bravo more than of a sculptor; and to crown all, what with 
 his strange gestures, shrill voice, and a certain trick of knit- 
 ting his brows, he was enough to frighten any one who 
 came in contact with him. When he quitted England he 
 visited Spain, says Vasari, and, distinguishing himself by 
 many clever works, had a commission in marble from the 
 Duke d'Arcus, of a Madonna and Christ of the size of life, 
 with great assurances that he shoutd be rewarded accord- 
 ing to his merit. The duke being a grandee of the first class, 
 the sculptor considered he should be proportionately re- 
 warded. After considerable study and application the work 
 was finished to his own satisfaction ; whereon, with impa- 
 tience to possess himself of the treasure, the duke forthwith 
 sent for it, and, to display his generosity to the greatest ad- 
 vantage, two of his servants were loaded with money in 
 payment for it. The bulk was pleasing in appearance to 
 the artist ; but, upon being opened, the bags were found to 
 contain only brass maravedi, amounting to the trifling sum 
 of thirty ducats. Vexation and disappointment roused the 
 indignation of Torregiano, who, looking on the present more 
 as an insult than a reward due to his merit, snatched up his 
 mallet, and, heedless of the perfect workmanship with 
 which it had been finished, as well as the sacred character 
 of the subject, broke it in pieces, and sent the lacqueys 
 away with their load of brass to recount the tale to their 
 master. The grandee, enraged at the merited indignity with 
 which the artist had treated him, and it may be horrified at 
 the sacrilegious nature of the act, presented him to the In- 
 quisition as an infidel and a heretic. Torregiano pleaded 
 the right of an author over the work of his own creation, 
 but without success: he was condemned to lose his life. 
 Torregiano baulked, however, the holy office of its victim 
 by starving himself to death in his prison. This occurred in 
 152-2, at which time he was fifty years old. In England we 
 also had Giovanni da Padua in the following reign. 
 
 Spain produced some celebrated sculptors in the 16th 
 century, their first native artist being Berruguette, a pupil of 
 Vasari' and Buonarotti. Berruguette's disciple, Paul de Ces- 
 pides, is reputed the greatest sculptor that Spain ever pro- 
 duced. 
 
 It does not appear that Germany produced any sculptors 
 of eminence before the 17th century. But in France, Jacques 
 d'AngomVme, who had been at Rome, where he had a 
 competition even with Buonarotti ; Jean Gougeon, who 
 finished the Fountain of the Innocents at Paris in 1550, and 
 was one of the victims in the massacre on St. Bartholomew's 
 Day ; Jean Cousin, whose works, though deficient in force 
 and truth, yet exhibit much grace and delicacy; and Ger- 
 man Pilon, whose detail is remarkable for its beauty, arc 
 
 1103
 
 SCULPTURE. 
 
 names that entitle that country to a high rank among the 
 nations of Europe, in which all the works of sculpture that 
 were produced are n many testimonies of the influence 
 which the izt-mus of Michael Angelo exerted over the arts. 
 
 At the commencement of the 17th century, Bernini, a 
 native of Naples, born in 1596, raised himself to employ- 
 ment before unknown. Endowed with all the qualities ne 
 cessary fur becoming a great artist, and desirous of distin- 
 guishing himself by the foundation of a new school, he 
 plunged into caprice and complexity, and preferring efled 
 to simplicity, effaced .ill traces of the style which from the 
 Him of Baonarotti had prevailed in Europe. His draperies, 
 founded on the paintings of the Bolognese school, his af- 
 fected style, the violent expression in which lie delighted, 
 are the marks of an ambitious artist, whose only aim was 
 to be striking. He deluged Italy with his works, and cor- 
 rupted it with his taste till his death in 1630. The most 
 celebrated cotemporaries of Bernini were Alguardi and 
 FJammingO. The latter is much esteemed for his repre- 
 sentations of youth, and particularly of infants. At Naples 
 he executed a concert of cherubs, and two infants on a 
 monument at Rome, which are his most admired works: 
 the latter was particularly admired by Rubens, who says of 
 It, " Nature rather than art appears to have sculptured 
 them, and the marble is softened into life." Rusconi in 
 Italy succeeded to Bernini, and was the artist most in re- 
 quest at the beginning of the 18th century. His greatest 
 work was at St. Giovanni Laterano, where lie was assisted 
 by Monnot, Le Gros, Morakli, Moratti, Ottoni, and Rossi, 
 pupils of the preceding school. The further progress of 
 sculpture seemed now impossible ; in short, the art seemed 
 to have departed, though men whose names are not worth 
 recording, with all the pretensions of artists, still hovered 
 about the scenes of its former glory. 
 
 In France, Anzirevalle Adrian, Delia Bella, and Tacca, 
 pupils of Giovanni da Bologna, occupy the interval up to 
 the beginning of the reign of Louis XIV. — one extremely 
 creditable to the French school. In the remaining period 
 of that monarch's reign, the principal sculptors were Gerar- 
 don. burn at Troves in 1630, and Paget, born at Marseilles 
 in Hi,,: the bitter of whom, from his fiery and energetic 
 style, received the appellation of the Michael Angelo of 
 France. These two were the head of the school of the 
 succeeding sculptors of France; among whom was Fal- 
 conet, celebrated for his writings, and for the equestrian 
 statue he executed at St. Petersburg of the Czar Peter. 
 The unfortunate Louis XVI., previous to the Revolution, 
 was a great patron of sculpture, and had projected a col- 
 lection of statues of the most eminent characters of the 
 country. Pigal, the sculptor of the day, had executed 
 some of them before the dreadful period which stopped in 
 France, for a time, the cultivation of the arts. The school 
 of Pigal was of considerable extent and influence, Mouchy, 
 Bocquet, Moette, Chaudet, and Lebrune being members of 
 it, and continuing the art to within a generation of the 
 present time. Cotcmporary, or nearly so. with these in 
 Germany, were Rauchmuller of Vienna, Schluter of Ber- 
 lin, Millich, Bartel, and others; subsequent to whom are 
 Ohnmacht, Sonnenschien, and Nahl, all sculptors of much 
 reputation. Our knowledge of Spanish sculptors is so 
 limited, from their reputation not travelling away from 
 their own country, and in it indeed being little known, ex- 
 cept in Madrid and the chief cities, where the principal 
 employment for them is the decoration of churches, that 
 we apprehend little interest would be created by an enu 
 mention of them. In England, up to a late period, the 
 must celebrated sculptors were foreigners. Cibber, Rou- 
 blllac, and Si heemacher had the sway; and monuments 
 of their genius, especially of the Becond, are the pride of 
 some of our churches. The art, however, seemed to be 
 near its dissolution, when Antonio Canova, in 1787, re 
 vived in Rome the purity without which it is worthless. 
 This justly admired artist was burn in 175? at Possagno, a 
 village amidst the Asolani hills, at the foot of the Venetian 
 Alps. Pietro, his father, and Pashm, his grandfather, were 
 Sculptors, whose lalwurs were chiefly confined to the 
 churches of the district. Deprived of his father when only 
 three years of age, he was indebted to bis grandfather for 
 the early instruction and employment of the chisel, by which 
 he acquired great mechanical dexterity. Attracting the 
 notice of the patrician Giovanni Faliero, he was by him 
 placed with Torretto, one of the best Venetian sculptors of 
 that day. Toretlo soon afterwards died, anil young An- 
 tonio then studied under Toretto's nephew, Ferrari. But 
 he soon broke through the trammels of the an as it was 
 then practised; and the rapidity >>t" bis progress having In 
 duced bis patron to Bad a more appropriate theatre for the 
 exercise or his powers, the young nrti^t was sent to Rome 
 in December, 17s0. soon after which time the Venetian 
 government granted him a pension of 300 ducats for three 
 years. At this period the fashionable sculptors <>f Rome 
 Were Agostino Peima, Pacili, Bracci, Sibilla, and others, 
 1104 
 
 SCURVY. 
 
 whose productions are already forgotten ; so that in the 
 way of emulation Canova had little to excite his talents. 
 
 Before the period had expired for which iiis pension was 
 
 granted, the zeal of Volpalo had been successful in procur- 
 ing for liiin the commission to execute the monument of 
 Clement XIV. (Ganganelli). Thus was afforded to the 
 young sculptor an opportunity of exhibiting bis (lowers to a 
 public who were fortunately capable of appreciating his 
 merit. Before the expiration of the 18th century, he had 
 produced an amazing quantity of works, at which time it 
 was not the practice (one afterwards introduced by him) to 
 employ inferior workmen to reduce the block to the last 
 shape of the siipi rliiies. The enumeration of his works 
 would occupy much more space than can be here*^ssigned 
 to them: they were generally deficient in energy, but 
 abounding in grace and elegance; and in his monumental 
 sculpture there is vast originality of invention, whilst it is 
 free from extravagance. His females are voluptuous, but 
 not offensively so; lus execution of them exquisite. In the 
 monument executed in memory of the archduchess Chris- 
 tina of Austria, there is a pathos in the composition, whose 
 figures are linked together with the chain of nature, worthy 
 the divine Raphael himself. Canova died at Venice on 
 the Kith of October, 1822; and his remains were removed 
 to his native place, in which he had erected, at his own 
 expense, a splendid church. Albert Thorwaldsen, a cotem- 
 porary of Canova, but much his junior, a native of Den- 
 mark, lias by his great, though irregular and erratic genius, 
 raised himself to eminence in Rome as well as in his own 
 country. His powers in basso-relievo are great ; hut in ex- 
 tending the principles of the art, we cannot assign to him a 
 niche in the temple of fame, by the side of the men whose 
 merits we have just discussed. 
 
 In England, the respectable artists, Bacon, Banks, and 
 Nollekens, were followed by Flaxman, a name honourable 
 to the arts of this country. Intense feeling and simplicity 
 characterize all his works ; and in Epic sculpture, we think, 
 lie very far surpassed Canova. He was burn at York in 
 1755, and died in 1826. The lectures which lie delivered 
 as professor of sculpture at the Royal Academy have been 
 published. In the present day, we apprehend, the sculp- 
 ture of our country, supported as it is by the talents of 
 Westmacott, Lough, Rennie, Chantrey, and many othi rs, 
 will bear comparison with those of any other country in 
 Europe. 
 
 SCULPTURE, PRACTICE OF. What has been said 
 under the article Practice of Painting, relative to 
 anatomy, comparative anatomy, symmetry, invention, ex- 
 pression, and drapery, equally applies to the art of sculp- 
 ture, and need not be here repeated. We shall, therefore, 
 merel] state the different -methods practised in producing a 
 work in this art. 
 
 A model as large as the intended figure or group is first 
 made in clay, it is placed on a stand called the sculptor's 
 easel; and the general form is got out with the hand and 
 fingers, small box-wood tools being made use of to touch 
 the parts that the fingers cannot reach. The clay is kept 
 moist, to prevent its shrinking, till the model is completed. 
 The model is then moulded in plaster ol' Paris, before it be- 
 gins to dry. whence a matrix is formed, into which plaster 
 is introduced; and the matrix being broken away from it, 
 the model in clay is thus transferred into one of plaster. 
 This becomes the standard from which the artist takes all 
 the measurements for the figure he is about to execute. 
 The block of marble and the model being now placed on 
 stands, with a graduated rod, which moves on a frame per- 
 pendicular 10 it, and has a point attached to it which can 
 be made to advance and recede at pleasure, certain promi- 
 nent points are selected and marked in the model, and 
 their distance measured on the frame longitudinally and 
 vertically, and also the distance that the point of the rod is 
 advanced or receded to touch a given point. This being 
 found on the outside of the rough block, the particular 
 point is drilled down tO as great a distance as was mea- 
 sured in the model. This operation being repeated for a 
 great number of points, the surface is worked away to all 
 
 the several points found as above, till at last it I 
 assume the general form ,,f the model. As the Bculptor 
 approaches the surface which is to be left when finished, 
 
 mure cauliun and liner tools become necessary, till at length 
 it is brouzht into a state for his finishing lunches. The 
 process which we have described of bringing the shapeless 
 block into something like the form it Is ultimntelj to bear, 
 ami which is an operation purely mechanical, is performed 
 by Inferior workmen, by which the artist's labour and time 
 
 tire much spared. It is only Willi sin h a genius as Michael 
 
 Angelo thai the making a model could be dispensed with, 
 SCUTPER. A hole In the ship's deck or side to carry 
 
 off the rain, nr water shipped. 
 SCU'RVl , Scorbutus. This disease, once so common in our 
 
 navy. Is now of very rare occurrence. Ii generally appears 
 
 connected with debilitating causes, and especially unw hole-
 
 SCUTATE. 
 
 some food, want of exercise, and by cold and moisture. It 
 begins with indolence, sallow looks, and loss of strength 
 and spirits ; the gums become spongy, the teeth loose, the 
 breath faeiid; eruptions appear on different parts of the 
 body ; and at length the patient sinks under general emaci- 
 ation, diarrhoea, and hemorrhages. In the prevention and 
 cure of this disease, much is effected by attention to diet 
 and cleanliness. Fresh vegetables, farinaceous substances, 
 and brisk fermented liquors, good air and due exercise, are 
 among the principal remedial means. Acids, and especially 
 lemon juice, have been much extolled; but the researches 
 of Dr. Steevens have rendered the propriety of acid diet 
 somewhat doubtful. 
 
 SCUTATE. (Lat. scutum, a shield.) In Zoology, when 
 a surface is protected by large scales. 
 
 SCUTE'LLUM. (Lat. scutum.) A term used by Gart- 
 ner to denote the small cotyledon on the outside of the em- 
 bryo of wheat, inserted a little lower down than the other 
 more perfect cotyledon, which is pressed close to the albu- 
 men. 
 
 SCUTIBRA'NCHIANS, Scutibranchiata. (Lat. scutum; 
 branchiae, gills.) A name given by Cuvier to an order of 
 hermaphrodite Gastropodous Mollusks, including those 
 which have the gills covered with a shell in the form of a 
 shield. 
 
 SCUTIGERS. Scutigera. (Lat. scutum; gero, I carry.) 
 The name of a genus of unequal-legged (J hilopodous Myria- 
 pods, which frequent buildings in the South of Europe, and 
 prey upon insects, wood-lice, and other small creatures. 
 
 SCU'TIPEDS, Scutipedes. 'Lat. scutum, a shield; pes, 
 afoot.) The name given by Scopoli to one of the divisions 
 in his binary system of ornithology, including those birds 
 which have the anterior part of the leg covered with seg- 
 ments of unequal horny rings terminating on each side in a 
 groove. 
 
 SCU'TTLE. An opening in the ship's side or deck to 
 admit light or air, or for communication. 
 
 To scuttle the decks, implies to cut holes to let the water 
 down from them into the hold, as in the case of shipping a 
 heavy sea, or of fire. 
 
 To scuttle a vessel, is to cut a hole in her for the purpose 
 of sinking her. 
 
 SCUTTLE-BUTT. A cask of water with a large hole 
 in it placed for use in a ship. 
 
 SCUTUM. (Lat.) The shield of the Roman heavy- 
 armed legionaries : was made of wood, defended with plates 
 of iron, and covered with leather. It was either oval (ova- 
 tum) or of semi-cylindrical shape (called imbricatum). 
 Polybius appears to make the latter sort 4 feet long, and 
 it is evident that it covered a great part of the body. In 
 the centre was a boss of brass or iron, projecting from the 
 shield. From this classical word is derived the modern 
 term esquire, through the middle ages : Lat. scutiger, shield- 
 bearer. 
 
 SCY'LLA. In Mythology, the daughter of Nisus, king 
 of Megara, who threw herself into the sea for love of Minos, 
 king of Crete, and was turned into a bird. Also a poetical 
 monster, half man half dragon, who inhabited the coast of 
 Italy opposite Charybdis, according to the well-known le- 
 gend in the Odyssey. The modern town of Scilla stands 
 near the cave dreaded by the early navigators as the habit- 
 ation of this monster. 
 
 SCY'PHUS. (Gr. okv^oc, a cup.) The cup of a narcis- 
 sus. Also, in Lichens, a cup-like dilatation of the podetium, 
 bearing shields upon its margin. 
 
 SCY TALE. (Gr. gkvtos, a skin.) An instrument used 
 by the Lacedemonians for the conveyance of secret in- 
 structions to their commanders'. The construction of it 
 was as follows : When a general was sent out, a black 
 rod was given him, while another of exactly similar dimen- 
 sions was preserved at home. When instructions were to 
 be sent out, a strip of parchment was wrapped round the 
 the rod, and on the folds the orders were written ; which 
 accordingly could not be interpreted unless the parchment 
 were rolled on a similar rod. 
 
 SEA. In Geography, a part of the great ocean. See 
 Ocean Tides. 
 
 Sea. The term used by sailors for a single wave, or for 
 general agitation. In a long sea, the waves are distant ; in 
 a short sea, they are closer and more upright: a cross sea 
 is composed of waves moving in different directions. 
 
 SEA ANEMONE. The name of a highly organized 
 Polype of the genus Jlctinia. 
 
 SEA BOAT. A term applied by seamen to a vessel, as 
 respects her qualities in bad weather. 
 
 SEA DEVIL. The seaman's name of a large cartilagin- 
 ous fish of the Ray tribe, the type of the genus Cephalop- 
 tera, Cuvier; also applied to the angler (Lophius piscato- 
 rius, Linn.) 
 
 SEAL. (Lat. sigillum.) In Gem Sculpture, a stamp cut 
 or sunk on stone, capable of yielding an impression to any 
 soft substance. When a gem is selected for cutting, it is 
 
 SEARCH WARRANT. 
 
 put into the hands of the lapidary to reduce it to shape and 
 smoothness. It is then fixed with mastic to a piece of wood 
 to serve as a handle, and the subject is sketched upon it 
 with a copper point or a diamond. The tool is a lathe 
 somewhat resembling a turning lathe, into the end of the 
 spindle whereof points, knobs, or circles can be inserted. 
 The gem is then applied to the end of one of these tools, 
 according to the nature of the cutting required, wetted with 
 diamond-dust and olive oil, and by frequent working the 
 subject is wrought. Frequent impressions are of course 
 taken during the progress, to show the excesses or defects. 
 These, however, are not necess-.iry in working cameos, 
 because the prominences are obvious to the eye. The 
 tools are soft iron or copper ; and the powder of the 
 ruby, or other hard stones, is often substituted for diamond 
 powder. 
 
 Seal. In Zoology, the English name for a genus of 
 Marine Carnivorous Mainmiferous Quadrupeds, otherwise 
 called Phocida. The variety of seals is very great, and 
 they are found in vast numbers in the seas round Spitz- 
 bergen, and on the coasts of Labrador and Newfoundland. 
 As it frequents the British shores, it is well known, and 
 has been repeatedly described. Seals are principally 
 hunted for their oil and skins. When taken in the spring 
 of the year — at which time they are fattest — a full-grown 
 seal will yield from 8 to 12 gallons of oil, and a small one 
 from 4 to 5 gallons. The oil, when extracted before putre- 
 faction has commenced, is beautifully transparent, free 
 from smell, and not unpleasant in its taste. The skin, when 
 tanned, is extensively employed in the making of shoes; 
 and when dressed with the hair on, serves for the coveriug 
 of trunks, &c. See Fisheries. 
 
 SEAL, GREAT. All charters, commissions, grants of 
 land, franchise, liberties, &c, letters patent, and letters 
 close, of the king, pass the great seal. The usual course 
 is, that a grant, or letters patent, pass by bill ; which is pre- 
 pared by the attorney or solicitor -general under warrant 
 from the king. It is then subscribed at foot with the sign 
 manual, and sealed with the privy signet. In this stage it 
 is next, in some cases, taken directly to pass the great seal ; 
 in other cases, an extract of the bill is taken to the keeper of 
 the privy seal, who makes out a writ or warrant thereupon 
 to the chancery, where it passes the great seal. Then the 
 sign manual is a warrant to the privy seal, and that to the 
 great seal. There are, however, some grants which only 
 pass through certain offices, as the Admiralty or Treasury, 
 under the sign manual, requiring neither privy nor great 
 seal. The keeper of the great seal has, by 5 Eliz. c. 18, 
 the same place and jurisdiction as the lord chancellor of 
 England : since that statute, therefore, both offices cannot 
 exist at the same time in different persons, -which was not 
 unfrequently the case before. 
 
 SEALING-WAX. The wax used for sealing letters, 
 legal instruments, &c. The best red sealing wax is made 
 by melting in a very gentle heat 48 parts of shell-lac with 
 lit of Venice turpentine and 1 of Peruvian balsam ; 32 parts 
 of the finest cinnabar, thoroughly levigated, are then stirred 
 in, and the whole well mixed. When it has cooled down, 
 it is either rolled into sticks, or shaped in brass moulds. 
 The best black sealing-wax is a mixture of 60 parts of shell- 
 lac and 30 of ivory black; it may be perfumed with a little 
 Peru balsam or styra*. The earliest application of sealing- 
 wax to its present use seems to have been made about the 
 year 1553. The first printed account of it is said by Berze- 
 lius to have appeared in 1563. The great seals applied in 
 tin boxes to certain legal documents are made of a mixture 
 of 15 parts of Venice turpentine, 5 of olive oil, and 8 of wax 
 melted together, and coloured with red lead. 
 
 SEAL, PRIVY. All charters, pardons, &c, which re- 
 quire the great seal, pass first through the hands of the 
 keeper of the privy seal : and other instruments of less con- 
 sequence pass the privy seal only. A warrant to issue 
 money out of the king's coffers, under the privy seal, is suf- 
 ficient. The keeper of the seal is now an officer of state, 
 with the title Lord Privy Seal. By 2 W. 4, c. 49, the offices 
 of clerks of the signet and privy seal are to be abolished aa 
 soon as vacancies occur in them. 
 
 SEA'MAN. A man brought up to the sea, and capable 
 of discharging the duties of that life. A complete seaman 
 is called an able seaman, and is rated A. B. ; one less com- 
 petent, an ordinary seaman; and a man fresh from the 
 shore, a landsman. The reader will find in the Com. Diet. 
 full particulars respecting the enrolment, wages, and, in 
 short, all the statistics of seamen. 
 
 SEAMS. The spaces between the edges of planks : these 
 in a ship are caulked, and then covered with pitch. 
 
 Seams. In Geology, thin layers which separate thicker 
 strata. 
 
 SEAMEW. A name for the gull. See Larus. 
 
 SEARCH WARRANT, in Law, is granted by a justice 
 of the peace, under 7 & 8 G. 4, c. 29, to search for goods 
 stolen, or respecting which other offences specified in the 
 3 Z 1105
 
 SEA SICKNESS. 
 
 act have been committed. The warrant is granted on the 
 oath of a credible witness, that he has "reasonable cause 
 to suspect" the goods to be in the possession and on the 
 premises ofa certain individual. 
 
 SEA SICKNESS. Nausea and retching, which attack 
 moat persona on tii»t going to sea; sometimes continuing 
 only a day or two, but often lasting the whole of a long 
 voyage. The most effective antidote, or reined), consists 
 i.i lyiiiL' in the horizontal position. In some persons it- vio- 
 lence is prevented by small doses of opium, or by soda \\ a- 
 ter, or saline draughts in the act of effervescence ; liniments 
 and plaisters containing opium applied to the pit of the stom 
 acii are also recommended, as mitigating, or even preventing 
 this iu"st annoying malady. The violence of the attacks 
 not only varies in different individuals at different times. 
 but the same person who escapes in one voyage shall suffer 
 severely in another. The cause of sea sickness is probably 
 referable to the influence of the motion of the vessel npon 
 the circulation of the blood : it has been compared to the 
 sickness occasioned by swinging. For some ingenious ob- 
 servations upon this subject, see Dr. Wollaston's Croonian 
 Lecture, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1810. 
 
 SEASONS. (Fr. saisons.) The four quarters of the 
 year — spring, summer, autumn, winter. The seasons are 
 considered as beginning respectively when the sun enters 
 the signs Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn ; so that the 
 spring season commences about the 21st of March, summer 
 about the 22d of June, autumn about the 23d of September, 
 and trinur about the 23d of December. 
 
 SEA UNICORN. The name of the narwhal (.Monodon 
 monoceros, L.). 
 
 SEA URCHIN. The name generally applied to the dif- 
 ferent species of Echinus. 
 
 SEBACEOUS GLANDS. Small cuticular glands which 
 secrete a greasy matter, serving to protect and soften the 
 skin or cuticle. 
 
 SEB VCIC ACID. Oneof the acids produced during the 
 destructive distillation of fat. 
 
 SKi ALE. (Lat,) The ergot or clavus of rye. See 
 Ergot. 
 
 SL CANT Lat. srco, Icut), in Trigonometry, is a straight 
 line drawn from the centre of a circle to one extremity of 
 an arc, and produced until it meets the tangent to the other 
 extremity. The secant of an arc is a third proportional to 
 the cosine and the radius; hence, if the radius be taken as 
 unit, the secant is the reciprocal of the cosine. See Trig- 
 
 SISOMETKY. 
 
 BECE'DERS. See Burghers. 
 
 SE'COND, in the Sexagesimal Arithmetic, is the COth 
 part of a minute, or prime. Thus a degree of a circle, and 
 an hour of time, are each divided into 60 minutes, and each 
 minute into 60 seconds. In the old treatises on astronomy, 
 the seconds are sometimes denominated second minutes. 
 (minute secundae) : while the minutes, being the first divi- 
 sion of the unit, are the primes (minute prima;. Following 
 out the analogy, the sixtieth part of a second was called a 
 third ; but this term is not found in modern works. It was 
 formerly usual to denote minutes and seconds, both of time 
 and arc, by tin- characters ' and " ; but these are now gen- 
 erally used only to indicate minutes and seconds of arc, 
 those of time being indicated respectively by the abbrevia- 
 tions m. and sec. 
 
 Se'cond. In Music, a musical interval ; being the dif- 
 ference between any sound and the next nearest, whether 
 above or below it. It may be either major or minor. 
 
 NDAKIKS.or SECONDAB Y QUILLS. (Second- 
 ariee, Linn.) The large feathers of the wing which arise 
 from the bones of the antibrachium or fore-arm, and prin- 
 cipally from the ulna, are so called. 
 
 SECONDARY CIRCLES, in Astronomy, are great cir- 
 cles of the sphere perpendicular to another great circle. 
 which is regarded as the primary, and consequently passing 
 through its |H>les. The secondaries of the ecliptic are the 
 circles on which the latitudes of celestial objects are mea- 
 sured. 
 
 SE'CONDARY ROCKS or STRATA. A series of stra- 
 tified rocks with certain characters, by which they are dis- 
 tinguished as a (las- from the primary rocks, which are 
 beneath them, and from the tertiary neks, w Inch lie upon 
 them. Set Gkoloot. 
 
 SE'COND COAT; In Architecture, either the finishing 
 ,ti laid and set, or in rendered and set ; or it is the 
 floating when the plaster is roughed in, floated, and set for 
 paper. 
 
 SE'COND SIGHT 'called in Gaelic Taischitaraugh; from 
 
 i unreal or shadowy appearance). A well-known 
 
 Highland superstition. In all ages tin' idea has prevailed 
 
 tint persona endowed with tin- power of divination did not 
 
 only foretel by instinct, but had sometimes an actual and 
 
 mysterious vision of distant or future events : as in the lines 
 of I.uran which describe the presages before the battle of 
 Pharsalia — 
 1106 
 
 SECRETION. 
 
 Inipia coDcurrunt Pompeii et Caesaris arwa. 
 
 But the peculiarity of the Highland superstition seems to 
 consist in this, that persons were supposed to be endowed 
 With the faculty who were in no other respect feared or 
 reverenced for their supernatural powers: it was regarded 
 as a mere natural power, like superior sharpness of sight or 
 hearing. The Inhabitants of the Western Islands were 
 thought to be peculiarly gifted with it. It could not be ex- 
 erted at pleasure ; the power came on the seer involuntarily, 
 and often to his extreme terror and suffering. Neverthe- 
 less, certain rules were in fashion for the interpretation of 
 the visions ; such, for instance, as that mentioned by Sir YV. 
 Scott, that if a seer saw a figure w uh his back to him, on 
 altering the position of his own plaid if the figure appeared 
 with its plaid similarly arranged the vision regarded the 
 seer himself. Martin, in his Description of the Western 
 Islands, seems to have brought this superstition into notice 
 in England. It is well known how Johnson undertook the 
 defence of it, in his Journey to the H'istern Islands ; but, 
 in despite of evidence which neither Bacon, Boyle, nor 
 Johnson were able to resist, the taisch. with all its visionary 
 properties, seems to be now universally abandoned to the 
 use of poetry. The exquisitely beautiful poem of Loehicl 
 will at onceoccur to the recollection of every reader. Notes 
 to the Lady of the Lake.) It is finely described by Collins 
 in his ode on the Superstitions of the Highlands. But the 
 classical bard of the second sight is Sir Walter Scott. (See 
 especially his noble ballad Lord Ronald, the character of 
 Allan Macalister in the Legend of Montrose, &c. &.c.) 
 How far the belief in second sight is preserved at the pre- 
 sent day, we cannot tell. Mr. Logan, in his Scottish Gael, 
 only says, " It is not so prevalent as formerly." (Vol. ii. 
 340.) 
 
 SE'CRETARY. An officer employed in writing letters, 
 despatches, &c, under the orders of his superior. The title 
 of secretary was first used to denote a public minister in 
 France, where the three clerks of the privy council were 
 also termed secretaries as earlv as the 14th century. 
 
 SE'CRETARY, LI IRD. A high officer in the"kingdom 
 of Scotland, resembling the great prothonotary in foreign 
 courts. This office was kept up after the Union, but has 
 been disused since 1746. 
 
 SE'CRETARY OF STATE. Oneof the highest officers 
 of the British crown. This office, however, is compara- 
 tively modern in point of importance ; thesecretarj of state 
 having been originally what his name implies, a mere ser- 
 vant of the privy council. There was only one until the 
 reign of Henry VIII., who added another ; but their func- 
 tions were limited to preparing business for the council board, 
 which they attendeil afterwards with their proposals, Un- 
 der Elizabeth they became members of the council. Queen 
 Anne raised the number to three, by the appointment of a 
 secretary for Scotch affairs — an office which did not long 
 continue ; and one for the American department was ap- 
 pointed in the reign of George III., but abolished in 1788, 
 At present there are three secretaries of state. 1. The Se- 
 cretary for the Home Department. 2. The Colonial Secre- 
 tary. 3. The Secretary for Foreign Affairs. In each of 
 these departments there are two under-secretaries, one of 
 whom remains in office on a change of ministry. The 
 clerks in the Home Office are divided into senior and junior ; 
 but no such distinction obtains in the other two. Each of 
 the principal secretaries has 6000/. a year. The Alien Of- 
 fice is annexed to the Home Department : the State Paper 
 < Iffice belongs alike to those of all the departments. The 
 Secretary for Home Affairs has the custody of the privy 
 signet; and the Privy Signet Office, in which grants, letters, 
 led with the privj signet, are made out, is in his 
 department. The principal secretaries are a!w a\ s ex officio , 
 cabinet ministers. Their position in the English govern 
 men! is. in fact, identical with that of the ministers of home 
 and foreign affairs, &.<•., in France and other Continental 
 countries. The Secretary at War is attached to the War 
 Office. His salary is 2480/.; and he is also frequently, 
 though not always, a member of the cabinet. The secre- 
 tary of state for Ireland Is also Keeper of the privy seal of 
 that part of the kingdom, and chief secretary of the lord 
 lieutenant. His office is divided into two departments, mili- 
 tary and civil, in each of which an under-secretaryls placed. 
 
 Like the secretary at war. be is, though more rarely, some- 
 tune- a member of the cabinet. 
 
 SECRETION. Lit. secretio.) The process by which 
 substances are separated from the blood in nuimals, or from 
 
 the sap of veg< tables. 
 
 In somi i iion appears to ben mere separation 
 
 of water, and of oilier substances held in solution by it, from 
 
 the blood; but in other- the process is much more elabo 
 
 rate and intricate. A highly Complicated glandular struc- 
 ture is requisite ; and the proximate or ultimate elements
 
 SECT. 
 
 of the Mood are arranged into new combinations, so as to 
 constitute a new and distinct product, of which no traces 
 are to be found in the healthy blood. The animal secretions 
 are arranged by Bostock under the heads aqueous, albumin- 
 ous, mucous, gelatinous, fibrinous, oleaginous, resinous and 
 saline. Magendie's classification of the secretions comprises, 
 L Exhalations, as from the skin, the surfaces of the closed 
 cavities of the body, and the lungs; 2. Follicular secretions, 
 which are either cutaneous or mucous ; and, 3. Glandular 
 secretions, such as milk, bile, urine, saliva, &c. See Physi- 
 ology and Botany, &c, 
 
 SECT. A term used in ordinary language to signify any- 
 body which separates from the established religion of a coun- 
 try- In this sense, the word appears to be derived from Lat. 
 seco, I cut ; sectarians being, as it were, cutoff from the gener- 
 al mass. But, on the other hand, the term was anciently ap- 
 plied to the followers of some distinguished person ; in which 
 sense, the idea of cutting off wholly disappears, and the 
 word seems then to be derived from Lat. sequor, I follow. 
 The chief sects, both of philosophers and religions, will be 
 found noticed under their respective heads. 
 
 SE'CTION (Lat. sectio), in Geometry, denotes the line 
 formed by the intersection of two surfaces, and likewise the 
 surface formed when a solid body is cut by a plane. When 
 a plane is cut by a plane, the section is a straight line ; when 
 a sphere is cut by a plane the section is a circle ; and when 
 a cone is cut by a plane, the section may be a triangle, a 
 circle, an ellipse, an hyperbola, or a parabola, which five fig- 
 ures are consequently called the conic sections. See Co- 
 nic Sections.) Vieta gave the name of angular sections to 
 the branch of analysis which has for its object the investi- 
 gation of the sines and chords of the multiples and subniul- 
 tiples of a given arc. On this subject the student may con- 
 sult the work of Poinsot, entitled Heckerches stir V Analyse 
 des Section Angulaires, Paris, 18-25. — Section of a Ratio, and 
 Section of Space, are terms that were employed by Apol- 
 lonius of Perga, who wrote two books with those titles : the 
 former of which was restored by Dr. Hallev, and the latter 
 by Willebrord Snell. 
 
 Section. In Architecture, the projection or geometrical 
 representation of a building, supposed to be cut through, so 
 as to exhibit its interior. 
 
 SE'CTOR. (Lat.) In Geometry the sector of a circlr 
 is a portion of the area of the circle bounded by two radii 
 and the intercepted arc. Sectors of different circles are 
 said to be similar when the sides or radii include equal an- 
 gles. The area of a sector is equal to that of a triangle 
 whose base is equal to the length of the contained arc, and 
 altitude equal to the radius of the circle. 
 
 Sector. A mathematical instrument, of considerable 
 Use in making diagrams, laying down plans, &c. Its prin- 
 cipal advantage consists in the facility with which it gives 
 a graphical determination of proportional quantities ; and 
 hence it is called by the French the compass of proportion. 
 The instrument consists of two rulers (generally of brass 
 or ivory), representing the radii of a circular arc, and move- 
 able round a joint, the middle of which forms the centre of 
 the circle. From this centre there are drawn on the faces 
 of the rulers various scales ; the choice of which, and the 
 order of their arrangement, may be determined by a consid- 
 eration of the uses for which the instrument is chiefly in- 
 tended. The scales usually put on sectors are of two kinds 
 — single and double ; that is to say, such as are drawn only 
 on one of the limbs, and such as are drawn on both limbs. 
 The first kind, however (comprising, for example, a line of 
 inches, of chords, sines, logarithms, &c), are not peculiar 
 to the sector, but are merely placed there for convenience, 
 and may be used whether the instrument is shut or open. 
 Of the lines repeated on both limbs the principal are the 
 following : 1. A line of equal parts, by which, with a pair 
 of compsases, we are enabled, on the principle that similar 
 triangles have their homologous sides proportional, to find a 
 third proportional to two given lines, a fourth proportional 
 to three given lines, to diminish a line in any given propor- 
 tion, &c. 2. A scale of chords, which enables us to pro- 
 tract an angle of any given number of degrees, to find the 
 degrees which any given angle contains, to cut off an arc 
 of any given magnitude from the circumference of a given 
 circle, &c. 3. Scales of sines, tangents, and secants, where- 
 by the length of the trigonometrical lines corresponding to 
 a given arc of a circle of any radius are determined. 4. A 
 line of polygons, whereby "the proportional length of the 
 side of any regular polygon (of not more than twelve sides) 
 to the radius of the circumscribing circle is found. 
 
 The sector may be used in trigonometry for obtaining a 
 rough solution of all the cases of right-angled plane trian- 
 gles ; and it is also conveniently applied to the construction 
 of various geometrical problems. For a description of its 
 different uses, see Robertson's Treatise of such Mathemati- 
 cal Instruments as are usually put into a Portable Case. 
 
 Sector. In Astronomy, an instrument constructed for the 
 purpose of determining with great accuracy the zenith dis- 
 
 SEDATIVES. 
 
 tances of stars passing within a few degrees of the ze- 
 nith, where the effect of refraction is small. See Zenith 
 Sector. 
 
 SE'CULAR EQUATION, SECULAR INEQUALITY. 
 (Lat. seculum, a century.) In Astronomy, any deviation 
 from the mean motion or mean orbit of a celestial body is 
 called an inequality, and the numerical expression of the 
 magnitude and period of the inequality is called an equation. 
 The equations representing the motions of the bodies of the 
 solar system are of two kinds, periodic and secular: the 
 first being those which pass through all their changes and 
 return to the same state in a comparatively short period of 
 time; and the second such as change their values so slowly 
 that the variation only becomes sensible after the lapse of 
 centuries, and require for the accomplishment of the series 
 of their changes a length of time which in some cases as- 
 tronomers have not yet ventured to calculate. Thus the 
 lunar evection, which depends on the position of the trans- 
 verse axis of the moon's orbit in respect of the line of the 
 syzygies, is a periodic inequality, passing through all its dif- 
 ferent values in about 31 days 19A hours : but the acceler- 
 ation of the moon's mean motion depending on a slow vari- 
 ation of the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, is a secular ine- 
 quality, amounting only to about 10 seconds in a century. 
 The secular inequalities are in fact periodic as well as 
 the others ; but they proceed so slowly that the observa- 
 tions of many hundreds, or even thousands of years, would 
 be insufficient to make known their periodicity. The dis- 
 covery of their nature is one of the results of the theory of 
 gravitation. 
 
 SE'CULAR GAMES, in Antiquity, were games celebra- 
 ted once in a hundred years. They lasted three days and 
 three nights, during which period sacrifices were offered up, 
 and theatrical shows exhibited, and combats in the circus, 
 &c, took place. Valerius Publicola, the first consul creat- 
 ed after the expulsion of the kings, A.U.C. 245, was the first 
 who celebrated them at Rome. Some authors maintain 
 that the secu'um, or age, consisted of 100, and others of 110 
 years ; but it is certain several Roman emperors did not al- 
 low so long an interval as either period to elapse. Thus, 
 Augustus celebrated secular games A.U. 730, Caligula 64 
 years later, and Domitian 26 years afterwards ; on which 
 occasion Tacitus assisted in the capacity of juris-decemvir. 
 According to Zosimus, the emperor Septimus Severus was 
 the last who celebrated them ; but other writers have stated 
 that under the emperor Philip, A.U. 1000, these games were 
 held with more magnificence than had ever been before 
 witnessed. They were celebrated, in all, eight times. 
 
 The original sseculum of the Etruscan augurs is said by 
 some to have been measured by the longest life of those 
 who were born at its commencement ; and they had a pe- 
 culiar tradition, that the duration allotted to nations was 
 measured by a certain number of these sacula. (Plutarch, 
 Sylla : Censorinus, De die JVatali.) 
 
 SECULARIZATION. In Politics, the appropriation of 
 church property to secular uses. In most European states 
 such appropriations have taken place on a great scale with- 
 in the last century. In England, the only great seculariza- 
 tion has been that made under Henry VIII. 
 
 SE'CULAR POEMS, in Antiquity, were those recited at 
 the celebration of the secular games. Of this species of 
 poem the Sapphic Ode of Horace, at the end of his book of 
 Epods, is a noble specimen. Several editions of Horace 
 give the name secular poem to the 21st Ode of the first book. 
 See Neibuhr's Rome, 2d edition, p. 289.) 
 
 SECULAR REFRIGERATION. The periodical cooling 
 and consequent consolidation of the crust of the globe : a 
 term used by geologists in reference to the supposed central 
 heat, and even fluidity of the globe, and to the phenomena 
 of its gradual refrigeration. 
 
 SECULAR YEAR. The same with Jubilee— kept once 
 in a century. 
 
 SEC'UNDINE. (Lat. secundus.) In Botany, the outer- 
 most but one of the enclosing sacs of the ovuhini, immedi- 
 ately reposing upon the primine. Mirbel considers it the 
 second integument formed by the ovula ; Schleider says it 
 is the first, and that the primine or first integument of Mir- 
 bel is formed afterwards. 
 
 In Zoology, the foetal membranes collectively are some- 
 times termed secundiues. 
 
 SECU'RIFERS. Securiferi. (Lat. securis, a hatchet; 
 fero, / bear.) The name of a tribe of Tcrebrantia, or boring 
 Hymenopterous insects, comprising those in which the fe- 
 males have a saw-shaped or hatchet-shaped terrebra or ap- 
 pendage to the posterior part of the abdomen, for the pur- 
 pose of preparing a place to receive the eggs, and of depos- 
 iting them therein. 
 
 SECU'RIPALPS, Sccuripalpi. Lat. securis, a hatchet .- 
 palpo, I feel.) The name of a family of Coleopterous in- 
 sects, comprehending those in which the maxillary palps 
 terminate in a joint which is elongated and hatchet-shaped. 
 
 SE'DATrVES. (Lat. sedo, / assuage.) Medicines which 
 
 1107
 
 SEDENTARIES. 
 
 assuage pain ; generally by inducing Bleep and diminishing 
 irritability . 
 
 SEDENTARIES, Sedentaria. (Lat. Bedeo, / sit.) The 
 name of a section of spiders (.Irum ida-\ comprehending 
 tlmse which remain motionless in the hiding-place of their 
 web until called forth by an entangled prey. 
 
 SEDGE BIRD. The name of the Sylvia phragmitis, 
 Bech. This species of warbler visits this country about the 
 middle of April, and emigrates in September. It frequents 
 the Bedgy banks of rivers, and constructs a nesi composed 
 
 of a little moss intermixed with dry stalks, lined With dry 
 
 gra-s. and occasionally a few baits. It lays five or six eggs 
 
 of a light brown colour, mottled with darker shades of 
 the same. Il is sometimes called reed bunting. 
 
 SEDI'TION. (Lat. se, apart, and ire, to go.) In Law, 
 a general and not strictly technical word, comprising, in 
 common language, offences against the state which do not 
 amount to high treason. The distinction between the two 
 offences was not very accurately adhered to or defined un- 
 til later times. Sedition is of the like tendency with trea- 
 son, but without the overt acts which are essential to the 
 latter. Thus, there are seditious assemblies, seditious li- 
 bels, &c, as well as direct or indirect threats and acts 
 amounting to sedition ; all punishable as misdemeanours. 
 The acts 39 G. 3, c.79 (by which the famous Corresponding 
 Societies were suppressed), and 57 G. 3, c. 19, were passed to 
 prevent seditious meetings and assemblies. 
 
 SEE. (Lat. sedes, a seat.) The name usually given to 
 the diocess of a bishop in England. It was originally ap- 
 plied exclusively to the papal chair at Rome ; but it has 
 long been used in its present wide signification. 
 
 SEED, is the reproductive part of a plant resulting from 
 impregnation, and containing the embryo or rudiment of a 
 future plant ; or, in other words, it is the ovulum in its most 
 perfect and finally organized state. It is formed of repro- 
 ductive matter peculiar to dowering plants, its equivalent in 
 flowerless plants being the spore. It is commonly said that 
 as the seed is the part intended by nature to multiply 
 the races of plants, special contrivances are provided for 
 ensuring its dispersion and migration from place to place; 
 such, for instance, as being discharged with force by the 
 sudden explosion of the case or seed-vessel in which it is 
 generated ; having membranous wings that render it buoy- 
 ant, and so on. Hut this idea, although to a certain extent 
 true, is frequently misapplied to seed-vessels, as in the in- 
 stance of the dandelion, the ash tree, the sycamore, &c. : in 
 these latter cases the part to which the name of seed is giv- 
 en is a true pericarp or seed-vessel. On the other hand, 
 many kinds of seed-vessels, such, for instance, as those of 
 corn, of labiate and boraginaceous plants, &c, are miscalled 
 seeds, or naked seeds. 
 
 SE G M ENT. (Lat.) In Geometry, a part cut off from a 
 figure by a line or plane. The segment of a circle is a 
 part of the area comprised between an arc and its chord ; 
 and segments of different circles are said to be similar when 
 their arcs have the same ratio to the circumferences of their 
 respective circles, or when they contain the same number 
 of degrees. The area of a circular segment may be found 
 as follows: Let P R be the chord of a circle whose centre 
 is C, and let A B be the diameter per- 
 pendicular to P R, and meeting it in (1 ; 
 and put z = ACl,y= P CI, z = A P,r 
 = A Cthe radius, and7T = 314159. the 
 ■Jb ratio of the circumference to the diam- 
 eter. .Now the area of the segment P 
 A R is evidently equal to the difference 
 between the sector A P O R and the 
 triangle PC R; but the area of the 
 sector = r: (the radius into half the arc), and the triangle 
 = y (r — i) ; therefore the segment = r z — r y -f- y z. 
 When the radius of the circle and the chord of the segment 
 (that i-. randy) arc known, this expression i* easily calcu- 
 lated from a table of sines, for the angle A ( ' 1' is found 
 from its sine = y -i-r ; and when the angle is given the arc 
 z is obtained from this proportion, I : ir r : : A C P : 180°. 
 With respect to /, we have from the property of the circle 
 x — y/ir^—y-). 
 
 The superficial ami solid contents of asegmentot a sphere 
 are found thus: Let S be the spherical surface of the Beg 
 men! of the sphere whose centre is C by the plane I' till. 
 The symbols having the same values as above, the circum- 
 ference of the circle P UR is 2 ir ;/ ; and the differential of 
 the surface is </ s = i! 77 ;/ </ :. Hut fr the nature of the 
 
 circle. // dl—rdx; heme d S = 2ji r d i, and S =; 2 n r x ; 
 
 so that the surface of the segment is found in terms of 
 
 the radius of the sphere and the altitude of the segment. 
 Lei I denote the solid contents Of the segment; then, 
 
 '!i> ii,. area of the circle P Q, B is it y2, the differential of 
 
 I '= it y l d z=.2nr xdx — nx 2 dz ; Whence 
 U = ffzZ(r- 
 SEGNO. [ltal. a mark.) In Music. See \i. Seono 
 
 i It. it follows.) In Music, a word which, pre- 
 
 noa 
 
 SELEUCID.E, ERA OF. 
 
 ; fixed to a part, denotes that it is immediately to follow ths 
 last note of the preceding movement. When minims, crotell- 
 t ets, &.C are subdivided 1 by a stroke drawn through their 
 tails, so as to make them into abbreviated groups, ttie term 
 indicates that the following notes are divided similarly to 
 those first marked. 
 
 SEIDL1TZ WATER. The mineral waters of Seidlitz, 
 a village of Bohemia: sulphate of magnesia, sulphate at 
 soda, and carbonic acid, are its active ingredients. It is of- 
 ten taken as an agreeable and effective aperient. The arti- 
 cle sold under the name id' Si idlitz-pvirders is intended to 
 produce the same effect, though very different in composition. 
 These powders are generally sold in different-colored pa- 
 pers: one blue, containing S drachms of the potassa-lar- 
 trate of soda mixed with 2 scruples of bicarbonate of soda ; 
 the other red, containing 35 grains of finely powdered tar- 
 taric acid. The former powder is dissolved in half a pint of 
 water, and the latter in a separate wine-glass full ; the solu- 
 tions are then mixed, and taken in the act of effervescence. 
 
 SEl'GNORY. (Fr. seigneurie.) In Lower Canada, the 
 right of feudal superiority in real estate. The term "fief" 
 is applied both to the land held of a seigneur, and to the 
 dominum directum, or right of direct seigniory, reserved to 
 him who has granted the land in fief. The king has the 
 paramount segniory in all the feudal lands. By 6 G. 4, c. 
 59, persons holding fiefs or segniories may, on application to 
 the king, obtain a commutation and release of feudal bur- 
 dens, and the fief or segniory may be regrauted in common 
 socage. The land held in seigniory is said to amount to 
 more than 15,000 square miles. 
 
 SEIGNORAGE. An ancient prerogative of the crown, 
 w hereby it claimed a percentage upon every ingot of gold 
 or silvet brought to the mint to be coined. Upon gold it 
 amounted under Edward ill. to 5s. per lb. weight, of which 
 a fifth was appropriated to the master of the mint: upon 
 silver it varied from Is. to Is. and 3d., &c, but the amount 
 varied in different reigns. The term seignorage is used in 
 common language to signify profit. 
 
 SEI'SIN, in the Common Law of England, signifies pos- 
 session, either actual (seisin in deed) or in law ; as where 
 lands have descended to a party who has not ejitered into 
 actual possession of them, or is by wrong disseised of them. 
 
 SEISMO'METER. (Gr. acio/ioc, an earthquake.) An in- 
 strument for measuring the shock of. earthquakes and other 
 concussions. (Kdin. Phil. Trans, vol. xv. p. 219.) 
 
 SE'JANT. In Heraldry, a term employed to describe 
 beasts when represented in a sitting posture. Scjantram- 
 pant, sitting with the two fore feet lifted up, etc., 
 
 SELA'CIANS, Selacii. (Gr. treXaxos, a species of scale- 
 less fish.) The name given by Cuviei to the tribe of Chon- 
 dropterygians which includes the rays and sharks. 
 
 SELE'NE. (Gr. the moon.) In Grecian Mythology, tho 
 goddess of the moon. Her Latin equivalent was Luna. 
 She was represented sometimes as the wife, the sister, and 
 the daughter of Helios, the sun ; and was identical with 
 Artemis or Diana, which see. 
 
 SELEMTE. (Gt. ctXiji'iTris.) One of the mineralogical 
 synonyms of crystallized sulphate of lime. 
 
 SELE'NIUM. (Gr. ±t\>)in, the moon.) A substance 
 discovered in 1818 by Berzelius. In its general chemi- 
 cal habitudes it bears a resemblance to sulphur. It has 
 hitherto been obtained in very small quantity, and general- 
 ly occurs in some of the varieties of iron pyrites. It is 
 a brittle, opaque substance, tasteless, and inodorous, hav- 
 ing something of the appearance of lead, but of a deep red 
 colour when reduced to powder, its specific gravity is about 
 4-3. At 212° il becoins soft and tenacious and at 'Ji0° is 
 perfectly liquid; at 050° it boils and sublimes. It is insol- 
 uble in water, and unaltered by air ; and when heated by 
 the blowpipe, so as to become oxidized, it exhales a strong 
 odour of horse-radish. Its equivalent is about 40. It forms 
 an oxide and two acids; the selenievs and being a com- 
 pound of 1 equivalent of selenium and 2 of oxygen, and 
 the selenic acid of 1 and 3. It also combines with hydro- 
 gen, forming the kydroselenit acid, a gaseous compound of 
 40 selenium -f- 1 hydrogen. Its odour at first resembles sul- 
 phuretted hydrogen, hut it afterwards powerfully irritates 
 the nose, excites catarrhal symptoms, and destroys the 
 sense of smell. Dr. I'rout has suggested the possibility of 
 the evolution of tins a rapound bj volcanoes, and lis diffu- 
 sion through the atmosphere as productive of certain forms 
 of the epidi naic disordi r calli d Influenza. 
 
 SELENO'GRAPHY. (i;r. x thiVJi, 'hi moon, and )/>j0u», 
 I describe.) The description of the surface of the moon, as 
 geography i^ a description of ilie surface of the earth. 
 
 SELEU ciD.i:, BRA til' Till'. In Chronology, the era of 
 ilc. .- ri, n, hi. i , oiheru tse called the Macedonian era, dates 
 from the epoch of the first conquests ol Seleucus Nicator iu 
 Syria, about 311 years before Christ. It was followed g' 
 ally by the Greek colonies bordering on the Levant; and 
 In the JeWS till the 15th Century, by whom it was called 
 tile era of contracts. There is considerable difference of
 
 SELLA TURCICA. 
 
 opinion among authors respecting the month and day on 
 which the year of this era commenced, so that it is frequent- 
 ly not possible to fix the correspondence of dates ; but ac- 
 cording to the computation most generally followed, the 
 year 312 of the era of the Seleucida; began on the 1st of 
 September in the Julian ye:ir preceding the first year of our 
 era. Hence to reduce a Macedonian date to the common 
 era, subtract 311 years and 4 months. 
 
 SE'LLA TURCICA. A cavity in the sphenoid bone ; it 
 is surrounded by the four clenoid processes, and contains 
 the pituitary gland. 
 
 SE'LLI. The priests of Jupiter, who delivered his ora- 
 cles at the sacred grove of Dodona in Epirus. 
 
 SE'LTERS or SELTZER WATER. A mineral water 
 from Seltzer, about ten miles from Frankfort on the Maine. 
 It is an agreeable beverage, from the quantity of free carbo- 
 nic acid which it contains, and which covers its slightly sa- 
 line taste. Common salt, with the carbonates of magne- 
 sia, lime, and soda, are the saline ingredients. 
 
 SE'LVAGE. A piece of very flexible kind of rope, com- 
 posed of yarns not twisted together, but laid parallel, and 
 confined by external marline. 
 
 SEMAPHORE. (Gr. <ri//<a, a sign, and (pcf <o>, 1 bear.) A 
 term mostly used synonymously with telegraph, but which, 
 as its derivation imports, may be applied to any means 
 whatever employed to communicate intelligence by signals. 
 Sec Telegraph. 
 
 SEME'. (Fr. sown.) In Heraldry, a term employed to 
 describe a field or charge powdered or strewed over with 
 figures, such as stars, billets, crosses, &c. 
 
 SEMEIOTIC. (Gr. atjuuov, a sign.) That which re- 
 lates to the signs or symptoms of diseases. 
 
 SEMI-A'RIANS. A branch of the great Arian heresy, 
 who denied the bi.wovaioi>, or consubstantiality of the Son 
 with the Father ; but admitted the bjioiovaov, or similarity 
 of substance. (See art. Arians ; and Mosheim, Eccle. Hist. 
 vol. i., trans. 1790, p. 44. See Homoousians.) 
 
 SE'MIBREVE (j. c, half a breve). In Music, a note 
 whose length is half that of a breve. It is the integer whose 
 fractions and multiples express the time of other notes. 
 See Music. 
 
 SE'MICIRCLE. In Geometry, the half of a circle ; or the 
 figure bounded by the diameter and half the circumference. 
 
 SEMICO'LON. See Punctuation. 
 
 SEMICU'BICAL PARABOLA. In Analysis, a curve 
 of the second order: defined by this property, that the cubes 
 of the ordinates are proportional to the squares of the cor- 
 responding abscissa; or by the equation } 3 =:oi 2 . The 
 curve is the evolute of the common parabola. 
 
 SE'MIDIA'METER. In Geometry, half of the diame- 
 ter ; or the part of the diameter of any figure comprehend- 
 ed between the centre and the extremity of the diameter. 
 
 SEMIDIAPA'SON. (Gr.) In Music, a defective octave, 
 or one diminished by a minor semitone. 
 
 SE'MlDIAPE'iNTE. (Gr.) In xMusic, the same as de- 
 fective fifth ; which see. 
 
 SE M'lblATE'SSARON. (Gr.) In Music, a defective 
 fourth, properly called a false fourth. 
 
 SEMIDI'TOiXO. (Gr.) In Music, the same as a minor 
 third. 
 
 SEMIME'TAL. A term applied by the old chemists to 
 the brittle metals. 
 
 SE'MIMIWTMA. In Music, a half minim or crotchet. 
 
 SE'MINYMPH. Lyonnet so calls the nymphs of those 
 insects which undergo but slight changes in passing to the 
 perfect or imago stage. 
 
 SEMIO'PAL. A silicious mineral nearly resembling the 
 common opal. 
 
 SEMIPA'LMATE. (Lat. semi, half, and palma, a palm.) 
 In Zoology, when the toes are connected together by a web 
 extending along only their proximal half. The term semi 
 being frequently used in the composition of zoological terms 
 with the same meaning, it is only requisite to refer to the 
 term to which it is prefixed. 
 
 SEMI'PELA'GIANS. A sect who differ from the Pela- 
 gians, from whom they are derived, in maintaining the ne- 
 cessity of the divine grace towards the practice of virtue ; 
 but at the same time conceive that this grace may be ob- 
 tained by an effort of the human will. (See Calvinists, 
 Pelagians, &c. ; and Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. vol. ii., trans. 
 1790, p. 92.) 
 
 SE'MIQUA DRATE, or SEMIQUARTILE. In the 
 language of Astrology, an aspect of the pptnets when dis- 
 tant from each other half a right angle, or 45°. The terms 
 semiquintile and semisextile have a similar meaning; the 
 first denoting the half of a fifth of the complete circle, 
 that is, 36°; and the second the half of a sixth, or 30°. 
 
 SEMIQUAVER. In Music, a note whose duration is 
 half that of a quaver. 
 
 SE'MISOSPI'RO. (It.) In Music, a small pause equal 
 to the eighth part of a bar in common time. 
 
 SE'MITONE. (Gr.) In Music, the half a tone ; though, 
 
 SENEGIN. 
 
 strictly speaking, that is not a proper definition of it, inas- 
 much as semitones are of three sorts — greater, lesser, and 
 natural. In keyed instruments which have their sounds 
 fixed, the semitones afibrd the means of a new sort of scale 
 between the different tones, by which their defects are 
 partially remedied. 
 
 SEM1VO WEL, is said of those consonants which, like 
 vowels, can be pronounced independently, or without the 
 aid of any other letter. To this class belong b, d, c, g, k, 
 p, s, t, v, x, and z. 
 
 SEMO'NES, in Roman Classical Antiquity, were deities 
 holding a middle place between the twelve supreme gods 
 and heroes. To this class belonged such gods as Vertum- 
 nus, Priapus, the Fauns, Satyrs, &c. The word semones is 
 a contraction of Lat. semi, half, and homo, man. 
 
 SEMU'NCIA. A small Roman coin, equivalent to half 
 an ounce, being l-24th of the Roman pound. 
 
 SENA'RIA. (Lat.) In ancient Architecture, the pipes 
 of aqueducts, whose diameter was an inch and a half, or 
 six quarters ; when they were seven quarters they were 
 called septenaria, and so on, according to the number of 
 quarters of inches in their diameter. 
 
 SE'NATE. (Lat. senatus ; i.e., assembly of elders.) The 
 deliberative assembly of the Roman people. The members 
 of this council were originally chosen from the patricians, 
 and were probably single representatives of each of the 
 houses of that order : a plebeian senator is first mentioned 
 A.U.C. 355. At the foundation of the city their number 
 was 100, which was doubled on the admission of the Sa- 
 bines, and increased to 300 by Tarquinius Priscus ; but the 
 more ancient members and those admitted by this last king 
 were distinguished by the titles of patrcs ma jorum and 
 patres minorum gentium, or senators of the greater and of 
 the lesser houses respectively. In the last ages of the re- 
 public the members of the senate amounted to above 400, 
 and were still farther raised by the emperors to 1000. The 
 members of the senate were originally chosen by the kings, 
 and afterwards the election fell into the hands of the con- 
 suls, military tribunes, and finally of the censors ; but the 
 fact of having held certain magistracies, as the qusstor- 
 ship, and all superior posts, gave a right to this privilege. 
 I fader the regal government the senate deliberated on such 
 affairs as the king proposed to them, and he was said to act 
 according to their counsel. On the establishment of the 
 republic the whole power of the state was thrown into is 
 hands, the different magistrates using the authority they 
 enjoyed merely as its delegates. The first constitutional 
 check imposed on it was the power of intercession, or ne- 
 gativing their proceedings, granted to the tribunes of the 
 commonalty. Still, while Rome was free, the authority of 
 the senate, though subordinate to the assembly of the peo- 
 ple, remained very great. It assumed the guardianship of 
 public religion; the management of the revenue; the ap- 
 pointment of governors to the provinces, whose constitution 
 it settled ; the direction of diplomatic affairs, and many 
 other functions of importance. Under the emperors its 
 power became, in general, little more than nominal ; yet 
 the assembly still existed till the occupation of Italy by the 
 Goths in the 13th century after the foundation of Rome : 
 and in the last ages of its existence, after the seat of em- 
 pire had been transferred to Byzantium, it seems to have 
 been the centre of what remained of the old national spirit. 
 After that time its existence as a council ceased, though 
 the name of senator was still retained by some noble fami- 
 lies of Rome as an empty but high-sounding title. The 
 senatorial badges were the laticlave, or tunic with a pur- 
 ple band, black buskins reaching up to the middle of the 
 leg. and a silver crescent on the foot. 
 
 The affairs of the Italian and provincial towns of the 
 Roman empire, in imitation of the capital, were adminis- 
 tered by senates. See as to these provincial senates, or 
 curia?, Savigny's Hist, of the Roman Law, vol. i. 
 
 Senate. In many republican constitutions of modern 
 times, the upper house of the national assembly has been 
 so called. The senate of the United States (see Congress) 
 is composed of two members for each state of the Union. 
 The senators are chosen by the stale for six years. The 
 American senate, besides its legislative functions, is also a 
 species of executive council, assisting the president ; its 
 consent being necessary for the ratification of treaties, ap- 
 pointment of ambassadors, judges of the supreme court, 
 heads of departments in the administration, &c. It is also 
 the high court of impeachment for public functionaries. 
 
 SE'NEGA ROOT. The root of the Polygala senega. 
 Rattlesnake root. It is brought from North America: it 
 has a peculiar pungent flavour, and promotes the flow of 
 saliva. In large doses, it nauseates and purges. It is oc- 
 casionally used in stimulating gargles ; and in America, as 
 an antidote — probably a very inefficient one — to the effects 
 of the bite of the rattlesnake. 
 
 SE'NEGIN. The bitter, acrid principle of the Polygala 
 senega, or rattlesnake root. 
 
 1109
 
 SENESCHAL. 
 
 BffNESCHAL. A French title of office and dignity, de- 
 rived from the middle ages, answering to that of steward, 
 or high steward, in England. They were originally the lieu- 
 tenants of the dukes and other great feudatories of the 
 kingdom; sometimes termed baillis. or bailiffs. When the 
 k'niL's recovered the rights of suzerainty, and especially the 
 judicial authority, in those provinces which had been pre- 
 viouslv governed by these great nobles, the bailiffs and se- 
 neschals continued as royal judges and superintendents, 
 both military and financial ; but their powers, like those of 
 the dukes and counts whom they succeeded, were grad- 
 uallv encroached on by the crown. 
 
 BENIN \ LEAVES. The leaves of the Cassia senna. 
 They are imported from Alexandria, whither they are 
 brought from Upper Egypt. They are largely mixed with 
 the leaves of the Cynanc/uim oleafolium. or Argel, which 
 are thick, and not ribbed like the genuine senna leaves. 
 They have a nauseous, mucilaginous, bitter taste, and yield 
 a pale brownish green infusion. The true senna leaves are 
 distinctly ribbed, thin, generally pointed, and when chewed 
 have a peculiar nauseous flavour, and yield a dark brown 
 infusion. It is a griping, nauseating, and somewhat drastic 
 purge, and a most valuable addition to, or vehicle for, other 
 purgatives. 
 
 SE'NSES. (Lat. sentio, T fee!.) The faculties are so 
 called by which we become acquainted with the properties 
 and states of external things. They are five in number — 
 sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell : for the physiology 
 of which, the reader is referred to the articles; such as 
 Eye, Ear, Smell, &x. See also Nervous System. We 
 can only here advert to the fact, that the late Dr. Thomas 
 Brown of Edinburgh and Sir C. Bell have propounded the 
 novel doctrine of a sixth sense, called the muscular sense 
 (our whole muscular frame being supposed to be a distinct 
 organ of sense) ; a doctrine which had almost fallen into 
 oblivion, but to which Mr. Whewell has recently declared 
 his adherence in his Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 
 &c. This part of the subject is ably treated in the Edin. 
 Review, vol. lxxiv. 
 
 BENSITTVE PLANT. This name is generally applied 
 to a small annual, called Mimosa pudica, inhabiting the 
 tropics of America. It has a stem about a foot and a half 
 high, covered with stiff hairs ; the leaves are bipinnate in 
 n somewhat digitate manner; and the flowers are collected 
 in small pink balls. It derives its name from the irritabili- 
 ty of its leaves, which collapse and fold up when touched, 
 or even when irritated by casting on them the focus of a 
 burning glass; or by exposing them to the vapour of hydro- 
 cyanic acid. The cause of this irritability has been inves- 
 tigated by Dutrochet (Memoires pour seri-ir a VHist. Anat. 
 et Phys. des Vegetauz, &-c. vol. i. 534), who refers the phe- 
 nomenon to the action of endosmose, and to the operation 
 of a "fibrous tissue capable of moving inward under the 
 influence of oxygenation." Without attempting to analyze 
 the speculations of this author, which, however curious, 
 can scarcely be said to throw much new light upon the sub- 
 ject, it will be sufficieut to explain the nature of the pheno- 
 mena themselves. When the leaf of a sensitive plant is at 
 rest, it consists of many leaflets spreading flat, and connect- 
 ed in pairs along the sides of certain common leafstalks. 
 When one of these leaflets is irritated, the pair to which it 
 belongs rise upward, and apply their faces to each other ; 
 this is rapidly followed by the same action in the succeed- 
 ing leaflets, and in the course of a few seconds the whole 
 of the leaflets are in a state of collapse ; then the leaf itself 
 suddenly bends downwards; and if the plant is in very 
 good health, the shock thus communicated to one leaf will 
 extend to those immediately above and below it. After a 
 time the leaf resumes its original position, Upon the ap- 
 proach of night, that is to say, upon the withdrawal of light, 
 the leaf falls of itself into the same state, without any 
 special irritation. This kind of irritability is by no means 
 confined to the Mimosa pudica ; on the contrary, some 
 other species of the same genus, as the M. dormicn's, sensi- 
 tive, casta, somniuns, palpitims, &c possess the same pro- 
 perty, as is indicated by their names. And among the Le- 
 guminous order, it is also found beyond the genus Mimosa, 
 as in the Hcdysarum gyrans, whose three leaflets are in a 
 continual state of dancing or balancing during the day. In 
 
 fact the folding their leaves at night, \\ hich is universal in 
 all the compound leaved species of this order, is the same 
 thing feebly exercised. Nor is such Irritability confined to 
 this order ; the ternate and pinnate leaved species of Oial- 
 u, the Diandra muscipula, and numerous other plants, ex- 
 hibit similar phenomena. 
 
 BE'NSUALISM. In Mental Philosophy, that theory 
 which resolves all our mental acts and intellectual powers 
 into various modifications of mere sensation. The best 
 known, and the most elaborate attempt of this kind which 
 has been made In modern times, Is that of Condillac, who 
 conceived that he u as following out tin' principles of Locke 
 into their legitimate consequences. I'or this belief it can- 
 1110 
 
 SEPOY. 
 
 not be denied that there exists at least plausible ground. 
 Locke does indeed draw a distinction between sensation 
 and reflection, as separate sources of "ideas:" but his ac- 
 count of reflection is so vague, and its existence apparently 
 so unsupported in his system, as to justify the attempt te» 
 reduce it to mere revived sensation. The writings of 
 Condillac may be regarded as a fair reductio ad absurdum 
 of the theory which attempts to explain the existence of our 
 mental phenomena independently of conditions in the mind 
 itself. The theory opposed to sensualism is called intellect- 
 ualism. 
 
 SE NTENCE. In English Law, the decree or judgment 
 of the ecclesiastical or admiralty courts is so termed ; also, 
 in popular language, the judgment of a criminal court al- 
 lotting the punishment of a convicted person. 
 
 SE'N'TRY. (Lat. sentia, / perceive.) The name given 
 to a soldier when placed on guard. In all the countries of 
 Europe, sentries are relieved every two hours. 
 
 SE'NZA (It. icithout), in Music, signifies without; as 
 senza stromenti, without instruments; con e senza violini, 
 With and without violins. 
 
 SE'PALS. The divisions of that portion of a flower 
 called the calyx. 
 
 SEPARATISTS. A religious sect which originated in 
 Dublin about the year 1803. Their principle, like that of 
 most sects at their commencement, was to return more near- 
 ly to what they conceived to be the primitive form of 
 Christianity. There is nothing very peculiar in their ten- 
 ets, beyond their withdrawal from the fellowship of other 
 Christian bodies. In the year 1833 an act of parliament 
 was passed for their relief in the matter of oaths. 
 
 SE'PARATISTS, or MOTAZALITES. The name of 
 one of the chief heretical sects of the Mohammedans. 
 They were the followers of Wasel Ebn Orta, who dissent- 
 ed from the main body of the Mohammedans about the 
 40th year of the Hegira. Their leading tenets consisted in 
 rejecting the eternal attributes of God ; in denying the great 
 doctrine of predestination, so zealously cherished by all the 
 orthodox Mussulmans ; and in asserting the free agency of 
 man. This sect is said to have been the first inventors of 
 scholastic divinity, and are subdivided into several inferior 
 sects, which mutually brand one another as infidels, (Sale's 
 Koran, Preliminary "Discourse, vol. i., p. 212.) The great 
 opponents of the Separatists were the Sefatians, who main- 
 tained the eternal attributes of God (hence they were call- 
 ed Sefati, or Attributists) ; but who afterwards adopted a 
 belief in the outward resemblance of God to created be- 
 ings. This sect was afterwards subdived into various sects, 
 the chief of which were the Asharians, Moshabbehites, 
 Keramians, Jabarians, and Morgians : for an account of 
 which the reader is referred to the Preliminary Discourse 
 above mentioned. 
 
 SE'PIA. In the Fine Arts, a species of pigment prepar- 
 ed from a black juice secreted by certain glands of the sepia 
 or cuttlefish, which the animal ejects both to darken the 
 water when it is pursued, and as a direct means of annoy- 
 ance. That this juice was used as ink by the ancients is 
 well known. 
 
 Tunc queritur, crassus calamo quod pendeat humor, 
 
 Nigra quod infusa vanescat sepia lympha; 
 
 Dilutas querilur geminet quod fistula guttas.— Pert. Sat. III. 
 
 Compare Pliny (Nat. Hist. 1. ii., c. 29), where he says 
 that it was the property of this fish, when it was enclosed 
 by a net, to shed a black juice, which so darkened the wa- 
 ter that the fisherman could not see it. All the varieties of 
 the sepia yield this juice ; but the Sepia officinalis, which is 
 so common in the Mediterranean, is chiefly sought after, 
 from the profusion of colour which it affords. It is insolu- 
 ble in water, but is extremely diffusible through it, and \* 
 very slowly deposited. When prepared with caustic lye, 
 it forms a beautiful brown colour with a fine grain, and has 
 given name to a species of drawing now extensively cultiva- 
 ted for landscapes and other branches of the tine aits. The 
 
 honour of the invention of thesepic drawing is due toProfes- 
 
 sor Sciclel in aim of Dresden, who discovered it at Rome in 1777. 
 
 SI'.TIAD.E. (r.r. anna.) Cuttle-fish tribe. The name 
 of the family of Decapodous Dibranchiate Cephalopoda of 
 
 which the cuttle-fish (Sepia officinalis) is the type. They 
 
 arc- characterized by the rudiment of a shell, in the form of 
 
 a friable calcareous plate imbedded in the back part of the 
 
 mantle, and of which the material called pounce is made. 
 
 SE'PIOLA. (Dim. of sepia, a cuttlefish.) The name of 
 
 a genus of Decapodous Dibranchiate Ceplui bipods, of which 
 
 the species are of small size, and are characterized by 
 short, rounded, advanced subdorsal fins, and a short inter- 
 nal horn] rtj le. 
 
 BE'PIUM. The bone or internal shell of the cuttlefish. 
 
 SK'l't >Y. ( \ corruption of the Indian word sipahi, sol- 
 dier.) The designation of the native troops in ihe service 
 
 of the Bast India Company. They were so called as early 
 as 1708 (see MiWt British India, book iv., ch. I), although 
 at that period they do not seem to have been as yet disci-
 
 SEPS. 
 
 pUned in the European fashion, nor, indeed, until long after 
 other European powers had set the example. (See the 
 United Service Journal for 1836, vol. i., p. 461, where there 
 is a valuable paper on the "History and Character of the 
 Indian army.") The first Sepoys (says the author) who 
 were raised and regularly disciplined by the English, seem 
 to have been carefully chosen either from among the Mo- 
 hammedan portion of the population, or from among the 
 higher castes of Hindoos, a considerable proportion of the 
 latter being Rajpoots, the most warlike of Indian races. 
 But the necessities of the service have subsequently intro- 
 duced a greater mixture in their ranks. The character of 
 the Sepoys as soldiers has been the subject of much discus- 
 sion. According to a writer in the same periodical (1831, 
 vol. iii.. p. 3), " the Sepoys have justly been celebrated for 
 excellent qualities ; as, for instance, patience and fortitude 
 under difficulties and privations. But, on the other hand, 
 if we analyze the account of the wars in which they have 
 been employed, we shall rind that they seem to possess pas- 
 sive rather than active courage ; for instance, that in line 
 they will remain steady under fire ; in a broken or close 
 country, however, where skirmishers and small detachments 
 are necessarily most employed, they are found wanting." 
 Others, however, disagree even from this modified dispraise. 
 At all events, their fidelity and respect for their officers have 
 generally been found of the highest and most durable char- 
 acter; the famous mutinies of Vellore in 1806, and Barrack- 
 pore in 1825, having been both, it is generally thought, pro- 
 voked by the mismanagement of their superiors. Some, in- 
 deed, allege that these qualities received a severe shock in 
 1796, when a considerable alteration was made in the or- 
 ganization of the Indian army, and a larger proportion of 
 British officers introduced, so that the internal economy of 
 their battalions ceased to be superintended by their own 
 " subadars." The Sepoys of Madras, says Sir J. Malcolm 
 (Quarterly Rev., vol. xviii.), still remember with pride the 
 campaigns of Clive and Coote, which are far beyond the 
 memory of the present generation. The native Indian can- 
 not rise higher than the rank of ensign, or cornet. The na- 
 tive cavalry is of more recent introduction, and seems 
 scarcely to merit the praise of steadiness, which all agree in 
 bestowing on the infantry. See, also, Williams's Indian 
 .Irmy ; Alison, Hist, of the Revolution, chap. li. ; Sir J. 
 Malcolm's Political History of India, vol. ii., chap, x.) 
 
 SEPS. (Lat. a species of serpent.) The name of a genus 
 of Saurian reptiles, which have a long round serpentiform 
 body, and four very short legs, each terminated in the com- 
 mon seps (Seps c/ialcides) by only three toes. 
 
 SEPTA'RIA. Nodules of indurated and slightly ferru- 
 ginous marl, with interior fissures generally filled with some 
 crystallized mineral, such as carbonate of lime, quartz, 
 sulphate of baryta, &.c. ; thus dividing the section of the 
 nodule into septa, or distinct partitions. When calcined and 
 reduced to powder, these septaria furnish the valuable mor- 
 tar called Roman or Parker's cement, which has the proper- 
 ty of hardening under water. 
 
 SEPTE'MBER (Lat. septem, seven), so called from its 
 being the seventh month in the Roman year as established 
 by Romulus, which began with March, is the ninth month 
 in the calendar of Numa. Several of the Roman emperors 
 gave names to this month in honour of themselves ; but, 
 unlike the month of August, whose ancient name of Sex- 
 tilis has been quite merged in that of Augustus, the name 
 of September has outlived every other appellation. 
 
 SEPTE'MBRISTS. The name given to the agents in the 
 dreadful massacre which took place in Paris on September 
 2, 1792, during the French Revolution. The numbers that 
 perished in this massacre have been variously given ; but 
 the term has become proverbial throughout Europe for all 
 that is bloodthirsty and malignant in human nature. 
 
 SEPTE'MVIRI EPULONUM. Certain priests in ancient 
 Rome were so called, whose duty consisted in preparing the 
 sacred feasts at games, processions, and on other solemn oc- 
 casions. They were assistants to the pontifices, certain of 
 whose privileges, such as the right of wearing the togaprm- 
 texta, they enjoyed. Their office was instituted A.U.C. 557; 
 and at first they were only three in number, which was in- 
 creased to seven, it is supposed, by Sylla. 
 
 SE'PTIC. (Gr. cnnroi, putrid.) A term applied by the 
 old chemists and physiologists to certain substances supposed 
 to promote putrefaction. 
 
 SEPTUAGE'SIMA. (Lat. seventieth.) In the Ecclesi- 
 astical Calender, the third Sunday before Lent; the first 
 Sunday in Lent being termed Quadragesima (fortieth), the 
 three preceding ones Septuagesima, Sexagesima, and Quin- 
 quagesima. 
 
 SE'PTUAGINT. (Lat. seventy.) The Greek translation 
 of the Old Testament made at Alexandria for the advantage 
 of the Jews of Egypt, who had lost the use of the Hebrew 
 language. According to the old tradition, this version was 
 the work of seventy-two interpreters, who were shut up in 
 separate cells by the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, 
 
 SEQUESTRATION. 
 
 and there completed the whole translation alone, in which, 
 upon examination, they were all found to agree to a letter — 
 a prodigy which established the inspiration of the work. It 
 is supposed, however, by modern critics, that this version of 
 the several books is the work not only of different hands, 
 but of separate times ; although the general design may 
 have been that which we have mentioned. The authority 
 of the Septuagint, as compared with the Hebrew text, from 
 which it differs in many points, has been the subject of much 
 controversy. It is from this version that the authenticity of 
 the Apocrypha, which are not found in the Hebrew, is as- 
 serted by Roman Catholic writers. The quotations of the 
 Old Testament which are found in the New are, for the 
 most part, given in the words of the Septuagint. (See 
 Prideaux' Connexion.) 
 
 SE'PTUM. (Lat. a partition.) In Botany, any partition 
 separating a body into two or more cells in a direction paral- 
 lel with the longer axis. Partitions parallel with the shorter 
 axis are called phragmata. 
 
 Septum. In Anatomy, the plate or wall which separates 
 from each other two adjoining cavities ; as the septum 
 transversum, or diaphragm, between the chest and the ab- 
 domen ; the septum narium, between the two nasal pas- 
 sages ; the septum ventriculosum in the brain, and in the 
 heart, &c. The partitions of chambered shells are also 
 called septa. 
 
 SE'PULCHRE. See Tomb. 
 
 SEPULCHRE, SAINT, HOSPITALLERS OF THE. 
 An order of knighthood, originally instituted in Palestine, 
 afterwards established in Fiance by Louis VII., and united 
 by Pope Innocent VIII. to that of Malta ; but the order still 
 continued to exist in France, and was taken under protec- 
 tion by Louis XVIII. in 1814. 
 
 SE'PULTURE, RITES OF (Lat. sepelio, I bury), signi- 
 fy literally the ceremonies performed in depositing the bo- 
 dies of the dead in the earth ; but the expression is applied 
 in a more extended signification to all ceremonies of this 
 kind, whether they consist in interment, incremation, or 
 embalming. A veneration for the dead has characterized 
 the history of every age and country ; and the different kinds 
 of funeral rites that prevail among different nations are in- 
 timately connected with their religious feelings, and form 
 important testimonies at once of their modes of thinking 
 and degrees of civilization. The three chief modes of treat- 
 ing the dead that have prevailed from the earliest ages down 
 to the present times, are burning, interment, and embalm- 
 ing ;* and all these modes were accompanied by ceremonies 
 differing according to the genius or taste of the different peo- 
 ple, but bearing, notwithstanding, such strong features of 
 resemblance, as sufficiently to indicate the universality of 
 the feeling which led to their adoption. The peculiar 
 solemnities of the Greeks and Romans, among whom both 
 incremation and interment prevailed, though the former 
 was by far the most frequent, need not be detailed in this 
 place. Among the Romans, the importance of burial to the 
 dead may be gathered from the belief, that the souls of the 
 unburied wandered a hundred years on the borders of the 
 Styx before they were admitted to the infernal regions. 
 The practice, peculiar to the Egyptians, of embalming their 
 dead, has been noticed under Mummy ; and the custom still 
 prevalent in India — which it may be truly said monopolizes 
 the cruelties of funereal observances — of immolating women 
 on the funeral pile of their husbands, will be found under 
 Suttee. The practice of interment has been adopted by 
 all the nations that have embraced Christianity. See Ceme- 
 tery. 
 
 SE'QUENCE. (Lat. sequentia.) In Music, a similar 
 succession of chords ascending or descending diatonically. 
 
 SEQUESTRATION. In English Law, a species of ex- 
 ecution for debt in the case of a beneficed clergyman, issued 
 by the bishop of the diocess on the receipt of a writ to that 
 effect. The profits of the benefice are paid over to the credi- 
 tor until his claim is satisfied. Sequestration is also, in 
 Chancery, the setting aside from both parties the matter in 
 controversy. 
 
 Sequestration. In Scottish Law — 1. A species of dili- 
 gence (i. e., a process), used where two or more creditors 
 are in competition for the property of a land estate, the own- 
 er of which is in insolvent circumstances ; or where the 
 right to a land estate is the subject of litigation. In these 
 cases the court may, on application, sequestrate the rents, 
 and employ a factor to collect them. 2. Sequestration is 
 also the process whereby the whole estate, both heritable 
 and moveable, of a bankrupt, is distributed equitably 
 among his creditors. It is granted on application to the 
 court of session by the bankrupt, with the concurrence of 
 
 * The sin<mlar usa^e adopted by the followers of Zoroas'er, and still pre- 
 served in Thibet, is worthy of particular nn'ice. From aD idea that the pure 
 elements of ear:h and fire would be contaminated by being made the instru- 
 ments of dissolution, the corpse is laid upon a platform erected for the pur- 
 pose, and enclosed with ma«sy walls, and there ahandoned as a prey to tie 
 wolres and the vultures. (ScAJegeT* History of Literature.)
 
 SEQJJIN. 
 
 one or more creditors, or on their application, and on citation 
 of the bankrupt ; and is analogous to a flat in bankruptcy in 
 English law. 
 SEQUIN, (ltal. zecchino; derived from zecca,a mint.) 
 
 The gold pieces of Venice were originally so called ; after- 
 wards the name was extended to other gold coins in use in 
 the Mediterranean, as those of the Pope, the .Sultan. Flor- 
 ence, and Genoa. Set MuNtv. 
 
 SERA'GLIO. An Italian corruption of the oriental word 
 srrai. The palace of the Turkish sultan in Constantinople 
 is thus designated by European writers. The principal gate 
 of the seraglio is the Uabi Hnmnyun, or Sublime Gate, 
 whence the ordinary title of the Turkish government is de- 
 rived. 
 
 SE'RAPHIM, or JESUS, ORDER OF THE. An an- 
 • •ient Swedish order of knighthood, instituted in 1334; but 
 dormant from the period of the Reformation until 1748. The 
 number of knights, besides the king and members of the 
 royal family, is limited to twenty-four. 
 
 SKI; \PIII\E. A keyed musical wind instrument of the 
 organ species, adapted to the size of a chamber. 
 
 BE I! WHS. or SERAPHIM. (Heb. to purify.) In the 
 Celestial Hierarchy, the angels of the highest rank. They 
 are represented as surrounding the throne of God, whose 
 messengers they are, and as being more immediately in- 
 spired with the Divine love, which they communicate to the 
 inferior inhabitants of heaven. They are almost invariably 
 Spoken of in connexion with the cherubim, whom they re- 
 semble both in rank and attributes. 
 
 SERATIS. An Egyptian deity. The image and wor- 
 ship of this god were brought from Sinope in l'ontus to 
 Alexandria, in the last year of Ptolemy Soter, in conse- 
 quence, it is said, of a vision of Ptolemy I. According to 
 some accounts, this image was a statue of Jupiter; but how- 
 ever this may have been, Serapis was clearly, as Sir G. 
 Wilkinson expresses it (.inc. Egypt, iv.. 3tii)), "at most a 
 Graco-Egyptian deity." And there is no foundation for the 
 notion entertained by some early Christian fathers, that he 
 represented the Patriarch Joseph 'which they supported by 
 an argument drawn from the ornament in the shape of a 
 bushel, which the images of this god usually bore on the 
 head); or for that of some modern antiquaries, that it was 
 another name for Apis. (Plut. de Is. ct Usir., Quart. Rev., 
 Inly, 1840.) 
 
 Sl.K ISftl 1ER. The name given by the Turks to the 
 commanders in-chief of their armies. It is compounded of 
 two P( [Ban words, signifying head of an army. 
 
 SERENA'DE (Span, serenata; from Lat. serenus, c/ear), 
 signified originally music performed in the open air on a 
 serene evening ; but it is now universally applied to a musi- 
 cal performance made by gentlemen in a spirit of gallantry 
 under the windows of ladies whom they admire. This 
 practice, which was formerly very general in Spain and 
 Italy, has latterly fallen greatly into disuse in these coun- 
 tries; hut it is still very common in the German university 
 towns, where the students are in the habit of assembling in 
 the evening under the windows of a favourite professor, 
 and offering him a musical tribute. 
 
 SERENE. SERENE HIGHNESS, SERENITY. (Genu. 
 dun -h, audit... Titles of courtesy in European etiquette of 
 considerable antiquity. Before the dissolution of the Ger- 
 man empire. Serene and Most Serene Highness were the 
 appropriate addresses of princely houses holding immedi- 
 ately Of the empire. Since that period the rules of princely 
 etiquette have become more uncertain ; but it appears to he 
 the general principle that these titles belong of right to mem- 
 ben of the families of sovereign houses in the confederacy, 
 and also to members of ci devaht sovereign houses now 
 
 d : and that sovereign princes can DTIOret I r concede 
 these appellations to princes not sovereign w ithin their own 
 dominions, but not so as to give litem a title to it out of them. 
 
 But the distinctions as to the mode in wbiefa these titles are 
 
 to be employed in addressing superiors, equals, and inferiors, 
 are extremely complicated. 
 
 SERF. Lat. servos.) The French name for the lowest 
 class of slaves in the dark ages; those who u, re incapable 
 of holding property, attached to the land, and liable to 
 feudal services of the lowest description. In England this 
 
 appears to have been the general character of the condition 
 of the villeins; hut in France and German) Mr. Hajlam 
 
 thinks that the villeins, properly so called, were a superior 
 cla^s. only hound to lived payments and duties in respect of 
 their land. [Middli Agu, chap. ii.. part 2. See Villiin.) 
 The emancipation of this class in France was extremely 
 gradual. Louis Hutin enfranchised them on the royal do 
 mains by edict in 1315 ; hut it does not appear to have been 
 carried immediately into execution, and a limited kind of 
 
 servitude existed in some places down to the Revolution, 
 rhe "serfs," or " >.'i-n< de main inorte," on some estates 
 (e. g.. in part of Champagne and Nivernois), could not 
 leave their habitations, ami might !»• followed by tin- lord 
 in any part of France for the Uulle, or villein lax, which, in 
 lll'J 
 
 SERJEANTS-AT-ARMS. 
 
 some localities, was not permanent, but a volonte. See. as 
 to the progress of enfranchisement, a memoir by Duprev, 
 Hist. Ac. J., 38.) 
 
 SERGE. A cloth of quilted woollen, extensively manu- 
 factured in Devonshire and other English counties. 
 
 SERGEANT. S,r Skrjeant. 
 
 SE'KIES (Lat. order), in Arithmetic and Algebra, is a 
 progression of numbers or quantities which succeed each 
 other according to some determinate law. Thus, the pro- 
 gression of the natural numbers, 1. 2, 3, 4, 5, &c., constitutes 
 a series ; the law of which is, that any term is greater by 
 unity than the preceding. As the law which connects the 
 terms may be varied in an infinite number of ways, it fol- 
 lows that series may have an infinite number of different 
 forms; thus, an arithmetical series is one in which each 
 term ditlers from the preceding by a constant number or 
 quantity : a geometrical series is one to which each term is 
 a multiple of the preceding by a constant factor. 
 
 The usual form of a series is a set of terms connected by 
 the signs + or — . When the number of terms is greater 
 than any assignable number, the series is said to be infinite, 
 
 A converging scries is one in which the successive terms 
 become less and less, each being smaller than that which im- 
 mediately precedes it. 
 
 A diverging series is one in which any term is greater 
 than the preceding. 
 
 A recurring series is one in which each term is a certain 
 constant function of two or more of the preceding terms. 
 Thus, 1 + 3x-(-4i2 + 7i3 + ll i4+ &c, is a recurring 
 series, every term being formed in the same manner from 
 the two immediately preceding. This series is formed 
 by the expansion by division of the algebraic fraction 
 l + 2i 
 
 1 — I — £i 
 
 An exponential series is one whose terms depend on ex- 
 ponential quantities ; a logarithmic series is one whose 
 terms depend on circular functions, as sines, cosines, &c. 
 
 The general term of a series is a function of some inde- 
 terminate quantity z, which, on substituting successively 
 the numbers 1, 2, 3, &.c, for i, produces the terms of the 
 series. 
 
 In general, the principal questions which arise respecting 
 series are to find the sum of all the terms, or of a given 
 number of them ; and the exposition of the methods w hich 
 have been invented for this purpose forms an extensive and 
 important part of every treatise on the calculus. The stu- 
 dent may be recommended in particular to Eider's Intro- 
 ductio in Analysin Infinitorum, and Calculus Differentialis ; 
 and the third volume of Lacroix's Calcul Vifferenttvl ct In- 
 tegral. 
 
 SE'RJEANT. (Lat. serviens.) Serjeant-at-law is the 
 highest degree in the common law, and all mu.st proceed 
 through this degree before attaining the dignity of judge. 
 The Court of Common Pleas is open to Serjeants only for 
 the purpose of pleading. This exclusive privilege was at- 
 tempted to be taken aw ay in 1834, and for five years the 
 court was thrown open. But after solemn argument, it was 
 decided by the privy council that this enlargement was un- 
 warranted; and the former practice again prevails. Ser- 
 jeants-at-law are now made by the king's writ, commanding 
 them to take their degree. No precise time seems now ne- 
 cessary to permit a barrister to become a Serjeant. (See 
 Serjeant Manning's learned work, Serviens ad Legem.) 
 
 Skkjeant. In the Army, a non-commissioned officer, 
 both in infantry and cavalry regiments, whose duty it is to 
 form the ranks and to instruct recruits in discipline. On 
 parade they act as fuglemen, in going through the evolu- 
 tions. The serjeant-major is a non commissioned officer, 
 who acts as assistant to the adjutant; hut original!) he was 
 a field officer, corresponding in rank to the modern major. 
 Colour-serjeanls are certain non commissioned officers ap- 
 pointed to attend the officers who have charge of the col- 
 ours of the regiment. 
 
 SERJEANT, KING'S. One or more of the serjeants-at- 
 law, w hose presumed duty is to plead for the king in causes 
 of a public nature, as indictments for treason, &c. 
 
 SERJEANT- AT ARMS. < Hticers whose duty is to at- 
 tend the per-ou of the king, the lord-high-steward, when 
 sitting in judgment on a traitor, &c. The whole number la 
 
 restricted by an ancient law (13 R. 2) to thirty. Two of 
 these nie allowed by the king to attend at the houses of 
 parliament during their sittings, and each has a deputy. In 
 
 tin- House of I. oids, the practical maintenance of decorum 
 
 below the bar. near the throne, and in the gallery, devolves 
 Upon the gentleman and yeoman usher, wilh their assis- 
 tants : to that " the serjeanl a> anna attending the House of 
 
 Lords," has le<s conspicuous duties to perform than those 
 
 which devolve upon -the serjeanl attending the House of 
 Commons:" both, however, execute the commands of the 
 
 lions,- to u inch they belong, as regards the apprehension or 
 custody of all persons committed by order of parliament. In
 
 SERJEANTY, GRAND AND PETTY. 
 
 the House of Commons, the serjeant-at-arms is an officer of 
 considerable importance, enjoying large emoluments, assist- 
 ed by a deputy and several subordinate officers. During the 
 sittings of the house he occupies a chair below the bar, and 
 he directs a large proportion of the arrangements connected 
 with the maintenance of order in the approaches to the 
 house and the offices adjacent. He is at once the executive 
 and the ceremonial officer of the lower house ; but his dis- 
 cretionary powers are not extensive, for almost all his more 
 important duties are performed under the immediate direc- 
 tion of the house itself, communicated through the speaker. 
 The office is usually held by a gentleman of the military 
 profession, seldom under the rank of a field officer. 
 
 SERJEANTY, GRAND AND PETTY. In English 
 Law, feudal tenures. Tenure by grand serjeanty was 
 where the tenant held land of the king by service, to be 
 performed in his own person, in his wars, &c. ; such as to 
 hear a banner or spear, or to assist at his coronation. 
 Tenure by petit serjeanty was where the owner was bound 
 to contribute some small thing towards military service, &c. ; 
 such as a sword, dagger, bow, or spear. Tenure by grand 
 serjeanty was preserved by stat. 12 C. 2, which abolished 
 the other feudal tenures, and still subsists in some cases ; 
 as, for instance, the family of Dymoke hold the lands of 
 Scrivelsby by the service of attending as champions at royal 
 Coronations. 
 
 SE'RMON. In Ecclesiastical usage. The use of the 
 sermon or homily as a portion of the communion service is 
 said to be of remote antiquity. This ancient custom fell 
 into partial disuse during a great part of the middle ages. 
 The Homilies of Elfric, archbishop of Canterbury in the 
 10th century, were long used in the English church ; but 
 these became antiquated ; and in the year 1281, says Mr. 
 Palmer {Orig. Liturg., vol. ii., ch. 4,) preaching seems to 
 have been generally omitted. In that year Archbishop 
 Peckham ordered, in his Constitutions, that four sermons 
 should be delivered during the year. But for some time 
 prior to the Reformation preaching was again coming mure 
 into use ; and the publication of homilies by authority 
 seems to have completely restored the ancient practice. 
 See Homily. 
 
 SERON. A buffalo's hide, used for packing drugs and 
 other arlicles. 
 
 SERO'SITY. (Lat. serum.) The liquid which exudes 
 from the serum of the blood when it is coagulated by heat. 
 It is water holding some of the salts of the blood and a 
 trace of albumen in solotion. 
 
 SE'RPENS, or SERPENS OPHIUCHI. In Astronomy, 
 one of the ancient constellations in the northern hemi- 
 sphere. 
 
 SERPENT. In Zoology, a general name for the species 
 of the order Opkidia. 
 
 Serpents are divided into spurious, or Pseudophidians, 
 and true, or Ophidians proper. The Pseudophidians, al- 
 though presenting the well-marked external characters of 
 the order, retain an imperfect pelvis, a small sternum, 
 scapulas, and coracoids or clavicles, hidden beneath the 
 skin ; whereby, as well as in the structure of the skull, 
 they approach the saurian order. The common blind-worm 
 (Anguis fragilis) is a native representative of the Pseudo- 
 phidian family. 
 
 The true serpents have neither sternum nor vestige of 
 the scapular arch : they have no third eyelid, nor tympa- 
 num ; but the auditory ossicle exists beneath the skin, and 
 its handle passes behind the tympanic bone. Several 
 species retain a vestige of hind-limbs, which in some even 
 shows itself externally in the form of a small hook. The 
 chief subdivisions of the true Ophidians are — the Amphis- 
 bcenae ; the Tythlopes ; the Roles ( Turtrix) ; the Boas ; the 
 Pythons ; the Colubers ; the Acrochords ; all which tribes 
 are non-venomous. The Pseudoboas, Rattlesnakes, Trigo- 
 nocephali, and Vipers are the venomous tribes ; and are 
 distinguished by having the superior maxillary bones short 
 and moveable, supporting fewer teeth than in the non- 
 venomous serpents, and having the first of the short series 
 larger than the rest, sometimes the only conspicuous fang, 
 and traversed by the duct of a poison-gland, around which 
 duct the tooth is, as it were, longitudinally folded, so as to 
 appear perforated by a canal. The last tribe of true ser- 
 pents includes the Hydrophides, or sea-snakes, which have 
 likewise a poison-gland and duct, the latter being inclosed 
 by the last instead of the first of the maxillary series of 
 teeth. The tail of the sea-snakes is flattened vertically, 
 and forms their chief organ of swimming. No species of 
 this family has yet been discovered which exceeds seven 
 feet in length. 
 
 The remains of an extinct genus of serpents (Palaophis), 
 indicating species of from ten to twenty feet in length, have 
 been discovered in the Eocene tertiary formations in Suiiiilk. 
 Kent, and Sussex. (See Mr. Owen's Paper in the Gcologi 
 cal Transactions, 2d Series, vol. vi., p. 209.) 
 In antiquity the serpent played an important part. By 
 
 SESAMUM. 
 
 some nations it was regarded as the emblem of cunning, 
 deceit, and wickedness (compare the narration of the fall of 
 man in Genesis with the Persian saga of Ahreman and 
 Ormuzd) ; by others, such as the Egyptians and Phoeni- 
 cians, it was looked upon as a good genius (ayaWaijiuv), 
 and worshipped as the emblem of fertility ; while by the 
 Greeks and Romans, whose mythology originated undoubt- 
 edly from Egypt and the East, it appeared under a variety 
 of symbolic representations. With the latter the serpent 
 was the well known emblem of the healing art; and in the 
 present time a serpent with its tail in its mouth is regarded 
 as an emblem of eternity. The serpent appears also to 
 have held a place in the Scandinavian mythology, where it 
 was regarded as a symbol of the human passions. In the 
 early ages of the Christian church, a sect of the Gnostics, 
 also, worshipped the serpent, whence they were called 
 Ophites (from Gr. o(pis, a serpent.) (See Mosheim's Ges- 
 chichte der Schlangenbrudcr der crsien Kirche.) 
 
 Serpent. (So called from its form.) A musical brass 
 wind instrument, serving as bass to the horns or cornets. 
 It is most generally covered with leather, and has three 
 parts — a mouth-piece, neck, and tail. The compass is two 
 octaves, produced by six holes stopped with the fingers. 
 
 SERPENTA'RIUS. One of the ancient northern con- 
 stellations, represented on the globes by the figure of a man 
 grasping a serpent (serpens) in his hand. -See Constella- 
 tion. 
 
 SE'RPENTINE. A magnesian rock of various colours, 
 and often speckled like a serpent's back. See Geology. 
 
 SERPI'GO. See Ringworm. 
 
 SERPU'LEANS, Serpulea. (Lat. serpo, I creep.) The 
 name of a family of Cephalobranchiate Ancllidans, inhabit- 
 ing cylindrical and tortuous calcareous tubes ; generally 
 parasitic on shells. 
 
 SE'RRATE. (Lat. serra, a saw.) In Zoology, when a 
 part is cut into teeth like a saw, or is armed with teeth 
 whose sides are unequal. 
 
 SER'RICORNS, Scrricornes. (Lat. serra, a saw ; cornu, 
 a horn.) The name of a family of Coleopterous insects, 
 comprehending those which have serrated or saw-shaped 
 antenna;. 
 
 SERTULA'RIA. (Lat. sertum, a wreath.) The name 
 of a genus of compound tubular Polypes ; restricted, in 
 modern zoology, to those species in which the cells are 
 arranged on two sides of the stem, either opposite or alter- 
 nate. 
 
 SE'RUM. (Lat.) The fluid which separates from blood 
 during its coagulation. See Blood. 
 
 SE'RVILE. A Spanish political nickname; applied, in 
 the first instance, to those who opposed the changes advo- 
 cated by the liberal party in the cortes of 1808 and the fol- 
 lowing years. 
 
 SE'RVITES. (Servants of the blessed Virgin.) A reli- 
 gious order, instituted in Tuscany in A.D. 1233, under the 
 rule of St. Augustin. The monks wore a black habit, in 
 commemoration of the widowhood of the Virgin. (Mosheim, 
 cent, xiii., part 2.) 
 
 SERVITOR. (Lat.) An under graduate, who is partly 
 supported by the college funds, is so called at Oxford. The 
 servitors at Oxford are the same class as the sizars at Cam- 
 bridge. 
 
 SE'RVITUDE, in the Civil Law, is divided into real or 
 predial, mixed, and personal ; the first being the subjection 
 of an inheritable thing to certain duties or services towards 
 another inheritable thing; the second, that of an inheritable 
 tiling towards a person ; the third, that of a person towards 
 a person or thing, i. e., slavery, whether by dependence on 
 a person or on the soil. The word servitude is equally 
 applicable to the duty or burden, and to the right of exact- 
 ing it : c. g., the right of way which A. enjoys on the land 
 of B, and B's liability to permit that right to be exercised, 
 are both designated by the term servitude ; the first active, 
 the latter passive. Real servitudes are numerous, and fall 
 into several classes or divisions. They are, for example, 
 either visible, such as the right to light and air, sewers, &c. ; 
 or latent, such as the right of way, right of drawing water, 
 &c, which appear only when they are exercised. They 
 were also divided by the Romans into urban, which affected 
 dwellings in the city ; and rustic, appertaining to land and 
 farm building. Of mixed servitudes only three species were 
 recognised by their writers on jurisprudence — usufruct, use, 
 and habitation. 
 
 SE'SAMOID BONES. (Gr. cnuaur;, a seed or grain, 
 and ucoc, form.) Small bones found at the articulations 
 of the great toes, and occasionally at the joints of the 
 thumbs. Little tendinous ossifications are sometimes met 
 with in other parts, especially in the advanced age of labo- 
 rious persons. 
 
 SE'SAMUM. (Gr. ennapov.) A genus of plants of the 
 
 natural family Pedalina. They are supposed originally to 
 
 have been natives of India ; but are now cultivated in 
 
 many countries. Their seeds, which are employed as an 
 
 3 Z * 1113
 
 SESIA. 
 
 article of diet, ami yield an oil of a very fine quality, form 
 an extensive article of commerce in the East. All the 
 .'.• annuals. The term sesame has long been fami- 
 liar to all the readers of the Arabian Xights' Enttrtain- 
 mcnts. 
 
 I \. (Gr or;;, a moth.) The name of a genus of 
 Lepidopteroua insects. 
 
 BE'SQ.l I Lat . .applied to word?, signifies one integer 
 oiul a half; as a aqui granum, a grain anil a half. &c. In 
 Chemistry tins term is used to designate compounds in 
 which an equivalent and a half of one substance are com- 
 bined w itii one ot another ; thus, sesquicarhonate of soda is 
 a salt composed of one equivalent and a half of carbonic 
 acid with one of soda. 
 
 Seso.ii. In Music, a whole and a half; which, joined 
 with altera, tana, ijuarla. &.c, is much used in the Italian 
 musk to express a set of ratios, particularly the several 
 species of triple time. 
 
 Sesqui. In Geometry, the expression of a ratio in which 
 the greater term contains the less once, and leaving a certain 
 aliquot part of the less over. Thus, if the part remaining 
 is half the less term, the ratio is called sesquialtcra ; if the 
 part remaining be a third of the less term (as in the ratio 
 of 4 to 3), the ratio is called srsamtrrtia, and so on. These 
 terms are nearly obsolete. Sesquiduplicatz, however, some- 
 times occurs in modern treatises, and signifies t lie ratio in 
 which the greater term is twice and a half times the less; 
 as the ratio of ID to 4. or of 15 to 6. 
 
 SE'SSILES, Sessilia. (Lat.sedeo, Isit.) The name of 
 a division ot' the class Cirripeds, comprehending those 
 species which are not suspended bv a pedicle. 
 
 SESSION. COURT OF. The supreme civil court of 
 Scotland, having jurisdiction in all civil questions, of what- 
 ever nature. It was constituted by an act of the Scottish 
 parliament in 1537. It was intended to supply the place of 
 the previously existing courts and more especially of a judi- 
 cial committee of parliament called the " lords of session ;" 
 whence tin- name of the court and the titles of the judges. 
 Originally it consisted of seven laymen and eight church- 
 men, including the president. In 1(J40, however, an act 
 was passed providing for the exclusion of churchmen from 
 the court; and though repealed in 1661, the principle laid 
 down in it has ever since been acted upon, other important 
 improvements were introduced at different periods, particu- 
 larly after the Revolution, when the right of appeal from 
 the court to parliament was, for the first time, recognised. 
 At the Union power was given to all individuals who con- 
 sidered tin mselves aggrieved by judgments of the Court of 
 Session to appeal to the II. ot Lords; and it is a curious 
 fact that at this moment, and for a lengthened period, the 
 principal judicial business ,,f the II. of Lords has consisted 
 in hearing and deciding Scotch appeals. Originally, and 
 down to 1808, the whole fifteen judges sit together in one 
 court; hut in that year an act was passed dividing the court 
 into two chambers, the lord president presiding in the first 
 division of seven judges, and the lord justice-clerk in the 
 d of six; the two remaining judges trying cases in the 
 first instance, or, as it is technically termed, sitting as lords- 
 ordinary. Since then the number of judges has been re- 
 duced to thirteen : four belonging to each ot" the divisions. 
 and five acting as lords ordinary. The judges were at first 
 chosen by the Scotch parliament : hut since l~>.>4 they have 
 been appointed by the crown. They are either, as already 
 stated, called lords of Bession, or senators of the college of 
 justice ; which last embraces the whole body of barristers 
 (advocates) ami attorneys or solicitors who practise before 
 the court. They must he twenty the years of age ; and. by the 
 Treaty ot Union, no person can be named to the office unless 
 he have Berved as an advocate or principal clerk of 
 for live years, or as a writer to the signet for ten. The 
 salaries of the ordinary judges have recently been raised to 
 £3000 a year each : those of the lord justice-clerk and lord 
 president being respectively £4000 and X'45u0. 
 
 At its outset the i lourt of Session was intended to serve 
 U a stai ding or perpetual jury for the trial of cases; the 
 introduction of pettj juries into the trial of civil cases in 
 Scotland being onl) of verj recent date, as well as of limi- 
 ted application. It WBS, in tact, unknown till 1815, when 
 ■ ial or jury court was instituted, lor the trial of cases 
 
 involving questions as to the value of property, or damages, 
 or the determination of some tact. Hut in 1S30 this court 
 
 suppressed, I the Court of Session now avails 
 
 of the assistance of petty juries in the trial of the above de- 
 scription ot i;i-i-. Sa Justiciary, Court of. 
 
 SESSION of PARLIAMENT. The period between its 
 meeting and prorogation. All the acta paasedins 
 
 are legally considered as forming a single statute: each 
 separate act being designate d as a chapter, and its subdivi- 
 sions as sections. Set Parliam 
 
 SESSIONS OF Tin: PEACE. In English Law, the 
 term "Session of the Peace" is applied to designate a sit- 
 ting of justices of the peace for the execution of those 
 1114 
 
 SETTLEMENT. 
 
 duties which are confided to them by their commission, 
 and by charter or statute. Such are — 1. A petty (or petit) 
 se^>ion. which Is a private meeting of two or more justices 
 of the peace for the execution of some power vested in 
 them by law ; many acts of parliament requiring the con- 
 currence of a plurality of justices, and there being other 
 occasions on which, although not strictly necessary, it is 
 considered usual and expedient. One of the most important 
 instances of the first kind is the holding parties to bail 
 against whom a charge of felony has been entertained. 2. 
 A special session ; which is principally distinguished from 
 the former by being public, instead of on the private motion 
 of the justices, it being necessary that notice should be 
 given to every magistrate of the division. Special sessions 
 are held to grant licences, execute the provisions of the 
 Highway Act. appoint overseers of the poor, and for many 
 other purposes. 3. Uuarter sessions. (See that article ; 
 and see Jus tice ok the Peace.) 
 
 SESTE'RTH M. (Contracted from mille sestertiorum.) 
 The sum of 1000 sestertii ; usually estimated at about £S 
 English. 
 
 SESTE'RTIUS. A sesterce ; a Roman silver coin, equal 
 in value to two asses and a half, or nearly twopence of 
 English money. 
 
 SETA (Lat.), is a term used by botanists in various 
 senses. It is the stalk that supports the theca, capsule, or 
 sporangium of mosses: the awn or beard of grasses, when 
 it proceeds from the extreme point of a palea or glume ; 
 sometimes the glandular aculeus of roses, and also the 
 abortive stamens or rudimentary perianth of Cyperaceous 
 plants. 
 
 SETA'CEOTJS. (Lat. seta.) In Entomology, the an- 
 tenna 1 which resemble a bristle are so called. 
 
 SET FAIR. In Architecture, the coat of plaster used 
 after roughing in and floated, or pricked up and floated. It 
 should be well trowelled, to answer well for colour. 
 
 SE'THIANS. In Ecclesiastical history, a sect of Chris- 
 tian heretics, who sprung up in Egypt in the second cen- 
 tury, strongly imbued with the principles of Gnosticism ; 
 but whose chief peculiarity consisted in their belief in 
 the identity of Jesus Christ with Seth. the son of Adam, 
 whence they derived their name. They continued to exist 
 about -JUO years, during which period they had many fol- 
 low era. 
 
 BE TTCERS, Scticera. (Lat. seta, a bristle; Gr. Kipac, 
 a horn.) A term applied by Latreille to a family of Lo- 
 phyropodous Crustaceans, including those in which the 
 superior antenna? ate long and setaceous. 
 
 SE'TIGERS, Setigera. (Lat. seta, a bristle; gero, / 
 carry.) The name ot' a tribe of Anellidans, including those 
 which, like the earthworm, are provided with bristles for 
 progressive motion. The Setigera are the first tribe of the 
 Abranchiated order of Anellidans. 
 
 SE'TIREMES. (Lat. seta, a bristle; remus, an oar.) A 
 name given by Kirby to the natatory legs of certain aquatic 
 insects; which are fringed with bristles. 
 
 SET OFF. In Law, a species of defence to a civil action, 
 by which a party ncknow ledges the justice of the plaintiffs 
 demand, but sets up a demand of his own against the 
 plaintiff sufficient to counterbalance cither the whole or a 
 part of it. 
 
 SET i IN. ( From Lat seta, a bristle ; because bristles or 
 horse hairs were formerly used to keep open the wound.) 
 
 A seton is an artificial ulcer, made by passing a skein of 
 thread under a portion of the Skin by means of an Instrument 
 
 called a seton needle: the thread is occasionally anointed 
 with irritating substances, in order to keep up a discharge 
 from the sore. 
 
 SETO'SE. (Lat. seta, a bristle.; In Zoology, when a 
 surface is beset with still', scatter, d hairs. 
 
 SETTINt;. In Architecture, the quality of hardening 
 in plaster Also the living of Stones ill walls or vaults. 
 
 SE'TTING COAT. In Architecture, the best sort of 
 plastering on ceilings or walls ; in inferior work it is made 
 of fine stuff, and when the work is very dry a little sand is 
 
 used. \ setting 'oat \ be either a second coal on laying 
 
 or rendering or a third upon floating. The term finishing 
 denotes the third coat, where stucco is used ; that of set- 
 tiii". where the work is for paper. 
 
 SETTLEMENT. In Law, the right which an indi- 
 vidual acquires to parochial assistance, under the statutes 
 for the r. lief of thi' poor, in that parish or district to which 
 he legal!] belongs, and in which he is said to have the 
 settlement 
 
 The law of settlements has recently undergone consider- 
 ations by the Poor Laws Amendment Act, 4 & 5 
 
 \V. I, cap. 76. Bui that act does not, except In 
 
 eases, take awaj settlements already possessed bj \irtuo 
 
 of the law as ll previously Stood under a great variety of 
 
 enactments. It i~. consequently, necessarj to consider in 
 how many i less settlement may now be legally acquired ; 
 
 and, also, what modes of settlement were recognised before
 
 SETTLEMENT, ACT OP. 
 
 the passing of the act in question. The first species of set- 
 tlement is by birth ; all persons who have not obtained a 
 settlement elsewhere by other means being legally settled 
 in the parish or district wherein they were born. Before 
 the passing of the late act, bastard children were deemed 
 to be settled in the parish where they were born : they now 
 have, and follow, the settlement of their mother until they 
 attain the age of sixteen, or acquire settlements in their 
 own right. 2. Settlement by parentage. All legitimate 
 children are settled in the parish where their parents are 
 settled, until they become emancipated. Emancipation 
 takes place on attaining the age of twenty-one, if living 
 separate from the parents; or marriage; or gaining a set- 
 tlement in the party's own right; or contracting some other 
 relation inconsistent with the notion of a subordinate situa- 
 tion in the parental family. 3. Settlement by marriage. 
 A woman acquires the settlement of her husband ; and 
 after his death she retains his last settlement, unless she 
 acquires a new one for herself. 4. Settlement by appren- 
 ticeship. This is acquired by a person who has been bound 
 an apprentice, and has inhabited, under such apprentice- 
 ship, in any town or parish ; the place where he has resided 
 the last forty days being that in which he is settled. Actual 
 service with the master is not necessary ; but if he have 
 served elsewhere, it must be with the master's permission. 
 Apprenticeship in the sea service or fishing trade does not, 
 since the recent act, confer a settlement. 5. Settlement by 
 renting a tenement. A person bond fide occupying and 
 renting a tenement, at the rent of £10 per annum at least, 
 for the term of a year, the rent for a year having been 
 actually paid (.and the tenement having been actually occu- 
 pied by him for a year also), acquires a settlement by 
 dwelling forty days in the parish in which such tenement 
 is situated. Since 4 & 5 W. 4, no settlement can now be 
 acquired by renting a tenement, unless the person occupy- 
 ing it has been rated to and has paid the poor's rate for one 
 year at least. 6. Settlement by estate. A person having, 
 by descent or devise, &.c, an estate in lands or tenements, 
 either freehold, copyhold, or for years, acquires a settlement 
 in the parish in which it is situate by forty days' residence. 
 But no such settlement is acquired by the purchase of an 
 estate, unless bought for £30 at least, bond fide paid. And. 
 by the late act, no person possessing such a power of ac- 
 quiring a settlement shall retain it longer than he shall in- 
 habit within ten miles of the parish. 7. Settlement by 
 being charged with and paying parish taxes and levies in 
 respect of a tenement of the value of .£10 ; such as poor 
 rate, church rate, or land tax. These are now the only 
 modes of acquiring a settlement: but two more must be 
 mentioned, by which a settlement could formerly be ac- 
 quired, as the settlements so gained still continue in force. 
 1. By hiring and service. This could be obtained by any 
 unmarried person lawfully hired into any parish or town 
 for the space of a year, provided he continued in service 
 under such hiring for the space of a year, and resided 
 in the parish forty days. 2. By serving an office. This 
 was obtained in any place by executing any public annual 
 office. 
 
 Poor people coming from one parish to another, and en- 
 deavouring to settle themselves in the latter, may, if they 
 become actually chargeable, be removed by an order of 
 two justices to that in which they were last legally settled; 
 and all persons who think themselves aggrieved by such 
 order of removal (usually the parish to which the removal 
 takes place) may appeal against such order to the next gen- 
 eral or quarter sessions of the peace. It is doubtful, indeed, 
 since the statute 4 & 5 W. 4, whether any but the parish 
 can appeal. The parish appealing is bound to give suffi- 
 cient notice of the intended appeal, and also (since the stat. 
 4 &. 5 W. 4) to state in writing the legal grounds on which 
 the order is contested. The sessions must either quash or 
 affirm the order of the justices ; and the order of the ses- 
 sions can only be quashed by the Court of King's Bench, 
 either on a special case, granted by the sessions, for the ref- 
 erence of a point of law to the superior court, or on certi- 
 orari, for defects appearing on the face of the order. 
 
 A certificate is a written acknowledgment, by the church- 
 warden and overseers, that a particular person is legally set- 
 tled in their parish. A certificate-man cannot gain a set- 
 tlement in the parish to which the certificate is directed, ex- 
 cept by renting a tenement of the annual value of £10. 
 See Poor Laws. 
 
 SL'TTLEMEXT, ACT OF. In English Historv, die 
 statute 12 & 13 W. 2, c. 2, by which the crown was limited 
 to the Princess Sophia, duchess dowager of Hanover 
 ^youngest daughter of Elizabeth, queen of Bohemia, who 
 was daughter to James I.), and the heirs of her body, being 
 Protestants— on the failure of issue of the Princess Anne, 
 then next in succession. The duchess died in the reign of 
 Queen Anne; and her son, George I., was consequently 
 called to the throne. 
 
 SETT OFF. In Architecture, the horizontal projection 
 
 SEXTANT. 
 
 left in carrying up a wall, where the thickness of it dimin- 
 ishes at its different stages or stories. 
 
 SE'VEXTH. In Music, an interval ; whereof there are 
 four species. First, the defective seventh, consisting of 
 three tones and three greater semitones. Second, the minor 
 seventh, consisting of seven degrees and six intervals, dia- 
 tonically taken ; four being tones, and the rest greater semi- 
 tones. Third, the major seventh, being only a major semi- 
 tone less than the octave. Fourth, the extreme sharp sev- 
 enth, which is only a comma less than the octave. 
 
 SEVEX YEARS' WAR. In History, a war carried on 
 in Germany between two alliances, headed respectively by 
 Austria and Prussia, from the year 1756 to 1703, when it 
 was ended by the peace of Hubertsburg. It was signalized 
 chiefly by the extraordinary campaigns of Frederick II., the 
 Great King of Prussia. His principal ally throughout the 
 struggle was England ; while he was, at one period, as- 
 sailed by the forces of Austria, France, the Empire, Swe- 
 den, and Russia. When the forces of the Prussian sover- 
 eign had been almost annihilated by this coalition, the death 
 of the Russian empress, Elizabeth, caused the withdrawal 
 of Russia from the alliance of his enemies, and brought 
 about the termination of the war without material advan- 
 tages gained by any party. 
 
 SEWER. In Architecture, a subterraneous conduit, or 
 channel, to receive and carry off the superfluous water and 
 filth of a city. The sewers of Rome have been the models 
 of those of the modern cities of Europe. They are as old 
 as the elder Tarquin. These cloaca had, between the 
 (luirinal, Capitoline, and Palatine hills, many branches, 
 which joining in the Foruni, now the Campo Vaccino, were 
 received for conveyance into the Tiber by a larger one 
 called the cloaca maxima. It must be admitted, however, 
 that it is erroneous to designate the Roman cloaca by the 
 term sewers. They were rather drains, made to carry off 
 the stagnant water of the pestilential marshes which occu- 
 pied much of the low ground near the Tiber, and the spaces 
 between the Aventine, Palatine, and Capitoline hills. The 
 height and width of the cloaca maxima are equal, each 
 measuring 134 feet. 
 
 SEXAGE'SIMA. (Lat sixtieth.) In the Calendar, the 
 eighth Sundav (nearlv sixty days) before Easter. 
 
 SEXAGESIMAL ARITHMETIC. A method of com- 
 putation proceeding by sixties (as the common arithmetic 
 proceeds by tens), and used by the ancient Greek astrono- 
 mers for facilitating arithmetical calculations, particularly 
 division and the extraction of roots ; operations which, 
 when performed on numbers expressed by the complicated 
 Greek notation, are attended with great labour and diffi- 
 culty. 
 
 SEXAGESIMAL FRACTIOXS, are such as have 60, 
 or some multiple of 60, for their denominator. Fractions 
 of this kind were anciently the only fractions used in astron- 
 omy ; and they are still retained in the division of the cir- 
 cle, and of time, where the degree, or hour, is divided into 
 60 minutes, the minute into 60 seconds, and so on. 
 
 SE'XTAXS, or SEXTAXT. In Astronomy, one of the 
 constellations formed by Hevelius. It is placed across the 
 equator, and on the south side of the ecliptic. 
 
 SE'XTAXT. (Lat. sextans, the sixth part ; the limb of 
 the instrument being the sixth part of a complete circle.) 
 An instrument for measuring the angular distances of objects 
 by reflexion. The sextant is capable of very general appli- 
 cation ; but it is chiefly used as a nautical instrument for 
 measuring the altitudes of celestial objects, and their appa- 
 rent angular distances. It is an instrument of the utmost 
 importance in navigation. 
 
 The principle of the sextant, and of reflecting instru- 
 ments generally, depends upon 
 an elementary theorem of catop- 
 trics ; viz., if an object be seen by 
 reflexion from two mirrors which 
 are perpendicular to the same 
 plane, the angular distance of the 
 object from its image is double 
 the inclination of the mirrors. 
 Thus, let A and B be sections of 
 two mirrors perpendicular to the 
 same plane, and inclined to each 
 other in the ansle A I B ; a ray 
 of light coming from the sun and 
 falling upon the mirror A, in the direction S A, will be re- 
 flected in the line A B ; and falling upon B, it will again be 
 reflected in the direction BE. Let AB be produced to D, 
 and S A prolonged to meet B E in E. Now, since the an- 
 gles of incidence and reflexion are always equal (see Re- 
 flexion), we have DB E = 2 DB I, and BAE=2BAI; 
 but I>BE = B AE + BE A, and DBI = B AI + BIA, 
 consequently B A E + B E A = 2 B A 1 + 2 B I A : and, there- 
 fore, since B A E = 2 B A I, we have also B E A = 2 B I A ; 
 that is to say, the angular distance between the object S 
 and its image seen by the eye at E, in the direction E B H, 
 
 1115
 
 Is the double of the inclination of the mirrors 
 remarked, thai the place of the image, as Been from E Is In- 
 dependent of the situation of the mirrors on the plan.', so 
 long as the line • >t" tin- intersection of their planes and their 
 inclination to each other remain constant 
 
 From what has been now said,' it may be seen that if a con- 
 venient method could be devised for measuring the incli- 
 nation of two mirrors perpendicular to the same plane, 
 
 when they are SO placed that the Image of an object B is 
 
 brought to coincide with an object II seen directly, we 
 should at once have a reflecting instrument for measuring 
 angular distances. Such instruments are the sextant, the 
 quadrant, the reflecting circle, respectively so called from 
 i!.. , itent ot' the ate which the graduated limb embraces. 
 The contrivance adopted for this purpose in the sextant 
 is to attach the frame of the 
 mirror B to the plane of the sec- 
 tor ot" a circle A M .V, and the 
 frame ot" tin- mirror A to a ra- 
 dial bar A I revolving in the 
 plane of the sector round a pin 
 ji i -sin-; through the centre. 
 V M Both frames are generally sup- 
 plied with the means of adjust 
 ing the planes of the mirror ver- 
 tically, and 15 is generally also 
 capable of being turned by a 
 delicate motion a small way round a pin passing through 
 the frame of the sector. 
 
 The arc or limb M >J of the sector is graduated ; and the 
 revolving radius or indu carries at its extremity a vernier 
 scale, applying to the graduations on the limb, and subdivi- 
 ding them into such smaller portions as may he desired. 
 
 'Die method of rinding the zero point of the limh may he 
 understood generally from the following considerations : 
 The angle E (see the first figure) being double the angle I, 
 It follows that when the mirrors are parallel, or the angle 
 J is nothing, the angle E is nothing also, ami 9 and its im- 
 age will appear as one object, the one exactly covering the 
 other. It is, therefore, only necessary to turn round the ra- 
 dial liar which carries A till the image of a distant object 
 seen by reflexion from Ii is in accurate conjunction with 
 the object itself seen directly ; and the point on the limb 
 at which the index then stands is the zero point of the are. 
 If it is not also the zero of the numbered graduations, its 
 distance from the numeral zero is called the nulez'eiroi of 
 the instrument, and is to be applied as a correction to all 
 angles measured. 
 
 In graduating the limh, half degrees are marked as whole 
 ones, and the smaller divisions accordingly ; so that the an- 
 gle read from the instrument is not the inclination of the 
 mirrors, hut the distance of the object from its image. In 
 this class of instruments, therefore. '.IIP are indicated by an 
 arc of 45°, 120° by an arc of 60°, &c. 
 
 The minor A is completely silvered behind ; but B is sil- 
 vered on that half only which is next the plane of the in- 
 strument, the upper part being left clear, that objects, sinh 
 as 11, ma) he seen through it, as well as the jmag 
 
 crs. as S, by r< flexion from its surface. The mirror B is so 
 placed by tile maker that when A is parallel to it, tin" index 
 Which carries A either exactly or nearly corresponds with 
 I I Of tie- divisions as they are numbered on the limb. 
 
 When the index has been set by hand nearly in the p tsition 
 requisite for measuring any proposed angle, it is clamped to 
 
 the limh In a screw acting on a sprm;.', and moved slowly by a 
 
 tangent screw till it attains accurately the required position. 
 Such being the general principles of the instrument, we 
 
 shall now briefl ie different parts of it. as eon 
 
 Btructed by the best makers and the methods of adjusting 
 and obsen ing with it. 
 
 'I'h ly important object to he aimed at in the frame is 
 
 to combine lightness with sufficient strength. Thi 
 
 rally Of brass, and cast in one piece from a model ; 
 
 but the late Mr. Troughton introduced thin double frames 
 parallel to each other, and connected by pillars. These 
 frames are very lisht; but it may be doubtful whether they 
 sufficiently fulfil the condition of Btrength. 
 In all good instruments the index is strengthened by an 
 along its length. The graduations an- mail.- on a 
 slip of gold, diver, or platina, which is /,/ /» to a groove in 
 
 SEXTANT. 
 It may be to the plane of the instrument. But in the better class of 
 
 instruments all three axe fastening screws, the maker liini 
 sell' placing the mirror In its perpendicular position. 
 
 The other mirror, B, is attached to the frame of the sec- 
 tor, and in some instruments is incapable Of lateral motion. 
 
 being only provided with the means of placing it perpendic- 
 ular to the plane of the instrument : so that the position of 
 its plane With respect to the graduations may he regarded as 
 permanent. The vertical adjustment Is effected by a screw . 
 which sometimes acts on the frame ; and in some instru- 
 ments directly on the mirror, on which it presses by means 
 of a spring. In other instruments the frame of this mir- 
 ror turns round an axis passing through the frame of the 
 instrument; so that when the index is set to zero on the 
 limb, I! can be set parallel to A, and the index error, there- 
 fore, reduced to nothing. This mirror B is called the ho- 
 rizon glass by seamen, and the adjustment we have been 
 speaking of is culled the parallel adjustment of the horizon 
 glass. It is a most important adjustment, and one that re- 
 quires continual attention, being liable to be altered by very 
 trifling causes'. 
 
 In common quadrants, a sight vane with two holes is 
 placed (as at E) opposite B, one hole at the same distance 
 from the plane as the upper edge of the silvered part of the 
 mirror, and the other opposite the middle of the unsilvered 
 part. But the best instruments, instead of the sight vane, 
 are furnished with telescopes, which screw into a socket 
 attached to a piece of brass passing through the frame of 
 the instrument ; and by means of a screw the socket can be 
 raised or depressed, so that the telescope can be placed 
 with more or less of the object-glass opposite the silvered 
 or the unsilvered part of the index glass, as the varying 
 brightness of the objects observed may render necessary. 
 
 The telescopes are of two kinds. One a direct telescope, 
 which is simply an opera-glass; and having a narrow field 
 of view, is generally used in the more ordinary sort of ob- 
 servations, such as observing altitudes. The other is an in- 
 verting or astronomical telescope, which has a large field of 
 view, and is that which dexterous observers use exclusive- 
 ly. It is commonly supplied with two eye-pieces; one of 
 considerable power, and chiefly for determining the index 
 error, and the other for observing with. In the frames of 
 each eye-piece are two pairs of wires, each pair perpendic- 
 ular to the other, dividing the field of view into nine spaces, 
 of which that in the middle is square; and it is important 
 that in all observations made with this instrument the con- 
 tact of the image seen by reflexion, and of tin- object seen 
 directly, should be made as near the middle of this square 
 as possible, at any rate at the same distance as the centre of 
 the square from the plane of the instrument 
 
 It is essential, also, that the telescope should be parallel 
 to the plane of the instrument ; and in the collar into which 
 the telescope is sen-wed there are two screws for making 
 this parallel adjustment. The adjustment is not very lia- 
 ble to alter, but no careful observer will omit to examine it 
 at every convenient opportunity. 
 
 Both the mirrors are supplied with coloured glasses of 
 different degrees of shade, framed and placed in such a po- 
 sition that they can be turned down before the mirrors, ei- 
 ther singly or combined. The eye-pieces of the telescopes 
 are also supplied with coloured shades, set in caps, which 
 are screwed on the eye piece. They are used in taking the 
 index error by means of the sun, and in observing the sun's 
 altitude from an artificial horizon. 
 
 Adjustment of the. Sextant. — 1. To set the index glass, 
 when it admits of adjustment, perpendicular to the plane 
 of t!i. instrument. 
 
 Place the index about the middle of the limb; and look- 
 ing obliquely into the index class, the part of the limb will 
 be seen by reflexion in the L'lass, as well as directly. If the 
 part of the limb seen directly and its image ill tin- glass ap 
 pear as one continued frame, tin 1 mirror is in adjustment; 
 
 but if the reflected image appears to incline downward, it 
 shows that the face of tin- class inclines backward from 
 
 lln perpendicular.; if upwards, that it inclines forward, and 
 the adjustment must be made by the screw supplied for the 
 put pose. 
 
 •J. To Bet the horizon glass perpendicular to the frame of 
 the instrument. 
 
 Ila\ ing Carefully adjusted the index class, or seen that it 
 
 the limb. Instruments of this kind are now all graduated is in adjustment, sen-w tin- telescope into its socket : adjust 
 
 by a dividing machine. the eye-piece to distinct vision : screw the dusk shade cap 
 
 The frame of tie- sextan! is supported by thru- feet, one on tin- eye end of tin- telescope, or turn down sh 
 
 near each end of the limb, and the third tit the centre. 
 
 where it serves also as a Bheath to cover the central pin 
 
 ''with il- tat inn-.' screw] round which the index revolves 
 A handle parallel to th'' frame is attached to the back of 
 
 ii, to hold the i r trument by when observing. 
 
 Tin- revolving mirror A is attached by three screws to 
 
 tdex. la common instruments only two 
 
 of these Screws an- fastening screws, and the third is used 
 as an adjusting screw for placing the mirror perpendicular 
 1110 
 
 fore tin- mirrors ; and looking towards the sun, brine the In- 
 dex near to Zero; move it steadily backwards and forwards, 
 and tin- reflected image of the sun will be seen to pass over 
 his disk, as viewed directly. If the two circular ili-ks ac- 
 curately cover '-nil other in passing, the perpendicular ad- 
 justment of the i .-"ii glass requires no adjustment; but 
 
 if they pass a ii:ti«- aside of each other, so thai two different 
 col 'd lines appear on each side of tie- overlapping mid- 
 dle part, the mirror B must be turned by the appropriate 

 
 SEXTANT. 
 
 screw till the disks accurately cover each other, when the 
 adjustment will be complete. This adjustment may also be 
 effected by making a bright star and its image coincide with 
 each other ; but in this case it is scarcely necessary to say 
 that the darkening shades must be turned aside. 
 
 3. To set the telescope parallel to the plane of the instru- 
 ment. This adjustment is effected by two screws in the 
 collar which attaches the telescope to the limb of the sex- 
 tant, and diametrically oppose each other in a line perpen- 
 dicular to the plane of the instrument. By tightening the 
 upper one the object end of the telescope is inclined towards 
 the instrument, and the contrary effect is produced by tight- 
 ening the lower one. To make the adjustment, turn round 
 the eye-piece of the telescope till two of the wires in its 
 focus appear parallel to the plane of the instrument (and of 
 this the eye can judge with sufficient accuracy) ; then take 
 two objects, as two bright stars, or the sun and the moon, 
 whose distance in either case should not be less than 90°, 
 in order that any error in the adjustment may become more 
 apparent, and bringing the image of one of the objects in 
 accurate contact with the other object on the wire next the 
 instrument, instantly bring them to the other wire ; and if 
 they are also in accurate contact upon that wire, it may be 
 concluded that the axis of the telescope is parallel to the 
 plane of the instrument. If the objects are the sun and 
 moon, and they separate at the farther wire, it shows that 
 the object end of the telescope inclines towards the plane of 
 the instrument, and the contrary if they overlap, and the error 
 must be corrected by turning the proper screws in the collar. 
 The above are all the adjustments which this class of in- 
 struments admit of, and they are essential to every instru- 
 ment of the kind. We have now only to state how, in 
 practice, the index error of the instrument may be most con- 
 veniently and accurately determined. 
 
 Having effected the perpendicular adjustment of the hori- 
 zon glass by the method above explained, bring the border 
 of the sun's reflected image to coincide with the sun seen 
 directly both on the right and left side ; and, reading the in- 
 dex at both observations, if one reading is on the left and 
 the other on the right of zero, half the difference is the index 
 error, and the fourth part of the sum is the sun's semidi- 
 ameter ; but if both readings are on the same side of zero, 
 half the. sum is the index error, and the fourth part of the 
 difference is the semidiameter. No instrument-maker, how- 
 ever, will leave the index error so large that the readings 
 for the sun's diameter will be both on one side of zero. 
 
 The Reflecting Circle depends on the same principles as 
 the sextant, from which it differs chiefly by having the 
 whole circle graduated. In some instruments of this kind, 
 the angle is measured by repetition. Sec Repeating Circle. 
 But the only instrument of this kind that can be now said 
 to be in general use in this country is Troughton's reflecting 
 circle; in which, by means of three equidistant indexes, 
 and by observing alternately with the face of the index di- 
 rect and reversed, six times the required angle is obtained, 
 without reference to the index correction. After what has 
 been said above on the principles of reflecting instruments 
 generally, the following short account of this instrument 
 will be sufficient. 
 
 All the indexes move round together; and, of course, the 
 apparatus for slow motion, or the tangent screw, is only 
 requisite for one of them, which is called the leading index, 
 and which, for the sake of convenience, stands at or near 
 zero on the limb when the revolving and fixed mirrors are 
 parallel. 
 In the annexed figure let B D, B E, and B F, he the posi- 
 tions of the indexes when the re- 
 volving mirror is parallel to the 
 fixed one K L : and let A C and 
 M N be two positions of the re- 
 volving mirror when it is equally 
 \G' inclined to K L. Then the arcs 
 D G, D G , E H, E H', FI, FI', pass- 
 |d ed over by B D, B E, and B F, will 
 be all equal; and if, when the 
 mirror has the position M N, the 
 face of the instrument be reversed, 
 M N and K L will have the same 
 relative position to each other that 
 A C and K L have ; and consequently if an object is seen 
 by reflexion from A C and KL, it will also, when the in- 
 strument is reversed, be seen by reflexion from M N and 
 K L to an eye placed in the same situation. Hence the de- 
 grees on the arcs G G', H H', 1 1', which are the differences of 
 the readings of the observations in the direct and reversed 
 positions, are each the measure of double the distance of 
 the object from its reflected image. The degrees being 
 numbered round the circle from to 720°, and the indexes 
 placed very nearly at equal distances from each other, it is 
 customary in practice to read the degrees, with the minutes 
 and seconds, from the leading index only, and to read only 
 the minutes and seconds at the other indexes. 
 88 94 
 
 SHADOW. 
 
 SE'XTILE ASPECT, in Astrology, is the aspect of two 
 planets when they are distant from each other the sixth 
 part of a circle, or sixty degrees. 
 
 SEXTON. (Lat. saenstanus, sacrista.) A church offi- 
 cer, who is properly the keeper of holy things belonging to 
 divine worship, and said to be the same with the ostiarius 
 in the Romish church. A sexton is usually appointed for 
 life (whether by the minister or others, according to cus- 
 tom), and in such case a mandamus lies to restore him to 
 his office. 
 
 SFORZA'TO. (It. forced.) In music, a term written 
 over a note to signify that it is to be played or struck louder 
 than the rest. 
 
 SFUMA'TO. (It. smoky.) In Painting, a term applied 
 to that style of painting wherein the tints are so blended 
 that the outline is scarcely perceptible, the whole present- 
 ing an indistinct misty appearance. Guercino's works pre- 
 sent some of the finest examples of the style. 
 
 SGRAFI'TTO. (It. scratched.) In Painting, a species of 
 painting in which the ground is prepared with dark stucco, 
 on which a white coat is applied; which last being re- 
 moved with an iron instrument, the chipping it away opens 
 to the black ground and forms the shadows, giving it the 
 appearance of a chiaro-scuro painting. The principal pic- 
 tures of Polidoro da Caravaggio are executed in this man- 
 ner, which is capable of great effect, and is extremely dura- 
 ble, though it must be conceded the appearance is rather 
 harsh. 
 
 SHABRACK. The cloth furniture of a cavalry officer's 
 charger. The term is of Hungarian origin. 
 
 SHA'DDOCK. The fruit of the Citrus decumaria: it is 
 a species of orange. 
 
 SHA'DOW. In Optics, a portion of space from which 
 light is intercepted by an opaque body. As the rays of 
 light proceed in straight lines, every opaque object on which 
 light falls is accompanied with a shadow on the side oppo- 
 site to the luminous body; and the shadow appears more 
 intense in proportion as the illumination is stronger, because 
 any object placed within it contrasts more strongly with the 
 surrounding objects on which the light is suffered to fall. 
 
 As every point of a luminous body is a separate focus of 
 illumination, it follows that an opaque object illuminated 
 by the sun, or any other source of light which is not a 
 single point, must have an infinite number of shadows, 
 though not distinguishable from each other; and hence the 
 shadow of an opaque body received on a plane is always 
 terminated by a penumbra, or partial shadow, the extent of 
 which is greater in proportion to the magnitude of the 
 luminous body, the distance of the opaque body from the 
 plane on which the shadow falls, and the degree of obliquity 
 with which the luminous rays fall on the plane. 
 
 Shadows are said to be right, or versed, according to the 
 position on the planes on which they are thrown. The 
 shadow of an upright body projected on the plane of the 
 horizon is a right shadow ; and that of a body on a vertical 
 plane to which the body is perpendicular, as that of a bar 
 of iron fixed perpendicular in a wall, is a versed shadow. 
 In both cases, the length of the shadow is to the height of 
 the opaque body as the cosine to the sine of the angle which 
 the luminous ray makes with the plane. The ancient 
 geometers availed themselves of this property of shadows 
 to measure the altitudes of objects. 
 
 Coloured Shadows. — In certain states of the atmosphere 
 the shadows of opaque objects projected on a white surface 
 are frequently observed, about the time of sunrise or sun- 
 set, to be of a blue colour. This curious observation ap- 
 pears to have been first made by the celebrated painter 
 Leonardo da Vinci, and is also noticed by Otto Guericke in 
 his Magdeburg Experiments ; but no further notice seems 
 to have been taken of the phenomenon until about a cen- 
 tury later, when it again occurred to Buffon. Happening 
 to be standing on an eminence about the time of sunset, he 
 perceived the shadows of the trees on a white wall about 
 30 or 40 feet distant to be coloured with a light green, in- 
 clining to blue. The next morning, at sunrise, he repeated 
 the observation ; but instead of finding the shadows green, 
 he found them blue, or rather the colour of lively indigo. 
 Afterwards, he often observed the shadows, both in the 
 morning and evening, but always observed them to be 
 blue ; and he remarks that any one may see a blue shadow, 
 if he will hold his finger before a piece of white paper at 
 sunrise or sunset. The phenomenon has since been fre- 
 quently observed ; and it is usually ascribed to the aerial 
 colour of the atmosphere, which enlightens the shadows, 
 and in which the blue rays prevail. (See Priesthfs His- 
 tory of Light, (S-c, 1762.) For remarks on shadows with 
 luminous borders, glorified shadows, and other optical phe- 
 nomena of the same kind, see Prof. Forbes's Report on 
 Meteorology in the Reports of the British Association for 
 1840. 
 
 Shadow. In Painting, the form which a solid object 
 projects on a surface or surfaces by being interposed be- 
 
 1117
 
 SHAFT. 
 
 tween the surface or surfaces and the sun, or other lumin- 
 ousbody; the doctrines whereof have received the name 
 v. Shade is a term applied to that portion of 
 the object h inch i< ti"t obvious to the luminous body. 
 
 SHAFT. In Architecture, that part of a column between 
 the base and capital, sometimes called the trunk nt' the 
 column. The shaft of a columa always diminishes in 
 diameter from about a third of its height Sometimes it 
 has a Blight swelling [see Entasis) in the lower part of its 
 height In Che oldest Doric columns, the diminution was 
 siderable as to give (he column a conical appearance. 
 
 In the Doric edifices at Athens, the upper diameter is not 
 
 more than a quarter less than the lower diameter ; in the 
 
 temples of Jupiter \emeus, between Antes and Corinth, 
 
 not more than a tilth less. In Ionic and Corinthian columns, 
 
 the difference of the upper and lower diameters varies from 
 B fifth to a twelfth. The ancients seem to have regulated 
 tl'.e diminution in some proportion to the absolute height of 
 the column, for no particular law seems to have prevailed 
 in terms of the lower diameter. 
 
 Shaft. In Mines. A shaft or pit is a prismatic or cylin- 
 drical hollow space, the axis of which is either vertical or 
 much inclined to the horizon. The dimension of the pit, 
 which is never less than 3'2 inches in its narrowest dia- 
 meter, amounts sometimes to several yards. Its depth may 
 extend to 1000 feet, and more. Whenever a shaft is open- 
 ed, means must be provided to extract the rubbish which 
 continually tends to accumulate at its bottom, as well as 
 the waters which may percolate down into it ; as also to 
 facilitate the descent and ascent of the workmen. For 
 sometime a wheel and axle erected over the mouth of the 
 opening, which serve to elevate one or two buckets of 
 proper dimensions, may be sufficient for most of these pur- 
 poses; but such a machine becomes ere long inadequate. 
 Horse-whims, or powerful steam engines, must then be had 
 recourse to; and effectual methods of support must be em- 
 ployed to prevent the sides of the shaft from crumbling and 
 falling down. ( Ure's Vict, of Arts, (,-c.) 
 
 SHAG. The English name of a species of cormorant 
 (Pelicanug graculus, Linn.) 
 
 SHAGREE'N. A specie-; of leather, supposed formerly 
 to have been prepared from the skin of the shagree, a 
 species of whale. It i, prepared from horse or ass skin, its 
 granular appearance being given by embedding in it, whilst 
 soft, the seeds of a species of chenopodium, and afterwards 
 shaving down the surface: it is dyed with the green pro- 
 duced by the action of sal ammoniac on copper filings. It 
 was formerly much used for watch, spectacle, and instru- 
 ment cas -, and was made chiefly in Astracan. 
 
 SHAH. (In Persian, prince.) The title given by Eu- 
 ropean writers to the monarch of Persia, who in his own 
 <■ mntry is designated by the compound appellation of 
 Padishah, which see. 
 
 SHAH-NAMAH. (The Book of Kings.) The most an- 
 cient and celebrated poem in the modem Persian language, 
 by the poet who received as a title of honour the name 
 " Firdousi" [of Paradise), by which he is known. Its date 
 is supposed to be about A.D. 1000. A complete translation 
 into Eng ish, in four volumes, was published by Captain 
 Macan, Calcutta, 1829. 
 
 SHAKE. In Music, a quick alternate repetition of the 
 note above with that over which the mark tr is placed, 
 Commonly ending with a turn from the note below. 
 
 SHAKERS. In Ecclesiastical History, a sect said to 
 have originated by a secession from the' body of Quakers, 
 in 1147, in Lancashire; who received their nickname from 
 the peculiar contortions of body which they adopted in 
 their religious exercises. Anne Lee, the great female leader 
 of this sect, joined the society in 1758; ami. considering 
 In England, went, with a few followers, 
 to New York in 1771, and died ten years afterwards, at 
 which time hei sect had made great progress in America. 
 She was considered as the woman spoken of in Revela 
 
 tions. The sect appears to have fallen into obscurity, al- 
 though a lew Congregations still remain. 
 
 SHALE. A crumbling variety of slate. 
 
 SHA'MANISM, or SCH VMANISM. A general name 
 applied to the idolatrous religions of a number of barbarous 
 tribes, comprehending thi b race, the Ostiaks, 
 
 id other inhabitants of Siberia as far a- the 
 Pacific ocean. These nations generally believe in a Su- 
 preme Being, hut to whom they attribute little share in the 
 
 immediate government of the wield: this is in the hands 
 Ofa i nailer of secondary gods, both benevolent and ma- 
 levolent towards men. They appear to have very uncer- 
 tain and fluctuating opinions respecting these last. Thus. 
 those tribes which dwell on the frontier of Russia are said 
 to admit Saint -Nicholas among their gods. The shamans 
 or priests possess the power of propitiating such as are 
 
 malignant These priests are called by various names In 
 it tribe 1. Thi pecting another life 
 
 appears to be, that the condition of man will be poorer and 
 1118 
 
 SHEKEL. 
 
 more wretched than in the present; hence death is an ob- 
 ject of great dread. Women are esteemed very inferior to 
 men by all these nations. The magic drum of the priests 
 is well known. For one of the latest accounts of ihese re- 
 mote people, see Von Wr angel's Journey to the Polar Sea. 
 
 SHAMMY, or SHAMOY. The tanned or tawe.l skin of 
 the Chamois goat. Any soft pliable leather now passes 
 under the name. See Leather. 
 
 SHAMPOOING. A name given to an operation in the 
 East, which consists in pressing the joints and rubbing 
 them, so as to mitigate pain, and restore tone and vigour to 
 the parts. 
 
 SHAMROCK. The popular emblem of Irelnnd : as the 
 rose of England, and the thistle of Scotland, it is generally 
 supposed to have been the plant called white clover, Tri- 
 fo/ium repens ; but it appears to have been rather the wood- 
 sorrel, Ozalis acetosilla. 
 
 SHANK. In Architecture. See Femur. 
 
 SHANK PAINTER. The rope or chain which passing 
 round the shank of the anchor, lying horizontally, confines 
 it to the ship's bow. 
 
 SHARP. In Music, a character #, which prefixed to a 
 note signifies that it is to be sung or played a semitone 
 higher than it naturally would have been without such 
 character. 
 
 SHEAF. In Mechanics, a solid cylindrical wheel fixed 
 in a channel and moveable about an axis, as in the block 
 ofa pullev. 
 
 SHEA'RIXG. The term in Scotland for reaping. 
 
 SHEARING SHEEP. The operation of clipping off the 
 wool from the bodies of ewes and lambs: generally per- 
 formed in the beginning of summer, when the animals are 
 not likely to sutler from being deprived of their warm cover- 
 ing, and when there is sufficient lime for the wool to grow 
 again before winter. 
 
 SHEATH, in Eotany, is a term applied to a petiole when 
 it embraces the branch from which it springs, as in grasses; 
 or to a rudimentary leaf which wraps round the stem on 
 which it grows, as in the scapus of many Endogenous 
 planls. 
 
 SHEATHING. The covering laid on the ship's bottom 
 to defend it from the worms. Sheets of thin copper nailed 
 on with copper nails constitutes, at present, the sheathing 
 of all the better kinds of vessels. Lead has been used ; 
 and large headed iron nails, called scupper nails are used 
 still for the same purpose on the bottoms of old hulks, piles, 
 &c. Zinc and different compositions have been proposed as 
 substitutes for copper; and Sir II. Davy ingeniously sug- 
 gested the application of pieces of zinc or iron upon different 
 parts of the copper surface, which by the action of the sea 
 water render the latter metal electro-negative, and capable, 
 therefore, of resisting the oxidizing and corrosive agencies 
 of the substances held in solution. The pieces of iron or of 
 zinc so applied have been properly called protectors ; but 
 by occasioning the precipitation of earthy matters upon the 
 copper, while they effectually protect it, they render its sur- 
 face favourable to the adhesion of weeds, barnacles, &c, 
 and sometimes to such an extent as to interfere with the 
 passage of the ship through the water: upon such grounds, 
 Sir Humphrey's valuable suggestion has been neglected. 
 When vessels are laid up in dock the protectors are in suc- 
 cessful use. Sheathing formerly was composed of thin fir 
 boards. 
 
 SHEEP. SceOvis. 
 
 SHEER. The curve which the line of ports, or of the 
 deck presents to the eye when viewing the side of the 
 ship. When these lines are straight, or the extremities do 
 not rise, as is most usual, the ship is said to have a straight 
 sheer. 
 
 SHEER HULK. A hulk permanently fitted with sheers 
 for masliiiL' and dismasting ships. 
 
 SHEERS. Two masts or spars lashed together at or 
 near the bead, and raised to a vertical position, for the pur- 
 pose of lifting the masts into or out of a vessel. 
 
 SHEET. The rope attached to the after mast or lee- 
 ward mast clue or corner of a sail, to extend it to the wind. 
 In the square sails above the courses, the ropes attached to 
 both clues are called shuts : in till other cases the weadier- 
 niost one is called a tuck. 
 
 SHEET ANCHOR. The third of the four large anchors 
 generally cariied by a ship. 
 
 SHEIK. (In Arabic, elder or eldest.) A title of dignity 
 
 properly belonging U) the chiefj of the Arabian tribes or 
 
 dans. The heads of monasteries are also termed, in some 
 ■■-. sieiks among the Mohammedans, li is also the 
 idle of the higher order of religious persons who pi each in 
 the mosques. The mufti of Constantinople bears the title 
 of Sheikh-ul Islam. 
 
 Sll EK EL. 'flu name ofa weight and coin in use among 
 the .lews. The weight of the shekel was about X oz. in 
 English avoirdupois weight; and the value of the coin was 
 i!o'. ~d. There were two standards of the shekel : the she-
 
 SHINGLE. 
 
 kel of the sanctuary, which was used in calculating the 
 offerings of the temple, and all sums connected with the 
 sacred law; and the royal or profane shekel, used for all 
 civil payments. Various opinions are entertained respecting 
 the relative value of these two standards ; but nothing cer- 
 tain can be averred on the subject. Wener and Michaelis, 
 without, however, any sufficient reason, as it appears, are 
 of opinion that the shekel used in commercial transactions 
 differed from both of these. (See Wener, Biblisches Real- 
 TOiJrterbucA, art. "Sekel.") 
 
 SHEKl'NAH. The Jewish name for the Divine pres- 
 ence, which rested, in the shape of a cloud, over the " pro- 
 pitiatory," or "mercy seat," as it is rendered in our transla- 
 tion (Leviticus, xvi., 2). The Jews reckon it among the 
 five particulars which were present in the first temple, and 
 Wanting in the second. (See Prideauz' Connection, 1. 3.) 
 On this account God is so often said in Scripture to " dwell 
 between the cherubim;" that is, between the images of 
 cherubim on the mercy seat. (1 Sam., iv.. 4 ; Psalm., lxxx., 
 1, &.C. See also AZeM. de l\ic. des Iiescr., vol. xxxviii./ 
 
 SHE'LDRAKE. The common name of the species of 
 duck called .duos tadorna, which is the type of the sub- 
 genus Tadora of Kay and modern ornithologists. This 
 elegant species frequents many parts of our coast, and re- 
 mams throughout the year. The female commonly selects 
 a rabbit-hole in which to deposit her eggs, which are some- 
 times as many as sixteen in number. The sheldrake feeds 
 on small fish, marine insects, and sea-weed. 
 
 SHELL. The hardening principle of shell is generally 
 carbonate of lime nearly pure. The animal principle, in 
 the porcellaneous shells, is a small quantity of soluble gela- 
 tine ; in the mother of pearl shells, it is albuminous. The 
 latter, therefore, when steeped in dilute muriatic acid, 
 leave a membranous or cartilaginous residue ; but the for- 
 mer are entirely soluble. For the form, structure, and mode 
 of growth of shell, see Conchologt. 
 
 Shell. In Artillery, a hollow sphere of iron, which be- 
 ing filled with gunpowder and fired from a mortar, bursts 
 into pieces; when the powder is exploded, and produces a 
 very destructive effect. The charge is introduced through 
 a hole in the shell of about an inch in diameter, and fired 
 by means of a fuze. The fuze is a wooden tube made to 
 fit the hole, and filled with a composition of sulphur, salt- 
 petre, and mealed powder; and is cut of such a length that 
 the shell is calculated to explode just before or immediate- 
 ly after it reaches the ground. 
 
 SilCLI MARL. A deposit of clay and other subslances, 
 mixed with shells, which collects at the bottom of lakes. 
 
 SIIE'RBET (a word borrowed from the Persian), signi- 
 fies a favourite beverage in the East, bearing some resem- 
 blance to our lemonade, made of water, lemon-juice, and 
 sucar, with the addition of some other ingredients, such as 
 r os \\ iter, to give it a delightful perfume. 
 
 SllE'RIFF (originally shire-reeve, from the Saxon, mean- 
 ing the reeve or governor of the shire), is the tit ie of that 
 functionary who acted at first only as the deputy of the earl, 
 hence styled in Lat. vice-comes ; but has long been the 
 chief civil officer in each county, where he is styled bailiff 
 of the crown, and where he is specially entrusted with the 
 execution of the laws and the preservation of the peace : 
 for which purposes he has at his disposal the whole civil 
 force of the county — in old legal language the posse comita- 
 tus. The most ordinary and important functions of the 
 sheriff, which he universally exercises by a deputy, called 
 under sheriff, for whose conduct he is responsible, consist, 
 1st. In the execution of writs issuing from the superior 
 courts, or awarded by the judges on their consent, to take 
 effect within the county. 2. In the holding of the sheriff's 
 court. The sheriff himself only executes in person such 
 parts of his office as are either purely honorary, such as at- 
 tendance upon the judges on circuit (for whose lodging he 
 is also bound to provide) ; or as are of some dignity and 
 public importance, such as the presiding over elections and 
 the holding of county meetings, which it is in his power to 
 call at any time. The county courts are incident to the 
 jurisdiction of the sheriff. Until recently they could only 
 hold pleas of debt or damages under the value of 40s., ex- 
 cept in replevin, or actions by virtue of a particular writ 
 termed a justicies. But it is now enacted, by 3 & 4 W. 4, 
 c. 42, that in any action depending in a superior court for a 
 debt or demand, not exceeding .£20 it shall be lawful for 
 the court to direct that the issue joined shall be tried before 
 the sheriff of the county in which the action is brought. See 
 Courts. 
 
 Sheriffs were originally chosen by the freeholders of the 
 county, except in some few counties where the office was 
 hereditary, as it still is in Westmoreland. The system of 
 popular election was abolished in the reign of Richard II., 
 and sheriffs have long been appointed by the crown upon 
 presentation of the judges, in a manner partly regulated by 
 law, partly by custom ; but sheriffs may also be nominated 
 by the crown without recommendation of the judges, and 
 
 SHEKINAH. 
 
 are then familiarly *tyled pocket sheriffs. Those appoint- 
 ed in either way are bound under a penalty of £500 to serve 
 the office, except in specified cases of exemption or disabili- 
 ty. The description given of the office as it is in England 
 applies to Ireland without variation, except as to the time 
 of its origin. 
 
 SHERIFF DEPUTE. In Scotland, the principal sheriff 
 of a county. He is named by the crown, must be an advo- 
 cate of three years' standing, and receives a salary varying 
 from £350 to £1200 per annum. He is entitled to name 
 sheriff substitutes; executes writs, returns juries, &c. ; de- 
 cides on claims for enrolment in the county lists of parlia- 
 mentary voters, and exercises a certain criminal jurisdic- 
 tion. He holds also civil courts for the recovery' of small 
 debts, and a court of record, the jurisdiction of which ex- 
 tends to all personal actions, and possessory actions for the 
 recovery of real property. 
 
 SHE'RRY. A Spanish wine made from the grapes of 
 Xeres in Andalusia. Genuine sherry is a rich dry wine, 
 containing from 20 to 23 per cent, of alcohol : there are 
 many varieties, and it is extensively imitated and adulter- 
 ated. See Wine. 
 
 SHEW-BREAD. In the Old Testament. The name 
 given to the twelve loaves of bread, one for each of the 
 twelve tribes of Israel, which were appointed to be placed 
 every Sabbath " on the pure table before the Lord," for the 
 sustenance of the priests. They appear to be the same 
 with that which is called " shew-bread" in 1 Sam., 21, 
 where the act of David in taking these loaves for the nour- 
 ishment of himself and his followers is related. 
 
 SHI'BBOLETH. (Heb. a flood.) The name given to a 
 sort of test or criterion by which the ancient Jews sought 
 to distinguish true persons or things from false. The term 
 originated thus: After the battle gained by Jephtha over 
 the Ephraimites (see Judges, xii.), the Gileadites command- 
 ed by the former secured all the passes of the river ; and 
 on an Ephraimite attempting to cross, they asked him if he 
 was of Ephraim. If he said no, they bade him pronounce 
 the word Shibboleth, which the Ephraimites from inability 
 to give the aspirate called Sibboleth ; and by this means he 
 was detected and instantly thrown into the river. In mod- 
 ern times this word has been adopted into the language of 
 politics, in which it signifies those political opinions on 
 which all the members of a party are agreed, or the watch- 
 word by which it is intended to unite them. 
 
 SHIELD. (Germ, scbild.) A well-known piece of de- 
 fensive armour, very extensively used before the invention 
 of gunpowder, and still employed by many nations among 
 which military art has made imperfect progress. It would 
 be endless to detail the various materials and shapes of 
 which it has been constructed at different periods. The 
 ancient Greek shield, as described in Homer, was large and 
 massive, sufficient to cover the man from the face to the 
 knee, composed of leather, inlaid in some instances with 
 metal . That of the Roman legionary was four feet high, 
 and two and a half broad, formed of wood covered with 
 leather, and strongly guarded with bosses of iron or bronze. 
 The ancient Britons and other nations of antiquity wore 
 round, light, basket-like shields, often of wicker-work ; more 
 resembling the parma or lighter shield of the Romans. The 
 Norman shield, as used in England down to the time of 
 Henry II., was "of the form called kite or pear-shape," flat- 
 ter at first, afterwards approaching to the semi-cylindrical. 
 Heraldic devices were first borne on it, so far as is distinct- 
 ascertained, in the reign of Henry II. (Pictorial Hist, of 
 England, i., 640.) In that of Edward IV. the shield had be- 
 come triangular: the point of the triangle was rounded off 
 about the end of the 14th century. Afterwards the shape 
 of the shield, as worn by knights, became more and more 
 fantastic. In actual service it fell gradually into disuse : 
 sword and buckler fight, the favourite pastime as well as 
 warlike practice of former days, became obsolete after the 
 rapier and dagger had been introduced in the reign of Eliza- 
 beth. The Highlanders carried the target with the broad 
 sword to a much later period. 
 
 SHIELDS. In Botany, little coloured cups or lines with 
 a hard disk, surrounded by a rim, and containing the fructi- 
 fication of lichens. 
 
 SHILLING. An English silver coin equal to' twelve 
 pence, or the twentieth part of a pound sterling. Among 
 the ancient Saxons, the value of the shilling was only five 
 pence ; it afterwards underwent many alterations, contain- 
 ing sometimes sixteen pence, and often twenty pence. The 
 p-riod when it obtained its present value is assigned to the 
 reign of Edward I. Many other countries besides England 
 have a coin of this name : of these, perhaps, the Hamburgh 
 schilling is the best known. Its value is Id. English. 
 
 SHI'LOH. (Hebr. differently rendered — .Son, He who is 
 sent, or the Sent, or the Peaceable, or the Prosperous.) The 
 name given to the Messiah by Jacob in his prophecy, Gen- 
 esis, xlix., 30. 
 SHINGLE. (Germ. ; or perhaps from Lat. scindendo.) 
 
 1119
 
 SHINGLES. 
 
 The coarse gravel, or accumulation of small stones, found 
 on the shores of rivers or the sea : in the latter case the term 
 sea-beach is applied. 
 
 SHl'NGLES. A corruption of the French word ceingU, 
 which means a belt. This eruptive disorder is generally 
 ushered in with febrile symptoms, followed by an itching 
 or tingling sensation of some part of the body, occasioned 
 by patches of little red pimples, forming in the course of 
 twenty-four hours small transparent vesicles; these suc- 
 ceed each other till they at length form a kind of belt round 
 some part of the trunk or abdomen; they often form small 
 ulcerations and scabs, continuing their progress for three or 
 four weeks. This disorder is not contagious, and generally 
 very slight; but in irritable habits the itching occasions 
 want of rest and fever, and it is sometimes attended by a 
 deep-seated pain of the affected part. The cause of shin- 
 gles is generally obscure, though it may sometimes be re- 
 ferred to indigestion and suppressed perspiration : young . 
 persons are most subject to it. Gentle aperients and dia- 
 phoretics, strict attention to the diet, and occasional ano- 
 dynes, are the only internal remedies generally required ; 
 and, externally, a little cold cream or fresh spermaceti oint- 
 ment, or the occasional application of a very weak Gou- • 
 lard's lotion, is all that is necessary. 
 
 Shingles. In Architecture, small slabs of wood, or 
 quartered oaken boards, used instead of slates or tiles for 
 covering churches or spires. They are sawn to a certain 
 scantling, or rather cleft to about an inch thick at one end, 
 and shaped like wedges, four or five inches broad and eight 
 or nine inches long. 
 
 SHIP. A general term for all large vessels, but restrict- ! 
 ed by seamen to such only as have three complete masts ; 
 i. e., lower, top, and top-gallant masts. As we cannot here 
 give a complete description of so complex a fabric, and as 
 the reader will have become familiar with the forms of ships 
 from prints, we shall merely attempt to convey some gen- 
 eral ideas on the subject. After the hull has been com- | 
 pleted, a slight account of the construction of which has 
 been given under Naval Architect!, re, the ballast, which 
 is necessary in most ships to keep them upright when un- 
 der sail, and which is in men-of-war in iron pigs is spread 
 over the bottom of the hold, chiefly towards the middle of 
 the length. The masts are then taken in. On the ballast 
 are laid loose pieces of wood, called dunnage, on which 
 rest the iron tanks containing the water to drink, or water 
 casks. The hold in large ships is divided by partitions into 
 the fore, main, and after holds. At the fore extremity, in 
 men-of-war, are the gunner's, boatswain's, and carpenter's 
 rooms, containing arms, supplies of rope, bolts, pump gear, 
 and other materials of the fittings, or for repairs. In this 
 part also is the fore powder magazine, when there are two. 
 In the fore hold are stowed water, wood for firing, and. 
 separated by a strong partition, coals. In the main hold 
 are stowed water, stores, chain cables, &c. In the after 
 hold are the provisions ; and, in the spirit roam, the spirits : 
 here also is the powder magazine. In the narrow and 
 shallow after extremity is stowed the bread or biscuit. The 
 spare sails are kept in a space called the sail room, over the 
 fore hold. The hemp cables are kept in the cable tiers, on 
 a deck over the main hold. These decks immediately 01 . r 
 liie holds constitute generally the fore and after cock pit*. 
 In large ships the u hole deck is called the orlop deck. On 
 the lower deck, which is next above the former, the men 
 mess and sleep. In frigates, and smaller vessels, this deck 
 is a little below the water; in two and three decker?, it is 
 three or more feet above the water, and is the lower gun 
 deck. 6 
 
 In merchant ships the arrangements depend, of course, on 
 the size of the vessel and the nature of the cargo. In all 
 these vessels, however, the place allotted to the crew is in 
 the fore |w.rt. and is called the /err peak. Ships are, in gen- I 
 erai, constructed for the purposes of* burden, expedition, and I 
 war; the latter class, which must possess also, In part, the 
 qualities of the other two. exhibit the finest models. The ! 
 
 largest ships, of ISO guns, carrj three complete r >wa or tiers 
 
 of heavy cannon (33 pounders), and are thence called U 
 deckers; of late years some .still heavier guns have been 
 introduced. Each deck has from 15 to 17 guns on each 
 side. The middle of these decks is called the middle deck ; 
 and the deck next above this, or which is next below the 
 uppermost deck, the main deck. Guns are also carried on 
 the upper deck, of which the fore part is called the fore- 
 castle, and the part abaft the main mast the quarttr deck. 
 The deck over this last, extending from the after extremity 
 to a little before the mizzen mast, is called the poop. The 
 after parts of these decks, from and including the mizzen 
 in. ist, are the C thins of the admiral, captain, and the offi- 
 cers; the latter being called the ward room in ships of the 
 
 lme, and ^ae gun room In frigates. The length of a ship of 
 the largest cl iss Is about -.'iki feel at the water 111 > 
 
 breadth 51 feet, and draught of water about 26, and the 
 
 height of the truck above the water 210 feet. The whole 
 
 1120 
 
 SHIPWRECK. 
 
 weight of such a ship, with her crew and provisions, is 
 about 4600 tons, of which the hull or shell is about half. 
 The men, with their effects, amount to 100 tons ; and the 
 guns, arms, and powder, to 500 tons. The 32 pounder (long 
 gun), and carriage, weigh 72 cwt., and the carronade one 
 third of this. Two-deckers carry from 70 to 90 guns. In 
 bad weather the ports of the lower deck are defended by 
 heavy lids called ports, which are firmly secured from with- 
 in, the guns being then run in and secured from motion. 
 Frigates carry one tier of guns on the main deck, besides 
 guns on the upper deck ; vessels of the lower classes carry 
 their guns on the upper or open deck. 
 
 Fine sailing ships have gone upwards of 13 knots (or sea 
 miles of 6080 feet) an hour, in a squall ; and upwards of 10 
 knots on a bow line, that is, the sails being sharply trimmed 
 when the direction of the wind makes an angle of about 
 67° with that of the ship's head. 
 
 The principal scientific works on ships are Bouguer, 
 Traitt idu A'arire ; Euler, Scitntia J^'avalis ; Id. Theorie de 
 la Construction et de la Manoeuvre des faisseauz ; Don 
 George Juan, Ezamen Maritime, and a French translation, 
 with notes, by L'Eveque ; Chapman's JVhvoJ .Architecture, 
 &.C. Much general information is to be found in Charnock's 
 Marine .Architecture, and many other works contained in 
 any good catalogue, under the heads Naval Architecture, 
 Seamanship, especially in Darcy Lever's Seamanship, kc. 
 But the subject has as yet been but imperfectly treated, and 
 many points of great practical importance, and unconnect- 
 ed with the particular properties of fluids, have not been 
 discussed. 
 
 SHIP. ARMED. In the English usages of war, a private 
 vessel occasionally taken into the service of government in 
 time of war, armed and equipped like a regular ship of war, 
 and commanded by an officer of the navy, with the rank of 
 master and commander. 
 
 SHIPBUILDING. See Naval Architecture. 
 
 SHIP MONEY. The celebrated tax imposed by Charles 
 I. without authority of parliament, which proved one of the 
 most immediate causes of the discontents that ended in the 
 great rebellion. This device was first put in practice in 
 1634. It was by a writ, directed to the sheriff of every 
 county, to provide a ship for the king's service ; accom- 
 panied by written instructions, appointing a sum of money 
 to be levied instead. This writ was framed by Attorney- 
 General Noy. The tax was paid for about four years with- 
 out opposition ; when the question of its legality was raised 
 by the refusal of Hampden to pay his share. It was argued 
 before the judges in the Exchequer Chamber, of whom a 
 great majority gave judgment for the crown. The act 
 ■ whereby all the proceedings in the business of ship-money 
 were adjudged void, and disannulled, and the judgments, 
 enrolments, and entries thereupon vacated and cancelled." 
 was one of the first proceedings of the Long Parliament. 
 (See Clarendon, books i., iii.) 
 
 SHIPS, REGISTRY OF. In Commercial Navigation, 
 the registration or enrolment of ships at the custom-house, 
 so as to entitle them to be classed among, and to enjoy the 
 privileges of, British-built ships. 
 
 The registry of ships appears to have been first introduced 
 into this country by the Navigation Act (IS Car. 2, c. 18, 
 anno 1660;. Several provisions were made with respect to 
 it by the 7 & 8 Will. 3, c. 22: and the whole was reduced 
 into a 5] stem by the 27 Geo. 3, c. 19. 
 
 It may be laid down in general, that a vessel, in order to be 
 admitted to registry, and consequently to enjoy the privileges 
 and advantages that exclusively belong to a British ship, 
 must be the property of his majesty's subjects in the I'nited 
 Kingdom or some of its dependencies: and that it must 
 have been built in the said United Kingdom. &c, or been a 
 prize vessel legally condemned, or a vessel legally con- 
 demned for a breach of the slave laws. 
 
 The great, and perhaps the only original object of the 
 registration of ships, was to facilitate the exclusion of 
 foreign ships from those departments in which they were 
 prohibited from engaging by the navigation laws, by afford- 
 ing a ready means of distinguishing such as were really 
 British. It has also been considered advantageous to in- 
 dividuals, by preventing the fraudulent assignment of prop- 
 erty in ships ; but Lord Tenterden has observed, in refer- 
 ence to this suppo.ed advantage, that "the instances in 
 which fair and honest transactions are rendered unavaila- 
 ble, through a negligent want of compliance with the forms 
 directed by these and other statutes requiring a public re- 
 gister of conveyances, make the expediency of all such reg- 
 ulations, considered with reference to private benefit only, 
 a matter of question and controversy." (Law of Shipping, 
 part i.. r. 2.) 
 
 SHIPWRECK, in the open sea, arises from the water 
 leaking in at the bottom of a ship faster than the pumps can 
 discharge it: or from the sea coming over one of the decks, 
 and getting below in great quantity ; or from the vessel be- 
 ing overset by the wind. Li the iabouring of a weak ship
 
 SHIRE. 
 
 in a heavy sea the seams of the sides and bottom open, and 
 the caulking works loosen. When the loss of a mast oc- 
 curs, the ship is often left entirely to the action of the 
 waves. People unused to the sea look with admiration on 
 the strength and solidity of a ship ; but those who have ex- 
 perienced the violent shocks of the waves, and are con- 
 versant with the effects of incessant agitation upon any 
 fabric, and the straining effects of the masts and sails on 
 the hull, are rather surprised that such a machine should 
 hold together for so many years. 
 
 When the ship is wrecked near the shore, the object is 
 to land the crew. The first method proposed was, we be- 
 lieve, Bell's, in 1791. A mortar was fired from the ship, car- 
 rying a shell with a rope attached, by which communica- 
 tion with the shore might be established. Captain Manby, 
 in 1808, employed the mortar on shore, where alone, it is 
 obvious, its action could be depended upon ; and methods 
 have since been adopted for winding the rope on a cone 
 for disengaging it without impediment, which had been 
 found the chief difficulty. 
 
 SHIRE. A territorial division. (From the Anglo-Saxon 
 scyran, to divide ; whence the verb to sheer.) In modern 
 language, shire is synonymous with county ; but some 
 smaller districts in the north of England retain the provin- 
 cial appellation of shires : as Richmondshire, in the North 
 Riding of Yortahire ; Hallamshire, or the manor of Hallam, 
 in the West Riding, which is nearly coextensive with the 
 parish of Sheffield. See County. 
 
 SHIRE CLERK. An officer appointed by the sheriff to 
 assist in keeping the county court. 
 SHIRE MOTE. The Shire Meeting ; i. e., sheriff's court. 
 SHOOTING STARS. Well-known meteors, of which 
 the orign and nature are involved in great obscurity, 
 and which have, of late years, excited extraordinary inter- 
 est by their periodical appearances in unusually great 
 numbers. 
 
 Phenomena of Shooting Stars. — The apparent magnitudes 
 of these meteors are widely different. The greater part of 
 them resemble stars of the 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th magnitudes ; 
 but some occur which surpass stars of the 1st magnitude, 
 and even exceed Jupiter and Venus in brilliancy. In some 
 of them the globular form can be easily recognised : these 
 are, in every respect, similar to bolides or fire-balls ; and, 
 in fact, it is impossible, from their appearances, to make 
 any distinction between the larger shooting stars and the 
 smaller individuals of the class of meteors to which the 
 name of the fire-balls is usually appropriated. See Fire- 
 balls. 
 
 Shooting stars appear to be equally numerous in every 
 climate. The weather seems to have no influence upon 
 their number. They are observed at all times of the year ; 
 but, generally speaking, they appear to be more abundant 
 in the end of summer and autumn than at the other sea- 
 sons. 
 
 Some of the shooting stars leave a luminous train behind 
 them, which marks their path through the sky with a milk- 
 white light. These trains for the most part disappear in a 
 few seconds ; but sometimes they continue longer, and even 
 for several minutes. In the case of actual fire-balls, Dr. 
 Olbers observed trains which continued from six to seven 
 minutes ; and Brandes, in one instance, estimated that fif- 
 teen minutes elapsed between the extinction of the fire ball 
 and the disappearance of the luminous train. The trains in 
 general assume the form of a cylinder, the interior of which 
 is void of luminous matter; and not (infrequently, before 
 their disappearance, they take a curved form. The most 
 probable explanation is, that they are caused by a gaseous 
 matter left behind by the meteor, and bent by currents of 
 air. 
 
 The older philosophers had formed various theories to 
 explain these remarkable phenomena. By some they were 
 supposed to be the products of an oily sulphurous Vai>our 
 existing in the atmosphere, which being disposed in thin 
 layers, and becoming inflamed by some means, would ex- 
 hibit the appearance of a clear brilliant spark passing ra- 
 pidly from one point to another. About the middle of the 
 last century, when the effects and phenomena of electrici- 
 ty began to be better understood, Beccaria and Vassali, 
 among others, regarded the shooting stars as merely electri- 
 cal sparks; an hypothesis which was soon shown to be 
 untenable. At a later period, when the inflammable nature 
 of the gases became known, Lavoisier, Volta, Herbert, 
 Toaldo, Gren, and others, referred these meteors to hydro- 
 gen gas, which, by reason of its inferior density, they sup- 
 posed must be accumulated in the higher regions of the at- 
 mosphere. Dal ton, however, showed that such accumula- 
 tion cannot take place, inasmuch as all the gases which 
 constitute the atmosphere must be equally diffused through 
 its whole extent, according to the law of Mariotte. Deluc 
 maintained that certain phosphoric exhalations generated 
 in the earth, and becoming inflamed in the sky, formed the 
 true essence of the shooting stars. 
 
 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 In this state the subject remained when Chladni publish- 
 ed his celebrated work on the causes of the masses of iron 
 and other similar substances found in Siberia by Pallas, in 
 which he clearly established, by comparing the circum- 
 stances of a great multitude of observations, that the fire- 
 balls are meteors having their origin beyond our atmosphere ; 
 that, in fact, they are masses of nebulous matter moving in 
 space with planetary velocities, which, when they come in 
 the way of the earth in its revolution about the sun, and 
 enter the atmosphere, are inflamed by its resistance and 
 friction, and become luminous, sometimes scattering masses 
 of stone and iron on the ground. Halley, Wallis, Pringle, 
 Maskelyne, and others, had previously assigned a cosmical 
 origin to these meteors, but without suspecting that masses 
 of stone and iron fell from them. The close resemblance 
 which the greater part of the shooting stars present to fire- 
 balls, at once induced Chladni to consider these phenomena 
 also as cosmical ; that is to say, as small masses of matter 
 not having their origin in our atmosphere, but entering it 
 from without, and which are either entirely consumed in it, 
 or become extinguished when they have passed beyond it. 
 
 These conclusions, however, required to be confirmed by 
 a more accurate investigation of the phenomena ; for as yet 
 no exact determination had been made of the actual aver- 
 age heights of the shooting stars above the earth, or of their 
 orbits, velocities, or magnitudes. In the year 1798 this im- 
 portant but difficult inquiry was undertaken by Professors 
 Brandes of Leipsig, and Benzenberg of Dusseldorf (both at 
 that time students in GSttingen). Having selected a base 
 line (about nine miles in length), they placed themselves at 
 its extremities on appointed nights, and observed all the 
 shooting stars which appeared, tracing their courses through 
 the heavens on a celestial map, and noting the instants of 
 their appearances and extinctions by chronometers previous- 
 ly compared. The differences of the paths traced on the 
 maps afforded data for the determination of the parallaxes, 
 and consequently the heights and the lengths of the orbits. 
 On six evenings, between September and November, the 
 whole number of shooting stars seen by both observers was 
 402 ; of these 22 were identified as having been observed 
 by each in such a manner that the altitude of the meteor 
 above the ground at the instant of extinction could be com- 
 puted. The least of the altitudes was about 6 English 
 miles. Of the whole there were 7 under 45 miles; 9 be- 
 tween 45 and 90 ; 6 above 90 ; and the highest was above 
 140 miles. There were only two observed so completely as 
 to afford data for determining the velocity. The first gave 
 25 miles, and the second front 17 to 21 miles in a second. 
 The most remarkable result was, that one of them certainly 
 was observed not to fall, but to move in a direction away 
 from the earth. 
 
 By these observations a precise idea was first obtained of 
 the altitudes, distances, and velocities of these singular me- 
 teors. A similar but more extended plan of observation was 
 organized by Brandes in 1823, and carried intoeffect at Bres- 
 lau and the neighbouring towns by a considerable number 
 of persons observing at the same time on concerted nights. 
 Between April and October about 1800 shooting stars were 
 noted at the different places; out of which number 62 were 
 found which had been observed simultaneously at more 
 than one station in such a manner that their respective alti- 
 tudes could be determined, and 36 others of which the ob- 
 servations furnished data for estimating the entire orbits. 
 Of these 98, the heights (at the time of extinction) of 4 
 were computed to be under 15 English miles ; of 15 between 
 15 and 30 miles ; of 22 between 30 and 45 ; of 33 between 
 45 and 70; of 13 between 70 and 90: and of 11 above 90 
 miles. Of these last two had an altitude of about 140 miles, 
 one of 220 miles, one of 280, and there was one of which 
 the height was estimated to exceed 460 miles. 
 
 Of the 36 computed orbits, in 26 instances the motion was 
 downwards, in one case horizontal, and in the remaining 9 
 more or less upwards. The velocities were between 18 and 
 36 miles in a second. The trajectories were frequently not 
 straight lines, but incurvated sometimes in the horizontal 
 and sometimes in the vertical direction, and sometimes they 
 were of a serpentine form. The predominating direction of 
 the motion of the meteors from north-east to south-west, 
 contrary to that of the earth in its orbit, was very remarka- 
 ble, and is important in reference to their physical theory. 
 
 A similar set of observations was made in Belgium in 
 1824, under the direction of M. Ouetelet, the results of 
 which are published in the Annuaire de Briixellcs for 1837. 
 M. Quetelet was chiefly solicitous to determine the velocity 
 of the meteors. He obtained six corresponding observations 
 from which this element could be deduced, and the results 
 varied from ten to twenty-five English miles in a second. 
 The mean of the six results gave a velocity of nearly sev- 
 enteen miles per second, a little less than that of the earth 
 in its orbit. 
 
 Another set of corresponding observations was made in 
 Switzerland on the 10th of August, 1838 ; a circumstantial 
 4 A 1121
 
 SHOOTING STARS. 
 
 arrnunt of which is given by M. Wartmnnn in Quetelct's 
 ondance Mat/tematiqne, for July, 1839. M. Wart 
 nit nn and live other observers, provided with celestial 
 charts, stationed themselves ai the observatory of Geneva; 
 and the corresponding observations were made at Plan- 
 . i village about sixty miles to the north-east of that 
 city. In the space of seven and a half hours, the number 
 
 ..i i,.,r- observed by the six observers at Geneva was 
 
 lif'l ; and during five and a halt' hours, the number observed 
 at Blanchettes by two observers was KM. All the circum- 
 of the phenomena — the place of the apparition and 
 disappearance of each meteor, the time it continued visible, 
 its brightness relatively to the fixed stars, whether accom- 
 panied with a train, &c, were carefully noted, and the tra- 
 jectories projected on a large planisphere. The extent of 
 the trajectories described by the meteors was very different, 
 varying from H° to 70° of angular space. The velocities 
 appeared also to differ considerably ; imt the average velo- 
 ciiy was supposed by INI. Warlmann to be -.V ; per second. 
 It was round, from the comparison of the simultaneous ob- 
 servations, that the average height above the ground was 
 about 530 miles: and hence the relative velocity was com- 
 puted to be about 340 miles in a second. Hut as the greater 
 number moved in a direction opposite to that of the earth 
 in its orbit, the relative velocity must be diminished by the 
 earth's velocity (about 19 miles in a second). This still 
 leaves upwards Of 220 miles per second for the absolute ve- 
 locity of the meteor, which is more than eleven times the 
 orbital velocity of the earth, seven and a half times that of 
 the plane'. Mercury, and probably greater than that of the 
 comets at their perihelia. 
 
 Such are the principal facts which have yet been estab- 
 lished respecting the heights, velocities, and orbits of the 
 shooting stars; and it is from these chiefly that we are en- 
 abled to form any probable conjectures respecting their ori- 
 gin. And since it is now established that no difference is 
 observable between the larger shooting stars and small fire- 
 balls, both having similar altitudes and velocities, and pre- 
 senting absolutely the same appearances, we may assume 
 them to be of the same nature, and that whatever has been 
 prO\ > d respecting lire-balls will apply equally to the larger 
 shooting stars. Whether the meteoric appearances to 
 which the latter term is applied may not include objects of 
 totally different natures, is a question admitting of doubt, 
 it is possible thai among the shooting stars there may be 
 objects which are merely electric sparks, or which have their 
 origin in spontaneously inflammable gases, known or un- 
 known, existing in tile atmosphere ; but the greater part Of 
 them must be considered as identical with fire-balls. 
 
 Physical Theory of the Shooting stars. — Some philoso- 
 phers, as already stated, have ascribed an atmospheric ori 
 gin both to the shooting stars and fire-bills; but the obser- 
 vations of Brandes, and more particularly those of Wart- 
 Ittann; which prove that many of them appear at altitudes 
 In beyond the limits which can be assigned with any pro- 
 bability to tin' atmosphere, have rendered this supposition 
 altogether untenable. Another hypothesis respecting their 
 'origin is, that they are bodies projected to our earth from 
 volcanoes in the moon. Dr. Olbers was the first, perhaps, 
 who showed the possibility of this hypothesis. On compu- 
 ting the forces necessary to overcome the moon's attraction, 
 he found that a body projected from the moon with a velo- 
 city of about is. r )(M) feet in a second would not fall back on 
 the lunar surface, hut recede from it indefinitely; and that 
 in order to reach the earth it is only necessary that the 
 projectile should have the velocity of 8300 feet, which is 
 quite conceivable, being only about tour or five times that 
 of a cannon ball. The hypothesis of the lunar origin of 
 meteoric stones was adopted by Laplace, Berzelius, Benzen- 
 
 berg, and others; but the observed velocities of the Shoot 
 
 ing stars have iced, red this origin extremely improbable 
 
 with re8pect to them. In order to enter our atmosphere 
 with a velocity of 20 miles in a second, it may be shown 
 that if they come from the moon they must have been pro 
 jected from the lunar surface with a velocity of about 
 
 120,000 feet in a second, which may be regarded as altogeth 
 
 er Impossible. 
 
 It thus appears that those shooting Stars and fire-balls 
 which have the planetary velocity of from 20 to 10 miles in 
 
 it < i md, cannot with any probability be regarded as having 
 
 their origin in the moon. Whether any individual bodies 
 moving with a smaller velocity may have a lunar origin, is 
 a question which cannot be decisively answered. "To 
 
 me," says Dr. Olbers, "it does not appear at all probable; 
 and I regard the moon, in its present circumstances, a- an 
 extremely peaceable neighbour, which, from its want of 
 water and atmosphere, is no longer capable of any strong 
 i plosions." 
 
 The hypothesis first suggested by Chladni is that which 
 appears to have met with most favour, having been adopt 
 
 eil by Arngo and other eminent astroi ers of the pre cut 
 
 day to explain the November phenomena. It consists in 
 1122 
 
 supposing that, independently of the great planets, there 
 exist in the planetary regions myriads of small bodies which 
 circulate about the sun, generally in groups of /one-; and 
 
 that some of these zones intersect the ecliptic, and are con- 
 sequently encountered by the earth in its annual revolu- 
 tion. The principal difficulties attending this theory are the 
 following: First, that bodies moving in groups in the cir- 
 cumstances supposed must necessarily move in the same 
 direction, and consequently, when they become \i- 
 the earth, would all appear to emanate from one point and 
 move towards the opposite. Now, although the observa- 
 tions seem to show that the predominating direction is from 
 north-east to south west, yet shooting stars tire observed on 
 the same nights to emanate from all points of the heavens, 
 and to move in all possible directions. Secondly, their aver- 
 age velocity (especially as determined by Wartmann) great- 
 ly exceeds that which any body circulating about the sun 
 can have at the distance of the earth. Thirdly, from their 
 appearance, and the luminous train which they generally 
 leave behind them, and which often remains visible for sev- 
 eral seconds, sometimes for whole minutes, and also from 
 their being situated within the earth's shadow, and at 
 heiL'hts far exceeding those at which the atmosphere can 
 be supposed capable of supporting combustion, it is mani- 
 fest that their light is not reflected from the sun ; they must 
 therefore be self-luminous, which is contrary to every anal- 
 ogy of the solar system. Fourthly, if masses of solid mat- 
 ter approached so near the earth its many of the shooting 
 stars do, some of them would inevitably be attracted to it; 
 but of the thousands of shooting stars which have been ob- 
 served, there is no authenticated instance of any one having 
 actually reached the earth. Fifthly, instead of the meteors 
 being attracted to the earth, some of them are observed ac- 
 tually to rise upwards, and to describe orbits which are con- 
 vex towards the earth; a circumstance of which, on the 
 present hypothesis, it seems difficult to give any rational 
 explanation. 
 
 From the difficulties attending every hypothesis which 
 has hitherto been proposed, it may be inferred how very 
 little real knowledge has yet been obtained respecting the 
 nature of the shooting stars. It is certain that they appear 
 at great altitudes above the earth, and that they move with 
 prodigious velocity : hut every tiling else respecting them is 
 involved in profound mystery. From the whole of the 
 facts, M. Wartmann thinks that the most rational conclusion 
 we can adopt is, that tin- meteors probably owe their origin 
 to the disengagement of electricity, or of some analogous 
 matter, which takes place in the celestial regions on every 
 occasion in which the conditions necessary for the produc- 
 tion of the phenomena are renewed. 
 
 The presumptions in favour of the cosmical origin of the 
 shooting stars are chiefly founded on their periodical recur- 
 rence at certain epochs of the year, and the extraordinary 
 displays of the phenomena in various years on the nights of 
 the 12th or 13th of November. We shall here merely state 
 the principal circumstances accompanying those of 1799, 
 which put the notion of a lunar origin entirely out of the 
 question. 
 
 On the morning of the 12th of November, 1790, before 
 sunrise, Humboldt and Bonpland, then on the coast of Mex- 
 ico, were witnesses to a remarkable exhibition of shooting 
 stars and fire balls. They tilled the part of the heavens 
 extending from due east to about 30° towards the north and 
 south. They rose from the horizon between the east and 
 east-north-east points, described arcs of unequal magnitude, 
 and fell towards the south ; some of them rose to the height 
 of 40°, all above 25° or 30°. Many of them appeared to 
 explode, but the larger number disappeared Without emit- 
 ting sparks ; some had a nucleus apparently equal to Jupiter. 
 This most remarkable spectacle w as seen at the same time 
 in Cuinana, on the borders of Brazil, in French Guiana, in 
 the channel of Hahama, on the continent of North Ameri- 
 ca, in Labrador, and in Greenland; and even at Carlsruhe, 
 Halle, and other places in Germany, many shooting stars 
 were seen on the same day. At Sain and Hotl'enthal in 
 Labrador, and at Neuhernhul and Lichtenau in Greenland, 
 
 the meteors seem to have- approached the nearest to the 
 earth. At Naln they fell towards all points of the horizon ; 
 and some id' them had a diameter which the spectators es- 
 timated at half an ell. (See Humboldt's Rccuiil des Voy- 
 agt s, Ac. vol. ii.) 
 
 Under the term FiRE-nAM.s, the reader will find an ac- 
 count of a not less stupendous exhibition which took place 
 in North America on the nighl of the 12th of November, 
 1833. In 1834, a similar phenomena occurred on the night 
 
 of the [3th of November; but on this occasion the meteors 
 
 were oi a smaller size. In 1835, 1830, and 1838, si ting 
 
 stars were observed on the night of November Kith in dlf 
 
 Ii rent pans of the world ; but though diligently looked for 
 on the same nights in 1839 and 1840, they do not appear !■-■ 
 have been more numerous than on other nights about the 
 same season of the year.
 
 SHORE. 
 
 The second great meteoric epoch is the 10th of August, 
 first pointed out by M. Ouetelet; and although no displays 
 similar to those of the November period have been wit- 
 nessed on this night, there are more instances of the recur- 
 rence of the phenomena. In the last three years (1838, 
 1839, 1840), shooting stars were observed in great numbers 
 both on the iJili and 10th ; but they appear in general to be 
 unusually abundant during the two first weeks of August. 
 The other periods which have been remarked are the 18th 
 of October, the 23d or 24th of April, the 6th and 7th of 
 December, the nights from the lath to the 20th of June, and 
 the 2<1 of January. 
 
 Halley first suggested the idea that the shooting stars may 
 be observed as signals tor determining differences of longi- 
 tude by simultaneous observations ; and Maskelyne in 1783 
 published a paper on the subject, in which he calls the at- 
 tention of astronomers to the phenomena, and distinctly 
 points out this application. The idea was revived by Ben- 
 zenberg in 1802; but so long as they were regarded merely 
 as casual phenomena, it could scarcely be hoped that they 
 would be of much use in this respect to practical astronomy. 
 As soon, however, as their periodicity became probable, the 
 phenomena acquired a new interest ; and some recent at- 
 tempts to determine longitudes in this manner have proved 
 that the method is not to be disregarded. {Monthly Notices 
 of the R. Astr. Society for January, 1841.) 
 
 See an interesting paper on this subject by Dr. Olbers, in 
 Schumacher's Jahrl/i/ch for 1837; also the Annuaire du 
 Bureau des Longitudes for 1836; Mem. de V Academic de 
 Bruxelles for 1838; Schumacher's Astronomischrs JVach- 
 richten, vols. xvi. and xvii. ; and the various Scientific 
 Journals. 
 
 SHORE. In Architecture, a piece of timber or other 
 material placed in such a direction as to prop up a wall or 
 other heavy body. 
 
 SHOT. Any kind of missile discharged by an instru- 
 ment ; but the term usually denotes balls for fire-arms. 
 
 SHOT LOCKERS. Long pieces of wood pierced with 
 holes like cups, in which the shot are placed, along the 
 sides and round the hatchways. 
 
 SHOU'LDER. In Fortification, the angle of a bastion 
 included between the face and flank. 
 
 SHO'VELER. The name of a species of duck, remark 
 able for the length and terminal expansion of the bill ; 
 whence the name of Spathulea, proposed for the subgenus 
 of which it is the type. It is the Anus clypeata of Lin- 
 naeus. 
 
 SHRA'PNELL SHELLS, in Gunnery, are shells filled 
 with a quantity of musket balls, which, when the shell ex- 
 plodes, are projected about 150 .yards further. They are 
 fired from guns, mortars, Aid howitzers, and have been 
 found most effective. A six-pounder spherical case con- 
 tains twenty-seven musket balls, which, when the shell 
 explodes, do as much injury as an equal number of muskets, 
 at a distance far beyond the reach of musketry. (Ency. 
 Brit., art. "Gunnerv.") 
 
 SHREW. Sec Sorex. 
 
 SHRIKE. A name for the butcher birds, or species of 
 JLaniaries. 
 
 SHRINE. (Lat. scrinium, a desk or cabinet; whence 
 also screen.) Properly, the receptacle of the remains or 
 relics of a saint. Shrines are of two sorts: portable, used 
 in processions, called in hMin feretra ; and fixed, in churches. 
 The appropriate place for slirines, in the churches of the 
 middle ages, was generally in the eastern part, in the space 
 behind the high altar. Such is the situation of the cele- 
 brated shrine of the three kings of Cologne ; and such was 
 that of the shrines at St. Alban's, Canterbury, Durham, 
 and Westminster, before the Reformation. {Archmologia, 
 vol.i.) 
 
 SHROUDS. The large ropes supporting a mast later- 
 ally; they take the names of their respective masts, as the 
 lower main shrouds, &x. 
 
 SHROVE TUESDAY. The Tuesday after Quinqua- 
 gesima Sunday, and immediately preceding Ash Wednes- 
 day ; so called from the Sax. shriven, to confess, because 
 on that day confession was made preparatory to the fast of 
 Lent. The custom of ringing the bells for this occasion 
 was long retained in many parishes, particularly in Lon- 
 don ; although the vulgar name of " pancake bell" shows 
 that little was left of the solemnity bevond the dinner on 
 pancakes which followed it. See Brand's Popular Anti- 
 quities, for an account of the various Shrovetide or carnival 
 amusements of this country. 
 
 SHRUB. A small low dwarfish tree, which instead of 
 one single stem, frequently puts forth from the same root 
 several sets or stems. 
 
 Shrub is also the name given to a species of sweet wine 
 or liqueur, of which rum forms the chief ingredient. 
 
 SHUTTLE. An instrument used by weavers, which 
 guides the thread it contains, so as to make it form the 
 woofs of stuff's, cloths, linen, and other fabrics, by throw- 
 
 SIESTA. 
 
 ing the shuttle alternately from left to right and from right 
 to left across between the threads of the warp, which are 
 stretched out lengthwise on the loom. In the middle of 
 the shuttle is a kind of cavity, called its eye or chamber, in 
 which is enclosed the spoul, which is part of the thread 
 destined for the woof. 
 
 SHWAN PAN. The calculating instrument of the 
 Chinese. It is similar in shape and construction to the 
 Roman abacus, and is used in the same manner. See 
 Abacus. 
 
 SI. In Music, the name for the seventh sound, added by 
 Le Maire, a Frenchman, at the latter end of the 17th cen- 
 tury, to the six ancient notes, ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, of Guido ; 
 by means whereof, some authors say, much inconvenience 
 in the ancient gamut is avoided. 
 
 SI'ALAGOGUE. (Gr. cia\ov, saliva, and ayiiiyog, a 
 leader.) Medicines which increase the flow of saliva. 
 
 SIBE'RITE. A mineralogical synonym of rubellite or 
 red tourmaline, the finest specimens of which have been 
 found in Siberia. 
 
 SI'BYL. The name given to certain prophetic women, 
 said to have lived in early ages in Greece and Italy. Some 
 authors recount as many as ten of them. The most cele- 
 brated were the Sibyl of Cumae, fabled to have been con- 
 sulted by /Eneas, and the prophetess who offered her books 
 to Tarquin the Proud. (See, among many authorities, the 
 Mem. de I' Ac. </<s Tnscr., vol. xxiii.) 
 
 Sl'BYLLINE HOOKS. Documents supposed to con- 
 tain the fate of the Roman empire. Nine of them are said 
 to have been offered by an old woman, called Amalthsea, 
 to Tarquin the Proud ; but Tarquin refusing to give the 
 price she asked, she went away, and burnt three of them. 
 Returning with the remainder, she offered them to the 
 king on the same terms as before ; and, on his second re- 
 fusal, departed again, and returned with three, which she 
 still offered at the same price as the original nine. The 
 king, struck with her conduct, at last acceded to her offer, 
 and entrusted the care of the books to certain priests (the 
 quin decemviri). They were preserved in a stone chest be- 
 neath the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. and were consulted 
 in limes of public danger or calamity. They were destroy- 
 ed by the fire that consumed the Capitol in the Marsic war. 
 After this calamity, ambassadors were sent to collect such 
 fragments of Sibylline prophecies as they could pick up in 
 various countries; and from the verses thus collected Au- 
 gustus formed two new books, which were deposited in 
 two gilt cases in the temple of the Palatine Apollo. Sibyl- 
 line verses are often quoted by Christian writers, as con- 
 taining prophecies of Christianity; but these are spurious, a 
 forgery of the second century. 
 
 SICI'LIAN VE'SPERS. In Modern History, the name 
 commonly given to the great massacre of the French in 
 Sicily, in A.D. 1282. They were the soldiers and subjects 
 of Charles of Anjou, who had made himself master of the 
 island after the defeat and death of Conradin. The insur- 
 rection broke out on the evening of Easter Tuesday, whence 
 the name. Its consequence was the expulsion of Charles; 
 and the islanders placed themselves under the protection of 
 the king of Arragon. 
 
 SIDE'REAL. (Lat. sidus, a star.) Something relating 
 to the stars. 
 
 The sidereal day is the time in which the earth makes 
 a complete revolution on its axis, in respect of the fixed 
 stars or any fixed point in space. (See Day.) "If the side- 
 real day be taken equal to 24 sidereal hours, the mean 
 solar day will be equal to 24 h. 3m. 5655 sec. of those 
 hours ; and if the mean solar day be taken equal to 24 
 mean solar hours, the sideral day will be equal to 23 h. 
 56 m. 409 sec. of those hours. Or, in all cases, if we wish 
 to determine, in sidereal time, the value of any given in- 
 terval expressed in mean solar time, and vice versa, we 
 shall have 
 
 sidereal time= 1-00273791 X mean solar time, 
 mean solar time = 0-99726957 X sidereal time." 
 (Baily's Astronomical Tables, 1827.) 
 
 The sidereal year is the time in which the earth performs 
 a complete revolution, relatively to the fixed stars, in its 
 orbit; namely, 3652563612 mean solar days, or 305 d. 6h. 
 9m. 9-6 sec," being 20m. 199 sec. longer than the tropical 
 year. See Year. 
 
 SIDE'ROCALCITE. (Gr. crfnpoc, iron; Lat. calx, 
 lime.) The name given by Kirwan to the brown spar of 
 Werner. 
 
 SIENTTE, or SYENITE. (From Syene in Egypt, whence 
 the Romans obtained it for architectural purposes.) A 
 granitic aggregate of quartz, felspar, and hornblende. See 
 Geology. 
 
 SIERRA. A Spanish term, signifying a chain of hills, 
 and prefixed to the names of several places in Spain, and 
 other parts discovered or colonized by the Spaniards. 
 
 SIESTA. (Span ) The name given to the practice in- 
 dulged in by the Spaniards, and the inhabitants of hot 
 
 1123
 
 SIGILLARIA. 
 
 climates generally, of resting two or three hours in the 
 middle of the day, when the heat is too oppressive to admit 
 of their going from borne. 
 
 SIGILLARIA. Fossil plants found in the coal forma- 
 tion. 
 
 SIGN. In Algebra, a symbol indicating an operation to 
 be performed, or a relation subsisting between two quan- 
 tities. Of the former kind, those most commonly used are, 
 + for addition, — for subtraction, X foi multiplication, -f- 
 for division, J tor the square root, 5/ for the cube root, 
 */ for the nth root, &c. The signs denoting a relation are, 
 = equal to. > greater than, < less than, &c. 
 
 ?m<;\. In Astronomy, a portion of the ecliptic or zodiac, 
 containing thirty degri es, or a twelfth part of the complete 
 circle. The first commences at the point of the equator 
 through which the sun passes at the time of the vernal 
 equinox ; and they are counted onwards, proceeding from 
 west to east, according to the annual course of the sun, all 
 round the circle. The names of the twelve signs, in the 
 order in which they follow each other, with the characters 
 by which they are indicated on globes, and in the almanacs 
 and books of astronomy, are as follows: Jiries T, Taurus 
 (<,, GeminiH, CancerZa, Leo SI, Virgo 11JJ, Libra±±, Scorpio 
 111, Sagittarius t, Capricornus V5, Aquarius ^, Pisces X. 
 It is to be remarked, that the above are also the names 
 of the twelve constellations of the zodiac; and in ancient 
 times (above 200 years before our era), the places of the 
 sinus and the constellations were coincident ; but owing to 
 the motion of the earth's equator, by which the equinoctial 
 points are carried backwards on the ecliptic about 50-6" 
 annually, the intersections of the ecliptic and equator, and 
 consequently the commencement of the signs, now corres- 
 pond to different stars, the first point of the sign Aries being 
 at present near the beginning of the constellation Pisces 
 On this account care must be taken not to confound the 
 signs of the zodiac, which are fixed in respect of the equi- 
 noxes, with the constellations, which are moveable in 
 respect to those points. See Constellation. 
 
 The ascending signs are the six beginning with Capri- 
 cornus, through which the sun passes while advancing 
 from the winter to the summer solstice, and is, consequent- 
 ly, acquiring altitude with respect to the inhabitants of the 
 northern hemisphere. The other six, beginning with Can- 
 cer, are called the descending signs. 
 
 SI' GNALS, NA'VAL, imply a system of symbols ad- 
 dressed to the eye, as flags, boards, lights, &c, for estab- 
 lishing communication at distances too great for the voice. 
 Guns are also used for the same purposes. The first sig- 
 nals seem to have been merely distinguishing flags for cer- 
 tain ships. In the system of signals instituted by James II. 
 for orders to the fleet, the purport depended on the part of 
 the ship at which they were exhibited; a condition very 
 detrimental to the use of signals at sea. A code composed 
 ot numeral flags and pendants, i.e., in which each symbol 
 had a number assigned to it, seems to have been the first 
 step towards a general system, as before this plan each 
 admiral instituted his own code. In 1815, Sir Home Pop- 
 ham's code was adopted. This added several literal or 
 alphabetical flags and pendants, which greatly extended 
 the means of communication, but necessarily rendered the 
 signals indistinct, and their purports deceitful, in many 
 cases, from the increased difficulty of distinguishing each 
 fla? from the rest. In 1826, in consequence of some plans 
 having been submitted by admirals for a more efficient 
 syM'-m. the code now in use, which is considered as an im- 
 provement on its predecessor, was adopted. In 1828, Ad- 
 miral Raper published his code, which was one of those 
 under consideration. The principle of this system, which 
 is undeviatingly adhered to, is. that the manner of combi- 
 nation of the Bags and pendants of which the signal is 
 composed, t. e., their order or arrangement, points out the 
 subject n!' the signal, or, as the author terms it, the point 
 if service to which the signal relates; while the numbers 
 of the individual symbols indicate the number of the signal 
 in its class. The numbers are denoted, as usual, by the 
 colours ; hut when these fail, from haze ordistance, the num- 
 ber is supplied by numeral distant signals. From the dis- 
 tinctness attending the small number of symbols (the 
 mill lest possible for complete numeral signals), the pre- 
 cision obtained from classification by which the simplicity 
 of each signal is proportioned to its importance, and the 
 saying of the time often wasted in vain attempt* to distin- 
 guish the precise disposition of the colours of each flag, this 
 system has been considered by some competent judges as 
 the sole thoroughly efficient method. 
 
 In the merchant service, signals are of less extensive 
 utility than in the royal navy, their chief employment being 
 to express the names of vessels, latitude and longitude, and 
 a few other such particulars; and it were much to be de- 
 sired that governments would njrree to establish universal 
 signals <>n like points of general interest. The code in use 
 is Captain MarryaU's. 
 1124 
 
 SILENUS. 
 
 Ingenious systems have been published by Lieutenant C. 
 Phillips, K. N., for the ships ol all nations ; and also by Ad- 
 miral Sir C. Ekins, entitled Universal Signal*, the symbols 
 being black and white only. From what little acquaintance 
 we have had wiih foreign signals, we consider them by no 
 means in advance of our own. 
 
 SIGNATURE. (Lat. signature.) In Music, the flats 
 and sharps placed after the clef, at the beginning of the 
 staff, which affect, throughout the movement, all notes of 
 the same letter. 
 
 Signature. In Printing, a letter of the alphabet placed 
 at the bottom of the first page of each sheet of a work, to 
 denote, alphabetically, the order of the sheets. 
 
 It is customary to commence w ith 11 on the first sheet of 
 the body of the work, and to go regularly through the 
 alphabet, with the exception of the letters J, V, and \V, 
 which are never used as signatures; and which had, in 
 fact, no existence in the alphabet at the time of the in- 
 vention of printing; 3f, expressed both I and J; 231, both 
 U and V; SJ5S, the double letter W. If the work extend 
 to more sheets in number than there are letters in the 
 alphabet, the succeeding sheets go on with a second alpha- 
 bet, which commences with A, and both the letters are 
 usually given ; in this manner, A A, or A a, and sometimes, 
 to avoid the repetition, thus, 2 A. If a third alphabet be 
 necessary, it is always, at the present day, placed with the 
 number before it, as 3 A. The printer's first alphabet con- 
 sists of twenty-two letters, and the second and succeeding 
 ones of twenty-three. 
 
 As a guide to the bookbinder, there are other signatures 
 used in a sheet besides the first. In a sheet of octavo the 
 first page has B, the third has B2, the fifth has B3, and the 
 seventh has B 4: in a sheet of twelves they are carried to 
 B 6, B 5 being the first page of the offcut ; and however nu- 
 merous the pages may be in a sheet with one signature, 
 when they are all inserted, they are continued to the last 
 odd page before the middle of the sheet, but never carried 
 beyond the middle. In general they are all omitted except 
 the two first, to show the first fold of the paper, and the 
 first on the offcut. Small capitals are more frequently used 
 for signatures than large capitals, as disfiguring the foot of 
 the page in a slighter manner. Sometimes figures are used 
 instead of letters, but not often ; the Gentleman's .Magazine 
 is an instance. (Savage's Vict, of Printing.) 
 
 SI'GNET, THE PRIVY. One of the king's seals in 
 England, used in sealing private letters and grants under 
 the sign manual. It is in the custody of the Secretary of 
 State for the Home Department. (See Seal, Secretary.) 
 The signet in Scotland is the seal by which the king's let- 
 ters and writs for the purpose of justice are now authenti- 
 cated. Hence the title of clerks to the signet, or writers to 
 the signet ; whose business is nearly the same with that of 
 attorneys in England. They were anciently clerks in the 
 office of the Secretary of State, by whom writs were pre- 
 pared ; and when the signet became employed in judicial 
 proceedings, they obtained a monopoly of the privileges of 
 acting as agents or attorneys before the Court of Session. 
 
 SIGN MANUAL. The royal signature, superscribed at 
 the top of bills of grants or letlers patent ; which are then 
 sealed with the privy signet or great seal, as the case may 
 be, to complete their validity. But there are some grants 
 which pass through certain offices, as the Admiralty or 
 Treasurv. under the sign manual only. 
 
 SIGN OR. The Italian term equivalent to the English 
 Lord, Sir, or Mr., the French .Monsieur, and the German 
 Herr. Signoria was anciently the appellation of the chief 
 council of Venice, Genoa, and Lucca. 
 
 SILENA'CEjE. (Silene, one of the genera.) An order 
 of Polypetalous Exogenous plants, with opposite undivided 
 leaves, and a stem with tumid nodes. The principal part 
 of the order consists of uninteresting weedy plants ; but it 
 also contains the genera Dianthus, of which the garden 
 pink, clove, and piccotee are species; the .Igrostemma, 
 Saponaria, and some other plants cultivated for their beau- 
 tiful flowers. 
 
 SILE'NTIARY. Among the Romans, the title of office 
 of a class of slaves attached to wealthy houses. In the 
 court of the emperors, there was a body of officers attached 
 to the household styled silentiarics. Thence the title came 
 to functionaries of higher authority, and was borne by 
 cabinet secretaries in the Lower Empire, and in the courts of 
 Charlemagne and other western potentates who derived 
 their code of ceremonial from Byzantium. Members of the 
 privy council seem to have been sometimes called by this 
 name under the Plantagenets in England. 
 
 BILElfUS. (Gr. Ti\nvo(.) A Grecian divinity, the fos- 
 ter-father and attendant of Bacchus, and likewise leader 
 of the satyrs. This deity was remarkable for bis wisdom, 
 his drunkeness being regarded as inspiration. He was re- 
 presented as a rohust old in in in a state of intoxication, and 
 riding on an ass, with a can in his hand. Sileuus, >a\ - Mr. 
 Bryant, is only a corruption of a masculine form of IcAixvi},
 
 SILEX. 
 
 the moon. By some speculative mythologist the drunken 
 companion of Bacchus la converted into a sage, who was 
 honoured as a daemon after his decease. (Theopompus in 
 JE/ian, cited in Bryant, Anc. Mythol., vol. iii., p. 328.) 
 There was an order of priests called Sileni, of the same 
 class with the Curetes. 
 
 SI'LEX, or SI'LICA. (Gr. x«*<?< a pebble or stone.) 
 The earth of flints. This important substance constitutes 
 the characteristic ingredient of a great variety of siliceous 
 minerals ; among which rock-crystal, quartz, chalcedony, 
 and flint may be considered as silica nearly pure. It also 
 predominates in many of the rocky masses which consti- 
 tute the crust of our globe, such as granite, the varieties of 
 sandstone, and quartz rock. Although silica has none of 
 the ordinary or more obvious acid propenies. yet, as it com- 
 bines in definite proportion with many salifiable bases, and 
 expels carbonic acid when fused with the carbonated alka- 
 lies, it is very commonly termed silicic acid, and its various 
 compounds have been denominated si/icatcs. When pure 
 and colourless rock-crystal is heated red hot, and quenched 
 in water, it becomes opaque and friable ; and if in this 
 state it be reduced to powder, it presents one form of pure 
 silica. If in this state (in which it is perfectly insoluble in 
 water) it be fused with three parts of carbonate of potash, 
 it forms a glass which is soluble in water, and from this 
 solution (formerly called liquor of flints) the concentrated 
 acids throw down the silica in the form of a gelatinous 
 hydrate : but if the solution be diluted, and the acid gradu- 
 ally added, the alkali may be perfectly neutralized without 
 any deposition of the silica, which, therefore, is thus ex- 
 hibited in a very soluble state: when, however, the solu- 
 tion is evaporated to dryness, the silica remains in a state as 
 insoluble as before. This solubility of hydrated silica, 
 whilst when dry it is perfectly insoluble, may serve to ex- 
 plain the occasional occurrence of silica in mineral waters, 
 and its deposition in various chalcedonic incrustations. But 
 silica presents another very remarkable character; which 
 is, that if we reverse the above proportions, and fuse to- 
 gether a mixture of one part of carbonate of potash and 
 three of powdered rock crystal or calcined flint, we then 
 obtain a transparent and fusible compound, which is in- 
 soluble in water, and which, in fact, is glass. 
 
 Plate glass and window glass, or, as it is commonly call- 
 ed, crown glass, are silicates of soda or potassa ; and flint 
 glass, of which our common glass utensils are made, is a 
 similar compound, with a large addition of silicate of lead. 
 See Glass. 
 
 Silica, in its ordinary or anhydrous state,* insoluble in 
 all acids except the hydrofluoric, which immediately acts 
 upon it, and forms an extraordinary gaseous compound, the 
 fluosilicic acid. Silica was long considered as an element- 
 ary form of matter ; but Sir II. Davy found that when the 
 vapour of potassium was brought "into contact with pure 
 silica heated to whiteness, silicate of potassa was formed, 
 and a dark-coloured matter separated, which was afterwards 
 found to be the base of silica, and to which the terms sili- 
 cium and silicon have been applied. It is probably not me- 
 tallic, and bears a greater analogy to boron than to any 
 known principle. Silicon is a nonconductor of electricity, 
 incombustible in air and oxygen, and not acted upon by any 
 single acid ; but it is readily soluble in a mixture of the nitric 
 and hydrofluoric acids. It is, however, rapidly oxidized by 
 and burns vividly at a temperature below redness, when in 
 contact with fused soda or potassa. The exact equivalent 
 of silica has not been very satisfactorily determined, but we 
 are probably not very incorrect in regarding silica as a com- 
 pound of equal weights of silicon and oxygen. In that case, 
 if it be regarded as a protoxide, it is obvious that 8 will be 
 the equivalent of its base, and silica will consist of 8 silicon 
 + 8 oxygen, and be represented by the equivalent 16. But 
 if silica be regarded as a compound of 1 atom of silicon and 
 3 atoms of oxygen, and Berzelius has shown that some ana- 
 logies favour this view, then 24 will be its equivalent, and 
 48 that of silica. The chloride of silicium, and its bromide, 
 are limpid fuming liquids ; the former very volatile. The 
 sulphuret is a white earthy-looking substance. 
 
 SILHOUETTE. In the Fine Arts, a name given to the 
 representation of an object filled in of a black colour, and in 
 which the inner parts are sometimes indicated by lines of a 
 lighter colour, and shadows or extreme depths by the aid 
 of a heightening of gum or other shining medium. This 
 sort of drawing derives its name from its inventor, Etienne 
 de Silhouette, the French minister of finance in 1759. Rep- 
 resentations of this sort may be well enough taken from the 
 shadow of a person thrown on a piece of paper placed 
 against a flat surface or wall. The likeness may be still 
 better taken, if on a reduced scale, by means of the instru- 
 ment called a pantograph. 
 
 The invention of what is called a silhouette is, however, 
 ascribed to a remote period, being said to have been the 
 method whereby the daughter of a Greek potter drew the 
 outline of her lover's portrait on a wall ; and has been placed 
 
 SILK. 
 
 at the time of the renewal of the Olympic games, shortly 
 before the expedition of the Bacchiades from Corinth, about 
 776 B.C. It is to be observed that Sicyon and Corinth were 
 the first cities in which painting flourished ; and that Crato 
 of Sicyon, Philocles of Egypt, and Cieanthes of Corinth, 
 were considered the inventors of monochromes, or silhouet- 
 tes, as they have been more recently called, which were 
 applied to large objects. The Etruscan vases furnish to an 
 amazing extent, and in boundless variety, some of the most 
 beautifully drawn and elegant monochromes or silhouettes 
 that have ever been executed. 
 
 SILI'dFICE. Substances petrified or mineralized by 
 siliceous earth. 
 
 SILI'CULA. (Lat. siliqua, dim.) A fruit exactly similar 
 to that called a siliqua, except that it is shorter, and contains 
 fewer seeds. It is never more than four times as long aa 
 broad, and usually much shorter. 
 
 SI'LIQUA. (Lat.) A one or two celled, many-seeded, 
 linear fruit, dehiscent by two valves separating from a rep- 
 lum; the seeds are attached to two placenta? adhering to 
 the replum, and opposite to the lobes of the stigma. 
 
 SILK. (Lat. sericum ; from Seres, the supposed ancient 
 name of the Chinese.) A fine glossy thread or filament 
 spun by various species of caterpillars or larva? of the Pha- 
 lana genus. Of these, the Phalcena atlas produces the great- 
 est quantity ; but the Phaliena bombyx is that commonly 
 employed for this purpose in Europe. The silkworm, in its 
 caterpillar state, which may be considered as the first stage 
 of its existence, after acquiring its full growth (about three 
 inches in length), proceeds to enclose itself in an oval-shaped 
 ball, or cocoon, which is formed by an exceedingly slender 
 and long filament of fine yellow silk, emitted from the stom- 
 ach of the insect preparatory to its assuming the shape of 
 the chrysalis or moth. In this latter stage, after emanci- 
 pating it>elf from its silken prison, it seeks its mate, which 
 has undergone a similar transformation ; and in two or 
 three days afterwards, the female having deposited her eggs 
 (from 300 to 500 in number), both insects terminate their ex- 
 istence. According to Reaumur, the phalwna is not the only 
 insect that aflords this material — several species of the ara- 
 nea, or spider, enclose their eggs in very fine silk. 
 
 Raw silk is produced by the operation of winding off, at 
 the same time, several of the balls or cocoons (which are 
 immersed in hot water, to soften the natural gum on the 
 filament) on a common reel, thereby forming one smooth 
 even thread. When the skein is dry, it is taken from the 
 reel and made up into hanks ; but before it is fit for weaving, 
 and in order to enable it to undergo the process of dyeing, 
 without furring up or separating the fibres, it is converted 
 into one of three forms — viz. singles, tram, or organiine. 
 
 Singles (a collective noun) is formed of one of the reeled 
 threads, being twisted, in order to give it strength and firm- 
 ness. 
 
 Tram is formed of two or more threads twisted together. 
 In this state it is commonly used in weaving, as the shoot or 
 weft. 
 
 Thrown silk is formed of two, three, or more singles, ac- 
 cording to the substance required, being twisted together in 
 a contrary direction to that in which the singles of which it 
 is composed are twisted. This process is termed organiin- 
 ing ; and the silk so twisted, organiine. The art of throw- 
 ing was originally confined to Italy, where it was kept a se- 
 cret for a long period. Stowe says it was known in this 
 country since the 5th of Queen Elizabeth, "when it was 
 gained from the strangers;" and in that year (1562), the 
 silk throwsters of the metropolis were united into a fellow- 
 ship. They were incorporated in the year 1629 ; but the 
 art continued to be very imperfect in England until 1719. 
 (See post.) 
 
 1. Historical Sketch of the Manufacture. — The art of rear- 
 ing silkworms, of unravelling the threads spun by them, and 
 manufacturing the latter into articles of dress and ornament, 
 seems to have been first practised by the Chinese. Virgil ia 
 the earliest of the Roman writers who has been supposed 
 to allude to the production of silk in China, and the terms 
 he employs show how little was then known at Rome as to 
 the real nature of the article : 
 
 Velleraque ut foliis depectant tenuia Seres —Gtorg., book ii., lin. 121. 
 
 But it may be doubted whether Virgil do not, in this line, 
 refer to cotton rather than silk. Pliny, however, has dis- 
 tinctly described the formation of silk by the bombyx. (Hist. 
 JVat., lib. xi., c. 17.) It is uncertain when it first began to 
 be introduced at Rome ; but it was most probably in the age 
 of Pompey and Julius Casar: the latter of whom displayed 
 a profusion of silks in some of the magnificent theatrical 
 spectacles with which he sought at once to conciliate and 
 amuse the people. Owing principally, no doubt, to the great 
 distance of China from Rome, and to the difficulties in the 
 way of the intercourse with that country, which was car- 
 ried on by land in caravans, whose route lay through the 
 Persian empire, and partly, perhaps, to the high price of 
 
 1125
 
 SILK. 
 
 silk in China, its cost, when it arrived at Rome, was very 
 great; so much so. that a given weight of silk was some- 
 sold for an equal weighl of sold : At lirst it was only 
 ,.- ladies eminent for their rank and opulence. 
 In the beginning of the reign of Tiberius, o law was passed 
 — ne oestis serica oiros fadaret — that no man should dis- 
 by wearing a silken garment ( Tacit. Annul., 
 lib. ii.. c. 33.) But tin' profligate Heliogabalus despised this 
 law, and was the first of the Roman emperors who wore a 
 dress composed wholly of silk [holqsericum). The example 
 once set, the custom of wearing silk soon became general 
 among the wealthy citizens of Rome, and throughout the 
 According as the demand tor the article in- 
 . !. efforts were made to import larger quantities; and 
 the price seems to have progressively declined from the 
 reign of Aurelian. That this must have been the case, is 
 c>:>\ ious from the statement of Ammianus Marcellinus, that 
 silk was, in his time (anno 370), very generally worn, even 
 by the lowest classes: Sericum ad usum antehac nobilium, 
 nunc etiam injimorum sine ulla discrctione proficicns. (Lib. 
 xviii., c. 6.) 
 
 China continued to draw considerable sums from the Ro- 
 man empire in return for silk, now become indispensable to 
 the western world, till the Gth century. About the year 550, 
 two Persian monks, who had long resided in China, and 
 hi mselves acquainted with the mode of rearing the 
 silkworm, encouraged by the gifts and promises of Justinian, 
 succeeded in carrying the eggs of the insect to Constantinople. 
 Under their direction they were hatched and i'vd ; they lived 
 and laboured in a foreign climate ; a sufficient number of 
 butterflies were saved to propagate the race, and mulberry 
 trees were planted to afford nourishment to the rising gen- 
 erations. A new and important branch of industry was 
 thus established in Europe. Experience and reflection grad- 
 ually corrected the errors of a new attempt ; and the Sog- 
 doite ambassadors acknowledged, in the succeeding reign, 
 that the Romans were not inferior to the natives of China 
 in the education of the insects, and the manufacture of silk. 
 (Gibbon, Decline "ml full, vol. \ ii., p. 99.) 
 
 Greece, particularly tin- Peloponnesus, was early distin- 
 guished by the rearing of silkworms, and by the skill and 
 success with which the inhabitants of Thebes, Corinth, and 
 Ar:_'o< carried on the manufacture. Until the 12th century, 
 Greece continued to be the only European country in which 
 arts were practised ; but the forces of Roger, king of 
 Sicily, having, in 1147, sacked Corinth, Athens, and Thebes, 
 carried off large numbers of the inhabitants to Palermo, who 
 introduced the culture of the worm and the manufacture of 
 silk into Sicily. From this island the art spread into Italy; 
 and Venice, Milan, Florence, Lucca, &c, were soon after 
 distinguished for their success in raising silkworms, and for 
 the extent and beauty ot their manufactures of silk. (Gib- 
 bon, vol. x., p. llh; Biographie Universelle, art. "Roger II.") 
 
 The manufacture of silk appears to have been introduced 
 into Spain at a very early period by the Moors, particularly 
 in Murcia, Cordova, and Granada. "The last town, indeed, 
 -'d a flourishing silk trade when it was taken by Fer- 
 dinand in the 15th century. The French having been sup- 
 plied with workmen from Milan, commenced, in 1531, the 
 silk manufacture; but it was not till 1564 that they began 
 isfully to produce the silk itself, when Traucat, a 
 working gardener at Nismes, formed the first nursery of 
 white mulberry-trees, and with such success that in a' few 
 years he was enabled to propagate them over many of the 
 southern provinces of France. Prior to this time, some 
 French noblemen, cm their return from the conquest of Na- 
 ples, had i itroduced a few silkworms with the mulberry into 
 Dauphiny; hut the business bad not prospered in "their 
 hands. The mulberry plantations were greatly encouraged 
 by Henry IV. : and since then they have been the source 
 of most beneficial employment to the French. 
 
 James I. was most solicitous to introduce the breeding of 
 silk worms into England, and in a speech from the thn 
 eamc^th recommended his subjects to plant mulberry-trees ; 
 
 but he totally failed in the project. This co'intrv does nut 
 seem to he well adapted to this species of husbandry, on ac- 
 count of the si-eat prevalence of blighting east winds during 
 the .months of April and May, when the worms require a 
 plentiful supply of mulberry leaves. The manufacture of 
 silk goods, however, made great progress during thai kind's 
 P' niit'nl and pompous reign. In 1639 it had become so con 
 siderabte in London, that tin- silk throwsters of the city and 
 
 Suburbs were formed into a public Corporation. Si "early 
 
 as 1661 they employed 40,000 persons. The revocation of 
 the edict of .Nantes, in 1685, contributed in a remarkable 
 
 er to the increase of the English silk trade, by tin in 
 flui "i a large colony of ski) fill French weavers, who set- 
 tle,! in Bpitalfields. The greal silk throwing noil mounti d 
 at Derby, in 1719, also served to promote the extension of 
 this branch of manufacture ; for Boon afterwards, in the 
 
 it:io. h,,. English silk goods bore a higher price in Italy 
 than those made by the Italians, according to the testimony 
 
 SILVER. 
 
 of Keysler. It would he impossible, within our limits, to 
 give an account of the gradual progress of the silk manu- 
 facture from that period down to the present time. Upon 
 this subject, the reader will find ample details in the < 
 mercial Dictionary ; meantime we may remark, that a great 
 revolution was effected in the manufacture in 1835. Pre- 
 viously to that epoch the legislative enactments with re- 
 spect to it were the most contradictory and impolitic that 
 can well be imagined. The importation of fori ign silks was 
 prohibited under the severest penalties; but the advantage 
 that this prohibition was believed, though most erroneous- 
 ly, to confer on the manufacturer, would, under anj cir- 
 cumstances, have been more than neutralized by the im- 
 position of oppressive duties on the raw material. This 
 vicious system was productive of a twofold mischief; for, 
 by teaching the manufacturers to depend on custom-house 
 regulations for protection against foreign competition, it 
 made them indifferent about new discoveries and inven- 
 tions ; while, owing to the exorbitant duties on the raw ma- 
 terial, and the want of improvement, the price of silks was 
 maintained so high as to restrict the demand for them with- 
 in comparatively narrow limits. In 16i">. how c ver, a new 
 and more reasonable order of things was introduced. The 
 duties on the raw material were greatly lowered ; at the 
 same time that foreign silk goods were allowed to be im- 
 ported on payment of a duty of 30 per cent, ad valorem, 
 This new system was vehemently opposed at its outset, and 
 it was confidently predicted that it would occasion the ruin 
 of the manufacture; but the result has shown the sound- 
 ness of the principles on which it was bottomed. The man- 
 ufacturers were now, for the first time, compelled to call all 
 the resources of science and ingenuity to their aid ; and the 
 result has been that the manufacture has been more im- 
 proved during the last dozen years than it had been in the 
 whole previous century, and that it has continued progres- 
 sively to increase. 
 
 The total quantity of raw silk imported for home con- 
 sumption in 1838 was 3,595,816 lbs. The total number of 
 individuals directly engaged in the manufacture has been 
 estimated at upwards of 307,000; but we incline to think 
 that this is very decidedly beyond the mark. The value of 
 the silks annually produced may, perhaps, be estimated at 
 from X' 10,000,000 to XI 2.000,000. (For full particul 
 the history and manufacture of silk, see Porter's treatise on 
 the subject in Lor drier' s Cyclopaedia.) 
 
 BELL. (Sax. syl.) In Architecture, the horizontal piece 
 at the bottom of a framed case, such as that of a door or 
 window. This word is also used to denote the hot nun pii ce 
 of a quarter partition. Ground sills are those timbers on 
 the ground on which are placed the posts and superstruc- 
 ture of a timber building. 
 
 SI'LLIM AXITE. A mineral named after Professor Silli- 
 man, from Say brook in Connecticut ; it is of a brown or dark 
 gray colour, and composed of silica and alumina, with a 
 trace of oxide of iron. 
 
 SILT. The name given to the sand, clay, and earth 
 which accumulate in running waters. 
 
 SILU'RLAN. The name given by Murchison to a series 
 of rocks forming the upper subdivision of the sedimentary 
 strata found below the old red sandstone, and formerly de- 
 signated the greyieacke scries. These strata are well de- 
 veloped in that part of England and Wales formerly in- 
 cluded in the ancient British kingdom of the Silurcs. See 
 Geology. 
 
 SILU'RJDANS, Sifurida;. (Lat. silurus, a sheath-fish.) 
 The name of the family of fishes ofwhich the genus Silurus 
 is the type, and which includes the electric silurus {Malap- 
 terurus electricus). They are chiefly distinguished by the 
 want of true scales, having merely a naked skin, or largo 
 osseous plates. A strong osseous spine forms the first ray 
 of the dorsal and pectoral tins except in the genus Jlulap- 
 terurus. 
 
 SILVA'XFS. A rural Italian deity; so called from Lat. 
 sylva. a irood. lie also presided over bound Ties. 
 
 SfiiVER. (Gi nil. sillier.) A w bite, malleable, ductile, 
 and tenacious metal, of a brilliant lustre when polished, ami 
 soil when pure. Its specific gravity is II)-."). It is not alter- 
 ed by air or moisture, bul Is blackened or tarnished bj sul- 
 phuretted hydrogen. When melted in open vessels it has 
 the curious property of absorbing oxygen, which it gives out 
 when it congeals. This is the cause of the appearance of 
 granular crystallization which silver assumes w hen hastily 
 cooled; a small per centagi of copper entirel j prevents the 
 effect. Tin- only pure acids which act upon silver are the 
 
 nitric and sulphuric The nitric acid dissolves siher with- 
 out the lid of heat, nilroiis gass is evolved, and a dense col- 
 ourless solution obtained, from which tabular crystals of 
 nitrate of silvei maj he produced by evaporation, Tiu-so 
 crystals are anhydrous and consist of l is oxide of silver and 
 
 5-1 nitric acid, the equivalent of silver being 110. When 
 melted, ami east into Bticka or quills, they form the /n;i</r 
 caustic of the surgeons. Any gold which the silver might
 
 SIMARUBA. 
 
 have contained, being insoluble in nitric acid, remain? in 
 the form of a black powder, and this simple process enables 
 us readily to separate those metals. Silver is not attacked 
 by cold sulphuric acid ; but when granulated silver is heat- 
 ed in conceiilrated sulphuric acid, one portion of the acid is 
 decomposed and imparts oxygen to the silver ; sulphurous 
 acid is evolved, and the oxide of silver dissolves in the re- 
 siduary acid, forming a sulphate of silver. It is a difficultly 
 soluble salt, forming anhydrous acicular crystals. In this 
 case, the gold also remains undissolved; and as sulphuric 
 is much cheaper than nitric acid, it is used foi the separa- 
 tion of those metals upon the large scale. The solutions 
 both of the nitrate and sulphate of silver are decomposed 
 by the immersion of several of the other metals. Copper is 
 generally used for the purpose ; which, when immersed in 
 the solution of silver, causes its separation in the form of a 
 grey metallic powder, which is sometimes technically call- 
 ed water silver. Chlorine and all the soluble chlorides, 
 when added to solutions of silver, occasion a white curdy 
 precipitate, which is distinguished by the rapidity with 
 which it blackens by exposure to light. The substance thus 
 formed is a chloride of silver, composed of 110 silver -f- 36 
 chlorine, the equivalent of chloride of silver being 146. It 
 is not decomposed by heat alone ; but when carefully melt- 
 ed it concretes into a horny substance, formerly called luna 
 cornea. Chloride of silver may be easily decomposed either 
 by mixing it in a moist state with zinc filings, or by fusing it 
 with carbonate of soda or potash : in either case metallic 
 silver is obtained. The insolubility of chloride of silver 
 renders a solution of nitrate of silver an admirable test of 
 the presence of common salt or other chlorides in mineral 
 waters; and, on the other hand, a solution of common salt 
 is used to detect silver when in solution. A solution of two 
 drachms of nitrate of silver in an ounce of water, coloured 
 by a little sap green or Indian ink, forms marking ink ; and 
 when written upon linen, previously prepared by the appli- 
 cation of a weak solution of carbonate of soda with a little 
 starch or gum in it, soon forms black indelible letters. When 
 a nitric solution of silver is mixed with alcohol, an effer- 
 vescence ensues, and fulminating silver is precipitated. 
 This most dangerous compound (a peculiar cyanate of sil- 
 ver) ought never to be meddled with in quantity, and al- 
 ways with the utmost circumspection ; it explodes with vio- 
 lence upon the slightest friction of hard bodies, or when 
 struck, rubbed, or heated. 
 
 The numerous uses and applications of silver are well 
 known. In its pure state it is too soft for coin, plate, and 
 most ornamental purposes, and is therefore, in such cases, 
 alloyed with copper, by which, in proper proportion, its 
 colour is not materially impaired, and it is considerably 
 hardened. The standard silver of our coin is an alloy of 
 11 oz. 2 dwts. of pure silver, and 18 dwts. of copper, to 
 the pound Troy; and this weight is coined into 66 shillings. 
 
 Silver is found native, and in the state of sulphurct, con- 
 stitutes the varieties of black and vitreous silver ore. It 
 also occurs in combination with several other metals, and 
 more especially with the sulphurets of lend ; so that the 
 lead of commerce is seldom quite free from traces of silver, 
 and manv such lead ores are worked as ores of silver. 
 
 SIMARU'BA. The bark of the root of the Quassia sim- 
 aruba, a native of the West Indies. This is a tough, 
 fibrous, bitter bark ; the infusion is occasionally used in 
 medicine as a tonic. 
 
 SIMARUBA'CE/E. (Simaruba, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of arborescent or shrubby Exogens, in- 
 habiting the tropics. The species are intensely bitter. 
 The wood of quassia is well known. A plant called Pa- 
 raiba in Brazil, the Simaruba versicolor of St. Hilaire, pos- 
 sesses such excessive bitterness that no insects will attack 
 it ; and Picrcena excelsa is another species of the order, 
 which is employed in medicine for the same property. 
 
 SI'MIA. (Lat. simus, flat-nosed.) The generic name 
 applied by Linnaius to all the Qundrumanous Mammals, 
 except the lpmurs. The Linnsan Simia; are divided into 
 numerous subgenera, to none of which the name Simia is 
 now applied, except by some modern naturalists to the 
 orangutans (Simia satyrus), and S. jnoris. 
 
 SI'MILAR. (Lat. similis, like.) In Geometry, similar 
 rectilineal figures are such as have their several angles 
 respectively equal, each to each, and their sides about the 
 equal angles proportional. The areas of two similar fisures 
 are to each other as the squares of their homologous sides. 
 Similar segments of circles are such as contain equal an- 
 gles. Similar curves are curves whose equations are of 
 the same form, and the ratio of the constants in those 
 equations equal. Hence all circles are similar, and all 
 parabolas are similar ; because, in both cases, only one 
 constant enters into the equation of the curve. Similar 
 solids are such as are contained by the same number of 
 similar planes, similarly situated, and having like inclina- 
 tions to one another. Such solids are to one another as 
 the cubes of their homologous sides. 
 
 SINE. 
 
 SI'MILE. (Lat. like.) In Rhetoric, the same as com- 
 parison, which see. 
 
 SIMI'LITER. (Lat. in like manner.) In Law, the 
 technical designation of the form by which either party, in 
 pleading, accepts the issue tendered by his opponent. The 
 one having concluded his plea, replication, &c., by tender- 
 ing issue in the common form, by " putting himself upon 
 the country," »'. e., praying that the truth of the facts may 
 be inquired of by a jury, the other adds the similiter, which 
 is in the form—" And the said A. B. as to the plea, &c. of 
 the defendant (or plaintiff) above pleaded, and whereof he 
 hath put himself upon the country, doth the like." See 
 Pleading. 
 
 SIMI'LITTJDE, in Geometry, signifies the relation of fig- 
 ures similar to each other. 
 
 SIMONIANS. The name given to the followers of Si- 
 mon Magus, who pretended to be the great virtue and pow- 
 er of God sent from heaven to earth. Their system was a 
 medley of the philosophy of Plato, the mythological fables 
 of the heathens, and of Christianity. The sum of their 
 doctrines, as enjoined by their founder, was, that from the 
 Divine Being, as a fountain of light, flow various orders of 
 eternal natures, subsisting within the plenitude of the Di- 
 vine essence ; that beyond these in the order of emanation 
 are different classes of intelligences, to the lowest of which 
 belongs the human soul ; that matter is the most remote 
 production of the emanative power, which, on account of 
 its infinite distance from the fountain of light possesses 
 sluzL'ish and malignant qualities, which appear the divine 
 operations, and are the cause of evil ; that it is the great 
 design of philosophy to deliver the soul from its imprison- 
 ment in matter, and restore it to that divine light from 
 which it was derived ; and that for this purpose God had 
 sent us one of the first ceons into the world. He believed 
 also in the transmigration of souls, and denied the resurrec- 
 tion of the body. [Kncyc. Brit.) We have specified at 
 greater length the opinions of this sect than they seem 
 properly entitled to ; but considering that it was the first 
 heresy in the Christian Church, a resume of its views was 
 considered not to be out of place. 
 
 SIMONIANS, SAINT. See Saint Simonians. 
 
 SI'MONY. In Law, an unlawful contract for the pre- 
 senting a clergyman to a benefice. When such presenta- 
 tion is made corruptly, for money, gift, or reward, by Stat, 
 31 Eliz., c. 6, such presentations are void, and the crown 
 shall present for that turn And by 1-2 Ann. 8, t. 2, c. 12, if 
 any one, for money or profit, procures in his own name the 
 next presentation to any living ecclesiastical, and is pre- 
 sented thereupon, the contract is simoniacal. The term is 
 derived from Simon Magus, who was punished, as is rela- 
 ted in the Acts, for attempting to obtain the gifts of the 
 Holy Spirit by bribing the Apostles. It is generally re- 
 marked, however, that the practices against which our 
 laws are directed bear no precise similarity to this. 
 
 SIMOON, or SIMOOM. A hot, arid wind which blows 
 in Arabia, Syria, and the adjacent countries, and chiefly 
 about the time of the equinoxes. The simoon, which is 
 identical with the khamsin of Syria and the samiel of the 
 Turks, and resembles in many respects the sirocco and 
 sorana of other countries, derives its qualities from blowing 
 over sandy deserts heated intensely by the sun. Some- 
 times it blows in squalls, bearing along with it quantities of 
 burning sand and dust. In the desert it is greatly dreaded ; 
 and the only chance of safety the traveller has, is to fall 
 down with his face close to the ground, and to continue as 
 long as possible without drawing breath. It is described 
 by Bruce. Volney. Charind, Malcolm, and other travellers. 
 
 SIMPLI'CIMANES, Simplicimani. (Lat. simplex, sim- 
 ple; mantis, a hand.) A name given by Latreille to a tribe 
 of Caraboid beetles, comprehending those in which, in the 
 male, the two anterior tarsi are dilated. 
 
 SIMPLICITY. (From Lat. simplex.) In the Fine 
 Arts, that quality in works of art through which the ele- 
 ments whereof it is composed are arranged in the most 
 natural order ; and in which the ideas and images are pre- 
 sented to us so that the principal objects are not eclipsed 
 by the accessories, and the details are in due subordination 
 to the whole. Simplicity is the reverse of excess and ex- 
 aggeration, and may be properly called a negative quality 
 in art. 
 
 SI'NAPISIN. A peculiar principle extracted from mus- 
 tard seed (Sinapis alba). It is a white, crystallizable, in- 
 odorous substance, of a bitter ta«te, accompanied by the 
 flavour of mustard. It is supposed to contain sulphur, car- 
 bon, nitrogen, hydrogen, and oxygen. 
 
 SINAPISM. (Lat. sinape, mustard.) A mustard poul- 
 tice. 
 
 SI'NCIPUT. The anterior region of the upper part of 
 the head, from the vertex to the eyes in Mammals, and 
 from the vertex to the base of the beak in birds. 
 
 SINE. (Lat. sinus, the bosom.) In Trigonometry, the 
 sine of any arc of a circle is the straight line drawn from 
 
 1127
 
 SINECURE. 
 
 one extremity of the arc perpendic- 
 ular to the radius passing through 
 the other extremity. Thus, in the 
 circle A B C D, let O A and O B be 
 two radii, and let B X be perpen- 
 A.' diculu to O A ; then B X is the 
 sine of the intercepted arc A B. In 
 like manner, if C Y and D Z be 
 perpendicular to A O, or its pro- 
 longation O A' ; then C Y is the 
 sine of the arc A B C, or of A' C, 
 the supplement of A B C, and D Z the sine of A C D, or of 
 AD. 
 
 Draw the diameter POP 7 , and suppose the arc A B to 
 increase from to 3tiO°. It is evident that as the arc A B 
 increases from A to A P, or from to 90°, the sine B X in- 
 creases from zero to O P, where it becomes equal to the 
 radius; and hence the radius is called the sinus totus, or 
 whole sine. Between P and A the sine again diminishes 
 as the arc is increased, and vanishes at A'. From A to- 
 wards P' it again increases till it becomes equal to the ra- 
 dio-; O I", and from this position decreases until it again 
 vanishes at A. Hence it appears that the origin being sup- 
 posed at A, the sine is positive in the first and second quad- 
 rants, or from to 180° ; and negative in the third and fourth, 
 or from 180° to 360°. 
 
 If we conceive another circle to be described about the 
 same centre O, the two lines O A and O B would intercept 
 on it an arc similar to A B ; and if, also, we suppose the 
 radius of this second circle =: 1, and denote the intercepted 
 arc by <p ; then we shall have evidently sin. <p : 1 : : B X : 
 
 B O, or sin. <p ■= vj-p;' But the arc whose radius is 1 is the 
 
 measure of the angle at the centre ; therefore the sine of 
 the angle A O B is the ratio of B X to B O, or A O.- This 
 definition of the sine of an angle is adopted in some of the 
 best recent works on trigonometry. 
 
 The sine of an arc is the half of the chord of the double 
 arc. Ptolemy, in the graphical constructions in the Ana- 
 lemma, makes use of the semichords instead of the chords ; 
 but the introduction of the sines into trigonometrical calcu- 
 lation was an important improvement, of which the credit 
 appears to be due to the Arabian astronomer Albategnius. 
 (Delumbre, Astronomic da J\Ioycn Age, p. 12.) The term 
 sine has been variously derived ; the Arabic name is ^-t'A, 
 or dgib, signifying a fold, of which sinus is the Latin trans- 
 lation. {Hutton's Mathematical Tables.) 
 
 For the analytical expressions of the sines of the sums 
 and differences of two arcs, of multiple arcs, and of the 
 other trigonometrical lines, see Trigonometry. 
 
 SFNECURE. In Politics, an office without any duties 
 attached to it. The term is properly ecclesiastical, and 
 applied to a benefice without care of souls ; in which sense 
 it is also still employed. 
 
 SINE DIE. (Eat. without day.) In Legal and Parlia- 
 mentary Usage, an adjournment or prorogation sine die 
 means without any specified day for resuming the subject, 
 or reassembling. 
 
 SINGULAR TERM. In Logic, a term which stands 
 for one individual. A singular proposition is one which 
 has for its subject either a singular term, or a common 
 term limited to one individual by a singular sign. See 
 Term, Proposition. 
 
 BINI'STEB (Lat. literally, left) is used in its ordinary 
 signification for unlucky ; though the Romans in the rites of 
 divination attached to it the opposite meaning. Thus avis 
 sinistra, or a bird on the left hand, was esteemed a happy 
 omen ; and intonuit Iwcd, it thundered on the left hand, 
 indicated the same. Sitiister, in Heraldry, is used to des 
 ignate the left-hand side or part. 
 
 SINKING FUND. A provision made by parliament, 
 consisting of the surplusage of other funds, intended to be 
 appropriated to the payment of the national debt. See 
 Funds. 
 
 SINO'PLE. In Heraldry, the Continental designation 
 for the colour green ; by English heralds called vert. The 
 name is said to be derived, through the importation of the 
 Crusades, from the town of Sinope, in Asia Minor. 
 
 SI'NTER. A German word implying a scale. Calcareous 
 sinter is a variety of carbonate of lime composed of succes- 
 sive concentric layers. Silicious sinter is u variety of com- 
 mon opal. 
 
 SI'NUOUS. (Lat. sinuosus.) In the Fine Arts, of a 
 serpentine or undulating form. 
 
 SI'NUS. (Lat.) The veins of the dura mater of the 
 brnin are called sinuses. 
 
 SIPHON. (Gr. ai(bu>v,a. tube.) In Zoology, the name 
 of the membranous and calcareous tubes which traverse 
 the septa and the interior of Polythalamous shells. Also 
 applied to the tubular prolongation of the mantle in certain 
 Univalve and Bivalve Mollusks ; and by Latreille to the 
 1128 
 
 SIR. 
 
 mouth of certain Suctorious, Crustaceous, and Apterous 
 Insects. 
 
 SI'PHON, or SY'PHON. In Hydraulics, a simple and 
 well-known instrument, chief- e 
 ly used for the purpose of — ■ 
 drawing off liquids from casks. 
 The siphon is simply a bent 
 tube, a b c, having one end 
 longer than the other. To use 
 the siphon, the tube is in the 
 first place filled with the li- 
 quid, and the open end a stop- 
 ped by the hand, or by a cock, 
 in which state the liquid will 
 not flow from the other extremity. The end c is then im- 
 mersed in the liquid, and the stop removed from a ; upon 
 which, if a be at a lower level than c, the liquid will im- 
 mediately begin to flow out at a, and will continue to flow 
 until the vessel is drained down to the level of e. 
 
 The principle of the siphon may be explained as follows : 
 The lowest section of the fluid within the tube at the ex- 
 tremity c is subjected to two unequal pressures in opposite 
 directions : first, the pressure due to the weight of the li- 
 quid in the branch b c, which pressure is equal to the line 
 c d, perpendicular to the horizontal line drawn through the 
 highest part of the tube, and tends to force the liquid out of 
 the tube ; secondly, the pressure of the external liquor at c, 
 which is equal to the atmospheric pressure, or the weight 
 of a column of liquid of about 34 feet in height, together 
 with the weight of the column reaching from c to the sur- 
 face of the liquid in the vessel, which, however, we may 
 leave out of consideration. Hence, if the line c d be less 
 than 34 feet (if the liquid be water), the last pressure will 
 preponderate, and the liquid will be forced into the tube by 
 a pressure equal to the weight of the atmosphere diminish- 
 ed by the weight of a column of the fluid equal to c d. In 
 like manner, the pressure upon a section of the liquid at a 
 is equal to the weight of the atmospheric column diminish- 
 ed by the weight of a column of the fluid equal in height 
 to a e. If, therefore, a e be greater than c d, the pressure 
 at e will be greater than the pressure at a, and the liquid 
 will be forced through the tube. 
 
 From this explanation it is obvious that the limits within 
 which the siphon can act are determined by the specific 
 gravity of the fluid. Water cannot be raised by the siphon 
 to a greater height than 34 feet, nor mercury to a greater 
 height than 30 inches. It is also obvious that the compar- 
 ative diameters of the two branches, and their oblique 
 lengths, are of no importance, the action depending only on 
 the difference of their perpendicular heights. 
 
 Sometimes the siphon is made with both branches equal, 
 and turned up at the extremities ; in which case, so long 
 as the extremities are kept on the same level, it will con- 
 tinue always full and ready for use. This form of the in- 
 strument is called the JVurtcmberg siphon, from its having 
 been first used at that place. 
 
 SIPHONA'PTERANS, Siphonaptera. (Gr. <ncW, a 
 priv., and -rripor, a wing.) A name given by Latreille to 
 an order of insects, including those Apterous species which 
 have a mouth in the form of a siphon. 
 
 SIPHO'NIFERS, Siphonifera. (Gr. oi&wv ; Lat. fero, / 
 bear.) A name given by D'Orbigny, and Ferussac to an 
 order of Cephalopods, including all those species which 
 have a siphon contained within a polythalamous shell. 
 
 SIPHONOBRAN'CHIATES, Siphonobranchiata. (Gr. 
 <r«pu)>\ and (Ipiyxia, gills.) The name of an order of Gas- 
 tropods, including those in which the branchial cavity ter- 
 minates in a tube or siphon more or less prolonged, by 
 which the respiratory current of water is received and ex- 
 pelled. 
 
 SIPHO'NOPHORES, Siphonophora. (Gr. oi<pui; and 
 iptpui, I bear.) A name given by Eschollz to an order of 
 Acalephes, to which he refers those species that have no 
 central digestive cavity, but simplv isolated tubes. 
 
 SIPHO'NOSTOMES, Siphonos'toma. (Gr. atoiuiv, and 
 oropa, a mouth.) The name of a family of Crustaceans, 
 comprehending those which have a siphon shaped mouth 
 for suction. By M. de Blainville the term is applied to 
 those Gastropods which have the opening of the shell pro- 
 longed into a siphon. 
 
 SIPHORHI'NIANS, fiiphorhinii. (Gr. mfuv, and p,v, a 
 nose.) A name applied to a tribe of swimming birds, inclu- 
 ding those which have the nostrils prominent and tubular. 
 
 SIP'UNCLE. Sipuncuhis. The name of a genus of 
 worms which burrow in the sands of the sea-shore, and 
 are classed with the F.chinodcrm.i by Cuvier, and with the 
 F.ntoioa by M. de Blainville. They differ from the soft- 
 bodied Echinodcrms chiefly in the absence of ambulncral 
 pores. 
 
 SIR. The term used in England, either out of respect 
 or formality, in addressing any one. More particularly, it 
 is the distinguishing appellation of knights and baronets, to
 
 SIREN. 
 
 whose Christian names it is prefixed. The derivation of 
 this word has greatly puzzled etymologists. The Lat. 
 hems, master (whence the Germ, herr), and senior, whence 
 signor, siore, sire, sir, and the Gr. ttvpioq, lord, are speci- 
 mens of the origin which has been assigned to this term. 
 The second is undoubtedly correct. Since the 16th centu- 
 ry, the word sire has been used in prose only in addressing 
 sovereign princes. 
 
 SI'REX. The generic name of certain Perennibranchi- 
 ate reptiles which have only one pair of feet, and retain 
 the external gills ; they are peculiar to the southern prov- 
 inces of the United States. 
 
 SIRE'XE. In Acoustics, an instrument for determining 
 the velocity of aerial vibration, corresponding to the differ- 
 ent pitches of musical sounds. " In this elegant instru- 
 ment the wind of a bellows is emitted through a small ap- 
 erture, before which revolves a circular disc pierced with a 
 certain number of holes, arranged in a circle concentric 
 with the axis of rotation, exactly equidistant from each 
 other, and of the same size, &c. The orifice through 
 which the air passes is so situated that each of these holes, 
 during the rotation of the disk, shall pass over it, and let 
 through the air ; but the disk is made to revolve so near 
 the orifice that in the intervals between the holes it shall 
 act as a cover, and intercept the air. If the holes be pla- 
 ced obliquely, the action of the current of air alone will 
 set the disk in motion ; if perpendicular to the surface, the 
 disk must be moved by wheel-work, by means of which 
 its velocity of rotation is easily regulated, and the number 
 of impulses may be exactly counted. The sound produced 
 is clear and sweet, like the human voice. If, instead of a 
 single aperture for transmitting the air, there be several, so 
 disposed in a circle of equal dimensions with that in which 
 the holes of the disk are situated that each shall be oppo- 
 site one corresponding hole when at rest, these will all 
 form sounds of one pitch, and being heard together will re- 
 enforce each other. The sirene sounds equally when 
 plunged in water and fed by a current of that fluid as in 
 air; thus proving that it is the number of impulses only, 
 and nothing depending on the nature of the medium in 
 which the sound is excited, that influences our apprecia- 
 tion of its pitch." (Sir John Herschel's Treatise on Sound, 
 Kncijc. Jiletropolitana.) 
 
 The sirene, as thus described, was invented by Baron 
 Cagniard de la Tour. An instrument on the same princi- 
 ple, and for the same purpose, had formerly been devised 
 by Professor Robison ; but the construction was much less 
 elegant and commodious. A current of air passing through 
 a pipe was alternately intercepted and permitted to pass by 
 the shutting and opening of a stop-cock. 
 
 SI'REXS. (Gr. Xciprjvec ', probably from aetpa, a chain, 
 to signify their attractive power.) Melodious divinities, 
 who dwelt on the shores of Sicily, and so charmed passing 
 mariners by the sweetness of their song that they forgot 
 their homes, and remained there till they perished of hun- 
 ger. Their history has been variously described. Accord- 
 ing to Homer, in the Odyssey, as Ulysses and his compan- 
 ions were on their homeward voyage from JEaca. thev came 
 first to the island of the Sirens : but they passed in safety ; 
 for, by the directions of Circe, Ulysses stopped the ears of i 
 his companions with wax, and had himself tied to the mast 
 before approaching the island ; so that, although when he 
 heard the song of the Sirens he made rigns for his compan- 
 ions to unbind him, they only secured him the more closelv 
 ia compliance with his previous instructions. Thus he lis- 
 tened to the songs of the Sirens, and escaped notwithstand- 
 ing. Hence it was feigned that they threw themselves into 
 the sea from vexation at the escape of Ulysses, an oracle 
 having predicted that they should live only so long as their 
 strains had power to arrest all who heard them. But ac- 
 cording to other poets, they threw themselves into the sea 
 from rage and despair on hearing the more melodious song 
 of Orpheus. Originally there were only two Sirens ; but 
 their number was afterwards increased to three, and their 
 names are given with great variety. See the speculations 
 of Bryant on the subject, Ancient Mythology, ii., 277, and 
 hi.. 2:i7. 
 
 SI'RIUS (called also Canicula, or Canis Candens, the 
 Dog-star). A star of the first magnitude in the constella- 
 tion of Canis Major, or the Great Dog, and the brightest in 
 the heavens. The Egyptians observing that the Xile be- 
 gins to swell at a particular rising of this star, paid it divine 
 honours, and named it Sirius ; from Siris, one of the ap- 
 pellations of the Nile. 
 
 SIRO'CCO. (Ital.) A soft relaxing wind, chiefly expe- 
 rienced in the south of Italy, Malta, and Sicily. It blows 
 from the south-east or south ; and having been" heated over 
 the sandy deserts of Lybia, it becomes occasionally moist 
 in its passage across the Mediterranean, and oppresses the 
 inhabitants of the above-named countries with excessive 
 languor, and a sinking of the mental energies. The setting 
 in of the sirocco is followed by a considerable rise of the 
 95 
 
 SKELETON. 
 
 thermometer, and is attended with a haze which obscures 
 the atmosphere. .See Simoon. 
 
 SIRVE'XTE. In the Literature of the Middle Ages, a 
 species of poem in common use among the Troubadours, 
 usually satirical, and divided into strophes of a peculiar 
 construction. See Troubadour. 
 
 SI'STRUM. (Gr. aeiarpov; from otitiv, to shake.) A 
 kind of timbrel, which the Egyptian priests of Isis used to 
 shake with their hands at the festivals of that goddess. 
 
 SI'SYPHUS. In Ancient Mythology, one of tile de- 
 scendants of yEolus, respecting whom a variety of opinions 
 prevails. By some he is said to have resided at Epyra, in 
 the Peloponnesus ; others maintain that he was a Trojau 
 prince, who was punished for betraying state secrets ; while 
 others allege that he was a notorious robber, slain by The- 
 seus. Be this as it may, all the ancient poets are agreed 
 that he was distinguished for his craftiness and cunning; 
 and that his punishment in Tartarus for his crimes com- 
 mitted on earth consisted in rolling a huge stone to the top 
 of a high hill, which constantly recoiled, and thus rendered 
 his labour incessant. The term Sisyphus is supposed to be 
 derived from Gr. aiao(j>oc (by a common duplication for ao- 
 <po;, wise), and to signify onerwise. 
 
 SITTA. (Gr. oirra.) The name of a bird in Aristotle, 
 which Gesner determined to be the nuthatch. Linnsus re- 
 tains the term for the genus of which the nuthatch (Sitta 
 Enropwa, L.) is the type. 
 
 SIVA. In Hindoo Mythology, a title given to the Su- 
 preme Being, considered in the character of the avenger or 
 destroyer. Sir William Jones has compared Siva to Jupi- 
 ter ; but he appears to share many of the attributes of Pluto. 
 Under the name of Mahadeva, he is exhibited also as a type 
 of reproduction : to destroy, according to the Vedantas of 
 India, the Sufis of Persia, and even to many European 
 schools of philosophy, being only to generate or reproduce 
 under another form. See Vishnu, Brama. 
 
 SI VATHE'RIUM. (Siva ; and Gr. $t)pioi; a wild beast.) 
 The name of an extinct genus of Ruminantia found in fos- 
 sil remains in the tertiary strata of the Sivalik Sub-Hima- 
 layan range. It surpassed all known ruminants in size, and 
 had four horns. 
 
 SI'ZARS. The lowest class of students at Cambridge. 
 At Oxford the same class go in different colleges by the de- 
 nominations of servitors, &c. They are such as have cer- 
 tain allowances made in their battels (college bills), through 
 the benefactions of founders or other charitable persons. 
 In college phraseology, a size is a portion of bread, meat, 
 &.C allotted to a student; and hence the name sizar. The 
 sizars at Cambridge are almost entirely on the same footing 
 with independent students; at Oxford they are somewhat 
 lower, and some relics of their former degraded condition 
 still subsist in certain colleges in the customs of bringing up 
 dishes to dinner, dining off the remnants of the fellows' din- 
 ners, &c. 
 
 SIZE. A sort of varnish, paint, or glue, used by paint- 
 ers, and in many other trades. It is made of the shreds and 
 parings of leather, parchment, or vellum, boiled in water 
 and strained. 
 
 SKE'LETOX". (Gr. ckcWw, I make dry.) The desicca- 
 ted support or framework of an animal body, which, usually 
 consisting of different parts, may be joined together by the 
 dried natural ligaments, when it is termed "a natural skel- 
 eton ;" or may be articulated artificially, when it is termed 
 "an artificial skeleton." In the lowest-organized animals, 
 as the Polygastria and Polypi, the skeleton, when it exists, 
 commonly consists of a single piece. In the Polygastria it 
 is external, in the form of a case, and consists of pure silex. 
 In the Polypi it is sometimes external, sometimes internal ; 
 and is composed of either pure carbonate of lime, or with a 
 small additional proportion of phosphate of lime, and these 
 earths are combined with a greater or less proportion of ge- 
 latinous animal matter. In the Isis the skeleton consists 
 of numerous separate calcareous joints, connected together 
 by portions of uncalcified gelatin. In many of the Litho- 
 phytous Polypes innumerable minute spicules, of various but 
 definite forms, are scattered through the fleshy investment 
 of the main internal skeleton. In the Echinoderms the 
 skeleton is external, as regards the viscera, but is covered 
 by an organized skin. It is chiefly remarkable for the great 
 number of pieces of which it is composed, and the regular 
 and beautiful forms in which they are combined ; it like- 
 wise supports numerous tubercles or spines : it is composed 
 of carbonate and phosphate of lime, with a gelatinous basis. 
 In Insects the skeleton is partly internal, but chiefly exter- 
 nal ; and its hardening material is a peculiar animal princi- 
 ple, called " chitine." In cabinets of dried insects it is the 
 natural skeleton that is preserved. In Crustacea the skele- 
 ton, which bears the same relative position to the animal as 
 in insects, is rendered denser and more brittle by being con- 
 solidated with the carbonate and phosphate of hine. In 
 the .Mol/usca the skeleton is generally external, but some- 
 times internal ; it ij hardened by the carbonate of lime, with 
 4 A * 1129
 
 SKETCH. 
 
 n very Flight trace of the phosphate of lime, and constitutes ' 
 the shell. The beauty, durability, and variety of form of 
 
 ificationol the skeleton have rendered the shells of 
 
 tea at all times a favourite object of collectors, 
 
 and the subject of a distinct branch of natural history, un- 
 
 ame of " Conchology." The skeleton of mollusks 
 
 i^ either in one piece, as in the univalve mollusks; or in 
 most bivalves; or in many pieces, as in the 
 multivalve chitons, and <>t lnr<. In the Cephaiopods, besides 
 tin- shell, which oili-rs remarkable varieties of form and 
 !, there is likewise a rudiment of true interna] 
 skeleton in a cartilaginous condition. In the Vertebrate 
 animals, there is always an internal skeleton destined to 
 pxotl Cl the central part of the nervous system, ami to form 
 the fulcrum and support of the locomotive members. In a 
 few fishes it is cartilaginous; in the rest of the Vertebrates 
 it is osseous, or consolidated by a large proportion of phos- 
 phate and a small proportion of carbonate of lime, and some 
 other hardening salts. (See Host:.) This is termed the 
 '' endoskeleton." In most fishes, in several reptiles, as the 
 Crocodilians, and in the armadillos anion" the .Mammalia, 
 osseous plates are developed in the substance of the skin ; 
 these are analogous to the skeleton of most of the Inverte- 
 brate animals, and form a more or less complete protecting 
 case, called the •• exo-skeleton." 
 
 SKETCH. (It. schizzo.) In Painting, &c., the first de- 
 lineated idea of the artist's conception of a subject, in which 
 tire usually distinguishable the lire and enthusiasm with 
 which the suiij et is expressed and felt. 
 
 SKEW BACK. In Architecture, the sloping abutment, 
 in brickwork and masonry, for the ends of the arched head 
 of an aperture. 
 
 SKEW BKIDGE. In Engineering, the name given to a 
 kind of bridge introduced upon railroads, when the railway 
 intersects any existing communication at right angles. Such 
 bridges were occasionally built before railroads were intro- 
 duced : but their general introduction has rendered the use 
 of skew bridges universal in cases where it may be neces- 
 sary or unavoidable to preserve as straight or direct a line 
 as possible. The Encyc. lintannica contains an elaborate 
 article upon this subject. 
 
 SKIN. The external covering of the body. It is divisible 
 into three parts or membranes. The exterior is called the 
 BCarfskin or cuticle: it is an albuminous membrane. Im- 
 mediately underneath it is a thin layer of soft or pulpy mat- 
 ter, called the rite mucosum (mucous network), which is 
 t of colour : it lies upon the cutis, or true skin, which 
 is a gelatinous texture. 
 
 SKI!'. (Fr. esquiver.) In Music, a passage from one 
 to another by more than a degree at one time. 
 
 SKI'RTING. In Architecture, the narrow vertical board 
 on the floor round the sides of an apartment. 
 
 SKO'LEZITE. (Gr. bkoXos, twisted.) A mineral which 
 occurs crystallized and massive. It is colourless and trans- 
 it, and when heated before the blowpipe shrinks up 
 into wormlike contortions. 
 
 SKCRODITE. (Or. cKopoiov, garlic; in allusion to its 
 odour when heated.) All ai seninte of iron. 
 
 SKO'BZITE. A mineral ogical synonym of a variety of 
 epidote, from Skorza. 
 
 SKILL. The bony case which contains the brain: it 
 forma the forehead, and every part of the head except the 
 face. It consists of eight bones, namely, the frontal and 
 occipital bones, upon Us fore and back part: the two tem- 
 
 and two parietal bones, forming the temples and the 
 
 sidi s of the skull; and the sphenoid and ethmoid bones, 
 com • niation of the orbits and nose. 
 
 SKY L \ I! I\. The name of a species of the genus.flZau- 
 
 the Mauda arvensis of Linnaeus. 
 
 SKY SAD .. A small sail sometimes set above the royal. 
 
 SL \li LINE. A small rope leading through a block un- 
 der the lower yards, and thence to the loot of the sail, for 
 the purp It up. 
 
 SLACK. Small coal under the size of an egg. 
 
 SLAG. The 01 vitrifiable compounds 
 
 ■which are produced during the reduction of metallic ores 
 rious fluxes. In the neighbourhood of large smelting 
 works, especially of iron and copper, the Blags, which are 
 abundantly produced, are sometimes used as building mate- 
 rials, and for making and mending roads. They often con- 
 tain a considerable relative proportion of metal. 
 
 SI. \ \ DEE. In Law, a malicious defamation of a man 
 by words spoken. It is not actionable unless it impute 
 crime punishable by law; or some infectious i.i 
 
 such as leprosy or the like, which may have the effect of 
 
 excluding from society the person slandered: or be intend 
 
 .iing hi 111 in lii- nob- or business i i such a way as to 
 
 i his means of livelihood; or, lastly, unless it bo at 
 
 d with special damage. In this case, fw':i special 
 
 damage must be averred upon the pleadings. If special 
 
 d on ■ pved by the pi 
 
 actio,, for words spoken, when the verdict is tinder -10 shil- 
 1130 
 
 SLAVE TRADE. 
 
 lings, he allowed more costs than damages. A defendant 
 cannot he proceeded against criminally for words Bpoken, 
 unless they have a direct tendency to a breach Of the peace, 
 as by containing a challenge to fight; or are of a seditious 
 or grossly immoral character ; or are spoken of a magistrate 
 in the execution of his duty. 
 SLATE, -sec Geology. 
 
 SLA'VERY, properly so called, is the establishment of a 
 right, which gives to one man such a power over another 
 as makes him absolute master of his life and property. But 
 the condition of a slave is susceptible of innumerable modi- 
 fications ; and there are few nations, whether of .ancient or 
 modern times, among whom slavery has been long estab- 
 lished, thai have not enacted certain laws for limning the 
 power of a master over his slave. Slaver] has existed from 
 the earliest periods of authenticated history, and its origin 
 has generally been ascribed to a state of war. In the ru- 
 dest stages of society, the difficulty of subsistence was so 
 gieat that the lives of captives were seldom spared; but as 
 society advanced, and luxuries began to be introduced, the 
 aid of labourers became requisite, and it was found more 
 profitable to employ than to slay a captive. Thus the Latin 
 word servtis, a slave, appears to have been derived from 
 servo, / preserve, and to have meant a person whose life 
 was preserved on condition of giving his labour to his con- 
 queror ; so that a state of slavery, how repulsive soever to 
 our present feelings, probably formed at one time an impor- 
 tant mitigation of the horrors of barbarism. But in propor- 
 tion as society rose in the scale of civilization, the state of 
 slavery sprung from a variety of causes. Thus, in several 
 countries, those who had been convicted of crimes were 
 often doomed to perpetual slavery; and, as a necessary cor- 
 ollary of this principle of slavery, it was laid down as a 
 fundamental regulation, that slaves could only beget slaves ; 
 and hence the principle of hereditary bondage. It would 
 he foreign to the purpose of this work to enter into details 
 upon the different phases which slavery has exhibited in 
 the various countries in which it has existed, or to point out 
 the malignant influence it has exercised upon the character 
 of every nation among whom it has been tolerated. Upon 
 this subject the re ader will find ample details in the third 
 volume of the Cours d' Economic Politique of M. Storch, 
 Paris, 1823; and with regard to slavery, as practised among 
 the Romans, he may consult with advantage the elaborate 
 little volume of Mr. Blair on this subject. The species of 
 slavery which existed during the feudal ages, and which is 
 still to' be found in some European countries, will be found 
 noticed under the heads SERF, SERVITUDE, and Villein, in 
 this work ; and for some details of negro slavery, see infra, 
 and Negroes. 
 
 The British legislature, as is well known, passed an act 
 in 1834 for the emancipation of Negro slaves throughout 
 our dominions ; by which, after passing through a prelim- 
 inary term of compulsory apprenticeship, they were event- 
 ually raised to tin' condition of full citizenship. 
 
 SLAVE TRADE, generally denotes the trade in slaves 
 carried on by European nations between the western coasts 
 of Africa arid the American settlements; abolished, as far 
 as Great Britain is concerned, in 1808. 
 
 The European Slave trade is. however, generally suppo- 
 sed to have been commenced by the Portuguese about the 
 end of the lath century. About 1508 the Spaniards began 
 to import .Negroes into America, to supply the place of the 
 Indians, w hose numbers w ere rapidly diminishing under the 
 
 severity of the toU to which they were exposed by their 
 conquerors. Sir John Hawkins, one of Queen Elizabeth's 
 
 most famous captains, seems to have been the first English- 
 man ol' note who embarked in this traffic, having been con- 
 cerned in I lie -ale oi lo i be Spaniards iii tin- West 
 Indies. In the same reign the African Company was first 
 
 chartered, for the purpose of trade w lib Guinea, This com- 
 pany carried on a trade in Negroes with the English settle- 
 ments in America from the beginning of the l?th century 
 to the year 1732, w hen that traffic was abandoned by it, and 
 Chil lK carried on from that time by private traders. It was 
 not until the hitter end of the 1.-th century that the atroci- 
 ties of this trade began to engage the attention of parlia- 
 ment. In 1788 an ai t was passed to regulate it ; and, after 
 twenty years' animated discussion, it was at last totally 
 abolished in 1807. The United States of America and Den- 
 mark had preceded us In this righteous act. (See Ciark- 
 son's History of the Molition of the Slave Trade.) 
 The slave trade is now prohibited by the laws of most 
 
 European nations, except Portugal : and bj the law of that 
 COUntT] it can only be carried on within certain geographi- 
 cal limits. .Nevertheless, it is e\ien-i\eK carried on by 
 contraband dealers; and no measuie can be reasonably ex 
 
 peCted to put a stop to it short of its being declared* piracy 
 
 *TI„ . ; tin wholenf 
 
 tli Bui i ■ i nl i 
 
 to the nglu of north, and lu regard thoae engaged iu the trade as pinlu.
 
 SLEEP. 
 
 by the common consent of civilized states. To obtain this 
 (result ought to be one of the most prominent objects of 
 English diplomacy, both for the sake of humanity, and in 
 order to protect the interests of our own colonies, which 
 sutler severely from competition with those European pos- 
 sessions into which an unlimited importation of slave la- 
 bour takes place. But it must be admitted that Sir Fowell 
 Buxton, whose name ranks so high among the opponents of 
 the slave trade, appears to confess that even this measure 
 would prove ineffectual, from the difficulty of execution. 
 We can do no more here than advert to the scheme recent- 
 ly proposed, received with acclamation by a great portion 
 of the public, and taken up by government, of establishing 
 a legitimate trade with central Africa by the channel of the 
 Niger. We can only say that those who expected the 
 slightest effect to be produced on the progress of this abom- 
 inable traffic by any sueh measure, must have estimated 
 both end and means in a very different manner from our- 
 selves ; but the official report of Captain Trotter has recent- 
 ly announced the utter failure of the expedition, owing to 
 the destructive influence of the climate ; and the general 
 opinion seems to be, that henceforth those who may induce 
 their fellow-countrymen to embark in any similar adven- 
 ture will involve themselves in very serious responsibility. 
 According to some recent estimates, about 75,000 slaves are 
 supposed to be annually carried from their homes in Africa 
 to supply the American markets, including those who per- 
 ish by the way. There can, however, be no doubt that this 
 estimate is very greatly exaggerated ; and we question 
 whether, taking those exported from the east coast to Ara- 
 bia, &c, into account, the average number of slaves car- 
 ried from Africa during the seven years ending with 1841 
 can have been as high as 40,000 a year ; and now, no doubt, 
 even this exportation will be very materially reduced. The 
 principal importing countries are Cuba, Portorico, and Bra- 
 zil. Publications on the slave trade are so numerous, that 
 it is difficult to make a selection for purposes of reference. 
 Perhaps (after Clarkson's History) the student could not 
 find the account of its progress better given than in succes- 
 sive numbers of the Edin. Review, especially vols. xxi., 
 xxiii., xxiv., and xxvi. ; though it must be admitted that 
 there is in these, and most works on the subject, a strong 
 tendency to exaggeration. There is a good article on the 
 international law of the slave trade in the Law Magazine 
 for August, 1841. 
 
 SLEEP. (Germ, schlaf.) That state of the body in 
 which the functions of sensation and volition are suspended, 
 while the vital functions retain their usual activity: the 
 operations of the mind, if not at perfect rest, are discon- 
 nected with external objects. 
 
 Healthy or natural sleep usually comes on with a pecu- 
 liar sense of muscular lassitude, gaping, and desire of repose ; 
 the eyelids fall, and there is general muscular relaxation. 
 The sense of hearing is that which is longest retained ; and 
 we generally hear what is going on about us, and even feel 
 inclined to take occasional part in conversation, long after 
 the eyes are closed. 
 
 The quantity of sleep required by different individuals is 
 various, from six to nine hours being the average propor- 
 tion. Indolent listless persons, and especially those who 
 Indulge in the luxuries of the table, and are in good health, 
 will often slumber away from eight to ten hours daily ; 
 while others of active dispositions, and who live abstemi- 
 ously, will be satisfied with four or five hours of sleep; and 
 such persons are generally more disturbed by dreams than 
 the former. Very young children sleep away much of 
 their time, and so also do many old persons. Sleep is often 
 prevented by intense thought, by anxiety, and other mental 
 affections ; and also by hunger, and by the application of 
 cold to a part of the body. When a person has been over- 
 fatigued by bodily exertion, sleep is also often courted in 
 vain ; and there are many stimuli by which its accession 
 at the usual times is prevented or retarded, such as strong 
 tea, coffee, small doses of opium, and several other articles 
 of medicine and diet. Bodily exercise and mental tranquility, 
 a full meal, the absence of light, noise, and other disturbing 
 causes, are circumstances generally favourable to sleep; 
 but in all these respects various habits often greatly inter- 
 fere, and persons accustomed to very active lives when 
 suddenly deprived of their usual occupations often sleep 
 worse than before, indolence becoming an apparent stimu- 
 lant. A distended stomach keeps some individuals awake ; 
 and others cannot sleep in a dark room, or in the quiet of 
 the country, who have been used to a night lamp, and to 
 the rumbling of carriages over a London pavement. 
 
 The proximate cause of sleep has been discussed by 
 several eminent physiologists, but without any very satis- 
 factory results : it is, in fact, as entirely beyond our grasp, 
 as are the other functions of the nervous system. See 
 Dreams. 
 
 SMALLPOX. 
 
 SLEEPER. In Architecture, a piece of timber whereon 
 are laid the ground joists of a tioor. Sleepers are also 
 pieces of timber, now rarely used, in foundations crossed by 
 planks, &c, and at right angles to them, where the soil is 
 had. Formerly the term was used to denote the valley 
 rafters of a roof. 
 
 SLI'CKEXSIDE. A provincial term applied by tire 
 Derbyshire miners to a species of galena, or sulphuret of 
 lead. 
 
 SLIDE. In Music, a grace used in the German school, 
 and consisting of two small notes moving by degrees. 
 
 SLI'DIXG KEEL, is a narrow oblong frame or platform, 
 let down vertically through the bottom of a small vessel, 
 like a deepening of the keel throughout a portion of her 
 length. Its use is, like that of the leeboard, to sustain the 
 vessel against the lateral force of the wind. 
 
 SLI'DING RULE. A mathematical instrument or scale, 
 consisting of two parts, one of which slides along the other, 
 and each having certain sets of numbers engraved on it, so 
 arranged that when a given number on the one scale is 
 brought to coincide with a given number on the other, the 
 product or some other function of the two numbers is ob- 
 tained by inspection. The numbers may be adapted to 
 answer various purposes ; but the instrument is chiefly used 
 in gauging, and for the mensuration of timber. 
 
 SLING. (Ger. schlinge.) A weapon made of a strap 
 and two strings, by means of which a stone or other missile 
 is projected with much greater velocity than could be given 
 to it by the hand without such assistance. The velocity 
 with which the projectile is discharged is the same as that 
 with which it is whirled round in a circle having the string 
 for its radius, and may therefore be computed when the 
 time of revolution and the length of the siring are given. 
 The sling was known as a weapon of offence in the earliest 
 ages. 
 
 SLIPS. In Geology, masses of strata separated vertically 
 or aslant. 
 
 SLO \M. Layers of clay between those of coal. 
 
 SLOOP. A vessel with one mast like a cutter; hut 
 having a jib stay, which a cutter has not. Also the general 
 name of ships of war below the size of frigates. 
 
 SLOPS. Clothes and bedding supplied from the ship's 
 stores to the seamen, but at their expense. 
 
 SLOUGH. A Surgical term applied to the separation 
 which ensues between dead ami living parts. 
 
 SLUE. In Naval language, to slue is to turn a cylindri- 
 cal piece of timber, as a mast or boom, about its axis, with- 
 oiii moving it out of its place. 
 
 SLUICE. (Lat. clausus, shut up.) In Hydraulics, a 
 frame of timber, stone, or other solid substance, serving to 
 retain and raise the water of a river or canal, and, when 
 necessary, to give it vent. 
 
 SLUR. In Music, an arch <■ — s connecting two or more 
 nous not on the same degree, indicating to the performer 
 that in playing they are to be united as much as possible. 
 
 SMACK. A vessel with one mast, commonly rigged as 
 a sloop, and used in the coasting trade, or as a tender in the 
 royal navy. The vessels of this name that have long plied 
 between Leith and London are well known, and have 
 always been noted for their security. 
 
 SM ALLPOX. Called also Variola, from varius, changing 
 colour ; because it changes and disfigures the skin. There 
 are two forms of this disease, generally called by medical 
 men the distinct and the confluent; in the former the pus- 
 tules are separate, in the latter they coalesce. Distinct 
 smallpox begins with the usual symptoms of inflammatory 
 fever ; that is, pains in the back and loins, sickness, drowsi- 
 ness, headach, pain upon pressure about the region of the 
 stomach, and in infants one or more epileptic fits. About 
 the end of the third day little red spots, much resembling 
 flea-bites, make their appearance upon the face and head, 
 which spread during the fourth day over the breast, body, 
 and limbs ; about the fifth day a small circular vesicle forms 
 upon each little point, depressed in the centre, surrounded 
 by an inflamed margin, and containing a colourless fluid, 
 and at this time the eruptive fever disappears : about the 
 sixth day the throat becomes sore, and the saliva viscid; 
 and about the eighth day the face is swollen, and the pus- 
 tules round, prominent, and prevalent; about the eleventh 
 day the pustules attain their full size (about that of a pea), 
 and the matter which they contain becomes opaque and 
 yellow, and a dark central spot appears on each ; the swell- 
 ing of the face subsides, and is transferred to the hands and 
 feet, and more or less secondary fever now ensues. After 
 this the pustules become rough, break, and scab over, and 
 a dark brown spot remains for some days ; and if the pus- 
 tules have been large an indentation is left : the remaining 
 symptoms gradually subside, and about the seventeenth or 
 eighteenth day the secondary fever disappears. 
 
 Confluent smallpox i ■; ushered in by a fever of a typhoid 
 rather than of an inflammatory character; all the incipient 
 symptoms are aggravated ; delirium or coma attends them ; 
 
 1131
 
 SMALT. 
 
 and in infants there is diarrhoea, and in adults salivation. 
 The eruption is very irregular in its progress and appear- 
 ance, and usually preceded by re.l patches upon the face, 
 from which the pustules emerge on the second day in the 
 form of clusters somewhat resembling measles. Their 
 progress is rapid ; but instead of being circular and well- 
 dehiied, they are flat and irregular in shape, and contain a 
 brownish fluid very unlike pus: the intermediate species 
 between the clusters are generally pale and flaccid. The 
 tumefaction of the face and running of saliva are greater 
 than in the distinct species ; and the fever does ii • > t cease 
 upon the appearance of the eruption, but about the ninth 
 day it generally becomes aggravated, the eruption livid, and 
 accompanied by petechia; or purple spots ; and about the 
 eleventh day from the commencement of the disease it 
 often terminates fatally. 
 
 This disease is the effect of a specific contagion, and is 
 produced either by inoculation, or by exposure to the effluvia 
 from persons Buffeting under it: in the latter case it is 
 usually called the natural smallpox. When the distinct 
 smallpox goes regularly through the stages above described, 
 it is rarely dangerous, except from mismanagement; but it 
 often leaves a tendency to inflammatory disorders, and in a 
 scrofulous habit it excites that disorder into activity. Any 
 of the symptoms which have just been described as charac- 
 terizing confluent smallpox are alarming ; so is a sudden 
 disappearance of the eruption, or change in its appearance, 
 followed by depression or delirium. In treating the distinct 
 smallpox the febrile symptoms are to be moderated by cool 
 air, saline and mild acid and diluting drinks, and very gentle 
 aperients. Bleeding and purging are in almost all cases to 
 be decidedly avoided. Great irritability may occasionally 
 be allayed bysmall doses of opium and camphor, or, which 
 is preferable, by muriate of morphia: this will also check 
 diarrhoea, should it supervene. The confluent form gene- 
 rally requires more or less of the treatment which is adopt- 
 ed in low or putrid fever. Obstinate vomiting, which is 
 sometimes not only a troublesome but alarming symptom, 
 is best encountered by the saline draught in the act of 
 effervescence, with a few grains of aromatic confection, 
 and a few drops of tincture of opium. 
 
 SMALT. (Germ, schmalz.) A fine blue colour used 
 in painting and printing upon earthenware, and applied to 
 several other purposes in the arts. The finest smalt is 
 made by fusing glass with oxide of cobalt, by which a very- 
 deep blue compound is obtained, which when finely pow- 
 dered acquires a beautiful azure colour. Common smalts 
 are prepared by fusing mixtures of zaflre, sand, and pearlash. 
 
 SMABAGD. (Gr. ouapiyioi.) In modern times used 
 as a synonym of emerald (which see) ; but applied by the 
 ancients to various other precious stones, such as fluor spar, 
 green vitrified lava, green jasper, and green glass. The 
 passage of Pliny (Jfat. Hist, xxxvii. 5.) in which Nero is 
 said to have been in the habit of viewing the gladiatorial 
 combats in a smaragd, is generally understood to signify a 
 smooth polished mirror made of some of the above sub- 
 stances ; but it has been maintained that the emperor was 
 short-sighted, and used a concave eyeglass formed of the 
 Bmaragd. The smaragd is found in various parts of Europe, 
 Asia, and America; but particularly in the Ural mountains, 
 and in the mines of Chili and Mexico. 
 
 BMART TICKET. A certificate of a seaman's having 
 received a wound or hurt. 
 
 SMELL. This sense resides in the mucous or pituitary 
 membrane which lines the nostrils, and the surface of 
 which is more or less convoluted or extended in various 
 orders of animals. In the human subject this membrane 
 is highly vascular, and largely supplied, especially in its 
 upper parts, with nervous filaments, or ramifications of the 
 olfactory trunk, u hich has its origin, by three distinct roots, 
 from the posterior, inferior, and Internal parts of the anterior 
 lobe of the brain, an.l proceeding towards the perforated 
 plate of the ethmoid bone, divides into the small threads 
 just mentioned. 
 
 The physiology of odours is a curious and intricate sub- 
 ject, requiring much more experimental Investigation than 
 it has hitherto received. The air is the great vehicle by 
 
 which their various influences are transmitted in the act of 
 
 Inspiring to the olfactory surfaces, and for the diffusion of 
 most odours a certain degree of humidity in the air appears 
 absolutely essential. There is scarcely any sensi 
 degree of perfection of which varies so mm h in different 
 individuals as that of smell, some being painfully alive to 
 those odorous influences which are not even perceived by 
 others. An obtuseness of this sense is also very frequent, 
 and its almost entire absence bj no means uncommon ; this 
 lecially the' case in certain catarrhal complaints, and 
 in some other affections of the lining membrane of the nose. 
 
 SMEW. The name of the diver called Mergus albellus 
 by Linnaeus. See Mbroos. 
 
 SMIL \ <t;.k (Smilax, one of the genera), form a small 
 
 natural order of Endogenous plants with weak or twining 
 
 1132 b 
 
 SMORZATO. 
 
 stems and reticulated leaves, not distinguishable from those 
 of Exogens. The drug called sarsaparilla, or sarza, is the 
 root of various species inhabiting South America, and is 
 held in high esteem for its diuretic, demulcent, alterative 
 qualities. 
 
 SMOKE. (Low Germ, smuke.) Smoke has been de- 
 fined as the visible effluvium or sensible exhalation of any- 
 thing burning. The term is commonly applied to those 
 results of the combustion or ignition of pit coal which 
 escape from chimneys, and which constitute a serious and 
 well-known evil and nuisance in large towns, manufac- 
 turing districts, and almost everywhere w here large quan- 
 tities of coal are consumed. Coal is often a very complex 
 substance ; but, putting aside its occasional and adventitious 
 ingredients, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen may be 
 regarded as its ordinary and essential constituents ; and the 
 results of its perfect combustion would therefore be carbonic 
 acid, steam, and nitrogen. These substances would consti- 
 tute invisible and incombustible gases and vapour, and 
 would therefore escape from the chimney top, and blend 
 with the atmosphere, without being perceived. But it un- 
 fortunately happens that from the way in which coal is 
 burned its combustion is far from being perfect, and that 
 besides the above-mentioned products inflammable gases 
 and vapours, together with large quantities of very finely 
 divided carbon, constituting soot and black and brown 
 smoke, are vomited forth from the chimney shaft, not only 
 contaminating the air, and making all neighbouring objects 
 black and dirty, but also occasioning great loss of fuel ; so 
 that the smoke of London is not only a nuisance, but a very 
 expensive one, and ought to be put down by legislative 
 enactments, several of which have been from time to time 
 suggested, but unfortunately never enforced, and are at this 
 moment a mere dead letter. 
 
 The neglect which this subject has encountered has 
 arisen chiefly out of the difficulty of enforcing and inculca- 
 ting rational doctrines upon the subject of combustion, and 
 of getting persons to adopt new systems of construction in 
 regard to furnaces and fire-places, new methods of stoking 
 and managing the fire, and new kinds of fuel ; and it is 
 astonishing to observe the obstinacy and perverseness which 
 prevail in these respects amongst the masters as well as 
 the men. There is another cause too, which no doubt has 
 had its influence in retarding the adoption of means for 
 diminishing the smoke nuisance, which is, the shoals of 
 quacks and ignorant empyrics and impostors who have 
 embarked in these speculations ; so that till stringent and 
 coercive measures are adopted in regard to it, founded upon 
 scientific and rational principles, we must be content to 
 continue breathing a tainted air, which fouls the organs of 
 respiration, encrusts our buildings, and covers our books, 
 pictures, and every article of furniture with an enamel of 
 soot, and which dims the atmosphere to such an extent as 
 materially to shorten the duration of metropolitan daylight. 
 
 That ail these evils may be got rid of admits of no doubt, 
 and ultimately with economy and convenience ; though the 
 first introduction of the remedies will probably be attended 
 by many practical difficulties, and considerable incon- 
 venience and expense. One remedy, and the most obvious, 
 consists in the substitution of coke, anthracite, and certain 
 other smokeless fuel, for the bituminous and eminently 
 smoke-generating varieties of coal now in common use. 
 Another is, the construction of fireplaces and furnaces 
 which shall not indeed burn smoke, but prevent its forma- 
 tion. It must be allowed that there are many practical 
 difficulties in the way, rather perhaps of the application 
 than of the invention or perfection of these contrivances ; 
 hut experience has shown that none of these are of such a 
 nature or magnitude that they may not be overcome by 
 perseverance and skill. They nil merge into one common 
 principle, that of mixing air with the combustible vapours 
 and gases generated by the action of heat on pit coal, so 
 that by virtue of a due supply of oxygen they may be made 
 to burn with flame, and become entirely converted into in- 
 combustible and transparent invisible vapours and gases, 
 instead of being, as they now are, only partially burned, by 
 which their carbon is precipitated, and escapes, together 
 with the other imperfectly consumed matters, into the air. 
 The foundation of a practical inquiry into the subject of the 
 prevention of smoke has been laid by Mr. C. YV. Williams 
 of Liverpool {Essays on the Combustion of Coal and Pre- 
 vention of Smoke). The theoretical details are essentially 
 blinded with the whole doctrine of heat; but the investi- 
 gations which most essentially bear u|>on them will be 
 found in .Sir II. Davy's Hcscarchcs into the Philosophy of 
 Flame, 
 
 SMOKE SAIL. A small sail hoisted before the funnel 
 of the galley, when the ship is at anchor head to wind, to 
 screen the quarter deck from the smoke. 
 
 SMORZATO. (It. extinguished.) In Music, a term de- 
 noting that the violin bow is to be drawn to its full extent, 
 but gradually lighter till the sound is nearly lost.
 
 SMUGGLING. 
 
 SMU'GGLING. The offence of defrauding the revenue 
 by tlie introduction of articles into consumption without 
 paying the duties chargeable upon them. It may be coin- 
 Eiitted indifferently either upon the excise or customs 
 revenue. 
 
 Origin and Preventionof Smuggling — This crime, which 
 occupies so prominent a place in the criminal legislation of 
 all modern states, is wholly the result of vicious commercial 
 and financial legislation. It is the fruit either of prohibi- 
 tions of importation, or of oppressively high duties. It does 
 not originate in any depravity inherent in man ; but in the 
 folly and ignorance of legislators. A prohibition against 
 importing a commodity does not take away the taste for it; 
 and the imposition of a high duty on any article occasions 
 a universal desire to escape or evade its payment. Hence 
 the rise and occupation of the smuggler. The risk of being 
 detected in the clandestine introduction of commodities 
 under any system of fiscal regulations may always be 
 valued at a certain average rate ; and wherever the duties 
 exceed this rate, smuggling immediately takes place. Now, 
 there are plainly but two ways of checking this practice, 
 either the temptation to smuggle must be diminished by 
 lowering the duties, or the difficulties in the way of smug- 
 gling must be increased. The first is obviously the more 
 natural and efficient method of effecting the object in view ; 
 but the second has been most generally resorted to, even in 
 cases where the duties were quite excessive. Governments 
 have almost uniformly consulted the persons employed in 
 the collection of the revenue with respect to the best mode 
 of rendering taxes effectual ; though it is clear that the 
 interests, prejudices, and peculiar habits of such persons, 
 ntterly disqualify them from forming a sound opinion on 
 such a subject. They cannot recommend a reduction of 
 duties as a means of repressing smuggling and increasing 
 revenue, without acknowledging their own incapacity to 
 detect and defeat illicit practices ; and the result has been, 
 that instead of ascribing the prevalence of smuggling to its 
 true causes, the officers of customs and excise have almost 
 universally ascribed it to some defect in the laws, or in the 
 mode of administering them, and have proposed repressing 
 it by new regulations, and by increasing the number and 
 severity of the penalties affecting the smuggler. As might 
 have been expected, these attempts have, in the great 
 majority of cases, proved signally unsuccessful. And it 
 has been invariably found that no vigilance on the jiart of 
 the revenue officers, and no severity of punishment, can 
 prevent the smuggling of such commodities as are either 
 prohibited or loaded with oppressive duties. The smuggler 
 is generally a popular character; and whatever the law 
 may declare on the subject, it is quite ludicrous to expect 
 that the bulk of society will ever be brought to think that 
 those who furnish them with cheap brandy, geneva, to- 
 bacco, &c. are guilty of any very heinous offence. 
 
 " To pretend," says Dr. Smith, " to have any scruple 
 about buying smuggled goods, though a manifest encourage- 
 ment to the violation of the revenue laws, and to the per- 
 jury which almost always attends it, would, in most coun- 
 tries, be regarded as one of those pedantic pieces of hy- 
 pocrisy, which, instead of gaining credit with anybody, seems 
 only to expose the person who affects to practise them to 
 the suspicion of being a greater knave than most of his 
 neighbours. By this indulgence of the public, the smuggler 
 is often encouraged to continue a trade which he is thus 
 taught to consider as in some measure innocent ; and when 
 the severity of the revenue laws is ready to fall upon him, 
 he is frequently disposed to defend with violence what he 
 has been accustomed to regard as his just property ; and 
 from being at first rather imprudent than criminal, he at last 
 too often becomes one of the most determined violators of 
 the laws of society." (JVealth of Stations, vol. iii., p. 401.) 
 
 To create by means of high duties an overwhelming 
 temptation to indulge in crime, and then to punish men for 
 indulging in it, is a proceeding completely subversive of every 
 principle of justice. It revolts the natural feelings of the 
 people ; and teaches them to feel an interest in the worst 
 characters — for such smugglers generally are — to espouse 
 their cause, and avenge their wrongs. A punishment which 
 is not proportioned to the offence, and which does not carry 
 the sanction of public opinion along with it, can never be 
 productive of any good effect. The true way to put down 
 smuggling is to render it unprofitable, to diminish the temp- 
 tation to engage in it ; and this is not to be done bv sur- 
 rounding the coasts with cordons of troops, by the multipli- 
 cation of oaths and penalties, and making the country the 
 theatre of ferocious and bloody contests in the field, and of 
 perjury and chicanery in the courts of law : but by repeal- 
 ing prohibitions, and reducing duties, so that their collection 
 may be enforced with a moderate degree of vigilance, and 
 that the forfeiture of the article may be a sufficent penalty 
 upon the smuggler. It is in this, and in this only, that we 
 must seek for an effectual check to illicit trafficking. When- 
 ever the profits of the fair trader become nearly equal to 
 89 
 
 SNOW. 
 
 those of the smuggler, the latter is forced to abandon his 
 hazardous profession. But so long as prohibitions or op- 
 pressively high duties are kept up, or which is, in fact, the 
 same thing, so long as high bounties are held out to encour- 
 age the adventurous, the needy, and the profligate to enter 
 on this career, we may be assured that armies of excise and 
 custom-house officers, backed by the utmost severity of the 
 revenue laws, will be insufficient to hinder them. (For full 
 particulars respecting the law of smuggling, &.c, see the 
 Com. Diet.) 
 
 SMUT. A disease incidental to corn crops, by which the 
 farina of the grain in the whole body of the seed is convert- 
 ed into a black, soot-like powder. li'an ear of corn affected 
 by this disease be smartly struck with the finger, the pow- 
 der will be dispersed like that of the fungus known as 
 Lycoperdon bonista, the common puff-ball found in pastures, 
 but darker ; and if a portion of the powder be moistened and 
 examined with the microscope, it will be found to consist of 
 innumerable minute transparent globules. Some attributa 
 the smut to the richness of the soil, and others consider it as a 
 hereditary disease transmitted by one generation to another 
 through the seed. Wildenow and Wirbel regard it as a 
 small fungus ; but Bauer believes it to be a proper disease, 
 indicated by a morbid swelling of the ear. Some cultivators 
 steep the grain of smutty corn in a weak solution of arsenic 
 before sowing ; but others deny the efficacy of this prepara- 
 tion. Smutty grain is separated from such as may be used 
 for seed, or for grinding into flour, by being rapidly whirled 
 round in a cylinder lined with brushes ; or by steeping in 
 water, when the smut, from its lightness, floats on the sur- 
 face. The safest mode for the farmer to pursue is never to 
 sow grain from a field in which the smut has prevailed. 
 
 SNAKE ROOT. This term is applied to the root of the 
 Aristolochia. serpentaria, a native of Virginia ; it is a fibrous, 
 aromatic, and bitterish root. The infusion is occasionally 
 used as a tonic and diaphoretic : in typhoid fevers it is a 
 good adjunct to Peruvian bark, and to quinia. 
 
 SNAKE WOOD. The wood of the Strychnos colubrina. 
 Supposed to be an antidote to the poison of certain snakes. 
 
 SNEEZING. A convulsive action of the respiratory' or- 
 gans, brought on by irritation of the nostrils. Violent fits 
 of sneezing have occasionally attacked persons, and are 
 even said to have proved fatal ; recourse must in such cases 
 be had to soothing the nasal membrane by the application 
 of warm milk and water, or decoction of poppies. 
 
 SNIPE. The common name of the Scolopaz gallinago, 
 Linn. This bird is a plentiful species in most parts of Great 
 Britain. In wet seasons it resorts to the hills and higher 
 grounds ; in ordinary seasons it frequents marshes. Its prin- 
 cipal food is worms, in quest of which it penetrates the soft 
 earth with its long and slender bill, which is especially or- 
 ganized for that purpose. 
 
 SNOW. (Ger. schnee.) Congealed water* which falls 
 from the bosom of the atmosphere. Very little is yet known 
 respecting the formation of this meteor. It has not been as- 
 certained, for instance, whether the clouds which produce 
 it are composed of vesicular vapours, or of frozen particles; 
 nor whether the flakes are completely formed before they 
 begin to descend, or receive an increase in passing through 
 the lower strata of the atmosphere. The temperature of 
 the flakes, and the circumstances which determine their 
 form and volume, are likewise unknown. The only obser- 
 vations which may be considered as in any degree complete, 
 are with reference to the different forms which the flakes 
 assume. This subject was considered by Kepler, Hooke, 
 Cassini, Muschenbroek, and many others ; but the most in- 
 teresting series of observations we possess are those of 
 Scoresby (Account of the Arctic Regions, 18-20), who has re- 
 duced the different forms into classes, and given a number 
 of excellent representations of the flakes in different states. 
 Generally speaking, when examined with the microscope 
 they present modifications of stelliform and hexagonal 
 crystals ; and frequently they consist of a star of six rays 
 formed of prisms united at angles of 60°, from which other 
 prisms shoot at similar angles, giving the whole an appear- 
 ance of exquisite beauty and great regularity. The variety 
 of modifications is probably owing to the state of the atmo- 
 sphere when the snow is formed. If the crystallization takes 
 place when the air is calm, the crystals will be regularly 
 formed ; on the contrary, they will be irregular and imper- 
 fect when the air is much agitated. Sometimes the flakea 
 present no traces of crystallization. 
 
 Snow is much less dense than ordinary ice. The bulk, of 
 a given weight of ice is only about a ninth part greater than 
 that of the water from which it is formed, while the bulk 
 of new-fallen snow is ten or twelve times -greater than that 
 of the water obtained by melting it. 
 
 At moderate elevations above the sea, and in the mean 
 latitudes, snow most frequently falls after some days of 
 pretty hard frost, and when the temperature of the air, 
 thouch still a few degrees above the freezing point, is sensi- 
 bly mitigated. On this circumstance is founded the remari 
 
 1133,
 
 SNOW. 
 
 that it cannot snow in very severe cold ; and though the re- ] 
 mark does not always hold good, it will do so generally, for i 
 two reasons: in the first place, the air which comes from ] 
 very old regions contains a small portion of watery vapour; 
 and secondly, because the formation of clouds, by diminish- 
 ing the radiation, necessarily mitigates the severity of the 
 cold. 
 
 As snow can only be formed when the temperature of 
 the atmospheric strata containing the aqueous vapour is be- 
 low the freezing point, it is obvious that if the snow in fall- 
 ing parses into strata of a higher temperature, it will be 
 melted before arriving at the surface of the earth. Hence 
 it follows thai it never snows in the torrid zone, nor in the 
 luats of summer, excepting on the tops of very elevated 
 mountains. 
 
 Red .Snow. — It had been remarked by the ancients that 
 snow sometimes assumes a red tint, anil Pliny ascribes the 
 cause to age : Ipsa niz vctustate rubescit. Many modern 
 observers have described and examined this curious phe- 
 nomena, which appears to be met with in all parts of the 
 world. Snussure observed red snow on the Bevem in 1760, 
 and on St. Bernard in 1778; and he supposed the colouring 
 matter to consist of a vegetable dust. Ramond met with it 
 in the Pyrenees, Captain Ross in Baffin's Bay ; Parry, 
 Franklin, and Scoresby collected it in still higher northern 
 latitudes ; and it has been found abundantly in New Shet- 
 land in latitude 70° south. Among the Alps it is generally 
 found in low sheltered spots, and penetrating to the depth 
 of two or three inches ; or rather the strata in which it is 
 found (for it occurs overlaid at considerable depths) seldom 
 exceed two or three inches in thickness. The colouring 
 matter of this singular substance has been examined by 
 Wollaston, R. Brown, De Candolle, Thenard, Bauer, &c. 
 Dr. Wollaston first remarked that it is composed of minute 
 spherical globules, which have a transparent envelop, and 
 are divided into seven or eight small cells filled with a 
 species of red oil insoluble in water. Mr. R. Brown and De 
 Candolle supposed the globules to be a kind of algEe. Mr. 
 Bauer {Phil. Trans., 18*2U) found the globules to be exactly 
 identical in snow collected in Baffin's Bay and New Shet- 
 land ; and he supposed them to be small mushrooms of the 
 genus Uredo, lot tiling a peculiar species, to which he gave 
 the name of Undo nivalis. 
 
 Snow Line, or Limit of Perpetual Snow. — Since the tem- 
 perature of the atmosphere continually diminishes in ascend- 
 ing from the surface into the higher altitudes, there must be 
 in every latitude a certain limit of elevation at which the air 
 attains the temperature of freezing water. This limit is 
 called the snow line, or line of perpetual congelation ; and 
 the mountains which rise above it are covered with per- 
 petual snow. Within the tropics the temperature varies 
 little throughout the year, and hence the snow line is dis- 
 tinctly marked ; but in countries remote from the equator 
 the limit of congelation rises in summer and descends in 
 winter through a band or zone of considerable breadth. The 
 line of perpetual congelation is, of course, the summer limit. 
 The altitude of the snow line, however, is not dependent upon 
 latitude alone, hut also on the configuration and aspects of 
 the mountain chains, the extent and temperature of the sur- 
 rounding plains, the quantity of snow that falls annually, 
 and the multitude of eaitses which influence the climate of 
 a country. (.See Climate.) On the Himalaya chain, for ex- 
 ample, tlie limit of perpetual congelation on the northern 
 side is at tin elevation exceeding by upwards of 4400 feet 
 that on the southern side, though the hitter is directly ex- 
 posed to the sun ; a circumstance which Humboldt ascribes 
 to the radiation from the great plain of Thibet, the general 
 serenity of the climate, and the rarity of snow in an exceed- 
 ingly cold and dry atmosphere. -No' dependence, therefore, 
 can he placed on any general rule for estimating the height 
 
 of the snow line, anil it affords ;m exceedingly fallacious in- 
 dication of the altitude of mountains. The following table 
 is given by Humboldt in his Fragmens Asiatiques, p. 549. 
 The elevations stated are the heights of the line of perpetual 
 congelation above the level of the sea, and the measures 
 are reduced to English feet. 
 
 Mountain Chains. 
 
 Latitude. 
 
 Elevation. 
 
 Cordilleras of Quito .... 
 Cordillciasof Bolivia .... 
 Cordilleras of Mexico .... 
 „■,,,„ ) Northern sids . . > 
 Himalaya j Whcru 5ide . , \ 
 
 Carpathian! 
 
 
 
 v \ Interior .... 
 
 Norway . Caa{ .... 
 
 0°— lJ°S. 
 16 - 179 
 19*N. 
 31 
 43 
 43 
 46 
 49 
 60 
 70 
 7l4 
 
 Ftrt. 
 15.-30 
 17,060 
 
 i i 
 \ 16,! in 
 j 12,470 
 ■-."•.II 
 10,870 
 8,760 
 
 8,618 
 2.302 
 
 (Me, in nddition to the works already cited, Humboldt, 
 Mtmotre $ur la. Liinitc dc Neige perpetuelle duns Us Mtrn 
 
 SOAP. 
 
 tagnes de VHimalaya, et les Regions Equatorealcs, in the 
 Annales de Chiinie, tome xiv.) 
 
 SOAP. 'Gr. cru77toi/, Lat. sapo.) This useful compound 
 is obtained by the action of alkaline upon oily substances. 
 There are. accordingly, a great variety of soaps; but those 
 commonly employed may be considered under the heads 
 of, 1. Fine white soaps, scented soap, &.c. ; 2. Coarse house- 
 hold soaps ; :i. Boil soaps. The materials used in the manu- 
 facture of white soaps are generally olive oil and carbonate 
 of soda : the latter is rendered caustic by the operation of 
 quicklime, and the solution thus obtained is called soap ley. 
 The oil and a weak ley are first boiled together, and portions 
 of stronger ley are gradually added till the soap, produced 
 by the mutual action of the oil and alkali, begins to become 
 tenacious and to separate from the water; some common 
 salt is then generally added to promote the granulation and 
 perfect separation of the soap : the fire is then drawn, and 
 the contents of the boiler allowed to remain for some hours 
 at rest, so that the soap may more completely collect. 
 When it is perfect it is put into wooden frames or moulds ; 
 and when stiff enough to be handled, it is cut into oblong 
 slices and dried in an airy room. Perfumes are occasionally 
 added, or various colouring matters stirred in while the soap 
 is semifluid to give it a mottled appearance. The Spanish 
 soap is marbled by stirring into it a solution of sulphate of 
 iron, which is decomposed by the soap, and black oxide of 
 iron separated in streaks and patches through the mass. The 
 action of the air converts the exterior into red oxide, while 
 the interior long retains Its black colour ; hence a slice of 
 this soap presents a black mottled centre, surrounded by a 
 reddened external layer. 
 
 Common household soaps are made chiefly of soda and 
 tallow ; or if potash is used, a large addition of common 
 salt is made to harden the soap, which it probably effects by 
 the transference of soda. Yellow soap has a portion of 
 rosin added to it. Soft soaps are generally made with pot- 
 ash instead of soda, and fish oil. The common soft soap 
 used in London is a compound of this kind ; it has a tena- 
 cious consistence, and appears granulated. Soap is soluble 
 in pure water and in alcohol ; the latter solution jellies 
 when concentrated, and is medicinally known under the 
 name of opodeldoc. When carefully evaporated the soap 
 remains in a gelatinous state, which forms, when dry, the ar- 
 ticle sold under the name of transparent soap. 
 
 The earths and common metallic oxides form insoluble 
 soaps ; and accordingly these are precipitated when earthy 
 and metallic stilts are added to solution of soap. It is the 
 sulphate of lime and carbonate of lime in common spring 
 water which thus render it unfit for washing, and give it 
 what is termed hardness ; and, upon this principle, a spirit- 
 uous solution of soap is a simple and valuable test of the fit- 
 ness of any river or spring water for the purposes of the 
 laundry. If it merely renders the water slightly opalescent, 
 as is the case with rain and other soft waters, it may be 
 used for washing; but if it become milky, it is usually too 
 hard to be conveniently employed ; and when we wash or 
 shave with hard water, the separation of the insoluble cal- 
 careous soap is extremely disagreeable ; it adheres to the skin, 
 and soils instead of cleansing it. 
 
 The chemical nature of soap has been laboriously exam- 
 ined by Chevreul, who has shown that the alkali in the pro- 
 cess of saponification converts the oil into peculiar acids, as 
 he terms them ; the elain of the oil forming oleic acid, and 
 the stearine margaric acid : so that soluble soaps are oleates 
 and margarales of soda and potash. He has enumerated 
 several other fatty acids similarly produced. 
 
 All new soaps contain a considerable portion of adhering 
 water, a great part of which they lose when kept in a dry 
 place ; hence the economy and excellence of old soap ; and 
 hence the dealers in soap generally keep it in a damp cel- 
 lar, that it may not lose weight by evaporation ; or, as it is 
 stud, sometimes Immerse it in brine, which does not dissolve 
 
 it, lint keeps it in its utmost state of humidity. 
 
 Soap may he considered as a necessary of life ; in all civ- 
 ilized countries its consumption is immense. According to 
 Pliny, the invention of soap must be ascribed to the Gauls, 
 by whom, he says, it was composed of tallow and ashes, 
 though the German soap was considered the best. Hence 
 the Cat. sapo, which by a slight transposition of letters has 
 become soap, is probably derived from the old German sepe 
 (now- written setfi ). The great seat.s of the soap manufac- 
 ture in Great Britain are Liverpool, London, Runcorn, Bris- 
 tol, Bromsgrove, Brentford, Hull, and Glasgow. Thus, of 
 154,796,853 lbs. of hard soap made in 1839, Liverpool fur 
 Dished 43,546,119 lbs.; London, 38,0bTi,175 lbs; Runcorn, 
 11,034,324 lbs. ; Bristol, 7,512,440 lbs. ; Bromsgrove, 5,854,213 
 lbs.; Brentford, 4,938,444 lbs.; Hull, 4,666,435 lbs.; and 
 ... 5,858 -II lbs. of 14,874,963 lbs. of soft soap made 
 in the -nine year, Liverpool furnished about one half, the 
 rest being supplied bj Glasgow, Bradford, Aberdeen, Paisley, 
 etc. The manufacture of hard soap i- subject to a duty of 
 li</. per lb., that of suit soap to a duty of id. per lb.
 
 SOAP STONE. 
 
 SOAP STONE. A mineralogical synonym of steatite. 
 SOAVE, SOAVEMENTE. (It. sweet, sweet'y.) In 
 Music, a term denoting to the player that the music to 
 Which it is prefixed is to be executed with sweetness. 
 
 SO'BRiaUET. In French, a burlesque appellation or 
 nickname. The word has been variously derived from the 
 Lat. subridiculum, subrusticum, and the Gr. hGpiariKov, &c. 
 There is a curious dissertation in vol. xiv. of the Histoire de 
 V Academic dcs Inscrip., on the authority of these appella- 
 tions in history. 
 
 SO'CAGE (Mod. Lat. socagium; from the Anglo-Saxon 
 soke, or plough), denotes, according to Blackstone, in its 
 original and most extensive signification, a tenure by any 
 certain and determinate service. The sokemen at and im- 
 mediately before the Norman conquest appear to have been 
 in the lowest ranks of free cultivators of the land, being 
 classed along with the villein in a law of Edward the Con- 
 fessor. But by the time when the works of Bracton and the 
 author of Fleta were compiled, socage had come to signify 
 any tenure not military or quasimilitary ; ('. e., either where 
 military services were due (tenure in chivalry or by knight 
 service), or other services of an honorary kind, such as by 
 the French feudal law were due on what were called im- 
 perfect fiefs (tenure by grand serjeanty). Socage, therefore, 
 comprehended various descriptions of tenure, and has been 
 generally divided into free and villein socage. In free so- 
 cage, the services were certain, and, in the feudal sense, not 
 base or dishonourable, as the payment of an annual rent ; 
 and none of the feudal incidents of wardship, &c, were de- 
 mandable in respect of lands so held, although certain aids 
 and reliefs were peculiar to socage as well as to knight ser- 
 vice. By the stat. 12 C. 2, c. 24, when military tenures were 
 abolished, all sorts of tenures held of the king and others 
 (except frank-almoign, copyhold, and the honorary part of 
 grand serjeanty) were turned into tenure by free or common 
 socage. Villein socage was a species of tenure in lands held 
 of the king by certain villein services, but certain and deter- 
 minate, from which mixed species of tenure arose that in 
 ancient demesne. Lands so held are deemed to be in cer- 
 tain respects copyhold ; and these were within the excep- 
 tions of the statute 12 Charles 2, and still subsist. 
 
 SOCIETY. (Lat. socius, a companion.) The term usu- 
 ally applied to an association for the promotion of some 
 object, either literary, religious, benevolent, political, or con- 
 vivial. Associations formed for commercial purposes are 
 usually styled companies ; which see. Literary societies 
 extend their attention to all the sciences and literature ge- 
 nerally, or to particular divisions of each. The chief lite- 
 rary societies of Europe have been noticed under Academy. 
 The purposes for which benevolent and religious societies 
 are formed will be best inferred from the epithets with which 
 they are connected ; thus temperance societies are established 
 With a view to promote sobriety, mendicity societies for the 
 relief of the indigent, &c. There is no feature, perhaps, 
 which distinguishes a civilized from a savage state more 
 than the establishment of such societies; and in this view 
 England has a right to claim a place in the foremost ranks 
 of civilization, whether we regard the number or the prin- 
 ciples of the management of its religious and benevolent 
 institutions. It would be impossible in this place to give 
 even the names of the chief societies of this nature scat- 
 tered throughout the country; but the reader will find an 
 account of them in the various reports published from time 
 to time by their respective directors, and embodying a mass 
 of information respecting them at once amusing and instruc- 
 tive. 
 
 Societies formed for convivial or political purposes are 
 most usually denominated clubs — a term which may be 
 truly said to be exclusively English, and which embraces 
 so many complex ideas that it is all but impossible to reduce 
 It within the limits of a precise definition. The origin of 
 clubs may be said to date from the end of the 17th century. 
 It would be superfluous to call to the reader's remembrance 
 lhe beau ideal of a club which Addison has drawn in the 
 Spectator — the Kit-Kat club, which numbered among its 
 members all the most distinguished persons of the day ; the 
 Scriblerus club, of which Swift, Harley, Pope, Gay, and 
 Arbuthnot were members ; or that still nearer our own times 
 originally held at the Essex Head, which was ennobled by 
 the genius of Johnson, Burke, Reynolds, Goldsmith, Wynd- 
 ham, and Fox. They were originally instituted solely for 
 convivial purposes; but in the course of time the term club 
 was successively adopted by various political associations, 
 both in this country and on the Continent. Since the com- 
 mencement or the present century, the chief clubs have 
 been either of an avowed political character, as the Carl- 
 ton, Boodle, and the Reform clubs; or devoted exclusively 
 to certain classes, as the United Service, the Oxford, anil 
 Cambridge ; or open to all gentlemen on election, with- 
 out regard to political party or profession, as the Athenaeum, 
 Wyndhatn, &c. There are about forty clubs in the metro- 
 polis. They consist each of a limited number of members, 
 
 SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 varying from 1000 to 1500, who are admitted by ballot, and 
 pay from ten to twenty-five guineas on their admission, and 
 an annual subscription, varying from five to ten guineas. 
 We need scarcely add, that the club-houses are, generally 
 speaking, splendid edifices, which add much to the magni- 
 ficence of the streets and squares in which they are situated. 
 The latest appropriation of the term club has been made 
 by several associations — such as the Roxburgh club of Lon- 
 don, the Bannatyne of Edinburgh, and the Maitland of 
 Glasgow — which were formed for the purpose of printing 
 original MSS., which would not otherwise have seen the 
 light, or of rescuing rare productions from oblivion by re- 
 printing them from scarce and valuable editions. 
 
 SOCI'NIANS. The followers of Socinus, the uncle and 
 the nephew, both of the same name, and celebrated for 
 similar opinions concerning the nature of Christ. The ne- 
 phew, Faustus Socinus, was the principal founder of the 
 sect. He was an Italian, born at Sienna in 1539 ; who, after 
 publishing a treatise upon the nature of the Saviour, desired 
 to be admitted into a society of Unitarians already existing 
 in Poland. Their opinions do not appear to have precisely 
 corresponded with his, and admission was refused him; 
 nor did he effect during his lifetime the institution of any 
 distinct congregation ; but the views which he disseminated 
 in his writings were gradually referred to and adopted by 
 many ministers and religious communities, especially in Po- 
 land, where Crellius, Wolgozenius, and others published a 
 Socinian system of theology, comprised in the Bibliotheca 
 Fratrum Polonorum. 
 
 Since the death of Socinus, the theologians who have as- 
 serted the mere humanity of Christ have been generally 
 denominated Socinians. The doctrines, however, to which 
 that appellation can with strictness be applied are not pre- 
 cisely equivalent to those of the modern Unitarians. The 
 Socinian denies the existence of Christ previous to his birth 
 of the Virgin Mary : he allows, however, that that birth 
 was miraculous, and considers the Saviour as an object of 
 peculiar reverence and an inferior degree of worship. By 
 the term Mediator, as applied to Christ, he understands that 
 in establishing the new covenant he was the medium be- 
 tween God and man ; and of his sacrifice he says that as 
 the Jewish sacrifices were not made for the payment of 
 sins, but for the remission of them, so also the death of 
 Christ was designed for the remission of sins through God's 
 favour, and not for the satisfaction of them as an equiva- 
 lent. (See Mosheim, vol. iv. transl. 1790, p. 485, &c, art. 
 " Unitarians.") 
 
 SOCK. (Lat. soccus.) The name given to the peculiar 
 kind of shoe worn by the ancient Roman comedions ; hence 
 used metaphorically for comedy itself. See Buskin. 
 
 SO'CLE. (It. zoccoli, a shoe.) In Architecture, a square 
 member, whose breadth is greater than its height; used in- 
 stead of a pedestal for the reception of a column. It differs 
 from a pedestal in being without base or cornice. 
 
 SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY, in a more extensive sense, 
 is used to comprehend the whole development of philosophy 
 of Greece from Socrates to the Neo Platonists. The title is 
 so far just, as all the schools of this period, with the single 
 exception of the Epicurean, called themselves by the name 
 of Socrates, and arrogated to themselves the merit of exclu- 
 sively propagating the true doctrines of Socrates. But in a 
 narrow and more proper signification, it signifies the pecu- 
 liar direction and method which Socrates gave to philoso- 
 phical inquiry. Rightly to understand this, a brief retro- 
 spect of the previous state of philosophy is requisite. By 
 the due course of things, the Ionian and other earliest phi- 
 losophers of Greece directed themselves to the study of ex- 
 ternal nature ; which, as the outward condition of man's 
 existence, attracts and constrains his attention, and so be- 
 comes the root and source of his intellectual life also. In 
 this state of mental developement man is led to identify 
 himself with the physical objects which are around him, 
 and to form a single and exclusive science — that of universal 
 nature. But on a wider range of observation, man began 
 to perceive that his faculty of reason is not a physical 
 power, but different in kind, and peculiar to himself. And 
 so the belief in the affinity of man to the powers of the sur- 
 rounding world was gradually weakened. Philosophy, 
 then, had now arrived at the point where either the distinc- 
 tion of the ethical and the physical must be set forth in 
 clear evidence ; or else, by adhering to the previous direc- 
 tion of thought, the light which had been, however uncon- 
 sciously, kindled must be obscured and extinguished. To 
 the latter result the labours of the Sophists directly tended ; 
 for Archelaus, the physiologist, had opened the way, by 
 his disquisitions into the nature and constitution of law and 
 custom, in which, starting from a physical point of view, 
 he declared reason to be simply a power of nature, and 
 right to have no other foundation that might. Such at- 
 tempts, however, served to stimulate rather than to repress 
 that inquiry into the nature of the moral and rational, aa 
 distinct from the physical, while other considerations were 
 
 1135
 
 SOCRATIC PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 at this period establishing them as independent sciences. 
 Hut to admit the claims of both as two conflicting science-:, 
 with equal pretensions to universality, was inconsistent 
 with the unifying tendency of philosophy ; and a more sci- 
 entific range of thought was required, adapted to reconcile 
 and combine their opposite conclusions. Such a view 
 could only be presented by logical or dialectical investiga- 
 tions, which, from the nature of science itself, might show 
 that it is essential to the completeness and perfection of 
 science that it should embrace both nature and reason at 
 once. It is this perception of the unity of science which 
 constitutes the true merit of Socrates as a philosopher. In 
 all the accounts of him which either Xenophon or Plato 
 furnish, we invariably discern the attempt, at least, to em- 
 brace every question within the light of universal science; 
 and to prove that every species of knowledge, if legiti- 
 mate, can be pointed out and shown to be a necessary mem- 
 ber of the general idea of science. 
 
 It was not the object of Socrates to establish any per- 
 fectly evolved system of doctrine, so much as to awaken 
 by his discourses a new and more comprehensive pursuit of 
 science, which, no longer one-sided and confined to special 
 branches of inquiry, but convinced of its universality, should 
 direct itself to all that is knowable. But beneath this con- 
 viction of the universality of science, and the oneness of 
 its object-matter, we distinctly trace that division of the 
 latter into dialectics, physics, and ethics, which his succes- 
 sors more distinctly established. To these heads, there- 
 fore, without expressly ascribing them to Socrates, it will 
 he convenient, for the purpose of classification, to refer his 
 several doctrines. 
 
 Under the head of dialectics, we have, on the testimony 
 of Aristotle (Met., xiii., 4), to ascribe to Socrates two of the 
 very first principles of science— the inductive method of 
 proof, and the definition of ideas. The object which Soc- 
 rates had in view by the latter was, by the definition of 
 ideas to determine what the thing is in itself, or its essence. 
 As to the former, we are told by Xenophon that when Soc- 
 rates wished to come to a decision on any point, his inves- 
 tigations proceeded from propositions generally received as 
 true ; and if we are told that he often preferred to take up 
 trifling and improbable positions, it was from a conviction 
 that every thought, however imperfect as a work of rea- 
 son, must necessarily involve the idea of certainty. Anoth- 
 er feature of the Socratic method was to place the particu- 
 lar idea to be examined in a great variety of combinations ; 
 a procedure which is evidently based on a conviction of the 
 connexion of all scientific thought, and implying that every 
 particular thought must, if it contain any degree of certain- 
 ly, maintain its validity under every possible combination. 
 Such was the true Socratic method of dialectics, which 
 derived its name from the form of dialogue {SiaXfyuv} in 
 which it was accidentally worked out ; while, on the other 
 hand, the term Socratic method has, in modern limes, been 
 confined to signify nothing more than this outward form of 
 arguing by question and answer, to the exclusion of its es- 
 sential characteristics. Socrates, indeed, did not evolve any 
 systematic doctrine of the form and subject-matter of sci- 
 ence. He was satisfied with exercising his disciples in its 
 form, and with infixing on their minds the pregnant truth, 
 that the legitimacy of every branch of knowledge must be 
 tested by its agreement with all others ; and that every 
 thought of man must give an account of itself, and have 
 it-s root in a knowledge of his own and the divine nature. 
 This knowledge was the end of his physical inquiries 
 which w.r.- based on the general principle thai all the ob- 
 jects of nature are only so far worthy of inquiry as they 
 exhibit traces of intelligence ami design. The self knowl- 
 edge which the Delphian oracle had enjoined upon him 
 Socrates held to be Impossible, while man is ignorant of 
 the universal principle whence are the issues of all things, 
 and, consequently, of the system of nature in the midst of 
 which man is placed. In order to oppose the atheism which 
 prevailed in his day, Socrates examined the causes of the 
 existing unbelief, and referred to the proofs of divinity 
 which the wise order of natural things exhibits. As the 
 
 prevailing scepticism had its origin in the denial of what- 
 ever is unseen and Imperceptible to the outward senses, he 
 argued that the soul, which is the ruling principle within 
 man, is yet not discernible; but still its existence is admit- 
 ted, and it participates in the divine nature. Whoever, there- 
 fore, can get rid of the weak desire of seeing the Deity un- 
 der some palpable form, may easily recognise his opera- 
 tions within his own mind, where God has implanted a 
 consciousness of his presence. But he farther held, thai 
 not only man, but the whole universe, is under the rule of 
 an intelligent governor; that all is formed for some wise 
 end, and affords evidence of that supreme reason from 
 Which man's rational soul derives and has its being. In the 
 Consideration Of individual things, not less than of the 11,11 
 BOle question With Socrates was tO establish in- 
 telligence as the ruling principle of all. This affords an ex- 
 
 SODA. 
 
 planation of his low estimate of the existing physiology, 
 which has not unfrequently been objected to him. His 
 contempt for it was grounded on the same reason as Ba- 
 con's aversion for the schoolmen. It stopped at secondary 
 causes, and did not remount to the one first cause, which 
 Socrates believed could only be found in intelligence benefi- 
 cently disposing all things for the best. Although the ear- 
 lier philosophers did not entirely neglect the marks of de- 
 sign which may be discovered in the universe, still they 
 confounded nature with intelligence. Socrates, on the con- 
 trary, laboured to show that reason is above nature, and 
 that the natural is merely subservient to intellectual ends. 
 Whatever is without reason is contemptible ; and the cor- 
 poreal is of no value except so far as it ministers to the ra- 
 tional soul. Into the nature of the divine essence he did 
 not inquire, but was content with asserting the principle, 
 that the Deity is the supreme reason, and must be honour- 
 ed by man as the source of all things, and of all phenome- 
 na, and as the end of all human endeavours. Lastly, from 
 the divinity within man, the intelligence visible in the uni- 
 verse, and the worthlessness of body, except as an instru- 
 ment of reason, Socrates deduced the immortality of the 
 soul as a necessary consequence. 
 
 The object-matter of Socrates's disputations exhibit a 
 great preference of ethical to physical topics. This may 
 partly be explained by the fact, that in ethics a scientific 
 spirit of inquiry had yet to be awakened, while physics had 
 been long and extensively cultivated. Partly, also, it had its 
 origin in the mental state of Athens at this period. The 
 art of sophistry, which Socrates was seeking to overthrow, 
 was based on the monstrous dogmas, that there is no truth 
 for man ; that he is the wisest who, rejecting all hope of it, 
 is skilful enough to hide from others his own ignorance 
 and incapacity by an ingenious display of artifices and 
 forms. Successfully to combat these pernicious views, an 
 appeal must be made to those general principles of belief 
 which are implied in, and indispensable to, the right conduct 
 of life ; a strong hold must be taken of what is fixed and 
 indestructible in man in his moral convictions. But, con- 
 tent with thus awakening man to a consciousness of the 
 moral destiny of man, and his moral responsibility, he did 
 not seek to construct an elaborate system of ethics. Hav- 
 ing projected the ideal of science, both in its extent and 
 form, he contributed little to its realization, either as a 
 whole, or in its parts. A few propositions are necessary, 
 however, to exhibit the true spirit of the Socratic ethics. 
 Man naturally strives after happiness ; but in this we must 
 distinguish between accidental good fortune (tvrvx'a) and 
 that which results from science and industry (rtjrodi-ca). 
 The essence, therefore, of the moral act consists in the free 
 agency of man. All virtue is one ; and no act performed 
 without a clear perception of its nature and tendency is 
 either good or evil. There is no merit in a virtuous action 
 unless it has been undertaken as such, intentionally and 
 knowingly, the will being determined thereto by the notion 
 of good. But this natural sense of right may be overborne 
 by a stronger motive. This innate perception of good, 
 therefore, like all other human faculties, stands in need of 
 education to expand and strengthen it. Virtue may be 
 taught, since it consists in the science of good. 
 
 SOD. The grassy surface of the soil pared off" with a 
 portion of the earth ; in other words, turf. 
 
 SO'DA. Natron ; mineral alkali. This important and 
 useful substance is an oxide of sodinm. Sodium was dis- 
 covered by Davy in 1808. It is a rnetal much resembling 
 potassium in its general characters. It is soft, malleable, 
 fusible at 1'.I0°, and burns when heated in contact of air. 
 When thrown upon water it does not bum, but floats about 
 upon the surface, and rapidly disappears, being converted 
 Into soda, which is dissolved in the water, and gives it an 
 alkaline reaction. The specific gravity of sodium is 0-97. 
 By the quantity of hydrogen evolved (hiring the action of 
 sodium on water, we learn that soda, or oxide of sodium, 
 consists of 1 equivalent of sodium = 24, and 1 of oxygen = 
 8. The equivalent of soda, therefore, is 32. The com- 
 mercial demands for soda are Chiefly supplied from two 
 sources: the combustion of marine vegetables, such as 
 common sea-weed and the Saisola soda, which furnish the 
 impure alkalies called /;,//> and bari'la; and the decom- 
 position of common salt, or, rather, perhaps, of sulphate of 
 
 soda, obtained by the decomposition of salt by sulphuric 
 
 acid. ( 'arbonate of soda forms large rhombo-prismatic crys- 
 tals, composed of H'2 soda -4- 22 carbonic acid + 90 water. 
 They fuse In their water of crystallization at about 150P, 
 and it may be entirely expelled by exposure to heat. They 
 effloresce w hen exposed to air. Sulphate of soda, or Glau- 
 ber's salt, is the result of the action of sulphuric acid upon 
 common salt. (s,-r Mnuvric Ann.) It consists of 32 soda 
 4- 40 sulphuric acid ; and the crystals are constituted of 72 
 
 dry sulphate and 90 water : they are efflorescent, and solu- 
 ble ill about three parts of cold water. When sodium is 
 introduced into chlorine it Immediately combines with it to
 
 SODALITE. 
 
 form chloride of sodium, or common salt; if heated in the 
 gas, it burns very vividly : 24 parts of sodium combine with 
 36 of chlorine to form 60 parts of this important and well- 
 known compound. (See Salt.) When chlorine gas is pass- 
 ed into a weak solution of caustic soda it is absorbed, and a 
 useful bleaching and disinfecting solution is obtained, which 
 has been called L.abarracque' s disinfecting soda liquid. 
 
 SO'DALITE. A mineral composed chiefly of silica, 
 alumina, and soda. 
 
 SODA WATER. This common and refreshing beverage 
 is, as usually prepared, a supersaturated solution of carbonic 
 acid gas in water. True soda water was formerly prepared 
 (and is still by some manufacturers) for medical use, chief- 
 ly as a remedy for heartburn, and certain forms of dyspep- 
 sia and calculous complaints ; and consisted of one, two, or 
 three drachms of carbonate of soda, dissolved in a pint of 
 water highly impregnated with carbonic acid. This is often 
 a valuable remedy; but would sometimes be attended by 
 mischievous results, especially if indulged in to the extent 
 to which some persons pursue the use of soda water. The 
 mere aqueous solution of carbonic acid, which is made by 
 forcing the gas into water by a condensing pump, and under 
 a pressure of six or eight atmospheres, is an agreeable and, 
 generally speaking, harmless diluent. 
 
 SOD-BURNING. Burning of turf taken from the sur- 
 face of worn-out pasture lands for the sake of the ashes as 
 manure, &c. 
 
 SODIUM. See Soda. 
 
 SOFFITT. (It. soffitta, overlaid.) In Architecture. See 
 Lacunar. 
 
 SO'FI. A Persian word, which is employed to designate 
 religious persons, otherwise termed Dervishes. It is proba- 
 bly a corruption of the Greek sophos, wise. Sofi was the 
 surname borne by the ancestors of the kings of Persia of 
 the race preceding that which now occupies the throne; 
 and Shah Ismael Sofi, the first monarch of that race, also 
 bore it; hence by European writers of the 16th and l?th 
 centuries it was used erroneously as a title of the king of 
 
 SO'FLSM, or SUFISM. The mystical doctrines of the 
 class of Mohammedan religionists called Sons. This name 
 is indeed generally applied in the East to persons living to- 
 gether in a monastic way, and professing an ascetic life. 
 But the tenets peculiarly denoted by the name of Sufism 
 are those of a sect which is said to be gaining ground ex- 
 tensively in oriental countries, especially among the edu- 
 cated classes of Mohammedans. These tenets, like those 
 of the (luitetists and other Christian sects of mystics, are 
 founded on a notion of the union of the human soul with 
 the divinity by contemplation and the subjugation of the ap- 
 petites ; but, as has been too frequently the case among 
 Christians also, they have afforded a cover for the most li- 
 centious lessons of refined debauchery. In the last volume 
 of Mr. Buckingham's Oriental Travels, containing a narra- 
 tive of his journey in Mesopotamia, will be found a singular 
 account of one of these monastic philosophers, his doctrines 
 and conduct The principles of Sufism appear also to have 
 a remarkable affinity, in some respects, with those panthe- 
 istic notions which are prominent in the system of the Bra- 
 mins, and seem to form the very foundation of the still 
 more widelv extended religion of Buddha. 
 
 SOFTENING. In Painting, the blending of colours into 
 each other. 
 
 SOIL. The primitive earths in a state of mixture with 
 organized matter fit for the growth of plants. The surface 
 of the earth in every country on which plants have grown 
 and decayed is properly denominated soil ; while the earth 
 at a foot or more beneath the surface, commonly called sub- 
 soil, is comparatively without organized matter, and is 
 therefore properly denominated earth, clay, sand, gravel, 
 lime, or mixed earth, rocks, or stones, as the case may be. 
 
 SOIREE. (Fr. soir, evening.) The term originally given 
 by the French to certain evening parties held for the sake 
 of conversation only, music, dancing, and similar entertain- 
 ments being excluded ; but the word has been since intro- 
 duced into all the languages of modern Europe, and is now 
 employed to designate most descriptions of evening parties 
 in which ladies and gentlemen are intermixed, whatever be 
 the amusements introduced. It is frequently applied in 
 England to the public meetings of certain societies held for 
 the advancement of their respective objects, at which tea 
 and other refreshments are dispensed during the intervals 
 of business. 
 
 SOKE. A territorial division, now subsisting in Lincoln- 
 shire. This term, according to the etymology given by 
 Bracton, designated a precinct in which a particular lord 
 exercised justice. 
 
 SOL. In Music, the fifth note in the gamut. 
 
 SOLAN A'CEiE. (Solanum, one of the genera.) A nat- 
 ural order of herbaceous or shrubby Exogens, inhabit- 
 ing all parts of the world excepting the arctic regions. They 
 are chiefly known from the Scrophulariacem by their curved 
 
 SOLANUM TUBEROSUM. 
 
 or spiral embryo, the plaited estivation of the flower, 
 and the flowers being usually regular, with the same num- 
 ber of stamens as lobes. The first of these characters, how- 
 ever, is not of universal importance ; the plaited corolla and 
 symmetrical flowers are better marks of distinction. This 
 order contains nightshade, henbane, mandrake, tobacco, 
 stramonium, the potato, and the tomato, the leaves of all 
 which are narcotic and exciting, but in different degrees — 
 from Atropa belladonna, which causes vertigo, convulsions, 
 and vomiting ; tobacco, which will frequently produce the 
 first and last of these symptoms ; henbane and stramonium 
 — down to some of the Solanum tribes, the leaves of which 
 are so inert as to be used as kitchen herbs. Even in the 
 potato plant, the narcotic acrid principle is found in the stem 
 and leaves, and even in the rind of the tuber. But the prin- 
 cipal part of the latter consists of starch ; and the small 
 quantity of deleterious matter being volatile and near the 
 surface, is readily driven off by the heat used in cooking. 
 
 SOLA'NIA. The active principle of the Solanum dulca- 
 mara, or woody nightshade. It is a white alkaline sub- 
 stance, insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol ; its combi- 
 nations with the acids are bitter. 
 
 SOLA'NO. A hot oppressive wind which occasionally 
 blows in the Mediterranean, and particularly on the eastern 
 coast of Spain. The solano is a modification of the sirocco. 
 
 SOLA'NUM TUBERO'SUM. The botanical name for 
 the plant of whieh the potato is the root. The potato, 
 which is at present to be met with everywhere in Europe, 
 and forms the principal part of the food of a large propor- 
 tion of its inhabitants, was entirely unknown in this quar- 
 ter of the world till the latter part of the 16th century. It 
 is a native of America ; but whether of both divisions of 
 that continent is doubtful. (Humboldt, JVouvclle Espagne, 
 li v. iv., c. 9.) Some authors affirm that it was first introduced 
 into Europe by Sir John Hawkins, in 1545; others, that it was 
 introduced by Sir Francis Drake, in 1573; and others, again, 
 that it was for the first time brought to England from Vir- 
 ginia by Sir Walter Raleigh, in 1586. But this discrepancy 
 seems to have arisen from confounding the common or Vir- 
 ginian potato (the Solanum tuberosum of Linnaeus) with the 
 sweet potato (Convolvulus battatus). The latter was in- 
 troduced into Europe long before the former, and it seems 
 most probable that it was the species brought from New 
 Granada by Hawkins. Sweet potatoes require a warm cli- 
 mate, and do not succeed in this country ; they were, how- 
 ever, imported in considerable quantities, during the 16th 
 century, from Spain and the Canaries, and were supposed 
 to have some rather peculiar properties. The kissing com- 
 fits of Falstaff, and such like confections, were principally 
 made of battatas and eringo roots. On the whole, we are 
 inclined to think that we are really indebted for the potato 
 (as well as for tobacco) to Sir Walter Raleigh, or the colo- 
 nists he had planted in Virginia. Gerarde, an old English 
 botanist, mentions in his Herbal, published in 1597, that he 
 had planted the potato in his garden in London about 1590 ; 
 and that it succeeded there as well as in its native soil, 
 Virginia, whence he had received it. Potatoes were at first 
 cultivated by a very few, and were looked upon as a great 
 delicacy. In a manuscript account of the household expen- 
 ses of Queen Anne, wife of James I., who died in 1618, and 
 which is supposed to have been written in 1613, the pur- 
 chase of a very small quantity of potatoes is mentioned at 
 the price of 2s. a pound. The Royal Society, in 1663, rec- 
 ommended the extension of their cultivation, as a means of 
 preventing famine. Previously, however, to 1684, they 
 were raised only in the gardens of the nobility and gentry ; 
 but in that year they were planted for the first time, in the 
 open fields in Lancashire — a county in which they have 
 long been very extensively cultivated. 
 
 Potatoes, it is commonly thought, were not introduced into 
 Ireland till 1610, when a small quantity was sent by Sir Wal- 
 ter Raleigh to be planted in a garden in his estate in the vi- 
 cinity of Youghal. Their cultivation extended far more readi- 
 ly than in England ; and have long furnished from three -fifths 
 to four-fifths of the entire food of the people of Ireland ! 
 
 Potatoes were not raised in Scotland, except in gardens, 
 till 1728, when they were planted in the open fields by a 
 person of the name of Prentice, a day labourer at Kilsyth, 
 who died at Edinburgh 1792. 
 
 The extension of the potato cultivation has been particu- 
 larly rapid during the last forty years. The quantity that 
 is now raised in Scotland is supposed to be from 10 to 12 
 times as great as the quantity raised in it at the end of the 
 American war ; and though the increase in England has 
 not been nearly so great as in Scotland, It has been greater 
 than at any previous period of equal duration. The increase 
 on the Continent has been similar. Potatoes are now very 
 largely cultivated in France, Italy, and Germany ; and, with 
 the exception of the Irish, the Swiss have become their great- 
 est consumers. They were introduced into India some sixty 
 or seventy years ago; and are now successfully cultivated 
 in Bengal, and have been introduced into the Madras proviu- 
 4 B 1137
 
 SOLAR CYCLE. 
 
 ces, Java, the Philippines, and China. But the common 
 potato dot's not thrive within the tropics, unless it be raised 
 
 Bt an elevation of 3000 or 4000 feet above the level of the 
 Bea, so that it can never come into very genera! use in these 
 regions. This, however, is not the ease with the sweet po- \ 
 i which has also been introduced into tropical Asia ; 
 and with such success, that it already forms a considerable 
 portion of the food of the people of Java, and some other 
 countries. So rapid an extension of the taste for, and the 
 cultivation of an exotic, has no parallel in the history of in- 
 dustry : it has had, and will continue to have, the most 
 powerful influence on the condition of mankind. But upon j 
 this part of the subject we must refer the reader for full ! 
 particulars to the Com. Diet., art. " Potatoes," from which 
 the above historical .-ketch has been taken. 
 
 Si )LAR CYCLE. A period of twenty -eight years. See I 
 Cycle. 
 
 SOLAR SYSTEM, in Astronomy, consists of the sun, and 
 all the celestial bodies whose motions are controlled by its 
 gravitation, viz. the planets, satellites, and comets. See 
 Sun, Planet, &C. 
 
 SO LDER. Plumbers' solder is an alloy of three parts of 
 lead and one of tin ; it is more fusible than lead, and readily 
 adheres to clean surfaces of that metal when it is fused. 
 Fine solder is a mixture of two parts of tin ami one of lead ; 
 it fuses at 360°. It is used in the process of tinning copper. 
 Hard soldering, or brazing, by which two surfaces of cop- 
 per are made to adhere, is done by fusing together brass 
 and zinc. When this solder is used, the copper requires to 
 be heated to near its point of fusion. 
 
 SOLDIER. (Lat. soldarius ; literally, one who serves 
 for pay.) In general language, a person equipped and main- 
 tained by the state for the purpose of defending it from for- 
 eign aggression, of putting down intestine commotion ; or, in 
 short, of protecting its interests either at home or abroad, 
 according to instructions issued by the civil government. 
 See Army, Enlistment, &c. 
 
 SO'LEA (Lat. a slipper), in Mammalogy, is the inferior 
 surface of the foot or hoof. 
 
 Solea. The name of a genus of flat fishes (Pleuroneeti- 
 die), characterized as follows: "Both eyes on the right 
 side ; the mouth distorted on the side opposite the eyes ; 
 small teeth in both jaws, but confined to the underside only ; 
 form of the body oblong ; dorsal and anal fins extending to 
 the tail." The common sole ( Solea vulgaris, Cuv.) is ta- 
 ken by trolling, and in enormous quantities, along our coasts, 
 principally from Sussex to Devonshire ; and excepting to- 
 wards the latter end of February, and the beginning of 
 March, when the soles are spawning, and are rather soft 
 and watery, they are in good condition for the table through- 
 out the year. 
 
 SO'LECISM. In Rhetoric and Grammar {GT-coXoimapof, 
 said to be derived from the name of a town in Cilicia, whose 
 inhabitants spoke a barbarous Greek), a violation of the idi- 
 omatic rules of grammar or construction in writing or speak- 
 ing a language. Uuintilian distinguishes solecism from 
 barbarism, the latter word being applied to the erroneous 
 use of single words. 
 
 SOLENA'CEAXS, Solenacea. (Gr. aw\r,v, a tube.) The 
 name of a family of Dimiarv Bivalve Mollusks, of which 
 the razor shell ( Sol en) is the type; they are distinguished 
 by the great length of the respiratory tubes, whence their 
 name. 
 
 SOLEXOID. (Gr. owXrji'.and fn5o?, appearance.) In Elec- 
 tro-Dynamics, a name given by Ampere to a system of small 
 electrical currents, equal and equidistant, and returning into 
 themselves, the planes of which are normals to any given 
 line, whether a straight line or curve, upon which their 
 centres are situated, and which forms the axis of the solen- 
 oid. (Desprctz. Traitede Physique, 1836.) 
 
 BOLFATA'RA. A VOleailic vent emitting sulphur and 
 sulphurous compounds. The term is borrowed from Solfa- 
 terra, the celebrated mountain of Naples called by the an- 
 cients Phlttfrrtti Campi. 
 
 SOLFE'GGIO. In Music, the system of arranging the 
 scale by the names ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, by which musical stu- 
 dents are taught to sing, these notes being represented to the 
 eye by lines and spaces, to which the syllables in question 
 are applied. (See art. Music, under Which will be found 
 n diagram of the scale under the arrangement in question.) 
 
 BOLrCITOR. The professional designation of persons 
 admitted to practice in the court of Chancery in the conduct 
 of suits, fcc., who are styled attorneys in the courts of com- 
 mon law. [See Attorney.) The solicitor-general is an 
 officer of the crown, who holds by patent, and ranks next 
 to the attorney -general, with whom he is, in fact, associated 
 in the management of the legal business of the crown and 
 public offices, lie receives some particular fees on plead- 
 ing*, and on the enrolment of patents. &.c. ; but the' division 
 
 of business between him and the attorney-general Is chiefly 
 
 regulated by usage founded on convenience. He Is the otii 
 ter on whom generally devolve the maintenance of the 
 1180 
 
 SOMNAMBULISM. 
 
 rights of the crown in revenue cases, patent causes, &c. 
 The earliest date at which the name of this officer occurs. BO 
 far as is known, isthe year 1461. In Scotland, the term solicit- 
 or is synonymous with attorney in England. They are inferior 
 to the writers to the si?>i>t. anil practise in llie inferior courts. 
 
 SO'LID. In Phj sics, the term so'idis applied to that con- 
 dition of matter in which the attractive forces of llie mole- 
 cules are greater than the repulsive, and the molecules con- 
 sequently cohere with greater or less force. The other 
 states of matter are the fluid, in which the attractive and 
 repulsive forces are balanced ; and the gaseous, in which. 
 the repulsive prevail. 
 
 Solid. In Geometry, a magnitude which has three di- 
 mensions ; length, breadth, and thickness. The boundaries 
 of solids are surfaces. Regular solids are those which are 
 terminated by regular and equal planes. They are five in 
 number, viz. the tetraedron, the liexaedron, the octaedron, 
 the doderaedron, and the icosaedron. See Platonic Bodies. 
 
 SO'LID ANGLE, in Geometry, is an angle made by the 
 meeting of more than two plane angles which are not in the 
 same plane in one point. 
 
 SO'LID PROBLEM. In Geometry a problem which can- 
 not be constructed by the intersections of circles and straight 
 lines, but requires for its geometrical construction the de- 
 scription of one or more conic sections. The algebraic so- 
 lution of a solid problem leads to a cubic or biquadratic 
 equation. Problems which admit of being constructed by 
 the intersection of two circles, or of a straight line and circle, 
 are called plane problems, and their equations are of the 
 second degree. 
 
 SOLIDU'NGULATES, Solidungula. (Lat.solidus, solid; 
 ungula, a hoof.) The name of a tribe of Mammals, inclu- 
 ding those with only a single hoof on each foot ; as the horse, 
 ass, &c. 
 
 SOLI'LOQUY. See Monologue. 
 
 SO'LIPEDS. Synonymous with Solidungulates, which 
 
 SOLLE'CITO. (It. afflicted.) In Music, a term deno- 
 ting that the movement to which it is affixed is to be per- 
 formed in a mournful manner. It also means that the mu- 
 sic is to be performed carefully. 
 
 SO'LO. (It. alone.) In Music, a movement, or part of a 
 movement, in which only one voice or instrument is em- 
 ployed. 
 
 SO'LSTICE. (Lat. solstitium.) The time at which the 
 sun is at its greatest distance from the equator, and when its 
 diurnal motion in declination ceases. This happens at mid- 
 summer and at midwinter ; or when the sun arrives at 
 the tropic of Cancer, and the tropic of Capricorn. 
 
 SOLSTITIAL POINTS, are those points of the ecliptic 
 at which the sun arrives at the time of the solstices. They 
 are the first points of Cancer and Capricorn. 
 
 SOLUTION. (Lat. solvere, to untie.) In Mathematics, 
 the construction of a proposed problem, or the expression 
 of Its conditions by an equation which gives the value of 
 the unknown quantity. 
 
 SO'MMITE. A mineralogical name of the nephelin of 
 Somma and Vesuvius. See Nepheline. 
 
 SOMNA'MBULISM. (Lat. somno amhulare, to walk in 
 one's sleep.) This is a species of dreaming, in which the 
 bodily as well as the mental functions are affected. There 
 are many remarkable cases of this kind on record, some of 
 which would appear perfectly incredible, were they not attes- 
 ted not only by creditable, but by competent and scientific 
 witnesses. Somnambulism has been defined, as "a state in 
 which the mind retains its power over the limbs, hut posses- 
 ses no influence over its own thoughts, and scarcely any over 
 the body, excepting those particular members of it which 
 are employed in walking." Dr. Abercnomby in his excel- 
 lent Inquiries concerning the Inti llectual Powers and the In- 
 vestigation of Truth, observes, in regard to this singular af- 
 fection, that although the mind is fixed upon its own im- 
 pressions as in ordinary dreaming, the bodily organs are 
 more under the control of the will ; so that the individual 
 acts under the influence of his erroneous conceptions, and 
 holds conversation in regard to them. He is also, to a cer- 
 tain decree, susceptible rjf impressions from without, through 
 his organs of sense ; not, however, so as to correct his erro- 
 neous impressions, hut rather to be mixed up with them. 
 Dr. Abercromby observes, that the first degree of somnam- 
 bulism generally shows Itself by a propensity to talk during 
 sleep; the person giving a full and connected account of 
 what pisses before him in dreams, and often revealing his 
 own secrets and those of his friends. Walking during slcfp 
 is the next degree, and that from which the affection de- 
 rives its name. He gets out of bed. often dresses himself, 
 and goes out of doors, walks frequently over very dangerous 
 
 places in safety ; sometimes he gets out of a window, walks 
 along a parapet, gets to Ihe roof of the house, and returns 
 through similar risks to his apartment. On awaking in the 
 morning he is either utterly unconscious of having stirred 
 during the night, or remembers it as a mere dream. These
 
 SOMNUS. 
 
 cases are comparatively common ; but sometimes trie trans- 
 actions of the somnambulist are carried much further: he 
 Will mount his horse and ride, or go to his usual occupa- 
 tions, such as threshing, saddle-making, playing on musical 
 instruments, composing verses, and so forth. 
 
 Although somnambulists are generally insensible to any- 
 thing that is said to them, they are sometimes capable 
 of holding conversation, especially in those cases where 
 the affection occurs, as it sometimes does in the day- 
 time. In these attacks the individuals are generally 
 unconscious of external impressions, or at all events ex- 
 tremely confused in their notions of external things. They 
 frequently speak intelligibly, but in reference to the impres- 
 sions which are present in their own minds. They some- 
 times repeat poetry, and other matters of which they were 
 supposed to be perfectly ignorant; or they hold conversa- 
 tions with imaginary beings, or relate circumstances which 
 were supposed to have been entirely unnoticed or forgotten. 
 Some have been known to sing in a style superior to any- 
 thing to which they could attain when awake ; and there 
 are, says Dr. Abercromby, some well- authenticated instan- 
 ces of persons in this condition expressing themselves cor- 
 rectly in languages with which they were imperfectly ac- 
 quainted. 
 
 For the details of individual cases of this extraordinary 
 disorder, we must refer to Dr. Abercromby's instructive 
 volume already quoted] and the authorities therein cited. 
 It is impossible to give any explanation of the extraordinary 
 condition of the faculties which such cases exemplify, or to 
 point out any general plan of treatment applicable to them. 
 
 The more ordinary cases of somnambulism are sometimes 
 cured by tying the patient to some part of the bed, or by se- 
 curing the doors and windows ; so that after ineffectual at- 
 tempts to make his escape he is induced to return to bed, 
 and remains quiet. The state of the stomach and bowels, 
 and of the nervous system, requires careful examination 
 and pro|>er treatment: in some cases intestinal worms ap- 
 pear to have been connected with nocturnal disturbances 
 bearing a close analogy to somnambulism, and which have 
 disappeared after the successful operation of vermifuge rem- 
 edies. 
 
 SO'MNUS, in classical Mythology, the poetical god of 
 sleep, is the son of Erebus and Nox, or of Nox alone. He 
 dwells with his brother Death in a palace at the western 
 extremity of the earth. Homer makes Juno seek him in 
 the isle of Lemnos, whither he had repaired for love of 
 the nymph Pasithea. Ovid makes him dwell in a cavern 
 among the Scythians or Cimmerians ; Statins in ^Ethiopia. 
 
 SONA'TA. (It. sonare, to sound.) In Music, a compo- 
 sition executed wholly by instruments. It is generally a 
 free composition for exhibiting the composer's powers with- 
 out confining him within the rigid rules of counterpoint, 
 or measure. 
 
 SO'NNET. (It. sonetto.) In Poetry, a short composi- 
 tion of fourteen or fifteen lines, deca or endecasyllabic, 
 rhymed according to an intricate but not always precisely 
 similar arrangement. It is the oldest form in which the 
 Italian language was used ; but was, at a still earlier period, 
 employed, although not commonly, by the Provencal poets. 
 In Italy, Dante, and the Tuscan poets his contemporaries, 
 brought the sonnet into public estimation, about the begin- 
 ning of the 14th century ; but by them it was invariably 
 employed as the vehicle of thoughts wrapped in very ob- 
 scure language, and probably of a symbolical nature, though 
 generally, in their outward signification, breathing the spirit 
 of romantic and chivalrous love. By Petrarch, in the 
 course of the same century, the sonnet was carried to per- 
 fection in point of form and polish ; although applied by 
 him, as it had been by his predecessors, almost exclusively 
 to the subject of his figurative and mystical passion. Since 
 the time of Petrarch the sonnet has been a favourite form 
 of composition in Italy, especially for the purposes of occa- 
 sional poetry. In France it has had little success ; or rather 
 the French sonnet is a different poem, less regular in its 
 construction than the Italian. In Germany and England 
 the comparative poverty in rhymes of their respective lan- 
 guages has rendered it unusual ; but Milton has given to it 
 a dignity peculiarly his own, together with much of the 
 melody and tenderness which characterize his Italian mod- 
 els. The proper sonnet is divided into two quatrains, with 
 four lines and two rhymes each, and two terzines, each 
 with three lines and a single rhyme. Pieces of a similar 
 metrical structure in octo-syllabic lines are termed by the 
 Italians Anacreontic sonnets. It is sometimes said that 
 there is " hardly an educated Italian who has not composed 
 a sonnet." 
 
 SO'PHIST. (Gr. cofiarrn ; from co(po;, wise.) A Greek 
 word, originally signifying a person of talent and accom- 
 plishments. It was afterwards restricted to a bad sense, 
 and applied to a class of men who arose in Greece in the 
 fifth century B.C., and taught the youth in the principal 
 cities various arts and acquirements for hire. It has hence 
 
 SORCERER. 
 
 come to be the general designation of all such as cultivate 
 any branch of science or philosophy with a view to outward 
 advantages, careless of the truth of what they advance, ex- 
 cept in so far as it may contribute to those purposes. The 
 first Greek who assumed the name of Sophist was Protag- 
 oras, a native of Abdera, who flourished about the year 
 440 B.C., and obtained numerous pupils and auditors, espe- 
 cially in Athens. Of those who followed the same occu- 
 pation the most celebrated were Hippias of Elis, Gorgias 
 of Leontium, Prodicus of Ceos, and Euthydemus of Chios, 
 with his brother Dionysiodorus. None of the writings of 
 these men have survived ; but we have abundant notices 
 in the writings of their contemporaries, especially Plato, 
 Xenophon, and Aristophanes of the nature and tendency 
 of the doctrines and principles which they communicated 
 to the youth of Greece. Of the truth of these accounts 
 the Grecian history of the latter part of the fifth century 
 furnishes us with a melancholy testimony. It is, indeed, to 
 the changes which had begun to take place in the internal 
 and external relations of the Greek states, that the preva- 
 lence and success of the Sophists are mainly to be attribu- 
 ted. The changes in the distribution of property which 
 these revolutions rendered necessary excited the passions 
 and gave scope to the energies of the young and enterprising ; 
 at the same time that the political alterations tended to 
 shake men's confidence in those moral principles which, 
 among the Greeks, were intimately bound up with their civil 
 institutions. We accordingly find the leading feature of the 
 sophistic doctrine to be a dislike to everything fixed and ne- 
 cessary, in ethics as well as philosophy. Prescription was 
 represented as the sole source of moral distinctions, which 
 must consequently vary with the character and institutions 
 of the people. The useful was held to he the only mark by 
 which one opinion could be distinguished from another. An 
 absolute standard of truth is as absurd a notion in specula- 
 tion as an absolute standard of morals in practice; that 
 only is true which seems so to the individual, and just aa 
 long as it so seems. " Man is the measure of all things." 
 These and similar doctrines they maintained with great 
 subtlety and acuteness, and found numerous disciples among 
 those who were well prepared for the admission of tenets 
 which swept away at once all the remnants of those prej- 
 udices which might still interpose a barrier between their 
 passions and their gratification. Considered as a link in the 
 chain of philosophical development, the Sophists were 
 doubtless the involuntary cause of the greater depth and 
 soundness of the subsequent Grecian philosophy. The suc- 
 cess which they had found in demolishing the systems of 
 their predecessors proved the necessity of laying the foun- 
 dations of human knowledge deeper than heretofore had 
 been done ; and it is thus to the Sophists that we may at- 
 tribute the more critical and cautious spirit which distin- 
 guishes the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle from those of 
 Heraclitus or Parmenides. (See Ritter, Hist, of Ancient 
 Philosophy, book vi. ; Mem. de VAc. des Ivscr., vol. xiii., 
 xxxii. ; Ed. Review, vol. xxxiv.) 
 
 SOPORI'FICS. (Lat. sopor, sleep.) Medicines which 
 induce sleep. 
 
 SO'PRA. (It. above.) In Music, a term frequently used 
 for description ; as nclla parte di sopra, in the higher or up- 
 per part ; di sopra, above ; contrapunto sopra il soggetto, 
 counterpoint above the subject, &c. 
 
 SOPRA'NO. (It. sopra ) The upper or treble part in 
 composition. 
 
 SO'RBIC ACID. The acid of the berries of the Sorbus na- 
 cuparia, or mountain ash. It is identical with the malic acid. 
 
 SORBO'NNE. A college at Paris for the study of the- 
 ology ; so called from the village of Sorbonne, in Cham- 
 pagne, where its founder, a priest named Robert, was bora 
 about the beginning of the 13th century. He made a pro- 
 vision for the instruction of sixteen poor clerks in theology; 
 and his college is said to be the first example of what was 
 afterwards the common character of all the English col- 
 leges, the institution of a ca:nobium for regular clergy. The 
 college of the Sorbonne was adorned with various new ed- 
 ifices and enriched with a library by Cardinal Richelieu, in 
 1629. His monument in the church is considered a chef- 
 d'oeuvre of French nil. (See Mosheim, Keel. Hist., vol. 
 iii., transl. 1790, p. 53, &x.) This great college of theology 
 exercised a high influence in ecclesiastical affairs, and on 
 the public mind, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries; 
 insomuch that the sceptical wits of the 18th usually employ 
 the name as synonymous with the spirit of bigotry itself. 
 Its proverbial celebrity for acuteness in theological disqui- 
 sition is attested by the lines of our own Butler .- 
 
 SO'RCERER. (Lat. sortitor, from sors, a lot ; whence 
 sorcery.) Properly one who practices sortilege, or divina- 
 tion by lot (which see) ; but, in the ordinary language of 
 the middle ages, one exercising magical powers (see Ma- 
 
 1139
 
 SORDINI. 
 
 Gir'. especially by the aid of evil spirits. The sorcerer of 
 the middle ages was, generally speaking, a personage of 
 distinction, while the witch was degraded and loathsome. 
 The species of sorcery which is Btlll practised in the East, 
 especially In Egypt, by means of the magic mirror, has re- 
 cently attracted much attention. The most complete ac- 
 count of it will be found In Lam's .Modern Egypt. 
 
 SORDINI. In Music. See Con Sordini. 
 
 SOKE'DIA. In Botany, heaps of powdery bodies found 
 in lichens lying upon any part of the surface of the thallus. 
 
 SO'REX. (Lat. sorex, a field-mouse.) A Linnsan genus 
 of the order Htstiir, now forming an extensive tribe of 
 Insectivorous Perinea (Camassiera) in the system of Cu- 
 vier, and subdivided into different genera. The original ge- 
 neric term is confined to the shrews or shrewmice, Which 
 are the type of the family (Soricidce), and are character- 
 ized by having the two superior middle incisors curved and 
 indented at the base, the two inferior incisors prolonged and 
 procumbent. Behind the upper pair of incisors there are 
 live little conical teeth on each side, and two similar teeth 
 behind the lower pair of incisors : the molars, which are 
 beset with sharp cusps, are four on each side above, and 
 three below. The true shrews are farther characterized by 
 lateral, and sometimes anal and femoral scent-glands. The 
 principal genera, now distinct, which would have ranked 
 with the Linnaan Sorex, are Myogalea, Condyhira, Tupaia, 
 Gymnura, Macroscelis, Cladobates, Solenodon, Crossopus, 
 Crocidura. Of these Gymnura belongs rather to the fam- 
 ily of hedgehogs, and Condylura to that of the moles. 
 
 SORI. (Gr. otopoi, a heap.) The small heaps of repro- 
 ductive granules found growing upon the fronds of Polypo- 
 diaceous ferns. 
 
 SORITES. (Gr. aupog, a heap.) In Logic, an abridged 
 form of stating a series of syllogisms, of which the conclu- 
 sion of each is a premiss of the succeeding one ; e. g., 
 A = B, B = C, C = D ; therefore A = D. This is a sorites, 
 consisting of two distinct syllogisms, which, drawn out at 
 length, would stand thus: A = B,B=:C; therefore A = C • 
 and A = C, C = D ; therefore A = D. 
 
 SO'RREL, SALT OF. Binoxalate of potash. 
 
 SORTES Ho.ME'RICjE, VIRGILIANiE, SANCTO- 
 RUM, &c. A species of sortilege or divination was prac- 
 tised in antiquity by opening at random a favourite au- 
 thor, and applying the first passage which met the eye to 
 the circumstances of the inquirer as an oracular answer : 
 termed by the Greeks oroixno/iairrta. They chiefly used 
 Homer for this purpose. Thus Socrates, when in prison, 
 hearing the line of Homer repeated, 
 
 >;/x<m »tv Tpiraiu), $8tnv ept6o>\ov tKOtprjv, 
 
 interpreted it to foretell his own death within three days, 
 by a play on the word Phthia. Among the Romans, Virgil 
 was chiefly consulted, and many celebrated instances are 
 preserved. Adrian, when desirous to know on what terms 
 he stood with his patron, the emperor Trajan, consulting 
 the JEneid, opened at the verses respecting Numa, " Nosco 
 crines incanaque menta Regis Romani," &c. ; and thence 
 drew the augury of his future elevation to the empire. 
 Alexander Severus, according to Lampridius, obtained a 
 similar presage from the lines " Excudant alii spirantia mot- 
 ion Bera," &.c. The anecdote of the ominous passages dis- 
 covered by Charles I. and Lord Faulkland, when opening 
 Virgil in the public library at Oxford, is well known (see 
 Wetw oocTs Memoirs . In Christian times, the Sortes Sanc- 
 torum came in fashion. They were obtained by consulting 
 the inspired writings in the manner before described : some- 
 times, also, the inquirer went into a church while service 
 WU performing, and drew a prognostic from the first words 
 he heard. In this way, St. Anthony was directed to adopt 
 a life of solitary devotion. These practices became the oc- 
 ca.-ioti of much superstition. They are condemned by St. 
 Augustine in his Epistle to Januarius ; but are nevertheless 
 continually mentioned, with evident Credulity and approba- 
 tion, by early ecclesiastical writers. Gregory of Tours, 
 anions other similar stories, has one of the French prince 
 HeroveUS, which shows the ceremonious manner in which 
 they were sometimes performed. That prince having fled 
 to the Basilica of St Martin, placed separately on the saint's 
 tomb the Psalms, the hook of Kings, and the Gospels, and. 
 Spending three days and nights at the tomb in fasting and 
 devotions, on the fourth day be Opened these sacred hooks ; 
 from each of which he drew a discouraging prediction. 
 Elections to the episcopal offices, and other solemn pro 
 ccedings, seem to have been sometimes decided in the same 
 m inner in the dark ages. And after this abuse had ceased, 
 it was long a common practice, on the consecration of a 
 bishop, after the hook of the Gospels had been laid on his 
 head, to consider the first verse which offered itself as a 
 prognostic of his hehaviour and the fortunes of his episco 
 pacy. Thus the death of \lhert, bishop of I, lege, was inti- 
 mated by the ominous occurrence of the passage resect- 
 ing the execution of John the Baptist; and that prelate was 
 1140 r 
 
 SOUND. 
 
 accordingly put to death by Henry VI. The Sortes Sanc- 
 torum had been, however, forbidden by the council of Vali- 
 nes in the 5th century, and that anathema was repeated on 
 many later occasions, in which the consulting of the scrip- 
 tures is classed with other profane and magical modes of 
 divination. There is an essay on Sortes in the Mem. de 
 l\ic. des fnscr., vol. xix. See Stichomancy. 
 
 SORTIE, or SALLY. In Military language, a term bor- 
 rowed from the French to signify a sudden attack made by 
 the inhabitants of a besieged city upon the besiegers. 
 
 SO'RTILEGE. (Lat. sors, lot; lego, I collect.) Divina- 
 tion by lots. A very' ancient mode of exploring future 
 events, and which has been supposed by superstitious per- 
 sons in modern times Co derive countenance from various 
 incidents in sacred history, especially the choice of St. Mat- 
 thias by lot to the place of an apostle (Acts, i., 26). Tho 
 different modes in which sortilege has been practised will 
 be found detailed under that word, in a learned article in 
 the F.nc i/. Mctropo/itana ; and see Sortus. 
 
 SOSPl'RO. (It. a sigh.) In Music, the same as Rest, 
 which see. 
 
 SOSTEN'UTO. (It. sustained.) In Music, a term which, 
 affixed to a note, indicates that it is to be held out in an 
 equal and steady manner. 
 
 SOTHIC YEAR. In Chronology-, the Egyptian year of 
 365 days (said to have been introduced into Greece by Or- 
 pheus) was so called from Sothis, the Dog stir, at whose 
 heliacal rising it was supposed to commence. (Bryant's 
 Ancient Mythology, vol. iv.) 
 
 SO'TTO. (It. below.) In Music, a term freqnently used 
 for description ; as sotto il soggetto, below the subject ; nel- 
 la parte di sotto, in a lower part. 
 
 SOUND. (Fr. son.) The sensation produced by the vi- 
 brations of the air or other medium with which trie organ 
 of hearing is in contact. The doctrine of sound is usually 
 treated under the head of acoustics ; a branch of physics' 
 which has for its object the determination of the laws by 
 which the peculiar motions which give rise to the sensation 
 of sound are produced in bodies and conveyed to our ears, 
 and the manner in which they act on those organs ; in oth- 
 er words, to explain the origin, propagation, and perception 
 of sound. 
 
 Although, strictly speaking, sound is only a sensation ex- 
 cited in the auditory organ, yet, in treating of the subject, 
 it is usual to transfer the name from the sensation to the 
 motion which gives rise to it. We shall therefore speak of 
 sound as if it proceeded from the sounding body; and 
 speak of a body as sounding when its particles are in that 
 state of vibration which is requisite for making an impres- 
 sion on the ear, either immediately or through the medium 
 of some other elastic substance. 
 
 Phenomena of Sound. — In order that a 1/ody may produce 
 sound, it is necessary that its particles be in a state of rapid 
 vibration ; and in order that these vibrations may be com- 
 municated to the auditory organ, it is necessary that air or 
 some elastic medium be interposed between the vibrating 
 body and the ear. Hauksbee, having suspended a bell un- 
 der the receiver of an air-pump, found the sound become 
 feebler in proportion as the air was removed, and again be- 
 come stronger as the air was readmitted ; and also that 
 when the bell was suspended in a vessel full of air, and 
 placed under the receiver, no sound was transmitted when 
 the air between the vessel and the receiver was exhausted. 
 This experiment has been repeated by Biot, with a more per- 
 fect apparatus, and with every attention to the circumstan- 
 ces by which it is influenced; and it was found that when 
 the exhaustion was complete no sound was perceptible, 
 even when the ear was brought close to the receiver. Ilence 
 it appears that sound cannot he communicated through a 
 perfectly void space. But although air is the medium 
 through which sound is usually communicated, this only 
 happens because it is the medium with which the car is 
 usually in contact: and many other media are found by ex- 
 periment to perform the office even more perfectly. Frank- 
 lin having plunged his head under water, caused a per- 
 son to strike two stones together beneath the surface, and 
 at more than half a mile distance heard the blows distinct- 
 ly. Colladon by plunging a few feet into the water a thin 
 tin cylinder, closed at the lower end, but having the upper 
 open to the air, was enabled to hear the Bound of a bell 
 Struck under water at the distance of 2000, 6000, and even 
 12,000 metres (about miles) ; namely, across the whole 
 breadth of the Lake of Geneva, from Rolle to Thonon. 
 The conducting power of wood along the fihres is very re- 
 markable. Let a person hung his ear close to the end of a 
 Ordeal, however long, and he will distinctly hear the slight- 
 est scratch made with the point of a pin at the other end, 
 although the sound may be so feeble as to be inaudible to 
 the person who makes it. Miners at work in one shaft oft- 
 en hear the sound of the pickaxe in another through the 
 solid rock : and in general all solids tolerably compact are 
 good conductors of sound.
 
 SOUND. 
 
 Sounds are propagated to great distances and with re- 
 markable distinctness over a surface of water, or ice, or fro- 
 zen snow. In the account of Parry's third polar expedi- 
 tion, it is stated that two persons could hold a conversation 
 across the harbour of Port Bowen, a distance of 6696 feet, 
 or about a mile and a quarter. Instances are also recorded 
 of sounds propagated to almost incredible distances over 
 land. Derham relates the following : Guns fired at Carl- 
 scroom were heard across the southern extremity of Swe- 
 den, as far as Denmark, a distance of 120 miles. Dr. Hearn, 
 a Swedish physician, relates that he heard guns fired at 
 Stockholm at the distance of 30 Swedish or 180 English 
 miles: the cannonade of a sea-fight between the English 
 and Dutch, in 1672, was heard across England as far as 
 Shrewsbury, and even in Wales, a distance of upwards of 
 200 miles from the scene of action. 
 
 The diminution of the intensity of sound in rarefied air 
 Is rendered manifest not only by experiments with the air- 
 pump, but also by the phenomena observed at great alti- 
 tudes in the atmosphere. Saussure relates, that at the 
 summit of Mont Blanc the report of a pistol was not loud- 
 er than that of a small cracker in the plain below ; and Gay 
 Lussac, having ascended in a balloon to an altitude of near- 
 ly 23,000 feet, far above the clouds and away from all solid 
 substances, observed the intensity of the sound of his voice 
 to be greatly enfeebled. 
 
 It is matter of familiar observation that sounds are not 
 propagated through the air instantaneously, but occupy a 
 sensible portion of time in passing from one station to an- 
 other, greater in proportion as the stations are more remote. 
 The blow of a hammer on an anvil is not heard by an ob- 
 server at some distance, until a sensible time has elapsed 
 after the hammer has been seen to descend ; and the flash 
 of a gun fired a mile oft" is seen several seconds before the 
 report is heard. But all sounds, whatever be their loudness 
 or pitch, are propagated with the same velocity through the 
 same medium. In listening to the music of a concert, the 
 sounds follow each other in the same order and at the same 
 intervals ; and the same measure and harmony are per- 
 ceived, at whatever distance the hearer may be from the 
 orchestra. Biot caused several airs to be played on a flute 
 at the end of a pipe 3120 feet long, which were distinctly 
 heard at the other end without the slightest derangement 
 in the order or intervals of sequence of the notes. This 
 could not have been the case if there had been the small- 
 est difference in the velocity of their propagation. 
 
 Numerous experiments have been made for the purpose 
 of determinins the actual velocity of sound through the at- 
 mosphere. The usual mode of making the experiment is 
 to observe the interval between the flash and the report of 
 a cannon fired at a known distance. In this manner the 
 Florentine academicians, in 1660, found the velocity to be 
 1148 English feet per second. These experiments were re- 
 peated in France in 1698, by Cassini, Huygens, Picard. and 
 Roemer, who found 1172 feet; and Flamsteed and Halley 
 at the royal observatory' of Greenwich, from experiments 
 made at the distance of 3 miles, found the velocity to be 
 1142 feet per second. This result was confirmed by Der- 
 ham (Phil. Trans., 1708), who found the same velocity by 
 a mean of observations made at more remote distances. In 
 1737, the Academy of Sciences of Paris directed farther ex- 
 periments to be made by Cassini de Thury, Maraldi, and La- 
 caille ; and on this occasion the experiments were for the 
 first time made so as to eliminate the effect of the wind by re- 
 ciprocal observations ; that is to say, by firing cannon at both 
 ends of the line, either simultaneously or at short intervals. 
 They also appear to have been the first who observed and re- 
 corded the temperature of the air at the time of the exper- 
 iment ; a very essential element, as will presently be seen. 
 The result at which they arrived gave the velocity equal to 
 1106 English feet per second, at a temperature between 4° 
 and 6° of Reaumur, or between 41° and 44A° of Fahren- 
 heit. When the proper reduction is made for temperature, 
 this agrees very nearly with the best modern observations. 
 
 Various other experiments were made in different coun- 
 tries in the course of the last century (viz. by Bianconi in 
 Italy, in 1740; by Condamine at Quito and Cayenne, in 
 1740 and 1744 ; by Mayer in 1778, and Muller iri 1791, in 
 Germany ; by Espinosa and Bauza in 1794, at Chili) ; but 
 as the observers had not the means of determining minute 
 intervals of time with the precision which has been attain- 
 ed in more recent experiments, and besides neglected some 
 circumstances which influence the result, it is unnecessary 
 to state the details. 
 
 Since the beginning of the present century, the velocity 
 of sound has been measured in various countries ; in Ger- 
 many, by Benzenberg at Dusseldorf in 1809, and by Myr- 
 bach and Stamfer, at Saltzburg in 1822; in France, by di- 
 rections of the Bureau des Longitudes, in 1822; in Holland, 
 by Moll, Vanbeek, and Kuytenbrewer, in 1823 ; in England, 
 by Dr. O. Gregory at Woolwich, in 1824 ; in the East Indies, 
 by Mr. Goldiugham, in 1821 ; and at Port Bowen, in the 
 96 
 
 polar regions, by Parry and Foster, in 1825. The results of 
 these measurements, when reduced to the same tempera- 
 ture, agree very nearly with one another ; but the experi- 
 ments made in France and Holland are by far the most 
 circumstantial and satisfactory. In the French experiments, 
 two stations in the neighbourhood of Paris were chosen, 
 Villejuif and Montlehery ; and the signals were made by 
 firing a gun from each station alternately, at an interval of 
 five minutes. The observers at Villejuif were Prony, Ara- 
 go, and Mathieu; and at Montlehery, Humboldt, Gay Lus- 
 sac, and Bouvard. The observations commenced at 11 
 o'clock on the nights of the 21st and 23d of June, and were 
 continued on both nights during two hours ; but in many 
 instances the reports were not heard, at least by all the ob- 
 servers. The intervals between the flashes and reports were 
 observed by means of stop watches of a peculiar construc- 
 tion, which permitted the seconds to be divided and noted. 
 The mean of all the observations gave 54 - 6 seconds for the 
 time which sound took to travel from the one station to the 
 other. The distance between the stations was afterwards 
 determined by Arago, and found to be 95496 toises (11J 
 miles) ; whence the velocity is 1749 toises, or 340'88 metres in 
 a second. But this is the velocity belonging to the mean 
 temperature, which was 16° centigrade (613 Fahrenheit), 
 and corresponds to a velocity of 331*12 metres (1086'1 En- 
 glish feet), at the temperature of freezing water. The de- 
 tails of these experiments are given in the Connaissance des 
 Temps for 1825. 
 
 In the Dutch experiments, a clock with a conical pendu- 
 lum was used, which gave the means of determining the 
 time to the hundredth of a second by suddenly arresting the 
 motion of the index without stopping the clock. As in the 
 French experiments, guns were fired from each extremity of 
 the line ; but instead of being fired alternately, they were in 
 the present case fired simultaneously, so that any error that 
 might be feared from a variation in the state of the atmo- 
 sphere or the wind %vas entirely eliminated. The state of 
 the hygrometer was also observed. The interval between 
 the stations was 57839 feet (nearly 11 miles) ; and the mean 
 of all the experiments reduced to the freezing temperature, 
 and for dry air, gave for the velocity of sound 1089-42 feet 
 in a second. The details are given in the Phil. Trans, for 
 1824. 
 
 Dr. Gregory's observations are given in the Transactions 
 of the Cambridge Phil. Soc. for 1824. The signals were not 
 reciprocal ; but the velocity of the wind was measured by 
 an anemometer, and allowed for. The distances were also 
 very much smaller (varying from 2700 to 13460 feet) ; ne- 
 vertheless the results agree very well with those above 
 mentioned. Mr. Goldingham's experiments at Madras are 
 much less certain ; his method consisted in taking a mean 
 of the velocities observed daily in calm weather, during a 
 long time, by the firing of the morning and evening guns at 
 two stations visible from Madras, and a mean of all the ob- 
 served temperatures for the reduction. (Phil. Trans, for 
 1823.) Benzenberg's experiments are given in Gilbert's 
 *1nnalen, new series, v. 383 ; and those of General Myrbach 
 in the Jahrbuch des Polytek. Instituts zu Jf'ien, vol. vii. 
 The experiments of Parry and Foster are given in detail in 
 Parry's Journal of a Third Voyage, S,-c. The mean result 
 deduced by Dr. Moll (Phil. Trans. 1828) gives the velocity 
 equal to 10352 feet in a second, at the temperature of 17-7° 
 Fahr., which corresponds to 1092 feet at 32° ; but the cir- 
 stances were unfavourable. The following table exhibits 
 in one view the results of the principal experiments now 
 described. The numbers are taken from a more extended 
 table given by Sir John Herschel in the Ency. .Metropolita- 
 na, art. " Sound ;" to which admirable treatise we refer the 
 student for information on all points connected with thia 
 important subject. 
 
 1809 
 1S21 
 
 1822 
 18:2 
 1623 
 1*23 
 
 Benzenburg 
 
 Goldinham 
 
 Myrbach 
 
 Arago, Malhieu, &c 
 
 Moll, Vanbeek, &c - 
 
 Mean of Ihe who! 
 
 These results agree remarkably well with each other, 
 the greatest deviation from the mean being less than 4 feet, 
 and the mean of the whole being almost identical with the 
 determination of Moll and Vanbeek. " We may, therefore," 
 says Sir John Herschel, "adopt 1090 feet without hesitation 
 (as a whole number), as no doubt within a yard of the 
 truth, and probably within a foot." This is the velocity 
 with which sound travels in dry air, at the temi>erature of 
 
 1141
 
 SOUND. 
 
 freezing water. Hut the velocity increases with the tempera- 
 ture (as will be shown presently), at the rate of 114 toot, 
 very nearly, for each degree of Fahrenheit's scale. Hence 
 at the temperature of 62° (the standard temperature of the 
 British metrical system), the velocity is li-Jl', feet We 
 may therefore assume the velocity of sound at this standard 
 temperature, as determined by the best experiments to be 
 1125 feel per second. 
 
 Theory of Sound. — It has already been stated that sound 
 is produced by the vibrations of the molecules of a solid 
 body communicated to the atmosphere or other elastic me- 
 dium, and conveyed by it to the ear. The physical theory 
 of sound, therefore, resolves itself into two parts: 1st, the 
 state or condition of the vibrating body; and 2d, the mode 
 in which this mechanical action is propagated through the 
 medium to the organ of sense. 
 
 State of Sonorous Body.— In order that a body may give 
 OUI sound, its particles must he put into a state of rapid vi- 
 bration. If the frequency of the vibration is under a cer- 
 tain limit, no sound will be produced ; above that limiting 
 velocity of vibration, sound is produced; and experience 
 shows that the quality of the sound becomes more and 
 more acute as the vibrations are more rapid, until a second 
 limit of velocity is attained, beyond which the human ear is 
 affected With no sensation of sound. To prove this experi- 
 mentally, let a thin plate of tempered steel have one of its 
 ends firmly lived in a vice, and let the other end be drawn 
 a little aside from the position of rest. As soon as the force 
 by w bich the plate is bent is removed, the plate commences 
 a series of vibrations, which become smaller and smaller 
 until the position of rest is again attained. But the vibra- 
 tions are all performed in equal times; and if sufficient 
 length is given to the plate, they take place so slowly as to 
 admit of being accurately counted. On shortening the plate, 
 they become more rapid ; and long before they attain that 
 degree of rapidity which is necessary for the productien of 
 sound, it becomes impossible to count them directly ; hut it 
 is demonstrable that when a plate of metal, of equal thick- 
 ness throughout, is made to vibrate in the manner now sup- 
 posed, the time of a vibration is directly proportional to the 
 square of the length of the plate, and consequently the 
 number of vibrations in a given time is inversely as this 
 square : SO that if the number in a second corresponding to 
 any length of the plate lias been counted, the number cor- 
 responding to any other given length can be readily compu- 
 ted. In this manner it has been found that a metallic plate 
 begins to sound when the number of vibrations in a second 
 is 32; and at this velocity of vibration, the sound which it 
 gives is of the same pitch as that of an organ pipe 32 feet 
 in length, open at both ends. (By vibration, we here 
 understand the passage of the plate from the extreme 
 excursion on one side of the position of rest to the op- 
 posite, and not the going and returning, or complete vibra- 
 tion.) 
 
 This appears to be the minimum velocity of vibration ca- 
 pable of producing sound. The other limit, or maximum 
 velocity at which sound ceases to be appreciable, is not so 
 easily determined. Until recently it has been usual to fix it 
 at 8200 vibrations in a second ; but M. Savart has discover- 
 ed that by increasing the amplitude of the vibrations, acute 
 sounds may be distinguished at a velocity of 24,000 vibra- 
 tions in a second ; and it is possible that the limit may still 
 be considerably above this number. By means of an inge- 
 nious apparatus, Savart has succeeded in determining the 
 number of vibrations producing a sound of any given pitch 
 with great exactness. 
 
 Several other means exist of determining the absolute 
 number of vibrations in a given time, corresponding to diller- 
 ent musical sounds ; of w hich one of the most certain, and 
 most frequently bad recourse to. depends on the mathema- 
 tical relation subsisting between the time of vibration, the 
 length of the cord, and the tension of vibrating cords. Let 
 n denote the number of vibrations in a second, g the accel- 
 erating force of gravity (32 feet in a second), I the length of 
 the eonl. ir Us weight, ' its ten-ion (or the weight by which 
 it is stretched) ; then a formula equivalent to the following 
 was demonstrated by Brook Taylor (Mclhodus Incremento- 
 rum, p. 93) : 
 
 / S * 
 I w 
 In this formula "• is known, and /, /, and to are measurable 
 quantities, so that h is completely determined; but a more 
 
 convenient expression Is obtained by substltutlug the diame- 
 ter and density of the cord for it weight Let r be the radius 
 of the cord, n the density of its matter, and ir the ratio of 
 the circumference to the diameter, or ;r = 3.14159; then w 
 =zirCgrtl, and the above formula becomes 
 
 From this it results that the number of vibrations in a se- 
 cond is proportional directly to the square root of the tension 
 1142 
 
 of the cord, and inversely to its length, to its thickness or 
 diameter, and to the square root of its density. 
 
 In the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy for 1822 and 1823, 
 are given the results of a great number of experiments 
 made in this manner by M. Fischer, for determining the ve- 
 locity of vibration corresponding to different musical sounds. 
 The rapidity of vibration giving the diapasons (that is, the 
 concert pitches) of various orchestras at Berlin was found 
 to be as follows: Berlin Theatre 4:17-32, Great French Op- 
 era 431-36, Feydeau 427-61, Italian Theatre 42417 vibrations 
 per second. The reach of the voice of a man usually ex- 
 tends from soli to fa3 in the musical gamut ; and that of a 
 woman from re3 to la*. Taking the diapason of tbe Italian 
 Opera as the standard, the rapidity of vibration correspond- 
 ing to these several notes is as follows : Soli 190-8, fa3 678 - 4, 
 re3 572 - 4, hu 1606 vibrations per second. But the voices of 
 some singers reach much higher than Ia4, and consequently 
 the rapidity of vibration with respect to them will be high 
 er in proportion. 
 
 Some of the most acute sounds, or highest tones which 
 the ear can distinguish, are given by the wings of insects ; 
 and they correspond to the astonishing rapidity of 12000 or 
 15000 vibrations in a second. When we reflect how ex- 
 tremely probable it is that the tympanum of the ear vibrates 
 in unison with the sounds that affect it, we cannot fail to 
 be struck with admiration of the wonderfully delicate or- 
 ganization of a substance which possesses the power of 
 adapting itself to all velocities of vibration, from 32 times 
 in a second up to 24,000, the number found by Savart to be 
 sensible. The limits, however, at which very acute sounds 
 cease to be audible appear to vary considerably in respect 
 of different individuals, some being altogether insensible to 
 sounds which painfully affect others. (See a very interest- 
 ing paper on sounds inaudible to certain ears, by Dr. Wol- 
 laston, in the Phil. Trans, for 1820.) 
 
 The mathematical problem, to determine the vibrations 
 of a stretched cord, is one of very great difficulty. After 
 exercising the talents of Dr. Brook Taylor, D'Alembert, 
 Euler, Daniel Bernoulli, and others, it was completely solved 
 by Lagrange, in the first volume of the Turin Miscellanies, 
 and all the deductions from theory are found to be confirm- 
 ed by experiment. The subject of the vibrations of solids 
 has been recently examined experimentally by M. Savart, 
 and the results given in a series of most important memoirs 
 communicated to the French Academy of Sciences, and 
 printed in different volumes of the Annates de Chimic. Sea 
 Vibration. 
 
 Propagation of Sound. — In order to convey an idea of the 
 manner in which the vibratory motions of a sonorous body 
 are communicated to the atmosphere or other elastic medi- 
 um, let us conceive a tube, T T', of an indefinite length, 
 
 T C PR AT' 
 
 d q S B 
 
 and open at both ends, to be filled with air of a uniform 
 temperature and density throughout. Let us also sup- 
 pose a piston, P ft, which closely fits the tube, and is move- 
 able within it along the direction of the axis, to be propell- 
 ed suddenly from the position P ft to R S : and to simplify 
 the consideration, let the distance P R be supposed one foot, 
 and the time in which the piston moves from P ft to R S to 
 be one second. Now, assuming the air within the tube to 
 have been in a state of rest before the piston began to move, 
 let us consider what will be its state at the instant when 
 the piston arrives at R S. If the air in the tube were acted 
 upon as a perfectly hard body, any motion communicated to 
 the particles at one extremity would be instantaneously 
 conveyed to the other; and when the piston arrived at R 3 
 a quantity of air, equal to that which was contained be- 
 tween Pft and R S, would be expelled at T', and all the 
 particles within the tube would come to rest at the same 
 lime with the piston. But in consequence of the compres- 
 sibility of the nir the motion is not communicated to the 
 distant particles instantaneously, but only after a sensible 
 interval of time ; and we may conceive the tube to be so 
 long that when the piston has arrived at It S no air has yet 
 been propelled from the tube all". In fact, the disturbance 
 or compression of the particles, which takes place at the 
 instant the piston begins to move, is propagated along the 
 tube with a certain determinate velocity, depending on the 
 elasticity of the air, and when the piston reaches R S will 
 only have reached to a certain determinate distance. Let 
 A B be the section of the tube which the lir-t compression 
 has reached at the instant the piston comes to R S ; then, at 
 the instant of time on which we have to fix our attention, 
 tbe column of air between R S and A I! will be in a >tato 
 of compression, and between A H and tbe end of the tulio 
 at T' it w ill still remain in its natural state. The column 
 of air between RS and A B, which is thus modified by the
 
 SOUND. 
 
 stroke of the piston, is called a wave or undulation, and R A 
 is the length of the wave. 
 
 On attending to the state of the molecules in the column 
 R A, it will readily be seen that they are not subjected to 
 the same degree of compression through its whole length. 
 Conceive the wave to be divided into a very great number 
 of thin layers by sections parallel to R S or A B, and that 
 the piston, in passing from the position P Q, to R S, has 
 produced the effect, not instantaneously, but by a great 
 number of successive small impulses. At the instant the 
 piston comes to R S the disturbance has by hypothesis been 
 propagated only to A B, and consequently the particles in 
 the infinitely thin layer next to A B have suffered only the 
 slightest degree of compression, or that caused by the first 
 impulse of the piston. In the second layer next to A B the 
 molecules of air are in a state of greater compression ; in- 
 asmuch as they have sustained not only the compression 
 due to the first impulse of the piston, but also that which is 
 due to the second, the effect of which is propagated to them at 
 the same instant, at which the effect of the first is propaga- 
 gated to A B. In like manner, the compression in the third 
 layer preceding A B is greater than in the second ; and so on to 
 the middle of tbe wave. If we now attend to the state of the 
 molecules at the other extremity RS of the wave, a similar 
 effect will be manifest. The instant after the piston stops, 
 the layer next to R S has communicated all its velocity to 
 the one preceding it, and remains at rest ; or, at the moment 
 of the arrival of the piston at RS, sustains only the com- 
 pression due to the last impulse. The next layer in succes- 
 sion sustains the compression due to two impulses of the 
 piston — the last, and last but one. By following out this 
 mode of reasoning, it will readily appear that the particles 
 in the state of greatest compression are those towards the 
 middle of the wave ; and that if upon S B, as an axis (fig. 
 2), we raise a great num- 
 ber of perpendiculars, a a, 
 bb, cc, &c, each propor- 
 tional to the compression 
 at the corresponding point 
 s a t> c B of the column, the curve 
 
 drawn through the summits of these perpendiculars will 
 represent the law of compression ; and hence is of the 
 form represented in the annexed diagram, the parts on each 
 side of the middle ordinate bb being perfectly symmetrical. 
 If we now attend to the motions developed on the other 
 side of the piston, it will be easily seen that similar phe- 
 nomena must take place ; but in a reverse order, inasmucn 
 as the air within the tube on that side must be rarefied, in- 
 stead of being compressed by the motion of the piston from 
 f Q. to R S. Let C D (fig. 1,) be a section of the tube, so 
 that the column C R is equal to R A ; then, as the velocity 
 of propagation depends only on the nature of the medium, 
 it is obvious that at the instant in which the piston arrives 
 nt R S the disturbance of the molecules will only have ex- 
 tended to C D. The whole column between C D and R S will 
 be rarefied by the withdrawal of the piston of air between P (i 
 and R S ; but the rarefaction will be greatest at the middle of 
 the column, for the very same reasons that the condensa- 
 tion is greatest at the middle of the column between R S 
 and A B. If, therefore, we represent the rarefaction by neg- 
 
 (3.) 
 
 b 
 
 alive ordinates, a' a', V b', c c', &c. (fig. 3), the state of 
 the column of air between A B and C D (and this is all 
 which is modified by the passage of the piston from P Q. to 
 R S) will be represented by the double curve D b' S b B, the 
 small part between P Q. and R S being neglected as insensi- 
 ble. There are thus two distinct waves or undulations 
 caused by the motion of the piston : the wave S B before 
 the piston is called the condensed wave, and S D behind the 
 piston is called the rarefied wave. But some writers on 
 acoustics consider both these as belonging to the same wave ; 
 and therefore understand by the term wave the whole mass 
 of particles between C D and A B (fig. 1), which have been 
 disturbed by the motion of the piston from P O. to R S. 
 
 As every thin stratum of air in the tube, by reason of its 
 elasticity, communicates to the stratum before it the im- 
 pulse which it has received from the one behind it, all the 
 particles will successively be affected in the same manner ; 
 and at the end of a second interval, equal to that in which 
 the piston has passed from P to Q, the motion will be com- 
 municated over another space equal to R A, or the wave 
 will have moved forward its whole length, retaining al- 
 ways the same form ; and, supposing the piston to have in 
 this second interval remained at rest at R S, all the parti- 
 cles in the space R A will have returned to their original 
 state of quiescence. 
 
 If, instead of supposing the piston to remain at rest at 
 
 R S, we suppose it to be drawn back, in the second interval 
 of time, to its original position at P Q, then all the phenom- 
 ena now described will be repeated in the reverse order ; 
 that is to say, the compressed wave will be to the left of 
 the piston, and the rarefied wave to the right ; and the 
 state of the particles within the tube, with respect to their 
 compression, as modified by the advanced and subsequent 
 retreat of the piston (the complete vibration), will be rep- 
 resented as under (fig. 4). 
 
 (4-) 
 
 We have now only to suppose this forward and back- 
 ward motion of the piston to be performed with the same 
 rapidity as the vibrations of an elastic plate or stretched 
 cord, and the phenomena now described will give an idea 
 of the mode in which sound is transmitted through the at- 
 mosphere. 
 
 From this illustration (imperfect as it is) of the nature of 
 the motions communicated to the air by the vibrating body, 
 it is easy to see that the particles of air in the tube do not 
 change their places inter se, but acquire a vibratory mo- 
 tion, backwards and forwards, along the length of the tube. 
 It is also obvious that the vibrations of the air through 
 which sound is transmitted must be precisely equal in 
 number to those of the sounding body ; and as soon as the 
 vibrations cease, those of the air cease likewise. But so 
 long as the body vibrates, or the reciprocal motion of the 
 piston is continued with the same velocity, a continued 
 musical sound will be heard ; and this will be precisely the 
 same at whatever part of the tube the ear is situated, all 
 the waves being perfectly similar. 
 
 It is also evident that sound is propagated not only in 
 straight lines, like light, but in every possible direction. 
 Air being equally elastic in all directions, each point of a 
 sonorous wave may be regarded as a new centre, from 
 which rays are propagated on all sides. A sound heard 
 from the opposite side of a mountain is not conveyed 
 through the mountain, but through the air in curved or 
 crooked lines along secondary rays. 
 
 Sounds differ from one another in three respects — pitch, 
 intensity, and quality. The pitch, or tone, depends on the 
 length of the wave ; or, which comes to the same thing, on 
 the number of vibrations in a given time (for the velocity 
 being constant, the length of the wave multiplied by the 
 number of vibrations in a given time is constant). The 
 gravest tone which the ear can distinguish corresponds to a 
 wave of about thirty-two feet in length, and the most acute 
 to one of about half an inch. Two sounds, however differ- 
 ent in loudness or quality, are always in perfect unison 
 when the undulations by which they are conveyed are pre- 
 cisely of the same length. The intensity or loudness does 
 not depend on the length of the wave, but on the degree of 
 compression which the air receives ; that is, on the violence 
 of the impulses, or the length of the stroke of the piston in 
 the above illustration. The quality of sound (the timbre 
 of the French authors) is less easily explained. It proba- 
 bly depends on the greater or less abruptness of the impul- 
 ses, or of the changes of velocity and density of the strata 
 of air between the two extremities of the wave. 
 
 Theoretical Determination of the Velocity of Sound. — 
 The investigation of the velocity of sound through the at- 
 mosphere (or any gaseous medium) is based upon this fun- 
 damental proposition of dynamics, viz., that the velocity of 
 the pulses in an elastic medium is as the square root of the 
 elasticity, divided by the density of the medium. Let v = the 
 velocity, f = the elasticity, rf=the density ; and the propo- 
 sition gives a = v /(e-f-d). Make^-=the measure of grav- 
 ity (386-29 inches per second), ?c=: weight of the unit of 
 volume of air, h = height of the homogeneous atmosphere 
 (z. e., of a column of air of the same density throughout, and 
 whose weight exercises on the base a pressure = «); we 
 have then e— hw, d -=w-l-g; and the above equation be- 
 comes v = y/(g A). But this is the velocity which a heavy 
 body acquires by falling in vacuo from a height =£ h; 
 therefore, the velocity with which sound is propagated 
 through the air is the same as that which a heavy body 
 would acquire by falling through half the height of the 
 homogeneous atmosphere. This proposition was given by 
 Newton in the Principia (lib. ii., prop. 47), but from a the- 
 ory wholly inapplicable. The correct demonstration was 
 first given bv Lagrange. 
 
 In order to convert this formula into numbers, it is neces- 
 sary to determine h. Let A = the standard height of mer- 
 cury in the barometer, and m = the ratio of the density of 
 mercurv to the density of atmospheric air under the same 
 pressure; then h = mb, and the velocity becomes v = v / 
 (<rmb). At the temperature of freezing water (32° Fahr.), 
 and under a barometric pressure of 29927 inches, the value 
 of m is found by experiment to be 10,466. But we have 
 
 1143
 
 SOUND BOARD. 
 
 also ,0=38629 inches; whence at that temperature v = 
 10,998 inches, or 916 feet. 
 
 Since the velocity, as above stated, is proportional to the 
 square root of the elasticity divided by the density, an alter- 
 ation in the height of the barometer, while the temperature 
 remains the same, will produce no change in the velocity; 
 for an increase of pressure, and consequently of elasticity, 
 is accompanied by a proportional increase of density. An 
 increase of temperature, however, by increasing the elasti- 
 city without changing the density, is accompanied by an 
 augmentation of velocity. The correction for a difference 
 Of temperature is found as follows: Let t denote the num- 
 ber of degrees of temperature on Fahrenheit's scale above 
 3'.°, and a a constant coefficient ; then the elasticity at the 
 freezing temperature being c, the elasticity at the tempera- 
 ture t will be e (1-f-ar). But the value of a is found by 
 experiment = -00208; therefore the elasticity is e (1-j- 
 •00208 1) ; and the formula for the velocity becomes v = 
 y/grnb (1 + '00208t) ; or, introducing the above value of 
 g m i, v = 916 (1 + 00104 t). 
 
 The velocity of 916 feet at the freezing temperature, thus 
 deduced from theory, falls short of the experimental ve- 
 locity (which has been shown above to be 1089 feet) by 
 173 feet, or about a sixth part of the whole quantity. This 
 discrepancy was remarked by Newton, who attempted to 
 account for it by supposing the spherical molecules of air 
 to be perfectly elastic solids, through which sound is propa- 
 gated instantaneously ; but the true solution of the difficul- 
 ty was reserved for Laplace. The explanation given by 
 Laplace is, that the compression of the air which takes 
 place in the vibration disengages a portion of latent heat, 
 which thus becomes sensible, and modifies the law of the 
 elasticity, and accelerates the velocity. On submitting 
 this to calculation, he found that the formula for the velo- 
 city of sound must be multiplied by a certain factor, name- 
 ly, the square root of the quotient which is found by divi- 
 ding the number which expresses the specific heat of the air 
 (or other gas) under a constant pressure by that which ex- 
 presses its specific heat under a constant volume. Let k 
 = this factor; then Laplace's formula for the velocity of 
 sound is 
 
 v = ,/g m b (1 + -00208 t) k. 
 
 The value of k for atmospheric air, as determined by Du- 
 long {Lame, vol. ii., p. 87), is 1-421 ; hence y/k = 1192, and 
 the formula in numbers is 
 
 v = 916 X 1192 (1 + -00104 1) = 1092 + 1-14 1, 
 which is almost identical with the experimental determina- 
 tion. 
 
 Velocity of Sounds through Liquids and Solids.— The. 
 following general formula for the velocity with which 
 sound is propagated through any elastic compressible body, 
 whether liquid or solid, was found by Laplace : Let b de- 
 note (as before) the standard height of the barometer, D the 
 density of mercury at the freezing temperature, d the den- 
 sity of the medium, and e the compressibility of the medi- 
 ium, that is, the diminution of bulk it sustains by an addi- 
 tional pressure equal to one atmosphere ; then the formula 
 
 is t> = V -jj; or, (since £• = 38629 inches, 6 = 29-927 inch- 
 es, D = 13-568), v = 39604 ^(1 -fed) inches, or 33^/(1 + c 
 d) feet per second. Applying this to the case of water, we 
 have c= 000049589 (Herschel, F.ncy. Mctrop.), and d=l ; 
 whence c = 4687 feet per second. This result agrees vcry 
 nearly with the velocity determined by Culladon and 
 Sturm by direct experiment on the propagation of sound 
 through the lake of Geneva, the velocity actually observed 
 by them being 143.5 metres, or 4708 English feet, which dif 
 fers from the theoretical velocity only by 21 feet — a space 
 described by the aqueous pulse in the 200th part of a sec- 
 ond. 
 
 By the above formula the velocity of sound through any 
 medium of which the compressibility is known i* readily 
 computed. According to Chladni the velocities of sounds 
 in different solids, that of air being taken as unity, are as 
 follows: Tinr=?»., silver =9, copper =12, Iron = 17, glass 
 = 17, baked clay = 10-12, woods of different kinds =11-17. 
 But the velocity of propagation through cast iron tubes 
 was determined experimentally by Biot, and found to be 
 only about 10A times its velocity in air. (See Herschcl's 
 Treatise nn Sound; Chladni, Traite d'Jlcoustique ; Biot, 
 Traitedr Physique; Pouillet, Elemens de Physique ; Lame, 
 Cours de Physique, Ice.) 
 
 Soi mi. In Geography, a strait or inlet of the sea; ap- 
 plied specially to the strait which connects the German Sea 
 with the Battle. 
 
 BOUND BOARD. A thin board placed over the head 
 of a public speaker to strengthen or extend the sound of his 
 -. nice 
 
 SOUTH. One of the four cardinal points of the com- 
 1144 
 
 SPACE. 
 
 pass ; the direction in which the sun always appears at 
 noon to the inhabitants of the northern hemisphere with- 
 out the tropic. 
 
 SOUTHCO'TTIANS. In Religious History, the follow- 
 ers of Joanna Southcott, whose singular life and influence, 
 although now nearly forgotten, deserve to be kept in rec- 
 ord as examples of the contagious effects of fanaticism. 
 She was born at Gittisham, in Devonshire, in 1750; and 
 seems to have first persuaded herself of her miraculous 
 calling in 1792. From that time she was in the habit of 
 publishing pamphlets in an enthusiastic strain ; traversed 
 the west of England, preaching and prophesying, with a 
 select body of followers, and gradually collected about her 
 a considerable number of disciples. She came to town about 
 1803, when she announced a meeting, which she called 
 her trial, for the purpose of satisfying the world of the re- 
 ality of her mission. Several such meetings took place, 
 the last in 1804 ; and many persons, including several 
 clergymen, attested their belief in her pretensions. After 
 this she became the founder of a church, which had a 
 chapel in Duke's Place, where service was performed by a 
 Mr. Tozer, a Dissenting clergyman of Exeter, who follow- 
 ed her to London. At last she announced her supernatu- 
 ral pregnancy ; and this strange announcement took great 
 hold on the public imagination, in consequence of Dr. 
 Reeve and other medical men having declared their belief 
 that she was actually pregnant in her 65th year. The ex- 
 citement produced in London, in the summer of 1814, by 
 the whole affair, was to be paralleled only by that which 
 other delusions as absurd and impious have at different 
 times occasioned. Her death, in December of that year, 
 did not undeceive her disciples : even when her body was 
 opened, four days after it, and no trace discovered to veri- 
 fy her assertions, many of them continued to proclaim 
 their belief in her future reappearance. Her sect continu- 
 ed to exist for many years, nor are we aware that it is yet 
 extinct. Many of its followers wore long beards, and a 
 peculiar costume. 
 
 SO'VEREIGN. In Politics, a person, or body of persons, 
 in whom the legislative authority rests in every state. A 
 sovereign state is one in which the jurisdiction of that 
 person or body, within the limits of the state, is absolute 
 and uncontrolled by any foreign authority. The states 
 which composed the German empire were termed, in the 
 language of politics, " mi-souveraines ;" because their sov- 
 ereignty was qualified by their subordination, in some re- 
 spects, to the imperial authority. The same term should 
 seem applicable to the several states in the American 
 Union, which are commonly, but improperly, termed sov- 
 ereign ; as, on some definite subjects, the power of their 
 legislative bodies is subordinate to that of Congress, or the 
 sovereign body in the Federal Government. 
 
 Sovereign. An English coin of the value of twenty 
 shillings, the standard weight of which is 5 pennyweights 
 and 327 grains, or 123374 troy grains. 
 
 SO'WING. Depositing seed in the soil for the purpose 
 of producing plants. The operation of sowing is generally 
 performed in spring, in order that the plants may have the 
 advantage of the coming summer. The seed is either 
 scattered abroad, or deposited in rows or drills ; on a small 
 scale by the hand, and on a large scale by a sowing ma- 
 chine. Some seeds which are of large size are planted 
 singly. The covering of seeds is greater or less, according 
 to their size and the texture of the soil. Where the soil 
 is somewhat firm, and the seed is pressed into it by a 
 roller or by other means, and where the climate is moist, 
 very little covering is necessary ; but where the soil is 
 loose, and the climate dry and warm, the covering should 
 be twice or thrice the thickness of seeds. As the seeds of 
 plants are the natural food of birds, insects, and vermin, in 
 a state of culture artificial protection is required from their 
 natural enemies. 
 
 SOWING MACHINE. A machine for depositing seeds 
 in the soil, either equally over its surface or in rows. The 
 simplest machine, and perhaps the most efficient for sow- 
 ing seeds broadcast, is a hollow cylinder, pierced with 
 holes, about the average size of the seed to be sown. 
 This will deposite them at a greater or lesser distance 
 asunder, according to the velocity with which it is turned 
 round. Machines for sowing seeds in rows are termed 
 drills. See Drills. 
 
 SPA. A place celebrated for its mineral waters, situate 
 about seven leagues from Aix la-Chapelle. The term is 
 now generally applied to places at which there are miner- 
 al springs. 
 
 SPACE (Lat. spatium), signifies generally extension in 
 all directions. Sometimes it has a less general significa- 
 tion ; thus Euclid says, two straight lines cannot enclose a 
 space, that is. an area. 
 
 Space. In Music, the void between the lines in a mu- 
 sical staff. The spaces are four in number, and the lines 
 five.
 
 SPADIX. 
 
 SPA'DIX. A form of inflorescence in which the flow- 
 ers are arranged around a fleshy rachis, and enclosed 
 within a kind of bract called a spathe, as in palms and 
 araceous plants. 
 
 SPAHI'S, or SIPAHIS. A part of the Turkish cavalry 
 were so called. The word has the same derivation with 
 Sepoy. 
 
 SPAN, in ordinary language, signifies a measure taken 
 from the space between the thumb and the middle finger, 
 both being extended. In Architecture and Engineering, it 
 is applied to the extent or spread of an arch between its 
 piers or abutments. 
 
 SPA'NDREL. (It. spandere, to spread.) In Archi- 
 tecture, the space about the flanks or haunches of an 
 arch or vault above the intrados, and not higher than its 
 crown. 
 
 SPA'NKUR, or DRIVER. The name of the gaff sail 
 set on the mizzen mast of a ship. 
 
 SPA'NNER. An iron instrument used in the manner of 
 a lever to tighten the nuts upon screws. There is usually 
 a notch at either end of the spanner, to suit nuts and 
 screw-heads of different sizes. 
 
 SPAR. (Germ, spath.) A mineralogical term, applied 
 to certain crystallized substances which easily break into 
 cubic, or prismatic, or other fragments, with polished sur- 
 faces ; hence also the term spathose, applied generally to 
 minerals of a sparry fracture. 
 
 SPAR, FLUOR, or DERBYSHIRE. Fluoride of cal- 
 cium. See Fluor Spar. 
 
 SPAR, HEAVY. Sulphate of baryta. See Baryta. 
 
 SPAR, ICELAND. Rhomboidal carbonate of lime. 
 
 SPA'ROIDS, Sparoides. The name of a tribe of Acan- 
 thopterygian fishes, of which the genus Sparus is the type. 
 The palate is edentulous, but the jaws are generally well 
 armed with teeth : sometimes these are all of a conical 
 form, adapted for killing and lacerating ; sometimes they 
 are all rounded and obtuse, fitted for bruising. In some 
 species, the anterior teeth are shaped according to the 
 laniary type, and the posterior ones are grinders ; in oth- 
 ers, the anterior teeth resemble the human incisors. The 
 genera of Sparoid fishes are chiefly founded on these den- 
 tal modifications. 
 
 SPA'RROW-HA WK. The name of the Falco nisus of 
 Linnsus, Jlccipiter fringillarius of Ray ; which latter 
 name is retained in modern ornithology for the sub-generic 
 denomination of this small Raptorial bird. 
 
 SPARS. In Architecture, a term used in the provinces 
 to denote the common rafters of a roof, as distinguished 
 from the principal rafters. 
 
 SPASM. (Gr. oTiaonof, a cramp.) An involuntary con- 
 traction of the muscles generally attended by pain. 
 
 SPATA'NGUS. (Gr. omiTayyos, a species of Echinus.) 
 The name of a genus of Echinida, or sea-urchins, having 
 the mouth situated laterally, and but four rows of pores. 
 
 SPATHE. In Botany, a large and coloured bractea sit- 
 uated at the base of a spadix, enclosing the latter, and sup- 
 posed to perform the office of corolla. 
 
 SPA'TULATE. (Lat. spathulum, a broad knife to spread 
 salve with.) In Zoology, when a substance or part of an 
 animal is flattened, and broader and rounder at the apex, 
 narrow at the base. 
 
 SPEA'KER. The presiding officer in each house of par- 
 liament is so termed. The lord chancellor, keeper of the 
 great seal, or other person holding the king's commission, 
 is ex-officio speaker of the House of Lords ; and if there be 
 none such, it is said the house may elect. He can speak 
 and vote on any question. The speaker of the House of 
 Commons is chosen by the house. Formerly, it was cus- 
 tomary (see HatselVs Precedents of Parliaments, vol. ii.) 
 that persons holding high offices under the crown should be 
 elected to this dignity. The speaker chosen must be ap- 
 proved of by the crown. The speaker cannot speak or vote 
 except in a committee, when he is out of the chair ; or in 
 case of an equality of voices, when he exercises the privi- 
 lege of giving a casting vote. The office of the speaker of 
 the House of Commons, in addition to keeping order and 
 controlling the debates of the house, is to issue warrants to 
 the clerk of the crown to make out new writs for the elec- 
 tion of members when seats are vacant. This power he 
 exercised only by virtue of orders of the House of Com- 
 mons, until the passing of the stat. 10 G. 3, c. 41, by which 
 he was enabled to issue the writs during a recess. See Par- 
 liament. 
 
 SPEA'KING TRUMPET. See Trumpet. 
 
 SPE CIALTY. In Law, any instrument in writing un- 
 der seal. Specialty creditors are those who have their debts 
 secured to them by deed, in opposition to creditors on sim- 
 ple contract. The advantages of the former security are, 
 that it has priority in the distribution of assets ; and that 
 specialty debts in general are not presumed satisfied until 
 after the lapse of twenty years, whereas simple contract 
 debts are buried in six by the Statute of Limitations. 
 
 SPELL. 
 
 SPECIE. A term Used for gold and silver coin, in con- 
 tradistinction to paper money. 
 
 SPE'CIES. (Lat.) In Logic, a predicable which is con- 
 sidered as expressing the whole essence of the individuals 
 of which it is affirmed. The essence of an individual is said 
 to consist of two parts: 1. The material part, or genus ; 2. 
 The formal or distinctive part, or difference. The genus 
 and difference together make up, in logical language, the 
 species ; e. g., a " biped" is compounded of the genus " ani- 
 mal," and the difference " having two legs." It is obviou3 
 that the names species and genus are merely relative; and 
 that the same common terms may, in one case, be the spe- 
 cies which is predicated of an individual, and in another 
 case the individual of which a species is predicated: e. g n 
 the individual, Ca?sar, belongs to the species man ; but man, 
 again, may be said to belong to the species animal, &c, as 
 we contemplate higher and more comprehensive terms. A 
 species, in short, when predicated of individuals, stands in 
 the same relation to them as the genus to the species ; and 
 when predicated of other lower species, it is then, in respect 
 of these, a genus, while it is a species in respect of a higher 
 genus. Such a term is called a subaltern species or genus ; 
 while the highest term of all, of which nothing can be pre- 
 dicated, is the "summum genus;" the lowest of all, which 
 can be predicated of nothing, the " infima species." The 
 difference which, together with the genus, makes up the 
 species, is termed the "specific difference." See Predica- 
 ble, Logic. 
 
 SPECI'FIC. In Medicine, this term is applied to reme- 
 dies the effects of which upon particular diseases are little 
 liable to fallacy and uncertainty ; hence cinchona is called 
 a specific in certain forms of intermittent fever, and mer- 
 cury - in syphilis, &c. A specific character is that which pe- 
 culiarlv and certainly distinguishes one thing from another. 
 
 SPECIFIC GRAVITY. See Gravity. 
 
 SPE'CTACLES. An optical instrument, consisting of 
 two lenses set in a frame, for assisting or correcting the de- 
 fects of imperfect vision. The lenses are convex or con- 
 cave, according to the nature of the defect to be remedied. 
 In old age the pupil of the eye becomes flat, and the rays 
 of light are consequently not refracted sufficiently in passing 
 through it to meet on the retina and produce distinct vision. 
 This defect is remedied by a convex lens, which produces 
 a slight convergency of the rays before they enter the eye. 
 Short-sighted people, on the contrary, require concave 
 lenses ; because, in their case, the indistinctness of vision 
 proceeds from too great a curvature of the pupil, which 
 causes the rays to meet in a point before they reach the 
 retina — a defect which is remedied by giving the rays a 
 slight divergency before they enter the eye. 
 
 Spectacles appear to have been first used about the latter 
 end of the 13th century ; but the date and author of the in- 
 vention are not certainly known, and have been much dis- 
 puted. It seems most probable that the first hint of their 
 construction and use was taken either from the writings of 
 Alhazen, who lived in the 12th century, or of Roger Bacon, 
 who died about 1292. A passage in the Opus Majus of the 
 latter renders it certain, at least, that he was acquainted 
 with the use of crystalline lenses in magnifying minute or 
 distant objects. (See Smith's Optics, "Remarks," art. 8, 
 5-90.) 
 
 SPE'CTRES, Spectra. A name given by Stoll and La- 
 treille to a family of Orthopterous insects, comprehending 
 those which have a linear and attenuated body, like the 
 ghost of an insect. 
 
 SPE'CTRUM. (Lat. spectrum, image.) In Optics, the 
 name given to an elongated image of the sun or other lumin- 
 ous body, formed on a wall or screen by a beam of unde- 
 composed light received through a small hole, and refracted 
 by a prism. For the different colours and fixed lines of the 
 solar spectrum, see Chromatics ; and for the refrangibility 
 of the different rays. Refraction. 
 
 SPE'CULUM. (Lat. speculum, a mirror.) In Optics, 
 the term speculum is usually appropriated to reflectors form- 
 ed of polished metal ; while the term mirror is used to sig- 
 nify a reflector of glass. For the focal distances and laws 
 of reflexion of spherical specula, see Reflexion; and for 
 a description of the method of casting and polishins large 
 specula for reflecting telescopes, see Sir W. Herschel's De- 
 scription of his Telescope in the Phil. Trans, for 1795; 
 Brewster's edition of Ferguson's Lectures ; and Lord Ox- 
 mantown's Account of Experiments on the Reflecting Tele- 
 scope, in the Phil. Trans, for 1840. 
 
 SPE'CULUM METAL, with which mirrors for reflect- 
 ing telescopes are made, is an alloy of two parts of copper 
 and one of tin ; its whiteness is improved by the addition 
 of a little arsenic. 
 
 SPELL. (Ang. Sax. spel, story or tale.) Any form of 
 words, written or spoken, supposed to be endowed with 
 magical virtues. This superstition seems common to every 
 race of man ; but it was more peculiarly prevalent among 
 the ancients. The lines of Horace — 
 
 4 B * 1145
 
 SPELTER. 
 
 Sunt verba et voces, quibus huoc lenire dolorem 
 Pussis, fee., 
 
 probably refer to the belief in the efficacy of ma2ie.1l words 
 in alleviating pain and disease. There is an amusing arti 
 cle upon this siilijci'i in the Encyclopedia Metroptlitana. 
 
 SI'E'l.TElt. The commercial term for Bine. 
 
 BPERMACE'TI. This sobstanoe concretes or crystal- 
 lizes spontaneously oul of the oil of the spermaceti whale. 
 it is purified first by pressure, then by fusion and boiling 
 with a weak alkaline ley. When melted in masses, It 1 on 
 aretes in crystalline plates of a silvery lustre and unctuous 
 feel. It fuses at about 100°. It dissolves in boiling alco- 
 hol : and as the solution cools it separates in brilliant scales, 
 to which Chevreul has given the name ofcetrns. 
 
 SPERMl'DIUM. ( (Jr. ampua, a seed.) Akindofsmall 
 seed vessel, resembling a seed, and more commonly called 
 an ul.' niiim. 
 
 BPHA'CELUS. v-v Gangrene. 
 
 Sl'll.l'.Iils TE RUM. (Gr. cepaipa, a sphere or ball.) In 
 ancient Architecture, a circular court for playing tennis, or 
 other exercises. Set Ball. 
 
 SPHENK. Native sihco-calcareous oxide of titanium. 
 
 SPHENOID BONE. (Gr. aQwr, a wedge.) One of the 
 bones of the head. BO called from its being wedged in, as 
 it were, among the other bones. It is of a most Irregular 
 shape, and very complicated in its processes and connexions 
 With the other bones. When removed, it is something of 
 the figure of a bat with its wings extended. It is connected 
 with all the bones of the skull, and with those of the palate, 
 cheeks, and upper jaw. 
 
 SPHERE. (Gr. a<p,upa.) In Geometry, a solid body de 
 scribed by the revolution of a semicircle about its diameter ; 
 or it may be defined to be a body hounded by a surface of 
 which every point is equally distant from a single point 
 within the surface, called the centre of the sphere. If r 
 denote the radius of the sphere, and 1, ?/, 2 the rectangular 
 co-ordinates, the origin being at the centre, the equation of 
 the surface is j 2 -4- ;/- -f- :-= r-. 
 
 The following are some of the principal properties of the 
 sphere : 1. The surface of the sphere is equal to four times 
 the area of one ofits isrtat circles ; i. e., of a section made 
 by a plane passing through its centre. 2. The curve sur- 
 face of any zone, or portion contained between two parallel 
 is equal to the curve surface of a cylinder of the 
 same height with the height of the zone, or the distance 
 between the planes, and Of the same diameter with the 
 sphere. Hence it follows, that the whale surface of the 
 sphere is equal to the curve surface of the circumscribing 
 cylinder. 3. The solid content of a sphere is equal to that 
 of a pyramid whose altitude is the radius, and whose base 
 is equal to the surface of the sphere ; and hence the content 
 of the sphere is one third of the product of its radius into its 
 surface. 4. The sphere is equal to two thirds of its circum- 
 scribing cylinder. 
 
 Let r denote the radius of the sphere, ,t its superficies, c 
 its solid content, and ir the ratio of the semicircumference to 
 the radius = 3-141 59; then, since the area of a circle of 
 which r is the radius is jr r-, the properties above stated 
 give the relations which follow; viz. 
 
 Surface = s = 4 jr r2 = 12-56637 X r«, 
 Content = c=irs= * 7rr3 = 418850 X rX 
 
 If we suppose the diameter = 1, and consequently r— \, 
 these relations become s= r, c = \ x-. 
 
 Bphere. In Astronomy, the concave expanse of the 
 heavens, which, having no definite limit, appears to the eye 
 as the interior surface of a sphere enclosing the earth, 
 whirl, is placed at the centre. The ancients gave the name 
 of sphere to the orbits of the several heavenly bodies ; thus, 
 
 the sphere of Jupiter, the sphere of Saturn, the sphere of 
 
 the fixed stars. In the Ptolemaic astronomy, the different 
 
 spheres were supposed to be solid and transparent, moving 
 about their common centre independently of each other, 
 un'1 each carrying its appropriate hoily along with it. 
 
 Sphere, in Geography, denotes a representation of the 
 earth on the surface of a globe, which has also represented 
 on it an assemblage of circles show ing the positions of the 
 equator, ecliptic, meridians, &.r. The ancients gave riifH r- 
 
 ent appellations to the sphere, according to the iiuTunl 
 
 Of the earth's axis to the horizon. When the poles are in 
 the horizon, it was called a right sphert ; when the poles 
 are In the zenith and nadir, a parallel sphere ; and in every 
 Other position, an oblique spin re. 
 
 BPHE'RICAL. Relating to a sphere. Thus, a tpherical 
 in angle formed ou the surface of a sphere bj the 
 tion 01 two great circles, or circles who 
 pa-s through the centre; and a tpherical 
 angle formed by the intersecting ares of three Buch circles. 
 For the properties of spherical triangles, see Trisoni 
 
 BPHE'RICAL EXCESS, In Trigonometry, Is the sum bj 
 which the three angles of any triangle on the surface of a 
 Sphi re or spheroid exceeds two right angles. Let the llircc 
 1146 
 
 SPHEROID. 
 
 angles of a spherical triangle be denoted respectively by 
 A, B, C, and let E represent the spherical excess; then, 
 In the ahove definition. E - A j-B + l.' — Irti . Now. in 
 any spherical triangle the sum of the three angb 
 
 iter than two and less than six right angles; con- 
 sequently E may have any value not exceeding four right 
 angles. 
 
 In Geodesy, the angles of each triangle are determined 
 by instrumental measurement, and are consequently sub- 
 ject to the errors of observation. But in order to compute 
 the sides of the triangle with the requisite accuracy, it is 
 Decess ir\ that the amount of the error in the sum of the 
 dee be known ; and it is therefore necessary to de- 
 termine the spherical excess independently of extreme pre- 
 cision in the values of the angles. Let S denote the area 
 of the triangle, r the radius of the sphere, and » the ratio 
 of the circumference to the diameter (= 3-14159) ; then, by 
 trigonometrv, 
 
 .= » + '£— ' x-., 
 
 whence, since E = A + B + C — 180°, we have 
 
 _ S X 180° . . „ S X 648000" . . 
 
 E = ; in degrees, or E = , expressed in 
 
 r- :r ri t 
 
 seconds. In any triangle that can be measured on the sur- 
 face of the earth S is very small in comparison of r2, and 
 E is therefore a very small quantity, seldom amounting to 
 more than five or six seconds (though, in some of the large 
 triangles of the British survey, where the sides were near- 
 ly 100 miles in length, it amounted to upwards of 30") ; and 
 therefore an approximate knowledge of the value of S, and 
 Of the radius r, within the limits of any probable error, 
 will suffice to give E currect to the 100th part of a second. 
 Hence, for computing the value of E, the triangle may be 
 considered a plane one, and the value of S computed from 
 approximate values of two of its sides and the included tin- 
 gle. If, therefore, a and b denote the number of feet in the 
 sides opposite the angles A and B respectively, we shall 
 have S = Aaosin.C; and if we also assume ;»=i648000 
 -4-2r2 jr (where r is expressed in feet), the logarithm of E 
 in seconds will be found from this formula, 
 
 log. E = log. a -4- log. 6 + log. sin. C + log. m. 
 For the middle of England, the radius of an arc intersect- 
 ing the meridian at an angle of 45° is 20,941.000 feet, nearly. 
 Assuming this to be the value ofr, then log. m — 9-62H60. 
 
 SPHE'RICS. In Geometry, the doctrine of the proper- 
 ties of the sphere considered as a geometrical bod) . ana, in 
 particular, of the different circles described on its surface. 
 See Trigonometry. 
 
 SPHE'ROID. ((ir. wpatpn, and new?, furm.) In Geo- 
 metry, a solid generated by the revolution of an ellipse about 
 one ot its axes. If the generating ellipse revolves about its 
 major axis, the spheroid is prolate, or oblong; if about its 
 minor axis, the spheroid is oblate. 
 
 Lei 2 a be the axis of revolution, and 2 b the diameter of 
 the generating ellipse perpendicular to the axis ; then the 
 origin of the co-ordinates being at the centre, and X being 
 taken on the semi-axis a, the equation of the surface of the 
 spheroid is 
 
 ar2 , y* + z2 
 
 -.+ 
 
 b* 
 
 = 1. 
 
 Let k 2 denote the ratio of the difference of the squares of a 
 and b to the square of a ; that is, make a 2 A-2 = a 2 — A 2 , and 
 put it = 3-14159; then the whole surface S of the spheroid 
 is expressed by the following series, in which the upper 
 
 Signs are to he used If the spheroid is oblong (that is. ifa is 
 greater than 4), and the under signs If the spheroid is ob- 
 late ; viz. 
 
 The solid content of any spheroid, whether oblate or ob- 
 
 long, Is equal to two thirds of us circumscribing cylinder 
 
 and is therefore equal to \ ir a b-. And since the content 
 of a sphere, of which the radius is equal to a, is * n «3, it 
 
 follows that the content of the spheroid is to the content of 
 
 a Bphere whose diameter is equal to the axis of revolution 
 as b- : a 2 . 
 
 The oblate spheroid being the figure assumed by the 
 earth and the other planets, its properties are of great im- 
 
 poitani-e in astronomy and geodesj . Newton deui 
 
 that the attraction of a sphere on any exterior bodj it the 
 same a> If all the matter in the sphere were collected into 
 m point at the centre ; but this property does not hold true 
 
 of spheroids, and the calculation of tin 1 flee ti ol 
 is thereby nude nil greatij more difficult Se« Gravita- 
 tion. 
 In geodetlcal operations, it is necessary to have regard to 
 : the spheroidal surface of the earth. Sep 
 posing the elements of the spheroid (that Is, the polar and 
 equatorial axes; to be known, the curvature of the surface
 
 SPHEROMETER. 
 
 at any place of which the latitude is given is determined by 
 the following formula?: 
 
 Let a be half tlie polar axis, b the radius of the equator, 
 e the ellipticity, or a number such that 6 = a (1 + e) see 
 Ellipticity), and I the given latitude. Also, let r be the 
 radius of curvature in the direction of the meridian, r' the 
 radius of curvature in the direction perpendicular to the 
 meridian, and R the radius of curvature of a normal sec- 
 tion, making with the meridian an angle = , then 
 r — a (1 — c + 3esin. H) . . . (1.) 
 r' = a(l + e + e sin. H) (2.) 
 
 R = 
 
 .(3.) 
 
 ' r sin 20 -j- r' cos. 
 Dividing the numerator and denominator of this last ex- 
 pression by r', substituting 1 — sin. 20 for cos. 20, and con- 
 verting the result into a series, of which it is sufficient to 
 retain only the two first terms, we obtain the following, 
 which is more convenient for calculation, 
 
 B: 
 
 (l + ^-r^sin.20). 
 
 SPHERO'METER. (Gr. a<paipa, and ptcrpov, measure.) 
 In Physics, an instrument for measuring with great pre- 
 cision the thickness of small bodies, the curvature of opti- 
 cal glasses, &c. 
 
 SPHE'RULITE. A term applied by some mineralogists 
 to a variety of obsidian or pearlstone, which occurs in 
 rounded grains. 
 
 SPHIGMO'METER. (Gr. ofiypoc, the pulse.) An In- 
 strument for counting the arterial pulsations. 
 
 SPHl'NCTER. (Gr. o(ptyx<o, I close.) A term applied 
 by anatomists to several muscles which close or contract 
 the orifices which they surround. 
 
 SPHINX. A fabled monster, half woman and half lion, 
 said by the Grecian poets to have infested the city of Thebes, 
 devouring its inhabitants till such time as a riddle it had 
 proposed to them should be solved. This was done by 
 CEdipus, who slew the sphinx, and was, by the gratitude 
 of the Thebans, chosen their king. The Grecian sphinx 
 was probably borrowed from Egypt; where the enormous 
 figure, now half buried in the sand, was probably the arche- 
 type of the more elegant monster of Greece. This figure is 
 close to the Pyramids of Ghizeh, and was disinterred by 
 the late Mr. Belzoni, but has been again nearly covered. 
 It has been said (on the authority of Pliny) that the sphinx 
 represented the Nile in a state of flood; that event regular- 
 ly occurring under the signs of the Virgin and Lion. But 
 others contend that the original Egyptian sphinx was male 
 (Androsphinx), like the specimen described by Herodotus, 
 book ii. ( Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians.) But the greater 
 part of the enormous number around the temples of Luxor 
 (15U0 in a single avenue) are said to be female. (Libr. of 
 Entertaining Knowledge.) Sphinxes are also represented 
 with the heads of rams and hawks (Crio-sphinx, Hieraco- 
 sphinx). The Egyptian sphinx had no wings; these ap- 
 pendages were added by the Greek artists. 
 
 SPHRAGI'STICS. (Gr. cq\priyic, a seal.) The science 
 of seals, their history, peculiarities, and distinctions, espe- 
 cially with a view to the means which they afford of as- 
 certaining the age and genuineness of documents to which 
 they are affixed. Ancient seals were chiefly impressed on 
 common wax of different colours; sealing-wax came into 
 use in the sixteenth century. This branch of diplomatics 
 owes its origin to Heineccius, who published a work on the 
 subject in 1709. Gercken's treatise, styled Jlnmerkungen 
 iiber die Siegel zuin Nutzen dcr Diplomatik (Augsburg, 1781), 
 Will be found a useful guide. 
 
 SPICCA'TO. (It. divided.) In Music, a term indicating 
 that every note is to have its distinct sound. When used 
 in relation to instruments played with a bow, it is to be 
 understood that every note is to have a bow dislinct from 
 the preceding or succeeding one. 
 SPIDER. See Arachnid*. 
 
 SPIKE. In Botany, a form of inflorescence in which all 
 the flowers are sessile along a common axis, as in Plan- 
 tago. 
 
 SPI'NDLE. In Geometry, a solid generated by the revo- 
 lution of a curve line about its base or double ordinate. 
 The solid generated by the revolution of a curve about its 
 axis is called a conoid. In Mechanics, spindle denotes the 
 axis of a wheel or roller. 
 SPINE. See Vertebra. 
 
 SPINE'L. (Fr. spinelle.) A subspecies of the niby. It 
 is of various colours, such as red, brown, yellow, and some- 
 times blue ; its colouring matter is sometimes oxide -of 
 chromium, but generally oxide of iron. It usually contains 
 from 80 to 84 per cent, of alumina, and from 8 to 10 of mag- 
 nesia. 
 
 SPINELLA'NE. A term applied by some mineralogists 
 to a dodecaedral variety of zeolite of a blueish or brownish 
 colour, found near Andernach on the Rhine. Its essential 
 components are silica, alumina, and soda. 
 
 SPIRAL. 
 
 SPINES. Branches that, being imperfectly formed, lose 
 their power of extension, become unusually hard, and ac- 
 quire a sharp point. They are very different from aculei, 
 or prickles, which are a kind of hardened hair. In leaves, 
 they are processes formed either by an elongation of the 
 woody tissue of the veins, or by a contraction of the paren- 
 chyma : in the former case, they project beyond the surface 
 or margin of the leaf, as in the holly ; in the latter case, 
 they are the veins themselves become indurated, as in the 
 palmated spines of Berberis vulgaris. 
 
 SPINE'T. A musical stringed instrument with a key- 
 board, &c, similar in construction to a harpsichord ; from 
 which, indeed, it little differs, except in being much smaller. 
 Its general form is that of the harp, and it was originally 
 called the couched harp. 
 
 SPI'NNERS, or SPINNERETS. In Entomology, organs 
 with which insects form their silk or webs. In spiders 
 they consist of two retractile species issuing from anal pro- 
 tuberances, and giving out the threads. 
 
 SPINNING. See Cotton Manufacture. 
 
 SPINNING JENNY. See Cotton Manufacture. 
 
 SPINO'SISM. In Philosophy, the system of Benedict 
 Spinosa, a Jew of Amsterdam, born in 1634, which is 
 developed in his work on ethics. In it he deduces by 
 strictly mathematical reasoning, from a few axioms, the 
 well-known principles, that " there can be no substance but 
 God ; whatever is is in God, and nothing can be conceived 
 without God." Hence his scheme is called, with justice, 
 Pantheistic. In fact, as Mr. Hallam observes, " he does not 
 essentially differ from the Pantheists of old. He conceived, as 
 they had done, that the infinity of God required the exclusion 
 of all other substance : that he was infinite ab omni parte, 
 and not only in certain senses." " It was one great error 
 of Spinosa," says the same writer, " to entertain too arro- 
 gant a notion of the human faculties ; in which, by dint of 
 his own subtle demonstrations, he pretended to show a 
 capacity of adequately comprehending the nature of what 
 he denominated God. And this was accompanied by a 
 rigid dogmatism, no one proposition being stated with hesi- 
 tation ; by a disregard of experience, at least as the basis 
 of reasoning ; and by a uniform preference of the synthetic 
 mode." (Literature of Europe, vol. iv., p. 243, &c. ; and 
 see Brucker's History of Philosophy, vol. iii. ; Stewart's 
 Introductory Essay to the Encyclopedia Britannica.) 
 
 SPI'NTHERE. A mineral of a greenish gray colour, 
 found in the department of the Isere in France. 
 
 SPI'RACLES, or SPIRACULA. (Lat. spiro, I breathe.) 
 In Entomology, the breathing pores of insects are so called. 
 
 SPIRAL. In Geometry, the name given to a class of 
 curves distinguished by this general property, that they 
 continually recede from a centre or pole, while they con- 
 tinue to revolve about it. Spirals receive different names 
 from the properties by which they are characterized, or 
 from their inventors ; thus, the equable spiral, the hyperbolic 
 spiral, the logarithmic spiral, the spirals of Cotes, &c. 
 
 Equable spiral, or spiral of Archimedes. — -This curve may 
 be supposed to be generated as follows : If a straight line P 
 ABC turn uniformly about its ex- 
 tremity P, a point in the straight line 
 which advances from P with a uniform 
 motion and arrives successively at a. A, <* 
 b, B, c, C, d, will describe the spiral. 
 The point P is called the pole, and the 
 portion of the revolving line intercepted 
 between the pole and any point of the 
 curve is the radiant, or radius vector at that point. Let Q, 
 be a pr>int in the spiral, make the radiant P Q — u, and let 
 be the angle described by the revolving line while the 
 travelling point advances from P to Q ; then, since from the 
 definition the radiant u and the angle are both propor- 
 tional to the time, they are proportional to each other ; and 
 the polar equation of the equable spiral is u = a 0, where a 
 is a constant. If we suppose u == r when the revolving line 
 has made a complete revolution, or when = 2 it ; then 
 
 r 
 a = r -7-2 it, and the equation becomes u = 5 — 6. 
 
 Some of the principal properties of this spiral are the fol- 
 lowing : 1. The area of the spiral P a A b Q. is equal to 
 
 — — n u ■ If u = r. this becomes i 7r r? ; or the area 
 6a 3r 
 
 generated while the revolving line makes one revolution, 
 is equal to a third of a circle whose radius is r. If u = 2r, 
 the expression for the area becomes |jt (2 r)2 ; and the 
 spiral area is therefore the third part of a space that is 
 double of a circle described with a radius = 2 r. And 
 generally the whole area Generated by the radiant, from 
 the beginning of the motioif till after any number of revolu- 
 tions, Ts equal to the third part of a space which is the 
 same multiple of the circle whose radius is equal to the 
 greatest radiant as the number of revolutions is of unit. 2. 
 The arc of the spiral between its origin and the radiant u is 
 
 1147
 
 SPIRAL VESSELS. 
 
 equal to that of a parabola whose latus rectum is 2 a 
 Included between the v< irtex ttnd an ordinate = u, and the 
 corresponding area of the spiral is equal to one half the 
 corresponding area of the parabola. :t. The subtongent to 
 any pi int Q of the spiraJ is equal to the arc of a circle de- 
 scribed by the radiant 1* u ; and hence at the termination 
 of the first, second, third, fourth, &.c. revolutions, the cor- 
 responding subtangents are as the series of square numbers, 
 1, 4, 9, 10, Sec. ; for the second, third, fourth, &c, the sub- 
 tangents are equal to 'J, 3, -i, &<-. circumferences, whose 
 radii are at the same time doubled, tripled, quadrupled, &c. 
 The equable spiral was proposed bj < 'onon to \i< almedes, 
 
 who, in Ins treatise l\i(n I -'\t\ov, has investigated its quad- 
 rature, and some of its chief properties. 
 
 The hyperbolic spiral belongs to a class of spirals of 
 
 which the general equation is u = a 6 — ". If we suppose 
 
 n = 1, we have u = a ', or u 6 as a which is the equa- 
 tion of the hyperbolic spiral; and from which it follows, 
 that if from a point in a straight line, given by position, arcs 
 be described of a given length, and having each one ex- 
 tremity in the given straight line, the locus of their other 
 extremities will be in the spiral. 
 
 This curve was proposed by James Bernoulli, and has 
 been called the hyperbolic spiral, from the analog] between 
 its polar equation and the equation to rectangular coordi- 
 nates of the common hyperbola, when referred to its 
 asymptotes ; namely, x y = A, a constant area. 
 
 The logarithmic spiral differs from the equable spiral in 
 this respect, that the point which describes the curve, 
 instead of advancing equably along the uniformly revolving 
 straight line, is carried along it with a velocity increasing 
 in proportion to the distance from the centre. This curve, 
 which was noticed by Des Cartes, has many remarkable 
 properties, of which the more abstruse were investigated 
 by .lames Bernoulli. See LOGARITHKIC Sl'IRAL. 
 
 For ihe Investigation of the properties of spirals, see 
 J. (sin 's Qeomi tricot . Inalysis ; Peacock's Examples of the 
 Jlifj'ircntial and Integral Calculus ; Macluurin's Fluxions, 
 &c. 
 
 SPI'RAL VESSELS, in Plants, are membranous tubes 
 with conical extremities, lined in the inside by a fibre 
 twisted spirally, and capable of unrolling wiih elasticity; 
 their function is that of the conveyance of air. They nre 
 found in almost any part of plants except the bark ; but are 
 most abundant in leaves and flowers, and least common in 
 the stem and root, except in the medullary sheath of the 
 former. 
 
 SPIRE. (Gr. aireipa, a twisting.) In Architecture, 
 among the ancients, the base of a column : also the as- 
 tragal or torus of the base. In modern architecture, it is 
 an erection above the tower of a church, which diminishes 
 gradually as il rises; sometimes rising in the form of a plain 
 blender pyramid, polygonal on the plane. 
 
 SPI'RIFER. The name of a genus of extinct Pallio- 
 branchiate mollusks, characterized by the shell having two 
 internal calcori s spiral appendages. 
 
 BPI'RIT OP WINE. See Alcohol and FERMENTA- 
 TION. 
 
 SPrRITl >, SPIRITO'SO (It. spirit, with spirit), in Music, 
 denotes, when affixed to a movement, that it is to be per- 
 formed J,, ■, spirited manner. 
 _ SPI'RITS. All inflammable liquors obtained bydistilla- 
 
 brandy, rum, geneva, whiskey, &.c, are comprised 
 
 under this designation. The manufacture of spirits is 
 placed miller the Burveillance of the excise, and a very 
 large r< venue is obtained from it. The following statistical 
 accounts relative to spirits. &c., for the year ending Jan. r>. 
 1841, are extracted from a return laid before the House of 
 Commons: i. it appears that during that period the total 
 gallons of proof spirits distilled in the United Kingdom, and 
 
 produced from malt and from a mixture of malt with mi- 
 mailed grain, amounted to 22,021,394 gallons, of which 
 - 1 ill. ui, «rere distilled in England, 8,821,530 gallons 
 hi Scotland, and 7,281,449 gallons in Ireland. 2. Thi total 
 gallons of proof spirits on which dulj was paid for con- 
 sumption In the Untied Kingd amounted to 21,859,337 
 
 gallons ; the total amount of duty paid thereon ha\ ing been 
 
 £5,208 040. < If these 21,859,33'; gallons, there were 3,278 I w 
 on w bich dut, w.is paid for home consumption in England, 
 6,180,338 in Scotland, and 7,404,051 in Ireland. 3. The 
 total number of gallons of proof spirits (made from various 
 
 grain, fcc.), imported into England from Scotland, was 
 
 2,056,640 : into England from Ireland, 370,441 ; Into Ireland 
 from Scotland, 762,358; and into Scotland from Ireland, 
 total amount of duty paid upon all which 
 was £1,028,294. I. The total number of gallons of proof 
 spirits permitted out from distillers' stocks in England 
 and the total number of gallons 
 proof of British brandy and spirits of wine, permitted out 
 
 fr verifiers' stocks in England, was as follows, viz., 
 
 British brandy yt)f,oo;i gallons, ami spirits of wine 236,007 
 1148 
 
 SPONGE. 
 
 gallons. 5. The total number of proof gallons of foreign 
 spirits (including rum, brandy, geneva, &.<•.) which paid 
 duty in the United Kingdom, amounted altogether to 
 3,644,410; the net amount of duty paid upon which was 
 £2,440,942, Of this duty, England paid X'2,:t5-J,550, Scot- 
 land £66,134, and Ireland £22,258. If to the above quan- 
 tities there be added the spirits of the manufacture of the 
 I'nited Kingdom, and of Jersey and Guernsey, the gross 
 total number of gallons of spirits of all kinds that paid duty 
 in the year 1840-41 will amount to 25,517,326, and the net 
 amount of such duty to £7,654,233, (For full particulars 
 as to the operation of the duties upon spirits, see the Com. 
 Hut.) See Distillation. 
 
 SITKITI' AL1S.M. as distinguished from Materialism. 
 That system according to which all that is real is spirit, 
 soul, or self; that which is called the external world being 
 either a succession of notions impressed on the mind by 
 the Deity, or else the mere educt of the mind itself. The 
 first is the spiritualism of Berkeley ; the second, w Inch 
 may he called pure egoism, that of Fichte. 
 
 SP1'RUL1D/E. The name of a family of Dibranchiata 
 Cephalopoda, of which the genus SpiriUm is the type. 
 They are chiefly characterized by having a spiral discoid 
 chambered shell developed in the substance of the mantle, 
 instead of a calcareous or horny plate. 
 
 SPLANCHNOLOGY. (Gr. onlavvov, an entrail, and 
 Aoyoj, a discourse.) The doctrine of the viscera. 
 
 SPLAYED. (Displayed, spread out.) In Architecture, 
 a term used to denote an angle which is cut oil", or oblique. 
 
 SPLEEN. A spongy viscus, of an oval form, the use of 
 which is unknown ; placed in the human subject in the 
 left hypochondrium, between the eleventh and twelfth 
 false ribs. Spleen is also used for a species of hypochon- 
 driasis to which the English are said to be particularly 
 open. 
 
 SPLENITIS. Inflammation of the spleen. 
 
 SPLE'NIUS. A flat muscle, situated between the back 
 of tin- ear and the lower and posterior part of the neck. 
 
 SPLENT COAL. An inferior kind of cannel coal from 
 the Scotch collieries. 
 
 SPLICE. In Naval language, to join the end of a rope 
 with the end or bight of another by untwisting the strands 
 of both and laying them up again Involved. 
 
 To splice the main brace, a term applied to an extra allow- 
 ance of spirits in cases of cold or wet. 
 
 SPLINT. A piece of wood or pasteboard, so shaped as 
 to support a broken or debilitated limb. 
 
 SPLINTERY. That fracture of minerals which is nearly 
 even, but exhibits small splinters or scales thicker at one 
 extremity than the other, and adhering by their thicker 
 ends to the broken surface. 
 
 SPO'DUMENE. A mineral found in laminated masses, 
 hard, brittle, translucent, and of various shades of green, 
 or grey. It was first discovered at Utoe, in Sweden. It 
 consists of silica and alumina, with 8 to 10 per cent, of 
 lithia. Before the blowpipe, it exfoliates into little scales 
 of an ash colour: heme its name, from ottoSvu), to reduce to 
 ashes. It is also called triphane. 
 
 SPOLIATION, WRIT OF, In English Law, is obtained 
 by one of the parties to a suit in the ecclesiastical courts 
 suggesting that his adversary has wasted the fruits of a 
 benefice, or received them to his prejudice. The suit 
 founded on this writ lies for one Incumbent against another, 
 where they both claim by one patron, and the right of 
 patronage is not in question. 
 
 SPO'NDEE. (Gr. vtrovSt), a libation.) In Greek and 
 Latin Poetry, the name of a foot consisting of two long 
 
 syllables. It was so called iiecaiise it was originally em- 
 ployed in the hymns sung In honour of Ihe gods during the 
 
 offering up Of B sacrifice, for which it was admirably fitted 
 from its grave structure. ,S/ion<laic verse is an hex nnnter 
 line, in which the two Inst feet are spondees; instead of 
 
 the usual termination, a dactylus and a spondee, 
 SPO'NDYLUS. (Lat. spondyrus, a spindle or shell fish.) 
 
 The name of a l.inna-an genUS of the Vermes Test 
 
 comprehending the spring oj sters ; characterized by having 
 
 a strong 100th on each side of the depression lodging 111 ■ 
 elastic ligament of the hinge of the shell. The genua is 
 included in the Ostr.icean family ol the Acephalous Testa- 
 
 cea by cuvier, and has been subdivided bj Lamarck into 
 the genera Spondylus proper and Plicatula. Some of the 
 species of Spondylus, as tin- water clam i sp. partus), form 
 
 a seiies of chambers by secreting successive layers of 
 nacraoUS shell at a distance from each other, the last cham- 
 ber containing a quantity of fluid, which escapes by very 
 
 slow evaporation through tin- pores of the calcareous shell. 
 
 SPONGE I'r. eponge, Germ, schwamm), i> a cellular 
 liiirous tissue produced by small animals, almost Imper- 
 ceptible, called Polypi by naturalists, which live in the sea. 
 
 'I'his tis-ur i- said io he covered in its recent state with a 
 
 kind oi semifluid thin coat of animal jelly, susceptible 
 slight contraction or trembling on being touched ; which is
 
 SPONGE TENT. 
 
 ?he only symptom of vitality displayed by the sponge. 
 After death this jelly disappears, and leaves merely the 
 sponge ; formed by the combination of a multitude of small 
 capillary tubes, capable of receiving water in their interior, 
 and of becoming thereby distended. Sponges occur attached 
 to stones at the bottom of the sea, and abound particularly 
 upon the shores of the islands in the Grecian Archipelago. 
 Although analogous in their origin to coral, sponges are 
 quite different in their nature ; the former being composed 
 almost entirely of carbonate of lime ; while the latter are 
 formed of the same elements as animal matters, and afford 
 on distillation a considerable quantity of ammonia. 
 
 Dilute sulphuric acid has been recommended for bleach- 
 ing sponges, after the calcareous impurities have been re- 
 moved by muriatic acid. Chlorine water answers better. 
 
 The sponges of commerce are usually prepared before 
 they come to the market, by being beaten and soaked in 
 dilute muriatic acid with a view to bleach them, and to dis- 
 solve any adherent portions of carbonate of lime. Three 
 kinds are found commonly in the market, and known as 
 the Turkey ; the variety of the same, which is very rare ; 
 and the West Indian. On examining the living sponge of 
 commerce with a power of about 500 linear, the fleshy mat- 
 ter will be distinctly observed, having in its interior gemmse, 
 which are considered to be the young. These are occa- 
 sionally given off from the mass of living matter. The 
 greater portion of the mass of sponge consists of small 
 cylindrical threads or fibres, various in size. The spicule 
 are not found within these, but in the large and flattened 
 fibres, and varying in number from one to three or more, 
 imbedded in their substance. Sometimes one spiculum 
 projects a half or more from the side of the fibre, and is 
 then only covered with the animal matter at the base, or 
 half way up. The fibres of the West Indian species of 
 sponge have been clearly proved to be solid. In the rare 
 variety of Turkey sponge, the fibres are possessed of vessels 
 which anastomose in various directions, differing much in 
 size, and not imbedded in homy fibre, but in a separate 
 sheath. This true vascular tissue performs very important 
 functions in the economy of the animal during life. In 
 some of the tubes of sponge have been observed small 
 globules, the largest of which measured the 16(56th of an 
 inch, and the smallest the 50,0U0th of an inch. They were 
 accidentally perceived to move from right to left. (See a 
 Paper read by Mr. Bowerbank at a meeting of the Micro- 
 scopical Society in 1841.) 
 
 SPONGE TENT, is formed by dipping sponge into hot 
 melted wax plaister, and pressing it till cold between two 
 iron plates : it is then cut into pieces, and used for dilating 
 wounds. 
 
 SPO'NGI/E. The name of a class of aquatic Zoophites 
 composed of the different genera and species of sponge. 
 
 SPO'NGIOLE. In Botany, the lax cellular tissue and 
 mucus situated at the extremities of roots, having the prop- 
 erty of absorbing fluid like a sponge ; whence the name. 
 
 SPO'NSIONS. In International Law, acts and engage- 
 ments made on behalf of states by agents not specially 
 authorized, or exceeding the limits of the authority under 
 which they purport to be made, are so called by writers on 
 this branch of jurisprudence. Such conventions must be 
 confirmed by express or tacit ratification ; the latter of 
 which is implied from the fact of acting under it as if bound 
 by its stipulations ; but mere silence is not, in general, held 
 equivalent to ratification. Such are the official acts of 
 admirals and generals suspending or limiting hostilities, 
 capitulations of surrender, cartels of exchange, &c. (See 
 Grotius, De Jure Bel. et Pac., lib. iii. ; Vattel, liv. ii. ; 
 Wheaton, On International Law, vol. i., p. 291.) 
 
 SPO'NSORS. In the Roman Catholic, Greek, Lutheran, 
 and Calyinistic Churches on the Continent, and in the Church 
 of England, the name given to the parties who at the bap- 
 tism of infants make a profession of the Christian faith in 
 their name, and guarantee their religious education. (See 
 Jfeander's Church Histury, vol. i., part 2.; In the Presby- 
 terian Church, baptism is administered without sponsors. 
 
 SPOO'NDRIFT. The light spray blown off the waves in 
 a violent wind. 
 
 SPO'RADIC. (Gr. <7-£</>w, I sow.) A term applied to 
 such diseases as attack a few persons at a time. 
 
 SPORANGI'UM. (Gr. a-rropa, a seed, and ayyetov, a ves- 
 sel.) The case in which the reproductive matter of ferns, 
 mosses, and many other Cryptogamic plants is enclosed. 
 Sporangiolum is the same part, when so small as to be mi- 
 croscopic. 
 
 SPORI'DIA. (Gr. atropa, and e«So?, form.) A term used 
 in describing Alga? and Characeae, to denote the granules 
 which resemble sporules, but which are of a doubtful nature. 
 Also, in describing Fungi, to indicate the immediate cover- 
 ing of the sporules. 
 
 SPORIDIO'LA. The sporules or reproductive granules 
 of Fungi. 
 
 SPO'RTUM, SPORTULA. In Roman Antiquities. It 
 90 
 
 sauiLL. 
 
 was an ancient usage in Rome for rich men to distribute 
 victuals on certain occasions among their poor clients, each 
 of whom attended for the purpose with a wicker basket 
 (sportum.) Afterwards this dole was generally commuted 
 for money ; and the sum thus distributed, about 100 quad- 
 rantes, or eighteen pence English, was called sportula. 
 
 SPO'RULES, or SPORES. (Gr. ampa, a seed.) The re- 
 productive bodies of Asexual or Cryptogamic plants, differ- 
 ing from seeds in not being generated by impregnation, and 
 in having no definite and predetermined points of growth, 
 but springing forth into young plants from any part of their 
 surface. 
 
 SPOTS ON THE SUN. See Sun. 
 
 SPRING. In Astronomy, one of the four seasons of the 
 year. For the northern hemisphere, the spring season be- 
 gins when the sun enters Aries, the first of the northern 
 signs, or about the 21st of March, and ends at the time of 
 the summer solstice. See Seasons. 
 
 Spring. In Mechanics, a piece of mechanism, formed 
 of tempered steel or some other elastic substance, applied 
 mostly for the purposes of producing resistance, or of pre- 
 venting a shock from the collision of hard bodies, or of 
 giving motion to mechanism by its effort to unbend itself. 
 For the law of the force exerted by a spring, see Elastic 
 Curve. 
 
 Spring. In Natural History. See Fountain. 
 
 Spring. In Naval language, a rope or hawser by which 
 a ship is held at one part, as the bow or quarter, in order to 
 keep her ic a particular position, or to turn her in a short 
 compass. 
 
 SPRINGING. In Architecture, the lower part of an 
 arch ; or that part from which it rises. 
 
 SPRING TIDES. The tides at the times of the new and 
 full moon. At these times the sun and moon are in a 
 straight line with the earth, and their joint effect in raising 
 the waters of the ocean is a maximum, and the tides are 
 consequently the highest. See Tides. 
 
 SPRIT SAIL. This is generally a four-cornered fore-and- 
 aft sail, supported diagonally by a piece of wood called the 
 sprit. Ships formerly carried sails on their sprit-sail yards. 
 
 SQUA'DRON. in Military affairs, signifies a body of cav- 
 alry, averaging from one to two hundred men. in naval 
 matters, it is applied to a detachment of ships employed on 
 a particular expedition. 
 
 SQUALL. The Sea term for a gust of wind, or for a 
 short temporary increase in the force of the wind. 
 
 BQUA'MA. (Lat. a scale.) The bracteae of an amen- 
 tum ; also used occasionally for any kind of bacted or rudi- 
 mentary leaf which has a scaly appearance. 
 
 SQUA'MMIPENNES. (Lat. squama; penna, a Jin.) 
 The name of a family of Acanthopterygious fishes, com- 
 prising those which have the dorsal and anal fins covered 
 with scales. 
 
 SQUA'MOUS. (Lat. squama, a scale.) In Zoology, 
 when a surface is covered with small scales. 
 
 SQUARE. In Geometry, a four-sided rectilineal figure, 
 of which all the angles are right angles, and all the sides 
 equal. 
 
 SQUARE MEASURES. The squares of the lineal 
 measures. See Measure. 
 
 SQUARE NUMBER, in Arithmetic, is the product of a 
 number multiplied by itself. Thus, the squares of the nat- 
 ural numbers, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, &.c, are respectively, 1, 4, 9, 16, 
 25, &c. The square numbers are the first series of figurate 
 numbers derived from the progression 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, &c, in. 
 which the common difference of the terms is 2. (See Figu- 
 rate Numbers.) Among the properties of square num- 
 bers the following may be mentioned : Every odd square 
 number is of the form 8 n + 1, or, when divided by 8, leaves 
 1 for the remainder. Every even square number is of the 
 form 4 7i, or is divisible by four. Every square number ends 
 with one or other of the following digits, 0, 1, 4, 5, 6, 9. No 
 number of the form 2 ml -f- 3 n- can be a square. 
 
 SQUARE-RIGGED. The term for a vessel carrying 
 square sails, which are extended by yards suspended hori- 
 zontally, or slung by the middle. 
 
 SQUARE ROOT. In Arithmetic, the square root of any 
 number is the number which being multipled into itself 
 produces the given number. Thus 12 is the square root of 
 144, i is the square root of ± and -05 the square root of -0025. 
 When the given number "is not an exact square, the root 
 may be found to any degree of approximation by the process 
 for extracting the square root, which is taught in every book 
 of common arithmetic. See Quadratic Equation. 
 
 SQUILL. The root of the Scilla maritima. Squills are 
 imported from the Levant ; they have a nauseously bitter 
 and very acrid flavour, and are generally cut into slices and 
 dried for pharmaceutical uses. There are two varieties, the 
 red and the white ; which, however, do not appear to differ 
 materially in composition. In large doses squill is purgative 
 and emetic ; but it is chiefly employed in smaller doses as a 
 
 1149
 
 STABAT MATER DOLOROSA. 
 
 powerful expectorant, and as a diuretic in combination with 
 other remedies. Half an ounce of oxymel of squills la 
 sometimes prescribed as an emetic in cases where the 
 
 bronchia are much loaded with viscid mucus, and in the 
 chronic coughs of Old people. 
 
 kT MATEB DOLOROSA. The first word- of 
 a celebrated Latin liymn of the Church, in rhymed lines of 
 eight syllables without metre ; said to have been composed 
 
 by a Franciscan monk named Jacopone, in the 14th century. 
 
 It has been set to music by nearly all the great cum,. 
 
 known of all their compositions is thai of Pergolesi, 
 commenced bj him when nearly mi his deathbed, and fin- 
 ished bj another hand. The stabat mater is performed in 
 the ecclesiastical services of the Roman Church during 
 Holy Week. 
 
 STACCATO. (It. separated.) In Music, a term denoting 
 that the notes to which it is affixed are to be detached in a 
 striking way from each other, being much like spiccato, 
 which 
 
 STACK. Corn in the sheaf piled up in a circular or rect- 
 angular figure, brought to a point or ridge at top, and after- 
 ntched to protect it from the influence of the weath- 
 er, and mure especially from rains. The term is also some- 
 times applied to hay piled up in the same manner; which, 
 however, in most places, is called a rick. The foundation 
 of a corn stack is commonly made on a platform of wood or 
 iron, raised on props to protect it from the moisture of the 
 soil, and also from rats and mice; in which reaped stacks 
 of com differ from ricks of hay, which are built always on 
 the ground. 
 
 STA'DIUM. (Gr. araliov.) A measure of length in use 
 among the ancient Greeks and some other nations, the pre- 
 cise value of which is unknown ; though there are some 
 data from which a rough approximation to its value may be 
 made. The most ancient measurement of an arc of the ter- 
 restrial meridian is that of Eratosthenes, and the result gave 
 the length of the circumference of a great circle = 350,009 
 stadia. But the circumference of the earth's equator is 
 known to be nearly ij.lMHl English miles; whence, suppos- 
 ing the measurement of Kratosthenes to he correct, a Stadium 
 is the tenth part of an English mile. Posidonius found by 
 another measurement the circumference of the earth to be 
 240,000 stadia: on the same supposition of an accurate de 
 termination, this gives about 9j stadia to the English mile. 
 But it is to be remarked, that little dependence can be 
 placed on these ancient measurementa; for Ptblemj estj 
 mated the circumference of the earth at 180.U0U stadia. 
 which is only ijths of the result found by Posidonius. The 
 milium is, however, supposed to have been different at 
 different places, (isee Paucton, JUetrologie ; also the Quar- 
 trrlij lit n. ir. No. 5.) The best account of the stadium, 
 and the ancient mode of measuring distances, is to be col- 
 lected from the various memoirs of Danville; in the Mtm. 
 de l\icad. des Inscr., vols, xxiv.. x.wiii., x.xxvi. ; and ffis- 
 toire de I'.icad.. vols. xwii.. xxxi. 
 
 Stadii m. In Ancient Architecture, an open area used 
 
 for exercises by the Grecian youth. With the Romans it 
 
 was much in trie form of the circi, but most of thi 
 
 stadia were enclosed by merely an earthen mound. Yitruvi- 
 
 us informs us that its length was much greater than its 
 
 breadth ; the lists were formed by a bank or terrace. 
 
 Thoush the stadium mostly formed part of a gymnasium, 
 
 mes formed a separate structure, and was built at 
 
 ■ and with considerable elegance : w itness that on 
 
 thian Isthmus mentioned by Pausanias. as well a- 
 
 that of Herodie Atticus at Athens, which was of large di- 
 
 mensions. and constructed of Pentelican marble. Besides 
 
 this, mention is made by that author of several others. 
 
 STA DTHOLDER. (Dut stadhouder, tity-kola 
 name formerly given to the commander In-chief of the mili- 
 tary force- in the republic of the United Netherlands. Wil- 
 liam I.. Prince of Oranee, had been made governor or stadt- 
 holder of the three provinces of Holland, Zealand, and 
 Utrecht ; and during the war of independence, he was con- 
 tinued in that office by the goodwtil of those provinces. 
 After his death tin- Earl of Leicester was decian 
 holder by the States Genera] : while some of thi 
 
 - appointed l'rince Maurice, son of their former 
 
 governor, rot a century and a half afterwards the office 
 
 :. rred and withdrawn by the several provinces at 
 
 many different times, although always confined to members 
 
 of the bouse of Orange. William IV., Prince of Orange, in 
 
 1747. was the lir-t general hereditary Itadtholder; in 17M, 
 
 the office ceased in the French conquest ; in 1-M. the pres- 
 
 d of the house of Orange (who recently abdicated 
 
 in favour of his son w .is raised 10 the throne by the title of 
 King Willi mi I. The power of the stadlholder varied in 
 ■ provinces, and at different period--. 
 .-I IFF. In Music, the five lines and spaces between 
 (hem, on h in* h music Is written. 
 Si mi. in Architecture, 5 Bt -inn. 
 Ktajt. In Military ajTairs, those officer* attached to the 
 1150 
 
 STAMENS. 
 
 commander of an army to assist him in carrying his plant 
 into execution. They consist of a qu.irteiniasi. 
 adjutant general, major.- Of brigade, il The importance 
 
 of the judicious selection of a staflf is ably demonstrated in 
 
 the preface to James'* Military liictiunary. 
 
 ST WT' ANGLE. Iii Architecture, a square rod of wood 
 
 standing flush with the wall on each of us -.des. ;u the ex- 
 ternal angles of plastering on the inside of the apartments, 
 
 to prevent the angles thereof being broken or damaged. 
 
 STAIRS. In Architecture. steps for ascending from the 
 lower to the upper part of a house. When these are en- 
 Ith walls or balustrades, with landing-places for 
 communication between the several stories of a building, 
 the whole Is called a staircase. Vltruvius makes no men- 
 tion of staircases in his Treatise on Architecture ; and, in- 
 deed, with the ancients they formed no feature in the in- 
 terior, being generally on the outside of the houses. Those 
 id' which traces remain arc narrow, and so inconvenient 
 that in some cases the steps are a foot in height. In modern 
 architecture, they are often constructed with great display 
 of skill and magnificence, and are no small test of the skill 
 and power of the architect Those stairs which proceed in 
 a right line of ascent are called fliers ; when they wind 
 round a solid or open neird they are called minders. .Viitd 
 stairs are such as partly wind and partly tlv. 
 
 STALACTITES. Conical concretions of carbonate of 
 lime attached to the roofs of calcareous caverns, and formed 
 by the gradual dropping of water holding the carbonate in 
 solution: from oruXuffoui, I drop. 
 
 STALA CMITE. Btalactical formations of carbonate of 
 lime, found upon the floors of calcareous caverns. 
 
 STALK. In Architecture, an ornament resembling a 
 stalk in the Corinthian capital, from which the volutes and 
 helices spring. It is sometimes fluted. 
 
 STALL. In Architecture, a seat raised on the sides of 
 the choir or chancel of a churrh. mostly appropriated to a 
 dignitary of a cathedral or collegiate church, Sometimes 
 stalls are placed near the hii:h altar, for the priest and 
 deacon or snbdeacon to rest while the Ben ice in certain 
 parts is carried on by the choristers. In churches of the 
 kinds named there is generally a series of them. At St. 
 George's Chapel, Windsor, a stall is appropriated to every 
 if the Garter after his election and installation. 
 
 STA'LLAGE. In Law. a duty paid for the liberty of 
 setting up moveable stalls or tables, or the like, in a fair or 
 market ; due to the owner of the soil as Mich, to set npstalls 
 without who<e licence i- trespass. When the stalls are 
 fixed into the ground, the dun is termed piekage. 
 
 STALL FEEDING. Cattle kept in stables, and tied up 
 separately, Which have their food brought to them 
 to be stall-fed. The advantages of this mod, of fattening 
 cattle are very great, both to the farmer or feeder and to the 
 public; because much less food is wasted, and a much 
 greater quantity of manure is produced. The diaad' 
 are. that more manual labour is required tor cutting and 
 carrying the food from the field to the stable: and that the 
 flesh of the animals, for want of exercise in the latter, is 
 not considered so wholesome or high-flavoured as that of 
 
 cattle which have pastured at large. To remedy this de- 
 fect of stall feeding, the most enlightened farmers-, instead 
 of rendering their cattle fixtures by tying them up to stakes. 
 put t\\ o or three together in small yards, with a shed at one 
 end. in which they can take exercise, shelter, or re|iose, ac- 
 cording to their inclination. By this mode an equal quan- 
 tity of manure is produced with less labour, and the rle-h of 
 the cattle is reckoned wholesome. When herbage plants 
 or grasses are cut only fwo or three times in the comae of 
 a s, a-on. instead of being continual!) cropped by thi 
 cattle during the whole summer, the amount of vegetable 
 produce is found to be much greater, because the plant while 
 growing perfects a sufficient number Of leaves to nourish 
 the root; and when this produce is given to cattle in racks, 
 -beds, or small courts, much less of it Is wastSJQ 
 than if it were eaten on the sj>ot where it grew. Hence any 
 l',\- i. surface Of cultivated land will produce a much greater 
 quantity of butcher meat under crop- to be mown than un- 
 der herbage to be pastured; ami stall feeding, therefore, is 
 oi f the greatest < lent improvements that has been in- 
 troduced into husbandry. There can be little doubt that, 
 
 with the progress of rural Improvement, it will ultimately 
 become universal; and then, and not till then, will the 
 butcher meat id" warm climates lie equal to that of RMh 
 climates as that Of Hritain. In warm climates, at pre-etit, 
 
 cattle cannot be fattened by partiiilng 
 
 STA'MENS. I. at. The male apparatus of a flower. 
 They are situated immediately within the petals, and con- 
 sist each Of a filament, the anther, and the pollen ; of which 
 the two latter are essential, and the former not. They are 
 a modified form of the |>etal. and are placed next it on the 
 
 Inside next the centre of the flower. Independently of thair 
 physiological Importance, they are much used as good mark* 
 of di-ciuuinaiiun in systematical botany.
 
 STAMINIDIA. 
 
 STAMINI'DIA. (Lat. stamen.) Those bodies which 
 are supposed to be, in Hepatice, and other Cryptogamic 
 plants, the equivalent of anthers in more perfect plants. 
 
 STAMP DUTIES. Duties imposed on pieces of parch- 
 ment and paper on which many species of legal instruments 
 are written; on newspapers, advertisements, cards, dice, 
 &c. The stamp duties have been consolidated and altered 
 by a great variety of acts of parliament ; and by 4 and 5 YV. 
 4, c. 60, the boards of stamps and taxes are united into a 
 single one. 
 
 The manner in which the stamp duties on legal instru- 
 ments are chiefly secured is by prohibiting the reception of 
 them in evidence, unless they bear the stamp required by 
 the law. Should the instrument, after being stamped and 
 executed, be altered, a restamping will in certain cases be 
 requisite ; thus, a mere mistake may be altered without a 
 stamp; but any change in the terms of a contract, or any 
 fresh conveyance by indorsement on a former one, requires 
 a fresh stamp. The objection to an instrument arising from 
 the want of a stamp must be taken at the trial before the 
 instrument is read ; but it is sufficient for tire purpose of 
 evidence that the instrument when produced on the trial 
 should be properly stamped, although it may not have been 
 stamped when it was executed ; except in cases where the 
 commissioners of stamps are prohibited, by express enact- 
 ment, from affixing in this manner a subsequent stamp. 
 When an instrument has been lost, and it is proposed to 
 give secondary evidence of its contents, it is necessary first 
 to give evidence that it was duly stamped ; but this fact 
 may be presumed from circumstances : and where an in- 
 strument is withheld by an adversary after notice to pro- 
 duce, it is always taken as against him that it is so stamped. 
 An unstamped instrument, though inadmissible in evidence 
 of its contents, may yet be received in evidence for collateral 
 purposes. Thus, in indictment for forgery of an instrument, 
 the instrument may be produced, although unstamped ; and 
 an agreement, although unstamped, is admissible for the 
 purpose of proving usury, &c. (See Starkie on Evidence.) 
 
 STA'NCHIONS. The Sea term for upright supports in 
 general. 
 
 STAND. A Sea term, used variously ; as, for example, 
 a sail is said to stand well or ill. A ship is said to stand 
 towards or from the shore or any object (for to sail). To 
 stand on, to continue the course. To stand by, to be ready. 
 
 STA'NDARD. In Botany, the upper and erect petal of 
 that form of corolla which is called Papilionaceous, from its 
 fancied resemblance to a butterfly. 
 
 Standard. See Banner, Flag. 
 
 Standard of Money. See Monet. 
 
 STA'NISL AUS, SALVT. A Polish order of knighthood, 
 founded by Stanislaus, king of Poland, in 1765 ; renewed by 
 the emperor Alexander in 1815. 
 
 STA'NNARIES. (Lat. stannum, tin.) The stannary 
 courts of Devon and Cornwall, are courts of record for the 
 administration of justice among the tinners. They are held 
 before the lord warden and his substitutes. The privileges 
 of the tinners were confirmed by 33 E. 1. The appeal from 
 the lord warden lies to the privy council of the Prince of 
 Wales, and thence to the sovereign. 
 
 STA'JSNIC ACID. Peroxide of tin. 
 
 STA'JN'ZA. (Ital. stanza, station.) In Poetry, a series 
 or number of verses connected with each other in a poem, 
 of which the metre is constructed of successive series similar 
 in arrangement. The stanza, however, must be understood 
 to form a shorter division than the classical strophe, to 
 which this definition would be equally applicable. The 
 term is of Italian origin, and signifies literally a station or 
 resting place : it is so called from terminating with a full 
 point or pause. The ottava rima, which consists of six 
 lines in alternate rhyme ended by a couplet, the lines being 
 deca, or, rather, hendeca-syllabic, is the principal Italian 
 6tanza. {See Ottava Rima.) The Spenserian stanza (which 
 was perhaps invented by the poet from whom it derives its 
 name, but was certainly first applied by him to the construc- 
 tion of a regular poem) consists of eight deca-syllabic verses 
 and an Alexandrine at the end ; the first and third verses 
 forming the last rhyme ; the second, fourth, fifth, and sev- 
 enth another; and the eighth and ninth a third rhyme. 
 Lord Byron has given both to the Ottava and the Spenserian 
 stanza in English verse a peculiar and original character. 
 
 Stanza. In Architecture, an apartment or division in a 
 building. The series of divisions of the Vatican, for in- 
 stance, are called the stanze of the Vatican. 
 
 STAPES. A stirrup. One of the bones of the internal 
 ear is so called, from its shape. 
 
 STAPHYLO'MA. (Gr. oraQvXn, a grape.) A disease 
 of the eyeball, in which the cornea becomes opaque and 
 tumid, forming a white projection, sometimes resembling a 
 grape in shape; it occasionally increases to a great extent, 
 and requires to be removed by an operation. 
 
 STA'PLE, signified originally a public market, whither 
 merchants were obliged to carry their goods for sale ; but is 
 
 STAR. 
 
 now applied to the chief commodities either grown or manu- 
 factured in any country. 
 
 STAR. (Gr. aorpuv, Ger. stern.) In a popular sense, 
 the term star is used to designate any celestial body what- 
 ever, including the planets; but in astronomy it is applied 
 only to those self-shining bodies which are situated beyond 
 the sphere of solar attraction, and consequently do not par- 
 ticipate in the motions of the solar system. 
 
 One of the first results of the observation of the heavens 
 was, that the stars maintain always the same positions re- 
 latively to each other. Hence they were called^jcd stars, 
 in distinction to the planets, or wandering stars, which are 
 constantly changing their places in the firmament. The 
 fixity of the stars is, indeed, not absolute; for modern ob- 
 servations have detected some changes of relative position 
 among them ; but these changes are so minute, that, in gen- 
 eral, they only become sensible after the lapse of a number 
 of years, by a comparison of positions determined with the 
 most perfect instruments at the beginning and end of the 
 interval. They are consequently altogether inappreciable 
 to unassisted vision, and the discovery of their existence has 
 not rendered a change of language necessary : astronomers 
 still speak of the fized stars. 
 
 Apparent Magnitude of the Stars. — The first circum- 
 stance which arrests the attention of the observer of the 
 stars is the great differences of their apparent magnitudes 
 or their relative brightness. In order to establish a grada- 
 tion in this respect, and for the convenience of description 
 and reference, astronomers divide them into classes or orders, 
 which are called magnitudes. A few of the most brilliant 
 are denominated stars of the first magnitude ; those of an 
 inferior degree of brightness are of the second magnitude ; 
 and so on down to the 6th or 7th, which, according to the 
 established convention, comprehend all the stars visible to 
 the naked eye. The gradation is, however, still continued 
 among those which are only visible in the telescope, and 
 magnitudes from the 8th to the 16th are familiar to those 
 who are in the practice of using powerful instruments. It 
 is, however, to be remarked, that this classification is not 
 based on any photometrical determination, but is entirely 
 arbitrary. " Of a multitude of bright objects," says Sir 
 John Herschel, " differing, probably, intrinsically, both in 
 size and splendour, and arranged at unequal distances from 
 us, one must of necessity appear the brightest, one next be- 
 low it, and so on. An order of succession must exist; and 
 it is a matter of absolute indifference where, in that infinite 
 progression downwards from the brightest to the invisible, 
 we choose to draw our lines of demarcation. All this is 
 matter of pure convention. Usage has, however, established 
 such a convention ; and although it is impossible to deter- 
 mine exactly, or a priori, where one magnitude ends and 
 another begins, and although different observers have dif- 
 fered in their magnitudes, yet, on the whole, astronomers 
 have restricted their first magnitudes to about 15 or 20 prin- 
 cipal stars, their second to 50 or 60 next inferior, their third 
 to about 200 yet smaller, and so on ; the numbers increas- 
 ing very rapidly as we descend in the scale of brightness, 
 the whole number of stars already registered, down to the 
 7th magnitude inclusive, amounting to 15,000 or 20,000." 
 (Jlstronomy, Cabinet Cyclopaedia, p. 374.) 
 
 Arrangement and Nomenclature of the Stars. — In order 
 to indicate the quarter of the heavens in which any star is 
 situated, astronomers, in the earliest ages of the science, 
 had recourse to the method of forming them into groups, to 
 which they gave the name of constellations, or asterisms 
 (see Constellation), and distinguished the different groups 
 one from another by appellations borrowed in general from 
 mythology, and suggested by vague resemblances or fanciful 
 analogies, the origin of which it is now difficult or impossi- 
 ble to trace. A few of the brightest stars received particu- 
 lar names: some of which, conferred by the Greeks and 
 Arabs, have been preserved, as Sirius, Rigel, Aldebaran, 
 Arcturus, Capella, &c. ; but it is obvious that this nomen- 
 clature could not be carried to any great extent. The sys- 
 tem which has prevailed in modem times, and been gene- 
 rally adopted by astronomers in their charts and catalogues, 
 was invented by Bayer, whose Uranometria, containing 
 charts of all the constellations, was first published at Augs- 
 burg in 1603. It consists in distinguishing the stars belong- 
 ing to each constellation by the letters of the alphabet, be- 
 ginning with the brightest, which is called a. The next 
 brightest is called fi, the next in order of brightness y, and 
 so on ; and when the letters of the Greek alphabet were 
 exhausted, Bayer had recourse to the Roman, and then to 
 the Italian. It is to be observed, that the order of the let- 
 ters indicates only the relative brightness of stars in the 
 same constellation, without reference to other parts of the 
 heavens. Admitting the principle, it might have been sim- 
 pler to have employed the ordinal numbers 1, 2, 3. 4, &c., 
 for distinguishing individual stars. But great perplexity is 
 caused by the irregular forms of the constellations, whose 
 numerous contortions and interlacings with each other baffle 
 
 1151
 
 STAR. 
 
 the efforts of memory, find which seem, as Sir J. Herschel 
 remarks, "to have been purposely named and delineated 
 to cause as much confusion as possible." 
 
 Distribution of the Stars.— The siars are very irregularly 
 distributed over the celestial sphere. In some regions spaces 
 hi considerable magnitude occur In which scarcely a single 
 star is to be seen, while in others they are crowded to- 
 gether, so as to present to the unassisted eye the appear- 
 ance of a confused mass of light. A great and rapid In- 
 crease of number Is in general perceptible as we approach 
 the borders Of the Milky Way, where they appear, when 
 
 viewed through a powerful telescope, to be crowded almost 
 beyond imagination. [See MlLKY Way.) Besides the ge- 
 neral increase which takes place towards this region, there 
 are in several parts of the heavens patches or clusters of 
 stars, where great numbers are condensed into a very nar- 
 row space. A telescope turned upon the Pleiades snows 
 fifty or sixty large stars crowded together within a small 
 area, and comparatively insulated from the rest of the hea- 
 vens. The constellation Coma Berenices is a similar 
 group, though more diffused. Another incurs in the con- 
 stellation Cancer, and is called Prsesepe, or the Beehive, 
 from the great number of stars it presents in the telescope. 
 In the sword handle of Orion there is also a group of the 
 same kind, but in which the individual stars can only be 
 distinguished in a telescope of considerable power; and in 
 various parts of the heavens there are found luminous spots 
 in which no star can be distinguished with ordinary tele 
 scopes, but which, when viewed through very powerful in- 
 struments, are found to consist of stars crowded together so 
 as to occupy almost a definite outline. "Many of them," 
 says Sir J. Herschel, " are of an exactly round figure, and 
 convey the complete idea of a globular space filled full of 
 stars, insulated in the heavens, and constituting in Itself a 
 family or society apart from the rest, and subject to its own 
 internal laws. It would be a vain task to count the stars 
 in one of these globular clusters. They are not to be reck- 
 oned by hundreds ; and on a rough calculation, grounded on 
 the apparent intervals between them at the borders (where 
 they are not seen projected on each other) and the angular 
 diameter of the whole group, it would appear that many 
 clusters of this description must contain at least ten or 
 twenty thousand stars compressed and wedged together in 
 a round space, whose angular diameter does not exceed 8 
 or 10 minutes; that is to say, in an area not exceeding the 
 tenth part of that covered by the moon." {Astronomy, p. 
 400.) 
 
 Number of the Stars. — Hopeless as any attempt to count 
 the number of the "starry host" may appear to be. it has 
 nevertheless been sometimes made. Of the stars visible to 
 the naked eye at any one time, the number probably does 
 not exceed a few thousands ; but in the telescope they are 
 prodigiously multiplied. Sir VV. Herschel estimates that 
 in a zone not exceeding two degrees In breadth, but includ- 
 ihg a portion of the Milky Way, the Dumber which passed 
 through the field of his telescope in a Bingle hour amounted 
 to 50,000. On account of their irregular distribution this 
 estimate furnishes a very imperfect datum for inferring the 
 whole number in the sphere ; but it has been supposed that 
 not fewer than 75 millions may be visible in a good tele 
 scope. Baron Zach, indeed, was of opinion that there may 
 be 1000 millions in the entire heavens. Hut it is abundant- 
 ly obvious that all estimates of this sort are nothing better 
 than fanciful conjectures ; and instead of a limit being found 
 to the number of the stars, there is an Infinitely greater 
 probability that if an observer could transport himself to 
 the remotest visible star, he would there behold a firma- 
 ment not less rich than the one he left behind. "Every 
 increase, " says Sir .1. Herschel, "in the dimensions and 
 power of Instruments, which successive improvements in 
 optical science have attained, has brought into view multi- 
 tudes innumerable of objects Invisible before; so that, for 
 any thing experience has hitherto taught us, the number 
 id the stars may be really Infinite, in the only sense in which 
 
 we can assign a meaning lothe word." (, Istrtmomy, p. :n:t.) 
 
 Parallax and Distance of the Stars. — The distance of the 
 fixed stars from the earth has in all aces been an object of 
 inbrest and inquiry. The element from which the dis- 
 tance ran be deduced is the annual parallax, or the angle 
 subtended by the diameter of the earth's orbit at ii. 
 tance of the star [see Parallax); but this distance is so 
 great that if we except one or two Instances, perhaps still 
 doubtful, all the attempt! of astronomers to determine it 
 have hitherto lieen fruitless. The instance in which the 
 Observation! have most probably abown the annual parallax 
 to have n measurable value is that of the double star til 
 Cjgni, observed by Bessel at KOnigsberg in 1830 and 1840. 
 The value of the parallax Obtained by this celebrated as 
 tronomer was 0*3483" (a little more than the third part of a 
 
 t . m which it results that the distance of the star 
 
 09,000 limes the mean radius of the earth's orbit; a 
 ince so enormous, that light, which is propagated with 
 US 
 
 a velocity of 190,000 miles in a second, would require 9J, 
 yean to traverse it. (.Monthly Notices of the lioyoi .utr. 
 Society, May, 1840.) .Now there is every reason tii believe 
 
 that this is one of the nearest of the fixed Stars ; and It is 
 no extravagant supposition that there may be others still 
 ri&lble w Inch are a thousand times more remote. If, there- 
 lore, one of these were annihilated, some ten thousand 
 
 years would elapse before its extinction could be perceived 
 at the distance of the earth. 
 
 Proper .Motions of the Stars. — On comparing the places 
 of the stars determined by receni observations with the po- 
 sitions assigned to them in the older catalogues, it is found 
 that man] of them have undergone a very sensible dis- 
 placement Within the last fifty years the double star 61 
 Oygni, above mentioned, has moved through 4' 23" of 
 
 right ascension ; ami as the motion appears to be uniform, 
 its rate is therefore about 5*3" annually. Another star (ji 
 
 Cassiopeia;) has an annual proper motion of 374". The 
 number of stars in which such million has been detected, 
 though of smaller amount than in the above instances, is 
 
 verj considerable. Out of 2959 stars in the catalogues of 
 Bradley and Piazzi, lle^sel found 425 having a proper mo- 
 tion of not less than U-". The discovery of the existence 
 of such changes in the places of the stars gives rise to some 
 interesting speculations relative to the constitution of the 
 universe. That the stars gravitate to each other like the 
 bodies of the solar system is rendered certain from the phe- 
 nomena of binary stars ; and when we admit the prevalence 
 of this force among them, we are led to suppose a centrifu- 
 gal force to be necessary to counteract the tendeny to a ge- 
 neral collapse produced by their mutual gravitation. Hence 
 we conclude that the proper motions must be performed in 
 circular or elliptic orbits round some very remote centre; 
 and as every appearance leads us to suppose the stars to be 
 bodies of the same nature as our own sun, it becomes ex- 
 tremely probable that the sun with its attendant system is 
 transported through space with a similar motion. Now the 
 translation of the solar system would necessarily give rise 
 to an apparent change of the positions of the stars; for in 
 consequence of the diminution of distance, they must ap- 
 pear to recede from that point of the heavens towards 
 which the sun's motion is din cted, and to converge and be- 
 come more condensed in the region diametrically opposite. 
 Sir William Herschel was of opinion that this is what ac- 
 tually takes place, and that a general recess of the principal 
 stars from the point occupied by £ Hercules is already indi- 
 cated by the catalogues, and consequently that the solar 
 system is carried forward in the direction of that slar. It 
 seems however, to be the opinion of astronomers at present 
 that the observations are not yet sufficient to establish the 
 certainly of this motion ; bill Whether the supposition shall 
 be confirmed or not, it is evident that the proper motions 
 which have been remarked, cannot be all accounted lor in 
 this way. They appear, indeed, to be subject to no one as- 
 signable law. but to be directed to many different and even 
 
 opposite pom's of space, li is a curious circumstance, and 
 
 was first noticed by Hessel. thai a targe proportion of the 
 stars which have a proper motion are double stars. In the 
 Memoirs of the Royal .istrun. Society, vol. ii.. a list is given 
 of all the stars whose proper motions, as determined by 
 comparison of the observations of Bradley and Mayer with 
 Piazzi's catalogue, exceed half a second either in right as- 
 cension or declination. 
 
 Variable and Periodic Stars. — The proper motions are 
 not the only indications of the existence of active ion es in 
 the stellar regions. Many stars have been observed whose 
 
 light appears to undergo a regular periodic increase and di- 
 minution of brightness, amounting in some instances to a 
 Complete extinction and revival. Of this kind one of the 
 
 most remarkable is the >mr Omieron in the constellation 
 CetUB, or the Whale, which has a period ofaboul 334 days. 
 At its greatest brightness it is a star of the second or third mag- 
 nitude, and continues in ibis state about a fortnight, w lien 
 iis light begins to wane, and at the end of three months 
 it bee es for sunn- lime invisible to liie naked e>e. Algol, 
 
 in the constellation Perseu -. appears for about 62 hours as a 
 
 star of the second magnitude ; us light then suddenly dimin- 
 ishes, and in about :u hours ii i- reduced to ilio iif h magni- 
 tude; it then begins lo n Vive, and in the space of :H hours 
 more it is restored in its original state, thus accomplishing 
 
 ils period in about 09 hours. The slar i Cephei has a period 
 
 ofaboul 5days8j hours, and fi Lyre one of 6 days 9 hours. 
 
 A star in the brea.-t of the Swan has a period of about 15 
 years, during live of which it is invisible. Various oilier 
 
 similar Instances have been remarked; and recently Sir 
 
 John Herschel ha- | tied put a Cassiopeia! and a Ononis 
 
 /the latter of the iir-t magnitude) as variable stars. {.Month- 
 of the Royal .i.-tr. Society, May, 1830, and June, 
 1840.) 
 
 Several hypothesis have been suggested lo account for 
 the.se variations. Newton suggested thai the stars revolve 
 about axes of rotation, like the sun and planets ; and that
 
 STAR. 
 
 parts of their surfaces may be covered with spots, or be 
 less fitted to emit light. Maupertuis supposed that their 
 figure is not globular but flat, and that the variations of 
 brilliancy depend on the angle made by the flat sides with 
 the visual ray. Others, again, have imagined that the par- 
 tial obscurations may be occasioned by dark bodies or pla- 
 nets revolving about them in regular periods. 
 
 Temporary Stars. — On examining ancient catalogues it is 
 found that some stars formerly distinguished by their splen- 
 dour have entirely disappeared, no stars being now found 
 in the places which they are set down as having occupied. 
 Others have suddenly shone forth with extraordinary bril- 
 liancy, and after a longer or shorter period have gradually 
 died away, and become extinct. A phenomenon of this 
 kind, about 125 years B.C., induced Hipparchus to under- 
 take the formation of his catalogue. In the year 389 of our 
 era a star suddenly blazed forth near a Aquila:, and re- 
 mained for three weeks as bright as Venus, and then dis- 
 appeared. But one of the most remarkable instances is 
 that of the star which appeared in 1572, and was observed 
 by the astronomer Tycho Brahe. It suddenly shone forth 
 in the constellation Cassiopeia, attained a splendour equal 
 to that of Jupiter and Venus when nearest the earth, and 
 could be seen with the naked eye at mid-day. Its bright- 
 ness gradually diminished, and at the end of sixteen months 
 it disappeared, and has never been seen since. During the 
 time of its visibility, its apparent place remained unchanged. 
 All the phenomena attending it are fully described by Tycho 
 in his work entitled De Nova Stella Anni, 1572. A similar 
 phenomenon occurred in the year 1604, in the constellation 
 Serpentarius, of which an account is given by Kepler {De 
 Stella Nova in Pede Serpentarii, Praga?, 1606). For various 
 other instances of a similar kind, and also of stars set down 
 in the catalogues, but which cannot now be found, the 
 reader is referred to Dalaiule's Jistronomie, tome i., p. 250. 
 . Double and Multiple Stars. — Many of the stars which 
 appear to the naked eye, or in telescopes of feeble power, 
 merely as bright points, are found, when observed with high 
 magnifying powers, to be composed of two, and some of 
 theru of three or more stars, in close juxtaposition. This 
 appearance may arise from the circumstance of two stars 
 being situated in nearly the same line of view ; for it is evi- 
 dent that two stars thus placed would appear as a double 
 star, however great the real distance between them may 
 be. It was suggested by Galileo that the variations (if sen- 
 sible) of the apparent distance between two contiguous 
 stars would furnish a good method of determining the an- 
 nual parallax ; and a series of observations on double stars 
 was undertaken by Sir William Herschel with a view to 
 this question. The result, however, was a discovery of a 
 very different kind ; for instead of finding an alternate in- 
 crease and decrease of the apparent distance between the 
 two stars, which would be the consequence of an annual 
 parallax, he observed in some instances a regular progres- 
 sive change from year to year in one direction. By reason 
 of the slowness of the apparent motion, a considerable in- 
 terval elapsed before he was able to determine its laws ; 
 but it was explicitely announced by him in 1803 that there 
 exist sidereal systems composed of two stars, one revolving 
 round the other, or both about a common centre. Subse- 
 quent observations have fully confirmed this discovery ; and 
 in some instances even the ellipticity of the orbits and the 
 periods of revolution have been determined. Some of these 
 binary systems, as they are called, have periods of great 
 length, and which, consequently, have been inferred from 
 observations continued during the description of only a 
 6inall part of their orbits. Thus, y Leonis has an angular 
 motion of about only 3-10ths of a degree in a year, and 
 consequently requires 1200 years to complete its revolution. 
 The star y Virginis, which consists of two stars of nearly 
 the same magnitude, has a period of 629 years. The period 
 of 01 Cygni is 452 years, and that of Castor 252 years. 
 There are others, however, having much shorter periods, 
 and which have already been observed through their entire 
 orbits. The star n Coronas, for example, has a period of 
 little more than 43 years, and has consequently completed 
 nearly two revolutions since its discovery as a double star 
 by Sir William Herschel in 1761 ; s Ursa? Majoris has a pe- 
 riod of about 085 years, and 70 Ophiuchi one of about 80 
 years. Since the time of Sir William Herschel, the observ- 
 ation of double stars has been a subject of much interest in 
 astronomy, and catalogues containing some thousands of 
 them have been published, giving the apparent distances of 
 the two bodies, and their angles of position, or the direction 
 of the straight line which joins them, by comparing which 
 with future observations their orbits and periods will be- 
 come known. (Herschel and South, Phil. Trans. 1826; 
 Herschel, Memoirs of the Royal Astronom. Society, vol. hi., 
 Struve, Cata/ogus Stellarum Duplicium et jMulliplicium, 
 Petropoli, 1837.) 
 
 About 40 or 50 of the double stars are already known to 
 form binary or revolving systems; and there are others 
 97 
 
 STARCH. 
 
 presenting phenomena still more remarkable. Struve has 
 enumerated 52 triple stars ; and systems have been ob- 
 served compounded of five and even more stars, all appear- 
 ing to revolve about a common centre. 
 
 Some of the binary systems afford curious instances of 
 contrasted colours, the colour of the smaller star being fre- 
 quently complementary to that of tne larger. In such in- 
 stances the larger star is usually of a ruddy or orange hue, 
 and the smaller one blue or green. Sir J. Herschel thinks 
 it probable that the colour of the small star is the effect of 
 the brighter light of the large one ; for it is a general law of 
 optics that when the retina is under the excitement of any 
 bright-coloured light, feebler lights for the time appear 
 coloured with the complementary tints. This opinion 
 seems strengthened by the fact that though insulated stars 
 of a red colour, almost as deep as that of blood, appear in 
 many parts of the heavens, no green or blue star (of any 
 decided hue) has been noticed unassociated with a com- 
 panion brighter than itself. 
 
 Intrinsic Light of the Stars. — On account of the distance 
 of the stars, it is not possible to form any idea of their actual 
 magnitude ; for when viewed through good telescopes they 
 appear simply as luminous points without any sensible 
 disks. Their light may, however, be compared with that 
 of any other luminous object ; and Dr. Wollaston found by 
 photometrical experiments the light of Sirius, the brightest 
 of the fixed stars, to be to that of the sun in the ratio of 1 to 
 20,000,000,000. STow the proportion of light received from 
 any luminous body being inversely as the square of its dis- 
 tance it follows that the sun would require to be removed 
 to 141,400 (the square root of the above number) times its 
 actual distance, in order that its light should be equal to 
 that of Sirius. But the parallax of Sirius, if sensible at all, 
 is undoubtedly less than 1", whence it is easily calculated 
 that the distance of Sirius cannot be less than 200,000 times 
 the distance of the sun from the earth : from this it follows 
 that the light of Sirius cannot be less than the double of 
 that emitted bv the sun. Dr. Wollaston, assuming a smaller 
 and more probable limit of the parallax, supposes the light 
 of Sirius to be equal to that of fourteen suns. {Phil. Trans., 
 1829 ; HerscheVs Astronomy, p. 380.) 
 
 The observation of the places of the stars has formed 
 the principal business of the astronomer in all ages; for as 
 it is to them that the motions of the planets and all the other 
 bodies of the solar system are referred, the knowledge of 
 their exact relative positions is the foundation of all our 
 astronomical theories, and of all the applications of the 
 science to the practical purposes of geography and naviga- 
 tion. The discovery of their proper motions could only be 
 made after instruments and methods of observation and 
 theory had been brought to a state of great perfection, and 
 is consequently of recent date. For our knowledge of 
 binary and other systems of connected stars, and, in gen- 
 eral, of all the facts which have been brought to light 
 respecting the phvsical constitution of the stars, we are 
 chiefly indebted to the two Herschels ; and so pre-emi- 
 nently distinguished have been the labours and discoveries 
 of these illustrious astronomers in this department of ob- 
 servation, that it is now usually called the Herschelian 
 branch of astronomy, in contradistinction to the observation 
 of positions which forms the business of national observ- 
 atories. See Astronomy, Nebula. 
 
 STARBOARD. The right-hand side of a ship, looking 
 forwards. 
 
 STARCH. (Germ, starke.) Starch is one of the com- 
 monest proximate principles of vegetables. It is charac- 
 terized by its insipidity, and by insolubility in cold water, 
 in alcohol, and in ether. It dissolves in, or at least forms a 
 gelatinous compound with water, heated to 175° ; and this 
 solution, even when much diluted, is rendered blue by 
 iodine. This admirable test of the presence of starch is not 
 effective in hot solutions ; and, by boiling, the blue colour 
 disappears, but returns in strong solutions as they cool. 
 The term starch is commercially applied to that obtained 
 from wheat, which, for this manufacture, is ground and dif- 
 fused through vats of water, where it undergoes a slight 
 fermentation, and acquires a peculiar sour smell. Apart 
 of the gluten and albumen of the grain is thus separated in 
 the form of a viscid scum ; the starch being in the form of 
 a finely divided white powder, is gradually further sepa- 
 rated by washing in large quantities of water, from which 
 it is ultimately allowed to settle, and put into boxes lined 
 with linen to drain ; it is then cut into squares, which are 
 dried first in airy chambers upon porous bricks, and after- 
 wards rolled up in papers and stove dried ; it is in this latter 
 operation that the starch acquires that peculiar columnar 
 texture and fracture which is well exhibited on opening a 
 paper parcel as it comes from the stove. A little smalt is 
 generally added to the starch, by which it acquires a very 
 pale blue tint, and is better adapted to conceal or cover the 
 yellow tint acquired by worn linen. Starch may be ob- 
 tained from many other grains, and from potatoes and 
 4C 1153
 
 STAR CHAMBER. 
 *cvcml other eeculairl rorrmhlnri Arroxc root is the starch 
 
 of the Ma ran tu arumlinacea ; sago, of the Saa-us farinifera, 
 an i'.u-t India pnltn tree; and tapioca and MMMMOf the 
 
 Jatrvpha manihot. Viewed iindnr the nnierascepe, the \a 
 rifles of starch exhibit a more or less distinct globular ap- 
 pearance, and are said to be made up of little spherical 
 particles of soluble Hard), enveloped in an insoluble mem- 
 brane, which protects the interior from the action of cold 
 water, but which is broken or burst hi hot water. In the 
 
 l<r. ■< rss of germination, and by various chemical agents, 
 starch may be converted into a species of gum and of 
 sugar. 
 
 - li is charged with a duty of 3'ei. per lb. ; and its man- 
 ufacture is. consequently, placed under the control of the 
 excise. Every maker of starch for sab- most take out an 
 annual licence, whii h e ets £5. .Notice must be given to 
 the i xcise of the erection, and of all changes in the con- 
 struction of workshops, implements, fee used in the manu- 
 facture of starch, under a penalty of £800. All starch, be- 
 fore it is put into any stove nr place to dry. must be papered 
 and sealed, or stamped by the officer, under a penalty of 
 X1U0. Any person forging or counterfeiting BUCh stamp or 
 seal U guilty of felony, but with the benefit of clergy. Any 
 person knowingly selling any starch with a forged or coun- 
 terfeit stamp. &c. forfeits x';>ni). No quantity of starch ex- 
 ceeding iSlbs. to be removed from one place to another, 
 unless the word stares be marked on the package in legible 
 letters three inches long, under forfeiture of the package. 
 and of the cattle and carts conveying the same. Any 
 dealer in starch receiving any qunntin i g9£ lbs. not 
 
 marked as above, shall forfeit £200. Starch-makers are to 
 make weekly entries of the starch made by them, under B 
 penalty of £50; and are to make payment of the duties 
 within a week of such entry. Cockets granted for ship- 
 ping starch to be carried coastwise are to express the 
 quality, quantity, weight, the mark of the package, by 
 whom made and sold, and to whom consigned; and if ship- 
 ped without such cockct, it may be seized. No starch is 
 to be imported, unless in packages containing at least 3941hs. 
 stowed openly in the hold, on pain of forfeiture, and of in- 
 curring a penalty of £50. No starch is to be exported, un- 
 less the package as originally sealed or stamped by the 
 oflicer be entire, and unless the officer mark the word • / 
 portation upon it. The duties must have been paid on all 
 starch exported; but the exporter is entitled to an excise 
 drawback of Z\d. per lb. (Bum's Justice of the Peace, 
 Harriot's ed.. tit. -Starch.") 
 
 STAll CHAMBER, COURT OF (Curia camera stel- 
 latse; from the ornaments of the ceiling of the room in 
 which at one period it sate;, was originally the privy coun- 
 cil itself, "sitting in the star chamber,'' and there exercising 
 important criminal jurisdiction, and administering equitable 
 relief. It is mentioned as early as the reign of Edward III. 
 In the third year of Henry VII. an act was passed giving 
 determinate criminal powers, extending cruelly to state of 
 fences and misdemeanors of a public kind, to "the court of 
 star chamber. The judges were lour high officers of state, 
 with power to join a bishop and a temporal lord of the 
 council, and two justices of the courts of Westminster, to 
 their number. They proceeded by bill and information 
 without the assistance of a jury. The sittings of the privy 
 council itself, as a criminal court, were after this gradually 
 abandoned, and its powers transferred to the star chamber. 
 This court continued to exercise very extensive jurisdiction, 
 both in political matters and in private concerns, during the 
 reigns of Henry V11I. and his successors, until it was finally 
 dissolved by 16 Car. 1, c. 10, together with what remained 
 of its cognate jurisdictions. (See CoBKI n.. I'rivy.) 
 
 BTA'BKEY'S SOAP. A compound of turpentine, or 
 oil of turpentine, and alkali. 
 
 BT \ E< 1ST. A title under the Polish republic enjoyed 
 by noblemen who were in possession Of certain castles and 
 domains called starosties. These were grants of the crow n. 
 and only conferred for life, but generally renewed after the 
 
 di mlse ofa possessor to Ins in ir-. 
 
 BTA'BSTONE. A very rare variety of sapphire, which, 
 when cut and viewed in a direction perpendicular to the 
 axis, presents a peculiar retlectiou of light in the firm of 
 a star. 
 
 3T.VTER. (Gr. crrarnp.) An ancient fJrcek measure 
 ofvajue. It was undoubtedly a coined piece of money at 
 an early period. The common gold currency in the repub- 
 lican times of Greece consisted of staters. Tie 
 
 i weighed two drachms, and is estimated 
 silver drachms ; but the value of the coin struck by different 
 with this denomination varied greatly. 
 
 STATES, or ESTATES. In modem European History 
 'French etats, Germ, stande), those divisions of =<m ietv, 
 profc- es 01 men, which have partaken, either 
 
 directly or by representation, in the government of their 
 country. Their number has varied in different countries. 
 in France, and most other feudal kingdoms, there have 
 1154 
 
 STATICS. 
 
 been three estates (nobles, clergy, commonality), members 
 ot the ancient national assemblies. Hence the Well-known 
 appellation tirr.i Mat (third estate,! for the last. In Svvedeu 
 there are at this day four: nobility, clergy, citizens. |>ea«.aiils. 
 In most countries the ancient system of assemblies con- 
 voke,! from separate estates disappeared by the progn 
 absolute government in the 16th and 17th centuries ; and in 
 modern monarchical constitutions the English' tern of 
 government, hi king, lords, and commons, or analogous 
 powers, has prevailed. Hut the states have been recon- 
 stituted of late years in some German monarchies and 
 
 grand duchies, the electorate of Hesse ISSel, fcc. 
 
 STATES-GENERAL. In Trench History, assemblies 
 which were first called AD. 1303, and were held Occasion- 
 ally from that period to the year 1014. when the* were dis- 
 continued, till they were summoned again at an interesting 
 period, viz.. in the year 1789. These states-general, how- 
 ever, were very different from the ancient assemblies of 
 the French nation under the kings of the first and second 
 race. There is no point with respect to which the French 
 antiquaries are more generally agreed than in maintaining 
 that the states-general had no suffrage in the passing of 
 laws, and possessed no proper jurisdiction. The whole 
 tenor of the French history confirms this opinion. See 
 Ass km in. y. Directory. 
 
 BTATICS. (Lat. stare, to stand.) The branch of Me- 
 chanics which has for its object the investigation of the 
 conditions of equilibrating forces, or the conditions under 
 which several forces applied to a rigid body mutually de- 
 stroy each other. 
 
 There are three general principles on which the theory 
 of equilibrium may be grounded: these are. 1. The prin- 
 ciple of the lever: 2. The principle of the composition of 
 lories ; .Hid 3. The principle of virtual velocities. 
 
 Principle of the J.ccr. — The equilibrium of a straight 
 horizontal lever, loaded at its extremities with weights 
 which are reciprocally proportioned to their distances from 
 the fulcrum, was demonstrated by Archimedes [see Le- 
 vkr) ; and it is easy to extend this principle to the lient 
 lever, when the fulcrum is at the angular point, and to 
 show that if the two aims In- urged in opposite directions 
 by two forces perpendicular to the arms, and reciprocally 
 Proportioned t,i their lengths, there will he equilibrium. 
 Xow. it is an axiom in statics that a force may be regarded 
 as acting at any point whatever in the line of its direction ; 
 and hence it follows that any two forces, applied at any 
 point.s whatever in a plane which is only moveable round 
 a fixed point, and having any directions whatever in that 
 plane, w ill he in equilibrium when they are to each other 
 reciprocally as perpendiculars drawn from the fixed point 
 to the lines of their direction; for the perpendiculars may 
 be regarded as the arms of a bent lever having the fixed 
 point for its fulcrum. This general principle, which is also 
 called the principle of moments, suffices for the resolution 
 of all the problems of statics, and is, indeed, the only one 
 which was rigorously demonstrated previous to the dis- 
 covery of the composition of forces; that is to say, previous 
 to the publication of the Principia in 1667. 
 
 Composition of Forces. — The second general principle 
 consists in this, that any two forces acting together upon 
 the same point ofa body, are equivalent to a single force 
 represented in intensity and direction by the diagonal of 
 a parallelogram, of which the two given forces are repre- 
 sented by the sides. This equivalent of the two forces is 
 called their resultant; and as the resultant may be com- 
 bined with a third force acting on the same point, and the 
 resultant of this composition with a fourth, and so on, it 
 follows that any number of forces applied to the same 
 point have a single resultant, or may be replaced by a single 
 force. (See Force.) This principle was not known to the 
 ancients. Galileo demonstrated that a body moved bj two 
 uniform velocities, the one vertical and the other horizontal, 
 
 most acquire the velocity represented by the hypothennse 
 of the right-angled triangle, whose sides represent respect- 
 ively the tWO velocities. This is a particular case of the 
 principle. Newton proved it to be true generally, and sub- 
 stituted the composition of forces for that of motions; and 
 in the second corollary to the third law of motion, he shows 
 how the laws of equilibrium may easily be deduced from it. 
 The JVVnreeUi Meeanique of Varignon, published in 1725* 
 contains the first complete theory of the equilibrium or 
 tori'- in different machines, deduced solely from the prin- 
 ciple of the composition of forces. The simplicity of the 
 principle, and the facility of its application to all questions 
 
 connected with equilibrium, caused it to lie almost imme- 
 diate!] adopted; and it is the basis of all the modern 
 treatises of statics. 
 
 I'irtiuil Velocities. — The third general principle on which 
 tin- i onilitioiis of equilibrium may be made to depend con- 
 
 si-t- |g tins, that forces acting in opposite directions destroy 
 
 each other when tin \ are inversely proportional to the v, - 
 locities which they would respectively coiiunujiicatc to the
 
 STATICS. 
 
 body in the first instant of its morion, if the equilibrium were 
 destroyed. This principle applies almost self-evidently to 
 the conditions of equilibrium of the lever, pulley, and other 
 simple machines. lis generality was first remarked by John 
 Bernoulli. It has been adopted by Lagrange, as the basis 
 of his Mecanique Analytique; and it has the advantage 
 over the others of being capable of representation in a single 
 general formula, which includes the solution of every ques- 
 tion that can be proposed relative to the equilibrium of 
 forces. Lagrange, however, remarks that it is not suffi- 
 ciently self-evident to be erected into a primitive principle; 
 but it may be regarded as a general expression of the laws 
 of equilibrium deduced from the two former. See Virtual 
 Velocity'. 
 
 The general problem of statics may be thus enunciated: 
 To find the equations of equilibrium of a body urged by any 
 number of forces having any directions whatever in space. 
 We shall briefly indicate the steps by which the equations 
 which express the conditions of equilibrium are obtained, 
 adopting the principle of the composition of forces. 
 
 1. A force which acts on any point of a solid body may 
 be regarded as applied at any point in the line of its direc- 
 tion, provided the different points of the line are invariably 
 connected, as is the case with any two points of a rigid 
 body. This, as already staled, may be assumed as an 
 axiom. 
 
 2. If a material point is urged by two forces acting in the 
 same straight line, and in the same direction, the etiect will 
 be the same as if the point were urged in the same direction 
 by a single force equal to their sum ; and if the two forces 
 act in opposite directions, the etiect will be the same as if 
 the two forces were replaced by a single force equal to their 
 difference acting in the direction of the greater. The single 
 force into which the others are compounded is called the 
 resultant: and as a third force may be compounded with 
 the resultant of two, another with the new resultant, and 
 so on, it is obvious that any number of parallel forces act- 
 ing on a point have a single resultant. 
 
 3. It has been shown in the article Force (p. 462) that 
 a force acting in any direction can always be decomposed 
 into three others respectively parallel to three straight lines 
 given in space, provided no two of these lines be parallel. 
 Hence it follows that whatever be the number or the di- 
 rection of the forces which act upon a solid body, they may 
 be ail replaced by three sets of parallel forces acting in 
 given directions. We have, therefore, only to consider the 
 theory of parallel forces. 
 
 4. When two parallel forces P and Q, acting in the same 
 
 /direction, are applied to the extremities of a 
 I rigid straight line A B, the resultant R will 
 
 / be equal to their sum, parallel to their com- 
 
 / mon direction, and will divide the line AB 
 
 A / c B into two parts in C, so that the distance of 
 / / the points of application from C are recipro- 
 / &' cally as the forces, or so that A C : C B : : 
 / a : P. Thus, if A P and B Q be taken to 
 
 * represent the forces, and C R the resultant, 
 
 we have CR=AP+BQ; and the two 
 forces will be in equilibrium with the force C R', equal to 
 C R, and acting in the opposite direction. 
 
 5. When two parallel forces P and Q, acting in oppo- 
 
 site directions, are applied to the extremities 
 , o of a rigid straight line A B, there are two 
 
 cases for consideration. If P and Q. are un- 
 equal, they have a resultant which is pa- 
 rallel to their direction, equal to their dif- 
 ference, and applied at a point C in A B pro- 
 duced, which is such that A C : C B : : Q, : P, 
 or A C : A B : : Q, : P — Q, and the two forces 
 represented by AP and B Q, will be in equi- 
 librium with a force C R' equal and opposite to C R. But 
 if the two forces P and Q, are equal, the point C, deter- 
 mined as above, is at an infinite distance, and there is con- 
 sequently no resultant. In this case, therefore, the two 
 forces P and Q. cannot make equilibrium with any single 
 force. 
 
 The system of two equal and parallel forces applied in op- 
 posite directions at the extremities of a rigid straight line is 
 very important in statics. For the sake of facilitating cal- 
 culation, the two forces may be transferred to other points 
 in the lines of their direction, so that the line joining the 
 new points of application shall be perpendicular to the di- 
 rection of the forces. Under this form, the system has been 
 designated by the French mathematicians a couple ; and its 
 consideration has introduced great simplicity into the theory 
 of equilibrium. We shall here state the principal properties 
 of couples, referring for the details of demonstration to the 
 Elemens de Statique of Poinsot. 
 
 6. Def. : A couple is a system of two equal parallel forces 
 acting in opposite directions, and applied perpendicularly to 
 the extremities of an inflexible straight line of a given 
 length. 
 
 B> 
 
 7. It is obvious from the definition that the efficacy of a 
 couple depends on two things ; the intensity of the forces, 
 and the length of the straight line or lever to the extrem- 
 ities of which they are applied. Now the force multiplied 
 into the leverage is the moment, or the measure of the ef- 
 fect produced. Let the force be denoted by F, and the 
 length of the straight line by a, then F a is the statical 
 moment of the couple. And if there be another couple F' 
 a', such that F : ¥' : : a' : a, then Fs = F'«'; or the stati- 
 cal moments of the two couples are equal, and the one may 
 be substituted for the other without disturbing the conditions 
 of equilibrium. 
 
 8. Any couple applied to a solid body may be transported, 
 parallel to itself, to any position in its own plane, or in any 
 other parallel plane ; and it may be turned round through 
 any angle in those planes without altering in any manner 
 its effect on the body to which it is applied, provided the 
 new points of application are invariably connected with 
 those to which the couple was originally applied. 
 
 9. Two couples situated anywhere in the same plane, or 
 in parallel planes, may be composed into a single couple 
 equal to their sum, if they tend to turn the body in the same 
 direction, or equal to their difference if they tend to turn it 
 in opposite directions. Hence, by successive composition, 
 any number of couples acting in parallel planes may be re- 
 placed by a single couple, the statical moment of which 
 will be equal to the difference between the sum of the mo- 
 ments of all the couples tending to turn the body in one di- 
 rection, and the sum of the moments of those which tend to 
 turn it in the opposite. 
 
 10. Two couples situated anywhere in two planes which 
 intersect each other may always be compounded into a sin- 
 gle couple ; and if we represent the moments of the two 
 couples respectively by two straight lines, making an angle 
 equal to that of the two planes, and complete with the par- 
 allelogram, the moment of the resulting couple will be rep- 
 resented by the diagonal, and the plane of the resulting 
 couple will divide the angle formed by the plane of the 
 component couples into two parts respectively equal to the 
 parts into which the diagonal divides the angle of the par- 
 allelogram. From this it is obvious that by successive com- 
 position any number whatever of couples, applied in any 
 manner to a solid body, may be replaced by a single couple. 
 
 11. Reciprocally, any couple may always be resolved into 
 two others situated in given planes, provided these planes 
 and the plane of the proposed couple meet in the same or 
 in parallel straight lines. 
 
 12. From the principles above stated, we draw this im- 
 portant conclusion — viz., that when a solid body is urged by 
 any number of forces having any directions whatever, the 
 whole may be reduced to one force and to one couple. For 
 let m be one of the points of a solid body, and conceive a 
 force F represented in intensity and di- 
 rection by the straight line m F to be 
 applied at m. Take O any point what- 
 ever in the solid body or invariably 
 connected with it, and draw O A per- 
 pendicular to m F, and conceive the H 
 
 force F to be applied at A in the same T *> / 
 
 direction mF. Now suppose another y y / 
 
 force G represented by O G, equal and 
 
 parallel to m F, to be applied at O, and let a third force H 
 represented by O H, equal to O G, but acting in the opposite 
 direction, be also applied at O. These two auxiliary forces 
 will not alter the statical condition of the body, because the 
 one exactly destroys the effect of the other. But the sys- 
 tem of three forces F, G, H may now be conceived as con- 
 sisting of a single force G applied at O, and of a couple 
 formed by the two forces F and H applied at the extremities 
 of the lever O A. Let O A be denoted by a, then the stati- 
 cal moment of this couple is F a ; and by (9) we may con- 
 ceive it to be moved in its own plane until the cenUe of the 
 arm O A coincides with the point O. 
 
 In like manner, if the other points m' m" &c., of the solid 
 body be respectively urged by forces F' F", &c, acting in 
 any directions whatever, each of these forces may be re- 
 placed by a single force acting at O, and by a couple having 
 its centre at O. Now (2) all the force acting at O will have 
 a single resultant R applied at the same point, and all the 
 couples having their centre at O may be compounded into 
 a single couple, which has its centre at the simie point (9). 
 Therefore, finally, the whole of the forces acting on the sol- 
 id body may be reduced to one force and to one couple ; and 
 in order that the body may remain at rest, it is necessary 
 that the efforts of the resulting force and the resulting couple 
 be severally destroyed. It is to be observed, that the result- 
 ant R cannot destroy the couple, or be in equilibrium with 
 it ; and, in general, the resultant and the couple will be sit- 
 uated in different planes. 
 
 From this it appears that the conditions necessaiy for the 
 equilibrium of a body urged by a number of forces are these : 
 1. That the resultant of all the forces at the point O be no- 
 
 1153
 
 STATICS. 
 
 thing ; and. 2. That the moment of the couple he nothing, 
 u rirst hi these conditions la satisfied, there can be 
 no progressive motion ; and when the second is satisfied. 
 there can be no rotatory motion about an axis. Jn order to 
 express these conditions by equations, an expression for the 
 resultant, and an expression for the single couple, 
 
 must be deduced from the conditions of the proposed prob- 
 lem, and the results severally made equal to nothing. We 
 shall now show the general forms of these expressions, and 
 
 for simplicity we shall first suppose all the forces to act in 
 the same plane. 
 
 Let there be any number of forces F' F" F'". fcc, applied 
 respectively at the points m'.m", m , fcc, 
 of a system of points Invariably co 
 ' and suppose all the points to be in one plane, 
 j^f/l and all the forces to act in the same plane, 
 
 — f— — ll but to have any directions whatever in that 
 plane. From a |xiint «• taken arbitrarily in 
 
 jj jfthe plane draw the rectangular axes X. 
 
 O Y; then, whatever the direction of the 
 force F'. it may be resolved into two forces respectively 
 parallel to these axes. Let the force F' be represented in 
 intensity and direction by the line m! I. and let X' = m' k be 
 its component parallel to the axis O X, and Y' = kl its com- 
 ponent parallel to O Y. In like manner let X" and V " be 
 the components of a second force F" resolved in the same 
 manner, X" V" those of a third F'", and so on ; then, in- 
 stead of the system of forces F', F", F'". fcc, we shall have 
 two groups of parallel forces, namely, X'. X", X". fcc, par- 
 allel to 1 1 X. and V. V", V". fcc., parallel to ( ) Y. 
 
 Now if i' and ;/ he the coordinates of the point m', so 
 that r' = OB, and 1/ = C (m' It and m' C being respective- 
 ly perpendicular to OX and O Y) ; then (12) the force X' 
 may be replaced by an equal force applied at <>, and by a 
 couple whose statical moment is X' X O C = X' y'. In like 
 manner the force Y' may be replaced by an equal force ap- 
 plied at O, and by a couple whose statical moment is Y X 
 OB = Y'i'. Each of the remaining forces X". X'", fcc, 
 Y ', Y '", fcc, may evidently be replaced in a similar man- 
 ner. But it is evident that "the group of forces X'. X", X '", 
 fcc, applied at O, may be represented by a simile force X 
 equal to their sum (those which fall to the right of the axis 
 I) Y being considered as positive, and those Which fall in 
 the opposite direction as negative), and those of the group 
 Y' ,Y' . Y'", fcc, by a single force Y (having due regard to 
 the signs), and the first condition of equilibrium requires 
 that we have X =0, Y = (for the resultant of X and Y 
 can only be nothing when these quantities are severally = 
 0; : that is to say, we must have the two following equa- 
 tions: 
 
 X' + X" + X"' + fcc. = 0) , 
 
 Y' + Y"4-Y'"+«cc=0J- • • (a > 
 
 With respect to the two sets of coupies X' y 1 , X" y" ', fcc, 
 Y' 1', Y" 1", fcc, since they are all situated in the same 
 plane, it follows from the principle stated in (9) that they 
 may all be compounded into a single couple whose statical 
 moment is equal to the sum of the statical moments of the 
 component couples ; and since the second condition of equi- 
 librium requires that the moment of this resultant couple be 
 nothing, the following equation must he satisfied : 
 
 XV + X" y"-|- fcc — \'z' — V r" — &c = . . (i) 
 
 The effort exerted by each of these separate couples is to 
 turn the system round an axis passing through the point O, 
 and perpendicular to the plane X O Y ; and the sum of the 
 etfTts being nothing, there is consequently no rotatory mo- 
 tion communicated. 
 
 The equations which have now been obtained for the 
 equilibrium of a system of forces all acting In the same 
 plane are easily rendered general. Let F', F", F'", &c. be 
 the forces, having any directions whatever in space, applied 
 to the [mints, of B solid body ] through a [Miint 1 1 in the body, 
 or invariably connected with it. draw three rectangular axe's. 
 OX,0 V, and Z ; and let each of the forces 1" 1 , 
 
 into three others parallel to those axes, ami denoted respi 1 t- 
 
 ively by X', Y', '/.' , then the Oral condition of equilibrium 
 obviously requires the three equations, 
 X- r -X' + X"- r fcc. = 0) 
 
 r-)-Y"+Y"'4-«Ms.=oJ ...(c) 
 
 '/: + '/"+ Z'" + fcc = oS 
 
 With respect to the couples formed by transporting there- 
 solved forces from their (Miints of application to the point O, 
 
 it is manilest that as the direction of the forces are now m 
 planet parallel to three rectangular planes, SOY, SO '/. 
 and YO Z, the couples may all be transferred to lb 
 
 therefore, by the same reasoning as above, it is 
 easy ;,, see that in each plane there will be t\\ 
 
 lending to turn the body about an axi* perpendicu- 
 lar 10 that plane. Thus, in the plane \ ( > Y. there M ill be. 
 
 the two sets of couples X'tr*, X'y", fcc.. x I 
 x",fcc. ; and. similarly, in the plane X Z there will be two 
 
 1 X" :", fcc, Z' 1'. V." 1" , fcc. ; and in the plane Y 
 O Z the two sets Y' :', Y" 1", fcc, Z' y\ Z" y", fcc. Now, 
 
 1156 
 
 STATION. 
 
 • supposing all these couples to be compounded into one, it is 
 
 manifest that the moment of this resulting couple can only 
 
 be nothing when the sums of the moments of the couples 
 
 in each plane are respectively nothing: hence we have 
 
 ad set of equations, 
 
 XV + X" i/'-f- fcc — Y' r'-Y"/"tc. = 0) 
 
 Y'V + Y" :" + fcc. — Z' 1/' — Z"i/"fcc = oS. . . . (d) 
 
 "/.' /' -f- Z" e" + **■ — X' :' — X" :" fcc = U ) 
 
 These two systems of equations (c) and (d) contain the 
 conditions necessary for the equilibrium of any solid body. 
 When the first system (e) is satisfied, there can be no pro- 
 greasive motion : and when the system (d) is satisfied, there 
 can he no rotation about an axis. 
 
 These two systems of equations are usuri'y given under 
 
 a dilferent form. Let „'. ,'. y ', be the three angles which 
 
 the direction of the force I" make with lines parallel to the 
 
 es OX, O Y, OZ; we shall then have for the coiur 
 
 ponents of the force F . 
 
 X' = F' cos. a'. Y' = F' cos. p", Z' = F' cos. /. 
 Denoting the analogous angles in respect of the force F" by 
 we shall have similar expressions for the com- 
 ponent of that force; and so on. Hence the six equations 
 («) and id) become 
 
 F* cos. <( ' + F" cos. a" + fcc. = ) 
 F' cos. ,> +F" cos. p" + &.c. — \ . . . (O 
 F' cos. j ' -j- F" cos. j " -f- fcc = ) 
 F' (y 7 cos. a' — z' cos. p")-f-F" (y"cos. a" — x" cos. ") 
 
 |8")+fcc=0 
 F" (2' cos. p" — 1/' cos. y') -f- F" (z" cos. 6" — y" cos. I ,j~ 
 >", + &c. = ( {a > 
 
 F' (z' cos. ) ' — :' cos. a') + F" (1" cos. y" — 2" cos. 
 a") + &c = J 
 
 Our limits will only permit of our giving a general indi- 
 cation of the manner in which the above equations are ap- 
 plied to the solution of particular problems. 
 
 1. If the body is retained by a fixed point, we have only 
 to assume the fixed point as that iu respect of which the 
 preceding transformations are made. The effort of the re- 
 sultant of the different forces will then be annihilated by 
 the resistance of the fixed point, and consequently there 
 will be equilibrium if the resultant couple is nothing, or if 
 the three equations (d') are satisfied. 
 
 •2. If the body is retained by two fixed points, the line 
 which joins them will constitute a fixed axis in the body. 
 On taking the point O anywhere on the axis, the resultant 
 of the forces applied at O will again be destroyed by the 
 resistance of the axis ; but In order that equilibrium may 
 take place, it is not now necessary that the resulting couple 
 be nothing — it is sufficient tl»at it he situated in any plane 
 which contains the axis ; for when this condition is fulfilled, 
 its arm coincides with the axis and is fixed, and consequent- 
 ly the effect of the forces applied at its extremities will be 
 annihilated. 
 
 3. LastlsM f the body, in other respects free, be subjected 
 to touch an invariable plane, it is not necessary for equi- 
 librium that the equations ',c'} be satisfied : it will be suffi- 
 cient if the resultant of the forces be perpendicular to the 
 plane, provided it also fall within the interior of the space 
 which limits the points of contact of the body with the 
 plane, for in this case it will be destroyed by the plane's re- 
 sistance. The second system of equations {d') must, how- 
 ever, be satisfied ; since the resistance of the plane can only 
 generate a normal resistance, which, therefore, is incapable 
 of destroying the action of the couple. 
 
 Of all the forces which art upon bodies, that which most 
 frequently comes under our observation is terrestrial gravity, 
 under the influence of which all bodies, when unsupported, 
 fall to the ground in vertical lines. A solid body acted upon 
 by gravity presents the case of an infinite number of con- 
 nected points urged by parallel forces; for though gravity 
 is directed towards the centre of the earth, yet DJ reason 
 of the great magnitude of the earth in comparison of such 
 bodies as usually come under consideration, the direction of 
 the forces acting on the dilferent points may all he regarded 
 as parallel. All these forces have therefore a single result- 
 ant, which, in respect of 1 very particular body, passes 
 through a given point, called the centre of gravity. The de- 
 termination of the centres of gravity of different bodies, and 
 of their various properties, consequently forms a considera- 
 ble portion of every treatise on status. For the general for- 
 Gravitv. Bee Poinsot, Minims i!e 
 siitiijn,: Blot, ffotions '/'■ Station*; Pcdsson, 'J'raif de 
 .Vrrnniijue ; Lagrange. .Vicnniijuc .Inalitit/i/t : llfinrrll's 
 Methanit a : and the references under the term If CI BASICS.) 
 
 STATION. I. at. stare, to stand.) In Astronomy, ■ 
 planet Is said to be at its ttatum, of to be stationary, when 
 
 its motion in right ascension C< aaes, or its apparent place in 
 the ecliptic remains for a t'rw days unaltered. The real mo- 
 tions of the planets are always m the same direction from 
 
 west to east; Inn owing to the motion of the earth from 
 
 which they are seen, tluir apparent motions, thougl 
 
 ally from west to east, or direct, ore sometimes from east to
 
 STATIONARY ENGINE. 
 
 west, or retrograde, and in changing from one of these di- 
 rections to the other the planet appears for some short time 
 to stand still. The distance of the earth and of a planet 
 from the sun being given, and also their periodic times, the 
 determination of the arc of retrogradation, or the times at 
 which the planet will appear stationary, is an easy prob- 
 lem ; but to the ancient astronomers, who were unacquaint- 
 ed with the relative distances of the planets, and who, 
 moreover, supposed the earth to be the centre of motion, the 
 phenomena of the stations and retrogradations occasioned 
 great embarrassment, and the principal object of the various 
 systems which were propounded previous to that of Coper- 
 nicus was to give a satisfactory explanation of them. See 
 Epicycle, Planet. 
 
 Station, in Surveying, is the place selected for planting 
 the instrument with which an angle is to be measured. 
 
 Station, in the Church of Rome, is applied to certain 
 churches in which indulgences are granted on certain days. 
 
 Station, is applied to those resting-places on railways at 
 which a halt is made for the purpose of receiving or letting 
 down passengers or goods. The last stations on a railroad 
 are called the termini. 
 
 STATIONARY ENGINE, in contradistinction to a "Lo- 
 comotive Engine," expresses a steam engine in a fixed posi- 
 tion, which draws loads on a railway by a rope or other 
 means of communication extended from the station of the 
 engine along the line of road. 
 
 On railways worked by locomotive engines, inclined 
 planes sometimes are constructed of an acclivity too steep 
 to be worked with advantage by these machines: such a 
 plane occurs on the London and Birmingham railway, be- 
 tween the passenger station at Euston Square and the de- 
 pot and station for goods at Camden Town. Similar inclined 
 planes are constructed on the Liverpool and Manchester 
 railway, between the quay at Liverpool and the station at 
 Edge Hill, and between the passenger station at Lime 
 Street and the same place. In these cases a stationary en- 
 gine is placed at the summit of the inclined plane, by the 
 power of which acting on a rope carried along the plane 
 the trains of carnages and wagons are drawn to the sum- 
 mit. 
 
 But it is not only on planes whose acclivity forbids the 
 advantageous application of locomotive engines that station- 
 ary engines are used as a moving power on railways. In 
 some situations, where a line of railway is sufficiently level, 
 they are applied in preference to locomotive power. Thus 
 the railway extending from the India House in London to 
 Blackwell, whose acclivities do not exceed sixteen feet 
 per mile, is worked throughout its entire length by station- 
 ary power. 
 
 When a line of railway is to be worked by stationary en- 
 gines the whole line is resolved into a succession of stages 
 of certain lengths, at the end of each of which a stationary 
 steam engine is placed ; or, more generally, two such engines 
 are provided, in order that the occasional suspension of one 
 for the purpose of repairs may not interrupt the traffic of 
 the road. The power of these engines is applied to give 
 motion to a drum, or cylinder, or wheel, on which a rope is 
 wound. This rope extends along the road, being supported 
 at short intervals on iron sheaves or pulleys, by which its 
 friction and consequent wear and resistance are diminished. 
 
 There are several methods by which the stationary engine 
 is made to draw the train by a rope. 
 
 The plan adopted by Mr. Stephenson to draw the trains 
 of goods from the quay at Liverpool to the station at Edge 
 Hill, up an inclined plane of about a mile in length, is by 
 an endless rope. At the foot of the machine awheel is laid 
 down in a horizontal position, revolving on a vertical axis, 
 having a groove on its circumference of a proper magnitude 
 to receive the rope. The diameter of this wheel is equal to 
 the distance between the centres of the two lines of rails ; 
 so that when the rope is extended between each line it will 
 fall into the groove at the ends of the diameter of the wheel 
 which is at right angles to the line of the road. Thus, the 
 rope being brought round the groove of the wheel for half 
 its circumference, is carried up each line of rails midway 
 between the rails. 
 
 At the summit of the plane, a similar wheel is similarly 
 placed, round which the rope is conducted ; but, instead of 
 being merely half carried round this wheel, it is brought 
 round two other wheels of less diameter, by means of 
 which the necessary tension is given to it. Let A represent 
 
 the great wheel at the top of the plane, and let a b represent 
 the rope passing up the plane between one line of rails and 
 
 falling into the groove of the wheel at b. It is carried 
 round the wheel A to c, and thence passes diagonally to a\ 
 where it falls into the groove of a smaller wheel B, from 
 whence it is carried to e and half round another wheel C, 
 equal to B ; and from /it is conducted to g, where it falls 
 again into the groove of the wheel B, from whence it pass- 
 es diagonally to A, and half round a second groove in the 
 great wheel A to i k, from whence it is carried down the 
 other line between the rails. 
 
 The steam engine is thrown into connexion with the 
 axle of the wheel, to which it imparts continued revolution. 
 The adhesion of the rope to the grooves makes this motion 
 cause the rope to be drawn in the direction of the arrows. 
 Any train of carriage, therefore, attached to the rope ab 
 would be drawn in one direction, and a train attached to ik 
 would be drawn in the other direction. The tension of the 
 rope is regulated by a weight suspended by a rope passing 
 over a vertical wheel D, and attached to the axle of the 
 wheel C. This weight hangs in a pit, and continually 
 draws the wheel C from the wheel D. By this means, 
 however the rope may vary its length by moisture or other 
 hygrometric causes, it will necessarily have the same ten- 
 sion. 
 
 The new tunnel at Liverpool, extending from the engine 
 station at Edge Hill to the passenger station at Lime Street, 
 is differently worked, but also by an endless rope. The dis- 
 tance from the Lime Street station being 2200 yards, a hori- 
 zontal shaft is extended across the whole width of the two 
 lines of railway at Edge Hill. The extremities of this 
 shaft are continued on either side into two buildings, 
 where stationary engines are erected. A motion of revolu- 
 tion may be given to the shaft by either of those engines 
 separately, or by both of them simultaneously. Upon the 
 shaft, and in the centre of one of the lines of railway, a 
 grooved wheel, 19£ feet in diameter, is fixed with its plane 
 vertical. The rope, which constantly ascends the plane 
 between the rails of the line appropriated to ascending 
 trains, passes over this wheel, and being brought under it, 
 is returned nearly to the point where it first comes upon 
 it. It is there conducted into the groove of another wheel 
 4 feet in diameter, placed in front of the greater wheel. 
 By this arrangement the rope embraces nearly the whole 
 circumference of the greater wheel, and an adhesion is ob- 
 tained sufficient to draw a load of one hundred tons up the 
 plane. After the rope passes over the smaller wheel, it is 
 carried round a horizontal wheel placed upon a carriage 
 running backwards and forwards upon a railway, which 
 wheel is drawn by a weight similar to that described in the 
 preceding case, by which a uniform tension is given to the 
 rope. After passing round this horizontal wheel, the rope 
 is then directed to the centre of the other line of railway 
 by two other horizontal wheels, and, after passing down the 
 plane, is conducted by two other horizontal wheels at Lime 
 Street into the centre of the ascending line, along which it 
 is conducted, as already described, to the large shaft wheel 
 at the top of the plane. 
 
 Bv either of the contrivances here described a railway 
 of any extent may be worked by stationary engines driving 
 endless ropes ; and as the rope is at the same time moving in 
 contrarv directions along the two lines of railway, trains may 
 he drawn bv the same engine at the same time in contrary 
 directions, "in case of such a rope being applied to an in- 
 clined plane, the weight of the descending train would act 
 upon the ascending train, leaving the moving power to act 
 against the difference of their weights only. If, in such a 
 case, the descending load were greater than the ascending 
 load, the latter would not only descend by its gravity 
 without anv moving power, but would draw the ascending 
 load up. A plane worked in this way without an engine is 
 called a self-acting plane. Railways composed of self-act- 
 ing planes are very frequent in mining districts, where the 
 level at which the mineral product is obtained is much more 
 elevated than that at which it is shipped. The weight of 
 the mineral itself is, in such cases, used as the moving pow- 
 er, the loaded wagons in their descent drawing the empty 
 wagons in the contrary direction. 
 
 When an endless rope is not used, the power of the en- 
 gine is applied to a drum or cylinder, called a rope-roll, on 
 which the rope is coiled. In such cases, the rope being car- 
 ried along the line of rails, has its extremity attached to the 
 train to be drawn ; and the engine, as it works, turns the 
 rope-roll on which the rope is gradually coiled, and the train 
 is thus drawn towards the engine. When the train has ar- 
 rived there, the whole of the rope will be coiled on the 
 rope-roll. In order to move the train in the other direction, 
 a similar engine is placed at the other extremity of the rail- 
 way along which the train is moved ; and the train is drawn 
 back by the other engine in the same manner. But, in or- 
 der to unroll the rope from each rope-roll, the train, in re- 
 turning, is made to draw the roj>e after it. Thus the two 
 engines reciprocally draw the train backwards and forwards 
 between them ; each engine, while it draws the train in 
 
 1157
 
 STATIONERY. 
 
 one direction, unrolling the ropo from the rope-roll of the 
 other. 
 
 There are various other expedients that have been sug- 
 gested and practised for working railways by stationary en- 
 gines and ropes, but all of them partake more or less of the 
 principle of one or other of these here described. The 
 speed attainable by such means was formerly very much 
 limited ; but the application of ropes and the machinery con- 
 nected with them has been much improved, and. if it were 
 Otherwise desirable, a line of railway could now lie worked 
 
 at an average speed of from fifteen to twenty miles an hour 
 by a series of stationary engines and ropes. Nor would it 
 be necessary in passing each station to stop the train, expe- 
 dients being devised by which the train may be transferred 
 from one rope to another without stopping it. 
 
 STA'Tlo.M'.KV. The name given to all the materials 
 employed in the art of writing, but more especially to those 
 of pen, ink, and paper. The term stationery is derived 
 from the business of booksellers having been ancientlv car- 
 ried on entirely in stalls, or stations. The Stationery Office 
 in London is Die medium through which till government of- 
 fices, both at home and abroad, are supplied with writing 
 materials ; and at the same time it contracts for the printing 
 of all reports and other matters laid before the House of 
 Commons, &c. It consists of a comptroller, a storekeeper, 
 and about thirty clerks and other subordinate officers ; and 
 has a branch establishment at Dublin. 
 
 STATION POINTER. An instrument used in maritime 
 surveying, for expeditiously laying down on a chart the po- 
 sition of a place from which tile angles subtended by three 
 distant objects, whose positions are known, have been ob- 
 served. It consists of three scales, which move about B com- 
 mon centre, two of them carrying each a divided circular 
 arc, and the third two verniers adapted to the arcs, by means 
 of which the scales can be opened so as to form two angles 
 of any inclination. Suppose the angles of the scales to be 
 made equal to the two measured amiies, and the instrument 
 to be laid on the chart, so that the edges of the three scales 
 coincide with the positions of the observed objects, the cen- 
 tre marks the position of the s|>ot from which the objects 
 were observed. (See Simms's Treatise on Mathematical In- 
 struments, p. 98.) 
 
 STATIONS. In Ecclesiastical Antiquities (from the 
 Roman statio, a soldier keeping guard). The weekly fasts 
 of Wednesdays and Fridays. These were omitted between 
 Easter and Whitsuntide. They terminated at three in the 
 afternoon; hence sometimes called semijejunia. Saturday 
 Was made a station day by the council of Elvira ; which, it is 
 said, led to the gradual neglect of the Wednesday station in 
 the Western t 'Imrch. (Riddle's Christian Antiquities, 624.) 
 
 STATISTICS. (Lat. status, state, condition.) The 
 name given to the science which exhibits the state or con- 
 dition of a country or nation, principally in relation to its 
 extent, population, industry, wealth, and power. 
 
 By a statistical account of a country, we mean a work de- 
 scribim: its situation and extent; its* natural and acquired 
 capacities of production; the quantity and value of the va- 
 rious articles of utility and convenience existing and an- 
 nually produced in it; the number and classes of its inhab- 
 itants, with their respective incomes ; its institutions for the 
 government, improvement, defence, and maintenance of the 
 population : with a variety of subsidiary statements and de- 
 tails, a eciei embracing so great a variety of objects is not 
 
 easily defined or limited ; nor is it possible to draw an] dis- 
 tinct line of demarcation between what should be left out 
 Of Statistical works, and what should be included in them. 
 Much must always depend on the object in view, and on 
 the eood sens,, and discrimination of the author. Statis- 
 tics has many features in common with geography and pol- 
 itics, and embraces that sort of m ingrel science that has 
 been called political arithmetic. Some authors, and, among 
 others, the economist M. Say, contend that any description, 
 however brief, of the territory of a country is foreign to 
 statistics, and belongs exclusively to physical geography. 
 Hut this is evidently a most erroneous statement. Iluu can 
 
 we acquire any accurate or comprehensive knowledge of 
 the capacities of production enjoyed bj a country, if we be 
 
 unacquainted with its situation, soil, climate, and native 
 
 productions, and with its facilities far brincing them to market 
 and exchanging them with others ? So far from being alien 
 to. this knowledge lies at the very foundation of the science ; 
 
 and any work which should omit it, however Well it might 
 
 be executed, would have no claim to be considered as ■ 
 complete statistical work. Those topographical details 
 which are essential in a geographical work would, howev- 
 er, he totally 0UI Of place in one devoted to st itistics. One 
 Of the principal objects of the latter is to exhibit the means 
 and sources of the national wealth, its amount and distri- 
 bution ; and these would not be in any respect prone. ■• 
 
 Indulging in topographical details. Hence, in statistical 
 
 works, :i sburi notice of the principal divisions of the coun- 
 try, with reference especially toils climate, soil, native prod- 
 1158 
 
 STATISTICS. 
 nets, agriculture, Including the method of holding and ocrn- 
 pj Lag lands, manufactures, and population, is general 
 
 Sclent. This much, however, cannot lie dispensed Willi. 
 
 It is the foundation on which all the rest of the building 
 
 j is to stand ; and the completeness of the Other, and more 
 
 elevated parts, will generally depend more on the compact- 
 
 i solidity of this than on anything < Ise. 
 
 Opinions differ as widely as to the mode in which statis- 
 tical treatises should be drawn up, as with respect to the 
 topics they should embrace. Some contend that their ob- 
 ject is limits I to an exposition of the state of o country, 
 province, or place, at some given period; and that, conse- 
 quently, all historical am! theoretical discussions should be 
 rigidly excluded. The Germans, who are supposed to be 
 the great authorities in statistical matters, mostly compose 
 their works on this plan : but it. notwithstanding, appears to 
 us to be radically objectionable, and to be calculated to de- 
 prive the science of all that is most interesting and instruct- 
 ive. Nor need we travel beyond the sphere of German 
 statistical works for ample proof of what is now suited. 
 They are. in fact, with lew exceptions, the most worthless 
 rubbish imaginable. We have accounts, sometimes accu- 
 rate and sometimes not, but usually put forward with equal 
 Confidence, of a variety of minute tacts; but as we have no 
 explanation of the circumstances under which they origina- 
 ted, they communicate, even when accurate, little useful 
 information : and it would not be more idle to attempt to 
 form any notion of St. Peter's or St. Paul's from an account 
 of the number of tons of stone, brick, and mortar, in each, 
 than it would be to attempt to form any opinion of the state 
 of Prussia. Austria, or any other German state, from the 
 details respecting it supplied by German statistical writers. 
 They tell us, for example, that so many looms were at work 
 in such a town or place at such a time ; hut the chances are, 
 not a word will be said as to whether the number of looms 
 was increasing or diminishing ; and supposing that were 
 stated, it is all but certain that not a word will be said ex- 
 planatory of the causes by which this result has been 
 brought about, thouzh this be, in fact, of ten times more im- 
 portance than anything else. This species of statistics pre- 
 sents us with a skeleton, instead of a living animated body. 
 It isof importance, no doubt, to know the amount of popula- 
 tion, the sum paid in taxes, the rate of wages, &c., in n coun- 
 try or district at any given period : but it is only by comparing 
 these statements with others of the same sort, applying to 
 different epochs, that we learn whether such country be ad- 
 vancing or retrograding: and it is only by comparing details 
 peculiar to one country with those peculiar to another, that 
 wc learn in what respects they agree and differ, and that 
 the attention of the politician and economist is called to 
 those circumstances that retard the progress id' one, and ac- 
 celerate that of the other. Those who make a parade of 
 subdivisions would call this comparative statistics, and 
 would contend that it should not be mixed up with descrip- 
 tive statistics. But to be really good, ami possessed of interest 
 enough to make it be read, a work must embrace both. They 
 should not be so intermixed as to create confusion ; hut un- 
 less they be combined in due proportions, the principles 
 on which the comparisons are made expounded, and the 
 Circumstances that produce the discrepancies pointed out, 
 and their influence correctly appreciated, no details, how- 
 ever accurate, can he of much value. It is the easiest thing 
 possible to pile fizures on fizures ; but unless deduced from 
 correct data, they serve only to mislead : and they do this 
 the more easily, that they have a scientific air about them, 
 and that most people shrink from the irksome task of exam- 
 ining whether tabular statements be correct or not. There 
 is nothing, indeed, about which one should be so sceptical 
 as the great number of what are called statistical facts and 
 details, or with respect to which a sound and searching 
 criticism is so necessary. The reader would do well gener- 
 ally to lo>k with suspicion and distrust on most Statement^ 
 how imposing soever they may appear, unless he be in- 
 formed of the sources Whence they have been derived, and 
 of the principles on and the mode in which the) have been 
 compiled. 
 
 It would be easy to illustrate what has now been said by 
 references to the statements in parliamentary and other of- 
 ficial documents, mam- of which aie altogether (Use . 
 
 while many more, from the conditions to which they apply 
 
 not being clearly sel forth, are, though not absolutely incor- 
 rect, titled only to mislead. 
 
 Perhaps the least valuable book ever published on any 
 
 Important subjeci was thai of l>r Ccriquhcnm i'n the health 
 
 of the British Empire. It i-. from I" 
 ning to end. a ti-si f extravagant hypoth s, exaggera- 
 tion, and absurdity. Nothing was too difficult for this In- 
 trepid calculator. Under his transf,,rmiiiL r hand everything 
 u as reduced to rizure? ; and matters as to which it is impos- 
 sible to obtain any certain information, and of which he 
 knew nothing. Were Bel down as if they had be. n a-m 
 tained with absolute precision '. And yet the moat e.xtrava-
 
 STATISTICS. 
 
 gant of his statements, were for a while regarded as well- 
 established truths. The book obtained an extensive circu- 
 lation ; it was translated into German, and the German doc- 
 tors continue to refer to it as if its authenticity were alike 
 unquestioned and unquestionable. 
 
 Injustice, however, to the German writers on statistics, it 
 should be stated that the circumstances under which they 
 are placed do not really admit of their publishing the best 
 class of works. In Prussia, Austria, and most German 
 states, the press is subject to a rigorous censorship ; and no 
 statements of a political kind are allowed to be published 
 that might give offence to government, or that would be 
 likely to call the attention of the reader to the defects in the 
 organization of the state. This sufficiently accounts for the 
 absence of such discussions in German works, and their 
 anti-critical character. But this certainly is no reason why 
 the writers of other nations, not laid under any restraints, 
 should adopt such emasculated works as models for their 
 treatises. 
 
 Indeed, it would seem to be considered by some writers 
 that ever) thing in statistics may be estimated in figures, 
 and exhibited in tabular statements ! But the truth is, that 
 but a few of the more prominent facts in regard to the situa- 
 tion of any great country, can be so exhibited. A grand ob- 
 ject in every good statistical work should be, not merely to 
 state what is, but why it is ; to trace and exhibit causes as 
 well as effects ! to show how advantageous results may be 
 best brought about, and how those of an opposite character 
 may be best avoided. 
 
 It may be said, perhaps, that this would encroach on the 
 
 province of the politician and political economist. But, in 
 our estimation, a certain admixture of politics and political 
 economy is indispensable to statistics. Without such ad- 
 mixture, most statistical works are little better than worth- 
 less ; if they are to be excluded, a good almanac may be ta- 
 ken as the model of a good statistical work. 
 
 Arthur Young, in his Travels in France, Townsend in his 
 Travels in Spain, and Volney, in his Syria and Egypt, in- 
 dulge largely in discussions that depend more or less on pol- 
 itics and political economy. But, nevertheless, no one can 
 doubt that the books in question belong to the class of trav- 
 els, of which, indeed, they are among the verv best speci- 
 mens. And why should it be otherwise with statistical 
 works ? If their writers know what they are about, they 
 will use political science not to supersede," but to illustrate, 
 explain, and give utility to their statistical details. 
 
 A really good statistical work can only be compiled by a 
 writer who to great talent and good sense adds the most ex- 
 tensive information, and hence the extreme raritv of such 
 works; but, when properly executed, they are' alike in- 
 structing and interesting. 'Est cnim cognitio reipublica et 
 privato homini et publico utilissima et maxims necessaria, 
 atque scientiam Mam, qua duce cog%itionemreipublica> nobis 
 comparamus, imprimis dignam esse, quam studiosius cola- 
 mus et proscquamur, non est, quod jure negare vel adeo dubi- 
 tare possimus. (Mone, Hist. Statistical, p. 4.) 
 
 We subjoin a few of such of the more interesting particu- 
 lars in the statistics of the United Kingdom, and of Europe 
 generally, as may be exhibited in a tabular form. The de- 
 tails are mostly derived from official returns. 
 
 I. Table exhibiting the Area, Population, &c. of England and Wales. 
 
 Englaitd. 
 
 Bedford 
 
 Berks 
 
 Buckingham .... 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 Cheshire 
 
 Cornwall, exclusive of Scilly Islands 
 
 iberland .... 
 
 Derby ...... 
 
 Devon 
 
 Dorset 
 
 Durham 
 
 Essex 
 
 Gloucester ..... 
 
 Hants 
 
 Hereford 
 
 Hertford 
 
 Huntingdon .... 
 
 Kent 
 
 Lancaster 
 
 Leicester • • • • 
 
 Lincoln 
 
 Middlesex 
 
 Monmouth 
 
 Norfolk 
 
 Northampton .... 
 Northumberland .... 
 Nottingham .... 
 
 Oxford 
 
 Rutland 
 
 Salop ..... 
 
 Somerset 
 
 Stafford 
 
 Suffolk 
 
 Surrey ..... 
 
 Sussex ..... 
 
 Warwick ..... 
 Westmorland .... 
 Wilts . .... 
 
 Worcester 
 
 Yorkshire 
 
 Total of England 
 
 296,320 
 4*1,280 
 472,320 
 548,480 
 673,280 
 851,200 
 974.720 
 637,920 
 
 1,054,400 
 643,540 
 "U2,080 
 981,120 
 805,120 
 
 I,040.()00 
 552.320 
 403.200 
 233,080 
 996,480 
 
 1,130.240 
 515,840 
 
 1,671,040 
 180,480 
 317,440 
 
 1.295,360 
 650,240 
 
 1,197.440 
 535.6S0 
 483,840 
 95.360 
 859.520 
 
 1,052,800 
 757,760 
 969.600 
 485,760 
 93-. 240 
 574,080 
 487,680 
 874,880 
 462.720 
 
 3,735.040 
 
 32.243.200 
 
 63,393 
 109.215 
 107,444 
 
 89.346 
 191,751 
 188,369 
 117,230 
 161,142 
 343,11(11 
 115,319 
 160,361 
 226.437 
 260,809 
 219,656 
 
 89,191 
 
 97,577 
 
 37,568 
 307,624 
 672,731 
 130.081 
 208.567 
 818.129 
 
 45.582 
 273.371 
 131,757 
 157,101 
 140,350 
 109,620 
 
 16.356 
 167,639 
 273,750 
 239,153 
 210.431 
 269,043 
 159,311 
 208,190 
 
 41,617 
 185,107 
 139,333 
 858.-92 
 
 8.331,434 
 
 Popula- 
 tion, 1821. 
 
 83,716 
 131,977 
 134,068 
 121,909 
 270,098 
 267,447 
 156,124 
 213,333 
 439,040 
 144.499 
 207,673 
 289,424 
 335.S43 
 283.295 
 103.243 
 129.714 
 
 48,' 
 
 426,016 
 
 1.052.5,59 
 
 174, 
 
 283,058 
 
 1,144,531 
 
 7I.KS3 
 344,368 
 162,483 
 198,965 
 186,873 
 136.971 
 
 18,487 
 206,153 
 355,314 
 345,595 
 270,542 
 398.658 
 233,019 
 274.392 
 
 51.359 
 
 222,157 
 
 184,424 
 
 1,173,187 
 
 11.261,43" 
 
 Inhabi'ed 
 Houses, 
 1841. 
 
 21,235 
 31,472 
 
 31,071 
 33,112 
 73,390 
 65,641 
 34,444 
 52,910 
 94,63' 
 34,559 
 57,450 
 67,602 
 80,856 
 66,5-9 
 23.461 
 30,155 
 11,897 
 95,547 
 
 289,166 
 44,649 
 73,038 
 
 207,670 
 24. --H 
 85.922 
 40,903 
 48,704 
 50,541 
 32,141 
 4,297 
 47,203 
 81,632 
 97.676 
 64.081 
 95,3-5 
 54.066 
 81,445 
 10.-45 
 50.956 
 46,962 
 
 315,082 
 
 Population, 1841. 
 
 Males. 
 
 Females. 
 
 52,169 
 
 55,768 
 
 79,674 
 
 80,552 
 
 76,316 
 
 79,673 
 
 81.513 
 
 82,996 
 
 I93.U-9 
 
 202,211 
 
 164.451 
 
 176,818 
 
 86,206 
 
 91,706 
 
 135,639 
 
 136.563 
 
 252.752 
 
 280,979 
 
 83,442 
 
 91,301 
 
 159,874 
 
 164,403 
 
 172.299 
 
 172,696 
 
 205.374 
 
 225,933 
 
 174,724 
 
 180,216 
 
 57,257 
 
 57,181 
 
 77,619 
 
 79,618 
 
 29.154 
 
 29,545 
 
 272.415 
 
 275.746 
 
 814.857 
 
 852,207 
 
 105.613 
 
 110,242 
 
 1-1,802 
 
 180,915 
 
 73^.970 
 
 837,646 
 
 70,608 
 
 63,741 
 
 199,055 
 
 213,566 
 
 98.886 
 
 100,175 
 
 121,271 
 
 128,997 
 
 121,660 
 
 128,113 
 
 80,383 
 
 81,190 
 
 10,743 
 
 10,597 
 
 119,357 
 
 119,657 
 
 209.421 
 
 226.581 
 
 258.72S 
 
 251,477 
 
 154,107 
 
 161,022 
 
 278. IS6 
 
 304,427 
 
 147.572 
 
 152,198 
 
 195,967 
 
 206,154 
 
 28.234 
 
 28,235 
 
 128,904 
 
 131.103 
 
 114,753 
 
 118,731 
 
 Total. 
 
 802,754 
 
 107,937 
 160.226 
 155,989 
 164.509 
 395.300 
 341.269 
 177,912 
 272,202 
 533.731 
 174,743 
 324.277 
 344.995 
 431,30' 
 354,940 
 114.43S 
 157.23: 
 58,699 
 518,161 
 
 1,667,064 
 215.855 
 3b2,71 
 
 1,576,616 
 134,349 
 412.621 
 199,061 
 260,268 
 249,773 
 161.573 
 21,340 
 239.014 
 436.002 
 510.206 
 315,129 
 582.613 
 299,770 
 402,121 
 56,469 
 260,007 
 233.454 
 
 1.591,554 
 
 Acres of 
 Land to a,. , 
 Individual in ****<? ' 
 1841. 
 
 .114 
 
 2362 
 3- 139 
 3 266 
 4785 
 2-144 
 2-944 
 4-468 
 
 1 1 5i 
 
 i 7 i: 
 
 18 10' 
 
 1 18 10 
 12 9 
 
 14 2$ 
 
 1 1 
 15 
 
 7-- .530 
 '.321.875 17673.1:33 14,995. 5QSl At. 2 V J5tT|Jv7o 17 3^ 
 
 Walet. 
 
 Anglesey 
 
 Brecknock 
 
 Cardigan 
 
 Caermarthen . . . 
 
 Caernarvon .... 
 
 Denbigh 
 
 Flint 
 
 Glamorgan ..... 
 
 Merioneth 
 
 Montgomery . . . . 
 
 Pembroke 
 
 Badnor . . . . • 
 Total of Wales 
 Total of England . 
 Total of England and Wales 
 
 33.-06 
 
 31.633 
 
 42,956 
 
 67.317 
 
 41,521 
 
 60,352 
 
 39.622 
 
 71,52- 
 
 27.506 
 
 47,9' 
 
 56,2S0 
 
 19,050 
 
 45,063 
 43,603 
 57,784 
 90.239 
 57.958 
 76,511 
 53,784 
 101,737 
 34,352 
 59.899 
 74,009 
 22,459 
 
 II. 458 
 10.634 
 15,102 
 23,407 
 16. -69 
 18,485 
 13,320 
 33.205 
 8.467 
 13,650 
 
 l-.— : 
 
 24,369 
 26,911 
 31.997 
 50.796 
 39.600 
 44.617 
 33.636 
 89.028 
 19247 
 34.252 
 40,343 
 12,738 
 ~ 44V33 
 7.321.875 
 
 7,7t9.405 
 
 26.521 
 
 50.890 
 
 26.384 
 
 53.295 
 
 36,383 
 
 68.3S0 
 
 55.687 
 
 106,452 
 
 41.468 
 
 81.068 
 
 44.674 
 
 89,291 
 
 32,911 
 
 66,547 
 
 84,434 
 
 173.462 
 
 19,991 
 
 39.23S 
 
 34,968 
 
 69 220 
 
 47,919 
 
 -.- 2152 
 
 12.448 
 
 25,186 
 
 463.758 
 
 911.321 
 
 7.673.633 
 
 14.995,508 
 
 8.137.421 
 
 15,906,8291 
 
 L. 3. d. 
 
 4 84 
 7 2} 
 
 5-214 Av. 6 10 
 _2-150 Av. 17 3j 
 
 1159
 
 STATISTICS. 
 
 II. Table exhibiting the Area, Population, &c. of Scotland. 
 
 Counties. 
 
 Area in Acres. 
 
 Popula- 
 
 Popula- 
 
 Inhabited 
 
 11. .u.rs, 
 
 1841. 
 
 Population, 1841. 
 
 Acres of 
 
 Land to an 
 
 Indm.lual in 
 
 1341. 
 
 H.i.t ..( I.:,u,l 
 1810, 
 
 i .,. i! 
 
 3 33 
 
 
 Lind. 
 
 Lakes 
 
 Total. 
 
 
 
 Males. 
 
 Females. 
 
 Total. 
 
 
 Aberdeen .... 
 Argyle aud Islands . 
 
 1.264,400 
 
 6,400 
 
 1,260,300 
 
 123,032 
 
 155,337 
 
 32,193 
 
 89,528 
 
 102,7.35 
 
 192,233 
 
 6 523 
 
 
 »0M, i8Q 
 
 61. MO 
 
 3,840 
 
 1,054,400 
 
 71,859 
 
 84,306 
 
 97.316 
 127,299 
 
 30.247 
 
 ■17. ',.1 
 78,870 
 
 85,552 
 
 164,322 
 
 4 -II.H 
 
 10 u 
 3 103 
 
 
 Berwick ... 
 
 Caithness .... 
 ..an. . . 
 
 ID ... 
 
 412,800 
 
 liao 
 
 414,031) 
 
 
 
 112228 
 
 23.426 
 
 26,651 
 
 50.(176 
 
 
 
 242,880 
 
 
 
 30,621 
 
 33,385 
 
 7,403 
 
 lli, .27 
 
 17,900 
 
 31.427 
 
 
 3 7 4 
 
 
 
 2,500 
 
 
 11,791 
 
 13.797 
 
 3,067 
 
 -.1 - 
 
 B,587 
 
 15,695 
 
 6 ,i, . 
 
 
 
 6,400 
 
 4H..H- ' 
 30,720 
 
 22.609 
 10,8 i 1 
 
 30,238 
 13.263 
 
 6,902 
 3,593 
 
 16.993 
 9.331 
 
 19,204 
 9,786 
 
 36,197 
 19,116 
 
 12146 
 
 1 1117 
 
 1 5 
 
 1 mi 
 
 
 
 19,840 
 
 I6i 76 
 
 20,710 
 
 27,317 
 
 7,936 
 
 22,505 
 
 21,790 
 
 44,295 
 
 3294 
 
 6 1* 
 
 
 
 6,400 
 
 803,320 
 
 54,597 
 
 70,878 
 
 111, 
 
 
 3s.72s 
 
 72.S25 
 
 
 7 9^ 
 
 
 LJiuburgh .... 
 ►:u.n 
 
 
 
 226,569 
 
 122,954 
 
 191,514 
 
 
 102.7011 
 
 122,914 
 
 22 -,,i.23 
 
 
 1 4 6j 
 
 
 
 4,480 
 
 307,200 
 
 26,705 
 
 31,162 
 
 8,133 
 
 16,071 
 
 i - '■.' 1 
 
 34,994 
 
 
 
 
 
 1,920 
 
 
 93.743 
 
 114,556 
 
 28,965 
 
 65,735 
 
 71,.-. 
 
 140.310 
 
 
 
 
 Forfar (Angus) . . 
 
 174,080 
 
 e 
 
 670,330 
 
 174.0SH 
 
 99,127 
 
 29.9S6 
 
 113.130 
 35,127 
 
 36, 1 53 
 8,009 
 
 79.234 
 17,253 
 
 91,166 
 18,628 
 
 170,400 
 3n,7sl 
 
 4-865 
 
 1 9] 
 
 
 
 2,594,560 
 
 122.240 
 
 2,716,800 
 
 74,292 
 
 90,157 
 
 
 45,506 
 
 62,109 
 
 
 
 13 1* 
 9 102 
 7 3| 
 
 9 102 
 
 1 1 7t 
 
 
 
 243,200 
 
 1,280 
 
 244,430 
 
 26,349 
 
 29.113 
 
 
 15,804 
 
 17,2-IS 
 
 
 
 
 Kinross . . . . • 
 
 ■ 
 
 4.480 
 
 50,560 
 
 6,725 
 
 7,762 
 
 1,806 
 
 4,194 
 
 4.569 
 
 3,763 
 
 
 
 8,000 
 
 533,760 
 
 29,211 
 
 33,903 
 
 8,159 
 
 18,838 
 
 22,261 
 
 41,099 
 
 12 792 
 
 
 
 604,880 
 
 1,920 
 
 604,300 
 
 146,699 
 
 244.3-7 
 
 81,531 
 
 203,369 
 
 211,741 
 
 427,113 
 
 
 
 Linlithgow. . . . 
 
 
 
 76,1ml 
 
 17,884 
 
 22.i.s5 
 
 6,309 
 
 13,766 
 
 13.11-2 
 
 
 
 
 124,800 
 
 1,920 
 
 126,720 
 
 s.J 57 
 
 y.octi 
 
 2,233 
 
 4,232 
 
 4,936 
 
 9,218 
 
 13 iSG 
 
 4* 
 5 li 
 5 6j 
 
 
 Orkney and Shetland 
 
 819,200 
 
 25,600 
 
 844,100 
 204,100 
 
 46,344 
 
 B,735 
 
 53,124 
 10,046 
 
 11,371 
 2,119 
 
 26,343 
 6,122 
 
 33,9.3 
 6,398 
 
 60.7116 
 10, ,2,1 
 
 in- i"u 
 
 
 
 [.656 BO 
 
 144,000 
 
 32,000 
 
 1,638,320 
 
 126.366 
 
 139,060 
 
 29,172 
 
 65,339 
 
 72,812 
 
 13s l.l 
 
 U-989 
 
 
 Reiitreiv .... 
 
 1,230 
 
 145,230 
 
 78,05b 
 
 112,175 
 
 24,626 
 
 72,725 
 
 82,030 
 
 154,755 
 
 
 
 
 Ross and Cromarty, 
 
 i , - : > ;. 1 1 it > 
 
 457,600 
 
 67,600 
 
 1,904,000 
 
 35,343 
 
 68,828 
 
 16,377 
 
 36,861 
 
 42,119 
 
 78,980 
 
 23-378 
 
 1 14 
 
 
 
 320 
 
 457,920 
 
 33,6.12 
 
 40.SM 
 
 8,662 
 
 21,930 
 
 24,073 
 
 46,003 
 
 9-947 
 
 4 83 
 11 4J 
 
 
 
 168,320 
 
 960 
 
 169,980 
 
 5,070 
 
 6,637 
 
 1,446 
 
 3,972 
 
 4,017 
 
 7,989 
 
 21 069 
 
 
 
 312,960 
 
 8,320 
 
 321,'sn 
 
 50,325 
 
 65,376 
 
 15,837 
 
 41,070 
 
 41,109 
 
 82,179 
 
 3 SOS 
 
 
 
 1.222,560 
 
 288,960 
 
 3o,0sU 
 
 1,162,640 
 
 23,1 17 
 
 23,840 
 
 4,972 
 
 11,307 
 
 13,3.59 
 
 24.666 
 
 45 510 
 
 8 63 
 
 
 Wigtown .... 
 
 4,300 
 
 293,760 
 19,352,321 
 
 22,918 
 
 33.241 
 
 7,440 
 
 18,258 
 1,241,276 
 
 20,921 
 
 30,179 
 
 7 375 
 
 
 18,944,UOO 
 
 403,320 
 
 1 ,599,068 
 
 2,093,416 
 
 503,451 
 
 1 ,379,334 
 
 2,620,610 
 
 Av. 7 221 
 
 Av. 5 IJ 
 
 III. Table exhibiting the Area, Population, &c. of Ireland. 
 
 
 Provinces and 
 Counties. 
 
 Area in 
 Statute 
 Acres. 
 
 Lakes. 
 
 Extent in 
 \cres, ex- 
 clusive of 
 Lakes. 
 
 Popula- 
 icn, 1321. 
 
 Population, 1331. 
 
 Inhabited 
 Douses, 
 1831. 
 
 Acres of 
 
 Land to an 
 
 Individual in 
 
 l(s31. 
 
 Rent of Land 
 
 per Acre in 
 
 1831. 
 
 
 Males. 
 
 Females. 
 
 Totals. 
 
 
 Lcinsler. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 /.. s. d. 
 
 
 
 219,363 
 
 — 
 
 2192863 
 
 97.070 
 
 48,327 
 
 51,026 
 
 99.353 
 
 13,275 
 
 2-632 
 
 15 
 
 
 Dublin 
 
 
 248,631 
 
 — 
 
 
 335,892 
 
 173,856 
 
 206,311 
 
 380,167 
 
 39,861 
 
 •654 
 
 1 1.1 
 
 
 
 
 392,43'. 
 
 — 
 
 392,435 
 
 99.065 
 
 .34.172 
 
 
 108,424 
 
 17,153 
 
 3619 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 
 613,636 
 
 — 
 
 513, '06 
 
 
 93,977 
 
 99,709 
 
 193,686 
 
 31,007 
 
 
 17 0A 
 
 
 Kings . 
 
 
 52s, 166 
 
 24s 
 
 527,913 
 
 131,033 
 
 71,217 
 
 72,938 
 
 144,225 
 
 24,266 
 
 3-660 
 
 12 II 
 
 
 Longforl 
 
 
 263,645 
 
 15,892 
 
 247,7 53 
 
 107.570 
 
 55,310 
 
 57,243 
 
 112,55a 
 
 19,4 is 
 
 2-201 
 
 12 3 
 
 
 
 
 206,261 
 
 
 
 101.011 
 
 62,439 
 
 65.042 
 
 107,431 
 
 22,1140 
 
 1-652 
 
 n 16 
 
 
 Vleath . 
 
 
 567,127 
 
 — 
 
 567,127 
 
 159, 113 
 
 88,993 
 
 87,833 
 
 176,826 
 
 29,796 
 
 3-207 
 
 18 
 
 
 
 
 396,310 
 
 — 
 
 
 134,275 
 
 72,469 
 
 73,312 
 
 145,851 
 
 23,713 
 
 2-721 
 
 14 
 
 
 
 
 336,251 
 
 16,334 
 
 369,917 
 
 128,819 
 
 67,7011 
 
 69,172 
 
 136,872 
 
 23,103 
 
 2-7113 
 
 13 7 
 
 
 Wexford 
 
 
 564,479 
 
 — 
 
 564,179 
 
 170,806 
 
 87,995 
 
 94.7 11 
 
 182,713 
 
 29,923 
 
 3 089 
 
 14 
 
 
 Wicklow 
 
 
 494.704 
 4,712,058 
 
 — 
 
 494,704 
 
 110.767 
 
 61,052 
 
 60,505 
 
 121,557 
 T909/7T3 
 
 18,412 
 
 2T"2^729 
 
 4 070 
 
 12 
 
 
 Totals 
 Minister. 
 
 32,474 4.741-.514 
 
 1,737,592 
 
 927,877 
 
 931,336 
 
 Av. 2-4.37 
 
 Av. 14 7£ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Clare .... 
 
 302.352 
 
 18,655 733,697 
 
 203,0S9 
 
 128,446 
 
 129,876 
 
 2.58.322 
 
 40,353 
 
 3034 
 
 II 3 
 
 
 Cork . 
 
 
 1,769, '.1 
 
 
 1,769,563 
 
 730.444 
 
 396,714 
 
 111 HI- 
 
 810,732 
 
 118,879 
 
 2 1 s3 
 
 13 74 
 
 6 r 
 
 
 Kerry . 
 
 
 1,148,720 
 
 14,669 
 
 1,134,051 
 
 216,115 
 
 131.696 
 
 131. 4311 
 
 263.1 6 
 
 41,294 
 
 4-310 
 
 
 Limerick 
 
 
 674 .7S3 
 
 — 
 
 674.713 
 
 277.-177 
 
 133.62 
 
 161,730 
 
 315.335 
 
 44,-ni 
 
 2-140 
 
 13 8 
 
 
 Tipperary 
 
 
 1,013,173 
 
 11,328 
 
 1,001,845 
 
 346,196 
 
 197,713 
 
 204,-50 
 
 402,563 
 
 60,264 
 
 2-419 
 
 17 8* 
 
 
 Waterford 
 
 
 471,281 
 
 44^652 
 
 471.211 
 5.635^220 
 
 706.0-6 
 
 156,521 
 
 85,217 
 
 TsxoaU 
 
 91,137 
 1,133,741 
 
 164,731 
 
 ft 064 
 
 "2^2277152 
 
 316.9(19 
 
 24,-141 
 
 ! 66S 
 
 12 6 
 
 
 Totals 
 Ulster. 
 Antrim 
 
 5,373,872 
 
 1,935,612 
 
 330,444 
 55,971 
 
 Av. 2-620 
 
 Av. 13 0\ 
 
 
 758,366 
 
 49,790 
 
 262,860 
 
 152,178 
 
 2171 
 
 16 0* 
 
 
 Armagh 
 
 321,1 S3 
 
 18,394 
 
 309,789 
 
 205,450 
 
 111,618 
 
 117,222 
 
 '22-. S40 
 
 39,571 
 
 1-407 
 
 Oil 6A 
 
 
 Cavan .... 
 
 473,449 
 
 21,987 
 
 451,462 
 
 195,076 
 
 1)3,174 
 
 H4,75i 
 
 
 31.917 
 
 1-911 
 
 13 7* 
 6 Z 
 
 
 Donegal 
 
 1,165,107 
 
 — 
 
 1,163,107 
 
 248,270 
 
 III. -45 
 
 147 .304 
 
 289,141 
 
 60,171 
 
 4-021 
 
 
 Down .-.. 
 
 611,404 
 
 158 
 
 611,246 
 
 32.411 
 
 169,416 
 
 1-2 .Hi 
 
 3,2.11 12 
 
 62,629 
 
 1-736 
 
 16 
 
 
 Fermanagh . 
 
 471,348 
 
 48,797 
 
 422,531 
 
 130.997 
 
 73,117 
 
 76,646 
 
 149,762 
 
 2.5.7-1 
 
 2 821 
 
 (I 12 3 
 
 
 Londonderry , 
 
 5 Is, 271 
 
 ■.,„ 
 
 608,706 
 
 193,868 
 
 106,657 
 
 115,355 
 
 '222,012 
 
 39,077 
 
 2-29! 
 
 u 12 2:{ 
 
 
 Mnnaghan . 
 
 327,048 
 
 7,844 
 
 319,204 
 
 174.69' 
 
 95,67! 
 
 99,157 
 
 195,536 
 
 35.225 
 
 l-i.i 
 
 13 34, 
 
 
 Tyrone 
 
 Totals 
 Connaught. 
 
 
 183.791 
 
 727,134 
 T22~4~274 
 
 261,865 
 1 ,991.494 
 
 149,410 
 1,113,094 
 
 155,058 
 1,173,524 
 
 384,468 
 
 2, .'-I.. '■■ '■ 
 
 54.663 
 40X005 
 
 2311 
 
 11 11 ' | 
 
 
 5,40s ,07C 
 
 Av. 2.285 
 
 Av. 12 34, 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Gal way 
 
 1,510,39; 
 
 77, 92! 
 
 1,432,671 
 
 337,37-1 
 
 204,691 
 
 209,991 
 
 414,611 
 
 67,114 
 
 3-461 
 
 12 l.A 
 
 
 Leitrim 
 
 
 
 394,80" 
 
 124,78: 
 
 69,451 
 
 72.07. 
 
 111 -.' 
 
 24.20(1 
 
 2 7"i 
 
 10 7-j 
 
 
 Mayo .... 
 
 
 
 1,297,10' 
 
 293,11 
 
 179,69: 
 
 186,731 
 
 366,321 
 
 62.367 
 
 3-54 
 
 8 6* 
 
 
 Roscommon . . . 
 
 609,46 
 
 24.78" 
 
 ,111 
 
 208,79' 
 
 123,031 
 
 121 . -. 
 
 249,611 
 
 41,369 
 
 2-34. 
 
 13 
 
 
 Sligo . , . . 
 Totals 
 
 20,399,601 
 
 194,47- 
 1 _ 455"^9S 
 
 425,926 
 4.135,13 
 
 19,944,20' 
 
 1 l. ,.22' 
 1,110,29: 
 6,80l~99l 
 
 83.730 
 
 88,035 
 683,4 It 
 
 ~3797T,n2 
 
 17l,7i.- 
 1,343,914 
 7.767,401 
 
 29,538 
 
 .•■4.1.1- 
 1 ,249.'iT6 
 
 2-4SC 
 
 10 34 
 
 
 660,498 
 3,794,380 
 
 Av. 3 07- 
 
 Av. 10 9aJ 
 
 
 
 
 Gen. Av.2'56 
 
 Gen.Av.O 12 9 
 
 IV. The following Account of the Area and Population of the different European State* litis been compiled from the 
 latest and best authorities, and will, we believe, be found nearly accurate. There are uo means whatever "t 
 compiling any similar account for any one of the other quarters of the world. 
 
 States, and their Designation. 
 
 Area in Square 
 1 Dglish) 
 
 Population 
 (Latest Returns.) 
 
 Pop, t.i lbs 
 Squire Mile. 
 
 United Kingdom of Ureal Britain and Ireland. 
 Great Itrilain 
 Ireland ... ... 
 
 87,412 
 
 31. "I 
 
 1,096 
 
 (1841) 18,532,335 
 
 1,2115,3-2 
 124,079 
 
 213-0 
 
 2.5-4 
 113 2 
 
 Isle of Man and Channel Islands 
 
 1100 s ... 
 
 120,382 
 
 26,861,796 
 
 223- 1
 
 STATUARY. 
 
 STEAM. 
 
 States, and tbeir Designation. 
 
 (including Poland) . 
 Austria (including Lombardy, &c.) 
 France (including Corsica) 
 Prussia . . 
 
 Spaii 
 
 Brought forward 
 
 Turkey (including Servia, Wallachia, and Moldavia) 
 
 Sweden and Norway 
 
 (including parts of Limburg and Luxemburg) 
 
 Holland ( including parts of Limburg and Luxemburg) 
 Denmark (including Holstein and Lauenburg) . 
 
 Germany. 
 
 nb.T; 
 
 Hi: 
 
 Wii 
 
 Saxony . , • 
 
 Baden . 
 
 Hesse-Cassel . . 
 
 Hessr-Darmstadt . 
 
 Mecklenburg Schwerin 
 
 Oldenburg . 
 
 Nassau 
 
 Other German States 
 
 Italy. 
 
 Naples and Sicily '. 
 
 Sardinia and Piedmont (including Monaco) . 
 
 Papal Slate 
 
 any 
 
 Parma . 
 Modena 
 Lucca . 
 San Marino 
 
 Swiss Confederation 
 
 Area in Square 
 Miles (English). 
 
 120,352 
 
 ! ,01/0 ,000 
 
 257,363 
 
 203,736 
 
 107,621 
 
 1*2,270 
 
 2t0,5S5 
 
 291,164 
 
 13,214 
 
 36,510 
 
 13,598 
 
 21,856 
 
 29.637 
 14,734 
 
 7,640 
 
 Total 
 
 5,904 
 4,430 
 3,240 
 
 10,282 
 
 42.132 
 
 29.130 
 
 17,210 
 
 7,686 
 
 2,268 
 
 2,092 
 
 413 
 
 22 
 
 14,950 
 17,900 
 IIS 
 999 
 488 
 200 
 
 Population. 
 (Latest Returns. I 
 
 26,861,796 
 49,000,000 
 36,519. StO 
 33.540,908 
 14.330,146 
 12,236,941 
 15,000,000 
 4,259,772 
 4,242.600 
 3,550,000 
 (1838) 2,915,396 
 (1834-5) 2,033.265 
 
 (1839) 
 (1--36) 
 (1838) 
 
 (1833-9) 
 (1S36) 
 
 (1837) 
 (1833) 
 (1836) 
 (IS37) 
 (IS38) 
 
 (1S37) 
 (1838) 
 
 (1836) 
 (1833; 
 
 (1S36) 
 
 (1S36) 
 
 (1S37) 
 
 4,315,469 
 
 1,706,280 
 l,t34.654 
 
 1,652.114 
 1.263,100 
 7IM.S00 
 7K5.4U0 
 432,652 
 267.660 
 379,262 
 970,190 
 
 7.975.850 
 
 4,650,368 
 
 2,732,436 
 
 1,436,785 
 
 465 6-3 
 
 403. 0U0 
 
 158,900 
 
 7,600 
 
 2,12.5,480 
 9-'6.000 
 120.000 
 203,100 
 131,462 
 7,000 
 
 Pop. to the 
 Square Mile. 
 
 240,043,719 
 
 223 1 
 24-5 
 141 9 
 164-6 
 1327 
 66 9 
 71 2 
 14 6 
 321 
 
 213.9 
 159 1 
 2411 
 99-8 
 110-7 
 2163 
 191-6 
 
 345-4 
 
 1421 
 511 
 1016 9 
 2U3-3 
 269 4 
 35 
 
 (FsT" 
 
 STA'TUARY. (From statue.) The art of carving or 
 otherwise forming statues. 
 
 STATUE. (Lat. statua, from sto, / stand.) In Sculp- 
 ture, a representation in relief in some solid substance, as 
 marble or bronze, or in some apparently solid substance, of 
 a man or otber animal. Tbere are various species of sta- 
 tues : 1. Those smaller than nature. 2. Those of the same 
 size as nature. 3. Those larger than nature. 4. Those 
 that are three or more times larger than nature, and are 
 called colossal. The first were by the ancients confined to 
 men and gods generally. The second were confined to 
 the representation of men celebrated for their learning and 
 talents, who had rendered service to ihe state, and were ex- 
 ecuted at the public expense. The third were confined to 
 kings, emperors, and, when more than twice the size of na- 
 ture, to heroes. The fourth species were confined to statues 
 of the cod*, or of kings and emperors represented under the 
 form of gods. Equestrian statues are those in which the 
 figure is seated on a horse. See Sculpture. 
 
 STA'TUS QUO. In Politics, a trealy between two or 
 more belligerents, which leaves each party in possession of 
 •.he same territories, fortresses, &x. as it occupied before 
 hostilities broke out, is said to leave them " in statu quo 
 ante bellum," in the same state as before the war. 
 
 STA'TUTE. (Lat. statuo, I establish.) An act of par- 
 liament made by the king by and with the advice of the 
 lords and commons. But some ancient statutes are in the 
 form of charters or ordinances, proceeding from the crown, 
 and in which the consent of the lords and commons is not 
 expressed. 1. As to the time from which statutes run, if no 
 time was expressed for the operation of a statute to com- 
 mence, it was of force, anciently, from the first day of the 
 session, and consequently had a retrospective operation. 
 By 33 G. 3, c. 13, it now has force from the day on which 
 it receives the royal assent. 2. Statutes are divided into 
 public and private ; a distinction which rests rather on con- 
 ventional usage and difference in the formalities of pass- 
 ing them, than on any principle ; and public acts themselves 
 may be either local or general. There may be a private 
 clause in a general act. Statutes are also said to be decla- 
 ratory of the law as it stood at their passing ; remedial, to 
 correct defects in the common law, subdivided into enlarg- 
 ing and restraining; and penal, imposing prohibitions and 
 penalties. But these, again, are rather distinctions of an 
 arbitrary character than of any legal effect, although some le- 
 gal maxims have been founded on them ; e. g. that penal stat- 
 utes, or clauses in statutes, are to be construed strictly, reme- 
 dial statutes liberally, &c. A few other rules laid down by 
 learned authorities in the construction of statutes are — that 
 they are to be construed out of the words themselves, accord- 
 ing to the true intent of the makers ; that when the words of 
 a statute are doubtful, general usage may be called in to ex- 
 plain them ; that the purview of the whole act is to be con- 
 
 sidered, and not particular words or clauses only ; that 
 doubtful words are to be construed with reference to the 
 object of the act ; that the preamble, or recital at the com- 
 mencement, is to be considered, as it generally indicates the 
 evil which it was meant to remedy, and consequently af- 
 fords an insight into the meaning of the framers ; that re- 
 peal of former statutes by implication shall not be favour- 
 ed, &c. Statutes are numbered according to rather an in- 
 convenient arrangement : the entire acts of one session are 
 considered as forming two collections or volumes, one of 
 public and one of private acts ; each act forming a distinct 
 "chapter," and subdivided into sections. 
 
 STAUROLITE. (Gr. aravpoc, a cross, and XtQoc, a stone.) 
 The mineral called cross-stune, harmotome, and Andreas- 
 bergolite. It is a silicate or baryta and alumina, with traces 
 of lime and potash, and forms small quadrangular prisms 
 crossing each other : the most characteristic specimens are 
 from Andreasberg, in the Hartz. 
 
 STAUROT1DE. (Gr. aruvpog, a cross, and c«5oc, form.) 
 A name given by Haiiy, and other mineralogists, to the pris- 
 matic garnet, or grenatite. It occurs in four and six-sided 
 prisms, sometimes crossing each other at right angles. It is 
 a silicate of alumina and lime, with Ihe oxides of iron and 
 manganese. It occurs in primary rocks, and is distinguish- 
 ed from garnet by its form and difficult fusibility. 
 
 STAY. A strong rope from the mast head, leading for- 
 ward to support it from falling aft. It takes the name of 
 the mast, as the fore stay, main-topmast stay, &c. To stay, 
 means to tack. To be in stays, is to be in the act of tacking. 
 To miss stays, signifies to fail in attempting to tnck. 
 
 STEAM. The elastic fluid into which water is convert- 
 ed by the continued application of heat. 
 
 All liquids whatever, when exposed to a sufficiently high 
 temperature, are converted into vapour. The mechanical 
 properties of vapour are similar to those of gases in general. 
 The property which is most important to be considered, in 
 the case of steam, is the elastic pressure. When a vapour 
 or gas is contained in a close vessel, the inner surface of the 
 vessel will sustain a pressure arising from the elasticity of 
 the fluid. This pressure is produced by the mutual repul- 
 sion of the particles, which gives them a tendency to fly 
 asunder, and causes the mass of the fluid to exert a force 
 tending to burst any vessel within which it is confined. 
 This pressure is uniformly diffused over even' part of the 
 surface of the vessel in which such a fluid is contained : it is 
 to this quality that all the mechanical power of steam is due. 
 
 To render the chief properties of steam intelligible, it 
 will only be necessary to explain the phenomena which at- 
 tend the conversion of water into vapour by the continued 
 application of heat, under the various circumstances of ex- 
 ternal pressure which present themselves in the processes 
 of nature and art. 
 
 Let A B be a tube or cylinder, the magnitude of whose 
 4 C * 1161
 
 STEAM. 
 
 base is a square inch, and lot a piston F move 
 Bteam tight In it ; let it he imagined that un- 
 drr this piston, in the bottom of the cylinder, 
 there is an inch depth of water, which will 
 therefore be in quantity a cubic inch; let the 
 piston be counterbalanced by a weight \v act 
 ing over a pulley, which shall be sufficient to 
 counterpoise the weight of the piston and its 
 
 friction in the cylinder; and let the Weight 
 W YV be so arranged that from time to lime its 
 amount may he diminished to any required 
 extent. Under the circumstances here sup- 
 posed, the piston being in contact with the 
 water, and all air being excluded from be- 
 neath it, it will be pressed down by the weight 
 of the atmosphere, which we shall assume to be 14j lbs. 
 Let it be also supposed that a thermometer is placed in the 
 water under the piston, and that the tube A B is transpa- 
 rent, so that the indications of the thermometer may be ob- 
 served. The temperature of the water under the piston 
 being reduced to that of melting ice, which is 32° of the 
 common thermometer, let the (lame of a lamp be applied 
 under the tube, and let the time of its application be noted. 
 If the thermometer he now observed, it will be seen slowly 
 B&d gradually to Indicate an increasing temperature of the 
 water, the piston maintaining its position in contact with 
 the water unchanged. This augmentation of the tempera- 
 ture will continue until the thermometer indicates the tem- 
 perature of 212°. Let the time be then noted. It will be 
 found that after that epoch, the water will cease to increase 
 in temperature, notwithstanding the continued application 
 of the lamp, the thermometer not rising above 212°. But 
 another effect will begin to he manifested ; the piston F will 
 be observed gradually to rise, leaving a space apparently 
 vacant between it and the water. The depth of the water 
 will, however, be at the same time gradually diminished, 
 and the diimmilion of its depth will be found to bear con- 
 stantly the same proportion to the ascent of the piston. 
 This proportion will render the circumstances here supposed 
 to be that of 1700 to 1. If the application of the lamp be 
 continued, and the tube have sufficient length, the water 
 will, after the lapse of a certain time, altogether disappear 
 from the bottom of the tube; and when thai occurs, the 
 piston will have risen to the height of 1700 inches, being 
 1700 tunes the original depth of the water. 
 
 The tube will now, to all appearance, be empty; hut if 
 the apparatus were weighed, it would be found to have the 
 same weight as at the commencement of the experiment. 
 The water, therefore, must still he contained in the tube, 
 though it has assumed an invisible form. To demonstrate 
 its presence, let the lamp be removed ; immediately the 
 piston will begin to descend, and the inner surface of the 
 lube will he covered wilh a dew. which speedily increasing, 
 will fall to the bottom in drops id' water. The piston mean- 
 while will continue to move downwards, sweeping before it 
 the water from the sides of the tube; and at length will re- 
 cover its fust position, having under it, as at the beginning, 
 a cubic inch of w aler. 
 
 In the above process, the elevation of the piston is pro- 
 duced by the elastic force of the steam, into which the 
 water was gradually converted by the lamp. The apace 
 between 'he piston and tin' water during its ascent, though 
 apparently empty, was filled with steam ; which, like air 
 anil most other gases, is a colourless and invisible fluid. 
 The proportion of the elevation of tin 1 piston to the diminu- 
 tion of depth of the watei being 1700 to 1, proves that the 
 
 water in passing into steam increases iis volume in that 
 proportion. When the water altogether disappeared, the 
 height of the piston from the bottom of the tube was 1700 
 inches; and as the tube under the piston was then filled 
 with the steam into which the w aler had been converted, 
 it is apparent that the cubic inch of water, in this case, 
 Was converted ml. i 1700 inches of .-team. 
 
 The pressure of the atmosphere above the piston was, 
 
 in this case, overcome by the elastic force ol the steam, ami 
 the piston, hearing that pressure Upon it, Was raised to a 
 
 height of 1700 no ins. In the evaporation, therefore, of 
 
 this cubic inch of water, n mechanical force has been 
 evolved equivalent to 14$ lbs. raised to the height of 1700 
 inches. 
 
 From the moment at which the water began to be con- 
 .1 into steam the thermometer, having then attained 
 
 ■ I io rise. Nevertheless, the application of the 
 lamp was continued, and therefore the same quantity id' 
 
 heal per minute was still supplied to the water. Since the 
 
 water did not Increase in temperature, it may he asked 
 
 What became of this continued supply of heat received 
 from the lamp ? It tnav be said lli.it il u as imparled to the 
 
 tn into w inch the water w as converted; but if the Ihcr- 
 mometer were raised out of the water, and held in the 
 
 ■team between the water and the piston, it would still nidi- 
 sate the same temperature of 212°. Wc thus arrive at the 
 1163 
 
 extraordinary and unexpected fact, that notwithstanding a 
 large Supply of heat imparted to water (luring its evapora- 
 tion, that bent is sensible neither ill the Water itself nor in 
 the vapour into which the water is converted. 
 
 The quuntitj of heat which is thus absorbed in convert- 
 ing water into steam is easily determined, the interval of 
 time being noted which elapsed between the first applica- 
 tion of the lamp and the u nut at u Inch the the 
 
 ter ceased to rise. Let us suppose that interval to be an 
 hour; the interval being also noted between the moment 
 the thermometer ceases to rise and the process of evapora- 
 tion begins, and the moment at which the last (larticle 
 of water disappears from the bottom of the tube and the 
 evaporation is completed, it will be found that this interval 
 is 5A hours; and in general, whatever may be the length of 
 time necessary to raise tin' temperature of tin' water from 
 32° to 212°, 5j times that interval will be necessary for the 
 same source of beat to evaporate the same quantity of wa- 
 ter. It follows, therefore, that to evaporate water under a 
 pressure of If; pfiuiipU /■< r square inch requires 5A times as 
 much heat as is necessary and sufficient to raise the same 
 water from 32° to 212°. 
 
 Since the difference between 212° and 32° is 180°, and 
 since 5.V times 180° is 990°, it follows that to convert the 
 water into steam after it has attained the temperature of 
 212°, as much heat must be supplied to it as would he suf- 
 ficient, if it were not evaporated, to raise it 990° higher. 
 The heat thus absorbed in evaporation, and not sensible to 
 the thermometer, is said to be latent in the steam ; and the 
 phenomena which have been just described (brm the found- 
 ation of the whole theory of latent heat. That this large 
 quantity of heat is actually contained in the steam, though 
 not sensible to the thermometer, admits of easy demonstra- 
 tion, by showing that it may be reproduced by converting 
 the steam into water. If a cubic inch of water, in the form 
 of steam at the temperature of 212°, he introduced into the 
 same vessel with . r >.l cubic inches of water at the tempera- 
 ture of 32°, the steam will be immediately converted into 
 water ; the temperature of the 5i inches of ice cold water 
 will he raised to 212°, and there will he found in the vessel 
 6J cubic inches of water at 212°. Thus, while the steam, 
 in reassuming the liquid form, has lost none of its temper- 
 ature, it has nevertheless given up as much heat as has 
 raised 5A cubic inches of water from 32° to 212°. It is 
 therefore demonstrated that this quantity of heat v\ as actu- 
 ally in the steam ; and that it was its presence there in the 
 latent state, by some agency not yet explained, that confer- 
 red upon the water in the vaporous form the property of 
 
 elasticity. 
 
 We have here supposed that the pressure under which 
 the water in the tube was evaporated was the mean pres- 
 sure of the atmosphere, or 14ij lbs. per square inch. Let 
 us now suppose that the piston resting on the water, is load- 
 ed with a force of \X\ lbs,, besides the pressure of the at- 
 mosphere, which may be done by taking II j lbs. from the 
 counterpoise W. If the same process he followed as be- 
 fore, it will now he found that the thermometer will not 
 cease to rise when it has attained 212- ; nor will the piston 
 
 then begin to ascend. The then oeter Will, on the other 
 
 hand, continue to rise until it lias attained 2.">(A It will 
 thin, as in the former case, cease to rise; the piston will 
 ascend, and the water will begin to lie converted into steam ; 
 the proportion, however, between the ascent of the piston 
 ami the ilnniin hed depth of the water, or, in other words, 
 between the \oliiine ol" steam produced and the volume ol' 
 water producing it, instead of being 17011 to 1, will now be 
 about 930 lo I, being little more than half Ihe former pro- 
 portion. The force against w inch the elasticity of the 
 steam, in the present case, acts, is \>\\\ lbs.; and this force 
 
 is raised about 930 inches h> the evnpoiali la cubic 
 
 inch of water. In the former cum-, a force of 1-1 ! lbs., be- 
 ing half the present force, wa< raised i" 1700 Inches by the 
 
 evaporation of the same quantity of water. If the double 
 
 force, instead of being raised 930 inches, had been raised 
 
 Onlj 850 inches, or half the fust elevation, then the me- 
 chanical effect evolved Would in bolh cases be plecisely the 
 same, the double resistance being raised through only half 
 the space ; bill I lie actual height through w hich the double 
 resistance is raised I" iug 930 inches instead of 850, a great- 
 ,-1 mechanical effect is produced in the on" case than in the 
 
 other, in the proportion of 93(1 to 850, being an advantage 
 on the pail 01 ihe steam of gn ater pressure of about 8 per 
 cent. 
 
 if the pressure under which the evaporation is produced 
 were furtbei varied, it would be found that with every in- 
 crease of pressure Ihe temperature at which the evapora- 
 tion would commence would be augmented, ami that with 
 ev erv diminution of pressure that temperature would be di- 
 minished, ll would be also found thai tin- volume "t steam 
 produced by a cubic inch of water would be le-.s with eve 
 ry increase of pressure under which Ihe evaporation is 
 made ; and thut the diminution of volume would be nearly,
 
 STEAM. 
 
 but not in quite so great a proportion, as the increase of 
 pressure. In like manner, if the pressure be diminished, 
 the volume of steam produced by a cubic inch of water 
 will be augmented in nearly, but not quite so great a pro- 
 portion, as that of the dlnunution of pressure. From all 
 this, it obviously follows that the mechanical effect evolved 
 by the evaporation of a given volume of water under dif- 
 ferent pressures is very' nearly the same ; greater pressures, 
 however, having a slight advantage over lesser ones. 
 
 It has been seen that 14 J lbs. are raised to a height of 
 1700 inches by tlie evaporation of a cubic inch of water 
 Under the pressure of 14$ lbs. per square inch. Now, 1700 
 inches are nearly equal to 142 feet; and 14$ lbs. raised 142 
 feet is equivalent to 142 times 14$ lbs. raised one foot, which 
 is equal to very nearly 2100 lbs. raised one foot. To use 
 round numbers, it may then be stated, that by the evapora- 
 tion of a cubic foot of water a mechanical force is produced 
 equivalent to a ton weight raised a font high ; and that this 
 force is very nearly the same, whatever be the temperature 
 or pressure under which the evaporation takes place. 
 
 In the following table, calculated by Dr. Lardner, and 
 given by him in the Appendix to the 7th edition of his work 
 on the Steam Engine, is exhibited the temperatures at 
 which water is evaporated under different pressures, the 
 volume into which the water expands by evaporation, the 
 mechanical effect evolved expressed in lbs. raised one foot. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 | 
 
 «75-= *- i ~i 
 
 ^ 
 
 a 
 
 ^T-= 
 
 •^ t"^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 C rt 3 — 
 
 = FT 
 Si " 
 
 Mi 
 
 l|ll|i|ss 
 
 =• & 
 
 IS 
 
 - 2 * £ 
 
 ?7£ = u 
 
 Q. a * 
 
 ■H - 
 
 
 — a. 
 
 3-3 
 
 C si 
 
 g-n. 
 g 
 
 = |ll 
 
 |||| 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 v-= — £ 
 
 r* o 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 a. 
 
 u 
 
 >°3 
 
 s u i 
 
 *■ 
 
 U 
 
 > B = 
 
 S"g 
 
 1 
 
 102 9 
 
 2os63 
 
 1739 
 
 58 
 
 292-9 
 
 484 
 
 2339 
 
 2 
 
 126-1 
 
 10*74 
 
 1*12 
 
 59 
 
 294 2 
 
 477 
 
 2343 
 
 3 
 
 1410 
 
 7437 
 
 1*50 
 
 60 
 
 295-6 
 
 470 
 
 2347 
 
 4 
 
 152-3 
 
 50-5 
 
 1895 
 
 61 
 
 296 9 
 
 463 
 
 2351 
 
 5 
 
 161-4 
 
 4617 
 
 1924 
 
 62 
 
 293-1 
 
 456 
 
 2355 
 
 6 
 
 169-2 
 
 3397 
 
 1948 
 
 63 
 
 299-2 
 
 449 
 
 23=9 
 
 7 
 
 175.9 
 
 3376 
 
 1969 
 
 64 
 
 300-3 
 
 443 
 
 2362 
 
 8 
 
 182.0 
 
 2033 
 
 1989 
 
 65 
 
 301 3 
 
 437 
 
 2365 
 
 9 
 
 187-4 
 
 2674 
 
 2006 
 
 66 
 
 302-4 
 
 431 
 
 2369 
 
 10 
 
 192 4 
 
 2426 
 
 2022 
 
 67 
 
 303-4 
 
 42.5 
 
 2372 
 
 It 
 
 197 
 
 2221 
 
 2036 
 
 68 
 
 304-4 
 
 419 
 
 2375 
 
 12 
 
 201 3 
 
 2050 
 
 2050 
 
 69 
 
 305 4 
 
 414 
 
 2378 
 
 13 
 
 2053 
 
 1904 
 
 2063 
 
 70 
 
 3064 
 
 403 
 
 23*2 
 
 14 
 
 209 I 
 
 1773 
 
 2074 
 
 71 
 
 3074 
 
 4"3 
 
 21--: 
 
 15 
 
 212-8 
 
 1669 
 
 2036 
 
 72 
 
 309 4 
 
 3>- 
 
 2338 
 
 16 
 
 216-3 
 
 1573 
 
 2097 
 
 73 
 
 309-3 
 
 393 
 
 2391 
 
 17 
 
 219-6 
 
 1438 
 
 2107 
 
 74 
 
 3103 
 
 388 
 
 239* 
 
 18 
 
 222 7 
 
 1411 
 
 2117 
 
 75 
 
 311-2 
 
 3*3 
 
 2397 
 
 19 
 
 225 6 
 
 1343 
 
 2126 
 
 76 
 
 312-2 
 
 379 
 
 2400 
 
 20 
 
 223-5 
 
 1281 
 
 2135 
 
 77 
 
 313-1 
 
 374 
 
 2403 
 
 21 
 
 231 2 
 
 1225 
 
 2144 
 
 73 
 
 314 
 
 370 
 
 2405 
 
 22 
 
 233-8 
 
 1174 
 
 2152 
 
 79 
 
 314 9 
 
 366 
 
 2403 
 
 23 
 
 236-3 
 
 1127 
 
 2160 
 
 80 
 
 315-8 
 
 362 
 
 2411 
 
 24 
 
 233-7 
 
 1084 
 
 2163 
 
 81 
 
 316-7 
 
 358 
 
 2414 
 
 25 
 
 241-0 
 
 1044 
 
 2175 
 
 82 
 
 317-6 
 
 354 
 
 2417 
 
 26 
 
 243 3 
 
 1007 
 
 2182 
 
 83 
 
 3IS-4 
 
 350 
 
 2419 
 
 27 
 
 2455 
 
 973 
 
 2189 
 
 84 
 
 3193 
 
 346 
 
 2422 
 
 28 
 
 247-6 
 
 941 
 
 2196 
 
 85 
 
 3 '01 
 
 342 
 
 2425 
 
 29 
 
 2496 
 
 911 
 
 2202 
 
 86 
 
 3210 
 
 339 
 
 2427 
 
 30 
 
 251-6 
 
 883 
 
 2209 
 
 87 
 
 32 IS 
 
 335 
 
 2430 
 
 31 
 
 253-6 
 
 857 
 
 2215 
 
 83 
 
 322-6 
 
 332 
 
 2432 
 
 32 
 
 255-5 
 
 833 
 
 2221 
 
 89 
 
 323-5 
 
 32S 
 
 2435 
 
 S3 
 
 257 3 
 
 810 
 
 2226 
 
 90 
 
 324-3 
 
 325 
 
 243S 
 
 34 
 
 259- 1 
 
 7 - 
 
 2232 
 
 91 
 
 325-1 
 
 3:2 
 
 2440 
 
 35 
 
 260 9 
 
 767 
 
 2238 
 
 92 
 
 325 9 
 
 319 
 
 3443 
 
 36 
 
 262-6 
 
 741 
 
 2213 
 
 93 
 
 3267 
 
 316 
 
 2445 
 
 37 
 
 2843 
 
 729 
 
 2243 
 
 94 
 
 327-5 
 
 3'3 
 
 2443 
 
 33 
 
 2659 
 
 712 
 
 2253 
 
 95 
 
 32*-2 
 
 310 
 
 2450 
 
 39 
 
 267-5 
 
 695 
 
 2?59 
 
 96 
 
 329 
 
 Si 17 
 
 2453 
 
 40 
 
 269-1 
 
 679 
 
 2226 
 
 97 
 
 329.3 
 
 304 
 
 2455 
 
 41 
 
 270-6 
 
 6r4 
 
 2263 
 
 95 
 
 330 5 
 
 301 
 
 2457 
 
 42 
 
 272- 1 
 
 649 
 
 2273 
 
 99 
 
 331 3 
 
 298 
 
 2460 
 
 43 
 
 273 6 
 
 635 
 
 2279 
 
 100 
 
 3320 
 
 295 
 
 2462 
 
 44 
 
 2750 
 
 622 
 
 22S2 
 
 110 
 
 339 2 
 
 271 
 
 2456 
 
 45 
 
 276-4 
 
 610 
 
 22-7 
 
 120 
 
 3JV8 
 
 251 
 
 2507 
 
 46 
 
 277-0 
 
 593 
 
 2291 
 
 130 
 
 392-] 
 
 233 
 
 2527 
 
 47 
 
 279-2 
 
 556 
 
 2296 
 
 140 
 
 357-9 
 
 213 
 
 2545 
 
 48 
 
 2,0-5 
 
 575 
 
 2300 
 
 150 
 
 363 4 
 
 205 
 
 2561 
 
 49 
 
 251-9 
 
 564 
 
 2314 
 
 160 
 
 36*7 
 
 193 
 
 2577 
 
 50 
 
 2=3 2 
 
 554 
 
 2303 
 
 170 
 
 373-8 
 
 153 
 
 293 
 
 51 
 
 234-4 
 
 544 
 
 2312 
 
 ISO 
 
 37«4 
 
 174 
 
 260* 
 
 52 
 
 2-5-7 
 
 534 
 
 2316 
 
 190 
 
 3-2-9 
 
 166 
 
 2622 
 
 53 
 
 2-6 9 
 
 525 
 
 2320 
 
 200 
 
 3873 
 
 15-i 
 
 2636 
 
 54 
 
 2SH 
 
 516 
 
 2324 
 
 210 
 
 8916 
 
 151 
 
 2650 
 
 55 
 
 2^9 3 
 
 508 
 
 2327 
 
 220 
 
 395 5 
 
 145 
 
 2663 
 
 56 
 
 290-5 
 
 500 
 
 2331 
 
 230 
 
 39C-4 
 
 140 
 
 2675 
 
 1 57 
 
 291 7 
 
 492 
 
 2335 
 
 240 
 
 403 1 
 
 134 26*7 
 
 From what has been above explained, it is apparent that 
 the quantity of sensible heat in steam is augmented with 
 every increase of pressure under which the evaporation 
 takes place ; but if the interval of time be observed which 
 elapses between the first application of the lamp to the ice- 
 cold water in the experiment above described, and the mo- 
 ment at which the last particle of water disappears by 
 evaporation from the bottom of the tube, it will be found 
 that this interval is exactly the same, whatever be the tem- 
 perature or pressure under which the evaporation takes 
 place. It follows, therefore, that the actual quantity of 
 
 heat necessary to convert ice-cold water into steam is the 
 same, whatever be the pressure of the steam ; but as the 
 temperature of steam increases and diminishes as the pres- 
 sure is increased or diminished, it follows that this given 
 quantity of heat is differently distributed between sensible 
 and latent heat in steam of different pressures. As the 
 pressure is increased the sensible heat is augmented, and 
 the latent heat undergoes a corresponding diminution, and 
 vice versa. The sum of the sensible and latent heats is, in 
 fact, a constant quantity : the one being always increased 
 at the expense of the other. It has been shown that in 
 converting water at 32° of temperature, and under a pres- 
 sure of 14$ lbs. per square inch, it was necessary first to 
 give it 180° additional sensible heat, and afterwards 990° 
 of latent heat, the total heat imparted to it being 1170°. 
 Such, then, is the actual quantity of heat which must be 
 imparted to ice-cold water to convert it into steam. The 
 actual temperature to which water would be raised by the 
 heat necessary to evaporate it, if its evaporation could be 
 prevented by confining it in a close vessel, will be found by 
 adding 32° to 1170°. It may, therefore, be stated that the 
 heat necessary for the evaporation of ice-cold water is as 
 much as would raise it to the temperature of 1202°, if its 
 evaporation were prevented. If the temperature of red-hot 
 iron be, as is supposed, about 800°, and that all bodies be- 
 come incandescent at the same temperature, it follows that 
 to evaporate water it is necessary to impart to it 400° more 
 heat than would be sufficient to render it red hot if its 
 evaporation were prevented. As the mechanical effect 
 evolved by water evaporated at all pressures is nearly the 
 same, and as the quantity of heat necessary to effect that 
 evaporation is also the same, it follows that the same 
 quantity of fuel employed in the evaporation of water is 
 productive of very 7 nearly the same mechanical effect, 
 whatever he the pressure of the steam. 
 
 Since the heat imparted to water in evaporation is ne- 
 cessary to sustain it in the form of vapour, it follows that 
 if any portion of that heat be taken from it. the steam will 
 not be lowered in temperature, but a portion of it will be 
 reconverted into water : a process which is called condensa- 
 tion. To illustrate this, let us suppose the tube A B to be 
 filled with steam of 212° of temperature, produced from a 
 cubic inch of water evaporated under the pressure of 14$ 
 lbs. on the piston. If, by the application of external cold, 
 or any other means, a quantity of heat be extracted from 
 this steam, say as much as would be sufficient to evaporate 
 the tenth of a cubic inch of water, then a tenth part of the 
 steam in the tube will be condensed and deposited in the 
 liquid state in the bottom, the piston will descend through 
 a tenth of its entire heisht, and the steam remaining un- 
 condensed will still have the temperature of 212° and the 
 pressure of 14$ lbs. per square inch, while the water in the 
 bottom of the tube produced by the condensation will also 
 have a temperature of 212°. The heat, therefore, which 
 has been thus abstracted, is the heat which was latent in 
 the steam formed by the water thus deposited. And in the 
 same manner, any heat which is drawn from the steam 
 will be latent heat ; a corresponding condensation will take 
 place until all the steam has been condensed, and the pis- 
 ton brought into contact with the botiom of the tube. Af- 
 ter that, any abstraction of heat must be made at the ex- 
 pense of the sensible heat of the water. 
 
 It has. in some works, been stated that by mere mechan- 
 ical compression steam will be converted into water. This 
 is, however, an error, since steam, in whatever state it may 
 exist, must possess at least 212° of heat ; and as this quan- 
 tity of heat is sufficient to maintain it in the vaporous form, 
 under whatever pressure it may be placed, it is clear that 
 no compression or increase of pressure can diminish the 
 actual quantity of heat contained in the strain : and it can- 
 not, therefore, convert any portion of the steam into water. 
 
 If steam, by mechanical pressure, be forced into a di- 
 minished volume, it will undergo an augmentation both of 
 temperature and pressure, the increase of pressure being 
 greater than the diminution of volume ; in fact, any change 
 of volume which it undergoes will be attended with the 
 change of temperature and pressure indicated in the above 
 table. The steam, after its volume has been changed, will 
 assume exactly the pressure and temperature which it 
 would have in the same volume if it were immediately 
 evolved from water. Thus, let us suppose a cubic inch of 
 water converted into steam under a pressure of 14$ lbs. per 
 square inch, and at the temperature of 212°. Let its vol- 
 ume be then reduced by compression in the proportion of 
 1700 to 930. When so reduced, it* temperature will be 
 found to have risen from 212° to 250°. and its pressure will 
 be increased from 14$ lbs. per square inch to 29A lbs. per 
 square inch ; but this is exactly the state, as to pressure, 
 temperature, and density, as the steam would be in if it 
 were immediately raised from water under the pressure of 
 294 lbs. per square inch. It appears, therefore, that in \\ hat- 
 ever manner, after evaporation, the density of steam be 
 
 ' 1163
 
 STEAM. 
 
 changed, whether hv expansion or contraction, it will still 
 remain the sum- as it' it were Immediately raised from 
 water in its actual state. 
 
 The circumstance wliicli has given rise to the erroneous 
 notion that mere mechanical compression will produce a 
 condens ition of strain is, thai the vessel in which steam is 
 contained must necessarily have the same temperature as 
 ,1 itself. If then the steam contained In thevessi i 
 be suddenly compressed, it will undergo as sudden an ele- 
 vation .it temper itnre ; and the vessel containing it not re- 
 ceiving at the same time, from any external sonne. a cor- 
 responding increase of temperature, it will rob the steam of 
 
 a portion of its heat, and a partial condensation will be pro- 
 duced, and will lie continued until the temperatures of the 
 i,d the vessel containing it shall be equalised. 
 Since water, in passing Into steam, sutlers a great enlarge- 
 ment of volume, steam, on the other hand, in being con- 
 verted into water undergoes a corresponding diminution of 
 volume. It has been seen that a cubic inch of water. 
 evaporated at the temperature of 212°, swells into 1700 
 cubic inches of steam. It follows, therefore, that If a close 
 vessel, containing 1700 cubic inches of such steam, be ex- 
 posed to cold sufficient to take from the steam all its latent 
 
 heat, the steam w ill be reconverted Into water, will shrink 
 into its original dimensions, and will leave the remainder 
 
 Of the vessel B vacuum. This property of steam has sup- 
 plied the means, in practical mechanics, of obtaining that 
 amount of mechanical power which the properties of the 
 atmosphere confer upon a vacuum. If by any means what- 
 ever the space in a cylinder under the piston be rendered 
 a vacuum, the atmospheric pressure will take effect above 
 the piston, and will urge the piston down wards with a force 
 amounting to about 13 lbs. on each scpiare inch of the sur- 
 face of the piston. To render steam available lor this pur- 
 pose, it is only necessary to inject it into the cylinder until 
 it expels from the cylinder all the atmospheric air or other 
 Uncundensable gases which the cylinder contains; and 
 x\ hen that is effected, the pure steam which remains in 
 the cylinder being sudden!} condensed by the application 
 of cold, leave, the cylinder a vacuum, and gives effed to 
 the atmospheric pressure .above the piston, as before ex- 
 plained. Tins is, tit fact, the principle of the atmospheric 
 
 engine. 
 
 The temperature and pressure of steam produced by im- 
 mediate evaporation, when it has received no beat, save 
 that which it takes from the water, have a fixed relation 
 one to the other. If this relation were known, and express- 
 ed by a mathematical formula, the temperature Blight al- 
 ways be inferred from the pressure, or rice versa. But 
 physical science has not yet supplied any principles by 
 Which such a formula can be deduced from an\ known 
 properties of liquids. In the absence, therefore, of any gen- 
 eral relation established bj direct reasoning, empyrical for- 
 mula; have been proposed which express, with more or less 
 precision, this relation in different parts of the thermonietric 
 scale. 
 
 When the pressure under which the evaporation takes 
 place does not exceed one atmosphere, or 15 lbs. ]>er squ ire 
 inch, the relation between the temperature ami the pres- 
 sure will be expressed with sufficient accuracy by the fol- 
 lowing formulie, proposed bv Southern : 
 
 P=0 04948 + (.^±£) S18 
 ^ 155*7256/ 
 
 T = 1557-25GX n/P — 0-04943 — 51-3; 
 where P expresses the pressure in pounds per square inch, 
 and T the temperature by Fahrenheit's thermometer. 
 
 For pressures exceeding one atmosphere and not exceed- 
 ing four, the relation i^ expressed by the following formula;, 
 •.imposed by Tredgold : 
 
 / 103 + T -xS 
 
 — v. 201-18 / 
 T = 20118 <yv — 103; 
 or bv the following formula-, 
 
 /•98-206 + T^6 
 
 fry 
 
 198' 
 
 T = 198-502 6/ P — 98-806. 
 For pressures extending from four to fifty atmospheres, 
 the following formula hive been proposed by Messrs. Du- 
 long and Arago : 
 
 P = (0-20793 -f 0-000758.5 Tj5 
 T = 147-901 v/P — 39-014. 
 Biot has pr o po sed a more general formula, which eX- 
 the relation between the pressure and the tempera- 
 ture, whatever be the pressure under which the evapora- 
 tion takes place. Let ;, be the pre-, me. expressed In mil- 
 limetres, cit mercury at the temperature of melting Ice; l< i 
 t be th'- temperature of the water taken cm tin- centesimal 
 air thermometer; and let a, a\, a>, b\, bi be constant quan- 
 1104 
 
 tities. whose values shall be determined by the following 
 conditions: 
 
 a = 5-96131330059 
 
 log. o, = f-82340688193 
 
 log. 4, = ■— 0-01309734295 
 
 log. a 2 = 0-74110951837 
 
 log. i', — —0-00212510583. 
 The relation between p and t will then be expressed by 
 the following formula, 
 
 \oG.p = a-a l b? + , -a2b2* > + , ^ 
 M. Biot compared the temperature and corresponding 
 pressures, calculated by this formula, with the series de- 
 termined by an extensive course of experiments undertaken 
 by MM. AragO and Dulong by order of the French govern- 
 ment, to those of tin- experiments of Taylor at lower tem- 
 peratures, and to a numerous series of MSS. observations 
 of M. Gay-Lussac, extending from the boiling point to tem- 
 peratures considerably below thai of melting ice-, and found 
 that the calculated and observed results corresponded with- 
 in the limits of error of the experiments themselves. The 
 formula first given above offer, however, much greater fa- 
 cility for practical calculation, and altoic! as accurate results 
 
 as are required for all ordinary purpose s. 
 
 The same difficulty which attends the establishment of 
 a general formula expressing the relation between the tem- 
 peratures and pressures of steam, also attends the deter- 
 mination of one expressing the relation between the pres- 
 sure and the augmented volume into which the water ex- 
 pands by evaporation. Empirical formula; have according- 
 ly been" likewise proposed to express this relation. The 
 late Professor Na\ ier proposed lite following formula for this 
 purpose. 
 
 Let V express the number of cubic inches of steam pro- 
 duced bv one cubic inch of water, and let P express the 
 pressure' of this steam in kilograms per square metre ; then 
 we shall have 
 
 1000 
 
 — 0-09 + 000004S4 P 
 This formula gives sufficiently accurate results when ap- 
 plied to pressures much above one atmosphere. It fails to 
 give the same accuracy, however, when applied to lower 
 pressures. 
 
 The following formula; have been proposed by M. de 
 Pambour : 
 
 _ 10,000 
 
 — 0-4227 + 00025c P 
 which will apply to low pressures ; and 
 T _ ifi.noo 
 
 ~~ 1.421 + 0-0023P' 
 which will ne applicable to high pressures. In each of 
 these P is expressed in pounds per scpiare foot 
 
 Dr. Lardner proposes the following modified formula, V 
 and P retaining their signification : 
 3875969 
 * — 164 -4- P' 
 which maybe used in reference to low-pressure engines of 
 every form, as well as for high-pressure engines which 
 work expansively. 
 
 When the pressure is not less than 30 lbs. per square 
 inch, the following formula will be more accurate: 
 4347820 
 
 — 618 + P' 
 In the preceding observations steam has been considered 
 as receiving no heat except that which it lake-s from the 
 water during the process Of evaporation, the amount of 
 
 which, as Ins been shown, Is 1170° more that the heat 
 contained In ice cold water. But steam, after having been 
 
 formed from water by evaporation, m Other ma- 
 
 terial substances, receive an accession ol heat from any 
 external source, and its temperature mi\ thereby be ele- 
 vated, [f the steam to which such additional Jieat is im- 
 parted be so confined as to be- incapable of enlarging its 
 dimensions, the- eitec-t produced upon it by the Ini 
 temperature will be an increase or pressure : but if, on the 
 
 other hand, it be- confined under a given pressure, with 
 
 povt n to enlarge its volume, Bubjeci to the preservation of 
 
 that pressure, as would be the Case if it were- contained in 
 a cylinder under a moveable piston loaded with a given 
 
 pressure, then the edict of the augmented temperature 
 
 will be. not an Increase of pressure, but an increase of vol- 
 
 i the Increase of volume In this latter case will 
 
 tlj the same proportion as the Increase of pres 
 
 sure in the former case. 
 
 These effects ol elevated temperature are common not 
 only to the vapours of all liquids, but also to all permanent 
 
 ICh more remarkable, the numerical 
 
 amount of the augmentation of pressure <>r volume pro- 
 
 dw ■ d by ti given increase of temperature is the same foi
 
 STEAM. 
 
 all vapours and gases. If the pressure which any gas or 
 vapour would have were it reduced to the temperature of 
 melting ice be expressed by 1UO,000, then the pressure 
 which it will receive for every degree of temperature by 
 which it is raised will be expressed by 208g ; or, what 
 amounts to the same, the additional pressure produced by 
 each degree of temperature will be the 480th part of its 
 pressure at the temperature of melting ice. From these 
 data it is easy to obtain an algebraical expression by which 
 the augmentation of pressure in a given volume, or, what 
 is the same, the augmentation of volume under a given 
 pressure for every increase of temperature, may be calcu- 
 lated. 
 
 Let v be the volume of any elastic fluid at the tempera- 
 ture of 32° ; and let it be then supposed to be raised by the 
 application of heat to the temperature T, if under a given 
 pressure. Let its augmented volume be V. The increase 
 of volume will then be V — v, while the increase of tem- 
 perature will be T° — 32°. But since the increase of vol- 
 ume for one degree of temperature is — -, the increase for 
 
 To— 320 win be ~ X (TO— 32°) ; and therefore the aug- 
 mented volume V will be 
 V=v + 
 
 1,-0 
 
 (TO— 32°). 
 
 = v 1 + 
 
 TO — 320 i 
 480 » 
 
 If V be the volume at any other temperature T', we 
 shall have 
 
 i T"o_ 3-jo ) 
 
 From whence we infer 
 
 V T + 448 . 
 
 V = T' + 443 ' 
 
 by which, when the volume of steam at any one tempera- 
 ture is known, the volume at any other temperature may 
 be found, supposing that the steam receives no accession 
 of water by evaporation. 
 
 Steam which thus receives additional heat after its se- 
 paration from the water from which it is evolved has been 
 called by Dr. Lardner superheated steam, to distinguish it 
 from common steam, which is that usually employed in 
 steam engines. Superheated steayn admits of losing a part 
 of its heat without suffering partial condensation ; but com- 
 mon steam is always partially condensed if any portion of 
 heat be withdrawn from it. For further details on these 
 properties, see Lardner on the Steam. Engine, 7th ed. p. 168, 
 etscq; also Appendix. See also Lardner on Heat, chap, 
 viii. ; Cabinet Cyclopaedia. 
 
 In the mechanical operation of steam, which has been 
 already explained, the pressure, density, and temperature 
 of the steam are supposed to remain the same during its 
 action, and the mechanical effect is produced by the con- 
 tinual increase of the quantity of steam produced by eva- 
 poration. Thus, the piston in the apparatus represented in 
 the figure is moved upwards, not by any change in the 
 temperature, density, or pressure, but by the increased vol- 
 ume required by the continual production of steam. It has 
 been proved that by this process alone the evaporation of 
 a cubic inch of water, whatever be the pressure under 
 which it takes place, evolves a mechanical force equivalent 
 tg a ton weight raised a foot high. But if, after this eva- 
 poration has been completed, the steam be separated from 
 the water which produced it, and the load on the piston be 
 gradually diminished, the steam would expand by moving 
 the piston upwards in virtue of its excess of pressure, and 
 this expansion will continue until the pressure of the steam 
 shall be reduced to equality with the load on the piston. 
 All mechanical efl'ect developed in this process is due to 
 the steam itself, independently of any further evaporation. 
 
 To make this important quality of the expansive action 
 of steam understood, let us suppose the piston loaded with 
 a pressure amounting to four times that of the atmosphere, 
 including that of the atmosphere itself. If the water under 
 the piston be evaporated under this pressure, it will have a 
 temperature of about 291°, and by its evaporation the pis- 
 ton will be raised 40 feet. This will, therefore, be the 
 whole mechanical effect arising from the immediate eva- 
 poration of the water. But when the evaporation has 
 teen completed, and the piston, with its load of four at- 
 mospheres, stands suspended at 40 feet above the bottom 
 of the tube, let a pressiue equal to that of one atmosphere 
 be removed from the piston. The remaining pressure of 
 three atmospheres being less than that of the steam below 
 the piston, the piston will be raised, and will continue to 
 rise until it has attained a height of about 50 feet, and the 
 temperature of the steam thus expanded will fall to about 
 275°; and its pressure being reduced to that of three at- 
 91 98 
 
 mospheres, it will cease to rise. By this process, therefore, 
 a mechanical force has been obtained from the steam equal 
 to the weight of three atmospheres raised 10 feet, in addi- 
 tion to the efl'ect obtained by immediate evaporation ; but 
 the expansive action does not stop here. Let it be sup- 
 posed that the piston is again relieved from the pressure of 
 another atmosphere, the superior pressure of three atmos- 
 pheres below will cause it to rise, and it will ascend to the 
 height of about 75 feet, the temperature of the steam fall- 
 ing to about 250°, and its pressure being reduced to two at- 
 mospheres. A further mechanical effect equivalent to the 
 weight of two atmospheres raised to about 25 feet, has thus 
 been obtained ; and it is evident that by constantly and 
 gradually diminishing the load on the piston, an additional 
 effect may be always obtained from a given amount of 
 evaporation, to an extent which is only limited by practical 
 circumstances which restrain the application of this ex- 
 pansive principle. Since the cost of producing steam as a 
 mechanical agent depends chiefly on the quantity of fuel 
 necessary to effect the evaporation of a given volume of 
 water, it follows that all the mechanical effect obtained by 
 this principle of expansion is so much power added to the 
 steam without further expense. Its importance, therefore, 
 will be obvious in the economy of steam power. For the 
 manner of rendering it available in steam machinery, see 
 Steam Engine. 
 
 History of Steam. — The nature and properties of steam 
 were altogether unknown to the ancients. Some accounts 
 have come down to us bearing a very early date of engines ; 
 such, for example, as that proposed by Hero of Alexandria, 
 in which the mechanical agency of steam was more or less 
 used ; but it does not appear that those who invented and 
 applied these machines comprehended the properties of 
 vapour, or had any correct notion of the phenomena pro- 
 duced by the application of heat to liquids. Even at a much 
 more recent period the effects produced by steam were 
 ascribed, not to the vapour of water, but to the force of air 
 which was supposed to be expelled from water by heat. In 
 the beginning of the 17th century, De Caus proposed the 
 construction of a machine by which a column of water 
 was raised by the elastic force of steam ; but there is no 
 sufficiently distinct explanation of the properties of vapour 
 in his description of that machine to warrant the conclu- 
 sion that he comprehended the elasticity of the vapour of 
 water. About the middle of the same century. Lord Wor- 
 cester published the description of a high pressure steam 
 engine, which has since formed so remarkable a feature in 
 all historiesof that machine. Towards the latter end cf that 
 century, however, the actual properties of vapour began to 
 be gradually unfolded. In 1083, Sir Samuel Moreland pub- 
 lished a description of the force of steam, in which he as- 
 signed very nearly the exact numerical proportion in which 
 water increases its volume when evaporated under the 
 pressure of a single atmosphere. A few years after this, 
 Papin discovered the method of producing a vacuum by the 
 condensation of steam, and the circumstances attending its 
 condensation, became gradually better understood, having 
 been applied to mechanical purposes by Savery, Newco- 
 men, and others. About the middle of the 18th century, 
 the celebrated Watt applied himself to the improvement of 
 the steam engine, and by varions experiments determined 
 the relative volumes of steam as commonly used in steam 
 engines, and the quantity of heat absorbed in evaporation 
 and evolved in condensation. About the same period Dr. 
 Black was engaged in his well-known investigations re- 
 specting the phenomena of heat, and had discovered the 
 phenomena and found the theory of latent heat, which 
 served to explain the effects which Watt had also observed. 
 During the latter part of the 18th and the beginning of the 
 present century, the physics of heat, and more especially 
 those principles immediately connected with steam, were 
 rapidly advanced. The relation between the temperatures 
 and pressures of the vapour of water throughout the com- 
 mon range of the thermometric scale was determined by 
 Dalton, and confirmed by Gay-Lussac, Prof. Kobison, Ure, 
 Southern, and others. The discovery of the law in virtue 
 of which the pressiue of all gases and vapours increases in 
 proportion to their density at a given temperatiue was due 
 to Mariotte, and is known as Mariotte's law. The discovery 
 of the remarkable fact that all gases and vapours receive 
 the same increase of pressure or volume for each degree of 
 temperature was first discovered by Dalton ; but was imme- 
 diately afterwards discovered also by Gay-Lussac, who was 
 not informed of Dalton's proceedings. The most important 
 course of experiments which has since been made were 
 undertaken by a committee of the French Institute, con- 
 sisting of MM. Prony, Arago, Gerard, and Dulong, in con- 
 sequence of an application from the French government to 
 the academy to point out the best means of preventing ac- 
 cidents from the bursting of the boilers of steam engines. 
 The experiments were conducted chiefly by Arago and Du- 
 long, and were certainly not only the most delicate as to 
 
 1165
 
 STEAM BOILER. 
 
 their management, but the most hazardous which science 
 anil art ow e to the courage and zeal of philosophers. Steam 
 was produced of a sufficient pressure to force a column of 
 mercury up a glass tube to the height of nearly 43 feet; an 
 atmosphere being measured by a column of mercury mea- 
 suring 29*939 inches. The following table exhibits the 
 temperatures and corresponding pressures of steam as de- 
 termined by these experiments, up to fifty atmospheres. 
 
 Pressure in 
 Atmospheres. 
 
 Temperature. 
 
 Pressure ill 
 Atmospheres. 
 
 Temperature. 
 
 ] 
 
 212* 
 
 13 
 
 380 bo" 
 
 ■i 
 
 234 
 
 14 
 
 386-94 
 
 2. 
 
 250-5 
 
 15 
 
 392s6 
 
 2* 
 
 263-8 
 
 16 
 
 39s-48 
 
 3 
 
 275-2 
 
 17 
 
 403-83 
 
 34 
 
 2s5 
 
 18 
 
 408-92 
 
 4, 
 
 293-7 
 
 19 
 
 413-78 
 
 44 
 
 300-3 
 
 20 
 
 41846 
 
 5 
 
 3075 
 
 21 
 
 422-96 
 
 5* 
 
 314-24 
 
 22 
 
 427-28 
 
 6, 
 
 320-36 
 
 23 
 
 431-42 
 
 64 
 
 3J(J 26 
 
 24 
 
 435-56 
 
 k 
 
 331-7 
 
 25 
 
 439 34 
 
 33686 
 
 30 
 
 45716 
 
 8 
 
 341-78 
 
 35 
 
 472 73 
 
 9 
 
 350-78 
 
 40 
 
 4S6 59 
 
 10 
 
 358-83 
 
 45 
 
 499" 14 
 
 11 
 
 306-85 
 
 60 
 
 610 6 
 
 ,2 
 
 374 
 
 
 
 The last six temperatures in the above table are deduced 
 by calculation from the formula e = (1 -4- 0-7153«)5, in 
 which e expresses the elasticity in atmospheres, and t the 
 temperatures in centieme degrees, beginning from 100°, 
 and proceeding upwards. The methods employed in this 
 magnificent course of experiments will be found detailed in 
 the Annates de Ckimie et de Physique, tome xliii. p. 74. 
 
 The committee seized the opportunity presented by the 
 apparatus used for these experiments for testing Marriotte's 
 law, as applied to atmospheric air; and they found that it 
 agrees with experiment as far as a pressure of twenty-four 
 atmospheres. 
 
 For further details respecting the properties of steam, see 
 Dr. Lardner on the Steam Engine, 7th edition ; Lardner on 
 Heat, Cabinet Cyclopaedia ; De Pambour on the Steam En- 
 gine ; various articles on Steam and Vapour, in the Philo- 
 sophical Transactions in the Proceedings of the Institute of 
 France; the Jinnales de Chimie ct Physique ; the Jinnales 
 de Mines ; the Journal des Ponts et Chaussees, &c. &c. 
 
 STEAM BOILER. A vessel in Which water is convert- 
 ed into steam for the purpose of supplying steam engines, 
 or for any other purposes for which steam is used in the 
 arts, or in domestic economy. 
 
 The most common form of boiler used for steam engines 
 is that called the wagon boiler, an isometric view of which 
 is given in the cut. The form of boiler adopted by Watt 
 
 consisted of a semi-cylindrical top. flat perpendicular sides, 
 flat, ends, and a slightly concave bottom. That which 
 is represented in the cut has sides a little concave. The 
 steam used in these boilers does not exceed the pressure of 
 the atmosphere by more than 5 lbs. per square inch; and 
 the sides and ends, though not so favourable to strength as 
 the cylindrical form, are sufficiently Strong lor this pressure. 
 In a boiler of this form the air and smoke, passing through 
 flues that are carried round it, are in contact at one side 
 only with the boiler. The brickwork or other materials 
 ■forming the flue must therefore be non-conductors of heat, 
 1100 
 
 that they may not absorb any considerable quantity of heat 
 from the air passing in contact with them. 
 
 The grate and part of the flues are rendered visible in 
 the figure, by the removal of a portion of the surrounding 
 masonry in which the boiler is set. The interior of the 
 boiler is also shown by cutting oil' one half of the semi- 
 Cylindrical roof. The door by which fuel is introduced 
 upon the grate is represented at A, and the door leading to 
 the ash pit at B. The fire-bars at C slope downwards from 
 the front at an angle of about 25°, giving a tendency to the 
 fuel to move towards the back of the grate. The ash-pit D 
 is constructed of such a magnitude, form, and depth, as to 
 admit a current of atmospheric air to the grate bars suffi- 
 cient to sustain the combustion. 
 
 The fuel, when introduced at the fire-door is laid on 
 that part of the grate which is called the dead plates. 
 There it is submitted to the process of coking, by which 
 the gases and volatile matter are expelled from it; and 
 being carried by a current of air admitted through small 
 apertures in the fire-door over the burning fuel in the 
 hinder part of the grate, they are burned. When the fuel 
 in the front of the grate has been thus coked it is pushed 
 back, and a fresh feed is introduced upon the dead plates. 
 The coal thus pushed back soon becomes vividly ignited, 
 and by continuing this process, the fuel spread over the 
 grate is maintained in the most active state of combus- 
 tion in the hinder part of the grate. By such an arrange- 
 ment the smoke produced by the combustion will be 
 burned before it enters the flues. The flame and heated 
 air proceeding from the fuel rushing to the back of the 
 furnace pass over the fire-bridge E, and being carried 
 through the flue, pass below the concave base of the boiler. 
 This bottom flue is very nearly equal in width to the base 
 of the boiler, the space left near the comers being only what 
 is sufficient to support the weight of the boiler resting on 
 the masonry. The bottom of the boiler being concave, the 
 flame and heated air rise to the upper part of the flue by 
 the eft'ect of their high temperature, und lick the bottom 
 from the fire-bridge to the further end. 
 
 The flue rises at the back of the boiler, and returns along 
 the side from H to I. It then passes in front of the boiler 
 at K to the opposite side, along which it is again carried 
 from the front to the back of the boiler. At the back it 
 finally turns upwards to the base of the chimney. 
 
 By this arrangement the flame and heated air are made 
 to circulate round the boiler ; and the length and magnitude 
 of the flues should be such that when it arrives at the 
 chimney its temperature shall be reduced, as nearly as is 
 consistent with the maintenance of the draught, to the 
 temperature of the water with which it is in contact. 
 
 The magnitude of the grate and ash-pit must be deter- 
 mined by the rate at which the evaporation is to be pro 
 duced in the boiler. There is no well-established rule for 
 this. Some engine-makers allow a square foot of grate 
 surface for each cubic foot of water to be evaporated per 
 hour, while others only allow half this for the same eva- 
 poration and the same quantity of fuel. Practice varies be- 
 tween these limits. 
 
 To facilitate the raking out of the grate, the bars are 
 placed with their ends towards the fire-door. They are 
 made of cast iron about two inches broad on the upper sur- 
 face, and with intervals of half an inch between them. 
 
 They taper downwards, the spaces between them widen- 
 ing, to facilitate the fall of the ashes between them. The 
 height of the centre of the bottom of the boiler above the 
 front of the grate is usually about two feet, and about three 
 feet above the back of it. • 
 
 Between the evaporating power of the boiler and the 
 magnitude of surface it exposes to the action of the fire, 
 there is a relation not yet satisfactorily ascertained. That 
 part of the surface immediately over the grate is probably 
 the most efficient in producing steam. The tendency of the 
 flame to rise would naturally bring it more in contact with 
 those parts of the boiler which are horizontal in their posi- 
 tion, and which form the tops of the flues, than with those 
 which are vertical or lateral. In the boiler here represent- 
 ed the most efficient surface would therefore be the bottom 
 of the boiler. Engine builders vary much in the quantity 
 of surface which they allow for a given rate of evaporation. 
 Some allow twelve and some eighteen square feet of sur- 
 face for each cubic foot of water per hour to be evaporated. 
 
 The capacity of the boiler is appropriated to a two-fold 
 purpose: 1. to contain the water to tie evaporated; 2. to 
 contain a quantity of ready-made sleam to supply the engine. 
 The proportion of the steam space in the boiler to the vol- 
 ume of the cylinder has been variously estimated. It is held 
 
 by some that it will lie sufficient if it lie live times the volume 
 of the cylinder, while others allow double that quantity. 
 
 For every cubic foot of water per hour intended to be 
 evaporated, water space should be allowed in the boiler 
 for at least five cubic feet ; so that one fifth of the contents 
 are evaporated per hour.
 
 STEAM BOILER. 
 
 The surface of the water in the boiler must be matter of 
 careful anil exact regulation. It should always be above 
 the range of the flues. When the heat in the flues acts 
 upon a part of the boiler which is not in contact with wa- 
 ter, steam being a slow recipient of heat, the heat accumu- 
 lates in the boiler plates, and raises their temperature to an 
 injurious degree. The plates may be by this means soften- 
 ed, so as to cause the boiler to burst ; or the difference be- 
 tween the expansion of these highly heated plates and of 
 those in contact with water may cause the joinings of the 
 plates to open and the boiler to leak. By whatever means, 
 therefore, the boiler be fed, the level of the water ought 
 never to be allowed to fall below the highest flue. 
 
 Since the level of the water in the boiler ought to be 
 maintained in a steady position, it is evident that the mag- 
 nitude of the feed must be equal to the quantity of water 
 evaporated. If, therefore, one fifth of the water in the 
 boiler be evaporated per hour, that quantity ought to be 
 introduced by the feeding apparatus in the same time. To 
 regulate the feed with safety and certainty, it is necessary 
 to provide an indicator of the level of the water in the boiler. 
 
 This is accomplished by a float which rests on the sur- 
 face of the water suspended by a wire, which passes steam- 
 tight through a small hole in the top of the boiler, and is 
 connected by a flexible chain or string, passing over a wheel 
 with a counterpoise, which is only capable of balancing 
 the weight of the float when the latter is sustained by its 
 buoyancy in the water. The position of the counterpoise 
 will depend on that of the float; when the latter falls the 
 counterpoise must rise, and vice versa. The position of 
 the counterpoise, therefore, will always indicate that of the 
 float, and of the surface of the water on which the float rests. 
 
 There are other methods of indicating the quantity of 
 water to the eye and the ear (see Eardner on the Steam 
 Engine, p. 266, et seq.) ; but that which is most deserving 
 of notice is one in which the indicator is made to govern 
 the feeder, so as to supply water to the boiler in the same 
 proportion as that in which it is evaporated. The wire 
 supporting the float on the surface of the water above de- 
 scribed, represented at N in the figure, is attached to the 
 arm of a lever, of which the opposite arm is connected with 
 a common puppet valve placed in the bottom of the small 
 feeding cistern. When the surface of the water falls, the 
 float falls with it, and draws down the arm of the lever, 
 which raises the opposite arm and opens the v;i]\f. Water 
 from the feeding cistern flows into the boiler through the 
 tube P, and continues to flow into it until the level of the 
 surface has been raised so high that the float no longer 
 pulls down the arm of the lever, and therefore the valve in 
 the bottom of the cistern is closed. In the actual operation 
 of this self-acting feeder, however, the surface of the water 
 BO adjusts itself that the float opens the valve just so much 
 as is necessary, and sufficient to admit as much water from 
 minute to minute as is consumed by evaporation, and there- 
 fore the level of the water is maintained in a fixed position. 
 
 To secure the safety of the boilers it is necessary to pro- 
 vide means for preventing the pressure of the steam con- 
 tained in them from exceeding a certain limit, and also for 
 indicating its pressure at all times. The former object is 
 attained by safety valves, which are of various forms. The 
 safety valve is a common puppet valve placed on the top 
 of the boiler, which opens upwards, and which is held 
 down by a pressure proportional to the limit within which 
 the steam is intended to be kept. When the pressure of the 
 steam exceeds that limit, this valve is raised by it, and the 
 steam escapes until its pressure is reduced to below that of 
 the valve. The magnitude of the aperture of the valve 
 should be sufficient to enable the steam to escape faster 
 than under any possible circumstances it could be gene- 
 rated. Safety valves differ one from another, chiefly in the 
 manner in which the required pressure upon them is pro- 
 duced. In some, weights of the requisite amount are placed 
 directly upon the valve, as represented in the figure under 
 N. In some, the valve is held down by the elasticity of one 
 or more springs. In others, a lever presses on the valve by 
 a sliding weight, the pressure be.ng varied at discretion by 
 shifting the position of the weight ; and in others the lever 
 which acts on the valve is held down by a spring similar 
 to that of the common spring balances, which may be 
 screwed up to any required tension. In all boilers two 
 safety valves should be provided, one of which should be 
 placed out of the reach of the engineer, so as to impose a 
 major limit to the pressure which he can give to the steam. 
 
 The most ordinary indicator of the pressure of the steam 
 in low-pressure boilers is the mercurial steam gauge, re- 
 presented at O in the figure, which consists of a glass tube 
 bent into ,he siphon form, the bent part and a portion of 
 each leg being filled with mercury. One leg communicates 
 with the steam within the boiler, and the other is open to 
 the atmosphere. The difference between the levels of the 
 columns of mercury in the two legs is always a measure 
 of the difference between the pressure of the steam and 
 
 STEAM CARRIAGE. 
 
 that of the atmosphere. If the tube be of iron, which is 
 most generally the case, the position of the surface of the 
 mercury in it is indicated by a float having a wooden rod 
 rising from it. 
 
 This indicator cannot be conveniently applied to high- 
 pressure boilers, since the column of mercury supported by 
 the pressure of the steam would have too great a height. 
 In these boilers a thermometer is immersed, by which the 
 temperature of the steam is indicated ; and this becomes an 
 indicator to its pressure, since the pressure varies with the 
 temperature. See Steam. 
 
 The safety of high-pressure boilers is sometimes provided 
 for, by inserting in them a plug of metal capable of being 
 fused at that temperature above which the boiler is exposed 
 to the danger of explosion. If the water and steam exceed 
 that temperature, the metal of the plug or of its solder will 
 melt, and it will fall out, and the steam will escape from 
 the opening which it leaves. An alloy composed of one 
 part of lead, three of tin, and five of bismuth, will fuse at 
 the common temperature of boiling water ; and alloys of 
 the same metals in various proportions will fuse at dif- 
 ferent temperatures from 200° to 400°. 
 
 When a boiler ceases to be worked and the furnace is 
 extinguished, the space within it appropriated to steam 
 will be left a vacuum by the condensation of the steam 
 with which it was previously filled. The external pres- 
 sure of the atmosphere acting on the boiler would, under 
 such circumstances, have a tendency to crush it inwards. 
 To prevent this a safety valve is provided, opening in- 
 wards, and balanced by a weight to keep it closed until it 
 he relieved from the pressure of the steam within. 
 
 To render the strength of the fire proportional to the 
 evaporating power, a plate called a damper is placed with 
 its plane at right angles to the flue, so that by raising and 
 lowering it, like the sash of a window, the space for the 
 passage of air through the flue is increased or diminished. 
 The force of draft and that of the fire can, therefore, be 
 varied merely by shifting the position of the damper. 
 
 Such a damper can be regulated by hand, but more uni- 
 formly by connecting it with a float placed on a column of 
 water or mercury, which measures the force of the steam, 
 as represented in the figure, where the chain suspending 
 the damper is seen at O and the float at P. If the force of 
 the strain be suddenly increased, such a column will raise 
 the float and lower the damper; and if the force of the 
 steam be too feeble, the contrary effect will be produced. 
 Such an apparatus is called a self-regu'ating damper. 
 
 The form of boilers is sometimes cylindrical, having an 
 oval flue conducted through them from end to end. The 
 ends are hemispherical. Such a form is favourable to 
 strength, and is better adapted than the wagon shape to 
 high-pressure boilers. 
 
 (For the boilers of railway engines, see Locomotive 
 Engine ; and for those of marine engines, see Steam Navi- 
 gation. For more minute details respecting steam boilers, 
 see Eardner on the Steam Engine, 7th edition; also Tred- 
 gatd, 2d edition. Appendix.) 
 
 STEAM CARRIAGE. A name usually applied to loco- 
 motive engines adapted to work on common roads. 
 
 The principle of the construction of these is, in its general 
 conditions, similar to that of the locomotive engine used on 
 railways (see Locomotive Engine) ; but the engine adapt- 
 ed to common roads must have the same power, with a 
 much less weight ; or, in other words, the ratio of the 
 weight of the engine to the evaporating power of the boiler 
 is much less than in the case of railway locomotives. 
 
 Although the attempt made to adopt the steam engine as 
 an accessory power on common roads has not hitherto 
 been productive of any practical result of a permanent na- 
 ture, this has not arisen so much from the failure of steam 
 power to accomplish the traction of carriages, as from the 
 greater expense of that power, as compared either with 
 horse power on common roads or with steam power on rail- 
 ways. At the time when the construction of railways 
 throughout the country was extensively undertaken, and 
 when the great power and economy of the locomotive 
 engine upon them was demonstrated by the results of the 
 traffic on the Liverpool and Manchester railway, several 
 projects for the application of the locomotive engine on 
 common roads were in progress, and were attended with 
 effects which presented a fair prospect of ultimate success. 
 The establishment of the great lines of railway communi- 
 cation throughout the kingdom, by engrossing the traffic of 
 all those districts in which the locomotive engine on com- 
 mon roads promised greatest advantage, and on which, if 
 anvwhere. it would have taken the place of horse power, 
 discouraged speculators, and most of the projects which 
 had been in progress fell to the ground. Among these 
 were the steam carriages of Mr. Gurney, Col. Maceroni, 
 Mr. Hancock, Dr. Church, Mr. Ogle, Mr. Russell, and va- 
 rious others. 
 
 The engine in steam carriages generally acts either di- 
 
 1167
 
 STEAM CARRIAGE. 
 
 rertly on the wheel?, and causes them to revolve, am! 
 thereby propels the carriage; or i' acts on cranks formed 
 ..11 ih : Kile of the wheels, and the wheels being keyed 
 upon the axle are compelled to revolve with it. In either 
 
 case, the revolution, whether of the wheels or the axU . is 
 produced l>y a connecting rod jointed on the end of the 
 piston rod, and receiving motion from the piston rod. The 
 ire generally driven by two pistons working in two 
 cylinders, so that one is at its dead point when the other is 
 in the position most favourable for its action. The arrange- 
 ment of this part of the machinery being similar to that of 
 the railway locomotive, need not be here more fully de- 
 scribed. 
 
 The steam carriages of different projectors differ one 
 from another, chiefly in the boilers, and in the apparatus 
 for generating the steam and admitting it to the cylinder. 
 Mr. Curney's boiler consisted of a series of strong iron 
 tubes placed side by side, so as to form the bars of the 
 grate of the furnace. These were connected with another 
 system nearly at right angles to them, forming the back of 
 the furnace; and these again with a third system, forming 
 the roof of the furnace. The tubes forming the grate bars 
 had their ends inserted in a strong iron cylinder, having its 
 axis horizontal, and its length extended across the front of 
 the furnace under the fire-door; and the tubes forming the 
 roof of the furnace were inserted in a similar cylindrical 
 vessel, eitending in like manner across the front of the 
 furnace above the fire-door. These two cylinders were 
 likewise- connected by upright cylinders of less diameter 
 placed at each side of the fire-door. This system of tubes 
 and cylinders being filled with water, the heat of the fur- 
 nace acting on the tubes surrounding the fireplace, and the 
 heated air and flame being afterwards conducted above the 
 tubes forming the roof of the fireplace, before it escaped 
 into the chimney, steam was produced in the tubes, which 
 by its lightness passed from them to the cylindrical vessel 
 extending over the fire-door. From that vessel the steam 
 passed into a larger cylindrical vessel above it, called a 
 separator, its purpose being to disengage the pure steam 
 from the spray of water with which it is generally mixed 
 when it first escapes from the boiling water in a state of 
 Violent agitation. 
 
 Every part of this boiler being cylindrical, has the form 
 which is most favourable to strength, and which, within 
 given dimensions, contains the greatest quantity of water. 
 The tubes surrounding the furnace can freely expand in 
 the direction of their length, without being loosened at the 
 joints, and without straining any part of the apparatus. 
 Proper means of opening the tubes at their ends are pro- 
 vided, by which they may be scraped on the inside, and 
 cleansed from any deposit which may be left in them by 
 the water evaporated in them. 
 
 In these engines the draught of the furnace was produced 
 by projecting the waste steam into the chimney ; but in- 
 stead of dismissing it directly from the eduction pipe of the 
 cylinder to the chimney, it was conducted to a re 
 called a blowing box. This box served the same purpose 
 as the upper chamber of a smith's bellows. It received the 
 steam from the cylinder in alternate puffs, but it let it 
 escape into the chimney in a continued stream by a number 
 of small jets. A regular draught was by this means pro- 
 duced, and no noise was perceived. 
 
 The pipe through which the boiler is fed was carried 
 through this blowing box in a spiral form, so that tin exten- 
 sive thread of the feeding water was exposed to the heat of 
 the waste steam as it passed from the cylinders, [n passing 
 through this box the feeding water was raised from 60° to 
 212°, at which temperature it was forced into the boiler. 
 
 A steam carriage constructed by Mr. Gurney, weighing 
 35cwt., working for eight hours, was found, according to 
 Mr. Gunny's statement, to do the work of about thirty- 
 horses. The engine wis placed on a carriage separate 
 from that which bore the passengers, and the one drew 
 the other after it in the same manner as tie- railu a\ engine 
 draws its train. Mr. Gumey stated that the weight of an 
 engine sufficient to draw after it a carriage containing 
 
 eighteen passengers would be about a ton ; so that the ^ross 
 weight of the whole, the engine and carriage for passen- 
 gers taken together, would not exceed that of a common 
 iach and four horses. 
 In the steam carriage proposed by Mr. Hancock, and 
 which was worked for some lime on the New Road and 
 other roads about London, the engine and passeng) rs w< re 
 placed in the same carriage. In the boiler the subdivision 
 of the water, s<> as to expos,, a sufficient surface to the 
 
 action of the lire, was accomplished by dividing 
 
 box by a number of thin plates of metal like a galvanic 
 battery, the water being allowed t" flow between everj ■■. 
 
 ternate pair of plates, the intermediate spaces forming the 
 flue through which the flame anil hot air piss. In fact, a 
 number of thin plates of water tire exposed on both sides 
 to the most intense action of flame and heated air ; so that 
 1108 
 
 STEAM ENGINE. 
 
 steam of a high pressure is produced in great abundance, 
 and with considerable rapidity. The plates forming the 
 
 boiler were bolted together by strong iron ties, extending 
 across tie' boiler at right tingles to the plates. The distance 
 between plate and plate was two inches. 
 
 There were ten Bat chambers of this kind for water, and 
 Intermediately between them ten tines. Under these flues 
 
 was the fire-grate, six square feet in magnitude. The water 
 spat ' - were tilled to about two thirds of their depth with 
 water, and the other third was left for steam. 'Die water 
 chambers throughout the whole series communicated with 
 each other at top and bottom, and were held together by 
 two large bolts. By releasing these bolts at any time, the 
 chambers fell asunder; and by screwing them up, they 
 might be all made tight again. 
 
 These boilers were constructed to bear a pressure of 400 
 or 500 lbs. per square inch ; but the safety valve was screw- 
 ed up to a pressure not exceeding 100 lbs. per inch. There 
 were 100 square feet of surface exposed to the fire. The 
 stages which the engine performed were eight miles, after 
 Which a fresh supply of water and fuel was taken in. 
 
 Mr. Nathaniel Ogle, of Southampton, obtained a patent 
 for a locomotive carriage, which he worked for some time 
 experimentally. In his evidence before the House of Com- 
 mons, he has there described his contrivance. "The base 
 of the boiler and the summit are composed of cross pieces, 
 cylindrical within and square without ; there are holes 
 bored through these cross pieces, and inserted through the 
 whole is an air tube. The inner hole of the lower surface, 
 and the under hole of the upper surface, tire rather larger 
 than the other ones ; round the air tube is placed a si, mil 
 cylinder, the collar of which tits round the larger aperture 
 on the inner surface of the lower frame and the under sur- 
 face of tho upper framework. These are both drawn to 
 gether by screws from the top ; these cross pieces are 
 united by connecting pieces, the whole strongly bolted to- 
 gether; so that we obtain in 110th of the space, and with 
 l-10th of the weight, the same heating surface and power 
 that are now obtained in other and low-pressure boilers 
 with incalculably greater safety. Our present experimental 
 boiler contains 250 su|>erficial feet of heating surface, in the 
 space of 3 feet 8 inches high, 3 feet long, and 2 feet 4 inches 
 broad, and weighs about 8 cwt. We supply these two 
 cylinders with steam communicating by their pistons with 
 a crank axle, to the ends of which cither one or both 
 wheels are fixed, as may be requited. One wheel is found 
 to be sufficient, except under very difficult circumstances, 
 and when the elevation is about 1 foot in 6, to impel the 
 wheel forward. 
 
 '•The cylinders of which the boiler is composed are so 
 small as to bear a greater pressure than could be produced 
 by the quantity of fire beneath the boiler ; and if any one 
 of these cylinders be injured by violence or any other way, 
 it would become merely a safety valve to the rest. We 
 have never, with the sreatcst pressure, burst, rent, or injured 
 our boiler; and it has not once required cleaning, after 
 having been in use twelve months." 
 
 For more full details respecting steam carriages, see 
 Lanlnrr on the Steam F.nrrinr, 7th edit.; also, a Treatise 
 on Elemental Locomotion, by Alexander Gorden, C. E. 
 
 STEAM-ENGINE. A machine in which the mechanical 
 power developed in the evaporation of water is rendered 
 available as a moving power. Steam engines vary much 
 in magnitude, form, and proportions, as well as in the de- 
 tails of the machinery by which the power of the steam is 
 adapted as a prime mover. We shall first explain those 
 forms of steam-entiine most generally used in the arts and 
 manufactures, and shall afterwards give a succinct account 
 of the history of the invention and progressive improve- 
 ment of this machine. The forms of engine, and the mode 
 of its application to transport by 'ami and water, have been 
 consigned to separate articles. Set Locomotive Engine, 
 Railways, and Steam Navigation. 
 
 Double-acting Condensing Steam Engine. — This form of 
 engine is that which is almost Invariably used as a moving 
 jinwi r in all manufactures in this country. It consists of a 
 cylinder represented in Beetion at (', in which a moveable 
 piston I' is driven upwards ami downwards by the force of 
 steam supplied by a boiler placed near the engine. See 
 
 S l i LH liotLER. 
 
 Th- piston uives motion to a working beam H/, which, 
 by means .if a heavy bar < >, called a connecting rod, moves 
 a Jhj irhnl and crank, from which the machinery to be 
 Worked directly receives its motion. Steam is supplied 
 ft the boiler to tlie cylinder by the steam pipe S. The 
 
 'r, T in thai pipe, near the cylinder, is regulated 
 
 by a s\ Stem of levers connected with the governor Q.. This 
 
 governor is an apparatus consisting of two heavy balls at- 
 tached to the ends of rods which are kept revolving on a 
 vertical shaft by a cord or baud, or by a train Ol 
 wheels connected with the fly wheel. The velocity with 
 which the balls of the governor revolve is therefore always
 
 STEAM ENGINE. 
 
 proportional to that of the fly-wheel, and of the machinery 
 driven by it. If by reason of too rapid a supply of steam an 
 undue speed be imparted to the fly-wheel, the balls are 
 whirled round with a corresponding velocity ; and by rea- 
 son of their centrifugal force they recede from the vertical 
 spindle round which they turn, and acting thereby on the 
 system of levers which connect them with the throttle- 
 valve T, they partially close the latter, check or diminish 
 the supply of steam to the cylinder, and moderate the 
 velocity of the machine. If, on the other hand, the motion 
 of the engine be slower than is requisite, owing to a defi- 
 cient supply of steam through S, then the balls, not being 
 sufficiently affected by centrifugal force, fall towards the 
 verticle spindle, and acting on the system of levers in the 
 contrary way. they turn the throttle-valve T more fully 
 open, and admit a more ample supply of steam to the cylin- 
 der, so as to increase the speed of the engine to the requisite 
 limit. 
 
 The piston P is accurately fitted to the cylinder, and made 
 to move in it steam-tight by packing, with which it is sur- 
 rounded. This piston divides the cylinder into two com- 
 partments, between which there is no communication by 
 which steam or any other elastic fluid can pass. A case B 
 B' placed beside the cylinder contains the valves by means 
 of which the steam which impels the piston is admitted and 
 withdrawn as the piston commences its motion in each di- 
 rection. The upper steam-boz B is divided into three com- 
 partments by two valves; above the upper steam-valve V 
 is a compartment communicating with the steam-pipe S. 
 Below the exhausting valve E is another compartment com- 
 municating with a pipe called the eduction pipe, which leads 
 downwards from the cylinder to a vessel called the con- 
 denser, which we shall presently describe. By this eduction 
 pipe the steam is withdrawn from the cylinder after it has 
 driven the piston. By the valve V a communication may 
 be opened or closed between the boiler and the top of the 
 cylinder, so as to admit or intercept the supply of steam from 
 the one to the other. By the valve E a communication may 
 be opened or closed between the top of the cylinder and the 
 condenser, so that the steam in the top of the cylinder may 
 either be permitted to escape into the condenser or confined 
 in the cylinder. The continuation S' of the steam-pipe 
 leads to the lower steam-box B , which, like the upper, is 
 divided into three compartments by two valves V and E'. 
 The upper compartment communicates with the steam-pipe 
 S', and the lower with the eduction-pipe. By means of the 
 valve V steam may be admitted from the steam-pipe S' to 
 the bottom of the cylinder, and by means of the valve E' 
 this steam may be permitted to escape to the condenser. 
 
 The four valves V, E, V, and E' are in the engine rep- 
 resented in the figure connected by a system of levers with 
 a single handle or spanner, m, which being pressed upwards 
 or downwards opens and closes the valves in pairs. Thus 
 when it is pressed down the levers connected with it raise 
 the upper exhausting valve E and the lower steam valve 
 V, and close the upper steam valve V and the lower ex- 
 hausting valve E'. On the other hand, when the spanner 
 m is pressed up it opens the upper steam valve V and the 
 lower exhausting valve E', and at the same time closes the 
 upper exhausting valve E and the lower steam valve V. 
 
 The cylinder is closed at the top, and the piston-rod P 
 being accurately turned, runs in a steam-tight collar furnish- 
 ed with a shifting box, by means of which it is surrounded by 
 
 a packing of hemp and constantly lubricated with melted 
 taliow. A funnel is screwed on the top of the cylinder, 
 through which, by opening a stop-cock, melted tallow is 
 permitted to fall from time to time on the piston so as to 
 lubricate it. 
 
 The condenser D is submerged in a cistern of cold water ; 
 at its side there enters a tube 1' governed by a cock I, which 
 being opened or closed to any required extent a jet of cold 
 water may be allowed to play in the condenser. This jet 
 throws the water upwards towards the lower orifice of the 
 eduction pipe L'. From the bottom of the condenser D pro- 
 ceeds a tube having a valve II in it, opening outwards ; this 
 tube leads to the air-pump K', which is a pump submerged 
 in the same cistern with the condenser, worked by a piston 
 having a valve in it opening upwards. The piston-rod R, of 
 the air-pump is carried upwards, and attached at d to a sys- 
 tem of jointed rods called the parallel motion, to which is 
 also attached at g the great steam-piston rod. On the rod 
 of the air-pump is placed projecting pins, which, as it alter- 
 nately ascends and descends, strike the spanner m, and 
 thereby open and close the valves V, V, E, E', in pairs, as 
 already described. 
 
 The upper part of the air-pump cylinder communicates by 
 a valve opening outwards with a small cistern K, called 
 the hot well, for a reason which will presently appear. A 
 pump L, called the hot water pump, descends into the hot 
 well and is worked by the great working beam to which its 
 rod is attached. 
 
 If the machine thus arranged continued to be worked for 
 any length of time, the cistern of water in which the con- 
 denser and air-pump are immersed would become warm, 
 and the condenser would be rendered incapable of doing 
 that for which alone it is useful, viz., of reducing the steam 
 to water by cold. To prevent this a pump N is provided, 
 called the cold water pump, by which a supply of cold water 
 is constantly kept flowing into the cistern, the heated water 
 being at the same time allowed to escape by a waste pipe. 
 By this means the temperature of the water in the cold cis- 
 tern is kept so low as to be capable of effectually condensing 
 the steam. 
 
 The piston being supposed to be at the top of the cylinder, 
 the spanner m will be raised by the lower pin on the air- 
 pump rod, and the valves V and E' will be opened, and at 
 the same time the other pair of valves V and E will be 
 closed. Steam will therefore be admitted above ihe piston, 
 and the steam which had previously filled the cylinder be- 
 low the piston will be drawn ofl' to the condenser. It will 
 there encounter the jet of cold water, which is kept con- 
 stantly playing there by keeping the cock I sufficiently open. 
 It will thus be immediately reduced to water or condensed 
 (see Steam), and the cylinder below the piston will remain 
 a vacuum. The steam, therefore, admitted from the steam- 
 pipe through the open valve V to the top of the cylinder, 
 will press the piston to the bottom of the cylinder. As it 
 approaches that position the spanner m will be struck down- 
 wards by the upper pin on the air-pump rod, and the valves 
 
 V and E' previously open will be closed, while the valves 
 
 V and E previously closed will be opened. The steam 
 which has just pressed down the piston, and which now 
 fills the cylinder above the piston, will then flow oft' through 
 the open valve E by the eduction-pipe to the condenser, 
 where it will be immediately condensed by the jet of cold 
 water which constantly plays there, and steam from the 
 boiler admitted through the open valve V will fill the cylin- 
 der below the piston and press the piston upwards. When 
 the piston has reached the top of the cylinder the lower pin 
 on the air-pump rod will have struck the spanner m up- 
 wards, and will thereby have closed the valves V and E 
 and opened the valves V and E'. The piston will then be 
 in the same situation as in the commencement, and will 
 again descend, and so will continue to be driven upwards 
 and downwards by the steam. 
 
 While this process is going on in the cylinder a quantity 
 of warm water is formed in the condenser, by the mixture 
 of condensed steam with the cold water admitted through 
 the condensing jet I'. It has been shown (see Steam) that 
 any quantity of water in the state of steam being condensed 
 by "cold water, will raise nearly six times its own weight of 
 cold water from the freezing to the boiling point by the 
 latent heat which is rendered sensible in the process of con- 
 densation. But since the jet of cold water, instead of being 
 at the temperature of melting ice, is at the common temper- 
 ature of the atmosphere, say 50°, and it is necessary to re- 
 duce the temperature of the water in the condenser to at 
 least 100° (otherwise steam would be produced by it, which 
 would seriously resist the motion of the piston), and to re- 
 duce water from 21-2° to 100° by mixture with water at 50° 
 would require a quantity of the latter about twice the for- 
 mer, it follows that the quantity- admitted through the jet 
 must be more than twenty times the quantity which passes 
 through the cylinder in the form of steam. 
 
 The warm water which is thus formed in the condenser, 
 4 D 1169
 
 STEAM ENGINE. 
 
 if allowed to accumulate there, would soon choke it up and 
 slop the action of the machine. To prevent this the air- 
 pump is provided; when the air-pump piston ascends il 
 
 leaves belOVV it a Vacuum, and the foot oatve M being re- 
 lieved from all pressure, the weight of the water in the 
 condenser forces it open, ami the warm water flows from 
 the condenser into the lower part of the air-pump, from 
 Which its return to the condenser is prevented by the closed 
 valve. When the air pump piston descends its pressure on 
 the liquid under it will force open the valve in it, through 
 which the warm water will pass; and when the piston de 
 gcends to the bottom of the pump-barrel the warm water 
 which was below it will pass above it, and cannot return, 
 as the valves which open upwards will be kept closed by 
 its weight When the piston next ascends it will raise the 
 water thus collected above it, and will throw it through the 
 valve into the hot well K. 
 
 The hot water pump L is usually a suction and forcing 
 pump, and draws up the warm water from the hot well, 
 and drives it through a pipe called the feed pipe to a cistern 
 placed over the boiler, from which the boiler derives its 
 feed of water. Sec Steam Boiler. 
 
 The system of jointed rods, c, d, e, /, g, called the parallel 
 motion, have for their object the maintenance of the rods 
 of the steam-piston and air-pump in a truly vertical position. 
 The steam-piston rod imparts motion to the beam, and the 
 air pump rod receives motion from it. The beam, however, 
 moving as it does alternately upwards and downwards on 
 an axis, every point on it must move alternately in the arc 
 of a circle whose centre is in the axis of the beam. If the 
 ends of the rods of the steam-piston and air-pump were im- 
 mediately attached to the beam, they would move therefore 
 not in truly vertical straight lines, but in the arcs of circles, 
 and by reason of the curvature of such arcs they would be 
 alternately reflected to the right and to the left. Such an 
 effect would be quite incompatible wilh that smoothness 
 and precision which are essential to the effective action of 
 the steam-engine. By the parallel motion the ends of these 
 piston rods are not immediately attached to the working 
 beam ; a rod c d, called the radius rod, moves on a fixed 
 centre c attached to the framing of the engine; a bar d h 
 connects the other end of this radius rod with a pivot ft on 
 the beam, so that as the beam ascends and descends the 
 pivots ft and d each moves in an arc of a circle, and these 
 pivots are thereby drawn aside, but always in contrary di- 
 rections. These deflections of the ends of the bar d b are 
 neutralized at its middle point c, which neither deviates to 
 the right nor to the left, but moves in a vertical straight line. 
 To this point e the end of the air-pump piston is attached. 
 
 At the end of the beam to another joint / is attached a 
 bar / g, equal to b d, connected by pivots with another beam 
 d g equal in length to ft/, so as to form the jointed parrallel- 
 ogram ft d g f. By this arrangement, as the beam ascends 
 and descends the pointy is moved in a manner altogether 
 similar to the point c, only that it moves through a greater 
 space in the proportion of the distance of g from the axis 
 of the beam to that of e from the same point. The point g, 
 therefore, to which the steam-piston is attached, is moved 
 upwards and downwards in a truly vertical straight line, 
 while the end/ of the beam with which it is connected is 
 moved upwards and downwards in the arc of a circle. 
 
 Whrn the piston is at the top of the cylinder the crank O 
 placed on the axis of the fly-wheel F is at its lowest position, 
 and when the piston is at the bottom of the cylinder it is in 
 its highest position. In each of these positions the action 
 of the steam on the piston could not impart any motion to 
 the crank ; for the connecting rod O being then in line with 
 the crank, any force given to it. being necessarily exerted in 
 the direction of its length, would only produce a pressure or 
 strain on the crank-pin without the least tendency to turn 
 the crank round the axis of the Ay-wheel. In these posi- 
 tions the machine is therefore placed in a dilemna, in which 
 the moving power ceases to have any influence on the ob- 
 ject it is intended to move. 
 
 The machine is extricated from this dilemna by the in- 
 ertia of the fly-wheel; that wheel being a large mass of 
 matter, having once received a certain velocity of rotation 
 on its axis, has a tendency to retain such motion, and will, 
 in tact, retain it until it has been deprived of it by the con 
 tinned resistance of friction and the air. When, therefore, 
 the crank arrives at either of the positions above mentioned 
 and the moving power ceases to be effective, the inertia of 
 the fly-wheel causes it to continue its motion, and the crank 
 is immediately turned out of the extreme position it lias as 
 sinned, and thrown into a position in which the power of 
 
 the piston on n becomes effective. 
 
 Tie- functions of the fly-wheel are, however, not confined 
 to carrying the machine thus throiurh the dead points h\ 
 ' l'v of the force it has received from the piston when 
 the crank was in a more favourable position; it likewise 
 equalizes, bj tbesame property, the unequal effect of the 
 crank ; it is only when the crank forms a right angle with 
 1170 
 
 the connecting rod that it is fully effective. As that angle 
 changes its leverage changes, until at length the leverage is 
 reduced to nothing at those extreme positions just mentioned. 
 
 When the crank is in and near the position in which it is 
 
 rectangular to the connecting rod, its action is Bhared be- 
 tween the By wheel and the machinery driven by the en- 
 gine, a part being engaged in accelerating and therefore giv- 
 ing momentum to the fly-wheel. As it passes towards the 
 
 dead points this momentum taken up by the flywheel is 
 given back to the crank ill aid of the. moving power, at those 
 positions Of the crank where the effect of the moving 
 power upon it becomes enfeebled. In this manner the fly- 
 uheel iii the steam-engine becomes a perfect equalizer of 
 the mechanical action of the machine. 
 
 Although the system of rods called the parallel morjoii 
 appears in the figure to consist only of one parallelogram 
 b d g f, and one rod c d, it is in fact double, a similar paral- 
 lelogram and radius rod attached to corresponding points, 
 and acting in the same manner on the other side of the 
 beam ; but from the view given in the cut, the one set of 
 rods hides the other. The two systems of rods thus at- 
 tached to the beam are connected by cross rods, the ends of 
 which form the pivots or joints, and extend between the 
 parallelograms. The ends of these cross rods only are visi- 
 ble in the figure. It is to the middle of one of these rods, 
 the end of which is represented at e, that the air-pump pis- 
 ton is attached ; and it is to the middle of another, the end 
 of which is represented atg, that the steam piston rod is at- 
 tached. These two piston rods, therefore, are driven not by 
 either of the parallelograms, but by the bars extending be- 
 tween them. 
 
 To the working end II of the beam is attached the con- 
 necting rod O, formed of cast iron, the lower end of which 
 is attached to the crank G by a pivot. The weight of the 
 connecting rod is made to balance the weight of the piston 
 rods of the air-pump and cylinder, and the weight of the 
 piston rod N of the cold water pump, balances the weight 
 of the piston rod L, of the hot water pump. Thus, so far as 
 the weight of the moveable parts of the machine is concerned, 
 the engine is in equilibrium, and the piston would rest In- 
 differently in any position in the cylinder. 
 
 The axis of the fly-wheel on which the crank is formed is 
 square in the middle, where the wheel is attached to it; 
 but has cylindrical necks at each end, which rest in bear- 
 ings supported by the framing of the machine, in which 
 bearings the axis revolves freely. On the axis of the crank 
 is placed the fly-wheel, and connected with its axle is the 
 governor Ci already described. 
 
 The manner in which the crank affects the connecting 
 rod at the dead points already mentioned produces an effect 
 of great importance in the operation of the engine. When 
 the crank approaches the low'est point of its play, and at 
 the same time the piston is approaching the top of the 
 cylinder, the motion of the crank pin becomes nearly hori- 
 zontal, and, consequently, its effect in drawing the con- 
 necting rod and the end of the beam downwards, and the 
 piston upwards, is extremely small. The consequence of 
 this is, that as the piston reaches the top of the cylinder its 
 motion becomes very rapidly retarded ; and as the motion 
 of the crank pin at its lowest point is actually horizontal, 
 the piston is brought to a state of rest by this gradually re- 
 tarded motion. A similar effect is produced at the Other 
 dead point. This suspension of motion at each end of the 
 stroke affords time for the process of condensation to be 
 effected, so that when the moving power of the steam upon 
 the piston can come into action, the condensation shall be 
 sufficiently complete. As the piston approaches the top of 
 the cylinder, and its motion becomes slow, the working gear 
 is made to open the lower exhausting valve; the steam en- 
 closed in the cylinder below the piston, and which has just 
 driven the piston upwards, presses usually with a force of 
 
 about 17 lbs. per square inch, while the uncondensed va- 
 pour resists with a force of about 2 lbs. per square inch. 
 The steam will therefore have a tendency to rush from the 
 cylinder to the condenser through the open exhausting 
 valve, with an excess of pressure amounting to 15 lbs. per 
 square inch, while the piston paus,. s at the top of the cylin- 
 der. This process pir- on ; and when the piston has been 
 made to descend by the motion of the fly-wheel a sufficient 
 distance from the top of the cylinder to call the moving 
 force of the steam into action, the exhaustion will be com- 
 plete, ami the pressure of tin- uncondensed vapour in the 
 
 cylinder will bee e the same as in the condenser. The 
 
 pressure of the steam, and of the uncondensed vapour, varies 
 within certain limits, and therefore the amount here assign- 
 ed to them must be taken merely as an example. 
 
 The size of the exhausting valves should be such as to 
 cause the condensation to be completed when the steam im- 
 pelling the piston is called into action. It is usual to make 
 these Valves With a diameter equal to a fifth of that of the 
 cylinder, and the steam valves are generally made of the 
 same magnitude.
 
 STEAM ENGINE. 
 
 The great lever or working beam was so called from being 
 originally made of oak. It is now, however, universally 
 constructed of cast iron. ' r 
 
 The mechanism by which the four valves V, V, E, E , 
 are opened and closed, is subject to great varieties. Some- 
 times thev are opened alternately in pairs by two distinct 
 levers, and driven by two pieces attached to the air-pump 
 rod ; but more generally the admission of steam to the cylin- 
 der is regulated by a single moveable piece, called a slide. 
 
 Slides are very various in their form and arrangement ; 
 but that which has come into most general use is one which 
 is called from the form of its cross section the D valve. 
 This slide is represented in vertical section in tigs. 2 and 3. 
 
 (2.) 
 
 The rod E, by which the slide is moved, passes through 
 a stuffing box F. The moveable piece or slide G is repre- 
 sented by a vertical section a, being a hollow passage 
 through it extending from the top to the bottom ; S is the 
 mouth of the great steam pipe coming from the boiler; P is 
 the pipe leading to the condenser ; T II is a hollow space 
 formed within the slide, always in communication with the 
 steam pipe S, and, consequently, always filled with steam 
 from the boiler. A transverse section of the slide and cylin- 
 der is represented in fig. 4, where a represents the top of the 
 passage marked a in tig. 2. 
 In the position of the slide represented in fig. 2, the steam 
 filling the space T H has access to the 
 top of the cylinder, but is excluded from 
 the bottom. The steam which was be- 
 low the piston, passing up the passage a, 
 escapes through the tube P to the con- 
 denser. When the piston has descended 
 the rod E moves the slide downwards, 
 and throws it into the position represent- 
 ed in fig. 3. The steam in T H has now 
 access to the bottom of the cylinder; 
 while the steam above the piston, pass- 
 ing through P, escapes to the condenser. 
 In this way the operation of the piston is 
 continued, and the steam consumed at 
 each stroke only exceeds the capacity of the cylinder by 
 what is necessary to fill the passages between the slide and 
 the cylinder. The steam filling the space TH has a ten- 
 dency to press the slide back, so as to break the contact of 
 the rubbing surfaces, and thereby to cause the steam to 
 leak from the space T H to the back of the slide ; this is 
 counteracted by the packing x at the back of the slide. 
 
 In engines of very long stroke, the extent of the rubbing 
 surface of slides of this kind renders it difficult to keep them 
 in steam-tight contact, and to insure their uniform wear. 
 In such cases, therefore, separate slides on the same prin- 
 ciple are provided at the top and bottom of the cylinder, 
 moved, however, by a single rod of communication. 
 
 A great variety of slides and cocks for regulating the ad- 
 mission of steam to the cylinder may be seen described in 
 Dr. Lardner's work on the Steam Engine, p. 227-242. 
 
 The method of working the valves by pins attached to 
 the air-pump rod already described, has been, except in the 
 case of engines of great magnitude and power, superseded 
 by a contrivance called an eccentric, by means of which 
 the slides or valves receive motion from the axle of the fly- 
 wheel. 
 
 An eccentric is a metallic circle attached to the axle of 
 the fly-wheel, so that its centre shall not coincide with the 
 centre round which the axle revolves. Let us suppose that 
 G (fig. 5) is a square revolving shaft; let BD be a circular 
 plate of metal, having a square hole cut in it through which 
 the revolving shaft G passes ; and let C be the centre of this 
 circular plate. By the revolution of the shaft this centre C 
 will be carried round it in a circle, the radius of which will 
 beCG. 
 
 Let E F be a metallic ring formed of two semicircles of 
 metal screwed together at H, so as to be capable by the ad- 
 justment of the screws of having the circular aperture form- 
 ed by the ring enlarged or diminished within certain small 
 limits ; let this circular aperture be equal to the magnitude 
 of the eccentric B D, and to the circular ring E F let an arm 
 L M be attached. If the ring be placed round the eccentric, 
 and the screws H be so adjusted as to allow the eccentric to 
 revolve within the ring, then, while the eccentric revolves, 
 the ring not partaking of its revolution, the arm L M will be 
 alternately driven right and left by the motion of the centre 
 C as it revolves round G. When the centre C of the ec- 
 centric is in the same horizontal line, and to the left of it, 
 then the position of L M will be that which is represented 
 in fig. 5. But after half a revolution of the main axle the 
 centre C will be thrown to the right of G, and the point M 
 will be moved to the right to a distance from its former po- 
 sition equal to twice C G. Thus, as the eccentric revolves, 
 the ring, together with the arm L M, will be alternately 
 driven right and left, through a space equal to twice the 
 distance between the centre of the eccentric and the centre 
 of the revolving shaft. 
 
 If we suppose a notch formed at the extremity of the arm 
 L M, capable of embracing a lever N M moveable on a pivot 
 at N, the motion of the eccentric would give to such a lever 
 an alternate motion from right to left, and vice versa. If 
 we suppose another lever N O connected with N M, and at 
 right angles to it, forming what is called a bell crank, then 
 the alternate motion of M from right to left will impart a 
 corresponding motion upwards and downwards to the end 
 O of the lever N O. If this last point O were attached to 
 the vertical rod of the slide, it would move the slide up- 
 wards and downwards. The extent of this motion might 
 lie regulated at pleasure by varying the length of the arms 
 of the levers, and the moment at which it would commence 
 to move in either direction would be determined by the po- 
 sition of the eccentric on the fly-wheel shaft. 
 
 Expansive Engine. — As the operation of the steam en- 
 gine has been explained, the power which moves the piston is 
 the immediate force with which vapour is produced in the 
 boiler. Each quantity of water which is successively evap- 
 orated obtains the space requisite for it in the form of steam, 
 by pressing towards the cylinder an equal quantity of steam 
 previously contained in the boiler; and it is the force with 
 which the steam is thus pressed forward that impels the 
 piston. But it has been shown (see Steam) that great ad- 
 ditional mechanical power will be obtained from the steam, 
 if, besides this moving power which results from immediate 
 evaporation, the expansive power of the steam separated 
 from the water be used. This is accomplished by closing 
 the valve through which steam flows from the boiler to the 
 cylinder before the piston has completed its stroke. Thus, 
 let us suppose that when the piston has advanced through 
 half its stroke the steam valve be closed, the steam which 
 is then acting upon the piston will still urge it forward ; but 
 as the piston advances, this steam, assuming a proportion- 
 ally augmented volume, will acquire a gradually diminish- 
 ed pressure, so that through the remaining half of the stroke 
 the piston will be urged by a pressure progressively de- 
 creasing, and at the termination of the stroke it will be a 
 little less than half the force with which the piston was 
 impelled while the steam valve was open. 
 
 Since the force of the steam, from the moment the steam 
 valve is closed, is thus continually diminished, its moving 
 power might be so much attenuated that it would be inca- 
 pable of overcoming the resistance so as to complete the 
 stroke ; this would happen if the steam were cut off when 
 only a small fraction of the stroke has been made, unless 
 the pressure of the steam while the valve is open exceeds 
 the resistance in a proportionate degree. It is for this reason 
 that the expansive principle cannot be brought into opera- 
 tion to any considerable extent unless steam be used of a 
 greater pressure than is commonly adopted in low-pressure 
 engines. It is also apparent that with an equal volume of 
 cylinder greater length of stroke should be given when the 
 expansive principle is used. 
 
 1171
 
 STEAM ENGINE. 
 
 The mechanism by which the expansive principle is 
 brought into practical operation consists merely In the adap- 
 tation of valves 01 slides w bich shall stop the admission of 
 sir mi when the required fraction of the stroke has been 
 made by the piston, but which shall leave the communica- 
 tion with the condenser open till the stroke is completed 
 
 [f separate valves be used, this is accomplished by adapting 
 
 the pins or other mechanism by which they are worked to 
 open and close them, independently of each other, at the 
 proper times. It slides be used, it is effected by regulating 
 
 the form and a|>eruire of the slide, so as to cover and un- 
 cover the passages to the cylinder at the proper times. 
 Bach species of valve, and each form of slide or cock, has 
 its own peculiar provisions for accomplishing this, the de- 
 tails of which may be seen by a reference to Lardncr on 
 the Steam Engine, p. *.':t-J, et seq. 
 
 Single-acting Steam Engine. — When the steam engine is 
 applied to the purpose of pumping water, which in the first 
 periods Of its invention was its only practical application; 
 the force which it exerts is only required in raising the 
 pump rods with their load of water, their own weight being 
 more than sufficient for their descent. As the pump rods 
 are attached to the working end H (tig. 1) of the beam, the 
 force of the steam is only required to draw up that end, and, 
 therefore, to draw down the end at which the steam piston 
 is attached : the steam, therefore, being only required to 
 press the piston downwards, it is not admitted from the 
 boiler below it, as in the engine already described, which 
 for distinction is called the double-acting engine. During 
 the down stroke of the single-acting engine the performance 
 of the machine is precisely similar to that already descri- 
 bed ; steam is admitted through the upper steam valve 
 above the piston, while the space in the cylinder below the 
 piston is kept in free communication with the condenser by 
 keeping the lower exhausting valve open. The operation, 
 therefore, of the upper steam valve, and the lower exhaust- 
 ing valve, is precisely the same as in the double-acting en- 
 gine. \\ hen the piston has reached the bottom of the cyl- 
 inder, the two former valves being closed, a valve called 
 the equilibrium valve is opened, by which a free commu- 
 nication is made between the top and bottom of the cylin- 
 der : by this means the steam which fills the upper part of 
 the cylinder, being allowed to flow equally to the lower 
 part, will press with the same force on both sides of the 
 piston, and will, therefore, have no tendency whatever to 
 move it. Under these circumstances, the preponderating 
 weight of the pump rods suspended from the other end of 
 the beam will draw the piston to the top of the cylinder; 
 while it is ascending the steam which was above will pass 
 through the equilibrium valve below it, and when the pis- 
 ton has reached the top of the cylinder, the cylinder under 
 the piston will be tilled with the same Steam which previ- 
 ously had driven the piston down. In order to accomplish 
 the next down stroke, the equilibrium valve is closed, and 
 the upper steam valve and lower exhausting valve are 
 opened ; the steam pressure acts above the piston, and a 
 vacuum is produced below it, and the piston descends as 
 before. 
 
 Single-acting engines are frequently worked with expan- 
 sion. In the application of this principle to them the upper 
 steam valve is closed before the lower exhausting valve; 
 but both these valves are open together. The mechanism 
 for working the expansion valves does not materially differ 
 in its principle from that already described in the double- 
 acting engine. 
 
 The great theatre of the operation of single-acting engines 
 is the mining districts, and especially that of Cornwall. The 
 Cornish pumping engines are constructed of enormous pow- 
 er, and carry out the expansive principle to a great extent. 
 Engines are there used for the drainage of mines with cyl- 
 inders from 7 to 8 feet in diameter, and from io to 12 feet'in 
 
 the stroke. Steam having a pressure of from '20 to Hll lbs. 
 per square inch and upwards, is used for impelling them, 
 and is cut on" at a third or fourth of the stroke. A system 
 of careful inspection has been for some years established by 
 the mining companies with a view to the Improvement of 
 the efficiency or the engines, and monthly reports of the 
 performance of the engines have been regularly printed. 
 The effect of this has been to stimulate the activitx and 
 skill of all concerned in the manufacture and working of 
 id a rapidly progressive Improvement in 
 them has taken place. The efficiency of these engines is 
 
 estimated bj the n ber of pounds weight of water which 
 
 capable of elevating one foot high bv the combos 
 
 tionOfa bushel of COals. This has heen termed (he ,hil» 
 
 of the engine, in 1769, when Mr. Watt first directed bis 
 attention to the steam engine. Bmeaton computed thai the 
 average duly of the engines then In use was about ;">.'. mill- 
 ions; from that time to the year 1800, a period of "thirty 
 years, Mr. Watt's Improvements in the steam-engine were 
 made, and the duly was gradually Increased to 30 millions, 
 or very nearly quadrupled. In 1813, the system of inspec- 
 
 tion first mentioned was commenced, and the average duty 
 was the same as in 1800. From this time to ]l*>C, the en- 
 gines nnderwenl a progression of slow but steady improve- 
 ments, and the dut] was increased to 30 millions. This 
 state of improvement continued, and in l - !8 the average 
 duty had risen to 77 millions. The increase since that time 
 has' been Blower: the average duty for the last few years 
 
 lias been ft 80 to 90 millions; but in one well-conducted 
 
 experiment it was found that by the combustion of a bushel 
 of coals an amount of mechanical power was produced 
 which raised the inconceivable load of 135 millions of 
 pounds weight one foot high. Thus, by the improvements 
 of Watt and their immediate consequences, the power of 
 the steam engine was, within the space of seventy years, 
 increased about "Jo fold. 
 
 Non-condensing Steam Enginet. — The form and struc- 
 ture of non condensing engines differ in nothing from that 
 of double-acting condensing engines except in the absence 
 of the condensing apparatus; that is to say the condenser, 
 the air pump, and the cold water and hot water pumps. 
 The steam, after it has impelled the piston, instead of being 
 conducted to a cold vessel to be condensed, is simply allow- 
 ed to escape into the atmosphere, and is commonly ejected 
 into the chimney of the furnace. 
 
 The operation of such a machine is extremely simple. 
 The valves by which the steam is admitted to, and allowed 
 to escape from the cylinder, are exactly similar to those of 
 the double acting engine. In the down stroke of the piston, 
 the upper steam valve being open, admits steam from the 
 boiler above the piston, and the lower exhausting valve 
 allows the steam below it to escape through a tube which 
 leads to the chimney, up xvhich it rushes. In the up sttoke, 
 the lower steam valve being open admits steam from the 
 boiler below the piston, and the upper exhausting valve 
 being open allows the steam above the piston to escape to 
 the chimney. 
 
 It is evident, in such a machine, that the piston is always 
 resisted by the pressure of the steam escaping to the chim- 
 ney. As such escape cannot be effected except by steam 
 of greater pressure than that of the atmosphere, it follows 
 that the piston is always resisted by a force somewhat 
 greater than die atmospheric pressure. The steam xvhich 
 urges the piston is, therefore, only effective by the excess 
 of its pressure above that of the escaping vapour, which 
 may he taken at about lb' lbs. per inch, but winch varies in 
 different engines. 
 
 As the steam used in non-condensing engines must of 
 necessity have a pressure considerally exceeding that of the 
 atmosphere, such machines have been generally called 
 high-pressure engines; while those which condense the 
 Steam have been, on the other hand, called low-pressure 
 engines. These terms are not, however, correctly expres- 
 sive of the nature of these engines respectively. Many en- 
 gines in which condensation is used, especially those in 
 which the expansive principle is applied x\iih much effect, 
 are worked with steam of a high pressure, not {infrequently 
 with a pressure amounting to from two to three atmo- 
 spheres. It is, therefore, not correct to call such machines 
 low-pressure engines. It is, however, true that engines 
 worked without condensation must, of necessity, be worked 
 by steam of a pressure which is generally called high pres- 
 sure. 
 
 All locomotixe engines, without exception, used on rail- 
 ways or common roads, are high-pressure non-condensing 
 engines. See Locomotive Engine, and Steam Car- 
 riage. 
 
 High-pressure non-condensing engines are almost univer- 
 sally used for inland navigation in the United States. See 
 Steam Navigation. 
 
 Rotaturii Steam Engine. — This term is sometimes applied 
 to the double-acting engine working a crank and fly-wheel, 
 as distinguishing it from the single acting engine used for 
 pumping. But it is more properly applied to an engine in 
 w bich a motion of rotation is produced immediately by the 
 action of the steam, without the Intervention of such mech- 
 anism as the working beam, crank, and fly-wheel. This is 
 usually effected by a piston which, instead of moving longi- 
 tudinally In the cylinder, revolves within the cylinder on 
 an axis which coincides with the geometrical a'xis of the 
 Cylinder itself. The mechanism is so contrived that this 
 
 piston shall revolve in steam-tight contact with the sides 
 
 anil ends of the cylinder: and that while steam from the 
 
 boiler constantly presses it on one side, the steam on the 
 other side shall eontinuall] escape to the condenser, if it be 
 
 a condensing engine, or to the chimney. If it be a non-con- 
 densing engin.-. The various contrivances for rotatory en- 
 gines which have been suggested differ one from the other: 
 
 only in the mechanical expedients by which these ends are 
 
 attained. Such machines are very numerous and various: 
 
 but as none of them have yet been found to be attended 
 with Sufficient practical advantages Io force them Into anv 
 use beyond the experimental trials of their inventors, it is
 
 STEAM ENGINE. 
 
 sufficient here to have indicated the general principle of 
 their structure. 
 
 Atmospheric Engine. — The engine so called was the first 
 form of steam engine which was ever brought into exten- 
 sive and durable practical application, and in districts where 
 fuel is cheap and abundant the simplicity of its structure 
 still keeps it in partial use. Steam, in the atmospheric en- 
 gine, is only used as an agent for the production of a vacu- 
 um, in order to give effect to the atmospheric pressure. 
 
 The atmospheric engine, which is only applied to pump- 
 ing, consists of a cylinder open at the top, having a piston 
 which moves in it air-tight and steam-tight. The piston is 
 thus maintained by being lubricated by oil or melted tallow 
 poured above it. Supposing the piston to be at the bottom 
 of the cylinder, steam is admitted from the boiler by a 
 proper valve. This steam, having a pressure not much ex- 
 ceeding that of the atmosphere, will balance the pressure 
 of the atmosphere above the piston, and will be sufficient, 
 also, to overcome the friction of the piston with the cylin- 
 der. Under such circumstances, the preponderating weight 
 of the pump-rod at the other end of the beam draws the 
 piston to the top of the cylinder, in the same manner as the 
 piston is drawn up in the single-acting steam engine already 
 described. The piston being thus suspended at the top of 
 the cylinder, the valve admitting steam from the boiler is 
 closed, and another valve or cock is opened by which a jet 
 of cold water is thrown into the cylinder. This immediate- 
 ly condenses the steam, and leaves a vacuum under the 
 piston. The atmospheric pressure above it consequently 
 takes effect, and, forcing the piston to the bottom of the 
 cylinder, draws the pump-rods, with their load of water, up. 
 When the piston arrives at the bottom of the cylinder, the 
 cock admitting the jet of cold water is closed, and another 
 is opened, by which the warm water formed by the mixture 
 of the condensed steam with the cold water of the jet is 
 discharged into a reservoir from which the boiler of the 
 engine is fed. The steam is then again admitted from the 
 boiler, the piston ascends, and so the process is continued. 
 
 The cocks or valves above mentioned are opened and 
 closed at the proper times by means of a rod or beam, called 
 the plug frame, attached to the working beam, which is 
 placed and which moves in a manner similar to the rod of 
 the air-pump in the steam engines already described. 
 
 History of the Steam Engine. — Various attempts at the 
 mechanical application of steam on a small scale were 
 made at very early periods in the history of mechanical 
 science. Hero of Alexandria has left a description of a 
 small machine, in which a motion of continued rotation 
 was imparted to an axis by the reaction of steam issuing 
 from lateral orifices in arms placed at right angles to the 
 revolving axis. The date of this invention is about a cen- 
 tury before the birth of Christ. Branca, an Italian engineer, 
 about the beginning of the 17th century, proposed to give 
 motion to a wheel by a blast of steam blown against its 
 axis ; and about the same period De Caus, a French en- 
 gineer, described a machine by which a column of water 
 might be raised by a pressure of steam confined in the ves- 
 sel above the water to be elevated. There is nothing, 
 however, in the descriptions and developments which these 
 projectors have left, to demonstrate that they were ac- 
 quainted with those physical properties of elasticity and 
 condensation (see Steam) on which all the power of steam, 
 as a mechanical agent, depends. In the middle of the 17th 
 century, or somewhat later, the celebrated Marquis of 
 Worcester published in his work, called A Century of In- 
 ventions, a description of a steam engine to be worked by 
 steam of high pressure, which, though not minute and 
 explicit in its details, is still such as it is difficult to con- 
 ceive being written by any one unacquainted with the 
 elastic force of steam. (See La.rd.ner on the Steam Engine, 
 p. 23, et seq.) Towards the close of that century, Papin, a 
 French engineer, who was employed by the Landgrave of 
 Hesse, in Germany, and was professor of mathematics at 
 Marbourg, directed his attention to the properties of steam, 
 and conceived the idea of obtaining a moving power by in- 
 troducing a piston into a cylinder and producing a vacuum 
 under it by the sudden condensation of steam by coal. In 
 fact, he conceived the notion of the principle of the atmo- 
 spheric engine ; but there is no evidence of his having 
 carried that or any other machine into practical application, 
 even so far as the construction of a model, until after 
 machines worked by steam had been constructed else- 
 where. 
 
 The first actual working steam engine of which there 
 is any record was invented and constructed by Thomas 
 Savery, an Englishman, to whom a patent was granted for 
 it in the year 1698. Savery reproduced the method of 
 forming a vacuum by the codensation of steam, apparently 
 without being aware of the paper written by Papin. He 
 combined this with the elastic pressure of steam as applied 
 by Lord Worcester, and constructed an engine, which, for 
 a time, was used to a considerable extent for raising water. 
 
 Papin's steam engine consisted of a strong iron vessel 
 formed in the shape of an egg, having a tube or pipe at the 
 bottom, which descended to the place from which the 
 water was to be drawn, and another at the top, which 
 ascended to the place to which it was to be elevated. This 
 oval vessel was filled with steam supplied from a boiler, by 
 which the atmospheric air by which it was previously filled 
 was first blown out of it. When the atmospheric air was 
 thus expelled, and nothing but pure steam was left in the 
 vessel, the communication with the boiler was cut off and 
 cold water was poured on the external surface of the ves- 
 sel. The steam within it was thus condensed and a 
 vacuum produced, and the water was drawn up from below 
 in the usual way by suction. The oval steam vessel was 
 thus filled with water ; a cock at the top of the lower pipe 
 was then closed, and steam was introduced from the boiler 
 into the oval vessel above the surface of the water. This 
 steam being of high pressure, forced the water up the 
 ascending tube, from the top of which it was discharged ; 
 and the oval vessel being thus again filled with steam, the 
 vacuum was again produced by condensation, and the same 
 process was repeated by using two oval steam vessels 
 which would act alternately ; one drawing water from 
 below, while the other was forcing it upwards, an uninter- 
 rupted discharge of water was produced. 
 
 Owing to the danger of explosion, from the high pressure 
 of the steam which was used, and from the enormous 
 waste of heat by unnecessary condensation, these engines 
 soon fell into disuse. 
 
 The demand for a moving power for the drainage of the 
 mines less expensive and more efficacious than that of 
 horses, which was then generally used, became at this time 
 pressing, and probably led to the invention of the atmo- 
 spheric engine already described. This machine was in- 
 vented by Newcomen, a blacksmith, and Cawley, a glazier, 
 at Dartmouth, in Devonshire. In the first engine con- 
 structed by them the condensation was effected by the 
 affusion of cold water upon the external surface of the cy- 
 linder, which was introduced into a hollow casing by 
 which it was surrounded : the discovery of condensation by 
 jet within the cylinder, one of the most important steps in 
 the improvement of the steam engine, was accidental. It 
 happened that a small hole occurred in the bottom of the 
 cylinder of an engine, by which the water let in to cool its 
 external surface oozed in, forming a little jet. The effect 
 was a much more rapid and perfect condensation than ever 
 was or could be effected by external cold. Thenceforward, 
 the method of condensation by jet was adopted, and has 
 ever since been used. 
 
 In the early atmospheric engines, the cocks by which the 
 steam was admitted and condensed, and by which the in- 
 jected water and condensed steam were drawn off, were 
 worked by hand ; and as the labour was light and monoto- 
 nous, and required no skill, boys were employed for the 
 purpose, called cock boys. It happened that a cock boy, 
 by name Potter, having an itch for play, and endowed with 
 more ingenuity than industry, imagined that by tying strings 
 to the cocks, and connecting them with the working beam 
 above the cylinder, regulating the action by carrying them 
 under or over certain pipes, he could make the beam, as it 
 ascended and descended, open and close the cocks more 
 regularly and effectually than he found himself able to do. 
 This he accordingly accomplished, and was habitually 
 absent from the engine-house, enjoying himself with his 
 playfellows, when his employers were giving him credit for 
 most extraordinary industry and regularity in the discharge 
 of his duties. The engine, in fact, by this expedient, nearly 
 tripled its efficacy. Thus, by the ingenuity of a child, the 
 steam engine was first endowed with those qualities of an 
 automaton which have ever since rendered it an object of 
 admiration and interest. The atmospheric engine, thus 
 improved, held its place as the great instrument for the 
 drainage of mines until the epoch which was rendered 
 memorable by the inventions and discoveries of the immor- 
 tal Watt. 
 
 Watt was a mathematical instrument maker in Glasgow ; 
 and, being employed by the university of that place, it 
 chanced, about the year 1763, that the model of an atmo- 
 spheric engine used at the lectures of the professor of 
 natural philosophy required some repairs, to make which 
 it was placed in the hands of Watt. In the experiments 
 which it became his duty to make with this model, he was 
 struck with the fact that the quantity of steam it consumed 
 for each stroke of the piston was many times more than 
 the contents of the cylinder. The large quantity of water 
 necessary to be injected in order to complete the condensa- 
 tion also excited his surprise. This led him to make ex- 
 periments, by which he soon arrived at the discovery of 
 some of the most important phenomena connected with the 
 evaporation of water. He made a near approximation to 
 the proportion of the volume of steam to that of water, 
 lie ascertained with great precision the latent heat of steam, 
 
 1173
 
 STEAM GUN. 
 
 and consequently determined the quantity of water neces- 
 sary to condense any given quantity of g team. Filled with 
 astonishment at these results, and more particularly at the 
 nature of latent heat, and at the great amount of the latent 
 beat of steam, he repaired to Dr. Black, then professor of 
 natural philosophy in the university, and communicated to 
 him the result of his discoveries. He then, for the first 
 time, learned Black's celebrated theory of latent heat, and 
 found that he had himself thus accidentally discovered 
 one of the most striking facts on which that theory rested. 
 
 Considering the atmospheric engine in an economical 
 point of view, Watt was forcibly impressed with the waste 
 of expense which appeared to arise in the unnecessary con- 
 sumption of steam involved in its operation. In the theory 
 of that engine, one cv -Underfill of steam ought to he sutli- 
 cient for each stroke of the piston. Watt, on the other 
 hand, found that the actual consumption was at the rate 
 of four or live cylinderfuls per stroke. On examination, he 
 discovered the source of this waste to arise from the neces- 
 sity, in order to make the piston ascend, not only to con- 
 dense the steam, hut to cool the whole mass of the cylinder 
 down to 100°; and, to make the piston descend, it was ne- 
 cessary not only to till the cylinder with steam, but to raise 
 the temperature of the cylinder and piston from 100° to 212°. 
 He soon perceived that this enormous waste of fuel was 
 the inevitable consequence of condensing the steam in the 
 cylinder. 
 
 Reflection on these circumstances happily led him to the 
 idea of condensing the steam in a separate vessel, which 
 should be kept immersed in a cistern of cold water, and 
 in which a jet of cold water might be kept constantly play- 
 ing, with the addition of a pump to draw off the injected 
 water and condensed steam from such vessel. In fact, all 
 the details of the steam engine as already described were 
 soon carried into practical effect, and engines constructed 
 according to these principles. 
 
 At the time of this invention the steam engine had never 
 been used, except for the purpose of raising water. It 
 became a substitute for horse power in working pumps. 
 Although Watt perceived, in the first instance, the ease 
 Willi which it might be adapted as a general moving power, 
 his first efforts were to get it adopted in the mining districts 
 for drainage. His first engines were, accordingly, the single- 
 acting engine above described ; and it was not until about 
 the year 1784 that he took a patent for the double acting 
 engine, which is adapted to give a motion of rotation to a 
 shaft, and therefore capable of giving motion to every kind 
 of mill work. 
 
 Notwithstanding the manifest advantages attending these 
 improvements of Watt, the mining and manufacturing 
 interests were slow and reluctant in their adoption of them ; 
 and, at the end of twenty years from the date of his first 
 improvement, Watt and his partners found that the manu- 
 facture of the steam engine had not only not been a source 
 of commercial profit, but had entailed upon them a loss of 
 capita] to the amount of about £50,000. An application 
 was made to parliament, on this ground, for an extension 
 Of the patent, which was, after much opposition, granted 
 till the vear 1800. Various improvements in the more 
 minute details of the machinery of the engine succeeded 
 this; and Watt lived to reap an ample reward for his in- 
 genuity and perseverance, and to be acknowledged as one 
 of the greatest benefactors of the human race. 
 
 The engine, as applied to drainage and to manufactures, 
 lias received no important Improvement in its principle since 
 it was dismissed from the hands of Watt. Those principles 
 which he suggested and applied have been carried out to 
 their fullest extent, and the efficiency of the engine has 
 been proportionally increased. The engine has been suc- 
 cessfully adapted to navigation. For an account of appli- 
 cation to that purpose, see Steam Navigation. 
 
 For the details of the form and construction of the boilers 
 by which steam is generated, and from which it is supplied 
 to the different kinds of engines, see Steam Boiler. 
 
 For further and more minute details respecting the 
 structure and operation of steam engines of every variety 
 of form, and respecting the history of the invention and 
 progressive improvement of the steam engine, see I.unlmr 
 
 on tin Steam Engine, 7th edition, London, 1840. 
 
 STEAM GUN. A contrivance by which balls, or other 
 projectiles used in warlike operations, may be projected by 
 the expansivi force of steam. 
 
 This Invention, which is due to Mr. Jacob Perkins, an 
 American mechanician, so well known for various ingenious 
 
 and useful contrivances in the mechanical arts, having been 
 first brought forward since the general peace which suc- 
 ceeded the battle of Waterloo, has never been submitted to 
 the test Of actual experience either in military or naval 
 on rations, .- . r i . J consequently has not received the benefit 
 oi that stimulus to improvement which is always so neces 
 
 io bring mechanical contrivances of a novel kind to 
 perfection, and which can only be derived from their prac- 
 1174 
 
 STEAM NAVIGATION. 
 
 tical application on a large scale. Of the probable or possi- 
 ble utilitv of the Steam gun nothing, therefore, can be 
 inferred from that safest source of information — experience ; 
 and we are left to judge of it by the general properties Of 
 vapour, and by the experiments on a small scale to which 
 it has been submitted. 
 
 If a stronu' close iron vessel, having two valves, one 
 opening inwards and the other outwards, the latter being 
 loaded with some definite pressure, be completely filled 
 with water, such a vessel may be heated to the temperature 
 corresponding to the pressure with which the valve is 
 loaded without causing any portion of the water in it to be 
 convened into steam. To render the effect more easily 
 understood, let us suppose that the valve is loaded with a 
 pressure of fifty atmospheres. The temperature of water 
 evaporated under that pressure being 510° (see Steam), the 
 vessel may be raised to any temperature not exceeding 
 500°, without having any of the water contained in it con- 
 verted into steam. If the temperature to which the water 
 is raised be 500°, and a cubic inch of water at common 
 temperature be forced into the vessel through the valve 
 which opens inwards, water being sensibly incompressible, 
 a cubic inch of water at 500° will be forced out at the valve 
 which opens outwards. This water being no longer sub- 
 jected to the pressure which kept it in the liquid state, 
 will suddenly expand and flash into steam, which at first 
 will have a pressure of 45 atmospheres, but as it expands 
 will have its pressure diminished in nearly the same pro- 
 portion as the volume into which it swells shall be in- 
 creased. Since, however, 500° is not sufficient heat to 
 enable the whole of the water thus ejected to pass into 
 steam (see Steam), that part of it which will take the 
 vaporous form will fake the requisite amount of latent heat 
 from the sensible heat of that portion which remains in 
 the liquid state. As this latter portion will still retain a 
 considerable temperature, it may be conducted to a vessel 
 containing the feed for the heated vessel just mentioned, 
 from which it will be again forced into that vessel. 
 
 Such was the principle of Mr. Perkins's generators ; by 
 which term he denominated those close vessels in which 
 water was raised to a high temperature without being con- 
 verted into steam. 
 
 Now if the valve through which the heated water is 
 ejected be supposed to be in communication with the barrel 
 of a gun or piece of ordnance, in the same manner as the 
 barrel of an air gun is in communication with the hollow 
 metallic ball in which air is compressed, a ball may bo 
 projected by the expansive force of the water ejected from 
 the valve, in the same manner exactly as the ball of an air 
 gun is projected by the expansive force of the compressed 
 air. 
 
 As the water may be ejected from the valve either in a 
 constant stream or by a rapid succession of jets, the balls 
 may be discharged from the barrel as rapidly as it is possi- 
 ble for them to be brought under the action of the steam ; 
 and since the heating of the barrel only tends to increase 
 the elastic force of the steam, there appears to be no other 
 practical limit to the action of snch an engine of offence 
 except that which may be imposed on the heating power 
 applied to the generator. 
 
 Of the abstract practicability of applying steam in this 
 manner as an offensive engine there can be no doubt. Both 
 theory and experiment conspire to establish it ; but of the 
 comparative efficacy, convenience, and economy of it, com- 
 pared with gunpowder, many doubts will present themselves 
 to all who duly reflect on the circumstances and purposes 
 of war on the one hand, and the phenomena attending the 
 explosion of gunpowder and the evaporation of water on 
 the other. Not to mention any other, the fact that the 
 steam gun cannot be brought into action until the generator 
 has been raised to a high temperature by the application 
 of an adequate furnace, would at once give to gunpowder 
 
 an advantage over steam which would limit the application 
 of the latter to a very few cases indeed, such as those of 
 siege and other protracted military operations. In naval 
 warfare it might possibly be more frequently available ; but 
 even in that case, great Improvements in the details of its 
 mechanism should be made before its use could be at- 
 tempted with an] reasonable prospect of advantage. 
 
 The steam gun is exhibited on a small scale in most nie- 
 chanical museums and other exhibitions of a like kind; 
 and such will probably be the limit of its use for a long 
 period to come. 
 
 BTEAM NAVIGATION. The art of applying the 
 power of steam to the propulsion of boats and vessels in 
 
 general, as well for inland communication by rivers and 
 
 lakes, as for the general purposes of national c uien-o 
 
 on the seas ami i ceana by which the various parts of the 
 globe are separated. 
 
 The mannei in which the steam engine is rendered an 
 instrument for the propulsion of vessels must, in its general 
 features, he so familiar to every one as to require but short
 
 STEAM NAVIGATION. 
 
 explanation. A shaft is carried across the vessel, being 
 continued on eilher side beyond the timbers ; to the ex- 
 tremities of this shaft on the outside of the vessel are 
 attached a pair of wheels, constructed like under-shot 
 water wheels, having fixed upon their rims a number of flat 
 boards called paddle boards. As the wheels revolve, these 
 paddle boards strike the water, driving it in a direction con- 
 trary to that in which it is intended the vessel shall be pro- 
 pelled. The moving force imparted to the water thus 
 driven backwards by reaction on the vessel propels it. On 
 the paddle shaft are constructed two cranks or winches, 
 placed at right angles one to the other, so that whenever 
 one of them is thrown into the highest or lowest position 
 the other is horizontal. These cranks are worked by strong 
 iron rods called connecting rods, which are themselves 
 either driven directly by the pistons of two steam engines, 
 or are worked by those pistons ; thus the medium of work- 
 ing becomes similar to those used in the ordinary land 
 engines. (See Steam Engine.) The two cranks being 
 placed at right angles, it follows that when one piston is at 
 the top or bottom of its stroke, and the crank driven by it in 
 the highest or lowest position, the other will be at the 
 middle of its stroke, and the crank driven by it will be in 
 the horizontal position. One of the pistons is therefore 
 always in a position to produce the most advantageous 
 effect on the crank at the moment that the other piston 
 loses all power over the crank driven by it : and in the 
 same manner it may be seen that while the power of one 
 piston is augmented from zero to its greatest effect, the 
 power of the other is decreasing from its greatest effect to 
 zero. Thus the combined action of the two pistons is 
 
 nearly uniform in its efficiency. If one engine only were 
 used, the motion of the wheels wou •> be unequal, being 
 most rapid when the pist n is at the middle of the stroke 
 and slowest at the extremities. 
 
 The steam engines used for navigation maybe either con- 
 densing engines or non-co.idensing engines. If the latter 
 are used, steam must be used having a pressure above the 
 atmosphere of from 15 to 20 lbs. per square inch. Boilers 
 in which steam is produced under this pressure arc con- 
 sidered in Europe so unsafe, that non-condensing engines 
 with low-pressure boilers are almost universally used for 
 navigation. In America, however, high-pressure boilers 
 with non-condensing engines are generally used. 
 
 The arrangement of the parts of marine engines is differ- 
 ent in several respects from land engines. Steam vessels 
 being generally employed to navigate the open seas, and 
 being, therefore, subject to the vicissitudes of tempestuous 
 weather, the machinery must be protected by being placed 
 below the deck. The space allotted to it being thus limited, 
 great compactness is necessary. The paddle shaft being 
 very little below the deck, the working beam and connecting 
 rod could not be placed above it. The beam is therefore 
 placed below the cylinder, and is driven by the pistons by 
 means of a cross head attached to the piston rod, from the 
 ends of which the rods of the parallel motion (see Steam 
 Engine) are carried downwards to the end of the beam. 
 From the other end of the beam the connecting rod is pre- 
 sented upwards towards the crank. 
 
 The general arrangement of the parts of a marine engine 
 will be easily understood by reference to the figure, in which 
 ia represented in section a marine engine with its boiler, as 
 
 placed in a steam vessel. The sleepers of oak supporting 
 the engine are represented at X ; the base of the engine is 
 secured to these by bolts passing through them and the bot- 
 tom timbers of the vessel. S is the steam pipe leading from 
 the steam chest in the boiler to the slides c, by which it is 
 admitted to the top and bottom of the cylinder. The con- 
 denser is represented at B, and the air-pump at E. The 
 hot well is seen at F, from which the feed is taken from 
 the boiler. L is the piston rod connected by the parallel 
 motion a with the beam H, working on a centre K near the 
 base of the engine. The other end of the beam H drives 
 the connecting rod M, which extends upwards to the crank, 
 which it works upon the paddle shaft O. The framing by 
 which the engine is supported is represented at Q. R. 
 
 The nature and operation of the several parts just men- 
 tioned will be understood by reference to the explanation 
 of the structure and operation of the double-acting steam 
 engine, given under the head Steam Engine ; for, in fact, 
 the marine engine, such as is here represented, is nothing 
 more than a double-acting condensing steam engine, adapt- 
 ed in its form to the circumstances in which it is used in 
 navigation. 
 
 The beam exhibited in the figure is shown in dotted lines, 
 as being on the farther side of the engine. A similar beam 
 similarly placed, and moving on the same centres, must be 
 understood to be at this side, connected with the cross head 
 of the piston in like manner by a parallel motion, and with 
 a cross piece attached to the lower end of the connecting 
 road and to the opposite beam. The eccentric, which works 
 the slides, is placed upon the paddle shaft O ; and the con- 
 necting arm which drives the slides may be easily detached 
 when the engine requires to be stopped. The section of the 
 boiler grate and flues is represented atWU. The safety 
 valve y is enclosed beneath a pipe carried up beside the 
 
 chimney, and is inaccessible to the engine-man. The cocks 
 for blowing off the salt water from the boiler (a process 
 which we shall presently explain) are represented at h, 
 and the feed pipe at I. Those parts will be fully und r- 
 stood by reference to the explanation given under the head 
 Steam Boiler. 
 
 To save space, marine boilers are constructed so as to pro- 
 duce, within the smallest possible dimensions, the necessary 
 quantity of steam. With this view a more extensive surface 
 in proportion to the capacity of the boiler is exposed to the 
 fire. The flues by which the flame and heated air are con- 
 ducted to the chimney are so constructed, that the heat shall 
 act upon the water on every side in thin oblong shells or 
 plates. This is accomplished by constructing them so as to 
 traverse the boiler backwards and forwards several times 
 before they issue into the chimney. The bottom of the 
 boiler is not, therefore, one uniform flat or arched surface, 
 as in land boilers ; but is divided by a number of plates 
 placed in a vertical position side by side, having spaces be- 
 tween them alternately appropriated tn the water to be heat- 
 ed and the air from the fire. This division is in some boil- 
 ers, not only made in the bottom on a level nearly with the 
 furnace, but another stratum of similar flues and water 
 spaces is constructed above the level of the furnace ; so 
 that the heated air first traverses the lower stratum of flues, 
 and afterwards, being conducted upwards, traverses the up- 
 per stratum before it issues into the chimnies. 
 
 In steam vessels, instead of effecting the necessary evap- 
 oration by a single boiler, it is usual to provide two, three, 
 four, or more independent boilers, according to the mag 
 nitude of the vessel and the power of her engines. By 
 this means, when at sea, the engines may be worked by 
 some of the boilers while others are being cleaned or re- 
 paired. 
 * 1175
 
 STEAM NAVIGATION. 
 
 The greatest inconvenience and difficulty attending the 
 application of the steam engine to navigation arises from 
 the necessity of supplying the boilers with sea water. This 
 water is injected into the condenser for the purpose of con- 
 densing the steam, and it is thence mixed With the COO 
 deused strain conducted as feeding water into the boiler. 
 Sea water holds in solution certain alkaline substances id' 
 which the principal is muriate of soda, or common salt. 
 This forms about three per cent, of the water. TJiis Ball 
 not being evaporated with the water, remains in the boiler, 
 and i titers into solution with the water remaining in it, ren- 
 dering that water a solution more and more concentrated 
 the longer the boiler is worked. At length the water in the 
 boiler becoming saturated, the salt will begin to be precipita- 
 ted in the form of sediment; and if this were continued, 
 the boiler would finally be tilled with salt. 
 
 Besides the deposition of salt in a loose form, some of the 
 alkaline substances have an attraction for iron and a crust 
 is thereby formed on the inside of the boiler. This crust 
 obstructing 'the passage of heat from the fire to the water, 
 gives the boiler plates an undue or unequal temperature, 
 causes them to open in the seams, and softens them, so as 
 to expose the boiler to a liability to leak or even to burst. 
 
 These effects can only be prevented by either of two 
 methods: 1st, by so regulating the feed of the boiler that 
 the water it contains shall not be suffered to reach the point 
 of saturation, but shall be so limited in its saltness that no 
 injurious incrustation or deposit shall be found ; 2dly, by 
 the adoption of some means by which the boiler may be 
 worked by fresh water. This end can only be attained by- 
 condensing the steam by a jet of fresh water, and working 
 the boiler always by the same water. 
 
 The method by which the water is prevented from being 
 over salted has been usually to discharge into the sea a cer- 
 tain quantity of over-salted water (called brine), and to 
 supply its place by sea water introduced through the con- 
 denser, and which, being mixed with the condensed steam, 
 is rather less salted than ordinary sea water. To effect this, 
 cocks, called blow-off cocks, are placed in the lower part of 
 the boiler where the brine collects. The pressure of the 
 steam is sufficient to force the lower strata of water out 
 through these cocks when they are open, and this process 
 is called blowing out. It is, or ought to be practised, at such 
 intervals as will prevent the water from becoming over 
 Galled. 
 
 The improper observance of this process is attended with 
 injurious effects at sea. If too much water be blown out, 
 a proportionate loss of heat and waste of fuel is incurred. 
 If insufficient water be blown out, incrustation takes place, 
 and its injurious consequences ensue. The Messrs. Sea- 
 ward of Limehouse use a glass hydrometer guage, to 
 indicate the saltness of the water in the boiler by showing 
 its increase of density compared with ordinary sea water. 
 A vessel containing one ton of water is placed so as to 
 communicate on one side with the boiler, and on the other 
 with the sea. In this vessel is a cock, which turned in one 
 direction opens the communication with the boiler, and clo- 
 nes that with the sea ; and turned in the other direction 
 opens that with the sea, and closes that with the boiler. 
 By this means the engineer is enabled to discharge a defi- 
 nite and ascertained quantity of brine, and the gauge indi- 
 cates when a sufficiency has been discharged. 
 
 But the most effectual method of keeping the boilers 
 from l.i Ing o\er salt d i< by means of the brine pumps of 
 Messrs. Maud-lay and Field. This method, which has 
 been successfully applied in the Great Western (plving be- 
 tween Bristol and New-York), consists of pumps by which 
 water is drawn from the lower parts of the boiler and driv- 
 en into the sea. These pumps are worked by the engine, 
 and their operation is constant. The feed pumps are like- 
 wise worked by the engine; and they bear such a propor- 
 tion to the brine pumps, that the quantity of salt discharged 
 in a given time in the brine is equal to the quantity of salt 
 Introdui ed in solution by the water of the feed pumps. liy 
 these means the same quantity of salt is constantly main- 
 tained in the boiler, and consequently the strength of the 
 solution remains Invariable. 
 
 T.i Bave the heat of the brine, the current of heated 
 brine is conducted from the boiler through a tube, which is 
 contained within that by which the feed is Introduced. 
 The warm current of brine, therefore, as it parses out, Im- 
 parts a considerable portion of its heat to the cold feed 
 which comes in ; and it is found by this expedient that the 
 trine discharged into the sea maybe reduced to the tern 
 perature of 100°. 
 
 Tlii- expedient is so effectual that where the apparatus is 
 Constructed, anil kept in a state of effii 
 may be regarded as nearly a perfect preventive against m 
 c nutation. 
 
 A method of condensing the steam without a jet, by cold 
 surfaces, was practised In Mr. Watt, but abandoned be- 
 cause its effect was not sufficiently instantaneous. This 
 11715 82 
 
 was revived by Mr. Samuel Hall of Basford, with a view to 
 working marine boilers with fresh water. The steam from 
 
 the cylinder was drawn through a great number of small 
 tu lies, which were constantly surrounded by cold water. 
 
 Being by this means i lensed, without being mixed with 
 
 any injected water, it was carried to the feeding cistern to 
 be reconducted to the boiler. In this manner the same wa- 
 ter circulated constantly through the boiler, condenser, and 
 feeding cistern, and it was only necessary to make good the 
 waste produced by leakage. The same supply id" fresh wa- 
 ter, therefore, would always work the boiler, the very small 
 quantity of waste being made good by the distillation of 
 sea water. 
 
 These condensers were adopted in several steam vessels. 
 In some they were abandoned after the experience of a few 
 months; and the results have failed to produce their use to 
 any considerable extent, notwithstanding that the object 
 their projector professed to attain was admitted to be one of 
 great importance. 
 
 One of the remedies proposed against incrustation was 
 the use of copper boilers. The attraction which produces 
 the adhesion of the calcareous matter to the surface of iron 
 has no existence in copper, and all the saline matter preci- 
 pitated in a copper boiler will therefore pass away through 
 the blow-oft" cocks. Besides the injuries attending incrusta- 
 tion, an evil of another kind attends the accumulation of 
 soot mixed with salt in the Hues. In the seams of the boil- 
 er there are always numerous apertures of dimensions so 
 small as to be incapable of being rendered staunch by any 
 practicable means, through which the water within the 
 boiler filters, and the salt which it carries with it. mixed 
 with the soot, forming a compound which rapidly corrodes 
 the boilers. The evil is not removed by copper boilers, iu 
 which it equally prevails. 
 
 As the voyages accomplished by steam vessels have in- 
 creased in length, the economy of fuel in working them has 
 become a subject of vastly augmented importance. So 
 long as steam navigation was confined to river or channel 
 transport, or to coasting voyages, the speed of the vessel 
 was a paramount consideration, at whatever expenditure of 
 fuel it might be obtained ; but since steam navigation has 
 been extended to ocean voyages, where coals must be trans- 
 ported sufficient to keep the engine in operation for a long 
 period of time without a fresh relay, greater attention has 
 been bestowed on economizing it. Since the resistance of 
 a steam vessel to the moving power produced by the action 
 of the paddle wheels varies with the state of the weather, 
 the consumption of steam in the cylinders must undergo a 
 corresponding variation ; and if the production of steam i.i 
 the boilers be not proportioned to this, the engines will ei- 
 ther work with less efficiency than they might do under 
 the actual circumstances of the weather, or more steam will 
 be produced than the cylinders can consume, and the sur- 
 plus will be discharged to waste through the safety valves. 
 The firemen of a marine engine must therefore, in a certain 
 degree, discharge the functions of a self-regulating furnace, 
 rendering the force of the fire always proportionate to the 
 wants of the engine. None but the most industrious and 
 skilful stokers can be expected to accomplish this. 
 
 Until within a few years of the present time the heat ra- 
 diated from every part of the surface of the boiler was al- 
 lowed to go to waste, and to produce injurious effects on those 
 parts of the vessel to which it was transmitted. This evil 
 has been lately removed by coating the exterior of the boil- 
 ers with felt, prepared for the purpose, by which the escape 
 of heat from the surface of the boiler is very nearly if not 
 altogether prevented. This felt is attached to the plates of 
 the boiler by a thick covering of white and red lead. 
 
 A form Of marine engine was some years ago proposed hy 
 Mr. Thomas Howard, in which steam was produced by 
 projecting water in small quantities on the surface of a piece 
 of mercury maintained at a temperature of from 400° to 
 500°. The steam thus produced contained much more heat 
 than was necessary to sustain it in the vaporous form. The 
 engine was worked expansively, and by condensation ; but 
 as the project does not appear to have produced any practi- 
 cal consequences of permanent importance, we need not 
 here notice it farther. 
 
 The method by which the greatest amount of practical 
 effect can be obtained from a given quantity of fuel must 
 mainly depend on the extended application of the expan- 
 ilve principle. So Stbam, Stiam Engine.) The diffi- 
 culty of the application of this principle in marine engines 
 has arisen from the objections entertained in Europe against 
 the use of steam of high pressure under the circumstances 
 in which an engine must be worked at sea. To apply the 
 expansive principle With great etfect.it is necessary that the 
 
 moving power at the commencement of the stroke shall 
 considerably exceed the resistance, its force being gradually 
 attenuated till the completion of the stroke, when If will 
 
 finally become less than the resistance. This condition 
 may be fulfilled without resorting to steam of high pressure,
 
 STEAM NAVIGATION. 
 
 if a sufficient quantity of piston surface be used. This 
 method of rendering the expansive principle available for 
 navigation, and compatible with low-pressure steam, has 
 recently been brought into operation by Messrs. Maudslay 
 and Field. Their improvement consists in adapting two 
 steam cylinders in one engine to work a single crank, both 
 pistons ascending and descending together, the piston rods 
 being both attached to the same horizontal cross-head mo- 
 ving in guides. 
 
 Mr. Francis Humphry's has obtained a patent for a form of 
 marine engine, by which some simplification in the machin- 
 ery is attained, and the same power comprised within more 
 limited dimensions, a matter of great moment in long voy- 
 ages. In this engine, there is attached to the piston of the 
 cylinder, instead of a piston rod, a hollow casing, which 
 moves through a stuffing box in the cover of the cylinder. 
 The cross section of this casing is a very narrow and elon- 
 gated ellipse, extending across the cylinder, or rather a long 
 narrow slit with rounded ends. One end of the connecting 
 rod is attached immediately to the centre of the piston, 
 while the other end is attached to the crank placed above 
 the cylinder; the connecting rod, therefore, works within 
 the casing just mentioned ; and instead of being, as usual, 
 driven by a piston rod, it is driven by the piston itself. 
 
 To obtain from the moving power its full amount of me- 
 chanical effect, it would be necessary that it should be ex- 
 erted against the water in a horizontal direction, and with 
 a motion contrary to the course of the vessel. No system 
 of mechanical propellers has, however, yet been contrived 
 capable of perfectly accomplishing this ; patents have been 
 granted for numerous ingenious mechanical combinations 
 to impart to the propelling surfaces such angles as appear 
 to the respective contrivers to be the most advantageous. 
 In most of these, the complexity has been a fatal objection. 
 No part of the machinery of a steam vessel is so liable to 
 become deranged at sea as the paddle wheels ; and there- 
 fore that simplicity of construction which is compatible 
 with those repairs which are possible on such emergencies 
 is quite essential for safe practical use. 
 
 In the ordinary paddle wheel, the paddle boards have the 
 planes so placed as to radiate from the axle of the wheel. 
 In fact, the geometrical axis of the wheel is the common 
 line of intersection of the planes of all the paddle boards. 
 On entering and leaving the water, therefore, these boards 
 will be oblique to the water, and this obliquity will be in- 
 creased with the immersion of the wheels. When the 
 vessel is in proper trim, the immersion should be equal to 
 the depth of the lowest paddle board ; and if this immer- 
 sion can be preserved unaltered, nearly the whole of the 
 propelling power will be effective with the common wheels. 
 In river navigation, or in general in smooth water, and when 
 the trip is so limited that the fuel consumed has no sen- 
 sible effect on the immersion, this steady immersion maybe 
 preserved, and in such cases the common wheel is a highly 
 advantageous propeller; but in a heavy rolling sea, the 
 motion of the vessel will produce a constant change of im- 
 mersion in the wheels, and in long voyages the fuel con- 
 sumed will lighten the vessel, so as to produce a consider- 
 able change in her trim. 
 
 To remove this inconvenience, and economize as much 
 as possible the propelling effect of the paddle boards, it 
 would be necessary so to construct them that they may en- 
 ter and leave the water edgeways, or as nearl y so as possible : 
 such an arrangement would be, in effect, equivalent to the 
 process called feathering, as applied to rowing. Any me- 
 chanism which would effectually accomplish this would 
 cause the paddles to work in almost perfect silence, and 
 would very nearly remove the inconvenient and injurious 
 vibration which is produced by the action of the common 
 paddles. But the construction of feathering paddles is at- 
 tended with great difficulty under the peculiar circumstan- 
 ces in which such wheels work. Any mechanism so com- 
 plex that it could not be easily repaired with such imple- 
 ments and skill as can be obtained at sea would be attend- 
 ed with great objections, and the efficiency of its pro- 
 pelling action would not compensate for the damages which 
 roust attend the helpless state of a steamer deprived of her 
 propelling agents. 
 
 Feathering paddles have been projected by a vast number 
 of ingenious persons, and a greater number of patents have 
 been granted for this than perhaps for any other contrivance 
 whatever connected with the application of steam power 
 to the useful arts; yet it is remarkable that in no case has 
 there been so signal a failure in attaining the desired end. 
 Some inventors have failed by not clearly understanding the 
 mechanical conditions to be fulfilled by a perfect wheel, and 
 others by the complexity and expense attending the construc- 
 tion of the wheels they proposed. The common paddle- 
 wheel, with very slight modifications, still maintains its place 
 as the almost universal propelling instrument for steam ves- 
 sels. 
 
 About the year 1832, a paddle wheel, with mechanism 
 99 
 
 for shifting the paddle boards as the wheel re rolved, was 
 brought into partial use in the admiralty steam vessels. 
 This was called Morgan's paddle wheel : the inventor was 
 Elijah Galloway. Its propelling effect in a rough sea was 
 found to be superior to the common wheel, but in smooth 
 water the difference was not considerable. The expense of 
 this wheel excluded it altogether from commercial vessels; 
 and it seems to have been found, in practice, to have been 
 attended with other objections, for it has been gradually re- 
 linquished by the government vessels, and is now, we be- 
 live, quite discontinued. 
 
 About the year 1833, Mr. Field, of the firm of Maudslay 
 and Field, proposed the split paddle, which is now coming 
 into very- extensive use. In this wheel each paddle board 
 is divided into two or more narrow slips arranged one be- 
 hind the other, like the laths of a Venetian blind or the 
 steps of a step-ladder. These w-heels are as efficient in 
 propelling when at the lowest point as the common paddle 
 boards ; and when they emerge, the water escapes simul- 
 taneously from each narrow board, and is not thrown up, as 
 is the case with the common paddles. 
 
 The limit of the extent of the voyages capable of being 
 made in one uninterrupted trip by a steam vessel will evi- 
 dently depend on the efficiency of the fuel. As the means 
 of economizing this are improved, this limit will be more 
 extended. In 1835, when it was first proposed to cross the 
 Atlantic from Bristol to New York in a single trip, it was 
 considered by persons who had given much attention to the 
 subject that, in the state of steam navigation at that time, 
 the expense would be so enormous, and the tonnage of the 
 vessel so engrossed by the fuel, that the success of the 
 project as a commercial speculation intended for permanent 
 operation throughout all seasons of the year was more than 
 doubtful. A long interval, however, elapsed before the ex- 
 periment was brought into full operation ; and, in the mean- 
 while, much improvement was effected in the application 
 of the steam engine to navigation. The experiment has 
 been happily at length brought into full practical effect by 
 two companies. What the commercial result has been to 
 the speculators, we are not able to say. 
 
 At the time referred to in 1835, those who were doubtful 
 of the expediency of attempting the passage to New York 
 recommended a trial of a line to Boston, touching at Hali- 
 fax. This has since been accordingly effected, with every 
 prospect of permanent success. 
 
 Steam Navigation in America. — The problem of the ap- 
 plication of steam power to water transport presented itself 
 in the United States under conditions very different from 
 those under which it offered itself in Europe, and its solu- 
 tion has been accordingly productive of very different re- 
 sults. While the chief object of the commercial interests 
 in Europe was the establishment of lines of steam vessels 
 connecting the great cities and coast towns of the British 
 dominions with each other, and with those of the Conti- 
 nent, and as the art advanced, to extend the same social 
 and commercial benefit to the coasts of the chief countries 
 of Europe, so as to stimulate the social intercourse of na- 
 tions too long disunited and struggling in unprofitable war- 
 fare, and thereby to diffuse equally among all the benefits 
 of general commercial intercourse, America, standing alone 
 in her vast extent of territory, having no near neighbours 
 with whom to cultivate social or commercial relations, re- 
 garding her immense country intersected by some of the 
 in' st noble rivers in the world, enriched by the largest 
 sheets of inland water which can be found upon the globe 
 — thus situated, she saw that inland navigation, river and 
 lake transport, was the great application of steam by which 
 her rising and enterprising population would be most bene- 
 fitted, and by which the necessary intercourse could be 
 maintained between her great western emporiums erected 
 on the banks of the Mississippi and Ohio ; her more north- 
 ern settlements on the coasts of the gigantic lakes Ontario, 
 Erie, Michigan, and others; and on the eastern rivers, the 
 Hudson, the Delaware, and the Susquehanna. It was 
 therefore to the construction of steam boats suitable to such 
 internal navigation that American genius was directed ; and 
 in this it has been eminently successful. 
 
 The American river steamers are, in general, long, narrow 
 boats with a small draught of water, supporting a platform 
 or deck of vast magnitude projecting on either side consid- 
 erably bevond the limits of the boat on which it rests. The 
 paddle wheels are large, and are usually impelled by a sin- 
 gle engine placed with its boiler and machinery above the 
 deck. The engines are almost universally non-condensing 
 high-pressure engines, and many of them are worked ex- 
 pansively. The fuel is generally wood ; but in many cases, 
 especially in the eastern vessels, coal. In the structure of 
 the machinery there is much rudeness and simplicity, and 
 none of that extreme precision of construction and fine 
 finish is to be found which is almost always observable in 
 European vessels. Owing to the form of the boats and the 
 smooth water in which they work, a much greater average 
 4 D * 1177
 
 STEAM NAVIGATION. 
 
 speed has been attained than in the sea-coin:: steamers of 
 Europe. Although we have reason to know that in com- 
 mon reports the average rate of the American steamers has 
 been grosslj exaggerated, there is no doubt that their rate of 
 
 going is very considerable. On the Hudson, between \™ 
 York and Albany, aie the fastest strainers in the United 
 States ; and it is probable that if the average speed of these 
 vessels, taken in all circumstances of weather and tide, be 
 stated at thirteen geographical miles an hour, it is not overra- 
 ted. 
 
 The principal theatres of river steamers in the United 
 Btates are the Hudson and the Mississippi, with its brandi- 
 es. The Hudson is navigated liy steam from its inoulh at 
 New Fork u> a distance of about 160 miles, the chief point of 
 traffic being the city of Albany, situated on its western bank, 
 at about 145 miles from New York. Although this extent is 
 not considerable, the intercourse upon it is quite enormous 
 during the seasons of the year in which the river is open. 
 It is obstructed by the frost during the winter months. 
 
 The Mississippi is navigated by many hundred steamers 
 of very large tonnage. This steam traffic is carried on 
 through a distance of nearly 2000 miles from the mouth at 
 New Orleans. The towns of Natchez, Cincinnati, Louis- 
 ville, Pittsburgh, and numerous others, maintain, by this 
 means, an easy and constant intercourse with the capital 
 of the southern states. 
 
 The steamers on the Mississippi and the Ohio are con- 
 structed with even less attention to safe engineering princi- 
 ples than those of the western rivers, and, consequently, 
 more frequent and fatal accidents arise from explosion and 
 other causes. 
 
 The dimensions of the steamers which ply on the Hud- 
 son are generally as follows : The length of deck from 150 
 to "250 feet : the breadth of beam from 20 to 30 feet ; and the 
 depth of the hold from 8 to 10 feet. They are generally, 
 but not always, worked by a single engine ; the length 
 of stroke is never less than 8 feet, but the most com- 
 mon length is 10 feet ; the diameter of the piston varies 
 from 40 to lifi inches, and the diameter of the paddle wheels 
 from 30 to -25 feet; the breadth, or rather the thickness of 
 the wheel, varies from 12 to 14 feet giving a great extent of 
 surface to the paddle boards, which have usually a dip of 2.\ 
 feet ; the draught of water of these boats vanes from 6 to 9 
 feet; thesteam is generally worked expansively, being cut off 
 at half the stroke, and often sooner : the wheels are said to 
 make, on an. average, from 25 to 30 revolutions per minute. 
 
 The Ohio steamers are inferior in magnitude to those on 
 the other western waters; their number must be very con- 
 siderable. About seven years since, the number plying on 
 the river and its branches was about 200 ; and that number 
 has probably since been nearly doubled. " Economy," says 
 Mr. Stevenson in his Engineering 'J'uur, " would seem to be 
 the only object which the constructors of these boats have 
 in view ; and therefore, with the exception of the finery' 
 which the cabins generally display, little care is expended 
 in their construction, and much of the workmanship con- 
 nected with them is of a most imperfect and insufficient 
 kind. When the crews of these frail fabrics, therefore, en- 
 gage in brisk competition with other vessels, and urge the 
 machinery to the utmost extent of its power, it is not to be 
 wondered at that their exertions are often suddenly termi- 
 nated by the vessel taking fire and going to the bottom, or 
 by an explosion of the steam boilers. Such accidents are 
 frequently attended with an appalling loss of life, and are 
 of so common occurrence that they generally excite little or 
 no attention." 
 
 The steamers of the Mississippi vary in magnitude from 
 100 to 700 tons ; and. unlike the light mould of the Hudson 
 steamers, they are heavily built, SO as to give them abun- 
 dant tonnage for goods. They are built with a flat bottom, 
 with a draught Of from 6 to 8 feet of water. A deck is 
 supported by the hull at about S feet above the level of the 
 water, arid the space in the hull under this deck is appro 
 priated to the caru'o. The whole of the steam machinery 
 is placed on this deck ; the engine standing in the middle (if 
 the vessel, and the boilers and furnaces towards the bOW. 
 That part of the lower deck towards the stern i- 
 by the crew and deck passengers, and is generally a scene 
 of great filth and squalor. From the front of tlie paddle 
 staircase leads to a gallery or balcony of about 3 
 feet in width, which surrounds a Structure raised upon the 
 deck, and extending nearly the whole length of the \, — I 
 presenting the external appearance of a long wooden house, 
 the doon and windows of which open on this balcony. 
 This structure is. in fad. the great cabin, extending from 
 the two smoke funnel I to within about 30 feet of the stern ; 
 this latter space, extending quite to the stem, is appropriated 
 to the ladles' cabin. The large cabin, w Inch contains the 
 gentlemen's berths, is also Hied as [he chief dining room. 
 
 Prom the balconj just mentioned, staircases on either side 
 
 lead to the third, or upjier deck, 30 feet above ii" 
 the water. The wheel house, in which the steersman is 
 1178 
 
 STEEL. 
 
 placed. Is erected on the forepart of this deck, and the mo- 
 tion is communicated to the helm by ropes or iron rods. 
 
 The engines are constructed with very small cylinders, 
 worked With steam of great pressure. The diameter of the 
 cylinder is often under 18 inches, while the length of stroke 
 is from 5 to feet. The safety valve is Usually loaded 
 with 100 lbs. per square inch, which, at the discretion of 
 the captain, is sometimes increased to 150 lbs. Some of 
 the large boats on the Mississippi are equal in magnitude 
 to those on the Hudson, having a length of 230 feet, and 
 a breadth of beam of 28 feet. With this great magnitude 
 of deck and a capacity of not less than looo tons, they do 
 not draw above 8 feet of water. For further details re- 
 specting steam navigation in general, and in the United 
 Btates, see /Jr. I.ardntr on the Steam Engine, 7th edition; 
 Appendix to Tredgold on the Steam Engine ; and Stevenson's 
 Civil Engineering in North America. 
 
 SIT. A KIC ACID. (Gr. 0Teap,fat.) One of the acids 
 produced in the process of saponification by the action of 
 alkalies upon stearine. 
 
 STE'ARINE. (Gr. crcap.) That part of oils and fats 
 which is solid at common temperatures. 
 
 STE'ATITE. (Gr. anap.) A soft mineral of an unctu- 
 ous or soapy feel ; hence called soapstone. It is a hydrated 
 silicate of magnesia and alumina. 
 
 STEATO'MA. (Gr. orcap.) A tumour, the contents of 
 which are of the appearance and consistency of hard fat. 
 
 STEEL. (Germ, stahl.) This most useful and curious 
 substance is a compound of iron and carbon : their relative 
 proportions vary in steel of different qualities; but in that 
 used for ordinary purposes, the carbon rarely exceeds 2 per 
 cent., and is generally below it. Certain kinds of iron are 
 preferred to others in this manufacture ; but this relates 
 entirely to its purity, which is the essential requisite. Steel 
 is made by a process called cementation, which consists in 
 filling a proper furnace with alternate strata of bars of the 
 purest malleable iron and powdered charcoal : atmospheric 
 air is carefully excluded from the boxes containing the bars, 
 and the whole kept for several days at a red heaL By this 
 process carbon, probably in the state of vapour, penetrates, 
 and combines in the above small relative proportion with 
 the iron, the texture of which, originally fibrous, becomes 
 granular, and its surface acquires a blistered character. 
 The malleability of steel falls far short of that of iron ; but 
 it is harder, and more sonorous and elastic, and susceptible 
 of a higher polish, and has less tendency to rust. At a red 
 heat it admits of hammering into various forms, and of be- 
 ing welded or united by the blows of the hammer to ano- 
 ther piece of steel or iron. Blistered steel, rolled or beaten 
 down into bars, forms shear steel : and if melted, cast into 
 ingots, and again rolled out into bars, it forms cast steel, 
 which, when well prepared, has the great reconunendati' m of 
 perfect uniformity of texture, and a finer and closergrain. The 
 peculiarity of steel, upon which its high value in the arts in 
 great measure depends, is its property of becoming, by sud- 
 den quenching in water, when at a bright red heat, ex- 
 tremely hard, and of being again softened down to any re- 
 quisite degree by the application of a certain temperature, 
 which may he indicated by a thermometer, commencing at 
 about 300°, and terminating at a dull red heat. This pro- 
 cess is often called tempering ; and the workman is some- 
 times guided in the extent to which it is carried by the 
 colour of the polished surface of the heated steel, which is 
 at first rendered of a pale straw tint, then yellow, brown- 
 ish, purple, and blue, as the temperature rises from one ex- 
 treme to the other. The latter colour indicates extreme 
 softness and elasticity, such as belongs to watch springs, 
 some sword blades. &c. ; pale straw indicates great hard- 
 ness, as lor razor blades; yellow is somewhat softer, and 
 shows a tit temper for penknives; and the incipient blues 
 announce the temper thai belongs to coarser culling instil- 
 ments, and to table knives, an] of winch, made of hard 
 steel, would soon get spoiled and notched, but the edges of 
 which, when duly tempered, resist breaking on the one 
 hand, and bending on the other. When a large mass of 
 steel is hardened by quenching in water, it undergoes a 
 certain degree of expansion, so ihnt the s|)ecific gravity of 
 
 hard steel is somen hat less than that of soft It has been 
 attempted to improve the quality of steel for certain pur- 
 poses by adding to it small portions of other metals: hence 
 the term silrer steel, ScC | but none of these alloys have on 
 the whole proved superior to well made common steel. 
 There is a kind of steel imported from India, known under 
 the name of wootz, the cutting instruments of which are 
 
 celebrated for the toughness and durability of thi 
 
 It appears probable that its peculiarities depend upon the 
 presence of a little aluminum. When the surface of some 
 tee] is washed over with a weak acid, it acquires 
 a peculiar mottled or damasked appearance, as if its texture 
 consisted of an intimate mixture of two different kinds of 
 
 steel, or of fine fibres of steel and iron. Steel, a 1 loved with 
 a little nickel, often puts on this appearance ; but these
 
 STEEL ENGRAVING. 
 
 and some other imitations of the celebrated Damascus 
 sword blades have not led to any important improvements 
 in the manufacture of our cutting instruments. (See Stod- 
 art and Faraday. Phil. Trans. 1822.) 
 
 STEEL ENGRAVING. The art of engraving on steel. 
 See Engraving. 
 STEEL YARD. A balance by which the weights of 
 bodies are determined by 
 s means of a single stand- 
 ard weight. The instru 
 
 ment, which is represent- 
 ed in the annexed figure, 
 is a lever having unequal 
 arms. The load whose 
 weight is to be determined is Mi-pnded from the extremity 
 B of the short arm ; and, in weighing, the constant weight 
 or counterpoise P is slid along the longer arm until the 
 equilibrium is established. Divisions traced on this arm in- 
 dicate the weight at B corresponding at each position of P. 
 
 In the Roman steel yard, or stutera, the lever was so 
 constructed that the centre of gravity was brought immedi- 
 ately over the point of support; and the system being ac- 
 cordingly balanced upon its fulcrum F, the effect of the 
 weight of the lever was neutralized. The longer arm was 
 then divided into parts, each equal to the shorter arm, and 
 those again equally subdivided. Suppose now the length 
 of the shorter arm, or the distance F B, to be one inch, and 
 the constant weight P to be one pound ; then if P be placed 
 at the distance of five inches from F, it will make equilibri- 
 um with a load of five pounds suspended from B ; for, from 
 the property of the lever, when the equilibrium is establish- 
 ed the weight P is to the load at B as the distance of B 
 from F is to the distance of P from F. Whatever propor- 
 tion, therefore, F P has to F B, the same proportion has the 
 weight suspended from B to the constant weight P. 
 
 The steel yard in common use is constructed somewhat 
 differently, the beam being seldom made so as to balance 
 itself on the fulcrum F ; but the error that would arise on 
 this account is compensated by beginning the divisions at 
 that point where the weight P being placed, the equilibrium 
 is established. If, therefore, when P is removed the longer 
 arm preponderates, the divisions commence from a point 
 between F and B. For the purpose of increasing the range, 
 there are also in general two fulcra, from either of which 
 the beam may be suspended, and two corresponding scales 
 of division are marked on opposite sides of the longer arm. 
 
 For weighing heavy loads the steel yard is a convenient 
 instrument ; but for smaller weights it is susceptible of less 
 accuracy than the common balance. It should be construct- 
 ed so that the point of support F, and the point of suspen- 
 sion at B, may be in the same straight line with the divi- 
 sions of the beam. 
 
 STEEL YARD, MERCHANTS OF THE. A company 
 of London merchants to whom the steel yard (see above) 
 was assigned by Henry III. A.D. 1232. They were all for- 
 eigners, chiefly Flemish and German, and were long the 
 only exporters of the staple commodities of England. 
 
 STEENING, or STEANING. In Architecture, the brick 
 or stone wall or lining of a well. 
 
 STEEPLE. In Architecture, a tower of various forms, 
 usually attached to churches and other public buildings, in 
 which bells are frequently but not always suspended. 
 
 STEER. To keep the ship on a sriven direction. This is 
 done by moving the rudder by the tiller, which last is moved 
 from that side to which the ship's head is required to be 
 moved. 
 
 STEERAGE. The steering of the ship. Also a place 
 below in the fore part of ships, as distinguished from the 
 chief cabin ; but the term is of uncertain acceptation. 
 
 STEGANO'GRAPH Y. (Gr. orcyavos, covered, and ypa<pu, 
 J write.) The art of writing in cvpher. See Cypher. 
 
 STE'GANOPODS. (Gr. orcyavo;, covered; 7700?, a foot.) 
 The name of a family of swimming birds (JVatatores) in the 
 system of Illiger, including those species in which all the 
 four toes are connected by the same web. It corresponds 
 with the genus Pelccanus of Linnaeus. 
 
 STEINHEILITE. A mineral of a blue colour ; a variety 
 of iolite. 
 
 STE'LA. (Gr. GrrfXn, from larnni, I stand.) In Architec- 
 ture, a small column without base or capital, usually with 
 an inscription to record an event, or to perpetuate the mem- 
 ory of some deceased person. The ancients also used them 
 for marking distances. There are several specimens of ste- 
 la? in the British Museum. 
 
 STELLATE. In Botany, a natural order of Exogens, 
 also known under the name of Galiacea ; which see. 
 
 STELLE'RIDANS, Stelleridas. (Lat. Stella, a star.) Star 
 fishes. The name of the family of Echinoderms of which 
 the genus listerias is the type. 
 
 STE'LLIONATE. In the Roman law, a general term com- 
 prehending all sorts of fraud committed in matters of agree- 
 ment which were not designated by any more special appel- 
 
 STEREOMETER. 
 
 lation. The name is said to be derived from stcllio, a lizard, 
 because the fraudulent man is comparable to that animal for 
 versatility and address. The six common species of stellion- 
 ate enumerated by Roman writers were, 1. When one sells 
 the same thing to two purchasers ; 2. When a debtor pledges 
 to his creditors something which does not belong to him; 
 3. When one abstracts or damnifies something which he 
 has pledged to creditors : 4. Collusion by two parties to the 
 prejudice of a third ; 5. When a vender substitutes an ob- 
 ject of less value for that which he has engaged to sell ; 6. 
 A wilful, false declaration in an instrument. 
 
 STEM. In Music, the upright or downright line added 
 to the head of a musical note; the head being that part 
 filled in black or left open, as the case may be. 
 
 STENELY'TRANS, Stenelytra. (Gr. ortvos, narrow; 
 t\vrpov, a sheath.) The name given by Latreille to a fami- 
 ly of Coleopterous insects, comprehending those in which 
 the elvtra become narrow at the posterior part of the bodv. 
 
 STENO'GRAPHY. (Gr. orevos, and ypa<pu>, I write.) 
 The art of short hand, otherwise termed tachygraphy. This 
 art has been practised from remote antiquity, and it is said to 
 have originated in the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. Nu- 
 merous systems of stenography have been invented in more 
 recent times, many of them of great simplicity ; but it would 
 be out of place here to enter into any details respecting them. 
 
 STEP. A block of wood, or in large ships of late years 
 a strong solid platform, upon the kelson, supporting the keel 
 of the mast. It was found that the weight of the mast, 
 yards, &c, added to the enormous force upon the rigging, 
 especially during strong winds, forced the keel down. 
 
 STEPPES. (Russ.) The name given to the vast system 
 of plains peculiar to Asia ; synonymous with the prairies of 
 North America and the Ilhanos of South America. The 
 steppes of Russia are not unlike the heaths of Germany, 
 being in part susceptible of cultivation, and affording pastu- 
 rage for numerous herds of nomadic tribes. 
 
 STERCO'RIANISM. In Ecclesiastical History, a nick- 
 name which seems to have been applied in the W r estem 
 church, in the 5th and 6th century, to those who held the 
 opinion that a change took place in the consecrated ele- 
 ments, so as to render the divine body subject to the act of 
 digestion. (See Mosheim, vol. ii., transl. 1790, p. 342.) 
 
 STERELMl'NTHANS. Sterelmintha. (Gr. cu peoc, solid, 
 and twin's, an intestinal worm.) The name of a class of 
 internal parasitic animals or Entozoons, comprising those 
 which are composed of a solid parenchymatous substance, 
 in which the nutrient and generative canals are simply ex- 
 cavated, and not freely suspended in an abdominal cavitv. 
 
 STEREOGRA'PHIC PROJECTION. (Gr.oTeptog, solid; 
 ypa<p>i, description.) The projection of the sphere upon the 
 plane of one of its great circles, the eye being situated at the 
 pole of that circle. See Projection. 
 
 STEREO'GRAPHY. In the descriptive Geometry, the 
 representation of solids on a plane. 
 
 STEREO'METER. (Gr. creptac, solid ; ucrpov, measure.) 
 In Hydrodynamics, an instrument invented by M. Say, a 
 French officer of engineers, for determining the specific 
 gravity of liquid bodies, porous bodies, and powders, as well 
 as of solids. The instrument may be described as follows : 
 Let A E be a glass tube, about three feet Ions, and open at 
 both ends, the upper part A B being about 4-10ths, and Af 
 the lower 2-10ths of an inch in diameter. The upper 
 edge is ground smooth, so that it can be shut air- 
 tight by a piece of ground plate glass: and the upper b 
 part A B communicates with the lower by a very nar- 
 row slit at B, which allows air to pass, but prevents 
 the passage of sand or water. In using the instrument, 
 a powder (for instance) is placed in the tube A B, and 
 the lower part B E is plunged into a vessel containing j 
 mercury till the fluid rises exactly to B. The ground f 
 glass cover is then placed upon the mouth A, and j 
 there is now no air in the tube except what is mixed I 
 with the powder. Supposing the barometric pressure I 
 to be 30 inches ; let the tube be elevated until the 
 mercury stands within it at a point C, 15 inches above 
 its surface in the open vessel, and it is manifest that the 
 air within the tube is pressed with exactly half an atmo- 
 sphere. It consequently expands to twice its original bulk, 
 and hence the tube A B now contains only half the quantity 
 of air it contained at first. The part B C must therefore con- 
 tain the other half, or the air in B C is equal to the air mixed 
 with the powder in A B : and being half the original quan- 
 tity under half the original pressure, it fills the same space 
 which the whole occupied previous to the expansion. Let 
 the powder be now removed from A B, and the process re- 
 peated when the tube is filled with air. The quantity of air 
 being now greater, will, when expanded to twice its bulk, 
 fill a larger space than B C, and the mercury will rise only 
 to some point D ; but as the expanded air occupied exactly 
 the same space in B D or B C as the whole occupied in A B 
 under twice the pressure, it follows that the cavity CD = B 
 D — B C is equal to the bulk of the solid matter in the pow- 
 
 1179
 
 STEREOTYPE. 
 
 der. If, therefore, we now find the number of grains of water 
 which would fill the part c li. we determine the weight of 
 water equal in bulk to the solid matter in the powder; mid 
 bv comparing this with the weight of the powder, we obtain 
 its specific gravity. (Ency. Hrit., art. •• Hydrodynamics.") 
 
 Say's stereometer was first described in the .dnnales de 
 C'iimic for IW7. An instrument on exactly the same prin- 
 ciple was afterwards brought forward by Sir John Leslie 
 Under the name of 8 coniomcter. 
 
 SI'i: KKOTVI'E. (Gr. orepcoc, solid, and rviroc, a figure.) 
 f letters, called letter-press plates, of the size of a 
 page, cast from a plaster mould, in which an exact repre- 
 sentation of the types lias been made, and thus forming 
 the permanent plates from which books are afterwards 
 printed. As the art of printing i.-ar Printing) began with 
 the impression of whole blocks, it may be said that in its 
 towards perfection it has again reached the same 
 point by the introduction of stereotype plates. The origin 
 of the more modern invention is involved in greater obscuri- 
 ty than might at first sight appear probable from its compar- 
 atively recent due. By some writers the merit of the inven- 
 tion is ascribed to the Dutch, who had adopted the plan of 
 pdnting with solid or fixed types in the 17th century; but 
 It was not till the end of the last, and the commencement 
 of the present century, that the process was perfected and 
 generally introduced. In this useful invention, the most 
 prominent names are Ged of Edinburgh, Tulloch and Foulis 
 Of Glasgow, Didot in Paris, and Wilson and Earl Stanhope 
 in London. The process of stereotyping is very simple. A 
 page of any work proposed to be stereotyped is set up with 
 moveable types in the usual way. A plaster is then taken 
 from it, which, being rir-t dried, is immersed in fluid metal. 
 The cast or plate, "after being sufficiently cooled, is then 
 withdrawn from the mould, and, at a subsequent stage, care- 
 fully examined with a view to removing any imperfections 
 previous to its being printed from. The plaster used for 
 (brining the mould is pulverized gypsum, mixed with water 
 to the consistence of cream. After the form of types has 
 been surrounded with a brass frame, and slightly oiled on 
 the surface, the tluid plaster is poured upon it, and, by the 
 application of a brush, made to fill every cavity of the let- 
 ters, the superfluous portion being scraped off. When the 
 plaster has set sufficiently bard, it is, by means of the frame, 
 lifted oil the face of the type and detached from it. It is 
 then baked to dryness in an oven ; and when quite hot it is 
 placed in an iron box, or casting )xit, which has also been 
 heated in an oven. The box is now plunged into a large 
 pot of melted type-metal and kept about ten minutes under 
 the surface, in order that the weight of the metal may force 
 it into all the liner parts of the letters. The whole is then 
 
 cooled; the old is broken and washed off; and the back 
 
 of the plate turned smooth on a lathe, or planed by a ma- 
 chine, ons J.' ikon.) 
 
 STE'RLING. The legal description of the English cur- 
 rent coin, of which the most probable derivation is from 
 ■lis, the popular name of the Baltic and German tra- 
 ders who visited London in the middle ages; but in what 
 manner it came to be so applied is unknown. Camden says 
 from the employment of German artists in coining. The 
 silver penny was first called Esterling. 
 
 STERN. In Naval affairs, the after extremity of a vessel. 
 
 BTE'RNA. A genus of web-footed birds, having a bill 
 a< long as or longer than the head, almost straight, com- 
 pressed, and pointed; the mandibles of equal length, the 
 upper one slightly inclined towards the point; nostrils 
 pierced towards the middle of the bill ; legs small, naked to 
 
 above tiic knee: three anterior toes united by an indented 
 
 web; the bind toe free; wings very long and pointed; tail 
 more or less forked. From the two latter characters, the 
 ol Sterna are sometimes called "sea swallows;" 
 their proper English name is "tern." 
 
 STERNO'XI. (Gr. artpvos, sternum, and o£cf, pointed.) 
 The name of a tribe of Coleopterous bisects, comprehending 
 mum is prolonged into a point at both 
 extremities. 
 
 STE ft NUM. (Lat sternum, the breast bone.) In Com- 
 parative Anatomy, the simple or compound bone which 
 completes the thoracic cage anteriorly, and serves as a me- 
 
 dium of union to a greater or le-s number of the ribs. The 
 sternum is not present in the skeleton of Fishes, Amphibi- 
 ans, or i Iphidiana In Bauriane the .anterior portion i- gen- 
 erally expanded, to be joined to the broad COT i 
 
 In Chelonians, this part of the skeleton is re- 
 markably developed, and very complex, and constitutes the 
 greater part of the plastron or floor of their defensive osse- 
 ouscaee. In Birds, also, it Is more or less complex at the 
 beginning of its development; but the different oss ifi ca t ions 
 blended together, .and form a single broad bone. 
 principally remarkable for the keel like process developed 
 from the middle line of its under surface. This to 
 servient to the attachment of the muscles of the wing, and 
 bears a direct proportion to the powers of Hight; except 
 llcO 
 
 STIGMATA. 
 
 where the wings, as in the penguin, arc used as fins. In the 
 Stnithious birds, the keel of the sternum is wanting. 
 
 In Mammalia, the sternum is generally simple, and con- 
 sists of a single chain of ossicles; except in the orangutang, 
 and occasionally in man, where a double series of ossulca 
 tions are originally developed in the body of the bone, but 
 which afterwards become Confluent. The upper portion, 
 or manubrium sterni, remains long distinct from the main 
 body of the sternum ; in man, the cartilaginous appen- 
 dage of the lower edge of the sternum is called xiphoid or 
 en-ifonn. 
 
 STETHOSCOPE. (Gr. ornQoc, the chest, and okottcu), I 
 explore.) A cylinder of cedar wood, about 12 inches long, 
 and 1 in diameter ; perforated throughout its length, and di- 
 vided inlo two parts for the convenience of using the whole 
 or half its length. The end of each part terminates in a fun- 
 nel-shaped cavity. Its use is adverted to under the head 
 
 A I Si I I.TATION. 
 
 STEWARD, LORD HIGH, was anciently the first officer 
 of the crown in England, with the Latin title of Magnus 
 SeneschallUB. The office was at one period annexed to the 
 lordship of Hinkley, in Leicestershire, held by the family 
 of De Montfort ; but on the rebellion and fall of that noble 
 house, it was in effect abolished as a permanent dignity, and 
 is now only revived pro hue vice on the occasion of a cor- 
 onation, or the trial of a peer. In the former case the lord 
 high steward's commission is to settle matters of precedence, 
 &c. ; in the latter, to preside in the House of Lords. 
 
 STEWARD, LORD, OF THE HOUSEHOLD. An offi- 
 cer of the king's household in England ; in Norman French, 
 Seneschal. He is steward of the marshalsea or court of the 
 household ; an office which he performs by deputy. In his 
 department is the counting house where the expenses of the 
 king's household are taken ; within which is the board of 
 green cloth, an ancient court which has jurisdiction of of- 
 fences committed within the king's palaces and verge of 
 the court. 
 
 STHE'NIC DISEASES. Those which are the result of 
 inflammatory or increased action; as opposed to asthenic, 
 or diseases of debility. 
 
 STIBIUM. Antimony. 
 
 STI CHOMANCY. (Gr. vrixoc, a line, and udvreia, proph- 
 ecy.) Divination by lines or passages in books taken at haz- 
 ard. Among the Romans verses from the Sybilline books 
 were written on slips of paper, which were thrown into a 
 vessel ; and future events were conjectured from the inter- 
 pretation of one of these slips drawn out at hazard. Of the 
 same kind were the Sortes Virgilianir, Homeriea, &.c. : a 
 sort of literary superstition by which the works of authors 
 -ulted. and the meaning of a line casually taken 
 assumed as indicative of the late of the person discovering 
 it. Verses of the Bible selected in this way by chance have 
 been, and are still, frequently taken by the superstitious as 
 oracular. This sort of divination has been called biblioman- 
 cy, or sortes bibliae. It was condemned by the council of 
 Valines in 405, and other early synods ; but was long after- 
 wards practised in France at the elections of bishops, abbots, 
 &.C The custom of drawing by lots verses from the Bible 
 on such occasions is said to have prevailed as hue as 1740, 
 in the cathedrals of Ypres, St. Oiner, and Boulogne. See 
 Sortes. Sortilege. 
 
 STICK, GOLD. The colonels of the two regiments of 
 Life Guards are so called, whose duty it is to be in immedi- 
 ate attendance on the sovereign on all state occasions. These 
 colon* I- di 'duty for a month alternately ; the one on duty be- 
 ing called the^roM stick in waiting. The field officer of the 
 Life Guards, when on duty, is called silver stuh. The term 
 originated in the custom of the sovereign presenting the col- 
 onel of the Life Guards with a gold slick on his receiving the 
 regiment. 
 
 STI'GMA. (Gr. oriyua.) An impression, such as that 
 made by branding with a hot Iron. Stigmatizing was a 
 common practice among the ancients to mark their slaves 
 
 as property; and it is pursued at the present day among 
 
 slave-drivers. It was customary also to stigmatize the vo- 
 tariesof some of the gods with some recognised emblem • f 
 their divinity, such as the ivy of Bacchus, the trident of .Nep- 
 tune, &c. ; or with the initial of their names, or some mys- 
 tical number, it is supposed that reference is made to this 
 
 practice by St. John, Rev., ch. 13. See Tat- inc. 
 
 Siiomx". In Botany, the upper extremity of r 
 without a cuticle, in consequence of which it has almost 
 uniforml) a humid and papillose surface, li is the part upon 
 which the pollen falls, and where It is stimulated Into the 
 of the pollen tubes, which are indispensable to 
 the act of impregnation. 
 
 B ri'GM \T \. In Theological language, the marks of 
 the wounds of our Saviour. Tin' text a) the end of the Epis- 
 tle to the Gal atians, " From hence let no man trouble me, 
 for 1 ben iii mj bodj the marks of the Lord Jesus," seems 
 to have given ri e to the superstitions promulgated in the 
 Roman Catholic church respecting the impression of the
 
 STILE. 
 
 Stigmata en favoured saints', of which the legend of St. 
 Francis <>t' .\<<isi affords the most remarkable instance. 
 
 STILE. In Architecture, the vertical piece in framing or 
 panelling, See Rail. 
 
 STILL. (Lat. stillare, to drop.) An apparatus for the 
 distillation of liquids upon the large scale. It includes the 
 body, or boiler, which is usually set in brick work over a 
 furnace, and to which is annexed the head, forming the com- 
 munication between the boiler and condenser or tcorm pipe ; 
 from the extremity of which the distilled liquid passes in 
 successive drops, or a small continuous stream, into the re- 
 cipient. There are an infinite variety of stills adapted to 
 particular purposes, of which the most important are the dis- 
 tillation of spirituous liquors. (See O're's Diet, of Arts, i-c.) 
 
 STILT BIRD. The name of the Himantopus melanopter- 
 u-s, significative of its very long and slender legs. 
 
 STI'NKSTOXE. A bituminous carbonate of lime, which 
 exhales a fetid odour when rubbed. 
 
 STDST. In Coal Mines, a measure of work used under 
 ground, 2 yards long and 1 broad, which each miner clears 
 before he removes to another place, and which is proved by 
 a boy appointed for the purpose, who is colloquially called 
 " the judge." 
 
 STIPEND (Lat. stipendium), signified originally the pay 
 of soldiers. In a legal sense it is applied to the salary or al- 
 lowance given to some person for transacting the business of 
 another; but in Scotland the term is almost exclusively 
 confined to the provision made by law for the established 
 clergy. See Presbytery. 
 
 STI'PPLING. In Engraving, the method of producing 
 shadows by means of dots of greater or less size, according 
 to the intensity of the shadow required. By this method 
 the resemblance to chalk drawings is produced. 
 
 STI'PULA. In Botany, a small appendage situated upon 
 each side of the base of a petiole, most commonly of a less 
 firm texture than the latter, and having a subulate termina- 
 tion : the word is also used in describing Hepaticce, to denote 
 the appendaces which are occasionally present at the bases 
 of the leaves, but of which they seem rather to be lobes 
 than distinct orcans. 
 
 STOCK DOVE. The name of the wild species called 
 ColumbaJEnas bv Linnsus. 
 
 STOCK EXCHANGE. The name given to the system 
 whereby the purchase, sale, and •' carrying over" of stock 
 and shares are effected by certain parties called brokers. 
 This curious and complicated subject may be explained and 
 discussed under three different heads : viz. first, the parties 
 engaged in stock transactions, whether brokers or jobbers ; 
 secondly, money and time bargains ; thirdly, the rules and 
 regulations by which these operations are conducted. 
 
 The Clearing-house in Lombard Street affords the great- 
 est facilities to the transactions of the Stock Exchange, 
 inasmuch as, without its intervention, difficulties and em- 
 barrassments would present themselves in the final settle- 
 ment or adjustment of those transactions of an almost 
 insurmountable character. By means of this clearing- 
 house, all the great monetary transactions of the day are 
 broucht to a close by o o'clock in the afternoon ; whereas 
 in the ordinary mode of paying or receiving money, whether 
 in notes or hard cash, their settlement might not be finally 
 effected for several days afterwards, to say nothing of the 
 security afforded to all parties concerned by the operation of 
 the clearing-house. 
 
 The members of the Stock Exchange are divided into two 
 distinct classes: — viz. the brokers, and the jobbers. It is 
 the business of the brokers to receive and to execute the 
 orders of merchants, bankers, capitalists, and private indi- 
 viduals, who are "out of the house;" the Stock Exchange 
 being among its own members honoured with that dignified 
 appellation ! 
 
 The jobbers remain stationary in the " house ;" and ready 
 to act upon the orders thus received by the brokers. And 
 here it may be as well to explain the nature and character 
 of the business transacted by these jobbers, who, being men 
 possessed of more or less capital, endeavour to turn it to 
 account in the manner we are about to explain. It is their 
 business to be always prepared to make a price to the bro- 
 kers whenever the latter present themselves : the readiness 
 which they display in offering to do business to large 
 amounts at the apparently small difference of l-8th per cent, 
 would appear extraordinary, were it not that they are so 
 numerous that an eager competition is excited among them 
 for the favours of the brokers. When one of the latter 
 appears in the market, he is surrounded by a knot of job- 
 bers, who announce themselves ready to buy or sell what- 
 ever amount of stock he has to deal in at a price varying 
 only l-8th per cent. For instance, if a broker has to do 
 business in 5000Z. Consols (the market price being about 90), 
 the jobber offers to buy his 50007. at 90, or to sell him that 
 amount at 90}. without being in the slightest degree aware 
 whether the orders of the broker are to buy or to sell, and 
 thus taking upon himself the risk of selling that which he 
 93 
 
 STOCK EXCHANGE. 
 
 does not possess, or of buying what he does not intend to 
 keep; his only object being to undo his bargain, at a differ- 
 ence of l-8th per cent., or even less, with another broker, 
 who may have to effect an operation the very reverse of the 
 other, which 1-Sth or even 1-lrjth constitutes his profit. 
 
 Without the intervention of the jobber, therefore, it will 
 be seen that there would exist a vast difficulty in effecting 
 the transactions which daily take place. The jobbers are, 
 in fact, the "middle men," who stand in the house in the 
 character of dealers, always ready to buy or sell, thus obvi- 
 ating the necessity of the broker's going in quest of a second 
 broker, with whom he might transact his business ; or, in 
 other words, whom he might suit to buy what the other 
 broker had to sell, or vice versa. Again, even if one were 
 at hand, he might not be able to concur in the actual amount 
 of stock which the other wished to deal in ; whereas the 
 jobber is ready to do business to any amount, even to the 
 smallest fraction, and hence a great deal of lime is saved. 
 It often happens that a broker who has to dispose of shares 
 not currently dealt in is frequently obliged to wait for 
 months before he can find a purchaser ; whereas, in the 
 case of stock, the jobbers offer themselves as buyers or 
 sellers at a moment's notice, and thus offer facilities for 
 transactions in the public funds which could not be effected 
 without them. 
 
 Having thus endeavoured to explain the difference be- 
 tween broker and jobber, and confined our attention hither- 
 to to money transactions, we next proceed to describe the 
 nature of " time-bargains," which form so essential a feature 
 in stock business. Indeed, the very existence of the Stock 
 Exchange, as at present constituted, depends upon specula- 
 tions in time-bargains; for where there exists a body of 600 
 members, the actual bond fide business would not be suf- 
 ficient to provide employment for them all, notwithstanding 
 the magnitude of the national debt. Time-bargains consist 
 of purchases and sales of stock made for a certain fixed 
 period, regulated by the committee. There can be little 
 doubt that they had their origin in the business which has 
 always been transacted in the funds during the period* 
 when the slocks are shut. For instance, Consols usually 
 close about the beginning of June and December; that is to 
 say, the transfer books at the bank are shut for the space of 
 five or six weeks, in order to afford time for the preparation 
 of the dividend warrants, which are paid in the following 
 July and January. Hence it is clear that a person wishing 
 to buy or sell that particular stock during the period refer- 
 red to would be unable to effect his object ;. but in order 
 to secure the price of the day, he buys or sells the stock 
 "for the opening," that is, for actual transfer on the day on 
 which the transfer-books are re-opened. This mode of 
 doing business is legitimate enough ; but this practice has 
 no doubt given rise to operations of the greatest magnitude, 
 founded, not on actual necessities, but merely on specula- 
 tion ; and this method being found convenient for one 
 period, has been continued on other occasions, without, 
 however, possessing the same pretext for its adoption. Pe- 
 riodical dates have consequently been fixed upon by the 
 committee, similar to the "opening," at intervals of about 
 six weeks, making altogether about eight "settling days," 
 as they are called, in the course of a year. On these settling 
 days are arranged and adjusted all the bargains made dur- 
 ing the preceding six weeks for that particular day ; those 
 who sold stock having to deliver it on the one hand, and 
 those who purchased having to accept and pay for it on the 
 other. But as the majority of the speculators have no in- 
 tention of doing either the one or the other, their bargains 
 having been of a purely speculative character, founded on 
 their anticipations of a rise or fall in the value of the securi- 
 ties, so whatever difference may exist between the price at 
 which a party commenced his speculation and that at 
 which he finally closed it, is settled on this important day ; 
 and his operations most likely not having been confined to 
 the same jobbers, but having been effected with several, it 
 becomes necessary to balance them with the parties con- 
 cerned, and much the same process takes place on this occa- 
 sion as that practised at the banker's clearing-house, by es- 
 tablishing balances between each other. Whatever ba- 
 lance remains unseuled is adjusted by the name of the bond 
 fide purchaser of the stock ^who intends to pay for it) being 
 passed from one broker, or jobber, or speculator to another, 
 until it conies into the hands of the party who intends to 
 deliver or transfer the stock ; by which means all the inter- 
 mediate persons through whose hands it passes (the price 
 given by the purchaser being marked on the ticket) are en- 
 abled to close their accounts with each other at that par- 
 ticular price, and to pay and recede the differences accord- 
 ingly. In short, all transactions kept open until the settling 
 day must then be closed ; and the party who delays this 
 operation until the last moment is oftea exposed to a loss, 
 from the difficulty of finding others who, having adjusted 
 their own accounts, are unable or unwilling to enter into a 
 fresh transaction on this " dav of reckoning," whereby he is 
 
 11S1
 
 STOCK EXCHANGE. 
 
 compelled to pay something extra in the price to those who 
 have it in their power to afford him this facility, in order to 
 enable him to settle his account 
 
 But, as many of the bargains made for this particular day 
 are really lion.i fidt transactions, the Block bought and sold 
 being, in point of fact, delivered by the actual holder and 
 taken by the new purchaser, let us briefly explain how this 
 is effected. This process is one of daily occurrence, and is 
 not necessarily confined to a settling day, although on such 
 occasions it usually amounts to a considerable item, from 
 its hiving extended over a wider period. In either case, 
 however, the following is the way in which the matter is 
 settled between the broker and his principal who has sold 
 stock: The broker usually passes his check for the proceeds 
 of the sale to his principal, taking the precaution of crossing 
 it, i.e.. writing a banker's name across the check. When. 
 however, Bank of Kngland notes are demanded in lieu of 
 crossed checks (as is sometimes the case), the bargain is 
 made accordingly : in this case, the jobber who buys the 
 stock provides them either by borrowing of those who hap 
 pen to have large balances at their banker's, or from their 
 own private bankers. The notes so borrowed by the jobber 
 are then paid over to the broker, and by him to his principal. 
 This operation is, however, seldom resorted to by men of 
 business where there is no reason to doubt the credit of the 
 party drawing the check. 
 
 The jobber, on the other hand, having sold the stock to 
 some other broker, who buys for his principal, receives in 
 return his check ; so that, by this simple process of passing 
 four checks — viz. that of the purchaser to his broker, that 
 of the broker to the jobber, that of the jobber again to the 
 broker who first sold the stock, and that of the latter to his 
 principal — the whole transaction is completed. 
 
 To advert to another technical peculiarity appertaining to 
 the Stock Exchange which may appear puzzling to the 
 leader; the use, namely, of the term "bull" and "bear." 
 A bull is one who speculates for a rise ; whereas a bear, on 
 the contrary, is he who speculates for a fall. The "bull" 
 would, for instance, buy £ 100,000 Consols for the settling 
 day, or, as it is technically termed, " for the account," with 
 the object of selling them again during thei ntervening pe- 
 riod at a higher price. The "bear," on the other hand, 
 would sell the £100,000 stock (which, however, he does not 
 possess) "for the account," with a view of buying them in 
 for the purpose of balancing the transaction at a lower 
 price than he originally sold them at. In stirring periods, 
 when fluctuations of 4 or 5 per cent, often occur during " one 
 account," vast profits may be realized, or equal losses sus- 
 tained, by these gambling operations. 
 
 The transactions in the foreign market are carried on 
 much in the same way us in that of the English stocks, 
 With the exception that the settling days are much more fre- 
 quent, occurring, as they do, once in every fortnight. The 
 foreign " house" is quite of modern origin; but it is subject 
 to the same rules and regulations as the English, with a 
 few exceptions. The dealings are there carried on in all 
 the foreign stocks, as well as in railway, mining, and other 
 shares. The jobbers are distinct from those in the English 
 house, although there is nothing to prevent them from deal- 
 ing in both, if they possess sufficient intelligence to enable 
 them to give their attention in two places at once. 
 
 In connexion with time-bargains maybe noticed that im- 
 portant branch of business which goes under the denomina- 
 tion of " continuation," or "earning over." This is no- 
 thing more than interest for money borrowed or lent on se- 
 curity of stock. The rate of this continuation or interest 
 varies according to the abundance or scarcity of money, and 
 the nature of the .security offered. For instance, on British 
 stocks, even whin money is very scarce, it seldom exceeds 
 the rate of 5 per cent, per annum from one account to an- 
 other ; whereas in the foreign market, where the security 
 consists of foreign bonds of various and doubtful descriptions, 
 it ranges from 5 to 10 per cent., or even more on particular 
 occasions, When it reaches 15 per cent, per annum. 
 
 There are several causes which tend to produce this ex- 
 traordinary variation in the rates of continuation ; for in the 
 case of Consols, which constitute the only Stock fol specu- 
 lation in time-bargains in the English market, the price 
 varies so little in comparison with the value of the stick, in 
 the course of an "account," that the security is considered 
 good in itself; and therefore no extra charge is superadded 
 by the party who lends his money. This is not the case 
 With regard to foreign stocks, which are consiantly fluctu- 
 ating in value, a fact to be accounted for by the extremely 
 is nature of this description of property, Most of 
 
 the ii is in circulation in the foreign house have ceased to 
 
 bear any interest whatever, and many of them hear upon 
 them the marks of their shame and disgrace, in the Bbape 
 
 Of the arrears of interest, called coupon.*, overdue for several 
 
 years, it is not, therefore, to be wondered at that foreign 
 securities of this description do not command the same 
 credit as our own English stocks ; and it must hence follow, 
 1182 
 
 as a matter of course, that parties who wish to raise money 
 upon them must consent to pay a higher rate of interest for 
 the accommodation. 
 
 A great deal of business is transacted in this way; and 
 some brokers, who possess the means of obtaining large 
 sums of money without much difficulty, devote their entire 
 attention to it. The process by which the operation is 
 effected is simple, both in the English and foreign market. 
 The present rate of continuation in the Consol market is 
 9-16ths per cent, until the opening ; and if a person, w e w ill 
 suppose, wishes to lend money on that stock, from 'he shut- 
 ting (on the 2d of December) to the opening (on the 14th of 
 January, 1642), his broker procures him £1,000 Consols as 
 security, for which he furnishes the money at the actual 
 price of the day, which is £90, making £900, and resells at 
 the same time the said £1000 stock for the opening (on the 
 14th of January) at 90 pp making £906 12s. 5d., and there- 
 by leaving a difference in his favour of £5 12s. 64. for the 
 loan of £900 during the above period of fort) -tour days, 
 which will be found to be at the rate of £5 3s. 8d. percent. 
 per annum. On foreign securities the principle is the same. 
 Supposing he lends on the security of Spanish bonds, he 
 receives as security £5100, for which he pays on the 30th of 
 November, at the price of 24£ per. cent., £1249 10s. ; but 
 sells it to the same party for the loth of December (the 
 next settling day at 24^. producing £1252 13s. 9J., leaving 
 a difference in his favour of £3 3s. 9</., or 1-16 upon the 
 stock bought and resold, which, for fifteen days, is equal to 
 1-gth per cent, per month, or 12-Sths per cent, per annum, 
 equal to £76 10s., being at the rate of about £6 2s. Gtl. per 
 cent, per annum interest. This calculation is made upon 
 the current rate of interest for the " continuation" of that 
 stock on the 30th of November, which was considered as 
 extremely low. 
 
 The continuation on shares, in which a great deal of 
 business is also done, varies but little from the above ; but 
 a difficulty here arises, which offers a g"eat obstacle to the 
 lending of money for short periods. 
 
 The stamps which by law are necessary for the due trans- 
 fer of property of this description, and without which trans- 
 fer there could be no security to the lender of money, are so 
 onerous, and press so heavily on all bond fide transactions, 
 that notwithstanding the many attempts made at various 
 times to evade them, they operate materially against the 
 parries who lend money upon them, and, in fact, neutralize 
 all profit for short periods. 
 
 Persons wliii have sold shares or stock, if they are not in 
 immediate want of their money, frequently avail themselves 
 of this method of "continuation," in order to obtain inter- 
 est for it until they actually deliver the stock. On the other 
 hand, speculators for the rise are by this means able to carry 
 over their purchases from one account to another ; and 
 although it may appear strange that they should be paying 
 at the rate of 5 and even 10 per cent, per annum interest on a 
 stock which, in the instance of Consols, pays them only 3 
 per cent., and in that of Spanish pays them actually no- 
 thing, still, when viewed solely in the light of speculations, 
 the rise in either security, if it takes place, will more than 
 compensate for this apparent inconsistency. 
 
 The proceedings of the Stock Exchange are regulated by 
 a committee consisting of thirty members, who are elected 
 from the general body every Lady day, each member hav- 
 ing one vote. They take care that the rules and regula- 
 tions enacted for the admission and expulsion of members, 
 and for the settlement of disputes, are properly observed ; 
 and although some of their laws are at variance with the 
 established laws of the country, they are not so strictly en- 
 forced by the committee as to bring them into collision with 
 the courts of justice; they fully answer the purpose lor 
 which they were intended, and all members previously to 
 their admission subscribe to the conditions there laid down. 
 
 All members, on being admitted, are obliged to produce 
 three securities of £300 each, for the first two \ ears of their 
 probation, which £900 becomes forfeited in the event of 
 their failure, and goes to the creditors of the new member, 
 in consequence of their being Interdicted from engaging in 
 any other business, on becoming members of the Stock Ex- 
 change they are no longer subject to the bankrupt laws; and 
 therefore, in the event of failure, till their assets are secured 
 to the creditors in the house, to the exclusion of those ou of 
 it. This rule is enforced in order to secure the house from 
 the lo>s which would ensue to its members, were the legal 
 creditors (if any existed) to step in and lay claim to their 
 property. 
 
 The tendency of the above regulation is to insure honesty 
 among its members. Should any principal have reason to 
 complain, he has only to appeal to the committee, who in- 
 stantly take cognizance of the matter, and subject it to the 
 strictest investigation. Defaulters whose conduct has been 
 dishonourable are punished, and an example is made of 
 thcru by publicly aftLxing their names in the house on what
 
 STOCKS. 
 
 Is termed Ihe black board : this is the heaviest disgrace 
 which a member can possibly experience. (For this elabo- 
 rate account of the procedure of business in the Stock Ex- 
 change, we are indebted to the Times of 1841.) 
 
 STOCKS. A well-known kind of punishment. The 
 practice of confining men by the legs was so common as to 
 have given the ordinary name to a chain of any kind in 
 several languages; e. g., Gr. irdn ; Lat. compes; Engl, fetter; 
 all from nous, foot. The stocks in England have been, gen- 
 erally speaking, rather used for restraint than punishment, 
 constables being empowered to put disorderly persons into 
 them ; but it is likewise ordered by some statutes as a pun- 
 ishment on conviction. It is now almost disused; though, 
 we believe, not entirely in remote districts. 
 
 STO'ICS. A celebrated sect of antiquity ; so called from 
 the stoa or porch in Athens, which was the scene of the 
 discourses of their four.der Zeno of Cittium (B.C. 300). The 
 Stoics are proverbially known for the sternness and austeri- 
 ty of their ethical doctrines, and for the influence which 
 their tenets exercised over some of the noblest spirits of an- 
 tiquity. To give a connected and systematic account of the 
 philosophical principles on which they grounded their moral 
 precepts is a less easy task than, from the notoriety of the 
 latter in some of their main features, might have been an- 
 ticipated. Their speculations were not confined to ethical 
 subjects, but aimed at embracing the whole circle of human 
 knowledge ; physics, theology, and logic, no less than morals 
 and politics. Their system, as far as we can gather from 
 the notices preserved by Cicero, Diogenes, and others, ap- 
 pears to be an attempt to reconcile a theological pantheism 
 and a materialist psychology with a logic which seeks the 
 foundations of knowledge in sensible experience, and a 
 morality which claims as its first principle the absolute free- 
 dom of the human will. Of the mode in which they corn- 
 Dined dogmas apparently so inconsistent into a philosophi- 
 cal whole, we have accounts sufficient to inspire us with 
 respect for the earnestness and strength of character pos- 
 sessed by the leaders of their sect, and with admiration of 
 their subtlety, ingenuity, and depth. We discern, at the 
 same time, in all their speculations, oqually a narrow and 
 controversial spirit, most unlike the critical but comprehen- 
 sive impartiality which marks the philosophical writings of 
 their great predecessors; of Plato, and, in a still more emi- 
 nent degree, of Aristotle. The philosophy of the Stoics 
 was essentially polemical. On every side it presented an 
 armed front to an opponent. It sought to confute the aca- 
 demic scepticism by the strenuous assertion of the truth of 
 sensible perceptions, and the validity of the judgments to 
 which they lead by a vigorous protest in favour of the com- 
 mon sense of mankind as opposed to the theories of the 
 schools. Sensation, they affirmed, is not merely a passive 
 affection of the mind; it becomes, under certain conditions, 
 perception or comprehension (/caruA»;<^is) — a faculty where- 
 by the mind reaches beyond itself, and lays hold, as it were, 
 on outward being. From the acquisitions of sensible expe- 
 rience are formed conceptions and judgments of successive 
 stages of generality, which it is the province of the reason 
 to construct into philosophical system. Such is the sto- 
 ical logic, which is consequently a material, and not, as 
 with Aristotle, a formal science. An equally controversial 
 bearing is perceptible in the remainder of their philosophy. 
 Their greatest enemies, the Epicureans, had adopted the 
 mcchanico-corpuscular theory of Democritus, which ac- 
 counted for all physical phenomena by the varieties in size 
 and figure of the ultimate atoms of which all substances are 
 the aggregate. The fortuitous concretions which thus be- 
 came the first cause of all things, had attracted the partiali- 
 ties and won the assent of a sect averse in all things equally 
 to limitation or constraint The Stoics espoused the op- 
 posite doctrine of a one all-pervading substance, a permeating 
 ether, a creative fire, the source of life and law to the mate- 
 rial universe. On this they built their doctrine of a univer- 
 sal providence, excluding chance in the least things as in 
 the greatest, and directing all events by irresistible necessi- 
 ty to the promotion of perfect good. The same hypothesis 
 furnished them with aground for the first principle of their 
 ethical doctrines. " Live according to nature"' is, with the 
 Stoics, the expression of the coincidence which ought to 
 exist between the human will and the universal reason, 
 which, as we have seen, they identified with the life and 
 power of nature. This coincidence is virtue, the only 
 good; as vice, its opposite, is the only evil. All things else 
 are in themselves indifferent ; being approved or disapprov- 
 ed only by comparison. Virtue is the perfect harmony of 
 the soul with itself; vice is, in its essence, inconsistent and 
 self-contradictory. The wise man, the ideal of human per- 
 fection, is absolutely, and without qualification, free. His 
 actions are determined by his free will, with a power as 
 irresistible as that by which universal nature is guided and 
 animated. In the one no less than in the other, freedom 
 and necessity are one. 
 In these doctrines the controversial character to which 
 
 STONE BORERS. 
 
 we have adverted is sufficiently obvious. Much, however, 
 that is exaggerated and paradoxical, both in the tenets of 
 the Stoics and in those of their opponent Epicurus, is to be 
 accounted for by a reference to the political circumstances 
 of the age in which both lived. The pressure of public 
 calamity and the utter extinction of national life in Greece, 
 while they precluded all healthful exercise of the duties of 
 a citizen — duties which had entered so largely into the cal- 
 culation of the earlier Greek moralists — would drive the 
 more virtuous and thoughtful part of mankind to seek in the 
 development of the individual life for that satisfaction 
 which they sought elsewhere in vain. It is easy to con- 
 ceive that the same circumstances which would recommend 
 to minds of a certain order the good-humoured apathy and 
 the tranquil voluptuousness of the garden, might, with men 
 of sterner temperament, be the occasion of drawing forth 
 all the energies of their will, and of placing those energies 
 at once in distincter consciousness to themselves, and in 
 sharper antagonism with the evil that surrounded them. 
 In the declining period of the republic, as well as in the 
 darkest periods of the empire, we find the noblest Romans 
 seeking for consolation in the doctrines of one or the other 
 of these rival sects. Brutus, Seneca, Epictetus, and the 
 philosophic emperor Aurelius, are among the names of the 
 most celebrated Roman Stoics. Little, however, was done 
 by the Romans to advance the speculative part of the stoical 
 philosophy, which was indebted for its systematic form to 
 Cleanthes and Chrysippus. 
 
 The chief sources of information concerning the doctrine 
 of the earlier Stoics are the philosophical works of Cicero; 
 for their logic, the Academic Questions ; for their ethics, 
 the treatise De Finiiu-s, and the Tusculan Questions ; and 
 for their theology and physics, the books De JVatura Deo- 
 rum, and De Fato. See also Diog. Laert., 1. vii. Plutarch, 
 Adv. Stoicos, &c. ; Ritter, Hist, of Ancient Philos. xi., part 5. 
 
 STO'LA. (Gr. aroXrj.) A dress of which the name was 
 borrowed by the Romans from Greece, but acquired in their 
 language a peculiar signification ; being the habit appro- 
 priated to women. It was a long vest, coming down to 
 the ankles; was worn within doors, and covered by the 
 palla or cloak when they went out ; as described by Horace, 
 Sat., 1. i., 2: 
 
 Ad talos stola demissa et circumdata palla. 
 
 Common prostitutes, at least in the age of Horace, were 
 not permitted to wear this distinguishing garb of the Roman 
 lady. The stole is a robe worn by deacons in the Roman 
 Catholic church. See Vestments. 
 
 STOLE, GROOM OF THE. An officer of the king's 
 household in the lord chamberlain's department. He is 
 first lord of the bedchamber: his title is derived from the 
 long robe (stola) worn by his majesty on solemn occasions. 
 His original duty, likewise, was to put the king's shirt on 
 of a morning, which, in his absence, devolved on another 
 lord of the bedchamber. 
 
 STO'MACACE. (Gr. croua, the mouth, and koko$, evil.) 
 A fetor of breath, arising from ulcerated gums. Mouth- 
 washes, with tincture of myrrh and borax, and the internal 
 use of tonics are the remedies which relieve it. 
 
 STO'MACH, Stomachus. (Gr. aroua, the mouth; and 
 Xtw, I melt, from its receiving the contents of the mouth 
 and melting them down into nutriment.) The human 
 stomach is a somewhat oblong and rounded membranous 
 bag, situated in the epigastric region. It is largest on the 
 left side (or cardiac end), and gradually diminishes towards 
 the right or lower orifice, which is called the pylorus. Like 
 the intestines, the stomach has three coats or membranes, 
 connected together by cellular membrane. The exterior or 
 peritonBeal coat is a dense, firm membrane; the internal or 
 villous coat is soft, mucous, and vascular; the central coat 
 is muscular, and the glands of the stomach are situated be- 
 tween it, and the villous coat. The stomach is largely sup- 
 plied with nerves which come from the eighth pair and 
 sympathetic. They are chiefly from the celiac, and are 
 accompanied by veins which empty themselves into the 
 vena porta?. The lymphatics of the stomach proceed di- 
 rectly to the thoracic duct. See Anatomy and Digestion. 
 
 STOMACH PUMP. A small pump or syringe with two 
 apertures, the valves of which are so arranged as to admit 
 of liquids being drawn out of, or injected into the stomach, 
 by means of a flexible tube. 
 
 STO'MAPODS, Stomapoda. (Gr. aroua, a mouth ; trove, 
 afoot.) The name of an order of the class Crustacea, com- 
 prehending those in which the maxillary feet are formed 
 like the first four thoracic feet. 
 
 STO'MATA. Passages through the epidermis of plants 
 having the appearance of an areola, in the centre of which 
 is a slit that opens or closes, according to circumstances, 
 and lies over a cavity in the subjacent tissue. They are 
 universally regarded as spiracles or breathing pores. 
 
 STONE BORERS; called also Lithophagi. Molluscous 
 Bivalves, which, by means of a fleshy foot, on which they 
 tuin as on a pivot, perforate or bore into rocks. 
 
 1183
 
 STONE-CHAT. 
 
 STONE CHAT. A species of warbler, forming the type 
 Si tieola of Bechsteln. It is the Sylvia riW- 
 a thorn; Motacilla rubieola of Linnaus. Also call- 
 ed the "chick stone." 
 
 STONE dWI.I'.W. The name of a large species of 
 plover, the JBdienemut crepitant of Temminck. It appears 
 in England at the latter end of April; frequents open hilly 
 situations; makes no aest, but lays two eggs on the bare 
 ground ; and emigrates in small flocks about the end of Sep- 
 tember. 
 
 STONE GALLS. A technical tenn applied to nodules 
 of clay occurring in sandstone ; they often fall out on ex- 
 posure to weather, and render the stone unfit for architec- 
 tural purposes. 
 
 STONE IN THE BLADDER. See Calculus. 
 
 BTOO'KING. The Scotch term for setting up sheaves 
 of corn in stooks, that is, shocks. The operation is performed 
 soon after the corn is cut; it being previously tied into 
 bunches or sheaves. 
 
 STOOL. The root of a timber tree, which throws up 
 shoots. Coppice wood consists chiefly of the shoots sent up 
 by the roots of stools of trees or shrubs which have been 
 cut over by the surface. In general all Dicotyledonous trees 
 are endowed by nature with the property of sending up 
 shoots from the Stump or stools ; but this is not the case 
 with most of the Gymnosperms or Coniferous trees. A 
 wood of pines or firs, therefore, w-hen once cut down, can 
 never be renewed, except by seeds. 
 
 STO'RAX. A fragrant balsamic exudation from the Li- 
 quidambar styraciflua. It is generally much adulterated. 
 
 STORK. An English name, equivalent to the Ciconia of 
 modern ornithologists. The white stork (Ciconia alba) is 
 that species which visits, though rarely, in England. 
 
 STORM. The causes of those violent commotions of the 
 atmosphere to which we give the names of storms, tem- 
 pests, hurricanes, tornados, &c, are involved in great ob- 
 scurity, chiefly from the difficulty of obtaining a precise 
 knowledge of the various circumstances with which they 
 are accompanied. In order to ascertain the general laws 
 of these phenomena, it would be necessary to determine, in 
 a great number of particular instances, the place and time 
 at which the storm begins and ends, the path it describes. 
 the extent of atmosphere disturbed, the direction and force 
 of the wind, and the baromelic pressure at every part of the 
 disturbed column during the whole lime of its continuance. 
 But several of these points could only be determined from 
 the comparison of a great number of simultaneous observa- 
 tions on that tract of the earth's surface over which the 
 storm passes ; while, from the nature of the thing to be ob- 
 served, it is evident that a few insulated observations is the 
 most that can be expected in almost any case. Besides, a 
 storm for the most part passes over some part of the sea, 
 where, unless a ship unfortunately happens to he caught in 
 it, no observation can be made, or even evidence he obtained 
 of its existence. 
 
 It is in the torrid zone fhnt storms display the greatest 
 violence, and rage with most destructive fury. In our lati- 
 tudes they are comparatively rare, nnd in the polar regions 
 they seldom amount to mole than a stronc wind. 
 
 Until recently it was generally believed that during a 
 hurricane the wind, at every part of the agitated mass, blows 
 in a rectilinear and parallel direction, and n storm was con- 
 sidered to be sufficiently explained when it was described 
 as a wind blowing with a velocity of 100 or 120 miles in an 
 hour. A comparison of the recorded accounts of the cir- 
 cumstano 9 attending several storms has of late years shown 
 that this idea was erroneous, and that the phenomena are 
 considerably more complicated. 
 
 Franklin appears to have been the first who remarked 
 that storms Dave) in a direction opposite to the actual move- 
 ment of the wind at the time the storm is raging ; and he 
 ascribed the phenomenon to a great but partial rarefaction 
 of the air. arising from the sudden precipitation of vapours, 
 or other causes, the consequence of which would necessa- 
 rily be a Simultaneous rush of wind from nil quarters to fill 
 up the vacuity : and the mass of air being thus set in mo- 
 tion by a sort of aspiration, the gale will In' first felt at those 
 places towards which it blows. (Letters and Papers on 
 Philosophical Subject - . In a work on winds and monsoons, 
 published in 1801, Colonel Capper was led from a com- 
 panion of the details respecting the hurricanes nt Pondi- 
 cherry and Madras in 1760 and 1T7H, to remark that these 
 hurricanes must have been whirlwinds, whose diameters 
 could not exceed 130 miles, and that the velocity of the 
 wind at any point was due to the rotatory velocity of the 
 vortex. lie also supposed that, besides the gyratory move- 
 ment which tonus the characteristic of the whirlwind, a 
 storm has probably also progressive motion. Colonel Cap 
 I' • speculations, however, appear to have met with little 
 
 noil until the subject was taken up by Mr. Redfield of 
 New-York, Who, in a series of papers recently published 
 iu the American journals, has diligently collected and ex- 
 1J84 
 
 STORM. 
 
 amined a great number of observations relative to the storms 
 of the West Indies and North American coasts, and arrived 
 at similar conclusions. The following general phenom- 
 ena appear to be established: 1. The severest hurricanes 
 originate in tropical latitudes to the north or east of the 
 West India Islands. 2. They cover simultaneously an ex- 
 tent of surface from 100 to 150 miles in diameter, acting with 
 diminished violence towards the exterior, and increased 
 energy towards the interior of that space. 3. The tract 
 over which the hurricane passes is not a straight line. 
 South of the parallel of 30° north latitude, it proceeds in a 
 westerly course inclined to the north; but when it comes 
 to about this parallel, it changes rather abruptly to the 
 north and eastward, and continues to incline gradually more 
 to the east. The average progressive velocity appears to 
 be from fifteen to twenty-rive miles per hour. 4. The du- 
 ration of a storm at any particular place depends, of course, 
 on the extent of the mass of agitated air, and the progres- 
 sive velocity ; and storms of smaller extent move with even 
 greater rapidity than large ones. 5. The direction of the 
 wind in a hurricane is not in the direction of its progress. 
 When the progressive motion of the storm is westward, the 
 wind at the commencement is from a northern qnarter, and 
 during the latter part of the gale from a southern quarter of 
 the horizon. When the progressive motion is eastward, 
 the phenomena are reversed ; the wind blows at first from 
 a southern quarter, and towards the end of the gale from a 
 northern quarter of the horizon. 
 
 From these phenomena, and particularly the last, Mr. 
 Redfield concludes that the great body of the storm whirls 
 in a horizontal circuit round a vertical or somewhat in- 
 clined axis of rotation, which is carried forward with the 
 storm ; and that to a spectator placed at the centre the di- 
 rection of the rotation is invariably from rig-ht to left. It is 
 to be understood, however, that the phenomena now de- 
 scribed and the conclusion drawn from them apply only to 
 the northern hemisphere. 
 
 Another fact deserving of attention is, that the barometer, 
 in all latitudes, sinks during the first half of the storm in 
 every part of its track, and rises during the second. This 
 phenomenon is ascribed to the effects of the centrifugal 
 force of rotation; and such is the regularity of its occur- 
 rence, that it has been considered as affording of itself a 
 stronc proof of the rotatory character of the motion. 
 
 Colonel Reid, of the engineers, having been officially em- 
 ployed to restore the government buildings at Barbadoes 
 blown down by the great hurricane of 1831, was led to in- 
 vestigate the subject generally; and in his work, entitled 
 .fin Attempt to Develop the Laics of Storms, A'-c, he has col- 
 lected anil given the results of an immense number of de- 
 tails, obtained from an examination of ships' logs furnished 
 to him by the admiralty, and other sources. These results 
 he considers as confirming in all respects the conclusions 
 of Mr. Redfield respecting the gyratory motion of the gate 
 from right to left; its progressive motion in a curve line, 
 fust westward, and then towards the north and east ; the 
 position of the vertex of the curve at or near the 110th de- 
 gree of latitude; and the fall of the barometer during the 
 first half of the storm, and its rise during the second. Colonel 
 Reid has also given an account of several great hurricanes 
 in the southern hemisphere, from which it appears that the 
 southern storms follow exactly the same laws as the north- 
 ern, but in a reversed order. The direction of the rotation 
 is from left to right; the centre of the gyrating mass ad- 
 vances first eastwards, then turns towards the south, and 
 falls off towards the south-west and west, the vertex of the 
 curve being at the ,10th degree of south latitude. In the 
 northern hemisphere, the West Indies, and Atlantic coast of 
 North America appear to be the places where storms most 
 frequently rage ; in the southern, the focus of storms ap- 
 pears to he placed near the Mauritius. 
 
 The uniformity of the direction of the rotatory motion of 
 the hurricane, and its opposite direction in the opposite 
 hemispheres, was explained by Mr. Redfield from theoreti- 
 cal considerations respecting the origin of storms, which he 
 supposes to be produced by the mingling and collision of 
 two atmospherical currents near the outer border of the 
 trade winds; namely, the superior or equatorial stream, 
 and the polar stream, which constitutes the trades. On 
 
 looking at the curves representing the paths of the hurri- 
 canes on tln> charts projected by Mr. Redfield and Colonel 
 Keid, it is difficult not to believe that the direction of their 
 
 progressive motion is mainly determined by the configura- 
 tion of the American continent. 
 
 The fact of the whirling character of storms has been 
 controverted by Mr. Espy, another American writer on the 
 
 subject, who advocates Franklin's theory of progressive 
 
 motion in radial lines. Mr. Espy states, that on comparing 
 simultaneous observations in the middle of storms and all 
 round their borders, he found that the wind blows inward on 
 all sides of a storm towards the central parts — towards a 
 point, it the storm bo round; and if oblong, towards a line
 
 STORTHING. 
 
 extending through its greatest diameter; and that he had 
 traced the effects of seventeen storms, without finding a 
 single exception to the general rule. Professor Bache, of 
 Philadelphia, maintains the same opinion ; and has de- 
 scribed a tornado which occurred at New Brunswick in 
 1835, in which he could find no proof of rotation, the ob- 
 jects thrown down by the wind being all directed to a 
 centre. It is not improbable that there may be hurricanes 
 of both characters. An outline of Mr. Espy's theory is 
 given hi the Report of the British Association for 1840. 
 
 Independently of the interest which attaches to the sub- 
 ject in a meteorological point of view, a knowledge of the 
 general laws which regulate the phenomena of storms 
 would be of immense importance, inasmuch as it would en- 
 able the navigator to avoid those tracts of the ocean in 
 which they chiefly prevail at particular seasons, or at least, 
 it" surprised by a storm, to steer on the course by which he 
 may soonest escape from it or fall into its wake. On either 
 theory the direction of the wind at the commencement of 
 the gale must indicate, with considerable certainty, the 
 quarter where the storm is raging with greatest fury. (See, 
 in addition to the works already cited, Silliman's Journal 
 from 1831 ; Prof. Forbes's Reports on Meteorology, in the 
 Reports of the British Association for 1832 and 1840 ; and 
 the Edin. Review, vol. lxviii.) See also Wind. 
 
 STO'RTHIXG. The parliament of Norway. It is elect- 
 ed once in three years, and sits every year for the despatch 
 of business. The election is double ; every qualified per- 
 son (an owner or liferenter of land paying taxes in the 
 country, and every one possessing land or houses of 150 rlx 
 dollars value in towns) joining in the election of councillors, 
 who elect out of their own body the representatives of the 
 country. These must be from 75 to 100 in number. The 
 storthing, when elected, divides itself into two houses : one 
 fourth, chosen by the rest, joining the laything, or upper 
 house ; the remainder the odelsthing, or lower house. The 
 storthing has the usual powers of a legislative assembly in 
 a constitutional country, and the king has only a suspensive 
 veto; which, if the storthing passes a law three times in 
 Bix successive years, becomes of no effect. 
 
 STORY. In Architecture, a subdivision of the height of 
 a house, comprehending the height ascended by one flight 
 of stairs. 
 
 STORY POST. In Architecture, a vertical post to sup- 
 port a floor or superincumbent wall. 
 
 STOVE. (Dutch, stove.) A receptacle for the combus- 
 tion of fuel for the purpose of heating houses, &c. The 
 common fire-grate for the combustion of coal, with its vari 
 ous appendages, is generally called a stove ; hence register 
 stoves, Bath stoves, &c. These are often, and indeed gen- 
 erally, very unscientifically constructed, and calculated to 
 consume a large quantity of fuel, with a proportionate 
 waste of heat. They are generally intended to diffuse 
 warmth principally or entirely by radiation, and should be 
 placed as near the ground as possible ; while the different 
 parts into the contact of which the burning fuel is brought 
 should be of fire-brick, or some similar composition, which 
 is a bad conductor but a good radiator of heat. It is mani- 
 fest that in our common fireplaces the enormous volume 
 of hot air which passes up the chimney is not available as 
 a source of heat; hence, in colder climates, and where 
 greater economy of fuel is studied, the fireplace is frequent- 
 ly closed in, and contained in an iron box which projects 
 into the room, while the heated air before it finally enters 
 the chimney is made to circulate through tubes or pipes, to 
 which it communicates much of its excess of heat, and 
 these again impart it to the surrounding air. What are 
 termed German stoves are usually made upon such princi- 
 ples ; and in them the fuel is often introduced, and the air 
 required for the support of its combustion admitted, on the 
 outside of the room in which the stove with its flues and 
 heating surfaces is placed. 
 
 In AmotVs stoves the heat is similarly but more scien- 
 tifically economized. There is only enough air admitted 
 to keep up the slow combustion of the fuel, and the heat is 
 communicated to the radiating surfaces of the stove ; so that 
 before the air which has passed through the fuel finally 
 enters the chimney it has been deprived of the greater part 
 of its available heat. These stoves are also so constructed 
 as, by means of thermometric or self-acting registers, to ad- 
 just with much nicety the supply of air, so that neither 
 more nor less may enter than is required to maintain the 
 combustion of a given quantity of fuel. 
 
 In Fcetham's air-stoves the common open fire is retain- 
 ed ; but the heat is to a certain extent economized by causing 
 the hot air, before it enters the chimney, to communicate a 
 portion of its heat to an iron box, over which a current of 
 air pass s nd is sent warm info the room. 
 
 It is manifest that our common open fires must act as 
 powerful ventilators, and that the large quantity of air 
 which is driven up the chimney must be suppliedin some 
 way or other through the apartment in which the fire is 
 
 STRAINING PIECE. 
 
 burning. This supply of air is generally left to chance, 
 and finds its way into the room by crevices in the doorways 
 and window sashes, or between the boards of the floor, or 
 any similar accidental passage through which it can make 
 its way ; and as, in London at least, the air always abounds 
 in fuliginous particles, these are carried in along with it, 
 and show its track by the blacks which it deposits. It' this 
 supply of air is inadequate, and it generally is so in new 
 and well-built houses, in consequence of the tightness of 
 the doors, windows, and floors, the chimney of necessity 
 smokes, and the door or window requires to be left open to 
 prevent such an effect. This evil may usually be effectual- 
 ly prevented by admitting fresh air from without through 
 some proper and adequate channel, and various ornamental 
 or concealed apertures may be contrived for the purpose ; 
 in the best arrangement of which, however, much practical 
 as well as theoretical skill is often essential. 
 
 When rooms are warmed by German or Arnott's stoves, 
 the ventilating powers of which are very inferior to the 
 open grate, ventilation requires to be strictly attended to. 
 Where buildings are warmed by currents of hot air sent up 
 from stoves on the basement story, great attention should 
 also be paid to ventilation ; and in such cases the leading 
 object should be to send in a large volume of air very mod- 
 erately heated (to about 100°), rather than a small quanti- 
 ty of very hot air; the latter does not readily mix with the 
 surrounding cold air, but forms a distinct and rapidly ascend- 
 ing column, which does not diffuse itself where most want- 
 ed; and it is apt to have a disagreeable and burned odour, 
 arising from the charring of the particles of organic dust 
 which are carried with the air over the too highly heated 
 surfaces of the stove or flues. A little aqueous vapour, 
 sent in along with the warm air by placing a saucer of 
 water in some convenient situation, is often effectual in 
 preventing the disagreeable sensation occasioned by respi- 
 ring too dry an atmosphere. 
 
 Stove. In Horticulture, a structure in which plants are 
 cultivated that require a considerably higher temperature 
 than the open air in Britain and similar climates. There 
 are two or three kinds of stoves, but the principal are the 
 dry stove and the damp stove. The dry stove is a struc- 
 ture, the atmosphere of which is heated to the temperature 
 of from 55° to 60° during winter, in which are chiefly cul- 
 tivated succulents ; such as the different species of Cere- 
 tus, Ccreus, Staphelia, Euphorbia, Mesembryanthemum, and 
 other succulents having similar habits. During winter 
 these plants require very little water, and during summer 
 they require intense heat, and abundance of air and water 
 during fine weather. The damp stove, sometimes also call- 
 ed the bark stove, requires a temperature of between 60° 
 and 70° during winter, with a proportionate increase during 
 summer, accompanied, in both seasons, with a high de- 
 gree of atmospherical moisture. This moisture is produced 
 partly by evaporation from the bark bed in which the plants 
 are plunged, but chiefly by watering the floor of the house, 
 and by syringing the plants. During summer the plants in 
 the bark stove require all the light which the atmosphere 
 in this country is capable of producing, together with abun- 
 dance of air, as in the dry stove. Both stoves are heated 
 by smoke flues, or by hot water or steam, circulated in me- 
 tallic or other tubes. The plants cultivated in the moist 
 stove are exclusively those of the tropics ; and those which 
 require the highest degree of heat are chiefly Monocotyle- 
 donous plants, such as the Scitamineee, which include the 
 ginger, plantain, banana, sugar cane, palms, Orchidacea ; 
 and such Dicotyledonous plants as the bread fruit, the jam, 
 mangosteen, and other East Indian plants. The bark hed 
 is chiefly employed for producing a uniform degree of mois- 
 ture and heat to the roots, and also as a reservoir of heat 
 for the atmosphere of the house in case of any diminution 
 from the flues, water or steam pipes, or the sun. Stoves 
 of every description require a constant degree of attention 
 from the gardener throughout the year, more especially 
 such as are devoted to the palms, the banana, the pine ap- 
 ple, and the Orchidacem. 
 
 STRABI'SMUS. [Gl. <npa(SiC,eiv, to squint.) An unna- 
 tural obliquity in the axis of the eye, arising from various 
 causes. It may often be, to a great extent, overcome, espe- 
 cially in children, by blindfolding the sound eye, presuming 
 one only to be affected. In very bad cases, especially those 
 of squinting inward, and such are by far the most common, 
 an operation which has lately been introduced is often ef- 
 fectual in greatly relie\ing the deformity ; it consists in di- 
 viding the internal rectus muscle of the eyeball, which is 
 done by a proper scissors without externally wounding the 
 evelid. 
 
 "STRAIGHT ARCH. In Architecture, the arch over an 
 aperture, whose intrados is straight, but with its joints 
 drawn concentricallv, as in a common arch. 
 
 STRAIGHT JOINT FLOOR. In Architecture. See 
 Floor. 
 STRAI'NEVG PIECE. In Architecture, a piece of tim- 
 4E 1185
 
 STRAIT. 
 
 her. whose office is to prevent the nearer approach of two 
 pieces of timber in an assemhl ige of framing; such is the 
 collar in a queen-post roof. Set Roof. 
 
 STRAIT, in Geography, signifies a narrow pass or frith 
 separating one country from another 
 
 ST RAM ON V. or TIH IBM APPLE. The Datura Stra- 
 vtonium ; an indigenous narcotic plant, the seeds and leaves 
 of which are used in medicine. The dried leaves are oc- 
 casionally smoked, like tobacco, for the relief of spasmodic 
 asthma ; and an extract of the seeds is used as a sedative 
 in gome painful chronic atfections. See Daturia. 
 
 STRANGURY. (Gr. crpayl, a drop, and ovpov, urine.) 
 A difficulty in voiding urine. 
 
 STRATH, in Scotland, is generally understood to signify 
 a valley of considerable size, whose appellation is deter- 
 mined by some river running through it, or some particular 
 characteristic. 
 
 STRATUM. When different rocks lie in succession 
 upon each other, each individual forms a stratum. See 
 Gkolooy. 
 
 STREAK. The appearance which arises from scratch- 
 ing a mineral with the point of a knife. The streak is 
 similar when the colour of the scratch is the same as that 
 of the mineral, hut dissimilar when the colour varies. 
 
 STREAM TIN. Native oxide of tin, or tinstone, which 
 is found in rounded particles and masses, mixed with other 
 alluvial matters. The finest grain tin is procured from this 
 ore. 
 
 STRE'LITZ. (Rus. plural strelitzy, said to be derived 
 from strelai ; It. strale, an arrow.) A soldier of the ancient 
 Muscovite militia was so called. The strelitzy were the 
 only standing army of the empire ; and, like the Turkish 
 janissaries, constantly Interfered with its government. 
 Their last revolt was in 1698, during the absence of the 
 Czar Peter I., who, on his return, cashiered the corps alto- 
 gether. 
 
 STRENGTH, in Mechanics, is used in the same sense as 
 force or power. Thus strength of animals is the muscular 
 force or energy which animals are capable of exerting ; 
 strength of materials is the resistance which bodies oppose 
 to a force acting upon them. 
 
 Strength of Animals. — It is obviously a matter of much 
 Importance to be able to estimate with tolerable accuracy 
 the effort which an animal of tin- average strength employ- 
 ed in labour is capable of exerting, and accordingly very 
 numerous observations have been made on the subject ; 
 but this species of force is subject to variation from so great 
 a number of circumstances, both physical and mechanical, 
 that the results given by different authors present very lit- 
 tle agreement with each other, though they are of great 
 value as affording data for determining the modes in which 
 animal labour is most advantageoush employed. 
 
 The force which an animal is capable of exerting against 
 an obstacle is greatest when the animal stands still. When 
 it begins to move, a considerable part of its strength is ex- 
 pended in the transference of its own body ; and the greater 
 the velocity with which it moves, the less will be the load 
 which it is capable of transporting. There must, also, be 
 a certain velocity at which it can only move when it car- 
 ries no load. Now, if from the total effect of the muscular 
 force exerted we subtract the part which represents the 
 transference of the weight of the animal's body, the re- 
 mainder, which is called the useful effrct. will be 'obviously 
 measured by the load which the animal is capable of trans- 
 porting to a given distance in a given time ; therefore, put- 
 ting 10 = the weight, v = the velocity, and t — the time, 
 the useful effect is represented by the product w V t. and 
 will !>e greatest when this product is a maximum. In or- 
 der to determine this maximum it is necessary to establish 
 a relation between w and v (for the time t may be taken as 
 unity). The empirical formula given by Euler for repre- 
 senting the relation between the load and the moving power 
 in machines generally may be adopted for this purpose, as 
 it has been found to agree tolerably well With experiment. 
 Let P denote the power of the animal, or the greatest load 
 it is capable of moving, ami c the neatest Velocity with 
 which it can move unloaded; then the equation between 
 
 *> and Bisa> = P^l ) ; and the product w v becomes 
 
 a maximum when 3 v=zc, or v is one third of c. See Ma- 
 chime. 
 
 In order to compare the effects produced by different ani- 
 mals, or by the same animal under different circumstances, 
 i! If usual to express the effect numerically in terms of some 
 Conventional Unit, which, as being the measure of a lone, 
 is called the dynamic unit. Tims, in the product 10 v t, we 
 call hi =1 lb., -i> = 1 foot, and t=l minute; the measure 
 Of tin t',,rce will be the effort necessary to raise or trans- 
 port a pound through one ii,ot of spue In one minute of 
 time. For example, DesagUlien asserts that a man can 
 raise a hogshead of water 10 feet high in a minute. Now 
 1186 
 
 STRENGTH. 
 
 a hogshead of water, vessel included, weighs about 550 
 lbs.; and 550 lbs. raised through 10 feet must require the 
 same exertion of muscular force as 5500 lbs. raised through 
 one foot; therefore, the useful effect, which in this cast Is 
 the whole effort, as the man stands still, is expressed bj 
 ,V)iHl dynamic units, and may thus be compared with any 
 other effort Which is ca]iable of being similarly expressed. 
 Instead of a pound, a foot, and a minute, we might assume 
 a hundred weight, a yard, a day, or any other denomina- 
 tions that may be convenient. 
 
 Strength of .Mm. — The measure of human force has 
 been the subject of numerous experiments, principally by 
 Desaguliers. Labile. Guenyveau, Coulomb, Schulze, Bu- 
 chanan, &.c, whose results may be found in mo. t treatises 
 on practical mechanics. These results diner very widely, 
 as indeed might be expected, considering the very great 
 differences of the force which ditferent individuals are ca- 
 pable of exerting — dillerences which depend not only upon 
 age, constitution, and habit, but even upon climate, tem- 
 pera i ure, and food. 
 
 Of the different modes of estimating human strength, the 
 most practically useful is the observation of the average 
 effect produced daily by a labourer who continues his ex- 
 ertions for a number of successive days. We shall state a 
 few of the results; and for the sake of comparison reduce 
 them to dynamic units, assuming the unit to be 1000 lbs. 
 avoirdupois transported to the distance ol' one foot in one 
 minute. 
 
 According to Coulomb, a man walking on a level road 
 may travel at the rate of 30 miles per day, or 964 feet per 
 minute, and continue his exertions II) hours a day. Taking 
 the weight of the man at 150 lbs., the quantity of action is 
 23,760 dynamic units. 
 
 It instead of walking on a level road he mounts a stair, 
 the velocity is reduced to 26- 4 feet per minute, and the la- 
 bour can be continued only 8 hours a day. In this case, 
 the effect produced is 1901 dynamic units. 
 
 A man walking on a level road, and carrying on his back 
 a weight of 90 lbs., travels at the rate of a mile and a half 
 per hour, or 132 feet per minute, and continues his exertions 
 7 hours per day. The useful effect is consequently 4989 
 dynamic units. 
 
 A man climbing a stair, and carrying on his back a load 
 equal to his own weight or 150 lbs., proceeds at an average 
 rate of only 7 feet per minute, during rj hours a day. The 
 useful etiiet is consequently 378 dynamic units. 
 
 A labourer transporting materials in a wheelbarrow, and 
 returning unloaded for a fresh burden, transports a load of 
 130 lbs. with a velocity of 90 feet per minute, working 10 
 hours a day. The useful etl'ect is consequently 7020 dyna- 
 mic units. 
 
 The force which man exerts in dragging a load has been 
 variously estimated. Schulze estimates the absolute effect, 
 or that which the man can exert for a short time without 
 moving, as equal to a pressure of about 107 lbs. ; Bernoulli 
 at 75 lbs. ; and Guenyveau found the absolute force of 
 traction, when exerted by means of a rope passing over the 
 shoulder, to be from 110 to 132 lbs. Allowing the accuracy 
 of Euler's formula above given, and assuming the action to 
 be a maximum when the velocity is 2 miles per hour, we 
 shall have c = 6; and if we also assume the absolute force 
 P = 72 lbs., then the formula will become ic = 2 (0 — v)i, 
 in which is represents the number of pounds corresponding 
 to the force developed when the velocity is v miles per 
 hour. Thus when v = 0, we have 10 = 72 lbs. ; when v = 2, 
 we have 10 = 32 lbs.; and when the velocity is 4 miles per 
 hour, the force of traction becomes 8 lbs. In the extreme 
 cases the formula is inaccurate, but for moderate velocities 
 it alii nils a tolerable approximation. 
 
 The greatest velocity with which a man can walk for a 
 length of time, having no load to drag, is, according to 
 Schulze, 537 feet per second ; accordinz to Bernoulli, tr56 
 feet ; according to Guenyveau, from fcSti to 984 feet per 
 second, or from 4J to 6$ miles per hour. 
 
 According to Mr. Buchanan (Repertory ef Arts, vo\. xv.), 
 the effective strengths of men in working a pump, in turn- 
 ing a winch, in ringing a bell, and rowing a boat, are re- 
 spectively as the numbers 100, 167, 227, 248. The last is 
 one of the most advantageous modes in which human force 
 can he exerted. 
 
 Porters In London carry from 200 Iks. to 300 lbs. at the 
 rate of 3 miles per hour ; chairmen walk at the rate of 4 
 miles an hour wilh a load of 150 lbs. each ; and it is said 
 Ibat an Albanian porler will carry from 7(10 to 900 lbs., 
 Stooping forward and assisting his steps with a short stall". 
 
 The following results of experiments on the comparative 
 
 strength of men of different countries, with Regnler's dyna- 
 mometer, are given by M. Peron : — England, 714; France, 
 li'.ij; Timor, 58'7; Van Die-man's Land, 518; New Hol- 
 land, 50* 
 
 Strength of Horses and other Quadrupeds. — Of all ani- 
 mals employed as first movers, the horse is, beyond ques-
 
 STRENGTH. 
 
 tloa. Ihe most useful, and that whose labour is susceptible 
 of the most numerous and varied applications. It is there- 
 fore very important to ascertain his average force ; and ac- 
 cordingly a great number of estimates have been publish- 
 ed, both of the amount of labour he is capable of perform- 
 ing, and of his absolute muscular power. For the purpose 
 of determining the latter, the dynamometer may be con- 
 veniently used ; but as the action of the animal is very 
 quickly reduced by continued exertion, it is more usual to 
 estimate it according to the amount of daily labour perform- 
 ed. Desaguliers and Smeaton estimate the strength ot a 
 horse as equivalent to that of five men j the French authors 
 have commonly stated it as equal to that of seven men ; 
 and Schulze makes it equal to that of fourteen men in 
 drawing horizontally. According to Desaguliers, a horse's 
 power is equivalent' to 44,000 lbs. raised 1 foot high in one 
 minute; Smeaton makes this number 22,916; Hachette 
 28,000, and Watt 33,000. This last estimate is what is com- 
 monly understood by the term horse power as applied to 
 steam engines. 
 
 The quantity of action which a horse can exert dimin- 
 ishes as the duration of the labour is prolonged. Tredgold 
 gives the following table, showing the average maximum 
 velocity with which a horse unloaded can travel, accord- 
 ing to the number of hours per day : 
 
 Time of March, 
 in Hours. 
 
 Greatest Velocity 
 per Hour, in 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Time of March, 
 in Hours. 
 
 Greatest Velocity 
 
 per Hour, in 
 
 Miles. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 3 
 
 4 
 5 
 
 14-7 
 10-4 
 
 8-5 
 7-3 
 6-6 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 60 
 5-5 
 5-2 
 4 9 
 46 
 
 The useful ettect a horse is capable of producing depends 
 much on the manner in which his strength is applied. One 
 of the best modes is to make him draw a loaded carriage. 
 The carriers in Scotland usually transport in a single-horse 
 cart weighing about 7 cwt., the load of a ton, and travel at 
 the rate of 22 miles per day. Neglecting the weight of the 
 animal and of the cart, and supposing the journey to be ac- 
 complished in 10 hours, the useful effect reduced to dy- 
 namic units (1000 lbs. one foot in one minute) is 200,198 dy- 
 namic units. 
 
 Navier gives the following results: A horse drawing in a 
 cart a load of 1540 lbs. (700 kilogrammes) travels at the 
 rate of 216A feet per minute, during 10 hours per day. Here 
 the usefuferi'ect is 200,046. 
 
 A horse harnessed in a coach, and drawing a load of 770 
 lbs. avoirdupois, goes at a trot at the rate of 433 feet per 
 minute, during 4i hours per day. The useful effect is con- 
 sequently 90,020. 
 
 A horse carrying on his back a load of 264 lbs. can travel 
 at the rate of 216.J feet per minute, 10 hours a day. The 
 useful effect is 34,294 dynamic units. Going at a trot wilh 
 double the velocity, during seven hours a day, and carrying 
 a load of 176 lbs., the useful effect is 32,007. 
 
 A horse harnessed in a mill, going at a pace of 195 feet 
 per minute, and exercising a force equal to a pressure of 99 
 lbs., during eight hours a day, produces a useful effect rep- 
 resented by 9266 dynamic units. 
 
 On the strength of mules, oxen, and the other animals 
 employed in industry, there are few correct observations. 
 The following are the principal results : Taking the useful 
 effect of the daily labour of a man according to Coulomb's 
 estimate as unity, then the comparative effects of the la- 
 bour of some of the other animals applied in the same 
 manner are thus estimated: 
 
 For carrying loads in a horizontal plane. 
 Strength of a man ... 1 (Coulomb.) 
 " of a horse . . 48 (Brunacci.) 
 " of a horse . . 6'1 (Wesermann.) 
 " of a mule . . 76 (Brunacci.) 
 
 For transporting burdens with a wheel carriage. 
 Man with a barrow . . 1 (Coulomb.) 
 Horse in a four wheel wagon 175 (Wesermann.) 
 Horse with a cart . . . 243 (Brunacci.) 
 Mule with a cart . . . 233 (Brunacci.) 
 Ox with a cart . . . 122 (Brunacci.) 
 
 The above comparisons are probably nearer the truth 
 than the following, which are usually quoted from Hassen- 
 fratz {Encyclopedic Methodique) : 
 
 In carrying loads on a horizontal plane. 
 
 Strength of a man 
 
 " of a horse . 8 
 " of a mule . 8 
 " of an ass . 4 
 " of a camel . 31 
 In drawing a weight along a horizontal plane 
 
 Strength of a dromedary 
 of an elephant 
 of a dog 
 of a reindeer 
 
 147 
 1 
 3 
 
 Strength of a man 
 " of a horse 
 " of a mule 
 " of an ass 
 
 Strength of an ox 
 of a dog 
 of a reindeer 
 
 4 to 7 
 . 0-6 
 . 02 
 
 STRENGTH OF MATERIALS. 
 
 On the subject of animal power and the best modes of its 
 employment, reference may be made to the following works: 
 Coulomb, Sur la Force des Homines {Mem. de l\Scad.) ; 
 Prony, Architecture Nydraulique ; Hachette, Traite des 
 Machines ; Guenyveau, Essai sur la Science des Machines ; 
 Coriolis, Calcul.de I' Effet des Machines ; Borgnis, Traite de 
 la Composition des Machines ; Wesermann, Taschenbuch 
 fur Strassen und (Vegbaubeamte. 
 
 STRENGTH OF MATERIALS. The force with which 
 a solid body resists an effort to separate its particles, or de- 
 stroy their aggregation, can only become known from ex- 
 periment ; nevertheless, if we assume an hypothesis to rep- 
 resent the manner in which the elementary particles are 
 aiTanged and cohere, general formula; may be deduced, 
 which will represent the comparative strength of bodies of 
 different forms and dimensions, or submitted to the action 
 of forces applied in different manners, and will consequent- 
 ly be of great use in practical mechanics. 
 
 There are four different ways in which the strength of a 
 solid body may be exerted : first, in resisting a longitudinal 
 tension, or force tending to tear it asunder ; secondly, in re- 
 sisting a force tending to break the body by a transverse 
 strain ; thirdly, in resisting compression, or a force tending 
 to crush the body ; and fourthly, in resisting a force tend- 
 ing to wrench it asunder by torsion. We shall consider 
 these separately. 
 
 1. Longitudinal Tension. — The resistance opposed by a 
 solid body to a longitudinal strain is usually termed the ab- 
 solute strength, or force of direct cohesion, of the body. 
 Two points may be proposed for investigation ; first, to de- 
 termine the quantity by which a body of a given length is 
 stretched or elongated under the action of a given force or 
 weight; and, secondly, the effect required to separate the 
 parts or produce rupture. Experiments have usually been 
 directed to the last of these only, but the first may be deter- 
 mined indirectly from experiments on flexure. In bodies 
 of a fibrous structure, as the woods, the cohesive force dif- 
 fers greatly, according as the effect is applied in the direc- 
 tion of the'fibres, or at right angles to it. When the strain 
 is exerted in the direction of the fibres, the cohesive force 
 obviously depends on two circumstances only— the strength 
 of each fibre, and their number; and, in general, in bodies 
 of the same substance and structure, the strength is propor- 
 tional to the transverse area of the body, and to a certain 
 constant which must be determined by experiment. 
 
 Suppose the body to be a prism or cylinder, and let A be 
 the area in square inches of a section perpendicular to its 
 length, or to the direction of the force ; W the weight in 
 pounds which produces rupture ; and s the absolute strength 
 of the substance, or the weight in pounds which would 
 overcome the cohesive force of a rod whose transverse sec- 
 tion is one square inch ; then W = s A, or s = W —■ A. In 
 a rectangular beam whose breadth and thickness are re- 
 spectively a and b, we have A = ab; whence W = sai, 
 and s — XV + ab. In a cylindrical rod whose radius is r, 
 we have A = ir 2 (7r=3'14159) ; whence VV = sir 2 , and 
 *=: XV -i-irr 2 . 
 
 Under the term Cohesion, we have already given a table 
 of the values of s in respect of different woods and metals. 
 For farther information the reader is referred to Barlow's 
 Treatise on the Strength of Timber, &c. (1837) ; but a much 
 more ample collection of experimental results will be found 
 in the work of Navier, Resume des Lecons, fyc, sur V Appli- 
 cation de la Mecanique d V Etablissement des Constructions 
 et des Machines. We may remark, that although the lon- 
 gitudinal tension is, with respect to mechanical action, the 
 simplest of all the strains to which a solid body can be sub- 
 jected, it is the most difficult to submit to experiment, by 
 reason of the enormous forces required to produce rupture, 
 and, in the case of fibrous bodies, the difficulty of applying 
 those forces in the direct line of the fibres. If the fibres 
 are not all subjected to the same strain, it is obvious that 
 the direct cohesion will be estimated at less than its real 
 value ; and, as Mr. Barlow remarks, it is probably owing to 
 this circumstance that so little agreement is found in the 
 results of experiments. 
 
 2. Transverse Strength.— -When a body suffers a trans- 
 verse strain, the mechanical action which takes place 
 among the particles is of a more complicated nature. Gali- 
 leo was the first who attempted to give a rational explana- 
 tion of this action, arid to submit the strength of the mate- 
 rials used in the mechanical arts to the measures of geom- 
 etry and arithmetic. He assumed that all solid bodies are 
 composed of numerous small parallel fibres, perfectly in- 
 flexible and inextensible ; and that when they break, the 
 several fibres give way in succession, the body turning on 
 the last, which give way as on a hinge, and the strain on 
 each fibre, previous to the rupture, being proportional to its 
 distance from the quiescent fibres. From this it follows 
 that the resistance of a beam to a transverse strain is in 
 the compound ratio of the strength of the individual fibres, 
 the area of the cross section, and the distance of the centre 
 
 1187
 
 STRENGTH OF MATERIALS. 
 
 rif gravity of the cross section from the points round which 
 the beam turns in breaking. 
 
 The first who attempted to submit the theory of Galileo 
 to actual experiment was Manotte, whose results were 
 published in his TraiU mr lea Mouvemmts det Eavx, 1680. 
 
 These experiments attracted the attention of Leibnitz, who, 
 in the Mcta Emditorwn tor 1684, pointed out detects of the 
 theory, and proposed a difiennl hypothesis. Leibnitz as- 
 
 BUmea that every body before it breaks admits of a certain 
 degree of extension, and consequently the fibres are neither 
 inrit rible nor inextensible. lie farther assumes a principle 
 first proposed by Hooke, namely, that the stremrth of each 
 fibre under the action of a straining force varies with the 
 degree of extension, or is proportional to the distance of the 
 fibre from the fixed point about which the beam is supposed 
 to turn. In this hypothesis, the beam is still supposed to 
 turn about its upper or lower edge, or that all the fibres, 
 excepting the quiescent ones, are in a state of tension; al- 
 though it had been remarked by Mariotte (and is, indeed, 
 sufficiently obvious) that when flexure takes place part of 
 the fibres only are in a state of tension, another part being 
 compressed, so that the line about which the beam turns is 
 somewhere within the section of fracture. Professor Robi- 
 son appears to have been the first who distinctly showed 
 that the position of the neutral aiis is a necessary datum in 
 the solution of the problem. 
 
 Although it cannot be doubted that the hypothesis of 
 Galileo is at variance with the precise fact, yet it is found 
 to be sufficient for practical purposes; and, indeed, the re- 
 sults which it gives appear to agree nearly as well with 
 experiment as those which are derived from a more refined 
 theory and more elaborate calculations. It has, therefore, 
 on account of its great simplicity, been very generally adopt- 
 ed by writers on mechanics. We shall here briefly state 
 the principal results. 
 
 Suppose a prismatic beam A B to have one end firmly 
 fixed in a wall, and a weight \V 
 to be suspended from the other 
 end, the beam lying horizontally. 
 According to the hypothesis, the 
 fibres are inflexible and inexten- 
 fa sible, so that no bending takes 
 place ; and when the rupture 
 commences the fibres first give way at the upper side C, 
 and the beam turns about A as upon a hinge. The two 
 forces brought into action are, therefore, the weight W act- 
 ing at the end of the lever A B, and the resistance of the 
 particles in the section A C ; and at the instant previous to 
 the rupture the two forces are in equilibrio, or their re- 
 spective moments of rotation are equal. Now, the resist- 
 ance of any fibre in the section A C is the absolute strength 
 of the fibre multiplied into its distance from the point A ; 
 therefore the whole resistance of the beam is formed by 
 multiplying each differential element of the area into its 
 distance from the point A, and into the absolute strength, 
 and taking the sum of all the products. But this is equiva- 
 lent to the product of the area of the section by the distance 
 of its centre of gravity from A, and by the absolute strength ; 
 hence, if we put A = the area of the section, c = the dis- 
 tance of its centre of gravity from the lowest point, s = the 
 absolute strength of the unit of surface, the resistance to 
 fracture is s c A. Let W = the breaking weight in pounds, 
 and (=AB, the length of the beam ; then the moment of 
 the force tending to produce fracture is \V I, and the equa- 
 tion of equilibrium is \V/ = scA; whence XV = scA-i-l, 
 or « — \V/-Hr A. 
 
 In a rectangular beam whose breadth is J, and thickness 
 or depth d. we have A — bd, c= A d ; whence W=zsbd 2 
 -t-21 ; or the strength of the beam is directly as its bceadth 
 and the square of its depth, and inversely as its length. 
 
 In a square beam ft = </, whence W = s6 J -j-2/. 
 
 In a square beam whose diagonal is vertical, we have 
 A = a 3 , and c = h a v/2 ; whence W = »o'^Si •_> /. The 
 beam ought, therefore, to be stronger in this position ; but 
 this result of the theory is contradicted by experience. 
 
 If the beam be cylindrical, and r be the radius of its sec- 
 tion, then A = rr r 2 , and c = r ; whence W = 77Sr' -i-l. 
 
 In a cylindric tube, the radii of whose external and inter- 
 nal surfaces are respectively r and r ', we have A = k (r a — 
 r' 2 ), c = r ; whence Wr:irsr(r — r' 2 ) -i-l. 
 
 From the two last cases it may be shown the strength of 
 the tube is to the strength of the same quantity of matter 
 formed into a solid cylinder in the ratio of r to ^(r 2 — r' 2 ) ; 
 so that a tube may lie much Stronger than the same quail 
 
 tity of matter in a solid form. This principle furnishes an 
 
 explanation of many facts in the economy of nature. To 
 
 obtain the greatest strength with the least possible weight, 
 
 the bones of animals, and the quilU and feathers of birds 
 
 have the form of hollow tubes; and the same arrangement 
 
 id in many of the vegetable tribes, as the Om- 
 
 mina. 
 
 In the preceding formula; the weight of the beam is neg- 
 
 1188 
 
 lee ted. ax inconsiderable in comparison of the weight ap- 
 plied : but since in similar beams of the same substance the 
 strength increases as the square of the depth, while the 
 Weight increases as the cube, there is consequent!) a limit, 
 which, if a beam of a given shape and of given materials 
 were to reach it, could only bear its own weight, and would 
 lie broken by any farther increase. 
 
 Suppose a beam A 1! to be laid horizontally on two props, 
 and to be broken by a weight placed at A B 
 
 equal distances between them, the pres- 
 sure will be equally shared between 
 the props; and since by the hypothesis 
 fracture takes place without bending, 
 the effect will be the same as if the w 
 
 beam had been lived at the middle, and each end acted 
 upon by a force equal to half the weight, but directed up- 
 w ards. The breaking weight is, consequently, double of 
 that which would be required to break a beam of half the 
 length having one end fixed in a wall ; or the transverse 
 length of the beam, when supported at one end, is four times 
 as great as that of the same beam supported at one end 
 only, and having the weight suspended from its other ex- 
 tremity. In this case, therefore, when the beam is rectan- 
 gular, W = -2sbd- -i-l ; when the beam is square, W = 2» 
 b z -~l ; when cylindrical, W = 4 jrsr 3 -i-l ; and so with the 
 other cases. 
 
 When the horizontal beam, instead of being merely sup- 
 ported, is firmly imbedded in a wall at each end, the resist- 
 ance will be equal to that of the same beam merely sup- 
 ported at each end, added to the resistance of two beams of 
 half the length fixed at one end only, and acted upon by 
 half the weight. For it is manifest that three fractures 
 must take place — one in the middle, and one at each end ; 
 and the strain in the middle is equal to that of the support- 
 ed beam, which has just been shown to be 2 s b d- ~ I, and 
 that at each end is one fourth of this, or Isbd 2 -i-l ; there- 
 line the whole weight W, under which, if suspended from 
 the middle, the beam will give way. is VV= 3sirf- -i-l. 
 
 On the same principle, it may be shown that when a beam 
 is supported at both ends, the weight which it is able to 
 bear at any point is inversely as the rectangle under the 
 segments into which it is divided by that point. Hence a 
 beam supported at both ends is weakest in the middle, the 
 rectangle under the segments at that point being a maxi- 
 mum. It also follows that when the pressure is equally 
 distributed over the whole beam, twice the weight will be 
 required to break it. 
 
 When the beam, instead of being laid horizontal!}', is in- 
 clined, its strength is increased in the ratio of unity to the 
 square of the cosine of the angle of inclination. This con- 
 sequence of the theory, however, can obviously hold only 
 within certain limits ; inasmuch as it would give the strength 
 eqaal to infinity when the inclination is a right angle, or 
 when the load is applied endwise. 
 
 In the hypothesis of Galileo, from which the preceding 
 results have been deduced, the beam is supposed to be ab- 
 solutely inflexible, which is not the case with any material 
 substance; and although the results are sufficiently accu- 
 rate in their application to architectural or mechanical pur- 
 poses, yet in the comparison of experiments to determine 
 the ultimate strength of different substances it becomes ne- 
 cessary to take the elasticity and consequent incurvation 
 into the estimate. Mr. Barlow, assuming that the flexure 
 takes place only at the section of fracture, and that the 
 fibres remain inextensible in every other point, deduces the 
 following formula for the transverse strain, which agree 
 verj well with the experiments. 
 
 As before, let I denote the length, * the breadth, and d the 
 depth of the beam, all in inches; and let A be the angle of 
 
 deflection, W the breaking weight; and S the resistance of 
 
 a rod whose section is one square inch, \V and S being ex- 
 pies. ed in pounds ; then, 
 
 1. When the beam is fixed at one end and loaded at the 
 other, S=: W I COS. A -r- b d" . 
 
 2. When the beam is supported at each end, and loaded 
 in the middle, S = Wi see. *A -Mid*. 
 
 3. When the beam is fixed at each end and loaded in the 
 middle. S = W/ sec. »A -j-6ftd». 
 
 The angle of deflection being small, its secant in the or- 
 dinary applications may be considered as equal to unity; 
 and ii' wo aisn write .'. .-• instead of S iii the above formulas, 
 they will become the same as those deduced from the hy- 
 pothesis of Galileo. 
 
 The preceding results have reference to the absolute 
 strength of the beam; or to the weight which it can .iust 
 support without being broken ; but it is also very important 
 to know the amount of deflection w htcb a gives w eigtii w ill 
 produce in a beam of a given material and of given dimen- 
 sions. Suppose a prismatic beam to be firmly fixed at one 
 
 end, and to have B weight BUSpended from the other; then, 
 ,1' we adopt the hypothesis that the extension of the fibres 
 at each point is proportional to the straining force, the cur-
 
 STRENGTH OF MATERIALS. 
 
 vature at the different points, and the law of the action 
 which takes place, may be deduced from the properties of 
 the elastic curve. (See Elastic Curve.) The following 
 results of theory are confirmed by the experiments of Dupin 
 and Barlow : 
 
 1. The deflections of a beam loaded with different small 
 weights are proportional to those weights. 2. The deflec- 
 tion, ceteris paribus, is directly as the cube of the length, 
 inversely as the cube of tlte depth, and inversely as the 
 breadth. Hence, if I denote the length, b the breadth, d the 
 depth, and k the deflection (that is, the distance to which 
 the loaded end of the beam is drawn below the horizontal 
 line), all expressed in inches, and if w be the weight in 
 pounds which the body can support without its elasticity 
 being impaired, then k is proportional to wl* -—id? ; or, if 
 we assume E as the constant modulus of elasticity, E = w £' 
 -i-kbdK 
 
 The deflection of a beam fixed at one end and loaded at 
 the other is double that of a beam of twice the length sup- 
 ported at both ends and loaded at the middle with a double 
 weight, supposing the strain to be the same in both cases; 
 consequently, when the weights are the same, the deflec- 
 tion in the first case is to that in the second as 4 : 1 ; and 
 when the length and weight are both the same, the deflec- 
 tions (which vary as the cubes of the lengths) will be to 
 each other as 32 : 1. In the case of the beam supported at 
 both ends, he formula therefore becomes E — wP-i- 
 32kbd 3 . 
 
 From the table of data given by Barlow {Strength of Tim- 
 ber, p. 150), we extract the following mean results of exper- 
 iments (on beams supported at both ends), made in the 
 dock-yard at Woolwich, for determining the elasticity and 
 strength of various species of timber : 
 
 
 Elasticity. 
 
 Strength. 
 
 Description of Wood. 
 
 
 
 MkbcP 
 
 4bd? 
 
 Teak .... 
 
 30I8UO 
 
 2462 
 
 Poon .... 
 
 211200 
 
 2221 
 
 English Oak . 
 
 109200 
 
 1181 
 
 Ditto, another specimen . 
 
 1SI400 
 
 1672 
 
 
 263600 
 
 176U 
 
 
 205000 
 
 20^6 
 
 Beech . . . • 
 
 169*00 
 
 1556 
 
 
 87480 
 
 1013 
 
 Pitch Pine 
 
 153200 
 
 1632 
 
 New-England Fir . 
 
 273900 
 
 1102 
 
 R,ga Fir .... 
 
 166100 
 
 hob 
 
 Mar Forest Fir 
 
 103700 
 
 1262 
 
 Larch .... 
 
 131600 
 
 1149 
 
 Norway Spar . 
 
 1S2200 
 
 1474 
 
 From the mean of a number of experiments by Tredgold, 
 the values of E and S, for rectangular cast iron bars, were 
 found to be E=: 2254000, S = 7620. 
 
 3. Resistance of Bodies to Forces tending to crush them. 
 — The resistance of a body to a crushing force might be 
 supposed, a priori, to follow the same law as the absolute 
 force of cohesion, and, consequently, to depend only upon 
 the area of the section and the force of aggregation of the 
 particles. It is found, however, by experiment, that the 
 thickness of the body (or length, if the force is applied end- 
 wise) has an important influence on the amount of pressure 
 it is capable of bearing. Very thin plates are readily crush- 
 ed ; and the resistance appears to increase with the thick- 
 ness up to a certain maximum, after which it diminishes. 
 The theory of the resistance of pillars, which is of great 
 importance on account of its application to architectural 
 purposes, was investigated by Euler ; and, according to the 
 hypothesis adopted by him, the strength varies directly as 
 the fourth power of the diameter or side, and inversely as 
 the square of the length. This is confirmed by the recent 
 experiments of Mr. Hodgkinson (Phil. Trans., 1840) in re- 
 spect of pillars of wrought iron or timber; but in the case 
 of pillars of cast iron, the powers of the diameter and length 
 were somewhat different. Mr. Hodgkinson found from a 
 mean of experiments that a solid, uniform pillar of cast 
 iron, whose transverse section is one square inch, is de- 
 stroyed by a weight of 98922 lbs., or 44.16 tons. Assuming 
 this as a unit of measure, he gives the following formula (as 
 representing his experiments), in which s is the strength or 
 weight in lbs. that would crush the pillar, d the diameter, 
 and / the length, viz., s =: 98922 X t/3 55_i_^i -7. This formu- 
 la applies to pillars of which the lengths are twenty-five 
 times the diameter and upwards, and which are perfectly 
 flat at the ends. When the ends of a pillar are rounded, 
 so that the load bears only on the middle fibres, the strength 
 is greatly reduced. In pillars whose length is thirty times 
 the diameter, or upwards, Mr. Hodgkinson found the 
 strength of those with flat ends to be about three times 
 greater than the strength of others of the same dimensions 
 with round ends, the mean ratio being 3-107. In shorter 
 pillars the ratio was not constant. The strength of a pillar 
 is slightly increased by placing disks on the ends to increase 
 the bearings. 
 
 100 
 
 Mr. Hodgkinson gives the following results of his experi- 
 ments on the resistance to a crushing force of short pillars of 
 some of the most common descriptions of wood, the force 
 being applied in the direction of the fibres. 
 
 Description of Wood. 
 
 Strength per Square Inch, 
 in lbs. 
 
 Elder 
 
 Elm 
 
 Oak (English; 
 
 Poplar 
 
 6b31 to 6960 
 8633 — 6363 
 7518 — 7518 
 7733 — 9363 
 3297 — 6402 
 5674 — 5S63 
 5748 — 6586 
 67S1 — 7293 
 7451 — 9973 
 
 10331 
 6499 — 6319 
 8198 — 8198 
 4231 — 5982 
 6484 — 10058 
 6790 — 6790 
 5395 — 7518 
 3107 — 5124 
 8241 — 10493 
 
 12101 
 6063 — 7227 
 2898 — 6128 
 
 The results in the first column were deduced in each case 
 from experiments upon cylinders of wood turned to one inch, 
 diameter, and two inches long, flat at the ends. The wood 
 was moderately dry. The second column gives the mean 
 strength from similar specimens after being turned and kept 
 dry in a warm place two months longer. The great differ- 
 ence in the strength frequently seen in the two columns 
 shows strongly the effect of drying upon wood, and the great 
 weakness of wet timber. 
 
 Mr. Tredgold found that cast iron is crushed by a weight 
 of 93,000 lbs. upon a square inch, and will bear 15,300 lbs. 
 without permanent alteration. 
 
 4. Strength of Torsion. — The resistance which bodies op- 
 pose to a force tending to wrench them asunder has fre- 
 quently been made the subject of experiment. The follow- 
 ing results, showing the comparative strength of various 
 metals, as ascertained by resistance to torsion, is given by 
 Mr. Rennie. For the law according to which the elasticity 
 is evolved in the case of slender metallic wires or threads 
 of fibrous substances, when the twisting force is less than 
 is necessary to produce a permanent change of structure, wo 
 refer to the term Torsion. 
 
 Lead 1000 
 
 Tin 1438 
 
 Copper 4312 
 
 Brass 4688 
 
 Gun metal 5000 
 
 Swedish iron 9500 
 
 English iron 10125 
 
 Cast iron 10600 
 
 Blister steel 16688 
 
 Shear steel 17063 
 
 Cast steel 19562 
 
 Mr. Banks (on the Power of Machines) states, as the mean 
 result of several experiments, that a bar of cast iron, one 
 inch square, is wrenched asunder by a weight of 631 lbs. 
 avoirdupois, applied at the extremity of a lever two feet in 
 length. Other experiments on the force of torsion are given 
 by G. Bevan (Phil. Trans., 1829), and Savart (Annates da 
 Chimie, August, 1829). 
 
 For farther information on this subject, in addition to the 
 works already quoted, see Rondelet, Art de Bdtir ; Girard, 
 Traite Analytiqae de la Resistance des Solides ; Tredgold, 
 Elementary Principles of Carpentry, and Practical Essay 
 on the Strength of Cast Iron ; Banks, Treatise on the Power 
 of Machines ; Hodgkinson, Transactions of the British As- 
 sociation, vol. vi. ; and Phil. Trans., 1840, &c. 
 
 STREPSITTERANS, Strepsiptera. (Gr. arpc-KTos, twist- 
 ed; TTTtpov, a wing.) The name given by Kirby to the or- 
 der of insects which he discovered to possess rudimental 
 elytra in the form of linear and spirally twisted scales. 
 
 STRETCHER. In Architecture, a brick or stone laid 
 horizontally with its length in the direction of the face of a 
 wall. 
 
 STRETCHING COURSE. In Architecture, a course in 
 which the bricks or stones are laid horizontally with their 
 lengths in the direction of the face of the wall. See Head- 
 ers and Heading Course. 
 
 STRE'TTO. (It. narrow.) In Music, a term indicating 
 that the measure to which it is affixed is to be performed 
 short and concise, hence quick. It is the opposite of largo. 
 STRI'ATE. (Lat. stria, a groove.) In Zoology, when a 
 surface is painted or impressed with several narrow trans- 
 verse streaks. 
 
 STRIG^E. (Lat.) In Architecture, the flutings of a 
 column. 
 
 STRIGI'DjE. The name of the family of Nocturnal 
 Raptores of which the owl (Stnx) is the type. 
 
 1189
 
 STRING BOARD. 
 
 STRING HOARD. In Architecture, a hoard with its 
 face next the well-hole in a wooden staircase, which re- 
 ceives the ends of the steps. 
 
 STRING COURSE. In Architecture, a course running 
 quite along the face of a building, the projecture whereof is 
 small in proportion t" us height. 
 
 BTRO'BLLE, or STRO'BlLUS, is the fruit of the fir tree, 
 to which the common name of cone is assigned. It may be 
 defined to be a spike of very imperfect (lowers subtended by 
 bracts, which are woody, pressed close to each other, and 
 in many cases consolidated, 
 
 STRO'MBUS. The name of a shell fi>h in Pliny. This 
 term was applied by I.innaus to a genus of the Vermes Tes- 
 tacca, characterized bj the form of the shell, of which the 
 aperture is much dilated, the lips expanding, and produced 
 into a groove leaning to the left. The Molluscs to which 
 this character is applicable form a group of Pectinibranchiate 
 Gastropods in the system of Cuvier, which has been subdi- 
 vided into the genera Strombus proper, Pterocera, Lam., 
 
 &.C. 
 
 STRO'NGYLUS. A genus of intestinal worms in Ru- 
 dolphi's classification, characterized by having a cylindrical 
 body, the anal extremity of which, in the male, is siirround- 
 en by a kind of pouch of a varied shape, from which is pro- 
 truded a small filament or spiculum, probably subservient 
 to generation. The mouth is orbicular, sometimes armed 
 with spines, as in the Strongylus armatus, which infests 
 the mesenteric arteries of the horse and ass, producing 
 aneurisms ; sometimes the mouth is surrounded by tuber- 
 cles or papilla;, as in the Strongylus gigas, which is some- 
 times found in the kidney of the human subject. 
 
 STRO'NTIA. An earth contained in a mineral, generally 
 of a pale green tint and radiated crystalline texture, found 
 at Strontian in Argyleshire. It is a carbonate of strontia. 
 Strontia is the oxide of a metallic base, the properties of 
 which are very imperfectly known, called strontium; the 
 equivalent of strontia, or oxide of strontium (composed of 
 44 strontium and 8 oxygen), is 52. It has a caustic taste, an 
 alkaline reaction, and a degree of solubility in water inter- 
 mediate between lime and baryta. The salts of strontia are 
 generally obtained by dissolving the natural or artificial car- 
 bonate in the acids; those which are soluble give the flame 
 of burning bodies a fine rose red colour : the nitrate of strontia 
 is used for this purpose, and with beautiful etfect, in theatri- 
 cal exhibitions and fireworks. The sulphate of strontia is 
 found native: it is an insoluble white powder when artifi- 
 cially prepared. Some of its native varieties have a pale 
 blue tint, whence the term co-lestim . A colourless prismatic 
 crystalline variety, of great beauty, is found associated With 
 the native sulphur of Sicily. 
 STRO'NTIANTTE. Native carbonate of strontia. 
 BTRO'PHE. {Gr. arpoiith a turning) A division of a 
 Greek choral ode answering to a stanza. The name is de- 
 rived from arpiQciv, to turn, because the singers turned in 
 one direction while they recited that portion of the poem; 
 they then turned round and sung the next portion, which 
 was of exactly the same length and metre as the preceding, 
 and was termed the anlistiophe (uvrtorpdipi), from ivrt, op- 
 posite.) These were sometimes followed by another strophe 
 and antistrophe, sometimes by a single stanza called the 
 epode (t;rw(5oj). 
 
 STROPHTOLiE. In Botany, synonym of Caruncula, 
 which see. 
 
 STROPHULUS. (Lat.) The red gum ; an eruption 
 peculiar to infants. 
 
 STRUMA. (I. at.) In Anatomy, an enlarged gland. 
 Struma. In Botany, a Bwelllng thai is present in some 
 leaves at the extremity of the petiole, where it is connected 
 to the lamina ; as in Mimosa tensitiva. The term also used 
 in describing mosses to denote a dilatation or swelling that is 
 al lines present upon one side of the base of the theca. 
 
 STRUT. In Architecture, a piece of timber obliquely 
 placed from a king or queen post to support a rafter. It is 
 BOmetimes called a brace. See Roof. 
 
 STRUTHIO'NTIXE. (Strutbio, an ostrich.) The name 
 of a family of terrestrial birds, incapable of flight, with very 
 short or ruiliniental wings, and long and strong legs ; includ- 
 ing the ostrich and other congeneric spines which constitute 
 the order Ouraorea ofKirby, and the family Brevipennea in 
 the system of Cuvier. 
 
 STRY'CHNIA. A poisonous vegetable alkaloid, discov- 
 ered in 1818 by Pelleter and CaveatOU in the seed of the 
 Strydmut ignotia and JVus vomica, and also in the upas 
 
 poison, ll IS aim. si insoluble in water, but Very soluble In 
 
 boiling alcohol, from which it is deposited bj oarefnl evapo- 
 ration in small w bite crystals. Il is BO virulently poisonous, 
 that half a grain blown into the throat of a rabbit occasioned 
 death in five minutes; its operation is accompanied by lock 
 
 jaw and oiber tetanic affections, The chemical equivalent 
 
 of Strychnia is about 238. It probably consists of 'M atoms 
 
 of carbon, Hi hydrogen, 3 oxygen, and I nitrogen. 
 BTI f'BBLE. The root ends of stalks of corn, left in the 
 ll'JO 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 field standing as they grew after the corn has been reaped 
 by the sickle or bcj the. In some parts of the country only 
 a small portion of the straw is cut off with the e;u - s of corn, 
 and the stubble in that case is a foot or eighteen inches in 
 length ; but in others the corn is cut as close to the surface 
 as possible, in which case the stubble is quite short. In gen- 
 eral, long stubble is a symptom of bad tanning, because a 
 quantity of straw is in this case left waste in the field, 
 which might have been carried home and rotted into manure. 
 STU'CCO. (Ital.) In Architecture, a term applied to 
 many sorts of calcareous cements. The sense in which it 
 is most commonly used in this country is to denote the third 
 coat of three-coat plaster, consisting of fine lime and sand. 
 The better sort is hand floated twice and well trowelled. 
 There is a species called bastard stucco, in which a small 
 portion of hair is used. {See Finishing.) Rough stucco is 
 merely floated and brushed with water, but the best is 
 trowelled stucco. 
 
 STUDDING SAILS, called also Steering Sails, are nar- 
 row sails set temporarily at the outer edges of the square 
 sails. 
 
 STUFA. (Ital.) A jet of steam issuing from a fissure in 
 the earth : these jets are not uncommon in volcanic dis- 
 tricts. 
 
 STUFF. A Commercial term, applied to various woven 
 fabrics ; it especially signifies a light woollen cloth formerly 
 much used for curtains and bed furniture. 
 
 S TU'RGEON. (Lat. sturio, from the German stoer, a 
 sturgeon.) The type of a genus of Cartilaginous fishes, 
 with free gills, having the body more or less covered with 
 bony plates in longitudinal rows. The mouth is placed be- 
 neath the snout, is small and edentulous ; but is protractile; 
 Soft feelers or cirri are attached beneath the snout. The 
 bodies of the vertebra? retain the primitive condition of an 
 undivided gelatinous cord. The sturgeons ascend the larger 
 rivers of Europe in great abundance, and are the objects of 
 important fisheries. The flesh of most of the species is 
 wholesome and agreeable food ; their ova are converted into 
 caviar, and their air-bladder affords the finest isinglass. 
 
 The sturgeon which is occasionally captured on our east 
 
 coast is the .riccipenser sturio of LinnsBUS. See Accipenser. 
 
 STURIONIANS, Sturionii. (Lat. sturio, a sturgeon.) 
 
 The name of the family of Cartilaginous fishes, of Which the 
 
 sturgeon is the type. 
 
 STY. A little boil or tumour projecting from the edge of 
 the eyelid. 
 
 STYLAGA'LMAIC. (Gr. otuXoj, a column, and aya^fia, 
 an ornament.) In Architecture, a term used to denote 
 figures which perform the office of columns. See Carya- 
 tides. 
 
 STYLE. (Lat. stylus, or stilus.) A kind of pencil made 
 use of by the Romans for writing on waxed tablets. It was 
 made of brass or iron, with one end sharp for writing, ami 
 the other blunt and smooth to make erasures with; hence 
 to turn the style is a phrase used by ancient writers, signify- 
 ing to make corrections. 
 
 In Literature, the word style may be defined to mean the 
 distinctive manner of writing which belongs to each author, 
 and also to each body of writers, allied as belonging to the 
 same school, country, or age. It is that which, to use the 
 expression of Dryden, individuates each writer from all 
 others. The style of an author is made up of various minute 
 particulars, which it is extremely difficult to describe, but 
 each of which adds something to the aggregate of qualities 
 which belong to him. Collocation of words, turn of sen- 
 tences, syntax, rhythm ; the relation, abundance, and the 
 character of his usual figures and metaphors; the usual or- 
 der in which thoughts succeed each other; the logical form 
 in which conclusions are generally deduced from their 
 premises; the particular qualities most insisted on in de- 
 scription; amplification and conciseness, clearness and ob- 
 scurity, directness and indirectness, exhaustion, suggestion, 
 suppression— all these are features of style, in the largest 
 sense of the expression, in which it seems to comprehend 
 all peculiarities belonging to the manner in which thought 
 is communicated from the writer to the reader. Excellence 
 of Style, particularly of the rhetorical parts of style, was 
 more cultivated by the ancients than the modems ; and less, 
 perhaps, at the present day, than at any former period since 
 the English language began to be written in prose with cor- 
 
 rectness ami elegance. Since the period w hen Bolingbroke 
 Junius, Johnson, Gibbon, and Ilurke became established Bfl 
 
 models, a certain superficial sameness of style, wanting in 
 
 the rougl ss and vulgarity, but also in the force ami inch 
 
 viduality of old English Composition, seems to prevail to 
 such nn extent as to render modern writing extremely 
 
 monotonous and artificial. Rut it should never in- forgotten 
 that whatever quality may command a temporary popular- 
 ity, no work, either in poetry or prose, has e\er permanently 
 maintained its hold on public admiration without excellence 
 of style. 
 Style, in the Calendar, is a manner of reckoning time.
 
 STYLITE. 
 
 The reformation of thp calendar by Julius Cssar consisted 
 chiefly in restoring the equinox to its proper place in the 
 month of March. This reformation took place in A.U.C. 
 707. which year was made to consist of fourteen months, in 
 order to till up the deficiency which had been produced by 
 the former method of computing, and was styled the "year 
 of confusion." By the Julian calendar an intercalary day 
 was added to every fourth year (leap year). In consequence 
 of this erroneous intercalation, the equinox receded a day in 
 about 130 years ; and, in the beginning of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury, the vernal equinox fell on the 10th instead of the 21st 
 of March. The calendar was reformed by Gregory XIII., 
 in 1577. By this reformation ten days were dropped in the 
 year 1582, the 15th of March being reckoned immediately 
 after the 4th ; and it -was arranged that every 100th year 
 (which by the former calendar was a leap year) should be 
 a common year, except the fourth, i. e., 1600 remained a 
 leap year ; but 1700, 1800, were common years ; and 1900 
 will be a common year likewise, after which the cycle of 
 four centuries will again commence. The Gregorian calen- 
 dar was immediately adopted in Catholic countries ; but by 
 Protestant nations the old style was for a long time con- 
 tinued. England adopted the New Style in 1752 by statute, 
 after debates in parliament, of which a curious notice will 
 be found in Lord Chesterfield's Letters. Previously to this 
 time, dates according to the old style are frequently denoted 
 
 by the initials O. S. ; or thus — i of January, 1750, the 
 
 upper line denoting the old, and the latter the new style. 
 This mode of dating will still be found in the despatches and 
 public papers of Russia and Greece, which are the only Eu- 
 ropean states in which the Julian period is still in use. The 
 time of the two styles now varies thirteen days. For farther 
 information on this subject, see Calendar. 
 
 Style, in Dialling, is the gnomon which projects the 
 shadow on the plane of the dial. See Dial. 
 
 Style, in Botany, is that elongation of the ovarium which 
 supports the stigma. It is an extension of the midrib of the 
 carpellary leaf, or is formed by the rolling up of the attenu- 
 ated extremity of the latter. 
 
 Style. In the Fine Arts, the mode in which an artist 
 forms and expresses his ideas on and of a given subject. It 
 is the form and character that he gives to the expression of 
 his ideas, according to his particular faculties and powers. 
 Style may he almost considered as the refinement of manner 
 (See Manner) : it is a characteristic essence by which we 
 distinguish the works of one master from another. From 
 literature this word has passed into the theoretic language 
 of the fine arts ; and as in that we hear of the sublime, bril- 
 liant, agreeable, historic, regular, natural, confused, and 
 other styles, so we have almost the same epithets applied to 
 styles of art. Indeed this is not wonderful, since the prin- 
 ciples of taste, irt both the one and the other, are founded in 
 nature; and it is a well-known saying, that poetry is a 
 speaking picture. This word is improperly used as applied 
 to colouring and harmony ol tints : we speak of the style of 
 a design, of a composition, of draperies, &c. ; but not of the 
 style of colouring, but rather the method or manner of col- 
 ouring. The definition of this word by Sir Joshua Reynolds 
 is as follows : " Style in painting is the same as in writing — 
 a power over materials, whether words or colours, by which 
 conceptions or sentiments are conveyed." But we can 
 scarcely consider this definition sufficiently general. 
 
 STY'LITE. (Gr. oruAof, a column.) The title given to 
 a peculiar class of anchorites from the places on which 
 they took up their solitary abodes, being the tops of various 
 columns in Syria and Egypt. This strange method of de- 
 votion took its rise in the second century, and continued 
 to be practised by many individuals for a great length of 
 time. The most famous among them was one St. Simeon, 
 in the 5th century, who is said to have lived thirty-seven 
 years upon various columns of considerable height in the 
 neighbourhood of Antioch. 
 
 STYLO. Names compounded of this word apply to the 
 muscles attached to the styloid process of the temporal 
 bone. 
 
 STY'LOBATE. (Gr. otuaoj, a column, and jiaaic, a 
 base.) In Architecture, a term signifying the uninterrupted 
 base below a range of columns. 
 
 STY'PTICS (Gr. arv<pu>, I restrain), in Medicine and 
 Surgery, are remedies used for checking a flow of blood. 
 
 STY RAX. See Storax. 
 
 STYX. (Gr. Xrvl.) In Mythology, a nymph : the 
 daughter, according to Hesiod, of Oceanus and Thetis ; but 
 other mycologists relate the genealogy differently. She 
 dwelt in a rock palace in the infernal regions, from whence 
 one of the infernal rivers burst forth. This river, Styx, 
 was one of the ten arms or branches of Oceanus.' The 
 gods of Olympus swore by the water of Styx ; and a deity 
 who took this oath in vain was banished from the heavenly 
 mansions for ten years, to endure various torments. The 
 river Styx has been sought for in various places ; but the 
 
 SUBLIME. 
 
 most remarkable stream of the name was in Arcadia. It 
 forms a terrific waterfall. 
 
 SU'BALTERN. (Lat. sub, under, and alter, other.) 
 Literally an inferior officer, but generally applied to all 
 officers under the rank of captain. 
 
 SUBBRACHIANS. Subbrachia. (Lat. sub, and brach- 
 ium, the arm.) The name of the order of Malacoptervgious 
 fishes comprising those which have the ventral fins situated 
 either immediately beneath and between, or a little in 
 front or behind the pectoral fins. 
 
 SUBCLAVIAN. An Anatomical term applied to ves- 
 sels, nerves, &x. under the shoulder or armpit. 
 
 SUB-CO'NTRARY SECTION. In Geometry, if an 
 oblique cone on a circular base be cut by a plane not 
 parallel to the base, but inclined to the axis, so that the 
 section is a circle, then the section is said to be sub-contrary. 
 The part of the cone thus cut off is similar to the whole 
 cone ; the plane of the section and the base of the cone 
 being equally inclined to the axis, but the inclination being 
 in opposite directions. 
 
 SUBDO'MINANT. (Lat. sub, under, and dominans, 
 governing.) In Music, that note which is a fifth below 
 the key note. It is a species of governing note, inasmuch 
 as it requires the tonic to be heard after it in the plagal 
 cadence. In the regular ascending scale of seven notes it 
 is the fourth ; the term, however, has its origin from its 
 relation to the tonic as the fifth below. 
 
 SUBDU'PLICATE RATIO. In Arithmetic and Algebra, 
 the subduplicate ratio of two numbers is the ratio of their 
 square roots. Thus, the subduplicate ratio of the numbers 
 9 and 16 is the ratio of 3 to 4 ; and of the numbers a and b, 
 it is the ratio of y/a to y/b. 
 
 SU'BERIC ACID. (Lat. suber, cork.) An acid sub- 
 stance into which cork is converted by the long-continued 
 action of nitric acid. 
 
 SU'BERIN. A name given by Chevreul to the cellular 
 tissue of cork after the various soluble matters have been 
 removed by the action of water and alcohol. 
 
 SU'BITO. (It. suddenly.) In Music, a term of direction ; 
 as vo/ti subito, turn (the leaf) quickly. 
 
 SUBJECT. (Lat. subjicio, / throw under.) In the Fine 
 Arts, that which it is the object and aim of the artist to 
 express. 
 
 SU'BJECTIVE and OBJECTIVE. Terms expressing 
 the distinction which in analyzing every intellectual act 
 we necessarily make between ourselves, the conscious sub- 
 ject, and that of which we are conscious, the object. " I 
 know," and "something is known by me," are convertible 
 propositions; every act of the soul which is not thus re- 
 solvable belongs to the emotive part of our nature, as dis- 
 tinguished from the intelligent and percipient. For the 
 distinction between subject and object, all-important in 
 intellectual philosophy, and the neglect of which has been 
 the cause of infinite confusion and perplexity, we are in- 
 debted to the schoolmen; from whom it was derived, 
 through Wolf and Leibnitz, by Kant and the modern Ger- 
 man philosophers. 
 
 SUBJECT OF A PROPOSITION, in Logic, is the term 
 of which the other is affirmed or denied. See Term, Prop- 
 osition, Logic. 
 
 SCBLAPSA'RIANS or IXFRALAPSARIAXS. In 
 Ecclesiastical History. The greater number of the divines 
 of the Reformed or Calvinist churches have held that God 
 permitted the fall of Adam, without positively predetermin- 
 ing it ; a doctrine which has been termed sublapsarian, in 
 opposition to the high Calvinistic or supra lapsarian view. 
 (Moshrim, cent, xvii., sect. 2.) See Stpralapsarians. 
 
 SUBLIMA'TION. (Lat. sublimatio.) A process by 
 which solids are by the aid of heat converted into vapour, 
 which is again condensed, and often in the crystalline form. 
 This operation is frequently resorted to for the purpose of 
 purifying various chemical products, and separating them 
 from substances which are less volatile. 
 
 SUBLI'ME. (Lat. sublimis.) In the Fine Arts, high or 
 exalted in style. That which in art is raised above the 
 higher standard of nature or its prototypes. Sublimity is 
 incompatible with our ideas of elegance, grace, or any of 
 the oilier sources of beauty, though these may all enter 
 into an object wherein those and many other qualities may 
 be combined with sublimity. They have been, however, 
 not unfrequently considered as some of the sources of the 
 sublime. The nod of Jupiter, in the hands of such a mas- 
 ter as Homer, is an indication of sublimity ; but when 
 Longinus tells us, that, as applied to literature, the con- 
 stituent ingredients of sublimity are boldness in thought, 
 the pathetic, proper application of figures, use of tropes and 
 beautiful expressions, and, last, musical structure and 
 sounds, we are inclined to think he had very indistinct 
 notions of it himself. We cannot better exemplify the 
 meaning of this term than by referring the reader to the 
 works of Michael Angelo in the Sistine Chapel, wherein, 
 as Fuseli has truly said, "His line is uniformly grand; 
 
 1191
 
 SUBMEDIANT. 
 
 character and beauty were admitted only as far as they 
 could be made subservient to grandeur. The child, the 
 female, meanness, deformity, were by him indiscriminately 
 stamped with grandeur. A beggar rose from his hand the 
 patriarch of poverty ; his infants teem with the man, his 
 men are giants." The terribih via, hinted at by Agosttno 
 Cancel, is indeed the sublime. 
 
 SUBME HI ANT. (Lat. sub, under, and medius, middle.) 
 In Music, the middle note between the tonic and subdomi- 
 nant descending. It is the greater sixth in the major scale, 
 and the lesser sixth in the minor scale. 
 
 SCHMl' LTUT.E, in Arithmetic and Geometry, is the 
 same with ai iquvt part or measure ; or it is such a part of a 
 quantity as can be expressed by a whole number, as a third, 
 fourth, fcc. 
 
 BUBNO'RMAL, in Geometry, is that part of the axis of 
 a curve line which is intercepted between the ordinate and 
 the normal. If y be the ordinate, and x the absciss of any 
 
 d y 
 curve, the expression for the subnormal is y — . Thesub- 
 
 d x 
 normal is always a third proportional to the subtangent 
 and the ordinate. See SoBTANGKHT. 
 
 STJBO'RDINARY. In Heraldry. According to some 
 writers on this imaginary science, an ordinary, when it 
 comprises less than one fifth Of the whole shield, is termed 
 a subordinarv. 
 
 SI B< >RNA'TION. (Lat. sub and orno, / provide, fur- 
 nish, procure ; a meaning not classical.) Subornation of 
 perjury, in Law, is the procuring a man to take a false 
 oath amounting to perjury. The offence of subornation is 
 not complete unless the oath be taken, so as to bring the 
 offender within the stat. 2 G. 2, c. 25; but it is a misde- 
 meanor to attempt to procure false testimony. 
 
 SUBPCE'NA. In Law, a writ of which there are several 
 sorts. Subp&na ad testificandum is the common process, 
 both in equity and in the courts of common law, to compel 
 the attendance of a witness. Subpana duces tecum is a 
 writ of the same nature with the former, with a clause 
 requiring the witness to bring with him and produce books 
 and papers. An action of damages lies against parties dis- 
 obeving this writ 
 
 BOB-SETHnH >NE. In Music, the leading note or sharp 
 seventh of the scale. It is a term more used by the Ger- 
 man than by other writers. 
 
 SU'BSIDY. (Lat. subsidium, assistance.) In Politics, 
 pecuniary aid granted by one government to another in 
 pursuance of a treaty. The grants of public money made 
 to the sovereign, or taxes imposed in this country, were 
 called subsidies. 
 
 SU'BSTANTIVE COLOURS, are those which, in the 
 process of dyeing, remain fixed or permanent without the 
 intervention of other substances ; they are opposed to 
 adjective colours, which require to be fixed by certain inter- 
 medes, or substances which have a joint affinity for the 
 colouring matter and the material to be dyed. Sec Dyking 
 and Mordant. 
 
 BU'BSTANTrVB, or NOUN SUBSTANTIVE. In 
 Grammar, that part of speech whicli denotes a substance 
 or subject, as distinguished from an attribute or predicate. 
 Stc Grammar. 
 
 SUBSTITU'TION, is defined by writers on the Civil 
 Law to lie the designation of a second, third, or other heir, 
 to enjoy, in default of a former heir, or after him. Taken 
 in this general sense, it includes all those modes of disposi- 
 tion which are expressed in our law by the terms entail, 
 remainder, executory it rise, &.c. Substitutions were of two 
 Classes: 1. Vulgar or common, by which a testator named 
 a second devisee to receive the succession, if the first were 
 unable or unwilling to do so; 2. Fidei-commissary, in 
 which the second devisee was named to receive the suc- 
 cession after the first. See Fidei-CommissuM. 
 
 Substitition, in the language of Algebra, signifies the 
 replacing of one quantity by another which is equal to it, 
 but differently expressed. 
 
 Substitution, Chord of. In Music, a name given to 
 the chords of the ninth major and minor. 
 
 SUBSTRA'TUM. A stratum lying under another. The 
 term subsoil is generally applied to the matters which in- 
 tervene between the surface soils and the rocks on which 
 they rest ; thus clay is the common substratum or subsoil 
 Of gravel. 
 
 BU'BSTYLB, in Dialling, is the straight line formed by 
 the intersection of the face of the dial with the perpen- 
 dicular plane u hi. u passes through the gnomon. See Dux. 
 
 BUBTA'NGENT, in Geometry, is the part ul" the axis of 
 a curve intercepted between the tangent and the ordinate. 
 The general expression for the subtangent of any curve 
 Whose equation is ?/ = F x (y the ordinate being a function 
 
 d x 
 of x the absciss) is v — . 
 V dy 
 BUBTE'NSE. (Lat. sub and tensus.) A term sorae- 
 
 SUCCESSION, APOSTOLICAL. 
 
 times used in Trigonometry to denote the chord of an arc. 
 Set Chord. 
 
 BUBTRA'CTION. (Lat. subtraho, J draw away.) In 
 Arithmetic, the taking of one number or quantity from 
 another in order to find their difference. The operation is 
 precisely the reverse of addition. 
 
 SI BU'LICORNS, Subiilieomes. (Lat. subula, an awl; 
 cornu, a horn.) The name of a family of Neuropterous 
 insects, including those which have awl-shaped antenna'. 
 
 BUBU'LIPALPS, SubuHpalpi. (Lat. subula, and palpus, 
 a feeler.) The name of a section of Caraboid beetles, in- 
 cluding those which have the exterior palps or feelers awl- 
 shaped. 
 
 BUCCEDA'NEUM. A medicine or remedy substituted 
 for another. 
 
 BUCCE'SSION, APOSTO'LICAL. In Theology. By 
 these words is meant the uninterrupted succession of 
 priests in the church by regular ordination, from the first 
 commission given by our Saviour to the Apostles, and re- 
 corded in the Gospels, down to the present day. And the 
 doctrine of " the apostolical succession," as it is popularly 
 called, means the belief that the clergy so regularly or- 
 dained have a commission from God to preach the gospel, 
 administer the sacraments, and guide the church; that 
 through their ministration only we can derive the grace 
 which is communicated by the sacraments. It follows, of 
 course, that those sects of Christians which have no regu- 
 lar succession (having seceded from Romanism without 
 retaining ministers regularly ordained, or having subse- 
 quently interrupted the succession, that is, all 1'rotestant 
 bodies, except the church of England) have, properly speak- 
 ing, neither church nor sacraments, since they possess no 
 apostolical authority. 
 
 This doctrine was, by admission on all hands, of very 
 great antiquity in the church ; but whether that antiquity 
 is primitive or not, is matter of discussion at the present 
 day. The arguments from Scripture cannot alone be relied 
 upon by either party. As to the historical part of the 
 question, those Epistles of Ignatius which the learned 
 have in the most part agreed to regard as genuine (com- 
 monly called the Greater), are much referred to by the 
 mnintniners of the doctrine in support of it. They do not, 
 indeed, declare it in express terms ; but the strict and re- 
 peated injunctions to honour and obey the bishop and pres- 
 bytery, together with some insulated expressions (such as, 
 " If a man be not within the altar, he faileth of the bread 
 of God," &c), have be«n thought important in the contro- 
 versy ; and, as Mr. Keble observes, " the discovery of those 
 remains probably lent considerable force to the course of 
 opinions among the clergy of England in favour of the 
 doctrine in the 17th century." 
 
 At the Reformation it was almost entirely lost sight of; 
 and that the succession was actually preserved in England 
 is rather owing (humanly speaking) to political causes than 
 to any deliberate intention on the part of the then leaders 
 Of the church. In tact, the Romanists contest the validity 
 of English ordinations, partly on the ground that the suc- 
 cession was actually interrupted at the accession of Eliza- 
 beth ; but there is no need to discuss an historical ques- 
 tion on which there seems to be no substantial doubt 
 whatever. The church of England does not affirm the 
 doctrine in her articles ; and the language of art. 19, 
 although not excluding it, is plainly not such as would 
 have been used by trainers who wished to inculcate it- 
 Many expressions of her services, borrowed as they are 
 from ancient liturgies, more or less distinctly point towards 
 it. The first school of Anglican divines did not rely on it 
 in their controversy with Puritanism. They rather rested 
 their argument on the fact, that the church had in early 
 times appointed the episcopal government and regular ordi- 
 nation, and that it could not, therefore, be wise or prudent 
 to swerve from it. It was at this point that Hooker lunk 
 up the subject. Whether he actually held the tenet or no, 
 has been much controverted. His recent editor (Mr. Keble) 
 contends that be did ; but, at the same time, admits that 
 there is a marked difference between his language and that 
 of the succeeding school of Laud, Hammond, and Leslie. 
 (Preface to Hooker, p. lxxvii.) Under that school, it 
 became the rallying point of high churchmen, and was 
 zealously maintained by the divines of that section of the 
 church down to and long after the Revolution. But since 
 that time, without being renounced, it had certainly long 
 ceased to be brought prominently forward in ecclesiastical 
 controversy, until within the last seven or eight yean. 
 
 In feet, the opposite ground had been constantly taken 
 by ordinary Protestant reasoners, both In and out of this 
 country. In their contests with the church of Some. Chil- 
 lingworth, as is well known, argues against the Romanist 
 tenet, that "succession is a certain and perpetual mark of 
 the true church," by maintaining that it is Impossible to 
 prove it ; that is, that it is impossible that nny Individual 
 can feel certain that his orders were derived by regular
 
 SUCCESSION, LAW OF. 
 
 succession from the Apostles. If we assume, with the 
 Romanist, a priori, that the church must have regular 
 succession because of Christ's promise to it, then there is 
 no room for such doubts ; but if we are endeavouring to 
 insist on the fact of succession as a test of the truth of a 
 church, then it cannot be denied that this argument presents 
 difficulties not easily surmounted. 
 
 SUCCESSION, LAW OF. In Political Economy, the 
 law or rule according to which the succession to the prop- 
 erty of deceased individuals is regulated. Generally 
 speaking, this law obtains only in cases where a deceased 
 part}- has died intestate, or in cases where the power of 
 bequeathing property by will is limited by the legislature. 
 It is plain that in cases of intestacy, where the deceased 
 either leaves a number of descendants, or where he leaves 
 no direct descendants, the law, in order to prevent endless 
 disputes and litigation, must interfere to regulate the suc- 
 cession to the property ; and it will necessarily follow that 
 the succession will be determined in different countries by 
 local circumstances, depending partly on the peculiar state 
 and institutions of each country, and on the views enter- 
 tained by its legislators of what is just and proper, and most 
 conducive to the public advantage. Hence it is to no pur- 
 pose in a matter of this kind to look for any general or fixed 
 principles. The succession to the property of those dying 
 intestate, and the power of bequeathing property by will 
 or testament, depend wholly on the rules and regulations 
 enacted in each country ; and these necessarily vary with 
 the varying circumstances of different countries and con- 
 ditions of society. 
 
 In most countries a preference has been given, in regu- 
 lating the succession to property vacant by intestacy, and 
 in defining the power to leave property by will, in favour 
 of male heirs; and in some countries, and especially in 
 modern times, a marked predilection has been shown in 
 favour of the eldest son, or, as it is usually termed, in favour 
 of the right of primogeniture. Among the Jews, the eldest 
 son was entitled to a double share of the paternal inherit- 
 ance ; but among the Greeks, Romans, and our Saxon an- 
 cestors, all inheritances, whether consisting of land or 
 moveables, were equally divided, in some cases among all 
 the male children ; and in others among all the children, 
 whether male or female. The growth of the feudal 
 system appears, however, to have put an end to this rule 
 of inheritance in most European nations. When titles 
 of nobility were created, it was necessary to limit their 
 descent to the eldest son ; and it was also necessary that 
 the estate required to maintain the dignity of the possessor 
 of the title should descend according to the same rule of 
 primogeniture. And even when estates were not held by- 
 noble proprietors, various inconveniences were found to 
 result from their partition, in the division of military services ; 
 the number of infant tenants incapable of performing any- 
 kind of duty ; and, more than all the rest (though its im- 
 portance was the last to be perceived), the injurious in- 
 fluence of the system of equal partition in occasioning the 
 too great subdivision of the land, in emancipating the 
 younger sons from the control of their parents, in tempting 
 them to remain at home and to indulge in the pleasures 
 and idleness of a country life, and lastly, in overspreading 
 the country with a proud and a beggarly gentry. In con- 
 sequence, the old rule of succession to landed property was 
 changed in most countries ; and in England, except in Kent 
 and a few other places, when a person dies intestate his estate 
 descends entire to his eldest son. And it will be afterwards 
 seen, notwithstanding the statements of Adam Smith and 
 others to the contrary, that this rule, though not without its 
 disadvantages, is, on the whole, the best that can be devised. 
 
 Females being incapable of performing any personal feu- 
 dal service, it is the common rule, when a person seised of 
 an estate dies intestate leaving only daughters, that they 
 should succeed as co heiresses. Such is the law of Eng- 
 land ; and, when thus limited, little harm can ensue from 
 the subdivision that is thus occasioned. 
 
 It has, speaking generally, been the usual practice in 
 cases of intestacy to divide the money or other moveable 
 property in equal portions among the children or kinsmen 
 of the deceased, without respect to sex or seniority. This, 
 however, though a general, is by no means to be regarded 
 as a constant rule. Thus, in the «ase of the Jews, daugh- 
 ters were excluded from all participation in the inheritance, 
 and, apparently, were left to depend on the bounty of their 
 father's heirs. (Michaelis, Law of Moses, i. 420.) In 
 Athens, also, daughters inherited nothing when there were 
 sons alive; and when there was no son, and a daughter 
 succeeded to the inheritance, she was bound to marry her 
 nearest relation, so that the property might not be taken out 
 of the family. (Michaelis, ubi suprd.) In Rome, howev- 
 er, all sorts of property were divided equally between sons 
 and daughters. And as the inconveniences found to result 
 hi modern times from the splitting of landed property do not 
 follow at all, or in anything like the same degree, from the 
 
 subdivision of moveable property, it is the practice in thia 
 and most modern countries to admit females of the same 
 propinquity to share in the succession to such property, 
 when left intestate, equally with males, excluding all pre- 
 ference on account of primogeniture. 
 
 These notices, brief and imperfect as they necessarily 
 are, will probably be sufficient to give the reader a general 
 idea of the rules that have been most commonly followed 
 in regulating the succession to property in cases of intesta- 
 cy, or where there is no power to bequeath property by will 
 or testament. Inasmuch, however, as this power exists to 
 a greater or less extent in most civilized countries, we shall 
 now proceed shortly to state some of the more important 
 principles and limitations that either have been or should 
 be attended to in the construction of such documents. 
 
 Bequeathing of Property by Will. — The power of be- 
 queathing property by will or testament (the libera testa- 
 menti factio) is not usually recognised in the earlier stages 
 of society. A man's property is then, for the most part, 
 divided in equal shares among his children, who succeed to 
 it as matter of right ; and in their default it is inherited by 
 his surviving relations, or nearest of kin. But experience 
 begins at length to manifest the inconveniences resulting 
 from the enforcement of this stnet rule of succession, and 
 power is, in consequence, given to persons possessed of pro- 
 perty to make testaments, or to dispose of a part at least of 
 their personal or real estate by will. At first, however, 
 this power is usually confined within very narrow limits, 
 being in general restricted to the making of alterations in 
 the shares falling to the children of kinsmen of the testa- 
 tor ; that is, to the increasing of the portion of some to the 
 diminution of that of others. Thus, in Athens, there was 
 no power to devise property from the natural heirs previ- 
 ously to the age of Solon ; and that legislator confined the 
 privilege to those who died without leaving issue. In 
 Rome, three centuries elapsed before a citizen could dis- 
 pose of his property by a deed mortis causa, except in an 
 assembly of the people ; and in that case his will, as Mon- 
 tesquieu has remarked, was not really the act of a private 
 individual, but of the legislature. " With as in England, 
 till modern times, a man could only dispose of one third of 
 his moveables from his wife and children ; and in general 
 no will was permitted of lands till the reign of Henry 
 VIII., and then only of a certain portion : for it was not till 
 after the Restoration that the power of devising real pro- 
 perty became so universal as at present." {Blackstone, 
 book ii., cap. i.) In Scotland, down to a comparatively re- 
 cent period, almost all land property was inalienable from 
 the lineal heir. 
 
 Not only, however, is the power of testators usually aug- 
 mented as society advances, but in some countries they are 
 permitted to exercise a nearly absolute control over the 
 disposal of their property, and even to bequeath the whole, 
 or the ureater part of it, to strangers, to the exclusion of 
 their children and relations, as is substantially the case at 
 this moment in England. This, however, is an extension 
 of the power of bequeathing, as to the policy of which 
 much difference of opinion is entertained. It is contended 
 that no one who has any property to dispose of should be 
 allowed to throw his children destitute upon society ; that 
 the fear of total disinheritance should not be rendered an 
 instrument of tyranny in the hand of fathers ; and that before 
 allowing a man to leave any portion of his fortune to stran- 
 gers, he should be compelled to make an adequate provis- 
 ion for the individuals he has been the means of bringing 
 into the world, and to whom, independently altogether of 
 any considerations of personal merit or demerit, he is un- 
 der the most sacred obligations. But though it must be 
 owned that this is a question of considerable difficulty and 
 nicety, and with respect to which it does not seem possible 
 to come to any conclusion that will not be liable to objec- 
 tions, yet, on the whole, it would seem that the reasoning 
 of those who argue in favour of the unlimited power of 
 bequeathing to strangers is the most satisfactory and con- 
 vincing : or if any restriction be laid on this, it would ap- 
 pear to be enough to enact that parents possessed of pro- 
 perty should be obliged to appropriate a portion thereof 
 sufficient to bring up and educate their children till they 
 come to maturitv, or be in a condition to provide for them- 
 selves, when all' compulsory obligations on the part of the 
 parents should cease. None but the strongest possible rea- 
 sons can ever justify a legislature in giving their sanction 
 to any measure having a tendency to weaken the spirit of 
 industry and economy in the people. It is plain, however, 
 that if it interfere to regulate the disposal of property, it 
 must unavoidably do this: if it be enacted that how undu- 
 tifully soever a man's children or relations may have be- 
 haved, they shall notwithstanding be entitled to the whole 
 or a certain proportion of his fortune, this will, in the first 
 place, render every one less anxious about the accumula- 
 tion of that wealth which he is not to be permitted to dis- 
 pose of at pleasure than he would otherwise be ; and, in 
 4 E * 1193
 
 SUCCESSION, LAW OF. 
 
 the second place, the securing of n certain provision to 
 children, independently of their conduct, must in so far 
 render them Independent of their parents, and weaken 
 thai parental authority, which, though occasionally abused, 
 
 is yet, in the vast majority of instances, exercised in the 
 mildest and most indulgent manner, .and with the best ef- 
 fect The more, therefore, that this subject is Inquired into, 
 
 the mure, we apprehend, it will be found that it is always 
 the safest policy to abstain as much as possible from ma- 
 king the relations of private life the object of legislative 
 enactments. The humanity of the law is but ti sorry sub- 
 stitute for parental atfection. If children be ordinarily 
 well behaved ; if they be not extremely deficient either in 
 filial affection or common prudence, we have, in the princi- 
 ples and instincts inherent In our nature, a sufficient secu- 
 rity that but few parents will he found disposed to leave 
 their property to others to their exclusion. The interference 
 of the legislature in their behalf appears, therefore, to be, 
 speaking generally, quite unnecessary. In countries like 
 England and Holland, in which the greatest latitude is giv- 
 en to the power of bequeathing, the instances are extreme 
 ly rare in which an affectionate and dutiful family have 
 suffered from the circumstance of their father being per- 
 mitted to leave his fortune to strangers ; and it would be 
 most impolitic to attempt to obviate an evil of such rare 
 occurrence by exempting children from the constant influ- 
 ence of a salutary check on their vicious propensities, and 
 compelling a man to bestow on profligacy, extravagance, 
 and idleness, that property which is at once the fruit and 
 the appropriate reward of virtue, economy, and industry. 
 
 The advantages resulting from the unrestrained power of 
 bequeathing property by will are so striking as hardly to 
 require to be pointed out. Perhaps, however, we may be 
 excused for laying the following passage, from the valuable 
 though little known work of M. Luzac, De la Richesse de 
 la Hollander before the reader. It strongly corroborates 
 what has now been stated. "La liberte de "tester, celle de 
 disposer a volonte de ses biens par un acte de demiere vo- 
 lonte peut encore <}tre mise au nombre des causes, qui ont 
 contribue a anitner ['Industrie des habitans. Quelque in- 
 diff. rent que Ton soit sur le partage des biens que Ton lais- 
 se en mourant, I'idee de pouvoir en faire jouir ceux qu'on 
 vein en gratifier. e t surenietit un aiguillon qui doit exciter 
 au travail, mi tfu moins prevenir qu'on se degoute d'accu- 
 muler des richesses. Pourquoi travaillerai-je a augmenter 
 ma fortune si je suis oblige de la laisser A ceux qui ne m'en 
 sauront aucun gre, et qui ne la meriteront pas ? La liberte 
 dc disposer librcment de ses biens par testament, est peut-etre 
 la principale cause que les fortunes des particulitrs sunt 
 plus considerables en Hollande que par tout ailleurs." (i. 
 
 304.) 
 
 Entails. — The recognition of the right to bequeath pro- 
 perty to any particular heir has, in several countries, been 
 follow iil by an acknowledgment of the right of the propri- 
 etor of an estate to name an indefinite series of heirs, and to 
 prescribe the conditions on which they shall be entitled to 
 hold the property. This right is founded by lawyers on 
 rib- maxim of the civil law, that every one has tile abso- 
 lute disposal of his own property: unusquisque est rei sum 
 moderator tt arbiter. This, however, is not a natural but a 
 civil right ; and it is not to be judged of by referring to ab- 
 stract or imaginary principles, but by ils practical operation 
 and real influence over the condition and interests of socie- 
 ty. To enter fully into an examination of the advantages 
 and disadvantages incident to the practice of entailing, 
 would far exceed the narrow limits within which an article 
 of this description must be confined ; but we may, notwith- 
 standing, glance at one or two of the principal topics that 
 should be attended to in forming a correct conclusion as to 
 the influence of entails. 
 
 In tin' first place, it is alleged in their favour that (hey 
 stimulate exertion and economy; that they hold out to 
 hnnesi industry ami ambition the strongest and safes) ex- 
 citement, in the prospect of founding an imperishable name 
 ami a powerful family, ami of being remembered and ven- 
 erated by endless generations as their chief inn! benefactor; 
 
 anil, in the second place, it is said that entails form the only 
 
 solid bulwark of a respectable aristocracy, and prevent 
 generations from being ruined by the folly or misfortunes of 
 an individual. 
 
 .Vow, it is not to be denied that the prospect of founding 
 a powerful family, and of securing property, accumulated 
 during a course of laborious and successful exertion and 
 
 economy, from the risk of being squandered by the incon- 
 siderate projects or extravagance of any future Individual, 
 must act as a very powerful spur to the industry and ambi- 
 tion of the original founder of a family. But here the 
 beneficial influence of the system stops; its operation on the 
 subsequent holders of the property Is entirely different An 
 entail is in a gre a measure emancipated from the 
 Influence of parental authority; his chance of succeeding 
 to the property of his ancestors does not depend on the cir- 
 1194 
 
 i cumstance of his having deserved it, of his being industri- 
 ous or idle, dissipated or sober. The succession to entailed 
 
 estates is not regulated by the principle of detur dig 
 Their occupiers have no power to change the established 
 order of succession ; they cannot exclude the worst to make 
 room for the best of their descendants, hut must submit to 
 see the properties of which they are in possession descend) 
 as, in fact, they not (infrequently do, to the most worthless 
 and undutiful of their children or relations. Granting, there- 
 fore, that the institution of entails has a tendency, as it un- 
 doubtedly has, to make one generation active, frugal, and 
 industrious, it is clear to demonstration that it must exempt 
 every succeeding generation, that is, every succeeding heir 
 of entail, from feeling the full force of some of the most 
 powerful motives to such conduct. A system of entail 
 makes the succession to property depend, not on the good 
 or bad conduct of the individual, but on the terms of a deed 
 written a couple of centuries, perhaps, before he was in 
 existence. Its effect is, therefore, to substitute a species of 
 fatalism in the place of an enlightened discrimination ; to 
 throw property Indifferently into the hands of the undeserv- 
 ing and the deserving; and it is plainly impossible it can do 
 this without weakening the motives which stimulate men 
 to act the part of good citizens, and strengthening those of 
 an opposite description. When, therefore, we refer, as we 
 ought, to the decisive criterion of public utility, it is imme- 
 diately seen that the industry of one generation is not to be 
 purchased by the idleness of all that are to come after it ; and 
 that it is not much less injurious to allow an individual to 
 appoint his remotest heirs, than it would be to deprive him 
 of the power of nominating his immediate successors. 
 
 As to the second point, there can be no doubt that a sys- 
 tem of entail affords the best attainable security for the per- 
 manence of property in particular families ; and as individ- 
 uals possessed of property act, generally speaking, with 
 more independence, and are less liable to be biassed by 
 purely selfish considerations than those who are compara- 
 tively poor, it would seem that the privilege of executing a 
 perpetual entail of a certain amount of property might, 
 with propriety, be allowed to noble families. Indeed, we 
 are disposed to think that in the case of such families it 
 would be advantageous to carry this principle a good deal 
 farther ; and that no individual should be advanced to the 
 peerage unless he were able to establish a majorat, or to 
 entail such an extent of landed property on the heirs of the 
 title as might be sufficient to secure them, supposing they 
 acted with ordinary prudence, from falling into a state of 
 poverty, and becoming mere dependents on the crown. Hut 
 though the power of entailing were conceded to noble fam- 
 ilies vested with the prerogative of hereditary legislation, it 
 might he confined within certain limits, ami made to vary 
 with the entailer's rank in the peerage. Neither is there 
 the shadow of a reason, on political grounds, for conceding 
 this power to others. A system of perpetual entail is, in a 
 general point of view, certainly injurious ; and though con- 
 stitutional considerations may require the privilege to be 
 granted, under proper modifications, to a particular class, 
 they can never require that it should be granted to all. It 
 is not possible to interfere to protect the families of the 
 commons from the casualties to which they are subject, by 
 sanctioning a system of perpetual entail, without producing 
 mischievous results. It is the duty of government to adopt 
 such regulations as may most effectually call forth industry 
 and economy among all elates of its subjects: but it is no 
 part of its duty to inquire whether the frugality of those on 
 the box, and the extravagance of those in the conch, bid 
 fair to make them change places ; and still less to attempt 
 to prevent it by throwing artificial ramparts round the pro- 
 perty of the latter. 
 
 In Scotland the practice of entailing has been carried to 
 a very great extent, and in some counties hardly an acre of 
 land is now to be met with that is not burdened with the 
 fetters of a perpetual entail, chalking out an endless suc- 
 CeSSion of heir*. Latterly, indeed, the system his been so 
 far modified by the interference of the legislature, that mo- 
 ney is allowed 10 be raised on the security of entailed es- 
 tates for the effecting of necessary improvements, and cer- 
 tain provisions may be made fur widows and younger chil- 
 dren. In consequence of these modifications, and of the 
 
 abolition of the practice of letting entailed lands by fine, 
 the practice is by no means so injurious as has been sup- 
 posed, and as it has been frequently represented. Still, 
 however, there can be no doubt of its extreme inexpedien- 
 cy in a public point of view ; though, owing to the number 
 of third parties interested in the succession to entailed es- 
 tates, the question as to the abolition of entails is one of 
 the greatest difficulty. 
 
 In England, on the other hand, it seems as if the legisla- 
 ture bad hit tie bappy medium between giving too much 
 and too little pow er to those who have accumulated pm|>er- 
 ty over its disposal by will. An English gentleman may 
 entail an estate on such heirs as are in existence when the 

 
 SUCCESSION, LAW OF. 
 
 deed is executed, or till the first unborn heir be 21 years of 
 age; but here the destination stops, and the heir in posses- 
 sion has then the absolute disposal of the property. This 
 gives to every one that degree of power over his property 
 which is required to inspire him with the desire of accu- 
 mulating a fortune ; at the same time that it takes from 
 him the power of legislating for future ages, or of creating 
 rules to be obeyed in all time to come. 
 
 French Law of Succession. — We have already seen that 
 it has been the practice in most countries, as society ad- 
 vanced, to relax the restraints imposed in early and less en- 
 lightened ages on the bequeathing of property by will. But 
 the modern legislators of France have followed a different 
 course, and have confined the power of testators within the 
 narrowest limits. They have, in fact, gone far to make 
 that rule of the Roman law, as to equal partition among all 
 the children, that obtained in cases of intestacy, the imper- 
 ative rule of succession to all property, whether landed or 
 moveable. 
 
 According to the new French law, a person with one 
 child may dispose at pleasure of a moiety of his property, 
 the child inheriting the other moiety as matter of right ; a 
 person having two children is only allowed the absolute 
 disposal of a third part of his property ; and those having 
 more than two must divide three fourths of their property 
 equally among them, one fourth part only being left at 
 their own disposal. The property of those dying intestate 
 is equally divided among their descendants, without re- 
 spect of sex or seniority. 
 
 This law was intended to subvert the foundations of that 
 feudal aristocracy whose ascendency had been very preju- 
 dicial to France ; and as the influence of an aristocracy 
 must always be mainly dependent on the magnitude of their 
 property, it was certainly well fitted to accomplish its ob- 
 ject. It is seldom, however, that a law adapted to a parti- 
 cular emergency may be maintained with advantage as a 
 general rule of national policy ; and it would be singular 
 were a device originally fallen upon for the express purpose 
 of splitting estates, found beneficial for regulating the suc- 
 cession to property in a great kingdom. Considered in a 
 general point of view, this law seems infinitely more ob- 
 jectionable than a system of perpetual entail. By interfe- 
 ring to so extreme an extent in the disposal of a man's prop- 
 erty, it must plainly lessen the motives to accumulation ; 
 while, by rendering all the children in a great measure in- 
 dependent, it weakens the parental authority, and has the 
 same injurious operation in reference to an entire family 
 that the law of entail has in reference to a single child. 
 When the property of the father must be divided, all his 
 descendants are aware, from their earliest infancy, that 
 they are, without any peculiar merit or exertion on their 
 part, to obtain a certain provision ; and can any one doubt 
 that this sort of certainty must tend to paralyze their ef- 
 forts, and to render the younger children at least less enter- 
 prising than they would be, did they know that their condi- 
 tion in society was to depend principally on themselves, and 
 that they bad no security, other than their own deserts, for 
 obtaining any thing from their parents 1 But even these do 
 not seem to be its worst effects. The inevitable tendency 
 of this, and of every similar system, is to occasion too great 
 an increase of agricultural population ; at the same time 
 that it operates to reduce landed property into such minute 
 portions as neither to afford sufficient employment to the 
 families occupying them, nor to allow of their being culti- 
 vated and improved in the best and most efficient manner. 
 The strong predilection entertained by the great bulk of the 
 children of persons engaged in the business of agriculture 
 for the pursuits of their fathers has been remarked by every 
 one in any degree familiar with rural affairs ; and it is obvious 
 that the existence of a law making the division of estates 
 compulsory affords the greatest facilities for gratifying this in- 
 clination. It will give to many, who might otherwise have 
 been obliged to emigrate, or to resort to some other employ- 
 ment, the power of continuing in that line of life in which 
 they have been educated, and which is endeared to them 
 by those early associations that exert so strong an influence 
 over future conduct. Should a family be unusually large, 
 or should the share of the paternal property falling to each 
 of the children be insufficient to enable them to maintain 
 themselves in nearly the same class as their father, some 
 of the more adventurous spirits will probably be disposed to 
 sell their portion, and to engage in other pursuits. But ex- 
 perience shows that, in the great majority of cases, they 
 continue to reside on the little properties obtained from 
 their ancestors; and the fair presumption seems to be, that 
 the process of division and subdivision will continue, until 
 the whole land has been parcelled out into patches, and 
 filled with an agricultural population, destitute alike of the 
 means and the desire of rising in the world. 
 
 It is no doubt true that the condition of the agriculturists 
 of France, at this moment, Is decidedly superior to what it 
 was previously to the Revolution. But it cannot be truly af- 
 
 firmed that this improvement has been in any respect ow- 
 ing to the law of equal inheritance. It has taken place, not 
 in consequence of that law, but in despite of it. The aboli- 
 tion of the feudal privileges of the nobility and clergy, and 
 of the gabelle, corvees, and other oppressive and partial 
 burdens and imposts, was of the greatest service to proprie- 
 tors and farmers ; and, in addition to these advantages, a 
 great part of the property of the church and of the emigrants 
 came into their hands at very low prices ; so that small 
 properties were augmented, and fresh energy given to agri- 
 cultural pursuits. Still, however, it is certain that the rapid 
 subdivision of landed property, and the continually increasing 
 excess of the agricultural population, caused by the law of 
 compulsory succession, have gone far to neutralize the ef- 
 fects of these advantageous circumstances, and form at this 
 moment one of the most deeply-seated evils in the social 
 condition of the people of France. 
 
 In every respect, therefore, this law would seem to be 
 most inexpedient; and certainly the experience of France 
 does not tend in any respect to shake our belief in the wis- 
 dom of those who contend that the interference of the leg- 
 islature in respect to wills should, in all ordinary cases, be 
 confined within the narrow est limits ; and that in this, as 
 in most other things, their object should rather be to pre- 
 vent abuses, than to enact rules for the guidance of individ- 
 uals in the distribution of their property under ordinary cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 Bequeathing of Property for Charitable Purposes. — In the 
 article Foundations in this work, we have briefly glanced 
 at some of the more prominent considerations that should 
 be attended to in the endowment of hospitals, and in the 
 appropriation of property for purposes of public utility. No 
 doubt it is of the greatest importance, in a national point of 
 view, that property should be bequeathed for such subjects ; 
 and it would be easy to show that England has derived, and 
 is deriving, the greatest advantage from the bequests of pri- 
 vate individuals for the promotion of education, the support 
 of the poor, and other charitable purposes. Still, however, 
 it seems abundantly obvious that such bequests should in 
 all cases be subject to the control of the state. It is difficult 
 indeed, or rather impossible perhaps, to define, a priori, how 
 far interference should be carried in such cases ; but that, 
 speaking generally, it is indispensable even to the proper 
 carrying out of the views of the testators, is abundantly ob- 
 vious. 
 
 To regard the instructions in the wills of those who have 
 established foundations as immutable laws, which are in no 
 case to be altered, is, in truth, to permit the ignorance, fol- 
 ly, or presumption of an individual to become a standard for 
 all future ages, and to regulate the sludies and the institu- 
 tions of a more 'advanced and enlightened period by his 
 crude conceptions and views. Surely, however, it is need- 
 less to say, that no select number of men, and stdl less indi- 
 viduals, should be allowed to erect themselves into infalli- 
 ble legislators for every succeeding generation. The regula- 
 tions of the great Alfred and the other benevolent individu- 
 als who founded the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge 
 may have been excellent at the time when they were 
 framed ; but had they been strictly adhered to, their chairs 
 must now have been filled with Aristotelian doctors, and 
 lecturers on the Ptolemaic system of the world and the in- 
 fallibility of the Pope! 
 
 It is impossible to doubt the pious and benevolent views 
 of many of those who, in the middle ages, left their proper- 
 ty to monastic institutions ; but still less is it possible to 
 hesitate applauding the conduct of the reformers, who di- 
 verted this property to other purposes, and who justly con- 
 sidered that the terms of a will dictated in a comparatively 
 barbarous period should not be permitted to consecrate and 
 hallow a system, which had been discovered to be most in- 
 imical to the interests of true religion, and productive only 
 of injurious consequences. 
 
 The establishment of foundling hospitals is another in- 
 stance of the same kind. They were projected, and have 
 been kept up, with the best intentions ; but it admits of dem- 
 onstration, and is now, indeed, generally admitted, that they 
 have been productive of an incomparably greater amount 
 of crime and of mortality than they have obviated. 
 
 Even as respects the educational foundations established 
 in many parts of England, no one can doubt that their utili- 
 ty is in very manv instances greatly narrowed, and in not a 
 few wholly nullified, bv the injudicious rules laid down for 
 their government ; and, in fact, there is nothing that stands 
 in greater need of revision and amendment than the consti- 
 tution and administration of foundations. 
 
 Succe'ssion. In Civil Law. In that jurisprudence, and 
 those modern systems which are derived from it. there is 
 no distinction between moveable and immoveable property, 
 considered as a subject of succession. Succession, whether 
 of real or personal property, is either ab intestato, or by tes- 
 tament. The order of succession ab intestato, according to 
 the civil law {see Descent), is to be found in laws of Jus- 
 
 1195
 
 SUCCINEA. 
 
 tinian {Novell, 11?. 127, &c). It admits three classes of 
 successors— descendants, ascendants, and collaterals, who 
 are preferred in that order in the succession ; so that it" a 
 man leave an] descendants, all ascendants and collaterals 
 are excluded : and ascendants exclude collaterals, except 
 brothers of the whole blood and their children. The chil- 
 dren nt' the deceased partake equally. Step-children are 
 strangers to the succession of their step-parents, children, 
 the issue of several marriages, succeed equally to the prop 
 erty of their father; but severally to the property of their 
 respective mothers. Grandchildren take per stirpes, or by 
 right nt' representation ; i. c it' a child die in the parent's 
 lifetime, his children divide his share equally. Among de- 
 scendants, he or she of the nearest degree is preferred, and 
 there is nn ri_:ht of representation. Brothers and brothers' 
 children per stirpes divide with parents ; but it is doubtful 
 whether or no mure distant ascendants divide with them. 
 Succession among collaterals is said not to extend beyond 
 the 10th degree. The wife (by Novell, 53, c. 6,) succeeds, 
 under certain circumstances, to a fourth. 
 
 SUCCTNEA. (Lat. succinum, amber.) A genus of fresh- 
 water Gastropods, so called from the transparent texture 
 and amber colour of the shell. Of this genus two species 
 (Sued nea amphibia, Drass., and Sue. oblonga) are British, 
 and to be found occasionally in the river Wandle, and in 
 Greenwich marshes. 
 
 STJ'CCINIC ACID. (Lat. succinum.) An acid obtained 
 among the products of the destructive distillation of amber ; 
 when pure it is a white crystalline substance. Its salts are 
 termed succinates ; of these the succinate of ammonia is oc- 
 casionally used as a test for iron. It precipitates the perox- 
 ide of that metal in the form of a brown insoluble succinate. 
 
 SU'CCTMTE. (Lat. succinum.) An amber-coloured 
 garnet. . 
 
 BUCKING PUMP, or SUCTION PUMP. The common 
 construction of the pump, in which the two valves open 
 upwards. See Pimp. 
 
 BUCTO'EIANS, Suctorii. (Lat. sugo, / suck.) The 
 name of a tribe of Cartilaginous fishes, comprehending 
 those which, like the lamprey, have a circular mouth 
 adapted tor suction. 
 
 SU'ET. The fat situated about the loins and kidneys, 
 which is harder and less fusible than that from other parts 
 of the same animal. That of the ox and sheep is chiefly 
 used; ami when melted out of its containing membranes it 
 forms tallow, and is largely used in the manufacture of can- 
 dles and in the ordinary soaps. Beef and mutton suet, 
 when fused, concrete at a temperature of about 100. Like 
 other kinds of fat, it is a compound of carbon, oxygen, and 
 hyd rogen . 
 
 SUFFE'TES. (Said to be from the Phcenic. schopetim.) 
 Certain Carthaginian magistrates, whose olfice bore consid- 
 erable analogy to that of the Spartan kings and Roman con- 
 suls. Their number was two, and they were elected annu- 
 ally from tin- noblest families of the state. The functions 
 of the sulfites seem principally to have been confined to the 
 management of civil affairs. Thus it was their province to 
 assemble the senate and preside in it, and also to propose 
 the subjects of debate, and collect the votes; but there are 
 
 instances recorded of suffetes leading the armies of their 
 country. All the cities of note in tin- Carthaginian domin- 
 ions had liken ise their suffetes ; hut these, of course, were 
 Invested merely with municipal authority. (See Mem. de 
 I'.ir. des Tnscr. vols, \wiv. xvwiii.) 
 
 BU'FFB \<. \\. In Ecclesiastical Usage, every bishop 
 is said to be suffragan, relatively to the archbishop of bis 
 province; thus the bishop of Carlisle is suffragan to the 
 archbishop of York, &C., either on account of the soil rages 
 given by them in the provincial synods, or because they can- 
 
 notbe consecrated without the suffrage or consent of the 
 archbishop. Titular bishops, ordained to assist a bishop in his 
 spiritual functions, are also commonly, but rather Improperly, 
 styled suffragans; a title adopted by the stat 36 II. c<, c. 14. 
 RAGE. See Parliament. 
 
 si FFRAGO. (Lat, suffrago, the pastern.) In Mammal- 
 ogy and Ornithology, the joint of the tibia with the tarsus. 
 
 SUFFRU'TICOSE. (Lat. Buffrutex, an undershrub.) 
 Any plant which is not exactly either a shrub or an herba- 
 ceous plant; that is, which has nut hard, woody twigs and 
 
 complete iiinls like the one, nor perishable succulent twigs 
 like the other. Lavender is an instance of a sutl'rulicose 
 plant. 
 
 BU'GAB. (Fr. sur-re, Germ, zucker.) The great commer- 
 cial demand for sugar is almost exclusively supplied from 
 the sugar cane (Arundo saccharifera , which contains It in 
 greater quantity and purity than any other plant, and con- 
 
 ii ntly affords the greatest facilities for its extraction. 
 A large quantity of siiir.-ir is contained in the sap of the 
 American mapl leer iccharimt and in the Juice of 
 the beet root Bet i vulgaris), from both of which i' may be 
 economically obtained ; it has also been extracted from 
 grapes or raisins, and, as is well known, is contained ubun- 
 11% 
 
 SUGAR. 
 
 dantly in many ripe fruits and esculent vegetables. It is, 
 how ever, in these, seldom so pure or in such quantity as to 
 admit of ready separation. 
 
 The process, as carried on in our West India islands, 
 consists in pressing out the juice by rolling mills, and care- 
 fully evaporating it till it has acquired the proper consisten- 
 cy for crystallizing; lime water is added during this opera- 
 tion, to neutralize any free acid, and to facilitate the sepa- 
 ration of certain vegetable matters, which, in consequence 
 of the action of the lime, rise more readily to the surface, 
 and admit of being skimmed oft'. When duly concentrated, 
 the syrup is run oil' into shallow wooden coolers, where it 
 concretes ; it is then put into barrels with holes in the bot- 
 tom, through which a quantity of treacle or molasses gradu- 
 ally drips, and the remaining sugar acquires the granular 
 crystalline state ; it is packed into hogsheads, and comes to 
 us under the name of raicor muscovado sugar. The follow- 
 ing is a sketch of the process by which raw sugar is purified 
 in this country. Haw sugar is chosen by the refiner by the 
 sharpness and brightness of its grain ; it is put into a copper 
 pan or boiler, previously charged with a certain quantity of 
 lime water, with which a portion of bullock's blood has 
 been well mixed by agitation, and is suffered to stand a 
 night to dissolve. Early in the morning fires are lighted un- 
 der the pans, and when the liquid boils the coagulated al- 
 bumen of the blood rises to the surface and carries the im- 
 purities of the sugar with it. The liquid is kept gently sim- 
 mering, and continually skimmed, till a small quantity, ta- 
 ken out in a metal spoon, appears perfectly transparent : this 
 generally takes from four to five hours. The clear syrup is 
 then run oft" into a cistern ; the pans are reduced to half 
 their former size, by taking offa moveable front, and a smal- 
 ler portion of the purified syrup returned into each ; the fires 
 are now increased, and the sugar made to boil as rapidly as 
 possible, till a small quantity taken on the thumb is capable 
 of being drawn into threads by the fore-finger ; the fire is 
 then damped, and the boiling syrup carried off" in basins to 
 the coolers ; a fresh quantity is then pumped into the pans 
 and evaporated as before. In the coolers the sugar is vicr 
 lently agitated with wooden oars till it appears granulated- 
 It is upon this agitation that the whiteness and fineness of 
 grain in the refined sugar principally depend ; the crystals 
 are thus broken down while forming, and the whole con- 
 verted into a granular mass, which permits the coloured li- 
 quid saccharine matter to run off", and which would be com- 
 bined with the solid if it were suffered to form into larger 
 crystals. This granular texture likewise facilitates the per- 
 colation of water through the loaves in the after process, 
 which washes the minutely divided crystals from all re- 
 maining tinge of molasses. That this is the real theory of 
 the whitening of sugar by the process of refining appears 
 from a comparison with the processfor making sugar candy. 
 In this the raw material is cleared and boiled as above ; but 
 instead of being put into coolers and agitated, it is poured 
 into pans, across which threads are strung, to which the 
 crystals attach themselves ; these are set in a stove, and 
 great care is taken not to disturb the liquid, as upon this de- 
 pends the largeness and beauty of the candy. In this state 
 it is left for five or six days exposed to a heat of about 95° ; 
 when it is taken out and washed with lime-water. This 
 takes off' the molasses from the outside ; but a great quanti- 
 ty is combined in the crystal, and the consequence is, that 
 candy is never whiter than the sugar it is made from. 
 When the sugar has attained the granular state in the cool- 
 ers, as above described, it is poured into conical earthen 
 moulds, which have been previously soaked a night in wa- 
 ter ; in these it is again stirred, for the purpose of extricat- 
 ing the air-bubbles, which would otherwise adhere to the 
 surface and render it rough; when sufficiently cold, the 
 loaves are carried to some of the upper floors of the manu- 
 factory, and the paper rovers Heine removed from their 
 points, they are set with their broad ends upward upon 
 earthen pots. The first portions of the liquid molasses soon 
 run down, and leave the sugar much whitened by the sepa- 
 ration ; afterwards, pipe clay mixed with water to the con- 
 sistency of cream is put upon the base of the loaves to the 
 thickness of about an inch: the water from this clay filters 
 through the loaf, and carrying with it all remaining tinge of 
 BS, runs into the pot, ihe clay being of no other use 
 than to retain the water and prevent its too rapid percola- 
 tion, by which too much of the solid sugar would be dis- 
 solved. This process, culled claying, is repeated four or five 
 times, according to the nature of the sugar and the degTce 
 to which it has been boiled. When the loaves are thus 
 
 Cleansed IV all relics Of Colour they are suffered to remain 
 
 sometime fir the water to drain off; when this is complet- 
 ted, they are set with their points upwards, w hen all remains 
 of it are equally diffused throughout ; they are then stovc- 
 
 drierf at a temperature between 95 and 100. The syrup, or 
 
 draining! collected in the pots, is mixed with the raw sugar iu 
 the next boilings: it is divided according to its fineness; the 
 first runnings, which are the foulest, being reserved for the 

 
 SUICIDE. 
 
 coarsest loaves ; while the last, being little else than clear 
 syrup, is boiled into loaves of the same fineness as those 
 from which it ran. The lowest syrups are boiled into what 
 is called bastard sugar, from which the molasses runs with 
 very little mixture of solid sugar : this it is which is sold un- 
 der the name of treacle, being quite incapable of further 
 crystallization. The average produce of 100 cwt. of raw su- 
 gar treated as above is 63 lbs. of refined, 18 of bastard, 27 of 
 molasses, 4 loss in dirt, &c. 
 
 Mr. Howard, in his patent process for the refining of sugar, 
 introduced a variety of modifications and improvements, the 
 principal of which depended upon boiling under diminished 
 atmospheric pressure, so that no part of the syrup was liable 
 to be burned or otherwise injured by heat ; he also em- 
 ployed recently precipitated aluminous earth to abstract part 
 of the colouring matter ; well-burned charcoal, especially 
 animal charcoal, has been found very serviceable for the 
 latter purpose, and a number of other improvements in and 
 modifications of the process of refining have more lately been 
 adopted. 
 
 The chemical characters of sugar are well defined, espe- 
 cially those of the crystal lizable or cane sugar. Its specific 
 gravity is about 1-6. It dissolves in all proportions in water, 
 is less soluble in alcohol, and is recognised by its purely 
 sweet taste. It is blackened by sulphuric acid ; and when 
 about one part of this acid is added to two of thick syrup, 
 the mixture presently boils up into a black frothy mass, 
 which is little else than carbon, acid, and water. In respect 
 to ultimate composition, sugar belongs to that important class 
 of proximate vegetable principles which are theoretically re- 
 garded as compounds of carbon and water; that is, of carbon 
 and of oxygen and hydrogen, in the same relative proportions 
 as they exist in water. The following shows the results of 
 Dr. Prout's analysis of the finest loaf sugar in a dry and pure 
 state, with its probable atomic constitution : 
 
 Carbon 
 
 Hydrogen 
 
 Oxygen 
 
 Equiv. Theory. Expt. 
 
 54 42-86 4285 
 
 8 6-35 6-35 
 
 64 50-79 50-80 
 
 1 126 10000 100-00 
 
 Several other varieties of sugar have been chemically ex- 
 amined ; such as grape sugar, honey sugar, mushroom su- 
 gar, manna liquorice sugar, &c. 
 
 Consumption and Supply. — Sugar is to be ranked rather as 
 a necessary than as the most desirable of luxuries ; and a 
 larger sum is, we believe, expended on sugar in this country 
 than on anything else, excepting corn and butcher's meat. 
 The sugar consumed in England is all derived from the 
 Arundo saccharifcra, or sugar cane, and was, for a length- 
 ened period, almost wholly supplied by our colonies in the 
 West Indies ; but latterly we have derived very extensive 
 supplies from the Mauritius and India. Foreign sugar is vir- 
 tually excluded from our markets by the prohibitory duty 
 with which it is loaded. 
 
 Besides the West Indies, South America, especially Bra- 
 zil, the East Indies, the Mauritius, Java, Siam, the Philip- 
 pine Islands, &c, are the countries which export by far the 
 largest supplies of cane sugar, though it either is or may be 
 produced in most tropical countries, and it is also cultivated 
 to some extent in some countries within the temperate zone. 
 During the last war, when the nations of the Continent ex- 
 perienced very great difficulty in getting supplies of sugar 
 from tropical countries, attempts were made to taise it 
 at home from the beet-root ; and this sugar being exempted 
 from the heavy duty laid on colonial sugar, its culture has 
 latterly been very greatly extended, especially in France. 
 But the general opinion seems to be, that were beet-root su- 
 gar subjected to the same duty as colonial sugar, its culture 
 would have to be abandoned. We subjoin 
 
 An Account of the Quantities of the different Descriptions of Sugar entered for Consumption in the United Kingdom 
 during each of the Eleven Years ending with 18-10; with an Account of the Amount of Duty received on the same, 
 the average Price of Muscovado Sugar in Bond, &c. 
 
 
 Quantifies entered for Consumption. 
 
 
 
 
 British Plantation 
 (incl. Mauritius). 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 East India. 
 
 Foreign. 
 
 Total. 
 
 from Duties on Sugar. 
 
 Muscovado Sugar. 
 
 
 Cwts. 
 
 Cwts. 
 
 Cwts. 
 
 Cwt). 
 
 L. 
 
 L. i. d. 
 
 1830 
 
 3,590,041 
 
 131,979 
 
 24 
 
 3,722,044 
 
 4,767,342 
 
 1 4 11 per cwt. 
 
 1831 
 
 3,667,396 
 
 113,536 
 
 79 
 
 3,781,011 
 
 4,650,590 
 
 13 8 — 
 
 1832 
 
 3,575,329 
 
 79.600 
 
 605 
 
 3,655.534 
 
 4,394,338 
 
 17 8 — 
 
 1833 
 
 3,553,450 
 
 98,283 
 
 71 
 
 3,651,804 
 
 4,414,302 
 
 19 8 — 
 
 1834 
 
 3,620,522 
 
 121,007 
 
 50 
 
 3,741,579 
 
 4,559,392 
 
 19 5 — 
 
 1835 
 
 3,757,851 
 
 98,680 
 
 31 
 
 3,856,562 
 
 4,667,900 
 
 1 13 5 — 
 
 1836 
 
 3,378,144 
 
 110,222 
 
 33 
 
 3,488,399 
 
 4,184,165 
 
 2 10 — 
 
 1837 
 
 3,684,712 
 
 270,055 
 
 43) 
 
 3,954,810 
 
 4,760,565 
 
 1 14 7 — 
 
 1838 
 
 3,491,225 
 
 418,375 
 
 65 
 
 3,909,665 
 
 4,656,891 
 
 1 13 8 — 
 
 1839 
 
 3,348,298 
 
 477,252 
 
 49 
 
 3,825,599 
 
 4,586,936 
 
 1 19 2 — 
 
 1840 
 
 3,074,198 
 
 518,320 
 
 2316 
 
 3,594,834 
 
 4,449,070 
 
 2 9 1 — 
 
 Doty on British plantation and Mauritius sugar from 1830 to 1840 14 per cwt. 
 
 Duty on East Indian sugar from 1830 to 13th August, 1835 1 12 — 
 
 Duty on ditto of any British possession within the limits of the East India Company's charter into which the importation of foregn su- 
 gar is prohibited, and imported thence from 13th of Aujust, 1S35 to 1S40 14 — 
 
 Duty on ditto of any other British possession within those limits, aud imported from thence from 13th of August, 1S35, to 1840 . . 1 12 — 
 
 Duty on foreign sugar from 11-30 to 1840 ........ ... 3 3 — 
 
 Additional 5 per cent, on the above rates from 16th of May, 1840. 
 
 SU'ICIDE, or SELF-MURDER. (Lat. suicidium.) Few 
 chapters in the history of the human mind are more sin- 
 gular than that of suicide, as showing the kind of honour 
 and estimation which a practice so unnatural has attained 
 in the feelings of many nations. The rank which religious 
 suicide has held from immemorial antiquity, and still holds, 
 in the opinion of the Hindoos, has been too often described, 
 and is too familiar in its most notorious and painful instan- 
 ces, to need more than adverting to on the present occasion. 
 It is said that the practice is condemned by their older 
 books; if so, the traditionary sentiments of the people have 
 been formed on some different model. The suicides of the 
 Hindoos have proceeded partly from fanaticism, partly from 
 an apathetic philosophy ; those of the ancient Scandina- 
 vians, esteemed equally honourable, from the overflow of 
 courage in warriors, who could endure any evil except the 
 approach of helpless and unwarlike old age. 
 
 Among the Greeks, the first inquirers who reasoned out 
 the principles of human life and action by a train of phi- 
 losophical investigation, singularly vague and discrepant 
 opinions on this subject seem to have prevailed; as might 
 have been expected from a people to whom religion fur- 
 nished so very few fixed data of reasoning, and by whom 
 abstract truth was pursued with such unequalled ingenuity 
 and earnestness. Socrates, the great master of ethics, was 
 emphatic in his condemnation of suicide. Plato speaks in 
 a more dubious strain : writing as a lawgiver, he reprobates 
 it: and in his arguments on the subject is to be found the 
 well-known illustration which has figured ever since in all 
 such discussions, in which he compares it to the desertion 
 93 
 
 by a soldier of his post : yet he expressly excepts from his 
 censure those cases in which it is committed under the pres- 
 sure of immitigable calamity. Pythagoras, at an earlier pe- 
 riod, denied its lawfulness. (See Jlthenaius, 1. iv.) In the 
 later days of Greek philosophy, both Stoics and Epicureans 
 found arguments for its defence in their respective princi- 
 ples. The former sect was most notorious for its tenets on 
 this subject; Zeno and Cleanthes, its great masters, hav- 
 ing both put an end to their own lives, as Demoeritus had 
 done before them, from the mere tedium of old age. 
 
 Cum jam mahira vetustas 
 Admonuit memorem motus languescere mentis, 
 Sponte sua letho caput obvius obtulit ipse. 
 
 The argument of an Epicurean philosopher on the topic 
 may be collected from Cic. Tusc. Disp., v. 41 ; and, indeed, 
 may be compressed in the pithy Greek motto for a drinking 
 party, 'H mOt ij amOi — drink, or begone. " Stoical acade- 
 mies" (says Dr. Moore, in his Essay on Suicide, i., 233), 
 " if such an expression be warrantable, would plead a dismis- 
 sion whenever their dignity was affronted, or their glory 
 diminished ; whilst Epicurean academics would care no- 
 thing about such matters, as long as their personal indolence 
 and tranquillity were not superseded." The influence of 
 Greek philosophy had, as is well known, a great share in pro- 
 ducing that tendency to suicide which distinguished the high- 
 er society of Rome in the later days of the commonwealth. 
 The " Roman death," as it is emphatically called, was not 
 really a national habit; the older manners of the common- 
 wealth repudiated it ; its prevalence was owing to foreign 
 doctrines, acting on minds affected by the violent passions, 
 
 1197
 
 SUICIDE. 
 
 engrossing luxuries, and rapid vicissitudes of fortune which 
 distinguished that momentous era. Virgil returns to the 
 Pythagorean view ; and, without inveighing against suicide, 
 
 represents it as a sad and mournful death, the perpetrators 
 Of which are doomed to a Ion;: and shadowy BZUtenci — 
 without torment, but without enjoyment ; one which they 
 would willingly exchange for the bitterest poverty and la 
 bour in the cheerful light of day. Perhaps the courtier-poet 
 was a little affected by the feelings of those in power, who 
 loved to have- contented, orderly, and not too irritable sub- 
 jects, and disliked the fashion among the noble Romans of 
 escaping in this manner from tyranny and persecution. At 
 a later period suicide committed by criminals under accusa- 
 tion u as made criminal by the Roman law. This was w ith 
 a view to preserve the forfeiture of the criminal's property 
 to the government. Suicide, as such, does not seem to have 
 been the subject of legislation. 
 
 Although Christianity was not slow in effecting a reform 
 in the feelings of mankind on this important subject, yet 
 some relics of the ancient sentiments lingered awhile, even 
 in the minds of enlightened believers. The fanatical Do- 
 natists were greatly addicted to suicide, and are justly con- 
 demned on this account among others by the early writers 
 of the church. Nor did these latter ever esteem suicide 
 lawful, even under the severe persecutions to which the 
 church was subjected, except perhaps in one case — when 
 committed by virgins to preserve their chastity. The cher- 
 ished sentiments of the fathers of the church on this sub- 
 ject rendered them not only lenient to such victims of hon- 
 our, but some of them have even gone so far as to com- 
 mend them. Augustine, with his usual strong sense of 
 moral right, only pities them; and expressly classes all sui- 
 cide as homicide, {lie Civ. Dei. 1. i., c. 19.) There was, 
 at an early period, no commemoration for the souls of sui- 
 cides in the early church. And the council of Bracara, 
 A.D. 563, refused them Christian burial; a measure which 
 has been pretty generally adopted throughout Christendom. 
 
 There have been a few paradoxical writers who have 
 contended in favour of the lawfulness of suicide, arguing on 
 Christian premises. In Hume's Essay on Suicide this 
 ground is taken, with the author's usual adroitness in point- 
 ing out supposed deficiencies in the scheme of Revelation. 
 A more remarkable instance is Dr. Donne's " [JtaBavaroc ; 
 or a declaration of that paradox or thesis, that self homicide 
 is not so naturally sin that it may never be otherwise." It 
 is remarkable, however, less from the force of the argu- 
 mentation, than the circumstance that a man of a religious, 
 though eccentric turn of mind, should have defended such 
 positions. Some of his arguments, those derived from the 
 silence of Scripture on the specific subject, have been com- 
 monly repeated: others seem very puerile. Those who 
 wish it will find them seriously refuted, at much length, 
 by the painstaking Dr. Moore, in his Essaij on Suicide, al- 
 ready quoted, from which we have taken most of this his- 
 torical sketch. To say the truth, his refutation is in some 
 instances as weak as any part of Donne's paradox. 
 
 Among the writings of another class of thinkers, the 
 reasonings pro and con urged by Rousseau in the Nouvelle 
 JHeloise are well known. Though there is little convincing 
 in the logic of the antagonist of suicide, yet the side he 
 take- is made to appear the generous and noble one; and 
 in this case, as in several others, Rousseau must be owned 
 to have done service to the cause of morality, considering 
 the incredible influence which he exercised on the fervid 
 heads and hearts of his time. It is remarkable that Lord 
 Edward, in the work above alluded to, is made to admit one 
 exception in favour of suicide, in the case of acute and 
 irremediable pain. Madame de Bttel, in her Essay on the 
 Infhu nee of the Passions, advanced a sort of defence of sui- 
 cide; in her later w..rk {Reflexions surlr Suicide, published 
 in 1810) she has enforced the more customary doctrine with 
 much eloquence and feeling. We are not acquainted with 
 the work of the Swedish professor Robcck in defence of 
 suicide (who killed himself after writing it) except through 
 the mention made of it by Dr. Moore and Madame de Stael. 
 In discus-inns on the subject of proneness to suicide in par- 
 ticular classes or nations, it is Impossible to disconnect it 
 from tl at of insanity; because the miserable delusions of 
 that disease constantly impel their victim to its commission. 
 In societies, therefore, where insanity is most romnion. the 
 number of suicides will be greatest It does not follow 
 that the number of suicides committed by persons not in- 
 sane will also be greatest in such societies; that is, when 
 we disregard the refinements of those who profess t,> con- 
 sider suicide itsi-it'as a proof of greater or less derangement 
 of the mental functions. What we mean by the suicide of 
 a HUte person is, the suicide of one of whose insanity there 
 is DO evidence except such as may he considered to arise 
 
 from the act Itself. Considered In this light, the tendency 
 to deliberate suicide has been Bin nit in many 
 
 communities. Nor does it arise from similar causes, or in 
 similar states of society. Among the old Scandinavians 
 1196 
 
 as at this day with some tribes of savages, it was the off 
 spring of the intolerance of fierce dispositions of the help- 
 lessneee of age and disease. It prevails, too, sometimes in 
 eneminate communities, w here there is little /est ()r excite- 
 ment in life, with mean habits, little self-respect, and much 
 apathy: thus it is extremely common in China, even, it is 
 said among the lower classes, notwithstanding the procla- 
 mations, full of ethical saws, which the magistrates issue 
 against its commission. Among people of minds thus dis- 
 posed, the act is generally deliberate, and unconnected with 
 insanity: so, again, where it results from a cold tempera- 
 ment, and a sarcastic and contemptuous view of lit',-, which 
 was the notion formerly entertained by foreigners of the 
 English mania for suicide ; a notion which probably had not 
 foundation in truth at any time. Sixty years ago, Mercier 
 ( Talilrau de Paris, vol. iv.) thought it prevailed less in Eng- 
 land than France. At present, in communities civilized on 
 the European model, it would probably he found that the 
 number of suicides was pretty nearly in proportion to that 
 of insane persons, and that the same causes which produce 
 mental disturbance lead likewise to self-murder. Perhaps 
 the principal predisposing influences, as they affect society 
 in the mass, may be reduced to four: — the spirit of mercan- 
 tile speculation, leading to sudden and overpowering vicis- 
 situde of prosperity and want ; mental excitement, produced 
 chiefly by misdirected education, literature, and philosophy ; 
 absence of self restraint, especially on religions principles; 
 and intemperance in spirituous liquours. Either of these 
 causes alone may be sufficient : for example, in various 
 parts of northern Germany, and in Geneva, where there is 
 little of commercial movement, and where the body of the 
 people are orderly and well-conducted, suicide is never- 
 theless extremely common among the educated classes, and 
 may be referred almost wholly to mental excitement. But 
 where they all combine, the effect is fearful ; as mny be 
 witnessed in the great cities of France and the United 
 States. On the other hand, suicide is rare in nations where 
 fatalism prevails, as among the Turks and Spaniards ; in 
 nations in which a love of order is joined with an unrefined 
 mental organization and great love of physical enjoyment, 
 such as the south Germans, and, to a certain extent, the 
 Italians. The following table exhibits some of the results 
 given by M. Quetelet, from researches extending over a 
 number of years, from 1820 downwards ; but we give them, 
 premising our doubt as to the possibility of obtaining accu- 
 rate returns in many countries. 
 
 Number of Suicides annually, compared witli the Popula- 
 tion. 
 
 Russia 1 in 49.182 
 
 Austria " 20,900 
 
 France " 18,000 
 
 Pennsylvania " 15,875 
 
 Prussia " 11,104 
 
 New- York (State) . " 7,797 
 
 City of London . " 5,000 
 
 City of Berlin " 2,941 
 
 City of Geneva . " 2,941 
 City of Paris " 2,400 
 
 With regard to classes, the number of suicides is probably 
 distributed in a pretty equally diminishing proportion from 
 the highest to the lowest : with the exception, however, of . 
 crowned heads ; for it has been observed, that no sovereign, 
 at least in modern times, was ever known to commit self- 
 murder. There is a remarkable paper in the first volume 
 of the Journal of the London Statistical Society, showing 
 its prevalence among the military in this city. The sui- 
 cides in the Dragoon Guards and Dragoons are said to 
 amount to one twentieth of all the deaths; while among 
 the members of the Equitable (to make the comparison 
 with a body of grown-up persons) they are only 1 in 110. 
 
 With respect to the causes of suicide, some curious re- 
 sults have been obtained by statisticians ; hut, in giving 
 them, we must profess our doubts concerning the value of 
 such statements, from the very vague data on which they 
 must necessarily be founded. It appears from a classifica- 
 tion of 134 suicides committed in ten years at Gc sni 
 M. Provost, in the 15th vol. of the Jlnnales dc Hygiene), 
 that the following causes produced litem : 
 
 Disease 34 
 
 Mental alienation 24 
 
 Pecuniary misfortunes . . . .19 
 
 Domestic " chagrins" 15 
 
 Melancholy, cause unknown . . .13 
 
 Misconduct, drunkenness . . . .10 
 Fear of punishment, remorse ... 6 
 
 '■ Chagrins" of love 6 
 
 Gambling and lotteries 4 
 
 Mysticism 2 
 
 Comparing these with other accounts, it would seem that 
 love produces at Paris -% s of the suicides committed, at Ge-
 
 SUIT. 
 
 neva -i , at Petersburg $, if Mr. Schon is to he believed ; a 
 singular contrast to the commonly supposed effects of cli- 
 mate. Domestic griefs, at Paris (from 1794 to 1823), ^ ; at 
 Geneva the same. Misconduct, at Paris 231 at Geneva 
 -jL, at Petersburg ^. Gambling, at Paris ^ at Geneva j\- 
 Some of these results, in Paris and Geneva, are certainly 
 remarkable for their correspondence. (See an Essay of M. 
 Brouc, in the 16th vol. of the Annates de Hygiene, already 
 cited. The reader may consult also M. de Villeneuve Bar- 
 gemont, Econ. Politique Chretienne.) 
 
 The following statement is extracted from the official ta- 
 bles of revenue, trade, and population for 1839 : 
 
 Number of suicides in England and Wales during the year 
 ended 30th of June, 1839— Males, 751 ; Females, 307. 
 
 The Ages of 1044 Suicides. 
 
 Between the 
 
 ages of 10 and 15 
 
 8 
 
 " 
 
 15 " 20 
 
 73 
 
 " 
 
 20 " 30 
 
 151 
 
 " 
 
 30 " 40 
 
 172 
 
 ft 
 
 40 " 50 
 
 217 
 
 >< 
 
 50 " 60 
 
 221 
 
 it 
 
 60 " 70 
 
 141 
 
 u 
 
 70 " 80 
 
 54 
 
 tl 
 
 80 " 90 
 
 14 
 
 It 
 
 90 
 
 2 
 
 From this it appears that the greatest number of sui- 
 cides (relatively to the numbers living) are between the 
 ages of fifty and sixty (which appears" from M. Prevost's 
 calculation to be also the case at Geneva) ; the tendency to 
 suicide regularly increasing up to the latter age. Between 
 seventy and eighty the number is still very considerable. 
 
 The Season of the Year. 
 January. February, March 
 April, Slay, June . . . 
 
 July. August, September 
 October, November, December 
 
 Thus the proportion of male to female suicides is 2i to 1 ; 
 at Geneva exactly the same (95 to 38). The subject must 
 not be dismissed without noticing the great increase of sui- 
 cide which most observers represent to have taken place 
 in the last twenty years, especially in the large towns of 
 northern Europe. But there must be a certain degree of 
 doubt how much of the apparent increase is owing to more 
 accurate observations. 
 
 Suicide is ranked by the English law as a peculiar spe- 
 cies of felony; and, like other felonies, cannot be commit- 
 ted by persons under the age of discretion, or insane. From 
 very ancient times (see Bracton) the law imposed the for- 
 feiture of personal property as a consequence of it ; and a 
 felo de se (as a wilful suicide is termed) forfeits all chat- 
 ties, real and personal. But the offence was never attended 
 with corruption of blood, or the forfeiture of lands of inher- 
 itance : so that the will of a felo de se stands good as to 
 realty. In order to vest these chattels in the crown, the 
 fact of self-murder must be proved bv an inquisition, which 
 the coroner is the proper officer to hold. In addition, the 
 law formerly required that a self-murderer should be buried 
 in a highway, with a stake driven through his body. Now, 
 by 4 G. 4. c. 52, his remains are to be privately buried at night 
 in the churchyard. But the canon law (confirmed by the 
 rubric in the Common Prayer Book) forbids the perform- 
 ance of Christian rites over them. 
 
 SUTT. In Law, the same as action ; which see. 
 
 SULCATE. (Lat. sulcus, n furrow.) In Zoology, when 
 a surface is deeply impressed with longitudinal parallel 
 lines. 
 
 SU'LPHATES. Salts containing sulphuric acid ; green 
 vitriol is a sulphate of the protoxide of iron. Glauber's salt 
 is a sulphate of soda. 
 
 SU'LPHITES. Salts of the sulphurous acid. 
 
 SU'LPHOCYA'NIC ACID. This acid was discovered 
 in 1808, by Mr. Porrett, who ascertained it to be a com- 
 pound of sulphur, carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen ; he call- 
 ed it sulphuretted chyazic acid, the term chyazic being com- 
 posed of the initials of carbon, hydrogen, and azote. It is 
 best formed by distilling a strong solution of sulphocyanuret 
 of potassium with phosphoric acid, when sulphocyanic, or 
 more properly hydro-sulphocyanic, passes over into the re- 
 cipient, and phosphate of poxassa remains in the retort. 
 So obtained, it is a liquid of a slight pink hue, and smells 
 somewhat like vinegar. The strongest solution has a «pe- 
 cific gravity of 1-022 ; boils at 2170, and crystallizes at'ooO 
 in six-sided prisms. It gives a very characteristic deep 
 red solution with persalts of iron ; with a salt of copper it 
 gives a white precipitate. It is composed of 
 
 SULPHUR. 
 
 Atoms. Equir. 
 
 Sulphur 2 32 
 
 Cyanogen 1 26 
 
 Hydrogen 1 1 
 
 1 59 
 
 Sulphocyanuret of potassium is obtained by mixing equal 
 weights of powdered sulphur and ferrocyanate of potassa, 
 and keeping them in fusion for half an hour in a flask ; 
 when cold, reduce the mass to powder, and digest it in 
 water ; filter the solution, and add a sufficiency of liquid 
 potassa to throw down the iron. 
 
 SU'LPHONAPHTHA'LIC ACID. A compound of sul- 
 phuric acid and naphthaline, discovered by Mr. Faraday. 
 (Phil. Trans.. 1826.) 
 
 SU'LPHOSLXATISIX. (Lat. sulphur, and sinape. mus- 
 tard.) A crystallizable substance obtained from mustard 
 seed ; it appears to contain sulphur, carbon, hydrogen, and 
 nitrogen. 
 
 BULPHOYTNIC ACID, (Enothionic Acid. An acid 
 formed by the action of sulphuric acid upon alcohol. From 
 Mr. Hennel's experiments (Phil. Trans., 1826 and 1828) it 
 appears to be a compound of 
 
 Atoms. Equiv. 
 Sulphuric acid ... 2 80 
 
 Quadri-hydrocarbon . . 1 28 
 
 1 108 
 
 SU'LPHUR. Brimstone. A yellow brittle mineral pro- 
 duct, found in various parts of the world ; but apparently 
 most abundant in volcanic regions. Europe is chiefly sup- 
 plied with it from the south of Italy and from Sicily. It 
 most commonly occurs massive ; but it is sometimes met 
 with crystallized in the form of an oblique rhombic octoe- 
 dron. Fine specimens of this description are seen in our 
 mineral cabinets, and bear a high price. A considerable 
 quantity of sulphur is also obtained from some of its metal- 
 lic combinations, such as the sulphurets of copper and of 
 iron. These ores are heated, or roasted, as it is termed, in 
 furnaces so constructed that the sulphur vapour may be 
 condensed, and from time to time collected ; this, when 
 purified by fusion, is cast into moulds, and forms common 
 or roll brimstone. Small quantities of sulphur also occur 
 in several animal and vegetable products, and are frequent- 
 ly recognised by the odour of sulphuretted hydrogen which 
 they evolve during putrefaction. Sulphur is a non-con- 
 ductor of electricity, insipid, and inodorous, unless rubbed 
 or heated, when it evolves a sulphurous smell. It? specific 
 gravity is T99. It melts at about 216°: and when heated 
 to about 250° it becomes a limpid, amber-coloured liquid ; 
 if the heat be raised to about 450°, it "gain becomes viscid 
 and deeper coloured; at 480° up to its boiling point it ac- 
 quires rather more fluidity ; at about C0O° it rises rapidly in 
 vapour, and in close vessels condenses in the form of a fine 
 yellow powder, composed of crystalline grains : in this state 
 it is called flowers of sulphur. The earthy and metallic 
 impurities which, with a portion of sulphur, remain in the 
 subliming vessel, were formerly called sulphur virum. 
 When sulphur in its viscid state of fusion is poured into 
 water it becomes a ductile mass, which slowly hardens, 
 and which is often used for taking impressions of seals and 
 medals. When sulphur is in the form of vapour it is of a 
 dense orange colour : its specific gravity in that state is about 
 66 and 100 cubic inches of it should therefore weigh about 
 206 grains. 
 
 There is another form of sulphur which is sometimes 
 called milk of sulphur (lac sulphuris), and which is a hy- 
 drate of sulphur ; it is obtained by precipitating sulphur by 
 muriatic acid from certain of its alkaline solutions. When 
 sulphur which has been melted is suffered to cool slowly, 
 its interior often exhibits prismatic crystals, and very beau- 
 tiful specimens of this artificial crystallization of sulphur 
 may be obtained by melting a few pounds of it in a crucible 
 or ladle, and when partially cooled piercing the outer crust 
 and inverting the vessel, so that the interior liquid part 
 may run out ; on breaking the mass when cold, the cavity 
 will be found lined with prismatic crystals. 
 
 The results of the combustion of sulphur, its equivalent 
 number (16), and several other details respecting its com- 
 binations and uses, are given under the heads of Sulphu- 
 retted Hydrogen, and of Sulphuric and Sulphurous 
 Acids. 
 
 Sulphur is insoluble in water; it dissolves in boiling oil 
 of turpentine, and is deposited often in crystals as the solu- 
 tion cools. It is also soluble in alcohol, if both substances 
 be brought together in the state of vapour. It combines 
 also with chlorine, bromine, and iodine. Its native com- 
 binations with the metals form some of the most important 
 ores. It is from the sulphurets of lead and of copper that 
 the commercial demands for these valuable metals are al- 
 most exclusively supplied. 
 
 Sulphur is of great importance in the arts. It is used ex- 
 
 1199
 
 SULPHURETS. 
 
 tensivelv in the manufacture of gunpowder, ami in the 
 formation Of sulphuric acid, or oil lit' vitriol. It is also used 
 in medicine, and t<>r other purposes of the arts. The en- 
 tries for home consumption in 1838 and 1836 amounted, at 
 an average, to 695,056 cw t. a year. The duty on refined or 
 roll brimstone varies from 6s. to 9s. 0d. a cwt, whereas mi 
 roiiL'h it is only 6rf. ; so that the imports consist almost 
 Wholly i't the hitter. The largest portion hy tar pf the im- 
 ports come from Italy, or rather Sicily. The price of rough 
 brimstone in bond in the London market usually varies 
 from 61. His. to 7/. 10s. a ton. 
 
 SO LPHUKETS. Compounds of sulphur with electro- 
 poMtive or inflammable bodies. The most common ores of 
 copper and of lead are sulphurets of those metals. 
 
 SI I.l'HURETTED HYDROGEN. Hydnf-sulpkv.ru 
 jSeid. A gaseous compound of 1 atom of sulphur = 16+ 1 
 atom of hydrogen = 1. The equivalent, therefore, of sul- 
 phuretted "hydrogen is 17. This gas was first examined by 
 Scheele in 1777. It may be obtained by acting upon sul- 
 phuret of antimony byrnuriatic acid, or upon protosul 
 phuret of iron by diluted sulphuric acid, and is immediate- 
 ly recognised by its peculiar fetid odour, which is so diffusi- 
 ble that a single cubic inch of it escaping into the atmo- 
 sphere of a large room is soon everywhere perceptible by- 
 its smell. It is very deleterious to respiration. 100 cubic 
 inches weigh about 36 grains, its specific gravity compared 
 with air being as 1180 to 1000, or, compared with hydrogen, 
 as 17 to 1. It is liquefied by a pressure of 17 atmospheres 
 at 50°. Water agitated with this gas takes up its own vol 
 ume, and acquires a bitterish nauseous flavour, and the 
 odour which characterizes Harrowgate and Aix-la-Chapelle 
 waters, and which derive their chief peculiarities from the 
 presence of this gas. Sulphuretted hydrogen extinguishes 
 flame, but is Itself inflammable in the contact of air, burn- 
 ing with a blue flame, and depositing, during its slow com- 
 bustion, a portion of its sulphur. When mixed with excess 
 D and inflamed, it explodes, and the mixture is con- 
 verted into sulphurous acid and water. One volume of 
 the gas requires one volume and a half of oxygen for its en- 
 tire combustion, and the results are water, and 1 volume of 
 gas, nits sulphurous acid. This gas is immediately decom- 
 posed by chlorine and by iodine, which, if not added to ex- 
 cess, throw down its sulphur and combine with its hydro- 
 gen. It is unequivocally recognised by its peculiar odour, 
 and by its blackening the salts of lead. Sulphuretted hy- 
 drogen, diluted with 20,000 measures of pure hydrogen, 
 sensibly blackens a piece of paper which has been dipped 
 into a solution of acetate of lead: white lead is also imme- 
 diately discoloured by it; hence the mischief which it does 
 to white paint, and to pictures. The aqueous solution of 
 sulphuretted hydrogen reddens litmus; and inasmuch as 
 it combines with certain bases, it is properly considered as 
 a weak acid. 
 
 SI' LPHURIC ACID, Oil of Vitriol. This most impor- 
 tant acid was discovered by Basil Valentine towards the 
 end of the 15th century. It was formerly obtained by the 
 distillation of green vitriol, and from its oily appearance it 
 acquired the mime, which it still bears, of oil of vitriol. In 
 this country it is procured by burning a mixture of 7 or 8 
 parts of sulphur with 1 of nitrate of soda or of potash. The 
 mixture is burned in a furnace so contrived that a current 
 of air i "trries the products of the combustion into a large 
 leaden chamber, the bottom of which is covered to the 
 depth of a few inches with water. The principle products 
 of the combustion of the above-mentioned mixture of nitre 
 and sulphur are sulphurous and nitrous acids; and these, 
 together with atmospheric air and aqueous vapour, form 
 the contents of the chamber. 
 
 The sulphurous and nitrous acids, with a portion of wa- 
 ter, combine to form a white crystalline substance, which. 
 upon falling into the water of the chamber, is instantly de- 
 composed. The nitrous acid imparts oxygen to the humid 
 
 sulphurous acid, and so converts it into sulphuric acid; 
 while the nitrous acid, having lust oxygen, reverts to the 
 state nf nitric oxide, which is given out into the air of the 
 chamber, from which it immediately tiL'ain abstracts OXJ gen. 
 and he, inning nitrous acid, is again ready to acidity a new 
 portion of sulphurous acid. The oxygen, therefore, is thus 
 indirectly transferred to the sulphur, or to the sulphurous 
 ai id. In. in the .atmosphere, through the medium of the at 
 tractive power of the nitric oxide for that element ; and the 
 circumstance Of this process being repeated over and over 
 again by the same portion of nitrous gas, accounts for the 
 small quantity of nitre required in this curious pro 
 
 Winn the water in the chambers is rendered sufficiently 
 
 acid, which is judged of hy its specific gravity, it is drawn 
 off into leaden boilers, where it is evaporated down to a 
 certain density : alter which, as it would then act upon the 
 
 lead, it is transferred to platinum boilers supplied with still 
 heads, and there is brought to its proper degree of concen- 
 tration by farther distilling off a portion of the residuary 
 water. This last process was formerly conducted, at great 
 1200 
 
 SULPHUROUS ACID. 
 
 risk and Inconvenience, in glass retorts ; its present improve- 
 ment shows a most important application of platinum, 
 which is not acted upon by the boiling acid. Of late, sul- 
 phurs acid has been largely manufactured from the BUlphUT 
 
 obtained by roasting common pyrites (sulphnret of iron); 
 one of the objections to which is, that it almost alwaj a con- 
 tains more nr less arsenic, by which the resulting acid is 
 therefore contaminated. The acid made from Sicilian sul- 
 phur is indeed not always free from this mischievous im- 
 purity. 
 
 Sulphuric acid is a limpid colourless fluid, of a specific 
 gravity of 1*8. It boils at 620°; it freezes at 15°. Hut the 
 temperature at which the diluted acid congeals i> singular- 
 ly modified by the quantity of water which it contains. 
 When of the specific gravity of l"78 (which may he regard- 
 ed as a compound "1 1 atom of dry acid and 2 of water), it 
 freezes at 41)0, and remains solid for a lung time at several 
 degrees above that point if the density be either diminished 
 or increased, a greater cold is required to congeal it. 
 
 It is acrid and caustic, and intensely acid in all its char- 
 acters, even when largely diluted. Its attractions for bases 
 is such that it separates or expels all other acids more or 
 less perfectly from their combinations. Its affinity for wa- 
 ter, is such that it rapidly absorbs it from the atmosphere, 
 and when mixed with water much heat is evolved ; thus 
 by suddenly mixing 4 parts of the acid and 1 of water at ti(P, 
 the temperature rises to 300°. Its attraction for water also 
 causes the sudden liquefaction of snow; and if mixed with 
 it in due proportion, an intense cold is the consequences It 
 acts energetically upon animal and vegetable substances, 
 generally charring them, and often, as in the case of sugar, 
 with singular rapidity. 
 
 The acid, as it usually occurs in commerce, under the 
 name of concentrated sulphuric acid, is a compound of 1 
 atom of anhydrous acid and 1 of water. The anhydrous 
 sulphuric acid is constituted of 16 sulphur (1 atom), and 24 
 oxygen (3 atoms); its equivalent, therefore, is 16 + 24 = 
 40: this is the composition of the acid -.s it exists in the 
 anhydmous sulphates. The strongest liquid acid consists of 
 40 of the dry or anhydrous acid (1 atom), and water (1 
 atom), and is therefore represented by the equivalent 40 + 
 9 = 49. 
 
 Sulphuric acid is an article of great commercial consump- 
 tion ; its purity and value are judged ot' by its specific grav- 
 ity. I'pon this subject Dr. I're's tallies may he consulted, 
 which show the quantity of real or dry, and of commercial 
 acid, in diluted acid of till densities. 
 
 By the term real, dry, or anhydrous sulphuric acid, we 
 mean that which exists in the sulphates, and which may 
 be obtained in a separate state by distilling protosulphate 
 of iron, or green vitriol, at a high temperature : there comes 
 over a dense brownish liquid, which emits vapour when 
 exposed to air, and has hence been termed fuming sul- 
 phuric acid. On putting this into a retort to which a re- 
 ceiver surrounded by ice or snow is carefully adapted, and 
 heating it gently, a vapour passes over, which condenses 
 into a white crystalline solid; this, which is anhydrous or 
 glacial sulphuric acid, liquefies at about 70°, and evaporates 
 at about 112°. Vet. when combined with such portion of 
 water as constitutes the above described liquid acid, it is 
 one of the most fixed of fluids. It hisses when dropped 
 into water in consequence of the great heat evolved. 
 
 The ready test of sulphuric acid is a soluble salt of ba- 
 
 ryta ; the soluti f chloride of barium is gene-rally used, 
 
 which, when dropped into any solution of free er combined 
 
 SUlpburiG acid, announces its presence by a white cloud, or 
 precipitate of sulphate of baryta, which is insoluble in nitric 
 acid: this precipitate, when collected, and well washed 
 and dried, consists of 77 baryta and 40 sulphuric arid: so 
 that 117 is its equivalent, and this weight Indicates 111 of the 
 dry acid. In the same way sulphuric acid, and the sul- 
 phates, .n-e t.sts of baryta. 
 
 SULPHURIC ETHER. See Etoer. 
 
 SULPHUROUS At 'IP. This acid consists of 16 sulphur 
 + 16 oxygen; its equivalent being 3-3. It is obtained by 
 
 heating sulphuric acid in Contact with certain metals, 
 which abstract an atom of its n\\ gen : such, for instance, 
 
 as silver nr mercury. It is also formed by burning sulphur 
 
 i gas. One volume of water takes up about 30 
 
 volumes of sulphurous .acid gas: so that it requires to he 
 collected and preserved over mercury, or in dry stoppered 
 
 phials. It has the well known sutliieating odour Of burn- 
 ing sulphur, and is possessed of considerable bleaching 
 
 powers; so that the fumes ot' burning sulphur are often 
 Used to whiten straw, and certain silk anil COttOD goods; 
 and when certain Mowers, sin h as \ inlets, dahlias, &c, are 
 
 exposed t.. such fumes, or to sulphurous acid, their colours 
 are mostly destroyed, Upon other colouring matters it has 
 little effect. 100 cubic inches of sulphurous acid gas weigh 
 between 67 ami 68 grams : u, specific gravltj compared with 
 atmosphl ric air being 2'SS. It extinguishes flame, and kills 
 animals. When subjected to the pressure of about two
 
 SULPHUR SALTS. 
 
 atmospheres, or when cooled down to 6°, it assumes a liquid 
 form ; and in this state it evaporates with such rapidity at 
 common temperature as to produce a most intense degree 
 of cold, so that by its aid chlorine may be liquefied and 
 mercury frozen. It combines with bases, and produces a 
 class of salts called sulphites ; they are characterized by 
 emitting sulphurous acid when acted upon by sulphuric 
 acid, and by becoming converted into sulphates by oxidizing 
 agents. 
 
 SULPHUR SALTS. Chemists have lately applied this 
 term to the double sulphurets. The sulphurets of the most 
 electro-positive metals have been termed sulphur bases, 
 euch as the protosulphuret of potassium, sodium, barium, 
 &c. ; while the sulphurets of arsenic, antimony, &c, the 
 bisulphuret of carbon, and sulphuretted hydrogen, have 
 been called sulphur acids ; and the compounds resulting 
 from the union of a sulphuret of the former with one of the 
 latter class are sulphur salts. 
 
 SU'I/TAN. (Sultaun.) In Arabic, mighty. Various Mo- 
 hammedan princes are styled by this title besides the Otto- 
 man emperor or grand sultan, to whom it is commonly 
 given by Europeans, but whose peculiar title of Padishah 
 is more dignified. The princes of the deposed family of the 
 khan of the dim Tartars are also styled sultan: so also 
 the pacha of Egypt in that country, although not by the 
 court of Constantinople. 
 
 SUMACH. (Eng. and Fr.) The powder of the leaves, 
 peduncles, and young branches of the Rhus coriaria and 
 Rhus cotinus, shrubs which grow in Hungary, the Bannat, 
 and the Illyrian provinces. Both kinds contain tannin, 
 with a little yellow colouring matter, and are a good deal 
 employed for tanning light-coloured leathers ; but the first is 
 the best. With mordants, it dyes nearly the same colours 
 as galls. In calico-printing, sumach affords, with a mor- 
 dant of tin, a yellow colour ; with acetate of iron, weak or 
 strong, a gray or black; and with sulphate of zinc, a brown- 
 ish yellow. A decoction of sumach reddens litmus paper 
 strongly ; gives white flocks with the proto-muriate of tin ; 
 pale yellow flocks with alum; dark blue flocks with red 
 sulphate of iron, with an abundant precipitate. In the south 
 of France, the twigs and leaves of the Coriaria myrtifnlia 
 are used for dyeing, under the name of redoul or rodou. 
 The imports for home consumption amount to about 200,000 
 cvvt. a vear. 
 
 SUMMER. One of the four seasons of the year. The 
 summer season, for the northern hemisphere, begins w r hen 
 the sun reaches the tropic of Cancer, and ends at the fol- 
 lowing equinox. 
 
 Summer. (Quasi trabs summaria, an upper beam.) In 
 Architecture, any large piece of timber supported on two 
 strong piers or posts, and serving as a lintel to a door, win- 
 dow, &c. 
 
 SUMMONS, WRIT OF. In Law. By the Uniformity 
 of Process Act, 2 W. 4, c. 39, s. 1, it is provided that wher- 
 ever (in personal actions) it is not intended to hold the de- 
 fendant to special bail, or to proceed against a member of 
 parliament under 6 G. 4, c. 16, this writ, or process, shall 
 be the commencement of the action. It may issue from 
 either of the four superior courts of common law ; and a 
 copy of the writ must be personally served on the defendant 
 against whom it is intended to proceed. The duration of a 
 writ of summons is four calendar months, inclusive, from 
 the day of issuing ; but it may be continued by renewals, 
 termed alias and pluries writ of summons. The amount 
 of the debt claimed (if the action be to recover a debt), 
 with other requisite particulars, must be indorsed on the 
 writ of summons. If the defendant do not appear either 
 personally or by his attorney in answer to the writ, the 
 plaintiff may enter an appearance for him in the proper 
 court, and proceed to declare as if he had appeared. 
 
 SU'MPTUARY LAWS. (Lat. sumptus, expense.) Laws 
 intended to restrain the expenditure of citizens. Ancient 
 legislation abounded in them. Thus, among the Romans, 
 the Lex Orchia limited the number of guests at a feast ; 
 the Lex Fannia restricted the cott of an ordinary enter- 
 tainment to ten asses, and so forth. There were anciently 
 many laws in England to restrain excess in apparel ; but 
 they were all repealed by 1 J. 1, c. 25. It is said, however, 
 that one ancient statute, 10 E. 3, st. 3, which orders that no 
 man shall be served at dinner or supper with more than 
 two courses, remains unrepealed. It is truly said by Mon- 
 tesquieu, that sumptuary laws are of all laws the most in- 
 efficacious and most constantly violated. 
 
 SUN. (Ger. sonne.) In Astronomy, the central bodv of 
 our system, about which all the planets and comets revolve, 
 and by which their motions are regulated and controlled. 
 In Physics, the sun is the source of light and heat ; and 
 therefore the primary cause of all the motions and changes 
 effected on the surface of the earth by those great agents of 
 nature. 
 
 .Apparent Magnitude of the Sun.— The sun presents to the 
 
 naked eye the appearance of a luminous circular disc, sub- 
 
 102 
 
 SUN. 
 
 tending an angle of rather more than half a degree. But 
 on measuring accurately the diameter of the disc by means 
 of a micrometer, it is found to be not always the same, but 
 subject to an annual variation. In fact, as the earth de- 
 scribes an ellipse, of which the sun occupies one of the foci, 
 its distance from the sun is constantly changing, and the 
 variation of the sun's apparent diameter is a necessary con- 
 sequence of the change of distance. When the earth is in 
 its perihelion, or point of its orbit nearest to the sun, the 
 sun's apparent diameter is 32' 35-6" ; and when the earth 
 is at its aphelion, or most distant point, the apparent diame- 
 ter is 31' 31 0". The mean apparent diameter, or diameter 
 at the sun's mean distance, is 32' 2-9". 
 
 Distance of the Sun. — The sun's true distance is found 
 from his horizontal parallax. This is so small a quantity 
 that it would scarcely be possible to determine it in the 
 usual way by observations made on opposite sides of the 
 earth ; but the astronomical phenomena of the transits of 
 the planet Venus over the sun's disc afford the means of 
 determining it with the utmost precision. From such phe- 
 nomena the parallax has been found to be only 8-6" ; that 
 is to say, if an observer could be placed at the centre of the 
 sun, the earth's semidiameter would be seen by him under 
 an angle of 8-6". From this it follows that the mean dis- 
 tance of the sun from the earth must be at least equal to 
 24,047 times the earth's radius ; and as the radius of the 
 earth is nearly 4000 miles, it follows that the sun's true dis- 
 tance from the earth must be about 96,000,000 miles. See 
 Planet. 
 
 In order to obtain a more distinct idea of this enormous 
 distance, we may compute the time in which it would be 
 passed by some of the swiftest motions with which we are 
 acquainted. A 24 lb. cannon ball, fired with a charge of 
 8 lbs. of gunpowder, is projected with a velocity of about 
 1(500 feet in a second. Supposing it were to continue to 
 move towards the sun with the same uniform velocity, it 
 would require ten years to reach his surface. A body 
 travelling with the velocity of sound would require about 
 five years to pass from the sun to the earth. Light itself, 
 which travels with the astonishing velocity of 192,500 miles 
 in a second, only reaches the earth eight minutes and 
 eighteen seconds after leaving the sun's surface. 
 
 Knowing the distance and apparent diameter of the sun, it 
 is easy to compute its real dimensions. A body which sub- 
 tends an arc of 32' 3" of a circle, whose radius is 96,000,000 
 miles, must have a real diameter of 892,000 miles ; which, 
 therefore, is the diameter of the sun. Or, since the true di- 
 ameter of the sun must have to the diameter of the earth 
 the same ratio which the sun's apparent diameter as seen 
 from the earth has to the earth's apparent diameter as seen 
 from the sun, that is, a ratio of 32' 3" to 8-6", or of 111-8 to 
 1, it follows that the sun's diameter must be nearly 112 
 times the diameter or the earth. Hence the volume of the 
 sun must be 1,397,415 (the cube of 111-8) times, or, in 
 round numbers, 1,400,000 times the volume of the earth. 
 The mean distance of the moon being rather less than 60 
 times the earth's radius, if the sun's centre were placed at the 
 centre of the earth its surface would be at twice the distance 
 of the moon's orbit ; and the volume of a sphere whose radius 
 is equal to that of the moon's orbit would only be an eighth 
 part of the volume of the sun. The sun's volume is 500 times 
 greater than the volumes of all the planets taken together. 
 
 Mass and Density of the Sun. — The magnitude and dis- 
 tance of the sun are determined by direct observation ; his 
 mass as compared with that of the earth is deduced from 
 the law of universal gravitation, and the theory of central 
 forces. The earth revolves round the sun at a given dis- 
 tance, and in a given time ; and from these data the centri- 
 fugal force becomes known. But the force which counter- 
 acts this centrifugal force, and compels the earth to move 
 in its elliptic orbit, and prevents it from flying off in a tan- 
 gent to that orbit, is the sun's attraction. Hence the solar 
 attraction is equal to the centrifugal force. But the earth's 
 attraction at its surface is a known force, being that which 
 causes a heavy body to fall through 16^ feet in a second 
 of time ; and consequently, from the known law of diminu- 
 tion proportionally to the inverse square of the distance, 
 the earth's attractive force at any distance from the surface 
 also becomes known. Now, on comparing the centrifugal 
 force due to the earth's motion in its orbit with the force of 
 terrestrial gravity on a body at the distance of the sun, it is 
 found that the former exceeds the latter in the ratio of 
 354936 to 1. But when the distance is the same, the attrac- 
 tive forces of two bodies are directly as their masses or 
 quantities of ponderable matter ; and hence the sun's mass 
 is 354936 times greater than that of the earth. It is also 
 found to be about 800 times greater than the aggregate of 
 the masses of all the planets and satellites. 
 
 The density of a body is directly as its mass, and inverse- 
 ly as its volume. If, therefore, we call the density of the 
 earth 1, the ratio of the density of the sun to that of the 
 earth will be as 354936 -J- 1397415 to 1, or as -0254 to 1; 
 4F 1201
 
 SUN. 
 
 whence ihe sun's density is about one-fourth of that of the 
 earth. 
 
 In order to compare the force of solar gravity at the sun's 
 surface with that of terrestrial gravity at the earth's surface, 
 
 We must recollect that the attraction of a body on an exte 
 rior point is directly as the mass of the attracting body, and 
 Inversely as the square of the distance of the point from it.s 
 centre. Hence, since the sun's mass is 351936 times that of 
 the earth, and the radius (or distance of the surface from 
 the centre) 111-8 times that of the earth, if A denote the 
 force of solar gravity at the sun's surface, and B that of ter- 
 restrial gravity at the earth's surface, then. 
 354930 1 
 A:B:: (111-6)2 : (1;2 ' 
 or A is to B as 97-9 (nearly) to 1. A body, tnereforc. which 
 at the earth's surface weighs one pound, would weigh 27-9 
 pounds if carried to the surface of the sun. " An ordinary 
 man would not only lie unable to sustain his own Weight on 
 tin- sun, hut would he literally crushed to atoms under the 
 load." (JJerschel's Astronomy.) 
 
 Rotation of the Sun. — The sun's surface, w hen viewed 
 through the telescope, is frequently diversified with a num- 
 ber of dark patches or spots, which being observed from 
 day to day are found not to remain in the same place, but 
 to move across the surface, without, however, changing 
 their relative positions. These phenomena are accounted 
 for by supposing the sun to have a rotatory motion about an 
 axis from west to east. From a comparison of the best ob- 
 servations, Delambre found the period of rotation to be 
 about 25 days ; and that the sun's equator is inclined to the 
 ecliptic in an angle of about 7° 20', and intersects it in a 
 line which makes an angle of 80° 21' with the line of the 
 equinoxes. The observations of spots are, however, subject 
 to great uncertainty ; but the fact of rotation from west to 
 east, or in the same direction as the earth and all the other 
 planets, is established. 
 
 Spots of the Sun. — The solar spots, to which allusion has 
 just been made as furnishing the elements of the sun's ro- 
 tation, present very remarkable appearances, and have been 
 the subject of numerous theories respecting the nature and 
 physical constitution of the sun. They began to attract 
 attention soon after the discovery of the telescope, ami their 
 phenomena are described with sufficient accuracy by Heve- 
 lius and Scheiner. In form they are exceedingly irregular ; 
 and, when watched attentively for some time, are observed 
 to enlarge and contract, and to change perpetually their 
 form and outline. Frequently they disappear without ap- 
 proaching the edge of the disc, and break out suddenly in 
 places where none were seen before. Sometimes a spot 
 has been seen to break up into several parts, and the frag- 
 ments to separate from each other, as if acted upon by an 
 explosive force. The nucleus of a spot is perfectly black, 
 and sharply defined; and is surrounded by an umbra, or 
 border of a fainter shade. In the neighbourhood of large 
 spots, or in places where they are numerous, bright streaks, 
 or portions more luminous than the general surface of the 
 sun, called faculte, are frequently seen. Among these 
 (acuta spots are often observed to break out; and when 
 this does not happen they are generally succeeded by spots, 
 larger in proportion to the brightness of the antecedent 
 faculte. The region of the spots is generally confined to 
 the equatorial parts of the sun, within about 30° of the 
 equator ; but occasionally they are observed over the whole 
 disc. 
 
 The magnitude of the spots, and the scale on which 
 their movements are performed, are not the least remarka- 
 ble circumstances connected with the phenomena. At the 
 distance of the sun, a line which subtends an angle of one 
 second is equal to about 400 miles, and a circle of that di- 
 ameter has an area of about 166,080 miles; and this is the 
 smallest space which can be distinctly discerned on the 
 sun's disc. But a spot was observed by Mayer having a di- 
 ameter equal to l-20lh of the diameter of the sun, or up- 
 wards of 90", and consequently (supposing it to be circular) 
 covering an area of 1520 millions of square miles — upwards 
 
 Of 30 limes the whole surface of the earth. 
 
 Numerous hypotheses have been formed respecting the 
 solar spots. Scheiner supposed them to be planets revolv- 
 ing at no great distance from the sun's surface. Galileo 
 and Beveling conceived them to be a sort of scoria or scum 
 formed at the surface of the sun, and floating in an ocean 
 of liquid matter. Lahire supposed them to be protuberant 
 parti of solid, opake, and Irregular masses, floating in the 
 fluid mailer of the sun. J Jr. Wilson, of Glasgow, account 
 ed for the spots by supposing the sun to consist of a dark 
 nucleus, covered to a certain depth by luminous matter, 
 through which cavities or gulfs are made by volcanic or 
 Other actions, and permit the dark nucleus to be seen. La- 
 lande suggests that the s|>oia or opake bodies may be merely 
 the summits of mountains, usuallj covered by the Igneous 
 
 fluid but which, by the flux and reflux of Ihe fluid, some- 
 times protrude beyond its surface, and thus becoiue visible. 
 1202 
 
 [Astronomic art. 3240.) The most probable view, however, 
 is that taken by Sir William llerschel, who considers " the 
 luminous strata of the atmosphere to be sustained far above 
 
 the level of the solid body bj a transparent elastic medium, 
 carrying on its upper surface (or rather at some consul 
 tower level « ithfii its depth) a cloudy stratum, w bleb, being 
 strongl) illuminated from above, reflects a considerable por- 
 tion ot the light to our eyes, and forms a penumbra, while 
 the solid body shaded by the clouds reflects none. I hi 
 temporary removal of both the strata, but more of the upper 
 than the lower, he supposes effected by powerful upward 
 currents of the atmosphere, arising, perhaps, from spiracles 
 in the body, or from local agitations," (Sir J. Hersthcl's 
 Astronomy, p. 209.) 
 
 Physical Constitution of the Sun. — Respecting the physi- 
 cal nature of the enormous mass of matter which controls 
 the motions of all the bodies of the solar system, and sup- 
 plies them with light and heat, we can only form conjec- 
 tures, guided in a feeble degree by the phenomena ot the 
 spots. According to the hypothesis broached by Sir Wil- 
 liam llerschel, as stated in the above quotation, there are 
 two regions of solar clouds ; the inferior stratum being 
 opake, and probably resembling our own atmosphere : while 
 the upper stratum is the repository of light and heat, which 
 emanate from it in all directions. This upper luminous 
 stratum he supposed to have an altitude of between 1840 
 and 2705 miles above the surface of (he sun. The lower 
 stratum, by reflecting a considerable portion of the rays 
 which fall upon it from the luminous clouds above, not only 
 increases the quantity of light which the latter send forth 
 into space, but serves as a canopy to screen the surface of 
 the solid body of the sun from the scorching effects of the 
 surrounding regions of light and heat ; and he supposed its 
 density might even be such as to maintain a temperature at 
 the actual surface of no greater elevation than is consistent 
 with the support of animal life. But whatever may he the 
 state of the temperature tit the actual surface, ot' which 
 only casual glimpses are obtained through openings in the 
 luminous clouds, it is difficult to conceive that the luminous 
 matter can be otherwise than in a state of the most intense 
 ignition. "That the temperature," says Sir John llerschel, 
 " at the visible surface of the sun cannot be otherwise than 
 very elevated, much more so than any artificial heat pro- 
 duced in ouitfurnaces, or by chemical or galvanic processes, 
 we have indications of several kinds. 1st, From the law of 
 decrease of radiant heat and light, which, being inversely as 
 the squares of the distances.it follows that the heat receiv- 
 ed on a given area exposed at the distance of the earth, 
 and on an equal area at the visible surface of the sun, must 
 be in proportion to the area of the sky occupied by the sun's 
 disc to the whole hemisphere, or as 1 to about 300,000. 
 A far less intensity of solar radiation, collected in the focus 
 of a burning glass, suffices to dissipate gold and platina in 
 vapour. 2dly, From the facility with which the calorific 
 rays of the sun traverse glass — a property which is found 
 to belong to the heat of artificial fires in the direct propor- 
 tion of their intensity. 3dly, From the fact that the most 
 vivid flames disappear, and the most intensely ignited solids 
 appear only as black spots upon the disc of the sun when 
 held between it and the eye." {Astronomy, p. 210.) 
 
 These circumstances give great probability to the suppo- 
 sition that luminous matter which surrounds the body of 
 the sun has a temperature far exceeding any which can be 
 produced by artificial means; but the sciences of light and 
 heat tire yet not sufficiently advanced to enable (is to arrive 
 at any certain conclusions on the subject, or to form other 
 than purely conjectural hypotheses respecting the nature 
 and constitution of the sun. "The great mystery," con- 
 tinues Sir John llerschel, "is to conceive how so enormous 
 a conflagration (if such it be) can be kept up. Every dis- 
 covery in chemical science here leaves us completely at a 
 loss, or rather seems to remove farther the prospect of pro- 
 bable explanation. If conjecture might he hazarded, we 
 should look rather to the known possibility of an indefinite 
 generation of heat by friction, or to its excitement by the 
 electric discharge than to any actual combustion of ponder- 
 able fuel, whether solid or gaseous, for the origin of the 
 solar radiation." (P. 212.) 
 
 Considering the enormous and incessant emanation of 
 light and heat from the sun, the question has often arisen 
 whether the volume of the sun undergoes any diminution, 
 if the high temperature is kept up either by electric cur- 
 rents, or by friction, as above suggested, no loss of volume 
 would be sustained ; but if, according to the hypothesis of 
 NeWtOD, Light is produced by the actual emission of lumi- 
 nous particles, a diminution of volume would appear to be a 
 necessary consequence. I Ibservation, however, can afford 
 us no information on this head , for, Supposing an actual 
 
 diminution to be going onat such a rate as to Lessen the di- 
 ameter by two feet In 24 hours (which, having regard to 
 the sun's magnitude, may be considered as enormous), 3ono 
 years would elapse before the diminution of the apparent
 
 SUN. 
 
 diameter would amount to a single second. Buffon sup- 
 posed the sun to be an immense furnace, alimented by 
 comets precipitating themselves into it from time to time. 
 
 Atmosphere of the Sun. — The existence of a solar atmo- 
 sphere was inferred by Bouguer from a comparison of the 
 intensity of radiation at different points of the disc. By 
 reason of the globular figure of the sun, a much larger por- 
 tion of the surface towards the border is comprehended un- 
 der a given visual angle than at the centre ; and, as every 
 point of the surface must be supposed to radiate equally in 
 all directions, it follows that the intensity of light near the 
 border should be greater than at the centre in proportion to 
 the greater extent of surface comprised under the same an- 
 gle. Bouguer's observations, however, led him to infer that 
 the light from the centre of the disc had a greater intensity 
 than that which proceeded from the borders — a circum- 
 stance which would be explained on the supposition of its 
 being absorbed in a greater proportion by having to traverse 
 a greater extent of atmosphere. But the more delicate ex- 
 periments of Arago have shown that all the points of the 
 disc are equally luminous; so that the hypothesis of an at- 
 mosphere, however probable on other grounds, is not sup- 
 ported by such observations. The existence of a solar 
 atmosphere is, however, indicated by the faint light observ- 
 ed round the sun's limb in a total eclipse ; and, perhaps, 
 stillmore unequivocally by the phenomenon of the zodia- 
 cal light. Sec Zodiacal Light. 
 
 Sim's Position and proper Motion in the Heavens. — The 
 discoveries in sideral astronomy which have been made in 
 modern times, all tend to establish the hypothesis of a simi- 
 larity of condition and a community of nature between the 
 sun and the fixed stars. The prevalence of gravitation 
 among these remote bodies, following the same law as is ob- 
 served in the solar system, is no longer a matter of specula- 
 tion ; the proof being afforded by the elliptic orbits described 
 by so many of the double stars about their common centre 
 of gravity. With respect to the place which the sun occu- 
 pies in the heavens, we have, says Sir J. Herschel (Mem. 
 Royal .Istron. Society, vol. xi.), almost ocular evidence that 
 our system is eccentrically situated within the nebula of the 
 Milky Way, and nearer to its southern than to its northern 
 portion. It was also an opinion of Sir William Herschel, 
 that the sun, like many of the fixed stars, has a proper mo- 
 tion in space, in consequence of which it is at present ad- 
 vancing towards a point of the heavens within the constel- 
 lation Hercules. That the sun does not remain absolutely 
 at rest in space, but has a proper motion in some direction, 
 may be regarded as not only highly probable, but almost 
 certain ; but many centuries of observation may be required 
 to enable astronomers to detect its laws, or even to arrive at 
 any definite conclusions respecting its direction or the remote 
 centre about which it is performed. (Sir J. Herschers As- 
 tronomy ; Lalande, torn. iii. ; Biot, Astronomie Physique; 
 Laplace, Systeme du, Monde ; Delambre, Astronomie, &c.) 
 See Star. 
 
 SUNDAY, the first day of the week, is said to derive its 
 name from the Saxons, who consecrated it to the sun in 
 heathen times. The solemnization of this day dates from 
 the earliest age of the Christian church, in memory of the 
 death of Christ, and of the descent of the Holy Ghost, both 
 of which events took place upon it. The Jewish Christians 
 retained at the same time their Sabbath, the last day of the 
 week ; but this practice become obsolete early, at least in 
 in the Western church. The Sunday was at first distin- 
 guished merely by peculiar prayers and passages of the 
 Scriptures. It does not appear to have been strictly observ- 
 ed as a day of cessation from labour before the reign of Con- 
 stantine. By the decree of that emperor (A.D. 321) public 
 business, and military exercises, were suspended. The 
 council of Laodicea (A.D. 360) forbade labour in general 
 terms; and the laws of Theodosius (circ. A.D. 204) sanc- 
 tioned this interdiction by civil penalties. See Sabbath. 
 
 SUNDAY LETTER. See Dominical Letter. 
 
 SUNNIAH. (Arab, a troop, or band.) The name given 
 to the sect commonly considered as orthodox among the 
 Mussulmans by the followers of Ali. The latter believe 
 that the sovereign imanship, or imaginary dignity which 
 conveys supremacy over all the faithful, belongs of right to 
 the descendants of Ali, son-in-law of Mohammed. The 
 schism between these two sects has subsisted from the 
 earliest times of Mohammedanism ; when Ali, having be- 
 come fourth caliph after the death of Othman, a rebellion 
 was raised against him by Maaniah, founder of the Ommiad 
 race of caliphs about the year 1000 of the Christian era. 
 The division took place between the two parties in the 
 court of the caliph Moli 1' Mah, which resulted in the 
 Schiito party becoming pre-eminent in Persia, the Sunniah- 
 ites in Turkey and most other Mohammedan countries. 
 
 SUO'VETAURILIA. (Lat. sus, a swine, ovis, a sheep, 
 and taurus, a bull.) In Roman History, a quinquennial 
 sacrifice, which consisted of the immolation of a sow, a 
 sheep, and a bull ; hence the name. .See Lustration. 
 
 STJPERTONIC. 
 
 SUPERCARGO. The person in a merchant ship ap- 
 pointed to superintend all the commercial transactions of 
 the vovage, is so called. 
 
 SUPERDO'MINANT. (Lat. super, above, and domi- 
 nans, governing-.) In Music. In the descending scale, the 
 sixth of the key. 
 
 SU'PEREROGA'TION, WORKS OF. In Theoloey. 
 It is a belief countenanced by many tenets of the Church 
 of Rome, that men may acquire merit in the eyes of God 
 by good works beyond what are necessary for salvation. 
 This notion is said by Protestants to have been first known 
 about the 12th or 13th century, and to have been founded 
 upon what the Roman Catholics call "counsels of per- 
 fection ;" that is, rules which do not bind under the pen- 
 alty of sin, but are only useful in carrying men to a higher 
 degree of perfection than is requisite for Christians. This 
 doctrine is condemned by the Church of England in her 
 14th article. 
 
 SUPERFICIAL MEASURE. The measure of surfa- 
 ces or areas ; also called square measure. See Meas- 
 ure. 
 
 SUPERFI'CIES. The exterior face of any body. See 
 Surface. 
 
 SUPE'RIOR. In Scottish Law, one who has made an 
 original part of heritable property with reservation of rent 
 and service. The grantee is termed vassal : the interest 
 of the grantor is dominium directum, that of the grantee 
 dominium utile; or, the former superiority, the latter prop- 
 erty. The reunion of these two rights in the same person 
 is termed consolidation. 
 
 SUPE'RLATIVE. In Grammar, the name vulgarly- 
 given to the third degree in comparison, formed in the 
 Teutonic languages by the additional syllable " est." 
 
 SUPERSE'DEAS. In Law, a writ that lies to stay va- 
 rious ordinary proceedings ; as to stay an execution after a 
 writ of error has been allowed and bail put in ; to set 
 aside erroneous judicial processes ; and, in certain cases, 
 to discharge prisoners. 
 
 SUPERSTI'TION. (Lat. superstitio, from super, above, 
 sto, / stand : the steps of the derivation are extremely 
 obscure.) This word, like many others, has, in common 
 language, both a subjective and objective sense ; that is, 
 we speak of superstition as a habit in the mind ; and we 
 also speak of a particular tenet, or a particular observance, 
 as "a superstition." Every belief— 1, in the existence of 
 particular facts or phenomena, produced by supernatural 
 agency, which existence is not demonstrated by experience 
 nor asserted in Revelation ; 2, in causation not demon- 
 strated by experience or asserted by Revelation, i. e., of 
 the direct agency of supernatural power in producing re- 
 sults which can either be proved to proceed from second- 
 ary causes, or by reasonable analogy must be inferred so 
 to proceed — is, in common language, superstition. An in- 
 stance of the first species is the belief in the existence of 
 imaginary beings, ghosts, spectres, &c. ; of the second, the 
 belief that epileptic fits are produced by witchcraft— that 
 meteorological phenomena hitherto imperfectly explained, 
 such as wind or lightning, are produced without the inter- 
 vention of regular physical causes by the immediate act 
 of the divinity, &c. The word is almost always used in a 
 religious sense, like the Greek £ci<nfiaiuovia ; that is, the 
 belief which we regard as superstitious concerns the 
 agency of the Deity, or inferior supernatural agents. For 
 example, we do not generally term the belief in animal 
 magnetism, tellurism, the divining rod, &c. superstitions ; 
 these are persuasions respecting certain occult powers of 
 nature undemonstrated (that is, in the case of most be- 
 lievers) by experience ; they are superstitions in the mode 
 in which they are generated and affect the mind, but not 
 in point of subject matter. On the other hand, there is 
 much carelessness in the application of the word to reli- 
 gious tenets, where these flow necessarily from the belief 
 in certain other truths as revealed ; for example, no Chris- 
 tian esteems it superstition to believe that a dead man 
 was, in a certain instance, restored to life, although no- 
 thing can be in itself more incredible ; because it is assert- 
 ed in writings which he considers as revealed, and the 
 power of working miracles is expressly claimed in that 
 revelation. But some Christians place faith in the decla- 
 ration of their Church, just as all Christians do in Scrip- 
 ture ; and justify that faith by argument addressed to the 
 reason. How, then, can they be accused of superstition in 
 believing the truth of narratives, however incredible in 
 themselves, which that Chirch sanctions and approves ; 
 for example, many of the miraculous legends commonly 
 received in the Romish Church ? Those who do not ad- 
 here to that Church may stigmatize it as superstitious ; 
 but they can hardly call the belief which leads the Ro- 
 man Catholic to address his prayer to the Saints, or the 
 Virgin, a superstition in him. 
 
 SCPERTOXIC. (Lat. super, above, and tonus, a tone.) 
 In Music, the second above the key note. From its being 
 
 1203
 
 SUPINATION. 
 
 a comma higher in the major scale than in the relative 
 minor, il is. in theory, considered a variable sound. 
 
 SUPINATION. The art of turning the palm of the 
 hand upwards by rotating the radius upon the ulna. 
 
 SU'PINES, In Grammar, certain forms of the Latin 
 verbs. The supine in urn (of which the form is the same 
 as the neuter of the past participle, as amatum in the verb 
 amo) serves generally, in conjunction with another verb, to 
 express an intended action ; as " I.usiiin it Maecenas," 
 " Neque vos ultum injurias hortor ;" in both which cases 
 it would be expressed by the Infinitive in modem langua- 
 ges : in the Greek, either by the infinitive, or more accu- 
 rately by the infinitive used as a noun with a preposition. 
 The existence of the other supine (in v) is doubted by 
 some grammarians. The name is said to have been given 
 to signify their character, neither passive nor active. 
 
 SUPPLEMENT In Geometry and Trigonometry', the 
 supplement of an arc or angle is what must be added to it 
 in order to make a semicircle, or 180°. 
 
 Supplement. In Literature, an addition made to any 
 work or treatise, in the view of rendering it more com- 
 plete. 
 
 SUPPLY. In Parliamentary language, the sum granted 
 to the sovereign by parliament lor defraying the expenses 
 of the current year. The known or probable amount of 
 the different branches of the year's expenses is stated to 
 the House of Commons, in a committee of supply, by the 
 chancellor of the exchequer, and, after these have been 
 voted by the committee, they are formally granted by an 
 act of parliament, called the Appropriation BUI. The 
 granting of the annual supplies is a peculiar privilege of 
 the House of Commons, which never permits any altera- 
 tion or amendment (except merely verbal) to be made by 
 the House of Lords in the bills passed for this purpose. 
 
 Supply. In Political Economy. See Political Econ- 
 omy. 
 SUPPORT. In Architecture. See Points of Support. 
 SUPPORTERS. In Heraldry, the figures placed on 
 each side of a shield. The device of supporters probably 
 originated from the practice of knights at tournaments 
 having their armorial shields fixed or hung near the place 
 of justing, and guarded by pages or other retainers stand- 
 ing on the side of them dressed in various fanciful accou- 
 trements ; although some consider it as entirely a modern 
 invention, or ornamental addition by painters and limners, 
 who found a vacant space on each side of the escutcheon 
 which they filled up by imaginary figures. It does not 
 appear that supporters were at first exclusively borne by 
 individuals of a particular rank ; and some private families 
 are supposed to be still entitled to them by prescription. 
 But, in modern English heraldry, the grant of supporters is 
 limited to sovereigns and princes of the blood royal, peers 
 of the realm, knights of the Bath, knights banneret, baro- 
 nets of Nova Scotia (by their patents of creation), and to 
 such persons as receive them by special license from the 
 king. It is said by heraldic writers that females cannot 
 assume supporters ; but this prohibition seems to be habit- 
 uallv inliinsed in practice. 
 
 SUPPO'SED BASS. In Music, the bass of a chord 
 when it is not the root of the common chord or harmonic 
 triad. It is also sometimes called the inversion of the ac- 
 company ins chord. 
 
 BUPPOSTTION. (Lat. suppositum.) In Music, the 
 use of two successive notes of equal value as to time, one 
 of which being a discord supposes the other a concord. 
 The harmony, though by rule falling on the accented part 
 of the bar, and free from discords, requires their proper 
 preparation and resolution ; and they are called passing 
 notes. Discords on the unaccented part of the measure 
 are allowable by conjoint degrees, and it is then not re- 
 quired that the harmony should be so complete on the ac- 
 cented part. This transient use of discords followed by 
 concords is what we, after the French, call supposition, 
 whereof there are several kinds. 
 
 SUPPO'SITORY. A pill or bolus introduced into the 
 rectum, where it gradually dissolves. Opium is sometimes 
 Usefully applied In this way to allay irritation of the blad- 
 der and neighbouring parts. 
 
 SUPPRESSION. A figure in Grammar is sometimes so 
 called by which words are omitted in a sentence, which 
 are nevertheless to be understood as necessary to a perfect 
 construction: as, for instance, in most languages, the repe- 
 tition of a noun is avoided where it is coupled with a pro- 
 noun in one branch of the proposition ; e. g., " this (horse) 
 is my horse," or "this horse is mine" (norsc). See EL- 
 LIPSIS, 
 
 SUPPURATION. The process by which pus or matter 
 is formed in Inflammatory tumours. 
 
 SUPRACRETACEOUS ROCKS. A Geological term 
 applied to certain rocks or strata lying above the chalk; 
 they have also been called tertiary strata. Sec Geology. 
 
 BUPRALAPSA'RIA.NS. Those who assert that the 
 1204 
 
 SURRENDER. 
 
 fall of Adam, with all its pernicious consequences, w.ts 
 predestinated from all eternity, and that our first parents 
 had DO liberty in the beginning. See Calvinist. 
 
 SUPRANA'TURALISTB, A name given of late years 
 to the middle party among the divines of Germany, to dis- 
 tin guish them from the nationalists, who exclude all su- 
 pernatural manifestations from religion; and from the 
 Evangelical party, whose tenets are of a more strict de- 
 BCription. Thus many of the supranaturalists appear to 
 have given way to the system of accommodation (as it is 
 termed) in religious matters, so far as to explain away the 
 doctrine of original sin, and other tenets which we are ac- 
 customed to consider as fundamental : others approximate 
 to what are regarded as orthodox Protestant opinions 
 anions ourselves. 
 
 SUPRE'HACY, OATH OF. An oath denying the su- 
 premacy of the pope in ecclesiastical or temporal affairs in 
 England, which by many statutes was required to be ta- 
 ken, along with the oath of allegiance, by persons in order 
 to quality themselves for office, &c. By 10 G. 4, c. 7, s. 10, 
 Roman Catholics are qualified for all offices (with the ex- 
 ception named in the act), on taking a declaration, which 
 is substituted far the former oaths. 
 
 SURAES. A name given in Persia to buildings con- 
 structed for the accommodation of travellers. They are 
 synonymous w ith khans or carava?iseras, which see. 
 
 SU'RBASE. (Fr.) In Architecture, the upper base of 
 a room, or rather the cornice of the dado. 
 
 SURD. In Arithmetic and Algebra, a magnitude which 
 is inexpressible by rational numbers. Thus the square 
 root of -2. the cube root of 3, &.c. are numbers which can- 
 not be expressed exactly in the ordinary notation, and are 
 represented by prefixing the radical signs indicating the 
 operation, viz., ^/2, ^3. Such quantities are otherwise 
 called irrational or incommensurable. 
 
 SURFACE. A mathematical surface or superficies is 
 defined by Euclid to be that which has only length and 
 breadth. This definition excludes a line, which has length 
 only ; and a solid, which has length, breadth, and thick- 
 ness. As a line is generated by the motion of a point, so a 
 surface is generated by the motion of a line. If the gener- 
 ating line be a straight line, and move subject to the con- 
 dition of having always two consecutive positions in the 
 same plane, the surface generated is developable, and can 
 be stretched out on a plane, as the surface of a cone, a 
 cylinder, &.C But if the generating straight line is con- 
 strained to move so that no two of its consecutive positions 
 are In the same plane, the surface cannot be developed on 
 a plane. Such a surface is called by the French geome- 
 ters surface gauche. 
 
 SURMOUNTED. In Architecture, a term used to de- 
 note an arch or dome which rises higher than a semicircle. 
 
 Surmounted. In Heraldry, a term used when one fig- 
 ure is laid over another : e. g., a pile surmounted of a 
 chevron. 
 
 SURNAME. In modern European usage, the family 
 name of an individual ; but often used for any distinguish- 
 ing name. {Sec Name.) According to Ducange, the use 
 of surnames in France began about the year Slew, when 
 the barons adopted the practice of designating themselves 
 by the names of their estates. And this has been the gen- 
 eral, though by no means the uniform, origin of family 
 names in the nobility of Europe ; some having been de- 
 rived from badges, cognizances, the nicknames applied to 
 individuals, &.C. Among the commonalty of this country, 
 surnames are said not to have been general before the 
 reign of Edward II. It will be found on examination that a 
 great number of them originate in the still older custom 
 of adding to the son's Christian name that of the father 
 by way of distinction; many more from the names of 
 trade; and many more from accidental distinctions, as of 
 size or colour, probably applied in the first instance to the 
 founder of the family. 
 
 SU'RPLICE. (Lat. superpelliceum, apparently from 
 pellis, skin.) This ecclesiastical vestment is thought by 
 Mr. Palmer (Orig. l.iturg., ii., 320) to have been at one 
 time not different from the alb. It now has wider sleeves, 
 a difference which Is thought to have originated in some 
 distinction between the dress of a superior and inferior or- 
 der of clergy. It dates from the 12th century. The vehe- 
 ment objections entertained by the Puritans of the 16th 
 century to its use are well known. See Vestmektb. 
 
 SURRE'NDER. In Law. 1. A deed by which the ten- 
 ant of a particular estate conveys his interest to tenant in 
 remainder, a reversion Immediately expectant on the de- 
 termination of that estate. 2. A surrender of copyhold or 
 customary estates is the yielding up of such estates by the 
 
 tenant into the hands of the lord for purposes expressed in 
 
 nder. By this means are accomplished i 
 
 opyhold lands, the lord being in general bound to 
 admit the party in whose favour the surrender is made. 
 See Copyuold.
 
 SURROGATE. 
 
 SURROGATE. (Lat. surrogatus.) In Law, one sub- 
 stituted for or appointed in the room of another. It is com- 
 monly used in the ecclesiastical courts as the description 
 of an officer who acts as deputy for the bishop's chancellor. 
 
 SURSO'LID. In Arithmetic, the fifth power of a num- 
 ber. If 2 be the root, the sursolid is 2x2x2x2x2 = 3-2. 
 
 SU'RTURBRAND. A species of peaty, bituminous coal 
 foimd in Iceland. It resembles Bovey coal. 
 
 SURVEYING. (Fr. survoir, to overlook.) In Practical 
 Mathematics, the art of determining the boundaries and su- 
 perficial extent of a portion of the earth's surface. The 
 object of a survey may be either to ascertain the contents 
 of a field or portion of land, or to determine the relative 
 distances and bearings of the most prominent objects of a 
 country for the purpose of constructing a map, or to deter- 
 mine the form and dimensions of a portion of the earth's 
 surface with a view to deduce the magnitude and figure of 
 the earth by comparing the geodetical distances between 
 given points with their astronomical positions. In all ca- 
 ses the operation is conducted on the same principles ; but 
 while the first requires only the application of the merest 
 elements of arithmetic and trigonometry, the last can only 
 be accomplished with the aid of instnunents of the most 
 refined description, and processes of calculation deduced 
 from mathematics of the highest order. 
 
 In measuring land all the lines and the surfaces whose 
 contents are to be found are reduced to the same horizon- 
 tal plane, on the principle that as plants shoot up vertical- 
 ly no greater number can be produced on the slant side of 
 a hill than would grow on the area covered by its horizon- 
 tal base. When the lines actually measured are not hori- 
 zontal, they are therefore multiplied by the cosines of their 
 respective inclinations to the horizon. 
 
 The English standard unit of land measure is the acre, 
 which contains four roods ; and a rood is subdivided into 
 40 poles or perches, each pole containing 30i square yards. 
 (See Measure.) But though roods and poles are the legal 
 subdivisions of the acre, and the terms continually occur in 
 all descriptions of the contents of land, in practice a deci- 
 mal division is followed, which is greatly more convenient 
 for calculation. For the linear measurements a chain is 
 employed consisting of 100 links, and its whole length is 
 such that one square chain is equal to the tenth part of an 
 acre. But the acre containing 4840 square yards, the 
 square chain consequently contains 484 square yards, and 
 the length of the chain is the square root of 484, that is. 22 
 yards ; whence its 100th part, or one link, is 792 inches. 
 In order to avoid decimal fractions, surveyors usually set 
 down all the measures in links ; and when the contents of 
 a field are cast up in square links, it is only necessary to 
 mark off the five last figures as decimals in order to have 
 the contents in acres, the number of square links in an 
 acre being 100X100X10 = 100,000. 
 
 The measurement of angles being in general an opera- 
 tion much less liable to error than the measurement of 
 linear distances, when the surface to be measured is of 
 considerable extent the skilful surveyor will avoid making 
 farther use of the chain than is necessary for obtaining the 
 data requisite for a trigonometrical computation. The 
 most convenient instrument, and that which is almost uni- 
 versally employed in land surveying for the measurement 
 of angles, is the theodolite, which, from the nature of its 
 construction, gives the angles reduced to the plane of the 
 horizon, and consequently renders a computation for that 
 purpose unnecessary. (See Theooolite.) As auxiliary 
 to the theodolite, and for the purposes of sketching and fill- 
 ing in the details of a map, the plane table and the pris- 
 matic compass (see the terms) are used ; and in order to 
 determine the bearings of the several objects observed from 
 any station with reference to the cardinal points of the 
 horizon, a compass and needle accompany the theodolite. 
 
 It frequently happens in surveying that triangles are to 
 be measured whose sides contain very acute or obtuse 
 angles. In such cases a small error in the angular mea- 
 surement would lead to very erroneous results ; and the 
 practice usually adopted for finding the area is to measure 
 the longest side of the triangle and the perpendicular let 
 fall upon it from the opposite angle, the area being half 
 the product of the side into the perpendicular. For the 
 purpose of tracing the perpendicular, the simple cross-staff 
 may be employed ; but the instrument called the optical 
 square (which is merely a small, shallow, circular box 
 containing the two principal glasses of the sextant fixed at 
 an angle of 45°) will effect the purpose with greater accu- 
 racy. The method of using it is obvious. If the observer 
 moves forward or backward in the straight line A B until 
 the object B seen by direct vision coincides with another 
 object C seen by reflection, then a straight line drawn to C 
 from the point at which he stands when the coincidence 
 takes place will be perpendicular to A B. The box sextant 
 might evidently be employed for the same purpose. 
 
 Since every plane figure may be regarded as composed of 
 
 2 sin. A 
 
 SURVEYING. 
 
 a certain number of triangles, the whole theory of land sur- 
 veying resolves itself into the measurement of the areas of 
 plane triangles. For computing the area of a triangle it is 
 necessary to know the length of at least one side ; and 
 when this is known, together with any two of its other 
 parts, the remaining parts and the area are computed by 
 the rules of trigonometry. As usual, let the sides of a 
 triangle be denoted by o, b, c, and the angles respectively 
 opposite by A, B, C, and let s — %(a-j-b-{-c); then the 
 area is found by either of the three following formulae: 
 
 A i w ., , , I i , • ^, a 2 sin. B sin. C 
 
 V s(s — a) (s — b) (s — c) | , \ afisin. C, 
 
 (See Trigonometry.) 
 
 In surveying an estate, the usual practice is to measure 
 round it with a chain, and observe the several angles with 
 the theodolite; and if the boundaries are very irregular, a 
 straight line is run between two points so as to cut off one 
 or more of the bendings and the perpendiculars or offsets 
 from the straight line to each bending measured with a rod 
 or offset staff, the most convenient length of which is ten 
 links. By this means the spaces included between the 
 actual boundaries and the assumed straight lines are com- 
 puted; and the sides and angles of the interior polygon 
 being known, its area may be formed without resolving it 
 into triangles. See Polygon. 
 
 Trigonometrical Survey. — When a survey is to be effect- 
 ed on a large scale, as for making a geometrical map of a 
 country, or for measuring an arc of the terrestrial meridian, 
 not only is minute accuracy required in all the practical 
 parts of the operation, but it becomes necessary to have 
 regard to the curvature of the earth's surface, the effects of 
 temperature, refraction, altitude above the sea, and a host 
 of circumstances of which the influence is wholly unap- 
 preciable in the practice of ordinary surveying. Geodetical 
 measurements of this kind have been executed in various 
 countries. (See Degree.) The first which was under- 
 taken in our own country was that of General Roy, begun 
 in 1783, for the purpose of connecting the Greenwich ob- 
 servatory with tlie French triangulation, which had been 
 carried on from Paris to the coast opposite Dover, and con- 
 sequently for determining the difference of the meridians of 
 the two observatories by actual measurement. This gave 
 rise to a more important operation; namely, a general sur- 
 vey of the kingdom, which was begun in 1791, under the 
 direction of the Board of Ordnance, and has been carrying 
 on up to the present time. A brief description of the me- 
 thods employed in conducting the different parts of this 
 splendid national undertaking will probably be the best 
 means we could adopt to explain the nature and objects of 
 an accurate trigonometrical survey. 
 
 Measurement of Base. — This is the fundamental, and 
 probably the most difficult part of the whole operation, and 
 requires to be executed with the most minute accuracy, as 
 any error committed in its determination will affect all the 
 distances deduced from it, and be multiplied m the ratio of 
 these distances to the length of the base. First of all, a 
 suitable piece of ground, on which a straight line of not 
 less than five or six miles can be laid down, must be select- 
 ed and carefully levelled : and a measuring apparatus em- 
 ployed of which the length is exactly known in units of a 
 standard scale. General Roy's base on Hounslow Heath 
 was first measured with deal rods ; but as these were found 
 to be affected by the hygrometrical changes of the atmos- 
 phere, it was again measured with glass tubes 20 feet in 
 length, furnished with a peculiar apparatus for making the 
 contacts. In the subsequent measurement of the same line 
 for the ordnance survey, two steel chains of 100 feet in 
 length, made by the celebrated Ramsden, were made use 
 of. One of these was used as a measuring chain ; the other 
 was kept for the purpose of the measuring chain being com- 
 pared with it before and after the operation. In the act of 
 measuring, the chain was laid in a trough supported on 
 trestles, and stretched with a weight of 56 lbs. The same 
 apparatus was employed in measuring five other bases in 
 different parts of the country, for the purpose of verifying 
 the accuracy of the work. For the measurement of a base 
 in the survey of Ireland, Colonel Colby employed a com- 
 pensating apparatus formed of bars of different metals, so 
 arranged that the distance between two points viewed by 
 microscopes remains constant under all changes of tempera- 
 ture. The length of the Hounslow Heath base was nearly 
 5-2 miles ; that of the Irish base about 8 miles. 
 
 Selection of Stations.— The next step in the operation is 
 to divide the country to be surveyed into a series of con- 
 nected triangles. The choice of the stations which form 
 the angular points must depend in some measure on the 
 nature of the country ; but where circumstances admit of a 
 selection being made, it is very important to form the tri- 
 angles-so that the small unavoidable errors of observation 
 shall produce the least errors possible in the resulting sides. 
 The conditions required for this purpose are most nearly
 
 SURVEYING. 
 
 fulfilled by making the triangles as nearly as possible equi- 
 lateral. 
 
 Signals. — Various plans have been adopted in the course 
 of the survey for marking and rendering visible the stations 
 at which the instrument is successively set up. At first 
 Hat: stall's were chiefly used, carrying lamps and concave 
 reflectors for night observations, such signals could be 
 seen in the telescope of the great theodolite at distances of 
 20 ur even 24 miles. Bengal lights, fixed in small sockets, 
 were used for more distant stations. Hut night observations 
 having been found by experience to he attended with much 
 uncertainty as well as inconvenience, they have of late 
 years been abandoned. In the mountainous countries of 
 Scotland and Ireland, and where the sides ofthe triangles gen- 
 erally exceeded 50 and sometimes even 100 miles in length, 
 conical piles of stone were erected on the tops of hills ; and 
 although these signals are attended with this disadvantage, 
 that they can only be seen when the atmosphere is clear 
 (and the surveying parties have been frequently compelled 
 to remain weeks and even months encamped on the sum- 
 mits of the mountains before a single observation could be 
 made), yet, from the steadiness ofthe object observed, they 
 are found, on the whole, to be preferable to any night signals 
 that have hitherto been tried. When the theodolite is to be 
 set up at a station which has been already observed from 
 another, the pile is thrown down, and the instrument placed 
 exactly over its centre. The heliotrope, and small plane 
 mirrors, have likewise been occasionally employed with 
 success. (On this subject, see Mr. Drummond's paper in the 
 Phil. Trans, for 1826.) 
 
 Reduction to Centre of Station. — In observing the angles 
 at any station, it is supposed that the centre of the instru- 
 ment is placed exactly at the centre of the station. This 
 condition was rigidly adhered to in the ordnance survey 
 of Britain, by erecting signals on purpose; but where the 
 saving of expense is an object, it will often be convenient 
 to take advantage of spires, towers, &c„ in which case the 
 instrument cannot always be placed in the required position. 
 In such circumstances, the observation is made at a point 
 near the station, and the angle at that point subtended by 
 two remote objects is reduced to that which would have 
 been observed if the instrument had been placed exactly at 
 the centre of the station. The reduction is made as follows : 
 Let C (fig. 1) be the centre of the sta- 
 tion ; A and B the two remote objects ob- 
 served ; and suppose the instrument to 
 be set up at a point K near to C ; then 
 the ansile actually measured is A K B, 
 while that which is to be determined is 
 ACB. Put CA = i, CK — d, the an- 
 gle BAC = A, ACB = C, AKB = K, 
 BKC = J; then the difference between 
 C and K expressed in seconds of a de- 
 gree is 
 
 , „ tj. dsm. (A — fl:)sin.K 
 
 b sin. A sin. 1" 
 The distance C K or d is measured ; C A or b is found ap- 
 proximately by computing the triangle ACB with the ap- 
 proximate value of C observed at K ; and the angles A, K, k 
 are given by observation. The formula is not quite exact, 
 but sufficiently so for all ordinary cases. 
 
 Reduction to the Horizon. — Another indispensable condi- 
 tion is, that the angles observed at each station be reduced 
 to the plane of the horizon. When the theodolite is em- 
 ploy,! for measuring the angles this reduction is effected 
 by the instrument itself, and hence the great advantage of 
 the theodolite as a surveying instrument; but when the 
 angles are measured with a repeating circle or sextant, a re- 
 duction is necessary, unless the two distant objects observed 
 be in the same horizontal plane with the instrument, which 
 will rarely happen. Suppose the observer stationed at A, 
 and let B and C be the distant objects. Let the angular 
 elevation of B above the horizontal plane (which is found 
 by measuring its zenith distance) be [i seconds, and the ele- 
 vation of C be y seconds; also let A' be the horizontal pro- 
 jection of the angle A, and suppose A — A' = z seconds; 
 then 
 
 which cives the correction to be subtracted from the ob- 
 si rved angle A in order to have the corresponding angle A'. 
 If one ofthe objects B or C be depressed, the arc of depres- 
 sion, ji or y, must be regarded as a negative quantity. 
 
 Spherical Krcess. — The sum of the three angles of any 
 spherical triancle exceeds 180° by a quantity which is call- 
 ed the spherical excess, anil which we shall denote by E. 
 If the observations conld be made with absolute accuracy, 
 (ha urn of the three observed angles of any triangle on the 
 
 ground would be 180° -4- E ; the difference of lli.-ir sum 
 from thi- quantity is the aggregate error of the three ob- 
 1206 
 
 served angles, and must be distributed among those angles 
 so as to render the sum precisely 180° + E before the sides 
 are computed. It is therefore necessary to determine E. 
 Let S denote the area of the triangle in square feet, r the 
 number of feet in the radius of the earth, and r= 3- 14159; 
 then E is given in seconds by this formula (see Spherical 
 Excess), 
 
 „ S X 648000" 
 
 x. = — 
 
 irt* 
 
 (648000 being the number of seconds in 180°). In order, 
 therefore, to compute E, we must previously know the va- 
 lues of S and r. Now with respect to S, it is to be observed 
 that in every case which can arise in practice the atca of 
 the triangle must be a very small quantity in comparison of 
 r 2 , so that in order to find E it is not necessary to compute 
 S with great precision. A sufficiently near value will be 
 obtained by calculating one ofthe unknown sides as if the 
 triangle were a plane one, and computing the area from the 
 formula S = A a b sin. C. 
 
 With respect to r, which is here tuken to represent the 
 radius of curvature ofthe surface ofthe triangle in question, 
 it is to be remarked that by reason of the ellipticity of the 
 earth, the radius of curvature of any arc on the earth's sur- 
 face varies not only with the latitude of the place of ob- 
 servation, but also with the direction of the arc in respect 
 of the meridian. For the present purpose it would be suffi- 
 ciently accurate to assume r as the radius of the meridian ; 
 but as the radius of the perpendicular and oblique arcs is 
 required in other parts of the computation, we shall here 
 state the formula? from which they are computed. Let R 
 be the radius of curvature of the meridian at latitude I, R' 
 the radius of the circle perpendicular to the meridian, and 
 r the radius of a great circle making an angle = with the 
 meridian; also let p denote half the polar axis ofthe earth 
 =i 20,852,394 feet (see Degree), and e the ellipticity, or the 
 difference between the equatorial and polar axes divided by 
 the polar axis (= 1 -h 301-026 = 003322) ; then 
 
 R = p(l — e-f-3esin. 2/) 
 
 R'=p(l + e + esin.V) 
 
 r = R(l + 5-j^sin.20) 
 
 Since the inclination 6 is different for each of the sides 
 ofthe triangle, a mean value of r may be found by making 
 = 45°, in which case sin. 20 = i; and as the curvature 
 varies very little through a considerable extent of country, 
 the same value of r may be used for all the triangles within 
 a zone of two or three degrees of latitude. Suppose, then, 
 the value to be computed for the mean latitude of a chain 
 of triangles, the formula for the spherical excess will be 
 „ a b sin. C X 648000 , 
 
 E =. ; and on assuming the constant 
 
 2 7T7-2 
 
 648000 -f- 2 rr r2 = m, the formula for computation will be 
 log. E = log. a -4- log. b -f- log. sin. C + log. m. 
 
 It is proper to remark, that in general E is a very small 
 quantity. When the sides of the triangles are about 20 or 
 30 miles, it will seldom exceed 4 or 5 seconds of a degree ; 
 but in some of the great triangles connecting Ireland with 
 the west coast of Scotland its value was found to exceed 
 30 seconds. 
 
 Having computed the spherical excess E, make e = A + 
 B + C — (180° + E), (A, B, C being the observed horizontal 
 angles) then e is the error of the sum of the observed an- 
 gles; and if there be no reason for supposing that any one 
 ofthe angles has been less accurately determined than the 
 others, the error e must be equally divided among them, or 
 a third of e must be added to or subtracted from each angle, 
 according as the error is in excess or defect, and the re- 
 sults will give the angles from which the sides are to be 
 computed. Thus, if the angles for computation be A', B', C, 
 we have 
 
 A' = A + ic B' = B-fJe, C' = C4-Je. 
 
 Calculation of the Sides. — The angles being thus corrected 
 for errors of observation, it now remains to compute the 
 two unknown sides ofthe triangles. The computation may 
 be made by the ordinary rules of spherical trigonometry ; 
 but this method is seldom practised on account of the length 
 of the calculations. A second method, which was prac- 
 tised by Delambre, and litis been adopted in the ordnance 
 surveys of Britian and Ireland, consists in first Computing 
 from the observed horizontal angles the corresponding an- 
 gles formed by the chords of the terrestrial arcs, and then 
 calculating the triangle as a plane one. In this manner the 
 chords of the spherical arcs are found, whence the arcs 
 themselves are easily obtained. The reduction of a hori- 
 zontal or spherical angle to the corresponding Chord angle 
 is made as follows: Let A be the o bs e rve d spherical angle, 
 b and c the lengths of the containing sides computed ap- 
 proximately as above explained, r the radius of curvature 
 at the plan- of observation, and A — x the plane angle con- 
 tained by the chords ofthe sides be; then
 
 SURVEYING. 
 
 b + c\2 tan. A A 
 
 1 (b -\- c\ 
 
 AC?) 
 
 2 cot. i A 
 
 sin. 1" * ° V r J sin. 1" 
 This formula gives the reduction x expressed in seconds, 
 and consequently the chord angle A — x. If we now de- 
 note by x' and x" the corresponding corrections for the other 
 angles B and C, the sum of the three corrections will evi- 
 dently be the difference between the sum of the three 
 spherical angles of the triangle and the sum of the angles 
 of the plane triangle formed by the chords, or 180°, and, 
 consequently, 
 
 x + x' + x" = E ; 
 so that the spherical excess is obtained from the reduction, 
 and does not require to be previously computed. 
 
 The three cord angles A — x, B — z', C — x", being com- 
 puted from the above formula, the difference between their 
 sum and 180° gives the error of the three observed angles, 
 and must be apportioned among the three chord angles, so 
 that their sum shall be precisely 180°. With these cor- 
 rected angles the chords of the spherical sides are computed 
 as in plane trigonometry ; and the arcs are then found from 
 the chords from the following formula, where a', b', c' are 
 the chords of the three terrestrial arcs a, b, c ; namely, 
 
 a=a' •{■ 
 
 24 r2 
 
 , ,, , 6'3 , , c'3 
 
 = + , c = c -\ . 
 
 24 r* 24r2 
 
 Legendre's Theorem. — A third method of computing the 
 sides, which has been generally adopted in the recent sur- 
 veys on the Continent, is derived from a theorem which 
 was discovered by Legendre, and is demonstrated in his 
 Elemens tie Geometric " If from each of the angles of any 
 small triangle on the surface of a sphere or spheroid one 
 third of the spherical excess be deducted, the sines of the 
 angles thus diminished will be proportional to the lengths 
 of the opposite sides, and consequently the sides may be 
 computed as if the triangle were rectilineal." This is the 
 easiest method of any ; and, in fact, if the three angles are 
 assumed to have been equally well determined, the pre- 
 vious computation of the spherical excess is not necessary 
 for the calculation of the sides, though it will be required 
 for estimating the relative accuracy of the observations. 
 The method of proceeding is this : Let A, B, C be the three 
 observed angles; and let <5 = A + B + C — 180°; then, 
 from each of the three observed angles subtract j<5, and 
 with the angles thus reduced compute the sides as in a 
 plane triangle from the formula 6 = asin. (B — J(5)-=-sin. 
 (A — J<5). The sides thus determined are equal to the 
 geodetical lines, or the spherical arcs on the ground. 
 
 Latitudes, Longitudes, and Azimuths. — When the sides 
 of all the triangles have been computed the distances be- 
 tween the stations become known ; but in order to com- 
 plete the survey, it is still necessary to determine the astro- 
 nomical positions of the principal stations, and the bearings 
 of the sides of the triangles with respect to the terrestrial 
 meridians. For this purpose the latitude and longitude of 
 one of the stations, and the azimuth of another as seen from 
 it, must be found by astronomical methods (see Latitude, 
 Longitude, Azimuth) ; but when this has been done 
 (2 \ these elements may be computed for each 
 of the other stations in the chain of tri- 
 angles, provided the dimensions and elip- 
 ticity of the spheroid are assumed to be 
 known. The formula for computation are 
 the following : 
 
 Let A and B (fig. 2) be two stations, A P 
 and B P the meridians passing through A 
 and B and meeting in the pole P ; and let 
 the azimuths at each station be counted 
 from the south towards the west. Assume 
 / = 90° — A P = latitude of A, 
 I' — 9(P — B P = latitude of B, 
 
 A = 180O — P A B the azimuth of B as seen from A, 
 B = 18(P + P B A the azimuth of A as seen from B, 
 P = A P B the difference of the longitudes of A and B, 
 d = length of the geodetical line A B in feet, 
 R' = radius of the circle perpendicular to the meridian at 
 
 A in feet, 
 e=fhe ellipticity as above defined = -003322 ; 
 Then, 
 ,,_, I rfcos. A . (Psin.2 Atan./ ) ,, , . „.. 
 
 «R'sin.l" T 2R'2sin.l" S " 
 
 P = 
 
 d sin. A. 
 
 R' cos. V sin. 1"' 
 
 B = 180° + A-P ■ta-i(* + . 
 cos. £ (I — V) 
 
 These formulae are theoretically sufficient to give the 
 elements in question ; but as some uncertainty must exist 
 as to the ellipticity of the earth, and a small error in this 
 respect will affect the convergency of the meridians, and 
 produce a considerable error in the computed longitudes 
 
 SUTURE. 
 
 and azimuths, it is necessary, in carrying a survey over a 
 considerable tract of country, to check the azimuths by de- 
 termining the direction of the meridian at different stations 
 by astronomical observations. 
 
 Calculation of Altitudes. — The only element which re- 
 mains to be detennined, in order to complete the survey, is 
 the relative altitudes of the different stations or principal 
 points. At ever}' station the elevation or depression of each 
 of the others observed from it is measured with the theodo- 
 lite ; but owing to the curvature of the earth, and the re- 
 fraction of light, a calculation is necessary in order to deter- 
 mine their true differences of level, or of distance from the 
 centre of the earth. 
 
 Let A and B (fig. 3) be two stations, C the centre of the 
 earth ; and let b be the position of B 
 as seen from A elevated by refraction, 
 and a that of A as seen from B. Make 
 C H = C A ; then H B is the true dif- 
 ference of altitude of A and B, or the 
 quantity to be determined from obser- 
 vation. Join A H, A B, A o, and draw 
 the horizontal lines A D and B D, 
 which will be respectively perpendic- 
 ular to C A and C B. Assume in sec- 
 onds, 
 
 d =DA5, the observed depression of B ; 
 
 (/'-DBa, the observed depression of A ; 
 
 C = A C B, the angle measured by the arc A B ; 
 
 p = the mean refraction ; 
 
 <p = B A H, the angular difference of altitudes ; 
 then B H will be found by the following formulas : 
 
 p = l\c-(d + d') j^ = iC-(d + p) 
 
 BH = ABX<£sin.l". 
 
 Thus B H is found in terms of A B, and the reciprocal 
 observations at A and B. The mean refraction p is also 
 determined at the same time ; but if this be assumed to be 
 known, the observation of depression at one of the stations 
 would be sufficient to give the difference of elevations. The 
 two quantities d and a" have been both assumed to be de- 
 pressions ; if one of them is an elevation, it must be taken 
 with the negative sign. 
 
 See the Trigonometrical Survey of England and Wales ; 
 Delambre, Base du Systeme Metrique ; Puissant, Traite de 
 Oeodesie ; Id. Jfouvelle Description Geometrique de la 
 France ; Encyc. Brit., art. "Trigonometrical Survey." 
 
 SURVTVORSHIP, in the doctrine of Life Annuities, is a 
 reversionary benefit contingent upon the circumstance of 
 some life or lives surviving some other life or lives, or of 
 the lives falling according to some assigned order. For the 
 solution of the different questions which can be put relative 
 to the values of annuities and assurances in every order of 
 survivorship, where there are only three lives, see the trea- 
 tises of Baily and Milne, or the Essay on Probabilities by 
 Professor De Morgan, in the Cabinet Cyclopmdia. 
 
 SUSPE'NSION BRIDGE. In Architecture, a bridge in 
 which the roadway, instead of being carried over the sup- 
 porting points, is suspended from them, the supporting points 
 being chains or other flexible materials. The principle has 
 recently been carried to a great extent in this country, as in 
 the case of the Menai bridge ; but its application is old, and 
 has long been practised among people who have attained 
 very little, if any, skill in the arts. See Bridge. 
 
 SUSSEX MARBLE. A variety of limestone which con- 
 stitutes one of the fresh-water deposites of the Wealdon 
 group ; it abounds in shells of Paludina;, a genus of fresh- 
 water Univalves. It occurs in layers varying from a few 
 inches to upwards of a foot in thickness, the layers being 
 separated by seams of clay or of friable limestone. 
 
 SU'TTEE. (More correctly written Sari or Satee ; in 
 Sanscrit, pure.) A word applied by the Brahmins to vari- 
 ous rites of religious purification ; but more especially, by 
 usage, to the voluntary self-immolation of widows on the 
 funeral pile of their husbands. This is nowhere command- 
 ed in the religious books of Hindostan, although it is spoken 
 of, in common with many other acts of similar fanaticism, 
 as highly meritorious. The English government, up to a 
 late period, had only interfered to ensure, as far as possible, 
 that the sacrifice should be voluntary on the part of the 
 sufferer, which was done by the presence of a government 
 officer. Thus legalized, suttees became frightfully common 
 in Bengal and the adjoining provinces in the present centu- 
 ry. At length, in December, 1829, they were abolished in 
 the British dominions by Lord W. Bentinck. (See Forbes's 
 Oriental Memoirs, ii., 26 ; Heber's Journal, l, 70 ; and many 
 other authorities.) There is a curious account of a suttee 
 in Bali, an island in which the Hindoo religion now pre- 
 vails, in Crawford's Ind. Archipelago, book vi., ch. 2. 
 
 SUTURE, in Mammalogy, is the line formed by the in- 
 cumbent series of converging series of hairs of the integu- 
 ment. In Entomology, it is the line at which the elytra 
 meet, and are sometimes confluent. 
 
 4 1207
 
 SWAB. 
 
 Svtcre. in Anatomy, means the junction of bones by 
 their serrated or teethed margins: the bones of tbe skuil 
 are so united. 
 
 SW IB. A large bundle of old yarns hung by the mid- 
 dle, ami swung right and left to dry the decks. 
 
 SWA'LLOW. A name equivalent to the subgeneric 
 term Hirundo, appropriated in modern Ornitholog>' to t he 
 British speciea ceiled hank. Chimney, and window .swallows, 
 and t.i foreign allied forms dismembered from the swifts. 
 
 SWAMP. Ground habitually so moist and soft as not 
 to admit of being trod on by cattle, but, at the same time, 
 producing particular kinds of trees, bushes, and plants. A 
 swamp diners from a bog and a marsh in producing trees 
 and shrubs, while the latter produce only herbage, plants, 
 and in - 
 
 SWAN. Of the noble web-footed birds so called there 
 are three British species — the Hooper or Bewick's, the wild 
 and the tame swan. The.se form the type of the subgenus 
 Oggnua. The v id swan and Hooper ought, perhaps, to be 
 regarded as the only true native species. The tame swan 
 [Ofgnus olurj is superior in bulk to either of the wild spe- 
 cies, and is at once distinguished by a large black callous 
 knob on the base of the bill. Both the wild species are pe- 
 culiarly characterized by convolutions of the windpipe, ex- 
 tending in the mature bird through the whole length of the 
 keel ot the sternum. These convolutions are horizontal in 
 the Cygnus Beicickii, and vertical in the Oggnua ferns. 
 
 SWARD. Green turf; that is, the surface of land under 
 pasture grasses. A fine sward may be called the charac- 
 teri-tn- feature of British landscape, not being found in the 
 same degree of perfection in any other country, not even in 
 Ireland. 
 
 SWEDEXBO'RGIAXS. The followers of Emanuel 
 Swedenborg, a Swedish nobleman, who died in 1770. He 
 conceived the society which he founded to be the Xew Je- 
 rusalem spoken of in Revelations, and its members to be 
 gifted with peculiar insight into spiritual things. The Swe- 
 denborgians imagine that they can see mentally, and hold 
 conversation with spirits. They interpret Scripture by a 
 system of correspondences, supposing it to have three dis- 
 tinct senses, accommodated respectively to particular class- 
 Be, both of men and angels. They date the last judgment 
 of the spiritual world and the second advent of Christ from 
 the year 1757. They abound principally in England, where 
 they have at the present day several chapels in London and 
 other large towns. 
 
 SWELL. The term for a succession of waves in a par- 
 ticular direction, and named after the point of the compass 
 from which the waves move. 
 
 Swell. In Music, a set of pipes in an organ acted upon 
 by a key board, and capable of being increased in intensity 
 of sound by the action of a pedal, which allows of its being 
 thereby gradually augmented. See Organ. 
 
 SWIFT. The name of the largest and most powerful 
 flier of the swallow tribe which visits this countrv. It is 
 the type of the subgenus Cypselus of Temminckj'the Hi- 
 rundo apus of Linnaus. See Hircsdo. 
 
 SWIFTER. The name given to the foremost and after- 
 most shrouds, which are not rattled with the rest. The 
 term snifter is also applied in many cases to a rope used 
 for the temporary purpose of tightening or keeping a thing 
 in its place. 
 
 SWIMMERS. The web footed or aquatic birds (JVafa- 
 tevet, 111.: In/mipedes, Cuv.) are so called; also a tribe of 
 spiders (Araneidie natantes) which live in water, and there 
 ■pin and spread abroad filaments to entrap their prey. 
 
 B WIN E POX. The chicken pox, which see. 
 
 SWINE STOXE. Fetid or bituminous limestone, which 
 exhales a disagreeable odour on friction. 
 
 SW1.\<;. Tin- ship at anchor is said to swing when she 
 chances her position at the turn of the tide. 
 
 SWIVEL. In Gunnery, a small cannon ; so called from 
 its being fixed in a sicicel, by means of which it may be di- 
 rected to any object. Swivels are chiefly used at sea. and 
 are placed on the ship's side, stern, or bow, and also in the 
 tops. 
 
 SWORD OF STATE. Four swords are used at the 
 coronation of a British sovereign: 1. The sword of state, 
 properly so called. 2. The curtana 'ctirtus, shortened), the 
 sword of mercy, which is pointless: it is mentioned by 
 Matthew Paris. 3. The sword of spiritual Justice. 4. The 
 sword of temporal Justice. These three are carried before 
 the sovereign : he is girt with the first. 
 
 SWORD, ORDER OP THE. A Swedish military order 
 of knighthood, instituted by Gustavus Vase. 
 
 SI B \KITE. A term used metaphorically to designate 
 an effeminate voluptuary ; so called from the inhal 
 Byberis, formerly ■ town of Italy on the gulf of Tarentum, 
 
 Whom a devotion to sensual pleasures had so enfeebled that 
 
 they became sn easy prey to the Crotonlans, a pa 
 parativeiv insignificant in point of numbers, by whom their 
 city was levelled to the ground, B.C. 310. 
 1208 
 
 SYLLOGISM. 
 
 SYCEB SILVER. The only approach to a silver cur- 
 rency among the Chinese. In it the government taxes and 
 duties, and the salaries of the officers are paid; and it is 
 also current among the merchants in general. The term 
 is derived from two Chinese words .», tie, "tine gloss 
 silk." which expression is synonymous with the significa- 
 tion of the term van. This silver is formed into ingots (by 
 the Chinese called shoes), which are stamped with the 
 mark of the office thai Issues them, and the dates of their 
 issue. The ingots are of various weights, but most com- 
 monly of ten taels each. 
 
 Bj eee silver is divided into several classes, according to 
 its fineness and freedom from alloy. The kinds most cur- 
 rent at Canton are the following : 
 
 1. Kwan heang: the uoppos duties, or the silver which 
 is forwarded to the imperial treasury at l'ekin. This is of 
 '.•7 to !<9 tonch. On all the imperial duties a certain per- 
 centage is levied for the purpose of turning them into Bycee 
 Of this high standard, and of conveying them to l'ekin with- 
 out any loss in the full amount. The hoppo, however, in 
 all probability, increases the percentage far above what is 
 requisite, that he may be enabled to retain the remainder 
 for himself and his dependants. 
 
 2. Fan hoo, or fan foo : the treasurer's receipts, or that in 
 which the land tax is paid. This is also of high standard, 
 but inferior to the boppoS duties ; and being intended for 
 use in the province, and not-for conveyance to Pekin, no 
 percentage is levied on the taxes for it. 
 
 3. Yuen paon, literally "chief in value." This kind is 
 usually imported from Soochan in large pieces of 50 taels 
 each. It does not appear to belong to any particular gov- 
 ernment tax. 
 
 4. Yen, or een hearg, " salt duties." It is difficult to ac- 
 count for these being of so low a standard, the salt trade 
 being entirely a government monopoly. 
 
 5. Muh tue. or wuh tue, the name of which signifying 
 "uncleansed or unpurified," designates it as the worst of 
 all. It is seldom used except for the purpose of plating. 
 (Prinsep's " Useful Tables," Appendix to Journal of Asiatic 
 Society. 8vo, Calcutta, 1834.) 
 
 HY< i I'M A. (Gr. avKov, a fig.) A fig-shaped tumour. 
 
 SY'COPHANT. (Gr. mKufavrvs. from ovkov, a fig, 
 (paivw, I disclose.) It was forbidden by the laws of Athens 
 at one period to export figs. The public informers who 
 gave notice of delinquencies against this fiscal law were 
 extremely unpopular, and hence the word came into use to 
 signify an informer or false accuser generally; in which 
 sense it is constantly used by Aristophanes and the orators. 
 In modern languages it has acquired the sense of a mean 
 flatterer. 
 
 SYCo'SIS. A tubercular eruption upon the scalp, or 
 bearded part of the face : it sometimes forms a very trouble- 
 some impediment to shaving. 
 
 SY'EXITE. A granitic rock from Siicne, or Siena, in 
 Egypt It often has the appearance of a variety of granite. 
 See Geology. 
 
 SY'LLABLE. (Gr. cv\Xa€n. from ci'^XauSaiui, /collect), 
 is defined by Girard, the celebrated French grammarian, "a 
 simple or compound sound, pronounced with all its articu- 
 lations by a single impulsion of the voice." The principal 
 difficulty in arranging the syllabic construction of language 
 is to ascertain m what cases two or more consonants fol- 
 lowing each other may be joined in a syllable : which can 
 only he done by investigation of the mechanism of speech. 
 (See a learned article on this subject in the Kucyclopedie.) 
 
 SY'LLABCS. (Gr. mi and bauSavu.) A compendium 
 or abridgment, or a table of contents ; as a syllabus of lec- 
 tures. &c. 
 
 SYLLE'PSIS. (Gr. <rv>Ai?Vri?, connexion, or taking to- 
 gether.) In Grammar, sometimes called substitution. A 
 name given by some writers to that idiom of the Greek and 
 Latin languages w hereby an adjective predicated of a mas- 
 culine and feminine substantive is made to accord in gender 
 with the former: e.g., "rex ct regina beati." 
 
 SYXLOGISM (Gr. cri'AArjw, / collrd.) In Logic, an 
 argument Stated in the correct logieal form, consisting .if 
 three propositions, and having the property that the conclu- 
 sion necessarily follows from the two premises; so that if 
 the premises be true, the conclusion must be true also. (See 
 Proposition, Logic.) As often as the mind observes any 
 two notions t" agree with a third, it immediately concludes 
 that they agree with each other: as, A is equal toBj B is 
 equal to C; therefore A is equal to C. Or, if it finds that 
 one of them agrees and the other di^.-igrees with the third, it 
 pronounces that the] disagree with each other. In the first 
 
 ot' these proci isees t produces a syllogism with an affirma- 
 nclusion in the latter, a syllogism With a negative 
 ooncloslon. 
 
 Syllogisms are variously divided : by some into single, 
 complex, and conjui ctive, fee. ; by others (according to the 
 i system ot" logic into categorical, hypothetical, con- 
 ditional, fcc. But the categorical syllogism, consisting of
 
 SYLLOGISM. 
 
 three categorical propositions, is the simplest form of reason- 
 ing, and that to which all other forms can be reduced. 
 
 The following are the two canons by which the validity 
 of a categorical syllogism is explained : 1. If two terms, 
 »". e., notions expressed in language (see Term), agree with 
 one and the same third, they agree with each other. 2. If 
 one term agrees, and another disagrees with a third, the 
 two first disagree with one another. Hence are deduced the 
 six following rules : 
 
 1. Every syllogism has three terms only, viz., the middle 
 term, and the' two extremes. The subject of the conclusion 
 is called the minor term ; its predicate the major term : the 
 middle term is that with which they are respectively com- 
 pared. 2. Every syllogism has three propositions only : the 
 major premiss, in which the major term is compared with 
 the middle , the minor premiss, in which the minor term is 
 compared with the middle; and the conclusion, in which 
 the major and minor terms are compared together. 3. The 
 middle term must be, in logical language, distributed once 
 at least in the premises ; i. e., it must be the subject of a 
 universal, or the predicate of a negative (see Proposition) ; 
 otherwise it may happen that one of the extremes is com- 
 pared with one part of it, and the other with another part. 
 4. No term must be distributed in the conclusion which is 
 not distributed in one of the premises ; otherwise the whole 
 term would be employed in the conclusion, where part only 
 are employed in the premiss : this error is called an illicit 
 process of the major or minor premiss. 5. From negative 
 premises you can infer nothing ; i. e., if two terms disagree 
 with a third, you cannot conclude either their mutual agree- 
 ment or disagreement. 6. If one premiss be negative, the 
 conclusion must be negative ; for if one term disagree with 
 the middle, it must of necessity also disagree with the other. 
 The other rules are corollaries deducible from these six. 
 
 The mood of a syllogism is the designation of its three 
 propositions in their order, according to their respective 
 quantity and quality. By reference to tiie head Proposi- 
 tion, it will be seen that arbitrary symbols are adopted in 
 logic to mark the quality and quantity of propositions : thus 
 A stands for a universal affirmative ; E represents a univer- 
 sal negative ; I, a particular affirmative; and O a particular 
 negative. These four letters will afford sixty-four different 
 combinations of three letters ; but of these the greater part 
 will afford syllogisms erring against some one or more of 
 the rules previously laid down: thus EEE would be at 
 once inadmissible, as exhibiting two negative premises — 
 against rule 5. By an accurate examination, it is found that 
 eleven moods only will afford correct syllogisms: AAA, 
 A A I, A E E, A E O, A 1 1, A O O, E A E, E A O, E I O, 
 I A I, and O A O. 
 
 The figure of a syllogism consists in the situation of the 
 middle term with reference to the major and minor terms. 
 1. The first figure is where the middle term is the subject 
 of the major premiss, and predicate of the minor. 2. Where 
 the middle term is the predicate of both premises. 3. Where 
 it is the subject of both. 4. Where it is the predicate of the 
 major, and subject of the minor. Multiplying the moods by 
 the figures, we should have forty-four different syllogisms. 
 But it will be found, on examination, that five moods in 
 each figure (twenty in all) would err against some one or 
 other of the rules before laid down : e. g., I A I is an allow- 
 able mood in the third figure ; but, in the first, it would have 
 an undistributed middle. Of the twenty-four remaining, 
 five are unnecessary ; i. <?., they are moods in which a par- 
 ticular conclusion only is inferred from premises which 
 would warrant a universal. The nineteen remaining are 
 expressed in the following mnemonic lines : 
 
 Fig. 1, 4 moods: BAriArA, cElArEnt, dArll, fErlOque, 
 
 prioris. 
 Fig. 2, 4 moods : CEsArE, cAmEstrEs, fEsthiO, bArO- 
 
 kO, secundffi. 
 Fig. 3, 6 moods: Tenia dArAptl, dlsAmls, dAtlsI, /E- 
 
 lAptOn, BOkArdO, fErlsOn, habet : quarta insuper 
 
 addit. 
 Fig. 4, 5 moods: BrAmAntlp, cAmEnEs, dlmArls, /E- 
 
 sApO, frEsIsOn. 
 
 One mood in each figure may be given by way of exam- 
 ple. The letter M designates the middle term ; the letter 
 preceding the proposition its quantity and quality. 
 
 1. A. All excess (M) is sinful. 
 
 A. All gluttony is excess (M) : therefore, 
 
 A. All excess is sinful. (A syllogism in Barbara.) 
 
 2. A. Everything expedient is lawful (M). 
 
 E. Nothing unjust is lawful (M) : therefore, 
 E. Nothing unjust is expedient. (A syllogism in Ca- 
 mestres.) 
 
 3. A. All conquerors (M) are cruel. 
 
 I. Some conquerors (M) are just : therefore, 
 
 I. Some just men are cruel. (A syllogism in Datisi.) 
 
 4. A. Whatever is expedient is conformable to nature (M). 
 
 SYMBOL. 
 
 E. Whatever is conformable to nature (M) is not hurt- 
 ful: therefore, 
 E. What is hurtful is not expedient. (A syllogism in 
 Camenes.) 
 
 It will be observed that in all these instances the major 
 premiss is presumed to precede the minor; but although 
 this is the most convenient form of reasoning, the minor 
 premiss is, with equal validity, made the first in the series : 
 e-g; 
 
 Brutus is an honourable man : 
 Honourable men affirm the truth ; therefore 
 Brutus affirms the truth. 
 
 This is a syllogism in Barbara, with the minor premiss 
 placed before the major. 
 
 The fourth figure is considered to be inverted and un- 
 natural ; and the first three figures, with their fourteen 
 moods, furnish almost every argument which is employed, 
 however far it may be removed in appearance, through the 
 intricacy of language, from the syllogistic form. But all ar- 
 guments may be brought, by an ingenious process termed 
 reduction, into one or other of the four moods of the first 
 figure. 
 
 In reducing a syllogism, the premises may be illatively 
 converted (see Illative Conversion), or transposed ; since 
 the force of the argument can be altered by neither of these 
 processes. By employing this liberty, we deduce either the 
 same conclusion with the original, or another conclusion 
 from which the original conclusion follows by illative con- 
 version. We have not space to explain, by examples, these 
 various processes. The letters which compose the names 
 of the syllogistic moods are framed to express the manner 
 in which those of the three last figures are reduced into 
 those of the first. The first letter indicates the mood into 
 which those beginning with the same letter are to be re- 
 duced : e.g., Bramantip is reducible into Barbara; m indicates 
 that the premises are to be transposed ; s and p that the 
 proposition denoted by the vowel immediately preceding is 
 to be converted— s simply, p per accidens ; k, which occurs 
 only in Baroko and Bokardo, indicates that the proposition 
 denoted by the vowel immediately before it must be left out, 
 and the contradictory of the conclusion (see Contradio- 
 tory) substituted, which is termed the reductio ad impos- 
 sibile. 
 
 A hypothetical syllogism is one in which the conclusion 
 is deduced from a hypothetical premiss (called the major) 
 and a categorical premiss (called the minor). It is of two 
 kinds— conditional and disjunctive : the first subdivided into 
 constructive and destructive. 
 
 I If the demand increases, the supply will In- 
 crease : 
 But the demand increases ; 
 Therefore the supply will increase. 
 ("If the country is flourishing, agriculture is 
 
 2. Conditional! flourishing: 
 
 destructive, j But agriculture is not flourishing ; 
 
 t Therefore the country is not flourishing, 
 f Either A is B, or C isD: 
 
 3. Disjunctive.-; But A is not B ; 
 
 I Therefore C is D. 
 
 It is evident that a disjunctive syllogism may easily he re- 
 duced to a conditional. (See the Compendium of Logic by 
 Dean Aldrich, commonly used at Oxford ; and the Treatise 
 of Archbishop Whately.) 
 
 SYLPH. (Gr. criXif >/, a kind of insect.) The name given 
 to the spirits of air in the fantastic nomenclature of the 
 Rosicrucians and Cabalists. (See those articles.) The use 
 which Pope has made of this fancy in his Rape of the Lock 
 is well known. He seems to have borrowed it from the 
 enigmatical romance called the Count dc Gabalis. 
 
 SY'MBOL. (Gr. ovfiBoXov ; from aw, together, and /3aA- 
 >(j, / throw.) A word of many meanings, although now 
 commonly used in one only. 1. The primary meaning of 
 the verb av^iMciv expresses the act of several in consti- 
 tuting or throwing together portions to form a whole. Hence 
 av^oXov signified a treaty or agreement. (Jrist. Polit.) 
 And it seems to be in this sense that the creeds are termed 
 bv earlv ecclesiastical writers symbols : either because (as 
 Augustine says) all the fundamental doctrines of Christian- 
 ity are collected in them ; or from the old traditional story, 
 related by Rufinus, that the creed called the Apostles' was 
 formed by each of them contributing a sentence. (See 
 Creed.) 2. The mind may be said to put together (avfiSaX- 
 \eiv) outward appearances, and collect from them the notion 
 of a thing signified by them ; and hence the outward ap- 
 pearances themselves derive the appellation of symbols, signs, 
 or emblems ; while the act of the mind is termed conjec- 
 ture (Lat. conjicio). Thus, the standards of military bodies 
 were called by the Greeks symbols ; as likewise omens and 
 portents ; and expressions or figures denoting a received 
 meaning, as the Pythagorean symbols. In this sense, the 
 early Christian church called all rites, ceremonies, and out- 
 ward forms, bearing a religious meaning, by the general 
 
 1209
 
 SYMMETRICAL SOLIDS. 
 
 name of symbols ; the sacraments themselves, and the 
 sacramental elements, the Cross, and, in later times, images 
 
 and pictures. Symbols, properly so culled, must lie distin- 
 guished from types, i.e.. phenomena, manifestations record- 
 ed in the Old Testament, of which the full meaning is de- 
 veloped by correlative manifestations in the Xew ; and from 
 mere symbolical attributes, such as the figures usually Intro- 
 duced in company of the lour Evangelists. Symbolical books 
 are such as contain the creeds and confessions of different 
 churches; such as the three creeds, received by all; the 
 Confession of Augsburg, received by the Lutherans ; the ar- 
 ticles of the Church of England, &.c. The Germans call the 
 study of the symbols and mysterious rites of antiquity, and 
 also the study of the history and contents of Christian creeds 
 and confessions of faith, by the name of Symbolics (mytho- 
 logical or theological.) Jlarhcincke's Institutiones Sym- 
 bolic*, of which the first edition appeared in 1812, is one of 
 their most distinguished works in the latter class. 
 
 SYMMETRICAL SOLIDS. In Geometry, a name given 
 by Legendre to solids which, though equal and similar, can- 
 not be brought to coincide with each other, or to occupy the 
 same portion of space. A man's two hands affords an ex- 
 ample of symmetrical solids. The equality of plane figures 
 is proved by showing that they may be made to coincide, 
 but it is evident that this mode of proof cannot be extended 
 to all solids. 
 .SYMMETRY. In the Fine Arts. See Proportion. 
 SY*MPATHY. {Gt. cvundoxu, I suffer with.) In .Moral 
 Philosophy, the quality of being affected by feelings common 
 to our fellow-men. In his Theory of Moral Sentiments, Dr. 
 Smith maintains that sympathy is the real foundation of 
 morals. (See Virtue.} For a succinct statement of this 
 theory, see " The Life of Dr. Smith," prefixed to M'Culloch's 
 edition of the Health of Nations, p. iv. In the Fine Arts, 
 the term signifies conformity of the parts to each other ; but 
 in Painting it is more usually applied to the effective union 
 of colours. 
 
 SY'.Ml'HOXY. (Gr. civ, with, and <pu>vri, voice.) In 
 Music, a composition which, from the etymology of the term, 
 evidently implies that the voice anciently formed an essen- 
 tial part of its construction. In the present day, however, 
 the term is otherwise applied, and is exclusively used for a 
 piece in which instruments only are engaged. It is, in fact, 
 a composition for a perfect instrumental orchestra, which, 
 until the beginning of the eighteenth century, was unknown. 
 The Concert! grossi of Corelli were the first of the species, 
 which was carried out to a greater extent in the works of 
 Geminiani and Vivaldi ; but it does not seem to us that he- 
 fore the time of Haydn it can be said to have assumed the 
 form which the name now imports. There is, perhaps, no 
 musical composition in which the power of the author is so 
 completely developed as in a symphony. The musician in it 
 becomes a poet, or, perhaps rather, a painter. Scenes and 
 the passions are represented therein by a combination of 
 musical sounds ; hi illustration of which we need only cite 
 that splendid work of Beethoven, known to all under the 
 name of II Pastorale. The general form of the symphony 
 may be thus described : It opens with a short, serious, slow 
 movement ; this is followed by, and forms a contrast to one 
 of spirit and of a lively nature ; then comes an andante 
 varied, or an adagio or slow movement; a minuet with its 
 trio follows ; and the symphony usually closes with a lively 
 rondo, or a finale of rapid motion. 
 
 SY'MPHYSIS. (Gr. cm (i<j>vav, to grow together.) A term 
 applied to the junction of certain bones, or to joints not ad- 
 mitting of motion, as the symphysis of the pubes. 
 
 SYMPIESl ('METER. (Gr. crv/jr[f\w, I compress ; nerpov, 
 measure.) An instrument contrived by Mr. Adie of Edin- 
 burgh for measuring the weight of the atmosphere by the 
 compression of a column of nas. It consisis of a glass tube 
 A B C of about 18 inches in length, bent as repre- 
 sented in the annexed figure, and having an en- 
 larged portion or bulb of about 2 inches in length 
 and half an inch in diameter at each end. The top 
 at A is hermetically sealed, and the other extremity 
 C can be stopped by a cork. The upper part of the 
 \ m ' tube A m is filled with some permanently elastic 
 gas different from common air (hydrogen gas is 
 found to answer best), and the lower m I! ;i with a 
 fixed oil, or some fluid which does not act upon the 
 gas and is not acted upon by air. 
 
 The tube being opened at C, the oil is exposed to 
 the pressure of the atmosphere, and stands at a 
 *i | B height m. corresponding to the difference of the 
 i ■i of the atmosphere and of the column of 
 " enclosed gas. Consequently, as the atmospheric 
 pressure becomes greater the l'.is will be compressed, and 
 the column of oil will rise. The change in the bulk of the 
 g.is occasioned by a change of pressure is measured by a 
 dch is formed experimentally, and of which the di- 
 visions are entirely arbitrary. 
 But as the bulk of the enclosed gas is altered by any 
 1210 
 
 SYNCHRONISM. 
 
 change of temperature as well as of pressure, it is necessary 
 to apply a correction on this account. For this purpose B 
 common thermometer is attached to the instrument to indi- 
 cate the temperature ; and the principal or barometric scale, 
 which measures the compression of the gas, is made to slide 
 upon another scale divided so as to represent the change of 
 bulk in the gas produced by a change of temperature under 
 the same pressure, and corresponding to the graduation of 
 the thermometer. In making an observation, the tem- 
 perature is first observed by the thermometer; an index or 
 pointer, which is fixed to the top of the sliding scale, is then 
 set opposite to the degree of temperature on the fixed scale, 
 and the number on the sliding scale opposite the top of the 
 column of oil gives the pressure of the air in inches of the 
 mercurial barometer. 
 
 The principle of the sympicsometer is the same as that of 
 the manometer, or air barometer, which was long ago pro- 
 posed by Hooke ; and Mr. Adie's great improvement con- 
 sists in the substitution of a gas for common air, which has 
 the defect of being absorbed by the enclosing fluid. It is a 
 valuable instrument at sea, as it is not affected in any degree 
 by the motion of the ship; and it possesses several advan- 
 tages over the barometer in its convenient size, its greater 
 portability, and in being less liable to accident. (See the 
 Edinburgh Encyclopedia, art. " Meteorology ;" Edin. Phil. 
 Journal, No. 1 ; Edin. Journal of Science, No. 20.) 
 
 SYMPO'SIARCH. (Gr. cvpirooiov, feast, and apxu, I 
 rule.) The ruler or master of a feast ; one selected by the 
 consent of the party to be their president for the occasion, 
 whom the Greeks sometimes called fiactXcvt. The word 
 rendered "governor of the feast," in John, ii., 8, is ap\irpi- 
 kXii'oc. Some think that a priest or Levite was chosen to 
 fill this office in Jewish feasts. 
 
 SYN^E'RESIS. (Gr. owaipoi, I contract.) Otherwise 
 called Crasis. (Gr. Kpaesis, mixture.) In Grammar, the 
 contraction of two syllables into one by the formation of a 
 diphthong, or by rendering one of them mute: as, Atreides 
 for Atreides. See Metaplasm. 
 
 SY'NAGOGUE. (Gr. avvayia, I assemble.) The reli- 
 gious assemblies of the Jews are so called by Hellenic 
 writers. The Jews had no synagogues, it is thought, before 
 the Babylonish captivity. They were first formed after the 
 return of the Jews to the Holy Land. The rule was, that a 
 synagogue was to be erected in any place where there were 
 ten persons of full age and free condition ready to attend 
 the service of it. Others, however, consider the ten bate! in hi, 
 to use the Hebrew word, to have been ten elders, or station- 
 ary men of the synagogue. (See Lightfoot.) The service 
 performed in the synagogues consisted, and still consists, of 
 prayers, reading the scriptures, and preaching and expound- 
 ing of them. The prayers are contained in liturgies. The 
 reading of the scripture consists of three portions : the 
 "Shema," certain selected passages from Deuteronomy and 
 Numbers ; the law and the prophets. The third part of the 
 service is mentioned in several places in the narratives of the 
 life of our Saviour, and the Acts: Luke, iv., 16; Acts, xiii., 
 5. The times of the synagogue service were three days a 
 week (Monday, Thursday, and Saturday), besides the holy- 
 days. The ministration of the synagogue was not confined 
 to the order of priests ; the elders, or "rulers of Ihe syna- 
 gogue" were persons qualified, and duly admitted, of all 
 tribes. (PrideauX, Connexion, vol. i.) 
 
 SYNALAi'PHA. (Gr. ow, together, akueba, I anoint ; 
 from the melting together of two sounds.) In Classical 
 Prosody, the usage by which, when a word ends with a 
 vowel, wilh the letter m, and the next begins with a vowel, 
 the final syllable of Ihe one runs into the first of the other. 
 This, in Latin verse, also takes place when the last letter is 
 m ; but the usage in this instance is called ecthlipsis, or eli- 
 sion. The synahepha is commonly, though not with equal 
 regularity, adopted in Italian and Spanish poetry, and is not 
 (infrequently attempted, especially by Milton, in our own; 
 in French it extends only to the e mute at the end of words. 
 
 SYNARTHROSIS. (Gr. r.i. with, and apOpov, a joint.) 
 The immoveable connexion of one bone with another. 
 
 S\ M'A'ltrOI'S. (Gr.ovv, tad Kapxttc, fruit.) In Ii. i. 
 a term applied to the carpels of a compound pistil when they 
 are completely united into an undivided body, as in the 
 oranse. 
 
 ST? M' ITBGQREMA'TTC. (Gr.ow, and xaTnyopvua; a 
 word employed together with categorematics or terms.) In 
 Logic, a word which cannot be employed by itself as a term, 
 but requires to be conjoined with another "or Others for that 
 purpose. Such are adverbs, prepositions, nouns in other 
 
 cases besides the nominative, fee. n<< Term. 
 
 S\ M UONDRO'SIS. <C.r.n,v,;uu\x„iif,v(. a cartilage.) 
 The junction of one bone With another by an intervening 
 cartilage. 
 
 SYNCHRONISM. (Gr. cm-, and Movac, time.) The 
 tabular arrangement of history according to dates, by which 
 contemporary persons and things in different countries are 
 brought together.
 
 SYNCLINAL. 
 
 SYNCLI'NAL. See Anticlinal. 
 
 SYNCOPA'TION. In Music. See Driving Notes. 
 
 SY'NCOPE. (Gr. avv, and koittiv, / cut.) A figure of 
 Grammar, by which one or more letters are omitted in the 
 middle of a word ; as in the Latin litus for littus. See 
 Metaplasm. 
 
 Syncope. In Pathology, fainting. A disease in which 
 the circulation and respiration temporarily cease, or become 
 extremely feeble. 
 
 Syncope. In Music. See Legato. 
 
 SY'NCRETiSM. (Gr. aw, and Kpaaig, mixture.) In 
 Philosophy, the blending of the tenets of different schools 
 into a system. A party among the Platonists at the revival 
 of letters, to which belonged Ammonius, Pico della Miran- 
 dola, Bessarion, and other distinguished men, have received 
 the name of Syncretists. 
 
 SY'NCRETISTS. In Ecclesiastical History, the partisans 
 of Calixtus, a Lutheran divine of the 16th century, who en- 
 deavoured to form a comprehensive scheme which should 
 unite the different professors of Christianity. The opinions 
 of Calixtus raised a strong controversy in the Lutheran 
 church. A new confession of faith was drawn up in Sax- 
 ony for the purpose of excluding his partisans. As doctrines, 
 however, they did not long survive his death, although not 
 without effect on the spirit of the age. (Jllosheim, cent, 
 xvii., sect. 2.) 
 
 SYNDA'CTYLES, Syndactyli. The name of a tribe of 
 Perchers, including those which have the external and 
 middle toe united as far as the second joint. 
 
 SYNDESMOSIS. (Gr. avnScanos, a ligament.) The 
 union of one bone with another by means of ligament. 
 
 SY'NDIC. (Gr. aw, with, Sixn, justice.) A title given 
 at different times to various municipal and other officers. 
 The syndics of cities in Provence and Languedoc, under the 
 old French government, were officers delegated by the muni- 
 cipality as agents or mandatories. Such were also the syn- 
 dics of trading companies. The creditors of a bankrupt, un- 
 der the law of France, appoint syndics or directors from 
 among their number. 
 
 SYNE'CDOCHE. (Gr. avv, with, ck, out, and hxo^ai, I 
 receive.) In Rhetoric, a figure by which the whole is put 
 for a part, or part for the whole. It is a species of trope. 
 (See Trope.) There are six ordinary instances of synec- 
 doche : 1. When genus is put for species (as " being" in the 
 sense of "man"). 2. When species is put for genus. 3. 
 When the essential whole is put for one of its parts. 4. 
 When the matter, or form, is put for the whole being. 5. 
 The whole for a part. 6. A part for the whole. 
 
 SYNE'CHIA. (Gr. owcx™, I adhere.) A disease of the 
 eye, in which the iris adheres to the cornea, or to the cap- 
 sule of the crystalline lens. 
 
 SYNE'RGISTS. (Gr. awtpyiC,^, I co-operate.) A name 
 given to a party in the Lutheran church in the latter end 
 of the 16th century. Those who were thus called appear 
 to have held the doctrine that the divine grace requires a 
 correspondent action of the human will in order to become 
 effectual ; which, or something resembling it, is termed 
 semi-pelagian in early ecclesiastical history. Some senti- 
 ments expressed by Melancthon, towards the close of his 
 life, seems to have introduced it into that church. 
 
 SYNEURO'SIS. (Gr. aw, and vtvpov, a nerve, or liga- 
 •ment, or membrane.) The union of one bone with another 
 by means of an intervening membrane. 
 
 SYNGNA'THIANS, Syngnathii. (Gr. aw, with, yvadoc, 
 a jaw.) The name of a family of Lophobranchiate fishes, 
 including those in which the lengthened jaws are united by 
 a surrounding integument, so as to form a tubular mouth : 
 the genus Syngnathus, or pipe fish, is the type. Syngnathai 
 is a name given by Dr. Leach to an order of Myriapodous 
 
 SY NGRAPHA. (Gr. avv, and ypa<j>io, I write.) In 
 Diplomatics, contracts signed by the creditor and debtor, 
 and of which a duplicate original was kept by each. 
 
 SYNIZE'SIS. (Gr. avvi^o), I meet.) An obliteration of 
 the pupil of the eye ; a closed pupil. 
 
 SY'NOCHA. (Gr. awcx^y I continue.) A continued in- 
 flammatory fever. The term synochus is applied to con- 
 tinued fevers, which are in their symptoms intermediate be- 
 tween synocha and typhus. They are also called mixed 
 fevers. 
 
 SYNOD. (Gr. avvoSo;, employed in that language to sig- 
 nify a council or ecclesiastical assembly.) Among the mod- 
 erns a distinction is sometimes made between a council and 
 a synod ; the former term representing a general assembly 
 of the episcopal, provincial, or national order; the latter the 
 convention of the inferior clergy of a diocess under its bish- 
 op or archdeacon. See Council. 
 
 Synod. In the Scottish Kirk, an assembly composed of 
 two or more presbyteries. It consists of every parish min- 
 ister within its limits, and of the elders who have last rep- 
 resented the different sessions in the presbytery. There are 
 sixteen synods in Scotland. See Presbytery. 
 
 SYSTEM. 
 
 SY'NOD OF DORT. See Dort, Synod of. 
 
 SYNO'DIC. (Gr. avv, together, oSos, pathway.) In As- 
 tronomy, the synodic revolution of a planet (or the moon), 
 with respect to the sun, is the time between two consecu- 
 tive conjunctions or oppositions. The duration of this 
 period is easily found when the difference between the 
 mean motion of the planet and sun in a given interval of 
 time is known ; for this difference is to 360° as the given 
 interval to the synodic revolution. The synodical month is 
 the period of the moon's synodic revolution, and is the same 
 with lunar month or lunation. See Moon. 
 
 SY'NONYMS. (,Gr. aw, and ovofia, a name.) Words 
 of the same language which have a similar signification. 
 Strictly speaking, words having exactly the same significa- 
 tion are not to be found in any language, unless one of them 
 has been borrowed from another language ; but in this case 
 the shades of difference are often so slight that words may 
 be frequently used for one another, and this interchange 
 produces a pleasing variety in composition, necessary in 
 poetry. Synonyms form an important object of philological 
 study, demanding, on the part of the inquirer, great know- 
 ledge of the principles of language. The chief works on 
 this subject are the Onomasticon on Greek, Dumesnil on 
 Latin, Blair, Booth, and Crabbe on English, Stosch and 
 Eberhard on German, and Girard, Beauzee, and Roubaud 
 on French synonyms. 
 
 SYNO'PSIS. (Gr. aw, together, oipts, view.) A collective 
 view of any subject ; as a synopsis of astronomv, theology, &c. 
 
 SYNO'VIA. (Gr. aw, and uov, an egg.) The fluid 
 which lubricates the cartilaginous surfaces of the joints : it 
 is glairy, and resembles the white of egg. 
 
 SY'NTAX. (Gr. awrdaaw, I arrange together.) In 
 Grammar and Rhetoric, the disposition of the words and 
 members of a sentence in the grammatical arrangements 
 proper to the language. See Grammar. 
 
 SY'NTHESIS. (Gr. avv, with ; ti0 W i, / place.) In 
 Geometry and Logic, the method of demonstration which 
 sets out from some principle established or assumed, or 
 proposition already demonstrated, and ascends through a 
 series of propositions to that which is enunciated. Synthe- 
 sis is also called the direct method or composition, and is 
 the reverse of analysis or resolution. It is the method fol- 
 lowed in Euclid's Elements. For the sense in which 
 analysis and synthesis were understood by the ancient 
 geometricians, see Analysis. 
 
 Synthesis. In Chemistry, those chemical operations 
 by which compounds are obtained by the union of the sepa- 
 rate component parts are called synthetic. The term is 
 especially used as opposed to analysis. Thus I demonstrate 
 the composition of water analytically by resolving it into 
 oxygen and hydrogen gases ; and synthetically, by recom- 
 bining those gases so as again to produce the water which 
 had previously been decomposed ; the terms synthesis and 
 analysis being, in fact, synonymous with composition and 
 decompositimi. 
 
 SY'PHILIS. (Probably from Gr. a«t>\os, unclean.) The 
 venereal disease. 
 
 SY'RINGE. In Hydraulics, a machine consisting of a 
 small cylinder with an air-tight piston or sucker, which is 
 moved up and down in it by means of a handle. The lower 
 end of the cylinder terminates in a small tube, through 
 which a fluid is forced into the body of the cylinder by the 
 atmospheric pressure when the handle is drawn up, and 
 then expelled in a small jet by pushing the handle in the 
 opposite direction. The syringe acts on the principle of the 
 sucking pump. The syringe is also used as a pneumatic 
 machine for condensing or exhausting the air in a close 
 vessel, but for this purpose it must be furnished with two 
 valves. In the condensing syringe, the valves open down- 
 wards and close upwards ; in the exhausting syringe they 
 are closed downwards and opened upwards. See Air Gun 
 and Air Pump. 
 
 SY'RMA. (Gr. ovpua, from avpto, I draw ) A long gar- 
 ment ; so called from its train reaching the ground. It was 
 the proper dress of actors in the classical tragedy. 
 
 SYSSARCO'SIS. (Gr. avv, with, and aa/jt, Jlesh.) The 
 junction of bones by intervening muscles. 
 
 SYSSI'TIA. (Gr. avaahia, common messes.) An insti- 
 tution of some ancient states, particularly Lacedsmon and 
 Crete, by which the male freemen had their meals together 
 in common messes, instead of eating with their families in 
 private. 
 
 SYSTEM. (Gr. avv, together, and larnui, I stand.) In 
 Astronomy, an hypothesis of a certain order and arrange- 
 ment of the celestial bodies by which their apparent motions 
 are explained. For an account of the systems of Ptolemy, 
 Copernicus, and Tycho Brahe, see Astronomy. 
 
 System. In the Fine Arts, a collection of the rules and 
 principles upon which an artist works. 
 
 System. In Music, an interval composed, or supposed 
 to be composed, of several lesser ones ; as an octave, which 
 is a system. See Diastem. 
 
 1211
 
 SYSTOLE. 
 
 SY'STOLE. (Gr. owrcAXui, I contract.) In Greek and 
 Laiin prosody, a licence by which a long syllable is used 
 as short : e. g., 
 
 Ahtri liDga decern tulerunt faatidia Menses. 
 
 Svstole. The contraction of the heart. 
 
 B1 STYLE. (Gr. ovi, with, and orvAoj, a column.) In 
 Architecture, the arrangement of columns in such a manner 
 thai they are tun diameters apart 
 
 SY'ZYGIES. (Gr. uvCvyur, union, conjunction.) In 
 Astronomy, the places of the moon or planets when in con- 
 junction or opposition with the sun. 
 
 T. 
 
 T, the nineteenth letter in the English alphabet, belongs 
 to that order of consonants called dentals, or palato-dentals, 
 and is susceptible of numerous interchanges, both in the 
 ancient and modern languages. As an abbreviation, T was 
 used for Titus, Tilius, and Tullius. The Roman tribunes 
 indicated their assent to the decrees of the senate by sub- 
 scribing a T. The sound of th is peculiar to the English 
 language. 
 
 T BANDAGE. A bandage so named from its shape; it 
 is used to support the dressings after certain surgical opera- 
 tions. (See Cooper's Surgical Dictionary.) 
 
 TABA R.D. A sort of tunic, or mantle, covering the body 
 before and behind, reaching below the loins, but open at 
 the Sides from the shoulders downwards: an ordinary article 
 of die^s iii England and France in the middle ages. It was 
 at first chiefly used by the military, afterwards by other 
 classes. The tabard, with coats of arms blazoned before 
 and behind, is the state dress of heralds to this day. It 
 is the dress worn by the knaves in cards. Long tabards, 
 reaching to the mid-leg, were a peculiarly English fashion. 
 
 TABASHE'ER. A 1'ersian word signifying a light white 
 porous substance found in the joints of the bamboo : it con- 
 sists almost entirely of silica. It is said to be used medi- 
 cinally in the East Indies; but its virtues must be merely 
 imaginary. 
 
 T.A BBY. (Ital. tabino.) A term formerly applied to 
 certain figured silks and other goods upon which an irregu- 
 lar pattern had been stamped, either by the pressure of 
 engraved rollers, or by folding the stuffs in such a way as 
 to produce, by the mutual pressure of their fibres, an ine- 
 quality of surface, which, by reflected light, gives rise to 
 the appearance called watering. 
 
 TABE'LLION'. (Lat. tabula, from the tablets on which 
 they wrote.) In the Roman empire, officers who had 
 charge of public documents were so called ; they were also 
 secretaries, or registrars, and in some ca-ses judges. (See 
 Savigny, Hist, of the Roman Law, vol. i.) The notaries 
 were their assistants. In France, the titles of "Tabellion" 
 ami ■■ Greffier" were confounded, and Henry IV. united the 
 functions of tabellion with those of notary ; but the old title 
 seems still to be retained (or was until the Revolution) in 
 some few places. 
 
 TA'BEBNACLE. (Lat. tabernaculum.) A Latin word 
 signifying a rent or cabin. The tabernacle which was car- 
 ried from station to station by the Jews during their wan- 
 derings in the desert, was a tent of sails and skins stretched 
 upon a framework "i wood, and divided into two compart- 
 ments; the outer, named the Holy, being that in which 
 incense was burned, and the shew bread exhibited ; and the 
 inner, or Holy of Holies, in which was desposited the ark of 
 Die covenant. (Exod., xxvi.. xxvii. See . Irchctologia, vol. i.) 
 
 The Feast of Tabernacles was one of the three principal 
 festivals among the .lews. It commenced on the 15th of the 
 month Tisri, corresponding with the 30th of September, 
 and lasted seven days, during which the people dwelt in 
 booths formed of the boughs of trees. It was instituted in 
 commemoration of the habitation of their ancestors in simi- 
 lar dwellings during the forty years of their pilgrimage in 
 the wilderness. (See Leviticus, xxiii.) 
 
 TA'BES. (Lat.) A wasting away of the body ; ema- 
 ciation : atrophy. 
 
 TA'BLATURE. (Lat. tabula, a tabic.) In Music, the 
 use of the letters of the alphabet, or any other character, 
 for expressing the notes or sounds of a composition. It is 
 not now a usual mode of writing. In its stricter and more 
 
 original sense it is a mode of Writing music for a particular 
 instrument on parallel lines (of which each represents a 
 string of the instrument) by means of certain letters of the 
 alphabet. Thus A denotes that the string is to be struck 
 open, B lhat one of the fingers is to be put on the first stop, 
 C on the second, D on the third, and so on through the 
 octave. 
 
 TA'BLE. (Lat. tabula.) In Physics, Astronomy, &c. 
 
 This term has two different significations. In the first 
 
 place, it i- nsed to denote merely a collection of numbers, 
 
 exhibiting the measures or values of some propcrtv couuuou 
 
 ISIS 
 
 TABORITES. 
 
 to a number of different bodies in reference to some common 
 standard. Thus we have tables of specific gravity, of re 
 tractive powers, of the expansion of substances by heat, tec. 
 In ii^ second signification, it denotes a series of numbers 
 which proceed according to some given law expressed DJ a 
 mathematical formula. Of this kind are the logarithmic 
 tables ; tables of the powers or roots of the different num- 
 bers; of the sines, cosines, and other angular functions ; of 
 astronomical refractions; of the equations of the planetary 
 orbits, &.c. Tables of this sort, by exhibiting at once to the 
 eye all the different values which a given formula can 
 have, save endless labour in calculation, and are of the 
 uunost Importance in every branch of natural philosophy. 
 The logarithmic tables, for example, form the universal in- 
 strument of astronomical calculation ; ami it may he safely 
 
 affirmed that without them the computations necessary lor 
 determining the places of the different bodies of the solar 
 system, and rendering astronomy a science of practical 
 utility, would be altogether impossible. 
 
 Table is also used in n popular sense to denote a collection 
 of particulars brought under one view. Thus, in history, 
 we have chronological tables; in statistics, tables of mor- 
 tality at different ages, &c. The mere titles of the useful 
 tables which have been formed in the various departments 
 of knowledge would till a large volume. 
 
 TABLEAUX VIVANTS. (Fr. living pictures.) The 
 name given to an amusement in which groups of persons 
 dressed in appropriate costume are made to represent some 
 interesting scene in the works of distinguished painters or 
 authors. It is thus managed: The room in which the 
 spectators are placed being darkened, the group assume 
 their respective attitudes behind a frame (or some other 
 contrivance intended to represent it) covered with gauze ; 
 and candles being so placed as to reflect light upon the 
 group from above, the illusion is complete. These repre- 
 sentations are not unfrequently resorted to in England ; but 
 their home is chiefly in France and Germany, where they 
 form an important feature on all festive occasions. They 
 owe their present popularity to the celebrated M. Handel- 
 Schutz, whose genius for imitation and delineation was un- 
 rivalled in Germany. (See the Vamcn- Lexicon.) Tableaux 
 are often employed to represent some scene in which a 
 riddle is concealed. 
 
 TA'BLE LANDS. In Physical Geography, the name 
 given to an extensive system of plains with steep acclivities 
 on every side, and differing from other plains, which are 
 either not much elevated above the sea, or rise by imper- 
 ceptible degrees. Some of these tire very extensive, and 
 retain a general level of several thousand feet above tho 
 sea. Sometimes they are bordered with chains of moun- 
 tains much less elevated on the side towards the table land 
 than in the opposite direction; and sometimes they have 
 surfaces much undulated or broken. The chief table lands 
 are in Central Spain, Southern Africa, Central Asia, l'ersia, 
 Southern India, Mexico, and the Southern Andes. (See 
 Train's Physical Geography, p. 25, ct seq.) 
 
 TABLE SPAR, TABULAR SPAR. Sehaalstein of 
 Werner. A greyish white mineral, which occurs in massed 
 and in granular concretions : it is a silicate of lime. 
 
 TABLETS. In Roman Antiquities, pieces of ivory, 
 metal, stone, or other substance, used in judiciary proceed- 
 ings, or in the passing of law s. 
 
 TABOR. (Fr. tabourine.) A small drum. 
 
 TABORITES, or THABORITES. The denomination 
 of one of the parties into which the followers of lluss, in 
 Bohemia, separated after the death of their leader. They 
 were so called from Tabor, a hill or fortress of Bohemia, 
 upon which they encamped during the struggle which they 
 maintained against the civil and ecclesiastical power. At 
 their head stood John Ziska von Brockznow, who w as dis- 
 tinguished at once for his indomitable courage and his 
 remorseless cruelty. After various fanatical exhibitions, 
 which were met by their adversaries with determined hos- 
 tility, the better and more quietly disposed portion of tho 
 Taborites formed themselves into a religious society under 
 the denomination of the Bohemian Brethren. They estab- 
 lished several Christian communities, elected their own 
 bishops, priests, and elders ; drew up a rigorous plan of 
 ecclesiastical discipline : and sent forth missionaries to 
 
 various parts, though with little success. Though harassed 
 by persecutions, they continued to augment their numbers, 
 
 and at the end of the 15th century they counted about 300 
 Communities of adherents. At the end of this period the 
 distinctive inline and opinions of the Taborites were lost 
 
 among the various assailants of the Romish corruptions, 
 who formed the vanguard of the Reformation iii Germany. 
 (Sei t'wivnsKs, Hussites.) An interesting picture of 
 
 the horrors of the hloody religious war in which this sect 
 Was engaged at the period of its institution is to he found in 
 
 the historical romance of Herlossohn, called The Last 
 Taborv, />,,- 1.,1-Jr Tnl,orit)—v. Work well worthy of 
 I being translated into English.
 
 TABTJLATUM. 
 
 TABULA'TUM. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, a 
 term used to denote the floors, ceilings, and other wood- 
 work in a house : occasionally also it was applied to bal- 
 conies and projections of that nature. 
 
 TA'CAMAHA'C. (An Indian word.) A brownish aro- 
 matic resin formerly used in medicine, supposed to be the 
 produce of the Populus balsam if era. 
 
 TACET. (Lat. taceo. silent.) In Music, a term denoting 
 that through the movement to which it is affixed in any 
 part, that part is to lie still or be silent during its performance. 
 TACHO'METER. (Gr. ra%oi, speed, and uerpoi; mea- 
 sure.) A contrivance invented for the purpose of indicating 
 minute variations in the velocity of machines. When a 
 vessel containing a fluid is whirled rapidly round a vertical 
 axis, the centrifugal force produced by the whirling motion 
 causes the fluid to recede from the axis, and to rise on the 
 sides of the vessel, so that the surface of the fluid assumes 
 a concave parabolic form; and the distance to which the 
 centre of the surface falls below its original level is propor- 
 tionate to the velocity of rotation, and subject to corres- 
 ponding variations. Any method, therefore, of measuring 
 or rendering visible the depression of the 
 central surface will indicate the variations 
 of velocity. The method usually adopted 
 is the following: A glass tube A, open at 
 both ends, and expanding at one extremity 
 into a bell B, is immersed with its wider 
 end in mercury contained in a cup C D. 
 The tube is so suspended as to be uncon- 
 nected with the cup. This tube is then 
 filled to a certain height, A, with spirits 
 tinged with some colouring matter, to ren- 
 der it easily observable. The cup is at- 
 tached to a spindle turned by the machine. 
 Now as the cup is whirled round by the 
 spindle, the level of the mercury in the 
 b"t| M 3 bell falls, and the spirit therefore descends 
 in the tube. As the motion is continued, 
 ever) - change of velocity causes a corres- 
 ponding change in the level of the mer 
 cur}', and consequently also in the height 
 of the spirits in the tube at A ; and as the 
 capacity of the bell B is much greater than that of the tube 
 A, a very small change in the level of the mercury causes 
 a considerable change of the heizht of the spirits in the 
 tube. (Cabinet Cyclopedia, art. "Mechanics," p. 235.) 
 
 TACHYDKO'MUNS. Tachydromii. {Qt.Tayps, sicift, 
 and tponoc, a course.) The name of a family of wading 
 birds, of which the genus Tachudromus is the type. The 
 term is also applied to a family of Saurian reptiles by Fitzin- 
 ger, and to a family of Dipterous insects by Mirgen. 
 
 TACHY'DROMUS. (Gr. ra%vc, and cpouos, a course.) 
 A subgenus of Lacertida, differing from the true lizards in 
 having a very long body and tail, with their fore legs \ -en- 
 distant from the hind legs, and the back covered with 
 scales similar to those on the belly. They are found in the 
 Indian islands and China, and run with great velocity; 
 whence their name of swift lizards. 
 
 TACHY'GRAPHY, orTACHE'OGRAPHY. (Gr. T a X oc, 
 quick, and ypatpw, 1 icrite.) One of the many names of 
 Greek derivation which have been given to the art of short 
 hand. 
 
 TACK. The weather clue or comer of a course, as also 
 of any sail set with a boom or gaff, and of a flag. Also, the 
 rope by which such clue is extended : thus, the main tack 
 is the rope by which the tack or weather clue of the main- 
 sail is drawn down to the ship's side. 
 
 A ship is said to be on the starboard tack when she is 
 close-hauled, having the wind on the starboard side; and 
 on the larboard tack, when the wind is on the larboard side. 
 To tack is to change from one tack to the other by turning 
 the vessel round with her head to the wind. 
 
 TA'CKLE. The Sea term for a pulley composed of two 
 or more blocks. The rope is called the fall. The term 
 appears to have been derived thus : Gr. rpoxa^ta ; Lat. 
 trochlea ; Ital. taglia ; Dutch taakel. (See Willis's Princi- 
 ples of Mechanics, p. 198.) 
 
 TA'CTICS. In a general sense, the evolutions, ma- 
 noeuvres, and positions which constitute the main spring of 
 military and naval finesse. 
 
 The expression naral tactics is commonly understood to 
 relate to the attack or defence of fleets or single ships ; but 
 as tactical manoeuvres are necessarily practised also in 
 keeping any number of ships together, and io the commu- 
 nication of single ships, whether for hostile purposes <>r not, 
 the subject, in fact, includes all considerations relative to 
 the closing or separating of vessels at sea. We can of 
 course here merely attempt to convey such general notions 
 on the subject as may assist the reader in the study of it. 
 
 The subject of tactics, as applied in war, naturally divides 
 itself into two parts; viz. disposinz the fleet for closing 
 with or avoiding the enemy while distant, and bringing on 
 
 TAGLIACOTIAN OPERATION. 
 
 the eniasement. The former alone of these can be made 
 the subject of fixed rules; but the manner of bringing on 
 the action with the whole or part of the enemy's fleet, the 
 choice of the weather or lee gage (as the windward or lee- 
 ward position is called), under given circumstances of 
 weather, locality, armament, relative numbers, discipline, 
 &c, must depend on the experience, skill, and coup d'mil of 
 the commander-in-chief. 
 
 The evolutions by which the ships of the fleet pass from 
 one position to another are given in all works on naval tac- 
 tics ; and those in most common use are of.en contained in 
 Signal Books, both English and foreign. The elementary 
 evolutions really necessary are but few, though, especially 
 in foreign works, they are multiplied to an inconvenient, if 
 not impracticable extent. The opinions of officers and 
 writers have differed on many points of great importance; 
 such as the position of the commander-in-chief, the tacking 
 or wearing of the fleet together, or in succession, and also 
 in the general disposition of the fleet. 
 
 In regard to the action itself, it appears it was the cus- 
 tom formerly to endeavour to engage the enemy's whole 
 fleet, ship to ship. This, however, was, in most cases, easi- 
 ly avoided, and actions were consequently often indecisive. 
 The circumstance of Lord Rodney's passing through the 
 French fleet on the 12th of April, 1782, seems to have 
 drawn attention strongly to the principle of separating the 
 enemy's fleet into portions which might be attacked in de- 
 tail. The merit of suggesting the breaking of the enemy's 
 line on this occasion having been attributed to Mr. Clerk of 
 Eldin, author of a work on Tactics which appeared at the 
 time, has become the occasion of much controversy ; but 
 the manoeuvre had been already treated in French and 
 Spanish works on Tactics. One of the most striking appli- 
 cations of the principle was exhibited in Lord Nelson's at- 
 tack at the battle of the Nile. Among the works on Tac- 
 tics may be noticed here, Tactique .Yavale, by the Count 
 Morogues, which was considered an improvement on Le 
 Pere Hoste's work; Tactica jVaval, by Salazar; and Mr. 
 Clerk of Eldin's JVaval Tactics, above quoted. Much in- 
 formation is contained in Admiral Ekins's JVaval Battles ; 
 and remarks on the tactics of single actions are found in Sir 
 Howard Douglas's .Vara/ Gunnery. Some other works on the 
 subject will be found in anv good catalogue of naval books. 
 TVCTION. (Lat. tango, / touch.) In Geometry, the 
 same as tangency or touching. See Tangent. 
 
 T^E'NIA. (Gr. rmvia, a fillet.) An intestinal worm, 
 commonly called the tape worm. When this worm infests 
 the bowels, it often produces a variety of anomalous symp- 
 toms, and is very difficult to get rid of. The most effective 
 remedies are purges, and especially oil of turpentine, half 
 an ounce of which is taken in the morning, fasting, mixed 
 with a little barley water. If it does not purge briskly, a 
 dose of castor oil may be taken after it, or the oil of tur- 
 pentine repeated. If any portion of the tape worm remains 
 in the intestines, the symptoms are apt to recur, so that 
 much attention is requisite to ensure its total evacuation. 
 
 T.enia. In Architecture, the listel above the architrave 
 which separates it from the frieze in the Doric order. 
 
 T^E'NIOIDS, Tanioides. (Gr. rama, a riband; titoc, 
 form.) The name given by Cuvier to a family of Acan- 
 thopterygious fishes, comprehending those which have a 
 flattened riband-shaped body ; also the name of a family of 
 Sterelminthoid intestinal worms, of which the tape worm 
 (Taenia) is the tvpe. 
 
 TAFFETY. " A thin glossy silken fabric, formerly much 
 used in England. It is extensively used on the Continent 
 for window curtains. 
 TA'FFRAIL. The uppermost rail of a ship's stern. 
 TA'GES. An old Italian divinity, who is represented to 
 have sprung as a beautiful boy from the earth, which a 
 Tuscan ploughman had furrowed too deep. The first act 
 of this earth-bom god was to foretel from the wings of 
 birds what was to happen to the peasants, by whom he was 
 quickly surrounded ; and hence he was worshipped as the 
 inventor of augury. (See Augurs.) A collection of his 
 prophecies was made and preserved in the sacred records 
 of Etruria. 
 
 TA'GLIA. (Ital.) In Mechanics, the name given to a 
 particular combination of pulleys. "The taglia consists of 
 a system of fixed pulleys collected in one common block, 
 and also of a system of moveable pulleys in a separate 
 block, to which the weight is attached, with one string go- 
 ing round all the pulleys, and having one of its ends fixed 
 to a point in the system, and the other end going from one 
 of the fixed pulleys drawn by the power." {VenturolCs 
 Mechanics, by Cresswell.) Sometimes several taglias are 
 combined, so that one acts upon the other; the system is 
 thpn a compound taglia. See PuLtEY. 
 
 TAGLIACO'TIAN OPERATION. The operation for 
 the restoration of the nose. Rhinoplastie of the French. 
 The merit of inventing this operation is usually given to 
 Tagliacotius, a Venetian surgeon, who wrote upon the sub- 
 
 1213
 
 TAGUS. 
 
 ject In 1598, and proposed the replacement of the deficient 
 organ by an artificial nose ciu (nil of the skin ill" the shotil- 
 dei nr arm. A supposed modern Improvement consists In 
 having recourse lor the new materials to the skin of the 
 forehead, out of which a triangular piece- is so cut thai it 
 may retain connexion at its apex, which is downwards, 
 
 ami so admit of being twisted or turned down to form the 
 artificial nose by adhesion to the recently cut surfaces of 
 
 the truncated organ. It appears that this operation was 
 practised in India from time immemorial, and that it was 
 also ni : uncommonly resorted to by the Italians, and espe- 
 cially the Romans, among whom the loss of the nose was 
 a punishment of not unirequenl infliction. (See Jin Ac- 
 count of Two Successful Operations fur restoring a lost 
 Nose, by J. C. Carpue, Lond. 1810; Liston's Practical Sur- 
 gery, I. mid. 1837; and Cooper's Surgical Dictionary.) 
 
 TA'GUS. (Gr. rayrff.) In ancient Greek History, the 
 title of the president of the Thessalian confederacy. 
 
 TAIL. In Architecture, the bottom or lower end of any 
 member, as of a slate or tile. A tail trimmer is that next 
 the wall into which the ends of joists are fastened to avoid 
 the flues. Used as a verb, to tail in any thing is to fasten it 
 by one of its ends into a wall. 
 
 TAILLE. In ancient French Jurisprudence, any impo- 
 sition levied by the king or any other lord on his subjects. 
 There is some obscurity about the derivation of this word. 
 It is commonly deduced from talcs', tallies, little pieces of 
 wood with which reckonings were made. But whether 
 these were not so called from their use in telling or count- 
 ing (Germ, zahlen), does not appear. Again, it is appa- 
 rently connected with the Germ, zoll, Engl, toll; but these 
 words are derived by some, through the Ital. tolta, from 
 the Lat. tollere, to raise. Perhaps the whole series of 
 words is from the same original root; but it is not easy to 
 trace the affinities. The Royal Taille, in old France, which 
 was the Impost commonly understood under the general 
 name, was a personal or rather mixed constitution, from 
 persons not noble or ecclesiastical, or enjoying certain 
 other exemptions imposed according to their supposed 
 ability, measured by their goods. In the respect in which 
 it fell on the agricultural class, from which it was 
 chiefly levied, it is described by Adam Smith as "a tax on 
 the supposed profits of the fanner, which they estimate by 
 the ~t.uk which he has upon the farm." (Book iii., ch. 2.) 
 In Languedoc, and one or two other districts, the taille was 
 real; t. e., imposed on land and goods. The tax was ren- 
 dered annual and permanent in 1445. The "real" taille is 
 now replaced by tlie "contribution fonciere," and the per- 
 sonal by the "contribution personnelle et mobiliare." 
 
 TAILLOIR. (Fr.) In Architecture, the same as abac- 
 us ; which see. 
 
 TAILZIE, or ENTAIL. (Fr. tailler, to cut of), in Scot- 
 tish Law, signifies, in general, any deed whereby the legal 
 course < »i succession is cut oil', and an arbitrary one substi- 
 tuted. But, more strictly, a deed of tailzie is one framed 
 in terms of the statute 1685, c. 22, and intended for the 
 purpose of securing the descent of an heritable estate to 
 the series of heirs and substitutes called to the succession 
 by the maker of the tailzie. The principal difference be- 
 tween Scottish and English entails lies in the absence of 
 ision, in the law of the former country, similar to 
 the fictions of fines or recoveries in the latter, whereby 
 parties in possession were enabled to cut off the entail. 
 Several statutes have been passed since that of 1685 to 
 give heirs of entail in possession certain liberties which 
 they could not otherwise possess; ;is, to sell superiorities (2 
 G. 2, c. 50, 51) : to grant leases for 31 years, 14 years, anda 
 life or two lives, and building leases for 99 years; and io 
 exchange lands (10 <;. 3, c. 51), redeem the land tax (42 
 G. 3, c. 46), make provisions for wives and children (5 G. 4, 
 
 r. ars - 
 
 TALAPO'INS. The title, in Siam, of the priests of Fo; 
 
 who are called in China, Seng ; in Tartary, Lamas; and by 
 Europeans, Bonzes. 
 
 TALC. A foliated magnesias mineral of an unctuous 
 feel, often used for tracing lines on wood, cloth, fcc., which 
 are not so easily effaced as those of chalk. Talc is cm- 
 ployed in the composition of rouge vegetal. The i: mians 
 prepared with it a beautiful blue, by combining it with the 
 
 colouring fluid of particular kinds of testaceous animals. 
 
 Talc is met with in Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, and Banff 
 shire in Scotland, and in various parts of the Continent, 
 where rocks of serpentine ami porphyry occur. The talc 
 brought from the Tyrolese mountains is called in commerce 
 V. netian talc. Several varieties are found In India and 
 Ceylon. 
 T VI.CITE. In Mineralogy, a synonym of nacritr ; which 
 
 SIT. 
 
 TA'LENT. (Gr. raXuvTov.) A Grecian weight, which 
 was mini, used in the computation of money. It contained 
 
 60 hum. i. ; but lis value varied in different stales. The Attic 
 
 talent waa equivalent to about £198 of English money ; 
 1214 
 
 TALMUD. 
 
 the zEginetan to £331. (See as to the Attic talent, Boeckh, 
 i. 25 ; Gibbon's Misccllan. Works, iii.. 410.) 
 
 TAXES. In Law. If by reason of challenges or other 
 causes a sufficient number of jurors do not appear ata trial, 
 either partj may pray a tales; thai is, may pray the sheriff 
 (since 6 G. 1, C. 50, the judge at the trial) to allow a suf- 
 ficient number of qualified men who happen to be present 
 (talcs circumsiantibus) to be joined with the other jurors 
 to make up the twelve. In practice tins seldom arises, ex- 
 cept in the case of special jury trials, when the talesmen 
 are taken from the common jury panel in the same court. 
 See Jury. 
 
 TALIO'NIS LEX. (Lat.) A punishment in which a 
 person convicted of a crime suffered exactly in the same 
 maimer as he had offended: thus an eye was required for 
 an eye and a tooth for a tooth. This mode of punishment 
 was established by the Mosaic law, and was in some cases 
 imitated by the Romans. 
 
 TA'LISMAN. (From the Arabic, dual of the noun te- 
 lesm ; Gr. rtkcana, in the sense of an astrological wonder, 
 or effect of the stars.) Among the Eastern nations, a figure 
 cut in metal, stone, &c, supposed to have been made with 
 particular ceremonies, and under particular astrological cir- 
 cumstances, and to possess various virtues, but chiefly that 
 of averting disease or violent death from the wearer. In a 
 more general sense, any portable object endowed with ima- 
 ginary influence in controlling evil spirits, &c. has been so 
 designated. The term is frequently used as synonymous 
 with amulet (which see) ; but, strictly speaking, the latter 
 is not believed to possess such extensive powers as the 
 talisman. (See a curious article in the Encyc. Metropoli- 
 tans.) 
 
 TA'LLAGE (from the Fr. taille), in the language of the 
 old English law, is said to be a general name for all taxes 
 bv Sir E. Coke. See Toll, Taille. 
 
 TA'LLO W. (Germ, talg.) The fat obtained by melting 
 the suet of the ox and sheep, and straining it so as to free 
 it from membrane. 
 
 Tallow is an article of great importance. It is manufac- 
 tured into candles and soap; and is extensively used in the 
 dressing of leather, and in various processes of the arts. 
 Besides our extensive supplies of native tallow, we annually 
 import a very large quantity, principally from Russia. The 
 exports of tallow from Petersburgh amount, at an average, 
 to between 3,500,000 and 4,000,000 poods, of which the 
 largest portion by far is brought to England ; the remainder 
 being exported to Prussia, France, the Hanse Towns, Tur- 
 key, &c. 
 
 TALMUD. The traditionary or unwritten laws of the 
 Jews. It is called unwritten, to distinguish it from the tex- 
 tual or written law; and is, in fact, the interpretation which 
 the rabbins affix to the law of Moses, which embodies their 
 doctrine, polity, and ceremonies, and to which many of 
 them adhere more than to the law itself. 
 
 The word is derived from Heb. lamad, he taught. The 
 Talmud, therefore, is a book or volume which contains 
 such doctrines and duties as are taught to the Jews by their 
 own authorized teachers, the ancient rabbins. 
 
 There are two Talmuds, that of Jerusalem and that of 
 Babylon ; not to mention those of Onkelos and Jonathan, 
 which are rather paraphrases than volumes of traditionary 
 doctrines. 
 
 The Talmud of Jerusalem consists of two parts — the 
 Gemara, and the Mishna. The .Mis/inn signifies a doub- 
 ling or reiteration; the Gemara. a work brought to perfec- 
 tion or completed — from the Chaldee gamar, to finish or 
 complete. The Gemara and the Mishna together, strictly 
 speaking, form the Talmud: but the rabbins are wont to 
 designate the Pentateuch of Moses the first part of the 
 Talmud, and which is simply the law. The second part is 
 the Mishna, which is a more extensive explication or am- 
 plification of the law; and the third part the Gemara, as 
 finishing and completing it. 
 
 The Mishna is the work of Rabbi Judah TIakkadosh, 
 120 years after the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. 
 It is written in a tolerably pure style, and its reasonings 
 are much more solid than those of the Gemara, which the 
 Jewish doctors, if is slated, have stuffed with dreams and 
 and many ignorant and impertinent questions 
 and disputations. The Gemara was written about Kill \ ears 
 
 afterwards by Rabbi Jochanon, the rector of the school at 
 
 Tiberias. These two works form the Jerusalem Talmud. 
 lint the Talmud of Jerusalem is less esteemed than the 
 Talmud of Babylon formed by Rabbi Asa or Aser, who had 
 an ai ndemy for forty years ata place called Sara, near Ba- 
 bylon, whence it was denominated the Babylonish Talmud, 
 li i- in i Talmud which the Jews more frequently consult; 
 
 and it is especially esteemed by those Jews who live be- 
 yond the Euphrates, from the circumstance thai it was 
 compiled at Babylon. Rabbi A8a was called to bis fathers 
 before this celebrated commentary on the Mishna was 
 completed ; but it was finished by his disciples (some say
 
 TALON. 
 
 his children) about 500 years after Christ. With the ex- 
 ception of the sacred authors, these Talmuds, after the 
 Chaldee paraphrases, are the most ancient books of doc- 
 trine possessed bv the Jews. 
 
 A convened Jew in the year 1238 detected several er- 
 rors in the Talmud, which he laid before Pope Gregory IX., 
 who required the archbishops of France and the kings of 
 Spain and Portugal to seize and burn all such books of the 
 Jews, and twenty cartloads of Hebrew books were accord- 
 ingly burnt in France alone. 
 
 Pope Paul IV. and Clement VIII. also signalized them- 
 selves in destroying all the Talmudic books that could be 
 found, and many thousand volumes of the Talmud were 
 by their orders judicially condemned to the flames. These 
 acts, worthy of Roman pontiffs, might have suggested that 
 famous list, entitled Libri Prohibitorum, which afterwards 
 received much augmentation ; and among the many hereti- 
 cal works enumerated might be found Addison's Spectator. 
 The Talmud of Jerusalem was printed in one vol. folio, 
 and that of Babylon in twelve and fourteen vols, folio, 
 which we find in a bookseller's catalogue thus described, 
 "Talmud Babylonicum Hebraicum integrum ex Sapientum 
 Scriptis et Responsis compositum a Rah. Aser, additis 
 Comment. Rab. Sal. Iarchi, et Rab. Mosis Maimonidis, He- 
 braice, 14 torn, folio, Amstelodami, 1644." 
 
 Two curious works on the traditions and doctrines of the 
 Jews, and selections from the Talmud, were written by 
 Peter Stehelin and W. Wotton ; the former entitled Tradi- 
 tions of the Jews, with the Expositions and Doctrines of 
 the Rabbins contained in the Talmud and other Rabbinical 
 Writings, 2 vols. 8vo, 1742 ; the latter, Miscellaneous Dis 
 courses relating to the Traditions and Usages of the Scribes 
 and Pharisees in our Saviour's Time, 2 vols. 8vo, 1718. 
 (See the F.nc. Metropolitana ; Wolff*, Bibl., ii., 658; Eisen- 
 menger, Das Entdeckte Judenthum ; Remarks on the study 
 of it in Quart. Rev., vol. xliii.) 
 
 TA'LON. (Fr.) In Architecture, the same as ogee; 
 which see. 
 
 TA'LPA. In Surgery, a tumour under the skin or cuti- 
 cle, commonly called a mole. 
 
 TA'LUS. The sloping heap of fragments accumulated 
 at the foot of a steep rock. The term talus has also been 
 applied to the astragalus, one of the bones of the ankle. 
 
 TA'MARIND. (Arab, tamor-hindy, Indian date.) A 
 large tree of the Leguminous order, whose pods supply the 
 subacid preserve commonly sold in the shops under this 
 name. The pods in their natural state are acid, and ac- 
 quire their sweetness by the sugar in which they are pack- 
 ed after their hard, brittle shell has been taken off. The 
 tree itself is a native of both the East and West Indies. 
 
 TA'MARIX (Tamarisia, the people among whom it 
 grows), is a name given by botanists to some shrubs of 
 slender growth, clothed with very small green leaves and 
 long spikes of pink flowers, the natural country of which 
 seems to extend from Spain to Delhi, occupying a band of 
 ten or twelve degrees of latitude. They are in this coun- 
 try merely ornamental plants ; but in Syria and the adjoin- 
 ing countries they secrete a kind of manna, which some 
 authors have asserted was the manna of scripture ; but 
 this opinion is not regarded as well founded. 
 
 TAMBOURI'NE. (Fr. tambour.) A musical instru- 
 ment of procession of the drum species, being a cylinder of 
 about 6 inches wide, in which bells are suspended. It is cov- 
 ered at one end with parchment, after the fashion of a drum. 
 TA'MPING. A term used by miners to express the fill- 
 ing up of a hole bored in a rock for the purpose of blasting. 
 TA'NGENCIES. (Lat. tango, / touch.) In the ancient 
 Geometry, the problem of tangencies was one of the six 
 branches of the geometrical analysis created by Apollonius 
 of Perga. Its general object was to describe a circle pass- 
 ing through given points, and touching straight lines or cir- 
 cles given in position, the number of data in each case be- 
 ing, of course, limited to three. Of the treatise of Apollo- 
 nius some lemmas only were preserved in the mathemati- 
 cal collections of Pappus; from which the treatise was re- 
 stored by Vieta, of whose restoration there is an English 
 translation by Lawson, with the addition of a supplement 
 by Fermat, on Spherical Tangencies. The principal cases 
 of the problem of plane tangencies are given, and neatly 
 demonstrated, in Leslie's Geometrical .Analysis. 
 
 TA'NGENT. (Lat. tangens; from tango, I touch.) In 
 Geometry, the tangent to a curve is a straight line which 
 meets or touches the curve without intersecting it. The 
 nature of the tangent may be explained as follows: Let 
 AP B be an arc of a curve, and let the straight line TAB 
 f intersect it in two points, A 
 
 T"XI -\ , andB. Conceive the straight 
 line to revolve about the 
 point T. When it comes 
 into the position Tab the 
 
 / I I j intercepted arc a P b is short- 
 
 """"" A Si B er than A P B, or the points 
 
 TANNIC ACID. 
 
 a and b have approximated. Let the motion of the line 
 about T still be continued, and the length of the intercept- 
 ed arc of the curve will become less and less, until the 
 straight line comes into the position T P, when the two 
 points a and b coalesce, or rather their distance becomes 
 smaller than any assignable quantity. In this ultimate posi- 
 tion, the direction of the vanishing arc is that of the tan- 
 gent, or the element of the arc coincides with the tangent. 
 From this it is easy to deduce an expression which deter- 
 mines the direction of the tangent at the point P. Let A be 
 the origin of the rectangular co-ordinates, the abscissa being 
 measured on A B. Through P draw the ordinate P Q ; and 
 taking P p an indefinitely small element of the curve, draw 
 pq the ordinate through p, and Pr parallel to AB ; also let 
 the tangent meet A B produced in T. The line QT is call- 
 ed the subtangent; and the point P being assumed, it is 
 only necessary to determine T, or the distance QT, in or- 
 der to have the tangent PT. Now the triangles Ppr and 
 PQT are similar, whence pr: rP: : PQ : QT; but by the 
 principles of the infinitesimal calculus pr = dy, rP — dx; 
 and we have also P Q = ?/, therefore dy : dx : : y : QT; 
 
 that is, the subtangent QT = » — -. See Differential 
 
 ° " dy 
 
 Calculus, p. 344. 
 
 This is the general formula for the subtangent of any 
 curve at the point whose co-ordinates are x and y; and 
 therefore the position of the tangent can always be deter- 
 mined when the relation between x and y is defined by an 
 equation, by differentiating that equation. 
 
 One of the earliest uses which was made of the differen- 
 tial calculus was to find the positions of tangents to curve 
 lines; and hence the calculus itself, in its early period, was 
 often denominated the method of tangents. When the equa- 
 tion of the curve is given, it is easy to find the tangent at 
 any point, as only a simple differentiation is required in ad- 
 dition to the ordinary operations of algebra ; but the inverse 
 problem, to determine the equation of the curve when its 
 subtangent at any point is given, requires an integration, and 
 is consequently, in general, attended with much greater dif- 
 ficulty. Ttte first problem was called the direct, and the 
 second the inverse method of tangents. The terms are sy- 
 nonymous with differential and integral calculus. 
 
 Euclid has shown that no straight line can be drawn be- 
 tween a circle and its tangent which does not cut the circle. 
 This property is true of all other curves, and the contact of 
 a curve with its tangent is called a contact of the first order. 
 Sec Contact, Angle of. 
 
 Tangent. In Trigonometry, is the straight line which 
 touches a circular arc at one of its extremities, and is ter- 
 minated by the production of the radius passing through 
 the other extremity. The arc and its tangent have always 
 a certain relation to each other; and when the one is given 
 Ln parts of the radius, the other can always be computed 
 by means of an infinite series. Let denote an arc, and 
 tan. the tangent of the arc ; we have the following se- 
 ries: 
 
 = tan — | tan 3 + 1 tan 5 <P — } tan7 <p + &c. 
 205 , 'l707 6209 
 
 tan0=#+- 3 - + 3T5 + ; 
 
 r + - 
 
 + &c. 
 
 32-5-7 n 3.'-5-7-9 
 
 The tangents were introduced into trigonometry by the 
 Arabians, and the introduction has been of the most impor- 
 tant use in simplifying calculations. For the manner of 
 using the sines, cosines, tangents, and other angular func- 
 tions, see Trigonometry. 
 
 TA'NISTRY. An ancient Irish custom of descent, defi- 
 ned as "descent from the oldest and worthiest of the 
 blood." (See Sir J. Davies's Cases before the Irish Judges, 
 17G2.) Some have derived it from thane or thegn ; but this 
 seems to be a word of Teutonic origin. (See also Quart. 
 Rev., vol. lvi., p. 223.) 
 
 TANK. In the Navy, a case of sheet iron about 4 feet 
 square, and containing about 2 tons. Bilge tanks are of va- 
 rious forms, in order to employ the vacant spaces near the 
 sides in small vessels. Iron tanks have for many years 
 been used in the navy from their incomparable superiority 
 over casks in keeping the water sweet. 
 
 Tank. In Gardening, a cistern or reservoir, made of stone 
 or timber or some other material, used in collecting and pre- 
 serving water during a scarcity or drought. Tanks are some- 
 times built in the ground, and lined with lead or cement. 
 (Loudon's F.ncyc. of Gardening, p. 603.) 
 
 TA'NNER'S BARK. The bark of oak, chesnut, willow, 
 larch, and other trees, which abounds in tannin, and is used 
 by tanners for preparing leather. After being exhausted of 
 the tanning principle by being chopped into small pieces, or 
 bruised, or steeped in water, it is laid up in heaps to dry, 
 and sold to gardeners for the purpose of producing artificial 
 heat by fermentation in pits or beds, in bark -stoves or oth- 
 er out-houses, or pits. Sec Stove. 
 
 TANNIC ACID. This term has been especially applied 
 to a substance obtained by Pelouze by acting upon bruised 
 
 1215
 
 TANNIN. 
 
 galls by common ether ; it is a white uncrystnlline pow dar, 
 very astringent, little soluble in water, and reddening lit- 
 mus. When moistened and exposed to air it becomes con- 
 verted into gallic acid. It Is extremely astringent, and ap- 
 pears to be the active principle of tanning substa - (tan 
 
 ifm) in general. Its equivalent, deduced from the analysis 
 of the neutral tannaUs, appears to be 4.(3. Its ultimate i le- 
 ment-s are 30 atoms of carbon, 18 of hydrogen, and -1 of 
 oxygen. 
 
 TA'NNIN. The pure astringent principle of vegetables, 
 upon which their power of converting skin into leather de- 
 pends. Its leading character is its property of producing a 
 Hiisli precipitate in a Strong solution of animal jel- 
 ly, such, for instance, as isinglass. It may be obtained tolera- 
 bly pure by infusing bruised grape seeds in cold water; or 
 more circuitously by adding acetate of copper to filtered In- 
 
 t tsion of galls, washing the precipitate, and decomposing it 
 
 (diffused through water) by sulphuretted hydrogen. On 
 evaporating its solution, it is obtained as a pale yellow ex- 
 tract, of a strong astringent taste. The action of astringents 
 upon persalts of iron has given rise to its distinction into 
 two varieties ; the first changing them to deep blue or 
 black, the second to green. The tan of galls, oak bark, grape 
 seeds, &c, possesses the former property; that of catechu 
 and tea the latter. 
 
 By digesting powdered charcoal in nitric acid, and care- 
 fully evaporating the solution so obtained. Mr. Hatchctt suc- 
 ceeded in procuring a brown substance of an astringent 
 taste, and precipitating solution of gelatine, which he terms, 
 therefore, artificial tan. 
 
 TANTALITE, or COLUMBITE. The ferruginous oxide 
 of columbium. It occurs in small masses, and in octoedral 
 Crystals. It has been found in Finland and in the United 
 Slates of America. 
 
 T VNTA'LIUM. SecCoLUMBUM. 
 TA'NTALUS. In Creek Mythology, a king of Lydia, 
 rhrygia, or Paphlagonia, according to different authors, 
 whose punishment in the infernal regions is well known to 
 classical readers. He was condemned to he plunged in wa- 
 ter, and have delicious fruits continually hanging over his 
 head, without the power of satisfying either thirst or hun- 
 ger. His crime is differently represented. According to 
 some, he served to the gods at a feast the limbs of his own 
 son Pelops; according to others, he revealed the mystery 
 of the gods, of whom he was high-priest ; while others 
 attribute to him the vices of pride and too great wealth. 
 (For a learned interpretation of the myth, see Bryant's Ali- 
 en nt Mythology,!. 304.) 
 
 TANTALUS'S CUP. A philosophical toy which amu- 
 singly exhibits the principle of the siphon. Into a hole in 
 the bottom of a cup A the longer leg of a si- 
 phon B C D is cemented, so that the end D of 
 the shorter leg nearly touches the bottom of 
 (| A the cup within. When water is poured into 
 the cup, it rises in the shorter leg of the si- 
 phon until it reaches the level of the top of 
 the bend at C, when it flows over into the lar- 
 ger leg, and is carried off at G ; so that if wa- 
 ter is not supplied to the cup faster than it is 
 drawn off by the siphon, the cup will be emp- 
 tied. To form the toy, the legs of the siphon 
 are concealed by the hollow figure of a man 
 whose chin is on a level with the bend of the 
 siphon; so that the figure stands like Tanta- 
 lus in the fable — up to the chin in water but 
 unable to quench his thirst. 
 
 TAW ITSIM )M ES, Tanystoma. (Cr. nlnJ , / stretch, and 
 
 oro/ta, a mouth.) The name of a family of Dipterous insects, 
 
 comprehending those which have a projecting proboscis, 
 
 with the last joint of the antenna; undivided. 
 
 TA'PBSTRY. (Pr. tapisserie.) An ornamental figured 
 
 textile: fabric of worsted or silk for lining the walls of apart- 
 ments. The most celebrated manufacture of this kind is 
 produced at the Gobelins royal manufactory, near Paris. In 
 Painting, tapestry is applied to a representation of a subject 
 in wool or silk, or both, worked on a woven ground of hemp 
 or II iv. 
 
 TAPE WORM. See Taenia. 
 
 TAPIO'CA. The prepared starch of the root of the Ja- 
 tropha manihot. The root abounds with a milky juice, 
 which is poisonous, but which deposits an inert starch 
 when diffused through water. The root is called cassava, 
 and is rendered harmless by boiling. 
 
 TA'I'1 11. (Lat. taptrus.] Tin- name of a genus of Pachy- 
 dermatous Mammals, of which three existing and several 
 
 extinct species have been determined. Of the existing spe 
 
 cies one is a native of Sumatra, the other two of South 
 America. The) have a short proboscis; four toes on the 
 fore foot, and three toes on the hind foot. 
 'I'M'. A dark-brown viscid liquid, obtained by heating 
 
 th. v. oo.l of the lir tree : it consists of resin, emp\ reum.atic 
 oil, and acetic acid. When inspissated by boiling, it is con- 
 1316 
 
 TARTARIC ACID. 
 
 verted into pitch. The varieties of tar have lately been the 
 subject of an elaborate investigation by Dr. Seichenbach, 
 who has obtained from it six distinct substances, which he 
 terms paraffine, cupion, kreasote, picamar, capnomar, and 
 
 TAR, MIXERAL. A variety of bitumen, much resem- 
 bling petroleum. 
 
 T A .RANIS. In Mythology, a Celtic divinity, confounded 
 by Latin writers with their Jupiter. He was regarded as 
 the evil principle, and worshipped with human sacrifices; 
 whence the verse of Lucan, 
 
 Et Taranis Scythicas non minor ara Diana?. 
 
 (See Mem. ilr ['.laid, des Iit.'cr., vol. x.xiv.) 
 
 TARA'NTULA. (So called from Taranto in Sicily.) 
 The name of a Fubrician genus of Pedipalpous Pulmonary 
 Arachnidans, infesting the torrid regions of Asia and Ameri- 
 ca. The group is now divided into the genera Phrynus and 
 Thtlijphonus. The term is also applied to a genus of spi- 
 ders found in some parts of Sicily, whose bite produces a 
 train of symptoms long believed to be curable only by music. 
 From this word is derived the term tarantella, the national 
 dance of the Sicilians. 
 
 TA'RDIGRADES, Tardigrada. (Lat. tardus, slow; gra- 
 dior, I march.) A family of Edentate Mammals, comprising 
 those which are remarkable for the slowness of their mo- 
 tions when upon the ground, as the sloths. 
 
 TA'RDO (It. slow.) In Music, a term denoting that the 
 movement to which it is affixed is to be performed slowly. 
 It is nearly the same in signification as largo. 
 
 TARE. In Commerce, an abatement or deduction made 
 from the weight of a parcel of goods on account of the 
 weight of the chest, cask, bag, &c, in which they are con- 
 tained. Tare is distinguished into real tare, customary tare, 
 and average tare. The first is the actual weight of the pack- 
 age ; the second its supposed weight according to the prac- 
 tice among merchants ; and the third is the medium tare, de- 
 duced from weighing a few packages and taking it as a stand- 
 ard for the whole. In Amsterdam, and some other com- 
 mercial cities, tares are generally fixed by custom ; but in 
 this country, the prevailing practice, as to all goods that can 
 be unpacked without injury, both at the custom house and 
 among merchants, is to ascertain the real tare. Sometimes, 
 however, the buyer and seller make a particular agreement 
 about it. 
 
 Tare. In Agriculture. See Vetch. 
 
 TA'RGUM. A Hebrew word, denoting a paraphrase of 
 some portion of scripture in the Chaldean language, of 
 which there are ten in existence : the two principal ones 
 being those of Jonathan (or rather the Pseudo Jonathan), au 
 author who wrote a paraphrase, or rather a commentary, 
 upon the Greater and Lesser Prophets, about thirty years 
 B.C. ; and of Onkelos, upon the Pentateuch, which is con 
 sidered the most valuable of all, and is referred to the first 
 century of our era. Two others are supposed to be of con- 
 siderable antiquity. The remaining six are comparatively 
 modern. (See Enc. Metr.) 
 
 TA'RIFF. A table, alphabetically arranged, specifying 
 the various duties, drawbacks, bounties, Sec, charged and 
 
 allowed on the importation and exportation of articles of for- 
 eign and domestic produce. 
 
 TARPAW'LING. A painted or tarred canvass cover 
 generally. 
 
 TARRAS, or TERRAS. A volcanic product, which, 
 mixed with mortar, gives it the property of hardening under 
 water. Several argillo ferruginous minerals possess this 
 property, and are often indiscriminately used under this 
 term. 
 
 TARSE, Tarsus. (Gr. rapco;, sole of foot.) In Mamma- 
 lia, signifies the collection or small bones between the tibia 
 and metatarsus, or those which constitute the tir-.t part of 
 the foot. In Birds, it is sometimes applied to the third 
 ment of the leg. which is rarely fleshy or feathered; and 
 corresponds with the t irsus and met itarsus conjoined. In 
 Insects, it signifies the aggregate of minute joints which 
 Constitute the fifth principal segment of the leg or the foot. 
 
 TA'RTAK. (Cr. rapraDoc, infernal; because it is the 
 sediment or dregs of wine.) The substance which con- 
 cretes upon the inside of wine casks. It is c II <•<( red nnd 
 white nrgnl. acci Tiling to the wine from which it is obtain- 
 ed. When purified it is often called cream of tartar : it is 
 a bitartrate of potash. 
 
 TARTAR EMETIC. A double salt, consisting of tartar- 
 ic add in combination with potassa and protoxide of anti- 
 mony. .Sec Antimony. 
 
 TARTARIC Mil". The acid of friar. This acid is 
 contained in grape juice, and in tamarinds and several other 
 
 fruits, It Is usual lj ob alned from purified tartan 1 parts of 
 
 |i>v\ d.aed tartar and I of chalk are m ted In hi t u ater, and 
 
 the uinie powder which tie of lime] I 
 
 i posed by dilute sulphuric acid, which combines with 
 
 the lime to form sulphate of lime, and the tartaric acid
 
 TARTER OF THE TEETH. 
 
 being liberated is obtained by evaporation. When pure it 
 forms white crystals, composed of one equivalent of dry acid 
 and one of water (66 + 9 = 75). The anhydrous tartaric 
 acid, as it exists in the dry tartrates (tartrate of lead, for in- 
 stance), is composed of 
 
 Atoms. Equiv. 
 Carbon ... 4 24 36-36 
 
 Hydrogen ... 2 2 3-03 
 
 Oxygen ... 5 40 6061 
 
 1 66 100-00 
 
 TARTAR OF THE TEETH. This substance, which oc- 
 casionally concretes upon the teeth, consists, according to 
 Berzelius, of 
 
 Salivary mucus 135 
 
 Animal matter soluble in muriatic acid 7-5 
 
 Phosphate of lime (earthy phosphates) 79 
 
 100-0 
 
 TA'RTARUS (Tdprapoc; called also the house of 
 Hades by the Greeks, and Orcus by the Latins), was the 
 name of the infernal regions, over which Pluto or Hades 
 had dominion. 
 
 TARTRA'TES. Salts in which the tartaric acid is com- 
 bined with bases. 
 
 TARTROVI'NIC ACID. An acid composed of tartaric 
 acid in combination with the elements of ether. 
 
 TARTU'FFE. A common French nickname for hypo- 
 critical pretenders to devotion. It is derived from the cele- 
 brated comedy of Moliere, of which the hero is so called. 
 Whether Moliere invented, or took it from the popular 
 language of the time, does not appear : some say that he in- 
 tended to attack Louis XIV.'s confessor, Pere la Chaise, 
 whom he had once seen eating truffles with peculiar gout ; 
 and thence the name. The play was written in 1664, but 
 not acted till 1669 : great difficulties being thrown in the 
 way of the author by the clergy and the papal legate. On 
 one occasion it was prohibited when the curtain was on the 
 point of rising, and Moliere announced to the public its dis- 
 appointment in the well-known equivocal words, " Mon- 
 sieur le president ne veut pas qu'on le joue." When at last 
 licensed (through the influence, it is said, of the king him- 
 self), it had a run of three months with unparalleled suc- 
 cess ; and the eager attention and applause which it still 
 excites bear testimony at once to the keenness of the wit, 
 and the peculiar relish of the public for the exposure of the 
 frailties of those who profess a religious character. In Eng- 
 land, this play has been made more than once lo serve the 
 popular passions of the day. Cibber translated it, and made 
 the hero a nonjuring churchman ; and the play is still acted 
 under the name of The Hypocrite, in which the Tartulfe is 
 a methodistical divine. 
 
 TASTE. That power of the mind which is conversant 
 about the beautiful, both of nature and of art. In the Latin 
 language, the same metaphor obtained a very wide applica- 
 tion, and the term sapientia was employed to signify quick- 
 ness and correctness of judgment generally. Shaftsbury's 
 use of the term is nearly as extensive, being applied by him 
 to manners, morals, and government, and to wit, ingenuity, 
 and beauty. In its modern use it is restricted to those ob-. 
 jects which fall within the province of imagination. Now, 
 although imagination derives its objects pre-eminently from 
 those of the sight and hearing, and although the epithet 
 beautiful, is, for the most part, confined to these ; yet the 
 mental power which judges of them borrows its name from 
 a third sense. The reason of this is satisfactorily shown by 
 Coleridge. {Literary Remains, vol. i.) The senses, he ob- 
 serves, are either purely organic, or mixed. The former pre- 
 sent their objects to the mind distinct from its perception of 
 them, while the latter invariably blend the perception of the 
 object with a certain consciousness of the percipient subject. 
 To the latter class belong the touch, the smell, and the 
 taste. Of these, taste and smell differ from the touch, as 
 adding to that reference to our vital being which is common 
 to the three a degree of enjoyment or otherwise ; while the 
 taste is distinguished from the smell only by its more fre- 
 quent and dignified use in human nature. By taste then, 
 as applied to the fine arts, we must be supposed to mean an 
 intellectual perception of any object, blended with a distinct 
 reference to our sensibility of enjoyment or dislike. 
 
 In the same essay Coleridge gives another and a wider 
 definition of taste ; as " a metaphor taken from one of the 
 mixed senses, and applied to objects of the more purely or- 
 ganic, and of our moral sense, when we would imply the 
 co-existence of an immediate personal dislike or complacen- 
 cy." Now, by the constitution of man's nature, every exer- 
 tion of human activity, in the pursuit of the good, the beau- 
 tiful, and the true, combines a sense of pleasure, or the con- 
 trary, with the perception of their respective objects; and 
 this fact would justify the widest application of the meta- 
 phor. While, however, in the case of the true, this co-ex- 
 istent pleasure has not received any distinctive appellation, 
 
 TASTE. 
 
 and while conscience, as comprehending the sense of ap- 
 probation and disapprobation, is characteristically applied to 
 the moral energy, that of taste has been confined to the 
 perception of beauty and the accompanying gratification. 
 
 But taste, like all other metaphorical terms, is extremely 
 inaccurate; and by directing attention exclusively to this 
 element of pleasure, it has led to a very inadequate concep- 
 tion of the true nature of the faculty which it designates. 
 Thus Hutcheson (Inquiry into the Idea of Beauty and Vir- 
 tue) maintains that the faculty is peculiar, and a sense 
 which, similarly to the other senses, procures a pleasure 
 totally distinct from a cognition of principles, or of the 
 causes, relations, and usages of an object; that beauty 
 strikes at first sight, and that knowledge the most perfect 
 will not increase the pleasure which it gives rise to; and 
 lastly, that all the diversity of sentiments excited in differ- 
 ent minds by the beautiful, arise solely from the modifica- 
 tions of the sense by association, custom, example, and edu- 
 cation. Among the advocates of the theory of a moral taste 
 we may reckon Hume, Akenside, Blair, Lord Karnes, and 
 Beattie. 
 
 Blair accordingly defines taste to be the power of receiving 
 pleasure from the beauties of nature and art; while Aken- 
 side describes it as " certain internal powers feelingly alive 
 to each finer impulse." Dr. Beattie (Essay on Poetry and 
 Music) supposes taste to have its origin in a mutual har- 
 mony and sympathy between the soul in its first formation 
 and the rest of nature, which experience may confirm, but 
 no perverse habits subdue. In the Essay on the Delicacy 
 of Taste, Mr. Hume talks of it as a natural sensibility ; 
 while in the Essay on the Standard of Taste, he seems to 
 admit of no other criterion than the decisions of a due and 
 sufficiently extensive experience. Lastly, Lord Kames de- 
 clares a taste in the fine arts to be nearly allied to the moral 
 sense ; but yet, like morals, capable of being raised to a ra- 
 tional science by an examination of the sensitive branch of 
 the human constitution, and an enumeration of the objects 
 which are either agreeable or disagreeable by nature. 
 
 But taste is not only a sensitive, but also a cognitive facul- 
 ty. When a beautiful object is presented to the mind, not 
 only does it make on it a delicious impression of pleasure, 
 but the mind in the first place passes judgment upon it, and 
 declares it to be beautiful ; that is, conformable to a stand- 
 ard called the beautiful. In this complex operation of taste, 
 the judgment is the antecedent, and the pleasure the con- 
 sequent. When the impassible judgment has passed sen- 
 tence upon the object, then the sensibility is awakened to 
 certain sentiments, which are, as it were, the echo of the 
 reason. (Cousin, Sur le Vrai, le Bien, et le Beau.) 
 
 Thus, too, Ancillon (Melanges Littraires, 6,-c.) : "The 
 impression which an object makes on the senses is insuffi- 
 cient to give rise to the sentiment of the beautiful. The 
 impression on the senses is but the occasion on which the 
 taste declares that the idea which it impressed on the sen- 
 sible object, and which that object expresses, is the idea of 
 beauty." To this view of taste we may refer the opinions 
 of Addison and Burke. According to the latter, taste is 
 that faculty or those faculties of the mind which are affect- 
 ed with, or form a judgment of, the works of imagination 
 and the elegant arts; while Addison connects the emotion 
 of pleasure with the power of distinguishing the beauties 
 and imperfections of an author. To this class also we must 
 refer the views of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr. Gerard, and Mr. 
 Allison. According to the latter, taste is that faculty of the 
 human mind by which we both perceive and enjoy what- 
 ever is beautiful and sublime in the works of nature and 
 art, the perception of these two qualities being attended 
 with an emotion of pleasure distinguishable from every other 
 pleasure of our nature. In the sketch of his proposed work, 
 which, unfortunately, he has never completed, he intended 
 to show the nature of the faculty, and, in refutation of the 
 theory 7 of Hutcheson, to prove that it has no resemblance 
 to a sense ; and that it is not even a separate and peculiar 
 faculty, but admits of being ultimately resolved into more 
 general principles of our mental constitution. If taste n 7 ere 
 only a sense, it would be difficult to explain the fact, that 
 amid the inexhaustible variety of sensations which differ- 
 ent minds experience from the beautiful, there nevertheless 
 reigns a certain unanimity in men's judgments with respect 
 to it, which cannot have any other source than the identity 
 of reason in the human species. The sense of pleasure, 
 however, is still a necessary and essential element of the 
 faculty of taste. Without it we should be condemned to a 
 perfect uniformity of sentiment in the presence of the beau- 
 tiful, in the same manner as the absence of judgment would 
 reduce us to an endless diversity. 
 
 The same conclusion will follow from an examination of 
 some of the principal definitions of beauty. According to 
 St. Austin (Ep. 18), " unity is the universal form of beauty ;" 
 and to Malespina (Delle Leggi del Bello), " beauty consists 
 in unity, multiplicity, and propriety." De Crousaz (Traite 
 du Beau) makes beauty to consist in variety, unity, regu- 
 4 G 1217
 
 TASTO. 
 
 larity, order and proportion. Winckelmnim and Sulzer 
 agree also Id making unity and multiplicity to be essential 
 constituents of the beautiful. And lastly, the definition of 
 beauty in the Italian schools of painting, was, •■ il piu nell' 
 uno," variety in unity ; which is nearly identical with llut- 
 cheson's explanation of it. uniformity in variety. The just 
 ness of these views will readily appear. If H e consider that 
 while variety satisfies the demands of the imagination by 
 affording the gratification most conformable to its nature 
 and laws, unity is necessary for its being apprebendi d by 
 the judgment, and in order to its appreciation as a work of 
 art. 
 
 A few definitions of beauty remain to be noticed, which 
 apparently favour the theory of Hutcheson. According to 
 Burke (On the Sublime and Beautiful), and Price {Essay on 
 Beauty), beauty consists in such qualities as induce in us a 
 sense of tenderness and affection. Allison declares that 
 the qualities of matter are neither beautiful nor sublime in 
 themselves, but only such so far as they are signs or ex- 
 pressions of qualities capable of producing emotion. Wie- 
 land makes beauty to consist in the unity of an agreeable 
 variety; and Kant teaches that the beautiful pleases iire 
 spectively of any idea of utility, or of any conception of de- 
 sign, simply by the correspondence of the object and the 
 sensitive organ. 
 
 The emotions of taste are usually distinguished into those 
 of the sublime and beautiful ; but Dugald Stewart seems 
 with justice to have denied the existence of any intrinsic 
 difference between them. According to Burke, indeed, the 
 terrible is a fruitful source of the sublime; and this idea 
 does not seem capable of being made an ingredient of the 
 beautiful. In the same way, on the other hand, there are 
 ideas eminently beautiful which can never give rise to an 
 emotion of sublimity. Nevertheless, this does not consti- 
 tute an essential difference between the two. It is with 
 reference to their several effects upon the imagination that 
 they may, perhaps, be most correctly distinguished. Con- 
 sidered in itself, a beautiful object ought to present the 
 greatest possible unity combined with the greatest possible 
 variety; and considered in the etl'ect it produci 
 mind, its beauty consists in the free, facile, and harmonious 
 play of the imagination. On the other hand, the imagina- 
 tion is lost and overpowered in the contemplation of the 
 sublime, which in its infinity presents at once unity and 
 variety. 
 
 TASTO. (It. the touch.) In Music, a term used in con- 
 junction with solo, to signify that the instruments that can 
 accompany by chords are only to play single sounds till the 
 direction is contradicted by the word accordo, or aecompani- 
 ■mento. 
 
 TA'TTA. (TndianA A bamboo frame or trellis, over 
 which water is suffered to trickle with a view of cooling the 
 air as it enters the windows or doors. 
 
 TATTOO'ING. The name given to a practice common 
 to several uncivilized nations, which consists in puncturing 
 the skin and rubbing a dye or gunpowder into the wounds, 
 by means of which certain figures are represented on the 
 face and other parts of the body on which the operation has 
 been performed. 
 
 TAU'RUS. (Lat the Bull.) In Astronomy, the second 
 in order of the twelve zodiacal constellations. There are 
 several remarkable stars in this constellation: Aldebaran, 
 of the first magnitude, in the eye; the well known cluster 
 called the Pleiades, in the neck; and the Hyades, in the 
 
 face. See CONSTELLATION, ZODIAC. 
 
 TAU'TOCHRONE (Gr. ravroc, the same, and \piro;, 
 time), in Mechanics, is a curve line having this property, 
 that a heavy body descending along it by the action of 
 gravity "ill always arrive at the lowest point in the same 
 time, wherever the point from which the body begins to fall 
 be taken in the curve. Huygens first showed that this is a 
 property of the common cycloid when the motion takes 
 place in a vacuum, and gravity is supposed to act in parallel 
 straight lines. (See Cycloid.) Newton and Hermann also 
 determined the tautochrone in a vacuum, when gravity is 
 supposed to be directed towards a given centre. Newton 
 likewise showed that the cycloid is also the tautochrone in 
 a resisting medium, when the resistance is proportional to 
 the velocity < Principia, b. ii., prop. 28) ; and Euler first de- 
 termined the nature of the curve when the resistance is pro- 
 portional to the square of the velocity (Mechanica, vol. Ii.) 
 See also Joh. Bernoulli, Opera, vol. iii. 
 
 T HJTO'LOGY. (Or. rovrd, the same thing, and \oyoe, 
 discourse.) In Rhetoric, a vicious diction, by which the 
 same Idea is expressed in two or more different words or 
 phrases, apparently intended to convey different meanings. 
 
 TAWING. The art of preparing certain kinds of leather 
 by Imbuing the skins with saline, oily, and other matters. 
 See Leather. 
 
 TAXATKi ECCLESIAfflTCA. A name given to sev 
 crni public records. The oldest is that of Norwich, made 
 in 1253, for the purpose of assessing the first fruits and tenths 
 1318 
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 1 of ecclesiastical benefices; sometimes called Pope Inno- 
 cent's valour, that pontiff ha\ ing made a present of them for 
 three years to Henry III. All taxation was regulated by 
 this assessment until the reign of Henry VIII., when the 
 
 /'a/or F.eclisiusticus, sometimes called the King's Books, 
 was compiled by his commissioners. 
 
 TAX ATK IN. A tax is a rate or duty laid by government 
 on the incomes or property of individuals, or on the products 
 consumed by them; the produce of such duty or rate being 
 placed at the disposal ofgovernment. 
 
 A tax may he either general or particular; that is, it may 
 either alfect all classes indiscriminately, or only one or more 
 classes. 
 
 Taxation (Lat. taxatio) is the general term used to ex- 
 press the aggregate ot»particular taxes, it is also the name 
 
 given to that branch of the science of political' economy 
 which explains the mode in which the revenue required 
 for the public service may be most advantageously raised. 
 It would be quite superfluous to enter into any lengthen- 
 ed arguments to show the utility, or rather necessity, of 
 raising a revenue for the use of the public. JVtque ouies 
 gentium, situ armit; neque arma, tint stipendiis ; neque 
 sttpendia, sine tributis habere gueunt. I 'Inert. Hist., iv., 
 cap. 74.) Ii is admitted on all hands that security from 
 foreign invasion, the speedy and impartial administration 
 of justice, and the maintenance of good order and tranquilli- 
 ty . are absolutely indispensable to the successful exertion of 
 industry, and to the advancement of society. And when 
 such is the case, no individual can justly complain that he 
 is made to contribute, in the same proportion to his means 
 as others, for the attainment of such objects; or, which is 
 the same thing, that he is made to pay his fair share of the 
 sum required to procure the services of the soldiers and 
 sailors necessary to repel hostile aggression, and to support 
 the various institutions and public functionaries required to 
 maintain internal peace, to promote prosperity, and to protect 
 every citizen in the undisturbed enjoyment of his property 
 and rights. In most countries the public has frequently had 
 to contribute larger sums than have been required for the 
 ends of good go\ eminent But abuses of this kind obvious- 
 ly originate either in the misconduct of administration, or in 
 the defective political organization of the states in which 
 they occur, and do not, therefore, properly come within the 
 scope of our inquiries. In treating of taxation, the object of 
 the political economist is, not to inquire whether the reve- 
 nue raised In the state exceed its necessary wants, or wheth- 
 er it be judiciously expended : but to point out the effect of 
 taxation on individual and public wealth, and, by analyzing 
 the various methods in which a revenue may he raised and 
 comparing them together, to show which is most advan- 
 tageous, or rather which is least injurious. But as such iu- 
 quiries, were they prosecuted at any considerable length, 
 would involve discussions nowise suited for a work of ibis 
 kind, and far exceed its limits, we must confine ourselves 
 to a few observations illustrative of the principles that 
 should be especially kept in view in the imposition of 
 taxes. 
 
 Taxes may be either direct or indirect ; that is, they may 
 be either imposed on the Incomes or property of individuals, 
 or on the articles on which these incomes or property are 
 expended. But before proceeding to inquire into the nature 
 and influence of different taxes, it may be proper to premise 
 the maxims laid down by Adam Smith w ith respect to taxes 
 in general, inasmuch as they are drawn up with singular 
 judgment and comprehensiveness. 
 
 First Maxim — "The subjects of every state ought to con- 
 tribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as 
 possible in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, 
 in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy 
 under the protection of the state. The expense of govern- 
 ment to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense 
 Of management to the joint tenants of a great estate. In 
 the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is 
 called the equality or inequality of taxation." 
 
 Second — "The tax which each individual is bound to pay 
 ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of pay- 
 ment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought 
 till to be clear and plain to the contributor and to every 
 other person. When it is otherwise, every person subject 
 to the tax is put, more or less, in the power of the tax- 
 gatherer, who can either aggravate the tax upon any ob- 
 noxious contributor, or extort, by the terror of such aggra- 
 vation, some present or perquisite to himself. The uncer- 
 tainty of taxation encourages the insolence and favours the 
 corruption of an order of men who are naturally unpopular, 
 even where they are neither insolent nor corrupt. The 
 I iv of what each Individual ought to pay is, in taxa- 
 tion, of so great importance, that a very considerable degree 
 of inequality, it appears, I believe from the experience of 
 all nations, is not so great an evil as a very small degree of 
 uncertainty ." 
 Tliird— " Every tax ought to he levied at the time and in
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 the manner in which it is most likely to be convenient for 
 the contributor to pay it. A tax upon the rent of land or 
 of houses, payable at the same term at which rents are 
 usually paid, is levied at the time when it is most likely to 
 be convenient for the contributor to pay, or when he is most 
 likely to have wherewithal to pay. Taxes upon such con- 
 sumable goods as are articles of luxury are all finally paid 
 by the consumer, and generally in a manner that is very 
 convenient for him. He pays them by little and little as he 
 has occasion to buy the goods ; and as he is at liberty, too, 
 either to buy or not to buy as he pleases, it must be his own 
 fault if he ever suffers any considerable inconveniences 
 from such taxes." 
 
 Fourth — " Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to 
 take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as lit- 
 tle as possible, over and above what it brings into the pub- 
 lic treasury of the state." ( Wealth of Nations, M'Culloch's 
 ed., 1 vol. 8vo., p. 371.) 
 
 It may be, and in fact often has been supposed, that di- 
 rect taxes, or taxes laid on property or income, or both, 
 would have the advantage of corresponding better with the 
 first of Smith's maxims than any other description of taxes, 
 by making individuals contribute to the wants of the state 
 proportionally to the revenue which they enjoy under its 
 protection ; and so, no doubt, were it possible to assess them 
 fairly, such would be the case. But the obstacles in the 
 way of their fair and equal assessment are such as can 
 never be overcome; and the truth is, that taxes on either 
 income or property, though theoretically equal, are practi- 
 cally the most unequal that can be imagined. We may get 
 a pretty accurate notion of the income derived from lands, 
 houses, funded property, and mortgages ; but all beyond 
 this is mere guess-work. There are no means by which to 
 ascertain the amount of farming capital, stock in trade, the 
 profits derived from them, or the incomes of professional 
 men. No inquisition into the private affairs of individuals 
 can ever discover these particulars. There is nothing, in 
 fact, to depend upon in such cases but the declarations of 
 the parties; and we need not dwell on the impolicy of any 
 system of finance that sets the duty and the interests of the 
 contributors in opposition, and makes them profit by con- 
 cealing or perverting the truth. Besides, although these 
 preliminary and insuperable difficulties were overcome, and 
 we learned the capital and incomes of different parties, we 
 should have other and greater difficulties to surmount be- 
 fore the tax could be fairly assessed. The same deduction 
 should not be made from incomes derived from sources that 
 are not equally lasting. To assess them on a just princi- 
 ple, the present value of different incomes, or their value 
 reduced to a perpetuity, would have, in the first place, to 
 be determined. 
 
 But it may be unhesitatingly affirmed that to do this upon 
 a large scale would be quite impracticable. It is clear, 
 therefore, that taxes on income or property should not be 
 introduced, except as a dernier resort, as a means of filling 
 the coffers of the treasury when the other and more legiti- 
 mate sources of revenue are insufficient, and when, as in the 
 late war, money must be had at all hazards. 
 
 It is besides absurd to suppose, as has been done, that 
 the burdens that at present fall on the labouring classes 
 could be sensibly reduced by repealing the duties on tea, 
 sugar, soap, &c, and imposing in their stead taxes on prop- 
 erty. Suppose that the attempt were made, and observe 
 what the result must be. A manufacturer employs a cer- 
 tain number of men, who pay £1000 a year in taxes on com- 
 modities. Now, if the taxes that are at present paid by the 
 labourers be repealed, those that fall on their employers 
 must be equally increased; so that the manufacturer in 
 question will have £1000 more to pay in taxes after the 
 change takes place, and will of course have £1000 less to 
 lay out on wages. It is consequently contradictory and ab- 
 surd to suppose that you can improve the condition of the 
 labouring classes by repealing the taxes that fall on them 
 to lay them on capitalists. 
 
 Direct taxes on property have been the curse of every 
 country into which they have been introduced, and are at 
 once a consequence and a cause of a low and impoverish- 
 ed state of society. To evade them, people that are not 
 poor counterfeit poverty ; some of the most powerful incen- 
 tives to industry and economy are in consequence destroy- 
 ed, at the same time that inferior stock, machinery, &c, are 
 made use of. Such taxes are, besides, most unpopular, as 
 well from their requiring an odious though ineffectual in- 
 quisition into the affiiirs of individuals, as from their being 
 direct. So much is this the case, that we are well con- 
 vinced that the raising of eighteen or twenty millions by 
 taxes on income would be felt to be a much greater burden, 
 and would really be far more injurious, than the raising of 
 fifty or sixty millions by well-devised indirect taxes, such 
 as the greater number of those that now exist in England. 
 Luckily, however, indirect taxes have almost invariably 
 been the greatest favourites both of princes and subjects ; 
 
 and there are many solid reasons why this should be the 
 case. The burden of direct taxation is palpable and ob- 
 vious. It admits of no species of disguise or concealment, 
 but makes every one fully sensible of the exact amount of 
 income taken from him by government. Every one, how- 
 ever, is extremely averse from parting with property, un- 
 less he obtain some more acceptable equivalent in its stead ; 
 and as the benefits derived from the institution of govern- 
 ment are neither so very obvious nor striking as to be easily 
 and readily felt and appreciated by the bulk of the people, 
 there is, in the great majority of cases, a decided disinclina- 
 tion to pay a large amount of direct taxes. Hence it is that 
 governments have so generally had recourse to indirect 
 taxes. Instead of exciting the prejudices of their subjects 
 by openly demanding a specific portion of their incomes, 
 they have taxed the articles on which these incomes are 
 usually expended. This ingenious plan conceals the amount 
 of taxation, and makes its payment appear in some measure 
 voluntary. The tax being generally paid, in the first in- 
 stance, by the producers, the purchasers confound it with 
 the natural price of the commodity. No separate demand 
 being made upon them for the tax, it escapes their recollec- 
 tion, and the article which they receive seems the fair 
 equivalent of the sacrifice made in acquiring it. Such taxes 
 have also the advantage of being paid by degrees, in small 
 portions, and at the time when the commodities are want- 
 ed ftir consumption, or when it is most convenient for the 
 consumers to pay them. 
 
 That indirect taxes labour under some considerable dis- 
 advantages is most true, though these have been much ex- 
 aggerated. It is alleged, in the first place, that taxes on 
 commodities necessarily alter the natural distribution of the 
 capital and industry of a country, and force them into less 
 advantageous channels ; because, where a tax is laid on a 
 particular class of commodities, the producers, in order to 
 raise the price proportionally to the tax, diminish the supply 
 in the market by transferring a portion of the capital em- 
 ployed in the production of the taxed commodities to some 
 other business. But it is to be observed that this effect, if 
 it be sensible at all, is experienced only when a duty is first 
 imposed, and that after a short while the duty is blended 
 with the cost of production, and has no farther influence 
 over the distribution of capital. It is also true, that provided 
 the tax be not oppressive, or so high as to drive capital 
 wholly from the business, it acts as a stimulus to invention, 
 and makes those engaged in the business exert themselves, 
 by new efforts of ingenuity and economy, to find out means 
 Qf paying the tax without adding to the price of the ar- 
 ticles produced, or withdrawing any portion of their capital 
 from the business. In many instances these efforts have 
 been completely successful ; and in some instances the in- 
 fluence of the tax has been more than neutralized by the 
 exertions made to defeat it. 
 
 Taxes on commodities being almost always paid by the 
 producers before they are sold to the consumers, they not 
 only, it is said, increase prices by the whole amount of the 
 duties, but also by the profits due to the manufacturers by 
 whom they have been advanced. But though this circum- 
 stance undoubtedly operates to increase prices, its influence 
 in this respect has been greatly overrated by M. Say, M. 
 Sismondi, and others. The latter has calculated that a tax 
 of 4000 francs, paid originally by a manufacturer whose 
 profits were 10 per cent., would, if the manufactured com- 
 modity only passed through the hands of five different per- 
 sons before reaching the consumer, cost the latter the sum 
 of 6734 francs. This calculation proceeds on the supposi- 
 tion that he who first advanced the tax would receive from 
 the next manufacturer 4400 francs, and he, again, from the 
 next, 4840 francs ; so that at each step 10 per cent, on its 
 value should be added to it. "But," as Mr. Ricardo has 
 justly observed, "this is to suppose that the value of the 
 tax would be accumulating at compound interest ; not at the 
 rate of 10 per cent, per annum, but an absolute rate of 10 
 per cent, at every step of its progress. M. Sismondi's state- 
 ment would be correct if five years elapsed between the 
 first advance of the tax and the sale of the taxed commod- 
 ity to the consumer ; but if one vear only elapsed, a remu- 
 neration of 400 francs, instead of 2734, would give a profit 
 at the rate of 10 per cent, per annum to all who had con- 
 tributed to the advance of the tax, whether the commodity 
 had passed through the hands of five manufacturers or fif- 
 tv." {Principles, Sfc, 3d edit., p. 459.) 
 " It is certainly true that duties on commodities encourage 
 smuggling. "They tempt," says Dr. Smith, "persons to 
 violate the laws of their country who are frequently inca- 
 pable of violating those of natural justice, and who would 
 have been in every respect excellent citizens, had not the 
 laws of their country made that a crime which nature 
 never meant to be so." (P. 378.) In consequence of this 
 tendency, duties on commodities require the employment 
 of a number of revenue officers ; and as they expose the 
 producers of the taxed articles to considerable inconvenience 
 v 1219
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 and hardship from domiciliary visits, they force them to 
 indemnify themselves by making a corresponding addition 
 to the price of their goods. Hut this, alter all, is not so 
 much a consequence of duties on commodities, as of their 
 abuse, or of their being carried to an oppressive extent. >?o 
 long as they are confined within reasonable limits, the temp- 
 tation which they Create to engage in «mnggHng transac- 
 tions may be very easily obviated : and it has been shown 
 over and over again, that duties so restricted are uniformly 
 more productive than those which are carried to Mich a 
 height as to bold out any great encouragement to smnggling. 
 
 It may also be said that duties on commodities do no] fall 
 on individuals in proportion to their means of paying for 
 them; and that while they press with undue severity on 
 persons with large families, or who occupy prominent sta- 
 tions, they may he almost wholly avoided by rich misers 
 and those in the more obscure walks of life. Hut in taxa- 
 tion we have only a choice of dilhcuUies. However desi- 
 rable, it is, as already seen, quite impossible to tax individ- 
 uals in proportion to their incomes; and as any attempt to 
 impose an equal income tax would not only be sure to fail, 
 but would be attended with the most disastrous effects, re- 
 sort must necessarily be had to the best practicable taxes, 
 that is, to duties on commodities. And it does not really 
 appear that such duties can be considered as unequal. If 
 duties be laid on sugar or wine, those who abstain from 
 their use will, of course, escape them: but those who use 
 such articles have no good right to complain of this, seeing 
 that they may also, by exercising the Game self-denial as 
 the others, exempt themselves from the duties. 
 
 Taxes on commodities are most commonly divided into 
 two great classes : the one consisting of external or frontier, 
 and the other of internal duties. The first class, called in 
 England customs duties, are principally charged on com- 
 modities brought from foreign parts on their importation 
 into a country, and sometimes also on native commodities 
 when exported. The second class, which are here called 
 excise duties, are charged on certain articles produced with- 
 in a country, and intended for home consumption. In ad- 
 dition to these great sources of indirect taxation, duties are 
 sometimes laid on the paper or other materials necessary 
 to the completion of deeds and other contracts, on the lib- 
 erty to use certain articles and to exercise certain privileges, 
 &c. 
 
 Customs Duties formed an important branch of the public 
 revenue of most ancient states, and in modern times they 
 have been very extensively imposed. In England they have 
 been charged from a very remote period; and. though in- 
 considerable at first, they have increased with the increase 
 of civilization and commerce, till they have long formed one 
 of the most copious sources of the public revenue. The 
 various duties were collected, for the first time, in a book of 
 rates, or tariff, published in the reign of Charles II.; but 
 there is hardly a year in which the customs duties do not 
 undergo considerable modifications. It is now the practice 
 to consolidate the different acts imposing or varying the cus- 
 toms duties before they become inconveniently numerous ; 
 and tariffs, or tables of duties, drawbacks, &c., are annually 
 published for the convenience of merchants and others. 
 
 Owing principally to the vast increase of the commerce, 
 wealth, and population of the country, hut partly also to 
 the increase of the rates, the progress of the customs du- 
 ties has been quite extraordinary. The revenue derived 
 from the customs duties in ]"> l .lr>, in the reign of Elizabeth, 
 amounted to no more than £50,000. In 1613, it had in- 
 creased to £148,075, of which no less than £109,572 was 
 collected in London. In lbOO, at the Restoration, the cus- 
 toms produced £421,588; and at the Revolution, in 1689, 
 they produced £781,987. During the reigns of William 
 III. and Anne, the customs revenues were considerably aug- 
 mented, the nett payments into the exchequer in 1712 being 
 £1,315,493. During the war terminated by the peace of 
 Paris In 1703, the nett produce of the customs revenue of 
 Great Britain amounted to nearly £2,000,000. In 1792, it 
 amounted to £4,407.000. In 1815, at the close of the war 
 with revolutionary France, it amounted to £11,360,000; 
 and in 1840, the customs revenue of the United Kingdom 
 amounted to £23,341,813, of which Great Hritain furnished 
 £21,209,082, and Ireland £2,132,731. 
 
 For a lengthened period customs duties were charged in- 
 differently on all sorts of commodities, whether exported or 
 Imported ; the duty on wool sent to the Netherlands, 
 Frame. &.<■.. being formerly, in (art, the principal item in the 
 customs revenue. But for a long time past customs duties 
 have been almost exclusively laid on imported articles; those 
 laid on exports being, in most instances, imposed ruber to 
 check or prevent the exportation of the articles, than in the 
 view of raising revenue. 
 
 Customs duties, when judiciously Imposed, and confined 
 within reasonable limits, are. perhaps. ti„. least exception- 
 able Of all taxes. (S/r Cl STOICS. Bui if they be carried 
 to such a height as to give any overpowering stimulus to 
 1220 
 
 smnggling, they contradict and defeat the very purpose for 
 which they are intended. Our finance ministers have not, 
 however, been sufficiently alive to this obvious considera- 
 tion. There can be no articles better fitted to bear customs 
 duties than tobacco and spirits; but the duties with which 
 they are loaded are so extravagantly high that they oc- 
 Caston ■ great deal of smuggling, with its accompanying 
 crime and demoralization, and would certainly be a good 
 deal more productive were they effectually reduced. The 
 existing duties on brandy and geneva are, perhaps, the very 
 worst in our tariff; bul tiny would be about the very best 
 were they reduced from 22s. 6d. to 8s. or 10». a gallon. 
 
 Is already stated, the customs revenue of lstd amounted 
 to £23,341,813 ; and we hesitate not to affirm that no equal 
 amount of revenue was ever raised in any country, or in any 
 period of time, with so little difficulty and inconvenience. 
 The assessed taxes, exclusive of the land-tax, produced, in 
 1840, £2,971,005; and no one familiar with the facts, can 
 doubt that their payment produced more irritation, and was 
 regarded as a greater burden by the public than the pay- 
 ment of the customs duties, though the latter brought be- 
 tween six and seven times as great an amount of income 
 into the coffers of the treason-. 
 
 The customs revenue of 1840 was collected in Great 
 Britain at a charge of £'4 18». 104 per cent, on its gross 
 produce : and in Ireland, at a charge of £10 8s. 3d. on ditto. 
 
 Excise Duties. — The next great branch of the public 
 revenue consists of inland or excise duties; that is, as al- 
 ready seen, of duties charged on certain commodities pro- 
 duced or manufactured at home. 
 
 Excise duties were introduced into England by the Long 
 Parliament in 1043; being then laid on the makers and 
 venders of ale, beer, cider, and perry. The Royalists soon 
 after followed the example of the Republicans, both par- 
 ties declaring that the excise should be continued no longer 
 than the termination of the war. But it was found too 
 productive a source of revenue to be again relinquished ; 
 and when the nation had been accustomed to it for a few 
 years, the parliament declared, in 1649, that the "impost 
 of excise was the most easy and indifferent levy that could 
 be laid upon the people." It was placed on a new footing 
 at the Restoration : and notwithstanding Mr. Justice Black- 
 stone says, that "from its first original to the present time 
 its very name has been odious to the people of England" 
 (Com., book i., c. 8), it has continued progressively to gain 
 ground ; and it is at this moment imposed on several most 
 important articles, and furnishes nearly a third part of the 
 entire public revenue of the kingdom. See Excise. Duties 
 
 Some excise duties that were justly objected to have been 
 repealed within these few years ; and with the exception 
 of the duty on glass, which interferes injuriously with the 
 manufacture, we are not sure that there is one of the exist- 
 ing duties that can be fairly objected to on principle, though 
 the rate of duty might, in some instances, be advantageous- 
 ly reduced. We subjoin an account of the articles sub- 
 ject to excise duties in Great Britain in 1840, with the nett 
 produce of the duties in the same year. 
 
 Hops 
 Licences 
 Malt 
 
 Paper . . • 
 Post Horse Doty 
 Prat Horse Licences 
 Snap ... 
 
 Spirits 
 Surar 
 
 Vinegar . . • 
 Total 
 
 Net! Revenue. 
 
 L. 
 
 s. 
 
 d. 
 
 302.948 
 
 14 
 
 9 + 
 
 523 379 
 
 11 
 
 6 I 
 
 704,640 
 
 7 
 
 34l.-l.i9 
 
 17 
 
 2 ! 
 
 947.6-0 
 
 19 
 
 14 
 
 4,788 4 .' 
 
 u 
 
 10>f 
 
 668,716 
 
 
 
 Oi 
 
 212.634 
 
 18 
 
 4.001 
 
 m 
 
 806,704 
 
 15 
 
 0* 
 
 
 
 
 73 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 26.470 
 
 8 
 
 H 
 
 It has been said that the excise duties "greatly raise the 
 cost of subsistence to the labouring classes." Hut this as- 
 sertion has really no solid foundation. We have seen 
 above that, in 1840, the excise duties in Great Hritain pro- 
 duced £13,386,774. Now of this sum the duties on spirits, 
 malt, and li censee, produced £9,905,937. In fact, the only 
 BXCise 'lutv that can be said to fall on a necessary of life is 
 that on s,,ap. which produced in 1840 (in Great Britain) 
 £806,705; and as the population of Great Britain amounts 
 at present to above 18,500,000, the soap-tax. at an average, 
 does not impose a burden of above lOd. a year on each in- 
 dividual ! If we estimate its annual pressure on a labour- 
 ing family of rive persons at is. <W.. we shall not be within, 
 derably beyond the mark. In Ireland there is no 
 tax on soap. 
 
 Latterly some reductions hnve been made in the duties 
 on glass. Btill, however, they are most objectionable, in- 
 asmuch as they interfere most materially With the pi 
 carried on in the manufacture, and, by obstructing the intro- 
 duction of new discoveries and improved methods, enhance
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 the prices of the article in a much greater degree than 
 might be inferred from the amount of the duty. 
 
 The only taxes in the departments of customs and ex- 
 cise, or of 'the revenue generally, that can be truly said to 
 fall on articles necessary to the labourer are, besides soap, 
 those on tea, sugar, and one or two more. It is pretty cer- 
 tain that the duties on tea and sugar, which are by far the 
 most important, might be materially reduced without affect- 
 ing the revenue ; and the presumption is, that the duty on 
 sugar, which enters so largely into most descriptions of food, 
 will be speedily reduced, and the trade in it placed on an 
 entirely new footing. 
 
 Even though they were not required by the public ex- 
 igencies, the duties on spirits obstruct a pernicious habit, 
 and should not be given up. They are the best of all pos- 
 sible duties ; and the only thing to be attended to in their 
 imposition is, not to carry them to such a height as to defeat 
 their operation by encouraging smuggling. We have yet to 
 learn, supposing they are not carried beyond this limit, that 
 a single good objection can be made to these duties. 
 
 The obscurity and complexity of the excise laws have 
 been justly complained of; in this respect, however, they 
 have been materially improved of late years ; and the stat- 
 utes under which they are collected are now, for the most 
 part, sufficiently perspicuous, and easily understood. 
 
 The capacity of a tax on a commodity to raise a revenue 
 depends partly on the nature and extent of the demand for 
 the taxed article, and partly on the means of preventing its 
 being smuggled or the duty evaded. Every tax, by raising 
 the price of the article on which it is laid, has a tendency 
 to bring it within the command of a smaller number of 
 purchasers, and to lessen its consumption. An individual 
 who might be able and disposed to pay Is. a bottle of duty 
 on wine might neither have the means nor the inclination 
 to pay 2s. or 3s. ; and instead of being augmented, the rev- 
 enue might be diminished by such an increase of duty. 
 And hence, whenever the duties on commodities are raised 
 beyond certain limits — which, however, it is impossible to 
 define d priori, seeing that they necessarily vary according 
 to the description of commodities charged with duties, the 
 varying tastes and circumstances of society, and the means 
 of counteracting smuggling — they depress consumption to 
 such an extent as to become less productive than if they 
 had been lower. 
 
 Variations in the amount of the duties affecting commod- 
 ities have exactly the same effect on their price, and conse- 
 quently on their consumption, as corresponding variations 
 in the cost of production. But it is clear that any reduc- 
 tion in the price of articles the necessary cost of which is 
 very considerable, and can therefore be used only by the 
 rich, would not so powerfully increase their consumption 
 as an equal reduction in the price of cheaply produced 
 commodities in general demand. Thus, a reduction of 25 
 or even 50 per cent, in the price of coaches would not add 
 greatly to the demand for them; for, notwithstanding this 
 reduction, they would still be luxuries for which none but 
 the rich could afford to pay. But a reduction of 25 or 50 
 per cent, in the price of tea, sugar, beer, gin, or any article 
 in general demand, would extend its consumption in a much 
 greaterratio. The reason is plain. The lower classes form 
 by far the most numerous portion of society 7 ; the articles 
 referred to, and others of the same description, are highly 
 esteemed by them, and are, even at their present prices, ex- 
 tensively consumed. But a reduction of a half, or even a 
 fourth from their price, would add prodigiously to the de- 
 mand for them. It would enable their present consumers 
 to use them in larger quantities ; while it would at the same 
 time bring many of them fully under the command of a very 
 large class by whom they are now used as luxuries only on 
 rare occasions. The history of taxation in this and other 
 countries fully confirms this statement. When carried be- 
 yond due limits, taxes on commodities cease to be product- 
 ive, and recover that quality when they are reduced. There 
 is much truth in the shrewd remark of Dr. Swift, t' at in 
 the arithmetic of the customs two and two do not always 
 make four, but sometimes only one. In 1808, the duty on 
 coffee was Is. Ihd. per lb.; the quantity entered for con- 
 sumption that year being 1,069,691 lbs., producing a nett 
 revenue of £161.246. In the course of the year the duty 
 was reduced to Id. per lb. ; and next year no fewer than 
 9,251,837 lbs. were entered for home consumption, produ- 
 cing a nett revenue of £245,886. The coffee duty has since 
 been lowered to 6d ; and the quantity entered for consump- 
 tion is now (1842) about 28,500,000' lbs., and the revenue 
 about £850,000 a year. 
 
 The history of the duties on tea, spirits, wine, sugar, nnd 
 indeed of every other article in extensive demand, is pre- 
 cisely similar. When carried to an oppressive height, the 
 duty either occasions the use of the article to be given up ; 
 or, which is the most common case, it makes it be supplied 
 through clandestine channels in defiance of the law. But 
 when the duty is moderate, a taste for the article is diffused ; 
 
 and the profits to be made by trampling on the law not be- 
 ing sufficient to remunerate the smuggler, he is forced to 
 abandon his hazardous occupation, and the article is whol- 
 ly supplied through legitimate channels. After the various 
 disastrous consequences entailed on the country by the ex- 
 orbitant height to which many duties were carried previous- 
 ly to 1325, and the signal advantages that have resulted to 
 the revenue and the public from their subsequent modifica- 
 tion, it may be hoped that the principle now stated will 
 meet with more attention in future. 
 
 The attempts that have been made in Great Britain and 
 elsewhere to suppress smuggling, and at the same time to 
 maintain exorbitant duties, have all signally failed. It has 
 been invariably found that no severity of the law, nor vigi- 
 lance on the part of tbe officers, can prevent the smuggling 
 of commodities loaded with excessive duties. At this mo- 
 ment it is supposed that from 500,000 to 600.000 gallons of 
 foreign brandy and geneva find their way into our market 
 without paying any duty, in defiance of the coast guard, 
 and of all the other machinery for keeping them out. 
 Large quantities of tobacco are also smuggled. In fact, 
 there are no means of effectually putting down smuggling 
 other than a reduction of duty. The very severity of the 
 laws prevents their execution. It creates a sympathy in 
 favour of the smuggler ; it stimulates the trader to corrupt 
 the officer to conceal a fraud ; and it makes the officer 
 overlook what he might otherwise discover. 
 
 Stamp Duties. — These duties form the next most impor- 
 tant branch of the public revenue, after the customs and 
 excise. They are mostly laid on the parchment or paper 
 on which certain deeds, contracts, receipts, acquittances, 
 bills of exchange, newspapers, policies of insurance, inden- 
 tures of apprenticeship, &c. are written or printed : and 
 derive their name from the parchment or paper being im- 
 pressed with a stamp stating the amount of the duty. 
 Winn imposed on fair principles, and not carried to too 
 great a height, stamp ditties seem to be one of the most 
 legitimate sources of revenue. They assist in authentica- 
 tirtg legal instruments, and render it much more difficult 
 than formerly to forge deeds of any standing. It is need- 
 less, perhaps, to say, that if stamp duties be carried to such 
 a height as to oppose any serious obstacle to the free cir- 
 culation of property, or to the execution of necessary deeds, 
 they become exceedingly injurious. Perhaps the duty on 
 fire insurance is the most objectionable of the existing 
 stamp duties. It amounts to 3s. per cent, on all property 
 insured : whereas the premium paid to insurance offices, 
 for common risks, is no more than Is. Gil. per cent., or only 
 half the duty. Thus, if a person wish to insure £1000 on 
 a dwelling-house, a shop, warehouse, or other commonly 
 hazardous property, he pays 15s. to an insurance office as 
 an indemnification for the risk, and 30s. to government for 
 leave to enter into the transaction. So exorbitant a duty 
 cannot be too severely condemned. It discourages that 
 providence and foresight the encouragement of which 
 ought to be an object with all prudent governments ; and it 
 is the principal cause that much property is not insured at 
 all, and that what is insured is seldom sufficiently covered. 
 Every individual, in fact, who insures any commonly haz- 
 ardous property, is obliged to pay three times as much as 
 the risk is really worth. Under such circumstances, the 
 wonder certainly is, not that a great deal of property is un- 
 insured, but that such is not the case with a great deal 
 more. Seeing the vast importance of insurance, it may 
 well be doubted whether it ought to be charged with any 
 duty, however slight. But were the duty fixed at 9d. per 
 cent., or at half the premium, its influence in repressing in- 
 surance would not be very sensible ; and the increase of 
 business to which such a reduction of the duty would lead 
 would be so very great, that we have little doubt that in a 
 few years the reduced duty would yield nearly as large a 
 revenue as is derived from the present exorbitant duty. 
 
 The duties on legacies, and on the probates of wills, are 
 included under the head of Stamp Duties, of which they 
 are very important items. These duties affect only per- 
 sonal or moveable property. The first, or legacy duty, 
 varies according to the propinquity of the successor : being 
 1 per cent, on property devolving on children and lineal 
 heirs, 3 per cent, on property devolving on brothers and 
 si=ters, 4 per cent, on property devolving on cousins, and 
 10 per cent, on property devolving on strangers. The pro- 
 bate duty varies according to the amount of property in the 
 will. The duties on stage and hackney coaches, gold and 
 silver plate, &c. come under the head of Stamps. 
 
 Land Tax. — The existing land tax originated in 1692, be- 
 ing intended to replace the subsidies and such like grants 
 previously made to the crown. According to the valuation 
 at which it was assessed, it was found that a charge of Is. 
 per pound on the rental of the country produced £500,000. 
 Xo subsequent change has been made in this valuation. 
 The tax, which was annually voted, usually amounted to 
 4s. per pound of the valued rent. In 1798, it was made 
 
 1221
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 perpetual at that rate, leave being at the same time given 
 to the proprietors to reduce it. 
 
 The land tax lias always been very unequal. When 
 imposed, the proprietors friendly to the Revolution return- 
 ed theii estates at a much higher value than those attach 
 ed to the House of Stuart. The different degrees of im- 
 provement tli.it have since taken place in the various dis- 
 tricts of the country have, in some instances, tended to 
 correct the inequalities in the original imposition of the 
 tax ; but llieir more common effect has been to increase 
 them. 
 
 Assessed Taxes.— These form the fourth great bead Of 
 revenue. They include the duties on windows, servants, 
 horses, carriages, armorial bearings, game, &c. The house 
 duty, that used to be one of the principal items in the as- 
 sessed taxes, has been recently repealed. A hearth tax, 
 or duty proportioned to the number of fireplaces in a house, 
 was established in this country at a very early period ; but 
 owing to its being necessary to the assessing of the tax 
 that the government officers should be admitted to view 
 the inside of each house, the hearth tax became exceed- 
 ingly unpopular, and was repealed by the stat. 1 Will. &. 
 Mary, c. 10. This statute declares hearth money "not 
 only a great oppression to the poorer sort, but a badge of 
 slavery upon the whole people, exposing every man's 
 house to be entered into and searched at pleasure by per- 
 sons unknown to him ; and therefore to erect a lasting 
 monument of their majesties' goodness in every house in 
 the kingdom, the duty of hearth money was taken away 
 and abolished." 
 
 But six years afterwards "the prospect of this monu- 
 ment of goodness was," to use Blackstone's words, " some- 
 what darkened," by the passing of an act (7 Will. III., c. 
 18) laying a duty on all inhabited houses except cottages, 
 and also on windows. These duties were afterwards con- 
 siderably increased : they were, however, materially modi- 
 fied within the last few years ; and neither the existing 
 window tax, nor the house tax previously to its repeal, 
 could be said to be oppressive. Indeed, out of 2,850.937 
 inhabited houses in Great Britain in 1831, only 44-2.4^. or 
 not a sixth part of the entire number, paid duty in 1^33. 
 All houses below £10 a year of rent were exempted from 
 the duty ; the rate of charge on those that were assessed 
 being Is. Od. per pound on houses worth from £10 to£20 a 
 year ; 2s. 3d. per pound on those worth from £20 to £40, 
 and 2$. 10c/. per pound on those worth £40 and upwards. 
 The assessed taxes do not extend to Ireland. The cost of 
 their collection amounted, in 1840, to £4 lis. lOd. per cent, 
 of the gross produce. 
 
 The house tax being assessed according to the rent, it 
 
 frequently happened that private houses, shops, and tav 
 
 ems in towns, were assessed in a larger sum than the 
 
 finest houses of the nobility and gentry in the country. 
 
 1222 
 
 There was not, however, any injustice in this ; for, In 
 point of fact, had any attempt been made to let till 
 they would rarely have found a tenant or brougl 
 rent. This apparent inequality afforded, however, a con- 
 venient topic for declamation, and for raising an outcry 
 against the tax, which was, in consequence, repealed in 
 1835. 
 
 With the exception of the duties on the postage of let- 
 ters, which have been noticed elsewhere (see Post-Of- 
 fice), the observations now made will probably suffice to 
 give the reader a general idea of the principles on which 
 taxes should be imposed, and of the leading characteristics 
 of the principal taxes now in force in this country. 
 
 Collection of Taxes. — Taxes in Great Britain are almost 
 wholly collected by government officers, paid l>\ salaries 
 The customs duties, the excise duties, and the duties on 
 stamps, with the assessed taxes, are each under the man- 
 agement of a particular department, having at its head a 
 board of commissioners, with various classes of inferior of- 
 ficers. The post-office revenue is managed by a post-mas- 
 ter-general and a principal secretary. The heads of the 
 different revenue departments correspond with and receive 
 their instructions from the treasury, to which is committed 
 the charge of supervising, controlling, and regulating all 
 matters connected with the assessment and collection of 
 taxes. The number of commissioners in the different rev- 
 enue boards was formerly much greater than at present ; 
 and it is contended by some very high authorities that 
 their number might still be advantageously reduced, and 
 that the whole responsibility should rest with the head of 
 each department. Various reforms and retrenchments 
 have been also introduced into the subordinate depart- 
 ments, and not a few abuses have been rectified in the as- 
 sessment and collection of most duties. Perhaps the only 
 very material reforms that need now be looked for in this 
 department, must arise rather from changes and modifica- 
 tions of duties than from any changes in the way in which 
 they are charged and collected. The reduction of the 
 present exorbitant duties on brandy, geneva, and tobacco, 
 by taking away an overwhelming temptation to their clan- 
 destine importation, would enable a large saving to be ef- 
 fected in the customs departments, at the same time that it 
 would be productive of various other beneficial consequen- 
 ces. In the excise there remains little to be amended ; and 
 were the glass duties repealed, and the regulations as to 
 some of the other duties simplified, the system would have 
 received all the perfection of which it seems capable. 
 
 Those who wish for farther information on the subjects 
 treated of in this article may consult the article on Taxa- 
 tion in the new edition of the Encyclopa-dia Britannica, 
 Ricardo's Principles of Political Economy ; M'Culloch's 
 edition of the Wealth of Nations, &c.
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 Accocxt of the Public Income of the United Kingdom : specifying its different Sources, and the Amount derived from 
 
 each, during 1838, 1839, and 1840. 
 
 INCOME. 
 
 183S. 
 
 1839. 
 
 1840. 
 
 CUSTOMS AND EXCISE. 
 
 £ 
 
 £ 
 
 27,851, 
 
 92 
 
 £ 
 
 1.341,321 
 1,273.630 
 
 5.442.478 
 4,845.949 
 
 2-0.079 
 1,849,710 
 4.827,019 
 3,658,800 
 
 779.115 
 3,495,687 
 
 27 
 
 £ 
 
 794,238 
 
 £ 
 1,290,581 
 1,155,613 
 
 5,201.6c* 
 
 4,983,602 
 
 341.440 
 
 1,791,646 
 
 4,6')0.017 
 
 3.472.-64 
 
 921,552 
 
 3,58S,I92 
 
 £ 
 
 27,397,171 
 
 10,730,237 
 
 
 
 Mall 
 
 4,932,030 
 
 302.906 
 1.846.057 
 
 
 Sugar and Molasses 
 
 4,893.684 
 3,362.035 
 
 
 3,561,812 
 
 Butter 
 
 251.665 
 113,907 
 3i>" 328 
 186.760 
 
 7.T..445 
 214/74 
 61,478 
 54 1. 7-5 
 
 B 10,813 
 
 163,669 
 
 7,632 
 
 418.335 
 1,572,618 
 
 2-5.1-6 
 1,023.202 
 
 241,266 
 1,595,366 
 
 213,073 
 105.219 
 323.882 
 
 1 ,098.773 
 559,679 
 262,304 
 62.-22 
 629.317 
 784.168 
 182,000 
 8,447 
 71S.348 
 463,426 
 
 1,603,194 
 298,404 
 
 1,023,635 
 228,251 
 
 1,546,716 
 
 257,577 
 1 17,679 
 339,5-0 
 
 1,156,640 
 785,491 
 240,628 
 50,504 
 683.982 
 80-.201 
 1 ^6.2-3 
 6/27 
 735.553 
 623 384 
 
 1,730.551 
 316.246 
 
 1,064,115 
 216.636 
 
 1,617,064 
 
 
 
 
 
 Soap 
 
 
 
 Auctions 
 
 Miscellaneous of Customs and Excise .... 
 
 STAMPS. 
 Insurance < p- 
 
 251.856 
 891,704 
 
 734,109 
 
 341. ''-4 
 
 
 1,699.233 
 2,017,686 
 
 292.978 
 923.005 
 7-1. i 1< 
 363.420 
 497.216 
 173.047 
 469,001 
 
 
 1.710.5.33 
 2.09-.073 
 299.398 
 ! 44.321 
 773,114 
 376.006 
 438.047 
 175.070 
 473.2,6 
 
 37,115,5 
 
 61 
 
 37 
 
 911,506 
 
 33,127,408 
 
 7,2S7,S23 
 
 4.152.257 
 
 1,342,604 
 
 4-2,429 
 
 300,9o6 
 
 
 173,-25 
 
 46-.7S4 
 
 ASSESSED AND LAND TAXES. 
 
 
 
 1.174,100 
 1598,622 
 
 201.4-2 
 3>4,2-6 
 447,467 
 159,852 
 266,380 
 
 3,932,689 
 
 2,390,764 
 
 357.815 
 
 245,310 
 
 1.181.283 
 
 1,404,642 
 216.523 
 410.1711 
 4-1.419 
 170.951 
 230,919 
 
 
 1,262,561 
 201,018 
 377,477 
 442,757 
 156.200 
 278,242 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2.346.275 
 3- 642 
 312,575 
 
 
 
 
 
 Other Ordinary Revenues, and other Resources 
 
 
 
 51.275.973 
 441.819 
 
 
 52,058,349 
 1,381,933 
 
 
 51.693,510 
 1,750.543 
 
 Excess of Expenditure over Income . 
 
 
 51,720.747 1 
 
 53.440,287 
 
 
 53,444,053 
 
 1:223
 
 TAXATION. 
 
 TAXUS. 
 
 Account of the Expenditure of the United Kingdom during 1838, 1839, and 1840; specifying the different Items, and 
 
 the Amount of each. 
 
 EXPENDITURE. 
 
 REVENUE.— Charges of Collection. 
 Civil IXp.rtii.cals. ^rcnT | | ; ". 
 
 Preventive Service, Land Guard, Revenue Police Cruizers, 
 aud Harbour Vessels 
 
 Stamps 
 
 Assessed Taxes 
 
 Olher ordinary Revenues . 
 Superannuation and other Allowances 
 
 £ 
 
 636,847 
 851,494 
 
 Total Revenue 
 
 PUBLIC DEBT. 
 
 Interest of Permanent Debt . 
 Terminable Auuuities . . . . 
 Managenieot 
 
 Interest on Exchequer Bills 
 
 Total Debt 
 
 CIVIL GOVERNMENT.— Ctofl List-Privy Purse, 
 Salaries of the Household. Tradesmen's Bills 
 The Allowances to the several Branches of the Royal Fam- 
 ily, and to his Royal Highness Leopold, Prince of Co- 
 bourg (now King of the Belgians.* . . . . 
 
 TL. l,r lln-ulcnant of Ireland's Establishment 
 The Salaries and Expenses of the Houses of Parliament, 
 
 including Printing 
 
 Civil Departments, including Superannuation Allowances . 
 
 OUll r Annuities, Pensions, and Superannuation Allowances 
 
 on the Consolidated Fund and on the Gross Revenue 
 
 Pensions, Civil List 
 
 Total Civil Government 
 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 Courts of Justice 
 
 Police and Crimiaal Prosecutions 
 
 Correction 
 
 Total Justice 
 
 DIPLOMATIC. 
 Foreign Ministers' Salaries and Pensions . 
 Consuls" Salaries and Superannuation Allowances 
 Disbursements, Outfit, &c 
 
 Total Diplomatic 
 FORCES. 
 
 Army. 
 
 Navy. 
 
 Effective 
 Non-effective 
 
 Effective 
 Non-effective 
 
 Effective 
 
 t Non-effective 
 
 \ Number of Men . 
 \ Charge 
 
 \ Number of Men 
 t Charge 
 
 Total Army 
 
 > Number of Men . 
 j Charge . . 
 
 > Number of Men . 
 [ Charge 
 
 Total Navy 
 
 ( Number of Men . 
 
 > Charge 
 
 i Number of Men . 
 I Charge . . 
 
 Total Ordnance 
 Total Forces . 
 
 Army and Ordnance, Insurrection in Canada 
 
 Chin. Expedition 
 
 Bounties. &c, for promoting Fisheries 
 Public Works 
 
 24.212.5-0 
 
 4,183,966 
 
 133,566 
 
 371,800 
 
 308.000 
 33,869 
 
 142.195 
 458,255 
 
 552, 1S1 
 562.191 
 417,966 
 
 182,028 
 
 14*,6»6 
 62 198 
 
 (82,746) 
 4,263.541 
 
 (90,911) 
 2,552,101) 
 
 6,815,641 
 
 (30.399) 
 3.046,867 
 
 (24.530) 
 1,473,561 
 
 4.520,428 
 
 (9,012) 
 
 1,219,633 
 
 (6223 
 
 166,053 
 
 Post-office : Charges of Collection, and other Payments 
 Quarantine and Warehousing Establishment! 
 Miscellaneous Services not classed under the foregoing beads 
 
 Memorandum : 
 The amount of Terminable Annuities on the 5th of January was 
 In corresponding Perpetuities, as estimated by Mr. Finlaison 
 
 1,488,341 
 570,129 
 
 2,058,470 
 154,213 
 209,203 
 62,213 
 374,401 
 
 2,843,500 
 
 29,251,040 
 
 1,532,338 
 
 392,832 
 
 12,720,750 
 500,000 
 
 144.731 
 676,836 
 
 134.534 
 1,533.550 
 
 51,720,747 
 
 4.2°2.I73 
 1,830,654 
 
 £ 
 
 638,824 
 856.424 
 
 24. 183,^65 
 
 4.27I.4-.S 
 
 133,866 
 
 2.-\5S9.1^9 
 
 v.n.Tol 
 
 371,800 
 
 525.501 
 510.201 
 403,274 
 
 186.934 
 115.929 
 48,100 
 
 (SS.4SI) 
 3,952.881 
 
 (S9,3--3) 
 2,689,781 
 
 6,542 662 
 
 (34.137) 
 3.993,225 
 
 (23,732) 
 1,496,979 
 
 6.490.204 
 
 (9.235i 
 
 1,790.464 
 
 (614) 
 
 160,746 
 
 1,961,210 
 
 1,494,248 
 567,636 
 
 2,061 : 
 15.1,709 
 169,678 
 64,223 
 369,101 
 
 2,823,41 
 
 29,445,890 
 
 1,634,683 
 
 1,438,976 
 
 13,984,076 
 
 647,000 
 
 14.5".3 
 321,702 
 
 146.466 
 746, '•79 
 1 1K.S94 
 
 1,767,010 
 
 53.440.2S7 
 
 4.299,720 
 1,771,430 
 
 £ 
 623,733 
 
 M0.710 
 
 24.352.269 
 
 4,244.444 
 
 134.241 
 
 371,800 
 
 122.410 
 
 518,940 
 
 349.397 
 2,743 
 
 534,945 
 577,363 
 286,295 
 
 19S.765 
 124,782 
 51,998 
 
 (91.901) 
 4.100.5115 
 
 (88,0061 
 2.4<9,672 
 
 fc.S90,2C7 
 
 '36.501) 
 4,152.666 
 
 122,958) 
 1,444,845 
 
 5,697,511 
 
 . > 395] 
 
 1,474.5:7 
 
 (614) 
 
 157,003 
 
 * No part of this income is at present paid for the use of King Leopold. The trustees, after discharging certain annuities and pensions to the servants 
 and establishment of the late Princess Charlotte, repay the balance of the annuity to the Exchequer : the sum so repaid in the last year was 34,000/. 
 
 TA'XICORNS, Tnrimnir*. (T.at. taxus, a yew tree; 
 
 cornu, 11 horn.) The name of a family of Coleopterous in 
 
 lading those In which, the antenna- gradually- an:: 
 
 mint in size as they extend from the head, or terminate in 
 
 an enlargement 
 
 TAXIDERMY. (C,r. T'tlic, arrnnrrrmrnt, and rVflpvi, 
 
 The an nf arranging and preserving the skins of 
 animals. The 1 popular treatise on taxidermy is Mr. 
 
 Swuintson's volume in Lardncr's Cyclopedia. 
 1224 * 
 
 T.vxis. In Burgery, the replacement of pans which 
 have quitted their natural situation bj the band, and with- 
 out Instrumenl or operation ; aa in reducing hernia or rup- 
 ture. 
 
 TaXIB. In Arrhiterture, the fitness of the parts to the 
 end for which a building is erected, 
 
 TA'XUB 'l. at. . in the botanical name of the yew tne, 
 celebrated for the hardness and elasticity of Its wood, its 
 berries are harmless ; hut its leaves are poisonous, porta-
 
 TAYLOR'S THEOREM. 
 
 kin? of the property of foxglove. It is the most simple form 
 of the Coniferous alliance, and is usually taken as the best 
 illustration of the gvmnospermous structure among Exo- 
 gens, because its female flower is quite solitary, and readily 
 examined. What travellers in New Zealand call yews ap- 
 pear to be species of Dacrydium. 
 
 TAYLOR'S THEOREM. In Mathematics, a very gen- 
 eral and remarkable formula of most extensive application 
 in analysis, discovered by Dr. Brook Taylor, and given in 
 his Meihodus Incrementorum, published in 1715. The for- 
 mula is this: Let u be anv function whatever of a variable 
 x, and let u be what u becomes when x receives an incre- 
 ment = h ; then 
 
 du h d 2 u h 1 . d*u h 3 , 
 
 u = u+ di ; I +d7* ' m+i* ' r^3 + - &c - 
 
 Demonstrations of this important theorem are given in 
 every treatise on the differential calculus; and it is made 
 by Lagrange the foundation of the calculus itself. (See 
 Lagrange, Theorie des Fonctions .InaJytique.) 
 
 TEA. The dried leaves of the tea tree, of which there 
 are two varieties. 1. The Thea nigra; black or bohea tea. 
 2. Thea viridis ; green tea. The boheas include souchong, 
 pekoe, and congou ; and the greens are hyson, singlo, and 
 imperial or bloom tea. The leaves are collected and dried 
 on iron plates by a~ gentle heat. Tea taken in moderation, 
 especially as we use the infusion, with sugar and milk, is 
 strengthening and invigorating ; it also appears to possess 
 certain stimulating and narcotic properties, of which some 
 individuals are peculiarly susceptible, and which renders it 
 improper in hypochondriacal and hysterical patients. \\ e 
 know little of the chemical properties of the varieties of 
 tea ; but the following table shows that, in regard to its 
 more obvious constituents, the different varieties are not 
 widely dissimilar. The column showing the weight of the 
 precipitate by jelly may be taken as indicating the relative 
 proportion of the astringent matter. 
 
 
 Soluble 
 
 Soluble 
 
 Precipi- 
 
 I 
 
 100 parts of Tea. 
 
 in 
 
 in alco- 
 
 tate with 
 
 residue. 
 
 
 water. 
 
 hol. 
 
 j'l'y. 
 
 
 Green : hyson, 14j. per lb. . 
 
 41 
 
 44 
 
 31 
 
 56 
 
 12.. " 
 
 34 
 
 43 
 
 29 
 
 57 
 
 10j. " 
 
 36 
 
 43 
 
 26 
 
 57 
 
 " 8«. " 
 
 36 
 
 42 
 
 25 
 
 53 
 
 7j. " 
 
 31 
 
 41 
 
 24 
 
 59 
 
 Black : souchong, 12». " 
 
 35 
 
 36 
 
 28 
 
 64 
 
 " 10*. " 
 
 34 
 
 37 
 
 23 
 
 63 
 
 8». " 
 
 37 
 
 35 
 
 28 
 
 63 
 
 
 36 
 
 35 
 
 24 
 
 64 
 
 " et'. " 
 
 35 
 
 31 
 
 23 
 
 65 
 
 Of the above precipitate by jelly, about 40 per cent, may 
 be regarded as tannin ; and the difference between the 
 second and the first column shows the quantity of resin 
 contained in the above teas : the resin has an agreeable 
 flavour of the tea. Water distilled off tea has an agreeable 
 flavour, and is said to be narcotic : it contains a trace of 
 volatile oil. Oudry's statement of the existence of a pecu- 
 liar principle in tea (thein) requires confirmation. 
 
 The late rise and present magnitude of the British tea 
 trade are among the most extraordinary phenomena in the 
 history of commerce. Tea was wholly unknown to the 
 Greeks and Romans, and even to our ancestors, previously 
 to the end of the 16th or the beginning of the 17th century. 
 It seems to have been originally imported in small quanti- 
 ties by the Dutch, but was hardly known in this country 
 till after 1650. In 1660, however, it began to be used in 
 coffee-houses; for, in an act passed in that year, a duty of 
 8d. is laid on every gallon of " coffee, chocolate, sherbet, 
 and tea," made and sold. But it is abundantly evident that 
 it was then only beginning to be introduced. The follow- 
 ing entry appears in the Diary of Mr. Pepys, secretary to the 
 Admiralty : " September 26, 1661. I sent for a cup of tea 
 (a China drink), of which I had never drunk before." In 
 1664, the East India Company bought 2 lbs. 2 oz. of tea as 
 a present for his Majesty. In 1667 they issued the first or- 
 der to import tea, directed to their agent at Bantam, to the 
 effect that he should send home 100 lbs. of the best tea he 
 could get! (See the references in jMilburne's Orient. Com., 
 vol. ii.. p. 530; Macpher son's Hist, of Com. with India, p. 
 130-132.) Since then the consumption seems to have gone 
 on regularly, though slowly, increasing. In 1689, instead 
 of charging a duty on the decoction made from the leaves, 
 an excise duty of 5s. per lb. was laid on the tea itself. 
 
 The great increase that took place in the consumption of 
 duty paid on tea in 17?4 and 1785, over its consumption in 
 the preceding years, is to be ascribed to the reduction that 
 was then effected in the duties. In the nine years prece- 
 ding 1780, above 180,000.000 lbs. of tea were exported from 
 China to Europe in ships belonging to the Continent, and 
 about 50.000,000 lbs. in ships belonging to England. But, 
 from the best information attainable, it appears that the real 
 consumption was almost exactly the reverse of the quanti- 
 104 
 
 TEAK WOOD. 
 
 ties imported ; and that, while the consumption of the Brit- 
 ish dominions amounted to above 13,000,000 lbs., the con- 
 sumption of the Continent did not exceed 5,500,000 lbs. If 
 this statement be nearly correct, it follows that an annual 
 supply of above 8,000,000 lbs. was clandestinely imported. 
 It was well known, indeed, that smuggling was carried on 
 to an enormous extent ; and, after every other means of 
 checking it had been tried to no purpose, Mr. Pitt proposed, 
 in 1784, to reduce the duties from 119 to 12A per cent. This 
 measure was signally successful. Smuggling and the prac- 
 tice of adulteration were immediately put an end to, and 
 the legal imports of tea were about trebled. In 1795, how- 
 ever, the duty was raised to 25 per cent. ; and after succes- 
 sive augmentations in 1797, 1800, and 1803, it was raised, 
 in 1806, to 96 per cent, ad valorem, at which it continued 
 till 1819, when it was raised to 100 per cent, on all teas that 
 brought above 2s. per lb. at the Company's sales. 
 
 Down to the 22d of April. 1834, the duty on tea was an 
 ad valorem one, being 96 per cent, on all teas sold under 2.*. 
 a pound, and 100 per cent, on all that were sold at or above 
 2s. Seeing that tea may now be considered almost as a 
 necessary of life, this was certainly a high duty ; though, 
 as a large amount of revenue must he raised, we do not 
 know that it could be fairly objected to on that ground. 
 But under the monopoly system the duty was, in fact, about 
 200 per cent, ad valorem! For, the price of the tea sold by 
 the Company being forced up to nearly double what it 
 would have been had the trade been free, it followed, inas- 
 much as the duty varied directly as the price, that it also 
 was doubled when the latter was doubled. The price of 
 congou at Hamburgh, for example, varies from Is. 2d. to Is. 
 Ad. per lb. ; and had the Company supplied our markets 
 with congou at the same rate, it would have cost us, duty 
 included.'from 2s. 2d. to 2s. Sd. per lb. But instead of this, 
 the congou sold by the Company has been, at an average, a 
 good deal above 2s. per lb. ; and the duty being as much, it 
 has invariably cost us from 4s. to 5s. per lb. Hence, 
 though the duty was only 100 per cent, on the Company's 
 price, it was really above 200 per cent, on the price of tea 
 m an open market ! The mischief of the monopoly was 
 thus aggravated almost beyond endurance, inasmuch as 
 every addition made by it to the cost of the article made an 
 equal addition to the duty on it. 
 
 But this system is now happily at an end. The ad valo- 
 rem duties "ceased on the 22d of April, 1834 ; and all tea 
 imported into the Cnited Kingdom for home consumption 
 is now charged with a customs duty as follows: 
 
 Bohea ls.Gd. per lb. 
 
 Congou, twankay, hyson skin, orange 
 pekoe, and campoi .... 2s. 2<Z. " 
 
 Souchong, flowery pekoe, hyson, young 
 hyson, gunpowder, imperial, and other 
 teas not enumerated .... 3s. Od. " 
 
 We subjoin an account of the quantities of tea entered 
 for home consumption in the United Kingdom in 1840 and 
 1841, with the gross amount of duty received on the same : 
 
 Quantities. Revenue. 
 
 lit. L. 
 
 1840 . 32.262,892 
 
 1841 . 36,396,078 
 
 TEAK W T OOD, or INDIAN OAK. 
 
 Tectona grandis, a large forest tree, that grows in dry and 
 elevated districts in the south of India, the Burman empire, 
 Pegu, Ava, Siam, Java, &c. Teak timber is by far the best 
 in the East ; it works easily, and, though porous, is strong 
 and durable ; it is easily seasoned, and shrinks very little ; 
 it is of an oily nature, and therefore does not injure iron. 
 Mr. Crawfurd' says that, in comparing teak and oak to- 
 gether, the useful qualities of the former will be found to 
 preponderate. " It is equally strong, and somewhat more 
 buovant. Its durability is more uniform and decided ; and 
 to ensure that durability it demands less care and prepara- 
 tion ; for it may be put "in use almost green from the forest, 
 without danger of dry or wet rot. It is fit to endure all 
 climates and alternations of climate." (See TredgoWs 
 Principles of Carpentry, p. 206 ; Crawfurd's East. Archip., 
 vol. i., p. 451.) 
 
 The teak of Malabar, produced on the high table land of 
 the south of India, is deemed the best of any. It is the 
 closest in its fibre, and contains the largest quantity of oil, 
 being at once the heaviest and the most durable. This 
 species of teak is used for the keel, timbers, and such parts 
 of a ship as are under water: owing to its great weight, it 
 is less suitable for the upper works, and is not at all fit for 
 spars. The teak of Java ranks next to that of Malabar, 
 and is especially suitable for planking. The Rangoon or 
 Burman teak, and that of Siam, is not so close-grained or 
 durable as the others ; it is, however, the most buoyant, 
 and is therefore best fitted for masts and spars. Malabar 
 teak is extensively used in the building yards of Bombay. 
 Ships built wholly of it are almost wholly indestructible by 
 r 4G* 1225 
 
 3.473.964 
 3,978,198 
 
 The produce of the
 
 TEANY. 
 
 ordinary wear and tear ; and instances are not rare of their 
 having lasted from 80 to 100 \ cars ; the; arc said to sail In- 
 differently ; but this is probably owing as much to some 
 defect in their construction as to the weight of the timber. 
 Calcutta ships arc never wholly built of teak ; the timbers 
 and framework arc always of native wood, and the 
 planking and deck only of teak. The teak of Burma, 
 being conveyed with comparatively little difficulty to the 
 ports of Rangoon and Martaban, is the cheapest and most 
 abundant of any. It is largely exported to Calcutta and 
 Madias. 
 
 A species of timber called African teak is pretty largely 
 imported into England, from the weal coast of Africa. But, 
 in point of fact, it is not teak, and it is destitute of several 
 of its most valuable properties. It is, however, for some 
 purposes, a useful species of timber. 
 
 TEANY, TAWNY, or BRUSK. In Heraldry, a colour 
 Compounded of red and yellow, employed in blazonry, 
 but rarely met With in English coats of arms, and reckoned 
 one of the dishonourable colours. In engraving, it is rep- 
 resented by diagonal and horizontal lines crossing each 
 other. 
 
 TEARS. The fluid which lubricates the cornea of the 
 eye, when secreted in excess, forms tears ; they are limpid, 
 saline, perfectly miscible with water, and have a slight 
 alkaline reagency, owning to the presence of free soda : their 
 principal saline contents are common salt and a trace of 
 phosphate of soda, and they contain traces of albumen; but 
 the whole solid matter scarcely amounts to 1 per cent. 
 When the lachrymal duct by which the tears are conveyed 
 into the nostrils is obliterated, and they flow over the angle 
 of the eye, they become concentrated by evaporation, and 
 leave an irritating muco-saline crust. The exact nature. 
 however, of the animal matter contained in the tears has 
 not been determined. 
 
 TECIINO'LOGY. (Gr. Ttxvn, art, and \oyog, a dis- 
 course.) A term invented to express a treatise on art or 
 the arts. 
 
 TECTIBRA'NCHIATES. (Lat. tego, / cover, and 
 branchia, gills.) A name given by Cuvier to an order of 
 Hermaphrodite Gastropods, comprehending those species in 
 which the gills are covered by a process of the mantle, con- 
 taining a shell, or enveloped in a reflected margin of the 
 foot: for this name that of Monopleurobranckiata has been 
 substituted by M. De Blainville. 
 
 TECTCRIUM OPUS. (Lat. tector, a plasterer.) In 
 Architecture, the plasterers' work used on ceilings and 
 interior walls: it was a composition of lime and sand, and 
 differed from stucco, which was called albarium opus. 
 Great pains were taken to prevent its cracking, by crossing 
 layers of reed upon it touted with argillaceous earth pre- 
 vious m coating it with paint. 
 
 TECTBJ CES, Coverts. (Lat. tego, Icovcr.) The name 
 of the feathers which cover the quill feathers and other 
 parts of the wing. See Coverts. 
 
 TE DEL'M. (From the first words of the original Latin, 
 "Te Deum laudamus;" We praise tine, O God.) The 
 authorship of this sublime hymn has been ascribed by some 
 to Ambrose and Augustine; by others to Ambrose alone, 
 to Hilary, and other less distinguished persons. It is, how- 
 ever, generally thought to have been composed in the 
 Galiican church : the most ancient mention of it being in 
 the rule of Cssarius, bishop of Aries in the fifth century. 
 The Te Memo, in the office of matins, is always sung after 
 the reading of scripture; in the English morning service, 
 between the two lessons. (Palmer, Origines Liturgiar, 
 ch. i., part 1, sec. 2.) 
 
 TEETH. See Dentes. 
 
 TEETH OF WHEELS, .are generally the means by 
 which the [power of the first mover is conveyed to the 
 working point of a machine ; anil it is obviously of great 
 
 importance that they should be of such a form that as little 
 as possible of the original power may be lost In transmission, 
 and that the impulse should be conveyed through the train 
 of wheels with a uniform force. 
 
 In the formation of the teeth of wheels, the object aimed 
 
 at is to give them such a curvature that the angular vclo- 
 
 the two pieces working together shall maintain 
 
 the same constant ratio in all positions of contact. In order 
 
 i' . presi rve the i onstancy of the angular velocitj ratio, u is 
 
 only necessary that the acting faces of the teeth shall have 
 such a form that the normal common to the two surfaces 
 in contact shall always divide the line of centres (that is, 
 the line joining the centres of the wheel and pinion) in a 
 fixed point. Now, the teeth of one wheel being assumed 
 to have any form whatever, ii is always geometrically po 
 
 sible to assign the form Of those Of another so that they 
 
 shall t'ul til this condition, and. consequi nth . work together 
 
 correctly; hut the forms which are found to answer in 
 
 practice are limited to a comparatively small Dumber. We 
 
 subjoin the following cases from Brewster's edition of Fcr 
 guaun's Mechanics : 
 1226 
 
 TEINOSCOPE. 
 
 Case 1— If the acting faces of the teeth of a wheel arc 
 epicycloids whose generating circle has the same r;u I i n- as 
 the primitive radius of the pinion, and whose base has the 
 same radius as the primitive radius of the wheel ; and if 
 Ihuse teeth drive the pinion by acting upon infinitely small 
 pins in its circumference, the motion of the wheel and 
 pinion will be uniform. 
 
 Case 2.— If the acting faces of the teeth of a wheel are 
 epicycloids whose generating circle is of any magnitude 
 whatever, and whose base is the convex circumference of 
 the wheel ; and if the acting faces of the leaves of the 
 pinion are epicycloids described by the same generating 
 circle, and wiiose base is the concave circumference of the 
 pinion — the motion of the wheel and pinion will be uni- 
 form. 
 
 ( !ase 3.— If the acting faces of the teeth of a wheel are 
 epicycloids whose generating circle has a radius equal to 
 half the radius of the pinion, and a base of the same 
 radius as the wheel ; and if the acting faces of the leaves 
 of the pinion are straight lines directed to the centre of the 
 pinion, the motion of the wheel and pinion will be uni- 
 form. 
 
 Case 4. — If the teeth of a rack drive a pinion ; then, 
 when the acting faces of the teeth of the rack are cycloids 
 whose generating circle has the same radius as the pinion, 
 and when their teeth drive the pinion by acting upon infi- 
 nitely small pins placed in its circumference, the motion of 
 both will be uniform. 
 
 Case 5. — If the acting faces of the teeth of the rack are 
 cycloids whose generating circle has a radius equal to half 
 the radius of the wheel ; and if they drive the wheel by 
 acting upon rectilinear teeth which are a continuation of 
 the radii, the motion of both will be uniform. 
 
 Case Ii. — When the teeth of a wheel driving a rack have 
 their acting faces formed of the involutes of a circle having 
 the same radius as the pinion, and drive the rack by acting 
 upon infinitely small pins fixed in its rectilinear edge, the 
 motion will be uniform. 
 
 For detailed information connected with this subject, the 
 reader may be referred to the following works: Camus, On 
 the Teeth of Wheels; Buchanan's Treatise on Mill Work, 
 by Rennie; Airy, On the Teeth of Wheels (Cambridge Phil. 
 Trans., vol. ii.) ; and particularly to Willis's Principles of 
 Mechanism, 1841. .Vc Wheel. 
 
 TEGME'NTA. (Lat. tego, / cover.) In Botany, the 
 scales covering the leaf-buds of the deciduous trees of cold 
 climates. 
 
 TE'GTJ MENT, or TEC.MEX. In Anatomy, the general 
 covering of the body. In Entomology, the term is applied 
 to the coverings of the wings of the order Orthoptera, or 
 straight-winged insects. 
 
 TEINDS. In Scottish Law, tithes. By the course of 
 various usurpations, the whole teinds of Scotland had 
 become Tested after the Reformation in the crown; or in 
 private individuals, termed titulars, to whom they had 
 been granted by the crown, or to the feuars or renters from 
 the church. By a succession of decrees and enactments 
 these tithes were generally rendered redeemable at a fixed 
 valuation ; and the clergy are provided for by stipends, paid 
 by the commissioners of tithes (when these are vested in 
 the crown) or by the titular. The minister can seek the 
 increase of these stipends by process of augmentation and 
 modification ; and, if augmented, every heritor becomes 
 liable ill proportion to the amount of his teinds. 
 
 TEI'ISOSCOPE. The name given by Sir David Brew ster 
 to an instrument otherwise called the prism telescope, 
 formed by combining prisms in a particular manner, so that 
 the chromatic aberration of the light is corrected, and the 
 linear dimensions of objects seen through them increased 
 or diminished. 
 
 "If we take a prism, and hold its refracting edge down- 
 wards and horizontal, so as to see through it one of the 
 panes of glass in a window, there will be found a position, 
 viz. that in which the rays enter the prism and emerge 
 from it at equal angles, when the square pane of glass is of 
 the natural size. If we turn the refracting edge towards 
 the window, the pane will he extended or in gnified in its 
 length or vertical direction, while its breadth remains the 
 same. If we now take the prism, and bold its refracting 
 
 edge ■. erticaih . we shall find, by the same process, that the 
 
 pane of glass is extended or magnified in breadth. If two 
 
 such prisms, therefore, are combined in these positions, so 
 as to magnify the same both in length and breadth, we 
 have a telescope composed, of two prisms ; but unfortunately 
 
 lb. objects aie all highly fringed by the prismatic colours. 
 
 We maj correct the e colours in three ways: 1st, We may 
 make trie prisms of a kind of glass which obstructs all the 
 raj s but those of .me homogeneous colour : or we urn IIM 
 a piece of the same ijla^s to absorb the othei rays When 
 
 tWO conn i L'la-s prisms are used. Sid, We in;n use 
 
 achromatic prisms in place of common prisms, fir. 3d, 
 what is best of all for common purposes, we ma> place
 
 TELAMONES. 
 
 ©Over t\Vo prisms exactly similar in reverse positions." 
 (Brewster's Optics, Cabinet Cyc. p. 303.) 
 
 Professor Atnici, of Modena, has recently constructed a 
 combination of prisms of the same glass, in which the 
 chromatic aberration is corrected, and a power of about 
 three times obtained. The plan is well suited for opera 
 glasses. Amici's teinoscope consists of four rectangular 
 prisms, having their refractive angles different, and con- 
 nected by pairs; the two pairs being similar, those next the 
 eye or the first pair are vertical, and the second pair hori- 
 zontal, so that equal refraction is produced in every direc- 
 tion. The distance between each pair is about an inch 
 and a half. (Library of Useful Knowledge, " Optical 
 Instruments," p. 55.) Sir D. Brewster (Optics, p. 364,) 
 states that this instrument had been made by Dr. Blair as 
 well as by himself, before it was proposed or executed by 
 Amici. 
 
 TELAMO'NES. (Gr. j-Aaw, / bear up.) In Architecture, 
 figures of men used tor supporting entablatures, similar to 
 Caryatides: see that word. 
 
 TE'LEGRAPH. (Gr. ri/\rj, afar off, and ypacpii), I write.) 
 The name given to a mechanical contrivance for the rapid 
 communication of intelligence by signals. Of late years, 
 the term semaphore (Gr. ati/ia, sign; <ptp<i>, I bear) has 
 been introduced by the French, and frequently adopted by 
 English writers. 
 
 Although the art of conveying intelligence by signals was 
 practised in the earliest ages, and is known even to the 
 rudest savages ; and although its importance is not only 
 obvious, but continually felt wherever government is es- 
 tablished, it has been allowed to remain in its original state 
 of imperfection down almost to our times. The first descrip- 
 tion of a telegraph universally applicable was given by Dr. 
 Hooke, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1684. The 
 method which he proposed, for it was not carried into 
 practice, consisted in preparing as many differently shaped 
 figures, formed of deal — for example, squares, triangles, 
 circles, &c, as there are letters in the alphabet, and exhibit- 
 ing them successively, in the required order, from behind a 
 screen ; and he proposed that torches or other lisrhts, com- 
 bined in different arrangements, should supply their place 
 by night. About twenty years later, Amontons exhibited 
 some experiments before the royal family of France, and 
 the members of the Academy of Sciences, by which the 
 practicability of the art was demonstrated. But although 
 both the proposal of Hooke and the experiments of Amon- 
 tons were made public, telegraphic communication was not 
 applied to any useful purpose until 1794, when the plan 
 was adopted for conveying intelligence to the French 
 armies. The first telegraph actually used was the inven- 
 tion of Cbappe. It consisted of a beam which turned on a 
 pivot in the top of an upright post, having a moveable arm 
 at each of its extremities ; and each different position in 
 which the beam and its two arms could be placed at angles 
 of 45° afforded a separate signal, which might represent a 
 letter of the alphabet, or have any other signification that 
 might be agreed upon. In the following year, 1795, several 
 plans were submitted to the English admiralty ; of which 
 one, proposed by Lord George Murray, was adopted, and 
 continued to be made use of down to the year 1816. It 
 consisted of six shutters, arranged in two frames, which 
 being opened and shut according to all the different combi- 
 nations which can be formed, attorned the means of giving 
 sixty-three separate and distinct signals. 
 In 1803, the French erected semaphores 
 along their whole line of coast, formed 
 of an upright post, carrying two, or 
 sometimes three beams of wood, each 
 turning on its own pivot, one above the 
 other. In 1807, Captain (now General) 
 Pasley, of the Royal Engineers, pub- 
 lished his Polygrammatic Telegraph, 
 differing from the French semaphores 
 by having beams turning on the same 
 pivot ; and, in order to obtain a sufficient 
 number of different signals, he proposed 
 to erect two or three posts at each station. 
 In 1816, Sir Home Popham considerably 
 simplified this construction. His telegraph, which was 
 adopted in that year by the Admiralty instead of the shut- 
 ter telegraph, and has continued in use ever since, consists 
 of merely two arms, moveable on different pivots on the 
 same mast, as represented in the annexed figure (1). It is 
 capable of giving forty-eight independent signals. Lastly, 
 jn 1822, General Pasley still farther simplified the con- 
 struction, by placing the two arms on the same axis. As 
 this form of the instrument appears to be the most perfect 
 at present in use, we shall give a few details respecting its 
 construction, and the mode of using it. 
 
 For day signals, the telegraph consists of an upright post 
 of sufficient height, with two arms moveable on the same 
 pivot on the top of it, and a short arm, called the indicator, 
 
 TELEGRAPH. 
 
 Each arm can 
 
 (2.) 
 4 
 
 /> 6 
 
 2 c::.---.- 
 
 on one side ; as in the annexed figure (2). 
 
 exhibit the seven positions, 1, 2, 3 4, 5, 
 
 6, 7, besides the position called the stop, 
 
 which points vertically downwards, and 
 
 is hid by the post. In order to show 
 
 the number of signals that may be made 
 
 with this machine, we may suppose 
 
 the arm nearest the indicator, reckoning 
 
 in the order of the numbers as shown in 
 
 the figure, to indicate tens, and the other 
 
 units ; then the signal represented in 
 
 the figure will be 17, which may be 
 
 taken to denote a letter of the alphabet. 
 
 If the arm on the left had the position 
 
 indicated by 3, and that on the light the 
 
 position indicated by 6, the signal would 
 
 be 36. Ir. this manner, the number of 
 
 separate and independent signals, with their signification, 
 
 will be as in the following table : 
 
 No. Of 
 
 Signifi- 
 
 No. ,i 
 
 Significa- 
 
 No. of 
 
 Significa- 
 
 Signal. 
 
 es! in. 
 
 Signal. 
 
 tion. 
 
 Signal 
 
 tion. 
 
 1 
 
 A 
 
 15 
 
 L 
 
 M> 
 
 V 
 
 2 
 
 B 
 
 16 
 
 M 
 
 37 
 
 W 
 
 3 
 
 C 
 
 17 
 
 N 
 
 45 
 
 X 
 
 4 
 
 D 
 
 23 
 
 
 
 46 
 
 Y 
 
 5 
 
 E 
 
 24 
 
 P 
 
 47 
 
 Z 
 
 6 
 
 F 
 
 25 
 
 Q 
 
 56 
 
 
 7 
 
 G 
 
 26 
 
 R 
 
 67 
 
 
 12 
 
 , H 
 
 27 
 
 S 
 
 67 
 
 
 13 
 
 I 
 
 34 
 
 T 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 K 
 
 35 
 
 U 
 
 
 
 There are thus, as already stated, 28 independent signals 
 which are more than sufficient for spelling any message 
 though not enough for indicating both the letters of the 
 alphabet, and also the numeral digits; and it maybe re- 
 marked that No. 4, is a bad signal, when used by itself, 
 because it appears in the telescope as a prolongation of the 
 post. Advantage may, however, be taken of the indicator, 
 if made moveable, to increase the number of combinations. 
 
 The use of the indicator is to show the order or direction 
 in which the signals are to be reckoned ; that is, whether 
 from right to left, or from left to right. This is indispensable 
 at sea, or wherever it is required to convey intelligence in 
 different directions at the same time. 
 
 In order to adapt the telegraph to the purpose of making 
 night signals, a lantern, called the central light, is fixed to 
 the pivot on which the arms move, and one is also attached 
 to the extremity of each arm. A fourth lantern, used as an 
 indicator, is fixed in tin; same horizontal line with the cen- 
 tral light, at a distance from it equal to twice the length of 
 one arm, and as nearly as may be in the plane in which 
 the lights revolve. 
 
 The arms and the indicator are made of wood, framed 
 and panelled for the sake of lightness. The arms are fixed 
 one on each side of the post, and counterpoised by weights, 
 or by light frames of iron-work, which at a little distance 
 are quite invisible. The precaution of counterpoising is 
 necessary, as the arms would not otherwise remain in any 
 :_'i\ en position unless held by the hand, or stopped by some 
 mechanical contrivance, which would be attended with 
 inconvenience. Motion is communicated to the arms by 
 means of an endless chain passing over two pulleys ; one 
 fixed to the arm itself, and turning on the same pivot ; and 
 the other on a pivot fixed to the lower part of the post, 
 within the reach of the signalman. The pulleys are of the 
 same size, and worked with groat care, so that the arms 
 can be set with the greatest exactness ; and the required 
 positions are pointed out by a dial-plate, the index of which 
 is moved by a lever attached to the lower pulley. 
 
 It is found from experience that the length of the arm 
 should be about one foot for each mile of distance, and the 
 width of the arm should be from one sixth to one eighth 
 of its length. The indicator should be of the same width, 
 but only about four fifths of the length of the arm. 
 
 Instead of employing the different telegraphic signals to 
 represent the letters of the alphabet, eich may have a sig- 
 nification entirely arbitrary, but settled by previous agree- 
 menl ; and thus a message may be communicated by a 
 single sign. When this plan is adopted, a much greater 
 number of signals is required ; but this is obtained by suc- 
 cessively exhibiting two or more of the different single signs. 
 Thus, supposing the telegraph capable of exhibiting 20 in- 
 dependent signs; then by two successive chaiges 400 sig- 
 nals may be made, and 8000 by three successive changes. 
 Every system of telegraphic signals according to this plan is 
 of necessity accompanied with a telegraphic dictionary, 
 containing the signification of the different ci mbinations of 
 si»ns Several works of this kind have been compiled. 
 One by Sir Home Pr.pham, at present used in the English 
 navy, contains about 13,000 words or sentences, which is 
 probably more than is necessary for any practical purpose, 
 though "there are others much more extensive. The Admi-
 
 TELEOLOGY. 
 
 ralty adheres to the safer, though somewhat less rapid 
 practice, of spelling all the sentences. 
 
 Iii tin- management of a fleet sit sea, telegraphic commit - 
 nication is indispensable. In the English navy, the signals 
 
 are generally made by flags ; though, from the difficulty of 
 making out their figures and colours in calm weather, or 
 when the Wind blows in the direction in which the signal 
 
 is to he communicated, the communication, it might be sup- 
 pus. d, would be made with greater certainty by means of 
 iphore. 
 attempts have been made at different times, par- 
 ticularly on the continent, to supersede the optical telegraph, 
 which is always useless In hazy weather, by applying the 
 electricity or galvanism to the rapid communica- 
 tion of intelligence. An apparatus for accomplishing this 
 purpose by means of galvanism has recently been contrived 
 by Professor Wheatstone, of King's College, London, which, 
 if experiments on a relatively small scale may be trusted to, 
 appears to be completely successful. It has been adopted 
 on some of the principal lines of railway in this country. 
 
 TELEO'LOGY. (Gr. reXoc, an end, and \oyos, a dis- 
 course.) The doctrine of final causes is so called. The 
 teleoiogical argument for the existence of a Deity is derived 
 from the marks of design apparent in the universe, which 
 not onlj imply an intelligent Creator, but demonstrate at 
 the same time his benevolence and other moral attributes. 
 When these are derived fyom material nature, the argu- 
 ment is styled the physico-theological. The reader will find 
 I's Bridgewater Treatise an explanation of Ba- 
 con's meaning in banishing filial causes from the domain of 
 phj sical siience. 
 
 TE'LEl >SAUE, Teleosaurus. (Gr. rtAtio;, perfect ; aavpos, 
 a lizard.) The name of a genus of fossil Saurian reptiles, 
 resembling the Oavials ; but having the vertebra; united 
 hv fiat surfaces, instead of ball-and-socket joints. 
 
 TE'LESCt >PE. (Gr. djXjj, distant ; oKOirsw, I look at.) 
 i instrument for \ iewing distant objects. 
 
 For several reasons a distant object is seen less distinctly 
 than a similar near one. The angle which an object sub- 
 tends diminishes as the distance increases; the density 
 of the Light which renders it visible also diminishes with 
 the distance, but in a much faster ratio; and a considerable 
 portion of light is always lost in its passage through the at- 
 mosphere. 
 
 It is found by experience that to be discernible at all in 
 ordinary daylight, a detached object must subtend at the 
 i not less than 30", and that the least angle 
 under which contiguous objects can be satisfactorily distin- 
 guished is about one minute. By the aid of a telescope a 
 I image of the object is obtained ; and within cer- 
 tain limits the object is not only apparently enlarged, but 
 rendered brighter than it appears to the unassisted eye. 
 
 The invention of the telescope, to which practical astro- 
 nomy i- indebted for its most important discoveries, has 
 been ascribed to various persons. Sir David Brewster 
 {Encyc. Brit., art. "Optics") says, "We have no doubt 
 that this invaluable instrument was invented by Roger Ba- 
 con or Baptista Porta, in the form of an experiment; though 
 
 it had not, perhaps, in their hands assumed the maturity of 
 unentmade for sale, and applied to useful purposes, 
 
 both terrestrial and eelesti.il. If a telescope is an bistro 
 mint by means of which things at a distance can be seen 
 better than by the naked eye, then Baptista Porta's concave 
 lens was a real telescope; but If we give the name to a 
 tube having a convex object glass at one end, and a convex 
 or concave lens at the other, placed at the distance of the 
 sum or difference of their focal lengths, then we have no 
 distinct evidence thai such an instrument was used before 
 rung of the 17th century." Descartes ascribes the 
 invention to .lames .Melius, a citizen of Alkmaer in Hol- 
 land ; Iluygens to John Lippersey, or Zacharias Jansen; 
 Borellus also to Jansen. Professor Moll, who has 
 tlie^e ii\al claims, alter examining the official pa] 
 
 the archives at the Hague, comes to the i oni lu 
 sion that Melius i whose proper name was Jacob Adriaansy), 
 on the 17th of < Ictobi r, 1608, was in possession of the art of 
 making telescopes; but that from some unexplained reason 
 he concealed his invention, and thus gave up every claim 
 to the honour he would have derived from it; that On the 
 'i tober in the same year, 1608, John Or Hans I.ip- 
 
 persey, a spectacle-maKer of Middleburg, was actually in 
 
 ii of the invention; and that there is In 
 
 to believe that eitbei Hans or Zacharias Zanz (or Jansen, 
 
 . ni till U ll scope, tlWUgh one 
 
 of them invented a compound miscro cope about 1590. 
 I Institution, vol. i.) 
 
 The telescope soon made its Waj into other countries. In 
 
 April or May, 1600, the illustrious Galileo, having heard 
 
 a rumour of the invention, set about considering the means 
 
 ts could be seen distinctly, and was 
 
 soon in i e -ion oi a telescope which magnified three 
 
 I i siil, sequent trials he succeeded in inert 
 
 1328 
 
 TELESCOPE. 
 
 magnifying power: and before the beginning of IfilO, he had 
 Observed the satellites of Jupiter. Our countryman Harriot 
 also, in 1600, began to use the telescope tor examining the 
 disc of the moon, and before he had heard of the discoveries 
 of Galileo. [Priestly' 8 History of Discoveries relating to 
 f'ision, Light, and Colours.) 
 
 Telescopes are of two kinds, refracting and reflecting 
 telescopes; the former depending on the use of properly 
 figured lenses, through which the rays of light pass; and 
 the latter on the use of specula, or polished metallic mirrors, 
 which reflect the rays ; an inverted image of the object 
 being formed in both cases in the focus of the lens or mirror. 
 
 Refracting telescopes were those which were first con- 
 structed. They were of the most simple character, consist- 
 ing merely of an object-glass of one lens, and an eye-ghiss 
 of one lens, but of a shorter focus. But in this construction 
 the prismatic colours produced by the difference of the re- 
 frangibility of the luminous rays tinged the images of all 
 objects seen through the telescope, and the image was like- 
 wise distorted by the aberration of the extreme rays. It 
 was soon found that the latter defect could be sufficiently 
 corrected by employing more lenses than one in the eye- 
 piece ; but it was long before a remedy was found for the 
 chromatic dispersion; and artists, despairing of success, 
 generally turned their attention to the improvement of in- 
 struments of the reflecting class. The difficulty, however, 
 was at length overcome through the persevering efforts of 
 John Dollond (see Achromatism) ; and the achromatic re- 
 fracting telescope may now be regarded as an instrument all 
 but perfect. 
 
 The principles on which telescopes depend having been 
 explained under the terms Reflexion and Refraction, 
 and the properties and construction of their principal parts 
 under Achromatism, Lens, Mirror, we shall here de- 
 scribe some of the principal forms which the instrument 
 has assumed. It will be borne in mind that the general 
 aim in the construction of a telescope is to form, by means 
 of lenses or mirrors, as large, bright, and distinct an image 
 of a distant object as possible, and then to view the image 
 with a magnifying glass in any convenient manner. We 
 shall first describe those of the refracting glass. 
 
 (lalilean Telescope. — This is the most ancient form of the 
 telescope, and is that which was used by Galileo. It con- 
 sists of a converging object-glass A B (fig. 1), and a concave 
 (1) 
 
 diverging eye-glass C D. On passing through the object- 
 glass A B, the rays of light coming from the different points 
 of a distant object in parallel pencils are rendered conver- 
 gent, and proceed towards the principal focus, where they 
 would- form an inverted image; but before they arrive at 
 this point they fall upon the concave lens C D, by which 
 they are again rendered parallel, or at least their conver- 
 gence is corrected so as to give distinct vision of the object 
 to the eye at E. The lens C D is therefore placed In tw ecu 
 the object-glass and the image, and at a distance from the 
 image equal to its principal local distance. The magnify- 
 ing power is equal to the principal focal distance of the ob- 
 ject-glass. See Lens. 
 
 In this telescope the object is seen erect, and the length 
 of the tube is only the difference between the focal l< ngthe 
 of the two lenses. These properties render it preferable to 
 any other telescope for many ordinary purposes : as, for ex- 
 ample, an opera-glass. When used for this purpose, the 
 magnifying power is hardly ever greater than 4 ; and it is 
 often as low as 2. 
 
 Astronomical Telescope.— This is composed of a converg- 
 ing "I ject-glass A H (fig. 2), and of a converging eye-glass 
 en. Kays of light proceeding from any point M of a dis- 
 tant object M N, and falling on the different points of the 
 (2.) 
 A 
 
 Object-glass, are refracted into a point m in the principal 
 focus. In like manner, those proceeding from the point N 
 :ir.' refracted inn. tin- point « ; and thus an inverted Image 
 
 „/ „ is tunned at the foCUB of the object glass. The eye- 
 glass is placed so that its focus shall coincide with the 
 
 msequently rays diverging from any 
 
 point of tin' image, and falling on the lens C II. ale refract- 
 ed into a parallel direction before they enter the eye at E,
 
 TELESCOPE. 
 
 and are thereby rendered fit to produce distinct vision. The 
 length of the telescope is equal to the sum of the focal dis- 
 tances of the two lenses ; and the magnifying power is 
 equal to the focal distance of the object-glass divided by 
 the focal distance of the eye-glass. This telescope was 
 first described by Kepler in his Liojitrice (1611) ; but it does 
 not appear to have been executed until about twenty or 
 tliirtv vears later. 
 
 TerrestruA Telescope.— -This differs from the astronomical 
 telescope onlv in having two additional lenses E F, G H 
 (rig. 3), placed in the tube of the eye-glass for the purpose 
 of restoring the inverted image to its erect position, and 
 thereby accommodating the tefescope to terrestrial objects. 
 The focal lengths of these additional lenses are usually the 
 same as that of the eye-glass. The two pencils of rays 
 proceeding from the points M and N cross each other in the 
 anterior focus of the second lens E F, and falling parallel 
 on E F form in its principal focas an inverted image of m n, 
 and consequently an erect image of the object M N. This 
 image mf n' is seen by the eye at E through the lens G H, 
 as the rays diverging from m and »' in the focus of G H en- 
 ter the eye in parallel pencils. When the three first lenses 
 are equal, the magnifying power is the same as that of the 
 astronomical telescope, whose object and eye-glasses are 
 the same as A B and C D. 
 
 (3.) 
 
 The performance of refracting telescopes depends most 
 essentially on the goodness of the object-glass; for if the 
 first image is bright and distinct, and perfectly achromatic, 
 there is little difficulty in constructing eye-pieces to magnify 
 it, without causing it to undergo any sensible alteration. 
 
 Reflecting Telescopes. — In reflecting telescopes the specu- 
 lum, or mirror, performs the same office that the object- 
 glass does in those of the refracting kind, and is therefore 
 called the object-mirror. The instrument is constructed in 
 various forms ; but these differ from one another chiefly in 
 reference to the contrivances which huve been adopted for 
 bringing the focal image into a convenient situation for be- 
 ing viewed by the eye-piece. The principal forms are the 
 Newtonian, the Gregorian, the Cassegraiuian, and the Her- 
 schelian. 
 
 JVcictmian. Telescope. — Let ABCD (fig. 4) represent a 
 
 
 section of the tube of the telescope ; A B the object-mirror, 
 which would form at its focus the image a of any distant 
 object. Now if a person attempted to view the image in its 
 place at a by placing himself directly before the mirror, he 
 would necessarily intercept the rays of light from the object 
 passing down the tube to the mirror, and consequently 
 There would be no image to view. Sir Isaac Newton over- 
 came this difficulty by introducing a small diagonal plane 
 speculum d between A B and a, which intercepting itself 
 but a small portion of light, reflects towards the side of the 
 tube the rays converging from A B, and causes the image 
 which would have been formed at a to be formed at b, 
 where it can be conveniently viewed by the eye-piece E at- 
 tached to the side of the tube. The small minor is of an 
 oval form, and is fixed on a slender arm c connected with a 
 slide, by means of which it may be made to approach or re- 
 cede from the large speculum A B, according as the image 
 approaches to or recedes from it. In this telescope the 
 magnifying power is equal to the focal length of the object- 
 rnirror A B divided by that of the eye-glass. 
 
 Gregorian Telescope. — In this construction the object- 
 mirror A B (fig. 5) is perforated in the middle, and the rays 
 (5.) 
 
 ^'■ J Y 
 
 '1 
 
 of light from a distant object being reflected from the sur- 
 face of A B cross each other in the focus, where they form 
 an inverted image a. and are then intercepted by a small 
 concave mirror d, which causes them again to converge to 
 95 
 
 a focus at b, near the perforation of the object-mirror, where 
 they form a reinverted or direct image, which is viewed by 
 an eye-piece E screwed into the tube behind A B. The 
 curvature of the small speculum should be elliptical, having 
 the foci at a and b ; but it is generally made spherical. In 
 this case the great speculum should be slightly hyperbolic, 
 to counteract the aberration of the small mirror. 
 
 Cassegraiuian Telescope. — The great speculum of this in- 
 strument is perforated like the Gregorian ; but the rays con- 
 verging from the surface of the mirror A B (fig. 6) towards 
 (6.) 
 A B 
 
 
 the focus a are intercepted before they reach that point by 
 a small convex mirror d, not sufficiently convex to make 
 the rays divergent, but of such a curvature as to prevent 
 them from coming to a focus till they are thrown back to b, 
 near the aperture in A B, where they form an inverted 
 image which is viewed by the eye-piece E. This construc- 
 tion has the advantage of requiring a shorter tube than the 
 Gregorian ; but the inversion of the image is not corrected, 
 and for this reason probably it has not been much used. 
 
 In the two last constructions the small mirror d is ad- 
 justed by means of a rod turning on a shoulder near the 
 eye end of the tube, and connected by a screw with the 
 apparatus which carries the arm c, to which the mirror ia 
 attached. 
 
 Hcrschelian Telescope.— -This construction differs from 
 the others in having no second mirror. The large speculum 
 A B (fig. 7) is placed at the bottom of the tube in an inclined 
 
 (7.) 
 
 position, so as to bring the focal image a near the edg/j at 
 the tube, where it is viewed directly by the eye-pie,ce E 
 without interfering with the light entering the telescope 
 from the object observed. The magnifying power is the 
 same as in the Newtonian. 
 
 The reflecting telescope was invented by Jamf.-s Gregory, 
 and is described by him in his Optica Promota (1663) ; but 
 the first telescope of the kind was executed by Newton. 
 Reflecting telescopes have been made on a very large scale. 
 The celebrated instrument of Sir William Hersehel, erect- 
 ed at Slough in 1789, was 40 feet in length. Its great spe- 
 culum had a diameter of 49A inches ; its thickness was 
 about 3i inches, and its weight" when cast was 2118 lbs. Its 
 focal length was 40 feet, and it admitted of a power of 6450 
 being applied to it. The essential advantage of large tele- 
 scopes of this kind consists in the immense quantity of 
 light which they collect, whereby the observer is enabled 
 to perceive faint nebula? and stars which are altogether in- 
 visible in ordinary instruments. 
 
 Reflecting telescopes are used only for observing pheno- 
 mena, and are not, like refracting telescopes, attached to cir- 
 cular instruments for the purpose of measuring angles with 
 greater precision. In order to derive full benefit from them, 
 they must be used in the open air; and must either be 
 mounted equatorially (see Equatorial), or else in such a 
 manner as to be capable of a smooth motion both in a ver- 
 tical and horizontal direction. Telescopes of this kind be- 
 ing generally used with a high magnifying power, and con- 
 sequently having a small field of view, are always accom- 
 panied with a smaller telescope or finder fixed to the tube, 
 so that the axes of the two instruments are exactly parallel. 
 
 Eye-pieces of Telescopes.— When the image formed by the 
 object-glass or mirror is viewed with a single lens or eye- 
 glass, whether concave or convex, it is only in the centre 
 of the field that distinct vision is obtained, all towards the 
 margin being hazy and distorted. To remedy this defect, 
 Boseovich and Hiiygens separately proposed the construc- 
 tion of an eye-piece formed of two lenses, placed at a dis- 
 tance from each other equal to half their focal distances. 
 Boseovich recommended two similar lenses ; Huygens, that 
 the focal length of the one should be twice that of the 
 other; and as this construction i9 found to answer best ia 
 practice, it is that which is most commonly used. 
 r 1229
 
 TELLINA. 
 
 The two lenses are usually plano-convex, with the con- 
 towards the object-glass ; the larger lens, called 
 tin' held glass, is innermost, or nearest the object-glass ; and 
 a diaphragm cutting off the marginal rays is usually placed 
 between them mar the focus of the eye lens, where the 
 image is formed. This eye-piece is usually called the nega- 
 tive eye-piece, from its having the image seen by the eye 
 behind the field glass; and is that which is commonly sup- 
 plied with telescopes intended only for the purpose of seeing 
 objects, without reference to measurement. 
 
 Another modification of the two-lens eye-piece was pro- 
 posed by Ramsdcn. and is called the positioe eye-piece, be- 
 cause the image observed is before both lenses. The lenses 
 - convex, and nearly of the same focal length ; but 
 their distance from each other is less than the focal distance 
 of the lens nearest the eye, two lenses thus placed acting as 
 a compound simple lens. This eye-piece is the most con- 
 venient when micrometer wires are placed in the focus, be- 
 cause it can be taken out without injuring the wires ; and it 
 has also this advantage, that the measure of an object given 
 by one eye-piece is not altered when it is changed for an- 
 other of a different magnifying power. 
 
 In both the eye-pieces now described, the image is seen 
 inverted ; and though this is of no importance in astronomi- 
 cal observations, it is inconvenient when the telescope is used 
 for looking at terrestrial objects. By placing an additional 
 pair of lenses in the tube of the eye-piece, the image is re- 
 peated and reinverted, and, consequently, seen erect. By 
 this means, as explained above, the terrestrial telescope is 
 obtained. 
 
 The name of diagonal eye-piece has been given to eye- 
 pieces furnished with a diagonal reflecting mirror, the object 
 of which is to give a more convenient direction to the rays 
 emerging from the eye-piece when the telescope is pointed 
 high. 
 
 Telescopes are generally supplied with eye-pieces of dif- 
 ferent powers, which are all fitted to enter the same tube ; 
 and the focal adjustment is commonly effected by a rack 
 and pinion motion acting on the tube which carries the eye- 
 piece. 
 
 For full information respecting the construction of tele- 
 scopes, and the best modes of mounting them on stands or 
 otherwise, to secure steadiness and allow of the requisite 
 motion, the reader is referred to Pearson's Practical .1s- 
 tronomy, vol. ii. (See also Smith's Optics ; Coddington's 
 Optics.) 
 
 TELLINA. (Gr. TcWivn, a species of muscle.) A genus 
 of cockles (Cardiaceous Bivalves in the Cuvierian system), 
 characterized by the hinge of the shell having one tooth on 
 the left and two teeth on the right valve, often bifid ; in the 
 right valve there is a plate which does not enter a cavity 
 in the opposite valve. There is a slight fold near the pos- 
 terior extremity of both valves which renders them unequal 
 at that part, where they gape a little. The soft parts, or 
 animal of the Tellina, called peron<ea by Poli, has two long 
 tubes for respiration and excretion, which can be withdrawn 
 into the shell, and are concealed in a fold of the mantle. 
 
 Cuvier separated from the Linnrean Tellium the genus 
 Loripes, distinguished by the feebly developed cardinal 
 teeth, and by a long cylindrical foot. Other genera have 
 since been detached from the Cuvierian Teilinee, which now 
 form a family. Tellinida;, in the system of Lamarck. 
 
 TELL TALE. The dial plate at the wheel, showing 
 the position of the tiller. 
 
 TELLU'BIUM. (Lat. tellus, the earth.) This rare 
 metal lias only been found in small quantities in the gold 
 mines of Transylvania: it occurs in the metallic state, com- 
 bined with gold or silver. It is white, brilliant, brittle, and 
 easily fusible. Its specific gravity is about 625. It is com- 
 bustible, and often exhales a peculiar odour, like horse- 
 radish, which lierzelius ascribes to the presence of minute 
 portions of selenium. It forms a protoxide and a peroxide, 
 often culled tcllurous and telluric acids. Its equivalent is 
 either 32 or 04. In the former case, the protoxide consists 
 Of 1 atom of tellurium and 1 of oxygen (32-4- 8), and the 
 peroxide of 1 atom of tellurium and 1A of oxygen (3-2+ 12) ; 
 in the latter the numbers are doubled. Tellurium forms a 
 gaseous compound with hydrogen, which has been called 
 hyd/rotelluric acid. 
 
 TE'MPERAMENT. (Lat. temperare, to moderate.) In 
 Music, the adjustment of the imperfect concords, in musical 
 Instruments, whose sounds are fixed, such as organs, piano- 
 fortes, &.c, so as to transfer to them part of the beauty of 
 the perfect concords. The defect to be remedied arises 
 from the single short keys between the two larger ones 
 serving for flats as well as sharps. It is necessary to < >)> 
 serve, that in the theory of harmonies the interval of a tone 
 is not always the same ; for instance, that lying between the 
 fourth and fifth of the scale contains nine small parts, called 
 commas, whereas that between the fifth and sixth of the 
 major scale contains only eight commas. Again, the dia- 
 tonic semitone contains five commas, and tlie chromatic 
 1230 
 
 TEMPLE. 
 
 semitone three or four, according to the magnitude of the 
 tone. Hence it is that the different situations of these ele- 
 ments with regard to each other, causes intervals of the 
 same name to consist of different degrees or elements. To 
 improve them, therefore, musicians temper them so as to re- 
 duce the whole more to mean distances from each other, 
 necessarily producing a new division of the octave. 
 
 Temperament, in Physiology, has been defined as that 
 peculiarity of organization which, to a certain extent, injlu- 
 ences our thoughts and actions. The ancient physicians 
 enumerated four temperaments ; namely, the bilious, the 
 choleric, the phlegmatic, the sanguine, the melancholic. To 
 these .some have added the nervous; and these terms are 
 still in use among medical writers. 
 
 TEMPERATE ZONES, in Geography, are two of the 
 five zones into which the terrestrial globe is divided. The 
 north temperate zone is included between the tropic of Can- 
 cer and the arctic circle ; and the south temperate zone be- 
 tween the tropic of Capricorn and the antarctic circle. 
 
 TE'MPERATURE. A definite degree of sensible heat, 
 as measured bv the thermometer. 
 
 TE'MPLARS, or KNIGHTS OF THE TEMPLE. A 
 military order of religious persons. It was founded by an 
 association of knights, in the beginning of the 12th century, 
 for the protection of pilgrims on the roads in Palestine : after- 
 wards, it took for its chief object the protection of the Holy 
 Sepulchre at Jerusalem against the Saracens. Knights were 
 fixed at Jerusalem by King Baldwin II., who gave them the 
 ground on the east of the Temple. Their rules were taken 
 from those of the Benedictine monks : they took the vows 
 of chastity, obedience, and poverty. The classes of the or- 
 der were, knights, esquires, servitors, and chaplains ; the 
 universal badge of the order was a girdle of linen thread. 
 The officers of the order were chosen by the chapter from 
 among the knights : they were, for military affairs, marshals 
 and bannerets : for purposes of government, priors, who 
 superintended single priories or preceptories ; abbots, com- 
 manders, and grand priors, who governed the possessions of 
 the order within separate provinces; and the grand mas- 
 ter, who, in some respects, assumed the dignity of a sov- 
 ereign prince, being independent in secular matters, and de- 
 pending solely on the pope in spiritual. The chief part of 
 the 9000 estates, lordships, &c, which the society possessed 
 in the 13th century, was situated in France ; and the grand 
 master was usually of that nation. The Templars were 
 driven from Palestine by the Saracens, with the rest of the 
 Christians, and then fixed the chief seat of their order in 
 Cyprus. Their exorbitant power and wealth, and the 
 haughty manner in which they endeavoured to keep aloof 
 from the control of European sovereigns, and act as a mili- 
 tary republic independent of their authority, were probably 
 the principal reasons which induced Pope Clement V. and 
 Philip the Fair of France to concert their overthrow. The 
 charges of heresy and idolatry, which were preferred against 
 them, were at least unsupported by evidence. In 1307, 
 Jacques de Molay, the grand master, having been enticed 
 into France, was arrested by Philip; the templars' estates 
 were seized ; many of them burned alive, after the mockery 
 of a trial ; and, in 1312, the order was abolished by a bull 
 of Clement V. Its vast estates fell partly into the hands of 
 the sovereigns of the countries in which they were situated, 
 partly into those of the Hospitallers and other military or- 
 ders. Detached bodies of the order, however, continued to 
 subsist for some time in different countries. See, among 
 numerous authorities, Raynouard's tragedy of Les Tem- 
 pliers, with the notes; Turner's England in the Middle 
 Ages, vol. ii. ; Mem. de I'Jlc. des Inscr., vol. xxxvii. ; Ad- 
 dison's History of the Knights Templars and the Temple 
 Church, 1842. For a notice of the strange irreligious doc- 
 trines attributed to them, see the article Bapiiomkt. 
 
 TE'MPLE. A building dedicated to the service of some 
 deity. Derived from the Lat. templum, Gr. riusvos, signify- 
 ing separation and consecration. The term is general Ij con- 
 fined to heathen edifices ; excepting in the case of the build- 
 ing erected for the worship of God by Solomon at Jerusalem, 
 which is emphatically denominated the Temple. This edi- 
 fice was similar in its plan to the Tabernacle, consisting of 
 the holy of holies, the sanctuary, and a portico. It is minute- 
 ly described In I Kings, vi. 
 
 The temple of Solomon was begun B.C. 1012, and de- 
 stroyed by Nebuchadnezzar B.C. 586. It was rebuilt after 
 the return of the Jews from captivity, and, after a period of 
 nearly 500 years, repaired and beautified by Herod the 
 Great. The restoration contemplated by this prince must 
 have been extensive. When the Jews say to Christ, 
 "Forty \ears was this temple in building," they are gen- 
 erally supposed to allude to the time during which the re- 
 pairs had been in progress ; nor, according to Josephus, were 
 they brought to a completion when the temple itself, to- 
 gether with the entire city, were demolished by the army 
 of Titus, A.D. 70. 
 
 The structure to which this term is applied is of com-
 
 TEMPLET. 
 
 paratively modern date, for the earliest temples were an 
 open spot with a rude altar of earth and stones ; indeed, the 
 Persian religion forbade the worship of the Deity except in 
 the open air, and the earliest Greek temples give us some 
 notion of the same sort of practice. The oracle at Delphi, 
 according to Pausanias, was merely an arbour of laurels ; 
 and from Herodotus we learn that the oracles at Dodona 
 were delivered from an old oak. The remarkable features 
 of the Egyptian temple are the massive dimensions, and the 
 number and arrangement of the columns; the cell being al- 
 ways of diminutive size. In Greece, at the period when 
 they had advanced in art, every city exhibited structures of 
 the most elaborate and splendid description dedicated to the 
 service of their divinities; and the Romans long after emu- 
 lated their masters in the care and riches bestowed upon 
 these edifices. Some of the most celebrated were those of 
 the Parthenon (to Minerva) at Athens, of Diana at Ephesus, 
 of Apollo at Delphi, of Jupiter at Olympia, of Venus at Pa- 
 phos and Cythera, and that of the Capitoline Jupiter at 
 Home. Asia Minor abounded with them ; and in the other 
 direction we find them as far west as Nismes. Vitmvius 
 has classed temples under seven heads ; viz., those in an- 
 tis, the prostyle, the ampkiprostyle, the peripteral, the dip- 
 teral, the pseudodipteral, and the hypathral, all of which are 
 defined under these names in this work. 
 
 TE'MPLET. (Etym. doubtful.) In Architecture, a short 
 piece of timber laid under a gilder or beam to distribute the 
 weight. Also a mould used for bricklayers for cutting or 
 setting out work, and by millwrights for shaping the teeth 
 of wheels. 
 
 TEMPO. (It. time.) In Music, the Italian word constant- 
 ly used to express time. 
 
 TE'MPOD'IMBROGLIO. (It. time of trouble.) In Mu- 
 sic, a term applied to a composition written in one measure, 
 but really performed in another. 
 
 TE'MPORAL or TEMPLE BONES. Two irregular 
 bones, one on each side of the head. They are connected 
 with the occipital, parietal, and sphenoid bones, and are ar- 
 ticulated with the lower jaw. Comparative anatomy shows 
 that the so-called " temporal bone," in man, is essentially 
 an assemblage of five bones, called squamous, zygomatic, 
 tympanic, petrous, and mastoid ; having distinct functions 
 developed in different proportions, and continuing perma- 
 nently detached in the cold-blooded classes, but soon coalesc- 
 ing in the warm-blooded classes. The tympanic element, 
 however, continues permanently detached in birds. 
 
 TENA'CITY OF THE METALS. The power which 
 metallic wires possess of sustaining, without breaking, the 
 action of a suspended weight. See Cohesion, Strength 
 of Materials. 
 
 TENA'CULUM. A surgical instrument, consisting of a 
 fine sharp-pointed hook, by which the mouths of bleeding 
 arteries are seized and drawn out, so that in operations they 
 may be secured by ligaments. 
 
 TENAILLON. In Fortification, a kind of outwork made 
 on each side of a small ravelin to increase its strength, and 
 to cover the shoulders of the bastion. Works of this kind 
 are, however, so decidedly inferior to large ravelins, that 
 thev are seldom adopted. 
 
 TENANT, TENEMENT. In Law. These words are 
 derived from the principles of the feudal system, according 
 to which (as it prevailed in England) no land was without 
 a lord ; and every one who enjoyed land held it either of a 
 mesne tenant, or of the crown. The party holding the land 
 is called tenant, the thing holden tei. nent, the mode of 
 holding tenure. Thus tenants are said to be in fee-simple, 
 in tail, for life, for years, &c. Tenement, in the largest sense 
 of the word, is everything which may be holden ; viz., all 
 corporeal hereditaments, and incorporeal hereditaments of a 
 permanent nature issuing out of the same. Thus lands, 
 houses, rights of common, &c, franchises, offices, are all 
 tenements in the larger sense. In the. more narrow accep- 
 tation in which the word is popularly applied, it describes 
 a house with the homestall or immediate appurtenances. 
 
 TENCH. The name of a species of Cyprinoid fishes 
 (Tinea vulgaris, Cuv.), and the type of a subgenus of that 
 family. It is generally more or less abundant in ornamen- 
 tal waters and ponds, but is seldom found in rivers in this 
 country. It is common in most of the lakes of the European 
 continent, whence it is supposed to have been imported into 
 England. The tench is remarkable for its tenacity of life ; 
 it spawns about the middle of June, at which time the fe- 
 male is attended by two males. Their food consists of the 
 smaller soft bodied aquatic animals, and vegetable matter. 
 In stocking a pond with tench, the large-sized fish should 
 be selected, and two males to one female should be the pro- 
 portion of the sexes. See Tinca. 
 
 TE'NDER. In Law, the legal tender of a debt is by the 
 actual production and offer of the sum due, unless the credi- 
 tor dispense with it by a declaration that he will not accept 
 it. The tender must be of money : if beyond the sum of 
 40s-., in gold, or in what has been rendered by act of parlia- 
 
 TENURES, SCOTTISH. 
 
 ment equivalent for that purpose, viz., Bank of England 
 notes, which are a legal tender for every sum above £5, ex- 
 cept at the Bank of England or its branches. A tender of 
 country bank notes, if not objected to on that ground, is suffi- 
 cient. The tender of a larger sum than that due is legal, 
 unless it be of a sum requiring change. 
 
 TENDO ACHLLLES. The large tendon which passes 
 from the muscles of the calf of the leg to the heel. Its 
 name has reference to the fable of the dipping of Achilles 
 in the Styx ; his mother, Thetis, having, as it is said, held 
 him by that part. 
 
 TE'NDRIL, is any slender twining part by which one 
 plant attaches itself to another. It is often a transformation 
 of a leaf which has no lamina, or which has the midrib 
 elongated beyond it, retaining its usual tapering figure, and 
 becoming long and twisted spirally. In the vine it is an 
 abortive bunch of flowers ; in the passion flower a meta- 
 morphosed branch ; in some petals a thin extended point, as 
 in Strophantus. 
 
 TENE'SMUS. CGr. tciv, I stretch or constringe.) A 
 straining and ineffectual inclination to void the contents of 
 the bowels. 
 
 TE'NNANTITE. A mineral named in honour of the 
 late Mr. Tennant. It is an arsenical sulphuret of copper and 
 iron. It occurs in the copper veins of some of the Cornish 
 mines, both massive and crystallized. 
 
 TE'NON. (Lat. teneo, / hold.) In Architecture, the end 
 of a piece of wood or timber, diminished usually by one 
 third of its thickness, which is received into a hole corre- 
 sponding to it in size, called a mortise, by which expedient 
 the two are held jointed or fastened together. 
 
 TENO'RE, or TENOR. (It.) In Music, the mean or 
 middle part of a composition, being the ordinary compass of 
 the human voice when neither raised to a treble or lowered 
 to a bass. What is called counter-tenor is only a higher 
 tenor. 
 
 TE'NREC. The name of a small Insectivorous quadru- 
 ped of Madagascar, allied to the hedgehog : it forms the 
 type of the genus Centctcs. 
 
 TENSE. (Lat tempus, time.) In Grammar, that modi- 
 fication of the verb which defines the time at which the ac- 
 tion is conceived as taking place. See Grammar. 
 
 TENSOR MUSCLES, in Anatomy, are those which 
 tighten the part to which they are fixed ; as the tensor 
 vagina; femoris, tensor palati, &c. 
 
 TENT, Tinta. A Spanish red wine, chiefly from Malaga 
 and Gallicia. 
 
 Tent, in Surgery, is a plug of lint used for dilating 
 wounds ; a piece of sponge which iias been imbued with 
 wax is termed sponge-tent. 
 
 TE'NTACLE. (Lat. tentaculum, a holder.) This term 
 is used by Savigny in a restricted sense to signify the elon- 
 gated, filiform, inarticulate appendages of the mouth of An- 
 nellides; but it is also applied to all appendages, whether 
 jointed or not, which are used as instruments of exploration 
 and prehension. Thus the oral arms of the Polyps, the pre- 
 hensile processes of Cirripeds and Annellides, the cephalic 
 feet of the Cephalopods, the barbs of fishes, are termed ten- 
 tacles. 
 
 TENTH. In Music, an interval containing nine degrees 
 and five spaces. 
 
 TENTHS. The tenth part of the yearly value of^all bene- 
 fices, which was anciently paid, with the first fruits, to the 
 pope. See First Fruits. 
 
 TENTO'RIUM. The process of the dura mater which 
 separates the cerebrum from the cerebellum. 
 
 TE'NUES. (Lat. thin; Gr. \pt\ai.) The three letters 
 k, p, t in the Greek alphabet are so called, in relation to 
 their respective middle letters, g, b, and d, and their aspirates 
 ch, ph, and th. 
 
 TE'NUIRO'STERS, Tenuirostres. (Lat. tenuis, slender, 
 and rostrum, a beak.) The name of a tribe of Insessorial 
 birds, including those which have a long and slender bill. 
 
 TE'NURE. The feudal relation between lord and vassal 
 in respect of lands. Tenures in capite, or in chief, were 
 those by which land was held immediately of the crown ; 
 mesne tenures, of mesne or inferior lords. English tenures 
 under the feudal system are reduced by Blackstone to four: 
 knight-service, or chivalry ; free socage ; pure villenage ; 
 and villein-socage. See Feudal System, Socage, Villen- 
 age. 
 
 TENURES, SCOTTISH, were five, viz., 1. Military or 
 ward-holding ; abolished, with all its casualties or incidents, 
 by 20 G. 2, c. 50. 2. By mortification, or mortmain; which 
 now only applies to manses and glebes, retained by the act 
 of 1587 as mortified to the church. 3. Burgage holding, by 
 which the burgesses of royal burghs hold lands and houses 
 within the burgh of the sovereign by service of watching 
 and warding, &c. 4. Blanch tenures, by which the grantee 
 or vassal is bound to pay to the superior annually a species 
 of quit-rent or acknowledgment. 5. Feu-holding, by grant, 
 with reservation of pecuniary services. See Feu. 
 
 1231
 
 TERPHROMANTIA. 
 
 TEPHROMANTi'A. (Gr. rcApa, ashes, and uavraa, 
 prophecy.) Divination from the figures assumed by red-hot 
 ,/-.. i„ 353.) 
 E i: Al'fll.M. A \\ ord used thirteen or fourteen times 
 in the ( fld Testament, and commonly rendered by our trans- 
 lators " idols." Bryant explains them as "lunar amulets, 
 or types of the ark in the form of crescents, supposed to 
 have been Invented by the patriarch Terah." [Antiq., hi., 
 3-1.) In later times, strange and horrible practices of witch- 
 craft are described by Rabbinical writers in explaining this 
 word. The teraph, according to Rabbi Eliezer, was made 
 by killing a first horn child, opening the head, putting a 
 gold plate with the name of the impure spirit under the 
 le, &c. (See also the notes to Southty's Tkalaba, 
 
 l'1'.i: ATO'LOGY. (Gr. repas, a monster, and \oyos, a 
 discourse.) That branch of physiological science which 
 treats of the various malformations and monstrosities of the 
 organic kingdoms of nature. 
 
 TEREBE Ll.l'.M. I. at. terebro, Tbore.) The name of 
 a genus of Buci 'moid Pectinibranchiate Gastropods, hav- 
 ing an oblong shell with a narrow aperture, destitute of 
 folds and ridges, and gradually enlarging to the extremity 
 opposite to the spire. 
 
 TEREBRA'NTIA. fLat. terebro, I bore.) The name 
 of a section of Hymenopterous insects, characterized by the 
 possession of an anal instrument organized for the perfo- 
 ration of the bodies of animals, or the substance of plants. 
 The borer (terebro) is peculiar to the female, and is com- 
 posed of three long and slender pieces, of which two serve 
 as a sheath for the third ; it is placed at the anal extremity 
 of the abdomen, and the oviduct is continued into it. The 
 females instinctively use this weapon to prepare a place for 
 the deposition of their eggs, where the maggot may be in- 
 cubated in safety, and upon its exclusion be surrounded by 
 already organized matter adapted for its sustenance. Some 
 genera select vegetables for the parasitic support of their 
 young, as Sires (Linn.), which infests the pine tree; and 
 Cephus (Latr.), which perforates the stalks of corn for the 
 purpose of opposition, others, as the ichneumons, pierce 
 the skins of insects, and deposit their eggs in the subcuta- 
 neous fatty and nutrient material. .Some ichneumons are 
 provided with long and extensible anal borers, which they 
 insinuate beneath tiie bark of trees, and into crevices and 
 fissures, where their instinct and peculiar antenna] organs 
 of sensation teach them that the insect resides that may 
 firm a fitting nidus for the parasitic and carnivorous larva'. 
 Other ichneumons, with sliori terehrs, place their ova in 
 the bodies of Lepidopterous larvae or in those pupa which 
 are readily accessible to their attacks. 
 
 The female ichneumons manifest a wonderful instinct at 
 the season of oviposition in discovering the insects, as well 
 mature as in their different >ta»es of eu_ r , maggot, caterpil- 
 lar, and chrysalis, which are obnoxious to the wounds, 
 with all the fatal consequences, of the instrument from 
 which the present section of Hijmcnoptera takes its name. 
 
 TEREBRA'TULA. (Lat, terebro, I bore.) The name 
 of a genus of Palliobranchiate Acephalous Bivalve Mol- 
 lu^ks. in which one of the valves is perforated for the 
 transmission of a peduncle : the hole through which the 
 peduncle passes is completed by a small detached calcare- 
 ous p i 
 
 TERE DO. (Lat. teredo, the shipirorm.) The name of 
 a L'enus of Acephalous Mollu-ks which bore their habita- 
 tions in submerged timber, and occasion destructive rava- 
 ge-in sunken piles, -hips' bottoms, &c. 
 
 TE'RGUM I. it. tergum, the hark:, in Entomology, signi- 
 fies the upper or supine surface of the abdomen. 
 
 TERM 'Lat. terminus. a boundary), in Logic is the ex- 
 pression in language of the notion obtained in an act of 
 apprehen -ion. (See Apprehension.) A term may consist 
 of one word, or of several ; but evi rv word is not capable 
 of hei.'g employed by itself as a term, or, in logical lan- 
 • .-. Adverbs, prepositions, &.c, and also 
 nouns in any other case besides the nominative, are syncat- 
 natic, i. e., can only form part of a term ; while a verb 
 las mixed word, being resolvable into the copula (or auxilia- 
 ry verb) and the term, to which the copular gives tense, 
 HI I. ami position ; but an infinitive mood is a term by it- 
 self. Simple terms, or categorematica, are divided into sin- 
 gular and common. A singular term stands for one indi- 
 ■ " "the kin-i." It is obvious that these 
 terms cannot be affirmed or denied (In logical phrase, pre- 
 id affirmatively or negatively) of anything but them- 
 A common term stands lor many Individuals 
 I its signlfkates), as -'man," "Jrjng," 
 ■ it is evident, can be said for predicated) of others ; 
 
 e.g., "Caesar is a ma'.," "Frederick i- a king." The sub 
 
 see Propositiok), " 
 cither a singular or a common term ; tin/ predicate must be 
 mon term. Terms are said to be univocal, equivocal, 
 
 analogous, &c. ; but these are rather distinctions of Ian 
 1232 
 
 TERMITES. 
 
 guair than of logic. They are also to be " of the first in 
 tention," and "of the second intention:" the tirst appear- 
 ing to be words used in a vague and general sense; the 
 latter words used in a limited and specific sense, which 
 thev bear in some particular art or science. 
 
 TERMTNALIA. Annual festivals celebrated by the 
 Romans in the month of February, in honour of Terminus, 
 the god of boundaries. On such occasions the peasants) 
 assembled at the different landmarks or termini that divi- 
 ded their property, and offered up libations of milk and 
 wine. .Sic Tei:mim s. 
 
 The word terminus is now employed chiefly to designate 
 the extreme points of a railroad. 
 
 TE'RMINISTS. In Ecclesiastical History, a name given 
 to a class among the Calvinists, whose tenet it is (or was, 
 for such opinions hardly exist at tiie present day ... that 
 there are persons to whom God has fixed, by a secret de- 
 cree, a certain term before their death, after which he no 
 longer wills their salvation, however long they may live. 
 They instanced the case of Pharaoh, Saul, and Judas, 
 anions others. 
 
 TEKMLNO'LOGY. (Lat. terminus.) In every science 
 or art, that preliminary knowledge which teaches us to de- 
 fine the words and phrases peculiarly employed in it (in 
 other words, its technical terms, is called its terminology. 
 
 TERMINTHUS. A black pustule chiefly attacking the 
 legs. It is not, however, clear what the disease was u hlch 
 the Greek writers describe under this name. (Med. Diet.) 
 
 TERMINUS. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture, a stone 
 raised for the purpose of marking the boundary of a pro- 
 perty. Also, a pedestal increasing in size as it rises, or a 
 parallelopiped for the reception of a bust. Terminus was 
 the name of the god of boundaries among the Romans. 
 Terminus, in more recent times, is applied to the b< 
 or the end ; t. e., to the first and last station of a railroad. 
 
 TERMITES. (Lat. termes, tke branch of a tree.) These 
 insects constitute an extensive and important tribe of the 
 Neuropterous order, confined to the warmer latitudes of the 
 globe, and performing a considerable share in the essential 
 labour of completing the comminution and destruction of 
 dead and decomposing organized matter. The termites are 
 all social, terrestrial ; and are active, carnivorous or omniv- 
 orous, in all the stages of their existence, save that of the 
 ovum, after which they undergo only a semimetamorpho- 
 sis. The mandibles are always strong' ami hard, but differ 
 in relative size in different classes of individuals of the 
 same community. 
 
 The tribe Termetincr includes the genera Mantispa, Ra- 
 pkidia, Psocus, Per/a, and Termes proper (now the type 
 also of a family, TermUida:. or white ants, as they are 
 commonly called). These are characterized by four-joint- 
 ed tarsi : but the wings are carried horizontally on the 
 body, and very long ; the head rounded, and the prothorax 
 short and square. The body is depressed, with the anten- 
 na 1 short ; the mouth very similar to that of the Orthoptera, 
 with the four-cleft lower lip ; three occelh, one rather in- 
 distinct ; the wings generally but slightly transpan 
 oiired, with the nervures not forming a close network ; and 
 the legs short. 
 
 The termites peculiar to the tropical and adjacent coun- 
 tries are known under the name of white ants, and com- 
 mit rm>-t extraordinary ravages, especially in lire larva 
 state, in which they are called workers; these ,-,re like the 
 perfect insect, but with the body softer, ami without wings, 
 ami the head generally larger and destitute of eyes, or 
 nearly so. They are united into colonies of incalculable 
 numbers, and live concealed in the interior of ti 
 trees, and other wooden matters, such as furniture, shelves, 
 &c„ in which they form galleries, forming routes 
 ing to the centre of their nests; so that these objects, of 
 which the outer surface is (with surprising inst 
 untouched, fall to pieces on the -lightest touch. The nests 
 of -nine -pedes are external, but without any evident exit. 
 Sometimes they are elevated to a great height above the 
 Surface, like pyramids, occasionally surmounted by a solid 
 roof, which, by their height ami number, appear at a dis- 
 tance like a small village. Sometimes these insects affix 
 
 their nests to the branches of trees. Another »<n of indi- 
 vidual, termed neuters or soldiers, ami which FabriciuS 
 mistook for pupa-, defend the nest Tin . 
 
 much larger and longer | and the mandibles are very long, 
 and cross over each other. They are far less numerous 
 than the larva-, ami live near the outer surface of the nest, 
 so that they make their appearance just when it Is attack- 
 ed; they are also Stated to Compel the uorkeis to labour. 
 The deml-nymphs have the rudiments of wings, and in 
 other respec ■ resemble the larva. 
 
 When arriveil at the perfect state the termites quit their 
 habitation; fly abroad during the evening and night in 
 great numbers ; they lose their wind's before morning, « hich 
 dry; and felling to the earth, the] become the 
 birds, lizards. &c. The couples are then collected by the
 
 TERMS. 
 
 larve, which inclose each of them in a large ceil ; but La- 
 treille conjectures that the act of coupling takes place in the 
 air, as in the ants, and that the females alone occupy the 
 attention of the larva: in order to the establishment of fresh 
 colonies. The abdomen of the female subsequently acquires 
 an enormous size, from the innumerable eggs which it con- 
 tains. The royal chamber occupies the centre of the habi- 
 tation, and around it are distributed those which contain 
 the eggs and provisions. 
 
 Some larva; of Termes varium have eyes, and appear to 
 have habits somewhat different to the rest, and to approach 
 our ants. 
 
 Negroes and Hottentots are very fond of these insects. 
 
 TERMS, in Law, are four sections of the year appropri- 
 ated to the transaction of particular business in the superi- 
 or courts of common law and equity. They are now regu- 
 lated by 11 G. 4, and 1 W. 4, c. 70. 
 
 Hilary Term begins the 11th, and ends the 31st of Janu- 
 ary. 
 
 Easter Term begins 15th of April, and ends the 8th of 
 May. 
 
 Trinity Term begins 22d of May, and ends the 12th of 
 June. 
 
 Michaelmas Term begins the 2d, and ends the 25th of 
 November. 
 
 Whenever any one of these days falls on a Sunday, the 
 following Monday is substituted for it; and if the days 
 from Thursday before to Wednesday after Easter Sunday 
 inclusive, or any part of them, fall within Easter term, 
 such days are regarded as holydays, and the term is in- 
 creased by an additional number of day9 at the end, and 
 Trinity term proportionably postponed. During term the 
 three superior common law courts sit in banc ; and all their 
 business, with the exception of the trial of issues in fact, 
 and such preliminary or other matters of minor importance 
 as can be transacted before a judge at chambers, is per- 
 formed. The power of the courts has, however, been in- 
 creased by a recent statute, enabling them to transact cer- 
 tain term business in vacation time. The rest of the year is 
 termed Vacation. During the vacation, one judge of each 
 court sits at Nisi Prius for the trial of causes in London 
 and Middlesex, through the periods called Sittings; which 
 are fixed by the same act to last not more than twenty-four 
 days after Hilary, Trinity, and Michaelmas terms respect- 
 ively, nor more than six days after Easter term. During 
 the vacation also the circuits are held, in which causes are 
 tried and the gaols delivered in other parts of England and 
 Wales. 
 
 TERMS OF EaUATIONS, are the several parts of 
 which they are composed, connected by the signs of addi- 
 tion or subtraction. Thus, 2 a x — * c, has for its terms 2 a z 
 and be. Generally, all terms containing the same power of 
 the unknown quantity are considered as one compound 
 term ; the coefficients, with their proper signs, being con- 
 nected with that power of the unknown quantity. 
 
 TERPSI CHORE. (Gr. r £ p™, / delight, and x °P»s, <* 
 dance.) The muse who presided over dancing, usually re- 
 presented with a seven-stringed lyre or a plectrum in the 
 hand, and in the act of dancing. 
 
 TERRACE. (Fr. terrasse.) In Architecture, a raised 
 natural or artificial bank for the purpose of atfording a 
 promenade. 
 
 TERRA COTTA, literally baked clay, is the name giv- 
 en to statues, architectural decorations, figures, vases, &c, 
 modelled or cast in a paste made of pipe or potter's clay 
 and a fine-grained colourless sand from Ryegate, with pul- 
 verized potsherds, slowly dried in the air, and afterwards 
 fired to a stonv hardness in a proper kiln. 
 
 TERR^E FILIUS. In Classical Latinity, a humorous 
 designation of persons of low origin or obscure birth : ter- 
 ra filii, sons of the earth. (See Persius, Satire 6.) In 
 the university of Oxford, by an ancient custom, abolish- 
 ed a century ago, a satirical Latin oration was read at 
 the commemoration, annually, by an undergraduate, who 
 assumed the title of Terra; Filius, and often indulged in 
 considerable license in his treatment of the authorities of 
 the place. 
 
 TERRA JAPONICA. The old pharmaceutical desig- 
 nation of the substance now called catechu. It was for- 
 merly regarded as an earthy mineral. 
 
 TERRA PONDEROSA. The old mineralogical name 
 of carbonate and sulphate of baryta. 
 
 TERRA SIENNA. A brown ocherous clay brought 
 from Sienna, and sometimes used as a pigment. 
 
 TERRE-PLEIN. In Fortification, the horizontal surface 
 of the rampart where the guns are placed and worked. 
 Its breadth maybe from 24 to 40 feet; and it is bounded 
 outside by the parapet, and inside by the inner slope of the 
 rampart. See Fortification. 
 
 TERRE'STRIALS, Terrestres. (Lat. terra, the earth.) 
 The name of a section of the class Jives, corresponding to 
 the orders Rasores and Cursores ; also of a family of Pul- 
 
 TESSERA. 
 
 monated Gastropods, and of a division of Isopodous Crus- 
 taceans. 
 
 TERRE-VERTE. Green earth. A species of chlorite 
 of a green or olive colour, found in Germany, Fiance, Italy, 
 and North America. According to Klaproth, it is a hydra- 
 ted silicate of oxide of iron and potash, with a little mag- 
 nesia and alumina. The green earth of Verona, once used 
 as a pigment, is a sub-species of this mineral. 
 
 TE'RROR, REIGN OF. In the History of the French 
 Revolution. This term has been generally applied to the 
 period during which the executions were most numerous, 
 and the country under the sway of the actual terror inspir- 
 ed by the ferocious measures of its governors, who had es- 
 tablished it avowedly as the principle of their authority. 
 It seems to be most properly confined to the period between 
 October, 1793, when the revolutionary tribunal, although 
 constituted at an earlier time, was first put in permanent 
 action on the fall of the party of the Gironde, and the 
 overthrow of Robespierre and his accomplices in thermidor 
 (July), 1794. The agents and partisans of the system have 
 been termed Terrorists. 
 
 TE'RTIALS, Tertiari(S. (Lat. tres, three.) These are 
 the large feathers which take their rise from the proximal 
 extremity of the bones of the wing, corresponding to those 
 of the forearm near the elbow joint, forming a continuation 
 of the secondaries. They are so long in some birds of the 
 snipe and lapwing kind, that when the bird is flying they 
 give it the appearance of having four wings. 
 
 TERTIAN FEVER. An intermittent fever or ague, 
 the paroxysms of which return every other day. See 
 Ague. 
 
 TE'RTIARIES. In Ecclesiastical History, a religious 
 body, a kind of associates of the Franciscans, who ac- 
 knowledged the third rule of Saint Francis, and seem con- 
 nected with the Fraticelli and Beghardi of the 13th centu- 
 ry. (See Mosheim, 13th cent., part ii., chap, ii.) 
 
 TE'RTIARY STRATA. A series of sedimentary rocks 
 which lie above the primary and secondary strata, and are 
 distinguished from them by their organic remains, See 
 Geology. 
 
 TERTIUM SAL. An obsolete chemical term former- 
 ly applied to neutral salts, as being a third substance, 
 or tirtium quod, resulting from the union of an acid and 
 alkali. 
 
 TERTU'LLIANISTS. In Ecclesiastical History, a 
 branch of the African Montanists ; so named from the 
 father Tertullian, who embraced Montanist opinions. (See 
 Burton's Lectures, vol. ii., p. 234.) 
 
 TERU'NCIUS. A coin of ancient Rome, the same as 
 the quadrans or triuncis, being the 4th part of the as, and 
 consequently containing three ounces before the value was 
 diminished. 
 
 TE'RZA RI'MA (third or triple rhyme). A peculiar 
 and complicated system of versification, borrowed by the 
 early Italian poets from the Troubadours. The verses are 
 the ordinary Italian heroic lines of eleven syllables (inter- 
 spersed very rarely with ten-syllable lines). The rhyme is 
 thus arranged : At the commencement of a poem or portion 
 of a poem, verses 1 and 3 rhyme together ; as do verses 2, 
 4, and 6; the third rhyme begins with verse 5, which 
 rhymes to 7 and 9 ; the fourth is formed by 8, 10, and 12, 
 and so on ; and the poem or canto ends abruptly, the last 
 rhyme, like the first, being on a couplet instead of a triplet. 
 It is obvious that the rhyme is interlaced throughout, and 
 continually in suspense, so that no pause can be found until 
 the end of the poem or canto; as, at the end of every line, 
 there must still be a rhyme incomplete. This continuity 
 gives a very peculiar character to the metre, and renders it 
 highly expressive of sustained narrative or passion, and 
 the abruptness of the conclusion is often turned to good ef- 
 fect by masters of versification. This metre has been ren- 
 dered celebrated by Dante, who wrote in it in his Divina 
 Commcdia. It has been adopted by his imitators, of whom 
 the latest, Nincenzo Monti, has used it to much advantage ; 
 and by Ariosto and other poets for their satires. Byron 
 has adopted it in English, with indifferent success, in his 
 Prophecy of Dante ; and it has been attempted by various 
 translators. 
 
 TERZE TTO. (It.) In Music, a composition in three 
 parts. 
 
 TE'SSELATED PAVEMENT. (Lat. tesselo, dimin. of 
 tessera.) In ancient Architecture, a pavement formed of 
 small square pieces of stone called tessera or dies. They 
 are frequently, indeed mostly, found inlaid in different col- 
 ours and patterns, and with a central subject. They are 
 embedded in cement and rest on prepared hard strata. 
 
 TE'SSERA. In Roman Antiquities, a die, six-sided, like 
 the modern dice ; and thus to be distinguished from the 
 talus, which had only three sides. Tickets or tallies used 
 for various purposes were called tessera?. Thus guards 
 were set at night in their camps by means of a tessera 
 with a particular inscription, given from one centurion to 
 4 H 1233
 
 TESSERACONTERIS. 
 
 another through the army . and in this way the word tes- 
 sera seems lo have come to signify the watchword or pass- 
 word deliver., I to the guard. (See Mem. de t' .lead, des 
 litter., vol. xxxvii.) 
 
 Tkssera. In Architecture. See Tesselated Pave- 
 ment. 
 
 TE'SSERACONTE'RIS. (G. TcaacpaKOvra, forty, and 
 epsoow, I rotr.) A galley, with forty banks of oars; one 
 of the largest of monstrous vessels mentioned by ancient 
 writers. Great doubts have been entertained as to the 
 possibility of the construction of a vessel which, according 
 to the received notions respecting classical shipbuilding, 
 must have required about four thousand rowers ; but it is 
 seriously recorded that one was built for Ptolemy Philo- 
 pater, probably for purposes of show only. Sec Trireme, 
 Galley. 
 
 TESSULAR. A term applied in Crystallography to a 
 system of crystals, including the cube, tetraedron, &c. 
 
 TEST. In Chemistry, anything by which we distin- 
 guish the chemical nature of substances from each other ; 
 thus, infusion of galls is a test of the presence of iron, 
 which it renders evident by tl.e production of a black col- 
 our in water and other liquids containing that metal ; in 
 the same way sulphuretted hydrogen is a test of the pre- 
 sence of lead, and nitrate of baryta of sulphuric acid. In 
 Metallurgy and Assaying, the poTUS crucible which ab- 
 sorbs the liquid verifiable oxide of lead and other metals 
 combined with it is sometimes called the test. 
 
 Tl'.'STA. In Botany, the integuments of a seed. 
 
 TESTA'CEANS, Testaeea. (Lat. testa,- a shell!) This 
 term was employed by Linne to signify an order of the 
 class Vermes. It is applied by Cuvier to an order of his 
 class Jlcepha'a, comprehending those which are provided 
 with a calcareous shell. 
 
 TESTACE'LLTJS. (Lat. testa.) A genus of slugs ; so 
 called from their being furnished with a diminutive shell, 
 which forms a shield or protection to the heart. Of this 
 destructive genus the following species are British, and 
 occasionally infest our gardens and nursery grounds : Test, 
 scutellum, Sowerby ; Test, halyntideus ; Test, maugci. 
 
 TESTAMENT, 'OLD AND NEW. See Bible. 
 
 TEST AND CORPORATION ACT. The popular 
 names of the statutes 13 Car. 2, St. 2, c. 1, and 25 Oar. 2, 
 ch. 2 ; by the first of which it was provided that all ma- 
 gistrates in corporations should take the oaths of allegiance 
 and supremacy, and another renouncing the doctrine that 
 it is lawful to take arms against the king : and should have 
 received the sacrament within a year before their election, 
 according to the rites of the church of England. The lat- 
 ter extended these provisions to "all persons that shall 
 bear any office or offices, civil or military," &c. ; and in- 
 troduced a new declaration against transubstantiation. 
 These acts, long esteemed the great bulwarks of the Pro- 
 testant church, were nevertheless evaded by means of acts 
 of indemnity annually passed for the relief of those who 
 had neglected to take the oaths. They were finally re- 
 pealed 1828 (9 G. 4, c. 17), as far as regarded the adminis- 
 tration of the sacrament, and a declaration set forth in the 
 act substituted. Locke, as well as many other eminent 
 men, has strongly objected to the principle of making a 
 religious solemnity a test of conformity ; it is defended by 
 Dean Swift. 
 
 TESTIMONY. See Evidence. 
 
 TE'STING. In Metallurgy, the operation of refining 
 gold and silver by means of lead upon a vessel called a 
 test or cupel. See Ccpellation. 
 
 TESTUDINA'TA. (Lat. testa.) The name of a tribe 
 ofChelonian reptiles, of which the tortoise (Testudo) is 
 the type. It has been sometimes used as synonymous 
 with Chelonia, and as a name for the whole order. 
 
 TESTU'DO. A military contrivance adopted by the 
 Creeks and Romans principally in attacking walls and 
 fortified places. It was formed by a body of troops hold 
 ing their shields above their heads, so as to overlap one 
 another and form a kind of pent house, which threw off 
 iles of the enemy while the assailants were ap- 
 proaching the walls. The word properly means a tortoise, 
 from the similitude of whose shell to this contrivance the 
 name was borrowed. 
 
 TETANUS. (Gr. ravu, I streteh.) A spasm of the 
 whole of the muscles. It is frequently caused by lacerat- 
 ed wounds, and affecting the jaw is termed lockjaw. In 
 hot climates this disease is sometimes produced by ex- 
 posure to cold, or by suppressed perspiration, and it then 
 often admits of relief and cure ; but when it is the conse- 
 quence of:, wound it is usually fatal. 
 
 TETHY'D VNS, Tethydes. The na of a tribe of Tu- 
 
 nicated Acephalous Mollusks, of which the genus Ascidia 
 i Tethyt of the ancients) is the type. 
 
 TETHYS. (Gr. rtidvov, an ascidian.) A name applied 
 by Linnaeus to a genus of Vermes Testaeea; and by Cu- 
 vier to a genus of Nudibranchiate Gastropodes, character- 
 1234 
 
 TETRAO. 
 
 ized by having two rows of branchiae along the back in the 
 form of tufts. 
 
 TcTHYS. In Greek Mythology, the daughter of Cranus 
 and Gai i, and Wife of her brother Oceanus. The symbol 
 of the sea. and of the element of water; in which charac- 
 ter she is sometimes confounded with Thetis, unless in- 
 deed the name of the latter goddess be only another form 
 Of hers. 
 
 TETRA CERAS. (Cr. Tirra pec, four, and xepac, a horn.) 
 The generic name proposed by Dr. Leach for the four- 
 homed antelope. 
 
 TE'TRACMORD. (Gr. rcrrapec, and yoptn, a string.) 
 In Music, a concord consisting of three degrees or inter- 
 vals, and four terms or sounds; in modern music it is 
 commonly called a fourth. The word, in its strictly literal 
 sense, signifies any instrument with four strings, and was 
 applied to the lvre in its primitive state. 
 
 TE'TRADITES. A word used in several senses, all of 
 them, however, bearing upon its original derivation from 
 Gr. TCTnipcs, four. 1. Among the ancients children were 
 so called who were born in the fourth month; and such 
 were believed to be unlucky. 2. The Manichees and 
 others, who believed the Godhead to consist of four in- 
 stead of three persons, bore this name. And, 3. In Eccle- 
 siastical History different sects of heretics were so called, 
 in consequence of the respect with which they regarded 
 the number four. 
 
 TETRA'DORON. (Gr.) In ancient Architecture, a 
 species of brick used by Greek builders in the private 
 dwellings, four palms in length. 
 
 TE'TRADRACHM. A common silver coin of the an 
 cient Greeks, of the value of four drachms. 
 
 TETRADY'NAMOUS. (Gr. r«ra/>«, and Swauif, 
 poioer.) A flower having six stamens, of which two are 
 short, and separated bv two pairs of longer ones. 
 
 TETRAE'DRON, or TETRAHEDRON. (Gr. rerrapec, 
 and eSpov, side.) In Geometry, one of the five Platonic 
 bodies, or regular solids. It is bounded by four equilateral 
 and equal triangles, or it is a triangular pyramid having 
 four equal and equilateral faces. If we assume a = the 
 linear edge, b = the whole superfices, c = the solid con- 
 tent, r =: the radius of the inscribed sphere, R = the ra- 
 dius of the circumscribed sphere, then the following rela- 
 tions hold true : — 
 
 a = 2r v /6,6 = 24rtV3,c = 8r3 V '3,R = 3r. 
 See Platonic Bodies. 
 
 TETRAETE'RIS. (Gr. Tcrraptc, and croc, a year.) In 
 Grecian Chronology, a cycle of four years, invented by So- 
 lon, to make the lunar year equal to the solar. This he 
 effected by intercalating a month of twenty-two days at 
 the end of two years, and at the lapse of other two years 
 another month of twenty -three days, making in all forty- 
 five days, which will be found to be the difference between 
 the lunar and solar year after an interval of four years. 
 
 TETRAGON. (Gr. rerrapec, and yovta, angle.) In 
 Geometry, a figure having four angles. 
 
 TE'TRAGO'NIA (Gr. Teinipti, and ytovta), is a genus of 
 herbaceous plants of the Portulacaceous order, with four- 
 cornered fruit ; one species of which, native of New Zea- 
 land, is cultivated as an esculent under the name of New 
 Zealand spinach. Although inferior to genuine spinach, 
 it is valuable on account of its resistance to drought and 
 the great quantity of foilage that may be gathered from a 
 single plant. It is an annual of the easiest culture. 
 
 TETRAGRA'MMATION. Among several ancient na- 
 tions, the name of the mystic number four, which was 
 often symbolised to represent the Deity, whose name was 
 expressed in several languages by four letters: thus the 
 Heb. TrW; l ^ e Assyrian Adad ; the Egyptian Amonj 
 the Persian Syre ; the Greek Geo? ; the Lat. Dens. By a 
 curious coincidence, the same peculiarity prevails in many 
 modern languages, as will be seen in the Germ. Gott, the 
 French Dint, &c. 
 
 TETRA'LOGY. (Gr. rtrmpti, and \oyoi, discourse,) 
 The name given to the collection of four dramatic compo- 
 sitions which was brought forward for exhibition at Athens 
 by competitors for scenic honour. It consisted of three 
 tragedies and a "satyrus" [set Satieb), of which the only 
 example [eft is the Cyclops of Euripides. 
 
 TETRA'METER. (Gr. re-Trapes, and perpov, measure.) 
 A verse consisting of four measures; that is, according to 
 the Greek prosody, of eight iambic, trochaic, or anapaistic 
 feet, or four feet exceeding three times. 
 
 TETRA'NDROTJS. (Gr. rcrrapec, four, and avnp, a 
 ■man.) A flower having four stamens. 
 
 TE'TRAO. (Lat. tctrao, a bustard.) A name selected 
 by LinnaJUS for an extensive genus of gallinaceous birds, 
 characterized by a naked and generally red band, which 
 occupies the place of the eyebrow. This genus compre- 
 hended all the various species of grouse, partridges, fran- 
 colins, quails, and tinamotis ; and the necessity for subdl-
 
 TETRAPHARMACON. 
 
 viding it was consequently soon recognised. Latham re- 
 stricts the genus Tetrao to those species of which the feet 
 are covered with feathers, and are without spurs, with 
 naked toes, and a round or forked tail : these are the true 
 grouse. The species in which the toes are feathered as 
 well as the legs, called ptarmigan, form the genus Lagopus. 
 Brisson separated from the Linnean Tetraoncs, the par- 
 tridges, francolins, and quails, under the generic title Per- 
 dix ; and the obvious characters indicated by the common 
 names of these tribes, have been made, by later zoologists, 
 the grounds for as many distinct genera. The quails of the 
 New World form the distinct genus Ortyx. The long- 
 necked tinamous of America, constitute the last genus (Ti- 
 namus, Latham) of the family Tetraonidm. 
 
 TETRAPHA'RMACON. An ointment composed of 
 four remedies; namely, wax, resin, lard, and pitch. 
 
 TE'TRAPLA. (Gr. TtTnipes.) In Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory, the name of a Bible arranged by Origen in four col- 
 umns, consisting of four different Greek versions ; viz., that 
 of the Septuagint, that of Aquila, that of Synnnachus, and 
 that of Theodosian. This work must not be confounded 
 with the Hciapla, which see. 
 
 TKTBAPNEUMO'NIANS, Tetrapneumones. (Gr. tct- 
 rapcs, and T:t'cvfiu>v, a lung.) The name of a section of 
 spiders (Araneidm), comprehending those which have four 
 pulmonary sacs. 
 
 TETRA'PTERANS, Tetraptera. (Gr. TiTTapzq, and 
 nrepov, a wing.) A name applied by some entomologists 
 to the insects which have four wines, and which thus con- 
 stitute an extensive primary division of the class. 
 
 TE'TRARCH. (Gr. ferpfyxK-) The governor of a 
 fourth part of a country. This was a title granted by the 
 Romans to some tributary princes, whom they did not dig- 
 nify with the style of king. It seems to have originated 
 among the Galatians. Such were the sons of Herod the 
 Great, among whom his dominions were divided after his 
 death. (See Mem. de I' Acad, des Inscr., vol. xxviii.) 
 
 TEf RASP ASTON. (Gr. Ttrru/Jtj, and tnraw, I puH.) In 
 Mechanics, a machine in which four pulleys all act toge- 
 ther. 
 
 TETRA'STICH. (Gr. Ttrrapa, and onxos, verse.) In 
 Poetry, a stanza of four verses. 
 
 TE'TRASTYLE. (Gr. rer*«/»£j, and otv\o<, a column.) 
 In Architecture, a building having four columns in front. 
 
 TETTER, An eruptive disease of the cuticle. See 
 Psoriasis. 
 
 TETTIGES. (Gr. grasshoppers.) An appellation as- 
 sumed by the ancient Athenians in allusion to the boast 
 that they were produced from the soil which they inhabit- 
 ed. In conformity with this belief they were often styled 
 avrox&ovt;, or earlhborn, and wore golden grasshoppers in 
 their hair. 
 
 TETTIGO'NIANS, Tcttigonides. (Lat. tettigonia, a 
 kind of grasshopper.) A sec"ion of Hemipterous insects, 
 of which the genus Tettigonia is the type. It is synony- 
 mous with Cicadarians. See Cicada. 
 
 TEUTA'TES. In Mythology, a Celtic divinity, to whom 
 Roman writers have given some of the attributes of their 
 Mercury (Mem. de VAc. des Inscr., xxiv. 34 ( J), enumerated 
 by Lucan among the gods of the Gauls ; Quibus immitis 
 placatur sanguine diro Teutates. 
 
 TETTHIDANS, Teuthidce. (Gr. tcvBos. a calamary.) 
 The family of Dibranchiate Cephalopods, of which the ca- 
 laniarv (I.oligo vulgaris) is the type. 
 
 TEUTO'NIC ORDER. One of the principal military 
 orders of religious persons. It was founded in 1190, by 
 Frederic duke of Swabia, and intended for Germans of no- 
 ble rank only : its rules were the same with those of the 
 Templars. Like the other orders (see Saint John, Tem- 
 plars), its original object was the performance of service 
 against the infidels in Palestine. It was dedicated to the 
 Virgin Mary. After the conquest of Jerusalem by the Sa- 
 racens, the grand master removed to Venice, and after- 
 wards to Marburg. By degrees it made extensive conquests 
 from the various heathen nations on the southern shores 
 of the Baltic. The Prussians were subdued by it and 
 forced to embrace Christianity, after a struggle of more than 
 half a century. In 1237, it was united with the order of 
 the Brethren of the Sword in Livonia. Its conquests ele- 
 vated it to the rank of a sovereign power in Europe. The 
 grand master, during the epoch of its domination, had his 
 seat at Marienburg, in Prussia. Its territory extended from 
 the Oder to the Gulf of Finland, and the population under 
 its government is supposed to have amounted in the 15th 
 century to two millions and a half of souls. Its domin- 
 ions, however, were gradually lost by revolt or foreign 
 conquest. West Prussia fell to Poland, East Prussia to the 
 house of Brandenburg. Afterwards the seat of the grand 
 master was at Mergentheim in Swabia ; and he became a 
 spiritual prince of the empire. By the peace of Presburg, 
 in 1805, the rights and revenue of the grand mastership 
 was obtained by the emperor of Austria : but the order 
 
 THEA. 
 
 was abolished by Napoleon in 1809; and its lands having 
 passed to the sovereigns of the various districts in which 
 they were situate, it now retains a titular existence only 
 in Austria. 
 
 TE'XTUARIES. Among the Jews, the sect of Caraites, 
 or Karaites, has been so called (see that word;, from its 
 adherence to the text of the Jewish scriptures. 
 
 THABORITES. See Taborites. 
 
 THALAMUS. (Gr. Sakapos, a bed.) In Anatomy, the 
 part of the brain from which the optic nerves have part of 
 their origin. 
 
 Thalamus, in Botany, is the part on which the ovary is 
 seated. The succulent red centre of a strawberry, the 
 core in the fruit of a raspberry, are the thalami of these 
 plants. Some botanists call it 'the receptacle of the fruit. 
 
 THALI'A. (Gr. 3aXaa, the blooming one.) The muse 
 who is generally regarded as the patroness of pastoral and 
 comic poetry. She is also supposed to preside over hus- 
 bandry and planting. She is represented leaning on a col- 
 umn with a mask in her right hand and a shepherd's 
 crook in her left. 
 
 THALI'DANS, Thalides. (Gr. GnXaa, one of the 
 Muses.) The name of a tribe of Tunicaries, of which the 
 genus Salpa or Thalia is the type. See Salpa. 
 
 THA'LLUS. In Botany, a term given to the organs of 
 vegetation of liverworts, lichens, and sea-weed, and to the 
 bed of fibres from which many species of fungi arise. It 
 is regarded as a fusion or blending together of leaf and 
 stem. Hence plants consisting of thalli only are called 
 Thallophytes or Thallogens. She spawn of the mushroom 
 shows the appearance of the thallus in fungi. 
 
 THAMMUZ. The tenth mouth of the Jewish civil 
 year, answering to part of June and July, and including 
 twenty-nine days. In Mythology, the name under which 
 the Phoenicians worshipped Osiris or Adonis. See Adonis. 
 
 THANE. (Sax. thegn.) In early English History, a 
 title of honour among the Anglo-Saxons. In its original 
 meaning it signified a minister or servant, and was applied 
 to the followers of kings and chieftains. Thus the king's 
 thanes were at an early period a distinct and elevated 
 class. In a later age of the Anglo-Saxon power, the term 
 had become more extensive in its signification, and seems 
 to have been appropriated to all landed proprietors who 
 were below the rank of earl and above that of alderman, 
 and had the privilege of assisting in framing the laws. In 
 Latin charters the word miles is the equivalent of thane. 
 There were superior and subordinate thanes, standing in 
 the same relative situation as mesne lords and vassals un- 
 der the feudal system of France and Normandy. (See 
 Turner's Anglo-Saxons ; Palgrave's Commonwealth .) 
 
 THA'TCHlNG. Covering houses, stacks, or ricks with 
 straw or reeds, in such a manner as to throw off the rain, 
 and exclude excessive heat, or prevent its escape from 
 within. The straw generally used in thatching is that of 
 the wheat, as being the longest and thickest, and the most 
 durable. Next to wheat, rye straw is preferred, or, in de- 
 fault of that, the straw of oats; but the most durable of all 
 thatch in cold countries is that formed of the reed (Arundo 
 donax, Linn.), or of the common heath or ling (Cal/una vul- 
 garis, Sal.). A very durable covering of the thatch kind 
 is also formed of the spray of birch, of the bark of that tree, 
 or of oak or pine, and of the chips and shavings made by 
 hurdle makers from the poles and shoots supplied by copse 
 woods. Thatched roofs were formerly almost universal in 
 cottage architecture; but they are now being supplanted 
 by roofs covered with tiles or slates, which are much more 
 durable, and not subject to catch fire ; while the straw for- 
 merly used for roofs is much more profitably employed as 
 litter for cattle, and thus turned into manure, and employed 
 in reproduction — a process which, in agriculture at least, 
 ought not to be deprived of any material contributing so 
 essentially to its aid as manure. 
 
 THAU'MATROPE. (Gr. Savna. a wonder; rpcvo), I 
 turn.) The name given by Dr. Paris to an optical toy, the 
 principle of which depends on the persistence of vision. A 
 circle is cut out of a piece of card, to opposite edges of 
 which two silk strings are fixed, by twisting which between 
 the finger and thumb of each hand the disc is turned round 
 with considerable velocity. On one side of the disc is 
 drawn any object, as a chariot ; on the other side a chariot- 
 eer in the attitude of driving; so that when the card is 
 twirled round, we see the charioteer driving the chariot ; 
 or, in consequence of the duration of the impressions of 
 light on the retina, we see at once what is drawn on both 
 sides of the card. (Library of Useful Knowledge, " Op- 
 tics.") 
 
 THEA (Chinese tcha), is the botanical name of the ge- 
 nus which includes the plants yielding tea. They are 
 found in China and the bordering countries in various situ- 
 ations, either in warm and damp valleys by the sides of 
 rivers, as in Assam, or on mountain sides, and on cool 
 hills ; occurring in the latter situations as far northward 
 
 1235
 
 THEATINES. 
 
 as Chusan. Some botanists assert that there is but one 
 kind of tea tree, the difference in the samples of commerce 
 depending upon the mode of preparation ; others say that 
 genuine black and green teas are the produce of different 
 species, but that both kinds ma; be made artificially from 
 tlie former sort. The latter appears to be the truth. The 
 cultivation of tea for commercial purposes has been at- 
 tempted successfully in the Himmalayas, Java, Brazil, and 
 Madeira; but unprofltably in the two lattm countries, on 
 account of the high price of labour. See Tea. 
 
 THE'ATINES. A religious order in the Roman Catho- 
 lic church, the earliest in point of date of the communities 
 of "regular clerks : " it was founded in 15-24 by St. Cajetan 
 of Thiene. The members, besides the ordinary monastic 
 vows, bound themselves to the duties of the cure of souls, 
 preaching against heresies, tending the sick and convicts, 
 and to abstain from possessing property or asking for alms. 
 This order does not appear to have met with much success, ex- 
 cept in Italy, where (it is said in the Cone. Lex.) the bishops 
 are very generally chosen from it. (See Mosheim, cent, xvi.) 
 THE'ATRE. (Gr. Scarpov, from Scaonai, J behold.) In 
 Architecture, a building appropriated to the representation 
 of dramatic spectacles. The theatres of the Greeks and Ro- 
 mans display some of the most extraordinary specimens of 
 their power in the arts. Bacchus has the reputation of 
 being the inventor of them, which, after their temples, ap- 
 pear to have been the most important public edifices of 
 those people. They seem to have been carried to perfection 
 in the Grecian colonies at an earlier period than they were 
 in the mother country. The first theatre of stone at Athens, 
 called the theatre of Bacchus, was built in the time of The- 
 niistocles ; and as there seems little doubt that the Atheni- 
 ans were the inventors of the drama as a regular scenic 
 action, it is fair to presume that they were the first to regu- 
 late the form and proportions which necessity and pleasure 
 dictated in their arrangement. The subjoined diagram 
 shows the general form of the Greek theatre, which differed 
 but little from that of the Romans; and the instructions giv- 
 en by Vitruvius in the eighth chapter of his fifth book, as to 
 the general outline of the plan, are as follows: "Whereas 
 in the Latin theatre the 
 points of the four trian- 
 gles touch the circumfer- 
 ence, in the theatres of the 
 Greeks the angles of three 
 squares are substituted ; 
 and the side of that square 
 which is nearest to the 
 place of the scene, at the 
 points where it touches 
 the circumference of the 
 circle, is the boundary of 
 the proscenium. A line 
 drawn parallel to this, at 
 the extremity of the cir- 
 cle, will give the front of 
 the scene. Through the centre of the orchestra, opposite to 
 the proscenium, another parallel line is drawn touching the 
 circumference on the right and left ; then, one foot of the 
 compasses being fixed on the right-hand point, with a radius 
 equal to the distance from the left point, describe a circle on 
 the right hand side of the proscenium, and, placing the foot 
 of the compasses on the left-hand point, with the distance 
 of the' right band interval describe another circle on the left 
 side of the proscenium. Thus describing it from three cen- 
 tres, the Greeks have a larger orchestra, and their scene is 
 further recessed. The pulpitum, which they call \oyciov, is 
 less in width ; wherefore among them the tragic and comic 
 performers act upon the scene, the rest going through their 
 parts in the orchestra." The ancient theatres were fre- 
 quently used for the deliberations of the general assembly 
 of the people on political matters, as we find from Tacitus 
 and Ausonius in respect of the theatres at Antioch and Ath- 
 ens. Notwithstanding the use of those buildings in iater 
 quarries freely used by the inhabitants of the cities 
 in which they stood, there are still considerable ruins at 
 Ephesus, Alabanda, Teos, Smyrna, Hieropolis, Cystous, 
 Alinda, Magnesia, Laodicea, Mylassa, Sardis, Miletus, Strat- 
 onicea, Telmessus, .lasus, and Patara, all in Asia .Minor; in 
 Sicily, at Catana, Taurominium, Syracuse, Argyriiim, and 
 In Greece, ruins are still extant at Athens, Spar- 
 ta, in the island of F.giun. at F.pidaurus, and Megalopolis. 
 
 According to Pausanlos, that at Epidaurus, buttl by Polycle- 
 
 tus, surpassed all the other theatres of Greece in its beauty 
 and proportions ; but in grandeur and magnificence the Ro- 
 man theatres far surpassed those of the Greeks; nor is this 
 surprising, considering the population the former had to ac 
 commodate compared with that of the latter. For a very 
 considerable period the theatres of Rome, like those of the 
 Etruscans, were of wood ; anil l'oiiipey, on his return from 
 the war against Mithriditcs, was the first who constructed 
 one of stone. This must have been of large dimensions, in- 
 1236 
 
 THEMIS. 
 
 nsmtich as it would contain 40,000 spectators. The remains 
 of it as some stables of a palace are still visible. There 
 were two Other considerable theatres in Rome; the first built 
 in the year 741 of the city, by Cornelius Balhus ; and the 
 second which was begun by Julius Ca-sar, but not finished 
 till the time of Augustus, who dedicated it to his friend 
 Marcellus. From the remains it appears that it was a spe- 
 cimen of great beauty and purity, as far as relates to the 
 profiles of two of its orders, there being no vestiges of the 
 upper order. The only other remains of Roman theatres 
 are at Saguntum and Oranges, though the Romans usually 
 erected theatres in their newly conquered cities, or at least 
 embellished and improved those they found on the spot. 
 
 The modern theatres of Rome are, perhaps, the worst in 
 Europe. Italy, however, boasts some beautiful examples ; 
 the principal whereof are those at Parma, now in a very 
 dilapidated state, Milan, Verona, Turin, Naples, and Bo- 
 logna. In France, a very fine theatre at Bourdeaux ; the the- 
 atre at Versailles; and some elegant theatres in Paris. Till 
 recently this country has been unsuccessful in the design 
 of theatres; but a taste seems rising, which we doubt not, 
 if opportunity occurred, would tend to raise its character 
 in that respect in the eyes of foreigners. We subjoin a 
 short table of the width of the stage in a few European 
 theatres : 
 
 Milan 40 feet. 
 
 San Benedetto Venice .... 40 
 Theatre Francais, Paris .... 40 
 
 Parma 40 
 
 Bourdeaux 39 
 
 Turin 39 
 
 Covent Garden 37 
 
 Argentino at Rome . ... 36 
 
 Theatre Italien, Paris .... 33 
 
 THE'BAID. The name given to the heroic poem of Stsi- 
 tius, which celebrates the civil war of Thebes waged be- 
 tween the two brothers Eteocles and Polynices. It consists 
 of twelve books. The poet Gray has translated book ii. 
 
 THEBAN YEAR. In Chronology, the Egyptian year of 
 365 days 6 hours was so called. (See Bryant, Ancient My- 
 thology, iv., 437.) 
 
 TIIE'CA. (Gr. ^vktj, a case or receptacle.) This term is 
 used in Botany in various senses. It is applied to one of 
 the lobes of an anther: to the case or urn containing the 
 spores of mosses; to delicate tubes sunk in the shields of 
 some lichens; and to certain simple kinds of fruit. In all 
 cases it expresses a hollow case. It is now seldom used, ex- 
 cept for the spore-vessel of a moss. 
 
 THE'CAPHONE. The long stalk upon which the ova- 
 rium of some plants is seated ; as in Cleome, and the caper 
 bush. 
 
 THECODA'CTYLUS. (Gr. Jnnij, and <5 xcrvAoc, a dipt.) 
 A subgenus of night-lizards or geckoes, distinguished by 
 having the sttbdigital scales divided by a median groove 
 into which the claw can be retracted. 
 
 THE'CODONTS. Gr. $>,K, h and ofovs, a tvoth.) A tribe 
 of extinct Lacertian reptiles, distinguished by having their 
 tei tli implanted in distinct sockets. One of the genera of 
 this tribe, from the magnesian conglomerate near Bristol, 
 has been called 'rhrrodontvsaiirus. 
 
 THE'COSTOMES, Thrcostoma. (Gr. ^rjKr,, and oroya, 
 a month.) The name given by Latrielle to those insects 
 which have a suctorious mouth enveloped in a sheath. 
 
 THEFT. In Jurisprudence, the general name lor the 
 most ordinary class of offences against property ; for which 
 English law uses the peculiar designation of larceny. The 
 difficulty of distinguishing between theft, those other spe- 
 cies of fraudulent appropriation which are regarded by the 
 laws of most countries as criminal offences, and, finally, 
 that class which is only the subject of civil action, has giv- 
 en rise to a variety of definitions. By the French Code, art. 
 379, "Whoever has fraudulently abstracted a thing which 
 does not belong to him is guilty of theft." By that of Bava- 
 ria, art. 209, "Whoever knowingly of his own accord take* 
 possession of moveables not his, without consent of the per- 
 son entitled thereto, but without violence to any one, with 
 intent unlawfully to bold the same as bis property, is a 
 thief." The principal characteristics of English law on the 
 subject are, that it requires an actual taking, and an actual 
 carrying away for some distance, however small, to consti- 
 tute tbe offence. The Commissioners of Criminal (.aw, in 
 their Third Report (1839), recommend the following defini- 
 tion : " Whosoever shall, without such consent as is herein- 
 after specified, take and remove anything, being the proper- 
 ty of :ur, other person, and, unless when it shall be other- 
 wise provided, of some value with intent to despoil the 
 owner, and fraudulently appropriate the same, shall be 
 guilty of theft." 
 
 THEISM. See Deism. 
 
 THEME. <('.r. 5 c ft a.) A subject proposed for discussion, 
 whether orallj or in writing. 
 
 THE'MIS. (Gr. Of^ij.) In Grecian Mythology, the god-
 
 THEOCRACY. 
 
 dess of law. She was one of the Titans, and hore to Jupi- 
 ter Peace, Order, Justice, the Fates, and Seasons. 
 
 THEOCRACY. (Gr. Geo;, God ; Kparew, I rule.) A 
 term expressing the government of a state immediately by 
 God. The constitution of the Israelites, previous to the ap- 
 pointment of kings, was emphatically a theocracy ; their 
 chief magistrates or judges being for the most part occasion- 
 al officers appointed by the express direction of God. The 
 kingly government may still be considered in a secondary 
 sense as a theocracy, from the general superintendence 
 which Jehovah continued to exercise over it. All polities 
 may in this sense be called theocratic in which the final ap- 
 peal in matters of moment is made to the will of God, as 
 expressed in oracles, by auguries, or the mouth of the priest- 
 hood. 
 
 THEOCRA'SY. (Gr. Beos, and k/xnxij, mixture.) In 
 ancient Philosophy, a term invented to signify the intimate 
 union of the soul with God in contemplation, which was 
 considered attainable by the newer Platonists. Similar ideas 
 are entertained by the philosophers of India, and by many 
 religious sects. See Quietism. 
 
 THEODICY' A. (Gr. eras, God; liKaiog, just.) A justi- 
 fication of the dealings of Divine Providence with man. A 
 work under this title was published by Leibnitz in the year 
 1710, in which he endeavours to prove that of all the possi- 
 ble schemes of government which God might have adopted, 
 the one which actually exists is the best. This is common- 
 ly known under the name of Optimism. 
 
 THEO'DOLITE. (Gr. Scao/xat, I view, and <5oXof, strat- 
 agem.) A surveying instrument for measuring the angular 
 distances between objects projected on the plane of the ho- 
 rizon. 
 
 In accurate surveying, when the instrument used for ob- 
 serving the angles is a sextant or reflecting circle, or such 
 that its plane must be brought into the plane of the three 
 objects which form the angular points of the triangle to be 
 measured, the altitudes of the two distant objects above the 
 horizon of the observer must be determined, and a calcula- 
 tion is then necessary to reduce the observed angles to the 
 plane of the horizon. The object of the theodolite is to mea- 
 sure the horizontal angles at once, and thereby render the 
 previous calculation, and even the observation of the alti- 
 tudes, unnecessary. 
 
 It is easy to conceive, in a general way, how this object 
 may be effected. A telescope with cross wires in its focus 
 must be mounted so as to be moveable both about a verti- 
 cal and horizontal axis, in order that it may be brought to 
 hear upon any object, whether in the horizon, or above or 
 below it ; and the proper means applied for measuring, with 
 the utmost accuracy, the angle described about the vertical 
 axis (which is the horizontal angle) in turning the telescope 
 round from one object to another. It is consequently neces 
 sary to fix a graduated circle to the vertical axis, so that its 
 plane may be exactly horizontal, and its centre coincident 
 with the vertical axis; and about the same axis a radial 
 bar, firmly connected with the telescope, must revolve par- 
 allel to the plane of the circle, for the purpose of indicating 
 the divisions passed over on the limb of the circle when 
 the telescope is turned from the first object to the second. 
 And in order to render the instrument subservient to the 
 purpose of measuring altitudes, a graduated vertical arch is 
 attached to the telescope ; but as it seldom happens, in the 
 practice of surveying, that the objects observed are very 
 much elevated above or depressed below the horizon, or 
 that the vertical angles are required to be taken with the 
 same degree of accuracy as the horizontal angles, the ver- 
 tical arch is generally only a portion of a circle of smaller 
 radius, and less minutely divided than the horizontal circle. 
 
 The theodolite, as now generally constructed for the pur- 
 poses of ordinary surveying, may be described as follows : 
 The horizontal limb or circle consists of two circular plates, 
 which turn freely on each other. The lower or graduated 
 plate receives the divisions of the circle, and the upper or 
 vernier plate has two vernier divisions diametrically oppo- 
 site. The vertical axis consists of two conical parts, one 
 working within the other. The external part is attached to 
 the graduated plate, and the internal to the vernier plate. 
 The diameter of the under plate is somewhat larger than 
 that of the vernier plate, and its edge is sloped off to receive 
 the graduation ; and portions of the opposite edges of the 
 vernier plate are sloped ofT in like manner to receive the 
 vernier divisions. The graduation is usually to thirty min- 
 utes of a degree, but it is subdivided by the verniers into 
 single minutes; and in a well-made instrument quarter 
 minutes may be estimated by the eye. For the purpose of 
 adjusting the plane of the circle to the horizon, the external 
 axis is fitted into a ball, which works in a socket between 
 two parallel plates held firmly together by the ball and 
 socket, the under plate being connected with the staff head 
 supporting the instrument. But this adjustment may also 
 be made (and in larger instruments is usually made) by a 
 tripod support, having a foot screw at each extremity acting 
 105 
 
 THEODOLITE. 
 
 against a plate of metal supported by the staff. Upon the 
 plane of the vernier plate are placed two spirit levels at 
 right angles to each other, with their proper adjusting 
 screws, by which the circle is brought accurately into the 
 horizontal plane indicated by the levels. The centre of the 
 circle is adjusted over the point which forms the centre of 
 the station from which the observation is to be made by 
 means of a plummet. 
 
 Instead of the vernier plate described above, the index is 
 sometimes formed by three radial bars connected with the 
 internal vertical axis, each carrying a vernier at its extremi- 
 ty ; and a fourth bar carries the clamp, by which the sys- 
 tem is secured to the graduated limb. 
 
 The horizontal axis of the vertical limb (which is usual- 
 ly a semicircle) is supported by a frame firmly imbedded in 
 the vernier plate, and turning along with it about the verti- 
 cal axis. The telescope has two collars or rings of bell met- 
 al, ground truly cylindrical, on which it rests in supports 
 permanently attached to the vertical limb, so that both 
 move together in the vertical plane. The divisions on this 
 limb are read off to single minutes by means of a fixed ver- 
 nier connected with the frame, and so adjusted that the in- 
 dex points to the zero of the graduated arc when the opli- 
 cal axis at the telescope is truly horizontal. For effecting 
 this adjustment, or determining its index error, a spirit level 
 is attached to the telescope, at one end by a joint, and at 
 the other by a screw, whereby the end is raised or depres- 
 sed until the air bubble stands at the middle of the glass 
 tube. The telescope is then reversed ; and if the air bubble 
 of the level still stands at zero, the adjustment is perfect ; 
 if not, the index error becomes known by bringing the level 
 to the proper position, and may either be corrected or allow- 
 ed for in the observations. 
 
 In some theodolites the telescope is supported in the man- 
 ner of a transit instrument ; that is to say, the telescope and 
 the horizontal axis on which it turns form one piece, and 
 the vertical limb is a complete circle. By this construction 
 the instrument becomes better adapted for determining the 
 altitudes of stars, and consequently for finding the direction 
 of the meridian and the azimuths of objects, or for other 
 astronomical purposes. In fact, it becomes an altitude and 
 azimuth instrument. 
 
 In theodolites for topographical purposes the horizontal 
 circle is seldom more than five inches in diameter ; but as 
 the double vertical axis gives the means of carrying round 
 the telescope from the first object to the second without dis- 
 turbing the graduated circle, and then, by clamping the ver- 
 nier and graduated plates, of bringing it back, and the grad- 
 uated circle along with it, to the first object, the measure of 
 the angle may be repeated any number of times, exactly as 
 with the repeating circle, and a very considerable degree of 
 accuracy obtained even with a circle of this small size. 
 {See Repeating Circle.) But the principle of repetition is 
 better carried into effect by means of a particular kind of 
 stand or tripod, called a repeating- stand, which turns round 
 concentrically with the vertical axis of the theodolite ; and 
 this apparatus is usually had recourse to when the instru- 
 ment is on a large scale. 
 
 As the accuracy of the observation must depend on the 
 horizontal circle remaining perfectly fixed while the tele- 
 scope and verniers are turned round, a second telescope, 
 called a watch telescope, is sometimes attached to the hori- 
 zontal circle beneath the limb, which, being directed to a 
 fixed object, serves to detect any disturbance of the circle 
 clamp, or accidental shifting of position while the upper tel- 
 escope with the verniers is turned from the first object to 
 the second. But this can scarcely be applied to the repeat- 
 ing theodolite. 
 
 The principal adjustments of the theodolite are, first, to 
 rectify the line of collimation of the telescope; secondly, to 
 make the axis of the horizontal limb truly vertical ; and, 
 thirdly, to adjust the zero of altitude. For the practical 
 methods of making these adjustments in the case of the 
 common surveying theodolite, and instructions as to the 
 mode of observing, the reader may be referred to Simms's 
 Treatise on Mathematical Instruments, 1834. 
 
 In geodetical operations, where very great accuracy is in- 
 dispensable, as, for example, in measuring an arc of the me- 
 ridian, the instrument is constructed on a much larger scale. 
 The great theodolite by Ramsden, belonging to the Board 
 of Ordnance, which has been used for measuring most of 
 the principal angles of the British Trigonometrical Survey, 
 has a horizontal circle of three feet in diameter, and two 
 telescopes of thirty-six inches focal length. A similar one 
 of equal dimensions had formerly been constructed by the 
 same excellent artist for the Royal Society, and was used 
 by General Roy in his operations for connecting the obser- 
 vations of Greenwich and Paris towards the end of the last 
 century, and also by Colonel Colby and Captain Kater for 
 the same purpose in 1821. A full description of this superb 
 instrument is given in the Phil. Trans., vol. lxxx., and in 
 the first volume of the Trigonometrical Survey of England 
 
 1237
 
 THEOGONY. 
 
 end Wales. A theodolite of equal dimensions, by Can - , has 
 been employed in the measurement of the great meridional 
 arc of India by Colonel Lambton and Colonel Everest. 
 The French astronomers, in measuring their arc of meridi- 
 an, used only the repeating circle ; but in the more recent 
 operations of the same kind in Germany and Russia, the ge- 
 odetical angles were determined with the theodolite. 
 
 THEO'GONY. (Gr. Seoy, Clod; vovos, birth.) In the 
 Religion and Literature of ancient Greece and Rome, the 
 history of the descent anil relationships of the various gods 
 who were the objects of popular worship. These gene- 
 alogies were very variously related by different writers, and 
 originated in some instances from national superstition ; 
 While in others they had an allegorical sense, and were in 
 Vented by the learned men or poets of those countries. 
 
 Theogony is also the title of a poem attributed to Hesiod, 
 gi\ -jug an account of the birth and parentage of most of the 
 Grecian divinities. 
 
 THEOLOGIUM. A small upper stage in the ancient 
 theatre upon which the machinery of the gods was ar- 
 ranged. 
 
 THEO'LOGY. (Gr. Otoe, and Aoyoc, discourse.) The 
 science which treats of the nature and attributes of God, 
 of his relations to man, and of the manner in which they 
 may be discovered. Lord Bacon divides the science under 
 the following heads : I. Inspired. 2. Natural, which he 
 calls the lirst part of philosophy. 3. Appendices Theologian 
 Inspirala.': sc. Doctrina de legitimo usu rationis humans in 
 divinis; doctrina de gradibus unitatis in civitate Dei ; ema- 
 nationes scripturarum. 4. Theologian tarn inspiratan quam 
 naturalis appendix: Doctrina de angelis et spiritibus. (De 
 Jkugm. Sci., 1. ii., ch. 1.) 
 
 Natural Theology is the inquiry into these subjects prior 
 to the idea of revelation, and conjectures concerning them 
 from data furnished by the constitution of nature alone. It 
 is only by the conclusions arrived at by this process that 
 We are put in a proper condition to examine the evidence 
 of revealed religion, the basis of which is the satisfaction it 
 affords to the demands of the human reason and affections. 
 
 A pure system of natural theology, looking no farther for 
 the evidence of divinity than the marks of it displayed in 
 the creation, is deism — the belief in God as a superintend- 
 in" Providence, which seems to require as a corollary the 
 idea of a future retribution. Those who can discover no 
 design in the constitution of the word, i. e., no trace of God's 
 hand therein, are atheists, or deniers of a Deity. Again, 
 the most common form of religion deduced by the heathens 
 from their researches in natural theology is the supposition 
 of numerous gods, each manifesting himself to us in tin- 
 various functions and qualities of the animate and inanimate 
 world, and sometimes, according to ancient legends and tra- 
 ditions, by direct communication in various ways. Opposed 
 to this is monotheism, which recognises more distinctly 
 than deism the unity of the godhead, and gathers up under 
 one volition and agency the attributes which the polytheist 
 dispersed among a vast number of divinities. Of mono- 
 theisl religions the Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan 
 lay claim to express revelation by the word of God. 
 
 THE'OMANCY. (Gr. 0tos, and uavrtia, prophecy.) A 
 name which has been given to that species of divination 
 which was drawn from the responses of oracles among 
 heathen nations, in which a god himself was supposed to 
 answer the inquirer,; or from the predictions of sibyls and 
 others supposed to be immediately inspired by some di- 
 vinity. 
 
 THEOPA'SCHTTES. (Gr. Ococ, and iraa X o}, I suffer.) 
 In Ecclesiastical History, a name given bv the orthodox to 
 certain heretics of the fifth century, followers of Peter the 
 Fuller, an usurping bishop of Antioch. Being strongly at- 
 tached to the Mouophysite opinions, his enemies charged 
 him and his disciples with holding that all the three per- 
 sons of the Godhead were crucified. (Moshcim, fifth cent., 
 part ii., ch. 51.) 
 
 THEO'PHANY. (Gr. Ococ, and Qntvoitai, T appear.) A 
 word invented to signify the manifestations of God to man 
 by actual appearance. These have formed a striking fea- 
 ture in most systems of religion. (See, on Pagan Theo- 
 phanies, the . r >th Dissertation of M. Foucher on the Hellenic 
 Religion, Mem. del'Jlcad. des Insc., vol. xxxvi., p. 292.) 
 
 THEOPHILA'NTHROPISTS. (Gr. 6soj, God, and fi- 
 ^av$pu>iroc, a lover of men.) A title assumed by a society 
 formed at Paris during the first French revolution. The Ob 
 Ject of its founders was to establish a new religion in the 
 place of Christianity, which had been formally abolished 
 in France by the Convention, and had lost its power over 
 the minds of large classes of the people. The Director] 
 granted these philosophical sectarians the use of ten parish 
 churches In Paris, where they held meetings for religious 
 it first on the Decadi, or revolutionary bolyday, 
 afterwards on the Sunday. Their system of belief was a 
 pure deism: their service a simple liturgy, with some em- 
 blematic mummeries. The attempt to found a new sect 
 1338 
 
 THERMOMETER. 
 
 was, however, wholly unsuccessful. In 1802 they were 
 forbidden the use of the churches by the consuls, and then 
 ceased to exist 
 
 THEO'RBO. (It. tiorba.) A lute of large dimensions, 
 sometimes called the arch-lute, and formerly used for strik- 
 ing the chords of the thorough bass in accompaniments. 
 
 THE'OKEM. (Gr. Sewpnua, from $eaouut, I observe.*, 
 In Geometry, a truth proposed to be proved; in contradis- 
 tinction to a problem, which proposes something to be done. 
 A theorem wants demonstration; a problem requires solu- 
 tion. Jn algebra, the term is applied to various formulae, 
 as the binomial theorem, Taylor's theorem, and others ; for 
 which see the respective terms. 
 
 THEO'RICON. In ancient Attic History, the name given 
 to that portion of the revenue of the state which was ex- 
 clusively reserved for the purpose of theatrical representa- 
 tions. (See liocckh's Public Economy of .Ithens, i. 289, 299, 
 &c.) 
 
 THE'ORY (Gr. Stwpia), in Science, properly expresses a 
 connected arrangement of facts, according to their bearing 
 on some real or hypothetical law. A hypothesis has been 
 distinguished from a theory as an assumption which is con- 
 ceived to afford a support to the discovered law. Thus, 
 some have imagined that the facts of gravitation are ex- 
 plained on the supposition of a subtle and all-pervading 
 ether. Here it is evident that the facts, and therefore the 
 theory or connected survey of them, ate unaffected by the 
 supposition in question. 
 
 Theory. The abstract principles of any science or art, 
 considered without reference to practice. 
 
 THEO'SOPHISTS. (Gr. Sto;, and oo<bia, wisdom.) The 
 name commonly given to a sect of philosophers who pre- 
 tended to derive their knowledge of God and divine matters 
 from direct inspiration. One of the most distinguished of 
 this class in modern times was Jacob BOhme. 
 
 THERAPE'UTiE. (Gr. worshippers.) A Jewish sect of 
 the first century after Christ, concerning whom some doubt 
 is entertained whether or not they had embraced Christi- 
 anity. They are mentioned by Pliilo Judsus. (See Bur- 
 ton's Lecture on the Ecclesiastical History of the First 
 Three Centuries, vol. i., p. 300.) 
 
 THERAPEU'TICS.) Gr. Scpairmeiv, to heal.) A branch 
 of pathology relating to the application of remedies, and 
 the curative treatment of disease. 
 
 THERAPHIM. See Teraphim. 
 
 THERI'ACA. (Gr. Sep, a venomous animal.) A name 
 given in ancient Pharmacy to certain complex remedies 
 supposed to be antidotes to poisons: they were usually in 
 the form of confections. Some of the more celebrated have 
 been transferred to comparatively modern pharmacopoeia;; 
 such as the Theriaca of Andromachus ; Theriaca Veneta ; 
 C onfect io Mithridati, &c. 
 
 THERMjE. (Lat.) In Ancient Architecture. See Bath. 
 
 THE'RMIDOR. In the French Calendar, the name of 
 the 11th month of the year in the French Republic. It 
 commenced on the 19th of July, and ended on the 17th of 
 August. The name is derived from the Gr. Seppoc, warm, 
 and was borrowed from the great heat which characterizes 
 that period of the year. It was the month signalized by the 
 overthrow of Robespierre and the Reign of Terror ; thence 
 commonly called the Revolution of Thermidor, and those 
 who boasted of having participated in it called themselves 
 Thennidorians. 
 
 THERMO-ELECTRICITY. When one part of a me- 
 tallic bar is heated and another cooled, an electric current 
 is generated in its substance, which may be rendered evi- 
 dent and its direction ascertained by the galvanometer. 
 When two metals of different temperatures are brought 
 into contact similar electric currents are generated, the 
 quantity and direction of the electricity varying with the 
 nature of the metals and their respective temperatures. 
 The best apparatus for exhibiting these thermo-electric 
 currents consists of alternate bars of antimony and bismuth 
 soldered together at their ends, so as to form a compound 
 bar or parallelogram, the junctions of Which may be alter- 
 nately heated and cooled : in this case the direction of the 
 current is from the antimony to the bismuth ; so that these 
 metals bear the same relation to each other in the thermo- 
 electric series, as the zinc and silver in the simple voltaic 
 circuit. The term stereo-electric has also been applied to 
 these currents, implying their production in solid bodies in- 
 dependent of a fluid, and as opposed to the hydro-electric 
 or volta ic current. See Voltaic Battkry. 
 
 THERMO'METER. (Gr. Stpuos, warm, and /irr/Jov, 
 measure.) An instrument for measuring variations of heat 
 or temperature. 
 
 The principle upon which thermometers are constructed 
 is the Change of volume which takes place in bodies when 
 their temperature undergoes an alteration. Generally 
 speaking, •■'II bodies expand when heated and contract 
 when cooled, and in such n manner that, under the same 
 circumstances of temperature, they return to the same di-
 
 THERMOMETER. 
 
 mensions ; so that the change of volume becomes the ex- 
 ponent of the temperature which produces it. But as it is 
 necessary not merely that expansion and contraction take 
 place, but that they be capable of being conveniently ob- 
 served and measured, only a small number of bodies are 
 adapted for thennometrical purposes. Solid bodies, for 
 example, undergo so small a change of volume with mode- 
 rate variations of temperature, that they are in general only 
 used for measuring very high temperatures, as the heat of 
 furnaces, of melting metals, &c. Instruments for such pur- 
 poses are called pyrometers. (See Pyrometer.) The 
 gaseous fluids, on the other hand, are extremely susceptible 
 of the impressions of heat and cold; and as their changes 
 of volume are great even with moderate accessions of heat, 
 they are only adapted for indicating very minute variations, 
 or for forming differential thermometers. (See Differen- 
 tial Thermometer.) Liquids hold an intermediate place ; 
 and by reason of their moderate but sensible expansion 
 through the ranges of temperature within which observa- 
 tions have to be made for by far the greater number of pur- 
 poses, are commonly used for the construction of thermo- 
 meters. Various liquids have been proposed, as oils, ether, 
 spirits of wine, and mercury ; but scarcely any other than 
 the two last are now ever used, and mercury by far the 
 most generally. 
 
 The properties which render mercury preferable to all 
 other liquids (unless for particular purposes) are these : 
 1. It supports, before it boils and is reduced to vapour, more 
 heat than any other fluid, excepting certain oils, and en- 
 dures a greater cold than would congeal most other liquids, 
 excepting certain spirituous liquors. 2. It takes the tempe- 
 rature of the medium in which it is placed more quickly 
 than any other fluid. Count Rumford found that mercury 
 was heated from the freezing to the boiling point of water 
 in 58 seconds, while water took 133 seconds, and air 017 
 seconds, the heat applied being the same in all the three 
 cases. 3. The variations of its volume within limits which 
 include the temperatures most frequently required to be 
 observed, are found to be perfectly regular, and proportional 
 to the variations of temperature. The spirit thermometer 
 is now little used excepting for observations of very low 
 temperatures, or as a self-registering instrument for meteor- 
 ological observations. 
 
 Construction of the Mercurial Thermometer. — In order to 
 render small changes of volume sensible, a glass bulb, hav- 
 ing a slender hollow tube attached to it, is rilled with mer- 
 cury, so that expansion or contraction can only take place 
 by the rise or fall of the liquid in the tube. The diameter 
 of the tube may be of any convenient size; but the smaller 
 it is the larger will be the scale of the variations ; and ca- 
 pillary tubes are usually employed. It is essential that the 
 diameter of the bore be of a uniform width throughout ; a 
 quality which is tested by drawing up into the tube a short 
 column of mercury, and measuring its length at the dif- 
 ferent parts, with a pair of compasses. Not more than a 
 sixth part of the tubes which come from the glass-house 
 are found to be fit for the purpose. 
 Having selected a tube, the workman begins by blowing a 
 hollow ball A upon one extremity of it, by means 
 of an air-bag of caoutchouc (in order to avoid the 
 introduction of watery vapour by blowing from the 
 mouth). The length which the thermometer is to 
 
 O b have is then marked, and above this point the tube 
 is expanded into a second bulb B, rather larger than 
 the first. When the tube has acquired its natural 
 temperature one of the bulbs is warmed, in order to 
 expel the air from it, and the open end of the tube 
 is plunged into distilled and well-boiled mercury. 
 During the cooling the mercury rises into the second 
 bulb B, whence it is made to pass into A by placing 
 this undermost, and expelling the air from it by heat, 
 QjA after which the mercury descends from the effect 
 of cooling. When the bulb A has been completely 
 filled, and also a part of B, the tube is suspended horizon- 
 tally over a charcoal fire, so as to be equally heated through- 
 out, and the enclosed mercury boiled, in order to expel 
 every remaining particle of air or humidity. The open end 
 is then touched with, sealing-wax, and the tube withdrawn 
 from the fire, and placed in an upright position until it is 
 cooled, when the bulb A and the portion of the tube under 
 B will be filled with mercury. A portion of mercury is 
 then expelled by heat, so that the column may stand at the 
 proper height in the tube. The tube is then carefully 
 softened with the blow-pipe, and hermetically sealed under 
 the bulb B, which is thus cut off. 
 
 Graduation, of the Scale. — The instrument prepared in 
 the manner now described is admirably adapted for render- 
 ing evident the expansions and contractions of the enclosed 
 fluid, and it only remains to adopt a scale to it in order to 
 have a complete thermometer. The graduation of the scale 
 is in some measure arbitrary ; nevertheless, in order that 
 different thermometers may be comparable with each other, 
 
 it is necessary that two points at least be taken on .the 
 scale corresponding to fixed and determinate temperatures, 
 the distance between which will determine the graduation. 
 The two points which are now universally chosen for this 
 purpose are those which correspond to the temperatures of 
 freezing and boiling water. With respect to the first of 
 these there is no difficulty ; it is only necessary to surround 
 the bulb with ice, and to mark on the stem the point at 
 which the mercury stands when the ice begins to melt. 
 The boiling point is not so readily determined. As the tem- 
 perature at which water boils varies to a small extent with 
 the barometric pressure, it is necessary, in order to have 
 instruments comparable with each other, either that the 
 boiling point on the scale be determined when the baro- 
 meter stands at a certain height which is arbitrarily as- 
 sumed for the standard, or else to apply a correction when 
 the actual height of the barometer is above or below the 
 assumed standard. De Luc made a number of experiments 
 on this subject, and gave a formula for the correction, which 
 was adapted to Fahrenheit's scale and English inches by 
 Horsley. (Phil. Trans., vol. Ixiv.) A committee of the 
 Royal Society who undertook to investigate the best method 
 of adjusting the fixed points, and whose report is contained 
 in vol. lxvii. of the Transactions, laid down a set of rules 
 which have been generally followed by English instrument- 
 makers. They recommended the adoption of 298 inches 
 for the standard barometric pressure, and gave a table of 
 the corrections for all ordinary pressures above or below 
 this standard. Their table is very nearly represented by 
 the following simple rule, which will be quite sufficient for 
 the guidance of the artist in all ordinary cases : 
 
 Supposing the thermometer placed in an atmosphere of 
 steam immediately over the surface of boiling water, then 
 for every tenth of an inch by which the barometer is above 
 or below 29'8, the correction for the boiling point of the 
 scale of the thermometer is one thousandth part of the in- 
 terval between the freezing and boiling points. The cor- 
 rected must be placed lower than the observed boiling point 
 by this quantity when the pressure exceeds 298 inches, and 
 higher when the pressure is less than the standard. 
 
 Several other minute circumstances must be attended to 
 in the construction of delicate instruments. As the tem- 
 perature of boiling water is different at the top and near the 
 bottom of the vessel in which it boils, the thermometer 
 should not be plunged into the water itself, but into the 
 vapour which rises above it, in a close vessel with an aper- 
 ture for the escape of the steam. The vessel should be of 
 metal, because water boils at a different temperature in 
 vessels of different substances, as metal and glass. Dis- 
 tilled water, or clear soft water, should be used ; if mixed 
 with saline ingredients, the temperature at which it boils 
 would be affected, and the instrument rendered inaccurate. 
 
 The interval between the two fixed points on the stem 
 may be divided into any number of degrees at pleasure, and 
 the graduation continued above and below as far as may be 
 thought requisite: the numeration may also be begun at 
 any point whatever on the scale ; but there are only three 
 methods of division so generally adopted as to require par- 
 ticular notice. The first is Fahrenheit's, which is used in 
 this country, in Holland, and North America ; the second 
 Reaumer's, which was formerly in general use in France, 
 and is still followed in Spain and some parts of Germany; 
 and the third that of Celsius, or the centigrade scale, now 
 used in France, Germany, and Sweden. 
 
 Fahrenheit's Scale. — In this scale the interval between the 
 freezing and boiling points of water is divided into 180 equal 
 parts, or degrees, which number was chosen by Fahrenheit 
 (or probably Roemer), from some theoretical considerations 
 respecting the expansion of mercury ; it being computed 
 that the thermometer when plunged into melting snow 
 contained 11,150 parts of mercury, which, at the tempera- 
 ture of boiling water, were expanded into 11,330 parts, being 
 an increase of 180 parts. The zero point of the scale is 
 placed at 32° below the freezing point of water. It has 
 been frequently stated that this point was selected as indi- 
 cating the temperature of a freezing mixture of snow and 
 salt ; but it appears from Boerhaave that it was adopted 
 from a still more precarious supposition, namely, the greatest 
 cold observed in Iceland, which was probably assumed to 
 be the lowest natural temperature. The freezing point is 
 thus marked 32°, and consequently the boiling point at 
 32 + 180=212. It must be admitted that this scale, though 
 it possesses some advantages in the lovvness of the zero 
 point and the smallness of the divisions, is not well adapted 
 to philosophical purposes. 
 
 Reaumer's Scale. — Reaumer, in 1730, proposed the adop- 
 tion of the temperature of melting ice as the zero of the 
 scale, and to divide the distance between this and the boil- 
 ing point of water into 80°, having observed that between 
 those temperatures spirits of wine (which he used for the 
 thermometric fluid) expanded from 1000 parts to 1080. This 
 division soon became general in France and other countries. 
 
 1239
 
 THERMOMETER. 
 
 and a great multitude of valuable observations have been 
 recorded in terms of il ; but it is now seldom used in works 
 of science. 
 
 Cm I • — In 1742, Celsius, professor at Upsal in 
 
 Sweden, proposed to divide ilir space between the freezing 
 and boiling points of water into 100 equal parts, the zero 
 point being placed (as in Eteaumer's) at freezing. This di- 
 vision being in harmony with our decimal arithmetic, is hot- 
 ter adapted than the two former to scientific purposes. It 
 has been adopted by all the French writers since the Rev- 
 olution, and is the best known in most parts of the north 
 and middle of Europe. 
 
 It has been sometimes objected to this scale (and the ob- 
 jection applies equally to Eteaumer's), that on account of 
 the comparatively high point at which the zero is placed, 
 meteorological observations are embarrassed with the al- 
 gebraic signs of phis and minus. The inconvenience (if 
 any) is a very trifling one, and is much more than com 
 pensated by the facilities for calculation which the scale 
 affords. 
 
 Conversion of Degrees of one Scale into Degrees of an- 
 other. — From the manner in which the three scales are 
 graduated, il is easy 10 deduce formula' expressing any tem- 
 perature given according to one scale in terms of either of 
 the others. The interval which in Fahrenheit's scale is 
 divided into lf-0 parts is divided into only 100 parts in the 
 centigrade scale, and into HO in lteaumer's. Hence one de- 
 gree of Fahrenheit's is equal to 5-0ths of a degree of the 
 centigrade, and to 4-i)ths of a degree of Reaumer. But 
 some attention is required on account of the difference of 
 tiie zero points. For the sake of perspicuity, it is conve- 
 nient to adapt the expressions to three distinct cases. Let 
 F denote degrees of Fahrenheit's scale, C degrees of the 
 centigrade, and R degrees of Reaumer ; then, 
 
 Case 1. For all temperatures above the freezing point, 
 F — 32=|C = flR. 
 
 Case 2. For all temperatures between the freezing point 
 and the zero of Fahrenheit's scale, 
 
 32— F= — 'jC = — |R. 
 
 Case 3. For all temperatures below the zero of Fahren- 
 heit, 
 
 — 32 — F= — jC= — f R. 
 
 By substituting numbers in these formula; for F, C, or R, 
 as the case may require, the corresponding values on the 
 other scales is immediately obtained; but if many reduc- 
 tions are required to be made, it is more convenient to have 
 comparative tables, by which the correspondence of the 
 scales is seen at a glance. Such tables are given in most 
 treatises on chemistry. 
 
 Theory of the Graduation. — It will be evident from what 
 has now been said that, whatever scale he adopted, the di- 
 \ ision is founded on the assumed principle that equal in- 
 crements of heat produce equal expansions. This assump- 
 tion may be put to the test of experiment by the mixture of 
 fluids at different temperatures. For example, if a pound 
 of water at 212° Falir. he mixed with another pound of wa- 
 ter at 32°, and the requisite precautions be used, then the 
 temperature of the mixture will be 122°, which is the arith- 
 metical mean between the two temperatures ; and if the 
 assumed principle be correct, a thermometer [dunged into 
 the mixture will stand at 122°. This is found to be the case 
 ■Willi the mercurial, but not with the spirit thermometer ; 
 and, in general, thermometers formed of different fluids, 
 When exposed to the same temperatures, do not give the 
 same indications throughout the whole extent of the scale. 
 An important question hence arises: what substance ought 
 to be adopted as the standard to which, in comparing ob- 
 servations, all others should be reduced? It is, perhaps, 
 not possible to determine this question with absolute cer- 
 tainty ; but the experiments of the French chemists Dulong 
 and Petit on the dilatation of various substances, render it 
 probable that air and the other permanent gases (which all 
 expand equally) afford the most accurate Indications of the 
 true variations of temperature. As Compared With the ail 
 thermometer, the expansion of mercury is proportional to 
 the increase of temperature from — 30° to -f imp of the 
 centigrade scale. From this point to 360° the boiling point 
 of mercury), mercury expands more rapidly than air, and 
 consequently the mercurial thermometer stands higher than 
 the air thermometer in the same temperature. When the 
 former Indicates 2oo° and 300°, the latter Indicates 107° and 
 292'7° respectively; and it seems to be a genera] law that 
 
 all fluids With the same increase of heat expand more rapid- 
 ly a- the temperature approaches their boiling point. The 
 inoi, rapid expansion of the mercury at high temperatures 
 is, how ever, in some measure corrected by the expansion of 
 the bulb. 
 
 of the 7.i rn Point. — There is a circumstance con- 
 nected with the mercurial theme. meter which requires to 
 
 he attend) d to u in a very exact determinations of ten 
 ture are to i„ made. Bellas! in Italy, and Flaueerirues in 
 1240 b b 
 
 France, observed that when thermometers which have been 
 constructed for several years are placed in melting ice. the 
 
 mercury stands in general higher than the zero point of the 
 scale ; and this circumstance, which renders the scale inac- 
 curate, has been usually ascribed to the slowness frith 
 which the glass of the bulb acquires its permanent arrange- 
 ment, titter having been heated to a high degree in boiling 
 the mercury. Despretz ( Traiti de Physique) observes, that 
 in very nice experiments it is always necessary to verity the 
 zero point; for he found that when thermometers have 
 been kept during a certain time in a low temperature, the 
 zero point rises, hut falls when they have been kept in a 
 high temperature: and this remark applies equally to old 
 thermometers and to those which have been recently con- 
 structed. 
 
 Register Thrrmometers. — In meteorological observations, 
 it is of great importance to ascertain the limits of the range 
 of the thermometer in a given period of time, during a day 
 or night, for example, while the observer is absent. Nu- 
 merous contrivances have accordingly been proposed lor 
 tiiis purpose, but the two following are those most frequent- 
 ly used. 
 
 Six's Register Thermometer. — This instrument was in- 
 vented by Mr. Six of Colchester, and is described in the 
 Phil. Trans., vol. lxxii. It is a spirit thermometer, having 
 a long cylindrical bulb A, with a tube bent in the form of a 
 siphon, and terminating in a small cavity ii. 
 A part of the tube, from a to b, is tilled with 
 mercury; but the bulb A, and the remaining 
 portion of the tube, and a small part of the 
 cavity B, with highly rectified alcohol. The 
 use of the mercury in the middle of the tube is 
 to give motion to two indices, c and d. which 
 consist each of a glas< tube in which a small 
 bit of iron wire is enclosed, the ends being cap- 
 ped with enamel. The indices are of such a c j 
 size that they move freely within the barome- J 
 trie tube, and allow the spirit to pass; but a a \ 
 slender spring is attached to each, which 
 presses against the side of the tube, and is just 
 strong enomrh to prevent the index from fall- 
 ing down when it has been raised to any point 
 and the mercury recedes. The action of the 
 instrument will be readily apprehended from the figure. An 
 increase of heat expands the alcohol in the bulb A. de- 
 presses the mercury at a, and consequently raises it in the 
 other branch of the siphon at b. The mercury while rising 
 drives the index d before it; and when the temperature di- 
 minishes, the mercury recedes from the index, which is re- 
 tained in its place by the action of the spring, and conse- 
 quently marks the highest point at which the mercury has 
 stood. In like manner, when the spirit in the bulb A is 
 contracted by a diminution of heat, the mercury is pre--' d 
 towards A by the elastic force of a portion of air purposely 
 left in the cavity B, and drives before it the index c, which 
 is prevented from falling back by the spring, and consequent- 
 ly remains at the highest point at which the mercury has 
 stood in that branch of the siphon. When the observation 
 has been made, the indices are brought back to the surface 
 of the mercury by means of a magnet, which acts on the 
 enclosed iron wire and overcomes the force of the spring. 
 A scale is applied to each limb of the siphon, and graduated 
 by comparison with a standard thermometer. 
 "This instrument has all the defects which belong to the 
 spirit thermometer, and the indications are besides in some 
 degree deranged by the expansion and contraction of the 
 enclosed column of mercury; probably, also, by the friction 
 of the indices. Nevertheless, ii is the best instrument we 
 possess for determining the temperature of the sea at great 
 depths. 
 
 Rutherford's Thermometer. — Another register thermome- 
 ter, simpler in its construction, and less expensive than the 
 former, and consequently more generally used, is the day 
 and night thermometer proposed by Dr. Rutherford in the 
 Edinburgh Transactions, vol. iii. It consists simply of two 
 
 thermometers: a rcurial thermometer A, and a spirit 
 
 thermometer B, attached 
 
 horizontally to the same 
 
 frame, ami each pros ided 
 
 with its own scale. The 
 
 index of A is a hit of 
 
 steel, which is pushed be- ■" 
 
 fore the mercury ; but, in consequence of its horizontal po- 
 
 sinoii. remains in its place when the mercury recedes, and 
 
 consequently indicates the highest degree of the scale to 
 which tin' mercury has risen. The index of ii is of uiass, 
 
 With a small knob at each end. This lies in the spirit, 
 which freely passes ii when the thermometer n-es; hut 
 
 when the spirit recedes, the cohesive attraction between 
 
 the Quid and the glass overcomes ihe friction arising from 
 
 the weight oi the Index, and the index is consequently car- 
 ried back with the spirit towards the bulb. As there is no
 
 THERMOSCOPE, 
 
 force to move it in the opposite direction, it remains at the 
 point nearest the bulb to which it has been brought, and 
 thus indicates the lowest temperature which has occurred. 
 By inclining the instrument, the indices are brought to the 
 surfaces of their respective fluids, and prepared for a new 
 observation. 
 
 History of the Thermometer. — The invention of the ther- 
 mometer dates from about the beginning of the 17th cen- 
 tury, but it is not certainly known when or by whom it was 
 first brought into use. By the Dutcli authors it is ascribed 
 to Cornelius Drebbel, a peasant of Alkmaar, and by the 
 Italians to Sanctorio. Libri (Annates de Chimie, Dec. 1830) 
 maintains, on the authority of Castelli and Viviani, that the 
 instrument was invented by Galileo prior to 1597. The ther- 
 mometer of Drebbel and Sanctorio was a very imperfect in- 
 strument. It consisted of a glass tube, having a ball blown 
 on one of its extremities, and the other end left open. A 
 portion of air being expelled from the ball by heat, the open 
 end was plunged into a cup containing any liquid, when, on 
 the cooling of the ball, the liquid would rise in the tube, 
 and the variations of its height indicate the increase or dim- 
 inution of the temperature of the bulb. The instrument had 
 no scale, and was therefore merely an indicator of changes 
 of temperature, or a thcrmoscope ; and it was defective even 
 in this respect, inasmuch as it is affected not merely by heat 
 and cold, but by the varying pressure of the atmosphere. 
 The Florentine academicians first excluded the influence of 
 atmospheric pressure by using a spirit instead of an air 
 thermometer, and hermetically sealing the tube. The next 
 step in improvement was the adoption of a fixed point in 
 tho scale. Boyle proposed the thawing oil of aniseeds, 
 which he preferred to thawing ice, because it could be 
 readily obtained at all times of the year. Halley proposed 
 the uniform temperature of a deep pit, which he probably 
 considered would be the mean temperature of the earth ; 
 but he also susgested the point at which spirit boils, as well 
 as the boiling point of water. Newton appears to have 
 been tho first who saw the advantage of having two fixed 
 points in the scale; and in order that the instrument might 
 be applicable to a wider range of temperature, he used lin- 
 seed oil as the thermometric fluid. This, however, has not 
 been found to answer, on account of its sluggish motion and 
 adhesion to the sides of the tube. The astronomer Koemer 
 proposed the substitution of mercury, which is now gener- 
 ally used ; and the knowledge of the fluctuation of the boil- 
 ing point of water, owing to atmospheric pressure, is due to 
 Fahrenheit, about 1724. Since that time no improvement 
 has been made in the principle of the instrument. 
 
 For farther information on this subject, the reader may be 
 referred to Deluc, Rerherches sur les Modifications de V At- 
 mosphere, Geneve, 1772; Biot, Traite de Physique, tome I.; 
 Nicholson's Chemistry ; Library of Useful Knowledge, 
 "Thermometer and Pyrometer;" Muncke, in Gehler's Phy- 
 sical isrkrs IVorterbueh. 
 
 THE'RMOSCOPE. (Gr. Sepuoc, and okoitcw, I view.) 
 An instrument by which changes of temperature are indi- 
 cated. The modification of the air thermometer, called by 
 Leslie a differential thermometer, was claimed by Count 
 Rumford as one of his own inventions, under the name of 
 thermoseope. See Thermometer. 
 
 TIIE'RMOSTAT, or HEAT GOVERNOR. (Gr.$Fp,,oc, 
 and itrrriiu, I stand.) A self-acting physical apparatus for 
 regulating temperature. A thermostat, the principle of 
 which depends on the unequal expansion of metals by heat, 
 was proposed by Dr. Ure for regulating the safety valves 
 of steam engines with more certainty than the common ex- 
 pedients. (See Proceedino-s of the Royal Society for 1830 
 and 1831, p. 67.) 
 
 THE'SIS (Gr. Scots, a position), in a general sense, is ap- 
 plied to any proposition, affirmative or negative, which is 
 laid down or advanced to be supported by argument; but it 
 is more particularly applied to those questions which are 
 propounded in most of the Scotch and Continental uni- 
 versities to the students previously to their obtaining a de- 
 gree. 
 
 Thesis. In Music, the depression of the hand in mark- 
 ing or beatins time. 
 
 THESMOPHO'RIA. (Gr. Scapofopia.) A festival in 
 honour of Ceres, surnamed the lawgiver ($fauo<popo<;), be- 
 cause she first taught mankind the use of laws. It was 
 celebrated by many cities of Greece, but with most observa- 
 tion and ceremony by the Athenians. The worshippers 
 were free-born women, whose husbands defrayed the ex- 
 penses of the solemnity, assisted by a priest and band of 
 virgins. The women were clothed in white garments as 
 emblematic of purity, and were strictly enjoined to preserve 
 the strictest chastity some days previous to and during the 
 whole of the festival, which lasted five davs. 
 
 TIIESMO'THETiE. The six inferior ar'chons at Athens, 
 who presided at the election of the lower magistrates, re- 
 ceived criminal informations in various matters, decided 
 civil causes on arbitration, took the votes at elections, and 
 
 THIRST. 
 
 performed a vnriety of other offices. (See Mem. de VAcad. 
 des Inscr., vol. xxxix.) 
 
 THESPIAN ART. That of tragedy or tragic acting is so 
 termed ; from Thespis, an Athenian, who lived in the first 
 half of the 6th century before Christ, and introduced the 
 first rudiments of a tragic stage. See, Drama. 
 
 THE'TA. (Gr. 3.) The unlucky letter of the Greek 
 alphabet; so called because the judges in balloting on the 
 prisoner used it to intimate their desire for his condemna- 
 tion, from its being the first letter of Sxu'otoj, death. Hence 
 the verse — 
 
 multum ante alias infelix litera Theta. 
 
 THE'TES. (Gr. 5r)res.) In ancient Attica, originally 
 bondsmen, who were excluded from holding the chief ma- 
 gistracies of the state. Under the constitution of Solon they 
 formed the lowest class of free citizens who contributed 
 nothing to the support of the state; but in the course of the 
 subsequent innovations which brought the state to a com- 
 plete democracy all the restrictions on the thetes were re- 
 moved. They served generally as light-armed soldiers, but 
 sometimes also as regular infantry upon an emergency. 
 (See Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, ii., 258.) 
 
 THE'TIS. In Greek Mythology, one of the Nereids, 
 daughter of Nereus and Doris : was wedded under the au- 
 spices of the gods, among whom jealousy had arisen by 
 reason of her beauty, to Peleus, king of Thessaly. By him 
 she became the mother of Achilles. According to the an- 
 cient cosmogonies, Thetis was an emblem of the element 
 of water. She is best known by the verses of Homer. Her 
 marriage with Peleus is the subject of some exquisite lines 
 by Catullus. 
 
 THE'URGY. (Gr. Orof, God, and epyov, work.) A name 
 given by the ancients to their imaginary art of magic, which 
 was, like the whole magic of the middle ages, the result of 
 an intercourse with and influence over spiritual beings of 
 the more exalted class — gods, dsmons, &c. In the modern 
 art of magic, it was that species of magic which operated by 
 celestial means; opposed to natural magic, which was ef- 
 fected by knowledge of the occult powers of nature; and 
 necromancy, or magic effected by the aid of evil spirits. 
 (See Mem. de VAcad. des Inscr., vol. xxvii.) 
 
 THI'CKET. Trees or shrubs crowded together in such 
 a manner as to form a mass not easily penetrated by men 
 or cattle. 
 
 THI'NNING. Reducing the number of plants or trees 
 which have been sown or planted, with a view to those 
 which remain attaining a more mature growth. Natural 
 woods are also thinned for the same purpose. The opera- 
 tion ought to be commenced as soon as the extreme leaves 
 or branches are nearly touching one another, and continue 
 till the plants have attained their full growth, or the re- 
 quired dimensions or age. On no account should the 
 branches of any one tree in a plantation be allowed to touch 
 the branches of any other tree ; because in that case the 
 foliage is deprived of its due proportion of sun, air, and rain, 
 and the tree is drawn up in height at the expense of its 
 thickness and vigour to resist storms ; while the limber or 
 fruit produced will he diminished both in quantity and quali- 
 ty. There is no department of planting less understood 
 than the subject of sheltering young plantations ; and it may 
 with truth be said that in by far the greater number of cases 
 nothing is ultimately gained by drawing up trees in masses, 
 and afterwards thinning them out. The trees left being un- 
 prepared both by their bark and roots for the new atmo- 
 spherical circumstances in which they are placed, receive 
 a greater check than if they had been originally planted so 
 thin as at no period of their growth to touch one another. 
 
 THIN OUT. Geologists say that strata thin out when 
 they gradually diminish in thickness and disappear. 
 
 THIRD. In Music, an imperfect concord, containing two 
 degrees or intervals, and three terms or sounds. 
 
 THIRD COAT. In Architecture, the stucco when paint- 
 ing is to be used, or the senilis for the reception of paper. 
 
 THIRD ORDER. In Ecclesiastical History, most of the 
 chief religious orders (Preinonstrants. Carmelites, Francis- 
 cans, Aueustines, &c.,) have or had bodies of secular asso- 
 ciates, not bound bv vows, but conforming to a certain ex- 
 tent to the general designs of the order ; a custom thought 
 to have originated about A.D. 1476, when Sixtus IV. gave 
 permission to the Carmelites to attach such persons to their 
 body. In course of time the third order contained a mix- 
 ture of secular and religious persons. 
 
 THIRST. (Germ, durst.) The sensation of a desire to 
 drink, consisting in a sense of dryness and heat of the mouth, 
 sometimes extending along the resophagus to the stomach: 
 the posterior fauces become red, and the usual mucous se- 
 cretion thick and viscid, as also the saliva. A vague in- 
 quietude, troubled mind, and quick pulse ensue; and if not 
 relieved, respiration becomes laborious, and the mouth is 
 opened wide to admit the cool air. Some people soon suf- 
 fer from thirst, and are in the habit of drinking to an ex- 
 4H* 1241
 
 THIRTY YEARS' WAR. 
 
 CMBive extent ; while otheia hardly ever experience its 
 sensation, and scarcely require to drink the dilating liquids 
 or water. Ttmst is a common symptom of febrile and other 
 diseases, and is most effectively relieved in such cases by 
 mild acid and mucilaginous drinks ; milk and emulsions are, 
 however, sometimes more efficient and agreeable. Exces- 
 sive exercise or perspiration are common causes of thirst, in 
 Which case the sensation seems merely to announce the de- 
 ficiency of water in the system. Habitual thirst is often ac- 
 quired by indulgence in drinking, especially among labour- 
 ers and others who take excessive quantities of beer, and 
 Who at length can scarcely e.xist without unnecessary and 
 prejudicial quantities of that or similar beverages. The 
 thirst induced by excessive exercise In warm weather is in 
 Ordinary casts most effectually relieved by milk and water, 
 or warm tea. In these cases indulgence in beer, cider, wine, 
 or spirits and water, invariably induces febrile reaction, and 
 should therefore be generally avoided. 
 
 THIRTY YEARS' WAR. In History, properly a se- 
 ries of wars carried on between the Protestant and Roman 
 Catholic leagues in Germany, in the first half of the 17th 
 century. The house of Austria was, throughout, at the 
 head of the latter party. The Protestant princes of Ger- 
 many were assisted by various foreign powers; in the 
 earlier part of the war by Denmark and Sweden, and af- 
 terwards by France. It is considered to have commenced 
 With the insurrection of the Bohemians in 1618, and end- 
 ed with the peace of Westphalia in 1648. The celebrated 
 history (incomplete) of this war, by Schiller, is rather a 
 spirited historical essay than an accurate narrative. 
 
 THISTLE, or SAINT ANDREW. A Scottish order of 
 knighthood, said to be of great antiquity, but revived by 
 James V. in 1540 ; again by James Ii. of England, VII. of 
 Scotland, in 1087 ; and a third time in 1703, by Queen 
 Anne, who increased the number of knights to twelve, 
 and placed the order on a permanent footing. The thistle, 
 as is well-known, is the national emblem of Scotland; 
 and the national motto is very appropriate, being "Nemo 
 me Impune lacesset," nobody shall provoke me tcith im- 
 punity. This is also the motto of the order of the this- 
 tle. 
 
 TIIEMI. The Egyptian goddess of justice, or of truth. 
 Her figure is frequently represented in Egyptian sculp- 
 tures in the hands of the kings. The Hebrew Thummim 
 (the well known and mysterious I 'rim and Thummim, 
 Exod., xxxix., 8, 10) is the plural or dual of the same 
 word. ( Wilkinson's .Manners and Customs of the Ancient 
 Egyptians, vol. v., p. 58.) 
 
 THCLUS. (Gr.S-oXos-) In Architecture, a building of 
 a circular form, but used by Vitruvius for expressing the 
 roof of a circular building. The term was also employed 
 to denote the laconicum of a bath, which was circular in 
 form. 
 
 THOM.EANS, or THOMITES. In Ecclesiastical His- 
 tory, a name given in Europe to the ancient church of 
 Christians established on the Mai 'bar coast of India, and 
 thought to have been originally founded by St. Thomas ; 
 although whether this was the Apostle of that name is 
 doubtful. The language used by them in their sacred 
 rites, when they were first discovered by Europeans, was 
 the Chaldee or Syriac. The Portuguese have effected a 
 partial conversion of them to Romanism. 
 
 TIK). MISTS. The followers of Thomas Aquinas, the 
 Angelic DQttor, one of the most distinguished of the 
 Bchoolmen of the 13th century. They differed from the 
 rival sect of Scotists chiefly in the milder form under 
 which they adopted the doctrines of realism. The Scot- 
 ists regarded the universe as objectively and independ- 
 ently real; the Thomi-ts sought rather to ground the ob- 
 jective in a spiritual or rational principle, in some decree 
 approximating to the Platonic doctrine of ideas. The 
 Thomists continued as a sect to the commencement of the 
 17th century, and numbered several eminent men in their 
 ranks, among whom may be mentioned AlgidiUS of Co- 
 lonna and Francis Suarez. 
 
 THOMSONITE. (So called from the discoverer.) A 
 variety of zeolite from Dumhirton : it generally occurs in 
 radiated masses of small prismatic crystals. 
 
 THOR. In Scandinavian Mythology, the son of Odin 
 and Freya, and the divinity who presided over all mis- 
 chievous spirits that inhabited the elements. His power 
 is represented as irresistible. Many of his deeds are pre- 
 served in the F.ildn (which see) ; but it is probable that 
 the worship of this divinity under the name of Donan. or 
 god of thunder, spread also into Germany, where traces of 
 him are still to be found in numerous local appellations, 
 I' innersberg, Thorstein, &c. As the worship of tins 
 
 goii extended, nothing was more likely than that tin <;. i 
 mans should confound him with the Jupiter of the Ro- 
 mans, win, were then invading their country; and hence 
 
 in Germany the day sacred to Jupiter was denominated 
 Donneretag, while the Scandinavian equivalent of the 
 IMS 
 
 THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS. 
 
 same deity has been retained by the English in Thursday 
 (Thor's daj i. 
 
 THORA'CIC DUCT. The great trunk which conveys 
 the contents of the lacteals and absorbents into the blood. 
 In the human body it is about the diameter of a crow- 
 quill, and lies upon the dorsal vertebra; between the aorta 
 and azygos vein, extending from the posterior opening of 
 the diaphragm, in a somewhat serpentine course, to the 
 angle formed by the union of the left subclavian and jugu- 
 lar veins, into which it pours its contents. See Chyle and 
 Lymph. 
 
 TlloRA'CK'S, Thoraeici. (Gr. $wp u \. the ehtst.) The 
 name given by Linna;us to those fishes which have the 
 ventral fins placed beneath the pectorals. 
 
 THO'RAX. (Gr. $u>pal, a shield.) The second seg- 
 ment of insects is so called by Latreille and Andouin ; the 
 term is restricted to the upper surface of the trunk by 
 Linnti and Fabricius. In Arachr.idans the thorax and 
 head are continent, and form but one segment, which is 
 termed the cephalothorax. As a cavity appropriated to 
 the reception of the circulating and respiratory organs, the 
 thorax is only distinct in Mammals. 
 
 Thorax. The chest ; the part of the body between the 
 neck and the abdomen. It contains the heart and lungs, 
 the oesophagus, the thymus gland, the thoracic duct, part 
 of the aorta and vena cava, the vena azygos, the eighth 
 pair of nerves, and a part of the great intercostal nerve. 
 
 Thorax. In Grecian Antiquities, a piece of defensive 
 armour consisting of two parts, one defending the back, 
 and the other the belly ; called lorica by the Romans. 
 The more ancient were made of padded linen ; but they 
 were also made of leather, brass, iron, and other metals. 
 
 THORI'NA. (From Thor, the Scandinavian deity.) 
 An earthy substance discovered in 1828 by Berzelius in a 
 rare Norwegian mineral called thorite, which is a hydra- 
 ted silicate of thorina. Like the other earths, thorina is 
 the oxide of a heavy, gray metal, which has been termed 
 thorium, and which is not acted upon by water ; but when 
 heated in the air it burns with great brilliancy into a white 
 oxide. Thorina obtained in this way is white, infusible, 
 and very heavy, its specific gravity being 9 - 4. It is insolu- 
 ble in all acids except sulphuric, and in that with diffi- 
 culty, lis equivalent is about 08. Thorina is distinguish- 
 ed from alumina and glucina by its insolubility in caustic 
 potash, and from zirconia by being precipitated by ferro- 
 cyanuret of potassium. 
 
 THO'RN APPLE. See Strammony and Datiria. 
 
 THO'ItNBACK. The name of a species of ray (Rata 
 clavata, Linn.), distinguished by the short and strong re- 
 curved spines, rising from a broad, osseous, tubercular 
 base, which are scattered over the back and tail. Two 
 of these broad-based spines occupy the central ridge of the 
 nose. 
 
 THOROUGH BASS. See Bass. 
 
 THOTH, THOUTH, TAOIT. An Egyptian divinity, 
 considered by the Greeks as identical with Mercury. His 
 hieroglyphic represents the beginning of the astronomical 
 year. He was regarded as the inventor of writing and 
 Egyptian philosophy ; and is hence paralleled with Mer- 
 cury by Cicero. He is represented as a human figure u iih 
 the' head of a lamb or ibis. (Plato, Phadrus ; Plutarch, 
 De Is. etOsir.; Wilkinson, .inrit ni Egyptians, vol. v.) 
 Bryant says the same with 6£os {Mythof., i., 13). 
 
 THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, more commonly 
 called among ourselves the Arabian Nights' Entertain- 
 ments, from the title adopted in our first translation from 
 Galland's version. A well known collection of oriental 
 tales, which has acquired in the west a popularity never 
 attained by any other eastern composition. The history 
 of the work has been the subject of much Investigation, 
 especially by De Sacy. Von Hammer, and our last learned 
 translator Mr. Lane, from whom we borrow most of this 
 article. It is the opinion of Mr. Lane that the work, in its 
 presenl form, is the composition of a single author living in 
 Egypt; and that it was most probably "not commenced 
 
 earlier than the last quarter of the ISth century of our 
 era, and completed before the termination of the first 
 quarter of the next century, soon after the conquest of 
 Egypt by the Osmanlee Turks in 1517." But the origin of 
 the tales is a much more difficult subject of inquiry. It 
 seems to br now established (from the discoveries of De 
 
 Sacy and Von Hammer] that there was an ancient Persian 
 collection of stories, known by the name of the llrzar 
 Jifiiineh (the "Thousand Fanciful Tab-";, of unknown 
 antiquity, but certainly older than the 0th century of our 
 era ; that the framework of this collection was the same 
 with that of the modern, namely, the story of the cruel 
 King Sbakryar and his ingenious queen Chehrazad; and 
 that this was very early translated into Arabic by the 
 name of the Thousand Nights. Hut Mr. Lane diners 
 from these learned orientalists in still believing that the 
 early work was only a model ; that the greater proportion
 
 THRANITE. 
 
 of the modern tales are really Arabian, especially all those 
 founded on the supposed adventures of the Khalif Haroun 
 and his queen Zobeyde, a few only being distinctly of Per- 
 sian or Indian original ; e.g., the Magic Horse, the Damsel 
 and the Seven Weieers. The difference seems to reduce 
 itself to this, whether the present work is the last of sev- 
 eral successive editions of the old One Thousand Nights, 
 or has pretensions to be considered as a new construction 
 on an old groundwork ; the latter being Sir. Lane's opin- 
 ion. (See De Sacy's Dissertation, prefixed to a late edition 
 of Galland's version ; Von Hammer's preface to that of 
 Trebulien ; Mr. Lane's Preface, and " Review" at the 
 Conclusion of his third volume ; the Athenaum, No. 622.) 
 
 But whatever the history of the work, many of the main 
 features of the stories are of primeval antiquity, and form, 
 in fact, part of the popular literature of all countries. The 
 original Persian or Arab writers were connected by habits 
 of travelling and merchandise through India with the far 
 East, and through Greece with the extreme West ; and 
 the superstitions, anecdotes, and pregnant sayings of all 
 times and ages, repeated in various forms to the tired lis- 
 teners of the caravan at its evening's halt, have contribu- 
 ted to enrich this singular collection. The Adventures of 
 Sinbad have been curiously illustrated with antiquarian 
 learning by Mr. Hole, and form one of the most singular 
 examples of the ubiquity of good stories. 
 
 It appears that the learned Arabs hold the Thousand and 
 One Nights in small esteem, as an incorrect and unclass- 
 ical composition ; but it is a great mistake (a very natural 
 one for distinguished orientalists, like Mr. Lane, to fall into 
 unconsciously) to imagine tbat their great charm to the 
 people of the West consists in their faithful representation 
 of Asiatic manners. A far greater attraction lies in the 
 fancy which dictated the narratives — a quality belonging 
 to all times and places. And hence it is that we are con- 
 vinced Mr. Lane is wrong in his low appreciation of Gal- 
 land's version. That it is very incorrect in point of cos- 
 tume is doubtless true ; but the peculiar genius of Galland 
 led him to detect the poetical fancy, the humour, the odd- 
 ity, the picturesqueness of the composition, under the 
 cumbrous prolixity of Arab story-telling, and to bring it 
 out in a manner by no means strictly faithful, but suffi- 
 ciently so to give an oriental quaintness to his work, with- 
 out the languor of the original — an odd but agreeable mix- 
 ture of Arab simplicity with the artificial naivete of polish- 
 ed France. We believe that while the versions of Mr. 
 Lane and other learned men will always be consulted with 
 interest, that of Galland will still be the cherished com- 
 panion of all ages, but especially of youth. The numer- 
 ous European imitations of the Thousand and One Nights 
 are well known, and may, for the most part, be character- 
 ized as very unsuccessful : perhaps the best is the French 
 Additional Arabian Nights, containing the history of Man- 
 graby the Magician, &c. 
 
 THRA'NITE. The uppermost (or, according to some 
 arrangements of the classical galley, the foremost) of the 
 three classes of rowers in an Athenian trireme ; the mid- 
 dle being called the zeugitse, the lowest thalamitae. See 
 Galley, Trireme. 
 
 THRA'SHING. Separating grain or seeds from the 
 straw or haum by means of a flail or thrashing machine, 
 or by treading with cattle. The latter was the mode em- 
 ployed in the ages of antiquity ; and it is still practised in 
 the south of Europe, and in Persia, and India. The Ro- 
 mans employed oxen for this purpose ; sometimes alone, 
 and sometimes with the addition of a kind of roller studded 
 with iron knots, which they dragged over the corn, and 
 which was spread on a circular floor, the driver standing 
 in the centre, and guiding the oxen around him by means 
 of reins. It was customary to allow the oxen occasionally 
 to breathe and take a bite of the corn, agreeably to the 
 Scripture precept. A kind of flail or rod was also some- 
 times used by the Romans, and is doubtless the origin of 
 the present implement of that name. In colder and moister 
 climates, such as that of Britain, where a floor sufficiently 
 hard for thrashing out corn could not be maintained in the 
 open air, thrashing appears to have been always performed 
 under cover, and with the flail, till the latter end of the 
 18th century, when thrashing machines were introduced. 
 
 THRA'SHING MACHINE. A machine for separating 
 corn or other seeds from the straw or haum ; and either 
 impelled by horse or cattle, wind, water, or steam. The 
 modem thrashing machine was invented in Scotland about 
 the year 1758, by a farmer in the parish of Dumblaine, 
 Perthshire, and afterwards brought to nearly its present 
 state of perfection by Mr. Meikle, a millwright of Hadding- 
 tonshire, about the year 1786. Meikle's thrashing machine 
 consists of a cylinder furnished with beaters fixed on its 
 circumference, to which the corn being presented by roll- 
 ers, the ears are beat in pieces ; and while the grain drops 
 through a grating into a winnowing machine, the straw is 
 carried forward, and delivered by itself ready to be made 
 
 THUG. 
 
 up into bundles. Some thrashing machines only beat out 
 the corn, and separate it from the straw ; while others 
 beat it out, winnow it, and sift it. One of the most com- 
 plete thrashing machines in Britain is that of Winstay, in 
 Denbighshire, which not only thrashes and winnows, but 
 measures the corn in bushels, and transports it to the 
 granary in a fit state for being carried to market. (See 
 Enryc. of Agr., p. 1311.) 
 
 The employment of thrashing machines relieves the 
 labourers from the severest drudgery incident to agricul- 
 ture ; they enable the work to be done at the time there is 
 a demand for corn ; and, by doing it better, or separating 
 the corn (particularly wheat) more completely from the 
 straw, they add both to the wealth of the farmer and the 
 produce of the country ; enabling the former to employ, 
 and the latter to feed, more labourers. This latter is, in- 
 deed, a most important consideration. It is calculated, by 
 the best informed agriculturists, that 5 per cent., or one 
 twentieth part, more produce is afforded by a crop thrash- 
 ed by machinery than by the old method ; and, estimating 
 the total produce of the corn crops of Great Britain and 
 Ireland at 50,000,000 quarters, we should, on this hypothe- 
 sis, have an additional annual supply of no less than 
 2,500,000 quarters, were thrashing machines universally 
 substituted for flails I So great an increase of produce in 
 the hands of the farmers would obviously enable them to 
 employ far more labourers than would be superseded by 
 the use of the machine. {Brown on Rural Affairs, vol. i., 
 p. 332.) 
 
 As we remarked above, thrashing machines may be 
 driven either by horse, water, or steam power; but in all 
 the great firms in the Lothians in Scotland, and in some 
 parts of England, all other methods have merged in the 
 last. 
 
 THREE-COAT WORK. In Architecture, plastering 
 which consists of pricking-up or roughing-in, floating, and 
 a finishing coat. 
 
 THRE'NODY. (Gr. $pyvos, a dirge; SiSfj, song.) A 
 species of short, occasional poem, composed on the occa- 
 sion of the funeral of some distinguished personage. See 
 
 El'ICEIUUM. 
 
 THRO'MBUS. A small tumour which sometimes en- 
 sues in consequence of the escape of blood into the cellu- 
 lar membrane in the operation of bleeding. 
 
 THRONE. (Gr. Spovos.) In Architecture, a chair of 
 state raised above the level of the floor whereon it stands, 
 usually richly ornamented and covered with a canopy. 
 
 THRUSH. In Medicine. This disease consists in small 
 white ulcers upon the tongue, palate, and gums, and is 
 common in infants who are ill fed or brought up by hand. 
 It is apt to extend through the whole course of the mucous 
 membrane lining the alimentary canal, exciting fetid eruc- 
 tations and flatulency, with a troublesome diarrhoea, and 
 sometimes proves fatal. The treatment consists in giving 
 a gentle emetic of ipecacuanha, and keeping the bowels 
 clear and open with castor oil, or rhubarb and magnesia. 
 The strictest attention should be paid to the diet, which 
 should consist of milk and light farinaceous food. 
 
 Thrush. In Ornithology, one of the largest and most 
 melodious of our native song-birds ; the type of the genus 
 Turdus, Linnaeus. It is not migratory, but is supposed to 
 quit the more northern parts of England in winter for the 
 southern provinces. It makes its nest in March ; lays four 
 or five blue eggs, spotted with black at the larger end. 
 It feeds on berries, insects, and shell-snails ; and often se- 
 lects a particular kind of stone against which it breaks the 
 shell of the snail, and near which a great quantity of frag- 
 ments of the shells may be found. 
 
 THRUST. (Lat. trudo, / push.) In Architecture, the 
 horizontal force of an arch, by which it acts against the 
 piers from which it springs. Also a similar action of raft- 
 ers or of a beam against the walls which bear them. 
 
 THUG. (From the Hindoo verb thunga, to deceive.) A 
 member of a singular association of robbers and murderers, 
 which has excited of late years much attention in India. 
 It appears that the existence of the system of thuggee, as 
 it is called, was hardly known before the year 1810, and 
 that no combined measures were taken to put a stop to it 
 until about 1830. Since that time it has been fully de- 
 tected, and greatly checked, chiefly through the admission 
 of approvers from all the gangs. Capt. Meadows Taylor 
 informs us that, between 1831 and 1837, 3206 Thugs were 
 brought to justice, of whom 412 were hanged, 1059 trans- 
 ported, and 483 turned approvers. Still it is by no means 
 supposed to be extinct. Its origin is unknown ; and both 
 Mohammedans and Hindoos belong to the society indiffer- 
 ently, although its tutelary goddess, Bhowanee, belongs to 
 the latter faith. The Thugs are peculiarly superstitious in 
 their observances. They are directed, in all their proceed- 
 ings, by auguries supposed to be vouchsafed by their god- 
 dess ; and particular classes are altogether exempt from 
 their attacks: among whom are dancing girls, minstrels, 
 
 1243
 
 THULE. 
 
 sikhs, some religious mendicants, tailors, oilmen, black- 
 smiths, carpenters. It Is stated, also, that they seldom de- 
 stroy women unless for their own safety; and they have 
 very seldom ventured to attack Englishmen. They usual- 
 ly move in large gangs, and attach themselves to travelling 
 parties; they will journey with them for days, to And at 
 last an opportunity to master them. When all is ready, 
 one division of the murderers strangles the victims, while 
 another body prepares their graves; and by means of this 
 division of labour the tearful work Is accomplished with 
 Wonderful celerity. It appears that numbers of Thugs re- 
 sided together in villages, when they were prohibited by 
 the landowners, sometimes by rajahs, to whom they paid 
 tribute. The common destruction of life occasioned by 
 them may be conjectured by the fact that one Thug, ad- 
 mitted an approver at Saugor, confessed to Col. Taylor, 
 who does not seem to suspect him of exaggeration, that he 
 had been concerned in the murder of 71'J persons ! The 
 existence of so strange and monstrous a system can only 
 be explained by the condition of India ; the extreme timid- 
 ity and apathy of its inhabitants, and their division into 
 castes: the number of small native governments; the 
 habit of dwelling in villages, divided by extensive unin- 
 habited tracts; the quantity of travelling that takes place 
 in that commercial country, without navigable rivers or 
 secure conveyances ; and the murderous spirit of Hindoo 
 fanaticism. (See Col. Sleeman's Hamasceana, Vocabulary 
 of the Thugs, and an article on it in the Ed. Rev.-, vol. 
 lxiv. ; and Col. Meadows Taylor's Adventures of a Thug, 
 2 vols., l.oml., 1839, from the Introduction to which these 
 details are chiefly taken.) 
 
 Till I.E. The name given by the ancient 1 ? to the most 
 northern part of the habitable world ; but it is almost im- 
 possible to say, from the variety of opinions entertained 
 respecting it, whether any definite country was meant by 
 this appellation. Some have thought that Norway, but 
 most geographers are of opinion that Iceland, was the place 
 alluded to. l!ut be this as it may, it is long since the 
 prophecy of Seneca in the following lines has been ful- 
 filled: 
 
 Venient aonis 
 
 Sxcula seris, quibus Oceanus 
 Vincula rerum laxe!, et in;;enj 
 Pa:eat tellus, Typhisque novos 
 Di lege! Urbta, uec sit terns 
 t lltixaa Thule. 
 
 TIIULITE. A rare mineral of a peach-blossom colour 
 from .Norway. Its composition has not been ascertained. 
 
 THU'MERSTONE. A variety of axiinite from Thum, 
 in Saxony. 
 
 Till JM .MI M. See U rim. 
 
 THU'NDER. (Germ, donner, Lat. tonitru.) The noise 
 produced bj an explosion of lightning, or by the passage of 
 lightning through the air from one cloud to another, or from 
 a cloud to the ground. 
 
 The character of the sound of thunder varies with the 
 force and the distance of the explosion, the situation of the 
 observer, the nature of the surrounding country ; and it is 
 probably influenced, also, by the relative situations of the 
 clouds. 
 
 When lightning strikes an object near us on the earth, it 
 produces a noise resembliing that of a violent crash, which 
 is not repeated or prolonged by reflection. When the ex- 
 plosion i- mi re distant, a rumbling Irregular, and recurring 
 noise is heard, which gradually dies away in the distance, 
 like the prolonged ei hoot the sound of ordnance discharged 
 in a mountainous district. 
 
 Thunder frequently commences with an astounding rattle, 
 which is probably occasioned by a series of explosions or 
 discharges of electric matter in rapid succession from a 
 highly charged thunder -el I. 
 
 We have a familiar example of this species of noise in 
 the cracking which accompanies the sparks discharged 
 from the conductor of a well-supplied electrical machine 
 towards any adjacent conducting bodj : the loudness of the 
 snaps, as well as their frequency, increasing with the 
 electric intensity. And when we Consider how tritliiiL' a 
 
 portion of electric matter can be put in action by the I I 
 
 powerful means of artificial excitement, compared with the 
 
 quantity stored up in a full charged thunder-cloud, the dis- 
 crepancy between the appalling crash of the one and the 
 
 Insignificant snap of the other will not appear Burp e 
 
 though both originate in the same cause. This cause \S 
 the vibration of the air, agitated by the passage of the i lee 
 trie discharge with a greater or less degree of intensity; 
 
 and two explanations may be given of the manner in which 
 the vibration is produced. 
 
 The lir-t explanation proceeds on the supposition that 
 the electric thud opens a passage 10 itself through air or 
 
 other matter, in the manner of a projectile, and that the 
 
 tused bj the rush of the alt Into the vacuum 
 produced by the Instantaneous passage of the iluid. Hut it 
 
 THYMELACE^E. 
 
 is objected, that if this explanation holds good, the passage 
 of a cannon ball through the air ought to produce a similar 
 sound; whereas it onlj produces a sort of whistling noise, 
 winch even the most timid have never thought of coin- 
 paring with thunder. Another still stronger objection is, 
 that all the experiments seem to indicate that the electric 
 fluid is not transferred from point to point like a projectile 
 of ponderable matter, but is conveyed along by the vibration 
 of an elastic medium, as sound is conveyed through the 
 atmosphere. 
 
 The second explanation, which appears more in harmony 
 with all the facts, is founded on this vibratory propagation 
 of the electric fluid. When the electric spark passes be- 
 tween two points, there is a decomposition and recomposi- 
 tion of electricity in all the media in which it appears, and 
 consequently a vibration more or less violent is produced, 
 which vibration gives rise to the sound. On this hypothe- 
 sis, the continued roll is the effect of the comparatively 
 slow propagation of sound through the air. For the sake 
 of illustration, suppose a flash of lightning of 11,250 feet in 
 length, or that the spark is instantaneously seen from one 
 end to the other of this line. At the same instant the flash 
 is visible, the vibration is communicated to the atmosphere 
 through the whole extent of the line. Now suppose an 
 observer placed in the direction of the line of the flash, and 
 at the distance of 1125 feet from one end ; then, since sound 
 travels at the rate of about 1125 feet in a second (see Sound), 
 one second will elapse after the flash has been seen before 
 any sound is heard. When the sound begins, the vibration 
 communicated to the nearest stratum of air has reached 
 his ear ; and since we have supposed the line of disturbance 
 to be 11,250 in length, the vibrations of the more distant 
 strata will continue to reach his ear in succession during 
 the space of ten seconds. Hence the length of the flash 
 determines the duration of the sound ; and it follows that 
 the same flash will give rise to a sound of greater or less 
 duration, according to the position of the observer with 
 respect to its direction. Thus, in the above instance, sup- 
 pose a second observer to be placed under the line, and 
 towards its middle, he would only hear the sound during 
 half the time it was heard by the first observer ; and if we 
 suppose the line to be circular, and the observer to be placed 
 near its centre, the sound would arrive from every point at 
 the same instant in a violent crash. 
 
 Although the vibratory motion is communicated to all 
 the strata of air along the whole length of the (lash, they 
 will not all receive the same impulsion unless they are 
 all at the same temperature and in the same bygrometrlc 
 state, which can rarely happen. Hence the tirst impression 
 of the sound is not always the most intense, although it 
 proceeds from the nearest point. 
 
 During a thunder storm shelter should not be taken under 
 trees and hedges, which are likely to act as conductors; 
 but, at the same time, a person is safer when at the dis- 
 tance of about 30 or 40 feet from such objects than on an 
 open plain. Water should also be carefully avoided, 
 because it is a good conductor, and the height of a man 
 above it may determine the course of the lightning. In a 
 house, the satest position is near the middle of a room; 
 and the security may be increased by sitting on a feather 
 bed or hair mattress, or thick woollen rug, all of which are 
 bad conductors. It is injudicious to take refuge in a cellar, 
 because the discharge is often from the earth to a cloud, 
 and buildings frequently sustain the greatest injury in the 
 basement stories, it is dangerous to be near the fireplace, 
 
 because the chimney is the part most likely to be struck, 
 and the soot is a powerful conductor, tiilt furniture, he 11- 
 w ires, and all large metallic, surfaces, are to be avoided tor 
 the same reason. See, on this subject, a highly Interesting 
 Notice sur le Tonnerre, by Arago, in the .in mini re tor 
 183(3, translated in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.) 
 
 THURLSS. Short communication between the adits in 
 mines. 
 
 THU'RSDAY. The fifth day of the week, which de- 
 rives its name from Thor, the old Scandinavian god of 
 
 thunder; equivalent to the Jupiter of the ancients, to whom 
 this day was also consecrated. 
 
 THUS. (<ii. £u<ii, I sacrifice; from its use in sacrifices-) 
 The resin of the spruce fir. The term frankincense is also 
 
 applied to it, and to olibanum. which is the gum resin of the 
 Junipi ens lycia. 
 
 THWART. In Naval affairs, used for athwart or across; 
 also a bench foi lowers. 
 
 TIIY.MI 1. \ ( lj. Thvmelea, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of shrubbj Exogens, having a calix only, 
 and no corolla, although the flowers of many are coloured 
 very gaily. Daphnes, valued for their fragrance, .Mutreung, 
 the various species id' the Australian genus Pimeleo, anJ 
 as and Slruthioias •>' the Cape ol Good Hope, are 
 favourite subjects of cultivation. One feature of tie- order 
 
 i- the causticity of the bark, which arts upon the skin as a 
 vesicatory, aud causes excessive pain in the month if
 
 THYMUS GLAND. 
 
 chewed. The berries of Daphne laureola (the spurge lau- 
 rel) are poisonous to all animals except birds. 
 
 THYMUS GLAND. A gland situated under the upper 
 part of the sternum, in the anterior mediastinum. Its ex- 
 cretory duct has not been detected, nor is its use known. 
 It is of great comparative size in the fcetus. 
 
 THY'NN US. (Gr. Svwos, a tunny.) A genus of Scom- 
 beroid fishes, of which the highly valuable fish the tunny 
 (Thynnus vulgaris, Cuv.) is the type. The form of the 
 body in this genus of fishes is like that of the mackerel, but 
 is less compressed ; the first dorsal fin extends nearly to the 
 second ; the second dorsal and the anal fins are divided 
 into numerous Unlets ; the sides of the tail are decidedly 
 carinated ; there is a single row of small pointed teeth in 
 each jaw. The tunny is remarkable among fishes for its 
 high temperature, its perfect respiratory organs, the quan- 
 tity of nerves supplying the gills, and the general abundance 
 of rich red blood throughout the body. It is the object of 
 the most important fisheries in the Mediterranean Sea, and 
 when sailed and dried serves the inhabitants of most Catho- 
 lic countries with the fast days' meat. The bonito (Thyn- 
 nus pelamys) is a species of the present genus of fishes. 
 
 THY'RKt. (Gr. Svpis, a window.) A genus of butter- 
 flies. 
 
 THY'ROID. (Gr. Svptoc, a shield, and aSos, form.) 
 The thyroid or scutiform cartilage is placed perpendicular 
 to the cricoid cartilage of the larynx, of which it forms the 
 upper and anterior part. In men it is harder and more 
 prominent than in women; it is sometimes called Adam's 
 apple. The thyroid gland is situated upon the thyroid and 
 cricoid cartilages of the trachea ; its duct has not been seen, 
 and its use is unknown. When enlarged, it forms the 
 bronchocele. 
 
 THY'RSUS. (Gr. Svpaos.) A staff entwined with ivy, 
 which formed part of the accoutrement of a Bacchanal, or 
 performer in the orgies of Bacchus. 
 
 Thyrsus. In Botany, a form of inflorescence, consisting 
 of a compact panicle, the lower branches of which are 
 shorter than those of the middle ; in other words, it is com- 
 posed of a primary axis developing secondary axes from its 
 sides, which in their turn develop tertiary axes, the upper 
 and lower branches being shorter than those of the middle, 
 as in the common lilach. 
 
 THY'SANURANS, Thysanura. (Gr. Sveavoi, fringes, 
 ovpa, a tail.) The name of an order of Ametabolian in- 
 sects, comprehending those in which the abdomen is ter- 
 minated by filaments, or by a forked tail adapted for leaping. 
 
 TIA'RA. The well-known ornament with which the 
 ancient Persians adorned their heads. It was in the form 
 of a tower, and adorned with peacocks' feathers. Xeno- 
 phon says that it was sometimes encompassed with the 
 diadem, at least in ceremonies, and had frequently the 
 figure of a half moon embroidered upon it. This was the 
 name also originally given to the mitre of the popes. It was 
 nothing more than a round high cap, at hist single instead 
 of double, like that of the other bishops. Nicholas the 
 First added the first gold circle, as the sign of the civil 
 power. The second was added by Boniface about 1300 ; 
 the third by Urban V. about 1365. (Bovvden, Life of Greg- 
 ory VII., i., 60.) 
 
 TI'BIA. (Lat.) In Anatomy, the largest of the two 
 bones which form the second segment of the leg, or sacral 
 extremity. In Entomology, it is the fourth joint of the leg, 
 is very long, and usually triquetrous. Its name is said to 
 have reference to its resemblance to the ancient pipe or 
 flute. 
 
 . TIC DOULOUREUX. A very painful affection of a 
 nerve, coming on in sudden and excruciating attacks : it is 
 perhaps most common in that branch of the fifth pair which 
 comes out of the infra-orbitary foramen. Nothing is known 
 of the cause of tic douloureux, except in one or two very 
 rare cases, where a small spicula of bone has been found 
 pressing on the nerves. The treatment is equally uncer- 
 tain, except where it assumes an intermittent form, and 
 then large doses of tonics, and especially carbonate of iron, 
 have proved useful. 
 
 TI'CIIORRHINE. (Gr. tsi%o;, a wall; piv, a nose.) 
 The name of a fossil species of rhinoceros (Rhinoceros 
 tichorrinus), which is so called on account of the middle 
 vertical bony septum or wall which supports the nose. 
 
 TIDE MILLS are such as have the ebb and flow of the 
 tide for their first movers. As the tide rises, the water is 
 admitted into a reservoir through a sluice, over which the 
 mill is built, turning the water-wheel in its passage through 
 the sluice. At high tide the sluice gates are shut till the 
 water has fallen sufficiently outside, when they are opened, 
 so as to allow the water to flow out again from the reser- 
 voir, and turn the wheel as it escapes through the sluice. 
 
 In some tide mills the water-wheel turns one way as 
 the tide rises, and the contrary as it falls; but in others an 
 arrangement is adopted by which the wheel is made to 
 turn always in the same direction. In some, the water- 
 
 TIDES. 
 
 wheel rises and falls with the tide ; and in others, the axis 
 is fixed, so that it can neither rise nor fall. In the latter 
 case, the power is applied at an obvious disadvantage, 
 though rotatory motion to a certain extent may be given 
 even when the wheel is wholly immersed in the water, 
 from the difference of the velocity of the water at the 
 top and bottom of the sluice. (See Gregory's Mechanics, 
 vol. ii.) 
 
 TIDES. The alternate rise and fall of the waters of the 
 ocean. The moon is the principal agent in the production 
 of the tides ; but they are modified, both with respect to 
 their height and the times at which they happen, by the 
 action of the sun. The effect of the planets is inappre- 
 ciable. 
 
 The attractive force of a body on a distant particle of 
 matter varying inversely as the square of the distance, the 
 particles of the earth on the side next the moon will be 
 attracted with a greater, and those on the opposite side 
 with a smaller force, than those which are situated inter- 
 mediately. The gravitation towards the earth's centre of 
 the particles nearest the moon will therefore be diminished, 
 and consequently, if at liberty to move among themselves, 
 they will rise above the general level. In like manner, the 
 moon's attraction on the most distant particles being less 
 than on the central ones, their relative gravitation towards 
 the centre will also be diminished, and the waters will con- 
 sequently be heaped up on the side of the earth which is 
 turned away from the moon. Hence, if the earth were at 
 rest, the ocean would take the form of an oblong spheroid, 
 with its longer axis passing through the attracting body ; 
 and it may be shown from theory that the spheroid would 
 be in equilibrium under the influence of the moon's attrac- 
 tion, if the longer semi-axis exceeded the shorter by about 
 58 inches. But in consequence of the rapid rotation of the 
 earth about its axis, the spheroid of equilibrium is never 
 fully formed ; for before the waters can take their level, 
 the vertex of the spheroid has shifted its position on the 
 earth's surface, in consequence of which an immensely 
 broad and very flat wave is formed, which follows the 
 motions of the moon at some interval of time. In the open 
 sea the time of high water is, in general, from two to three 
 hours after the moon's transit over the meridian either 
 above or below the horizon. The tidal wave, it is to be 
 observed, is entirely different from a current : the particles 
 of water merely rise and fall ; but except when the wave 
 passes over shadows, or approaches the shore, there is little 
 or no progressive motion. 
 
 The waters of the ocean are affected in a similar manner 
 by the action of the sun, under the influence of which they 
 have a tendency to assume at every instant the form of an 
 elongated spheroid; but although the attractive force of 
 the sun is immensely greater than tbat of the moon, yet, 
 by reason of the greater distance of the sun, the difference 
 of the effect on particles situated on opposite sides of the 
 earth (on which difference the phenomena depend) is very 
 much less. The solar tides are therefore comparatively 
 small with respect to the lunar tides, and, in fact, are never 
 perceived as distinct phenomena, but become sensible only 
 from the modifications which they produce in the heights 
 and times of those which primarily depend on the moon. 
 At the syzygies, when the sun and moon come to the merid- 
 ian together, the tides are, ceteris paribus, the lushest ; at 
 the quadratures, or when the sun and moon are 90° distant, 
 the tides arc least. The former are called spring- tides, the 
 latter neap tides. Although we are not in possession of 
 data to enable us to compute the exact height either of 
 the spring or neap tides, yet their relative heights in the 
 open ocean probably correspond very nearly to the ellipti- 
 cities of the spheroids of equilibrium that would be formed 
 under the action of the two bodies exerted separately. 
 Now the ellipticity of the aqueous spheroid formed by the 
 moon's action is "about five feet, and the ellipticity of that 
 formed by the sun's action about two feet ; therefore, the 
 spring and neap tides being the sum and difference of the 
 separate effects, the average spring tide will be to the aver- 
 age neap in the ratio of about 7 to 3. See Gravitation. 
 
 By reason of the ellipticity of the orbits, the distances of 
 the sun and moon from the earth are continually changing ; 
 and the theory of attraction proves that the efficacy of 
 either body in disturbing the waters of the ocean is inversely 
 proportional to the cube of its distance. Hence it is found 
 that if the mean efficacy of the sun be represented by 20, 
 the influence of the sun's action will vary between the ex- 
 tremes of 10 and 21, and that of the moon's between 43 and 
 59. The highest spring tide will therefore be to the lowest 
 neap as 59 -f 21 to 43 — 19 ; that is, as 80 to 24, or as 1 to 3. 
 
 Anotber effect of the solar action is observed in the times 
 at which high water takes place from day to day. In the 
 spring and neap tides the time of high water is not altered 
 by the sun's action, the solar and lunar tides being synchro- 
 nous in the former case, and the time of actual low water 
 being that of solar high water in the latter ; but in the in- 
 
 1245
 
 TIDES. 
 
 termediate tides the time of actual high water is accelerated 
 or retarded. In the first and third quarters of the moon, 
 the solar wave is to the westward of the lunar one ; and 
 consequently the observed tide, which is the result of the 
 combination of the two waves, will be to the westward of 
 the place it would occupy If the moon acted alone, and the 
 time of high water will therefore be accelerated. In the 
 second and fourth quarters, the general effect of the sun is 
 to produce, Cor a like reason, a retardation in the time of 
 high water. This result of the combined action of the two 
 attracting bodies is what is usually termed the priming and 
 lagging of the tides, and it is most remarkable about the 
 time of new and full moon. 
 
 It is to be observed, however, that the effect now de- 
 scribed is modified to some extent by the inertia of the 
 water. The greatest and least tides do not happen exactly 
 at the times of new and full moon ; but at least two, and 
 commonly three tides alter, oven at places directly exposed 
 to the general tide of the ocean. In consequence of the 
 greater amount of impressed force, the acceleration of the 
 lunar tide is greater than that of the solar; whence it may 
 happen that when the lunar tide occurs two or three hours 
 after the transit of the moon, the solar tide may be three 
 or four hours after that of the sun, so as to be about an 
 hour later at the times of conjunction and opposition. The 
 highest spring tides will thus occur when the moon passes 
 the meridian about an hour after the sun ; while at the pre- 
 cise time of new and full moon the lunar tide will be re- 
 tarded about a quarter of an hour by the solar tide. But 
 the time of high water does not follow the moon's transit 
 at the same interval at every period of the lunation. When 
 the sun and moon are in conjunction, the interval is called 
 the mean interval; at other periods of the lunation the 
 lunitidal interval is sometimes greater and sometimes less 
 than the mean, and the difference is called the half-monthly 
 or semimenstrual inequality. 
 
 The apparent time of high water at any port, in the af- 
 ternoon of the day of new or full moon, is what is usually 
 called the establishment of the port. Mr. Whewell calls this 
 the vulgar establishment, and the mean of all the intervals 
 of tide and transit for a half lunation he terms the correct- 
 ed establishment. This corrected establishment is conse- 
 quently the lunitidal interval corresponding to the day on 
 which the moon passes the meridian exactly at noon or 
 midnight. 
 
 The two tides immediately following one another, or the 
 tides of the day and night, vary, both in height and time of 
 high water, at any particular place with the distance of the 
 sun and moon from the equator. As the vertex of the tide 
 wave always tends to place itself vertically under the lu- 
 minary which produces it, it is evident that, of two consec- 
 utive tides, that which happens when the moon is nearest 
 the zenith or nadir will be greater than the other ; and con- 
 sequently, when the moon's declination is of the same de- 
 nomination as the latitude of the place, the tide which cor- 
 responds to the upper transit will be greater than the oppo- 
 site one, and vice versa, the differences being greatest when 
 the sun and moon are in opposition, and in opposite trop- 
 ics. This is called the diurnal inequality, because its cycle 
 is one day ; but it varies greatly at different places, and its 
 laws, which appear to be governed by local circumstances, 
 are very imperfectly known. 
 
 We have now described the principal phenomena that 
 would take place were the earth a sphere, and covered en- 
 tirely with a fluid of uniform depth. But the actual phe- 
 nomena of the tides are infinitely more complicated. From 
 the interruption of the land, and the irregular form and 
 depth of the ocean, combined with many other disturbing 
 circumstances, among which are the inertia of the waters, 
 the friction on the bottom and sides, the narrowness and 
 length of the channels, the action of the wind, currents, 
 difference of atmospheric pressure, &c. &c, great variation 
 takes place in the mean times and height of high water at 
 places differently situated; ami the inequalities above allu- 
 ded to, as depending on the parallax of the moon, her posi- 
 tion with respect to the sun, and the declination of the two 
 bodies, are, in many cases, altogether obliterated by the el' 
 fects of thi' disturbing influences, or can only be detected by 
 the calculation and comparison of long series of observa- 
 tions. 
 
 By reason of these disturbing causes, it heroines a matter 
 of great difficulty to trace the propagation of the tide wave, 
 and the connexion of the tides in different parts of the 
 world. In the Philosophical Transactions for 1832, Sir 
 John Lubbock published a map of the world, in which he 
 Inserted the times of high water at new and full moon at a 
 great number of places on the globe, collected from various 
 sources, as works on navigation, voyages, sailing directions, 
 &c. ; and in order that the march of the tide wave might 
 be traced more readily, the times were expressed in Green- 
 wich time as well as the time of the place. In the same 
 Transactions for 1SS33, Mr. Whewell prosecuted this sub- 
 1240 
 
 ject at greater length ; and availing himself of a priori con- 
 siderations, as well as of a mass of information c 
 in the Hydrographer'S Office at the Admiralty, inserted in 
 the map a series of cotidal lines, or lines along which high 
 water takes place at the same instant of time. But these 
 cotidal lines, as Sir J. Lubbock remarks, are entirely hypo- 
 thetical ; for we have few opportunities of determining the 
 time of high water at a distance from the coast, though this 
 is somi times possible by means of a solitary island, as St. 
 Helena. {Lubbock's Elementary Treatise en tie Tides,183Q.) 
 
 According to Mr. WheweU's deductions, the general prog- 
 ress of the great tide wave may be thus described : It is 
 only in the Southern Ocean, between the latitudes of 30 
 and 70 degrees, that a zone of water exists of sufficient ex- 
 tent to allow of the tide wave being formed. Suppose, 
 then, a line of contemporary tides, or cotidal line, to he 
 formed in the Indian Ocean, as the theory supposes, that is 
 to say, in the direction of the meridian, and at a certain 
 distance to the eastward of the meridian in which the moon 
 is. As this tide wave passes the Cape of Good Hope, it 
 sends oft" a derivative undulation, which advances north- 
 ward up the Atlantic Ocean, preserving always a certain 
 proportion of its original magnitude and velocity. In trav- 
 elling along this ocean the wave assumes a curved form, 
 the convex part keeping near the middle of the ocean, and 
 ahead of the branches, which, owing to the shallower water, 
 lag behind on the American and African coasts ; so that 
 the cotidal lines have always a tendency to make very 
 oblique angles with the shore, and, in fact, run nearly par- 
 allel to it for great distances. The main tide, Mr. Whewell 
 conceives, after reaching the Orkneys, will move forward 
 in the sea bounded by the shores of Norway and Siberia 
 on the one side, and those of Greenland and America on 
 the other, will pass the pole of the earth, and finally end 
 its course on the shores in the neighbourhood of Behring's 
 Straits. It may even propagate its influence through the 
 straits, and modify the tides of the North Pacific. But a 
 branch tide is sent off from this main tide into the German 
 Ocean; and this, entering between the Orkneys and the 
 coast of Norway, brings the tide to the east coast of Eng- 
 land, and to the coasts of Holland, Denmark, and Germa- 
 ny. Continuing its course, part of it, at least, passes through 
 the strait of Dover, and meets in tiie British Channel the 
 tide from the Atlantic, which arrives on the coast of Eu- 
 rope twelve hours later; but in passing along the English 
 coast, another part of it is reflected from the projecting land 
 of Norfolk upon the north coast of Germany, and again 
 meets the tide wave on the shores of Denmark. Owing to 
 this interference of different tide waves, the tides are almost 
 entirely obliterated on the coast of Jutland, where their 
 place is supplied by continual high water. 
 
 In the Pacific Ocean the tides are very small ; but there 
 are not sufficient observations to determine the forms and 
 progress of the cotidal lines. Oil' Cape Horn, and round 
 the whole shore of Terra del Fuego, from the western ex- 
 tremity of the Strait of Magalhaens to Staten Island, it is 
 very remarkable that the tidal wave, instead of following 
 the moon in its diurnal course, travels to the eastward. 
 This, however, is a partial phenomenon: and a little far- 
 ther to the north of the hist named places, the tides set 
 to the north and west. In the Mediterranean and Baltic 
 seas the tides are inconsiderable, hut exhibit irregularities 
 for which it is difficult to account. The Indian Ocean ap- 
 pears to have high water on all sides at once, though not 
 in the central parts at the same time. 
 
 Since the tides on our coasts are derived from the oscilla- 
 tions produced under the direct agency of the sun and 
 moon in the Southern Ocean, and require a certain interval 
 of time for their transfer, it follows that, in general, the 
 tide is not due to the moon's transit immediately preceding, 
 but is regulated by the position which the sun and moon 
 had when they determined the primary tide. The time 
 elapsed between the original formation of the tide and its 
 appearance at any place is called the age. of the tide, and 
 sometimes, after Bernoulli, the retard. On the shores of 
 Spain .and North America the tide is a day and a half old; 
 
 in the port of I. Ion, it appears to be two days and a half 
 
 old when it arrives. 
 
 I', /uriin of the Title Wave. — In the open ocean the crest 
 of the tide travels with enormous velocity. If the whole 
 surface were Uniformly covered with water, the summit of 
 
 the tide wave, being mainly governed by the moon, would 
 
 everywhere follow the moon's transit at the same interval 
 of time, and consequently travel round the earth in a little 
 more than 24 hours. But the circumference of the earth 
 at the equator being about 25,000 miles, the velocity of prop- 
 agation would therefore be about HUM) miles per hour. The 
 actual Velocity is perhaps nowhere equal to this, and is 
 
 very different at different places, in latitude (10° south, 
 where there is no interruption from land (excepting the 
 narrow promontory of Patagonia), the tide wave will com- 
 plete a revolution in a lunar day, and consequently travel
 
 TIDES. 
 
 at the rate of 670 miles an hour. On examining Mr. Whe- 
 well's map of cotidal lines, it will be seen that the great 
 tide wave from the Southern Ocean travels from the Cape 
 of Good Hope to the Azores in about 12 hours, and from 
 the Azores to the southernmost point of Ireland in 3 hours 
 more. In the Atlantic the hourly velocity in some cases 
 appears to be 10° of latitude, or near 700 miles, which is 
 almost equal to the velocity of sound through the air. 
 From the south point of Ireland to the north point of Scot- 
 land the time is 8 hours, and the velocity about 160 miles 
 an hour along the shore. On the eastern coast of Britain, 
 and in shallower water, the velocity is less. From Bu- 
 channess to Sunderland it is about 60 miles an hour ; from 
 Scarborough to Cromer, 35 miles ; from the North Foreland 
 to London, 30 miles; from London to Richmond, 13 miles 
 an hour in that part of the river. (Whewell, Phil. Trans. 
 1833 and 1836.) It is scarcely necessary to remind the 
 reader that the above velocities refer to the transmission of 
 the undulation, and are entirely different from the velocity 
 of the current to which the tide wave gives rise in shallow 
 water. 
 
 Range of the Tide. — The difference of level between 
 high and low water is affected by various causes, but chief- 
 ly by the configuration of the land, and is very different at 
 different places. In deepinbends of the shore, open in the 
 direction of the tide wave, and gradually contracting like a 
 funnel, the convergence of lhe water causes a very great 
 increase of the range. Hence the very high tides in the 
 Bristol Channel, the Bay of St. Malo, and the Bay of Fun- 
 dy, where the tide is said to rise sometimes to the height of 
 100 feet. Promontories, under certain circumstances, exert 
 an opposite influence, and diminish the magnitude of the 
 tide. The observed ranges are also very anomalous. At 
 certain places on the southeast coast of Ireland the range 
 is not more than 3 feet, while at a little distance on each 
 Bide it becomes 12 or 13 feet; and it is remarkable that 
 these low tides occur directly opposite to the Bristol Chan- 
 nel, where (at Chepstow) the difference between high and 
 low water amounts to 60 feet. In the middle of the Pacific 
 it amounts only to 2 or 3 feet. At the London Docks the 
 average range is about 22 feet; at Liverpool, 15'5 feet: at 
 Portsmouth, 12-5 feet ; at Plymouth, also 12-5 feet; at Bris- 
 tol, 33 feet. 
 
 Theory of the Tides.— The theory of the tides, consider- 
 ed as a consequence of solar and lunar attraction, was first 
 sketched by Newton in the Principia. In the 36th and 37th 
 propositions of the third book, he determines the forces 
 of the sun and moon to elevate the waters of the ocean, on 
 the supposition that the sea is a fluid of the same density 
 as the earth, covering the whole terrestrial surface, and 
 which takes at every instant the figure of equilibrium. He 
 assumes, without demonstration.that this figure is an elonga- 
 ted spheroid. One spheroid he supposes to be formed under 
 the action of the sun, another under the action of the moon ; 
 and by reason of the smallness of their eccentricities they 
 may be conceived as superposed the one on the other. From 
 these suppositions he deduced the general phenomena of the 
 ebb and flow of the sea ; and by comparing his theory with 
 observations of the heights of the spring tides made at the 
 mouth of the Avon, near Bristol, he determined the ratio of 
 the attraction of the moon to that of the sun to be nearly 4.48 
 to 1 ; whence he deduced the mass of the earth to be to that 
 of the moon as 39 - 788 to 1, the density of the sun to that of 
 the earth as 1 to 4, and the density of the moon to that of the 
 earth as 11 to 9. Newton's theory was defective in many 
 points of view, but fifty years elapsed before it received 
 /any improvement. In 1738, the subject of the tides was 
 proposed as a prize question by the French Academy of 
 Sciences, which gave occasion to the celebrated treatises of 
 Daniel Bernoulli, Maclaurin, and Euler. Maclaurin's Es- 
 say is remarkable, as containing a demonstration of the 
 theorem assumed by Newton, that the elliptic spheroid af- 
 fords an equilibrium under the action of the disturbing 
 forces: those of Bernoulli and Euler, though they fur- 
 nish no new principle of eqvial or similar importance 
 in point of theory, enter more into details, and contain 
 many useful illustrations. That of Bernoulli, indeed, con- 
 tains a table which has served as the model for all those 
 (not purely empirical) which have since been formed. The 
 next important step in the theory of the tides was taken by 
 Laplace, who first treated the subject as a general question 
 of hydrodynamics, and attempted to deduce the principal 
 phenomena from the equations of the motions of fluids. 
 But in order to simplify the equations, which are of a very 
 complicated nature, he was forced to have recourse to the 
 hypothesis of a fluid covering entirely a spheroid of a regu- 
 lar surface, and consequently the results were far from rep- 
 resenting the actual observations of the tides at any port. 
 The late Dr. Thomas Young (Ency. Brit., art. "Tides") 
 extended Laplace's method to the more general case of an 
 ocean covering a part only of the earth's surface, and more 
 or less irregular in its form ; and attempted also to include 
 
 in his calculation the effects of hydraulic friction on the 
 times and magnitudes of the tides. It is, however, quite 
 impossible to embrace in any calculation the whole of the 
 accessory circumstances which influence the times and 
 magnitudes of the tides, the greater part of which are, in 
 fact, entirely unknown ; and therefore, says Laplace, all 
 we can do is to analyze the general phenomena which 
 should result from the joint action of the sun and moon, 
 and deduce from observations the data which are indispen- 
 sable for completing the theory of the tides for each partic- 
 ular port. 
 
 A great number of observations of the tides at the port 
 of Brest, during the last century, were discussed by La- 
 place in the Mecanique Celeste; but in order to determine 
 the motion of the tide wave, and separate the general laws 
 of the phenomena from local irregularities, it is necessary 
 to have regular series of observations made at different 
 parts of the ocean. Until very recently the theory may be 
 said to have been in advance of the observations ; but of 
 late years the subject has received great attention, and at 
 the present time a more perfect theory of hydrodynamics 
 appears to he necessary for the physical explanation of the 
 phenomena. In 1829, Sir John Lubbock undertook the 
 discussion of the tide observations which are made at the 
 London Docks, with the view of obtaining correct tables 
 for predicting the time and height of the tides for the Brit- 
 ish Almanac. The results, which were published in the 
 Philosophical Transactions for 1831, are deduced from a 
 series of upwards of 13,000 observations, during a period of 
 nineteen years, and are of great importance, both as afford- 
 ing materials for the construction of tide tables, and as 
 pointing out the defects of the equilibrium theory, with 
 which they were accurately compared. In some of the 
 subsequent volumes of the Transactions' the author has 
 continued his investigations, and has also published, separ- 
 ately, an account of Bernoulli's Traite sur le Flux et Re- 
 flux, and an elementary treatise, which appeared in 1839. In 
 the Phil. Trans, for 1833, Mr. Whewell gave an Essay to- 
 wards a flrst Approximation to a Map of Cotidal Lines, 
 which has been followed by a series of interesting papers 
 in the subsequent volumes to the present time (1842). Mr. 
 WheweH's researches have been chiefly directed to the de- 
 termination of the following points: First, the motion of 
 the tide wave at different parts of the ocean ; secondly, the 
 comparison of the observed laws at different places with 
 theory ; and, lastly, the laws of the diurnal inequality. In 
 1834, the British Association procured an extensive series 
 of observations to be made on the coasts of Britain and 
 Ireland at 537 stations of the coast-guard. These were re- 
 peated at the same places in June, 1835 ; and, at the request 
 of our government, simultaneous observations were made 
 by the other maritime powers of Europe and the United 
 States. The number of stations in America was 28, ex- 
 tending from the mouth of the Mississippi to Nova Scotia; 
 and the number on the continent of Europe 101, between 
 the Straits of Gibraltar and the North Cape of Norway. 
 The results of these observations, reduced under Mr. Whe- 
 well's superintendence, were published in the Phil. Trans. 
 for 1836 ; and they are of great importance, not only as af- 
 fording a far more precise determination of the progress of 
 the tide wave and the forms of the cotidal line on the 
 coasts of Europe and North America than previously exist- 
 ed, but as furnishing more correct data for the construction 
 of the tide tables. 
 
 Influence of Atmospheric Pressure and Winds. — Besides 
 the numerous causes of irregularity depending on the local 
 circiunstances, the tides are also affected by the state of the 
 atmosphere. At Brest, the height of high water varies in- 
 versely as the height of the barometer, and rises more than 
 eight inches for a fall of about half an inch of the barome- 
 ter. At Liverpool, a fall of one tenth of an inch in the 
 barometer corresponds to a rise in the river Mersey of about 
 an inch ; and at the London Docks, a fall of one tenth of 
 an inch corresponds to a rise in the Thames of about seven 
 tenths of an inch. With a low barometer, the tides may 
 therefore be expected to be high, and vice versa. The tide 
 is also liable to be disturbed by winds. Sir J. Lubbock 
 states that, in the violent hurricane of Jan. 8, 1839, " there 
 was no tide at Gainsborough, which is twenty-five miles up 
 the Trent — a circumstance unknown before. At Saltmarsh, 
 only five miles up the Ouse from the Humber, the tide 
 went on ebbing, and never flowed till the river was dry in 
 some places ; while at Ostend, towards which the wind 
 was blowing, contrary effects were observed. During strong 
 northwesterly gales the tide marks high water earlier in 
 the Thames than otherwise, and does not give so much 
 water, whilst the ebb tide runs out late, and marks lower ; 
 but upon the gales abating and the weather moderating, 
 the tides put in, and rise much higher ; whilst they also 
 run longer before high water is marked, and with more ve- 
 locity of current; nor do they run out so ling or so low.* 
 {Elementary Treatise on the Tides.) 
 
 1247
 
 TIDE GAUGE. 
 
 TIDE GAUGE. A mechanical contrivance for rrcistcr- 
 Ing the siait; of the tide continuously at every instant of 
 i the Phil. Trans, foi 1838, there is a description 
 of a very complete self-registering machine for this purpose, 
 erected al Bristol bj Mr. Bunt The principal parts .-ire an 
 eight-day cluck, which turns a vertical cylinder revolving 
 twenty-four hours; a wheel, t'> which an alternate 
 motion is communicated bj a floal rising and tailing with 
 innected with the wheel by a wire passing 
 over a pulley, and kepi constantly strained by a counter- 
 id a small drum on the same axis with the wheel, 
 Which, bj a suspending n ire, communicates one eighteenth 
 
 (■!' the vertical motion of the float to a liar carrying a pen- 
 cil, which describes a curve on the cylinder, anil thereby 
 marks the fluctuations and the time and height of high wa- 
 ter. Various tide gauges, on similar principles, have been 
 constructed bj others, particularly by Captain Lloyd, Mr. 
 Mitchell, and Mr. Palmer. (See the jYautical Magazine 
 for October, 1832.) 
 
 TIE. In Architecture, a piece of timber or metal placed 
 ia tiny direction, whose office is to bind two bodies together 
 
 which have a tendency to separate or diverge. See door. 
 
 Tie. In Music, a characters — \used in ancient music 
 
 to connect syncopated notes, which were divided by a bar ; 
 
 thus 
 
 TIER. A row or range of {runs, casks, &c. Also the 
 place on the orlop deck on which the cables are stowed. 
 
 TIERCE. In Heraldry, a term used for the field when 
 divided into three parts. 
 
 TIERS E'TAT. The third branch, or commonalty, in 
 the French estates. The origin and meaning of the word 
 are illustrated by M. (Jautier. {.Mum. dr. /'Mead, des Inscr., 
 vol. xwvii.) The important part which the representation 
 of the tiers e tat played at the commencement of the French 
 revolution is known to all. Previously to the great French 
 revolution, the French were divided into three distinct 
 classes, the nobles, the clergy, and the commonalty, form- 
 ing, ia their united capacity, the states general of the king- 
 dom; and their deliberations were separately conducted bj 
 individual vote in different chambers, in which the three 
 above mentioned respectively assembled. They 
 then met in common to deliberate together, and vote col- 
 lectively. Now, as the number of the deputies was nearly 
 equal in each order, the result of the votes taken collect- 
 ivelj was always necessarily favourable to the privileged 
 orders. Hence it was loudly demanded that the number of 
 thc> third or tiers estate should be doubled, and the definitive 
 resolutions decided by individual instead of collective votes. 
 Every one knows that it was owing to the refusal of the no- 
 bles and the clergy to comply with this demand that the cri- 
 sis of the French revolution was accelerated; and to the 
 consummation of this event a celebrated pamphlet of Sit-yes, 
 entitled Qu'est ce que le Tiers Etat, in a great degree eon- 
 I. See Assembly. 
 
 TI'GER. A species of the genus Felis, as large as the 
 lion, but with a rounder head and longer body ; of a bright 
 reddish fawn colour above, a pure white below, irregularly 
 . ith black stripes. It is clothed u ith short hairs, and 
 has no mane. The tiger is the most formidable and cruel of 
 all quadrupeds, and the scourge of the less inhabited parts 
 of India. It is limited to the Asiatic continent. .See Felis. 
 
 TIGHT. The Sea term for the opposite of leaky. 
 
 TILIACE/E (Tilia, the linden or lime tree), form a nat- 
 ural order of Exogenous plants, very nearly allied to the 
 ■is order, from w hich they differ in the stamens 
 
 tinct lii useful qualities they resemble thai order, 
 the bark being tough, their sap mucilaginous, and their tim- 
 ber light. Russia mats are made from the lough inner bark 
 Of the common lime-tree: and a species of Corchorus, called 
 in India as a potherb. A few- have 
 gay flowers, but the majority are plants of little interest. 
 
 TIMBER. 
 
 TI'LLAGE LANDS. Lands kept under the plough, 
 that is, cropped with annual or biennial plants, which re- 
 quire a continual Change of the surface soil by stirrinu and 
 
 turning with the plough or other agricultural implements, 
 
 and by the addition of manure. The tillage plants of Brit- 
 ain and of analogous climates are chiefly the bread corn; 
 leguminous or pea-flowered plants, such as the bean, pea, 
 tares, clover, SEC.; plants cultivated for their roots or tu- 
 bers, such as the tin nip. carrot, potato, &c. ; or plants culti- 
 vated for their seeds, such as mustard, rape; or for the 
 entire plant, such as wood, flax, hemp, and a variety of 
 others. 
 
 TILLER. In Naval language, the bar placed in the 
 head of the rudder to turn it. 
 
 Tl'LMUS. ((.'r. tiAAw, 1 pluck.) Picking of the bed- 
 clothes, or (ioccitation ; a symptom of the fatal termina- 
 tion of some disorders. 
 
 TIMBER. In Carpentry, a word used to denote those 
 pieces of wood that admit of being squared, or are capa- 
 ble of being employed in house and ship-building. 
 
 A considerable portion of the timber (oak) used in ship- 
 building, and in the construction of machinery, is of I u-- 
 
 growth : but the greater portion of the timber (fir) used in 
 house carpentry, and in the making of furniture, &c, is 
 imported either from our colonial possessions or from for- 
 eign countries. 
 
 The trade in timber is one of great extent and importance. 
 In fact, if there be one article more than another with 
 which it is of paramount importance that a great maritime 
 and manufacturing nation like England should be abundant- 
 ly supplied on the lowest possible terms, that article is tim- 
 ber. But of late years this sound principle has been most 
 materially interfered with, partly lor the sake of revenue, 
 and partly to force a trade with our North American colo- 
 nies. This forcing system has been carried to such an ex- 
 treme extent, that from 1831 down to the present year 
 (1842), a duty of 55s. a load has been laid on foreign timber, 
 or timber from the N. of Europe, whereas timber from Brit- 
 ish America has been admitted at a duty of Bis. a load, ma- 
 king a discriminating or differentia] duty of no less than 45s. a 
 load in favour of the latter ! Such a preference would, un- 
 der any circumstances, be most injurious : but it has been 
 especially so from the fact of the timber of our North 
 American possessions being, speaking generally, of very in- 
 ferior quality; so that the practical operation ot the system 
 has been to compel the British public to pay a comparative- 
 ly high price for a comparatively worthless article. We are 
 glad, however, to be able to state that this pernicious sys- 
 tem has recently been very materially modified; and that, 
 under the tariff introduced by Sir Robert Peel, the duty on 
 foreign timber is to be immediately reduced to 30s. a load, 
 and that in 184!! it is to be reduced to 25s., while the duty 
 on limber from British America is to be reduced to Is. the 
 load. This reduces the differential duly or bounty in favour 
 of Canadian timber from 45s. to "24.*. and is, in so far, a mate- 
 rial improvement. But there neither is nor can be any 
 good reason why the differential duty should not bo still far- 
 ther reduced, or rather why it should not be altogether abol- 
 ished. The better plan would have been to have made the 
 reduction only in foreign timber, and to have kept the duty 
 on Canadian timber at its old level. Had this been done, 
 the loss to the revenue would not have been nearly so great 
 as it will be, at the same time that the differential duty in 
 favour of colonial timber would have been reduced to las. 
 a load, which, though an impolitic, could not have been 
 called an oppressive duty. 
 
 The consequence of this forcing system has been that of 
 from Had to 450 cargoes of timber annuallj Imported into 
 
 the United Kingdom, not more than from GO to 100 are from 
 
 the north of Europe. But under the new system, the pro- 
 portions will be materially varied, and the balance of impor- 
 tation will be greatly in favour of of the north of Europe. 
 We subjoin, 
 
 An Account of the Quantities of Timber imported in 1833 and 1839; and of the Quantities retained for Home Con- 
 sumption, and the Nett Amount of Duty derived therefrom in the same Two Years. 
 
 Batten and batten ends . . . great hhds. 
 
 I ends " 
 
 Masts above I'', and under 8 ins. in diameter numb. 
 8 " 12 " . 
 
 " 12 inches and upwards • . " 
 
 Oak planks " 
 
 great hhds. 
 
 Fir, 8 ins. square and upwards . ■ loads 
 
 Oak " 
 
 (Jnenumerated " 
 
 ll loL'S " 
 
 in {i I 
 
 0(1,118 
 86,64*! 
 
 5,263 
 
 50,752 
 51,676 
 
 '.Mil! 
 
 . 
 
 05 
 
 1,306 
 
 303 
 
 121 
 
 :;, 
 i;876 
 
 I-™. 
 
 168 
 
 1,072 
 
 209 
 
 320 
 
 50 
 
 1,579 
 
 31(1 
 
 1 
 
 
 17/.40 
 70,878 
 10,969 
 
 3.090 
 
 1,393 
 75,461 
 36,155 
 
 "P'ion. 
 
 i 89. 
 
 4,723 
 
 3,1-''! 
 
 51,336 
 4,072 
 
 i 3 
 
 161,112 
 
 622,261 
 
 3.331 
 
 2,635 
 
 B,494 
 
 46,766 
 10,976 
 
 12,353 
 
 is.1fl 
 
 i?i, sin 
 631,839 
 
 3,304 
 
 13,863 
 
 54,566 
 
 550,999 
 
 7 5. 1 -1 7 
 12,961 
 11,862
 
 TIMBERS. 
 
 TIMBERS. The general term for the upright pieces of 
 wood in a ship's frame. 
 
 TIME. In Music, that affection of sound whereby short- 
 ness or length is denominated as regards its continuity on 
 the same degree of tune. Time may be considered either 
 with respect to the absolute duration of the notes them- 
 selves, measured by motion foreign to music, or with respect 
 to the proportion or quantity of notes compared with each 
 other. The signs or characters by which the time of notes 
 is represented are given under the article Music. 
 
 Time. A limited portion of duration, measured by certain 
 conventional or natural periods, and often marked by par- 
 ticular phenomena — as the revolution of the celestial bod- 
 ies, more especially of the sun, or the rotation of the earth 
 on its axis. 
 
 Absolute Time is time considered in itself without refer- 
 ence to that portion of duration to which it belongs, howev- 
 er noted or marked. 
 
 Relative Time is time considered with reference to the 
 termini of some specific interval of duration. 
 
 Apparent Time is time deduced from observations of the 
 sun, and is the same as that shown by a properly adjusted 
 sun-dial. 
 
 Mean Time is that shown by a well-regulated clock ; and 
 would be the same as that shown by the sun, if the sun 
 were always in the equator, and his apparent diurnal mo- 
 tion in the heavens were uniform. 
 
 Sidereal Time is the portion of a sidereal day which has 
 elapsed since the transit of the first point of Aries. It rep- 
 resents at any moment the right ascension of whatever ob- 
 ject is then upon the meridian. 
 
 Astronomical Time of Day is the time past mean noon of 
 that day, and is reckoned on to twenty-four hours in mean 
 time. 
 
 Civil Time is mean time adapted to the purposes of civil 
 life. The day commences at the midnight preceding the 
 noon of the day, and is divided into parts of twelve hours 
 each, the first twelve marked A.M., or ante meridiem, and 
 the second P.M., or post meridiem. 
 
 TIMO'CRACY. Gi. TtnoKfarla.) A term made use of 
 by .some Greek writers, especially Aristotle, to signify a pe- 
 culiar form of constitution ; but there are two different sen- 
 ses in which it is thus used, corresponding to the different 
 meanings of the word Tiytn, a price or honour, from which 
 it is derived. According to the first, it represents a state in 
 which the qualification for office is a certain amount of 
 property ; in the latter it is a kind of mean between aris- 
 tocracy and oligarchy, when the ruling class, who are still 
 the best and noblest citizens, struggle for pre-eminence 
 among themselves. (See Quart. Rev., vol. xlv.) 
 
 TIN. (Germ, zinn.) This metal was known to the an- 
 cients, who procured it from Spain and Britain. It appears 
 to have been in use even in the time of Moses. (Numbers, 
 xxxvi., 22.) It is rather a scarce metal, found in few parts 
 of the world in any quantity. Cornwall is its most pro- 
 ductive source ; it also occurs in the mountains between 
 Gallicia and Portugal, and in those between Saxony and Bo- 
 hemia. Tin has also been brought from the peninsula of 
 Malacca in India, and from Chili and Mexico. There are 
 only two ores of tin, the native peroxide, and the double 
 sulphuret of tin and copper : the latter, sometimes culled 
 bell-metal ore, is extremely rare ; and it is exclusively from 
 the former that the commercial demands are supplied. In 
 Cornwall, the native peroxide, or tin stone (which is usual- 
 ly blended with oxides of iron and manganese), occurs in 
 veins, and in loose grains and nodules in alluvial soil : the 
 latter is called stream tin, and from it the purest metal is 
 obtained. The ore is reduced by a very simple process ; it 
 is ground, washed, and roasted in a reverberatory furnace ; 
 it is then mixed with charcoal or Welsh culm and lime- 
 stone, and strongly heated, so as to bring the whole into fu- 
 sion, which is kept up for eight or ten hours : the lime com- 
 bines with the earthy matters of the ore into a fusible slag, 
 while the coal reduces the oxide to the metallic state, and 
 the fused metal is drawn out at the bottom of the furnace 
 into a clay mould. In this impure state it is exposed to a 
 heat just sufficient to melt the pure tin, which runs off into 
 a kettle, while the less fusible impurities remain behind : in 
 the kettle, the tin is kept in fusion, and agitated by plun- 
 ging pieces of wet charcoal into it, which causes a quantity 
 of dross to rise to the surface, where it is skimmed off, and 
 the purified metal is then cast into blocks of about 3 cwt. 
 each. 
 
 The stream tin is smelted by charcoal ; and the mass of 
 grain tin obtained by such reduction is heated and let fall 
 from a height, by which it splits into masses of a columnar 
 fracture, which characterizes the pure metal. 
 
 Pure tin is a white brilliant metal. It has a slight taste 
 and smell when rubbed, and its hardness is intermediate 
 between that of gold and lead. Its specific gravity is 7 - 2. 
 It is very malleable ; and one of its most useful forms is 
 that of foil, which is made by beating : it is about a thou- 
 
 TINCTURE. 
 
 sandth of an inch in thickness. Its ductility and tenacity 
 are inferior to most of the other malleable metals. A tin 
 wire 78 thousandths of an inch in diameter will not support 
 more than 38 pounds without breaking. It produces a pecu- 
 liar crackling noise when beat. Exposed to air, it soon be- 
 comes superficially oxidized ; and when melted, successive 
 films of a gray powder form upon its surface. The temper- 
 ature at which it melts is about 442°. At a white heat it 
 takes fire, and burns with a bright flame. The equivalent 
 of tin is 58. It forms two oxides. The protoxide is thrown 
 down by alkaline carbonates from an aqueous solution of 
 protochloride of tin ; and when dried and heated out of the 
 contact of air, its water is expelled, and it remains in the 
 form of a dark substance, of the specific gravity 66. It 
 burns like tinder, and becomes converted into the peroxide. 
 It is soluble in sulphuric and hydrochloric, and in dilute ni- 
 tric acid, and in the pure fixed alkalies. Its salts have a 
 strong attraction for oxygen, and easily pass into persalts ; so 
 that it is a powerful deoxidizing agent, and is often used as 
 such in some of the chemical arts. When a solution of 
 protochloride of tin is dropped into a solution of perchloride 
 of gold, a purple precipitate, called, from its inventor, purple 
 of Cassius, is thrown down : it appears to be a compound 
 of peroxide of tin with protoxide of gold, and its formation 
 depends upon the deoxidizing power of the solution of tin. 
 When tin foil is put into nitric acid there is violent action, 
 attended by the decomposition of the acid and the peroxi- 
 dizementof the tin, which is thus converted into a white 
 powder : this, when edulcorated and dried at a red heat, ac- 
 quires a yellow tint. It does not easily form permanent 
 compounds with the acids ; but it unites with the pure al- 
 kalies, and forms soluble compounds, which have some- 
 times been called stannates, and the peroxide itself stannic 
 acid. The two oxides of tin are respectively composed of 
 58 tin and 8 oxygen, and 58 tin and 16 oxygen : their equiv- 
 alents, therefore, are 66 and 74. Tin and chlorine also 
 combine in two proportions : the protochloride of tin is 
 formed by passing hydrochloric acid gas over metallic tin 
 gently heated in a glass tube, or by heating a mixture of 
 equal weights of tin filings and calomel, when it remains, 
 after driving off the mercury, in the form of a gray solid, 
 fusible at a red heat, and volatile at higher temperatures. 
 Its aqueous solution is commonly termed protumuriate of 
 tin. When tin foil is heated in excess of gaseous chlorine, 
 or when 1 pnrt of tin filings is mixed with 3 of corrosive 
 sublimate and heated, a volatile liquid distils over, which 
 is perchloride of tin, and its aqueous solution forms the 
 permuriate. Exposed to air, it is decomposed by the aque- 
 ous vapour of the atmosphere, and exhales dense white 
 fumes : hence it has been called, after its discoverer, fuming 
 liquor of Libavius. Both the protumuriate and permuriate 
 of tin are used by dyers and calico-printers. The former is 
 prepared by heating granulated tin in strong hydrochloric 
 acid, as long as hydrogen continues to be evolved ; the latter, 
 by gradually dissolving granulated tin in a mixture of two 
 parts by measure of hydrochloric acid, one of nitric acid, 
 and one of water. These chlorides of tin are respectively 
 composed of 58 tin and 36 chlorine, and 58 tin and 72 chlo- 
 rine, and are therefore represented by the equivalents 94 
 and 130. 
 
 When melted tin and sulphur are brought together, a 
 black protosulphuret of tin is formed. The bisulphuret of 
 tin is a yellow glistening substance, sometimes called Mo- 
 saic gold (aurum musivum), and used in ornamental jnpan 
 work. It is prepared by heating in a glass retort 2 parts of 
 peroxide of tin, 2 of sulphur, and 1 of sal ammoniac, and 
 maintaining a low red heat till sulphurous acid ceases to be 
 evolved. The sulphuret and bisulphuret of tin are consti- 
 tuted of 58 tin and 16 sulphur, and 58 tin and 32 sulphur; 
 and have, therefore, the equivalents 74 and 80. The total 
 produce of the tin mines and works of Cornwall may, at 
 present (1842), be estimated at about 4000 tons a year, 
 worth from £65 to £80 a ton. 
 
 TI'NCA. (Lat. tinea, a tench.) A subgenus of Cypri- 
 noid fishes, characterized by having short anal and dorsal 
 fins ; very short barbules or tentacles about the mouth ; 
 no bony serrated ray at the commencement of either the 
 dorsal or anal fins ; small scales. Like the Linnajan Cy- 
 prini, the Tinci, or tenches, have no teeth except in the 
 pharynx ; whence the name of " leather-mouthed fishes' 
 applied to this family of Pisces Abdominales. 
 
 TI'NCAL. The commercial name of rough borax as 
 imported from India. 
 
 TI'NCTURE. A pharmaceutical preparation, generally 
 consisting of active remedies dissolved in rectified or proof 
 spirit. Tinctures are generally made by digesting bruised or 
 pulverized vegetable suhstances in the spirit, either at com- 
 mon temperatures or aided by heat. The term tincture is 
 sometimes applied to alcoholic solutions of resins, of which 
 tincture of myrrh, of assafcetida, &c, furnish instances. 
 Tinctures, from the quantity of alcohol which they con- 
 tain, are necessarily exhibited in small doses: the most 
 
 1249
 
 TINCTURES. 
 
 important of them are those which contain highly active in- 
 gredients, sui ti .1- tincture of opium, &c. 
 Ti N< njEES, in Heraldry, arc of three descriptions: 
 
 metals, colours, and furs. The former are or, argent; the 
 second, gules, azure, sable, vert, purpure, sanguine, and 
 tenny. The chief furs are ermine and vair; but there are 
 several varieties of both, distinguished by different names. 
 
 Each metal and colour, in blazonry (except the two last and 
 least honourable, sanguine and tenny), is represented l>y a 
 distinct precious stone and heavenly body ; and when the 
 arms of sovereign princes or high dignities are described by 
 old heralds, the tinctures are frequently denoted l>y the 
 names of these jewels or celestial bodies. See Ok, Ar- 
 gent, &c, 
 
 TI'NEA. The scald head. See Ringworm. 
 
 TIN PLATE. While iron. The art of tinning iron ori- 
 ginated in Saxony, and was first made known here by Mr. 
 Andrew Varranton, about the year 1G65 ; but it was not 
 till nearly a century afterwards that works were established 
 for its production upon a large scale at Pontypool. It is 
 made by immersing for about one hour and a half very 
 carefully cleaned plates of rolled iron in melted tin, by 
 which they acquire a bright surface, and are applicable to 
 a number of purposes for which iron plate, in consequence 
 of the extreme facility with which it rusts, could not be 
 used. The crystalline texture of the surface of these 
 plates is beautifully shown by washing it over with a weak 
 acid, and then cleaning it with an alkaline ley, and varnish- 
 ing with a transparent varnish. Thus modified, it forms 
 an ornamental article called moircr. metallique. (On the 
 manufacture of tin plate, see Parkcs's Chemical Essays.) 
 
 TTRONIAN NOTES. The short-hand of Roman an- 
 tiquity. According to the received story', they were intro- 
 duced into Rome by Tiro, the freedman and favourite of 
 Cicero: he is supposed to have imported the art from 
 Greece. M.-^S., written entirely in what are called the Ti- 
 ronian notes, are not (infrequently of the date of the 7th 
 century and downwards ; and they are still common in mar- 
 ginal notes. Kopp (Tachygraphia Veterum Exposita, p. 
 i-i" | thinks that they are called from the word tiro, a learn- 
 er. His second volume contains a dictionary of these notes, 
 which he appears to have succeeded in deciphering. Some 
 have thought that valuable lost classics may be recover I 
 through this key ; hut as yet these hopes have been nuga- 
 tory. ; (See Ed. Rev., vol.xlviii., p. 337, &c.) 
 
 Tl'SRI. The first Hebrew month of the civil year, and 
 the seventh of the ecclesiastical year. It corresponds to 
 part of September and October. 
 
 TI'SSUE, in Plants, the thin membranous organization 
 of which every part is composed, microscopical in size, and 
 often appearing to the naked eye homogeneous, although it 
 consists of a great variety of forms closely compacted. Vege- 
 table anatomists regard its primitive form as spheroidal, and 
 that the tubes and spiral vessels ale mere extensions of that 
 form. Tissue appears to be in all plants of the same nature 
 originally, but it soon becomes altered by the deposition of 
 various secretions upon its sides. 
 
 TITAN. In Grecian Mythology, according to the more 
 modern account, the eldest son of Uranus and Gaia, who 
 relinquished the sovereignty of gods and men to his young- 
 er brother .Saturn, the latter undertaking to destroy all 
 ids children, so that the monarchy might revert to those of 
 Titan. He afterwards recovered the sovereignty from 
 Saturn; but Jupiter, the son of the latter, vanquished him, 
 and restored it to his father. This, however, is a tale alto- 
 gether unknown to the original mythologists. According to 
 tiiem, the Titans were many in number, children of Uranus 
 and Gaia. llesiod makes them .six. The children of the 
 Titans, Atlas for example, retained the same appellation. 
 The war of these Titans with Jupiter was the subject of 
 many different and contradictory legends. Its scene was 
 laid in Thessaly; by Homer on the mountains Olympus, 
 Pelion. and Ossa. By some writers Titan is Identified with 
 : but this point is involved in great obscurity. 
 
 TIT WITK. Native oxide of titanium. 
 
 TiT.V.Mi'.M. A rare metal, discovered by Gregor in a 
 mineral from Cornwall called menachanite. Its characters 
 were first ascertained by Klaproth, who gave it the abovi 
 name. In the year 1832, Dr. Wbllaston ascertained that the 
 
 minute COpper-COloured crystals occasionally found in the 
 
 slag of the iron smelting furnaces at Merthyr and else where 
 were pure titanium ; and it is to him that we are indebted 
 lor a pMKise an, mnt of its properties. In this state it has 
 pper colour, is extremely infusible, and of a specific 
 gravity Of 5-8 ; it is so hard as to scratch not only glass, but 
 
 ii. It resists the action of air and acids, but is oxidized 
 action of nitre at a red heat. Titanium appears sus- 
 ceptible of two degrees of oxidizement. The protoxide of 
 
 titanium is blue or purple, and appears to constitute the 
 
 d called anataae. The peroxide, or titanic acid, exists 
 nearly pure in titanite or rutilite, and is combined with the 
 OXides of iron and manganese in menachanite. Tile cuuiva- 
 1350 
 
 TITHES. 
 
 lent of titanium has not been very satisfactorily ascertained, 
 but it is probabh about 24 upon the hydrogen scale. 
 
 TITHES. In Ecclesiastical Law, the tenth part of Oie 
 produce of the land, which, in this and other Christian 
 countries, was anciently set apart for the endowment of the 
 Church. By the Mosaipal law, the Levites, by whom the 
 public worship of the Jewish state was performed, were 
 supported, not as the cither tribes, by the allotment of a cer- 
 tain district of Canaan, but by the appointment of divers 
 cities in various parts of the country for their abode, and the 
 payment of tithes from the whole community. This ordi- 
 nance has frequently been appealed to under the Christian 
 dispensation, as establishing the divine right of the clergy to 
 the receipt of tithes forever; but this ground of claim has 
 been generally abandoned in modern times; nor does the 
 practice of the early Church, at its first establishment in 
 connexion with the state,' give any reason to suppose that 
 such an idea was then entertained. .Nor, in this country, do 
 the people and their rulers appear, upon their conversion, to 
 have felt themselves under the obligation of any strict pay- 
 ment of tithes. It was first enjoined, apparently, in certain 
 ecclesiastical canons, in the year 750 ; and the first civil de- 
 cree upon the subject is discovered in the laws of Ofla, king 
 of Mercia, in 794. In France, a similar law was enforced 
 by Charlemagne in 778, and from that time the pay- 
 ment has been continued without interruption to modern 
 times. 
 
 Of tithes there are three kinds: 1. Predial, of the vegeta- 
 ble productions of the land, as corn, hay, &c. ; 2. Mixed, as 
 of wool, pigs, &c, which, though natural products, are nur- 
 tured and preserved by the care of man ; 3. Personal, as of 
 manual occupations, trades, fisheries, and the like. Another 
 division of tithes is into great and small, or parsonage and 
 vicarage tithes : of these, the former are chiefly corn, hay, 
 and wood ; the latter are predial tithes of other Kinds, to- 
 gether with mixed and personal tithes. The great tithes be- 
 long to the rector, whereas only the small tithes are due to 
 the vicar. By the original law, till the land of the country 
 was tithable, excepting the property of the crown, and of the 
 Church itself. But when, at the Reformation, the monas- 
 teries were dissolved, and their estates granted, for the i t 
 
 part, to laymen, these lands would have become tithable 
 again but for a particular statute, which was enacted for the 
 advantage of the new possessors. It was also allowable, up 
 to the 13 Eliz., to effect compositions between the clergy and 
 owners of the land, by which the parish was discharged of 
 these payments forever, in consideration of lands made over 
 to the parson in exchange. This practice was, however, re- 
 strained by the statute above referred to, which limited all 
 such compositions to a period of three lives or twenty-one 
 years. From these causes, however, it is that we find a 
 great deal of land in the hands of lay proprietors not subject 
 to this charge. The monasteries, however, held one third 
 of the benefices of the kingdom, from all of which thej re- 
 ceived tithes, and appointed members of their own body, as 
 their vicars or curates, to discharge the ordinary functions 
 of ministers in them. To these they either gave fixed 
 stipends, or allotted the small tithes, taking, as their own 
 share, the great or rectorial. This is called appropriation 
 of tithes; but when these benefices fell into the hands of 
 laymen, the same practice was continued, and is distinguish- 
 ed by the title of impropriation. 
 
 Tithes are either due de jure or by custom: to the latter 
 class belong all personal tithes. 
 
 The subtraction of tithes from a parson, whether a clergy- 
 man or lay impropriator (see Impropriation), or from a 
 vicar, is cognizable in the ecclesiastical courts. But these 
 courts cannot try the right to tithes, except between spiritual 
 persons ; consequently, if the defendant pleads any matter 
 involving a question of right, it must be tried by a jury. 
 Suits for tithes are generally instituted in the Court of Ex- 
 chequer. By the 53 G. 3, c. 127, justices of the peace have 
 jurisdiction for the recovery of small tithes to the amount 
 of £10. 
 
 Lands and their occupiers may be discharged from the 
 payment of tithes, either in part or totally, by a real compo- 
 sition, or by custom or prescription. The first is where an 
 agreement is made between the owner and the parson or 
 Vicar, with consent of the ordinary and patron, that some 
 land, or other real recompense, be given in satisfaction of 
 tithes. By 13 Eliz., c. 10, as we have seen, no real compo- 
 sition, made since that statute, is good for any longer time 
 than three lives or tu ,nt\ one years. < lompositions between 
 a tithe-owner and parishioner cease on the death of the in- 
 cumbent with whom they were made. 
 
 A discharge by custom or prescription is either, 1. I)e 
 ?(', where a modus, or particular manner of 
 tithing, is shown to exist by Custom, which must have cx- 
 isted immemorially ; i. e., is not good, if evidence be shown 
 of its non exist* nee at any time since the reign of Richard I. 
 Or, 2. De. non decimando, where a total exemption from 
 tithes is shown.
 
 TITHES. 
 
 Such is a general view of the law of tithes previous to the 
 yreat changes introduced by the Tithe Commutation Act, 6 
 & 7 W. 4, c. 71 ; the object of which was to convert a tax, 
 imposed on the gross produce of the soil, and varying annu- 
 ally in amount as well as money value along with it, into a 
 rent-charge, perpetual as to the amount, but varying accord- 
 ing to the money value. 
 
 By this act the money value of the tithes in each parish 
 was to be calculated according to the average of the seven 
 years ending at Christmas, 1835, minus the expense of col- 
 lecting, &c. ; but without deduction on account of parochial 
 or county rates, &c. The commissioners appointed for that 
 purpose under the act were then to award that sum (subject 
 to some unimportant allowances), as the amount of the 
 rent-charge to be paid in respect of the tithes. This rent- 
 charga was to be apportioned among the lands of the parish, 
 having regard to their average tithable produce and produc- 
 tive quality. The rent-charge, being thus valued in money, 
 was to be taken as the price of such a quantity of wheat, 
 barley, and oats as it would have purchased (each grain in 
 equal quantities), according to the average price at the period 
 of the confirmation of the apportionment. That quantity 
 of grain was therefore to remain forever as the annual 
 charge upon the parish. In order to regulate the money 
 amount of the tithes, the money payment each year was to 
 be equal to the price of that quantity at the average of the 
 seven years immediately preceding, to be ascertained by an 
 advertisement of the comptroller of corn returns, published 
 in the month of January every year. The rent-charge to be 
 paid by the occupiers of the land on which it is respectively 
 apportioned. 
 
 It will be apparent, from this brief outline of the provisions 
 of the act, that a very great benefit was conferred by it, for 
 all immediate purposes, upon the tithe-owner, and for many 
 upon both parties. The strifes and heart-burnings between 
 the occupiers of the soil and the clergyman, which were oc- 
 casioned by the old mode of collecting the impost, have been 
 removed. The latter has been relieved alike from the con- 
 sequences of indulgence towards his debtors, and the imputa- 
 tion of rapacity. In point of fact, the result of the valuation 
 lias been a considerable improvement in the incomes of the 
 clergy, who comparatively seldom received their full due. 
 The tenant and landowner gain by the removal of a most 
 injurious tax on improvement; for the tithe, while it in- 
 creased along with the produce of the land, acted as a great 
 discouragement to increasing that produce. 
 
 But, looking to the future, its advantages are far more 
 questionable. The tithe-owner will gain, no doubt, by any 
 increase which may take place in the money price of com. 
 But he will be a loser by any fall in the price of corn ; while 
 any increase in the quantity of commodities produced in the 
 country, the price of corn remaining the same, will leave 
 his condition stationary, while other classes advance. It is 
 thought that, in the last century, the agricultural produce of 
 England has trebled. Tithe has nearly trebled along with 
 it. If the same progression should continue for a century 
 more, the produce of the country will again have trebled; 
 rents and other incomes will have increased in proportion ; 
 population will have followed the same law of advance — 
 tithe will remain stationary; the income of the church will 
 be no greater than what is now deemed sufficient for her 
 support, while the exertions required of her will have great- 
 ly augmented. 
 
 And a permanent rise in the money price of corn, which 
 might compensate this relative loss, is probably the last 
 thing to be anticipated. Indeed, should that price fall ma- 
 terially, from the introduction of foreign grain, it will, prob- 
 ably, be necessary to commute anew, if the income of the 
 tithe owners is to be maintained at all. 
 
 To those who consider the sufficient temporal maintenance 
 of the church a matter of high national interest, this pros- 
 pect is a serious one ; but even those who think otherwise 
 cannot possibly regard it with indifference. Tithes are the 
 property of the nation ; and it cannot be for the advantage 
 of any country that state property should not partake in the 
 advance of individual wealth— that it should, relatively 
 speaking, continually decrease. 
 
 The Tithe Commissioners report (1841), that they have re- 
 ceived notices that voluntary commutations have been com- 
 menced in 9197 tithe districts; have received 5906 agree- 
 ments, and confirmed 5136; 821 drafts of compulsory awards 
 (such as they are empowered to cause to be made on the 
 nonagreement of the parties), and confirmed 560. Taking 
 the tithe districts of England and Wales at about 1-2.000, 
 they appear to have finished about half the work of valuing 
 and awarding. They have received 3688 apportionments, 
 and confirmed 2032. According to the returns under the 
 property tax (1810), it appeared that about 8,000.000 acres 
 in England and Wales were tithe-free, and 21.000,000 tith- 
 able. See M-Cullock's Statistics of the British Empire. 
 The same work contains the following analysis of appropri- 
 ations and impropriations of tithes : 
 
 TOKAY. 
 
 Belonging to the crown 33 
 
 Archbishops and bishops 385 
 
 Ecclesiastical corporations aggregate . . . 702 
 
 Dignitaries and other eccl. corporations sole . 438 
 
 Universities, colleges, and hospitals . . . 281 
 
 Private owners 2552 
 
 Municipal corporations (since sold) ... 43 
 
 Vicarages partly endowed 121 
 
 Ditto wholly endowed 132 
 
 TITHEVG. A territorial division, of which the origin is 
 pretty generally attributed to Alfred. It was a district sup- 
 posed to contain ten freeborn men, of whom each was 
 pledge for the others (see Frankpledge.) One of these was 
 annually appointed tithivgman, borsholder, or headboroug/i, 
 (from borg, a pledge). Ten tithings constituted (as is sup- 
 posed) a hundred. 
 
 TI'TUL AR. Chiefly in Ecclesiastical usage, a person in- 
 vested with the title to a benefice ; generally used for one 
 who has the title only, without possession or enjoyment. 
 
 TME'SIS. (Gr. rt/ivw, / cut.) In Grammar, a figure by 
 which a compound word is separated into two parts by 
 the intervention of one or more words, as in the following 
 line of Terence, " Quae meo cunque animo lubitum est fa- 
 cere," for " quaeeunque meo animo." This figure is a licence 
 in the Latin language, frequent in Terence and Lucretius, 
 rare in later writers ; in the Greek it is more common ; but 
 of all Western languages, the German lends itself most readi- 
 ly to the division of compound words. In English the figure 
 is unused. 
 
 TOADSTONE. A provincial term applied to certain ig- 
 neous or basaltic rocks associated with the limestone forma- 
 tion of Derbyshire. See Geology. 
 
 TOBA'CCO. The dried leaves of the JVicotiania tabacum, 
 a plant indigenous to America, but which succeeds very 
 well, and is extensively cultivated, in most parts of the Old 
 World. The recent leaves possess very little odour or taste ; 
 but when dried, their odour is strong, narcotic, and some- 
 what foetid ; their taste bitter, and extremely acrid. When 
 well cured, they are of a yellowish green colour. When 
 distilled, they yield an essential oil, on which their virtue 
 depends, and which is said to be a virulent poison. The 
 leaves are used in various ways ; being chewed, smoked, 
 and ground and manufactured into snuff. It is in the last- 
 mentioned form that tobacco is principally used in Great 
 Britain, and, though the contrary has often been asserted, 
 its use does not seem to have been productive of any percep- 
 tible bad consequence. 
 
 The term tobacco is probably derived from Tabaco, a 
 province of Yucatan, where it was first found by the Span- 
 iards. To Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh has 
 been ascribed the honour of having introduced it into Eng- 
 land, nearly three centuries ago. For full particulars as to 
 the history and statistics of this important article of com- 
 merce, see the Com. Vict. 
 
 TO'CSIN. An old French word, of which the derivation 
 seems not to be ascertained (Gregory of Tours uses the word 
 " seing" for the sound of a bell — see Encycl. Jtlethodigue), 
 signifying an alarum-bell (Germ, sturmglocke). The use of 
 the terrible tocsin, during the troubles of the Revolution, to 
 assemble the multitude, has rendered the word almost 
 proverbial. 
 
 TOD. A weight used in weighing wool. It contains 28 
 lbs. avoirdupois. 
 
 TOFT, in old English, appears to signify the ground or 
 enclosed space on which a messuage has formerly stood. 
 
 TO'GA. The gown or mantle peculiar to the Roman peo- 
 ple; whence it was sometimes designated as the gens togata, 
 or toga clad nation. The toga was a loose flowing woollen 
 garment covering the whole body round, and close below, 
 but open at the top down to the girdle. The end was drawn 
 up and thrown over the left shoulder, leaving the right arm 
 at liberty, as it had no sleeves. The ordinary colour of the 
 toga was white; but this was changed for a dark colour in 
 mourning. The chief dignitaries of the state were distin- 
 guished bv a purple band affixed to the edge of the toga, 
 which was then called preetezta. An embroidered toga was 
 worn by generals when they triumphed. (See Chambers's 
 Dictionary for a concise account of the different species of 
 toga.) It was the national characteristic of the Romans in 
 the republican age; and when Augustus thought he per- 
 ceived its disuse commencing among the crowds assembled 
 at the theatre, and the substitution of the ordinary " lacerna," ' 
 he repeated with emphasis the line of Virgil— 
 Romanos rerum dominos, gentemque togatara. 
 
 Among women, the toga was only worn by the disreputa- 
 ble ; the dress of the matron was the stola. 
 
 TOISE". A French measure of length, containing six 
 French feet, or 1-949040 metres. The French toise is equiva- 
 lent to 6-3945925 English feet. 
 
 TOKAY. A wine made at Tokay in Hungary ; it is lus- 
 cious, and yet has an agreeable quickness of flavour. It is 
 
 1251
 
 TOLERATION. 
 
 usually more or less turbid, am! is the only wine which is 
 j in that state, and, consequently, agitated before it 
 i the glass. 
 
 TOLERA'TJON (Lat. tolero, / bear), is used in a gen- 
 impunity and safety in the state foi all 
 ; the established church, who do not maintain 
 nt with the peace and welfare of 
 the state. Hence toleration implies a right of enjoying the 
 benefit of the laws and of all social privileges, without any 
 on. The tir-t toleration act in 
 passed in 1689; but it was not lilt 1829, when the 
 Catholic Emancipation Bill was passed, that dissenters could 
 he said to be on equality with churchmen in every respect, 
 a are now the only sen in England precluded from 
 the lull enjoyment of civil rights in consequence of their re- 
 ligion. 
 
 TOLL. (Germ, zoll.) The name usually given to the 
 : posed on travellers and goods passing along public 
 roads, bridges, &.c. It is also used to indicate the payment 
 to the corporation of a town, or to the lord or owner of a 
 market or fair, upon sale of things tollable. The right, 
 whether to take toll, or to be exempt from its payment, rests 
 upon prescription or grant from the king. Toll is sometimes 
 taken by a man for every beast driven across his ground, 
 and is then called toll trar. rst ; also by a town for beasts 
 going through it, or over a bridge or ferry maintained at its 
 cost, and is then called toll-thorough. See Taille. 
 
 TO'LMEN, or DOLMEN. In Antiquities. Borlase, in 
 his History of Cornwall, gives this name to large stones 
 with passages apparently hollowed through them, which 
 are commonly believed to be Druidical remains. There are 
 many such in Brittany. See also Archaologia, vol. ii., and 
 vol. viii., p. CIO, where there is a description and represen- 
 tation of a celebrated one at Primham Rocks, in Yorkshire. 
 It has been supposed that they were acoustic contrivances, 
 by means of which the Druids returned oracular answers. 
 
 TOLU BALSAM. The concrete balsam of Myroxylon 
 peruifcrum, a tree growing in the warmest parts of South 
 America. The substance is pale brown; brittle in cold, 
 but tenacious in hot weather ; fragrant when heated, and 
 entirely soluble in alcohol. It appears to contain that modi- 
 fication of the benzoic acid which has been called cinnamic 
 acid. 
 
 TOMB. (Gr. Tonfio';, Lat. tumulus.) It used to express 
 both the grave or sepulchre in which the body of a deceas- 
 ed person is interred, and a monument erected in his memo- 
 ry. In many countries it was customary to burn the bodies 
 of the deail, and to collect the ashes into an urn (see Urn) 
 which was deposited in a tomb. The tombs of the Jews 
 were generally hollow places hewn out of a rock. The 
 Greeks constructed their tombs outside the walls of their 
 cities, with the exception of those raised to distinguished 
 personages. The same distinction was observed by the 
 Romans ; their sepulchres were in the country near the high 
 roads, and none but emperors, vestals, and great personages 
 had the privilege of burial within the walls. In Etruria, 
 several tombs of the ancient inhabitants have been disco- 
 vered containing beautiful vases, for full particulars respect- 
 ing which, the reader may consult Mrs. II. Gray's interest- 
 ing Tour to the Sepulchres of Etruria. See for the tombs 
 of '.lie Egyptians, Sir G. Wilkinson's Manners of the Ancient 
 
 Egyptians, vol. iii., p. 183. 
 TO'MBAC. 
 
 1AC. An alloy of copper and zinc, or a species of 
 brass with excess of zinc. When arsenic is added, it forms 
 white tombac. 
 
 TOMENTO'SE. (Lat. tomentum, sheared wool.) Cov- 
 ered with short inconspicuous interwoven hairs. 
 
 TON. A denomination of weight equal to 20 cwt., or 
 2240 lbs. avoirdupois. Ton is also tin- name of an English 
 measure of capacity containing 252 gallons ; but when used 
 in the latter sense, the word is usually written tun. 
 
 TONDI'NO. (Ital.) In Architecture, the same asastra- 
 gal, which see. 
 
 TONE. 'Gr. toi'oj.) In Music, a property of sound 
 which brings it under the relation of grave or acute, or the 
 gravity of acuteness it may have from the number of vibra- 
 tions of the sonorous body producing it. It is more particu- 
 larly used for expressing that degree or interval of time by 
 which sounds may he raised or lowered from one extreme 
 of concord to another, so as still to produce melody. 
 
 TONES, ECCLESIASTICAL. In Music, the eight 
 modes now generally called the Gregorian Chant, in which 
 ice of the Catholic church is performed; four 
 whereof are authentic, and four of them 
 
 has been considered die inventor of them. They 
 are the foundation of all music, and will ever be considered 
 ■tupenduous monuments of composition. 
 
 TONGUE. In Architecture. .See Groove. 
 
 Tom. i i:. In Anatomy, the organ of taste; a soft fleshy 
 moveable in all directions, composed of muscular 
 fibres covered b membrane, upon which, especi- 
 
 ally at tin- tip and sides, are niunerous nervous papilla'. 
 1252 
 
 TONSILS. 
 
 The tongue is largely supplied by blood vessels, its arteries 
 being branches of the ranine ami labial, and its veins emp- 
 tying into the great Unguals which proceed to the exb 
 jugular ; the nerves come from the fifth, and eighth, ami 
 ninth pairs. The tongue perforins important functions, not 
 only in tasting, but in articulating, and in eating or chewing, 
 or swallowing food, and in receiving drink. 
 
 TO'NIC. (From Tone.) In Music, the principal note of 
 the key. It is the chief sound upon which all regular melo- 
 dies depend, and in which they all terminate. Its octaves, 
 both above and below, are equally called by the same name. 
 It is, however, to he understood that the termination here 
 alluded to has relation only to the chief melody, or to its 
 bass, inasmuch as the inner or mean parts of the harmony 
 conclude on the third or mediant, and the fifth or dominant; 
 
 TO'NICS. (Gr. tovou, I strengthen.) Medicines which 
 strengthen and increase muscular action. To this class be- 
 long vegetable hitters, stimulants, astringents, &c. 
 
 TO'NNAGE, implied originally the number of tons 
 weight a vessel might safely carry. Prior to January, 1836, 
 the rule established by the act of parliament for the meas- 
 urement of the tonnage of ships was founded on erroneous 
 principles, and led to the most mischievous consequences. 
 
 By considering the breadth ami depth nearly the same, 
 the rule implied the square of the breadth ; and hence in- 
 creasing the hreadth of a vessel increased her nominal ton- 
 nage for the payment of dues more than it increased her 
 real capacity. Under this pernicious system vessels came 
 to be built narrow and deep ; and thus not only less effi- 
 cient, but highly dangerous. In 1823 a committee, of which 
 the celebrated Dr. T. Young was chairman, proposed to 
 measure the internal capacity by taking the breadth and 
 depth at each quarter of the length ; but for some reason 
 no step was taken. In 1832 another committee was ap- 
 pointed to consider the subject; and they concluded their 
 labours in 1834 by recommending the method of Mr. Riddle, 
 of the Royal Hospital, Greenwich. Mr. Riddle inferred, 
 that since a great number of direct measures for capacity 
 would afford a result very near the truth, an approximation 
 might be obtained by means of a smaller number of meas- 
 ures, provided additional weight was given in the calcula- 
 tion to those dimensions which extend through a greater 
 part of the hull. He ohtained the multipliers of these di- 
 mensions, the midship breadth and depth, by trial, from the 
 vessels measured for the guidance of the committee; and 
 the method is therefore founded on an arithmetical fact. 
 The rule, briefly expressed, is as follows : 
 
 Divide the upper deck, between the after part of the stem 
 and the forepart of the sternpost, into six equal parts. At 
 the foremost, middle, and aftermost points of division, 
 measure, in feet and decimals, the depths from the under 
 side of the upper deck to the ceiling at the limber strake. 
 Divide each depth into five equal parts, and measure the 
 inside breadths at l-5th ami 4 5ths (from the upper deck) at 
 the two extreme depths, and at2-5ths and 4-5th of the mid- 
 ship depth. Measure the length, as above, at half the mid- 
 ship depth. To twice the midship depth add the extreme 
 depths, for the sum of the depths. To the upper and lower 
 breadths at the foremost division add three times the upper 
 and lower breadths at the midship division, and the upper 
 and twice the lower breadth at the aftermost division, for 
 the sum of the breadths. Multiply the sum of the depths by 
 the sum of the breadths, and the product by the length, 
 and divide this product by 3500 ; the result is the tonnage 
 for register. 
 
 In vessels with a poop or a break in the upper deck, 
 measure the mean length, breadth, and height ; multiply 
 these together, and divide by 92-4, and add the result to the 
 former quantity. In open vessels, the depth is measured 
 from the upper edge of the upper strake. In steam vessels, 
 thetouage due to the content of the engine room (the depth 
 being considered at the midship depth, and the breadth that 
 at 2 atlis of this depth), divided by 92.4. is to be deducted. 
 
 The relative capacities of ships are determined very 
 nearly by this method ; that is, \\ iihin little more than 4 or 
 5 percent, generally, though, in extreme cases, the difference 
 may amounl to 10 or 12 per cent.: even this, however, is in- 
 significant, as compared with the usual errors of the former 
 method. The divisor by w hich cubic content is reduced to 
 
 nominal tonnage was adopted, merely that while the repu- 
 ted tonnage of most kinds of vessels would he corrected by 
 the new rule, the total registered tonnage of the kingdom 
 might remain unaltered. By the in w method the dues 
 
 paid on tonnage are proportioned to the capacities of tho 
 vessels ; and as m. advantage is gained in these respects by 
 defective forms, a marked improvement m merchant vessels 
 has followed the passing of the bill in 1835. 
 
 TONSILLl'TIS. Inflammation of the tonsils. See 
 Quin~i 
 
 TONSILS. (Lat. tonsilla.) An oblong suboval gland 
 on each side of the fauces, and opening into the cavity of 
 
 the mouth bj si reral large ducts.
 
 TONTINE. 
 
 TONTINE, a term derived from the name of the inventor 
 Tonti, signifying a loan raised on life annuities with the 
 benefit of survivorships. See Annuities. 
 
 TOO'TIIIXG. In Architecture, bricks alternately pro- 
 jecting at the end of a wall, in order that they may be 
 bonded into a continuation of it when the remainder is 
 carried up. 
 
 TOP. In Xaval Language, a small light platform near 
 the lower mast-head. 
 
 TO'PARCHY. (Gr. to.toj, a place, and apxv govern- 
 ment), in Antiquity, signified a small state or lordship con- 
 sisting only of a few cities or towns ; or a petty country un- 
 der the sway of a toparch. Thus Judea was anciently di- 
 vided into ten toparchies. 
 
 TO'PAZ. (Gr. ro-ayov.) A crystallized mineral harder 
 than quartz, of a yellow or wine colour, composed of 60 
 alumina, 3.5 silica, 5 flouric acid. 'When heated, the Bra- 
 zilian topaz becomes rose red, and is sometimes in this 
 state passed off as a ruby : the Saxon topaz loses its colour 
 by heat. When without flaws and of a good colour, it is 
 much employed in jewellery. The Saxon is usually paler 
 than the Brazilian, which often has a pinkish hue; the 
 Siberian topaz is usually colourless, and the Scotch has a 
 blue tinge. 
 
 TOPA'ZOLITE. (Gr. to-ci^iov and Xtdoc, a stone.) A 
 subvariety of garnet of a pale yellow colour, found in 
 Piedmont. It is a silicate of alumina, lime, and iron, with 
 traces of glucina and manganese. 
 
 TOPCHAINS. Chains used in action, by which the 
 lower vard is hung in case of the slings being shot away. 
 
 TOPGALLANT. That which is above the topmast. 
 
 TOTHET. A polluted unclean place near Jerusalem, 
 into which the Jews used to throw the carcasses of beasts, 
 or the bodies of men to whom they refused burial ; and 
 where a tire was perpetually kept up to consume all that 
 was brought. Hence Tophet is sometimes used metaphori- 
 cally for hell. This place had also been defiled by human 
 sacrifices which had been offered to Moloch. Hence Milton 
 says of this hideous deity, that he 
 
 Wade his grove 
 The pleasant valley of Hinnom : Tophet thence 
 And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell. 
 
 The name is derived by some from Ileb. toph, a drum,on 
 account of the beating of drums and other instruments by 
 which the cries of the children sacrificed to Moloch were 
 stifled. 
 
 TO'PHUS. A soft tumour upon a bone. In Mineralogy, 
 the term tophus has been applied to porous deposites of 
 calcareous matter from water. 
 
 TO'PICS. (Gr. to-oc, a place.) In Rhetoric. By ab- 
 stracting from a proposition which conveys a truth in the 
 concrete («'. e., respecting certain circumstances expressed in 
 the terms of the proposition) a portion of those circumstances 
 denominated accidental, we arrive at the same truth in the 
 abstract, or (in stricter language) more widely applicable, 
 and accommodated to many different sets of accidental cir- 
 cumstances. Thus, for example, in jurisprudence, from an 
 investigation of the truth in various insulated cases in which 
 a too strict application of legal principles has been attended 
 with evil effects, we deduce the general truth that such 
 application is so attended ; or, in the proverbial phrase, 
 " slimmnm jus summa injuria." Among the helps employ- 
 ed by the ancients in their favourite study of rhetoric was 
 the collection and arrangement of a great variety of such 
 general truths, according to the several sciences or subjects 
 to which they belonged. These they termed topoi, or 
 places ; from which the modern term topic is derived. They 
 considered it useful for the student in rhetoric to have at 
 hand, by means of his memory, those compendious expres- 
 sions of universal sentiment, and the general reasonings or 
 declamations applicable to each of them, in order to employ 
 them for particular use by performing the converse of that 
 operation by which they were arrived at; viz. clothing 
 them with the particular circumstances of the case. Thus 
 the topos just cited might be useful to the forensic orator ; 
 it affords a subject for reasoning and declamation applicable 
 to a great number of individual instances. Many of these 
 topics answer to what in modern phrase we should term 
 axioms ; and, indeed, some of the axioms of pure mathe- 
 matics are enumerated by Aristotle among the topics which 
 are proper to every species of oratory. 
 
 TOPO'GRAPHY. (Gr. roirog, a place, and ypa(poi, I de- 
 scribe.) Strictly the description of a place, or the science 
 of describing places (distinguished from chorography or the 
 description of a district, and from geography, the description 
 of the earth.) 
 
 TOPPLXG LIFT. A rope for raising the end of any yard 
 or boom. 
 
 TOP, SPINNING. A well-known toy. The steady mo- 
 tion which a well-spun top soon acquires suggested to Mr. 
 Sisson, about eighty years ago, the employment of a mirror 
 placed upon it at right angles to its axis, as an artificial ho- 
 rizon which might probably be used at sea ; and on sending 
 
 TORSION. 
 
 out the first of the late polar expeditions, the attention of 
 Mr. Troughton was turned to the subject. But though use- 
 ful observations might have been made on land with the 
 instrument which he constructed, it was not found at sea 
 to give results of any practical value ; and we are not aware 
 that any further attempts have been made to improve its 
 construction, which is attended with considerable mechani- 
 cal difficulties. 
 
 TOREU'MATO'LOGY. (Gr. ropevpa, sculpture, and 
 ypa<ptii, I describe,) signifies either the science or art of 
 sculpture, or a description of ancient and modern sculpture 
 and bas relief. 
 
 TOREU'TIC. (Gr. Toptvros, polished.) In Sculpture, a 
 term applied to such objects as are executed with high 
 finish, delicacy, and polish ; but properly to all figures in 
 hard wood, ivory, &.c. 
 
 TO'RMENTIL ROOT. Therootof the Potentillatormcn- 
 tilla. It is occasionally used in medicine as an astringent. 
 
 TORXA'DO. (Spanish.) A violent hurricane or gust of 
 wind, which, arising suddenly from the shore, veers round 
 to all points of the compass, and indeed has been described 
 as blowing from all points at once. Tornadoes are usually 
 accompanied with thunder storms, and are generally of 
 short duration. They are frequent in the Chinese seas and 
 the West Indies. See Storms. 
 
 TORXATE'LLA. A genus of oval marine Univales be- 
 longing to the Plicaceie, found in the oolite and superja- 
 cent strata. Recent tornatellae are fotmd in shallow water, 
 creeping upon and furrowing the sand. 
 
 TORPE'DO. (Lat. torpedo, numbness.) A genus of 
 Cartilaginous fishes separated from the Raice of Linna:us on 
 account of the circular form of the body, and more especi- 
 ally from the presence of the electrical organs on which 
 that form of the body mainly depends. Violent shocks are 
 experienced on touching the living and active torpedo. It i3 
 probable that it exerts its electrifying or benumbing powers 
 in order to secure its prey ; and it is certain that the same 
 power is employed in defending itself against assailants, to 
 whose assaults it would be otherwise more exposed than 
 are the ordinary rays ; for the torpedo has a smooth skin, 
 and is not defended by the spiny tubercles, or barbed and 
 pointed bony weapons, with which the non-electric rays are 
 provided. 
 
 TORQUES. In Antiquities, a chain or collar formed of 
 a number of small ringlets interlaced with each other, 
 framed of metal, and worn round the neck. Xo ornament 
 perhaps was of more early or general use. It is mentioned 
 in Genesis, xli., 4-2, as one of the ornaments conferred by 
 Pharaoh on Joseph. It was in use among the Greeks and 
 Romans, but peculiarly among the Celtic nations. The 
 legends respecting the torques of the Gauls who invaded 
 Rome are well known. It was from his victory over a Gaul 
 that T. Mantius Torquatus derived his surname. (Livy, 
 lib. vii., ch. 10.) And no relic is more commonly found in 
 this country by antiquarian explorers. Boadicea wore a 
 long, golden torques. (£) io. Cass., lxii.) See the Archaolo- 
 gia, vol. xiv., p. 97, and passim, for descriptions of particular 
 specimens. 
 
 TORREFA'CTIOX. (Lat.) The operation of roasting 
 ores to deprive them of sulphur, arsenic, or other volatile in- 
 gredients. When drugs are highly dried, or partially toast- 
 ed or roasted, they are also said to be torrefied. 
 
 TORRICE'LLIAX VACUUM. In Physics, the vacuum 
 produced by inverting a tube of sufficient length, rilled with 
 mercury or any other fluid, in a vessel containing a portion 
 of the same fluid, and allowing the fluid in the tube to de- 
 scend until its weight is counterbalanced by that of the at- 
 mosphere. In this manner the first barometers were form- 
 ed by Torricelli, and thence called Torricellian tubes. See 
 Barometer. 
 
 TO'RRID ZOXE. In Geography, the zone of the earth 
 included between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. It 
 extends from the equator, on both sides, to the parallel cor- 
 responding to the sun's greatest declination, about 23k de- 
 grees. See Ecliptic Zone. 
 
 TO'RSIOX. (Lat. torsio; from torqueo, Ttwist), in Me- 
 chanics, is the twisting or wrenching of a body by the ex- 
 ertion of a lateral force. If a slender rod of metal suspend- 
 ed vertically, and having its upper end fixed, be twisted 
 through a certain angle by a force acting in a plane perpen- 
 dicular to its axis, it will, on the removal of the force, 
 untwist itself, or return in the opposite direction with a 
 Teater or less velocity, and, after a series of oscillations, 
 will come to rest in its original position. The limits of 
 torsion within which the body will return to its original 
 state depend upon its elasticity. A fine wire of a few feet 
 in length may be twisted through several revolutions 
 without impairing its elasticity ; and within those limita 
 the force evolved is found to be perfectly regular, and di- 
 rectly proportional to the angular displacement from the 
 position of rest. If the angular displacement exceeds a 
 certain limit, the particles of the body will be wrenched
 
 TORSION. 
 
 asunder ; or if the elasticity is not perfect (as in a wire of 
 lead, fore.xaniple, before disruption takes place, the particles 
 Will assume a new arrangement, or take a set, and will not 
 return to their original position on the withdrawal of the 
 disturbing force. 
 
 The resistance which cylinders or prisms formed of dif- 
 ferent substances oppose to torsion, furnishes one of the 
 usual methods of determining the elasticity and strength of 
 materials : and the property which a metallic wire or thread 
 1 by a small weight possesses of becoming twisted 
 and untwisted in a series of isochronous and perfectly regu- 
 lar oscillations, has been ingeniously applied in the torsion 
 balance to the measurement of very minute forces, and 
 thereby to the establishment of the fundamental laws of 
 electricity and magnetism, and to the determination of the 
 mean density of the earth. See Baliuci of Torsion. 
 
 The laws of torsion have been experimentally investi- 
 gated by Coulomb in a variety of substances ; as rogl&lllc 
 wires, hairs, fibres of silk, &.c. The method which h» •m- 
 ployed consisted in attaching a body of given form and di- 
 mensions to the extremity of the wire, and, after twisting it 
 through a certain angle, to abandon it to the action of the 
 force evolved, and observe the time of the oscillations. 
 The following general laws were found to hold good : 
 
 1. On loading B wire or thread with different weights, it 
 will settle in different positions of stability ; that is to say, 
 an index attached to the weight will point in different di- 
 rections if the weight be varied, and the angular deviation 
 may amount even to a whole circumference. 
 
 2 The oscillations are isochronous. 
 
 3 The tune of oscillation is proportional to the square 
 root of the weight which stretches the wire. 
 
 4. The time of oscillation is as the square root of the 
 length of the wire. 
 
 5. The time of oscillation is inversely as the square of the 
 diameter of the wire. 
 
 From the second of these laws it follows that when the 
 wire is twisted round from the position of rest, the force 
 With which it tends to return to thai position is proportional 
 to the angle to be described in order to attain it. For it is 
 a general result of mechanics, that all motions produced 
 by forces acting according to this law have the property of 
 tautochronism ; that is to say, the oscillations are perform- 
 ed in equal times, whatever be the length of the arc. This 
 fundamental property is usually enunciated by saying that 
 the force of torsion is proportional to the angle of torsion. 
 
 Let F denote the force of torsion, measured by the weight 
 which it would be necessary to apply by means of a pulley 
 to a point p, situated at the unit of distance (one inch) 
 from the axis of the wire, and invariably connected with 
 it, to cause the point p to describe an arc of a circle equal 
 in length to the unit of distance; then, by the property 
 enunciated, the force which must lie applied at p in order 
 that the point may describe any arc tp is expressed by F- q>. 
 If the arc of torsion is expressed in degrees instead of parts 
 of the radius, we have <t> = it <j>° -i- 180° (tt being the se- 
 micircumference to radius 1, or = 3-14159) ; whence the 
 expression of the force becomes F -f- - 0° -J- 180°. 
 
 On this principle of the proportionality of the impelling 
 force to the angle or deviation the problem of determining 
 the time of an oscillation is solved. Suppose a body of any 
 form attached to the extremity of a slender wire, whose 
 weight in comparison of that of the body may be neglected, 
 and let d m be an element of the mass, r the distance of d 
 m from the axis of the wire, and T the time of an oscilla- 
 tion ; the solution of the problem gives 
 
 ^),orT.= .2pl^. 
 
 The integral / r% d m is the moment of inertia of the at- 
 tached body. If the body be a cylinder whose axis coin- 
 cides with that of the wire, and if a denote its radius and 
 
 M its mass, then / r2 d m = £ M a 2 ; or, substituting the 
 
 weight for the mass, and observing that if the weight be 
 denoted bv P, and the accelerating force of gravity by g 
 (= 3-2.1908 feet or 3862894 inches in a second,) we "have P 
 
 = M g, J r2 d m = P o2 -J- 2 g. Hence the expression 
 P 
 
 for the time becomes T = n V • 
 2/r F 
 If the attached body were a Blender cylindrical needle 
 suspended horizontally by its middle to the wire, we should, 
 
 on denoting its length by /, have / r2 d m = J M P ; whence 
 
 T= rr/^/JL 
 3gT 
 
 The following results are deduced from the formula: 
 1. The force of t-.r- ion is Independent of the weigh) which 
 stretches the wire, or F remains constant while P is varied. 
 1254 
 
 wf>|=), 
 
 TORTURE. 
 
 For suppose P to become P', and let T' be the correspond- 
 ing time of oscillation, and F' the corresponding force, we 
 have then 
 
 T* = — ,T 2 = : 
 
 2 g F' 2»F" 
 
 whence T2 : T'2 : : PF:F F. But, by the third expert* 
 mental law, T- : T'- : : P : P'; therefore F' = F. 
 
 2. The force is inversely as the length of the wire. For, 
 supposing 1" to remain constant, we have T- :'V'i : : F' : F. 
 Hut, by the fourth experimental law, T* : T'2 ::l:l'\ whence 
 F' : F: : I : V. 
 
 3. The force is proportional to the fourth power of the 
 diameter of the wire. Let there be two wires of the same 
 substance, but of ditl'erent diameters, D and D', and stretch- 
 ed by the same weight P ; and let T and T' be the corres- 
 ponding times. By the fifth experimental law, we have T : 
 T' : : 1)'- : D-. But it has been shown that T- : T'2 : : F' : 
 F ; therefore F : F' : : D-* : D'4. 
 
 To show the method of applying the formula-, we shall 
 compute one of the experiments of Coulomb. An iron 
 wire was stretched by a vertical cylinder of -8 of an inch 
 radius and weighing 2 lbs., and it was observed to make 
 •20 oscillations in 242 seconds, or one in 121 seconds. It 
 is proposed to determine the force F. From the fonnula 
 for the time of an oscillation we have, by transposition, 
 
 7-2 al P ' 
 
 F = n „ti> ' Substituting numbers in this formula, we 
 
 tern 
 
 have rr2 = 98696, a.z = 64, P 
 (12-1)2 = 146-41 ; consequently F : 
 
 2, g = 386-2894, T2 = 
 12-633 
 
 Il3TT3 = ' 0001117ofa 
 pound, or about -78 of a grain. Hence the weight applied 
 at the distance of one inch from the axis of the wire that 
 would be required to twist the wire through a complete 
 revolution, or 360°, is 6283 times this quantity, or nearly 
 five grains. 
 For the demonstration of the fundamental formula, 
 
 namely, T2 F = -2 / r2 d m, see Coulomb, Theorie dca 
 
 Machines Timples ; or Biot, Traite de Physique, torn. i. 
 
 TORSO. (It.) In Sculpture, a statue of which nothing 
 but the trunk of the human figure remains. 
 
 TORT. (Fr. wrong.) In Law, signifies injustice or injur} - . 
 
 TORTOISE. This name is usually applied to species of 
 that division of the Linna-an genu- Testudo including the 
 terrestrial Chelonians, to which the generic name is now 
 limited. Sir TESTUDO. 
 
 TORTOISE SHELL. The name given to the horny 
 scutes or plates of the sea turtles ; and in particular to those 
 of the hawk's-bill turtle. Cheione imbricata. 
 
 TORTRI'CES. (Lat. torqueo, I wreath.) The name of 
 a tribe of nocturnal Lepidopterous insects, comprising those 
 the larva' of which live concealed in leaves, which they 
 roll round them for the purpose. 
 
 TO'RTURE. (Lat. torqueo, / twist or torment.) In a 
 leeal sense, the infliction of pain on an accused person in 
 order to extort an avowal of guilt, or revelation of accom- 
 plices. Such a practice is sufficiently common among all 
 half-civilized nations; but the Greeks and Romans were 
 perhaps the first who introduced it as a part of their regu- 
 lar proceedings in criminal cases. Both at Athens and 
 Rome torture was, however, considered as applicable only 
 to extort evidence from slaves : towards them it was used 
 profusely ; and it was, in fact, a usual occurrence to order 
 a whole family of slaves to the torture, in order to extract 
 revelations where an atrocious crime had been committed, 
 as, for instance, the murder of the master. Cicero, in se- 
 veral passages, condemns the use of torture ; and Clpian 
 (Lex. i., De Qumstionibus) says, "Res est fragilis et pert- 
 culosa, et quae veritatem fill lit. nam plerique pntientin sive 
 duritia tormentorem ita et tormenta contemnunt, ut expri- 
 mi cis Veritas nullo modo poesit ; alii tantft sunt impatientift 
 ut quid vis mentiri qnam pat! tormenta mnlint." (As to 
 the torture at Rome, see Gibbon, vol. ii., p. 49, 4to ed.) Not- 
 withstanding these recorded opinions of the highest lumi- 
 naries of ancient jurisprudence, torture was adopted along 
 with the rest of the process of the civil law in most Euro- 
 pean countries. (For its use in France, see Question.) 
 The general principle of the civilians Has. that it could not 
 be used unless vehement suspicion warranted its applica- 
 tion. Hut no very definite meaning was attached in practice 
 
 to these words, especially In Germany, where the abuse 
 seems to have been carried to the greatest extent by the 
 Ignorant and cruel tribunals of her smaller states. When 
 Howard visited the prisons of that country (about 1770) It 
 was -till in general use. See his Account of /v, 
 The writings of various philosophical authors of the 18th 
 century, especially Voltaire, Thomasius, and Beccaria, 
 (whose short treatise, Dei Delitti < dellt Pene, obtained 
 such singular notoriety), effected much toward- bringing 
 its employment Into disrepute ; but in genera] abolition can 
 only be attributed to the superior regard for the rights of
 
 TORUS. 
 
 man introduced every where by the agitation of the French 
 Revolution. In England, judicial torture was not recog- 
 nized by the common law (for the peine forte et dure hard- 
 ly falls within the same definition) ; and that it was also 
 nearly unknown in practice, in the 14th century at least, 
 may be inferred from the reluctance of Edward II. to sub- 
 mit the Templars to torture, which was overcome by the 
 instances of Pope Clement V., and from a curious paper of 
 questions addressed on that occasion by the archbishop of 
 York to some divines, from which it appears that no tor- 
 turer could at that time be found in England. (See Ray- 
 nouard, Memoires sur les Templicrs ; Hallam's Constitu- 
 tional History.) The rack is said to have been introduced 
 as an engine of state by the Duke of Exeter in the reign of 
 Henry VI. However this may be, during the whole of the 
 16th century we find that the privy council assumed and 
 exercised the right to direct torture-warrants to the lieuten- 
 ant of the Tower and other officers, commanding them to 
 submit to the torture persons accused not only of state of- 
 fences, but of ordinary municipal crimes, when strong sus- 
 picion, but no sufficient evidence, existed. Torture-war- 
 rants were also issued, not by the council, but under the 
 sign manual only. During this period the council seems, 
 in fact, to have acted as a supplementary tribunal in aid of 
 the regular courts, for the purpose of extorting discoveries 
 of criminal offences. The instances of torture of seminary 
 priests, &c, in Elizabeth's reign, have been often cited ; 
 but it is not so generally known that the practice was not 
 confined to accusations of treason and sedition, but extend- 
 ed to other cases. (See Jardine's Reading on the Use of 
 Torture in England, 1837.) Under James I. and Charles 
 I. torture seems to have become less frequent, and to have 
 been only employed in state offences; and this, perhaps, 
 explains the well-known answer of the judges to Charles's 
 question respecting Felton, the murderer of the Duke of 
 Buckingham, that he ought not to be tortured, "for no such 
 punishment is honour to our law." The last recorded case 
 is that of William Archer, 1640 ; and as in that year the 
 act for the abolition of the Star Chamber granted a habeas 
 corpus to all persons detained on warrants from the privy 
 council, torture must then have been virtually abolished. 
 In Scotland it was so in the 7th year of Anne. 
 
 TO'RUS. (Lat. a rope.) In Architecture a large mould- 
 ing used in the bases of columns, the profile whereof is sem- 
 icircular. This term is also used in botany for the cen- 
 tral part of the flower on which the carpels are placed. 
 
 TORY. A well-known party name in English history. 
 (See Whig.) The Irish malcontents, half robbers and half 
 insurgents, who harassed the English in Ireland at the pe- 
 riod of the massacre in 1640 and during the troubles which 
 followed, were the first to whom this name was applied. 
 It is said to have been transplanted into England about the 
 time of the Popish Plot, when the public mind was agitated 
 by chimerical fears respecting the apprehended employ- 
 ment of Irish Catholics to further that imaginary design ; 
 whence it was commonly applied by way of reproach to 
 the court party, against which the popular hostility was 
 then directed, as favouring and countenancing the sup- 
 posed abettors of the plot. From the period of its intro- 
 duction into England down to the present times the term 
 Tory has been constantly employed to designate a large 
 political party in this country. Down to the period when 
 Hume wrote his Essay on the Parties of Great Britain, 
 the conduct of the two great parties in the state (the 
 Whigs and Tories) had been so vague and undetermined 
 as to have led him to declare his utter inability to tell their 
 nature, pretensions, and principles. Since that period, 
 however, the conduct of the Tories has been more uniform ; 
 and it might now be easier to define the principles by which 
 they have been guided during the last half century: but 
 we shall not undertake the task. Within the last two or 
 three years, the word Tory has been gradually displaced 
 by Conservative, which seems likely to become the perma- 
 nent designation of the Tory party. This term was ori- 
 ginally assumed in contradistinction to Destructives, a 
 name by which the more violent reformers came to be de- 
 signated by their enemies ; and it is now understood as re- 
 ferring to the whole Tory party, but more especially to 
 what may be called the more liberal portion of that party. 
 
 TOTIPA'LMATES, Totipalmati. (Lat. totus, entire, 
 and palma, a palm.) The name of a tribe of Palmipedes, 
 or swimming birds, including those in which the hinder 
 toe is enveloped in the same web with the three anterior 
 toes. 
 
 TOUCH. In Medicine. The belief in the possibility of 
 curing various maladies by the touch has produced a va- 
 riety of singular superstitions. Plutarch attributes singular 
 virtues to the touch of King Pyrrhus of Epirus. According 
 to Suetonius, Adrian and Vespasian had the power of cur- 
 ing various diseases in the same manner. In what period 
 the opinion respecting the virtue of the touch of the kings 
 of France and England in curing epilepsy, scrofulas, &c, 
 
 TOURNAMENT. 
 
 had its origin, it is difficult to ascertain. Andre Dulaurent, 
 chief physician of Henry IV. of France, published a trea- 
 tise on the subject. The ceremony of touching by the 
 kings of France, was practised at the four great feasts of 
 the year; sometimes as many as 1500 were touched at a 
 time. By an odd etiquette, the Spaniards had the first 
 rank, then other foreigners, and the French last of all. 
 The formula used at each imposition of the royal hand was, 
 " Le roi te touche, et Dieu te guerit." Polydore Virgil at- 
 tributes this virtue to Edward IV., and all our kings down 
 to the end of the Stuart dynasty touched for the king's evil. 
 Much efficacy has been attributed in different diseases, par- 
 ticularly tumours, &c, to the touch of the hand of a dead 
 body ; especially, according to Pliny and various modem 
 authorities, of one who had died violently. We do not 
 know whether the superstition is yet extinct under the in- 
 fluence of which scrofulous persons used to have them- 
 selves touched by the hands of criminals after execution. 
 Boyle endeavours to explain away part of the miracle by 
 attributing some virtue to the coldness of the application. 
 
 Touch. One of the five senses, resident in the nervous 
 papillae of the skin; it is also the sensibility diffused over 
 the whole body. It is much more exquisite in some parts 
 than others. 
 
 Touch. In Naval language, the sails are said to touch 
 when the wind comes edgeways upon them. 
 
 TOUCH NEEDLES. Small bars, consisting of gold and 
 silver alloyed with various definite proportions of copper, 
 are thus termed by assayers, who use them to judge, by 
 comparing their colour and streak upon a piece of hard 
 black stone, such as basalt, with that of alloys of the pre- 
 cious metals, of the relative quantity of gold or silver in the 
 latter. Hence also the term touchstone. 
 
 TOU'RMALINE. The more perfect forms of schorl go 
 under this name. It is the lyncurium of the ancients. Its 
 chief constituents are silica and alumina, with about 10 
 percent, of soda, and a little oxide of manganese and of 
 iron. The transparent coloured varieties are sometimes cut 
 into ring-stones, and some of them are much valued for ex- 
 periments on the polarization of light. 
 
 TOURN, in Law, was the turn or circuit anciently made 
 thrice every year by the sheriff, for the purpose of holding 
 in each hundred the great court leet of the county. The 
 jurisdiction exercised by the sheriff on his tourn extended 
 by the common law to the cognizance of all offences not 
 capital ; but sheriffs are prohibited by Magna Charta from 
 holding any pleas of the crown in which they had a pecu- 
 niary interest in procuring a conviction ; while a better tri- 
 bunal was at the same time supplied hy the establishment 
 of annual circuits. The tourn, though never disallowed 
 by law, has, with the curtailment of its jurisdiction, and 
 the abandonment of the leet as a registry of pledges, long 
 fallen into disuse; and the right of the jury or suitors at 
 the tourn to present nuisances, or convict of minor offences, 
 has, with other functions of courts leet, been transferred 
 to the quarter sessions. 
 
 TOU'RNAMENT (in modem Latin torneamentum or 
 TOURNEY; originally derived from the Fr. tourner, mo- 
 dern Latin tornare, to turn.) A well-known military sport 
 of the middle ages, which without doubt arose from the 
 exercises of military training. A joust or just is, properly 
 speaking, the encounter of two knights in this species of 
 exercise ; the tournament, an assembly held for the pur- 
 pose of exhibiting such justs, or the encounter of several 
 knights on a side. The earlier tournaments were highly 
 dangerous and sanguinary sports. They were performed 
 with the ordinary weapons of warfare, the lance and the 
 sword ; and the combatants had only the strength of their 
 armour to rely on for their defence. It was a recognised 
 custom, according to Meyrick (Hist, of Ancient Armour), 
 that whoever slew or disabled an adversary in the tourna- 
 ment was indemnified against all consequences. The ac- 
 count of the tournament given by the Count of Chablais, in 
 Savoy, to Edward I. on his return from Palestine to Eng- 
 land, as given by Thomas de Walsingham, represents a 
 sort of violent mdlee, in which knights, squires, and arch- 
 ers were engaged on both sides, endeavouring to unhorse 
 their riders and overthrow the footmen by every possible 
 means. But in the course of time this chivalric amuse- 
 ment became the subject of minute regulations, which in 
 some degree diminished the danger and insured the fair- 
 ness of the sport. The English Statute Armorum de Tor- 
 neamentis are assigned by Dr. Meyrick to the year 1295. 
 (See Sainte-Palaye.) "Impartial taste," says Gibbon, 
 "must prefer a Gothic tournament to the Olympic games 
 of classic antiquity." (Decl. and Fall, ch. 50.) 
 
 In tournaments, when under the strict regulation of 
 knightly usage, two sorts of arms were employed ; those 
 expressly made for the purpose, viz., lances with blunt heads 
 of iron ; and the ordinary arms of warfare, termed, " armes 
 a outrance," which were only employed by such champions 
 as were desirous to signalize themselves in a more than 
 
 1255
 
 TOURNIQ.UET. 
 
 ordinary degree, and frequently were not permitted by the 
 judges of the tournament. Every knight attendii g 
 quired to show his noble birth and rank, as a title to ad- 
 mission. These were at first proclaimed by the heralds 
 with sound of trumpet; and hence the word blazonry, 
 which signifies the correct deciphering of the heraldic 
 symbols on a -coat of arms, is derived by some from the 
 German blasen, to blow. Afterwards, when armorial bear- 
 me general, the shield of" the knight gave token 
 of his rank and family. The attendance of ladies at the 
 tournaments, their distribution of prizes to those who had 
 borne themselves best, arming and unarming the 
 &c. are various romantic circumstances well known to the 
 reader of chivalric legends; but they must not be supposed 
 to have been the accessary, ur oxen usual accompani 
 menu of these knightly sports, at least until a later age, 
 when the taste for gallantry, combining with that for show 
 and spectacle, turned these military exhibitions of skill into 
 little more than gorgeous pageants. When we arrive at 
 the reigns of Edward 111. and Henry V.. we find the justs 
 usually held in favor of ladies, and every knight hound to 
 possess in reality or in show a dame of his affections, for 
 whose sake all his deeds of chivalry were performed. Dr. 
 Meyrick quotes from a manuscript of the reign of Elizabeth 
 the ordinances of justes, made by John Earl of Worcester, 
 constable of England, in the sixth year of Edward IV. ; 
 from which it appears that the law of justs had become 
 by that time the subject of very minute regulation. The 
 prize belonged to him who broke most spears " as they 
 ought to he broken ;" t. e. on the head or body of the an- 
 tagonist. Prom Stow we find that the lists erected in 
 Smithfield in 1467, when the Bastard of Burgundy challenge 
 ed Lord Scales, were iitfO feet in length by 260 in breadth: 
 these champions rode at each other two days with spears, 
 and on the third encountered on foot with pole-axes. In 
 the reign of Henry VIII., when the real spirit of chivalry 
 was far advanced in its decline, the tournament was in- 
 vested almost « holly with itie character of a court pageant, 
 but celebrated with a degree Of splendour and costliness 
 scarcely equalled in former times. The famous volumes of 
 woodcuts of the siime period, styled the Triumphs of .Maxi- 
 milian, siiows that it wis as favourite ami almost as mag- 
 nificent a spectacle at the court of German)'. The tragical 
 deatli of Henry 11. of France, in consequence of a blow re- 
 ceived in a tournament, is w ell known, and was the cause of 
 the final, although only gradual abolition, of this knightly 
 amusement : which was revived at intervals in court so- 
 lemnities in the seventeenth century, but rather as a memo- 
 rial of past times than as a subsisting ami popular custom. 
 
 The revival of the tournament was recently attempted in 
 the west of Scotland by the Earl of Eglinton ; but we scarce- 
 ly suppose that the success of that attempt was either com- 
 mensurate with its deserts, or was such as to induce any 
 party to renew it. At the court of Wurtemburg tournaments 
 are notunfrequently exhibited at this 
 
 \temoires 8wr la Chevalerie; Turner's 
 History > Middle Airi s), vol. i.. p. 47-J ; Hist. dr. I'.ic. dt s In- 
 tix. ; and Walter Scott's admirable delineation in 
 Icanhoe. which gives a more vivid idea of the tournament, 
 with all its variety of martial exercises, than any serious 
 work extant 
 
 Jul RNiaUET. Tr.) A bandage which may be tight- 
 ened to any extent by means of a screw , so as to exert pres- 
 sure upon a cushion and compress the arterial trunks to 
 which it is applied: it is chiefly used to prevent hemor- 
 rhage ia the operations of amputation. 
 
 ToW. To draw a vessel along by a rope. As the vessel 
 towed affects the motions of the other, much attention is 
 required on her part to second the intention of the lowing 
 vessel. 
 
 TOWEB. (Lat turris.j In Architecture, a lofty build 
 Ing, square, pol ircular on the plan, and often 
 
 consisting of several stories. The tower ofa church is that 
 part which contains the bells, and from which the steeple 
 
 TOWERS, ROUND. In Ireland, remarkable i 
 extreme antiquity, of which the origin has perplexed anti- 
 quaries to an unexampled degree. They are tall, narrow 
 edifices, varying in height from ,-u to 120 feet That at Kd 
 dare, we believe, is tin- highest; cylindrical in shape, with 
 
 a door 8 or 10 feet from the ground, and narrow apertures at 
 the top. There are sixty-two of these curious n 
 
 taiued to exisl In Ireland ; and two in Scotland, at Ahrine- 
 
 thy and Brechin. Tiny cannot have been watch towers, 
 
 their position being generally low; nor belfries, their shape 
 
 ruction rendering such a supposition impossible, 
 
 although some appear to have been used in that way in later 
 
 d the notion that they were places of confinement 
 for penitents or hermits seems extravagant Common be- 
 lief, however, attaches to them an ecclesiastical origin and 
 use; and the well Known passage of Giraldtu Cambreasis, 
 a writer of the 12th century (who savs that the fishermen 
 1256 
 
 TOXICOLOGY. 
 
 of Lough Neagh reported that in clear weather remains of 
 buildings, and among others round towers of the country 
 fashion, were seen at the bottom), necessarily implies a great- 
 er antiquity. In<h antiquaries, however, as may be sup- 
 posed, have luxuriated in hypotheses connecting them with 
 ancient forms of pagan worship; such as the pyrolatry of 
 the Persians, the Phallic rites, &c. (See Moore's History 
 of Ireland, vol. i., ch. 2, for a variety of these opinions, and 
 tiieir autbj 
 
 l'( >\K 1 1 l.i h; V. (Gr. to\ikov, poison, and \oyoi. a dis- 
 course.) Poisons have been divided by Orfila and t'hristi- 
 son into irritants, narcotics, ami narcotii i tirst 
 
 class i n . - 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 l.' those w hose sole "r predominating sj mptoma 
 are those of irritation or inflammation; the second, those 
 which produce stupor, delirium, and other affections of the 
 brain and nervous system : and the third, those which are 
 ofa mixed chai 
 
 The chief effects of irritants are upon the alimentary ca- 
 nal, exciting inflammation, and sometimes ulceration of the 
 tongue, fauces, and cesophagus, difficult deglutition, nausea, 
 vomiting, and heat and pain of the stomach, with more or 
 less tension of the abdomen, and pain on pressure. The 
 sickness is generally accompanied by extreme anxiety and 
 anguish, and the matters vomited consist, in the first in- 
 stance, of any food that may have been in the stomach, 
 with portions of the poison itself, and afterwards of viscid 
 mucus, often streaked with blood and tinged with bile ; the 
 pain afterwards extends throughout the intestines, and mu- 
 cous, bilious, and often bloody diarrhoea succeeds. The 
 skin is cold and clammy, the pulse quick and feeble, the 
 breathing often difficult, and the countenance expressive of 
 extreme anxiety. 
 
 Narcotic poisons induce a train of symptoms of a very 
 distinct character: headach, vertigo, confused vision, stupor, 
 convulsions, paralysis, and coma, are their leading effects; 
 but each particular poison is usually attended by certain 
 peculiarities in the succession, violence, or generic charac- 
 ter of the symptoms, which assist the experienced practi- 
 tioner not only in determining the nature of the poison, but 
 in discriminating between its effects and those of disease. 
 
 The symptoms of the narcotico-acrid poisons usually con- 
 si-; ot those of the two former classes blended, and are of- 
 ten of a very' complicated character ; for the most part, how- 
 ever, their narcotic and irritant effects appear to be incom- 
 patible. In larL'e doses, narcoticism predominates; in small- 
 er, irritation : it is rarely that both are coexistent. 
 
 In the following tabular view of the principal poisons of 
 the above classes, they are enumerated in the order in which 
 they are described by Dr. Chriscison, to whose Treatise on 
 Poisons the reader is referred for details which would be 
 quite incompatible' with the space which can be allotted to 
 the subject in this work. Under the heads, however, of 
 many of the individual substances mentioned in the follow- 
 ing list, we have elsewhere given particulars respecting 
 their composition and properties, and sometimes referred to 
 their toxicological history. 
 
 I. Irritant Poisons. 
 
 Mineral acids. 
 Phosphorus. 
 Acetic acid. 
 Oxalic acid. 
 Fixed alkalies. 
 Nitre. 
 
 Alkaline and earthy chlo- 
 rides. 
 Lime. 
 
 Ammonia and its salts. 
 Alkaline sulphurets. 
 Barytes. 
 
 Vegetable acrids. 
 < antlinrides. 
 Venomous serpents. 
 
 Arsenic and its compounds. 
 Mercurial compounds. 
 Salts of copper. 
 Aiitimonial poisons. 
 Salts of tin. 
 Sal is of gold. 
 Salts of silver. 
 
 Salts of bismuth. 
 Salts of chromium. 
 Salts of zinc. 
 Lead poisons. 
 
 Diseased and decayed animal 
 
 matter. 
 Mechanical irritants. 
 
 Opium. 
 Hyoscyamus. 
 Lactuca. 
 Solatium. 
 
 III. 
 Nightshade. 
 Thornapple. 
 Tobacco. 
 Hemlock. 
 Monkshood. 
 Hellebore. 
 
 Squill. 
 Meadow saffron. 
 
 II. Narcotic Poisons. 
 
 Hydrocyanic acid. 
 Carba/.otic acid. 
 Poisonous gases. 
 
 Narcotico-acrid Poisons. 
 Strychnia. 
 
 nlus Indicus. 
 Upas. 
 
 Poisonous fungi. 
 Poisonous grain. 
 Alcohol. 
 Ethi r. 
 Empyreumatic oils. 
 
 The treatment of rases of poisoning must, of course, vary 
 with the nature ,,f the poison, the quantity taken, and the 
 peculiarities of the individual. In almost all cases, copa.us
 
 TOXODON. 
 
 vomiting should be excited as soon as possible, by tickling 
 the throat, and by emetics, such especially as sulphate of 
 zinc, or ipecacuanha with emetic tartar ; the former, how- 
 ever, in ten-grain doses dissolved in a little warm water, 
 and repeated every ten or fifteen minutes till it freely ope- 
 rates, is generally most effectual. The use of the stomach- 
 pump should also be resorted to. The vomiting should be 
 kept up, and the stomach washed out with bland albumin- 
 ous or mucilaginous fluids, such as milk, barley-water, flour 
 and water, or thin paste, &c. ; sometimes sugar and water. 
 The following is a short summary of the antidotes which 
 may be resorted to, in reference to particular poisons. 
 They should, of course, be administered as speedily as 
 possible. 
 
 1. For Mineral Jlcids, or Acetic and Oxalic Acid, : Chalk, 
 or whiting and water; magnesia and water; soap and wa- 
 ter : followed by albuminous diluents, such as milk, and 
 white of egiis mixed with water. 
 
 2. Alkalies, Soda, Potash, Ammonia, &c. : Vinegar, or any 
 mild acid and water, or even very dilute mineral acids, such 
 as water acidulated by them ; olive oil, almond oil. 
 
 3. Arsenic: Emetics; and then milk, gruel, thick barley- 
 water, and other similar diluents, in large quantities. 
 
 4. Corrosive Sublimate : White of egg and water ; milk 
 and cream; decoction of cinchona ; infusion of galls. 
 
 5. Sulphate of Copper and other Cupreous Poisons : Sugar 
 and water ; white of egg and water. 
 
 6. Antimonial Poisons : Warm milk, gruel, or barley- 
 water ; infusion of galls; decoction of cinchona. 
 
 7. Nitrate of Silver : Copious draughts of warm salt and 
 water. 
 
 8. Sulphate of Zinc : Solution of carbonate of soda in 
 water, with milk, and mucilaginous or farinaceous liquids. 
 
 9. Acetate of Lead : Emetics; solution of sulphate of soda 
 in water; milk; white of egg and water. 
 
 10. Opium and its Preparations : Emetics ; strong coffee ; 
 dashing cold water upon the face and breast; preventing 
 torpor by forced exercise. 
 
 11. PrussicAcid: Ammoniacal stimulants cautiously ap- 
 plied to the nose ; ammonia, or sal volatile, in repeated 
 small doses; small doses of solution of chlorine in water; 
 small doses of chloride of lime in water. 
 
 1-2. Strychnia and Vegetable Alkaloids : Infusion of gall 
 nuts; decoction of cinchona ; emetics. 
 
 TO'XODON. (Gr. rotyv, a bow, and odovc, a tooth.) An 
 extinct genus of quadruped connecting the Pachydermal 
 with the Rodent order, and distinguished by the curved 
 form of all its teeth. The only known species, Toxodon 
 platensis, Owen, was as large as the hippopotamus, and ap- 
 pears to have been restricted to the warmer parts of South 
 America. 
 
 TU'XOTVE. (Gr. rolov, a bow.) In Greek Military His- 
 tory, bowmen. In the Plays of Aristophanes, the toxotse 
 mentioned, like the French " archers," are a kind of police, 
 employed to keep order in the assemblies of the people and 
 on other public occasions. 
 
 TKA'BEA. In Roman Antiquities, the robe used at first 
 by the kinds, but afterwards by consuls and augurs. The 
 purple trabca was used only on the occasion of great sacri- 
 fices. The second sort, of purple and white, was commonly 
 worn by consuls on state occasions. A third, of purple and 
 scarlet, was the dress of the augurs. 
 
 TBABEA'TION. (Lat. trabes, a beam.) In Architec- 
 ture, the same as entablature ; which see. 
 
 TRA'CHEA. (Gr. rpaxtia, from rpuxv?, rough.) The 
 windpipe. A cartilaginous and membranous tube through 
 whicli the air passes into and out of the lungs. Its upper 
 extremity is called the larynx, and consists of five cartilages. 
 The uppermost forms a kind of valve at the mouth of the 
 larynx or glottis, and is called the epiglottis : it closes the 
 passage in the act of swallowing. The sides of the larynx 
 are formed by the aretenoid cartilages, and the anterior part 
 of the thyroid and cricoid or annular cartilages: these may 
 he felt under the skin in the front of the neck. These car- 
 tilages are united by elastic ligaments, and are acted upon 
 by appropriate muscles, so as to modify the dimensions and 
 form of the aperture in the act of speaking : they are mois- 
 tened by a mucous secretion. The canal from the larynx 
 downwards is called trachea, till it divides into two bronchia 
 opposite the fourth or fifth dorsal vertebra. They are kept 
 open, for the free passage of the air, by their elastic car- 
 tilaginous texture, which consists of rings with intervening 
 membra ne and muscular fibres, 
 
 . Traches, in Botany, are what are now called spiral 
 vessels, which received that name in consequence of their 
 being considered the respiratory tubes of plants. Trachen- 
 chyma, is a tissue composed of trachea?. 
 
 TRA'CHEARIES, Trachcaria. (Gr. rpaxtia, the wind- 
 pipe.) The name of an order of the c\assArachnida, in- 
 cluding those which breathe by means of trachea?. 
 
 TRACHE'LIDANS, Trach'elidce. (Gr.TpaxiM,aneck.) 
 The name of a family of Coleopterous insects, comprising 
 
 TRADE WINDS. 
 
 those which have the head supported on a kind of pedicle 
 or neck. 
 
 TRACHE'LIPODS, Trachclipoda. (Gr. rpaxiM, and 
 trovi, afoot.) The name given by Lamarck to an order of 
 Mollnsks, comprehending all those which have a free and 
 flattened foot attached to the under side of the part of the 
 body which he considers as analagous to a neck. The order 
 corresponds nearly with the Pectinibranchiate Gasteropods 
 of Cuvier. 
 
 TRA'CHEOCELE. (Gr.rpaxna, and k»/Atj, a tumour.) A 
 tumour upon the trachea ; an enlargement of the thyroid 
 gland. See Bronchocele. 
 
 TRACHEO'TOMY. (Gr. rpaxtia, and rtpivu), / cut.) 
 The operation of making an opening into the trachea in 
 cases of threatened suffocation. 
 
 TBACHI'NUS. (Gr. rpaxvs, rough.) A genus of spiny- 
 finned fishes, characterized by their compressed body and 
 approximated eyes : two dorsal fins ; the first short, and 
 with spinous rays ; the second long, and with flexible rays. 
 The anal fin is very long; the operculum is armed with a 
 long spine directed backwards. By the wounds which the 
 species of Trachinus, usually called " weevers," inflict with 
 their opercular spine, they have become formidable to fish- 
 ermen of all nations ; and it is said that the French have a 
 police regulation, by which the fishermen are directed to 
 cut on" the spines before they expose the fish for sale. 
 
 TRACH'ITIS. Inflammation of the trachea. 
 
 TRA'CHYTE. (Gr. rpaxvs, rough.) A variety of lava 
 which is often porphyrilic, and when containing hornblende 
 and augite passes into the varieties of trap called basalt, 
 greenstone, dolerite, &c. 
 
 TRACT, TREATISE. In Literature, both originally 
 from the same Latin word tractatus ; the latter through the 
 French. It would be difficult to assign any reason lor the 
 difference in signification between two words identical in 
 origin and etymological meaning ; but the first is now com- 
 monly used to describe short compositions, in which some 
 particular subject is "treated." generally in the form of a 
 pamphlet; the latter, more extensive works. 
 
 TRA'CTION. (Lat. train., / draw.) The act of draw- 
 ihg, or state of being drawn. In Mechanics, the angle of 
 traction is the angle which the direction of the power makes 
 with a given plane. 
 
 TRACTORS, METALLIC. Small bars of metal which 
 were supposed to possess certain magnetic powers, and to 
 cure painful affections and tumours by being drawn over 
 the part. They bore the name of their inventor, Perkins, 
 ami were in considerable vogue about thirty years ago. A 
 number of wonderful cures, however, having been attested, 
 which were performed by means of spurious wooden trac- 
 tors, the imaginary virtues of the magnetic or metallic fell 
 into disrepute, and then into oblivion. 
 
 TRA'CTORY, or TRA'CTRIX. (Lat. traho, / draw), 
 in the geometry of curve lines, is the curve characterized 
 by this property, that the taneent is always equal to a given 
 line. It was called the tractory by Huygens, because it 
 may be considered as described mechanically by a small 
 weight attached to one extremity of a thread, while the 
 other extremity is drawn along a given straight line. But 
 in order that the curve may be described in this manner, it 
 is necessary to suppose the friction of the plane of traction 
 to be infinite, or at least to destroy at every instant the mo- 
 mentum which is generated by the motion of the small 
 weight, otherwise the direction of the motion of the de- 
 scribing point would not be a tangent to the curve. The 
 tractory has much analogy with the logarithmic whose 
 subtangent is constant. The evolute of the curve is the 
 common catenary. (D' Alembert, Ency. Mcthodique ; Pea- 
 cock's Examples, p. 174.) 
 
 TRADE. See Commerce. 
 
 TRADE WINDS, are winds which in the torrid zone, 
 and often a little beyond it, blow generally from the same 
 quarter, varying, according to circumstances, from N. E. 
 to S. E. 
 
 The cause of this wind is to be ascribed principally to the 
 high comparative temperature of the torrid zone, combined 
 with the rotation of the earth from W. to E. The heated 
 air at the surface ascending into the higher regions of the 
 atmosphere, its place is supplied by the colder air rushing 
 from the poles ; which also becoming rarefied, ascends in 
 its turn, and is carried in the upper regions towards the 
 poles to supply the stream of the under current : these un-» 
 der polar currents moving in progress towards the equator 
 from the zones where the earth's motion is slower, to others 
 where it is more rapid, acquire an apparent relative mo- 
 tion in a westerly direction. The currents from the two 
 hemispheres meeting near the equator, their meridional 
 motions are there destroyed, and they therefore advance 
 together with the remaining motion from the eastward 
 round the globe. The regularity of the trade winds is dis- 
 turbed in some places by local causes, and chiefly by the 
 superior rarefaction of the air over land heated by the sun's 
 4 I * 1257
 
 TRADITION. 
 
 rays. They extend farther to the northward or southward 
 ding as the sun's declination is north or south ; and in 
 some places they become periodical, blowing one half of 
 ■ ir in one direction, and the other half in the opposite 
 one. [See Monsoon.) In the great Pacific ocean, how- 
 ever, the trade wind blows w ith 8 uniform and gentle breeze 
 all iho year round. The name of trade minds was given 
 them from their important influence in navigation. See 
 Winds. 
 
 TRADITION. I.at. trado, 1 d,lirrr.) A truth of doc- 
 trine or fact, delivered or handed down to one from an- 
 other, and received on the faith that the first to whom it 
 SO delivered received it from an authentic source. In 
 common language, the word is used to signify records of 
 facts preserved in the memory of successive persons or 
 generations only, and not committed to writing. In The- 
 . tradition means, generally, that body of doctrine and 
 discipline supposed to have been put forth by our Saviour 
 or his inspired Apostles, and not committed to writing ; and 
 thus the word is used in a contrary sense from " Scripture." 
 And such traditions are of two sorts: tradition of doctrine 
 (such as that of the Trinity), which is commonly said to be 
 directly affirmed by tradition and proved by Scripture ; and 
 tradition of rites and ceremonies, called by Hooker " tradi- 
 tions ecclesiastical," or "ordinances made in the prime of 
 Christian religion, established with that authority which 
 Christ has left to his church in matters indifferent, and, on 
 that consideration, requisite to be observed till like authority 
 give just cause to alter them." (Eccl. Pol., v. 65.) 
 
 It is. of course, impossible to deny that Revelation may 
 have been communicated to man in this manner, as well as 
 in the form of Scripture. Therefore, when a Protestant 
 asserts that Scripture is the only rule of faith, he must 
 mean this only, that the evidence on which Scripture rests 
 I. while no particular tradition has sufficient evidence 
 to support it ; for if any tradition had evidence to support it, 
 there can be no a priori reason assigned why it should not 
 be as binding as any Scripture. " I make no scruple to 
 grant," says the hiL'h church writer Hammond, "that apos- 
 : traditions, such as are truly so, as well as apostoli- 
 cal writings, are equally the matter of that Christian's be- 
 lief, who is equally secured by the fidelity of the convey- 
 ance that as the one is apostolical writing, bo the other is 
 apostolical tradition :" one of those unmeaning phrases 
 which are of such common occurrence in this widely spread 
 controversy ; for the only real questions are, whether we 
 can be " equally secured by the fidelity of the conveyance," 
 in the case of tradition and of Scripture 1 and, secondly, 
 who is to be the judge for us what is authentic tradition 
 and what is not 1 
 
 In the latter question lies the real difference, on this sub- 
 ject, between Romanist and Protestant. The former holds 
 tradition of equal authority with Scripture; but then he 
 also holds that the church, that is, the pope, with or with- 
 out a council, is the authoritative declarer of tradition. 
 
 It is curious to observe that at the Council of Trent this 
 fundamental difficulty, namely, who is to say what is tradi- 
 tion and what is not, struck the minds of the divines who 
 were contending to fix the doctrine of the Catholic church. 
 They were probably hardly agreed as to the form, rather 
 than the substance, of its solution. "All agreed," says 
 Paolo Barpi, " that Christian faith is contained partly in 
 Scripture and partly in tradition. Yea, some said more : 
 that tradition was the only foundation of the Catholic doc- 
 trine ; for the Scripture itself is not believed but by tradi- 
 tion." Km Vicenzo Lanello, a Franciscan friar, thought 
 1 that they ought first to treat of the church, which is a 
 more principal foundation ;" since "Scripture itself is found- 
 ed upon it," according to Saint Augustin's Baying, and "that 
 no nee can he madi oftra pi by grounding them 
 
 upon the same authority." But his opinion had no follow- 
 ers. " Some objected that the synagogues of the heretics 
 would also arrogate the authority ol a church." Others 
 thought that the authority of the church was sufficiently 
 declared already. (Rook 2.) Perhaps some confusion 
 would have been avoided if the father's suggestion had 
 liled : but there is no doubt that the Romanist, by tra- 
 dition, means tradition declared to be such by the church. 
 
 Protestants, on the other hand, without laying it down as 
 a doctrine that tradition is equal to Scripture, have. 
 
 assented to the proposition that an authentic tradition 
 of doctrine is binding ; hut on the question, what is the au- 
 thority competent to pronounce a tradition authentic, they 
 have wandered strangely indeed, from a reluctance to ad- 
 mit to its full extent that very right of private judgment On 
 which they founded their dissent from Koine. Ami this is 
 
 I liarlj the case with those reformed divines who dis- 
 like parting with the title " < atholic." 
 
 When the earlj Reformers, especially those of the Lu- 
 theran and Anglican schools, attacked a doctrine or prac- 
 f Rome, their tir-t endeavour was generally to show- 
 that it was not scrpitural ; their second, that it was not an- 
 1-Jotf 
 
 f» ni. i. c. did not rest on tradition. For this purpose, they 
 opposed to the authority if the church, as it existed in their 
 day, the authority of early fathers and councils, as expound- 
 ing the belief of an earlier age. Thus they recognised the 
 right of private judgment to try the authority ot i 
 ing church by comparing it with authorities of earlier times ; 
 they permitted each individual to apply for himself the his- 
 torical test. But at the same time they denied, more or less 
 directly, the ri'.'ht of private judgment to go farther, and 
 criticise the ancient authority itself: to examine, for in- 
 stance, w nether a doctrine acquiesced in, in the fourth cen- 
 tury, might not have been altogether unknown to the first; 
 whether corruption in the church may not have commenced 
 ai -o \i t \ early a period as to invalidate greatly the testi- 
 mony even of the oldest father; and. lastly, whether tradi- 
 tions, resting on high historical authority, are or are not con- 
 sistent with Scripture. And even to the present day. the 
 high church school of Anglican divinity does practically 
 consider all these as points without the reach of private 
 judgment. 
 
 Now this we cannot but think an untenable position. 
 Either the church has and always had authority to declare 
 to us what is tradition, or it has not. If it had. then the 
 Reformation was an unlawful thing ab initio; and no 
 church commencing in schism can be said to have a pure 
 and real existence. If it had not, then each man, in the last 
 resort, must judge for himself of the authenticity of what 
 is propounded to him as tradition. He will be bound to 
 judge with humility, respect, and submission; but the de- 
 cision belongs ultimately to the forum of his proper con- 
 science. 
 
 He will, therefore, feel it necessary to examine the value 
 of the evidence for the doctrines or rules of discipline pre- 
 sented to him as traditional, by the same principles of criti- 
 cism which he would apply to other testimony ; not re- 
 ceiving all in the mass, on the faith of any aliened adoption 
 of it by the church. For example, he finds that, scarcely 
 two centuries after the lifetimes of the Apostles, several 
 hundred bishops, convened from all parts of Christendom, 
 at the Council of Nice, declared that the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, as embodied in the creed of that council, had been 
 " handed down" in their respective churches from the be- 
 ginning. He accepts this as evidence of the hi»hest au- 
 thority to show that there was an oral teaching of that doc- 
 trine by the Apostles and their successors, corresponding 
 with the indications afforded, but not expanded into the 
 the same explicit form, in Scripture. But when he is re- 
 quired to receive the doctrines, for instance, of the Apos- 
 ii cession as commonly understood, or of the sanc- 
 tity of celibacy, or the use of language widely deviating 
 from that of Scripture respecting the Sacraments, on the 
 ground that these are "traditions," he holds himself at lib- 
 erty to inquire, first, whether the language of fathers and 
 councils respecting them is distinct and consistent, when 
 freed from rhetorical exaggeration; next, whether it is not 
 least strong in the age nearest the Apostles, and 
 in force as we proceed lower; and, lastly, whether on all 
 these subjects their testimony was not likely to be warped 
 by the ordinary causes of error which throw discredit on 
 witnesses, and from which we have no right whatever to 
 imagine the Christian writers of the fourth, third, i 
 centuries exempt; such as the ambition of the clergy, the 
 tendency to admit gnostic and heathen influences, and the 
 deficiency in solid judgment and reasoning power which 
 characterized the educated men of those ages. Again: he 
 will not be influenced by the common Romish argument 
 already alluded to, and frequently in use among high An- 
 glican writers also, that " Scripture itself is found to be such 
 by tradition." Because we receive the testimony of early 
 Christian writers that such and such books were canonical, 
 i. «., received in the church in their time, it by no means 
 follows that we must receive their deductions from Scrip* 
 ture as having the form of tradition; not even when they 
 style these the deductions of the church. Such reasoning 
 would not pass for eminent in any but theological contro- 
 versy. We receive the testimony of Xenophon and Plato 
 as to the actions and savings of Socrates ; we do not, there- 
 fore, admit as authoritative their exposition of his philoso- 
 phy, not even ;is an authoritative representation of w hat 
 was regarded as his philosophy at Athens ; ami yet they 
 were his c ..temporaries. Irenanis, the earliest father on 
 whom we depend far anything like extensive testimony to 
 tradition, lived a hundred years after the Apostles, and a 
 hundred vears of much corruption and dissention. 
 
 Lastly, he will know that if an overweening contempt of 
 tin authority of early uninspired writers, and of o 
 siastical traditions, i most unbecoming a < Ihristfan inquirer, 
 an exaggerated and superstitious veneration for Hum, if a 
 more amiable error, is scarcely a less serious one. There 
 could be no traditions more venerable, more sanctioned by 
 the apparent " authority of the church." than those of the 
 Jews at the lime of our Saviour ; yet our Saviour does not
 
 TRAGACANTH. 
 
 on that account in any degree mitigate his condemnation 
 of them, or speak of them as entitled even to respect, when 
 he denounces those who teach for doctrines the command- 
 ments of men. 
 
 (It would be impossible to refer to particular works on 
 this subject of controversy. The extreme Protestant view 
 of tradition is no where so fully argued as by Chillingworth, 
 passim. For a concise and fair view, on high church prin- 
 ciples, of the estimate of tradition by the English Reformers, 
 see Palmer's Church of Christ, vol. i., p. 493, 504.) 
 
 TRA'GACANTH. A variety of gum: it is the produce 
 of the Astragalus Tragacantha, a native of Africa, and 
 Imported in small twisted or flattened pieces, white or yel- 
 lowish, and translucent or nearly opaque. When put into 
 water they swell up, and gradually form a gelatinous or 
 pasty mass ; not dissolving into a clear solution, as is the 
 case with gum arabic. An analogous kind of gum is found 
 in other plants, and the generic name of tragacanthin is 
 sometimes applied to it. 
 
 TRA'GEDY. (Gr. rp&yoq, a goat, and wSn, a song.) A 
 species of drama, in which the diction is elevated and the 
 catastrophe melancholy. The name is usually derived 
 from the ancient Greek custom of leading about a goat in 
 procession at the festivals of Bacchus in whose honour those 
 choral odes were sung which were the groundwork of the 
 Attic uagedy. Some recent writers, however, have given 
 a new explanation of the word rpdyos, considering it an an- 
 cient Greek adjective, and translating it "melancholy," or 
 "lamentable." .See Drama. 
 
 TRAGI-CO'MEDY. Li Literature, a compound name, 
 invented to express a class of the drama which should pur- 
 take both of tragedy and comedy. If the mixture of serious 
 with humorous portions in the piece alone entitles it to this 
 name, then all the Plays of Shakspeare (with the single ex- 
 ception of the Merry (fives of Windsor, to which some 
 add the Twelfth Night), as being pure comedi«, belong to 
 this class; as do, indeed, almost all the works of the old 
 English dramatists. But Troilus and Cressida alone, of 
 the Plays of Shakspeare, bears this title in old editions : on 
 what account we do not know. French critics define the 
 distinction to be, that the event of the tragi-comedy is not 
 unhappy or bloody. Dacier condemns them as illegitimate. 
 Guarini, the Italian poet, wrote an essay on the subject. 
 
 TRA'GUS, in Anatomy, is the term applied to the small 
 cartilaginous eminence at the entrance of the external ear ; 
 in the adult it is beset with small hairs. 
 
 TRAJE'CTORY. (Lat. trajectus.) The curve which a 
 body describes in space ; as a planet or a comet in its orbit, 
 or a stone thrown obliquely upwards in the air. The form 
 of the trajectory depends on the initial velocity with which 
 the body is projected, the law and direction of the forces 
 which act upon it, and the resistance of the medium in 
 which it moves. The planetary orbits would be strictly 
 elliptical, were it not for the disturbing forces which they 
 exert on each other; and but for the resistance of the air, a 
 body projected obliquely from the earth would describe a 
 portion of a parabolic curve. 
 TRA'MMEL. (Old French, tramel.) An instrument 
 _ for drawing ovals, much in use among 
 "" joiners and other artificers. It con- 
 sists of a cross, C D E F, in which are 
 cut two grooves at right angles to 
 each other; and a beam, A B, car- 
 rying two pins, G, H (which are 
 clamped to A B, and slide in their 
 grooves), as well as a pencil P : these 
 parts are called the cross and the 
 beam. By turning A B round, the 
 pins G, H slide along the grooves, 
 and the pencil P describes an elliptic 
 curve. A demonstration of the properties of this instru- 
 ment may be seen at p. 700, vol. xiv. of Hutton's Abridg- 
 ment of the Philosophical Transactions. 
 TRAMONTANE. See Ultra-montane. 
 TRANSCENDE'NTAL. In Algebra, a term applied to 
 any quantity which cannot be represented by an algebraic 
 equation of a finite number of terms with determinate in- 
 dices. Such quantities include all exponential and logarith- 
 mic expressions and trigonometrical lines in terms of the 
 arc. Thus a*, xx, log. x, tan. x, &c, are transcendental ex- 
 pressions ; and any equation into which such expressions 
 enter is called a transcendental equation, and any curve de- 
 fined by such an equation is called a transcendental curve. 
 But by transcendental equations are sometimes meant 
 such differential equations as can only be integrated by 
 means of curves, logarithms, or series. 
 
 Transcendental. A word used by German philoso- 
 phers to express that which transcends or goes beyond the 
 limits of actual experience. This general meaning is some- 
 what restricted by Kant, who draws a distinction between 
 the transcendental and the transcendent. The transcend- 
 ental he defines to be that which, though it could never be 
 
 TRANSIT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 derived from experience, yet is necessarily connected wi!h 
 experience, and which may be shortly expressed as the in- 
 tellectual form, the matter of which is supplied by sense. 
 " I call," says he, " all knowledge transcendental, which 
 has regard in general not so much to objects as to our mode 
 of knowing or apprehending objects (that is to say, to 
 formal knowledge), so far as this is conceived to be possi- 
 ble u priori. A system of such conceptions would be named 
 transcendental philosophy, as the system of all the princi- 
 ples of pure reason." The transcendent, on the contrary, is 
 that which regards those principles as objectively real to 
 which Kant assigns only a subjective or formal reality, and 
 consequently is by him regarded as beyond the limits of the 
 human reason altogether. 
 
 TRA'NSEPT. (Lat. trans and septum.) In Architec- 
 ture, the cross part of a cathedral which extends on the 
 north and south sides of the area between the nave and the 
 choir, and forming, as it were, the short arms of the cross 
 upon which the plan is laid out. 
 
 TRANSFIGURA'TION. The supernatural change 
 which is described to have taken place in the appearance 
 of Christ, when, as is recorded in Matth., xvii. ; Mark, ix. ; 
 Luke, ix., he took Peter, James, and John up into a high 
 mountain with him, and was transfigured before them, his 
 face shining as the sun, and his raiment showing white as 
 light. There appeared in conversation with him Moses 
 and Elias ; and the apostles erected three tabernacles or 
 tents to them. An ancient tradition assigns Mount Tabor 
 as the scene of this event, upon which three contiguous 
 grottoes have been fashioned to represent the three taber- 
 nacles. 
 
 TRANSFU'SION. The injection of blood from one liv- 
 ing animal into another. It was at one time supposed that 
 this operation might be resorted to, to sustain life in cases 
 of great loss of blood from accidental hemorrhages and other 
 causes ; and that in certain cases of mental and bodily dis- 
 ease a cure might be effected by abstracting a large quanti- 
 ty of blood, and supplying its place by transfusion from an- 
 other animal, such as a calf or sheep. Some of these ex- 
 periments appeared at first to be attended with success, 
 but bad consequences followed ; and in two or three cases 
 in which it was tried upon the human subject it proved 
 fatal. 
 
 TRA'NSIT (Lat. transitus, passage), in Astronomy, is 
 the culmination or passage of a celestial object across the 
 meridian of any place. The determination of the exact 
 times of such transits is one of the most important opera- 
 tions of practical astronomy, as it is by this means that the 
 differences of right ascensions, and consequently the rela- 
 tive situations of the fixed stars, and the motions of the 
 planets and comets in respect of the celestial meridians, be- 
 come known ; and it is most easily and accurately effected 
 by the aid of the transit instrument, the nature and method 
 of using which will be explained under that term. 
 
 Transit is also used to signify the passage of an inferior 
 planet across the sun's disk. .See Mercury and Venus. 
 
 TRANSIT INSTRUMENT. This important instru- 
 ment, called by the French instrument des passages, lunette 
 meridienne, consists essentially of a telescope firmly attach- 
 ed to a transverse horizontal axis, the ends of which are 
 directed to the east and west points of the horizon. The 
 extremities of the axis are formed into cylindrical pivots of 
 exactly equal diameters, which rest in notches (technical- 
 ly called Y's, from their resembance to that letter), formed 
 in metallic supports, susceptible of nice adjustment both 
 horizontally and vertically, so that the axis can be placed 
 perfectly horizontal, and at right angles to the plane of the 
 meridian in which the telescope moves. In the focus of the 
 eye-piece is placed a system of three, five, or sometimes 
 seven vertical and equidistant wires or spider lines, gener- 
 ally crossed by two horizontal ones, between which it is 
 convenient that the passage of objects over the vertical wires 
 should be observed. By means of adjusting screws the 
 diaphragm, or plate to which the wires are attached, is 
 brought into such a position that the middle vertical wire 
 intersects the optical axis of the telescope, in which posi- 
 tion it is permanently fixed. 
 
 When the system of wires is brought into this position, 
 the middle one will be a visible representation of that part 
 of the meridian to which the telescope is directed ; and 
 when a star is seen to pass this wire, it is in the act of cul- 
 minating, or transiting the celestial meridian. The instant 
 of the transit is noted on a clock or chronometer, which is 
 an indispensable accompaniment of the instrument ; and in 
 order to render the observation more certain, the instant at 
 which the star passes each of the vertical wires is noted, 
 when practicable, and the mean taken as the true instant 
 and passing the vertical wire. The times at which the 
 sun and certain principal stars pass the meridian of Green- 
 wich (and consequently the meridian of any other place 
 whose longitude from Greenwich is known) being given in 
 the Nautical Almanac, the comparison of the time indicated 
 
 1259
 
 TRANSIT INSTRUMENT. 
 
 by the clock and the time in the almanac gives the clock 
 error ; and by observing the same stars from day to daj tin- 
 clock rate is determined. In this manner we arc enabled 
 the exact interval of sidereal time between the 
 transits of the different Btars, and consequently the differ 
 once of their right ascensions. For determining the abso- 
 lute place of a celestial body it is necessary to know also 
 its (Hilar distance which is given by the mural circle; so 
 that the transit Lnstruini at ami mural circle are the two 
 essential instruments of an astronomical observatory. 
 
 The foreuoimi diagram represents the pcrtahle transit in- 
 strument, as at present constructed by Troughton and 
 Minims, when the telescope does not exceed twenty inches 
 or two feel in focal length. The telescope tube A A is in 
 two parts, connected together by a sphere 15, which also re 
 the larger ends of the two cones CC placed at rijzli t 
 angles to the telescope, and forming the horizontal axis. 
 The axis terminates in two cylindrical pivots, which rest in 
 Y's fixed at the top of the vertical standards DD. One of 
 the Y's lias a small motion in azimuth, by means of which 
 the u be adjusted exactly to the plane of the 
 
 meridian. A spirit level E, which is made to stride across 
 the telescope and rest on the two pivots, serves to show 
 when the axis is horizontal. The standards DD are fixed 
 by screws upon .a brass circle F, which rests on three 
 screws, h.r.il, forming the feet of the instrument, and by 
 which the levelling is performed. GG are two oblique 
 for the purpose of steadying the supports. On the 
 extremity of one of the pivots, which extends beyond its Y, 
 is fixed a divided circle II, which turns with the axis ; 
 while a double vernier remains stationary in a horizontal 
 position, anil shows the altitude to which the telescope is 
 elevated, 'i are set horizontal by means of a 
 
 spirit level /, and are fixed in their position by a brass arm 
 gh,e\.. supports. The whole of this apparatus 
 
 IS moveable with the telescope, and when the axis is re- 
 I can be attached in the same manner to the opposite 
 standard, For the purpose of illuminating the wires when 
 
 Observations are made at night, one of the pivots is pierced, 
 and admits the light of a lamp 1, which is thrown upon the 
 wuis by a reflector placed diagonally in the sphere li. 
 (Simm mi Mathematical Instruments.) 
 
 Adjustments. — In practice, the transit instrument is sub- 
 ject to three principal errors. 1st, The axis may not lie |i, i 
 fectly horizontal, which is called the error of inclination. 
 2d, The optical axis of the telescope maj not be quite per 
 pendlcula ne axis of the instrument, which is called 
 
 the error of rolliniatinn. And lid. The axis may not be ex- 
 actly ea-t and west, or the Optica] axis may not lie . 
 in the meridian, which is called the error of .azimuth. To 
 
 place the axis exactly horizontal, the level E is suspended 
 in the proper manner from the pivots, and the air-bubble 
 
 brought lo the middle by means of the foot screws. The 
 
 level is then reversed, that is. the end which was turned to 
 
 (vest i- now turned to the east; and if the air-bubble 
 
 still stands at the middle, the axis is horizontal ; if not, the 
 
 foot sen- w i until it stands at the middle in both 
 
 ror of collimation is detected 
 by pointing the telescope to a distant well-defined ten 
 obji I i_' it by the middle vertical win 
 
 cope is then lifted out of its supports and ii 
 (that is, the end of the axis which was tinned to the west 
 1260 
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 is now turned to the east), ami brought again to bear on tho 
 game object. If the middle win- is found to he still bisected, 
 
 the adjustment is perfect ; if not, the diaphragm is moved a 
 little to the right or lift bj means of the adjusting screws, 
 
 until the middle wire bisects the object in both positions of 
 
 the axis. To place the instrument exactly in the meridian 
 some knowledge of practical astronomy is required,. It i.s 
 easj to place it nearly in the meridian by the transit of the 
 sun at apparent noon, or of any star whose right ascension 
 is Known; and when in this approximate position to the 
 meridian, the deviation may be discovered and corrected in 
 various ways. One of the simplest is to observe two suc- 
 cessive transits of Polaris (or any circumpolar star) above 
 and below the pole. If the interval between the two tran- 
 sits is exactly twelve sidereal hours, th( telescope is exactly 
 in the meridian: and the difference of the interval from 
 twelve hours shuns both the amount ami 1 1 1 • direction Of 
 the azimuthal error. Another method consists in observing 
 the transits of two stars differing considerably from each 
 other (not less than 50°) in declination, and whose right as- 
 censions (which should lie nearly the same) are accurately 
 known. The deviation from the meridian, in seconds of 
 time, will then be given by this formula (A T — A ( A R) 
 cos. N cos. S , _...,.„ x- > 
 
 + -: — ,„ , „, =-; where A T is the difkrence of the 
 
 sin. (N + S) cos. L 
 observed times of the two transits in sidereal seconds; A 
 (A R) the observed difference of right ascensions, also in 
 seconds of time; N the declination of one of the stars, 
 supposed north; S the declination of the other, supposed 
 south; and L the latitude of the place. If Ji T is greater 
 than A (A R), the deviation will be to the east; and if 
 less, to the west. A few repetitions of this process will 
 suffice to place the instrument exactly in the meridian. In 
 the case of fixed instruments, a meridian mark is usually 
 made on some distant object, and permanently established 
 for the convenience of ready reference. 
 
 The transit instrument appears to have been invented by 
 the Danish astronomer Roemef, by whom it was first de- 
 scribed in 1700, in the Miscellanea Berolinensia, tome iii. 
 Dr. Halley placed a transit instrument in the Greenwich 
 observatory in 1701, the telescope of which was about five 
 feet in length; but it was little used until 1710, when Brad- 
 ley commenced a regular series of meridional observations. 
 The transit instrument at present in use in the Royal Ob- 
 servatory is the workmanship of Troughton, and was set 
 
 up in 1816. The object glass of the telescope is .""> inches in 
 
 clear aperture, ami the focal length U) feet. Its horizontal 
 axis, including the pivots, is 3 feet 10 inches. There are 
 seven lixed vertical wires in the torus, ami two horizontal 
 axes; and the distance of the former from each other is 
 such that an interval of about 18*3 seconds elapses while a 
 star in the equator passes between each adjoining two. 
 
 For full details respecting the construction and adjust- 
 ments of this important instrument, see /'. irsoh's Practical 
 . Istronomy : Memoirs H. Astr. Society, vol. i. ; and the ar- 
 ticle in the Penny Cyclopedia. 
 
 TRANSITION ROCKS. A Geological term, formerly 
 applied to the older secondary series, under the idea that 
 they were formed during the transition of i he globe from 
 the uninhabited to the inhabited stale. See Geology. 
 
 TRA'NSITORY ACTIONS. In English Daw. actions 
 in which the venue, i. <■., place alleged in the declaration, is 
 immaterial, and consequently the trial may be had in any 
 county; opposed to local actions, in which the trial can 
 only iie had in the county where the alleged injury was 
 
 committed. To the former class belong actions of contract 
 
 and quasi contract (assumpsit, debt, &c.) See Action, 
 Yen i E. 
 
 TRANSLATION. In Literature, the rendering of a lit- 
 erary work from the original language into another. The 
 peculiar merits and peculiar difficulties of successful trans- 
 lation have often been pointed out by critics, but their judi- 
 cious directions have in en seldom realized by authors. In 
 truth, those difficulties require a talent of so high an order 
 to surmount them, that U'W writers are lit lo undertake the 
 of translators (we mean of works of any high litera- 
 ry merit), except those whose genius has more cong 
 
 occupation in original c position; for notwithstanding 
 
 Hi- Mien's sarcastic remark, that "imitation of an author is 
 'he most advantageous way for a translator to show liim- 
 Belf, but it is the greatest wrong Which can be done lo the 
 memory ami reputation of the dead," vv e are inclined to 
 doubt whether, in reality, imitation be not the more advan- 
 tageous method of the two. " Every author." says an able 
 . vol. xxxvi.), "is a mannerist. This 
 manner constitutes, as it were, the Iden ithor; 
 
 it is what the trans! itot ought i itch, and is, nevertheless! 
 
 the very thing Which is apt to evaporate in translation." 
 
 (ir, to borrow again the language of Dryden, the office of 
 
 the translator i esp cially to render the "particular turn 
 
 of thoi if lo' h aie the characters that 
 
 distinguish, and, as it were, individuate him from all wri-
 
 TRANSLATION. 
 
 tars." But nothing is so arduous as the attempt to catch 
 this spirit, or manner, when the writer is also bound by the 
 duty of rendering faithfully the sense. The imitator, freed 
 from the necessity of exactly copying the sense, is far more 
 at liberty to devote himself to seizing the evanescent qual- 
 ities of the manner. This truth might, as it appears to us, 
 be exemplified by many instances. Terence and Horace 
 seem to have aimed at familiarizing Roman ears with the 
 best poetry of Greece, not by translation, but by imitation. 
 Indeed, much as the Romans borrowed from the Greeks, 
 actual translation seems to have been uncommon ; the only 
 two examples which we at this moment recollect are Cice- 
 ro's version of Aratus, and that by Catullus of a poem of 
 Callimachus. Among modern authors, which of the En- 
 glish translators of Horace has approached half so near 
 him as Pope in his Satires ? Where, among all the trans- 
 lations of the Greek drama, shall we find anything so thor- 
 oughly imbued with the spirit of that noble order of poetry 
 as the Sampson Agonistes of Milton, and the Bride of Mes- 
 sina of Schiller'? What translator of Lucan is nearly so 
 Lucanic as Corneille 1 We do not mean to disparage the 
 utility of translations, or the merits of some few among 
 those which have passed into popularity ; but as, with 
 scarcely an exception, they are in relation to the originals, to 
 use the well-known phrase, of Cervantes, only the " wrong 
 side of the tapestry turned outwards," so, in themselves, 
 considered as literary works, they generally leave an im- 
 pression of that peculiar stiffness which belongs to all copies. 
 
 These observations apply with greater force to poetical 
 than prose translations ; and, among the latter, more to 
 works of taste and fancy than to scientific or historical 
 treatises. In the latter, an easy style, clearness, and fideli- 
 ty appear of greater importance in translation, than the 
 more difficult feat of catching the manner and spirit of the 
 author. In literary, and especially poetical translation, 
 much controversy has been carried on between the advo- 
 cates of literal and loose adherence to the sense of the 
 author. Each has its advantages and merits ; but the last, 
 approaching most nearly to the character of imitation, ap- 
 pears to us, on the whole, the better extreme of the two. 
 Three distinct styles of translation are not ill characterized 
 by a lively writer in the Quarterly Review (on "Mitchell's 
 Aristophanes"), vol. xxiii., p. 482. 
 
 " It is the office of the translator to represent the forms 
 of language according to the intention with which they are 
 employed: he will therefore, in his translation, make use 
 of the phrases in his own language to which use and cus- 
 tom have assigned a similar conventional import ; taking 
 care, however, to avoid those which, from their form, or any 
 other circumstances, are connected with associations exclu- 
 sively belonging to modern manners. He will likewise, if 
 he is capable of executing his work upon a philosophic 
 principle, endeavour to render the personal and local allu- 
 sions into the genera of which the local or personal varie- 
 ty employed by the original author is merely the accident- 
 al type, and to reproduce them in one of those permanent 
 tonus which are connected with the universal and immu- 
 table habits of mankind. The faithful translator will 
 not venture to take liberties of this sort; he renders into 
 English all the conversational phrases according to their 
 grammatical and logical form, without any reference to the 
 current usage which has affixed to them an arbitrary sense, 
 and appropriated them to a particular and definite purpose. 
 The spirited translator, on the contrary, employs the cor- 
 responding modern phrases; hut he is apt to imagine that a 
 peculiar liveliness and vivacity may be imparted to his per- 
 formance by the employment of such phrases as are particu- 
 larly connected with modern manners ; and if at any time 
 he feels more than usually anxious to avoid the appearance 
 of pedantry, he thinks he cannot escape from it in any way 
 more effectually than by adopting the slang and jargon of 
 the day. The peculiarities of ancient times he endeavours 
 to represent by substituting in their place the peculiarities 
 of his own time and nation." 
 
 He proceeds to exemplify these distinctions by an instance 
 from Aristophanes : 
 
 ^oi&optiadai i'ov Trpcrru 
 avlpas noinras wajrcp aproTTioXtSac. 
 This, says he. the faithful translator will render literally, 
 "scold each other like bakers' wives." The spirited 
 translator will adopt the modern popular phrase most near- 
 ly analogous—" like oyster wenches." The translator par 
 excellence will choose a phrase rendering the particular and 
 obsolete expression of the ancients by a general equivalent 
 which must be equally appropriate in the idiom of all 
 times and countries — "like market-women," or "huck- 
 sters." Without cavilling at this ingenious piece of criti- 
 cism, we must be permitted to doubt whether a translation 
 of a highly idiomatic author conducted on this last princi- 
 ple would not preserve his general meaning with the serious 
 sacrifice of his spirit. 
 
 97 107 
 
 TRANSLUCENCY. 
 
 In most modern languages there are some few transla- 
 tions which have attained celebrity. In English, Fairfax's 
 Tasso, one of the earliest, has great beauty, but is rather 
 enervate. The versions of Drydcn are distinguished by 
 their poetical power ; though we agree with Mr. Hallam 
 {Introduction to the Literature of Europe, iv. 536), that he 
 did not give the example as well as precept of rendering 
 the "particular turn of thought and expression" of his 
 authors. The utter want of individuality in his respective 
 translations is plainly perceptible; for instance, in that 
 from the fourth book of Lucretius. (It may he observed, 
 in passing, that the remarks of Dryden on the art of trans- 
 lation, of which so much has been said, are chiefly to be 
 found in his prefaces to Ovid's Epistles, and to his Second 
 Miscellany.) Pope's Homer is a bad and careless version 
 (critically speaking) of the Latin translation of the Greek 
 poet: but it has one essential characteristic of the original, 
 namely, his sustained energy ; which renders it, even now, 
 more popular than the cold, though not unfrequently digni- 
 fied and elegant work of Cowper. Some portions oi" Cum- 
 berland's versions from Aristophanes deserve mention, al- 
 though on the whole he is prosaic, and has not dared to 
 follow the bold flight or imitate the metrical variety of his 
 original. Mitchell's Aristophanes has been much admired ; 
 but it is wearisome from the continual striving after effect. 
 Some of Elton's translations are very pleasing, especially 
 of parts of Hesiod. Shelley has left two of the most beau- 
 tiful essays in this line of composition which are to be 
 found in our language: the Hymn to Mercury of Homer, 
 and the Walpurgis Night Scene from Goethe's Faust. In 
 the latter, indeed, he laboured under the disadvantage of 
 an inadequate knowledge of the language; but none of 
 Goethe's more critical translators (not even Dr. Anster) has 
 so powerfully seized his " turn of thought and expression." 
 The same cannot be said of Byron's performance — the first 
 book of the Morgante Maggiore ; which is, however, a 
 remarkable feat of dexterity, from its extreme literalness : 
 a feat in the same kind as Lord Brougham's recent version 
 of the De Corona of Demosthenes. Mickle's Eusiad, 
 though now little read, is one of the most poetical of Eng- 
 lish translations. Coleridge's Wallenstein is a truly won- 
 derful work. So carelessly written that the poet has omit- 
 ted whatever he found difficult, or thought unornamental, 
 it is so exact and so spirited, that the reader is constantly 
 impressed with the idea of Schiller himself rewriting his 
 own drama in English, with here and there a variation as 
 perfectly Schiller-like as the German original. Among 
 prose translations, Philemon Holland's numerous ones, par- 
 ticularly that of Pliny, are still occasionally referred to by 
 literary antiquaries, for their quaintness rather than their 
 merit. Melmoth's Epistles of Cicero and Pliny, once much 
 admired, are polished but cold. Gordon's Tacitus is a cred- 
 itable attempt at rendering an extremely difficult author. 
 Among our numerous translators from the German in the 
 present times, none bears so high a reputation as Mrs. 
 Austin. Mr. C. Lewis's translation of Boeckh's Public 
 Economy of Atkens is a work of great merit. French is a 
 language affording so many advantages to the prose trans- 
 lator, from its condensation, its exactness, its rhetorical 
 force, that it is, perhaps, rather to be wondered at that 
 higher distinction has not been attained by individual 
 French writers in that line. But few French translators 
 are much remembered, except Amyot; and he chiefly for 
 his vernacular language, possessed of great sweetness as 
 well as quaintness, which formed a mode of style in the 
 16th century. The Chevalier Townley's translation of 
 Hudibras is worth mentioning as a phenomenon, from its 
 singular fidelity and spirit. Italian, on the other hand, 
 seems to be an unfit language for the purposes of transla- 
 tion, from extreme diffuseness ; yet it boasts of one trans- 
 lator of Tacitus (Davanzati), who made a point of render- 
 ing that affectedly concise historian in fewer words than 
 the Latin. But of all modem languages, at least of those 
 generally known in the literary world, German has by far 
 the greatest capabilities for this purpose. This must be 
 conceded, a priori, by those who are familiar with its pe- 
 culiar powers and flexibility: and not less by those who 
 are acquainted with this portion of its literature. Among 
 the most highly esteemed poetical works of this description 
 in Germany are Voss's Homer and Virgil ; Streckfuss's 
 Dante; Schlegel and Gries's Calderon ; Schlegel's Shalcs- 
 peare. In prose, the complicated syntax of the Germans, 
 perhaps we may add the as yet unformed character of their 
 prose style, detract from the natural powers of the lan- 
 guage ; still they have some excellent specimens of prose 
 translation, among which Stronibeck's Tacitus holds a high 
 rank. (See also Ed. Rev., vol. xxxvi.) 
 
 TRANSLU'CENCY. (Lat. transluceo, I shine through.) 
 Semitransparency. The term is chiefly used in descriptive 
 mineralogy as applied to minerals which admit of a passage 
 of the rays of light, but through which objects cannot be 
 definitely distinguished. 
 
 1261
 
 TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. 
 
 TRANSMIGRATION OF SOULS. See Metempsy- 
 chosis, I'vrnu.niiKAN Philosophy. 
 
 TRANSMUTATION. In Alchemy, the operation of 
 changing tlic Imperfect metals (as they were termed into 
 u — gold and silver. This was tlic great ob- 
 ject of thai pretended science. See Alchxmy. 
 
 Trans.mi i a 'this, in Geometry, the change of one figure 
 or body into another of equal area or solidity; as a trian- 
 gle into an equivalent square, a sphere into a cube, &c. 
 
 TRA'NSOM. (Lat. transenna, a stretched curd.) In 
 Architecture, the horizontal piece framed across a doable- 
 light window : when a window has no transom it is called 
 lory window. 
 
 TRANSPA'RENCY, is that quality in certain bodies by 
 which they give passage to the rays of light, and is gener- 
 ally supposed to he a consequence of the homogeneity of 
 the mailer of which they are composed. 
 
 TRANSPLANTING. The art of removing a plant or 
 tree from one situation to another in such a manner as not 
 to interrupt its growth. This operation is commonly per- 
 formed in the winter season, or in autumn and spring, when 
 vegetables are generally in a dormant state ; and the great 
 object of the transplanter is to lift as many of the roots as 
 possible without injuring them, and to replace them in a new 
 situation to which the tree is transplanted in such a man- 
 ner as to facilitate their growth. With herbaceous plants 
 and young trees this is comparatively a simple operation ; 
 but with large trees it is an operation of skill, care, and la- 
 bour. The tree to be transplanted should be considerably 
 under the normal age of the species ; and to prepare it for 
 the change which it is to undergo, other trees or objects of 
 its own height, with which it is immediately surrounded, 
 should be taken away a year or two previous to removal, in 
 order to accustom the tree to the direct action of the lisht 
 and air on every part of it which is above ground. The 
 next part of the operation is to dig a trench round the tree, 
 equidistant from the trunk, at the distance of three, six, 
 nine, or twelve feet, according to its height, and to such a 
 deplh as to cut through all the horizontal roots. The tree 
 may then he removed to its new situation, with or without 
 the earth attached to that part of the roots which remain ; 
 or. which is a more certain mode, the trench may be left 
 open during a year, in order that the sections of the ampu- 
 tated roots may heal over, and be prepared to emit new 
 fibrous roots after the tree is transplanted; or, and which 
 is the more general mode, the trench may be filled up with 
 finely pulverized soil, in order to encourage the production 
 of fibrous roots ; and at the end of a year, or of two years 
 if the tree is very large, it may be removed to its final" situ- 
 ation. Hitherto we have said nothing of the trunk and 
 branches of the tree to be removed. In a moist climate, 
 such as that of Ireland or the west of Scotland, all the 
 branches may be retained; but in dry climates, such as 
 that of England, the branches require to be thinned out in 
 proportion to the roots cut otf; and in dry and warm cli- 
 mates, such as that of central France, the greater number 
 of the branches require to be removed. The proper season 
 for transplanting all ligneous plants, whether small or large, 
 is in autumn, after the leaves of deciduous trees have drop- 
 ped and when the sap of evergreen trees, in consequence of 
 the decline of temperature, is comparatively in a dormant 
 state. 
 
 TRA'NSPORT. A vessel hired by government to con- 
 vey stores, troops, &.C. 
 
 TRANSPORTATION. In Law, a species of punish- 
 ment. It is not known to the common law of England, and 
 illation of punishment, pardon being 
 granted to various descriptions of offenders on CO 
 undergoing transportation: generally for seven or fourteen 
 years, or for life. It is now a statutable punishment for a 
 great variety of offences. It is said to have been first in- 
 flicted as a punishment by 39Eliz. c. 4., enacting that such 
 rogues as were dangerous to the inferior people should he 
 banished. At that time the English plantations in North 
 America were the receptacles of tr;i [<;ts. Yir 
 
 ginia. the Jerseys, Delaware'. Maryland, &c. are tin- districts 
 which received the greatest accession to their population 
 from this cause. At the very commencement of the practice, 
 the same arguments were employed against it 
 Bacon which are urged at this day by many law i 
 "It is." he says, "a shameful and unblessed thini: to take 
 the scum of people, and wicked condemned mi 
 
 li whom you plant.'' It was not, however, brought 
 into general use as a punishment until 1718, by 4 Geo. I., 
 which ait gave the courts a discretionary power to banish 
 felons entitled to clergy to the American plantations. \f:, r 
 
 of the greater part of our American col 
 veral years elapsed before the government fixed on any 
 place by way of substitute. At length, in 1787, Botan] 1' . 
 on the coast of New South Wales, was fixed upon 
 
 despatched that year. Hut when the expe- 
 dition arrived, it was discovered that Botany Bay (discovered 
 
 TRANSPOSITION. 
 
 by Cook in 1770) afforded no practicable site for the colony ; 
 which was consequently landed at Port Jackson, where the 
 town of Sydney was founded. From that period to the pre- 
 sent, great numbers of convicts have been transported to 
 Port Jackson, and to the later founded colony of Van I lie- 
 men's Land — our only two penal settlements. Much has 
 been done of late years towards regulating the condition of 
 the convicts in the colony, and subjecting the worst part of 
 them to severe privations; in particular, by transporting 
 some of them to particular depots, where they are liable to 
 (lose inspection and hard labour. Among the writers who 
 have lately contended against the policy of continuing the 
 punishment of transportation, we may particularly mention 
 Archbishop Whately. (See his Tracts on Secondary Tun- 
 
 ishments and Transportation.) 
 
 Returning from transportation before the legal expiration 
 of sentence was an offence formerly punishable with death ; 
 but by 4 &. a W. 4, c. ti7. those who commit the oli'ence, or 
 aid others in its commission, are punishable with transporta- 
 tion for life. A great mass of evidence on the effect of 
 transportation as a punishment for crime in Great Britain, 
 and its effect on the moral condition of the Australian 
 colonies, will be found in the volumes published by the two 
 committees of 1838 and 1839. It requires, however, to be 
 read with much caution, on account of the evident bias of 
 the committees themselves; for every one knows how ef- 
 fectually the inclinations of a committee give a colour to 
 the evidence taken before it, from the mode in which the 
 operation is performed. The views of that committee, re- 
 sembling those of Archbishop Whately, of the inutility of 
 the punishment here, and its mischievous effects in the 
 colonies, have had some effect on the proceedings of gov- 
 ernment ; so far, at least, as to produce the abolition of the 
 practice of the immediate assignment of convicts as 
 ers on their arrival, and the detention of considerable num- 
 bers in the hulks in lieu of the full execution of their sen- 
 tence. 
 
 Many of the vices ascribed to the system are undeniable ; 
 but it must never be forgotten that the truly philosophical 
 or sensible mode of looking at it is by comparison with other 
 secondary punishments. Take any mode of punishment in 
 the abstract, ami the eyes of the inquirer will soon detect so 
 much of mischief caused to the sufferers, and so little 
 visible good produced on the community, as to tempt him to 
 regard it as detestable. In the first place, transportation 
 must be considered without the bad practice of immediate 
 and indiscriminate assignment, which was a mere abuse. 
 Thus corrected, let it be compared with the best regulated 
 system of imprisonment: 1. In respect of its effects on the 
 convict himself; and it may be doubted whether in the 
 Penitentiary, whether on the silent or separate system, the 
 mind of the majority of sufferers goes through a im>re 
 wholesome process than in the penal settlements, notwith- 
 standing all we have heard even of the frightful condition 
 of Norfolk Island, which is not an ordinary sample. 2. In 
 respect of its effects on the ill-disposed population at home ; 
 and here, defective as transportation is commonly supposed 
 to be, the experience of any one conversant with courts of 
 justice will decide which sentence appears to produce the 
 greatest impression when announced — imprisonment, or 
 banishment. And it must not be forgotten that it is not the 
 real severity, but the action on the imagination, which de- 
 ters from crime : the worst inflictions of tile gaol are thought 
 little of by any one except the sufferer, while the evils of 
 expatriation are greater in idea than in reality. 3. In respect 
 of the ultimate reform of the offender; and here transporta- 
 tion possesses an incalculable advantage over evei 
 secondary punishment. The convict who has undergone 
 it begins life afresh: he remains, indeed, under some dis- 
 abilities, sufficient to mark the sense entertained by society 
 of the difference between him ami the man unstained by 
 crime; but there is nothing to prevent his risin.' by ri gulat 
 and honest conduct, if he chooses, into a station of comfort, 
 and even of respectability. The man who leaves a gaol 
 is utterly rained: society has devised, perhaps can devise, 
 of extending to him a. jus postliminii, and bring- 
 iiiL' bin) \r.'rk within the pale of citizenship. His character 
 Is gone forever; and if it could be really ascertained how 
 long relapsed Offenders are actually driven into the 
 ^Commission of crime by the hopelessness and infamy of 
 their condition, if not by the actual want which results from 
 it, we suspeel that many who are now ready to give their 
 suffrage for the abolition of transportation would he induced 
 at hast to pause until they can see their way through this 
 difficulty. 
 
 i'K INSPOSI'TION, in Algebra, is the transposing of a 
 term from one side of an equation to the other, and is in 
 effect the adding of equal quantities to, or subtracting equal 
 quantities from, each side of the equation, the sign of the 
 quantity being changed from -f- to — , or from — to +. 
 For example, if a + x = e — d, by transposing a we have 
 z = c — d — a; or if a + i = e — i, by transposing i and
 
 TRANSUBSTANTIATION. 
 
 a + b we get x = e — a — J. The object of transposition gen- 
 erally is to bring all the unknown terms to one side of the 
 equation for more conveniently rinding their value with 
 respect to the known terms. 
 
 Transposition. In Music, the change which takes place 
 by performing the same melody in a higher or lower pitch, 
 which may always be effected by altering the signature as 
 the pitch of the new key note may require. 
 
 TRANSUBSTANTIATION. The doctrine held by the 
 church of Rome, that in the Eucharist the bread and wine 
 are annihilated and replaced by the body and blood of 
 Christ. In one of its liturgical offices it says, " This is not 
 bread, but God and Man, my Saviour." It is maintained by 
 Protestants that this dogma, which was made the principal 
 test of a true faith by the Papists at the Reformation, is not 
 found in Scripture, which, in the most literal acceptation, 
 only asserts of the elements that they are Christ's body and 
 blood ; i. e., that the substances coexist in some mysterious 
 manner. Nor can they discover it in the writings of the 
 fathers, or in the canons of the early church. They affirm 
 that the first theologian who asserted even the consub- 
 stantiation, or union of substances, was Paschasius, in the 
 ninth century, and that he was accused of making too gross 
 an explanation of the mystery. It was in the course of 
 these disputes, and in consequence of the formal and de- 
 finite statement of their opinions to which controversialists 
 were forced, that this idea of transubstantiation came into 
 fashion among theologians ; nor was it ever propounded as 
 an article of faith by the authority of a council till the be- 
 ginning of the 13th century, in the papacy of Innocent III. 
 
 TRANSUDA'TION. ('Lat. trans and sudo, / transpire.) 
 The oozing of fluids through membranes, or through porous 
 bodies. 
 
 TRANSVERSAL. In Geometry, the name applied to 
 a line (whether straight or curved) which traverses or in- 
 tersects any system of other lines; as when a straight line 
 intersects the three sides of a triangle. The properties of 
 straight and circular transversals are discussed by Carnot, 
 in his Geometrie de Position, and Essai sur la Theorie des 
 Transver sales. 
 
 TRANSVERSE AXIS, in Conic Sections, is the diameter 
 which passes through both foci. It is the longest diameter 
 in the ellipse, the shortest in the hyperbola ; and in the 
 parabola it is jnfinite, as in that curve all diameters are. 
 See Conic Sections. 
 
 TRAPE'ZIUM (Gr. rpav^a, table), in Geometry, is the 
 general name for a plane figure bounded by four straight 
 lines. When two opposite sides are parallel, it is called a 
 trapezoid ; when both pairs of opposite are parallel, it is 
 called a parallelogram. 
 
 The following are a few of the most remarkable element- 
 ary properties of this figure. 
 
 1. The sum of any three sides is greater than the fourth 
 side. 
 
 2. The sum of the squares of the diagonals is equal to the 
 sum of the squares of the sides, and four times the square 
 of the line joining the middle points of the diagonals. 
 
 3. The lines joining the middle points of the sides form a 
 parallelogram. 
 
 4. If the figure can be inscribed in a circle/the sum of 
 
 each pair of opposite angles in two right 
 angles, and the sum of the rectangles of 
 each pair of opposite sides, are equal to 
 the rectangle of the diagonals. 
 
 To find the area of a trapezium, let A D 
 be a diagonal, and C E, F B perpendiculars 
 upon it; then AD X \ (CE + BF) = the 
 area. 
 TRAPEZIUS. In Anatomy, a muscle situated immedi- 
 ately below the integuments of the posterior part of the 
 neck and back. Its principal action is upon the scapula ; 
 and it also acts upon the neck and head, drawing the latter 
 backwards, and turning it on its axis. 
 
 TRAPEZO'ID. A trapezium which has one pair of op- 
 posite sides parallel. The area of a trapezoid is equal to 
 half the sum of the parallel sides multiplied by the perpen- 
 dicular distance between them. 
 
 In Anatomy, the trapezoides is the second bone of the 
 second row of the carpus. 
 
 TRA'PPISTS. The name of a religious order which 
 still exists in Normandy. It was founded in 1140 bv a 
 Count de Perche, in a deep valley called La Trappe, 
 whence the name of the order, and has survived all the 
 changes and revolutions of France. The rules of this order 
 are of the strictest kind. It was, however, far less celebra- 
 ted under its original foundation, than from the reform it 
 underwent under the celebrated Abbe de Ranee, in the 
 reign of Louis XIV. The history of this celebrated man is 
 well known : he was a gallant and daring profligate, whose 
 conversion was owing to the sudden death of a mistress. 
 His character and reform were a favourite subject of dis- 
 cussion in the court of that king in its last and devout peri- 
 
 TRA VERSE TABLE. 
 
 od ; and he was himself the fashion, and much consulted 
 and thought of by the fashionable devotees of the tune. 
 Perhaps the best appreciation of him will be found in the 
 notices scattered through the Memoirs of Saint Simon, 
 who reverenced him, but was too clear-sighted to idolize 
 any one. His rule was of the austerest description ; com- 
 prising, among other severities, absolute silence on the part 
 of those admitted for a considerable period. At the Revo- 
 lution the community of La Trappe was dispersed; many 
 members escaped to England, and were received by Mr. 
 Weld, the proprietor of Lulvvorth in Dorsetshire. There 
 are now several congregations of Trappists. The famous 
 Baron Geramb, so long the lion of the fashionable circles 
 in London, ended his career by entering one of them. (See 
 the Encyl. Methodique, "Theologie-") There is an ac- 
 count of the present state of the original convent in the 
 Revue de Paris, vol. xxix. It is a melancholy picture. 
 Many of the stories told of the austerities of La Trappe — 
 e.g., that each of the monks is employed in digging every 
 day a portion of his grave, &c. — are fables. But the main 
 features of the discipline, the enforced silence, the complete 
 seclusion from the world (insomuch that the superior alone 
 receives news of the decease of a relation of any monk, 
 and it is only announced to the community by a direction 
 to pray for the soul of the kinsman of one of the brethen, 
 without naming him), are as commonly reported. 
 
 TRAP ROCKS. (From the Swedish trappa, a flight of 
 steps, because these rocks frequently occur in large tabu- 
 lar masses rising one above another like the successive 
 steps of a staircase.) They are apparently of igneous or 
 volcanic origin, and composed of felspar, augite, and horn- 
 blende, the predominance of one or other of these minerals 
 giving rise to many varieties. See Geology. 
 
 TRAUMA'TIC. (Gr. rpavna, a wound.) Relating to 
 wounds ; hence the traumatic balsams and ointments of 
 old pharmacy. 
 
 TRAVELLER. In Naval affairs, a ring or hoop which 
 slides along a rope or spar. 
 
 TRA'VERSE. In Law, a name given to a plea contain- 
 ing a denial of some matter of fact alleged on the other 
 side, and offering to refer the matter to the decision of a 
 jury. 
 
 In cases of misdemeanour, where the defendant post- 
 pones the trial of the indictment until the next sessions or 
 assizes, he is said to traverse the indictment. The delays 
 which this form formerly occasioned have been materially 
 abridged by the act CO G. 3, and 1 G. 4, c. 4 ; under which. 
 persons in custody, or held to bail twenty days before the 
 sessions, are bound to plead, unless a certiorari has been 
 delivered before jury sworn. 
 
 TRAVERSE SAILING, in Navigation, is sailing on dif- 
 ferent courses in succession ; and the method of reducing 
 such compound courses and distances into an equivalent 
 single course and distance is called resolving a traverse. 
 The reduction may be effected either by geometrical pro- 
 jection or trigonometrical computation ; but it is generally 
 performed by inspection, with the aid of a traverse table. 
 
 TRAVERSE TABLE, in Navigation, is the tabulated 
 form in which the northing, southing, easting, and westing 
 are made on each individual course and distance in a 
 traverse, for the purpose of finding readily the difference of 
 latitude and departure made upon the whole ; the differ- 
 ence between the sums of the northings and southings be- 
 ing the diff. lat., and between the sums of the eastings and 
 westings the departure. 
 
 The northing, southing, easting, and westing are general- 
 ly taken by inspection, from a table which contains the 
 parts of a right-angled plane triangle corresponding to a giv- 
 en acute angle, and a hypothenusal line of every unit in 
 length from 1 to 300, and sometimes to 500 ; an extent suf- 
 ficient for the wants of the practical navigator. This table 
 itself is also called a traverse table, from the facility which 
 it affords in resolving a traverse ; but it may be applied ad- 
 vantageously to many other purposes. 
 
 In the annexed figure A B C is a plane triangle right- 
 angled at B ; and if A B represent a portion A. 
 of the meridian passing through A, and A C 
 the distance from A to C, then the angle A 
 is called the course, A B the difference ot 
 latitude, and B C the departure ; and to a 
 given angle A the corresponding values of 
 A B and B C, being computed and entered 
 in a table, form for the assumed value of A 
 a portion of a traverse table. '. 
 
 The table is thus constructed to A C and the angle A as 
 arguments, the angle being taken to every degree and every 
 quarter point of the compass, and the hypothenuse to every 
 integer from unity to as high a number as may be thought 
 requisite. But the table being formed, any two elements 
 which geometrically determine the triangle may be assum- 
 ed as the given one, and the other found by inspection 
 from the table. But tie use of the table is not limited to 
 
 1263
 
 TRAVERTIN. 
 
 the solution of right-angled triangles only; for every case 
 of oli' ii - may be solved by means of it. 
 
 TRA vr.UTIX. (It'll, travertino.) A limestone, depos- 
 ited from water holding carbonate of lime in solution. The 
 WOld is a Corruption of tiburtinus, this kind of stone being 
 abundantly formed by the river Anio at Tilmr near Rome. 
 The sj Uba is usually call They 
 
 tality, and wort- much used by the an- 
 cient Romans. Its Latin name was lapis tiburtinus. 
 
 TRAVE'STIE. (Fr. travestir, to disguise.) In Litera- 
 ture, a word used in the same signification as parody. See 
 Parody. 
 
 TREACLE. The viscid, brown syrup which drains 
 from the sugar In the refining moulds. Its specific gravity 
 .rally 1*4, and it contains on the average 75 per cent, 
 of solid matter. {Urc's Dictionary.) 
 
 TREAD, (Sax. tredan, to set the feet on.) In Architec- 
 ture, the horizontal part ol" a step on which the foot is 
 
 TREAD MILL. A recent invention for giving useful 
 employ ment to persons imprisoned for crime. 
 
 Its usual form is that of a cylindrical wheel of about 5 
 feet diameter, and 16 feet long ; and several of such wheels 
 are sometimes coupled together. The circumference is 
 furnished with twenty-four equidistant steps, on which the 
 prisoners are made to work on the mill. Each individual 
 treads in a separate compartment, boarded off so that no in- 
 tercourse can take place between the parties at work at the 
 same time. 
 
 All mounting the first step together, their weight sets the 
 wheel in motion, bringing down the step trod upon ; when 
 they step up to the next one, which descends in the same 
 manner, and so on, producing a continuous rotatory motion 
 in the wheel, which may be applied as the moving force to 
 a mill for grinding corn, or in turning any other machinery. 
 
 The prisoners at work on the wheel are assisted and sup- 
 ported by a handrail before them. The wheel makes 
 about two rounds per minute, which is equivalent to a 
 vertical ascent of about 3'2 feet per minute, and this is 
 about the maximum of labour usually permitted on the 
 wheel. These machines, which have now been introdu- 
 ced into all the great prisons in England and Wales, have 
 been most efficacious in counteracting that feeling which 
 - "s the worthless to balance the pleasures of idleness 
 ; the discomforts of confinement. The application 
 of it to prisoners before trial was much denounced as an 
 abuse. (See Ed. Rev., vol. xxxix., for a paper by the Rev. 
 Sydney Smith on this subject.) The Court of King's 
 Bench, however, refused a mandamus to compel the justi- 
 ces of Yorkshire to allow food, except bread and water, to 
 prisoners committed for trial who refused to work. 
 
 TREASON, or HIGH TREASON. By the statute 35 
 E. 3, c. -. the limits of this great offence were first accu- 
 rately defined ; and although subsequent enactments at 
 different periods widely enlarged the range of actions 
 which might be drawn within its penal character, yet 
 most of these have been regarded as encroachments upon 
 the principles of our jurisprudence. To compass the 
 death of the king, queen, or king's eldest son and heir ; 
 to violate the king's wife or daughter, or the wife of the 
 heir apparent ; to levy war against the king in ihe realm ; 
 to assist the king's enemies in the realm or elsewhere ; to 
 counterfeit the king's privy seal ; to clip or counterfeit the 
 ; to slay the chancellor or other high judi- 
 cial magistrates— these are the seven species of treason 
 con tituted by this act. The many fresh species devised 
 during the troubled periods which followed that reign, and 
 by the arbitrary genius of Henry VIII., were repealed in 
 the first year of the reign of Queen Mary. Of new treas- 
 sons since created by analogy to those which were previ- 
 ously so considered, the | defined by 36 G. 3, 
 r. 7: such as conspiring to excite foreigners to invade the 
 realm ; levying war in ord.r to compel the king to change 
 his measures or counsel--, nr to overawe either house of 
 parliament; and the expressions or declarations of such 
 opinions by printinL'. writing, or any other overt act. 
 Count! money, or filing and clipping the 
 oe w eii as ha\ in» coining 
 and importing false coin from abroad. 
 Most other offences relating to the coin are of u lower de- 
 scription. In high treason all parties concerned are prin- 
 cipal- ries being recognised in this offence. 
 
 (See the Sixth Import of the Commissioners of Criminal 
 Law 
 
 TREA'SURER, LORD HIGH. Formerly the third 
 
 ■ officer of the crown in England. The office is now 
 
 executed by five persons, styled the lords commissioners 
 
 of tl ■ ine of whom holds also the office of 
 
 chnncei chequer. See Treasury. 
 
 TREASURE TROVE. During the middle ages, trens- 
 
 Vrr ! ,!,,_, { ,. , t ,i the LTotlnd, folllieil an illl 
 
 ..i branch of the revenue of this and of most other 
 1-JM 
 
 TREATY. 
 
 European states. The security of property which we 
 have enjoyed since the Revolution has, however, put, 
 
 I o, a complete stop to the practice of burying treas- 
 ure in Great Britain. But down to a late period the prac- 
 tice was common in Ireland, and is, perhaps, not yet alto- 
 gether abandoned in that country ; and it is also common 
 in some of the Continental states. Neckar mentions that 
 in France, under the ancien regime, the vassals of many of 
 the nobles, afraid of subjecting themselves to the violence 
 
 ir masters, buried all the money they could scrape 
 together; and during the anarchy and brigandage of the 
 Revolution, vagi sums were thrown into the earth. The 
 well-informed Russian economist, M. Storch, mentions 
 that the practice of burying treasure is still extremely prev- 
 alent in Germany, Italy, and Russia ; and it must necessa- 
 rily be more or less prevalent in every country exposed to 
 the ravages of war, and where the risrhts of property are 
 imperfectly protected. But it is chiefly in the despotical 
 st ites of Asia, and in Turkey in Europe, that the burying 
 of money is carried to the greatest extent. TAere every 
 rich individual estimates his wealth, not by the stock or 
 
 : he has lent to others, or has employed in the great 
 work of production, but principally by the' amount of the 
 treasure he has been able to conceal ; and every poor man 
 deposits in the earth whatever he can contrive to with- 
 draw from the grasp of his avaricious masters. "The ra- 
 jahs," says Mr. Luke Scrafton, in his valuable tract on 
 Hindostan, " never let their subjects rise above mediocrity ; 
 and the Mohammedan governors look on the growing 
 riches of a subject as a boy does on a bird's nest ; he eyes 
 their progress with impatience, then conies w ith a spoiler's 
 hand and ravishes the fruit of their labour. To counter- 
 act this, the Hindoos bury their money under ground, often 
 with such secrecy as not to trust even their own children 
 with the knowledge of it ; and it is amazing what they 
 will suffer rather than betray it. When their tyrants have 
 tried all manner of corporeal punishments on them, they 
 threaten to defile them : but even that often fails ; for 
 resentment prevailing over the love of life, they frequently 
 rip up their bowels, or poison themselves, and carry the 
 secret to the grave." Mr. Scrafton considers that the uni- 
 versality of this practice and the quantity of the precious 
 metals which must in consequence have been lost, has 
 been a principal cause of the long-continued drain of spe- 
 cie to the East. From the discovery of the American 
 mines down to a very late period, the greatest portion of 
 their produce has been directly or indirectly exported to 
 Turkey, Hindostan, and other eastern countries: and yet 
 it is said that the precious metals do not seem to have be- 
 come more abundant in those countries, or the prices of 
 commodities to be materially increased. But, without at- 
 tempting to investigate the precise degree of credit that 
 ought to be attached to this statement, it is abundantly 
 certain that the want of security which has caused this 
 locking up of so large a quantity of capital must be one 
 of the main causes of the poverty and wretchedness in 
 which the people of India, Persia, Turkey, &x. are in- 
 volved. 
 
 TREA'SURY, BOARD OF. In England, the board to 
 which is entrusted the management of all matters relating 
 to the sovereign's civil list or other revenues. This office 
 was formerly committed to the lord high treasurer, the 
 third great officer of the crown; but in modern times a 
 lord high treasurer has not been appointed, the duties of 
 his office being executed by a board of five lords commis- 
 sioners. The chief of these, or first lord of the treasury, 
 is generally the prime minister for the time being; and, 
 when a commoner, also chancellor of exchequer ; though 
 Sir Robert Peel has recently deviated from this practice. 
 The salary of the first lord of the treasury is £5000 per 
 annum ; that of the others £1200 each. The other officers 
 of the board are, two joint secretaries, a number of clerks 
 
 senior, junior, minute, copying, &.c), a receiver of 
 fees, a keeper of the papers, a solicitor, a chamber keeper, 
 messengers, housekeepers, extra clerks and extra messen- 
 gers. 
 
 TREATY. In Law, an agreement between two or more 
 independent states. Grotius {De Jure Belli et I'acis, 1. ii., 
 I'll. 15, S. ."> divides treaties into two classes tho-e which 
 turn on things to which the contracting parties are already 
 
 hound by the law of nature, such as mutual amity, com- 
 merce, &c. ; and those which contain stipulations for 
 BCh as treaties regulating boundaries, 
 c seding particular powers, &C. The municipal constitu- 
 tion, in every state, determines In whom resides the au- 
 thority to make and to ratify ire Hies. In most monarchies 
 it is vested in the sovereign ; in republics, In the chief 
 magistrate, senate, or executive council ; in federal si 
 sometimes exclusively in the federal authority, as in the 
 United States : while in the Germanic federation the par- 
 ticular states retain the right of making treaties of alliance 
 and commerce not inconsistent with the fundamental laws
 
 TREBLE. 
 
 of the confederation. In order to enable a public minister 
 or other diplomatic agent to conclude and sign a treaty, he 
 must be furnished with a full power ; and when so con- 
 cluded the treaty is binding on the state, in the same man- 
 ner as an agent is bound by the act of his principal. Hut 
 the question how far, and in what cases, ratification is ne- 
 cessary, has been the subject of much debate among writers 
 on international law. It is usual to reserve a power to 
 ratify in the treaty itself. It is necessary also, in most 
 constitutional governments, for the sanction of the legisla- 
 tive body to be subsequently given to treaties of commerce, 
 or imposing taxes on the people, entered into by the execu- 
 tive. Thus the government of Great Britain, when making 
 treaties, granting subsidies, &c, usually stipulates that the 
 king will recommend to parliament to make the grant ne- 
 cessary for the purpose ; but under the constitution of the 
 United States, it has been thought that Congress is bound 
 to sanction treaties, in general made by the President with 
 the advice and consent of the senate. Treaties have been 
 divided into real and personal : the former of which are 
 said to bind the contracting parties, independently of any 
 change of sovereignty or in the rulers of the state ; the lat- 
 ter are made with express reference to the person of the 
 actual ruler. But treaties properly so called, as of friend- 
 ship and alliances, commerce and navigation, even if per- 
 petual in terms, are said to expire — 1. In case either of the 
 contracting parties cease to be an independent state ; 
 2. When the internal constitution of government is so 
 changed as to render the treaty no longer applicable. In 
 this they differ from what are called transitory conven- 
 tions, which pass from one government to another ; such 
 as treaties of cession, boundary, &c. (See Wicquefort, 
 book ii. ; Vattel, book ii. ; Schoell, Hist, des Traites de 
 Pair, 4 vols., Brussels, 1817.) 
 
 TREBLE. (Said to be the same as " threefold," sed 
 quaere?) In Music, the highest part in a concerted piece. 
 Thus we say a treble violin, a treble hautboy, &c. In 
 vocal music, this part is committed to boys or females. 
 The treble is divided into first or highest treble, and sec- 
 ond or low treble. Half treble, or, as it is sometimes called, 
 mezzo soprano, is a high counter-tenor. 
 
 TRECKSCHUYT. (Dutch, track ship or boat.) The 
 covered boats drawn by horses or cattle, and used for the 
 conveyance of goods and passengers on the Dutch and 
 Flemish canals are so called. For an admirable descrip- 
 tion of the accommodations and management of the 
 " treckschuyt," now so rapidly falling into disuse from the 
 introduction of railways, see Murray's Handbook for 
 Northern Germany. 
 
 TREENAILS. In Naval Language, wooden bolts by 
 which the planks of a ship's bottom are secured to the 
 timbers. 
 
 TREFOIL. (Lat. tres, three, and folia, leaves.) In 
 Architecture, an ornament of three cusps in a circle ; re- 
 sembling three-leaved clover. 
 
 Trefoil. A name given in English to different kinds 
 of three-leaved plants. White trefoil is Trifolium repens ; 
 yellow trefoil is Trifolium minus; black trefoil is Medi- 
 cago lupulina; bird's-foot trefoil, Lotus corniculatus. All 
 such plants are used for the food of cattle. The French 
 word trefie lias a similar application. 
 
 TREMA NDO, Tremolo. (It. trembling.) In Music, a 
 direction for one of the graces of harmony, which consists 
 in a reiteration of one note of the chord : this, however, 
 applies more directly to the word tremolo, while the tre- 
 viando is a general shake of the whole chord. 
 
 TRE'MATODES, Trematoda. (Gr. rp^na, a hole.) The 
 name of an order of Sterelminthans, or Parenchymatous 
 Entoza, comprising those which have organs of imbibition 
 and adhesion in the form of suckers. 
 
 TREME'LLA. (Lat. tremo, / tremble.) A jelly-like 
 plant of the lowest organization, found in damp walks and 
 similar situations. It is composed of a thallus containing 
 microscopical spores, and is closely allied to the plants 
 called lavers. 
 
 TRE'MOLITE. A mineral, often of a fibrous texture, 
 generally containing silica, magnesia, and carbonate of 
 lime, originally found in the valley of Tremola on St. 
 Gothard. 
 
 TRE'NCHER, (Fr. tranche), in Fortification, are places 
 cut out by besiegers to approach the place attacked in 
 greater security. They are generally from 8 to 10 feet 
 wide, and in depth something more than the height of a 
 man, being commonly about 7 feet. 
 
 TRENT, COUNCIL OF, in Ecclesiastical History, was 
 assembled by Paul III. in 1545, and continued, in twenty- 
 five sessions, until 1563, under Julius III. and Pius IV. 
 This celebrated council was convoked at a period when 
 the Christian world was agitated by the early efforts of 
 the reformers ; and its most important decrees have there- 
 fore reference to the points on which the controversies of 
 the Reformation chiefly turned : e. g., transubstantiation, 
 
 TRIAL. 
 
 image-worship, the authority of the pope. There is a 
 certain degree of ambiguity in the expression of some of its 
 decrees, owing to the uncertainty which the doctrines of 
 the reformers caused in the minds of supporters of the Ro- 
 mish faith. But, on the whole, it cannot be denied that 
 they express the general belief of Western Christians at 
 the period when they were drawn up ; and that They con- 
 demn, although with little decision and firmness, many of 
 the more gross abuses of the church. The authority of 
 these decrees (except so far as the more strictly doctrinal 
 part of them is embodied in the creed of Pope Pius IV.) 
 has been much debated among Romish ecclesiastics. In 
 Germany, Poland, and Italy, they appear to have been 
 adopted from the beginning without restriction ; in Spain 
 only with a reservation of the rights of the monarch ; in 
 France they have never been solemnly received. But as 
 regards the more important portions of them which contain 
 the rule of faith, they probably accurately express the be- 
 lief of the Roman Catholic Church at the present day. 
 The famous history of Father Paul (Paolo Sarpi) is in 
 many respects a noble model, but does not always contain 
 a fair estimate of the subject. That of Cardinal Pallavi- 
 cino represents the more Romanist view. (See Mosheim, 
 vol. iii. ; Robertson's Charles V. ; Hallam's Jntr. to the 
 Literature of Europe, vol. ii.) 
 
 TREPA'N. (Gr. rpvKaoj, I perforate.) A circular 
 saw for perforating the scull. The term trephine is also 
 applied to a similar but improved form of the instrument. 
 (See the article " Trephine," in Cooper's Surgical Dic- 
 tionary.) 
 
 TRE'SPASS, in Law, strictly, is any transgression of the 
 law less than felony, or misprision of felony ; but is gener- 
 ally used to signify any wrong or damage which is done by 
 one private person to another. Trespass vi et armis is 
 where an act is done which is in itself an immediate injury 
 to another's person or property ; such as assault and bat- 
 tery, or breaking and entering a house or close. Special 
 trespass, or trespass on the case, where an act is not im- 
 mediately injurious, but only by consequence and collater- 
 ally. Trespass is a personal action of tort, and lies for in- 
 juries of a very miscellaneous character. Trespass on the 
 case, as a form of action, arose originally out of a power 
 given to the Court of Chancery to frame new writs for in- 
 juries which could not be redressed under the common 
 forms of trespass or covenant. Trover and assumpsit 
 are, in their origin, different forms of trespass on the case. 
 
 TRE'SSURE. In Heraldry, a border running parallel 
 with the sides of the escutcheon, which should contain 
 about one quarter of the bordure. It is generally either 
 double or triple ; and has usually fleur-de-lis, arranged in 
 opposite directions alternately, perpendicular to the length 
 of the tressure : it is then called Jlory counterflory. The 
 tressure forms part of the royal arms of Scotland, and of 
 those of many noble Scottish houses. 
 
 TRESTLE TREE. See Mast. 
 
 TRET. In Commerce, an allowance of 4 lbs. for every 
 104 lbs. for the waste which certain kinds of goods are lia- 
 ble to from dust, &c. 
 
 TRIAD. (Gr. rpeic, three.) As to the mysterious triad 
 of deities or daemons, who are supposed by some to have 
 been the basis of the dtemon-worship of the Greeks, ac- 
 cording to a passage in Proceus on the Timmus of Plato 
 (see Bryant's Ancient Mythology, vol. iii., p. 107), "they 
 could," he says, in accordance with his singular theory, 
 " be no other than the three sons of Noah, who were the 
 Baalim of the Scriptures, and the &atu.ovtq and AOavaroi of 
 Greece." Others have imagined that the Triad of Plato 
 and his followers was connected with the Christian Trini- 
 ty. What are called by Cymric antiquaries the Triads of 
 the Welsh Bards are poetical histories, in which the facts 
 recorded are thrown into a kind of triplets. Thus, to take 
 the commencement of the first Triad as an example — 
 " Three names have been given to the Isles of Britain since 
 the beginning: Clas Merddin, Til Inys, and Inys Pridain." 
 The Triads are supposed to be of no greater antiquity than 
 the reign of Edward I., although they probably contain 
 fragments of old history. (See Turner's Anglo-Saxons, 
 vol. i. : "Britannia after the Romans.") 
 
 Triad. In Music, a compound of three sounds, which, 
 from the extraordinary property it has of being naturally 
 divisible into two thirds, one major and the other minor, 
 constituting a fifth in the whole, has received the name of 
 the harmonic triad. Its name is founded on its being 
 formed of a third and a fifth, which, with the bass or fun- 
 damental sound, make three different terms. 
 
 TRIAL, in Common Law, is the examination and dis- 
 posal of an issue of fact, either in criminal or civil proceed- 
 ings. Trials are by certificate, by inspection, by the record, 
 j and per pais, or by a jury. The first three are of a pe- 
 j culiar character. Trial by certificate is where the evidence 
 I of the person certifying is the only proper test of the issue ; 
 • as. the customs of the city of London are to be tried by the 
 
 1265
 
 TRIANGLE. 
 
 nf the mayor ami aldermen, &c. Trial by ln- 
 is said to be where the judges personally examine 
 and decide the question in dispute : a practice long obso- 
 lete. Trial by the record is where the point at issue being 
 whether or not a certain record exists, or certain aver- 
 ments in it. it is decided by the production of the record 
 itself. But the ordinary trial of all facts, with these very 
 rare exceptions, is by a jury, summoned to try the i*sue 
 raised by the pleadings. Trials at bar of civil actions are 
 ich take place before all the judges of the court of 
 which the record is ; the original, and, as it were, direct 
 mode of trial, from which all others are variation - 
 though it is now very rare in practice. In ordinary cases, 
 it has been Ions superseded by trial at Nisi Prius (since 13 
 Ed. 1). {See Hiai Prics.) A trial at bar is now only 
 granted on special grounds. Trials before the sheriff are 
 wiien the demands do not exceed £-20, by virtue of the 
 stat. 3 & 4 \V. 4, c. 42. s. 17. These are the only modes 
 of disposing of issues raised on records in the superior 
 courts : and trials of actions in courts of limited jurisdic- ' 
 tion are governed by the same general rules. Criminal 
 trials are had in like manner when an issue of fact, gener- | 
 ally guilty or not guilty, is raised by the pleadings. JVea> ] 
 trials, in civil cases, are granted where the court of which 
 the record is, sees reason to be dissatisfied with a verdict, 
 either on the ground that evidence was improperly receiv- 
 ed or rejected ; or that the judge misdirected the jury as to 
 the law applicable to the facts; or that the verdict was 
 against the weight of evidence ; or that a party was un- 
 fairly surprised ; or, lastly, that fresh evidence has since 
 been discovered. 
 
 TRIANGLE. (Lat. triangulum.) A three-sided figure, 
 which consequently has also three angles. 
 
 Triangles are rectilineal, spherical, or curvilineal. Rec- 
 tilineal or plane triangles are bounded by straight lines ; 
 spherical triangles are formed on the surface of a sphere 
 by the intersection of the planes of three great circles ; 
 curvilineal triangles are those which are bounded by three j 
 curves of any kind whatever. 
 
 Triangles receive other distinctive denominations from 
 the relation of their sides and angles. Plane triangles are 
 denominated equilateral when their three sides are all 
 equal ; isosceles when two only are equal ; and scalene 
 when all three are unequal. They are called right-angled 
 when one of the angles is a right angle ; oblique-angled 
 when one of the angles is more than a right angle ; and 
 acute-angled when each of the angles is less than a right 
 angle ; and triangles are said to be similar when their 
 angles are respectively equal each to each. 
 
 The following are "some of the principal properties of 
 plane triangles ; 
 
 1. The greater side is opposite the greater angle, and 
 vice versa. 
 
 2. The sum of any two sides is greater, and the differ- 
 ence of any two less than the third side. 
 
 3. The sum of the three angles is equal to two right an- 
 gles ; and if one of the sides be produced, the exterior an- 
 gle is equal to both the interior and opposite ones. 
 
 4. If A E and C D be perpendiculars from the angles A 
 and C on the opposite sides A B and B C, 
 then, generally, A C* = A B • A D-f- C B • 
 C E ; and. consequently, if the ancle B is 
 a right angle, A C* = A B2 + B (X 
 
 5. Lines which bisect the angles of a 
 plane triangle will pass through the centre 
 of the inscribed circle ; perpendiculars from 
 the middle of the sides pass through the centre of the cir- 
 cumscribing circle ; and lines drawn from the angles to the 
 middle of the opposite sides pass through the centre of 
 gravity. 
 
 6. Triangles are to each other in the compound ratio of 
 their bases and altitudes. 
 
 The area of a plane triangle is found by multiplying the 
 length oi'one of the sides into that of the perpendicular let 
 fall upon it from the opposite angle ; but there are various 
 other expressions for the area, for which see Trigonome- 
 try. 
 
 Triangle. In Astronomy, one of the forty-eight con- 
 stellations of Hipparchus, situated in the northern hemi- 
 sphere. The same name is also given to one of the twelve 
 southern constellations formed by Bayer. There is also 
 the Little Triangle, added by Hevelius, near the first 
 named. See Constellation. 
 
 Triangle. In Music, a small steel triangular musical 
 instrument of percussion, open at one of its angles. It is 
 set in vibration by being struck with a short bar of the same 
 metal as that whereof the instrument is composed. 
 
 TRIANGLE, ARITHMETICAL, The name given by 
 Pascal to a table of certain numbers disposed in the form 
 of a triangle. The first vertical column of the table con 
 tains units only ; the second contains the series of natural 
 numbers ; the third the series of triangular numbers ; the 
 12oti 
 
 TRIBUNE. 
 
 fourth the Feries of pyramidal numbers ; and so on. (See 
 Figirate Numbers.) Thus — 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 O 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 3 
 
 3 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 
 1 
 
 5 
 
 10 
 
 10 
 
 5 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 6 
 
 15 
 
 20 
 
 15 
 
 6 
 
 &.C. 
 
 &.C. 
 
 &c. 
 
 &c. 
 
 &c. 
 
 St 
 
 1 
 
 Any number in the table is obtained by adding the num- 
 ber next above it, in the same column, to the number in 
 the same line in the next preceding column ; and it will be 
 observed that the oblique diagonal rows, beginning at the 
 left and descending towards the right, are the same as the 
 vertical columns. One of the properties of the table is, that 
 numbers taken on the horizontal lines are the coefficients 
 of the did'erent powers of a binomial. For the description 
 and uses of the table, sep the Introduction to Mutton's 
 Mathematical Tables. 
 
 TRIANGULAR COMPASSES. Compasses having three 
 legs ; two opening in the usual manner, and the third turn- 
 ing round an extension of the central pin of the other two, 
 besides having a motion on the central joint of its own. 
 The instrument is useful in the construction of maps and 
 charts, as three points may be taken off at once. 
 
 TRIANGULAR NUMBERS. The series of numbers 
 formed by the successive sums of the terms of an arith- 
 metical progression, of which the common difference is 1, 
 Tims, 
 
 Arithmetical progression, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, &c. 
 Triangular numbers, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, &c. 
 
 The general term of the series is A n (n + 1). See Figc- 
 rate Numbers. 
 
 TRIA'RII. The third, last, or veteran rank of infantry 
 in the Roman legion. (See Legion.) There is an essay 
 on this particular rank, Mem. de Vj&c. des Inscr., vol. xxix. 
 
 TRIBE. (Lat. tribus.) A principal subdivision of the 
 Roman people. The word signifies a division into three, 
 which was the number of the patrician tribes; which were 
 distinguished by the names Ramnes. Titienses, and Luceres. 
 The first of these consisted of the original body of patri- 
 cians ; the next two were added at different limes under 
 the kings from the free citizens, who grew up round ihe 
 iir>t. The plebeian tribes, which anally included the 
 whole people, were quite distinct from the above. They 
 were instituted by Bervius Tullius, who divided the city 
 into four regions, and the rest of the Roman territory into 
 twenty-six; mosi probably making in all thirty tribes, to 
 correspond to the number of patrician curite. Ten of these 
 are supposed to have been swept away by the cession of 
 the territory on the Etruscan bank of the Tiber to Porsenua, 
 as we hear of only twenty-one immediately after that event ; 
 the one having been most probably added. In later times, 
 the number of tribes was increased to thirty-five, and they 
 then included all the free citizens. In the mean time the 
 patrician tribes became quite extinct ; when all the differ- 
 ence of privileges enjoyed by their respective curia; were 
 abolished. (See Niebuhr's Hist, of Rome, 2d edit., p. 417.) 
 
 TKUSo'METER. (Gr. rpiGu), / rub. and pcrpov, mea- 
 ln Mechanics, the name given by Musschenbroek 
 and Coulomb to a sort of sledge, or apparatus for measuring 
 the force of friction. See Friction. 
 
 TRIIJl 'NAL. A judgment seat in the forum of Rome, 
 built by Romulus in the form of a half moon ; hence any 
 judgment seat : also a raised place in a camp, whence the 
 general addressed his soldiers and issued orders. 
 
 TRI'BUNE. Properly, as the name denotes, the chief 
 magistrate of a tribe. There were several kinds of offices] 
 in the Roman state that bore the title. 1. The plebeian 
 tribunes, \\ lo « were first created after the Becession of the 
 commonalty to the Mbns Bacer 260 A.U.) as one of the 
 conditions of its return to the city. They were especially 
 the magistrates and protectors of the commonalty, and no 
 patrician could be elected to the office. At their first ap- 
 pointment the powei of the tribunes was very small, being 
 confini il t" the assembling the plebeians, and the protection 
 of an) Individual from patrician aggression ; but their per- 
 sons were sacred and Inviolable, and this privilege consoli- 
 liaied their other powers, which, in the later ages of the 
 republic, grew to an enormous height, and were finally in- 
 corporated with the functions of the other chief magistracies 
 in the person of the emperor. The number of the tribunes 
 varied from two to ten, and each of these might annul the 
 by putting hi his veto. (See .Yf- 
 
 buhr's Hut, of Hum'. 2d edit., i., 634 : l.alileterie, Mem. dc 
 I' Ac. des Inscr.. vol. xxxvii.) 2. Military tribunes. «ero 
 first elected in the year 310 A.U. in the plan' of the consuls, 
 luence of the demands of the commonalty to l* 
 admitted to a share of the supreme power. This measure
 
 TRIBUTE. 
 
 tras not, however, a complete concession of their demands, 
 but, in fact, evaded them in a great degree ; for the tribu- 
 nate was not vested with the full powers or honours of the 
 consulate, not being a curule magistracy, and though it was 
 open to all the people, patricians were almost invariably 
 chosen. The number of the military tribunes was some- 
 times six, and sometimes three. For above seventy years 
 sometimes consuls were elected and sometimes military 
 tribunes; at last the old order was permanently restored, 
 tut the plebeians were admitted to a share of it. (See 
 Mem. de VAc. des Inscr., vol. xxxvii.) 3. Legionary tri- 
 bunes, or tribunes of the soldiers, were the chief officers of 
 a legion, six in number, who commanded under the consul, 
 each in his turn, usually about a month ; in battle each led 
 a cohort. 
 
 Tribune. In Ancient Architecture, a raised seat or 
 stand whence speeches were delivered to the people ; the 
 term is still used in this sense in the French chambers. 
 
 TRI'BUTE. (Lat. tribuo, / give.) A sum of money 
 paid by an inferior sovereign or state to a superior potentate, 
 to secure the friendship or protection of the latter. The 
 black mail formerly levied by the Scottish borderers on their 
 less powerful neighbours, for protecting their property from 
 the depredations of caterans, was a species of tribute. 
 
 TRl'CA. In Botany, one of the names of the shield or 
 reproductive organ of a lichen. 
 
 TRICHE'CHUS. (Gr. $pi\, hair, and i X 0vs, fish.) A 
 name invented by Artedi to designate the manatee, as being 
 the only species of fish, or whale-fish, that was hairy : 
 " quia solus inter pisces fere hirsutus sit." Linnaeus, in his 
 System of Nature, adopted the term trichcchus as the generic 
 appellation for the manatee ( Trichechus manatus) ; but he 
 added the walrus as a second species of the genus. Subse- 
 quent zoologists, in separating these very different animals, 
 and placing them in distinct genera, have in this, as unfor- 
 tunately in too many other cases, invented a new generic 
 name for the animal so well designated by its original epi- 
 thet, and have restricted the application of the term triche- 
 chus to the walrus, for which it was not originally designed. 
 
 TRICHI'ASIS. (Gr. $ptl, a hair.) A disease of the 
 eyelids, in which the eyelashes grow inwards and irritate 
 the bulb of the eye. 
 
 TRICHI'DIUM. (Gr. $pi%.) A netted filamentous organ, 
 resembling a netted purse, in which the spores of some 
 kinds of fungi are included. 
 
 TRICHINA. (Gr. diminutive of &pi\.) The name of 
 a genus of microscopic encysted Entozoa, which infest the 
 muscular tissue of the human subject. 
 
 TRICHIU'RUS. (Gr. $ptl, and ovpa, a tail.) The name 
 of a genus of spiny-finned fishes, literally rendered in their 
 popular English name of " hair-tails," significative of their 
 most striking generic character, which is taken from the 
 single elongated hair-like filament that terminates the ray- 
 less tail. The Trichiuri have no anal fin, and have neither 
 ventral fins nor supplemental scales. But one species, viz. 
 the silvery hair-tail ( Trichiurus lepturus, Linn.), has been 
 admitted into the catalogue of British fishes. 
 
 TRICHOCE'PHALUS. (Gr. $pi\, and K [<pa\n, a head.) 
 The name of a genus of Hematoid Entozoons, one species 
 of which {Trichocephalus dispar, Rudolphi) infests the 
 human intestinum ccecum. 
 
 TRICHOP'TERANS, Trichoptera. (Gr. &pi\, and Trrrpov, 
 a wing.) The name of an order of insects founded by 
 Kirby for the case-worm flies, which are characterized by 
 four hairy membranous wings, resembling in their nervures 
 those of the Lepidopterans ; the under ones folding longi- 
 tudinally. 
 
 TRICLI'NIUM. (Gr. rpetc, three, and ic\ivti, a covch.) 
 In Ancient Architecture, a room furnished on three sides 
 with couches, the fourth side being left open for facilitating 
 the attendance of the servants, in which company was 
 received and the repasts served. The winter triclinia were 
 placed to the west, and those for summer to the east. 
 
 TRI'COLOR. The national French banner of three 
 colours, blue, white, and red, adopted on the occasion of 
 the first revolution. The immediate occasion for adopting 
 them is said to have been that they were the colours worn 
 by the servants of the Duke of Orleans ; and they were 
 first assumed by the people when the minister Neckar was 
 dismissed in 1789. But these colours, in combination, appear 
 to have formed a national emblem in France from a very- 
 early period. It is also said to have been formed by uniting 
 the three colours successively used in the French standards 
 at different periods ; viz. the blue of the banner of St. Mar- 
 tin, the red of the oriflamme (see Oriflamme), and the 
 white of the white cross, supposed to have been assumed 
 under Philip of Valois. The three colours were given by 
 Henry IV. to the Dutch on their desiring him to confer on 
 them the national colours of his country ; and they have 
 since been borne successively by the Dutch republic and 
 the kingdom of the Netherlands. The domestic livery of 
 Louis XIV. was tricoloured, as were also the liveries of the 
 
 TRIGONOMETRY. 
 
 Bourbon kings in Spain. At the Revolution, when the 
 three colours were assumed on the national flag, they were 
 borne in the same order as the Dutch, but in a different 
 position, viz. the division of colours parallel to the flag 
 staff; whereas in the Dutch flag it is at right angles with it. 
 Tricoloured flags have been adopted in some of the German 
 states, and in Belgium, &c. ; and they are often employed 
 as emblematical of liberty. 
 
 TRICU'SPID VALVE. The valve of the right ventricle 
 of the heart. 
 
 TRI'DENT. (Lat. tres, three, and dens, a tooth.) The 
 sceptre which the poets and painters of antiquity placed in 
 the hand of Neptune is so called by way of eminence. It 
 is in the form of a spear or fork with three prongs or teeth ; 
 hence the name. See Neptune. 
 
 TRI'ENS. A small Roman copper coin, worth one third 
 of the as (which see), as the derivation of the word implies. 
 This was the piece of money usually placed in the hands 
 of the deceased poor to pay Charon for their passage over 
 the Styx. 
 
 TRIERA'RCHIA. (Gr. rpmpapxia.) An Athenian in- 
 stitution which imposed on a certain body of citizens the 
 duty of fitting out triremes for the use of the state. About 
 1200 citizens were usually chosen for this purpose from 
 the richest individuals, and these were subdivided into 
 clubs of 12 or 16 to each ship. Demosthenes introduced a 
 new regulation, by which the burden to be borne by each, 
 individual was made to bear a given proportion to his prop- 
 erty. (See Boeckh, Public Economy of Athens, ii., 319, 360.) 
 
 TRIE'TERIS. (Gr. rpeis, three, and trog, a year.) In 
 Grecian Chronology, a cycle invented by Thales to connect 
 his year, which consisted of 12 months of 30 days each, 
 amounting to 360 days ; this falling short of the true solar 
 year, he inserted a month of 30 days at the end of every 
 three years, by which means he made it exceed the true 
 year by 13 davs. 
 
 TRIFO'RltlM. (Lat.) In Gothic Architecture, an arched 
 story between the lower arches and the clere-story in the 
 aisles, choir, and transepts of a church. An example may 
 be seen in Westminster Abbey, where the triforium affords 
 a communicating gallery entirely round the church. 
 
 TRI'GAMOUS (Gr. rpsif, three, and ya/toi, marriage), 
 is a name applied by some botanists to plants containing 
 three sorts of flowers in the same flower-head ; that is to 
 say, males, females, and hermaphrodites. 
 
 TRIGE'MINI. (Lat. tres, three, and geminus, double.) 
 The fifth pair of nerves : they arise from the crura of the 
 cerebellum, and are divided within the cranium into three 
 branches; namely, the orbital, and the superior and inferior 
 maxillary. The orbital branch is divided into the frontal, 
 lachrymal, and nasal nerves; the superior maxillary into 
 tile spheno-palatine, posterior alveolar, and infra-orbital 
 nerves ; and the inferior maxillary into two branches, the 
 internal lingual, and one more appropriately termed the 
 infra-maxillary. 
 
 TRI'GLYPH. (Gr. T/)£if, three, and yAu^o), I carve.) In 
 Architecture, an ornament in the Doric frieze, consisting of 
 two whole and two half channels, separated by flat spaces 
 called femora. 
 
 TRI'GONALS, Trigona. (Gr.T/>f<?, three; ywvta, an an- 
 gle.) The name of a family of Decapodous Crustaceans, 
 the carapace of which is nearly triangular. Trigonia is 
 also the name of a genus of Bivalves of a triangular form, 
 and of which most of the species are fossil. 
 
 TRIGO'NIA. (Gr. rpiyuivos, having three corners.) A 
 name applied by Lamarck to a genus of Ostracean Bivalves, 
 most of the species of which are found fossil ; but which 
 has a beautiful recent representative in the seas of the 
 southern hemisphere, remarkable for the irridescent lining 
 of the valves, La Trigo nacree of Lamarck. It is also the 
 name of a genus of South American plants. 
 
 TRIGONOCE'PHALUS. (Gr. rpiyiovos, and KKpa^n, a 
 head.) A genus of poisonous serpents, characterized by 
 having the tail terminated by a horny conical process or 
 spur. No species is known to inhabit Europe or Africa, in 
 which continents the Trigonocephaly are replaced by the 
 vipers. The poisonous serpent of the island of Martinique, 
 called by the French settlers " fer de lance," is a species of 
 the present genus (Trigonocephalus lanceolntus). 
 
 TRIGONO'METRY. (Gr. Tpiyavos, triangle, utrpov, 
 measure.) This term, as its derivation implies, originally 
 signified the measurement of triangles, or the branch of 
 mathematics which treats of the relations between the sides 
 and angles of triangles ; but in its modern acceptance it- 
 includes all formula? relative to angles or circular arcs, and' 
 the lines connected with them, these lines being expressed 
 by numbers or ratios. In relation to its practical utility, it: 
 may be regarded as the most important of all the applica- 
 tions of mathematics. 
 
 The magnitude of an angle is usually measured by the 
 circular arc which has its centre at the angular point, and 
 is intercepted by the straight lines forming the angle ; but 
 
 1267
 
 TRIGONOMETRY. 
 
 (1.) 
 
 D 
 
 X 
 
 /^K 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1 A 
 
 I 
 
 [ I 
 
 there is no necessary connexion between an angle and the 
 arc which subtends it. and in some modern works the fun- 
 damental properties of trigonometry are explained without 
 ace to the circle. This method of proceeding is 
 undoubtedly more direct than the other; nevertheless, as 
 the language of trigonometry has taken its form from con- 
 aiderations respecting the circle, there is some advantage 
 on the score of perspicuity in the ancient method, for which 
 e shall adhere to it in the present sketch. 
 The primary unit by which angles ;ind their correspond- 
 ing arcs are numerically expressed is the degree, or the 
 ninetieth part of a right angle or of a quadrant. This divi- 
 sion of the quadrant into ninety parts is entirely arbitrary. 
 It w;>.~ adopted by ilie ancient Greeks, and has been all but 
 universally followed down to the present time ; for although 
 the French mathematicians attempted to introduce the 
 decimal system, by dividing the quadrant into a hundred 
 parts, their example has not been imitated, as the first effect 
 Of the alteration would be to derange and render useless 
 the whole of the existing trigonometrical tables. 
 
 The degree is divided into 61) minutes, and the minute 
 into 60 seconds. Anciently the seconds were subdivided 
 into thirds ; but the practice of writing down the parts of 
 seconds as decimals is now universally followed. The es- 
 pression 20° 16' 4357" is read 20 degrees, 16 minutes, 43 
 seconds, 5 tenths and 7 hundredths of a second. 
 Let B A C (fig. 1.) be an angle contained by the two 
 straight lines A B, A C ; with 
 A as a centre, and radius A B, 
 describe a circle ; let B A be 
 produced to meet the circum- 
 ference in E, and draw the diam- 
 eter D F perpendicular to B E. 
 From C draw C H and C K re- 
 spectively perpendicular to B E 
 . B and D F ; and let B L and D M 
 be also perpendicular to B E 
 and D F, meeting A C produced 
 in L and M. Now, since the 
 angles at the centre of a circle 
 are proportional to the arcs on 
 T 1 which they stand, the arc B C 
 
 may be taken as the geometrical measure of the angle 
 11 A C, and both will be expressed without distinction by 
 number of degrees, minutes, &c. The following 
 di finitions are used. 
 
 The arc I> C, which is the defect of B C from the quad- 
 rant, is called the complement of B C ; and C E, which is 
 its delect from the semicircle, is called its supplement. C H 
 is the sine of the arc B C, and C K or A H is the sine of its 
 complement, or the cosine of B C ; B L ft the tangent of 
 the arc B C, and I) M is the tangent of its complement, or 
 the cotangent of B C ; A L is the secant of B C, and A M 
 the secant of its complement, or its cosecant ; B H is the 
 i ne of B C, and D K its co-versed sine. These ap- 
 pellations are abridged as follows : The arc being denoted 
 by the single letter A, its sine is expressed by sin A; its 
 cosine by cos A ; its tangent by tan A ; its cotangent by cot 
 A ; its secant by sec A ; its cosecant by cosec A ; its versed 
 sine by vc r sin A ; and its co-versed sine by co-ver sin A. 
 
 Since the arc B C is assumed as the measure of the an- 
 gle B A C, the above lines may be regarded respectively as 
 the- sine, cosine, tangent, &c, of the angle; and since all 
 quantities used in trigonometry are to be expressed by num- 
 bers, we may take, instead of those lines, any numbers 
 which are proportional to them; and thence we may as- 
 sume the ratio of the arc B C to the radius A B, that is, 
 hC-r-A B, as the measure of the angle BAG. In like 
 manner the sine of the angle RAG may be represented bv 
 CH-j-AB, its cosine by A II -r- A B, its tangent by B L 4- 
 A B, its secant by A L -f- A IS. its cotangent by 1) M -H A D, 
 and its cosecant by A M -H A I). Adopting these definitions, 
 the values of the trigonometrical functions of the angle it A 
 G will evidently remain the same when the angle remains 
 constant, whatever be the magnitude of the circle to which 
 they are referred. It is usual to regard the radius A 1! as a 
 unit, in which case the sines, cosines, tangents, (tc, will be 
 expressed in terms of that unit by the decimal notation. 
 This is the way in which they are expressed in the trigono- 
 metrical tables. 
 
 From the right-angled triangles in the above diagram, we 
 have A H-! + H C2 = A C*, AB-' + BL2- A I. \l> D 
 M2= A M-' : and because the three triangles A H C, A B L, 
 A D M, are similar, we have also 
 
 \ II : I1C :: A If : It L :: DM : DA; 
 
 IK':CA::BL:LA::DA: AM; 
 
 CA: AH:: LA: AB:: AM: DM. 
 
 Making the radius AB = AC = AD = 1, and denoting the 
 
 angle B A C by A, these proportions give 
 
 cos A : sin A : : 1 : tan A : : cot A : 1 ; 
 sin A : 1 : : tan A : sec A : : 1 : cosec A ; 
 
 1 : cos A : : sec A : 1 : : cosec A : cot A ; 
 1263 
 
 from which, and the above equations, we obtain the follow- 
 ing table of formula', exhibiting the relations among the 
 trigonometrical lines: 
 
 cos2 A + sin2 A = 1. 
 
 sec2 A — tan2 A = 1. 
 
 cosec- A — COl2 A = 1. 
 
 cos A sec A = l. 
 
 sin A cosec A = 3. 
 
 tan A cot A = l. 
 
 tan A cos A = sin A. 
 
 cot A sin A = cos A. 
 
 sin A sec A = tan A. 
 
 cos A cosec A = cot A. 
 
 tan A cosec A = sec A. 
 
 cot A sec A = cosec A. 
 Of the Signs of the Trigonometrical Lines. — In the above 
 definitions and formula' the angle A was assumed to be less 
 than a right angle, or less than 90°, and the sine, cosine, 
 tangent, &c, were all regarded as positive. We have now 
 to inquire what the expressions severally become as the arc 
 increases through all its values from to 360°. As before, 
 let B E and D F (fig. 2) be two diameters of the circle at 
 right angles to each other ; sup- 
 pose the arc to begin at B ; let 
 B Cl be less than a quadrant, 
 and let the arc B Ci or angle B 
 A Ct be denoted by A. Draw 
 A C2 at right angles to A C; 
 then, since Ct C2 is 90°, the arc 
 B C2 = 90-t-A. Let Cl A be 
 produced to meet the circum- 
 ference in C3; then (reckoning 
 always in the same direction) 
 BC3 = ]80° + A. Lastly, let 
 C2 A be produced to meet the 
 circumference in Ct, and we have B Gi (or B D E CO = 270° 
 + A. Draw Ct Hi, C2 H2, &c, perpendicular to E B. Now, 
 according to the usual conventions of analytical geometry, 
 if the point A be regarded as the origin of the co-ordinates, 
 and distances measured in the direction A B be considered 
 as positive, those measured in the direction A E will be 
 negative ; and of the lines perpendicular to E B, if those 
 above E B be positive, those below it will be negative. 
 Hence the sines and cosines of arcs in the different quad- 
 rants will be as follows: 
 
 In the first quadrant the arc B Ci (= A) is less than 90°, 
 and Ci Hi and A Ht are both positive; that is, sin A and 
 cos A are positive. In the second quadrant we have B C'2 
 = 90 + A ; its sine is C2H2, which is positive, and its cosine 
 is A H2, which is negative. But from similar triangles we 
 have Cfe H2= A Hi, and A H2= Ct Hi ; therefore, sin (90° 
 + A) = cosA, and cos (90 + A) = — sin A. In the third 
 quadrant, we have AC3 = 180 + A ; the sine is Ca lb nega- 
 tive, and the cosine is A H3 positive; but C3 H3 = Ci Hi, 
 and A H3= A Hi ; therefore sin (180°+ A) = — sin A, and 
 cos (180+ A) = — cos A. In the fourth quadrant we have 
 A C'4 = 270° + A; the sine is C4H4 negative, and 1 he cosine 
 is A H4 positive. But C4 H4 = A Hi, and A H4 = Ci Hi ; 
 therefore sin (270° + A) =. — cos A, and cos (270° + A) = 
 sin A. 
 
 Having found the directions and values of the sine and 
 cosine of an arc in each of the different quadrants, those of 
 the tangent, cotangent, secant, and cosecant are also deter- 
 mined ; for the above formulae give 
 
 sin A cos A 1 
 
 tan A = ; , cot A = - — -, sec A = : , 
 
 cos A sin A cos A 
 
 1 
 cosec A = - — ; . 
 sin A 
 
 Whence it appears that the tangent and cotangent will be 
 positive when the sine and cosine have both the same sign, 
 that is, in the first and third quadrants ; and negative when 
 the sine anil cosine have opposite signs, that is, in the sec- 
 ond and fourth quadrants. It follows also that the .secant 
 has always the same sign as the cosine, and the cosecant 
 the same as the sine. 
 
 On these principles the following table is constructed, 
 which will very frequently be foumi useful in calculation, 
 as it shows not only the sign to he prefixed to the several 
 
 trigonometrical lines when the arcs to which they belong 
 exceed 90°, but also how to find those lines in tables which 
 contain them only for the first quadrant. 
 
 1st Quadrant. 
 
 2d Quadrant. 
 
 + sin A 
 + cosec A 
 + cos A 
 + sec A 
 + tan A 
 -j-cot A 
 
 sin (90°+ A) = + cosA 
 cosec (90°+ A) = + sec A 
 cos '."i J + A) = — sin A 
 sec (90° + A ) = — i 
 tan (90° + A) = — cot v 
 cot (90°+A) = — tan A
 
 TRIGONOMETRY. 
 
 3d Quadrant. 
 
 4th Quadrant. 
 
 sin (180° + A) = — sin A 
 cosec (180 + A)= — cosec A 
 cos (180° + A) = — cos A 
 sec ( 180° + A) = — sec A 
 tan (180° + A) = + tan A 
 cot (180° + A) = + cot A 
 
 sill (270° + A) = — cos A 
 cosec (270° + A ) = — sec A 
 cos 270° + A) = + sin A 
 sec (270° + A) = + cosec A 
 tan (270° + A) = — cot A 
 cot (270° + A) = — tan A 
 
 Of the Trigonometricl Tables.— We now proceed to show 
 how the different trigonometrical lines may be computed. 
 The ordinary tables contain the logarithms of the sines, co- 
 sines, tangents, and cotangents for every ten seconds, and 
 some of the better tables, as Taylor's Baguay's, &c, for 
 every second of the quadrant ; but it is evident from the 
 formula; given above, that if the values of any one of the 
 four be computed for the different angles between and 90°, 
 the values of all the others will be obtained at the same 
 time. Thus, since cos A = sin (90° — A), a table of the 
 values of the sine is also a table of the values of the cosine ; 
 and since tan A = sin A ■— cos A, the logarithm of the tan- 
 gent of any angle is obtained by subtracting the logarithm of 
 the cosine from the logarithm of the sine, and the logarithm 
 of the cotangent by subtracting the logarithm of the sine 
 from that of the cosine. The whole difficulty, therefore (or 
 nearly the whole, for some peculiar artifices must be em- 
 ployed when the angles differ very little from 0, or from 
 90°), is reduced to the computation of the sine ; and as this 
 is expressed indefinitely in terms of the arc, it is necessary 
 first of all, to determine the length of the whole circum- 
 ference in terms of the radius, from which the arc corre- 
 sponding to any given number of degrees, minutes, and sec- 
 onds, is found by proportion. 
 
 It is usual to designate the semicircumference of a circle 
 whose radius is 1 by ir. A great number of formula; have 
 been given for computing the value of sr by means of in- 
 finite series. The following, which was discovered by 
 Mechin, is the most rapidly convergent, and therefore the 
 best adapted for computation : 
 
 * = 16 (3-3-i+5i-i+4- &C -) 
 
 _ /_i L_4-_L_ _2_4. &r A 
 
 V.239 3-2393 "^ 5-2395 7-239? "** ')' 
 By computing a few of the terms of this series, the value 
 of 7r is readily obtained. The following is its value correct 
 to 20 decimals : 
 
 jr = 3-14159265358979323846, &c. 
 The series which give the trigonometrical lines in terms 
 of the arc are as follows : Let x be any arc less than 90°, 
 then 
 
 x 3 , x5 i7 
 
 + (- &c 
 
 sin x = x — 
 
 1-2-3 
 
 x2 
 
 3-4-5 
 
 z4 
 
 COS X = 1 1- 
 
 1-2 T 1-2-3-4 
 
 1-2-3-4-50-7 
 x6 
 
 X 3 2 r'-> 
 
 tanx = x+3 + 3 - T + 
 
 17x7 
 
 1-2-3-4-5-6 
 62x9 
 3-5-7 ' 32-5-7- 
 2x5 _ %t 
 33-5-7 33-52-7 
 x2 5x4 61a6 
 
 sec x _ i + 1 -2 + Twi + T^Tb-a 
 
 + &C 
 + &C. 
 
 — &.C. 
 
 +-^+ 
 
 7x3 
 3-4-5-6 
 
 + 
 
 31x5 
 
 -+&C. 
 
 , + fcc. 
 
 1-2-3 ' 3-4-5-6 ' 3-4-5-62-7 
 For other and more expeditious methods of computing 
 the trigonometrical lines, or deriving them from one an- 
 other, the reader is referred to the Preface to the Tables 
 Trigonometriqv.es Decimals, by Delambre ; or to Callet's or 
 Huttoii's Tables. 
 
 The following expressions for the sine and cosine of an 
 angle, found by John Bernoulli, are of frequent use in an- 
 alytical trigonometry : Let e = 2-7182818 (the base of the 
 Napierean logarithms), then 
 
 sin x = - 
 
 co S x ^ xV ~ l + e- x ^~ l 
 2 
 To these we may add the following formula for a mul- 
 tiple angle, discovered by Demoivre, which is readily de- 
 duced from them (m is any number whatever) : 
 
 (cos x + sinx,/- I )"'=cosmx + sinmx v / :r i"- 
 Formula relative to Two Arcs. — In trigonometrical cal- 
 culations, it is very frequently necessary to express the sines, 
 
 cosines, &c, of the sum or difference of two angles in terms 
 of the sines, cosines, &c, of the single angles. The follow- 
 ing table contains a synopsis of the most useful formula ; 
 the first four are easily demonstrated by means of a simple 
 geometrical construction, and all the others are deduced 
 from these four by the ordinary algebraic transformations : 
 cos (A + B) = cos A cos B — sin A sin B. 
 cos (A — B) = cos A cos B + sin A sin B. 
 sin (A + B) = sin A cos B + cos A sin B. 
 sin (A — B) = sin A cos B — cos A sin B. 
 cos B + cos A = 2 cos A, ( A + B) cos 4 (A — B). 
 cos B — cos A = 2 sin A (A + B) sin A (A — B). 
 sin A + sin B = 2 sin A. (A + B) cos £ (A — B). 
 sin A — sin B := 2 cos i (A + B) sin A (A — B). 
 
 , » i ux tan A + tan B 
 tan(A + B)=- 
 
 tan (A — B) = 
 cot (A + B) = 
 
 cot (A — B) = 
 
 1 — tan A tan B 
 tan A — tan B 
 1 + tan A tan B - 
 1 — tan A tan B 
 tan A + tan B 
 1 + tan A tan B 
 tan A — tan B 
 
 ... „ sin (A+B) 
 
 tan A + tan B = 5- — '—- i. 
 
 cos A cos B 
 
 tan A — tan B : 
 
 cot A + cot B = 
 
 cot B — cot A : 
 
 sin (A — B) 
 cos A cos B 
 sin (A + B) 
 sin A sin B 
 sin (A — B) 
 
 cos 2 A 
 tan 2 A = 
 
 . . . r> cos ( A — B) 
 
 tan A + cot B = ■ -• 
 
 cos A sin B 
 
 . cos (A + B) 
 
 cot A — tan B = — -'• 
 
 sin A cos B 
 
 = 1 — 2 sin 2A, sin 2 A = 2 sin A cos A. 
 
 -, cot 2 A = A (cot A — tan A). 
 
 tan A 
 
 cosA)J. 
 
 cot A 
 
 cos J A = V [4(1 + cos A)], sinJA=V[i(l- 
 
 sin A , , sin A 
 
 tan J A=— -, cot A A = 
 
 1 + cos A 1 — cos A 
 
 Solution of Plane Triangles. — Having explained the na- 
 ture of the trigonometrical quantities, and exhibited some 
 of their most useful relations, we come next to apply them 
 to the solution of triangles, which forms the proper object 
 of trigonometry. Of the six parts of which a triangle con- 
 sists, namely, the three sides and the three angles, it is 
 known from geometry that when any three (excepting the 
 three angles) are given, all the rest are determined ; accord- 
 ingly, we have to find expressions for each part in terms of 
 three others, and so arranged that they can be immediately 
 calculated from a table which contains the logarithms of 
 the sines, cosines, tangents, and cotangents to every minute 
 or smaller division of the quadrant. The solution of trian- 
 gles may therefore be regarded as the art of applying such 
 a table to each particular case. It is convenient to consider 
 the cases of the right-angled triangles separately. 
 
 Right-angled Plane Triangles. — In all the solutions 
 which follow, the sides of the triangle 
 will be denoted by a, b, c ; and the an- 
 gles respectively opposite by A, B, C. In 
 the right-angled triangle ABC (fig. 3), 
 let C be the right angle, and consequent- 
 ly c the hypothenuse. There are four 
 distinct cases, and in each case the solu- 
 tion follows immediately from the defini- 
 tion of the sine, cosine, tangent, and co- 
 tangent. 
 
 Case 1. Given the two sides a and b to find the angles A 
 and B, and the hypothenuse c. Here we have from the 
 definition 
 
 tanA = ^ tanB=£; cosA=?; whence c = j^, 
 
 or in like manner c = a -5- cos B. 
 
 Case 2. Given the hypothenuse c and a side a, to find the 
 angles A and B and the side b. Here 
 
 sin A = cosB = -; sin B = -; b — c sin B = ecos A. 
 c c 
 
 The side b may be found independently of the angles ; 
 for since 42 = c 2 — cfi, we have b = ^/[(c + a) (c — a)]. 
 
 Case 3. Given a side a and one of the acute angles A, to 
 find the other side b, the hypothenuse c, and the angle B.
 
 TRIGONOMETRY. 
 
 sin A 
 
 Here cot A= -'. sin A = - I b = a cot A; c = 
 
 a c 
 
 For the angle we have B = 90° — A. 
 Case 4. Given the hypothenuse c and an angle A, to find 
 the sides a and b and the other angle B. Here o = c sin A ; 
 b = ccosA; B = 90 — A. 
 
 Oblique-angled Plane. Triangles. — The solutions of the 
 different cases are all derived from the 
 three following propositions : First, the 
 sum of the three interior angles of any 
 triangle is equal to two right angles ; 
 thai la, A + B + C = 180° .... (l.) 
 Secondly, in any triangle, the sides are 
 to each other as the sines of the oppo- 
 site angles. For, draw A D (fig- 4) 
 perpendicular to B C, and let A D — p ; 
 
 C we then have sin B = . sin C — - ; 
 c o 
 
 whence 
 
 a 
 
 =-. The same property must evidently hold 
 
 = ,...(2.) 
 
 sin C 
 true of sides a and e, and a and b ; whence 
 
 sin A a sin B b _ sin C 
 
 sin B 6 ' sin C c ' sin A 
 The third general property may be derived from the sec- 
 ond, but is more readily found as follows: In the last figure 
 let B D = ?«, D C = n ; we have then m = a — n, whence 
 »7»2 — a 2 -f- n2 — 2 an. Adding p 2 to both sides, and observ- 
 ing that mZ-\-pi = c 2 , n 2 -\-p 2 =-b 2 , and ji = /)cos C, we have 
 c2 = a 2 -f- & 2 — 2 ao cos C, and consequently 
 a 2-4-J2_e2 
 
 cos C = • 
 
 2a b 
 
 ■ ■ (3.) 
 
 We now proceed to give the solutions of the different 
 cases, of which there are four. 
 
 Case 1. Given the three sides, a, b, c, to find the three an- 
 gles, A, B, C. 
 
 Put, = i( a + 6 + e) ,M=vj ( '- a)( '7* )( '- c) i; 
 
 then tan£A= , tan4B= , tan*C = . 
 
 s — a s — b s — c 
 
 Case 2. Given two sides, a, b, and the included angle C, 
 to find the other side c, and the other angles A, B. 
 Find first the sum and difference of A and B from these 
 
 two formula;, A + B = 180° — C, tan J ( A — B) = ^—^ tan A 
 
 a + 6 
 (A + B);then T 
 
 A=i(A + B)+J(A-B). 
 B=i(A+B)-i(A-B). 
 _ sin C _ sin C 
 sin A - sinB' 
 Case 3. Given two sides a, b, and the angle opposite one 
 of them, A, to find the third side c, and the other angles 
 B, C. 
 
 Here we have sin B = - sin A ; C = 180° — ( A + B) ; 
 
 sin C sin C 
 
 C — a sin~A — sinB" this case " nowever > n " 3 necessary 
 to remark, that if the side which is adjacent to the given 
 angle be greater than the side opposite to 
 it (that is, if b be greater than a), then 
 there are two triangles which furnish the 
 same data, and consequently the solution 
 is ambiguous. For with C (fig. 5) as a 
 centre, and radius equal to C B, describe 
 an arc of a circle intersecting A B in B', 
 and join C B' ; it is obvious that the data 
 a, i, A belong to both triangles A C B 
 and A C B', and the solution gives alike 
 - c c = A B, and c — A B'. The solution is 
 " ** therefore said to be ambiguous. 
 
 Case 4. Given two angles, A, B, and the side between 
 them c. 
 
 In this case the third angle is likewise given by reason of 
 ° — ( A + B), and consequently the sides are fonnd 
 
 from the formula 
 
 sin A 
 sin C 
 
 b = c 
 
 sin B 
 sin C 
 
 Area of a Plane Triangle— Euclid has shown that the 
 area o any plane triangle is equal to the rectangle contained 
 under half the base and the i*rpendicular let fall on it from 
 the opposite angle ; that is, area =A ap /Tig. 4.) But for p 
 we maj substitute A sin C (or c sin 15), anil we have area = 
 1 ab sin C. It troin this expression we eliminate b by the 
 
 first of the equations (2), we shall have the area in terms 
 of a side and the three angles; or, if we eliminate sin C by 
 means of the formula (3) and the equation cos 2C = 1 — sin 
 2C, we shall have an expression for the area In terms of 
 the three sides. Assume s — A (a-f-i + e) ; then the area 
 is expressed by any of the following formula; : 
 
 a b sin C «2 sin B sin C 
 
 nrea= ss = 
 
 2 2 sin A 
 
 VO(s-a) (s — b) (* — e)]. 
 
 Spherical Trigonometry. — This branch of Trigonometry 
 considers the relations between the sides and angles of tri- 
 angles formed on a sphere. Before giving the formula' for 
 the solutions of the different cases, it will be useful to state 
 a few elementary properties of spherical triangles, depend- 
 ing on principles purely geometrical. 
 
 The following definitions must be premised : 1. The com- 
 mon section of the spherical surface and any plane passing 
 through the centre of the sphere is called a great circle of 
 the sphere. 2. The pole of a great circle is a point on the 
 surface of the sphere from which all straight lines drawn 
 to that great circle are equal. 3. A spherical angle is the 
 angle on the surface of the sphere made by two great circles 
 at their intersection. It is identical with the angle made by 
 the planes of the circles, and is measured by an arc of the 
 great circle whose pole is at the angular point. 4. A spheri- 
 cal triangle is a figure on the surface of the sphere bounded] 
 by three arcs of great circles, each of which is less than a 
 semicircle. 5. Any arc of a great circle is the measure of 
 the plane angle formed at the centre of the sphere by the 
 two radii passing through the extremities of the arc. 
 
 From these definitions the following properties are easily 
 derived : 
 
 1. The distance of a great circle from its pole is a quad- 
 rant. 
 
 2. If two great circles cut one another at right angles, 
 each passes through the pole of the other ; and, consequent- 
 ly, if two great circles cut a third at right angles, they will 
 meet in its pole. 
 
 3. A spherical triangle which has two equal sides has 
 the angles opposite to those sides equal, and the greater side 
 has the greater angle opposite to it. 
 
 4. The sum of any two sides is greater than the third, the 
 difference of any two less than the third ; and the sum of 
 all the three sides is less than the circumference of a great 
 circle. 
 
 5. If about the angular points of a spherical triangle as 
 poles there be described three great circles on the sphere, 
 these, by their intersections, will form a triangle which is 
 said to be supplemental to the former; and the two trian- 
 gles are such that the sides of the one are the supplements 
 of the arcs which measure the angles of the other. 
 
 6. The sum of the three angles of any spherical triangle 
 is greater than two right angles, but less than six right an- 
 gles. 
 
 Solution of Spherical Triangles. — The solutions of all the 
 dirTerent cases of spherical triangles are comprehended in 
 the four following sets of formula' ; and it will be remarked 
 that the different formula; in each set express all the same 
 property, and are formed by merely interchanging the let- 
 ters. Those of the first set are readily demonstrated from 
 the properties of the triangular pyramid, or tctracdron, and 
 and the others may be all deduced analytically from the 
 first ; so that, in fact, the whole of spherical trigonometry is 
 comprehended in the first of the underwritten equations. 
 The radius of the sphere is supposed to be (6.) 
 
 unity ; the three sides or arcs are respective- „ 
 
 ly denoted by a, b, c, (fig. 6), and the mea- 
 sures of the angles respectively opposite by 
 A, B, C. It is to he observed that the sides 
 o, b, c (as well as the angles A, B, C), are 
 expressed in degrees, minutes, &c. ; and not, 
 as in plane trigonometry', in absolute mea- 
 sures, as feet, yards, &c. 
 
 I. 
 
 cos b cos c + sin b sin c cos A. 
 
 cos a cos c -j- sin a sin c cos B. 
 
 cos a cos b -f- sin a sin b cos C. 
 
 H. 
 
 B sine sin C sin J sinB. 
 
 A' sin a sin A' sin c sin C 
 
 III. 
 b = cot A sin C -f- cos b cos C. 
 c = cot A sin B -j- cos c cos B. 
 a = cot B sin C + cos a cos C. 
 c = cot B sin A -f- cos c cos A. 
 a = cot C sin B 4- cos a cos B. 
 b = cot C sin A -f- cos b cos A. 
 
 rv. 
 
 cos A = — cos B cos C + sin B sin C cos a. 
 
 cos = 
 
 cos A = 
 
 cos c = 
 
 sin b sin 
 sin a" Bin 
 
 cot a sin 
 
 cot a sin 
 
 cot b sin 
 
 cot b sin 
 
 cot c sin 
 
 cot c sin
 
 TRIGONOMETRY. 
 
 cos B = — cos A cos C + sin A sin C cos b. 
 cos C = — cos A cos B -j- sin A sin B cos c. 
 The above general formulas apply to every case of spheri- 
 cal triangles ; but when one of the angles is a right angle, 
 they become considerably more simple ; and, in the case of 
 oblique-angled triangles, they admit of transformations, by 
 which they are rendered more convenient for logarithmic 
 calculation. 
 Right-angled Spherical Triangles.— As before, let C be 
 the right angle and c the hypothenuse. 
 
 Case 1. Given the two sides a, 4, to find 
 the hypothenuse c, and the two oblique an- 
 gles A, B. Here 
 
 tan a _ 
 
 cos c = cos a cos b ; tan A =— — ; ; tan B = 
 sin b 
 
 tan b 
 
 sin a' 
 
 Case 2. Given the hypothenuse c and a side b, to find the 
 Other side a and the two oblique angles. 
 
 cos c tan b , _ sin 6 
 
 cos a = : ; cos A = ; sin B = — — . 
 
 cos b tan c sin c 
 
 Case 3. Given a side a and the opposite angle A, to find 
 the other side b, the hypothenuse c, and the angle B. 
 
 tan a . sin a . _ cos A 
 
 sin5= r ; sin c = -: — ; ; sin B == . 
 
 tan A sin A cos a 
 
 In this case it is necessary to observe, that as a sine be- 
 longs to the supplement of the angle as well as to the angle 
 itself, each of the things to be found has two values ; and 
 consequently the solution is ambiguous, as two distinct trian- 
 gles may be formed of the same data. 
 
 Case 4. Given a side a, and the adjacent angle B ; to find 
 b, c, and A. 
 tan b = sin a tan B ; cot c = cot a cos B ; cos A = cos a sin B. 
 
 Case 5. Given the hypothenuse c, and an angle A, to find 
 the sides a, b, and the angle B. 
 sin a = sin c sin A ; tan b = tan c cos A ; cot B = cos c tan A. 
 
 Case 6. Given the two oblique angles A, B, to find the 
 two sides a, b, and the hypothenuse c. 
 
 cos A cos B 
 
 cos a = - ; cos B = - — - ; cos c = cot A cot B. 
 
 sin B sin A 
 
 All the six cases of right-angled spherical triangles, it is 
 proper to remark, were reduced by Lord Napier, the invent- 
 or of the logarithms, to two rules, which are known by the 
 name of Napier's Rules of the Circular Parts. See Circu- 
 lar Parts. 
 
 Oblique-angled Spherical Triangles. 
 
 Case 1. Given the three sides a, 4, c, to 
 find the three angles A, B, C. 
 
 Find s = A (<z + b + c), and put M = 
 » j sin (s — a) sin (s — b) sin (s — c) ) 
 
 v I shTT S' 
 
 then tan A A= -r- ., tan £ B = — — tan A C 
 
 sm(s — a) siu(s- b) 
 
 M 
 
 sin (s — c) 
 Case 2. Given two sides a, 4, and the included angle C, to 
 find c, A, and B. 
 
 tan^(A + B)= COS ^ a 7;) C ot^C ; 
 
 tan| (A — B) = 
 
 cos £ (a + b) 
 sin £ (a — b) 
 
 cot £ C ; 
 
 sin £ (a + 4) 
 A = £(A + B)+£(A-B); B = £ (A + B)- £ (A-B . 
 
 sin C . . sin C 
 
 5inc = sina — — - = sin b — — -. 
 sin A sin B 
 
 The side c may be otherwise found without finding the 
 angles A and B. Thus, find an auxiliary angle <p, such that 
 cot = tan a cos C ; then 
 
 cos a sin (4 + 0) 
 
 cos c = : — ' — — — . 
 
 sin 
 
 Case 3. Given two sides a, 4, and the angle opposite one 
 of them A, to find the third side c, and the angles B, C. 
 
 Find two subsidiary angles and tp, such that cot = tan 
 b cos A, tan xp = cos 4 tan A ; then 
 
 • t . j.\ cos a sin . _ gin 4 
 
 sm (e + 0) = — - — — T sin B = sin A — , 
 . ,~ . , cos * sin a 
 
 sm (C + xp) = cot a tan 4 sin xp. 
 
 This case is ambiguous for the same reason as the corres- 
 ponding case of plane triangles. 
 
 Case 4. Given two angles A, B, and the side between 
 them c, to find the other sides a, 4, and the remaining angle C. 
 
 Find two angles and xp, such that tan <p = cos c tan A, 
 tan xf. = cos c tan B ; then 
 
 TRILLION. 
 
 tan c sin tan c sin xp 
 
 tano= ————=■. tan 4 = - — ,. , , , 
 sin(B+0) sin(A+uV) 
 
 r cos A cos (B -f- 0) cos B cos (A + *P) 
 
 cos cos \p 
 
 Case 5. Given two nngles A, B, and the side opposite one 
 of them a, to find the other sides 4, c, and the remaining an- 
 gle C. 
 
 Find two angles and xp, such that tan = tan a cos B, 
 cot xp = cos a tan B ; then 
 
 sin 4 = sin a - — -, sin (c — 0) = cot A tan B sin 0, sin (C 
 sin A 7 
 
 . cos A sin p 
 
 V'~ coTB " 
 This case is also ambiguous. 
 
 Case 6. Given the three angles A, B, C, to find the sides 
 a, 4, c. 
 Find S = £ (A + B + C), and assume 
 
 N =x /r - cosS Vthen 
 
 v Vcos (S — A) cos(S — B) cos (S — C)/ ' 
 tan £ a = N cos (S — A) ; 
 tan£4 = N cos (S — Bj ; 
 tan £ c = N cos (S — C). 
 
 When the sides of a spherical triangle are very small in 
 comparison of the radius of the sphere, as is the case in all 
 triangles measured on the surface of the earth, the sides 
 may be computed from the observed angles with all the ac- 
 curacy which the observations will admit of by approximate 
 formula?, which greatly abridge the calculations. See Sur- 
 veying. 
 
 Area of a Spherical Triangle. — It is known from the in- 
 tegral calculus that the area or surface of a sphere is equal 
 to four times that of one of its great circles, or =47rr2; 
 where r is the radius of the sphere, and n = 3'14159. Hence, 
 surface of hemisphere = 2 tt rl. 
 
 Now it is manifest that the portion of the spherical sur- 
 face included between two great semicircles, and which is 
 called a lune, will have the same ratio to the surface of the 
 hemisphere as the angle of the lune has to 180° ; therefore 
 if the angle of the lune be A , its sur- 
 face will be 2rr2 (A -^180). 
 
 Let ABC (fig. 9) be a triangle upon 
 the hemisphere ABHE, and let the 
 sides B C and A C be produced till they 
 meet again in F on the opposite hemi- 
 sphere ; then, since CDF and C E F are 
 semicircles, they are equal to AC D and ^ 
 BCE; whence AC = DFand BC=F 
 E, and the two triangles ABC and D E 
 F are every way equal. 
 
 Let S = surface of the triangle ABC; then S = surface 
 of hemisphere — BHDC — AGEC — DCE= 2jr»«— 
 (lune A H D — S) — (lune B G E — S) — (lune CDF 
 
 3 S ; there- 
 
 A+B + C 
 
 foreS = 
 
 180 
 
 180 180 
 •180 „ E 
 180 
 
 180> 
 7r 7-2, where E = A + 
 
 B + C — 18(P. 
 
 From this it follows that the area of a spherical triangle 
 is proportional to the excess of the sum of its three angles 
 above 180° ; and hence this quantity, which is called the 
 spherical excess, is sometimes taken as the measure of the 
 area of the triangle. The spherical excess and the area are 
 immediately deducible from each other. See Spherical 
 Excess. 
 
 In the above formula the area is given in terms of the 
 three angles. The following elegant formula, which gives 
 the spherical excess in terms of the three sides, is due to 
 L'Huillier : Let s = £ (a + 4 + c) ; then 
 tan^E = ^[tan £s tan£(s — a) tan£ (s — 4) tan A (*— c)]. 
 
 Trigonometry owes its origin to the Greek astronomers of 
 Alexandria. The solutions of the most useful cases of 
 spherical triangles have been known from the time of Hip- 
 parchus, and the fundamental formula? appear in the Ana- 
 lemma of Ptolemy. The Greeks, however, instead of the 
 sines, employed the chords of the double arcs. The sines 
 were introduced by the Arabians, to whom the science is in- 
 debted for some other improvements. Regiomontanus in- 
 troduced the tangents, which have greatly simplified the 
 calculations. But the present elegant and compact form in 
 which the solutions now appear is the result of improve- 
 ments in modern analysis. The treatises on trigonometry 
 are extremely numerous. For the history the reader may 
 be referred to Montucla, Histoire des Mathematiques ; De- 
 lambre, Histoire de V.lstronomie ; and the Introduction to 
 Dr. Hutton's Mathematical Tables. 
 
 TRILATERAL. (Lat. tres, three, and latus, side.) 
 Three-sided ; a term applied to all triangular figures. 
 
 TRI'LLION. In Arithmetic, a million of billions, or a 
 
 1271
 
 TRILLO. 
 
 million of million of millions. The term is said by Dr. 
 Johnson to have been invented by Locke. 
 
 TRI'LLO. (It.) In Music, a term by which it is inti- 
 mated that the performer, is to beat quickly on two notes in 
 conjoint degrees alternately one after another, beginning 
 with the highest and ending with the lowest. It is marked 
 with a sinsleTas well inn vocal as in an instrumental part. 
 
 TRI'LOBITES. (Let tree, three, and Iotas, a lobe.) 
 The name given by Cuvier to an order of Crustaceans, 
 comprehending those remarkable fossil species in which 
 the body is divided into three lobes by two fissures which 
 run parallel to its axis. 
 
 TRILOGY. (Gr. rpcic, three, and \oyoc, a discourse.) 
 The word applied to a series of three dramas, which, al- 
 though each of them is in one sense complete, yet bear a 
 mutual relation, and form but parts of one historical and 
 poetical picture. All the plays of ^Eschylus, and the Hen- 
 ri/ VI. of ^liakspeare, are examples of a trilogy. 
 
 TRIM. The position of the keel of a ship with respect 
 to a horizontal line. Also the disposition of the weights or 
 stowage, as favourable or otherwise for sailing, which are 
 expressed by in trim, and out of trim. 
 
 TRI'MER A.N'S. Trimtra. (Gr. rone, three, and ucpoc, a 
 part.) The name of a section of Coleopterous insects, in- 
 cluding those which have each tarsus composed of three 
 articulations. 
 
 TRl'MMI-'.R. In Architecture, a piece of timber framed 
 at right angles to the joists opposite chimneys or the well 
 holes of stairs, which receives the ends of the joists inter- 
 cepted by the opening. 
 
 TRIMMING JOIST. In Architecture, a joist into which 
 a trimmer is framed. 
 
 TRI'M VARIES, Trimyaria. (Gr. rpcte, three, anduumi', 
 a muscle.) The name by which those Bivalves are distin- 
 guished which present three muscular impressions on each 
 valve. 
 
 TKI.VE. (Eat. trinus, threefold.) Of threefold dimen- 
 sions — length, breadth, and thickness. In Astrology, the 
 trine is one of the five aspects of the influential bodies, the 
 angle subtended by the two planets as seen from the earth 
 being 120°, or the third of the zodiac. The trine was sup- 
 posed to be a benign aspect. See Astrology. 
 
 THING A. Eat. a tending bird.) A genus of wading 
 birds (Gratia), characterised by a compressed bill of mod- 
 erate length, enlarged at the point ; and a hind toe, too 
 short to reach the ground. It is by the latter character 
 that the lapwings Trrnga) are distinguished from the plov- 
 ers (Charadcii). in which the hind toe is wanting. 
 
 TK1MT A 1M ANS. A religious order, founded in 1198 
 under the pontificate of Innocent III. Its members devoted 
 themselves especially to the duty of ransoming captives 
 taken by the Moors and other infidels. Another body of 
 Trinitarians was formed in consequence of a reformation 
 of the order in 1578. There was also a female order of the 
 same name, and dedicated to the same objects. 
 
 TllI'MTV. The three persons comprised in the God- 
 head, and distinguished as the Father, the Son, and the 
 Holy Ghost. The term is not found in the Scriptures, and 
 its introduction is referred at the earliest to the 2d century. 
 All denominations of Christians that believe in the Trinity, 
 or Triune Deity, are comprised under the general name of 
 Trinitarians. Several theories have been framed as to the 
 existence of supposed doctrines of a Trinity in Pagan sys- 
 tems. See, as to the Orphic, Platonic, Egyptian, Greek, 
 and Latin, Magian, and Indian Trinities, Dale's Chronology, 
 vol. iv.) 
 
 TRINITY SUNDAY. The Sunday next after Whit- 
 Sunday ; so called on account of a feast which was ancient- 
 ly and still continues to be held on that day, in the Romish 
 Church in honour of the Holy Trinity. This feast does not 
 appear to have been fully established in the Western 
 Church until the year 1334, under Pope John XXIII. 
 
 TRINO'MIAL. (Lat. tres, three, and nomen, name.) 
 In Algebra, a quantity consisting of three terms connected 
 by the siims -4- or — ; as a -{- b c- — d3. 
 
 TRI'O. (It) In Mode, a composition consisting of 
 three parts. Besides those general rules of counterpoint 
 which forbid that two octaves or fifths follow one another 
 either to the bass ,, r any other part in trios, the third must 
 be heard in every time of the bar. either with the 1> ass or 
 between the other two upper pari* ; or, in other words, 01 e 
 of the parts must make a third with the bass, and the oth- 
 er a fifth or octave. 
 
 TRIOLET. A stanza of tight lines, in which the first 
 line is thrice repeated. 
 
 TRIONES. In Astronomy, the seven principal stars in 
 
 tellation of Ursa Major, popularly called Charles's 
 
 Wain : four of the stars being fancied to'represent a wain 
 
 or wagon, and the three others the horses by which it is 
 
 drawn. 
 
 TIM I'll V\C. A synonyme of the mineral called also 
 
 epodumene. 
 
 1379 
 
 miSECTION OF AN ANGLE. 
 
 TRJ'PHTHONG. [Gr. rptis. three, and T Qoyy v , sound) 
 In Grammar, a composite .sound of three vowels, as a 
 diphthong is of two ; such as the German "aeu." There 
 is no such sound in English, nor, strictly speaking, in 
 French, unless the combinations " ieu" in that lane 
 so considered. 
 
 TRIPLE. (Gr. r/JirrXovs, threefold.) In Music, one of 
 the kinds or measures of time, of which there are many 
 different subdivisions. There are, however, only four prin- 
 cipal ones, whereof the others are varieties. See art. Mu- 
 sic. 
 
 TRIPLE SALTS. A term by which, in Chemistrv, cer- 
 tain salts are sometimes designated, in which two bases are 
 combined with one acid. Thus, emetic tartar, which is com- 
 posed of oxide of antimony and of potassa with tartaric 
 acid, and Rochelle salts in which soda and potassa are 
 combined with the same acid, are triple tartrates. These 
 salts, however, are more properly regarded as double salts ; 
 that is, as consisting of tartrate of antimony and of tartrate 
 of potassa, or of single equivalents of tartrate of potassa 
 and tartrate of soda. 
 
 TRI'PLETS. In Poetry, three verses rhvming together. 
 Thus, in the famous lines of Poi>e : 
 
 " Waller vns smooth, but Dryden taught to join 
 The varying verse, the full resounding line, 
 The Ion* majestic march and euergy divine. 1 ' 
 
 In Music, notes grouped together by threes ; thus, 
 
 5:^ . In common time, where three of the 
 
 quavers are intended to be equal in duration to a crotchet, 
 a 3 is sometimes placed over them ; but they are generally 
 known by being grouped together, and thus form one of the 
 single parts of the whole measure. 
 
 TRIPLICATE RATIO. In Arithmetic and Geometry, 
 the ratio of the cubes is the cube of the simple ratio. 
 Thus the triplicate ratio of 2 to 3 is the same as that of 8 
 to 27. Similar solids are to each other as the triplicate ra- 
 tio of their like dimensions. 
 
 TRI'POD. (Gr. rpug, three, and ttovs, a foot.) In Ar- 
 chitecture, a vessel, table, seat, or instrument having three 
 feet. It was from such a seat that the Pytliian goddess 
 rendered oracular answers at Delphi. 
 
 TRI'POLI. A mineral used for polishing, originally from 
 Tripoli in Barbary. It occurs in friable earthy mas-. - ,.t' a 
 dull clay colour. Its essential components are silica, alu- 
 mina, and oxide of iron ; but the varieties of tripoli appear 
 to vary extremely in composition. Bbrenbeig has found 
 the different tripolis to be aggregates of silicified animal- 
 cules. 
 
 . TRI'REME. (Lat. tres, and remus, oar ; Gr. rpi^prj;, a 
 galley with three rows of oars.) The usual war vessel of 
 the Greeks at the time of the Persian and Peloponnesian 
 wars, and nearly down to the period of the first Punic, 
 when we find quinqueremes pretty generally substituted. 
 With respect to the construction, and the difficulties attending 
 its explanation, see Galley. Some light has been thrown 
 on Athenian naval matters by the recent discovery of some 
 inscriptions at the Piraeus, which have been commented on 
 byBoeckh. See Foreign Quart. Rev., Jan., 1841. See also 
 his Public Economy of Athens, transl., i., 3T2, &.C., 
 
 TIMSA'GION. (Gr. T pi.,thrice,VLndayioi,holy.) In the 
 Greek Church, the threefold invocation of the Deity as 
 "Holy." (Lat. tersanctus.) This invocation takes its ori- 
 gin from Isaiah, vi. 3; Revelations, iv., 8. The ordinary 
 form is that in Isaiah, "Holy. Holy, Holy Lord God of 
 Hosts, all the earth is full of thy glory." A different form 
 of the trisapion is repeated daily in the service of the 
 Greek Church, ami is attributed to Saint Proclus. Concern- 
 ing the war which was raised A.D. 508-518, by the addi- 
 tion of the words " who was crucified for us," see Gibbon, 
 ch. xlvii. 
 
 TRISI'.'CTIOX. (Lat. trisectio.) The dividing of any- 
 thing into three equal parts. 
 
 TRIBECTK >N OF AN ANGLE. In Geometry, a prob- 
 lem of great celebrity among the ancient Greek mathema- 
 ticians. The indefinite trisection of an angle cannot be ef- 
 fected by plane geometry, that is to say, by means of the 
 straight line and circle, inasmuch as the analytical equation 
 on which it depend- rises to the third degree ; but it maybe 
 accomplished by means of the conic sections and some oth- 
 er curves, as the quadratrix. The geometrical conditions 
 on which the solution of the problem depends may be ex- 
 plained as follows : 
 
 Let B A C be the angle, and suppose D A C to be its third 
 part. Through any point B in All 
 draw BC perpendicular to AC, and 
 P. E parallel to A C ; produce AD 
 to meet B E in E, and complete the 
 rectangle AFBC. NowslnceDAC 
 lathe thiol of li \ C, therefore BAD &■ 
 is equal to twice D A C, or twice B E A. Draw B G, making
 
 TRISMUS. 
 
 the angle E B G equal to BEG; then B G A, being equal 
 to G B E and G E B together, is equal to twice B E A, and 
 consequently equal to BAG. Hence the two triangles 
 E G B and G B A are isosceles, orGE = GB = BA. Again, 
 the angle G B D is the difference between a right angle and 
 E B G, and G D B or its equal A D C is the difference be- 
 tween a right angle and D A C, which is equal to E B G : 
 therefore G B D is equal to G D B, whence G D is equal to 
 G B or A B. It thus appears that D G and G E are each equal 
 to A B, or that D E is equal to twice A B, which is a given line. 
 If, therefore, in a rectangle A F B C, a straight line A D 
 could be drawn from the angular point A, so that on produ- 
 cing it to meet the opposite side F B the produced part 
 should be equal to a given straight line, the problem would 
 be solved. This is the condition to which the trisection of 
 the angle is reduced by Pappus of Alexandria, in the 4th 
 book of his Mathematical Collections, where he shows how 
 it may be constructed by means of an hyperbola. When, 
 however, the rectangle A FBC becomes a square, that is, 
 when the given angle B A C is half a right angle, the con- 
 struction is easily effected by elementary geometry. (See 
 Jjeslie's Geometrical Analysis.) 
 
 TEI'SMUS. (Gr. r/)i>, / gnash.) Lockjaw ; tetanus 
 affecting the jaw. There are two species of this malady: 
 the one caused by wounds, or, under certain circumstances, 
 by exposure to cold ; the other attacking infants during the 
 two first weeks from their birth. 
 
 TRI'SPAST, or TRISP ASTON. (Gr. rpus, three, and 
 oirau, I draw.) A machine with three pulleys acting in 
 connexion with each other for raising heavy weights. 
 
 TRI'THEISM. (Gr. rpus, three, and bco(, God.) In 
 Controversial Theology, an error into which some divines 
 appear to have unconsciously fallen in their zeal to support 
 the honour due to each of the three persons of the Trini- 
 ty. Sherlock in his controversy with South, whose views 
 seemed to tend to confound the separate natures of the Fa- 
 ther, Son, and Spirit, and were generally characterized as 
 Sabellian, is accused of having been betrayed into the oppo- 
 site dogma of Tritheism. 
 
 TRI'TICUM. See Wheat. 
 
 TRI'TON. In Mythology, a marine deity, son of Nep- 
 tune. Tritons are sometimes mentioned in the plural num- 
 ber. They were represented as half fish in form. In Zo- 
 ology, the name Tritonia has been given to a genus of ma- 
 rine, naked, gastropodons Mollusks, or sea-slugs. 
 
 TRl'TONE, or TRITONUS. (Gr. rpus. three, and toyos, 
 tone.) In Music, an interval, now generally called a sharp 
 fourth, consisting of four degrees, and containing three 
 tones between the extremes, on which account the ancients 
 gave it its name. It is, moreover, divisible into six semi- 
 tones, three diatonic and three chromatic. In dividing the 
 octave, we find on one side the tritone and on the other the 
 false fifth. 
 
 TRITO'XIDE. In Chemistry, such oxides as contain 
 one atom of base united to three atoms of oxygen. 
 
 TRI'UMPH. (Lat. triumphus.) The highest military 
 honour that could be obtained by a Roman general. It was 
 a solemn procession, with which the victorious leader and his 
 army advanced through the city to the capital, accompa- 
 nied by the captives taken in war, and vehicles bearing the 
 spoils, and all the furniture that could add magnificence to 
 the spectacle. On arriving at the capital the general offered 
 up a prayer of thanksgiving to Jupiter and the other gods, 
 and sacrificed white bulls. A triumph was decreed by the 
 senate, and sometimes by the people against the will of 
 the senate, to the general who in a just war with foreigners, 
 and in one battle, had slain above 5000 enemies of the state, 
 and enlarged the limits of the empire. See Ovation. 
 
 TRIUMPHAL ARCH. In Architecture, an arch erect- 
 ed to perpetuate the memory of a conqueror, or of some re- 
 markable victory or important event. At first it consisted 
 of a single arch, decorated merely with a statue and spoils 
 of the victorious commander ; but arches were afterwards 
 erected with two, and then with three passages. Those on 
 the Via Triumphalis in Rome were the most magnificent ; 
 and in cases where they served as gates, they were usually 
 constructed with two openings, so that one was appropriated 
 for carriages passing into, and the other for carriages pass- 
 ing out of the city. The following is a list of some of the 
 principal triumphal arches of antiquity : The arch at Rimi- 
 ni, erected in honour of Augustus on the completion of the 
 repairs of the Flaminian Way from Rome to that city. It 
 was one of the noblest as well as most ancient of the "arch- 
 es of the ancients, having a single passage about thirty-three 
 feet wide, and was, contrary to the usual practice, crowned 
 with a pediment. The lesser arch of Septimus Severus at 
 Rome, commonly called the Arch of the Goldsmiths, is a 
 curious example, being of a single opening, and crowned 
 with a flat lintel. An extremly elegant arch at Susa, on the 
 Italian side of Mont Cenis, in honour of Augustus. The 
 arches of Aurelian and Janus, which possess more singu- 
 larity than beauty. The arch of Pola, in Istria, which is 
 108 
 
 TROCHILUS. 
 
 curious from the use of coupled columns which it exhibits, 
 and was erected by Salvia Posthuma, in honour of Sergius 
 Lepidus and his two brothers. The arch of Trajan at 
 Ancona, which, though it has been stripped of its bronze 
 ornaments, retains the beauty of its effect and proportions, 
 and is still in tolerable preservation. It stands at the en- 
 trance of the mole or the port, and has four Corinthian col- 
 umns on pedestals. The arch of Titus at Rome, in which 
 the order used is Composite, and was probably erected after 
 the emperor's death. An arch at Benevento, in honour of 
 Trajan, somewhat resembling that of Titus at Rome, also 
 of the Composite order. An arch of Gavius at Verona, 
 called del Castel Vorchio, but no longer in existence. The 
 arch of Septimus Severus at Rome, at the foot of the cap- 
 ital, and that of Constantino in the same city. All these 
 are each with three openings. For the latter the arch of 
 Trajan was despoiled of its ornaments, as the greater part 
 of the bassi-relievi upon it represent the victories of that 
 emperor. It is in better preservation than any of the other 
 arches that we have mentioned, and was indebted for its 
 state to the care of Pope Clement XII. 
 
 TRIU'MVIRATE. In Ancient History, this term was 
 applied to two great coalitions of the three most powerful 
 individuals in the Roman empire for the time being. The 
 first of these was effected in the year U0 B.C. between Ju- 
 lius Csesar, Pompey, and Crassus, who pledged themselves 
 to support each other with all their influence. This coali- 
 tion was broken by the fall of Crassus at Carrha; in Meso- 
 potamia ; soon after which the civil war broke out, which 
 ended in the death of Pompey, and establishment of Julius 
 Cwsar as perpetual dictator. After his murder, 44 B.C., the 
 civil war again broke out between Antony, who wished to 
 avenge the death and succeed to the fortunes of Ciesar, and 
 the republic, on whose side were ranged Octavius and 
 Brutus. Lepidus with a large army remained in suspense 
 which side to take. But after the battle of Mutina, in 
 which both consuls fell, 43 B.C., Antony, Octavius, and 
 Lepidus coalesced ; thus forming the second triumvirate, 
 each party confirming the bond of union by the sacrifice 
 of some of his own friends to the hatred of the others— 
 in which case was Cicero, who was delivered up by Octa- 
 vius to the vengeance of Antony. Against this confeder- 
 ation Brutus still held out, with the rest of the conspirators 
 against Cffisar, till their destruction at the battle of Philip- 
 pi. The triumvirates divided the provinces of the empire, 
 Octavius taking the west, Lepidus Italy, and Antony the 
 east ; but the iniquitous union was soon broken by the pas- 
 sion of Antony for Cleopatra, which induced him to repu- 
 diate Octavia, the sister of Octavius. War ensued, which 
 was terminated by the defeat and death of Antony at Ac- 
 tium. in 32 B.C. ; after which everything fell into the hands 
 of Octavius, Lepidus offering no obstacle. 
 
 TRI'VIUM. (Lat. three ways.) The name given in the 
 schools of the middle ages to the first three liberal arts 
 (grammar, rhetoric, and logic) , which were studied together. 
 The other four (arithmetic, music, geometry, and astron- 
 omy) formed what was termed the quadrivium ; and the 
 two following mnemonic lines comprehend the whole: 
 
 Gram, loquitur ; Dia verba docet ; Rhe. verba ministrat J 
 Mus. canit; Ar. numeral; Ge. ponderat ; As. colit astra. 
 
 TRO'CAR. An instrument used in tapping for the dropsy. 
 This name is said to be corrupted from the French trois- 
 quarts, from the three sides of its point. 
 
 TROCHA'NTER. (Gr. rpcxw, Iran ; because the mus- 
 cles inserted into it are those chiefly concerned in the act 
 of running.) A name given to two processes (greater and 
 less trochanter) at the upper end of the thigh bone. 
 
 TRO'CHE. (Lat. trochus, or trochescus, dim. of wheel.) 
 A small round lozenge or cake, generally composed of sugar 
 and mucilage, united with small portions of more active 
 remedies, intended to be allowed gradually to dissolve in 
 the mouth. 
 
 TRO'CHEE. (Gr. Tpox"">c.) A rhythmical measure 
 consisting of two syllables, a long and short ; thus, — — '. 
 
 TRO'CHILUS. (Gr. rpox^os, a small bird.) This term 
 was applied by Linnaeus to the genus of small and brill- 
 iantly coloured birds which, from the energy and rapidity 
 of the vibrations of their wings during flight, are called 
 humming-birds. This genus includes the smallest of the 
 feathered tribe, and, if we except a few fishes, the most 
 diminutive of vertebrated animals : some humming-birds 
 scarcely exceed a humble-bee in size ; they are unable to 
 escape from the strong webs of the large spiders of the 
 American tropics, and thus sometimes become their prey. 
 
 The humming-birds are characterized by a long and slen- 
 der bill, inclosing an extensile bifid tongue, by which they 
 extract the nectar and the small insects which may lurk in 
 the recesses of flowers. They have very small feet, long 
 and narrow wings, a broad and entire sternum with an un- 
 usually deep keel and a short and strong humerus; all 
 combining to form a mechanism for rapid and powerful 
 flight, like that of the swift. Humming birds live in pairs : 
 4 K * 1273
 
 TROCHLEA. 
 
 they have the character of being very quarrelsome, the 
 males fighting desperately with each other: both sexes 
 combine to defend their nests with courage. 
 
 TRO'CHLEA. (Gr. rpoxaXca, Lat trochlea.) In Me- 
 chanics, the same as pulley or tackle. .See Pulley. 
 
 In Anal. imy, the term trochlea is applied to the cartilage 
 through which the tendon of the trocklearis muscle pass- 
 t a It is the superior oblique muscle of the eyeball, and is 
 accompanied by the trochlearis nerve. 
 
 TRO'CHOID. (Gr. rpo\os, a wheel, and eitoc, form.) 
 The curve described by any point in a wheel rolling straight 
 forward on a level. It is the same as the cycloid ; and for 
 an account of its principal properties, see Cycloid. The 
 B&me name is also given to another curve, sometimes called 
 the companion of the cycloid, or curve of arcs. 
 
 TEO'CHtJS. (Gr. rpoxoc.) The name given by Lin- 
 nsus to 8 genus of the Vermes Testacea, characterized by 
 a subcorneal spiral shell, with the margin entire, without a 
 fissure or canal for the siphon of the mantle, the animal not 
 possessing any respirator,- tube. The mouth of the shell is 
 closed by an operculum, or some analogous part. The spe- 
 cies tu which the characters of the Linntean genus are ap- 
 plicable constitute a family of Pectinibranchiate Gastro- 
 pods in the system of Cuvier, called Trochoida, which in- 
 cludes the following genera: Tectaria, Montfort ; Calcar, 
 Montf. ; Rotclla, Lam.; Ccintharis, Monlf. ; Infundibilum, 
 Montf. ; Tclescopium, Montf. ; Solarium, Montf. ; Euom- 
 phalus, Bowerby. The Gastropod called Turbe pica by 
 Linnaus, having been ascertained to have an operculum, is 
 now referred to the senus Trochus. 
 
 TRO'GLODYTES. (Gr. rpoyXv, cave, and rWw, I en- 
 ter.) Tribes of men who have their dwellings in subterra- 
 neous caverns. Several such tribes are mentioned by an- 
 cient authors, and the remains of their dwellings still attest 
 their existence ; especially along the banks of the Nile, in 
 Upper Egypt and Nubia, and in parts of Syria and Ara- 
 bia, See Bryant's Mythology, iv., 381.) 
 
 The chimpanzee has been called by Blumenbach Simia 
 troglodytes. 
 
 TROMBONE. (It.) A brass musical wind instrument 
 serving as the bass to the trumpet, to which in general form 
 it is similar, but of much larger dimensions. 
 
 TRO'NA. A native sesquicarbonate of soda found on 
 the banks of the soda lakes of Sukena in Africa. 
 
 TRON WEIGHT. The most ancient of the weights 
 11-1 >l in Scotland; and though its use is now prohibited by 
 law, it is still occasionally employed in some of the rural 
 districts in weighing wool, cheese, butter, &.c. The tron 
 pound was not a well-defined weight, but varied from 21 to 
 28 ounces avoirdupois. 
 
 TROOP. A body of mounted soldiers, equivalent to 
 company in foot regiments. The term troops is not limited 
 to cavalry, but extends to all kinds of soldiers, whether 
 mounted or not. 
 
 TROPjE'OLUM. (Lat. tropaum, a trophy; the leaves 
 resembling a buckler, and the flowers an empty helmet.) A 
 genus of handsome trailing plants, some of whose species 
 have pungent fruits, which have rendered them useful as 
 condiments. Indian cress, the name given to Tropaolum 
 i s their quality. They form a small group 
 nearly allied to the Geraniaccous order, if not forming a 
 part of it. 
 
 TROPE. (Gr. rpt™, I turn.) In Rhetoric, literally any 
 expression turned from its primary signification, and em- 
 ployed in a sense derived in some manner from that primary 
 'ion. In this sense, the general term trope, com- 
 ii various figures termed metaphor, allegory, me- 
 tonymy, synecdoche (which see), and perhaps several 
 Others. By the natural progress of language, words or 
 phrases at first employed as tropes become impressed so 
 strongly with their new or derivative signification, that it 
 finally supersedes the original; its tropical or figurative 
 being lost in its simply indicative character. 
 
 Ti:< iTIII. (Gr. rpefu), I nourish.) A name given by 
 
 Kirby to the different instruments of, or organs contained 
 
 in the mouth, or closing it, and employed in manducation 
 
 or deglutition. They include the labrum, labium, mandi- 
 
 i ill,/', lingua, and pharynx. 
 
 TROPHO'NIUB, in Creek Mythology, son of Erginus, 
 
 kin'.- of Orchomenos, together with his brother Agamedes, 
 
 built the temple of Apollo at Delphi ; and having prayed 
 
 for a reward from the god, it was promised him on the 
 
 Seventh day, on which he and his brother were both found 
 
 dead. The Story i< told in other ways. lie had a b mple 
 
 at Lebadea, as Jupiter Trophonius. In this temple was 
 
 the celebrated cave into which those who descended spoke 
 
 oracularly on their return; ami in this way responses were 
 
 made. But the impressions produced by the descent were 
 
 >.ii wort upon the spirit of a visitor, that he re- 
 
 B Victim to melancholy the remainder of his life. 
 
 Hence arose the proverb applied to a serious man— that he 
 
 looked a- ii he came out of the cave of Trophonius. Some 
 
 1274 
 
 TROUBADOURS. 
 
 thought that the priests had secret access to the cavern, 
 and that those whose minds did not give way under the 
 terror of tin scene which they encountered were murdered 
 by them. (See Bryant, Jlnc. Myth., vol. ii., p. 361.) 
 
 TRO'PHSPERM. (Gr. T pe<pu, I nourish, and oirzopa, a 
 seed.) A name given by some French botanists to the pla- 
 centa of a plant. 
 
 TROTH V. (Gr. rpo-zatov, from rptmii, I turn.) A monu- 
 ment consisting of some of the arms of slain enemies, hung 
 upon the trunk of a tree, or a stone pillar, by a victorious 
 army in token of its victory and the Bight of the enemy; 
 whence its name. Trophies were always dedicated to 
 some deity, and especially to Jupiter, whence it was deem- 
 ed sacrilegious for any cue to injure or demolish them; 
 while at the same time it was esteemed an equal crime to 
 repair them when decayed. This custom was common to 
 all the Greeks, except the Macedonians, who were forbid- 
 den to raise trophies by law of one of their ancient kings. 
 Perhaps the most celebrated trophies of ancient times were 
 those of Marius at Rome, which were of marble, and were 
 restored by Caisar after their destruction by Sylla, contrary 
 to all the usages of the times. (Pee as to Roman trophies, 
 Mt m. de l\1c. des Inscr., xAiv., 32.) 
 
 TROPICAL HIEROGLYPHICS. Sec Hieroglyphics. 
 
 TROTTCAL YEAR. (Gr. Tpovn, return.) The time 
 between the sun's leaving a tropic and returning to it; 
 popularly it means the time from the longest day in one 
 year till the longest in the next. See Year. 
 
 TROTICS, in Astronomy, are the parallels of declination, 
 between which the sun's annual path in the heavens is 
 contained, their distance from the equator being equal to 
 the sun's greatest declination. The northern tropic is 
 called the tropic of Cancer, and the southern one that of 
 Capricorn, from their touching the ecliptic in the first points 
 of those signs. 
 
 The distance of the tropics from each other is equal to 
 the difference between the greatest and least meridian alti- 
 tudes of the sun, observed at any place whose latitude is 
 greater than the obliquity of the ecliptic. See Ecliptic. 
 
 Tropics, in Geography, are the two parallels of latitude 
 on the earth, over which the sun is vertical when his de- 
 clination is greatest, or when it is the longest day in the 
 hemisphere in which the tropical circle is situated over 
 w hich the sun is, and the shortest in the other hemisphere. 
 
 TRO'PIDONO'TUS. (Gr. rpoTrts, a keel, and viotoc, the 
 back.) A genus of non-venomous serpents, nearly allied to the 
 true Colubers ; but with bodies thicker in proportion to their 
 length, the back more keel-shaped, and the abdomen more 
 expanded and convex; the head is large ami conical, with 
 a slender and short muzzle. The species seldom exceed 
 three or four feet in length ; they live near fresh water 
 streams, and are good swimmers : they are confined to the 
 old world continents, and are replaced in South America 
 by the genus Homalopsis. The Coluber scabcr, Linn, a ser- 
 pent of the Cape of Good Hope, remarkable lor the presence 
 of teeth in the (esophagus, and their absence from the 
 mouth, is referred to the genus TYopidonotus by Schlegel. 
 
 TROI BADOURS, i. e., Inventors. (Ital. iiovar ; i'r. 
 trouver, to find.) A school of poets who flourished from 
 the 11th to the latter end of the 13th century, principally in 
 the south of France, but also in Catalonia, Arragou, and 
 the north of Italy. They wrote in varieties of the Provencal 
 or Romance language, also called in the middle ages 
 Langue d'oc. They flourished under the lines of the Counts 
 of Toulouse, Barcelona, and Provence ; and their minstrel- 
 sy and peculiar spirit declined from the time of the crusade 
 against the Albigenses, when the former of these noble 
 houses was vanquished and humiliated, and their land over- 
 run by the sterner adventurers of the north. The most re- 
 nowned among the Troubadours were knights ; w ho culti- 
 vated poetry as an honourable accomplishment; but their 
 art declined in Its later days, when it was chieflj cultiva- 
 ted by minstrels of a lower class. The names and some of 
 the productions of more than 200 Troubadours have been 
 preserved, and among their numbers are to be found kings, 
 dukes, counts, and warriors of historical celebrity. The 
 most remarkable characteristics of the Provencal poetry 
 were its almost entire devotion to the subject of romantic 
 gallantry, and the very Complicated character, in general, of 
 its metre rhj mes. The principal species of composition cul- 
 tivated by the Troubadours were tenzones, or poetical con- 
 tests between tun minstrels; sometimes breathing satire or 
 defiance, sometimes mailing each other in the praise of 
 their ladies, sometimes aiming at nine e\i nions of verbal 
 
 ingenuity; sirventes, pieces devoted to martial and other 
 serious subjects; short songs, or ehanros : and a variety of 
 other lyrical strains, .<uitliis.lai.-i, pastourelles, arbades, ser- 
 enades, retronage, and redondes. The earliest Italian poets 
 framed their Btyle of though) and versification closely after 
 the model afforded them by the troubadours. (See Sismon- 
 di, Literature dn Midi de V Europe, vol. i. ; the works of 
 M. Raynouard; Mr. Lewis's Researches into the Homancs
 
 TROUGH OF THE SEA. 
 
 Language : Schlegel, Obser. sur la Langae et Liter. Pro- 
 ven^ale.) 
 
 TROUGH OF THE SEA. The ship is said to be in the 
 trough, when she lies parallel to the hollows between the 
 waves. 
 
 TROUT. (Lat. trutta.) This name is restricted properly 
 and specifically to the Salmo fario of Linnojus ; but is ap- 
 plied in a generic sense to other native species of Salmo, 
 the A', eriox, of Linnaeus, which is the S. satar of Rondele- 
 tius, being called the bull trout and grey trout ; the Salmo 
 feroz, the great grey trout, or lake trout ; the S. trutta, the 
 salmon trout, &c. The common trout inhabits most of our 
 lakes and rivers, and is subject to many varieties of colour, 
 proportions, and even of internal structure, as in the stomach 
 of the gillaroo-trout, according to the variations of soil and 
 food. The season of spawning with the trout is generally 
 in the month of October, at which period the gravid fish 
 make their way up the stream to the shallows. Trouts are 
 in finest condition from the end of May to September. 
 
 TRO'VER. In Law, is an action of tort. It is a species of 
 action on the case (see Action), which is employed to try 
 a disputed question of property in goods and chattels. The 
 declaration in trover assumes (by a fiction) that the plain- 
 till" lost, and the defendant found and converted to his own 
 use, the goods in question. 
 
 TROWELLED STUCCO. In Architecture, stucco left 
 ready for the reception of paint. 
 
 TROY WEIGHT. An English weight chiefly used in 
 weighing gold, silver, diamonds, and other articles of jewel- 
 lery. The pound troy contains 12 ounces or 5760 grains, 
 the pound avoirdupois containing 7000 of such grains. The 
 name is supposed to have reference to the monkish name 
 given to London, of Troy Novant. See Weights. 
 
 TRUCE. (Mod. Lat. treuga, from the Teutonic treue, 
 truth.) An agreement between states, or those represent- 
 ing them, for the suspension of hostilities. Such an agree- 
 ment, when made by officers of the state in the general ex- 
 ercise of their duty, and not authorized for the purpose ex- 
 pressly, or by necessary implification, ranks among that 
 class of conventions which jurists term sponsions, and 
 which are binding only if ratified. (.See Sponsion.) A 
 general armistice or truce differs from a partial, which is 
 limited to particular places ; as between two armies, or be- 
 tween a beseiged fortress and the besieging army. The 
 former, in general, requires ratification ; power to include 
 the latter is held to be implied in the general authority of 
 military and naval officers. (See Vattcl, book hi., ch. 16.; 
 IVheaton on International Law, vol. ii.) 
 
 TRUCE OF GOD, Treuga Dei. A suspension of arms, 
 which occasionally took place in the middle ages, putting a 
 stop to private hostilities. The right to engage in these hos- 
 tilities was jealously maintained by the inferior feudatories 
 of the several monarchies of Europe. But it was restrain- 
 ed by the repeated promulgation of these truces, under the 
 authority of the church. Thus, in the county of Roussillon, 
 A.D. 1027, it was determined in a synod of the clergy, that 
 no man should attack his enemy from the hour of nones on 
 Saturday to the hour of prime on Monday. In 1041, a gen- 
 eral " truce of God" was accepted by the barons, first of 
 Aquitain, and then of all France, to last from the Wednes- 
 day evening of every week to the Monday morning follow- 
 ing. This regulation was admitted by Edward the Confes- 
 sor in England, in 1042, with some additions of great festi- 
 vals and other days. It was confirmed by many councils, 
 especially the Lateran council of 1179. The observation of 
 it was sworn by knights, burgesses, and peasants, of the 
 age of fourteen and upwards ; and the penalty of its in- 
 fringement was excommunication, which, however, was 
 quite insufficient to maintain it. Phillippe Auguste intro- 
 duced a new species of truce, termed the quarantine, by one 
 of his ordinances. It restrained the family of an injured or 
 murdered person from the commencement of hostilities until 
 forty days after the act done, under penalty of high treason. 
 
 TRUCK. The small wooden cap at the extremity of a flag 
 staff', or at the mast head. Also a small circular piece of wood 
 With a hole bored through it for a rope to run through. 
 
 TRUCK SYSTEM. A name given to a practice that has 
 prevailed, particularly in the mining and manufacturing dis- 
 tricts, of paying the wages of workmen in goods instead of 
 money. The plan has been for the masters to establish 
 warehouses or shops ; and the workmen in their employ- 
 ment have either got their wages accounted for to them by 
 supplies of goods from such dep6ts, without receiving any 
 money ; or they have got the money, with a tacit or express 
 understanding that they were to resort to the warehouses 
 or shops of their masters for such articles as they were fur- 
 nished with. (For the advantages and disadvantages of 
 this system, see Com. Die.) 
 
 TRU'FFLE. A subterranean fungus, of a roundish ob- 
 long form, and a blackish brown colour, much employed in 
 cookery. It is found by dogs and pigs, trained for the pur- 
 pose, in soil beneath trees, especially beeches and oaks ; it 
 
 TRUMPET. 
 
 is, however, very local. It is propagated by spores inclu- 
 ded in sinuous chambers in the interior ; but has never yet 
 been cultivated with success, notwithstanding many at- 
 tempts that have been made. Botanists recognise several 
 kinds of truffles, the commonest being the Tuber cibarium, 
 
 TRU'MPET. In Acoustics, an instrument used for the 
 purpose either of conveying articulate sounds to a great dis- 
 tance, or for applying to the ear, in order to collect the sono- 
 rous rays, and render sounds more distinct. In the former 
 case, the instrument is a speaking-trumpet ; in tke latter, a 
 hearing-trumpet. 
 
 Speaking-trumpet. — The object of the speaking-trumpet 
 is to increase the intensity of speech, and transmit it to con- 
 siderable distances in a particular direction. In order to 
 obtain this effect, it is necessary that the aerial undulations 
 which would disperse themselves in all directions, be con- 
 fined by the sides of the trumpet, and reflected so as to take, 
 as nearly as possible, a direction parallel to the axis. This is 
 accomplished by giving the trumpet such a form that its di- 
 ameter becomes greater towards the extremity furthest from 
 the mouth. A cylindrical or prismatic tube, of equal diam- 
 eter throughout, assists powerfully in conveying sound from 
 one extremity to the other, but contributes in no degree to 
 give a direction to sound, or transmit it through free air. 
 
 The theoretical explanation of the effects of the speaking- 
 trumpet is attended with considerable difficulty. Assuming 
 that the reflexion of sound takes place according to the 
 laws of catoptrics, Lambert (Berlin Memoirs for 1763) showa 
 the best form of the instrument is a truncated cone, for the 
 rays successively reflected from the interior surface of this 
 figure make smaller angles with the axis after each succes- 
 sive reflexion. Cassegrain (Journal des Savans, torn, iii.) 
 recommends the surface formed by the revolution of a hy- 
 perbola about its asymptote ; and Kircher had previously 
 proposed a truncated parabolic conoid, the mouth-piece 
 occupying the focus. Some authors suppose that the trum- 
 pet should be formed of a very elastic material, in order to 
 strengthen the sound by its vibrations. Others are of 
 opinion that it should be without elasticity, to avoid the con- 
 fusion that might be caused by the vibrations of the tube. 
 Hassenfratz (Journal de Physique, torn, lvi.), who made a 
 number of experiments on the power of the trumpet, by fix- 
 ing a small watch in the mouth-piece, and observing the 
 distance at which the beats ceased to be audible, found that 
 the effects were precisely the same with a trumpet of tinned 
 iron, whether used in its naked form, or tightly bound round 
 with linen to prevent vibration, or when lined with woollen 
 cloth, whereby reflexion was entirely prevented. It would 
 appear, therefore, that neither the shape of the instrument, 
 nor the material of which it is formed, is of much conse- 
 quence. Leslie (Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and 
 Propagation of Heat) supposes the effect of the trumpet to 
 be owing to the more condensed and vigorous impulsion 
 given to the air from its lateral flow being checked. "The 
 tube," he observes, " by its length and narrowness, detains 
 the efflux of air, and has the same effect as if it diminished 
 the volubility of that fluid, or increased its density. The 
 organs of articulation strike with concentrated force ; and 
 the pulses, so vigorously thus excited, are, from the re- 
 flected form of the aperture, finally enabled to escape, and 
 to spread themselves along the atmosphere," p. 225. 
 
 The invention of the speaking-trumpet is commonly as- 
 cribed to Sir Samuel Moreland, who, about the year 1670, 
 proposed the best form of the speaking-trumpet as a ques- 
 tion to the Royal Society, and exhibited some instruments 
 constructed according to his own views. These were, in 
 general, large conical tubes, spreading suddenly, at the ex- 
 tremity, to a greater width. They were tried in St. James's 
 Park ; and it is stated that their effects were such that the 
 king (Charles II.), speaking in his ordinary colloquial pitch 
 of voice, through a trumpet of only five feet and a half 
 long, was distinctly heard at the distance of 1000 yards. 
 Another person was perfectly understood at the distance of 
 four miles and a half. Kircher claims the credit of having 
 made such experiments previously; but his remarks apply 
 rather to hearing than to speaking-trumpets. 
 
 Hearing-trumpet. — The hearing-trumpet, or ear-trumpet, 
 may be considered as a reversed speaking-trumpet, with 
 which it generally corresponds in form, though, for the sake 
 of portability, it is often made curved or spiral. Lambert 
 recommends the parabolic figure as the most advantageous ; 
 but, in order to give the greatest effect, the apex of the para- 
 boloid must be cut off*, and the mouth of a small tube in- 
 serted in the focus, to convey the sound concentrated at 
 that point to the auditory organ. Various other forms are 
 adopted in practice ; and, of late years, flexible India rub- 
 ber tubes have been brought into use, having a conical 
 mouth-piece of ivory or silver at one extremity, and a 
 small tube of like material, to be applied to the ear. A 
 trumpet of this kind may be used advantageously, not only 
 for remedying the defects of the organ of hearing, but for 
 assisting the observer to collect feeble and distant sounds. 
 
 1275
 
 TRUNDLE. 
 
 Moreland on the Speaking-Trumpet, 1671; Chladni, 
 Traiti its Suns : Gehler, i'hysickalisches Wurtcrbuch, art. 
 " HCrrohr.") 
 
 Trumpet. A mnalca] w ind instrument usually made of 
 brass, but sometimes of diver. This instrument former- 
 ly possessed but few notes: but in later times it has, by 
 ml keys, been vastly extended in its in- 
 flexions. Its compass w ill be seen by referring to the synop- 
 i [lie ditrerent instruments at the end of the ar- 
 ticle Mi si< • 
 
 TRU'-NDLE. In Mechanics, a pinion having its teeth 
 formed of thick cylinders or swindles ; otherwise called a 
 lantern wheel, or toallotoer. 
 
 TRUNK. (Lai. truncus.) In Architecture, the same as 
 shaft. In the application of this word to a pedestal, it sig- 
 nifies the die, dado, or body of the pedestal. 
 
 Trunk, in Entomology, signifies the intermediate section 
 of the body which lies between the head and the abdomen. 
 
 TRU'NNIONS. The pivots or short cylinders projecting 
 from the sides of a piece of ordnance, by which it rests on 
 the cheeks of the carriage. The trunnion ring is the ring 
 on a cannon next before the trunnions. 
 
 TRUSS. (Fr. trousser ) In Architecture, a framed as- 
 semblage of pieces of timber for the purpose of tying up or 
 suspending a principal beam or piece. Sec Roof. 
 
 Truss. A rope confining the middle of a lower yard to 
 the mast. 
 
 Trcss, in Surgery, is an apparatus by which in cases of 
 rupture the intestine is retained in the abdominal cavity. 
 This is usually effected by the aid of a steel spring resting 
 upon a small pad or cushion, which is kept in its place by a 
 proper bandage. 
 
 TB 1 SSED ROOF. In Architecture, one so constructed as 
 to support the principal rafters and tie beam at certain points 
 where bending of the timber is likely to occur. See Roof. 
 
 TRUST. In Law, is a term commonly used to designate 
 any equitable right or interest, as distinguished from a legal 
 one : properly, that class of equitable rights supposed to be 
 founded in the confidence placed by one party in another; 
 the name trustee denoting the person in whom confidence 
 is placed ; cestui/ que trust, the person who trusts — in other 
 words, the parly who enjoys a beneficial interest in the ob- 
 jects of which the trustee has the legal property. 
 
 The origin of conveyances in trust may be traced to the 
 jidii cummissum of the Romans, which was a gift by will 
 to a person capable of taking in trust for another incapable 
 by the Roman law of taking such benefit, whose claim un- 
 der such gifts was for a long time precarious, and merely 
 fiduciary, but came at length to be recognised and enforced 
 by law. With us in the same manner, the original motive 
 for the introduction of the fiduciary right, which was cer- 
 tainly borrowed from the Romans, was the wish to escape 
 from the disabilities atlecting certain persons, or bodies, or 
 tile liabilities attached to property in its direct and simple 
 Shape. Such was, in particular, the disability of corpora- 
 tions to purchase land at common law; and on this ac- 
 count, as it is commonly said, the ecclesiastics, who were 
 chiefly interested in this matter, introduced this new spe- 
 cies of property, which was willingly recognised by the 
 chancellors, then usually ecclesiastics, and in other respects 
 inclined to adopt the principles of the civil law. The clergy 
 were, however, soon themselves deprived of the benefit of 
 the invention, the disability of corporations to take land 
 ded bj statute to the new right so created. But 
 there still remained many liabilities arising from feudal 
 tenure, incident to property at common law; such as, for 
 instance, dower, escheat, wardship, restraint upon aliena- 
 tion by will, which it was desirable and possible cither to 
 evade by this mode of conveyance in trust, or to transfer to 
 a quarter leas Likelj to In- affi cted bj them ; and there were 
 also many no of property for the benefit of fami- 
 
 lies, which could only be given to it in this maimer. It 
 must be admitted, further, that there were less honest pur- 
 poses, such as the defraud purchasers by secret 
 alienation, sought to be attained by the same means. For 
 among other reasons, conveyances in trust were still 
 resorted to; and the Court of Chancery, which had once, 
 for whatever reason, originally recognised, continued to en- 
 force them. 
 
 'fin re were also two other means of creating a trust, or 
 rather raising a use, not by actual conveyance; the one by 
 agreement lor mone) : the other by covenant under seal in 
 consideration of near relationship. 
 
 The right so created was called indifferently a trust or 
 mmonly the latter, from the actual enjoy- 
 ment of the rents anil profits annexed to it in equity. In- 
 deed, the benefit of the use or trust was in the first instance 
 this ; but tin- cestUJS que use, or parlies benefi- 
 cially interested, soon acquired the righl of directing a con- 
 ilie holders of the legal estate, legally termed 
 tin- feoffees to uses, and also of calling upon them to use 
 tlie legal title in their defence in a court of common law. 
 JJ7U 
 
 TRUST. 
 
 Several statutes were passed at different times, giving to 
 the owner of the use or trust partial legal rights, and par- 
 tially also subjecting interests of that sort to legal liabili- 
 ties, before the celebrated statute, commonly called the 
 Statute of Uses, which was passed in the 'J7lh year of 
 Henry VIII. The general object of this statute, as slated 
 in the preamble, was to prevent those secret and fraudulent 
 transfers occasioned by the separation of the real from the 
 apparent ownership, and to restore those rights of the feudal 
 lord, and of the crown, which had been in a great measure 
 evaded, by keeping the legal title to which alone they at- 
 tached in a course of succession ; where it was likely to be 
 forfeited by treason, and where it was less frequently sub- 
 ject by descent to an infant heir to the burden of wardship 
 and relief. The general effect of the statute as staled in 
 the title, was the transferring or changing the use into pos- 
 session, that is, annexing to the use the legal right of pos- 
 session, whereby the real owner would be made manifest 
 to all, and the real ownership would become subject to all 
 the liabilities incident to the legal title ; in short, the dis- 
 tinction between equitable and legal rights would be abol- 
 ished, and the adjudication on all questions of property, 
 except in particular cases of fraud or accident, would be 
 restored to ihe courts of common law. 
 
 The statute, however, was so worded as not to apply 
 either lo copyholds or leaseholds, nor indeed to personal 
 property of any description, which at that time was little 
 thought of; so that equitable rights in copyholds and per- 
 sonalty remained as before, merely equitable ; and they 
 arose again, very shortly afterwards, in every species of 
 real property, it being held by the courts of common law 
 that such uses or trusts only were executed and transferred 
 into possession by the statute, as were raised or declared 
 upon what was before the statute the legal seisin or 
 estate ; so that where a new legal estate taking etfect as 
 such by virtue of the statute was created or conveyed in 
 trust, such trust-right not being within the purview of the 
 statute, and not being recognised by the courts of common 
 law, was adopted and enforced in equity, for reasons alto- 
 gether similar in kind to those which originally led to the 
 introduction of uses. Hence a new system of equitable 
 rights grew up under the name of trusts, commensurate 
 with the new system of legal rights or uses (for the use 
 henceforth denoted the legal estate), created by the statute ; 
 and though some of the peculiar advantages of the old trust 
 were, by the effect of the statute, transferred to the new 
 legal ownership, such as the capability of modification for 
 the benefit of different parties upon different events, and 
 though the right of disposition by will was shortly after- 
 wards extended to it by special statute, and though w hat- 
 ever advantages were still possessed by the trust, as a 
 means of evading the burdens of tenure or other liabilities 
 now attached to the use, were gradually removed either 
 by the abolition of those burdens or the extension of those 
 liabilities, trusts still continued and continue to be habitu- 
 ally resorted to for various purposes. These are, generally, 
 either to protect the interests of married women and child- 
 ren, by placing in the hands of trustees for them the legal 
 rights which they would be incapable of exercising; or to 
 secure the rights of those in remainder, by severing from 
 the usufruct of property for a life the power of disposing of 
 the whole; or, lastly, the convenience of management, 
 where many parties are interested in the same subject. 
 These observations can apply only, at least with one or 
 two exceptions, to express trusts. An express trust sup- 
 poses a legal transfer of the property actually completed, 
 and a declaration in the same instrument, or having re- 
 ference to the same instrument (as an appointment under 
 a power thereby created) of the trust upon which the pro- 
 peri;, so transferred is to be held. Such trusts ma) he de- 
 clared in or by a reference to any instrument, either deed 
 or will, that js sufficient to pass property at law ; the ground 
 upon which they rest is the express confidence that is placed 
 in the trustee, by the person who transfers the property to 
 him, no consideration of money or blood between the trus- 
 tee and those for whom lie holds being required as an in- 
 ducement for the Interference of equity. Trusts are most 
 commonly raised by marriage settlements, or by will. The 
 usual trusts in the former ease, as to real estate, are upon 
 h"_'al estates in terms of years, to arise upon certain events, 
 
 to be held in trust, in the first place, for securing to the 
 
 wile payment of hei pin money during marriage, and of 
 her jointure after the husband's death ; then for the rais- 
 iiiL', by sale or mortgage of the term, the Stipulated provi- 
 sions lor younger children, and also for pm\ iding lor their 
 
 maintenance during minority. The ultimate trust of such 
 terms, whether expressed or not, tofor the person entitled 
 
 to the i oi| as of the estate, subject to those charges which 
 the terms are created to secure. Similar tiusls, also, 
 
 are commonly raised in wills, for the maintenance or 
 advancement and portioning of younger children. In all 
 such cases, the legal rights vested in the trustees most
 
 TRUST. 
 
 commonly remain in their hands, as a means only of 
 compelling tlie person actually in possession to discharge 
 those claims subject to which he holds his estate. But 
 there are other trusts of frequent occurrence, both in mar- 
 riage-settlements and in wills, which require a more active 
 interference on the part of the trustees, and which, there- 
 fore, carry with them a greater degree of responsibility. 
 These are trusts for the sale of land and investment of the 
 proceeds upon security, or in the purchase of other land, 
 or trusts for the investment of what was originally person- 
 alty; in which cases, it is important for the trustees to 
 consider, in the first place, how far the trust for sale or 
 conversion is imperative and immediate, lest by delay they 
 become liable for any loss that may ensue from the al tera- 
 tion in the value or price of land securities; in the next 
 place, what are the securities in which they are directed to 
 invest, as they will be answerable for the failure of any 
 security a resort to which has not been authorized by the 
 terms of the trust. Where these securities are private, or 
 where a purchase of land is made with trust moneys, they 
 are further bound to see that the usual professional inquiries 
 are in either case instituted into the validity of the title. 
 It is obviously their duty, also, to look to the due appropria- 
 tion or distribution of the proceeds. Where there is aeon- 
 version absolute, or, as it is called, out and out, of realty 
 into personalty, or of personalty into realty, either agreed to 
 or directed by deed or will, land is in equity considered as 
 money, and money as land, for all the purposes of succes- 
 sion or transmission ; but it rarely happens that a conver- 
 sion by will is in terms sufficiently absolute to exclude the 
 right of the heirs, or, where it is personalty, the rights of 
 the personal representative, to such part of the real or per- 
 sonal estate, whether actually converted or not, as shall 
 not be required to fulfil the purposes for which the conver- 
 sion was directed. 
 
 The system of trusts is still more generally prevalent in 
 limitations of copyhold and personal property, particularly 
 personal chattels, as money or stock in the funds, to neither 
 of which classes of property the Statute of Uses applied, 
 and in which, therefore, the legal interest remained, at 
 least for a time, subject to the narrow rules of the common 
 law; and copyhold property is, therefore, for this as well as 
 for other reasons, more commonly settled upon trust than 
 is property of freehold tenure. Personal property, though 
 once held incapable at common law of partial or shifting 
 limitations, has long, by a somewhat forced though ingeni- 
 ous rule of construction, been released from that restric- 
 tion ; and therefore in the settlement of chattels real, of 
 which the title is distinct from the possession, the creation 
 of a distinct equitable title is not more often resorted to 
 than in the settlement of real property of freehold tenure. 
 But it is in regard to that sort of personal property, the title 
 to which, or rather the power of conferring a title to which, 
 is annexed to the possession, either from the nature of the 
 thing itself, as in the case of money, or for reasons of pub- 
 lic convenience, as in the case of bills of exchange, and in 
 regard also to stock in the funds (a class of property over 
 which the holder, whether it be in trust or not, has by the 
 regulations of the bank absolute power of alienation)" that 
 the utility of trusts is more particularly conspicuous. When- 
 ever it is sought to create in any such property shifting or 
 partial interests, nothing in such cases can secure future or 
 contingent rights from the dishonesty of the tenant for life 
 or partial owner but the intervention of trustees, in whose 
 hands the whole legal interest, that is to say, the whole 
 power of alienation, resides ; and though a similar danger 
 is sometimes to be apprehended even at their hands, yet 
 their number itself, and the discretion that may be exer- 
 cised in their appointment, afford a greater security than is 
 to be found in the integrity of a single individual. 
 
 Duties of Trustees. — It is only in cases of express trusts, 
 whether such in the origin, or become such by the accept- 
 ance and acknowledgement of the legal owner undertaking 
 to act as trustee, that the rules respecting the duties, lia- 
 bilities, and rights of trustees are applicable. As to their 
 liabilities, they are liable not only for such sums as they 
 actually have received, but for such also as they might, 
 but for their wilful neglect or default have received. Where 
 there are several trustees, each is generally liable for his own 
 acts and receipts only; but where all concur in empower- 
 ing either one of themselves, or a third party, to do or re- 
 ceive that which he could not do or receive but by virtue 
 of such authorization, all are responsible for his acts and 
 receipts under such joint authority. It is the duty of trus- 
 tees, besides being faithful accountants, to apply and distri- 
 bute rightly the property they are entrusted with according 
 to the various rights of the parties entitled to it; and they 
 are liable for any misapplication, arising either from ignor- 
 ance of facts which they ought to have known, i. e„ might 
 by common diligence have known, or from ignorance of 
 the law in any case. It is their business, then, as to the 
 first, to inquire diligently into all the circumstances of the 
 98 
 
 TUBERCLE. 
 
 trust; and as to the second, where, upon consulting profes- 
 sional advisers, there appears to be any reasonable doubt, 
 to refer it to the opinion of the court by instituting a suit 
 for the fulfilment of the trust. The rights of trustees are 
 confined to the reimbursement of their proper expenses out 
 of the trust property. An express trust will not fail for the 
 want of trustees ; where none are nominated, the court will 
 take upon itself the appointment. To the same class of 
 trusts proper, that is to say, equitable rights arising from 
 confidence reposed, may be assigned implied or resulting 
 trusts, in which the confidence is not expressed, but implied 
 by courts of equity from the want of consideration or mo- 
 tive apparent in such cases, to give away the whole, or, as 
 it may be, any part of the beneficial interest. Such trusts 
 arise, in the first place, upon the conveyance or transfer, 
 by deed or will, of property real or personal upon some 
 trust expressly declared, which does not exhaust the whole 
 beneficial interest, or expressly upon trust, though no trust 
 be declared ; in the first of which cases, the surplus of the 
 beneficial ownership, after satisfaction of the express pur- 
 pose or trust, and in the second case, the whole of tiie 
 ownership, results to the party making such conveyance 
 or transfer. To the former class of partial resulting trusts 
 belongs the equity of redemption upon a mortgage, which 
 is an equitable right resulting to the mortgagor after all right 
 of redemption is forfeited at law, to recover back the thing 
 mortgaged upon payment of the capital and interest of the 
 money borrowed upon the security of such pledge. This 
 equity of redemption subsists in favour of the real or per- 
 sonal representatives of the mortgagor against the real or 
 personal representative mortgagee, till it is destroyed either 
 by twenty years of the adverse possession, i. e., possession 
 without any acknowledgment whatever of any rights in the 
 mortgagor, or, which is the most common case, by decree 
 of foreclosure in equity, by which a peremptory day is fixed. 
 Trusts of a similar nature frequently arise upon devises 
 of real property for payment of debts, in which cases a 
 trust results in the surplus, either for the heir, or the resid- 
 uary devisee, where there is one ; but it should be observ- 
 ed, that where any specific purpose for which a trust is 
 created by devise in the produce of land fails of taking 
 effect, such as a legacy charged upon land by predecease 
 of the legatee, or a similar legacy void under the Statute 
 of Mortmain, the benefit of the lapse results to the heir, 
 and not to the residuary devisee, who takes by such devise 
 not that which ultimately is not applicable to the purposes 
 of the will, but that only which the testator expresses no 
 intention of otherwise disposing of. But where a legacy, 
 payable out of the personalty, fails of taking effect, the 
 lapse shall enure for the benefit of the residuary legatee, 
 where there is one, in preference to the next of kin ; the 
 reason of the difference being that previous to the late Wills 
 Act a devise of land spoke from the time of the will, a be- 
 quest of personalty from the death of the testator. 
 
 A trust is implied in the whole beneficial ownership upon 
 the conveyance or transfer by deed of the legal interest in 
 real or personal property; i. e., where it is either chattels 
 real or stock, or where the corpus of the property is not ac- 
 tually delivered to a person from whom no motive or conr 
 sideration moves, and in whose favour no declaration of 
 trust is contained in such deed or instrument ; in which 
 case a trust is implied, either for the party making such 
 conveyance or transfer, or for the person from whom it is 
 shown aliunde that the consideration for such conveyance 
 or transfer, as, for instance, the money with which the 
 purchase was made, actually moved. The implication of 
 resulting trusts has, perhaps, arisen through an unwise de- 
 parture from the Statute of Frauds, as it is a reliance upon 
 parol evidence in opposition to the legal title. It should, 
 however, be observed, that the parol evidence, upon w hich 
 such trusts may he raised, must be evidence, not of decla- 
 rations or intention, but parol evidence of facts, as, for in- 
 stance, of the payment of money by a person not the no- 
 minal purchaser ; but to repel a presumption of a trust parol 
 evidence of a declaration of intention is admissible, because 
 such evidence is corroborative of the legal import of the deed. 
 TRUTH. In the Fine Arts, a faithful adherence in rep- 
 resentation to the models of nature, or the prototypes on 
 which the principles of art are founded. 
 
 TRY'ING, or A-TRY. In Naval Language, a word 
 somewhat obsolete for heaving or hove to. 
 
 TRY'SAIL. A small gaff sail of strong or storm canvass, 
 set in bad weather. 
 
 TUBE. (Lat. tubus.) A pipe or long hollow body. A 
 tube is generally understood to signify a hollow cylinder, 
 but the cylindrical form is not essential. 
 
 TUBER. In Botany, a kind of fleshy stem, formed un- 
 derground, and filled with starch. It is commonly looked 
 upon as a root, as in the potatoe. Also the systematical 
 name of the truffle. 
 
 TUBERCLE. In Morbid Anatomy, this term is applied 
 to certain diseased structures, as tubercles of the lungs ; 
 
 1277
 
 TUBERCLE OF LOWER. 
 
 small hard superficial tumors of the skin are also called 
 tubercles. 
 
 II ItKKCLE OF LOWER. An eminence in the right 
 auricle nt" the heart where the two vense cava? meet; it 
 was first described by Richard Lower, in 1665. 
 
 TUBE'RCULA QUADRIGEMINA. Pour white oval 
 tubercles in the brain, two of which are situated on each 
 side, over the orifice of the third ventricle and the aque- 
 duct of Silvias. The old anatomists called them nates and 
 testes. 
 
 TU'BICOLES, Tubieola. (Lat. tubus, a tube, colo, / in- 
 habit.) The name of an order of Anellidans. comprehend- 
 ing those which live in tubes, and which are Cephalobran- 
 chiate : also the name of a family of Lamellihranchiate 
 Acephalous Mollusks, including those which have a tubu- 
 lar calcareous sheath in addition to the two shellv valves. 
 
 TUTHCORNS, Tubieoniia. (Lat tabus; cornu, a Aom.) 
 The name of a family of the order of Ruminants compre- 
 hending those in which the horns are composed of a horny 
 axis co vered with a homy sheath. 
 
 TU'BIFEBS, Tubifera. (Lat. tubus; fero, J carry.) 
 The na given by Lamarck to an order of the class Poly- 
 pi, comprising those which are united upon a common sub- 
 stance fixed at Its base, and whose surface is wholly or par- 
 tially covered With retractile hollow tubes. 
 
 TUBIPORES, Tubipnra. (Lat. tubus: porn?, a pore.) 
 The name of a family of Zoophytes, comprehending those 
 in which the animals are isolated and contained in elon- 
 gated cylindrical calcareous cells, attached by their base, 
 and strengthened by cross bars at definite distances. 
 
 TUBULA'RIA. The name of a genus of Corallines, 
 with simple or branched horny tubes, from the extremities 
 of which the polypes are protruded; these have two rows 
 of tantaces, of which the external is expanded in a radiated 
 manner, the internal one raised into a tuft. 
 
 TUBULIBRA'NCHIANS, Tubal ibranchiata. (Lat. tu- 
 bus ; branchiae gills.) The name of an order of Her- 
 maphrodite Gastropodous Mollusks, comprehending those 
 which have the shell in the form of a more or less irregular 
 tube in which the branchia are lodg< d. 
 
 TUBU'LICOLES, Tubulicola ; Polypes a Tuijaur. (Lat. 
 tubus; colo, / inhabit.) A name applied by Cuvier to a 
 family of Polypes, including those which inhabit tubes of 
 which the axis is traversed by the gelatinous flesh, and 
 which are open at the summits or sides to give passage to 
 the digestive sacs and prehensile mouths of the polypes. 
 
 TU'ESDAY. la the Calendar, the third day of the week, 
 named after Tuisco, the Saxon god of war ; whence the as- 
 tronomical symbol is the same as that for the planet Mars. 
 As to the god Tuisco, or Tuisto, see Mem. de VAcad. des 
 Inscr.. vol. xxiv. 
 
 TUFA. (Italian.) A volcanic rock, composed of an 
 agglutination of fragmented BCOlie. 
 
 Tl I'D. In Architecture, a species of porus, light, sandy, 
 calcareous stone, suited to the construction of vaults. The 
 travt riino, with which the cupola of St. Peter's is con- 
 structed, is of this species. 
 
 TU'GENDBUND. (Germ, union of virtue.) A patriotic 
 association formed in Prussia after the treaty of Tilsit in 
 1807. Its object was to prepare the people of that country 
 by moral instruction and discipline for better times. It was 
 abolished at the instigation of the French ; but its spirit sur- 
 vived, and it had great effect in promoting the national war 
 against Napoleon in 1813. 
 
 TU'LIPA. (Turkish, toliban.) A gay flower inhabiting 
 the warmer parts of Europe and Asia Minor. It is well 
 known for the gaudiness of its colours, which have made 
 it a favourite with gardeners, who have converted its cul- 
 tivation into a system of gambling, which the Dutch have 
 been obliged to repress by sumptuary laws. It is a genus of 
 the Liliaceous order. 
 
 TUMBLE HOME. The term describing the falling or 
 bending Inwards of the upper timbers of the ship's side. 
 
 TU'MBREL. (Old Fr. tumerrl.) A low carriage with 
 two wheels, occasionally u^ed for the most ordinary pur- 
 poses by fanners ; but it is chiefly used fur carrying the- Im- 
 plements of the pioneers attached to trains of artillery. 
 
 TU'MULI. Sec Barrows. 
 
 TUN. A measure of capacity. The English tun con- 
 tains 252 gallons, or 4 hogsheads'. See To*. 
 
 TUNE. (fir. rows-) In Music, the relation of notes to 
 each other and the distances between them, wherefrom 
 arises melody. In other words, it is a certain succession of 
 different single Bounds arranged according to art. 
 
 TU'NGSTATES. Compounds of the tungstic acid. See 
 Tongs 
 
 TUNGSTEN. (Swedish, tung sten, heavy stone.) The 
 ores of this metal are the native tungstate of lime, and the 
 tungstate of iron and manganese; the latter mineral is 
 known under the name of Wolfram. Tungsten i~ a white, 
 hard, brittle metal, very difficult of fusion, and having the 
 high specific gravity of 171. Heated to redness in the open 
 1278 
 
 TUNTsTZL. 
 
 air, it burns into ihc peroxide, or tungstic acid. The equiva- 
 lent of tungsten is probably about 100 ; and the tungstic acid 
 consists of 1 atom of metal and 3 atoms of oxygen (8X3 
 = 24), and is represented by the equivalent 124. This 
 metal was discovered by Messrs. Delhuyart. It is some- 
 times called Hu/framium, and also Scheeiium, in honour of 
 Schecle, who first examined the nature of tungstate of 
 lime. 
 
 TUNIC. (Lat. tunica.) A garment wom by the ancient 
 Romans of both sexes, under the toga (which see), and next 
 to the skin. It was generally of wool, of a white colour, 
 and it reached below the knee. The senators wore their 
 tunics with a broad stripe of purple sewed on the breast : 
 the equites had narrow stripes ; hence the epithets lati- 
 clavii and murustt'clavii, applied respectively to these orders. 
 
 TUNICARIES, Tunicata. (Lat tunica, a tunic) The 
 name of an order of Acephalous Mollusks. comprehending 
 those in which the exterior covering is uncalcified, soft, and 
 elastic: it is equivalent to the Ascidics of Savigny, and the 
 Aecphales sans Coouilles of Cuvier. 
 
 TUNKERS, or DUNKERS. A religious sect, a subdi- 
 vision of the Baptists : chiefly found in Pennsylvania. Their 
 name is said to be derived from tunken, Germ., to dip: be- 
 cause in baptism they plunge the person head foremost into 
 the water. They differ little in doctrine from other Bap- 
 tists ; but every brother is allowed to speak in their churches. 
 This society was originally founded by one Conrad Beissel, 
 in 1720 ; Who founded a colony called " Ephrata," sixty 
 miles from Philadelphia. They wear long beards. 
 
 TU'XNEL. (Sax. tcenel.) In Engineering, a subterra- 
 nean passage cut through a hill or under a river, for the 
 purpose of earning a canal, road, railway, &c. 
 
 In the construction of railways and canals, it is some- 
 times absolutely necessary, and very frequently expedient, 
 to have recourse to tunnelling, either to preserve the requi- 
 site level, or shorten the distance, or to lessen the expense 
 of open cutting. The circumstances on which the question 
 of expediency depends are often of a very complicated na- 
 ture ; but, generally speaking, it must be decided by con- 
 siderations of economy, for in the present state of engineer- 
 ing, a tunnel may be made of almost any length, and 
 through materials of any description, from a granite rock to 
 a quicksand. The nature of the ground can hardly be said 
 to interpose any farther obstacle than what may be occa- 
 sioned by the expense. 
 
 On account of the peculiar nature of the difficulties to be 
 overcome, the tunnel which has recently been carried under 
 the bed of the Thames, from Rotherhitiie to Wapping, may 
 perhaps be regarded as the most remarkable work of the 
 kind which has ever been executed. A short account of 
 this operation will probably be the best mode of convey- 
 ing a notion of the extent and difficulty of such works gen- 
 erally. 
 
 Some previous attempts had been made to carry a tunnel 
 under the river below London bridge. In 1799, one was 
 projected at Gravesend ; but the project was soon aban- 
 doned. In 1804, another was attempted from Rotherhithe 
 to Limehouse. A shaft of 1 1 feet in diameter was sunk to 
 the depth of 42 feet, and continued at a reduced diameter 
 of 8 feet to the depth of 7G feet, whence a drift was carried 
 923 feet under the river, and to within 150 feet of the op- 
 posite shore, where difficulties of so formidable a nature 
 arose that the engineer reported farther progress to be im- 
 possible. The scheme, however, continued to be agitated ; 
 and in 1823, Mr. Brunei proposed a plan which has at length 
 been carried successfully into execution. 
 
 The act of parliament authorizing the operation was ob- 
 tained in June, 1824. and shortly after the work was com- 
 menced at Rotherhithe. The shaft at this place is 150 feet 
 from the river. It was formed by building a cylinder of 
 brickwork 50 feet in diameter, 42 feet in height, and 3 feet 
 in thickness, on the top of which a steam engine was erect- 
 ed for raisins the water and earth. The cylinder was let 
 down bodily into the ground, forcing its way through a bed 
 of gravel and sand 96 feet deep, and full of land water. 
 The shaft was sunk to the depth of 65 feet, and from this 
 level another smaller shaft. 25 feet in diameter, was sunk, 
 destined to be a well or reservoir for the drainage of water. 
 The excavation for the body of the tunnel was commenced 
 at a depth of 63 feet, and was carried on at a declit ity of 2 
 d 3 inches per 100 feet, in order to have sufficient 
 thickness of ground to pass safely under the river. The ex- 
 cavation is 38 feet in breadth, and 22A feet in height* pre- 
 senting a sectional area of 850 feet; and the base, at the 
 deepest part of the river, is 70 feet below high-water 
 mark. The body of the tunnel is of brickwork in Koman 
 cement. 
 
 The means by which this extensive excavation was ef- 
 fected, consisted ofa powerful apparatusof Iron, which has 
 been called a shield. It \\ as formed "f twelve great frames 
 lying close to each other, and severally provided with the 
 mechanism necessary to move them forward, and to secure
 
 TUNNEL. 
 
 them, when stationary, against the brickwork. The frames 
 were 22 feet in height, and about 3 feet in breadth, and 
 each divided into three stages or stories ; the whole thus 
 presenting thirty-six compartments or cells for the work- 
 men. These compartments were open at the back ; but in 
 front small boards, which could be separately removed and 
 replaced at pleasure, were pressed firmly against the ground 
 to be excavated by screws. Each workman in his cell 
 operated upon the surface opposed to him, taking out one of 
 the small boards at a time, cutting the ground away to the 
 depth of a few inches, and then replacing the board before 
 he proceeded to the next ; and when from 3 to 6 inches 
 were thus removed over the whole surface of the shield, 
 the frame was moved forward, and the work secured by 
 immediately adding so much more of the brickwork to the 
 body of the tunnel. By this means the excavation and the 
 structure were carried forward simultaneously. 
 
 The tunnel consists of a double and capacious archway, 
 one side being appropriated to carriages passing in one di- 
 rection, and the other to those passing in the contrary, with 
 paths for foot passengers by the sides of the carriage roads. 
 The middle wall between the two archways was first built 
 solid for greater strength, but openings were afterwards cut 
 at short distances, so that each has a ready communication 
 with the other. The two shafts at the extremities will 
 contain easy (lights of steps for foot passengers ; and the 
 access for carriages is intended to be by circular roadways 
 5200 feet in diameter, the declivity of which will not exceed 
 4 feet in 100. The entire length of the tunnel is 1300 feet, 
 and the expense is said to have been .£1200 per yard. 
 
 In the course of the work, two irruptions of the river took 
 place, the first on the 18th of May, 1827, after the excava- 
 tion had been advanced to the distance of about 400 feet ; 
 and the second in January, 1828. These accidents were 
 repaired by filling the chasms in the river with bags of clay ; 
 and on clearing the tunnel of water, the structure was 
 found, on both occasions, to be in a perfectly sound state, 
 and to have sustained, in fact, little or no injury. After 
 the second irruption, however, the works, for want of funds, 
 remained suspended for seven years ; but assistance having 
 at length been obtained from the government, they were 
 resumed in 1835, and proceeded without further interrup- 
 tion till the tunnel reached the termination on the Wap- 
 ping side of the river, early in the present year, 1842. This 
 extraordinary work, which during its progress was visited 
 by multitudes of persons from all parts of the world, is, 
 doubtless, destined to remain for ages a proud monument 
 of the genius and perseverance of the engineer by whom it 
 was contrived and successfully executed. 
 
 The establishment of railway communication in this 
 country has given rise to some stupendous undertakings in 
 the way of tunnelling. One of the most remarkable, per- 
 haps the most remarkable, of all, is the Box Tunnel, on the 
 Great Western Railway, an account of which is given in 
 the Companion to the British Almanac for 1842, and the 
 Railway Times for July 10, 1841. This tunnel pierces Box 
 Hill, between Chippenham and Bath, part of which is 400 
 feet above the level of the railway. " It is 9680 feet long, 
 39 feet high, and 35 wide to the outside of the brickwork. 
 The shafts for making and ventilating it are thirteen in 
 number, and vary in depth from 80 to 306 feet. The exca- 
 vation amounted to 414,000 cubic yards, and the brickwork 
 and masonry to more than 54,000 cubic yards. The num- 
 ber of bricks used was 30,000,000 ; a ton of gunpowder and 
 a ton of candles were consumed every week, for two years 
 and a half, and 1100 men and 250 horses were kept con- 
 stantly employed." For a considerable distance, the tun- 
 nel passes through freestone rock, from the fissures of 
 which there was at times an immense influx of water, 
 whereby on one occasion the works were interrupted for a 
 period of nine months. On a subsequent occasion, after an 
 irruption, water was for some time discharged by the en- 
 gine at the rate of 32,000 hogsheads a day. This tunnel 
 occurs on an inclined plane of 1 in 100. 
 
 The extent of brickwork or other structure which may 
 be necessary to secure the excavation in works of the class 
 now mentioned will depend, of course, on the nature of the 
 materials through which the tunnel is driven ; and in de- 
 ciding this question, it is important to attend to the geologi- 
 cal formation of the locality. In the unstratified rocks an 
 excavation may be made with perfect safety and will re- 
 quire no support, while in those whose strata are nearly 
 vertical, danger may be apprehended from slipping. In the 
 chalk, oolite, marl, lias, and similar formations, the tunnel 
 requires to be lined with brickwork throughout, as the ma- 
 terials cohere so imperfectly, that even the vibration arising 
 from the passage of the carriages may cause the fall of 
 parts of the roof. 
 
 The following table of the dimensions of a few railway 
 tunnels will enable the reader to form an accurate notion 
 of the gigantic scale on wliich such operations are con- 
 ducted : 
 
 TURNIP-FLY. 
 
 
 Length 
 In Yards. 
 
 3,227 
 2,200 
 1,760 
 2,420 
 1,250 
 880 
 1,760 
 
 Height 
 Feet. 
 
 Width 
 Foet. 
 
 Box Tunnel— Great Western 
 VVapping to Edge Hill— Liverpool and I 
 Manchester .... 5 
 
 Kilsby — London and Birmingham 
 Primrose Hill-Ditto .... 
 Canterbury and Whitstable - 
 Leicester and Swannington - 
 
 39 
 16 
 19 
 27 
 25 
 12 
 13* 
 
 35 
 
 22 
 25 
 23£ 
 22 
 
 I2 a 
 10$ 
 
 TU'NNY. See Thynnus. 
 
 TU'RBAN. The usual head-dress of the Turks, Per- 
 sians, and most other eastern nations. It varies in form in 
 different nations, and in different classes of the same na- 
 tion. It consists of two parts : a quilted cap, without brim, 
 fitted to the head, and a sash, scarf, or shawl, usually of 
 cotton or linen, artfully wound about the cap, and some- 
 times hanging down the neck. The Grand Signior's turban 
 contains three heron's feathers, and is ornamented with 
 diamonds. 
 
 TU'RBO. (Lat. turbo, a whirling.) The name of a 
 Linnsan genus of the Vermes Testacea, characterized by 
 having a shell of a regular turbinated form, with an entire 
 and rounded mouth. The species grouped together by this 
 specific character form a family of Pectinibranchiate Gas- 
 tropods in the system of Cuvier, which is subdivided into 
 the genera Turbo proper, Cuv. ; Delphinula, Lam. ; Pleu- 
 rotoma, Defrance; Scissurclla, D'Orb ; Tornatella, Lam.; 
 Scalaria, Lam. ; Cyclostoma, Lam. ; Valvata, Mull.; Litto- 
 rina, Ferussac, &c. 
 
 TU'RBOT. The best, and, excepting the halibut, largest 
 of our flat fishes ; it is the type of the subgenus Rhombus 
 of Cuvier. It is taken either by the troll-net, or, in deep 
 water, by the many-hooked line bated with the common 
 smelt, or small gar-fish. A preference is given in the Lon- 
 don markets to the turbots caught by the Dutch, who are 
 estimated to have drawn for this supply not less than 
 £80,000 a year. 
 
 TURF. The surface of grass lands, of a smooth and 
 uniform texture, covered with pasture grass. The term is 
 also sometimes applied to peat cut out of bog. See Peat. 
 
 TU'RKEY RED. A fine and durable red dyed upon 
 calico and woollen cloth ; the colouring matter used in its 
 production is madder, but the process for producing it in 
 perfection is tedious and complicated. (See Bancroft on 
 Permanent Colours.) 
 
 TU'RLUITNS. (A word of which no satisfactory de- 
 rivation has been found. See Du Cange's Glossary.) In 
 French Ecclesiastical History, one of the numerous popular 
 by-names by which the sectaries of the 14th century, the 
 precursors of the Reformation, were distinguished : called 
 elsewhere Beghards, Picards, Beguins, Lollards, &c. 
 
 TU'RMA. In the Roman Legion, a company of horse, 
 of which ten formed the whole complement of the legion. 
 According to Varro, it consisted of thirty horsemen, ten 
 answering to each of the three original equestrian tribes, 
 the Tatienses, Ramnenses, and Luceres. But in addition 
 to the ten, there seems to have been two file leaders ; and 
 as the word turma was sometimes indiscriminately used 
 for the subdivision or third part of the full turma, the fol- 
 lowing lines of Virgil's JEneid seem to describe the ar- 
 rangement : 
 
 Tres equitum numero turmse, ternique vagantur 
 Dnctores; pueri bisseni quenique secuti. 
 
 (See M. Le Beau's 8th Dissertation on the Roman Legion, 
 Mem. de I'Ac. des Inscr., vol. xxxii.) 
 
 TU'RMERIC. The root of the Curcuma longd. This 
 root yields a fine yellow powder, which is occasionally 
 used as a dye-stuff in medicine ; it also forms one of the in- 
 gredients of curry powder. Paper stained with turmeric is 
 often used in the chemical laboratory as a test of the pres- 
 ence of free alkalies and their carbonates, by which its 
 yellow colour is converted to brown. 
 
 TURN. In Music, a grace thus marked <~> ; indicating 
 that the note above it, one degree higher, must be struck 
 before it shortly, then passed quickly through the note 
 itself, and turned from the note a degree below into the 
 note itself, over which the mark is placed. 
 
 TU'RNIP-FLY. As different insects prey, in the larva 
 state, upon the leaves of the growing turnip, the most de- 
 structive, and consequently the most important and interest- 
 ing of these, will be noticed under the present head. They 
 are the turnip-flea, as it may be called from its power of 
 agile leaping (Haltica nemorum), and the turnip-fly {Atha- 
 lia centifolia). The turnip-flea belongs to a genus (Maltica) 
 of minute Coleopterous insects, of the section Tetramera, 
 and family Oalerucidm ; in which genus the species are all 
 remarkable for the large size of the femora or thighs of the 
 hindmost pair of legs. The species in question does not 
 exceed the twelfth of an inch in length ; it is of an oval 
 form, with the elytra of a greenish tinge, each ornamented 
 
 1279
 
 TURNSOL, 
 
 with n broad longitudinal stripe of a pale brimstone colour ; 
 but there ore other species of the same genus, perhaps 
 equally destructive, and not characterized bj the longitudi- 
 nal elytral bands. The perfect insect shelters itself In tin' 
 rough uncultivated margins of fields, feeding upon the hedge- 
 weeds; and appears to be ready at any time, provided the 
 weather be warm, to commence the work of destruction on 
 the young turnip shoots. Late sowing of the turnip seed 
 does not therefore obviate the attacks of the Haltica. The 
 first precaution obviously is to dear away all the weeds in 
 the neighbourhood of the turnip grounds that may afford 
 food or shelter to the little enemy. When the turnip -flea 
 has made its appearance in the crop, the ground should be 
 dusted with quicklime, and this repeated as often as rain or 
 wind beats it off, and the flea reappears. The other enemy 
 to the turnip (Jlthalia centifolia) belongs to the order Hij- 
 menoptrm, and family Teuthredinida, or saw-flies. 
 TU'RNSOL. SeeLiTMts. 
 
 TU'BPENTINE. A viscid exudation from certain trees, 
 either spontaneously formed upon the bark, or obtained by 
 incision. Common turpentine is the produce of certain 
 species of Pinus, or fir trees. When distilled with water 
 it yields a limpid volatile oil (oil of turpentine), and yellow 
 resin remains in the still. 
 
 TU'RPETH MI.N ERAL. (From its yellow colour, which 
 resembles the powdered root of the Convolvulus turpcthum.) 
 The yellow subpersulphate of mercury. 
 
 TU'RQUOISE. A blue mineral, found in great quanti- 
 ties in the Nishapoor mines, in Persia. It appears to derive 
 its colour from oxide of copper and of iron, and consists 
 chiefly of hydrated alumina : it is admired in jewellery. 
 
 TU'RTLE. This word is used to signify a species of 
 dove (Columba turtur), and also a genus of Chelouian rep- 
 tiles (Chelone, Brongn.). 
 TU'SCAN ORDER. In Architecture, one of the five 
 orders, and the simplest of 
 them all. It is not found 
 in any ancient example. 
 Palladio has given two ex- 
 amples of this order, from 
 one of which the profile 
 here given is adopted, 
 though by some that com- 
 posed by Vignola has been 
 preferred. The base, as 
 will be seen on inspection, 
 consists of a simple torus 
 with its fillet, accompani- 
 ed by a plinth. Sir Wil- 
 liam Chambers assigns to 
 the column, with its base 
 and capital, a height equal 
 to seven of its diameters. 
 Vitruvius speaks of this or- 
 der with little praise, but 
 Palladio commends it for 
 its great utility. It does 
 not allow the introduction 
 of ornament ; and it is to 
 he observed, that its col- 
 umns are never fluted. By 
 some architects it has been 
 varied on the shaft with rustic cinctures; but such taste is 
 perhaps very questionable. Though not suitable to every 
 application of the order, the most perfect profile in this 
 country to which we can refer is that of the portico of St. 
 Paul's. Covent Garden, by Inigo Jones. 
 
 TUTENAG. An alloy of copper, zinc, and nickel, made 
 in China ; the term is also sometimes applied to a pale brass, 
 and to bell-metal. (Sec Packfong.) In India, zinc also 
 sometimes goes under this name. 
 TUTORS. See Uhivbrsities. 
 
 TU'TTI. (It. all.) In Music, a notice to the performer 
 that, from the place to which it is affixed, all the parts are 
 t i play together. This word is generally used to contra- 
 dict the word soli, or solo, which see. 
 
 Ti TTY. An impure oxide of zinc collected from the 
 chimneys of the smelting furnaces. 
 
 TWELP HINDI. In the old Saxon Commonwealth, the 
 highest Class of citizens were so called. They were valued 
 at 12,000 shillings, and enjoved many special privileges. 
 
 TWELFTH-DAY. The festival of the Epiphany, or 
 Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles; being the twelfth 
 day, exclusive, from Christmas. (See Epiphuiy.) For the 
 customs peculiar to this day in England, see lirande's Pop- 
 
 TWELVE TABLES, LAWSOFTHE. The celebrated 
 laws of the Roman republic, framed by the decemvirs ap 
 
 i.U.C. 303, on the return of three c tlsdoners 
 
 who had been sent to Greece to examine into foreign laws 
 
 itutions. The tables, as set up bv the di C( mvirs, 
 were originally ten in number; two were added in the sc- 
 1880 
 
 TWILIGHT. 
 
 coud year of the decemvirate. and bore a more aristocratic 
 stamp than the original ten (according to Cicero, the prohi- 
 bition of marriages between patricians and plebians was 
 among the number). The text of the Twelve Tables were 
 preserved down to the latest age of Roman literature, and 
 formed the basis of the greater part of the Roman juris- 
 prudence - they are called by Livy, "fons omnis publici, 
 privatique juris." The authentic remains of them are given 
 by Haubold [Institutionum juris Romani privali J.inca- 
 menta, Leipsig. 1826). There is a valuable chapter on the 
 early Roman law, as founded on the Twelve Tables, in 
 Dr. Arnold's History of Home, vol. i. 
 
 TWI LIGHT. (Germ, zwielicht.) In Astronomy, the 
 faint light which is perceived for some time after sunset 
 and before sunrise. 
 
 The twilight is produced by the reflexion of light from 
 the atmosphere. When the sun descends below the ho- 
 rizon, the rays of light no longer reach the earth direcrtly ; 
 but as they pass through the atmospheric strata a portion 
 of them are reflected towards the earth, and illuminate its 
 surface. At first the light, tailing on the lowest and densest 
 strata, is reflected in great abundance ; but as the sun de- 
 scends to a greater distance below the horizon, his rays fall 
 on strata at a greater height, and consequently less dense. 
 A smaller number of them, therefore, suffer reflexion ; and 
 as this number is constantly diminishing, the vivacity of the 
 twilight diminishes in the same proportion, till at length the 
 solar rays fall on strata so rare as to be incapable of reflect- 
 ing light, and the twilight accordingly disappears. In the 
 morning, the change from darkness to light takes place by 
 the same gradations. 
 
 From this theory it is evident that twilight must begin 
 and end when the sun's depression below the horizon at- 
 tains a certain limit. The limit, however, cannot be fixed 
 with any precision. It is usually estimated according to 
 the time which elapses from sunset till the smallest stars 
 which are seen by the naked eye become visible. But this 
 mode of estimating the duration of twilight is uncertain and 
 arbitrary; and it will be reckoned greater or less according 
 to the goodness of sight of the observer, and the tempera- 
 ture and pressure of the atmosphere. Accordingly, the 
 sun's depression at the beginning and end of twilight has 
 been fixed at various limits bv different observers ; bv At- 
 hazen, at 19°; by Tycho, at 17°; by Rothman, at 2-1°; by 
 Stevinus, at 18°; by Cassino, at ]5°; and by others at dif- 
 ferent quantities; but the limit usually assigned 
 is 18°. Assuming this limit, the duration of twi- '{• 
 light in different latitudes, and at the different 
 seasons of the year, is computed as follows : 
 
 In the spherical triangle Z P S, let I' S = <.>(P — d 
 be the distance of the sun from the pole, ZP = 
 90 — j? the distance of the pole from the zenith 
 of the observer, and Z S = 90° + 18° ; S being 
 the place of the sun when he reaches the circle 
 parallel to 18° below the horizon. Now, as d, 
 the sun's declination, is known, and also />, the 
 latitude of the place, the three sides of the triangle are 
 given ; whence the hour angle ZPS is found (see Trigo- 
 nometry) by the formula 
 
 „„„ — sin 18° — sin p sin d 
 
 cosZPS = - 1- 
 
 cos p cos d 
 
 If, therefore, we make A = the semidiurnal arc of the sun. 
 or the angle at the pole when the sun is in the horizon, and 
 consequently his zenith distance = 90°, we shall have from 
 the same formula 
 
 cos A = — tan p tan d; 
 whence the angles ZPS and A are known, and their dif- 
 ference expressed in time gives the duration of the tu flight 
 At the equator sin;; = 0, cos/j=1, and A =90°. We 
 
 sjn 180 
 
 have, therefore, cos ZPS = - — . 1st; Suppose the 
 
 COSd 
 sun to be in the equator ; in this case we have also d — 0, 
 and ZPS becomes equal to ZS = 90°-(- 18°; whence the 
 duration of twilight is equal to the time in which an arc of 
 18° on the equator passes over the meridian, or equal to 
 I hour and 12 minutes. 2d: Suppose the sun to be at the 
 tropic | in this case d = 2:U°, and the duration of twilight 
 is found by computing from the formula to be l h. 19 in. 
 
 By Computing from the above formula, the duration of 
 twiliL'ht. at the time of the ei|iiinox, is found to be 1 h. Twin. 
 
 at the latitude of 50°, and 2 h. 32m. al the latitude of 60°. 
 At the shortest day, its duration at different latitudes is as 
 follows : 
 
 1 h. 20 m. at latitude 2.")° 
 
 2 h. f> m. at latitude 50 , 
 2 h. 57 m. .at latitude 60°; 
 
 and at 70°, when the sun no longer rises above the hori- 
 zon, it continues about 5h. 12 m. after the sun has passed 
 
 the ridian of the place. 
 
 When the angle Z P S — 180°, we have cos Z P S = — 1. 

 
 TWO-COAT WORK. 
 
 But in order that the hour angle may have this value, the 
 sun must be on the lower semicircle of the meridian ; and 
 consequently, as his depression below the horizon is by hy- 
 pothesis = lo°, the twilight will not entirely disappear, or 
 will continue through the whole night. The formula in 
 this case becomes 
 
 cos p cos d = sin 18° + sin p sin d ; 
 or cos (p + d) — sin 18°, whence p + d = 72°. When, there- 
 fore, the sun's declination d — ~V — p, the twilight will 
 continue through the whole night at the place whose lati- 
 tude is p. Hence, by giving different values to p, we find 
 the declination, and consequently the day of the year on 
 which twilight begins to continue through the whole night. 
 Suppose p= 500; then d—2-2, which corresponds to the 
 1st of June. In the latitude of London (5-23) perpetual twi- 
 light begins about the 20th of May. At 60° latitude it be- 
 gins about the 22d of April ; at 70° about the 26th of March ; 
 at 80° about the last of February ; and at the pole itself 
 about the 2t)th of January. It is scarcely necessary to re- 
 mark, that as no account has been taken of the refraction, 
 these expressions are only approximative. 
 
 One of the problems most frequently proposed respecting 
 the twilight, is to find the day of the year when its duration is 
 the least possible at a given latitude. This problem, which 
 is the same as to determine the sun's declination when his 
 zenith distance increases from 90° to 108° in the least time 
 possible, was first solved by John Bernoulli ( Opera, t. i., 
 p. 64.) Solutions of it are given in most works on Practical 
 Astronomy. (See Delambre, Astronomie, t. i.) 
 
 TWO-COAT WORK. In Architecture, plasterer's work 
 that is either laid and set, or rendered and set. 
 
 TYMPANl'TIS or TYMPANY. An elastic distension 
 of the abdomen, arising from a morbid collection of gas in 
 the intestines. The disease is sometimes termed drum belly, 
 and arises occasionally from air secreted into the abdominal 
 cavity, in which cases it is usually fatal. 
 
 TY'MPANUM. (Lat. a drum.) The drum of the ear : 
 the cavity behind the membrane of the tympanum, sur- 
 rounded by the petrous portion of the temporal bone, and 
 terminating at the cochlea of the labyrinth ; it contains the 
 four small auditory bones, and the Eustachian tube opens 
 into it. 
 
 Tympwtm, in Architecture, the space in a pediment en- 
 closed by the cornice of the inclined sides and the horizontal 
 fillet of the corona. 
 
 Tympanum, in Botany, is a membrane stretched across 
 the mouth of the threa of a moss. 
 
 TYPE. (Gr. Tv-os.) In the Fine Arts, the model or 
 pattern in nature of an object used. Thus, in architecture, 
 the types of columns are said to be trees, &c. &c. 
 
 Type. Properly, the figure stamped upon a coin : hence, 
 a figure, sign, or symbol, especially those by which Christ 
 was prefigured to the Jews, as the Brazen Serpent, the 
 Lamb of the Passover, the Sacrifice 'of Isaac ; or persons 
 whose character and history are considered as embodying 
 an anticipatory representation of the Saviour, as Moses, 
 David, the prophet Jonah, &c. 
 
 Many types are referred to as such by the writers of the 
 New Testament ; and hence we learn to look for such in- 
 tentional meaning in what we might otherwise, in particular 
 instances, pass over as mere coincidences and analogies. 
 It is the great sum of such analogies, and the fulness with 
 which they pervade the whole of Scripture, which seem 
 most strikingly to evince the unity of design. 
 
 TYPE METAL. The alloy of lead and antimony used 
 in casting printers' types. One part of antimony to three 
 of lead are the usual proportions. This alloy takes a sharp 
 impression from the mould or matrix, and is hard enough 
 to stand the work of the press, without being brittle or 
 liable to fracture. 
 
 TYPES. By this term is understood the letters, from the 
 smallest size to the largest, with which books and other 
 articles are printed. A single type consists of the shank, 
 the beard, and the face. The shank is the body of the 
 letter ; the beard is that part between the shoulder of the 
 shank and the face ; the face is the shape of the letter, 
 from which the impression is taken. 
 
 The following are the English names of the different 
 sizes in their regular order ; with the addition of the Dutch, 
 French, German, and Italian names: 
 
 1. Diamond, the smallest. 
 
 2. Pearl. (Fr. La Parisienne ou Sedanoise ; Ger. Perl ; 
 Ital. Occhio di Mosca.) 
 
 3. Ruby. 
 
 4. Nonpareil. {Dutch, Nonpareil; Fr. La Nompareille ; 
 Ger. Nonpareille; Ital. Nompariglja.) 
 
 5. Emerald. 
 
 6. Minion. (Fr. La Mignione; Ger. Colonell ; Ital. Mi- 
 nione.) 
 
 7. Brevier. {Dutch, Brevier ; Fr. Le Petit Texte ; Ger. 
 Petit, or Jungfer ; Ital. Piccolo Testo.) 
 
 TYPHUS. 
 
 8. Bourgeois. [Dutch, Bourgeois ; Fr. La Gaillarde ; Ger. 
 Burgeois ; Ital. Gagliarda.) 
 
 9. Long Primer. (Dutch, Garmond; Fr. Le Petit Ro- 
 niain ; Ger. Corpus, or Garmond ; Ital. Garamone.) 
 
 10. Small Pica. (Dutch, Dessendiaan; Fr. La Philo- 
 sophie ; Ger. Brevier, or Rheinkender ; Ital. Filosofia.) 
 
 11. Pica. (Dutch, Mediaan ; Fr. Le Cicero ; Ger. Cicero ; 
 Ital. Lettura.) 
 
 12. English. (Dutch, Augustyn ; Fr. Le Saint Augustin ; 
 Ger. Mittel ; Ital. Silvio.) 
 
 13. Great Primer. (Dutch, Text ; Fr. Le Gros Romain ; 
 Ger. Tertia ; Ital. Testo.) 
 
 14. Paragon. (Dutch, Paragon; Fr. Le Petit Parangon ; 
 Ger. Paragon; Ital. Parangone.) 
 
 15. Double Pica. (Dutch, Dubbelde Dessendiaan ; Fr. 
 Le Gross Parangon ; Ger. Text, or Secunda ; Ital. Duo 
 Linee Filosofia.) 
 
 16. Two Line Pica. (Dutch, Dubbelde Mediaan; Fr. 
 Les Deux Points de Cicero ; Ger. Doppelcicero.) 
 
 17. Two Line English. (Dutch, Dubbelde Augustyn ; 
 Fr. Palestine ; Ger. Doppehnittel ; Ital. Canoncino.) 
 
 18. Two Line Great Primer. (Dutch, Kanon ; Fr. Petit 
 Canon ; Ger. Kleine Canon ; Ital. Grosso Testo.) 
 
 19. Two Line Double Pica. (Dutch, Groote Kanon ; Fr. 
 Trismegiste ; Ger. Grobe Canon.) 
 
 20. Trafalgar. 
 
 21. Canon. (Dutch, Parys Romeyn ; Fr. Le Gros Canon ; 
 Ger. Kleine Missal ; Ital. Canone.) 
 
 Canon is the largest size with a specific name ; Pica then 
 becomes the standard to distinguish them, and the next size 
 to Canon is Four Line Pica, then Five Line Pica, and so 
 on, to the largest size used in posting bills. 
 
 1. To enable the reader to form an opinion of the comparative sizes of 
 
 2. types, and the proportions which they bear to each other, there is given 
 
 3. in this paragraph a line of each size, from Diamond, the 
 
 4. smallest type in general use among printers, up to Great 
 
 5. Primer, inclusive, each being numbered to correspond with 
 
 6. the preceding list, in order to distinguish one from 
 
 7. the other by their names. There is a small- 
 
 8. er type than Diamond lately introduced, 
 
 9. but it is as yet but seldom used. The 
 
 10. French have one so very small that 
 
 11. it cannot easily be read by the 
 
 12. naked eye, even by young 
 
 13. persons. 
 
 TYPHO'EUS. One of the Titans, said to have been 
 overthrown in the war against Jupiter, and imprisoned 
 under the weight of .(Etna ; a circumstance in mythological 
 romance well known from the descriptions of Virgil, Pin- 
 dar, and iEschylus. And see Bryant's Anc. Mythol., iv., 
 318. 
 
 TY'PHON. The Evil Genius of Egyptian Mythology. 
 According to Sir G. Wilkinson (Ancient Egyptians, vol. iv., 
 p. 417, &c), they seem to have acknowledged two deities, 
 who answered to the description given by the Greeks (es- 
 pecially Plutarch, De Is. et Os.) of Typho. " On.>, who 
 was the brother of Netpe, and opposed to his brother Osiris, 
 as the bad to the good principle ; the other bearing the 
 name of Typho, and answ ering to that part of his character 
 whicli represents him as the opponent of Horus :" the true 
 evil genius Ombte, whom the Greeks seem to confound 
 with Typho. " He is figured under the human form, hav- 
 ing the head of a quadruped, with square-topped ears, which 
 some might have supposed to represent an ass with clipped 
 ears, if the entire animal did not too frequently occur to 
 prevent this erroneous conclusion." In his Egyptian names 
 is " Ombte," in which Sir G. Wilkinson thinks he traces a 
 connexion with Antaeus, the son of Earth. There appears 
 to have been a general propensity to erase his figure and 
 titles from the monuments at some remote epoch. (See 
 also Bryant, Anc. Myth., vols. ii. and iii.) 
 
 TYPHOO'N. The name given to a violent tornado or 
 hurricane in the Chinese seas. See Storms. 
 
 TY'PHUS. This term (implying to burn with a con- 
 cealed and smothered flame) is applied to certain continued 
 fevers, attended by great debility and a tendency to putre- 
 faction. It is contagious or infectious, and often epidemic, 
 and is most prone to attack debilitated persons, especially 
 where aided by want of cleanliness, good food, and fresh 
 air ; so that it often spreads in hospitals, jails, camps, and 
 other situations where such causes assist its progress. This 
 form of fever is liable to several modifications, commonly 
 termed low fever, putrid fever, nervous fever, jail fever. Ace. 
 Its attack is generally characterized by inordinate muscular 
 and nervous debility, and by great depression of spirits, 
 4L 128 1
 
 TYPOGRAPHY. 
 
 weariness, flying pains, sighing, and a frequent, small, hard, 
 and fluttering pulse ; the tongue is foul and brown, and the 
 taste impaired, and not unfrequently nausea and bilious 
 vomiting prevail, constituting that variety of typhus which 
 is sometimes called bilious fever. As the disease advances, 
 the debility increases; the mouth becomes very foul, and 
 the breath fetid ; the urine deposits a brown sediment, and, 
 together With the motions, is fetid, and rapidly putrefies; 
 all these symptoms increase in intensity; the speech be- 
 comes inarticulate, muttering, and delirious; there is a ten- 
 dency to bleeding from the riose, mouth, and bowels; pe- 
 techia', or livid spots, appear upon the surface; the pulse 
 sinks and intermits ; the mind wanders ; hiccup comes on ; 
 the hands and feet become cold ; and, under these horrible 
 symptoms, the patient dies. Such is an outline of the pro- 
 gress of a typhus fever to a fatal termination. In this cli- 
 mate it may endure for three weeks or a month ; but in hot 
 countries the symptoms follow each other more rapidly and 
 violently, and it is not of more than eight or ten days' dura- 
 tion. When it does not terminate fatally, the symptoms 
 begin to assume a more favourable aspect about the twelfth 
 or fourteenth day ; the pulse improves, the patient gets 
 some tranquil sleep, perhaps perspires ; the urine deposits 
 a red sediment; bilious stools arc passed; he becomes 
 more tranquil in mind and body, and his symptoms gradu- 
 ally disappear till health is restored ; but it is a disease the 
 event of which must be anticipated with the utmost cau- 
 tion, for attacks apparently mild sometimes terminate fa- 
 tally, and in other cases the constitution has rallied under 
 the most alarming and malignant features. At the very 
 commencement an emetic and a mild aperient are proper, 
 followed up by aromatic opiates, with camphor and ether. 
 It is possible that some particular symptom, indicative of 
 local congestion, may call for bleeding or blistering: the 
 former, except in some very rare cases, should be local only, 
 and very limited as to quantity. Serpentaria, Peruvian 
 hark, cascarilla, and Colombo are the tonics which are most 
 relied on ; and. with these, camphor, aromatic confection, 
 opiate confection, and ether ; or, if agreeable to the stomach 
 and bowels, sulphuric and muriatic acids, in small doses, 
 and acidulous drinks. Wine and brandy, and, in some 
 cases, bottled ale and porter, are requisite to keep up the 
 general powers of the system ; but care must be taken lest 
 their use should be followed by over-excitement, and the 
 quantity in some measure regulated by the previous habits 
 of the patient. Broths, jellies, and the varieties of farina- 
 ceous food, may constitute the diet; and, in till cases, the 
 utmost attention must be paid to extreme cleanliness, fre- 
 quent change of linen, ventilation, and the due use of chlo- 
 rine fumigation. On the first attack of typhus, the affusion 
 of cold water, performed two or three times a day, often 
 affords much relief; and afterwards, when the shock of 
 such a remedy would be too great, sponging the head and 
 body with cold or with slightly tepid water is productive of 
 infinite comfort. 
 
 TYPO'GRAPHY. The art of printing. See Printing. 
 
 TY'RANNY. (Gr. rvpawog, a tyrant.) In the original 
 sense of the word, a citizen who acquired sovereignty by 
 violence or other usurpation is called, in the language of 
 Greek political writers, a tyrant ; and where the power thus 
 acquired became hereditary, the title of tyrant is still given 
 to his descendants in the generations immediately following. 
 A tyrant in this sense is opposed to basileus, a rightful 
 king, with power either limited by the laws or sanctioned 
 by ancient usage. (See, as to the Greek tyrannies, Wachs- 
 inuth, Historical Antiquities, vol. i., ch. 6; and the ex- 
 planation of the difference between the ancient and modern 
 sense of the word given by Mitford, Hist, of Greece, i., 250, 
 cd. 1829.) 
 
 TYTHING. A tything was a subdivision, i. e., a tenth 
 part, as its name indicates, of the hundred, with which it 
 was probably coeval in institution, as it was certainly iden- 
 tical in object, as far at least as regards the prevention of 
 offences by the condition of liability for the production of 
 offenders, or in default thereof reparation of the mischief, 
 in the case of offences committed within the district. For 
 this purpose, all free persons above the age of twelve years 
 were required by the Saxon law to belong to si .me tything. 
 No jurisdiction seems to have belonged to the tything; and 
 the ottice of tythingman, or constable, seems always to have 
 been confined, as it is now, to the preservation of the peace, 
 and the apprehension of offenders. The limits of a tything 
 were in most cases coextensive with those of a parish, 
 with which it la now commonly, for practical purposes, 
 identical. 
 
 U and V. 
 
 U and V were long considered the same letter, and were 
 used indiscriminately the one for the other ; but at the 
 
 ULTIMATE ANALYSIS. 
 
 beginning of the 16th century their peculiarities came to be 
 marked, and u has since been used as a vowel and r as a 
 consonant. 
 
 riil'QUISTS, or UBIQCITARIANS. (Lat. unique, 
 everywhere.) In Ecclesiastical History, a school of Luth- 
 eran divines ; so called from their tenet that the bodv of 
 Christ was present in the Eucharist in virtue of his divine 
 omnipresence. Luther is said to have maintained this 
 argument, as a mode of reconciling the doctrine of transub- 
 stantiation with reason, for two years. Brentius, one of 
 his disciples, passes for its principal supporter. Melanch- 
 thon opposed it ; but it seems to have obtained ercat credit 
 among the Lutherans of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries. 
 
 U'CKEWALLISTS. In Ecclesiastical History, a sect 
 of rigid Anabaptists ; so called from one like Wallis, a 
 native of Friesland. They appear to subsist still, indepen- 
 dent of other Anabaptists and Mennonites, in Friesland 
 and Groningen. (See Mosheim, vol. v.) 
 
 UKA'SE. An ordinance of the emperor of Russia 
 having the force of law in his dominions. 
 
 U'LCER. (Lat. ulcus.) A solution of continuity in any 
 of the soft parts of the body, attended by a purulent or 
 other discharge. The several kinds of ulcers are divided 
 by surgeons into local and constitutional, but these often 
 run into each other. They have been termed simple and 
 specif c sores or ulcers ; the former resulting from accidental 
 injuries, the latter from specific poisons or particular habits 
 of body. (See Cooper^s Surgical Dictionary.) 
 
 ULE'MA. (Turk, learned men.) The college or corpo- 
 ration composed of the three classes of the Turkish hier- 
 archy : the imans, or ministers of religion : the muftis, or 
 doctors of law ; the cadis, or administrators of justice. This 
 organization, according to D'Ohisson (Tableau de I' Empire 
 Ottoman), was first framed by the caliphs, and adopted, 
 along with the other principles of their government, by the 
 Ottoman sultans. Candidates for admission into the Ulema 
 are educated at the different colleges (medresses) of the 
 empire. The Sheikh ul Islam, or mufti of Constantinople, 
 is the president of the whole body. (See Ed. Rev., vol. 
 50.) 
 
 ULLAGE. In Gauging, what a cask wants of being full, 
 is so called. 
 
 ULMA'CEjE (Ulmus, the principal genus), are woody 
 plants, usually timber trees, inhabiting temperate climates. 
 They are apetalous Exogens, nearly allied to the 1'rtica- 
 ceous order, from which they principally diner in having a 
 two-celled fruit. The various kinds of elm trees arc the 
 best known species ; but the thin papery fruit of these 
 plants is by no means characteristic of the order ; it is 
 merely a character of the genus Ulmus. 
 
 U'LMIN. (Lat. ulmus, the elm tree.) A black or dark 
 brown substance which exudes from the bark of the elm 
 and several other trees, and which appears to be contained 
 in most barks. It may be obtained by digesting elm-bark 
 in boiling alcohol, and afterwards in cold water, by which 
 various more soluble substances are removed ; the residue 
 is then digested in an aqueous solution of carbonate of 
 potash : it acquires a brown colour, and \ ields a precipitate 
 when neutralized by muriatic acid, which, after having 
 been washed and dried, is ulmin. It is very sparingly solu- 
 ble in water, but readily soluble in solutions of the alkaline 
 carbonates. According to Boullay (.flnnalcs de Chim. et 
 Phys. xliii., 273), it is a compound of 567 carbon and 433 
 hydrogen and oxygen in the ratio to form water. He terms 
 it ulmic acid, and considers it identical with the brown 
 matter of vegetable mould and turf, and as contributing 
 materially to the nutriment of growing plants. 
 
 U'LNA. The larger of the two bones of the forearm. 
 It forms the point of the elbow, and is articulated by a 
 species of hinge-joint to the humerus, and to the radius ; 
 and below to the radius, and to the bones of the wrist. 
 
 U'LTIMATE ANALYSIS. This term Is applied in 
 ( 'hemistry to the resolution of substances into their absolute 
 elements ; and is opposed to the proximate analysis, by 
 which they are merely resolved into secondary compounds. 
 The ultimate analysis of crystallized blue vitriol, for in- 
 stance, teaches us that its true elements are sulphur, copper, 
 oxygen, and hydrogen ; its proximate elements are sulphuric 
 acid, oxide of copper, and water ; the ultimate elements of 
 Sulphuric add are sulphur and oxygen ; of oxide of copper, 
 
 copper ami oxygen; ami of water, hydrogen and oxygen. 
 The terms ultimate analysis and ultima!/ elements are, 
 however, most generally used in reference to organic pro- 
 ducts: gum, resin, starch, and other compounds, are often 
 found associated in a regetable,aad are called \ts proximate 
 principles, and they are separated by proximate analysis; 
 
 but all these are resolvable into carbon, hydrogen, and 
 oxygen. These three elementary substances, therefore, are 
 
 their ultimate components. The accurate determination of 
 their relative proportions in the various products of vege- 
 tables is almost always a difficult chemical problem.
 
 ULTIMATE RATIO. 
 
 ULTIMATE RATIO. The ratio of evanescent quan- 
 tities. See Prime and Ultimate Ratio. 
 
 ULTIMA'TUM. (Lat.) In Diplomacy, the final condi- 
 tions offered by a government for the settlement of its dis- 
 pute with another. 
 
 ULTRA. In Modem Politics, those who carry to their 
 farthest point the opinions of the party to which they belong 
 are so termed. The name was applied in 1793 to the more 
 violent revolutionists; it has since been bestowed on the 
 extreme section of all parties in turn. 
 
 ULTRAMARI'NE. (Lat ultra, beyond, and marinus, 
 belonging to the sea.) The blue colouring matter of the 
 lapis lazuli. This substance is much valued by painters, 
 on account of the beauty and permanence of its colour, 
 both for oil and water painting. In its preparation the 
 finest lapis lazuli is selected, heated to a dull red heat, and 
 quenched in water ; it is thus rendered friable, and is ground 
 down into an impalpable powder. This is then mixed with 
 a tenacious paste made of linseed oil, wa_x, resin, turpentine, 
 and mastic; and the mixture being kneaded in warm water 
 gives out the blue particles, which are afterwards collected 
 by subsidence. Chemists have long in vain endeavoured 
 to imitate this colour, but till lately its nature even had not 
 been determined. It appears from the experiments of 
 Gmelin that sulphuret of sodium is the principle to which 
 the blue colour is owing, and he has succeeded in preparing 
 an artificial ultramarine by heating sulphuret of sodium 
 with a mixture of silica and alumina. (See the Annates de 
 Chimie et Physique, vol. xxxvii., p. 409.) 
 
 U'LTRAMONTANE, or TRAMONTANE. A name 
 applied by Italian writers to theologians and jurists of other 
 countries beyond the Alps, especially France. In ecclesi- 
 astical law, ultramontane tenets are those least favourable 
 to the supremacy of the popes As to ultramontane jurists, 
 see Savigny, Hist, of Roman Law, vol. vi. 
 
 U'MBEL. In Botany, a form of inflorescence in which 
 all the pedicels proceed from a single point, as in Astrantia. 
 If there is no subdivision, the umbel is called simple ; but 
 if the pedicels produce other umbels, as in parsley, the 
 Umbel is compound. 
 
 UMBELLI'FEROUS PLANTS (Umbel), are a race of 
 great frequency in all cool or temperate climates, and even 
 occur in hot ones, though much more rarely. They are 
 known in general by their flowers being disposed in an 
 umbel. They have a herbaceous stem ; leaves usually 
 much divided, often inflated when they join the stem; and 
 the}' have universally a dry fruit, which divides into two 
 seed-like pieces. Some of them are poisonous, as hemlock 
 and water dropwort ; others are esculents, as celery, carrots, 
 and parsnips ; many yield aromatic fruits, as caraway, 
 coriander, and anise ; a few secrete a foetid gum resin, of 
 which assafoetida, ammoniacum, and galbanum are ex- 
 amples. The species are extremely numerous, and difficult 
 to recognise with accuracy; and, unfortunately, no general 
 rule has yet been discovered for distinguishing those poi- 
 sonous from the harmless kinds. 
 
 U'MBER. Two distinct substances are used as pigments 
 under this name : one is a variety of peat or brown coal, 
 large beds of which are worked near Cologne ; it is said to 
 be largely used in the adulteration of snuff: the other, 
 called Turlush umber, is a variety of ochraceous iron ore, 
 composed, according to the analysis of Klaproth, of 48 
 
 peroxide of iron, 20 peroxide of manganese, 13 silica, 5 
 alumina, 14 water. The term umber is said to be derived 
 
 from Oinbria, or Spoleto, in Italy, where it was first ob- 
 tained. 
 
 UMBI'LICAL CORD, in Botany, is an elongation of the 
 
 placenta in the form of a little cord, as in the hazel nut. 
 UMBI'LICATE. (Lat. umbilicus, a navel.) In Zoology, 
 
 when a pit, tubercle, or granule has a depression in its 
 
 centre. 
 UMBILrcUS. (Lat.) Properly the navel ; whence it 
 
 was metaphorically applied to the two ends of the roller 
 
 on which the manuscripts of the ancients were rolled, and 
 
 which were usually adorned with ornamental knobs, while 
 
 the ends of the parchment were filed with pumice-stone, 
 
 in order that the folds might lie smooth and neat. 
 
 Umbilicus. In Conchology, the aperture or depression 
 
 in the centre, round which the shell is convoluted. 
 
 Umbilicus. The scar by which a seed is attached to 
 
 the placenta, frequently of a different colour from the rest 
 
 of the seed, and not uncommonly very dark-coloured. It is 
 
 more commonly called hilum. 
 
 Umbilicus. In Geometry, used by the older geometers 
 
 synonymously with focus. 
 "UMBO. (Lat,) A protuberance or boss. In Conchology 
 
 It is that point of a bivalve shell immediately above the 
 
 hinge. 
 UMBRA. A shadow. In Astronomy, this term is applied 
 
 to the dark cone projected from a planet or satellite on the 
 
 Bide opposite to the sun. See Eclipse. 
 U'MPIRE. This word appears to be properly derived 
 
 UNGULA. 
 
 from the Fr. "impair," uneven in number ; an umpire being 
 a third party to whom a dispute is referred. An umpire is, 
 properly, a person whom two referees, each chosen by hifl 
 client, being unable to agree, jointly choose to determine 
 between them. 
 
 UNBEND. In sea language, to take the cable from the 
 anchor, a sail from its yard, &x. ; to untie one rope from 
 another. 
 
 UNCI^E. The name given by the old writers on algebra 
 to the coefficients of the letters in the expansion of any 
 power of a binomial. Thus, the expansion of (a + 4)4 gives 
 a4 + 4 a3 b + 6 o2 42 + 4 a b3 + fr*, in which the numbers 1, 
 4, 6. 4, 1, are the undue, or coefficients. 
 
 UNCIA'LES LITERS. (Lat.) Uncial letters or writing. 
 In Diplomatics, a species of character compounded between 
 the capital and the minuscule or small characters ; some 
 of the letters resembling the former, others the latter. It is 
 supposed to have been employed in Latin MSS. as early as 
 the third or fourth century, but was seldom used after the 
 tenth. 
 
 U'NCIFORM BONE. (Lat. uncus, a hook.) The last 
 bone of the second row of the wrist bones ; so called from 
 its hook-like process, which projects towards the palm of 
 the hand, and gives origin to the great ligament which binds 
 down the tendons of the wrist. 
 
 UNCOMMON CHORD. In Music, another term for the 
 chord of the sixth ; not so called, however, because it is 
 unusual or improper, but to distinguish it from the common 
 chord, wherein the lowest note is the root or fundamental 
 bass. See Music. 
 
 UNCONFORMABLE STRATA. A term applied by 
 geologists to strata not lying parallel with the subjacent 
 ones, or having a different line of direction or inclination. 
 UNCTION, EXTREME. See Extreme Unction. 
 UXDE'CAGOX. (Lat. undecim, eleven, and Gr. ytavta, 
 angle.) In Geometry, a plane figure of eleven sides or 
 angles. The area of a regular undecagon is found by mul- 
 tiplying its side into L l of the tangent of 73 -i degrees ; 
 hence if the side be 1, the area is 93C5G4. 
 
 UNDERTOW. A current below, different from that at 
 the surface. 
 
 UNDERWOOD. The low woody growths produced 
 among timber trees : sometimes called coppice wood; though 
 the term coppice wood is more especially applied to woods 
 in which low growths of shrubs, or the stools of trees, are 
 more abundant than Umber trees. See Coppice Wood and 
 Stool. 
 
 UNDI'NES, or OND1NE3. (Lat. unda, water.) The 
 name given by the Cabalists to one class of their spirits of 
 the elements, namely, those residing in the waters. The 
 ancient Greeks believed springs and lakes to be haunted by 
 a peculiar race of supernatural nymphs (see Naiads; ; and 
 this belief passed down unimpaired to the middle ages. 
 The ancient Saxons adored the female deity of the Elbe ; 
 and the belief in undines is still scarcely eradicated in that 
 region. The Saxon peasants report that an undine is often 
 met in the market-place of Magdeburg, dressed as a girl of 
 their own class, but always to be known by having one 
 corner of her apron wet. Near Toulouse many objects of 
 value were once discovered on draining a large artificial 
 lake, which are supposed to have been thrown in as offer- 
 ings to the spirits of the water. The nixe of the northern 
 countries is of the same family, and the Scottish kelpies are 
 creatures of a similar superstition. 
 
 UXDULA'TIOX. (Lat. unda, a wave.) A waving mo- 
 tion ; applied, in physics, to the vibratory motion of an 
 elastic fluid, as the atmosphere. 
 
 UXDULATORY THEORY, in Optics, is the hypothesis 
 according to which the impression of light is conveyed to 
 the eye by the undulations of an elastic medium. This 
 theory supposes the universe to be filled with an ether or 
 medium of great elasticity, but so extremely rare as to offer 
 no resistance to the motions of the planets. For an expla- 
 nation of the phenomena of light and colours according to 
 this theory, see Light. 
 
 UNEVEN NUMBER. In Arithmetic, the same with 
 odd number ; a number not divisible by 2. 
 
 UNFORMED STARS, in Astronomy, are such as are 
 not included in any of the constellations. 
 
 UNGUTCULATES, Vnguiculata. (Lat. unguis, a claw.) 
 The name of a primary division of the class Mammalia, in- 
 cluding those which have the digits armed with claws, but 
 free for the exercise of touch upon their under surface. See 
 Mammalia. 
 
 U'NGUIS, or CLAW. The narrow part of the base of 
 a petal, taking the place of the footstalk of a leaf, of which 
 it is a modification. The term is also used as a term of 
 measure equal to a nail, or half an inch, or the length of 
 the nail of the little finger. 
 
 U'NGULA. (Lat. a hoof.) In Geometry, a solid formed 
 by cutting off a part from a cylinder, cone, or other solid of 
 revolution, by a plane passing obliquely through the base. 
 
 12R3
 
 I! 
 
 UNGULATES. 
 
 The angola is. consequently, bounded by the plane of the 
 base, the intersecting plane, and the portion of the surface 
 of the cylinder, &c. included between them. The name is 
 derived from its resemblance to the hoof (ungula) of a 
 
 U'NGULATES, Vngidata, (LaL ungula, a hoof.) The 
 
 name of a primary division of the class Mammalia, inclu- 
 
 ise species which bave the dibits enclosed in hoofs, 
 
 the under surface not being left free for the exercise of 
 touch. See Mammalia. 
 
 U'NICORN. (Lit. unus, one ; cornu, horn.) Tbe beast 
 called unicorn, in our version of Bcripture (Heb. rem), is 
 now commonly understood to bo the rhinoceros. But the 
 fabulous unicorn, which has passed into heraldry, is repre- 
 I with the figure of B horse, and a single horn issuing 
 from ils forehead. The unicorn of Pliny, however, has the 
 head of a hart, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a hoar, 
 and the rest of the body resembling a horse. Aristotle. 
 iElian, and all the classical writers on animals, mention 
 the unicorn. The traveller Ludovicus Romanus asserts 
 that he saw two unicorns, kept alive in the temple of Mecca. 
 Altogether there is perhaps no fabulous beast for whose 
 no there is so much appearance of evidence, and 
 some seem to imagine that it may yet be discovered in the 
 interior of Thibet. Many Strange virtues were attributed 
 of old to the horn of the unicorn, particularly against poison ; 
 but the horns preserved in collections, and to which that 
 name was given, were either of the rhinoceros, or of the 
 narwal or sea-unicom. 
 
 UNIFO'RMITY. (Fr. uniforme.) In the Fine Arts, 
 resemblance in shape between the correspondent parts of a 
 subject. 
 
 UNIFORMITY, ACT OF. In English History, the first 
 act of uniformity is the 1 Eliz., c. 2; that at present sub- 
 sisting, 13 &. 14 Car. 2, c. 4. It regulates the form of public 
 prayers, administration of the sacraments, and other rites 
 of the Church of England. 
 
 UN 1GENTTUS. The celebrated constitution, in the form 
 of a tnil!. issued by Pope Clement XI. in 1713, in condemna- 
 tion of Fere Uuesnel's Rtflciiuim .Morales sur le JV. Testa- 
 ment. It is so called from its beginning, " Unigcnitus Dei 
 Filius." Father Quesnel was a friend of the celebrated 
 Jansenist leader Arnauld, and became chief of that religious 
 party after the death of the latter. He died in exile at 
 Amsterdam, in 1679. The bull was procured by the Jesuits, 
 especially Father le Tellier ; it condemned 101 propositions 
 selected from Uuesnel's work. Its publication created great 
 discord in France. Most of the bishops accepted it, but 
 with explanations which they gave to the public. Cardinal 
 de Noailles and others refused to accept it at ail. As soon 
 as the Duke of Orleans became regent, Father le Tellier was 
 banished, and the party opposed to the bull came into 
 power ; but the strength of Rome prevailed, and eventually 
 the Duke of Orleans himself compelled de Noailles to 
 accept the bull, in 1720. After that event the Jansenist 
 party only survived in small fragments, especially among 
 the commonalty of Paris. See Jansenists. 
 
 UNILOCULAR. (Lat. unus, one; loculus, partition.) 
 In Conchology, shells which are not divided into chambers. 
 In Botany, seed vessels not separated into cells. 
 
 UNION. In British History. The union of the crowns 
 of England and Scotland took place on the accession of 
 James 1. to the former. The scheme of uniting the king- 
 doms was afterwards several times taken up ; and com- 
 missioners were appointed to consider it in the reigns of 
 Charles II. and James II. Hut it was finally carried into 
 execution in 1700; the statute passed on that occasion being 
 the .7 Anne, c. rt . By this enactment laws relating to trade, 
 customs, and excise wen- to In- the same in both countries : 
 other laws to remain in torn- in each respectively. The 
 parliament of the United Kingdom, called Great Britain, 
 was to have 10 Scottish peers, and 45 members of the 
 House Of Commons. The mode of election of peers was 
 subsequently regulated. (See Parliament.) Since the 
 union, acts of parliament, in general language, are held to 
 extend to Scotland ; a proviso being inserted where it is to 
 be excepted. The union of Great Britain ami Ireland look 
 place in 1800, by the statute 30 & 40 G. 3, c. 67, of the 
 British, and 40 G.3, c. 38, of the Irish statutes. It admitted 
 4 Irish lords spiritual. 38 temporal, and 100 commoners to 
 the united legislature; the lords temporal elected i 
 the lords spiritual sitting by a certain rotation. By article 
 5, the churches were united. For the changes which have 
 since taken place in the number of Scottish and Irish mem 
 bers in tie- lion -i- nfC immons, see PARLIAMENT. 
 
 UXll'i'.'LT vti'.s Unipeltata. (Lat unus, one, and pit- 
 ta, a but ' The name of a family of Stomapodous 
 Crustaceans, comprehending those In which the carapace 
 h comp igle shield-like plate. 
 
 rj'NISI IN. I. at. unus, unc, and sonus, sound.) In Mu- 
 sic, a consonance of two sounds equal in gravity or acute 
 ness, produced by two bodies of the same matter, Length, 
 
 UNIVERSAL JOINT. 
 
 thickness, tension, &c, equally struck at the same time; SO 
 that they yield the same tune or sound. 
 
 UNIT, UNITY. In Arithmetic, the number one ; an 
 individual of discrete quantity. Euclid defines number to 
 be a multitude or collection of units. 
 
 UK ITA'IllANS. Those who confine the Godhead to a 
 single person ; in which general sense the term may be ta- 
 ken to represent the Arians and Socinians, as well as the 
 sect u hich is more strictly denominated Unitarian. These 
 last are the descendants of the religious communities which 
 adopted, in the Itilh century, the opinions of Socinus: but 
 iu the course of years they have gone considerably further 
 towards reducing Revelation to a mere ethical system. 
 They have been supplied with an abundant stream of i in- 
 verts from the Presbyterians and Independents in this coun- 
 try, many congregations of whom became first Arian. and 
 latterly Unitarian in sentiment. The principal Unitarian 
 authorities are Drs. Priestley, Belsham, and Charming, who 
 have either entirely rejected or neutralized the doctrine of 
 the atonement, and represent the language of the apostles 
 upon this and other mysterious points as either intentional- 
 ly accommodated to the ideas current anion" their hearers, 
 or derived from erroneous conceptions of their own. The 
 revelation of the New Testament is thus reduced to the 
 assertion of a mere historical fact — that of the existence of 
 the man Jesus as a moral teacher. But with respect to 
 what he taught, great latitude of interpretation is allowed 
 to Unitarians, since it appears that in their view r the expo- 
 sition of the first disciples is not to be implicitly relied on ; 
 nor do they allow infallibility to the Author of the reiigion 
 himself. The Unitarians were subjected to severe penal- 
 ties, as denieis of the Trinity, long after other dissenters 
 had been relieved by the Act of Toleration : the laws 
 against them were not repealed by statute till the vear 
 1.-13. 
 
 In this country they do not constitute a numerous body: 
 the number of their congregations has been stated at some- 
 thing more than 200; but they are principally composed of 
 persons of the educated classes. In Geneva the pulpits of 
 the established church are mostly occupied by professors of 
 these opinions ; and in the northern suites of America they 
 form one of the must influential of Christian denomina- 
 tions. 
 
 UNITED BRETHREN. In Ecclesiastical History, a body 
 of reformers in Bohemia, who separated themselves from 
 the Catholics and Caiixtines (according to some writers) 
 about 1467. It is also said that they received episcopal or- 
 dination from the Vaudois. According to others (Bossuet, 
 Variations des Egliscs Protestantes, chap. ii... they were 
 an offshoot from the Taborites or Thaborius t see that arti- 
 cle). At all events, it appears certain that there already 
 existed a considerable body of persons processing the tenets 
 of the Reformation in Bohemia at the period of Luther. 
 
 U'NTTIES, in the Drama, are three — of time, place, and 
 action. The latter only is strictly adhered to in the dramat- 
 ic compositions of classical antiquity ; but what is termed 
 by moderns the classical drama (in opposition to the roman- 
 tic) requires all three. See Drama. 
 
 UNIT JAR. A small insulated Leyden jar placed be- 
 tween the electrical machine and a larger jar or battery, so 
 as to announce by its repealed discharges, u hich may be 
 counted, the number of them which have passed into the 
 larger jar. This is among the many valuable additions 
 made to electrical apparatus by Mr. Snow Harris. 
 
 U'NIVALVE. (Lat. unus, one; valva, a valve.) This 
 term is applied to those Mollusks, the shell of which is 
 composed of one piece, and which is generally convoluted 
 spirally. Latreille also thus denominates a family of Lophy- 
 ropodous Crustaceans. 
 
 UNTVE'RSAL. In Logic. A universal proposition is 
 that which has the subject distributed, so that the predi- 
 cate is declared concerning every thing comprehended in 
 it; e.g., "All men (subject) are mortal predicate ." In 
 universal negative propositions the predicate is distributed 
 also; i. «.. " No men are immortal." 
 
 UNrvfe'RSALISTS. A name by which the Arminians 
 an- Rometiines characterized, expressing the universality 
 which they attribute to tin- operation of gran-, conceiving 
 
 it to be given to till men without favour or reserve. On the 
 other hand, the Calvinists, or those who hold the particu- 
 lar election of individuals, an- designated as Particular- 
 ists. 
 
 UNIVERSAL JOINT, or HOOKE'S JOINT. In Ma- 
 chinery, an ingenious contrivance of Dr. Hook.- for the pur- 
 communicating motion obliquely. It is single or 
 double. In tin- Bingie universal joint, the two shafts or 
 axles, A and B, between which the motion Is to be commu- 
 nicated, terminate in semicircles, the diameters of which 
 are fixed in the form of a CTOSS, their extremities moving 
 freely in bushes placed at the extremities of the semicir- 
 cles. Thus, « lull tin- central cross remains unmoved, the 
 shaft A and its semicircular end may revolve miuid C D as
 
 UNIVERSITY. 
 
 an axis ; and in the same manner B, with 
 its semicircular end, will revolve round 
 i: F. If the shaft A be made to revolve 
 without changing its direction, the points 
 , C D will move in a circle whose centre is 
 at the middle of the cross. The motion 
 thus given to the cross will cause the points 
 E F to move in another circle round the 
 same centre, and hence the shaft B will be 
 m;:de to revolve. (Mechanics, Cabinet Cycl., 
 p. 253.) 
 When the shafts are inclined to each other 
 under an angle of 40°, it is necessary to employ a double uni- 
 versal joint, as represented in the an- 
 nexed figure. In this manner the motion 
 may be transmitted from one shaft to 
 another at right angles. Instead of em- 
 ploying a cross in the manner now de- 
 scribed, the joints may be constructed 
 witli tour pins, fastened at right angles 
 upon the circumference of a hoop or 
 ball. Universal joints are of great use 
 in cotton mills, where the tumbling shafts are continued to 
 a great distance from the moving power; for, by applying 
 a universal joint, the shafts may be cut into convenient 
 lengths, and so be enabled to overcome a greater resist- 
 ance. (See Gregory's Mcckanics, vol. ii., p. 9; Willis's 
 Principles of Michanism, p. 272.) 
 
 UNIVERSITY. In the middle ages, the Latin term 
 universitas signified the whole body of students, or of teach- 
 ers and students, assembled in a place of education, with 
 corporate rights, and under by-laws of their own ; in later 
 times, also, the name was held to imply that all branches 
 of study were taught in a university. In the modern sense 
 of the term, a university signifies an establishment for the 
 purposes of instruction in all or some of the most important 
 divisions of science and literature, and having the power 
 of conferring certain honorary dignities, termed degrees. It 
 is generally understood that the authorization of the sover- 
 eign power in the state is necessary to enable such an es- 
 tablishment to confer degrees ; and, in most European 
 countries, there are various offices and professional situa- 
 tions for which a person is qualified by having taken a cer- 
 tain degree at one of these establishments. Hence univer- 
 sities, although in many instances they are composed of 
 private foundations, are justly regarded as national institu- 
 tions. The University of Paris, the most celebrated of 
 those of the middle ages, and which served in some degree 
 as a model to the rest, was formed about 1200 by the union 
 of the various schools of rhetoric, theology, and philosophy, 
 with which that city abounded, under one head, styled the 
 rector. That university was divided into four nations — 
 French, Picard, Norman, and English : the first compre- 
 hended students from Italy and Spain ; the last from the 
 north of Europe generally. The subjects taught were ar- 
 ranged under faculties ; viz., theology, law, medicine, and 
 that of the seven liberal arts — rhetoric, logic, grammar, 
 geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, music. (See Trivium, 
 QuADRivirM.) These faculties were corporate, and elect- 
 ed each a dean ; and these last, with the procurators of 
 the nations, represented the university. The lowest degree 
 was that of bachelor; the next licentiate ; the third magi < 
 ter (this degree at Paris corresponded with that of doctor 
 at Bologna). The colleges were royal or private founda- 
 tions for the benefit of poor students, whose board was, in 
 6ome instances, found for them, and who received stipends 
 or other emoluments. The faculty of theology at Paris 
 was well known by the name of the Sorbonne (q. v.) This 
 slight sketch of the constitution of the famous University 
 of Paris may serve for similar establishments in other Con- 
 tinental countries during the middle ages, and down to a 
 comparatively late period. In England, the two national 
 universities have been established, from a period of consid- 
 erable antiquity, at Oxford and Cambridge. The original 
 constitution of these universities much resembled that of 
 the Parisian, with the exception of the division into four 
 nations, which was wanting. But their subsequent history 
 was much modified by the growth of the colleges, or indi- 
 vidual foundations, into a much higher degree of conse- 
 quence. These were originally destined by their founders 
 merely to entertain a certain number of junior students 
 (generally termed scholars), and a higher body (named in 
 most cases fellows), and furnish them with assistance in 
 the prosecution of their studies ; while the great body of 
 independent students lodged in the numerous halls, and at- 
 tended only on the public university lectures. But by de- 
 grees the colleges likewise became receptacles for independ- 
 ent students, under the tuition of the fellows ; the halls 
 were for the most part abandoned, and such as remained 
 partook of the collegiate character; and, in the modern 
 system (which has subsisted for more than two centuries), 
 no student is admitted to take a university degree unless he 
 109 
 
 UPUPA. 
 
 has completed his studies in a college, or collegiate hall, 
 under the superintendence of its tutors. But the original 
 division into independent and foundation students still sub- 
 sists ; although the fellowships in many instances, instead 
 of being filled up from the junior foundation members in 
 each college, are left open as prizes for the competition of 
 the whole university. The degrees, in Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, are differently named, or arrived at in different suc- 
 cession, in the several faculties ; but degrees in theology 
 and medicine can only be obtained after the acquisition of 
 certain degrees in arts. In Spain, the universities are ar- 
 ranged on a system somewhat resembling that which pre- 
 vails in England, the students being entered of their re- 
 spective college in each. In Germany, as in England, the 
 earliest universities (Prague, founded in 1348, and Vienna, 
 in 1365) were framed on the model of that of Paris. Ger- 
 many has now a far more numerous list of universities 
 than any other country. From the Bursae (charitable es- 
 tablishments resembling our collegiate foundations for the 
 benefit of poor students) was derived the term Bursche, by 
 which the students of these universities are so generally 
 known. But the collegiate system never prevailed in that 
 country as among ourselves. On their present arrange- 
 ment (which is pretty similar in all, Catholic as well as 
 Protestant), the four faculties are retained. Professors in 
 the various branches are appointed by government. These 
 form the senate, at the head of which is the prorector, who 
 is chosen annually or biennially. Besides these, there are 
 extraordinary professors, who receive small salaries ; and 
 an inferior class of licensed teachers, or licentiates, who 
 receive none. The professors are obliged to give public 
 lectures in the branch of study to which they are appoint- 
 ed ; but they, as well as the other two classes, may give 
 also private lectures on whatever subject they please ; and 
 from the fees of attendance at these their principal income 
 is derived. The student is for the most part left at liberty 
 to attend what lectures he pleases ; but licences to practise 
 various professions, benefices in the various churches, &c, 
 are only given, especially in Prussia, to those who have 
 studied a certain number of years by attending lectures in 
 the requisite branch of study. The constitution of the 
 Scotch Universities has a great resemblance to those of 
 Germany ; and the same observation is applicable to the 
 two universities established in the metropolis within the 
 last few years — London University and King's College. In 
 France, the old university system may be said to have been 
 entirely done away with by the Revolution. As to the uni- 
 versities of the middle ages, see Savigny, Hist, of Roman 
 Law, vol. iii. For an elaborate defence of the English 
 system, see Quart. Rev., vols. Iii., lix. The history of the 
 great change effected in it by the substitution of collegiate 
 for professorial instruction, has been traced in a series of 
 recent papers in the Edin. Rev. 
 
 UNI'VOCALS, or SYNONYMS. In the Aristotelian 
 Logic (as used by the schoolmen), generic words ; »". e., 
 words of which both the genus and the difference are pre- 
 dicable of many different species : e. g., the genus " ani- 
 mal" is " univocum univocans" with respect to " man" and 
 "brute," both of which are comprehended under any defi- 
 nition which can be given of the word " animal," and are 
 called with reference to it "univoca univocata." Univer- 
 sal terms are also such as have only one signification ; op- 
 posed to equivocal. 
 
 UNMOOR. To take up one of the two anchors by 
 which the ship is moored. 
 
 UPAS TREE (Upas, the Javanese name), is a plant 
 common in the forests of Java and some of the neighbour- 
 ing islands, to which extraordinary stories, for the most 
 part fabulous, have been attached. Upon the authority of 
 Dutch writers, it has been asserted that it is a most deadly 
 poison, employed in the execution of criminals ; who are, 
 however, pardoned if they succeed in reaching a tree and 
 bringing back its venom. Birds were said to drop dead 
 while flying over it, and the whole country round it was as- 
 serted to be desolated by its pestilent effluvia. The truth is, 
 that the Upas tree is merely a tree with poisonous secre- 
 tions, and nothing more ; there is nothing deleterious in its 
 atmosphere. It is an Urticaceous plant, called Jljitiaria 
 toiicaria, and is very nearly related to the fig, some of 
 whose species are also deadly poisons. 
 
 UPHERS. In Architecture, fir poles chiefly used in 
 scaffolding ; they run from twenty to forty feet in length, 
 and from four to seven inches in diameter. 
 
 U LANDS. Lands on hills or steep declivities, which 
 in general require a different kind of management from 
 lands in plains or comparatively flat surfaces. Uplands 
 are generally kept in pasture or underwood. 
 
 U'PUPA. (Lat. upupa, a hoopoe.) A genus of Tenui- 
 rostral Passerine birds, distinguished by an ornamental 
 head-crest formed of a double range of feathers, which 
 can be erected at will. The common hoopoe ( Upupa epops) 
 is an occasional but rare visitant of England. 
 
 1285
 
 URACHUS. 
 
 U'RACHUS. The ligamentous cord which arises from 
 the base of the urinary bladder, and terminates in the um- 
 bilical cord. 
 
 URA'NIA. In Mythology, the muse of Astronomy. She 
 is generally represented with a crown of stars, in a gar- 
 ment spotted u iili stars, and holding in her left hand a ce- 
 lestial globe or a lyre. 
 
 UBA'NIUM. A metal discovered by Klaproth in 1789, 
 who named it after the planet Uranus, discovered about 
 that time. It occurs only in two native combinations — the 
 pec/ib/enile of Saxony, and the uranite ; of the latter, fine 
 specimens have been found in Cornwall. Little is known 
 of the properties of metallic uranium: it appears to be a 
 brittle gray metal, of the specific gravity about 9. From 
 the experiments of Eerzelius and Arfwedson we deduce 
 the number 217 for its equivalent ; that of its protoxide be- 
 ing 22.), and of its peroxide (sesquioxide) 229. The salts of 
 the oxides of uranium are of a fine grass green or yellow 
 colour: the persalts have been most examined. Ferrocyan- 
 ate of potassa produces in them a very characteristic rich 
 brown precipitate, not unlike that formed by the persalts 
 of copper. They are also precipitated brown by infusion 
 of sails. 
 
 ifRANOSCOPUS. (Gr. ovpavoc, heaven ; cKoireu), T ex- 
 plore. A genus of fishes was so called by Linnaeus, be- 
 cause both eyes were placed on the superior surface of the 
 head, which presents a nearly cubical form. The mouth 
 is cleft vertically at the anterior part of the head, and, like 
 the eyes, is directed upwards. The species of this genus, 
 commonly called " star-gazers," belong to the Percoid fam- 
 ily of Acauthopterygian fishes in the Ichthyological system 
 of Cuvier. 
 
 U'RANUS. (Gr. ovpavoc, heaven. In Mythology, a di- 
 vinity, the first king of the Atlantic nation, and the father 
 of Saturn. 
 
 Uranus. In Astronomy, the remotest known planet he- 
 longing to our solar system. The mean distance of Ura- 
 nus from the sun is 19.18239, that of the earth being consid- 
 ered as unity, whence its real distance is upwards of 1800 
 millions of miles. Its sidereal revolution is performed in 
 about 84 Julian years. The orbit is inclined to the ecliptic 
 in an angle of only 40' 2844" ; and the eccentricity of the 
 orbit is 0*046679, half the major axis being taken as unity. 
 The apparent diameter of Uranus (which, on account of 
 the great magnitude of its orbit in comparison of that of 
 the earth, undergoes very little variation) is about 4" ; 
 whence the real diameter of the planet must be about 
 35.000 miles, or nearly four and a half times that of the 
 earth ; and its bulk about eighty times that of the earth. 
 Uranus presents the appearance of a small round and uni- 
 formly illuminated disk, without rings, belts, or discernible 
 spots. From analogy we infer that it revolves about its 
 axis ; but of this there Is no direct proof: the great distance 
 of the planet, indeed, precludes our obtaining much know- 
 ledge of its physical state. Two satellites at least are 
 known to attend Uranus. Sir William Herschel thought 
 he could discern six ; but the existence of more than two 
 has not been clearly made out. In fact, with the exception 
 of the two inferior satellites of Saturn, those of Uranus 
 are the most difficult objects to obtain a sight of in the so- 
 lar system. The two satellites which are in some degree 
 known have this remarkable peculiarity, that, instead of 
 advancing from west to east round the centre of the prima- 
 ry, the planes of their orbits are nearly perpendicular to 
 the ecliptic, and their motion is retrograde. 
 
 Uranus was discovered by Sir William Herschel, at 
 Bath, on the 13th of March, 1781. It had been previously 
 Observed by I'l.unstoed, Bradley, Mayer, and Lemonnier ; 
 but, owing to the inferiority of their telescopes, not one of 
 these astronomers suspected it to be a planet. Sir W. 
 Herschel called it the Oeorghm Sidus. in honour of George 
 III. Foreigners for some time .ailed it the Herschel ; and 
 it is now, in some English works, called the Georgian. See 
 Pi.ankt. 
 
 URE'A. A peculiar crystallizable substance held in 
 solution in the urine. When dried in vacuo it consists, ac- 
 cording to Dr. Prout, of 
 
 i 
 
 Atoms 
 
 Equiv. 
 
 Theory. 
 
 Experiment 
 
 j Nitrogen .... 
 
 | Carbon .... 
 
 D . . . 
 
 1 Oxygen .... 
 
 2 
 2 
 I 
 4 
 
 28 
 12 
 4 
 
 16 
 
 46 67 
 20-00 
 6-67 
 26-66 
 
 46-65 
 2007 
 6-65 
 26-63 
 
 1 
 
 60 
 
 100 00 
 
 1 00-110 
 
 Urea is readily soluble in water, tasteless, inodorous; and 
 when mixed with the other contents of the urine very 
 prone to putrefaction, the principal result of which is car- 
 bonate of ammonia. Urea has been artificially obtained by 
 
 the action of ai da on cyanate of lead; oxide of leal! 
 
 is precipitated, and colourless crystals of urea obtained by 
 tarefully evaporating the solution. 
 URE'lio. (Lat. uro, / burn.) A genus of microscopi- 
 
 URINE. 
 
 cal Fun?i. whose presence is known by the burnt appear- 
 ance of the part they infest. They consist of extremely 
 minute brown spores, which multiply with great rapidity, 
 and appear to injure plants by absorbing their juices. 
 Smut and brand, diseases too well known to the farmer, arc 
 caused by their ravages. Steeping corn in lime-water is 
 the best means of repelling their attacks. 
 
 U'RETER. The membranous tube which conveys the 
 urine from the kidney to the urinary bladder. 
 
 U'RE'TIIRA. The membranous tube or canal by which 
 the urine is voided. 
 
 U'RIA. A genus of web-footed birds, belonging to the 
 short-winged family Brachyptercs of Cuvier, and, like the 
 rest of that family, admirable divers. The species of Uria 
 are all marine, and generally known by the name of Guil- 
 lemots." They resort in vast numbers to breed among the 
 rocks of the Orkney and Shetland Isles, and are a source 
 of profit to the adventurous inhabitants. 
 
 URIC ACID. An acid peculiar to the urine of certain 
 animals ; it is always present in human urine, and in the 
 excrements of many birds of prey and of serpents, especial- 
 ly of the Boa constrictor, which is voided in white nodules, 
 consisting of little else than urate of ammonia. Uric acid 
 also forms one of the commonest varieties of urinary cal- 
 culi, and of the red gravel or sand which is voided in cer- 
 tain morbid states of the urine. Pure uric acid is obtained 
 in the state of a very insoluble white powder by digesting 
 powdered uric calculus, or the excrement of the boa, in 
 potash, and dropping the solution into weak muriatic acid : 
 the precipitate which falls is to be well washed, and dried 
 at 212°. Its most distinctive chemical character, by which 
 it is at once easily recognised, is, that when moistened with 
 nitric acid and heated it dissolves, and upon evaporation to 
 dryness leaves a red compound, which, upon the addition 
 of a drop or two of a solution of caustic ammonia, becomes 
 of a fine crimson (purpurate of ammonia). The following 
 is the composition of uric acid : 
 
 
 Atoms. 
 
 Equiv. 
 
 Theory. 
 
 Experiment. 
 
 Nitrogen .... 
 Carbon .... 
 Hydrogen . . . 
 Oxygen .... 
 
 2 
 6 
 2 
 3 
 
 28 
 36 
 2 
 24 
 
 31-11 
 40-00 
 
 2-22 
 26-67 
 
 31125 
 
 39-875 
 2-225 
 26775 
 
 1 
 
 90 
 
 10000 
 
 100 oou 
 
 U'RIM. A word connected in its signification with the 
 word thummim, being the plural of the Hebrew aur, a light, 
 a luminary; whence it has come to signify fire. Thum- 
 mim, which is the plural of thorn or tarn, means fulness or 
 perfection. See Wilkinson's Ancient Egyptians, as to the 
 connexion of this word with the title of the Egyptian god 
 Thauth, or Thoth. 
 
 The two words, conjointly, signify light and perfection ; 
 but the Septuagint render it literally df/'bt.oets teat d^ridcia, 
 manifestation and truth. The urim and thummim were 
 the precious stones on the high priest's breastplnte, which 
 made known the will of God by casting an extraordinary 
 lustre, and thereby manifested the success of events to 
 those who consulted them. 
 
 The high priest alone could officiate at this solemn cere- 
 mony ; and the urim was to be consulted only at the in- 
 stance of public persons, such as the kins, the president of 
 the sanhedrim, and the general of the Israelitish army ; 
 and only on such public matters as related to the common 
 interest of the twelve tribes. 
 
 The manner in which the high priest consulted the urim 
 was as follows : Having entered into the sanctuary or holy 
 place, being fully invested with his robes and breastplate, 
 and with his face turned towards the ark of the covenant, 
 upon which the divine presence reposed, he brought the 
 matter to be consulted ; the person for whom he consulted 
 standing behind him, and in humility and reverence await- 
 ing the answer. The high priest then fixed his eyes on 
 the pectoral, and those letters which formed the answer 
 shone with more than ordinary lustre, and were signifi- 
 cantly raised out of their places. So when David inquired 
 of God, by means of the urim, whether he should go up to 
 one of the cities of Judah, three letters came out of their 
 places as it were, and gave the answer. 
 
 While the Hebrews were under a theocracy, or immedi- 
 ately governed by Jehovah, it was necessary there should 
 always be means at hand to consult him : but when this 
 theocracy ceased, and the kingdom became hereditary in 
 the person and family of Solomon, and Israel became di- 
 vided into two monarchies, under Rehoboam and Jeroboam, 
 the consulting of the urim and thummim appears to have 
 ceased. 
 
 URINE. (Gr. opovav, to rush out.) The fluid secreted 
 by the kidneys, whence il passes by the ureters into the 
 bladder. The variable appearance of the urine announces, 
 even to the casual observer, correspondinc fluctuations in 
 its composition ; these have long been studied by physicians 
 and medical chemists, as furnishing useful prognostics in 

 
 URINE. 
 
 disease. The chemical analysis, however, of the urine is 
 attended by many difficulties, chiefly arising out of the 
 great number of different substances which are found in it, 
 the variations in quantity and quality to which they are li- 
 able, and the facility with which they are modified by the 
 analytical reagents which it is necessary to employ. The 
 substances always found in healthy urine are, water ; car 
 bonic acid ; phosphoric acid, or superphosphate of lime ; 
 uric acid, or superurate of ammonia ; phosphates of lime, 
 soda, magnesia, and ammonia ; sulphate of soda ; chloride 
 of sodium (common salt) ; urea, albumen, and mucus ; 
 colouring and odorous matter. To these may probably be 
 added fluoric, benzoic, and lactic or acetic acids ; gelatine, 
 acetate of ammonia; sulphate of potassa ; fluoride of cal- 
 cium ; muriate of ammonia ; sulphur ; silica. In certain 
 diseases other products make their appearance, which are 
 not discoverable in healthy urine ; such as oxalic acid, or 
 oxalate of lime ; nitric acid ; sugar ; carbonate of lime ; 
 cystic oxide; and occasionally some anomalous organic 
 compounds, the nature of which has not been very satisfac- 
 torily ascertained. 
 
 It is almost impossible, in consequence of the circum- 
 stances above mentioned, to give a correct notion of the 
 relative proportions of the component parts of healthy 
 *rine ; but the following statement, from Berzelius, will 
 serve to give an idea of the average composition of this 
 complicated fluid : 
 
 Water 93300 
 
 Urea 3010 
 
 Sulphates of potash and soda .... 6-87 
 Phosphate of soda and of ammonia . . . 4-59 
 
 Chloride of sodium 4-45 
 
 Muriate of ammonia 150 
 
 Free lactic acid (acetic 1) 1 
 
 Lactate of ammonia V .... 17-14 
 Animal matter > 
 Earthy phosphate and a trace of fluoride of cal- 
 cium 1-00 
 
 Uric acid 1-00 
 
 Mucus and albumen 0-32 
 
 Silica 0-03 
 
 100000 
 When the urine is in a healthy state, there are many 
 circumstances of mind and body which materially influ- 
 ence its appearance and quantity. It is often little else 
 than water, as after very copious draughts of diluting and 
 diuretic liquids ; at other times it is saturated with its solid 
 contents, and even deposits part of them as it cools. If 
 turbid at the time it is voided, it may always be considered 
 as in a morbid state. Sometimes it contains foreign matters 
 which have been taken as medicine or food. The peculiar 
 odour imparted to it by asparagus, the colour by spinach, 
 rhubarb, &c, and the passage of certain saline substances 
 by the kidneys, are familiar cases of these modifications to 
 which the urine is subject. The daily average voided un- 
 der ordinary circumstances, by healthy individuals, is not 
 less than 30 nor more than 40 ounces ; and its specific grav- 
 ity should not exceed 1030 ; though in some cases of dis- 
 ease, as in diabetes, and occasionally in some diseases of 
 the liver and of the kidneys (as in cases of albuminous 
 urine described by Dr. Bright) it rises to 1040. The usual 
 average is 1020. It always reddens the vegetable blues 
 which indicate free acid. In cases of suppressed perspira- 
 tion its quantity- is usually increased ; and in hot weather, 
 and when the perspiration is copious, it is diminished, for 
 it is one of the great outlets of mere water from the svstem. 
 We may also observe, that a large quantity of nitrogen is 
 thrown off by the same channel, for that element consti- 
 tutes 20 per cent, of urea. 
 
 Urinary Calculi. — When the uric acid of the urine, 
 which we have already stated to be one of its most insolu- 
 ble contents, is secreted in any extraordinary proportion, it 
 is passed in a solid state, generally in minute, red crystals, 
 or red sand ; and these not unfrequently agglutinate, so as 
 to form small calculi from the size of a pin's head upwards. 
 These, passing with more or less pain from the kidney 
 along the ureter into the bladder, produce what is termed a 
 fit of gravel; and if one or more of them remain in the 
 bladder, it then increases in size, and becoming too large to 
 be passed with the urine, gives rise to symptoms of stone in 
 the bladder. The increase of this nucleus will be more or 
 less rapid, according to the state of the urine ; but if the in- 
 ordinate formation of uric acid continues, that substance 
 will frequently be deposited upon it in successive layers, 
 and it will sometimes thus attain a considerable size,' and 
 consist almost entirely of uric acid. But if the uric attack 
 in the kidney is transient, the small uric calculus in the 
 bladder usually becomes encrusted with a white deposit, 
 composed of ammonio-magnesian phosphate, perhaps with 
 more or less phosphate of lime, this mixture forming what 
 has been termed the fusible calculus ; and tins gives rise 
 
 UROPTERANS. 
 
 to a second and frequent species of urinary calculus, name- 
 ly, that in which a uric nucleus is enveloped in the phos- 
 phates. The natural tendency of the mine is to deposit 
 the above-mentioned difficultly soluble phosphates upon 
 any extraneous matter or nucleus which may chance to be 
 in the bladder ; but the rapidity with which it is deposited 
 is very different in different individuals, and accordingly 
 the increase in size of such a calculus is sometimes very 
 slow, and sometimes extremely rapid ; and as the violence 
 of the symptoms generally depends (but not always) upon 
 the size of the concretion, they will be subject to great 
 consequent irregularity. It does occasionally happen that 
 calculi are formed in the bladder independent of any mor- 
 bid state of the urine itself, or of any uric nucleus sent 
 down from the kidneys ; but these cases are rare, and ap- 
 pear to depend upon the accumulation of sand and mucus 
 in certain disordered states of the bladder, which is gradu- 
 ally indurated into a nucleus, and which then goes on to 
 increase in the phosphates ; so that, on cutting such a 
 calculus through the centre, we do not, as in the majority 
 of cases, observe a uric nucleus, but the whole concretion 
 is white and more or less crystalline, and usually consists 
 of little else than ammonio-magnesian phosphate. This 
 outline of the formation of calculi includes by far the 
 greater number of cases ; but it occasionally happens that 
 not only the nucleus, but the bulk of the stone, is made up 
 of oxalate of lime, a substance which we have above allu- 
 ded to as not belonging to healthy urine. When these cal- 
 culi come direct from the kidney, they often are gray and 
 smooth, and look almost like a hempseed ; or, when more 
 carefully examined, are found to be a congeries of little, 
 rounded particles ; but when they have increased in the 
 bladder, they are then generally rough and dark brown on 
 the exterior, whence they have acquired the name of 
 mulberry calculi. Another, and more rare substance, 
 which forms gravel and calculi, is the cystic oxide ; and in 
 some very rare cases small concretions of carbonate of lime 
 have been voided, most probably originating in the prostate 
 gland. Lastly, minute grains of silica are said to have 
 been detected in the urine, and this substance has also 
 been found in calculi ; but it is rare, and in small quantity. 
 In concluding this sketch of the history 7 of the urine and 
 urinary calculi, we cannot too strongly insist upon the im- 
 portance of attending to the early symptoms of the disease, 
 and to its first announcement, which generally consists in 
 habitual turbidness and deposits in the urine. All persons 
 are subject to occasional appearances of this kind ; but 
 when they are constant, they ought to be considered as 
 alarming indications of farther mischief. These, in their 
 early stages, are almost always curable, either by diet, 
 medicine, or both ; but when once a stone has formed in 
 the kidney or bladder, all hope of its removal, except by an 
 operation (and even that not admissible in the case of kid- 
 ney calculi), is vain, nothing having been yet discovered to 
 which the term solvent is properly applicable. The re- 
 moval of the stone from the bladder is effected by opera- 
 tion in two ways : either by an incision into the bladder, 
 and the removal of the stone by a forceps — this constitutes 
 lithotomy : or by lithotrity, in which certain instruments 
 are introduced by the urethra, so as to grasp the stone, and 
 enable the operator to reduce it to fragments sufficiently 
 small to allow of being voided by the usual passage. 
 
 URN, in Mosses, is the hollow urn in which the spores 
 or false seeds are lodged. 
 
 URN, CINERARY or SEPULCHRAL. (Lat. uro, / 
 burn.) A species of vase used among the ancients to re- 
 ceive and preserve the ashes of the dead. The form of 
 the urn was derived by the Romans from Greece ; but the 
 Greeks did not employ their urns for sepulchral purposes. 
 Among the Romans these vessels were especially conse- 
 crated to retaining the ashes of the dead. Similar vessels 
 were used by the ancient Teutonic and Slavonic tribes, 
 who likewise burned their dead. Sir T. Brown's celebra- 
 ted work, Hydriolaphia, or Urn Burial, contains a strange 
 collection of learned fragments and philosophical reflections 
 on this subject. Numerous descriptions of cinerary urns, 
 both Roman and British, discovered at different periods in 
 this country, will be found in the Archmologia. 
 
 UROCE r RATA. (Gr. ovpa, a tail, and Kipac, a horn.) 
 The name of a tribe of the Terebrantia, or boring Hymenop- 
 terous insects, in which the terebra or borer of the females 
 is sometimes very long and prominent, and composed of 
 three filamentary processes, sometimes capillary, and coil- 
 ed in a spiral form in the interior of the abdomen. 
 
 U'RODELES, Urodelm. (Gr. ovpa, and 6n\oc, manifest.) 
 The name of that tribe of Caducibranchiate Batrachian 
 reptiles which preserve the tail through all the stages of 
 their existence. 
 
 URO'PTERANS, Uroptera. (Gr. ovpa, and Trrcpov, a 
 wing.) The name of a family of Amphipodous Crustace- 
 ans, including those in which the tail is terminated by en- 
 larged appendages in the shape of fins. 
 
 1287
 
 UROPYGIUM. 
 
 UROPY'GIUM. (Gr. ox-pa, a tail, and TTvyrj, behind.) 
 The base of the tail in mammals anil lards. 
 
 I RO'SCOPY. The judgment of diseases founded upon 
 an inspection of the urine. 
 
 I 'RSA .MAJOR. The Great Bear; one of the forty- 
 eighl constellations of Ptolemy, in the northern hemisphere, 
 and near the )>ole. It is often alluded to in the most an- 
 cient histories, sacred and profane, under the various de- 
 nominations of Arctos, Bootes, Helix, Callisto, Megisto, 
 the Wagon, the Plough. It contains seven very con- 
 spicuous stars, called septemLriones : whence septemtrio, 
 the north. 
 
 QKS \ MINOR. The Lesser Bear; also one of the 
 forty-eight constellations of Ptolemy. It was called by the 
 Greeks Cynosura; that is, the Dog's Tail. The pole star 
 is in this constellation. 
 
 U'RSULENES. In Ecclesiastical History, an order of 
 nuns, of which the origin is ascribed to Angela di Brescia, 
 about 1537 ; but which derived its name from St. Ursula 
 (a lady of the family of Benincasa at Naples). The Ursu- 
 lines were bound to perform charitable otfices to the sick, 
 poor, and penitent. They were erected into an order by 
 Gregory XIII., in 1577, at the solicitation of St. Charles 
 Borromeo. They take, in addition to the three ordinary 
 vows, a fourth — to devote themselves to education. (See 
 Waddington, History of the Church, p. 401.) 
 
 U'RSUS. (Lat. ursus, a bear.) A genus of Pantigrade 
 Carnivora in the system of Cuvier, restricted to those spe- 
 cies which have three large tuberculate molars on each 
 side of both jaws, the anterior lower and the posterior up- 
 per one being the largest. They are preceded by a tooth a 
 little more trenchant, representing the carnassial tooth, and 
 by a variable number of small premolars. In accordance 
 with this dentition, the bears are omnivorous or frugivor- 
 ous. They are heavy, stout-bodied animals, with thick 
 limbs, and a very short tail: the cartilage of the nose is 
 moveable, and sometimes very long, as in the labiated 
 bear, commonly called the ursine sloth. The bears of the 
 northern regions pass the winter in a state of somnolency 
 in dens or other hiding places, and it is in these retreats 
 that the female brings forth her young. The species best 
 Known are the common brown bear ( Ursus arctos), the 
 black bear ( Ursus Americanus), the grisly bear ( Ursus 
 feroz), the polar bear ( Ursus maritimus), the Ursus labia- 
 tus, Ursus Thibetanus, Ursus Malay anus, and Ursus Syri- 
 acus. 
 
 URTICA'CEiE (Lat. urtica, the nettle), form a very 
 large and natural order of plants, with apetalous flowers, a 
 lenticular, simple fruit, and a seed whose embryo always 
 directs its radicle towards the top of the cavity. The 
 stinging properties of the common nettle are participated in 
 by many others whose acridity is intense. Others are 
 provided with a poisonous juice, which in its most concen- 
 trated form gives the upas tree of Java its formidable quali- 
 ties. A narcotic principle is highly developed in hemp, 
 ami the toughness of the fibre of that plant occurs in many 
 others of the order. Nevertheless the fig, the bread-fruit, 
 the mulberry, and hops, in which nothing deleterious is 
 remarked, are the produce of some species ; and even the 
 milk tree of the Caraccas, whose bland juice feeds the 
 natives of the country, is an Urticaceous plant. Many 
 species furnish caoutchouc, which, in Ficus elastica, is of 
 the finest quality. 
 
 URTICARIA. See Nettle Rash. 
 
 IS LNCE. In Commercial Law. A foreign bill is often 
 drawn at one, two, or more " usances," meaning thereby 
 certain periods of time which it is the usage of the coun- 
 tries between which the bills are drawn to allow for pay- 
 ment thereof. Thus, the " usance" between London and 
 Paris is one calendar month; a bill drawn here "at one 
 usance," on the 2d January, is payable there on the 5th 
 February, allowing three days (if grace. 
 
 USE, in its original sense, signified the equitable right 
 one had to take the rents and profits of land whereof the 
 legal ownership was in another. It was very nearly the 
 same as the trust of the present day, and created in the fol- 
 lowing manner: The owner of land conveyed it by feoff- 
 ment to some friend, on the understanding that the feoffee 
 should hold it for the sole use and benefit of the feoffor, or 
 such persons as he might nominate. In this way the Beisin 
 or legal property of the land became vested in the feoffee 
 to uses as trustee; while the feoffor, or other person nom 
 mated by him, who was called the cestui que use, had the 
 Substantial use and enjoyment of it. The simplicity of the 
 common law, however, recognised but one person In con- 
 nexion with the soil, namely, its real owner, and repudia 
 ted the idea of any use as separated from the seisin ; so 
 that it the trustee, abusing the confidence placed in him, 
 refused to let cestui que use take the rents and profits, 
 then; was nn redress lor the grievance. But the Court of 
 
 • oancerj asa court of equity, considered the agreement 
 entered into by the trustee as binding on his conscience ; 
 1288 
 
 USE. 
 
 and after calling on him by writ of subpoena to appear and 
 in ike a disclosure on oath of the particulars of his trust, 
 compelled him to perform it. 
 
 The system of uses was transplanted from the civil law, 
 and introduced into this country about the lime of Edward 
 HI. by the ecclesiastics, who procured conveyances to be 
 made, not directly to themselves, but to lay persons as 
 trustees for them, in order to evade the statutes of mort- 
 ui i i ii. Once known, it was generally adopted ; and though 
 crushed in its infancy, so far as regarded religious houses, 
 continued to flourish without disturbance in other respects, 
 and was found admirably adapted to the wants and con- 
 venience of the people at large in softening the rigours of 
 feudal tenure, anil facilitating the alienation and settlement 
 of property. The laws and policy of feudal tenure required 
 the vassal to render certain fruits and services to his lord; 
 and if these were not duly rendered, or any act were done 
 in derogation of the lord's title, the estate was forfeited. 
 The tenancy of the freehold could not be interrupted or 
 suspended for an instant; and to every transfer of it, actual 
 and public delivery of possession, in the presence of wit- 
 nesses, and accompanied by much solemn ceremonial, was 
 absolutely indispensable ; so that the lord might always 
 have some person to perform the services due to him, and 
 always know with certainty who that person was. The 
 lord was entitled to sell his ward in marriage, to take the 
 profits of the land during the wardship, and on the descent 
 or alienation of the land heavy fines were payable to him. 
 The tenant had no power of directing the destination of the 
 land by will ; such a mode of disposition would at once 
 have been wanting in notoriety, and have deprived the lord 
 of his fruits upon a descent. 
 
 When, however, the equitable interest in land, as dis- 
 tinguished from the legal property in it, became recognised 
 and enforced in the Court of Chancery, the principal hard- 
 ships of tenure were easily avoided. A conveyed land to 
 B to A's own use ; the terms upon which B took the land 
 were said, in equity, to affect his conscience, and to impose 
 
 upon him a ra] obligation to fulfil them honestly. But 
 
 it was in equity only that A had any claim: there he might 
 call upon B to allow him to take the profits of the land, and 
 to make such conveyances of it as he might from time to 
 time direct. At law A had no control over or connexion 
 with the land any longer remaining to him. His use, there- 
 fore, altogether evaded the grasp of tenure, which rested 
 entirely upon the common law. It was held of no one . it 
 was the creature of his own decimation, operating upon 
 the conscience of the person in whom he confided. It 
 might be transferred at any time without any public solem- 
 nities by a secret declaration. At law A could not carve 
 out for himself a portion of the whole fee, and limit the 
 residue of it to others, without first of all going through all 
 the formalities of a conveyance to B, anil then taking back 
 a reconveyance, with the same formalities, of that portion 
 of the fee which he might wish to retain to himself. Hus- 
 band and wife being one person in law, he could not carve 
 out a portion for her without conveying to B, in order that 
 B might afterwards convey to her. He could not convey 
 the fee, or any portion of it, to B ; so that it should, on the 
 happening of any named event, or the expiration of any 
 named period, shift either wholly or in part from him to 
 any other person. He could not even convey to B at all 
 without giving him immediate possession: a conveyance 
 to him in futuro, as from Christmas next, would have been 
 altogether void. He might, however, resorting to equity, 
 and making a declaration of the uses to which he wished 
 his property to be applied, effect all these and innumerable 
 other arrangements by a single stroke of the pen, or a mere 
 breath. The use, emancipated from the common law, had 
 such a suppleness and pliability as almost to accommodate 
 itself to his very whims. He might dispose of it by will, or 
 it would descend to his heirs in the course of the common 
 law ; but no fine was payable upon its descent. It was not 
 liable either to dower or to curtesy ; it was not extendible 
 for debts, nor forfeited for treason. Lord Bacon according- 
 ly complains, that it " deceived many of their just and rea- 
 sonable rights. A man that had cause to sue for bind knew 
 not against whom to bring his action, or who was the 
 owner of it. The wife was defrauded of her thirds; the 
 husband of bis curtesy; the lord of his wardship, relief, 
 i !, and escheat ; the creditor of his extent for debt ; and 
 
 the p ' tenant of his lease." To remedy these ai.il other 
 
 Inconveniences, the statute 27 Henry 8, c. 10 was passed, 
 
 usually called the Statute ofUses; which enacts, thatwhen 
 
 any person shall be seised of lands to the use, confidence, 
 or trust of any person, be Bhall thenceforth be seised and 
 possessed of the land of and in the like estate as he had in 
 the use, trust, or confidence. 
 
 The statute thus executed the use, as it is called, by 
 
 transferring it Into possession, and doing away u 1th the dis- 
 tinction between the beneficial interest and legal property 
 in land. Whoever had the use had now also the legal
 
 USHER. 
 
 estate. Thus the use was not abolished, according to the 
 probable intention of the legislature, but merely annexed to 
 and incorporated with the legal estate ; to which, therefore, 
 it now superadded all the convenient ductility of its own 
 nature. It had no longer a merely precarious existence in 
 equity, but a firm locus standi in courts of law. It was 
 shorn, indeed, of many of its old privileges, such as exemp- 
 tion from dower, curtesy, and forfeiture; but for this loss 
 there was soon contrived a remedy. The judges, in their 
 narrow construction of the statute, decided that its provi- 
 sions did not extend to a use limited upon a use, as their 
 phrase was. Accordingly, on a feoffment to A and his heirs, 
 to the use of B and his heirs, to the use of (or in trust for) 
 C and his heirs ; they held that the statute clothed the first 
 use with the legal ownership, and that the second was a 
 nullity. But as it was quite clear that C, and not B. was 
 the person intended to enjoy the estate, this verbal pedantry 
 of the common law judges drove C into the Court of Chan- 
 cery for relief, where he was immediately received as the 
 substantial cestui que use; and the use which the statute 
 had been in law held not to execute was considered a valid 
 trust in equity. Thus by limiting two uses successively 
 instead of one only as before the statute — by making, in 
 fact, the conveyance only three words longer than had 
 been customary, the equitable interest and the legal estate 
 were again disunited, and the use under its new name of 
 trust was as popular and available as ever. In this man- 
 ner the destructive qualities of the statute are virtually re- 
 pealed, while its creative qualities are to this day in full 
 operation ; and the legislature, instead of paralyzing the use, 
 has only given new form and flexibility to the legal estate. 
 Uses are of various kinds. 
 
 An executed -use is one to which the statute applies by 
 annexing to it the legal ownership. That to which the 
 statute does not apply is called, as has been already men- 
 tioned, a trust. 
 
 Secondary or shifting -use is one which takes effect in 
 derogation of a use previously limited, as in a conveyance 
 to A to the use of B ; and if C shall return from Rome or 
 pay B a certain sum of money, then to the use of C. 
 
 Springing use is one limited to arise on a future event, 
 where no preceding use is limited. 
 
 Future or contingent use is one limited to a person not 
 ascertained, or upon an uncertain event, but without dero- 
 gation of an use previously limited, as to A for life, and af- 
 terwards to his unborn son. 
 
 Resulting use. When the use limited expires or cannot 
 vest, it is said, either after such expiration or during such 
 impossibility, to result back to the grantor; as on a con- 
 veyance by A to the use of his intended wife for life, then 
 to her eldest son in tail: here, until the marriage, the use 
 results back to A ; or results to him in fee in the event of 
 his wife dying without issue. 
 
 U'SHER. (Probably from the Fr. huissier.) An officer 
 who has the care of the door of a court or hall, &c. In the 
 court of England, he is an officer of considerable rank, 
 whose business it is to introduce foreign ambassadors or 
 other high strangers to the sovereign. 
 
 USQUEBAUGH. A strong compound liquor, made in 
 greatest perfection at Drogheda in Ireland. Brandy or other 
 spirits, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, and various other spices 
 are its ingredients. 
 
 USTRI'XUM, or USTRI'NA. (Lat. uro, I burn.) In 
 Roman Antiquities, a public burning-place, enclosed by 
 walls, in which bodies, mostly of the poorer sort of people, 
 were' consumed. An ustrinum, according to Montfaucon, 
 was square, and in compass about 300 feet. In the Ar- 
 chaologia (vol. xxvi.) will he found a detailed account of 
 the site of one recently discovered in Cambridgeshire, 
 which appears to have been of rather large dimensions. 
 
 USTULATION. (Lat.) A term of old Pharmacy, im- 
 plying the gradual desiccation and torrefaction of sub- 
 stances. 
 
 USUCA'PTION. In Civil Law. the acquisition of prop- 
 erty in anything by possession and enjoyment for a certain 
 term of years ; commonly considered as synonymous with 
 prescription, although some have restrained the use of the 
 former term to moveables only. 
 
 U'SUFRUCT, in the Civil Law, is defined to be the right 
 of enjoying indefinitely something belonging to another 
 without diminishing its substance. Usufruct differs from 
 use ; because he who has the use of a thing can only enjoy 
 it personally, whereas the right of him who has the usu- 
 fruct is alienable, and may be granted, sold, or hired to an- 
 other. Usufruct may be constituted in four ways ; by con- 
 tract, by will, by judgment of a court (as where the judge, 
 in effecting a division of common property, may. under cer- 
 tain circumstances, instead of dividing the inheritance, allot 
 the usufruct to one, and the thing to another), and by opera- 
 tion of law. Usufruct is, properly speaking, confined to 
 things real, and to incorporeal rights (whether they would 
 be termed real or personal, according to the division of our 
 
 UVA URSI. 
 
 law), such as debts ; but a sort of usufruct (quasi usufruct) 
 may exist in things liable to be consumed by use. The di- 
 vision between the fruit (which belongs to the usufructua- 
 ry), and the thing itself (which belongs to the proprietor), 
 affords room for a great variety of legal distinctions. Usu- 
 fruct may be extinguished in several ways: by the death, 
 natural or civil, of the usufructuary: by loss; by prescrip- 
 tion, the right being extinguished if disused for a certain 
 period ; by forfeiture, where the usufructuary abuses his 
 right ; by expiration of time, if the usufruct have been 
 granted for a term ; and by the union of the usufruct with 
 the property in the same hands. 
 
 U'SURY". The taking of interest for money : from the 
 Latin word usura. The Jews were forbidden by the law 
 of Moses to exact interest from one another. By the old 
 Roman law of the twelve tables, the rate of interest allow- 
 ed as legitimate was the usura centesima, which was strict- 
 ly one per cent, a month ; and has been supposed by some 
 to have amounted to twelve, by others to ten per cent, in 
 the year. Interest was also computed in the following 
 manner: Usura unciaria, being the lowest term, one per 
 cent., or one twelfth of the usura centesima ; usura semis, 
 or semis, half the centesima (six per cent.) ; bes, quadrans, 
 quincunx, &c, two third parts, a quarter, a fifth of the cen- 
 tesima (eight, three, two per cent.). The Roman laws 
 against excessive usury were frequently renewed, and con- 
 stantly evaded; but the same principle, additionally sanc- 
 tioned by mistaken religious opinions, pervaded the laws 
 of all countries in which the civil jurisprudence prevailed. 
 The amount of legal interest has been fixed by various 
 statutes in England. In the reign of Henry VIII. ten per 
 cent, was allowed ; by 21 J. 1, 8 per cent. ; by 12 C. 2, 6 per 
 cent. ; by 12 Ann., 5 per cent. All contracts made for the 
 payment of any principal to be lent on usury above this 
 rate were utterly void. The question of usury, ;'. e., wheth- 
 er a contract is bond fide, or a colour for a usurious loan, 
 was determined by the verdict of a jury. But the usury 
 laws have been relaxed by several recent statutes. By the 
 last, 2 & 3 Vict., c. 37, bills of exchange not having more 
 than 12 months to run, and contracts for loans or forbear- 
 ance of money above jEIO, are no longer affected by those 
 laws. But 5 per cent, remains the legal interest recover- 
 able on all contracts, unless otherwise specified. 
 
 UT. In Music, the name of the first of the musical syl- 
 lables. The Italians, for the sake of softening the sound, 
 use the syllable Do instead of Ut in the modern solfeggi. 
 
 U'TERINE. (Lat. uterus, belly.) In the Civil Law. an 
 uterine brother or sister is one issued from the same mother. 
 UTILITA'RIAXS. A name which has been given to a 
 particular sect of modern politicians; those, namely, who 
 profess to try the excellence of modes of government and 
 usages simply by their utility. The celebrated Jeremy 
 Bentham, regarded as the founder of this sect, introduced 
 into the critical department of politics a closer logic than 
 had been commonly applied to it; and aimed at applying 
 his famous principle, " the greatest happiness of the greatest 
 number," as an immediate" test by which to affirm or deny 
 the value of institutions. It is evident that all political 
 sects, both of writers and statesmen, profess ultimately the 
 same object. The real characteristic of the Utilitarians 
 consists in the peculiar sense in which they understand it. 
 They confine for the most part the proposed utility, so as 
 to restrict it to that which is useful for the material and 
 economical well-being of the multitude. Their tenets have 
 been attacked in two celebrated articles in the Edin. Re- 
 view (vols. 49 and 50) : Mill's Essay on Government, and 
 Austin on Jurisprudence, may be referred to as containing 
 the most intelligible summaries of them. 
 
 UTI POSSIDE'TIS. In Politics, a treaty which leaves 
 belligerent parties mutually in possession of what they have 
 acquired by their arms during the war is said to be based on 
 the principle of uti possidetis—" as you possess." 
 
 UTO'PIA. A term invented by Sir T. More (from Gr. 
 ovto-oc, no place), and applied in his celebrated work call- 
 ed Utopia to an imaginary island, which he represents to 
 have been discovered bv a companion of Amerigo Vespucci, 
 and as enjoving the utmost perfection in laws, politics, &c, 
 in contradistinction to the defects of those which then ex- 
 isted. The work was first printed in 1516, but Froben's 
 edition, of 1513, is more correct. The word Utopia has now 
 passed into all the languages of Europe to signify a state 
 of ideal perfection ; and Utopian is used synonymously with 
 fanciful or chimerical. 
 
 UTRI'CULUS. (Lat. uter, a bladder.) A term in Bota- 
 ny applied to a one-celled one or few-seeded, superior mem- 
 branous fruit, frequently dehiscing by a transverse suture, 
 as in Ckenopodium. It is also used to indicate a fruit with 
 a thin skin and a single seed. Sometimes this word is em- 
 ployed to express a separate cell of the cellular tissue of a 
 plant, which is usually a little vegetable bladder. 
 
 UVA URSI. The Arbutus uva ursi, bear's berry, or 
 whortleberry. The leaves of this small shrub have a high- 
 4L * 1289
 
 UVULA. 
 
 ly astringent and sweetish taste ; their decoction or infusion 
 is occasionally used in medicine, especially in certain dis- 
 orders of the kidney and bladder. 
 
 O'VUIiA. (Lat. dim. of uva, a grape.) A small fleshy 
 protuberance attached lo the soft palate, and hanging over 
 the tongue. It consists of the common integuments of the 
 mouth, and a small vermicular muscle by the contraction 
 of which the uvula is elevated. In some cases of enlarged 
 or relaxed uvula which will not yield to local or other 
 remedies, it becomes necessary to amputate a part of it, in 
 consequence of the impediment to deglutition which then 
 ensues, and the tickling cough and retching which it in- 
 duces. 
 
 VACCINA'CKtfi. (Vaecinium, one of the genera.) A 
 natural order of shrubby Exogens, chiefly inhabiting North 
 America. Formerly combined with the Ericaceous order, 
 from which they differ in their inferior ovary and succu- 
 lent fruit. The berries of many are eaten, under the names 
 of cranberry, bilberry, whortleberry, &c; and some of the 
 species are cultivated as objects of ornament. 
 
 VACCINATION. See Cow Pox. 
 
 VACU'NA, or VACI'NA. The ancient Italian goddess 
 of leisure, to whom the husbandmen sacrificed at the close 
 of harvest, or " harvest-home ;" to which rustic festival 
 Horace alludes in the words " fanum putre vacunoe." (See 
 also Ov. Fasti, vi.) 
 
 VA'CUUM (Lat. vacuus, empty), in Physics, is a portion 
 of space void of matter. The possibility of the existence 
 of a perfect vacuum has been a favourite subject of dispute 
 with the schoolmen and metaphysicians. Its existence 
 was maintained by the Pythagoreans, Epicureans, and 
 Atomists ; and denied by the Peripatetics, who ascribed 
 the rise of water in a sucking pump, and some other phe- 
 nomena of the same kind produced by atmospheric pres- 
 sure, to nature's abhorrence of a vacuum. Descartes made 
 the essence of matter to consist in extension, and there- 
 fore denied the possibility of a vacuum; for if extension 
 be the essence of matter, wherever extension is, there mat- 
 ter must be. Those, again, who suppose all material bod- 
 ies to be formed of the agglomeration of elementary par- 
 ticles, are compelled, by the phenomena of motion, to ad- 
 mit at least the existence of what was called by the school- 
 men a vacuum intcrspersum, or of intervals devoid of all 
 matter among the interstices or pores of bodies ; for if there 
 were no interstices, all space would be full of matter, in 
 which case no body could be moved out of its place, inas- 
 much as there would be no unoccupied place into which it 
 could move. For the arguments on this subject, see New- 
 ton's Optics. 
 
 The most perfect vacuum that can be produced artificial- 
 ly is the torriccllian vacuum, or the space above the mer- 
 cury in the barometric tube. But in this sense vacuum 
 merely signifies the exclusion of atmospheric air ; for this 
 space in the barometer may be filled with the vapour of 
 mercury, or with some other medium infinitely more rare 
 than air, and inappreciable to our senses. It is obvious, 
 from the nature of the pneumatic machine, that the vacuum 
 produced by an air-pump, or the Boylean vacuum, as it has 
 been called, can never be perfect, as some air must always 
 remain in the receiver, however long the exhausting pro- 
 cess may be continued. 
 
 The question of the abstract existence of a vacuum is not 
 worth discussing ; hut there is another question of great in- 
 terest with reference to physical astronomy connected with 
 the subject — namely, whether the spaces in which the 
 planets move are so far void of matter as to offer no resist- 
 ance to their motions, or ate occupied by a medium of suf- 
 ficient density to impede their motions in the long run in a 
 sensible degree. Recent observations appear to give some 
 countenance to the supposition that this is actually the case. 
 It has been observed that after the most careful allowance 
 has been made for the attractions of the planets, and all 
 other known causes of disturbance, on Encke's comet, the 
 successive returns of that body to its perihelion are accom- 
 plished in periods which are constantly diminishing. (See 
 Comet.) Now this is precisely the effect that would be 
 produced if the body moved in a medium which offered a 
 small resistance to its motion; and as this is the only ob- 
 vious mode of explaining the phenomenon, it has been gen- 
 erally adopted. Nevertheless, it is extremely difficult to 
 reconcile the supposition of an existing medium with the 
 astronomical fact, that during the last two thousand years 
 of observation, it has produced no effect on the motions of 
 the large planets capable of being appreciated by the most 
 delicate instruments. This fad, however, though it proves 
 the extreme feebleness of the resistance, does not furnish 
 an absolute proof that such a medium may not exist, and 
 that its effects may not ultimately become sensible even 
 on the densest planets, if it does exist, the consequence 
 
 seems Ine* liable that all the planets anil satellites, as well 
 as tin.' comets, must be ultimately precipitated into the sun. 
 Another argument against the existence of a vacuum is 
 1290 
 
 VALENTINE. 
 
 furnished by the undulatory theory of light. If this hypoth- 
 esis be true, and it is rendered probable by numerous phe- 
 nomena, a medium of great elasticity must pervade all the 
 parts of space through Which light penetrates. There could 
 in this case be no vacuum ; unless, indeed, the term be un- 
 derstood to denote merely the absence of ponderable matter. 
 See Light. 
 
 VA'DE IN PACE. (Lat. go in peace.) In monastic com- 
 munities offences were sometimes punished by the dread- 
 ful infliction of starving to death in prison ; and bones have 
 occasionally been found among the ruins of convents of vic- 
 tims who appear to have perished in this manner. The 
 punishment acquired this name from the words in which 
 the sentence was pronounced. The use which Walter 
 Scott has made of this custom in his poem of Marmiun is 
 well known. But it is no romantic fiction. (See Fleury, 
 Hist. Ecclcs. vol. xx., p. HfcJ ; where, however, the vade in 
 pace is described as perpetuul solitary imprisonment. Diet, 
 de Trevaux.) 
 
 VAGA'NTES. (Lat. vago, / wander.) The name of a 
 tribe of spiders {Jiraneidce), comprehending those which 
 watch their prey concealed in a web ; but also frequently 
 run with agility, and chase and seize their prey. 
 
 VAGI'NA (Latin term for sheath), is applied by botanists 
 to the leafstalk of those plants in which it becomes thin 
 and rolls round the stem, to which it then forms a sheath : 
 this is the case in grasses, 
 
 VAGl'NATES, Vaginati. (Lat. vagina, a sheath.) Sheath- 
 ed Polypes. The name of an order of Polypes, comprehend- 
 ing those which are constantly surrounded by and attached 
 to a calcareous or horny polypiary. 
 
 VAGRANCY. (Lat. vagro, I wander.) In Law, a very 
 miscellaneous class of offences against public police and or- 
 der is comprehended under this title in English Law. Va- 
 grants, under the present act of parliament in force on the 
 subject (5 G. 4, c. 83) are of three descriptions : 1. Idle and 
 disorderly persons ; including persons neglecting to main- 
 tain their families ; paupers returning without certificate to 
 parishes whence they have been legally removed ; beggars, 
 common prostitutes, pedlars without license, &c; all of 
 whom may be summarily convicted and committed to gaol 
 for a month by a single justice, subject to an appeal to the 
 sessions. 2. Rogues and vagabonds, including persons guilty 
 of the former offences who have been once already con- 
 victed of being idle and disorderly ; fortune-tellers and oth- 
 er impostors ; persons guilty of indecent exhibitions ; pro- 
 curers of charitable contributions under false pretences ; 
 playing at games of chance in public places ; having in their 
 possession housebreaker's implements, or offensive weap- 
 ons, with intent to use them ; reputed thieves frequenting 
 public places to commit felony, and others ; all of whom 
 may be committed for three months. 3. Incorrigible rogues, 
 viz. persons guilty of the last class of offences, having been 
 already convicted ; persons breaking out of legal confine- 
 ment, &c, who may be committed to the next sessions, and 
 there sentenced to a year's imprisonment. Under this act 
 justices possess very extensive powers, such as to issue 
 warrants to bring before them persons suspected of vagran- 
 cy, to search lodging houses reasonably suspected of har- 
 bouring vagrants, &.c. 
 
 VAIR. In Heraldry, one of the furs employed in blazon- 
 ry. It is supposed to represent the skin of a small squirrel. 
 It is always white and blue, unless otherwise specified in 
 the blazon; as vair of or and azure, vair of ermine and 
 gules, &c. Vair appears to be derived from varius. Vairy 
 is the pattern of vair with more than two colours. 
 
 VA'LENTINE. Feb. 14 is the day sacred to St. Valen- 
 tine, a presbyter, who, according to the legend, was behead- 
 ed at Rome under Claudius. Mr. Brand {Popular Antiqui- 
 ties, vol. i., p. 47) says that he cannot find in the life of the 
 saint any circumstances likely to have given origin to the 
 peculiar ceremonies of the day. It appears to have been a 
 very old notion, however, (for it is alluded to by Chaucer, 
 as well as by Shakspeare in the Two (tenth nun of Verona), 
 
 that on this day birds begin to couple. And the custom of 
 "choosing Valentines" is of great antiquity in this country, 
 as well as in France, where, however, it has been long dis- 
 used. Lydgate mentions it (1476) ; Grose explains Valentine 
 to mean "the first woman seen by man, or man by B wo- 
 man," on that clay ; but it dors not appear where he picked 
 up this explanation. There is also a curious French Val- 
 entine, composed by the poet Gower, in Warton's History 
 of English Poetry. (Additions to vol. ii., p. 31). llerrick 
 mentions the notion and the custom : 
 
 oft Invc I heard both youths imt virgins say, 
 Birds choose their Uinta, and couple too, this day. 
 
 It appears that (he Reformers attacked this as well as 
 other Legendai j i u sof then time ; and that the Roman- 
 ists themselves were so scandalized at it that devices were 
 
 invented for turning the day to profitable use. St. Francis 
 de Sales introduced the practice of drawing lots for patron
 
 VALENTINIANS. 
 
 saints on it, by way of substitute. According to others, this 
 latter practice was of much older date, and substituted for a 
 pagan custom by which boys and girls drew each other's 
 names on the 15th February (day of Februata Juno). How- 
 ever this may be, it is certainly one of the few saints' days 
 in the calendar popularly remembered in England, as the 
 returns of the post office tnvariablv testify. 
 
 VALENTTNIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, a sect of 
 the second century ; so called from Valentinus, their found- 
 er. Thev were a branch of the Gnostics. See Gnostics. 
 
 VALERIAN. The root of this plant, the Valeriana 
 officinalis, is used in the form of infusion, decoction, or tinc- 
 ture, as a nervous stimulant and antispasmodic. 
 
 VALERIANATES. (Valeriana, one of the genera.) 
 A natural order of herbaceous Exogens inhabiting temper- 
 ate climates. They are distinguished from the Dipsaceous 
 order by their flowers not being in heads, by the want of al- 
 bumen, and the absence of an involucel. The roots of Va- 
 leriana officinalis, are aromatic and antispasmodic ; and the 
 young leaves of the species of Va/erianella are eaten as sal- 
 ad, under the French name of mache, or the English one 
 of lamb's lettuce and corn salad. 
 
 VALE'SIANS. An ancient sect of heretics mentioned 
 by Epiphanius, and supposed to have become known about 
 A.D. 240 : said to have adopted the practice of eunuchism. 
 
 VA'LET, VARLET. Originally, the sons of knights, and 
 afterwards those of the nobility before they had attained 
 the age of chivalry. The name is sometimes written vasle- 
 tus, and seems to be derived from the same root with vas- 
 sal ; probably the Celtic gwas. (See Vassal.) Valet in 
 French, and varlet in English, degenerated in later times in- 
 to the signification of servant. 
 
 VALHA'LLA. or WALHALLA. The palace of immor- 
 tality, in the Scandinavian mythology, inhabited by the 
 souls of heroes slain in battle. 
 
 VALKY'RIUR, or DISAS. The Fates of the Scandina- 
 vian mythology: the "choosers of the slain," who conduct 
 heroes killed in battle to Valhalla. 
 
 VALLEY. (Lat. vallis.) In Architecture, the internal 
 angle formed by two inclined sides of a roof. It is support- 
 ed by a rafter, called the valley rafter, or valley piece ; on 
 which lies a board for the reception of the lead gutter, call- 
 ed the valley board. 
 
 VA'LLUM. (Lat.) The rampart with which Roman 
 armies enclosed their camps, and which was crowned with 
 a breastwork of stakes. 
 
 VALVA'TA. (Lat. valvae, folding doors.) A genus of 
 fresh-water snails or Gastropods ; so called from the valve- 
 like form of the operculum or lid which covers the aperture 
 of the depressed spiral shell. Of this genus several species 
 are British; as Valvata obtusa, common in the ditches at 
 Battersea : Valv. spirorbis, Valv. planorbis, Valv. minuta, &c. 
 
 VALVE. In Mechanics, a close lid affixed to a tube, or 
 hollow piston, or opening in a vessel, by means of a hinge 
 or other sort of moveable joint, jn such a manner that it can 
 be opened only in one direction. A spherical ball of metal 
 laid on the end of a tube properly formed, and retained in 
 its place by its weight alone, is sometimes used advanta- 
 geously instead of a valve, as in the hydraulic ram. The 
 safety valve of the steam engine is a valve attached to the 
 boiler, to obviate the danger of its bursting in case the steam 
 should become too strong. The valve is so loaded that its 
 weight, added to that of the atmosphere, exceeds the pres- 
 sure of the steam, when of a sufficient force. When the 
 expansive force increases so far that its pressure preponder- 
 ates over the pressure of the atmosphere and the weight of 
 the safety valve, the valve opens, and the steam escapes 
 from the boiler till its elastic force is sufficiently diminished, 
 and the valve shuts by its own weight. By opening the safe- 
 ty valve the engine may be stopped at pleasure, for which 
 purpose a particular apparatus is attached to the valve. As 
 any accidental derangement of the safety valve might be at- 
 tended with the most disastrous consequences, it has been 
 proposed to make the valve of a metal which melts at a 
 particular temperature, by which means the elastic force of 
 the steam could never exceed that which corresponds to 
 the temperature at which the valve would melt. This meth- 
 od has been adopted in France. 
 
 VALVES. In Botany, the pieces into which the fruit of 
 a plant naturally separates when it bursts. The name is 
 also applied to similar parts in any other organ, as the an- 
 ther. 
 
 VA'MBRACE. (Fr. avant-bras.) In Plate Armour, the 
 piece which served as a protection to the arm below the el- 
 oo w. 
 
 VA'MPIRE. A bloodsucking spectre, the object of super- 
 stitious dread among various nations of Europe. The belief 
 in vampires, f. e., in persons returning to the earth after 
 death and burial, not as ghosts, but in actual corporeal sub- 
 stance, and sucking the blood of living men, appears to have 
 prevailed in classical times. The Empusre, Lamire. and Le- 
 mures were species of vampires. One of the most detailed 
 
 VANESSA. 
 
 stories of vampires is the tale of Machates and Philinition 
 which Goethe has made the foundation of his poem of the 
 Bride of Corinth ; in which the dead bride of a young man 
 visits him at night, and withers him by her embrace. But 
 in modern Europe, the populations among which vampire 
 superstitions have prevailed appear to be of Sclavonic de- 
 scent. The word vampire is said by Adelung to be of Ser- 
 vian origin ; and although the modern Greeks have also 
 their vampires, yet the barbaric names by which they call 
 them (Vroucolachas, Vuroulachas, Vardoulachas) seem 
 rather to indicate the Sclavonic, or perhaps Albanian source, 
 from which they derived both the tradition and the word. 
 In Crete they are called Katakhanas, and firmly believed in. 
 (See Pashley's Travels.) About a century ago, there pre- 
 vailed in several districts of Hungary an epidemic dread of 
 j vampires, which lasted some years, and gave birth to many 
 ■ extraordinary stories. It was believed that in several pla- 
 I ces those among the dead who belonged to the class of vam- 
 j pires arose nightly from their graves and sucked the blood of 
 the living, who fell into consumptions and perished; that 
 those who had died in this manner became infected with vam- 
 pirism ; and that the only way of exterminating the plague 
 was by disinterring all the suspected vampires, and, if it 
 were discovered that they exhibited the tokens of their hide- 
 ous character, burning them to ashes, or driving a stake 
 through their middle. The attestations which these gro- 
 tesquely fearful tales received, are among the most singular 
 instances of human credulity recorded in all the annals of 
 superstition. They are, in many instances, related on the au- 
 thority of the pastors and other most credible persons of vil- 
 lages and towns, who depose to having been themselves 
 witnesses of the scenes beheld on opening the vampires' 
 graves. Some, indeed, had actually seen the spectres them- 
 selves on their nightly excursions ; but more generally the 
 subscriptions are by persons present at the inspection of 
 the dead bodies ; when, if the subject was a true vampire, 
 he was generally found of a florid and hale complexion ; his 
 hair, beard, and nails had grown ; his mouth, hands, &c, 
 were stained with fresh blood ; his eyes open and brilliant. 
 Sometimes, when the stake was driven through him, he 
 was heard to utter cries like those of a living person. It 
 was believed that the consumption produced by the sucking 
 of the vampire could be cured by eating earth from his 
 grave. The popular name of the vampire-bat ( Vesperti/io 
 spectrum), a small animal of South America which sucks 
 the blood of persons asleep, is derived from these imaginary 
 monsters. 
 
 VAN. In Naval language, the foremost division of the 
 line of battle, which is also the weather division when the 
 fleet is on a wind. 
 
 VANA'DIUM. (Lat. Vanadis, a Scandinavian deity.) A 
 metal discovered in 1830, by Professor Seftstriim of Fahlun, 
 in iron prepared from the iron ore of Taberg in Sweden. 
 Vanadium has also been found in a lead ore from Wanlock- 
 head in Scotland, and in a similar mineral from Zimapan in 
 Mexico. Vanadium is a white brittle metal, very difficult 
 of reduction ; not oxidized by air or water ; and insoluble 
 in sulphuric, muriatic, and hydrofluoric acids ; but soluble 
 in nitric and nitromuriatic acids, witli which it yields solu- 
 tions of a fine dark blue colour. It is not acted upon by boil- 
 ing caustic potash, nor by the carbonated alkalies at a red 
 heat. The peroxide of vanadium is of an orange colour, and 
 very slightly soluble in water ; it unites with the salifiable 
 bases ; with the alkalis its salts are soluble, with the other 
 bases sparingly soluble. These salts are orange or yellow 
 coloured ; in these and other respects there is a close resem- 
 blance between vanadium and chromium. Peroxide of va- 
 nadium, or vanadic acid, is distinguished from chromic acid 
 by the action of deoxidizing substances, which give a blue 
 solution with vanadium, but a green one with chromium. 
 When heated with borax in the reducing flame of the blow- 
 pipe, both of the acids yield a green glass ; but in the oxi- 
 dizing flame the bead becomes yelloio if vanadium is pres- 
 ent, but the green colour is permanent if produced by 
 chromium. According to the experiments of Berzelius, the 
 equivalent of vanadium is about 63 ; and the protoxide, the 
 deutoxide, and the vanadic acid, are composed respectively 
 of 1 atom of vanadium, and 1, 2. and 3 of oxygen. 
 
 VANE. A contrivance for showing the direction of the 
 wind. It consists usually of a thin slip of wood or metal, 
 attached to a perpendicular axis, round which it moves free- 
 ly; and is so shaped that it presents always the same ex- 
 tremity to the point of the horizon from which the wind 
 blows. 
 
 VANE'LLUS. (Lat. a lapwing.) A name applied by 
 Bechstein to a subgenus of the Linnsan Tringm, including 
 the true lapwings, which are distinguished from the Squat- 
 arolm of Cuvieri by their more distinct, though small, hind- 
 er toe, and their partially scutellated tarsi. 
 
 VANE'SSA. (Or better Phanessa ; from (pavrjg, one of the 
 names of Venus or Love in the Greek as well as Egyptian 
 mythology.) The term is applied to a genus of butterflies. 
 
 1291
 
 VANG. 
 
 VAXfi. A rope for steadying the extremity or peak of a 
 gaff to the ship's side. 
 
 VANGUARD. That part of an army which precedes the 
 main body i a the march, as a security against surprise. 
 
 VANI'LLA Span, baynilla, a small pod), is the succu- 
 lent fruit ut' a plant of the Orchidaceous order, climbing 
 over trees in the tropical parts of America after the man- 
 ner of ivy. Its fragrance is owing to the presence of ben- 
 zoic acid, cr\ stals of which form upon the pod if allowed to 
 be undisturbed. It is an aromatic, employed in confection- 
 ary and the preparation of liqueurs, arid in flavouring some 
 kinds of chocolate, &c. 
 
 VAl'i U K. I. at. vapor.) When liquids and certain solids 
 are heated they become converted into elastic fluids or s«- 
 pours, which differ from gases in this respect, that they 
 are not under common circumstances permanently elastic, 
 but resume the liquid or solid form when cooled down to 
 ordinary temperatures. The term vapour is frequently lim- 
 ited to water in the slate in which it exists in our atmo- 
 sphere and in other humid auriform bodies : that is, in a per- 
 fectly invisible state. When very moist air is duly cooled, 
 tire vapour, previous to assuming the liquid state, becomes 
 visible, as seen in mist and fog; it is observed in the same 
 state when steam issues rapidly from the spout of a tea- 
 kettle, when ii escapes into the air from the surface of hot 
 Water. In this case it is sometimes called vesicular vapour ; 
 for. from its action on light, it seems in that visible state to 
 exist in the form of minute vesicles. Different substances 
 yield vapours with very different degrees of facility, or, in 
 other words, are more or less volatile ; a circumstance de- 
 pendant probably, upon the less or greater cohesion with 
 Which their particles adhere. Hence fluids are generally 
 more volatile than solids, and hence solids generally pass 
 into the liquid state before they assume the form of vapour. 
 To botli these statements there are, however, many excep- 
 tions : thus most of the expressed oils are very differently 
 vapori/.able, and are hence termed /zed oils. Common con- 
 centrated sulphuric acid is also a very fixed liquid, requiring 
 a high temperature for its vaporization ; and camphor and 
 some other solids evaporate at common temperatures, 
 and arsenic and sal ammoniac at high temperatures, with- 
 out previously assuming the liquid state. The space 
 which vapours occupy always exceeds that of the sub- 
 stances from which they arise. Thus, at the temperature 
 of 212°, and under a pressure of 30 inches of mercury, 
 a cubic foot of water produces 1096 cubic feet of vapour, of 
 alcohol GOO. and of ether 443. Hence it is obvious that dif- 
 ferent vapours differ very considerably in density, and that 
 this property is not directly as that of the liquids, which fur 
 nish them. Thus, if we assume the density of air as 1000, 
 that of aqueous vapour or steam is only 625; the density of 
 aqueous vapour to that of atmospheric air beins as 1000 to 
 1094. Again, assuming the density of air as = 1000, that of 
 alcohol vapour is 1613, and of ether no less than 2586; 
 though alcohol and ether are both, in the liquid state, light- 
 er than water. As water boils at a higher temperature than 
 alcohol, and alcohol at a higher temperature than ether, it 
 was supposed tint the densitj of vapours was probably di- 
 rectly as the volatility of" their respective liquids: but this 
 law has exceptions; for bisulphuret of carbon yields a heav- 
 ier vapour than ether, but its boiling point is higher. All 
 pure vapour- follow the same law Of expansion, when 
 heated, as gases : that is, for every degree of Fahrenheit's 
 thermometer they increase by - 4 -J n th of the volume which 
 they occupil .1 at 32°. 
 
 Vapour, in Physics, denotes the condition of a body, 
 when by the accession of heat its particles acquire a re- 
 pulsive force, and it is reduced to the state of an elastic flu- 
 id. Even 1 liquid possesses the property of boiling at a cer- 
 tain determinate temperature, under the mean pressure of 
 the atmosphere. Water, for example, boils at the tempera- 
 ture of 212° of Fahrenheit's scale, when the pressure of 
 the atmosphere is equal to a column of mercury 30 inches 
 in height ; but under a diminished pressure it boils at a low- 
 er temperarure; and by increasing the pressure, the tem- 
 perature of the boiling point is increased. In the course of 
 ebullition an el as tie fluid, or vapour, is generated ; and it Is 
 only when the tension of the vapour bet omes equal to the 
 
 pressure thai the anion of boiling begins. Hut though ebul- 
 lition and I I rapid formation of vapour only 
 
 take place at a given temperature under a given pressure, 
 vapour will rise from the surfaces of all liquids in free con- 
 tact with the atmosphere at much lower temperatures. 
 Water, for example, exposed in an opt n vessel, undergoes a 
 gradual diminution of bulk, and is dissipated at tempera- 
 tures far below the boiling point: and Ice itself soon wastes 
 away In the same insensible manner. This dissipation has 
 hovi n bj Dal ton to be occasioned bj the formation of 
 v.--|x)nr of the ame temperature as that of the water from 
 which it pi , equal to that 
 
 of the vapour of i it that temperature under a 
 
 1892 
 
 VAPOUR. 
 
 diminished pressure. Some liquids, ether for Instance) re- 
 quire to be carefully secluded from the atmosphere to pre- 
 vent their rapid evaporation. 
 
 Tension of Vapour at different Temperatures. — Dr. Dal- 
 ton, of Manchester, was the first who ascertained by accu 
 
 rate experiments the elastic force of vapours at different 
 temperatures below that of the point of ebullition. (.Van- 
 Chester Memoirs, vol. v.. 1802.1 The method which he 
 employed consisted in introducing a portion of liquid into 
 the vacuum of a barometer, where it floats on the surface 
 of the mercury, and part of it is immediately converted into 
 vapour. The tension of the vapour causes the mercury to 
 descend; and the force of the tension is measured by the 
 space through which the mercury falls, or by the ditlerence 
 of the height of the mercury in the tube in which the ex- 
 periment is performed and its height in the common barom- 
 eter. Dr. Dalton employed two barometric tubes plunged 
 in the same cistern of mercury ; into one of these the liquid 
 furnishing the vapour was introduced, the other serving the 
 purpose of comparison : and in order that the experiment 
 mii'lit be made at any determinate temperature, the two 
 tubes were surrounded by another wider tube, into which 
 water was poured of the temperature required. When the 
 liquid on which the experiment was made was water, and 
 the water surrounding the two barometric tubes was at the 
 temperature of ebullition, the vapour formed in the tube 
 caused the mercury to descend to the level of that in the 
 n tern : whence it was inferred that at the temperature of 
 ebullition the elastic force of aqueous vapour is precisely 
 equal to the atmospheric pressure. A similar result was 
 obtained when the experiment was performed with other 
 liquids. 
 
 If the tube containing the portion of liquid be of consider- 
 able length, and the basin in which it is inverted of con- 
 siderable depth, the pressure on the vapour above the mer- 
 cury may be varied by raising or lowering the inverted 
 tube. When the pressure is diminished in this way, it is 
 found that so long as any liquid remains, new vapour of 
 the same degree of tension will be generated, and the alti- 
 tude of the mercury in the tube remain constant. On the 
 other hand, an increase of pressure causes the condensa- 
 tion of a part of the vapour, and the mercury in the tube 
 stands at the same height above that in the cistern. If the 
 quantity of liquid in the barometric tube be so small that 
 the whole is converted into vapour, it will be found that on 
 raising the tube and increasing the space in which the va- 
 pour is contained, the elastic force diminishes in proportion 
 as the space is increased. The law of Mariotte, therefore, 
 applies to vapours as well as to the permanent gases (see 
 Pneumatics); but with this distinction, that the vapours 
 of all liquids, at a certain determinate temperature, have a 
 maximum of density and tension which cannot be exceeded, 
 and on attainins which they are condensed into the liquid 
 form by any attempt to compress them further. It follows, 
 therefore, that at a given temperature no more than a lim- 
 ited quantity of vapour ran exist in a given space. This 
 forms the criterion which distinguishes vapours from the 
 permanent gases. 
 
 The results obtained by Dalton, in his experiments on 
 the tension of aqueous vapour, are exhibited in the follow- 
 ing table (Manchester Memoirs, 1802) : 
 
 Table showing the Maximum Tension of Aqueous Vapour 
 at Temperatures below 212°, estimated in the Height of 
 the Column of Mercury they are capable of supporting. 
 
 
 Tension 
 
 
 Tension 
 
 
 Tension 
 
 Temper- 
 
 in Inches 
 
 Temper. 
 
 in Inches 
 
 Temper- 
 
 1 
 
 ature. 
 
 of Mer- 
 
 ature. 
 
 of Mer- 
 
 ature. 
 
 of Mer- 
 
 
 cury. 
 
 
 cury. 
 
 
 cury. 
 
 20 
 
 0-06S 
 
 77» 
 
 0910 
 
 I52» 
 
 7-81 
 
 7 
 
 0-082 
 
 si 
 
 107 
 
 157 
 
 B-81 
 
 12 
 
 0«6 
 
 i-7 
 
 1-24 
 
 162 
 
 9 91 
 
 17 
 
 0116 
 
 92 
 
 1 44 
 
 167 
 
 1 1 -26 
 
 22 
 
 0139 
 
 97 
 
 1 6S 
 
 I7B 
 
 I2TS 
 
 27 
 
 0168 
 
 102 
 
 1 1 - 
 
 177 
 
 14 JJ 
 
 32 
 
 0200 
 
 107 
 
 2-32 
 
 ] 1 
 
 
 37 
 
 0-237 
 
 112 
 
 2 63 
 
 181 
 
 17 
 
 42 
 
 0-283 
 
 117 
 
 30s. 
 
 192 
 
 I!>s6 
 
 47 
 
 0339 
 
 122 
 
 3-50 
 
 197 
 
 2213 
 
 62 
 
 0-401 
 
 127 
 
 4-00 
 
 202 
 
 2461 
 
 57 
 
 47 t 
 
 138 
 
 4 60 
 
 2117 
 
 2720 
 
 62 
 
 ii 560 
 
 137 
 
 529 
 
 212 
 
 3000 
 
 67 
 
 
 142 
 
 6 05 
 
 
 
 72 
 
 0-770 
 
 117 
 
 8-87 
 
 
 
 From this table the following formula for the elastic 
 force or tension (which is measured by (he pressure /'), in 
 terms of the degrees of temperature '. reckoned from 3520, 
 has been deduced, which nearly represents the table; 
 namely. 
 
 p = -1718 (1 +-006 7 . 
 
 In order to determine the tension of vapour at a tempera- 
 ture aboi •■ the boiling point, it is necessaij to have recourse 
 to a different method of experimenting. B) far the most
 
 VAPOUR. 
 
 satisfactory experiments hitherto made on this subject are 
 those of Dulong and Arago, which were undertaken at the 
 instance of the French government, for the purpose of as- 
 certaining the exact temperatures at which aqueous vapour 
 acquires a given tension, with a view to establish such 
 legislative regulations as might appear necessary to pre- 
 vent accidents from the bursting of steam-boilers. As an 
 account of these experiments, and a table of the results, 
 have already been given under the term Steam (p. 1166), 
 it is here only necessary to remark, that the pressures or 
 tensions were ascertained by direct experiment at different 
 temperatures from 312° to 436° of Fahrenheit, between 
 wliich they were found to vary from 1 to 24 atmospheres ; 
 and that the relation between the pressure and tempera- 
 ture (at least for all pressures exceeding four atmospheres) 
 was found to be represented very nearly by the following 
 empirical formula, viz. 
 
 p= (1 + 0-003974 s , 
 in which p denotes the tension or elasticity expressed in 
 atmospheres, and t the degrees of temperature of Fahren- 
 heit, counting from 212°. 
 
 It is evident from this empirical formula, as well as the 
 numbers in the table, that the tension of aqueous vapour 
 increases in a much faster ratio than the temperature. 
 This result appears to be general, and applicable to the 
 elastic force of the vapours of all liquids, at least so far as 
 may be judged from the imperfect experiments which have 
 hitherto been made on the vapours of mercury, alcohol, and 
 ether. Dalton thought that he had discovered a law which 
 would establish a very simple relation among the tensions 
 of the vapours of different liquids. It consists in this, that 
 at an equal number of degrees above or below the point of 
 ebullition corresponding to each liquid the elastic force of 
 their vapours is equal. Thus, water boils at 212°, alcohol 
 at 175°, and ether at 100°, the tension of the vapour at the 
 boiling point being in all cases the same, and equal to the 
 pressure of the atmosphere. Now, from the experiments of 
 Dulong it appears that the tension of aqueous vapour is 
 doubled when heated under pressure to 251° ; that is, by an 
 increase of temperature of 39° above the boiling point. 
 Hence, by the law of Dalton, the tension of the vapour of 
 alcohol is equal to two atmospheres when its temperature 
 is 175° + 39° = 214° ; and that of ether equal to two at- 
 mospheres when the temperature is 100° -f- 39° = 139°. 
 Dalton himself afterwards discovered that this law fails 
 when the distances from the point of ebullition are con- 
 siderable. 
 
 Density of Vapour. — The density of vapour may be de- 
 termined by introducing a known weight of the liquid 
 which yields it into a receiver containing mercury, and in- 
 verting the receiver in a vessel also containing mercury, 
 and tall enough to contain, above the mercury", a sufficient 
 depth of water to cover the receiver. The whole appara- 
 tus is then heated ; and when the whole of the liquid in 
 the inverted receiver has been evaporated, the space the 
 vapour occupies and its temperature are noted. We have 
 then a given bulk of vapour, the weight of which is the 
 same as that of the liquid from which it has been produced, 
 and consequently known. The temperature is also known ; 
 and the pressure given in terms of the column of mercury 
 in the receiver, and the height of the surrounding fluid com- 
 pared with the indication of the barometer. In this man- 
 ner the density is found ; and when the density of a vapour 
 at a given temperature and under a given pressure has been 
 found, its density under any other pressure, and at its corres- 
 ponding temperature, may be calculated in the following man- 
 ner: Let a = the constant coefficient of dilatation = -00208 
 (it being found by experiment that vapour out of contact 
 with liquid expands or contracts at the same rate as perma- 
 nently elastic fluids by variations of temperature, that is to 
 say, by l-480th part of its volume for each degree of Fah- 
 renheit's scale), t = the number of degrees of Fahrenheit's 
 thermometer above 32°, v = the volume, p = the pressure, 
 and o" = the density of a vapour at the temperature of 32°; 
 and let v', p', and a", be respectively the volume, pressure, 
 and density at another temperature, 32° -f- t. We have 
 then v' = (1 + o t) v. Now, when the pressure is constant, 
 the density is inversely as its volume ; and, by the law of 
 Mariotte, the density of gas or vapour is directly as the 
 
 pressure ; whence - = - x V —> and consequently - = 
 
 — — — — -, or d' = - — — • If we compare the dens- 
 p(l + at) p(l + at) r 
 
 ity of aqueous vapour at any temperature with its density 
 at the boiling point of water, which is 180° above the freezing 
 point, and put d" — the density, and p" — the presure at the 
 
 d"p' (1+18 a) 
 '■ p"(l + at) 
 The following table, computed from this formula, with 
 
 VARIATION OF CURVATURE. 
 
 Dalton's values of the pressures, shows the density and 
 volume of aqueous vapour, at its maximum tension, for 
 every ninth degree of temperature from the freezing to the 
 boiling point. The unit of density is water at the tempera- 
 ture of 32° ; and the unit of volume the volume of an equal 
 weight of water, also at 32°. As the density is inversely 
 proportional to the volume, the numbers in the two last 
 columns are the reciprocals of each other. They differ 
 slightly from the numbers given by Gay Lussac. 
 
 Temperature. 
 
 Density. 
 
 Volume. 
 
 320 
 
 •0000053 
 
 188600 
 
 41 
 
 •0000073 
 
 137000 
 
 60 
 
 •0111)1X197 
 
 103000 
 
 59 
 
 •0000131 
 
 76330 
 
 63 
 
 •0000173 
 
 57800 
 
 77 
 
 •0001)227 
 
 44050 
 
 S6 
 
 •0000297 
 
 33670 
 
 95 
 
 •0000390 
 
 25640 
 
 104 
 
 ■0000499 
 
 20030 
 
 113 
 
 •0000637 
 
 15690 
 
 122 
 
 •011007 10 
 
 14030 
 
 131 
 
 •0001022 
 
 9784 
 
 140 
 
 •0U01261 
 
 7930 
 
 149 
 
 •0001592 
 
 6231 
 
 153 
 
 •0001961 
 
 5091 
 
 167 
 
 ■ 2388 
 
 4187 
 
 176 
 
 ■0002936 
 
 3406 
 
 185 
 
 •0003557 
 
 8811 
 
 194 
 
 •0004261 
 
 2346 
 
 203 
 
 •000.5074 
 
 1971 
 
 212 
 
 •0005396 
 
 1696 
 
 boiling point, the formula becomes d' : 
 
 99 
 
 By means of this table the weight of water may be cal- 
 culated that would be contained in the form of vapour of 
 the maximum tension in any given volume — a calculation 
 which is frequently required in meteorological inquiries. 
 
 The phenomena of vapour have been studied with refer- 
 ence to two objects — the condition of the atmosphere as to 
 moisture, and the properties of steam as a moving power in 
 machinery. On the subject of vapour in connexion with 
 the first of these objects, see DanitWs Meteorological Es- 
 says ; Davy's Elements of Jigricul. Chemistry : also the 
 terms Dew, Evaporation, Hygrometry. For experi- 
 ments on the elasticity and density of aqueous vapour, see, 
 in addition to the Memoirs of Dalton and of Arago and Du- 
 long, already cited, Robinson's Mechanical Philosophy ; Ure, 
 in the Phil. Trans, for 1818; Pouillet, Traite de Physique; 
 Despretz, Traiti de Physique; Oehler's Physikalisches 
 fVorterbuch, art. "Dampf," by Professor Muncke ; and the 
 various recent works which treat of the steam engine. See 
 Steam. 
 
 VARIABLE QUANTITY, in Analysis, is a quantity 
 conceived to be in a state of increase or diminution, or to 
 have different values in the same equation. Tims, the ab- 
 scissa and ordinates of a curve are variable quantities ; be- 
 cause they have different values for every different point in 
 the curve, and in passing from one point to another their 
 values increase or diminish according to the law of the 
 curve. In the equation of the circle y = ^/ (2 a — z 2 ), x 
 and y are variables ; for x may have any value whatever 
 between and 2 a, and there will be a corresponding value 
 of y, which satisfies the equation. The quantity a is a con- 
 stant quantity, and remains the same, whatever be the 
 values of x and y. It represents, in fact, the radius of the 
 circle. In mechanics, a variable motion is that which is 
 produced by the action of a force which varies in intensity, 
 or which continues to act after motion has been commu- 
 nicated. 
 
 VA'RIANCE. In Law, a difference of statement be- 
 tween two material documents in a cause; as where the 
 plaintiff's declaration differed (formerly) from the writ, or 
 where it differs from a deed on which it is grounded. And, 
 in ordinary language, a departure in the oral evidence from 
 the statement in the pleadings is termed a variance. This 
 variance may be either immaterial or material ; and, in the 
 latter case, amendable or not, according to a great variety of 
 distinctions. The powers of amendment given to courts 
 and judges are greatly extended by 3 & 4 W. 4, c. 42, s. 
 23,24. 
 
 VARIA'TION. (Lat. varius, changing-.) In Music, a 
 difference in performing the same air or melody, either by 
 subdivision of its notes into several others of less duration, 
 or by adding graces ; but, nevertheless, in such a manner 
 that the original melody is not lost in the decorations or 
 alterations which it is thus made to undergo. 
 
 VARIATION OF CURVATURE, in Analytical Geome- 
 try, is the change which takes place in the curvature in 
 passing from one point of a curve to another. The circle is 
 the only curve in which the curvature is uniform at every 
 point. The curvature of a curve line at any point is the 
 same as that of the osculating circle at that point. But 
 the curvature of a circle is inversely as its radius: hence 
 the curvature of any curve is inversely proportional to the 
 radius of curvature ; and, consequently, the differential of 
 
 1293
 
 VARIATION OF THE COMPASS. 
 
 the curvature is proportional directly to the differential of 
 the radius, and inversely to the square of the radius of 
 curvature. In the conic sections, the variation of curvature 
 at any point is proportional to the tangent of the angle in- 
 cluded between the diameter and normal, both passing 
 through that point. 
 
 VARIATION OP THE COMPASS. The angle which 
 the magnetic needle makes with the plane of the true me- 
 ridian. It is Otherwise called the declination. {See Decli- 
 nation of rat Magnetic Nekhle.) For tables showing 
 the variation in a great number of places, audits progressive, 
 annual, and diurnal changes, see Brewster's Treatise on 
 Magnetism, 1837, reprinted from the Encyclopedia Britan- 
 nica. 
 
 VARIATION OF THE MOON. In Astronomy, an in- 
 equality of the moon's motion, depending on the angular 
 distance of the moon from the sun. It arises from that part 
 of the sun's disturbing force which is at right angles to the 
 radius vector, and which accelerates the motion of the moon 
 from the quadratures to the syzygies, and retards, it from 
 the syzygies to the quadratures. It is proportional to the 
 sine of twice the angular distance between the sun and 
 moon; and its maximum value, or the coefficient of its argu- 
 ment is 35' 41-9". Hence it ia represented by the formula 
 (35' 41 ■$") sin. 2 A, A being the angular distance of the 
 moon from the sun. The variation was discovered by Ty- 
 cho Brahe. It had escaped the observation of Hipparchus 
 and the ancient astronomers, though of sufficient magnitude 
 to have been sensible to them; probably because they 
 chierly observed the moon in the syzygies and quadratures, 
 and at these points of the orbit its value is nothing. 
 
 VARIATIONS. CALCULUS OF. An important branch 
 of modern mathematics, invented by Lagrange, the principal 
 object of which is to resolve in a general manner certain 
 classes of questions respecting maxima and minima, the so- 
 lution of which cannot be obtained by the ordinary processes 
 of the differential calculus. In solving problems of max- 
 ima and minima by the differential calculus, it is necessary 
 to find the determinate values of the different variables 
 which enter into a proposed finite function of those varia- 
 bles, in order that the proposed function may have the 
 greatest or least value possible. Many problems of this na- 
 ture are met with in the writings of the ancient geometers, 
 particularly in the Conies of Apollonius; and the applica- 
 tion of algebra to geometry gave rise, about the middle of 
 the 17th century, to numerous others, proposed and solved 
 chiefly by Fermat, Slusius, Hudde, &c. As no general 
 method of solving such questions was known previous to 
 the invention of the differential calculus, their solution was 
 accomplished by particular artifices, and was frequently at- 
 tained with very considerable difficulty. This difficulty was 
 removed, in respect to the class of questions now men- 
 tioned, by the invention of the calculus ; but as the instru- 
 ment of investigation was improved, new views were open- 
 ed up, and a more difficult class of questions was proposed, 
 to which the known methods seemed inapplicable. It was 
 proposed to find, among all curves subjected to a given law, 
 that which best fulfilled a given condition : for example, to 
 find the curve which, relatively to co-ordinates given in 
 magnitude and position, encloses the greatest space ; to find 
 the curve along which a heavy body must descend in order 
 to pass from one given point to another given point in the 
 least time possible, &c. In such questions the relations be- 
 tween the variables is not given, as in the ordinary cases of 
 maxima and minima ; the object proposed is to find that re- 
 lation, or to find the equation which must subsist between 
 the variables in order that the condition of maximum or 
 minimum may be fulfilled. 
 
 The first problem of tins kind which was solved appears 
 to have been that of the solid of least resistance. In the 
 first edition of the Prindpia, published in 1687, Newton 
 gave the equation of the curve by the rotation of which 
 about its axis the solid is formed which, when moved 
 through a fluid in the direction of the axis, is less resisted 
 than any other body of the same specific gravity and bulk; 
 hi'l without demonstration or indication of the views by 
 which he had been guided. About ten years later the fa- 
 mous question of the brachystocronc, or curve of quickest 
 descent, was agitated between the two brothers James and 
 John Bernoulli, in which Leibnitz and some of the other 
 most illustrious mathematicians of the day took a part. 
 The more general problem of isopcrimrtrrs was solved by 
 James Bernoulli in 1701 ; and it was in the analysis which 
 he gave on this occasion that the principle on which the 
 solution of similar questions depends was first distinctly 
 unfolded. Euler treated the whole subject in his peculiarly 
 luminous manner, In a treatise published in 1744, under the 
 
 title Methodus Inrinirndi Linens Curvas Maximi .Mini 
 
 ■mine Pr o prietaU Qaudentes. And, lastly, the method was 
 reduced to its inmost simplicity by Lagrange, who supplied 
 
 tli'' algorithm ami gave it the form under which it is now 
 exhibited as the calculus of variations. 
 ISM 
 
 VARIATIONS, CALCULUS OF. 
 
 In order to give an idea of the nature . 
 and objects of this calculus, let us Buppose 
 a parabola A P referred to its rectangular 
 co-ordinates A M = x, M P = y. and of 
 which the parameter is o. The equation M. 
 of this parabola is ijl— a x. Now if m p s». 
 he drawn infinitely near M P, and P r par- 
 allel to the axis, the line M m or IV will 
 represent d z, the differential of the axis x; 
 and r p will represent d y, the differential of the ordinate 
 y ; also the relation between those differentials is found by 
 differentiating the equation y2 = a x, which gives ~ydy 
 
 . , adz , adx 
 
 = a a i, whence ay = — — , or a y = - — - — 
 2 y 'ZyJ ax. 
 
 Let us now suppose the parameter of the parabola also 
 to vary, and to become a -4- <5 a (the Greek letter 8 being 
 used to indicate the variation of a quantity in the same 
 manner as d is used to denote the ordinary differential). 
 On constructing another parabola A Q, the parameter of 
 which is a -j- <5 a, the variations which the co-ordinates un- 
 dergo in consequence of this variation of the parameter 
 will be represented as follows: — 1. Suppose the al 
 M to be the same in both parabolas. The ordinate M U of 
 the new parabola A Q. will be equal to the ordinate M P 
 augmented by the small quantity P O., which, therefore, is 
 the variation of y, and according to the notation of the cal- 
 culus denoted by i y. In order to find the value of this 
 variation, we must substitute y -f- <5 y for y, and a -\-8 a for 
 a in the equation r/2 = a x . This gives {y -\- 8 y)2 = (a + 
 6 a)x, from which subtracting the original equation yl = a 
 x, and neglecting quantities of the second order, as in the 
 differential calculus, we get 2 y 6y = x 5 a, whence 8 y = 
 
 z 8 a xS a 
 
 "ap" "~ 2 J ax' 
 
 2. Suppose the absciss also to vary, and to become A n. 
 We have then M n — 8 x and sq—8y. By substituting 
 x + 8 x for x, y -\- 8 y for y, and a + 8 a for a, in the ori- 
 ginal equation, it becomes {y -f- 5 y)2 = (a + 5 a) (x -f- 8 
 i) ; whence, by performing the multiplications indicated, 
 subtracting the equation yl = a x, and neglecting quanti- 
 ties of the second order, we get ( 2y8y=.a8x-\-x8a, and 
 
 ., r a 8 x + x 8 a a8x-\-x8a. . 
 
 consequently 8y „ = — ; — ; for the 
 
 2 y 2 y/ a x 
 
 value of the variation of y. 
 
 From this example we may see clearly the distinction 
 between differentials and variations. The changes of the 
 co-ordinates relative to the same curve are made by differ- 
 entials; those which take place in passing from one curve 
 to another of the same kind are made by variations. Each 
 of the small quantities 8 x, 8y, 8 a, is arbitrary, and we 
 may make 8x=zdx; but this equality being established, 
 we are no longer at liberty to suppose 8y=dy, or o a = <2 
 a. It is also obvious that the variations of algebraic quan- 
 tities are found exactly in the same manner as the differ- 
 entials of those quantities; in fact, it is only necessary to 
 substitute the characteristic 8 for d, and to follow the rules 
 of the differential calculus. This remark extends to varia- 
 tions of all orders, and to circular and exponential quanti- 
 ties. 
 
 The rules being entirely the same in both methods, it is 
 evident that the variation i>{ dzis8dx, and reciprocally 
 that the differential of 8 x is d 8 x. These two quantities 
 are also identical ; for if we suppose x and x' to be two con- 
 secutive values of x, we have, by the principles of the dif- 
 ferential calculus, dx — z' — x, whence <5 d x = <5 z' — 8x. 
 But in the same manner as i and x' arc two consecutive 
 quantities in the series of values of the variable x, so 8 z 
 and 8 x' may be regarded as two consecutive values of the 
 variable 8 x ; whence d8z=.8x' — 8x, and consequently 
 i dx = d8 x. 
 
 Another principle of equal importance is, that the varia- 
 tion of the internal of any differential quantity is equal to 
 the integral Of the variation ; that is to say, ill any func- 
 tion 1' of different variables, x, y, z, tec, and their differen- 
 tials, we have sfv=J8 P. To prove this letj P = U. 
 
 We have then P = d U by taking the differentials ; Whence 
 8 P = 8 d U, and therefore, by what has been shown, 8 P 
 
 = d8V. Integrating this last equation, we get / 8 P = 5 
 
 U ; whence, by restoring the value of U, / <5 P — <5 / P. 
 
 By means of these two principles we are enabled to find 
 
 the variation of an indefinite integral expression / V d z, 
 
 which, in fact, is the principal object of the method of vari- 
 ations. If this integral is a maximum or minimum, its vari- 
 ation must be made equal to nothing; and in this manner 
 
 an equation is obtained which gives the required relations 
 between the variable co-ordinates. 
 Lagrange, in his JUicanique Jlnalytique, has founded a
 
 VARICELLA. 
 
 complete system of rational mechanics on the method of 
 variations. The object of this important application may 
 be understood from considering that the co-ordinates of the 
 different points of a moving body may be used either for 
 the purpose of comparing the positions of two different 
 points at the same instant, of two consecutive positions of 
 the same point. In the former case, the only relation be- 
 tween the co-ordinates is that which results from the form 
 of the surface of the body ; in the latter the change of the 
 co-ordinates is determined by the conditions of the motion, 
 and a new variable is introduced which is the measure of 
 the time. The co-ordinates, therefore, vary in two totally 
 distinct modes, which it is necessary to indicate by different 
 symbols. One of these modes becomes, in reference to the 
 other, the calculus of variations, which, according to this 
 view of the subject, may be described as a method of dif- 
 ferentiating quantities conceived to vary in a particular 
 manner, after having been already differentiated on the 
 supposition that they vary in a different manner. See La- 
 grange, Mecanique Analytique ; Id., Lemons du Calcul. ; 
 Lacroix, Traite du Calcul. Diff. et Integral, tomeii. ; Bossut, 
 Traite du Cat. Diff. et Integ. ; JVoodhouse on Isoperimet- 
 rical Problems ; Airy's Mathematical Tracts. 
 VARICE'LLA. See Chicken Pox. 
 VARICOCE'LE. (Lat. varix, a distended vein, and xrjXr/, 
 s tumour.) A swelling of the veins of the spermatic cord. 
 VARI'ETY. (Lat. varietas.) In Zoology, this term is 
 applied to individuals of the same species, which, from the 
 operation of different causes, as age, climate, food, locality, 
 domestication, &c, present deviations from the specific type 
 in size, colour, form, and relative proportion of parts of the 
 body; but have the capacity of reverting to the original 
 typical form in successive generations, on the cessation of 
 the influences under which the variety originated. 
 VARI'OLA. See Small Pox. 
 
 VA'RIOLITE. A porphyritic rock consisting of an im- 
 perfectly crystallized aggregate of felspar and quartz. 
 
 VARl'OLOUS. (Lat. variola, smallpox.) In Zoology, 
 when a part is beset with many shallow impressions like 
 marks of the small pox. 
 
 VARIO'RUM EDITIONS. In bibliography, certain edi- 
 tions of the classic authors of antiquity, published chiefly 
 in Holland in the 17th and 18th centuries, and containing 
 the notes of numerous commentators, are so called. These 
 editions are chiefly valued by collectors. 
 VA'RIX. (Lat.) A dilatation or swelling of a vein. 
 VA'RNISH. (Fr. vernis.) A fluid which when spread 
 thin upon a solid surface becomes dry, and forms a coating 
 impervious to air and moisture. There are two kinds of var- 
 nish, namely, spirit and oil varnishes : rectified alcohol is 
 used for the former; and for the latter fixed and volatile 
 oils, or mixtures of the two. The solid substances dis- 
 solved in the above menstrua, and which constitute what 
 is termed the body of the varnish, are almost exclusively 
 resinous, and are chiefly the following: 1. Turpentine, all 
 the varieties of which are employed by the varnisher : 
 they form an excellent body, and give strength and glos- 
 siness at a small expense ; but they do not dry without other 
 additions. 2. Copal, a. peculiar resin, very difficult to dis- 
 solve, but forming a hard and durable ingredient. It is 
 generally melted over a gentle fire previous to use. 3. Lac, 
 which gives great toughness and hardness; but is often in- 
 admissible, on account of its reddish brown colour. 4. Mas- 
 tic, which yields a tough, hard, brilliant, and colourless var- 
 nish. 5. Elemi, a resin of a pale yellow green tint, and a 
 valuable ingredient, on account of its toughness and dura- 
 bility. 0. Sandurach, a resin which imparts splendour, but 
 which alone is not durable. 7. Amber, a valuable ingre- 
 dient, on account of its hardness and durability ; but difficult 
 of transparent solution, and hence chiefly used in opaque 
 varnishes. 8. Benzoin, added on account of its fragrancy. 
 9. Anime, which gives brilliancy and some scent. 10. Gam- 
 boge, for yellow varnishes. 11. Dragon's blood, for red 
 varnish. These, together with turmeric, saffron, and annot- 
 ta, are chiefly used on account of their colour, and to cover 
 brass and copper under the name of lacquers. 12. Caout- 
 chouc. This extraordinary vegetable product has of late 
 been much employed in a variety of preparations used as 
 varnishes. It is invaluable where materials are to be ren- 
 dered air-tight, as balloons, for example, and where at the 
 same time flexibility, and even elasticity, are required; but 
 its principal application in this way is in the manufacture 
 of various water-proof articles. 13. Asphaltum, the va- 
 rieties of which are indispensable in black oil varnishes. 
 In making spirit varnishes, the strongest alcohol of com- 
 merce should be used (of a specific gravity not exceeding 
 820), and its solvent power over some of the more intrac- 
 table resins is sometimes improved by the addition of a little 
 camphor ; in order to prevent the agglutination of the resin, 
 it is often requisite to mix it with sand or pounded glass, by 
 which the surface is much increased, and the solvent en- 
 ergy of the spirit facilitated. The proportions in which the 
 
 VASSAL. 
 
 several ingredients are used, and the selections for partic- 
 ular purposes, are infinitely various. The following are a 
 few good varnishes, in illustration of their varieties: 1. 
 Spirit varnish. Sandarach4 oz., seed lac 2 oz., elemi 1 oz., 
 digest the whole in a quart of moderately warm alcohol, 
 and when dissolved add Venice turpentine 2 ozs. 2. Lac 
 varnisk. Seed lac 8 oz. ; digest for four days in a warm 
 place with a quart of alcohol, and then strain through flan- 
 nel. 3. Turpentine varnish. Mastic 12 oz., mixed with 5 
 oz. of pounded glass, and digested in a quart of oil of turpen- 
 tine, adding at intervals about half an ounce of camphor in 
 small pieces. When the mastic is dissolved, add to the 
 warm fluid an ounce and a half of previously liquefied Ven- 
 ice turpentine, and stir the whole together. 4. Copal var- 
 nish. Copal which has been previously melted by a gentle 
 heat 3 oz., oil of turpentine 20 oz. (measure) : put the oil 
 into a flask placed in boiling water, and add the powdered 
 copal in small portions .at a time, so that it may be gradual- 
 ly dissolved ; let it stand a few days to clear, and then pour 
 it off and if too thick for use, add to it a little warm oil of 
 turpentine. This varnish dries slowly, but is very durable. 
 5. Linseed varnish. Melt 16 oz. of copal in an iron pot 
 with as gentle a fire as possible, and when fused pour in 3 
 oz. of hot linseed oil ; stir the mixture, remove it from the 
 fire, and while yet warm gradually add a pint of warm oil 
 of turpentine ; when the whole is incorporated, strain it 
 through a piece of linen into phials. This is a hard and 
 durable, but also a coloured varnish. 6. Amber varnish. 
 Melt 16 oz. of amber in an iron pot, then add 2 oz. of 
 melted lac and 10 oz. of hot, drying linseed oil ; incorporate 
 the whole by stirring ; remove it from the fire, and before 
 it cools add a pint of warm oil of turpentine. 7. Black 
 varnish. Melt 16 oz. of amber in an iron pot, and add half 
 a pint of hot, drying linseed oil, 3 oz. of powdered rosin, and 
 3 oz. of powdered asphaltum ; stir all together, and when 
 removed from the fire and sufficiently cool, add a pint of 
 warm oil of turpentine. 8. Lacquer. Digest 3 oz. of seed 
 lac, 1 oz. of turmeric, and 2 drs. of dragon's blood for six 
 days in a pint of alcohol, frequently shaking the bottle, 
 which should be kept in a warm place ; strain the lacquer 
 through linen. The above are samples of each of the prin- 
 cipal varnishes ; but every maker varies the proportions, and 
 often the nature of the ingredients. In the preparation of 
 varnishes, in consequence of the highly combustible nature 
 of all the materials, the utmost care is requisite to avoid ac- 
 cidents by fire. 
 
 VAR'VICITE. An ore of manganese found at Harts- 
 hill in Warwickshire. It appears to be a compound of 2 
 equivalents of peroxide and 1 of sesquioxide of manganese 
 with 1 of water. 
 
 VA'SCULAR SYSTEM, in Botany, is that portion of 
 the tissue of plants which is destined for the conveyance 
 of air. Vascular plants are those in which the vascular 
 system occurs, or forms a principal feature. The air ves- 
 sels are the tracheae or spirals. 
 
 VASE. (Lat. vas.) In Sculpture, a vessel usually orna- 
 mented with sculpture of fruits, flowers, bassi-rilievi, &c. 
 
 VA'SES, ETRUSCAN. In Antiquities. These well- 
 known and beautiful objects of ancient art have been dis- 
 covered in great numbers, chiefly in the sepulchres of an- 
 cient Italian cities. Their material is terra cotta, and they 
 are painted with figures and scenes. The most beautiful, 
 and, indeed, the most numerous, were formerly obtained 
 from Campania and Magna Grecia ; and it was much con- 
 troverted among antiquarians whether the workmanship 
 was not originally Greek, which is maintained by Sir. W. 
 Gell. (Topography of Rome, vol. i.) Of late years, the 
 great sources have been the sepulchres of Etruria Proper. 
 Five thousand have been taken in twenty-five years from 
 the ruins of Tarquinia alone ; and it seems to be now gen- 
 erally admitted that the manufacture is rightly called Etrus- 
 can ; that it is of extreme antiquity ; that in its origin it is 
 connected, in some way not easily explicable, with early 
 Egyptian art ; that in its progress Greek taste and style 
 were introduced ; that the art had fallen into disuse in the 
 flourishing period of the Roman empire, which is evinced 
 by this fact, among others, that none have been found in 
 Pompeii or Herculaneum. "The most ancient vases are 
 those called of the Egyptian style. They are particol- 
 oured, of red and black upon a pale yellow ground. Black 
 vases, with friezes of animals and ornaments in bassi-ri- 
 lievo, are also of very high antiquity. Those with black 
 figures on a red ground come next in order ; while the most 
 modem are black with red, figures : such of them, at least, 
 as depart from the old stiff Etruscan style, and have the 
 more natural shapes of Greek art; for example, those of 
 Magna Grascia in general, and Nola in particular." (Mrs. 
 H. Gray, Sepulchres of Etruria, p. 45.) 
 
 VA'SSAL. (Derived, according to Sir F. Palgrave on 
 the English Commonwealth, from the Welsh gwas, a young 
 man or page ; gwasaeth, the state of pagehood, being ren- 
 dered in Latin vassaticuni.) The holder of a fief, by fealty 
 
 1295
 
 VASTUS. 
 
 ami service, of a feudal superior or lord, (See Feudal Sys- 
 tbk.i From the Celtic origin of this word, it has l>« 
 (.jr. it (hal some portion of the feudal usages were derived 
 from those of the tribes which possessed Gaul and Britain 
 before their annexation to the Roman empire. In the an- 
 cient documents of the Carlovingion kings, the vassal is 
 termed " vassus," or " homo Qd< Lie ;" tin- lord generally 
 "senior." The term vassal was also more generally Used, 
 in common language, to signify all who were dependent on 
 a superior lord, from those who held fiefs of him down to 
 his serfs or villeins. (See Guizot, Civilization en France, 
 vol. iv.) 
 
 VASTUS. A term applied by anatomists to two mus- 
 cles of the thigh, the i jI, rnal and internal vasti. 
 
 VATICAN, the ancient palace of the popes, and the 
 most magnificent in the world, stands at Rome on the right 
 bank of the Tiber, and on the hill anciently called by the 
 same name ; derived, according to Aulus Gellius, from Va- 
 ticinium, or rather from an ancient oracular deity of the 
 Latins, called by the Romans Jupiter Vaticanus, who was 
 worshipped there. Some say that Pope Symmachus began 
 the construction of the palace. It was inhabited by Char- 
 lemagne in 800 ; and the present irregular edifice has been 
 raised by the gradual additions of a long series of pontiffs. 
 Its extent is enormous, the number of rooms, at the lowest 
 computation, amounting to 4422; and its riches in marbles, 
 bronzes, and frescoes, in ancient statues and gems, and in 
 paintings, are unequalled in the world; not to mention its 
 library, the richest in Europe in manuscripts. The length 
 of the museum of statues alone is computed to be a mile: 
 here are the Sistine Chapel ; the Camere of Raphael, 
 pointed by himself and pupils; the Museum of Pins VI., 
 peculiarly rich in objects of ancient Italian workmanship ; 
 and other deposits of art and antiquity, each of which by 
 itself would suffice to render a city illustrious. 
 
 VAU'DEVILLE. In French poetry, a species of light 
 song, frequently of a satirical turn, consisting of several 
 couplets and a refrain or burden, introduced into theatrical 
 pieces. The origin of the word is disputed ; some derive 
 it from Vau-de-vire, a village in Normandy. Short comic 
 pieces interspersed with such songs are also termed Vaude- 
 villes. 
 
 VAUTlOIS. (Lat. Waldenses.) The inhabitants of 
 some valleys in the Alps between Italy and Provence, from 
 whence they derive their name ; and who must be distin- 
 guished from the Waldenses, or followers of Peter Waldo, 
 who acquired celebrity in the 12th century, and from whom 
 some writers have deduced both their religious tenets and 
 their appellation also. The Vaudois are celebrated for 
 having maintained the purity of their doctrine for many 
 ages before the Reformation ; and it has been asserted by 
 some theologians that the true spirit of the primitive Chris- 
 tianity was kept alive among them throughout the whole 
 period of Romish corruption. This position, however, does 
 not seem susceptible of proof. Another claim that they 
 possess to a place in ecclesiastical history, is derived from 
 the numerous persecutions to which they have been ex- 
 posed on account of the witness they have so long borne 
 against the erroneous doctrines of the nations by whom 
 they are surrounded. Their extreme antiquity is certain at 
 all events; and the numerous attempts which have been 
 made by Romanist writers to fix on them the stigma of 
 Manicheis-m seem unsupported by the evidence. For the 
 last three centuries they have been viewed with displeasure 
 by the dukes of Savoy and the kings of Sardinia, their 
 masters, and repeatedly visited with military execution, or 
 more legal forms of violence. One great persecution, in the 
 17th century, is kcown to us by Milton's noble sonnet. 
 Not long after it they were altogether expelled, and retreat 
 ed into Switzerland, whence they returned by a celebrated 
 march, and recovered their valleys by force ; an event com- 
 memorated in the work of Arnaud, one of their pastors, I. a 
 Olorieuse Rcntriedcs Vaudois dans /curs Vallecs. At pres- 
 ent they are by no means free from occasional vexations. 
 Their number is about 30,000. (See Fabcr on the Walden- 
 ses and Albigenses, as to their tenets.) 
 
 VAULT. (Fr. voute ; It. volta.) In Architecture, an 
 arched roof, so contrived that the stones, bricks, or other 
 materials whereof it is constructed, sustain and keep each 
 other in their places. Vaults are circular and elliptical. 
 When their section rises higher than a semicircle, they are 
 said to be surmounted; when less, surbased. 
 
 VA'VASS< )|{. A word of uncertain derivation, although 
 probably derived from the same root with vassal (gwas, o 
 youth or page, in some Celtic dialects), The vassals who 
 held Immediately of the higher nobility, under the feudal 
 system In France, were frequently comprehended under this 
 general name; the chatelains being .such vavassors a< pos 
 sessed castles or fortified houses. (See llallani, Middle 
 Ji<rcs, vol. i., p. 149.) The word, however, seems to nave 
 l" en of v, i\ loo e application. Poor gentleman are termed 
 vavassors in old French romances. In England the title 
 12!Ki 
 
 VEHMIC COURTS. 
 
 was not usual, although it is mentioned in Bracton in con 
 tradistlnction to baron, and sometimes appears to have 
 designated persons \\ ho held land by military tenure of oth- 
 ers than the king. (See Archwologia, vol. ii.) 
 
 VE'CTIS. (Lat. the lever.) fa Mechanics, the same 
 w Ith levi ■■/•. See Lever. 
 
 VJE'CTOE. (Lat. vehcre, to carry), or RADIUS VEC- 
 TOR. In Astronomy, a straight line conceived to be drawn 
 from the centre of a planet to the centre of the sun, by 
 which the planet appears to be carried round the sun in its 
 orbit. In geometry, the radius vector of a conic section is 
 a straight line drawn from one of the foci to any point in the 
 curve. 
 
 VF.'IIA. The name by which the Hindoos designate the 
 collective body of their scriptures ; sometimes called Ve- 
 dam, Bedam, &c, according to various provincial pronunci- 
 ations, by European writers. The four Vedas (Rig, Vajust, 
 Saman, and Atharvan) are believed, according to the or- 
 thodox creed, to have been revealed by Brahma. But the 
 subdivisions are infinite, as are also the connected works — 
 Upavedas, Angas, Upangas, &c. ; some of which are con- 
 sidered by Mr. Colebrooke to constitute, according to re- 
 ceived opinion, a fifth Veda. The arrangement is ascribed 
 to one Vyasa, a sage of whom nothing positive can be as- 
 certained. The Vedas chiefly consist of prayers, precepts 
 or maxims, and stories ; called respectively by different 
 titles. Thus a portion of the mythological histories are 
 called Puranas ; but these are not to be confounded with 
 the poems of romantic mythology called by the same name. 
 (See Puranas.) The genuineness and antiquity of the Ve- 
 das have been matter of much dispute among western anti- 
 quaries. The chief chronological data are, that they were 
 compiled before the supposed incarnation of Vishnu, as 
 Rama and Kirshna, under which titles he is now so com- 
 monly worshipped among the Hindoos ; and also before the 
 appearance of Buddha. Sir William Jones (Asiat. Re- 
 searches, vol. ii.) gave them a conjectural antiquity of about 
 3000 years ; and Mr. Colebrooke (lb., vol. vii.) arrives at 
 about the same conclusion. 
 
 VEDA'NTA. A sect among the Uindoos, whose theory 
 of philosophy is professedly founded on the revelations 
 contained in the Vedas. Its fundamental tenets appear to 
 have a near connexion with the opinions of Epiciinrinus, 
 Plato, Pyrrho, and what is termed the lierkeljan philosophy 
 among ourselves: namely, that matter has no existence in- 
 dependent of mental perception; with the ordinary conse- 
 quences of that doctrine, of which those practically most 
 important are the maxims of Quietism. See, on the phi- 
 losophy of the Vedas, Hitter's History of Ancient J'hilono- 
 phy (translation), vol. i., p. 66, &c. 
 
 VEER. In Naval Language, to give the ship more scope 
 of cable. Also to let any thing drop astern by a rope. Also 
 the old term for to wear. 
 
 VE'GETABLE EARTH. Soil in which decayed vege- 
 table matter is in a much larger proportion than the primi- 
 tive earths. In Horticulture, vegetable earth is called 
 mould; and in Agriculture the term is applied to the sur- 
 face soil of hollows, which contain alluvial soil beneath, 
 and vegetable matter, generally of a black colour, on the 
 surface. 
 VEGETA'TION. See Botany. 
 
 VEGETA'TION, CHEMISTUV OF. From the moment 
 a seed begins to grow a series of chemical changes are in- 
 duced, essential to the development of its germ. The pro- 
 cess has been chiefly studied in regard to bicotyledonous 
 plants, and a general outline of it is given under the word 
 Germination. 
 
 VETIMIC COURTS. (Germ, vehm, or femgerichte.) 
 Criminal Courts of Justice, established in Germany during 
 
 the middle ages. These courts are commonly said to have 
 originated in those held by the Missl Dominici, or imperial 
 legates, sent by Charlemagne into the provinces of his em- 
 pire; but many circumstances denote tie ir descent from the 
 more ancient tribunals of the German tribes, held in the 
 open air in the primitive periods of their history. (See a 
 curious account of the free field courts of the Germans in 
 Sir !'. Palgrave's work on the English Commonwealth; 
 Femgerichl Westphalens?^ But the character 
 under which these institutions became formidable and lm- 
 portant, about the beginning of the 13th century, arose from 
 the disordered state of northern Germany after the di olu- 
 ti f the duchy of Saxony. The Vehmic,or, as they were 
 
 called, free COUTtS, were then modelled on a secret system of 
 
 organization. The president was usually a prince or count 
 of the empire; his assistants (styled FreischOffen) were 
 
 persons affiliated to the society by secret initiation, to the 
 
 number, it is said, atone time of 100,000. All these were 
 
 bound to attend the secret meetings of the courts when 
 
 summoned, and to execute their decrees, if necessary, by 
 taking the life of persons condemned. Westphalia, styled, 
 
 in the language of the free courts, the Red Land, was tin 
 
 district in n hich their central authority was seated. These
 
 VEIL. 
 
 courts exercised a great power, which was occasionally ser- 
 viceable in repressing the lawless violence of the nobles of 
 that period, but which was also liable to be perverted to 
 the gratification of private malice and tyranny. Various 
 leagues were formed in the loth century, by the nobles of 
 the empire, for the purpose of destroying their influence ; 
 which was at last effected, chiefly by the introduction of a 
 hetter system of public judicature and police in the several 
 states. See also the publication of the Library of Enter- 
 taining Knowledge Society, Secret Societies of the Middle 
 Ages. The romantic use of this history made by Goethe in 
 his Goetz von Berlichingen is well known. 
 
 VEIL. A term used in describing fungi to denote the 
 horizontal membrane connecting the margin of the pileus 
 with the stipes. 
 
 VEIN'S. (Lat. vena.) In Anatomy, elastic tubes which 
 convey the blood from the arteries back to the heart. See 
 Heart. 
 
 VEINS, MINERAL. Cracks or fissures in rocks filled 
 up with substances differing from the rock itself. When 
 these are of a metallic nature, they form the chief reposi- 
 tories of the most useful metals, and are termed metallic 
 veins , they often contain cavities lined with some of the 
 most beautiful mineral products. Some veins are several 
 yards wide ; and they often branch off into smaller ramifi- 
 cations, which are gradually lost in the surrounding rock. 
 See Geology. 
 
 VELE'LLA. (Diminutive of velum, asail.) The name 
 of a genus of Acalephes, characterized by a vertical crest 
 or sail, by means of which they are wafted along the sur- 
 face of the ocean. 
 
 VE'LITES. The light-armed infantry attached to a Ro- 
 man legion were so called. (See Mem de VAc. des Inscr., 
 vol. xxix.) They were equipped with bows, slings, and 
 javelins, a light wooden buckler covered with leather, and 
 a head-piece. 
 
 VE'LLUM. (Lat. velamen, or vitulinum.) A fine kind 
 of parchment made of calf-skin. The skins are limed, 
 shaved, washed, and stretched in proper frames, where 
 they are scraped with the currier's fleshing-tool, and ulti- 
 mately rubbed down to a proper thickness with pumice- 
 stone. 
 
 VELO'CE. (It. swift.) In Music, a term which, pre- 
 fixed to a movement, indicates that it is to be performed in 
 a rapid manner. 
 
 VELO'CIPEDE. (Lat. velox, swift, and pes, foot.) A 
 vehicle invented at Mannheim in 1817, by M. Drais, consist- 
 ing of a piece of wood about five feet long, and half a fool 
 wide, resting on two wheels, one behind the other. On 
 this an individual sits, as on horseback, his feet touching 
 the ground, and thus propelling the machine. The front 
 wheel may be turned at pleasure, so that the rider may 
 give any direction to the machine. This species of vehicle 
 never came into general use ; but it was improved by 
 Knight in this country, and a patent received for it. 
 
 VELO'CITY (Lat. velox, swift), is measured by the 
 space which a moving body passes through in a given 
 time. The velocity of a body is uniform when it passes 
 through equal spaces in equal times ; and variable when 
 the spaces passed through in equal times are unequal. It 
 is accelerated when the force by which a body is put into a 
 state of motion continues to act after the motion has com- 
 menced ; and retarded when the moving body encounters 
 obstacles which tend to destroy the motion. Velocity is 
 merely a relative term; for there is nothing, as Biot re- 
 marks Traite de Physique, 1. iii., p. 148), which in itself is 
 either swift or slow, any more than great or small. The 
 velocity of a cannon ball appears very great, as it can 
 scarcely be followed by the eye ; yet it is slow in compari- 
 son of the motion of a point on the earth's equator carried 
 round by the diurnal motion ; and this, in its turn, is far in- 
 ferior to the velocity of the earth in its orbit, which again is 
 greatly exceeded by the velocity of light. (For the velocity 
 of falling bodies, see Acceleration ; for the velocity of a 
 l>ody moving in curve about a centre of force, see Central 
 Fortes. See also Gunnery, Virtual Velocity, &c.) 
 
 VELVET. A rich kind of stuff, extensively used for 
 ladies' dresses and a variety of other purposes. Of velvet 
 there are properly only two kinds, that with a plain, and 
 that with a tweeled, or, as it is also called, a Genoa ground 
 or back. When the material is silk, it is called velvet; 
 when cotton, velveteen. The latter is a species of fustian, 
 which, under a variety of names, is largely used for men's 
 wearing apparel. 
 
 VENA CAVA. See Heart. 
 
 VENEE'R. In Architecture, a thin piece of material of 
 a more valuable kind laid on another of a more common 
 sort, by which the whole substance appears to be of the 
 more valuable sort. Veneering is more usually applied to 
 furniture than to strictly architectural purposes. 
 
 VENETIAN SCHOOL. In Painting. The distinguish- 
 ing character of this school is colouring, and a consummate 
 110 
 
 VENTILATION. 
 
 intellectual knowledge of chiaro-scuro ; in both which all 
 is grace, spirit, and faithful adherence to nature, so seduc- 
 tive as to lead the spectator away from any consideration of 
 its defects. It is an exquisite bouquet of well-arranged flow- 
 ers ; or a collection of pulpy, juicy, saccharine fruits. But 
 it is not to be inferred that it is altogether wanting in still 
 higher accomplishments : for the head of it was Tiziano de 
 Vecelli ; and in its ranks are to be found Tintoretto, Paul 
 Veronese, Giorgione, and many other illustrious masters. 
 See Painting. 
 
 VE'NIAL SIN. (Lat venia, forgiveness.) In Theology, 
 is defined, by Roman Catholic theologians, a sin which 
 weakens sanctifying grace, but does not take it away. It is 
 not necessary, although commendable, to mention such sin 
 in confession. Reformed theologians altogether reject the 
 formal distinction between venial and mortal sin. 
 
 VENTRE FA'CIAS. In Law, a judicial writ, directed 
 to the sheriff to cause a jury to come or appear in the 
 neighbourhood where a cause is brought to issue, to try the 
 same. (See Jury.) A venire facias de nova, being a writ 
 directing the sheriff to cause a jury to come and try a cause 
 a second time, is granted where there has been a mis-trial ; 
 on the ground of irregularity, as, for instance, in summoning 
 the jury; on the ground of misconduct by the jury ; and 
 also in certain cases where the verdict given is imperfect by 
 reason of some ambiguity and uncertainty. The great rule 
 of difference between a venire de novo in the latter case and 
 a new trial is, that the former is only granted on matter ap- 
 pearing on the record. 
 
 VENI, SANCTE SPIRITUS. (Lat. Come, Holy Ghost.) 
 The name given to a mass in the Roman Catholic church 
 to invoke the assistance of the Hoi) - Spirit. 
 
 VENTA'YLE, or AVENTAYLE. The visor of a hel- 
 met. See Helmet. 
 
 VE'NTER, (Lat.) in Entomology, signifies the lower 
 part of the abdomen. 
 
 VENTILATION, (Lat. ventus, wind) literally signifies 
 fanning or blowing. In Domestic Economy, it is the art of 
 conveying currents of fresh air through close apartments or 
 confined places, so as to maintain the atmosphere in a state 
 of purity. 
 
 Atmospheric air consists of two ingredients, oxygen and 
 azote, blended together in the proportion of one part by 
 measure of the former to four of the latter. When these 
 proportions are altered, air becomes unfit for respiration ; 
 anil when the oxygen is withdrawn or consumed, it is ren- 
 dered altogether incapable of supporting animal life or com- 
 bustion. But there are operations both of nature and art 
 continually going forward in which the oxygen of the atmo- 
 sphere is consumed, and gaseous products evolved which 
 are destructive of life. Thus, in the act of respiration, a 
 certain portion of the oxygen contained in the air inhaled 
 into the lungs is converted into carbonic acid, a substance 
 which acts as a narcotic poison ; and hence, in a confined 
 apartment, air is soon rendered, by breathing alone, not 
 merely incapable of maintaining life, but highly destructive 
 of it, in consequence of the evolution of a deleterious gas. 
 In like manner, oxygen is consumed, and carbonic acid 
 evolved, in the process of combustion ; and the burning of a 
 pan of charcoal in a close room is known to be a certain 
 means of extinguishing life. 
 
 Although a decomposition and deterioration of air is thus 
 continually going forward, nature has by various means 
 provided so effectually for the restoration of the two con- 
 stituent gases, that in whatever part of the world, and at 
 whatever height in the atmosphere, air is taken, it is found, 
 when chemically examined, to contain azote and oxygen in 
 exactly the same proportions. See Air. 
 
 Quantity of air required for Ventilation. — If the ques- 
 tion were solely how to command a sufficient supply of 
 fresh air, it would be easily solved ; but as in our climates 
 the temperature of the external atmosphere is in winter 
 generally very much lower than is necessary for comfort, 
 we have at the same time to provide for the maintenance of 
 an artificial temperature in our apartments, by allowing the 
 air to enter no faster than it can be warmed. One of the 
 first points, therefore, to be considered, is the amount of the 
 supply of fresh air which an individual requires for comfort 
 and health. This, however, is a point on which, by reason 
 of the great variety of circumstances concerned, it is ex- 
 tremely difficult to arrive at any satisfactory conclusion. 
 
 Dr. Henry estimates that an adult person makes, on the 
 average, 20 inspirations per minute, and draws into his 
 lungs'at each inspiration 20 cubic inches of air. Peclet 
 allows 40 cubic inches for each inspiration. Taking the 
 mean of the two estimates, we have 000 cubic inches ex- 
 pired per minute. But, according to Dr. Arnott, air expelled 
 from the lungs is found to vitiate, so as to render unfit for 
 respiration, twelve times its own bulk of pure air ; hence, 
 the quantity of air spoiled every minute by the respiration 
 of an adult, is 7200 cubic inches, or rather more than 4 
 cubic feet. Dr. Arnott, however, supposes the waste to be 
 4 M 1297
 
 VENTILATION. 
 
 only half of this quantity. Rut there are several other 
 causes of deterioration besides the production of carbonic 
 acid from the lungs: the effluvia and vapour of animal 
 matter exuded from the whole surface of the body is not less 
 injurious than carbonic acid : and. according to M. Seguin, 
 in a temperature of (50°, about 3A cubic feet of air per 
 minute is charged with animal vapour transmitted through 
 t lie skin of an adult, and rendered unfit for respiration. 
 When artificial lights are used, a further allowance must 
 be made for the waste by combustion. Besides, air is re- 
 quired for various other purposes than those which have 
 now been mentioned. It acts as a cooling power, and 
 hence the supply requisite for comfort depends on its tem- 
 perature. It likewise serves to carry off moisture from the 
 skin, and therefore its state as to dryness or humidity must 
 be considered. Dr. D. B. Reid found, from observations on 
 a number of persons assembled in an experimental room. 
 that not less than 10 cubic feet per minute should be allow- 
 ed to each individual on the average, at an agreeable tem- 
 perature ; but that, to maintain the atmosphere in all its 
 purity, a much larger supply would at times be desirable. 
 On the whole, therefore, we may conclude that 10 cubic 
 feet of fresh air per minute, for each individual, is the 
 smallest allowance that should be made in order to ensure 
 healthful ventilation. 
 
 Sources of JErial Movement. — One of the most efficient 
 means of ventilation is afforded by the action of heat. At 
 ordinary temperatures, air suffers an expansion of about 
 l-500th part for each degree of Fahrenheit's thermometer 
 by which the temperature is raised ; and being rendered 
 specifically lighter in the same proportion, the pressure of 
 the surrounding atmosphere predominates, and the heated 
 air is forced upwards. This principle is exemplified in the 
 action of the ordinary chimney, which may be regarded as 
 a tube open at both ends, and placed in any position except 
 the horizontal. The air in the lower end of the tube, being 
 heated by the fire, rises and passes out at the upper end, 
 while its place is supplied by the pressure of the fluid sur- 
 rounding the lower opening ; and the circumstances of mo- 
 tion are the same as if another tube, filled with air of the 
 original temperature, were adapted to the lower end of the 
 chimney, which is filled with heated air, so that the cur- 
 rent is established in the same manner as in an inverted 
 siphon, in which two columns of air of different densities, 
 but equal altitudes, press against each other. At the lower 
 opening of the chimney, the draught or velocity of the cur- 
 rent is expressed by this formula, 
 
 where v denotes the velocity in feet per second, g the ac- 
 celerating force of gravity (=32"2 feet per second), a the 
 rate of expansion for one degree of increased temperature, 
 t! the temperature of the heated air as it enters the chim- 
 ney, and I that of the external air. It appears from this 
 that the velocity of draught is as the square root of the 
 height of the chimney, and the square root of the excess of 
 temperature at the lower opening. But as the same quan- 
 tity of air must be supposed to pass through every different 
 section of the chimney in the same time, it follows that 
 the velocity at every part must be inversely as the density, 
 and, therefore, decreases from the bottom to the summit. 
 
 As the draught of a chimney depends on the difference of 
 the temperature of the air at its lower and upper ends, it 
 will afford a considerable power of ventilation, even when 
 there is no fire, if the room be heated by any means (as by 
 an assemblage of persons) above the temperature of the ex- 
 ternal atmosphere. In warm weather this may, however, be 
 insufficient; but in this ease a Large shaft, communicating 
 with the apartment at some distance, will afford, by means 
 of a good lire, an exhausting power to any extent. This is 
 the method by which the Houses of Parliament are at pre- 
 sent ventilated, and the principle has been frequently ap- 
 plied in mines and manufactories. The impulsion of air 
 into a chamber by mechanical means is often had n Bourse 
 to in particular circumstances, in the printing-office of the 
 Bank of England there is a ventilating apparatus consisting 
 of a square box for a pump body, with a loose piston, anil 
 furnished with larue valved openings, by means of which 
 1100 cubic feet of air per minute are driven through the 
 apartments. For ventilating the holds of >lii j><. n-iiar*. gee,, 
 the winilsail is usually applied, though sometimes a fanner 
 is introduced for the same purpose. 
 
 The subject of ventilating is intimately connected with 
 that of wanning apartmentB; and the great difficulty to he 
 overcome is, to provide for both objects M the same time. 
 The open fire-place, so generally used for private buildings 
 in this country, affords, beyond question, the purest and 
 wholesomest source of heat; but it is attended with many 
 Berlous defects, By far the greater part of the heat produc- 
 ed by the combustion pa^cs through the chimney without 
 contributing to warm the apartment, thus occasioning a 
 great waste of fuel : while the air admitted into the room to 
 12'JS 
 
 VENTRILOaUIST. 
 
 supply the place of that which sustains the comhusti'on b 
 allowed to find its way through the imperfect fittings of the 
 doors ami windows, wherever accident leaves an • 
 under no regulation, and accordingly passes through the 
 apartment to the fire-place in offensive and injurious cur- 
 rents. Nor, after all, is the ventilation by any means com- 
 plete ; for while currents of cold air are passing along a few 
 inches or feet above the floor, they seldom rise above the 
 level of the chimney piece, and the air in the upper part of 
 the room may exist in a greatly vitiated state by the pro- 
 ducts of respiration and the combustion of the lamps or 
 candles. These evils might, indeed, be obviated to a con- 
 siderable extent, and the currents in the room much dimin- 
 ished, by bringing an independent supply of air through 
 j tubes leading directly from the outer air to the fire-place, 
 j and provided with valves to regulate the quantity. Count 
 | Rumford recommended that the air should be conducted 
 from the roof of the building through a pipe or canal 
 placed in the interior of the chimney, and admitted into the 
 apartment through a regulated ventilator in the chimney- 
 piece. The object of placing the tube within the chimney 
 was, that the air, in its passage through it into the room, 
 should be warmed by the contrary current of air from the 
 fire-place ; thus economising the heat which in the ordina- 
 ry arrangement is entirely lost. This suggestion has been 
 improved upon in a great variety of ways, and the principle 
 applied to close as well as to open stoves. 
 
 When apartments are warmed by other means than open 
 fires, as close stoves, the circulation of hot water in tubes, 
 heated air, &c, means should be applied to obtain ventila- 
 tion entirely independent of the heating, and controlled by 
 valves. If stoves are used, the chimney to carry off the 
 products of combustion, and the tubes which supply the air 
 necessary to maintain it. should have no communication 
 with the chamber in which the stove is placed. Btoves of 
 low combustion, like Arnott's stoves, or the porcelain stoves 
 used in the north of Europe, are the best: iron, heated to a 
 hiL'h temperature, causes an offensive smell, and decom- 
 poses the air; besides, the air which comes in contact with 
 it, in consequence of the temperature it acquires, rushes 
 rapidly to the highest part of the room, and renders regula- 
 ted ventilation impossible. The mild hot-water apparatus, 
 when the pipes are suitably disposed, affords an agreeable 
 warmth, and has this advantage — that the sources of heat 
 not being confined to a particular part of the room, equable 
 ventilation is rendered more easy. In rooms for public as- 
 semblies, where the air requires to be changed rapidly, 
 greater difficulty is encountered: the best method undoubt- 
 edly is. to admit the pure air from a chamber in which it 
 is previously heated (or cooled, as the case may require) to 
 the suitable temperature, and to carry off the respired and 
 vitiated air by the shaft of a furnace. 
 
 Of late years, the subject of ventilation, as connected 
 with the public health, has engaged much attention ; and a 
 mass of useful information respecting it will be found in the 
 recent Parliamentary Reports, particularly on the ventila- 
 ting and acoustic arrangements of the present House of 
 Commons, on education and manufactures, and the means of 
 improving the health of large towns, it^ee Tredgold't 
 Principles of Harming and Ventilating Public Buildings, 
 4-e. ; Jirnott on Harming and Ventilation; the Monthly 
 Chronicle, vol. i., p. 2-20 ; Dr. Reid's Chemistry of the At- 
 mosphere; Knajc. Brit., art. " Ventilation ;" Peclet, Traiti 
 de la Chaleur). 
 
 VENTILATOR. Any machine or contrivance for pro- 
 moting or regulating ventilation. The common ventilator 
 placed in windows, which revolves in the same manner as 
 a smoke-jack, in consequence of the impulsion of a current 
 of air, serves only to retard, in some degree, the entrance of 
 the current, to disperse it in different directions, and to pre- 
 vent any sudden increase in the intensity of the draught. 
 It has no power of acting so as to create a current, or keep 
 up its i nten sity when it has been established. 
 
 VE'NTRICIiE. (Lat. venter, the belly.) A term in 
 Anatomy, applied to cavities of the brain and of the heart. 
 
 VE'NTRICOSE. In Zoology, a part is so termed when 
 it bellies out as if rilled wilh air. 
 
 VENTRTLOOrJlST. (Lat. venter, the belly; loquor, / 
 speak.) One whose voice appears to come from his belly. 
 mists are generally supposed to have the power of 
 making the voice appear to come from distant objects or 
 quarters ; but this is a deception, arising out of the manner 
 in w oich the ventriloquist manages his voice. The art ap- 
 pears to consist in tilling the lungs with air, and employing, 
 during expiration, such organs of voice as can be used with- 
 out the aid of the lips ; or at least with as little movement 
 of the lips, mouth, or cheeks, as is compatible with the pro- 
 nunciation of certain words. By practice many individuals 
 
 aired considerable dexterity in this an ; and when 
 
 certain words can he distinctly pronounced in different tones, 
 in the way desci ibi d, the Imagination of the hearers easily 
 leads them to suppose that they come from a person in a
 
 VENUE. 
 
 fcor, or up the chimney, or from inanimate objects, especially 
 if adventitious means be resorted to to aid the illusion, as is 
 generally the case in such exhibitions. 
 
 VEAU'E. (Norm. Fr. visne ; Lat. vicinetum, neighbour- 
 hood.) In Law. By the original institution of trial by jury, 
 jurors were summoned from the immediate neighbourhood 
 where a fact happened, to try it by their own knowledge. 
 Hence, long after 'the institution had been altered in charac- 
 ter, juries were still summoned in point of form from the 
 parish, village, &c, until by 4 Ann., c. 16, they became sum- 
 monable as they still are, from the body of the county. The 
 venue, therefore, was the neighbourhood named in the 
 venue facias, or writ summoning the jury ; and the last 
 relics of the old practice, in criminal proceedings, were 
 abolished by 5 G. 4, c 50. (See Jury.) The venue, there- 
 tore, is the county in which the action is to be tried, which 
 is specified in all material allegations in the pleadings ; and 
 it aeed not be the county in which the fact took place ex- 
 cept in what are called local actions. See Pleadin©. 
 
 VE'NUS. In Astronomy, one of the principal planets, 
 the second in the order of distance from the sun, and the 
 most brilliant of all the planetary bodies. From her alter- 
 nate appearance in the morning and evening, Venus was 
 called by the Greeks Hesperus and Phosphorus, the evening 
 and morning -star; sometimes also site is called the shep- 
 herd's star. 
 
 The distance of Venus from the sun is -7233316, that of 
 the earth being unity ; whence her true distance is about 68 
 millions of miles. Her sidereal revolution is performed in 
 S?24-7007869 mean solar days; and her synodieal period, or 
 the interval between her successive conjunctions with the 
 sun, is 583920 mean solar days. The inclination of the 
 orbit to the ecliptic was 3° 2T 23-6" at the commencement 
 of the present century, and is subject to a decrease of about 
 O - 0455" in a year. The eccentricity of tlie orbit is -00686074, 
 half the major avis being unity : and the longitude of the as- 
 cending node at the commencement of the present century 
 was 74° 54' 12"9", having a motion westward, when referred 
 to the fixed stars, amounting to 17-6" in a year. 
 
 The mean apparent diameter of Venus, or her apparent 
 diameter when at her mean distance, is 16-9" ; hut it is sub- 
 ject to great variations, being only 96" at the time of her 
 superior conjunction, and at the time of the inferior con- 
 junction sometimes so much as 61-2". Comparing this with 
 her mean distance, her true diameter is 975, that of the 
 earth being unity ; and is consequently about 7700 English 
 miles. Her volume is therefore -927 of that of the earth. 
 Her mass, as compared with that of the sun, is -0000021638. 
 
 Venus, being an inferior planet, is never seen in opposi- 
 tion to the sun. Her greatest elongation, or angular distance 
 from the sun, varies from '15° to 47° 12'. According to her 
 various positions relatively to the sun and earth, she changes 
 her phases like the moon, appearing when she first emerges 
 from the sun's rajs, and becomes visible in the morning as 
 a fine luminous crescent, the horns of which are turned 
 away from the sun. As the planet recedes from the sun, 
 the breadth of the crescent increases: at the greatest elonga- 
 tion it becomes a semicircle ; after this the breadth of the 
 disk goes on increasing till the planet arrives at its superior 
 conjunction, where it appears as a full orb, the illuminated 
 side being turned towards the earth. These appearances, 
 on account. of the irradiation, are not appreciable by the 
 naked eye, but they become visible in an ordinary telescope. 
 
 Venus is supposed to revolve about an axis ; and the time 
 of rotation is stated, from observations made by Schroeter, 
 to be 23 h. 21 m. 7-3 sec., the axis of rotation being inclined 
 to the ecliptic in an angle of about 75°. There is, how- 
 ever, considerable doubt as to the accuracy of these con- 
 clusions. On this subject Sir John Herschel remarks, that 
 Venus, " although it attains occasionally the considerable 
 apparent diameter of 61", which is larger than that of any 
 other planet, is yet the most difficult of them all to define 
 with telescopes. The intense lustre of its illuminated part 
 dazzles the sight, and exaggerates every imperfection of the 
 telescope; yet we see clearly that its surface is not mottled 
 over with permanent spots»like the moon; we perceive in 
 it neither mountains nor srwdows, but a uniform brightness, 
 in which we may, indeed, fancy obscurer portions, but can 
 seldom or never rest full}' satisfied of the fact. It is from 
 some observations of this kind that both Venus and Mercury 
 have been concluded to revolve on their axes in about 
 the same time as the earth. The most natural conclusion, 
 from the very rare appearance and want of permanence in 
 the spots, is, that we do not see, as in the moon, the real 
 surface of these planets, but only their atmospheres, much 
 loaded with clouds, and which may serve to mitigate the 
 otherwise intense glare of their sunshine." (" Astronomy," 
 Cabinet Cyclopedia, p. 279.) 
 
 Venus is sometimes seen to pass over the disc of the sun, 
 presenting a phenomenon analogous to that of a solar 
 eclipse by the moon. This phenomenon, which is called a 
 transit of Venus, can only happen when the planet is at its 
 
 VERDURER. 
 
 inferior conjunction, and, at the same time, very near one 
 of its nodes. It is therefore of rare occurrence ; but very 
 important, inasmuch as it affords the best means astronomers 
 possess of determining the sun's parallax, and consequently 
 the dimensions of the planetary system. {See Planet.) 
 Delambre has given a list of all the transits occurring in a 
 period of 2000 years. The following contains all that have 
 happened since 1631, and that will happen before the end 
 of the 21st century : 
 
 1631, Dec. 6. 1874. Dec. 8. 
 
 1639, Dec. 4. 1882; Dec. 6. 
 
 1701, June 5. 2004, June 7. 
 
 1769, June 3. 2012, June 5. 
 
 (See Baily's Astronomical Tables and Formula. 
 
 The first transit ever seen was that of 1639, which was 
 observed in this country by Horrox and Crabtree. The im- 
 portance of the phenomenon for determining the sun's 
 parallax was first pointed out by James Gregory in his Op- 
 tica Pranwta, 1663. 
 
 Venus. In Zoology, a name applied by Linnajus to a 
 genus of Vermes Testacea, including those which have a 
 bivalve shell with the frontal margin flattened, with incum- 
 bent lips; the hinge with three teeth, all of them approxi- 
 mate, and the lateral ones divergent at the top. 
 
 The Bivalves thus characterized enter into the Cardiacean 
 family of the Testaceous Acephala of Cuvier, and are sub- 
 divided into the genera Venus proper, Lam. ; Astarte, Sow- 
 erby ; Cytherea, Lain. ; Capsa, Brug. ; Petricola, Lam. 
 
 Venus. The Latin name of the Grecian Aphrodite ('A0- 
 fai'tTt]). This goddess is generally supposed to have been 
 of eastern origin, and to have been the same as the Phoeni- 
 cian Astarte. By the Grecian poets she was called the 
 daughter of Jupiter and Dione ; or, according to some ac- 
 counts, arose from the foam of the sea. She was worship- 
 ped as the goddess of beauty and love, her principal seats 
 being the islands of Cyprus and Cythera. The Romans re- 
 garded her as the progenitress of their nation, which was 
 fabled to have sprung from jEneas, the offspring of her 
 union with the Trojan Anchises. She was married to Vul- 
 can ; but was not remarkable for fidelity to her husband. 
 Her amour with Adonis is particularly celebrated in ancient 
 poetry. (See, as to her worship, Mem. de VAc. des Inscr., 
 vol. xvi.; Bryant's Mythology, i., 392; hi., 157.) 
 
 Venus Urania, or Heavenly, was distinguished from 
 Pandeinos, or Popular, rather by philosophers than the mul- 
 titude. The most celebrated ancient statues of Venus now 
 existing are the Anadyomene and Medicean, both at Flor- 
 ence. 
 
 VERA r TRIA. An alkaline principle found in the root 
 of the Veratrum album, or white hellebore ; in the seeds of 
 the Veratrum sabadilla ; and in the bulb and seed of the 
 Colchicnm autumnale, or meadow saffron. It is acrid and 
 poisonous; difficultly soluble in water, readily soluble in al- 
 cohol, and less so in ether. It excites violent sneezing, and 
 is probably the principle upon which the efficacy of colchi- 
 cutn in the cure of gout depends. 
 
 VERB. (Lat. verbum, a word.) In Grammar, a part of 
 speech which consists of an affirmation and a property or 
 attribute affirmed. Verbs are distinguished into transitive, 
 intransitive, and passive. Besides these, there is the verb 
 substantive, which expresses simple affirmation abstracted 
 from any particular property affirmed. See Grammar. 
 
 VERBAL. In Grammar, a noun derived from a verb. 
 In English, verbals are commonly known by the termina- 
 tions ion, ive, which are derived from the Latin. 
 
 VERD ANTIQUE. A beautiful mottled green marble ; 
 it is an aggregate of marble and serpentine. 
 
 VE'RDICT. In Law, the answer of a jury given to the 
 court concerning the matter of fact in any cause committed 
 to their trial. A special verdict is a verdict not delivered 
 generally in behalf of either plaintiff or defendant, but 
 stating the facts, and referring the law arising upon them to 
 the judgment of the court. See Jury. 
 
 VE'RDIGRIS. A blue green pigment, originally prepared 
 in the south of France by covering copper plates with the 
 refuse of the grape after the expression of the juice for wine. 
 It appears to be a mixture of the subacetates of copper, and 
 is now largely manufactured in this country- by alternating 
 copper plates and pieces of coarse woollen cloth previously 
 soaked in crude pyroligneous acid. 
 
 VE'RDITER. A blue pigment, generally prepared by 
 decomposing solution of nitrate of copper by the addition of 
 chalk. It is a hydrated percarbonate of copper. 
 
 VE'RDURER, or VERDEROR. An officer in the royal 
 forests, whose peculiar charge was the care of the vert .- 
 i. e., in forest language, the trees and underwood of the forest, 
 all vegetation sufficient to cover a deer being included in 
 the term ; which was divided, in old language, into over 
 vert and nether vert. The verderor is sworn to keep the 
 assizes of the forest ; to view, receive, and enrol attach- 
 ments and presentments. &c. 
 
 1299
 
 VERGE OP THE COURT. 
 
 VERGE OP THE COURT. The compass of the king's 
 court, within which is bounded the jurisdiction of the lord 
 steward of the household. It is said to be so called from 
 the verge, or rod of office, borne by the marshal. See 
 Stew i 
 
 VE'RJUICE. The expressed juice of unripe or green 
 grapes. The term is applied also to a kind of vinegar made 
 of the juice of unripe apples. 
 
 VER'MIFUGES. (Lat vermis, a icorm, and fiiso, / put 
 tofiigKL.) Medicines used Is effecting the expulsion of intes- 
 tinal worms : these are sometimes merely purgatives, such as 
 calomel, scammony, gamboge, jalap, &c. Borne substances 
 are supposed to have a specific action on the worm, such 
 as male fern root; others act as mechanical irritants, such 
 ns the spicule of cowhage. The most effective vermifuge 
 is a large do*e of oil of turpentine. (See Anthelmintics.) 
 
 VEK.M I l.Ii IN. Red sulphuret of mercury. See Cinna- 
 bar and Mercury. 
 
 VE'KMIN". Quadrupeds, reptiles, worms, or insects, 
 which are injurious to the cultivator. The number of 
 these is great in every country, and calls into continual 
 requisition the skill and vigilance of man to subdue them. 
 In British agriculture the sheep and poultry are attacked by 
 foxes, weasels, and other quadrupeds; the com and other 
 seeds and roots by rats and mice; and all plants, as well as 
 seeds, by the weevil, the gnat, the tumip-fly, the Hessian- 
 fly, the cockchafer, the wireworm, and numerous other in- 
 sects. In gardening, almost all plants are liable to the at- 
 tacks of insects, seeds to those of rats and mice, and fruits 
 to •* eaten by birds. In general, the most efficient mode to 
 subdue insects which attack plants is to invigorate their 
 growth as much as possible by culture, because it is found 
 that insects thrive l>est on plants which are in a state of in- 
 cipient disease ; and the next best mode to this, is the en- 
 couragement of such natural enemies to vermin as are not 
 themselves more injurious than the creatures they prey 
 upon. Thus birds of every kind, from the crow to the spar- 
 row, are the natural enemies of insects; the crows seeking 
 out and devouring the larva of the cockchafer, the beetle, 
 and the wireworm, found at the roots of grasses ; the black- 
 bird and the thrush devouring snails, slugs, and worms ; the 
 turkey frogs, lizards, and small snakes; and the sinsim.' 
 birds and sparrow destroying not only the larva of insects. 
 but their eggs, and the insect in a winged state while flying 
 through the atmosphere. Hedgehogs and weasels, while 
 kept in outhouses and gardens, prey upon rats, mice, frogs, 
 lizards, worms, snails, slugs, and beetles. There are some 
 insects, such as the turnip-fly, the wheat or Hessian fly, and 
 the aphides or green fly, which propagate themselves very 
 extensively, in consequence of the extensive propagation of 
 the plants on which they feed ; and these are the insects 
 which are most injurious to the cultivator, because he can- 
 not multiply their natural enemies in the same proportion as 
 he multiplies the insects by cultivating on a large scale the 
 plants on which they grow. The aphides he may destroy 
 by the application of tobacco-water and other means; but 
 he has little or no control over the tumip-fly or the wheat- 
 fly. Happily for man the seasons are not always alike pro- 
 pitious to these and other enemies to vegetation ; and thus 
 chance, providence, or the nature of things, enables him to 
 maintain his struggle against his natural enemies. 
 
 VERNA'TION. The manner in which the nascent 
 leaves are arranged with a leaf-bud. 
 
 VERNIER. A contrivance for measuring intervals be- 
 tween the divisions of graduated scales or circular instru- 
 ments. The name is given from that of the inventor, Peter 
 Vernier, who published an account of the contrivance in a 
 work printed at Brussels In 1631. It consists of a small 
 moveable scale, whicb slides along the graduated scale; 
 the divisions on the one scale being to those on the other in 
 the proportion of two numbers which differ from each other 
 by unity. The theory of the instrument, and the manner in 
 which it is used, may be explained as follows: Let AB = a 
 
 A I IB 
 
 89 | 12345678 910| 1 2 
 
 m 
 
 ' i i i i r 
 
 _u 
 
 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 
 be a distance on the scale containing n of its divisions. Let 
 ■v v be another scale equal in length to n — 1 of the divisions 
 ■on A B ; anil let p B be divided into n equal parts. Since 
 the distance AB = t, and contains n equal parts, each di- 
 vision on the scale = -. Hence the length of the vernier 
 a 
 
 ti = a ; and, as it is divided into n equal parts, each 
 
 71 
 
 division on the vernier =-( a ) = ; ; and there- 
 
 n v 71/ 7t n« 
 iore the difference between a division on the scale and one 
 1300 
 
 VERNIER. 
 
 on the vernier = — . Suppose the zero of the vernier io 
 
 coincide with the division marked Aon the scale; then the 
 first division on the vernier will not coincide with the first 
 alter A on the scale, but fall behind it by a quantity equal 
 
 to their difference, or equal to — . In like manner, the next 
 
 7i2 
 
 line on the vernier will fall behind the next on the scale 
 by a quantity equal to twice the difference of the divisions, 
 
 2 a 
 
 :* a 
 
 the third on the scale bv — r; and so on to the ath division 
 
 n* 
 on the vernier, which will fall behind the nth on the scale 
 
 n a a 
 by -—=•-, that is, by a whole division ; and therefore the 
 
 n~ n 
 
 7ith on the vernier coincides with the division n — 1 on the 
 scale. Conceive the scale to be a scale of inches, and sup- 
 pose it divided into tenths ; then a = l inch, n = 10, -= ' th 
 
 n io 
 
 of an inch, and—- (the difference between a division on the 
 
 ni 
 
 scale and on the vernier) = jL ; so that the y^th of an 
 inch is exhibited on the scale, though its divisions are only 
 to tenths. 
 
 The vernier is connected with the scale in such a way 
 that it can be moved along it by means of a rack and pin- 
 ion, or a tangent screw, or some similar contrivance, ami itsi 
 zero be brought to coincide w ith any point on the scale. If, 
 when the vernier is thus adjusted, its zero coincides exactly 
 with a division on the scale, the measure is read ofl" at 
 once; but if (as must generally happen) the zero falls be- 
 tween two of the divisions on the scale, then some one of 
 the lines on the vernier will coincide, or very nearly coin- 
 cide, with one of the divisions on the scale, and the distance 
 of the zero beyond the last division on the scale, behind it 
 is expressed in hundredths by the number of the division on 
 the vernier which is coincident with a division on the 
 scale. Suppose, for example, the position of the vernier 
 w ith respect to the scale be as represented in the annexed 
 figure, where the zero of the vernier is brought to coincide 
 
 30 
 123456789 123 
 
 J I 
 
 I I I I ~l I 
 
 Q 
 
 1234 567 8 910 
 with a certain point p on the scale. The point p is read on 
 the scale 29 inches, 2-10ths, and a fraction, which is to be 
 measured by the vernier. Here the division 5 on the vernier 
 coincides with that which is marked 7 on the scale ; there- 
 fore the distance of the zero of the vernier from the hist di- 
 vision (2) behind it on the scale is 5-100ths of an inch ; for 
 as 5 on the vernier coincides w ith 7 on the scale, the dis- 
 tance of 4 from 6 is 1-lOOths ; of 3 from 5, 2-100ihs ; of 2 
 from 4, 3-100ths; of 1 from 3, 4-luOths; and of from 2 
 5-100ths. In like manner, if the vernier were pushed 
 along till the division 8 coincided with 30 inches on the 
 scale, then the reading of the zero point would be 29 inch- 
 es, 2-10ths, and 8-100lhs. If, when the zero is brought to 
 coincide withp, none of the divisions on the vernier coin- 
 cide exactly with a division on the scale: for example, if 
 the 5 on the vernier should be a little past the 7 on the scale, 
 and the not up to the 8, the reading would be between 
 5-100ths and (i-100ths; but its precise amount could only be 
 stated by estimation. If the line 5 appeared nearer 7 than 
 6 to 8, the distance measured would be greater than 5-lOOtha, 
 or 10-SOOths, but less than U-200ths; and if the line ap- 
 peared nearer to 8 than 5 to 7, the distance would be great- 
 er than ll-200lhs, but less than IS 300ths or6-100ths. Thus 
 man; case the limits of the uncertainty must be confined 
 vv ithin a distance = l-200th of an inch. In order that the 
 coincidences ma] be observed With greater certainty, the 
 divisions are generally read with s I 
 The verni.r is equally applicable to circular scales as as- 
 
 tn nical Circles; it is then circular also, and must move 
 
 concentric with the limb of the circle. Suppose the limb 
 divided Into Intervals of io' ; and let n = 10. We have 
 then 10 divisions on the limb = 100'=: a; and the length 
 
 of the vernier (=a J =100— 10' = 90' ; which, divi- 
 ded into 10 equal parts, gives 9* for the length of a division 
 
 on the vernier, and consequently the difference of the length 
 of a division on the scale and on the vernier =1'. The 
 
 arc, therefore, can be read to minutes. But the reading 
 may be carried to much more minute quantities by increas- 
 ing the length and the number of divisions on the vernier. 
 Instead of embracing 9 intervals of 10' on the scale, let the
 
 VERRUCOSE. 
 
 vernier embrace 59 such intervals, and be divided into 60 
 equal parts. We have then a = 10' X 60 = 600', n = 60, 
 
 r2 = 3600; therefore, —=——■= -- = 10"; that is to say, 
 
 re 3 30U0 o 
 tlie arc may be read to 10." 
 
 In barometers, where a considerable degree of accu- 
 racy is required, the inch is divided into 20 equal parts ; 
 the vernier is made equal in length to 24 of these, and 
 divided into 25 equal parts. In this case we have a = 
 
 ^ = 125 inch, re — 25 ; therefore - 7 = _ = 0-002 ; so that 
 
 20 n 2 62a 
 
 the vernier gives the reading to l-500th of an inch 
 
 Instead of making the vernier equal to re — 1 divisions of 
 the scale, it is sometimes made equal to re -f- 1 divisions, and 
 the object will still be accomplished in precisely the same 
 manner. For in this case the length of a division on the 
 
 scale being as before, — , and that of a division on the ver- 
 n 
 
 nier — ( <H — )= — +—, the difference is still — . The 
 
 rex n s n re- 1 re- 
 
 principle is the same in both cases. 
 
 The vernier is often callpd a nonius, but improperly, the 
 contrivance invented by Nonius or Nunnez being on a quite 
 different principle. See Nonius. 
 
 VERRl'CO'SE. (Lat. verruca, a wart.) In Zoology, 
 when a surface presents several wart-like prominences. 
 
 VERSED SINE OF AN ARC, in Trigonometry, is the 
 difference between the radius and the cosine. 
 
 VERT. (Fr. vert, green.) In Heraldry, one of the col- 
 ours or tinctures employed in blazonry. It is equivalent to 
 emerald among precious stones, to Venus among planets. 
 In engraving it is represented by diagonal lines from the 
 dexter to the sinister sides of the escutcheon. 
 
 VE'RTEBR^E. The bones of the spine. They are di- 
 vided into true and false ; the former constituting the up- 
 per, and the latter the lower portion of the spinal column. 
 The true vertebra are farther divided into those of the neck, 
 back, and loins; or the cervical, dorsal, and lumbar verte- 
 bra}. There are seven cervical vertebra; ; the first of which 
 supports the head, and is called the atlas ; the second is the 
 dentata ; it has a tooth-like process, forming a kind of pivot 
 upon which the head rotates. The dorsal vertebrae are 
 twelve in number, and the lumbar vertebras five. In the 
 neck the spine projects forwards; it is then curved back- 
 wards in the thorax, and in the ioins again projects for- 
 wards. There is an elastic substance between the verte- 
 bra;, admitting of a certain degree of motion ; small be 
 tween the individual bones, but considerable as affects the 
 whole column. The vertebra;, and their projections or pro- 
 cesses, afford attachments for a number of muscles and lig- 
 aments ; and the spinal marrow is lodged in the bony canal 
 which their several perforations form. 
 
 VE'RTEBRATES, Vertebrata. (Lat. vertebra, a bone of 
 the spine.) The name of a primary division of the animal 
 kingdom, including those which have a cerebro-spinal ner- 
 vous axis, protected by a bony cylinder composed of a suc- 
 cession of Vertebra;, which are expanded into a cranium, 
 where they inclose the enlarged anterior or upper portion of 
 the nervous axis, called the brain. See Zoology. 
 
 VERTEX (Lat. the top), in Astronomy, is the point of the 
 sphere directly overhead, more frequently called the zenith. 
 The vertex of an angle or a cone is the angular point, or 
 that in which the sides of the angle or of the cone inter- 
 sect. The vertex of a curve is the point in which the di- 
 ameter meets the curve. 
 
 VE'RTICAL. Relating to vertex. Vertical angles, in 
 Geometry, are the opposite angles formed by two straight 
 lines w hich intersect each other. Euclid demonstrates that 
 vertical or opposite angles are equal. 
 
 Vertical Circle, in Astronomy, a great circle of the sphere 
 passing through the zenith and nadir. The meridian, and 
 all azimuth circles, are vertical circles. The prime verti- 
 cal is that particular vertical circle or azimuth which is 
 perpendicular to the meridian, or which passes through the 
 eastern and western points of*the horizon. 
 
 Vertical Line, in Dialling, is a line perpendicular to the 
 horizon ; in the Conic Sections it signifies any line on a ver- 
 tical plane which passes through the vertex of the cone. 
 
 Vertical Plane, in Conies, denotes a plane passing through 
 the vertex, and parallel to the plane of the section. 
 
 VERTICE'LLUS, is a ring for organs of any kind placed 
 round a stem upon the same plane. If the arrangement is 
 not precisely so, and cannot be described by a line drawn 
 horizontally round a stem, but consists of parts either above 
 the line or below it, the verticellus is said to be broken. It 
 is in English called whorl. 
 
 VERTl'GO. (Lat. verto, / turn.) Giddiness. This af- 
 fection is a common symptom of fulness of the vessels of 
 the head, and of nervous and general debility. In some it is 
 produced by an overloaded stomach, and in others by emp- 
 tiness of that organ, It is frequently symptomatic of fe- 
 
 VESTAL VIRGINS. 
 
 vers, inflammations, and other disorders, and requires pecu- 
 liar treatment accordingly. 
 
 Vertigo. In Zoology, a genus of marsh or land snails ; 
 so named from the abrupt twist of the volutions of the 
 shell. Several species of this genus are British ; as Verti- 
 go secalr, burton, &c. 
 
 VERTU'MXUS. An Italian deity of rather obscure char- 
 acter. Some make him preside over merchandise, others 
 over spring or the seasons in general. 
 
 VESA'NLE. (Lat. vesanus, insane.) A class of dis- 
 eases in which the judgment is impaired without stupor or 
 fever : it includes the various forms of insanity. 
 
 VE'SICANTS. (Lat. vesica, a bladder.) Substances 
 which raise blisters upon the skin. 
 
 VE'SICLE. A small blister, or bladder-like tumour, 
 formed by an elevation of the cuticle, and containing a se- 
 rous fluid. 
 
 VESICULO'SANS, Vesiculosa. The name of a tribe 
 of Tanystome Dipterous injects, comprehending those which 
 have the abdomen in the form of a bladder. 
 
 VESPER, or HESPERUS. The evening star. A name 
 given to the planet Venus when it is to the east of the sun, 
 and consequently appears after sunset. 
 
 VESPERTILIO'NID^E. (Lat. vespertilio, a bat.) The 
 name of a family of Cheiropterous Mammals, of which the 
 genus Vcspertilio is the type. It includes the insectivorous 
 and bloodsucking species of the order. 
 
 VESPI'DjE. (Lat. vespa, a wasp.) A family of acu- 
 leated hymenopterous insects characterized by their geni- 
 culate antenna;, composed in the males of thirteen joints, 
 and sometimes, in this sex. hooked at the extremity. Man- 
 dibles strong and dentated ; clypens large ; ligula plumose 
 or bilobed. "The sting of the females and neutrals long, 
 powerful, and highly venomous. The larvae of the wasp 
 tribe are vermiform and without feet : those of the solitary 
 species are inclosed separately in a cell, in which the moth- 
 er deposits, with singular apparent foresight, at the same 
 time with the egg, the bodies of insects, killed for the pur- 
 pose, and upon which the larva feeds. The true wasps 
 form large societies, composed of males, females, and neu- 
 ters. A colony is commenced by a solitary female, which 
 lay3 eggs that produce neuters or labourers. These proceed 
 to enlarge the nest by detaching particles of old wood or 
 bark, moistening and reducing them into a pultaceous mass 
 resembling that of pasteboard, and constructing of this ma- 
 terial a conical or subspherical comb, usually suspended by 
 a stalk, and bavins on the under sides ranges of vertical 
 hexagonal cells. These are appropriated exclusively to the 
 use of the larva?, a cell to each, which the neuters enlarge 
 in proportion to the growth of the occupant. The nest is 
 generally surrounded by an envelope, pierced with a com- 
 mon central opening. The larvae are nourished with the 
 juices or pulp of fruit provided for them by the netiters ; 
 they are shut up, and spin for themselves a cocoon when 
 about to become nymphs. 
 
 VESTA. One of the four ultra-zodiacal planets which 
 circulate between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Vesta 
 was discovered by Dr. Olbers of Bremen, on the 29th of 
 March, 1807. Its mean distance from the sun is 2-36787, 
 the mean distance of the sun from the earth being unity ; 
 and its sidereal revolution is performed in 1325-7431 mean 
 solar davs. The orbit is inclined to the ecliptic in an angle 
 of 7° 8' 9", and the eccentricity of its orbit is 0-08913. 
 Vesta is supposed to be the smallest of all the celestial bod- 
 ies with which we are acquainted, its volume being esti- 
 mated to be only about a fifteen thousandth part of that of 
 the earth, and its surface not to exceed that of the kingdom 
 of Spain. On account of its smallness it is, however, dif- 
 ficult to determine its apparent diameter with any degree 
 of certainty. It is distinguished from the other small plan- 
 ets bv the vivacity of its light. 
 
 Vesta, the Hestia ('E<m'a) of the Greeks, in Classical 
 Mythology, was a goddess about whom hangs considerable 
 obscurity." She is called the daughter of Saturn and Rhea, 
 and was worshipped as the patroness of the domestic and 
 public hearth. At Rome she was attended by six virgins, 
 called vestals, whose duty it was to preserve the sacred fire 
 in her temple unextinguished; as the safety of the city was 
 held to be connected with its preservation. (See Mem. de 
 I'.lcad. des Inscr., vol. xxvii., xrix.) According to Ovid 
 (Fast., vi.), 
 
 Vesta eaiem est quie Terra ; subest vi?il ignis utriqne J 
 Stat vi Terra sua : vi slaodo Vesla vocarur. 
 
 (See Bryant, .Inc. Muth., i., 77, 281.) The beautiful build- 
 ing popularly called the Temple of Vesta, at Rome, is not 
 known to have been such. 
 
 VESTAL VIRGINS. This name was given to the six 
 virgin priestesses of the goddess Vesta, who had charge of 
 her temple at Rome, and the superintendence of the sacred 
 fire, which was never to be suffered to go out. They had 
 several privileges granted them ; but the loss of their vir- 
 ginity was punished by burying the offender alive. Their 
 
 1301
 
 VESTIBULE. 
 
 institution is ascribed to Nuina. Their abolition was one 
 of the last victories of Christianity. (See Beugnot, De- 
 struction tin Pagani8me en Occident, i., 164.) 
 
 VESTIBULE. (Lat. vestibulum.) In Architecture, an 
 area before the entrance of the Roman houses ; said by 
 some to have been so called because an altar to Vesta was 
 placed therein. It was surrounded by a wall, and was the 
 
 Flace in which the master of the house received his clients, 
 t is used in modern architecture to signify an ante-hall, 
 lobby, or porch. 
 
 VESTIBULE OF THE EAR. A small bony cavity of 
 the internal ear, the opening of which into the cavity of the 
 tympanum is closed by the small bone called the stapes ; 
 it is also connected with the cochlea and semicircular ca- 
 nals. 
 
 VE'STMENTS or VESTURES, ECCLESIASTICAL. 
 Articles of dress or ornament worn by ministers in the cel- 
 ebration of divine service. The following were and are the 
 principal known to the Western Church, and many of them 
 to the Eastern also: 1. The vestment properly so called, or 
 chasuble, called in the Western churches casula, plancta, 
 pannla, amphibolum, &c, and in the Eastern (paivoXtov, 
 phenolium, was a garment extending from the neck nearly 
 to the feet, closed all the way round, with only one aper- 
 ture, through which the head passed. When the offices 
 were performed, it was lifted up at the sides, while the 
 front and back remained pendent. The Greeks retain this 
 primitive form ; the Latins have divided it at the sides. It 
 admitted of various materials and colours. It is of very 
 great antiquity, mentioned by Gregory of Tours, and ap- 
 pearing in a mosaic of A.D. 1540. 2. The cope (cappa, pal- 
 lium, pluviale, &c.) similar in form to the vestment, but 
 longer, and with a short division in the lower part of the 
 front ; and a cowl, which in modern times has given place to 
 a sort of triangular ornament of the same shape, hanging 
 over the shoulders. It is also of the highest antiquity in the 
 Western Church. 3. Thetunicle, or dalmatica (in the East 
 sticharion, used by deacons), received the addition of wide 
 sleeves as early as the 4th century. 4. The alb (camisia, 
 alba, linea ; in the East poderis, from reaching the feet), a 
 garment made of white linen. 5. The scarf, or stole, is 
 worn by bishops with the rochet, and generally by digni- 
 taries and prebendaries in cathedrals, and by chaplains. 
 Its origin is obscure. It is called oradium by the Greeks. 
 The pall (pallium, which see), generally worn by Western 
 metropolitans, appears to have been a kind of stole, called 
 topoipopiov in the East. 6. The rochet, a linen garment 
 worn by bishops, much resembling the surplice ; but in 
 modern times, and in our church, with very wide sleeves. 
 7. The chimere, zimarra, cimar (probably from \tnapoc, 
 kid), a sort of cape worn under the rochet by bishops ; in 
 modern England of black silk. 8. The pastoral staff" (bac- 
 ulus pastoralis) was spoken of in the 4th council of Toledo, 
 in the Till century, as used by bishops. The form of the 
 shepherd's crook is rather later. 9. The surplice (see that 
 article), which only differs from the alb in having wider 
 sleeves. 10. The hood was generally fastened to the back 
 of the cape ; called an " amice," " almatium" when lined 
 with fur or wool. The square cap is thought to have been 
 originally part of the amice. 
 
 Must of these ve tments are noticed in the Act of Uni- 
 formity, passed in the 2d year of Ed. VI., which regulates 
 the habits of the English Church. But many of the direc- 
 tions are alternative ; e. g., that a vestment or a cope, an 
 alb or a surplice, may be used in particular instances. 
 (See Palmer's Origins* Liturgies, vol. ii., Appendix, from 
 which tins article is chiefly taken ; and Archmologia, vol. xi.) 
 
 The extreme hostility conceived by the Calvinist and Zu- 
 inglian reformers, and the Puritan party in England, to 
 vestments, and especially the surplice, is well known. The 
 argument against them, as stated by Beza {Tract. TheoL, 
 iii., 29), refers chiefly to the danger of wounding weak con- 
 sciences, by retaining apparent relics of popery, &c. The 
 defence by Hooker is in book v., ch. 29. 
 
 VE'STRY. (Lat. vestiarium.) The robing room at- 
 tached to a church ; and from hence applied to designate a 
 meeting of parishioners for parochial purposes, the bishop 
 and priests having in former times used these rooms when 
 they met to consult together on similar affairs. 
 
 A general vestry is one to which every parishioner or 
 outdweller assessed to or paying the church rates, or scot 
 and ha. is admissible of common riL'ht. The minister, 
 Whether rector, vicar, or perpetual curate, is ex officio chair- 
 loan of the meeting. The powers of the vestry extend to 
 Investigate ami restrain the expenditure of parish funds ; to 
 determine on repairs, enlargements, ornaments, &c, of the 
 church ; and to elect certain parish officers. 
 
 Sr/irl f'estricx existed by custom in many large and pop- 
 ulous parishes, especially in and round the metropolis. 
 Originally these consisted of a number of householders, an- 
 nually elected by the rate-payers. But, by usage of long 
 standing, these bodies were in many instances self-elected ; 
 1302 
 
 VETO. 
 
 i. e., the members of the vestry filled up by their owuciioico 
 any vacancy occasioned by death or resignation. 
 
 Power has been given to parishes in which select vesttil i 
 diil not exist by custom to appoint such vestries by the stat. 
 59 G. 3, c. 12; and in many parishes the election of vestry- 
 men, &c, has been regulated by local acts. 
 
 But in the first and second years of the last reign, nn act 
 was passed (1 & 2 W. 4, c. 60,) " for the better regulation 
 of vestries, and for the appointment of auditors of accounts, 
 in certain parishes of England and Wales." Every parish 
 not already under a local act is empowered to decide, by a 
 majority of the votes of its rate-payers, whether it will 
 adopt the provisions of this statute. If adopted, a certain 
 number of vestrymen, limited by the act according to the 
 amount of the population, and five auditors, are to be an- 
 nually elected by the rate-payers; the rector, district rec- 
 tors, vicar, perpetual curate, and churchwardens, being al- 
 ways vestrymen ex officio. Vestrymen to be elected under 
 this act must, in any parish out of London and the metro- 
 politan police district, be rated to the poor on a rental of 
 X'lOayear within that district or city ; if the resident house- 
 holders amount to more than 3000, on a rental of not less 
 than £40 per annum. This act does not extend to parish- 
 es in which there .are not more than 800 rate-payers, except 
 in cities or towns. 
 
 VESU'VIAN. The volcanic garnet. The idocrase of 
 Haiiy. 
 
 VETCH. (Lat. vicia.) The name given to leguminous 
 plants with herbaceous stems, often supporting themselves 
 on surrounding objects by means of the tendrils with which 
 their leaves are terminated. The common vetch or tare is 
 extensively cultivated in Europe, and is considered a very 
 valuable agricultural plant, being an excellent fodder for 
 milch cows and working stock, &c. 
 
 VE'TERAN. (Lat. vetus, old.) Among the Romans, a 
 soldier who had passed the legal age of military service, 
 which extended from seventeen to forty-six, was termed 
 veteranus; or, in the later times of the republic, one who 
 had served a requisite number of campaigns, generally 
 twenty-five. 
 
 VE'TO. (Lat. / forbid.) In Politics, the power enjoyed 
 by a branch of the legislature, which cannot of itself orig- 
 inate or modify a law, to reject the propositions of the 
 other branch or branches In the Polish diet, every noble 
 who was an independent member could prevent any reso- 
 lution from passing by his simple dissent (expressed in the 
 words " Nie pozwalam," I do not permit). The privilege 
 of thus arresting the deliberations of the diet was termed 
 the " liberum veto," and proved the fertile source of the 
 disorders and anarchy of that country. In most constitu- 
 tional monarchies the king has an absolute veto (as in 
 France and England) ; in some it is only suspensive. Thus, 
 in Norway, if three successive storthings (assemblies) re- 
 peat the same resolution, it becomes law against the will 
 of the king. The president of the United States may re- 
 turn a bill, with his reasons for dissenting from it, to the 
 house in which it originated ; but if both houses pass it af- 
 terwards by a majority of two thirds in each, it is not in his 
 power again to reject it. 
 
 Veto. An act passed by the General Assembly of the 
 Church of Scotland, known by the name of the Veto Act. 
 Lay patronage, or the presentation by a lay-patron of a 
 minister to a living in the church, has never been cordially 
 recognised on the part of the people of Scotland. On the 
 final establishment of Presbytery as the national church, 
 in 1690, patronage was vested in the elders and heritors 
 (landowners) of a parish. In 1711 (10 Anne, c. 12, s. 4), 
 that law was annulled, and patronage was transferred as a 
 civil right to individuals as an accessory of Kind, or as a 
 separate estate ; and those patronages which had of old 
 belonged to the pope, or to monasteries, or to archbishops, 
 bishops, and chapters, were vested in the crown. The act 
 of Queen Anne was never universally acceptable in Scot- 
 land. Two dissenting denominations (the United Associate 
 Synod, and the Relief) owed their origin to the indiscreet 
 exercise of lay-patronace ; and though patrons were gener- 
 ally disposed, particularly within the last twenty years, to 
 show due deference to the feelings of the people, yet hos- 
 tility to this mode of nominating clergymen having gained 
 greater force, the general assembly, in 1634, passed the 
 Veto Act, whereby, if a majority of the male heads of 
 families, in full communion with the church, appear before 
 the presbytery and dissent, or lodge dissents at the meeting 
 for "moderating in a call," the presentee was to be reject- 
 ed. No specific objections were required to be made by 
 the act. the dissentients being only required to declare, if 
 asked, that they were actuated by no factions or malicious 
 motive, but solely by a conscientious regard for the spiritu- 
 al interests of themselves and the congregation ; anil if such 
 declaration was made, their dissent was sustained ; if not, 
 it was rejected. Those entitled to dissent are ascertained 
 from a roll annually made up. The Veto Act was first
 
 VETO. 
 
 passed as an interim act; but, being referred to presbyte- 
 ries, and having received the sanction of a majority of pres- 
 byteries, it was enacted into a standing law of the church 
 by the General Assembly of 1835. (Hill's Practice of the 
 Judicatories of the Church, p. 83.) 
 
 Against the provisions of this act, the minority of the as- 
 sembly entered, and had recorded, both in 1834 and 1835, 
 their solemn protest, on the ground that these provisions 
 were not merely wrong in themselves, but also ultra vires 
 on the part of the assembly, in violation of the statutes 
 conferring on the church the privileges of an establish- 
 ment, and calculated, therefore, on the first occasion on 
 which a patron or presentee should determine to enforce 
 his rights, to lead to a collision between the ecclesiastical 
 and civil courts. Nor was this opinion without foundation. 
 Immediately after the rising of the assembly of 1835, the 
 Earl of Kinnoull, as patron of the church and parish of 
 Auchterarder, and the Rev. Robert Young, whom his lord- 
 ship had presented to that living, and whom the presbytery 
 of Auchterarder had rejected in terms of the Veto Act, 
 raised an action in the court of session to have it found and 
 declared that the said presbytery had acted illegally, and 
 to the hurt and prejudice of the pursuers, in having reject- 
 ed Mr. Young ; there being no other ground of such rejec- 
 tion, as admitted in the record of presbytery, than that a 
 majority of the male heads of families, communicants, in 
 the parish of Auchterarder, had dissented, without any 
 reason assigned, from his admission as minister. In giving 
 judgment in this action, the court of session (8th March, 
 1838) repelled the objections started against the jurisdiction 
 of the civil court in the matter, and to the competency of 
 the action, and found that the presbytery had acted illegally 
 and to the hurt and prejudice of the pursuers, and in viola- 
 tion of their duty, and, in particular, contrary to the provi- 
 sions of the statute of 10 Anne. 
 
 This decision of the court of session was appealed from 
 by the defenders to the House of Lords ; and this supreme 
 court affirmed the judgment in question (3d May, 1839) 
 without the alteration of a single word. Subsequently to 
 this affirmation, when the case had been remitted to the 
 court of session to apply the sentence, the latter tribunal 
 pronounced in regard to it a further judgment, to the effect 
 that the presbytery and the individual members thereof 
 "are bound and astricted to make trial of the qualifications 
 of the pursuer, the said Rev. Robert Young, as presentee 
 to the church and parish of Auchterarder; and if, in their 
 judgment, after trial and examination in common form, he 
 is found qualified, to receive and admit him minister of the 
 said church and parish, according to law." 
 
 The dominant party of the church had, meanwhile, 
 come to the resolution not to obey or recognise the judg- 
 ment of the court of session, though confirmed by the 
 highest judicatory in the empire, to which themselves had 
 made the appeal, but to declare the ecclesiastical law as 
 supreme. Accordingly, the assembly of 1839 resolved, by a 
 majority of forty-nine, to adhere to the Veto Act, notwith- 
 standing the decision of the House of Lords. They main- 
 tained that the ecclesiastical and civil courts were endow- 
 ed with co-ordinate powers ; that their provinces were suf- 
 ficiently distinct, each being supreme in its own depart- 
 ment; and that the church courts were the sole and only 
 judges of what was spiritual and what was civil. In short, 
 they refused to induct Mr. Young as minister of the church 
 and parish of Auchterarder. They regarded the parish 
 as still vacant, and nominated a clergyman of their own 
 sentiments to the parochial charge, quoad spiritualia, leav- 
 ing the temporalities untouched. Thus the case still stands : 
 but Mr. Young has raised an action of damages against the 
 members of the presbytery of Auchterarder, both as a 
 body and as individuals, for illegally and contumaciously 
 depriving him of both his ecclesiastical and civil rights and 
 privileges. 
 
 But the case of the parish of Marnoch, in the presbytery 
 of Strathbogie, affords a still more striking illustration of 
 the fruits of the collision that has taken place between the 
 civil and ecclesiastical courts. The Rev. Mr. Edwards 
 having been legally presented to that parish, and having 
 been rejected by means of the Veto Act, a majority of the 
 members of the said presbytery (seven in number) were 
 disposed in consequence of the decision in the Auchterard- 
 er case, and of the veto having been declared by the high- 
 est civil judicatory of the land as ultra vires of the church, 
 to show due respect to the civil law, and to proceed with 
 the settlement of Mr. Edwards, as if such a statute as the 
 Veto had never existed. The majority, however, feelins 
 the delicacy of the circumstances in which, both as clergy" 
 men, and as loyal subjects bound to obey the civil law, 
 they were placed, did not proceed hastily to take steps to- 
 wards the induction of Mr. Edwards. They remained in- 
 active till a special decree, on the application of the pre- 
 sentee, had been obtained from the court of session, find- 
 ing that they were bound to take him on trial, in common 
 
 form, and that, if they found him qualified, to receive and 
 admit him according to law. On their adopting the pre- 
 liminary steps for the purpose, the commission of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly, 1839, suspended the seven ministers from 
 the function of their sacred office, both judicial and minis- 
 terial. Against this proceeding the seven ministers applied 
 to the court of session for protection ; which court granted 
 an interdict prohibiting the sentence of suspension from 
 being carried into execution, and prohibiting any clergyman 
 of the established church from occupying the pulpits of 
 the deposed ministers, or performing any sacerdotal func- 
 tions in their respective parishes. This interdict was disre- 
 garded by the dominant party in the church, who treated 
 the seven parishes as if their ministers had been finally 
 suspended from their functions. 
 
 Matters remained in this anomalous state till the meet- 
 ing of the General Assembly of 1840 ; which court, besides 
 continuing the suspension, imperatively demanded of the 
 suspended ministers that they should unconditionally ac- 
 knowledge the supreme authority of the church in all 
 things which it might define to be spiritual, and in all 
 such matters yield implicit obedience to the decrees of the 
 ecclesiastical courts, notwithstanding any order or injunc- 
 tion to the contrary, of even the highest civil tribunal of 
 the land. This requisition, too, was made under the pen- 
 alty that, if after a limited period had elapsed, it should not 
 have been complied with, the parties refusing to comply 
 should be served with a libel (indictment) for contumacy. 
 The ministers of Strathbogie refused to submit to the con- 
 ditions sought to be imposed on them, though, in regard to 
 the settlement of Marnoch, they did not take any farther 
 steps till the presentee had raised another action against 
 them, both collectively and individually, calling on them 
 to receive and admit him as minister of that parish. Mr. 
 Edwards was thus ordained minister of Marnoch on the 
 21st of January, 1841. Meanwhile the suspended minis- 
 ters had been served with a libel for contumacy, and 
 were in consequence deposed by the ensuing assembly 
 (May, 1841) from the office of the ministry. An interdict 
 from the court of session was forthwi#i obtained, setting 
 aside the ecclesiastical sentence of deposition, and reinstat- 
 ing the seven deposed ministers in their temporal and spi- 
 ritual privileges as parochial clergymen. This interdict 
 was, like the former, and others to which in this article 
 we cannot particularly allude,* disregarded by the domi- 
 nant section of the church. Not only have they treated 
 the parishes as vacant, and introduced preachers of their 
 own party into them, but have taken steps against such of 
 the minority of the church as regard the deposed gentle- 
 man as still ministers of the establishment, and as such, 
 have, in consequence, supported them by officiating in their 
 pulpits, or assisting them on sacramental occasions. And 
 such lias been the forbearing conduct of the deposed min- 
 isters, that they have hitherto restrained from adopting 
 means to have their brethren punished for violating these 
 interdicts, and for encroaching on their official rights and 
 privileges. 
 
 The same assembly which deposed the seven ministers 
 of Strathbogie, deprived Mr. Edwards, whom they would 
 not recognise as an ordinary clergyman, of his licence as a 
 probationer, and ordered the minority of the said Presbyte- 
 ry (four in number) to proceed with the settlement of an- 
 other minister in the parish of Marnoch, as if it had been 
 vacant. This was accordingly done, so that there is a com- 
 plete and irreconcileable schism within the presbytery of 
 Strathbogie. 
 
 A similar case has recently occurred in the presbytery 
 of Garioch, and under exactly similar circumstances. The 
 presentee (Mr. Middleton) to the parish of Culsalmond 
 having been served with a veto, was notwithstanding in- 
 ducted by the majority of the presbytery, and is now min- 
 ister of that parish. The ecclesiastical courts promptly in- 
 terfered ; interdicts, however, against their authority have 
 been obtained : but the case is still sub judice, having been 
 appealed to the House of Lords. The ultimate decision in 
 this case will, it is apprehended, put an end to the unseem- 
 ly collision between the civil and the ecclesiastical courts, 
 by driving at least the leaders of the dominant party out of 
 the church. Indeed, these leaders have already issued a 
 manifesto to that effect, and promulgated the outlines of a 
 secession from the established church, somewhat similar in 
 point of principle and detail to that of the Wesleyan Meth- 
 odists in England. It is not improbable, however, but that 
 circumstances may arise by which the schism in question 
 may be brought on before the merits of the appeal to the 
 supreme civil court in the Culsalmond case can be decided. 
 
 * A presentee to the parish of Lethendy, presbyterv of Dunkeld, having 
 been rejected by the Veto Act, the majority of the members of that presby- 
 tery inducted another minister in defiance of an interdict of the court of ses- 
 sion ; for which contempt they were summoned before their lordships; the 
 censure of the court was pronounced against them ; and they were found lia- 
 ble in expenses. 
 
 1303
 
 VEXILLARII. 
 
 Meanwhile (to omit all farther particulars), Scotland is 
 in a -tan' of agitation and religious ferment from one end 
 to the other. The dominant party, by emphatically declar- 
 ing Christ as the sole and only head of the church, and 
 that his authority is decidedly In favour of their views, as- 
 sert their spiritual independence, without reference to the 
 civil law, or the decisions of the civil judicatories; and 
 are agitating for the total repeal of patronage. They seem 
 resolved to submit to no compromise. Even no legislative 
 measure on the subject, however otherwise liberal, would 
 ted by the majority of the church, if it had a re- 
 trospective tendency, or, in other words, found the Veto 
 Act ultra vires of the church, and contained a clause for 
 the restoration of the deposed ministers of Strathbogie. 
 But we incline to think that the best thing to he done 
 would be for parliament to pass a statute similar to the 
 Veto Ail ; for we do not apprehend that it is possible ever 
 to reconcile an honest or consistent prcsbvterian to the law 
 of patronage as it has been enforced in the civil courts. It 
 is true that the leaders of the prcshyterian dissenters have 
 Objected to the proceedings of the dominant party in the 
 church; but such objection comes with a peculiarly ill 
 grace from them, though it is easy to see its motives. Were 
 patronage abolished, the main source and principle of dis- 
 sent would he removed, and the parties who now rule the 
 dissenting bodies would fall into insignificance. 
 
 VEXILLA'RII. Veteran troops in the Roman army 
 who had served out their time; hut, under the emper- 
 ors, were retained in service, and fought distinct from 
 the legions under a particular standard of their own (vexil- 
 lum.) 
 
 VEXI'LLUM, or STANDARD. (Lat.) In Botany, a 
 term given to the upper petal of a Papilionaceous corolla, 
 which is erect, and more expanded than the other four pe- 
 tals. 
 
 VIADUCT. See Railroads, Bridge. 
 
 VI. VI, A< TEA. In Astronomy, the galaxy or milky way . 
 See, Milky-Way. 
 
 VIA'LES. In Roman Antiquities, a name given to those 
 gods who had change of the roads and highways (via?). 
 Jupiter and Mercury were among the number. 
 
 VIA'TICUM. (Lat. a supply of something requisite for 
 a journey.) In Ecclesiastical usages, the sacrament given 
 to a dying person. In ancient times both the sacraments 
 appear frequently to have been given to the dying: name- 
 ly, baptism to catechumen! (hence termed ea)o6ior, or viati- 
 cum, by some Greek fathers) or unbaptised converts ; the 
 eucharist to those who were in communion with the 
 church. 
 
 VIA TOR. (Lat. traveller.) The title of inferior offi- 
 cers among the Romans sent by the senate or people to 
 convey decrees, mandates, &c, and also by governors of 
 provinces and other high functionaries. 
 
 VIBRA'TION. (Lat. vibrare, to shake.) In Music, that 
 regular reciprocal motion of a body, which, suspended or 
 Stretched between two fixed points, swings or shakes to and 
 fro. The vibrations of chords are the source of the differ- 
 ent tones they emit. If two strings or chords of a musical 
 instrument merely differ in length, their tones, that is, the 
 number of vibrations they make in equal times, are in the 
 inverse ratio of their lengths. If they differ in their diam- 
 eters only, their sounds will be in the inverse ratio of their 
 diameters. To measure the tension of strings, let us con- 
 ceive them stretched by weights attached to their ends; 
 then their sounds will he in the direct ratio of the square 
 roots of the weights Btretching them; that is, the pitch of a 
 string stretched by a weight equal to 4 will be an octave 
 above the pitch of a string stretched by a weight 1. 
 
 Vibration. In Mechanics, the reciprocating motion of a 
 body, as of a pendulum, a musical chord, or elastic plate. 
 The term oscillation is, however, more frequently used to 
 denote a slow reciprocating motion, as that of tile pendu- 
 lum, which is produced by the action of gravity on the 
 whole mass of the body; while vibration is generally con- 
 fined to a motion with quick reciprocations, ae that of a so- 
 norous body, and which proceeds from the reciprocal action 
 of the molecules of the body on each other when their 
 state of equilibrium has been disturbed. 
 
 Vibrations of Musical Chords. — The laws of the motion 
 of vibrating chords were first investigated by Dr. Brook 
 Taylor, In his Jttethodus Increment, ,ruin, published in 17l, r >; 
 and afterwards by John Bernoulli, Daniel Bernoulli, 
 LVAlembert, and Euler; but the complete solution of the 
 
 problem, which is one of great difficulty, requiring the in- 
 tegration of an equation of partial differences of the second 
 
 order, was reserved for the illustrious Lagrange. Let n 
 homogeneous metallic wire, or musical chord, stretched be- 
 tween two fixed points by a given force, i>e made to vi- 
 brate; then, as has been shown in the article Sound, (p. 
 1134,) the bumber of vibrations in a second (the vibration 
 being understood to signify the' excursion of any point from 
 its greatest distance from the position of rest on one side to 
 1304 
 
 VIBRATION. 
 
 its greatest distance on the other, and not the going and 
 coming) is expressed by either of the two formula; 
 
 where ?; is the number of vibrations in a second, g = ihe 
 accelerating force of gravity (=38029 inches in a second), 
 r, = the tension of the chord or weight by which it is 
 stretched, ic = its weight, /=its length in inches, r=its 
 radius, rj = its specific density, and jr = 3-14159. The con- 
 sequences which follow from these formulae are important 
 in the theory of acoustics, inasmuch as they furnish the 
 means of representing different sounds numerically. 
 
 A curious circumstance, indicated by the calculus, and 
 confirmed by experiment, is, that a vibrating chord may 
 spontaneously divide itself into any number of parts, each 
 of which, being an aliquot part of the whole, will vibrate 
 separately, in the same manner as if it were fixed at its 
 two extremities and formed a separate chord ; and which, 
 consequently, performs its vibrations as much more rapidly 
 as it is a smaller aliquot part. Thus, the chord A B may 
 
 A. "<_3> ^ B 
 
 divide itself into 2, 3, 4, or any number of equal parts in 
 the points N, N', &c, each of which will vibrate 2, 3, 4, 
 &c. times more rapidly than the whole chord, and in such 
 a manner that the motion of any two contiguous parts will 
 be in opposite directions at the same instant of time, while 
 the points of division N, N' remain fixed. But the most 
 remarkable circumstance is, that these different states of 
 vibration may coexist, superposed as it were one on an- 
 other; so that a musical chord will emit not only the fun- 
 damental sound corresponding to the number of vibrations 
 given by the formula, but also, at the same time, a series of 
 other sounds corresponding to the number of vibrations of 
 chords of A, £, $, &c. of the length. 
 
 The preceding remarks apply only to transversal vibra- 
 tions, or those in which the motion of any material point of 
 the chord is at right angles to the straight line which joins 
 its extremities ; but the molecules of a stretched chord 
 may also be put into a state of longitudinal vibration, in 
 which case the motion is parallel to the axis of the chord, 
 and is subject to a different law. Poisson (Mem. de I'.'lcad. 
 de V Institut., torn, viii.) found, from the mathematical 
 analysis of the problem, the following simple relation to 
 exist between the transversal and longitudinal vibrations 
 of the same chord : Let n be the number of transversal vi- 
 brations, n' the number of longitudinal vibrations (both 
 corresponding to the gravest sounds proceeding from those 
 respective modes of vibration), 1= the length of the chord, 
 and /.-=its elongation, or the increase of its length under 
 the weight by which it is stretched ; then 
 
 n^/ lz=n'y/ k. 
 This equation is verified by experiment ; and as k is al- 
 ways a very small fraction of the length I, it follows that 
 the number of longitudinal vibrations »' is always very 
 much greater than the number of transversal vibrations n, 
 which explains the extreme acuteness of the sounds which 
 are produced by the longitudinal vibrations. The quantity 
 A: depends upon the elasticity of the chord, and is therefore 
 different in respect of chords of different substances. 
 
 Vibrations of Elastic Rods. — The laws of the vibrations 
 of elastic rods are different from those of the vibrations of 
 chords; for in the case of the latter the tension acts only in 
 the direction of the length of the chord, whereas in the 
 case of elastic rods and plates, and rigid elastic surfaces in 
 general, the curvature is modified by the elasticity of the 
 substance. The relation between the velocity of the vibra- 
 tions and the length, thickness, rigidity, and specific gravity 
 of the rod, is expressed, as in the case of a vibrating chord, 
 by a very simple formula. Let 
 
 n = the number of vibrations in a second, 
 
 I = the length of a vibratory rod or plate, 
 
 h = its thickness, 
 
 e = the elasticity of the matter of the rod, 
 
 d = its specific density ; 
 then the following equation is deduced from the principles 
 of dynamics, 
 
 aP-h ,(?c\ 
 
 in which a denotes a constant number depending on the 
 mode and initial circumstances of vibration (i. c, the mode 
 in which the rod is supported, whether fixed at one end or 
 at both ends, or in the middle, &c). This formula will 
 apply, in general, to any elastic roils or plates of the same 
 form, and of which the mode of vibration is similar. It 
 shows that in rods of the same matter the number of vibra- 
 tions is directly as tin- thickness, ami Inversely as the 
 square of the length of the vibrating part. If the lengths 
 of two rods are equal, the number of vibrations is proper-
 
 VIBRATION. 
 
 tional to the thickness ; a result which might be anticipa- 
 ted a priori, since the thicker the rod the greater will be 
 the force or spring with which it tends to redress itself 
 when drawn aside from the position of rest, and therefore 
 the quicker the vibration. When the figures of the rods 
 are similar, the numbers h and I are proportional, and con- 
 sequently the number of vibrations is inversely as the 
 homologous dimensions, or as the cube root of the weight. 
 The above formula, which was first given by Riccati, in 
 the Memoirs of the Italian Society, has also been verified 
 by experiment. 
 
 Metallic rods or glass tubes may vibrate longitudinally 
 like stretched chords. In this case they divide themselves 
 spontaneously into several parts, which vibrate in unison ; 
 and are separated by nodes, or parts which remain at rest. 
 The extreme parts are shorter than the others, which are 
 all of equal length ; but the vibrations of all the parts are 
 synchronous. This sort of vibration may be induced in a 
 slip or tube of glass, by holding it between the fingers, in the 
 middle, and rubbing it longitudinally with a piece of moist 
 cloth, when it will emit a very acute sound. Poisson 
 found from theory the ratio of the number of transversal 
 vibrations (n) to the number of longitudinal vibrations {n') 
 
 of a cylindrical rod to be as follows : -, = 3-5608 7-; r being 
 n I 
 
 the radius, and £ the length of the rod. This formula has 
 been verified by Savart from direct experiments. (Annates 
 de Physique et de Chimie, tome xxxvi.) 
 
 Vibrations of Elastic Plates. — All elastic solid bodies, 
 when put into a state of vibration, may be conceived, in 
 reference to the internal motions of their molecules, as 
 spontaneously separating themselves into parts, each of 
 which vibrates independently of the others, and in such a 
 manner that the molecules of one part are at every instant 
 moving in a direction opposite to that of the molecules of 
 the adjacent part. It follows that the points of separation 
 between two parts participate neither in the motion of the 
 one nor of the other, and consequently remain at rest. In 
 the case of thin elastic plates, the continuity of these 
 points forms lines of repose, or nodal lines, the forms and 
 positions of which are detected by placing the vibrating 
 plate in a horizontal position, and strewing a small quanti- 
 ty of fine sand over its upper surface. This ingenious 
 mode of determining the nodal lines was pointed out by 
 Galileo in his Dialogues, and was practised by Chladni 
 (Traiti d'Acoustique), and more recently by Savart in his 
 numerous experiments on this subject. 
 
 These lines assume a great variety of forms, depending 
 on the figure of the plate, the position of the point or points 
 at which it is fixed, and the rapidity and direction of the 
 motion by which the vibration is communicated to it. 
 Circular plates afford numerous different systems of nodal 
 lines. When the plate is fixed at its centre between two 
 knobs or points held fast by a vice, two nodal lines are in 
 general produced crossing each other at the centre. By 
 applying the finger to the plate at a suitable point, so as to 
 interrupt the vibration, three of those lines may be formed. 
 Disks of metal furnish a number of nodal lines, dividing 
 the circle into numerous sectors. In certain circumstances 
 these straigiit nodal lines are intersected by a greater or 
 smaller number of concentric circular lines ; the circular 
 lines may also exist by themselves ; and sometimes the 
 nodal lines assume the form of the branches of a hyper- 
 bola. Some of these forms are represented as under. 
 
 The investigation of the laws of vibration of a homo- 
 geneous solid body of a given form, when the circumstances 
 in which it is placed and the forces by which it is thrown 
 into vibration are perfectly defined, is a problem of pure 
 analysis ; but though the differential equations of motion 
 to which it leads have been integrated in a number of par- 
 ticular cases, their integration in general presents difficul- 
 ties which, in the present state of the calculus, cannot be 
 entirely overcome. (See Poisson, Traite de Mecanique, 
 torn. ii. ; Herschel, Encyc, Metrop., art. " Sound ;" Monge, 
 Applications de V Analyse, p. 415; Riccati, Mem. di Mat. e 
 di Fis. della Soc. Hal., t. i. ; Lagrange, Melanges de la Soc. 
 de Turin, t. i., ii., and iii. For the experimental research- 
 es, see Chladni, Theorie d'Acoustique; Savart, Annates 
 de Phys. et Chimie; Biot, Traite de Physique, &c.) 
 
 VIDAME. 
 
 VIBRIO'NID^:. The name of a tribe of Animalcules, 
 commonly known as microscopic eels, of which the genus 
 Vibrio is the type. One of the species of this genus of 
 Animalcules is parasitic upon wheat; they form a cottony 
 mass in the interior of the grain, which, when the latter is 
 ground, will not pass through the cloth, but remain behind 
 in the bran. When full-grown, the Vibrio tritici, as this 
 species is termed, attains a quarter of an inch in length ; 
 but the young are of such microscopic minuteness that Mr. 
 Bauer, the naturalist, by whom this parasite has been suc- 
 cessfully investigated, has calculated that 50,000 of them 
 might be contained in one grain of wheat. The disease 
 thus occasioned is commonly termed ear-cockles. Scalding 
 water has been mentioned as the most obvious remedy for 
 these creatures. 
 
 VIBRI'SSA (Lat. vibrissa, a whisker), in Mammalogy, 
 are the stiff', long-pointed bristles which grow from the up- 
 per lip and other parts of the head. In Ornithology, the 
 term is also applied to hairs which stand forward, like 
 feelers ; or which in some birds, as the flycatcher, point 
 both upwards and downwards from both the upper and 
 under sides of the mouth ; or which spread out on each 
 side like a comb from the upper sides of the mouth only, 
 as in the goatsucker, when they are termed vibrissas pec- 
 tinata. 
 
 VI'CAR. (Lat. vicarius.) An ecclesiastical personage 
 who has the care of a parish in the place of (vice) a lay or 
 collegiate rector. See Tithes. 
 
 VICARS OF THE EMPIRE. In the German constitu- 
 tion, princes who had the right of representing the emperor 
 in case of absence or interregnum. The king of the Ro- 
 mans, whenever there was one, was perpetual vicar. If 
 there were none, the office was divided into two : the elec- 
 tor of Saxony exercised the vicariate in the two Saxon cir- 
 cles; the electors palatine, and of Bavaria, alternately in 
 the remainder of the empire. They administered revenues, 
 presented to benefices, received feudal homage, &c. 
 
 VICE-CHAMBERLAIN. An officer of the king's house- 
 hold immediately under the lord chamberlain. 
 
 VICEGE'REXT. (Lat. vicem gerens, holding the place 
 of any one.) Any officer acting as deputy or lieutenant of 
 another. In France the bishops appointed formerly vice- 
 gerents to the official in every ecclesiastical officiality. 
 
 VI'CEROY, or VICE-KING. A title often applied in 
 common usage to any officer representing the supreme 
 authority in a dependency ; e. g., the lord lieutenant of 
 Ireland. But it has seldom been officially given, except to 
 the governors of certain dependencies of the old Spanish 
 monarchy ; such as Naples, Peru, and Mexico, each of 
 whom bore the pompous title of " Alter Ego" of the 
 sovereign. 
 
 VICTIM. (Lat. victima, of uncertain etymology ; said 
 to be from vinco, / bind.) The creature immolated at a 
 sacrifice was so called among the Romans. (See Sacri- 
 fice.) The well-known ceremonies of leading the victim, 
 unbound, to the altar ; pouring wine, oil, &c. on its fore- 
 head ; the ceremonies of killing and burning it — are all 
 amply described in ancient writers. The general object of 
 sacrifice, in all ancient religions, was expiation ; but to this 
 must be added another, peculiar to the Romans — that of 
 deducing auguries from the appearance of the entrails of 
 the victim. Victims of different kinds had many designa- 
 tions : bidentes, according to some, all kinds of sheep; ac- 
 cording to others, lambs only : ex.im.iiB, animals chosen be- 
 forehand out of a flock or herd, for their beauty or other 
 fitness, to serve for sacrifice : prodiga, according to Feslus, 
 those which were entirely consumed, instead of leaving, as 
 in the ordinary case, various parts which were consumed 
 or sold by the priests : succidanew, those immolated in a 
 sacred sacrifice to repair some error committed in a former 
 one : probata, after they had been examined by the priest 
 to ascertain their fitness. Various auguries were deduced 
 from the demeanour of the victim : its resistance, its un- 
 usual cries, above all its flight, were unlucky. Artificial 
 victims, made of flour, spices, &c, were sometimes sacri- 
 ficed. Pythagoras seems to have introduced this custom 
 among his disciples. 
 
 VI'CTORY. In Classical Mythology, a goddess, called 
 by Varro the daughter of Heaven and Earth. Her altar 
 was preserved in the curia or senate-house of Rome ; and 
 its destruction was the subject of one of the latest con- 
 tests between Christians and pagans. (See Beugnot, Destr. 
 du Paganisme en Occident., i., 410, 430 ; Mem de I' Ac. des 
 Inscr., vol. xviii., 21.) 
 
 VIDA'ME. In French Feudal Jurisprudence, originally 
 an officer who represented the bishop, as the viscount did 
 the count (vice-dominus). In process of time these digni- 
 taries erected their offices into fiefs, and became feudal 
 nobles, such as the vidame of Chartres, Rheims, &c. ; 
 continuing to take their titles from the seat of the bishop 
 whom they represented, although the lands held by vir- 
 tue of their fief's might be situated elsewhere. 
 
 4 M * 1305
 
 VIDELICET. 
 
 VIDE'LICET. (More properly scilicet.) In Law. In 
 pleading, it is usual to state any allegation which forms 
 pan of the facta set out, bat which it is not intended to 
 prove with precision, with the word "scilicet" (in English, 
 •• to wit") preceding it. Thus, numbers and dates, for 
 instance, are frequently laid under a videlicet: as where 
 anything is alleged to have taken place heretofore, " to 
 wit," on such a day ; or where, In trespass, the plaintiff 
 charges the defendant with carrying away or injuring 
 di\eis. " to wit." so many articles, &c. The general rule 
 on this subject is, that where an allegation is in itself ma- 
 terial, so that the issue cannot he established without it, 
 there the putting a videlicet before it will not dispense 
 With the proof; but where an allegation is in itself imma- 
 terial, there (in general, but not always) the omission of a 
 videlicet l>efore it will render it material, and make it ne- 
 cessary for the party so alleging it to prove it as stated. 
 But the distinctions on this subject run, as may be sup- 
 posed, into extreme minuteness. 
 
 VTGIL. (Lat. vigilium, watch.) An ecclesiastical usage, 
 the evening before a feast day, is so termed. The observa- 
 tion of vigils is said by some to be nearly the oldest of 
 Christian ceremonies. According to Lactantius, Jerome, 
 and other ancient authorities, the second advent of our 
 Saviour was expected to take place on the vigil of Easter. 
 They were originally celebrated by meeting together at 
 night (as they are still on some occasions in the Eastern 
 churches), and are said thus to preserve the memory of 
 the nocturnal assemblies of Christians in times of perse- 
 cution. 
 
 VIGNETTE. (Fr.) A small, ornamental engraving 
 used in printing for the illustration or decoration of a page 
 of any work. 
 
 YlGnRO'SO. (It. vigorous.) In Music, a term which, 
 prefixed to a movement, denotes that it is to be performed 
 with strength and firmness. 
 
 VI I, I. A. In Roman Antiquities, originally any country 
 dwelling, farm-house, &c, but in architectural language, 
 the country residences of individuals of the wealthier class- 
 es were so called. Many descriptions of ancient villas are 
 here and there scattered in the pages of classical writers ; 
 but the two most complete, undoubtedly (besides those 
 contained in the work of Vitruvius.) are the accounts given 
 by Pliny the younger of his Laurentine and Tuscan resi- 
 dences (Epist., ii., 17 and v. 6) : the first being the com- 
 plete picture of a marine, and the second of an inland villa. 
 The remains of the first are thought to have been dis- 
 covered not far from Ostia, in the beginning of the last 
 century. To these may he added the pleasing, though 
 over-ornamented poetical delineation of Statius, (silv/e, lib. 
 3, entitled " Surrentinum Pollii," describing a magnificent 
 residence overlooking the Bay of Naples. The most im- 
 portant parts of an ordinary villa were the porticoes, one 
 or more, along the front or sides of the mansion ; the tri- 
 clinium or dining-room : the wings forming suits of living 
 apartments, commonly called, in the time of Pliny, dista? ; 
 the baths, with their appurtenances, the hypocausta or 
 vaulted heating-rooms, apodyteria or dressing-rooms, rooms 
 for exercise (spha-risteria), &c. Adjacent to the main 
 portico are generally the xystus (which see). There is a 
 work by A. Castle on the villas of the ancients, with illus- 
 trative engravings, (fol., 1728.) The remains of several 
 have been discovered in England. (See ArckaoL, vol. viii. ; 
 Pictorial History of England, i., 504.) 
 
 VTLLAGE, or VILL. (Lat. villa, properly, a country- 
 house.) In English Legal phraseology, a subdivision of a 
 parish ; sometimes a whole parish, and sometimes a manor. 
 Most commonly it means the out part of a parish, con- 
 sisting of a few houses separate from the rest. (See Fleta, 
 1.6; and 1 Inst.) In countries where there are peasants 
 attached to the glebe, or |>ossessing distinct risrhts and obli- 
 gatinns from other subjects, a village is properly a place 
 
 inhabited by peasants only. From the Latin villa was de- 
 rived the French ville, city, originally signifying any resi- 
 dence ; and thence a collection of houses which gradually 
 grew around a principal residence. Thus, especially in 
 Normandy, ville is a common termination to the names of 
 places, like ton or by in England ; and consequently, also, 
 of family names. The English " town" furnishes a paral- 
 lel instance of the alteration of the meaning of a word pro- 
 duced by an Increase of population, our original "towns" 
 having been single residences or hamlets; and in Scotland, 
 at this day, a house with its appurtenances in rural districts 
 is som etimes called " the town." 
 
 VII. 1. KIN, Villenage. In Anglo-Norman Feudal Juris- 
 prudence", the villeins are thought to have been those who, 
 under the Savins, hail held by the tenure known to the 
 
 is as " folk-land." Villeins were either ' regardant," 
 
 .iiincxed to the manor. 01 " in gross," transferable In mi 
 one owner to another. On the Continent, the rank of 
 '• vill. in<." " vilains," seems to have been from the begin- 
 ning superior to that of serfs. (See Guizot, Ctcilisalwn. m 
 13O0 
 
 VILLEIN. 
 
 France; Archceologia, vol. ii.) The word villein is derived 
 from the Latin villa; whence villani, country people. Be- 
 sides the actual servile population of the Roman empire, 
 there appears to have been a class of cultivators of the 
 soil, who probably became greatly multiplied in the later 
 period of the western division of that empire, known under 
 the name of coloni, who were wholly or in part attached 
 to the soil, and liable to certain fixed services to the pro- 
 prietors of it, but not destitute of property or civil rights. 
 Out of this class, augmented in process of time by the addi- 
 tion of numbers whom the vicissitudes of conquest, during 
 the revolutions of the dark ages, subjected, with or with- 
 out their consent, to the protection and control of masters, 
 amse the villein population of Europe in the middle ages. 
 Among the causes which increased their numbers, Mr. 
 Uall.un also enumerates the fines and compositions so gen- 
 erally imposed in the barbarian codes of law, by default in 
 payment of which many were reduced into this state ; and 
 the prevalent superstitions, which induced many to sur- 
 render their persons as well as their property to the control 
 of churches and monasteries. The villeins are designated 
 in these early codes under the general name ot'lidi, leudes, 
 &c. (leute, people) ; a name which, however, is also ap- 
 plied to the free vassals, or liegemen : some, who were 
 attached to the soil of royal or church demesnes, are term- 
 ed Jiscalini, or ecclesiastici ; and the condition of various 
 classes appears to have been extremely different (See 
 Meyer, Institutions Judiciaires, liv. i., c. 7.) The general 
 obligation common to all villeins was that of remaining on 
 the lord's estate, and passing along wiili it by subinfeuda- 
 tion and alienation. The lord had also everywhere juris- 
 diction over the persons of his villeins. But in other re- 
 spects there were several degrees of servitude. In Eng- 
 land, at least from the reign of Henry II., only the inferior 
 sort of villeins, or absolute serfs, seem to have existed. 
 They were not only bound to the soil (villeins regardant), 
 hut they might also be severed from the soil and conveyed 
 apart from it by the lord ; and then became, in legal 
 phraseology, villeins in gross. They were incapable of 
 acquiring a full right to property, their peculium (as the 
 Romans termed the possessions of a slave) being liable to 
 be seized at any moment by the lord. Their tenure bound 
 them to what were termed villein or ignoble services, inde- 
 terminate in degree. It must, however, be observed, that 
 these villein tenures were rather attributes of the land 
 than of the individual holding it, insomuch that lands held 
 in villenage were frequently in the occupation of freemen; 
 and thus, in process of time, our English copyhold tenures 
 have been derived from those which prevailed in these 
 lands of a villein equality. In France and Germany, 
 where serfs of this description likewise existed, there were 
 at the same time other classes whose servitude was of a 
 less severe character, being bound only to fixed duties and 
 payments in respect of their lands. 
 
 The abolition of villenage, in the greater part of Western 
 Europe, was brought about by various causes. Among oth- 
 ers, 1. Manumissions, which, during some centuries, were 
 extremely common from religious principles, being strongly 
 inculcated by the church; although that body is accused M 
 not having added the force of example to its precepts, the 
 villeins on church lands having been, in most parts, among 
 the last emancipated. Redemption by the villein himself 
 was also a common mode of acquiring freedom. 2. The in- 
 fluence of the towns, within which, when enfranchised, 
 serfs by a certain period of residence frequently obtained 
 their freedom. But, perhaps more generally, the process 
 was gradual : the severest attributes of personal servitude 
 being the first to disappear, while predial servitude i. c, a 
 liability to servile duties and payments in respect of land, 
 existed down to a comparatively late period inmost coun- 
 tries of Western Europe, and still exists, though much mod- 
 ified, in parts of Germany. In the 15th century there were, 
 according to Machiavel, no villeins left in Italy. Predial 
 servitude, in some rare instances, existed in England, it is 
 believed, as late as the reign of Charles I. In France, it 
 was not wholly abolished until the Revolution. In the 
 greater part of the Prussian territories, the condition of the 
 peasantry was still in some respects marked with the attri- 
 butes of villenage until the reforms of Stein in the present 
 reign. In those Eastern puis ni Europe in which the feu- 
 dal system never prevailed Russia ami Poland), the condi- 
 tion of the great m;i« of the people is still servile, and, in 
 some respects, Inner, perhaps, than that of most feudal vil- 
 leins. The Russian peasants are divided into those belong- 
 ing to the crown, and those belonging to individuals; the 
 
 for r being rather more than half as many as the latter 
 
 throughout thfl empire. The late emperor Alexander intro- 
 
 ihneii Mime ameliorations in the condition of the crown 
 
 peasants, with a view to their ultimate enfranchisement. 
 lie also planned measures for the prevention of the sale of 
 serfs apart from the estates on which they reside. Under 
 his superintendence, the nobility in the German provinces
 
 VILLOSE. 
 
 of Courland and Livonia abolished villenage altogether ; 
 but hitherto without much advantage In improving the 
 state of the peasantry. 
 
 VILLO'SE. (Lat. "villus, icool.) In Zoology, when a part 
 is covered with soft flexible hairs thickly set. 
 
 VILLOUS. Iu Anatomy, the term is applied to vascu- 
 lar surfaces which, when minutely examined, look like the 
 pile of velvet; as in the villous or internal coat of the in- 
 testinal canal. 
 
 VINA'LIA. According to Varro and Ovid (from vinum, 
 wine), a festival in ancient Rome. There were two Vina- 
 lia : the first in April, sacred to Venus ; the second in Au- 
 gust, to Jupiter. The latter was considered as the begin- 
 ning of the vintage season, before which new wine was not 
 permitted to be conveved into Rome. (See Ovid, Fast. 1., 
 iv.) 
 
 VINCULUM. (Lat. a bond or tie.) In Algebra, a mark 
 or character which connects several letters or quantities, 
 and indicates that they are to be treated as a single quanti- 
 ty. Vieta first used the bar or line over the quantities for a 
 vinculum, thus, a X b-\-c ; meaning that the quantity a is 
 to be multiplied by the sum of the quantities 6 and c. This 
 manner of connecting quantities was generally used by the 
 early English writers on algebra ; but it is now more com- 
 mon to make use of the parenthesis, which is a much more 
 convenient mode of notation, especially when the expres- 
 sion is somewhat long. Thus, instead of writing a X b -4- c, 
 or y/ x l + 2 z y -f yi. it is more usual to write a (& + <:), 
 y/ (x2 -f- 2 x y + y 2 )- The parenthesis, which has generally 
 been used by the foreign mathematicians, is said by Hutton 
 to have been first used as a vinculum by Albert Girard. 
 
 VINE, Horticulture, (Fitis rinifera, L.) the grapevine, 
 is a ligneous climber, found wild in Syria and in various 
 parts of Asia and in Greece, the fruit of which is in univer- 
 sal demand for the desert, either fresh, or dried as raisins, 
 and its fermented juice forms wine, the noblest liquor that 
 ever gladdened the heart of man. The best grapes for the 
 table are grown under glass ; but grapes are also grown of 
 very good quality against walls and on cottages south of 
 London, and on walls heated artificially as far north as 
 Glasgow. Formerly the grape vine was grown in England 
 without any protection, for the purpose of wine making ; 
 and Mr. Hoare in his interesting work on the Cultivation 
 of the Fine, maintains that with proper care, this might be 
 done in some districts even at the present day. See Vine- 
 yard. 
 
 Vine is often employed in a general sense to designate 
 any stem which trails along the ground without rooting. <>r 
 entangles itself with other plants, to which it adheres by 
 means of its tendrils or by twining ; as the cucumber and 
 the hop. 
 
 VI'NEGAR. This term is applied to various modifications 
 of the acetic acid. The simplest mode of obtaining vinegar 
 is to excite a second or acetous fermentation in wine : in 
 this case oxygen is absorbed, a variable proportion of car- 
 bonic acid is generally evolved, and the alcohol of the wine 
 passes into acetic acid. Very good vinegar is also made 
 from strong beer, or from a wort or infusion of malt pre- 
 pared for the purpose, or from a decoction of common rai- 
 sins, or from a mixture of about 1 part of brandy with 8 of 
 water and some sugar and yeast. 
 
 When vinegar is distilled, various impurities which it 
 contains remain in the still, and the liquid which passes 
 over is the acetic acid, nearly pure, but largely diluted with 
 water. In this state it is usually called distilled vinegar, 
 and is chiefly used in pharmacy. But though a considera- 
 ble quantity of vinegar is made in wine countries, by the 
 first-mentioned process, and here and elsewhere by the 
 second, in which malt is employed; yet for all the pur- 
 poses of the arts and manufactures, as well as for domestic 
 consumption, the market is chiefly supplied from another 
 source, which is the destructive distillation of wood. It 
 has long been known that when certain kinds of dry wood, 
 especially beech and such woods as are not resinous, in- 
 stead of being burned in the open air, are converted into 
 charcoal in close vessels, so as. in fact, to be submitted to 
 distillation, that the vapours which pass off yield, when 
 condensed, a large quantity of tar, and of very acid water. 
 The latter, is, in fact, an impure vinegar ; that is, it owes 
 its acidity to acetic acid, which is formed during the process 
 out of the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen of the wood, 
 which elements are also those of acetic acid, and, what is 
 remarkable, not in very different proportions. When this 
 impure acetic acid is freed from the tar and einpyreumatic 
 oils with which it is mixed, it is called crude pyroligneous 
 acid. To convert it into pure acetic acid, that is, to sepa- 
 rate from it the einpyreumatic products with which it is in- 
 timately combined, is a somewhat circuitous process, of 
 which the following is an outline: It is first distilled, by 
 which pyrozilic spirit and oil of tar first pass over, and these 
 are followed by a quantity of impure or rough acetic acid. 
 
 VINEYARD. 
 
 This rough acid, which is used by dyers and calico-printers, 
 and by makers of sugar of lead, is saturated with powdered 
 slaked lime, and being filtered, yields a solution of impure 
 acetate of lime, which is evaporated to dryness, and which, 
 distilled with dilute sulphuric acid, yields a purer acetic 
 acid than the former, but which still has a burned and dis- 
 agreeable flavour; it is therefore again saturated by lime, 
 and this liquid acetate of lime is mixed with a solution of 
 sulphate of soda, which acting by double decomposition, 
 yields a precipitate of sulphate of lime, and acetate of soda 
 remains in solution. The latter salt is procured by evapo- 
 ration, and purified by torrefaction and crystallization. The 
 vinegar-makers, who purchase it, decompose it in retorts or 
 proper stills, by means of sulphuric acid, by which a very 
 pure and strong acetic acid passes over, sulphate of soda 
 remaining in the retort. The acetic acid thus obtained, 
 which is in its most concentrated state, is extremely acrid, 
 sour, and pungent, and is often called radical vinegar, or, 
 when perfumed, aromatic vinegar; it is also occasionally 
 termed glacial acetic acid, from its property of congealing 
 at a low temperature, and remaining frozen at temperatures 
 below 50°. In this state it is a compound of 1 atom of real 
 acetic acid = 51, and one of water =: 9 ; the real or anhy- 
 drous acid, as it exists in the dry acetates, being composed 
 of, 
 
 Atoms. Eqniv. Per Ceo*. 
 Carbon .... 4 24 47-06 
 
 Hvdrogen ... 3 3 5-88 
 
 Oxygen. .... 3 24 47-06 
 
 1 51 100-00 
 
 proportions which are equivalent to 4 atoms of carbon and 
 3 of water. When this strong acetic acid is diluted with 
 water and slightly coloured, it forms a very pure and ex- 
 cellent substitute for common vinegar, and is cheaper than 
 acid of the same strength prepared in any other way. 
 
 The combinations of acetic acid with various bases are 
 called acetates ; and of these salts some are importantly use- 
 ful in the arts: such especially are the acetates of lead, cop- 
 per, iron, and alumina, which are chiefly employed in dyeing 
 and calico printing; the acetates of ammonia and of potash, 
 which, as well as acetate of lead, are used in medicine ; 
 and the acetates of lime and of soda, which have been men- 
 tioned as steps in the preparation of strong acetic acid. The 
 acetates are recognised by their solubility in water, and by 
 the fumes of acetic acid which they evolve when acted 
 upon by sulphuric acid. The specific gravity of the strong- 
 est liquid acetic acid is 10629 : that of good malt vinegar is 
 10200; and that of distilled vinegar about 10023. The 
 strength or value of vinegar, and of acetic acid, can only be 
 learned by its saturating power. 
 
 A duty of 2d. per gaflon is imposed upon vinegar; and 
 the manufacture is consequently placed under the control 
 of the excise. Previously to 1826 the duty was id. per gal- 
 lon. The manufacture is chiefly confined to England, the 
 quantity produced in Scotland and Ireland not amounting 
 on the annual average to more than 100,000 gallons. The 
 quantity of vinegar "manufactured in England is nearly 
 2,700,000 gallons annually. 
 
 VINEYARD. A plantation of grape vines cultivated for 
 the purpose of making wine. Though vineyards at present 
 are chiefly confined to the warmer parts of the Continent, 
 yet it appears that formerly they were occasionally to be met 
 with in Britain, more particularly in the neighbourhood of 
 religious establishments. Among the last vineyards which 
 we have any account of, are one at Hatfield, near Ledbury, 
 which belonged to the celebrated Jacob Tonson ; one in the 
 Isle of Wight; another at Pain's Hill, in Surrey. The 
 ground chosen in all these cases was a sloping surface of 
 dry gravellv soil, with a southern aspect ; and the vines 
 were planted in rows at four feet apart every way, and 
 trained to short stakes about four feet high. Every year the 
 shoots were cut down to within a foot of the ground, and 
 not more than three shoots were allowed to be matured by 
 each plant. Each shoot produced two or three bunches of 
 grapes, and the shoots were shortened in the course of the 
 summer so as never to reach higher than the stakes, to 
 which they were tied with rushes previously cut and dried 
 for the purpose, or with twigs of willow. The kinds of 
 grapes grown were chiefly the Burgundy or large black clus- 
 ter, and the small black cluster or miller grape, so called 
 from the white mealy appearance of the leaves. In fine 
 seasons a tolerably good wine was produced. On the Con- 
 tinent, the vineyards which produce the best wine are inva- 
 riably found on dry soils, more or less calcareous ; and the 
 most celebrated are on the dry, sunny sides of granitic 
 or calcareous hills, with the surface formed into terraces, 
 like the steps of stairs on a large scale ; each step or ter- 
 race being supported on the lower side by a stone wall, to 
 which the vines planted at the base of the wall are some- 
 times attached, not by nails, as wall trees are in Britain, but 
 by hooked sticks driven into the interstices between the 
 
 1307
 
 VIOL. 
 
 Stones, such walls being for the most part built witliout mor- 
 tar. In France and the Booth of Germany, vines are seldom 
 allowed to grow higher than lour feet; and they are cat 
 down every year, alter the crop has been gathered and the 
 leaves dropped, to within one or two feet of the ground. In 
 the neighbourhood of Stuttgard, and between that city and 
 Heidelberg, where the sides of the hills are covered with 
 vineyards, the shoots are not cut down before winter ; hut 
 those of each stool or plant are bent down to the ground, 
 Where they are tied together with a straw hand, and retain- 
 ed in that position by laying a stone on the bundle. This is 
 for the purpose of preserving the vines from the extreme 
 cold of winter; the shoots, when so laid prostrate, being 
 soon covered with snow. In spring, the shoots are raised 
 up again, pruned, and tied to stakes. In the north of Italy, 
 and chiefly in the plains of Lombardy, the vineyards are 
 managed much in the same manner as they are in France; 
 but in Tuscany, the Papal States, and Naples, the vineyards 
 are interspersed with mulberry trees, which are kept pol- 
 larded ; and to these the vines are attached, partly by ties 
 of willow and partly by their lendiils, and they produce 
 bunches of grapes to the height of six or eight feet from 
 the ground. Sometimes the shoots are trained to elms, mul- 
 berry trees or poplars, in which case they produce grapes to 
 a much greater height. The only plantation of vines in the 
 manner of a vineyard, which we know of in England at 
 present, is a small one at White Knights, near Reading; 
 where, however, the plants for several years past have been 
 in a state Of utter neglect, the leaves and young shoots being 
 injured or totally destroyed by rabbits. The ground which 
 was occupied by the vineyard at Pain's Hill is now covered 
 with a plantation of pine trees, among which some of the 
 vines still continue to spring up. The vineyard in the Isle 
 Of Wight has long since been laid down in pasture. In the 
 early part of the last century there were several small vine- 
 yards in the neighbourhood of London: the situation of one 
 at Hammersmith still bears the name of the Vineyard, and 
 is now occupied as a nursery. But the most celebrated of 
 the London vineyards appears to have been one cultivated 
 by Richard Warner, at Rotherhithe, who is supposed to 
 have introduced the Hamburg grape. There was a vine- 
 yard in the neighbourhood of Gloucester cathedral ; one at 
 St. Alban's : and one at Canterbury, the ground occupied by 
 which is now cultivated as a nursery, by Mr. Masters of 
 that city. 
 
 VIOL, or VOYOL. In Naval language, a purchase used 
 Occasionally in weighing the anchor. 
 
 VIOLA. (It.) In Music, a musical instrument of the 
 same form and with the same number of strings as a violin, 
 and, like it, played with a bow. The English call it the 
 tenor violin. 
 
 VIOLA'CEiE (Viola), are Polypetalous Exogens, well 
 represented by the sweet violet of our woods, and distin- 
 guished by having five membranous anthers adhering to 
 each other round a superior ovary, with parietal placentae. 
 The heartsease or pansy is a kind of violet, and there is a 
 large number of other species in different parts of the world. 
 An emetic property resides in their roots, and renders some of 
 them useful medicinal agents as substitutes for ipecacuanha. 
 
 VIOLI'NO. (It.) In Music, a musical instrument, vul- 
 garly called a fiddle, mounted with four strings, and played 
 with a bow. It consists of three parts — the neck, the taide, 
 and the sounding board; at the side are two apertures in 
 the shape of Ss. On it is a bridge, which bears the strings 
 up from the belly, over which they pass from one extremity, 
 called the tail-piece, to the other near the head, where they 
 are received by turning pins, which tighten or loosen them 
 at pleasure. 
 
 VIOLONCE'LLO. (It.) In Music, a bass violin with 
 four strings, whose principles of construction are the same 
 as those of that instrument. 
 
 VIOLO'NE. (It.) In Music, a large bass violin, com- 
 monly called a double bass; seldom played with more than 
 three strings, which lie an octave below the violoncello. 
 
 Vl'PER. (Lat. a contraction of Vivipir; from vivos 
 alive, and paro, J bring forth.) The common name of a ge 
 nus of venon which produce ! i \ i 1 1 tr young, and 
 
 have a head broader than the neck, and no pits behind the 
 nostrils. The true vipert distinguished bj the 
 
 head being covered \\ ith scales, like those on the back, and 
 by the nostrils being very laiL'c. The horned viper of .North 
 Africa and the puff adder of South Africa belong to this 
 proup. The adders ' /;■ ras) have tie lead covered with gran 
 ular scales, u ith larger ones intermixed in some species, and 
 have the nostrils or moderate Bize. The black add. raid 
 the common adder I .which are the onlyin- 
 
 n ; diet ol i Ireal Britian, are examples 
 of this -.'roup. 
 
 VIRGI'LLl \X HUSBANDRY, That kind of agriculture 
 which was practised by the Romans, and which is di 
 bed in the Oeorgies of Virgil : or. In other words, the old mode 
 of managing arable land throughout Europe. By tin- 
 1368 
 
 VIRTUAL VELOCITY. 
 
 ; tern two or three corn crops were taken in succession, and 
 the land afterwards allowed to lie fallow for several years, 
 
 when it was broken up again; being sometimes prepared 
 
 by paring and burning. The Vir»dlian and Roman practice 
 is fully described in Dickson's Agriculture of the Ancients. 
 The first departure from this kind of husbandry in Britain 
 was made by Jethro Tull in the middle of the last century, 
 whose plan it was to keep arable land continually under 
 crops cultivated in rows, and alternately growing corn and 
 PQlse, or plants cultivated for their leaves or n 
 
 VIRGO (the Virgin). In Astronomy, one of the twelve 
 zodiacal constellations or signs, being ihe sixth in order, be- 
 ginning with Aries. Virgo is usually represented with an 
 ear of corn in her hand, and is hence called Signum Cereris. 
 The sun enters this sign about the 22d of August The con- 
 Stellation Virgo contains one bright star of the first magni- 
 tude, called Spirn Virginia. 
 
 VIRTUAL FOCUS, in Optics, is the point from which 
 rays, having been rendered diver- 
 gent by reflection or refraction, 
 appear to issue. Thus, let M N 
 be a metallic speculum, F a radi- 
 ating point, F a, F a' rays falling 
 on the speculum at a and a', and 
 reflected into the directions a b 
 and o' b' ; then the point V, in 
 the concourse of the straight lines 
 a b and a' b', is called the virtual focus of the reflected rajs. 
 See Reflexion. 
 
 VIRTUAL VELOCITY, in Mechanics, is the velocity 
 which a body in equilibrium would actually acquire during 
 the first instant of its motion in case of the equilibrium 
 being disturbed. 
 
 The general principles on which the laws of equilibrium 
 in machines are established may be reduced to three; 
 namely, the principle id' the lever, the principle of the com- 
 position of forces, and the principle of virtual velocities. 
 The last consists in this, that forces are in equilibrium 
 when they are in the inverse ratio of the virtual velocities 
 of the points to which they are applied, estimated in the 
 direction in which they respectively act. Thus, let F and 
 F' be two forces applied to the points/) and p' of a body 
 which is in equilibrium between their joint actions, and let 
 s and s' be the spaces which the points p and p' would 
 describe in the first instant of time, in case of the equili- 
 brium being disturbed ; then F : F' : : s' : s, or Fs = F's'. 
 The principle is thus enunciated generally by Lagrange 
 f.l/ic. .Inalijtiquc, p. 22): 
 
 " If any system of bodies or material jmints, urged each 
 by any forces whatever, be in equilibrium, and there be 
 given to the system any small motion, by virtue of which 
 each point describes an infinitely small space, which space 
 will represent the virtual velocity of the point; then the 
 sum of the forces, multiplied each by the space which the 
 point to which it is applied describes in the direction of 
 that force, will be always equal to u ro or nothing, regard- 
 ing as positive the small spaces described in the direction 
 of the forces, and as negative those described in the oppo- 
 site direction." 
 
 In order to illustrate this principle, we may take as an 
 example the case of the bent lever Let P, P', P" be the 
 Q. 
 
 points of application of the three forces F, F'. F", acting 
 on the lever I! A C, in the directions P (i, !>' U'. 1'" U", 
 which are all supposed to be comprised in the same plane. 
 Suppose the lever to describe an infinitely small angle 
 about the fulcrum A, SO that the points I', P . P" come into 
 
 the positions;,.//.//'. According to the definition given 
 above, the infinitely small arcs P p, P' /. 1'" //'. w hicb may 
 
 be considered as straight lines, will he the virtual velocities 
 of the points of application P, P'. 1'", Of the three tunes F, 
 I' . V . From the points /,, //. p". let there be drawn p n, 
 
 // in', p" tn" respectively perpendicular to the lines I' u, 
 
 P' Q,', P" ti" ; then P m will be the virtual velocity of the 
 point P reduced to the direction P U of the force F, and 
 
 P' in', I'" m" will in like manner represent the virtual velo- 
 cities of the points P' and P" reduced to the directions in 
 which Ihe forces 1" and F" respectively act. Let P m — s, 
 P' «/ = .•.■', and I'" m" :-- s" ; and as the force F acting in 
 the direction P U tends to turn the lever in the direction in 
 which the motion has been supposed to lake place, while 
 F' and F" tend to turn it in the contrary direction, the
 
 VIRTUE. 
 
 space s must be regarded as positive, and s' and s" as 
 negative. 
 
 Now, according to the principle of virtual velocities, the 
 sum of the given forces, each multiplied by the velocity of 
 its point of application reduced to the direction of that force, 
 is zero in the case of equilibrium ; and, reciprocally, when 
 this sum is zero the system is in equilibrium ; hence the 
 equation of the equilibrium of the lever is 
 F s + F' s' + F" s" = 0. 
 
 It is easy to verify this equation by showing that it may 
 be derived from the equation of equilibrium deduced from 
 the principle of the lever. From A let A}, A q', A q", be 
 drawn respectively perpendicular to the directions P Q, 
 P' a', P" tl", and let the angle V Ap—Q; then, since the 
 angle APp may be regarded as a right angle, m P p == P A q ; 
 whence the two triangles m V p, q A P, are similar, and 
 mV.Aq:: P ,p : P A : : tan. 0:1; therefore mY — Aq tan. 
 6, that is, s = A q tan. 9. In like manner we have s' = A}' 
 tan. 6, a" =: A q" tan. 8 ; whence, by substituting in the 
 above equation, and leaving out the common multiplier 
 tan. 6, we find 
 
 F • A q + F' • A g' + F" • A q" = 0, 
 which is the well-known equation of equilibrium. See 
 Statics. 
 
 The equation Fs-f-F's'-]- F" s" = may be extended 
 to a solid body of any form, or to any machine whatever. 
 Let d m be an element of tbe body, F an accelerating force 
 applied to d m, v the velocity of that element, z the angle 
 comprised between the direction of the force F and that in 
 which the element d m moves ; then the moving force of 
 the element will be F d m, and v cos. z its velocity esti- 
 mated in the direction of this force ; and consequently, by 
 the principle of virtual velocities, the equation of equili- 
 brium will be / F v cos. 2 d m = 0. 
 
 The principle of virtual velocities is easily verified by ex- 
 periment with respect to all the simple machines; namely, 
 the lever, the pulley, the wheel and axle, the inclined plane, 
 and the screw. Its importance as a fundamental principle 
 in rational mechanics was first recognised by John Ber- 
 noulli (see the Nouvelle Mecanique of Varignon, torn, ii.) ; 
 and Lagrange has derived from it the whole theories of 
 statics and dynamics in his celebrated work, the Mecanique 
 .flna/ytique. Fourier {Journal de V F.cole Polytechnique, 
 cahicr v.) has demonstrated the principle from the property 
 of the lever. 
 
 VIRTUE, in Moral Philosophy, is employed both in an 
 abstract and comprehensive sense, to signify the law or 
 laws in which right conduct consists, and also concretely 
 for that quality of actions and persons which arises from 
 their agreement with the rules of morality. By theories of 
 virtue are understood the different explanations which 
 have been given, both of that which distinguishes right 
 from wrong, and of the nature of the feelings with which 
 ■virtue and vice are contemplated by mankind. The dis- 
 tinction of these two questions, so frequently confounded 
 by ethical writers, is due to Adam Smith, but has since been 
 strongly insisted upon by Mackintosh and Hampden. The 
 former question Mackintosh entitles "The Inquiry into the 
 Criterion of Morality in Action," and the latter, "The 
 Theory of Moral Sentiments ;" whereas Smith and Hamp- 
 den designate the former as "the Inquiry into the Nature 
 of Virtue," and apply the term criterion of virtue to the 
 principle of approbation. In the use of the phrase " Theory 
 of Moral Sentiments," the last two writers again are at 
 issue. Smith understands by it moral philosophy in general, 
 while Hampden limits it to a division only of ethical inquiry. 
 According to the latter, it comprises the two investigations 
 already specified : that into the nature, and that into the 
 criterion, of virtue. It constitutes the subjective branch of 
 ethics, and arises from a consideration of man in himself as 
 the subject of moral action, while the objective branch 
 results from a regard to the end or object to which the 
 moral nature of man has reference. This speculation into 
 the final cause of man's capacity for virtue and happiness, 
 Hampden considers to be the complement of ethics, and 
 entitles it the theory af natural religion. Lastly, he defines 
 ethics thus understood to be the science of what ought to be, 
 as distinct from the science of v: hat is ; or of moral facts, 
 as they are exhibited in life, or as they may be gleaned 
 from the philosophy of history, and the study of the intel- 
 lectual arts, which are based upon an appeal to the actual 
 moral nature of man. These two together make up the 
 whole domain of moral philosophy. {Hampden's Lectures 
 on Moral Philosophy.) 
 
 The several theories of virtue are conveniently divided 
 into ancient and modern. The distinction, however, is not 
 founded on any essential difference of theory, but rather on 
 the opposite points of view from which they respectively 
 viewed the moral facts. While modern theories are per- 
 manently subjective, the objective question is the charac- 
 
 ioo in 
 
 teristic feature of ancient ethics. The leading speculation 
 of the former is: what is the origin and nature of moral 
 obligation 1 The first problem of the latter was to deter- 
 mine the object or end to which the moral constitution of 
 man has reference, and this ultimate end of human activity 
 they usually denominated the end or sovereign good (teAoj, 
 finis, bonorum, summum bonum). And although the con- 
 sideration of this question might tend in a few, as in Socratea 
 and Plato, to carry the mind forward to some higher and 
 ulterior existence, in which should be realized that entire 
 satisfaction after which man aspires, still, as these prompt- 
 ings of natural religion were but vague and unauthoritative, 
 the ethical writers of antiquity confined their views to this 
 life alone, and the sovereign good which they proposed as 
 the final cause of moral action was limited to the greatest 
 good attainable in the present state of existence. 
 
 With Socrates, the first object of speculation was to ac- 
 quire a knowledge of man's true and proper nature ; but 
 this self-knowledge he held to be impossible so long as man 
 continues ignorant of the universal principle. Now the 
 nature of God can only be learned from his works, and 
 these bespeak him to be good and intelligent. Moreover, 
 the consciousness of man attests his participation in the 
 divine essence ; consequently the ultimate destination of 
 man is reason and goodness, and his moral end is the cogni- 
 tion and practice of good. Virtue, therefore, is the intelli- 
 gent performance of duties, whose notions man may arrive 
 at by a study both of his own nature and of the laws of an 
 all-wise Creator discoverable in the system of the universe. 
 In this pursuit happiness is inseparable from virtue. But 
 if Socrates thus founded morality on a disinterested princi- 
 ple, he reconciled it with interest rightly understood ; and 
 on the other hand raised political science above the mere 
 calculation of utility, by identifying it with justice as 
 founded not on convention (Soyna ttoXccj;), but on natural 
 right, or the invention of what is (tov ovtos elevpcaa;). 
 
 Socrates having thus referred the laws of morality to the 
 Deity as their author and upholder, Plato proceeded by a 
 definition of the divine nature to guard against the objection 
 of their arbitrary position by the will of God. He made 
 the Deity to be the perfection of intelligence as resulting 
 from an union of the good, the beautiful, and the true, 
 which are in their nature eternal, necessary, and immutable. 
 This perfection is also the term to which man spontaneously 
 tends. For reason is the true principle of his nature, 
 although in the present existence there is mingled with it 
 a foreign element — matter, which, by obstructing its develop- 
 ment, becomes the cause of his falling short of perfection. 
 All, then, that is now possible for man is an approach to 
 the divine excellence. This is virtue, and is effected by 
 the harmony of the rational, irascible, and concupiscible 
 parts of the soul. Although the two latter belong to the 
 foreign element in man's nature, they are yet indispensable 
 to the moral act : for the third allbrds a motive to action, 
 inasmuch as beauty, being identical with the good and true, 
 gives rise to desire or love (tpus), and thereby impels to 
 virtuous action ; while the second, disapproving what is 
 base, and ugly, and false, furnishes the fortitude requisite 
 for attaining to what is approved under every difficulty and 
 every discouragement. To each of the three parts of the 
 soul Plato assigns a special virtue, in a lower sense, and 
 names them, respectively, prudence, fortitude, and temper- 
 ance (_<ppovnms, avipia, auxppotjvvt]), while in a proper sense 
 he declares virtue to be eminently one and the same with 
 justice {liKawovi'i]). These four are the so-called cardinal 
 virtues. From the notion of justice he draws the connex- 
 ion of ethics and politics : the latter is but an application 
 of the former to society. At the close of the republic he 
 teaches that as an individual cannot be at peace with him- 
 self except by the harmonious adjustment of all his facul- 
 ties, wherein each is allowed its due weight, so in the 
 whole world happiness is proportionate to justice, and each 
 individual derives the greater benefit from the community 
 the more complete the harmony is in which lie lives with 
 all his fellow citizens. 
 
 Essentially agreeing, the ethical systems of Plato and 
 Aristotle are chiefly distinguished by the relative value 
 which they respectively ascribe to happiness ; the former 
 considering it as the natural fruit of virtue, while the latter 
 rather viewed virtue as the means of attaining to happiness. 
 Plato taught, that although the just man regulates his con- 
 duct by no reference to his own enjoyment, yet pleasure 
 invariably attends him, since justice is good not only in 
 itself, but also in its effects, and renders all things fitting 
 and friendly to man. In Aristotle's opinion, the end of 
 morality is to render individuals as useful as possible to 
 society ; the objects of whose institution is to procure in its 
 members the highest moral perfection, as necessary to the 
 attainment of the greatest possible felicity by the whole. 
 Man, he teaches, is a free and rational agent, and there- 
 fore acts spontaneously and deliberately, invariably pro- 
 posing to himself some end as the motive to action. AH 
 
 1309
 
 VIRTUE. 
 
 humnn arts and pursuits, then, have their appropriate ends ; 
 bat among those there is a certain subordination, which 
 implies a supreme end towards which they all converge; it 
 being desirable not for its own sake, but the cause for 
 Which all else is Bought. This supreme good is perfection : 
 virtue is the approximation thereto, and consists in the 
 habit of mediocrity according to ri«ht reason; in other 
 words, it is self-control, which triumphs alike over the im- 
 petuosity of the passions and the weakness of the will, and 
 thereby accomplishes a just mean. Every special virtue, 
 in like manner, lies in a kind of middle between the two 
 opposite vices of too much and too little: courage, for 
 instance, being a mean between cowardice and rashness, 
 of which the former offends by an excessive, the latter by 
 a defective, regard to the proper objects of fear. 
 
 According to the Stoics, the supreme good which is the 
 final cause of every special good is to act conformably to 
 nature; i. c, in obedience to the immutable laws which 
 reason discovers in the universe. This eternal and universal 
 order, winch they called fate, is an infinite enchainment of 
 causes and effects, in virtue of which whatever happens is 
 what ought to be : it embraces all living things, and man 
 therefore has a principle within him which obliges him to 
 seek that state of his nature which is the best and most 
 perfect that it is capable of. This is reason. Wisdom, 
 therefore, is man's chief good, and the pursuit of it is phi- 
 losophy. Perfect wisdom, however, as modelled in the 
 sage of the Stoics, they did not believe to be conceded to 
 mortals, to whom nothing more is granted than to be in the 
 way to perfection. Now, as they made reason to be the 
 supreme arbiter in moral determinations, they naturally 
 held vice to be but an error : yet this error, they taught, is 
 the only evil ; and, on the other hand, nothing is good but 
 what is' such in all times and all circumstances : all else is 
 morally indifferent. But even indifferent things are, in a 
 lower sense, agreeable to nature, and objects more or less 
 of choice or aversion. That perfect rectitude of conduct, 
 therefore, which constitutes the essence of virtue, consists 
 in a just and accurate discernment of good, and in assigning 
 to every object its due importance according to the place it 
 holds in the natural scale of things. Lastly, although their 
 first object was to emancipate the moral man from all 
 dependence on external conditions and from the slavery of 
 his passion — and although, therefore, they removed all 
 sensuous pleasures and pains from the catalogue of good 
 and evil— nevertheless the apathy which they taught was 
 not, as commonly understood, an absolute insensibility, 
 but rather the undisturbed supremacy of reason over the 
 passions. 
 
 All the preceding theories agree in making reason the 
 end of human activity, and are thereby distinguished from 
 the Epicurean, which gave the first place to the sensuous 
 element of humanity, and reduced science to the rank of a 
 mean. According to Epicurus, pleasure alone is sought for 
 its own sake, and philosophy and all else is but the pursuit 
 of it. If, sometimes, it seems to be foregone, it is only with 
 a view to some higher gratification, as pain also may occa- 
 sionally be endured in the acquisition of a pleasure whose 
 intensity will fully compensate for the intermediate suffer- 
 ing. The pleasures and pains that are primarily the objects 
 of desire and aversion are corporeal, and from these the 
 pleasures of the mind are ultimately derived, and consist 
 merely in the anticipation of future and in the recollection 
 of past states. This, however, constitutes the superiority 
 of the secondary pleasures of the mind over their corporeal 
 originals, for the latter do not extend beyond the present 
 sensation. Virtue, therefore, is ;m enlightened pursuit of 
 pleasure, which, although it is selfish in its principle, still 
 allows free course to the social and benevolent affections, 
 as being a part of man's nature and an additional source of 
 gratification beyond tin calculations of personal interest. 
 For though they may expose a man to the chance of pain, 
 as in the case of the death of a friend, still this is a less 
 evil than apathy, nnd the deprivation of a natural enjoy- 
 ment. Justice, lastly, has no other object than the general 
 good; and right, properly understood, is but the sign of 
 utility. 
 
 Modem ethics having taken their rise from a system 
 greatly resembling the Epicurean, the inquiry into the 
 nature of virtue became the first question that was proposed 
 for solution. Accordingly this fact famishes a general 
 jification of the later theories of morals into selfish or 
 terested, according as they found virtue on a selfish or 
 on a benevolent principle. 
 
 The selfish theory has found its ablest advocates in 
 Hobbes, Helvetius, Paley, and Bentham. Of these the 
 first and last deserve a particular notice: Hobbes as the 
 originator of the controversy into the nature of morality; 
 B ntham :>s furnishing the most complete and elaborate 
 exposition of the utilitarian scheme According to Hobbes 
 died 1679 , tie' onlj motive thai can induce 
 men e which will follow from its 
 
 1310 
 
 execution, A preconception of pleasure is the neewnry 
 condition of every moral determination. Good and evil are 
 simple tendencies to pleasure and pain, without which 
 
 every object is Indifferent Self-love is the exclusive pas- 
 sion of man's nature. Other passions differ from it out- 
 wardly only, j. e., in the objects which excite them: pity, 
 for example, is but the imagination of misfortunes which 
 may happen to ourselves, suggested by the contemplation 
 of another's sufferings ; love, the conception of advantages 
 to be derived from its object ; and benevolence, nothing 
 more than the consciousness of power sufficient to secure 
 not only one's own happiness, but that of others also. The 
 first law of nature is self-preservation: whatever tends, 
 therefore, to this end is lawful and good, and all men have 
 a natural right to appropriate by every means in their power 
 whatever may contribute to their personal happiness. As 
 this is the imprescriptible right of all, there are as many 
 forms of natural right as there are separate and independent 
 wills ; and actions of the most opposite kinds are equally 
 virtuous and legitimate. Now, as all possess an equal right 
 to all things, and as there is no reason why one should 
 yield to another the objects which both may desire, the 
 state of nature must be one of war ; but as, in such a con- 
 dition of things, the safety of every one is constantly en- 
 dangered by the conflicting interests of all others, peace, at 
 any price, becomes preferable to it. Peace, however, is the 
 result of society alone ; i. e., as defined by Hobbes, of the 
 existence within a community of a sufficient force to con- 
 trol all individual wills and forces. But this is only practi- 
 cable in two ways : either all are seized with a desire to 
 terminate the state of hostility, and enter into a mutual 
 compact, by which they engage to do no violence, nor to 
 suffer it to be done to each other ; or a single person suc- 
 ceeds by stratagem or force in establishing his own authority 
 over the rest. The latter form of society is as legitimate as 
 the former; and indeed, as the end of the institution is the 
 suppression of warfare among its members, and as the more 
 unlimited the power is the better calculated it must be to 
 effect this object, an absolute monarchy is the very best 
 polity that can be devised. Against the government in 
 such a society, it is evident that subjects cannot consistently 
 possess any lights ; for these would impede its effective- 
 ness : they have but one simple duty, and that is — implicit 
 obedience. (On Human Nature ; Leviathan, <$-c.) 
 
 Bentham (born 1748, died 1832), sets out from Hobbes' 
 principle, that every object would be perfectly indifferent 
 but for its fitness to produce pleasure or pain, which, he 
 declares, are the sole motives of human determinations. 
 This proposition he does not attempt to pro\e. but, assert- 
 ing that it is one of those primary and self-evident truths 
 which are the foundation of all reasoning, he proceeds to 
 draw from it certain practical conclusions in the form of 
 definitions. Thus he defines utility to be the fitness of ac- 
 tions and things to augment the happiness, or to diminish 
 the misery, of individuals and communities ; and maintains 
 that this is the only true and intelligible interpretation of 
 what is usually called the lawfulness, goodness, justice, 
 and morality of an action. The principle of utility is next 
 defined to be that which exclusively derives the quality 
 of actions from their twofold property of augmenting the 
 happiness or misery of one or many. This, he asserts, is 
 the only valid principle of moral appreciation ; and he re- 
 duces all opposing theories to two classes, which he desig- 
 nates by the principle of asceticism, and the principle of 
 sympathy and antipathy. Under the latter head, Bentham 
 comprises every theory of morals which draws the distinc- 
 tion of good and evil from any other principle than a con- 
 sideration of consequences ; whereas he explains the asce- 
 tical principle as agreeing with the utilitarian In drawing 
 its qualification of objects from their tendency to product 
 pleasure or pain, but as differing from it in that it proceeds 
 in an inverse manner, and calls pain good, but pleasure an 
 evil. To forego the least pleasure, simply as pleasure, is 
 to acton a principle of asceticism ; but tin true disciple of 
 utility holds every pleasure to be in itself good. Even the 
 abominable pleasure which the Wretched Criminal enjoys 
 in gloating over his crime is good, so far as it is a pleasure ; 
 it is only evil so far forth as it entail- the iil consequences 
 of fear and punishment, which far transcend Us guilty en- 
 joyment. The practical conclusion, therefore, of tin- theory 
 of utility is, that an action is only really good when it will 
 
 i o to more of pleasure than of pain ; and evil, when 
 its painful exceed its pleasurable consequences. It be- 
 comes, consequently, of the first Importance to possess an 
 
 Lte standard by which the amount of pleasure and 
 pain likely to result from certain actions, ami the relative 
 
 value of tin- two qu intities, may be measured. This de- 
 nim Bentham has attempted to supply in a manner 
 
 thai constitutes the most original am! chat icteristic feature 
 
 of his theory ami system. The first item of this moral 
 
 arithmetic is w hat is Intended for an exhaustive en mm ra- 
 tion of all the pleasures and pains of which human nature 

 
 VIRTUE. 
 
 is susceptible ; in the next, he proceeds to furnish a method 
 of determining their comparative value. For this purpose 
 it is necessary to take into account the following consider- 
 ations : I. VVhat are the intrinsic circumstances of the 
 pleasure itself which can augment or diminish its value ; 
 and these are, ], intensity; 2, duration; 3, certainty; 4, 
 proximity, or remoteness; 5, fecundity, or the probability 
 of its immediate pleasures engendering others more remote ; 
 G, purity, or whether its pleasures are mixed or not with 
 more or less of pain. II. VVhat circumstances are likely to 
 affect the sensibility of the agents, and so to modify indi- 
 rectly the result. These are of two kinds, individual and 
 general : to the former belong temperament, constitution, 
 habits, intellectual development, and other traits of personal 
 character : those of the latter order are little more than 
 generalizations of the first, and are — sex, age, education, 
 profession, climate, national character, government, and re- 
 ligion. III. What are the consequences which, going be- 
 yond the immediate objects of the action, remotely affect 
 others more or less numerous, and even the whole of society. 
 By allowing their due weight to all these particulars, Ben- 
 tham pretends that any ordinary capacity may form a cor- 
 rect estimate of the real tendency of actions, and thereby 
 arrive at that general utility which it is the proper end of 
 morality to secure. ( Treatise on Murals and legislation.) 
 
 The recognition of a principle of action independent of 
 self-love will afford a general characteristic of the remain- 
 ing theories. Some of these, however, place the origin of 
 the disinterested determination in a perception of moral good 
 and evil by the intellect or reason; while others explain 
 the distinction by certain facts which take place within the 
 sensibility or emotive part of man, so that the disinterested 
 determinations which result proceed from an instinct or 
 sentiment. These two classes may be conveniently desig- 
 nated the rational and the sentimental or instinctive. Of 
 instinctive theories, however, while some are content with 
 referring the moral principle to an original and admitted 
 tendency of human nature, such as sympathy or benevo- 
 lence, others have derived it from a new and peculiar 
 faculty. 
 
 To begin with the former class. According to Smith 
 (born 1723, died 1790), when we are in the company of an- 
 other who is sensibly affected with any sentiment or passion, 
 our nature spontaneously, and without the intervention of 
 reason or will, tends to reproduce in ourselves the same sen- 
 timent or passion ; and not only have we this disposition to 
 sympathy, but we even feel a pleasure in finding ourselves 
 to be brought thereby into harmony with those around us. 
 Indeed, so strong and so instinctive is the desire for such 
 union between our own minds and those of others, that 
 when we are under any strong emotions in the presence of 
 another who is unable to conceive anything that approaches 
 to the same degree of violence with our own, in such a case 
 we involuntarily and unconsciously lower our passion to 
 that pitch in which the spectator can go along with it. 
 The spectator, on the other hand, seeing what we suffer, 
 endeavours to enter into our sentiments, and rises by an in- 
 stinctive complaisance to the level of them. In regard to 
 those objects which have no peculiar relation either to our- 
 selves or others, this sympathy is simple. In whatever de- 
 gree, for instance, the love of truth may he felt, it will not 
 directly affect the happiness of any one ; it cannot excite any 
 feeling but a simple emotion of sympathy. It may, there- 
 fore, be allowed to appear as it is felt, because there is no 
 reason either of instinct or of reason to suppress it. There 
 are, however, certain internal dispositions which excite a 
 twofold or even a triple sympathy, which are all of the same 
 kind ; thus, when we see a man animated with sentiments 
 of charity and love, pity and benevolence towards his fel- 
 low men, we are affected by a twofold sympathy, directly 
 with the benevolent disposition, and indirectly with the 
 gratitude which is due from its objects. As, then, the two 
 mutually strengthen each other, the benevolent dispositions 
 evidently awaken the highest degrees of sympathy, and, 
 consequently, they contribute most of all to effect that per- 
 fect harmony of sentiments and affections to which all men 
 instinctively aspire. But, on the other hand, there is a di- 
 vided sympathy. Suppose the case of merited anger ; on 
 the one hand we sympathize with the passion of anger, and 
 on the other with the object of it, and with the sufferings 
 which it may bring upon him. These are the elements of 
 moral approbation and disapprobation. We approve those 
 sentiments of others in which we ourselves are able to par- 
 ticipate ; and when this sympathy is pure our approbation 
 is unqualified, but mixed with disapprobation when our 
 sympathy is divided. But farther, when we witness, for in- 
 stance, an act of benevolence, we sympathize not only with 
 the feelings of the actor, but also with the emotion of the 
 party benefited. Now this emotion is gratitude ; but what 
 else is gratitude but an instinctive desire to do good to the 
 benefactor 1 Consequently, as we participate in the feel- 
 ings of the obliged party, we wish to do good to the author 
 
 of the obligation : we feel that he ynerits it in reward for 
 the good which he has done. As to the judgment which 
 we pass on our own sentiments and actions, Smith asserts 
 that if it were possible for a human creature to grow up to 
 manhood in some solitary place without communication 
 with his species, be could no more think of his own char- 
 acter, of the propriety or demerit of his own actions, of the 
 beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty or 
 deformity of his own face. Since society is essential to 
 sympathy, which is the rule or qualification of all our acts, 
 the solitary cannot arrive to a consciousness of that rule, 
 and by it appreciate the morality or immorality of his acts. 
 Our moral criticisms are first exercised upon the character 
 and conduct of others, but we soon learn that others are ex- 
 ercising their judgment upon our own : we become anxious 
 to know how far we deserve their censure and applause ; 
 and, in order to examine in tins respect our own passions 
 and conduct, we have the faculty of supposing ourselves 
 spectators of our own dispositions and behaviour, and so ex- 
 perience, in some degree, the same sensations as would be 
 excited in our minds by the sight of similar actions and feel- 
 ings in another. By virtue of this faculty we feel, as it 
 were, a sympathy with ourselves when we have acted well, 
 and are led to suppose that all other spectators would be 
 similarly affected. This consciousness of unison between 
 our own conduct and the sentiments of our fellows consti- 
 tutes the pleasure of rectitude. And farther, by aid of the 
 same principle by which we judge of the actions of others, 
 we feel that we have a right to pronounce our own also to 
 be good. This is a source of inward tranquillity and satis- 
 faction, while the least suspicion of the contrary gives rise 
 to the pains of remorse. In manhood, indeed, when ex- 
 perience has drawn a system of general rules from the oc- 
 casional judgments of sympathy, and established them in 
 the mind, a new source of pleasure arises. We have now 
 an intellectual perception also of the conformity of the act 
 with the law of morality ; and, independently of the in- 
 stinctive approbation, the reason also awards to it its sanc- 
 tion. This rational perception is wanting in the infantine 
 and uncultivated mind : but it is invariably found wherever 
 education or experience has stored the mind with the gen- 
 eral maxims of morality which are primarily founded on 
 the instinctive emotions. The act of reason in approbation 
 is simply a perception of the agreeableness of the act with 
 the moral laws, and therefore implies them. Lastly, the 
 act itself appears by its very nature to be part of a system 
 of conduct fitted to establish a perfect agreement of senti- 
 ments among mankind; and this universal harmony being 
 eminently beautiful in itself, we judge, in virtue of tliis per- 
 ception, the act in question to be not only good but even 
 beautiful. This is the principle of moral beauty, which is 
 the origin of every other species of the beautiful. ( Theory 
 of Moral Sentiments.) 
 
 The doctrine of a moral sense owes its origin to Lord 
 Shaftesbury (born 1671, died 1713). According to this 
 writer, the human dispositions are of two kinds — the social 
 or benevolent, and the personal or selfish. The former lead 
 us to desire the welfare of others simply for its own sake 
 and without regard to our own interests. In the develop- 
 ments of these affections the soul takes part, and some are 
 naturally agreeable and others disagreeable to it; of the 
 former it approves, but disapproves the latter. As, then, 
 these dispositions are a source of pleasure to the soul, there 
 must be in it some faculty distinct from the dispositions 
 themselves, by virtue of which they become agreeable or 
 otherwise, and which performs the same office in their case 
 as they do with respect to their immediate objects. This 
 faculty Shaftesbury calls a sense which he characterizes, 
 from its mode of operation, as reflex, and from its object- 
 matter as moral. The dispositions which this reflex sense 
 approves or disapproves are morally good or evil : virtue 
 consists in yielding to the former, but resisting the latter. 
 Between goodness and virtue there is agreement, but not 
 identity ; the former being merely a constitutional predomi- 
 nance of the benevolent affections in the character and con- 
 duct, the latter being the same state produced by the opera- 
 tion of the conscience or moral sense, which, when the per- 
 sonal affections are of equal force with the social ones, in- 
 terposes its authority, and inclines the balance in favour of 
 the latter. 
 
 Butler (born 1G92, died 1752), in the same manner divides 
 the principles of action into those which lead directly to pri- 
 vate good, and those which promote immediately the good 
 of the community ; but of both he shows with great origin- 
 ality that they are alike disinterested. The objects of both 
 classes of passions are outward things, which are sought as 
 ends in themselves and without any regard to their tendency 
 to promote happiness, which is the proper end of self-love. 
 This, again, is distinguished by Butler from selfishness, 
 which consists in the weakness of the public affections and 
 the undue strength of personal desires. Self-love, or an en- 
 lightened regard to our general happiness, is not a vice; 
 
 1311
 
 VIRTUE. 
 
 whereas selfishness is utterly at variance with the happi- 
 r.e- of him who harbours it. since without the gratification 
 
 Of the benevolent feelings it is impossible to attain to the 
 greatest satisfaction of our nature, of which thev arc a part. 
 But, besides these personal ami social instincts and self-love, 
 Butler discovers in man another faculty, which by it= very 
 nature is supreme over all others, and authoritatively ap- 
 proves or disapproves both the affections of our minds and 
 the actions of our lives. This principle is conscience. Its 
 perceptions are immediate, and its very Idea implies that 
 supremacy and authority are essential to it. (Sermons at 
 the Rolls "Ckapcl.) 
 
 The first object of Hutcheson (born 1694, died 1747) is to 
 show that the very frame of our nature which determines 
 us to pursue happiness for ourselves, also determines us 
 both to esteem and t" benevolence on their proper oc ■ isions. 
 But besides these original desires, he shows that there 
 arise, in consequence of them, secondary desires of every- 
 thing useful to gratify the primary ones. But there is also 
 in man an idea of moral good which can be explained by 
 neither of the former. By a careful analysis, Hutcheson 
 shows that by moral good we understand neither what gives 
 pleasure by satisfying our benevolence, nor what is simply 
 good toothers; nor is it what is useful to others or agree- 
 able to the spectators; nor, lastly, is it a conformity to the 
 •will of Cod, or to law, or truth, or order; it is simply what 
 the word itself expresses, which is simple and original and 
 inexplicable by any other. From this originality and sim- 
 plicity of the term, Hutcheson argues that it must be per- 
 ceived by a sense, because the senses alone are percipient 
 of simple qualities ; and by a special sense, since the quali- 
 ty apprehended by it difiers from all other objects of sensa- 
 tion. Farther, he observes that this perception is attended 
 witlt pleasure, which is the property of all sensuous per- 
 ceptions ; and that as moral good is an end and motive of 
 action, it must be apprehended by a sense, since the under- 
 standing can neither propose the ends of human activity nor 
 exercise any influence on the will. Again, the pleasure 
 which accompanies the perception of good, being a conse- 
 quence of the discovered quality, necessarily presupposes it ; 
 therefore it is impossible to resolve moral good, or the ap- 
 probation which we award to it, into that pleasure; this 
 would be to resolve the cause into the effect, and the con- 
 sequence into the principle. As the qualities which it is 
 the province of the moral sense to discover belong to the in- 
 ternal affections and emotions, it is internal and not exter- 
 nal, although, like the outward senses, it is capable of im- 
 provement by education and habit. This sense is designed 
 to govern all the others, and we have an immediate con- 
 sciousness of its authority. Reason is the servant of this 
 sense, its only office being to discover and to combine the 
 means necessary to the attainment of the objects which 
 the moral sense approves of. The object of this approba- 
 tion is benevolence alone : every action or measure which 
 has in view our own advantage is, simply on that account, 
 morallj wrong; it may be innocent — it cannot be virtuous. 
 {Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue.) 
 
 According to Hume (born 1711, died 1776). all the mental 
 qualities and actions which are generally approved of by 
 in the circumstance of being useful to so- 
 ciety. The fact that the different degrees of moral appro- 
 bation correspond to the degrees of utility, affords an ex- 
 planation of the greater merit ascribed to the benevolent 
 : for these tend to the happiness of many, and in- 
 deed of all ; whereas the personal affections tend to that of 
 the agent alone. Vet even the latter are in a degree meri- 
 torious, inasmuch a^ they are useful to one, and they are 
 only to be blamed when they are entertained at the sacri- 
 fice of the social feelings. The pursuit of self-interest is in 
 the latter case culpable, although in itself it is not only in- 
 nocent, but praiseworthy: for we admire in any character 
 certain qualities, such as prudence, for instance, merely be- 
 cause they appeal fitted to promote his personal welfare. 
 In short, whatever is useful is morally good, and is only to 
 
 be disapproved when it. is preferred to what is more useful. 
 That which judges of utility and the contrary is reason ; but 
 if we approve of one and disapprove of the other, and call 
 the former good, but the latter evil, this is in virtue of a 
 primary sentiment of our nature, which leads us 
 the useful to the hurtful, us we prefer what is sweet to 
 
 what is bitter. This instinct, however, is distinct from and 
 
 frequently opposed to Belf-love; tor this would lead us to 
 love what Is useful toourselvi ^, ami not what is useful in 
 
 ■ olutely and independently of any reference to our 
 own advantage. This instinct is commonlj called con- 
 science, or the moral faculty, but more frequently designated 
 by Hume us benevolence or humanity, inasmuch as its ob- 
 ject is the good of mankind generally. As to the idea of 
 moral obligation, it is simply a conception of tiie understand 
 ing. What i< honoured bj this name i j , he says, nothing 
 more than the undoubtedly correct view, that there i- more 
 happiness in obeying the impulses of the mora! sense than 
 
 1312 
 
 in following the dictates of self-love. The reason is incapa- 
 ble of exercising any influence on the will. What deter- 
 mines us when we resolve to act rightly is me re I \ tie- 
 charm which utility exercises on the mind, and the force 
 of certain dispositions which propel us to seek the good of 
 ourselves and others, and are invariably second 
 promptings of conscience. {Inquiry concerning the Princi- 
 ples of Morals.) 
 
 Mackintosh (born 17(m, died 183-21 asrrees with all the wri- 
 ters of the instinctive school in den} Ing conscience to be either 
 a state or act of the understanding : but he differs from one 
 form of the sentimental theory by denying that man has 
 any special organization tor moral perception, while he 
 equally dissents from the other view, which would refer 
 these perceptions to some one of the original and admitted 
 sentiments of our nature. Butler and Stewart bad shown 
 that self-love is a secondary principle ; and Hartley had ex- 
 hibited the important part which association plays in the 
 formation of our passions and affections, and even of our 
 sentiments of virtue and duty. This view was farther de- 
 veloped by Mackintosh, who declared conscience itself to be 
 a similar derivative. In the same manner he says that 
 in the formation of self-love the desire which originally 
 attaches to external objects is transferred to the pleasure 
 which results from their attainment ; so in the case of con- 
 science the agreeable and disagreeable sensations which be- 
 long naturally to certain actions is transferred to the voli- 
 tions which determine conduct, so that the latter become 
 at last the immediate objects of love and repugnance. In 
 this manner there is formed by association a number of sec- 
 ondary desires and aversions, whose proper object is voli- 
 tion, and which collectively form that interior principle 
 called conscience, which judges, without regard to conse- 
 quences, unerringly and authoritatively. As to the action 
 of conscience on the will, this is composed both of the pecu- 
 liar energy of the primary dispositions, which it causes to 
 triumph, and of the pleasures naturally attached to them, 
 as well as those which are produced by the gratification of 
 the secondary affections. Accordingly, Mackintosh strongly 
 insists upon the distinction between perception and emotion, 
 and declares that the phrase association of ideas, as over- 
 looking this distinction, conveys but a partial and incom- 
 plete view of the truth. He therefore proposes to substitute 
 for it association of thoughts with emotions and with each 
 other, but at the same time declares that the term "associ- 
 ation" very inadequately indicates that perfect combination 
 and fusion which occurs in these operations of the mind. 
 For the moral faculty is properly and intelligibly spoken of 
 as one. Now it is as common in mind as in matter for a 
 compound to have properties not to be found in any of its 
 constituent parts : the originally separate feelings are so 
 completely blended together that they can no longer be dis- 
 joined from each other. Thus the sentiment of moral ap- 
 probation, formed by association out of antecedent affections, 
 may become so perfectly independent of them that we are 
 no longer conscious of the process by which they were 
 formed. It is in this mature and sound state of nature that 
 our emotions at sight of right and wrong are ascribed to con- 
 science. And although this supreme arbiter and judge of 
 human conduct does not supersede the ordinary motives of 
 virtuous feelings and habits, which are the ordinary motives 
 to good actions, it yet exercises a lawful authority over them. 
 Whatsoever actions and dispositions are approved by con- 
 science acquire the names of virtues and duties ; they are 
 thereby pronounced to deserve commendation, and we are 
 justly considered as under a moral obligation to practise the 
 actions and cultivate the dispositions. The peculiar charac- 
 ter of the moral sentiments is their exclusive reference to 
 Hates of the will, and this is a character both of the private 
 desires and social affections, and, indeed, among the many 
 dissimilar elements that enter into the formation of con- 
 science, this is the only common property that the mind can 
 discover. Hence, however, the facility with which general 
 terms, at first limited to relations between ourselves ami 
 Others, are gradually applied to any voluntary acts and dis- 
 positions: it is thus that prudence and temperance, for in- 
 stance, become objects of moral approbation. On the other 
 hand, as the will is the sole means of gratifying any passion, 
 the power of conscience i< coextensive with the whole man. 
 It is a universal principle, because will is the universal 
 means. And as, when the mind is in a healthy state, no- 
 thing is Interposed betwi en it and the will, the' dictate of 
 , is immediate]} followed by a determination of 
 will ; conscience is thus at once universal, independent, and 
 commanding. Lastly, as Mackintosh held that utility, as 
 tending to promote the greatest happiness of the species, is 
 the criterion! Of morality, lie naturally felt himself called 
 upon to explain the fact, that, while the moral approbation 
 involves no perception of a beneficent tendency, there is, 
 nevertheless, a striking coincidence between that principle 
 and the moral sentiments. He replies that it is true that 
 conscience itself rarely contemplates so distant an object as
 
 VIRTUE. 
 
 the welfare of all sentient beings, but that all its elements 
 are invariably tending to this end. The social affections 
 promote happiness, so far as their foresight and power ex- 
 tend; the rules of justice are conducive, if not necessary, to 
 the well-being of society; even the angry passions, so far 
 as they are ministers of morality, are employed in removing 
 hindrances to the welfare of ourselves and others; and if 
 the private passions terminate in the happiness of the indi- 
 vidual, this is yet a part of the general happiness. And al- 
 though this beneficent tendency be not one of the natural 
 objects of conscience, because our voluntary acts are not 
 felt to affect it, yet little is left to reason to perform : which 
 is, to discover merely the truth, that the acts of those who 
 labour to promote separate portions of happiness must in- 
 crease the amount of the whole. (Dissertation on the 
 Progress of Ethical Philosophy.) 
 
 The distinctive characteristic of the rational theory of 
 morality is, that it considers the idea of good to be an 
 a priori conception of reason, in which the idea of obliga- 
 tion is necessarily and essentially implied. As to the na- 
 ture of the idea itself, two opinions have been held. While 
 some moralists of this school pronounce it to be simple and 
 immediate, others resolve it into some higher notion of the 
 intellect, from which it derives at once explanation and 
 authority. 
 
 The most distinguished representatives of the latter 
 opinion are Clarke and Wollaston ; while the former has 
 found able advocates in Cudworth, Price, and Stewart. 
 
 According to Clarke (born 1675, died 1729), the universe 
 is an assemblage of objects held together by certain mutual 
 relations which result from their respective natures; but as 
 the nature or essence of things is immutable and real, and 
 the essence is the principle of the relations, the latter must 
 be equally real and immutable; and as they must have 
 been always present to the Eternal Mind, they are also eter- 
 nal. Now, as soon as reason conceives these relations as 
 constituting the laws of individual things, and the order of 
 the universe, they immediately appear to command the re- 
 spect of every free and rational agent. Hence the obliga- 
 tion on every creature capable of thought to act conformably 
 to those relations ; and every act agreeable to them is judged 
 to be good, and evil if opposed to them. Now, moral good 
 being the conformity to the relations of objects, these, while 
 they constitute, serve also to explain, all duties. Thus, the 
 true nature of God and man, and their reciprocal relations, 
 being known, the duties of man towards God are at once 
 discoverable. In the same way the duties of man to his 
 fellows similarly suggest themselves from a consideration 
 of their relations as equally free and independent beings; 
 and as the latter relation is one of equality, whereas that 
 between God and man is one of inequality, the difference 
 between the two classes of duties which those relations re- 
 spectively engender is at once conceivable. In confirma- 
 tion of this view of the moral principle, Clarke appeals to 
 the historical fact of the gradual development of moral ideas 
 among mankind : for the knowledge of the nature of things, 
 and their consequent relations, is neither natural nor im- 
 mediate to the mind, but is gradually unfolded by observa- 
 tion and science, which are more or less complete accord- 
 ing to the degrees of its culture. The evolution of moral 
 science, although subsequent to that of nature, nevertheless, 
 being once awakened, is promoted by its progress, and keeps 
 pace with the advancement of civilization. [Being and at- 
 tributes of God: Evidence of Natural and Revealed Re- 
 ligion.) 
 
 Wollaston (born 1659, died 1724), makes morality to be 
 conformity to truth. In support of this view he asserts that 
 actions, equally with words, are but signs, and that conse- 
 quently every true proposition, i. e., one which expresses 
 things as they are, may be contradicted by deeds as well as 
 by words. To violate a compact, for instance, is simply to 
 deny by that act that there is any such compact subsisting. 
 He then asserts that no act, whether word or deed, of any 
 free and rational agent to whom moral good and evil are im- 
 putable, which interferes with any true proposition, or de- 
 nies any thing to be as it is, can be right. For, 1. If a false 
 proposition be wrong, the act which implies, or is founded 
 on it, cannot be right. 2. Whatever interferes with a true 
 proposition, which expresses the relation between the sub- 
 ject and attribute as it is in nature, must, therefore, interfere 
 with nature, and is consequently unnatural, or wrong in na- 
 ture. 3. An act which contradicts a true proposition con- 
 tradicts what is ; and is, therefore, a revolt against God, the 
 author of whatever is. 4. To deny things to be as they are, 
 is a transgression of the great law of our nature — the law 
 of reason. What is said of acts inconsistent with truth may 
 be said of omissions to act, since by these, also, true propo- 
 sitions may be denied to be true. For instance, whoever 
 having engaged to do some certain act, nevertheless volun- 
 tarily omits to do it, behaves himself as if there had been no 
 such promise or engagement. Having thus established his 
 theory, he proceeds, like Clarke, to show that it is agreea- 
 
 ble to facts, and especially with that of the progressive de- 
 velopment of morality. For morality being simply the 
 truth expressed in action.it implies the knowledge of truth; 
 and consequently the improvement of the moral percep- 
 tions must be proportional to the progress of science. It 
 also affords an explanation of erroneous views in morality, 
 and of the difference so universally drawn by the common 
 sense of mankind between error and vice. If it is possible 
 to err in morals, this is because the mind is liable to err in 
 science, and not to see tilings as they actually are. To err 
 in morals is but to affirm practically a false position : hence 
 the act may be evil, but the agent is not culpable, since his 
 error is involuntary. Lastly, Wollaston maintains that his 
 theory, far from being inconsistent with the acknowledged 
 characteristics of the idea of moral good, affords the only 
 just explanation of them. The truth is immutable, because 
 it expresses the unchangeable nature of things, and there- 
 fore the ideas of moral good are immutable. Hence, too, 
 the same eternal distinction between moral good and evil as 
 between truth and falsehood. Whatever, in short, may be 
 predicated of truth, is applicable to the moral principle ; 
 and its foundations are as valid and imperishable as those 
 of science itself. (The Religion of Nature.) 
 
 The other form of the rational theory, which explains 
 the idea of good to be an immediate conception of the in- 
 tuitive reason, intelligible in itself, and incapable of defini- 
 tion, now remains for elucidation. According to Cudworth 
 (born 1617, died 1688), certain universal and absolute ideas 
 exist from all eternity in the Divine mind, from which the 
 human intellect emanates ; and, therefore, by its nature 
 possesses these ideas antecedently to experience. They 
 remain dormant, it is true, until outward objects call them 
 forth : but when once awakened, they immediately apply 
 themselves to things, and give them a significant character, 
 which in themselves they do not possess. Cudworth's 
 chief object in advancing this theory of intellection, was to 
 exempt the ideas of right and wrong from the arbitrary and 
 relative character with which the sensuous doctrines of 
 Hobbes had invested them. Accordingly, he shows that 
 no relation of human will or pleasure can constitute these 
 ideas. Positive laws, he urges, do not oblige by their mere 
 enactment, but by virtue of the natural ideas of justice 
 and obligation which they imply. Neither is this idea the 
 mere creature of man's reason, for this does but conceive it, 
 and, by applying its unchangeable standard to actions and 
 characters, appreciates and judges them. Lastly, this idea 
 is simple and indefinable, and inseparably combined with 
 that of obligation. Hence every virtue assumes the char- 
 acter of a duty, and is as unalterable as good itself. (Eter- 
 nal and Immutable Morality.} 
 
 Price (born 1723, died 1791), ascribes all simple ideas to 
 two faculties — sense and understanding. The latter sees 
 things as they are ; the former perceives the effects only 
 that they produce on the sensuous organization. The 
 ideas of the understanding consequently express realities 
 which are independent of man, whereas those of the latter 
 are sensations which would be different if man's sensuous 
 organs were changed. Now the question of the objective 
 reality and immutability of the ideas of right and wrong 
 reduces itself to the inquiry into their origin. According to 
 Price, they belong to the understanding as a faculty of in- 
 tuition or immediate power of perception, distinct from the 
 understanding as a reasoning or deductive faculty. The 
 doctrine which would assign them to sensation as their 
 origin has its source in the fact that the moral perceptions 
 are invariably attended with agreeable or disagreeable 
 emotions, and the exclusive consideration of this circum- 
 stance. But when men declare gratitude to be a virtue, 
 and ingratitude a vice, they intend to signify not merely 
 that they produce emotions in their own minds, but that 
 they are naturally virtuous and vicious in themselves. If 
 by virtue and vice nothing more be meant than certain 
 mental affections, then, in that case, our moral judgments 
 would be infallible, and the same act might with equal 
 truth be the subject of the most conflicting estimates, and 
 all things would be indifferent in their own nature, since 
 the understanding, which alone apprehends things as they 
 are, could see in them neither good nor evil. Moreover, in 
 this case, they would be w ithout authority ; for what obli- 
 gation can there be to do what is pleasing, or to forbear 
 what is displeasing"? But these ideas are both immutable 
 and imperative : they are immutable, since they are real 
 qualities of actions, and every real quality is a part of the 
 nature of things, which is immutable. God may destroy 
 the things themselves, but he cannot cause them to be 
 what they are not. After establishing the rational origin 
 and immutable character of the moral perceptions, Price 
 proceeds to explain the manner in which they are appre- 
 hended by the intuitive reason. As the sight of an event 
 suggests the idea that it must have taken place in time, and 
 thereby we arrive at the idea of duration, in the same way 
 certain actions of free and rational agents are immediately 
 4 N 1313
 
 VIRTUE. 
 
 apprehended to be good nr evil, and the ideas of right and 
 wrong arise in the consciousness. As to the notions of 
 moral beauty and deformity, these we ascribe to good and 
 evil actions in virtue of the pleasure and pain which ac- 
 company, but yet are distinct from the inception of right 
 and wrong. In contemplating the actions and affections of 
 moral agent-, wo have both a perception oftheund 
 ing and a feeling of tin heart : the latter are the effects of 
 Uie former" and partly depend on the positive constitution 
 of our nature, and partly on the essential congruity of ob- 
 ject and faculty. The former are wholly inexplicable, and 
 the only account we can give of them is — such is our frame ; 
 so God" has seen tit to make us. Hut there are some ob- 
 jects and ideas which have a natural fitness and unfitness 
 to please our mind, and such is the nature of certain ac- 
 tions that when perceived by a rational being, there must 
 result in him certain emotions and affections. These are 
 at first of a purely intellectual kind ; but, as such, they are 
 too weak to govern and actuate mankind, and they are 
 therefore combined with a stronger excitement, and we are 
 endowed with certain special instincts which impel us to 
 goodness, and by means of these we are effectually moved 
 towards their proper objects. As to duty or obligation: 
 this idea is so intimately allied to that of good, that one 
 cannot appear without the other. Obligation to action and 
 lightness to action are plainly coincident and identical. It 
 is not plainer that fisure implies something figured, than 
 that Tightness implies oughtness. Rewards and punish- 
 ments suppose in their very ideal moral obligation, and are 
 founded upon it. They do not make it, but enforce it, or 
 furnish additional motives to comply with it. They are 
 the sanctions of virtue, but not its efficients. The ideas of 
 good and ill desert are equally immediate; for they are 
 really nothing less than a species of the ideas of right and 
 wrong; although there is this difference in them, that 
 while the latter are properly ascribed to actions, merit and 
 demerit are applicable to agents or persons only. We have 
 an immediate approbation of making the virtuous happy, 
 and discouraging the vicious, apart from all consequences. 
 The conception of virtue is totally distinct from the fact 
 that virtue is a source of pleasure ; fur it is one thing to find 
 by experience that the tendency of virtue is to the happi- 
 ness of the world, and vice to its misery, and another to 
 conceive that virtue is by a necessary truth deserving of 
 happiness. Neither does it result from the view that virtue 
 is of public utility: for. even though this consideration 
 may incline us to wish good to the virtuous, yet are we an- 
 tecedently moved to the same wish by the more immediate 
 and more simple consideration that he is virtuous, and as 
 such, without any other consideration, we pronounce him 
 deserving of honour. Lastly, Price makes liberty and in- 
 telligence to be essentially necessary to the morality of the 
 agent, and rightly distinguishes absolute virtue, which is to 
 act voluntarily and consciously in conformity with the 
 moral laws, from practical virtue, or acting on a belief of 
 good in supposed conformity to good, (View of Principal 
 Questions niul Difficulties in Morals.) 
 
 Stewart (born 1753, died 1838,) distinguishes two ques- 
 tions in the fundamental problem of ethics — that of the na- 
 ture of good, and that of the faculty which discerns and 
 judges of it. With respect to the 'first, he teaches that 
 upon observation of certain actions the idea of good arises 
 in the mind. This idea represents a certain quality of the 
 actions themselves, and inherent in them, like the primary 
 qualities of bodies, and therefore independent of the sen- 
 suous percipient, and not like the secondary qualities, mere 
 relations between us and the actions. As to the nature 
 of these qualities, they are, like the ideas which we have 
 of them, perfectly original, simple, ami irreducible, and 
 consequently indefinable. He farther shows, after Price, 
 
 that it is impossible to explain the terms good and evil ex- 
 cept by synonyms, or by substituting tor the ideas which 
 
 they represent some of the circumstances which ai c pa 
 
 ny the perception of them. As to the second question, 
 Stewart argues that good being a simple and real quality 
 
 in actions, it is impossible to refer the idea of it to any 
 faculty Which is not a source Of Original ideas, and which 
 does not apprehend the real and inherent qualities id' ob- 
 jects, it is, therefore, impossible to refer it to a sense- 
 such as that of taste or smell, which do not reveal the re.rl 
 nature of objects, hut only the effect which they produce 
 in the perceiving Bubject; nor to reason— if by this term 
 we understand nothing more than the faculty which sei/.es 
 
 the relations and deductions of ideas previously establish 
 
 «d, because the idea oft; 1 is simple and original, and not 
 
 one of relation and consequence ; hut if by sense uu un- 
 derstand a faculty analogous to that which perceives the pri- 
 mary qualities of bodies and their existence — or if by rea- 
 son we mean the intuitive and understanding which fur- 
 nishes the simple, primary, and original ideas of time, 
 
 nd causation— then the idea, of good ami evil may 
 I*.- referred to either. If Stewart inclines, nevertheless, to 
 
 1314 
 
 VISIBLE. 
 
 favour the claims ot reason, he yet declares the question fo 
 be unimportant when once it has been admitted n 
 and evil are simple and indefinable. (Philosophy of the 
 Active iiml Moral Powers.) 
 
 In this exposition, the first object has been to jive a cor- 
 rect and impartial view of the several theories which have 
 been proposed of the nature of virtue and of the moral per- 
 ceptions. Their comparative merits have been left to the 
 reader's judgment, unbiassed and undisturbed by any criti- 
 cal estimate by the writer himself, except so far as his 
 arrangement of the subject matter necessarily implies his 
 own opinion. (Cf. Kitter, History of Ancient Philosophy ; 
 Mackintosh, Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy ; Sehleier- 
 macher, Kritik dcr F.thik : Jouffroy, Droit Naturel : 
 Cousin, Cours de Philosophic Morale : and the articles 
 Ethics and Schellino in this work.) 
 
 VIS. (Lat. force or power), in Mechanics, is synony- 
 mous with force. The term is chiefly used by the older 
 writers, and is applied by them to divers kinds "of forces or 
 powers. Thus, vis acceleratrii, accelerating force; vis 
 inertia; resistance ; vis motriz, moving force, &c. Vis 
 mortua and vis viva, are terms which were used by Leib- 
 nitz and his followers ; the former signifying a pressure, 
 and the latter the force of a body in motion estimated by 
 the distance the body goes to. About the beginning of the 
 last century, a keen dispute arose among mathematicians 
 with respect to the manner in which the forces indicated 
 by those terms ought to be estimated. It began with B 
 prize essay by John Bernoulli on the " Investigation of the 
 Laws of the Communication of Motion," and was carried 
 on for many years with great asperity. The question was, 
 whether the force of a moving body is proportional to the 
 square of the velocity, or to the simple power only of the 
 velocity. No controversy, says Playfair, was ever carried 
 on by more illustrious disputants: Maclaurin, Stirling', 
 DesagUliers, .Turin, Clarke, Mairan. were all encased on 
 the one side ; and on the opposite were Bernoulli, Herman, 
 Poleni. S'Gravesende, Muschenbroek. Tne dispute was 
 taken up as a point of National honour. Germany. Hol- 
 land, and Italy declared for the ris viva : England stood 
 firm for the old doctrine ; and France was divided between 
 the two opinions. (Dissertation on the Progress of Math. 
 and Phys. Science, Ency. Brit.) The difference in this 
 case, as in most other disputes of a similar kind, arose from 
 the parties not understanding each other. When the effect 
 of a body in motion is measured by the distance to which 
 it goes, the effect is proportional to the square of the veloci- 
 ty : if measured by the time that elapses before the motion 
 is destroyed by a resistance of uniform intensity, it is as the 
 velocity simply. Both measures may be considered as cor- 
 rect, and they are not inconsistent when rightly under- 
 stood. (Playfair's Nat. Phil., vol. i., p. 56.) The vis vica, 
 considered as a power residing in a moving body, is other- 
 wise called impetus. See Force. 
 
 Vl'SCOUiS'T. A title of honour ; in its original signifies 
 tion, the delegate of a count (vice-comes), and applied to 
 governors of towns and districts under the authority of that 
 officer. In England, the appellation of vice-comes, or \ is- 
 counte, in Norman French, was long used to designate the 
 sheriff" of a county (the vicegerent of the earl) before it be- 
 came a title of peerage. It is the most modem of English 
 honours in the latter sense ; and was first conferred by let- 
 ters patent on John Lord Beaumont, and the heirs male of 
 his body, by Henry VI., in 1440. For the rank of the vis- 
 count, see Precedency. 
 
 visum - . One of the three principal deities of the Hin- 
 doo mythology, the other two being I'rama and Siva. He 
 is commonly called the Preserver, the other two being re- 
 spectively the Creator and the Destroyer. The great ob- 
 jects of bis providence are brought about by bis successive 
 incarnations or avatars, in which he appears and acts on 
 earth. Nine of these have taken place. The last is said to 
 have been the appearance of Buddha, which is supposed by 
 some teamed orientalists to have taken place about A. D. 
 1(114; and hence the Buddhists reject the Yedas. which 
 were compiled before that event. [S i Vedas.) The tenth 
 avatar of Vishnu is yet to take place, when he will appeal 
 on a white horse, with a blazing scimitar, for tin' everlast- 
 ing punishment of the wicked. One of the incarnations of 
 Vishnu is the celebrated Juggernaut, whose temple and 
 
 worship bold >uch a prominent place in Indian superstition. 
 
 • in the great annual festival in his honour, all distinctions 
 of castes ami classes are forgotten, and even on that occa- 
 sion the Brahminlcal Hindoos ami the followers of Buddha 
 cease their religious hostilities. The word Juggernaut sig- 
 nifies literally Lord of the Universe; and it is said that on 
 the day be expired. Buddha assumed this appellation, ex- 
 Claiming, "O Universe, lam thy Lord." 
 
 VTSIBLE. Capable of being seen. Objects an' visible 
 or otherwise, according as they emit or reflect a sufficient 
 
 quantity of light to make a sensible impres-ion on the retina 
 of the eye. Accoiding to Newton, colour is the proper ob-
 
 VISION. 
 
 j«ct of sight; Ihe visibility of an object must therefore de- 
 pend on its transmitting to the eye rays of a different colour 
 from those which proceed from the surrounding objects. 
 
 VI'SIOX. In Optics, the faculty of seeing. Philoso- 
 phers have disputed much respecting the means of vision, 
 and its seat in the eye. The Platonists and Stoics held 
 vision to be effected by the emission of rays out of the eyes. 
 The Epicureans supposed vision to be performed by the 
 emanation of images or corporeal species from objects to 
 the eye ; and the Peripatetics differed in opinion from the 
 Epicureans by supposing the species received by the eye to 
 be incorporeal. .Modern philosophers agree in referring the 
 cause of vision to the impressions of light on the eye ; but 
 whether this impression is made by material particles 
 emanating from a self-luminous body, and reflected from 
 visible objects, or by the medium of a fluid of great elasti- 
 city exciting the eye by the vibrations communicated to it 
 by the luminous body, is a question which is still undeter- 
 mined. (See Light.) In what manner the eye, or the par- 
 ticular part of it affected by the light, conveys to the brain 
 the impressions it receives from the luminous rays, is a 
 question which philosophy has not yet solved, and will 
 probably never be able to solve. 
 
 Seat of Vision. — The retina of the eye, on which an in- 
 verted image of external objects is formed, has usually been 
 regarded as the seat of vision ; but this opinion was long 
 ago brought into doubt by the accidental discover} 7 of Mari- 
 otte, that the base of the optic nerve is insensible to the 
 rays of light, and consequently incapable of conveying to 
 the brain the impression of vision. But the retina, being 
 only the extension or contraction of the optic nerve, Mari- 
 otte inferred that if the former were the true seat of vision, 
 that part of it at the entrance of the nerve, and where it 
 exists in the greatest quantity, and where precisely vision 
 is wanted, ought to be at least as sensible to the rays of 
 light as the other parts. Mariotte, therefore, concluded 
 that the choroid coat which lies immediately below the re- 
 tina, and lines the whole bottom of the eye excepting the 
 place at which the optic nerve is inserted, is the real seat 
 and cause of vision. (Priestley on Vision, Light, and 
 Colours, p. 722; or Hutton's Dictionary.) The opacity of 
 the choroid coat, and the transparency of the retina, which 
 render it an unfit ground for the reception of images, furnish 
 arguments in support of this view ; and an interesting fact 
 was observed by Sir D. Brewster which points to the same 
 conclusion. He observed that in young persons the choroid 
 coat, which is generally supposed to be black, and to grow 
 fainter by age, reflects a brilliant crimson colour, like that 
 of dogs and other animals. Hence, if the retina is affected 
 by rays which pass through it, this crimson light, which 
 must necessarily be transmitted by it, ought to excite the 
 sensation of crimson, which he found not to be the case. 
 (" Optics," Cab. Cycl., p. 291.) 
 
 M. Lehot, a French writer, has recently attempted to 
 prove that the seat of vision is in the vitreous humour ; and 
 that instead of seeing a flat picture of objects, we actually 
 see an image of three dimensions. To produce this effect, 
 he supposes that the retina sends out a number of small 
 nervous filaments, which extend into the vitreous humour, 
 and convey to the brain the impression of all parts of the 
 image. (Id., p. 292. For further information on this sub- 
 ject, see Jurin's Essay on Distinct and Indistinct Vision, 
 in Smith's Optics ; Robins' Tracts, vol. ii. ; a paper On 
 Vision, by Dr. T. Young, Phil. Trans., 1793 ; Morn on the 
 Seat of Vision. 8vo, 1813.) See Optics. 
 
 VISION, BEATI'FIC. In Theology. The doctors of 
 the church distinguish three manners of seeing or knowing 
 God : which they call, 1. Abstractive vision ; i. e., through 
 the consideration of his attributes. 2. Beatific or intuitive 
 zision ; that which the faithful enjoy in heaven. (1 Cor., 
 xiii., 12.) The belief termed Catholic by the Romanists is, 
 that this vision is accorded to the just, who die without 
 leaving a sin unexpiated, immediately on their departure. 
 The Greek church holds that they do not enjoy it until after 
 the general resurrection. This is one of the opinions con- 
 demned by the Council of Florence in 1439 ; and its deci- 
 sion is confirmed by that of Trent. 3. The third kind of 
 vision, or comprehension, is that which belongs to God, who 
 alone can know Himself as He is. Prophetic vision is only 
 the knowledge of future or distant events, given by inspi- 
 ration. 
 
 VISITATION. In Ecclesiastical Law, the inspection 
 by the bishop of the several parishes in his diocess; or by 
 an archbishop of the dioceses in his province. By the an- 
 cient canon law visitations were to be held once a year, and 
 by the personal repairing of the ordinary to each parish ; 
 but the modern practice, which appears to have come gradu- 
 ally into use, owing to the extent of dioceses, is to summon 
 the clergy from several parts to one convenient place. The 
 times of episcopal visitations are now usually fixed in this 
 country about Easter and Michaelmas. By can. 60. of the 
 English Church, such visitations for the purpose of conflrm- 
 
 VIVACE. 
 
 ation must be triennial at least. The care of the ancient 
 parochial institutions has by degrees devolved on the arch- 
 deacons. They are bound to see that the offices of the 
 church are duly administered ; to keep account of the orna 
 ments, vestments, &.c, appertaining to the churches ; to 
 examine into the state of repair of parsonages, church- 
 yards, &x. ; and to receive presentments of excesses com- 
 mitted by ecclesiastical persons. Ecclesiastical corporations, 
 such as conventual bodies, had usually their special visitors 
 appointed by the founder; as is the case at present with 
 colleges in our universities, hospitals, &.C. 
 
 Visitation. A festival of the Western Church, in hon- 
 our of the visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth ; said to 
 have been first instituted among the Franciscans by Saint 
 Bonaventure, general of that order. It is celebrated on the 
 2d of July. A female religious order was founded in Savoy 
 in 1010, by St. Francis de Salis, in honour of the visitation. 
 VISUAL ANGLE, in Optics, is the angle under which 
 an object is seen, or the angle formed at the eye by the rays 
 of light coming from the extremities of the object. Visual 
 rays are the lines of light coming from an object to the eye. 
 VI'TAL VESSELS. A name given by Schultz to cer- 
 tain vessels ramifying in all directions in plants, especially 
 near the surface, and conveying latex, which that physiolo- 
 gist calls a vital fluid. The milk-vessels of spurges are vital 
 vessels. 
 
 VITE'LLUS. In Botany, a name given to the fleshy sac 
 that is sometimes present in seeds ; interposed between the 
 albumen and the embryo, and enveloping the latter. It ia 
 the enlarged sac of the amnios. 
 
 VITILI'GO. (Lat. vitulus, a calf.) A disease of the 
 skin, giving it a white appearance somewhat resembling 
 that of calves. 
 
 VI'TIS. (Celt, gwid, a tree.) The grape-vine is doubtless 
 a native of Asia Minor, although its universal cultivation 
 renders it no longer possible to distinguish the wild from 
 the domesticated kinds. It is the type of the Vitaceous 
 order, which consists of plants climbing by tendrils, and 
 producing small green flowers, succeeded by succulent fruit. 
 None of the species are, however, to be compared with the 
 true grape, Vitis vinifera, for quality; the best of the 
 American species being disagreeable to the taste, and some 
 of the order even acrid. The reputed varieties of grape are 
 innumerable, if we are to believe the writers on the subject; 
 1400 being cultivated in the garden of the Luxembourg alone. 
 There is no doubt, however, that many of these are repeti- 
 tions of each other. When the pulp is fleshy and sweet, 
 and the skin thick, raisins are prepared from the fruit ; and 
 when it is watery and less sweet, with a thin skin, grapes 
 are best suited for wine. The currants of the grocers are 
 the dried berries of a small variety of the grape cultivated 
 at Zante. 
 
 VITREOUS HUMOUR, so called from its glassy appear- 
 ance, is the third or interior humour of the eye, filling a 
 large portion of the eyeball, and greatly exceeding in quan- 
 tity the aqueous and crystalline humours together. Ac- 
 cording to Sir D. Brewster, the refractive power of the 
 vitreous humour is 1-3394. See Optics. 
 
 VITRIFIED WALLS or FORTIFICATIONS. An- 
 cient remains discovered in Scotland, constructed of stones 
 piled rudely upon one another, and firmly cemented together 
 by some matter which has been vitrified by means of fire. 
 They generally surround the top of some steep conical hill. 
 They have been discovered chiefly in the Highlands, but 
 also in Galloway. The vitrification is mostly external, the 
 interior of the walls being a mere heap of loose stones. 
 Daines Barrington considered the vitrification to be acciden- 
 tal, but his explanation of how it took place is not very 
 intelligible. (Archaologia, vol. vi.) It seems more reason- 
 able to suppose that the art was derived from observation 
 of the ease with which some kinds of earth containing much 
 iron ore are vitrified by fire, and that the process was ren- 
 dered easy by the quantities of wood which in early days 
 covered the Highlands. 
 
 VrTRI'NA. (Lat. vitrea, glass.) A genus of fresh- 
 water Gastropods ; so called from the extreme thinness and 
 fragility of the shell, and its watery- green appearance. 
 Vitrina pellucida and Vitr. elongata are natives of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 VITRIOL. (Lat. vitrum, glass ; from the glassy char- 
 acter of its crystals.) This term is applied by the old 
 writers to crystallized sulphate of iron, or green vitriol : 
 sulphate of copper and sulphate of zinc were afterwards 
 called blue vitriol and white vitriol. See Iron, Copper, Zinc. 
 VITRIOL, OIL OF. The old name of sulphuric acid, 
 which was originally obtained by distilling green vitriol. 
 See Sulphur. 
 
 VIVA'CE. (It. lively.) In Music, a term which, affixed 
 to a movement, denotes that it is to be executed by the per- 
 former in a lively manner. It is a mean between largo and 
 allegro ; but, if any thing, rather nearer the latter than the 
 former. 
 
 1315
 
 VIVERRID,E. 
 
 "VIVE'RRm.E. (Lat. viverra, a ferret.) Civet tribe. 
 The name of a tribe of Camivoroua Mammals, of which 
 tin- genua Viverra is the type. The characters are three 
 premolars above, and four below ; two tolerably large tuber- 
 culate molars above, one tuberculate and one sectorial 
 molai below , the tongue inset with firm papilla- ; claws 
 more or less retracted ; a large anal scent-gland and pouch. 
 
 VIVI'PAROUS, lieipara. (Lat. visits, «//(•<■, and pario, 
 I bring forth.) Those animals are so called which bring 
 forth their young developed and alive, and commonly ex- 
 tricated from the egg coverings; as all the Mammalia, 
 which were hence called Zootoka by Aristotle; many rep- 
 tiles, as the viper or " viviper;" some fishes, and numerous 
 invertebrate animals. In its restricted sense, the term sig- 
 nifies that mode of generation in which the chorion, or ex- 
 ternal tunic of the ovum, contracts a vascular adhesion 
 with the uterus; and hence only the Placental Mammalia 
 are truly viviparous, the rest being termed ovi-vivipaious. 
 
 VIZIR. (In Arabic, a porter ; and, by a singular meta- 
 phor, the title in various oriental countries of a minister 
 and councillor of state.) The grand khalifs had their vizirs, 
 who attained to the highest rank and consideration in their 
 stales, and were often more powerful than their masters ; 
 but alter the creation of the new dignity of Emir-ul-omrah 
 (commander of commanders), by Khalif Radhi, the older 
 title lost much of its consideration. In Turkey, the coun- 
 cillors of state who sit in the divan, generally eight in num- 
 ber, are styled vizirs ; and the chief among them vizir azeni, 
 rendered by us by grand vizir, which is the highest tempo- 
 ral dignity in the empire. 
 
 VOCATION". (Lat. voco, / call.) In Divinity, the 
 grace vouchsafed by God to any man in calling him from 
 death unto life, and putting him into the way of salvation. 
 It is also used for the call of the Holy Spirit, by which per- 
 sons are supposed to be initiated into the clerical order. 
 
 VOICE. The sound produced by the vibration of air 
 emitted from the lungs of animals, which vibration is 
 caused by an organ developed in the wind-pipe, called the 
 "larynx." Mammals, birds, and reptiles, are the only ani- 
 mals, which, according to the above definition, possess a 
 voice ; but many species of other classes produce peculiar 
 sounds, by which the individuals are attracted to each other, 
 or express their wants and feelings. A true organ of voice 
 includes the lungs, bronchi, trachea, larynx, and mouth. 
 The most essential parts are two vibratile chords, bounding 
 a slit shaped aperture, called the "glottis," and this may be 
 situated at different parts of the air-tube in different ani- 
 mals ; the portion of the tube between the glottis and the 
 oral outlet being the true sonorous instrument. In mam- 
 mals and reptiles the glottis is situated at the end of the 
 windpipe, which communicates with the bronchial tubes, 
 and consequently the whole trachea becomes, in this class, 
 part of the vocal instrument. The organ of voice in rep- 
 tiles consists of a simple larynx, without an epiglottis, and 
 in which the glottis is merely membranous, not provided 
 with fibrous vocal chords. Since neither fleshy moveable 
 lips nor soft palate exist in this class, the voice cannot un- 
 dergo any farther modification after its formation by the sim- 
 ple larynx. It consequently rarely rises beyond a hiss ; and 
 in the frog tribe, where the bones or gristles of the larynx 
 are largest and most complicated, and the vibratile mem- 
 brane of the glottis is best developed, the voice is only a 
 more or less noisy croak. 
 
 In mammals, the air driven by the muscles of expiration 
 from the lungs through the trachea strikes against the two 
 vibratile " vocal chords," which bound the sides of the 
 glottis ; and a voice is produced, varying in different ani- 
 mals, according to the power of regulating the degree of 
 tensions of the chords, and according to the size and shape, 
 and various complications of the laryngeal sacculi of the 
 pharynx, of the tongue, and of the mouth and lips. 
 
 The superior organization and mobility of the tongue and 
 lips enables man to modify his vocal sounds so as to render 
 them articulate, and adapted to express the ideas which it 
 is bis peculiar privilege to form. Although some quadru- 
 peds possess the imitative faculty, and can be taught to do 
 certain tricks, it would seem that the physical condition of 
 their vocal organs is an insuperable impediment to their 
 Imitation of the human speech. 
 
 The sacculi or membranous pouches which communicate 
 with the larynx in the chimpanzee, Drang, and most other 
 quadrumanous animals, together with their thicker and 
 more confined tongues and less flexible lips, are assumed to 
 constitute the impediments to speech in them; but it may 
 be doubted whether they have- the Imitative (acuity for 
 sounds possessed by the parrot or starling; and in respect 
 of their voluntary application of their vocal organs to speech, 
 ice of any such application is accounted for by 
 presuming that they have nothing to say. 
 
 In birds, which possess the most diversified and compli- 
 cated organ of voire, combined in some species with a hinli 
 imitativeness, instances are not uncommon, es- 
 13113 
 
 VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY. 
 
 penally in the parrot and crow tribe, of an acquired power 
 of forming articulate sounds superadded to the ordinary 
 voice. 
 
 VOIRE DIRE. (Norm. Fr. a corruption of vrai dire, to 
 speak the truth.) In Law, according to ancient practice, an 
 objection to the competency of a witness, in a trial at com- 
 mon law, could only be taken on a preliminary examination, 
 in which the witness was sworn to speak the trutl:, and then 
 examined touching his interest in the subject matter. The 
 same practice is still followed occasionally, although the 
 objection may now be taken when it arises on the examin- 
 ation in chief. 
 
 VOLATILE ALKALI. &v Ammonia. 
 
 VOLCA'N'O. See Geology. 
 
 VOLTA-ELE'OTRlC INDUCTION. The term induc- 
 tion, as applied to common electricity (of tension), has been 
 explained under the word Blbi tricity. By volta-electric 
 induction, we mean the electricity that is induced by a 
 proximate electric current. The phenomena thus produced 
 were discovered by Mr. Faraday in 1821, (Phtios. Trans.), 
 and were briefly as follows: A long copper wire wound in 
 the form of a spiral round n cylinder of wood ; a similar, 
 but perfectly separate spiral, was then wound upon the 
 same rod, the coils of each being interposed and close to 
 each other, hut nowhere in contact; the extremes of one 
 of the wires were then connected with the galvanometer, 
 and those of the other with a voltaic battery. At the mo- 
 ment of making the contact with the battery, as well as of 
 breaking it, the deflection of the galvanometer indicated a 
 current of induced electricity in the proximate spiral ; but 
 in the interval, that is, while the current of electricity was 
 continuing quietly to traverse, no deflection took place : the 
 induced current was found to be in one direction upon 
 making the contact, and m an opposite direction upon break- 
 ing it. 
 
 VOL'TAIC ELECTRICITY. The phenomena result- 
 ing from the evolution of electricity by chemical action, as 
 manifested by that important instrument of electro-chemical 
 research called the Voltaic Battery, are usually included 
 under the above term. Whenever substances act chemi- 
 cally upon each other, their electrical states are disturbed ; 
 but the electricity thus evolved is, in ordinary cases, so lost 
 and dissipated as to escape observation. It may, however, 
 be rendered manifest by the following simple arrangements : 
 When a plate of pure zinc (or of common zinc nibbed over 
 or amalgamated with mercury) is dipped into a glass of 
 very dilute sulphuric acid, little or no action Is observed ; 
 nor does any thing happen when a similar plate of silver is 
 placed in the same cup of acid, provided the metals be kept 
 apart from each other. But if, as in the annexed figure, 
 the zinc and silver be brought into contact, 
 at their extremities out of the liquid, the 
 water is decomposed ; its oxygen combines 
 with the zinc to form oxide of zinc, which 
 is dissolved by the acid ; and its hydrogen 
 passes over to the surface of the silver, 
 where it collects, and ultimately escapes in 
 gaseous globules. These phenomena are 
 further connected with the production of a 
 continuous current of electricity passing 
 from the zinc across the water to the sil- 
 ver, and again from the silver, by metallic 
 contact, to the zinc, in the direction represented by the 
 darts. It is not necessary tha.t the metals should be con- 
 nected exactly as represented in the above diagram; but it 
 is necessary to the establishment of the continuous electric 
 current that they should be somewhere in contact, or at 
 least connected by what is usually termed a perfect con- 
 duit ir. By modifying (as represented in the margin by 
 fig. 2) the preceding arrangement, so that the metallic con- 
 tact between the plates be made out of the vessel, namely, 
 at the point A, the electric current takes 
 the same direction, travelling through the 
 liquid from the zinc or generating plate 7, 
 to the conducting plate S, and through me 
 wires B and C back again to Z, as show n 
 by the darts. Here again 7. is oxidized and 
 - J, and hydrogen Is liberated upon 
 S; but the moment that the circuit is 
 broken, by parting the wires at A, these 
 actions i ease, i" cant e the electric current 
 ceases to flow. It is evidi at thai various substances may 
 be Interposed between iii" wires at A, <.i they may be im- 
 mersed into different liquids; and provided these are ca- 
 pable id' transmitting electricity, the current will still pass, 
 and its phenomena under a variety of circumstances may 
 he studied. In this arrangement the end of the wire B ia 
 the emitting, and of C the receiving point oi pole; hence 
 these have been termed, in reference to the common elec- 
 trical machine, the p« Uiv> and negativt pol s. Mr. Fara- 
 day, with a \iew of avoiding certain misapprehensions to 
 which these terms give rise, calls them the electrodes ; the
 
 VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY. 
 
 positive electrode he further terms the anelectrode, and the 
 negative the cutelectrode. See Anode. 
 
 In the preceding paragraph it has been assumed that the 
 generating metal is zinc, the conducting or conveying metal 
 silver, and that the intermediate liquid is dilute sulphuric 
 acid. A number of other metals may be substituted lor the 
 above ; namely, for the zinc, cadmium for instance, or iron ; 
 and for the silver, platinum, gold, or copper. Many liquids 
 may also be substituted for the dilute sulphuric acid ; the 
 requisite condition being that one of the metals shall be 
 chemically acted on, whilst the other is indifferent, or at 
 least not acted on by the liquid to the same extent. And 
 the current is always in the direction above represented ; 
 that is to say, passes from the metal most attacked to that 
 least attacked, whenever the communication is perfect or 
 the circle closed. In the above cases also certain forms of 
 charcoal, which are excellent conductors of electricity, may 
 be substituted for the conveying metal, or passive element 
 of the arrangement. Another requisite condition to the 
 phenomena properly called Voltaic is that the interposed 
 fluid shall conduct ; and further, that it shall be capable of 
 that form of decomposition which Faraday has designated 
 electrolysis, that is, resolvable into its elements by the elec- 
 tric current. See Electrolyte. 
 
 Such, then, are the conditions requisite for this evolution 
 of electricity. The existence of the electric current, and 
 its direction, may be rendered manifest in various ways : 
 the most striking is perhaps afforded by its magnetic effects, 
 as exhibited by the galvanometer. See Galvanometer 
 and Electro-magnetism. 
 
 The quantity of electricity generated in the above in- 
 stances depends chiefly upon the superficial extent of the 
 metals concerned, and upon the activity of the liquid acting 
 upon the generating metal ; and that it is considerable, even 
 where small surfaces and weak acids are used, is manifest 
 by the violence with which the magnetic needle of the gal- 
 vanometer is deflected. But in the above described ar- 
 rangements, the intensity of the electricity is very feeble ; 
 and in order to attain this, and to give the current that ap- 
 parent impetus which it requires to traverse bad conductors, 
 and easily to effect electrochemical decompositions, it be- 
 comes necessary to repeat the metallic alternations; or, in 
 other words, to employ a properly arranged succession of 
 generating, conducting, and electrolytic substances. This 
 leads to the grand discovery of Volta; namely, the con- 
 struction of the Voltaic Pile or Battery. 
 
 In this arrangement, which, like the simple circles, ad- 
 mits of infinite varieties, the metals generally used are zinc 
 on the one hand, and copper or silver or platinum on the 
 other. The alternations originally adopted by Volta, and 
 which are quite effectual, were zinc, silver, and flannel or 
 pasteboard soaked in acid ; and these were repeated ac- 
 cording to the effects that were to be obtained. The incon- 
 venience of arrangement led him, however, to various mo- 
 difications of it ; and, among them, to that represented in 
 the following diagram (fig. 3), which he called the crown 
 
 of cups (couronne des tasses), and which, slightly modified, 
 has since been very generally adopted. The flannel is re- 
 jected, and in its place a cup of dilute acid, or other proper 
 electrolyte, is substituted; so that each silver and zinc plate 
 are in metallic communication, though in separate vessels : 
 the arrangement being zinc, acid, silver; zinc, acid, silver, 
 &.C. Here the direction of the electric current is the same 
 as in the simple circle, namely, from the zinc through the 
 liquid to the silver ; but in this form of the apparatus, for 
 the mere convenience of carrying on the series, the con- 
 ducting wire connected with the first zinc plate has a super- 
 numerary - silver one attached to it, and that with the last 
 silver plate a supernumerary zinc plate ; so that much con- 
 fusion has arisen in regard to the direction of the current 
 in these cases, in consequence of calling what is here the 
 silver extreme the negative pole, and the zinc extreme the 
 positive pole ; whereas it is in fact the reverse, and the cir- 
 culation of the current goes on through the electrodes pre- 
 cisely as in the simple circle. But though the direction of the 
 current is the same, and the absolute quantity of travelling 
 or circulating electricity not increased, the case as regards 
 intensity is very different; and with numerous series ar- 
 ranged as above we obtain, on removing the electrodes 
 (which in this experiment ought to consist of pointed pieces 
 of well-burned boxwood charcoal) a little from each other, 
 a most brilliant and continuous current of fire, luminous, 
 
 so that the eye can searcely endure it, and capable of over- 
 coming obstacles and traversing conductors and electrolytea 
 in a way essentially different from that of the simple cir- 
 cuit. Yet, even with all these energetic phenomena, and 
 with a quantity of circulating electricity far beyond any 
 thing which the most powerful frictional machines can af- 
 ford, the intensity is still insufficient to penetrate a thin 
 layer of card or paper, or to make its way through non-con- 
 ducting obstacles, as it does in the case of the discharge of 
 the Leyden jar or battery. And now, if the hands be well 
 moistened with salt and water, so as to overcome the non- 
 conducting tendency of the cuticle, and the body be made 
 part of the circuit, an extraordinary and unendurable sensa- 
 tion is perceived, which is in fact a continuous shock. By 
 the same means wires may be ignited, metals burned, com- 
 bustibles exploded, magnets made, and galvanometers af- 
 fected at any distance from the pile, provided the conduct- 
 ing communication is perfect. (4.) 
 Thus it is that this power has «, V> ..... _*■>_ 
 been used to blast rocks, to ex- z f, ■ '.' ^'"T^tSt* 
 plode gunpowder under water, ^ 
 and to communicate telegraphic 
 signs, as in the arrangement of 
 Professor Wheatstone. 
 
 The modification of Volta's cou- 
 ronne des tasses, and the form of 
 voltaic apparatus in most general 
 use, is the annexed (fig. 4), in 
 which the plates are attached, in proper order and con- 
 nexion, to a piece of dry wood, so that they may at once be 
 plunged into the cells of the porcelain trough over which 
 they are suspended. Sometimes also plates of zinc and 
 copper soldered together are cemented into a wooden 
 trough with intervening cells, which, when required for 
 action, are filled with proper acid or saline solutions, as 
 shown in (fig. 5). 
 
 (5.) 
 
 
 ^2 
 
 An important modification, as regards the arrangement of 
 the plates in fig. 4, introduced by Dr. /q \ 
 
 Wollaston, is represented in fig. 6; in t , , 
 which the copper plate, instead of being f fc ■* 
 
 single, is doubled over the zinc plate, 
 actual contact being prevented by wood- 
 en cylinders placed between them. In 
 this way much of the electricity lost in 
 the preceding arrangements is brought 
 into circulation. 
 
 But the most important modification 
 of this instrument is that suggested by Mr. Daniell, and 
 which he terms " a constant battery." In all the preceding 
 arrangements the electrical power is liable to fluctuation; 
 and after a time various causes induce such a falling off of 
 its evolution as to render them inconvenient, or even use- 
 less, where continuous or regular action is required. In 
 Wollaston's battery, for instance, which is the best of 
 them, several circumstances combine to render it incon- 
 stant in its action: the adhesion of hydrogen to the copper 
 plate, and the precipitation of zinc upon it, the saturation 
 of the acid by oxide of zinc, and the local action which 
 common zinc induces, are perhaps the principal sources of 
 the above-mentioned irregularity and inconstancy. In Mr. 
 Daniell's arrangement those inconveniences are to a great 
 extent obviated ; and although it is more complicated than 
 the preceding, its constant and regular action, when it is 
 properly constructed, amply repays the additional trouble 
 and expense : there are, indeed, many investigations which 
 can scarcely be carried on without it. 
 
 The annexed diagram (fig. 7), which is intended to rep- 
 resent two cells of the constant battery, 
 may perhaps serve to illustrate the ar- 
 rangement. ,s, - 
 
 CC are cylindrical vessels of copper; I 
 E E smaller cylinders or tubes of porous 
 earthenware ; Z Z are rods of amalga- 
 mated zinc, which are connected by the 
 wires W \V with the next copper cylin- 
 der, and so on in succession. The por- 
 ous tubes are filled with dilute sulphuric 
 acid (about one part of acid to eight of 
 water) ; and the copper cylinders are 
 filled with a strong solution of sulphate 
 of copper, also acidulated by sulphuric acid : so that the 
 acid in the generating cells is separated from the solution 
 of sulphate of copper; but the porosity of the tubes allows 
 of their becoming so far imbued with the acid liquid as to 
 
 1317
 
 VOLTAIC ELECTRICITY. 
 
 a\lmit of the passage of electricity, the current being in the 
 direction of the darts. At the same time the sulphate of 
 zinc is prevented mixing with the sulphate of copper, and 
 thus all precipitation of zinc upon the copper prevented; 
 while at the same time the hydrogen evolved in the copper 
 cells or cylinders tends to reduce the oxide of copper, and 
 continuously to throw down a film of metallic copper, with 
 which they ultimately become lined. In proportion as the 
 sulphate of copper is decomposed, fresh portions of that 
 salt are added, and the acid in the generating cells requires 
 occasional renewal : for the former purpose there is a per- 
 forated receptacle or colander in the upper part of the copper 
 cell, which is kept tilled with crystals of sulphate of copper. 
 (See Vanitl/'s Introduction to Chemical Philosophy, p. 438.) 
 
 It has already been stated that, in all the ordinary forms 
 of the voltaic battery, two metals and an acid dissolved in 
 water are the essential elements. But it is by no means 
 necessary that two metals should be employed to obtain an 
 electric current; for it" only one metal be used, different 
 parts of which arc differently acted on by an acid or other 
 fluid, electricity will be evolved; according to the same law, 
 the portion of the metal most acted on becoming the gene- 
 rating element. Thus, a current is established when a 
 plate of clean zinc and one of oxidized or corroded zinc are 
 used ; or even when one of the plates is of cast and the 
 other of rolled zinc. So also when a stick of copper, clean 
 at one end and corroded at the other, is immersed in dilute 
 nitric acid, an electric current is produced. In all these 
 cases the surface most open to chemical action corresponds 
 to the zinc, and that least so to the silver of the above de- 
 scribed simple circles. 
 
 An electric current is also manifested when a single plate 
 of metal of uniform surface is acted on by two fluids exert 
 iirg distinct chemical actions upon it. If, for instance, a 
 vessel be half filled with a strong solution of sulphate of 
 copper, and then carefully filled up with dilute sulphuric 
 acid, so that the latter may lie upon but not mix with it, a 
 plate of iron immersed will be so acted on as to produce an 
 electric current; the upper part becoming the equivalent of 
 the zinc, and the lower that of the copper in the simple cir- 
 cle. A plate of copper immersed in the same way will 
 produce a similar effect, and metallic copper will be depo 
 sited upon its lower end. (See Faraduy's Researches, Phi- 
 losophical Transactions, 1840.) 
 
 The chemical powers of the electric currents produced 
 by and circulating under the circumstances above detailed 
 are to a certain extent, manifest by the phenomena of the 
 pile itself; but they are more especially illustrated by inter- 
 posing different substances between the electrodes in proper 
 Vessels, so that the changes which they suffer in the axis 
 of the electric current may be more conveniently and dis- 
 tinctly observed. Under these circumstances, we find that 
 all electrolytes must, to a certain extent.be conductors; and 
 that the same body in different states may either be or not 
 be an electrolyte, according as it has or has not a power of 
 conduction. Thus, water is a conductor and an electrolyte ; 
 but ice is a non-conductor, and therefore unsusceptible of 
 electrolysis. So also nitre, chloride, iodide, and bromide of 
 silver, and many other salts, require to be fused in order to 
 become susceptible of electrolytic action. It would more- 
 over appear probable, from Faraday's researches, that all 
 bodies susceptible of true or primary electrolytic action 
 (electric decomposition) must be compounds of single atoms, 
 or equivalents of their components (proto-compounds) : thus 
 protochloride and protoiodide of tin are decomposed, but 
 the bichloride and biniodide are not. Of this phenomenon 
 the ultimate etmse requires further investigation. The 
 principal apparent exceptions to it have been ranked by 
 Faraday among cases of secondary decomposition. Thus, 
 when common sulphuric acid, or oil of vitriol (which isr a 
 compound of 1 atom of sulphur, '.i of oxygen, and 1 of water, 
 or the ultimate elements of which are 1 atom of sulphur, 
 1 of hydrogen, and 4 of oxygen), is subjected to the electric 
 current, sulphur and hydrogen appear at the cathode (or 
 negative electrode), and oxygen at the anode (or positive 
 electrode). But in this case the sulphur is the result of the 
 action of the hydrogen upon the acid ; for in all cases of 
 true or primary electrical decomposition of the sulphurets, 
 the sulphur is evolved at the anode. 
 
 Not only, however, are the ultimate elements of binary 
 compounds thus evolved in obedience to certain uniform 
 laws, but proximate elements are also similarly separated. 
 Thus, when sulphate of soda, nitrate Ofpotassa, and other 
 neutral salts, are subjected in aqueous solution to tile action 
 
 of the current, the respective acids travel with the oxygen 
 to the anode, and the alkalies, oxides, or bases, with the 
 hydrogen to tin cathode* Faraday terms substances sus- 
 ceptible of these transferences ions, and those whicb go to 
 the anode anions ; those to the cathode cations ' thus doing 
 away with the less definite terms of electro negative and 
 electro-po itivi bodies. And he has drawn up me follow 
 leg table of simple and compound anions. 
 1318 
 
 VOLTATTPE. 
 
 Anions. 
 
 Oxygen. Sulphuric acid 
 
 Chlorine. Phosphoric, acid. 
 
 Iodine. Carbonic acid. 
 
 Bromine. Nitric acid. 
 
 Fluorine. Selenic acid. 
 
 Sulphur. Chloric acid. 
 
 Selenium. Boracic acid. 
 
 Cyanogen. Acetic acid. 
 
 Sulpho-cyanogen. Tartaric acid. 
 
 Citric acid. 
 
 Oxalic acid. 
 
 Hydrogen. 
 
 Potassium. 
 
 Sodium. 
 
 Lithium. 
 
 Barium. 
 
 Strontium. 
 
 Calcium. 
 
 Cations. 
 Nickel. 
 Antimony. 
 Bismuth. 
 Mercury. 
 Silver. 
 Platinum. 
 Gold. 
 
 Magnesium. Ammonia. 
 
 Manganese. Potassa. 
 
 Zinc. Soda. 
 
 Tin. Lithia. 
 
 Lead. Baryta. 
 
 Iron. Strontia. 
 
 Copper. Magnesia. 
 
 Cadmium. Alumina. 
 
 Cerium. Protoxides generally. 
 
 Cobalt. Vegeto-alkalies generally. 
 
 Analogy leads us to assume that all elementary bodies 
 are ions ; but this has not been experimentally proved in 
 regard to carbon, phosphorus, nitrogen, silicon, boron, and 
 aluminum. 
 
 VOLTA'METER. (Ital. volta, and Gr. /urpov, a mea- 
 sure.) An instrument contrived by Mr. Faraday for mea- 
 suring the voltaic electricity passing through it, and which, 
 being interposed in the course of the current used in any 
 particular experiment, serves as a comparative standard of 
 effect, or as a positive measurer of the electricity. 
 
 The indicating body used in this instrument is water 
 acidulated by sulphuric acid. The electrodes are plates of 
 platinum; and the quantity of electricity which has passed 
 is indicated by the quantity of the mixed srases (oxygen and 
 hydrogen, resulting from the decomposition of the water) 
 evolved, or, in other words, by the weight of water decom- 
 posed. When the quantity of evolved gases is small, the 
 voltameter represented in the margin is a good 
 form: a is a graduated straight tube closed at 
 the upper end, and including two platinum "• 
 electrodes, connected with the external wires 
 bb. This tube is fitted by grinding into one 
 mouth of the double-necked bottle containing 
 the acidulated water, and is filled by inclining* 
 it; so that when an electric current is passed \ I 
 through it the gases evolved collect in the up- >fl 
 per part of the tube and displace the dilute acid, 
 the stopper c being left open. When the grad- 
 uated part of the tube is filled with the mixed 
 gases the electric current may be broken by re- 
 moving the wires connected with b b, the stop- 
 per c replaced, and the meter-tube refilled by 
 inclining the instrument; a second measure of the gases is 
 then collected on re-establishing the circuit, and so on. 
 
 When large quantities of the mixed gases are to be mea- 
 sured, as in cases where the 
 current is left continuous for 
 several hours or days, a volta- 
 meter in the form of a small 
 retort may be used, set up in 
 the block or foot a, and the 
 evolved gases will then pass 
 by the tube b into the common 
 pneumatic trough, where they 
 may be received into a graduated jar and measured : r r are 
 the projecting wires h> which communication is made with 
 the platinum electrodes. 
 
 In using these and similar forms of aparatus for the elec- 
 tro-chemical decomposition of water, great care must be 
 
 taken that the electrodes are kept continually covered by 
 
 the water, and that their ends are never exposed to the 
 
 mixed .,'ases in the tube; for in that case they would beapt 
 to become heated, and even incandescent, in consequence 
 of the peculiar action of clean platinum on a mixture of 
 hydrogen and oxygen, and in such a case an explosion 
 
 might ensue. In these voltameters the contact of the elec- 
 tiodes i< prevented by inserting between them a small piece 
 of glass tube. 
 VO'LTATYPE, or ELECTROTYPE. It has been sta-
 
 VOLTATYPE. 
 
 ted under the article on Voltaic Electricity, that when 
 metallic solutions are subjected to the transmission of the 
 electric current, the metallic oxides which they hold are in 
 certain cases decomposed ; so that the metal in its pure 
 state is deposited upon the cathode, or upon what is usual- 
 ly termed the negative electrode. In these cases the me- 
 tallic deposition is usually a secondary effect, arising out of 
 the action of the hydrogen evolved at the cathode upon the 
 oxide of the metal. A good illustrative experiment of this 
 metallic precipitation consists in plunging two pieces of 
 clean platinum into a solution of sulphate of copper: noth- 
 ing happens. But if the electric current be transmitted 
 through the solution, so that these platinum plates may 
 form the electrodes, copper is immediately precipitated upon 
 the catelectrode or negative surface, the positive service or 
 anelectrode remaining clean. If the current be now re- 
 versed, the copper will be removed from the platinum plate 
 upon which it had just been deposited, and will be trans- 
 mitted to the clean plate ; and thus by reversing the direc- 
 tion of the electric current, the copper may be sent back- 
 wards and forwards, it always being deposited upon the 
 negative pole, or, in other words, upon that surface by 
 which the electric current leaves the electrolyte. A solu- 
 tion of sulphate of copper is particularly well adapted to 
 this experiment, especially if it be slightly acidulated by 
 sulphuric acid, inasmuch as it deposits the copper in a 
 clean metallic state; and by a continuance of the electric 
 current, and keeping up the strength of the solution by the 
 occasional addition of fresh portions of the salt of copper, 
 the metallic film upon the cathode may be obtained of any 
 required thickness, and may afterwards be peeled off" the 
 platinum surface. The texture of the deposited copper va- 
 ries with the power employed and with the temperature 
 and strength of the solution ; so that it may he obtained 
 hard, brittle, and crystalline, or malleable and tough, or 
 even pulverulent, according to the management of the ope- 
 rator. A low electric power, or rather a current of low 
 intensity, a moderately strong acidulated solution of sul- 
 phate of copper, and a temperature not below 60° or 70°, 
 are the circumstances under which the best deposit of cop- 
 per is usually obtained for the purposes to which this pro- 
 cess is commonly applied. 
 
 When the negative pole or cathode, instead of being, as 
 above represented, a plane surface of platinum, is irregular, 
 or worked into a pattern, or a medal or coin for instance, 
 an exact impression of the irregularities of surface, or of the 
 device upon the medal or coin, may be taken off on the pre- 
 cipitated copper; and to copies or plates of this kind the 
 term voltatype, or electrotype, has been more particularly 
 applied. Gold, silver, and other metals may, by proper 
 management, be substituted for copper, and thus a variety 
 of voltatypes may be obtained ; or, if the precipitated 
 metal be left upon the surface on which it is thrown down, 
 gilding, silvering, and coppering may be extensively and 
 beautifully effected. Thus it is that a new art of plating 
 has arisen also out of these electro-chemical actions. 
 
 We shall now proceed briefly to point out the manipula- 
 tion in a few of the principal applications of this new art, 
 and to describe the apparatus commonly employed ; illus- 
 trating the subject, in the first instance, by one of the sim- 
 plest cases, in which we will suppose that an impression in 
 copper is to be obtained from a copper medal, which, being 
 in relief, will of course yield an impression in indent: the 
 original being a cameo, the copy will be an intaglio. 
 
 The medal is first slung in a loop of annealed copper 
 wire, so that it may be conveniently suspended and made 
 electro-negative in the metallic solution ; the following 
 simple voltaic arrangements may then be used. 
 A is a glass cylinder (a common lamp-glass answers the 
 purpose), closed at bottom with a piece 
 of bladder, or with a plug of plaster of 
 Paris, and filled with dilute sulphuric 
 acid (1 of acid to 8 of water by measure) ; 
 Z is a piece of zinc immersed in the acid, 
 and connected by a copper wire with the 
 medal M; C is a jar nearly filled with a 
 strong solution of sulphate of copper, 
 acidulated by the addition of about a 
 tenth part of sulphuric acid. In this ar- 
 rangement, the acid in the generating cell 
 is prevented mixing with the solution in 
 the jar by the diaphragm of bladder or 
 ^-<Sr> [ plaster; which, however, when thorough- 
 ly wetted, suffers the electric current to 
 pass from the zince to the medal (or ne- 
 gative pole), and so through the wire, in 
 the direction of the darts, back to the zinc. In this way a 
 film of metallic copper is gradually thrown down upon M, 
 which goes on increasing, and which, when it is sufficient- 
 ly thick (perhaps in 24 or 30 hours), the wire with Z and 
 M at its ends is lifted out ; and by the point of a knife care- 
 fully applied, and aided, if necessary, by a file, the deposit- 
 
 ed copper is pulled off of 51, of which it presents a faith- 
 ful and minute copy or impression. To prevent the depo- 
 sition of copper upon the edges, and upon the reverse of the 
 medal, those parts should be covered with a varnish not 
 acted upon by the solution ; and the connecting wire should 
 also be similarly varnished, to prevent its receiving an un- 
 necessary incrustation of copper. In this way, by careful 
 management, any number of impressions may be taken 
 from either side of a medal without materially injuring the 
 original ; and for the medal any other metallic plate may 
 be substituted, provided its dimensions and weight be not 
 such as to render it inadmissible or inconvenient in this 
 form of apparatus. 
 
 But it often happens that the article to be voltatyped, as 
 this process is now called, is not a conductor of electricity ; 
 as, for instance, a seal, or sulphur or wax impression, or a 
 plaster cast of a medal or coin. In these cases the surface 
 is carefully covered by a film of the purest plumbago, or 
 black lead, which is applied by a soft brush, and which, 
 being a good conductor of electricity, renders the surface 
 equivalent to that of a metal, care being at the same time 
 taken that the conducting wire is in good contact with the 
 plumbago, so that the electrical current may be nowhere 
 intercepted by a non-conductor. Where the material of 
 the cast is porous, or permeable to water, it must be imbued 
 with melted wax or oil, or some kind of fatty matter ; 
 where plaster casts are used, melted spermaceti answers 
 best: the surface to be voltatyped is then carefully black- 
 leaded, and the process carried on as above. The use of 
 black lead, so extremely convenient in these and a number 
 of similar cases, was first suggested by Mr. Robert Murray, 
 and communicated by him to the Society of Arts, who 
 awarded a medal for the invention. 
 
 In the case of seals, coins, and other small articles, a 
 number of them may be put in process at once by the fol- 
 lowing modification of the above described apparatus. A is 
 a jar filled with a saturated and slightly acid solution of 
 sulphate of copper; B is a porous earth- 
 enware cylinder, similar to those used in 
 DanielPs constant battery, filled with di- 
 lute sulphuric acid. The articles to be 
 coated with copper are prepared as above 
 described, and attached to copper wires 
 having a small piece of zinc at their oth- 
 er end ; several of these may then so be 
 suspended round the porous tube as that 
 the zinc being in the acid, and the coin or 
 seal in the cupreous solution, the process 
 goes on until the voltatype is perfect. 
 
 When a number of "articles of different sizes are to be 
 voltatyped, the following is the preferable arrangement, 
 and is that which is generally used where the process is 
 employed upon a large scale ; as in preparing voltatypes 
 from wood-cuts, copper-plates, plaster casts, &c. 
 
 A is a trough of any required dimensions, made of slate 
 
 or wood, and filled with a proper solution of sulphate of 
 copper; C is a copper plate immersed in the trough, and 
 forming the positive electrode of the constant battery B (of 
 which one cell only is here represented, but of which two 
 or more may be employed as required) ; D D is a copper 
 rod forming the negative electrode, to which the articles to 
 be coated with copper are suspended by copper wires. 
 These several articles, previously properly prepared by the 
 means above described, are retained in the circuit till ade- 
 quately coated by copper. In this form of apparatus it is 
 not necessary to provide against the impoverishment of the 
 cupreous solution ; for in proportion to the quantity of cop- 
 per deposited upon the moulds is that which is taken up 
 from the plate C, and when this plate is so far dissolved as 
 no longer to form an effective electrode it must be replaced 
 by another. 
 
 Where other metals are to be employed, proper solutions 
 must be selected for the purpose, and the electric power 
 mollified accordingly : the weakest power, consistent with 
 the precipitation of the metal and the non-evolution of hy- 
 drogen at the negative electrode, is that which is generally 
 to be preferred. For gilding copper or silver, the solution 
 which is generally employed is a double cyanide of gold 
 
 1319
 
 VOLTI. 
 
 and potassium : it is made by dissolving about CO grains of 
 sulphuret or of oxide of gold in a pint of a solution of cy- 
 anide of potassium containing 1 part of the cyanide to 10 of 
 water. The sulphuret of gold is prepared by precipitating 
 a solution of perchloride of gold by sulphuret of potassium, 
 and washing the precipitate with hot water: the oxide of 
 gold may tic similarly prepared by precipitating the solution 
 of the chloride by carbonate of potassa at a boiling heat. 
 With this solution silver and copper may be effectively 
 gilded, and the thickness of the coat of gold may be car- 
 ried to any required extent. If it be desired to gild the in- 
 side of a silver vessel, the \essel may be filled with the 
 gilding solution, and connected by its outside with the neg- 
 ative electrode, a plate of gold immersed into the centre of 
 the solution in the vessel constituting the positive elec- 
 trode. 
 
 For covering or plating articles with silver, a solution of 60 
 grains of chloride or of oxide of silver in a pint of the solu- 
 tion of cyauide of potassium of the strength above stated is to 
 be used. In this case the article which is to receive the 
 deposit is made the negative electrode, and a plate of silver 
 may be used as the positive electrode. Here, as in the case 
 of gold, the plating may be carried to any extent, aud arti- 
 cles from which the silver has been abraded by wear may 
 easily he replated. 
 
 In all cases where silver or gold is to be thus voltaically 
 deposited so as to give a durable adhesive coating, the re- 
 ceiving surfaces must be perfectly clean; hence the neces- 
 sity of dipping them, in the first instance, into warm aqua- 
 fortis (or nitric acid diluted with three or four parts of wa- 
 ter), and then washing them in a large quantity of pure 
 water, previously to putting them into the solution: it is 
 also generally right to make the connexion with the batte- 
 ry, and immerse the positive pole, previous to putting the 
 article into the depositing liquid. Messrs. Elkington of Bir- 
 mingham, who have patented these operations, have pro- 
 duced a number of beautiful specimens both of gilding and 
 silvering, and have largely applied them in numerous pro- 
 cesses of the arts. 
 
 Mr. Palmer of London has made the most important ap- 
 plications of these precipitations to the purposes of the fine 
 arts, in volfityping the plates of engravings executed by 
 the first artists. In these cases much care and dexterity 
 are required in the manipulations, but the results are then 
 beautifully perfect. The first impression of the etched or 
 engraved plate is of course in relief, and serves as a matrix, 
 from which any number of impressions in indent (or fac- 
 simUes of the original plate) may be obtained. Mr. Palmer 
 has also invented various modifications of the process, full 
 descriptions of which would be inconsistent with our pre- 
 sent object, but which promise to render it much more ex- 
 tensively subservient to the purposes of the fine and use- 
 ful arts. Messrs. De la Rue have also carried these pro- 
 cesses to great perfection, and have extensively multiplied 
 their applications to various purposes of ornamental print- 
 ing. (See the article Voltaic Electricity in this Dic- 
 tionary. Also Mr. SMiiee's Elements of Electro-Mitallur- 
 gy, whose [■latinized silver battery is well adapted to most 
 of the preceding operations.) 
 
 VO'LTI. (It. turn.) In Music, a term directing that the 
 leaf is to be turned over. 
 
 VO'LUME. (I. at. volumen, from volvo, Troll.) A book. 
 Thus a library is said to consist of so many thousand vol- 
 umes, and a long work is divided for convenience into sev- 
 eral volumes. Every single roll of paper or parchment in 
 an ancient library, was, of course, equivalent to a single 
 book in one of our own; hence the name is derived. It 
 should seem that the books (in the sense of divisions of the 
 subject) of ancient works were originally actual volumes; 
 so that the History of Herodotus or Iliad of Homer con- 
 sisted of as many volumes, in ordinary writing, as books. 
 The French word tome (signifying, properly, a single vol- 
 ume of a work containing more than one) is derived from 
 the Greek rtuvuv, to cut or divide. 
 
 VOLU'TA. (Lat. voluta, a wreath.) A name applied 
 us to a genus of the Vtrmcs Tegtacea, including 
 those which have a univalve spiral shell, with on aperture 
 without a beak, and somewhat ctTuse ; and a columella 
 twisted or plaited, generally without lips or perforation. 
 The Mollusea thus characterized form a family in the Buc- 
 cinoid tribe of the Pectinibranchiate Gastropoda of Clavier's 
 system, and are distributed into the following subgenera: 
 Oliva, Brug. : Volttoria, Lam.; VoUtia, proper ; Oymbium, 
 Montf. ; Margineila, Lain.; Colombclla, Lam.; .Mara, 
 Lam.; Cance Uaria, Lain. 
 
 VO I.I IT.. I. at. volvo, I roll.) In Architecture, the 
 spiral scroll appended on each side to the capital of the 
 Ionic order. The Corinthian and Composite capitals are 
 
 rated with volutes; but their character « different, 
 th. ir size smaller, and they are always diagonally placed. 
 In the Corinthian order they are more numerous, and in 
 the Composite they are larger than in the Corinthian. 
 
 1320 
 
 VULCAN. 
 
 VO'LVA, or WRAPPER. A term used in di 
 fungi to denote the involucrum-like base of the - 
 .Igaricus. It was originally the bag enveloping the u hole- 
 plant, but was left at the foot of the stipes when the plant 
 elongated and burst through it. 
 
 VO'LVTJLUS. (Lat. volvere, to roll up, because it was 
 supposed to arise from twisting of the intestines.) See Iliac 
 Passion. 
 
 VOMICA. (Lat. vomo, I spit up.) An abscess of the 
 lungs. 
 
 YoMITO'RIA. (Lat. vomo.) In Architecture, the 
 openings, gates, or doors, in the ancient theatres and am- 
 phitheatres, which gave ingress and egress to the public. 
 
 VO'RTBX. (Lat.) An eddy or whirlpool; a body of 
 water running rapidly round and forming a cavity in the 
 middle, into which floating bodies are drawn. The term is 
 also applied to whirlwind. In the Cartesian philosophy, 
 vortex signifies a collection of material particles, forming a 
 fluid or ether, endowed with a rapid rotatory motion about 
 an axis. By means of this hypothesis, and the received 
 doctrine of centrifugal forces, a plausible explanation may 
 be given of the motion of the planets, which move nearly 
 in the same plane; but the motions of the comets which 
 traverse the heavens in all directions are inexplicable, and 
 In fact are inconsistent with the hypothesis. Descartes, 
 nevertheless, had the merit of attempting to show how the 
 universe might have assumed its present form and be pre- 
 served on mechanical principles. For an explanation of 
 the system of vortices, see Maclaurin's Account of Jft icton's 
 Philosophical Discoverit s. 
 
 VO'RTICEL, Vorticetla. (Lat. vortex, a whirlpool.) 
 The generic name of certain pedicellate Wheel Animal- 
 cules, which are provided with vibratile organs at their 
 anterior extremity, whose apparently rotatory actions pro- 
 duce little whirlpools in their vicinity, and thus attract the 
 particles of food. 
 
 VO'TIVE. (Lat. votum, vow.) In Numismatics, votive 
 medals are such as were struck in grateful commemoration 
 of any auspicious event, such as the recovery from sickness 
 of a prince, &c. ; especially those of the Roman emperors, 
 struck every five, ten, or twenty years, on which the public 
 vows on their behalf are recorded. The custom is said to 
 have originated in the repeated continuance of Augustus in 
 his high offices at the prayers of the people. A votive 
 tablet, picture, &c, is one dedicated in consequence of the 
 vow of a worshipper; in clasBiea] Europe some deity, in 
 modern Roman Catholic countries to saints. 
 
 VOU'SSOIRS, in Bridges, are the stones which imme- 
 diately form the arch, being of the shape of a truncated 
 wedge. Their under sides form the intrados or soffitt. The 
 length of the middle voussoir, or keystone, ought to be 
 about l-15th or l-16th of the span, and the rest should in- 
 crease all the way down to the imposts. Their joints 
 should be cut perpendicular to the curve of the intrados ; 
 consequently the angle of the sides is determined by the 
 curvature. (Hutton's Tracts, vol. i.) 
 
 VOW. (Lat. voveo, / coir.) A promise made to God 
 of a thing which we believe to be agreeable to him, and 
 which we are not on other grounds obliged to render to 
 him. This is what the Theologians understand by it, 
 when they say a vow is " promissio de meliore bono." To 
 promise God to do what he commands, or to avoid what he 
 forbids, is not a vow, because we are under nn obligation 
 so to act. (Diet, dc Theologie, Toulouse 1817.) The use 
 of vows is found in most religions. The Roman Catholics 
 adduce numerous passages from the Old Testament to 
 prove that vows are acceptable to God ; the Protestants on 
 the other hand reject the theory of vows as altogether 
 untenable. 
 
 VOWEL. In Grammar, a letter which can be pro- 
 nounced alone, thus distinguished from consonants, which 
 require to be sounded with the aid of a vowel. They are 
 divided in ancient prosody into long, short, and common 
 (ancipites), i. e., either long or short at pleasure. A dip- 
 thong consists of two voueN, of which the sounds run (or 
 are supposed to run) into one another. 
 
 vri.CAN. In Mythology, the Latin nnme for the 
 divinity called by the Greeks llephastus, the god who pre- 
 sided over the working of metals. He was also called 
 Mulcilier. He was the son of Jupiter, who, incensed at his 
 interference on the part of his mother Juno, cast him out 
 of heaven I lie fell in the isle of Lemnos, and broke his leg 
 in the fall. His feats as the iwtron of armourers and 
 Workers in metal, his marriage with Venus, and her infi- 
 delities, form the subjects of many of the besl known 
 classical stories. See Bryant, .Anc. .V;/f/i. vi., 115.) There 
 is about the character of Vulcan much of the usual confu- 
 sion belonging to Greek mythology. Cicero mentions three 
 Vulcan?, besides the son of Jupiter: one, the child of 
 LTranOJ ; another, of Nflus, who reigned in Egypt ; a third, 
 of Manalius. \ peculiarity attending the worship of Vul- 
 can was, that the victims were wholly consumed, in refer-
 
 VULPES. 
 
 cnce to his diameter as God of Fire. In sculpture, he is 
 represented as bearded, with a hammer and pincers, and a 
 pointed cup. He does not appear lame, as represented by 
 the poets. Cicero, however, praises the sculptor Alcamenes 
 for making his lameness observable without amounting to 
 deformity. The description of his cavern in the Isle of 
 Vulcan, or Hiera, in the 8th Book of the JEneid, is among 
 the best known passages in classical poetry. 
 
 VU'LPES. (Lat. a fox.) This has been made a sub- 
 generic term by those naturalists who so distinguish the 
 foxes from the dogs, jackals, and wolves, to which they 
 consequently restrict the term Cants. The grounds for the 
 proposed distinction are chiefly the form of the pupil of the 
 eye, which is vertical in the foxes, circular in the dogs ; 
 the lobes of the upper incisor teeth are less distinctly marked 
 than in the dog; the tail of the fox is longer and more 
 bushy ; its head broader, and terminated by a narrower and 
 more pointed muzzle ; its gait and attitude crouching. 
 
 VIJ'LPINITE ; so called from Vulpino, near Bergamo in 
 Italy, where it is found. An anhydrous sulphate of lime, 
 containing a little silica. It is sometimes employed by the 
 Italian artists for small statues and other ornamental work, 
 under the name of marmo bardiglio. 
 
 VU'LTUR, (Lat. a vulture.) The name of a Linnrean 
 genus of diumal Accipitrine birds, characterized by an 
 elongated beak, curved only at the extremity, and by having 
 a greater or less proportion of the head, and sometimes of 
 the neck, denuded of feathers. To the brief Linnaian 
 phrase descriptive of this genus it may be added, that the 
 power of the claws does not correspond with the bulk of 
 the body. The wings are so long that they are carried in 
 the half-extended state when the vulture walks on the 
 ground. In general, the birds of this group are of a cowardly 
 nature, living on dead carcasses and offal ; their gullet 
 dilates into a considerable crop; which, when distended 
 with garbage, projects above the furcular bone. When 
 gorged with food a foetid humour is discharged from the 
 nostrils, and the bird is reduced to a state of stupidity. The 
 vultures of Linnanis are divided into the subgenera Vidtur, 
 Cuv. ; Cathartes, Cuv. ; Sarcoramphus, Cuv. ; Percnopterus, 
 Cuv. ; Gypaetus, Storr. 
 
 w. 
 
 W. A letter found only in the alphabets of modern lan- 
 guages. In form, it resembles two Vs, and its English 
 name is derived from the fact of the letter v being identical 
 with u in the Latin, and in the more early form of the 
 English language. In German, w is pronounced like the 
 English v; the latter having the sound of/. When w 
 commences a syllable, it is a consonant ; but in all other 
 positions a vowel. 
 
 WACKE. (German.) A modification of basalt. 
 
 WAD, or WADDING. In Gunnery, a bundle of paper, 
 tow, old rope-yarn, or other loose matter, rolled up closely 
 together, and rammed into a gun after the powder to keep 
 it close in its chamber. From the experiments of Dr. Hut- 
 ton it does not appear that the wadding has any effect in 
 increasing the force of the charge. 
 
 WADD. A name occasionally given to plumbago, and 
 also to an ore of manganese found in Derbyshire, which 
 when mixed with linseed oil for the purpose of a paint is 
 apt to take tire. 
 
 WA'DERS, WADING BIRDS, Grallatores. An order 
 of birds, including those which have long legs naked from 
 above the distal or lower extremity of the tibia downwards. 
 See Grallatores. 
 
 WA'DSETT. In Scotch Law, a right by which goods 
 are pledged for the recovery of a debt, answering to the 
 English mortgage. 
 
 WA'GER OF BATTLE. The usage of deciding a civil 
 suit by battle was common to the jurisprudence of many of 
 the Teutonic tribes which established themselves in the 
 provinces of the Roman empire. It was especially favoured 
 among the Lombards ; and there is a celebrated passage in 
 the laws of their king Luitprand, in which, while he recog- 
 nizes the impiety of the custom, he professes his inability 
 to abolish it in consequence of the prejudices of his subjects. 
 In England, battle trial is not mentioned in any Anglo- 
 Saxon laws now extant; and its introduction is "therefore 
 attributed to William the Conqueror, although bearing in 
 his laws the Saxon name of "orneste," probably earnest. 
 (See Sir F. Palgrave on the British Commonwealth, chap, 
 vii., who believes that the Conqueror did no more than 
 confirm a usage already known to the inhabitants of Eng- 
 land. He supposes that battle in civil suits was regularly 
 joined in the Anglo-Saxon county courts.) Trial bybattle, 
 by the English common law, was used in civil cases only, 
 where issue was joined upon a writ of right, in which the 
 tenant pleaded the general issue, viz. that he had more 
 112 
 
 WAGES. 
 
 right to hold than the demandant to recover, which ho 
 offered to prove by the body of his champion ; for in civil 
 actions the combat was not between the parties themselves. 
 The champions were armed with batons and targets, and 
 the combat took place before the judges and Serjeants of 
 the Court of Common Pleas. The combatants were bound 
 to fight until the stars appeared in the evening ; and if the 
 champion of the tenant could either hold out so long, or 
 obtain the victory, the tenant prevailed in his cause. Vic- 
 tory was obtained either by the death of the champion, or 
 by his pronouncing the horrible word "craven," which 
 caused his principal the loss of his land, and legal infamy 
 to himself. The trial by battle was the only mode of 
 deciding a writ of right, until Henry II. introduced the 
 grand appeal or trial by inquest, and gave the tenant his 
 choice between them. The last trial by battle in the Court 
 of Common Pleas was in the 13th Elizabeth, 1571 ; but in 
 the Court of the County Palatine of Durham there was one 
 in 1638. Trial by battle in criminal cases is explicitly 
 noticed in the laws of the Conqueror. It took place on an 
 appeal, when the appellee of felony pleaded not guilty, and 
 declared he would defend the same with his body : as in 
 approvement, when a party arraigned of treason or felony 
 having become an approver by appealing, or accusing his 
 accomplices, the latter might in the same manner demand 
 trial by battle ; in which case the combat was between the 
 parties themselves. The last trial by battle awarded in 
 this country was in the case of Lord Reay and Mr. Ramsay, 
 in the 7th of Charles I. ; but the king, after having appointed 
 a constable to preside, revoked the commission. In 1818, 
 William Ashford having brought an appeal against Abra- 
 ham Thornton for the murder of his sister, the appellee 
 waged his battle. Judgment was stayed, in consequence 
 of a legal difficulty which arose in the case ; and in the fol- 
 lowing year an act was passed, by which appeals of treason, 
 felony, and other offences, and trial by battle on writs of 
 right, were abolished. 
 
 WAGER. In Law, wagers are valid, and may be made 
 subjects of action, unless they are on illegal matters. Illegal 
 wagers are of two kinds: such as are rendered expressly 
 void by statutes, and such as have an illegal or immoral 
 tendency. To the first class belong wagers on the event 
 of prohibited games ; wagers on horse races, if the sum 
 betted by either party be above £10, or on any horse race 
 not a bona fide race on the turf; of the latter class many 
 instances might be given. Anything that incites to a breach 
 of the peace or to immorality, or that has a tendency to 
 annoy the feelings of another or cast ridicule on him, is not 
 a legal subject of wagers. Wagers on merely speculative 
 subjects, not arising out of circumstances in which the 
 parties have an interest (for instance, on a point of law. or 
 on the amount of a branch of the public revenue), are of 
 too trivial characters to be enforced by legal proceedings. 
 When a wager is illegal, both parties may recover back 
 their deposits from a stakeholder. 
 
 WAGER OF LAW. See Compurgation. 
 
 WA'GES, in Political Economy, are the return made or 
 compensation paid to those employed to perform any kind 
 of labour or service by their employers. 
 
 In ordinary language, the term wages is usually employed 
 to designate the sums paid to aitizans or labourers employed 
 in manufactures, in household services, and in agriculture, 
 mines, and other manual occupations. Substantially and 
 in fact, however, it has a much more extensive application : 
 the salaries of public functionaries of all sorts, and the fees 
 of lawyers, physicians, and other professional men, are as 
 really wages as the sums paid by them to the menials in 
 their service, and depend on the same laws and principles. 
 "Every man," says Dr. Paley, "has his work. The kind 
 of work varies, And that is all the difference there is. A 
 great deal of labour exists besides that of the hands, many 
 species of industry besides bodily operation, equally neces- 
 sary, requiring equal assiduity, more attention, more anxiety. 
 It is not true, therefore, that men of elevated stations are 
 exempted from work ; it is only true that there is assigned 
 to them work of a different kind ; whether more easy or 
 more pleasant may be questioned ; but certainly not less 
 wanted, nor less essential to the common good." (Assize 
 Sermon, July 29, 1795.) 
 
 Rates of Wages in different Employments. — The wages 
 paid to the labourers engaged in different employments 
 differ so very widely, that at first sight it may seem to be 
 impossible to lay down any principles that should be gene- 
 rally applicable to them all. Such, however, is not the 
 case. The differences in question are apparent rather than 
 real ; and when the various favourable and unfavourable 
 circumstances connected with different employments are 
 taken into account, it will be found that the wages or earn- 
 ings of those engaged in them are very nearly the same. 
 
 If all employments were equally agreeable and healthy, 
 if the labour to be performed in each was of the same in- 
 tensity, and if each required the same degree of dexterity 
 4 N * 1321
 
 WAGES. 
 
 on the part of those employed, it is evident, sup- 
 dustry to lie quite free, that there could be no 
 permanent or considerable difference in the wages of labour; 
 for If those employed in a particular business were to earn 
 either more or less than their neighbours, labourers would, 
 in the former case, leave other businesses to engage in it; 
 and in the latter, they would leave it to engage in others, 
 until the increase or diminution of their numbers had 
 lowered or elevated wages to the common level. In point 
 of fact, however, the Intensity of die labour to be performed 
 in different employments, the degree of skill required to 
 carry them on, their healthiness, and the estimation in 
 which they are held, differ exceedingly; and these varying 
 
 circumstances necessarily occasion proportional differences 
 in the wages of the workmen engaged in them. Wages 
 are the price paid to the labourer tor the exertion of his 
 physical powers, skill and ingenuity. They, therefore, 
 necessarily vary according to the severity of the labour and 
 the degree of skill and ingenuity required. A jeweller or 
 engraver, for example, must be paid a higher rate of wages 
 than a common farm-servant or a scavenger; for a long 
 course of training being necessary to instruct a man in the 
 business of jewelling and engraving, were he not indemni- 
 fied tor the cost of this training by a higher rate of wages, 
 he would not think of learning so difficult an art, but would 
 addict himself in preference to such employments as hardly 
 require any instruction. Hence the discrepancies that ac- 
 tually obtain in the rate of wages are confined within certain 
 limits, increasing or diminishing it only so far as may be 
 necessary fully to countervail the unfavourable or favoura- 
 ble peculiarities attending any employment. 
 
 The following, according to Dr. Smith, are the principal 
 circumstances which occasion the rate of wages, in some 
 employments, to fall below or rise above the general average 
 rate of wages : 
 
 1st, The agreeableness and disagreeableness of the em- 
 plovtnents. 
 
 2d. The laziness or cheapness, or the difficulty and ex- 
 pense of learning them. 
 3d. The constancy or inconstancy of the employments. 
 4th. The small or great trust that must be reposed in 
 those who carry them on. 
 
 5th. The probability or improbability of succeeding in 
 them. 
 
 It would be useless, even if our limits permitted, to enter 
 into any lengthened details with respect to the variations 
 in the rates of wages arising out of the particular circum- 
 stances now enumerated. They have been fully illustrated 
 by Smith in the 10th chapter of his first book. Every one 
 must see that, cateris paribus, those engaged in a disagree- 
 ble or disreputable employment must have greater wages 
 than those engaged in such as are comparatively agreeable 
 and respectable. Wherever a comparative disadvantage 
 attaches to any branch of industry, it must be compensated 
 to those engaged by higher wages or profits, or both, other- 
 wise they would withdraw wholly from it. And on this 
 principle "it is plain that those engaged in a business or pro- 
 fession which it costs a great deal to learn, must be more 
 ainp'y remunerated than those engaged in a business that 
 may be learned with comparatively little trouble and ex- 
 pense. Inconstancy of employment must also, it is obvious, 
 be indemnified by a higher rate of wages during the period 
 of employment; and greater trust by requiring higher char- 
 acter must also he remunerated by higher wages. The 
 probability or improbability of success in different employ- 
 ments applies mostly in the higher departments of industry. 
 The instances are rare in which a person who is bound 
 apprentice to a tailor, shoemaker, or other individual en- 
 gaged in an ordinary business, fails of acquiring sufficient 
 proficiency to enable him to live by it. But it is far other- 
 wise in the higher departments ; and supposing an indi- 
 vidual is bound apprentice to a lawyer, physician, painter, 
 sculptor, player, &c, the chances are more than twenty to 
 one that he will not attain to distinction in his profession, 
 and perhaps five to one that he will not be able to live by 
 it. Hut, in professions where so many fall for one who 
 succeeds, that fortunate one should gain not only what will 
 Indemnify him for the expenses of his education, but also 
 all that has been laid out on the education of his unfortu- 
 nate competitors. Hence the comparatively large earnings 
 of successful lawyers, physicians, players, and so forth; 
 though it be, after* all, abundantly certain that they hardly 
 compensate for the losses of the unsuccessful candidates 
 fir wealth ami honours. 
 
 It will be found, therefore, taking all the circumstances 
 into account, that the rates of wages in different emploj 
 inn, pretty near an equality; and that the 
 
 higher rale in some, ami lower rate in others, is uniformly 
 ioned by certain contingent circumstances. 
 Bui without insisting farther on the causes of variation 
 from the common standard, we shall now proceed shortly 
 to inquire into the circumstances which determine this 
 1322 
 
 common standard, that is, into the circumstances which 
 determine the rat, 1 of wages paid to labourers engaged in 
 
 the common and ordinary departments of manufacturing 
 
 and agricultural labour, or in such as require no peculiar 
 skill or other superior quality, and have nothing peculiarly 
 disagreeable about them. 
 
 To facilitate the acquisition of clear and correct views 
 with respect to the circumstances which determine the 
 price of ordinary labour, wages may be considered in a 
 double point of view : viz. either (I.) as the sum which the 
 labourers receive at any given period in return tor their 
 services, or (II.) as the sum which the habits of society 
 render necessary to enable them to subsist and continue 
 their race. Wages, considered in the first point of view, 
 may be called market or actual wages ; and considered in 
 the second, they may be called natural or necessary wages. 
 I. Dr. Smith has said ( Wealth of Nations, p. 30, M'Cul- 
 loch's edit.), that the common or market rate of wages de- 
 pends everywhere upon the terms of the contract between 
 the workmen and their employers, lint we must not 
 thence infer that these terms are adjusted on any arbitrary 
 or capricious principle. In businesses of small extent, and 
 placed under peculiar circumstances, this may occasionally 
 be the case. But in the vast majority of cases, it is not 
 possible for any combination, whether of the masters or the 
 workmen, materially to affect the rate of wages. That 
 must always depend on the amount of capital devoted to 
 the payment of wages as compared with the number of 
 labourers. 
 
 That portion of the capital, or wealth of a country, which 
 the employers of labour lay out in the purchase of labour 
 may be much larger at one time than at another ; but 
 whatever may be its absolute magnitude, it obviously forms 
 the only source from which any portion of the wages of 
 labour can be derived. Np other fund is in existence from 
 which the labourers, as such, can draw a single shilling. 
 And hence it follows that the average rate of wages, or the 
 share of the national capital appropriated to tin employ- 
 ment of labour falling, at an average, to each labourer, 
 must entirely depend on its amount as compared with the 
 number of those among whom it has to be divided. 
 
 An increase of capital, or of the means of supporting and 
 employing labourers, is not therefore, as is so generally 
 supposed, always productive of an increased rate of wages. 
 It has this effect when the number of labourers remains 
 stationary, or when it increases in a less proportion than 
 capital; but not otherwise. Were capital and population 
 to increase or diminish in the same proportion, the rate of 
 wages, or the quantity of necessaries and conveniences 
 falling to the share of the labourer, would undergo no 
 change ; hut if the mass of capital be, on the one hand, 
 augmented without a corresponding augmentation taking 
 place in the population, a larger share of such capital will 
 fall to each individual, or the rate of wages will be increas- 
 ed. And if, on the other hand, population be augmented 
 faster than capital, a less share will be apportioni i to each 
 individual, or the rate of wages will be reduced. The w ell- 
 being and comfort of the labouring classes are thus espe- 
 cially dependant on the proportion which their increase 
 bears to the increase of capital. There are, in tact, no 
 means whatever by which their command over the neces- 
 saries of life can be increased that do not. at bottom, resolve 
 themselves into an increase of capital as compared with 
 population ; and every scheme for improving the condition 
 of the labouring class, not bottomed on this principle, can 
 hardly fail to prove nugatory and ineffectual. 
 
 It is needless to enter into any disquisition with respect 
 to the circumstances which tend to increase capital. Suf- 
 fice it to observe, that its increase is always of the greatest 
 importance to the bulk of the population. It may not, in- 
 deed, occasion a corresponding increase in the demand for 
 labour; but it is, notwithstanding, sure to increase it con- 
 siderably, and consequently to improve the condition of the 
 labourers. Their condition may also be improved by a 
 ureater prevalence of moral restraint or of foresight in the 
 formation of matrimonial connexions; for, by lessening the. 
 rate at which population was previously increasing, such 
 increased restraint would tend to reduce the number of la- 
 buurrrs as compared with the demand, and would con- 
 tribute to Improve their condition in the same way as an 
 increase of capital. I In this ground, it is believed, that the 
 
 establishment of a proper sj stem of education might be 
 made to contribute, in enlightening the public as to the 
 
 governing cau-es of ihe rale of Wages, to increase thi- r 
 
 amount. It were right, certainly, that education should be 
 made to embrace such subjects. The causes of national 
 poverty should be explained to every one, that all may be 
 made aware "i" thi li existence and enabled, in some meas- 
 ure, to provide against them. It should be impressed on 
 the labouring classes that the means of Increased comfort 
 are, too very greal degree, in their own hands ; tliit what 
 others can do for them is but trivial compared with what 

 
 WAGES. 
 
 Ihey can do for themselves ; that the best institutions, and 
 the' most tolerant and liberal system of government, cannot 
 shield them from poverty and degradation, should their 
 numbers become too great as compared with the means of 
 Subsistence ; and that to obviate this, and to advance their 
 individual and collective interests, they should exercise a 
 reasonable degree of foresight in the formation of matri- 
 monial engagements, and should, if possible, endeavour to 
 make some previous provision against unfavourable con- 
 tingencies. We have already seen (art. Population in 
 this work), that the native sagacity of the bulk of the peo- 
 ple, and their laudable desire to preserve their present 
 position, or to rise to a higher, are powerful enough to 
 make the progress of population subordinate to the increase 
 in the means of subsistence. And it seems reasonable to 
 conclude, without overrating the power of education, that 
 the prudential virtues would acquire greater strength were 
 their importance and the influence they exercise over the 
 condition of society explained to and enforced on the atten- 
 tion of every one. 
 
 The laws with respect to corporations, apprenticeships, 
 combinations, &c, the effect of which on the market rate 
 of wages has been ably pointed out by Dr. Smith, have of 
 late years undergone very great modifications. The stat- 
 ute of the 5th of Elizabeth, regulating the duration of ap- 
 prenticeships in most common trades in England and 
 Wales, was repealed in 1814; the laws preventing volun- 
 tary combinations among workmen were repealed in 1824 
 (see Combination), and the privileges of the different cor- 
 porations have, in so far as matters t)f this sort are con- 
 cerned, ceased to be oppressive. A similar change has 
 been made in many of the continental states. The Revo- 
 lution swept off all the vexatious enactments with respect 
 to apprenticeships and corporations that formerly restricted 
 the freedom of industry in France; and they have also dis- 
 appeared in Prussia, the Netherlands, &c. The compul- 
 sory provision for the support of the able-bodied poor is the 
 only institution now existing in England, that seems to 
 have any very considerable influence over the rate of wa- 
 ges. See Poor. 
 
 II. But whatever fluctuations may take place in the 
 rate of wages, there is in all countries a limit below which 
 it is generally difficult to reduce wages for any considerable 
 period ; and below which they can never be permanently 
 reduced, without a change taking place in the habits of the 
 population. This limit forms what has been denominated 
 the natural or necessary rate of wages, and consists of 
 the various necessaries and accommodations, or the money 
 sufficient for their purchase, required to enable the la- 
 bourers to exist and continue their race according to the 
 habits and customs prevailing in the countries to which 
 they belong. 
 
 It is obvious from what has now been stated, that the 
 natural or necessary rate of wages is susceptible of much 
 variation. It varies in different countries according to the 
 varying wants and necessities of the labourers ; and it 
 varies in the same country according to the perpetually oc- 
 curring changes in their diet, dress, lodgings, and other ac- 
 commodations. 
 
 The varieties in the climate of different countries oc- 
 casion considerable variations in the necessary rate of 
 wages. Humboldt states that there is a difference of about 
 a third part between the wages of labour in the hot and 
 temperate districts of Mexico. Nor is it difficult to see why 
 this is the case. According as the severity of the climate 
 increases, warmer, and for that reason, speaking generally, 
 more expensive clothing, more substantially-built houses, 
 and a larger supply of fuel become necessary. The influ- 
 ence of these circumstances may, it is true, be either par- 
 tially or wholly counteracted by others ; such as the supe- 
 rior progress made by countries with a less genial climate 
 in the arts of civilized life, the possession of unusually pro- 
 ductive coal mines, &c. But abstracting from these cir- 
 cumstances, it is plain, as a general proposition, that the 
 rate of necessary wages must vary with variations of cli- 
 mate ; and that, other things being equal, it will be high- 
 est in countries where the most expensive clothes and 
 houses and the largest supplies of fuel are required. 
 
 The share of the wages of labour appropriated to the 
 purchase of food necessarily differs in different countries. 
 In all, however, it is very large; and even in Great Britain, 
 where the labourers consider comfortable clothes and neat 
 cottages as indispensable, it is commonly supposed that, at 
 an average, from two to three-fifths of their earnings are 
 laid out for food. It is obvious, therefore, that the neces- 
 sary, and, by consequence also, the market rate of wages, 
 must be especially dependant on the sort of food consumed 
 by the inhabitants, and the cost at which it may be raised. 
 Taking, for example, the present average rate of wages in 
 agricultural employments in England at £25 a year, and 
 supposing three-fifths of this sum, or £15, to be expended 
 on food, it is obvious that, if either by a reduction in the 
 
 price of corn, or by substituting potatoes in its place, or 
 any other means, the cost of food were reduced a half, the 
 necessary rate of wages might be reduced in the same pro- 
 portion, or from £25 to £17 10s. Such a reduction in the 
 price of corn, or such a change in the species of food aa 
 has been supposed, would lead to an increase in the means 
 of subsistence ; an additional stimulus would, in conse- 
 quence, be given to population, and though the market 
 rate of wages would not sink in the same degree that ne- 
 cessary wages are supposed to have sunk, it would sink to 
 some extent ; and were necessary wages to sink still more, 
 market wages would also sustain a certain decline, which 
 would be greater or less according to the habits and fore- 
 sight of the people. 
 
 The state of the labouring classes in every country fur- 
 nishes abundant proofs of what has now been stated. In, 
 Bengal, for example, where clothing, lodging, and fuel are 
 of comparatively inferior importance, the necessary wages 
 of labour are almost entirely determined by the cost of tha 
 food consumed by the labourer. And this food being the 
 simplest and cheapest imaginable, consisting merely of 
 boiled rice wi'h split pulse, and salt to relieve its insipidity, 
 a labourer is able to subsist on the merest trifle ; and, in 
 consequence, the customary rate of wages in common em- 
 ployments is so low as 2^d. a day. (Colebrooke, On the 
 Husbandry of Bengal, p. 20, 131.) 
 
 But it is not necessary to refer to distant countries or re- 
 mote periods for an example of this principle. The contrast 
 between the wages and the condition of the labouring 
 classes in Great Britain, and the wages and condition of 
 the same classes in Ireland, illustrates it in the most strik- 
 ing manner. In Great Britain the necessary rate of wage8 
 is principally determined by the cost of wheat and butch- 
 er"s meat, and in a less degree by the rent of a comfortable 
 cottage, the price of clothes, beer, tea, &.c. In Ireland, on 
 the contrary, the peasantry rarely taste butcher's meat; 
 they do not even consider bread as necessary to their sub- 
 sistence ; they are generally without either beer or tea ; 
 and their hats, clothes, &c, are all of the most miserable 
 description. The rate of necessary wages is there almost 
 entirely determined by the price of potatoes ; and as a 
 quantity of these sufficient for the support of a family may 
 be bought for a third part of the price of the bread and 
 other articles required for that purpose, the necessary rate 
 of wages is proportionally low. The market rate of wa- 
 ges, too, owing to the weakness in Ireland of moral re- 
 straint, and the nearly total non-existence of that prudent 
 forethought and decent pride which distinguishes the la- 
 bouring class in Great Britain, does not differ sensibly from 
 the necessary rate. The principle of increase has filled up 
 the population to the level of mere subsistence ; so that 
 while the wages of common labour may be taken on a 
 rough average at 20d. a day in England, they are not sup- 
 posed to exceed dd. or at most Id. a day in Ireland. 
 
 If we except the influence that would be exerted on the 
 progress of population, and consequently also on the rate 
 of wages, by the prevalence of a gTeater degree of moral 
 restraint, an increased demand for labour, and a fall in the 
 price of the articles consumed by the labourer, seem to be 
 the only modes in which wages can be raised. From 
 whatever causes an increased demand for labour may pro- 
 ceed, it must obviously raise the rate of wages ; and it is 
 hardly less obvious, that a fall in the cost of producing any 
 article consumed by the labourer, or suitable for his con- 
 sumption, must, in so far, improve his condition. The de- 
 mand for labour is in most cases immediately increased, 
 and it is never generally or permantly reduced, by a re- 
 duction in the cost of producing commodities. But sup- 
 posing that the demand for labour continues the same after 
 commodites fall in price, then, as the number of labourers 
 in the market, and consequently the money wages paid 
 them, must also be the same as before the fall, it is plain 
 they will obtain a greater quantity of produce, and that 
 their condition will be in so far improved. It is no doubt 
 true, that were population to increase, as is sometimes al- 
 leged, proportionally to the increased demand for labour, 
 or to the fall in the price of produce, the improvement in 
 the condition of the labourer would only be temporary. 
 But it is not improbable merely but next to impossible that 
 population should increase in the same proportion. A 
 period of about twenty years necessarily elapses before the 
 stimulus which an increased demand for labour gives to 
 population can occasion any increase in the number of la- 
 bourers ; and the labourers being accustomed, during this 
 long interval, to an improved manner of living, the standard 
 of natural or necessary wages becomes elevated ; and the 
 majority will be disinclined to do anything that might tend 
 to sink themselves and their children below the new level 
 to which they have attained. 
 
 The effects produced by a decreasing demand for labour, 
 or by a rise in the price of the articles usually consumed 
 by the labourer, are directly the reverse of those now sta- 
 
 1323
 
 WAHABEES. 
 
 The number of labourers continuing, for n while at 
 least, tlie same, the rate of wages is necessarily diminished 
 when the demand for labour declines, and ii necessarily 
 continues at its old level when prices rise; so that in both 
 cases the condition of the labourers is changed for the 
 worse. In consequence, they are obliged to economize; 
 and should the pressure continue for a considerable period, 
 there is a risk lest their habits be degraded, or that they 
 should learn to be satisfied with an inferior species of food, 
 or a lower standard of comfort. Should this change unfor- 
 tunately take place, the population would accommodate it- 
 self to the new state of things ; and It would be difficult for 
 the labourers to attain, at any subsequent period, to the 
 eli vation from which they had been cist down. 
 
 When t!ie labourers are already subsisting, as in Ireland, 
 on the lowest species of food, it is, of course, impossible for 
 them to go to a lower in a period of scarcity ; and should 
 their wages, or the means of subsistence failing to their 
 share, sustain any serious decline, an increase would ne- 
 cessarily take place in the rule of mortality. But in a 
 country like England, where the inhabitants have been 
 long accustomed to superior comforts, and enjoy various 
 privileges, it is probable that they might pass through a 
 pretty long period of privation, and that it would rather 
 give new i (ficacy to the principle of moral restraint, and 
 lessen the proportion of marriages and births, than induce 
 them to submit to a lower scale of living or to relinquish 
 comforts they have long possessed, and been taught to re- 
 gard ns indispensable. As the well-being of the labouring 
 classes is essential to the tranquillity and happiness of the 
 stat". it is of the highest importance that this principle 
 Should be strengthened by every possible means. It is easy 
 from this to see that a principal advantage of a compulsory 
 provision for the support of the poor consists in the assist- 
 ance it gives them in periods of adversity, and in its there- 
 by contributing to prevent their tastes and habits or their 
 standard of comfort from being lowered by the privations 
 to which thev might otherwise be compelled to submit. 
 
 WAHA'BEES or WAHA'BYS. A Mussulman sect, of 
 which the founder was a learned Arabian, named Abd el 
 Wahab, who became persuaded of the corruption, both of 
 doctrine and practice, prevalent among the professors of 
 Islam, especially the Turks. His daughter married Mo- 
 hammed Ibn Saoud, the principal person of the town of 
 Derayeh, who became his first convert and leader of the 
 sect, about 1760. Like the original prophet of their faith, 
 Saodd and his followers propagated their doctrines at once 
 by persuasion and arms. Abd el Aziz and Ibn Saoud, the 
 son and grandson of the first Saoiid, carried their arms to 
 the utmost extremities of Arabia, and, conformably with 
 the old Mohammedan principle, established a spiritual and 
 temporal leadership united in their persons. The Bedouins, 
 or wandering tribes, formed the bulk of their converts. 
 They acknovt ledged the Koran and the Sunne, or orthodox 
 tradition, and they professed adherence to the liberal tenets 
 of both; but they accused the other Mohammedans of an 
 idolatrous veneration for the prophet and other saints, and 
 denied the intercession of saints altogether. Like the 
 early Protestants of Europe, their favourite taste was the 
 destruction of the cupolas and tombs of saints. To this the 
 mob of Wahabys added a strong aversion to the rich dress 
 of the Turks, and to the practice of smoking tobacco, which 
 had been prohibited by Abd el Wahab much on the same 
 bold principle which had induced Mohammed himself to 
 condemn the use of wine. The province of Nedjd became 
 the chief seat of the Wahaby power. Under the last 
 Saoud (a very handsome man, whom the Arabs called 
 Abou Showareb, or the Father of Mustaches), it reached 
 its greatest extent. Like the early caliphs, he administer- 
 ed justice in person to great part of Arabia. The Waha- 
 bys, in the first twenty years of this centurv extended their 
 plunderins expeditions to Syria, Irak, and Mesopotamia. 
 In 1803 they took Mekka, and soon conquered the Ilidjah. 
 In 1809 Mehemet Ali began hostilities in Arabia; and in 
 1812 the Ilidjah was restored, and the caravans of pilgrims 
 once more arrived with their usual pomp at Mekka; but 
 for some years afterwards the Wahahvs maintained their 
 superiority in the rest of Arabia. Saoud died in 1814, and 
 was succeeded in his political and religious authority by 
 his gon Abdallah, under whom the Wahabys were finally 
 subdued by Mehemet Ali ; but we possess no authentic 
 account of their conquest, or their present condition. (See 
 Burkhanlt's Travels in Arabia; his JVutrs for a History 
 of the Bedouins and Wahabys, 1830; and the Travels of 
 Ali Bni • Ed. Rev., vols, xwii., vvxiv.) 
 
 WAIF. (From the Saxon wafian, to abandon.) In Law, 
 goods stolen and abandoned by the felon were so termed, 
 and were forfeited to the king, or lord of the manor having 
 the franchise of waif; but If the owner made fresh pursuit 
 alter the felon, and sjicd an appeal of robbery, or gave 
 evidence whereby he was concluded, within a year and a 
 day, he was entitled to restitution. 
 1324 
 
 VVALLOWER. 
 
 WAINSCOT. In Architecture, the framed lining in 
 panels wherewith a wall is faced. The wood originally 
 used for this purpose being a species of foreign oak. that 
 wood has acquired the name from the purpose to Which it 
 was thus applied. 
 
 WAIST. That part of the gun-deck between the fore 
 and m i in masts. 
 
 WAITS, the popular name for the music played in our 
 streets on the nights of the Christmas holidays, is thought 
 to be only a corruption of" wake," the common name for a 
 nocturnal solemnity. (See Archaeol., vol. ii., Ob.) 
 
 WAI'VTSR, In Law, a term used to signify a party's de- 
 clining or refusing to accept to avail himself of something; 
 as w aiver of an estate, which may be made by infant or 
 his heirs of an estate conveyed to him in his minority ; 
 waiver of tort, in some cases where action of tort and 
 action of contract both lying, the aggrieved party declines 
 the former and pursues the latter remedy. 
 
 WAKE. In Antiquities and popular usage, the word is 
 of the same meaning as vigil; and the custom originated 
 in the processions which took place early in the morning 
 offcast days to the church, and were not uncommonly fol- 
 lowed by revelling and drunkenness. At present most 
 fast days are popularly called wakes by the English peas- 
 antry; but the peculiar "wake" or "revel"' of county 
 parishes was, originally, the day of the week on which the 
 church had been dedicated; afterwards, the day of the 
 year. In 1530, an act of convocation appointed that the 
 wake should be held in every parish on the same day, 
 namely, the first Sunday in October ; but it was disregard- 
 ed. Wakes are expressly mentioned in Charles the First's 
 Book of Sports, among the feasts which it was his majes- 
 ty's pleasure should be observed. The wake appears to 
 have been also held on the Sunday after the day of dedica- 
 tion ; or, more usually, the day of the saint to whom the 
 church was dedicated. In Ireland, it is called the " I'atron 
 Day." (Brand's Popular Antiquities.) 
 
 Wake. The track of a ship which she leaves in the 
 water. A vessel directly astern of another is said to be in 
 her wake. 
 
 WALDE'NSES. In Ecclesiastical History, a remark- 
 able religious sect, said to have derived their name from 
 Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyons, who preached what he 
 regarded as the pure doctrine of the Scriptures about 1180. 
 Historians have confounded them, on the one hand, with 
 the Vaudois (see that article), who appear, although their 
 history is involved in much obscurity, to be an older and 
 separate people ; and on the other (especially those of the 
 Catholic party), with the Albigcnses: and thus it has been 
 endeavoured to throw on them the discredit of the Mani- 
 chean tracts, which are commonly (but on very doubtful 
 testimony) imputed to the latter. It seems clear, how ever, 
 that the Waldenses were distinct from these, and probably 
 from the Vaudois also. Their distinguishing character, it 
 has been said, "seems to have consisted in a sinct ad- 
 herence to what they considered to be the doctrine originally 
 delivered by Christ to his apostles." And out of their ex- 
 tremely literal interpretation of the Gospel appears to have 
 arisen most of their peculiarities, whether good or evil. 
 They seem to have rejected an established succession of 
 the priesthood, and the distinguishing characteristics of the 
 priestly office; the high Catholic doctrine of the sacra- 
 ments, besides the common ecclesiastical abuses of their 
 day; and are said, in addition, to have protested against 
 oaths, warfare, lawsuits, and the accumulation of wealth. 
 Their later history is obscure; and it may be said of them, 
 as well as of other sects of the day, that they had little of 
 the elements of permanence, the same opinions bi 
 tinually promulgated afresh by new reformers, and then 
 receiving new denominations. (See Albigenses, Petro- 
 brusians, Vaudois.) The reader may consult Miiner's 
 Ecclesiastical History for the most favourable view of 
 these and similar sectaries; and, among many other au- 
 thorities, Faber, On the Churches of thr Waldenses and Al- 
 bigenses. Mosheim, cent. 12. vol. iii. There is a curious 
 notice of an establishment of Waldenses in Kent, in the 
 
 .■lrrliirlni'iti, vol. ix. 
 
 WALL. In Architecture, a body of stone, bricks, or 
 other materials, serving to enclose a spare, or carry super 
 incumbent weights, or s, r\ ing both these purposes. 
 
 Wall. In Horticulture, a fixed structure for the purpose 
 of improving the climate of plants by shelter, by supplying 
 heat, and by exposing them to the influence of the sun. 
 Garden walls are formed either of brick, wood, or other 
 materials; and are either solid, fluid, or cellular, upright 
 or sloping, straight or angular, according to the purpose in 
 tended by their erection. (See Loudon's Encyc. of Oar 
 tit ii in fl>, p. 575, &c.) 
 
 WALL EYE. An opacity of the comea of the eye. 
 
 See <;t.M i 
 
 W. VI. LOWER. In Machinery, is used synonymously 
 with lantern or trundle. See Lantern Wheel.
 
 WALL PLATE. 
 
 WALL PLATE. In Architecture, a piece of timber 
 lying on a wall, on which girders, joists, and other timbers 
 rest. 
 
 WALPU'RGIS NIGHT. The night of the 1st of May, 
 a festival of St. Philip and St. James. Saint Walpurga 
 was an English lad}-, sister of Boniface, the apostle of the 
 Germans : her festival falls on the same day with that of 
 the above-mentioned saints, and is a common day in Ger- 
 many, like Lady-day in England, for the commencement of 
 leases, &c. It is also known as the day on the eve of 
 which, according to popular superstition, the great witch 
 festival is held on the summit of the Brocken, in the Hartz 
 mountains. This superstition is supposed to have originated 
 in the rites performed by the pagan remnants of the Saxons 
 to their gods, when their nation was forcibly converted to 
 Christianity ; which, being secretly celebrated in remote 
 places, were supposed by the vulgar to be supernatural 
 orgies. 
 
 WALTZ. (Germ, waltzer.) The name of the German 
 national dance, and also of the species of music by which 
 it is accompanied. Bohemia is said to be the original home 
 of the waltz, whence it soon spread into other parts of Ger- 
 many, and all over the Continent ; and within the last few 
 years it has become naturalized in England. 
 
 WA'PENTAKE. A territorial division in use among the 
 Danish inhabitants of England', from wapen, a weapon. 
 Yorkshire is subdivided into wapentakes instead of hun- 
 dreds. 
 
 WAR, in International Law, is said to be " public," when 
 it is a contest, by force, between independent sovereign 
 states. A civil war is regarded by Grotius as " mixed'' in its 
 nature ; being, according to him, public on the side of the 
 established government, and private on that of the portion 
 of the people resisting its authority. Public war is said to 
 be perfect when one whole nation is at war with another, 
 and all the members of each are authorized to commit hos- 
 tilities mutually, subject only to the general laws of war. 
 An imperfect war is limited as to persons, places, and things : 
 to which class may be referred the hostilities of the United 
 States against France in 1798 ; the hostilities between Eng- 
 land, France, Russia, and Turkey, in 1827; and perhaps 
 the recent proceedings against the Pacha of Egypt. 
 
 Formal decimations of war are now out of use : the latest 
 example is said to be that by France against Spain, at Brus- 
 sels, in 1635, which was announced by heralds. War is 
 now usually preceded by the publication of what is termed 
 a " manifesto," (see that word) ; and the permission of " re- 
 prisals" (which see) is usually the last step short of ac- 
 tual hostilities, and preceding them. The immediate effect 
 of the commencement of hostilities would appear to be, on 
 principle, the liability of all property belonging to subjects 
 of one of the belligerent parties within the dominions of 
 the other to seizure nnd confiscation ; but many exceptions 
 have been introduced by the practice of civilized states. 
 (See Grotius, De.Ture, B. # P., lib. iii. ; Vattel,Ub. ii., &c.) 
 In recent times, it has been the regular practice in Great 
 Britain to seize and condemn, as droits of the admiralty, 
 property of the enemy found in our ports at the commence- 
 ment of hostilities. Trade, and every species of contract 
 between suojects of belligerent states, is in general unlaw- 
 ful, although often authorized for particular times and pur- 
 poses. Subjects of hostile states, domiciled in the enemy's 
 country, are held liable to reprisals ; but not, it is said, mere 
 travellers or temporary sojourners. 
 
 The "rights of war" are such as arise in times of hostili- 
 ties— 1. Between enemies ; 2. Between neutrals. As be- 
 tween enemies, it is a general law that subjects of a hostile 
 state who are not in arms, or who have submitted, may not 
 be slain. The killing of prisoners is only justifiable in very 
 extreme cases. The usage of exchanging prisoners is now 
 general, but was only firmly established in the 17th cen- 
 tury ; and it is not now considered obligatory. As to prop- 
 erty, that belonging to the government of the vanquished 
 nation belongs to the victorious state, wherever it is found ; 
 but private rights are unaffected by conquest, with the re- 
 markable exception of private property when at sea, which 
 is by general usage held lawful prize. Acts of hostility are 
 only lawful, according to modern usage, when committed 
 by those authorized by the express or implied command of 
 the state ; such as the regularly commissioned militarvand 
 naval forces of the nation, and' all others called out by the 
 government in its defence, as well as persons spontaneously 
 defending themselves in case of necessity. Irregular band's 
 of marauders are therefore denied the" rights of war, and 
 liable to be treated as banditti ; and this distinction is gene- 
 rally only observed so far as suits the belligerent's purpose. 
 For private citizens taking up amis, although in obedience 
 to proclamations, are constantly liable to be treated as ma- 
 rauders; as by the French in the Peninsular war, and in 
 numerous other cases. As to suspensions of hostilities, &c, 
 see Truce, Treaty. As to the rights of war as to neu- 
 trals, see Neutrality. 
 
 101 
 
 WASHER. 
 
 WARD. In Feudal Law, the heir of the king's tenant 
 in capite during his nonage was so called ; and, in general 
 language, all infants under the power of guardians. (See 
 Guardian.) The court of wards and liveries, for cogni- 
 zance of various matters relating to the king's prerogative, 
 was established by Henry VIII., and abolished at the Res- 
 toration. (See ArchcEologia, vol. ii.) 
 
 WARD-MOTE. A court in each ward of the city of 
 London, which has power to present defaults in matters 
 relating to the watch, police. &c. 
 
 WARDEN, LORD OF THE CINQUE PORTS. (See 
 Cinque Ports.) The constable of Dover Castle was crea- 
 ted warden of the Cinque Ports, and guardian of the adja- 
 cent coast, by William the Conqueror : an office resembling 
 that of the comes littoris saxonici in the decline of the Ro- 
 man empire. The lord warden has the authority of admiral 
 in the Cinque Ports and their dependencies, with power to 
 hold a court of admiralty, and courts of law and equity : he 
 is returning officer of all the ports. The salary is £3000 a 
 year. There is also a lord warden of the stannaries. See 
 Stannaries. 
 
 WARMTH. In Painting, a tone of colour arising from 
 the use of colours expressive of heat. 
 
 WARP. In Weaving, the longitudinal threads of a wo- 
 ven fabric ; they are crossed by the transverse threads, or 
 woof. Warp, in Naval affairs, signifies a rope laid out for 
 the purpose of moving the ship. To warp is to move a ship 
 from one position to another by means of warps. 
 
 WA'RPING. (Fr. guerpier.) A mode of increasing the 
 fertility of tillage lands on the banks of rivers liable to be 
 overflown by them. It appears to have been first practised 
 in Britain on the banks of the Trent, Ouse, and other rivers 
 which empty themselves into the estuary of the Humber. 
 The water of these rivers, from passing through a great ex- 
 tent of alluvial country, are, after heavy rains, muddy to an 
 excess ; and they are in that state conducted over the ad- 
 joining surface in portions enclosed by banks, and there 
 suffered to deposit their mud, which is technically called 
 warp, and which being of the depth of an inch or two, adds 
 greatly to the fertility of the soil, and ultimately to its 
 quantity. The practice has existed on the banks of the Po, 
 and other rivers in the North of Italy, from time immemorial. 
 
 Wapping. In Architecture. See Casting. 
 
 WA'RRANT. In Law, a precept under hand and seal, 
 directed to a proper officer, to arrest an offender. 
 
 WA'RRANT OF ATTORNEY, in Law, is a power 
 given by a client to his attorney to appear and plead for 
 him, or to suffer judgment to pass against him by confession. 
 It authorizes a creditor to enter up judgment and levy exe- 
 cution, either instantly, or within a certain time specified iu 
 the instrument. 
 
 WARRANT OFFICERS, in the Navy, are the gunner, 
 boatswain, and carpenter. 
 
 WA'RRANTY, in Law, as applied to lands, is a promise 
 or covenant real annexed to lands or hereditaments, where- 
 by the bargainor and his heirs are bound to warrant the 
 same to the bargainee and his heirs against all men. But 
 the ancient law of warranty of real property has been long 
 obsolete in practice. 
 
 With regard to warranty of things personal, it is the gene- 
 ral rule, that a purchaser of goods and chattels may have a 
 satisfaction from the seller, if he sells them as his own, and 
 the title proves deficient, without any express warranty for 
 that purpose ; but that with regard to the goodness of the 
 things so purchased, the vendor is not bound to answer, un- 
 less he has expressly warranted them to be good, or unless 
 he has in any way misrepresented them. 
 
 WA'RREN. (Fr. garenne ; from the Teutonic wahren, 
 (to protect or defend.) In Law, a franchise or place privi- 
 leged for the keeping of beasts and fowls of warren, which 
 are said by some to be only hares and rabbits, partridges and 
 pheasants ; others add quails, woodcocks, waterfowl, &c. 
 The franchise is from the crown by grant, or prescription 
 which implies grant. It is often called free warren. In com- 
 mon language a warren is a surface of poor dry sandy soil 
 on which rabbits are kept. In general, warrens may be de- 
 scribed as the natural habitations of wild rabbits appropri- 
 ated by man, and preserved for the breed of these animals ; 
 but they are occasionally formed in suitable situations. 
 The rabbits are allowed to burrow in the soil at pleasure, 
 and to crop the natural herbage which grows on the sur- 
 face ; but to render warrens profitable, the rabbits require 
 to be supplied with clover, hay, corn, or other food, in the 
 winter season. 
 
 WASH. The fermented liquor from which spirit is dis- 
 tilled. 
 
 WA'SHER. A circular piece of leather, or pasteboard, 
 placed at the base of a screw, so as to prevent the metal 
 surfaces from being injured when it is screwed home ; it is 
 also used to render screw and other junctions air-tight. 
 
 Washer. In Architecture, a flat piece of iron pierced 
 with a hole for the passage of a screw, between whose nut 
 
 1325
 
 WASSAIL. 
 
 and tlic timber it is placed to prevent compression on a 
 small surface of the timber. 
 
 \V \ 'SS ML. (From the Aug. Pax. wacs hael, be in 
 health.) A common salutation used in drinking; whence 
 
 the " WESSel bOWl," which was anciently carried round on 
 
 New Fears' Eve. "A carol lor a wake] bowl" will be 
 found in Ritson's Ancient Songs, 1790, p. 304. (See Brand's 
 Popular Antiquities, vol. i., p. 1.) 
 
 WASTE, in Law, is tin- destruction or material altera- 
 tion of things forming an essential part of the inheritance; 
 as houses, timber, &c. Neglect of repairs is termed per- 
 missive waste ; active injur] , voluntary waste. The action 
 Of waste, at common law, can only be brought by a person 
 in < state of inheritance in immediate expectancy 
 upon the devastator's estate. 
 
 WASTE LAND. Any tract of surface not in a state of 
 cultivation, and producing little or no useful herbage, or 
 wood. The quantity of this kind of land in Britain was 
 estimated, about the end of the last century, at upwards of 
 ons of acres ; four millions of which were considered 
 capable of being brought under the plough, and the greater 
 part of the remainder of growing wood. 
 
 WATCH. A well-known portable machine, moved by a 
 spring, for measuring lime. When executed in the most 
 perfect manner, it is called a chronometer, and used in navi- 
 gation for determining differences of longitude. See Longi- 
 TTJDK, Chronometer. 
 
 Watches are said to have been made at Nuremberg so 
 early as 1477 ; but it is uncertain how far the watches then 
 constructed resembled those which now go by that name. 
 Some of the early ones were very small, in the shape of a 
 pear, and sometimes sunk or fitted into the top of a walk- 
 ing-stick. As time-keepers, watches could have very little 
 value before the application of the spiral spring as a regu- 
 lator to the balance. The merit of this excellent invention 
 has been claimed by Hooke and Huygens ; but it seems es- 
 tablished by unquestionable evidence that the priority be- 
 longed to Hooke by at least fifteen years. The date of the 
 invention is about the year 10.58." Hooke's first balance 
 spring was straight, and acted on the balance in a very im- 
 perfect manner; but he soon perceived its delects," and 
 attempted to obviate them by adopting first the cylindrical, 
 and afterwards the flat spiral. The latter appears to have 
 been applied to watches before the publication of Huygens' 
 claim in 1G75. (Encyc. Brit., art. "Clock and Watch 
 Work.") See Horology. 
 
 Watch. The portion of the ship's crew on duty at a 
 time. This is usually half; and the watches ore called the 
 starboard and larboard watches. Large crews are put in 
 three watches. The period of time called a watch is four 
 hours, the reckoning beginning at noon or midnight. Be- 
 tween 4 o'clock and 8 p. m., the time is divided into two 
 short or dog watches, in order to break the constant recur- 
 rence of three watches at the same hours. 
 
 WA'TER. (Germ, wasser. The old chemists considered 
 water as an element, and supposed it convertible into earth, 
 and into various organic products. This opinion was first 
 questioned, and afterwards disproved, by the experiments of 
 Watt and of Cavendish, in the years 1786 and 1737. ( Phil. 
 Trans.) And it has since been satisfactorily demonstrated 
 that hydrogen and oxygen are the elements of water, and 
 that they are contained in it in the relative proportions by 
 weight of 1 and 8, or by volume 2 and 1 ; the specific gravity 
 of hydrogen being to that of oxygen as 1 to 1G. 
 
 The electro-chemical decomposition of water is that 
 which affords the most satisfactory evidence of its nature. 
 When made part of the volta-clectric circuit, it is resolved 
 into 2 measures of hydrog< n and 1 of oxygen gas ; the for- 
 mer evolved at the negative, and the latter at the positive 
 surface : and if the gases thus obtained be mixed, and fired 
 by the electric spark, they again combine, and produce their 
 weight of water. The analytic and synthetic evidence, 
 therefore, of the composition of water is thus rendered 
 complete. 
 
 But although perfectly pure water, such, for instance, as 
 has been boiled and very cautiously distilled, is in fact an 
 oxide of hydrogen, and composed as above Stated, all com- 
 mon water is more or less contaminated by fori ign matters, 
 which, If not iii excess, or of an uncommon or injurious na- 
 ture, render it, generally speaking, more fit for most of the 
 ordinary uses to which it is applied. Of all water, raiii 
 •water, carefully and c leanly collected, is most pure. But it 
 absorbs air, and with it traces qf carbonic acid ; minute poi 
 
 tious of certain ammoniacal salts are also found in It, and 
 very near the sea it is seldom free from a trace of sail. 
 During thundi r storms the run which [alls sometini 
 bibits indications of nitric acid, formed, no doubt, by file 
 passage of the lightning through the humid atmosphere. 
 Next to rain water, river water \s, generally speaking, most 
 free from foreign matter. The water of the Thames, espe- 
 cially where it Is not contaminated by drainage and manu 
 factures, only contains about 2 grains of saline or soluble 
 1320 
 
 WATER. 
 
 matter in each pint ; and this is chiefly carbonate of iiirte, 
 w nh a little sulphate of lime, chloride of sodium . a 
 salt), and chloride of magnesium, and traces of organic 
 matter. The saline contents of a gallon of Thami 
 in its most impure stale, do not exceed 24 grains ; anil when 
 in its purest state, fall short of 16 grains. This statement 
 refers only to matters dissolved In the water ; for it is often 
 loaded with substances mechanically suspended to a much 
 greater extent, as is obvious from the muddy state In which 
 it is often supplied to [he houses of London and its vicinity 
 by the water companies. These last impurities are separa- 
 ted either by subsidence or by filtration ; hence the advan- 
 tage of allowing the waier to clarity Itself m reservoirs be- 
 fore it is supplied for use, or of filtering it through fine sand, 
 which Imparts nothing to the water, and renders it clean 
 and transparent. When water contaminated by animal or 
 vegetable matter is kept for some time, it undergoes a spon- 
 taneous depuration, losing its odour and colour, and deposit- 
 ing more or less sediment. By this process, however, it 
 becomes hard, in consequence of retaining certain indestruc- 
 tible saline matters in solution. The water for the supply 
 of ships is well know n to undergo this process of fermenta- 
 tion and purification, and the larger the quantity of destruc- 
 tible matter the more complete and rapid is the depuration ; 
 hence the preference given to Thames water for sea store, 
 the purer river waters fermenting less rapidly, and remain- 
 ing more or less foul and putrid for a much longer time. It 
 is obvious, however, that for all ordinary purposes the purer 
 the water the better; and it is quite clear that London 
 ought to be supplied with Thames water from above Rich- 
 mond, and out of the reach of the tides, instead of from the 
 heart of the metropolis, where it is loaded with the contents 
 of the sewers, the offal of manufactures, and the mud stir- 
 red up by the steamers. 
 
 Spring water, as afforded by our common wells, may be 
 considered as rain water modified by filtration through the 
 superficial strata of the earth, and consequently containing 
 more or less of the soluble substances which it meets with 
 in its course. In and about London the purity of the watel 
 is very various at different depths from the surface. In the 
 more superficial wells it is usually very hard, and abounds 
 in sulphate of lime ; in the deep wells, and especially the 
 artesian and overflowing wells, the water is softer, and 
 contains less foreign matter. These different states of 
 purity may be judged of with a degree of accuracy sufficient 
 for all common purposes by dropping into the water a solu- 
 tion of soap in spirit of wine: with pure water, such as rain 
 or distilled water, it remains clear; but with river or spring 
 water it becomes more or less turbid or milky, in proportion 
 to the impurity. Water which ia thus rendered decidedly 
 opaque or milky is not fit for washing; but that which Is 
 only slightly troubled, or becomes merely opalescent, is 
 usually called soft water. This simple experiment shows 
 the cause of softness and hardness in water; for pure 
 water perfectly dissolves soap, whereas, in common spring 
 water the salts are of such a nature as to form insoluble 
 compounds with it, and these adhere to whatever is washed 
 in it, and give that unpleasant sensation called hardness 
 when me wash our hands. The application ofa few other 
 simple tests may be resorted to, to indicate more exactly the 
 nature of the hardening impurities. The presence, for in- 
 stance, of sulphate of lime is indicated by the production of 
 a white cloud upon adding a few drops of a solution of 
 chloride of barium (which shows the sulphuric acid), and 
 of oxalate of ammonia (which detects lime). Such water 
 generally leaves a white crust in the decanter in \\ bich it i-> 
 kept, and incrusts boilers and kettles with a tioublesome 
 sediment; so that, unless frequently cleansed, tin \ 
 destroyed by the action of the fire, in conscqucm 
 sulphate of lime which coats their inferior, and which pre- 
 vents the transmission of heat. The impurity i I 
 longs to what are called land springs, and is derived from 
 the blue clay upon which London is built, and which 
 abounds in sulphate of lime. The deeper springs, especially 
 those from the sandy deposits nearer to or upon the chalk, 
 or those from the chalk Itself, are more pure, especially 
 w In re the land springs are ex( luded ; and though they ex- 
 hibit traces of sulphate of lime, common salt, carl 
 
 lime, and carbonate of soda, are yet pure enough for wash- 
 in 1 .', brewing, &x. Traces of ammoniacal Baits, and of rti 
 trates, nre also not uncommon in the waters from the deep 
 u. lis of London and its vicinity. 
 
 Carbonate of lime, or chalk, is sometimes held in solu- 
 tion in spring water, by excess of carbonic acid; in this case 
 the water becomes turbid upon the addition of oxalic acid, 
 
 and slightly effervesces with muriatic acid; when boiled, 
 
 the excess of carbonic acid which holds the carbonate In 
 solution i~ expelled, and the water becomes more oi l< •- 
 turbid, li ia sometimes contained In such quantity as to be: 
 deposited upon ub tances thrown into the water, and upon 
 the vessels containing It, as we see in the petrifying springs 
 of Matlock in Derbyshire, and elsewhere; and the beauti-
 
 WATER. 
 
 fu'i stalactites which line the caverns in limestone rocks 
 are produced in the same way. Spring water which (after 
 having been boiled and filtered) becomes turbid upon the ad- 
 dition of a few drops of nitrate of silver generally contains 
 common salt, and the proportion may be judged of by the 
 degree of milkiness thus occasioned. If water, after it has 
 been evaporated to a small bulk, be tested by tumeric or 
 violet paper, it often shows an alkaline reaction, and upon 
 closer examination is found to contain carbonate of soda ; 
 and it occasionally evolves during its evaporation traces of 
 carbonate of ammonia, and affords to delicate tests indica- 
 tions of organic matter. This is especially observed in the 
 pump water from churchyards, in which most improper 
 situation wells for the supply of the neighbourhood are 
 often sunk. 
 
 Mineral springs or waters are of such a nature as to be 
 unfit for common purposes, and often derive important me- 
 dical efficacy from the substances which they hold dissolved. 
 Those which have an inky and astringent flavour, and 
 which become reddish brown and turbid by boiling, or by 
 exposure, are usually called chalybeate waters, and contain 
 carbonate or sulphate of iron : when examined as they 
 flow from the spring, they blacken with a few drops of 
 tincture of galls or of strong green tea. Tunbridge water 
 is an instance of a chalybeate containing carbonate of iron, 
 and the Brighton chalybeate contains sulphate of iron. 
 There are some mineral waters which derive their efficacy 
 from certain salts, and are called saline waters ; such as 
 Cheltenham water, Leamington water, -fee. The salts which 
 they contain are chiefly sulphate of soda and sulphate of 
 magnesia; they have a" bitterish salt taste, and are more or 
 less aperient: when reduced to a small bulk by evapora- 
 tion, and set aside for a few hours in a cool place, the salts 
 generally crystallize. What are termed sulphureous wa- 
 ters are usually saline, and also contain sulphuretted hydro- 
 gen-, which is presently recognised by its fetid smell, and 
 by becoming black when a solution of sugar of lead is 
 dropped into it; and turbid on the addition of a little mu- 
 riatic acid, or by mere exposure to air, from the deposition 
 of sulphur. Harrowgate and Aix-la-Chapelle waters are 
 instances. There are some waters which are occasionally 
 resorted to medicinally, but which are only remarkable for 
 extreme purity, such as .Malvern water; and there are 
 others which, exclusive of their chalybeate or saline quali- 
 ties, are effervescent or sparkling, from the presence of car- 
 bonic acid, which gives them an agreeable and slightly 
 pungent flavour: these qualities are entirely lost on boil- 
 ing, in consequence of the escape of the gaseous acid ; con- 
 sequently they lose the power of reddening vegetable blues 
 after they have been exposed to heat. In respect to med- 
 ical virtues, the chalybeate springs are more or less tonic 
 and astringent, and the saline springs aperient and altera- 
 tive; and though they often contain their active ingredients 
 in small relative proportions, they are perhaps on that very 
 account more likely to be absorbed into the system, and to 
 eflect cures where iarger doses of the same remedies fail. 
 There are also some mineral waters which contain iodine 
 and bromine, and which, though in very minute quantities, 
 are powerful medicines; in others, baryta and strontia 
 have been discovered. But a course of mineral water is 
 often useful upon other principles: it generally is accom- 
 panied by strict attention to diet, by moderate bodily exer- 
 cise, by mental relaxation, and by regular hours, all of 
 which are powerfully curative resources ; and with these 
 aids the mere diluent eflect of pure water (such as that of 
 Malvern) may, in many instances, prove of eminent ser- 
 vice ; this is certainly- often the case in the early stages of 
 calculous complaints. 
 
 ■Sea Water. — The chemical history of sea water is ex- 
 tremely important, as involving that of sea salt (see Sodium 
 and Chlorine), of magnesia and its most important com- 
 binations, and of those singular and powerful agents known 
 to chemists under the names of iodine and bromine. It ap- 
 pears from the best authorities that the composition of sea 
 water, when not influenced by adventitious or accidental 
 causes, is nearly uniform in the vast extent of the ocean, 
 which covers about two-thirds of the globe, and probably 
 has a mean depth of not less than half a mile (2640 feet). 
 Its specific gravity varies from 10269 to 10285 : and it con- 
 tains rather more than three per cent, of solid matter, com- 
 posed chiefly of common salt, muriate of magnesia, sulphate 
 of magnesia, and sulphate of lime. These are the principal 
 ingredients of sea water; besides which it contains traces 
 of chloride of potassium, of muriate of ammonia, of carbo- 
 nate of lime, of hydrobromate of magnesia, and often of 
 hydriodate of magnesia. There is some difference of 
 opinion as to the state of combination in which the acids 
 and bases exist in sea water. The following tables show 
 their proportions in a pint of sea water of the Frith 
 of Forth, taken up near Leith, as obtained by evapo- 
 ration, and as presumed to exist after and previous to 
 evaporation : 
 
 WATERSPOUT. 
 
 After Evaporation. Before Evaporation. 
 
 Common salt 180-5 Common salt 1805 
 
 Muriate of magnesia 23-0 Muriate of magnesia 18'3 
 
 Sulphate of magnesia 15-5 Muriate of lime 5-7 
 
 Sulphate of lime 7-1 Sulphate of magnesia 21-6 
 
 2261 22fH 
 
 The other substances exist in such small quantities that 
 they are omitted in this general statement. See Ocean. 
 
 WATER BAILIFF. An officer in port towns, whose 
 duties in general are with respect to the searching of ships: 
 in London he has also the supervision of the fish market, 
 gathering of tolls, &c. 
 
 WATER CLOCK. A contrivance for measuring time 
 by the flow of water. See Clepsydra. 
 
 WATER-COLOUR PAINTING. A species of painting, 
 in which the medium of representation is colour levigated 
 with water and gum, and which in our days has been car- 
 ried to such extraordinary perfection as to rival oil painting 
 in every thing but durability. 
 
 WATER DEVIL. A name given by some microgra- 
 phers to the larva of a British species of Hydrophilus. 
 
 WATERLA'NDIANS. In Ecclesiastical History, n di- 
 vision of the Dutch Anabaptists, also called "Gross" (Grob), 
 or " Moderate," in contradistinction to the " Fine," or 
 "Rigid." They were so called from a district in North 
 Holland, denominated Waterland, and originated in the 
 16th century. John de Ries, in 1580, composed a confession 
 of faith, which stems to have been pretty generally used 
 among them. They still constitute (we believe) a portion 
 of the general body of Mennonites. (See Mosheim, cent. 16, 
 sec. 3, part ii.) 
 
 WATER LINE. The boundary of any horizontal sec- 
 tion of the bottom of a ship. The uppermost one is called 
 the load water line; the lowest the light water line. 
 
 WATER-LOGGED. A Nautical" term, denoting the 
 state of a ship when a quantity of water having been re- 
 ceived into the hold by leaking, &c., she has in a great 
 measure lost her buoyancy, and yields to the eflect of every 
 wave passing over the deck. 
 
 WATER MEADOWS. Meadows on low flat grounds, 
 capable of being kept in a state of fertility by being over- 
 flown with water from some adjoining river or stream. The 
 principal season at which this operation is performed is 
 during winter, when the water is allowed to remain stag- 
 nant on the surface for some weeks; but meadows which 
 can be watered are occasionally overflown during summer, 
 especially after a crop of hay has been taken. The manner 
 in which water so applied to grass lands is found beneficial 
 has never been satisfactorily explained. By some it is at- 
 tributed to the warmth retained in, or communicated to the 
 soil, by the water during winter; by others to its effect in 
 destroying insects, worms, Sec. ; and by some to the par- 
 ticles of manure deposited on the surface of the soil. Dur- 
 ing summer the effect is more readily accounted for, a sup- 
 ply of moisture being advantageous to all plants at that dry 
 season. Sre Irrigation. 
 
 WATER OF CRYSTALLIZATION. Some crystal- 
 lized salts contain more or less water, which, as it bears a 
 definite proportion to the other components of the salt, may 
 be considered as one of its essential constituents. Crystal- 
 lized sulphate of lime, for instance, is a compound of 68 of 
 dry sulphate and 18 water, or of 1 equivalent of anhy- 
 drous salt and 2 equivalents of water; 1 equivalent of crys- 
 tallized sulphate of magnesia = 123, contains 7 of water = 
 63: and an equivalent of crystallized sulphate of soda 
 = 162. contains 10 of water = 90 ; the equivalent of water 
 being 9. But it does not necessarily follow that a salt in 
 crvstals contains water, there being many crystals which 
 are anhydrous, such as nitre, sulphate of potash. &c. 
 
 WA'TERSPOUT. A very remarkable meteorological 
 phenomenon, observed, for the most part, at sea, but some- 
 times also on shore, though generallv in the neighbourhood 
 of water. Its general appearance may be described as fol- 
 lows: from a dense cloud, a conical pillar, which appears 
 to consist of condensed vapour, is seen to descend, with the 
 apex downwards. When over the sea, there are usually 
 two cones: one projecting from the cloud, and the other 
 from the water below it. These sometimes unite, and the 
 junction has been observed to be accompanied with a flash 
 of lightning ; but more frequently they disperse before the 
 junction is effected. In calm weather the column main- 
 tains its vertical position while carried along the surface; 
 but when acted on by the wind it becomes oblique to the 
 horizon. The causes of this meteor are very imperfectly 
 known. By some it is supposed to be formed by a whirl- 
 wind of extrefce intensity, while others ascribe to it an 
 electric origin. Dr. Young (Nat. Phil., vol. i.) thinks thai 
 some of the circumstances maybe explained by considering 
 the spout as a whirlwind, carrying up drops of water which 
 it has separated from the waves, and that the remainder 
 may perhaps be deduced from the co-operation of electri- 
 
 1327
 
 WATER TABLE. 
 
 city already existing in a neighbouring cloud. (See also 
 Fouillet, Ettmens de Physique, tome ii.) 
 
 U VlT'.K TABLE. In Architecture, a projection or 
 horizontal set-off in a wall, so placed as to throw off the 
 water from the building, 
 
 WATEB WAV'S. Strong pieces of wood extending 
 round the ship, at the junction of the decks with the sides, 
 to cany off the water. 
 
 WATEB WHEEL. In Hydraulics, an engine for raisins; 
 water in large quantities. (See Persian Wsikel.) Also 
 a wheel turned by the force of running water, of these 
 there are two kinds: the undershot wheel, end the overshot 
 vtiecl. In the case of the undershot wheel, the water 
 strikes the float boards below the axle, and acts by the im- 
 pulse due to its velocity; in the case of the overshol wheel. 
 the water is brought over the top of the wheel, received in 
 buckets, and acts solely by its weight 
 
 WAVE. The alternate elevation and depression of. 
 parts of the surface of a liquid above and below the natu- 
 ral level. 
 
 When the surface of a liquid is unequally pressed, the 
 columns which sustain the greatest pressure are shortened, 
 and sink below the original level ; and this pressure being 
 communicated to the contiguous columns, these will be 
 lengthened and rise above that level. But as the elevation 
 is not sustained by a hydraulic pressure, the lengthened 
 columns again tall, and acquiring in the fall a velocity due 
 to the height, they descend below the original level, and 
 communicate in their turn a pressure to those which are 
 adjacent to them. In this manner a reciprocating motion is 
 produced, the particles to which the primitive impulse was 
 communicated being alternately the lowest and the high- 
 est ; and a series of ridges and hollows is formed, which 
 are called waves or undulations. 
 
 In passing from the columns which are shortened to 
 tins.' which are lengthened, and back again to those to 
 which they originally belonged, the particles of the fluid 
 acquire both a vertical and horizontal motion ; but while 
 the depth is sufficient to allow the oscillations to proceed 
 unimpeded, no progressive motion takes place, each column 
 being kept in its place by the pressure of the surrounding 
 columns. If, however, free oscillation be prevented (by the 
 shelving of the shore, or the interposition of a rock, for ex- 
 ample), the columns in the deep water are not balanced by 
 those in the shallower, and, in consequence, acquire a pro- 
 gressive motion towards the latter, or form breakers. Hence 
 the reason why waves always break against the shore, 
 whatever be the direction of the wind. 
 
 When waves are produced by the agitation of a small 
 portion of the fluid, as, for example, by throwing a stone 
 into stagnant water, they appear to advance from the dis- 
 turbed point in expanding concentric circles, the height of 
 the wave gradually diminishing as it recedes from the cen- 
 tre ; but that there is no transference of any part of the 
 mass from one place to another, is manifest from the mo- 
 tions of any light body floating on the surface. The ap- 
 pearance of progression is, in tact, an optical deception, 
 produced by tin- form of the wave and the mode of oscilla- 
 tion. On attending closely to the phenomena it will be 
 seen that the fore part is always in the act of rising, and 
 the hinder part in the act of falling; and thus the whole 
 system appears to roll onwards, while each particle of wa- 
 ter in succession merely oscillates with a vertical ascent 
 and descent. 
 
 If a second series of concentric waves take its origin from 
 a different point at some distance from the first, the two 
 sets will cross each other without the slightest interruption. 
 Where a wave of the first series meets one of the second, 
 and the two elevations correspond, the resulting elevation 
 will he equal to the sum of the two; and the same is the 
 case with the depressions. Where the elevation in the 
 one series corresponds with a depression in the other, the 
 surface will maintain its original level, at least if the waves 
 
 of the two series have the same height. Thus, although 
 different series of waves do not interfere with each others' 
 
 propagation, they may neverthelea srease or neutralize 
 
 each others' effects. The one series is, in fact, superposed 
 on the other. 
 
 A series of waves meeting a vertical obstacle, as a wall 
 or bank, is reflected; and the reflected waves are propa- 
 gated in the same manner as those arising from the 01 igi 
 
 nal impulse, but in an opposite direction. Waves proceed 
 
 ing in concentric circles are reflected in concentric circles. 
 
 and in such a manner as to appear to diverge from a cen- 
 tre as far behind the obstacle as the original centre is in 
 
 front of it, and, in short, appeal to be subjected to all those 
 laws which are usually noticed to belong to reflected light 
 
 li the obstacle against which the waves strike have an 
 
 lug in it of small horizontal breadth relativelj to the 
 
 breadth of the wave, the osculating columns winch reach 
 
 it will act ms an impulse original!} exerted at that point, 
 
 and a series of waves will diverge from the aperture us 
 
 1388 
 
 WAVE. 
 
 from a new centre ; but when the aperture is considerably 
 wider than the wave, the wave confines its motion in a 
 great measure to its original direction, though with some 
 small divergence, or the oscillation is continued principally 
 in the direction of a sector, whose centre is at the point 
 from which the original wave proceeded. 
 
 Waves which have been raised ly the wind in the open 
 sea proceed in parallel and nearly straight lines ; and the 
 original impulse being increased by the continued action of 
 the wind, they will increase in height until the weight of 
 the elevated column, together with the friction, becomes 
 equal to the inciting cause. It has been inferred that the 
 greatest height to which a single series of waves raised by 
 the wind blowing constantly in one direction will attain 
 does not exceed six feet. The force of the wind also tends; 
 to givo a progressive motion to the mass of water raised 
 above the general level, and likewise to alter the shape of 
 the wave by diminishing the acclivity of the side against 
 which it strikes. In a strong gale this effect may be in- 
 creased so far as to cause the top of the wave to project 
 over the base, in which case it breaks and rolls over on 
 the preceding wave. Hence, as is well known to sailors, a 
 very strong wind will blow the sea down. 
 
 If the wind, after having given rise to a series of waves, 
 suddenly veers about so as to strike the waves on the op- 
 posite side, it will produce a greater effect from its more 
 direct impact ; and hence the greatest waves are produced 
 by sudden changes of wind, or by the wind blowing in an 
 opposite direction to that in which the waves are propaga- 
 ted. In this manner the elevation of the waves may be 
 greatly increased above the height to which they would 
 be raised by winds of equal force blowing constantly in the 
 same direction ; and hence the ocean is comparatively 
 smooth in regions where the winds are constant. And as 
 it is by the friction of the wind on the water that the waves 
 are raised and kept up, whatever diminishes the friction 
 will tend to lessen the elevation. Hence the comparative 
 tranquillity produced by pouring oil on agitated water. 
 The influence of the wind, which is exerted entirely at the 
 surface, does not extend to a great depth, probably not 
 more than 30 or 40 feet, below which the water suffers no 
 agitation excepting that which arises from the motion of 
 the tide wave. 
 
 .Mathematical Theory of Waves.— In order to determine 
 the time of an undulation and the velocity of the propaga- 
 tion of waves from the theory of hydrodynamics, Newton 
 compares the undulatory motion of waves on the surface 
 of water with the oscillations of the fluid in a siphon, with 
 which they have a considerable, though not perfect analo- 
 gy. Let the tube C ABD (fig. 1), open and turned up at 
 both ends, be filled with any liquid up (1.) 
 
 to the level C I). Suppose the equilib- 
 rium to be disturbed, and that the li- E l_ 
 quid rises in consequence in the branch 
 A C from C to E. The tube being sup- 
 posed equally wide throughout, it is ev- 
 ident that the liquid will fall as much 
 in the branch B I) as it rises in A C ; 
 that is, making DF==CE, from D to F. 
 Let CG = D F, then the difference of 
 the height of the liquid in the two 
 branches is EG; and according to the 
 principle of D'Alemhert, the accelerating force which acts 
 on the fluid is the difference of the masses in the two col- 
 umns divided by their sum, that is proportional to K G di- 
 vided by E A B F; or bisecting A B in O, proportional to E 
 C -7- C A O. Now, C A O is constant ; therefore the accel- 
 erating force is proportional to E C, or to the distance from 
 the position of rest. Hence it may he inferred that when 
 the fluid has been disturbed so as to rise from (' to F, it will 
 acquire, in falling to its level, a velocity which will carry 
 it to an equal height H in the other brunch, and that the 
 oscillations, whether large or small, will be isochronous, or 
 performed in equal times. 
 
 To prove this, and also to determine the time of the oscil- 
 lation, let X be any point in C E, and make E X — x. E C = 
 a. and CAO = (. Also let t>=tho velocity, and = the 
 accelerating force when the liquid is at the point X. and 
 o- = the accelerating force of gravity. We have then, by 
 
 B 
 
 what has been shown, <p = ■ 
 
 •g. But from the theory 
 
 of accelerating forces 0=—, and r=--, (see Force), 
 the substitution of which in the former equation gives 
 
 j a ~ x j 
 vdv= — r- gdx; 
 
 whence, by integrating and extracting the square root, 
 
 V -dt~ V \ I 
 and consequently 
 
 — *21 I. 
 
 (lax — x2) 
 
 y
 
 WAVE. 
 
 dl = </-, 
 
 The general integral of the variable part of this expression 
 
 is an arc whose cosine is equal to (1 ) ; therefore be- 
 
 a 
 tween the limits x = and x = 2 a, the integral is 
 
 (- being the semi-circumference of a circle whose radius = 
 1). This gives the time which elapses during the passage 
 of any particle of the water from the highest to the lowest 
 point ; and it is also the time in which a pendulum whose 
 length is I, vibrating in an infinitely small arc, makes a sin- 
 gle oscillation (see Pendulum). Hence the time of passing 
 from the highest to the highest again, or of a complete un- 
 dulation, is the double of this, or equal to 2-rr -J (l-i-g), or 
 to it v' (41-7-g), the time in which a pendulum whose length 
 is 41 makes one oscillation. 
 
 To apply this solution to the undulatory motion of a fluid 
 mass of indefinite extent, let ABODE, &c, (fig. 2) repre- 
 sent a superficies of stagnant water ascending and descend- 
 (2.) 
 
 ingin successive waves ; and let A C E, &c, be the summits 
 of the waves, and B D, &x., the intermediate hollows. 
 Now since the wave is produced by the alternate ascent 
 and descent of the water, so that the particles at A C E, &c, 
 which are at one instant the highest, become in their turn 
 the lowest, and the moving power is the weight of the ele- 
 vated water, the alternate rise and fall is analogous to the 
 reciprocating motion of water in a siphon, and will observe 
 the same laws as to time ; therefore if the distance between 
 a summit A and the adjacent lowest point B be equal to 2/, 
 the highest points A C E, &c, will become the lowest in the 
 time in which a pendulum whose length is equal to /makes 
 one oscillation, and again become the highest in the time 
 of the other oscillation. Hence the interval of time from 
 the wave being the highest at any point to its being the 
 highest at that point again will be equal to two oscillations, 
 and the wave will describe its breadth (that is, the space 
 between two successive summits or cavities, as from A to 
 C or from B to D, which space is equal to 4 1) while the 
 pendulum oscillates twice ; or in the time to which a pen- 
 dulum of quadruple the length, that is. equal to 4/, or equal 
 to the breadth of the wave, will oscillate once. (Principia, 
 lib. ii., prop. 46.) 
 
 It must be admitted that the supposition on which this 
 theory is founded, namely, that the vertical oscillations of 
 waves are similar to that of water in a bent siphon, is a 
 very precarious one: in fact, the theory itself is altogether 
 insufficient for the explanation of the phenomena, as it 
 gives no account whatever of the form of" the wave. The 
 subject, is, however, one of great difficulty ; and although 
 it has been treated by the ablest mathematicians since the 
 time of Newton, a complete theory is still a desideratum. 
 Lagrange in the Mecanique Mnalytiquei has given an equa- 
 tion containing the general theory of waves formed by the 
 successive and infinitely small elevations and depressions 
 of stagnant water in a canal of small depth. Poisson (in the 
 Annates de Mathematique, and Memoircs deV.flcad., tome 
 i.) and Cauchy (Mem. de VJlcad.) have treated the subject 
 more generally , and Professor Kelland (Edin. Phi!. Trans. 
 vols, xiv., and xv.) has endeavored to obtain the equations 
 of motion of a regular set of waves, without imposing any 
 restriction whatever on the conditions. M. Kelland dedu- 
 ces from his analysis the following results, which apply to 
 the motion of a wave in a canal whose depth is continally 
 but slowly varying in the direction of its length: 1. That the 
 length of the wave is in direct proportion to the breadth. 2. 
 That the velocity of transmission at any point varies as the 
 square root of the depth. 3. That the elevation of the crest 
 of the wave varies reciprocally as the total depth of the 
 fluid. M. Kelland states that his endeavours to deduce a re- 
 lation between the depth of the fluid and the length of the 
 wave been unavailing. 
 
 Experimental Researches on Wares. — In the Reports of 
 the British .issociation for 1838, there is an account by Mr. 
 Scott Kussel of a series of observations on waves in the riv- 
 er Dee in Cheshire, and the Frith of the Clyde, and also in 
 the open sea, which are interesting, as they establish the 
 existence of waves of different kinds, following totally dif- 
 ferent laws. The most important results of these observa- 
 tions are the following : 
 
 1. The progressive w'ave sent forward by a floating body 
 in rapid motion (or generated in any other manner) differs 
 entirely in its character and phenomena from the oscillato- 
 ry waves of the sea, or those which ripple the surface of a 
 
 WAX. 
 
 lake or are caused by the sudden elevation or depression of 
 a small portion of the fluid. It is not necessarily followed 
 either by a depression or elevation, but is a single eleva- 
 tion of a well-defined form, and transferred with a uniform 
 velocity. This wave is called by Mr. Bussel the great pri- 
 mary wave of translation. It is analogous to the tide wave 
 of the ocean. 
 
 2. The velocity of the primary wave in channels of uni- 
 form depth is independent of the breadth of the fluid, 
 and equal to the velocity acquired by a heavy body in fall- 
 ing freely through a height equal to half the depth of the 
 fluid, reckoned from the top of the wave to the bottom of 
 the channel. The velocity of the wave is accordingly pro- 
 portional to the square root of tire depth of the water, as 
 the theory indicates, and it is not affected by the velocity of 
 the impulse or the form of the body by which it is genera- 
 ted. 
 
 3. If waves be propagated in a channel whose depth di- 
 minishes uniformly, they will break when their height 
 above the surface of the' level fluid becomes equal to the 
 depth below the surface. When waves of the sea ap- 
 proach the shore, or come into shallow water, they become 
 waves of translation, and, in conformity with this law, al- 
 ways break when the depth of the water is not greater than 
 the height of the wave above the level. 
 
 4. The great primary waves are reflected from surfaces 
 at right angles to the direction of their motion, without suf- 
 fering any other change but that of direction ; and they 
 cross each other without change of any kind, as the small 
 oscillations on the surface of a pool. 
 
 5. In the primary wave of translation the displacement 
 of the particles is uniform to the greatest depth ; whereas 
 in waves of the oscillatory kind the displacement of the par- 
 ticles of the fluid is greatest at the surfaces, and diminishes 
 rapidly, and extends only to an inconsiderable depth. 
 
 6. The phenomenon called the tidal bore is produced in 
 two ways, first, if the water is so shallow that the first 
 waves of the flood tide move with a velocity so much less 
 than the succeeding ones that they are overtaken by them ; 
 and secondly, where the tide rises so rapidly, and the water 
 on the shore or in the river is so shallow, that the height 
 of the first wave is greater than the depth of the water. 
 
 The law by which the velocity of the primary wave va- 
 ries according to the square root of the depth of the water, 
 gives rise to several other phenomena. Thus any change 
 in the depth of rivers produces a corresponding change hi 
 the interval between the moon's transit and the hour of 
 high water. A wave of high water of a spring tide travels 
 faster than a wave of high water of a neap tide, &c. 
 
 The character and phenomena of the primary wave of 
 transmission, and its importance as an elenrent affecting the 
 amount of the resistance of fluids on bodies moving through 
 them, were first detected and examined by Mr. Russel in 
 1834. (Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 
 xiv., part 1.) Its existence and laws are of great impor- 
 tance in reference to the construction and navigation of ca- 
 nals and the improvement of tidal rivers. See Hydrody- 
 namics, Tides. 
 
 WA'VELLITE. A mineral named after Dr. Wavell of 
 Barnstaple, in which neighbourhood it was first found. It is 
 a hydrated phosphate of alumina : it has also been called 
 hydrargillite. 
 
 WAX. (Germ, wachs.) This is a common vegetable 
 product forming the varnish which coats the leaves of cer- 
 tain plants and trees. It is also found upon some berries, as 
 of the Myrica cerifera ; and it is an ingredient of the pollen 
 of flowers. It was long supposed that bees merely collected 
 the wax thus ready formed in plants ; but Huber found that 
 though excluded from all food except sugar, they still formed 
 wax : and accordingly it has been found that the elementary 
 composition of bees' wax and vegetable wax is slightly differ- 
 ent. Bees' wax is prepared by draining and washing tire hon- 
 evcomb, which is then melted in boiling water, strained, and 
 cast into cakes. English and foreign wax are found in the 
 market ; the latter being chiefly imported from the Baltic, 
 the Levant, and the coast of Bafbnry. Fresh wax has a pe- 
 culiar honey-like odour : its specific gravity is -96. At about 
 150° it fuses, and at a high temperature volatilizes, and 
 hums with a bright white flame. It is bleached by being 
 exposed in thin slices or ribands to light, air, and moisture, 
 or more rapidly by the action of chlorine ; but in the latter 
 case it does not "answer for the manufacture of candles, 
 which is one of its principal applications. Wax candles are 
 made by suspending the wicks upon a hoop over the caul- 
 dron of melted wax, which is successively poured over 
 them from a ladle till they have acquired the proper size, 
 so that the candle consists of a series of layers of wax ; the 
 upper end is then shaped, and the lower cut off. Attempts 
 have been made to cast wax candles in moulds, but when 
 thus made they burn irregularly. Bleached or white wax 
 is generally adulterated with more or less spermaceti, and 
 sold at different prices accordingly ; in this case it has not 
 4 1329
 
 WAY. 
 
 tlip peculiar lustre of pure wax, and is softer and more fusi- 
 ble. It is nisi) largely adulterated with stearine or stearic 
 acid, which is detected by the odour of fat or tallow which 
 ii evolves when highly heated, and by its crumbly texture; 
 it may also be separated to a certain extent by ether or alco- 
 hol. Wax is insoluble in water, anil scarcely acted upon 
 by the adds, so that it forms a good lute or cement : boiling 
 alcohol and ether act partially upon it. and deposit the por- 
 tion which they had dissolved, on cooling. Some varieties 
 of vegetable wax appear to contain two distinct principles, 
 which Dr. John has termed term and myricin; the former 
 soluble, and the latter insoluble, in alcohol. Heated with 
 the fixed alkalies, wax forms a difficultly soluble soap. . 
 
 WAY. The Sea term for progress. A ship in progress 
 is said to have way upon her ; when stationary, to have no 
 way. 
 
 WEALDEN FORMATION and STRATA. See Geol- 
 ogy. 
 
 WEAR. To nut the ship on the other tack by turning 
 her round, with tier stern to the wind. 
 
 WEATHER. (Germ, wetter.) The state or condition 
 of the atmosphere with respect to heat, cold, dryness, moist- 
 ure, wind, vain. snow, fogs. JfcC. The appreciation of the va- 
 rious causes which determine the state of the atmosphere, 
 am] produce those changes which are incessantly taking 
 place in its condition, and which are popularly called the 
 weather, tonus the subjects of Meteorology and Climate. 
 those terms: also Atmosphere, Barometer, Cloud, 
 Dew, Hail, Rain, Wind, &c.) 
 
 In all ages of the world, mankind have attempted to ex- 
 plain and prognosticate the changes of the weather; but 
 such is the complication of the subject, and the vast multi- 
 tude of circumstances to be taken account of, that no theory 
 can 'iirnish rules for determining the order in which they 
 succeed each other, or for predicting the state of the weath- 
 er at a future time, with any approach to certainty. Never- 
 theless, all the different modifications of the atmosphere are 
 the necessary results of principles, not only fixed and unal- 
 terable in their nature, but (many of them at least) well 
 known in their separate and individual operation. The dif- 
 ficulty of tracing the results of their combined influences 
 - chiefly from their complexity and endless concatena- 
 tion. 
 
 The principal cause of all the variations which take 
 place in the sjite of the atmosphere is the heating action of 
 the sun's rays ; but in order to appreciate correctly its effect, 
 it is necessary to Know not only the extent of the atmo- 
 sphere, but the properties of all the substances of which it 
 is composed. Modem science has discox'ered that the atmo- 
 sphere is composed of three different gaseous fluids, every- 
 where combined in the same proportions, and penetrated by 
 an ever-varying quantity of elastic vapour. These two dis- 
 tinct envelopes of air and vapour mechanically mixed have 
 different relations to heat; and therefore, in consequence 
 of the unequal temperature of the surface of the earth, 
 with which they are in contact, they cannot both be in a 
 state of equilibrium at the same time. In consequence of 
 the diurnal rotation, the different parts of the atmosphere 
 are constantly receiving different quantities of heat, as the 
 solar rays penetrate more or less obliquely. This inequal- 
 ity of temperature produces winds, which, if the surface of 
 the earth were perfectly regular and homogeneous, would 
 always blow in the same direction ; but the surface of 
 the earth being composed of materials of various kinds, 
 and irregularly disposed, the distribution of heat over 
 it is extremely Irregular. The winds, sweeping along 
 the surface, acquire its temperature; and hence the atmo- 
 sphere also becomes irregularly heated. This produces 
 an accumulation of air at one place, and a deficiency at 
 am, (her; and hence a subsequent rush to restore the equi- 
 librium. As the air is cooled it becomes also incapable of 
 holding the same quantity of aqueous vapour, a portion of 
 ■which is therefore set free, and gives rise to clouds, mist, 
 rain, dew, snow, &c. Resides all this, there is to be taken 
 
 int', account the development of electricity ; the influences 
 of light and galvanism; the agitation of the atmosphere 
 produced by the rise and fall of the tides; and probably a 
 variety of other circumstances with which we are' entirely 
 unacquainted. This very imperfect enumeration may serve 
 e an idea of the difficulties to be overcome in forming 
 a theory of the weather. See Cmmate. 
 
 It has alwa] s been a favourite prejudice that the weatht r 
 is influenced in some mysterious manner by the moon. The 
 
 moon can be supposed to act on the earth only in one of tli ree 
 ways; nam, I;,, bj the light which it reflects; by its attrac- 
 tion; or by an emanation of some unknown kind. Now, 
 the light Of the moon does not amount to the 100,000th part 
 of thai of the sun; and the heat which it excitee 
 
 i be altogether inappreciable by the most deli 
 
 cate in inn, hi t., or the best devised experiments. Noef 
 
 m be attributed, therefore, to the moon's light. With 
 
 regard to the attrai tion of the moon, we see its influi i e 
 
 1330 
 
 WEDGE. 
 
 on the tides of the ocean, and might therefore he disposed 
 to allow it a similar influence on the atmosphere; but when 
 we take into account the small specific gravity of atmo- 
 spheric air in comparison With water, and the consequent 
 Miiallness of the mass of matter to be acted upon, it will 
 readily he perceived that this influence also must be ex- 
 tremely feeble. In fact.it has been demonstrated by La- 
 place that the joint action of the solar and lunar attraction 
 is incapable of producing more than an atmospheric tide 
 flowing Westward at the rate of .about four miles a day, and 
 consequently scarcely, if at all, appreciable. As to the remain- 
 ing supposition, that the moon may act on the atmosphere 
 by some obscure emanation. >t is sufficient to remark that no 
 meteorological observations that have yet been made atfortl 
 the slightest traces of any such connexion between the earth 
 and its satellite. The registers which are now kept in va- 
 rious observatories and other places also prove, contrary to 
 the popular belief, that the changes of weather are in no 
 way whatever dependant on the lunar phases. (See the 
 Mnvuaire du Bureau des Longitudea for 183H ; Kamptz, 
 Lekrbuch der J&eteorologie.; Schubler, Einjhut des Mondeg 
 auf die Verandrrvv g unserer Jltmogpht re. Leipzig, 1830. 
 
 Weather. The Sea term for that side on which the wind 
 blows. To weather, to pass to windward of an object. 
 
 WEATHER BOARDING. In Architecture, leather- 
 edged boarding nailed upright, whose boards lap over each 
 other, so as to prevent the rain, &c, from penetrating them. 
 
 WEATHER GAGE. A ship to windward of another is- 
 said to have the weather gage. 
 
 WEATHER GLASS. A name commonly given to the 
 barometer; but sometimes also applied to other instruments 
 for ascertaining the state of the atmosphere, or measuring 
 atmospheric changes. It is thus applied to the thermometer, 
 the hygrometer, &c. 
 
 WE'AVERS, Textoria. The name of a tribe of spiders; 
 including those which fabricate webs in order to entrap 
 their prey. 
 
 WEAVING, the art of forming cloth in a loom by the 
 union or intertexture of threads. The art of weaving is of 
 great antiquity : it has been practised in all ages and in all 
 countries; but it would be impossible within our limits to 
 give even a sketch of its history, progress, and successive 
 improvements down to its present perfect state. We had 
 intended to present the reader with a notice of the various 
 improvements that have been made in the loom from its 
 simplest construction, down to the elaborate invention of 
 Jacquard ; but it was found that this could not be effected 
 without the introduction of numerous diagrams nnd details, 
 which would have been foreign to the purpose of the work ; 
 and we must, therefore, content ourselves by referring to 
 C/rc's Dietionartj of Jlrls, ij-c, for full particulars. 
 
 WEDGE. In Geometry, a solid having five skies or faces, 
 three of which are rectangles, and the remaining two con- 
 sequently triangles, and parallel to each other; hence the 
 wedge, considered as a geometrical figure, is a prism with 
 a triangular base. Its content is therefore equal to the 
 area of the triangular base multiplied into the distance be- 
 tween the parallel planes. 
 
 Wepce, in Mechanics, is one of the five simple engines 
 or mechanical powers, and is used sometimes for raising 
 bodies, but more frequently for dividing or splitting them. 
 In the former case, if we suppose the wedge to be urged by 
 pressure, the action of the wedge is precisely the same as 
 that of the inclined plane ; for it is evidently the same, in 
 point of mechanical advantage, whether the wedge be 
 pushed under the load, or the load he drawn over the plane. 
 The power is therefore to the force to be overcome as the 
 tangent of the angle of the penetrating sides to the radius, 
 leaving the friction out of consideration : hence the thinner 
 the wedge the> gn ater is its effect. But when the wedge, 
 as is generally the case, is driven forward by percussion, 
 its pow er cannot be estimated with any degree of accuracy. 
 The percussive tremor excited by the blow destroys for an 
 instant the friction at the sides, and augments prodigiously 
 
 the penetrating effect. Besides, when the wedge is used 
 
 in rending w I or other substances, the pans of the block 
 
 are generally separated to a considerable distance before 
 the edge of the wedge, as in the anm red figure ; in which 
 
 Case it acts besides as a lever, the power being 
 applied al the end of the block or acting part 
 
 of the wedge, and the resistance being at the 
 
 point where the fibres begin to separate. 
 
 All the various kinds of culling and pieii nig 
 
 tools, as axes, knives, scissars, chisels, &.c, 
 
 nails, pins, awls, fee., are modifications of the 
 wedge. The angle m these ruses is more or 
 less acute, according to the purpose to which 
 
 il i- applied. The mei hanica) advantage is In- 
 creaseq by diminishit g the angle of the wedge ; 
 
 but the strength of the fool is thereby also diminished. In 
 
 tools for cutting wood i be ancle is generally about 30°; for 
 iron it is from Sfi to 6V; and for brass from 80° to 90°. In
 
 WEDNESDAY. 
 
 general. the softer the substance to be divided is, the more 
 acute may the wedge be constructed. 
 
 WEDNESDAY. (Sax. Woden's day; Lat. dies Mer- 
 curii). The fourth day of the week, consecrated by our 
 Scandinavian ancestors to Woden, the deity whose func- 
 tions corresponded to those of Mercury in the Greek and 
 Roman mythology. 
 
 WEEK. A period of se%'en days, of uncertain origin, but 
 which has been used from time immemorial in eastern 
 countries. The week did not enter into the calendar of 
 the Greeks, who divided the civil month into three periods 
 of ten days each ; and it was not introduced at Rome till 
 after the reign of Theodosius. By some writers the use of 
 weeks is supposed to be a remnant of the tradition of the 
 creation ; by others, that it was suggested by the phases of 
 the moon : while a third class, with more probability, refer 
 its origin to the seven planets known in ancient times. 
 This opinion explains the circumstance that the days of the 
 week have been universally named after the planets, ac- 
 cording to a particular order. In the ancient Egyptian as- 
 tronomy, the order of the planets, in respect of distance 
 from the earth, beginning with the most remote, is Saturn, 
 Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury, the Moon. The 
 day was divided into 24 hours, and each successive hour 
 consecrated to a particular planet in the order now stated ; 
 so that one hour being consecrated to Saturn, the next fell 
 to Jupiter, the third to Mars, and so on; and each day was 
 named after the planet to which its first hour was conse- 
 crated. Now, suppose the first hour of a particular day to 
 have been consecrated to Saturn, it is evident that Saturn 
 would also have the 8th, the 15th, and the 22d hours. The 
 23d hour would therefore fall to Jupiter ; the 24th to Mars ; 
 and the 25th, or the first hour of the following day, would 
 belong to the Sun, from which it would take its name. By 
 proceeding in the same manner, it is found that the first 
 hour of the third day would fall to the Moon, the first of 
 the fourth day to Mars, of the fifth to Mercury, of the sixth 
 to Jupiter, and of the seventh to Venus. The cycle being 
 completed^ the first hour of the eighth day would return to 
 Saturn, and all the others constantly succeed in the same 
 order. According to Dio Cassius, the Egyptian week began 
 w ith Saturday. The Jews, on their flight from Egypt, made 
 Saturday the last day of the week. The Saxons seem to 
 have borrowed the week from some eastern nation, sub- 
 stituting the names of their own divinities for those of the 
 gods of Greece. In England, the Latin names of the days 
 are still retained in legislative and judiciary acts. (See 
 Ency. Brit., "Calendar.") 
 
 WEEDING CROSSES. In Ecclesiastical Antiquities, 
 stone crosses, at which penances were commonly finish- 
 ed with weeping and signs of contrition, were so called. 
 There was one close to the town of Stafford. (See Mr. 
 Astle's " Observation on Stone Crosses." Archaol., vol. xiii.) 
 
 WEIGH. To take the anchor out of the ground. 
 
 WEIGHT. In Physics, that property of bodies in virtue 
 of which they tend towards the centre of the earth. In this 
 sense, weight is synonymous with gravity. See Gravity. 
 
 Weight, in Mechanics, denotes the resistance to be over- 
 come by a machine, whether in raising, or sustaining, or 
 moving a heavy body. The force applied to the machine 
 for this purpose is called the moving power; and where 
 the equilibrium subsists, the difference between the weight 
 and the moving power is the purchase of the machine. In 
 all cases of equilibrium by the intervention of machinery, 
 if the machine be put in motion by a small additional force, 
 the space passed over by the moving power will be greater 
 than that passed over by the weight, in proportion as the 
 weight is greater than the moving power ; or the product 
 of the weight by its velocity will be equal to the product 
 of the moving power by its velocity. See Momentum, Vir- 
 tual Velocity. 
 
 Weight, in Experimental Philosophy and Commerce, is 
 the measure of the force by which any body, or a given 
 portion of any substance, gravitates to the earth. The pro- 
 cess by which this measure is obtained is called weighing ; 
 and when required, as in many philosophical experiments, 
 to be performed with great accuracy, is a tedious and deli- 
 cate operation. See Balance. 
 
 The measurement of weight, like that of extension, con- 
 sists in the comparison of the thing to be measured with 
 some conventional standard. But it is impossible to fix 
 such a standard by written law or oral description ; for it is 
 impossible to communicate by words, and without reference 
 to a sensible object, any adequate idea of a pound-weight. 
 or foot-rule. Standards of linear measure, not accurately 
 defined indeed, but having an average value sufficiently 
 well known for the rude purposes of mankind in the early 
 stages of society, were furnished by the different parts of 
 the human body ; hence the measures foot, cubit, span, pace, 
 &.C. (See Measures.) But the method of comparing the 
 weights of bodies does not suggest itself so readily to the 
 mind as the comparison of linear dimension, and is not so 
 
 WEIGHT. 
 
 easily accomplished. A balance is necessary, the construc- 
 tion of which requires some degree of mechanical knowl- 
 edge. Hence the art of weighing, though of great antiqui- 
 ty, (see Goguet, Origine des Lois, i-c.,) was probably prac- 
 tised at a later period, and in a still less accurate manner, 
 than that of measuring. There has also been a much, 
 greater variety of standards of weight, still less definite 
 than those of measure, as will be readily conceived by con- 
 sidering the origin and import of such terms as stone, load, 
 last, &c. The term pound (pondus) implies only weight 
 indefinitely. The grain, as a standard of small weight, be- 
 ing taken from the grains or corns of wheat, was perhaps 
 the only denomination of weight that would universally 
 convey anything like a precise idea. 
 
 As there is a constant ratio between the volumes and 
 weights of the same substances when placed in the same 
 physical circumstances, it is obvious that standards of weight 
 may be derived from those of measure. For example, a cubic 
 foot or a cubic inch of distilled water, at the same tempera- 
 ture, and under the same atmospheric pressure, will always 
 have the same weight. Advantage has been taken of this 
 property of bodies to connect weights with measures in the 
 metrical systems that have been adopted in this and other 
 countries. 
 
 English Weights. — It was declared by the Great Charter 
 that the weights should be the same all over England, but 
 no ordinance, perhaps, was ever so ill observed; for the 
 diversity that has prevailed, and which is still far from be- 
 ing remedied, has been so great as not only to produce 
 confusion and inconvenience, but to render the system of 
 weights adopted in one part of the country scarcely intel- 
 ligible in other. The old English pound, which is said to 
 have been the legal standard of weight from the time of 
 William the Conqueror to that of Henry VII., was derived 
 from the weight of grains of wheat : 32 grains gathered 
 from the middle of the ear and well dried made a penny- 
 weight, 20 pennyweights an ounce, and 12 ounces a pound. 
 Henry VH. altered this weight, and introduced the troy 
 pound instead, which was 1-1 6th part, or 3-4ths of an 
 ounce, heavier than the Saxon pound. The troy pound 
 was divided in the same manner as the Saxon pound, into 
 ounces, pennyweights, and grains ; but the pennyweight 
 contained only 24 grains, and consequently a grain troy be- 
 came a much heavier weight than the grain of wheat. In 
 fact the pound troy contains 5,760 grains, while the Saxon 
 pound, which was divided into 7,680 grains, contained only 
 5,400 troy grains. Another weight, the avoirdupois pound, 
 was introduced by a statute of 24 Henry VIII. ; and though 
 its first object was that of weighing butchers' meat in the 
 market, it has gradually come to be used for all kinds of 
 coarse goods or merchandise. Two legal measures of 
 weight were thus established, and have continued to be 
 used in the country ever since ; the avoirdupois weight be- 
 ing used for common purposes, and the troy for the precious 
 metals, and, with a different division, by apothecaries in 
 compounding their drugs. The standard of these measures 
 was at length definitely fixed by the act of parliament pass- 
 ed on the 17th June, 1824, cap. 74, George IV., entitled " An 
 act for ascertaining and establishing Uniformity of Weights 
 and Measures," which was partially amended by clause 
 (A) of an act to prolong the time of the commencement of 
 that act to January, 1826. The following are the terms in 
 which the standard is defined by the act : " That from and 
 after the 1st day of May, 1825, the standard brass weight 
 of 1 pound troy weight made in the year 1758, now in the 
 custody of the clerk of the House of Commons, shall be, 
 and the same is hereby declared to be, the original and gen- 
 uine standard measure of weight ; and that such brass 
 weight shall be, and is hereby denominated, the Imperial 
 standard troy pound; and shall be, and the same is hereby 
 declared to be, the unit or only standard measure of weight, 
 from which all other weights shall be derived, computed, 
 and ascertained ; and that l-12th part of the said troy pound 
 shall be an ounce, and that l-20th part of such ounce shall 
 be a pennyweight, and l-24th part of such pennyweight 
 shall be a grain, so that 5.760 such grains shall be a troy 
 pound ; and that 7,000 such grains shall be, and they are 
 hereby declared to be, a pound avoirdupois, and that l-16th 
 part of the said pound avoirdupois shall be an ounce avoirdu- 
 pois, and that l-16th part of such ounce shall be a dram." 
 
 It follows from this that the weight of the pound troy to 
 that of the pound avoirdupois, or common pound, is in the 
 proportion of 5,760 to 7,000, or of 144 to 175. The retention 
 of two different systems of weights was in compliance with 
 the common usages of the country ; and the motives which 
 influenced the commissioners of weights and measures in 
 recommending the system which has been adopted were 
 thus explained by Sir. Davies Gilbert: "The troy pound 
 appeared to us to be the ancient weight of this kingdom, 
 having, as we have reason to suppose, existed in the same 
 state in the time of Edward the Confessor; and there are 
 reasons, moreover, to believe that the word troy has no 
 
 1331
 
 WEIGHT. 
 
 reference to any town in France, but rather to the monkish 
 name given to London, of Troy Novant, founded on the 
 legend of Unite. Troy weight, therefore, according to this 
 etymology, Is, In fact, London weight. We were induced, 
 moreover, to preserve the troy weight, because all the coin- 
 age has uniformly been regulated by it: and all medical 
 prescription-; and formula; now are, and always have been, 
 estimated by troy weight, under a peculiar subdivision 
 which the College of Physicians have expressed themselves 
 most anxious to preserve." 
 
 In the sixth clause of the act it is enacted, that if the 
 Standard troy pound should bo lost or destroyed, it is to be 
 restored by a reference to a cubic inch of distilled water, 
 which has been found and is declared to be 253-458 troy 
 grains, at the temperature of 62° of Fahrenheit, the barome- 
 ter being at 30 inches. Hence the weight of a pennyweight 
 troj Is to that of a cubic inch of distilled water, in such Cir- 
 cumstances, in the proportion of -I to 252*458, or of 24,000 
 to 252.458; so that the weight of the cubic inch of distilled 
 water must be conceived to be divided into 25-2,458 equal 
 parts, and 24,000 of such parts will be the standard penny- 
 weight; or KM) of such parts will be the standard pound. 
 The restoration of the standard, however, in the maimer 
 prescribed by the act, is wholly impracticable. 
 
 Though the commissioners on this occasion probably act- 
 ed wisely in accommodating their regulations to existing 
 usages, it cannot be disputed that the circumstance of hav- 
 ing different weights expressed by the same names, as the 
 pound and ounce troy and avoirdupois, is a source of great 
 inconvenience and confusion. Few persons, in fact, recol- 
 lect the different standards and divisions well enough to 
 have any clear or accurate ideas on the subject. The com- 
 parison of the weights is always a matter requiring care 
 and calculation. The avoirdupois pound is greater than 
 the troy pound, as has been already stated, in the ratio of 
 175 to 144 ; but in consequence of the different division, the 
 ounce avoirdupois is smaller than the ounce troy, the former 
 being equal to 437 A grains while the latter contains 480 
 grains. The drachm in apothecaries' weight is 60 grains, 
 while the drachm avoirdupois is equal to only 27^4 grains. 
 
 For philosophical purposes and in delicate weighing, troy 
 weight only Is used, and the weight is usually reckoned in 
 grains. By this means fractional numbers are avoided, and 
 bo ambiguity can arise, as there are noother grains than troy 
 grains. Dr. Kelly, in his Universal Cambist, an elaborate 
 and useful work, states that the drachm avoirdupois, like 
 the drachm of the apothecaries, has sometimes been divided 
 into 3 scruples and 60 grains ; but as no such weight as an 
 avoirdupois grain ever existed, the use of the expression is 
 an instance of the confusion inseparable from having dif- 
 ferent systems of weights, in which the same names are 
 applied to things totally distinct. 
 
 The irregular divisions which have been adopted and re- 
 tained are also liable to much objection, on account of the 
 great nuuibi r of weights to be employed in practice. The 
 most convenient system would probably be the decimal di- 
 vision, which requires weights of the following values : 1, 
 2, 3, 4, &c, (grains for instance); 10, 20, 30, 40, &c. ; 100, 
 200, 300, &c. ; 1000, 2000, 3000, &x„ up to 9000; and -1, -2, 
 •3. &c.; 01, -02, -03, &c; -001, -0(12, -003, &c. By this 
 means arithmetical calculations would be facilitated, and 
 the number of weights in the scale would equal the digits 
 in the number by which the grains or units of weights are 
 expressed. Thus a load of 735-4 grains, would he counter- 
 poised by weights of 700 grains, 30 grains, 5 grains, and 
 4-10th s of a grain. The composition according to the geo- 
 metrical series, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, &c, offers this advantage, that 
 asmaller number of weights would be necessary than when 
 any other system is adopted. 
 
 In consequence of the destruction of the parliamentary 
 standards of weights and measures by the burning of the 
 two houses of parliament in 1834, a commission (at the head 
 of which was the Astronomer Royal) was appointed in 
 1838 to consider and report upon the steps to be taken for 
 their restoration. The report of the commissioners, which 
 is dated the 21st of December, 1841. enters very fully into 
 the subject, and recommends the adoption of considerable 
 changes in the present system of weights and measures and 
 coinage, chiefly with the view of introducing, at least par- 
 tially, a decimal s\stem. Itut us these recommendations 
 may net be adopted by the legislature, or at all events w ill 
 
 probably be considerably modified, it is unnecessary, in the 
 
 present state of affairs, to state them in detail. With re- 
 ■pe< t t" weights in particular, the plan of the commission- 
 ers is brill. this: that the troy pound be abolished, and 
 that the use of the troy ounce and penny weight be confined 
 to gold, and silver, ami precious stones; that apothecaries' 
 Weight may continue to be noil for the combination of 
 drugs; that tor all other purposes the only legal weights 
 
 shall b derived from a pound, equal to the present avoirdu- 
 pois pound, the distinctive terra avoirdupois being abolished. 
 
 The pound is to be divided into 16 OUIlCefl, anil 7,000 grains, 
 1332 
 
 and no denomination is to he recognised lower than pr/tin;? r 
 except the ounce and the grain and the decimal parts of the 
 pound. They also recommend that the weight of 14 pounds, 
 or stone in common use, and its multiples OS pounds, 5(5 
 pounds. 112 pounds, be abolished; and that the only legal 
 weights above one pound be weights of multiples of 1 pound 
 and not exceeding 10 pounds, and weights of 10 pounds and 
 its multiples not exceeding 100 pounds. According to this 
 plan there would only be decimal multiples of the standard; 
 while, with respect to the BUbraultlples, there would not 
 only be a decimal system, but also si denomination of weight 
 equal to a 16th and another equal to a 7 thousandth part of 
 the standard. It is not easy to see \* hat stronger reason 
 there can be for retaining the onnce than the stone or the 
 hundred-weight, which are so extensively used, particular- 
 ly for purposes connected with agriculture. The quantity 
 of iron weights of 14 lbs. and its multiples in use in the 
 country, is estimated to be not less than 30,000 tons, and the 
 expense of changing them for weights in the decimal scale 
 to be between £100,000 anil £200,000. Willi respect to 
 the standard unit, the commissioners recommend that a 
 platinum weight of 7,000 grains be constructed and declared 
 to be the parliamentary :-tandard of weight ; but that it be 
 not defined with reference to any natural standard, or to 
 measures of length or capacity, as a cubic inch of distilled 
 water. 
 
 Tables of British Wiights. 
 
 1. Imperial Troy Weight. — Standard : One cubic inch of 
 distilled water, af62° Fahrenheit's thermometer, the bar- 
 ometer being 30 inches, weighs 252458 troy grains. 
 
 grs. dwts. 
 24 = 1 oz. 
 480= 20= 1 lb. 
 5760 = 240 = 12 = 1 
 Troy weight is used in weighing gold, sliver, jewels, &c, 
 and in philosophical experiments. 
 
 2. Apothecaries' Weight. — Standard: The same as m troy 
 weight, with the ounce divided into 8 drachms and 24 
 scruples. 
 
 grs. scrs. (£ ) 
 20 = 1 drs. ( 3 ) 
 60 = 3=1 oz. ( 3 ) 
 480 = 24 = 8 = 1 lb. (lb) 
 5760 = 2S8 = 96 = 12 = 1 
 Medicines are compounded by this weight ; hut drugs are 
 usually bought and sold by avoirdupois weight 
 
 3. Imperial Avoirdupois Weight.— Standard : The same 
 as in troy weight ; and one avoirdupois pound = 7000 troy 
 grains. 
 
 drs. oz. 
 
 16 = 1 lbs. 
 
 256= 16= 1 qrs. 
 7168= 448= 28= 1 cwts. 
 28672= 1792= 112= 4= 1 ton. 
 573440 = 35840 = 2240 = 80 = 20 = 1 
 This weight is used for the general purposes of commerce. 
 The preceding are the British statute weights : but numer- 
 ous other discordant denominations of weight, generally 
 multiples <if the avoirdupois pound, are stiil used in different 
 parts of the country for weighing particular kinds of mer- 
 chandise. One of the most common of these is the ftone, 
 which has a great variety of diflerenl significations. In 
 London, however, only two stones are generally understood ; 
 viz., the stone of 8 pounds for butchers' meat, and the stone 
 of 14 pounds for other commodities. (For values of dif- 
 ferent local weights, see Buchanan's Tables of Weights 
 ami Measures; General Paisley's work on the Measures, 
 Weights, and Money used in this Country; M'Culloch's 
 Commercial Dictionary ; Kelly's Universal Cambist, A-c.) 
 
 A particular denomination of weight, a carat, is used for 
 weighing diamonds. An ounce troy is equivalent to 151} 
 carats ; whence a carat is nearly equal to 'M L'rains. In ex. 
 pressing the fineness of gold by carats, the term rather de- 
 notes a proportion than a Weight. Thus gold 22 carats fine, 
 
 signifies an alloy such that the proportion of the weight of 
 pure gold tothatof the whole weight Is as 22 to 24; or such 
 that it contains 22 parts by weight of pure gold, and 2 parts 
 Of some inferior metal. 
 
 French System of Weights. — The French denominations 
 of weight occur so frequently in works connected with the 
 
 physical sciences, thai it is convenient to be acquainted 
 with their values. The unit of weight is the gramme. 
 Which is the weight of the 100th part of a cubic metre of 
 
 distilled water at the temperature ol melting Ice. A grammo 
 is equal to 15-434 troy grains; whence the following com- 
 parative table of French with troy weight: 
 
 grammes. Trov grains. 
 Milligramme = -001 = -01543 
 
 Centigramme = -01 = -15434 
 
 Decigramme = -1 = 1*5431 

 
 WELD. 
 
 grammes. Troy grains. 
 Gramme = 1 = 15-434 
 
 Decagramme == 10 = 154-34 
 Hectogramme = 100 = 1543-4 
 Kilogramme = 1000 = 15434 
 Myriagramme = 10000 = 154340 
 
 The kilogramme is equal to 2 lb. 3 oz. 4-428 drams avoir- 
 dupois weight. In the Systems Usuel the standards are the 
 same as the above, but the denominations are those which 
 were anciently in use. It was found impossible to introduce 
 the new terms. The divisions are binary. Half the kilo- 
 gramme forms the livre usuel, which is divided into halves, 
 quarters, eighths, &c, down to the gros, which is the eighth 
 of the once, or the l-128th of the livre. (For a comparative 
 table of the weights and measures used in different countries 
 of the world, see the Encyc. Britannica, art. "Weights.") 
 
 WELD. (Reseda lutrola, Linn.) A plant cultivated for 
 the use of the dyers. When the seeds are ripe, the plant 
 is cut and dried : it yields a brownish yellow decoction, the 
 colour of which is rendered paler by acids, and richer and 
 deeper by alkalies. Alum throws down a yellow precipi- 
 tate, and leaves the clear liquor of a fine lemon yellow ; 
 tartar also brightens its colour ; and solutions of tin gives it a 
 dilute green tint. When a mixture of whiting and alum is 
 added to a hot decoction of weld, a yellow precipitate is ob- 
 tained, which, when collected, washed, and dried, is of a 
 fine delicate colour, and much employed by paper-stainers. 
 
 WE'LDING. There are a very few of the metals which 
 are susceptible of being united by pressure or hammering, 
 or of being welded together. Two pieces of potassium may 
 be welded at common temperatures (from 60° to 80°) ; but 
 the term is generally applied to the junction of two pieces of 
 iron at a white heat, or of iron and steel. Platiuum, also, 
 although infusible, may be welded at a white heat; and it 
 is in this way that that valuable metal, when in the granu- 
 lar or pulverulent state, is worked into bars. 
 
 WELL. In Architecture, a deep pit sunk by digging, for 
 the purpose of collecting and retaining the water of a spring 
 or of a reservoir, by which it may be supplied. See Water 
 and Artesian Fountains. 
 
 Before proceeding to dig a well, it ought first to be deter- 
 mined on, whether a mere reservoir for the water which 
 oozes out of the surface soil is desired or obtainable, or a 
 perpetual spring. If the former is the object in view, a 
 depth of fifteen or twenty feet may probably suffice, though 
 this cannot be expected to afford a constant supply, unless 
 a watery vein or spring is hit on : if the latter, the depth 
 may be various, there being instances of 300 and 500 feet 
 having been cut through before a permanent supply of water 
 was found. 
 
 The art of well digging is generally carried on by persons 
 who devote themselves exclusively to that department. 
 The site being fixed on, the ground-plan is a circle, gen- 
 erally of not more than six or eight feet in diameter : the 
 digger then works down by means of a small short-handled 
 spade, and a small implement of the pick-axe kind ; the 
 earthy materials being drawn up in buckets by the hand or 
 a windlass fixed over the opening for the purpose. Where 
 persons conversant with this sort of business are employed, 
 they usually manage the whole of the work, bricking round 
 the sides with great facility and readiness ; but in other 
 cases it will be necessary to have a bricklayer to execute 
 this part of the business. 
 
 There are two methods of building the stone or brick 
 within the well, which is called the steining. In one of 
 these a circular ring is formed, of the same diameter as the 
 intended well ; and the timber of which it is composed is 
 of the size of the brick-courses with which the well is to be 
 lined. The lower edge of this circle is made sharp, and 
 shod with iron, so that it has a tendency to cut into the 
 ground; this circular kirb is placed flat upon the ground, 
 and the bricks are built upon it to a considerable height, 
 like a circular wall. The well-digger gets within this circle, 
 and digs away the earth at the bottom ; the weight of the 
 wall then forces the kirb and the brickwork with which it is 
 loaded to descend into the earth, and as fast as the earth is 
 removed it sinks deeper, the circular brick wall being in- 
 creased or raised at top as fast as it sinks down ; but when 
 it gets very deep, it will sink no longer, particularly if it 
 passes through soft strata: in this case, a second kirb of a 
 smaller size is sometimes begun within the first. When a 
 kirb will not sink from the softness of the strata, or when it 
 is required to stop out water, the bricks or stones must be 
 laid one by one at the bottom of the work, taking care that 
 the work is not left unsupported in such a manner as to let 
 the bricks fall as they are laid ; this is called underpinning. 
 
 Well-diggers experience sometimes great difficulty from a 
 noxious air which fills the well, and suffocates them if they 
 breathe it. The usual mode of clearing wells of noxious 
 air, is by means of a large pair of bellows, and a long leath- 
 ern pipe, which is hung down into the well to the bottom 
 and fresh air forced down bv working the bellows. 
 '113 
 
 WESTERN EMPIRE. 
 
 The use of the auger is common in well-digging, both Jn 
 ascertaining, before commencement, the nature of the strata 
 to be dug into, and also in course of digging for the same 
 purpose ; and because, by boring in the bottom of a well to 
 a considerable depth, the spring is sometimes hit upon, and 
 digging rendered no longer necessary. 
 
 The use of the borer alone may procure an adequate sup- 
 ply of water in particular situations. This mode appears to 
 have been long resorted to in this and other countries. 
 From what we have already stated as to the disposition of 
 strata, the conditions requisite for its success will be readily 
 conceived ; viz., watery strata connected with others on a 
 higher level : the pressure of the water contained in the 
 higher parts of such strata on that in the lower will readily 
 force up the latter through any orifice, however small. All 
 that is necessary, therefore, is to bore down to the stratum 
 containing the water, and, having completed the bore, to in- 
 sert a pipe, which may either be left to overflow into a cis- 
 tern, or it may terminate in a pump. In many cases, water 
 may be found in this way, and yet not in sufficient quantity 
 and force to rise to the surface ; in such cases a well may 
 be sunk to a certain depth, and the auger-hole made, and 
 the pipe inserted hi it at the bottom of the well. From the 
 bottom it may be pumped up to the surface by any of the 
 usual modes. 
 
 As an example of well-digging combined with boring, we 
 give that of a well dug at a brewery at Chelsea, Middlesex, 
 in 17113. The situation was within 20 or 30 feet of the edge 
 of the Thames, and the depth 394 feet, mostly through a 
 blue clay or marl. At the depth of nearly fifty feet a 
 quantity of loose coal, twelve inches in thickness, was dis- 
 covered : and a little sand and gravel was found about the 
 same depth. The well-digger usually bored about ten, fif- 
 teen, or twenty feet at a time lower than his work as 
 he went on ; and on the last boring, when the rod was about 
 fifteen feet below the bottom of the well, the man felt, as 
 the first signal of water, a rolling motion, something like the 
 gentle motion of a coach passing over pavement : upon his 
 continuing to bore, the water presently pushed its way by 
 the side of the auger with great force, scarcely allowing 
 him time to withdraw the borer, put that and his other tools 
 into the bucket, and be drawn up to the top of the welL 
 The water soon rose to the height of 200 feet. 
 
 In a case which occured in digging a well at Dr. Darwin's, 
 near Derby, the water rose so much higher than the surface 
 of the ground, that, by confining it in a tube, he raised it to 
 the upper part of the house. (Recs's Cyclopedia, art. 
 " Well ;" and Derbyshire Rep.) 
 
 The process of boring the earth for spring-water has, of 
 late, been practised with great success in various parts of 
 England, chiefly by Mr. Goode of Huntingdon. In the 
 neighbourhood of London, many fountains of pure spring 
 water have lately been obtained by these means. We may 
 particularly name those at Tottenham, Middlesex, and 
 Mitcham, Surrey, both of which afford a continuous and 
 abundant flow of water, at one time equal to about eight 
 gallons per minute ; but now reduced to a much smaller 
 quantity, in consequence of the great number of holes that 
 have been bored into the supplying strata. 
 
 Well. A small enclosed space near the mainmast, ex- 
 tending from the bottom of the ship to the principal gun 
 deck, containing the pumps. 
 
 WE'REGILD. Among the Anglo-Saxons, the compen- 
 sation paid by a delinquent to the party injured, or his rela- 
 tions, for offences against the person. This custom was com- 
 mon to all the Teutonic tribes, and to many Celtic. It is 
 mentioned by Tacitus in his account of the ancient Germans. 
 The great distinction between Saxon freemen was that be- 
 tween the " eorls," or nobility, and " ceorls," or commonalty ; 
 and the were of the former was usually rated at six times 
 the amount of that of the latter. 
 
 WE'RNERITE. A mineral named after Werner. It is 
 a silicate of alumina, lime, and oxide of iron ; of a green or 
 gray colour; and forms eight-sided prismatic crystals. It 
 has" been found in Norway and Sweden, and also in Switz- 
 erland. 
 
 WE'SLEYANS. The chief denomination of the Metho- 
 dists ; so called from John Wesley, their founder. See 
 Methodists. 
 
 WE'STERN EMPIRE. The name given by historians 
 to the western division of the Roman empire, when divided, 
 by the will of Theodosius the Great, between his sons Hono- 
 rius and Arcadius, A.D. 395. After the deposition of the 
 emperor Augustulus by Odoacer, A.D. 476, the Western em- 
 pire was definitely at an end. But when Charlemagne, in 
 the year 800, assumed the imperial crown, it was with the 
 view of reassuming the ancient dignity of the Csesars in 
 Western Europe ; and after him the German emperors were 
 considered by the jurists of their own country, and of their 
 party in Italy, as representing the majesty of ancient Rome, 
 the Italian states being looked on as feudatories of the em- 
 pire. 
 v 1333
 
 WHALE. 
 
 WHALE. Sff Bjlina. 
 
 WHEAT. (Triticum, L.; Trimidria Dijrynia.I'.; Gram- 
 
 £m0,Jusa Inflorescence spiked. Glume two- waived, many- 
 flowered, shorter than thespifcelet; the valves nearly equal, 
 beardless, or with one heard enclosing the florets. Pales 
 two, one of them bearded from the end. Seed enclosed in 
 the pales, rarely otherw Ise.) 
 
 Wheat is by far the most important and most extensively 
 cultivated species of bread-corn raised in England. It is 
 sown after fallow, turnips, cabbages, potatoes, beans, &c. 
 In lijht soils it follows clover and the cultivated grasses; 
 but it never, at least in the best farmed districts, follows 
 any other white crop. Wheat may he raised on all sorts of 
 soils; hut those of a clayey nature ate the most suitable. 
 So peculiarly, indeed, is wheat adapted to heavy stiff" lands, 
 that they are usually termed "wheat soils." The lighter 
 the soil, the less it is suited to this species of grain; and it is 
 an error in practice to force the cultivation of wheat on 
 soils, and under circumstances, better suited to the produc- 
 tion of other grain. In this country it does not admit of 
 being raised at a great elevation. As it is a crop on which 
 the farmer mainly depends, the preparation for it, in what- 
 ever rotation it comes, should he an object of great care and 
 attention. If it be intended to sow wheat after fallow, the 
 land is repeatedly ploughed, harrowed, and well manured ; 
 if after clover, only one ploughing is given, and seldom more 
 after beans ; where tares have been previously sown, they 
 are got off" the land in sufficient time to plough it more than 
 once ; when wheat follows turnips or cabbages, it must, un- 
 less they be stored or eaten, be sown in the spring months. 
 
 The kinds of wheat grown in England seem mostly all 
 to be varieties of two species — the Triticum hybernum, or 
 winter u heat, and the Triticum turgidum, or turgid wheat. 
 The culture of the latter is mostly confined to clays ; the 
 cone or bearded wheat being the most esteemed of its 
 varieties : it enjoys this pre-eminence, not because it yields 
 the finest flour, but because it is comparatively productive, 
 and not subject to disease on wet soils. 
 
 The varieties of wheat are perpetually changing, in con- 
 sequence of variations of culture, climate, and soil. Those 
 most in use are distinguished by different local terms. They 
 may, however, be divided into the two great classes of red 
 and white — the latter being superior as respects quality of 
 produce, and the former of hardiness. In general, the 
 thin and smooth-chaffed varieties are preferred to those that 
 are woolly and thick-chaffed. Wheal sown in the spring is 
 called spring wheat ; but the species is quite the same as 
 that sown before winter; though, by being sown in the 
 spring, its period of ripening is changed, It is always sown 
 before winter when the ground can be got ready ; but when 
 it follows turnips, cabbages, and such like crops, it has fre- 
 quently to be deferred to the spring. (Low on Agriculture, 
 p. 222-228 
 
 Winter wheat is seldom sown in any part of Enffland be- 
 fore the beginning or middle of September, or later than the 
 end of November. Spring w heat is generally sown between 
 the middle of March and the middle of April. The seed is 
 invariably pickled or steeped ; a process intended to prevent 
 smut. The quantity of seed allowed to an acre, when 
 sown broad cast, usually varies from 2£ to 3, and even 4 
 Winchester bushels. 
 
 The drill husbandry, as applied to wheat, is practised to 
 a considerable extent in many parts of England ; and in 
 some places it is not unfrequently planted with the dibble ; 
 but by far the greater portion is sown broad cast. While 
 growing, but little attention or labour is bestowed upon it. 
 When (hilled, it is generally hoed ; and when sown broad- 
 cast, it is sometimes hand weeded, and occasionally, though 
 rarely, harrowed and rolled in the spring. But these opera- 
 tions are generally, perhaps, prosecuted as much in the 
 View of covering the clover and grass seeds that are then 
 frequently sown in the wheat fields, as of improving the 
 wheat crop. 
 
 Wheat harvest generally commences, in the south of 
 England, about the 25th of July, or the beginning of Au- 
 gust ; in the midland counties it is about ten days, and in 
 the northern counties from a fortnight to three weeks later. 
 There is a striking difference in the harvest field operations, 
 with respecl to tins as well as other kinds of grain, between 
 the north and south of England ; in the former, during har- 
 vest, the corn-field exhibits a large number of reapers, per- 
 haps SO, bo. or even ion, all working together, and present- 
 in" an interesting and animating spectacle. In the south 
 of England, on the other hand, and over the greater part of 
 the midland I OUntteS, Wheat La reaped by small sets of indi- 
 viduals, who contract to cut a field or a certain number of 
 acres; so that, in general, the field merely exhibits one or two 
 men, With, perhaps, their wives, working in different parts 
 of it. Wheat is seldom or never cut down with the scythe, 
 but is either reaped with the common sickle, or, as is the 
 practii ,■ in some of the counties near the metropolis, as well 
 as in some of the south western counties, it is bagged, that 
 1334 
 
 WHEAT. 
 
 is, struck down near the ground with a large and heavy 
 hook. It is universally bound in sheaves, which are set up 
 in shocks or staphs, each containing twelve or fourteen 
 sheaves. Perhaps no circumstance marks the difference of 
 climate in the south and north of England more strongly 
 than the difference in point of time during which ii 
 sary to keep wheat and other grain in the field before it is 
 carried home. In the southern counties it is general!) ready 
 in a week 01 leu days ; whereas in the north it is necessary 
 to let it stand out for two or three weeks. In the southern, 
 eastern, and midland counties, it is frequently put into 
 barns : in the north, it is almost universally stacked. 
 
 As this grain is so extensively cultivated, frequently on 
 very inferior soils, and after very imperfect preparation, the 
 produce per acre varies materially in different counties and 
 districts; it is also very liable to injury from a had seed 
 time, a wit winter, or a blight during the period of its flower- 
 ing (which last is the most common cause of the failure or 
 deficiency of our wheat crops) ; so that its produce varies as 
 much in different seasons on the same farms, and under the 
 same management, as it does during the same season on 
 different farms. The low est quantity of produce, except 
 where an absolute deficiency from blight occurs, may. per- 
 haps, be rated at from 10 to 12 bushels an acre; and the 
 highest at from 48 to 56 or 64 bushels. Occasionally, in- 
 deed, even more than this hits been reaped on the deep 
 loams near Chichester, in Sussex, on the calcareous loams 
 near Epsom, and in some of the more favoured and highly 
 cultivated parts of Kent, Essex, Lincoln, Somerset, &c. 
 
 The following table gives a comprehensive view of the 
 
 most important circumstances connected with the British 
 
 trade in wheat from 1799 down to 1841, both inclusive: 
 
 A< i oi nt of the Total Quantities of Wheat and Wheat- 
 
 Fhuir imported into and exported from Great Britain ; 
 
 distinguishing between the Quantities imported from 
 
 Ireland and Foreign Parts, in each Year from 17119 to 
 
 1841, both inclusive, with the Average Prices of Wheat 
 
 per Imperial Quarter, in England and Wales, during the 
 
 same period. 
 
 Years. 
 
 bnpc ns 
 
 from 
 Ireland. 
 
 Imports 
 from Fo- 
 reign Parts. 
 
 Total 
 Imports. 
 
 Exports. 
 
 Average 
 Prices. 
 
 
 Om. 
 
 Qrs. 
 
 Q«. 
 
 Qr,. 
 
 •. d- 
 
 1799 
 
 
 
 463,135 
 
 39.362 
 
 69 
 
 1800 
 
 749 
 
 1.2h2,-7l 
 
 1,264 520 
 
 22,013 
 
 113 10 
 
 1-11! 
 
 150 
 
 1,424,615 
 
 1,424,765 
 
 28,406 
 
 119 6 
 
 1802 
 
 103,751 
 
 538,912 
 
 647,663 
 
 149.304 
 
 69 10 
 
 1803 
 
 61.267 
 
 312,458 
 
 373.725 
 
 76,580 
 
 58 10 
 
 IS04 
 
 70.071 
 
 391,069 
 
 461,140 
 
 63.073 
 
 62 3 
 
 1805 
 
 84,0 " 
 
 - H .7 17 
 
 920.^34 
 
 77,955 
 
 69 9 
 
 1806 
 
 102,276 
 
 208,066 
 
 310.342 
 
 29.566 
 
 79 1 
 
 1807 
 
 44.900 
 
 360,046 
 
 404.946 
 
 2n.M3 
 
 75 4 
 
 1S03 
 
 43.497 
 
 41.392 
 
 S4>s9 
 
 !i- i i.-, 
 
 81 4 
 
 l-,,i 
 
 66 '•!! 
 
 3--9.043 
 
 4V..'-7 
 
 31,278 
 
 97 4 
 
 1810 
 
 126 3-S 
 
 1 ,440,733 
 
 1,567,126 
 
 75.785 
 
 106 5 
 
 1811 
 
 147.245 
 
 ,.. .. 
 
 336.131 
 
 97. "I/, 
 
 95 3 
 
 ls|2 
 
 158,352 
 
 132.358 
 
 .Mo. -HI 
 
 46,325 
 
 126 6 
 
 1813 
 
 217,154 
 
 341,846 
 
 659,000 
 
 Records 
 
 destroyed. 
 
 109 9 
 
 1814 
 
 885,478 
 
 627.0S9 
 
 852,567 
 
 1 1 1 ,477 
 
 74 4 
 
 18!'. 
 
 189,544 
 
 194,931 
 
 384,475 
 
 227.947 
 
 65 7 
 
 1816 
 
 121,631 
 
 
 332,491 
 
 in. Oil 
 
 78 6 
 
 1-17 
 
 55,481 
 
 1,034.374 
 
 
 317 524 
 
 96 11 
 
 1818 
 
 in - , 179 
 
 1 6 89 062 
 
 1,694,26! 
 
 58.668 
 
 S6 3 
 
 1819 
 
 I 3, ,n 
 
 471,786 
 
 625.638 
 
 44,688 
 
 74 6 
 
 1820 
 
 403,407 
 
 593,072 
 
 996,479 
 
 94.657 
 
 67 10 
 
 1821 
 
 S6S 71 'i 
 
 137,684 
 
 707,3-4 
 
 199.816 
 
 66 1 
 
 1822 
 
 463,004 
 
 47,598 
 
 510.602 
 
 160.499 
 
 44 7 
 
 |s23 
 
 400.06S 
 
 23,951 
 
 424.019 
 
 145.951 
 
 53 4 
 
 1S21 
 
 356,3s4 
 
 S5 2n7 
 
 441, VU 
 
 61.650 
 
 63 11 
 
 i-r. 
 
 3at,.ois 
 
 891,688 
 
 7S7.606 
 
 38.796 
 
 6s 6 
 
 1S26 
 
 314. -".t 
 
 5-2.27(1 
 
 
 20,054 
 
 5S 8 
 
 1827 
 
 405,255 
 
 306,613 
 
 711 868 
 
 57,323 
 
 58 6 
 
 1828 
 
 652,684 
 
 7V7.7I6 
 
 1.410.300 
 
 76.4--9 
 
 60 6 
 
 ls29 
 
 519,1117 
 
 1,671.078 
 
 2,190,095 
 
 75.097 
 
 66 3 
 
 1830 
 
 5J').7I7 
 
 1,676 034 
 
 2,205,751 
 
 37.149 
 
 64 3 
 
 1-31 
 
 557,498 
 
 2,310,362 
 
 
 65 875 
 
 66 4 
 
 Is32 
 
 790.293 
 
 464,058 
 
 1,254,351 
 
 289.559 
 
 68 8 
 
 1-33 
 
 si 1 211 
 
 322 246 
 
 1,166 4V7 
 
 96.212 
 
 52 II 
 
 If 34 
 
 
 201.881 
 
 881,486 
 
 159.4-2 
 
 46 2 
 
 1*35 
 
 661,'. 76 
 
 99,032 
 
 
 134 ' 76 
 
 3.1 4 
 
 1-36 
 
 
 262 399 
 
 S6I.I56 
 
 2">6. r r« 
 
 43 6 
 
 1*37 
 
 534,465 
 
 575,027 
 
 
 30s .Jin. 
 
 55 10 
 
 1838 
 
 542,5-3 
 
 1,390.817 
 
 1,923.400 
 
 168 (121 
 
 64 7 
 
 |s.19 
 
 258,331 
 
 2,852 S98 
 
 8,110,729 
 
 42.512 
 
 70 8 
 
 1-: i 
 
 174.419 
 
 
 
 -■-.212 
 
 66 4 
 
 1841 
 
 21 s.708 
 
 2,704,481 
 
 
 30 390 
 
 64 4 
 
 The wheat counties are Kent, Essex, Suffolk, Kutland, 
 Hertford, Berks, Hants, and Hereford; that is, these are the 
 counties most distinguished for the quality as well as the 
 quantity of their w heat. In the north, this grain is some- 
 timei raised otf-a very tine quality : but generally it is inferior; 
 
 being colder 10 the feel, darker coloured, thicker skinned, 
 and yielding less flour. In the best wheat counties, and in 
 good! yean, the weight of a Winchester bushel of wheat 
 varies from 60 to OS lbs. In the isle of Bbeppey, in Kent 
 (where, perhaps, the best samples are produced, it some- 
 times weighs, in favourable seasons, 64 lbs. a bushel. 
 Where the climate is naturally colder, wetter, and mora
 
 WHEEL AND AXLE. 
 
 backward, or in bad seasons, the weight of the bushel does 
 not exceed 56 or 57 lbs. It is calculated that, at an aver- 
 age, a bushel of good English wheat weighs 58A lbs. : and 
 that the average yield of flour is 12A lbs. of flour to 14 lbs. 
 of grain. The weight of the straw is supposed to be about 
 double that of the grain ; so that an acre yielding 30 bushels 
 of wheat, at 581 lbs. per Winchester bushel, would yield 
 3510 lbs. of straw. {Statistics of British, Empire, i., 4G4.) 
 
 The increase of population, and the extraordinary exten- 
 sion and improvement of cultivation during the ten years 
 ending wilh 1840, coupled with the inquiries we have 
 made, have satisfied us that in average seasons the quantity 
 of wheat raised in the United Kingdom for food cannot at 
 present (1842) be less than 15,000,000 quarters, and adding 
 to this Jlh part for seed, the total produce will be 17,500,000 
 quarters; worth, at the low average price of 52s. a quarter, 
 ,£45,500,000. But notwithstanding its magnitude, the supply 
 is, speaking generally, inadequate to meet the demand, and 
 whenever the crops are below an average there is a large 
 importation. i 
 
 We incline to think that of the total produce of wheat in 
 the United Kingdom, at least 15,000,000 quarters are furnish- 
 ed by England. The climate of Scotland and Ireland, es 
 pecially of the latter, is, speaking generally, too cold and 
 moist for the profitable culture of wheat. Along the east 
 coast of Scotland, indeed, in Berwickshire, East Lothian, 
 Fife, Perth, and Farfar, there are extensive tracts where 
 the soil and climate are comparatively good, and the cul- 
 ture excellent, and where very good wheat is raised. But 
 with these exceptions, the rest of Scotland, and the whole 
 of Ireland, is more suitable for the growth of oats and bar- 
 ley than for that of wheat. Indeed its culture in Ireland 
 has recently been declining. 
 
 WHEEL AND AXLE. In Mechanics, one of the simple 
 mechanical powers or machines, consisting of a wheel hav- 
 ing a cylindrical axis passing through its centre, resting on 
 pivols at its extremities, or supported in gudgeons, and ca- 
 pable of revolving. The power is applied to ihe circumfer- 
 ence of the wheel, and the weight or force to be overcome 
 to the circumference of the axle; and equilibrium takes 
 place when the power and weight are to each other in- 
 versely as the radii of the circles to which they are ap- 
 „, plied. In the annexed figure, a is the 
 
 wheel, ft the axle, p the power, and w the 
 weight. The power is applied by a rope 
 passing round the wheel, and the weight 
 attached to another rope coiled round the 
 axle in a contrary direction. As the wheel 
 and axle turn together, the wheel takes 
 up or throws off as much more rope than 
 the axle as its circumference is greater 
 than that of the axle ; or the space 
 through which p descends is as much 
 greater than that through which w is 
 lifted up as the circumference or radius 
 of the wheel is greater than the circumference or radius of 
 the axle. Hence if a denote the radius of the wheel, and ft 
 that of the axle, we have, by the principle of virtual veloci- 
 ties p : ic : : b : a, or p a = w b. 
 
 The wheel and axle is a perpetual lever, so contrived as 
 to have a continued motion about a fulcrum. When the 
 thickness of the rope is taken into consideration, the force 
 must be conceived as acting at the centre of the rope, and 
 therefore the thickness of the rope which supports the 
 weight must be added to the diameter of the axle, and the 
 thickness of that which supports the power to the diameter 
 of the wheel. But the manner in which the power is ap- 
 plied is very various, and frequently otherwise than by 
 means of a rope. If the power acts not at the circumfer- 
 ence of the wheel, but at the extremity of a handspike or 
 projecting pins inserted in the wheel, the distance of that 
 extremity from the centre of the axis is to be accounted 
 the radius of the wheel. The common winch with which 
 a grindstone is turned or a crane worked, the capstan, the 
 windlass, the crank, and other contrivances of a similar 
 kind, are only different modifications of the wheel and axle. 
 A form of the wheel and axle is represented in the sub- 
 joined figure, by which a great mechanical advantage is ob- 
 tained. The axle consists of two parts having different 
 thicknesses ; and ihe rope after being coiled round one of 
 the parts is carried round a pulley attached to the weight, 
 and coiled around the other in 
 the opposite direction. The 
 power p is applied at the han- 
 dle of the winch, which here 
 takes the place of the wheel. 
 In order to compute the advan- 
 tage gained by this machine, let 
 a denote- the circumference 
 described by the handle of the 
 winch, b the circumference of 
 the thicker part of the axle, 
 
 WHEEL WORK 
 
 and c that of the thinner part ; then, while the winch 
 makes one revolution in the direction which raises the 
 weight, the part of the rope which passes from the one part 
 of the axle to the other round the pully will be shortened 
 by the quantity b—c, and consequently the weight w will 
 be raised through the height i (ft— c). But the space de- 
 scribed in the same time by the power p is equal to that 
 through which the handle of the winch passes, or equal to 
 a; therefore, by the principle of virtual velocities, p : w :: 
 i (b—c) : a, or p <z = J w (ft— e). As the circumferences 
 of circles are to their radii i n a constant ratio, it is evident 
 that the formula will equally apply if the letters a, 6, c be 
 taken to represent the respective radii. 
 
 WHEEL. In a Ship, the wheel and axle by which the 
 tiller is moved. 
 
 WHEEL ANIMAL, or WHEEL ANIMALCULE. See 
 Rotifers. 
 
 WHEEL, BREAKING ON THE. A mode of capital 
 punishment, said to have been first employed in Germany ; 
 according to some writers, on the murderers of Leopold, 
 duke of Austria, in the 14th century. According to the 
 German method of this savage execution, the criminal was 
 laid on a cart-wheel with his arms and legs extended, and 
 his limbs in that posture fractured with an iron bar. But 
 in France (where it was restricted to cases of assassination, 
 or other murders of an atrocious description, highway rob- 
 bery, parricide, and rape), the criminal was laid on a frame 
 of wood in the form of a St. Andrew's cross, with grooves 
 cut transversely in it above and below ihe knees and elbows ; 
 and the executioner struck eight blows with an iron bar, so 
 as to break the limbs in those places, sometimes finishing 
 the criminal by two or three blows on the chest or stomach : 
 thence called coups dc grace. He was then unbound and 
 laid on a small carriage wheel, with his face upwards, and 
 his arms and legs doubled under him ; there to expire, if 
 still alive. Sometimes the sentence contained a retention, 
 by which the executioner was directed to strangle the 
 criminal, either before the first, or after one, two or three 
 blows. This punishment was abolished in France at the 
 Revolution ; but it is still resorted to in Germany as the 
 punishment for parricide, the last instance of which took 
 place in 1827 near Gottingen. The assassin of the bishop 
 of Ermeland in Prussia, in 1841, w^as sentenced to the 
 wheel. 
 
 WHEELS OF CARRIAGES. Wheels applied to car- 
 riages serve a two-fold purpose. In the first place, they 
 greatly diminish the friction on the ground by transferring it 
 from the circumference to the nave and axle; and in The 
 second place, they serve to raise the carriage more easily 
 over obstacles and asperities met with on the roads. The 
 friction is diminished in the proportion of the circumference 
 of the axle to that of the wheel ; and hence the larger the 
 wheel, and the smaller the axle, the less is the friction. The 
 mechanical advantage of the wheel in surmounting an ob- 
 stacle may be computed from the principle of the lever. 
 Let the wheel touch the horizontal line of traction in the 
 point A, and meet a protuberance B D. 
 Suppose the line of draft CP to be par- 
 allel to A B, join C D, and draw the per 
 pendiculars D E and D F. We may sup- 
 pose the power to be applied at E. and 
 the weight at F, and the action is then 
 the same as the bent lever E D F turn- 
 ing round the fulcrum at D. Hence P: 
 W : : F D : D E. But F D : D E : : tan. 
 FCD: 1; and tan. FCD = tan. 2 (D A B) ; therefore P = 
 W tan. 2 (D A B). Now. it is obvious that the angle DAB 
 increases as the radius of the circle diminishes ; and there- 
 fore the weight W being constant, the power required to 
 overcome an obstacle of a given height is diminished when 
 the diameter is increased. Large wheels are therefore best 
 adapted for surmounting inequalities of the road. There 
 are, however, circumstances which prescribe limits to the 
 height of the wheels of carriages. If the radius A C ex- 
 ceeds the hei2ht of that part of the horse to which the 
 traces are attached, the line of traction CP will be inclined 
 to the horizon, and part of the power will be exerted in 
 pressing the wheel against the ground. The best average 
 size of wheels is considered to be about 6 feet in diameter. 
 The fore wheels of carriages and wagons in this country 
 are usually much too small. 
 
 Cylindrical wheels are best adapted for level roads ; and 
 the breadth of the rim should be considerable (not less than 
 three inches), to prevent their sinking into the ground. In 
 hilly and uneven roads a slight inclination of the spokes, 
 called disking, tends to give strength to the wheel ; but it is 
 very frequently carried to excess. 
 
 WHEEL WORK, In Machinery, consists of a combina- 
 tion of wheels communicating motion to one another. 
 Such combinations maybe formed in various ways; but 
 they are generally reducible to the principle of the wheel 
 axle, though the wheel which turns the other is not usually 
 
 1335
 
 WHEEL WORK. 
 
 op. the same axis with it. The motion in such cases Is 
 communicated from the one wheel to the other, either by 
 !>elts or snaps passing over the circumferences of both, or 
 hv teeth cut in those circumferences, and working in one 
 another, in either of these ways the velocities of points in 
 their circumferences are equal ; and consequently their an- 
 gular velocities, or the number of revolutions which they 
 n. ike in the same time, are inversely as their radii. When 
 one wheel drives another by teeth, they necessarily turn in 
 opposite directions ; if united by a cord or belt, they will 
 turn in the same direction, if the belt does not cross itself be- 
 tween the two wheels; but if the belt crosses itself, they 
 will turn in opposite directions. The chief advantage of 
 transmitting motion by cords or belts is, that the wheels 
 may be placed at any convenient distance from each other, 
 and be made to turn either in the same or in opposite di- 
 rections. 
 
 Wheels may act on one another so as to communicate 
 motion in various ways. When the resistance of the work 
 is not great, the object may be accomplished by the mere 
 friction of their circumferences. In order to increase the 
 friction, the surfaces of the rims are faced with buffleather 
 (caoutchouc might answer the purpose better), or wood cut 
 against the grain, and pressed together with a certain de- 
 gree of force. This method is sometimes used in spinning 
 machinery, and has even been applied successfully to the 
 saw mill ; but is seldom adopted in works on a great scale. 
 Motion communicated in this manner proceeds smoothly 
 and evenly, and is accompanied with little noise. 
 
 When motion is to be transmitted through a train of 
 wheel work, toothed wheels are generally employed. It is 
 usual to call a small wheel acted on by a large one a pinion, 
 and its teeth the leaves of the pinion. Wheels and pinions 
 are combined in the manner represented in the annexed 
 figure. On the axle of the wheel A, which bears the 
 power, is a pinion a which 
 drives the wheel B. The 
 axle of this wheel carries a 
 pinion ft, which drives the 
 wheel C. In the figure, the 
 axle c of this wheel carries 
 the weight ; but the combi- 
 nation may be continued at 
 E pleasure. When motion is 
 
 communicated in this man- 
 ner, the angular velocity of 
 the first wheel is to that of 
 the last pinion as the product formed by multiplying to- 
 gether the radii of all the wheels to the product formed by 
 multiplying together the radii of all the pinions. Conse- 
 quently, if II, R', R", &c. denote respectively the radii of 
 the wheels, and r, r\ r", &c. the radii of the pinions, we 
 shall have, by the principle of virtual velocities, p(RxR' 
 X E", &c.) — w(rXr' Xr", &c.) As the size of the teeth 
 of any wheel and the pinion into which it works must be 
 equal, we may substitute for the radii the number of teeth in 
 the wheels and pinions respectively. 
 
 Toothed wheels, as distinguished by the position of the 
 teeth relatively to the axis, are of three kinds : spur wheels, 
 crown wheels, and bevelled wheels. When the teeth are 
 raised upon the edge of the wheel, or are perpendicular to 
 the axis (as in the above figure), the wheel is a spur wheel ; 
 when they are raised parallel to the axis, or perpendicular 
 to the plane of the wheel, it is a crown wheel ; and when 
 they are raised on a surface inclined to the plane of the 
 wheel, it is called a bevelled wheel. The combination of 
 a crown wheel with a spur wheel as pinion is used when it 
 is required to communicate motion round one axis to an- 
 other at right angles to it. Two bevelled wheels are em- 
 ployed to transmit motion from one axis to another inclined 
 to it at any proposed angle. Wheels have also different 
 names, according to their mode of action, as heart wheel, 
 sun-and-planet wheel. 
 
 Form of the Teeth of Wheels. — In the construction of 
 machinery, it is of the utmost importance that the several 
 parts act on one another with a uniform force, and with 
 the smallest possible amount of friction. When wheels act 
 by teeth working into each other, every 
 point of the side a 6 of the tooth winch is 
 in action comes successively into contact 
 with the tooth of the pinion as the wheel 
 turns round, and the force is necessarily ex- 
 erted at the point c, which are in contact 
 Hence the lengths and positions of A c (\ 
 being supposed the centre of the wheel) 
 and He, the levers by which they act, are 
 constantly changing ; and in order, there 
 fori , that the force of the one tooth upon the other may be 
 constant, it is necessary that the line drawn perpendicular 
 to the surfaces of both teeth, at the point ui contact c, al 
 way- Intersect the line A B of the centres in the same point. 
 There are many different curves according to which the 
 1336 
 
 WHIGS. 
 
 teeth might he formed so as to answer this condition ; but 
 that which has been must generally adopted, and which 
 appears the most convenient, is the epicycloid generated by 
 the revolution of a circle whose radius is equal to half the 
 radius of the pinion on the circumference of a circle equal 
 to the wheel. This was first proposed by Roemer, the cele- 
 brated Danish astronomer. The evolute of the circle was 
 proposed, with other curves, by Euler. Sec Teeth oy 
 Wheels. 
 
 When the teeth are constructed according to the theo- 
 retical rules, the action is not only uniform, but there is 
 little friction ; for the teeth roll on one another, and neither 
 slide nor rub. But as it is impossible to attain perfect ac- 
 curacy in practice, the surfaces of the teeth will always 
 present some inequalities, and there will consequently be 
 some friction. In order, therefore, to equalize the wear, it 
 is necessary that every leaf of the pinion should work in 
 succession through every tooth of the wheel, and not al- 
 ways through the same set of teeth; and hence the num- 
 ber of teeth in a wheel and in a pinion which work into 
 each other should be prime to one another. This precau- 
 tion is more especially necessary in mill work, and where 
 considerable force is used. ( Willis's Principles of Me- 
 chanism ; Buchanan on Mill Work, by Rennie ; J,aidner's 
 Mechanics, Cab. Cyclop. ; Gregory's Mechanics, <$-c.) 
 
 WHELPS. Short upright pieces placed round the bar- 
 rel of the capstan, to afford resting points for the messen- 
 ger or haw sirs. 
 
 WHE'TSTONE. A talcy slate containing silica, used 
 for hones. See Novacilite. 
 
 WHEY. The limpid part of milk which remains after 
 the separation of the curd and butter; it consists chiefly of 
 water holding between 3 and 4 per cent, of sugar of milk 
 in solution. See Milk. 
 
 WHIGS. The well-known designation of a political 
 party in English history. It was first used in the reign of 
 Charles II. The term, which is of Scottish origin (vide 
 infra), was first assumed as a party name by that body of 
 politicians who were most active in placing William HI. on 
 the throne of England. Since that time it has been borne 
 by successive generations of those who, by hereditary in- 
 clination, or by education, or party connexion, have fol- 
 lowed in the same political line. Generally speaking, the 
 principles of the Whigs have been popular, and their mea- 
 sures, when in power, tending to increase the democratic 
 influence in the constitution. It may not be out of place 
 to subjoin a few of the various accounts of the origin of 
 the term Whiff, now incorporated indelibU in the political 
 vocabulary of this country. It was introduced immediate- 
 ly after the failure of Hamilton's expedition into England, 
 in the year 1648, for the rescue of Charles I. from the 
 hands of the English levellers and fanatics. After Hamil- 
 ton's defeat at Preston, the Westland Whigs raised an in- 
 surrection, which is thus alluded to : 
 
 "The party appellation of Whigamores, or, briefly, 
 Whigs, had its origin at this period ; and the insurrection 
 referred to was called the ' Wbigamores' raid,' or incursion, 
 that term being the common one for the predatory expedi- 
 tions of the Borderers. This nickname being still preserv- 
 ed in the vocabulary of party, although there is truly none 
 now existing that can be in any degree assimilated to the 
 original faction, it seems proper to explain how the distinc- 
 tion originated. Mr. Laing, in his History (vol. i.. p. 361, 
 2d ed., 1804), informs us that 'the expedition was termed 
 the Whigamores' inroad, from a word employed by these 
 western peasants in driving horses; and the name transfer- 
 red, in the succeeding reign, to the opponents of the court, 
 is still preserved and cherished by the Whigs as the genuine 
 descendants of the Covenanting Scots.' And in a foot-note 
 he adds, 'According to others from whig or whey, the cus- 
 tomarj food of those peasants.'" 
 
 Sir Walter Scott, in his Tales of a Grandfather, Prose 
 Works, vol. Hit - ■ saj s, " This insurrection w as railed the 
 Whigamores' raid, from the words whig, irhi<r — that is, get 
 on, get on — which is used by the western peasants in dri- 
 ving their horses ; a name destined to become the distinc- 
 tion of a powerful party in British history." 
 
 In Daniel Defoe's Memoirs of the (hurch of Scotland, 
 printed 1717, p. 17:1. speaking of the < 'ovenanters, he says, 
 " This is the tirs t time that the name of a Whigg was used 
 in the world — I mean BS applied to a man or to a party of 
 men: and these were the original primitive Whiggs, the 
 name for mam years being given to no other people. The 
 Word Is said to be taken from a mixed drink the poor men 
 drank In their wanderings, composed of water and sour 
 milk." 
 
 And Bishop Burnet, who lived nearer to the time in 
 which the nickname was invented, gives the following ex- 
 planation of it In the History of his Own Tunis, (p. 26, 
 Imperial ed., 1837); "The southwest counties of Scotland 
 have seldom coin enough to BOrve them round the year; 
 and the northern parts producing more thiui they need,
 
 WHINSTON. 
 
 those in the west come in the summer to buy at Leith the 
 stores that come from the north ; and from a word whig- 
 gam., used in driving their horses, all that drove were call- 
 ed Whiggamores, and, shorter, the Whiggs. Now, in that 
 year, after the news came down of Duke Hamilton's de- 
 feat, the ministers animated their people to rise and march 
 to Edinburgh, and they came up marching on the head of 
 their parishes with an unheard-of fury, praying and preach- 
 ing all the way as they came. The Marquis of Argyle and 
 his party came and headed them, they being about six thou- 
 sand. This was called the Whiggamores' inroad, and ever 
 after that all that opposed the court came, in contempt, to 
 be called Whigg ; and from Scotland the word was brought 
 into England, where it is now one of our unhappy terms 
 of distinction." 
 
 WHI'NSTON. A species of basalt. Sec Geology. 
 
 WHIP. In sea language', a rope passed through a single 
 block or pulley. 
 
 WHI'RLING TABLE. A machine contrived for re- 
 presenting several phenomena of centrifugal force, by giv- 
 ing bodies a rapid rotation. Mr. Robins invented a whirl- 
 ing machine for the purpose of determining the resistance 
 of the air, which is described in the 1st vol. of his Tracts ; 
 and also in Hutton's Tracts, vol. iii., where the results of a 
 series of experiments with it are detailed. 
 
 WHI'RLPOOL. A vortex, eddy, or gulf, where the wa- 
 ter has a circular motion. Whirlpools are produced by the 
 meeting of currents which run in different directions. Their 
 danger to navigation is well known, but is, perhaps, not 
 equal to the dread which sailors entertain of them. Some 
 of the most celebrated are the Euripus, near the coast of 
 Negropont; the Charybdis, in the straits of Sicily ; and the 
 Maelstrom, on the northern coast of Norway. (Murray's 
 Geography, Introd.) 
 
 WHI'RLWIND. A revolving column or mass of air, 
 supposed with most probability to be produced by the 
 meeting of two currents of air blowing in opposite direc- 
 tions, but ascribed by some to electricity. It is analogous 
 to the whirlpool. When the opposite currents have the 
 same velocity, the circulation will be maintained at the 
 same spot ; but if the motion of one of them is more rapid 
 than that of the other, it will transport the whirling mo- 
 tion with its excess of celerity, and a progressive and rota- 
 tory motion are thus maintained at the same time. Whirl- 
 winds generally occur in summer, and are most violent in 
 tropical countries, where they frequently produce most de- 
 structive effects. The diminution of atmospheric pressure 
 arising from the centrifugal force of the revolving column 
 is thus computed by Professor Leslie: " If r denote in feet 
 the radius of the extreme circle described by the whirlwind, 
 and t the time of circumvolution in seconds, the elasticity, 
 or pressure of the column at the verge, will suffer a dimi- 
 
 5r 
 nution corresponding to the fraction -— . The amount of 
 
 this diminution over the whole base would be reduced to 
 three fourths ; and consequently, h expressing the height of 
 
 1 5 r h 
 the revolving column of air, . would represent the 
 
 lb t* 
 
 mean effect of centrifugal action. Suppose the whirlwind 
 to have an elevation of 200 feet, and a radius of 50, and to 
 circulate in 3 seconds, the diminished pressure would be 
 
 15 X 50 X 200 
 equal to the weight of a column of ~ — == 1040 
 
 feet. This example, assuming a celerity of sixty-five mile9 
 an hour, might be reckoned an extreme ca^e ; but it would 
 occasion the mercury to sink in the barometer more than 
 an inch, or L12." (Ency. Brit., "Meteorology.") See 
 Storm ; Winds. 
 
 WHI'SKEY. (A corruption of the Gaelic word itsque- 
 lavgh.) A species of corn spirit. See Distillation. 
 
 WHTSPERING DOMES, or GALLERIES, are places 
 in which whispers or feeble sounds are communicated to a 
 greater distance than under any ordinary circumstances. In 
 order to produce this effect, the form of the roof or walls 
 of the building must be such that sound proceeding from 
 one part is transmitted by reflection or repeated reflections 
 to another. The dome of St. Paul's church in London fur- 
 nishes an instance. See Sound. 
 
 WHITE. In Painting, a negative colour (if such defini- 
 tion may be allowed), whose opposite or antagonist is black, 
 which may best serve as its explanation ; because black is 
 void of all colour, properly so called. 
 
 White. The colour produced by the combination of all 
 the prismatic colours mixed in the same proportions as they 
 exist in the solar rays. This is proved both by decomposing 
 white light by means of a prism, and by recompounding 
 the primitive colours in due proportions. See Colour, 
 Lioht, Refraction. 
 
 WHITE ARSENIC. Oxide of arsenic, or arsenious 
 acid. See Arsenic. 
 
 WHITE BAIT. The name of a small and peculiar 
 
 WHITFIELDIAN METHODISTS. 
 
 species of Clupea; confounded, until studied by Mr. Yarrcl, 
 with the young of the shad (Clupea alosa). The young 
 fish of the white bait (Clupea alba, Yarrel) begin to ascend 
 the Thames at the beginning of April, and continue in that 
 part of the river where there is a mixture of salt with fresh 
 water until September, when young fish of the year four 
 or five inches long are not uncommon, though accompanied 
 by others of smaller size ; but the parent fish are believed 
 not to ascend beyond the estuary. The young of tho shad 
 are not two inches and a half long till November, when 
 the white bait season is over ; and they are distinguished 
 by a spotted appearanee behind the edge of the upper part 
 of the operculum, which the white bait never exhibits, 
 air. Yarrel suggests that if a net sufficiently small in the 
 mesh were used, the white bait might be taken in other ri- 
 vers besides the Thames ; but he states that the Hamble, 
 which runs into the Southampton Water, is the only other 
 river from which he has received this justly estimated fish. 
 
 WHITE COPPER. An alloy used by the Chinese, and 
 called by them Packfong or Pakfong; it is composed, ac- 
 cording to the analysis of Dr. Fife, of 40'4 parts of copper, 
 25 - 4 of zinc, 31G of nickel, and 2-6 of iron. German silver 
 is a modification of this alloy. 
 
 WHITE EAGLE, ORDER OP THE. An order of 
 knighthood in Poland, instituted by Uladislaus V. in 1325; 
 revived by Frederic Augustus I. in 1705. 
 
 WHITE LEAD. Carbonate of lead. See Lead. This 
 important compound, of which from 16,000 to 17,000 tons 
 are annually manufactured in England, is chiefly used as 
 the basis of white oil paint ; it is also employed to a small 
 extent in the manufacture of cements. It is chiefly made 
 in two ways: either by precipitation, as when carbonic acid 
 or a carbonate used to decompose a soluble salt, or a sub- 
 salt of lead ; or by exposing plates of cast lead to the joint 
 action of the vapour of acetic acid, air, and carbonic acid : 
 it is by the latter process only that the resulting carbonate 
 of lead is obtained of that degree of density and opacity, 
 and perfect freedom from crystalline texture, which fits it 
 for paint. This last, commonly called the Dutch process, 
 was introduced into England about the year 1780. It is de- 
 scribed, together with the other processes, in Brandt's 
 Manual of Chemistry, fifth ed., p. 844. White lead is of- 
 ten largely adulterated with sulphate of baryta, which i3 
 detected by insolubility in dilute nitric acid, whereas pure 
 white lead is entirely dissolved by it. 
 
 WHITE LEG. A disease which generally occurs in 
 women soon after delivery, and which has been erroneous- 
 ly supposed to arise from redundancy of milk. It comes 
 on with stiffness and pain of the limb, which afterwards 
 becomes tumid and tense from the effusion of serum, and 
 in some instances goes on to suppuration. Leeches, fo- 
 mentations, friction, and gently stimulating liniments, with 
 the internal use of mild aperients and remedies calculated 
 to allay the febrile symptoms that attend it, are the princi- 
 pal points of treatment. Those women who during preg- 
 nancy have suffered very much from swellings of the low- 
 er extremities are generally" most liable to its attacks. 
 
 WHITE PRECIPITATE. The white powder which 
 falls on adding ammonia to a solution of corrosive subli- 
 mate : it is a compound of peroxide and bichloride of mer- 
 cury with ammonia: it is virulently poisonous, and is 
 chieflv used in ointments and for killing vermin. 
 
 WHITE STONE. A granite abounding in white fel- 
 spar. 
 
 WHITE SWELLING. A term vulgarly applied to in- 
 dolent tumours in scrofulous habits. 
 
 WHITE VITRIOL. The old name of sulp'hate of zinc. 
 .See Zinc. 
 
 WHI'TEWASH. A mixture of whiting, size, and wa- 
 ter, for whitening ceilings, walls, &c. 
 
 WHITFIELDIAN ME'THODISTS. The name given 
 to the most numerous body of the Methodists after the 
 Wesleyans ; so called from Whitfield, whose early connex- 
 ion with the Methodists will be found noticed under that 
 term. Soon after the return of Mr. Whitfield from Amer- 
 ica in 1741, he withdrew connexion with Wesley on ac- 
 count of religious tenets ; the former holding the high doc- 
 trine of Calvinism, and differing from the latter chiefly on 
 the subjects of election and general redemption, tut though 
 they differed in sentiments, these good men lived and died 
 united in heart. Whitfield devoted his life to itinerant 
 preaching, and was, if possible, more popular as an ener- 
 getic and eloquent pulpit orator than his former coadjutor. 
 He did not confine his labours to Great Britain and Ireland, 
 but visited North America no fewer than seven different 
 times ; and died there at Boston, in 1770, in the fifty-sixth 
 year of his age. But he can scarcely be said to be the 
 founder of a sect: his chief object was itinerating. At sev- 
 eral places, indeed, he erected chapels, or tabernacles, as 
 he called them ; but these he invariably left to the care of 
 any orthodox clergyman, whether in the establishment or 
 among the dissenters, who was prepared to occupy them 
 
 1337
 
 WHITING. 
 
 Since his death the mcmliers of these congregations have 
 been nominally, but only n totally, classed together as a 
 
 distinct body, under the title of the Tab* rum I, Gmnexwn. 
 They ore not governed by a general conference, nor is their 
 cause supported by a common stork ; but each congregation 
 
 is virtually independent in itself, and provides for its own 
 expenses. The lay-preachers are few, most of their minis- 
 ters being ordained among themselves ; but, like the Wes- 
 leyans, they have a periodical change of pastors. (Dr. 
 Gillie's L>fe <>f li'hilfidd.) 
 
 Among the most zealous of Whitfield's followers was 
 Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, in whose family he had at 
 one time officiated as chaplain. She devoted her ample 
 funds to the erection of chapels in different parts of Eng- 
 land, and invited clergymen of the established church to 
 occupy them ; but finding the supply of pastors from that 
 source deficient, she founded a college at Trevecca, in 
 South Wales, for the education of pious young men for the 
 ministry. She thus became the foundress of a distinct sect, 
 under the name of Lady Huntingdon's Connexion. The 
 college has. since her death, which look place in 1791, been 
 transferred to Cheshunt. in Hertfordshire. In her chapels, 
 about sixty in number, the service is performed according- 
 ing to the ritual of the church of England. (Dr. Haweis's 
 Hist, of the Church, vol. iii. ; Adam's Religious World, vol. 
 iii. 146-56.) 
 
 Another sect of Methodists, whose name is frequently 
 found in connexion with that of Whitfield, are the Welsh 
 Calvinistic Methodists. This body, which, though not 
 founded by Whitfield, received much countenance and 
 support from him in its earlier stages, had its origin so early 
 as 1735, but was not finally organized till 1785. Its founder 
 was Mr. Howell Harris of Trevecca. The field of the 
 operations of this sect is chiefly Wales ; and there Is scarce- 
 ly a village in the principality in which one of their chapels 
 is ii"t to be found. 
 
 WHITING. The name of a species of the Cod tribe 
 (Mcrlangus vulgaris, Cuv.), and the type of a subgenus, 
 distinguished from the true cod by the absence of the bar- 
 bules at the chin. It is esteemed for the delicacy of its 
 flavour and its easiness of digestion. 
 
 Whiting. Chalk carefully cleared of all stony matter, 
 ground, levigated, and made up into small oblong cakes. 
 As it is often used as a polishing material, it should be 
 very carefully freed from all particles of flint or sand. 
 
 WHITLOW. (Sax.) A painful inflammation, tending 
 to suppuration, at the ends of the turners. 
 
 WHITSUNDAY, in the Calendar, is the seventh Sun- 
 day, or 49th day after Easter. fVhitswntide corresponds 
 with Pentecost. This Sunday was called in the ancient 
 church Dominica Mba, White Sunday; or Dominica in ali- 
 bis, the Sunday in which white garments were worn, it 
 having been formerly a custom with those who were bap- 
 tized on this day to dress in white for the occasion. The 
 term, however, has been differently derived from the Saxon 
 "Mas," octave, the eighth from Easter. (Hamon V Es- 
 trange. See Riddle's Christian Antiquities.) 
 
 Wl'CKLIFFITF.S. In Ecclesiastical History, the fol- 
 lowers of the reformer Wicklifl', who are better "known by 
 their popular name of Lollards (which see). The memory 
 and opinions of WicklitT were solemnly condemned by the 
 council of Constance in 1-115. His bones were dug up and 
 publicly bumed in 1428, an event finely commemorated in 
 one of the sonnets of Wordsworth. 
 
 WILL, or TESTAMENT, is, in Law, the legal declara- 
 tion of a man's intentions as to what he wills to be per- 
 formed after his death. In strictness of language, the 
 term will is limited to land ; testament, to personal estate. 
 
 Wills, according to the law up to a recent period, were 
 either nuncupative or written. A nuncupative will could 
 not revoke one that is written ; it must be proved by the 
 oaths of three witnesses present at the making of it, must 
 have been made in the last sickness of tin- testator, and at 
 his house ; and was subject to various other restrictions. A 
 written will to dispose of personal property was good, if 
 sufllcient proof could be obtained of the writing of the tes- 
 tator, even without his signature or the attestation of any 
 witnesses. A w ill of real property must, by 29 C. 2, c. .1, be 
 in writing, signed by the testator, or by some other person 
 in his presence, and by hi-- express direction ; and witness, .,1 
 or subscribed, in presence of the testator, by three or four 
 credible witnesses. This state of the law gave rise to con- 
 siderable inconvenience. Much litigation was occasioned 
 by the uncertainty as to what was, or was not, a paper suf- 
 ficient to convey personal property as a will: much fraud 
 was supposed to have been caused by the facility with 
 which such testaments mighl be forged, or surreptitiously 
 
 obtained ; while, on the other hand, the rules respecting 
 the publicity of wills nf rial property were thought I I 
 
 stringent than the case required. These considerations In 
 duced the legislature to pass the statute 7 W. 4, & 1 Vict 
 
 c. 20, (in 1837), by which the making of wills is now regu- 
 1338 
 
 WINDMILL. 
 
 lated. All wills (except those of seamen and soldiers on 
 service), whether of real or personal property, must be in 
 u Titing, and signed at the foot by the testator or some other 
 person in his presence and by his direction; anil such Sig- 
 nature must be made and acknowledged by the testator in 
 the presence of two or more witnesses present at the 
 same time; and such witnesses must attest and subscribe 
 the will in the presence of the testator; but no form of at- 
 testation is necessary. All appointments by will, whatev- 
 er formalities may have been required by the creator of the 
 power, must now be made according to the provisions of 
 this statute, and require no further form. 
 
 The same statute enacts that no will of a minor shall be 
 valid. All devises and gifts by will to an attesting witness 
 are void. To put an end to the various questions w Inch 
 had arisen respecting the revocation of wills, it is provided 
 that they shall be revoked only by the marriage of the 
 party, or by another will duly executed, or some writing 
 declaring an intention to revoke, and executed with similar 
 formalities, or by burning, tearing, or otherwise destroying, 
 with intention to revoke. All wills now speak from the 
 death of the testator, unless they show- on the face a con- 
 trary intention, that is, they act upon the property which 
 he possesses at his death. And various important altera- 
 tions are introduced in the effect of the ordinary language 
 used in devises and bequests. 
 
 A married woman cannot make a will of lands or tene- 
 ments ; nor, without the consent of her husband, of person- 
 alty. 
 
 A disposition by will of real property is termed a devise ; 
 of personal property, a bequest or legacy. See Devise, Ex- 
 ecutor. 
 
 WI'LLOW. See Salix. 
 
 WINCH. In Mechanics, a bent handle or rectangular 
 lever, for turning a wheel, grindstone, &c. The term 
 winch is also popularly applied to the wijidlass. See Wind- 
 lass. 
 
 WIND. See Winds. 
 
 WINDAGE OF A GITN. The difference between the 
 diameter of the bore of a gun and the diameter of the ball. 
 Formerly it was usual in the English service to allow a very 
 considerable windage, l-20th of the diameter of the bore ; 
 but it has been found that the shot will go much truer, and 
 that a smaller quantity of powder is required, when the 
 above allowance is considerably diminished. (Mutton's 
 Tracts, vols, ii., iii.) See Gunnery. 
 
 WIND GAGE. An instrument for measuring the force 
 or velocity of the wind. See Anemometer. 
 
 WI'NDLASS. A machine used for many common pur- 
 poses. It is a particular modification of the wheel and 
 axle, the power being applied by means of a rectangular 
 lever or winch. The arm B C of the winch represents the 
 radius of the wheel ; and the power 
 
 is applied to CD at right ancles to j y 9 
 
 BC. The windlass is frequently } 
 
 used in merchant ships or small tra- 
 ding vessels instead of a capstan for 
 heaving the anchors, &c. In this 
 case it consists of a large cylindri- 
 cal piece of timber laid in a hori- 
 zontal position, and supported at its 
 two ends by two pieces of wood 
 called knight-heads placed on oppo- 
 site sides of the deck near the foremast. This axle is 
 pierced with holes directed towards the centre, in which 
 long levers are inserted, called handspikes. It is furnished 
 with strong pauls to prevent it from turning backwards 
 when the pressure on the handspikes is intermitted. 
 
 WTNDMILL. In Mechanics, a mill which receives its 
 motion from the impulse of the wind. The general appear- 
 ance of the windmill is familiar to every one. Tin- build- 
 ing containing the machinery is usually circular. To the 
 extremity Of the principal axis, or wind-shaft are attached 
 
 rectangular frames (generally five), on which cloth is usual- 
 ly Stretched In form the sails. The surfaces of the sails 
 air nut perpendicular to the axis, lint inclined to it a: a cer- 
 tain angle, about 72° at the extremities nearest to the axle, 
 and .-:r at the farther extremities ; so that their form is in 
 some degree twisted, and different from a plane surface. 
 Suppose the axis to be placed in the direction of the wind; 
 the wind will then strike the sail obliquely, and the force 
 may therefore be resolved into two parts, one of which, 
 acting in the direction perpendicular to the axis, gives a mo- 
 ti.ui nt rotation to the Bails, and consequently to the wind 
 shaft, from which it is communicated to the machinery, 
 The wind shaft is inclined to the horizon in an tingle of 
 from 8° to 15°, principally with a view to allow room for 
 the action of the \\ ind at the lower part, where il 
 weakened If the sails came too nearly in contact with the 
 
 building. 
 
 \s the direction of the wind is constantly changing, some 
 apparatus is required for bringing the axle and sails into
 
 WINDMILL. 
 
 their proper position. This is sometimes effected by sup- 
 porting the machinery on a strong vertical axis, the pivot of 
 which' moves in a socket firmly fixed in the ground ; so that 
 the whole structure may be turned round by a lever. But 
 it is now usual to construct the building with a moveable 
 roof, which revolves upon friction rollers ; and the shaft 
 being fixed in the roof is brought round along with it. The 
 roof is brought into the required position by means of a 
 small vane wheel furnished with wind sails, which turns 
 round when the wind strikes on either side of it, and drives 
 a pinion which works into the teeth of a large crown 
 wheel connected with and surrounding the moveable roof. 
 Of the Form and Position of the Sails.— From the inves- 
 tigations of Parent and Belidor, it appears that the maxi- 
 mum effect of the wind on the sails is produced when their 
 inclination to the axis of rotation is about 54$ degrees ; or 
 when the angle of weather, that is to say, the angle formed 
 by the plane of the sail and the plane of its revolution, is 
 354: degrees. But this result, being obtained from consider- 
 ing the effect of the wind on the sails when at rest, does 
 not agree with that which is found by experiment. In 
 fact, as the velocity of the sail tends to withdraw it from the 
 wind, it is necessary to counteract the diminution of force 
 by diminishing the angle of weather, or to bring the sail 
 into such a position that the wind strikes its surface more 
 directly : and since the velocity of the different parts of the 
 sail is in proportion to their distance from the axis, it follows 
 that in order to produce the greatest effect every element- 
 ary portion of it ought to have a different angle of weather, 
 diminishing from the centre to the extremity of the sail. 
 Euler has given a theorem which determines the law of 
 variation. Let a be the velocity of the wind, and b the ve- 
 locity of any given part of the sail ; then the action of the 
 wind upon that part of the sail will be a maximum when 
 the tangent of its inclination to the axis, or the cotangent 
 
 of the angle of weather, =V 2+ \$~) "h.g- • Suppose 
 
 that at a given part of the sail the velocity of the sail 
 is equal to the velocity of the wind, we have then a = b ; 
 
 and the formula becomes i/2+£ + iL= 3.501 = tangent of 
 
 ' 4 2 
 74° 19', which gives 15° 41' for the angle of weather. 
 
 This subject was investigated experimentally by Smeaton 
 (Philosophical Tran0, vol. li.), who found that the common 
 practice of inclining the sails from 72° to 75° to the axis is 
 much more efficacious than the angle assigned by Parent, 
 the effect being as 45 to 31. When the sails were weath- 
 ered in the Dutch manner, or with their surface concave to 
 the wind, and the angle of inclination greater towards the 
 extremities, the effect was greater than when weathered 
 either in the common way or according to Euler's theorem. 
 n But the effect was greatest of all when they 
 
 were enlarged at their extremities, and had 
 the forme dfe, represented in the annexed 
 figure ; so that c d was one third of the radius 
 A B, and c B to B d as 5 to 3. If the sails be 
 farther enlarged, the effect is not increased in 
 proportion to the surface ; and besides, when 
 the quantity of cloth is great, the machine is 
 much exposed to injury from sudden squalls. 
 In Smeaton's experiments the angle of weath- 
 er varied with the distance from the axis: 
 and it appeared from several trials that the 
 most efficacious angles at the different parts 
 of the sail were those in the following table : 
 
 Paris of A B. which is 
 
 divided into Six equal 
 
 Parts. 
 
 Angle with the 
 Axis. 
 
 Angle of 
 Weather. 
 
 2 
 3 
 4 
 5 
 6 
 
 72° 
 71 
 72 
 74 
 
 £* 
 
 18° 
 19 
 18 
 
 16 l 
 
 7 
 
 If the radius A B of the sail be 30 feet, then the sail 
 will commence at 1-Oth of A B, or 5 feet from the axis, 
 where the angle or inclination will be 72°. At 10 feet 
 from the axis, the angle will be 71°; and so on, as in the 
 table. 
 
 Of the Effect of Windmill Sails.— The following maxims 
 relative to the effect of the sails were deduced by Smeaton 
 from his experiments: 
 
 1. The velocity of windmill sails, whether loaded or un- 
 loaded, so as to produce a maximum effect, is nearly as the 
 velocity of the wind, their shape and position being the 
 same. 2. The load at the maximum is nearly, but some- 
 what less, as the square of the velocity of the wind, the 
 shape and position of the sails being the same. 3. The ef- 
 fects of the same sails at a maximum are nearly, but some- 
 what less, as the cubes of the velocity of the wind. 4. 
 The load of the same sails at the maximum is nearly as the 
 
 WINDS. 
 
 squares, and their effects as the cubes, of their number of 
 turns in a given time. 5. When the sails are loaded so as 
 to produce a maximum effect at a given velocity, and the 
 velocity of the wind increases, the load continuing the 
 same, then the increase of effect, when the increase of the 
 velocity of the wind is small, will be nearly as the square 
 of those velocities ; when the velocity of the wind is 
 doubled, the effect is nearly as 10 to 27£. When the velo- 
 cities compared are more than double of that where the 
 given load produces a maximum, the effects compared in- 
 crease nearly in the simple ratio of the velocity of the wind. 
 0. In sails where the positions and figures are similar and 
 the velocity of the wind the same, the number of turns in 
 a given time will be reciprocally as the radius or length of 
 the sail. 7. The load at a maximum that sails of a similar 
 figure and position will overcome at a given distance from 
 the centre of motion will be as the cube of the radius. 8. 
 The effects of sails of similar figure and position are as the 
 square of the radius. 9. The velocity of the extremities 
 of Dutch sails, as well as of the enlarged sails in all their 
 usual positions, when unloaded, or even loaded to a max- 
 imum, is considerably quicker than the velocity of the 
 wind. 
 
 Horizontal Windmills.— Windmills are sometimes con- 
 structed in such a manner that the planes of the sails in- 
 tersect each other in the wind-shaft, in which case they 
 are called horizontal windmills ; because the wind-shaft 
 being usually vertical, the sails have a horizontal motion. 
 The wind-shaft, however, might be placed with equal ad- 
 vantage in the horizontal position. In this construction 
 A B is the wind-shaft or arbor, A 
 
 which moves upon pivots. Cross rj 
 bars are fixed in this arbor, which 
 carry the frames C D E F and 
 G HI K. The sails C E and G I 
 are stretched on these frames, 
 and are carried round the axis _ 
 A B by the perpendicular im- x 
 pulse of the wind ; and a toothed 
 wheel fixed upon the arbor gives 
 motion to the machinery. Two 
 sails onlvare represented In this 
 figure, but there are always other two at right angles to 
 these. When the wind impels the two sails C E and G I 
 equally, it is obvious that no motion can ensue. In order, 
 then, that motion may be communicated to the machine, the 
 impulse of the wind on the returning sail must be removed 
 by screening it from the wind, or at least diminished by 
 making it present a less surface when returning against the 
 wind. The first of these methods is said to be practised in 
 Tartary, and some provinces in Spain ; it is the simplest 
 and probably the best. The other method requires the sail 
 to be formed of several flaps moveable on hinges, and so 
 adjusted that on one side of the axis they present their 
 surfaces to the wind, and when returning on the other only 
 their edges. Other contrivances have been proposed ; but 
 horizontal windmills are greatly inferior, in point of effect, 
 to those which have vertical sails, and are accordingly sel- 
 dom met with. 
 
 On account of the irregularity of the moving force, and 
 the interruption of calm weather, machines impelled by 
 the wind can only be used advantangeously for purposes 
 which are not urgent, and where regularity is not indispen- 
 sable. The chief purposes to which they are applied are 
 grinding corn, expressing oil from seeds, bruising oak bark 
 for tanning, sawing wood, raising water, &c. Windmills 
 were brought into Europe from the East about the time of 
 the Crusades. [Phil. Trans., vol. li. ; Smeaton's Miscella- 
 neous Papers ; Ferguson's Lectures, by Brewster ; Greg- 
 ory's Mechanics.) 
 
 WI'NDOW. (Quasi wind-door.) In Architecture, an 
 aperture in a wall for the admission of light and air to the 
 interior. In distributing windows so that there be had a 
 sufficiency of light, it is usual to make the piers or intervals 
 between them never less than the width of the window, 
 and never more than two widths of the same. Where it is 
 required to ascertain the total area of light necessary for a 
 room, the following empirical rule is frequently used: Mul- 
 tiply together the length, breadth, and height, and extract 
 the square root of the product, which will be the area of 
 light required. 
 
 WINDS. Currents in the atmosphere, conveying the air, 
 with more or less velocity, from one part to another. Not- 
 withstanding all that has" been written on the subject of the 
 winds, their theory is still involved is considerable obscu- 
 rity. The subject is exceedingly complicated ; and no at- 
 tempt that has yet been made to derive a general law from 
 the observations has been attended with much success. 
 Nevertheless, we can discern, clearly enough, certain pre- 
 vailing causes of the disturbances which are constantly ta- 
 king place in the equilibrium of the elastic fluid which en- 
 velopes the earth, though their influence is modified, and 
 
 1339
 
 WINDS. 
 
 sometimes altogether concealed, by disturbing muses, the 
 «e have no means of adequately appre- 
 ciating. 
 
 'flic principal cause of wind may be ascribed to the un- 
 equal and variable distribution of heat through the atmo- 
 sphere, the temperature of which is mainly determined by 
 that of the surface of the earth. The distribution of heat 
 at the surface is determined by the manner in which it Is 
 received from the sun, and radiated from the earth to the 
 celestial spaces. If we consider the whole earth, or the 
 State of any given portion of it through a long series of 
 time, the quantity of heat received from the sun and the 
 quantity lost by radiation exactly balance each other, and 
 the mean temperature remains an invariable quantity. But, 
 on considering any particular portion of the earth, it is easy 
 to see that though a balance is effected in the long run be- 
 tween the heat received and parted with, the two quan- 
 tities arc never precisely equal at the same time, or only so 
 for very short intervals, the one alternately exceeding and 
 falling short of the other. The radiation goes on contin- 
 ually, though not uniformly; but the supply of heat from 
 the sun, on a given surface, is interrupted entirely while the 
 sun is below the horizon, and during the day varies with the 
 sun's altitude. It varies also at the different seasons of the 
 year, in consequence of the unequal lengths of the days 
 and nights, and the greater or less obliquity with which the 
 rays strike against the surface. 
 
 But the efiect of the solar rays depends not only on the 
 obliquity with which they fall upon the surface, but also in 
 a great degree on the nature of the surface. The daily il- 
 lumination of the sun warms the land to a very small 
 depth, scarcely exceeding, perhaps, an inch. The heat is 
 therefore accumulated at the surface, the temperature of 
 which is rapidly increased when the heat received exceeds 
 that which is radiated away, and as rapidly cooled in the 
 reverse circumstance. In water, however, the calorific 
 rays penetrate to a considerable depth, twenty or thirty 
 feet. If we suppose a tenth part of the incident light to be 
 intercepted by a stratum of water one foot in thickness, 
 while it is totally intercepted by 1-2 inch of dry land, it 
 would follow that the sun's rays communicate everyday a 
 hundred times less heat to the surface of a body of water 
 than to an equal expanse of level ground. Now the effect 
 of the two surfaces in hearing the superincumbent atmo- 
 sphere will be in proportion to their respective tempera- 
 tures : but in the present instance the general conclusion is 
 modified by two circumstances. In the first place, a por- 
 tion of the solar light, perhaps a fiftieth of the whole, is 
 intercepted in its passage through the atmosphere, and con- 
 verted into heat ; and it is obvious that the increase of tem- 
 perature caused by this portion is independent of the na- 
 ture of the surface. In the second place, a small portion 
 of the light which falls upon water is reflected from the 
 surface into the atmosphere, and converted into heat. On 
 the whole, it may be concluded that the change of temper- 
 ature in the air caused by the succession of day and night i-' 
 about thirty times less over water than over land. Hence, 
 if the whole surface of the globe had been covered by the 
 ocean, ihe efiect of the alternation of day and night in pro- 
 ducing atmospheric currents would have been scarcely 
 Sensible. Hence, also, over a great part of the surface of 
 the oce; n, the winds are reducible to fixed and determinate 
 laws; while on continents, and also on the ocean in high 
 latitudes, the order and periods of their recurrence are ir- 
 regular and anomalous. 
 
 Besides the effects arising from the disturbance of the 
 equilibrium of tempi rature, we have also to consider the 
 mechanical eflect of the earth's rotation about its axis. If 
 tie- i Mth were a Bph.ere of uniform temperature, and at rest 
 in space, the atmosphere would also be at rest; its height 
 would lie constant over every point of the earth's surface, 
 and Its density and elasticity at equal altitudes everywhere 
 the same. But if the temperature of the motionless sphere, 
 instead of being equal at every point, were greatest at the 
 equator, ami decreased towards the poles, though the pres- 
 sure on every point of the surface would still continue the 
 same, the. altitude of the atmospheric column would be- 
 come greatest at the equator, and consequently its specific 
 gravity le>s there than at the poles. The heavier fluid at 
 the poles would then, by virtue of its greater weight, pass 
 beneath and displace the lighter, and a current he estab 
 lished in the lower part of the atmosphere from the poles 
 towards the equator. In the higher regions of the atmo- 
 sphere the efiect would be reversed. The lower stratum of 
 air in the equatorial regions being heated by its contact 
 with the earth, becomes rarified and ascends, and thus 
 produces an accumulation, ami causes a counter current in 
 the higher regions from the equator towards the poles. 
 Tin height at which this change in the direction of the 
 motion takes place under certain circumstances may he 
 computed. Professor Danlell [Meteorological Essays) com- 
 putes that the lower current, from the poles to the equator, 
 1340 
 
 extends to the height of 2£ miles, diminishing in velocity 
 from Ihe surface upwards. 
 
 If we now suppose the sphere to revolve about its polar 
 axis, an apparent modification will take place in the direc- 
 tions of the currents. The lower current, coming from a 
 zone where the velocity of rotation is less than that of the 
 parallel at which it arrives, will appear to be affected with 
 amotion contrary to that of the diurnal rotation; while the 
 upper current, Sowing from the equator to the poles, would 
 he apparently atfected in an opposite manner, da this 
 theory it is usual to explain the trade winds, which prevail 
 within and to a considerable distance beyond the tropics 
 in both hemispheres. These easterly currents, however, 
 receive important modifications, both as to their direction 
 and the distance to which they extend from the equator on 
 either side, from the annual variations of the sun's decli- 
 nation and the configuration of the land. They prevail in 
 the open ocean, in the Atlantic and Pacific, between the 
 latitudes of 30° N. and 27° 3. On entering these from 
 either side, the deviation, arising from the rotation of the 
 earth towards the east, is greatest; and this deviation be- 
 comes less and less as the equatorial zone is approached. 
 In the immediate vicinity of this zone, the wind is nearly 
 due N. on the northern side of the equator, and nearly due 
 S. on the southern side. See Trade Minds. 
 
 In the Indian Ocean the trade winds receive a curious 
 modification from the position of the surrounding land, and 
 the effect of the solar heat on it. During one half of the 
 year, from November to April, the winds blow in the ordi- 
 nary direction of the trades, that is to say, from the north- 
 east; hut from April to November they blow in the directly 
 opposite direction. These periodical winds are called the 
 Monsoons. (See Monsoons.) Between the equator and 
 10° south latitude, north-west winds prevail from October 
 to April, and south-west the rest of the year. In other 
 parts of the tropics, the regular trade winds" are also modi- 
 fied by the configuration of the land. On the coast of Gui- 
 nea the wind almost constantly blows from the south-west, 
 in the opposite direction to the trades. Near the Cape 
 Verd Islands calms and variable winds are usually expe- 
 rienced. 
 
 Between the parallels of 30° and 40°, in both the North 
 and South Pacific Oceans, westerly winds blow almost 
 constantly, excepting only for a shoi^ time after each equi- 
 nox. In the North Atlantic OceWn the prevalence of 
 westerly winds between those parallels is less constant, in 
 consequence of the comparative narrowness of that ocean, 
 and the consequent influence of the opposite continents; 
 they are still, however, the prevailing winds, except in the 
 months of April and October, when a north-east wind is 
 more frequent. In consequence of these winds, the voyage 
 from Europe to America is much more tedious than the 
 opposite one. 
 
 Upon the continents the diurnal and annual changes of 
 temperature are much more rapid and extensive than over 
 the ocean; hence there is little const nicy in the direction 
 or intensity of the winds, even in equatorial countries. In 
 high latitudes the inequalities are still greater, and extend 
 even to the open seas. Beyond the latitude of 40°, the 
 winds do not seem to be reducible to any fixed laws. 
 
 The different manner in which land and water are affected 
 by radiation and the direct heat of the sun gives rise to the 
 land and sea breezes which prevail on the co::sts, particu- 
 larly in tropical countries, though they are not confined to 
 any" particular latitude, and are perceptible sometimes as 
 far north as Norway. During the day the surface of the 
 land becomes more heated than that of the adjacent ocean, 
 and the air over the land, in consequence of its greater 
 rarefaction, is displaced by the denser air rushing from the 
 sea. Hence a current, or, seaireeie, beginning at some hour 
 in the morning, and continuing till the sun is near setting, 
 will flow Iron, the water towards the land. At night the 
 water remains warm, while the surface of the land cools 
 rapidly ; and hence the current sets from Ihe land t. .wards 
 the water, and forms the land breeze. Winds of this sort 
 are more frequent about islands and small peninsulas than 
 in other situations. 
 
 A variety of local winds are observed, the circumstances 
 occasioning which are either too complicated or too Imper- 
 fectly known to admit of their being satisfactorily explain, d. 
 The Etesian is a northerly or north-easterly wind, which 
 prevails very much in summer all over Europe. The 
 Sirocco is a hot, moist, and relaxing wind, which visits 
 .Naples and the south of Italy from the opposite shores of 
 the Mediterranean. The Samiel or Simoom of Arabia is a 
 hot, arid, pestilential blast, generally coming from the south. 
 The Ktnnsin of Eg] pt is of the same kind. The //. rmatton 
 is a dry east wind, also of an unwholesome description, 
 occurring in Guinea anil some other countries. 
 
 In the preceding remarks the winds have been considered 
 as produced by the unequal distribution of temperature in 
 the atmosphere, combined with the earth's diurnal rotation.
 
 WIND SAIL. 
 
 Other causes, however, depending on the physical constitu- 
 tion of the atmosphere, must be assigned for those sudden 
 and irregular blasts which occasionally spring up, and rage 
 for some time with tremendous fury. Among these causes, 
 one of the most powerful is, doubtless, the rapid condensa- 
 tion of vapours in the bosom of the atmosphere. An inch 
 of rain has sometimes been observed to fall within the 
 space of an hour over a great extent of country, particularly 
 in the equinoctial regions. Suppose the superficial extent 
 over which rain has fallen to the depth of an inch to be 
 only 100 square leagues; if the vapour necessary to produce 
 this quantity of rain existed in the atmosphere at the tem- 
 perature of SOP of Fahrenheit, it would occupy a space 
 100,000 times greater than in the liquid state ; that is to say, 
 it would occupy a space equal to a column of which the 
 base is 100 square leagues, and the altitude 100,000 inches, 
 or nearly 10,000 feet, and such would be the dimensions of 
 the vacuum created by the condensation. Some abatement 
 must be made from this estimate, inasmuch as the vapour 
 existing in the atmosphere is in the vesicular, and not the 
 elastic state ; but in any case its condensation into drops 
 and precipitation must create an immense void, the filling 
 up of which must necessarily occasion violent atmospherical 
 concussions. On this principle may be explained a fact, 
 the observation of which is often of great importance at sea, 
 that an unusual fall of the barometer is generally followed 
 by a gale of wind. See Storm. 
 
 The velocity of wind varies from nothing to upwards of 
 a hundred miles an hour; but the maximum is variously 
 stated by different experimenters, and, in fact, it is not easy 
 to see by what means its velocity can be ascertained within 
 moderate limits of accuracy. The best method seems to 
 be that of deducing its velocity from its force, observed by 
 means of an anemometer. In vol. li. of the Philosophical 
 Transactions a table is given of the different forces and 
 velocities of winds, drawn up by Smeaton from a consider- 
 able number of facts and experiments. The following 
 extracts from it will give the reader a general idea of the 
 velocity of the wind in different circumstances : 
 
 Velocity of the 
 Wind. 
 
 Perp. Force on 
 
 1 Sq. Foot, in 
 
 !bs. Avoirdupois. 
 
 Common Appellation of 
 the Force of such Winds. 
 
 Miles in an hour. 
 
 1 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 10 
 15 
 20 
 25 
 30 
 35 
 40 
 50 
 60 
 80 
 
 too 
 
 •005 
 •079 
 •123 
 •492 
 1107 
 1-963 
 
 3 075 
 
 4 429 
 6 027 
 7-73 
 
 12300 
 17-715 
 31-490 
 49-200 
 
 Hardly perceptible. 
 5 GenUe, pleasant wind. 
 > Pleasant, brisk gale. 
 y Very brisk. 
 | High wind. 
 
 Very high. 
 
 A storm. 
 
 A £reat storm. 
 
 A hurricane. 
 
 A violent hurricane. 
 
 Of late years the theory of winds (in common with other 
 meteorological phenomena) has received much attention ; 
 and through the recommendation of the British Association, 
 self-registering anemometers have been erected at the prin 
 cipal observatories and other places, with a view to obtain 
 systematic series of observations. The principal points to 
 be determined are the mean duration of the different winds, 
 the law of their succession, and their connexion with the 
 state of the barometer, thermometer, and hygrometer. (See 
 Prof. Forbes' Reports on .Meteorology to the Brit. Associa- 
 tion for 1831 and 1840 ; Experiments by Col. Beaufoy in 
 the Annals of Philosophy, vol. viii., p. 94 ; Danicll's Meteo- 
 rological Essays : .Murray's Geography, Introd. ; Pouillet, 
 Elemens de Physique.) 
 
 WIND SAIL. A tube or funnel of canvass, employed 
 to convey a stream of fresh air down into the lower part of 
 a ship. 
 
 WINE. (Germ, wein.) All spirituous products of fer- 
 mentation are occasionally denominated wines. The term, 
 however, is more generally limited to fermented grape 
 juice, or must ; and the theory of the process has been 
 noticed under the word Fermentation. There are many 
 circumstances which influence the general characters or 
 quality of wine ; among which are principally climate, soil, 
 and aspect, the nature and maturity of the grape, and the 
 mode of fermentation. In regard to climate, for instance, 
 it may be observed that that which is best suited to the 
 culture of the vine extends from the 35th to the 50th 
 degrees north latitude ; in more northerly situations the 
 grape seldom ripens perfectly, and the wines that it yields 
 are of a less generous character than those produced in 
 more congenial districts. In warmer climates, on the other 
 hand, the juice becomes too rich and saccharine. It often 
 happens, however, that a very luscious grape transplanted 
 to a colder climate yields a good wine, and that vines car- 
 ried from a cold to a warmer climate, within the latitudes 
 
 WINE. 
 
 mentioned, afford excellent liquors ; it is said, indeed, that 
 we are indebted for some of our most choice wines to such 
 judicious transplantations. Chaptal has stated that the 
 must obtained from grapes grown in the south of France 
 was richer than that from the northern departments. With 
 respect to soil, it may be observed that no fruit is more 
 remarkably influenced by its qualities than the grape. Light 
 and porous soils are best suited to it; and although the 
 plant will grow vigorously in rich and moist ground, the 
 fruit is by no means excellent in proportion to its luxuriance. 
 Dr. Henderson states [History of Wines), that strong argil- 
 laceous soil not only checks the extension of the roots, but 
 keeps them too moist, and often imparts to the wines a 
 peculiar earthy taste, such as we perceive in Cape wine. 
 A stony or gravelly soil is preferable to all others ; it allows 
 of the free growth of the roots, and is sufficiently retentive 
 of moisture. Volcanic soils are also favourable to the 
 growth of the vine, as shown in the island of Madeira, 
 Italy, Sicily, and the south of France. The quality of the 
 grape is also greatly influenced by differences in the ex- 
 posure and inclination of the ground. Hills are preferable 
 to plains, especially where the aspect is such as to be duly 
 exposed to the sun and sheltered from cold winds ; hence 
 the advantage of a south-eastern aspect. The influence of 
 season, so important in regard to the ripening and perfection 
 of all fruits ; is especially so with respect to that of the 
 vine, its consequences going beyond the mere temporary 
 perfection of the grape as fitting it for the table, and ex- 
 tending in a very striking manner to the qualities of the 
 wine; hence the notoriety and hish character of the vin- 
 tages of particular seasons, a*, for instance, that of the 
 comet in 1811. In a cold year the wine is weak and 
 acescent. " When the season is rainy," observes Dr. Hen- 
 derson, "the produce will be increased ; but it will be poor 
 and insipid, and generally found to contain a large portion 
 of malic acid, which gives lo it a peculiar flavour, always 
 most perceptible in those wines which are most devoid of 
 spirit. A moderate degree of humidity, however, is essen- 
 tial to the welfare of the vine. In those climates, accord- 
 ingly, where great droughts prevail, as in Persia, and in the 
 neighbourhood of Malaga, the earth is formed into a dish 
 around the plant, in order to collect and retain the rain 
 which falls during the spring. High winds and fogs are 
 always very injurious to the vine." Manures are generally 
 regarded as prejudicial in warm climates ; but in colder 
 aspects, as upon the Rhine, they are often not only useful, 
 but necessary. Different methods of planting and training 
 the vine are adopted in different countries ; but it is gene- 
 rally found advantageous to keep the plant as low as possi- 
 ble, for the same vine yields fruit of very different qualities, 
 depending upon the mode in which it is trained and trimmed. 
 But there are no circumstances by which the quality of the 
 wine is more affected than those dependent upon the state 
 of maturity of the grape. When grapes are fully ripe they 
 generally yield the most perfect wine as to strength and 
 flavour : if suffered to shrivel to a greater or less extent, 
 the wine will be more saccharine ; and if they are not fully 
 mature, it will be brisk, and often tart. " In general, dry 
 and clear weather ought to be chosen for the vintage ; but 
 when a slow and imperfect fermentation is required, as in 
 the case of the brisk champagne wines, the grapes that are 
 collected during a fog, or before the dew that has settled on 
 the vines is dispersed, are found to answer best, and to yield 
 the largest quantity of must." The few facts which have 
 now been stated will show how many minute circum- 
 stances must be attended to in the selection and cultivation 
 of the vine ; and it is astonishing how much the character 
 and excellence of the produce depend upon causes which 
 often appear so trifling as to be beneath notice. But the 
 ultimate production of good wine involves a variety of 
 other considerations connected with the process of fermen- 
 tation, in the due management of which much practical 
 skill is often requisite, and the utmost cleanliness always 
 indispensable. The component parts of must, and the 
 changes which they undergo in the fermenting vats, have 
 already been noticed [see Fermentation) ; so that it only 
 remains here to add a few remarks upon the general char- 
 acters and composition of the principal varieties of wine. 
 The colour of the wine almost always depends upon the 
 husks of the grape ; for the pulp, even of the blackest fruit, 
 is, with very few exceptions, equally colourless with that 
 of the green grape. The seeds of the grape, and more 
 especially tiie stalks, containing tan and extractive matter, 
 also modify the taste of the wine ; hence they are added to 
 Port wine, but generally excluded from the delicate wines 
 of Bourdeaux and of the Rhine. The peculiar aroma or 
 I perfume is sometimes dependent upon very recondite causes, 
 | as in the fine wines of Burgundy. In some cases it is acquired 
 by age, and appears to depend upon some chemical change, 
 perhaps connected with the formation of something like a 
 variety of ether : but it also depends upon the quality of 
 the grape, as in the Muscadine and Frontignac wines. The 
 
 1341
 
 WINES. 
 
 leading character, however, of wine must be referred to 
 the alcohol which it contains, and upon which its intoxi- 
 cating [lowers principally depend: not exclusively, how- 
 . some of the lighter wines, if brisk and effervescent, 
 m em lo derive from the admixture of carbonic acid a pecu- 
 liar exhilarating power not directly proportional to their 
 alcoholic contents. And again, we find Other wines, anions 
 which certain Burgundies stand foremost, which are emi- 
 nently heating, though not very strong. The following 
 table shows the quantity of alcohol (of the specific gravity 
 60°), by measure, contained in 100 parts by measure 
 of the respective wines. Some other vinous and spirituous 
 liquors have been added, for the purpose of showing the 
 relation which they bear to wine in the proportion of alcohol 
 which they contain. 
 
 ■■ rtion of 
 
 
 
 ly 
 
 Wtasurt. 
 
 1. Lissa 
 
 26-47 
 
 Ditto 
 
 24 35 
 
 Ditto 
 
 15S*.' 
 
 2. Raisin wine 
 
 26-40 
 
 Ditto 
 
 2577 
 
 Ditto 
 
 23 20 
 
 3. Marsala 
 
 26(3 
 
 Ditto 
 
 25 05 
 
 Ditto 
 
 18-40 
 
 4. Port 
 
 25 S3 
 
 Ditto 
 
 24 29 
 
 Ditto 
 
 23-71 
 
 Ditto 
 
 23-39 
 
 Ditto 
 
 22-30 
 
 Ditto 
 
 21-40 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1900 
 
 
 
 5. Miderra . 
 
 2:42 
 
 Ditto 
 
 23 93 
 
 Ditto (Serciil 
 
 21-40 
 
 Ditto 
 
 19-24 
 
 6. Currant wine 
 
 20 55 
 
 7. Sherry . 
 
 19-61 
 
 Ditto 
 
 19-63 
 
 Dttto 
 
 1-79 
 
 Ditto 
 
 18-25 
 
 Dittotvery old) 23 >0 
 
 8. Teneriffe . 
 
 1979 
 
 9. Colarcs . 
 
 19 75 
 
 10. Lachrvma 
 
 
 . 
 
 1970 
 
 11. Coostantia 
 
 
 (white; . 
 
 1975 
 
 Ditto 
 
 14-50 
 
 12. Ditto (red) 
 
 1841 
 
 13. Lisbon 
 
 1894 
 
 ■ 
 15. Bocelias . 
 
 18-94 
 18 ;9 
 
 16. Red .Madeira 
 
 22 30 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1- 40 
 
 : - 2 3 
 
 22 94 
 
 Ditto 
 
 20-50 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1>-U 
 
 19. Stein wine 
 
 
 20. Grape wine 
 
 18-11 
 
 '.vella 
 
 1920 
 
 Ditto 
 
 18-10 
 
 22. Vidonia . 
 
 19-25 
 
 23. Alba Flora 
 
 17-26 
 
 24. Mai _ 
 
 17-26 
 
 ite Heron 
 
 
 tage 
 
 17-43 
 
 20. H/ii.sillon. 
 
 1900 
 
 Ditto 
 
 17-26 
 
 27. Alcatico . 
 
 16 20 
 
 2-. .T.'na 
 
 30 00 
 
 29. Claret . 
 
 17 11 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1632 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1408 
 
 Ditto 
 
 1291 
 
 Average 
 
 
 Proportion of 
 
 
 SllMl 
 
 per cent 
 
 
 ly 
 
 Measure. 
 
 33 
 
 Syracuse . 
 
 15-28 
 
 M 
 
 Sauterne . 
 
 1422 
 
 35 
 
 Grenache . 
 
 21-24 
 
 36 
 
 Burgundy 
 
 1660 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 15-22 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 14-53 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 11-95 
 
 
 Ditto (20 years 
 
 
 in bottle) 
 
 1216 
 
 31 
 
 Hock 
 
 1437 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 13 00 
 
 
 Ditto old in 
 
 
 
 cask) 
 
 8-88 
 
 3S 
 
 Johannisberger 
 
 
 (.17881 . 
 
 S-71 
 
 39 
 
 Rudisheimer 
 
 
 
 (181!) . 
 
 10-72 
 
 40 
 
 Rhenish . 
 
 7 36 
 
 41 
 
 Nice 
 
 14-36 
 
 42 
 
 Barsac • 
 
 1386 
 
 13 
 
 Tent 
 
 13-30 
 
 41 
 
 Champagne 
 
 
 
 (still) . 
 
 1330 
 
 
 Ditto (spark- 
 
 
 
 ling) 
 
 12-SO 
 
 
 Ditto (red) 
 
 12-56 
 
 
 Ditto (dttto) 
 
 11 30 
 
 4'- 
 
 Red Hermitage U 32 
 
 46 
 
 Viu de Grave 
 
 1394 
 
 
 Ditto 
 
 12-80 
 
 47. 
 
 Frontignac 
 
 12-79 
 
 48 
 
 Cote Rotie 
 
 12-32 
 
 18 
 
 Gooseberry 
 
 11-84 
 
 50. 
 
 Orange wine 
 (average of 
 six samples 
 
 
 
 made by a 
 
 m 
 
 
 London 
 
 
 
 manufactu- 
 
 
 
 rer) 
 
 11-26 
 
 51. 
 
 Tokay . 
 
 9-88 
 
 52. 
 
 Elder wine 
 
 8 79 
 
 53. 
 
 Cyder (highest 
 
 
 average) 
 
 9S7 
 
 
 Ditto (lowest 
 
 
 
 ditto) . 
 
 5-21 
 
 54 
 
 Ferry (average 
 
 
 of four sam 
 
 
 
 pies) 
 
 726 
 
 it 
 
 Mead 
 
 7 32 
 
 56. 
 
 Ale (Burton) 
 Ditto (Edin- 
 
 888 
 
 
 burgh) . 
 
 6-20 
 
 
 Ditto~(Dorches- 
 
 
 ter) 
 
 5-56 
 
 57. 
 
 Brown stout 
 
 680 
 
 58. London ponei 
 
 
 
 (average) 
 
 420 
 
 69 
 
 Ditto small beer 
 
 
 (ditto) . 
 
 1 23 
 
 60 
 
 Brandy . 
 
 53 39 
 
 61 
 
 Ruin 
 
 53 68 
 
 62 
 
 Gin 
 
 51-60 
 
 63 
 
 Scotch whis- 
 
 
 
 key 
 
 54 32 
 
 64 
 
 Irish ditto 
 
 53 90 
 
 Average. 
 
 15-20 
 
 30. Malmsey Ma- 
 
 deira ' . 16-40 
 
 31. Lunel . 15 52 
 
 Ditto (white) 19 30 
 
 It. i -5 necessary, however, to observe-, that the proportion 
 of alcohol in the same wine varies materially according to 
 the age of the wine and other circumstances, and thai 
 the same quantities of alcohol in each, may, 
 notwithstanding, differ essentially in every other respect. 
 Practically wines are distinguished by their colour, hard- 
 ma and their being 
 still or effervescing. In many case-, too, ihe same variety 
 of wine may be distinguished into a number of sub varieties, 
 difTorias more or less in one or more of these particulars. 
 Thus, in ihe case of champ i are red, 
 
 and other< white or strttu -coloured ; some are dry and 
 be arom I of one variety dillers from that of 
 others have every dif- 
 ferent degree of effervescing power. The same variety 
 the case of clarets, and, indeed, of almost every 
 description of wine, 
 1342 
 
 The differences in the qualities of wines depend partly 
 on deferences in the Vines, but more on the differ* 
 the soil-- in which they are planted, in the exposure of the 
 vineyards, ami in the treatment of the trapes, and the 
 mode of manufacturing the wine. Though the vine giuvwi 
 in every sort of soil, a rising ground, or gently-sloping lull 
 facing the south, with a loose, gravelly, or rather volcanic 
 soil, is by far the best situation for a vineyard: 
 
 It is in such situations that all the finest wines are pro- 
 duced. 
 
 It would be useless in a work of this kind to attempt 
 characterizing the different sorts of wine used in Great 
 Britain. Port and sherry have long enjoyed a decided pre- 
 ponderance in our markets ; and it must be admitted that, 
 when of good quality and sparingly used, they are very 
 unexceptionable wines. But they are often harsh, anil 
 have the disadvantage of being strong and heating, so that 
 they cannot be taken, to anything like excess, by most per- 
 sons with impunity. They are well enough for a glass or 
 two, but they are not wines for conversation or society. It 
 is not probable, indeed, had it not been for the high differ- 
 ential duties with which French wines were so long bur- 
 dened, that the use of port and sherry would ever have 
 been so general in England ; and since the abolition of the 
 differential duty in 1831, French wines have begun gradu- 
 ally, though slowly, to make their way from the highest, 
 to which they have hitherto been mostly confined, among 
 the middle classes. They are, indeed, superior, in almost 
 all respects, to every other variety. The best growths of 
 claret, champagne, and Burgundy, seem to unile all the 
 qualities required to constitute perfect wines. Had they 
 been known in antiquity we ;< pprehend they would have 
 engrossed most part of the praise so profusely lavished on 
 the Pramnian, Cecuban, Falernian, and other renowned 
 wines of Greece and Rome. We subjoin 
 An Account of the Quantities of the different sorts of Wine 
 imported into and exported from the United Kingdom ; 
 the Quantities entered and retained for Home Consump- 
 tion; and the Rates of Duty in 1840. 
 
 
 
 
 
 Quantities 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 retained 
 
 
 
 
 Quantities 
 
 
 for Con- 
 
 Rates 
 
 
 
 upon 
 
 
 sumption, 
 
 01 
 
 Wine. 
 
 Quantities 
 
 which 
 
 Quantities 
 
 deducing 
 
 Duty 
 
 imported. 
 
 Duty has 
 
 exported. 
 
 eiport 
 
 per 
 
 
 
 been paid 
 
 
 after Pay- 
 ment of 
 
 Gal- 
 lon. 
 
 
 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 Duty. 
 
 GaUoia. 
 
 7~Z 
 
 
 GnUuns. 
 
 Gallons. 
 
 
 460,1 2; 
 
 •r>:,"t>2 
 
 5,467 
 
 456773 
 
 29 
 
 
 570,195 
 
 
 155,375 
 
 34I.-4I 
 
 56 
 
 Portugal .... 
 
 
 2,—' i.li-4 
 
 39I.5S1 
 
 
 do. 
 
 Spanish .... 
 
 4. 'L'2 315 
 
 2,641,171 
 
 12233,878 
 
 2,500,760 
 
 do. 
 
 Madeira .... 
 
 279.157 
 
 122. UlC 
 
 
 112,555 
 
 do. 
 
 Rhenish .... 
 
 75.611 
 
 
 14,760 
 
 60,056 
 
 do. 
 
 
 250.S04 
 
 30,149 
 
 
 29,29S 
 
 !o. 
 
 
 1.241 
 
 191 
 
 277 
 
 1<<! 
 
 do. 
 
 Sicilianand o'her sorts 
 
 671,517 
 
 394,124 
 
 189,709 
 
 3S3.&14 
 
 do. 
 
 Total . 
 
 
 
 16,515 
 
 
 do. 
 
 9.311.247 
 
 6.843.204 
 
 2.437.07S 
 
 6.553 922 
 
 WINGS. In naval matters. Passages along the sides 
 of the ship between the fore and after cockpit. 
 
 Wings, in Plants, are membranous expansions of differ- 
 ent parts. The two lateral oblong petals of a Papiliona- 
 ceous corolla, the two lateral sepals of a Polygam, the ex- 
 pansion from the back of the fruit of the ash-tree, from the 
 sides of the seed of a Blgnonia, and from the surface of 
 many Umbelliferous fruits, are all called ici/igs. 
 
 Wimjs. In Architecture. See Al/e. 
 
 WINTER. One of the four seasons of the year. Win- 
 ter is usually understood to begin with the shortest day, 
 and to end when the sun returns to the vernal equinox. 
 
 WI'PEBS, in some kinds of machinery, as oil mills, 
 powder nulls, fulling-mills, tire piece 
 from horizontal axles, for ihe purpose of raising stampers, 
 pounders, or heavy pistons, in vertical directions, ai d then 
 leaving them to fall by their own weight. The principal 
 objeel to be attended to in the construction of uipi r- N to 
 give them such a form that tin- weight shall be rais 
 a uniform fone and velocity, (On «vnfs Mechanics : Ap- 
 pendix to Ferguson's Lectures, by Brewster; Willis's 
 Principles «/' JUeckan 
 
 WIRE-DRAWING. The art of extending the ductile 
 metals into wire. The operation is performed by casting 
 or hammering the metal into a bar, which is then succes- 
 sively drawti through holes in a stoel plate, each being 
 -mailer than the other, until the requisite linen, - - 
 laincil. The holes through which extremely line wires of 
 platinum. Bold, or silver are oceasionallj drawn, are some- 
 uines made m B diamond or ruby. Set GoLn, &.C 
 
 WIT (Genu, witz), has been defined briefly to be the
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 nnexpccted combination of distant resemblances. The 
 term wit has in the course of two centuries passed through 
 more significations than most others in the English lan- 
 guage. Without going further back than the reign of 
 James I., wit is used by Sir J. Davies as the most general 
 name for the intellectual faculties, of which reason, judg- 
 ment, wisdom, fee, are subdivisions. In the time of Cow- 
 ley and Hobbes, it came to denote a superior degree of un- 
 derstanding, and more particularly a quick and brilliant 
 reason. By Dryden it is used as very nearly synonymous 
 With talent or ability, but after his time, and more par- 
 ticulaiiy by Addison in his papers on Wit, we find a grad- 
 ual approximation to the modern signification of the term. 
 
 The forms of wit are so various that it would be impos- 
 sible to include them all within the circle of a precise de- 
 finition ; but the following comprehensive enumeration of 
 these forms by the celebrated Dr. Barrow may be interest- 
 ing to the reader. "Sometimes it lieth in pat allusion to 
 a known story, or in seasonal;] e application of a trivial 
 saying, or in forging an apposite tale ; sometunes it playeth 
 in words and phrases, taking advantage from the ambigui- 
 ty of their sense, or the affinity of their sound ; sometimes 
 it is wrapped in a dress of humorous expression ; sometimes 
 it lurketh under an odd similitude ; sometimes it is lodged 
 jn a sly question, in a smart answer, in a quiikish reason, 
 in a shrewd intimation, in cunningly diverting, or cleverly 
 retorting an objection ; sometimes it is couched in a bold 
 scheme of speech, in a tart irony, in a lusty hyperbole, in 
 a startling metaphor, in a plausible reconciling of contra- 
 dictions, or in acute nonsense; sometimes a scenical re- 
 presentation of persons or things, a counterfeit speech, a 
 mimical look or gesture, passeth for it; sometimes an af- 
 fected simplicity, sometimes a presumptuous bluntness 
 giveth it being ; sometunes it riseth only from a lucky hit- 
 ting upon what is strange ; sometimes from a crafty wrest- 
 ing obvious matter to the purpose. Otten it consisteth in 
 one knows not what, and springeth up one can hardly tell 
 how. Its ways are unaccountable and inexplicable, being 
 answerable to the numberless rovings of fancy and wind- 
 ings of language." (See, as to the difference of meaning 
 between wit and bulls, Edin. Rev., vol. iii., p. 399.) 
 
 WITCH, WITCHCRAFT. It has been a subject of 
 much controversy whether the verse, "Thou Shalt not 
 suffer a witch to live," in the 22d chapter of Exodus, is cor- 
 rectly rendered in modern versions. The Septuagint ren- 
 der it by tyilppaKog, a poisoner. It is, however, generally 
 lield, that the latter interpretation is not the true one, and 
 that the practice here condemned was that of pretended 
 divination by means of supernatural agency. This was, 
 by the .lewish law, an act of rebellion against the Al- 
 mighty Ruler of the Jewish nation, and punished as such. 
 (See also Deuteronomy, xviii. 10, 11.) The only detailed 
 and particular narrative of witchcraft in the Old Testa- 
 ment is that of the evocation of Samuel by the witch of 
 Endor. (See on this subject Sir Walter Scott's Second Let- 
 ter on Dcmonology and Witchcraft.) 
 
 Among the Greeks, a general belief prevailed in magical 
 practices and incantations, especially by women ; and 
 Thessaly was the region most celebrated for the pursuit 
 of these arts by its inhabitants. The same superstition was 
 equally prevalent among the Romans. But, in the sense 
 in which the word is used in modem times, a witch is sup- 
 posed to derive her power from a peculiar compact with 
 evil spirits ; and this species of witchcraft is of course pos- 
 terior to the rise of Christianity, although the belief in de- 
 moniacal possession was common from the first ages of the 
 Christian church, and a particular class of the clergy was 
 early set apart for the purpose of conjuring devils, with the 
 name of exorcists. The first traces of the modern super- 
 stition respecting witchcraft are perhaps to be found in 
 Jlugustine, who speaks of magicians as living in society 
 with devils, and having a compact with them. The an- 
 cient witch craft of the classical times became easily con- 
 nected in vulgar belief with the superstitions arising out of 
 Christian theology. As early as the Council of Ancyra 
 (308), the belief in transformations by magical art (of which 
 we find so remarkable an instance in the romance of Apu- 
 leius) is condemned as heretical. The gods of the ancient 
 mythology, by the zealous preaching of the Christian cler- 
 gy, acquired in popular imagination the attributes of de- 
 mons ; and there is little doubt that many of the supposed 
 assemblies of witches and devil-worshippers, which terri- 
 fied the imaginations of the chroniclers and historians of 
 saints in the early part of the dark ages, originated in the 
 secret meetings of the proscribed worshippers of Pagan 
 deities, who endeavoured to secure their privacy by terri- 
 fying their orthodox neighbours. (See a poem of Goethe's 
 on this subject.) From all these causes combined, the be- 
 lief in witchcraft grew, as has been observed, side by side 
 with the prevailing worship of saints and relics. About 
 the tune of Charlemagne and his successors, we find one 
 species of imaginary witchcraft peculiary prevalent. Storms 
 
 and tempests were attributed to certain magicians (defen- 
 sores), who were believed, as in the classical mythology, to 
 have acquired a power of controlling the elements; but 
 this belief was condemned by the church as superstitious. 
 The very general superstition (which also is mentioned by 
 Augustine) of assemblies of females riding through the air 
 with the demon Diana, Minerva, or Herodias (from which, 
 in later days, the notions of the witch festival on the Broc- 
 ken in Germany, the French sabbat, fee, were all derived), 
 is also reprobated by the divines of this period. It has been 
 supposed by some, that the sudden spread of intelligence, 
 and the cast of noble and more liberal sentiment which 
 prevailed in Europe about the time of the Crusades, check- 
 ed for a time, at least among the higher orders, the spread 
 of debasing superstitions ; but if this was really the case, 
 the effect was hut temporary. Up to this time we have 
 found the church generally condemning most of the popu- 
 lar fancies respecting demoniac agency as superstitious ; 
 but from the end of the 12th century we find them gradual- 
 ly gaining ground, so as to become articles of religious cre- 
 dence. At the coronation of Richard I., Coeur de Lion, 
 Jews and women were forbidden to attend ; the latter be- 
 cause so many of them were suspected of witchcraft. The 
 works of Gervase of Tilbury (at the beginning of the 13th 
 century) give, perhaps, the best picture of the extent to 
 which similar opinions prevailed about that epoch. In the 
 same century, witches and heretics were first connected in 
 the eye of the church : the commissioners who tried the 
 various sectaries of the time were equally directed to in- 
 quire into and punish magical practices. In the 14th cen- 
 tury the persecution of witches assumed a more regular 
 and severe character. The well-known accusations against 
 the Templars (1309), in which all the common charges 
 of compacts witli the devil, witch assemblies, fee, were 
 mingled with those of atheism and heresy, were but the 
 prelude to a long series of similar proceedings. About 
 this time the south of France, north of Italy, and some 
 parts of Germany, seem to have been most infested with 
 demoniacal agency. The female sex seems, from the earli- 
 est times, to have been most implicated in the public hor- 
 ror of witchcraft ; and from the commencement of the 15th 
 century we find this common notion become a confirmed 
 doctrine: almost all the decrees of councils, fee, which 
 speak of witchcraft, and the prosecutions which are car- 
 ried on, henceforward are directed against women only. 
 From this time, therefore, we may date (as far as accuracy 
 is practicable on such subjects) the separation in popular 
 belief of the higher magic practised by learned and distin- 
 guished men, from the petty witchcraft of which the great 
 performers were poor, old, and ignorant women. Many of 
 the great magicians were believed to operate their wonders 
 by the control which they had acquired over inferior spi- 
 ritual agents, without any express compact with the devil ; 
 and although such practices were often condemned by the 
 church, always liable to suspicion, and sometimes brought 
 those who indulged in them (together with alchemists and 
 astrologers) under the cognizance of criminal tribunals, yet 
 they were always considered as of a different order alto- 
 gether from the feats of common witches. In 1484 appear- 
 ed the famous bull of Innocent VIII., "Summis desider- 
 antes afl'ectibus." In this remarkable instrument all the 
 absurdities of the popular superstition are formally recapit- 
 ulated, and a commission directed to three individuals (In- 
 stitor, Sprenger, and Gremper) to examine and punish 
 witches in the German empire. Although immediately 
 relating to Germany only, this bull is rightly considered by 
 Herzog (the author of the article on witchcraft in Ersch 
 and Gruber's Encyclopedia, from whom we have borrowed 
 largely on the present subject) as forming a period in the 
 history of this superstition. Although much cruelty had 
 been committed before in the pursuit of this imaginary 
 crime, it is from this solemn confirmation of the vulgar su- 
 perstition that we must date the continuous course of legal 
 persecution which lasted for two centuries over the greater 
 part of Europe. 
 
 The details of these legal proceedings bear a striking 
 similarity in all the countries in which this baleful super- 
 stition so long prevailed. It has been seen that by the bull 
 of Innocent VIII., witchcraft was rendered a crime pecu- 
 liarly cognizable by ecclesiastical authorities : so it remain- 
 ed for the most part in Catholic countries, especially where 
 the Inquisition was established ; and this constituted the 
 chief difference between the procedure in those regions and 
 that which prevailed in Protestant districts, where the civil 
 magistrate took cognizance of the offence. Thus the vari- 
 ous forms of religious observance which were interwoven 
 with the judicial proceeding in the former, exorcisms and 
 so forth, were for the most part disused by Protestants. In 
 other respects, the mode of investigation and punishment 
 was much the same. Everywhere they exhibited a singu- 
 lar mixture of legal refinement with popular violence. 
 Thus the various ordeals by which suspected witches 
 
 1343
 
 WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 purged themselves (one of the most vulgar superstitions 
 d with witchcraft) were conducted with gravity 
 and regularity under the eye of the law. The best known 
 in England was that of water: if the accused swam when 
 thrown in, it was held as a proof of guilt. On the Conti- 
 nent a favourite mode, among many others, was by weigh 
 ing. In the scales set apart for this purpose a true witch 
 was always found to weigh more than her previously as- 
 certained weight. There was in the 17th century a weigh- 
 ing beam in Budewater, in Holland, of such celebrity, that 
 persons accused of witchcraft in many neighbouring pro- 
 vinces used to appeal to it. When, however, the suspect- 
 ed person was in the hands of the tribunal, there was in 
 general one only mode of procedure — by torture. This was 
 carried to the most horrible and unheard-of excesses ; and 
 as it was generally recognised that witchcraft was a crime 
 entirely out of ordinary rules, the various provisions of the 
 civil or municipal laws by which that dreadful practice was 
 mitigated w.re wholly neglected, and the accused aban- 
 doned to all the cruelty with which fear or fanaticism 
 might inspire the judges. In England, which forms in this 
 respect a solitary exception, torture was not judicially prac- 
 tised ; but the various severities to which the unfortunate 
 prisoners were subject had probably nearly equal effect. 
 And thus every where the witch persecutions produced 
 the same result — confessions, namely, of all the strange 
 and monstrous crimes with which the accused lay charged. 
 These appear to have grown more voluminous and more 
 utterly incredible in every generation; and this may be 
 naturally accounted for: for when a witch had made up 
 her mind to confess, it cost her nothing to promulgate the 
 most extravagant inventions; and these being regarded as 
 Undoubted truths, formed the basis of interrogatories to be 
 administered to other unhappy beings who might be brought 
 under tbe same accusation. The punishment was uniform- 
 ly death, usually at the stake. 
 
 Much has been said concerning the connexion between 
 religious fanaticism and the superstition of witchcraft. It 
 has already been seen that the cruelties and absurdities of 
 witch persecution had reached a great height even before 
 the Reformation; but it can scarcely be denied that the 
 strong religious excitement which produced and accompa- 
 nied that event was in some way connected with the rapid 
 spread and development of that atrocious system. The 
 more intense the belief in the overruling providence of 
 God, and his immediate interference in the course of ordi- 
 nary events (which especially characterized the revival of 
 religion), tbe more does the parallel belief in the agency of 
 evil spirits, and their dealings with man, appear to take 
 root in the imagination. Sir W. Scott observes that, among 
 Protestant sects, the Calvinists (whose views of religion 
 were at once the most gloomy and the most engrossing) 
 seem to have afforded the most terrible examples of this 
 prevailing mania. There seems also to have been a con- 
 stantly recurring tendency to treat witchcraft and heresy as 
 allied offences. It appears, upon the whole, that the per- 
 secutions during the 16th and 17th centuries were most vio- 
 lent in those countries which were the scene of much strife 
 between the two religions, or in which the Calvinist opin- 
 ions were pushed to an extreme — France, the Netherlands, 
 Northern and Western Germany, Switzerland, Scotland, 
 England under the Commonwealth, and at a still later pe- 
 riod New England. A singular example of the contagion 
 of fanaticism suddenly spreading with extraordinary vio- 
 lence, and subsiding again after one terrible outbreak, is to 
 be found in the history of the witch persecutions in Swe- 
 den, in the end of the 17th century. In Italy, with the ex 
 ception of one or two northern districts, the superstition 
 was generally less prevalent, or at least less distressing in 
 its effects; and the same may be said of Spain, after the 
 first period of the history of the Inquisition. 
 
 Among many and voluminous authors who wrote disqui- 
 sitions on witchcraft with a full Conviction of its reality, 
 we may cite, as some of the most remarkable, Sprenger, 
 one of Pope Innocent's three inquisitors, whose celebrated 
 Malleus JUaleficarum (Hammer of Witches) contains a 
 complete code of precedents for inquisitors, which was 
 adopted, varied, ana extended through succeeding genera- 
 tions; Delrio the Jesuit, the author of Magical Dlsi/uisi- 
 Bodinus . and It' mights, a judge in the duchy of Lor- 
 raine, who put to death eight hundred witches in sixteen 
 years, and was at last himself burnt as a conjuror. In 
 
 England, King James I. has acquired an unenviable celeb- 
 rity by Ins literary zeal against witchcraft Even from the 
 earlieal times, there were not wanting here and there bold 
 and enlightened individuals; who ventured to publish their 
 sentiments against tbe vulgar delusion. Ulrlc Molitor, a dis- 
 tinguished divine at the period of the Council of Constance, 
 avowed bis donbtl of the very exist, -nee of the crime of 
 
 witchcraft. In ir>r>o' appeared the book of Wier (a native 
 
 Of Brabant . hr I'raistigiis Damonum. in which he exposes 
 the cruelty and absurdity of the judicial proceedings ; hut 
 1344 
 
 WIZARD. 
 
 either from caution, or from his own imperfect enlighten- 
 ment, he ascribes the confessions of the witches to their 
 own melancholy, or the delusion of the devil so working 
 on them as to make them believe they had seen and done 
 what they avowed. In England, Reginald Scot, in the 
 reign of Elizabeth, was still more advanced beyond his 
 age. Even at the end of the 17th century, Balthazar Bek- 
 ker, a Dutch Jesuit, for having ventured to assail the pre- 
 valent superstition in his Monde Eiickaute, was persecuted, 
 and died in want. The writings of Thomasius, about 1700, 
 hail much effect in Germany, and prepared the way for the 
 abolition of witch persecutions in all her Protestant states. 
 But the public mind was at that period rapidly changing. 
 Louis XIV. had already put an end to them by edict in 
 France. The last execution on account of witchcraft in 
 England was probably in 1682 ; although the statute against 
 it was not repealed until the 9th of Ceo. 2. In Scotland, a 
 woman was executed in Sutherlandshire in 1722. But the 
 practice lingered on later in some Continental districts, as 
 in Catholic Germany, Spain, and Switzerland. The sub- 
 prioress of a convent was burnt at Wnftzberg in 1749. And 
 the last, probably, of all the victims of this superstition 
 was burnt at Glarus, in Switzerland, in 17t-3. It now exists 
 only as a vulgar delusion, which it will probably require 
 some centuries more wholly to extirpate. It is prevalent to 
 a degree little suspected among the English peasantry in 
 remote districts. The writer of this article has seen a 
 horse-shoe suspended inside over the door of a gaol in a 
 Cornish borough, as a protection against the "ill wishes'" 
 to which the' guardians of such an establishment naturally 
 considered themselves exposed. The most painstaking 
 collection of learning on this strange subject will be found 
 in Hurst's Zauber-Bibliothek. An amusing essay on it is 
 contained in the Quarterly Review, vol. xlviii. See also 
 Cirimm's Deutsche Mytkologie, passim. 
 
 Wl'TENA GEMOTE, or MEETING OF THE WISE 
 MEN. The great national council of the Anglo-Saxon 
 kings; also termed the " Mycel-getheaht," or Great 
 Thought. Who composed the " witan" cannot now be 
 ascertained : bishops, abbots, earls, aldermen, thanes of 
 the Danish burghs, &c. attended. It seems that in East 
 Anglia the possession of forty hides of land was necessary 
 to entitle a person to rank among those termed in the Lat- 
 in of the age " proceres," who appear to have been mem- 
 bers of the great council. The powers ami character of 
 the witena gemote passed to the great council of the early- 
 Norman kings, which are called by the same name by 
 Saxon writers. The subject has been abundantly discuss- 
 ed by older and more recent antiquarians ; the reader may 
 consult an article in the Ed. Rev., vol. xxxiv. 
 
 WTTHERITE. In Mineralogy, a name applied to car- 
 bonate of baryta, in honour of Dr. Withering, who first dis- 
 covered it at Anglesark in Lancashire. 
 
 Wl'TNESS. In Law, one who gives evidence in a ju- 
 dicial proceeding. In civil cases, witnesses are compelled 
 to attend by the process called subpava ad testificandum 
 (which Bee), and punishable if they neglect to do so by at- 
 tachment or action. In criminal cases, by subpeena or by 
 recognisance taken by the magistrate before whom the in- 
 formation is given. 
 
 By the law as it at present stands, witnesses are disqual- 
 ified or rendered " incompetent" by reason — I. Of want of 
 reason or understanding ; 2, Want of religious principle ; 
 that is, their want of belief in a God and a future stale of 
 rewards and punishments; 3. Infamy ; that is, conviction 
 of an infamous crime, and judgment thereupon ; the crime* 
 which fall within this class being treason, felony, and oth- 
 er offences which involve the charge of falsehood. The 
 Buffering of the punishment, if so provided by statute, re- 
 stores the witness to competency, as does also pardon ; the 
 only exception being the case of convictions for perjury or 
 subornation of perjury, which disqualify forever unless 
 reversed ; 4. Interest ; on which grounds the heads of ex- 
 clusion are numerous, and the distinctions very refined ; 
 the general principle being, in civil causes, in courts of 
 common law, that every one interested in the event and in 
 the verdict is excluded. Sec Evidence. 
 
 The policy of these exclusions has been matter of much 
 debate ; iimi, perhaps, the only practical reason which can 
 really be given for this is, that tiie time of courts of justice 
 being limited, it is advisable to exclude at once from Con- 
 sideration all those classes of evidence which, from their 
 peculiar deficiency, must be of less weight than the testi- 
 mony of witnesses nt once upright and disinterested. This 
 year (1842) Lord Chief Justice Denman has brought in a 
 bill lor the abolition of all incompetency by reason of in- 
 famy or interest, except in the case of parties to the suit, 
 and one or two other special exceptions. 
 UT/.AIiD. (Seems to be from the old verb witan, to 
 
 lenow, and of the same derivation with icisr and tritcli : 
 Glanvllle, Sadduismus Triumphatus.) The popular name 
 in England for a sorcerer. See Sorckry, Witchcraft.
 
 WODEN. 
 
 VVO'DEN, or WUOTAN. An Anglo-Saxon divinity, 
 considered to correspond with the Mercury of the ancient 
 Greeks and Romans; from whom Wednesday derives its 
 name. (See Mem. de VJic. des Jnscr., vol. xxiv.) He is 
 sometimes also, though erroneously, considered as identical 
 with Odin. See Odin. 
 
 WOLF FISH. The name of a species of fish {Anar- 
 rhichas lupus, Linn.), which subsists on whelks and other 
 shell-fish, which it seizes by means of strong conical 
 slightly-curved anterior teeth, set in the jaws like grap- 
 pling hooks, and bruises by the action of very powerful 
 posterior molar teeth. The flavour of this forbidding- 
 looking fish is much superior to what might be supposed 
 from the general low estimation in which it is held. 
 
 WO'LFRAM. A native tungstate of iron and man- 
 ganese. 
 
 WO'LLASTONITE. A name applied by some miner- 
 alogists to a species of prismatic augite, in honour of Dr. 
 Wollaston. 
 
 WOOD, in Plants, physiologically considered, is the sup- 
 port of all the deciduous organs of respiration, digestion, 
 and impregnation ; the deposit of the secretions peculiar to 
 the individual species ; and also the reservoir from which 
 the newly-forming parts derive their sustenance until they 
 can establish a communication with the soil. It consists 
 organically of woody tissue, and various kinds of vessels 
 surrounded by cellular matter, and more or less carefully 
 arranged. In the youngest state it is succulent and brittle, 
 and is of nearly the same quality in all plants ; but as it 
 gains age the sides of the woody tissue become hardened 
 and thickened by the deposit within them of matter of 
 solidification, and wood then assumes the colours and ap- 
 pearances peculiar to different species. In the young state 
 it is called sapwood or alburnum ; when hardened and col- 
 oured it becomes duramen or heartwood. It abounds in 
 nitrogen, which may be removed by simple washing ; and 
 it is supposed that the perishable quality of wood is owing 
 to the presence of this element. It is believed that the 
 preserving power of certain agents employed to render 
 wood durable depends upon their rendering the azotized 
 matter insoluble. 
 
 Wood, or Timber. The trunks or main stems of ligne- 
 ous plants, which attain such dimensions as to be fit for 
 use in architectural construction. In general, every coun- 
 try has its appropriate timber, which is produced by its in- 
 digenous trees ; but there are some kinds of timber, such 
 as that of the oak and that of the pine, which, in conse- 
 quence of their durability and of commercial intercourse, 
 are used in all countries. The most useful timbers of Eu- 
 rope are the oak, the ash, the Scotch pine, the larch, and 
 the spruce fir ; those of North America are the hickory, 
 the different species of pine, and some species of oak ; 
 those of tropical countries are the teak tree, the different 
 species of bamboo, and the palm. The oak, the teak, and 
 the larch are throughout the whole world found the most 
 suitable timbers for shipbuilding; and the pine, and fir, 
 and the bamboo those most conveniently adapted for civil 
 architecture. 
 WOOD COAL. A synonym of brown coal. 
 WOOD-ENGRAVING. See Engraving. 
 W T OOD-OPAL. An opalized quartz occurring in various 
 vegetable forms. 
 WOO'DSTONE. Petrified wood. 
 
 WOOD-TIN. An opaque, fibrous, and nodular variety 
 of oxide of tin, of a brown colour, hitherto only found in 
 Cornwall. 
 
 WOODY FIBRE. Very slender, transparent, membra- 
 nous tubes, tapering acutely to each end, lying in bundles 
 in the tissue of plants, and having no direct communica- 
 tion with each other. They are of extreme tenuity, and 
 form the substances called hemp and flax. 
 
 WOOL. (Germ, wolle.) A term used very indefinitely, 
 being applied both to the fine hair of animals, as sheep, 
 rabbits, some species of goats, &c, and to fine vegetable 
 fibres, as cotton (called in German baumwolle, or tree- 
 wool') ; but when used without restriction it is generally 
 confined to the wool of sheep — a substance which, from 
 the remotest period of history, has been of primary im- 
 portance to mankind. In reference to textile fabrics, 
 sheep's wool is of two different sorts, the short and the 
 long stapled; each of which requires different modes of 
 manufacture in the preparation and spinning processes, as 
 also in the treatment of the cloth after it is woven, to fit 
 it for the market. Each of these is, moreover, distinguish- 
 ed in commerce by the names of fleece wools and dead 
 wools, according as they have been shorn at the usual 
 annual period from the living animal, or are cut from its 
 skin after death. The latter are comparatively harsh, 
 weak, and iucapable of imbibing the dyeing principles, 
 more especially if the sheep has died of some malignant 
 distemper. The annular pores, leading into the tubular 
 cavities of the filaments, seem, in this case, to have shrunk 
 and become obstructed. The time of year for sheep- 
 114 
 
 WOOL. 
 
 shearing most favourable to the quality of the wool, and 
 the comfort of the animal, is towards the end of June and 
 beginning of July — the period when Lord Leicester holds 
 his celebrated rural fete for that interesting purpose. 
 
 The wool of the sheep has been surprisingly improved, 
 by its domestic culture. The moufion (Ovis aries), the 
 parent stock from which our sheep is undoubtedly derived, 
 and which is still found in a wild state upon the mount- 
 ains of Sardinia, Corsica, Barbary, Greece, and Asia Minor, 
 has a very short and coarse fleece, more like hair than 
 wool. When this animal is brought under the fostering 
 care of man, the rank fibres gradually disappear ; while 
 the soft wool round their roots, little conspicuous in the 
 wild animal, becomes singularly developed. The male 
 most speedily undergoes this change, and continues ever 
 afterward to possess far more power in modifying the 
 fleece of the offspring, than the female parent. The prod- 
 uce of a breed from a coarse-woolled ewe and a fine- 
 woolled ram, is not of a mean quality between the two, 
 but halfway nearer that of the sire. By coupling the fe- 
 male thus generated, with such a male as the former, 
 another improvement of one half will be obtained, af- 
 fording a staple three fourths finer than that of the gran- 
 dam. By proceeding inversely, the wool would be as rap- 
 idly deteriorated. It is, therefore, a matter of the first con- 
 sequence in wool husbandry, to exclude from the flock all 
 coarse-fleeced rams. 
 
 Long wool is the produce of a peculiar variety of sheep, 
 and varies in the length of its fibres from 3 to 8 inches. 
 Such wool is not carded like cotton, but combed like flax, 
 either by hand or appropriate machinery. Short wool 
 is seldom longer than 3 or 4 inches ; it is susceptible of 
 carding and felting, by which processes the filaments be- 
 come first convoluted, and then densely matted together. 
 The shorter sorts of the combing wool are used princi- 
 pally for hosiery, though of late years the finer kinds 
 have been extensively worked up into merino and mous- 
 seline-de-laine fabrics. The longer wools of the Leices- 
 tershire breed are manufactured into hard yarns, for 
 worsted pieces, such as waistcoats, carpets, bombazines, 
 poplins, crapes, &c. 
 
 The wool of which good broad-cloth is made should be 
 not only shorter, but, generally speaking, finer and softer 
 than the worsted wools, in order to fit them for the fulling 
 process. Some wool-sorters and wool-staplers acquire by 
 practice great nicety of discernment in judging of wools 
 by the touch and traction of the fingers. Two years ago 
 I made a series of observations upon different wools, and 
 published the results. The filaments of the finer qualities 
 
 varied in thickness from -j-yVn t0 TTTfTo °^ an incn ' tne ^ r 
 structure is very curious, exhibiting, in a good achromatic 
 microscope, at intervals of about ^~ of an inch, a series 
 of serrated rings, imbricated towards each other, like the 
 joints of Eguisctum, or, rather, like the scaly zones of 3 
 serpent's skin. (See Philosophy of Manufactures, figs. 11, 
 12, p. 91, 2d ed.) 
 
 There are four distinct qualities of wool upon every 
 sheep ; the finest being upon the spine, from the neck to 
 within six inches of the tail, including one-third of the 
 breadth of the back ; the second covers the flanks be- 
 tween the thighs and the shoulders ; the third clothes the 
 neck and the rump ; and the fourth extends upon the 
 lower part of the neck and breast down to the feet, as also 
 upon a part of the shoulders and the thighs, to the bottom 
 of the hind quarter. These should be torn asunder, and 
 sorted, immediately after the shearing. 
 
 The, harshness of wools is dependent not solely upon 
 the breed of the animal, or the climate, but is owing to 
 certain peculiarities in the pasture, derived from the soil. 
 It is known, that in sheep fed upon chalky districts, wool 
 is apt to get coarse ; but in those upon a rich loamy soil, 
 it becomes soft and silky. The ardent sun of Spain ren- 
 ders the fleece of the Merino breed harsher than it is in 
 the milder climate of Saxony. Smearing sheep with a 
 mixture of tar and butter is deemed favourable to the soft- 
 ness of their wool. 
 
 All wool, in its natural state, contains a quantity of a 
 peculiar potash-soap, secreted by the animal, called in 
 this country the yolk ; which may be washed out by wa- 
 ter alone, with which it forms a sort of lather. It consti- 
 tutes from 25 to 50 per cent, of the wool, being most 
 abundant in the Merino breed of sheep ; and however fa- 
 vourable to the growth of the wool on the living animal, 
 should be taken out soon after it is shorn, lest it injure the 
 fibres by fermentation, and cause them to become hard 
 and brittle. After being washed in water, somewhat 
 more than lukewarm, the wool should be well pressed, 
 and carefully dried. England grows annually about 
 1.000,000 packs of wool, and imports 100,000 bags. ( Ure's 
 Diet. ofJirts.) 
 
 The woollen manufacture was the early staple of Eng- 
 land. The first impulse towards the improvement of the 
 4 P 1345
 
 WOOLSACK. 
 
 woollen manufacture was given in the 14th century, by 
 Edward 1U., who invited a number of Flemish manufac- 
 turers to settle in England. But the manufacture laboured, 
 down almost to our own day, under a number of vexatious 
 and oppressive restrictions ; and it did not begin to make 
 any very rapid progress, or to participate in the wonderful 
 improvements made in the cotton trade, till the introduc- 
 tion of the gig-machine, &.c, in 18W, and the rejieal of the 
 prohibitory acts of Edward VI. and Mary, in 1807. The 
 total value of the exports of woollen goods in 1839 
 amounted to X(i,-2Tl,ti4o, of which the exports to the 
 V. States made £-i,lil,3S2. The woollen factories of 
 England and Wales employed, in 1838, 30,115 males, and 
 males. 
 
 WOOLSACK. The seat of the Lord Chancellor of 
 England, in the House of Lords, is so called, from its being 
 a large square bag of wool without back or arms, covered 
 with red cloth. 
 
 WOOTZ, A species of steel imported from Bengal, pe- 
 culiarly excellent for some cutting instruments. It appears 
 to contain minute portions of silicum and aluminum. 
 
 WO K.MIXG. An operation performed on puppies, con- 
 sisting in the removal of a vermiform ligament from under 
 the tongue; it is sometimes supposed to prevent "madness, 
 but, in fact, merely breaks them of their habit of gnawing. 
 
 WOULFE'S APPARATUS. A series of two or three- 
 necked bottles, connected by intermediate tubes, used in 
 the chemical labratory for impregnating water and other 
 liquids with various gases or vapours. 
 
 WKA N'CLER. At Cambridge, those who attain the 
 highest honours in the public mathematical examinations 
 for the degree of bachelor of arts are so called. At the 
 close of the last day of examination, those who have most 
 distinguished themselves (to the number of thirty at least) 
 are arranged in order of merit by the examiners, and divi- 
 ded into three classes : wranglers, senior optimes, and ju- 
 nior optiuies. The first or senior wrangler is the most dis- 
 tinguished mathematician of his year. The name is prob- 
 ably derived from the public disputations in which candi- 
 dates for degrees were formerly required to exhibit their 
 powers ; of which the " exercises" still held at Cambridge 
 retain the form. 
 
 WRECKS. Goods cast up by the sea after a ship- 
 wreck, and left on land within the limits of some county. 
 The goods so brought to land belong at common law to the 
 king, or to the lord of the manor enjoying the franchise of 
 wreck. It was ordained by Henry I. and II. that such for- 
 feiture should not take place if any man or beast escaped 
 alive from the wreck ; and we find in Bracton (Henry HI.) 
 that in his time if the goods could be known by marks to 
 appertain to any owner, it was no wreck, even if no living 
 creature escaped. The limitation of claims by the owner, 
 by stat. Westm., 1 (3 E. 1), was within a year and a day. 
 By T &. 8 G. 4, plundering wrecked vessels or goods strand- 
 ed is felony. Goods cast overboard at sea, and not strand- 
 ed, are divided into jetsam, i. e., things sunk to the bottom ; 
 fiotsam, things found floating ; and ligsam, things sunk, but 
 fastened to a buoy or cork in order to be found again. 
 These are all the king's, if no owner appears to claim 
 them ; and they do not pass by the ordinary grant of 
 wreck. 
 
 WRIT. In Law, a precept in writing under seal, in the 
 name of the king, judge, or other person having jurisdic- 
 tion in the particular subject matter, and directed to some 
 public officer or private person, requiring him to do some- 
 thing in relation to a suit or action. Writs, though still 
 very multifarious, have been within the last few years 
 much reduced in number. The original writ issuing out 
 of Chancery for the commencement of actions in the three 
 courts of common law is now superseded by three judicial 
 writs, which issue in the name of the chief justices of the 
 respective courts; namely, the writ of summons, the writ 
 of capias ad respondendum, and the writ of detainer. The 
 first of these is the one in ordinary use ; the second is only 
 used when it is Intended to arrest the defendant, and the 
 last when ho i^ already in prison for some other cause. 
 WBITEES TO THE SIGNET. A numerous society 
 
 of lawyers in Scotland, equivalent to the highest class of 
 attorneys in England. They possess several privileges. 
 See Bioket. 
 
 WROCGHT. In Architecture, a term applied to any 
 material to denote that it is brought to a fair surface. 
 
 WUOTAN. See Wodkn. 
 
 X. 
 
 X. A letter borrowed from the Greek, and used chiefly 
 In words derived from that language. Numerically it Big 
 
 ami as an abbreviation it is used for Christ: 
 Xmas for Christmas, &c. 
 1346 
 
 YANOLITE. 
 
 X A XTIIIC. (Gr. lavOos, yellow.) Tending towards a 
 yellow colour, or some colour not green, of which yellow 
 farms a part; as orange, which is a mixture of yellow 
 and red ; scarlet, which is another mixture of the same 
 colours. &c. 
 
 XA'XTHIC ACID. (Gr. lavdoc, yellow, and > cvrau, I 
 generate.) An acid composed of sulphur, carbon, hydro- 
 gen, and oxygen, obtained in combination with potassa by 
 agitating sulphuret of carbon mixed with solution of pure 
 potassa in strong alcohol. Its compounds are mostly of a 
 yellow colour, whence its name. The relative proportions 
 of its component parts have not as yet been satisfactorily 
 obtained. 
 
 XA'NTHIC OXIDE. (Gr. tjavfloc, yellow.) A yellow 
 substance found by Dr. Marcet, composing a urinary calcu- 
 lus ; its solution in nitric acid, when evaporated to dryness, 
 left a bright lemon-coloured residue. 
 
 XE'BEC, a small three-masted vessel, constructed for 
 conveying merchandise or stores: it is chiefly found in the 
 Mediterranean and on the coasts of Spain and Portugal. 
 
 XEXELA'SIA. (Gr. the expulsion of strangers.) A 
 Spartan institution which prohibited strangers from dwell- 
 ing in Sparta beyond a certain time, and also from entering 
 the city except on suited days. The object of this institu- 
 tion was to preserve the simplicity of manners of the na- 
 tion, and prevent foreigners from prying into their measures; 
 but it acquired fur Lacedaimon the reputation of great in- 
 hospitality. 
 
 XE'NIA. (Gr. Icroc.) In Classical Antiquities, the pres- 
 ents given by friends connected by the rites of hospitality as 
 pledges of that singular relation. In the Iliad, the mutual 
 gift- which pass between Glaucus and Diomedeare so called. 
 
 XEROPHA'GIA. (Gr. typos, dry; 0«) w, J eat.) In 
 Ecclesiastical Antiquities, a name given to the rigorous 
 practice of certain fasts, during which nothing was con- 
 sumed but bread with salt, and water. It was particularly 
 observed in Holy Week. 
 
 XIPHIRIIY'NCHS, Xiphirhynchi. (Gr. l«!>oc, a sword, 
 'puyxoc, a beak.) The name given by Latreille to a family 
 of Acanthopterygious fishes, of which the sword-fish {Xiphi- 
 as) is the type. 
 
 XI'PHOSURES, Xiphosura. (Gr. Itixic, and ovpa, a tail.) 
 A name of a tribe of Crustaceans, comprehending those in 
 which the body terminates posteriorly in a long, hard, 
 sword-shaped appendage. 
 
 XYLO'GRAPHY. (Gr. jjuAov, wood, and yfja<pu, I draw.) 
 The same as wood engraving. Sec Enouavi.no. 
 
 XYLO'PHAGAXS, Xylophaga. (Gr. \v\ov, and <paya>, 
 I eat.) The name of a tribe of Coleopterous insects, com- 
 prehending those of which the larvie devour the wood of 
 trees in which they are developed ; also applied to a family 
 of Dipterous insects, the larvte of which have similarly de- 
 structive habits. 
 
 XYLO'PHILANS, Xilophi/i. (Gr. ty^ov, and QtXeto, I 
 love.) The name of a tribe of beetles, consisting of those 
 which live on decayed wood. 
 
 XYLO'TROGES, Xylotrogi. (Gr. \v\ov, and t/>ui) o, / 
 gnaw.) The name of a tribe of Serricorn beetles, compre- 
 hending those which perforate timber. 
 
 XYNO'ECIA. In Classical Antiquities, an Athenian 
 festival in commemoration of the union by Theseus of the 
 little townships of Attica into one commonwealth : whence 
 the name, derived from hjvo;, common ; and 'otKcui, I inhabit. 
 
 XYST, or XY'STOS. (Gr. tyards, from lvu>, I polish.) 
 In ancient Architecture, an open, or sometimes covered 
 court, of great length in proportion to its width, with porti- 
 coes on three sides, for the performance of the athletic ex- 
 ercises of wrestling, running, &c. 
 
 Y. A letter borrowed from the Greek v, is considered a 
 consonant at the beginning, and a vowel in every other 
 place, in English words. As a vowel, il lias exactly the 
 sound of/, being short or long, according to its position. 
 
 YACHT. A vessel of state or pl< 
 
 YA'GERS, or JAGERS. (Germ, hunters.) Light in- 
 fantry armed with rifles [chasseurs, riflemen). In the Prus- 
 sian service, the Yagers form a distinct corps with peculiar 
 discipline; in that of Austria, liL'iu Infantry, generally from 
 the mountain districts. In Germany the term jager is ap- 
 plied to a peculiai Bp< cies of higher servant attached to the 
 families of the aristocracy. 
 
 YA NKl'.K, the popular name for the Xew Englanders 
 in America, and among English people pretty Ind 
 nately applied to all inhabitants of the United States, a word 
 tor which many ridiculous etj mologies have been assigned, 
 K according to Dr. Welsh's Dictionary, "a corruption of 
 the word English by the Indians of North America.' 1 
 
 FA'NOLJTE. A mineralogical synonym of Anion, 
 which see.
 
 YARD. 
 
 YARD. The British standard measure of length. See 
 Measures. 
 
 Yard. A beam or rod suspended by a rope called the 
 halliards, for the purpose of extending a sail, signals, &c. 
 A yard is called a square yard when hung horizontally by 
 the middle : such a yard is turned round by braces. 
 
 YARD-ARM. In Naval language, the extremity of the 
 yard. Yard-arm and yard-arm is a term descriptive of two 
 ships engaging each other as close as possible. 
 
 YAW. The Sea term for temporary deviation from a 
 direct course. 
 
 YAWL. A particular kind of carvel-built boat, rather 
 narrow, and not carrying many oars. 
 
 YAWS. A disease in which eruptions form upon the 
 skin, somewhat resembling a raspberry. See Frambcesia. 
 
 YEAR. A period of time determined by the revolution 
 of the earth in its orbit, and embracing the four seasons. 
 The year is either astronomical or civil. 
 
 The astronomical year is determined by astronomical ob- 
 servations, and is of different kinds, according to the celestial 
 body or the point of the heavens to which the earth's revo- 
 lution is referred. When the earth's motion in its orbit is 
 referred to an immoveable point in the heavens, to a fixed 
 star, for example, the time of revolution is that which 
 elapses from the instant at which the star, the sun, and the 
 earth are in a straight line, till the earth returns again into 
 the same straight line with the sun and the star. This in- 
 terval is called the sidereal year. But when the earth's 
 motion is referred to a point of the ecliptic, as one of the 
 equinoctial points, or the tropics, the time of revolution is 
 that in which the earth returns to that point, and is called 
 the equinoctial, or tropical, or solar year. On account of the 
 precession of the equinoxes {sec Precession) the equinoc- 
 tial and solstitial points, in reference to the fixed stars, have 
 a retiugrade motion on the ecliptic, in consequence of which 
 the earth returns to one of these points in a shorter time 
 than it returns to the same fixed star. 
 
 The length of the sidereal year is 365-2563612 mean solar 
 days ; or 365 d. 6 h. 9 m. 9-6 sec. 
 
 The length of the equinoctial or tropical year is 365-2422414 
 mean solar days, or 365 d. 5 h. 48 m. 49-7 sec. (Baily's 
 Tables, p. 16.) 
 
 The difference is 19 minutes 19-9 seconds of mean solar 
 time, being the time in which the earth describes in its orbit 
 an arc of 50-1", the annual precession of the equinoxes. 
 See Earth. 
 
 The earth's motion may also be reckoned by the time in 
 which a revolution is completed with respect to the line o 
 the apsides or the line of the nodes. In these cases the 
 times of revolution may be called respectively the anoma- 
 listic year and the nodical year: the former term is some- 
 times met with. 
 
 The civil year is the year of the calendar. As it is always 
 supposed to begin with the beginning of a day, the civil year 
 contains a whole number of days ; and hence, in order that 
 the seasons may always correspond with the same parts of 
 the year, it is necessary from time to time to vary the length 
 of the year, or to intercalate a day when the fractional parts 
 neglected have accumulated to a whole day. The ancient 
 Egyptian year consisted invariably of 3C5 days, and hence 
 was called a vague or erratic year, because the first day of 
 the year in the course of 1460 years wandered, as it were, 
 over all the seasons. 
 
 The Julian year, which is frequently employed in chrono- 
 logical reckoning, consists of 365^ days. Julius Ca;sar or- 
 dered that the civil year should consist of 365 days for three 
 successive years, and that the fourth year should contain 
 366 days. This practice of intercalating a day every fourth 
 year has been adopted in all European countries, with the 
 modification introduced by the Gregorian calendar. The 
 mean Julian year is longer than the true tropical year by 
 11 m. 10-3 sec, a difference which amounts to a whole day 
 in about 120 years. The years which contain 365 days are 
 called common years ; those which contain 366 days are 
 called leap years. See Leap Year. 
 
 According to the regulations of the Gregorian calendar 
 the intercalations are omitted on years in which centuries 
 end, excepting when the number of the year is divisible by 
 4, after leaving out the two zeros. Thus the years 1700, 
 1800, 1900, which would be leap years in the Julian calen- 
 dar, are common years in the Gregorian ; but 1600 and 2000 
 are leap years in both calendars. (See Calendar.) The 
 mean length of the Gregorian year is 365 d. 5 h. 49 m. 12 
 sec, exceeding the true tropical year by 2238 sec, which 
 amounts to a whole day only in about 3866 years. 
 
 The civil or legal year, in England, formerly commenced 
 on the 25th of March, the day of the Annunciation, though 
 the historical year began on the 1st of January, the day of 
 the Circumcision. Between these two epochs it was usual 
 to date the year both ways, as 1745-6 or 174|-. By the act of 
 parliament for the alteration of the style in 1751, the begin- 
 
 YOKE. 
 
 ning of the year was transferred to the 1st of January. IC 
 is frequently necessary to keep this circumstance in mind 
 in referring to old dates. 
 
 The fraction by which the tropical years exceed days, is 
 •2422414 ; and the series of approximating vulgar fractions 
 alternately greater and less than this quantity is, 
 
 I, - 7 — _ 8 _, 39 , 231 , *.„ 
 4' 29' 33' TST' 1 160' SC- 
 
 The fractions in this series indicate the intercalations by 
 which the coincidence between the civil and solar year may 
 be restored to any degree of exactness. The third, JL, offers 
 a very convenient mode of intercalation which would pre- 
 serve the coincidence with great accuracy. It requires 
 eight intercalations to be made in thirty-three years : that 
 is to say, one at the end of four years seven times in suc- 
 cession, and the eighth at the end of the fifth year. The 
 mean length of the civil year would by this arrangement 
 differ in excess from the solar year only by 1538 seconds, 
 while the Gregorian year is too long by 2238 seconds. In a 
 period of thirty-three years, it therefore produces a nearer 
 coincidence between the civil and solar years than the 
 Gregorian method does in 400 years ; and, by reason of its 
 shortness, it also confines evagations of the mean equinox 
 from the astronomical within much narrower limits. The 
 modern Persians are said, but not on very good authority, to 
 intercalate in this manner. (Delambre, ^istronomie jfud- 
 erne, torn. 1.) See Calendar. 
 
 Lunar Year. — Though the return of the seasons obviously 
 depends on the motion of the sun, or rather of the earth in 
 its orbit, some nations have chosen to regulate their civil 
 year by the motions of the moon ; and many others have 
 formed luni-solar years, by combining periods determined by 
 the revolutions of both bodies. The proper lunar year con- 
 sists of twelve lunar months or lunations, and consequently 
 contains only 354 days : its commencement, therefore, an- 
 ticipates that of the solar year by upwards of eleven days, 
 and passes through the whole circle of the seasons in about 
 34 lunar years. The inconvenience attending this circum- 
 stance has been so universally perceived that, excepting 
 the modern Jews and Mohammedans, almost all nations 
 which have regulated their months by the moon have em- 
 ployed some method of intercalation for the purpose of re- 
 taining the beginning of the year at nearly the same place 
 in the seasons. These methods are founded on certain luni- 
 solar periods or cycles, which were established in the most 
 ancient times, and which, with other relics of a barbarous 
 age, are still preserved in our ecclesiastical calendars. See 
 Chronology, Calendar, Cycle. 
 
 YEAST. The substance produced during the vinous 
 fermentation of vegetable juices and decoctions, rising partly 
 to the surface in the form of a frothy, flocculent, and some- 
 what viscid matter, insoluble in water and alcohol, and 
 gradually putrefying in a warm atmosphere. It excites fer- 
 mentation, and accelerates the process when added to sac- 
 charine and mucilaginous liquors. It appears closely allied 
 to gluten ; and, like that vegetable principle, it contains 
 nitrogen as one of its ultimate elements. 
 
 YE'LLOW. In Painting, a colour of golden hue, and of 
 many varieties. It is one of the seven primary colours. 
 See Colour. Light. 
 
 YE'LLOW FEVER. A bilious remittent fever. See 
 Fever. 
 
 YE'NITE. A ferruginous silicate of lime, from Elba ; 
 named by Lelievre, its discoverer, in honour of the battle 
 of Jena. 
 
 YEO'MAN. (From the Anglo-Saxon gemen ; Germ, 
 gemein, common.) Camden ranks yeomen as the next class 
 to the gentlemen; and calls them "ingenuos." The name 
 seems to have been generally appropriated in the middle 
 ages to small freeholders. In the king's household, the 
 yeomen of the different departments have a middle place 
 between the sergeant and the groom. 
 
 Yeoman. A seaman appointed to certain duties, as to 
 attend to the store-rooms. 
 
 YEO'MANRY CAVALRY. A denomination given to 
 those troops of horse, which were embodied during the 
 Revolutionary wars of France, and afterward among the 
 gentlemen and yeomen of this country'. They were called 
 out annually, and disciplined for three weeks ; and as they 
 consisted entirely of volunteers, and were not called upon 
 to leave their homes, or to quit their ordinary employments, 
 except for the short period they were in quarters, the duty 
 was not found to entail any serious privation. Several 
 troops of yeomanry are still kept up, though most of them 
 have been disbanded. The infantry troops that voluntarily 
 enrolled themselves for similar purposes to the yeomanry, 
 were called volunteers. These were all disbanded at the 
 peace. 
 
 YEOMEN OF THE GUARD. See Guard, Yeomanry 
 
 OF THE. 
 
 YOKE. A piece of wood or light frame of two arms 
 placed over the head of a boat's rudder instead of a tiller 
 
 1347
 
 YTTRIUM. 
 
 and having two lines (yoke lines), by pulling on which the 
 boat is steered. 
 
 Y TTRH'M. The metallic base of an earth, discovered 
 in 1794, bv Professor Gedolin, in a mineral found at Ytterhy 
 iu Sweden, whence it was called Yttria. The metal was 
 first obtained by VViihler in 1828 : it is of a dark gray colour, 
 and brittle. The salts of Yttria have a sweetish taste, and 
 some of them a pale purple colour. Yttria is distinguished 
 from glucina by the amethystine eolour of its sulphate, by 
 its insolubility in pure potassa, and by yielding a precipitate 
 with ferrocyanate of potassa. According to Berzelius, the 
 equivalent of Yttrium is about 32 ; and that of Yttria, which 
 is probably a protoxide, 40. 
 
 YTTKOta NT with. A mineral from Ytterhy in 
 Sweden, containing Yttria and oxide of columbium. 
 
 YU. (Chinese.) Nephrite or jade (which see). 
 
 YULE. The common Scottish name for Christmas. It 
 appears to be a very ancient Celtic word. In Welsh, wyl 
 or gywl signifies a holiday ; whence also the old phrase, 
 " Gule of August," the tirst day of August, or fast of St. Peter 
 and Vincula. for which various absurd etymologies have 
 been found. Perhaps the old French word "Noel," for 
 Christinas (used also generally as a popular cry of rejoicing), 
 has the same original. (See Arehaol., vol. ii.) Count de 
 Gebelin, however, derives yule from a supposed primitive 
 word, connected with the idea of revolution or " wheel." 
 (See Brand's Popular Antiq., vol. i., p. 3(54. 
 
 z. 
 
 Z. The last letter in the alphabet of all the modem lan- 
 guages, usually regarded as a double consonant, from its 
 having the sound in some languages of ts or ds. Like the 
 letter x, it begins no word originally English ; and Dr. John- 
 son has remarked, that although it is found in the Saxon 
 alphabets, set down by grammarians, it is read in no word 
 originally Teutonic. 
 
 ZA'FFRE. An impure oxide of cobalt, obtained by ex- 
 posing the native arseniuret of cobalt broken into small 
 pieces to the action of heat and air in a reverberating fur- 
 nace, by which its elements are oxidized, and the greater 
 part of the arsenic driven off. 
 Z A' MITE. Fossil zamia. 
 
 ZA'NTHOPI'CRIN. A bitter principle, obtained from 
 the bark of the Zanlhoxylon carilxium. It forms yellow 
 acicular crystals, insoluble in ether, but readily soluble in 
 alcohol, and sparingly in water. 
 ZAX. In Architecture, a tool for cutting slates. 
 ZE'CHSTEIN. (Germ.) A magnesian limestone, lying 
 under the red sandstone. 
 
 ZE'IN. A substance of a tough, elastic nature, resem- 
 bling gluten, but said to be destitute of nitrogen, contained 
 in Indian wheat; the produce of the Zea mays. 
 
 ZEMINDA'R. (From the Persian zemin, land.) A title 
 introduced into India by its Mohammedan conquerors, con- 
 ferred in Bengal, and generally throughout the Mogul em- 
 pire, on the agent employed to collect that share of the 
 produce of the soil which belongs to it. The zemindars 
 were the great landholders of the Mogul empire ; but the 
 nature of their tenure has given rise to much dispute. 
 Whether they were hereditary, absolute owners of the soil, 
 or only tenants of the sovereign at a fixed rent by way of 
 land-taw for which they were personally responsible, was a 
 question much agitated by writers on Indian subjects at the 
 period of the " Permanent Settlement" in 1793. By that 
 settlement the rent was to be fixed in the first instance by 
 custom, and the zemindar was then to give the ryot a lease 
 restricted to himself and his assignees on performance of its 
 conditions; his own share being fixed as before at 10 per 
 cent, of the assessment, and his hereditary riL'ht secured. 
 A y.einindary, i. e., the district of a zemindar, is liable to be 
 sold by government for arrears of revenue, and existing 
 leases with the ryots to be set aside. At present the land- 
 tax of India is levied in three methods, which prevail in 
 different districts — the "zemindar settlement," by which 
 the zemindar is responsible to government; the "mouza- 
 xvar" or village settlement, by which the collector contracts 
 xvith the head man of the village; and (lie "ryot war" or 
 cultix at, by which the tax is collected immedi- 
 
 ately from the peasantry. (See, as to the edicts of the 
 zemlndary settlement. Mill's History of British India, vol. 
 x . ; M'Culloch's Edition of Smith's Wealth of Motions, note 
 19; Ed. Rev., vols, xxxi., lxxi.) See Ryots. 
 
 ZE'ND-AVE'STA. (Pers. Living Word.) The sacred 
 books of the Parsees in India, and Guebers in Persia, who 
 -- the religion of tbe ancient Persians. According to 
 the popular belief among them, these liooks are attributed 
 to the famous Zoroaster. Their real history is much dis- 
 puted; inn it i- generally supposed that they are not of 
 great antiquity, and that the belief of the modem Guebers 
 1348 
 
 ZENITH SECTOR. 
 
 is, for the most part, a compound of legendary notions drawn 
 from various religions. (See Maqians.) Sir William Jones 
 thought the Zendavesta a forgery of the learned ad venturer 
 
 Anquetil du Perron. (See Mem. de I'Ac. des Inscr., vol. 
 xxxi. ; JUilman's Hist, of Christianity, vol. i., p. 08, for the 
 arguments for and against its authenticity ; and the Conv. 
 Lex., article " Persian Religion." See ulso Bryant's My- 
 thology, vol. ii., p. 390, 401.) It is certain, at all events, that 
 the Zend language, in which it is written, is of great anti- 
 quity, and radically allied to the Sanscrit. See Sanscrit, 
 Parsees. 
 
 ZE'NDIK. In Arabic, a name given to those who are 
 charged with atheism, or rather, disbelief of any revealed 
 religion ; or with magical heresies. The sect of Zendiks 
 opposed the progress of Mohammedanism in Arabia with 
 great obstinacy. It appears to have had many features in 
 common xvith Sadduceeism among the Jews. 
 
 ZE'NITH. (From the Arabic.) In Astronomy, the top 
 of the heax'en, or vertical point ; the point directly over- 
 head. The zenith is that point of the celestial sphere 
 which would be intersected by the plumb line, supposed to 
 be indefinitely extended. It may also be defined as the pole 
 of the horizon, from which it is 90° distant. All vertical 
 circles or azimuths necessarily pa^s through the zenith. 
 
 ZE'NITH DISTANCE. The distance of any celestial 
 object from the zenith ; or the complement of the altitude 
 of the object above the horizon. 
 
 ZE'NITH SECTOR. An astronomical instrument, con- 
 trived for the purpose of measuring, with great accuracy, 
 the zenith distances of stars xvhich pass near the zenith. 
 It was by means of a zenith sector that Bradley discovered 
 the existence and magnitude of two most important astro- 
 nomical elements — the aberration of light, and the nutation 
 of the earth's axis. The instrument has also been gener- 
 ally used (in this country at least) in trigonometrical sur- 
 veys for determining the difference of latitude of txvo sta- 
 tions, a purpose tor xvhich it is very convenient; for the 
 difference of the zenith distances of the same star, observed 
 at its meridional passages at two places, gi\-es the difference 
 of the astronomical latitudes of the places xvithout any re- 
 gard to the star's declination. The general description of 
 the zenith sector has been gix r en by the present Astrono- 
 mer Roval as folloxvs {Encyc. Metrop., art. "Figure of the 
 Earth")': 
 
 " In the annexed figure A B is a bar of iron with a cross 
 piece C D, the whole in one piece, wg 
 The top A is formed in such a way |n 
 that the instrument can be turned S 
 half around in azimuth xvhen sus- ^ 
 pended at the top, and that the hot- E 
 torn can be moved freely in the di- | 
 rections D C or C D. The bracket ? 
 or other support E, on xvhich it | 
 rests, is attached to some firm part 3 
 of the building. To the bar A B is l^ 
 firmly attached a telescope F G. ™ aa 
 At a point a, near A, is attached a 
 plumb line a H ; sometimes it is 
 fastened at a point of attachment 
 xvhich is moveable, in order that 
 by moving the point of suspension 
 the plumb line may be made to 
 pass over a fine dot at a. The limb 
 C D is graduated, sometimes on a 
 circular arc of which a is the cen- 
 tre, and sometimes on a straight 
 line. L D is a screxv passing 
 through a block strongly connected 
 with the floor, and acting xvith its 
 point against the end D of the piece 
 C I) ; and M N O are a string and 
 xxeight pressing the sector against 
 the point of the screxv." 
 
 The method of observing with 
 the zenith sector is this: A clock 
 being regulated by transits or equal 
 altitudes, the direction of the meri- 
 dian is found, and guides fixed to 
 compel tin sector to move in the 
 meridian. When a star is to tie ob- 
 served, the screw L I) is turned till the plumb line falls ex- 
 actly on some point K of the graduated arc, such that the 
 telescope is very nearly directed to the point through which 
 the Mar will pass when it comes to the meridian. When 
 the star enters the Geld of view, the screxv is again turned 
 till the star appears to glide exactly along the wire fixed In 
 the focus of the eye glass ; and the motion of the screxv be- 
 ing ascertained, and tin value of the division knoxvn, the 
 apparent zenith distance of the star is found. But it is evi- 
 dent that this ' s QOI the true' zenith distance, unless the zero 
 point of the division on tbe scale be quite accurate ; that is 
 to say, M placed that when the plumb line falls on it, the
 
 ZEOLITE. 
 
 optical axis of the telescope is exactly vertical. It is im- 
 possible to insure this accuracy ; but it is easy to see that 
 if the instrument be turned half round in azimuth, and the 
 same observation made, the apparent zenith distance will 
 be just as much greater than the true as in the former de- 
 termination it was less. The mean of the two will there- 
 fore be the true zenith distance of the star. 
 
 The advantages of the zenith sector are these : The stars 
 observed being very near the zenith, the tremor and dancing 
 which generally affect stars in other positions are seldom 
 seen ; there is no uncertainty about the effects of refraction ; 
 the telescope and the whole instrument are not subject to 
 flexure ; and the variation of temperature produces no sen- 
 sible effect. 
 
 (For a detailed account of Ramsden's zenith sector used in 
 the measurement of the English arcs of the meridian, see the 
 second volume of the Trigonometrical Survey of England 
 and Wales, or Phil. Trans, for 1803. This superb instru- 
 ment was unfortunately burned in the great fire which took 
 place in theJTower of London in October, 1841. Another 
 sector, on a different plan from that above described (the 
 zenith point being determined by levels instead of a plumb 
 line) has recently been constructed for the use of the sur- 
 vey by Trougliton and Simms, under the directions of the 
 Astronomer Royal. A description of the new instrument 
 is given in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical 
 Society fur May, 1842.J 
 
 ZE'OLITE. (Gr. i,£w, / boil, and hdoc, stone.) A name 
 given to a family of minerals, which, when heated before 
 the blowpipe, melt with considerable ebullition. They 
 mostly consist of silica, alumina, lime, and water. 
 
 JVatrolite. A species of zeolite containing soda: from 
 natron, or soda. 
 
 ZE'PHYRUS. (Gr. Z,t<j>ypoc.) The west wind, a my- 
 thological divinity, child of Astrreus and Aurora, according 
 to Hesiod ; to whom Anchises sacrifices a ram. It is said 
 to be the same wind with the Latin Favonius ; but Vegetius 
 distinguishes between the two. 
 
 ZERI'NTHIA. (Gr. ZtptvQia, one of the names of the 
 goddess i if love.) The name of a subgenus of butterflies 
 in Treitschke's system, where it is erroneously written 
 Zerynthiii. 
 
 ZE'RO. (Ital. 7) A term generally used in reference to 
 the thermometer, implying the point at which the gradua- 
 tion commences. The zero of Reaumur's and of the centi- 
 grade thermometer is the freezing point of water. The 
 zero of Fahrenheit's scale is 32° below the point at which 
 water congeals, being about the temperature of a mixture 
 of salt and snow. See Thermometer. 
 
 ZE'THES. In Classical Mythology, Zethes and Calais 
 were the sons of Boreas, king of Thrace, and Orithyia. 
 They accompanied the Argonauts, and were afterwards 
 slain by Hercules. 
 
 ZEU'GMA. (Gr. gtvyna, yoke.) A figure in grammar, by 
 which as adjective or verb which agrees with a nearer word 
 is referred also, by way of supplement, to one more remote. 
 
 ZI'MOME. (Gr. {vuwixa, a ferment.) That part of the 
 gluten of wheat which is insoluble in alcohol. When 
 rubbed in a mortal with powdered guaiacum, it produces 
 a fine blue colour. 
 
 ZINC. A metal, first mentioned by Paracelsus ; but its 
 ores were known at a much earlier period. In commerce 
 it is often called spelter ; and is obtained either from the 
 native carbonate of zinc, called calamine, or from the native 
 sulphuret or blende of mineralogists. These ores are roast- 
 ed and mixed with charcoal or carbonaceous flux ; the mix- 
 ture is put into a kind of crucible closed at top, and per- 
 forated at bottom by an iron tube, which passes through the 
 grate of the furnace into water ; the vapour of the zinc dis- 
 tils downwards through this tube, and is condensed in the 
 water. The first portions are impure, containing arsenic, 
 and often cadmium, in which case the vapour burns with 
 what the workmen call a brown blaze ; when the blue blaze 
 appears the zinc is collected. The zinc of commerce (which 
 is not quite pure) has a peculiar bluish colour and lustre, 
 a lamellar and crystalline texture, and its specific gravity 
 is about 7. At common temperatures it is tough and in- 
 tractable under the hammer; and when heated to above 
 500° it becomes brittle, and fuses at about 770°. But at 
 temperatures between 2-20° and 320° it becomes malleable 
 and ductile ; so that it may be beaten out under the ham- 
 mer, and rolled into sheets and leaves, and drawn into wire, 
 in a manner extremely remarkable when its highly crystal 
 line texture is considered. Being a cheap and light metal, 
 and one which, after having been superficially oxidized, 
 long resists the farther action of air and water, it has late- 
 ly been much employed as a substitute for lead in lining 
 water cisterns and covering buildings ; it has also been 
 lately employed in the curious operation of transferring 
 printing (under the name of zincography). It is a very in- 
 flammable metal, burning in the flame of a spirit lamp with 
 a brilliant white light; but the oxide which forms inter- 
 feres with its continuous combustion, which can only be 
 
 ZODIAC. 
 
 carried on at a high red heat, when the vapour of the metal 
 burns with an intensely bright flame, and yields at the same 
 time a quantity of tlocculent oxide, which floats about in 
 the surrounding air, and was formerly called philosopher's 
 wool, pompholiz, and nihil album. The equivalent of zinc 
 is 32, and that of its oxide 40. Though zinc is apparently 
 without action upon water, yet it is a most oxidable metal ; 
 but the insolubility of its oxide protects it from farther ac- 
 tion, so that when a film is once formed upon it, it resists 
 farther change ; but when a little acid is present in the 
 water, and the zinc not quite pure, it is rapidly acted upon, 
 and oxidized at the expense of the water, which evolves 
 abundance of hydrogen (when dilute sulphuric acid is used), 
 and the oxide of zinc is removed and dissolved by the acid. 
 It is this action which renders zinc so powerful a generator 
 of electricity in the voltaic pile. The salts of zinc are most- 
 ly soluble, and have a nauseous astringent, and metallic 
 taste. The sulphate of zinc, or white vitriol, is employed in 
 medicine as an emetic and tonic, and the oxide and carbon- 
 ate are externally used in the form of ointment. The 
 chloride of zinc is a colourless compound, fusible at a heat 
 a little above 212°, and known to the older chemists under 
 the name of butter of zinc. Brass is an alloy of zinc and 
 copper. 
 
 ZINGlBERA'CEyE (Zingiber, one of the genera), or 
 SCITAMINEjE. A natural order of Herbaceous Monan- 
 drous Endogens, inhabiting the tropics. It is distinguished 
 from the Musaceous order in the latter having five or six 
 stamens, with a calyx and corolla of the same texture ; and 
 from Iridacece, by two of the stamens being either deform- 
 ed or abortive ; and from Marantacem, by the single stamen 
 being placed opposite to the labellum or anterior division 
 of the inner series of the corolla, and proceeding from the 
 base of the posterior outer division. Cardamoms are the 
 seeds of several plants of this order, which are, however, 
 principally valued for the aromatic stimulating properties 
 of the root or rhizoma; such are found in ginger (Zingiber 
 officinale), galangale (Alpinia racemosa galanga) and zedoa- 
 ry (Curcuma zedoaria and zerumbet). Turmeric, a substance 
 half dye and half condiment, is the powder of the rhizoma 
 of Curcuma longa. 
 
 ZI'RCON. A mineral chiefly composed of zirconia and 
 silica, found in the sand of the rivers of Ceylon, and occa- 
 sionally imbedded in primitive rocks. It is of various col- 
 ours, and when transparent is sometimes used in jewellery. 
 
 ZIRCO'NIUM. The metallic base of zirconia, an earth 
 discovered in 1789, by Klaproth, in the jargon or zircon of 
 Ceylon. Zirconium has only been obtained in the form of 
 a black powder, which when heated in the air burns into 
 the oxide. The salts of zirconia are distinguished from 
 those of alumina and glucina by being precipitated by all 
 the pure alkalies, and by being insoluble when they are 
 added in excess. 
 
 ZOA'NTHUS. (Gr. ^wov, an animal, and avBoq, a flower.) 
 The name of a genus of Polypes, comprehending those 
 which possess the complex structure of the Actinia, but 
 consist of different individuals adhering to a common fleshy 
 basis. 
 
 ZO'CLE, or ZOCCOLO. (It. zoccolo, a wooden shoe.) 
 In Architecture, the same as socle ; which sec. 
 
 ZO'DIAC. (Gr. X,oiiiov, dim. of X,uiov, animal; because 
 the constellations of the ecliptic are for the most part rep- 
 resented in celestial charts by the figures of animals.) An 
 imaginary zone or belt in the heavens, extending to about 
 8° or 9° on each side of the ecliptic, which divides it in the 
 middle. No use is made of the zodiac in astronomy ; the 
 name only indicates that region of the heavens within 
 which the apparent motions of the sun, moon, and all the 
 greater planets are confined. Three of the new planets, 
 Juno, Ceres, and Pallas, have inclinations which exceed the 
 limits of the ancient zodiac, and are therefore sometimes 
 called extra-zodiacal planets; but Vesta is also sometimes 
 included in the same description. See Planet. 
 
 The zodiac is divided into twelve equal parts, called 
 signs ; which are designated by the names of the constel- 
 lations with the places of which the signs anciently corres- 
 ponded. They are Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, 
 Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Aquarius, 
 and Pisces. The signs are counted from the vernal equinox, 
 one of the points in which the equator intersects the eclip- 
 tic ; whence, in consequence of the regression of the equi- 
 noctial points, their position with respect to the constella- 
 tions or fixed stars is greatly different from what it was in 
 remote ages. Some time prior to Hipparchus, the first points 
 of the constellations Aries and Libra corresponded to the 
 vernal and autumnal equinoxes ; those of Cancer and Capri- 
 corn to the summer and winter solstices : at present, the dif- 
 ference is about 30°. The vernal equinox now happens in 
 the constellation Pisces, the summer solstice in Gemini, the 
 autumnal equinox in Virgo, and the winter solstice in Sa- 
 gittarius ; but the vernal equinox always corresponds to the 
 first point of the sign Aries, the summer solstice to the first 
 of Cancer, and so on. On this account it is necessary to dis- 
 
 1349
 
 ZODIACAL LIGHT. 
 
 tinguLsh between the signs of the zodiac, which follow the 
 motions of the c4111nnct1.il points, and the constellations of 
 >-, which are immoveable in the celestial sphere 
 It has In en supposed that the constellations of the zodiac 
 wore Invented in Kg> pt in a very remote age, and that tiny 
 had a reference to the divisions of the seasons and the agri- 
 culture of that country at the time of their invention. If 
 we go back to a period about 2500 before Christ, the con- 
 stellations Aquarius and Pisces, at the season of the over- 
 flow of the .Nile, would be diametrically opposite to the sun, 
 and would consequently rise at sunset. Virgo, usually rep- 
 resented n> a woman With an ear ol corn in her ha 111 1, would 
 be the constellation ri-i nir at sunset in the time of the har- 
 vest in Egypt Such conjectures, however, it is easy to 
 conceive, are at best extremely uncertain. Representations 
 of the zodiac have been found in several Egyptian temples, 
 Bud al-o in other eastern countries, which have given rise 
 to much discussion. (See Dupuis, .Memoire surl'Origine du 
 Zodiaque ; Biot, Hecherchrs sur I'Astron&mie Egyptienne ; 
 Montncla, Jlistoire. dis .Math. torn. i. ; Bailly, Histoire de 
 l'.i.-tr. jjneienne.) 
 
 ZODIACAL LIGHT. In Astronomy, a faint nebulous 
 aurora which accompanies the sun. This curious phenom- 
 enon was observed by Kepler, who supposed it to be the 
 solar atmosphere; but it was tirst accurately described by 
 Dominic Cassini. who gave it the name by which it is now 
 known. It is visible immediately before sunrise or after sun- 
 set, in the place where the sun is about to appear or has just 
 quitted in the horizon. It has a flat lenticular form, as rep- 
 resented in the annexed figure, extending from the horizon 
 H H obliquely upwards, and 
 following the course of the 
 ecliptic, or rather of the sun's 
 equator. For this reason it is 
 scarcely visible in our lati- 
 tudes, excepting in those sea- 
 sons when the plane of the 
 sun's equator is most nearly 
 perpendicular to the horizon. 
 The most favourable times for 
 observing it are in the months 
 of April or May, in the even- 
 ing, or at the opposite season 
 of the year before sunrise. At 
 other times, the plane of the solar equator being more ob- 
 lique, and the luminous pyramid inclined in the same de- 
 gree, it rises so little above the horizon that its light is ef- 
 faced by the atmosphere of the earth. The apparent an- 
 gular distance of its vertex from the sun varies, according 
 to circumstances, from 40° to 90° or 100°. and the breadth 
 of its base perpendicular to its axis from 8° to 30°. It is 
 extremely faint and ill-defined, at least in this climate ; 
 though it is better seen in tropical countries. 
 
 Numerous opinions have been entertained respecting the 
 nature and cause of this singular phenomenon. Cassini 
 thought it might proceed from the blended light of an in- 
 numerable multitude of little planets circulating about the 
 sun, as the milky way owes its appearance to the light of 
 agglomerated myriads of stars. Euler endeavoured to 
 prove that it proceeds from the same causes as the tails of 
 comets. Kepler had ascribed its appearance to the solar 
 atmosphere; and the same hypothesis was adopted by 
 Mairnn and others, till it was shown by Laplace to be un- 
 tenable for the following reasons : In the first place, the solar 
 atmosphere cannot extend beyond the distance at which 
 the centrifugal force would be balanced by the attraction ; 
 but this point lies far within the orbit of Mercury, the great- 
 est elongation of which is 28°, whereas the zodiacal light 
 has been observed to extend to 100° from the sun. In the 
 second place, in order that the spheroid of the solar atmo- 
 sphere may be in equilibrium, the ratio of the equatorial to 
 the polar axis cannot exceed that of 3 to l 2 ; whence its form 
 would not correspond with the lenticular appearance of the 
 eodiacal light. Sir John Herschel remarks, that "it may 
 be conjectured to be no other than the denser part of that 
 medium, which, as we have reason to believe, resists the 
 motion of comets; loaded, perhaps, with the actual ma- 
 terials of the tails of millions of those bodies, of which they 
 have been Stripped in their successive perihelion passages, 
 and which maj be slowly subsiding into the sun." — Astron- 
 omy. I 'ah. ( i/r.. p. 407. (Biot, Astronomic Physique : Maiian. 
 Trmte Phyiiqutet Ihstoriquc de I'Aurore Boreale ; Euler, 
 Man. de Berlin, 1740; Lalande, Astronomic, torn. 1 : Books, 
 Opera I'osth.) 
 
 ZollAR. Web. splendour.) A Jewish book, highly 
 esteemed by the rabbia, and supposed to be of great, though 
 altogether unascertained, antiquity. Et consists of cabalii 
 tical commentaries on Scripture, especially the bonks of 
 Moses. It baa Ixen translated into Latin (ed. 1G80). 
 
 Z< M'SITK. A variety of cpidote, named after its discov- 
 erer Baron von Zeis. 
 ZONE (Gr. luivt), a girdle or belt), in Astronomy, denotes 
 130U 
 
 ZOOLOGY. 
 
 a portion of the celestial sphere included between two paral- 
 lel circles. In Geography, the terrestrial zones are the five 
 broad spaces or belts into which the surface of the earth is 
 divided by the two tropics and the two polar circles. The 
 space included between the tropics is called the torrid zone ; 
 its breadth is equal to 47°. or twice the sun'.- greatest de- 
 clination, and it Is divided into two equal parts by the equa- 
 tor. That included between the tropic of Cancer and the 
 arctic circle is Called the north ttmpcrate zone; and that be- 
 tween the tropic of Capricorn and the antarctic circle the 
 South tfiii/irrate zone. The breadth of each of these is 43°. 
 The space between the arctic circle and the north pole is 
 the north frigid zone ; and that between the antarctic circle 
 and the south pole is the south frigid zone. See Geogra- 
 phy. Earth. 
 
 ZOO'URAPHY. (Gr. \oiov, and ypaQw, I write.) The 
 description of animals. 
 
 ZOO'LATRY. (Gr. \u>ov, an animal, and "Xarpcvoi, 1 
 worship.) The worship of animals; which wns the char- 
 acteristic of the ancient Egyptian religion most remarked 
 upon by foreigners. 
 
 ZOO'LOGY. (Gr. \o>ov, an animal; Aoyoj, a discourse.) 
 The science of animals. It teaches their nature and prop- 
 erties, their classification, and their order of succession upon, 
 and their distribution over the earth. 
 
 A knowledge of the nature of animals, as it implies that 
 of their organization, and of the functions and interde- 
 pendencies of their component parts, constitutes the two 
 great branches of zoology, called Zootomy, or comparative 
 anatomy, and Physiology. The doctrine of the succession 
 of species of animals upon the earth, ns it relates principal- 
 ly to such as no longer exist, is included in a third branch 
 of the science of animals, called Palaontologi), With which 
 is closely connected that which treats of the geographical 
 distribution of existing species. The term Zoology is prac- 
 tically restricted to the science of the outward characters, 
 habits, properties, and classification of animals. 
 
 As the forms of living animals, the parts they play in the 
 theatre of nature, their good and evil relations to man, can- 
 not be profitably treated of in the space assigned to this ar- 
 ticle, it will be limited to the exposition of the principles of 
 the classification of animals, and of the characters and rela- 
 tive value of those groups which have not been already 
 treated of in the present work. 
 
 A classification is essentially based on the ideas of like- 
 ness, unlikeness, and proportion in its subjects. When it is 
 purposed to define, in a classification of animals, their differ- 
 ent degrees of resemblance, a natural system is aimed at. 
 When a classification is restricted to the enunciation of a 
 few likenesses which may be most readily detected and 
 most easily retained in the memory, it becomes an artificial 
 system. A likeness extends as far as a character is com- 
 mon ; and the more extended or common the property or 
 structure on which such character is founded, the more im- 
 portant and essential it becomes as an element of the classi- 
 fication. 
 
 Zoologists having ascertained as many of the characters 
 common to all animals as served to form their complex idea 
 of an animal, have, in the next place, endeavoured to dis- 
 cover the difference, which, added to the idea or definition 
 of the animal, would form the most extended species of that 
 genus, logically speaking. 
 
 Such a difference or character is not to he detected by B 
 superficial examination. Aristotle thought he had found it 
 in the blood, recognizing as blood only the red coloured nu- 
 trient fluid, like that which flows in the arteries and veins 
 of man. His primary division of animals was therefore into 
 Sanguineous and Exsanguineous animals ; the F.naima and 
 the Anaima. The Enaima were the beasts, birds, reptiles, 
 and fishes ; and the Anaima, or bloodless animals, included 
 all the lower species. 
 
 Nothing, perhaps, can show more forcibly the nature and 
 amount of observation required to frame a good classifica- 
 tion, and the value of the information concentrated in its 
 exposition, than the great and long continued deference paid 
 to this early step in the classiricntory branch of zoology, and 
 the minute and extended researches required for the elimi- 
 nation of its erroneous element. First, it was found that 
 many of the Exsanguineous animals of Aristotle did actually 
 possess blood, differing only in colour from that of the so- 
 called Sanguineous species. This discovery, however, led 
 only to a nominal improvement in the primary division of 
 animals; the Enaima being "red-blooded," and the Anaima 
 " white blooded" animals. It was reserved for Cuvier. in 
 the course of his minute dissections of the lower animals, 
 to discover that an extensive class of worms had red blood 
 
 circulating in a Closed By a t O l P Of arteries and Veins; and this 
 discovery first materially affected the value of the character 
 adopted by Aristotle for the primary groups of the animal 
 kingdom. 
 
 ROW, if scientific classification were really based on the 
 idea of likeness alone, and the grouping together of individ-
 
 ZOOLOGY. 
 
 uals inlo kinds in forming a natural system were regulated 
 by a consideration of their resemblances only, then the 
 modification of the Aristotelian system involved in Cuvier's 
 discovery would be merely an extension of the group Enai- 
 nu at the expense of the group Anaima ; and the Anellides, 
 or red-blooded worms, must have been united with birds, 
 fishes, and other Sanguineous animals. But the zoologist, 
 in. the formation of a natural system, has to be governed at 
 evety step by the idea of difference as well as by that of like- 
 ness. Coincident with the discovery above mentioned was 
 the perception that if the Anelides resembled beasts in the 
 colour of their blood, they differed from them in most other 
 essential points ; and thus the circulating fluid was rejected 
 as a ground for the primary groups of the animal kingdom, 
 and other characters were eagerly sought for. 
 
 Lamarck conceived that he had discovered the best sub- 
 stitute for the Aristotelian primary character in the verte- 
 bral column; this structure being present in all the Enaima 
 of Aristotle, and absent in all the Anaima. He proposed, 
 therefore, the name of Vertebrata for the one class, and In- 
 vertebrata for the other. The defect of this primary division 
 of the animal kingdom was soon perceived to arise from the 
 neglect of a third fundamental idea in a classificatory 
 science, viz., that of proportion, or relative value, in the 
 primary groups ; and in the attempt to remedy this defect 
 the Important discovery was made, that the vertebral col- 
 umn was a modification of structure subordinated related 
 to a particular condition of an organic system of much high- 
 er importance in the animal body than the skeleton, viz., 
 the nervous system. A knowledge of the anatomy of this 
 system hence became essential to the zoologist ; and the re- 
 sult of a long series of minuto and elaborate dissections was, 
 the detection of at least three modifications of the nervous 
 system of equal Importance with that in regard to which a 
 skull and vertebral column are dependent and subordinate. 
 Hence arose the proposition by Cuvier, to divide the animal 
 kingdom primarily into four provinces or subkingdoms : viz., 
 Vertebrata, Mollusca, Articulata, and Radiata ; or, as they 
 have been termed, in accordance with the modifications of 
 the nervous system respectively characterizing them, Mye- 
 lencephala, Heterogangiiata, Homogangliata, and Acrita. 
 
 All previous primary divisions of the animal kingdom,* 
 having been proposed in ignorance of the true characters by 
 which such groups exist in nature, are now abandoned by 
 the common consent of naturalists, and nothing would be 
 gained by quoting them in this place. Herein the Linn%an 
 method is inferior to the Aristotelian system : the class 
 Vermes of the Systcma JVaturce, as it included the Ostra- 
 coderma and Malakia of Aristotle, afterwards the Mollusca 
 of Cuvier, with the true Vermes, was a retrograde step in 
 this branch of zoological science. 
 
 The subkingdom Vertebrata, or Myclcncephala, is subdi- 
 vided into classes, according to the modifications of the re- 
 spiratory and circulating organs. These modifications are 
 essentially four in number, which may be thus expressed : 
 
 1. Lungs suspended freely in a thoracic cavity ; subdi- 
 vided into minute air-cells. Heart divided into four cavi- 
 ties ; pulmonic and systematic circulations distinct. 
 
 2. Lungs adherent to the walls of a thoracic cavity, com- 
 municating with large air-cells in other cavities of the body. 
 Heart with four cavities ; pulmonic and systemic circula- 
 tions distinct. 
 
 3. Lungs suspended freely in, or attached to the parietes 
 of a thoracic-abdominal cavity ; not divided into minute air- 
 cells. Heart with four or three cavities ; pulmonic and sys- 
 temic blood mixed in the general circulation. 
 
 4. Gills for respiration, with or without lungs. Heart with 
 two cavities, transmitting all the blood to the breathing organs. 
 
 The first condition of the respiratory and circulating or- 
 gans coexists with a viviparous generation, and lacteal or- 
 gans for the nourishment of the new-born young ; whence 
 the class was termed Zootoca\ by Aristotle, and Mammalia 
 by Linnaeus; and the latter term is retained, because it ex- 
 presses a character which is truly peculiar to the class. The 
 total or partial clothing of hair, and the other organic coex- 
 istences which proclaim the naturalness of the group in 
 question, are mentioned under the term Mammalia. 
 
 The second condition of the respiratory and circulating 
 organs characterizes the class of Birds. It is associated in 
 this class with an oviparous generation, a covering of feath- 
 ers, and those other modifications of the vertebrate type of 
 structure which are detailed under the head of Aves. This 
 is the most natural and circumscribed of all the groups of 
 animals of corresponding value. Both mammals and birds 
 differ from all other classes of animals in being warm-blood- 
 ed ; whence they have been combined to form a group called 
 Hematherms. 
 
 * If we except some of the schemes of classification of the anini.il kingdom 
 by John Hunter, found among his manuscripts after his death. (See Preface 
 to Palmer's edition of his Animal Economy.) 
 
 t The term Zootoca has been degraded by a modern naturalist to designate 
 a subgenus of lizards, distinguished by their viviparous generation. 
 
 The condition of the circulating and breathing organs 
 which characterizes the third class of vertebrate animals, 
 called Reptiles, is associated with cold blood, and a covering 
 of scales, bony plates, or a naked skin. The generation is 
 oviparous or ovoviviparous: the other characters are given 
 under the head Reptilia. 
 
 Fishes, besides breathing by gills, and having a heart 
 composed of a single auricle and ventricle, have the skin 
 defended by scales, or by bony plates, or are naked. They 
 are likewise oviparous, or ovoviviparous; and, with a few 
 exceptions, as the tunny, the temperature of their blood cor- 
 responds with that of the surrounding medium. They are 
 exclusively aquatic ; and their general characters and classi- 
 fication are given under the heads Pisces and Ic uthyology. 
 
 The subkingdom Mollusca, or Heterogangliata, is charac- 
 terized by a ring of nervous matter surrounding the gullet, 
 whence the nerves radiate, often unsymmetrically, to differ- 
 ent parts of the body. There is a ganglion or little brain 
 below the gullet, and sometimes also above that tube : the 
 nerves of the body are generally connected with one or more 
 detached ganglions. The form of the body corresponds with 
 the disposition of the nervous system, and is often unsym- 
 metrical ; it is generally soft, covered with a mucous skin, 
 and destitute of jointed limbs. In one class (Cephalopoda), 
 in which the supraoesophageal nervous mass is large, it is 
 protected by a cartilaginous cranium ; but this is absent in 
 other Mollusca, and a vertebral column exists in none. 
 Many species have for their skeleton a calcareous plate or 
 plates, called shells, secreted by the skin. (See Concholo- 
 gy.) The animal functions are feebly enjoyed in the Heter- 
 ogangliate subkingdom. Distinct organs of hearing and 
 smell have as yet been found only in the highest class 
 ( Cephalopoda) ; the eyes are reduced to mere rudiments in 
 the group next in subordination (Gasteropoda); and the 
 head is altogether wanting in the three lower classes, thence 
 collectively called Acephala. The machinery of the organic 
 functions, on the other hand, is largely and completely de- 
 veloped. Every mollusk has a heart, and a closed system 
 of arteries and veins : in the higher Cephalopods tbecircu- 
 lating system is physiologically as perfect as in the highest 
 Vertebrates, and the heart is anatomically more complicated. 
 An organ of respiration is never wanting; but it presents 
 this character, that whereas in the Vertebrata it communi- 
 cates with the mouth, in the Mollusca it is connected with 
 the opposite termination of the alimentary canal. The Mol- 
 lusca are either Dioecious or Hermaphrodite. 
 
 The primary division of Mollusca is, according to the pres- 
 ence or absence of a head, into the Encephala and Acephala. 
 
 The Encephalous Mollusks are divided, according to 
 their locomotive organs, into the classes Cephalopoda, Gas- 
 teropoda, and Ptcropoda ; the Acephalous Mollusks, accord- 
 ing to their respiratory organs, into Lamellibranchiata, Pal- 
 liobranchiata, and Hetcrobranchiata : the two latter classes 
 are more commonly called Brachiopoda and Tunicata. See 
 those names of classes, and Malacology. 
 
 The third primary division of the animal kingdom, viz., 
 the Articulata, is as well characterized, Cuvier states, as 
 that of the Vertebrata. "The skeleton is not interna!, as in 
 the latter: neither is it annihilated, as in the Mollusca. 
 The articulated rings which encircle the body, and frequent- 
 ly the limbs, supply the place of it ; and as they are usually 
 hard, they furnish to the powers of motion all requisite 
 points of support ; so that we have here as many kinds of 
 locomotion as among the Vertebrata. This external position 
 of the hard parts, and internal one of the muscles, reduce 
 each articulation to the form of a sheath, and allow it but 
 two kinds of motion, unless the limbs be united by flexible 
 membranes, or fit into one another ; and then their motions 
 are more various, but have not the same force. 
 
 " The system of organs in which the Articulata resemble 
 each other the most, is that of the nerves. Their brain, 
 which is placed above the scsophagtts, and furnishes nerves 
 to the parts adhering to the head, is very small. Two cords, 
 which embrace the oesophagus, are extended along the ab- 
 domen, and united at certain distances by double knots or 
 ganglia, whence arise the nerves of the body and limbs. 
 Each of these ganglia seems to fulfil the functions of a brain 
 to the surrounding parts, and to preserve their sensibility 
 for a certain length of time when the animal has been di- 
 vided. If to this we add that the jaws of these animals, 
 when they have any, are always lateral, and move from 
 without inwardly, and not from above downwards, and that 
 no distinct organ of smell has hitherto been discovered in 
 them, we shall have expressed all that can be said of them 
 in general." The existence, however, of the organs of hear- 
 ing, the presence, number, and form of those of sight, the 
 kind of respiration, the condition of the organsof circulation, 
 and the colour of the blood, present great differences, which 
 characterize the subdivisions or classes of the Articulate or 
 Homogangliate subkingdom. 
 
 These classes are, Crustacea, Arachnida, Insecta, Anella- 
 ta, and Cirripedia. See those words. 
 
 1351
 
 ZOONOMY. 
 
 The first throe arc combined by Lntrcille into a large 
 group, called GondyUtpoda, in reference to their ; 
 
 a members; but these arc likewise possessed by 
 ipedia, which, although placed by Cavier in Die 
 Molluscous BubkJngdom, axe proved by their nervous system 
 and metamorphoses t<i be essentially .Irticulata, nearly al- 
 o the Crustaceans. 
 The Radiated, or fourth primary division of animals in 
 the system of Cuvier, is so called because the low-organized 
 animals composing it agree, Cuviei says, in having their 
 parts arranged round an axis, ami on otic or several radii, or 
 on one or several lines extending from one pole to the other. 
 "Kirn the at least two tendinous lines, or 
 
 two nervous threads, proceeding from a collar round the 
 mouth; and several of them have, four suckers situated 
 round a proboscidrform elevation! The nervous system, 
 when traces of it have been visible, is also arranged in radii." 
 This cannot, however, be affirmed with propriety of the 
 nerves of the Entotoa or Rotifera ; hut these classes agree 
 with all the other Radiata (Hvlolhuria excepted) in the ab- 
 sence of distinct respirator] organs. It has been proposed 
 to divide the Radiated animals, or Zoophytes of Cuvier, into 
 two subkingdoms : the -V, matoneura, presenting conspicuous 
 nervous filaments ; and the .icntn, in which such filaments 
 are rarely distinguishable. The JYematonevra are more 
 definitely and readily characterized by having the alimentary 
 canal in the form of a distinct tube, with proper parietes, 
 floating in an abdominal cavity, and provided with a sepa- 
 rate inlet and outlet ; while in the Jierita the digestive 
 cavitv is excavated in the parenchyma of the body, is de- 
 void of distinct parietes, and has no anal outlet. The JYema- 
 tonevra never propagate by germination or spontaneous fis- 
 sion, but these modes of reproduction are common in the 
 Jierita. The latter division lias been termed Oozoa from 
 their analogy to the ova or perms of the higher classes : 
 hut I have elsew here observed* that as the changes of the 
 embryo succeed each other with a rapidity proportionate to 
 its proximity with the commencement of its development, 
 so, also, in each class of Jierita, there are genera which 
 ly approximate or merge into some one or other of the 
 higher or Nematoneurou i their characters are 
 
 consequently less definite and tixed. If, therefore, guided 
 by their natural affinities, we arrange the Radiata into their 
 primary groups, it will be found that one part of each of 
 these groups presents the characters of the JVe7uatoneu.ru, 
 and another those of the Merita. This will be exemplified 
 io the disposition of the Radiated classes in the following 
 table ol the primary groups and classes of the animal king- 
 dom. 
 
 Kingdom Animalia. 
 
 Subkingdom P'erUbrata. 
 
 Class Mammalia. 
 
 Aves. 
 
 R eft ilia. 
 
 Pisces. 
 
 Subkingdom Mollusca. 
 
 Subkingdom irticulata 
 Class Crustacea. 
 
 Arachnida. 
 
 Insecta. 
 
 Anellata. 
 
 ClRRIPEDIA. 
 
 Class Cephalopoda. 
 Gasteropoda. 
 Pteropoda. 
 l.amellibranchiata. 
 Brachiopoda. 
 Tunic at a. 
 Subkingdom Radiata. 
 
 jYematoneura. 
 
 Class Radiaria, Lamarck. 
 
 Jierita. 
 
 EcrtlNODERMA, Cuv. Acalepha, Cuv 
 
 Class Extozoa, Rudolphi. 
 
 Cojlelmintha, Owen. Sterelmintha, Owen. 
 
 Class Polypi, Cuvier. 
 
 * 
 
 Ciliobrachiata, Farre. Nidibrachiata,! Farre. 
 
 Infusoria, Cuvier. 
 
 ROTIFERA, Ehrenb. Poltoastria. Elirenb. 
 
 ZOCNOMY. (Or. l-wov, and vouoc.) The branch of 
 
 treating of the laws of animal life. 
 ZOO'PHAGANS. (Gr. Iwov, and 0>ayei>, I devour.) The 
 i led t" the order of Unguiculate Mammals which 
 iiimal food, and corresponding to the French term 
 
 :. of Anat. and Phyiiol.. art " A' n'.i. : ' 
 
 ,i » tbe JlnthosoQ and Xudilrrachiat a 
 » lncit lead to the doubtful clan of Spongis. 
 
 1353 
 
 ZYGOPHYLLACE.E. 
 
 riers ; also the corresponding group of the Marsupial 
 Quadrupeds. 
 
 '/( >< > TIM IRUS. (Gr. ^ojoi', an animal, and #tpu>, J bear.) 
 
 tecture, the same as frieze ; which see. 
 ZO'OPHYTES, Zouphyta. (Gr. faov, and (/.croc, a plant.) 
 The name given by Cuvier to his fourth and l.ist primary 
 division or subkingdom of animals. By Linne it was m>- 
 plied in a more restrict d sense to an order of Vermes, com- 
 prehending those beings which he supposed to participate 
 of the natures of both animal and plant. Mr. Hntchett's 
 dissertation upon these subjects, in the Philosophical Trans- 
 actions for 1800, contains nearly all the chemical informa- 
 tion which we have respecting them. In respect to their 
 composition they may be arranged into four classes: 1. 
 Those which consist almost entirely of carbonate of lime 
 and gelatine. They are perfectly .soluble, with effervi s- 
 cence, in muriatic acid, and the solution yields slight traces 
 only of animal matter: when heated red hot they evolve 
 but little smoke or odour, and leave quicklime. Common 
 white coral [Madrepora rirginea) is an instance of this va- 
 riety. 2. Those which. like the former, have carbonate as 
 their hardening principle, but which when steeped in muri- 
 atic acid are less rapidly acted on, and leave membranous 
 or cartilaginous films, and which, when heated, exhale 
 smoke and the odour of burned bone; these, therefore, 
 consist of carbonate of lime, gelatine, and albumen. Such 
 are the Madrepora zamrn and the JWadrepora fascicularis. 
 The Tsis hippuris is a curious variety of this class, in which 
 separate portions of variety 1, are united by cartilaginous 
 joints. 3. This class includes the Gorgonia nobilis, or red 
 coral, the Tubipvra musica, and some other varieties; the 
 earthy pa rt of which is not merely carbonate of lime, but 
 contains a portion of phosphate of lime, whilst the animal 
 part resembles class -J. 4. This class includes the various 
 sponges. Some of these consist almost exclusively of what 
 may be called animal matter, that is, of a peculiarly organ- 
 ized albumen, with a trace of gelatine ; others are harden- 
 ed by abundant siliceous or calcareous spieiibc. Mr. Hatch- 
 ed has pointed out the resemblance which exists at 
 the three first classes to porcellaneous shell, mother-of-pearl 
 shell, and the crustaccous coverings of the crab and lobsters. 
 ZOOTOMY. (Gr. t,uov, and tcuvid, / dissect.) The 
 branch of anatomical science which relates to the structure 
 of the lower animals. See Anatomy, Comparative. 
 
 ZOTHE'CA. (Gr.) In ancient Architecture, a small 
 apartment or alcove, capable of being separated from or 
 added to a larger one by means of curtains. 
 
 ZD'MIC ACID. (Gr. t/ipn, leaven.) A compound form- 
 ed in sour bread, and in vegetable substances which have 
 undersone acetous fermentation. 
 
 ZUMO'LOGY. (Gi.fyttri) and \oyos, a discourse.) The 
 doctrine of fermentation. 
 
 ZUMO'METER, or ZFMOST METER. (Gr.$i> OT .and 
 uerfiov, a measure.) An instrument intended to show the 
 degree to which fermentation has proceeded in different 
 fermenting liquors. See Saccharometer. 
 
 ZU'RLITB. A name given to a recently discovered 
 Vesuvian mineral. 
 
 ZYGODA'CTYLES. (Gr. ttrvov, a yoke; SoktvXos, a 
 finger.) The name given by M. Temminck to an order of 
 Climbing Birds, including those which have the 
 ranged in pairs, two before and two behind; corresponding 
 to the Scansores of Cuvier. 
 
 ZYGGE'NA. (Gr. Zvyaiva ; the name of a fMi in Aris- 
 totle.) A genus of Cartilaginous fishes of the Bqualoid or 
 Shark tribe, remarkably characterized by the extreme 
 breadth and flatness of lite head, the sides of which extend 
 outwards at ri'_ r ht angles with and far beyond the body, just 
 as the head of a hammer is placed on the handle 
 are placed at the lateral margins of the head. The term 
 Zygamm lias also been applied by Tchsenheimer to a genua 
 'i'ti ra. 
 ZYGOMA. T.r. tyyov, a yoke: because it transmits 
 the tendon of the temporal muscle like a yoke Th< i ■ 
 vity under the zygomatic process of the temporal bone. 
 Hence, also, the term 
 
 ZYGOPHYLLA'Cl lillum, one of the gen- 
 
 era.) A natural order of arborescent, shrubby, or herbace- 
 ous Bxogens, inhabiting the hotter parts of the world. .\re 
 nearly allied to Ozalidacea, from which they differ in many 
 characters; with Simarubacea they accord in the stamens 
 springing from the back of an hypogynous scale; and are 
 bed from Rutacea in the leaves being constantly 
 
 Opposite, with lateral or intermediate BtipolP.9, and in being 
 generally compound, and always destitute of pellucid dots. 
 The ligneous plants of this order are remarkable for their 
 hardness. Gualacum, or Lignum Vita, is one of them. 
 
 THE END.
 
 University of California mmMtmt 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL L,B , RAR , Y A FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed.
 
 UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 D 000 384 581 5